Chapter Text
Biyoo knew what she had to do. It was just… that…
Would she still be human enough to be called their child?
Would she still be able to call them her parents without them flinching away from her?
Would they look at her with strange eyes because it wasn’t normal to skip all those years of childhood and resemble an adult in the blink of an eye?
〈To have an understanding of the world around them that was so different from their own world view.〉
「…」
Would that mean she was a bit like Kim Dokja?
Because her Father always saw the world a bit differently, too, right?
Still, the self-doubt was persistent, so much so that she had been putting off her rapid growth ever since she had stepped foot into the Dark Fault— ever since she had established her connection to the Dreamer-God that seemed to be the core of their world, a direct path to all of the secrets and ancient history.
《History that had been purposefully forgotten in order to save the [Reader] who had sacrificed himself.》
Yet, no matter how much knowledge she gained, it didn’t make up for the overwhelming uncertainty. The fear of rejection mixed with the regret of being unable to experience first-hand what it was like to have parents that loved her and doted on her, without the weight of the world interfering with everything.
Biyoo had just wanted to enjoy being a child a little longer.
But, in exchange, it was her Father that had to carry the load.
And it was crushing him, the pressure of it seeming to unravel his [Story].
A seed of resentment towards the Bureau had already burrowed itself inside her— if they had taken care of Kim Dokja’s connection to their world properly , if they had explained things to Kim Dokja before it had gotten to this point, if they had just given him the artifact — her blunted nails were digging into the thin skin of her palms.
Those old fools. The throne had been left vacant for much too long, it seemed.
Biyoo’s chest felt stuffy as she looked on at her Father, lying motionless in Joonghyuk-appa’s arms. [41]-appa was leaning down, his ear plastered to Kim Dokja’s chest, while [2]-appa sat anxiously near them, holding one of Kim Dokja’s hands tightly in his grasp.
Their expressions bordered on the edge of worry and devastation, all of their [Stories] swirling chaotically around them. She could see the [Words] and [Sentences] tangling into snarled knots, trying to cross together tight enough to protect all they wished to protect. Still, the over-eager [Ancient Story] that was engraved in Kim Dokja’s form was cutting through the lines of [Sentences] too rapidly, forming plot-holes in between the lines that…
Wait.
Had those plot holes been there already?
Biyoo tried to follow the narrative of her Appa’s [Story] — her chest filled with sorrow that teetered on the edge of heartbreak at what she [Read]. However the feeling was quickly replaced by a growing spark of wrath fueled by a sense of injustice of her Appa being used in such a way— and yet— !
…
And yet…
《Kim Dokja wouldn’t have survived without it.》
She took a breath. Then another.
「Everyone had to grow up sometime.」
It seemed her time was sooner than she would have liked.
Her Father needed her.
And Biyoo would never abandon him.
After all, he hadn’t abandoned her to the labyrinth of the world either all those centuries ago, choosing instead to give her a chance at life.
〈Even if it meant his death.〉
Biyoo would forever be grateful to her predecessor for not allowing such an ending to come to pass.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Time seemed to slow. The hand of a clock ticked over, the clank of gears grinding probability down into dust, particles flowing in a single direction, funneling into the tiniest point compared to the vastness of the universe.
The air expanding her lungs flowed in, more and more and more— much more than she should have needed. It should have been pushing her physical capacity. But that was assuming she was still the size of a toddler.
Biyoo felt sparks dancing over her skin, felt as her physical bounds expanded. There was pain in her skull as horns sprouted lightning-quick from bone, pushing through unbroken skin in rapid succession. The ends of her hair brushed past her neck, past her shoulders.
When she opened her eyes, her viewpoint had changed, as she looked down at her parents huddled together.
She braced herself as she looked on, meeting their gazes directly, preparing for the sting of rejection—
Biyoo sank her fangs into her lips to keep them from trembling.
As they practically teleported through the house, Yoo Mia nearly ran into her Master’s back as he stopped abruptly and she had to quickly sidestep into the room in order to avoid colliding with him.
Offhandedly she noted they had entered the room that she had been explicitly forbidden to enter. At the time she hadn’t cared to question it. But as she grew more comfortable in this place, she had started to become curious and had only questioned her Master about it once. His answer had been simple enough, telling her that it was Kim Dokja’s, and she could understand the territorial nature of omegas since she was one herself.
However.
She now suspected there was a different reason entirely that she was told to keep out of this room.
She felt her own [Story] start to push forward, filling her vision, until the room nearly became sepia-toned with the amount of free-roaming probability that saturated the space like shiny dust clouds.
Still, she couldn’t let it distract her for long when she spotted her Oppas huddled in a corner around an unmoving form.
A sense of foreboding started to spring up from the bottom of her stomach, and she only hesitated for a moment before stepping forward.
There was Joonghyuk-oppa cradling a very still Kim Dokja. [41]-oppa was there, too, whispering something that she couldn’t quite focus on since she was stuck on Joonghyuk-oppa’s face.
Yoo Mia had never seen that expression on her Oppa’s face before. She knew she hadn’t and yet the raw despair and grief marring his features seemed somehow… familiar ….
She shook her head once, shaking the thought loose. She couldn’t get caught up in the devastation that swirled around her brothers, a presence so heavy that even [777] and [888] remained quiet while studying the scene.
Master Kyrgios paced back and forth along the floor some distance away in front of Master Minyoung, who sat cross-legged with smoke curling around her head from her pipe. Both wore intense expressions, although Master Kyrgios seemed more anxious, as if waiting for something to happen.
Yoo Mia stepped closer with a confidence that she didn’t really feel— because throughout her entire life, it was her Oppas who had been her rock, unshakable and steadfast— because here, now, was the first time she had seen them so shaken .
Maybe, this one time, she could be their anchor in troubled waters.
And, possibly, it was a little bit for Kim Dokja, too— the one person who had reached out his hand to her despite her slapping it away so stubbornly.
The one person who might understand her perspective better than she ever could.
Her fists were clenched tightly at her sides as she searched for what to say, what to ask.
If only it hadn’t been for the shock of seeing the other girl that looked to be slightly younger than Yoo Mia, who approached her Oppas— a ball of shining, near-incandescent probability that glowed in Yoo Mia’s [Story]-laced vision— Yoo Mia probably would have thought about her words a little longer.
“Who the fu—mmph”
Her own [Story] had risen up and stilled her tongue. It was good that she had already grown used to this type of ‘communication’ between herself and her [Story], or else she would have begun to panic, like she had the first time this happened. Unfortunately, it happened in moments where she let her guard down, and it was just another obstacle in her efforts to properly maintain [Story Control].
Still, she couldn’t help but worry as the girl drew closer to her Oppas.
Biyoo couldn’t quite read her Appas’ expressions, still unfamiliar with many things to do with this world, still unfamiliar with the human condition and what it all meant.
From watching all of the interactions between her parents, and [Reading] all of the [Words] that flittered between them, she knew that the expression that her Appas’ usually made when looking at Kim Dokja reminded her of… it was something like… someone dying of thirst in an endless desert that finally found water.
《Something like ‘ salvation ’.》
However, the way her Appas were looking at her now… this was different from that.
And yet.
If she had to take a guess, had to put a word to describe it, she would have gone with something close to ‘ hope ’.
She would be lying if she said she couldn’t feel the weight of their gaze.
But it was a burden she was willing to carry.
Because in the same way Biyoo had been waiting for Kim Dokja, Kim Dokja had been waiting for her. And Yoo Joonghyuk— with all of his fragments— had sacrificed so much to protect all he needed to protect.
Wordlessly, she knelt beside her Father and took his empty hand, and, at first, the [Ancient Story] that crawled beneath her Father’s skin bit and tore at her, sparks crackling then scattering into the air. It only made her hold on tighter.
Sweat broke out across her forehead as she tried to focus, tried to push past the [Sentences] that streamed like a fast flowing river, an obstacle meant to trip up the inexperienced. But Biyoo had been devouring stories like this since the beginning of her existence, and she easily swept past the current, diving deeper into the darker waters, trying to dig further beneath the surface to try and reach the core of her Father—
No wonder Kim Dokja was in such a state! The [True Story] was clashing with the [Original Story]— certain themes that were only added later in the [True Story] not quite meshing with the contents of the [Original Story] and of course it all led to this completely tangled mess— this was the worst application of Disconnected Film theory she had ever seen!!
Biyoo was beyond exasperated with how poorly the old fools at the Bureau had handled her Father’s awakening. She could understand that they may have been excited that it was finally time for her to emerge, but that didn’t mean that they were allowed to be so careless with Kim Dokja.
Her jaw clenched. In order to untangle this snarl— in order to save her Father— they would need to take him to the Bureau.
Biyoo gritted her teeth.
She would definitely be exchanging ‘words’ with those old, senile dokkaebis.
She couldn’t wait a moment longer.