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themoonisasticker · 9 months

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Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint: YJH Commits the Improbable and Reads a Webnovel

Don’t be weird. Don’t be weird about this, Dokja. I hurriedly went back to the novel myself, reading it next to him. Reading a novel next to somebody…that was like reading it together, wasn’t it?

It wasn’t together. But it wasn’t separate. It was a strange and obscure connection, one where you said nothing but were linked by a shared experience. It meant something when two people experienced the same thing. Especially this.

Somebody else experiencing this…it was like they were experiencing me. Why had he sat down next to me? Why had he stared? Why did he talk to a stranger like this, ask questions so intently? Why would he go so far as to ask about the book, read it beside me? Did he like it?

With a strange and obscure wonder, the man said, “This isn’t even good.”

Well. That was a natural reaction.

When I'm trying harder than usual to nail a difficult character then I write a lot of side shit in order to try and lock them down. Obviously everybody in ORV is hard as fuck to write, so I decided to write a quick scene as a character study for KDJ & YJH to try and nail their voices. I think this was written right after the divorce arc.

Super short 3k encounter under the cut.

I noticed the man sitting down next to me immediately, but it took far longer to notice he was staring at me. He hadn’t even turned on the computer - he just stared at me, completely shamelessly. It was another few minutes before I finally worked up the courage to fully turn my head to look at him.

I had noticed from the corner of my eye, but he was an unrealistically attractive man. The punk black shirt, canvas pants, and dangerous black boots suited him well. It made me want to forgive him for staring at me. I didn’t quite forgive him.

“Is there something you need help with?”

Maybe he had seen me here several times and mistook me for a library expert. I was, in a few ways. Mostly not. You’d think that guys who spent as much time as I did at the library would be some sort of well-read genius. I just read webnovels on the computer. It was my ideal location, since there was a computer and it wasn’t home. My webnovel and isolation was all I asked for. I didn't know who I was asking, but there had to be somebody.

The man somehow hadn’t anticipated the question. He wasn’t big on blinking or moving, which wasn’t a great trait in creepy library men. He took a long few seconds before answering. It wasn’t a tremendously difficult question. I knew it: the more attractive a man was, the stupider he became. Maybe that explained myself?

“What are you reading?”

Question with a question. The man had a deep, bassy voice, but there was an awkward wobble to it. I hurriedly switched tabs to a news site. “Nothing.”

“You seemed intent.”

“Why would you notice that?” I asked flatly. I could play this game too. “And why were you staring?”

“I wanted to know what you were reading.”

He didn’t seem that curious. Maybe the question was a nicety, meant to open me up towards selling me sharp knives or something, but anybody who would say a nicety like that wouldn’t stare at me for ten minutes first.

“Just a webnovel.” I knew I sounded defensive, but you could only hear the exact same thing for so long. “Fantasy. It’s not fanfic or anything.” I paused a second. “I don’t know what fanfic is. By the way.”

The man’s eyes skittered away, the nervousness blooming. He stared at my suddenly banal computer screen instead, as if I was stupid enough to show my cards and flip back to Ways of Survival. “What’s it about?”

I couldn’t help but perk up a little. Was he seriously interested in that? This was beyond bizarre small talk. Better keep the explanation to two sentences. Play it cool, Dokja.

When was the last time somebody had actually asked what it was about? That girl in high school, maybe. When she was pretending to ask me out to get a giggle out of her friends. That reverse counted.

“It’s a post-apoc regressor fantasy,” I said. Really cool. Wait. This guy was way too attractive to be a nerd. “Oh, a regressor’s a genre. It’s when the main character goes back in -”

“I know what a regressor is,” the man said tersely.

So he was a nerd? That seemed improbable. Attractive people didn’t have to become nerds, and nobody was a nerd voluntarily. “Sorry. Yeah, but it’s about a regressor who has to save the world from gods and demons. And a lot of other stuff. It’s mostly action. For a male audience.”

The man looked a little pained. Crap. I failed. C- in social interaction, Dokja. “Audience, huh.”

I stared at him blankly. “All stories are for an audience.”

“What about a story nobody reads?”

“So can I help you, or…?”

“Can’t a story be just for you?” The man suddenly seemed a little urgent, as if this conversation had tilted into an area that actually mattered. I thought I was the only one… “What about a story that you tell to yourself?”

I stopped and thought about it. I had thought about the topic before - a Dokja found it hard not to - but the thoughts usually walked a tired track of self-pity. But the man spoke sincerely, and some topics deserved a serious answer. The man waited for me to talk with growing impatience. Pushy.

I decided to give the answer I had when his eyebrow started ticking. “People tell themselves their own stories when they’re trying to create an ending they want. As if framing your life as a romance means you’ll get married at the end. Life doesn’t really work that way, though…”

The man leaned forward a little, his urgency only growing. “What if it did?”

“That’s a hypothetical,” I said. “So it’s fictional. You just made fiction out of making fact out of fiction. That’s fiction at the end of the day.”

“If fiction was real, would it become reality?”

It was a question that was both very banal and very odd. “That only happens in isekais.” The man stared at me blankly. How did you know about regressors and not isekais? “You know. Americans call them portal fantasies. It’s a popular genre, there’s all kinds. Regressors, Returnees, and Reincarnators.” A little awkwardly, I added, “That’s, like, genre canon. See, my novel explains it.”

I opened up the webnovel tab, navigating instantly towards the line I was thinking of. It was pretty early in the book, while Yoo Junghyeok explained to Lee Jihye and Kim Namwoon that he was a regressor. As usual, the narration had to step in to explain the basics of the worldbuilding. It was always nostalgic to read the beginning of the novel: back when the worldbuilding wasn’t insanely convoluted.

“ ‘In the cruel star stream, there are only three ways to survive’”, I read out loud, before something occurred to me. “Oh, the star stream is kind of like an evil apocalyptic Twitch stream. Gods and demons watch scenarios - that’s a sort of game where a bunch of people die - and then they watch people die, it’s a gory -”

“Like a Twitch stream,” the man said tightly. This guy was a huge fan of repeating what I said.

I just shrugged. “It’s a metaphor. The novel’s about the entertainment industry and exploitation of -” the man’s face was becoming increasingly stormy, so I went back to the novel. “Right, here: ‘In the cruel star stream, there are only three ways to survive: bear regression, change into a returnee, or accept reincarnation. These are the strongest people. In this new and dying world, the weak will not survive.’” I looked back at the man, almost forgetting the casual act. “Cool, right? There’s lots of isekai elements - I guess you could say that there’s a sophisticated nature to it sometimes, this metatextual aspect? - but the story itself doesn’t really hit those isekai beats. MCs are meant to be relatable everymen, but you can’t really call Yoo Joonghyuk relatable. Oh, that’s the MC. He’s really morally gray, it’s that kind of story. He’s the kind of hero who always does his best but who’s constantly fucking up. He’s, like, on his 945th regression. Not great at the -”

“945th?” the man asked. If he was strangled before he was dying of asphyxiation now.

I got it. “He’s a sunfish,” I said sympathetically. The man seemed like he was in too much pain to understand the reference. “That means he’s super easy to kill. But that’s mostly at first. He gets super badass later. One time he decapitated four -”

“This is funny to you, isn’t it?”

I stopped short. I couldn’t read the man’s face at all, but I felt very judged. And a little like I had disappointed him. “It’s not exactly a comedy,” I said awkwardly. “It’s just cool. It’s fun.”

“You didn’t look like you were having fun while you were reading it.”

Damn. Caught. I looked away, rubbing at the back of my neck. “Uh…yeah, I’d read that section, like, five times. It’s just comforting, I suppose.” For some demented reason, I felt the need to add, “You read it in class and you can pretend Yoo Joonghyuk would beat up your bullies for you. Or that he’d stand up for you against your - that kind of thing. He’s a hero. It’s not about watching the hero suffer. It’s about cheering for him when he wins. Um, I shouldn’t admit this, should I?”

But he didn’t look like he thought I was cringe. The man spoke quickly, as if he needed me to know before anything else. “He used to threaten his sister’s bullies. That’s the sort of thing he does. Did. As a child.” He paused a beat. “It’s why he started working out. They weren’t very intimidated. Or so it seems.”

I nodded eagerly, suddenly excited beyond measure. “That’s totally him! He just hides it behind that cool murder guy exterior. You really get it. You know, maybe you’d like - uh, nobody likes it, but it’s oddly compelling -”

“Sure,” the man said. I quietly exploded. “Pull it up on the computer.”

And for the very first time in my entire life, I sat next to somebody as they read Ways of Survival. I was practically vibrating. I couldn’t stop sneaking glances at his face, trying to suss out if he was enjoying it or not. He had skipped forward a few chapters, so maybe he wasn’t that interested - but he looked so intense - but he always seemed a little intense - another human being on this Earth was reading Ways of Survival! Was this a dream? I didn’t want to wake up.

With a strange and obscure wonder, the man said, “This isn’t even good.”

Well. That was a natural reaction. I wasn’t offended.

“I don’t like to call stories good or bad,” I said philosophically. “Every story has something for everybody. Ways of Survival is a great story if you love it enough.”

“It could have at least been good.” The man leaned back, exhaling like he had run a marathon. “All of this…and it couldn’t even be good?”

This was basically expected. “The characterization is good,” I offered weakly.

“Of course the people are good,” the man said irritably, as if this was a foregone conclusion. “But the book itself is embarrassing. The writing is awkward and choppy. The plotlines seem rushed and convoluted. And the regressor is completely unsympathetic.”

“Are you kidding? How can you be unsympathetic to a man with so much inner pain?” I had to roll up for my bias. If Yoo Joonghyuk had a million fans I was one of them, if he had one fan then the fan was me - he did literally have one, and it was literally me. “If I’d seen my loved ones die a million times I’d act cold too. He just loves people too much, so he pushes them away. It’s really deep. And he’s cool.”

The man looked away from the monitor, eyes flaring, and I had to fight the urge to retreat against that intense look. “How can you love a book that’s so faulty?”

All I could do was shrug awkwardly. “It’s pretty easy when it’s all you have.”

“There’s other books.”

“None of them are mine.”

The man’s eyes narrowed a little, his face tightening. “It’s a public book. What makes it yours?”

“I’m the only person who reads it.” This person was getting a little intense. It should have been awkward and uncomfortable - and it definitely was - but somehow I could only care about the fact that he wanted to read my book. It didn’t even matter that he didn’t like it. That had never happened before. “I suppose it’s the author’s too. But a book belongs to the audience, you know. The author can have every intention they want, but the people who read it decide what the book really is. No offense to the author or anything.”

“What if the book doesn’t have an audience?”

Nobody had ever looked at me like this man looked at me. He was looking straight through me, as if I wasn’t even there - but he was looking at me as if there was nobody else in the world. It wasn’t comfortable. But it wasn’t uncomfortable either. Maybe that was just the nature of true things.

“That’s a little sad, isn’t it?” I asked. “Every book deserves a reader.”

“Could be a crap book.”

“Is a reader not allowed to enjoy a crap book?”

“What about a crap person?” the man asked urgently. “Does a crap person deserve a reader?”

“I don’t know.” I could only shrug a little helplessly. I wish I wasn’t so helpless. This man was clearly looking for a certain answer, but I couldn’t parse it out. “It’s not about deserve. People are allowed to love crap people. Readers are allowed to like crap books. It’s not so different, I think…”

“It’s bad taste, though.”

“Isn’t that somebody’s own choice?”

The man was silent.

The air had grown awkward. I went back to the novel, abandoning the man to stare blankly at his own computer screen. I didn’t know why my own personality and a webnovel gave him so much to process, but Ways of Survival incited a lot of deep thoughts about the universe and the nature of humanity in me too.

I was on chapter 1,452 before the man finally stood up. He carefully pushed in his chair, reaching to straighten a nonexistent collar before letting his hand fall.

“Thank you,” the man said. “This helped.”

He seemed sincere, and earnest sincerity was something one ought to accept. “You’re welcome. I don’t really know why, though.”

“Let’s say I needed closure on some things. The turnaround was worth it.” He glanced upwards, as if he was speaking to God. “But I’m not thanking anybody.”

“If somebody does you a favor it’s polite to say thanks.”

“I would strangle that bastard before I thank him.” Bizarre sentence, but the man paused for a second anyway. “I Googled the top pro gamer in South Korea.”

I was caught off-guard by the subject change. “I don’t keep up with esports?”

“I didn’t recognize the name.”

“Neither…would I?”

“It was a relief.”

The man turned off the computer and stood up, as if the non-sequitur was the final and most important thing to say. I was still stuck on what esports had to do with anything.

Wait. Something finally occurred to me. “You never said your name.”

The corner of the man’s lips twitched upwards. “Kim Dokja.”

“That’s not funny.” It was actually pretty creepy. How long had this guy been staring at me? “Hey, how do you know my name?”

“I know everything about you,” the man panned. “All of your secret fears in the dark. All of your love and hatred. I know you, therefore we are comrades.”

I stared at him blankly. “But I don’t know you at all.”

“That’s another story.” The man stuck his hands in his pockets, easily turning and walking away. “Until next time.”

Until next - “Hey! What does that even mean!”

But the man ignored me, and when he turned a corner and disappeared out of sight he may as well not have existed. I was left alone in that library, abruptly alone and lonely. In a lifetime of isolation I had never felt so abandoned.

Desperately, insanely, I cupped my hands around my mouth and yelled as I could. “Come back! Nobody ever sees the mysterious stranger again!”

I wanted to see him again. I wanted more questions, more answers. I couldn’t allow this man to be a flash in a pan, a blinking light in the night before all grew dark.

I wanted him to be a different sort of mysterious stranger - a friend you hadn’t met yet. One that kept his distance and could never come nearer until he eliminated all threats to his life. Some romantic stalker that loved me from afar. Even foreshadowing or a Chekov’s gun, a story where every element has its own meaning - one where strangers always reunited, and nobody disappeared forever.

If I wanted that story badly enough, would it happen? I was just Kim Dokja, a reader who would never write his own story by sheer nature. I had always been content with that. But in that moment, for the very first time, I wanted to create the story.

No - I wanted to create the narrative. But that wasn’t achievable outside of fiction. Not for somebody powerless like me. The loser only grew powerful in fiction. Real life didn’t work like that. You had to have power to become powerful. Only powerful people wrote their own stories. And somebody like me could only become powerful in a shitty isekai.

For a long time thereafter I wondered if I regretted that wish or not. Something as simple as regret ought to be easy to determine. But regret was one of those insidious little things, a sour thread that ran through every happy moment and curled around the sad ones. An emotion that stayed present in happy or sad circumstances, when you failed to obtain something you wanted or when you were never satisfied with what you had.

But Yoo Joonghyuk had always made a pretty shitty mysterious stranger.

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