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[handfast]

ok

nicknames

rafayel - scaredy cat
fiammetta - old lady
tokinaga - mr know it all

Comments

[paenitete]

[ i get so much mileage out of that icon

he doesn't have to say it but you should tell me anyway ]

Do you think telling someone that has ever made them stop worrying?

...I won't make you talk about what happened if you don't want to.

[handfast]

[ he was just going to say he thought she was a nag.....but you knew that already

but he does also think of hien, who'd pretty much said the same thing. ]

......Guess not. [ fine!! she can worry. ] And none of it was real anyway.

[ or was it..... ]

[paenitete]

I don't think that matters either.

[ fia doesn't say anything but her chest clenches a little. you didn't read masses travels val but there is a specific thing about dreams in there... ]

Even dreams can still affect people when they're awake.

[handfast]

[ tears up in long ak events written in text for ants. hak leans back a little, staring up at the branches up above. ]

I remembered the person in my shard. [ ... ] She killed me.

[paenitete]

[ fiammetta's eyes go wide. before she can think: ]

Yona?

[handfast]

Yeah. I deserved it.

[ in that life, at least. ]

[paenitete]

How? What happened?

[handfast]

We were taking people and selling them. We tried to pass it off as a trade for a new medicine but...

[ well. that sort of thing can only be covered up for so long. ]

[paenitete]

Wait, so... human trafficking?

[ THIS IS SO FUNNY.... ]

Who was running it?

[handfast]

[ another long pause. ]

I don't know. [ he never figured out that lore. ] But all four of us were involved.

[paenitete]

[ so she can't be sure it's the same as lucien's life. still, last week some of the people here went to terra... it's not far out of the realm of possibility. ]

They forced you into doing that? How? That's just...

[ she doesn't know hak that well, but he wouldn't do that. ]

[handfast]

[ he sits back up, frowning. ]

I wasn't....me. Or I was, but I remember being someone else too. Someone who'd been doing that for a long time.

[paenitete]

So it was some kind of brainwashing. And Yona found you.

[handfast]

[ when will any of them learn what an isekai is ]

She— [ hm. how does he untangle any of this. ] Some of it was how I remember. We still grew up together. Me, her, and Soo-won. She was supposed to marry Soo-won but I guess something happened and she ended up with me instead.

[ why is he making this sound like a soap opera.... ]

[paenitete]

[ help me ]

Were they arranged to be married in your childhood too?

[handfast]

[ a shake of his head. ]

She was always interested in him but King Il wouldn't let it happen. [ for good reason. ] I don't know how she felt about me in—that place, but she was pretty disappointed in what I did.

[ which, fair. ]

[paenitete]

That must've been... complicated with what Soo-won ended up doing.

[ this shoujo... ]

You went along with it because you had no other choice, right?

[handfast]

[ IS THIS SHOUJO? ]

It felt like it. It felt like there was some kind of mystery we had to solve, otherwise we'd all be stuck there forever.

[paenitete]

Sounds like a maze all right.

So you solved the mystery? And the answer was that Yona was the one who slayed this person?

[ slayed him? ]

[handfast]

She was the one who killed me first. [ first? ] Someone else killed me again at the end.

[paenitete]

[ heaviness bears hard down her chest. hak would feel it. ]

You died more than once?!

[handfast]

I didn't feel it the first time. [ so it's fine? he doesn't seem too bothered by it, at least. ] We all woke up knowing we'd been killed but not who killed us.

[paenitete]

[ that's kind of a relief... that heaviness eases up. ]

So you didn't actually... experience Yona doing that to you. You just found out she did it.

[ right? ]

[handfast]

Yeah. [ although...... ] I felt what I felt when I - the other me - died. How angry and upset I was.

[ there wasn't much physical pain but the emotional pain was there. ]

[paenitete]

You thought you didn't deserve it?