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[handfast]

ok

nicknames

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

Comments

[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?

[handfast]

...I don't know. [ he's not sure about a lot, it seems. ] I guess the other me didn't. But if we really did what they said we did, then...

[ hmmmmm. he thinks about it. ]

I still think there could have been another way.

[paenitete]

Another way... like you think your other self didn't have to die like that?

[handfast]

Yeah. Maybe he could have talked to his friends or been less worried about his reputation instead of letting things get so bad.

[paenitete]

You think he would've changed?

[handfast]

I don't know. Maybe.

[ thinking about this so deeply is making his head hurt. ]

Doesn't everyone change depending on who they spend time with? At least a little.

[paenitete]

Sure. For better or for worse.

What about Soo-won?

[handfast]

[ looks over ]

What about him?

[paenitete]

Yuma told me he was there in that maze too. Or you saw him, anyway. He was spectating some life-or-death board game.

[handfast]

Yeah.

[ that much he can answer. ]

He was always better at strategy than I was.

[paenitete]

He was the one who executed you then, right? Because Yuma lost.