Archive of Our Own ^beta

It starts suddenly, without warning or foreshadowing or any sort of preamble. The way a natural disaster might occur. Although, this was anything but natural.

It starts with chalk, white and flaky, dancing across a whiteboard. The windows are muddled, littered with fingerprints and fog, a blue light streaking through the glass. If you were to peer through it, you would see clouds blotting the sky. If you were to look just a little harder, you would see the maroon undertones to the sky.

That, in its own way, is an omen.

Lee Jihye's head is down, eyes blurring as she tries to force herself awake. The teacher talks, bored and monotone, his voice dissipating into dull, background noise. Her eyes are on the math in front of her. Numbers she doesn't quite know how to comprehend. 

There's a giggle next to her. A note is slid onto her desk.

The handwriting is scratchy and curt, unmistakably Na Bori's style. Lee Jihye would pretend not to notice it by instinct. Pretend she didn't spend some of her nights tracing the letters with her finger, committing them to memory, rearranging them in patterns that some would claim resemble a love note.

"Ditch next period with me?"

Lee Jihye rolls her eyes, grabbing her pen and writing just underneath it, "As if. You know how much I love history."

Lee Jihye knows that if she insists on staying, then Na Bori will stay with her. Funny how it only took them a few years to become tied like that.

She passes the note back, giving Na Bori a cheeky smirk, hoping her eyes don't scream the secret she was keeping close to her chest. Hope they don't say, "I love you, I love you, I love you," in bold.

Na Bori sticks out her tongue. It's childish. But they're still technically children.

And then it happens like a cascade.

Scenarios... Dokkaebi... the apocalypse...

It's like those video games she would play in Bori's basement on hot, summer days. Stats and controls and quests and fantasy monsters that kill her teacher for speaking back.

A video game. She can't help it, she laughs. The sound slips through her lips, a fragmented noise.

It's surreal.

But then people start dying. Blood splotches the walls, coloring the room. The instructions are clear, blaring in front of her in a fluorescent white, blasted on floating television screens, straining on the eyes.

The instructions are simple. Too simple.

Lee Jihye has to kill someone. 

She has to kill someone to survive. She has to kill a real, living, breathing human. 

And when she locks eyes with Na Bori, they both have starkly different ideas. 

Jihye's idea is to escape. To try to break free. To find someone else they can kill. Bori's idea is the exact opposite. She has no such delusions.

Bori strides forward, a confidence in her step that isn't unusual, but- considering the circumstances- is concerning. She grins at Jihye, walking up to her.

She guides Jihye's hands, not flinching as she settles them around her neck. She leans forward, whispering her next words like they were a prayer. He breath hot against Jihye's skin. "Squeeze."

Jihye doesn't do anything at first, stunned and horrified and begging that she misheard her. Begging that this wasn't what she thought it was. Then, she shakes her head. "No."

Bori smiles. The kind of smile that makes Jihye feel like her world is going to fall apart. "Oh, you're such a crybaby." Bori reaches up, wiping away a tear trickling down Jihye's face. "It's gonna be okay, alright? You just gotta do it– shh, close your eyes– you just gotta do it, okay? For me."

"This isn't-" Jihye can't get her own words out, panic and worry and distress and fear coating her tongue. "This is– I– I can't kill you."

"You're Lee Jihye," Bori says with conviction. "You can do anything you put your mind to, alright? So close your eyes– yes, just like that, just like that, you got it– and squeeze."

"No," Jihye chokes out.

Bori is growing a little agitated, Jihye can tell from her voice. But Bori is always a little agitated. It will be a small price to pay to keep her alive. "Listen to me. It's either both of us or one of us, we get to choose. And I choose you."

"Let's die together," Jihye tries, her voice too desperate for her liking. If she is less drunk on her own sorrow, she might be figure out a different solution. She might actually think clearly. "Please."

"Oh, Jihye. It's too late. I've already made my choice. I choose you. I'll always choose you." Bori leans forward, giving her a small, fleeting kiss. It is brief and chapped and over far too quickly. But it is a kiss. In any other context, it would have been everything. "Just close your eyes and do it, okay? I believe in you."

"I can't. I think I love–"

A hand presses against Jihye's mouth. Bori's voice is shaky, but her resolve is steadfast. "That's why I want you to be the one to do it."

Jihye readjusts her grip. She swallows, biting back a whimper. And then she squeezes. 

Bori tries to make her death silent, but against pain there is only so much one can do. A few wheezes escape her lips, a small cry at one point. But after that, she's silent. Jihye keeps her hands enclosed around her neck for longer than necessary, frozen as she did. As if she couldn't believe Na Bori- the spitfire with eyes like moons and a grin like the sun- could die so quickly. So efficiently.

Shakily, as she drops Bori to the ground, her legs give out from underneath her.

Piercing through all the pain is a thought. The only thing lucid in the moment. And Jihye latches onto it.

This has to be for something. Na Bori's death has to be for something. Jihye didn't care what. But she won't let it be vain. She'll fight until her dying breath to make sure... to make sure it's all worth it in the end.

When a glowing chart pops up in front of her, the only option available being, [Maritime War God], Lee Jihye accepts it without a second thought.

+

Jihye hasn't slept well in years. Every time she closes her eyes it's Na Bori's face. Her eyes. Her lips. Her smile. Her hair. Her expression when Lee Jihye was slowly squeezing the life out of her.

+

She had asked Kim Dokja once, her voice raspy and worn. "How do you forgive yourself?"

He had looked at her, then looked away

She should have known better than to ask him for the answer to that question.

+

She gains new friends and loses some of them too. She meets a version of herself who is older and stronger and never had a Kim Dokja. She fights and she fights and she fights. She knows the feeling of blood in her throat and the feeling of dirt in her mouth by memory.

She learns what it means to be a hero. And she discards it- throws it all away- in favor of things far more important.

+

It's a second chance. The 1865th round. That's what Yoo Joonghyuk promised her.

A chance to save Kim Dokja. To find him in the subway where they left him.

They just have to do it all over again.

+

Lee Jihye runs into her classroom, a cage filled with crickets in her arms. She's thirty minutes late to class. She doesn't care. Her hair is windblown and wild and frizzy. She doesn't care. The only thing she can hear is her own heartbeat, thrumming against her ribcage. She doesn't care.

The teacher gives her an appraising look when she enters, breathless and ecstatic. His disapproval is obvious in the raise of his eyebrow. "Jihye-ssi, how... lovely of you to join us."

Jihye ignores him in favor of finding Na Bori in the sea of students. She's still in her seat, the one to the right of Lee Jihye, sticky notes coloring her desk. Jihye's face splits into a blinding, glowing grin. She can't help herself. 

Na Bori locks eyes with Jihye and smiles back at her, mirth in her eyes. 'Lee Jihye coming to class late,' She mouths at her gleefully. 'Is the world ending or something?'

Not anymore, Jihye thinks with ferocity. Not anymore.