Work Text:
Another nightmare.
At this point, Yohan was growing numb towards them. He rises from his bed, skin damp with sweat and hair matted to his face. The sheets are shoved aside in irritation as he haphazardly slides on his slippers, the shoes loudly clacking against the ground as he pushes his door open — though not too loudly, as it might wake Elijah. She needed the rest, especially now.
His throat is dry from gasping and crying, as it has been for the past few days. The nightmares have only become more aggressive recently, after everything that had unfolded, and after what he had lost.
Yohan drags his feet as he pads through the study. The path feels even longer than usual tonight, his footsteps echoing on the tiled floors. Once again, after what seems like so long, he must once again become accustomed to the silence and emptiness of this room that he was only starting to grow to dislike a bit less. The sorrowful memories had only started to be obscured by brighter, even happier ones.
And now that might just be all they were — memories.
“Master Yohan,” a monotonous voice cuts through the white noise of Yohan’s thoughts. Yohan’s neck almost snaps as he turns to glare at the familiar hunk of metal sitting in the corner, atop the growing pile of self-help books that Yohan had been collecting.
“What now?” Yohan snaps. Are you going to lecture me too? is what he doesn’t say, because he knows it’s coming, and it was pointless to enter an argument with something that ran on algorithms.
“Master, perhaps it would be good for you to keep a journal. Research suggests that if one is unable to vocalize or disclose their thoughts to another party, maybe writing them down on paper would be—”
Yohan waves a hand dismissively at the AI butler. “That’s quite enough,” he answers shortly, voice raspy with disuse. He continues his path to the kitchen, unhurried.
The emptiness in the kitchen is just as palpable. If he were to close his eyes and listen closely, he can hear that familiar, soothing voice accompanied by the sounds of food cooking. The kitchen had been so alive, once.
Yohan opens the overhead cupboard, the door hitting against the wood hard as he takes out one of his mugs. He flips up the tap, the sound of the water loud as he fills the mug. Taking a long gulp as if he hadn’t had water for days, he takes a long look at the dimly lit surroundings. The walls and furniture almost looked duller in color now.
He downs the mug of water quickly, deciding that he didn’t want to linger in this space much longer. It was starting to feel as if the walls in his chest were beginning to close in on him, stifling him. He dumps the mug in the sink. It could be dealt with in the morning.
As he makes the long walk back to his room, he pauses in front of his desk. Gaon’s words burn in his mind, as if he’d just heard them for himself again for the first and last time. Yohan swallows, his throat feeling very hoarse even though he’d just downed an entire mug of water.
He turns back to the AI butler, whose lights are still flashing orange, meaning that the AI butler was still online.
“Butler,” Yohan grunts. “Order me a leather bound blank notebook.”
The AI butler replies at once. “Yes, Master. Would you like it with or without lines?”
“Without,” Yohan replies shortly.
“It is done, Master.”
Yohan clears his throat. “Thank you,” he says, barely above a whisper. He goes back to sleep, willing that as he closed his eyes, the white noise in his mind would be silenced too.
Yohan is seated at his desk cutting open a package about two days later, with the scissors that he’d described to Gaon as hailing from a German brand with a heritage of over a hundred years. Kkomi sits nearby on the couch, watching him closely.
The couch seems emptier than usual, though it had already been empty long before, Yohan thinks distantly as he cuts through the layer of paper used to wrap the notebook. It smells of good quality leather. Yohan runs a hand over it, feeling the lines and slight imperfections on the cover. Around the book is a string to tie it closed. Yohan unties the book, opening the front cover. It’s a simple design, just as he’d asked the butler for.
The first thing he writes inside is his name, though it would be quite redundant since he would be keeping it in the safety of the drawer beneath his desk. There wouldn’t be anyone around to probe for it, anyway. That thought makes him feel slightly bitter, for some inexplicable reason. Yohan tilts his head, willing the thought away. He flips through the blank pages of the book, the sound of the paper flipping audible.
What does one write in these things, he thinks. Of course when he was in elementary school, he has vague memories of being asked to write short journal entries in class, but those were about the most mundane of topics like the students’ favorite things, a reflection of the day, or about what they learned.
“Butler,” Yohan sets down his fountain pen neatly next to the notebook. “What does one write in a journal?”
“Well, Master,” the butler answers almost immediately, as if he’d been waiting to answer the question. “People write about their day, about things they’ve done, and their feelings.” The AI butler’s answer is brief, as if he knows that if he were to continue, it would probably end up aggravating Yohan.
“Their feelings,” Yohan repeats, words coming out through gritted teeth. He’s never been the best at this part. Isaac, however, had probably been the only one who had been good at helping him with this aspect.
Add one more person, perhaps, as fragile as that possibility seemed now.
“Yes, Master. People also write about past memories, and also their wishes.”
Memories and wishes. How sentimental and annoying, Yohan thinks, starting to feel sick of the exercise even though he’d barely started to put anything down on the pages. He takes in a sharp breath, certainly aware of the fact that he didn’t enjoy the feeling of being stifled, and having no one trustworthy enough to bounce off his inner thoughts to. He most certainly wasn’t going to voice them to the AI butler. Yohan turns to the first page of the journal, after where he’d written his name in rough handwriting.
A memory. Which one?
He writes of a warm day, where a bright eyed figure had almost burst into his office, eyes like a fawn, mouth quivering in anticipation to greet him with unabashed enthusiasm. A ghost of a smile rests on his face as he writes.
It is by no means a long entry, but he pours out what he can onto the page. The handwriting is barely legible, but if he could decipher it, that’s all that mattered. He finds himself thinking about the canvases that Elijah had asked him to help her order, and her fine acrylic paints. He sketches what is supposed to resemble a tie, but it ends up looking more like a rectangle and triangle messily mashed together. If Elijah’s anger at him had already dissipated, perhaps he would ask her for advice.
That memory is sufficient for now, and Yohan rises from his chair to continue his day.
Within the next few days, Yohan fills up more and more pages, first with past memories. Maybe the AI butler did have a point. Penning down the memories, especially the good ones, served some good purpose after all.
However it still didn’t take away completely all of the hollowness in his heart. Just as there were good memories, there were also bad memories in equal measure. A frown crosses Yohan’s face. I’m not a coward, he thinks to himself, remembering a bus that had gone aflame, the sound of bullets going off, a shout, a figure running to the middle of the road.
Another memory starts to take form in his mind, like paint spreading on a blank canvas. He remembers what he thought was a mild mannered young man raising his voice in this very same room, throwing a blow at him, and a strongly worded accusation leaving his lips.
Yohan swallows, the nib of his pen barely touching the page. The first word does not come out easily, and there is a dark blue dot of ink staining the paper, spreading like blood on a freshly opened wound.
I could have hurt you very badly, Yohan writes, interestingly as if his words were being directed to someone, as if this were no longer just a simple journal entry, but morphing into an epistolary. You looked at me with such rage that I had never seen before, and never thought would have come from you, of everyone I’ve known.
Yohan can feel himself tremble as he writes, feeling something prickling his eyes. He curses under his breath, before placing the cap back on his pen and slamming the journal shut, the ink fresh and barely dried on the paper, when he tosses it back into his bottom drawer. He leaves to get a glass of whisky from the kitchen, suddenly craving something stronger than just water.
The next time Yohan opens his journal, he is not the only one in the study.
“What are you doing?” Elijah is at last speaking to him, after days of silence and reverting to her cold indifference. He believes she could have ignored him for longer, but perhaps Gaon’s influence must have awakened a newfound type of brash concern, unique only to her.
Yohan doesn’t answer. “I asked you what you were doing,” she repeats, tone a little harsher this time. Kkomi leaps from her hold, deciding to amuse herself elsewhere.
Yohan exhales sharply as he looks up from his journal, the very much blank page staring back up at him. “What does it look like I could be doing?” He gestures with his hands at her, pen tucked between his fingers.
Elijah sniffs. “Doesn’t seem like you’re doing work, since your laptop is closed. You’re clearly not reading either.”
This is something you don’t need to know, Yohan thinks, suddenly feeling a strong sense of guardedness over the leather bound book in his hands.
Eventually, Elijah gives up, knowing Yohan’s penchant for keeping secrets and things to himself as if all these were such a precious treasure that he was hoarding. “How boring,” she mutters under her breath, before showing herself out of the study. Yohan rubs at his temple when he knows she’s entered the elevator to return to her room. He glances down at the still blank page, before hastily scrawling down some words.
It always seems like she’s waiting for something, or someone is all that he writes, before finally closing the journal and opening his laptop to work.
The journal is next opened again after a particularly rough night of sleep. He checks his phone, the time reading half past 3AM. Pushing himself off the bed, he grunts in irritation, hair stuck to his forehead and skin feeling damp with sweat.
It had been a particularly rough nightmare, and instead of replaying the night of the fire, this was a brand new one. He had seen Elijah as she was in the present, all grown up, and she was trapped, but he was helpless, unable to save her from whatever was dragging her into what looked like an endless abyss, darker than the night. His body shakes violently and he almost shouts aloud as he tries to shake off the images in his mind, as vivid as the sight of the closed door in front of him.
Yohan storms out of his room, tugging his night robe over his back in an inelegant motion as he heads for his study. The drawer almost snaps open as he pulls at the handle to take out his journal, throwing it onto the desk.
There is only one line on the page: What would I do if I lost her? and this time, the paper is damp not only with blue ink.
When the AI butler suggests that he can add other things inside the journal besides just words, Yohan starts to add clippings. There are extracts from articles as well as pictures, and the journal starts to look a bit lumpy and more well used.
“How is the journaling exercise going for you, Master?” the AI butler asks him on a stormy afternoon.
Yohan leans back in his chair. “It’s not...horrible,” he says with a clearing of his throat.
“That’s good to hear, Master,” the butler answers before switching itself to dormant mode, as if knowing Yohan needed the space.
Yohan opens his journal again, flipping through the past few entries he’d written, lingering on some longer than the others. Today he decides to think of something lighter, of a meal at a table that felt so full, even if not all of the chairs had been occupied.
I will never tell you this, he writes in slightly neater handwriting than usual, but I could taste something in that meal you made.
A single thought forms and disappears as quickly as he thought it: he should have asked for the recipes, though he knew he was probably a much poorer cook. He fills up two pages of that single memory, a faint warmth building in his chest.
Nights later, his throat is hoarse yet again after a heated argument with Elijah. She peppers him with questions that he does not have the answers to, like did you and Gaon have a really bad argument, and what did you say to Gaon, along with the most difficult of all to answer, a desperate plea: why can’t you ask him to come back?
She leaves the study choking back sobs while he grips the side of his desk in a feeble attempt to anchor himself. Eventually all the bottled up raw rage accumulated from the past days in him spills over, and he swings his arm with a loud shout, knocking over everything on his desk. The objects fall to the ground with a loud clatter. The journal lands with a loud thud, and Yohan does not miss it. He walks over, arms loose on his side as he kneels to the ground. His hand traces over the cover of the journal, eyes damp as he picks it up, dusting it off.
Yohan flips open the cover to a random page, where it lands on the page where he’d written about when he revealed his story to Gaon, and the large scar on his back. He sucks in a sharp breath before getting up to sit at his desk. He picks up his pen that had fallen to the ground, tossing the cap aside. He hears his and Gaon’s voice trading words again, the words like small sharp pins pricking at his skin.
You need to cut off Yoon Soohyun.
A pause. Yohan’s eyes search Gaon’s as the firm grip on his arm does not falter. Gaon audibly swallows, his eyes red as he pushes Yohan’s arm aside firmly, but with just enough restraint.
I can’t. Soohyun is my world, Gaon replies with a tremor in his voice before he pushes past Yohan, not lingering or giving Yohan time to process his words. Not long after, Yohan can make out in the distance Elijah’s voice, asking and pleading with Gaon. He can hear clearly the word stay repeated several times, but it’s only followed by the sound of a series of doors closing firmly shut.
How could he, Yohan scrawls messily on the page, the sharp nib puncturing the paper. He hastily cancels out the word he, writing a bold you in its place. After everything I did, after all that has happened, this is what you have chosen.
Yohan’s jaw trembles as he continues to write, and he soon realizes that he’s vocalizing the words that he’s writing. His body stiffens in cold anger as he continues to write.
You were my world too, whether you have come to know it or not, Kim Gaon, Yohan writes as his vision is obscured and his cheeks dampen.
Even if humanity fell, nothing else would have mattered to me. Not my belongings, not my position, not even this house. As long as I had the both of you.
Yohan bites down on his knuckle, his body shuddering as he begins to weep bitterly. After barely managing to scribble down a few more words, the pen falls from his hand, the strength in him dissipating like a weak passing breeze. The book remains open, Yohan looking up to stare blankly into the distance at nothing.
“I’m so sick of and done with this place,” he whispers to himself before retreating to the fragile safety of his bedroom.
Elijah enters the empty study once more, when Yohan’s self-imposed time off from work has ended and he’s returned to the court. It’s returned to its usual put together state, and she notices something lying on the ground, looking like an object that had been balled up. Her forehead creases as she frowns in deep thought. Yohan would never leave any mess lying on the ground like that, she thinks.
She leans down to have a closer look, and it’s clear that it’s a piece of paper that has been rolled into a ball and tossed aside. She exhales softly as she unfolds it, knowing she could put it back and make it appear untouched.
At the corner of the page lies a scribble that would have been missed if someone were not alert enough to notice. It’s written in tiny handwriting but Elijah can make it out.
Come back is what it says, and Elijah swallows hard, knowing quite clearly who might have been the one to have written this.