i think what gets me is that. in the game. bill gets a story befitting his world view. he is alone. he drives people away. no one cares for him. he is a sad parable of libertarianism. and it's CLEAR that the show didn't want to change any of those beliefs that the character had (the fucking don't tread on me in the basement i have to laugh), but the storyline now .... rewards him for it? gives him a happy and loving ending??? and there's no point in the story where he "learned to open himself to others", frank is there very early on and then the note at the end concludes that he is the only person bill cares for, the rest of the world be damned. and like. i'm sorry i can't get past the libertarianism and the conspiracy theories and the militant prepper stockpiling and the complete disinterest in connection and community to get on board with one selfish man getting his happy ending. ESPECIALLY when the premise of the second game itself is punishing JOEL FOR THAT EXACT OUTLOOK.
Okay found out the reason there were no final letters in that book is bc it's Soviet Yiddish orthography and they don't use final letters and spell loshn koydesh phonetically jdkdkskskskksksks
Dongsung never thought that he would need a therapist.
He feels so strange, sitting in the leather armchair across from this woman. Dr. Lee Seoyoung, with a face that seems too young to be out of college already, dressed more casually than Dongsung would have imagined a therapist’s style to be.
She’s only just sat down, but she’s already writing things on her large notepad, pink pen moving swiftly across the paper. She then raises her head, smiles, and says, “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Kim. I’m sure you already know my name, but I’m Dr. Lee Seoyoung, and I hope I can give you the care you need and deserve.”
Dongsung nods, awkward. “Um, call me Dongsung, please.”
Dr. Lee smiles. “Call me Seoyoung, then. I’ve been friends with Yoonchul for a very long time, so I was glad to accept one of his friends as my patient. What’s the reason for your visit today, Dongsung?”
Dongsung licks his lips, searching Seoyoung’s soft eyes for a moment. “Everything. Everything that’s going on, it’s just…” He lets his gaze drop from Seoyoung’s face to the floor. “It’s all too much.”
“I understand. What’s got you most overwhelmed?”
“Dealing. Coping with the things that’s happened to me, and… just. Everything.”
“Would you mind telling me what happened?” Seoyoung’s voice remains gentle, pleasant. It’s nice to listen to.
Dongsung closes his eyes. “I used to be part of a sect. I’m… I’m sure you heard, it was the East Sect.”
“Mmhm. But, tell me anyways. In your own words.”
Dongsung exhales. “The leader, Sehyuk…” Saying his name pulls at Dongsung’s heart, and he pauses, focusing on his breathing. “He broke parts of me. On the inside. He made me forget who I was, I… I still don’t remember a lot about who I used to be.”
He hears the rustling of paper, the scribble of Seoyoung writing something down. “Okay. If you’re done, I’d like to ask you some questions, Dongsung. And if, at any point, it gets too personal, tell me and we’ll stop.” Dongsung makes an affirmative noise, so Seoyoung continues. “What was your motivation for joining a sect?”
“... Angry. I was… I was angry because I felt like the world owed me something.” Dongsung opens his eyes, seeing Seoyoung looking at him intently. He doesn’t look at her directly, instead eyeing the way her dark red hair falls over her shoulders. There’s a frizzy bit caught in the strap of her dress. “My plan was to kill Sehyuk and take the sect for myself. I… I had my hands around his throat, and a knee in his stomach, and I could have killed him then. That was the second day I was there. But he didn’t struggle, he… he held onto my wrists and I saw something in his eyes, I don’t know what it was.”
“Vulnerability?” Seoyoung suggests, and Dongsung nods.
“I guess… it made me feel like he- he understood, somehow?” Dongsung presses his fingertips to his temples, feeling a headache coming on. Digging that far into his memory is painful. “He didn’t know why I was there past wanting to take over, but I think he didn’t get what he wanted from the world, either. It... it makes more sense, too, with what he told me recently- well, not recently… almost a year ago?”
“Would you care to tell me what he told you?” Seoyoung asks, and Dongsung thinks it over.
“He apologized a lot, and told me it wouldn’t fix anything- which, he’s not wrong, it really didn’t, not practically. But it… I don’t know. I can’t explain it.” Dongsung puts his hands over his eyes, shutting them tightly. “He told me to kill him. It wasn’t… it wasn’t a demand, like- he always told me to do things in that tone, that sort of tone that you’d use with a dog. That’s what I was, I was a dog, he owned me and made me into who he wanted me to be…” He opens his eyes, peeking out from between his fingers. Seoyoung is writing in her notepad, chewing the inside of her lip as she does so. “I still think about him, a lot. Is that wrong of me?”
“Depends,” Seoyoung says, without raising her gaze from the paper before her. “In what way do you think of him?”
“I- I think about his voice a lot. I liked it a lot better when he… when he was talking to me like I mattered.” Dongsung closes his eyes again. “Near the end, yeah. He talked to me like that because I held his life in my hands and I- I just let him go, I let him live, because I didn’t want to do what he told me anymore, but… also because I didn’t want to be the one to kill him.”
“Were you fond of him, Dongsung?”
Dongsung pauses. “He tried to make me love him.” He says after a few moment’s thought.
Seoyoung makes a soft noise. “I didn’t ask if you loved him, Dongsung. I asked if you were fond of him, like… did you care about him? Or was it all just about spiting him?”
Dongsung inhales deeply, exhaling an answer. “Yes. I cared about him, I- I still do.” He drops his hands suddenly, letting them hit his knees. “I want to just, touch him, most of all. I want to hold his hands in mine. His cheeks were soft.”
Seoyoung doesn’t respond.
“I want to kiss him again.”
Seoyoung nods, setting her notepad aside. “I believe, from everything you’ve told me today… you need assurance that this is okay. And it is. You’re not going to come away from this unscathed, Dongsung, and you might not stop thinking about it, about Sehyuk himself, for years to come. He made you a completely different person, so it’s likely his power over your life will not disappear, only diminish.”
“It’s okay for me to miss him?” Dongsung asks, suddenly feeling a sharp stab of desperation.
Seoyoung nods. “Certainly. Especially if he attempted to condition you to love him, there’s probably some part of you that still genuinely does. And you do like him an awful lot, it seems. Do you not hate him at all?”
Tears well in Dongsung’s eyes, so he puts his hands over his face again. “Whoever I used to be hates him. It’s deep in there, but it’s- it’s not all of me, it’s not big enough to matter.”
“But it would cause problems if you were friends with him, right?”
Dongsung swallows hard. “Right.”
“And that’s the thing- forming relationships with past abusers, whether they abused you or someone else, it rarely works.” There’s the sound of Seoyoung picking up her tablet once again. “I can’t say that it would be a total failure, but if there’s even that little bit of total hatred, a grudge buried deep… it’ll come out sooner or later, and it’ll make both of you miserable.”
Dongsung tries to discreetly wipe his tears away, but he’s sure Seoyoung has noticed. “I just miss him.”
“It’s understandable. It may go away with time, or it may always be this ache in your chest and thoughts in the back of your head. But either way, it’s best to find a way to cope with it.”
Dongsung takes a deep breath, uncovering his face in favor of wiping his eyes with his sleeves. “Can we stop for today?”
Seoyoung smiles, warm. “Of course. My cell phone number is the second number on my business card, you can text or call at any time. Keep yourself safe, Dongsung.”
Dongsung nods, standing. Seoyoung follows suit, and even with her tall heels, she’s still a head shorter than him. “Thank you, really,” Dongsung says, and Seoyoung smiles.
“It’s not a problem, dear. I hope you’ll be okay soon.”
Dongsung does too.
--
Seoyoung looks good with her hair up.
“It’s been a bit since your last visit,” Seoyoung says, crossing her legs. She’s in a pantsuit today, the legs of her pants too long for her short stature; one of the hems is currently caught under her heel, but she doesn’t seem to notice. “How are you?”
Dongsung shrugs. “I’m fine, I guess. I keep having weird dreams.”
“Weird how, exactly?”
“It’s always sunset, and there’s always someone with me. No matter who it is, they’re talking to me and they hold my hand.” Dongsung looks out the window, at the late morning sky turning a rich blue. “I thought it was a Sehyuk thing, because the first time I had it, Sehyuk was the one there. But there’s been my brother, and Hansol, and Sanggyun, more recently… So, I dunno.”
“It’s most likely a manifestation of some subconscious thoughts. Worries, maybe. Can you remember what any of them say to you?”
“Well, that’s the thing…” Dongsung brings his eyes to Seoyoung, who’s chewing on the cap of her pen. “I know they’re talking to me, but I can never hear them. It’s usually like, right before I wake up, and then suddenly I just hear this one thing. I think about it for days afterwards.”
“What’s been the most impactful one?” Seoyoung asks, not moving her pen away from her mouth.
“The first one. It was, I miss you too, Dongsung.”
Seoyoung nods slowly, reaching for her notepad. Dongsung waits until she’s finished, then asks: “Can I see that?”
“Of course,” Seoyoung says with a smile, handing the notepad over. “I keep one special for each patient, so it’s fine.”
Dongsung takes it from her, flipping through. It’s mostly condensed versions of everything Dongsung’s told her in their three visits, with some directly quoted and noted as ‘worrisome’ or with an indication to ‘watch out for more comments like this’.
“As a disclaimer,” Seoyoung begins as Dongsung flips to the front to read her initial evaluation, “the first page was all from our first visit. You haven’t been diagnosed with anything, so that’s why everything is phrased as ‘tendencies’ or ‘possibility to develop’.”
Dongsung reads through everything, scribbled in various colors of ink, then hands back the notepad. “You’re a good person,” he says, prompting Seoyoung’s eyebrows to rise. “Not just good at what you do, you’re just a good person.”
Seoyoung smiles, shutting the notepad and setting it aside. “You’re a good person too, Dongsung. I’m certain you were good before, and you’re good now.”
--
Seoyoung dyed her hair. It falls wavy black around her shoulders and Dongsung stares for a few moments before saying, “It looked better red.”
Seoyoung smiles, twisting a lock of her hair around her finger. “You think so? My boyfriend told me it looked good this way, so I dunno.”
“Oh yes, the boyfriend. He knows best.” Dongsung says, smiling.
Seoyoung nods. “Certainly. But, onto more serious matters.” She picks her pen up from where it lays beside her, resting between her leg and the couch cushion beside it. “You’ve been seeing me for nearly a year now, once a week. Compare your current state- emotional, physical, mental, etcetera- to your state eleven months ago. Has it improved or deteriorated?”
Dongsung does as he’s told, looking off to the side as he thinks. It’s… tricky, to say the least, pushing through his muddled thoughts and memories as thoroughly as he can to pick out which answer fits best. “Both. I really feel like it’s both.” He says at last, bringing his eyes back to Seoyoung.
And, of course, the next question as usual is, “And why do you feel that?”
“It’s improved because you’ve helped me accept things, I guess.” Dongsung swallows, looking at the floor. He wiggles his toes in his shoes. “You’ve helped me… recognize that everything is… valid? But also made sure I didn’t… delude myself into thinking I was okay. I think that’s the reason why I’m also worse, now, because realizing that I’m not okay even though I thought I was really kicked my ass.”
Seoyoung hums, tapping her foot on the floor idly as she writes. She then flips through her notebook, pages making soft noises as she does so. “Eleven months ago, you told me the most prevalent feeling was sadness, followed by confusion. What is it now?”
“Anger,” Dongsung answers almost immediately. He doesn’t give Seoyoung time to follow up with the and why question. “I’m just- I’m mad at a lot of things. I’m still mad at myself. I’m mad at Sehyuk,” and it’s still no easier to say his name, “for different reasons now.”
“What are they now?” Seoyoung asks, voice gentle.
Dongsung puts his hands over his face, sighing. “For leaving me alone. I still have Yoonchul and Sanggyun, and Taeyang still talks to me even though he got his own place a few months ago. But they… they don’t understand. It’s not like Sehyuk would really understand either, but at least he… he- I don’t know.”
“It’s alright, Dongsung,” Seoyoung says, couch creaking when she shifts. “Don’t push yourself too hard. Take things as they come. It’s one day at a time, darling.”
Dongsung exhales a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “I just miss him.”
“Do you still wish you could touch him?” Seoyoung asks, and Dongsung knows she’s reading over session reports from months ago, asking him things for clarification, seeing if anything has changed. Seeing if Dongsung is getting better.
“Yes.”
--
“You got a haircut,” Seoyoung observes, a positive lilt to her voice.
Dongsung smiles, fingertips teasing his now-short hair, cropped close and dyed black again. “Yeah. I haven’t cut it this short since way before I joined the sect, I figured it’d be a good change.”
Seoyoung nods in agreement. “Yes, it is. It looks good on you.”
“Oh, before I forget, look.” Dongsung holds out his hand to Seoyoung, and Seoyoung leans over so she can see what he’s referring to- a ring, sitting snugly on his index finger, with a tarnished band and inlaid with sparkling opals.
“How pretty,” Seoyoung marvels, taking Dongsung’s hand in hers gently, so she can turn the ring towards the sunlight.
“Sangwon gave me a box of things he didn’t want from the sect house. This was one of the things in there.” Dongsung rubs his thumb across the ring once Seoyoung relinquishes his hand, sighing. “It was one of Sehyuk’s rings. He wore it a lot in the first few months I was there, but by the time the sect dissolved, he never wore it. I don’t know why.”
“Ooo, I see. Though, Dongsung, are you sure it’s a good idea to keep things of his?” Seoyoung’s voice turns up in concern, a frown on her face. “It may end up causing more harm than good.”
“I… I remember holding his hand and feeling his ring against my hand.” Dongsung says quietly, staring down at the stones shining around his finger. “It’s one of the only things I do remember. You know, how most things I remember from those days are just feelings, general ideas, that sort of thing? I remember this perfectly.” Dongsung looks to Seoyoung, pausing for a few moments. “So I wanted to keep it.”
Seoyoung nods, writing this information down in her notebook. “Alright, I understand. Let me know if you remember anything else like that, okay?”
Dongsung nods. Truth be told, he already remembers lots of things similar to that, and all of them relate to Sehyuk. However, some of them are things he doesn’t want Seoyoung to know, things he clings to in an attempt to bandage wounds and bridge gaps that they aren’t quite qualified to bandage and bridge. It’s better than nothing.
--
“Dongsung, your therapist is kind of hot.”
“Sanggyun, do you forget that you’re married?”
Sanggyun’s cheeks flare and he pushes at Dongsung’s shoulder. “Not like that, not like- not like I think she’s hot, she’s just- she is.”
Dongsung nods. “Mmhm. Sure, okay.”
“No, Dongsung, listen. I am, I am gay. I am the gayest. I-” Sanggyun spots Yoonchul coming into the room, holding a mug of coffee in his hand. “Look! There, there he is, that’s my husband, right there. Dongsung look.”
Dongsung does look, taking in Yoonchul’s bewildered expression. “I think you may be alarming your husband, Sanggyun.”
“Yes, definitely,” Yoonchul concurs as he sits down on the couch opposite them, still staring at Sanggyun with a strange expression on his face.
“No! No, Yoonchul! You agree Dr. Lee is kind of hot, right?” Sanggyun asks, something like desperation sinking into his voice.
Yoonchul shrugs with one shoulder, taking a sip of his coffee. “I don’t know, she’s not really my type.”
“Your type is sharp cheekbones and Cheeto fingers, right?” Dongsung supplies, and Yoonchul nods with a grin.
