#verryy interesting concept anon

[jimlingss]

hi Kina! may I make a request for a sort of sci-fi au? yn dies but when she opens her eyes, some unfamiliar yet familiar dude takes off his vr goggles and goes “hEy hOw wAs iT?” maybe Joon? or JK? I don’t really mind

↳ Awaken Again

2k || 50% Fluff, 50% Angst || Kim Namjoon

You die with some regrets.

But mostly without. It was a rather unremarkable, mundane life but a happy one where you feel general satisfaction for the choices and decisions you made. Above all, you feel tired. Oh so tired. You’re ready to sleep for a long while. Perhaps forever.

So you surrender to the darkness. Not sure what’s next.

……………………

Suddenly, there’s a burst of light.

It floods your vision, stirring your senses, and a comfortable weight around your head that you didn’t know was there is lifted. A gasp is stolen from your lips, filling your lungs and you realize you’re alive again. It’s hard to see, for your vision to adjust as your lashes flutter, and you squint.

But it eventually does adjust and you see again. Namely, you discover a certain man with sparkling irises and a dimpled smile in front of you.

“Hey.” His voice is deep, soft. It ignites an emotion stowed deep in your heart. “How was it?”

Your mouth draws open and your feeble voice croaks out, “Namjoon?” 

His smile fades as he searches your expression and you fall out of the chair, frantically grabbing onto the sleeves of his white lab coat. You pull him into a hug and cry out, “Oh my god, Namjoon!” 

He’s stiff against your body, not returning your embrace, but you don’t pay any mind. You’re too overwhelmed from seeing him again. “Is-Is this heaven?” you ask while shutting your eyes and savouring the moment. 

“What? No.” He looks over his shoulder and you don’t know where to.

You pull away but keep him in your reach, your hands curled into his clothes. “But if this isn’t heaven, then how is this possible?”

Namjoon’s hands wrap around your shoulders and he takes a step back, lowering his height slightly to have his eyes connect to yours. “Y/N, do you know where you are?”

“What?”

“You’ve woken up to reality,” he enunciates gingerly and carefully. “You were just in a VR simulation for the past few years. We’ve been watching you.”

You don’t understand. It doesn’t make any sense. 

He’s scaring you. “What are you talking about? What’s going on, Joon?”

Namjoon leans back and looks towards the glass window. “Subject two has no recollection of past memories and no grasp of reality,” he deadpans in a monotone. “Will need monitoring for further investigation of potential symptoms and ramifications of simulation 230616.”

He turns back to you, a large distance kept between your bodies. As if you were strangers to each other. He merely says, “Everything will be okay.”

It does little to reassure you. And the Namjoon that you’re familiar with is nothing but reassuring.

Instead of dying, instead of surrendering to the darkness, you’ve been placed in a room with stark white floors, walls, a bed and a tinted window. Fluorescent lights burn your lids and you feel frightened, but it’s coming back to you. Slowly.

You cradle yourself, murmuring, “I am Y/N L/N.” 

They said you were placed in a simulation. “I am twenty eight.” The ninety years you lived wasn’t real. 

“I am a software engineer and scientist at Realtion.” 

You recall some parts as if they were distant memories of your childhood. Blurred. Faint. But even then, they’re merely fragments of a whole mirror, puzzles of a much larger piece. You remember being excited after you were picked to be one of the first to test the simulation. You remember getting into the chair, remembering placing the headset over your head and covering your eyes. You remember the countdown of a smooth, dulcet voice — the same one that had greeted you when it was all over.

The door opens and you jolt.

The person that enters is the same one you’ve been thinking about. 

Namjoon ducks his head to get in. “I don’t know why they make these goddamn doors so small.”

You smile unintentionally. But it’s easy to relax when it’s him.

“I hope I wasn’t interrupting,” he says.

“Interrupting what? I’m being monitored like a lab rat. There’s nothing for you to interrupt.” To prove your point, you open your arms to your surroundings. It’s pretty obvious what they think about you considering the walls and floor are plush. This isn’t any different from a padded cell save for the few furniture pieces.

Namjoon shuts the door and gives you an incredulous expression. “Don’t be like that. They’re just worried.”

“Of my psychological state? Yeah.” You lean against the wall, seated on your bed. “Might be normal though considering I thought that simulation was my reality and I barely remember anything of my actual reality.”

He snorts. “The simulation has a few kinks, but we can iron it out. It might be a bit too immersive.”

You deadpan, “You think?”

Namjoon grins and takes a seat on the uncomfortable white chair by the desk. “It’s good to see you returning to yourself. Everyone’s missed you, Y/N.”

You hum a low note, looking away. 

It’s hard to cope and you’re still traumatizing on multiple levels, but that doesn’t mean your entire personality will suddenly up and vanish. If anything, you know you’re being rather snippy towards everyone — that you’re taking out your anger on them even though it’s unwarranted. It’s not like they were the ones who forced you to step into the simulation. It’s not like they knew this would happen.

But that doesn’t mean you aren’t upset.

Everything you lived for, everything you loved, your entire life — it’s been a lie. A virtual reality.

“Why are you here?” you ask after the silence is prolonged.

“I just wanted to check up on you.”

You pause. “How many.”

“How many…?”

You look back at him, gaze meeting his. “How many people were watching?”

Namjoon hesitates, but he answers you. “Just three. Me, Jimin and Hoseok.”

A scoff emits from your throat and you roll your eyes. You can’t believe all of the private moments in your life were being observed and recorded by others the entire time. You really were a lab rat and you still are.

“It’s confidential, Y/N,” Namjoon says. “You know that. Nothing unnecessary will be written in the final report.”

“It’s still intrusive,” you spit and soften, knees pressed against your chest as if physically curling into yourself is all the protection you have left. “It’s just….it’s just hard to cope with.”

“I know,” he murmurs gently.

“I don’t think you do,” you bite back. “I lived this entire life, this full life and to know everything was just a figment of my imagination, that nothing was real, that we—” You interrupt yourself. “Never mind.”

You know if you get too upset and your blood pressure spikes, a whole team might run in. Or maybe they already know Namjoon’s in here with you.

“You don’t need to worry about it,” he pipes up, reassuring but in the moment you want it least. “The world you were in, it was constructed by your subconscious. You couldn’t control it. And relationships are built on the people who are close to you.”

There’s a moment of quiet. You hope he doesn’t say it, but he does—

“So it’s only natural that we ended up married and with kids and all that.”

You scoff. 

There’s an array of emotions that overwhelm you. Hurt that Namjoon could brush off sixty years of your marriage like that and what was so entirely real to you. Mortified that others saw how your subconscious built an intimate relationship with a colleague of yours. Confused at what you feel, how you yearn for the man across the room who you once called your dear husband— but it wasn’t real. It wasn’t real.

So these feelings aren’t real.

Right? 

“If it’s only natural, then how come we’re not together in this ‘reality’.” It’s a bold question, but there’s no point in reserving yourself. You’ve already lived ninety years, so you know what kind of regrets are born in the face of hesitation and miscommunication. Confrontation is easy after so much experience. “You saw everything, didn’t you? You watched it all?”

Namjoon is quiet. “I did.”

“Then what do you think?”

You want to ask him how he felt about it. If he viewed that life with cold eyes and an impassive mind or if he possibly felt something, even as a bystander. 

“Was our relationship really just a wild part of my subconscious, Namjoon?”

The hurt you feel burrows deeper when he turns away from you in an extended silence. Your lips part, about to tell him to go away, so you don’t confuse the simulation with reality. But he beats you to the punch—

“It was my fault,” Namjoon murmurs and your head whips up to him. Your gazes connect. “That night before you were going into the simulation, I said something I shouldn’t have.” 

“What do you mean?”

“I….I knew you were going into the simulation for two years, so I thought I’d take my chance and if the outcome was bad, I would’ve been gone by then. I was an idiot. I didn’t know this would happen, that it would affect your subconscious so much.”

You slide off your bed, brows furrowed. “What did you say to me?”

Silence.

You come closer to him, raising your voice— “What did you tell me, Namjoon?!”

“I said I couldn’t stop thinking about you!” Namjoon’s eyes are darkened with regret, burning with embarrassment and shame. “We went out for drinks and I drank too much and I told you that if you wanted me to, I would wait for you. Until this was done.” He pulls a hand through the blonde strands of his hair, and he gets up from his spot. “There’s no point. You don’t remember it.”

But you grab him before he leaves, clutching the sleeve of his white lab coat. “What did I say?”

Desperation aches deep within you. A curiosity that eats at your brain.

Namjoon looks back at you and relays the memories you don’t have. “You said I shouldn’t wait for you, but if things don’t change and the timing is right, you’ll give your answer when you get back.”

Your breath hitches in your throat. Namjoon searches your expression. It’s an intimate moment without interruption where you don’t care who might be watching or if there’s someone on the other side of the window. It feels like there’s just you and Namjoon. All that really matters.

Yet he forces you to let go of him. “I don’t want you to get confused with the simulation and reality.”

“Does it matter if it was real or not? What I feel is real. What I feel for you is real,” you spit as your annoyance surges. “Everyone keeps telling me what’s real or fake but no one wants to acknowledge that my experiences were real to me! Isn’t that the point of the simulation?!”

Namjoon’s eyes have widened. Your breathing is ragged, chest falling and rising. “I spent sixty years with you, Namjoon! We grew old together. And do you know what my first thought was when I saw you again?” You laugh bitterly. “‘Thank god he’s here, I can be with him again’.”

There are tears in your eye, welling up and blurring your vision. 

Namjoon doesn’t utter a single word. He doesn’t make any excuses, any rebuttals, and doesn’t argue. He stops invalidating what you feel and instead closes the distance and embraces you.

His arms wrap around your shoulders and you lean into him, savouring it and shutting your eyes.

You know Namjoon’s worries have merit to it, that the others will think the same as he does. They’ll think you’re confusing the simulation with reality, that your ability to differentiate has weakened, that your feelings were manifested and nurtured by the simulation. They’ll think this isn’t real. 

But time will tell.

You’ve already stood the test of time with Namjoon once. You have a feeling, a second time won’t be difficult.