"So you are telling me that you have been living in this 'time loop' for years and years now", Haein inquired as we sat on a bench in the plaza in front of the Yongsan Shopping Mall.
"Yes", I've just poured my heart out telling (mostly) the whole story and it seemed she was buying into it.
"And things always repeat the same way?"
"Yes"
"The Hell Beast also always appears on November 9th?"
"Exactly. I tried everything I could to warn people, but nobody ever believed me"
"What good would it do though, if people knew? Is it something that you can stop with ANYTHING anyway?"
Of course, I thought of that.
"Maybe military weapons could do something. I don't know, shoot it, bomb it, whatever they do to people already anyway"
"If it's such a supernatural creature those conventional attacks may not be effective"
"If you never try you will never know"
"You are right"
In the short pause, I could sense that there was something Haein wanted to ask but was debating with herself inside whether to ask me now.
"It's OK. Ask me anything. I will tell you everything I know"
"Well… this is more of a personal question. I don't know if it's okay for me to know or ask"
That made my heart skip a beat. Yes, there can only be one personal question anybody would ask in this situation - 'What happens to me?'
And this is the only question I would not be prepared to tell the whole truth about.
"But I wouldn't ask. I don't think it's right for me to know my own destiny. That probably messes with any plans we might come up with"
I was relieved and curious.
"Plans?"
"Now, tell me. Do you want to save the world?"
"Yes. Now, I do"
"I have some very basic ideas, but it will be hard"
"I'm prepared for anything. I'm prepared to die. Fuck that, actually, I'll be HAPPY to die"
"You must have suffered so much"
"I… did…"
"Right. This might all sound just common sense, but I think this is how we should get started"
"We?"
"Yes, it will be hard for you to do it alone"
"But… when you 'die' and restart on October 1st, you won't remember anything"
"You are right. I won't remember this conversation at all"
"Then how are 'we' supposed to do this together?"
"I believe you are not telling me the whole truth. I'll just trust that you have your reasons for it. But I'm sure this is not the first time YOU met me"
My silence was a certain confirmation for her.
"In your next 'cycle', reach out to me again. I won't remember anything we plan or do in this cycle, but I will believe in what you say. You may have to tell me the whole story again, but I will still believe you because I will recognize you as someone special"
"You think… you will?"
"Try me"
It's not like I had any other options.
"So what do we do now?"
"We plan and prepare for the next 40 days. When, not if, we don't succeed the first time, all the effort will be in vain and we will all die. The world will reset, but YOU will be older and wiser. You find me again and we continue. Tell me what we did and how they turned out. We will try to think together how to do things differently that might lead to different results"
"We just repeat that until it works?"
"That's pretty much it"
We sat in silence for a good few minutes.
Right. There were no other options. We could be doing this for the next thousand cycles and still not get anywhere close to success. We will need to identify the Beast's weakness. We will need to find out how that weakness can be targeted and attacked. And we will need to convince others to support us in this fight. I never thought about it this way, but 40 days was way too short to achieve anything of the sort.
"I'm not so confident, to be honest", I confessed.
"You don't need to be confident now. It's something that will build up over time"
"It hasn't built up for past god knows how many years"
"Maybe because you were all alone for all those years"
That made me feel like crying again.
The loneliness I had to endure in the world that always forgot about me every time it reset…
"But… even if we came up with a perfect plan that would work…", I took in a deep breath, "we will always only have 40 days to get others onboard"
Haein was listening attentively.
"Let's say we find out that the Hell Beast can be destroyed with a missile landing on its eye or whatever. Even if we knew all that, we'd only have 40 days to convince the government about the upcoming apocalypse. Making them take us seriously and actually have them give orders to the military to be on stand-by… like… to launch an attack as soon as the Beast appears…that will be as hard as trying to convince the country to declare war on another country - in 40 frigging days"
"Of course, it won't be easy. Do we have any other alternative though? I feel horrible that this has been, and is happening to you, but we have unlimited time to achieve this"
Yes, I will be the one who goes through it for god knows how many cycles - years - but I did appreciate her use of 'we'. It was something that I missed and longed for all this time.
"I have to tell you though… I'm just a NEET. I have no special abilities. I… just don't know how I can pull this off even with unlimited time"
Haein then held both hands of mine and gave them a firm squeeze.
"Trust in yourself, Yui, because I do"
Her trust was clearly misplaced, and I shudder to think how she would feel about everything if she knew what happened between us in the 'past' that she does not remember.
What did she see in her dream about me though?
It was probably better not to ask, and better not to hear the answers.