Chapter Text
Kim Dokja was unsure of what to say. Well, he might as well dig himself deeper into the lie.
“I also think I recognise you from online. You’ve worked with Minosoft on games before, right? I’m a bit of a fan.” He waited for a response that never came.
Lee Gilyoung and the other girl looked at each other. Dokja realised that she must be Yoo Mia, Yoo Joonghyuk’s little sister.
“Is he your dad?” Yoo Mia asked Lee Gilyoung bluntly.
“What!?”
Both Lee Gilyoung and Kim Dokja scrambled to assure her that he was not in fact Lee Gilyoung’s absent father and was just a friend of the family.
“Hyung helped look after Mum when she was sick!” Lee Gilyoung piped up. “He’s really nice but a bit of a loser.”
Kim Dokja’s mouth hung open. The nerve of that boy. In front of his soulmate as well. Shit. His soulmate. He cringed internally and turned to Yoo Joonghyuk.
He had to find a way to salvage his reputation with this man. To make himself so unremarkable and bland that Yoo Joonghyuk would forget every detail about him.
Because that was definitely what Kim Dokja wanted.
“So, Yoo Joonghyuk-ssi.” Dokja settled for a polite tone that hopefully implied that he was not a creepy stalker but merely a fellow upstanding citizen. “I also happen to be a fan of video games. Have you played any good ones lately?”
Somehow Yoo Joonghyuk’s frown became even deeper.
“No.”
Kim Dokja tried to laugh. It came out shrill and high pitched. Halfway through he tried to cover it up by switching to a violent coughing fit.”
To seal the performance, Kim Dokja sniffed and wiped his nose with his hand. “Hayfever”, he said with a shrug. There. That was super nonchalant.
The other three were staring at him now, Yoo Joonghyuk with open disgust in his eyes. Lee Gilyoung just looked confused.
Well that had gone well.
The wind rushed forwards again and Kim Dokja hunched over, wrapping his thin coat around himself more tightly.
Yoo Mia tugged on Yoo Joonghyuk’s jacket. “Can we go home soon. I’m cold.”
Yoo Joongyuk looked down at her. “We have to wait until Gilyoung is inside. We can’t leave him on his own.”
“Can’t that Ahjussi just let us in if he lives here?”
All eyes turned to Kim Dokja.
Shit. He scrambled to get the key and open the gate, all the while cursing at himself. He should have realised that was why they had been waiting outside. There was no way that he had avoided suspicion.
The cold weather had made his fingers stiff, and Kim Dokja fumbled with the key in the lock. Behind him, he could sense Yoo Joonghyuk’s growing impatience. Finally, the lock clicked and the gate swung open.
“I’ll bring Gilyoung-ah upstairs!” Kim Dokja said brightly. “So you two can get going.”
“No.” Yoo Joonghyuk replied immediately, his tone dark.
Why couldn’t this sunfish just leave?
As they walked up the cramped stairwell, Kim Dokja thought he could hear Yoo Joonghyuk muttering under his breath. Something about ‘creepy bastards’ and ‘crazy fans’ and ‘poor kids’.
Kim Dokja abruptly stopped in his tracks, causing Lee Gilyoung to slam into his back.
“Sorry Ahjussi.” Lee Gilyoung rubbed his nose, which was slightly red from where it had hit Kim Dokja.
He crouched down to fuss over Lee Gilyoung’s injury, but internally, Kim Dokja was screaming.
Yoo Joonghyuk thought he was a perv praying on little children! Not only that, he also thought that Kim Dokja was some kind of obsessed superfan who couldn’t control himself around his idols.
He wanted to bash his forehead against the wall. Instead, he patted Lee Gilyoung’s head and took the boy’s hand as they ran to catch up with the other two.
Yoo Joonghyuk shot them a passive look. When they finally arrived at Lee Gilyoung’s apartment, Lee Yoona invited the whole group of them in to warm up before they left. Immediately, Yoo Joonghyuk pulled her aside. Kim Dokja groaned internally. He couldn’t hear their conversation from across the room, but he knew what would be discussed.
He was surprised to hear Lee Yoona’s peal of laughter. She was bent over, and wiping tears away from her lives. Yoo Joonghyuk just stood there, motionless, eyes wide. She said something to him again, and Kim Dokja thought he saw the faintest trace of a smile on Yoo Joonghyuk’s face. The type of smile that could only be detected by someone who had known him, or at least watched him, for years.
Kim Dokja didn’t like that he was privy to those emotions. It was like he had the keys to a safe that wasn’t his own. It felt wrong to know someone that intimately and yet have never had a proper conversation with them. He turned away, momentarily disgusted with himself.
Yoo Joonghyuk brushed past him, his little sister in tow. He turned to face Kim Dokja.
“Thank you for letting us in.” Then he left out of the door.
Kim Dokja didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Yoo Joonghyuk wasn’t looking at him with disgust anymore, but with the same ambivalent expression as earlier. Kim Dokja was a background character once more.
Lee Yoona tapped him on the shoulder.
“Dokja-ssi.” Her body shook with laughter. “He thought you were trying to kidnap Gilyoung-ah.” She burst out into laughter again.
Dokja cracked a smile as well. “I think he gained the impression that I was some kind of stalker.”
“Yup. He-“ she broke off, unable to contain her giggles. “He thought you were some kind of stalker as well. He was quite worried.”
Great. His soulmate thought he was a stalking creep.
Dokja stayed for a while longer. Lee Yoona made him laugh a lot. She seemed to have a knack for people, and like Yoo Sangah seemed to like talking to them as well. When he finally crossed the hallway back into his home, he collapsed onto his bed. How had he managed to avoid Yoo Joonghyuk for his entire life only two meetings him now twice in one week.
He felt the insistent scratching on his arm. His stomach dropped. Since the previous evening, Yoo Joonghyuk hadn’t asked any more questions. But he had refreshed the old message, so that it still stood out in bold, black ink, despite Kim Dokja’s shower that morning.
The writing now consisted of Yoo-Joonghyuk’s normal notes; something about a recipe for dinner. It sounded better than whatever Kim Dokja was having for his own.
He felt unsettled. Yoo Joonghyuk hadn’t made another move; something unlike the the character that Kim Dokja thought he knew. What was going on in that man’s head?
———————————
Oh well. That was it. Kim Dokja surveyed his now empty desk. He hadn’t really brought much to decorate, meaning there wasn’t much that he had to clean out. There was always a bright side. As he walked out holding his boxes, no one stopped him to say goodbye. He was just another temporary worker who was leaving; another background character. Kim Dokja wondered if anyone would even notice he was gone.
Except for Yoo Sangah, he thought with a smile. She had been full of righteous anger when she had heard his contract hadn’t been renewed. Then she looked at him with something that could almost be called jealousy.
“At least you’ve got out of this place.” she said.
Maybe Yoo Sangah’s life wasn’t perfect after all.
Regardless, to get over his sorrow at his untimely dismissal, he had called up Han Sooyoung, his oldest and (not that he would ever tell her) dearest friend, to get drunk at some bar. They had met at uni, after being assigned to work on the same group project.
It was only a few months into their friendship that they realised Han Sooyoung was the author of Kim Dokja’s favourite webnovel, Three Ways To Survive In A Ruined World; the one that she had written when she first started as a emotional teenager. The one that had only one reader. One dedicated reader who saw it through to the end.
Kim Dokja had been the one to encourage her to rewrite it; thought the poor writing of the original had put many people off, the story was something incredible. It had been what kept Kim Dokja hooked for years. Despite the rough writing, Han Sooyoung’s talent shone through even then.
Kim Dokja felt a kinship with that story. It was what gave him a reason to keep living as he spent those long, lonely weeks in hospital after his-. Kim Dokja shook his head. He didn’t want to think about that right now.
The rewritten story had been an immense success; in the years following the release of the original, Han Sooyoung’s skills had improved enormously. Her writing was beautiful; descriptive without being excessive, with the ability to cut straight to the heart of every reader. She had built up a large fan base with her other novels. But there was still one story she longed to write.
Despite her now immensely busy schedule, as she had emphasised to him on the phone, she still could squeeze Kim Dokja in.
“Only because I have too.” She had said, feigning a look of annoyance.
Kim Dokja slapped her arm.
He had also ended up inviting Yoo Sangah too; she was his closest friend other than Han Sooyoung.
That evening, he headed to the bar where they were gong to meet. It was a bit of a tradition for him and Han Sooyoung to go there; on the tattered red sofas and under the dim buzzing light, Han Sooyoung and Kim Dokja had gotten drunk together more times then he could remember, spilled their messy emotions as two young adults growing up without support, and (one fateful evening) shared a kiss that had made both of them immediately gag after. They realised pretty quickly that despite their closeness, they were just friends.
Best friends.
Outside the door, Kim Dokja bumped into Yoo Sangah.
“Hello Dokja-ssi!” She pulled him into a hug. “I’m sorry about your job but at least you don’t have to work for a shitty company anymore.”
Kim Dokja laughed. “Let’s go inside. It’s getting cold.”
The bar was warm, and Dokja pulled his jacket off as he searched for Han Sooyoung in the crowded room. He spotted her sat in a corner booth, and dragged Yoo Sangah over.
“Sooyoung. You look worse than ever.” He sat across from her.
Han Sooyoung glared. “You’re one to talk. You look like a steamed dumpling your face is so floppy.” She paused, then smirked. “And I know I look gorgeous right now so don’t even try to lie.”
“Hmm.” Dokja frowned a bit and leaned closer, pretending to study her face. “Really… I don’t see it.”
Han Sooyoung thrust her hand out as if to slap him, a shot him a look that would have made anyone else fear for their lives.
Yoo Sangah coughed, and the squabbling friends attention turned to her.
“Hello! I’m Yoo Sangah. I worked with Dokja-ssi back at Minosoft. What’s your name?”
Han Sooyoung’s jaw dropped. For a good while, the three just sat there, Han Sooyoung with her mouth hanging wide open and staring, Yoo Sangah with a smile frozen on her face. Kim Dokja shuddered. The awkwardness was almost palpable.
Yoo Sangah breathed through her smile. “Is there something wrong?”
Han Sooyoung was still silent, just staring.
Kim Dokja reached over and, not gently, pushed her jaw up to her mouth was closed. He laughed awkwardly.
“Sangah-ssi, I’m sorry for my friend. She’s quite strange a lot of the time. Her name is Han Sooyoung. She’s about our age.”
Now it was Yoo Sangah’s turn to look shocked.
Ok. Kim Dokja was missing something here.
“Sooyoung?” Yoo Sangah asked tentatively.
Han Sooyoung took a deep breath. “Sangah. It’s you, isn’t it?”
Dokja looked between the two. He recognised something in both their eyes. It was the same expression he had when he thought of Yoo Joonghyuk.
“You’re soulmates.”
Yoo Sangah nodded without taking her eyes of Han Sooyoung. “Yes.”
Kim Dokja slammed his arms on the table and stood up. “Well, I’m going to go to the bathroom, so you two can- eh, talk?” Without saying anything else he squished himself through the gap between Yoo Sangah and the table and escaped to the men’s room.
He sat in a cubicle. Damn. He felt guilty. More than potentially anyone else, Dokja understood how awkward soulmate connections could be, and how important it was for meetings to be on your own terms.
Sharing that intimate of a connection with someone was scary. It wasn’t a feeling as much as a state of being. Whenever Kim Dokja saw Yoo Joonghyuk, on billboards or streams, he felt drawn to the other man. Like he couldn’t look away. As if there was nothing more important than staring at his face to decipher exactly what emotions Yoo Joonghyuk was feeling.
It wasn’t a sudden plunge though; otherwise Yoo Joonghyuk might have realised in their surprise meetings who he was. It was just a desire within you to learn more about this person.
Kim Dokja’s worst fear was for Yoo Joonghyuk to look at him in the same was he looked at the taller man. To be known like that would only hurt the both of them.
For soulmates who hadn’t yet decided what they would be to each other, talking face to face was hard. Society’s pressure to define everything made things awkward; Kim Dokja had met many soulmate couples in uni who had later broken up, realising they were better as friends.
Yoo Sangah had been about to meet her soulmate, which was a big emotional step for her. Now that had been rushed.
Kim Dokja’s worst fear checked his watch. He would give them a bit more time to sort things out before he returned. He got out his phone and opened a new webnovel.
20 minutes later, he stumbled out of the bathroom back into the busy room, pulsing with bodies and the smell of liquor. Kim Dokja’s legs had cramped up from sitting in the stall for so long.
Returning to the table, he was relieved to see the two of them looked happy. More than happy actually. They were staring at each other whilst laughing, and Han Sooyoung had her hand on Yoo Sangah’s arm.
They had moved to sit next to each other, Kim Dokja realised with a chuckle. He was so going to tease Han Sooyoung about this.
As he slid into the booth, she pointed an accusing finger at him.
“What took you so long? Did you get lost in the big-scary bar? Or…” she wiggled her eyebrows. “Did you find a big strong da-“
Kim Dokja’s hand shot out across the table to cover her mouth. He smiled serenely at Yoo Sangah.
“You can run now if you want. I’ll stop her.” he said with a serious expression.
Yoo Sangah laughed. “I won’t run. But do shut up.” she said to Sooyoung.
Kim Dokja withdrew his hand.
“Right. So who’s ready to get pissed?”
Han Sooyoung shuffled in her seat. “Right. Before that. I had an idea.”
Kim Dokja raised an eyebrow.
“Three Ways is being adapted into a film. But the schedule is looking really tight. It’s a lot of work and I might not be able to look at everything. Especially after, you know, Blossoming Swords, I’m worried about what they’ll do with the story.”
Another of Han Sooyoung’s novels had been picked up for a TV drama. But the whole thing had been a nightmare. She had little to know input, and by the time she was shown any of the plans relating to it, the story had morphed into something completely different. And she hadn’t been able to stop it.
The show did terribly; despite a good performance from the cast, everything about it was wrong. Kim Dokja knew that it still haunted her to this day. Her precious writing, ruined.
“So.” Hang Sooyoung looked Kim Dokja dead in the eye. “I want you on set. For all the decisions. In all the rooms. You’d work with the director; she’s already agreed to have an advisor with her.”
Kim Dokja scratched the back of his neck. “Sooyoung, I don’t think I’m cut out for the movie industry. Surely there’s someone more professional?”
Han Sooyoung shook her head. “No. You’re the only one I trust. Out of all the people in the world, you understand this story the best. You love it even more than I do.”
Kim Dokja grimaced. It was true though.
“I think this is a really good idea.” Yoo Sangah cut in.
The two women high-fived.
“But-“ Dokja started.
“Look. You edited this book. You’ve read both versions. You know it inside and out. There is no one in the world who understands it as well as you. This means a lot to me. I’m asking you for this as… as a friend.”
Han Sooyoung calling me a friend? She must be desperate.
“I’ll think about it. But-“ he said, as Han Sooyoung started cheering. “I want lots of money. And I want a shoutout in the credits of the film. Near the beginning.”
“Deal.”
Yoo Sangah clapped her hands. “Right. I think it’s time we have something to drink.”
———————————
Kim Dokja awoke the next morning with a splitting headache between his temples. Blearily, he tried to think back to the previous night. The last he remembered was Han Sooyoung standing on the bar, beer bottle in hand, reciting some child’s nursery rhyme like it was an ancient ritual. Yoo Sangah had been clapping and cheering, like it was the finals of the World Cup.
He looked around the room. He was lying on the floor, he realised, with his blanket and pillow. On the bed lay Yoo Sangah and Han Sooyoung, curled up together. Han Sooyoung was basically strangling the other women; she had wrapped her legs around Yoo Sangah’s, and buried her face in her neck.
Kim Dokja chucked and took a photo. He was definitely going to tease Han Sooyoung about this later.
He was brushing his teeth when he saw it. His shirt sleeve had ridden up his arm. Below Yoo Joonghyuk’s message, in messily scrawled letters, there was writing.
‘Yes.’
And then next to that, in neat block capital letters:
‘WHERE ARE YOU’
‘WHAT HAPPENED’
‘CAN WE TALK?’
SHIT.
Kim Dokja pulled up his other sleeve. Similar questions were written there as well, in slightly messier handwriting. All down his arms. Kim Dokja put his head in his hands.
How would he get out of this?