Chapter Text
It happened one day in the middle of the break between scenarios. For 48 hours, all the channels broadcasting Kim Dokja Company's building were offline. The constellations threw tantrums as usual, but it was no use. By the time this was over, no one would remember what happened, save for Kim Dokja.
[Hidden Scenario “Secret Desire” is currently underway.]
[Secret Desire]
Hold out against your deepest, most shameful desires or risk losing yourself to regrets
Category: Hidden
Difficulty:???
Time Limit: 7 hours
Rewards: 600,000 coins
Failure: All who lose to their desires will lose their memories of the event - possible danger to your companions - ???
In that short time, everything had gone to hell.
Kim Dokja Company’s building was silent, sleeping like the destroyed Seoul outside the window. In the room closest to the top, the only person awake in the whole city stood in front of the mirror, looking at the reflection staring back.
Kim Dokja hadn’t lost his mind to his desires, but he might as well have.
Before everything started, he’d thought that their whole group would easily pull through. The Yoo Jonghyuk he knew had never failed this scenario when he encountered it in the 76 and 354 turns, and he’d trusted the fourth wall to keep the deepest desires of Kim Dokja shackled in the dark, right where they belonged. Or he had trusted it, until Yoo Jonghyuk had pinned him to the floor and kissed him like his life depended on it.
Kim Dokja must have projected his own wish onto Yoo Jonghyuk. That was the only reason he could think of for the way the other man had acted. He must’ve been out of his mind, possibly hallucinating and sleep walking as well, to even touch Kim Dokja like that.
Kim Dokja looked at his skinny body in the mirror and all the bite marks and red spots scattered on it and wondered how disgusted Yoo Jonghyuk would feel if he could remember even one minute of it. Not that he would. All those who failed the scenario would be unconscious for 48 hours (2 hours now, he supposed) before waking up with no memories. Perhaps the failure penalty of this scenario was a blessing in disguise.
Whatever it was, this whole thing would end here and be forgotten.
(as the fourth wall liked to say, Kim Dokja was a fool.)
[Kim Dokja was vomiting his guts up.]
“Shut up.”
[Kim Dokja barely held himself up, clutching his stomach, and began to-]
“I said shut up. I can tell that by myself.”
[Kim Dokja was being extra cranky.]
Kim Dokja ignored the wall.
In the past few days, he’d been feeling sick everyday. It had gotten to such an extent that he almost missed one of the scenarios taking place in the morning. He had spent almost half of the coins he got from that stupid ‘secret desire’ scenario three weeks ago on potions and pills to cure the nausea, but the expensive stuff in the dokkaebi bag were as useless as an over-the-counter digestive pill found in the back of the cupboard.
Finally done with throwing up every single organ in his stomach, Kim Dokja got to his feet and washed his face, getting ready to head out. Another scenario would start in half an hour and he didn’t have much time.
“Look who decided to finally show up.” Han Sooyoung was the first to greet him when he stepped out of the door of the company and into the open street. Actually, she was the only one.
“Where is everyone else?”
“You were late so Yoo Jonghyuk took them and left already. Being the gracious person that I am, I waited behind for you. Don’t you want to thank me?”
Dokja gave her a flat look. “He left you behind didn’t he?”
“Yeah.”
They started running towards the main street. They had just took a turn when Kim Dokja felt a sudden sense of danger. He shoved Han Sooyoung aside just as an object flew through where she was a second ago, blazing past like a shooting star. It was an arrow burning with a strange purple color.
“Elemental Elves!”
“Goddamn, why those bastards-”
They took cover behind an overturned car, a symbol of what seoul had once used to be. Kim Dokja peeked out from behind their shield and saw a tall creature hopping on a telephone pole on the other side of the street. It was similar to a slender human and about three meters tall. His silky black hair flew in the wall behind him, the ends lit on violet fire. The elf looked at Kim Dokja and gave him a grin full of sharp teeth.
Kim Dokja ducked back behind their cover. “He’s at least as strong as a level 1 beast.”
“Already? What are everyone else doing, letting a level one get here?” Han Sooyoung clicked her tongue, a look of annoyance on her face, “and here I was, thinking I can laze around if I lag behind a bit. Tch.”
“I thought you said you were waiting for me?”
“Same thing. Whatever, let’s just deal with it.”
A huge burst of energy exploded out of Han Sooyoung’s small frame, and the statue of her stories began to flood the street as she let her power show. He turned back to the elf and let his stories begin their storytelling as well.
[The story ‘king of a kingless world’ has begun its storytelling.]
[the story ‘Demon world’s spring’ has begun its storytelling.]
[the story ‘Demon King of Salvation’ has begun its storytelling.]
It was then that Kim Dokja heard an unfamiliar announcement.
[the story ‘New Life’ has started.]
[A new life is taking shape inside you!]
Kim Dokja’s heart plummeted to the ground.
There was a lump on Kim Dokja’s bed, made out of trembling feathers and blankets. It was shivering so hard it was like it was caught in a snowstorm. Inside the lump, Kim Dokja curled into himself, hands holding something he’d purchased out of the dokkaebi bag. It was something he’d never thought he’d need in his life.
The voice of the system echoed again as he stared at the test result
[A New Life is taking shape inside you!]
Kim Dokja curled further into himself.
He wrapped his wings around himself, desperately seeking some warmth. His body felt cold to the core, like his bones had been replaced by ice sticks. Kim Dokja felt, completely and thoroughly, terrified.
He’d heard that the birth of children is a happy thing, but at the moment he couldn’t feel anything other than pure terror. It was as if he’d lost every other emotion a human was capable of and exchanged all of them for fear.
What was he supposed to do now?
This was a ruined world and Kim Dokja was barely surviving by himself. He got his bones shattered and his flesh ripped apart in almost every fight, and he had his private life displayed on screens like some sort of cheap movie. What was he supposed to do with a ‘New Life’ in such a place, how was he supposed to save it?
The world of constellations and scenarios was no place for a child.
“Hyung!!!” The door opened, and two small figures raced into the room and straight at Kim Dokja, “Hyung, Shin Yoosung says my insects are disgusting and get in her beasts’ fur- Hyung? Are you okay?”
“Ahjussi? Why- why are you crying?”
Kim Dokja blinked at the blurry faces of the children in front of him. Their eyes were scared, looking at him with enough horror to rival his own. Shin Yoosung grabbed into his coat like she was afraid he might disappear. Lee Gilyoung was in such a hurry to clutch at him that he ended up tearing out some of his feathers. Kim Dokja ignored the pain and opened his wings, letting the children fall into his embrace and into the cocoon of his wings.
“H-hyung? What’s wrong?”
And yet there were children in this world.
“Nothing.” Kim Dokja gave them a smile, pretending to sneeze, “We ran into an ice elf today and it must have given me a cold. My eyes are just watering.”
The two looked at him with hesitant eyes, obviously torn between their trust in him and their fear to lose him again. And because Kim Dokja was a despicable, horrible man, he took advantage of the moment of weakness.
“What? I’m just cold. Don’t you see how bad I’m shivering? A good night of sleep and it’ll be solved. You can stay here and keep watch if you don’t believe me.”
Lee Gilyoung’s eyes widened, voice shaky like he’s just been given paradise but didn’t dare to believe it, “Can we- can we sleep here tonight?”
“If you want to.” Kim Dokja smiled.
Shin Yoosung still seemed hesitant, but the offer of sleeping in his room was apparently too tempting for even her, and the children crawled on the bed and clutched at his arm, letting Kim Dokja cover them with his wings. They must’ve been tired, because they nodded off very quickly.
Kim Dokja stayed awake for much longer, staring at the innocent face of the children. His own children, by all means. He’d been the one who saved them, and the one who dirtied their hands. He’d been the one who ruined these two to help them survive in a ruined world.
Did such a person deserve to call themselves a parent? Kim Dokja wasn’t sure, but he knew that these two children were his responsibility. The thought calmed him a bit, made the shivering of his wings lessen just the slightest. Suddenly the thought of another life didn’t seem as terrifying as before.
Kim Dokja might not be the best person to raise a child, but he had done well in keeping them alive. He might have to ruin this one too, but he would help it survive. He would protect it to the best of his ability.
Kim Dokja would die before letting anything happen to any of his children.
“Are you in the bathroom again?” Han Sooyoung said after she found him throwing all his breakfast up yet another morning, “it’s been what, three weeks by now? Why isn’t it going away? Is this the newest way you’re going to die?”
‘that would be a very miserable death.’ Kim Dokja didn’t have time to say before he was overtaken by another wave of nausea.
Behind him, he could hear Han Sooyoung shuffling around, snooping around in his room as she waited for him to finish throwing up like a considerate friend.
“Hey, Kim Dokja, what are these books?” her voice echoed from outside the bathroom, “What the fuck, why are you hoarding Parenting books-? what is this?”
Oh fuck.
Kim Dokja sprinted out of the bathroom at the fastest speed he was capable of, barely remembering to wipe his mouth. Unfortunately, it was already too late.
Han Sooyoung was kneeling on the ground, holding the parenting books he’d shoved under his bed in her right hand. Her left hand held the stack of unopened pregnancy tests.
“Kim Dokja.” she said, “what the fuck.”
“I can explain.” Kim Dokja said, not really knowing how to explain.
“What the fuck- who did you-”
Normally finding such items in a man’s room could at most point to the existence of a lover, but Han Sooyoung was a smart woman and this was now a different world. It didn’t take long for her to arrive at the correct conclusion.
“Are you serious- wait.” she took a deep breath, “you, you are pregnant, right?”
Kim Dokja closed his eyes.
“You- you really are- but how-” for the first time, Han Sooyoung was lost for words. It wasn’t that she didn’t have anything to say, but rather there were so many things she wanted to ask that she couldn’t choose one. This was real. Kim Dokja, the fucking idiot she could’ve bet was a virgin, was pregnant.
Eventually a question slipped out of her mouth on its own accord “who is the father?” well, other father.
Kim Dokja avoided her eyes, “I don’t know, does it matter?”
Like hell he wouldn't know! Did he think Han Sooyoung was a fool or something? “The probability of you sleeping with more than one person recently is less than the probability myth level constellations are allowed in the first scenario. Actually if you didn’t get knocked up I wouldn’t believe you slept with even one person!” she paused, “you didn’t get cursed by some demon king too, did you?”
Kim Dokja glared at her. “It doesn’t matter. I’m here. How many fathers does a child need?”
“Two, in this case at least.” she shot back. Her mind was finally functioning again, bouncing back from the shock of finding fucking pregnancy tests in Kim Dokja’s room.
“Let me see. The company hasn’t let you out of their sight since you came back from your three years absence, so the only candidates are people inside the group. I’m gonna exclude the children and the women, and Lee Hyunsung is impossible… damn.” she gave him an impressed look, “you scored yourself the main character?”
Kim Dokja’s expressions fell.
As tactless as Han Sooyoung could be, she could tell immediately that something was wrong, “does he know about the situation?”
“No.” life came back to Kim Dokja’s eyes, forming a sharp glare. “And he’s not gonna know.”
“What the fuck?! You can’t just not tell him?”
“I can.”
“And you think he would believe you if you tell him he’s not the father?”
“Yes.”
Han Sooyoung was genuinely impressed by this level of delusion. “Do you honestly think people would believe you’re this much of a player?”
“He would believe me because he doesn’t remember it.” Kim Dokja looked straight into her eyes, “Yoo Jonghyuk doesn’t remember sleeping with me at all. And you can’t tell him.
“Because it happened on the day of the forgotten hidden scenario.”
There was a moment of silence. Han Sooyoung suddenly felt like she needed to lie down. Her head was reeling, filled with the implications of what Kim Dokja had just said. They did it on the day of the hidden scenario, Yoo Jonghyuk didn’t remember while Kim Dokja did, which meant that the larger man had been the one to be lost to his desires; most importantly, they had a child since six weeks ago and Kim Dokja, the idiot, had been throwing himself headfirst into scenarios-
Han Sooyoung shot up to her feet. “I’m going to tell everyone.”
Kim Dokja caught her wrist before she could open the door. “You are not.”
“Are you crazy! You can’t hide it-”
“Sooyoung.” Kim Dokja said. His voice sent a chill down her spine, “if you tell anyone, you and I are done.”
He looked down at her. His eyes were especially clear and cold. He looked actually scary, like this. Not in the way that he would hurt her, but rather she felt that if she didn’t listen to him, she’d really lose her best friend forever. That he would just turn and leave the moment she opened her mouth and never return to them again.
Slowly, shivering, she lowered her hand.
Kim Dokja gave her another look before letting go and sinking down on his bed. He looked tired, like he hadn’t slept for a very long time. His bed was a mess, blankets and black feathers strewn all around. Han Sooyoung had heard that he’d been letting the children sleep with him these days. She could see their pillows on the mattress now.
It suddenly occurred to her, even with all of them here, Kim Dokja was alone in this.
He had always been alone, even when they surrounded him, dancing around his light like the lowly planets did around a star. It seemed that no matter how much they ran, they just kept walking on their own orbits, never reaching him to take the load off his shoulders. Kim Dokja’s shoulders weren’t even that wide. Han Sooyoung didn’t understand why he insisted on carrying everything alone.
Kim Dokja was truly a fool.
He was a star and a fool, and Han Sooyung was tired of running in an orbit and never reaching the man within.
“Fine.” she snapped to hide her emotions, “don’t come crying to me later then.”
Kim Dokja was lying on his bed. He seemed to be already falling asleep, his eyes cloudy with haze. He turned his head and gave a tired smile. “I won’t.”
She knew he wouldn’t. That, more than anything, pissed her off.”
Han Sooyung slammed the door as she left.
(she would come back)