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She wonders if Kim has noticed yet, the small and subtle similarities between Junghyuk and her. “Yeah, I give you permission to write shitty fanfics of my work.”
Kim Dojka chokes on air and glares at her. “Excuse me?!”
Lazily, she gestures at the cityscape below them. “Look at all this. You Mary Sue protagonist writer. I bet you read all the insert-writer fanfics.”
Kim Dokja is blushing harder than anything in his entire life. It’s sort of cute, as much as it could be cute on this slippery idiot. “No! I don’t read those! Oh my god, I want to die.”
“R-18 and pages of smut.”
“Han Sooyoung I am not. Not. No.” Dokja sounds pathetic and defeated.
It’s a nice sunny day. Might as well throw the rest of it out. “You know that everything I wrote was just venting. All my hatred, my stupidity, my idiocy were embodied in that book. It was never meant to be anything more than my personal playground, where I went to write and forget about the day. A perpetual suffering machine, and Yoo Junghyuk the punching bag. I’d give it a spin whenever I felt like it.”
Kim Dokja looks stricken.
“That novel is not the world where I would want to live in.” Her eyes capture his, and she can’t read a single thing in them. “But your shitty fanfic version? I don’t mind. I guess I won’t sue you.”
“You would have died in your original novel,” Dokja grumbles.
“Desus ex machina baby.” It feels good to laugh into a bright afternoon, and the idiot is still around to hear her.
She wrote so much out of desperation and passion. She wrote because she was hurt, she hated herself. Because she was so lonely, so alone, and there was no reason to do anything- so she wrote. Yoo Junghyuk embodies the ideals of her reckless, hateful, younger self. Hated the situation she was in, had wanted to be stronger, unkillable, feeling nothing but the passions of her hatred. Yoo Junghyuk had the emotional vulnerability of a rock, just as she had intended. Just as she had wanted.
The author puts pieces of themselves in their own creations.
Han Sooyoung has grown older, stabilized into a better situation. Learned her worth, and moved on from Yoo Junghyuk. But Yoo Junghyuk was never granted that chance, trapped into a destiny set by an angry kid, with the mental capabilities of someone who hated themselves more than anything else.
To be forced to grind through useless day after meaningless day, searching for a meaning to it all. To be so alone, that even bashing your own head against the wall wouldn’t relieve it.
Yeah, Han Sooyoung is not that girl anymore. Still the same structure and bones, but she’s grown beyond it. Junghyuk has not. She can’t stand him.
But. But, Kim Dojka also let Junghyuk grow. Move. Go beyond the corrals of which she had set for him. Yoo Junghyuk has transgressed from being her creation, he’s a true human now.
“How does it feel to be alive?” She asks him, dumping a bag of donuts she had always craved for when younger. The craving isn’t as intense anymore, filled with other things.
He glares at her, clearly deeming her unworthy of response. “What’s this?”
“Can’t I be kind to you?”
“No. Especially not you.” He’s holding a powdered donut gingerly and wrinkles his nose. Probably thought it was poisoned. Which isn’t unfair, but hey. He’s definitely noticed the special self-hating animosity she gives him.
“Whatever, take it or don’t.” That’s her parental (creator?) duty done for the rest of the year. She leaves as she hears him taking the tiniest of bites.
“Hey. . .is Junghyuk even into guys?” Dokja sighs. “Did you, write him in that way?”
“As I said, Junghyuk’s one duty was to suffer, to bring readers to the greatest waves of ecstasy and suffer the depths of an abyss of misery.” The empty champagne glass is warm in her hands. Dojka sports the telltale sign of an alcoholic flush, and Sooyoung’s also starting to feel that kick.
“Has anyone ever told you, you have the shittest personality ever?” He’s slumped over the bar counter. At this point, he’s given up on pretenses around her.
“Yeah.”
“So? Is he into guys?”
“So you can complete your full transformation of turning my masterpiece into self-insert fanfic and be fucked by the hottie that I wrot-” Singsong and perfectly mocking, as Dokja throws a wad of paper at her.
“Shut up! This is too much!”
“How do you think I feel? I am literally drinking with the guy that wants to fuck my OC.” That stumps Dokja, who furrows his brows and stares at her all squinty-like. Oh my God, she's really drinking with someone that wants to fuck her OC.
“. . .How do you feel?”
“Drunk. And drunk.”
“Thanks.”
“I never wrote Joohyuk with the intention he’d get with anyone. Wasn’t in the plotline. But that’s the original novel. You’ve changed everything. Maybe this Junghyuk does.” If Junghyuk is still enough of hers, if the structure from her younger self is the same- then he will not say no to a proposal from Kim Dokja. That is the way things are. She's not telling him that.
She grabs his hands, recklessly. “Hey, what are you doing?”
“Let’s go.” Tugging him as he uselessly stares back.
“Go where?”
“Anywhere.”
“Sure.” He shrugs.
The two stumble out, a pair of stupid drunks in the city, indistinguishable from everybody else. Dokja holds Sooyoung’s hands without a single thought. Sooyoung’s thoughts go all floaty with alcohol, regret, and the idea of a new story.
They truly are the three idiots that are bound by an invisible string.
“You love my work so much, huh.” Han Sooyoung sighs and holds the hand of her ardent supporter.