Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

A person's life can be summed up in various stories.

Tales of heroism through ballads, moments of love sung in poetry, apathetic recollections of events through newspaper articles. Though, Kim Dokja doesn't think he'd apply for any of those — after all, he's a "reader" before all else.

But if you were to describe his life through a written medium, he thinks it would be the world's most boring webnovel. With thousands of pages rambling on about the most minute, seemingly endless filler and callbacks to previous chapters, with an ending just as unsatisfying as the work itself. Perhaps the most unique feature about this hypothetical "Life-Of-Kim-Dokja" book would be the sheer amount of blank pages.

Books are meant to be read. World-building, foreshadowing, overall plot development; character arcs and plot climaxes, moments of anticipation and the satisfaction that follows. But for Kim Dokja, the number of "pages" that would've been legible were scarce.

Trauma, the internet question and answer forums would respond. After all, everyone did just get out of a literal apocalypse.

Maybe that was the answer. Maybe the reason why Kim Dokja knew nothing but his name and general age or anything before a few years ago was because of that aforementioned trauma. Yet that would only create more questions than resolutions — how bad was it that he can't even remember what happened before that supposed apocalypse? Why was there a bank account, in his name, with more than enough money for the next three generations? What were those strange memories of a boy suffering at the hands of his father, a teen tormented by bullies, of a man fighting against the sky itself that would fade from his recollection the moment he tried to recall them?

Kim Dokja thinks he spent a lot of his life before ignoring his problems, so memory or not he'll keep that attitude. 

He's starting to wonder if he was a librarian in his past life (it's become easier to say "past life" than to say "life-before-I-lost-my-memory-and-possibly-before-the-apocalypse") due to his natural gravitation towards books. Classic novels, up-and-coming debut works, fiction and nonfiction alike — so long as it's written and bound, he simply must have it in his possession.

Maybe his ever-growing collection of books is what makes him take a first step into business. While most land and buildings were destroyed in the Event (read: apocalypse) prior, restoration has been underway for at least some time now. Most of the infrastructure has been restored into vaguely livable, particularly the homes and apartment buildings due to the crucial living situation issue, but some key shopping areas have been built up as well. 

Having bought a medium sized, aged brick building right in the heart of a main plaza for what Kim Dokja is hoping is a decent price, he's surely on the path for success! Even if it goes under, even if no customer ever graces his cozy abode, the number with a terrifyingly large amount of digits in his bank account keeps him at ease. If anything, it just opens the door for more spending towards his collection! (Business expenses, his mind would reason whenever walking past the book section in the various second hand shops strewn throughout town. Surely another copy of "Idiot's Guide to Sewing (3rd Edition)" wouldn't hurt, yeah?)

Really. If not for the degradation of the <Star Stream> and loss of skills, Kim Dokja would've thought his level of rationalization could've been one. 

After the (not-so) grand opening of his book cafe — aptly named just Kim Dokja's Cafe — the actual rate of customers was just as scarce as his memories were. Every now and then, a clearly lost tourist would meander in only to order whatever pastry he had managed to bake from a box mix the night before. Nobody ever really wanted to try his "house coffee blend" (instant-mix with far too much water and far too little of the actual, well, mix.) He tried not to let it get to him though.

Two years had passed just like that. Easygoing days where Kim Dokja's cafe would be open only for the only resident to be Kim Dokja himself, lazy afternoons where he would peruse his own library as though he didn't literally own it, nights that would stretch on for however long Kim Dokja felt like leaving the light on to aid in his reading. It was during one of those exact afternoons that someone had finally decided to break the monotony and actually use the cafe for its actual purpose.

"Does anyone actually run this place or is it haunted by the ghosts of whatever nerd died in a library?" A voice, very obviously one that Kim Dokja didn't know had startled him from his third reread of The SSSSS-Grade Infinite Regressor this month (he swears it's a hate read, but that's never stopped him from picking it back up again.) Normally the only people that stumble into his cafe were either a. lost, b. extremely lost, c. here for the utility bill, or d. all of the above. The ring of the bell from the doorway echoes through the first floor. 

"No, it's very much in operation," Kim Dokja responds from beyond the entryway. Based on the tone of whoever just walked in, he's starting to wonder if he should've pretended it was closed after all. Begrudgingly, he manages to sit up from the couch he was just reclining in. "Welcome to my cafe, I'm Kim Dokja, how may I help you?"

Immediately he's starting to regret his self introduction. Having had finally managed to walk over to the entryway, he was met with someone who appeared to be a woman in her mid to late twenties. Part of him had still been hoping that this was someone who was filling in for whoever collected his usual utility bill or something similar, but based on the casual stance and the lollipop the stranger was holding in their mouth, they clearly weren't here on some type of a job. 

The two of them simply stand in silence. Already Kim Dokja is regretting ever speaking up at all. He really should've just acted like this was some haunted building, even if that meant he was that ghost of a nerd who died here.

The stranger seems to make no attempt at continuing the conversation, leaving Kim Dokja to do nothing but shift awkwardly on each foot. A long, heavy moment finally passes before she speaks up again.

"Do you carry any of those webnovels or whatever?"

Though the internet was roughly up and running again after the reconstruction efforts, many relics of it were lost to time and destroyed servers and their backups. This led to the importance of written works over digital, and even now most people were hesitant to place their trust in the virtual word again. Perhaps most heavily hit were that of internet webnovels and literature of similar type due to their inherent digital nature — though a lucky few serialized series were able to be bound and printed before the destruction had begun. 

The query still caught Kim Dokja off guard, however, as he didn't think he'd find a kindred spirit in regards to that particular genre niche anytime soon. Especially with someone who seemed rather standoffish in just the first few moments of their meeting.

"I— well, yes, we do carry a few," he tried not to let his surprise show in his voice. "Are there any you're looking for in particular? Or would you like a few recommendations?"

The woman only eyes him with an almost calculating gaze — as though she's searching for something in him; as though she knows him, and is waiting for him to know her in return. 

"I'll take a few recommendations. Do you have a favorite?" Something about this exchange seems like it means much more to the woman than it does to Kim Dokja, but he quickly brushes that suspicion to the side.

"Not in particular." In familiar territory, books, Kim Dokja manages to resettle. "We have the first five volumes of Trash of the Count's Family, which is rather popular. Though we're missing one, we have the majority of The S-Classes That I Raised as well." He begins to prattle on about the various series in the cafe, hoping that maybe one of the titles seem interesting enough for the stranger to interject and ask about.

"But which is your favorite?" She emphasizes her earlier question just as Kim Dokja was getting off track in regards to the intricacies of the "rofan" niche. 

The air between them grows tense again, as though she's digging for an answer that she believes he is willingly hiding. As though she's waiting for him to finish playing whatever prank was currently happening. Kim Dokja pauses before attempting to give some semblance of an answer she appears to be searching for.

"Well, I quite liked I've Become the Retired SSSSS-Grade Sun Wukong, which was a parody of the classic Journey to the West. Not sure if you'd be interested in that, maybe?" She only stares at him more. Clearly that wasn't the right answer.

"Kaizenix Archipelago had some good twists on the body possession and transmigration tropes, though it's better if you already are familiar to get the ref—" He tries again, but no dice. He's out of options. 

With a quick glance to the book he had discarded previously in the room behind him, Kim Dokja makes his most desperate (book recommendation) move. 

"...Though a bit of an acquired taste, The SSSSS-Grade Infinite Regressor was an interesting read?"

A laugh, startling in its volume and abruptness, finally breaks whatever focus the stranger had on their exchange. At a loss for words, Kim Dokja isn't sure whether this change is for the better or worse. 

"Well, obviously you can't remember shit if you're out here praising that — even if it's rather hesitant," she snorts. Her shoulders sag for a moment as the tension holding them rigid releases, seemingly found an answer to whatever question she had been testing Kim Dokja on (even if he isn't sure it was the answer she was looking for.) 

Remember? Remember what? 

"I don't remember anything, actually," it comes off a bit more cynical than he intended. A bit too melancholy. "Not— not anything before around two years or so at least." The realization that he basically spilled his life story (what he remembered of it) to this random stranger dawns on him a moment later, leaving him rather sheepish. 

"Did you know me?" Hope fills him for a brief moment. "Did I... know you?"

Maybe this is an even worse answer than the one about his favorite webnovel, maybe this predicament was worse than the idea of his amnesia being faked. The crestfallen look on the woman's face only remains for a moment before something else — relief? disappointment? clarity? — flits through her gaze. Seeming to have settled on a response, she holds out her hand for him to take.

"The name's Han Sooyoung." Her voice cracks, and Kim Dokja decides not to comment on it. "I'm a writer, and my neighborhood's been far too noisy for me to make any headway on my latest manuscript. How late are you open until?"

He shakes the outstretched hand. The grip is firm. Something nags at the back of his head — something familiar, something he wishes he could explain; moments of a life he cannot recall, of a bond he would mourn if he remembered it.

Nevertheless, their hands drop and Kim Dokja escorts her to beyond the entryway and into the actual main area of the cafe. She settles down at a table near the fantasy section, brings out whatever latest model of high-end laptop she had stored away in her bag and onto the table, while eagerly asking for the wifi password.

The residents at Kim Dokja's Cafe had doubled — from one to two — but it was only the beginning of the incoming regulars that seemed to know him more than he knew himself.

Chapter Text

Kim Dokja wasn't quite sure when his daily routine had changed.

He wasn't sure when his impulsive indulgences at the grocery stores baking aisles became the norm ("Get the funfetti cupcake mix this time!" Han Sooyoung had called from where she sat, typing away. "Last time you tried brownies from scratch they were burnt at the edges and had eggshells in them. You're lucky I eat anything with sugar in it." He finds that he can't disagree with such sound reasoning).

Or when he finally wasn't as startled by the sound of the bell near the door each day ("Stop acting like anyone besides me actually shows up," she had snorted after surprising him in the middle of a particularly interesting passage of The Novel's Extra. "This might as well be Han Sooyoung and Kim Dokja's cafe." He didn't feel like asking why her name would've come first).

But it certainly had become his new routine, albeit gradually. Mornings where he had laid in bed until midday before he finally flipped the sign out front from closed to open was interrupted after a particularly rainy day when Han Sooyoung had waited outside for him — possibly for hours.

"You— You bastard!" She was soaking wet, coat hung protectively over the satchel with her laptop inside. "If you're going to close for a day, at least post some warning!"

"I never had to before," Kim Dokja responded cautiously, handing over a warm towel he had just gotten out from the dryer an hour prior. He was suddenly thankful that he had turned the upper level into a live-in apartment. "It wasn't like anyone really came around besides me anyways — I used to only open on days I woke up before noon." He didn't know why she chose to wait for so long. Did she really need his place for peace and quiet while she was writing, or was there something else that drove her to show up there practically everyday? "I guess there just wasn’t anything that made me stay consistent.”

"What about me, then?" She sneered with a bit more force than probably was needed for a conversation about the lack of an early open notice or just consistent hours in general. Both of them were taken aback for a moment, and Kim Dokja was suddenly reminded of their introductory conversation — where it was clear that their dialogues weighed a lot more to her than to him. She sighed before continuing. "Ah. Shit, sorry — I'm not sure where... that came from."

She lied. He knew there was something more on her mind. She knew that he would never remember it. Neither of them brought either of those thoughts up.

Desperate to change the mood, Kim Dokja took her coat-wrapped bag from her hands. "If I ever close early, or open later, I'll let you know ahead of time." Both of them knew there was more to his words that what he had actually said — an unspoken olive branch.

This seemed to help things, as Han Sooyoung only nodded in response. No longer dripping wet, she took back the bag and settled back down at her normal table. Never before had Kim Dokja needed to accommodate someone besides himself, but he found it wasn't quite as annoying as it seemed.

So he bought the funfetti mix. He expanded his literary collection ("Get something besides webnovels you dweeb." Derogatory terms seemed to be more and more like signs of affection whenever Han Sooyoung spoke, especially as time went on. Kim Dokja wasn't sure how he felt about it). He even bought an ad in the local newspaper, something small and barely distinct — he liked the peace and quiet, and he doubted that Han Sooyoung wanted too much noise to disrupt her manuscript anyway, but she seemed to be oddly concerned about his isolationist tendencies. 

Two weeks had passed after the ad publishing, and Kim Dokja was beginning to lose what little hope he had in the first place in regards to expanding his customer base. It didn't bother him though, if the next person to grace his cafe started off with just as strange of an introduction as his first encounter with Han Sooyoung, he wasn't sure how he'd deal with it.

After a particular day in winter of doing absolutely nothing, with the usual comfortable ambience of the keyboard clacking in the background and hum of the heating system, once again did the entryway bell ring.

Startled, Kim Dokja nearly jumped out of the chair he was sitting in. Clearly he wasn't the only one surprised, as the sounds of the keys had stopped as well.

"Do you think it's another door to door salesman?" She asked, shifting her gaze from the glow of her screen to the reader a few feet away. He only shrugged in response as he recalled his last encounter with one — and of the oddity that the sales pitch itself was. (Seriously, who the hell is selling parts of a squid tentacle as "memorabilia"? What was so important about some squid? Was it a mascot or something?)

Instead of answering with anything aside from a shrug, he put his copy of When The Third Wheel Strikes Back down on the counter and walked over to the entryway to inspect the intruder himself.

Having expected a lost tourist, or maybe a package delivery for his latest restocks due to a particular night of targeted advertising, he was rather surprised to see a well-dressed woman waiting patiently. 

He paused in the entryway as though he was unsure of how to proceed. The woman, in return, seemed to do just the same. She held his gaze with far too much emotion that should've come with meeting a random book cafe owner, or anyone really, for the first time. They were eyes that held depth that Kim Dokja could never understand — not at this point in time at least.

"Hello," he began uneasily. He never was good at meeting strangers, or talking to them. Really, just talking to others in general freaked him out. That's why he opened a book cafe to begin with. "Welcome to Kim Dokja's Cafe. I'm the aforementioned Kim Dokja — are there any books in particular you're interested in?" 

No response. He's starting to get flashbacks to his prior encounter and is preparing to be grilled yet again about his choice in webnovels before a sudden thought occurs to him.

"Oh! Are you here because of that ad I published?" It was so obvious — he wasn't sure why the thought hadn't crossed his mind beforehand. It wasn't like his location was the most open and obvious place anyway. Though it was situated in a main plaza, the exterior made it seem more akin to an abandoned building than anything else; even with or without the open signs and whatnot.

"Yes, I suppose that I am." She carries a professional aura even while simply standing in his doorway. Kim Dokja guesses she was either some kind of CEO or similar high ranking employee. Maybe she was a civil servant?

No, human relations, something at the back of his brain murmurs. It's fleeting, maybe a whispered recollection of his life that was just out of his reach. But just as quickly as it comes, it goes, leaving him to stare blankly despite the woman's answer.

"Do you have any particular genre or subject you're in search of?" Ah, this really was just like the last time. He's really hoping that she doesn't ask about webnovels, there's only so many times he can explain the alternate universe plotlines in Trash of the Count's Family or the otome game interface of Death is the Only Ending for the Villainess, but he's willing to do it if only to spread his Penelope Eckart propaganda. 

"I learn foreign languages in my spare time, if you have anything like that?" 

Oh. Well that shakes him out of his internal monologue on the benefits of transmigration instead of reincarnation in the world of rofan novels. 

"Foreign languages?" Though much of the <Star Stream> was destroyed and gone, a few skills were kept behind simply due to their usefulness, with automatic translation being one of them. Despite this, many people still preferred to learn it through hard work and effort alone. Kim Dokja only developed more respect for the woman in front of him than he had before. "I could never — we should have a few introductory books on Spanish if you were interested?"

He wasn't sure why he had suggested Spanish in particular — he knew for a fact that there were more French books than Spanish, and even more English ones that either of them. Something stopped him from recommending the others first.

Though he was starting to wonder if maybe that was the wrong thing to do. A strange expression passed over her face, like Kim Dokja had just made some sort of inside joke that only the two of them would understand. Perhaps she found this act as some proof as to something she was searching for, if her next question was any indication.

"What about you Dokja-ssi? Did you reach the epilogue you wanted?" Once again, there was much more emotion behind this simple phrase than it should have had. Once again, Kim Dokja is starting to think that the people that show up at his cafe are searching for something here — something besides just the books that line his shelves.

"Epilogue? Hm, well, I suppose I've read a few good ones," he's rambling now, clearly not sure what the proper response would be. If her expression were to respond before her words could, then obviously this isn't the one she's searching for. "I've read plenty of books — I'm quite the reader, after all — and there are a few with epilogues that particularly stood out to me."

Silence, again. Kim Dokja's back is starting to hurt from carrying this one-sided conversation in which one party knows too much and the other too little.

"Maybe this is better," the woman mutters to herself, just barely loud enough for Kim Dokja to hear, though he doubts that he was meant to. "I'd like to see your foreign language section, if you'd allow me?"

Later, after expertly avoiding the fantasy section where Han Sooyoung was clearly in the middle of writing some key dialogue if her loud mutterings were any indication ("You assholes! Why can't I get your voice right, it's the damn confession scene!"), after Kim Dokja had proudly explained his personal organizational system for genres ("I firmly believe that webnovels and light novels should be put in a different section from generic fantasy and sci-fi, after all, they're practically their own genre with all of their tropes and niche subgenres at this point! It just makes the most sense this way.") that he finally answered the unspoken question from earlier.

"I don't remember anything," he said suddenly as he reorganized the nonfiction section across from where the foreign language books were scattered. Comforted by the familiar scent of ink and old paper, he opens up a bit. "I just thought you should know — if you came here because you knew me before around two or three years ago, I'm sorry." He pauses for a moment to turn and look the woman in the eye. She seems just as startled by his statement as Han Sooyoung was, and even barely manages to not drop the Easy Spanish: Step-By-Step in her hands.

Taking the initiative despite her obvious fluster, he holds his hand out for her to shake. "I'm Kim Dokja. My life's mantra is to let no book go unread. Because of that, I own a book cafe — though I suppose that I spend more time on the "books" part than the "cafe" one. And you are?"

She takes it. Her grip is just as firm as he had expected it to be, rigid with some sort of newly formed resolution he couldn't understand. "Yoo Sangah. My goal is to live an ivory life. I can't exactly tell you where I work, but this place is on the way of my daily commute."

Strange phrase to use as a life's mantra, but okay. He decides not to think about it for too long before releasing the handshake. "I'm open practically everyday if you need a place to destress after work— as long as you're quiet and don't disturb my other regular, you're more than welcome to stop by." She beams in response before picking up the book she dropped. "We also have some pastries or snacks that you can buy if you're interested, though the selection and stock changes from day to day." She only nods in response, clearly already lost in thought about whatever the conversation beforehand had helped her realize.

He takes the long, meandering route around and back to the spot where he had been reading earlier.

"Well, who was it?" Han Sooyoung calls from her "claimed" table. The clicking on the keyboard had long since resumed. "Was it another salesman or what?" There’s an almost feigned nonchalance to her tone — as though she knew without even needing to look up to begin with.

"No." Kim Dokja pauses as he picks his earlier read up from where it had been discarded. He silently curses past him for not using a bookmark in their rush to find out who had shown up. "That newspaper ad got us someone new." Some vague noise of acknowledgement is all he gets in return. Clearly she isn't interested in the new addition to the Kim Dokja's Cafe regular cast, or at least she doesn't care enough to take the initiative and ask him directly.

(Or, maybe she never needed to ask who it was in the first place.)

He quickly brushed that strange thought aside just as quickly as it came.

It wasn’t until a few minutes later, after reading a good chapter or two while lost in thought, Kim Dokja suddenly realizes something yet again.

"Hey, if there's three of us now, we're going to have to vote on what I start baking. And you can't start hogging all the chocolate cupcakes just because I'm fine with taking only the vanilla."

"Fuck!" Finally, Han Sooyoung responds with a slam to her keyboard. Kim Dokja hopes she didn’t spill any of his “housebrew” coffee on her laptop — it seemed expensive.

Chapter Text

For as long as Kim Dokja can remember — which isn't very long — he has never dreamed. 

It wasn't that he forgot his dreams when he woke up, it's just he had the firm belief that he never dreamed anything to begin with. When he finally collapsed from exhaustion due to his stubborn insistence on finishing just that one last chapter, he woke up moments later the next morning. 

It never seemed to concern him though. After all, it wasn't like his direct health was being impacted (even if it was, Kim Dokja still isn't sure whether or not he'd try and fix it) so whatever vague concern he had for his lack of dreams had quickly faded into the back of his mind. At least, it had faded out until he suddenly had them again.

Kim Dokja can't recall the last time he's used the subway, or any form of public transportation in general. His apartment was right above the cafe he owned, the farmer's market was a brisk walk from the plaza he resided in, and most of his purchases came either online or through the mail. It wasn't that he was a hermit — simply that he had no reason to go anywhere. Especially anywhere that necessitated the use of the subway system.

That only makes his sudden recurring dreams even stranger then. Dreams where he sits in one of the many seats on the train, most of them empty aside from his own, as he watches a copy of himself (he isn't sure why he thinks it's a copy of him, but something about the back that he stares at feels both foreign and familiar to him) proudly walk off of the car and into the station. He himself never tries to do the same — he never tries to get up, never tries to move from his permanent seat on the subway. It feels like he's been doing this for a very, very long time now. 

The dream had started off vague when he first had it. At first, all he could really see was the outline of himself with a vague sense of having lost something. Like part of his soul was ripped from him; like part of his very being was missing the moment it stepped off of the tracks. But as time went on and he had it more and more, he began to notice smaller details. He could make out a group of people next to that copy of him, though he could never tell who they were. Every time he dreamed it again, it began to feel more and more "complete" — as though through his dreams he was remembering something. 

He would always wake up in a cold sweat afterwards. Chest heaving, slightly surprised to breathe in something besides the stale air of a stationary subway train. His own room would always feel foreign to him, the hum of the air conditioning off-putting and the ticking of the clock on his nightstand unfamiliar. A few moments would pass like that, the strange feeling of being stuck between two places. Stuck between a subway and his own home. The thought unnerved him.

He was stuck in that loop for quite some time. Fall asleep, dream of a strange subway system, wake up and manage to get through the day on instant coffee and spite, only to sleep long after the sun had set, and repeat. He thought it would stay just like that for the rest of his life — watching some part of him leave alongside blurry figures he couldn't, wouldn't, recall. 

Or at least, he wouldn't be able to recall them until two of them had quite literally waltzed into his cafe. Suddenly, the writer that called his cafe home was laughing with an arm around his escaped half. The easygoing, if only a bit eager, foreign language enthusiast had two small children on each hand as she led them to the stairs connecting to the upper levels of the subway station. 

Kim Dokja isn't sure what changed that day that Han Sooyoung had stumbled in and Yoo Sangah started to use his cafe for her morning cinnamon rolls, nor what connection his brain made that suddenly made them regulars both in his dreams and in reality, but he isn't sure why he feels like he's starting to put together a puzzle. 

One morning, after he had gotten a mere three hours of sleep and was only able to turn the closed sign to open due to his (unfortunate) promise to Han Sooyoung prior, he finally spoke up about it. He puts the blame on his exhaustion for hindering his logic.

"Do you know anything about interpreting dreams?" He had said one day, thumbing through his latest purchase of The Dream Dictionary: A-Z Interpretation Techniques. The comforting sound of keys being hit stopped abruptly, as though Han Sooyoung hadn't expected him to speak to her at all (which wasn't particularly surprising, he never really talked whenever his newest impulse purchase arrived, especially so early in his read through). 

"Not really, but I can try." Her voice sounds strained, but Kim Dokja just chalks it up to him having interrupted her workflow. "Do you mind telling me about it?" With a simple hum of affirmation for a response, he begins to recount the recurring dream that plagues his sleep. 

"For some reason I'm stuck in this subway. There's another copy of me — not sure why it feels like it's me, since all I can really see is the back of a coat — but he's walking off of the subway train. I can't get up, I've tried, but you're there? And Yoo Sangah, but you're the one walking right next to the me that's getting off." He pauses as though he has to stop to remember the exact details, which seem to be fading as he tries to recount them. "There's a few other people, but they all seem pretty blurry to me."

There are a few moments of silence before any response from Han Sooyoung, which Kim Dokja takes as her processing what nonsense he had just spouted off. 

"Why can't you get up? Is there something stopping you?" is what the response she finally settles on seems to be. Kim Dokja places a bookmark in his Dream Dictionary before putting it gently on the side table next to the seat he's reclined in. The sound of rain on the windows give the whole exchange a strange vibe he isn't sure how to feel about.

"I guess? It's more like something subconsciously won't let me try to begin with." He shrugs, even knowing that she likely can't see it from beyond the wall of bookshelves separating them. 

"Can you look around? Is there anyone on the train with you?" Kim Dokja is starting to wonder whether or not she's becoming just as invested in his dream as he is. He puts that idea in the back of his mind — hoping that maybe the dream is something similar enough to a lucid dream so he can control just enough of it to do something within it — before going back to his read. Han Sooyoung seems to do the same, even if her typing isn't done with quite as much vigor and she takes a moment to take a quick call outside.

(Kim Dokja swears he can hear muffled murmurs about a hospital, and some sort of company meeting, before she hangs up with a loud enough sigh for him to hear clearly even through the door. He chooses not to comment on it, even if he wants to express his well wishes for whoever might be stuck in a hospital.)

That night, it isn't until halfway through his nightly oddity that he remembers the suggestion from earlier that day.

Shifting in his seat (he finds that he can at least do that much, so long as he doesn't actually make a move to get up from it) Kim Dokja manages to turn his head to the side. Despite having expecting more empty seats, he's startled to see a man sitting next to him. 

Kim Dokja feels like he's a bit shorter than he usually is, and the coat he appears to be wearing seems a bit too large than it should've been — the sleeves hang off of his arms and dangle from where they sit upon the seat. The man pays him no mind and seems to be stuck watching the same view as he had been.

"Hi there," he manages to speak up. His throat feels rough, though he isn't sure why he can feel that in a dream. It's almost as though he hadn't needed to speak aloud in quite some time.

No response, yet again. Kim Dokja is seriously starting to consider that the next time he meets a stranger, whether in his dreamscape or in reality, to wait for them to introduce themselves first. It would save him the awkwardness. The two of them sit in silence, but he catches the man glance at him briefly before returning to watch just beyond the closed subway doors. A part of Kim Dokja feels a bit more at peace, knowing he isn't the only one on the subway, even if the man's face is blurred and looking at him for too long makes his head spin.

(He doesn't tell Han Sooyoung about the Subway Stranger, he holds it close to him like a well-loved book with pages worn out from far too many rereads.)

Time passes, days of passionate book talk with Han Sooyoung ("Not all tropes are bad, so long as you use them wisely!" "I'm not taking this from someone who read four thousands pages of power fantasy.") and impromptu baking classes with Yoo Sangah ("Dokja-ssi, you're getting eggshells in the batter again." "Oh, sorry, we'll just leave this batch for Han Sooyoung. You're my accomplice now!") bleed into nights with the Subway Stranger.

Kim Dokja had quickly realized four things about the current predicament: a. no matter what he did, the half of him getting off of the subway and the group of people alongside him would never look back, b. every night Kim Dokja seemed to lose a few inches of his height while in his dream for some reason, c. the man next to him seemed to have more and more scars the more nights he dreamed of him, and d. the man was, surprisingly, capable of responding — he just chose not to.

After a particularly long winded ramble about whatever book he had managed to read from the day prior, when he glanced at the man he was surprised to see him holding his gaze.

"Where are your parents? Why do you never get off at a stop, isn't there someone waiting for you?" The first question startled Kim Dokja so bad he's almost convinced he had hallucinated it (well, this was a dream, so that wasn't exactly out of the question was it?)

"I'm sorry?" is the only response he can give, clearly thrown off by the break from his earlier speech on the differences between past imperfect and preterite thanks to his short Spanish lesson from Yoo Sangah the afternoon prior. "Isn't the station empty aside from us?" Just to be sure he isn't missing anything, he glances out at beyond the subway doors only to see, once again, nobody. His Other Half (as he had started to call him in his head, just like his quite frankly unoriginal epithet for the Subway Stranger) had long since departed beyond those stairs. 

The Subway Stranger seems to be surprised by his response. "Can't you see all of the—" the end of his sentence is cut off by a sudden screech in Kim Dokja's ears, much akin to the sound of a train stopping short. Head throbbing, he clutches at his ears as though that could offset the nausea. He's really starting to wonder why everything in his dreams are so vivid — maybe it is some sort of lucid dream situation. 

"I have no idea what you're talking about, but for some reason it's giving me a huge migraine." Kim Dokja feels just as childish as his dream appearance makes him out to be as he complains. "As far as I can tell, it's just you, me, and an empty station." Something tells Kim Dokja not to comment on his Other Half and Co.

"Odd. The scenarios couldn't have started yet, so it can't be a product of that, and the stigma only allows for one person to regress so how exactly did—" the Subway Stranger seems to be lost in his own thoughts as he mutters to himself. Kim Dokja instead chooses to count the number of seats on the wall across from them as he wonders whether or not he's read enough of those apocalypse webnovels for a character to show up in his dreams. Maybe Han Sooyoung was right. He really did need to diversify his interests.

After that strange exchange, the Subway Stranger seemed to be more and more responsive to whenever Kim Dokja tried to engage him in conversation. What previously felt like talking to a brick wall was more like pulling teeth — still difficult, but not impossible. He isn't sure why it's so difficult to get the subconsciously created amalgamation of every single protagonist he's read to actually respond to him, but something tells him that Kim Dokja's mind had never been a kind thing to him before, so it certainly wouldn't be now.

"I'm a regressor." The Subway Stranger had interrupted him one day, after a significant amount of time where Kim Dokja was explaining the trope differences between manhwa rofan and manga otome isekai series ("Despite their many trope and cliche similarities, they're incredibly different," Kim Dokja had stated with more passion than was probably necessary. The Subway Stranger never responds to his rants on webnovels. He's trying not to take it personally.) "But I've never seen you in any of the scenarios — yet you remember me every time I regress, are you one too?" His voice seems to take on an almost dangerous edge to it — as though it's some sort of accusation that Kim Dokja has something to hide. 

"Oh," is the most intelligent response that Kim Dokja can give. "I'm not a regressor or anything similar. I'm quite the reader though, and if anything I'm more curious as to why you keep showing up in my dreams." The last word feels like bile on his tongue for some reason, as though he wasn't supposed to say it. The two of them are playing charades with each other — and there are most certainly some forbidden phrases to say if the sudden pained expression on Subway Stranger's face is any indication. Kim Dokja is suddenly reminded of the ringing headache he had suddenly developed from their first conversation.

The two sit in silence for a moment before Kim Dokja tries to speak again. "I might be able to help though, and if I'm the only one who remembers, won't you eventually forget too? Nobody can remember everything." 

The question clearly isn't one Subway Stranger was expecting. Maybe he expected Kim Dokja to ask about whatever "scenarios" were (Kim Dokja has a few guesses based off the novel tropes he knows by heart) or what a "regressor" is (if he had a dollar for every webnovel with a regressor protagonist, he'd have nearly enough money to buy Han Sooyoung a new laptop after she had spilled coffee on her old one) because he doesn't respond for quite some time. 

Uneasy with the silence, Kim Dokja tries again. "Maybe I can help you think of a solution? Since I read a lot, a fresh perspective like mine could give new insight?" It's a desperate move, but the idea of losing his only companion on this nightly subway sit-in makes him feel even more anxious than anything else.

"Fine," he finally replies, even if it's uneasy; as though he thinks that the moment he talks about it Kim Dokja's memory will fail and he'll be a stranger all over again. "It might be helpful if I want a new way of handling the 46th."

During the day, Kim Dokja loses himself in the written word. Bound pages soft from wear and love, ink faded and the corners of the hardcover rounded. At night, in his dreams, he is told the story of one man's journey to bring down the sky — and the stars within it. He is there after each death in battle, each loss of a companion, every betrayal and close call, and he remembers it. Kim Dokja no longer dreads his dreams — the ones where part of him gets off of that subway — because he knows that there's someone there with him. Someone there to tell him a story to get him through the night.

(And when it ends, after one thousand, eight hundred and sixty-three or so moments, when the Subway Stranger — Kim Dokja never asks his name, the last time he did he woke up immediately with the overwhelming urge to vomit — had finally said it would be his last.

"I'm going to find you," he promised. "I'm going to find you, and together we'll find out why I'm stuck in this loop and you're trapped on this godforsaken subway." The promise feels like it holds a lot more weight to the Subway Stranger than it does to him, especially when he knows how many losses he has experienced. Maybe that's why all he can do is nod stiffly. He's been feeling more and more exhausted when he's both awake and asleep these days, and it's become difficult to even hold a brief conversation. He instead closes his eyes as he hears him talk about his previous attempts, his previous failures almost as though he's recounting them all for both of them to remember. They both seem to know that this might be the last conversation they'd have for quite some time, but even then Kim Dokja can barely keep his eyes open long enough to watch him, to leave him behind. The next night is his first subway journey alone, the beginning of many.)

(He would be lying if he said the empty seat next to him hurt less than his missing memories.)

Kim Dokja wakes up the next morning feeling both more empty and complete than he had before. It's as though he's watched a journey come to it's inevitable end, while also witnessing the beginning of something he'll never be able to see. He finds it to be a bit more difficult than usual to read his normal webnovel selection, some odd sense of nausea overwhelming him whenever he thinks too hard about the previous night's dream. Maybe it's the oddity of said dream that leads him to pose a simple question to his local writer, after all, a story's conclusion would be her perfect realm of expertise.

"Do you think it's worse to be immortal or to be stuck in a time loop?" He hopes that it doesn't seem like he's put too much thought into the sudden query and scrambles to find a reason to justify it. "All these webnovels make it seem like some sort of power to envy, but is it really worth it?"

Normally, whenever Kim Dokja had attempted to talk about tropes or cliches with Han Sooyoung, it would develop into a barely contained shouting match akin to arguments in a heated internet comment section. More times than not the two of them would have battles of snark until Yoo Sangah would eventually have to come over to mediate. (Kim Dokja has almost gotten punched on more than one occasion, though he couldn't blame her, some of his literature opinions were quite out there.)

But, much like most of his conversations these days, there is yet another lack of immediate response. He tries to fill the gap with his own opinion, if only to get the ball rolling.

"I think I'd rather be immortal than stuck in a time loop. At least that way you don't have to watch everyone forget you time and time again." The abrupt slam of a laptop closing tells Kim Dokja he either interrupted a very important part of her draft or his opinion is so offensive to her that she can barely believe him.

"Isn't it worse to watch all of those you love age and grow beyond your reach? To be left behind, stuck in place and unable to do anything about it?" Kim Dokja is starting to think she's taking it much more personal than he intended, and he's suddenly glad he stopped giving her updates on his dream if a simple question like this could shake her this badly. "What about the people who were once by your side? Don't they deserve a choice in whether or not you take on a burden like that?"

Once again, Kim Dokja mourns the fact that he doesn't have all of his memories. He's starting to think that he just stumbled upon a minefield; some forbidden topic from before the day he seemed to have popped into existence. Maybe he's had this conversation with her before, maybe something much more consequential than he realized had happened as a result of it.

Never one to enjoy conflict, he quickly drops the topic. He isn't sure if this is what Han Sooyoung would've wanted, but the two of them recede into a shaky truce as she opens her laptop once again. Kim Dokja is starting to seriously consider shelving his current webnovel collection because of his dream, and especially due to Han Sooyoung's strange aversion to his earlier hypothetical. Maybe he should finally read some of those classics Yoo Sangah never stops praising.

(If he hears a few sniffles or a choked sob from where Han Sooyoung sits, he chooses not to comment on it. Kim Dokja genuinely wonders if maybe he shouldn't asked her the question, or told her about his dreams, at all.)

Chapter Text

Kim Dokja isn't good with kids.

Babies would stare blankly at him in grocery aisles, leaving their mothers to awkwardly roll their cart out of sight. Toddlers would tug on their parents legs and simply ask: "Momma? Why does that ahjussi look so tired? Don't adults get nap-time too?" 

As for teenagers? The thought alone gives him hives.

He's suddenly glad for the fact that his cafe appears to be more of an abandoned building than an actual business — even if that means only two people besides himself ever seem to wander in — if only because that way he won't have to deal with potential children staring into his soul and possibly knowing more about him than he knows about himself.

His luck seems to be running out more and more these days though, and as he stares down at a pair of what he presumes to be high school aged kids in on his doorstep he begins to wonder if it was even worth opening today. He's sending a prayer to whatever higher being exists that they won't ask for some complicated coffee order or pastry while mistaking his cafe for being a... well, cafe? 

With a brief shudder at the thought of needing to somehow create something from Starbucks out of his instant mix and two week old can of whipped cream, Kim Dokja places down the chalk advertising board he had been fixing earlier.

"Erm," He starts, once again reminded of how much he hates interaction with others. Especially others who could probably kick his kneecaps in and feel no shame afterwards. Such is the life of the average teenager. "Are you two looking for some books to read?"

The two only stare at him owlishly, blinking slowly as though he were some bug under a microscope they wanted to study. He silently hopes he isn't stuck in whatever mental cringe compilation they'll laugh about together in a day or two. 

Ominous thunder roars in the distance, bringing Kim Dokja out of his internal musings and back to reality. He recalls why he was out there in the first place — fix the signs on the windows before the upcoming storm blows them away and he gets an earful from Han Sooyoung for letting the exterior look more abandoned than usual — before glancing back to where the two children stood. Letting out an almost reluctant sigh, he steps to the side of the doorway before opening it for the pair. 

"It'll rain soon, do either of you have umbrellas?" He hopes they do. (They don't.)

Instead, they take him up on his hesitant offer and eagerly tumble in. With a brief look at the clock hanging on the wall of the entry area — too early for Han Sooyoung to show up and settle in a night of writing, too late for Yoo Sangah to have stopped by before her shift to grab a donut — Kim Dokja realizes that he'll be responsible for entertaining two teenagers. In a book cafe. For however long the incoming storm might last, or until they have parents or guardians with umbrellas that could pick them up.

He really wishes he had just closed for the day.

As the two walk in, Kim Dokja pretends he doesn't hear their hushed whispers about finding out how Yoo Sangah and Han Sooyoung found him before they did. This is mostly because he doesn't like the feeling that his cafe is no more than some scavenger hunt for people to find. Maybe he should just give up the cafe aspect and become a niche tourist attraction? "Local amnesiac bookworm, possibly a nerd who died in a library and haunts these halls, come at your own risk and see if he recognizes you!" That hardly sounds appealing.

(He silently sends another prayer up to whatever higher being exists that he won't have to deal with any more strangers who seem more interested in him than in the books his business is based around.)

Some part of him hopes that the two will just wander off to one of the couches, hop on their phones until the storm passes, and be on their merry ways. Instead, Kim Dokja is starting to feel more and more like a mother duck with newly imprinted ducklings than a middle-aged, sleep deprived reader who just really wants to get through the latest volume of Solo Leveling so he can argue about it with Han Sooyoung. Simple, realistically attainable life goals.

With yet another reluctant sigh, this one more of acceptance than fatigue, he herds the two children into the vague kitchen area while rummaging around and hoping that something had escaped Han Sooyoung’s last ransacking attempt. Nothing did.

Feeling awkward at just leaving the children, who have yet to even introduce themselves, to stand awkwardly and watch him hunt for something within his own home, he manages to stumble upon enough ingredients to try and make something at least vaguely edible. He tries not to think about how funny it must look to see a grown man crouched in search of something to offer to his guests (? customers?).

"Where are your parents? Isn’t there someone waiting for you, or searching for you two?" The question reminds Kim Dokja of his odd dream that was a few nights ago by now, but he tries not to focus on it. The two make no move to break their silences. He’s really starting to wonder if maybe his conversational skills are just so atrocious people find it easier to not respond to him at all.

"No."

Startled by an unexpected response — Kim Dokja was starting to think he’d just have to talk to himself for the next few hours — he nearly drops the bag of brown sugar he had proudly found within the hell that was his kitchen. He finds that it was the boy who spoke for the two of them, with the girl almost hidden behind him in a protective manner.

It seems to finally dawn on Kim Dokja that he had practically taken two kids, who were likely just on their way home from classes, and brought them into a (seemingly) abandoned building. This feels like the setup to some mystery novel, and the reader isn’t exactly sure how he would feel about what his role in one would be.

"Shit, uh—" Panic is clear in his tone as he fumbles in his attempt to get up from where he had been crouching beforehand. "Do you guys have anyone at all? Like a parent or guardian to contact? You should probably let them know where you are."

Something bitter rises in the back of the throat when he tries to imagine the idea of a worried mother, a panicky father searching for their children out in the rain and wind. An imaginary older brother happy to see his sibling when the first major weather warning goes off, a fictional sister scolding the two children for forgetting their umbrellas at home when they knew that typhoon season was still very much in—

Ah. Kim Dokja suddenly remembers where he is, reorienting himself in reality as he gathers together sugar and flour. His trains of thought have been getting rather out there lately.

"If your phones are dead or something, I have a few chargers upstairs." He really hopes that he hadn't blanked out for too long. "I'm Kim Dokja by the way — this is my book cafe. Are you two students from the high school nearby?"

Their faces fall. He isn't quite sure how they could've gone from pensive to despairing in such a short time — maybe he really should just stop introducing himself to people who wander in — but he's sure they would've set a world record. 

"Shin Yoosung." The girl speaks up first, stepping out from where she had hidden behind the boy and approaching Kim Dokja like some feral animal. Like he'd bite her if she came too close; like he'd run if she were to look away. "That's Lee Gilyoung — but you can just ignore him."

"Hey!" The boy, apparently named Lee Gilyoung, seems almost offended by that last comment. "Hyung, don't listen to her. She's just bitter that you didn't recognize her when we first—"

Shin Yoosung cuts him off by swiftly covering his mouth, horror clear in her face. Kim Dokja has long since been convinced that nobody really came to his cafe for the books, just for him. He really was turning into some sort of roadside attraction. 

"I don't remember much of anything." He grabs three mugs from the top cupboard as he begins to measure out the recipe. Mug cake: easy to make, easy to eat, and maybe most important, egg-free so he won't worry about getting eggshells in the mix and embarrassing himself even more in front of the two kids — teenagers. He isn't sure why it's so hard to think of them as anything but children. "But if you're patient enough to meet me all over again, then I'd be happy to oblige." 

Perhaps this was the best response he could've given, since the two only take the freshly "made" cakes in their hands and settle down on one of the various couches strewn throughout the reading area. Kim Dokja tries not to think about the crumbs he'll have to vacuum later (if only so Yoo Sangah doesn't offer to do it for him) as he makes his way over after them. Turning on a vintage radio he got from a yard sale to some station playing whatever idol group has been on each and every billboard within a ten kilometer radius (a trio consisting of an angel, a monkey, and a dragon) before finally managing to get back to his Solo Leveling read. The three of them settle into a comfortable silence, only broken by the sound of a page being turned or quiet noise of a phone's keyboard. Kim Dokja really hopes they told their parents where they went. The idea of being the center of a possible missing persons case is starting to give him heart palpitations.

The nice atmosphere lasts for all of twenty minutes before the storm, which had begun in earnest approximately an hour ago, suddenly decides that it hates Kim Dokja's Cafe in specific and makes them lose power. He's really starting to think that life itself simply has it out for him.

Having left the kids to their own devices with a brief plea at trying not to burn anything down while he was gone, he finds himself once again rummaging through his storage. Though, this time it's in search of a flashlight rather than traces of snacks that had survived the latest Han Sooyoung raid. 

After only two near-death experiences involving falling boxes and strangely angled shelves, Kim Dokja has proudly scavenged four whole flashlights. That's four more than he expected he'd have, especially since he couldn't even remember the last time he bought one — or if he bought one at all. Maybe it was leftovers from whoever owned the building before him, back in the apocalyptic era. Doesn't matter now though, he was never one to ignore some freebies, even in spite of his extreme wealth. 

One of the two near-death experiences — this one a falling shelf — at least gave him another benefit in the end. Monopoly, the game where friendships burnt in hell and family relationships would irrevocably change. A game of hatred, spite, capitalism. Perfect to experience with two teenagers who could probably beat his ass in anything aside from classic board games. 

With more pride than he should've had as a man in their late-twenties in regards to finding a simple board game, Kim Dokja confidently placed the board game box on the center of one particular coffee table to the side of where Lee Gilyoung and Shin Yoosung were currently sitting. The flashlights were merely an afterthought, but they were also proudly displayed nearby. 

"Up for a game?" Kim Dokja can't help the mischief in his tone when he asks, hoping that even in spite of his memory loss that he has some idea of how to play Monopoly. It can't be that hard, could it?

(It was very hard, actually.)

"You really don't remember anything, do you?" Lee Gilyoung murmurs amidst the patter of rain and shuffling of paper money. He just bought enough property spaces that no matter what Kim Dokja rolls on his next turn, he'll owe far too much money. "It's okay, though."

Shin Yoosung hums in agreement and rolls the dice across the board, pushing her metal dog token past go and collecting her dues.

"Yeah! It's fine, ahjussi." Kim Dokja isn't sure if she's comforting him or herself, maybe it's both. Something tells him they aren't just talking about him not remembering how to play Monopoly. "Because we can remember for you."

Kim Dokja doesn't say anything in response. He simply takes the dice from the middle of the board and rolls again. Maybe he never needed to say anything at all — perhaps his silence is the only acceptance the two teens ever needed to begin with. 

(He's starting to wonder why he feels so oddly protective of the two, but the feeling vanishes the moment Shin Yoosung puts him three hundred thousand dollars in debt. He isn't even sure how he managed to screw up that badly, memory-loss or not.)

Later, long after the storm had passed and the pair finally left the cafe behind for the night (after promising to stick to well-lit roads and reassuring Kim Dokja they didn't live that far away at all) does he realize that his cast of regulars may have just increased. Again. He's starting to think that his trips for pastries should be more than once or twice a week.

Three days later, mid-afternoon on a weekday where Kim Dokja thought was the perfect day for a nap, does the pair finally waltz in again. However, this time they parade in with some sort of small creature in hand. As they come closer he slowly realizes that it wasn't some unknown creature at all — just a very strange, oddly shaped dog. Cat? Rabbit? He isn't sure what exactly it is, but it's fluffy and seems to being shaking from excitement or overstimulation like a feral chihuahua. He hopes it's gotten all of the necessary rabies shots.

"Ahjussi! This is Biyoo, she really wanted to see you." Shin Yoosung, holding the animal — Biyoo — like some sort of stuffed animal as she excitedly runs up to the surprised reader. He's still trying to process and try and figure out what the species of creature she's holding in her arm is, let alone respond to the creature’s supposed "insistence" on meeting him. Lee Gilyoung trails behind her, muttering something about how insects were far better than whatever Shin Yoosung could show off, but Kim Dokja decides to ignore that. 

"I'm not sure whether or not I have a policy for pets." The idea of seeing his book collection torn based upon the whims of an animal is one that stresses him out nearly as much as the time he watched Yoo Sangah and Han Sooyoung have one of their arguments in his entryway. The ones with the weird subtext he didn't want to think too hard about.

"She's really well behaved! I promise!" Shin Yoosung pleads, abruptly shoving Biyoo in Kim Dokja's face. "She likes you a lot! See?"

Kim Dokja's really starting to think about a way to politely phrase the fact that having an animal in a place that sells food for human consumption would surely violate at least a few health codes, but before he knows it he's holding Biyoo and she's just the cutest thing ever and—

Oh, he's definitely screwed. Maybe she can be the store mascot? He's never going to live this down.

Chapter Text

Time goes on, and the newest additions to the regulars at Kim Dokja's cafe settle in rather quickly. Lee Gilyoung and Shin Yoosung take up residence in the cafe — often with Biyoo at their ankles, who has miraculously managed to not somehow pee on any of the rugs or chew up any books yet — just as naturally as Han Sooyoung and Yoo Sangah had done months prior. Instead of the lone sound of the coffee machine or vaguely angry typing at a computer keyboard, Kim Dokja often hears the hushed squabbles between project partners and the even quieter whispers about something that he isn't quite sure he's meant to know about. Yoo Sangah, arguably the most responsible of the adult trio, even seems to be in contact with their parents, as she often walks them home when it gets too dark in the winter for the pair to brave the journey on their own. 

It's on one such night, after sending the three of them off right before a snowstorm was starting to brew, that Kim Dokja had been surprised to see a person hiding (poorly) in front of the building. Crouched low below the front window, barely able to look up through the window, but he's even more surprised to see that it was three people — not just one.

"Shit! Keep your head down!" One of three proclaim, shoving the one to their left down far below where anyone from inside the cafe could reasonably see out the window. Directly into a snowbank, if the muffled shout of surprise was any indication. 

"Jihye-yah, you're the loudest one here — she's gonna see us! She's totally going to fail us if we get caught — I'll lose the track and field scholarship if I fail this course!" The third shouts in a panic, as if the shout wouldn't alert whoever they were hiding from. 

"Shh, Jayoung-ah you have like, fifteen other scholarships. Just suck it up and keep an eye on her!" A pony-tailed girl, presumably the leader of the troupe, only whisper-shouts in retaliation. Against Kim Dokja's better judgement — something he was starting to doubt he had in the first place — he approaches. It's only natural for a storeowner to check out any idlers in the way of the doors, he reasons, not to mention he's sure that Han Sooyoung could bite someone in his defense if the three of them suddenly decide to be menaces. However, that plan also requires him to scream loud enough to alert her from beyond the walls. He definitely wouldn't live that down.

"Do you three have some reason to be hiding out in front of my cafe, or are you just here to... eat snow?" He throws a quick glance to where one of the three, a white haired boy who seemed to be getting incredibly pissed off very quickly as he was held facedown in the snow, but chooses to ignore it. Not his fault if he develops hypothermia — he won't be paying for the hospital bills.

The two that aren't currently slowly developing frostbite only scream in shock. This, Kim Dokja can understand. It's odd to be the one surprising instead of the being the one surprised for once.

The pair — possibly named "Jayoung" and "Jihye" — only stare at him in shock. Recognition, confusion, and panic pass across their faces in a quick succession. 

"Wait, isn't that—" Much like his prior experience with Lee Gilyoung and Shin Yoosung, the blonde one is quickly tackled by the other. He's really starting to see a pattern here, possibly one he doesn't enjoy.

Newly freed, the snow-eater miraculously manages to get up without stumbling and landing face first in the snow again. "If you two ever drag me out to watch Professor Sooyoung sit at some stupid book cafe for three hours straight, in the middle of a snowstorm after promising to 'find out about her double life to get an easy A', I'm just going to lock you two out of the dorm." It seems like the boy would've liked to rant for a little while longer, but he's quickly cut off by a fit of sneezes.

Sighing as though resigned to his fate of picking up strangers from the side of the road, Kim Dokja only opens the door behind him. 

"I hope you three like instant coffee."

(They don't.)

But the three of them drink it anyway, settled neatly in front of the portable space heater that Yoo Sangah had dropped off in front of his door one early February morning (she mutters something about a missed birthday, but Kim Dokja can't remember having one of those at all, even though he accepts it for the sake of not stressing her out more.) They sit in silence, which seems to be par for the course by now. 

Though the typing on the keyboard hadn't stopped, save for a few loudly muttered expletives, Kim Dokja tries to speak quietly enough so as to not disturb the author. He's come to know just how much a rabid, angry writer running off of caffeine and spite who hates being interrupted can terrify a man.

"I heard something about Sooyoung-ssi?" They seem to be talking about said resident author with some degree of respect, so Kim Dokja would much rather be safe than sorry when referring to her. "And something about her... 'double life'?" The panic on their faces seem as though they just realized what exactly what they had been doing for the past few hours. Ah, if it wasn't the consequences to their actions in the form of a very tired book cafe owner and his annoyance at the idea of having to call an ambulance for three idiotic teenagers who stuck around in the snow for far too long. He's starting to think that maybe running this cafe is more work than it was worth.

After a moment of deliberation, he finally decides to bite the bullet and drag the aforementioned author to hopefully clear the air. Despite her mutterings and vague threats about burning a bookshelf down if she loses her place in her manuscript, she does eventually sit on the couch next to him, facing the three with a clearly disinterested and almost annoyed expression.

"Did you idiots need me for something?" She says in the tone of voice that she only ever seems to use whenever Kim Dokja makes a particularly bad take about her most recent book recommendation. It's the first sign of an impending murder case, probably.

The three quickly exchange looks that seem as though they have just as much experience with Han Sooyoung's tendencies as he does, which doesn't put him any more at ease than he was before that realization. In fact, he's quickly starting to pity the three. After some quick arguments through harsh glances and elbow nudging, it seems as though the blonde in the center is forced to take one for the team.

"Jihye-yah said that you kept sneaking out after classes ended and it was super suspicious, so she may or may not have claimed to have seen you write some love letters and that wherever you were sneaking off to was your rendezvous point with them!" Out of breath from the ramble, she quickly seems to regain her composure after finally giving some sort of explanation. It's a shame that it only creates more questions, though. Everyone except Kim Dokja is staring at the pony-tailed teen, which he's assuming must be the "Jihye" mentioned earlier, with varying expressions. With an annoyed click of the tongue, the girl appears to be cornered and forced to spill the full story. 

"Well, you've been unusually brief in your lectures as of late. Plus, you actually get our essays back and graded in a reasonable time, which is even stranger than the fact that you aren't spending half of the class ranting about whatever bottom-of-the-barrel webnovel got serialized instead of yours. You also keep taking calls in the middle of a lecture and writing with some strange smile on your face — the one you usually reserve for payday." Jihye shrugs as if she's come to a perfectly reasonable assumption. "So it's either you're in love, you've been replaced by a clone slash alien, or a mixture of both. There's no other reason why you'd be at some random book cafe like this, even if..." She trails off as though she wants to say something more, giving a quick glance at Kim Dokja for some reason. 

The boy, who had been silent for the majority of the night and sipping slowly on his (probably lukewarm now) coffee finally decided to speak up.

"I'm just here to see these two get their asses handed to them by you." A perfectly reasonable justification to follow these two on their quest to catch Han Sooyoung doing... whatever it is that she does, Kim Dokja muses to himself.

Clearing his throat as though to give some grand revelation, he interrupts the four before Han Sooyoung begins her shouting.

"Ahem, but as the, uh, owner of this here 'random book cafe', I would think that I'd be the first to know if she was having some sort of affair under my roof?" He gives a grin that he usually uses moments before he gets punched. "I'm more caught off guard by the idea that Han Sooyoung could even get into a relationship in the fir—"

There it was! He ducked quickly, narrowly avoiding a blow straight to the jaw. 

"You bastard!" She sneers, grabbing at his collar to aim again. "As if you could do any better, you're the type of guy to think getting choked over the side of a bridge is some weird kind of foreplay!"

Oddly specific example, but okay. So oddly specific, he can’t find it within himself to refute it. Kim Dokja only holds his hands up in false surrender, entirely at Han Sooyoung's (and her fists) mercy.

"For your information, I've been in a relationship for a good three years now," she says with more pride than Kim Dokja had expected. "In fact, she proposed just a few... Hey, wait, that's none of your business actually." The last part of the sentence is pointed at the three students, who seemed to have hoped that the two of them forgot they were in the room at all. Jihye had even started to sneakily pull out her phone to record the beginning of a possible fight. 

Eventually Kim Dokja finds out that the arguments between Han Sooyoung and Yoo Sangah were not just personalities clashing, but instead some strange courting ritual that had been going on for a surprising amount of time now. Well, that definitely puts a few of their word choices into very, very different context.

"Um, excuse me, Professor Sooyoung and..." The blonde seems to be in a state of visible panic at the sight of two adults — one being a presumably semi-respected professor in a fist fight at a book cafe with owner of said book cafe — and tries her best to mediate. "I'm sorry, I don't think I got your name?"

Still held aloft by the collar, Kim Dokja extends his hand across the table between the two couches in a handshake. "Kim Dokja. Welcome to Kim Dokja's cafe." He makes an attempt at giving an easygoing smile, the contrast in situations a bit absurd.

(He tries not to think about the pain behind their expressions when he finally says his name, nor the dawning realization in the eyes of the boy who had only just now noticed where he was sitting.)

The three of them end up being a gaggle of college kids. All of them happen to be dorm mates — though there's a fourth, Han Donghoon, a computer science major who supposedly hasn't touched grass in years let alone go anywhere besides the dorm room and the few classes that required in-person attendance — who simply had the same English professor and far too much free-time. Kim Dokja wonders whether or not that "free time" could be used for something productive, like studying.

The blonde, Jang Hayoung he would later learn, has yet to decide her major. Though she isn't all that concerned due to her various athletics scholarships ("If they kick me out, they'll lose a member in basically every team of theirs!" She beamed when he asked, picking up the latest volume of the Hunter x Hunter manga, one that she had practically begged Kim Dokja to buy a few weeks back.)

The troupe leader, Lee Jihye, seemed to be strangely invested in the relationships of others. Majoring in marine biology with a minor in naval history, she seems to spend most of her time spying on either Han Sooyoung or Kim Dokja as they go about their day. (Once she tried to bring a katana into the store. Kim Dokja sincerely hoped that it was a replica, mostly because he doesn't want to take out life insurance. He isn't sure if his blood pressure can handle this.)

The third and final, a boy by the name of Kim Namwoon, seemed just as invested in webnovels as Kim Dokja was. The only unfortunate thing being their drastically different tastes in genres. If Kim Dokja had thought his arguments with Han Sooyoung were bad, he hadn't even thought about trying to argue against someone with permanent middle school syndrome. ("The regressor archetype is simply too overdone, especially with the blatant wish fulfillment and harem tendencies. There are far better ways to create a traumatized protagonist, especially ones with actual weight to them." "You just haven't read the latest chapter of Delusional Demon and the SSSS-Tier Summoning Circle!" Strangely, Kim Dokja is starting to think that the novel he so heavily praises is actually his self-insert fanfiction.) Though his major is game design, he happened to take quite a few writing electives. Particularly creative writing ones. Kim Dokja's really starting to connect the dots here.

After finally managing to chase the three back to their dorm mostly due to their curfew and Han Sooyoung vaguely promising to read through Kim Namwoon's rough draft, the reader and author are finally left alone yet again.

"So he was looking for a beta reader, huh?" Kim Dokja murmurs as he watches the three backs walk into the night, leaning against the doorway. There's something a little bitter in his words; a smidge of melancholy he can't quite place. Han Sooyoung flinches next to him, as though the word holds another meaning to her as well. "How's your manuscript going, by the way?" He shifts his attention back to her in aim of changing the subject.

She doesn't respond at first, only giving him a side eye like she thinks he knows more than he's letting on. After confirming that he doesn't, she lets out a drawn-out sigh.

"Fine. It's going well, but that conversation with Kim Namwoon really reminded me I need to find an editor for it." There's a bit of hope in her voice, almost like it's an unspoken invitation.

Kim Dokja grabs onto it like a lifeline.

"I'd love to read it!" He nearly cuts her off in his excitement, no trace of the exhaustion that had been dragging his shoulders down for the past few weeks visible. "I mean, if you'd let me, at least." He starts to walk from the entryway back to the couch, Han Sooyoung trailing idly behind him. "It seems like an important project to you, and I don't want to pry."

Her gaze seems to be far away as she sits back down at her normal table, laptop opened and writing program untouched. 

"Yeah. It is." Just as Kim Dokja was starting to give up on it, disappointment making his face burn with embarrassment from his earlier outburst, she continues. "But I'd love to have you read it. You'd be my first reader, actually."

He thinks he likes the sound of that.

The College Trio, as he’s come to call them in his head whenever they show up unannounced and suffering from a lack of caffeine, have a strange fixation on his cafe specifically. Despite the fact that they have access to a literal library with plenty more resources and a better atmosphere for academics, they seem to prefer his place — for some odd reason.

”Just face it ahjussi,” Lee Jihye had said in response to one of his many exasperated reminders about that very topic. She seemed to be incredibly focused on playing whatever game she brought on the Nintendo Switch she managed to sneak past campus security earlier in the week. “You’re stuck with us.”

Kim Dokja is really starting to reconsider his life choices as he watches Jang Hayoung get lost in his manga section for the fifth time this week — despite her insistence on studying for her Calculus midterm in a week or so. He's pretty sure she even managed to rope Yoo Sangah into helping her study, but that doesn't seem to be going all that well. Kim Namwoon is faring no better, arguing about the power balance of his "creative writing piece" (read: self insert fanfiction) with Han Sooyoung, who was getting progressively more and more fed up with him and his outlandish rationalizations. He should really take her word, especially since she's his literal English professor.  

It all came to a head when the worlds seemed to collide — Lee Gilyoung and Shin Yoosung, of course with Biyoo in hand, were simply appalled to see college kids on their turf. Turf being the cafe, of course. Kim Dokja wonders if he’s been cursed to be stuck in some strange custody battle between people he doesn’t remember for the rest of his life.

”You can’t take ahjussi!” Shin Yoosung had cried out, gripping onto Kim Dokja’s pant leg in a scene akin to a toddler having a breakdown in a grocery store. “You already have that stupid sunfish, so go bother him instead!”

Lee Gilyoung, the slightly more mature of the two, decides to only double down on the shared sentiment.

”Yeah! We found him first, so he’s ours!” He takes a protective step in front of Kim Dokja, as though he were a barrier between him and the three older ones. Obviously, it does nothing. But the gesture made makes Kim Dokja feel a bit more warm, probably more than it should've.

"You guys do realize he's a fully grown man, yeah?" Kim Namwoon pipes up from where he was sitting across from Han Sooyoung, who was clearly used to the younger duo's temper tantrums by now. "He doesn't belong to anyone."

Jang Hayoung nods her head with a bit more vigor that necessary, seemingly more passionate about this petty argument than she honestly should be. Where was Yoo Sangah when you needed her?

"He has two hands!" She shouts as though that some kind of logical reason as to why Kim Dokja must be "shared" amongst the slew of cafe regulars. "He's not just some babysitter for you two."

This doesn't go nearly as well as she hoped, as Shin Yoosung barks back a reply almost instantaneously. 

"His two hands are for me and Lee Gilyoung! I barely want to share ahjussi with bug-boy over here, let alone with you three. Why don't you go and get a job? Don't all college kids have debt or something?" She sticks her tongue out at Jang Hayoung and Lee Jihye, who was clearly more interested in her vintage Gameboy she got off eBay than whatever strange argument was taking place in front of her. 

"Jokes on you, I'm here on a scholarship!" Jang Hayoung puffs her chest out in pride as though she won some competition, not a petty battle of words with a literal high schooler. Standards were low, it seemed. The two continue to bicker, some words sharper than others, before the fight is broken up by one very, very annoyed author.

"If you guys don't shut up within the next five minutes, I'm going to burn this damned cafe down to the ground and make you watch!" Kim Dokja feels like he got the short end of the stick here — he didn’t even do anything this time, yet he's still being threatened? He fears for whoever is in one of her classes. He should really look into homeowner's insurance. 

"Yoosung-ie, if you don't stop acting like you own the place, I'm gonna tell Sookyung-ahjumma about the time you skipped your biology class because of the dissection lab!" Lee Jihye calls in an almost sing-song tone. This seems to shake her out of it, as Shin Yoosung hesitantly pulls Lee Gilyoung to the side. The two only continue to speak in conspiratorial whispers afterwards, so Kim Dokja isn't sure if this was an improvement or not, especially as he forces down a strange feeling of nausea at the newly mentioned name. 

Later, on a night when the snow had long since melted and it seemed like the whole array of regulars had the day after off, began the impromptu tradition of cafe game nights. Of course, Kim Dokja himself wasn't made aware of it beforehand — despite being expected to prepare for it. 

The competition had stretched long into the night, after a few passionate games of Scrabble and Mario Kart that led to a few exchanges that shouldn't be repeated in front of children, which then ended in Biyoo using Kim Namwoon's leg as her newest chew toy, it seemed as though things were finally settling down.

Kim Dokja, who had found himself taking more naps than usual lately, had long since fallen asleep on one of the couches. With a copy of whatever novel he had begun the day before laying discarded to his side — presumably due to him falling asleep sitting up, if the lack of bookmark was any indicator — with Lee Gilyoung and Shin Yoosung similarly asleep and leaning on his shoulders. It was a rather cute scene, all in all, if not for the incredibly intense game of Uno! directly in front of it.

"So who's gonna tell the sooty bastard?" Kim Namwoon broke the silence, placing down a green nine while Jang Hayoung let out a curse under her breath.

"Not me—oh, uno!" Lee Jihye grinned as she slammed another green card down. Kim Dokja grumbled in his sleep, rolling to the side at the noise, earning Lee Jihye a few pointed glares. Sheepishly, she raises the hand not holding her final card in mock surrender. "I know we're supposed to come in one at a time, but don't you think leaving only him totally in the dark is a bit unfair?"

"I agree," Jang Hayoung murmurs, though she seems to be more focused on trying to find out a way to get rid of her twenty cards than the topic at hand. "Weren't they... you know? Life and death companions, or something?" The latter half of her words take on a more playful tone, as though it were some inside joke for the group. 

Han Sooyoung, who slyly placed a draw four with a slightly terrifying smile on her face waited for a moment before replying. "It's funnier this way," is the response she finally settles on. No one else seems to have anything to say in opposition.

(This, they would eventually come to regret.)

Chapter Text

Though the Subway Stranger had long since departed from Kim Dokja's nightly escapade, his journey through the subway system of his dreams continued. He found it harder and harder to spend his nights reading these days, as his exhaustion seemed to seep into his very being despite not doing very much. Perhaps the sudden cast of lively regulars was throwing off his sleep schedule, or it was simply taking too much energy to entertain them all during the day.

Nevertheless, he dreamed — and when he dreamed, he remembered. Or at least, he thought he was remembering something.

Having become intimately familiar with the scene of himself alongside a group of others leaving him behind (a group whose faces seemed to get less and less blurry as time went on) it was quite the shock when that routine had been disrupted seemingly out of nowhere.

Oddly enough, on one night in particular when the moon had waned enough for the need of a small lantern earlier than usual, Kim Dokja had found himself in a completely empty subway. This time, however, the doors were open and beyond them was just as empty as the subway car. It was just him, shorter than usual, but him nonetheless.

With a quick glance to the side — he couldn't deny the momentary hope of seeing his former subway companion in spite of the otherwise completely silent space — only to see, oddly enough, a beaten down backpack with various school materials spilling out of it. Gone was his coat, instead replaced by what he assumed to be a school uniform that was a few sizes too large. The subway was completely stationary, no sense of rocking as though it had just stopped like his previous dreams. This was certainly an outlier. 

Letting his curiosity win over rationality, Kim Dokja found himself able to actually get up and out of his seat. Stretching as though he hadn't needed to even stand up in quite some time, he grabbed the backpack before walking up to the previously closed doors that he had gazed upon for days, months, years. Some bitter sense of melancholy rose up within him as he paused right at the gap where the doors ended and the concrete of the station stop began. 

Gathering more courage than what was probably needed for simply stepping off of a subway car, Kim Dokja was surprised to find that he wasn't the sole resident at the station, unlike what he had earlier assumed.

Though there were a few people walking around here and there, none of their faces could be seen. Unlike how the faces he had watched walk beyond the subway doors were simply blurry, it was more akin to the people in the subway not having them at all. Kim Dokja vaguely recalls reading somewhere that the brain couldn't recreate human faces from memories, so people in dreams were simply strangers his subconscious had decided to recycle into background props. (He doesn't think about how his subconscious had known about his cafe regulars before even he did, nor how he remembered them decently enough for their distinct features to stand out even in despite of the blurred faces; Han Sooyoung's billowing coat, Lee Gilyoung's hat that he seemed to be strangely emotionally attached to, Shin Yoosung's peach cardigan).

For a brief moment he thinks that maybe something changed, that maybe his dreams had shifted enough for him to be able to fulfill the Subway Stranger's promise to find him on his own. Maybe the time between his dreams were negligible, where time only truly passed when he was dreaming rather than when he was also awake — after all, if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, did it happen at all? If dreams are not dreamt, not remembered, can you prove they even existed in the first place? 

Spurned on by the new sense of hope, Kim Dokja quickly attempts to find a bench to sit and wait it out at. He could scarcely remember some advice about what to do when you'd get lost (something he seemed to do quite often — especially in new, unfamiliar places. There was a reason he didn't get out much) where you were supposed to stay in one spot and wait for the search party to find you.

So, sit he did, plopping his backpack down before sitting directly next to him. His legs hurt a bit more than they should, almost as though he had sprained something, but something tells Kim Dokja that the feeling isn't unusual. Dizzy with the idea of seeing his dreamed companion again, Kim Dokja can hardly contain his excitement as he swings his feet to-and-fro from the bench. 

After a few moments of waiting, he starts to wonder how long it would take. Surely the subway station wasn't that big, right? Surely he wasn't forgotten, right? The idea strikes more fear in him that he thought it would. 

Deciding to focus on something other than an impending sense of doom from the idea of being abandoned — by a being created from his subconscious, somehow — Kim Dokja instead manages to open up the schoolbag. Upon closer inspection, the bag itself seems as though it has seen much better days. With the straps fraying and some parts having been hastily sewn back together, what lies inside of it looks no better.

Beaten, worn down notebooks are all that he can find. Upon opening up the pages, Kim Dokja finds hastily scribbled notes about books written in a childish, messy scrawl. As though the writer was afraid of being caught writing; as though the writer's hands weren't able to grip the pencil just right, like something was preventing it. The notes themselves aren't anything special, brief memos describing various protagonists alongside a few instances of an in-depth plot analysis with explanations of the relevant symbolism, but Kim Dokja loses himself in it. Something about it feels familiar, almost as familiar as this subway and nearly as familiar as the people he can just barely recall when he thinks of the people he watched leave him behind for so long.

But the more he reads and the longer he spends on the bench the further away any other memories seem to feel. The farther into the notebooks he delves, the messier the handwriting becomes. Sentences left unfinished, as though the writer had lost their train of thought and never got back on track.

The stories themselves make him feel nostalgic — they remind him of the Subway Stranger. He could still remember his story, the tales of desperation and close-calls; the ups and downs as he tried a different angle each and every regression; the failures and the successes, each more hurtful than the last. He holds these memories close to his chest as though they are the very foundation of his being. Something about that story in specific feels as though it's far more than just a plot his subconscious had constructed based on the webnovels he read in the daytime, a bit more raw than mere words on a page.

The story is all he has left of the Subway Stranger. His face had long since faded from memory, even in spite of his desperation to not lose him, too. It's a bit ironic actually, since he can't recall whether or not he had truly looked him in the eye back when he was still by his side.

Perhaps it's this sense of desperation, this fear of losing things beyond even his memories, that caused Kim Dokja to dig through the backpack in search of a pen. Hoping that the backpack was somehow owned by his dream self before realizing it had to be, he once again loses himself in reliving the story he's been told. The earliest round he can remember is the third, so that's where he begins his eager journey. 

The passage of time in dreams is hard. You could be asleep for only an hour but have a dream where it felt like weeks, or vice versa. This dream in particular seems to be quite the lengthy one, but Kim Dokja doesn't seem to mind. He finds joy in his scribbles, jotting down whatever he can recall and trying to fill in the gaps of what he cannot. It isn't long until he's putting together a power chart of the core cast.

Strangely enough he can't seem to recall their names. They turn up blank, despite him remembering their vague roles and significance. 

"What was the doctor's name again..?" He muttered to himself, stuck on where his pen hovered over the "531st" label. "She must not have been all that important, then." He reasons before moving on, leaving the spot where he would've put her name blank next to the list of skills. He's been forgetting most of their names as of late, but that doesn't bring him down. They're all just background characters after all, supporting roles meant to propel the protagonist into better and better opportunities. He realized that as the Subway Stranger told more and more of his story, he had grown apathetic to them as well — as though he had accepted their fates. Maybe this was just Kim Dokja's way of doing just that.

(He tries not to think about how the apathy might be false, or the result of seeing far too many deaths to count. They're characters, he would repeat to himself after noting the round where the naval captain one had been impaled with a stray spear after taking a hit for the protagonist, trying not to think about how that was the first round where the Subway Stranger had managed to get through the cinema dungeon with her by his side, the first one where she had managed to smile for the first time in years. The Subway Stranger never told Kim Dokja if she ever managed to smile again in the rounds following.) 

He loses himself so thoroughly in this pastime that he hardly hears the sound of the subway moving again, the one that had dropped him off had presumably long since left him behind. He can't find it within himself to wonder how nor why. 

A new one comes to a halt with a screech, the sound taking him out of his daze and forcing his head to glance up at whoever was coming off. He hopes it's the Subway Stranger — he isn't sure how long he had been waiting — but once again only finds disappointment when a stranger steps off and onto the platform. 

He stared at the man, donning a coat paler than snow and a face that seemed just as surprised as he was, as he slowly approached the bench. A small group followed behind him, with various weapons strapped to their waists. 

Eyes widening as though he couldn't believe his eyes, Kim Dokja couldn't help but recede a bit into the seat he was sitting on. It was almost as though he was running away, almost as though he was hiding from a memory he didn't want to see. 

The man only came closer, strangely sprouting pitch black wings from his shoulders as though he were some kind of fallen angel (Didn't that seem like the demon king transformation the Subway Stranger had told him about, once upon a time? How odd.) as he brandished a terrifyingly realistic sword aimed directly at him.

Glancing behind the attacker, Kim Dokja noticed the group that had gotten off at the platform chasing after him. Fear filled Kim Dokja's senses — when you die in a dream, don't you die in real life? — and he couldn't help but gasp out a simple phrase: "A... monster..?" 

The gleam of the sword's tip shining in the artificial lighting of the subway, the faint metallic scent of blood and stale air, the chaotic shouts and yells for the attacker to stop. All of it was overwhelming, all of it was terrifying, and just as Kim Dokja opened his jaw to scream out in fear, to plead for mercy, because all he ever wanted was to live another day, to read one more chapter—

But since when has his fear ever brought forth a change in his life? Since when have his pleas been heard? It seems as though this was the only way it would end, like this was a race he'd run far too many times to count; like a book with story beats he knew better than the back of his hand. Just as he had begun to lose his last shred of hope, the remnant of belief that this was all a nightmare and he'd wake up just like normal, Kim Dokja sees him. 

Him, the Subway Stranger he's dreamt of for months now. Him, the man he's been waiting at this subway bench for far too long for. Him, the story he loved most, the person he mourned without even realizing. Though he cannot recall his face, the rush of relief at the sight of him is all the proof he needs. The man's mouth opened as though to speak, as though to greet him for the first time in forever.

I found you, Kim Dokja thinks he would say. We both got off this train, so let's go home Dokja-yah. Kim Dokja wonders why the idea feels so comforting, why the man would know his name without him ever giving it. (Why he feels like the man would know him best in the world.) He’s so caught up in imagining it, in dreaming it, he loses himself. Gone is the fear of the sword, which had been discarded once the attacker had been apprehended, and gone is any hesitation towards the oncoming group.

Instead, all that comes out of his mouth is— 

Chapter Text

With a jolt, Kim Dokja was abruptly awoken by the loud noise of construction nearby. The loud hum of machinery accompanied by the occasional barking of orders left him wide awake, chest still heaving with the feeling of a near-death experience, even if only from a dream. Clutching the blankets that covered him like a lifeline, he gradually felt his heart rate calm until he was no longer on the verge of hyperventilating. Realizing that he was shaking, he quickly got up and out of bed in an effort to find out what exactly had woken him up. 

Still in pajamas and a hastily thrown on shawl, he managed to peek out of the doorway to the building nearby. He recalled seeing the "for-sale" sign having been taken down a week or so ago, but hadn't realized the new tenants were so quick on the move-in. Curiosity quickly taking over his annoyance at being woken up when the sun had barely risen, he manages to find a matching pair of slippers before casually making his way over to where two people stood overlooking the work being done.

"Are you two the new people who just moved in?" He shuffles close enough to be right behind the male, who seems to jump in surprise at the sudden voice. The woman to his side whips her head around just as quickly, her hand reaching for something on her waist that wasn't there. 

"Huh? Oh— yes, we are!" The male seem to be be staring holes through Kim Dokja's face. He briefly wonders if his new neighbors were also acquaintances from his pre-memory loss life, and if he simply has the world's worst luck. The woman to his side seems much calmer, so there's some hope there at least.

"Did we wake you?" She's polite, even if her words come across as a bit clipped. It doesn't seem rude, more like that's simply her way of speaking. It reminds him a bit of a watered down Han Sooyoung, and the thought brings a soft smile to his face. 

"Not really," he lies as easily as he reads. Guilt-tripping the pair the moment he meets them doesn't seem to be the best first impression, and for some reason Kim Dokja is strangely focused on appearing friendly with them. "I own the building right next door, the book cafe over there." He glances behind the two at the building that was currently undergoing construction. "In fact, I was just thinking of doing some renovations as well. Could I ask for the number of whoever you hired for yours?"

Realizing he forgot something crucial, Kim Dokja cuts himself off before even giving them a moment to respond. "I'm Kim Dokja, by the way." He casually stretches his hand out for a handshake towards the woman, leaving the male by her side to only look between the two as though he were on the verge of freaking out.

"Jung Heewon, and that's Lee Hyunsung." The woman takes his hand and shakes it with a bit more strength than he thinks she meant to put into it. "It's nice to meet you, Dokja-ssi."

"You as well," he responds pleasantly. This was good. Befriending an adult that wasn't a chronically spiteful writer or an eternally stressed out civil servant was surely a benefit. "What are you two building?" It appears to be a restaurant of some kind, or something similar.

"I'm a bartender," Jung Heewon says as she also throws a glance behind her. "Hyunsung-ah over there is the co-owner." It's an odd pairing, but it doesn't feel out of place. 

Kim Dokja abruptly notices the subtle feel of rain on his head, a telltale sign of an early morning storm, before turning back to the two. 

"Do you two like tea?"

Over the course of three cups of tea, Kim Dokja had managed to get tickets to their opening night ("The construction is mostly for the exterior, so we were able to host a small get-together. Have you heard of the pop idol Uriel? I know her through a mutual friend, so she even agreed to get her idol group to play for us on a night they have off." He remembers how expensive their concert tickets were — well into the quadruple digits — and just barely manages to not spit out the tea he was drinking) as well as find out that they also knew his regulars ("Sooyoung-ssi?" Lee Hyunsung had piped up after Kim Dokja made some off hand comment about her habit of raiding his cabinets, "You know Sooyoung-ssi?" It really was a small world after all. They even knew about the college trio, after Kim Dokja had spent nearly a solid five minutes muttering about how he needed to hire a part time employee but the three of them were too unreliable in their oddities to hire.) — all of which was well before the sun had begun to set. 

"We're having that opening tonight, if you were actually interested," Jung Heewon repeated as she helped to stack the cups together. Lee Hyunsung tried his best to help, even if there was nothing left to help with once she had finished. "I'd, no, we'd love it if you were to come." Kim Dokja thinks that the "we" she's referring to encapsulates more than just the two standing in front of him.

"I'll think about it," he promises. He thinks about his nightly routine with Han Sooyoung, Yoo Sangah, and the other troublemakers he's grown attached to. 

Maybe Jung Heewon notices how his face falls, as she quickly speaks up again. "Sooyoung-ssi and Sangah-ssi will be there too, and I'm sure Gilyoung-ie and Yoosung-ie will be attending too." It's Lee Hyunsung's hopeful stare that finally breaks the reader down.

Sighing, he admits defeat. He glances downwards at the newspaper on the table, page turned to where he had purchased a spot to advertise his need for a part-time employee. Maybe he could hunt down Jang Hayoung and see if she had time between her practices to pick up a few shifts, if only because she was the most responsible of the three. "What time does it start?" 

Jung Heewon smiles a bit too brightly at his reluctant attendance. 

The concert isn't quite what Kim Dokja had expected. He had anticipated a small gathering of maybe ten or so people, with Uriel — the actual famed pop star, not someone just using her name — giving a casual concert in honor of whatever friendship she seemed to have with both Jung Heewon and Lee Hyunsung. Instead, upon entering the bar (with a few sections still taped off due to debris) Kim Dokja finds himself quickly herded into some long hallway which eventually connected to a large, open room with perfect acoustics. He can hear the faint sound of the aforementioned pop idol, but he has to strain to hear it over the chatter of other people crowding around. It seems either Jung Heewon had many more friends than she wanted to alert Kim Dokja of, or that Uriel's location got leaked by some rabid fan and this was the result of it. 

After being swept up by a crowd of particularly rowdy folk, he finally manages to make his way towards the open bar where at least he would be able to sit and catch his breath. Almost giving up on the idea of seeing anyone he recognized, Kim Dokja was pleasantly surprised to see Yoo Sangah have almost the same idea as he did — sitting and trying not to end up underfoot and buried.

"Sangah-ssi!" He calls, almost tripping over himself as he rushes over to an empty seat beside her. Startled, she whips her head around with a harsh swish, her glare softening the moment it lands on the reader. It seem as though she's had far too many unsavory experiences at a bar, if the way she was protectively holding her drink had anything to say about it.

With a sigh, Kim Dokja manages to right himself on the bar stool next to her. Grinning, he leans in close enough to look her in the eye even amidst the blinding stage lights. "Were you dragged out here just like I was?"

With a gentle laugh, she only gives a slight shrug in response. "I'm designated driver for the night, and," she points her head towards the crowd, leaving Kim Dokja to turn and get the perfect view of the familiar college trio in some sort of dance competition. Jang Hayoung seems incredibly focused on trying to mimic whatever idol choreography she seemed to have studied the night before, leaving Kim Namwoon to cheer her on while Lee Jihye records with barely contained laughter. "I have to make sure those three don't get lost in the crowd — so I'm playing babysitter." Kim Dokja notices the drink she had been holding was water, not alcohol. (For some reason that puts him at ease.) 

"That's... quite the ordeal you've taken on." Kim Dokja continues to watch whatever circus the three of them were putting on for a moment more before turning back to look at his conversation partner. "What about Gilyoung-ie and Yoosung-ie? Are they having fun at home?" If those two were also here, Kim Dokja thinks he would've had an even greater headache than the one he had woken up with earlier in the morning. 

"Ah! The kids!" Her grin becomes brighter, as though this was the exact conversation topic she had been waiting to bring up. "The two of them were rather upset when I told them you wouldn't be there tonight — Heewon-ssi was bragging to Sooyoung-ssi about finally getting the "hermit to socialize with people instead of book characters", so I came to know of it just as quickly as she did — but they eventually calmed down once they found out why." Kim Dokja briefly wonders if Han Sooyoung and Yoo Sangah spend quite a bit of time together outside of the cafe before realizing he was no better than the Lee Jihye, and abruptly shut down that train of thought.

"Where is Sooyoung-ssi anyway? Usually she'd be here trying to psychoanalyze me based on my book of the week," Kim Dokja muses aloud, earning an eyeroll from Yoo Sangah. 

"She's... on the way." Her voice seems oddly strained for the simple statement she had just given. "She just had to pick something up."

Kim Dokja only tilts his head, a subtle query for her to elaborate, but she doesn't. Instead, she turns to look past the crowd and upon the stage where the lights were quickly dimming. 

"It's starting soon, have you ever heard any of their music?" Yoo Sangah makes a quick subject change, but Kim Dokja lets her. Whatever Han Sooyoung was picking up and presumably bringing, he really hoped it wasn't flammable. Or glitter. He really hated getting it out of his hair in the hours after. Perhaps fate is on his side for once, because before he can spend any more time pondering on the pros and cons of glitter or confetti, the show begins.

It seems as though Uriel wasn't the only one though, as her two groupmates — simply named "Heaven's Equal" and "Abyssal Black Flame Dragon", Kim Dokja really wonders who their stage managers were — were on stage beside her. The crowd cheers, and Kim Dokja finds himself lost in the enthusiasm and joining alongside them. Yoo Sangah only watches on, a bright smile upon her face as the show begins in earnest.

Somehow, after the show had ended and most of the attendees were slowly making their way to the door, he managed to finally stumble across Jung Heewon — woman of the hour and the reason he came here in the first place. Clutching a small, recently purchased book on bartending as a housewarming — bar-warming? — gift to his chest, Kim Dokja somehow was able to squeeze past the clump of drunk attendees who were giving their thanks as well. 

"So? What did you think of the concert?" Jung Heewon wastes no time on her barrage of questions for Kim Dokja, despite taking the book into her hands gingerly as though it wasn't an impulse buy he had made during hours that were too early for him to have been fully coherent. "Did you want to meet Uriel and the others?"

Before he could even respond, Kim Dokja found himself once again herded off to another connected room, though this one seemed to be more of a space for whatever performing group of the night to rest and get ready for their show. Taking an uneasy step through the doorway, he finds that it wasn't empty as he had initially thought.

To his right sits one of the aforementioned members, the "Abyssal Black Flame Dragon" — seriously, these names were something out of one of Kim Dokja’s trashy webnovels — who just so happened to be the youngest of the trio. He doesn’t spare Jung Heewon nor the reader beside her a glance as he continues to tap away on whatever game console he brought with him, so Kim Dokja simply assumes their after show visit was expected. (Kim Dokja briefly wonders why the three, incredibly famous pop idols aren’t surprised by his sudden appearance, nor the lack of security around them, but then realizes that would be a whole other can of worms he’s too tired to deal with.)

Beyond him, closer to the back where there seemed to be a card game of sorts already in play, were the remaining two members along with two other people Kim Dokja couldn’t recognize.

"Heaven’s Equal", or simply Sun Wukong whenever he wasn’t on stage, seemed to be absolutely destroying the other three in the game at hand. He gives Kim Dokja a quick once over before slamming his deck down on the table and standing up in recognition.

"The fifth has arrived, at last!" He cheers, bringing the attention of the other three to Kim Dokja immediately, who was starting to think more and more like he should’ve declined Jung Heewon’s offer to meet the pop idol group, even if he would live with that regret for the rest of his life. These people were simply too absurd. "We were all waiting, you know." His words are a bit slurred, and a quick look at the cup in his hand tells Kim Dokja all he needs to know about the current situation, even if said situation is stressing him out more than it should.

Maybe his expression is giving away more than it should, because two of the three still seated players stand up as though to escort the drunk singer out of the building.

The woman, taller than Kim Dokja and probably most men, takes Sun Wukong by the shoulder before firmly leading him out of the room. A significantly shorter male follows suit, muttering something about an “idiotic disciple with memory loss” — wait, that wasn’t him, right? Surely not.

Jung Heewon must’ve followed the trio earlier, because now it was only Kim Dokja and Uriel, who seemed to be far more interested in staring at the reader than making any conversation with him. He briefly mourns the idea that he would’ve been able to get into contact with Jang Hayoung in regards to the job offer, especially this late when it was likely far past their curfews.

"It’s an honor to meet such an outstanding musician such as yourself. Your performance earlier was spectacular," Kim Dokia praises, reaching his hand out as an attempt at starting the conversation himself, but the woman only gives a goofy smile that seems exclusive to inebriated people. 

"Oh, so it’s true then," she giggles as though he's just told the best joke in the world. “Does he know?” 

“He?” Kim Dokja echoes, unsure as to who she’s referring to.

"Yes, your life and death companion!” She insists, slamming her drink against the table as she leans in too close for Kim Dokja’s comfort. “Sangah-ssi said that you lost your memory, but surely you didn’t forget him.” This conversation was clearly going nowhere, but at least he managed to learn that way too many of his cafe regulars were friends with high profile celebrities. He’s starting to wonder if he’ll see the iconic money envelope scene from the dramas Han Sooyoung made him watch happen in front of his eyes one day. The thought terrifies him.

"I believe in your companionship," the lead singer continues with a slight slur to her words, clearly having had a few too many "angel shots" this early into the night. "It will prevail over all!" She punctuates her sudden exclamation by throwing her drink into the air, sloshing whatever strange mixture around and spilling it over the innocent furniture that had just so happened to be placed in the splash zone. Kim Dokja wonders if she has any semblance of sobriety left in her. 

(Kim Dokja briefly wonders if the woman in front of him had simply read too many trashy romance novels and was too drunk out of her mind to differentiate fiction from reality.)

Finally, after a few more minutes of suffocating silence broken only by the sound of Uriel muttering something under her breath and the suffocating scent of alcohol in the air which left him tense and on edge, Kim Dokja is saved once again by Yoo Sangah. One quick glance from the reader to the clearly inebriated pop singer makes her give Kim Dokja an apologetic smile, as though she weren’t aware of just how bad it was.

"Sorry about that, Dokja-ssi," Yoo Sangah reached her hand out to Uriel, who gladly took it and barely managed to stumble her way into standing up beside her. "When Heewon-ssi had mentioned you were attending the concert, Uriel was simply ecstatic." Kim Dokja decides he doesn't want to know what was so special about him that made all these people so excited to see him, simply because he's starting to think it'd take far too much work to connect all the dots. "Sooyoung-ssi just arrived, if you still were looking for her?"

He was. Though it was more so he could rant about the ending of the most recent Trash of the Count's Family chapter than anything else, but he takes her given way out anyway. 

Maneuvering past the crowd, Kim Dokja almost makes it through to the exit and back to his warm, comfortable cafe before he finds himself trapped in the crowd yet again. With a quick glance from side to side, he manages to spot Han Sooyoung near one of the side entrances. Deciding to take the risk of spending half an hour listen to one of her novel rants again, Kim Dokja quickly realizes that he'd rather die listening to the author ramble than be stampeded to death by drunk passerby. In fact, he began to take a step towards her before he managed to get a better look at where she stood, only to see a man that was already standing beside her. The two of them appear to be arguing over something, if Han Sooyoung's exaggerated mannerisms and frantic hand movements were anything to go off of. Their voices are lost in the crowd, but Kim Dokja can barely manage to catch her calling the man a "sooty bastard". Lovely conversation, really. 

Stopping in his tracks, Kim Dokja briefly forgets where he was as his gaze shifts from Han Sooyoung to view the man in earnest, fearing the worst — that he'd have to hold Han Sooyoung back from a possible fight that only drunks would initiate.

Flashes of something he can't quite recall come to the forefront of his mind — a bridge, dangling above the open maw of some monstrosity of a sea creature; a woman, clad in furs and on the attack, moments before the metallic taste of blood fills his mouth; the electrifying pain of something being pierced, someone holding him as though he were precious as he loses feeling in his limbs. Nausea wells up in Kim Dokja's stomach, making him feel even fainter than he had before coming to the concert. He really should have just stayed home. The flashes of memories were gone just as quickly as they came, leaving him sick with no recollection as to why.

Perhaps Kim Dokja is simply this world's enemy, because it is at that exact moment that Han Sooyoung chooses to look over and make eye contact with him.

She shoves the man beside her, pointing in Kim Dokja's direction with some vague hand motions that seem like she's telling him to go over, which leaves Kim Dokja searching around him as a means to quickly locate an escape route. He regrets keeping an eye on the two for a moment longer, because the man turns his head and when their eyes lock, something within Kim Dokja seems to click into place. Like something lost was found, like something he's been mourning has come to relieve him of his grief.

This, of course, only brings more panic. The man takes a stiff step in Kim Dokja's direction, his expression firm and concentrated, like he was hunting something — someone — down. In a feeble attempt at escaping, Kim Dokja manages to shove his way into the crowd, hoping to lose his pursuer and totally not so he can go home and stare at his ceiling to think about why exactly he seems so familiar.

Just as he was stepping out of the door, the air outside leaving him feeling numb from victory and definitely not from the chill from the air being cold enough for Kim Dokja to regret stepping out in the first place, he feels himself being abruptly jerked back. With a quick whip of his head, he finds himself once again staring down the man from earlier, this time with his wrist caught in one of his hands. Kim Dokja tries to ignore the feeling of warmth, the strange way he wants to melt where he stands. There was no way his life was going to turn into some trashy romance novel, complete with a "meet-cute", at least not on his watch.

"Kim Dokja," the man damn near growls through a clenched jaw. (Kim Dokja stares firmly at the sky beyond him, trying not to focus on the way his name sounds on the man's tongue.)

Since he was no stranger to strangers knowing his name far before he knew theirs, Kim Dokja simply raises an eyebrow in response. He hopes that whatever interrogation he would undergo would at least be inside where there was heating. The man instead only tightens the grip on his wrist as though this wasn't the answer he was searching for. 

"Yep, that's me.” He tries again, tilting his head a bit in confusion. Usually, the strangers would be crying or something by now. Kim Dokja wonders for a brief moment if maybe the two of them had some kind of conflict before his memory loss.

"What are you doing." It isn't a question, just a statement, as though there wasn't enough time in the world for Kim Dokja to confess whatever sins he's committed. 

"I'm sorry?" His wrist is starting to get sore, and he kind of needs a functioning hand in order to read, so he tries to wiggle his way out of the man's death grip. This only backfires. "Could you please let me go? I'm starting to lose feeling in my hand."

An over-exaggeration, sure, but it does the trick. The man drops his wrist quickly — Kim Dokja tries not to think about how he briefly misses the feeling — with no change in expression. Generally, people would be at least slightly embarrassed at manhandling a stranger. The man in front of him seems to be an outlier above all else, if their interactions were anything to go off of. He's starting to feel another headache coming on.

"Did you have fun avoiding me?" He accuses, leaning in close and forcing Kim Dokja backwards in lieu of grabbing him again. There's something beneath his tone, an emotion that seems to go a bit deeper than the expression he currently had upon his face. Kim Dokja tries not to think too hard about that, instead adding him to a list of "emotionally-unstable-people-he-possibly-knew" he had filed away mentally.

"Not sure if you got the memo," Kim Dokja manages to choke out as the man effectively cornered him against a wall (What was this? Some attempt at a kabedon?) with his face way too far into the reader's personal bubble. "But I kind of have memory loss. You were talking to Sooyoung-ah, weren't you? Didn't she tell you?" His chest only warms more as he rambles on, realizing that he can feel the man's breath directly against his ear. He really hopes that it's the cold of the night air causing his face to heat as well, and that the man won’t notice. "Who are you anyway?"

That seems to break the man out of whatever trance he was in, because he finally takes a few steps back. Looking the reader over from head to toe as though evaluating him, the man only gives a deep sigh before responding.

"Of course that damn hag didn't tell—" Another sigh, he really seemed to be an emo protagonist ripped from a dollar store romance novel, even his clothing seemed to match. With a simple black sweater that seemed to look a bit too good on him that makes Kim Dokja's train of thought derail into something completely unrelated, he realizes that he probably shouldn't be thinking about the appearance of the stranger while said stranger was in front of him. "—Joonghyuk. Yoo Joonghyuk." Kim Dokja barely manages to zone back in just in time to hear his introduction, and is even later to notice the hand that was outstretched to him.

"Huh? Oh!" Startled out of his daze, Kim Dokja quickly takes Yoo Joonghyuk's hand in his own, shaking it with what he hopes to be a firm grip. "It's nice to meet you, Joonghyuk-ssi." The man only stares at him, as though he still didn't completely believe Kim Dokja's amnesia. 

"I've been looking for you," he murmurs, like it was a confession of some sort. Even quieter, he adds under his breath, "We all have."

Confusion seems to overtake Kim Dokja's ongoing sense of crisis, because the idea of a man like Yoo Joonghyuk searching for him seems to be completely unrealistic.

"Looking? For me?" He emphasizes the last word, as though things weren't quite clear. Yoo Joonghyuk seems to be a bit annoyed by him repeating his statement, but nods nonetheless. Something dawns on him — his reason for attending the concert in the first place, perhaps — and for a moment, things become a bit clearer.

Maybe it was the adrenaline running through his veins as he realizes that Yoo Joonghyuk still hasn't dropped his hand from the handshake, or the built up stress from the strange dream he had earlier that day, because Kim Dokja suddenly blurts out what would be one of the most embarrassing statements he's said in quite some time.

"For the part time job, right? At my cafe?" Confusion crosses Yoo Joonghyuk's face, and even though Kim Dokja belatedly realizes he quickly read the situation wrong, he rambles on again. "As long as you can use an instant coffee machine, then you're hired! See you tomorrow at 8 o'clock sharp, and we can talk more then!" The realization of what he had just said seems to set in, because Kim Dokja rips his hand away from Yoo Joonghyuk and outright sprints to the front door of his cafe. Leaving the man, who was clearly only more confused than when he had started the conversation, to stare at his back and hand grasping out at the air he used to occupy. Kim Dokja is starting to think his socialization skills were unsalvageable. 

(Later than night, after he somehow managed to not pass out the moment he hit the bed, does Kim Dokja finally realize what he did.

The man had felt familiar even at first glance, but it wasn't until 3 AM that it actually dawn on him what exactly happened. Kim Dokja had just hired Yoo Joonghyuk as a part-time barista slash cafe worker. Yoo Joonghyuk, legend of the apocalypse-era and Supreme King. Yoo Joonghyuk, former terrorist who was only recently forgiven for his crimes and was the face of the new government policies in regards to dealing with those recovering from trauma in wake of the literal apocalypse everyone had just experienced. Yoo Joonghyuk, a man who despite his supposed shitty attitude, was much more handsome than he seemed to be through the television broadcast of his official pardoning. One of those trains of thought were not like the others. 

Idly, fiddling with the wrist that had been caught in the death grip only hours earlier, Kim Dokja wonders if maybe he should pretend to be closed tomorrow if said former terrorist tries to show up for his "shift", or whether it'd be better for his new employee to not show up at all.) 

Chapter Text

If Kim Dokja were to rank his top five biggest life mistakes, he thinks he's just found numbers one-through-five. 

Not only had he (unknowingly!) hired a literal former terrorist to work at his mere book cafe, he had possibly antagonized him — the night before was blurry from his over-exhaustion and anxiety, but his wrist was still sore and he still felt the effects of an adrenaline rush — and probably managed to get himself on his hit list. Or a government watch list simply by associating with the man. Possibly both. He wonders for a brief moment if he had unknowingly done something illegal to deserve the sudden attention, something like accidental tax fraud, and whether or not he'd be able to write letters to Shin Yoosung and Lee Gilyoung from prison.

(The thought unnerves him, the idea of only being able to see those he cares about through a thin pane of plastic — the solitude, the disconnect. He quickly ends whatever tangent his brain had been derailed onto.)

Brief moments of the night prior flit through his brain, and he just barely manages to recall the fact that he had told Yoo Joonghyuk to show up by 8 o'clock sharp. With a quick look to the oddly squid-themed alarm clock he had gotten as a gag gift from Han Sooyoung on his night stand, he realizes that he was now on a time crunch. Only after staring down at where it read 6:43 in bright, burning red LEDs did Kim Dokja realize how absolutely screwed he was. 

It's a wonder he was even managing to function, really. Having only gotten around three hours of sleep and a continual raging headache to boot, it had seemed to be nothing short of a miracle that Kim Dokja was able to get up and move around enough to be able to pace anxiously as he tries to think his way out of his current predicament.

But maybe he isn't fully coherent yet, as he gives up just as quickly as he began. With a sense of resignation that only a man who seemed to have accepted his death could have, he decides to brave the storm and see if he can manage to get through the day. He hopes that the man won't show up at all, if only to spare him the blood pressure spike, but something tells the reader that the abysmal luck that has never helped him before certainly won't help him now.

After barely being able to take a quick nap for another hour, Kim Dokja finds himself being abruptly woken up by the sound of his doorbell. Something that startles him so bad he nearly throws the book he had fallen asleep reading, one heavy enough to make it feel like a weighted blanket, across the room and nearly against the wall. The thought of potentially damaging the book makes him feel worse than the fact that he's facing his doom in a few moments. 

Sighing when the ringing of his doorbell only increases in frequency at his lackadaisical approach to greeting whoever was at the door, Kim Dokja put a greater effort into finding his slippers and trudging his way to his entryway. Glancing at the grandfather clock he had impulsively purchased during a night where he was up far too late to be thinking clearly, it proudly displayed 7:53. Not quite 8, but generally around the time Han Sooyoung would show up with Yoo Sangah in tow. (The two of them had been coming together more and more frequently, but Kim Dokja tries not to think too hard about it. Or the way the pair seemed to have a matching set of rings adorning their fingers. Lee Jihye's fascination with the romantic relationships of those she knew was really starting to taint the reader as well.) 

Expecting to see his normal pair of regulars, and perhaps ask them for advice on how to possibly fake his own death to escape needing to look Yoo Joonghyuk in the eye ever again, he was unfortunately met with the very man he was trying to escape from. Alongside, of course, the writer who had pushed him towards Kim Dokja in the first place.

"Yo," is all Han Sooyoung offers as a greeting, lollipop in hand and leaning against the doorframe as though she owned the place. Considering how much money (and time) she spent at the cafe, you wouldn't be strange to think that was the case. Yoo Joonghyuk only stared on in silence, stiff and tense like this was his first day on a brand new job — well, maybe that analogy fit too well for the current predicament.

Kim Dokja briefly considered slamming the door in their faces and playing it off as him being startled, but before he can put it into action, Yoo Joonghyuk moves to hold the door open for him. Maybe his plan was clear on his face, because the grip Yoo Joonghyuk has on the edge of the door only tightens. Kim Dokja tries to ignore the possibility that he just heard some of the wood crack.

"Kim Dokja." Ah, it was definitely the sound of wood breaking. He really needed to invest in better quality doors. Almost as though she was groaning in annoyance at their antics, Han Sooyoung merely took her lollipop out of her mouth with a loud pop before shoving her way past Kim Dokja and through the entryway.

"Take your foreplay elsewhere, I have shit to do," she calls from inside the building. Kim Dokja can hear the faint unzipping of her laptop bag and the beginning of the boot up sound. The two men stare at each other for a moment before Kim Dokja breaks first. He swears it isn't from embarrassment due to Han Sooyoung's earlier comment.

Forcing a customer service smile — Kim Dokja didn't even know he could do that — he steps to the side to allow Yoo Joonghyuk in. 

"Welcome to my cafe," he manages to get out through clenched teeth. "You were interested in the offered position, right? Follow me."

Without waiting for the man to respond, Kim Dokja quickly turned on his heels and made his way behind the counter of the actual cafe portion of his building. 

"Have you ever used an instant coffee machine before? They're pretty simple to learn, I figured it out in a few hours. I'm sure there's a, like, wikihow out there or something if you need the help though."

"Kim Dokja."

"Sangah-ssi prefers black coffee, but Sooyoung-ah prefers lots of sugar. Honestly, I had to buy those sugar packets in bulk just because of her."

"Kim Dokja."

"Sometimes we get these two high schoolers that pop in from time to time, they don't really ask for much, so you can mostly just leave them alone. They tend to have this strange animal that accompanies them everywhere — even I don't know the species, and I don't think the two of them do either — but as long as they all stay in the reading area and away from the food, you won't need to kick them out."

"Kim. Dokja."

"Honestly, barely anyone even comes here for the food, so I doubt you'll need to learn how to use any of the stuff back here or look through the pantry. Plus I'm here most of the time, if not all of the time, so I really only need help with reshelving and organizing books and the like. If you have any recommendations for additions, I'm more than happy to hear—" The slam against a countertop makes Kim Dokja jump, effectively cutting off his panicked ramble as he tries his best not to make eye contact with Yoo Joonghyuk during their (very bad) impromptu tour of the place.

"That's me!" Briefly turning in place to face the man, however begrudgingly he does so, Kim Dokja decides to bite the bullet and is met with a very, very frustrated looking expression.

"I didn't come here to play along with your games," He damn near sneers, pushing a finger against the reader's chest as though to further emphasize his words while simultaneously backing him into a corner. This seemed to be a common trend during their conversations as of late. "I'm here for answers. You'd better be ready to answer them."

Kim Dokja pauses for a moment, swallowing thickly before attempting to respond. He swears the reason for his feeling on edge was the awkward caging in and not just from the man's proximity. What was that saying again? First comes shock, then comes denial? He was practically waist-deep in that. 

"Hey— hey listen to me, I wasn't lying about what I said last night!" Yoo Joonghyuk only gives a harsher glare, seemingly having caught on to the reader's attempt at stalling for time. "I can barely remember anything at all, so how am I supposed to answer your questions?"

"Try." The man responds through clenched teeth, grabbing Kim Dokja by the collar of his shirt in a threateningly manner and lifting him to the tip of his toes. 

"Ah, sure," Kim Dokja feels as though his face was rapidly catching on fire, and even more rapidly losing all reason in what remained of his brain. "Shoot. Throw the questions at me. The Kim Dokja quiz show!" If his voice was high-pitched and almost cracked, then he hopes that Yoo Joonghyuk wouldn't pay too much attention to it. 

"Ahjussi! You said you'd read our classical literature essays!" Saved by the telltale shouts of his favorite high schoolers, Yoo Joonghyuk abruptly dropped him in surprise. After just barely managing to not fall in yet possible contender for most embarrassing moments of his life, Kim Dokja sent a silent thanks to Shin Yoosung and Lee Gilyoung's horrible manners while in the establishment. 

"Well, you are on the clock technically, aren't you?" Despite the prior tension, Kim Dokja can't help the almost smarmy grin that comes across his face.

Instead of replying — Kim Dokja swears the man almost growls in frustration, but tries to put that strange observation in the back of his mind — Yoo Joonghyuk simply turned on his heel and stalked his way out of the pantry and to the front as though he were in some cringy, middle-school writer's fanfiction. Or one of Kim Dokja's many, many beloved webnovels. 

But before Yoo Joonghyuk had managed to leave his line of sight, he paused for a moment. 

"Don't think you're getting out of this, you bastard."

Well, there goes that plan.

Kim Dokja believes that he's once again setting a world record, though this time it wouldn't be for making strangers cry upon learning his name. No, this time it would be being able to speed-run the seven stages of grief.

The first stage, shock, in the way he was cornered (in a way that was definitely an honorary kabedon the more he thought about it) by Yoo Joonghyuk the night prior and managed to land himself in the current situation.

The second stage, denial, in the sense that he was denying any possibility of having a constructive conversation with the man. Could you really blame him? Some sort of murderous aura seemed to come off of him in waves, though the reader didn't think the intention was against him specifically. More of some kind of unending irritation with the world as a whole, or maybe he just hated the way Kim Dokja ran his cafe. (His reaction upon seeing his stock of box mixes of various pastries was definitely pointing towards that reasoning more than anything else, especially with how horrified he seemed to be that Kim Dokja hadn't learned how to use his oven until Yoo Sangah bought him a few cook books to try out. He barely managed to not light the place on fire before swearing to never bake anything that wasn't out of a box again.)

Now, he could even see the third stage, anger, in full view. Though the anger wasn't his. While Yoo Joonghyuk seemed to have a chronic case of seeming to be eternally pissed off about everything and everyone all of the time, Kim Dokja was surprised to see how the man could become so frustrated so quickly with just a few interactions with two particular high schoolers. Even if the duo seemed to be making his irritation their main priority at the moment. 

"You're working here? Seriously?" Lee Gilyoung could barely believe it, if the way he had dropped his collection of the latest encyclopedia on mantidae was any indication. "You? Here?" He further emphasized.

"Yes." Yoo Joonghyuk's response was clipped and clearly forced. "Somehow, it ended up this way." Shin Yoosung, on the other hand, seemed to be having the time of her life.

"Karma! It's karma!" Her laughter was loud enough to make Kim Dokja peek his head out of the backroom and to the front counter where the pair were blankly staring. "That's what you get for putting ahjussi through all of what you did." 

"Hey, since you work here, does that mean we can tell you what to do? Like tell you to make us a whole bunch of coffee and then never actually drink it?" Lee Gilyoung's shock was gone just as quickly as it came. 

"For once you managed to say something that wasn't idiotic, bug boy," Shin Yoosung adds on with more sarcasm that was probably necessary. Lee Gilyoung doesn't fail to notice her obvious mockery.

"Don't lie, when Sooyoung-ah said that something entertaining would happen at the cafe today you were the first to ask for details." The boy stuck his tongue out as a response, earning a scoff from the girl.

"You're the one who was freaking out about what happened at the party last night. Weren't you pacing so much that Sookyung-ahjumma had to come and put us to bed! Like we were elementary schoolers!" Yet another familiar name, though Kim Dokja isn't sure why it feels oddly uncomfortable.

"You're just trying to act cool in front of Joonghyuk-ssi!" The conversation was clearly degrading into yet another petty fight, but before Kim Dokja managed to step in, Yoo Joonghyuk finally decided to grace the two with another response.

"I have no idea what you're talking about when you say I had "put him through all that I did", if you recall, that idiot made plans all on his own. In fact, I'm sure this is just another one of his schemes." Realizing that this conversation was about himself, Kim Dokja quickly ducked behind the doorway again in an attempt to hide again after accidentally making eye contact with Shin Yoosung. Sliding down against the wall in embarrassment, he just barely managed to catch the tail end of Yoo Joonghyuk's words. "But, if this is how I make it up to him, then I'll make however much coffee you want."

The fourth stage, bargaining, came in the way that Yoo Sangah finally came around for her daily lunch break muffin. Long after the two high schoolers had gone to their morning classes — after he couldn't sit in the damp and dusty pantry room any longer without coughing and blowing his cover and saying his greetings to the pair — did she finally arrive with a fresh coffee in tow.

"So, when you're unpacking the boxes, you have to make sure you don't damage any the front covers. Non-hardcover books can get their corners bent really easily, and sometimes the tips fray so you have to be especially careful about that." Yoo Joonghyuk was a surprisingly hard worker, and he didn't seem to pester Kim Dokja about whatever questions he had so long as the reader attempted to teach him the ropes of the job that he sort-of was hired for. He took to instructions well and could lift significantly more weight than Kim Dokja ever could imagine, leading to more efficient unpacking and definitely not a few stray trains of thought as he watched the process. "Though I mostly sort them by topic, some of them fit in a gray area or could belong to multiple categories. In that case, go with your best gut feeling, and usually it works out." 

Just as he was about to go into the specifics of his attempt at using the Dewey decimal system for his extensive collection, the silence was once again broken by the ring of a bell from the entryway. 

"Dokja-ssi?" Yoo Sangah called from the entryway, the telltale click of her boots on tile jolting him from where he had been crouching. 

"Sangah-ssi!" He responds, unable to prevent his voice softening at the familiar face. Luckily she was much calmer than the two visitors he had dealt with just prior. 

Following his voice, Yoo Sangah approached where Kim Dokja and Yoo Joonghyuk had been sitting on the floor just moments beforehand. She acknowledged the new hire with no more than a mere glance, as though she was already aware of the events. 

"Your order of the newest Spanish dictionary just came in, I even added in one that specialized in common sayings or slang as well." Kim Dokja gave an easy grin, purposely not looking back at where Yoo Joonghyuk was surely staring holes through the back of his head. 

"Thank you." Yoo Sangah beams in response, clearly a more well adjusted adult than the man staring behind Kim Dokja. "Who's this behind you?" Her tone makes it seem as though she's referencing a joke that Kim Dokja doesn't quite understand, one he isn't sure he'd want to understand anyway. 

Wasn't he supposed to be good at customer service? Or did he suddenly go mute?

"Yoo Joonghyuk, a new hire. I was just showing him the ropes when you came in." Unable to stand the pressure of the gaze any longer, Kim Dokja quickly did what he did best: escaping his problems and decidedly not thinking about the source of them. "The dictionary is just in the back, do you mind waiting for a moment?" 

She gives a noise of acknowledgement in response, instead choosing to meet Yoo Joonghyuks gaze with more mirth than necessary. The sight fills him with an unexpected feeling of bitterness, as though he were a side character interrupting the two leads meet-cute. He couldn't get away from the pair fast enough.

If Kim Dokja spends far too much time in the back than is needed to look for a simple foreign language dictionary, then that's his business. If Kim Dokja feels like he's reached a new low after speed-running several stages of grief upon seeing what seemed to be starry-eyed gazes thrown between his new hire and (almost favorite) regular, then that's his business. If Kim Dokja feels a bit bitter when remembering how he mocked the second male lead in all of his favorite web novels, only for him to seemingly find himself in that position, then that's definitely his business and his alone. 

The soft echo of giggling is what finally breaks him from his pity party, wallowing waist deep in misery he wasn't quite sure the cause of. Groaning and realizing that doing nothing wouldn't help, he picked up the books he had promised and diligently made his way back to the front, barely catching the tail end of a conversation. 

"—I told you, Sooyoung-ah truly had no such intentions." Yoo Sangah's voice is sweet, soft and clearly companionable — as though she had known Yoo Joonghyuk from before this meeting. 

"How was I supposed to know that you guys had found him anyway? All you ever talk about in that damned groupchat is irrelevant garbage, I've long since muted it." Yoo Joonghyuk responds, though with much less malice than whenever he had spoken with Kim Dokja. He tries not to think about the way this only makes him feel worse.

"Well, does that really matter anymore?" Somehow, her tone had grown even softer, almost comforting. "You found him, so now it's up to you to fix things from here." The two ease into silence, one much better than the one Kim Dokja had been tortured with earlier. Just as he was about to make his way back, he could barely pick up Yoo Joonghyuk's final reply.

"I just hope that he'll let me."

After bidding Yoo Sangah goodbye (read: quickly shoving the books into her hand and damn near pushing her out the door in spite of the many, many times she tried to look back at Yoo Joonghyuk. Kim Dokja swears that isn't the reason, he's just concerned about her lunch break ending too soon.) Kim Dokja settles back into diligently unpacking with Yoo Joonghyuk.

After finally breaking for lunch themselves, when the boxes had reduced to nearly 1/4th of what they once were, Yoo Joonghyuk tries to continue his prior line of questioning. 

"Kim Dokja, are you finally ready to answer my questions? Or are you just going to keep stalling for time?" The question shocks Kim Dokja, who was currently mid-chew, at the bluntness in his tone. Clearly, he wasn't as smart about hiding his intentions as he had thought he was being.

"Shoot," he shrugged, figuring the worst that could happen would be Yoo Joonghyuk accusing him of some crime and finally bringing to light the reason why he was there in the first place. After all, Kim Dokja really doubted a prominent government official would spend his time playing barista for shits and giggles. 

Instead, for the second time in the day, their conversation was once again ruined by a group of bustling teenagers. This time, the idle chatter of Jang Hayoung, Lee Jihye, and Kim Namwoon interrupts them. Ignoring the groan of annoyance from the man next to him, Kim Dokja quickly got up and made his way to welcome them in.

"What brings you three by today? Are you reviewing for another midterm?" Kim Dokja has never felt so thankful for the trios poor planning capabilities than this moment. 

Instead, Jang Hayoung only eagerly replies for the three of them. "Nope! I heard you were hiring though, and since the autumn season for lacrosse just ended, I have a lot more ti—oh. Never mind!" 

Startled by the abrupt shift in conversation, coupled with the shocked expression on the other two's face, Kim Dokja quickly whipped his head around to see Yoo Joonghyuk standing behind him. 

"I guess you found the help you needed," Kim Namwoon comments, though he grins as though there was another meaning behind his words. Lee Jihye seems to have been shocked into silence, as she's quiet for almost five seconds (the longest Kim Dokja has seen her silent for) before the gears in her head seem to finally stop turning.

"Master!" She beams, running up to Yoo Joonghyuk and almost tugging on his arm like a petulant child asking for candy at a grocery store. "So this is why you said not to bother you today, I didn't know that you were just catching up with—" Her voice drops at the way Yoo Joonghyuk's expression darkens. "Right. Your terms." Whatever caused her to pause seems to fade as an almost scheming grin appears across her face.

Jang Hayoung, who had been glancing back and forth between Yoo Joonghyuk and Kim Dokja so much that her neck surely had to hurt by now, instead decided that she couldn't handle the tension anymore.

"Wow! What a coincidence to see Yoo Joonghyuk, Supreme King!" She forces out with much more effort than needed, as though they were lines she had to practice but wasn't quite comfortable with. Kim Namwoon only breaks and finally erupts into laughter, shaking Lee Jihye by the shoulders as she joins him. 

"Enough," Yoo Joonghyuk finally cuts in, effectively shutting the three of them up. Kim Dokja, who was already suffering from a sense of information overload, decides he has no desire to find out why Lee Jihye calls him "master", nor find out whatever connection the former terrorist had to a trio of random college kids. Instead, he focuses on the initial topic of the conversation.

"Thank you for the offer, but as you can see, I have found someone to fill the position." Kim Dokja pats Jang Hayoung's shoulder as some kind of consolation, though he isn't sure what he's consoling her about. She only nods in understanding, muttering about "life and death companions" under her breath—hey, where the hell did that come from?

"I told you Master wouldn't wait the moment he found out!" Lee Jihye has moved onto gloating to Kim Namwoon over something, probably a bet. "You owe me $20, I knew that the existence of their lovechild meant that he wouldn't give up for anything."

Wait a moment. Lovechild? Yoo Joonghyuk has a child?

"I said that's enough," Yoo Joonghyuk says through clenched teeth, pushing the three of them out the door as Kim Dokja can do nothing but stand in silence from the shock. 

Lovechild... Lovechild... Surely this was another stage of grief, depression?

"Do you have a wife or something?" Kim Dokja's inner thoughts burst out of his mouth before he could realize. He isn't sure why the idea surprises him, after all, Yoo Joonghyuk was objectively one of the most handsome men Kim Dokja had ever seen. Far better than anyone on a magazine and any ideal fictional character he's seen on novel covers either.

Yoo Joonghyuk only gives him a scandalized expression, like he had been accused of cheating or something. 

Later, after Kim Dokja had practically run out of things to teach Yoo Joonghyuk and ended up just letting him take his break, he found that the man was just as worn out from the earlier encounter as he was. Out of pity, Kim Dokja simply let him take his break and watched as the man exhaustedly trekked over to where Han Sooyoung had been diligently working on her manuscript. If Kim Dokja hadn't known any better — and hadn't heard her echoing laughter — he would've thought that she hadn't heard the earlier exchange.

After a few more moments of debating which book to start for the day, Kim Dokja followed suit and made his way to the author as well, deciding that he should fulfill his role as beta reader. 

Instead, he was greeted by the faint murmuring of indistinguishable conversation between the two. Something made Kim Dokja feel as though walking in now would only startle them, and after catching a few mentions of his name, he decided to simply wait out whatever they were bickering over.

("I've already done all that I can to help," Han Sooyoung sounds the most bitter Kim Dokja has ever heard her be. "I brought you to him, it's up to you to fix things on your own." 

"I'm trying," Yoo Joonghyuk seems to be too tired to have any bite in his reply. "I just— how am I supposed to do anything if he doesn't even remember? When he doesn't know anything, and I'm stuck knowing everything?"

"That's a you problem," the slam of the laptop punctuates her clipped response. "If he could do it for you, you can do it for him."

Kim Dokja decides this conversation isn't one he wants to hear the end of.)

After perhaps one of the busiest — and worst — days of Kim Dokja's life as far as he could remember it, the crowd of both teenagers and adults finally filed out of his meager abode. The relief was so prominent it even caused his shoulders to sag, momentarily forgetting that he still wasn't alone and accidentally making direct eye contact with Yoo Joonghyuk. Guess not all of his issues were solved just yet.

"Kim Dokja," the man of the hour says after a brief beat of silence. He seems just as annoyed as he was this morning, no trace of the earlier softness in his expression from before. (Kim Dokja isn't sure why he misses it.) "Are you done spinning in circles like some sort of headless chicken? I thought you said all questions were on the table."

"They are!" He quickly interjects, the exhaustion from the day already beginning to give him a headache. "I'm just feeling a bit tired, do you mind doing this tomorrow?" 

Clearly this wasn't the response Yoo Joonghyuk was looking for, as his gaze only hardens and narrows. Even when pissed off, all Kim Dokja can think of was some cheesy excerpt from one of his many, many webnovels describing their handsome leads. Maybe he was more tired than he thought he was. 

"No. I played your games, you'll play along with mine." He reaches out for Kim Dokja's wrist, sparking a sense of deja vu as he thought of their initial meeting, but it's less of an attempt to make sure he won't escape and more as though he's trying to ground the reader in place. Finally, through clenched teeth, he lets out a soft plea. "Please?" 

Oh. That came out of nowhere. He isn't sure how he feels about what just happened.

"Sure!" Panic overcame him in that moment, effectively decimating what little thought processing capabilities he had left and instead reacting purely based off of instinct. Immediately, Yoo Joonghyuk's expression clears and he looks as close to happy as Kim Dokja has ever seen the man be. "Could we just sit somewhere first? I might need to take something for an incoming migraine." 

Clearly too pleased with a victory Kim Dokja didn't know he had lost, Yoo Joonghyuk easily agrees and leads them both to one of the various seating areas of the cafe. It was almost as though the man owned the place, the way he fit in so neatly against the backdrop. The thought makes Kim Dokja feel a little bit warm, a little bit more light headed. Something about this feels a little familiar, a little bit like something is finally settling in place. Yoo Joonghyuk wastes no time, the moment they sit down is the moment the interrogation begins.

"How far back do you remember?" He starts off strong, and Kim Dokja is happy that the question isn't too strange. 

"A few years back, I believe? Nothing too long, maybe five or six." Nursing a warm cup of hot chocolate (likely not the pre-made mix kind, based on the way that Yoo Joonghyuk had been the one to offer the cup even with his strict food standards) Kim Dokja realizes that the faint lighting of the lamps may be helping his incoming migraine, but it really isn't helping him whenever he takes a glimpse at Yoo Joonghyuk across from him. The gentle glow of one of the table side ones in particular gives him an almost soft appearance, a strong contrast to how on edge the man had seemed to be for the past day or two.

"What's the earliest thing you can recall?" A faint sense of desperation lines his tone, as though he's searching for something in particular.

"All I remember was standing in the entryway of some kind of... station? Not sure exactly, the details of fuzzy," Kim Dokja tries to be vague about specifics, thinking about them for too long only makes him nauseous. "All I really knew was my name, my general age, and I was holding a scrap piece of paper with some banking account number on it."

"What was the name on the account?"

"Not sure, but it had a lot of zeroes in the digits." He can still recall the shock when he had been given a statement of the account. "I think it was called Underworld investments or something similar..?" It sounds close enough, so Kim Dokja only shrugs instead of elaborating. "Not sure why I was the sole inheritor of it, since apparently the old owners were long gone."

Yoo Joonghyuk only nods in understanding, pausing for a moment before giving the next question. "Do you remember anything else? Anyone in particular, maybe?" 

For some strange reason, Kim Dokja's first instinct is to think about the dreams he had been having for the past months. The ones on the subway, the ones with faces too blurry for him to make up that were eventually replaced with the people who graced his store, but when he tried to open his mouth, he found that he couldn't respond. 

"No," he lies instead, feeling like if he were to tell the truth it'd only open a new can of worms. Clearly Yoo Joonghyuk knows Kim Dokja better than he'd expected, as he quickly picks up on the moment of hesitation and capitalizes on it.

"Don't lie to me," he damn near seethes, a quick jump from their earlier easygoing attitude. Looks like someone has a bad temper. "If you hadn't run away when we first tried looking for you, then we wouldn't be stuck in this situation! None of us asked you to stay behind, but you went ahead and did it anyway."

Kim Dokja only blinks in response, taken aback by how his outburst implied that people were looking for him. Not just one person, but multiple. The sound of water began to roar in Kim Dokja's ears, but he assumes it's merely due to his shock.

"People were looking for me?" He echoes, almost awestruck at the idea. "But why?" 

"Because, whether or not you realize it, some of us actually care about you," Yoo Joonghyuk sneers, venom heavy on his tongue. "When that hack of an author took us to the Final Wall to get you back from that damned subwa— Kim Dokja?"

"Huh?" Surprised by the abrupt stop, Kim Dokja looked down at where Yoo Joonghyuk had been staring at him. The metallic scent of blood filled his nose, and when Kim Dokja went to wipe what he assumed to be hot chocolate from above his lip, he was surprised to instead find blood from a quickly forming nosebleed. "Oh, that doesn't seem good."

"Kim Dokja!" Yoo Joonghyuk cried out, reaching for him just as the man's vision became more like tv static and less like a functioning human sense. Damn, did he really have to be stuck with the chronic fainting trope?

Chapter Text

For all that Kim Dokja has failed to remember, for some reason the act of waking up in a hospital room isn't too unfamiliar. Brief recollections of tall buildings, snapping twigs, and a sharp pain in his abdomen flash by too fast for him to catch onto them. 

The gentle beeping and hum of the machinery around him seems to only ground him as he blearily collects his thoughts, the room dark aside from where his bedside curtain had failed to be fully pulled shut. The soft artificial light that managed to leak through the crack only made his eyes strain more as he attempted to fully gain his bearings again. Clenching his hands subconsciously, Kim Dokja let out a soft hiss at the pull of the IV on his arm. He eyes it warily before adjusting himself in place, rustling the blankets and just now noticing the faint murmuring of someone beyond the curtain. 

"—What did you expect me to do then? Just leave him there?" From the even more muffled jargon that responds, Kim Dokja can only assume it's someone arguing on the phone. "We already did that once, and yes, I took a visit to the other— what? No, you don't need to come over. I'm completely capable of handling this myself." The voice abruptly ends the call with a huff, hand already pulling aside the curtain.

Kim Dokja, now sitting upright and clearly no longer unconscious, finds himself staring into the eyes of a very, very tall and very, very handsome man. His throat goes dry at the observation, quickly averting his attention to the wall where he busied himself in counting how many bricks there were. 

"You're awake," The man says it more as a statement than a question, but Kim Dokja finds himself nodding anyway. "Do you remember what happened? Or where you are?"

The reader opened his mouth to respond, because the last thing he remembered was holding a cup of hot chocolate which couldn't have possibly sent him to a hospital, before yet another raging migraine overtook him. He chokes out the beginning of a wail, clutching at his head, before the man is by his side almost immediately. He holds his shoulders in an attempt to stop his rocking of which Kim Dokja only leans into. 

"The subway," he finally chokes out, causing the firm grip on him to tense. "But— I didn't get off. Did I? I feel like there's some part of me missing." 

The man — Yoo Joonghyuk, he can finally remember — doesn't respond to the rhetorical question. He releases his hold and sits back on a chair near the cot. Kim Dokja wonders when that got there, but felt another headache coming on before he could begin to inquire.

The room seems to be shaking on it's axis. His head feels as though it's splitting in two, and if he tries hard enough, he swears he could hear the rumble of a subway in the distance. His vision seems to flicker between seeing the hospital room and the seating of a subway train, the contrast making him groan in discomfort. Memories he had lost seem to be filling his brain endlessly, leaving no room for a moment of reprieve or for him to actually organize the information overload that had been shoved into his hands.

There were still gaps in his memory: how he got off the subway, why he got off it in the first place, and how he had first gotten a hold of the money that had led to his survival up to this point. He winces when recalling his "first" meetings with his companions, but eases up once he realizes that even without memories, their connections still held firm. He even managed to find a bit of humor in the second "first meeting" with Yoo Joonghyuk, how even though he wasn't dropped off a bridge, his protagonist's first impression was still erring on the violent side of things. 

Yoo Joonghyuk, having realized that Kim Dokja wasn't on the verge of passing out again and had ceased in his signs of obvious pain, decided to try and take command of the situation.

"What do you remember?" There was a lot that he remembered now, perhaps too much for him to go into, but Kim Dokja tried nonetheless.

"I remember all of the scenarios, up until seeing The Oldest Dream." He shifted awkwardly, the memory of attacking his own child self uncomfortable even just when briefly thinking of it. For some reason, that specific memory only reminds him of the dreams he had been having as of late. "Then I remember— getting off the train? But also staying on it." The contradiction made Yoo Joonghyuk's expression darken, but Kim Dokja was too lost in thought to think too much of it.

"But I also remember the doors being broken down, going past the Final Wall again," Kim Dokja was rambling now, his memories contradicting each other in every which way. "I can recall being put in the hospital just like this just as vividly as I can remember signing the papers to purchase my bookstore years after the fact." His voice was only getting higher in pitch as he continued; more strained, more desperate for an answer. "None of this makes any sense! How can I remember being in a coma at the same exact time as being completely fine and awake?"

The outburst seemed to end after that, Kim Dokja's chest heaving with effort and his hands shaking as they gripped his blankets. Yoo Joonghyuk, perhaps in an attempt to comfort the reader, only reached over from where he was sitting and placed a steady hand over his. 

"Six years ago, that version of you that stepped off of the subway with us suddenly took a turn for the worse." Yoo Joonghyuk said, grim as though he were announcing someone's death. He had stopped staring at the wall and turned back to Yoo Joonghyuk, meeting his gaze with as much conviction as he could muster. "Han Sooyoung didn't know what to do, none of us did, but Persephone and Hades had sacrificed the small amount of probability they had left to try and find the answer." 

Ah, so that must've been the reason for their absence — and why Kim Dokja had inherited all of their wealth due to it.

"All we knew was that the memories that made up the other version of you were slowly deteriorating — slipping through the Avatar like sand in an hourglass. It was gradual at first, but it only got worse as time went on. Around six years ago was when it first started to get really bad." Slowly, the pieces started to click into place. "Han Sooyoung had said she found a breakthrough and was in search of something, which later turned out to be your bookstore, and eventually everyone else made their way back to you as well."

Everyone except him, the final bit of the sentence went unsaid. Kim Dokja looked away again, unsure why that train of thought made him feel more sick than the fact that he had been split in half and one half of him was being lost in the wind.

"I—" Yoo Joonghyuk's voice seemed to catch on something, and he cleared his throat before continuing. "I didn't want to entertain any sense of false hope." The last bit felt a little bit like a confession; a little bit like an admission of guilt. Kim Dokja couldn't even find it within himself to be upset. "At least, not until two days ago, when things started to fall out of control. Han Sooyoung finally dragged me out to that party and when I saw you I just—" He cut himself off with a sigh, dropping his head in his hands and somehow looking picturesque as he did so. 

The pair seemed to sit in silence for a moment, Kim Dokja absorbing his newly reacquired memories and Yoo Joonghyuk valiantly trying not to have a breakdown at the fact that Kim Dokja finally gained back said memories. Oddly enough, it was Kim Dokja who broke the tension in the air. 

"I've been having... dreams, lately." He fiddled with his blanket, unsure on why exactly he thought of the Subway Stranger after their conversation. "I think those dreams are the reason as for why the... other me has been like that."

Dreams were a sore subject, it seemed. Aside from the obvious connection to name of The Oldest Dream, there was the whole timeline-watching issue that came about as "dreams". Kim Dokja, in his amnesiac state, had simply written those dreams off as strange parts of his subconscious. Now, when both he and Yoo Joonghyuk were aware of the full context that came along with dreams, it only felt more difficult to talk about them.

"I believe that the dreams were part of my memories as The Oldest Dream. Though most of the details are fuzzy, I can recall at least one of the dreams being of the perspective of him when we first came across him and I had attacked him." Yoo Joonghyuk didn't respond, and Kim Dokja found it hard to look him in the eye as he spoke. "Maybe the memories that the Avatar was losing were being transferred to me?" The logic was shaky, but it wasn't like everything in this world made the most amount of sense. Especially when in the context of things such as the Starstream and whatnot. 

Just as Kim Dokja was about to explain the ordeal with the Subway Stranger, the two were abruptly interrupted by Han Sooyoung's entrance. She leaned in the doorway of the hospital room in the same casual manner as the many times she had done it in the bookstore for years before, but the sight brought a strange wave of nostalgia over Kim Dokja nonetheless.

"Did our local amnesiac finally realize how badly he's screwed us all over for the past few years?" She said, giving a quick glance over of Yoo Joonghyuk and Kim Dokja. Noticing how their hands still seemed to be intertwined, a sly smirk grew across her expression. "My bad, of course the lovers reunion comes first."

"Han Sooyoung!" Kim Dokja shouted, flustered and his face aflame. She only shrugged as though his response was an over-exaggeration to whatever bombshell she had just dropped on the two of them. "We're life and death companions, not—" The reader couldn't even find it within himself to finish that train of thought, only letting out various sounds of exasperation as he prayed that his vehement denial wasn't out of place. Yoo Joonghyuk didn't react, instead choosing to only tighten his grip on Kim Dokja. 

"Yeah, yeah," she finally gave in, turning around and taking a step out of the room. "I just wanted to make sure you weren't comatose, again. I'll leave you two to your weird homoerotic pining in peace."

Kim Dokja really wished the ground would swallow him whole. He wasn't sure how Yoo Joonghyuk had managed to stay so stone faced throughout the whole encounter, because the reader felt as though he wanted to go hide in a ditch for the rest of time. 

Desperate for a subject change, Kim Dokja interjected before either of them could think on the true weight of her statement for too long. "She's changed, hasn't she?" 

At this, Yoo Joonghyuk finally seemed to snap out of whatever trance he was in and respond. He quickly took his hand back, setting it in his lap, and leaned against the chair he was sitting in, away from the hospital bed. Kim Dokja found himself missing the weight and warmth of it for just a moment, but quickly realized that these thoughts were exactly what Han Sooyoung had been teasing him about earlier. 

"Maybe, but we all have." The somber tone made Kim Dokja remember where exactly they were, along with the context of their prior conversation. Suddenly Han Sooyoung's earlier jests about the things Kim Dokja was pointedly ignoring weren't the biggest issue — instead, the main elephant in the room was the whole Oldest Dream ordeal.

Though Kim Dokja had largely recovered the memories of his other half, there were still gaps of time and plenty of small moments he failed to recover. It didn't seem like he'd be completely whole again — more like split as 99% and 1% rather than the uneven 51/49 divide — but it was still enough for him to feel the loss like a piece of his very identity was missing. His recovered memories only made the difference between the people he'd known and cared for then and now more prominent. Shin Yoosung and Lee Gilyoung were no longer small children attached to his knee; Lee Jihye, Kim Namwoon, and Jang Hayoung had grown up to the point where they had solid futures in front of them. 

(Perhaps most surprising was the fact that Han Sooyoung and Yoo Joonghyuk were employed with serious, salaried jobs. Han Sooyoung seemed to have some connection to a museum, and he already knew about Yoo Joonghyuk's association with the government.) 

"Even after all of this, there's so much I'm missing." Kim Dokja couldn't help the bitterness in his tone, mourning the things he'd never see. What of Shin Yoosung and Lee Gilyoung's middle school graduations? The celebration when Lee Jihye and Kim Namwoon got their acceptance letters? The joy when Jang Hayoung finally moved into the dorms? Things that Kim Dokja could never remember, never recall simply because the split part of him couldn't transfer such minute occasions. 

It wasn't until he felt the wet sensation on his hands that Kim Dokja realized he was crying now. Crying for all the birthdays he missed, crying for all the small celebrations he'd never be able to relive, and crying because how was he supposed to know what he missed if he couldn't remember it? How was he meant to move on with his life, knowing that he was no more than a patchwork of memories hastily shoved into a box and barely linked together? 

He hadn't even realized he worked himself up into the beginning of a panic attack until Yoo Joonghyuk's hands were once again on his shoulders, grounding him in place and serving as an anchor. 

"I'll tell you about it, if you wish." The regressor seemed stiff in his delivery, as though he wasn't used to delivering comfort that wasn't in the form of barbed words as a love language and compliments thinly veiled as insults. "We have time."

That much was true at least. Kim Dokja was no longer a man tied together with shoestrings, comatose and on the edge of falling apart every moment. With a sigh of acceptance, he gave a subtle nod. 

Now, in the soft artificial light of a hospital room instead of a subway train, he could hear the story he loved so much from the mouth of his favorite protagonist — though this time, it went beyond just the epilogue.