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There were many things that Kim Dokja had forgotten about. Half his life was lost to him in a blur of unending mundanity, the other half lost in despair and grief so heavy it tainted even the happy memories.
And then, for the first time, his life flashed with such clarity, ironically just after he’d tried to end it.
First came the harsh antiseptic scent that assaulted his senses, then the fluorescent overhead lights and unknown hoovering faces, and finally the unbearable pain. Agony. Misery — crashing wave after wave and drowning him even as he was on solid land.
His head swam and his body felt numb and fiery all at once.
The ache in his hand reminded him of the moments prior, just as he’d tried to break his fall out the window at the last second. The ache in his legs reminded him of the way he’d crumpled, landing unevenly against the ground in such a way it no longer felt human. And then the tree that intercepted his fall, trailing scratches up his arms and sides.
“Kim Dokja . . . can you hear me?” A strange man was calling his name, a mask drawn over his face and glasses hanging low on his nose bridge. His white coat swished as he moved along, urgently pushing the stretcher on which Kim Dokja lay. “You’re going to be okay.”
Kim Dokja tried to answer. He wanted to open his mouth. He wanted to lick his lips and soothe his dry throat. He wanted to scream.
Overhead, a flurry of people were shouting out his vitals and condition. Their words were meshing into one another, and he didn’t have the strength to make sense of it. His consciousness was barely holding on.
As far as strangeness went in his life, he’d witnessed a lot. The way his mother hovered over his father’s dead body, a dull kitchen knife clutched in her hand. The flashing police lights and yellow caution tape that had closed off their home as she was dragged away. The sight of the people from there afterward always backing away as he approached; as if it was a reminder to himself and everyone else of just what he was — a murderer's son.
This, by far, was the worst feeling; held at the brink of death, only to be pulled free and confined with the promise of life instead.
They couldn’t stand him when he was alive, but it was no better when he tried to die either, was it?
His eyes closed, darkness smothering him and dulling the thrum passing through his body. He wished it would wash him away, would take him away to someplace quiet and peaceful. Someplace where he wouldn’t have to struggle to live anymore.
***
His relatives had arrived.
They were presumably notified by the school, maybe the hospital. After all, jumping out of a classroom window was big enough to warrant a phone call, even when being bullied and beaten black-and-blue day after day wasn’t.
He was awake by the time they arrived, after hours of being patched up and stitched. Perhaps work had kept them from coming earlier. Perhaps they’d argued on the way here.
“Are you okay?” His uncle asked, seating himself on one of the worn-out chairs. There was a reflection of discontent in his eyes as they raked over Kim Dokja — over the wounds peeking out and the IV drip needle inserted into him, as well as the makeshift cast on his arm.
Discontent? Or one of disgust.
Kim Dokja wasn’t sure how to respond. He knew it was a perfunctory question, so in turn he decided the best response was simply to say nothing at all.
“What were you thinking?” came next. There was no fury, no sadness or profound emotion other than plain indifference. His uncle loosened his tie, sinking backward. The chair squeaked uncomfortably.
“I don’t know,” Kim Dokja replied. And that was the whole truth of it.
He couldn’t remember whether there was a before or after. There was only a during , where his emotions gripped him so viscerally that his reason and logic had blanked out. And then, there was the endless drop.
Down, down, down.
Even now, he felt like he was still falling.
“Do you think you can go back to that school after pulling a stunt like that?” His uncle leaned in, whispers rushed and cutting. “Can’t you just live quietly with your head down like we told you to?” He warily looked around as he spoke, afraid someone would listen in.
Kim Dokja ignored the words, favoring instead to lean forward and catch a glimpse of his aunt. He ignored the burning protests of his lungs and the tug of the rough sheets against his legs.
Over the curtain blocking his bed off, he could barely see his aunt as she stood there, dressed in a new outfit his uncle had brought her with The Money. With the proceeds from The Book.
He only saw her back, rigid and dominating as she argued with the attending doctor who’d come to give them reports — to remind them of Kim Dokja’s stupidity.
“Listen! I’m telling you it’s not our fault! In school he—”
Kim Dokja felt a sharp pain radiate up his arm. He gasped and fell back onto the propped-up pillows, a little breathless.
“Stay down,” his uncle had gotten up. With a single finger, he had jabbed at Kim Dokja’s shoulder to keep him in place. “Let me handle it. Don’t make it any worse than you already have. Am I understood?”
He left, leaving his briefcase against the ground as he rushed to placate his wife and talk some sense into the situation.
Kim Dokja watched him stride off, all business-like with hands raising to tighten the tie around his neck. As if this was some business dealing or an unruly client to be dealt with rather than a question of Kim Dokja’s life.
It was nothing new.
And as expected, his cousin was nowhere in sight. Even then, Kim Dokja could picture his cousin’s disinterested gaze down at his phone, rapid hands moving across the screen as he complained about the hospital's lingering scent.
“Doctor, I swear we didn’t . . . whatever is going on . . .”
“I’m sure he’s fine.”
“There’s no need to worry.”
“No! No! Nothing is happening at home—”
Kim Dokja pushed himself back further. The cacophony of the escalating argument and his own pounding headache made him nauseous.
Yet, he was glad their focus was elsewhere. He knew what would happen as soon as his relatives turned their attention towards them. The usual indifference might be replaced with fury, fury at him for attempting something like this and making it out alive.
He turned his head to the side, the sun washing over his face gently.
Maybe he was useless, enough so that he couldn’t even die. But even then, he hadn’t asked for any of this either.
He didn’t ask to be the object of someone’s contempt or front-page news for some ambitious reporter. He didn’t ask to have his life milked dry and exposed to the world, all fingers pointed at him, all hands wrapped around his throat.
He didn’t ask to be kept alive, either. He believed that at least death didn’t discriminate, and wouldn’t put him through the slow torture that his waking days did.
If there was a time to cry, it was now more than ever. And yet every part of him felt wrung dry and empty as if summoning the appropriate emotions was too much.
He wasn’t sure how long he could hold on anymore.
***
When next he woke, a young nurse was attending to him.
The nurse lady was pretty. Her light-colored hair was pulled back in a bun, and her slender hands worked gently as they adjusted his IV.
He blearily opened his eyes, peeking around to see whether his aunt and uncle were still here. As expected, the briefcase was no longer there on the floor. They’d come and gone without so much of a goodbye.
She moved to prop his hand up more comfortably and readjust the sheets pooled around his legs. “How’s that?” She smiled. “More comfortable for you?”
It was strange being addressed — being addressed in such a way where there wasn’t a hint of contempt nor a trace of mocking.
It was strange, having the woman hold eye contact with him even as she bandaged the blooms of patchy red and blue under his hospital gown. Even as she applied the salve and readjusted his IV, she looked at him as if he were a person.
Not as a pitiful child. Not as a victim. Not as the murderer's son.
“Do you know which colleges you’re going to apply for?”
Kim Dokja blinked slowly, turning his head away from the drab curtains that decorated the place to her bright eyes. They shined with a promise of something unnamed and reflected his own crumpled, defeated figure.
He stared into her eyes, looking at the sorry cut his figure had made.
He’d been sickly and pale all his life, but the expression on his face and his gaze had never hollowed out to the point of . . . nothing.
The nurse tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, setting aside the tray of supplies. She looked around for a few seconds, before deciding to sit on the same chair his uncle had sat on.
“Ah, don’t get me wrong.” She peeled off her gloves. “I know you’re only a first-year high school student, and getting asked questions about college must be frustrating because it’s all you hear.”
It wasn’t frustrating when there was no one to ask him. He’d rather have someone nag and bother, to pay attention enough to care.
When he didn’t reply, she went on. “Well, let’s put that aside, then. Do you have any hobbies? Something you love enough to pursue later in life?” Her eyes shined a bit too bright, her voice too loud. Her entire presence overcompensated his own.
Kim Dokja’s tongue felt glued to the roof of his mouth.
“There must be something, is there not?”
Was there? He knew he loved reading and books; conversely, had the book his mother had written not ruined his life?
His mother once told him that even after finishing a book, he could reread it and find a new story hidden within the lines each time.
She was wrong. This story was set in stone. It slit their life open, spilling their miseries and wretched beginnings and ends to the rest of the world. A tale that couldn’t be taken back or warped into something it wasn’t.
There wasn’t a single person nearby who hadn’t heard of the critically acclaimed book, written by a woman detailing her own husband’s murder. There wasn’t a reporter nearby who hadn’t fallen over himself trying to get the front page, trying to hunt down the murderer's son if not the author who sat rotting in prison.
“No.” His voice was rough from disuse. He answered if only to get her to stop talking. And yet, he was desperate for interaction even as he despised every second of it. “There isn’t anything.”
She contemplated for a few seconds, her pale hands awkwardly wringing themselves in her lap. “I’ve . . . heard about you,” she finally admitted. She didn’t meet his eyes.
Kim Dokja wasn’t surprised, but displeasure contorted his insides. He wanted to peel his skin off, crawl out of it if only for one day, and become someone he wasn’t. Someone who wasn’t weak and wouldn’t feel so gut-punched just from being recognized.
Someone who could be a protagonist.
He turned his head to the side, wishing she would take the hint and leave. His body was already aching and bruised and he couldn’t handle this on top of it.
The nurse stood up slowly, still looking at him. The tools rolled uselessly about and the clattering rung distantly in his ears.
“I just wanted to say . . .” he spared her a glance, seeing her continue to talk. “I know it isn’t my place, but you’re just a young boy. So young. It isn’t time for you to give up yet. After all, there’s so much life ahead of you, so much to live for.” She seemed deeply saddened by it if her hunched-over shoulders were any indication.
He was . . . confused by the turn of events. He digested her words slowly, taking in the pinched expression on her face and the whitened knuckles holding the tray.
“Live for,” he echoed hollowly.
The words roiled uncomfortably in his gut as his hands fisted the sheets.
His whole life, he’d been shunned, whether it be his parents, who’d been far from stable ground, or the relatives who treated him like a byproduct.
His classmates hadn’t made his life any easier with their taunting acts and phrases either.
He’d lost count. In a way, coming to school and scrubbing off his desk from the insults and ‘kill yourself’ messages had become routine. Picking up his torn-up books or scattered pens from the floor was no different, and being kicked down, laughed at, and having milk poured over his head wasn’t either.
If this is what life was — what it would continue to be like — did he want to go on? To continue in such a world where he wasn’t welcome, where not a single person would be bothered if he were to stop existing or to mourn him and ache with the thought of his absence.
Was there purpose in living when there was nothing to live for — no one to live for?
“Does it get ever get better? Will it ever, for someone like me?” His voice came out even, more stable than what he felt inside. He calmly met the nurse’s gaze.
Kim Dokja wanted an answer, the answer that his mother had never given him through the stretched silence between prison visits. She always sat there still and unmoving, passive eyes roaming his face.
He only wanted to hear one word from her. If she at least told him to endure it, then maybe he could. Maybe then days would feel lighter and his self-contempt a little diminished.
But if he couldn’t get an answer from the only person he’d ever loved in his life, then what was some stranger to give in place of it?
The nurse softened seeing his trembling figure. She seemed to want to reach out, to grasp his shoulders and offer him comfort.
She didn’t, and he was glad. Being touched was far from comforting, and he didn’t want to shove away the only woman who’d treated him kindly in such a long time. To receive a flame of warmth and snuff it out — it felt so cruel.
The nurse let out a sigh. “It’s in human nature to be curious, but it’s also in our nature to forget and move on. Eventually, the headlines will be buried and your mother’s book will get pushed to the back shelves. You won’t be stuck like this forever. With time, everything heals.”
Could he wait that long though? How long would that be?
“I can’t live anymore, I just.” Vulnerability clawed its way up his throat. He’d suffered so long on his own with no one to tell. “I really can’t,” his voice broke.
He never dared to voice these thoughts out to his mother. After all, she was the one behind the glass pane, shunned off from the rest of the world and restrained with handcuffs.
Could his pain compare to the woman who dealt the brunt of abuse, always shielding him? Always keeping him safe from his father? Yet at the same time, was it not cruel of her to seek salvation from his misery — from that wretched book of hers that left him in this state?
The nurse drew the curtain open as she got to leave, letting him catch a glimpse of the hospital flurry.
“If you can’t find ways to live,” she softly spoke, turning around. “. . . then find ways to survive. For every person out there, there’s something — a reason, a purpose, someone , that allows them to keep going. Find yours and hold on to it. Survive.”
Kim Dokja lifted his head, stinging eyes raising to meet hers.
She drew the curtains close as she stepped out, leaving him alone with the muted discourse of conversations around him, and the wake of her words which had opened up a yawn in him.
She said it as if it were simple. She said the words as if they were obvious, and something that Kim Dokja should’ve known all along.
Ways to survive.
Was it really that simple?
***
A couple of days later, when he was well enough, Kim Dokja found himself walking the stuffy corridors of the hospital.
There was despair all around, and not even antiseptic could hide the smell of death and fear that hung heavily in the air.
It was a thoroughly depressing environment. Everyone was too invested in their troubles, with visitors’ heads down as they sat in waiting rooms and frantic nurses who rushed back and forth through the place.
In the midst of all this, Kim Dokja found a lonely PC in the lobby. There was a single man in line, but he stepped aside readily, making way for Kim Dokja with a smile.
Kim Dokja barely paid him any attention, too entranced by the sudden urge to search it up — the thing that had kept him up these past few restless, impossible nights.
Yet, there was almost a resignation in the way his hands stalled against the keyboard. He felt the weight of the keys as he pressed down on them and the clack of the enter key as his results loaded slowly, bringing up a results page.
He clicked the first link to appear: Ways of Survival.
There was only a single chapter up.
Kim Dokja briefly scanned it, more perplexed by the idea of a random novel popping up rather than what he’d searched for. He read the synopsis nonetheless, his fingers curling over the mouse as he was eventually compelled to read further.
In seconds, he found himself immersed in this seemingly ordinary web novel. The premise was set, and the protagonist was immediately presented.
Kim Dokja’s eyes widened, grip tightening around the mouse.
He read until he reached the blank expanse of the bottom, where not a single comment lay.
For a moment, he felt like the only reader.
Hesitantly, he typed, backspaced, and retyped a few times in an attempt to say something encouraging to the author. Eventually, he settled on asking when the next chapter would come out.
It was strange how he didn’t have to wait long.
“Tomorrow,” the message read. From the author themself. “Will you stay to read it?”
Tomorrow. The prospect of another day and something to live for. Something to survive for.
His fingers hovered over the dusty keyboard. Impatiently, someone behind him cleared their throat and Kim Dokja realized that he was holding up a line.
“I will, author-nim.” He quickly sent it out before leaving, his heart pounding the whole way back to his room.
The next few days at the hospital went by seemingly quick. His relatives visited him a couple of times, itching with the prospect of not being able to give him a disciplinary beating — not with others around in any case.
Thankfully, they never stayed for long. He was left on his own, and in the evenings he slowly dragged himself down to the singular PC in the lobby, bringing up the novel and brightening upon seeing a new update.
A comment was generously left under each chapter, and in turn he got an equally lengthy reply. Sometimes he praised the author, and at other times he fought against those who trashed it in the comment section.
The nurse lady from before still occasionally stopped by his room. She stayed fleetingly, sometimes filling the silence with meaningless conversation. He mostly just studied her and the way she talked, never offering his own words. Still, it meant something.
Each time she left, he was reminded of the new purpose he’d been given.
He needed to survive. If his mother couldn’t be the one to tell him to endure, he’d take it upon himself to. Kim Dokja had grown up in such a manner anyway, knowing what to do without being told, if only to lessen the burden on others.
He could be Yoo Joonghyuk. He could utter the words “I am Yoo Joonghyuk” if that’s what it took. If he could pretend to be like the main character, surely he’d embody the characteristics it took to be one someday.
“I am Yoo Joonghyuk,” Kim Dokja whispered to himself. Again and again. Whether it be in the comfort of his hospital room or even later after his release. The words rang in his mind as he faced his school bullies and his increasingly frustrated relatives; it was his salvation.
The same words helped him get through bombing his CSAT, ending up at a third-rate, local university, being assigned to a military unit on the frontlines, and even working at some no-name company as a contract worker.
He never imagined that there’d come a day when he’d actually need to survive. When the apocalypse would start in his own world and he’d come face to face with the protagonist who’d eventually become his life and death companion. Maybe even something more.
That one day, survival would be the furthest thing from his mind as he stared at the backs of his new companions . . . as he was left behind on the subway that day forever and ever, only 51% of who he once was.
Ways of Survival. Three Ways to Survive a Ruined World.
[There are three ways to survive in a ruined world. I have forgotten some of them now. However, one thing is certain: you who are currently reading these words will survive.]
***