Chapter Text
Love doesn’t come to guys like him.
No, love doesn’t come at all.
He was a lonely being, more solitary than any being on Earth, and he had always been like that. Very few could break down these walls he had built so high.
And he was okay with that.
Kim Dokja pressed on the button that would take him to the next chapter, his eyes desperate for the words on the page to take form.
Just how long had it been?
It had been so long since he had sat there, on his lone mattress, up against the wall, simply pressing button after button, reading every word that the phone had to offer.
It was half an attempt at happiness, some sort of salvation for Kim Dokja, to follow the characters down the white light of the phone and to simply take it in.
And in the middle of those characters, there was only one being. The only being to make Kim Dokja’s heart flutter as it did and make him smile like he was.
Yoo Joonghyuk.
It had been ten years since he had started reading TWSA, following the author on their daily updates every week. He had been so young… and now… he was here, grinning against the screen like an idiot.
This sunfish bastard.
It was nine in the night when Kim Dokja felt it writhing, climbing up his trachea. It was nine and, quite naturally, he was too absorbed in the words to notice anything, forgetting every whisper that the air happened to carry. It was nine when it made its way up his throat and leaked. On his beloved phone lay a single red poppy, surrounded and drenched by red, viscous blood as he wretched, holding his throat desperately to keep it all in.
Kim Dokja’s vision started to blur and he fell to the ground.
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He lay limp against the floor, quiet and unmoving. It had been an hour since he had woken up but he had made no effort to get up and try to do anything.
Perhaps, it was the sudden shock of the situation.
He knew he was supposed to drag his useless self to the hospital to get checked on why this was happening but he couldn’t care less.
Something else plagued his mind. What was that flower? He didn’t keep flowers in his apartment, he wasn’t very good at taking care of them. So why were there flowers on his sheets? Surely he didn’t vomit those out… no… he couldn’t have…
He laughed at himself against the cold floor.
Now he was actually going mad.
He got up and made his way to the hospital.
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He sat against the pharmacy door, laying limp against the wall. A few people went by and stared, but neither dared do anything. He looked drunk, dead almost, unmoving and silent.
He could recall those words as they bashed through his skull and cried through his ears. The doctor had been kind, hadn’t informed him too much, but he knew, how could he not?
“Hanahaki disease…” the words trailed out his mouth as he tried to come to terms with it.
Suddenly, he felt mellow, nulled, blank. He could feel so much and nothing at the same time.
And then, his mind became blank again, and like the reader he was, he began interpreting his situation.
He was not going to die.
His mind pondered, the connections in his head reaching out for every area of his brain to rack out the key information.
Who was he in love with?
But no matter how much he tried, he couldn’t think of anyone, any being. He tried making up excuses for people he knew that he could possibly be in love with but after a clear mind, he knew he was just trying to think up of anyone.
He sighed before picking up his phone and scrolling through the website. He had gotten a notification a while ago in these unholy hours that a new chapter had been uploaded. He couldn’t figure out anything and his mind was dopey so he’d do the thing he’d do best and avoid it all with Yoo Joonghyuk.
He giggled as he read the first words. It was a dungeon episode where Yoo Joonghyuk would go on with Kim Namwoon to some dungeon to get supplies before some long scenario. He scrolled down his phone, taking in the words.
It was a rather stupid situation. Him, against the pharmacy wall, given up on life and once again finding refuge in reading.
Suddenly, a woman approached him.
“What are you doing here?” It was a short woman with short clipped black hair and a furious scowl. She was dressed in a purple hoodie.
Kim Dokja stammered, “Sorry… I’ll leave…”, he managed to get out.
He steadily gathered himself, placing a hand on the wall and picking himself up. However, when he finally stood tall, something bellowed against his chest. He gripped against the wall and clutched his chest, ready for what’s to come. The woman watched with curious and worried eyes, leaning down to get to his eye level, saying something before-
Ten minutes later and the pavement was painted red. Blood stained every inch of the pavement and on that blood was littered singular red poppies, all drenched in Kim Dokja’s insides.
The woman, which he later discovered to be named Han Sooyoung, tried calling an ambulance, but he refused, saying he just needed rest. His house was far, so she reluctantly offered her own. After much convincing, he agreed and so, with one arm over her shoulder, she carried him to her apartment.
Her apartment was big and modern-looking. He often had to do a double take as he took in the surroundings. It was… something… something that he could’ve never imagined owning or being in.
“Stop staring, idiot,” Han sooyoung shook her head and sighed as he leaned against the bed frame.
“Sorry,” He mumbled.
“What do you even work as?” She raised her eyebrow, looking at him tentatively as she took out a first aid kit.
“I’m a game tester,” He replied, “what about you?”
At the question, her mouth curved upwards in a proud sense before saying, “I’m a writer,”
“Oh?”
“Yeah,”
“What do you write?”
“Mostly fictional stories,”
He couldn’t help it, it just slipped. Maybe it was because Yoo Joonghyuk owned far too much of his mind but he couldn’t help it.
“There’s this book I know…” and he went off.
At first, she listened solemnly, making quips at the difficult type of story he was telling and so and so forth, before coming up with a realization.
“What is this book called, exactly?” she asked him, a silent glint in her eyes.
“Three Ways To Survive A Ruined World,” he uttered her words and she broke into a smile.
“That’s funny,” she laughed to herself.
“Why’s that funny?” Kim Dokja stared at her, a bit confused
“Because I’m the writer,”
Those words shattered his world and he could feel a sense of excitement bubbling in his stomach. The writer? She was the writer? No way! How could he-
He steadied himself against the frame of the bed, perhaps from having his whole world turned upside down for that exact moment.
An hour later, he was apologizing profusely for having stained Han Sooyoung’s bed. Blood littered the sheets along with poppies that seemed to slip from his lips. Han Sooyoung stared at the flowers on the floor for a while, perhaps in shock from the situation.
“Kim Dokja… was it?” She pursed her lips and looked at him, stern.
He turned towards her.
“Have you ever heard of… the Hanahaki Disease?”
Of course he knew what it was. He had read enough fanfiction and stories to know what something as cliche as the Hanahaki disease was, but he found himself shaking his head.
She bit her lip, “It’s something in a lot of books… where you are one-sidedly in love with someone…” she trailed on.
He nodded a bit, before looking out the window, clutching the now crimson cloth in his hand.
“I’ve never been in love,” he sighed after a long pause.
She bit her lip, her thoughts racing.
“Never?”
“Never,”
He stared out the window. Suddenly, Han Sooyoung came up to him and clutched his face.
“You remind me of someone…” she trailed on, staring into his eyes. There was no pity, instead a desperate longing.
“Who?” he managed to say.
“You were my first,” she simply said.
Kim Dokja looked at her in surprise. “First what?”
She ignored him, “I’m not letting you go again,”
And then there was determination, a sudden fury in her eyes.
Kim Dokja gulped. What did he get himself into?