Chapter Text
It was one of those silly events that university students found themselves at—an orientation event, forced upon all the first-year students.
Kim Dokja had no interest in it, but he showed up anyway. After all, he was new, and he was bored of reading the same books in the library everyday. As the event unfolded in the cold, stuffy auditorium, the facilitators explained the rule of “Bingo But Different!”(that was what they called it). He wasn’t paying attention to them anyway. Instead, he was tracing his finger along the edge of his notebook, trying to focus on the meaningless icebreaker questions being shouted out by the event coordinator.
The sound of laughter made him glance up from his notebook for a moment.
A girl—no, a woman —was sitting a little farther ahead, engaged in a conversation with a few others. She wasn’t tall at all, but her confident posture had an air of someone who didn’t care what anyone thought. She was laughing about something, and her whole presence filled the space around her.
Dokja wasn’t used to being around people like that. He couldn’t even imagine having that kind of ease the way people seemed to gravitate toward her.
He started to make his way out of the lecture hall not caring if the facilitators saw. In fact, a few of the students already left, and the facilitators didn’t even bat an eye to that. But just as he was about to reach the exit of the lecture hall…
bam!
The thud of someone accidentally knocking into him sent his books tumbling to the floor.
He blinked.
The woman was standing over him, looking down with an apologetic smile that seemed sincere as the forced one most people gave when they accidentally knocked over someone else’s stuff.
“Sorry!” She said quickly, bending down to help him collect his scattered notes. “Didn’t mean to knock into you.”
She wasn’t really paying attention to the mess on the floor, just gathering everything as fast as she could, as though it wasn’t a big deal.
“Uh, no problem,” Dokja muttered, suddenly self-conscious. He wasn’t good at interacting with strangers—especially ones like her. She was... annoying , but that didn’t erase the fact she was so social. And he couldn’t quite shake the feeling that maybe she was laughing at him, even though she was trying to be nice.
There was something about the way she looked at him—almost like she was studying him. But before he could overthink, she grinned and handed him back the last of his papers.
“Anyway,” she said, standing up and dusting off her hands. “You’re in this group too, huh? I’m Han Sooyoung, by the way. I saw you earlier when you were in the back. You’re... quiet . Not that it’s a bad thing, obviously.”
Dokja froze for a second.
He couldn’t help the awkwardness that flooded through him, and for a split second, he considered just running away.
But she was still smiling at him, expectantly, like she was genuinely trying to talk to him. And that was… unexpected.
“I—uh, yeah, I’m Dokja,” he said, his voice unsure. He felt out of place just saying his name. How do people even talk to her?
“Well, whatever, if you’re ever bored, just... don’t disappear into the library again, okay?” she added, giving him an exaggerated wink. “I’ll probably be at the next event. If you’re around, I guess I’ll see you then.” And with that, she turned to leave.
Dokja stared after her for a moment, still processing the encounter. How did she know he went to the library regularly? He wasn’t sure what to make of it, but there was something... oddly comforting about the fact that she didn’t seem to judge him, like others did.
As he sat there, lost in thought, a few more students started heading toward him, almost as though they were following Sooyoung’s lead. One by one, they introduced themselves.
There was Hyunsung, who had a habit of making friends with almost everyone; Heewon, who always seemed like she was in a rush but still managed to make time and look out for other’s needs; and Yoo Sangah, whose attitude can switch from being an angel to a menace in a blink of an eye.
Each of them was different, yet all of them seemed to settle into this awkward group with ease. Dokja didn’t know what he was doing there. He didn’t really know any of these people—but the thought of not being alone, even for just a little while, made him stay.
He thought he’d go home after that. But somehow, the next one rolled around. And the one after that. And before he knew it, he was meeting them for lunch, or catching them in between classes.
The days passed, and gradually, the loneliness he’d been carrying around, that heavy weight of being an outsider stuck to people he didn’t know, started to lighten. He didn’t know when it happened, but one day, he realized he wasn’t alone anymore. He had... friends?
It was strange, how natural it felt. Like it was meant to be
—----------<33—--------------
A week later, Kim Dokja found himself making the worst decision of his life.
He was forced agreed to attend a "small group study session." Small, in Sooyoung’s language, apparently meant six people(the group) crammed into a campus café , papers strewn across the wiped but still wet tables, everyone pretending to be smarter than they were.
He hovered awkwardly at the entrance, debating how fast he could fake an emergency and leave.
That’s when he saw him.
Slouched in a booth at the far corner, was a man who radiated hostility . Not the loud, obnoxious kind.
Even from across the room, Dokja could tell.
“Dokja!” Sooyoung waved him over, oblivious. “C’mon, sit! We’re just about to start.”
Grimacing internally, he shuffled into the booth — the only spot left was next to the angry-looking guy.
Great.
Up close, the guy was even worse. He looked like he was on the verge of punching either the table, the wall, or himself. Black hair perfectly falling right above his eyes,his bag propped a, and a permanent scowl stitched across his mouth.
Looks like this guy was forced in this too.
Sooyoung was saying something — introductions? — but Dokja barely registered it.
The guy beside him muttered something.
Dokja blinked. “...What?”
The man turned his head slightly, like it physically pained him to acknowledge another person.
“Move over,” he said, voice flat and low.
Dokja stared.
Then, purely out of spite, he scooted half a centimeter to the right.
The man gave him a look like he was debating a murder.
Sooyoung laughed from across the table. "Don't mind him! Joonghyuk's just a little grumpy. He’s always been that way since college."
Joonghyuk, huh.
Kim Dokja slouched deeper into his seat, arms crossed.
Grumpy was a bit of an understatement.
For some reason — maybe because he recognized the same bitterness etched into Joonghyuk's face — Dokja stayed.
Maybe, for once, being miserable together didn’t seem like such a bad thing.
"So what’s it like being society’s biggest disappointment?" Sooyoung asked, sitting across from him and nearly knocking over his hot coffee when trying to get her notes.
Lately, bickering with her became one of his pastimes, trying make the other lose their composure.
Dokja didn’t even blink. "I was going to ask you the same thing. Beat me to it, I guess."
She grinned, teeth sharp. "You’re just mad you didn’t think of it first."
"I’m mad that you’re breathing near me."
"Ooh, edgy."
He raised his cup in a solemn toast. "May your notes rest in peace." and poured it’s contents over the notes. There wasn’t much left, maybe around one fifth of the coffee, but he hoped that would make her flip.
Sooyoung gasped, clutching the book like it was a soldier that got injured on a battlefield, before suddenly breaking into a maniac grin. "Aha, you thought you could get me with that, huh? Rookie mistake. I don’t take notes on paper."
Dokja's soul briefly left his body. Maybe, just by a slight chance, that this book belonged to…
He slowly shifted his head by a few degrees, but he was immediately met with a murderous glare. The book's real owner sat beside him, looking like they were about to end his entire bloodline.
Before he could even mutter an apology, the owner of the book leaned closer. His shadow loomed over the other, heavy and slow, like a guillotine preparing to fall.
The guy stared at the ruined notebook. Then at Dokja. Then at the book again.
"...Was that necessary?" he said, voice low and disturbingly calm.
Dokja, master of survival instincts, immediately decided to double down.
"You should’ve protected your belongings better," he said, crossing his arms like he was the victim here.
Sooyoung and some of the others nearly died right there from how hard they were trying not to laugh.
The guy’s eye twitched — just barely — before he snatched the notes with the droplets of coffee off the table. With the saddest look of betrayal, he turned it over, most of the words smudged and barely visible.
Dokja coughed, trying to salvage what little remained of his dignity.
"I’ll... buy the notes you bought?" he offered, like he was being so generous.
"You can’t," the guy said flatly, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "It’s handwritten."
The silence that followed was so loud it physically hurt.
Dokja blinked. "Oh."
For once, even he had the decency to look a little ashamed.
"Told you those idiots would cause drama." Heewon whispered to Hyungsung at the table, which he hesitantly agreed. The others were at a loss of what to do, the atmosphere growing heavy.
Finally, with the exhaustion of a man thirty years older than he actually was, he shook his head.
“It’s fine, just repay me back someday.” He said.
—-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Yoo Joonghyuk should’ve walked away that day. When Dokja ruined his notes, when Sooyoung treated him like a personal meme generator, he stayed.
And just like that, a three-person disaster formed within the larger group.