Chapter Text
[Kim Dokja]
[Sick Days: 0]
[Vacation Days: 0]
I stared at the screen, more specifically at the pathetically nonexistent number of sick days. Refreshing the page did not change the number.
This was the result of several unfortunate situations. First being that I barely had any sick days in the first place. My company, Minosoft, wasn’t one to be very generous with their nameless contract workers (honestly it wasn’t even that good with its non-contract workers).
Second, I had an unfortunate nuisance (best friend) who I had to take time off for. (To be fair, Han Sooyoung was under the false impression I was using my vacation time. Little did she know, I didn’t actually have vacation time. If she ever found out I had been using my sick leave to babysit her neighbor's kid, she would probably throw me, then my employers out the office window.)
That’s all to say, I had no more sick leave. And I could really afford to miss any more work days. Which meant, despite my desire to not do so, I would have to go to work today.
With great reluctance, I dragged myself out of my shoebox apartment, onto the subway, off the subway, and into the Minosoft office.
Immediately upon entering the office, a large stack of papers were shoved into my arms. “Get these done by the end of today.”
“Yes Han Myungoh-ssi,” I replied, grimacing internally. I could already taste the unpaid overtime.
Department head Han Myungoh —who seemed to enjoy tormenting me specifically— strutted off to go harass some other poor employee.
I sighed and settled in at my cramped cubical, shifting around stray pens and papers to make space for the giant stack of pain.
(By the way, this was a daily occurrence, and not the reason I wanted to avoid work that day.)
A few hours into the day, there was a commotion by the entrance of the office. The workers near me chattered excitedly and peered over the edge of their cubicles. I ducked down further.
Han Myungoh’s voice echoed through the office. “Ah! Yoo Joonghyuk-ssi.”
I couldn’t see the man in question as I was busy attempting to become one with the unreasonable pile of paperwork surrounding me. However, I could guess what his face would look like: Unfairly handsome; Still as stone, set in an annoyed, slightly murderous expression; Only shifting to respond to the barrage of praises and questions with a grunt or monosyllabic answer. If Han Myungoh was lucky, he might even speak a whole sentence.
I was snapped out of my thoughts by the unfortunate sound of Han Myungoh’s voice getting closer. And with him, Yoo Joonghyuk.
“This is the QA department. Past here is our break room. Please make yourself at home,” He chattered excitedly to an unresponsive Yoo Joonghyuk —ah he had gotten even more handsome. How unfair—
“Minosoft looks forward to a long and fruitful collaboration with you, Yoo Joonghyuk-ssi.”
Here was the reason I didn’t want to come into work today.
When I first heard that Minosoft would be collaborating with Yoo Joonghyuk, I considered quitting my job. ‘There’s only five months on my contract anyway’ I had thought,‘ I can just become a squatter in Han Sooyoung’s house.’
My second thought was disbelief, because how on earth had a no-name game developer, part of a shitty gaming company, part of a shittier tech company (Minosoft) gotten a deal with Yoo Joonghyuk.
Yoo Joonghyuk, as in the top player in the country for Ways of Survival. Yoo Joonghyuk, as in won four international titles out of seven international games (If you combined the number of international trophies from the rest of the world, it would still be less than what Yoo Joonghyuk had).
Out of all the no-name shitty game development companies that he could have decided to collaborate with, of course it had to be the no-name shitty game development company that I was working for.
(This was just another piece of evidence to my theory that God, if there was one, liked bullying me specifically.)
‘At least I don’t have to work with him,’ I had naively thought.
Over the course of the past week I had not seen Yoo Joonghyuk once. I’d like to say it was luck, but really it was a combination of shuffling around my lunch time, a creative use of coffee breaks with the closet next to the fax machine, and hacking the company database to find Yoo Joonhyuk’s schedule. As I was —probably somewhat illegally— accessing that guy's information, I had a sudden flash of nostalgia. And guilt, because I was using someone else’s account to do so. When Yoo Sangah had given me her login information to help submit a report while she was out sick, this probably hadn’t been what she intended… Oh well.
That was partly the reason why I was here now, eating lunch with Yoo Sangah in the company cafeteria. Normally, at this time I would be working, as I had moved my lunch break to be an hour early to avoid any chance of meeting Yoo Joonghyuk (not that he would be caught dead eating the company food. It would never meet that picky guy’s standards.) However, today was different. Today was a lovely, lovely day, because Yoo Joonghyuk was not here. Maybe he had finally realized he had an actual job as a pro gamer, and shouldn’t be spending his precious time harassing poor salarymen by giving them stress induced ulcers (even if it was the off season).
“-And Yoo Joonghyuk-ssi really seems like a dedicated worker, but over the past few days I’ve gotten quite a few… interesting complaints,” Yoo Sangah said with a pained expression. Her hands, wrapped around a cup of tea, were aggressively clenched.
“That sounds difficult,” I said sympathetically, pushing around the weirdly hard rice and under-ripe kimchi on my plate.
Yoo Sangah smiled, though there was a distinct strained quality to it. “It’s not too much of a bother. Just…“ She went on describing some of the more colorfully worded complaints she had received.
I took a bite of my rice and nearly broke a tooth on a hard piece. Were there rocks in this rice?
Struck by a passing thought, I asked, “Let me guess, most of the complaints where around the lines of, ‘I tried to ask him a question and Yoo Joonghyuk just stared at me like he was going to strangle me’ or ‘All of Yoo Joonghyuk’s emails are worded like death threats’.”
Yoo Sangah looked at me, surprised. Then she laughed, “Hah! Actually yes.”
I smiled to myself. Ah yeah, that guy really hadn’t changed at all.
“Does Dokja-ssi know Yoo Joonghyuk-ssi?” Shit.
“No, it just seemed like something he’d do,” I replied, too fast to be casual.
Yoo Sangah looked like she wanted to question me more but was interrupted by a grating voice. “Yoo Sangah-ssi, my star worker!” Thank god. Saved by the annoying boss.
“Han Myungoh-ssi,” she said politely, but with much less enthusiasm.
I didn’t bother greeting him. For all I was worth to Han Myungoh (outside of being a desk to offload unwanted paperwork onto) I might as well have not existed.
“If you’re free for dinner, I would love to get a chance to introduce you to my daughter.”
Huh?
I looked to Yoo Sangah. She looked back, just as confused. ‘Since when did that guy have a kid?’ her face said. ‘No clue’ I tried to communicate back with a shrug.
We looked back to Han Myungoh, who was still talking excitedly about his daughter. “—And since her mother isn’t in the picture, I think it would be good for her to meet good female influences.”
Clearly caught off kilter by this barrage of new information, Yoo Sangah floundered. Her altruistic heart was probably caught between the guilt of rejecting an earnest request and a deep desire to not go to dinner with Han Myungoh, even if it was to meet his supposedly very cute daughter. She looked at me with pleading eyes.
…Damn it.
I’d consider it repayment for committing illegal breaches of privacy in her name.
“Actually, Han Myungoh-ssi,” I said, inadvertently cutting him off mid-speech, “Yoo Sangah’s helping me with writing a couple reports I’ve been having trouble with.”
Han Myungoh stared at me, as if surprised that I was even here.
Yoo Sangah took advantage of the brief silence. “Yes, I’m afraid I’ll be busy the rest of the week, Han Myungoh-ssi. Although your daughter really sounds like a lovely child.”
Han Myungoh looked at her. “Ah well, that’s a shame,” he said reassuringly.
He turned back to me. “And you, it’s not good to rely too much on your coworkers. You should try to solve your issues yourself,” he said, less reassuringly.
After he left, Yoo Sangah smiled at me gratefully. “Thank you Dokja-ssi. I was very surprised. You really didn’t have to, but I appreciate the save.”
“It’s no problem,” I replied, “Sangah-ssi has already helped me out so many times. Just consider it my good deed for the week.”
Fuck doing good deeds.
If this was my repayment for being a good person, I would only be committing crimes from here on out.
“And remember, if you have any questions, be sure to ask Kim Dokja-ssi here for assistance. He’ll be more than happy to help you.” Han Myungoh’s hand was gripping my shoulder in a way that looked, but did not feel, friendly. If it weren’t for that, I probably would have ran away a while ago.
Yoo Joonghyuk was staring at both of us with a face that felt distinctly unimpressed. Despite his cold expression, he was still unfairly good looking. This was actually my first time seeing him up close, face to face since he had come to the office. Which was very unfortunate because I hadn’t been given nearly enough time to mentally prepare for said face. God, it was unfair. As though Yoo Joonghyuk hadn’t already been insanely good looking, time had only made him more handsome; It had sharpened his softer features into something dangerous and filled out his formerly lanky teenage frame. Even though I had expected it —that adult Yoo Joonghyuk would be ridiculously attractive— I still hadn’t been prepared for the real thing.
“—Isn’t that right Dokja-ssi,” Han Myungoh said, tightening his grip from somewhat threatening to ‘ow that’s going to leave marks’.
I attempted a smile that hopefully didn’t look too much like a grimace while studiously avoiding eye contact in a way that wouldn’t look like I was avoiding eye contact. “Yep!”
Han Myungoh continued digging my grave, making sure to hammer in that Yoo Joonghyuk should always come to me for any questions, issues, concerns, or hell, even if he wanted a fucking coffee. Then I was left alone with Yoo Joonghyuk.
It had been an unrealistic hope to avoid him the entire time he worked with Minosoft, but this was really worse than anything I could have hoped for. By order of my horrible department head, I would be working with him every. single. day.
Fuck.
“What are you supposed to be doing?” He asked. Holy shit, his voice was deep (well, deeper). How completely unfair.
If I were someone else I might be feeling offended at the blunt question, but I knew that Yoo Joonghyuk is just like that —direct and to the point (ie. he’s a constipated bastard who talks like he has a daily word limit).
“I’m just here to answer any questions and… help you with logging any bugs I guess,” I said.
Yoo Joonghyuk stared at me intently. I tried my best to only panic internally. The moment passed. He huffed and nodded. Then stuck out his hand.
He hadn’t seemed to have recognized me. Something in my chest crumbled. Probably the built up stress I had accumulated over the past week.
I shook his outstretched hand. “I look forward to working with you Yoo Joonghyuk-ssi,” I said, smiling. Surprisingly, it was only partly a lie.
Honestly, it really wasn’t surprising that Yoo Joonghyuk didn’t remember me. If he was a protagonist, then I would have been nothing more than an unnamed mob character in the background of the story of his life. We had barely spoken more than a few words to each other. Whatever impact I had on his life would have been nothing compared to the impact he had had on mine.
Even his first appearance was branded into my mind. It had been a warm (bordering on unpleasantly hot) spring afternoon. Our classroom’s AC had broke and the school never bothered to fix it, so the windows were open. Outside, the blue sky was streaked with white clouds. (I remember this because I had spent most of my time looking outside from my seat near the window. This may have been related to my underwhelming grades.)
On that day, our class had received a new student. I had thought that it was a bit strange for someone to transfer in when we were already a couple months into the school year.
The new student was a boy. He introduced himself as Yoo Joonghyuk (not adding anything else, despite subtle nudging from the teacher). His face had a stony expression that was far too intimidating for a middle schooler. He stood like he was going to war.
He was also very, very good looking. If I had to put words to it, I would have said he looked like a protagonist. I even heard some girls next to me whispering excitedly. Thus, I came to the conclusion that this boy would be very popular.
He ended up sitting at the desk next to the one in front of me. Closer up, I could see him a lot better. He had dark curly hair, which I thought couldn’t have been natural in the way it was effortlessly styled. His shoes were well worn, despite his uniform looking fresh and new. His backpack was completely black, with the exception of a single keychain hanging off it.
Class was a little bit different from there on out; I went from staring out the window to staring at the new student. Not that that was weird, because most of the kids in class were staring at him.
Contrary to what I had first thought, he didn’t become super popular. Most people who tried to start up a conversation with him were met with a glare and hard silence. I had thought that it actually suited him quite well. He seemed like the stoic, untouchable protagonist type. Unlike me, he wore the loneliness well, like a fitted suit. (His unfriendliness did not stop the whispering, although some of it turned from admiring to resentful.)
We didn’t talk —why would we? He had no reason to even know I existed. We probably would have gone without knowing each other our whole lives, if it weren’t for me accidentally leaving my math workbook behind in class.
A few weeks after Yoo Joonghyuk transferred, I was walking home when a couple of classmates who liked picking on me —it’s been too long, I forgot their names— started harassing me. In the middle of them rummaging through my backpack, Yoo Joonghyuk arrived.
I remember, at that time I had felt embarrassed. Getting bullied and beat up was nothing new, but I didn’t want Yoo Joonghyuk to see it. One of the bullies went up to him, said some random stupid stuff, acting like he was a gangster or something. When he didn’t get any reaction, he tried to be friendly with Yoo Joonghyuk, putting an arm on his shoulder and asking if he wanted to “get in on the action.”
Then, I felt fear. And resignation. I’d be promoted from nameless mob character to nameless victim crushed underfoot on the protagonist's rise to the top. I hadn’t been sure if Yoo Joonghyuk was the type to bully scrawny, pathetic sons of a murderer. I hadn’t really wanted to find out.
Evidently, he wasn’t. Or maybe Yoo Joonghyuk just really valued his personal space.
He had growled, “Don’t touch me,” then grabbed the boy’s arm and twisted. The boy screamed.
The other three bullies panicked. I somewhat sympathized. Yoo Joonghyuk had looked very intimidating, looming over the fallen, screaming boy, still wrenching his arm backwards with a cold, disgusted expression.
“You crazy bastard!” one yelled, and they all charged him. A poor decision on their part. It was three against one. They never stood a chance.
Yoo Joonghyuk then released the screaming boy (though at some point he had devolved to begging). And then he completely kicked their asses.
It was something between a dance performance and a martial arts movie. While the bullies uselessly swung their fists —their only “fighting” experience being from beating up people weaker than them— Yoo Joonghyuk glided around them. He ducked under a fist and elbowed one in the stomach. He sidestepped and kicked another in the back of the knees. Even more impressively, he fought the entire time while holding a paper book. Once, he used it to smack one of them in the face (it really was impressive how Yoo Joonghyuk managed to make a flimsy paperback book such a lethal weapon; I still remember how the boy had a bright red mark on his face the next day).
After witnessing that horrifying display of fighting prowess from a 14-year old, the bullies wisely chose to run away while they still could.
Yoo Joonghyuk then stood over me —still on the ground. He hadn’t even been out of breath, the only indication that he had just beat up four teenage boys his age being his ruffled hair (and honestly on him it looked more like it was artfully mussed) and slightly flushed face. The weak afternoon sun haloed his figure. He had looked like a wrathful angel of death.
“You left this in class.”
He tossed a book onto my lap.
[Third Year Middle School Mathematics]
[Kim Dokja]
It was mine.
By the time I looked back up, he was already walking away. I could only see his broad, lonely back.
This would foreshadow most of our future interactions. Yoo Joonghyuk would leave and live, while I would watch from behind. At least, that’s what I had thought.