Work Text:
Kim Dokja existed.
Still. Unfortunately.
He was a mushroom.
He remained rooted in damp forest soil, incapable of movement, speech, or meaningful action. The spores happened automatically—tiny, floating particles drifting out of him whenever humidity, temperature, or fate felt like inconveniencing him specifically. They did not convey thoughts. They did not carry meaning. They did not help him communicate. They were just there. Like intrusive thoughts, but biological.
To his left—fourteen point eight centimeters away—stood Yoo Joonghyuk. A mushroom. Tall. Straight. Dark-capped. Offensively sturdy. He also released spores, denser, more numerous, clearly superior, falling like a territorial claim. Kim Dokja hated this. Neither mushroom acknowledged the other. Not because of emotional distance. Because mushrooms.
Sunlight shifted throughout the day. Yoo Joonghyuk’s cap blocked exactly the worst possible angle, casting a shadow over Kim Dokja at noon, then retracting just enough in the evening to avoid being considerate. Rain fell. Spores puffed into the air from both of them at inconvenient intervals, mixing unintentionally, settling into the soil between them. No one reacted. Not the mushrooms. Not the forest. Not the universe.
A deer passed by, sniffed the ground, sneezed violently from spore inhalation, and fled. Yoo Joonghyuk’s stalk remained perfectly upright. Kim Dokja’s cap tilted by a fraction of a degree in what could only be described as fungal judgment.
Days passed. More spores. Always spores. They drifted. They settled. They mixed. They did nothing productive.
The forest floor began to change. Small bumps appeared. Tiny caps. Short stalks. Pathetically small mushrooms pushing through the soil. Kim Dokja noticed first, because he noticed everything. There were… several of them. Some had slightly uneven caps. Some had straight, intimidating stalks. Some leaned toward the light. Some leaned toward nothing at all but still felt stubborn about it.
This was alarming. The mushrooms did not move. Did not react. Did not do anything except exist in increasingly specific ways. This went on for an unacceptable amount of time.
Then—Kim Dokja woke up screaming.
🍄
He bolted upright in bed, heart racing, hands checking his body for caps, stalks, or mycelium. Human. Fully human.
“No,” he gasped. “No. Absolutely not.”
The room was quiet. Too quiet.
Slowly, he turned his head. On the windowsill. On his desk. On the floor. Small mushrooms. Dozens of them. Some had lopsided caps. Some stood unnervingly straight. One leaned slightly toward the window, blocking light from the others. Kim Dokja stared. The mushrooms did not move. Did not speak. Did not release spores.
Yoo Joonghyuk stood in the doorway. He looked at the mushrooms. Then at Kim Dokja. Then back at the mushrooms. The silence was devastating.
Kim Dokja lay back down and pulled the blanket over his head. “I am not dealing with this,” he muttered. The mushrooms continued to exist. Which, Kim Dokja realized bitterly, was exactly how it started last time.
Hunger won eventually. Kim Dokja sat up, stepped carefully over a cluster of small, suspiciously straight-stalked mushrooms near his door, and went to the kitchen. He did not look at Yoo Joonghyuk. Yoo Joonghyuk did not look at him. This was their most productive interaction to date.
He opened the fridge. Empty. Of course. The pantry: instant noodles. Rice. A single can of beans. And—mushrooms. Fresh. Pre-sliced. Store-bought. Entirely unrelated to the sentient fungal takeover in his living space. Kim Dokja stared at them for a long time. Then he laughed. “Okay,” he said to no one in particular. “Sure.”
He filled a pot with water, set it on the stove, and began chopping vegetables with the careful focus of someone one inconvenience away from losing his mind. Behind him, the mushrooms in the apartment did not react. The mushroom children did not watch. They did not judge. They did not scuttle closer in horror. They continued to exist.
The water boiled. Kim Dokja added seasoning. Soy sauce. Garlic. Salt. He dropped the store-bought mushrooms into the pot and stirred. Steam rose. The smell filled the kitchen. Yoo Joonghyuk appeared silently beside the counter at some point. Kim Dokja did not acknowledge this. Yoo Joonghyuk did not comment. They stood there. Two humans. Surrounded by mushrooms. Cooking mushrooms. It was, Kim Dokja thought dimly, probably symbolic.
He ladled the soup into two bowls. Paused. Then added a second spoon. Set one bowl down in front of Yoo Joonghyuk. Yoo Joonghyuk looked at it. Looked at the mushrooms on the floor. Looked back at the soup. He sat down. They ate in silence. The soup was good. Comforting. Warm. Entirely normal, which somehow made it worse.
From the corner of his eye, Kim Dokja noticed one of the smaller mushrooms near the doorway had tipped over slightly, as if exhausted. Another leaned closer to the warmth of the stove. The mushroom children remained unharmed. Unaffected. Unbothered.
Afterward, Kim Dokja washed the dishes. The mushrooms remained. When he returned to the living room, the cluster had subtly rearranged itself—closer together now, forming a loose, uneven circle. Like a family photo no one asked for.
🍄
Kim Dokja did not sleep immediately. That, too, was reasonable. He lay in bed staring at the wall for exactly three minutes before reaching for his phone. The glow illuminated his face and—unfortunately—the silhouettes of several mushrooms clustered near his nightstand.
He opened his browser. Typed: “why are there mushrooms in my apartment.” Deleted it. Typed again: “can mushrooms be related.” Paused. “…no.” Deleted. Typed: “are mushrooms legally considered offspring.” The search results were unhelpful and deeply judgmental. He refined it. “my mushrooms look like me and another guy what does that mean.” His phone suggested mental health resources.
Kim Dokja sighed and adjusted his query with the careful precision of someone used to phrasing impossible problems. “mushroom spores mixed accidentally indoor what happens.” Scientific articles. Diagrams. Words like *mycelium network*, *shared genetic material*, *environmental conditions*. He scrolled. “…Great,” he muttered. “So it’s not impossible.”
A small mushroom near the edge of the bed leaned slightly toward the phone, cap tilted just enough to be curious. Kim Dokja turned the screen away immediately. “No,” he said firmly. “You do not get internet access.” The mushroom did not react. Yoo Joonghyuk, seated silently on the floor across the room like a sentient bad decision, glanced over. Kim Dokja locked his phone and dropped it onto the mattress. “I am not explaining this to anyone,” he said to the ceiling. “I am not registering them. I am not naming them. I am not—” He stopped. Very slowly, he looked back at the cluster of mushrooms. Some had uneven caps. Some stood straight and immovable. One leaned just slightly forward, blocking light from the others. Kim Dokja closed his eyes. “…I will think about it tomorrow.” The mushrooms continued to exist. Which, unfortunately, meant tomorrow would also exist.
And thus life went on: two humans, dozens of mushroom children, constant spores, and a kitchen smelling faintly of soy, garlic, and existential dread. Kim Dokja learned to cook, to ignore silent judgment, and to accept that some roommates would literally never leave. Yoo Joonghyuk remained imposing, silent, and perfectly still in the corner. The mushroom children thrived. They did not talk. They did not move. They did not interact. They only existed, a chaotic little family formed entirely by accident—and Kim
Dokja, for better or worse, was trapped in it forever.