What do you mean, small?" Dokja scrunches his face up in confusion, thinking back to what he looked like in high school. He hadn't really been paying very much attention to how he looked.
[The Constellation 'Abyssal Black Flame Dragon' says you look like you would break from a mere sneeze]
Thanks. What rude commentary. Even if it is right, he didn't have to say it like that.
"Kim Dokja. You need to eat more, fool."
The protagonists voice startled him into looking his way. Frowning, Dokja could have sworn he just heard Yoo Joonghyuk sound almost... concerned? The screen fades in black text.
The story 'Three Ways to Survive the Apocalypse' has been my lifeline for years now. It has been there through the hell that was high school, when I failed my entrance exams and ended up at a third-rate college...
The same dead-eyed boy, now older, sits on a bench alone at a university reading with the same beat up phone. Multiple groups of people pass him, talking and laughing with their friends. No one goes near him.
...when bad luck got me stationed on the front line during my military service...
A man wearing an army uniform with hair cropped short sits in an empty room filled with computers. He is curled over the desk he's sitting at, eyes trained on the novel in front of him.
...and even now, as an unstable contract worker getting transferred from company to company... Damn it. What's the point anyway? I don't have a single happy memory. Anyway... I don't have a single happy memory. It's bittersweet that this fictitious world I've been following for so many years is now coming to an end. Today is the day it all ends.
A grand novel consisting of 3,149 episodes, with an average view count of one. Kim Dokja muses with melancholy, thinking about all of the times he sees update notifications from tsl123. The first chapter actually had around 1,200 views, but by chapter 10, there were only 120 views. Then the view count dropped to 12 by the chapter 50. And now, Dokja was the only one reading it. It ended up being a story written for him and only him.
"Huh." Han Sooyoung's noise of ascent is quiet, but still audible in the mostly quiet room. She also stands from where she's sitting, turning her body completely to stare at him with an expression he can't parse out. "You really did read it all."
"Of course I did. Did you think I lied about that?" Kim Dokja avoids looking at her, not wanting to try to figure out what Sooyoung is thinking. The more they talk about the actual story, the more his anxiety rises. It will get exposed eventually, but he wants to live in his world of ignorance for at least a little while longer. Sooyoung walks up to him, moving until she stood right in front of him. He is no longer able to avoid her eyes.
"You really read all of that garbage." Her face curls up in a smirk, her standing position letting her look down on him. Kim Dokja wants to take out her knees. That's his position to be in, damn it.
The others around him have been whispering to each other about things he can't pick up too well with the witch in his face and talking so loud. Even the notifications from the usual constellations seemed to elude him. It made him anxious, but there wasn't anything he could do about it here. Here where he had no idea of what would happen next. Not like out there in the apocalypse where he had the answer to everything. A guide to follow.
"That's rich. Aren't you the one who had plagiarized such a garbage novel? Does that make yours worse than trash?" Kim Dokja quipped back, making to kick at her shins. It landed, not as hard as he would have liked though. Scrunching his face up in confusion, he attempts to kick her again. He doesn't get the chance.
"Mine is so much better than that! I also didn't plagiarize shit!" Sooyoung grumbled under her breath, pushing and shoving Shin Yoosung out of her chair and into his, claiming her chair as her own. The upheaved Yoosung squeaks in surprise, almost headbutting Gilyoung if Dokja hadn't stepped in, steadying her and gently settling her in on his other side.
[The Constellation 'Demon-like Judge of Fire' admonishes Incarnation ' Han Sooyoung for her actions]
"Repent for your actions." Dokja demanded immediately, echoing Uriel in the process, reaching over and smacking the back of her head. Cursing under her breath, she glares at him.
"Dokja-ssi?" Yoo Sangah's voice cuts through his thoughts once again.
It seems he was quiet for too long... What else should he say? After stalling for way too long, Kim Dokja tries to change the topic. "Oh, come to think of it, it's already been a year since we started working at the company."
Once again, Sangah finds the need to apologize, sounding sheepish about her lack of social awareness. Dokja waves it away while thinking to himself he would rather not be here at all to begin with.
"We started around this time last year. Time sure flies by, doesn't it?" Dokja says, pulling his phone away from his chest and laying it along with his hand in his lap.
Sangah laughs, "Yeah, we had no idea what we-..."
As she speaks, he slowly drifts off back into his own mind, absentmindedly answering her as she looks for answers in him.
The screen fades to a white background once more with black letters showing up as the narration happens.
'Yoo Sangah is so cool. If we were characters in a novel, she would definitely be the heroine who gave it her all. If I were in a different genre... If the genre of my life wasn't non-fiction , but fantasy...'
The scene suddenly flashes to the opposite side of the subway cabin. There sits a boy, holding a bug-catching net and a cage that holds many grasshoppers in it. His hair is messy. His shoulder are hunched over as he looks to be half-curled around the cage. Dead eyes. He looks so familiar. Familiar to someone he refuses to acknowledge he used to know.
'...could I have been the protagonist? The type who can help a kid like him because they're strong?'
The scene swap back to where Dokja is sitting with his own shoulders hunched over. A busted up phone in his hands. Equally dead eyes.
'Only the strong can afford to be kind, to show kindness.'
Tugging on his left arm, Gilyoung grins up at Dokja, bouncing where he sits practically on the armrest of the reclining chair. "Did you really notice me that early, hyung?"
"That's right." Kim Dokja raises his arm out of Gilyoung's grip to pat his head. "You helped me a lot, Gilyoung-ah."
[The Constellation 'Demon-like Judge of Fire' coos at the adorable sight']
[The Constellation 'Demon-like Judge of Fire' sponsors 3,000 coins]Only the strong can afford to be kind?" Shin Yoosung's voice is soft as she asks, he other arm being hugged as she sits on the other armrest pressed into his side.
Dokja smiles, squinting his eyes on purpose to make the grimace look kinder, taking the hand from Gilyoung's head to pat her instead. "That's nothing for you to worry about...?"
He pauses as if asking for her name, his brain working overtime to remember he hasn't met her yet. Cursing, he tries his best from infecting these kids with whatever disease his thoughts may give them.
"Yoosung, Shin Yoosung, Pretty Ahjussi." She mumbles nervously, suddnely becoming aware how weirdly comfortable she's gotten with a stranger. She doesn't move though, so Dokja guesses it should be find.
"If you want, I could... tell you the name of the app I use." Sangah offers, continuing on a topic he doesn't even remember very well.
'But. Real life is non-fiction. And in this genre, I'm no protagonist. I'm merely a reader and a lone child, just like they cursed me with this name of mine.'
Dokja smiles vaguely while responding vaguely to her offer. "Thanks, but it wouldn't matter if you tell me about the language app. A Dokja will always lead a Dokja's life after all."
To himself, he continues the sentence in the comfort of his own head. 'Whatever remains of it'
His head wasn't so comfortable anymore.
"Dokja-ssi..." Sangah starts up, a concerned look on her face, but she gets interrupted by the protagonist.
"Kim Dokja." The gruff call is aggressive. When he looks over, the Sunfish Bastard is still watching the screen but his face is turned down in a heavy frown. It takes a moment for him to break contact with the screen, tilting his head look Dokja in his eyes. "What is this."
Kim Dokja isn't sure he should answer that truthfully, not with the way he's being looked at. He jerks his head away to break eye contact and lies out of his teeth like it's his job.
"I'm not sure I know what you mean, Joonghyuk-ah." He tenses when he hears the man shifting beside him, partially expected to be grabbed by the neck again solely for the amount of cheek he but into that, but he doesn't do anything. Or say anything for that matter.
Out of the corner of his eye, he watches a look flash over Joonghyuk's face before the bastard goes back to facing the screen once more. Kim Dokja doesn't have the brain power needed to unravel what just happens, so he leaves it be.
Kim Dokja's declaration makes Sangah stare at him for a moment. And then another. She seems sincerely worried about him, perhaps because she's from human resources. "A Dokja's life...?" she muses for a moment before brightening up once more. "You're such an inspiration, Dokja-ssi!"
Confused, he shoots her a look, trying to figure out what she's on about. "Sorry?"
Now seemingly rejuvinated, Yoo Sangah clenches her fists and declares, "I should also live my own life, A Sangah's life! Like you, I'll strive to live my life to the fullest!"
Nearby, an embarrassed groan mirrors Dokja's own earlier embarrassment. Sangah sounds like she's struggling over there where she is sitting.
Even hearing it for another time, with a little more retrospect, Dokja still can't parse out exactly where Sangah was going with that. He really doesn't know why she took anything to do with him as some sort of good example.
Dokja looks even more uncertain, still slightly disturbed at her words. Before he could try to formulate an answer to her nonsense, his phone vibrates where he has it pinned in between his hand and thigh. It's the notification of a new message.
A message from tls123 pops up on the screen.
- Thank you.
For a moment, Dokja stares at it before the identity of the message's sender clicks in his brain. 'The Author-?'
- Thanks to you, I was able to finish my story. I also won a prize in a contest.
'TWSA Was in a contest? How did I not know about it?' Kim Dokja wonders to himself, re-reading the message a couple more times. He is confused. This is good news. But even so, he's wondering where this sudden information had originated from. Typing faster than he has in a good long while, his previous despair slowly melts away as he is buried in thoughts of his story once more.
-Congratulations! But what kind of contest?
Surprisingly, tls123 replied to him almost instantly.
-It's not a big contest, so you wouldn't have heard of it. Starting with the epilogue today, TWSA will become paid content. As a token of my gratitude, I would like to send you a special present. Could you tell me your email address?
[email protected] Thank you. Thank you for all you have written, Author-nim.
"Not even a moments hesitation!" Han Sooyoung reaches over Shin Yoosung to smack the back of Dokja's head, but misses when he leans forward to dodge. On his way up, he sticks his tongue out at her.
Jung Heewon cradles her forehead in one of her hands, throwing the other one out to motion at the screen. "Do you even know who they are?! Why would you just hand your email out like that?!"
"I don't think it's a good idea to do something like that, Dokja-ssi." Lee Hyunsung calls out, a little hesitant as he does so.
Sangah pipes up from where she's sitting as well. "I think I need to give you an online cyber security lesson."
Kim Dokja looks at them uncertainly, "I'm not a kid, I know what stranger danger is. This and that are different." He grumbles to himself. This was the auther that wrote his story for him, updating almost every day. How could he not trust them? It's not like it would have mattered if something did happen, anyway.
-I was only able to finish my story thanks to you.
Subject: Thank you for everything
Sender: tsl123
Mr. Kim Dokja,
Starting at 7 pm today, TWSA will become paid content. This will help you. I wish you all the best.
The black letters on a white background were inconspicuous but Joonghyuk tenses up beside him at the familiar time period. Kim Dokja does his best not to move, staying as still as possible.
Dokja blinks and then glances up at the corner of his phone for the time. Internally, he starts to panic. 'Starting at 7 pm? It's 6:55 right now, so that means I have five minutes let. I'll go into my favorite chapters and... huh?'
It's gone. All that's left of the novel is an empty webpage and an error notice. It has already been taken down. No more black letters to hide amongst. 'TWSA is... gone? Wha- Where? WHERE? WHERE DID IT GO? WHERE DID MY STORY GO?' The panic increases ten fold as he hurriedly tries refreshing the page over and over again. Nothing.
Nothing is left.