Kim Dokja's life wasn't all that special. Or nice. It was just a bunch of situations, mostly bad, that strung after each other and he went with the drift.
He, like all other normal babies, was born and didn't remember a lot of his time as an infant. When he reached the age where he would start to retain memories, they were stained by purpling bruises, screams and sobs of his mother, scarlet blood in a quantity he was too young to be seeing.
Movies had viewers' discretion and PG ratings. Books and web novels had that too, a warning. Saying, watch out, this is what you're getting into. Even some lectures in university had those trigger warnings when they touched on sensitive topics.
Life didn't come with that. Maybe that's why people liked putting trigger warnings on everything; life didn't, so they did it for all that imitated life.
Kim Dokja's childhood that came without a discretion warning had him witnessing his father's death.
He supposed he had some trauma from that, PTSD perhaps, but he had never visited a professional to talk about it and fix himself. He took it in stride. Walk it off, champ. Not like he could afford therapy and medication anyway.
His memories were scrambled, he used to be aversive to blood and sharp objects, he used to have nightmares, he still did on a few occasions, and his personality was probably a little rotten too. He was aware that it was very detrimental to self-diagnose, but he wasn't self-diagnosing at all. He was just making assumptions about himself. Everyone made assumptions about themselves.
He was normal, as far as the general population and efficiency were considered. He would be considered average, in a busy society where he as an individual was whittled down to academic accolades, achievements in his career, and the number of digits in his paycheque. Below average sometimes, but that was alright. He was staying afloat somehow. He had never thrived anyway, he wouldn't know how it felt.
PG warnings made sense though. Children weren't supposed to go through that. Children shouldn't have to learn how to mask their emotions and thoughts.
But he ended up having to go through that and learned how to pretend way too early.
It helped him in his life, so he shouldn't be complaining all that much, should he? Oh, well, how did it matter?
His father's death was a case that shook the nation. Not because of his father, but his mother. He didn't think anyone even knew the name of the deceased, they just knew Lee Sookyung had killed her husband in front of her child.
People spoke about the case for years and Kim Dokja listened to it all. He couldn't escape it even if he wanted to, he had no choice but to listen.
And as he listened, he learnt that even the ones who had all those certificates from prestigious institutions, the ones acclaimed to be the best in the field, the most knowledgeable were pretty fucking stupid.
He saw the faces of the reporters who shoved a microphone under his nose and screamed questions like he had a hearing impairment. He saw those faces until they started distorting and became the monsters that haunted his dreams for years.
He didn't understand what it was they were talking about until he became an adult himself. As an adult, a lot of things started making sense. Wasn't it funny? Everyone who had become an adult was a child once, and yet they all seemed to forget what it was like for them as a child.
Kim Dokja vaguely remembered a child psychiatrist turning up to do an interview for a news channel, being aired live for the entire country to see, as the woman spoke about how Lee Sookyung's actions would have affected her young son.
Kim Dokja had been sitting in front of the television, being forced to watch the programme by his cousins who had taken the opportunity to bother him without their parents barking at them to stop mentioning that wretched woman's name.
And he wanted to ask that woman on the television if she didn't think about how all that she was blabbing wouldn't affect him. She seemed too keen on picking apart his mother, how would she feel if someone were to do that to herself?
He wished he could. Kim Dokja wished he could rip her apart with words like she was doing to his mother and him. He wished he could air out the filthiest parts of her, peel off all defences and throw her to the wolves, vulnerable and ugly.
But he was a child, barely eleven, what could he do?
He sat there and watched the entire interview. As much as he hated to admit it, it was informative.
"It's not what the letters say," his mother used to tell him, smiling at him with her gentle smile and kind eyes. "But where they lead you to."
Right. . .If they read the story again, it would be different.
People were a little stupid. Even if they weren't, they didn't dare prove that they weren't because they were scared the majority would reject them. That worked in his favour, didn't it?
He just had to show them a different story. He had to read them a different story.
The next time he had a microphone in front of his face, Kim Dokja put his life on the line and acted out a perfect scenario. About how he missed his mother so much while she was being detained. He told the world about how she read his stories and how the only thing that was keeping him going was reading the old storybooks and waiting for her to come back home because his mother always did.
That interview with that child psychiatrist sure came in handy.
He had lied a lot, but no one really cared to find out. It was an interesting story, there was no need to make it boring by actually finding out what had happened.
Kim Dokja was taken away from his aunt and uncle and sent to an orphanage temporarily as his mother's case went under trial.
Her lawyer had practically dragged Kim Dokja to the court without his mother's knowledge. His mother didn't want the attention to fall on him at any cost, but it had already failed. There was nothing to save now.
They tried refuting his claims, saying that he was just a child and didn't know much. His mother thankfully had a competent lawyer who pitied her and turned it in their favour.
Kim Dokja witnessed the influence words could have that day. He burned it into his brain, a band he would never forget.
His mother got acquitted in the end and he thought that it was finally their happy ever after.
It was the naivety of a child.
His mother's name, her crime, her life, and her trial weren't easily forgotten. Kim Dokja learnt about financial difficulties properly for the first time. He remembered doing math word problems in school, about buying and selling. Work, earn money, spend, save.
No one said anything about what happened when people weren't able to find any work.
Viewers discretion. Not for kids to know. Of course, of course. Why would they teach something like that to kids at school?
His mother was a clever woman, a resilient woman, who overcame that as well. All her scars were aired out for the world to see anyway, might as well let them see every single wound and scratch.
His mother's book blew up.
Kim Dokja hated it. He hated it because even that couldn't save him. Eating the food that was put on the table because of that damned book made him want to throw up. But he couldn't waste food that was procured with difficulty, so he swallowed it all.
When he thought back to those days, he wondered if it had just been puberty speaking. Why did he burn hatred into himself like that? He had no clue. But it was a deep flesh wound, festering, rotting, incapacitating.
His mother was the only one who had been able to see through all the masks he put on. She never liked it, even if she did the same.
She was a hypocrite, Kim Dokja carved into stone when he learnt what that word meant.
It took him a few more years to see that he was a hypocrite himself.
Everyone was a hypocrite in a way. And that made him pretty much normal, didn't it?
With his horrible childhood, it made sense how he got easily attached to Yoo Joonghyuk.
He met the boy when he was seventeen, in high school.
A new transfer student who ended up in Kim Dokja's class.
It was just a series of events that worked in his favour.
Yoo Joonghyuk happened to be in a horrible mood, bullies were annoying him, and he taught the bullies a lesson. Said bullies simply happened to be the ones that bothered Kim Dokja every day and Kim Dokja ended up being saved by Yoo Joonghyuk.
At first, Kim Dokja thought the boy was stuck up and an asshole. Anyone who responded with violence was pathetic in his eyes.
But what was more pathetic was taking things for free. His prideful teenage self wouldn't let it stay, but he didn't dare to talk to the other boy either.
So when their homeroom asked Yoo Joonghyuk to take the seat next to Kim Dokja for that day, Kim Dokja took the opportunity to pay his saviour back. He let Yoo Joonghyuk borrow a textbook for a period when he needed one.
Kim Dokja didn't really care if the textbook had been of use to the boy or not. He wasn't doing it to help him, he was doing it to stroke his own ego. Prove to himself that he wasn't a freeloader.
Yoo Joonghyuk turned out to be just as prideful as him and went around trying to return the favour. But he never managed it because Kim Dokja kept getting dragged away by the bullies during the break and Yoo Joonghyuk was never able to catch him.
In the end, Yoo Joonghyuk found out what was happening and paid Kim Dokja back by instilling the fear of god into his bullies with his fists.
"I thought you were the same," Kim Dokja remembered muttering as Yoo Joonghyuk glared down at him in the infirmary, the school nurse had left for her lunch break.
"What?"
"Even if you didn't beat me," Kim Dokja choked a little. "You were still going to turn a blind eye."
"How would I have done that? I didn't even know!" Yoo Joonghyuk cried, defensive.
"I know," Kim Dokja didn't dare meet his eye. "I. . .I thought you heard the rumours about me."
"What rumours?"
Yoo Joonghyuk actually didn't know jackshit about Kim Dokja and his history. Kim Dokja had been under the impression that the reason why Yoo Joonghyuk switched seats the second day was because he didn't want to be sitting with Kim Dokja, just like the rest of the classmates after he heard about the rumours.
Turned out, Yoo Joonghyuk couldn't play his games with the sunlight in his face from his old seat in the back so he switched to find a better spot. And he was an introvert through and through, he didn't know how to make friends, not that he cared for it anyway.
Kim Dokja supposed they became friends after that. With Yoo Joonghyuk tagging along with him everywhere, the people who used to bully him stayed away. Even though Kim Dokja felt like he was leeching off his only friend, he didn't want to let the first warm feeling he had felt in years slip away.
In return, he would be the best friend ever. He would mould himself to be the best friend in the entire world.
It worked. A bit too well, but it worked. They stayed the best of friends through the years.
It was partly...no, mostly Kim Dokja's fault. He wasn't aware that he didn't decode feelings as well as others normally did, no matter how much he pretended like it.
He had no idea what the fuck the emotions he felt were. When he finally comprehended it, it was way too late.
Kim Dokja didn't have a life rich with pleasant experiences. He lived vicariously through books and stories.
In the stories, when someone fell in love, their heart pounded, blood rushed, flowers bloomed, and life seemed brighter.
Kim Dokja was an anxious boy, his heart pounded often and he used to be in a constant fight-or-flight state for years. He felt his life had improved loads after meeting a friend. How was he supposed to know that he was falling in love? It was nothing like it was mentioned in the stories. When he was with Yoo Joonghyuk, he just felt at peace.
He only realised that he had fallen in love with Yoo Joonghyuk when Yoo Joonghyuk introduced him to his girlfriend.
And Kim Dokja had to weigh the options he had. Any good person would say there were no options, but he was not a good person, so he had options.
One, he could avoid Yoo Joonghyuk, worry the guy, get him to focus on him and make his girlfriend feel neglected, and Yoo Joonghyuk would end up single again.
Two, he could ruin their relationship using other means and then be there to comfort Yoo Joonghyuk when he needed it.
Three, he could confess his feelings in a way that would make Yoo Joonghyuk feel terrible.
Four, he could confess his feelings in a lighthearted way, telling Yoo Joonghyuk that he was happy for him and that he didn't have to stay friends anymore if that made him or his girlfriend uncomfortable.
Five, he could keep it all inside, hide it away as an unspeakable secret.
Kim Dokja picked the fifth option.
He treasured his friendship with Yoo Joonghyuk. He wasn't going to risk it for something so unfamiliar as romantic feelings. He was Yoo Joonghyuk's friend first. He had more experience with that. He could fuck up badly as a boyfriend and they could break up and their relationship would never be the same again. They might even drift apart, leaving each other's lives forever.