Chapter Text
Kim Dokja believed the first day of school was proof that adults hated children.
There was no other explanation.
The sun was too bright, the uniform collar was trying to assassinate his neck, and the school gate was crowded with students who somehow looked excited to be trapped in a building for the next several hours. Everyone else had shiny shoes, neat hair, and the energy of people who had prepared for this moment.
Kim Dokja had a book in one hand, convenience store bread in the other, and the dead expression of someone who had already spiritually dropped out.
He stood outside the gate and wondered if it was too early in the semester to transfer.
Unfortunately, it was definitely too early.
He had not even entered the classroom yet.
“Move,” someone said behind him.
Kim Dokja stepped aside automatically as a group of girls rushed past, whispering loudly enough to be heard by three neighboring districts.
“Did you see him?”
“He’s in our year, right?”
“No way. He looks like a celebrity.”
“I heard Yoo Joonghyuk got first place in the entrance exams.”
Kim Dokja chewed slowly.
Yoo Joonghyuk.
Kim Dokja had already heard that name six times that morning, which was impressive because he had only been awake for forty minutes.
Apparently, Yoo Joonghyuk was handsome. Apparently, Yoo Joonghyuk was smart. Apparently, Yoo Joonghyuk was athletic. Apparently, Yoo Joonghyuk had a cold personality, which somehow made people like him more instead of less.
Kim Dokja did not understand society.
If Kim Dokja ignored someone, people called him gloomy.
If Yoo Joonghyuk ignored someone, people called him mysterious.
Life was unfair, and Kim Dokja wanted compensation.
He finished the bread, folded the wrapper into a sad little square, shoved it into his pocket because there was no trash can nearby, and walked through the school gate with the enthusiasm of a prisoner being escorted inside.
The classroom was already noisy when Kim Dokja arrived. Everyone was choosing seats like this was a battlefield, forming friendships based on eye contact, bag placement, and who looked least likely to borrow money and never return it.
Kim Dokja chose the safest place in any classroom.
The back corner near the window.
It had sunlight, distance from the teacher, and the powerful ability to make Kim Dokja look like a background character. Perfect.
He placed his bag down, sat carefully, and put his book on the desk like a protective charm.
A boy in front glanced back.
“Oh, you read?”
Kim Dokja looked down at the book, then back up.
“No. This is for self-defense.”
The boy laughed awkwardly and turned around.
Good.
First conversation completed. Relationship prevented.
Kim Dokja opened the book and prepared to disappear from society for the next several hours.
Unfortunately, peace lasted exactly twelve seconds.
The classroom door slid open.
The entire room went silent.
Kim Dokja did not look up at first, because he was not weak. He was different from everyone else. He had no interest in some handsome honor student who probably had dramatic lighting following him around like a cursed blessing.
Then someone whispered, “It’s Yoo Joonghyuk.”
Kim Dokja looked up.
And immediately hated that everyone had been correct.
Yoo Joonghyuk stood at the entrance like someone had accidentally placed a final boss in a school uniform. He had sharp eyes, neat hair, and the expression of a person who had already judged the classroom and found everyone disappointing. Even the sunlight from the hallway seemed to hit his face at the perfect angle, which felt illegal.
Kim Dokja squinted.
Even the sun was collaborating.
Yoo Joonghyuk walked inside without saying anything. The classroom parted for him like the Red Sea, except with more whispering and significantly more hair clips.
He looked at the seating chart on the board.
Then he walked toward the back of the classroom.
Kim Dokja felt a bad feeling crawl up his spine.
No.
Impossible.
There were many seats in the room. Many beautiful, empty, non-Kim-Dokja-related seats.
Yoo Joonghyuk stopped beside the desk next to Kim Dokja.
Kim Dokja stared at the book harder, as if the power of literature could create a wall between them.
Yoo Joonghyuk sat down.
The classroom exploded into whispering.
Kim Dokja wanted to complain to the principal.
This was discrimination against peaceful readers.
A girl from the front row turned around with sparkling eyes.
“Yoo Joonghyuk, nice to meet you! I’m Jung Heewon!”
Yoo Joonghyuk looked at Jung Heewon.
“Okay.”
Jung Heewon blinked.
The conversation died instantly.
Kim Dokja felt strangely impressed.
That was not socializing.
A few more students tried.
“Yoo Joonghyuk, what middle school did you come from?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Yoo Joonghyuk, are you joining any clubs?”
“No.”
“Yoo Joonghyuk, do you have any hobbies?”
“No.”
Kim Dokja slowly turned one page.
Liar.
Everyone had hobbies. Even boring people had hobbies. Studying was a hobby for people who were spiritually unwell.
Before Kim Dokja could investigate further, the homeroom teacher entered.
Teacher Gong Pildu was a tired-looking man with square glasses, a wrinkled shirt, and the expression of someone who had already regretted becoming responsible for teenagers before first period had even started.
“Quiet down,” Teacher Gong Pildu said.
Nobody quieted down.
Teacher Gong Pildu slammed the attendance book on the desk.
Everyone quieted down.
Kim Dokja respected the technique immediately.
“Welcome to your first year of high school,” Teacher Gong Pildu said. “You are now older, more responsible, and expected to behave with dignity.”
Someone’s phone played a chicken sound.
Teacher Gong Pildu closed his eyes.
Kim Dokja respected him even more.
“Introductions,” Teacher Gong Pildu said after a long moment of suffering. “Stand up, say your name, and one thing you like. Keep it short. Nobody here is interesting enough for a speech.”
One by one, students stood up.
“I’m Lee Hyunsung. I like exercising.”
Normal.
“I’m Jung Heewon. I like action movies.”
Reasonable.
A few more students introduced themselves with normal answers like music, soccer, sleeping, and food. Kim Dokja appreciated these people because they were forgettable in a peaceful way.
Then it was Kim Dokja’s turn.
He stood.
Thirty pairs of eyes turned toward him and immediately lost interest.
Good.
“Kim Dokja,” he said. “I like reading books.”
A boy near the front raised a hand. “Like textbooks?”
Kim Dokja stared.
“No.”
“Like math books?”
Kim Dokja stared harder.
“No.”
“Like science?”
“No.”
“Then what kind of books?”
Kim Dokja sat down.
Teacher Gong Pildu pointed the attendance book at the boy.
“Stop interrogating Kim Dokja like he committed a crime.”
Kim Dokja appreciated Teacher Gong Pildu for exactly three seconds.
Then Teacher Gong Pildu looked at the next student.
“Yoo Joonghyuk.”
The room became alert again.
Yoo Joonghyuk stood.
Several students sat straighter.
Kim Dokja also sat straighter, but only because his chair was uncomfortable.
“Yoo Joonghyuk,” Yoo Joonghyuk said.
Silence.
Teacher Gong Pildu waited.
The class waited.
A bird outside chirped, probably trying to help.
Teacher Gong Pildu sighed. “And?”
Yoo Joonghyuk looked at Teacher Gong Pildu as if the word “and” was unnecessary.
“One thing you like,” Teacher Gong Pildu reminded him.
Yoo Joonghyuk was silent for a long moment, as if searching the deepest corners of his soul for one acceptable human interest.
Then he said, “Winning.”
Kim Dokja lowered his head behind the book.
He was not laughing.
He was coughing. Definitely.
It was an entirely different medical event.
Yoo Joonghyuk sat down with the serious expression of a man who had just revealed a normal fact about himself. Teacher Gong Pildu wrote something on the attendance sheet with dead eyes.
Probably: wants to be a protagonist, failed.
The rest of the morning passed in the usual first-day blur. Rules. Schedules. Warnings. Club announcements. A speech about responsibility. A speech about youth. A speech about not setting things on fire, which felt weirdly specific and made everyone suspicious about last year’s first-years.
Kim Dokja spent most of the time reading.
Yoo Joonghyuk spent most of the time looking forward with perfect posture, like a statue designed to make everyone else feel inferior.
During lunch, Kim Dokja planned to eat alone behind the gym, which was a perfectly respectable location for someone with no social ambitions.
Unfortunately, Kim Dokja made the mistake of opening his lunch at his desk.
“Kim Dokja.”
Kim Dokja froze.
Yoo Joonghyuk was looking at him.
This was the first time Yoo Joonghyuk had voluntarily spoken to him.
Kim Dokja’s survival instincts activated.
“Yes?”
“Your book.”
Kim Dokja glanced down. “What about it?”
“You’ve been reading the same page for five minutes.”
Kim Dokja closed the book calmly.
He had not expected surveillance.
“I’m appreciating the sentence structure.”
“The book is upside down.”
Kim Dokja looked.
The book was, in fact, upside down.
He turned the book around with as much dignity as possible.
“Experimental reading.”
Yoo Joonghyuk stared at him.
Kim Dokja stared back.
The conversation ended there because neither Kim Dokja nor Yoo Joonghyuk had the social ability required to continue.
By the time school ended, Kim Dokja had learned three important things.
One, Teacher Gong Pildu was strict but a decent teacher.
Two, Jung Heewon had already threatened three people before lunch and somehow gained friends from it.
Three, Yoo Joonghyuk was even more annoying up close because he seemed perfect without even trying.
Kim Dokja walked home with sore feet and a tired soul. The first day of school had been exhausting in the way only the first day could be: nothing important had happened, yet somehow all of his energy had disappeared.
His plan for the evening was simple.
Shower.
Eat.
Read.
Pretend tomorrow did not exist.
After dinner, Kim Dokja turned on the computer. A new game had been released recently, and the internet was already full of people screaming about it. Kim Dokja did not usually play games seriously, but watching other people fail was one of life’s free entertainments.
He clicked through several streams.
Too loud.
Too many viewers.
Too much fake laughing.
Too much yelling.
Then Kim Dokja saw one stream at the very bottom of the page.
The title was:
I WILL CLEAR THE DEMON KING’S CASTLE WITHOUT TAKING DAMAGE
Viewers: 0
Kim Dokja paused.
There was something beautiful about that level of confidence paired with that level of failure.
He clicked.
The stream loaded slowly. The video quality was terrible, the audio crackled like the microphone had survived a war, and the game character was standing in front of a castle gate while dramatic music played too loudly in the background.
Then the streamer’s voice came through.
“I will not lose.”
Kim Dokja stopped breathing.
No.
No way.
The tiny webcam in the corner showed a familiar face.
Sharp eyes.
Serious expression.
Perfect posture.
A school uniform jacket hanging on the chair behind him.
Kim Dokja leaned closer to the screen.
Yoo Joonghyuk.
The handsome honor student.
The entrance exam genius.
The human final boss.
Yoo Joonghyuk was streaming to zero viewers.
On screen, Yoo Joonghyuk charged into the castle with the confidence of someone who had never considered the possibility of failure.
A slime jumped from the side.
Yoo Joonghyuk died instantly.
The stream went silent.
Kim Dokja covered his mouth.
Yoo Joonghyuk stared at the game-over screen with the face of a man betrayed by the universe.
After ten full seconds, Yoo Joonghyuk said, very quietly, “That was lag.”
Kim Dokja lost the fight.
He laughed so hard that he nearly fell out of the chair.
The chat box was empty.
The viewer count changed.
Viewers: 1
Yoo Joonghyuk froze.
Kim Dokja froze too.
On the stream, Yoo Joonghyuk slowly looked toward the chat box like it was a suspicious wild animal.
Kim Dokja’s hand hovered over the keyboard.
This was dangerous.
This was powerful information.
This was the kind of secret that could destroy a man’s reputation.
Kim Dokja should leave immediately. He should pretend this never happened. He should be a decent human being and respect Yoo Joonghyuk’s privacy.
Instead, Kim Dokja typed one message.
ReaderKim: nice lag
Yoo Joonghyuk stared.
For the first time that day, Yoo Joonghyuk looked genuinely offended.
Kim Dokja grinned.
Maybe high school would not be so boring after all.