#you were Kim Dokja right? and I was so happy!!! I'd been looking for a fellow orv reader all night xD

[nelkey]

I can't believe it, I was celebrating closing night with the rest of my cast, and I got recognized for my Kim Dokja cosplay from the other day, that was cool :D

[pttucker]

This sort of affectionate behaviour felt uncomfortable to me, like some kind of ill-fitting clothes. Was it okay to be like this? Was it okay to experience moments like this already?

How long had it been since all of my companions were smiling together like this? Maybe, this could be our first time. They were able to smile even though the scenarios hadn't ended yet. They were able to chat away in happiness like that, and share their stories. ⸢And while looking at that spectacle, Kim Dokja suddenly felt lonely for some reason.⸥

"Well, Dokja-ssi, your communication skill has always been a little lacking, so it can't be helped, I guess. You were also like that back when we were working for the company." "…I was?" "You really didn't speak all that much to other people." I became utterly speechless after she mercilessly carpet-bombed me with facts. But then again, after giving it a bit of thought, it made total sense. I grew up without a friend from a young age. I wasn't clued in on how to socialise with other people, and back then, I only thought about how to weasel myself out of the company meal get-together. I figured that, rather than wasting time doing that, I might as well read the 'Ways of Survival' one more time instead.

I wasn't sure what to say to her. It felt as if I'd only sound like an ass just by thanking her or expressing my gratitude. The 'Ways of Survival' never taught me what I should say in moments like this.

Ughhhhh, Dokja not having a single friend and basically teaching himself how to socialize based on how characters interacted in a web novel. With the main character of said web novel being Yoo Joonghyuk so...yeah...

Granted, apparently even Joonghyuk took time to give his companions breaks and hang out with his little sister.

Of course, it's not like Dokja has ever had to pay attention to what anybody else wanted when out and about doing things, nor did he expect anybody else to pay attention to him.

Ughhhhh, the pain. I know it was heavily implied that he had no friends, like ever, on top of being badly bullied and abused and traumatized from killing his own abusive father as a little kid and mentally covering it up to the point that he thought his mother killed him, who then wrote a very popular book claiming she did just that and and and...but I think this is the first time he outright says that he never had any friends?

And it seems to also be heavily implied that the relatives who took Dokja in were perhaps not the greatest considering he apparently didn't learn how to socialize from them either and moved into a hostel at seventeen...

And maybe I'm reading too much into this, but it almost seems to me like Dokja maybe thinks, at least subconsciously, that he has to earn the right to be happy and to have friends to be happy with? Or that he has to get through the bad stuff first before being allowed to finally enjoy life? (And doesn't that say a lot about his own life in the Before?)

He mentions twice that they're happy and smiling before the end of the scenarios, with one of the times literally being him saying, "Was it okay to be like this? Was it okay to experience moments like this already?" And he just feels so alienated and alone at seeing them all do exactly that, meanwhile he's got serious anxiety about all this "affectionate behavior" that can be ripped away at any moment. That he hasn't secured yet.

And maybe that's just it. Maybe he's just worried about having fun when there's still a threat nearby that can swoop down on them at any moment, and that in and of itself says a lot about his mentality and you can see pretty easily how that can tie into aspects of his past.

And that's not even getting into the fact that some part of Dokja probably feels that getting them to the end is kind of what he's there for, it's how he proves his worth and his love for them. He has no "place" at the big found family barbecue.

Ughhhh, someone please just cuddle him. 😭 Who wants to start the Kim Dokja cuddle pile? Kids? Hyunsung?