Chapter 19: Suicide
How did this happen....?
Why did it happen....?
How can he forgot about such a important past...?
At first, it was regret.
Then, it was self-hatred.
Lastly, it was the feeling of wasted effort spent on a person who wouldn't accept them.
Anger.
He had hated his mother for no reason all this time.
Once again, Dokja's reality shaked his whole life.
...
Kim Dokja stares dazely at the floor. He couldn't bring himself to call his mother. How can he even do that after all these years anyway? He trembled and stood on his shaky legs. He clutched his phone tightly and scrolled through the contact list.
[Han Soongyun]
[Yu Joonghyuk]
[Mother]
[Yoo Sangah]
...
He couldn't bring himself to call anyone of them. From the beginning, their story has been always different from him. He was never the protagonist of the story. He never belonged in their stories. His genre was "Realism". He couldn't be the protagonist of that kind of story.
He called Han Soongyun. She didn't pick up.
He called Yu Joonghyuk. He didn't pick up.
He called Yoo Sangah. She didn't pick up.
He called...
He...
... None of them picked up.
He wonders why...?
It felt like the major characters of the story abandoned him. As if, all this time, he was just an extra character who got a little screen time. He felt clogged up. His existence make himself disgusted.
...
...
...
His story had ended.
There was no point of continuing his story.
*
Han Soongyun woke up suddenly. She looked at her computer which front of her.
"Man, I fell asleep while writing..."
She stretched her arms and searched her phone.
"39 missed calls? From Dokja?"
She couldn't know because her phone was silent. It's been one and half hour since his last missed call came. She called Kim Dokja back.
[The number you dialed is off right now.]
"Hm? Why is this fool's phone off?"
She called again.
[The number you dialed is off right now.]
"What the...?"
She thought maybe he was busy. Even so, she couldn't calm herself. After a while, she got a call from an unknown number.
["Ah, hello? Are you a friend of Kim Dokja?"]
Han Soongyun flinched. She could tell something was terribly wrong.
"Yeah? Who are you?"
["I'm calling you from the police department. We called you to inform that your friend...."]
After hearing those words, Han Soongyun couldn't say a single word.
"Suicide".
*
Han Soongyun ran immediately after the call and climbed aboard an early-hours taxi cab. The hospital itself wasn't too far. Doctors and nurses were busily going about their businesses despite the hour being what it was. Screams of pain from the patients intermittently rang out. And empty beds were deeply permeated with the lengthy tendrils of death's scent.
Even in a world where 'Three was to survive a Apocalypse' didn't exist, people continued to die.
These were very small apocalypses. This was where lives not recorded went to disappear.
Han Su-Yeong, currently half in a daze, scanned all the stretchers.
"Ah..."
And that's how she found the 27-year-old Kim Dok-Ja lying on one. An IV needle was stuck in the man's wrist wrapped tightly in bandages.
"Ahjussi! Wake up!"
That little Shin Yusung screamed out to him while crying.
"Hyung! Please look at us!"
Beside her, was Lee Gilyeong, doing the same as her.
Yoo Joonghyuk's face was frozen pale.
Yoo Sangah cried while covering her mouth.
Lee Hyunsung, Lee Jihye, Jung Heewon...
Looks like everyone arrived before her. There was another person. It was Kim Dokja's mother. She patted unconscious Kim Dokja's head.
"Looks like I should've told the truth to the child."
But none of that mattered Han Soongyun. She dazedly stared at Kim Dokja's face which was deeply pale and sunken. His face, his long eyelashes, his white cheek and his sadly distorted lips. Suddenly,all of them realized, only Kim Dokja was the person who could exist in this world with such an expression.
"It's hard to tell when he will wake up. We need to keep him in observation."
The doctor was explaining about his condition to the others.
Han Soongyun thought this timeline was perfect, then why? She thought she didn't need to write 'Three was to survive a Apocalypse' , she thought Kim Dokja could fight his apocalypse in this timeline, so why did this happen?
Memories of previous regressions she wanted to forget started pouring back into her head. But if she writes 'Three was to survive a Apocalypse' , then countless people will die. She couldn't think of the way to save Kim Dokja. It was depressing.