Chapter Text
Kim Dokja believed that every morning commute was a small, socially acceptable tragedy.
It was not dramatic enough to count as suffering. No one would write poems about a man being pressed between a salaryman with a wet umbrella and a college student watching videos without earphones. No one would light candles for the office workers who had to stand in front of convenience stores at 8:17 a.m., holding burnt coffee in one hand and the remains of their will to live in the other.
Still, tragedy was tragedy.
Kim Dokja walked the same route to work every day because it required the least amount of thinking. His usual path had three traffic lights, one decent coffee shop, two vending machines, and exactly one alley that smelled like fried food in the morning and questionable decisions at night. It was not beautiful, but it was predictable, and predictability was the only romance he had left in his life.
That morning, predictability betrayed him.
A bright orange barricade blocked the entrance to the street he always used.
Behind it, three construction workers stood around a hole in the road, staring at it with the exhausted concentration of people who had either discovered treasure or created a problem big enough to require government funding. A sign had been taped crookedly to the barricade.
ROAD CLOSED.
PLEASE USE ALTERNATIVE ROUTE.
Kim Dokja stared at the sign.
The sign stared back.
Kim Dokja took one long sip of coffee and felt it burn his tongue.
“Of course,” he said. “Naturally. The road has resigned before I could.”
One of the construction workers looked at him.
Kim Dokja looked away first, because unlike road closures, he still had some shame.
He checked his phone. 8:04 a.m. He was supposed to be at Mino Soft by 8:50. It took him thirty minutes to get there if the universe was being civil. Forty minutes if the traffic lights decided to develop personalities. Fifty minutes if someone fainted in the subway, a bus broke down, or a tourist asked him for directions.
He had forty-six minutes.
He could still make it.
He simply had to use the alternative route.
Kim Dokja hated those words. Alternative route. They sounded harmless, but so did “minor update,” “optional meeting,” and “we value your feedback.” In his experience, all of them meant the same thing: someone else had made a mistake and now he had to suffer.
Still, he turned left.
The alternative route began with a narrow street between two old buildings that looked like they were leaning toward each other to gossip. The pavement was uneven. The air smelled like rain, dust, and yesterday’s cooking oil. Wires tangled overhead like badly designed quest lines. Small shops sat half-awake with their metal shutters rolled halfway up.
Kim Dokja walked quickly.
He did not have time to appreciate atmosphere. He did not want atmosphere. He wanted his desk, his second coffee, and the privilege of spending nine hours intentionally breaking video games so that teenagers on the internet would have fewer reasons to call the developers incompetent.
Kim Dokja worked in the Quality Assurance department at Mino Soft, a gaming company with a cheerful logo, a terrible cafeteria, and people discussing sleep as if it were an abandoned childhood hobby.
His official job was testing games for bugs, glitches, and loopholes.
His unofficial job was ruining the hopes of developers.
Every day, he opened unfinished builds, walked characters into walls, jumped at strange angles, spammed dialogue prompts, equipped items in the wrong order, saved during cutscenes, died inside tutorial zones, and generally behaved like the worst possible player imaginable. He found ways to fall through floors, duplicate currency, soft-lock story quests, make enemy's AI walk into rivers, and complete puzzles before receiving the necessary items.
The developers called him thorough.
Kim Dokja called it paid sabotage.
He was good at it.
This did not make him happy, but it did give him something to put in performance reviews.
That morning, he had a list of unresolved issues waiting for him. A character in Mino Soft’s upcoming fantasy RPG could apparently clip through the final boss arena if the player rolled diagonally while holding a fishing rod. A multiplayer mode had a loophole that let players stack healing buffs until they became immortal. Someone from combat design insisted this was “emergent gameplay.” Kim Dokja had written, in the bug report, “Immortality is not a feature unless we have started developing religions.”
He was proud of that one.
He checked his phone again.
8:11 a.m.
Still fine.
Then he heard someone say, “You walk like you want the road to apologize.”
Kim Dokja stopped.
The voice came from the side of the street.
It was low, flat, and distinctly unpleasant in the way only a stranger’s accurate observation could be.
Kim Dokja turned his head.
A man sat beneath a faded blue canopy beside a small stall filled with paintings. The stall was wedged between a closed tailor shop and a fruit vendor arranging oranges with the seriousness of a museum curator. Several canvases leaned against wooden crates. Smaller paintings hung from strings clipped to the canopy frame, swaying slightly in the morning breeze.
The man looked like he had been drawn by someone with a grudge against ordinary beauty.
His black hair was tied back loosely. His face was sharp, almost severe, with dark eyes that seemed permanently unimpressed by the existence of other people. He wore a plain black shirt with rolled sleeves, paint smudged across one forearm, and the general expression of someone who had never once said “Have a nice day” and meant it.
Kim Dokja disliked him immediately.
This was partly because the man was rude.
It was mostly because the man was handsome.
No one that handsome should be allowed to sit in a side street before 9 a.m. without a permit. It disrupted public order. It was a safety concern.
Kim Dokja glanced at the paintings.
They were annoyingly good.
Not pretty in the simple, marketable way that office lobbies liked. They were rough, intense, and strangely alive. One showed a stormy sea under a black sky, waves curling like teeth. Another showed a city at sunset, windows glowing like tiny, stubborn stars. A third showed a lone figure standing in front of a train platform, the face unfinished, the background blurred as if the world were moving too fast around them.
Kim Dokja looked away.
He had no interest in street art, handsome strangers, or emotional metaphors before work.
“I walk like someone whose usual route was blocked,” Kim Dokja said.
The man looked at him for a moment.
“Then walk around it.”
Kim Dokja smiled without warmth. “Incredible. Is that advice free, or do I need to buy a painting?”
“It was an observation.”
“I’m devastated. I thought I was receiving wisdom from a man selling depression on canvas.”
The man’s gaze did not change. “You look like my target audience.”
Kim Dokja stared.
The fruit vendor made a small choking sound.
Kim Dokja turned his body fully toward the stall. This was a mistake. His feet should have continued moving. His brain knew this. Unfortunately, his pride had already clocked in early.
“What exactly does that mean?”
The man picked up a brush from beside him and wiped it with a cloth. “Tired. Bitter. Thinks sarcasm counts as a personality. Probably owns one mug at work that says something passive-aggressive.”
Kim Dokja’s office mug said, “I survived another meeting that should have been an email.”
That was irrelevant.
“Wrong,” Kim Dokja said. “I own two.”
The man blinked once.
It might have been surprise.
It might have been dust.
Kim Dokja checked his phone again. 8:14 a.m. He did not have time for this, and yet somehow he was still standing there like a bugged NPC unable to leave dialogue mode.
“What’s your name?” Kim Dokja asked, because apparently he had chosen self-destruction.
“Yoo Joonghyuk.”
Even the name sounded inconvenient.
“Kim Dokja.”
“I didn’t ask.”
Kim Dokja nodded slowly. “I can see why your business is thriving.”
Yoo Joonghyuk looked around his mostly empty stall, then back at him. “It is early.”
“Is that the excuse?”
“No. The excuse is that most people have bad taste.”
“I’m starting to understand why people might avoid giving you money.”
“They can avoid it quietly.”
“Have you considered customer service?”
“Have you considered leaving?”
Kim Dokja looked at the paintings again.
He should leave.
He should absolutely leave.
The rational part of his brain, which had not yet been completely destroyed by Mino Soft’s sprint schedule, informed him that he was already wasting valuable time. His stand-up meeting began at 9:10. His manager liked to ask for blockers with the tone of a doctor asking about symptoms. Han Sooyoung would be there, probably pretending she had not caused three of the bugs currently assigned to him by writing quest scripts like she was challenging fate. Lee Jihye would arrive late with an energy drink and a grin sharp enough to cut glass.
He had things to do.
Important things.
Miserable things.
Things that paid rent.
And yet.
His eyes returned to the small painting hanging near the corner of the stall.
It was not one of the dramatic ones. Not the storm, not the sunset city, not the lonely train platform. It was small enough to fit into a messenger bag if he angled it correctly. It showed a narrow street after rain. The buildings were muted grey and brown. A single patch of light fell across the pavement where the clouds had opened. There was no person in it, no grand subject, nothing designed to force emotion out of the viewer.
It was just a street.
A quiet, inconvenient street.
Kim Dokja hated that he liked it.
“How much is that one?” he asked.
Yoo Joonghyuk followed his gaze.
“That?”
“No, the invisible one beside it. Yes, that.”
Yoo Joonghyuk stood.
This was another problem.
Sitting down, he had been irritatingly handsome. Standing up, he became offensively so. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and moved with the kind of calm confidence that made Kim Dokja suspect he had never once tripped over his own charging cable in the dark.
Kim Dokja’s morning worsened.
Yoo Joonghyuk unclipped the painting and held it out, not to offer it, but to inspect it as if he had forgotten it existed. “Twenty thousand won.”
Kim Dokja almost laughed. “That’s cheap.”
“It is small.”
“It’s also good.”
Yoo Joonghyuk looked at him.
Kim Dokja regretted speaking.
The silence stretched one second too long.
Yoo Joonghyuk said, “I know.”
Kim Dokja stared at him. “You’re allergic to humility.”
“Humility doesn’t pay rent.”
“Apparently neither do your customers.”
Yoo Joonghyuk’s mouth tightened.
It was not quite a smile.
Kim Dokja refused to look at it directly.
“I’ll buy it,” he said.
Yoo Joonghyuk held out his hand.
Kim Dokja pulled out his wallet. It was a deeply humiliating wallet, not because it was ugly, but because it contained three receipts, a coffee shop stamp card with one stamp, and the general atmosphere of a man who had given up on financial literacy. He handed over the cash.
Yoo Joonghyuk counted it.
Kim Dokja raised an eyebrow. “Do I look like someone who would scam a struggling artist?”
“Yes.”
“That was fast.”
“You asked.”
Kim Dokja gave him the smile he used in bug report meetings when someone said, “I don’t think players will do that.”
“I’m supporting the homeless,” Kim Dokja said.
The fruit vendor stopped arranging oranges.
Somewhere above them, a pigeon made a sound like judgment.
Yoo Joonghyuk slowly looked up from the money.
“I’m not homeless.”
“You’re selling paintings on the street.”
“I have an apartment.”
“Congratulations. Indoor homelessness.”
Yoo Joonghyuk stared at him with the expression of a man deciding whether murder was worth the paperwork.
Kim Dokja felt oddly victorious.
Then Yoo Joonghyuk turned around, grabbed a sheet of brown wrapping paper from a roll, and began wrapping the painting with brisk, precise movements. The paper folded cleanly around the frame. His hands were careful despite the tension in his shoulders. Tape snapped. The painting disappeared under plain brown paper.
Kim Dokja watched against his better judgment.
The hands were also a problem.
He decided to blame the road closure.
Yoo Joonghyuk tied the package with twine, then shoved it toward him.
Kim Dokja accepted it.
“Try not to hang it somewhere ugly,” Yoo Joonghyuk said.
“I work in a corporate office. Everything is ugly.”
“Then don’t hang it there.”
“I didn’t ask for interior design advice from a man whose storefront is one gust of wind away from becoming litter.”
Yoo Joonghyuk picked up the roll of wrapping paper.
Kim Dokja thought, briefly, that he was going to put it away.
Instead, Yoo Joonghyuk threw it at him.
The roll hit Kim Dokja’s shoulder with a hollow thump.
Kim Dokja froze.
The fruit vendor turned away so quickly that his shoulders shook.
Kim Dokja looked down at the fallen roll, then back at Yoo Joonghyuk.
Yoo Joonghyuk said, “Take your trash.”
“It’s your trash.”
“You bought something. Customer responsibility.”
“I’m sorry. Was the assault included in the price?”
“No. That was free.”
Kim Dokja picked up the roll with as much dignity as a man could manage while holding a wrapped painting and a cardboard tube that had just been used as a projectile weapon.
“You know,” he said, “for someone desperate enough to sell art before breakfast, you’re very brave about offending customers.”
Yoo Joonghyuk sat back down. “You’re still here.”
Kim Dokja opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Checked his phone.
8:22 a.m.
“Damn it.”
Yoo Joonghyuk looked faintly satisfied.
Kim Dokja pointed the cardboard roll at him. “This is not over.”
“It should be.”
“That’s what makes it not over.”
“That makes no sense.”
“Neither does your pricing strategy.”
Kim Dokja turned sharply and continued down the alternative route, clutching the wrapped painting under one arm and the stupid roll in his other hand.
He made it three steps before Yoo Joonghyuk called after him.
“Kim Dokja.”
He stopped.
Against his better judgment, he looked back.
Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes were fixed on him, unreadable beneath the shade of the canopy.
“You’re going the wrong way.”
Kim Dokja looked ahead.
The street ended in a locked gate.
He looked back.
Yoo Joonghyuk pointed to the narrow passage beside the fruit vendor.
Kim Dokja felt his soul leave his body, file a complaint, and refuse to return.
“Of course,” Kim Dokja said.
Yoo Joonghyuk did not smile.
Somehow, that made it worse.
Kim Dokja walked toward the passage.
As he passed the stall again, Yoo Joonghyuk said, “You still walk like you want the road to apologize.”
Kim Dokja did not slow down.
“You paint because therapy is expensive.”
This time, the fruit vendor actually laughed.
Kim Dokja decided to count that as a victory.
The alternative route spat him out two streets away from his usual bus stop. By then, the sky had shifted from dull silver to brighter grey, which was Seoul’s way of pretending to be cheerful without committing to it. He had the wrapped painting tucked under his arm, the cardboard roll sticking out of his bag because he had refused to leave it behind on principle, and his coffee had gone cold.
His phone buzzed.
Mino Soft QA Group Chat.
Han Sooyoung: Anyone seen the latest build?
Lee Jihye: I saw it. It saw me. We both screamed.
Han Sooyoung: Great. Normal Thursday.
Lee Jihye: It’s Friday.
Han Sooyoung: Don’t correct me before 9.
Lee Jihye: Kim Dokja is quiet. Dead?
Han Sooyoung: Maybe the final boss fishing rod bug got him.
Lee Jihye: RIP. He died doing what he hated.
Han Sooyoung: Working?
Kim Dokja stared at the messages.
He typed with one thumb.
Kim Dokja: I’m alive
Han Sooyoung: That’s exactly what a ghost with unfinished QA tickets would say.
Lee Jihye: Bring snacks if you’re late.
Kim Dokja: Why would I reward you for my suffering?
Han Sooyoung: Team morale.
Kim Dokja: Team morale can reproduce on its own.
He put the phone away before either of them could respond.
The bus arrived seven minutes late, because public transportation had a sense of humor and it was dark humor.
Kim Dokja boarded with the morning crowd and immediately became part of a human compression test. Someone’s backpack pressed into his ribs. Someone’s elbow hovered dangerously near his coffee. The wrapped painting was wedged awkwardly between his chest and the shoulder of a man watching a cooking video at full volume.
A woman glanced at the package.
Kim Dokja stared out the window with the calm expression of someone pretending not to exist.
The bus lurched.
The painting knocked lightly against his chin.
He looked down at it.
Ridiculous.
He had bought art from an unpleasant stranger because of a blocked road and a bruised ego. This was exactly how people ended up with hobbies, and hobbies were gateways to feelings. Feelings were expensive, inefficient, and difficult to debug.
At Mino Soft, if something did not work, he could reproduce the issue, isolate the cause, document the steps, assign priority, and send it to the appropriate team.
In life, if something did not work, people said things like “give it time” and “be honest with yourself,” which were both useless because neither came with patch notes.
The bus jerked again.
The cardboard roll slid out of his bag and hit the floor.
Kim Dokja stared at it.
The man beside him looked down.
Kim Dokja picked it up.
No one said anything.
This, too, was tragedy.
Mino Soft occupied the eighth through twelfth floors of a glass building that looked more expensive from the outside than it felt from within. The lobby had a digital wall displaying trailers for Mino Soft’s popular games, all bright colors, dramatic music, and characters saying things like “The fate of the realm is in your hands.” Kim Dokja had tested one of those games. The fate of the realm had once been delayed for two weeks because opening the inventory while riding a dragon caused the player character’s head to disappear.
No one put that in the trailer.
Kim Dokja scanned his employee badge at 8:54 a.m.
Not late.
Morally late, perhaps, but not officially.
The elevator was crowded with programmers, designers, artists, producers, and one exhausted sound engineer holding a plush monster from one of Mino Soft’s mobile games like a hostage. The wrapped painting pressed against Kim Dokja’s side.
A junior developer from another team glanced at it.
“Moving offices?” he asked.
“No,” Kim Dokja said.
The junior developer waited.
Kim Dokja did not continue.
The junior developer looked away.
Excellent.
The elevator opened on the tenth floor.
Mino Soft’s QA department lived in the corner of the floor nearest the emergency exit, which Kim Dokja thought was symbolically appropriate. It was an open-plan area filled with desks, monitors, test devices, tangled cables, snack wrappers, and the faint smell of instant noodles. A whiteboard near the entrance displayed the current build number, release countdown, and a drawing of a crying mushroom that no one had erased for three months.
Someone had written beneath it:
HE KNOWS WHAT WE DID.
Kim Dokja suspected Han Sooyoung.
He reached his desk.
His desk was exactly as he had left it: two monitors, one keyboard, three sticky notes with increasingly aggressive reminders to himself, a half-empty bottle of vitamins, and the mug. The passive-aggressive mug. The correct mug.
He placed the wrapped painting carefully beside his monitor.
Then he shoved the cardboard roll into the trash can.
It stuck out.
He pushed it down.
It popped back up.
Kim Dokja whispered, “Don’t start.”
“Is that your pride flag for Pride Month?”
Kim Dokja closed his eyes.
There were many ways a morning could get worse. A database could crash. A server could fail. A manager could say, “Let’s circle back.” A producer could ask whether a bug was really a bug if it only happened under “unlikely player behavior,” as if unlikely player behavior was not the entire foundation of human civilization.
But few things compared to Han Sooyoung noticing something.
Kim Dokja opened his eyes.
Han Sooyoung leaned over the divider between their desks, chin propped on one hand, eyes bright with the kind of malice that HR departments liked to call “team bonding.” She wore a black blazer over a graphic T-shirt with a cartoon skull on it. Her hair was slightly messy in a deliberate way that suggested she either had style or had fought a printer and won.
Kim Dokja looked at the wrapped painting.
He looked back at Han Sooyoung.
“Yes,” he said. “It represents my identity as a man who wants silence.”
Han Sooyoung’s eyes narrowed with delight. “That is a terrible flag.”
“So is whatever personality you’re waving.”
“What’s inside?”
“Work-life balance.”
“Then it’s empty.”
“Correct.”
Han Sooyoung stood and walked around the divider, which meant the situation had escalated from annoying to legally actionable. She circled the painting with theatrical interest.
“It’s shaped like a painting.”
“No, it’s a legally binding document proving I’m not interested in this conversation.”
“You bought a painting?”
Kim Dokja sat down and turned on his computer. “No.”
“It is wrapped like a painting.”
“Many things are wrapped.”
“Kim Dokja.”
He hated the way she said his full name. It made it sound like she was about to assign him a subplot.
“What?”
“Did you buy art?”
He logged in. “I bought an invisible rectangle.”
Han Sooyoung gasped. “With money?”
“With exposure. The artist seemed like he ate sunlight and resentment.”
“So you did buy art.”
“I performed charity.”
Han Sooyoung’s smile became dangerous. “For who?”
“A homeless man.”
From the next row, someone coughed.
Han Sooyoung stared at him. “You bought art from a homeless man?”
“A potentially homeless man.”
“That distinction feels legally important.”
“He claimed to have an apartment.”
“So not homeless.”
“Indoor homeless.”
Han Sooyoung took a moment.
Then she laughed so loudly that Lee Jihye, who had just arrived with an energy drink and sunglasses despite being indoors, immediately changed direction and came over.
“What happened?” Lee Jihye asked.
“Kim Dokja bought a pride flag from a homeless artist,” Han Sooyoung said.
Kim Dokja turned slowly in his chair. “That sentence contains one fact and three crimes.”
Lee Jihye lifted her sunglasses onto her head and looked at the wrapped painting. She had the kind of face that made people underestimate her right before she destroyed them in competitive games. She also had the energy of a person who would press every button in an elevator just to see who complained first.
“That’s your pride flag for this month?” Lee Jihye asked.
“No,” Kim Dokja said.
Han Sooyoung nodded solemnly. “He’s shy.”
“I’m employed,” Kim Dokja said. “There’s a difference.”
Lee Jihye leaned closer to inspect the package. “Why is it brown?”
“Because it’s wrapped.”
“So you haven’t come out yet? I'll be waiting.”
Kim Dokja opened the bug tracking software with the expression of a man choosing violence. “I’m blocking both of you in real life.”
“You can’t block coworkers in real life,” Han Sooyoung said.
“That’s why office design is a human rights issue.”
Lee Jihye picked up the cardboard roll from the trash can.
Kim Dokja’s soul froze.
“Why do you have this?”
“Evidence.”
“Of what?”
“Assault.”
Han Sooyoung’s eyes glittered. “The homeless artist assaulted you?”
“He threw it at me.”
Lee Jihye looked at the cardboard roll, then at him. “You got beaten by wrapping paper?”
Kim Dokja pointed at her. “Don’t simplify my trauma.”
Han Sooyoung took the roll from Lee Jihye and swung it lightly through the air like a sword. “I understand him.”
“Who?” Kim Dokja asked.
“The artist.”
“You haven’t met him.”
“I don’t need to. I support his methods.”
Lee Jihye nodded. “Same.”
Kim Dokja looked between them. “This is why villains have origin stories.”
A notification popped up on his monitor.
NEW BUILD AVAILABLE: PROJECT STARFALL v0.9.17-F
Under it, a message from the lead producer:
Please prioritize final boss arena stability and multiplayer healing exploit. We are aiming to mark both as resolved before Monday. Thanks!
Kim Dokja stared at the message.
Then he opened the bug report for the final boss fishing rod issue.
-
Enter final boss arena.
-
Equip fishing rod.
-
Stand near western pillar.
-
Roll diagonally during boss phase transition.
-
Observe player clipping through wall and falling into void.
Expected Result:
Player remains inside arena.
Actual Result:
Player leaves arena, falls indefinitely, boss continues attacking empty space, dramatic music does not stop.
Additional Notes:
Unclear why fishing rod is permitted in final boss arena. Please advise.
Assigned to: Environment Team.
Status: Reopened.
Of course it was reopened.
It was always reopened.
Bugs were like ghosts. Developers claimed to have exorcised them, but if Kim Dokja walked into the right corner holding the wrong item at the wrong time, the ghost would crawl back out and scream.
He put on his headset.
Han Sooyoung was still holding the cardboard roll.
“Put that down,” Kim Dokja said.
“Why?”
“Because you’ll hit someone.”
Han Sooyoung glanced at Lee Jihye.
Lee Jihye stepped back. “Don’t.”
Han Sooyoung grinned.
Kim Dokja said, “Han Sooyoung.”
She set it down with exaggerated innocence.
Work began.
For the next three hours, Kim Dokja stopped being a man and became a machine designed to locate failure.
He loaded Project Starfall. He entered the final boss arena. He equipped the fishing rod. He rolled diagonally near the western pillar.
The character clipped through the wall and fell into the void.
“Still broken,” he said.
Across the desk, Han Sooyoung did not look up. “Maybe the final boss deserves privacy.”
Kim Dokja added a note to the bug report.
Reproduced in v0.9.17-F. Issue still occurs. Player can exit combat space using fishing rod roll input. Severity remains high.
He attached video evidence.
He tested again.
This time, the character clipped halfway through the wall, got stuck, and began vibrating at a speed no human body should achieve.
Kim Dokja watched the character shake violently while the final boss delivered a tragic monologue about destiny.
He added another note.
New behavior observed: partial wall clipping causes player's character to become stuck and vibrate.
Lee Jihye leaned over his shoulder. “That looks painful.”
“It’s what happens when you combine poor collision geometry with narrative ambition.”
“Can you make it happen without the fishing rod?”
“I can make anything happen with enough contempt.”
Han Sooyoung rolled her chair over. “Try it with the soup ladle.”
“There is no soup ladle.”
“There should be.”
“I’ll write that in your performance review.”
“Please do. I want combat soup.”
Kim Dokja switched equipment and tried five more item combinations. Sword, shield, torch, empty hands, decorative umbrella from a seasonal event that marketing insisted had to remain in the build because screenshots had already been approved.
The umbrella made things worse.
The player opened the umbrella mid-roll, clipped through the wall, launched upward, and landed on top of the final boss’s head.
For a moment, no one spoke.
The final boss continued his monologue.
The player stood calmly on his head holding the umbrella.
Lee Jihye whispered, “He has ascended.”
Han Sooyoung said, “This is better than the intended ending.”
Kim Dokja rubbed his eyes.
He added another note.
Related issue: decorative umbrella allows vertical displacement during phase transition. Player can land on final boss model. Recommend disabling umbrella in arena or reconsidering entire combat system.
A developer from the environment team replied almost immediately.
Can you confirm exact timing?
Kim Dokja typed:
During phase transition after line “This world will drown in the shadow of forgotten stars.” Roll input begins on “drown.” Umbrella opens before “shadow.”
The developer replied:
Why were you using the umbrella?
Kim Dokja frowned.
Because players will always try to find faults and demand compensation.
Kim Dokja typed:
Because players will.
By lunchtime, Kim Dokja had reopened four bugs, filed two new ones, and discovered that the multiplayer healing exploit could be stacked faster if players crouched repeatedly while casting. He wrote the phrase “crouch-based immortality” in an official report and wondered if this was what his ancestors had survived history for.
His wrapped painting sat beside his monitor the entire time.
It did not do anything.
It simply existed.
Unfortunately, it existed in Han Sooyoung’s line of sight.
At 12:18 p.m., she appeared beside his desk with a triangle kimbap and a suspicious expression.
“You haven’t opened your pride flag.”
Kim Dokja did not look away from the screen. “Because it is not a pride flag.”
“Then prove it.”
“No.”
“That’s what someone with a secret pride flag would say.”
“That’s what someone with a functioning survival instinct would say when speaking to you.”
Lee Jihye slid into the chair beside them. “What colors do you think it is?”
Han Sooyoung chewed thoughtfully. “Brown on the outside. Multiple shades of green, blue and purple on the inside.”
“Sounds like Kim Dokja.”
Kim Dokja paused the game and turned to them. “Do either of you have tasks?”
“Yes,” Han Sooyoung said. “I’m building team culture.”
Lee Jihye nodded. “I’m supporting diversity.”
“You are harassing a coworker over a rectangle.”
“An unidentified rectangle,” Han Sooyoung corrected.
“A suspicious rectangle,” Lee Jihye added.
Kim Dokja picked up his coffee.
It was cold again.
Life continued its theme.
He drank it anyway because the alternative was admitting defeat.
Han Sooyoung’s gaze shifted from the painting to his face. “Where did you actually get it?”
Kim Dokja considered lying.
The problem was that Han Sooyoung had a dangerous relationship with curiosity. A normal person, when given a lie, might accept it or ignore it. Han Sooyoung treated lies like locked doors. She would pick the lock and fail, kick down the door, and then complain about the furniture inside.
So he chose the least useful truth.
“From a stall.”
Han Sooyoung leaned in. “What kind of stall?”
“An art stall.”
Lee Jihye’s mouth opened. “You voluntarily stopped at an art stall?”
“No. The road was blocked.”
“Did the road force you to buy something?”
“In a way.”
Han Sooyoung’s grin widened. “Was the artist handsome?”
Kim Dokja’s fingers tightened around his coffee cup.
This was a small movement.
It was also, apparently, enough.
Han Sooyoung slapped the desk.
“I knew it.”
“You know nothing.”
“Handsome?”
“No.”
Lee Jihye pointed at him. “That was too fast.”
Kim Dokja said, “He looked like he insults furniture.”
Han Sooyoung nodded. “So handsome.”
“He threw wrapping paper at me.”
Lee Jihye clasped her hands together. “Romantic.”
Kim Dokja stared at her. “In what legal system?”
“Enemies to lovers.”
“We are enemies to nothing.”
Han Sooyoung gasped softly. “You already have a trope.”
“I have a purchase receipt.”
“Same thing in fanfiction.”
Kim Dokja pointed at his screen. “I am begging you both to develop professional mannerisms.”
Han Sooyoung looked at the screen. The player character was still crouching repeatedly in a glowing circle while their health bar refused to move.
“What’s this?”
“Crouch-based immortality.”
“Sounds like a metaphor for surviving capitalism.”
“It’s a bug.”
“Also that.”
At 1:30 p.m., there was a stand-up meeting that no one stood up for. The QA manager asked about blockers. Kim Dokja reported the final boss arena still had multiple collision issues. Han Sooyoung reported that a quest NPC could disappear if players skipped dialogue too quickly, which she described as “probably a player respect problem.” Lee Jihye reported that the tutorial monster could be defeated by opening and closing the settings menu until it lost interest.
The manager stared at them all with the numb patience of a person who had chosen management and now had to live with it.
“Can we prioritize anything that blocks certification?” the manager asked.
Kim Dokja raised a hand. “Does the player becoming immortal through crouching count?”
“Yes.”
“What if it’s emotionally satisfying?”
“No.”
Han Sooyoung whispered, “Coward.”
At 2:45 p.m., a developer tried to argue that players would not bring the decorative umbrella into the final boss arena because it had low stats. Kim Dokja sent three video clips from previous playtests where users had equipped the umbrella for “aesthetic reasons.” The developer stopped replying.
At 3:10 p.m., Lee Jihye discovered that if two players activated the healing exploit at the same time, the game’s sound effects became progressively louder until every heal triggered like a cathedral bell.
At 3:12 p.m., the audio team asked QA to stop testing that build near speakers.
At 3:30 p.m., Han Sooyoung wrote “combat soup” on the whiteboard and drew a ladle next to the crying mushroom.
At 4:05 p.m., Kim Dokja realized he had not eaten lunch and consumed a protein bar that tasted like compressed regret.
Through all of it, the painting remained wrapped.
Every time he glanced at it, he thought of the narrow street after rain. He thought of the patch of light in the painting. He thought of Yoo Joonghyuk’s hands folding paper around the frame with startling care. He thought of the cardboard roll hitting his shoulder.
Mostly that last part.
Definitely that last part.
Kim Dokja will sue him one day.
At 5:43 p.m., the office lights seemed to become harsher, or perhaps his soul had simply become more sensitive to suffering. The release countdown on the whiteboard had been updated.
17 DAYS UNTIL SUBMISSION.
Someone had drawn flames around it.
Han Sooyoung.
Kim Dokja finished writing his final report of the day.
Summary:
Multiple arena boundary failures remain in final boss encounter. Healing stack exploit persists in multiplayer. Additional audio escalation issue discovered when exploit is performed by multiple players. Recommend immediate cross-team review. Also recommend removing decorative umbrella from all serious narrative contexts.
He submitted it.
Then he sat back and stared at his monitor.
His eyes burned.
His shoulders hurt.
His coffee had achieved a state beyond cold, entering a category that could only be described as “haunted.”
Han Sooyoung rolled over again.
Kim Dokja said, without looking, “No.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were going to.”
“I was going to ask a normal coworker question.”
“That has never happened.”
Han Sooyoung ignored him. “Are you going to hang up your pride flag at home?”
Kim Dokja slowly turned his chair.
Lee Jihye peeked over the divider from the next row.
Kim Dokja said, “I hope both of your computers update during a deadline.”
Lee Jihye hissed. “Too far.”
Han Sooyoung placed a hand over her heart. “During Pride Month?”
“Especially during Pride Month.”
“Homophobic. I'm reporting you to Yoo Sangah.”
“I’m not afraid of gay people. I’m afraid of both of you.”
Lee Jihye nodded. “Valid.”
Han Sooyoung pointed at the painting. “Open it.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because if I open it here, you’ll perceive it.”
“That is how sight works.”
“I object to your sight.”
“Noted. Overruled.”
Kim Dokja picked up the painting and placed it into his bag as carefully as possible. The top corner stuck out. The bag was not designed for art. It was designed for a laptop, chargers, and emergency snacks. This, he thought, was another reason not to make spontaneous purchases from men who looked like they survived on spite and black coffee.
Han Sooyoung watched him with open amusement.
“You’re being careful with it.”
“It was cheap, not disposable.”
“How cheap?”
“Twenty thousand won.”
Han Sooyoung blinked. “That’s actually cheap.”
“I said that.”
Lee Jihye tilted her head. “Maybe he gave you a discount because he liked you.”
Kim Dokja laughed once.
It was not a happy sound.
“He threw trash at me.”
Han Sooyoung said, “Maybe violence is his love language.”
Kim Dokja stood. “I’m leaving before this conversation develops a sequel.”
“Too late,” Han Sooyoung said. “It’s already a series.”
He shut down his computer, grabbed his bag, and took his mug to the small sink near the pantry. The mug stared up at him as he rinsed it.
I survived another meeting that should have been an email.
Kim Dokja respected the mug. It understood him.
When he returned to his desk, Han Sooyoung and Lee Jihye were pretending not to whisper. They were very bad at it.
Kim Dokja picked up his bag.
“I can hear you.”
Han Sooyoung smiled. “Good.”
Lee Jihye gave him a thumbs-up. “Happy Pride Month.”
Kim Dokja left.
The evening outside was humid and blue-dark, the kind of summer night that made the city lights blur softly against the sky. Office workers spilled from buildings in loosened ties and comfortable shoes, flowing toward subway stations, bus stops, restaurants, and the small private silences of their homes. Kim Dokja walked with the painting tucked under one arm, his bag strap cutting into his shoulder.
He considered taking his usual route home, then remembered the road closure.
Of course.
He stood at the corner and looked toward the alternative path.
It would be faster than going around the long way.
It would also take him past the art stall again.
Kim Dokja looked down at the wrapped painting.
“No,” he said to it.
The painting said nothing.
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
The painting remained wrapped and innocent.
Kim Dokja checked the time. 6:31 p.m.
The stall might already be gone.
Street vendors packed up early sometimes. Artists probably did too. Did artists have business hours? Did they emerge at dawn and vanish at sunset like emotionally unstable mushrooms? He did not know. He did not care.
He took the long way.
It added twelve minutes.
He told himself this was because he wanted to avoid road dust, not because he refused to risk seeing Yoo Joonghyuk again and discovering whether the man’s face was still a public hazard in evening light.
The long way was crowded. Restaurants glowed warmly. People laughed outside convenience stores. A couple argued softly near a crosswalk, their hands still linked even as they glared at each other. A delivery cyclist cursed at a taxi. Somewhere, a busker sang a love song with more sincerity than talent.
Kim Dokja hated all of it.
By the time he reached his apartment, the sky had gone fully dark.
His apartment was small, quiet, and exactly as he had left it. One room, one narrow kitchen, one desk, one bed, one bookshelf that had exceeded safe capacity months ago, and one blank wall above a low cabinet where he had never bothered to hang anything because decoration required optimism.
He took off his shoes.
Dropped his bag.
Placed the wrapped painting on the cabinet.
Then he stood there.
The apartment hummed quietly around him. Refrigerator. Air conditioner. City noise through the window. A neighbor’s television murmuring somewhere beyond the wall.
Kim Dokja crossed his arms.
He could leave it wrapped.
That was an option.
A mature option.
A normal option.
He could also throw it into the closet and forget about it until moving day, at which point he would rediscover it, feel mild confusion, and decide to keep it because throwing away art felt worse than throwing away other things.
Instead, he untied the twine.
The knot came loose easily.
Yoo Joonghyuk had tied it well. Not too tight, not careless.
Annoying.
Kim Dokja unfolded the brown paper.
The painting emerged slowly.
In his apartment, under the cheap ceiling light, it looked different from how it had looked at the stall. Smaller, maybe. Quieter. The brushstrokes were more visible up close. The street was not empty in the way abandoned places were empty. It felt like someone had just passed through, or someone was about to arrive. The light on the pavement was soft but stubborn, cutting through the dull colors without making them cheerful.
Kim Dokja stared at it for a long time.
Then he looked at his blank wall.
“No,” he said.
The room did not answer.
He opened a drawer and found a removable hook he had bought two years ago during a brief, failed attempt to organize his life. The packaging had dust on it. He wiped it with his sleeve, peeled off the backing, and pressed the hook to the wall above the cabinet.
He waited.
The instructions said to wait an hour before hanging anything.
Kim Dokja stared at the hook.
He looked at the painting.
He looked back at the hook.
“Ridiculous.”
He waited exactly seven minutes.
Then he hung the painting.
The hook held.
The painting rested against the wall like it had always intended to be there, which annoyed him on principle.
Kim Dokja stepped back.
His apartment looked the same.
No.
That was not true.
It looked slightly less like a place where a man came only to sleep and become older.
He hated that.
He hated that very much.
His phone buzzed.
Han Sooyoung: Did you hang up your pride flag yet?
Kim Dokja stared at the message.
The painting sat quietly on the wall.
His thumb moved without hesitation.
Han Sooyoung has been blocked.
Silence returned.
Beautiful silence.
Five seconds later, another message arrived.
Lee Jihye: Han Sooyoung says you blocked her. Also did you hang up your pride flag for Pride Month?
Kim Dokja stared at the screen.
He could almost see them laughing. Not together, probably. Han Sooyoung was likely at home eating something unhealthy while writing dialogue that would later become his problem. Lee Jihye was probably on public transportation, grinning at her phone like a delinquent with unlimited data.
Kim Dokja typed nothing.
He blocked Lee Jihye too.
The apartment became silent again.
For twelve seconds.
Then his work phone buzzed.
Kim Dokja closed his eyes.
He had forgotten Lee Jihye had his work number.
Lee Jihye: Blocking me during Pride Month feels illegal.
Kim Dokja turned the work phone face down.
A moment later, his personal phone buzzed from an unknown number.
Unknown: This is Han Sooyoung using Lee Jihye’s old phone. Did the pride flag come with instructions?
Kim Dokja looked at the ceiling.
The ceiling offered no guidance.
He blocked the unknown number.
Then he walked to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator.
Inside were two bottles of water, a half-eaten container of kimchi fried rice, three eggs, and a lemon he did not remember buying. He closed the refrigerator.
Dinner could wait.
He returned to the main room and sat on the edge of his bed.
The painting remained on the wall.
It was quiet.
He wished it were ugly. That would have made everything easier. He could have mocked it, regretted the purchase, and stored it somewhere. Instead, it looked good. Worse, it looked like it belonged.
Kim Dokja leaned back on his hands.
He thought about the road closure.
He thought about Yoo Joonghyuk.
He thought about the roll of wrapping paper hitting his shoulder.
His mouth twitched.
No.
Absolutely not.
That was not amusement.
That was a stress response.
His phone buzzed again.
This time, it was from Mino Soft’s automated bug tracking system.
PROJECT STARFALL BUG #18421 UPDATED
Comment from Environment Team:
We believe final boss arena clipping issue is fixed in local. Will push new build tomorrow. Please verify.
Kim Dokja stared at it.
Tomorrow.
Meaning he would go to work tomorrow.
Meaning the road might still be blocked tomorrow.
Meaning he might have to take the alternative route again.
Meaning he might pass the stall again.
Meaning he might—
Kim Dokja put the phone down slowly.
“No,” he said aloud.
The painting did not react.
“I’m not going that way.”
The painting remained a painting.
“I’ll take the long way.”
The narrow street after rain glowed faintly under his apartment light.
Kim Dokja narrowed his eyes at it.
“This is not a scenario.”
Nothing answered.
He lay back on the bed and covered his face with one arm.
His shoulder still remembered the cardboard roll.
His wall now had a painting on it.
His coworkers thought he had bought a pride flag.
His usual commute was broken.
And somewhere in the city, a blunt, rude, possibly homeless artist with an illegally attractive face was probably wrapping up his stall, completely unaware that he had become the most irritating bug in Kim Dokja’s day.
Kim Dokja groaned into his sleeve.
Tomorrow, he decided, he would avoid the alternative route.
Definitely.
Probably.
Unless the long way was too crowded.
Or it rained.
Or he needed coffee.
Or he wanted to confirm whether Yoo Joonghyuk’s other paintings were also good.
For quality assurance, obviously.