Chapter Text
The message from the plagiarist author hits his phone in the early afternoon of a sad and rainy Saturday.
[Hey, read it over and tell me what you think.] Kim Dokja suspiciously looks at the text file attached to the message, wondering what the plagiarist author is doing this time. The title of the file says simply "curseddraft" which doesn't fill him with an optimism. But on the other hand, it's just a text file. What harm can it do?
He opens the file and starts reading, quickly discovering that it's a fanfic, of second regression of TWSA. It's surprisingly sweet to see the romance blooming between Yoo Joonghyuk and Lee Seolhwa. It might be focused on relationship, but it's devastating to read about Yoo Joonghyuk before he was wrecked by loss, softer at the edges but still so undeniably him. Kim Dokja can't make himself stop reading, even as the fic starts getting kind if steamy, because even descriptions of moments they start kissing and shyly exploring, have just such incredibly good characterization of that bullheaded but caring man… and maybe this way Kim Dokja can see the missing link breaching the gap between Yoo Joonghyuk from the novel and Yoo Joonghyuk the gamer neighbor. Damn that author.
He definitely has to read TWSA closely in order to capture the protagonist so well. And Lee Seolhwa is so sweet, so good for him.
And then the explicit sex scenes come. Kim Dokja skims over the first one, but then there's another and they're talking more in the middle and he can't skip because there's too much plot in the middle… and she's already pregnant? Kim Dokja pauses reading and goes back to the previous one to figure out what happened to the condom in there. Because it feels important, damn it.
After that read he buries his face in his hands, deeply disappointed with himself for reading all of it. He groans cursing at that hack writer for filling his head with images of Yoo Joonghyuk having sex, with probably too much descriptive material to feed his imagination of how his private parts would look like.
He should not have read it. But it was also the first piece of TWSA fanfiction he ever found. And it was written well.
He spends almost 3 hours on that read and as he checks the word count it looks
sizable enough to match the actual TWSA chapter. Impressive, even if he could do without smut.
He's still battling with the mortification when there's a knock on the door.
It could be the landlord, to complain that he ended up late with the rent again (this time he just forgot)… but, because gods hate Kim Dokja, instead it's the man whom Kim Dokja is the least ready to face.
Yoo Joonghyuk looks angry, which makes Dokja smile nervously as he backs away from the door.
“I talked with Mia. You're messing with her food.” Yoo Joonghyuk starts flatly, the demand for explanation unspoken, but hanging overhead.
Kim Dokja looks in his direction, and suddenly it's hard to not look lower to try to figure out if the description of protagonist bits could be accurate.
“I'm not really. I'm just using some spices so it's tastier. You know kids deserve to enjoy life a little, there's no reason for her to be miserable about food when it’s so easy to make it better,” he explains nervously, attention torn between avoiding two reasons he might get killed. “You know, life needs to be about something more than just survival. Person is more than just a body.”
Yoo Joonghyuk makes a small “hrmph” sound before he turns away, walking away as unexpectedly as he came.
Kim Dokja only realizes that this Yoo Joonghyuk probably wouldn't be as murderous as the protagonist once he's gone.
He just hopes that Mia won't be back to suffering the miserably plain food now that her brother knows they haven't been quite keeping to her diet.
The next day around dinner time suddenly is a new kind of torture as the regular daily mild smell of food is replaced by aromatic spices, composed together in the way that makes Dokja feel much closer to starving than he actually is.
He has half a mind to go looking for who is the new neighbor adding to the regular scents of the area, but parts of him knows. Yoo Joonghyuk was just waiting for a reason to try cooking well. And as soon as he did this disaster came.
Yoo Mia won't be bribed by the prospect of spices and snacks into liking him.
He can't actually tell for sure without trying the food, but the scent is so promising he can't imagine the result being anything other than amazing.
And with those recent developments, Kim Dokja tells himself he has to change apartments because he'll never know peace. But maybe he doesn't want peace now. He likes to sometimes have this random risk to encounter a stunningly handsome doppelganger of his favorite protagonist while going around his business.
So he just writes to that nightmare writer resentfully, telling him that his resentment for that cursed piece of writing is greater than can be put in words.
As the olny response to his message is [💖Thank you 💗💗💗] Kim Dokja frowns as his phone, feeling that he's being mocked again.
[I swear, I'll find out who you are and tell Yoo Joonghyuk that you wrote steamy RPF about him.]
[Good luck explaining why you've read it~.]
With this argument that looks like a lost cause, he gives in to the tornent of delicious scents and takes out the dinner he meant to eat the next day. If it keeps going like this he won't have saved up any cash for when he inevitably ends up looking for a new job again.
But he can't blame Yoo Joonghyuk for taking his advice. Surely, it's better for Mia when her brother is actually taking care of her food in a way she'll enjoy.