Chapter 4

The day after his birthday Kim Dokja made an appointment with a neurologist.

It was the incident in the elevator that made him decide that he was almost certainly having auditory hallucinations and not hearing people's thoughts. It probably shouldn't be that way, but the idea of a man like Yoo Joonghyuk having romantic thoughts about him seemed far more unrealistic than him suddenly developing telepathic abilities.

He went to his first appointment a few days later and left with several requests for tests that ranged from a simple blood test to an electroencephalogram. The following week he did the requested tests, and now was in possession of them just waiting for the day of his next visit to the neurologist. 

But the problem was that in the meantime he kept hearing things, and the things he kept hearing often turned out to be real. Random things he had no way of knowing. Stuff like overhearing Jung Heewon think her younger brother was coming to her house for the week and a few hours later being asked by her if she could leave half an hour early to pick her brother up at the bus station. Or hearing Yoo Sangah think about how the bike she usually used to come to work was stolen and in the days that followed seeing her on the subway sometimes.

And the biggest problem is that he would sometimes catch Yoo Joonghyuk looking at him from across the office, never for long, and never with the intensity of the elevator, but it happened far more often than expected.

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At that moment he was in the neurologist's waiting room with his exams in hand waiting for the start of his appointment. The receptionist said that the doctor was a little late and Kim Dokja took out his cell phone and send a text to the team group chat telling he was going to be late that day and would arrive way after their break for lunch was over.

A few seconds after sending the message he received a reply from Jung Heewon saying:

dont worry

we will cover for you

take as long as you need

That brought a smile to his face.

So far none of the thoughts/auditory hallucinations he heard his team have about him had been negative. He was grateful for that. He felt that his relationship with his team should be described more as one of co-workers than friends, but the idea of one of them secretly hating him bothered him a lot. It was nice to know that this wasn't the case. 

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When the appointment finally started, almost an hour after the schedule time the doctor spent a long time reading his test results before saying:

"Well, the good news is that you don't have a tumor, an aneurysm or any signs of physiological damage to your brain according to these tests. Nor do you have any substances in your blood that would explain your symptoms."

"And the bad news?"

"Is that we still don't know why you're hearing voices, I think my specialty won't be of much use in your case, I recommend you see a psychiatrist."

The appointment ended shortly after that, with the neurologist giving him the number of several psychiatrists who might be of use to him.

Kim Dokja was really disappointed with the results.

Yeah, it was good that he didn't have a tumor or anything like that, but he hoped he could solve his symptoms with a pill or a surgery. He was sure a psychiatrist would want to discuss not just his symptoms, but things like his father and his mother and all the trauma he never wanted to discuss with anyone.

Maybe I can read minds after all , he thought.

He was still thinking about this as he was about to enter the subway station.

Then he heard Yoo Joonghyuk's voice.

"Kim Dokja."

He started to look around for the man, and not seeing him for a second he became paranoid that maybe Yoo Jonghyuk was thinking so hard about him that he could hear him from across the city.

"Here, idiot."

He followed the voice and saw a car parked on the side of the street, inside the car he saw Yoo Joonghyuk on the driver's sit.

"Hey." Kim Dokja said getting close to the car window.

"Shouldn't you be in the office?"

"I had to go to the doctor, it ended up taking longer than I was expecting. I'm heading back there now."

"Come in. I'm going there too."

He hesitated, he really didn't feel ready to hear another round of Joonghyuk's thoughts. But there seemed to be enough space between the driver's and passenger's seats to avoid accidental contact between them.

"Any problem?" Yoo Joonghyuk asked.

"No problem, let's go." Kim Dokja said and got in the car.

Yoo Joonghyuk started driving.

After a few seconds of silence he asked:

"Why did you went to the doctor, was it routine or is there something wrong with you?"

"I thought there was, but apparently there isn't, at least not physically. And you, why aren't you at the office?"

"I had lunch with a journalist who wants to write an article about me. It was very irritating."

"Well, those things are part of the job of promoting the new games."

"He didn't want to talk about the games I'm making, just gossip about why I decided to stop playing professionally."

"I'm sorry, that sucks."

"I should be used to it by now, it will always come back to this, I'm still just the guy who was hired as a publicity stunt."

"No one thinks that."

"Don't lie to me."

"I'm not lying."

"I literally heard you and Han Sooyoung talking about how I was hired as a publicity stunt and making a bet on how long I would last in the company."

"Okay. First of all, that was a private conversation."

"A private conversation you guys were having about me."

"And second of all, that conversation took place over two years ago, no one believes that anymore. You've obviously proven that you're good at the job, the sales speak for themselves. And there were people who even then thought you would do well, I even bet money on you."

"Thank you for that." Yoo Joonghyuk said in a tone that Kim Dokja couldn't tell if it was sarcastic or not.

"You're welcome. And thanks for staying, thanks to that I won the bet. Unfortunately I need all the extra money I can get considering what Mino Soft pays game testers."

"I figured you guys earned something similar to programmers."

Kim Dokja couldn't help but laugh.

"We don't, we really don't. I think management folks think that because we basically spend the day playing games that we shouldn't even get paid. I don't think they understand that in general we don't do the fun part of gaming, we do stuff like checking errors that have been reported by users to pass on to the programmers to fix, or check if new updates are working as planned or if there are unexpected glitches. It's work, not pleasure generally. And many of the testers aren't even that into gaming. I'm personally more of a reader than a gamer, and most of the games I enjoy playing in my spare time you probably wouldn't even consider real games."

"Like what?"

"Well, I like visual novels, Animal Crossing, The Sims, Stardew Valley-"

"I like Stardew Valley, I like their fishing game mechanics."

"You like fishing in Stardew Valley?"

"Yes."

"Wow I knew you were kind of weird, but not that much."

"Uh?"

"Almost everyone hates fishing in Stardew Valley, it's so hard. Everyone I know either avoids fishing completely or uses mods for the game in that regard because fishing is just so horrible."

"Maybe at first, but once you get used to it it's relaxing and fun. Also you need to buy a better rod than the one you get at the beginning."

"But buying a better rod is impossible without getting at least one level of fishing. Look, I tried to fish sometimes, I even wasted an entire game day at the edge of the sea and all I got with my shitty rod was a measly can of Joja-Cola. Although thanks to it I managed to win another heart with Sam after giving it to him as a gift, that was nice."

"Did you marry Sam in the game?"

"No, I married Shane. And you, who did you marry?"

"I haven't married anyone yet in the game."

"You should, there are several perks of getting married, you get special items and sometimes your husband or wife does chores for you. And Shane in particular is a great choice. I know I'm biased because he's my husband, but I think he has the best plot and the best character development out of all the suitors. It's also a lot easier to win him over than the others, because the best gifts for them in general are harder to get, but with Shane I just gave him a bunch of peppers and I got a bunch of hearts very fast. It's worth doing even if you don't intend to marry him because after you earn a certain number of hearts with him you are able to raise these blue chickens in your coop and they are very pretty."

"I will test it the next time I play."

After that Yoo Joonghyuk was quiet.

Kim Dokja knew that most likely Yoo Joonghyuk just didn't have anything else to say, he wasn't exactly known for talking a lot. But he couldn't help but think that maybe he annoyed by talking too much about Stardew Valley, that happened sometimes, usually Kim Dokja was kind of quiet too, but when he got excited about a book or a tv show or a game and an opportunity appeared for him to talk about it he ended up talking too much.

They arrived at the building where Mino Soft's office was located and headed for the elevator.

And even though he knew he probably shouldn't, he was kind of curious to see if Yoo Joonghyuk was really annoyed with him, so Kim Dokja leaned his arm lightly against the coat Yoo Joonghyuk was wearing.

Him marrying a male character in a game means he probably likes men in real life right? Most straight guys wouldn't marry their avatars to a male character no matter how much they liked the plot. Yoo Joonghyuk thought.

Wow way to jump to conclusions man, well he's not completely wrong but still. Kim Dokja thought and was about to stop touching Yoo Joonghyuk's coat when he heard one more thought:

Stop. You're probably only hearing what you want to hear, don't be stupid, allowing yourself to have hope will only hurt you more in the end.

Kim Dokja pulled his arm away and the two of them spent the rest of the elevator ride in silence.

"Thanks for the car ride." he said as he exited the elevator.

"You're welcome."

For the rest of the day Kim Dokja didn't catch Yoo Joonghyuk looking at him during work hours, but still he remained in his mind. Just like the last thing he heard him think.