Orv: Laughter is chaos

[The dokkaebi. The first time he appeared, someone said so.]

"Dokkaebi?"

The word slipped from someone's mouth—soft, almost dazed.

I turned my head.

A woman stood nearby—neatly dressed in a pale blouse and pencil skirt, shoulders stiff like a coiled spring. She clutched her handbag with white-knuckled fingers. Her face was composed, but her eyes were wide with confusion and...

Fear.

Yoo Sangah.

Ah.

The "perfect office heroine" who's about to get a brutal reality check.

I caught Kim Dokja reacting beside me—his gaze snapping to her with mild disbelief.

"Is that Yoo Sangah? What is she doing here...?" he muttered, then quickly lowered his eyes to his phone—probably checking the chapters, confirming this wasn't some hallucination.

But I already knew.

Of course she's here.

Because someone stole her bike. That petty jerk who wanted an excuse to offer her a ride—only to get rejected like a poorly written side character.

I looked at her again.

She didn't belong in this world. Not yet. She hadn't grown claws or teeth. That polished, composed exterior would shatter like sugar glass the moment the screams started.

And honestly?

That made her more real than anyone else here.

I turned away before the pity could settle in.

The carriage fell into an eerie silence.

Then—

Flicker.

The lights died. The train jolted with a screech of metal and sparks. Someone cried out. Phones lifted like fireflies in the dark.

And then it happened.

The air at the front of Carriage 3807 began to ripple—like heat rising from asphalt. Reality bent. Space folded inward.

And something stepped through.

Round-bodied. Floating. Draped in a straw mat like it had just waltzed out of a folk tale being told wrong.

The first dokkaebi.

Bihyung.

I stared.

[With two small horns and wearing a straw mat, the strange and fluffy creature was floating.]

[It was too strange to be called a fairy,

too evil to be called an angel,

too tranquil to be called a demon.]

[Thus, it was called 'dokkaebi'.]

Cute?

Sure. Cute like a toaster in a bathtub.

I narrowed my eyes. "really cant judge a book by its cover..." I muttered.

Kim Dokja stiffened beside me. Yoo Sangah gripped her bag tighter. Someone at the back screamed.

And me?

I stared at Bihyung with quiet hatred.

Because I knew what came next.

The train erupted with noise. People murmuring, panicking, rationalizing.

"He's got horns—what is that?"

"Some kind of prank?"

"AR tech? Game trailer?"

It looked like a mascot. Like something you'd see at a school festival or on a cereal box.

But this wasn't that.

This wasn't a dream. Or a joke.

[&^&#%$@!...]

[@#$^&!...]

The creature's mouth moved—but what came out wasn't sound. It was wrong. Like reality slipping. Glitched syllables garbled by static. Words shredded by the laws of physics themselves.

A few people flinched. One woman covered her ears.

"This isn't real," someone muttered. "It can't be."

And yet.

The train didn't move. The dokkaebi didn't vanish.

Reality didn't snap back.

It just got worse.

[Ah... There we go.]

A soft snap in the air. Like a switch being thrown.

Bihyung's eyes lit up.

The voice came clear now. Too clear. Cheerful. Bright. Wrong.

[Can you all hear me now?]

No one answered.

[Good. Let's get started, shall we?

Kim Dokja's POV

Something was wrong with the air.

It was subtle at first—like the train had stopped breathing. The silence wasn't normal. It wasn't just the absence of chatter or movement; it was heavy, like the world had paused mid-sentence.

Then the static came.

A high-pitched, garbled distortion. Like broken speakers trying to scream in a language no one knew.

[ &^&#%$@!... ]

[ @#%&^!... ]

The sound crawled under my skin like a virus made of sound. My vision blurred as the lights flickered.

People started murmuring around me.

"Is this a prank?"

"Augmented reality?"

"No way... some ad campaign?"

They were confused.

But I wasn't.

Because I had seen this. Read this.

My fingers clutched my phone, knuckles white.

[ THE FREE SERVICE OF PLANETARY SYSTEM 8612 HAS BEEN TERMINATED. ]

There it was.

The sentence that changed everything.

This was the beginning.

The moment where fiction became reality.

My chest tightened. It's real. It's actually real.

I looked up.

Something was forming in the front of Carriage 3807. Hovering mid-air. Glitching in and out of visibility like corrupted video footage.

Not human. Not even close.

A dokkaebi.

The first one. The one who started it all.

I remembered the details—the ridiculous straw mat cloak, the stubby horns, the huge googly eyes. It was like a child's cursed drawing come to life.

He would speak soon. The distortion would settle. And the first scenario would begin.

People would scream. People would beg. People would die.

And I—

"Dokkaebi?" someone muttered nearby.

I turned my head.

Yoo Sangah.

My eyes widened.

What is she doing here? That wasn't right. I didn't remember her being on this train.

But there she was, standing stiffly with both hands gripping her handbag like a shield. Her face was pale. Eyes locked on the creature.

"Why...?" I whispered. "She didn't say anything about—"

 I'd been so wrapped up in watching Tom that I barely—

Tom.

My breath hitched.

He was standing in front of me, back rigid, jaw clenched. Not confused. Not afraid. Not shocked.

He shoved me—shoved me—back, away from the center of the carriage. "Stay back," he muttered under his breath, almost too low to hear. "Don't stand there."

"Wh—What are you—?"

But the look in his eyes silenced me.

This wasn't someone seeing something strange. This was someone recognizing it. Anticipating it. Like he knew.

His body shielded mine instinctively. He kept scanning the carriage, eyes sharp like a hunter—like he was checking for threats before they appeared.

Like he had read the novel, too.

No. That wasn't possible.

Was it?

Who the hell are you, Tom?

The Dokkaebi flickered, forming more clearly now. The lights died.

A thin grin split across the floating creature's face.

And the world as we knew it ended.

Tom's POV

I sighed and rubbed my forehead, fishing around in my jacket pocket until I found the small bottle of rubbing alcohol I'd swiped earlier. Handy. Multipurpose. Sanitizer, fuel, weapon, maybe bait—depending on how weird this scenario got.

"Main Scenario #1: Proof of Value."

Kill or be killed. That was the rule.

It didn't have to be a person though. Thankfully.

I knew that much because I'd read it. Kim Dokja, in the novel, had figured it out by grabbing an insect from a boy's bug net after a train explosion. Classic Dokja. Efficient. Fast-thinking.

But now I was here.

And I had to think faster.

I swirled the little bottle in my hand, watching the clear liquid catch the flickering light of the dokkaebi. Would it count if I used bacteria? Technically alive. But what if the system didn't recognize microscopic death?

I looked down at my hand, narrowing my eyes.

No, too risky.

I turned slightly—caught Kim Dokja staring at me. That wide-eyed confusion again, like he couldn't quite solve the equation I presented.

I offered him a brief smirk and said nothing.

Sorry, Dokja. Gotta keep a few cards close.

Instead, I raised the alcohol bottle and spritzed it into my palm, letting it drip off my fingertips.

There.

A tiny ant, stupidly wandering up the seat rail. I crushed it between my index finger and thumb with a casual flick.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then—

You have killed one living being.

Main Scenario #1: Proof of Value — CLEAR

You are the first to fulfill the scenario conditions.

Bonus achievement granted: "First Kill."

1,000 coins have been deposited into your account.

I blinked.

Well. That was anticlimactic.

"...Huh."

A ding echoed quietly from my phone.

Kim Dokja snapped his head toward me.

"What?" he said, eyes wide.

I showed him my screen.

[✔ Scenario Completed: Main Scenario #1]

[✔ Bonus: First Kill Achieved]

[1,000 Coins Earned]

His mouth opened a little. He looked at me. Looked back at the screen.

"...You what?"

I shrugged. "Bug."

"You killed a bug?"

I gave a lazy smile. "Hey. I value my life."

He looked like he wanted to say something else—maybe question me, maybe grab me by the shoulders and shake me until answers fell out—but then the dokkaebi's laughter echoed through the car, and the system window flared again.

[Remaining participants must fulfill the scenario requirements.]

[Time remaining: 29 minutes 55 seconds.]

Screams erupted across the carriage.

Kim Dokja turned his head, face hardening.

The scenario had truly begun.

And I'd just bought myself a five-minute head start.

I frowned.

People were already panicking. Shouting. Pushing. A woman near the door screamed as a man lunged at another passenger in blind desperation. The air was thick—fear, sweat, and the heavy scent of inevitability.

"Shit," I muttered.

I turned sharply, grabbing Kim Dokja's wrist.

"W-What are you—?!" he stammered, clearly startled.

"Hold still."

I took the alcohol spray and pressed it into his palm, misting his skin with a few quick pumps.

"...What?" he blinked at me. "Wait, why are you—"

You have killed one living being.

Main Scenario #1: Proof of Value — CLEAR

500 coins have been deposited into your account.

His system window popped up with a soft glow. The relief that passed over his face was instant—but so was the confusion right after.

He looked at me slowly.

"You knew this would work," he said, voice low.

Not a question. A statement.

I gave him a lopsided grin and shrugged like it was nothing.

"Instinct."

"...You sprayed my hand with alcohol."

"Yup."

"And you knew there'd be bacteria on it that counted toward the kill requirement?"

I tilted my head. "I mean, technically it's alive. The scenario said any living being, didn't it?"

He stared at me. Hard.

No fear. No thanks. Just a laser-focused suspicion that made my grin tighten.

Because I knew that look.

That was the Kim Dokja Reading You Like a Damn Novel look.

I gave his wrist a small squeeze before letting go.

"You're welcome, by the way," I added casually. "We're even now."

He blinked again. "Even for what?"

I turned away before I could answer. Because if I looked at him too long, I'd say something dumb.

Like "Even for everything you're about to do, even if you don't know it yet."

And I wasn't ready for that conversation.

Not yet.

To be continue

.

.

. 

[The constellation "Laughter is Chaos" is looking at the incarnation Tom with suspicious eyes.]

['You can't tell him, dear.']

Tom:

Oh yeah? Bet.

['You're going off the script again.']

Tom:

Wow, shocker. Me? Going off script? Say it ain't so.

[The constellation "Laughter is Chaos" pouts dramatically.]

['You were supposed to sit quietly and be mysterious. Let him think he's the only protagonist. Drama, angst, slow burn—HELLO?']

Tom:

Yeah, well, I saw a guy try to use a necktie as a weapon five seconds ago, so forgive me if I improvise.

['Improvising is fine, but you're speedrunning! You got the first kill before Dokja! Do you want the narrative police on our ass again?']

Tom:

They can pry my meta-awareness from my cold, emotionally traumatized hands.

['Tom.']

Tom:

What.

['You like him, don't you.']

Tom:

...No.

['You like-like him.']

Tom:

I like-like stabbing the fourth wall in the eye, that's what I like.

[The constellation "Laughter is Chaos" snickers with delight.]

['Awww, my little rule-breaker has a crush~']

Tom:

I'm ignoring you now.

['You're holding his hand right now.']

Tom:

I'm ignoring you harder.

[The constellation "Laughter is Chaos" does a little dance midair, throwing confetti labeled "Bad Decisions" everywhere.]

['Can't wait to see how you break canon this time. Don't forget to smile for the apocalypse, sweetie~ 💕']