Prologue : Dowoon

A Loner's Guide to Happiness

Prologue: Dowoon

 

The earliest, most vivid memory that Dowoon had was of him standing in the kitchen, five years old and waving a drawing at his parents. They kneeled down, hugged him, pet his hair, smiled lovingly and praised him... told him that he made them proud.

 

The thing was, he had working parents. They were rarely ever home- even more rarely so at the same time. He was used to the silence that almost always surrounded him, the emptiness of the huge house when he waited for them to return. So the warmth of that, it was ingrained deeply within him.

 

That was when his obsession to excel started.

 

Very soon, he was hailed as a child genius. He wasn’t exactly a ‘genius’ , it was just him pushing himself to the core- be it in studies, sports, drawing or even games.

 

He withdrew from playing outside like normal children, he denied himself his childhood, he stopped himself from having any sort of fun, he withdrew from interactions that he deemed were unecessary to the bigger picture. The bigger picture being his parents’ happiness. He was frantic to keep impressing them.

 

Slowly though, the amount of meals they had ‘together’ became non-existent.

 

It became a matter of fact that Dowoon would do well in anything he tried. Him doing well in things, was just normal.

 

They didn’t really smile all that often anymore.

 

Neither of them returned home untill very late at dawn.

 

And when they were together, they fought- many a time under the influence of alcohol.

 

They were too self-important though, to split- even giving the dysfunctional nature of their now ‘family’.

 

All Dowoon wanted was for them to smile and be happy.

 

All he received was insane sums of money on the table and a note reminding him to get food to eat, complete with a meaningless ‘Love you’ scrawled at the bottom.

 

What was even the point of his life now?

 

By the time he realized, he had no actual friends... and smiling became a chore, so he stopped entirely. He was much too tired to keep up appearances so he stopped that as well. That didn’t stop him from attracting a horde of fangirls who were literally following him every step of the way.

 

Before he knew it, he didn’t really care about anything anymore. He’d become apathetic, impervious to the loneliness he used to hate as a child. No, more like, he embraced all the emptiness that he felt as a part of himself.

 

He took to sleeping his days away, because that was the one time he didn’t have to think.

 

On the surface, he was perfect.

 

Deep down inside... his flaws sought acceptance.

A/N: Thanks for the kind words! I know these chapters are short, but I'll do my best to actually get things running in a general direction next chapter on.

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Chookie #1
Chapter 2: So I am assuming you're not going to continue this? It's actually pretty sad because there are so few stories about them and so far it sound really good
suhomomojjang #2
Chapter 2: Are you still gonna continue this?
Also thank you so much for making a Brian/Dowoon fic!!! I hope this continues!!!
jelly888 #3
Chapter 2: OMG this!!! Thank you for giving us the Younghyun x Dowoon that never happened in the MVs! I'm anticipating so much :D The prologues are already so good!
GazettExoticfan12
#4
Chapter 2: Oh, my poor Dowoonnie! Imagine his fanclub if he ever spoke, I heard his voice and died!!!
GazettExoticfan12
#5
Chapter 1: I knew I had to wait an not read yet cause it's only one chapter but I had to read it T_T
*secretly loved every line*
GazettExoticfan12
#6
Omg, yes please, I need this fic! Their interactions just about killed me as much as Sungjin's longing for the girl because seriously can't she see him already?! I'm trying to find some inspiration for a fic on these mvs, but I want a cross-band fic. I just have to decide on the bands, because Sungjin needs sb to notice him for himself :(
Looking forward to your story, author-nim!!!