gently (coming back home)
It's difficult, not staring at Kim Dokja. For many reasons.
Yoo Joonghyuk has never considered himself sentimental or touchy, but he can't help checking that Kim Dokja is still here every few minutes--like he'll collapse. Or start unraveling into a million words, like he's a mere figment of Yoo Joonghyuk's imagination. His throat feels dry, and his hands won't stay still. Like he's constantly on edge, scouting the surroundings for danger (looking for things that don't exist, not here.)
He knows he's just barely keeping himself together. He's been this way for as long as he can remember, this state of being--it wouldn't be strange for his mind to construct something to give him purpose.
The thin boy at the playground, the light of the rising sun on his face, the cold wrist he'd gripped in a panic just this morning (Kim Dokja, it's Kim Dokja? Don't go--), school and beating Kim Dokja's tormentors (they had deserved worse, far far worse).
He simply can't trust it.
He remembers years, and years, all the time spent trying to get Kim Dokja back. He remembers passing the Final Wall with Kim Dokja's company (Kim Dokja's, not his), seeing the subway they'd stood before once upon a time, deep grooves and grime on its surface. It had been in Seoul, Gwanghwamun, in the middle of a bitingly harsh winter.
That god forsaken subway.
Where they left Kim Dokja to be alone, to bear the weight of the world--that 51%.
He's never regretted anything more than that singular moment. He regrets not looking back.
Yoo Joonghyuk remembers years passing by and Kim Dokja, not much smaller than he is now and swathed in that white long coat.
The burden of being the Most Ancient Dream was far too heavy for just one person. The role had never been created to be bearable. He had been so frighteningly far from them-- those few meters had seemed like an infinite stretch of distance, unconquerable, untouchable, g i v e u p...!
And even still, he had tried.
Yoo Joonghyuk had thrown his hand out without hesitation, he'd reached for him, desperately grasped the lapel of that painfully familiar white coat like a lifeline--like salvation. As if he'd be given salvation, if he could do this one thing, just him, just him. Chest twisting, heart hammering away--
--His eyes were closed. His stories (their stories) vanishing like wisps of smoke, like it was nothing.
No, He remembers thinking.
No.
NoNONONONO--
'It's time to go home,' he had spoken to deaf ears. They had waited long enough, hadn't they? For their happy ending?
(Yoo Joonghyuk was a liar.)
(Kim Dokja was home.)
He remembers Lee Jihye, Lee Hyunsung, Jung Heewon, Yoo Sangah, Shin Yoosung, Lee Gilyoung, Han Sooyoung; their screams, their cries.
'Sto...stop...! NOT YET!'
'PLEASE!'
'You goddamn bastard, you can't just do this to us, after everything we've done--'
'D-Dokja-ssi--KIM DOKJA!!'
Agony, the terror of failing after they had dared to hope. The impending, crushing consequence of losing Kim Dokja for good. The thought of losing home.
'You said... you also, with us! So you can't go! We still have to do all those things you said we'd do, and--AND--!!'
'DON'T GO!'
'DON'T GO, GIVE HIM B A C K--'
'You... You said we'd all live in a big house together. Was it a lie?'
'WAS IT A LIE?! HEY!!'
The despair, standing outside the subway, with that cold corpse that wasn't Kim Dokja. This isn't Kim Dokja.
'...'
'That ca...can't be it. He can't be gone.'
And now, they finally have him back. They're in the past, and Kim Dokja is alive.
Is it really him, though?
Hadn't they been fighting for the him who was whole, the other 51%? They had fought for their Kim Dokja.
Can this 'Kim Dokja' really count as their's? Without the memories of their hardships and the Fables they fought for together?
Is this him?
It had been a wild gamble to travel to the past, to throw away 17 years of progress and the happy ending that Kim Dokja had bought with innumerable sacrifices.
(Sacrifices he made without them, sacrifices he made for them, sacrifices they hadn't wanted in the first place).
Sometimes, Yoo Joonghyuk looks at him, at the boy beside him and thinks You're a fool, and This is nothing but a dream.
Nothing but a dream. Fragile and breakable and all the things Yoo Joonghyuk doesn't like (doesn't know how to handle, can never handle, not with his hands that have held only swords for far too long).
Yoo Joonghyuk is not a gentle person, nor is he kind or merciful or anything good.
He's bathed in the blood of millions, and his skin will eternally be stained a guilty blood red crimson. Crusting, drying and festering in the wounds of his mind.
Yoo Joonghyuk hurts people. He hurts his comrades and he hurts himself, too. There are plenty of things he does not deserve, and Kim Dokja (salvation) is one of them. He's a pessimist, yet eternally idealistic all the same.
'Did you really think your group was special? Did you honestly believe that a proper conclusion would wait for you lot when you destroyed the laws of this universe?' The Fourth Wall had mocked them, their pathetic efforts.
And Yoo Joonghyuk thinks--
Yes, that's what we thought.
They thought:
It's not fair, that Kim Dokja can't have a happy ending.
Kim Dokja, who saved them and the world time and time again, and yet will never, ever imagine his own happiness.
Who are they, to decide what's fair, though? To decide their conclusions on their own? Pathetically small and useless, weaklings who mean nothing in the world as a whole.
Little specks, hoping for far too much.
.
.
.
They decide, crying, cheated by fate,
The laws of this universe can go to hell.
.
.
.
Yoo Joonghyuk thinks--a lot, too much, sentences and feelings--and sometimes he doesn't think at all and his mind is devoid of anything but the cold and bare necessities.
Something about this younger version of Kim Dokja makes him... he doesn't know.
Every moment tempts him to take hold of his wrist. To reassure himself that he exists. To make sure he doesn't run. To make sure he stays close.
Kim Dokja is Kim Dokja, which means he's bound to do something stupid--something unpredictable, and all Yoo Joonghyuk can do is to be ready.
He's still waiting for the other shoe to drop.
What school did you go to before this? A martial arts school? Kim Dokja passes yet another note to him. He still looks shell shocked, from witnessing him wipe the floor with eleven people.
Home schooled, self taught.
Yoo Joonghyuk isn't sure what he's doing, at 33 (more, really, if the regressions count) and in his 16 year old body. He feels out of place.
(It's still worlds better than the feeling of being lost, though. After returning from the group regression and not knowing what he was supposed to do in such a peaceful world, he had tried to move on and live but--someone who keeps death and destruction at his side like a lover, Yoo Joonghyuk, a being who exists for the scenarios... what was such a thing meant to do when their reason for existence ceased to exist?)
(The answer back then had been death. He'd been planning to die.)
Thank you. Says the note. For protecting me from those guys.
It's the least you deserve, he wants to say.
You're welcome. He writes instead.
Kim Dokja has a moment of deliberation, hesitance.
Will you really be my friend? He writes in that messy scrawl. The words are desperate sounding and self deprecating. Yoo Joonghyuk clenches a fist, digging crescent moons into his palm.
'Make me your companion. I can fill in the parts you're missing,' Kim Dokja had once told him as he dangled him above Han River.
Didn't I say so?
I feel like this isn't how you're supposed to make friends, Joonghyuk-ah. Not that I'd know how but.
I don't know how either.
There's a period of silence in which Kim Dokja simply stares at the paper in his hands, pen in hand.
His lips twitch upward. I guess that makes both of us, then.
.
.
.
School ends. It feels surreal, to be walking down a high school hall. Hearing the endless chatter and the squeaking of shoes on the laminated floor.
Technically, Yoo Joonghyuk never had a childhood. All the things he remembers in his spotty memories were something written by a version of Han Sooyoung, as interpreted by Kim Dokja. He has no parents and really, he'd rather remain parent-less than call Han Sooyoung his mother.
Kim Dokja cowers as they walk to the exit, like he's ready to run should someone give him the smallest nudge.
It's as Yoo Joonghyuk is contemplating grabbing Kim Dokja's wrist again that a girl comes to his other side.
"Hey," she tucks a piece of hair behind her ear, "you're Yoo Joonghyuk, right?"
"Hm." Yoo Joonghyuk keeps walking.
"I'm Cha Insook."
He doesn't recognize her name, which means she's probably unimportant. Yoo Joonghyuk decides not to respond in favor of taking another sneaking glance at Kim Dokja. He's still pale, his gait is irregular and he looks like he's shrinking more, somehow. As if he isn't already too small, too thin, too short for his age.
"Thanks for beating Song Minwoo for me, I never liked him that much anyway," Cha Insook doesn't relent. But Yoo Joonghyuk listens a little more when he hears Song Minwoo's name out of wariness. "I was his girlfriend."
What, was Song Minwoo an abusive boyfriend? Did he force her to stay?
Yoo Joonghyuk wonders how it's possible for a single person to be such trash, but he still doesn't acknowledge her with more than a nod. Kim Dokja doesn't seem to like her, and he knows Kim Dokja is not the type to hate someone without reason.
(Kim Dokja is the type who doesn't trust easily, who keeps everyone at an arm's length and never closer--and yet he'll rely on them recklessly, trust them implicitly with his life and he'll give his life if it means they'll be safe. Kim Dokja is not a fair person, he's selfishly selfless and Yoo Joonghyuk hates this fact).
Cha Insook doesn't give so much as a glance at Kim Dokja, cowering at his side still. The school hallways seem infinitely long.
"Wanna come hang out with me and some other people? We're going to the arcade," Cha Insook asks.
At her words, Kim Dokja starts walking a distance away from Yoo Joonghyuk, like he expects him to accept Cha Insook's offer. A small flare of irritation licks at him.
This bastard... Yoo Joonghyuk thinks in his head.
"No."
"...No? Ah, that's too bad," Cha Insook gracefully says, "if you're sure --"
"Kim Dokja, let's go to my house today," he interrupts her.
"...Ah?"
Yoo Joonghyuk grabs Kim Dokja's swiftly. The solid shape of his wrist is comforting somehow, in his hand, even thin and too cold. It's too much of a reminder of the Kim Dokja they failed to rescue from the subway, but he feels compelled to touch him. Reaffirm in his mind that he's alive.
Cha Insook's brow twitches. "Sorry, I didn't realize you already had plans. Come find me if you change your mind though, I'll introduce you to everyone!" She smiles and lets them go, waving and turning around to find her friends.
Kim Dokja's face is still pale, but he no longer looks like he's leaving his side. A wave of relief hits Yoo Joonghyuk, but he doesn't show it on his face.
"Joonghyuk-ah, aren't you supposed to be trying to make new friends? It's your first day here," his smile is small and fragile. It's the same, distinctive, unfortunate smile that their Kim Dokja had. The smile that they so hated. "And I didn't agree to go to your house--"
"I told you we're friends. Why are you still saying this?"
Kim Dokja is the type who doesn't trust easily, keeps everyone at an arm's length and never closer. Yoo Joonghyuk wants to change this--he wants to be close enough to protect Kim Dokja from himself, he wants to be able to make Kim Dokja think he isn't dispensable and replaceable.
He wants Kim Dokja to be able to imagine his own happiness.
Kim Dokja is important, even though he doesn't think he is.
"It can't hurt to make new friends. I know you said you knew me from a long time ago, but I'm probably not the same person anymore. You should--"
"Kim Dokja is still Kim Dokja, even without the memories," Yoo Joonghyuk says, and the words echo in his mind, reverberating in him. "Stop being a fool."
Kim Dokja's wrist flexes in his hand, like he's testing his grip. Yoo Joonghyuk doesn't trust him enough to let him go, so he doesn't.
"You should still make new friends. You strike me as a loner, being alone is miserable Joonghyuk-ah."
Yoo Joonghyuk knows this far better than anyone else after regressing so many times. The Conquering King, Destroyer of Stars, the strongest--all to reach the end.
It was lonely at the top.
He ended up morphing into something inhuman (monster, a monster), so he could bear the agony of solitude. Had it been worth it, he wonders, to throw away his humanity? And for what? (It wasn't like he'd had much of a choice.) Surrounded by temporary comrades, temporary lives. Watching people he once cared about fall over and over and over--
Not alone, not anymore. This thought is what soothes him, stops him from thinking too much.
"I will make friends, eventually. And they can be your friends too."
Kim Dokja's expression is perplexed -- but he stops lagging behind him as they walk.
Yoo Joonghyuk slows his pace for him.
.
.
.
Kim Dokja wonders what he's doing here with Yoo Joonghyuk. He wonders why Yoo Joonghyuk is even trying for someone so below him. He wonders why Yoo Joonghyuk holds his wrist, like he doesn't want him to leave. He wracks his mind and comes up with nothing.
Because if anything, Kim Dokja is the one who should be afraid of Yoo Joonghyuk leaving. With how out of his league and depth he is, he should have already. He should have left when Cha Insook came and invited him to go to the arcade.
His mind goes to Maybe he just pities me, many times over.
Pity is a short term thing. Kim Dokja has gotten pity, has heard the words 'poor boy' as an attribute to describe him. As a result of this pity, he's gotten kindness before. The self serving kind of kindness, more for the giver than the taker's sake.
He used to hate receiving pity, but he doesn't mind so much now, really. Kim Dokja has learned to take what he can get. Be it a beating, pity, or indifference. At this point, he prefers pity to indifference (because then, at least he isn't hated, at least someone might remember him--)
"This is your house?" He asks Yoo Joonghyuk, still holding fast to his wrist. The building is modest, but still shows that Yoo Joonghyuk is well off--or at least more well off than Kim Dokja is.
"Yes."
"Your parents aren't home?"
"I don't have parents, but I have a sister."
If you don't have parents, who makes the money for rent and food? It must be an older sister.
Yoo Joonghyuk's hand leaves his wrist so he can unlock the door for them both.
Kim Dokja takes his shoes off and feels incredibly out of place in his clean home. Wearing his ragged uniform, sporting bruises on his face and just about every other part of his body. He pretends his muscles aren't stiff as wooden boards, looking around.
"Why did you want me to come here anyway?" Kim Dokja feels like all he's doing is asking questions--Yoo Joonghyuk doesn't talk enough.
"You didn't have lunch."
"What..."
Yoo Joonghyuk walks into the kitchen. Hesitantly, Kim Dokja follows suit.
"You're not feeding me again, are you? I feel like I'm some freeloader."
"We're... friends, so this doesn't count."
What is this impeccable logic??
"You're acting like you're my mother," he laughs. The statement is inherently wrong, but he says it anyway. Yoo Joonghyuk's eyebrows crinkle in response.
Kim Dokja takes this chance to look around more, though he doesn't dare leave Yoo Joonghyuk's side. The dark oak planks are swept, the walls are an immaculate white with black accented door frames. A minimalist chandelier hangs above the long dining room table with five chairs on each side. He wonders what the point is, having so many chairs.
Suddenly, there's a plate of rice and a few side dishes in his hands (he notices the dumplings, Yoo Joonghyuk is too similar to the Yoo Joonghyuk from Ways of Survival), it's warm but not scalding and Yoo Joonghyuk has a matching set.
"Where's your sister, anyway? Is she working?" He asks to fill the silence.
"...No, a friend's house."
Yoo Joonghyuk nudges him to the living room instead of the dining room. The living room looks more lived in, which makes sense given the name of the room. There's a soft off white blanket, folded and hanging off the back of the sofa. Again, the sofa looks far too big for the two people who live in the house.
They sit down, Yoo Joonghyuk turns the TV on--it's the news channel.
The news channel.
"What is this, you old man?"
"Eat," he responds, looking disgruntled.
Yoo Joonghyuk has food from the exact same bowl, so it's unlikely that it was poisoned or something. And Kim Dokja's mouth is watering from just the smell alone, he imagines he'd have eaten it even if it was poisoned. He doesn't usually have this much food to himself.
"...You're being too nice," he tells Yoo Joonghyuk, looking at his plate. He keeps himself from shifting in discomfort.
"Should I be less nice?"
Kim Dokja almost wishes he would, if only because he doesn't know how to handle kindness. He hasn't had kindness for so long that he's now finding himself floundering.
"I don't know, people aren't normally this nice to me."
"Why?"
Kim Dokja averts his eyes, deliberating in his mind. Will this push Yoo Joonghyuk away? Will he be disgusted if he tells him? If he's bound to find out sooner or later, Kim Dokja might as well rip the bandaid off, right? Push him away quickly, before he gets too attached (more than he already is).
He convinces himself it'll hurt less.
"My mom is a murderer," he hears himself speak, like his mouth isn't his, "she killed my dad."
The light coming from the TV switches from royal blue to pale white, casting harsh shadows on them. His bony limbs look eerie in the light.
"It's stupid that people would judge you based off your mother."
Ah, right. Yoo Joonghyuk doesn't have parents.
Idly, Kim Dokja picks up his spoon and traces a path on his plate. "They do it anyway, so what does it matter?" He feels a smile on his face, small and insincere in nature. He'd tried smiling in the mirror, once--a word to describe it would have been 'tragic'--fitting for him. He'd tried to change it. He had thought at the time that if he could smile genuinely, maybe he could feel the emotions that came with smiling (yet, it never worked).
Maybe he's cursed, maybe that's all it is.
He cuts into a dumpling, listening as the local news reporter talks about a case of neglect to a young boy, and his fate to be sent to live with an aunt. It sounds awfully familiar.
Yoo Joonghyuk is looking at him. Kim Dokja would think he were frowning if this weren't his default face.
"If they're stupid enough to do that, then they don't deserve to be friends with you anyway."
"You talk like anyone would ever want to be friends with me."
"Why not?"
I'm poor, under average, my mother is a murderer, my father is dead by her hands, I'm bullied, a loser--
I tried to commit suicide last summer, in grade 8.
"What do you think?" Kim Dokja raises an eyebrow at him.
I asked first, says the small tick in Yoo Joonghyuk's eyebrow.
"They're blind fools," he answers anyway.
Kim Dokja tries to suggest, "Hey, maybe you're the blind one." But it, again, seems to go right over Yoo Joonghyuk's head.
"Or maybe you are, you fool," he kicks Kim Dokja's foot. "The food is getting cold."
While the harsh light of the TV makes Kim Dokja look like an malnourished ghost--
It makes Yoo Joonghyuk look almost angelic (if angels kicked bullies in the nuts, maybe). It's as if the universe thinks it's a crime for Yoo Joonghyuk to ever look anything but perfect. He's a striking image against the backdrop of the house, beautifully surreal, just like still life. Just like a painting. It's a beguiling kind of charm.
Kim Dokja shuts up and eats.
Yoo Joonghyuk does the same, his stare flickers to him every once in a while.
By the time they're both done, Kim Dokja feels unbearably full, like a pig before the slaughter. He says so out loud. Yoo Joonghyuk tells him they still have dinner to go.
"What... I'm staying for dinner?"
Yoo Joonghyuk blinks.
"I have a home you know," Kim Dokja says.
Though in the privacy of his mind, he thinks, Not really.
"Are there people waiting for you?" Yoo Joonghyuk asks.
"Yes."
No.
Yoo Joonghyuk looks at him like he can see right through the lie, though he can't possibly know. It makes a small part of Kim Dokja nervous.
"When do you need to go, then?" Comes the question.
He glances at the clock, It's already nearly 4 in the evening? Shit.
"I can stay for another hour," Kim Dokja says anyway.
.
.
.
They play a video game.
Yoo Joonghyuk still has no idea what he's doing, but it's easy, to listen to quests and objectives--it's like the scenarios, but far more simple and far less life threatening. It keeps his mind off the fact that Kim Dokja will have to leave soon, no matter how much he holds onto him.
"Joonghyuk-ah, I thought you said you've never played this game before?" Kim Dokja looks at him in betrayal.
"Yes," he says, as he kills another in game monster. He listens to the battle cries of the carrot minions, soaring through the air.
"You haven't lost a single pikmin. Are beginners supposed to be this good or was the game meant to be this easy??" His voice is suspicious, because even as a high schooler, Kim Dokja is still every bit as suspicious as his adult counterpart. He thinks maybe, if they'd gone back a little further in time, then maybe he wouldn't be.
How far back would they have to go, to change him so much that he'd stop being Kim Dokja?
Wordlessly, Yoo Joonghyuk passes the controller over.
A minute passes, he loses half of their amassed troop. It's a massacre, and the look on Kim Dokja's face is appalled. The irony of Kim Dokja not sacrificing himself (for once) is not lost on him.
He sags into the couch in defeat. "You even have a protagonist's halo in video games, I can't believe it."
Yoo Joonghyuk chooses not to hear him, taking back the controller. Their in game character, Olimar, manages to recover a piece of his space ship even with half the man (carrot minion) power.
Kim Dokja stays sitting slumped. "Joonghyuk-ah, don't you think it's kind of... immoral of Olimar to be using the pikmin like slaves? It's his space ship, but he's putting this burden on the pikmin."
Yoo Joonghyuk chances a side glance at Kim Dokja, he doesn't see where this is going.
"The minions chose to follow him in the first place," he answers.
"But they never asked to be thrown at giant ladybugs. Shouldn't Olimar be the one fighting?" Kim Dokja gestures around the air with his hands, like he's making a valid point.
This fool and his martyr complex.
"Olimar would die on his own, he's weak."
"And that gives him the right to use the pikmin as slaves?"
"If he can survive by using the pikmin, then he should do that."
Kim Dokja expression is unreadable, Yoo Joonghyuk doubts he agrees. He hides his urge to smack Kim Dokja over the head well.
.
.
.
And then it's 5 in the evening.
Watching Kim Dokja's back fills him with a strange kind of anxiety in his chest.
(It's not strange though, not really. After the amount of times Kim Dokja has left, it's the most logical thing to be feeling).
His hands feel clammy, his chest feels tight and his feet twitch, telling him to follow. Follow him. Follow him. Don't let him leave. It takes everything in him to stomp down the impulsive thoughts. His heart is hammering away in his rib cage, rioting for freedom.
He lugs his backpack onto his shoulders, puts on his ragged shoes.
Didn't Han Sooyoung mention Kim Dokja's aunt and uncle were abusive?
Kim Dokja is waving to him in the distance. Yoo Joonghyuk feels his hand wave back--more out of habit than anything else.
You'll see him tomorrow. If this isn't a dream, you'll see him tomorrow.
And then Kim Dokja disappears. He turns the corner, and he's gone, just like that. For a few fleeting seconds, Yoo Joonghyuk can see his long, evening shadow, but when that too disappears, he finds his chest tightening more, choking.
Was it real? Was Kim Dokja really there?
Is he really still alive?
The world is blurry, spinning like the axle of a top.
Yoo Joonghyuk won't be seeing Kim Dokja until tomorrow morning.
He forces his body to turn, his unwilling feet to walk back into the house, close the door and let the lock click. He breathes in and he breathes out and he walks to the kitchen to wash the dishes.
Water begins to rush from the tap. The quiet sshhh of the water covers the sound of his own heartbeat. The urge to follow Kim Dokja screams still, harsh and grinding like the edge of a knife.
A slight figure appears at his side. She says nothing, slippers shuffling along on the hardwood floor. There's the screech of a chair being pulled out, a sharp thump and a low sigh.
"You know... I thought he might remember us," she says, before she snorts. "Well, not really, actually. I don't know why I'm disappointed."
She had never developed wrinkles as an adult, but she'd never looked particularly young.
"Han Sooyoung," he addresses, "when did you get here?"
"I walked."
It's not an answer. Yoo Joonghyuk ignores this in favor of picking up a plate to wash.
He doesn't ask her to talk, but she does so anyway.
"Yoo Sangah-ssi is working on hacking into some government systems to edit our ages a little still," she says, "and the rest are working on getting here somehow," she talks over the clatter the clattering of plates. "Oh and last I heard, Gilyoung managed to get his parents to move in record time."
And she goes on.
"He's on the way here in a few days, Yoo Mia's gonna have a friend soon. And hey, you wouldn't happen to have more food would you? I left the house without eating first."
Yoo Joonghyuk nods towards his fridge, and Han Sooyoung wordlessly stands up to take food for herself.
He runs out of plates too quickly. All of them are on the drying rack, clean and glistening--if Yoo Joonghyuk wants more dishes to clean, he'll need to wait for Han Sooyoung to finish eating, and so he sits in front of her in one of the black painted dining room chairs.
She swallows a mouthful of food, and doesn't really look at him.
The last time they'd seen each other had been right before they'd abandoned the future. Two years after failing the group regression, he'd shown up, intending to die at her hands.
'Hit me with everything you have, Han Sooyoung.'
'Screw you!!' She'd screamed back at him, face bloodied, 'You've never, ever done what I wanted from you--what the hell are you going on about, you--!!'
An explosion, as bright as a super nova, hot as the fires of hell, loud like the shrieks of swords on a battlefield. They'd collapsed, soot covering their skin. Yoo Joonghyuk had thought back then, Why aren't I dead?
'If only... if only we could go to the past--'
"Hey," Han Sooyoung says, "How... have you been doing?"
The question takes a moment to register. Han Sooyoung's plate is cleared, and the utensils have been laid down.
"What do you mean?"
He can't stop searching his side for a sword.
Kim Dokja isn't in sight.
He never feels safe and he's constantly on edge.
--Kim Dokja isn't here.
Han Sooyoung heaves out a world-weary sigh and looks at him like she's annoyed. "I'm just asking how you are. Is all that's left in that skull of yours' muscle?"
When Yoo Joonghyuk doesn't give an outward reaction immediately, she mutters something along the lines of, "I wonder why I bother sometimes."
He decides to say, "I don't know."
Han Sooyoung looks at him. Her posture is loose, but her eyes are as sharp as ever. She rests her chin on her propped up arm. "Well, we just went back, what, 17 years? You're 16 and unemployed, instead of 33, unemployed, and a terrorist on top of that." Han Sooyoung pauses, her throat bobs. "And Kim Dokja is alive. How do you feel?"
Yoo Joonghyuk considers this, and refutes his former decision, "Better," he says.
Han Sooyoung gives him a mix of a sneer and a frown, "No, really? Would it kill you to answer with more than one word?"
Yoo Joonghyuk responds by wordlessly bringing her plates to the sink and turning the tap on once more.
"You--" he hears a deep inhale, "weren't just sitting there waiting for me to finish so you could wash the dishes, right?"
The tap water is cold, the soap smells like lemons.
Han Sooyoung grows restless quickly, the tapping of her foot is incessant and almost echoes louder than the clatter of him putting the last plate on the drying rack.
.
.
.
The sky is inky and black, the darkest shade of purple. The stars are barely visible through the light pollution from the city, though he can see them if he squints hard enough. Kim Dokja wonders if this world has constellations, too.
The front door creaks open, slowly. The TV is on, which means they're home.
He shuffles in, closing the door as quietly as he dares. Kim Dokja is lucky they'd forgotten to lock the door this time, or else he'd be stuck outside in the cold. Again. He isn't particularly keen on repeating the experience.
Passing by the kitchen, he decides not to try and sneak something for dinner. By pure luck, neither his uncle nor aunt notice him on the way up the stairs--both are drunk today, so it's good he wasn't caught.
Kim Dokja has been too lucky recently.
He changes into an old shirt and pants with care, so as to not agitate the bruises on his sides and back. He's still full from lunch and he hasn't felt better since--since... he can't remember. A long, long time ago, he knows.
On top of this, Ways of Survival has updated early.
Yes, things couldn't get better than this, Kim Dokja thinks, smiling as he opens the familiar webnovel. As soon as he sees the beginning line, he thinks of Yoo Joonghyuk and suddenly, the face he imagines as he reads is his.
'Thank you for the early chapter today, author-nim! It was great as always' he comments.
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From the corner of his eye, Yoo Joonghyuk sees Han Sooyoung suddenly stop, her feet going still.
"What an idiot," is what she whispers hoarsely, staring at her phone. There are tears gathering in her eyes, but she looks like she's about to laugh. "What is he saying? The chapter was utter garbage."
"Of course he's still like this."
And when she laughs, it comes out half a sob.
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