and I'll never let go
Their voices echo in his mind throughout the entire day.
'Together? That murderer's son and Joonghyuk-ssi?'
Kim Dokja feels as if he's floating a foot above the ground, watching his body go through the motions independently of him, all the way until the dismissal bell is ringing in his ears. Like he's a constellation from Ways of Survival, a mere spectator, a reader. Yoo Joonghyuk sticks close to his side that afternoon, as do Han Sooyoung and Yoo Sangah. He has the brief thought that they're too close, and that brings a new wave of loathing and other feelings he doesn't know how to identify--not without reading them on the white pages of a book.
'Together? That murderer's son and Joonghyuk-ssi?'
The school day ends. He tells them he needs to go home right away. Urgently. He doesn't miss the disappointment in their eyes, the worry. Kim Dokja doesn't deserve their concern, so he makes no move to acknowledge it--and he leaves.
Together.
No, that would never happen. It's such a bizarre thing to think that Kim Dokja could laugh.
'Gross.'
'Right?'
'There's no way Joonghyuk-oppa would be gay.'
'Even if he was, who would ever settle for a murderer's son of all people?'
It's not even the worst thing Kim Dokja has heard, but it hurts him in a new, cruel, and unusual way. The pain is almost physical, right in the center of his chest. Not only are they talking about him, they're talking about Yoo Joonghyuk too. They're dragging both their names through the mud.
Kim Dokja is bringing him down. Kim Dokja ruins everything.
He hates this.
The thought that his father was right to want to name him 'Dokja' for 'only child' goes round and round in his mind. He was right about Kim Dokja--right about him being a waste of space, right about him being a coward and a pathetic little loser. His only talent is annoying and inconveniencing other people and surviving like a goddamn cockroach.
The rain comes down in buckets. He could have gotten home before the rain began, but the coldness feels right. It doesn't feel good, no, but it numbs his skin and everything else. Even with his sweater on, he can't stop shivering. It feels right.
'Gross.'
He shakes.
He hates that they've managed to sour the one good thing he has.
'I saw them holding hands.'
Kim Dokja wouldn't have cared if they'd only talked badly about him--his reputation was already beyond fixing--but Yoo Joonghyuk? It's disgusting how selfish Kim Dokja is, bringing him down to join him. He's just a shameless gutter rat.
The house of his caretakers appears in his view and he walks to the door, each step bringing him closer to the broken glass still on the front step.
"Fuck," is the first thing his uncle says, "you're dripping water all over the place."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't just say that," his aunt interjects sharply, "say you'll clean it up."
"I--" he chokes, "I'll clean it up."
Kim Dokja escapes up the stairs.
Yoo Joonghyuk would be disgusted if he found out about the rumor. He'd look at Kim Dokja with those cold, condemning eyes. Han Sooyoung would laugh at him, vicious and jagged, and Yoo Sangah would never talk to him about web novels again--
For some reason, that's what upsets him.
Kim Dokja thinks about going to the playground in the early morning and not seeing Yoo Joonghyuk already waiting for him. He thinks about going back to what he had settled for for years, feeling happy about seeing an empty playground, because then he'd be alone--because if he was alone, he was safe.
Kim Dokja doesn't think about how safe Yoo Joonghyuk makes him feel.
Idiot.
Didn't you know this was going to happen? You weren't born to be happy.
He cleans up all the water before it seeps into the wooden flooring, cold drafts seeping through the crack under the front door and raising goosebumps on his skin. While he's at it, he cleans all the floors in the house, too. His aunt gives him a disdainful look and doesn't mention dinner. Kim Dokja doesn't ask. He returns to his bedroom with the flickering light that needed to be replaced months ago, the flimsy window that lets all the warmth out, the thin blankets.
The cold doesn't feel good, but at the very least, it's familiar.
.
.
.
Kim Dokja dreams--
--About warm hands engulfing his own, soft as feathers. He dreams about never letting go.
'Joonghyuk-ah, are you perhaps the clingy type?'
'And if I am?'
Scarred hands. Golden sunlight on his skin, the highs of his cheeks and his hair. He must be dreaming, because his eyes glow like gold, too.
'...Do you mind if I am?'
.
.
.
He wakes up with tears on his cheeks, feeling like he's forgotten something important.
.
.
.
Walking onto the school grounds feels like being physically hit with a wall of whispers. It's uncanny, how the feeling of being in the midst of the scenarios comes back comes so easily--being watched like they're animals in a circus, all for entertainment. It's an unconscious decision for Yoo Joonghyuk, Han Sooyoung, and Yoo Sangah to circle Kim Dokja like some sort of human barricade. They talk back and forth to drown out the sideway looks and the talking.
The only thing Yoo Joonghyuk can think about is how sick Kim Dokja looks. Pallid skin, drawn eyes.
'Kim Dokja, are you okay?'
'Dokja-yah, what's wrong?'
'Tell me what's wrong.'
'I'll fix it.'
The words churn in his mind, but he doesn't know how to say them, so he doesn't. Yoo Joonghyuk doesn't understand what's wrong, yet he should.
"Yoo Joonghyuk, you're going to burn a hole into my forehead if you keep staring like that," Kim Dokja says, a wan smile on his face. It lacks the usual energy of his teasing, and when someone behind them laughs. Kim Dokja's eyes go wide, his expression going stiff for a moment that lasts a second too long.
"Kim Dokja--" he starts, then stops. Words don't come--nothing that would help--and from the corner of his eye, he sees Han Sooyoung give him an unreadable look.
Kim Dokja stares ahead at the ground as he answers, "What is it, you constipated bastard?"
He can't ask.
Kim Dokja would never tell him. If anything, Kim Dokja would be the kind of bastard to take his words as advice on how to hide his troubles more thoroughly.
"It's cold," he says instead of every other thought that churns in his mind.
"Yeah," Kim Dokja agrees easily. "It's fall. We'll be indoors soon, good thing the heaters work well, huh?"
Yoo Joonghyuk does not know how to initiate small talk.
This has never been an issue before.
Yoo Joonghyuk isn't sure how Kim Dokja does it, but in every class leading up to lunch, he manages to switch seats with someone in the class to sit somewhere far from them. Han Sooyoung's eye is twitching--none of them mention it.
Kim Dokja is avoiding them. There's no mistaking the signs.
It digs up the worst kind of deja vu and it leaves Yoo Joonghyuk lost, angry, confused, weary, checking to make sure Kim Dokja is still there, still in one piece, breathing and blinking and alive. What is he planning? Why?
"Yoo Joonghyuk, you've noticed haven't you?" Han Sooyoung whispers to him during their last class before lunch. Her eyes stay firmly fixed towards the front of the class where Kim Dokja is sitting.
He looks lonely, or maybe it's because his back is smaller than Yoo Joonghyuk is used to. Trusting in the sight of Kim Dokja's back during the apocalypse had been a strange, paradoxical thing--knowing he'd do everything in his power to get them through the scenarios, knowing he'd take every burden onto those shoulders, yet never knowing if he'd remember his own mortality.
"Everyone has been staring at us, more than usual at the rat bastard."
Yoo Joonghyuk grips his pen. "He's avoiding us. Why?"
"Damn it." Han Sooyoung runs a hand through her hair for the third time this period. "I don't know."
"Should we corner him and force him to tell the truth?"
"We're supposed to be getting him to trust us, you terrorist."
"Someone else, then, who seems to know."
"You're just proving my point."
"What other option is there?" Yoo Sangah asks. "No one will tell us, we're too close to the matter."
Han Sooyoung's lips go thin. She leans back into her chair, idly tipping it backwards and balancing on its hind legs. Their teacher shoots her a look that she ignores.
Time flies by and it starts pouring rain, smattering the glass windows of the school with droplets. It's not as heavy as yesterday--not yet, at least. Kim Dokja looks out the window at the grey skies with that distant look in his eyes, and Yoo Joonghyuk loathes that he can't pull him back, can't make him stay, can't feel the weight of his hand in his own.
Stay.
Where are you planning to go?
I'll come with you.
The lunch bell rings. Yoo Joonghyuk sees the instant Kim Dokja's eyes dart around the exits in the room, planning an escape--he crosses the room faster than he ever has before and reaches out. A memory bursts from the depths, the same reaching grasp--more scars on the back of his hand, the backdrop of a desolate subway, and Kim Dokja who refuses to stay.
"Hey, wh--what?"
Kim Dokja's wrist shakes in his hand. He's trembling. Kim Dokja is scared--scared of him? Yoo Joonghyuk? Why is he scared? Yoo Joonghyuk lets go like the barest contact with Kim Dokja burns him, even though such a thing couldn't be more false. His arm drops, limp by his side, and Yoo Joonghyuk pretends not to see the relief on Kim Dokja's face.
"Lunch," is all he says.
Kim Dokja stares at him for a long moment before he looks away, smiling wanly at the ground. "Right."
Han Sooyoung eyes him, but Kim Dokja doesn't raise his head to meet her challenging stare the way he usually does. Yoo Sangah's expression freezes unnaturally, even as they walk to the cafeteria--the place Kim Dokja has urged them to go to before. The halls are quiet, yet the stares are loud and they drown out everything else. Something is bound to go wrong--whether someone else starts it, or if Yoo Joonghyuk breaks first.
Everything is fine until they get to the cafeteria and sit down. Yoo Joonghyuk pulls two lunches from his bag, one for Kim Dokja. He remembers that the cafeteria made Kim Dokja anxious the last time, but it hadn't been to the extent of the paranoia he now displays.
Han Sooyoung and Yoo Sangah bracket him at both sides, while Yoo Joonghyuk sits in front of him--it's not their usual seating arrangement, but it's the way things pan out.
"Uh, Sooyoung-ssi, Sangah-ssi..." he starts awkwardly quiet, "why aren't you sitting beside each other?"
"I wanted to sit next to you today, Dokja-ssi," Yoo Sangah admits easily. "Is that okay?"
The blatancy of her words visibly takes him aback. "I... I guess so?"
A minute passes by, and then another, and the cafeteria slowly gets noisier until the chattering is all consuming and chewing at his sanity. There's too many people around, too many things that could happen, the only free table was in the center of the room--
A student walking past Kim Dokja pretends to trip. The tomato soup on his tray flies straight towards the back of Kim Dokja's head and with a mounting sort of panic, Yoo Joonghyuk stands up at that same moment to reach across the table to pull at least Kim Dokja's head away from the mess--the back of his sweater isn't nearly as fortunate.
"Kim Dokja, are you--"
"What do you think you're doing?" Han Sooyoung stands and hisses.
The student shrinks back.
"It was an accident--I'm so sorry. I didn't m--"
A snickering group catches his eye. The student glances back at them, a guilty, hopeless look on his face. Yoo Sangah understands what's happened first and stands next, a serenely stern expression plastered on as she reels Han Sooyoung back.
"It's okay, it was just an accident, right?"
The vacuum of noise in the room becomes very apparent.
"Y...yeah."
Yoo Sangah extends a hand--the student flinches, but all she does is softly pat his shoulder. "Go back to your friends."
He hesitates, then nods meekly, shuffling away.
"Kim Dokja, are you okay?" Yoo Joonghyuk hasn't let go of his head yet, which is why he can feel the slight tremor Kim Dokja is trying to suppress. "You can have my sweater." He's already given him one, what's another?
"I'm okay."
A giggle bursts through the bubble of silence. "He needs three people to comfort him for something that little?"
"HEY!" Han Sooyoung growls, "Whoever said that, come out and say that shit to my face!"
No one exits the crowd. The anger swells and twists in his chest with no where to go.
"Kim Dokja," he murmurs, "let's go home."
He shakes his head. "I'm okay."
"Didn't you hate tomatoes?"
Silence.
Someone stands up.
"Joonghyuk-ssi," a voice addresses him. He forces himself to look away from Kim Dokja. "There's been a bunch of rumors going around about you and Dokja-ssi, I just think it might be best if you cleared it up for everyone yourself instead of us all speculating, so we can prevent something like this from happening again."
Cha Insook, he remembers, Song Minwoo's former girlfriend.
"What rumors?" He keeps his voice level, betraying the building storm in his chest.
Kim Dokja abruptly breaks away from him. It's so sudden that it leaves Yoo Joonghyuk stunned, but what really shakes him is the fear painted on his face in vivid colors. It's like nothing he's ever seen before, not on Kim Dokja's face, and especially not this younger version of him.
"Rumors that--"
Kim Dokja stands and runs.
For a moment too long, Yoo Joonghyuk forgets to chase after him. He leaves behind everything--his bag, his barely touched lunch, Yoo Joonghyuk--just like that, he's gone, unimpeded by anyone on the way to the door.
"He always was a slippery rat," someone in the crowd murmurs.
Yoo Sangah is holding Han Sooyoung's arm now, subtly keeping her from moving to chase Kim Dokja--why? What could be more important than bringing him back? His mind feels sluggish, like everything is in slow motion and there's static in his ears. Maybe it's the rain, maybe it's the whispering.
"Spit it out, Insook-ssi," Yoo Sangah says, unusually vitriolic. "What rumors have been spread?"
Cha Insook's lips remain straight, but to him, her cruelty is clear as day in her gleeful, pitying eyes.
"Rumours that Joonghyuk-ssi and Dokja-ssi are dating."
Yoo Joonghyuk stands even as his heart falls, and he gives chase.
.
.
.
Maybe it was cowardly of him to have left before hearing Cha Insook finish her sentence, but it's hard to care when everything is speeding by in a blur--empty halls, heavy footfalls--his ears ring in the void of sound. Kim Dokja doesn't even realize it's pouring until he steps outside and the first raindrops fall on his face and soak through the sleeves of his sweater.
It's cold.
There's a feeling in his chest. A scream. A whimper. Nothing comes out.
He tries to run, but there's no running from himself.
The muscle memory kicks in, so he slips into autopilot--escaping through small roads and stepping through puddles without care. The rain quickly soaks through his sneakers, cold like it was yesterday. Eventually, the sting of bitter wind and frost wash the scent of the tomato soup away. He feels far from clean, but it's the best he can get for now.
This must be the fastest he's ever made it to the playground. The only issue is the time of day--in the early morning, it's uninhabited, but children tend to swarm the swings during lunch hours. Despite his expectations and the rain, there are three kids standing by the entrance bickering with one another. Seeing them, he resigns himself to finding another place to hide away--it's for the better anyway, because without even noticing it, this playground became the place he met Yoo Joonghyuk rather than another hiding spot and--he doesn't want to think about him.
A voice stops him.
"Is that--?"
"Ahjussi?"
At first, he thinks:
They can't be referring to me, can they?
He turns his face to them, just out of curiosity, and that seems to be the catalyst.
The girl with short brown hair breaks into a sprint, like she's about to barrel right through him, or maybe football tackle him. He instinctively moves out of her path, only for her to change trajectory and grab onto the fabric of his pants. Her fists make small balls, her eyes round and too big for her face--when she tilts her head back to look at Kim Dokja properly, the hood of her raincoat falls. After, the other two kids are quick to follow suit, swarming him.
Kim Dokja feels faintly terrorized.
"Are... are you three lost?"
He does not deal well with children.
The first girl exchanges glances with the other two. Without saying a single word, they somehow reach a consensus.
"No," she says, "come play with us?"
"I..." should be at school right now.
"Please?"
The boy's grip on his pants grows tighter. The strength is negligible, really, they can't be more than five years old and it would be easy to brush them off, but--something about the looks in their eyes makes him feel unbearably guilty, even though he has nothing to do with them. He isn't planning on going back to school for a bit anyway, what could the harm be?
He opens his mouth. Closes it. "...Okay," he says.
Their smiles are so blindingly bright, Kim Dokja has to wonder how the sky doesn't clear from the sheer force of it.
"Shouldn't you three be in... kindergarten classes?"
"Then shouldn't ahjussi be in school?"
He won't argue that point.
The kids drag him to the playground, but they don't begin playing. No, instead, they end up sitting under the cover of the playset in a small circle, the rain hitting the ground around them. The wind blows through and the kids huddle closer.
Do all kids act this strange?
"My name is Shin Yoosung, what's yours, ahjussi?"
Kim Dokja immediately thinks of Ways of Survival--the Beast Lord, the Disaster of Floods--but surely, it's just a coincidence. Just like Yoo Joonghyuk, despite how the little girl matches 'Shin Yoosung''s description to a T. She has a young voice, younger than he expects for some reason.
"Kim Dokja," he answers after a moment, then turns. "What about you two?"
The boy wearing the baseball cap is still clutching onto his clothes, but at least he's moved to his sleeve instead. As long as he's content, Kim Dokja thinks. It's oddly endearing, but it's worrying too. Kim Dokja isn't entirely convinced that they're okay, even if they might not be lost.
"I'm Lee Gilyoung," the boy murmurs.
"Yoo Mia," the girl with pigtails sounds the most assertive of the three of the children, but her name--
Three times is not a coincidence.
"Your name..."
Kim Dokja is going crazy. Is he hallucinating all of this right now? But then, what about Lee Gilyoung? He's never heard that name before, but maybe Yoo Joonghyuk doesn't exist, and neither do Han Sooyoung or Yoo Sangah. This can't be real.
"Mia-yah, do you have a br--"
"Hyung," Lee Gilyoung interrupts him, then grimaces. "What happened with your neck?"
His neck? He reaches up to touch it, and his fingers brush against his rain-dampened collar and the bandage. The edges are curling away because of the water.
"Oh." He'd forgotten about the cut Song Minwoo had given him. Walking around like this in the rain, he must have looked like a basket case on top of the tomato-red stain on his shirt. "It's nothing to be worried about."
Lee Gilyoung's expression twists. "Is that bast--"
Shin Yoosung slaps a hand over Lee Gilyoung's mouth. "What's high school like?"
Was Lee Gilyoung about to say 'bastard'? Yoo Mia looks to the side and her shoulders sag as if she's sighing heavily. Kim Dokja is so bewildered, he decides to focus on what he can.
"It's... fine," he hesitates to say more. He's not the best person to be asking about this, really. These children are bright, unlike him, marred by bandages and sore spots even now. "I'm just out on a break."
"Do you have friends?" Shin Yoosung asks innocently.
He thinks of saying no.
"I--"
Yoo Mia suddenly stands. "Oppa."
He turns to her more out of reflex than anything else--realization dawns on Kim Dokja when Yoo Joonghyuk appears, standing just meters away with his clothes drenched and hair weighed down. His face is stricken, but maybe it's the rain, maybe it's just the sky. The rain is still coming down hard around them, and Yoo Joonghyuk is as well dressed for the weather as Kim Dokja--that is to say, not well at all.
"Mia?" Yoo Joonghyuk comes a few steps closer. His eyes flicker to him and widen briefly. "What are you three doing here? You should be in school."
"...We couldn't wait," Shin Yoosung says with her face turned away.
Kim Dokja somehow managed to run into Yoo Joonghyuk's sister and her friends. What are the odds? Lee Gilyoung's grip on his sleeve has tightened, has been tighter since Yoo Joonghyuk came into sight. He wonders if Lee Gilyoung might be scared of Yoo Joonghyuk, but it's clear that the other two girls know him well.
Yoo Joonghyuk approaches the playset and stops short of getting under it. Up close, Kim Dokja realizes he's breathing hard. He must have ran all the way from the school--a pang of guilt hits him at that thought. He's been a nuisance again.
"Yoo Joonghyuk," he says, but nothing else comes out. What is there to say?
The rushing sound of wind and rain blend with his heartbeat to make a chaotic cyclone of noise. He's not prepared for this--not at all. Lee Gilyoung's grip loosens enough that he takes it as a sign that it's fine to step away, but his stomach churns as he stands.
"Kim Dokja--"
He cuts in. "Yoo Mia is your sister? I totally thought your sister was older."
The rain pelts his shoulders. Absently, he smooths back the bandage on his neck, but it doesn't stick the way it did before. He can't feel his fingers. Can't meet Yoo Joonghyuk's eyes. Surely, he knows what rumors are circulating about them now. He must.
"She is." Yoo Joonghyuk responds. His voice is a deep rumble. "I'm taking care of her."
"Ah, no wonder you cook so well."
For a moment, nothing passes between them. Yoo Joonghyuk turns to the children still huddled under the playset, murmurs a few questions and instructions--"Do you know the way back? Be careful. Don't skip, everything is okay here--"
Shin Yoosung comes to him slowly, looks at him with her big brown eyes, and hugs his legs again. Lee Gilyoung isn't far behind. The rain is coming down harder than before, and the kids aren't as drenched as him or Yoo Joonghyuk, but they will be soon if they stay out for much longer.
"I'll call the kindergarten and tell them you three aren't feeling well, so go home for now and change. I'll see you later."
"Can you bring Ahjussi?"
"I'll see."
Yoo Joonghyuk ruffles Shin Yoosung's hair. It's almost unbearably cute to see--of course he's good with kids, what isn't Yoo Joonghyuk good at?--Yoo Joonghyuk is practically a giant beside the three of them.
"Hyung," Lee Gilyoung says, "we'll see you again."
Kim Dokja isn't sure about that, but he smiles anyway. "Of course."
The kids leave without another word, lagging behind Yoo Mia and shooting glances back. Kim Dokja waves goodbye, but that doesn't seem to put them at ease.
"Are they really okay walking home alone?"
Yoo Joonghyuk nods. "Mia knows all the directions."
Some part of him worries anyway, even though he's only known these kids for a few minutes at most. He hears their little footsteps quicken, running to avoid being in the rain longer than necessary. Looking at the gloomy grey sky, the rain isn't going to let up anytime soon.
Without the kids, it feels like there's even less of a buffer between him and Yoo Joonghyuk.
"Kim Dokja, are you hurt?"
He'd forgotten to check. The rain has soothed the burn somewhat, but his shirt clings uncomfortably to the skin of his back. "Ah, no. I just... needed some air."
For a second, Yoo Joonghyuk says nothing, like he's seeing right through him, and then he's reeling Kim Dokja closer. The first think Kim Dokja notices is that his clothes are cold--Yoo Joonghyuk is drenched, all because he ran after Kim Dokja in the rain, all for someone who doesn't deserve it. Kim Dokja isn't worth all this effort, not when the only thing he's done is drive Yoo Joonghyuk's reputation into the ground simply by existing.
It surprises him somehow, when Yoo Joonghyuk wraps his arms around him in a too-tight hug after he's checked him over for injuries himself.
"Let's go back," he says, softer than his usual timbre, and it makes something in Kim Dokja shake a little. Yoo Joonghyuk is so close that it's almost hard to fathom. If he breathes, it might stop, so he holds his breath as long as he can.
"I..." Don't want to, he thinks to say. The words push against his lips, but what right does he have to run from this?
Maybe--maybe he's avoiding it because he knows. This might be Yoo Joonghyuk's last straw. The rumor that toes the line of acceptable. Kim Dokja doesn't want it all to end, selfishly enough, because he's gotten used to them in the pathetically short time he's known care, even though he told himself he wouldn't, even though he told himself he'd let them go when the time came. Yoo Joonghyuk must be acting like this because he doesn't know what the school is whispering about yet, and Kim Dokja is taking advantage of him.
"Okay," he says even though his lungs ache and his stomach flips. "Okay."
Yoo Joonghyuk's moves back half a step. His warmth lingers, a tingling sort of pressure on Kim Dokja's skin where his hands press on his shoulders. His unfathomable gaze stays on him, black as coal, eyebrows furrowed in a way that makes Kim Dokja want to smooth his fingers over them.
"It's going to be okay," Yoo Joonghyuk says eventually. "We can deal with this together, so don't run."
It's meant to be a reassurance, but the word 'together' is a hurtful reminder instead, that this was all a fanciful dream on Kim Dokja's part from the very beginning. "I won't run. I told you I was just getting some air," he smiles shakily, "so let's go."
Each step is an ordeal, but Kim Dokja's whole life has been a farce. Walking into one more mess should make no difference to him, so he does exactly that. Yoo Joonghyuk falls into step with him, close enough for their arms to brush as they walk, but he doesn't grab his hand or lace their fingers together. The biting cold and acerbic wind sobers him.
They cross the threshold into the school. The halls swirl in his vision, the floor wavering beneath his feet. His stomach churns. He walks on, closer and closer to a hell full of staring eyes that never blink.
Yoo Joonghyuk takes his hand just before they open the door to the cafeteria. It all happens so fast that Kim Dokja hardly has the time to process how his hand engulfs his own, how Yoo Joonghyuk has pulled ahead half a foot and opened his lips. He gets an uncanny sense of deja vu--watching Yoo Joonghyuk open his mouth to drop the verbal equivalent of a nuclear bomb in front of a waiting crowd, thinking this absolute moron can't possibly exist.
"You all were right," Yoo Joonghyuk says with that magnetic voice that one can't help but listen to, can't help but sear into their minds. "Kim Dokja and I are dating."
Kim Dokja stops dead in his tracks and stares into the back of Yoo Joonghyuk's very smackable head.
Since when exactly???