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The exact circumstances aren’t known; a failed scenario, a curse, or a constellation’s prank gone wrong. It starts when Kim Dokja is not quite Kim Dokja anymore, instead many heads shorter than when Yoo Joonghyuk last saw him and swimming in a white coat that used to perfectly fit.
“What happened,” Yoo Joonghyuk demands, instinctively shooting the nastiest glare he can manage in Han Sooyoung’s direction.
“What- I don’t know, why are you looking at me?” Han Sooyoung sputters incredulously. “Is that an accusation?”
“Kim Dokja. He is,” Yoo Joonghyuk begins, gesturing at the boy as if he is the most incriminating piece of evidence. “A child.”
There’s no doubt, not when the boy under the white coat and in a uniform a few sizes too big stares up at them with familiar doe eyes--the resemblance is simply too uncanny to deny. Remnants of baby fat clings to his cheeks and he’s so...small. Disturbingly innocent. As well as unusually quiet, Yoo Joonghyuk notes, a timid expression on kid Dokja’s face as he stares at the strangers before him.
“Excuse me…” the boy begins quietly, “W-Where am I?”
“Uh,” Han Sooyoung intelligently says, her panic increasing by the second. “Uh.”
“Han Sooyoung,” Yoo Joonghyuk says, nodding in kid Dokja’s direction. “You do it.”
“No, I’m horrible with children,” Han Sooyoung protests, not-so-subtly shuffling away from the scene. “You do it.”
Yoo Joonghyuk sneers, his hand habitually reaching for his sword like all the other times he has ever needed to threaten someone into doing something, until he catches someone flinch in his peripheral and only then does his expression soften. Han Sooyoung doesn’t let this fact slip by. “Look, you’re a total softie, dammit. Just do it or I’ll run and leave you all alone.”
Yoo Joonghyuk stares at her, the same way one would when dealing with Han Sooyoung in general.
Contrary to popular belief, he isn’t so callous as to go around scaring children--it’s not as if he’s purposely avoiding them like the plague, either. There’s just a certain brand of people more suited for child-handling (Yoo Sangah) and Yoo Joonghyuk is at the bottom of that list.
But there’s no Yoo Sangah here, having left a few hours ago on a spontaneous sub-scenario spree. Coincidentally, so has the entire party, so now it’s just the two of them struggling to even begin to explain the end of the world to a kid. Who happens to be Kim Dokja.
Curse Kim Dokja because of course he’d be a troublesome pain in the ass. Meanwhile kid Dokja, still on the floor, has turned to inspecting his surroundings with a face growing concerningly ashen out of fright, and for the first time since the scenarios started Yoo Joonghyuk feels like he’s at his wit’s end.
Goddammit.
“We are in the middle of an apocalypse,” Yoo Joonghyuk eloquently springs upon him, as best as he can when saying that Seoul’s landscapes will never be the same again. “A few months ago, the scenarios began. There are constellations in the sky watching us fight monsters and put our lives on the line to survive through the Star Stream. Creatures called Dokkaebis manage-”
“Star stream?” Kid Dokja pipes up, eyes wide. He looks terrified. “Dokkaebis?”
“Look, you don’t just expect him to understand all of that, do you?” Han Sooyoung cuts in exasperatedly, while Yoo Joonghyuk irritatedly narrows his eyes at her with a look the equivalent of ‘why not you do this, then?’ “Aren’t you supposed to approach the topic slowly? He literally just arrived with no memories of the present.”
“That’s just the reality he has to accept, there’s no difference whether it’s now or later,” the regressor says.
“Yoo Joonghyuk, you-”
“Y-Yoo Joonghyuk?” The kid says out of the blue, then starts to inspect the regressor with a sudden intensity. His eyes travel down Yoo Joonghyuk’s dark coat to the sword on his hip before meeting his eyes again, and he looks awed, almost hopeful when he asks, “ You’re Yoo Joonghyuk?”
“Yes,” Yoo Joonghyuk answers after a pause. “You talk as if you recognise me.”
Startled by his cold, clipped tone, Dokja (calling him Kim Dokja doesn’t sound quite right for some reason) subtly curls in on himself, as if trying to make his presence seem smaller. “Um, I,” he nervously begins, “I’m…”
Han Sooyoung tactfully intervenes then, giving Yoo Joonghyuk a particularly rough nudge in his side, “Stop scaring him, damn you’re bad at this,” she says, nimbly dodging an incoming punch. “Fu- stop trying to injure me, we still have to take responsibility for the kid!”
Yoo Joonghyuk’s expression twists. “Don’t say it like that,” he spits.
“Shut up, we have much more pressing matters at hand.” Han Sooyoung whispers aggravatingly. She turns back to Dokja, schooling her expression into something a bit more amicable before approaching him. “Hey kid, how old are you?”
“Um,” Dokja looks at her warily. “Fifteen.”
“You look eleven,” Yoo Joonghyuk squints, feeling an unnecessary urge to feed this child.
In response, the young boy only looks down at his drooping sleeves self-consciously. There’s none of the snarky comebacks or indignant huffs that Yoo Joonghyuk has gotten used to receiving, and the fact that this boy isn’t quite Kim Dokja starts to sink in rather oddly.
Crouching down, Han Sooyoung awkwardly offers a piece of lemon candy and asks, “So, how do you feel about staying with us for a bit?”
--
The rest of the party won’t be back until sundown, and it doesn’t seem like Dokja will be reverting back to his original state for a while. Yoo Joonghyuk leaves their camp, sword sharpened to help capture their next dinner, while Han Sooyoung has disappeared off into the sunset in the name of finding a cure.
He thinks it’s kind of ridiculous how kid Dokja just happens to be left with the two most unequipped people for dealing with children--then again, this situation is ridiculous enough on its own, and as vexing as she is, Han Sooyoung is without a doubt the approachable one out of them two (more than he is at least). In a group of children she would be the most childish one, and paired with a woman’s deep-seated maternal instincts, she would be able to deal with it just fine.
The point is: there’s hardly any reason why Dokja should be sticking to Yoo Joonghyuk and trailing behind him like a lost puppy, anyway.
He stops in his tracks, hearing a little ‘oof!’ from where Dokja had bumped into him. Yoo Joonghyuk turns around and stares at the boy who is trying his best to look anywhere but at him.
“Why are you following me,” says Yoo Joonghyuk.
“Ah, I...am I not supposed to?” The smaller Kim Dokja says quietly, quite unlike his disposition as an adult.
“I thought you would follow Han Sooyoung.”
“That noona?” Kim Dokja looks up, then meekly, “Well, she seems nice, but...I wanted to go with you.”
The forest quietens down at his words, almost as if to accommodate the boy’s soft spokenness, leaving only the tranquil rustle of wind through trees. Bright light filters through the leaves but none of it hits Dokja, blocked by Yoo Joonghyuk’s towering frame. At that moment, standing under the shade of his shadow, Dokja looks so fragile and small.
“I’m sorry,” the kid says, embarrassment colouring his features. “Should I go?”
“No,” Yoo Joonghyuk says after a beat. “Just stick close and don’t wander off.”
“Okay,” Dokja says, and his smile is so angelic that it’s kind of unfortunate he’d grow up to be an infuriatingly cocky bastard. Yoo Joonghyuk wonders what happened during the in-between.
They head through the forest, taking down a few hares and some stray creatures along the way. Every ten steps or so, Yoo Joonghyuk slashes visible marks into the trees they pass, and Dokja watches his every action with sparkling eyes. Even if it’s flicking blood off a sword, Dokja takes it all in like he’s looking at a storybook hero, and his dull eyes light up with fascination each time Yoo Joonghyuk does something, quote, “cool”.
Initial shock aside, the child is too fearless; too unfazed, eerily calm, even audacious for someone who suddenly woke up mid-apocalypse. He resembles his adult-self in such a subtle way; a calm gaze, not quite calculating yet, and an unlucky smile that never fails to get under his skin-
-it’s hard for him not to be Kim Dokja.
It’s somewhat intriguing now that Yoo Joonghyuk thinks about it. There’s just something about looking at a tinier version of the rat bastard that makes him want to know more about the kind of person he is deep down, and maybe, a bit of his past. Perhaps that will help unravel the layers of mystery surrounding the enigma that is Kim Dokja.
There’s a theory he wants to test, now.
Throwing caution to the wind, Yoo Joonghyuk unsheathes his sword in one swift motion and points it at Dokja’s neck.
The boy freezes, every muscle in his body going stiff. His eyes don’t leave Yoo Joonghyuk’s. “D-Did I do something wrong?”
Silence.
“Um, I’m sorry if I made you mad…” Dokja whimpers, and he looks absolutely devastated. “Please don’t hate me. I’m sorry.”
“I’m holding a sword to your neck and all you’re afraid of,” Yoo Joonghyuk says, slow with disbelief, “Is that I’m mad at you?”
“I, I just…” Dokja anxiously fiddles with his sleeves. “I really like you, so…”
The kid looks down, eyes squeezed shut as if afraid of seeing what kind of expression Yoo Joonghyuk is making.
As it turns out, Kim Dokja has awful self-preservational instincts that seem to be a constant in any shape of form--that’s the first thing that Yoo Joonghyuk realises.
A few seconds later they are unfortunately caught by Han Sooyoung who had been out searching for them, and Yoo Joonghyuk leaves the forest with a blood pressure higher than before he entered.
Han Sooyoung hisses, “Are you possessed? Should I exorcise you?”
“I wasn’t going to hurt him,” Yoo Joonghyuk snaps.
Han Sooyoung knows this, but scowls anyway and shuffles away with Dokja in tow. The child obediently follows, then hesitantly looks back once he’s a distance away, shyly turning around when he realises Yoo Joonghyuk has caught his gaze.
--
The company returns a while later. Jung Heewon is the first to ask about the familiar-looking kid sitting all by himself before Han Sooyoung fills them in, sending them into a frenzy.
“T-That’s Ahjussi?” Lee Jihye gasps with a blush. Her hands shakily reach out to the child, who looks at her weirdly. “He is so... small. Can I pinch his cheeks?”
“Um,” Dokja says, scrunching his button nose. “I’m not an Ahjussi. You’re older than me.”
“He talks in tiny, can you believe that?” Lee Jihye squeals, and she would’ve almost squeezed the boy if not for Yoo Sangah holding her back.
“Let’s not overwhelm him now,” she says logically. “He seems to only have memories up to his age. Until Lee Seolhwa finds a cure, let’s get someone to look after him.”
On cue, Yoo Sangah lowers herself to meet Dokja’s eye level and a kind smile graces her face, holding out a hand for Dokja to take.
“Hello, my name is Yoo Sangah,” she gently introduces, “We’re trying to find a way to send you home, but would you like to stay with me for now?”
As it should be--Yoo Sangah has the meticulousness needed to adequately look after Dokja. She nods at him encouragingly when he looks at her outstretched hand, pausing in deep thought, but Dokja unexpectedly sneaks a glance in Yoo Joonghyuk’s direction, and Yoo Joonghyuk doesn’t need to be a child-whisperer to understand what’s flitting through his mind.
Before he can say anything, Dokja trots over to him and meekly tugs on his coat.
“Hyung,” he quietly calls, and the unspoken request hangs over their heads.
Children, Yoo Joonghyuk thinks of Yoo Mia, have a strange way of asking for things. He has long known from a previous incident that Kim Dokja has no talent in making puppy eyes, yet the look that Dokja shoots at him is so wide and innocent, glazed with pure hope that Yoo Joonghyuk couldn’t possibly disappoint.
“Sleep in my tent,” he sighs, left eyebrow twitching subtly, “Don’t cause trouble.”
The astonished looks his party throws at him is nothing compared to Dokja’s toothy beam.
A few things happen after that. The company retreats to rest, and Dokja, whose face is as thick as always, asks if he could sleep in the same bed as Yoo Joonghyuk.
“I can’t fall asleep unless I’m holding something,” Dokja explains sheepishly.
“I’ll give you something to hold,” Yoo Joonghyuk says, and to the boy’s horror, offers his sword.
He relents in the end, only because the boy’s skinny frame didn’t seem as if it could keep him warm throughout the night. They settle under the sheets and Yoo Joonghyuk tenses when scrawny arms wrap around his torso, warmth blooming between their bodies.
“Is it uncomfortable?” Dokja speaks unsurely, shuffling out of bed. “Sorry, I overstepped...um, I’ll go hug a blanket or something.”
Yoo Joonghyuk frowns and holds him in place. “I didn’t say anything.”
“Huh?”
“Stop moving.”
He pulls a blanket over them, cushioning his head with his arm. Yoo Joonghyuk isn’t familiar with sharing a bed, so his hand awkwardly falls at his side, unsure of how to cradle a child so they wouldn’t break, or if they needed to be held in the first place.
Feeling a curious gaze on his face, Yoo Joonghyuk closes his eyes and tries to get some semblance of sleep. There’s a rustle where Dokja seemingly shifts back into place, then a brief silence before the boy nuzzles his face into his stomach.
Yoo Joonghyuk’s thoughts come to a halt.
It’s weird. It’s uncomfortable. His hand hovers over Dokja’s shoulder, but the child’s breaths have already begun to even out and the expression on his face is peaceful, almost content.
“...Dokja?” he whispers.
No response.
Slowly, he retracts his arm.
The next morning, Yoo Joonghyuk wakes up with a child clinging to his torso. Before this, he’d never held his sister so close.
--
The day starts with a commotion.
“Dokja refuses to take a bath,” Han Sooyoung grumbles. Her eyes land on Yoo Joonghyuk who’d just emerged from his tent and she points at him. “You, tell him to.”
“No! Noona, stop-!” Dokja shrieks, fending off Han Sooyoung’s attempts at stripping him. “Do you want me to cry? Is that it? Should I cry?”
“You’re surprisingly bratty. I wonder why you're all obedient and shy when it comes to that asshole-”
“Enough,” Yoo Joonghyuk sighs, fighting a headache. “Han Sooyoung, stop groping him.”
“I’m just- I’m not- he refuses to bathe! Look at him--he’s filthy!” Han Sooyoung splutters in rage.
She’s right. Yoo Joonghyuk’s face twists in disgust. “What happened?”
“A-Ah, um, Jihye noona was chasing me around and I accidentally fell into a puddle.”
It looks like Yoo Joonghyuk will need to beat a lesson into his disciple with his sword later on, but for now, scrubbing Dokja free of those mud stains will take priority. With this new resolve he closes in on the boy, who backs away carefully, seeming to have sensed his intent.
“I-I don’t want to wear that!” Dokja desperately pleads, looking at the t-shirt and shorts in Han Sooyoung’s hands.
Yoo Joonghyuk glowers at him. “Don’t be picky.”
Before Dokja can open his mouth, Yoo Joonghyuk effortlessly picks him up and drags him all the way to the showers. Of course, the boy doesn’t go down without a fight, and after a one-sided struggle Dokja is dripping wet, sulking after having a bucket of water foisted on him.
Trust Kim Dokja to make things so difficult for him, Yoo Joonghyuk thinks, tossing the clothes they borrowed from Lee Gilyoung to the side. Swiftly, he pulls out a black turtleneck from his collection and chucks it at the boy, just so he won’t kick up a fuss again.
“Now be good and take your bath,” Yoo Joonghyuk commands, pulling the curtain shut.
One minute later, the muffled sounds of water fill the tent.
Fifteen minutes later, Dokja emerges in a large turtleneck. It swallows his frame and reaches down to his knees, but the boy tugs his collar, pleased.
“Did you walk into something?” Yoo Joonghyuk asks, noting a few bruises that ran down the boy’s legs.
“Oh,” Dokja fidgets, “I hadn’t realised. I’m a little clumsy.”
Yoo Joonghyuk frowns, but doesn’t say anything else.
They quickly head out where Lee Jihye is hard at work, drying Dokja’s uniform. Breakfast is eaten in silence, nothing notable other than the additional presence at Yoo Joonghyuk’s side, nibbling away at his porridge.
He is too thin, Yoo Joonghyuk scowls. Now that Dokja is right next to him, Yoo Joonghyuk can tell that he’s almost as small as Yoo Mia, who is currently six years younger than him.
“Don’t be picky with your food,” he tells him.
“I’m not very hungry…” Dokja looks down at his lap.
Yoo Joonghyuk clicks his tongue, plucking the spoon out of Dokja’s fingers. He scrapes the sides of the bowl and presses the spoonful of food to the boy’s lips.
“Eat,” he commands.
Dokja flushes in embarrassment, but does as he’s told. After emptying the whole bowl Yoo Joonghyuk wipes his lips and then awkwardly gives him a small pat on the head, just as a reward, and Dokja shyly lapses into silence.
“You’re acting like his mother,” Jung Heewon snorts, then her eyes soften. “It’s cute.”
Yoo Joonghyuk ignores her.
Dokja sticks even closer to him after that, one hand always clutching onto his coat and tailing him around the place.
“Dokja,” Yoo Joonghyuk slowly says. “Let go of me.”
“I don’t want to.”
“I’m covered in blood.”
“I don’t mind,” the boy mumbles, and it’s incomprehensible how quickly he transitioned from timid to being so bold.
Unfortunately, his clingy behaviour does not go unnoticed. Within a day of meeting him, Yoo Joonghyuk has been branded as the child’s unofficial caregiver by the members of his party who seem delighted at the prospect of giving their two representatives “a chance to bond”.
“Yoo Joonghyuk,” Han Sooyoung grins with teeth, “I’ll cut to the chase. All of us talked about it, but I wanted to ask you for your opinion first. What do you think about being Dokja’s guardian?”
Yoo Joonghyuk replies without missing a beat. “No.”
“Okay, this is where I rule by decree. You are now in-charge of the kid. Now go spoil him rotten.”
Perhaps it wouldn’t be as bad if Dokja isn’t so much like himself. At some point he had slyly talked Yoo Joonghyuk into letting him hold his hand, and immediately all thoughts of the boy being remotely cute or sweet vanished. He isn’t even sure when he’d started having such thoughts, but Han Sooyoung was right about him being a brat.
The second thing Yoo Joonghyuk realises about Kim Dokja is that he, for some reason, likes him a lot. It’s not as if he hasn’t realised the boy’s unusual attachment to himself, but for someone he has no memory of meeting, it’s hard to understand Dokja’s tendency to look at him as if he hung the moon and the stars.
Maybe they’d met in their childhood. That would explain why Yoo Joonghyuk has no recollection of Kim Dokja. Even for a prophet Kim Dokja acts like he’s been familiar with Yoo Joonghyuk his whole life--there has been a lingering suspicion about their past since the Theatre Dungeon, when Kim Dokja had recited Yoo Joonghyuk’s misfortunes, tears in his eyes.
“Kim Dokja,” Yoo Joonghyuk had asked, consciousness flickering. “Before this, did you know me?”
“Not at all,” Kim Dokja replied, a dishonest smile hanging off his lips.
It’s not very surprising. Kim Dokja has always been a liar.
The days come and go. Dokja burrows into Yoo Joonghyuk’s embrace every night and imitates his sword forms, whenever he can. Yoo Joonghyuk lends him a dagger and teaches him a few self-defense techniques just in case someone with bad intentions comes by.
It ends with a few more stumbles than expected. Dokja has no talent.
“Hyung is the strongest. You’ll protect me...right?” the boy says expectantly.
“Don’t count on it,” Yoo Joonghyuk scoffs.
He flicks the boy on his forehead, but there’s no strength behind it. Dokja smiles stupidly.
--
It all comes crashing down when Han Sooyoung opens her mouth.
“I found out how to reverse Dokja’s situation,” she says, arms crossed.
“What is it?” Yoo Joonghyuk asks.
“It’s kind of...I don’t know, shit.”
“Spit it out.”
“We have to stab him.”
Yoo Joonghyuk looks at her for an agonising minute. “Are you possessed?”
“I know how bad this sounds, but,” she says, glancing at the patch of grass where Dokja awkwardly sits, careful not to let him overhear. “Apparently, it’s a curse, and it’s tied to Kim Dokja’s soul. In order to turn him back, we have to sever the link that connects him and the person who placed the curse-”
“And the solution to that is to kill him?” Yoo Joonghyuk hisses, not expecting such brazen behaviour after she’d rushed back, declaring to the world that she’d found a cure.
They are nowhere near the final scenario and yet Yoo Joonghyuk has already seen Kim Dokja die countless times before his eyes. Han Sooyoung is sorely mistaken if she thinks he would be willing to watch history repeat itself, let alone be the knife that ends his life.
“We don’t have to kill him.” Han Sooyoung winces, as if she’d just read his mind. “I mean, we do, but Kim Dokja won’t die for real. He’ll come back as his bastard, adult self.”
Yoo Joonghyuk’s gaze burns. “I should’ve known that nothing good ever comes out of your mouth.”
“Shut up, it’s not like I want to do it! I searched for leads and couldn’t find a thing-”
“What if your method doesn’t work? Have you thought of the consequences?”
“It works--it better --and I know because my sponsor told me about it.”
“You trust them?”
“We don’t have a choice,” Han Sooyoung insists, and Yoo Joonghyuk grudgingly realises she’s right.
He hates how death has become some sort of normalised solution to everything. Shin Yoosoung had narrowly escaped, yet now the baton has been passed to her saviour. There’s no telling if Dokja’s memories will carry forward to his adult form, passing the trauma of being betrayed by his hyung and- Why is this the world he lives in? Why does Dokja have to-
“Han Sooyoung. I won’t do it,” Yoo Joonghyuk gravely says.
“The kid likes you,” she starts. “Yoo Joonghyuk. I want the kid to go at the hands of someone he trusts.”
The image of Dokja sinking down on his sword, limp body and blood in his hands draws a violent flinch out of him. It’s almost like the disaster of floods all over again. “I can’t do it.”
Noting his discomfort, Han Sooyoung grants him a small mercy and takes a step back, but the responsibility has already been thrust upon his shoulders. It’s suffocating.
“You don’t have to do it now,” she says, as if it would make things any easier. “Just don’t delay it for too long. We all want our leader back.”
And so does he, Yoo Joonghyuk thinks. But out of all of them, why is it that he has to shoulder the guilt of hurting a defenseless child? Why does he have to do that to a boy who hasn’t done anything wrong, who knows nothing yet likes him so much?
Dokja finds him in the forest an hour later, standing in a mess of blood and monster carcass.
“Hyung, what are you doing?”
He tilts his head curiously when Yoo Joonghyuk stares at him, unknowing of the cruel fate awaiting him. It occurs to him then that the boy isn’t quite Kim Dokja--he isn’t the same companion that he knows, and the real one is still waiting for him inside that child.
The tip of the Heaven Shaking Sword kisses Dokja’s neck.
“Hyung?” the boy hesitantly gulps. “What’s wrong?”
“...Nothing,” Yoo Joonghyuk says, heart trembling.
He sheathes his sword.
--
Dokja is quieter, almost mute after that, a hand tight on Yoo Joonghyuk’s coat, and Yoo Joonghyuk briefly fears he's scared him. The entire day had been dedicated to making preparations for the next scenario and clearing out monsters, yet the child had merely stalked him without a word.
Yoo Joonghyuk wonders if fifteen is the typical age for a rebellious phase, but he doesn’t get to ask what’s wrong when Dokja breaks the silence himself.
“Hyung,” he speaks, drawing circles into the dirt with his foot. “Have you ever loved someone before?”
A branch snaps under Yoo Joonghyuk’s boot.
There are a few layers to love, he thinks. Instantly, his mind travels to baby Mia cooing on his doorstep, to Lee Seolhwa with her silver locks and intelligent smile, but none of them come as close to the person wearing a white coat.
“A few,” he decides to reveal, looking at the boy. “What brought this on?”
“I was thinking about it.” Dokja crosses out a shape in the ground. “Do you like stories?”
“Not really,” Yoo Joonghyuk replies.
“The person I love the most is from a story,” says Dokja, eyes on him. “One day, he saved my life.”
Yoo Joonghyuk doesn’t really understand, but there are a few implications that settle dismayingly. “Saved your life?” he narrows his eyes.
“Mhm,” Dokja murmurs, and nothing else. At this point the boy looks away, urging Yoo Joonghyuk to continue down the path as if trying to redirect his attention, and it only encourages him to pinch Dokja’s cheek, squeezing out the weird thoughts in his head.
“Don’t fill your head with strange things,” Yoo Joonghyuk clicks his tongue. “Is it a superhero?”
“Nwo, he’s cwooler and much strwonger," Dokja whines, pulling away. "I, I've always wanted to be like him, even for just a moment."
"What kind of story is it?”
“Um, well,” the child glances up. He opens his mouth, then looks down and bites back his words. “He was a celebrity, for a bit. He was good at everything he tried, and most of all, he never gave up. He taught me that,” Dokja breathes.
“It sounds like he exists,” Yoo Joonghyuk hums.
Dokja says, “Everyone is a story.”
It’s rather pure, Yoo Joonghyuk thinks. Every child must’ve had an idol they looked up to, and he wonders whether he’d once been like that too. Perhaps if he had someone’s story to read, he wouldn’t have grown to be so morally skewed even after three regressions in the apocalypse.
He peeks at a tuft of inky hair and thinks of a prophet with a penchant for stories. Kim Dokja is a reader to the bone.
In the evening, Yoo Joonghyuk catches Dokja by the fire, staring at the blazing flames with blank eyes looking as if he’s about to be sucked in. The kid reminds him of Yoo Mia, holding abnormal curiosity for things and instinctively, he lifts the boy up by his armpits and shifts him a few paces back.
“Ah-” Dokja yelps, immediately switching between shocked and sheepish once he notes the identity of the new addition. “Hyung.”
Yoo Joonghyuk nods curtly. “You’re asking to get burnt.”
“It’s okay,” Dokja smiles, insincere and unnervingly calm. “Thank you for worrying.”
Yoo Joonghyuk frowns. “Is something wrong?”
“No.”
“Did Lee Jihye bully you again?”
“No, nothing like that.”
“Then what’s bothering you?” Yoo Joonghyuk demands patiently. “Tell me and I’ll go kill it.”
Dokja laughs, light and sweet. “It’s okay, hyung.”
--
It’s not okay.
Dokja is gone.
“I looked away! For one second!” the writer shrieks.
“Han Sooyoung,” Yoo Joonghyuk snarls, and the hand ghosting her neck is a death threat. “If anything happens to him, you won’t get out of this unscathed.”
His mind whispers murder, but it’s a fleeting thought before he stomps away. For hours, Yoo Joonghyuk wanders down the broken streets of Seoul, cutting down everything in his way.
“Dokja! Come out, I won’t get angry!”
His voice hangs in the air, met with silence as a response. Several survivors had started emerging from their hiding place as they watched him sift through every nook and cranny of the place like a madman, curious. Yoo Joonghyuk locks onto a person with the audacity to approach him, probably to ask what’s wrong and earn a favour or two from the Supreme King.
“You,” he growls, “A kid, black hair and in a school uniform. Fifteen, but looks younger. Did you see him?”
The person flinches. “W-Well, no, but-”
“Then don’t waste my time. Dokja!”
Without rest, Yoo Joonghyuk heads further and further from base, reaching a point where the landscape stretches unfamiliarly before him. The sun tauntingly melts across the sky like a broken yolk, yet still no sign of his companion.
It’s all his fault. He shouldn’t have left Dokja to the hands of that incompetent woman, should’ve just brought the boy along with him. There was a nest of monsters festering in the forest but Yoo Joonghyuk is strong. He was more than capable of protecting Dokja while clearing out the mess, but-
He just wanted Dokja to be safe, was that so wrong?
“Dokja, please.”
The silence is crushing--until an abrupt clang of metal pierces through the atmosphere, sending Yoo Joonghyuk bounding up the stairs in a particularly quiet and neat abandoned building.
He follows the sound to the third floor, and there in a room stands Dokja. Pale skin, dark hair and small frame. Yoo Joonghyuk touches his shoulder and Dokja feels like glass in his hand. It wouldn’t take much strength to break a bone, but the thought is gone before he opens his mouth.
“Why are you here?” Yoo Joonghyuk chides, but there’s no heat behind it. He’s tired, even more glad that it’s over, and he just wants to bring Dokja home. “I can’t believe Han Sooyoung lost you, let’s go.”
“Hyung, w-wait!” Dokja pleads, fighting the grip over his wrist.
“Dokja, what are you-”
His boot catches onto something, dragging it across the floor with a horrifying screech. Yoo Joonghyuk goes still.
On instinct, he thinks he knows what it is. Dread clenches his stomach. A glint enters his peripheral, and Yoo Joonghyuk shifts his foot to reveal a familiar, sharp dagger.
And that’s when he sees it, specks of red on the tip--his head whips around to the bone-chilling sight of crimson blood blooming in Dokja’s vest, and finally the boy seems to stop hiding it when he sways on his feet, cradling the wound.
No, no, no no no no.
“Dokja,” Yoo Joonghyuk catches his shoulders, looking through his eyes, if only that’d grant him the knowledge of what the kid was thinking when he cut himself open. “What did you do?”
“A-Ah- You weren’t s’posed to come here,” Dokja shakily rasps, and his knees cave.
Yoo Joonghyuk sinks to the floor, fumbling to get his coat off and bunched up to staunch the bleeding. He presses down on the wound, hard, but it doesn’t seem to soak up the blood that is spilling like buckets. Nausea crawls out his gut and Yoo Joonghyuk’s head spins with something he realises is fear.
“Shut up and save your energy. I won’t let you die here. What were you thinking-”
“Mh, w-was meant to kill me.”
“Why? What were you trying to do?”
“To b-bring back your friend.” Dokja gasps. “He’s the real one, right? Just stuck inside of m-me.”
“You heard,” Yoo Joonghyuk croaks, and it’s like he’s taken a punch to the gut. “You fool.”
“I was just...going to die, an’ come back as your c-companion. I wanted to help you.”
Yoo Joonghyuk doesn’t understand-- “You call this help? ” --and it occurs to him that he most likely never would. It feels like part of his routine when he’s perplexed and angry over Kim Dokja’s horrible decisions.
Dokja is keening, hot tears spilling down his cheeks, taking desperate breaths like an anesthesia. Yoo Joonghyuk feels his agony wrap around his throat like two hands and it’s almost enough to drive him mad.
Dokja sobs. “It h-hurts.”
“I’ll bring you to Lee Seolhwa.” Yoo Joonghyuk grimly says. “Just bear with it for a while.”
“No, hyung- you c-can’t,” Dokja shakes his head. “If I don’t die, your companion w-wont come back.”
Yoo Joonghyuk grits his teeth. “Don’t tell me what to do!”
"I'll have to die again," Dokja cries. Immediately, Yoo Joonghyuk falters, and Dokja takes the opportunity to squirm away. "Don't make me g-go through this again. Please, h-hyung."
It's unfair. Yoo Joonghyuk wonders if the culprit is having fun, watching his Dokja writhe in misery; watching Yoo Joonghyuk feel so helpless and fraught, all because of a curse. This world is so, so sick.
“I can’t do it,” he whispers. Yoo Joonghyuk wants to be selfish. Yoo Joonghyuk wants a break. “I don’t care. We can find another way, it doesn’t have to be like this.”
“Okay,” Dokja says, tranquil and calm. But as he is, Dokja is still his companion and Yoo Joonghyuk knows what he looks like when he’s telling lies.
“Keep your eyes open,” Yoo Joonghyuk orders. “I’m not wasting anymore time.”
“Hyung, I,” Dokja murmurs, “Love you. You saved m’ life.”
“What?”
“I will pay off the d-debt. You saved me once. Now I’m going to s-save you.”
“What are you saying?” Yoo Joonghyuk’s voice uncharacteristically cracks. “I’ve never met you. I don’t remember you. Why do you...?”
Dokja tries to smile, but he’s not fooling anyone. “I just,” drip, “Wanted to see,” drip, “The end of my favourite story.”
Perhaps Yoo Joonghyuk should’ve seen it coming. It's a cruel assumption, and the crushing realisation that Kim Dokja’s motivations may have always revolved around him draws a soundless scream that grates at his throat.
One moment they are warmly tucked into bed, and the next there is blood staining his hands. Is this really how it ends?
“Shut up and stay awake, just a bit longer.” Yoo Joonghyuk scoops the child into his embrace, skidding down the steps. “There’s still time, there's still time- Han Sooyoung said I didn’t have to do it just yet, so-"
The breaths on his chest stop.
"...Dokja? D-Dokja-ya.”
--
The streets are quiet apart from the sound of blood dripping like a leaking tap. Yoo Joonghyuk staggers back home with his companion sleeping in his arms.
(There are tear tracks on his face. Yoo Joonghyuk wonders when was the last time he cried.)