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If Kim Dokja ever meets Fate, the first thing he’ll do is look it in the eye and punch it.
It’s a strange thing, the hands that dictate the ways of this world. If ever he met it, Kim Dokja also thinks he would cry. He’d drop to his knees and hold his head in his hands, and he would wail, and he would ask it why.
“Your son is colourblind.”
Lee Sookyung stared at the doctor, her gaze hard. Kim Dokja had been four. “Of course he’s colourblind,” she’d said, her voice steady as still water. She spoke with a calm Kim Dokja couldn’t understand, akin to a steady rock in the middle of a raging ocean with its waves violently crashing onto the shore. He’d seen this type of calm in her in many situations, even if showing no fear resulted in spilled blood. “He hasn’t met his soulmate yet.”
“Ma’am,” the doctor had responded, his voice gentle in a way Kim Dokja recognised as pity. “It doesn’t have anything to do with his soulmate. It’s in his genes. He’s colourblind—monochromacy. He’ll… never see colour.”
Kim Dokja doesn’t get what it wants from him; he doesn’t understand why it wants him to suffer like this, and he doubts any reason he’d get would be one he could accept. Kim Dokja supposes he just wants someone—or something—to blame for all that he’s been through.
Now Lee Sookyung shook; when Kim Dokja thinks back on it, he realises that’s the first time he’d ever seen the steady stone and still waters in her bearings shake at all. “Then how will he find his soulmate?”
The doctor looked as though he pitied them, both mother and son. Anyone who was anyone knew Lee Sookyung’s soulmate had been anything but kind to his family. “Soulmates aren’t everything,” he’d began. “Not every soulmate is the perfect one.”
Soulmates, Kim Dokja finds, are an unreachable thing for him. When he sees couples walking down the street he wonders what they see. Is their world splashed with colour, different from his? Or are they holding the hands of the person that isn’t their one, just two kindred souls who secretly yearn for their soulmate so they might see the world in different shades of the rainbow?
Kim Dokja thinks soulmates are a sham. If they were made for each other, why, then, had his house been filled with shouts and fights and broken bottles? Why, then, had he gone to sleep with bruises and blood, his mother holding him close as she tried not to breathe too hard so as not to aggravate her injuries?
Why, if his parents were soulmates, had it all ended in blood and a lonely, broken, boy, with no family willing to take care of him, the son of a murderer?
Kim Dokja won’t ever see colour.
But it’s fine, Kim Dokja tells himself, because soulmates are a lie, and all he really is is fate’s sorry little guinea pig.
If getting a soulmate means it’s going to end in blood, then he doesn’t want one at all.
(And if it’s because Kim Dokja thinks he doesn’t deserve one, well… he’s never going to admit that all he’s ever wanted is the love he never really got.)
Kim Dokja meets Yoo Joonghyuk in highschool.
He’s breathtaking, really; with wavy locks of thick, dark hair falling before sharp, fathomless eyes that glimmer like dark jewels and a perfectly angled, sharp nose, his cheekbones fine and his lips full, a dimple on one side on his cheek and sharp, thick brows, eyelashes dark and long and god, Kim Dokja’s never seen anyone more beautiful in his life. He’s tall and handsome and he’s the president of the school council, and he’s athletic, and he’s perfect. He sounds like velvet, smooth and deep and strong. Everyone loves him, and maybe a part of Kim Dokja hates him for it.
He hates that he envies him so much.
Kim Dokja is nothing like him; he’s small and he’s frail and everyone knows he tried to kill himself the year before he entered this school. He won’t ever meet his soulmate, and Yoo Joonghyuk, the brightest student of this school, is going to graduate and meet his fated one. He’s going to live a perfect, easy life, and Kim Dokja is probably just going to rot in some ditch before he even turns thirty.
And yet.
And yet.
And yet Kim Dokja can’t take his eyes off of Yoo Joonghyuk whenever he enters the room, can’t help but want to get close to him and bask in his glory, because even if Yoo Joonghyuk doesn’t know who he is, or maybe he just doesn’t want to have anything to do with him, everyone’s a little in love with him; Kim Dokja, unfortunately, is no exception to this rule.
Except, unlike everyone else, Yoo Joonghyuk begins to see him.
He sees him.
Yoo Joonghyuk looks him in the eye when he speaks. He looks at him like he isn’t the son of a murderer, like he isn’t the kid who tried to kill himself on his last year of middle school. He looks at him like he’s a person, and maybe that’s all Kim Dokja’s ever wanted. And he doesn’t know how it happens, but they’d become friends. It’s strange, because they’re nothing alike. It’s strange, because Yoo Joonghyuk is everything Kim Dokja isn’t. Strange, because Yoo Joonghyuk has everything Kim Dokja wants.
Because Yoo Joonghyuk is everything Kim Dokja could want.
“Kim Dokja,” Yoo Joonghyuk begins one day; they sit alone, because Yoo Joonghyuk knows Kim Dokja doesn’t like to eat with other people around. Because Yoo Joonghyuk knows Kim Dokja doesn’t want people to see him eat. Because Yoo Joonghyuk knows Kim Dokja feels like he’s being watched, even if he isn’t. “Have you met your soulmate?”
Kim Dokja pauses. He’d lived so long knowing he’d never find his one that he’d forgotten that soulmates existed at all. He’s never told anyone before—one less thing for people to bully him about.
He doesn’t answer for a moment, poking at his meal. He’d bought it from the canteen with what measly money he had left; his guardians for the month hadn’t given him much. “I…” Kim Dokja starts, only to silence himself once more.
Should he tell him? What if Yoo Joonghyuk laughs at him? A part of Kim Dokja knows that, logically, he won’t, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a possibility. Kim Dokja is scared, he realises, of what Yoo Joonghyuk might think, because if Yoo Joonghyuk leaves him, Kim Dokja won’t have anything—or anyone—anymore.
(Yoo Joonghyuk’s really all that he has.)
“I… I can’t see colour,” he finds himself saying, never once looking away from his food as he curls into himself. Yoo Joonghyuk’s thigh, pressed against his, is suddenly too hot, and too much, and yet Kim Dokja can’t find it in himself to move away. Instead, he tightens his grip on his plate and his cutlery and tries to even out his ragged breathing because fuck, fuck, fuck, this really isn’t something he has to cry about, is it? This vulnerable admission, an undoing of his own making?
Yoo Joonghyuk—fuck, he’s so smart, isn’t he?—doesn’t say anything for a while. But when he does, he says, his voice so soft he has to lean forward, breaths brushing Kim Dokja’s ear, “What do you mean?”
There’s no ridicule in it, no laughter, no nothing; it’s a soft tone, one that’s coaxing. A gentle sort of encouragement that Kim Dokja finds he can’t really handle. He has to swallow back a lump in his throat.
“I’m… I’m colourblind,” he whispers, looking down at his food. “I don’t know if I’ve met my soulmate, Joonghyuk. I don’t know if they’ve met me. I’m not going to find my soulmate in this life. I’m never going to have one.”
Because soulmates have to see colour at the same time together, and if one can’t see colour at all, then the other won’t, either, and how cruel fate is to just let them pass each other by.
Kim Dokja might think soulmates are a sham, but that never meant he didn’t want one.
And then something—a rough, calloused but warm hand, much larger than his—had closed over his own, and, startled, Kim Dokja looked up.
The gentle touch of Yoo Joonghyuk, Kim Dokja finds, is difficult to handle. Even something as simple as this is making him shake, and he’s forced to set the plate aside. His free hand clenches and unclenches and god, god, god, this is terrifying. Kim Dokja thought a raised hand was the most terrifying thing in his life, but here Yoo Joonghyuk is proving him wrong.
Being touched like he matters is what scares him the most.
Yoo Joonghyuk kisses the palm of his hand once, eyes fluttering shut, long lashes alighting on his skin and casting shadows under the afternoon sun. Then his lips trail up to kiss each of Kim Dokja’s fingertips, one by one, and Kim Dokja can’t breathe, he’s shaking, he’s shaking, and he doesn’t even realise he’s crying until Yoo Joonghyuk’s other hand thumbs his tears away.
He can’t breathe. He can’t. It’s hard, his breaths are shaky and ragged and his vision is blurring he’s crying he’s crying he’s crying he—
“You won’t need one,” Yoo Joonghyuk says, kissing Kim Dokja’s forehead first, then the tip of his nose, the corners of his lips. Kim Dokja can’t do this. This is terrifying. This is exhilarating. He needs it to stop. He never wants Yoo Joonghyuk to let him go. “You have me, Dokja.”
Everyone’s a little in love with Yoo Joonghyuk.
But Kim Dokja is in love with him, and he doesn’t think he’ll be able to handle it when Yoo Joonghyuk meets his soulmate.
Yoo Joonghyuk kisses him without regard for his tears. He kisses him and he holds him like he loves him and all Kim Dokja can do is cry, cry, and cry, because what is he going to do when Yoo Joonghyuk leaves him for his one, and Kim Dokja is going to be all alone again, blind to colour, blind to love, because he’s only ever known it in the form of Yoo Joonghyuk, who will inevitably leave him?
Give a man an inch and he’ll want a mile. Yoo Joonghyuk gives Kim Dokja a kiss and now all he wants is him for himself.
(If Kim Dokja ever meets fate, he’s going to give it a sucker punch to its face.)
And then Yoo Joonghyuk becomes a scientist.
He becomes an accomplished scientist of his field, and he gets a PhD, and suddenly he’s Doctor Yoo and his research is earning him millions and Kim Dokja has no idea how to handle it when he meets Lee Seolhwa.
Simply put, she’s beautiful, and she’s his research partner. Kim Dokja always feels like he’s intruding when the three of them are together; Yoo Joonghyuk in all his dark, handsome glory and Lee Seolhwa in all her fair, icy beauty and warm smile and kind eyes. What is Kim Dokja next to them? A peasant? He’s out of place and he knows it.
He doesn’t know how he’s still with Yoo Joonghyuk after all this time. Lee Seolhwa looks at Yoo Joonghyuk with stars in her eyes and Kim Dokja feels like he shouldn’t be there, and whenever Yoo Joonghyuk comes home late he smells like her because he works with her and Yoo Joonghyuk won’t tell him what he’s working on.
It feels like a joke. It feels like a lie. Kim Dokja knew they were never meant to last.
That doesn’t mean he feels any better about it, though.
Kim Dokja tends to spend those late nights alone. He used to stay up for Yoo Joonghyuk, curled up on the couch and half-asleep as the sounds of the TV faded into white noise, but eventually he thought he’d spare himself the pain and sleep.
And then one night Yoo Joonghyuk comes home the latest he ever has after some conference and there’s this little glimmer in his eye. It’s three in the morning, but Yoo Joonghyuk looks as awake as he’s ever been, and Kim Dokja has no idea what’s going on.
“You’re awake,” Yoo Joonghyuk says, surprised. For once, he doesn’t smell like her. He smells like himself. Kim Dokja lets Yoo Joonghyuk pull him close, strong arms wrapping around his waist. “I’m home, Dokja.”
Kim Dokja doesn’t realise how long it’s been since he’s heard him say those words.
“Welcome home,” Kim Dokja finds himself saying, returning to the cup of hot water in front of him. “What took you so long?”
“I want to show you something,” Yoo Joonghyuk says, voice soft. “It’s what I’ve been working on.”
“Can it wait?”
“No, it can’t.” Yoo Joonghyuk lets go of Kim Dokja to look through his bag of things, and Kim Dokja watches in silence as he rummages through it. “Here.” There’s that glint in his eye again—excited, almost, if Kim Dokja hadn’t known any better. “We had a breakthrough. This is the first of its kind.”
Yoo Joonghyuk takes out something from a small case of something. A pair of glasses, Kim Dokja realises. Then he straightens and rushes back to his lover and holds it out, worrying at his bottom lip. “This is what we’ve been working on.”
Kim Dokja eyes it. “A pair of glasses.”
Yoo Joonghyuk nods his head. “They’ll help you see colour.”
Silence, first.
And then Kim Dokja barks out a startled laugh. “Come again?” He asks, because he can’t quite believe it. He takes the glasses into his hands and watches as Yoo Joonghyuk steps forward. “See colour?” Kim Dokja’s lived so long with the knowledge that he’ll never see colour that this just sounds absurd to him.
Yoo Joonghyuk nods, undeterred by his lover’s sceptism. “It’s what Lee Seolhwa and I have been working on,” he says, fingers trailing the frame. “It’s why I’ve been coming home so late. I’m sorry.”
Kim Dokja looks up at Yoo Joonghyuk, studying his face. What would he look like in colour? Kim Dokja’d grown so accustomed to the different shades of black and white that he finds he can’t imagine anything else. “Is that really it?”
“Yes.” Yoo Joonghyuk takes the glasses from Kim Dokja’s hands, impatient.
“Have you really not met your soulmate, Joonghyuk-ah?”
The question comes out from his lips unbidden, but it’s one that Kim Dokja’s had in his hands for a longer time than he’d like to admit. Why would Yoo Joonghyuk stay with someone like him? Would he do that even if he meant he’d met his soulmate?
Yoo Joonghyuk pauses in his movements, then, before he meets Kim Dokja’s gaze. His words come out slow and steady, and Kim Dokja is abruptly reminded of the calm stillness of his mother. “No,” he says. “But even if I had, they’re not you.”
Kim Dokja looks away. Even after all these years, he can’t get used to the rawness of Yoo Joonghyuk’s love. He’d been such a fool to doubt him.
“Put it on for me then,” Kim Dokja finds himself saying instead.
Yoo Joonghyuk hooks a finger beneath his chin, tilting his head up. Their eyes meet; Kim Dokja’s breath hitches again, heart in his throat. “You know I won’t be able to see colour if I haven’t met my soulmate either way, right?”
“At least we can say we tried,” is Yoo Joonghyuk’s immediate response. And then he slides the glasses in place, perched upon Kim Dokja’s nose.
At first, there’s nothing. Just black and white, as it was before.
Kim Dokja is about to sigh when he looks back at Yoo Joonghyuk, but then—
But then, when their eyes meet—
The colours bloom.
Splashes of colours Kim Dokja’s only ever heard of. Yoo Joonghyuk’s hair is as black as it’s always been, but his skin, his eyes, his clothes, the house—it’s beautiful, it’s beautiful, how did he live without all of this? Yoo Joonghyuk with his tanned skin and broad build, the beige of their walls. Yoo Joonghyuk is looking at him, too, with that same wonder in his eyes, and, and—
“Kim Dokja,” Yoo Joonghyuk says, his voice barely a whisper when he wraps his arms around his beloved and holds him close. “Do you see?”
He does. He does.
“So,” Kim Dokja finds himself saying, his voice admittedly a lot less stable then he’d like. “Are you sure you haven’t met your soulmate?” Because he can see, he can see, he can see, and Yoo Joonghyuk is looking at him with stars in his eyes and a fire burning in its depths and he’s smiling, he’s smiling with that stupid dimple and his teeth and Kim Dokja is pretty sure he’s crying.
“I have,” Yoo Joonghyuk says, pressing their foreheads together. “I have, baby. I have. And I’m looking right at him.”
Kim Dokja thinks fate is still a bitch, but just this once, he whispers a small, small thank you.