a seven pointed star

by Anonymous

Summary:

On one night, three things happened:

After getting cancelled for being homophobic, CEO of Supreme Games Yoo Joonghyuk meets his future husband.

Between temp jobs and resorting to food delivery, Kim Dokja brings pizzas to the fanciest place he’s ever been on the rainiest night of the year and runs into an old internet friend he had forgotten about.

And Han Sooyoung, who had come over to stop her idiot boss from doing something stupid because he was alone on a shitty night, is forced to witness all of this.

Notes:

I came up with this idea by thinking about how yjh’s greatest weakness was to mental attacks and what that would look like in a modern au, and I realized it was just getting cancelled

a few notes:
twitter still exists in this universe, because I don’t know how people are gonna get cancelled without it
this has a weird combination of american, korean, and german culture because I pulled from my grabbag of Vibes when writing
kdj’s mom never wrote the book in this universe. his backstory remains unchanged, other than that

what yjh gets cancelled for

nirvana has been asking for dates for several years and prods him during a live interview. yjh reacts poorly and says that he's disgusted, but that's only about nirvana's persistence

Chapter 1

While Kim Dokja was not the type of person who cared about celebrities, he was willing to laugh at their fuck-ups. 

And now, as rain poured down around him and he huddled under a dingy, yellow narrow awning in the middle of the night, he needed all the entertainment he could get. Shouting called out behind him, the cheesy scent of pizza twisting out of the pick-up window.

Was he ordering pizza? No, he wished. Was he picking it up? Yeah, unfortunately. He was between temp jobs, and for Kim Dokja, that meant delivery apps. Not ordering from them, oh no. He was not in such a lofty societal postion as those who ordered delivery. 

No, he was the delivery man.

All he had was his bright orange company-issued delivery bike, a stupid matching orange visor and jacket, and five pizzas he was waiting to be done so he could bike through the rain for fifteen minutes to get a five dollar tip. At best. 

So yes, right now, Kim Dokja scrolled. 

And luckily for him, Twitter was currently in the process of destroying multi-millionaire, Armani-wearing, pretty boy extraordinaire and CEO of Supreme Games Yoo Joonghyuk. 

Kim Dokja snickered to himself. The video from the disastrous interview had already been quote retweeted over ten thousand times to skull emojis, hot takes, stupid jokes, funny jokes, the same funny jokes stolen by other accounts, unfunny jokes, weird k-pop references that he didn’t get. 

Some of Yoo Joonghyuk’s old pro-gaming teammates stood up for him, a few more successfully than others. Delusional Demon said that all the offended people were idiotic weaklings who got offended by everything, but Steelsword gave such a heartfelt, fumbling excuse that it was clearly written by him, followed by an immediate retraction with such impeccable grammar that a PR agent had clearly gotten a hold of his account. 

Kim Dokja giggled into his knuckles, scrolling through the responses to Steelsword’s retraction. It was a bloodbath in the replies, people defending his original statement, people defending Yoo Joonghyuk, people defending Steelsword’s retraction, and every single one of them trying to rip each others throats out. 

Thunder cracked, rain pouring in sheets outside of the awning, and Kim Dokja was having the time of his life. The humidity curled his hair to the back of his neck. 

He tapped the video, and tinny audio started playing out of his busted phone speakers. 

The interview pulled up, the set all yellow for some reason. It was Yoo Joonghyuk and a few other gamers that he had played against before going corporate. And most notably—Nirvana. 

The only out, non-binary, pansexual gamer in the industry. They had been through their fair share of hate, but in the interview, their hair was glossy and blond and their eyes were bright, and they laughed often. 

The video started mid-way through, the interviewer’s teasing question cut off, and Yoo Joonghyuk’s face already twisting up into a grimace. “Its disgusting,” he sneered, and Nirvana’s eyes went huge. 

“What do you mean by that, Joonghyuk-ssi,” the interviewer asked off-camera, the screen zoomed into Yoo Joonghyuk’s agitated, snarling expression. 

“I’m not interested in men!” he snapped, and Nirvana gasped. 

Kim Dokja just shook his head. The internet was pissed. 

“Oh, you watching the Supreme King video?” one of the pizza cooks leaned out the window, his apron greasy.

“Yeah,” Kim Dokja said. “Wild, right?”

“Look.” The cook was pulling his own phone up, typing something in. “My cousin made a remix.”

“What?” Kim Dokja leaned in, and the cook started a video. Shitty techno music started playing, the video filtered through different flashing colors, the music speeding up. “Disgusting,” Yoo Joonghyuk said, and the music went silent, and then he shouted, “I’m not interested in men!” and the beat dropped. 

Kim Dokja burst out into laughter, and the music kept playing to a loop of Yoo Joonghyuk shouting that he wasn’t into men. He sagged against the wall, wheezing with laughter. “What a shitshow!”

“Supreme Games is fucked,” the cook agreed, and patted some boxes. Kim Dokja looked and—

He groaned. Five massive pizza boxes. 

“Who’s even getting this much pizza at 11PM on a Tuesday night?” he despaired. 

“You’d be surprised,” the cook said, leaning on the counter behind the window and looking back down at his phone. “You want the link to the video?”

“Nah,” Kim Dokja said, hefting the pizzas over and fitting them into the delivery compartment on the bike. “I’m good.”

He zipped up the waterproof compartment and stared out at the rain. 

The company said the jacket was waterproof. He knew from experience that it was not. He sighed. 

“Be safe out there,” the cook called out to him, and Kim Dokja resigned himself to his fate, swinging a leg over the bike and pushing off into the rain. He gave a single wave, and proceeded to immediately get soaked. 

The life of a temp worker. He forced himself through, biking as fast as he could. The streets were emptied by the rain, almost no cars out and even less pedestrians. The only other bikers were poor fools like him, brightly clad in orange or whatever maniacal color delivery app developers thought would create a recognizable and trustworthy brand. 

Yeah, Kim Dokja knew the lingo. When he wasn’t between jobs, he worked as QA—preferrably for game studios, but he had done his time in app purgatory too. 

A stoplight turned red up ahead and he slowed to a stop under a tree. Traffic rolled past, and the tree shielded him enough from the rain that he could pull out his phone again. 

A quick scroll revealed that Yoo Joonghyuk had officially been labeled homophobic, and people were starting to call for boycotts against the games developed under Supreme Games. Kim Dokja whistled. Someone was having a worse night than he was. 

People were even starting to go after anyone who had worked with Supreme Games in the past—including Minosoft. 

But, shit, the light was green. Tucking his phone away, he pushed off again, ducking his head to try to keep the rain out of his eyes. 

Minosoft was Kim Dokja’s last job; he had been a temp in their QA department for over a year. The bosses were shitty and the pay was paltry and the hours were long. If it hadn’t meant gig work, he would have happily waved it goodbye. But because it did, he left with mixed feelings. 

The only good thing that came out of it was Yoo Sangah. They were in the same batch of temps and had been teamed up on the first day during new employee orientation. Afterwards, they had maintained a respectable nodding at each other in the halls as they passed by. And honestly? Kim Dokja had thought that was it. She had gotten a permanent contract and he hadn’t, and he resigned himself to forgetting about her. 

But after his last day, she had texted him. Their talks started out awkward and disjointed, and Kim Dokja had accidentally ghosted her a few times when he forgot to respond, but for some reason, she never gave up. 

And now, they regularly talked about books and she kidnapped him every Thursday evening to watch their favorite ridiculous k-drama together on her couch. They both kept very beige apartments, but somehow hers looked stylish and his only looked sad. 

He pulled to a stop in front of a stylish highrise and checked his phone to make sure it was the right place. Even in the rain, it looked expensive, all glass and steel, like somewhere Kim Dokja shouldn’t even breath in case he somehow broke the oxygen by being too poor. 

But—

He grimaced. This was the place. He squinted up at it. Shouldn’t people this rich have private cooks or something?

Shaking his head, he locked up his bike. It was only spot of neon, garish color in the minimalist wet dream he stood in. 

He stomped up to the doors, pizzas in hand, his shoes squelching with each step. The doors were over three meters tall, smoky glass, and had a doorman. 

“Pizza.” Kim Dokja hefted the boxes in his direction. He hoped whatever new age aristocracy who had ordered this pizza liked it because he was sure they had never actually been to the location. 

The doorman sniffed disdainfully. “Who is it for?”

“Who is it—“ Kim Dokja demanded, still getting rained on. Shifting the pizzas into one hand and cursing under his breath, he pulled out his phone, blinking at his screen through the rivulets of water. “Ah, Han Sooyoung? 51st floor?”

The doorman opened the door, his face stoic. “Third elevator to the left.”

“Uh huh.” Kim Dokja brushed past him. Asshole. 

A tall foyer stood in front of him, ugly and weird in the way only truly expensive things could be. It was all concrete, with a weird glittery floor that Kim Dokja was leaving puddles of water on. He walked past a strange, massive piece of something that was reflective—art that was probably worth more than his life. 

He found the third elevator to the left and there was no 51st floor. The stupid thing had a touchscreen instead of buttons and he scanned over it again, but it only went up to the 50th floor. 

Oh shit. 

It was the penthouse. Feeling a little cheeky, he tapped Penthouse.

A box popped up, asking for the code. Code. He checked the order notes. No code. 

His head tilted. Were they fucking kidding?

He called the customer. 

No answer. Sighing, he sent a text, asking for the code. 

No answer. 

He dripped water in the stupid, expensive elevator with its stupid touchscreen and stupid penthouse code. 

He went back to Twitter, and Minosoft was trending too. His eyebrows rose. People were mad. 

you hear about the supreme game thing? he sent Yoo Sangah. She had been saying that Minosoft was thinking of moving her over to PR from HR. 

A typing bubble popped up. 

I can’t believe he said that! she said, using perfect grammar like the perfect person she was. 

Kim Dokja rocked back in his squelching sneakers. She cared a lot more about that stuff than he did. They were both bi, but she was the bi as in signed petitions and actually dated women, and he was the bi as in furtive masturbation and shameful crushes. 

it would be so funny fi he was gay though, Kim Dokja texted her back. 

Dokja-ssi! she said and he laughed out loud. 

no no think about it His thumb flew over the keyboard as he balanced the pizzas with one hand. everyone is calling him homophobic right now. it would be the biggest uno reverse card ever

1863, an unknown number sent him.

He blinked, but—

It was just the code. “Fucking finally,” he muttered, and had to restart the process, tapping go, tapping penthouse, and finally typing in the passcode. 

I don’t know, Yoo Sangah said. Minosoft is thinking of dropping the Supreme Games collab if this keeps up. It’s not the first time Yoo Joonghyuk has done something like this 

The elevator started, humming softly. It was true though. For all his skill and good looks, Yoo Joonghyuk had a short temper and a tendency to ruin interviews. Supreme Games put out hits, but they had been cursed with a famous founder—when people liked Yoo Joonghyuk, the stocks went up. When people didn’t like Yoo Joonghyuk, the stocks went down. 

And Yoo Joonghyuk, unfortunately, was still willing to publicly open his mouth. 

It would be so fucking funny if he was gay though, Kim Dokja repeated, giggling to himself, just imagining it. 

All the pissed off people, and then, oh no, it slips out that the Supreme King has a Supreme Boyfriend. The homophobes would be pissed and all the angry people would have to fall over every thing they said. 

The elevator dinged and he looked up, caught by surprise. The touchscreen panel lit up, announcing Penthouse. 

Ah. He was here. 

The doors slid open to a place that looked like a movie set, all dark woods and unfinished metal and leather accents. 

Not bad. He creeped out of the elevator, feeling hilariously out of place, dripping over the hardwood floors. 

“Be right there,” a woman’s voice called out from another room, and then she murmured something lowly that he couldn’t catch. 

He looked around, admiring the weird chandelier that seemed to mostly be old fashioned yellow lightbulbs jutting out at different angles. 

“Oh, you’re fucking soaked,” the woman said and he turned around. 

A short lady around his age stood in front of a cracked open door, wearing nothing but sweatpants and a hoodie. Her feet were bare. Heated floors, maybe?

Jealousy twisted in him. “Yeah,” he said shortly. “It’s raining.”

She rolled her eyes, stepping forward to take the damp boxes from him. “Why do you think we ordered delivery?”

At least it was a we. This was an absurd amount of pizza for the quiet stillness of the apartment. 

He shrugged. “The Supreme King thing is keeping me warm, though.” He held his phone up in a cheers. “Memes have never failed me.”

Her face went cold. Whatever. She was the one who made him bike through pouring rain. 

He leered, deciding to fuck with her. “You know what’s the funniest thing Yoo Joonghyuk could do right now?”

Her eyes narrowed. “I didn’t order this for your commentary on Twitter mobs.”

He grinned widely, leaning in. He probably wouldn’t get a tip after this, but satisfaction was its own reward. If she was pissed off at Yoo Joonghyuk or if she was homophobic, she was about to hate him no matter what. 

“Come,” he annunciated clearly, “out.”

She made a face, stepping back, and he nearly crowed in victory. 

“It would be hi-lar-ious,” he said. “Imagine it!” He spread his arm wide, deliberately splattering her with water. “Supreme King has a Supreme Boyfriend! He wasn’t homophobic! He’s just closeted. Everyone would hate it—the people who are pissed at him and the homophobes supporting him.” He laughed. 

“Ok,” she said, “that’s enough. You need to go.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he waved her off, pressing the call button on the elevator.

She glared at him over the stack of pizza boxes. “Besides, this is all gonna blow over.”

He raised an eyebrow at that. “I don’t know about that. I have a friend who works for Minosoft, and she said they might be dropping Supreme Games for this.”

Something shattered in the other room and she swore, darting in. 

His eyebrows raised. 

“Just stay there,” she was saying. “No—don’t move, I’ll get the broom.”

She swept back out of the room, glaring at him as she disappeared into another room. His lips pressed together. How awkward. 

And the elevator wasn’t here yet. He glanced over at it and—it was at the 48th floor and descending. He grimaced. Stuck here for a bit. 

“Is Minosoft really planning on dropping Supreme Games?” a man asked behind him. 

Kim Dokja turned and—

Shit. 

Oh, shit. 

Yoo Joonghyuk himself stood there. Looking like shit, or as much as Kim Dokja suspected he was capable of, his hair a mess and his sweatpants splattered with a dark stain that smelled like wine. 

“Oh,” Kim Dokja said.

Yoo Joonghyuk stared at him, nothing like the fierce, brooding promotional pictures he had seen before. His face was blank, but something desperate seemed to burn in his eyes. 

Kim Dokja understood the woman’s frostiness now. 

“Ah, I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t realize—“

“Is Minosoft going to drop Supreme Games?” Yoo Joonghyuk repeated. 

Kim Dokja’s mouth opened and closed. He didn’t want to get into this, to get between two massive industry titans as they duked it out. He shrugged. “I don’t know? My friend just said they were talking about it.”

Yoo Joonghyuk jerked away, his hand running through his hair, and there was the dishevelment explained. “Fuck.” 

His head dropped into his hands, his back rising and falling and Kim Dokja grimaced slightly. It had been funny when it was just memes, but the man in front of him looked well on his way to a panic attack. 

He scrabbled for a distraction. “I only said the gay thing because I did that to someone once.”

Yoo Joonghyuk stilled. 

Kim Dokja went on, not even really sure what he was saying. “It was high school, and I really liked reading this one fantasy book, right, so I named myself after my favorite character for all my accounts online.”

Slowly, Yoo Joonghyuk was shifting back to face him. 

“And everyone thought it was such a girly name, so they all called me gay because it was high school and we were all shitty little bastards.”

Yoo Joonghyuk was watching him now, his expression unreadable. 

“And I was sick of it, you know?” Kim Dokja said, shifting slightly. “The teachers wouldn’t do anything, but there was this assembly about, I don’t even remember what, like bullying or some dumb shit, but there was this hotline for LGBT students or whatever.”

Yoo Joonghyuk was watching him intently, and Kim Dokja felt like he was rambling and he probably was, but it was better than watching someone have a panic attack that he gave them. 

“So I called it, right? And said all this shit. Some of it was stuff they had done, but some of it wasn’t!” He laughed at himself. He remembered the phone call even now, how he had hidden himself away in the bedroom his uncle let him stay in, how he had whispered the whole time so no one heard him. He grinned cheekily at Yoo Joonghyuk, who tilted his head. “I got the little assholes suspended.”

Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyebrows rose. 

Kim Dokja leaned in. This was the best part. “I wasn’t even gay!”

Yoo Joonghyuk huffed, his lips quirking up. 

Kim Dokja smiled at him, still pleased with the outcome, even nearly a decade later. “And they knew it too, but they couldn’t say a damn thing. And when they came back, they started trying to spread rumors that I was straight instead.”

Well, they also beat him up first, but he didn’t need to mention that. 

But Yoo Joonghyuk was just shaking his head, but it was more an oh, you head shake than anything disapproving. 

And Kim Dokja, he didn’t like talking about this, had barely managed to wrangle himself into casualness instead of blistering vulnerability with Yoo Sangah, and maybe it was because he knew he would never meet Yoo Joonghyuk again, or maybe it’s because he told him a story about his childhood, but he found himself saying, “Well, I figured out I was bi, but that was only like last year, so it doesn’t count.”

Yoo Joonghyuk stilled, his eyes pinned to Kim Dokja and fuck, why did he just come out to him? He hadn’t even told his mom, and here he was, running his mouth to a guy who was actively getting cancelled on Twitter for homophobia. 

Fuck. He scratched the back of his neck, looking up at the chandelier again. 

“I’m not—“ Yoo Joonghyuk said, and when Kim Dokja looked at him, his mouth was tight. “Did you see the full interview?”

“No,” Kim Dokja admitted. “But I did see a remix.”

Yoo Joonghyuk’s face stilled into blankness. 

“The dubstep was super shitty,” Kim Dokja offered. Would that make it better?

Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes fell shut in a way that suggested it did not. 

“It’s not—“ Yoo Joonghyuk started again, and bit out a small, angry noise, suddenly agitated. “Nirvana has always been like this!”

He started walking in a tight circle, clearly pent up, and Kim Dokja watched him carefully. 

“I don’t give a shit what Nirvana is!” Yoo Joonghyuk snarled out. “I don’t! But I’ve known them for eight years and they have never given a shit that I turn them down every single time.”

Kim Dokja grimaced. He had a feeling that he was getting an unwanted front seat to some secret gaming dynamics. 

“Every time!” Yoo Joonghyuk snapped. “I’ve never told them, to piss off, always ignored them, but they never fucking gave up and that’s—“ He ran a hand through his hair again, clearly agitated, his jaw jumping. 

He turned to Kim Dokja, his eyes burning. “A man does that to a woman, and he’s a creep. But Nirvana does that to me and I have to ignore it?”

Kim Dokja shifted, his shoes squelching. He wondered if he was gonna get that tip after all. 

“That’s what’s disgusting,” Yoo Joonghyuk snarled. “Not—“ His hand waved vaguely, as if to encompass Nirvana’s general queerness and Kim Dokja made a face. 

“I don’t think people are gonna care, though,” he said. 

Yoo Joonghyuk stilled, his gaze going distant. 

“But I think they will forget,” Kim Dokja offered. “You’re good-looking and people don’t like being mad at good-looking people.”

The blank expression shifted into something dispirited. 

The elevator dinged. 

Kim Dokja shifted slightly. Yoo Joonghyuk stood like a puppet with its strings cut, his head hanging and his arms limp by his side. 

The doors slid open and Kim Dokja didn’t really want to leave him like this, but he did want to escape. 

“You’ll be fine,” he offered, holding the elevator doors open and cast about for something to say. 

Maybe it was because he had talked about high school, maybe it was because it was strangely nostalgic to hear Yoo Joonghyuk’s voice again, but a memory came back to him. 

His lips curved up at it. “I used to watch you, way way back.”

Yoo Joonghyuk didn’t move. 

“Before you were even Supreme King,” he said, and that got a reaction, Yoo Joonghyuk looking up at him. “Back when you went by…” he looked up trying to remember. “What was it? Something like bloody regressor?”

“No!” Yoo Joonghyuk cried out, and that was it!

“Yeah,” Kim Dokja laughed. “xxbloodyregressorxx or something like that.”

Yoo Joonghyuk groaned, hiding his face, but it seemed more like embarrassment than a panic attack.

Kim Dokja grinned at him. “I could tell you would make it, even then. You’ve got longevity.”

Dark eyes met his, and it felt like something real, Yoo Joonghyuk looking at him. 

The elevator tried to close and Kim Dokja had to go. 

“Besides,” he called out, stepping in. “Bloodyregressor isn’t even a bad username. Mine was hopeless dreamer!” 

He waved, about to turn around, and a hand grabbed his arm, yanking him out as the doors closed behind him and spinning him around. 

Yoo Joonghyuk grabbed both his shoulders, his staring right into his eyes. “What did you just say?”

Kim Dokja’s mouth opened and closed. “Um?”

“What did you just say?” Yoo Joonghyuk repeated, his fingers digging in. 

“My old username?” Kim Dokja tried and got shaken for his efforts. “What’s the big deal anyways!”

Yoo Joonghyuk shook his head. “What was it?”

Kim Dokja sighed, his head tipping back. Oh, his dark, shameful past. “Capital x, lowercase x, underscore hopeless underscore dreamer underscore lowercase x, capital x.”

Xx_hopeless_dreamer_xX: he had thought it was so clever. The Endless Dream was a character who was the most powerful god in the world. His underfed, edgy 14 year old brain had thought it was both cool and deep if the most powerful being in the universe was hopeless.

Yoo Joonghyuk wouldn’t stop staring at him. “I remember you.”

Kim Dokja picked his head up. “Wait, really?”

“Yes.” Yoo Joonghyuk’s brows furrowed. “You always—“

“I commented a lot, yeah,” Kim Dokja nodded, remembering, laughing slightly. “I always gave you so much shit.”

Yoo Joonghyuk was shaking his head softly as if he couldn’t believe it. “You—“

“I can’t believe you remember me!” Kim Dokja said. “That’s insane.”

As if he suddenly realized he was holding a hot pan, Yoo Joonghyuk let go of him and stepped back, looking away. “I thought you were a girl.”

“What?!” Kim Dokja demanded. 

“I didn’t have any girl viewers so you stood out.” Yoo Joonghyuk coughed into his fist. 

Kim Dokja scoffed. “You barely had any viewers at all!” This asshole had thought his username was girly, too!

Yoo Joonghyuk wouldn’t stop looking at him, shifting slightly. “That’s true. I think you were there before 100 subscribers?”

Kim Dokja’s eyebrows raised. He remembered that much? But… he thought about it, remembering the chat. “Yeah, I think so. It was pretty calm.”

He had liked that—the smaller community, that he could recognize the usernames of the other people in the chat, that the chat was slow enough the Yoo Joonghyuk, then something something bloody regressor something something, could actually talk with them. 

Kim Dokja laughed. “I remember I always shouted at you whenever you skipped cut scenes.”

“You got everyone to join you,” Yoo Joonghyuk said, his head tilted, and Kim Dokja laughed harder. 

“Yeah, we had a stupid chant or something—“

“Lore,” Yoo Joonghyuk said drily, “in all caps.”

“That’s it!” Kim Dokja leaned forward. He shook his head, still smiling widely. “God, that was fun, wasn’t it?” He had never managed to get into any other streamers. The atmosphere was so different. With bloodyregressor, it felt more like talking with a friend then just watching a gamer—he could tease him, and even though Yoo Joonghyuk didn’t have a facecam at the time, he could still hear him huff in response. But—

“What happened to that account?” he asked. At one point, Yoo Joonghyuk had disappeared without notice. 

Yoo Joonghyuk grimaced, looking away. “Do you remember my old cursor?”

“Holy shit!” Kim Dokja had forgotten that. Yoo Joonghyuk had a custom cursor that looked like a knife and would leave a trail of blood on the screen. He laughed again, embarrassment flushing hot through his cheeks. When he was 15, it had been the coolest thing he had ever seen and the main draw to Yoo Joonghyuk’s streams, at least starting out. “Yeah,” he said. “I remember it.”

Yoo Joonghyuk’s face was a split between resigned and displeased. “It gave my computer a virus.”

“No!” Kim Dokja said but Yoo Joonghyuk just nodded, still looking a little frustrated and Kim Dokja laughed. Was he still upset, even now?

“It melted my hard drive,” Yoo Joonghyuk said, folding his arms and frowning deeply, and Kim Dokja’s mouth opened. “It heated my computer up so much that it literally melted.”

Kim Dokja started laughing again, hiding his mouth behind his hand. 

“My guardian refused to buy me a new one,” Yoo Joonghyuk said. “I had to work.”

“Makes sense.” Kim Dokja nodded. 

“Made dumplings for seven months,” Yoo Joonghyuk said and Kim Dokja started laughing again. 

“Are you at least good at making them now?” he asked, grinning. 

“Better than anyone I’ve ever met,” Yoo Joonghyuk said, dead serious. 

Laughter burst out of Kim Dokja and Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes seemed warmer, creasing slightly. 

“Ok, but—“ Kim Dokja put his hand up and Yoo Joonghyuk leaned in. “That doesn’t explain why you dropped the username.”

Yoo Joonghyuk looked away. “I wanted to start playing in competitions and—“

“That’s why you picked Supreme King?” Kim Dokja cried out. “You were trying to hype yourself up?”

“No.” Yoo Joonghyuk scowled at him. “It just looks good next to a number one.”

“Mmhm,” Kim Dokja giggled and Yoo Joonghyuk scowled, looking away, but his ears were slightly pink and Kim Dokja couldn’t stop his wide smile. 

“But where did you go?” Yoo Joonghyuk asked. 

Kim Dokja stilled. Yoo Joonghyuk was looking at him with a strange, serious expression. “What do you mean?”

“You were there for every stream,” he said. “And I made an announcement after I got my new computer that I was switching accounts.”

“Ah,” Kim Dokja said. “You were actually the only streamer that I watched, and after you disappeared I got really into books and stopped going to the site.”

Yoo Joonghyuk shifted again, strangely restless, his brows furrowed. 

Truth be told, Kim Dokja actually did log on a few years later and saw the old notification. But by then, Supreme King had built up a loud, obnoxious fan base and Kim Dokja’s old affection for bloodyregressor’s streams had been too sincere and passionate. The way he had talked to people about him was so brutally humiliating that it was almost impossible to think back on. 

But standing here, with this strange nostalgia and seeing Yoo Joonghyuk in person and realizing that he remembered him, it felt like it would be kind of an asshole move to say that by the time Kim Dokja rediscovered him, he thought he was cringe. 

“Wow,” he said again, a bit at a loss of what to say. 

Yoo Joonghyuk nodded. 

“Crazy,” Kim Dokja said, “Really crazy.”

“I can’t believe you’re here,” Yoo Joonghyuk said, staring at him, “right now.”

“Well, you did order pizza,” Kim Dokja said. 

“But.” Yoo Joonghyuk shook his head, not looking away from him. “Of all the people…”

Kim Dokja bit his lip, rocking back and forth. “And you ended up with me!” He laughed, shrugging tightly, feeling uncomfortable.

Yoo Joonghyuk took half a step forward. “What’s your name?”

“What?” Kim Dokja said. 

“Your real name,” Yoo Joonghyuk said, “not—“ He looked away. 

Ah. “I’m Kim Dokja,” he supplied. 

“I’m Yoo Joonghyuk,” Yoo Joonghyuk said, seemingly automatically.

“I know,” Kim Dokja said and Yoo Joonghyuk grimaced. 

And he was out of things to say again, and Yoo Joonghyuk was looking around, to Kim Dokja, to the floor, to Kim Dokja again, weirdly restless. 

“Hey.” The woman reappeared from the first door she came out of. Kim Dokja frowned at her. Was this place a circle?

She was staring at him. “Pizza guy.” He made a face. “Come help me set it up.”

“What?” he said, but her expression was weirdly intense, like she would kill him if he said no. 

Ugh. Rich people were so troublesome. “Okay,” he said. 

Yoo Joonghyuk was looking between them both, but his name wasn’t on the order and it looked like, despite their unexpected reconnection, no tip was forthcoming, at least from that direction. 

“Joonghyuk,” the woman said. “Your pants make you look like an alcoholic.”

“Shit,” Yoo Joonghyuk said, taking a step back, looking between Kim Dokja and the woman even more rapidly. 

She waved him off. “Go change.”

With one last look at Kim Dokja, Yoo Joonghyuk disappeared into another door. The moment the door shut, the woman snarled at Kim Dokja, “You.”

“Me?” Kim Dokja took a step back but she grabbed him by his awful, wet jacket and pulled him into the first room. 

It was a nice place, nicer than Kim Dokja had ever seen, but she slammed the door behind him and that was way too fucking ominous for him to enjoy the interior design. 

A couch was set in to a sunken area, a TV bigger than Kim Dokja’s bed stretching across the wall in front of it, and the woman was digging into a bag on the couch. “You gotta stay,” she said. 

“What?” he demanded. Did they want his organs or something? Look at this place! They could afford organs on their own. 

She popped back up, a wallet in hand, and started leafing through it, speaking in a rush. “Look, he takes shit like this Nirvana thing really bad, and one of us always stay with him whenever it happens, but he wasn’t even talking before you got here. You gotta stay.”

He was shaking his head, and she starting pulling out hundreds. And yeah, he needed the money, but she was over estimating how much Yoo Joonghyuk liked him. “I—that’s ridiculous. He doesn’t want me here! What would I even say?”

“400? Is that enough?” she asked him, looking at the door like it was about to open but he pushed the cash away, his heart aching at it, but he couldn’t mislead this woman. 

“I used to follow his streams when I was 15!” he said. “He doesn’t care.”

She folded his hands around it. “You don’t know him. I do. Try.”

Kim Dokja’s mouth opened and shut, but that was $400 in his hand, and that meant he could get his teeth checked out like he had been meaning to for years, that he could actually spend time job hunting instead of doing gig shit like this. “If it doesn’t work,” he bit out, “I get to keep this.”

“No shit, dumbass,” she said back and a door in the foyer opened. They jumped apart, and he fumbled out his wallet, trying to stuff the cash in before Yoo Joonghyuk got back. 

The door to the room opened and Kim Dokja looked up at him, feeling like a kid caught with his hand in his uncle’s weed jar. Yoo Joonghyuk stood there in new sweatpants, tight fitting unlike the baggy, wine stained ones. “She was just giving me my tip,” he said. 

“Tip,” Yoo Joonghyuk said, looking at him as if seeing him again for the first time and shit, Kim Dokja was right. They may have had a weird camaraderie as cringy teenagers, but they were adults now and Yoo Joonghyuk was the successful, famous CEO and Kim Dokja was the pizza guy. 

Still. The woman was glaring at him. 

He took off his dumb little visor, running his hand through his hair and shoving his wallet back into his pants. “Um.” He searched for something, anything he could say. He hadn’t been good enough at socializing to make friends his age when he was younger, and now that he was older, he wasn’t confident to know how to get himself into men’s apartments and then keep himself there. 

But Kim Dokja and Yoo Joonghyuk, they had—there was something there, at least when they were younger, and it had happened without Kim Dokja knowing what to do. 

He smiled, lopsided, and Yoo Joonghyuk was staring at him. “Did you ever finish playing Starstream?”

Something shifted in Yoo Joonghyuk posture, the odd furtive energy dissipating and something else that Kim Dokja couldn’t read taking its place. 

Starstream was the game Yoo Joonghyuk had been playing when he disappeared—unpopular that year and forgotten quickly, but Kim Dokja had loved the lore and the worldbuilding. 

“No,” Yoo Joonghyuk said, not looking away, not moving from the doorframe. “It wasn’t competitive.”

Kim Dokja shrugged, feeling ridiculous and insane and so presumptuous that he could barely speak, his cheeks burning. “Would you—would you want to, maybe, play it again? For old times sake?”

“Tonight?” Yoo Joonghyuk straightened. 

“No bloody cursor,” Kim Dokja said, and there was something soft about the curve Yoo Joonghyuk’s lips. 

Yoo Joonghyuk exhaled, looking away, and blood was rushing through Kim Dokja, and this felt insane, so insane, and Yoo Joonghyuk was gonna kick him out, he just knew it, was gonna go on and talk about the weird, creepy pizza guy and—

“You’re wet,” Yoo Joonghyuk said. 

Kim Dokja’s lips parted. 

Yoo Joonghyuk looked away. “I’ll show you the bathroom,” he said. “You can change.”

Kim Dokja’s eyes widened. 

Was this actually—

Yoo Joonghyuk looked back at him, and there was an arrogance on his face that looked a lot more like all the glossy photos and ads Kim Dokja had seen of him. “I’m not letting you sit on my couch like that.”

Laughter pealed out of Kim Dokja, and he didn’t know if it was relief or something else, but when he finally looked back at Yoo Joonghyuk, Yoo Joonghyuk was looking back at him with gleaming eyes. 

“Yeah yeah,” he said, shooing him. “Go on. Get the clothes.”

Yoo Joonghyuk huffed. “You’re not staying there.” And he turned around with such an expectant air that Kim Dokja stepped after him without even thinking. It was only when he got to the door that he realized he was following him. 

Glancing back, he looked at the woman and—

Her expression made him want to hide. She was watching him, and more than that, she was looking at him like she could see through every part of him, like she understood something that was happening here that he wasn’t even aware of. 

Fuck. He turned back around and jogged after Yoo Joonghyuk. 

They shared a look and Kim Dokja felt even more weird at that, all churning and seen, so he laid a cold hand on Yoo Joonghyuk’s shoulder, and tried to be obnoxious. “I want only the best, you got it?”

“You’ll get what I give you,” Yoo Joonghyuk said, a brought him into a dim hallway. Low lights gleamed from the floor boards, and everything felt dark and intimate. “Bathroom.” Yoo Joonghyuk nodded to a door. “Stay here.”

Kim Dokja folded his arms. “First I have to follow you, then it’s go to the bathroom and then it’s not? Come on.”

Yoo Joonghyuk didn’t even saying anything, just giving him an odd, slanted look, and disappearing into another room. 

The space was as nice as the rest of the place, which was to say ridiculously opulent in a stylish, understated, masculine way that only a professional interior designer could have pulled off. The walls were dark, and even the ceiling was fancy, textured with something that Kim Dokja couldn’t fully make out in the dim space. 

He pulled off his jacket, which made it drip more, and he was starting to care enough about these people’s opinions that it was getting embarrassing. He didn’t have much on under it, just cheap jeans and an even cheaper white t-shirt that came in a three pack that he hadn’t expected anyone to see. 

The door opened, warm light flooding out and he turned to look at Yoo Joonghyuk. 

Yoo Joonghyuk looked back, oh shit taking over enough of his expression that Kim Dokja worried he had broken something. 

Yoo Joonghyuk disappeared back in and shut the door again. 

Fuck. He looked down at the floor. Was it not waterproof? With the amount of money around him, it would be a ripoff if it wasn’t, but given Yoo Joonghyuk was willing to spend time with him, clearly his judgement wasn’t all the way there. 

He grimaced. He hoped that whenever Yoo Joonghyuk came back to his senses, he wouldn’t try to bill Kim Dokja for whatever damage he had done to his flooring. 

The door opened again, Yoo Joonghyuk’s expression strangely grim and he handed a bundle of clothing over to Kim Dokja like they were a live grenade. “Change.”

“Uh.” Kim Dokja took it tentatively, his eyebrows high. 

Yoo Joonghyuk looked like a soldier gone off to war, although Kim Dokja had heard that he hadn’t even served. “Bathroom,” he said curtly and disappeared out of the hallway. 

What the fuck was that? Kim Dokja looked around, but no answers appeared. 

Well, whatever. As long as he could keep his $400 and not get billed for water damage, he didn’t care. 

He slipped into the, at this point expected and starting to get a bit irritating for it, really fucking nice bathroom, and started stripping out of his clothes, tossing them into the sink. The cold shivered through him, but the rug was plush beneath his feet, and the towel he stole was fluffy. He scrubbed himself down, going through his hair, and looked at the clothes. All comfortable stuff, which made him smile, and an undershirt and a pair of black underwear. 

His eyebrows raised. Were they new? He picked them up and the material seemed nice enough and they were clearly clean, so—

Whatever. He didn’t give a shit. He wiggled his way into them. 

Everything else was just as clean, smelling faintly of detergent. When he grabbed the last piece, a big hoodie that probably fit Yoo Joonghyuk perfectly but was definitely gonna be oversized on Kim Dokja, he couldn’t help but to laugh. 

It was Supreme King merch. He didn’t know much about Yoo Joonghyuk’s career, but he was willing to bet this was a release from early on. The hoodie was white and covered in blood splatters—just like the cursor. 

Tugging it on, he grinned at himself, and pulled the hood up. Altogether, he could see that the sweatpants matched the hoodie, white with a red stripe the exact shade of the splatters. 

He laughed. He looked like such an asshole. Leaving all his soaked clothes behind, he wandered back out, hearing the woman and Yoo Joonghyuk speaking lowly. It turned out the floors were heated, and were nice and toasty against his bare feet. 

“—need the 360,” Yoo Joonghyuk was saying.

“I think its in the back,” the woman said back, and something rattled.

More noises clattered around, and the woman spoke again. “Want a beer?”

Kim Dokja stopped short, his chest clenching. He squeezed his eyes shut, his fingers curling up over the too-long sleeves. He should have said—it didn’t matter.

“No,” Yoo Joonghyuk said and Kim Dokja could breathe again. “You know I don’t drink when I game.”

“You never know,” the woman trailed off in a sing-song voice.

Kim Dokja shook his head at himself, feeling stupid. He didn’t need to care about whether or not Yoo Joonghyuk drank. Hell, even Yoo Sangah sipped at wine sometimes when they watched their k-drama together, and that didn’t bother him at all.

Fuck. What was he doing here? He let out a long breath. He was standing in the most expensive place he had ever seen, wearing a celebrity’s clothing, and about to curl up on the couch with the man. What the fuck was he doing?

“I think the TV is too new,” Yoo Joonghyuk said. “It doesn’t have a place to plug in the cords.”

“You gotta unplug the AppleTV,” the woman said back, and what was she—Yoo Joonghyuk’s girlfriend? Kim Dokja didn’t know much about Yoo Joonghyuk, but it was possible. She knew how his TV was set up, was the person to comfort him on a stressful night—

“Stupid overpriced piece of shit,” Yoo Joonghyuk muttered and Kim Dokja had to smother his giggle into his hand.

“Oh, come on,” the woman said, “Just—“

Yoo Joonghyuk actually growled and Kim Dokja’s shoulders shook with repressed laughter.

“You’re gonna break it!” the woman said.

“No,” Yoo Joonghyuk said, “You need to pull—“

Kim Dokja was half convinced that he was about to overhear the destruction of a piece of technology that was probably worth multiple months of his rent, so he swallowed his laughter and tried to wear his most serious face.

He slipped inside the room to see Yoo Joonghyuk on his back, surrounded by cords. What he had thought was a painting hung open and exposed messy-ass shelving with a collection of gaming consoles, rows of games, and tangle of wires that spanned the two lower shelves.

The TV itself was angled off the wall and Yoo Joonghyuk was making the most murderous expression Kim Dokja had ever seen on a human face.

Laughter bubbled out of him.

Yoo Joonghyuk picked his head up, pale dust sticking to his dark hair, and Kim Dokja laughed harder. But Yoo Joonghyuk’s expression was odd, intense with something that Kim Dokja wasn’t sure was a positive emotion, so the laughter died out in his throat.

He cleared his throat. “Let me help,” he offered, and made his way into the sunken living room. Black, corduroy bean bags piled in front of the couch. It was a couch like he had never seen before, deep enough that he could sit scooted all the way back and stretch his legs fully out.

“You got a weird couch,” he offered, picking his way around the mess of cables as Yoo Joonghyuk watched him.

“Yeah,” the woman said, “its for fucking.”

“Han Sooyoung!” Yoo Joonghyuk’s head shot up, and the woman laughed where she was in the kitchen.

That’s right, her name was Han Sooyoung. He sat down next to Yoo Joonghyuk, kicking cables out of the way so he could scoot down onto his back to look at the TV with him.

“Sorry,” she said. “I forgot you don’t fuck.”

Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes shut, and he blew out a slow, exasperated breath.

“The couch of theoretical fucking,” Kim Dokja offered lowly, tilting his head towards him.

Yoo Joonghyuk huffed slightly, looking over at him. 

“Schrodinger’s fuck couch,” Kim Dokja went on. “You don’t know if you came or not until you look.”

“That’s just barebacking,” Yoo Joonghyuk muttered and Kim Dokja choked on laughter, rolling away.

And okay, Kim Dokja had never actually dated a man, let alone slept with one, but fuck, it was delightful in a way that few things were to say gay shit to fuck with straight people. He looked back at Yoo Joonghyuk, raising his eyebrows, and made sure to speak quietly. “That’s just bottoming.”

Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes flew wide and Kim Dokja couldn’t help his evil gremlin cackling. Sure, it gave the game away a bit, but his expression was too good.

Arms raised next to him, and yeah, okay, there was a reason why people like Yoo Joonghyuk, and it wasn’t just his god-tier gaming. Muscles jumped as Yoo Joonghyuk tugged at cords, and—

“Shit, stop!” Kim Dokja grabbed his hands. Han Sooyoung was right—Yoo Joonghyuk was gonna break this. “You gotta unscrew it.”

Fingers slipped free from underneath his, and he could tell Yoo Joonghyuk was looking at him, but he busied himself with unscrewing the little metal rivets on the cords. “You can’t just yank things.”

Lowly, almost as if he was saying it to himself, Yoo Joonghyuk muttered, “That’s just jacking it.”

Ugly, loud laughter bolted out of Kim Dokja, and he rolled over again, grabbing at his stomach.

“Break something without me?” Han Sooyoung asked, her voice closer.

“No,” Kim Dokja said, his face hot from laughter, rolling back flat onto his back and undoing the rest of the cords. “Just teaching Yoo Joonghyuk here that there’s more finesse than—“ He glanced over at him. “Yanking it.”

Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes went wide again and he looked away and Kim Dokja snickered to himself.

“… Uh huh,” Han Sooyoung said. “Well, I got the pizza.”

Kim Dokja picked his head up. “You got cheese?”

“Aren’t you supposed to know?” she asked. “You’re the one who picked it up.”

But Kim Dokja scoffed. “I didn’t check. I don’t care about my job that much.”

“One star,” Han Sooyoung said, the couch shifting, and Kim Dokja grabbed the HDMI for the 360.

“You better fucking not,” he said. “A one star and my pay gets halved until I get five five stars in a row.”

“There’s cheese,” Yoo Joonghyuk said and Kim Dokja looked at him.

Yoo Joonghyuk cleared his throat, looking directly up. “Its the only place in the entire city that makes edible pizza.”

“Edible!” Kim Dokja repeated.

“He usually makes it himself, the psychopath,” Han Sooyoung said.

“But you need to let the dough rise for at least one day in advance,” Yoo Joonghyuk told him, his expression so serious it was almost cute. “And use active yeast. Its not worthwhile with the dry yeast.”

“Oh?” Kim Dokja asked, delighted at this side of Yoo Joonghyuk. He plugged in the HDMI and started spinning the little screws. 

Yoo Joonghyuk nodded. “There’s a place down on fourteenth where I get mine. They sell it in cubes.”

And there was the 360 plugged in. He sat up, Yoo Joonghyuk sitting up with him, but this special yeast thing was kind of adorable. “Yeah?” he prompted him further, and Yoo Joonghyuk visibly straightened as he tilted the TV down to a normal angle. 

“Most grocery stores don’t carry it, and the native bacteria here make it a sourdough if you try to grow it in your kitchen,” Yoo Joonghyuk said, just sitting there, his hands in his lap.

“Wait, in your kitchen?” Kim Dokja asked.

“Yes, of course,” Yoo Joonghyuk said.

“Of course,” Han Sooyoung said, and Yoo Joonghyuk looked away, his face closing off slightly. He stood up, brushing his pants off, turning around in the tangle of the cords. Yoo Joonghyuk settled himself into a beanbag, reaching back to where a controller was sitting next to Han Sooyoung on the couch, and Kim Dokja wasn’t sure where to sit. Back on the couch with her, or in the bean bag right next to Yoo Joonghyuk?

Han Sooyoung’s eyes flicked murderously to the bean bag, and by god, Kim Dokja was going to earn his $400. He plopped himself down, and grinned at Yoo Joonghyuk. 

A paper plate with a greasy slice of cheese pizza got handed to him, and he raised it to Yoo Joonghyuk. “Cheers.”

Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes softened. Kim Dokja took a bite and—“Not bad,” he admitted. It was unexpected, the tomato sauce almost a little sweet against the rich savory smoke of the cheese, and yeah, the crust was springy and crisp all at once.

Yoo Joonghyuk was loading the game, his face stoic like Kim Dokja remembered seeing the few times he actually dropped in on a Supreme King stream. Muscle memory, maybe? “Do they use the special yeast?” Kim Dokja asked.

Dark eyes flicked over to him. “It’s not special. But.” A menu pulled up on the screen. “Yes.”

A song started playing, the soundtrack to one of the few oasises in the hardest time of Kim Dokja’s life. It ached for some reason, sweet and painful.

“Huh,” he said, almost breathless with the intensity of it. “How nostalgic.”

Yoo Joonghyuk looked over at him, and the windows past him were dark, night a wall against the penthouse, but the light on his hair was warm, and blue light from the TV painted over his cheek, his nose, gleamed in his eyes, and Kim Dokja was sure he looked the exact same, and it felt like being fifteen again, eating pizza and watching bloodyregressor play one of his favorite games and skip all the cut scenes with all his favorite characters.

His mouth twitched up and Yoo Joonghyuk took a breath.

“Greetings and salutations, miscreants and fools,” Kim Dokja said, affecting a serious, stoic tone.

Yoo Joonghyuk groaned, running a hand over his face and Kim Dokja laughed again. 

“Why would you say that?” Yoo Joonghyuk asked, his face perturbed.

“Hey.” Kim Dokja nudged his leg with his foot. “I’ve got good memories of it.”

Yoo Joonghyuk looked back at him, and—it felt wrong, the look on his face, the horrible intimacy of it, the raw, wide open feeling, and it scared Kim Dokja like nothing even had.

“Come on.” Kim Dokja said, staring at the TV, incapable of even looking at Yoo Joonghyuk. He lazed back and tried his best Roman emperor impression, sweeping out with a lofty hand. “Entertain me.”

Yoo Joonghyuk shook his head but started the game anyways. 

The menu disappeared into mist and Kim Dokja’s lips picked up. Creaking noise filled the room and the camera moved down to reveal that the player character was on a boat. 

“Man, this boat,” Kim Dokja said, shaking his head, already taken back to huddling on his bed and watching on his aunt’s borrowed laptop.

“The creaking irritated me,” Yoo Joonghyuk said, and the boat pulled into a dock.

Kim Dokja’s eyebrows went up. “Really?” The boat was the main method of transportation and a menu to build skills. It was a core part of the game. 

The character hopped out of the boat and Yoo Joonghyuk’s face stayed fascinatingly stoic. “They loop the audio file every thirty seconds. It’s cheap.”

Huh. Kim Dokja looked back at the screen. The character was running around the docks and—

“Hey, wait!” he cried out. “Check the empty crab trap.” There was a note there, if he remembered correctly.

“You don’t need it to finish the game,” Yoo Joonghyuk said and Kim Dokja kicked him. Yoo Joonghyuk jerked his legs away and Han Sooyoung laughed. 

“You didn’t even finish the game!” Kim Dokja reminded him. 

“It’s a single note,” Yoo Joonghyuk said, running towards the village up ahead. Seagulls flew up as Yoo Joonghyuk ran next to them. “It won’t affect the ending.”

“I want to read it!” Kim Dokja jabbed his hip with his foot, and Yoo Joonghyuk twisted away. “I think it’s one of the love notes!”

The game was all about a man who’s wife had been stolen by gods and he had to get her back. The wife had left little love notes hidden all over the starting village, and the notes gave all types of cute clues and indications to their relationship. 

“Then I really don’t need it,” Yoo Joonghyuk said, running past an NPC that Kim Dokja knew had funny dialog options. 

He groaned miserably, sinking lower in the bean bag. “Do you even like this game?”

“What?” Yoo Joonghyuk frowned over at him and Kim Dokja leaned forward. 

“The relationship is the whole core of the game!” he said. 

“It’s about becoming a god to defeat the gods,” Yoo Joonghyuk said back and Kim Dokja wanted to hit him. 

“It’s a love story!” he said. “It’s about all the ways the wife tried to prepare him and help him! She knew it was coming and did everything she could to help him! She knew her own death was imminent!”

“Huh,” Han Sooyoung said and Yoo Joonghyuk scowled at her. 

Refocusing on Kim Dokja, he said, “This is how I play.”

“It wasn’t!” Kim Dokja said. Sure, bloodyregressor skipped cut scenes, but he still explored and talked to NPCs. “Do you even like this game?”

Yoo Joonghyuk looked at him with a strange expression. “Yes.”

“Then why don’t you act like it?” Kim Dokja cried out. “A game is a story, not just—“ He gestured helplessly, not knowing enough about gaming to have the right words. 

“The percent that you complete it at?” Han Sooyoung offered behind him, her voice smug.

“Yes!” Kim Dokja hit his hand emphatically. “Thank you.”

“I like the pizza man,” Han Sooyoung announced and Yoo Joonghyuk glared at her. 

Kim Dokja took a pointed bite of his pizza, widening his eyes at Yoo Joonghyuk. “I’m right.”

Looking directly into his eyes, Yoo Joonghyuk made the character run away from the docks. 

“Ooh!” Han Sooyoung said and Kim Dokja gasped. This bastard! He tried to kick him again, but Yoo Joonghyuk twisted out of the way. 

“Read the love notes!” Kim Dokja demanded, sliding out of the bean bag, kicking at him again, but a strong hand grabbed his ankle. He tried to twist his leg free, but Yoo Joonghyuk clearly worked out more than him, and was leaning out of the way as Kim Dokja kicked at him with his free foot, using his spare hand to run relentlessly towards the village. 

“Brutality!” Kim Dokja cried out. “I’m being brutalized!”

“You’re kicking me.” Yoo Joonghyuk swatted his flailing foot away, leaning back onto his pinned leg. 

“Ah!” Kim Dokja wailed. “Censored! Controlled! My human rights!”

Yoo Joonghyuk had managed to turn sideways in his bean bag, pushing his shoulders against Kim Dokja’s thighs, looping his arm around free leg, not pausing in running away from the docks for a second. 

“Imprisoned!” Kim Dokja threw his head back, wriggling pathetically, but Yoo Joonghyuk had one leg in a weird judo-hold and was laying fully on the other, and Kim Dokja didn’t actually want to kick him free. “My free speech,” he mourned. 

“Your free speech?” Yoo Joonghyuk turned to look at him, his face disbelieving. 

“Let me speak truth to power!” Kim Dokja thrashed, mostly performatively.

“No one’s stopping you from talking!” Yoo Joonghyuk said. 

And Kim Dokja was out of dumb shit to say. Laughter bubbled out of him, and he slumped back into the bean bag, his head falling back. He grinned down at Yoo Joonghyuk, who’s eyebrows were pulled together. 

“You are—“ Yoo Joonghyuk said slowly. “Somehow nothing like I imagined and exactly like it.”

“Ohh.” For some reason, Kim Dokja’s cheeks heated up. “You’ve imagined me, huh?”

Yoo Joonghyuk scowled at the TV. “You always pulled shit like this in my streams too.”

He had, hadn’t he? Unable to stop grinning, he asked, “Gonna go read that note or what, then?”

The character stopped running in the game, Yoo Joonghyuk’s face blank. And then he sighed and turned back around.

“Yes!” Kim Dokja cheered, and Yoo Joonghyuk was still laying on him, still had one leg in his grip, but it felt less like a weird martial arts pin now, and his head was right there, and Kim Dokja wanted to ruffle through his dark hair. 

And that was—

Well, Yoo Joonghyuk was clearly straight, adamantly so, so there was no point in overthinking it. 

“This is going to take forever, isn’t it?” Yoo Joonghyuk’s voice was resigned. 

“What, did you think you could get through the entire game tonight?” Kim Dokja asked. 

Yoo Joonghyuk lips narrowed. 

“You did?” Kim Dokja demanded. “Where’s the fun in that?”

“There’s satisfaction in efficiency,” Yoo Joonghyuk said, the docks reappearing on the screen. 

“Satisfaction and fun are not the same thing,” Kim Dokja chided him. 

Yoo Joonghyuk said nothing back, but he was running down to the starting dock, so he let him be. He glanced up and—

Fuck. 

Han Sooyoung was staring at them both with wide, blank eyes. Her shocked gaze dragged up to him and that was—

He squirmed uncomfortably. The arm tightened threateningly around his leg. 

“No,” Yoo Joonghyuk ordered, still staring at the screen. 

Kim Dokja and Han Sooyoung looked at each other. Her gaze said one thing and it said it very clearly: What The Fuck. 

Kim Dokja smiled tightly at her. Whatever was going on wasn’t his fault. Deliberately, he looked away and took another bite of pizza. 

No need to acknowledge anything! Honestly, not even anything to acknowledge. He swallowed, and Yoo Joonghyuk pulled up the note. 

It filled the screen. It was simple, just three lines, mysterious and sweet. 

“Satisfied?” Yoo Joonghyuk demanded. 

“Yes.” Kim Dokja preened. And as good behavior must be rewarded—“Thank you.”

Yoo Joonghyuk grunted back, but that was familiar enough, Kim Dokja badgering him and Yoo Joonghyuk giving in and only giving a monosyllabic response, that it made Kim Dokja grin. 

“Good boy,” Kim Dokja said, remembering that was what he always said. It had started out a little condescending, or a lot, if he was being honest, but ended up becoming something a little more sincere. 

Yoo Joonghyuk sunk slightly down, making a little hrm sound that shouldn’t have been charming. The character on the screen idled, swaying slightly, and then Yoo Joonghyuk was shoving up and pushing Kim Dokja’s legs away. “Get your legs off me.”

“You got on my legs!” Kim Dokja defended himself and his poor legs. 

Yoo Joonghyuk made a low, irritated noise that would make more sense coming from a dog, firmly resituating himself on his bean bag. The stoic look descended onto his face again, but now with a strange, tight intensity around his mouth.  

Whatever. It was a joke, anyways. He didn’t have to take it so seriously. Kim Dokja scooted back onto his bean bag. 

Mouth unhappy, Kim Dokja looked back up at the screen, where Yoo Joonghyuk was finally running around again. 

“Anything else?” Yoo Joonghyuk asked and—

Kim Dokja looked at him. Wasn’t he mad at him? “To look at in this area?”

Yoo Joonghyuk looked at him like he was an idiot. “Yes.”

And. Kim Dokja shifted slightly. Maybe he wasn’t mad? “That NPC with the weird hat was funny. Remember that?”

Yoo Joonghyuk grunted again, but Kim Dokja was starting to figure him out. He didn’t seem good at admitting he was wrong out loud, but he was willing to change his mind. How cute. A little smile played over Kim Dokja’s lips. 

Yoo Joonghyuk’s face remained serious, and he looked more like an old fashioned hero than a celebrity, stern and handsome, with his dark hair falling over his forehead. 

Little chirps started playing, and Kim Dokja looked at the screen. That’s right—“I forgot they didn’t have voice acting.”

“Yep,” Yoo Joonghyuk said. “Cheap.”

“I think it’s more of a creative choice.” Kim Dokja folded his arms. Dialogue options came up on the screen. 

“Which one?” Yoo Joonghyuk asked. 

“Oh!” Kim Dokja leaned forward. “Pick the one about the tree people!”

The option lit up blue and chirping rattled off, the NPC swaying as the player character talked. And then they responded and—

Kim Dokja grimaced and behind him, Han Sooyoung said, “Oof.”

It was… well, the response was kind of racist. Kim Dokja’s ears burned. “I didn’t remember it being like that.”

“The game is over 10 years old,” Yoo Joonghyuk said. 

“Yeah…” Kim Dokja sunk down into the bean bag. “You can move on.”

Yoo Joonghyuk finally made his way into the village, but not before being attacked by giant rats on the road. He barely even twitched the entire time and the rats were dead before the fight music even really got the chance to begin. 

Kim Dokja just shook his head. And there was why all the Supreme King fans were so obnoxious—he really was that good. No skills or power ups at all, and already flying through fights. 

Yoo Joonghyuk glanced over at him. “What?”

“Oh,” Kim Dokja said. “It’s just irritating, how good you are.”

A soft huff left Yoo Joonghyuk, corner of his lips twitching. The character ran onwards, and when they reached the village, it was overrun with rats, buildings burning. Yoo Joonghyuk swiftly dispatched all the rats, and by the time he made it back to the main character’s hut, a storm was descending, clouds swirling down. A cut scene started playing, and before Yoo Joonghyuk could even do anything, Kim Dokja said, “Don’t you dare.”

Dark eyes slanted over at him, and a thumb hovered directly over the button that would skip it.

Kim Dokja leaned forward, the dialog lines chirping as dramatic music swelled and storm sound effects played. “No.”

“You aren’t even looking at it,” Yoo Joonghyuk challenged, dark brows furrowing.

“Because you’re about to skip it and I need to keep you in line!” Kim Dokja said.

“Keep me in line?” Yoo Joonghyuk repeated, leaning in, his eyes lidded and haughty. “You think you can—“

“Wow, Joonghyuk, I just realized I’ve never seen you play this game,” Han Sooyoung said and both Kim Dokja and Yoo Joonghyuk froze. They both slid back to their respective bean bags. Why was it so easy to fight with him? Kim Dokja’s ears heated up and he looked at the screen, his lips pursed.

On the screen, the player character’s wife was held in the arms of one of the gods, dialogue chirping frantically as the god challenged the player character. The wife swayed silently, her mouth sometimes opening in a way that looked moderately distressed before shutting agin.

Hm. Kim Dokja frowned. He remembered this scene being more dramatic than it was.

“I didn’t think it was necessary for the dev process,” Yoo Joonghyuk muttered.

The dev—wait, what? Kim Dokja looked at him and then back at her. “Wait, are you one of his employees?” Was Yoo Joonghyuk’s only friends the people he paid? How sad.

“I’m not an employee!” Han Sooyoung said. “I’m Supreme Games Director of Story!”

“Isn’t that still his employee?” Kim Dokja asked.

“Of course not!” she huffed.

“But he’s the CEO,” Kim Dokja said. “So isn’t he your boss? Can’t he fire you?”

“Trust me, I’ve tried,” Yoo Joonghyuk muttered, dialogue still chirping from the TV. “You aren’t even watching.”

“Oh.” Kim Dokja turned to face the TV. The music was intensifying, drums starting to pound. The cut scene ended, and a health bar appeared over the god.

“There wouldn’t be a Supreme Games without me,” Han Sooyoung bragged. “I’m the one who takes all of this dumbass’s ideas and turns them into actual stories.”

“You mean you turn them into melodramas,” Yoo Joonghyuk said, attacking the god. It was a futile fight, and the god managed to beat off the character with the wife hanging in one arm.

“Huh,” Han Sooyoung said, and Yoo Joonghyuk’s lips tightened, his movements fiercer. “I didn’t realize—“

Yoo Joonghyuk elbowed her leg and she yelped, yanking it up.

Kim Dokja looked between them. 

“Hey, Pizza Man,” she said to Kim Dokja with an evil little grin like she was about to do something irritating. Kim Dokja squinted at her. “Have you ever played Ways of Survival?”

That was it? What was so obnoxious about him picking up their breakout hit? “Eh, no, I don’t really game,” he said.

Yoo Joonghyuk’s shoulders slumped down, and the fight ended on screen. Was it stressful for him to play a fight that he could never win?

“So you don’t know anything about it then?” She lounged on the couch, putting her chin in her hand. Her feet kicked. 

Yoo Joonghyuk’s mouth screwed up. “He just said he didn’t.”

“I mean, I know about the ending.” Everyone did—it was a tragedy that had broken the hearts of gamers worldwide. “The blonde chick died.”

“She did.” Han Sooyoung nodded strangely emphatically. 

“Go get the other pizza,” Yoo Joonghyuk ordered, the screen fading to black as the character passed out.

“Oh, you want some of the sausage?” she asked him and he threw the controller at her. Rolling out of the way, she said, “I’m going!”

She hopped over the back of the couch before Yoo Joonghyuk did anything else to her and padded off to the kitchen.

Kim Dokja leaned in and asked quietly, “What was that?”

Yoo Joonghyuk glanced at him. “Nothing, she’s just irritating.”

“I heard that!” she shouted from the kitchen.

“I don’t care,” Yoo Joonghyuk said back, retrieving the controller and settling back down into the bean bag, his expression disgruntled. 

A fridge opened and closed, and a microwave started humming but—even though Yoo Joonghyuk looked exhausted, slumping down into his bean bag, the way the two of them interacted, it was—

Kim Dokja didn’t know. His lips tilted up. It was just nice. It felt cozy. 

Yoo Joonghyuk looked at him. “What?”

Kim Dokja just shrugged with a smile. It felt weird to say that it was nice to see two friends interact, even if he felt odd and a little empty next to them. There was clearly something else going on here, but he didn’t want to intrude, and honestly didn’t think it would be welcome. 

“I’m just happy to have free food,” he said to Yoo Joonghyuk.

Dark eyes flicked up and down him, clearly unimpressed. What, did Yoo Joonghyuk not like poor people? Kim Dokja scowled at him. 

“You need to eat more,” Yoo Joonghyuk pronounced. 

Kim Dokja made a face. Yeah, he normally skipped breakfast, but ever since Yoo Sangah started insisting that he take their Thursday night leftovers home, he stopped seeing stars when he stood up too fast. “I’m perfectly fine,” he said. 

“Sausage for the perfectly fine man, too?” Han Sooyoung asked and Yoo Joonghyuk made a displeased grimace. 

“Just cheese,” Kim Dokja said. “I’m finishing off my first slice anyways.”

Looking like a man facing his own execution, Yoo Joonghyuk said, “Get him some sausage too.”

“Hey!” Kim Dokja objected, but Yoo Joonghyuk was grabbing his ankle and hefting up his leg. 

“You’re too skinny,” he pronounced and Kim Dokja gaped at him. 

“Did you just call my ankles dainty?” He yanked his leg back. 

“I’m sure your legs are very shapely,” Han Sooyoung said, slipping back onto the couch with two plates full of pizza. “Sausage for you two to share.” She plopped it between them and Yoo Joonghyuk bared his teeth at her. 

Wow, okay. “Clearly, since you don’t like sharing—” Kim Dokja pushed the plate towards him. Yoo Joonghyuk looked agonized and Han Sooyoung cackled. 

Deeply pained, Yoo Joonghyuk pushed it back to him. “No, you can have some, too.”

Kim Dokja was already staying over uninvited and wearing the man’s clothes, so no, he was not going to force Yoo Joonghyuk to have the maturity of a six year old and share his food. 

“I would hate to impose,” he said, pushing back, and Yoo Joonghyuk looked like he had been speared, Han Sooyoung still cackling behind them. Was Yoo Joonghyuk really this bad at sharing? “It’s been a difficult night and I see—“ What was the least patronizing way to say this? … fuck it. “I don’t wanna force you to learn how to share. So just keep your pizza.”

Han Sooyoung collapsed from laughter, wheezing facedown on the couch and Yoo Joonghyuk was turning red. 

And Kim Dokja was kinda done with this nonsense. 

“I don’t know if this is like, a rich person thing or what, but if you’re gonna be weird about sharing food then you gotta be okay with people talking about it. Okay? Like, you just gotta learn to deal with that.”

Yoo Joonghyuk face was squeezing tight, his eyes clenched shut, his cheeks reddening. Han Sooyoung sounded like she was about to have a fucking cardiac event from the way she was wheezing against the couch. 

Eyebrows raised, Kim Dokja pushed the plate closer to Yoo Joonghyuk. 

Yoo Joonghyuk ground out, “That’s not it.”

Kim Dokja raised both his hands up. “Hey, not my problem, right? I got my slice of cheese.”

Han Sooyoung wheezed in great gasping heaves, beyond actual laughter. Kim Dokja wasn’t really sure why she thought Yoo Joonghyuk’s issues getting acknowledged was so funny, but maybe it was a thing where he had surrounded himself with a bunch of yes-men or something and Kim Dokja was the first person to actually stand up to him or something. 

Yeah, that sounded about right. Yoo Joonghyuk was handsome and rich. That’s the type of person that people like to say yes to. 

“Enjoy your pizza,” Kim Dokja whispered. 

A look that was either regret or indigestion painted over Yoo Joonghyuk’s face but Kim Dokja just smiled pointedly at him. He wasn’t dealing with Yoo Joonghyuk’s weird sharing issues. No, thank you! He may have gotten paid $400, but that was above his pay grade. 

“You wanna play or what?” He tried to redirect whatever the clusterfuck that just occurred was. Han Sooyoung rolled on to her back, still laughing slightly. 

“Hm?” Kim Dokja prompted. 

With a determined glare—and Kim Dokja didn’t know what Yoo Joonghyuk had to be determined over—Yoo Joonghyuk turned back to the game. 

“You gonna try any make him eat your sausage?” Han Sooyoung cooed, and—

Okay, Kim Dokja got it now. He shifted, frowning slightly. That actually—it made him kind of uncomfortable. He didn’t like that she was making jokes like that just because he was bi.

He sunk down into the bean bag, the beads crinkling, his ears hot. See, this was what he was afraid of when he thought about telling people he wasn’t exactly straight. The jokes, being a punchline, people feeling comfortable enough to joke about the type of sex that he actually wasn’t having. He didn’t like it, but he couldn’t exactly speak up. 

He was paid to be here, to entertain. His mouth twisted up. 

And—Yoo Joonghyuk was glancing over at him. His eyes were—they were sympathetic. No wonder he had been so prickly. He probably didn’t appreciate the jokes, either. Especially, considering—

Kim Dokja looked straight forward at the TV, feeling a little peculiar. Especially, considering how, uh, explosively he reacted to the insinuation that he was gay.

“Han Sooyoung,” Yoo Joonghyuk said. “Go get a bottle of wine.”

“Trying to get a little toasty?” she asked.

“Pick one that goes with the pizza,” he said and she groaned.

“It’s pizza! What the hell am I supposed to pair with pizza?”

“Pizza is Italian,” he said, “you think the Italians haven’t figured it out?”

“Come on,” she said.

But Yoo Joonghyuk didn’t even bother to look back at her. “Wine.”

She groaned again, heaving off the couch. “Whatever.” She disappeared out of the room, and Kim Dokja shifted on his bean bag, needing to say something but not knowing how to say it. 

Yoo Joonghyuk’s lips were tight, and—

Best to get it over with. “I don’t want to drink,” he said. He didn’t know what they had planned, but he definitely didn’t feel comfortable with it now.

Yoo Joonghyuk glanced over at him. Kim Dokja didn’t want him to drink either, but maybe wine would be okay? He shifted, his skin feeling tight, and tried to smile.

“I was just getting her out of the room,” he said.

“Oh.” Kim Dokja looked away. That was… a little better. But that also meant that he definitely knew about the stupid sausage innuendo, too.

Ugh. He hated this. 

“Look,” he turned to Yoo Joonghyuk. “Just because—“ Fuck, this was so humiliating, and his cheeks were burning, and he knew he had to look like an idiotic, flustered tomato. “Just because I’m bi doesn’t mean—“ He looked away, and words came to his head:

Doesn’t mean I’m gonna suck your dick. Doesn’t mean that I’m trying to sleep with you. Doesn’t mean that the only thing I care about is sex. Doesn’t mean that I want people to joke about me and dicks. Doesn’t mean that I like being the center of a joke.

But nothing came out and he felt empty and full and awful. He buried his face in his hands.

“There’s other pizzas,” Yoo Joonghyuk said, and Kim Dokja looked up at him. Yoo Joonghyuk’s expression—Kim Dokja didn’t know how to read it, the unhappiness around his mouth, the furrow of his brows. “You need to eat more, but—“ He looked away.

The corner of Kim Dokja’s lip picked up. “It doesn’t have to be the sausage pizza?”

Yoo Joonghyuk huffed, looking back at him. “Yeah.” And then he scowled. “It’s not even sausage. It’s ground beef.”

And Kim Dokja laughed, relaxing. “I’m okay with the cheese. Really.”

Yoo Joonghyuk didn’t look pleased with that. “Then get another slice.”

And that was kinda sweet, Kim Dokja couldn’t lie. A little patronizing, but he had Good Boy’d the man, so he could excuse it. “Fine,” he said, getting up. “But I’m still not drinking the wine.”

“Are you kidding me?” Han Sooyoung stood in the door, a bottle of wine in her hand. 

“Me neither,” Yoo Joonghyuk said.

“Then what was the point—“ She turned around in place, as if searching for purpose. 

Kim Dokja just shrugged at her, wide-eyed on purpose, and went over to the absolutely massive kitchen where the pizza boxes were.

“Oh my god, I’m putting this back, you assholes,” she said, leaving the room. The door slammed behind her.

“That means she likes you,” Yoo Joonghyuk said.

Kim Dokja grinned over at him. “I don’t think she even knows my name.”

“No, she just thinks Pizza Man is funny.” The game paused, and Yoo Joonghyuk headed over with the plate of sausage pizzas. Kim Dokja made a bland face at it. 

Opening up the boxes, Kim Dokja took a look at the goods he had brought over, searching for the cheese. Yoo Joonghyuk scraped the sausage pizzas back into their original box and pulled out a slice from another box that had eggplant, slices of ham, and weird white splotches on it.

“She doesn’t mean anything by it,” Yoo Joonghyuk said.

“No, I get it,” Kim Dokja said. “I’m annoying, too.”

Yoo Joonghyuk frowned at him, but went to stacking up slices of the bizarre pizza on his plate. He paused. “Try some,” he said, and put a slice on Kim Dokja’s plate. 

“Oh, so you can share.” Kim Dokja’s lips quirked up and Yoo Joonghyuk scowled at him. He laughed. 

“It’s the best.” Yoo Joonghyuk frowned down to his own pizza. 

Kim Dokja inspected it. “What’s the white bits?”

“Gorgonzola,” Yoo Joonghyuk said, and Kim Dokja had heard the word before, seen it on menus online for places he couldn’t really afford, but the name didn’t actually mean anything to him. 

“Ahh,” he said. 

“Oh my god,” Han Sooyoung swept back in. “Is he making you try his weird pizza?”

“The balance of flavors between the aubergine, smoked ham and—“ Yoo Joonghyuk started defending, but Han Sooyoung was making a face. 

“Gorgonzola is so nasty. I have no idea how you can eat it.”

Kim Dokja smiled slightly. What had he gotten himself into? He looked faintly down at his pizza slice. 

“It’s richness brings out the smoke in—“

“It’s nasty,” Han Sooyoung said. 

Tentatively, Kim Dokja raised the slice to his mouth and took a bite. The white splotch was cheese. 

And it was—

His brows furrowed. Really strong. Kind of like blue cheese? But not? He continued chewing. It was definitely salty. 

“Hah!” Han Sooyoung said. “He doesn’t like it either.”

And Kim Dokja wasn’t sure that was true, but he also wasn’t sure it was wrong, either. “It’s strong,” he said. 

“Take a bite with the aubergine,” Yoo Joonghyuk said and Kim Dokja tried, angling to make sure to get one and it was—it was a little bit better, but the taste was so strong. 

But Yoo Joonghyuk was staring at him so expectantly, his back ramrod straight, and his eyes pinned to his face. 

Kim Dokja tried to smile. “It’s not bad?”

“He hates it,” Han Sooyoung said and Yoo Joonghyuk’s shoulders slumped. 

“It’s okay!” Kim Dokja defended, not wanting to disappoint him. “It’s just… really salty.”

“You don’t have to pretend to like it, you know,” Han Sooyoung said, and Yoo Joonghyuk was digging through a massive fridge. 

“I’m not… pretending,” Kim Dokja said, and Yoo Joonghyuk pulled out a—container of spinach? “Uh?”

Dark eyes looked up at him. “It’s good spinach,” Yoo Joonghyuk said, answering an entirely different question than what was in Kim Dokja’s head. 

“I’m sure,” Kim Dokja said. 

“It’s from the farmer’s market,” Yoo Joonghyuk said, pulling some out. “And I’ve already washed it.”

“Uh… huh?” Kim Dokja said, not entirely sure where this was going, but then Yoo Joonghyuk was taking his plate. “Wait, are you gonna put that on there?” 

And he totally was, sprinkling spinach over Kim Dokja’s pizza. “Just try it.”

The plate was offered back, and somehow this was the weirdest part of the night. “Um.”

“Try it,” Yoo Joonghyuk repeated. 

“Okay…” Kim Dokj took the plate, feeling weird about this, suddenly remembering that he was wearing Yoo Joonghyuk’s hoodie, and yeah, he hadn’t really given a fuck at the time, but also the man’s fucking underwear, and now he was getting weird spinach pizza? 

And both Han Sooyoung and Yoo Joonghyuk were staring at him. 

What the fuck had he gotten himself into?

Slowly, he took a bite. The spinach crunched under his teeth, and he had never really eaten a lot of it, and when he did it was normally cooked to limp strings of green. This was—fresh, and had almost a bit of a bite and, yeah, with the eggplant, and the richness of gorgonzola, and the subtly smoky ham, it really worked. 

“Huh,” he said. 

Yoo Joonghyuk made a satisfied noise, folding his arms. 

“It’s not bad.” Kim Dokja wondered at the slice. 

“So this is a good amount of salt for you,” Yoo Joonghyuk said, and when Kim Dokja looked up at him, his eyes seemed to be calculating. 

“I suppose,” he said. He never really thought that hard about it, but Yoo Joonghyuk just nodded so seriously it was like Kim Dokja had told him the nuclear codes. 

“Oh my god,” Han Sooyoung said, and Yoo Joonghyuk scowled at her. 

“What?” Kim Dokja said, but Yoo Joonghyuk was shaking his head. 

“Ignore her,” he said, looking at Kim Dokja not exactly how he had when he had made her get the wine, but close enough that Kim Dokja relaxed and decided to follow his lead. 

“Wanna keep playing?” he asked, taking a bite of his bizarre, but actually kinda tasty pizza. It wasn’t something he would actively describe as pizza, and definitely not a flavor he would go out of his way to eat, but it was much nicer than he expected. 

“Oh my god,” Han Sooyoung said again. 

But Yoo Joonghyuk was already walking back over to the couch, and Kim Dokja followed him. 

“Oh my god,” Han Sooyoung said again. 

“Jesus isn’t Bloody Mary,” Kim Dokja said. “He doesn’t appear if you say his name three times.”

Yoo Joonghyuk huffed, sitting back down, and Kim Dokja sat on the bean bag next to him, taking another bite. It was so fucking weird—he didn’t think he would ever like anything like this, but it worked so well that he kept eating it. 

“That only works if it’s in a mirror,” Han Sooyoung complained. 

Yoo Joonghyuk seemed pleased, settling deeper into his bean bag, and Han Sooyoung grumbled, but rejoined them, tapping at something on her phone. 

“Is that my five star review?” Kim Dokja grinned cheekily at her. 

“No,” she said. “You lost a star for backtalk.”

“So you admit it would have been five stars.” Kim Dokja leaned towards her. 

“It’s a negative star review.” She arched an eyebrow. 

“Kim Dokja,” Yoo Joonghyuk said and Kim Dokja turned back around. An NPC with a dialogue option was swaying on the screen. 

He grimaced slightly. He didn’t know if this one would be racist, too. But—he did remember this design. He sat up straight. “I think he tells you some of the gods’ backstories!”

That was the coolest part of this game—it was impossible to tell what was true or not. For every god, there were at least three different versions of their origin, and none of them were completely true. 

Kim Dokja bounced on his bean bag. “Pick the one about fire!”

Han Sooyoung laughed lightly behind him but he didn’t care—

The dialogue option lit up, chirps rattling off and—

The NPC responded, telling the story of how a fire started, first to warm a baby on the coldest night of the year, and then how the same fire burned as the child grew, fell in love, and was eventually killed by a pack of bandits. In revenge, the fire tipped itself over and burned down the whole forest to kill all the bandits. That night, rain fell, and the fire died, joining the child it had lived alongside for decades.

Kim Dokja was practically vibrating, and he reached over to swat Yoo Joonghyuk’s arm. “See what you miss when you don’t talk to NPCs?” And then he turned around—Han Sooyoung had said she didn’t know the game—and said in a rush, “It seems really sweet at first, but, I don’t know if you noticed, but it never told you what god it was! And it’s because it’s, you know, like a spin, on the original story! It’s trying to make the god sound good, but the god is actually War!”

Her eyes lit up. “Oh! How war justifies itself.”

“Yes, yes, exactly.” Kim Dokja bounced. “But the story also isn’t completely wrong! It did raise that child! And the child did die!”

“But it didn’t need to burn down the forest,” Han Sooyoung said and Kim Dokja wanted to squirm.  

“Yes!” he said, “You get it!” And he turned back to Yoo Joonghyuk, grabbing his arm. “You can’t skip any cut scenes or NPCs, okay?”

And Yoo Joonghyuk, he was—he was actually smiling at him, a crooked little thing, one side of his mouth picked up, but his eyes were soft and—

Kim Dokja looked away, feeling exposed, feeling like he had just given himself away. He scratched behind his ear. “It’s just good storytelling, you know?”

“Do you want to see the other options?” Yoo Joonghyuk asked, and Kim Dokja looked back at him, feeling a little silly and a little pampered. 

“It was the four elements, right?” He smiled bashfully. 

“Three dialog options don’t take that long to get through,” Yoo Joonghyuk said and the smile stretched wider on Kim Dokja’s face. 

“Yeah,” he admitted. 

Eyes creased, Yoo Joonghyuk turned back to the TV, and the next option—water—started playing. 

“You know what?” Han Sooyoung. “It’s almost one. I think I’m gonna go and pass out in the guest room.”

“Wait.” Kim Dokja jerked around. “It’s almost one?”

Shit, how had that much time passed already? He stood up, looking at the windows, looking at the pitch black night and the rain steaking down. 

“Good night!” Han Sooyoung said, hopping over the couch real energetically for someone who said they were going to bed. 

“Han Sooyoung,” Yoo Joonghyuk was saying, but she was already slipping out the room and Kim Dokja was wandering over to the windows that spanned the entire wall. The city glimmered, most of the lights already turned off. Only the streets were visible, stoplights and streetlights sketching out a grid, a blur through the rain. 

Even just standing next to the window, the air was cold, and Kim Dokja grimaced. He had to give these clothes back, and his shit was still in the bathroom, probably damp if not wet. And with a belly full of pizza and being warm and comfortable…

This was gonna suck. 

“You can stay the night,” Yoo Joonghyuk said behind him. 

Kim Dokja spun to face him. “Oh, I couldn’t—“

“It’s not safe out there.” Yoo Joonghyuk shifted, his hands in his hoodie pocket, looking away. His jaw made a perfect, sharp line, and it was really fucking irritating that he was straight because Kim Dokja wanted to lick it. 

He looked away, his mouth tiny. Bad Kim Dokja. No gay thoughts about the straight guy. 

“If you left now,” Yoo Joonghyuk said, “You’d probably get into an accident.”

“Oh, no.” Kim Dokja faced him. “I biked here.”

“What?!” Yoo Joonghyuk demanded so loudly that Kim Dokja was sure Han Sooyoung could hear. 

He grinned, rubbing the back of his neck. “Why’d you think I was so wet?”

Yoo Joonghyuk stared at him like he was insane. “You were biking in this weather.”

Kim Dokja just shrugged. “Not all of us can be big fancy CEOs. Gotta make money somehow.”

Yoo Joonghyuk’s face stilled, and Kim Dokja had heard people describe this man as granite, implacable, like a statue, and he had thought it was all a bit melodramatic, but now this expression only made him laugh uneasily. 

“You’re staying here tonight,” Yoo Joonghyuk said like he had decided it, like he was the one who was supposed to make that decision. 

“No, no, no,” Kim Dokja said, but Yoo Joonghyuk was already walking off. 

He jogged to catch up to him. “Where are you even going?”

Yoo Joonghyuk said nothing, striding through the foyer, completely ignoring Kim Dokja as he turned into the hallway. 

“You can’t just—“ Kim Dokja said, but Yoo Joonghyuk was opening up a closet and pulling out pillows and blankets. 

“Hey!” Kim Dokja snapped. “You don’t get to choose this.”

“That hoodie will soak through in 10 seconds,” Yoo Joonghyuk said, striding off back past him, forcing Kim Dokja to run after him. “Han Sooyoung is taking the only guest room, so you’ll have to be okay with the couch.”

“I don’t, because I’m not staying,” Kim Dokja said, following him back into the living room.

Yoo Joonghyuk turned to face him. “I’ll call you a car tomorrow.”

Kim Dokja narrowed his eyes. 

“But not tonight,” Yoo Joonghyuk said.

“Are you trying to blackmail me?” Kim Dokja accused. 

Yoo Joonghyuk frowned at him. “That isn’t even how blackmail works.”

Kim Dokja made a face back. But Yoo Joonghyuk tossed the pillows and blankets onto the couch, slipping onto it after them. He moved to where Han Sooyoung had been and grabbed the controller from the bean bag. 

Kim Dokja shifted. “What are you doing?”

Yoo Joonghyuk pressed the dialogue option for earth, and a story about two twins started playing. 

Fuck this guy. “That’s not fair,” Kim Dokja said. 

“Are you even tired?” Yoo Joonghyuk asked. 

And—

No. 

“I’ll just stay for a little longer,” Kim Dokja said, sliding down next to him. It’s not like the rain would be worse later than it was now. And on the couch, they were closer than when they were on the bean bags, but Yoo Joonghyuk didn’t seem to mind, and it was nice in a way that Kim Dokja couldn’t really define, hanging out with him, having him right next to him. 

It was a little chilly though, and he pulled his legs up to his chest. Yoo Joonghyuk played through the rest of the dialogue options for him, and Kim Dokja gave him his commentary, leaning closer. Yoo Joonghyuk would huff at his responses or roll his eyes, and sometimes he would challenge him back, meeting his gaze directly, and the rain pattered on the windows, the world dark and distant beyond this rather expensive alcove. 

They progressed further in the game, Kim Dokja making sure to point out every love note he remembered, but Yoo Joonghyuk remembered some that he didn’t, which sent giddiness thrilling through him. Yoo Joonghyuk was warm and at some point in the night, their shoulders had pressed together. By the time Kim Dokja had noticed it, he had gotten so comfortable that he couldn’t bring himself to care about it. 

His eyelids were getting heavier, but he forced them open. He wasn’t sleeping over. He wasn’t. He wasn’t gonna have his first adult sleepover with a man be with a straight guy who was getting cancelled for homophobia. 

But—

He sighed. This was his life. He should be realistic. This probably was going to happen. 

“Hm,” he grumped, resigning himself to it, playing with the hoodie string. 

“Hm?” Yoo Joonghyuk asked back. 

“Hm,” Kim Dokja said, mostly to be annoying. It was properly late now, and he hadn’t checked his phone for hours, caught in the quiet lull of fights and cut scenes and Yoo Joonghyuk’s low voice as he asked him what dialogue option to pick. 

Yoo Joonghyuk had turned off the lights a while ago, using an app on his phone and not bothering to get up from where they were both slumped together on the couch. It was nice in a way that Kim Dokja didn’t really have words for—an easiness, a warmth, a bit like a favorite blanket but more thrilling, something that rushed through his blood if he thought about it too hard. 

But he wasn’t really thinking at all, the soundtrack washing over him, lights flickering and swaying, and his eyes kept shutting. The game jumped oddly, the character one place one moment, and another place the next, and something was pressing against his cheek, warm and firm, and the game jumped further. Things went a little odd, his mom talking to him, wielding the same sword as the main character, and then Yoo Joonghyuk was selecting a new skills build on a creaking boat and then it was his mom again, like how she looked when he was ten, and she was covered in blood, and her eyes were so wide he could see the whites all the way around the pupils, and she was the character of the game but standing in their old apartment, except the table was Kim Dokja’s current kitchen table and thunder cracked. 

He jolted, blinking awake. His heart pounded, the world fuzzy and distant like he was caught in cotten. And his head was on Yoo Joonghyuk’s shoulder. 

“Shit.” He levered himself up slowly, still blinking. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Yoo Joonghyuk said, his voice a little gravely, shifting slightly. The TV volume had been turned down. Yoo Joonghyuk put the controller aside and the rain was pouring down the windows and it felt like being in an aquarium and Kim Dokja wasn’t sure he wasn’t still dreaming. “You should get a pillow. It’s almost four.”

Kim Dokja scrubbed at an eye. “You should sleep, too.”

Everything felt surreal, the rain, the quiet, the apartment he was in. 

“I will,” Yoo Joonghyuk said softly, but his words felt loud in the stillness surrounding them. He was looking at Kim Dokja, and every feature was clear, but the emotions felt like an impressionist painting, like something that Kim Dokja was too close to see. 

“Mmhmm,” Kim Dokja said, swaying slightly, and Yoo Joonghyuk looked sleepy, Kim Dokja could tell that much, but he looked so far from unhappy, and maybe he was delirious from his exhaustion too, but his face so gentle. 

Time went a little slippery again, and Kim Dokja slumped against the couch and the TV turned off at some point, and he felt like he could fall asleep again, right then and there, but somehow, when Yoo Joonghyuk gave him a pillow and a blanket and disappeared, it took him forever to drift back off. 

Notes:

let me know what you think! this has a lot more plot left to it, but only if there’s interest (did you see how long this ended up already?!)

also, yjh’s first username was 666xXxbloody_regressorxXx999