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“This is not a good idea.”
“Oh no, this is the best idea. You can thank me when I’m done.”
“There will be nothing left of you to thank.”
Han Sooyoung ignored him. Yoo Joonghyuk watched with thinly veiled judgment as Han Sooyoung dripped tomato sauce onto his pristine tiled floor. A shame, really–had just wiped it down earlier this week, and now it would have a chunky red stain for the rest of the month.
“Hand,” Han Sooyoung demanded. Without waiting for Yoo Joonghyuk’s response, she dragged him over to stand over the pentagram, then stabbed him with a needle.
“What the fuck,” Yoo Joonghyuk hissed, but Han Sooyoung had already collected a drop of blood from his hand.
“Yoo Joonghyuk,” she said ominously, “are you ready to take revenge?”
“No. It’s 4 am and I have just been assaulted in my own place of residence. Get out.”
“This is for your own good, Yoo Joonghyuk.” Han Sooyoung held the needle over the pentagram. “I call upon thee, mightiest Demon King of the deepest and darkest realms.”
As Han Sooyoung continued her spiel, Yoo Joonghyuk took a moment to regret his life decisions. He just wanted to brood alone like the edgelord he was and sleep the week away. Han Sooyoung, apparently, didn’t get the memo. She had barged into his home at the asscrack of dawn and woken Yoo Joonghyuk up with the vile scent of the tomato sauce and vinegar she had slathered so generously across his kitchen floor.
“I perform this ritual on behalf of Yoo Joonghyuk, who will now say ‘Aye’ as proof of consent.” Han Sooyoung was still going, and Yoo Joonghyuk just wanted to go back to sleep.
“Aye,” he grumbled. The sooner she finished, the sooner she would leave.
“My liege has been afflicted with the unique lovesickness of a relationship breakup, and I summon thee with the intention of assisting him in achieving his revenge. With this offering of noble blood, I request of thee, O great Demon King of Salvation, to rise from the depths and manifest!”
Han Sooyoung released the needle into the center of the pentagram, and it landed with a plop inside a tub of vinegar. Two pairs of eyes stared after it, one with apprehension and the other with drowsiness.
A minute passed. Then two.
“Time to go home. Goodnight, Han Sooyoung.”
“Wait, I performed the ritual perfectly! Just give it another minute!”
“No. Get out.”
“But–”
Yoo Joonghyuk pushed his trespasser out the door and slammed it shut. She should thank her lucky stars that she lived just down the hall from him.
Leaning his back against the door, he slid to the floor and rested his forehead against his knee with a long and heavy sigh. Really, it had been months since he and Lee Seolhwa had broken up, and for him to be still so hung up about it that Han Sooyoung resorted to summoning circles was really…
He was pathetic.
He needed to get his shit together and move on.
Yoo Joonghyuk was still brooding in his own self-loathing when the pentagram suddenly flashed with bright red light, blinding him. Stars danced in his line of sight for a bit before a loud crack made him jump into a crouching position.
There was no fucking way.
Flames burst to light, seemingly fueled by the tomato sauce, and a figure materialized into being behind the fire and smoke. Large, dark wings billowed out menacingly from a slender figure whose head was adorned with two long, red horns.
“Greetings, dweller of Earth, the universe of the Humans and those who reside within the In Between,” said a deep, ominous voice. “For what cause have you boldly summoned forth this incarnation body of mine?”
He was going to kill Han Sooyoung.
And just as the mighty, powerful Demon King of Salvation stepped out of the ring of fire and into the light of Yoo Joonghyuk’s living room lamps, the smoke alarm went off.
Fuck me , was Yoo Joonghyuk’s last concious thought before he allowed himself the enormous pleasure and gift of passing out.
–
“Yoo Joonghyuk.”
An unfamiliar man’s voice was speaking to him. Yoo Joonghyuk did not stir. The voice persisted.
“Joonghyuuuuk.”
It was a nice voice, really. Rather light in tone, not too threatening and just enough lilt in it to keep it alive.
“Joonghyuk-ah, Hyuk-ie, Joonghyuk- oppa .”
These last utterances of his name were so bone-chillingly revolting, Yoo Joonghyuk’s hand instinctively shot out to hit whoever dared challenge him.
His fist was caught.
It was then that Yoo Joonghyuk truly woke up.
Before him stood a slender, plain-looking man in standard office attire: white collared shirt, blue necktie, dark slacks. He had pale skin and dark circles under dark eyes; so ordinary-looking that Yoo Joonghyuk would have passed him by without a second glance if he had seen him in any normal context.
Save for the set of massive dark wings on his back and a pair of tall horns protruding from his forehead, poised like red-tinted twin swords.
Memories from just several hours prior came rushing in, and Yoo Joonghyuk felt a sense of being off-kilter, as if he had consumed unhealthy amounts of alcohol and was just now realizing what he had done while incapacitated.
“Are you the demon king?”
The demon king (there was no other explanation for it) smiled, an irritating quirk of his lips. “Not what you expected, Yoo Joonghyuk?” Yoo Joonghyuk said nothing, and the demon king dropped his fist. “Though, I can change my appearance to best suit your preferences. Let’s see…” He stood up from where he was crouched over Yoo Joonghyuk and began pacing his living room. “For the common revenge scenario in the case of cheating, I’m usually asked to become someone who will make the ex leave their newly-acquired lover. Though why anyone would want to leave someone with your face, I haven’t the slightest clue.”
And before Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes, the plan-looking man transformed into someone completely breathtaking. Tall and built, with sharp features, warm, blue eyes, high cheekbones, and bright, blonde hair that flowed like liquid gold.
…Why did he look like a more approachable version of himself?
As if reading his mind, the demon king smiled. His entire face radiated a brilliance that even Yoo Joonghyuk and his cold edgelord heart couldn’t resist. “I usually do this by taking the best-looking human I’ve seen and making them more desirable. In this case, it just meant giving you a different color scheme and making you look like you have social skills.”
Yoo Joonghyuk scowled. “I don’t need revenge.”
The demon king reverted back to his original appearance and pulled a sheaf of papers from out of nowhere. “You don’t? But it says in the contract that that’s why you summoned me here.”
“My friend summoned you. You can leave now.”
“...Are you sure? It took quite a lot of effort to execute this entire ritual. I’d feel a bit bad if I went back without doing anything.”
Yoo Joonghyuk nodded vigorously. “Go, please and thank you.”
“Hmm, how about I sing a song for you?” the demon king mused, completely ignoring his words and joining Yoo Joonghyuk on the floor. “I’ve been told my voice is terrible, though. How about I cook you a meal? Something straight from the finest kitchens of the deepest infernos of hell? Down there, they say the worst chefs are actually the best chefs.”
“No thank you,” said Yoo Joonghyuk, face blank.
“Huh, maybe I should expand my skill set. The only thing I’m really good at these days is reading. I dabbled in lobotomy back in the day, but they don’t practice that on Earth anymore. I wonder why, I really thought it was working out pretty okay.”
Yoo Joonghyuk studied the demon before him, who was picking at his wings with a forlorn expression on his face, looking surprisingly docile. “Stop scattering your feathers on my floors.”
“Ah, maybe that’s why she left you,” said the demon king, gathering up his dark feathers and rubbing them into Yoo Joonghyuk’s hair, steadfastly ignoring his death glare. “Oh! How about you tell me about your ex? Take this as a free therapy session.”
Yoo Joonghyuk really wanted this guy to leave. Ignoring the demon’s bright expression, he shook out his hair. “I don’t need therapy.”
“That’s what they all say, before experiencing the freedom of emotional healing,” said the demon king with a wise nod. “It’s alright if you don’t want to open up immediately. I’ll go first then. My first love was a character in a novel I was reading at the time. I was young, probably just 100 or so years old, and his name was…”
And so Yoo Joonghyuk listened to the demon king wax poetic about Yoo Jonghyun, an angel-fighting tsundere who hated the world and strove to become the absolute strongest.
“...not to mention his eyes, they were as dark as the bottoms of the unexplored oceans. I actually imagined him to be a little bit how you look now…”
It wasn’t long before Yoo Joonghyuk stopped listening and focused solely on observing the creature before him. He hadn’t noticed before, but he had fangs. Not large enough to be obvious, but present enough to be slightly charming. Though his face was ordinary, it wasn’t entirely unattractive.
“Why did you choose your appearance to be this way?” he asked suddenly, cutting off the demon king’s rant and surprising even himself.
The demon king looked startled. “Oh, it’s just the closest to my true appearance that I’m comfortable revealing. And it’s pretty forgettable, I’ve found. Really adds an air of mystery to the whole ‘I summoned a Demon King from another realm’ thing.”
Yoo Joonghyuk’s curiosity was begrudgingly piqued. “True appearance?”
“Demonic royalty have a form they use to demonstrate power sometimes,” the demon king explained. “It could cause insanity or blindness to anyone who sees it, and humans are especially prone.”
“Then why are you here instead of doing whatever royal duties you must have?”
The demon king laughed lightly. “I just get summoned a lot, for whatever reason. There’s not much to do around the demon realm, and humans are funny, so I come when I’m called if there’s nothing else to do.” He sighed in disappointment. “Which was why I was so excited to get a scenario as dramatic as yours. Revenge-comeback stories are my favorite.”
Yoo Joonghyuk stared. “Are our lives just entertainment to you?”
“In a weird, self-insert kinda way. Life gets boring after a few thousand years. So, what’s your story?”
“My life isn’t a story for you to derive pleasure from,” Yoo Joonghyuk snapped coldly.
The demon king hummed pacifyingly, and Yoo Joonghyuk felt the sudden urge to punch him again. “Well,” he said, “I can respect that.”
They sat in silence for a while, with the demon king staring contemplatively into the distance and Yoo Joonghyuk trying to decide whether or not this was all a massive hallucination.
Suddenly, a blue rectangle materialized between them, almost like a screen with the way it hovered before the demon king.
“Shit,” he cursed. “I’m being summoned again.” He dismissed the rectangle and locked his gaze with Yoo Joonghyuk’s. “Good talk, Yoo Joonghyuk, even if we didn’t get to any therapy. We’ll continue this next time.”
With that ominous threat, the mighty Demon King of Salvation bowed politely at Yoo Joonghyuk, tore up and ate the contract somehow still in his hands, and stepped back into the summoning circle. He began muttering incoherently, and the same red light that heralded his arrival began to dance furiously around him.
“Let’s meet again, Yoo Joonghyuk,” said the demon king with a salute, before vanishing into darkness.
–
“Fuck, Yoo Joonghyuk, you look terrible,” said Han Sooyoung the next morning. They were sitting in a large lecture hall before the only class they shared, waiting for the professor to appear.
Yoo Joonghyuk, who had been up until dawn scrubbing the tomato sauce off his floorboards, glared menacingly. “And whose fault was that.”
“Don’t look at me! I really thought it would work! The online reviews said the process was totally legit.”
Yoo Joonghyuk decided not to tell her about what had happened after he kicked her out. After all, children learn best from positive reinforcement, and Yoo Joonghyuk would not be the one to facilitate Han Sooyoung’s antics. But…
“Why were there online reviews?”
“Oh, the ritual is actually quite well-known! There were about a thousand reviews saying they successfully summoned the demon king and received help from him.”
Yoo Joonghyuk rubbed his temples. “And you purchased this?”
“Yep! For 100 coins! The things I do for you, Yoo Joonghyuk. You really ought to be thankful.”
Yoo Joonghyuk groaned. He was going to turn a blind eye to all the sketchy things Han Sooyoung involved herself with in her free time, for his sanity’s sake. Shifting his gaze to the front, his eyes alighted on something, someone , that made him do a double-take.
Walking into the lecture hall was a man, tall and built, with strong eyebrows and bright wavy hair and warm eyes.
He looked exactly like the demon king had last night in his transformed state.
“Holy shit,” Han Sooyoung breathed, and it was then that Yoo Joonghyuk noticed how all eyes were on the newcomer, devouring him.
The man’s eyes scanned the crowd and, as if magnetically drawn, landed on Yoo Joonghyuk. He began making his way over, and Yoo Joonghyuk had to actively suppress his urge to bolt out of the room and across the country.
“We meet again, Yoo Joonghyuk,” said the man, and Yoo Joonghyuk knew that it was so, so over.
He nodded his head politely. “I didn’t expect to see you so soon.” Or ever.
“It seems that fate has brought us together once more,” smiled the man, and though it was a different face, his smile still awakened Yoo Joonghyuk’s dormant urge for violence. “Can I sit here?”
“No,” said Yoo Joonghyuk flatly.
“Thank you for your hospitality,” said the man, and he settled himself into the seat beside Yoo Joonghyuk. “You have feathers in your hair, did you know that?”
–
“Who the fuck was that?” asked Han Sooyoung when the lecture ended. The demon king had disappeared without anyone noticing, despite his large magnitude of presence.
“No idea,” Yoo Joonghyuk replied, gathering his things into his bag.
“A secret lover? An affair partner? A long-lost soulmate?”
“No. Let’s go.”
“Why was he so hot? Do all you hot people know each other or something? What’s his name?”
“Forgot.”
“How’d you manage to forget something like that? You’ll introduce me to him sometime, yeah? He’s gonna be my next bestselling main character, I can feel it.”
Yoo Joonghyuk sighed despairingly, praying to all the higher powers he knew that he’d never see the man again.
–
He saw the man again. First in the library, then in his seminar class somehow, then wandering the university campus. He was able to avoid him until the demon king found him eating in his secluded edgelord cave.
“Yoo Joonghyuk!” he said with a smile. “I’ve been looking for you all day!” Slowly, Yoo Joonghyuk put down his chopsticks and picked up his bag, ready to make a run for it. “Imagine how surprised I was when my next contract was with someone who lived on the floor below you,” the demon king was saying, reverting back to his plain-looking original form. “I thought I’d drop by some of your classes while I’m here.”
“Don’t. Go back and fulfill your contract.”
“Not much I can do now,” said the demon king, settling himself beside Yoo Joonghyuk without an invitation. “She wanted me to help her with a group project, so I did. I’m just wandering around until she finishes the presentation and decides whether or not she wants me to mysteriously take out her groupmates.”
Yoo Joonghyuk sat back down reluctantly and opened his lunch container again. “When?”
“In an hour. Why are you hiding in a cave, Yoo Joonghyuk?”
“So you couldn’t find me.”
The demon king laughed. “You’re actually a funny guy behind your tsundere facade.”
Yoo Joonghyuk bit vehemently into an egg roll, wishing for nothing but a nap.
“Oh right, I nearly forgot.” From out of nowhere, the demon king took out a familiar smartphone and started typing things into it. “Here’s my number. I’ll probably be around for a while, I’ve got a few contracts lined up specifically at this university.” He handed the phone back to Yoo Joonghyuk with a smile on his face.
…How’d he get his hands on Yoo Joonghyuk’s phone?
–
The demon king was going by Kim Dokja. Yoo Joonghyuk actually quite liked the name. It fit him, oddly enough.
After soldiering his way through the day on two meager hours of disjointed sleep, Yoo Joonghyuk was getting ready for bed early that night when his phone vibrated with a new notification.
Kim Dokja: I’m coming over.
He had barely read the message when, with a loud crackle, Kim Dokja appeared in Yoo Joonghyuk’s bedroom.
Yoo Joonghyuk let out an uncharacteristic yelp. “What the fuck!”
Kim Dokja was in his original demon form, staring at Yoo Joonghyuk with bright, teasing eyes. “My, Yoo Joonghyuk, you’re actually quite cute.”
“Leave.”
Kim Dokja raised a hand to his chest, looking wounded. “Is that really what you want, Joonghyuk-ah? In your deepest, most innermost heart of hearts? It’s alright, I know how you long for my companionship.”
Yoo Joonghyuk glared at the demon imperiously from his bed. “Why are you here.”
“Obviously, because I never go back on my promises! We have to continue your therapy session.”
“I would be healed if you left.”
“Don’t be like that, Hyuk-ie! Talking about your trauma is a great way to come to terms with everything you’re dealing with.”
“I’m not dealing with anything. I’m tired.”
“Ah, would you like to talk about that, too?”
“No.”
“It’s alright, I’ll lead and open up first, then! I’ll tell you about my second love, a hero from a popular manga at the time when I was a young lad, around 300 years in age. His name was Yoo Jungwon, and his eyes were as bright as the icy rivers of his homeland…”
“Kim Dokja, do you even need a summoning circle?”
Kim Dokja laughed, cutting off his bullshit story. “No, I can go anywhere as long as there’s someone there who’s thinking of me. So thank you, my dear Yoo Joonghyuk, for always having me on your mind.”
“I wasn’t thinking of you. You texted me.”
“Ah, such deep love and affection that buries itself in burning denial. Let’s unravel that bit of history, shall we?”
Yoo Joonghyuk did not sleep early that night; nor did he on the many, many nights that followed.
–
For the following few months, Kim Dokja could be found strutting around campus and amassing a fanclub with a face that looked weirdly like his own. He would follow Yoo Joonghyuk around to his classes, talking his ears off about one thing or another. Strangely, his fellow students had somehow been brainwashed and treated Kim Dokja like he had been there all semester. He had an annoying knack for finding where Yoo Joonghyuk had holed himself up when he had to stay on campus in the gaps between his classes.
“So, are you two dating?” asked Han Sooyoung one day as they ate lunch together.
“Yes,” said Kim Dokja, and Yoo Joonghyuk nearly spat out his drink.
“No,” he corrected firmly. “Kim Dokja is a fool.”
Kim Dokja turned to him with a longing look. “Are you denying all of our passionate nights under the stars, Hyuk-ie? What of our deep conversions lasting until the break of dawn?”
Yoo Joonghyuk shuddered. “Right, you’re ruining my sleep schedule. Find your own place to stay the night.”
“I don’t know about you guys,” said Han Sooyoung, pointing with her chopsticks between the two of them, “but that sounded mad sus.”
“It’s true love,” said Kim Dokja. Yoo Joonghyuk was going to strangle him.
–
“Why do you change your face when you go out?” asked Yoo Joonghyuk one night. They were lying side-by-side on his bed (Yoo Joonghyuk had started feeling slightly guilty that Kim Dokja was sleeping on the floor every night), staring at the blinking stars through his bedroom window.
“I don’t know,” said Kim Dokja after a moment of silence. “I just like it. It’s nice being handsome, sometimes.”
Yoo Joonghyuk hummed. “Why’s that?”
Kim Dokja laughed, a hollow sound tainted with loneliness. “In the demon kingdom…well.” He lay in thoughtful silence, and Yoo Joonghyuk let him think. “In the demon kingdom,” Kim Dokja started again, slowly, “we tend to don masks. Our physical appearance, faces and bodies are things we change like clothes, according to the situation. Maybe it’s because I wasn’t able to master physical transformation until I matured, but I hated it regardless. It feels like lying.”
Silence descended once again, and Yoo Joonghyuk turned so he could see Kim Dokja’s side profile, illuminated in the starlight.
“So I spent my youth unable to conform to the demon realm’s beauty standards,” continued Kim Dokja with a sad smile. “Though I was next in line for the throne, I was deemed undeserving by my family’s elders and was banished to the human realm until I could prove my strength. That’s how I came to love humans. A small village took me in and raised me until I became strong.”
Yoo Joonghyuk was completely immersed. “And then?”
Kim Dokja turned to face him, a wicked gleam in his eyes. “And then I challenged the stars. I won, of course. Knocked them all out with a few good punches.”
His smile was so bright . Yoo Joonghyuk felt warm all over. “So you won them over and ran the demon realm to the ground, I assume.”
He meant it lightly, but Kim Dokja let out a drawn-out sigh, seeming to deflate. “Yeah, you’re partly right. Truth is, I never felt at-home in the demon realm after that. In the decades it took me to take back the throne, the village that took me in had been wiped off the map. Some kind of tsunami, I think.”
He was looking at the stars again with an empty, far-off look in his eyes. Fuck it, Yoo Joonghyuk thought, and took Kim Dokja’s hand. Instantly, Kim Dokja’s gaze snapped towards him, but he didn’t retract from Yoo Joonghyuk’s touch.
“They would have been proud of you,” Yoo Joonghyuk said, and even he was surprised by the gentleness in his voice.
Kim Dokja’s smile returned, small and timid but full of joy. His fingers entwined around Yoo Joonghyuk’s. “You know what I’ve realized, Joonghyuk?”
Yoo Joonghyuk gave his hand an affectionate squeeze in response.
Kim Dokja drew closer. “Somehow, I’ve always felt a sense of home with you.”
Though Kim Dokja was no longer looking at the stars, their bright imprints remained in his eyes, reflecting onto Yoo Joonghyuk’s heart.
–
“You never answered my question,” said Yoo Joonghyuk as he and Kim Dokja, now blonde and tall once again, prepared to head out the door and to the university campus. “From last night.”
“Oh, why this face?” Kim Dokja looked up from his shoelaces and gave Yoo Joonghyuk that bullshit-filled grin. “Honestly, it’s the power trip. I don’t like wearing different faces in the demon realm or around people I care about, but I love being hot. The world caters to me more than usual when I’m like this. I guess I have you to thank.”
–
Yoo Joonghyuk couldn’t focus. His every thought seemed to veer towards Kim Dokja, no matter how desperately he tried to force his mind elsewhere. His brain was flooded with the man: his eyes, his hands, his laugh, his lips–
“Fuck me,” Yoo Joonghyuk grumbled as he once again had to lean over Han Sooyoung’s lecture notes to patch up a hole in his own.
“Ew, no,” said Han Sooyoung vehemently, pushing his face away. “I’ll leave that to Kim Dokja.”
–
It was late when Yoo Joonghyuk returned home from working on a project. Kim Dokja, dark-haired and ordinary, was sitting at the dining table with reheated leftovers from previous meals piled in plates before him.
“About time,” Kim Dokja said, shutting his book. “I was waiting for you.”
Yoo Joonghyuk dumped his bag on the floor and settled in the seat across from Kim Dokja, studying his face. “I like this one more,” he said finally, before standing to grab chopsticks. “It’s cute. It fits you.”
As much as he tried to deny it, Kim Dokja’s face remained flushed for the entire night.
–
Their first kiss was on a weekend.
Bright sunlight flooded the room through transparent balcony doors, and all Yoo Joonghyuk could see was Kim Dokja.
His lips were just as soft as they looked.
–
“Yoo Joonghyuk, be honest with me,” said Han Sooyoung. “Am I just a plot device for your epic romance with some third party unknown to me?”
She was frighteningly perceptive sometimes.
“Who knows,” he said anyway. “Maybe I’m a plot device to yours.”
Exactly a week later, Han Sooyoung introduced him to her girlfriend, Yoo Sangah.
–
Yoo Joonghyuk came home one day to find his kitchen completely wrecked and coated in a layer of soot.
“Kim Dokja, how in the world–”
“I’ve learned on this glorious Friday evening that hell’s best cooks may, in fact, be Earth’s worst cooks.”
From that day on, Kim Dokja was banned from the kitchen.
–
“This is my sister, Yoo Mia. Mia, this is my companion, Kim Dokja.”
Yoo Mia studied Kim Dokja, then Yoo Joonghyuk. “He’s the reason why you’ve been so happy, right? When are you getting married?”
“Sometime soon,” said Kim Dokja, unbridled happiness in his smile.
–
One summer morning, there came a polite knocking from their balcony door. Yoo Joonghyuk opened it to find a young-looking woman with three horns and bright hair gliding on dark wings.
“Is Kim Dokja here?” she asked.
“He’s asleep,” Yoo Joonghyuk replied. “Who are you.”
“Jang Hayong,” the woman replied. “I’m seeking Kim Dokja’s guidance.”
The next day, Yoo Joonghyuk woke up to polite knocking outside his window at 3 AM.
“Is Kim Dokja here?” asked a young boy with curly brown hair. He and a young girl similar in age were riding what seemed to be a dragon, hovering outside their apartment window.
Kim Dokja arose from beside him, blinking dazedly. “Lee Gilyoung? Shin Yoosung? What are you two doing here?”
And so, Kim Dokja and Yoo Joonghyuk’s home became the gathering place of Kim Dokja’s adoptive demon-children. Though Lee Gilyoung and Shin Yoosung were initially hostile towards him, they gradually grew to accept him with Kim Dokja’s guidance.
“You’ll invite us to the wedding, right?” they would ask him without fail during every visit.
“Sure,” said Yoo Joonghyuk.
It came to no one's surprise when they befriended Mia instantly.
–
Yoo Joonghyuk saw Lee Seolhwa at graduation. They exchanged polite greetings, congratulations, and well-wishes. When they parted ways for good this time, Yoo Joonghyuk’s heart was still full.
Somehow, without him even realizing, he had healed.
–
A few years after they had gotten married, Yoo Joonghyuk was lounging on the couch when Kim Dokja came through the door and collapsed bonelessly into his lap. There was something different about him–though he was in his original form, his horns and wings were gone.
“Kim Dokja, what happened to you?”
“Ah, I got fired.”
“What.”
“More accurately, I fired myself.”
“...What.”
Turns out, Kim Dokja had done a centennial review on himself, found himself to be unproductive as the Demon King of Salvation, and promptly fired himself from his own position.
“So who’s the new Demon King of Salvation?” Yoo Joonghyuk asked.
“My long-time student, Jang Hayong. She’s been working very hard these past few years. The demon realm is in good hands.”
“And what about you?”
“Well,” Kim Dokja graced Yoo Joonghyuk with that unlucky grin of his that he had come to love so dearly, “I’m a human now.”
On that day, Yoo Joonghyuk cried for the first time in his conscious memory, holding Kim Dokja desperately in his arms.
BONUS:
“Kim Dokja?” asked Han Sooyoung when Yoo Joonghyuk re-introduced her to his husband. “What happened to you?”
“I got plastic surgery,” Kim Dokja bullshat confidently. “I’m going for a new look.”
Han Sooyoung thought for a while, then nodded. “That makes sense. You’ll still proofread my novels, right?”
“Of course, who do you think I am?”
Well, thought Yoo Joonghyuk. As long as it works out.