Work Text:
Han Sooyoung found him sitting on the edge of a Chinese-style house, staring out into the vast sea of space. His eyes, though fixed on one point, appeared to be taking in everything in their periphery.
He surely noticed her approach, but didn’t say a thing about it. So she saddled up to him, taking an obtrusively close seat, and leaned her head against his shoulder.
Now more than ever, the boundary between the two had grown fuzzy. Much less seeing him “as a man,” Han Sooyoung had difficulty seeing him as himself. Sometimes when she closed her eyes, she found herself thinking, “I am Yoo Joonghyuk.” Perhaps her Avatar skill came from these roots.
She didn’t know how he felt, but it must’ve been similar, since he didn’t push her away. Yoo Joonghyuk was a good person at heart; even if someone close to him was taking advantage of his strength, he’d protect them.
“Hey,” she called out after a while of silence. “It’ll only kill you faster to look up there.”
He glanced at her finally, his gaze heavy and thoughtful. Instead of replying to her accusation, he fired one back. “I have heard that you intend on sending an incarnation body into one of the planetary systems,” he said, the trembling of his vocal cords causing the auditory equivalent of landslides in the cold air.
She felt his mud wash her down the mountain, and leveled him with an equally domineering expression.
“Of course. And I’m dragging all 100% of that bastard back with me. Running off like that and reading someone else’s story—it pisses me off, y’know? After I promised to…”
…write for him forever. And that’s what I’m doing now. I’ll find him and I’ll handcuff him to me; force him to sit down and look at my work.
She picked up from where she faltered. “Anyway, doesn’t it piss you off, too? He used to be your biggest fan. He even called you ‘hyung’ a few times.”
His eyebrows twitched minutely, which was his equivalent of a smirk. This indicated that he was about to tease her. “Your response was defensive. Did I accuse you of anything untrue?”
Okay, this bastard.
“Whatever. I’m leaving. You won’t see me for a while. I might even die.”
“You, Han Sooyoung-ah?”
She heard it in Kim Dokja’s voice.
Yoo Joonghyuk’s pitch was deep. In fact, during the days of his gaming career, he had several female fans who would post things like “His voice alone is enough to make me pregnant!”, “Ahhh Hyung please say some pet names, I need a new ringtone!!!”, “I set YJK as my alarm and wake up pretending he’s my husband every morning,” etc. According to her story, at least. In other words, it was a weapon.
And he’d just pointed it at her.
Voice aside, there was unspeakable confidence and solidarity in his tone. He believed in her—that she would survive, that she would dig Kim Dokja out from his evil delves of the universe like a turnip and haul him back home. He knew that as much as he quietly wanted to be with Kim Dokja again, she wanted it louder.
“Hah. Seriously. Keep that up and I’ll wanna be your companion too, ‘Hyung’.”
“It’s Oppa,” he corrected sarcastically. Then again, both of them knew who she was imitating. In other words, what he really meant to say was, “You can’t be Kim Dokja.”
She sighed.
You can’t either, you bastard.
“But,” he continued, “we are companions as well.”
She disguised her vague surprise with a jab at Western wedding vows. “In Kim Dokja’s sickness and health.” But her heart was pounding now, and she quickly lifted her head away from his shoulder, staring at him with a complicated expression.
Two souls inspected each other: lonely, stubborn, masochistic, and with the same wound carved out from their substance.
There was nobody else who could understand them apart from each other. Not even Jung Heewon or Lee Gilyeong, for all the obsession they felt over Kim Dokja.
Of course, everyone misses him. But needing him like this…
There were only two people in the universe.
His writer, and his character. His two favorite people in the world.
Han Sooyoung’s hand inched towards his pinky like a little Garter snake. He didn’t flinch when she took it, or when she brushed over his knuckles with the pads of her fingers. He didn’t flinch when she lightly scratched at his visible veins and tendons.
“Yoo Joonghyuk,” she said in a quiet, almost accusatory tone. But even to her own ears, it sounded fragile.
He tensed a little. She continued.
“I miss the feeling of loving someone.”
Kim Dokja’s stupid habits; the way he always sacrificed himself first; his boundless love for those ‘stories’ of his. Every trait, from the cringy ones to the endearing to the abominable.
All of it.
She wanted the Kim Dokja whose eyes would crinkle watching the kids play, and the one who hated tomatoes as if he himself were a child. She wanted the Kim Dokja who tried to carry every burden on his own. She even wanted the Kim Dokja who had thrown himself out of the window all those years ago. She wanted all of him.
He didn’t respond, but she felt him silently agree.
“So, hey.”
He looked at her.
“Why don’t I love you, in the meanwhile?”
His demeanor became a little suspicious. But instead of an instant rejection, he asked her, “How?”
I know you’re lonely too, you bastard.
“Like the adults we are,” she answered after only a brief moment of hesitation, then buried her face in her hands. “Ugh, seriously. I don’t know how Jung Heewon does it. I feel like a joke.”
He took her words seriously, like always, and pondered them with too much gravity. Finally, he chose a set of three words. “This is… unwise.”
Unspoken was the brevity of normal human connection. Most people loved short and simple—most people would never experience the depth of emotions those two had felt, most especially for a dumbass sunfish dressed like a squid. But if his greatest concern was one that only applied to regulars, why should Han Sooyoung fear?
The reply flowed from her lips naturally.
“No, it’s okay.” She stared into the starry sky, scanning it as if reading the pages of a cosmic novel. In the end, she pulled her lips into a straight line and directed her gaze back at the dirt.
Yoo Joonghyuk knew.
Because he searched the beyond for that one star, too.
Because he could also never find it.
Han Sooyoung continued. “To this author, Yoo Joonghyuk is not a person…”
His eyebrows twitched, but she didn’t falter.
“…nor a character. An existence unlike anyone else.”
“Is that so.”
“Yes. If it’s Yoo Joonghyuk, it doesn’t matter what I do.”
She pulled his face down and brushed her lips against his. But before she could lean forwards and eliminate the microscopic distance between the two, his deep voice uttered a single syllable:
“Why?”
“Because…”
Her eyelashes fluttered as she blinked, and she released one of her hands from his collar, brushing his hair back, out of his forehead.
“…To me, Yoo Joonghyuk is a ‘phenomenon’.”
She kissed him once.
“A ‘concept’.”
She kissed him twice.
“So…”
She kissed him thrice.
“For today, you will be my concept of ‘comfort’.”
He stood there stoically, neither engaging nor fighting back. After patiently hearing her explanation, his Adam’s Apple bobbed as saliva flowed down his throat.
“Then you, Han Sooyoung, who wrote my story—for today, you will write a ‘Yoo Joonghyuk in love’.”
Both of them fell backwards together, lying awkwardly on the floor. The bright stars flashed in their vision once again before Han Sooyoung sat up and rolled to her side so that she was straddling his waist. Then, all she could see was him, and all he could see was her.
She leaned in close, but once more, she had something to say before attacking him. “But this messy relationship isn’t a romance, Joonghyuk-ah.”
“Yes.”
That was true. Anyone could see that the two of them weren’t in love with each other.
“Hey, have you ever read Norwegian Wood?”
He hadn’t. Before the scenarios, before he started ‘existing’, he wasn’t much for reading. He had to play games, and when he wasn’t gaming, he was taking care of Yoo Mia. He wasn’t as literary as Yoo Sangah, or… Kim Dokja.
“No.”
She traced the curve of his torso with her pointer finger. “Forget about it, then. I was just thinking that Joonghyuk-ah is sort of like Toru, and this pathetic Sooyoung-unnie is like Naoko.”
He tilted his head back and let her kiss him again before slowly asking, “Why?”
“Because the two of them engage in a self-harming relationship once their beloved dies.”
Yoo Joonghyuk’s muscular hands grabbed her shoulders, stopping her from dipping her head down again. “Han Sooyoung.”
He didn't continue, because he didn’t need to.
She could see the rest of his sentence clear as day, even without predictive plagiarism.
Is this hurting you more?
But…
“Don’t be stupid.”
She shook his hands off and lay on his chest, closing her eyes and trying to parse the sound of his heartbeat from her own. It was difficult when both were so slow and even.
“Of course it is. But honestly, ‘living’ is also becoming self-harming, don’t you think?”
It was too late. Both author’s and protagonist’s skin had been cut by Kim Dokja’s blades, and now, the only way to save themselves was to staunch each other’s wounds, hoping that he would return with a bandage before they bled out. They would hunt him down, hand in hand, if they had to.
Yoo Joonghyuk’s voice was firm. “With or without him, I will continue to live.”
“Liar.”
Han Sooyoung could hear the exact moment his heart became quicker.
“You’re just like me. That’s why only us two can comfort each other.”
His scarred fingers lifted, gently swiping her bangs away from her forehead. Perhaps if Yoo Joonghyuk had taken a liking to her at first, or if they had met in another world, this would’ve been romantic. But Han Sooyoung closed her eyes, indulging in the delusion that the chest she was lying on belonged to someone smaller and more pathetic.
Maybe Yoo Joonghyuk also wished that the hair he was organizing was shorter and thinner.
“Author-nim.”
Yoo Joonghyuk started his sentence the way Kim Dokja frequently wrote comments to her as an adolescent.
“Tell me, does this romance have a happy end?”
She chuckled before replying the same way. “Dear reader. I haven’t decided yet. But I’d like to think they all reunite at the end, and…” Her voice softened. “Live together in a big house. Attend the kids’ graduations, and support each other.”
Like Kim Dokja wanted.
“…That is a good ending,” Yoo Joonghyuk murmured under his breath. “Author-nim, I’m cheering you on. I’ll recharge you for points, so please don’t stop writing.”
If she ignored his voice and the feeling of his muscles against hers, she could almost pretend like a “dok-ja” was commenting on her newest chapters. She took a shuddering inhale. “Of course. I’ll write this epilogue for eternity.”
His lips tensed imperceptibly when she curled up into a fetal position and sniffled.