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There's a man sitting at Kim Dokja's kitchen table when he comes home late from work one day.
"I'm going to save you," he says when Kim Dokja freezes in the doorway. He’s empty-handed and clearly not hostile, and he almost looks as if he expects a serious answer.
"Sure," Kim Dokja agrees easily, because adaptability is one of his best traits. He knows he should be more wary right now, but the man looks so tired and unthreatening that he finds himself relaxing.
"Sit down," says the man, kicking the chair across from him away from the table. Kim Dokja drops his briefcase by the door and makes his way over, settling into the seat as casually as he can. Now that he's closer, can see that this man is extremely disheveled. He's certainly attractive—his hair falls over his face in a way that Kim Dokja's never been able to achieve, and his eyes are dark and long-lashed, but he holds himself with his shoulders low and his eyelids heavy as if all he wants to do is sleep. He looks exhausted, too. Unkempt in a way that suggests he hasn't rested in a very long time.
"My name is Yoo Joonghyuk," he says after several minutes of silence, just as Kim Dokja is contemplating getting up to leave. "You are Kim Dokja. You are twenty-eight years old, currently employed at Mino Soft, and you work at a bookstore on the weekends."
"Uh," Kim Dokja says, eloquent as always. He reaches for his phone.
"I will meet you for the first time in less than three weeks," Yoo Joonghyuk continues, resting his elbows against the table with a terrifyingly grave expression on his face. It shakes Kim Dokja right down to his core for no reason at all, striking him with fear so paralyzing that he almost feels like running. "I won't let that happen this time."
Kim Dokja doesn't know why he's suddenly taking this seriously. This stranger is probably out of his mind, and Kim Dokja has no reason to listen to him. Still, he finds himself gripping the hem of his shirt as he leans forward to ask, "Why?"
Yoo Joonghyuk's expression twitches then, faltering in the moonlight. "Because I’m going to kill you," he answers, and his voice is so broken that it makes Kim Dokja want to cry too.
"Who are you?"
"The man you were going to fall in love with," Yoo Joonghyuk says. "And the worst thing that ever happened to you."
Yoo Joonghyuk stays with him, and Kim Dokja lets him against his better judgment.
"I need to teach you how to defend yourself against monsters," he says, and Kim Dokja would laugh at the ridiculousness of his statement if he wasn't so sure that the other man is dead serious. So they spend the better half of seven days sparring in the guest bedroom until the walls are scratched up and Kim Dokja has half a mind to punt Yoo Joonghyuk right out the window. But he's courteous for a freeloader and dead set on following Kim Dokja around everywhere like a bodyguard, and Kim Dokja has the awful feeling that this is far, far bigger than he thinks it is.
Yoo Joonghyuk is solemn, intimidating in his seriousness, screaming intelligence in every word and each step he takes. He's the most down-to-earth person Kim Dokja has ever met, and the way he looks at Kim Dokja makes him think that he's telling the truth when he spins stories of the impossible. He knows things that happen two hours later and can name things about Kim Dokja that even he himself has forgotten, and it's both fascinating and terrifying.
Kim Dokja has to wonder how this man would ever hurt him.
"You don't believe me, do you," Yoo Joonghyuk says over dinner on the seventh night. He's taken to cooking all of their meals, and Kim Dokja isn't one to complain about that. There's a storm raging outside, and the lights flicker every few minutes.
Kim Dokja shrugs and spoons rice into his mouth. "I just don't think that you would kill me," he mumbles. He shouldn't believe it. The notion of time travel is crazy enough, but to think that this man—who has pledged time and time again to give everything to save him—would murder him in the future is near impossible.
"You have to trust me," Yoo Joonghyuk says, watching Kim Dokja like a hawk from across the table. He's dressed in one of Kim Dokja's sweaters, and his hair is messy enough that it looks soft in the dim light from the kitchen. It's oddly domestic.
Something about it all makes Yoo Joonghyuk incredibly sad to listen to. "I'll try," Kim Dokja promises.
"I promise I’ll keep you safe," Yoo Joonghyuk tells him, steely and determined all the same. Kim Dokja swallows a lump in his throat and nods as Yoo Joonghyuk stands up to take their bowls to the kitchen sink. He watches Yoo Joonghyuk's back, the gentle slope of his shoulders, and it occurs to him that this man probably used to be proud. He has the look of someone fallen from grace, like his body is too big for him.
Kim Dokja feels for Yoo Joonghyuk. He feels misery, and he feels pity, and he feels some convoluted kind of affection that only surfaces for this mysterious man who is willing to go to hell and back to keep him safe. It dawns on him that Yoo Joonghyuk is disturbed—he is paranoid to the point of insanity, and whatever made him like this must have been horrifying beyond words.
Yoo Joonghyuk returns and sits at his side just as Kim Dokja is settling onto the couch, flicking through channels on the television. Kim Dokja watches him uncertainly for a few moments before he speaks. "If you're here to save me," Kim Dokja begins. The words stick on his tongue, clumsy and uncertain, and he pushes ahead past his unease. "Why did you fail before this? How did I die?"
"You didn't listen to me," Yoo Joonghyuk says after a moment. He crosses his legs and tilts his head back and away so that Kim Dokja can't see his face. "Every single time."
"What do you mean?"
"You met me again." Yoo Joonghyuk's fingers tangle in the sleeves of his sweater and pull. "And you fell in love with me."
The television crackles, and the power goes out.
Kim Dokja watches a thin line of silver shiver on the curve of Yoo Joonghyuk's cheek, his face illuminated by the watery moonlight flooding into the apartment. "I'm glad that you seem to dislike me more this time around," Yoo Joonghyuk continues, speaking like he's commenting on the weather, so detached and aloof that Kim Dokja can barely register what he's saying. He keeps his gaze on the ceiling. "If I can get you to hate me, we might be able to avoid you meeting me altogether."
"I'm sorry," Kim Dokja says quietly. He feels like his heart is trembling, rattling around loosely in his ribcage.
"Don't be," comes the immediate reply. "I'll make it work."
"I don't want to hate you."
Yoo Joonghyuk turns to look at him. One side of his face is still lit up, and in his visible eye Kim Dokja sees a kind of chilling grief that echoes deep in his chest. "There's no reason not to," Yoo Joonghyuk sighs.
He's right, but there's no reason not to like him, either. Because Kim Dokja has only known this man for seven days, but he can already see why he would fall in love with him. Because Yoo Joonghyuk wakes up before him and goes to bed after him just to make sure he sleeps well, painfully gentle and cautious in everything he does. Because Yoo Joonghyuk is his first companion, and Kim Dokja has never had anyone to say "good night" to at the end of the day, and that in itself makes his heart ache far more than it should.
Yoo Joonghyuk is full of life. He holds so much care for Kim Dokja, and the way he looks at him now is so painstakingly mournful that Kim Dokja knows that he must have been something precious to Yoo Joonghyuk.
"Don't fall in love with me," Yoo Joonghyuk warns. It doesn't sound as if he believes himself.
"I'm not going to," Kim Dokja lies.
He feels sick to his stomach when Yoo Joonghyuk smiles at him.
"How can you time travel, anyway?"
"Don't worry about it," Yoo Joonghyuk says. "That's irrelevant. Stay focused."
"Nobody cares about maps," Kim Dokja says. Yoo Joonghyuk aims a kick at him under the table, and Kim Dokja tucks his feet in to dodge it.
He's apparently graduated from sparring, because now they've spent another week or so printing detailed diagrams of the city and the buildings surrounding the apartment, marking escape routes and pitfalls. Yoo Joonghyuk is currently highlighting all of the fire escapes in the apartment building, and Kim Dokja looks on with a pen between his teeth and his hands in his lap, entertained enough to watch but not enough to participate. Yoo Joonghyuk crosses off streets he's walked thousands of times before, scribbles out routes he thought were safe, and he doesn't answer any questions Kim Dokja asks him. "It's dangerous," he had said. "You'll understand soon."
And so Kim Dokja trusts him.
"I'll tell you later," Yoo Joonghyuk finally answers as Kim Dokja nudges him to respond, clearly not meaning it.
"Now's a great time," Kim Dokja says, leaning across the coffee table to push Yoo Joonghyuk's hand, preventing him from writing. Yoo Joonghyuk glowers at him. "Come on, I'm just curious."
Yoo Joonghyuk just pulls the papers closer to him, out of Kim Dokja's reach, and continues writing. Kim Dokja sighs and sits back, watching glumly as the other man scribbles notes he'll probably never remember. Their weekends usually go like this, with Yoo Joonghyuk drilling him on what to do to stay alive and Kim Dokja stubbornly resistant to his efforts.
"Take this more seriously," Yoo Joonghyuk had said the last time they sat down to review his forty-page lecture on the underground sewer system. "I'm trying to save you."
"I believe in you," Kim Dokja had responded easily. "It'll be fine in the end."
Kim Dokja does believe in him. Nobody this meticulous and determined could fail in his plans. Nobody this caring would ever dare to hurt him. Yoo Joonghyuk, who loves him so earnestly, would never kill him, and that thought is enough to wipe away any fear that he has.
"Are you sure I need this?" Kim Dokja asks as Yoo Joonghyuk opens yet another packet of stapled papers. "If I know I'm going to die, I can avoid it easily."
"Something big is coming," Yoo Joonghyuk says. "I want you to live a long life."
Kim Dokja wants to ask what it is, but Yoo Joonghyuk's gaze is dark and shadowed, and it makes him afraid to press the issue. Instead, he extends his arm, palm up, and Yoo Joonghyuk drops his hand into Kim Dokja's with a sigh that almost seems to make him deflate. "You wouldn't kill me," Kim Dokja murmurs.
Yoo Joonghyuk lowers his gaze and lifts Kim Dokja's hand, pressing a soft kiss to his knuckles. "I wouldn't," he agrees, sounding for all the world like he means it.
"How will I die, then?"
"Not everything goes the way we want it to." Yoo Joonghyuk grips him tight and screws his eyes shut. "You never leave me alone. I've tried so hard, and you go on and find me anyway every time."
"It'll be different this time," Kim Dokja reassures him, all too aware of how hollow his words sound. "It's better for both of us if we never meet, right?"
"Right," Yoo Joonghyuk agrees. "I'm glad you understand."
(He doesn't.)
When night falls, Kim Dokja is the only one that sleeps. He drifts off to the sound of Yoo Joonghyuk moving around in the living room and wakes up to the curtains drawn and the lights on. Yoo Joonghyuk is tireless, and even though he must be dead on his feet, he works until Kim Dokja forces him into napping on the couch. When Yoo Joonghyuk is exhausted enough, he'll let his guard down enough to allow Kim Dokja to flip through the notebook he's been filling out for the past couple of weeks. The pages are filled with elaborate sketches of otherworldly creatures, labelled with disjointed phrases that he doesn't understand.
"You'll need this one day," Yoo Joonghyuk says one evening as Kim Dokja pores over the pages, over a cup of coffee Kim Dokja had insisted he drink. "It'll make sense later."
"What is this?" Kim Dokja laughs and tilts the book into the light, admiring a drawing of a huge praying mantis labelled 'Titano.' "A guidebook on how to survive the apocalypse, or something?"
"Sure," Yoo Joonghyuk sighs, as if he's finally decided not to bother putting up with Kim Dokja's nonsense. He reaches out and takes Kim Dokja's wrist between his fingertips, tilting it towards himself to check the face of his watch. "Five more minutes," he adds. "Then you go to bed, okay?"
"Not until you do."
Yoo Joonghyuk glowers at him as he takes another swig of the coffee. "You need to rest," he says. "We don't have long left."
We don't have long left. The words strike him in the heart, dull and steady, a mild shock but a shock nonetheless. The current Yoo Joonghyuk here is temporary, and in a few days' time Kim Dokja will never see him again. He'll move on and the Yoo Joonghyuk of his time will fade into the distance without their paths ever crossing, an opportunity slipping right through his fingers. "Where will you go?" Kim Dokja asks. "Will you be with me?"
"I'll be gone," Yoo Joonghyuk says. He pushes the mug into the middle of the table and reclines in his seat, arms crossed. "They have no use for someone who already knows the rules of the game."
"They?"
"The constellations in the sky," Yoo Joonghyuk mutters, tilting his head exaggeratedly, and Kim Dokja snorts. It's always like this—Kim Dokja will ask a question and Yoo Joonghyuk offers him every answer but the right one, each reply oversaturated with sarcasm and painful pessimism. He dances around the truth with the mulish reluctance of a bull, and Kim Dokja has learned not to expect any real answers from him.
Kim Dokja stretches across the table, straining his arms. Yoo Joonghyuk leans forward to meet him and takes his hands. "You should tell me more," Kim Dokja suggests, knowing Yoo Joonghyuk will refuse. Yoo Joonghyuk has his ulterior motives, secret plans that he thinks Kim Dokja will take and shatter into a million pieces. Kim Dokja knows this, and Yoo Joonghyuk knows that he knows, and they still spin in circles like this because all Kim Dokja knows how to do is dig in his heels, too curious to let it go.
"You'll get it later," Yoo Joonghyuk says. It's probably true, but 'later' is synonymous with 'too late.' He squeezes Kim Dokja's hands and presses a soft kiss to his knuckles. "Trust me, Kim Dokja."
"I do," Kim Dokja assures him.
Yoo Joonghyuk smiles weakly at him before reaching for the notebook. "Go to bed," he says gently. "I'll still be here in the morning."
For now, Kim Dokja wants to say, bitter and sullen, but he settles for a nod and a pat on the head for Yoo Joonghyuk as he stands. "You rest soon, too," he says over his shoulder as he walks back to his bedroom, knowing it's futile to even bother trying. Yoo Joonghyuk is egocentric and tunnel visioned and far too loving to let Kim Dokja tell him what to do.
Yoo Joonghyuk will never make sense to Kim Dokja. There must be something in the truth that he thinks will make Kim Dokja want to meet him despite all the plans they've made. Something that he thinks is greater than their clear mutual trust, stretched taut but firm between them with all the strength of an elevator cable. Kim Dokja doesn't know if it would be better for him to know, but he's selfish—more selfish than Yoo Joonghyuk—enough to keep trying.
Kim Dokja doesn't want to stop him. It's not like he wants to die, and he doesn't want to defy Yoo Joonghyuk either. Still, there's something Yoo Joonghyuk isn't telling him. Something important, something so severe that it has the potential to ruin Yoo Joonghyuk's carefully crafted house of cards. Something that will make Kim Dokja ruin it.
It's frustrating, Kim Dokja thinks as he collapses onto his bed. He wants Yoo Joonghyuk to be safe just as much as the latter wants to protect him, and here he is with his hands bound and no freedom to move on his own. Yoo Joonghyuk is infuriatingly silent on his present counterpart's fate. For someone who comes from the future, Yoo Joonghyuk barely talks about it, and the more Kim Dokja ponders it the more he realizes he really knows nothing at all.
Yoo Joonghyuk has never said that he'll be alright. He's never even close to implied anything about what's going to happen to him, and Kim Dokja is worried beyond words about him. If there's one problem he has with the other man and his ambiguity, it's his refusal to speak about himself. If he's going to live, he wants Yoo Joonghyuk to be with him. He's not sure where the dependency came from, how it grew so rapidly over the past several days, but he's attached himself so forcibly to the other man that he can barely even stomach the thought of letting him go.
And it hits him then.
The realization is subtle. It's not dramatic. The puzzle pieces do not align with a perfect click, and the epiphany does not strike any chord deep within the closed recesses of Kim Dokja's heart. It's just a quiet revelation, the sound of wind echoing down a yawning tunnel, empty and hollow in the night.
It's fitting, Kim Dokja supposes, and it's ironic that Yoo Joonghyuk has come all this way for someone even more self-sacrificial than he is.
Kim Dokja skips work. It isn't worth attending when they have so little time left together and Yoo Joonghyuk drifts farther and farther away with each passing day, detaching slowly until he can barely look Kim Dokja in the eye. They're getting ready to say goodbye, and Kim Dokja feels it looming on the horizon, shadowy and sinister like a storm about to hit.
Yoo Joonghyuk has already given him plans and a whole ring binder of papers (which is so ridiculous that it's laughable, but the look on his face is so serious that Kim Dokja can't bring himself to joke about it). He'll find Lee Hyunsung after Yoo Joonghyuk is gone, and together they'll travel across the country and stay with someone named Lee Seolhwa. "Lee Hyunsung will take some convincing," Yoo Joonghyuk says when they discuss the full plan for the first time, in the living room with the muted television playing a show they've both stopped paying attention to. "But he's a good man. Lee Seolhwa will take you in, too."
Kim Dokja is hesitant to trust his life to two strangers he's never met before, even though Yoo Joonghyuk insists that they'll keep him safe. He nods anyway and Yoo Joonghyuk smiles, clearly pleased. Kim Dokja feels some kind of ugly twisting emotion spiraling in his gut. "Sounds good to me," he says.
Yoo Joonghyuk leans into him, sinking into the couch cushions with a look on his face akin to relief. "I'll keep you safe," he vows as he holds Kim Dokja's hand tight, almost dark in his certainty. "This will be the last time."
Kim Dokja wants to agree. He wishes he could close his ears and let Yoo Joonghyuk lead the way, but he's come to care about the other man too much to let him get what he wants. "What about you?" he asks. "The you I haven't met yet. Where will you be?"
"It shouldn't matter to you," Yoo Joonghyuk says. He pulls Kim Dokja closer with a hand on the back of his neck, speaking softly into his cheek. "Don't worry about me, okay? I'm going to be fine."
Kim Dokja worries. He worries because everything Yoo Joonghyuk is doing is finally starting to make sense, and all the loose ends are threading themselves together into a picture he hates. It's the reason why Yoo Joonghyuk refuses to tell him anything, and why Kim Dokja has died every time without fail.
Yoo Joonghyuk is not a killer.
Kim Dokja is the instigator of all of his own problems. Yoo Joonghyuk is too extraordinarily cautious, and Kim Dokja is rash, curious, too willing to leap at every risk that comes his way. It's the only solution that could possibly make sense—that Kim Dokja dies every time, every way, trying to protect Yoo Joonghyuk.
Knowing that Yoo Joonghyuk is here, still spinning in his time loop, is grimly satisfying. It means that Kim Dokja has succeeded in meeting Yoo Joonghyuk every time. Even if he dies at the end, it's better than leaving Yoo Joonghyuk to fight against whatever terror is to come alone.
The ending Yoo Joonghyuk wants to reach is unsatisfactory. It's a conclusion that leaves them separated, a conclusion that will likely see Kim Dokja alone and Yoo Joonghyuk dead. It might be the best case scenario in Yoo Joonghyuk's eyes, but Kim Dokja can't bring himself to even consider leaving the other man on his own. It's a shame that he cares so much, that he falls in love so quickly, and Yoo Joonghyuk has made it far too easy.
Kim Dokja wants them both to be safe. He wants to make his own ending, and if saving Yoo Joonghyuk means ignoring everything he's done for him, so be it.
So Kim Dokja lies and says, "Of course," and he nearly feels bad when Yoo Joonghyuk relaxes into his side, comforted by words he doesn’t mean.
The last night comes all too soon.
"Don't go to work tomorrow," Yoo Joonghyuk says as he sits at Kim Dokja's bedside, close to invisible in the blinding dark. His hand is on Kim Dokja's forearm, firm and reassuring for all the wrong reasons. "Just go straight to Lee Hyunsung's house. Even if you're a stranger, he'll let you in."
"I know," Kim Dokja says. The bedroom is stiflingly warm. Something close to apprehension saturates his body, slow and sluggish, heavy enough that he feels it pressing on his back.
Yoo Joonghyuk sighs and squeezes Kim Dokja's shoulder for the hundredth time. "It's going to be okay," he murmurs. "You'll make it."
Kim Dokja bites his tongue and brings his hand up to rest over Yoo Joonghyuk's. "I know."
They sit in silence, both having run out of things to say and repeat. Yoo Joonghyuk is meek for a rare moment in time, and he seems timid as he pulls Kim Dokja towards him gingerly and leans against him. "Are you scared?" he asks, breathing the words into Kim Dokja's neck.
"Not really," Kim Dokja says. "I can't be scared of what I don't know."
Yoo Joonghyuk hums. "It's better like that," he agrees.
The sounds of the city rattle against the window, and Yoo Joonghyuk pulls back to take Kim Dokja's face in his hands. It's dark enough that all he can see is filtered moonlight against a murky silhouette, equally black in the shadows of the bedroom. The night is cold, but Yoo Joonghyuk's palm burns into his skin, and Kim Dokja knows he'll feel it long into the early hours of the morning.
"I love you," Kim Dokja says.
Yoo Joonghyuk exhales softly against his lips and presses their foreheads together, eyelashes fluttering like butterfly wings on Kim Dokja's skin. "You're not supposed to," he says gently, like he's teaching a lesson to a young child. "You already know that."
Kim Dokja does. He does and he wishes that he could care for Yoo Joonghyuk as openly and freely as the other man cares for him, but he's too late, as always. All Kim Dokja can do now is make a last desperate attempt to carve his own perfect future against a story that has played out far too many times.
The clouds finally uncover the moon and Yoo Joonghyuk appears in front of him, just as silver as the first night they met. "Isn't it funny?" he says with a smile. "You tell me you love me every time, no matter what I do." He laughs then, and it breaks something irreplaceable in Kim Dokja's heart. "Some things never change."
"I'm sorry."
Yoo Joonghyuk whispers a hushed reassurance into Kim Dokja's mouth as he kisses him for the first time, and Kim Dokja kisses him back, almost allowing himself to believe that everything will be okay.
The morning starts quietly. Kim Dokja still manages to find himself surprised when he wakes up with his hand empty and the chair that was at his bed last night already placed back at the dining table. He allows himself a minute of letting the alarm clock batter his skull before he forces his sluggish body out of bed, cold without another person's presence in the apartment to wake up to.
The kitchen is meticulously tidy and unchanged from all those weeks ago, save for the notes stacked neatly on the table. All of the lights are off, and the dishwasher is emptied. It's like Yoo Joonghyuk was never here.
Kim Dokja is already lonely. He’s so lonely that it could make him sick.
He fetches his own breakfast from the pantry and does his own dishes, and he turns all the lights in the empty apartment off as he leaves for work. The trip on the subway is uneventful and the brief walk through the park on his way is peaceful. There's no sign of any hidden danger nor any indication of whatever Yoo Joonghyuk had been so afraid of.
His coworkers still nod to him as usual when they pass in the hallway. Kim Dokja waves back at them, watching his own reflection shivering in the windows as he walks. Yoo Joonghyuk’s notes sit heavy in his bag, knocking against the side of his leg with every step he takes, and he ignores it as he greets Yoo Sangah when they meet in front of the elevator.
“It’s a nice day today, isn’t it?” Yoo Sangah says as the doors open and they step inside. A white-haired intern and a couple of young businessmen shuffle aside to make room for them. “How was your morning?”
Kim Dokja shrugs and reaches past her to press the button to their floor. “It was boring,” he says. “Nothing interesting has happened.”
“Peaceful,” Yoo Sangah remarks, leaning against the elevator wall as they begin to move upwards. She grins at him, and Kim Dokja forces himself to smile back. “The best kind of boring, in my opinion.”
“Maybe.”
Yoo Sangah falls silent, and when the elevator slows at the fourth floor they back towards the wall in unison. The doors open and more people flood inside, harried employees with cups of coffee and secretaries carrying stacks of paper, and behind them all, Han Myungoh leading a familiar black-haired man inside.
Kim Dokja does a double take.
Han Myungoh spots them and pushes his way through the crowd to their side. “Oh, you two are here,” he sighs, exasperated as always in the early morning. “This is Yoo Joonghyuk, and he’ll be joining you today. Show him around for me, will you?”
“Of course,” Yoo Sangah says sweetly. “I’m Yoo Sangah, it’s nice to meet you,” she tells Yoo Joonghyuk, holding out her hand to shake. Yoo Joonghuk takes it wordlessly and squeezes briefly, expressionless as he lets go and turns to Kim Dokja expectantly.
Kim Dokja fumbles with the strap of his bag as he sticks his arm out stiffly. “Kim Dokja,” he chokes out. Yoo Joonghyuk grabs his hand and Kim Dokja makes painstaking eye contact with him.
“I look forward to working with you both,” Yoo Joonghyuk tells them flatly. Yoo Sangah offers him a polite smile in return, and Kim Dokja nods along all too awkwardly. Han Myungoh wrestles his way back toward the doors, leaving the three of them to stand together quietly.
It’s surreal to see a Yoo Joonghyuk who doesn’t know him inside and out, a version of him that looks at Kim Dokja like they’ve never met before. It’s Yoo Joonghyuk without all the bits and pieces he saves for Kim Dokja alone, devoid of any emotion or weakness or his familiar fierce, silent affection. He’s still the same person Kim Dokja has spent the last weeks with, but he’s been wiped clean into a blank slate without all of his best parts.
When the elevator comes to a jarring stop, Yoo Joonghyuk grabs Kim Dokja’s arm with surprising speed to keep them from falling over. The elevator is stuffy and loud for a precious few seconds as the lights go out and the other occupants begin to complain, shouting to the security camera mounted on the corner of the wall. Yoo Sangah inhales sharply next to them and Yoo Joonghyuk hums deep in his throat, gripping Kim Dokja by his elbow as the air begins to crackle above their heads, and all Kim Dokja can feel is dread—the slow kind that grips at first and digs in later, piercing and so painful that it’s paralyzing.
“Yoo Joonghyuk,” Kim Dokja whispers, and the other man glances down at him. It’s the face of a man who has yet to love him, but Kim Dokja knows that he’s going to. “Whatever’s going to come—you just stay with me and we’ll be fine, okay?”
Yoo Joonghyuk looks at him curiously, clearly perplexed, and Kim Dokja knows that he has no reason to listen—and yet he still nods, like even now trusting each other is all they can do.
Yoo Joonghyuk only ever remembers at the end. It’s before Kim Dokja’s body that the memories resurface—that everything and all of his past lives come rushing back with horrifying clarity while the constellations stand over their bloodied bodies, mocking their futile journey and the violent, pathetic end they’ve met, the end they’ve managed to reach every time without fail.
Kim Dokja had been such a strange man when they’d first met, armed with rough half-baked knowledge of things he’d never seen before and pages upon pages of diagrams and notes in Yoo Joonghyuk’s handwriting, things he doesn’t remember. “I can see the future,” Kim Dokja had said with such striking confidence that Yoo Joonghyuk had no choice but to believe him, even if the tales he spun and everything happening around them were so outlandish it was like they’d been peeled straight out of a fantasy novel.
He’d promised that they would both be fine, and Yoo Joonghyuk had been ignorant enough to go along with it, trusting Kim Dokja and his baseless conjecture that continued to save them even when it shouldn’t have. He’d trusted Kim Dokja enough to believe that their path would continue forever, and they’d reach their happy ending as long as they were together. Kim Dokja was supposed to lead him to paradise. Kim Dokja was not supposed to die for him. Kim Dokja was not meant to take his last breath in Yoo Joonghyuk’s arms, bloody beyond recognition.
Kim Dokja was a liar, and Yoo Joonghyuk believed in him.
The constellations give him the opportunity to continue forward as if they think Yoo Joonghyuk will choose anything else but to turn back. He knows that they see him as pitiful, the protagonist of a miserable story who never fails to lose to his biggest ally. Even with Kim Dokja dead at his feet—with the memory of Kim Dokja dead at his feet, far too many times—Yoo Joonghyuk returns to the beginning because he’s too scared to leave him behind.
This is not an ending Yoo Joonghyuk wants to settle for. Even if he can’t make a difference, and all of his tugging on the strings of fate can only spell out Kim Dokja’s death, there’s nothing he can do but try. It’s the only thought that keeps him together as he finds himself at the kitchen table that he’s spent countless nights at, struggling desperately to change everything and anything.
It seems like nothing will let them part ways, but Yoo Joonghyuk will pry them apart with his bare hands. He has to.
The door opens again and Yoo Joonghyuk looks up to meet the gaze of Kim Dokja the stranger. Kim Dokja, who always, always wins in the end despite everything Yoo Joonghyuk has ever done, and it makes him want to cry. He’s carrying a briefcase, his hair is mussed, he’s clearly fed up from a long day at work, and all Yoo Joonghyuk wants to do is hold him.
“I’m going to save you,” Yoo Joonghyuk tells him.
And Kim Dokja, the stranger, lies to his face and tells him, “Sure.”