Archive of Our Own

There had perhaps been a time when people could remember when all the land was bright and fair with green hills and blue skies. But those warm days soon faded when the snows started and did not end, plunging the land into eternal winter. The snow spread out for eons, over hills and faraway mountains dotted with black evergreens. Ice seared deep into the earth, killing the roots and the spirits of those who lived above it. The wind bit anyone anywhere it could reach.

For Yoo Joonghyuk, the world had always existed in white. And as far as he knew, he had always been alone, ever since he left the village he grew up with. That was one of two choices everyone had— to stay and band together suffering a slow, silent death, or to move away to faraway places where the cold did not touch.

But as the nights grew longer and colder, he found himself searching for a second fire, a voice other than the howling wind to accompany him. Although he had long been directionless in his travels, the stars led him the way he had come from. When he arrived, the village had long been erased by the white of winter. There was nothing to salvage, and the snow was deep. As the snow continued to fall, Joonghyuk buried the last of his early memories and headed into the woods once more, where the animal tracks led and certain life still stirred.

In the thick of the forest, Joonghyuk moved towards where meadows once lay, where there were once greens more tender than the dark pines that lined the slopes like rows of soldiers. The snow here was thin. Joonghyuk took out his axe and started to cut. The dull heavy blade struck the tree over and over again.

Along with the stirring of the wind, there was another movement. Behind the bark of a tall black pine, a snow fairy prince was watching the human.

The snow fairy had a face that would confuse any person enough for a second glance, a strange forgetfulness of his features, as if they had blurred into the snowscape and dark wood around him. It was a small face, with large dark eyes and dark hair, the darkest, but perhaps it was because they were set against such pale, snow-like skin. His fine brows and soft mouth gave him a delicacy befitting of fairies, but the lack of a pink flush on his cheeks and lips made him seem brittle and cold.

Most peculiar was his crown, or what seemed to be one at first look. A pair of antlers rested on the fairy’s head, spiralling out from the spot above his temples. They were slightly rounded at the tips, and the frost was spread over his bone white antlers like soft velvet.

Then there were his hands, peeking out from under a white cloak, as delicate as a morning ice over a pond. He wore a garment of frosted cloth, beaded with millions of ice flecks, fashioned from the robes of royalty he had glimpsed in the past, in ruined fortresses of castles scattered throughout the land as the cold of his domain crept over.

Those royals were no more. All that remained in the land was Kim Dokja, harbinger of winter, a title that seemed misfitting for a snow fairy, creatures who were originally small, frivolous, and fond of playing harmless tricks. Kim Dokja thrived in the snow like no other— bringing in all the winds, and wherever he stepped the snow would fall far and wide. With a single touch, he could turn anything he wished into ice.

However, as a snow fairy, he still had the same curious, whimsical nature of his kind. He liked beautiful things. And he had never seen something as strikingly beautiful as the man in the snow.

Thwok! Thump!

At first Kim Dokja could only see the side of his face, the chiselled jawline, cold-stung ears hidden behind the curl of thick black hair. When the whole face was revealed, the world seemed to sigh and hold its breath for a moment. Out shone a harmony of the features that seemed to contradict and complement his roughness and fierceness all at once— the line of his nose, the angle of his brows, the arrestingly dark eyes and shape of his lips. And yet every part of this man was perfection— his body even under thick layers of clothing, his brisk, light movements as he swung his axe and the heavy thud as it landed true into the wood. With each stroke of the blade, bark splayed and splintered, revealing the fresh, cream-coloured wood at the core. Soon, the tree was felled, and the man continued to reduce the trunk and branches into smaller pieces.

Thump!

Dokja started to tremble, like leaves weighed down by ice would, a small, quick shivering, as worried as the tremulous ringing of a bell.

Oh, he thought, this was a handsome man. Now there was an excitement rising in his chest like a snow flurry. I shall turn him into ice, so I will have a beautiful statue of this handsome man in my palace, and he shall live with me forever.

He started to dream, of how this man would look like in his ice palace, where he would put him, what position he would stand in for all of eternity for Kim Dokja to admire. He would certainly be the most excellent addition to his sculpture collection.

Kim Dokja quickly began plotting his nefarious scheme to turn the handsome man into an ice statue. The man would look best standing, of course, in a strong, firm stance, looking off heroically into the distance. The axe in his hand would be a nice addition, or perhaps a knife if he had one.

Yoo Joonghyuk knelt down by his gathered pile of wood and twigs. Slowly, a gentle crackle was coaxed out from the kindling, along with the glow of a growing fire that nipped and licked at the wood. The flame burst merrily into life, and shot out sparks of light more brilliant than stars.

Kim Dokja let out a soft exclamation. The wind stilled at that moment, and Yoo Joonghyuk turned at the sound.

They both froze. Kim Dokja, half of him revealed from behind the tree, Yoo Joonghyuk, still kneeling in the snow, knife in hand.

The wind stirred to life again, and the snow fairy’s cloak fluttered with it. Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes shook. Kim Dokja stared longingly at Joonghyuk for just a moment longer before he moved, and then the snow fairy prince was gone in a blink, as if he had never existed in the first place.

***

Kim Dokja returned the following day, bright with excitement at the chance to see the handsome human again. There was a new fire in the clearing, and the man was sitting on a log, whittling away at a piece of wood with his knife. With the lightest footsteps, as silent as snow piling on itself, Dokja crept up behind an unsuspecting Joonghyuk. Only when the winter chill hit Joonghyuk’s cheek did he realise the snow fairy’s presence.

Joonghyuk’s dark eyes were wild and guarded. “What are you?”

“A snow fairy.”

Joonghyuk’s expression was not of disbelief, nor did he relax and laugh like some humans Dokja encountered in the past. "I thought those were only from tales," he said, still wary. And yet, he didn't seem to mind Dokja being so close. His gaze caught onto Dokja's antlers.

"But why are you here?"

"... This is where I live," Dokja lied smoothly, gauging Joonghyuk's reaction. If Dokja told him the truth, that Dokja was interested in him and wanted to make him into a nice ice statue, Dokja would likely be throttled. And Joonghyuk caught mid-snarl committing such a heinous action would not make for a very nice statue.

Joonghyuk gave him a suspicious look. Dokja's resulting smile was full of mirth and mischief. Drunk on whimsy, he asked the man a question he had not bothered to ask any other human he had encountered.

"What's your name?"

"Yoo Joonghyuk."

Now, Kim Dokja did not know much about human names, but it sounded quite grand and intense. He told him so. “That’s very fitting. It sounds heavy, like a heavy burden to carry, but you have the strength to carry it,” Dokja said some nonsense and nodded sagely.

Joonghyuk did not speak, speechless from a combination of confusion and contempt. He abruptly stood up to leave. The cold was sapping away at his strength and he no longer had the desire to listen to this snow fairy.

Dokja followed after him, still babbling about Joonghyuk's name before pausing. He leaned close. "By the way, my name is Kim Dokja.”

“I didn’t need to know.”

Dokja pouted. “It would do you well to remember. It’s Kim Dokja. Kim. Dokja—”

“What a strange name.”

"I've heard that from many others in the past." Dokja picked up his pace. Joonghyuk was headed out of the woods now, to a snowy bankside by a lake.

"Did you want to cross the lake? It's big, but there's nothing much to see on it and on the other side. And in some places, the ice—"

“Shut up, Kim Dokja.” Yoo Joonghyuk gave him a wicked, feral look and kicked him into the icy lake.

***

With strong, deft hands, Joonghyuk built a shelter for himself out of wood. It could only be described as a little hut, standing stout and sturdy framed by birch and pine. Even throughout the blizzard nights it remained steadfast.

Kim Dokja's favourite game of late was to wait at dawn for Joonghyuk to emerge from the doorway, kicking away and shaking off all the freshly fallen powder from the night. He would hide behind a tree and watch the human, laughing and dashing away whenever he was spotted, or on some days, admire him until the blue of the sky had soured and the sun chased away.

He blew him a kiss from behind the tree, and a little swirl of icy wind escaped his lips, a playful dance of snowflakes blowing right onto Joonghyuk's face. He swatted the snow away, with a dumbfounded look, and it was all so stupid and cute that Dokja started giggling, and blew him another kiss that blasted snow at the back of his head, frosting his long, wavy hair. He laughed again as Joonghyuk scowled and tried to pull the ice out of his hair.

"You're no fairy. You're a demon," he complained.

Dokja laughed in delight. "Who said fairies had to be nice? I'm vicious by nature."

Snow petals fluttered by them, picked up and tossed around by the wind as if affected by Dokja’s giddy mood. “I can do nice things,” Dokja tried to convince Joonghyuk. “Here.” He snapped a leaf out of the new shoot growing between the wooden boards of Joonghyuk’s hut.

He blew delicately on the small leaf, encasing it in a clear and glassy layer of ice. Once it set, Dokja peeled the ice off the leaf, creating a perfect copy from every intricate web of veins to the sharp edges. He placed it in Joonghyuk’s hand.

They both watched as it rapidly melted into nothing on his palm. With a casual flick of his wrist, Joonghyuk shook off the watery remnants. He looked unimpressed. “I have no need for pretty things.”

There was still some ice left in his black hair when he left to go hunting for food. Idly, Kim Dokja started peeling ice off of more leaves, wondering just what a handsome man would need in his life.

***

Kim Dokja observed the man over the days. He came to find Yoo Joonghyuk as a lonely existence, struggling on like humans did, finding food and building fire and shelter to survive. But Joonghyuk was like a living flame. He was fearless, undaunted by the ice and snow. He headed out each morning with the same defiance no matter how terrible the night's storm had been.

Yoo Joonghyuk walked out into the wintry morning, the sun softly carving light around his body, all the muscles of his shoulders and arms, his chest and back. He was bare. Dokja had never seen a human in his presence purposely be without their winter furs piled over layers of thick clothing. He was still wearing his pants, but his upper body was shed of its clothing. His body looked similar to Dokja's, but it was broader and sturdier, unlike Dokja's wisp of a frame waiting to be carried along the wind with the snowflakes.

Joonghyuk squinted at the brilliant snow, shining fresh and new. He frowned and grumbled as he started the morning fire. His breath pooled out into the cold, a veil of haze. Dokja stared at Joonghyuk with interest. Joonghyuk ignored him.

"If you're so miserable, why do you still live on?" Dokja asked brightly.

"Why, should I just die? And let you win?" Joonghyuk scoffed. "Dream on."

He watched Yoo Joonghyuk hunt with fascination. Never had he seen such a brilliant red spill out into the cold, still so warm the vapours almost steamed in the frozen air. Dokja was familiar with a death that closed in on itself, trembling and curling up into an unmoving forever silence. Death did not burst, struggle as brilliantly, vividly, as an animal in its final throes, still so full of fight and will.

He had never seen death like fireworks. When the sparks petered out, Joonghyuk breathed. Again, the warm plume of his breath pooling out into the cold air.

There was that feeling when he would look at Joonghyuk. Like a blizzard confined in him trying to escape, the yearning of the winter wind to wreak havoc and raze landscapes, a far cry from the usual placidity and stillness of his heart.

Dokja watched, and dreamed.

***

Yoo Joonghyuk was handsome when he slept. He had dozed off while tending the fire in the pit after his meal, the bones now turned to ashes in the flame. Fire was always an attractive show, but next to Yoo Joonghyuk— it was hardly worth a glance. Even now Joonghyuk was stiff, yet there was something about that endlessly beautiful, world-ending beauty of his in the way his head leaned to one side, arms crossed, legs slightly apart and planted firmly on the ground as he slept sitting up.

Dokja crept closer and examined that face. Sometimes, he thought even the grumpiest snow fairy's face wouldn't look quite as cold as Joonghyuk. Yet drowsiness, the gentle crackle of wood under fire, and the slow languid warmth had softened his features, and he looked full of life, brimming with a vitality that could run for as long as the sun.

Dokja liked him beyond possession. He liked him like how the ice lived forever in death and rebirth.

He kissed Joonghyuk's brow, and for a moment under his lips he could feel a strange sensation, like when ice would become too cold for even him, this must be what burning feels like, no— melting.

Warmth touched his mouth and spread, and at the same time, the frost crystallised on Joonghyuk's brow, little snowflakes settled on his dark lashes and then kept spreading, and Kim Dokja knew Joonghyuk would die like this.

He tore his lips away from that warm forehead, desperately sought something to save Joonghyuk, anything but his cold self, and saw the fire burning in the pit. He ran to it, grabbed the fiery branches, and held them in his arms.

He felt his heart flicker, he knew he could dance on the embers for Joonghyuk like no one else could, even as his feet melted he would not feel the pain.

He threw the burning branches onto Joonghyuk, and within seconds the man awakened, cursing and hurriedly brushing away all the fire and twigs from his body. One eye was frozen shut, the other glaring at Kim Dokja as he stamped out the fire underneath his heavy boots, and he looked angry enough to murder.

"First you try to turn me to ice, then you try to burn me with fire, should I kill you?"

Dokja's skin was still numb from the fire. The burns ran up his arms, pink and black and blue. "You'd melt me sooner than I could do anything to you."

"Is that so?" Joonghyuk said. "I'll melt you now." He stepped forward threateningly, and Kim Dokja stood there, unable to move.

He smiled helplessly. “At the same time, you’ll freeze into an ice statue,” Dokja said brightly. “A very nice one, but I’d prefer if I could choose the pos—”

Dokja ducked behind a birch as Joonghyuk rushed towards him angrily with outstretched hands. He found his back pressed against the white and black bark, Joonghyuk closing in on him to cage him in, body just centimetres away from Dokja's, his mouth even closer.

"No touching," Dokja whispered. He could feel Joonghyuk's breath on his lips, the tension between them almost palpable.

Joonghyuk looked slightly dazed, unable to resist lowering his eyes to a glance at Dokja's lips. Promptly, he snapped out of it with a scowl, glaring at Dokja before whirling around to stalk off into the woods, tearing up a path through the fresh white powder.

***

Up on the highest peaks was a castle, far from the forests, where nothing grew and there was only black rock and white snow. It was said this castle was built so high up on the mountain to reach the heavens, and that the former king was a miser whose greed had him tumbling down the side of a cliff by the castle grounds. In the end, the abandoned castle became Kim Dokja’s when he came across it.

Dokja had returned to his palace to sulk. All around him was wasted opulence, so much that he could drown in it. He strolled through the long walkways, each footstep echoing up into the high ceiling. Was it mink or ermine, the fur he wore was fine and sleek, slipping over Dokja’s shoulders like a glossy shroud. Ice statues lined the halls on both sides. It was a frozen menagerie of animals and humans alike— a white tiger, betrothed princess, golden stag, a young scholar, flock of starlings, and fearless knight, among countless others.

There were other statues in his palace, in a hidden wing past the front hall, where Kim Dokja liked to hide in shame. This gallery was one of a voyeur's, various couples caught in acts of sexual intimacy. The centrepiece was of a human man and woman copulating, bodies entangled, caught in ecstasy for all of eternity so long as Kim Dokja wished for it. He could shatter their pleasure any time he wanted, and today he sat there on the frozen steps, resting his chin on his palms, wondering whether to do so as the mad jealousy churned within him.

That could be him, and Yoo Joonghyuk! If only they could, if Joonghyuk could touch him, hold him. If only nature did not rule that fire could melt ice and snow, if only Kim Dokja was not a freak of nature.

He did not want for it to be wild, carnal, like those animals. Dokja wanted it to be something human and sweet, like how he that man tucked so carefully the hair behind her ear, while kissing her, how she grasped at him, seeking his lips and everything he had. He wanted Yoo Joonghyuk to kill him, carve him out like he did so many times with those deer he hunted, to reach inside of him so deep perhaps he would find something warm for once. Yoo Joonghyuk could warm him from the inside; he wanted that flame at the expense of his existence. The humans described passion as something hot and burning, something that could destroy, and maybe he wanted to be destroyed instead of keeping his cold, frigid heart. Maybe his existence was meant for this, to melt away in the most beautiful, tragic way possible.

What would it be like to kiss him, on the mouth, Dokja wondered, where he was the warmest and Dokja would die the quickest. He would die for a kiss.

On the other side of the mountain, down the slopes into the woods in a little clearing, Yoo Joonghyuk looked up at the sky. It had begun to snow. Small, tiny snowflakes lighter than birds' down, falling onto Joonghyuk like hundreds of kisses that instantly melted on contact. Some were caught in his dark hair, on his brows and eyelashes. Then the snow fell heavier, the flakes as large as white flowers, as if the sky could not have enough of him— weeping to shower him with more kisses.

***

"Would you like me to leave? Then winter will be gone with me."

Joonghyuk's frown deepened, the skin around his brow dimpling. Then slowly, it cleared out. "No."

"Wh—"

He turned away dismissively. "I only have clothes for winter," he said as he stoked the fire. "I've forgotten how to live in summer, or spring, or fall. Perhaps I'd die."

Kim Dokja gasped. "No!"

***

Yoo Joonghyuk's knife snapped while buried in the tough hide of a wild boar, above the base of the guard, leaving a jagged mouth of metal too short to salvage. It was his favourite knife, with a wicked dull gleam, small but heavy-striking. He would wipe the blood off of it with the snow, wetting the blade and letting the red of it seep into the white, then dry it diligently with the end of his coat.

Kim Dokja pilfered what was left of it— just the wood and leather hilt, and Joonghyuk looked at him as if he were a bird that had took something from him, but paid him no heed since he would be the foolish bird that had picked up a piece of trash.

It had almost peacefully left his memory when he saw Kim Dokja in the early morning, on one of those rare winter dawns that brought rose-hued clouds and a bright sky. He was perched by Joonghyuk's hut, a glittering thing in his hands.

It caught the light, and Joonghyuk squinted against the brightness. It was his broken knife, with a new blade forged from ice, clear as glass and as brilliant as diamond. Kim Dokja turned his head and smiled slyly at him. He delicately touched the tip of the blade to his lips in a kiss, then slowly, slowly, drew his tongue along the length of it. Frost chased up the blade and splintered into crystals. Dokja's gaze did not leave Joonghyuk's.

Joonghyuk looked away first.

***

In the few days Dokja had left to guide the winds in the east, Yoo Joonghyuk had trekked deep into the woods and returned with a dog. The dog was smaller and less vicious than a northern wolf, ruddy brown in places its thick coat would usually be chalky with greys. It was snappy with its jaws and would whine, but there was a look of blind adoration in its eyes as it paced around Joonghyuk before the fire.

Dokja clenched his fist. The dog hadn’t noticed him yet— Dokja was the sort of pure wild an animal had no instinct to defend against, one with the snow and pines and long blue nights. Dokja’s gaze drifted to Joonghyuk, naturally, his handsome visage and the charcoal black hair, skin even more golden in the firelight. It had been only days since he last saw him, mere grains of sand in the hourglass of Dokja’s lifetime, but he couldn’t stop staring.

Joonghyuk tossed the dog a strip of meat and the dog descended on it, tail wagging, distracted as Joonghyuk turned his head to look straight at Dokja half hidden behind a tree. Dokja held a breath he did not need. Although the serious set of his mouth betrayed no other emotion at finding Dokja, there was a trace of mirth in the sweep of Joonghyuk’s eyebrows and his eyes, glinting dark and liquid like tar. The tips of Dokja’s fingers tingled, and frost started to spread over the bark his hand rested on. Despite himself, Dokja was the first to break the gaze— as if he were caught he quickly hid himself again, back to the trunk of the tree, the cold sparks still at the ends of his fingers, a snow flurry in his chest.

***

It had been days since Joonghyuk began hunting with the dog. Kim Dokja had seen hunting hounds and their royal companions before, as well as poor villagers with mutts that begged for scraps, but this was a different sort of companionship. They formed a lethal team that stuck together night and day, taking down bigger animals with ease.

On this clear morning, Joonghyuk happened to be alone. He was sitting on a log, carefully wrapping up his ice knife with a long piece of cloth. Dokja settled on the log next to Joonghyuk. Where he touched, a pristine cushion of snow immediately appeared.

There was more coldness in Dokja’s expression than usual, a curious blankness like ice glazed over a moving river. “Joonghyuk.” He smiled at Joonghyuk, tilting his head to the side in a puppy-like manner. Dark hair shifted over his eyes, and his antlers glinted in the light.

“I’m leaving to pursue a herd of musk oxen going east,” Joonghyuk told him. If he had noticed Dokja’s strange moodiness, he chose to ignore it.

He tucked the wrapped knife into the folds of his coat. “Will you come?”

“No,” Dokja said softly.

Joonghyuk looked at him.

“I’m not mad at you,” Dokja ended up saying.

“I know.”

Dokja blinked, his initial frostiness making way to confusion. He gaped at Joonghyuk.

“What could you possibly be upset about, in this great big world?” Joonghyuk stood up. There was something, like a hint of a smile, around his mouth. “It is you who owns it.” Dokja felt an odd, irritating tickle in his chest.

“I’ll be on my way then,” Joonghyuk said, and Dokja watched his wide back get smaller and smaller as he left.

***

There was no now-familiar crackle of the fire in the morning, no sound of Joonghyuk cooking and preparing for the day ahead. When Kim Dokja arrived, there was only the dog in the clearing alone. Joonghyuk was nowhere to be found.

Dokja appeared from behind a tree. His antlers glinted in the early light, catching the sun and butchering it on the now sharp, curved tips. He looked at the dog with an unfathomable expression.

It was pacing around the clearing, sniffing the ground anxiously. At Dokja's approach, it finally looked up to see Dokja for the first time.

Slowly, Dokja turned and walked back into the forest. His steps did not leave a single footprint.

The dog followed after him, yipping. It eyed Kim Dokja's antlers.

Kim Dokja smiled at it, and led them further into the cruel winter woods.

***

The fire pit in the clearing had been completely buried by the snow when Joonghyuk returned, and even the hut had almost disappeared in the white. Dokja waited for him there.

"Kim Dokja?"

In the instant when Yoo Joonghyuk saw him, he knew what Kim Dokja had done.

There was no blood, no red guilt to speak of, but Joonghyuk by now had learned to read Kim Dokja's face, could track his blank expression as well as he did with any trail in a canvas of snow.

“Are you leaving again?” Dokja asked. His voice was as if nothing had happened, but what couldn’t be concealed was the trace of panic, if Yoo Joonghyuk really would decide to leave, and follow the herds of caribou out of Dokja’s kingdom.

Of course, Joonghyuk did not speak to him. He swept past and headed straight into the deep of the woods once again.

***

When Joonghyuk had gone, Dokja crawled into his hut. This time, his scent was more faint, with the smell of winter seeping in, all the coldness of ice mingled with pine and the wild and the dash of stars high across the sky at night. Dokja dug through Joonghyuk’s furs like a desperate animal.

There he found a belt. It was faintly warm still, with the memory of Joonghyuk’s body heat on it, more supple than most things were in Dokja’s hands. He wrapped it around his neck like a crude collar, the stiffness of it cutting into his skin, jerked it tight with a sudden sharp movement.

It felt good on him, and that was how Joonghyuk found him when he came back— Kim Dokja in the belt-collar, sitting in the snow waiting for him.

Joonghyuk could not speak.

"Forgive me, Joonghyuk?"

Joonghyuk stared at him. "Take it off." He reached out, but Kim Dokja danced back.

"Take it off," he demanded.

"Forgive me, please. I'll be yours, if I can't have you."

"Kim Dokja," Joonghyuk pleaded.

He throttled Kim Dokja. To take that damned belt-collar away, it didn't belong on Kim Dokja's fair throat, because Kim Dokja belonged to no one, not even him, because no one could tame the pure wild.

Dokja was thrashing under him, crying out in loud, plaintive noises, and Joonghyuk realised now that his own hands were burning— they were numb, and even after the belt-collar was torn off his hands could not stop— still wrapped tightly against the bare skin of Dokja's slender neck.

When Dokja went limp, Joonghyuk's hands had iced over, the skin raw and bruised from cold, purple and red and stinging with hurt. Dokja was still lying on the ground, his pale, delicate hands clutching at his throat. The hands fell away. Dokja’s neck was mottled with bruises and burn marks, choked with a similar pain. Joonghyuk’s hands now burned.

At the sight of Dokja's scarred neck, he turned away.

"Yours," Dokja said.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry.”

***

Winter was ever-changing with its storms and melts and freezes, and snow fairies with their fickle moods, yet Kim Dokja remained the same. Over the years, the wounds around his neck had healed, but the memory remained tight around his throat even as the scars disappeared like everything under the snow, like a phantom flame that never stopped burning.

They could both kill each other by touching, so lethal was their love. But how pure it was at the same time, seeking out the warmth and wonder of another; how terrible was love, that they could have it but not hold.

Dokja sat alone in the snow outside his now even more neglected and dilapidated castle, thinking of him again.

“How can I bear it? I love you too much,” he whispered into the air. Only the wind would hold and carry his secret in its lonely, cold hands. He wasn’t afraid of anyone to hear it, since there was only him in the world.

That was, when he was sitting on the cliff side on the top of his mountain. Down below the peaks and forests, in a small clearing, there was a hut.

He stumbled his way to Joonghyuk in the half-dark, all his usual grace gone in the overwhelming urge to see him. The inside of Joonghyuk’s old hut was blue before first light, and Joonghyuk was still sleeping soundly. Dokja clambered to his side. Joonghyuk’s face was soft in sleep, but the traces from all those times he furrowed his brow remained in the lines on his forehead and around his eyes.

His breath fanned over Joonghyuk’s face, and suddenly Joonghyuk’s eyes snapped open. Already the frost was forming on his brows, and there were tiny clumps of ice clinging to his eyelashes.

“It’s cold,” he grumbled up at Dokja. “Kim Dokja.” His voice dropped soft, as if amending his initial tone. It was said so gently that it hurt, that Kim Dokja’s name could fall like this from someone’s lips. That maybe winter would care if someone complained of its coldness.

It was silent between them for a moment as Joonghyuk slowly woke up and Dokja knelt there dumbfounded with emotion.

“Can you still make those ice leaves?” Joonghyuk asked, out of the blue.

“I can,” Dokja said, surprised. A lick of wickedness returned to his smile. “Oh, but I thought you didn’t like pretty things?”

“Hmm. Shut up.”

Joonghyuk’s fingers were stiff when Dokja dropped the crystal leaf into his palm, and this time the leaf took longer to melt in his hand.

***

Humans were not eternal like the snow and winter, and Yoo Joonghyuk would soon get old and die. Winter would always exist, and with it Kim Dokja, but fires were fated to fade.

Joonghyuk's gait was as majestic as ever, even though in his old age his movements had become slower. At the same time, he'd become more clever, more patient, and although Kim Dokja was many years older, he somehow felt younger next to Joonghyuk. Love had transformed him into a grotesque, desperate being, consumed with desires he couldn’t control. He had become more cold and cruel, eradicating anything that dared to stand by Joonghyuk’s side.

He liked Yoo Joonghyuk's grey hair, because it made him feel closer to Dokja. It was the colour of the snow, as if Kim Dokja had marked him with frost, though it was all Time's doing.

“I like your hair,” Dokja told him. “It’s the colour of the snow.”

Joonghyuk was roasting a fish over the open fire. Between the shadows and light, his face appeared lined, as handsome and aloof as ever. He regarded Dokja with a silent look. There was a silver streak in his right brow that Dokja yearned to reach out and touch, and claim as his.

Even now, they were sitting so far apart, and the space between them felt like lifetimes, as if time had turned into a chasm of distance that could never be crossed.

***

Twilight was dwelling low when they set out to gather kindling for fire. Joonghyuk’s pace was slow, and the ground underfoot was brittle with silver frost.

He would not even touch Dokja, he would not even look at him. As if Dokja were invisible, walking beside him as they trekked through the snowy woods. So exquisite was his grief, as if this act of denial were more painful than the lightest touch from Yoo Joonghyuk could bring. He seared the pain into his heart— and with so much heartbreak he had suffered it should be as scarred now as his throat was so many years ago— and now he yearned, keened for the same pain that graced him then.

After Yoo Joonghyuk had built his little fire and all was dark, the snow everywhere quiet and blue, Kim Dokja walked out to the lake.

The moon, large and white, peered at itself in the mirror of ice over the frozen black water. It felt like he was gliding across the universe and the length of the heavens for a moment, the world taking a collective breath and holding it, and then Kim Dokja was falling through the ice.

Ice was predestined to float, so he did, and he closed his eyes and floated away until he had drifted onto the shore, onto the grassy bank where Yoo Joonghyuk eventually found him. He was laying on his back, the ice crystals still glittering at the tips of his fingers and toes, his white antlers almost glowing. Kim Dokja was still.

The sky was clear tonight. So rare was such a night. He could see the stars.

Yoo Joonghyuk sat next to him wordlessly. The silence was infinite around them.

His throat was still mired with hurt, yet Dokja's voice did not come out rough, but as clear as the sky above. "Yoo Joonghyuk, don't you think it's a nice night for swimming?"

He found that he was waiting for an answer, and turned his head when he heard none. There was Joonghyuk, his body shivering from the cold, his trembling so contained as if to hide it. He grit his teeth to keep them from chattering and breathed out from his nose, his breath silver in the air.

“Yoo Joonghyuk, you’re cold.” Dokja sat up in alarm. “Come on, start a fire.”

Joonghyuk shook his head.

“No, Joonghyuk. You can’t stay here.” He wanted to shake Joonghyuk for him to leave, but he couldn’t, and just sat there uselessly. “Go away,” he cried.

Yoo Joonghyuk grit his teeth and stayed. His lips were blue and he was freezing.

But he was cold enough now, to touch Kim Dokja without melting him— so he pulled him in, holding his small, cold face in his palms and holding him tight.

“Don’t,” Dokja said. Something in him broke at the touch. “Don’t touch me.”

“Kim Dokja,” Joonghyuk said, his voice hoarse from the cold. "I won't let go of you." And yet endlessly soft. “So let me hold you, at least this once.”

Yoo Joonghyuk was warm. Just the tiniest, barest amount.

Kim Dokja's tears were liquid water for the first time and never had he wanted to melt so terribly in his life.

He could still feel the beat-beat of Joonghyuk's heart, how small the fluttering of it felt when his shoulders and chest were so wide. Strange, Kim Dokja thought, how much like fire it felt.

He held him for a long time. For eternity, almost.