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Kim Dokja rounds the kitchen island, a plate holding the remnants of their alfredo lunch in each hand, and he hip checks Yoo Joonghyuk at the sink. The man hardly budges, of course, being built like a goddamn tank and all, and the only indication that he’s been bumped into is the elegant arch of a strong brow he directs at Dokja.
“I’ll finish up here, so go,” Kim Dokja replies to the unvoiced question. He spreads his legs a bit for leverage and pushes his hips against Joonghyuk’s again, trying to push the other out of the way. Naturally, it doesn’t work. Kim Dokja knew it wouldn’t work, but just to be a pest, he did it anyway.
“It’s fine,” Joonghyuk says, mild as milk. As if there isn’t currently a grown-ass man putting nearly all his weight in trying to bodily shove Joonghyuk away. He takes both dishes from Dokja’s hands lest he drops them and causes actual damage. “Drying the dishes hardly takes time —”
“Oi, go while I’m feeling generous.” Dokja stops his pathetic attempt at overpowering the insurmountable, at least, to put his hands on his hips and puff out his chest in an obnoxious show of a king offering grace. “You promised your fans an early stream, and I don’t want to be the target of their internet pitchforks because I know they’re gonna pin the blame on me if you’re late.”
To accentuate his point, he reaches into the sink and wraps a fist around a fork to start stabbing the air in between them.
Joonghyuk stares at him. Dokja stands his ground. He stares back. They’re stuck in this impromptu stand-off for a good six seconds until Joonghyuk throws in both the metaphorical and literal towel, dropping the dish sponge into the sink and drying his hands with the kitchen towel, but not without an exasperated, “Why are you like this.”
He delivers it dry, his eyes set in stone-cold composure, but Dokja’s an expert at reading his boyfriend; he knows the fond tone hidden in between, sees the twitch in Joonghyuk’s mouth as a valiant attempt to not break out in a smile.
“Because I’m the world’s best boyfriend,” he says, all arrogance.
Dokja emerges truly victorious when Joonghyuk surrenders in a small curve of his lips.
It’s funny, how time has changed him.
Them.
All those years ago, Dokja had always been ready to flee, keeping fingers around a pair of scissors to nip the bud before it could grow but wither. Always with thoughts of “Am I good enough? Why some nobody like me?” that wore away at Joonghyuk’s patience. Not that Yoo Joonghyuk had been any better, hot-headed as he was and inarticulate with conveying his own feelings and thoughts. Their beginning was such a disaster it’s a wonder how they never had one break-up, but Dokja partly attributes that small miracle to a meddling Han Sooyoung. Her reputation as a witch precedes her, in more ways than one.
Dokja will never admit it solely because she’ll forever hang it over his head, but sometimes his heart swells in gratitude during quiet, mundane moments like these, as Joonghyuk dips his head down to brush his lips against Dokja’s bangs. Dokja soaks it up like a sponge, going so far as to tilt his head up so Joonghyuk’s kiss slides down to his temple. The indulgent boyfriend shtick still tickles Dokja’s heart so sweet, just as Joonghyuk’s roving kisses tickle over delicate eyelashes and warm cheeks.
Unfortunately, Kim Dokja knows he can trap Yoo Joonghyuk here for hours if he’s not careful, and as much as he’d like to fantasize being manhandled up onto the kitchen counters and kissed stupid, he can’t go back on his word of letting Joonghyuk go early. (Supreme_King’s fans are not entirely wrong when they blame his late streams on Dokja.)
“Okay, okay, that’s enough,” Dokja laughs when Joonghyuk playfully nips at his jaw. “You have garlic breath, you’ll make me stink.”
“Kim Dokja, we literally ate the same food.” Joonghyuk pulls away and levels him with a stare, which when combined with his deadpan statement, essentially means You also have garlic breath so you and I both know that’s one of the most lame excuses you’ve ever given.
Which is valid, but that’s not the point.
“Just,” Dokja huffs, grabbing the kitchen towel from Joonghyuk’s hands, “go already before I change my mind.”
Accentuating his point, he rolls the towel up with practiced ease and aims to snap it against Joonghyuk’s hip.
Joonghyuk, the endearing bastard, dodges with an almost inhuman reflex and still manages to swipe one last kiss against Dokja’s ear. Dokja shrieks and brings a hand to his ear, not out of surprise, but because sometimes Joonghyuk likes to be childish: that kiss was disgustingly wet.
“Yah, Yoo Joonghyuk!”
“You can whip me in bed later.”
“Yah, Yoo Joonghyuk!”
Kim Dokja knows the usual schedule, but when Yoo Joonghyuk settles in his seat — a sleek leather thing ruined by, in Kim Dokja’s opinion, puke (“It’s neon, you blind rat.") green accents — and takes deft fingers to the keyboard, Dokja usually takes that as his cue to quiet down and let Joonghyuk be for the next few hours.
It’s an arrangement that works perfectly fine for Kim Dokja, being the introvert that he is. Especially when he comes back home from a day of corporate hell — running around with stacks of papers, dodging flying keyboards, gritting his teeth while his ears bleed from the managers' shrill voices barking out orders — sometimes all he wants to do is fall face first onto the couch and enjoy the beauty of silence.
Having spent nearly the entirety of his working hours surrounded by people, he needs the time to just. Not.
While on some days, Kim Dokja will keep out of Joonghyuk’s office — his dedicated gaming room — with the occasional visit to drop off snacks and fresh fruit, today he chooses to poke his head in, holding up a newly-purchased novella in a silent question.
Yoo Joonghyuk glances up, his face drawn in a stern expression warranted by precise concentration, and nods once before zeroing in back to his monitor.
Kim Dokja quietly makes his way to the giant beanbag chair, a white fluffy thing with a cute cartoonish face and a small soft unicorn horn, and makes himself comfortable. He had bought it out of impulse, insisting on putting it in Joonghyuk’s office as something of a joke, considering the cuteness of it stood out from the “manly” gaming aesthetic. Yoo Joonghyuk, maybe to mess with him or maybe he’s just that amazing of a boyfriend, had plopped it right beside his desk, no protest or question needed.
This close, Kim Dokja almost dozes off to the white noise of mouse clicks and keyboard taps; listening to Joonghyuk’s occasional comments only add to the soothing effect.
“Kim Dokja.”
He snaps his eyes open, blinking at the blurry words of his book. He yawns, stretching his arms out. “Mm, done already?”
“No.” Yoo Joonghyuk takes his headphones off and offers them to him, then angles his overhead mic closer. “Han Sooyoung wants to talk to you.”
“Ha? Why can’t she just text me…”
“I lost.” Joonghyuk scrunches his nose, his face an obvious expression of displeasure. “In Pummel Party. We had a bet.”
Kim Dokja laughs, sweet and airy. “That’s why you looked so focused? Over a party game?”
“The bet was over a dare.”
It doesn’t really explain much, but Dokja already knew that his boyfriend could be a sore loser. He reaches out and takes the headphones, nodding to Joonghyuk and waiting for the audio to switch and mute him to the stream.
“Yeah?” Dokja says, leaning into the mic. He’s greeted by familiar voices of long-time friends. He hears Lee Jihyee’s bright voice first and foremost, followed by Kim Namwoon’s yelling. Jung Heewon tells the brat to pipe down, though Yoo Sangah reminds her they’re still kids who are just excited to say hi to their hyung. “Hey, I heard Yoo Joonghyuk lost a bet.”
He scrunches his eyebrows together as Han Sooyoung cackles a random string of words, something about an old account and dumb teenagers. Unfortunately, she doesn’t offer to repeat herself to him and demands to speak to Yoo Joonghyuk again to hash out the details.
“Uh… Apparently, for your next stream, she wants me to read some old account name? When you were fourteen?” he says, handing the headphones back to Joonghyuk.
Yoo Joonghyuk almost drops them, and he mutters a string of curses directed in Sooyoung’s name.
“Nevermind,” he sighs. Joonghyuk pinches the bridge of his nose and just shakes his head, pointing at his monitor. “Chat wants to see you, too. They saw your hand.”
He scoots over, and Kim Dokja is quick to pop his head in front of the monitor. He waves, giving his customer service smile, and the chatbox scrolls lightning quick with the viewers’ greetings. He keeps them entertained long enough for Joonghyuk to talk with Sooyoung (if angry grunts count as talking), by pulling up his game of choice.
Even the most casual fans of Supreme_King know his boyfriend, one Kim Dokja, is terrible at video games, except for one: Minesweeper. It's a bit of a running gag, for Dokja to play at least one round whenever he makes his guest appearance.
He clicks through each square, crunching numbers and hints together in his head, as he avoids the mines and clears out the board. He gets two consecutive wins by the time Joonghyuk swivels back around and taps Kim Dokja on the arm, denoting he’s done with his conversation.
Taking that as his cue to leave, Kim Dokja says his goodbye to the stream with a fingerheart, and chat answers by spamming heart emojis back to him; there’s a few crying emotes in there, sad that he’s about to go. He points out the disappointed viewers and jokingly says, “Sometimes I wonder if I have more fans than the King himself.”
“Stay a little longer, then.”
Yoo Joonghyuk scoots closer from behind, putting both of his hands on the desk and caging in Kim Dokja, who ends up sandwiched between Joonghyuk and the desk. His arms wrap around his boyfriend’s waist, and there’s a slight weight that tugs him backward — toward Joonghyuk’s lap.
Kim Dokja has absolutely no doubts that Uriel is going feral over this, if the sudden donations are anything to go by.
“See? It’s been a while since you’ve been on stream.”
Well, Kim Dokja is off tomorrow, and… alright, maybe sometimes he likes to stroke his own ego and flaunt the fact that Yoo Joonghyuk is happily taken.
Kim Dokja leans in, squinting his eyes at the screen. He twists his face like he just had something bitterly, painfully sour. He leans back, glances at the webcam, to Joonghyuk, then locks eyes with the screen again. It’s theatrical, he knows, but he may as well milk the opportunity for what it’s worth. Judging by the speed of the chatbox, the audience is going insane, dying to know what it is that only Dokja can see.
His lips thin into a line, dragging the wait so long that from the corner of his eye, he sees Joonghyuk’s finger tap along his ugly puke green armrest. Dokja would almost recognize it as a nervous tic, but when he turns his head to fully regard Joonghyuk he notices the slight strain along his jaw, the tension around his mouth.
Joonghyuk is trying his damned hardest not to laugh right now, Dokja knows.
Thing is, everyone knows Joonghyuk is human, no matter how inhumane his skills may be. Every once in a while, the stream may be graced with a triumphant smirk whenever Joonghyuk perfects that outrageously intricate combo or outplays an enemy player that meets his high standards; but more often, they get a sneak peek of an indulgent smile or hear the whisper of quiet amusement, as Dokja drapes himself over Joonghyuk’s shoulders and mutters some inside joke only they’re privy to, peppering him with kisses on stream in blatant PDA. Usually, a chaotic eruption of jealous woes or heart-eyed emojis flood the chat, viewers torn between heated envy (sometimes for Joonghyuk, sometimes for Dokja) and heart-stopped swooning and everything in between, along with the cha-ching of donations raining down.
For any unsavory comments, Joonghyuk's ever loyal moderators are quick to intervene, especially with Uriel leading the crusade and purging the “heretics,” as she so lovingly calls them. Dokja doesn't particularly care because, well, Yoo Joonghyuk doesn't, first and foremost; and second, it's not like he can even read more than two words before the message is lost in the sea of infinite scrolling because the chat likes to go at machspeed whenever Dokja makes a guest appearance.
But back to the heart of the problem. And that is:
Yoo Joonghyuk has an Image™ as the Supreme_King© to keep up, which apparently implies a rule of No Laughing℗.
Kim Dokja understands, somehow.
But sometimes the devil whispers sweet temptations, like now, and Kim Dokja kiiiinda wants to make Joonghyuk break that rule. However, he resists only because he’d rather Joonghyuk genuinely laugh at something… not this, whatever the fuck this is. Still, he’s got a show to give, and he figures the poor viewers have been held in suspense for long enough.
“Your gamertag,” Dokja says, then holding his breath for a pregnant pause. He looks back to the chatbox, and among the word vomit and emoji spam, he catches liberal use of “!!!!” and “????” and other random punctuation marks. He swallows. He looks back to the window with Joonghyuk’s old Xbox account, the one he made in the folly of teenage youth. “Your gamertag is, was —”
He’s barely holding back his own smile of ridiculous disbelief, but he manages to keep his poker face of moderate disappointment. Beside him, Joonghyuk hunches over, elbows on the desk, and links his hands together to form the tip of the triangle, hiding the lower half of his face behind them. His eyes speak of absolute resolution. With the right lighting, he'd look pretty intimidating, like some anime villain plotting the demise of his enemy hero.
Dokja knows he’s dying inside.
“Con…”
Dokja’s sort of dying inside, too, but damn it all — he’s going to deliver what he (hasn’t) promised.
“Your gamertag was Conqueeftador.”
Dokja shakes his head, solemnly. Like an Asian parent who just learned his only child has decided to abandon his future career as a surgeon in pursuit of something sappy and disappointing as, as… an artist. Or something.
“Con. Queef. Tador,” Dokja repeats. “You’re not even American.”
“It’s Spanish,” Joonhyuk corrects him, quietly.
“You’re not even Spanish.”
Dokja grabs the overhead mic and angles it so comically close to him, his mouth a mere centimeters away as he leans in and holds a bold stare into the webcam.
“He’s not even Spanish,” he repeats, “and, actually” — Dokja breaks his gaze to level it at Joonghyuk, who is slumped over and has his face in his hands, his shoulders trembling — “ are you secretly Spanish? Like, got some ancient ancestor from Spain? Is this the deep dark secret you’ve been hiding from me? Ridiculous.”
He looks back to the camera. Years of gritting his teeth and smiling in the face of his boss’ verbal abuse has perfected his poker face.
He keeps on.
“My boyfriend has Spanish blood in him. Can’t believe I’m not dating a pure-blooded Korean.”
Joonghyuk finally breaks into a strangled laugh, his hands still covering his face in his last ditch effort to save his reputation. Too bad he bought a wide-lens webcam; the internet is seeing everything.
“I want a divorce. Chat, any of you know a lawyer?” Dokja continues forward, fighting the tension in his jaw and the devastating force that tugs playfully at his cheeks.
When he actually looks at the chatbox, he can barely keep up. Everything is a blur of black unreadable text and emotes. Trying to pick out a single phrase will surely earn him a headache.
Joonghyuk wheezes, surrendering to his fate.
He doesn’t even care when Dokja playfully shoves his shoulder, and Joonghyuk topples over and out of camera view. He resigns himself to the floor, where he dives into quiet hysterics.
Now with Joonghyuk out of the way, Dokja centers himself in front of the screen, hogging the stream for himself. Several donations go off on screen, carrying with them various comments ranging from pepega emotes to word vomit.
One of them asks “is king ok or did u kill him” to which Dokja responds by scrunching his nose and glancing down to the floor with feigned disinterest.
“King who? Never heard of him. This is my channel,” he responds. “Anyway, what was I going to stream…”
Kim Dokja clicks around on the screen, pulling up Joonghyuk’s Steam library and scrolling through the fuckton of games he has.
“Hey, person-who-I-definitely-don’t-know, what was I about to play?”
He gets a weak, “Elden Ring."
He’s not sure if that was loud enough for the mic to pick up, but he suspects the viewers heard it when he spots skulls, laughing, and even more emoji vomit in various combinations.
Kim Dokja finds the game title under the Favorites column.
While he may not be a master gamer like a certain someone, what he lacks in skills he makes up for in knowledge — it comes with the territory of being both a Minosoft employee and a gamer’s boyfriend — and if he knows anything, he knows Elden Ring will absolutely decimate him.
The viewers, also, know this.
Kim Dokja knows they know this.
Regardless, he clicks ‘Play’ and prepares himself for the shitshow.
Yoo Joonghyuk eventually emerges, when Dokja dies for the nth time to a boss, his head poking out from the bottom of the camera window. All of a sudden, Kim Dokja’s character dodges and parries like a maniac, though his arms, or what’s seen of them on stream, are oddly still.
The cat is out of the bag when Joonghyuk shifts more into the camera's view, and Dokja lifts his arms to drape them around Joonghyuk’s shoulders. He gives a quick kiss to Joonghyuk’s crown before settling his chin on top, quietly watching Joonghyuk’s effortless gameplay.
“Wow, you sure showed her,” Dokja finally comments, after the killing blow. He glances into the camera, showing off one of his unlucky smiles, and adds, “My little Conqueeftador.”
Yoo Joonghyuk chokes and visibly deflates down and out of view again, the mic barely catching his strangled laughter.
Kim Dokja, too, finally breaks down and gives in, snickering as he waves goodbye to the stream and ending it for the night.