Chapter Text
"You're here early," Kim Dokja remarked, staring at the shadowed apparition looming at the entrance to his hospital room. Or, as the apparition had insisted the day before, the hospital room that was being graciously paid for by someone else for him. A room that had nothing to do with Kim Dokja except for the fact that it was being occupied by him.
Yoo Joonghyuk shifted awkwardly, fumbling to finish shoving something into his pocket, stood just in front of the door. He seemed caught between approaching Kim Dokja further, and avoiding the man to linger in the back of the room. Unfortunately for both of them, there was no Yoo Mia to stand as barrier and excuse between them. Today, he came alone, dressed in a dark sweater — upgrade from the aggressive turtlenecks — and deep blue jeans — also an upgrade from the all-monochrome palette — but he still wore his sleek black coat overtop. Dammit, he looked good, if a little simple today. His natural looks and physical aptitude were doing much of the heavy lifting.
Kim Dokja could only have ever paled in comparison to this man, but it struck especially true in this moment. Weighed down in this hospital bed, marred by thick bandages, body swollen and bruised where he wasn't thin and pale. Gosh, maybe it was no wonder this man had fallen back to pity so swiftly.
Ugh. This was impossibly irritating. And Yoo Joonghyuk still had yet to respond, so Kim Dokja was still left heavy-lifting any amicable conversation between them.
"What's with the container?" he prodded. It was a dark box — as it had to match with the rest of this man's wardrobe — clutched tightly by the handle. It was squat and fat, nothing like a briefcase, and exceptionally small, at least in terms of fitting anything important. "You know, walking in here dressed as suspiciously as you are, I'm surprised the staff let you in. Your attitude doesn't help."
Yoo Joonghyuk's face twitched. "I'm not dressed suspiciously," he grit out.
"Every time you walk in here, you stuff a pair of sunglasses and a black face mask into your coat pocket," Kim Dokja pointed out blandly. "Now you're waltzing in with an unmarked, suspicious dark cube? Suspicious."
Yoo Joonghyuk's hand flinched for his pocket on instinct. He froze before making contact, muscles stretching taut, jaw tightening. Dropping his hand, he grumbled something under his breath. He met Kim Dokja's sharp gaze, taunting in low hiss, "…Fine. I'll leave. I'm sure it's important for patient recovery to minimize proximity to suspicious figures. I'll see you tomorrow."
Kim Dokja watched passively. Something in his chest tensed and resisted the idea of returning to his webnovel app for another ten hours, utterly alone and undisturbed, surrounded only by the humming and buzzing of machines and hurried footsteps and rolling wheels, senses buried under pain killers, poisoned by the persistent, stinging stench of antibiotics. He swallowed dryly. "Hey," he called out, watching Yoo Joonghyuk's fingers pause and tighten around the handle, "at least tell me what's in the box. Never finding out is the most suspicious thing you could do here." He offered an empty, teasing smile.
Yoo Joonghyuk eyed him. There was something strange in his expression, a pull in his muscles Kim Dokja couldn't quite recognize, a surprisingly soft blankness to the usually foul lines that tarnished his face when speaking to Kim Dokja. It was a look he got only sometimes, after the right combination of words were left to hang heavy and silent in the air between them.
He jerked his hand off the handle of the door. With heavy footfalls that reverberated through the floor, he cleared the bare four paces between them, stopping right at Kim Dokja's side. He stared up, wide-eyed, at the man now hovering with a pinched expression directly above him. From his perspective cowering low in this ratty hospital bed, Yoo Joonghyuk loomed like a shadowed night terror, dark eyes scraping over Kim Dokja's face and form, his wide eyes and his sunken cheeks, the ease with which he body could be torn apart. "Uhhh— Wait—" he blurted, scrambling for some string of excuses.
Yoo Joonghyuk lifted the box, hovering it directly over Kim Dokja, a handbreadth away, before he released. It landed heavy, halfway on the soft, thin fat of his abdomen, shocking a gasp from his throat. Instinctively, his hands found the sides of the object to hold it. The cold metal worked to anchor him, as he shut his eyes, fighting the sudden wave of pain that had rippled from his sore torso.
"It's food," Yoo Joonghyuk snapped, sharp and abrupt.
Kim Dokja pulled in a stiff breath, letting it roll down his body, as he collected himself back together. He turned up to Yoo Joonghyuk, who's posture was terribly tense, face twisted into a scowl, hands wrapped into tight, twitching fists at his side. "Did you have to throw it at me?" he wheezed.
Yoo Joonghyuk studied his face for a moment, eyes flitting over him, before darting away. "I didn't… consider your condition," he admitted with an almost sheepish mutter, "you can be agitating to speak with."
"You were the one standing there silently like a creep," Kim Dokja complained, adjusting the … lunchbox, he supposed, resting on his lap. "I was just trying to move the conversation along."
"Stop referring to me like that," Yoo Joonghyuk demanded.
Kim Dokja's brows furrowed as he stared at the lunchbox. Probably, he was supposed to open it, now. In front of Yoo Joonghyuk? He wondered what a man like this had prepared. And why? For Kim Dokja? He delivered it personally. He'd visited Kim Dokja before, too, but — had he made it? It wasn't a takeout container. He must have some fancy personal chef cook for him. Rich, and all... But was Yoo Joonghyuk that rich? Clearly, he thought he was famous enough to need a shitty disguise, and to preserve his assets or reputation with the damned contract…
Kim Dokja realized he'd been holding a silent, unmoving, one-sided standoff against a lunchbox for perhaps a little too long.
Carefully, he sat up, balancing the container in his lap, wincing at the tug on his ribs. "Did you make this?" he wondered, as he undid the clasps and flipping the lid up. Steam rose, warm and gentle on his face, flooding his nostrils with heavenly scents and awakening an appetite Kim Dokja had not been acquainted with in years. It was rice and soup dumplings. Easy on a person's system, comforting and simple, yet packed with necessary nutrients. Oh, wow.
"I don't allow other people to interfere with my food," Yoo Joonghyuk answered. Kim Dokja was too preoccupied to tell if he was offended, or mumbling with another strange note in his tone.
Tucked into the side of the container was a pair of chopsticks. He hesitated momentarily to grab them, all too aware of the presence at his side. "Watching me eat isn't helping with discouraging me from referring to you as a suspicious bastard," Kim Dokja quipped, before shoveling a bite of rice into his mouth. Plain, but warm and tasty…
"I brought you food," Yoo Joonghyuk deadpanned, sounding somewhere between defeated and vexed.
Kim Dokja paused, hovering over his next bite — one of the dumplings. "You didn't have to."
"It's part of the contract," Yoo Joonghyuk dismissed.
Kim Dokja's grip tightened on the chopstick. "I thought we agreed that's still in limbo," he teased dryly. Was that all any of this was? In fact, just what was any of this? The visits? The medical treatment? Recovery? Flowers in the windowsill? Chatter traded between them? A warm meal in his lap. If anyone was being manipulated and exploited between them, it wasn't Yoo Joonghyuk. But for the life of him, Kim Dokja could not comprehend to what end. Was Yoo Joonghyuk the type of man who found this amusing? More than anything, he seemed to want nothing to do with Kim Dokja.
So, then, what the hell was this?
"Thank you," Kim Dokja said blankly, "for the meal." Decisively, he buried away the thoughts swirling in his head. It wasn't like there was anything he could do, now.
Yoo Joonghyuk didn't reply.
Kim Dokja bit through the warm skin of the dumpling, hot flavor bursting over his tongue. Holy. Shit.
For a moment, he froze, just chewing with gentle reverence. It was possibly the most delicious thing he'd ever tasted. Like, ever. That guy made this? He cooked it. He knew how to cook. He was rich, handsome, skilled at cooking, deeply caring over his sole family, a complete control-freak asshole, and also he was also fixated on Kim Dokja with no discernible purpose or reason. Really, had he died in the car crash? Kim Dokja didn't think his brain could conjure such a vision, but who could be certain?
Then again, could he conceive a profound, delicious taste?
Broth and softened meat and veggies slid down his throat. It coated warmth down through his chest, and from that warmth rose a foreign sense, a shape he could not categorize the form of. It was… Kim Dokja swallowed roughly, liquid burning down his throat. He kicked and shoved and beat whatever the feeling was back where it had crawled out from. He needed to shift his priorities to clarifying the important facts.
"You can cook," he said dumbly, turning to Yoo Joonghyuk.
The man was leaning back against the wall now, and the distance between them soothed the pieces of Kim Dokja that were rising, sharp and frayed. He kept his arms crossed, but tilted his head with an air of pride. It highlighted his spectacular jawline, and the flow of his throat down to his collarbones. "I enjoy it," he answered simply.
"And you… cooked for me."
"What did you think I meant by securing your dietary needs?" Yoo Joonghyuk retorted with a frown. "You're truly foolish."
"Do you plan on hand cooking and delivering all my meals for the foreseeable future?" Kim Dokja snapped. "If either of us is foolish, it's you." Rich people have way too much time on their hands.
Yoo Joonghyuk's brow pinched downward as he frowned, judgmental of Kim Dokja for even suggesting the notion. "I won't be making special deliveries," he stated.
This fell in line with Kim Dokja's original assumptions. He plucked up another dumpling, savoring the bite. Criminally good. Management of his nutritional intake was a broad directive, but there was a far more straightforward solution than personally curating his every meal by hand: just buying his groceries for him. Yoo Joonghyuk could probably afford to hire someone else to deliver them, if he didn't trust Kim Dokja with a list and an allowance. Which… was probably fair. He would definitely squirrel away at least a portion of that money, if given the chance.
Not that Yoo Joonghyuk had to know that. Not that he would, or could. Because he barely knew Kim Dokja. And Kim Dokja was a perfectly responsible adult who was perfectly capable of buying whatever bullshit Yoo Joonghyuk commanded him to acquire. He was just adept at… sliding around barriers, particularly without drawing attention. A little less than what Yoo Joonghyuk had in mind, or of a lower quality, or combining certain orders into frozen meals… there were a few ways he could get around a generalized grocery list and he'd still be meeting the standards. That was the expert skill that had gotten grown man Kim Dokja to be a grown man.
Swallowing some rice, Kim Dokja gave him an approving nod, a shadow of mild exasperation following the motion. "Well, I'll look forward to any meals you choose to bring along for hospital visits until then, then," he assured.
"You like it," Yoo Joonghyuk noted.
"I think this is the best meal I've ever had," Kim Dokja admitted. Second perhaps only to the faint, warped memory of omurice in his childhood, when his father was out for the day, and his mother meticulously sorted out a garnish that vaguely formed a heart, because he refused to touch anything even tomato related.
Yoo Joonghyuk went silent for a long minute. "It's a simple recipe," he grunted, finally.
Okay, I get it, you have your life together and I don't, Kim Dokja thought with an internal eyeroll. "Are you offering it up?" Kim Dokja wondered, teasing.
"I'll cook it again," Yoo Joonghyuk replied, expression cool and stiff as stone.
Kim Dokja paused. "For me?" fell dumbly from his mouth.
Yoo Joonghyuk narrowed his gaze. "A portion of it."
That… That still required specifically extending the recipe to include plus one person. That person being Kim Dokja. It included the acquisition of the ingredients. The measuring. The number of dumplings to fold up. Then… the careful precision of packing into a little box and carting it all the way to the hospital. Or his home.
Something cold burned down his gut at the thought. No, not his home. They'd agreed about that. No deliveries.
"How generous," Kim Dokja admired.
"A dish as elementary as this should not impress you," Yoo Joonghyuk scoffed, "you should learn how to cook."
Kim Dokja twitched in irritation. He shoveled more rice into his mouth regardless. "Not all of us can afford to worry about food as a means of impressing others for all the time we freely have to dedicate as we please," he remarked pointedly. From the periphery of his vision, he caught Yoo Joonghyuk twitch and squirm at his words, watching the motion with satisfaction.
"There are some people who should never be allowed near a kitchen," Yoo Joonghyuk conceded gravely. The words with delivered with the utter gravity of a man who had personally and intimately endured a relationship with a torment worth well beyond his years.
Kim Dokja paused to study his expression. There was something fairly distant about the gaze of his piercing eyes, his eyebrows and mouth turned with a troubled tilt, hands gripped tight as his sides. "Well damn," Kim Dokja murmured, "who did you let blow your kitchen up?"
Yoo Joonghyuk's face turned comically stormy, though if Kim Dokja wasn't mistaken, there was a dash of weary fear curdled at the center of his reactive demeanor. "I condoned nothing," he snarled, "She knew damn well that vinegar is not in any world a suitable substitute for vegetable oil, that irritating rat—" He froze, gaze snapping to pierce Kim Dokja suddenly head-on. "You," he said, and the word fell like a hammer of judgment Kim Dokja had no hopes of deciphering. "No one blew my kitchen up."
Kim Dokja blinked at him. This… Just what was with this guy? A snort bubbled over his lips, and he had to whip away to disguise his laughter as a poorly-timed attack on his vulnerable lungs that required burying his face in the crook of his elbow, shoulders taut and trembling as he pointedly did not look at Yoo Joonghyuk. "I'm glad to hear that."
"Kim Dokja."
"Yes, Joonghyuk-ssi?" Kim Dokja replied innocently, turning back to smile at his business companion. The man's face was gloriously irritated.
"You are banned from my kitchen," he declared.
"Wait, what the hell?!" he protested. "I didn't even do anything!"
Yoo Joonghyuk scanned him up and down, before shaking his head. "I can tell, now. Your kind," he said, like he could pretend it was a plain statement of observation rather than an accusation. "If you don't even have experience enough to make something on the level of a soup dumpling, there is little else I can permit your proximity or contribution to."
"Excuse me?" Kim Dokja gawked. One of them was hallucinating on drugs, and he still had yet to figure out who. "You consistently make the most inane, absurd, bizarre, unfounded, hypocritical, bullshit accusations and assumptions and decisions like no one else in the world exists!" he shouted.
Yoo Joonghyuk only raised a brow. "No, I recognize it now. You would certainly be a hazard."
"I don't want to cook in your kitchen, shady bastard!" Kim Dokja blurted in a frustrated growl. "Where the hell did we even end up there?! You made a strange freaking face— You started telling a personal story! I thought we were getting somewhere," he lamented with exhausted, exasperated, poorly constrained offense. "Stop pinning your own personal bullshit on me," he ordered, irate. "I'm not trying to take advantage of your kitchen, or your home, or your friends. For all I care—" he stopped.
"What?" Yoo Joonghyuk demanded.
Kim Dokja's hands curled closer to the container. "I was going to say," he began slowly, "take your stupid homemade dumplings and leave," he admitted carefully. "But these are really good. Too good for tyrant brats," he glared pointedly, before glancing away to avoid a surely lethal scowl, "so I actually care quite a bit about … not wasting them."
Silence settled for a long minute, so Kim Dokja took another bite of dumpling into his mouth and savored.
"Tyrant brats?" Yoo Joonghyuk echoed.
Kim Dokja choked.
"You can't accuse me of being bizarre and hypocritical when you are completely insufferable yourself—"
"Not an accusation," Kim Dokja interjected, mumbling through a mouthful of warm rice and chicken. He has some redeemable qualities, I suppose. "I didn't ask you to cook or bring me food," he pointed out, "and though I appreciate it, I'm genuinely reconsidering if all of… this is worth the trouble." This was only partially true. Kim Dokja did not necessarily think this man's attitude was worth the food, though dealing with it now so it didn't persist later might be. Yoo Joonghyuk wouldn't read it that way, though. Yoo Joonghyuk would assume he was threatening to back out from officially signing the contract. Which, he was, it just also happened to be a bluff to get the jerk under control.
Sure enough, Yoo Joonghyuk stiffened and glowered in his direction. "You ate practically nothing yesterday," he spat, blankly, like he expected Kim Dokja to follow his obvious reasoning. "And you were in a coma for several days before then."
Kim Dokja stared blankly back at him. He raised one eyebrow. "I actually did eat yesterday, plenty," he said slowly, in case Yoo Joonghyuk needed extra time to process. And what did his eating habits yesterday have to do with anything?
Yoo Joonghyuk's eyes narrowed. "You had breakfast, and then you missed lunch and dinner," he growled out between gritted teeth.
"I had dinner after you and your sister kindly departed," Kim Dokja corrected with a scoff.
"Barely," Yoo Joonghyuk muttered under his breath.
"What?"
"You clearly don't know how to take care of yourself," Yoo Joonghyuk asserted. "If you slip into another coma because you're undernourished I will kill you myself."
"That seems counterintuitive," Kim Dokja offered, with an innocent quirk to his lips and tilt of his head.
"You won't be able to stop me if you're comatose," Yoo Joonghyuk shot back, "it's incentivizing."
He spoke personal conjecture like it was fact. Spilled opinions like those around him needed to diligently record every passing whim, because once Yoo Joonghyuk announced it, it was law. He leaned against the wall of the hospital room — the hospital room he'd obscenely purchased and reserved in his goals to blackmail and coerce Kim Dokja — arms crossed over his chest, expression slack and stern and pleased, head tilted back to glare down his nose at Kim Dokja, low and pathetic and vulnerable in his "care."
He was the world's most irritating man, and he was also a dime a dozen. Kim Dokja lived through the hordes of people who spared some of their pride and time to shower him with haughty, judging staring. His life had always been defined by the truths adopted by others. Once someone declared it about Kim Dokja, it became true, regardless of what he ever did about it. Sheltering in a house that didn't belong to him, cowering from his very own peers, always suppressing and coping with the mistreatment he received from his superiors. In home, and school, and work, because this was what the world knew.
Kim Dokja was perfectly inferior. A background character. A side tangent. A meaningless, passing phrase. A passenger and observer even to his own life. Kim Dokja was a lonely individual. He had absolutely no one else to share in or repeat or confirm his story, so his story was what others had decided it would be.
And now it belonged to this man. Now he was a poor, pathetic salaryman receiving the overbearing, gracious aid of an eccentric, grateful guardian.
It didn't matter. He'd been worse. Very little could ever compare again to the things Kim Dokja had been once before. Kim Dokja could satisfy the role of this slim chapter, this purely functional addition to this man's life story. He had saved Yoo Joonghyuk's sister, he was owed a debt, and so he would be repaid as the protagonist saw fit. Protagonists moved the plot forward; they determined the answers and the truth and now Yoo Joonghyuk was deciding exactly who Kim Dokja would be for the foreseeable future.
It would be remiss to say he wasn't bothered. He wished he could be, outwardly, screaming at this man — but the truth was this whole thing was beyond embarrassing, and shameful, and enraging.
And yet, it remained terribly, stagnantly familiar, and he could barely find the will to dredge up that rage, because it never had it ever mattered. Never had it changed anything.
The chapter would pass, and Kim Dokja could return to being a blank, passing figure ghosting between the important silhouettes and inked letters.
"You'll have to bring me more, then," Kim Dokja replied, eventually, because even a background character could take advantage for the short stretch of time they were relevant. "After this, it's hard to say anything they serve here will be appetizing enough for me to even attempt keeping down." He smiled pleasantly in Yoo Joonghyuk's direction.
Yoo Joonghyuk did not find him nearly as amusing. "Rat," he muttered, "I knew it." And yet, he acquiesced, "You don't have any allergies? I was informed there were no records indicating dietary restrictions." His dark eyes scanned and studied Kim Dokja carefully, a troubled twist stained across his gorgeous face. Kim Dokja found he preferred it most when it wasn't caged by a severe scowl.
"No," Kim Dokja confirmed, "records are accurate." Did this hospital have absolutely no privacy guidelines? Probably another bullshit excuse about Yoo Joonghyuk's "right" to access his health. Whatever. He couldn't tell if this was an intentional attempt to uncover potential weaknesses, or a kindly precaution to ensure Kim Dokja did not die of food poisoning. His earlier threats didn't really help in clearing the air. "There's no use asking if you already knew," he sighed.
Yoo Joonghyuk frowned. "I'd rather be thorough."
Kim Dokja studied him in return, for just a moment. The nervous pitch to his eyebrows, not quite exaggerated all the way to irritation, the slight squint to his eyes, not taut and narrowed with barely restrained swelling rage. "I don't like tomatoes," he confessed.
"What?" Yoo Joonghyuk blinked.
Kim Dokja crossed his arms. "You asked. That's something thorough you won't find in the records," he said, somewhat bitter and icy. "If you're cooking for me, you should know I'll absolutely avoid anything with tomatoes. It'll just end up a waste on your budget if you try."
Yoo Joonghyuk's expression twisted into one of mild, disgruntled disdain. "I'm not cultivating a menu around your tastes," he snapped.
Kim Dokja shrugged. "Didn't say you would be, or that you had to," he agreed. "Just recommending another fantastic way to utterly waste money on a complete stranger."
Yoo Joonghyuk's jaw twitched. "Nothing I do is a waste."
"Of course not." He smiled amicably. This is in the name of your family and reputation after all. Even personal moral conscious, if the man had one. Or, at least, if he'd deluded himself into believing he possessed one that he had to maintain. Which he did not, as seen by the death threats he'd slung so easily Kim Dokja's way.
Yoo Joonghyuk didn't have anything to reply with, evident by the way he simply continued to stare in Kim Dokja's direction, expression unreadable, utterly silent, haughty and tall and imposing. Jerk. It was unnerving, the way he did not acknowledge Kim Dokja, but hadn't decided it was worthwhile to stop paying attention to him, either. Make a choice asshole — did he give a shit about what Kim Dokja thought, or not?
"Is that your off-switch, then?" Kim Dokja wondered, "Just agree absently with everything you say?"
"What?" You Joonghyuk said, the word falling confused and dumb from his mouth.
"You seemed so prone to chatting before," Kim Dokja shrugged. He pouted, "I feel a little lonely now that you've regressed into being all quiet and brooding again."
"I'm not brooding," Yoo Joonghyuk protested instantly. "You're the one who's incapable of shutting up," he growled.
"I'm beginning to get deja vu," Kim Dokja realized, blinking. "We seem to keep repeating the same formulaic conversation. Me, making an observation. You, exploding for no reason."
"You—" Yoo Joonghyuk stopped himself, releasing a breath. The sound left somewhere between a grating huff and — almost a laugh? "You are only proving my point. Scheming, foolish weasel-rat."
"Weasel-rat?" Kim Dokja echoed, his own incredulously amused huff of air escaping from his gaping mouth. This was… a combination of what he'd called him before? A scheming weasel, yesterday, in a last-ditch attempt to avoid swearing in front of his little sister. And now, earlier today, in comparing Kim Dokja to a specific class of people: AKA, rats. And also the several times he'd referred to him as a fool. Fun. "Good to see you're getting creative, Yoo Joonghyuk," he teased.
Conversing with Yoo Joonghyuk was one of the stranger experiences of Kim Dokja's life, which was saying a lot. The man could be genuinely infuriating, in the way he held a complete disregard for the value of Kim Dokja's opinions over the direction of his own life. In return, Kim Dokja tried to make himself out to be a troubling figure. Yet the man had never backed down. He'd rebuked and insulted Kim Dokja back, reserving little mercy, but he'd never turned tail, had only ever leaned in closer. He only ever left with intent to return. For it, there were moments Kim Dokja found himself… perhaps equally drawn to the man's presence. To keeping him there, caught in traded bickering thrown back between them, locked in a glaring contest, because for some reason, nothing made him leave. And that begged the more important question.
"But, seriously, Yoo Joonghyuk," he started, pleasant and inquisitive, "why are you still here? Why are you here at all?"
Yoo Joonghyuk frowned. "The contract—"
"The contract isn't even signed," Kim Dokja dismissed. The contentions of that flimsy piece of paper meant nothing to a man like him. They both knew it. "And you put it together. You control the narrative, here."
The man grit his teeth together, clearly irritated to be repeating himself, "I said before, it's more efficient—"
"I don't care about efficiency," Kim Dokja shut down. "I didn't consider any debts when I stepped in front of that truck," he told him. Kim Dokja hadn't cared who that little girl was. The fact that she was Yoo Mia, fierce and sassy and a little scary, only meant anything now. Long after it mattered. Yoo Mia could have been anyone. Had been, in that moment, a number of different faces, of lives, of possibilities. Kim Dokja had little regard for any of it, except for the sight of a child lost before they even had the chance to learn anything about themselves.
Yoo Joonghyuk stiffened at the reminder. To him, that child had been the absolute opposite. Had been Yoo Mia, had always been Yoo Mia, who had always been someone to Yoo Joonghyuk. His little sister, his only family, his to care and guide and guard, sheltered under his guardianship, his to raise and watch grow, and he'd nearly lost it all. He knew what she ate for dinner each night, and what her first favorite color was.
Yoo Mia had nearly died, if not for Kim Dokja's split-second action. Decision, idiocy, loss-of-control, because whatever it had been, it hadn't been heroism. And he wouldn't deny any benefits for it, but he couldn't hope to fathom why Yoo Joonghyuk would jump through this many hoops, except to annoy the shit out of him for no damn reason.
And, still, all the man said was, "I refuse to owe anyone anything."
"You're full of shit," Kim Dokja sneered, "because it would have been child's play to delegate all of this for a man like you."
Yoo Joonghyuk had bought him a private room for recovery, and then consistently visited the bleak, quiet tomb of a damaged stranger with his most precious person at his side. What, because he felt like it? He could've relied on reports from his good doctor friend. On that note, what hospital was this? Where was Kim Dokja? Did Yoo Joonghyuk just select the one where he had a private in? There was no genuine coincidental situation with this man where his close personal friend Lee Seolhwa happened to be assigned as Kim Dokja's personal doctor. Fine, fine, ignore all of it, Yoo Joonghyuk was simply accompanying his sister, her whims, because children were strange and vulnerable, and she felt some kind of trauma and responsibility as a fellow victim of the accident.
Except, here he was again today, alone, joined instead by a plate of homemade sick food. And no matter how much Kim Dokja poked and prodded him, surely and swiftly climbing rank to the current greatest adversary in the man's life, Yoo Joonghyuk was still looming at his bedside with threats of how he would continue to take care of him.
None of it made any sense, because Kim Dokja could see no possible ulterior motive, of which there had to be, because the behaviors held no coherency on the surface.
"Your contract could've ended at paying my hospital bills," Kim Dokja said. "It could've ended with a nice sum of money, if you really wanted. We shake hands once and never acknowledge each other again," he scoffed, watching Yoo Joonghyuk's eyes grow wide. "Half the point is that I never ask for anything again. Except I never asked for anything to begin with, that was a bar you set. So why go this far? What the hell are you doing, Yoo Joonghyuk?"
Yoo Joonghyuk held his gaze, mouth just a little agape, for a long minute. Kim Dokja couldn't find in himself to look away, too stunned by how stunned the other had become. He tied his hands into knots against the bedding, fighting of the writhing urge to trash this whole situation.
Had Yoo Joonghyuk really never thought about this for more than a self-centered, arrogant moment? Never considered he could have simply done less? Kim Dokja had offered it before, only to be stepped over and brushed off, but perhaps Yoo Joonghyuk hadn't considered what he was really saying, hadn't bothered to examine it any closer. He seemed the type to never actually internalize the advice of those around him. Was this his out? Had Kim Dokja finally carved his tunnel to freedom? Yoo Joonghyuk would erase the current restrictions, reduce everything, and they'd never speak again.
They'd never speak again.
And Kim Dokja could recover. Secure. Alone.
"You still have the container," was the first thing that spilled from his mouth.
"What?"
"The food container," Yoo Joonghyuk repeated, eyes narrowed as they darted toward it. "You have to finish your food."
"What, and then you'll finally pack on out of here?" Kim Dokja clarified, hurriedly reaching to pile up the dredges of rice left. There was one last dumpling, too, which he'd savor before he had to throw this handsome man out and never see him again.
"I have to take it home to wash and return tomorrow," Yoo Joonghyuk explained.
Kim Dokja choked, whipping back in his direction. "You don't!" he swore, "I just went over this."
"I will," Yoo Joonghyuk said, "because I'm right. You're a fool and you're incapable of taking care of yourself. So we'll do it this way."
"Why do you — What does it matter?" Kim Dokja muttered.
Yoo Joonghyuk glanced away. "You are the man who saved my sister's life. You may be… aggravating, but that doesn't change what you did." He swallowed roughly, face twisted in deep contemplation.
"I'm not a good person," Kim Dokja asserted, because maybe that was what this man had misunderstood. That Kim Dokja was some kind of martyr. "You seem the type keen on avoiding inviting corruptive influences into your life. Yet you've so willingly visited this one." He forced a hollow half-breath of a laugh, gesturing weakly to himself.
Yoo Joonghyuk glanced back his way. "I don't believe that." He held his gaze, steady.
"You should re-evaluate your standards." Kim Dokja watched his eyes. Didn't meet them. Watched. Studied the irises, deep and full, piercing and clear. It wasn't coldness, wasn't a rejection intent on keeping people away. It was intensity. The ring that bled a lighter golden where his iris met the pale sclera of his eye, the dark pinpricks of his pupils, hiding, but present.
"You made my sister laugh," Yoo Joonghyuk said. Like it was relief. Like it was an offer. "I still get to hear her laugh." His eyes, deep and full, trembled for half a moment, before settling, a stone cushioned in a riverbed.
Kim Dokja couldn't find his tongue in his mouth. Was that it? Was that all? Was it enough to have a person worth that much in your life?
"And she still would like to visit you again," he continued. His eyes drifted past Kim Dokja, behind him, and Kim Dokja turned to follow his gaze. "She wants to replenish the flowers."
The sun's angle had long since left filtering in direct rays. Under the blank white of the overbearing overhead lights, the wilting petals and frail leaves were shadowed gauntly. The jar refracted angrily under the light, not glowing as it had the evening he'd first spotted it. They had become, objectively, bleak, and yet Kim Dokja's heart found a pleasant kind of soothing ache at the sight.
"We'll be bringing fresh ones tomorrow," Yoo Joonghyuk decided. "Finish eating," he ordered him, "and I'll get out as you so clearly desire."
Kim Dokja winced. "That's… I didn't…" He sighed. "Thank you, Yoo Joonghyuk, for the meal. It really is … kind." He shifted uncomfortably. "And also… for the… thank you, by the way," he coughed, "I noticed… the extra charger. In my bag. For my phone. Thanks."
Yoo Joonghyuk remained unmoving, silent, watching him. His uncomfortable squirming. His face as he savored the last dumpling. His hands, as he clasped the lunchbox closed again. Him, as he leaned forward to pass the box back into the man's hands. Yoo Joonghyuk glanced away once, eyes trailing their shared motion. Their fingers inches away, his sliding forward, and Kim Dokja's slipping back. Folded neatly back into his lap. Yoo Joonghyuk watched, and nodded once, clutching the box at his side.
"You're to be released from the hospital a few days from now," Yoo Joonghyuk told him. He hesitated, "Is… there anything I can do to ease your transition?"
Kim Dokja shook his head. "I'll, ah — I'll be fine," he smiled carefully, "just drop me off to my apartment, I suppose." He paused, before adding, hesitant, "And… continue these excuses with the food, if Yoo Mia really still does want to keep visiting me."
Yoo Joonghyuk stared it him for a long moment. "How much of the contract did you read?"
Kim Dokja blinked. He raised an uncertain brow, suddenly aware of a terrible unease rising in his gut. "…All of it?" he said slowly.
Yoo Joonghyuk frowned. "But you didn't…" he trailed off.
"What?" Kim Dokja asked, puzzled.
Yoo Joonghyuk stared at him. Then he turned away, marching toward the door. "I'll see you tomorrow," he announced, "I'll be back with Yoo Mia. Be prepared, I'll be bringing a trustworthy legal witness with the credentials to approve the contract when you're discharged a few days from now."
"Hey!" Kim Dokja shouted after him. He pushed his hands against the bed, leaning up, before he was forced to fall back, groaning, with a strike of sharp pain. "You— Hey! Bastard! You can't say something so suspicious and then leave!"
Yoo Joonghyuk paused in the doorway. He slipped his coat over his shoulders. "I'll be seeing you tomorrow, Kim Dokja." The door fell shut behind him. He left one last command behind, "Eat properly, fool."
"That… fucking… bastard."