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Kim Dokja’s pace quickened as the kid behind him struggled to keep up. He zigged through the alleyway, casually stepping over junk the kid had to scrabble over despite puberty having sent him more along the beanpole route than any other.
“Hyung, wait for me! What’s wrong?” went the kid, quickening his pace and reaching toward him with an outstretched hand.
Kim Dokja resolutely did not flinch at the hand reaching towards him, but his lips pursed as he took in a steadying breath.
He did his best to keep his gaze forward and away from the teen scrambling to reach him. The kid’s floppy hair fluttered, falling forward then sweeping back but getting caught on the band-aid placed by his left eye. His clothing bore the marks of multiple mendings and hemmings, likely hand-me-downs from family members. The duct tape on his sneakers scraped against the concrete where it had peeled from the shoes, exposing the holes in the fabric.
“If you already figured it out then I don’t understand why you’d keep up the charade.”
At the edges of Kim Dokja’s sight the buildings steadily began to lose their clarity, the rooftops hazing and blurring the skyline with the afternoon sky. A rush of sound seemed to swell in the background, muffled by the thumping of his heartbeat in his ears.
Hearing Kim Dokja speak, the kid kept his pace up but brought his hand back, maintaining the set distance between the two of them. With an abrupt twist in composure, his expression fell to neutral as he said “I thought you might enjoy hearing me call you ‘hyung,’ at least it would make sense here.”
“It would make sense normally-” Kim Dokja raised his voice and spun around, but cut off as he banged his knee on the plywood someone had disposed of by leaning it against the boarded up and dilapidated homes that made up the neighborhood. Yoo Joonghyuk kept walking forward, deliberately closing more of the set distance between them, looking up at Kim Dokja.
“Still unused to that height? You switched back two worlds ago.”
“I don’t pick the worlds and, no, that wasn’t the reason why.” Kim Dokja curled over as he rubbed his knee where he could feel his skin warming from the coming bruise.
“The reason why you are clumsy or the reason you’ve changed?”
“Both!” He stretched his leg out and made to go back to his retreat.
“Do you not pick the worlds, or do you have a different reason for why you stayed young at the start?”
Kim Dokja felt his body flush as the question stalled him, although he was still unsure whether it was due to anger or embarrassment. “How were you able to follow after me, anyway?”
“You believed I couldn’t?”
“Through three worlds? ”
“No.”
“Oh.”
“Through all of them.”
“ All of them?” Kim Dokja could feel every world press against his eyes from inside of him as he remembered them all. The current urban gang setting, the previous space-faring voyage, the humble farming town, the stereotypical English countryside that had been the very first… The knowledge of all these worlds pressed against him, his memories feeling physical in how they pressed against his chest.
“Are you finished being obtuse about what’s happening?”
Despite the press on his chest, once Kim Dokja placed his eyes on the young kid in front of him, he felt his heart begin to settle. He was about to question what Yoo Joonghyuk meant when the rush of sound from earlier finally fully penetrated past his settling heartbeat. It went from a swell of incomprehensible noise to a patterned beeping to a harsh blare in a series of moments. The previous haziness of his surroundings began to melt downwards from the sky to the ground where he and Yoo Joonghyuk, having first appeared to him as a child but currently seeming to glitch between that and an adult, stood. Kim Dokja was barely able to see Yoo Joonghyuk’s face change from that of the teen back to his normal face and back as he tried to speak to him over the din. But quickly, even that sight left him and all Kim Dokja was faced with was an empty space of white and nothingness.
This was a space that held nothing, not even himself, since he wasn’t even sure what “himself” could mean at this point.
He could not even hear his heartbeat.
He only knew that the most he could do now was go back and try again.
“Hey, captain. I see you didn’t bring him back this time either.”
Yoo Joonghyuk hears the words even before his eyes violently fling open. Kim Namwoon’s gaze bores into him from where he slouches in a corner of the room. The open window in the room lights the shadows that Kim Namwoon had tried to hide his expression in, letting Yoo Joonghyuk note the sardonic twist of his lips contradicted the worry in his eyes. Despite his eyes still fluttering as they adjust to the harsh daylight he had no trouble seeing the thoughts hidden in Kim Namwoon’s face.
“Not this time, no.”
“Or the last four times, either. Captain, should we…” Kim Namwoon looks on meaningfully as his fingers coax the edge of the blade in his hand.
Yoo Joonghyuk shakes his head at the unfinished question, but from his lips falls an “I don’t know.”
Kim Namwoon lets out a considering hum, looking past Yoo Joonghyuk to the body of the kid lying beside him on the bed. “Are you regretting this? It’s not like we still can’t get rid of him.” He pushes himself off the wall, stops worrying the blade in his fingers and instead holds it firmly in his hand.
Yoo Joonghyuk senses the old instinct of worry at this but the fresher sense of trust overrides it. “Don’t worry. I won’t regret it. I only need one more.”
The room is a simple bedroom, only a bed and dresser and a single window. It lacks even curtains to block out the mid-afternoon sunlight that casts across the room. Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes were still unable to adjust to the bright light, softening the definition of the room and giving it a dreamlike quality. The irony of this is not lost on him.
He settles himself back down on the bed, closing his eyes to the sunlight and the sparse room and Kim Namwoon standing guard over him and Kim Dokja, and lets himself fade back into the world Kim Dokja was creating.
Kim Dokja’s eyes opened a second before the rapping on his door started up. A low voice came from the other side, “Young Master, it is time to wake now.”
Kim Dokja sat up as he looked around at his room. It was a large room, with his bed in the center, a fireplace, and a desk in the far right corner, beside a large window with a pseudo balcony opening out to expansive grounds. The room was very clearly on an upper floor, providing a full view of the gardens outside.
A man entered the room, carrying a tray in his arms with a tea set on it.
“Young Master, were you already awake?” he says, placing the tray on the side table and pouring the tea out, handing him the cup. “If you are feeling well, should we move to the sitting area?”
Kim Dokja’s eyes were drawn to the sitting area near the front of the bed where a set of comfortable armchairs were arranged around a small table.
“Perhaps you are feeling unwell? Will you stay in bed for today?” asked the man, pausing in the middle of handing him the tea. He set the cup aside instead.
Kim Dokja’s voice finally started working and he responded, “I’m fine, I can get dressed today.”
He tried to push past the confusion that hearing his voice gave him. Something about the thinness of his voice felt… Nostalgic. Forgotten.
Ill-fitting.
He fought the flinch that went through his body as the man reached out to help him out of bed, pulling at his clothes to get them off. Piece by piece his clothing went on and Kim Dokja felt himself turning more into himself as each article went on.
“I will take my breakfast here today.” he said, settling into the seating area on the left side of the room. He sat, back straight and hands delicate while he sipped his tea, the blend of the tea leaves sending out a dark flavor. His first sip went down smoothly, waking his stomach up from the fast of the night, the smokiness of the tea rolling across his tongue and waking him up further. The time it had taken to get him fully dressed had not let the tea cool too much. Each sip warmed him all the way inside, easing the awkwardness that had him fidgeting in the armchair and stilling his swinging legs.
The butler watched, expressionless, with only a flicker towards the other side of the room, as he moved the milk and sugar from the side table to the sitting area and into Kim Dokja’s eyes.
“I apologize, we did not steep the tea in milk this morning.”
Kim Dokja roiled the sip of tea in his mouth. He could taste the bitterness that lingered on his tongue, the comforting taste turning alien.
“It’s fine.” he said, resolutely taking another sip but this time being unable to hold back the flinch that came with the taste.
“Will you take your breakfast here?” asked the butler, making no move to adjust the tea Kim Dokja was drinking.
“Yes, yeah… I will eat here.”
The butler nodded and took his leave, taking the milk and sugar with him, and leaving Kim Dokja alone to gather his thoughts.
He swung his eyes to the clock hung above the mantelpiece, showing it to be only a little before seven. The fireplace itself bore the marks of having had a fire hours before, but it was only a charred mess now and no heat came off from it. The window in the room was closed with heavy curtains but even so, it was like the chill from the outside was seeping in.
The room felt much colder.
The entire building felt silent.
Kim Dokja felt the pressure rising.
And the plush of the seat he was sitting in seemed to envelop him; a sofa obviously not made with children in mind where his head didn’t even reach the top. An entire room made without a thought of a child in mind. His feet did not reach the ground where he sat. A desk he would never be able to sit and reach at showed a journal left open, handwritten words on the page flowing across in a script he knew intimately well-
Yoo Joonghyuk walked back in, the door quickly closing behind him, carrying a new tray in his arms with a simple breakfast on it, and Kim Dokja felt knocked back into himself. He straightened in his seat and allowed a steadying breath, closing his eyes and leaning the back of his neck onto the edge of the seat in an attempt to ease a stress knot.
Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes flashed to the curtains, the journal, and cast about the room taking all the changes in. Almost thoughtlessly he placed the tray of food on the side table and then directed himself to the desk with the journal. His gloved hand hovered over the open journal, intending to rifle through the pages but somehow hesitating. Despite the heaviness of the room, the sound of his fingers on the sheets was clearly heard. Kim Dokja’s eyes snapped open.
“That’s personal.” said Kim Dokja, alarmed. Yoo Joonghyuk stood there, his focus still on the journal, before decisively picking it up and quickly flipping through each page until he made it to the front cover, and finally he closed it.
He walked it over to where Kim Dokja sat and looked up at him, or at least Kim Dokja tried to. His eyes caught lower, where underneath Yoo Joonghyuk’s coat he could see the waistcoat tucking in, tapering his build. It drew his eye easily since the coat style was short in the front and very open, barely seeming to cover the breadth of Yoo Joonghyuk’s shoulders. The material looked crisp, and the fabric coated buttons looked soft to the touch.
Kim Dokja’s hand stretched out to touch the single-breasted waistcoat, pressing against Yoo Joonghyuk almost as if to stop his approach. But instead of keeping his hand there he slid it to where the waistcoat closed, followed the edge up towards where the cravat was. His fingers dipped beneath the edge of the waistcoat as he did, feeling the corset underneath until he crawled his fingers up to the edge of it to the softer material of the shirt tucked underneath. Continuing his exploration he led his fingers up, but with the memory of the hard material of the corset on his fingers he was rougher than needed.
His fingers went further than the waistcoat and even the shirt to the warm skin under, skipping across the bare skin until he finally reached the cravat. He pulled his fingers out and allowed the silk of the cravat to pass through his fingers until his hands met with the stock and crawled up to cradle Yoo Joonghyuk’s face. Kim Dokja pressed up on the underside of his jaw, feeling the tense muscle there shift as Yoo Joonghyuk swallowed. His fingers smoothed across his jaw, scraping against the gradient of his skin and feeling the edge of his mouth on the pad of his thumb.
“You’re real.” he whispered, as Yoo Joonghyuk finally took a breath and shifted from where he had stood motionless during all this.
Suddenly, Kim Dokja jerked away from Yoo Joonghyuk to snatch at the journal he held in his hand. Yoo Joonghyuk maintained his grip on it.
“I am real.”
Kim Dokja furiously tugged for the journal, but he couldn’t break Yoo Joonghyuk’s hold on it. He felt the desperation from earlier rise in him as he tried to fight for it.
“Do you know where you are?”
“Stop.”
“Do you know who I am?”
“I said stop!”
“Do you know who you are!”
“No!”
The word reverberated in the following silence.
Yoo Joonghyuk used his other hand to drag Kim Dokja out of the chair and pulled him toward the covered window.
“Why are the curtains closed?”
“I don’t know!”
“Did you close them?”
“I didn’t-”
Crowding Kim Dokja up against the wall, Yoo Joonghyuk blocked him in as he reached around him to swing the curtains open. Kim Dokja let his grip on the journal drop and instead switched tracks, holding the curtains closed. They both stood there, paused for a moment as Kim Dokja looked down to where Yoo Joonghyuk hunched over his shoulder, reaching for the curtains.
“There is nothing out there.” panted Kim Dokja out desperately.
Yoo Joonghyuk straightened up, still pressing into Kim Dokja, and said “Exactly.”
He flung the curtains open.
There was nothing out there.
There weren’t even any stars.
It was only an inky black void.
“Your name is Kim Dokja, and you are the Oldest Dream. And it is time to wake up.”
Kim Dokja flung Yoo Joonghyuk away, but realized his mistake too late. He had not been able to steal the journal back.
Yoo Joonghyuk peeled his gloves off, tossing them aside to disappear with the rest of the room, and opened the journal again. He began to read.
“A truly easy path was now available before our eyes. If we choose this method, then we might not even need to resort to our plan.
None of my companions would die, too. And they wouldn’t become ‘Outer Gods’, as well.
We simply had to get on that ship and cross over to another world-line, and then, live our new stories as if nothing had ever happened. We just had to become the rulers of the new world-line with our Fables.”
“That’s private!” The illusion had finally shattered, with everything around them scattering and disappearing, leaving only Kim Dokja and Yoo Joonghyuk in a single empty space of white and nothingness.
“It is not private! We all saw it. We were all witnesses to this.” Yoo Joonghyuk was resolute in his words.
“Was it so wrong! I just wanted one more dream… where we could have some time… Even if there was nothing there, I didn’t think it would be too bad to be there, before I… I didn’t realize there would be someone real there.”
Kim Dokja felt himself fluctuate again. He felt himself shrinking again, having missed the moment he had shifted to an adult moments before but not missing the loss of his adult form now.
Yoo Joonghyuk’s face was alight with anger, but he kept his words steady as he spoke.
“Do you know, you’re the reason I never feared death. You being afraid that death is what is coming for you... this is a joke .” An old hatred played around the edges of Yoo Joonghyuk’s expression.
Kim Dokja’s face paled as he gripped the edge of the sleeves on his school uniform and shouted. “I already know that I’m greedy! I know I’m just being lazy! I know that it’s my fault already and that I deserve it!” He kept his eyes fixated on Yoo Joonghyuk, refusing to even blink, but that didn’t stop the tears from pooling and falling down his cheeks in globs. Yoo Joonghyuk didn’t falter.
“You know everything about me, is that the reason you won’t believe me if I tell you that is not true? You think I would be cruel enough to hurt a child outside the scenarios?”
“I’m not a child.” said Kim Dokja while he rubbed his cheeks with his sleeves. He tried to take a steadying breath but the savage jerking of his chest while he sobbed interrupted him every time.
“But you want to be.”
“I don’t have anything after this.”
“You think I can’t be any better than how I was in the scenarios. That’s why you believe I’ll kill you.”
“No!” The words shocked Kim Dokja out of a hiccuping sob. “No, you were… you were amazing. You were the best thing I had ever- I didn’t know someone could be so good, even when everything around them was so bad. I swear… I really thought… that if it was you, there was nobody you couldn’t save. As long as it was you… I’m sorry! I’m so sorry I hurt you.”
“But you don’t think I can save you. I did make a lot of mistakes. At times I was very cruel.”
“But you stopped! Every time, even when thinking that worse things might still happen to you, you still eventually tried again! Even when you made mistakes, all you needed was another chance. I was sure of it.” The last statement was whispered before pain-wracked sobs came out of Kim Dokja again.
“I am also sure of this. You need the chance to get out of here too.” Yoo Joonghyuk felt the anger leave him as he saw the kid keep crying, grateful just to see that Kim Dokja’s age had at least stopped regressing.
“I needed to see that even when things were at their most hopeless, even when I was at my lowest, if you could do it then maybe I- But all I did was ruin everything! What if I mess up again? What if I ruin everything again, and everyone has to leave again because of me? If I had just let him hit me. If I just let you-”
“Stop.” Yoo Joonghyuk cut him off. “I know you won’t ruin anything. I know it has to be you. Because of this.” Yoo Joonghyuk held aloft the journal, the only remnant left from the previous world.
“He’s not me.”
“No, he’s not. He’s who you wanted to be, right? He was there because you sent him, because a part of you didn’t want to keep reading a story. It wanted to reach a happy ending. It wanted everyone to get a happy ending.”
“I didn’t even get the chance to see it. A happy ending... can only happen because I’m not there. Only as long as I’m gone.”
“That’s- Okay. Their happy ending, they’ll figure it out. Can we figure ours out? What’s our happy ending?”
Kim Dokja’s shoulders flinched at that, but his sobs had petered and were dying down. He eased off them and finally managed to make himself face Yoo Joonghyuk and look him in the eyes.
“You.. you’d be happy after this, right?”
“What?”
Yoo Joonghyuk could almost sense the dangerous turn the conversation had taken.
A manic gleam seemed to have entered Kim Dokja’s eyes. He seemed to be rapidly shifting in front of Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes, until finally before him stood the adult Kim Dokja he had gotten accustomed to seeing.
“It’s fine. You’re right, it’s okay for me to not see the ending. You spent how long without seeing an ending, either. It’s only fair. At least this way, even if I don’t see it, I’ll at least know that I helped the happy ending happen.”
“You are so frustrating!” Against a kid, Yoo Joonghyuk had been able to keep control of his temper, but seeing Kim Dokja as an adult and more importantly, at what Yoo Joonghyuk considered his worst? He exploded.
He rushed forward and grabbed Kim Dokja by the tie, pulling him up towards him. “You don’t just watch happy endings! You don’t just read them! You have to live them! An ending everyone but you get to experience, you know this because I know this! They don’t want that, and neither do I.”
“They-”
“They’re waiting for you. Just like I was. An ending without you has no meaning. You’re the one that gives it meaning by being there.”
Kim Dokja looked confused again. “But I don’t know what other type of adult to be. I never learned how to live.”
“It’s been so long for me, I forgot. It was even longer for the ones waiting for us, but they want to figure it out together. With us.”
“You could go back without me.”
“No. If you want to continue to stay here, in this dream… Then I will go back to being the puppet of the Oldest Dream.”
They both sensed the resolution tying them together. It anchored them down.
“No, I- I am tired of being alone with only characters.”
“Then let’s go. Let’s learn how to be real people together.”
Uriel sprints into the room, banging the door open. “I think they’ll wake up soon!”
Kim Namwoon jumpstarts at the sound, and his blade races towards Uriel’s throat. She very casually dodges back, letting the blade smack and embed itself into the wall.
“Still quick on the draw, good, now pay attention! This is it!”
“Hey! I could have killed you!”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Now be quiet!”
“If we want them to wake up, I don’t see why I have to be quiet.” Kim Namwoon’s shoulder bumps against Uriel’s back as he walks to the wall to dig the blade out of the plaster.
“You were the one thinking that maybe he wouldn’t succeed. Look at you acting the big man now.”
“Hey! I had faith in the captain! It wasn’t my faith that was in question here, now was it? It was that kid that doubted.”
Uriel bends down, placing her arms on her knees, her face in her hands, and keeps her gaze focused on the two in the bed.
“That’s surprisingly very astute of you.”
“Fuck you.”
“Stop picking fights just because you’re still worried and watch already. They’re here.”
Kim Namwoon manages to dig his knife out then leans himself against the hole it left, blocking it from sight as Kim Dokja abruptly sits up with a gasp.
Kim Dokja takes in the room he’s found himself in. Unlike the last one, this one is nearly bare. A much smaller room, with the walls being hit by the light of the setting sun, showing the marks of repairs and smudges of use on their white paint. The bed he sits on is wedged in a corner underneath wide double-paned windows and from them, despite being closed, he can hear the bustle of people moving around on the street below.
“It’s about time, brat.”
“Don’t scare him!”
“I’m not! He kept us waiting!”
Kim Dokja’s hand scrambles around, reaching Yoo Joonghyuk’s coat and clinging onto it for safety.
“You were waiting? He said you were but…”
“Of course we were waiting!”
A crash can be heard from the open door, along with the thudding of footsteps. Lee Jihye pops her head in around the doorway. “Oh, he’s up! We’re not ready for you yet, take another 20 minutes.”
“Oh my god, it’s been this long, how are you still not ready?”
“We had some trouble getting the oven working. I know, why don’t you go make dinner and I stand around doing nothing all day?”
“I was standing guard!”
“You were just uselessly worrying!”
Lee Hyunsung walks out from behind Lee Jihye, armed with an apron and two oven mitts. “Actually this is perfect timing. Go wash up, by the time you’re done dinner should be here.”
Uriel perks up. “Ooh, what did you order?”
“Greek.”
“Ordered? I was cooking!”
“Just looked. Did you notice you forgot to actually turn the oven on?”
Kim Namwoon bursts out laughing as Lee Jihye gasps out “My prep!” and rushes back to the kitchen.
“Don’t laugh, I’m sure we all forgot. I think she had a skill that did that for her.”
“What kind of useless skill-”
“It beats not knowing how to cook at all.” Yoo Joonghyuk brings a hand up to his forehead to massage his brows.
Kim Dokja lets out a squeal, quickly tossing the handful of coat he was worrying in his hands away.
Yoo Joonghyuk just turns to raise an eyebrow at him. “You cold?”
Kim Dokja frantically shakes his head. “I can feel the sun.”
“Hm. That’s been a while, I’m sure.”
“I never got much sun anyway!” he pouts.
Claps distract the both of them until they see Uriel clapping from where she is stooping.
“Congratulations!”
Lee Hyunsung slaps a hand over his face as Kim Namwoon bursts out laughing again.
“That’s in bad taste, sis!” he says, while cackling.
“It is not! Congratulations on making it back!” she says, gracefully easing her way up. “Now get ready for dinner. It’s almost here.”
With that she flounces out, her voice carrying back with “Lee Jihye, it’s okay! Let’s see what we can salvage for breakfast tomorrow!”
“But dinner was supposed to be a surprise for them!”
Kim Namwoon and Lee Hyunsung catch each other’s eyes, sharing the same smile.
Yoo Joonghyuk pushes himself up, sitting up on the bed and placing his legs over to brace himself against the floor. “She can make dinner tomorrow.”
“Pretty sure the kid isn’t going to care either way. Looks like he hasn’t had a good meal in his life.” Kim Namwoon regards Kim Dokja, who backs away despite there being nowhere to go.
He curls up on the bed, leaning his back against the window and feeling the warmth it still holds despite the sun on its way to setting. “I don’t need to eat.”
“That’s quite some bullshit, kid.”
Lee Hyunsung speaks up at that. “Don’t talk to him like that.” he starts, before a ringing sounds out from his pocket. He pulls his phone out and answers it, sending one last warning glance towards Kim Namwoon before walking off. His low voice talking to the delivery person is quickly lost among the noise of Lee Jihye and Uriel packing up the remaining dinner prep.
Yoo Joonghyuk turns his narrowed eyes to Kim Dokja. “Don’t reject my cooking.”
A blotchy blush works its way up Kim Dokja’s face as he quickly shakes his head and says “I won’t.”
“Hm.” says Yoo Joonghyuk, getting up and walking out of the room. “Bathroom’s on the left, yeah?”
“Yep!” says Kim Namwoon, gesturing towards it. Yoo Joonghyuk nods and walks off towards it, leaving both Kim Namwoon and Kim Dokja alone in the room.
Kim Namwoon watches and waits for Yoo Joonghyuk to close the door to the bathroom before rounding on Kim Dokja.
He looms over him on the bed, a frown settling on his face. Kim Dokja stills himself.
“You wanted me killed off from the start, huh. That’s why that last round worked out the way it did, right?”
Kim Dokja very carefully does not answer and he very carefully does not move, but Kim Namwoon reads his silence as an answer.
He reaches a hand out and pats Kim Dokja on the head.
“What the hell, kid, looks like you and I are more similar than we both might have thought. I know my fair share about taking my anger out on other people.”
“I wasn’t angry.”
“Sure.”
“I wasn’t!”
“I said sure.”
“I was jealous!”
“Yeah, I got that too.”
That stops Kim Dokja’s shout.
“You were jealous, and you were angry, and you were hurt. Sure, alright. Here’s a secret people like us weren’t let in on: sometimes people can love more people than you might expect.”
Kim Dokja just stares at him.
“Hell, I know, hard to believe. Hard to believe people might be able to love anyone other than themselves! But sometimes, some people do. Welcome to the family, kid, nothing that we give to you was meant for someone else. It’s meant for you.”
With that, Kim Namwoon brings his hands into his pockets and slouches his way out of the room. He meets Yoo Joonghyuk in the hallway on the way out, only giving him a nod before he heads to the kitchen too.
Yoo Joonghyuk walks back into the room but stops in the doorway. Kim Dokja has his face in his hands but even though he’s not making sound, his tears seep through his hands.
Yoo Joonghyuk turns away. He knows when to give him privacy. He does not move away from the doorway, however.
“Wait, why is there a hole in the wall?”