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If given the opportunity to describe Kim Dokja, he’s smart and dumb at the same time. In other words, an intelligent, but annoying idiot.
You can never expect Kim Dokja to take care of himself. It's just a waste of hope.
So, when Yoo Joonghyuk goes to drag Kim Dokja out of their shared room for dinner, he comes right on time to see his nose bleeding.
‘The fool must've exhausted himself more instead of resting.’
Yoo Joonghyuk scowls, taking long meaningful strides towards the reader, roughly sitting him down on the edge of his bed.
“Joonghyuk-ah?-“
“Put the phone down.” He orders sternly, leaning Dokja's head forward, pinching his nose carefully to stop the bleeding.
Luckily enough there was a box of tissues on the nightstand. Joonghyuk takes a few before handing it to Kim Dokja.
If this keeps going on, Yoo Joonghyuk might as well retire from being a pro-gamer and work as Kim Dokja’s caretaker.
“You’re acting like a mother hen.” Kim Dokja breaks the silence, and Yoo Joonghyuk didn’t entertain him with words. Rather, he brushes his free hand through Dokja’s hair instead.
“I asked you to rest because you have a fever. When have you ever listened to me?” Joonghyuk sighs, tilting his head slightly to see a different angle of his partner. “Probably once in a while.” Kim Dokja answers, looking up at Joonghyuk with an unlucky smile.
He really wants to consider ripping his kitchen and stationing it inside their room just to keep a close watch on Kim Dokja.
He leans down to kiss the top of the reader’s head; once he made sure the bleeding stopped, he glares at Kim Dokja. “Stay where you are and wait for me.”
Dokja looks at his husband with a sheepish smile, obliging to his words. When Yoo Joonghyuk confirmed that Dokja isn’t going to leave, he exits the room to fetch the dinner he just finished cooking. He decided to bring the food to his fool just because of what happened.
Yoo Joonghyuk didn’t want him to tire himself more.
Kim Dokja lays himself comfortably on the bed, and as he waits, he can’t help but love such a perfect man even more. He sighs fondly, smiling to himself.
“Stupid protagonist genes.” He mutters to himself, comparing his husband to a protagonist from a cliché web novel.
Not even a moment later, Yoo Joonghyuk returns with a tray of food. Kim Dokja eyes it warily.
Don’t get him wrong, he loves Joonghyuk’s cooking. It’s just that he can’t resist developing trust issues after the pro-gamer secretly slipped in tomatoes in his food more than once.
Yoo Joonghyuk noticed the reader’s wary gaze and returns it with a frown. “I didn’t put tomatoes in your soup today.”
Kim Dokja furrows his eyebrows, repeating dumbly, “what do you mean, ‘today’?”
The pro-gamer presses his lips into a thin line, trying to hide his amusement from Kim Dokja’s growing pout. “It’s only because you’re sick.”
“That’s the reason why I’m sick to begin with.”
“Dokja, you got sick because of your poor sleep schedule. Not because of a fruit.” He retaliates, sitting near his husband, neatly placing the tray on the nightstand and taking one of the bowls, already having a resolve of feeding Kim Dokja himself.
“Hyuk-ah, you can’t consider that- that thing to be a fruit.” Dokja says, horrified by the fact.
Yoo Joonghyuk smiles endearingly at his reader, directing a spoonful towards Kim Dokja’s mouth. “You’re exaggerating.”
Dokja reluctantly opened his mouth to let Joonghyuk spoon-feed him.
This was pretty much common in their household. Kim Dokja gets sick, Yoo Joonghyuk pampers him 24/7. Don’t get him started with the warm hugs he gets at night to help him recover.
Of course, Yoo Joonghyuk can’t really expect the same. He would love the affection he’d receive when sick, but he can’t trust Dokja inside the kitchen. The man is too much of a hazard inside one. And, he didn’t want to infect the reader too.
So he avoids getting sick as much as he can.
“I’m not.” Dokja grumbles, enjoying Joonghyuk’s food and his acts of service to his heart’s content.
Even when they were still dating, Kim Dokja didn’t like to show weakness. So he’d throw disruptive tantrums whenever Yoo Joonghyuk tries to take care of him.
Looking back at it now, Dokja’s rather docile now compared to before.
Kim Dokja finally finishes his food and Yoo Joonghyuk returns the now finished bowl back on the nightstand. “Did you take your medicine?” Joonghyuk asks Dokja, turning back to look at his reader with a warm look.
Dokja shakes his head in response before giving Joonghyuk a questioning look, “You’re not going to eat?” He asks.
“Later.” Joonghyuk answers briefly, heading towards a shelf where they place medicine and all their other medical supplies in case of emergencies.
He walks back near Dokja’s space, handing him his medication and a glass of water he brought along with him when he fetched their food from the kitchen.
“It’s not as bad as 2 days ago, but you really should recover properly or else I’ll really strap you on the bed.” He says, sitting beside Dokja.
Dokja shudders at the memory of Joonghyuk outwardly threatening him that he’ll tie him on the bed if he doesn’t get better within 4 days.
He’s at fault for not listening to his husband in the end.
“You don’t seem like you’re tired of taking care of me like this.” He murmurs, almost to himself.
Yoo Joonghyuk, the petty bastard that he is, scoffs at Kim Dokja. Him? Getting tired of doing the bare minimum as a husband? Laughable.
“I’d rather have you healthy every day than seeing you stuck sulking all over our bedsheets.”
Kim Dokja rolls his eyes sarcastically. “Rude.”
Words are not Yoo Joonghyuk’s domain. He can’t properly get his thoughts through even if he were to recite the letters of the alphabet. Instead, he shows it through his actions by aggressively shoving it at people he cares about.
But right now, with Kim Dokja all fragile when he’s sick, he’s come into terms with ‘gentle handling’.
He wouldn’t lie that it feels like high maintenance, but if you’d want someone to get better faster, you’ll have to treat them carefully.
It’s not that Yoo Joonghyuk is often brutal with him, he’s just at a lost. Even if they’ve been through so much, Yoo Joonghyuk is so in love he couldn’t talk accordingly to his emotions.
Kim Dokja was the one that understood him like the back of his hand. Although Joonghyuk tries his best to not speak so harshly, some things slip out of his control. But Dokja understood. When others were ready to leave him because of his attitude, Kim Dokja stayed.
Why? In truth, he knew the reason. However, he didn’t understand.
As much as Kim Dokja wonders if he deserves Yoo Joonghyuk, Joonghyuk himself wonders if he ever deserved Dokja at all.
“Joonghyuk-ah, Hyuk-ah.” Kim Dokja calls out. But it looks like his husband is stuck in his own world to even hear him.
Sighing, he takes Joonghyuk’s larger hand in his, and once again calls out to him. “Yeobo.”
This seemed to have brought his emotionally constipated sunfish back to reality and he gestures at Joonghyuk to lay beside him. “It’s getting cold.” He adds.
Joonghyuk complies with Dokja and lies down on the bed with him after turning off the lights. Strong arms securely wrapping around the smaller man’s frame, Yoo Joonghyuk buries his face on Dokja’s hair, breathing in the scent of their shared shampoo.
Sighing in content with their bodies flushed against each other, Kim Dokja moves impossibly closer to his lover’s warmth, wrapping an arm over the bigger man’s neck.
Feeling tiredness seep through him, he felt faint lips on the crown of his head, urging him to finally go to sleep.
“Joonghyuk-ah…”
“Hn.” Yoo Joonghyuk hums in reply, confirming that Kim Dokja had his full attention. He pulls away slightly to look at Dokja.
Feeling enough space to look up at his husband, he smiles at Joonghyuk even though he probably wouldn’t see it in the dark, and gives him a quick peck on the lips.
“Good night.”
Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes considerably soften from Dokja’s antics. He gives his reader a longer kiss on the lips in return. Both men already familiar with each other’s structures that they could already point out where their features were even in the dark.
One of them had to regrettably pull away, only a centimeter apart as Joonghyuk murmurs his response,
“Sleep well.”