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Kim Dokja took out a pocket knife, a grin plastered on his face as Yoo Joonghyuk shot him a disinterested look, back pushed to the wooden doorframe leading to the hallway. Standing on his tiptoes, tongue slightly poking out, Kim Dokja carved into the doorframe a jagged line marking Yoo Joonghyuk’s height.
“Is this really necessary?”
“Shut up and stay still, Yoo Joonghyuk.”
Yoo Joonghyuk closed his eyes with a sigh, letting Kim Dokja do what he wanted. Not long after, he heard a laugh trail out of the boy’s mouth and opened his eyes with an eyebrow raised.
“You had another growth spurt,” Kim Dokja said. “Look how much taller you got. You grew a whole, what, 5 centimetres?”
His fingers ghosted over the new mark and an old one just below it, and Yoo Joonghyuk turned around to see what he was talking about.
Beside Yoo Joonghyuk, Kim Dokja’s bottom lip jutted out into a pout.
“When is it my turn to get a growth spurt? I haven’t grown at all since last year,” Kim Dokja sighed, running his finger over his own height mark on the doorframe, no doubt a lot older than Yoo Joonghyuk’s marks. He shot a playful glare Yoo Joonghyuk’s way, poking the boy’s cheek with his index finger. “You stole my height, didn’t you? Stop hogging all of that, else you become freakishly tall. Girls don’t like freakishly tall guys.”
“And I don’t like girls,” Yoo Joonghyuk countered dryly. “I’m your boyfriend, Kim Dokja.”
“Mm. Really?” He patted Yoo Joonghyuk’s cheek and placed a small kiss there, lashes brushing against his skin while Yoo Joonghyuk scoffed to mask his flustered reaction, ears red. Kim Dokja tilted his head, and the sight did something to Yoo Joonghyuk’s chest. “You’re my boyfriend?”
“...Infuriating is what you are,” Yoo Joonghyuk turned his head with a scowl. “Recess is almost over and we’ve hardly touched our lunch.”
“Right,” Kim Dokja agreed lightheartedly, standing on his tiptoes once more to peck Yoo Joonghyuk on the lips. He grinned softly at Yoo Joonghyuk, patting his cheek. “I’m done now, so you can stop complaining. Let’s go eat lunch before recess finishes, shall we?”
“...I already brought my lunch to our regular spot,” Yoo Joonghyuk huffed, throwing a glance over to their desks a distance away from them. “You can eat my lunch with me. I cooked it myself.”
“Ooh,” Kim Dokja teased, “You cooked it yourself? Are you promoting your malewife assets to me right now, Joonghyuk?”
Yoo Joonghyuk glared at him.
Kim Dokja laughed and patted his shoulder. “Don’t worry,” he said, “I’m sure you have a lot of other good points other than being able to cook.”
“I’m your boyfriend,” Yoo Joonghyuk argued weakly as Kim Dokja turned away and started walking towards their desks.
“And an asshole, first and foremost!” Kim Dokja raised a hand as he shouted a reply to Yoo Joonghyuk, flipping him off. He stopped in his tracks and threw a glance over his shoulder. “What are you just standing around there for? Come on, Yoo Joonghyuk.”
Ducking his head and sighing, Yoo Joonghyuk closed his eyes for a split second before trailing behind Kim Dokja and sitting at his desk, Kim Dokja pulling out the chair in front of him and crossing his arms over the headrest, resting his head there with a tilt, cheekily grinning.
“Are you going to feed me today, too?”
“No.”
“Joonghyuk-ah,” Kim Dokja dragged his name out down to the very last syllable in a whine. “That’s not very K-Drama-lead-boyfriend-esque of you.”
Yoo Joonghyuk opened the lid of his lunchbox, the scowl on his face unchanging, and picked up his chopsticks.
“You’re talking nonsense again.”
“Sure I am. You know, the girls in our class held a little voting session among themselves about who they’d date from all the boys in our class—” Yoo Joonghyuk shoved some fried egg into Kim Dokja’s mouth hoping to shut him up to no avail. Kim Dokja continued, words muffled as he chewed while he talked, “I heard that all of them said they’d date you.” He gulped down the food. “They said you were the perfect boyfriend, but unreachable. The pretty girl everyone else fawns over—Jiyeon-ie. You know her, right? She sighed and said she’d love to date you, too, and—”
“Kim Dokja,” Yoo Joonghyuk swept his gaze over his face, setting his chopsticks down with a sigh, voice a deep timbre cutting Kim Dokja’s words, “I’ve told you before. I won’t date anyone who isn’t you. I don’t like girls, and the boys in this class will never interest me.”
“...I wasn’t being insecure,” Kim Dokja muttered.
Yoo Joonghyuk levelled an unconvinced look on him and Kim Dokja shook his head, face flushing in embarrassment as he ducked his head, leaning it down to cover his face with his arms settled on Yoo Joonghyuk’s desk.
“It’s just— everyone wants you,” he murmured, muffled words reaching Yoo Joonghyuk’s ears. Kim Dokja had the entirety of Yoo Joonghyuk’s attention. He always did. “You could pick anyone else if you want to whenever you want to. It’s a publicly accepted fact that you’re hot and desirable and everything everyone ever wanted and—”
“And all I want is you.” Yoo Joonghyuk let go of his chopsticks. He nudged Kim Dokja’s arms. “Dokja,” he tried, voice lowering into something soft and tender, exclusive for Kim Dokja. “Look at me.”
Kim Dokja flinched. Then, slowly, he raised his head. A frown was playing on his lips, and the stars Yoo Joonghyuk loved seeing in his eyes had dimmed just the slightest. His chest ached at the sight.
Yoo Joonghyuk flicked Kim Dokja’s forehead.
“Ow! What the hell did you do that for!”
“You’re a fool,” Yoo Joonghyuk deadpanned. “I won’t leave you. You know that.”
Kim Dokja rubbed his forehead with a pout, faking pain and wiping a nonexistent tear at the corner of his eye. “...You never know,” he argued.
Yoo Joonghyuk bit back a sigh before standing up, chair scraping against the floor as it got pushed back. He leaned over his desk and tugged Kim Dokja forward by his arm. He grabbed his chin, then his jaw, and then he was cradling Kim Dokja’s face like it was something precious to him—and it was, and it’d forever stay that way.
It’s times like this that Yoo Joonghyuk understood Kim Dokja least.
Through the windows, sunlight ran across Kim Dokja’s profile in handfuls, lining the curve of his lips, the lines of his lashes, and the strands of his hair, fringe falling neatly atop his eyes over his eyebrows, framing his face beautifully. Yoo Joonghyuk felt himself grow speechless for a moment. Their classmates had dubbed Kim Dokja as the ugliest of their bunch, and Yoo Joonghyuk never understood why.
Maybe Yoo Joonghyuk was looking through a fool’s lenses, rose-tinted without a single crack, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that his boyfriend was here, his face in his palms and warm, and beautiful, but there was no smile on his face and Yoo Joonghyuk should be a good boyfriend and fix that.
“I don’t like girls, and I don’t like boys.” His thumb caressed Kim Dokja’s cheek. Gentle touches, loving gazes—the Yoo Joonghyuk reserved just for Kim Dokja. “I like you, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to like someone as much as I like you in the future. Is that so hard to believe?”
“It’s—” Kim Dokja bit down on his bottom lip, avoiding eye contact, and brought a hand up to grab Yoo Joonghyuk’s wrist. “You don’t get it. I’m annoying, aren’t I? The height-marking thing, the insecurities— I’m just lucky you haven’t gotten sick of me yet.”
Yoo Joonghyuk frowned, creases between his brows worsening. “I’ll never get sick of you,” he said, as if that was a definite truth in the world, a fact that’d never change.
Kim Dokja let out a small laugh. “You really are like some male lead straight out of a K-Drama.”
“Then I’ll just be your male lead,” Yoo Joonghyuk grumbled, letting go of Kim Dokja’s face and retreating back to his seat. He picked up an egg roll from his lunchbox and hovered it in front of Kim Dokja’s face. “Now eat. I seasoned the eggs to your taste.”
Kim Dokja peeked at the egg roll. Begrudgingly, he shifted on his seat and, eyes still averted, took a bite. The strain in his expression lifted immediately, and the stars in his eyes were back.
“This is—!”
“Your favorite, I made sure.” Yoo Joonghyuk let a small smile creep onto his lips.
“You—” Kim Dokja laughed, head falling to and lolling against Yoo Joonghyuk’s desk. He looked up at Yoo Joonghyuk, eyes turned into a pair of captivating crescents, and foolishly grinned. “You really are my boyfriend, huh?”
Yoo Joonghyuk’s scowl instantly came back. “That should be obvious.” His ears betrayed his expression, staying a persistent ruby.
“Okay,” Kim Dokja said, lifting his head again. He placed an elbow up on the desk, palm propped under his chin. He tilted his head, a familiar gleam finally returned to his eyes. “Okay, Mr. Boyfriend. Feed me again, then?”
“...You’re acting like a child,” Yoo Joonghyuk huffed.
Kim Dokja laughed.
The sound easily settled between the bones of Yoo Joonghyuk’s ribcage with a warmth he had grown used to feeling in Kim Dokja’s presence, and he found himself shaking his head fondly as he readied his chopsticks once more.
In the sunlight filtering through their classroom windows, Yoo Joonghyuk distantly thought that he wouldn’t mind loving Kim Dokja and only Kim Dokja for the rest of his life.
“Joonghyuk,” Kim Dokja drawled out his name with a joking pout. “Feed me already. You won’t let your boyfriend starve, will you?”
Yoo Joonghyuk felt like pinching the ridge of his nose, then.
He shoved his food into Kim Dokja’s mouth instead and watched the boy chew enthusiastically, humming. Then, Kim Dokja jumped from his seat with a wide smile when he gulped down the food that had been unceremoniously shoved into his mouth and grabbed Yoo Joonghyuk’s face, brought it closer, and then kissed him square on the mouth.
A chaste kiss, but Yoo Joonghyuk could still taste what he cooked this morning on Kim Dokja’s lips.
“Your food tastes amazing as always, so,” Kim Dokja poked Yoo Joonghyuk’s nose affectionately, “as a reward, have a kiss.”
“You taste like egg,” Yoo Joonghyuk commented dryly and pushed Kim Dokja’s face away. “Don’t kiss me again.”
Kim Dokja let out a dramatic gasp at that, whining his name and settling on a seat beside him, head on his shoulder, now. Yoo Joonghyuk let him blabber his ear off.
Looking at him now, Yoo Joonghyuk had an inkling that he had loved Kim Dokja before. In a different lifetime, maybe. He’d gladly do the same in this one, and the next, because loving Kim Dokja was easy, and Yoo Joonghyuk felt like he’d known nothing but how to love the boy all his life.
Kim Dokja glanced at Yoo Joonghyuk. Yoo Joonghyuk felt him shifting around and glanced back, feeling hair tickle the side of his neck.
“What is it?” he asked.
Kim Dokja shyly looked away. “Your lunch today— you cooked it for me, didn’t you? There’s none of the food you especially like in it. It’s obvious.”
“You’re flattering yourself,” Yoo Joonghyuk muttered, leaning his head against Kim Dokja’s. He huffed. “Of course I did, you fool. Did you just realize that?”
Kim Dokja nudged at his fingers with his pinky. He coiled their pinkies together, settled snug atop Yoo Joonghyuk’s thigh.
“...You’re a good boyfriend,” Kim Dokja said, quiet. “Thank you, Joonghyuk.”
“Hm.” Yoo Joonghyuk turned his head and pressed a kiss to the crown of Kim Dokja’s hair. “Only for you,” he muttered, and heard Kim Dokja laugh again.
“Only for me,” Kim Dokja echoed, and then elbowed Yoo Joonghyuk’s side lightheartedly, playfully. “You’re a sap, you know that?”
“Hm.”
Yoo Joonghyuk scooted closer to the boy—his boy—and intertwined their fingers properly.
“Let’s stay like this for a while,” he murmured.
“Recess is almost over,” Kim Dokja pointed out.
Yoo Joonghyuk furrowed his brows, groaning slightly as he snuggled closer to Kim Dokja. “I don’t care.”
Kim Dokja smiled softly; Yoo Joonghyuk couldn’t see it.
“Okay, you big baby.” He played with Yoo Joonghyuk’s fingers, then tightened them, palm fitting like a puzzle piece in Yoo Joonghyuk’s. “...I love you,” he whispered, a quiet admission.
Yoo Joonghyuk thought then that he had definitely loved Kim Dokja for lifetimes, spanning across worldlines. He closed his eyes and sighed, content.
“And I, you.”