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It’s the third of August, a year after Kim Dokja returned to them, and Joonghyuk finds himself wondering.
It’s his birthday today.
Another year to add to his life that has gone beyond human comprehension. A life that threw away the concept of simple mortality when it accepted the stigma of regression, until he threw that away too when he chose to become a former regressor.
Because Dokja told him that this turn could be the turn where he could remain a human being, for as vague the concept was even then.
Now, he’s gotten more wrinkles with age, and more scars over time. There are gray hairs growing from his scalp, creeping along the roots and peeking out from under dark tufts. His body isn’t the same as it used to be, more so when the scenario buffs are no longer there—he already worked out before to maintain his strength, but now, there are no coins and attributes to lighten the load.
He’s mortal and human, just as Dokja told him he’d be. A former regressor who used to live and exist only to accomplish scenarios, yet now continues living even without them.
A human being slowly growing older, even if he can’t always tell what his age is recently.
Knock knock.
“Joonghyuk-ah!”
He pauses in polishing his sword, and breathes out a slow sigh.
The voice of his first and only sponsor, and the man who became one of the reasons for the start and end of his regression. Even now, post-recovery, he could sound so smug that Joonghyuk wanted to ignore him even when he knows that’s not a reasonable reaction.
Kim Dokja acts this way because he expects to be pushed away.
I’m not giving him that satisfaction . Not again.
“Can you turn to face me, at least?” Dokja tries again. “I got you something, since it’s your birthday—”
Joonghyuk lowers his sword on the desk and turns as asked. He promptly freezes when he finds what’s waiting for him at the doorway to his room.
“—and that something is me .”
Kim Dokja, you fool.
The man is dressed down to a white tee, loose pants, and a pastel-colored cardigan, looking ever so younger than what the true length of his existence should be. Where Joonghyuk has aged as a human being from age twenty-eight, Kim Dokja had to outgrow his child form as the Oldest Dream to return to his physical age exactly before the scenarios came along.
He’s also wearing a garish pink ribbon around his neck, and resting a proud hand against his chest like it’s an honor to present himself so shamelessly to Joonghyuk like this.
What the hell are you up to now?
Kim Dokja can no longer read his mind given the absence of the scenarios, but he certainly acts like he still can when he says, “As your present, I can—”
Never mind. I don’t want to know. “Is this full ownership,” he interrupts.
Dokja blinks. “Eh?”
“I want full ownership,” he clarifies. He watches as the smug smile on Dokja’s face falls apart to make room for confusion and horror. This fool, he couldn’t even consider the weight of his own words before saying them?
“Eh…”
“You’re my present, aren’t you,” he says, resting his elbows on his knees. “If it’s conditional, is that really a gift?”
“What,” Dokja says, straightening up as he folds his arms over his chest. “There’s such a thing as giving favors as a gift, and I know I owe you a lot.”
Joonghyuk nods. “You do. That’s why, I want all of you.”
Dokja opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again with one hand raised and index finger pointing up, until he curls that finger closed and he tucks his hand into his folded arm again. “You know,” Dokja says, shaking his head, “that’s both terrifying and strangely romantic. How do you even come up with those lines?”
“What.”
“What you just said, about wanting…yeah, I’m not repeating that.”
Joonghyuk gives him a blank look. “I want all of you.”
Dokja, that bastard, gives a shudder while embracing himself. “Ugh,” he groans, one hand raised to pinch at the bridge of his nose, “don’t say that again. Once was enough. And what would you even do with me if you had all of me?”
“I’ll think about it.”
“That’s ominous.”
He doesn’t say anything in response to that. Much as he can argue with Dokja on what his true intentions with him are, he already knows that Dokja knows—he’s just in denial about it, as he often is.
He’s a fool, but he’s not that blind. Especially not now, not when he’s already read about everything they had done, and could do, for him.
Dokja steps deeper into his room, but doesn’t get any closer to him. He looks around like it’s new, like he’s curious, when Joonghyuk can tell from his cheek-scratching that he’s just feeling awkward.
“It’d be slavery if I gave you all of me, so you should just accept the conditional ownership,” Dokja reasons.
“No.”
“The only other option is marriage.”
Joonghyuk huffs out a breath. “Marriage is not ownership over another person.”
“Some people certainly seem to think otherwise.”
He opens his mouth, then shuts it again. Though Dokja had spoken of it lightly, the slight sharpness to his voice reminds him of the man’s family life before, when he didn’t have Joonghyuk yet. When there was no Ways of Survival to keep him alive, when he’d only just begun to gather strength before he did what he did.
He says eventually, “I don’t agree with such thinking.”
Dokja smiles in amusement at him. “Well, that’s good to know.”
“You’d know, wouldn’t you? You’ve seen me married.”
“That I did. It’s why I’m confused on why you and Lee Seolhwa—”
He sighs. “We fell in love in our past lives,” he cuts in. “In the lives when you weren’t human like me, when I didn’t have you yet.”
Dokja’s pupils seem to shake at that declaration, though he looks away before Joonghyuk can look more closely. “Is that so,” he hums, looking back at Joonghyuk’s collection of weights. “I didn’t think you were that attached to me, Joonghyuk-ah.”
“You were the first person to unconditionally want my happiness.” He watches as Dokja walks around, seemingly unable to keep himself still as he keeps his hands tucked into his folded arms. “From the first life, up until the current one.”
“Because you saved me.”
“I didn’t choose to. You chose me for such a thing.”
“My point stands, regardless.” Dokja faces him then, looking straight at him as he smiles. It’s a lopsided smile, the kind that tells him this is sincere—not something done to please the Star Stream, or anyone else.
“And I killed you,” he replies.
Dokja laughs. “That was once. You’ve died plenty more times than me.”
“Not one of those deaths was caused by you.”
“I could argue—”
“Why was it me?”
Dokja pauses, mouth open at his interruption. “Huh?”
“Why was it me who killed you, Kim Dokja?”
“Because…”
He waits. He waits, and watches the slow-dawning realization on Dokja’s face. How he goes pale, then flushed pink, until he turns away to avoid Joonghyuk’s view.
See? Dokja can understand these things with enough probing—he’s not that clueless.
Why did you love me the most, Kim Dokja?
“Ah, I didn’t think you’d remember something like that,” Dokja sighs, rubbing at his face. “Isn’t it only because I love your story?”
“The fate specified a person, Dokja.”
“That it did,” he says dryly. “What do you want me to say? You kept me alive for so many years. It’s not like I understand it myself either.”
He cocks a brow at that pathetic answer. “You don’t know your own heart?”
“...fine. Let me say one thing, but you can’t judge me for it.”
He nods.
Dokja frowns at him in seeming disbelief, then shakes his head as if dismissing his own worries. “I,” he begins to speak, hesitant and unsure, “I can remember all your lives clearly, but my own childhood is vague to me. The me that read your story, I can’t recall him all that well.”
Then he smiles, and it feels helpless. Like he truly doesn’t know himself, but he wants Joonghyuk’s understanding regardless. He says, “So, you can’t expect me to know my own feelings. I just lived through you for the longest time, Joonghyuk-ah.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Not everyone understands themselves,” Joonghyuk says, straightening up in his seat. “I wasn’t expecting an explanation from you anyway.”
Dokja frowns at him. “Then why did you ask?”
“I wanted to know if you understood what it meant that I was the one to kill you.”
“...you’re sly.”
He smiles then. Just a little bit, though one would think he’d grinned from how dazed Dokja looks.
This man, how does he see me that he’d still be surprised by this?
He asks, “Then, your gift to me?”
Dokja comes to him, and rests his back against the desk behind him until they’re side by side. With his hands clasped to his front, he says, “Gifting myself to you was actually a joke, though I was willing to go along with it if you wanted me to do anything for you.” He turns the ribbon around his neck until the knot is facing him, then starts untying it until he’s left with a long strip of pink in his hand. “The real gift I wanted to give you was Murim dumplings. With chicken broth, specifically.”
His chest tightens at the casual way Dokja mentions his gift. The kind of gift Joonghyuk would love and appreciate, the kind that speaks of warmth without being overwhelming.
The kind of gift that tells him Dokja loves him enough to know him, even without anyone asking it of him.
“Then, where is it,” he asks.
“I came to fetch you since I just made them,” Dokja says. He’s smiling again when Joonghyuk looks up at him. “And don’t worry about any surprises. I don’t want to see blood, so I told everyone to hold back on that and settle for something casual. Mia helped make the cake too, but I think she made it according to her own tastes…”
“Let’s go.”
“Aha,” Dokja hums, sounding pleased. “Look at this guy trying not to act excited.”
“Would you like to keep your tongue or not.”
“Yes, yes. As your majesty requests, let’s go to the kitchen for your dumplings.”
Joonghyuk, like he has for the longest time, follows after Dokja. He listens to the man ramble about everything they’d prepared (“Sooyoungie will tell you that she didn’t do anything, but she prepared the rest of the food with Sangah, and the kids helped decorate a little—”), watches his hands as they talk with him, and thinks:
Kim Dokja’s love, it’s not the kind that needs words in the first place.
He’s just that kind of person, after all.