Chapter Text
Yoo Joonghyuk paces back and forth angrily in Hogwart’s seventh-floor corridor.
I need to be alone , he thinks desperately. I need to be alone, I need to be alone where no one else can find me .
With a creaky groan, a door that hadn’t previously been there opens. Yoo Joonghyuk glances over his shoulder, sees no one, and slips into the Room of Requirement, nearly slamming the door shut behind him.
Behind the safety of closed doors, Yoo Joonghyuk lets out a groan and sinks to the floor in bone-deep exhaustion. He’s just going to nap here for a little. Hopefully, no one will wake him for a few hours. Or days.
“Hey.”
Yoo Joonghyuk starts awake, and he’s instantly on his feet, surveying the room. That’s when he sees an unfamiliar reclining sofa with large, soft cushions in the corner of the room where there had been nothing in his previous visits. In it sits a boy with a thin frame, looking at Yoo Joonghyuk with a face filled with distaste.
“How’d you get in here?” he asks, lowering a small, glowing device in his hands.
Yoo Joonghyuk stares at the boy, then at the device. “Is that a smartphone.”
“Was that supposed to be a question?” retorts the boy. “Answer mine first.”
“No. Show me.” Yoo Joonghyuk starts making his way toward him, but the boy doesn’t flinch. Instead, he puts the device – undeniably a smartphone from this distance – into his robe pocket and holds up empty hands.
“Oops, seems like I can’t,” he says mockingly. “I’m afraid I magicked it away.”
“You…” Yoo Joonghyuk glares, full of menace. Now that he thinks about it, this feeling of frustration feels strangely familiar. “What’s your name.”
“You’re asking me all these questions, but you’ve never answered even one of mine.” The boy smiles a half-grin that makes Yoo Joonghyuk want to punch him into another universe. “Who knows, I could be one of your seniors.”
“I don’t care,” says Yoo Joonghyuk.
“Fine then,” says the boy. Turning to the other side of the sofa, he picks a book from a bookshelf that seemed to have appeared from out of thin air and opens it, reclining further in his seat. “Be that way, I guess.”
Yoo Joonghyuk stands there silently for what feels like an eternity, but it’s apparent that the boy has become completely absorbed in his book and has forgotten about his seething roommate’s existence.
He hates to admit it, but Yoo Joonghyuk is fighting a losing battle. He sighs, finally giving in.
“I walked three times past the entrance and asked to be alone. Evidently, this room is broken.”
Without even lifting his eyes from the text he’s reading, the boy nods. “Ah. It’s probably because I asked for the exact same thing.”
Yoo Joonghyuk frowns. He’ll have to find another place then, if this annoying bastard plans on camping out here for the rest of the year.
“How about,” says the boy, flipping a page, “I stay in this corner and you go to that corner,” he points at the other side of the room, finally lifting his eyes from the text, “and we could pretend to be alone if we both happen to be in here.”
“That’s stupid.”
The boy looks at him, the disdain in his eyes clear as day. It’s been a while since anyone has looked at Yoo Joonghyuk like that. “Well, you’re stupid. Come up with a better idea, and I might comply.” And then he goes back to reading.
Yoo Joonghyuk shoves his hand between the boy’s line of sight and the book’s pages. “How about you find somewhere else,” he says. “I have things to do.”
“Well, me too. And that’s not a better idea. I refuse.”
The boy grimaces at him. It’s weak, but Yoo Joonghyuk finally makes a connection between this face and a name from what feels like a lifetime ago.
“Kim Dokja.”
Kim Dokja’s face goes slack. “Do you know me? What do you want?”
Yoo Joonghyuk smirks in triumph. “I’ll agree to comply with your terms if you figure out who I am.”
He gets an exasperated sigh. “That’s not how it works,” Kim Dokja lectures. “If we’re going to agree to something, both parties need to consent. I’m not going to agree to let you kick me out no matter what happens, so this whole thing is pointless anyway.”
He’s studying Yoo Joonghyuk’s face though, as if he’s suddenly gained interest.
“Huh. I’ve definitely seen you before.” Kim Dokja dog-ears his page and puts down his book. “Just give me a quick second.”
Will Kim Dokja be the type to start stammering out apologies once he realizes who Yoo Joonghyuk is? He’s accomplished much more since they had first met in their second year, so he wouldn’t be surprised if Kim Dokja’s attitude toward him does a complete 180–
His thoughts slam into a concrete wall as Kim Dokja reaches into his pocket, points his smartphone camera at him, and snaps a picture with an audible click .
“Kim Dokja,” Yoo Joonghyuk warns, but Kim Dokja holds up a hand.
“Shut up for a second.”
“Delete that.”
“What I meant to say was shut up for a minute .”
Yoo Joonghyuk’s hands twitch to grab the smartphone out of Kim Dokja’s hands, but the boy is typing furiously so that the screen faces away from Yoo Joonghyuk.
He settles on studying the smaller boy’s face. Kim Dokja’s expression is concentrated for a bit, and then it goes blank.
“Oh. You’re Yoo Joonghyuk.” He glances down at his phone screen, then looks back up to Yoo Joonghyuk’s face. “Wow. You’re an even bigger jerk than I thought you’d be.”
Yoo Joonghyuk doesn’t know why he expected anything other than disrespect from this rat bastard. “That’s too bad. Now get out.”
“Heck no,” shoots back Kim Dokja. “You’re just a crazy sunfish. Why do you need this room anyway?”
Sunfish? “I have my reasons.”
“Well, so do I. This conversation is going in circles anyway. Just go to your corner so I can pretend like you don’t exist.”
“...Fine. Only if you answer my questions.”
“Whatever that’ll make you shut up.”
Yoo Joonghyuk can feel his blood pressure rising through this one interaction alone. “How do you have a working smartphone.”
Kim Dokja squints up at him. “Why can’t you ask questions like a normal person?” Yoo Joonghyuk glares at him again, and Kim Dokja relents. “I made it work. With magic. Look.”
Kim Dokja puts his phone in his pocket and shows Yoo Joonghyuk his empty hands. “Now it’s gone…” He fishes it back out and shoves the device into the taller boy’s face. “And now it’s back!” With an infuriating grin, he drops it back into his robe pocket. “Viola! How do you feel to have witnessed the astounding feats of the Wonderful Wizarding World?”
Yoo Joonghyuk immediately loses all interest. “Kim Dokja, I’ll kill you one day.”
“Aw, is the Chosen One threatening me?” For his efforts, he’s awarded an unimpressed look. “Fine. I can’t say I know exactly what I did, but I spouted some nonsense at it and waved my hands a bit and now it works. I think it’s some kind of weird soul connection.” Kim Dokja takes his phone back out of his pocket and taps its screen to life, revealing a default grey lock screen. “I don’t want anyone else to know, though.” He looks up at Yoo Joonghyuk, an unspoken question in his wide eyes.
“I won’t tell anyone,” says Yoo Joonghyuk after a moment of silence. “But…can you do mine too?”
He fishes his own smartphone from his robe pocket, from where he’d taken to carrying it around for the past four years. Reluctantly, he hands it over to Kim Dokja without meeting his eyes, not noticing that the smaller boy is looking at him in awe.
“It’s okay if you can’t, but would it be okay if you tried? I’ll pay you.”
“Uh…” Kim Dokja takes the phone and stares at its blank screen. He taps it a few times, but it remains as unresponsive as it has during all of its stays in Hogwarts. “I’ll try. But I do want your money, if it ends up working out.”
Yoo Joonghyuk looks back at Kim Dokja with a small, hopeful smile. “Really? Th-thanks.” Fuck, when was the last time he had to thank anyone? This is why he does things alone.
“Yeah, no problem.” Suddenly, Kim Dokja’s smile doesn’t seem all that irritating. “I’ll do my best.”
And then Yoo Joonghyuk quite literally runs out of the Room of Requirement, forgetting what he had gone in there to do in the first place and leaving Kim Dokja sitting on the sofa with a stranger’s dysfunctional smartphone and a head full of flustered confusion.