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Kim Dokja has been the center of his universe for as long as he can remember.
The boy—though he felt like much more, back then—became his babysitter after his nanny moved away from Seoul. He would watch over Yoo Joonghyuk when his parents weren't home, which was often. Kim Dokja was thirteen, he was ten.
Yoo Joonghyuk argued, at first, that he could take care of himself. "I don't need a babysitter!" he'd insist, confident in himself. He already knew how to cook, how to clean, and how to sit down and not make a mess of the house. He didn't need a teenager going and babying him and telling him what to do. But at the end of it, he was a child, and his parents deemed getting a babysitter important enough to disregard Yoo Joonghyuk's opinions on the matter.
In all honesty, he hadn't been very impressed with the then-thirteen-year-old boy on their first meeting.
"Is this Joonghyuk-ah?" Kim Dokja had asked Yoo Joonghyuk's parents, staring wide-eyed at Yoo Joonghyuk as though he'd never seen a human quite that tiny.
(That wasn't true. Kim Dokja had a younger brother. Ironic, considering his name.)
Yoo Joonghyuk had glared at him, questioning in his mind whether a thirteen-year-old was even qualified to be a babysitter for a kid only three years his junior. But sadly—and this was something that Yoo Joonghyuk would rectify as he grew—a ten-year-old's glare just wasn't very intimidating.
That was the very mundane tale of how he first met Kim Dokja.
As time passed, however, Kim Dokja somehow managed to worm himself into Yoo Joonghyuk's (self-proclaimed) cold, dead heart, and the ten-year-old kid that had glared at Kim Dokja on their first introduction grew into a twelve-year-old kid that clung to Kim Dokja whenever he could.
"Dokja-hyung!" he'd exclaim, clambering down the stairs to hug the now-fifteen-year-old Kim Dokja. "You're here."
"Hi, Hyuk-ie," Kim Dokja would respond, ruffling his hair. Yoo Joonghyuk would glare up at him without any of the bite. Kim Dokja would laugh, mock-cooing over the disgruntled twelve-year-old. "Ah, anyway. How is my favorite babysittee?"
"I'm your only babysittee," Yoo Joonghyuk would answer flatly. "Dokja-hyung, I really like you."
Kim Dokja would laugh, evidently taking it as a joke, or Yoo Joonghyuk not understanding the difference between admiration and love. Yoo Joonghyuk didn't know which. "I like you too, Joonghyuk-ie," he'd answer cheerfully.
"I'm holding you to that," Yoo Joonghyuk would retort.
X
Yoo Joonghyuk is fifteen when his 'I like you's turned into 'marry me's. He doesn't even remember how he got the idea into his head, only knows that the words felt right falling from his mouth, like honey from the comb, and that saying them satiates the mass growing in his chest, writhing and aching for the tiniest morsel of Kim Dokja's love. Kim Dokja only looks at him with amusement.
"You're only three years older than me," he says, one day, out of nowhere, irked by Kim Dokja's patronizing smile. "Stop looking at me like that."
Kim Dokja is no longer his babysitter, Yoo Joonghyuk at last deemed too old to be babysat by his parents. Like that made a difference — Kim Dokja still came over every day at exactly 1pm, still called Yoo Joonghyuk that stupid nickname, still insisted on sorting Yoo Joonghyuk's endless confessions into a box labeled 'DO NOT TAKE SERIOUSLY.'
"I'm an adult now," Kim Dokja retorts, not letting up on being patronizing. "I can do that, believe it or not."
Yoo Joonghyuk glares up at Kim Dokja as the older boy gently ruffles his hair. "I'll make you marry me, someday, Dokja-hyung," he says, and it feels much less like the careless words of an infatuated teenager, now, and more a threat; more like a knife kissing against Kim Dokja's skin, right where his pulse is, poised to strike the moment Yoo Joonghyuk snaps.
He should've known, then, that that wasn't normal.
(This is the truth of the matter: Kim Dokja has been the center of his universe for as long as he can remember, but only because he does not care to remember a time before his universe was Kim Dokja.)
X
Yoo Joonghyuk's love begins to take shape in the form of scarlet pools of blood, rippling with every new drop that falls upon them.
He's seventeen, now, on the cusp of reaching his majority. Thoughts of just how he could make Kim Dokja marry him run through his head, now, as if on loop. Just chain him up, he finds himself thinking, sometimes. Imprison him in your embrace. Make him love you, whether he wants to or not.
It's a losing battle whenever he tries to fight those thoughts off, like trying to fight fire with fire; it only feeds it, only makes the hell he's throwing himself into that much hotter.
Sometimes, he dreams of a pool of blood beneath his feet, of the glint of a blade as he kills everyone in the world except for him and Kim Dokja—and by then Kim Dokja will have no choice but to love him, right?—dreams of Kim Dokja, smiling at him after the deed is done, soft as an angel's feather in the midst of the hell that Yoo Joonghyuk wrought with his own two hands, dreams of him, pulling him into his embrace, "I love you, Joonghyuk-ah," slipping from his mouth in a way that tastes like salvation.
(If Kim Dokja were an angel, Yoo Joonghyuk was perfectly willing to be the demon that lives in his shadow.)
X
He'd already known, for a long while, that Kim Dokja had a younger brother, but he'd never met him.
So it was a surprise, to say the least, when Kim Dokja comes over, with what looked like a smaller version of him in tow, absorbed into his phone.
"Hi, Hyuk-ie," Kim Dokja greets cheerfully. "Don't mind Doksoo, no one was available to watch him at home and he wouldn't leave me alone, so I just brought him with me."
"Just get in, hyung," Yoo Joonghyuk responds, stepping aside to let the brothers in.
"Thanks," Kim Dokja says, an edge of sincerity making its way into his voice as he smiles at Yoo Joonghyuk.
"...No problem," Yoo Joonghyuk answers, averting his eyes. There's a blush rising in his cheeks. "You'll repay it when you marry me, anyways."
"Sure." Kim Dokja just laughs. "C'mon, Doksoo-yah. This is the Joonghyuk-ah that I've been telling you about." He gestures to Yoo Joonghyuk.
The kid—around thirteen years old, Yoo Joonghyuk estimates—looks up from his phone, critically eyeing Yoo Joonghyuk with narrowed eyes.
"I don't like him, hyung-ie," the kid has the audacity to say, latching onto Kim Dokja's side as if to protect him from Yoo Joonghyuk.
Kim Dokja gapes like a fish. It's an exceedingly funny expression on a twenty-year-old man. "W-What?" he sputters, looking at where his brother is shooting a dirty look at Yoo Joonghyuk, like a cat getting ready to hiss if the seventeen-year-old dares to try and come close. He laughs nervously. "C'mon, Soo-yah, don't be like this…"
Kim Doksoo shakes his head, still looking wearily at Yoo Joonghyuk. "He's a bad man. I can tell, hyung-ie."
Yoo Joonghyuk stares impassively at the kid. Bloody images of the kid's—the obstacle's, because that is what the kid is, at the end of it all—corpse flash through his mind's eye.
He could just—
No.
—steady his hands and—
No.
—just take a blade and—
He can't.
—just stab the kid and be done with it—
He can't.
—make him bleed out on the hardwood floor—
Not with Kim Dokja here.
Yoo Joonghyuk chuckles. It's grating, even to his own ears. "Should I just leave, Dokja-hyung?" he says, trying to morph the tone of his voice into something teasing, instead of the seethe that thrums beneath his skin and calls for blood, because nothing can get in the way of him and his Dokja-hyung. Nothing.
Doksoo begins, still not letting go of his brother. "Ye-"
Kim Dokja's eyes widen. "No!" he exclaims, cutting his brother off. He coughs awkwardly. "I mean, this is your house, Joonghyuk-ah, why would you leave?"
Yoo Joonghyuk raises an eyebrow. "Not calling me 'Hyuk-ie' today, hyung?" he asks, mainly just to rile up the kid. He knows it's stupid, to be this annoyed at a thirteen-year-old when he's now seventeen, but that kid is an obstacle, and a big one, and Yoo Joonghyuk would want nothing more than to paint a canvas of death with his corpse as the centerpiece.
"Joonghyuk-ah!" Kim Dokja exclaims, embarrassed. Beside him, the kid shoots Yoo Joonghyuk a disgusted look.
Said seventeen-year-old barely resists the urge to bare his teeth at the kid.
Needless to say, later that night, under a blanket of the abyss, Yoo Joonghyuk begins putting together a plan.
X
He knows where the kid's school is, courtesy of Kim Dokja's stories about his brother. Knows where their house is, so he can estimate the path the kid takes home. Knows well, by now, what a knife feels like in his hand, the weight of it, the edge.
Knows well what it feels like to have the mass in his chest call for blood, and for the first time, he'll finally be acting on its call. This has been a long time coming, it's just a shame the straw that broke the camel's back had to be Kim Dokja's brother.
Kim Dokja would be devastated, Yoo Joonghyuk thinks idly, knife tucked into his pockets and clad in black, face covered by a mask, a cap on his head, and gloves on his hands.
But that's fine. Yoo Joonghyuk would be there for him, to comfort him and tell him that everything will be fine, as though he weren't the one who drove the knife in the first place. That's fine. Yoo Joonghyuk is the only person he should ever want, the only person he should ever need, anyway.
A chuckle slips from his throat. Yes, he's doing the right thing. This is how he makes Kim Dokja love him.
X
Kim Dokja calls him.
Yoo Joonghyuk answers the phone, already having a guess in mind as to what the call will be about. "Yes, hyung?"
Kim Dokja is crying over the phone, hiccups spilling out of his mouth like water from an upturned glass. "Joo- Joonghyuk-ah. I'm- I'm at your front door. Doksoo- Doksoo, he-" He breaks down into sobs.
"I'm on the way."
Yoo Joonghyuk feels a small smile creep up his face, swiftly replacing it with a mask of cool concern as he walks over to the door and opens it to find Kim Dokja standing there, looking like a mess, his phone pressed to his ear by shaking hands as tears flow freely down his cheeks.
Yoo Joonghyuk thinks he looks lovely like this.
"S-sorry," Kim Dokja says, frantically wiping his tears. "I didn't- I didn't know who else to go to. I just- I just had to- to escape-"
"It's alright," Yoo Joonghyuk murmurs comfortingly, leading Kim Dokja inside the house, seating the older man in one of the couches. His arm is wrapped around Kim Dokja's shoulders, rubbing comforting circles into his back. "What happened, hyung?"
"They- Doksoo's body was found," Kim Dokja says quietly, intermittent hiccups interrupting his speech.
"...Body?" Yoo Joonghyuk prompts, pretending as though this was news to him.
"He- He's dead," Kim Dokja says, before breaking down into sobs once more. He pulls Yoo Joonghyuk into a hug, and Yoo Joonghyuk lets him, lets the older man cry into his shoulder, muffling his sobs.
Yoo Joonghyuk continues rubbing gentle circles into Kim Dokja's back, murmuring soft nothings into his ear to comfort him.
No guilt rises in his chest. Not even the tiniest bit.
No, in his mind, there only resounds a feeling of correctness. This is how everything is meant to be.
X
He holds and comforts Kim Dokja until the older man exhausts himself from crying.
Kim Dokja falls asleep in his embrace, dried tear tracks running down his cheeks, his hair disheveled from the number of times Yoo Joonghyuk had run his fingers through it in an effort to soothe him.
Yoo Joonghyuk thinks he looks like an angel like this, held securely in his arms and leaning on him. Only on him.
He presses a kiss to Kim Dokja's hair, steals it gently as though he were the shadow of a thief, running off with the world's most valuable jewel. The feeling of Kim Dokja's soft hair, fluttering against his face, lights a spark in his chest with its friction, lights a spark that grows into all-consuming warmth that threatens to consume Yoo Joonghyuk whole.
It burns behind his ribs, burns in the cavity of his chest, burns his heart to ash in the wind and takes its place. Instead of blood, it fills Yoo Joonghyuk's veins with molten lava, killing—Kim Dokja isn't his why isn't Kim Dokja his why must he steal this intimacy in the dark of night in the cover of sleep as though it were a sin—and resurrecting him—he will make it so Kim Dokja will be his will be his will be his he will do whatever it takes he will go against the heavens if he must will commit the worst sins he will he will he will he has so long as Kim Dokja is his—again and again, as though he were a phoenix of igneous blood.
Eventually, though, the fire cools. Biding, waiting for the time it can burst anew, fully realized.
Yoo Joonghyuk falls asleep.
When he wakes up, Kim Dokja is gone.
X
There are a few vague memories clattering around in his head in the wake of Kim Dokja's disappearance.
He doesn't know if they are dreams or reality, cannot pick out which is which when they are the stuff of what he has always wanted; what he has always dreamed of.
Kim Dokja kisses his forehead softly, lips feeling like paradise against Yoo Joonghyuk's skin, murmurs "Joonghyuk-ah, come find me, 'kay?" with all the sweetness of nectar from the gardens of Eden, and disappears, like smoke curling around his fingers, intangible, unreachable.
The dream—memory?—is both salvation and perdition at once, especially when he finds a note, taped to the table of the living room, written in Kim Dokja's handwriting. A pen, one that Yoo Joonghyuk knows is tucked into one of the couch cushions is sitting just beside it.
Even as Yoo Joonghyuk languishes in the question of his delusions, Kim Dokja's disappearance stays painfully, painfully real.
I'm sorry. I had to get away.
Seven words.
Seven words, and he was gone.
Yoo Joonghyuk wants to laugh.
X
It is three years before Yoo Joonghyuk sees Kim Dokja again.
In those three years, Kim Dokja wormed himself even deeper into Yoo Joonghyuk's brain, something like a parasite, but Yoo Joonghyuk would never call him such cruel a word. His disappearance did not cool the fire he wrought in Yoo Joonghyuk's chest, no, it only fanned the flames, made them burn ever brighter, ever hotter. The lack of Kim Dokja only threw Yoo Joonghyuk further into hell, threw him further into the gaping maw of the abyss that threatened to consume his already fragmented sanity whole.
Kim Dokja has been the center of his universe for as long as he can remember.
To have that center suddenly disappear felt a little like having the floor pulled out from under you and into free fall, grappling for the tiniest foothold in a reckless onslaught of gravity and air resistance, battering you from all sides. Yoo Joonghyuk didn't like it.
So he set off to find Kim Dokja; find him, and after that intrepid first step Yoo Joonghyuk didn't know what he would do after, but he would keep him from leaving somehow, keep him from getting away from Yoo Joonghyuk's sights, keep him from disappearing—even if it meant clipping the angel's wings and keeping him in a gilded birdcage, even if it meant that Kim Dokja would hate him instead of love him, even if it meant that Kim Dokja would spit vitriol at him instead of love he didn't know he didn't know he didn't know—
He was going insane.
(As though he wasn't, already?)
One time, as Kim Dokja's disappearance grew from a worry to a fresh, gaping wound, Lee Sookyung confronted him.
"Where is Dokja?!" she had asked Yoo Joonghyuk, voice sharp in a way that promised hell if he didn't answer.
Numbly, still reeling from Kim Dokja's sudden disappearance, he handed her the note.
He doesn't remember how she reacted, if there was screaming or there were tears, if there were sharp words exchanged, but what he remembers is that it ended with the woman walking off, the note clutched tightly in her hands, hard enough to rip. Yoo Joonghyuk thought she was wretched—losing two sons, both of them, in some way, to Yoo Joonghyuk. It was just her terrible luck that Kim Dokja had chosen to babysit Yoo Joonghyuk on that fateful day.
He stared after her with a cold look in his eyes.
Hyung-ie, you told me to find you, right? So I'll find you. I'll find you and I'll never let you go.
But he doesn't—it's almost as if Kim Dokja had disappeared into dust, went and lost himself in the wind, up where Yoo Joonghyuk can't reach him, with his sins chaining him, painfully, to the hellish earth that Kim Dokja's disappearance had created.
But then—
But then—
"Did you miss me, Hyuk-ie?"
Hearing those words, in a voice that Yoo Joonghyuk hadn't heard in three years—it feels like the coming of spring. A renewal. A phoenix rising from the ashes, holy flame burning anew. A resurrection.
Yoo Joonghyuk can't believe his eyes.
A twenty-three-year-old Kim Dokja stands before Yoo Joonghyuk, stands at his front door, and smiles at him as though nothing had happened. As though he hadn't driven Yoo Joonghyuk to the point of utter ruin with his disappearance.
A gentle wind blows. It kisses Kim Dokja's cheeks, sweeps his hair along its path. "Happy birthday, Joonghyuk-ah," he murmurs. "You're twenty now, right?"
Happy birthday? But—
Yoo Joonghyuk checks his phone. August 3rd. Oh.
He'd forgotten.
"Hyung," Yoo Joonghyuk mutters, soft, afraid that if he speaks too loudly, Kim Dokja might disappear again, might slip through his fingers once more and leave him alone in the hell he created. He was his only light. "Hyung."
"Yes?" Kim Dokja laughs softly. Yoo Joonghyuk had missed it.
"You're back? You're really back?"
Kim Dokja looks at him as though he didn't understand him. "Of course. I'm here, aren't I?"
"I'm not dreaming?" Yoo Joonghyuk asks, his voice fragile.
"I'm real, Hyuk-ie," Kim Dokja says, in that stupid patronizing tone, with that stupid nickname, and that stupid smile on his face, and Yoo Joonghyuk wants nothing more than to chain him to the ground with him; disallow the angel his flight so that he could never leave the devil in his shadow ever again.
The light in Yoo Joonghyuk's eyes shifts.
"Hyung," Yoo Joonghyuk repeats, voice growing cold.
"Yes?" Kim Dokja repeats as well, still smiling, seemingly oblivious to the fire sparking in Yoo Joonghyuk's eyes.
Without any warning, Yoo Joonghyuk kisses him.
Kim Dokja's eyes widen, freezing, but Yoo Joonghyuk doesn't yield, eyes glinting like burning stars on a moonless night as he roughly cups Kim Dokja's jaw with one hand and holds his waist with the other, pressing their lips together. Yoo Joonghyuk bites down on his bottom lip, hard enough to draw blood; grips Kim Dokja's waist, nails digging into the thick cloth of the white trenchcoat the older man was wearing. His heart beats loudly in his chest, whatever scraps of it are left, a silent cry for Kim Dokja not to leave him again.
Yoo Joonghyuk kisses Kim Dokja like he wishes to devour him, kisses him like he would die if he didn't. His tongue darts out, swipes at Kim Dokja's bottom lips and soothes the wound his teeth left behind, relishes the iron tang of Kim Dokja's blood as though he were drinking nectar from the gods.
Eventually, he pulls back, breaths slipping heavy through his lips as he stares at Kim Dokja with something akin to devotion, if devotion were made from chains of hellfire, seeking only to capture, to possess. Yoo Joonghyuk gently grasps Kim Dokja's hand as the older man stands there, immobile, as though stuck in a perpetual state of shock. And then quickly, almost lovingly, Yoo Joonghyuk hits him on the back of his neck.
Kim Dokja crumples like a puppet with the strings cut, straight into Yoo Joonghyuk's arms.
X
"Good morning, hyung-ie," Yoo Joonghyuk murmurs, watching as Kim Dokja comes back to consciousness, eyes slowly fluttering open. He observes as the older man takes in his new surroundings—the basement of Yoo Joonghyuk's house, with the lights turned off. Only a small sliver of light, from the half-open door, slips through. Kim Dokja is bound to a chair, using ropes that Yoo Joonghyuk had been preparing for years, fantasizing over and over about the day he'd be able to finally bind Kim Dokja to him and never let him go.
Kim Dokja looks up at Yoo Joonghyuk, his demeanor strangely calm for someone who's being held captive. "What are you doing, Joonghyuk-ah?"
"Making sure that you don't leave," Yoo Joonghyuk mutters. There's a dark, almost crazed look in his eyes.
Kim Dokja's demeanor shifts, panic entering his eyes as the situation dawns on him. "No!" he shouts. He begins to tear up, gasps flowing out of his throat like a broken record as panic overwhelms him. "P-please, Hyuk-ie, d-don't do this—"
The light hits Kim Dokja in a way that makes him look almost holy. The panic in his eyes, the tears flowing down his cheeks, the rope he strains against in a fruitless effort to escape. Yoo Joonghyuk wants to carve the sight into the back of his eyelids—this image of the angel with his wings bound, chained by the demon he didn't know was even chasing him. It makes fire well up in his throat, makes him want to kiss Kim Dokja again, make him feel the passion—madness—that's been bubbling beneath Yoo Joonghyuk's skin for nearly a decade.
"Hyung," Yoo Joonghyuk murmurs, stalking towards Kim Dokja. This is all of his fantasies realized, except for one. "Promise me you won't leave me again."
"T-this is insane—"
Yoo Joonghyuk interrupts him with a kiss. It's soft, this time. Yoo Joonghyuk cups Kim Dokja's jaw as though he were holding porcelain, holds him as though he were holding glass. He pulls away, kisses away the tears running down Kim Dokja's cheeks, and locks their eyes together. Kim Dokja's wide eyes meet Yoo Joonghyuk's soft ones.
"Hyung," he murmurs into Kim Dokja's lips, nearly begging. "Please."
Kim Dokja lets out a breath. It's shaky.
And then, he giggles, the rope falling as he gently pushes the now-surprised Yoo Joonghyuk away with a finger.
"Did you enjoy my performance, Hyuk-ie?" Kim Dokja asks, smirking as though he were the predator in this situation and not the prey. "I cried so well for you, didn't I?"