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Yoo Joonghyuk had never experienced this sensation called ‘love’. For the majority of his life, he had simply assumed he was incapable of loving anybody. And so, he focused on his schoolwork and family instead, throwing away the idea of ever possibly having a partner.
So, how the hell did he end up here, his arms wrapped around a boy, who seemed too beautiful for his own good, under the bright moonlight accommodated by a warm starlit sky?
“Keep me in your heart. Okay, Joonghyuk-ah?” The boy whispered, grinning at him with a cheeky smile as he leaned even deeper into Yoo Joonghyuk’s embrace.
Yoo Joonghyuk mouthed back a silent ‘okay’, searching his mind for a word to label his desire for Kim Dokja. This want, which remained in his mind, nagging at him at every second of the day, which encouraged him to snatch Kim Dokja away from whoever he was talking to when spotted in the hallways or in public, this need which Yoo Joonghyuk could hardly hold back.
Perhaps this was when Yoo Joonghyuk had started learning about the phenomenon called ‘love’.
In Yoo Joonghyuk’s mind, a vivid scene of colourful lights and blasting music appeared. Himself standing in a corner of the room, half-empty plastic cup filled with liquor in his hand.
He had just turned 19, and his friend- no, to admit that girl as a friend would be an atrocity- he meant his acquaintance, was throwing a party for him at her dorm.
A room of people he didn’t recognise were all gathered, dancing to the beat of the music, as they engaged in mindless conversations together.
He observed them, rubbing the rim of his cup, as a boy, seemingly the same age as him, shifted to his side.
“Why so glum? You’ve been standing here the entire time!” The boy exclaimed, speaking over the booming music in the background.
Yoo Joonghyuk hadn’t realised anybody had noticed him. He sighed, as he shrugged. The unfamiliar boy’s presence annoyed him, and Yoo Joonghyuk truly wished the boy would leave.
“What’s your name?” The boy asked, as his grin widened, seemingly finding Yoo Joonghyuk’s pissed expression amusing.
“Yoo Joonghyuk.” He murmured, his words barely audible to the other.
“I’m Kim Dokja. Wait- are you the birthday boy?” Kim Dokja’s eyebrows lifted in disbelief, and he nearly let out a laugh when Yoo Joonghyuk nodded, trying his best to avoid his eyes.
“You don’t like people, do you?” Yoo Joonghyuk wanted to roll his eyes at his words. Great job for comprehending the obvious.
“Come on. Let’s ditch this place!” Kim Dokja tugged at Yoo Joonghyuk’s sleeve as he pointed in the direction of the door.
Yoo Joonghyuk craved the idea of a breath of fresh air, yet he was hesitant to follow a stranger. In the end, he relented, out of mere curiosity.
It was late, and the streets were lit by nothing but the street lights. It had rained previously, and there were small puddles of water on the ground.
Kim Dokja flashed an excited grin at Yoo Joonghyuk, as he quickened his pace.
“As a kid, I always dreamed of running in the rain. What about you?”
He turned to face Yoo Joonghyuk, now walking backwards, his arms freely held up.
Surprisingly, there was nobody else there that night, the streets empty, as if they were reserved for just the two of them.
“Come on, Yoo Joonghyuk! Live a little.” Kim Dokja laughed, his voice echoing, as he started a jogging pace, not looking back to check if the other man was following.
Yoo Joonghyuk shook his head, as the edge of his flat lips perked up.
He started to chase after Kim Dokja, in order to catch up to him. Why he was letting Kim Dokja humour himself, Yoo Joonghyuk was not sure.
Before they knew it, they were carefreely running down the streets in the moonlight, as Kim Dokja yelled useless taunts at Yoo Joonghyuk.
Before long, Kim Dokja slowed to a stop, panting. Yoo Joonghyuk did the same.
Noticing a pair of chairs separated by a circular table belonging to the outdoors section of a closed cafe, the shorter man’s eyes lit up.
He pulled out one of the chairs, the item scraping against the wet floor, and invited himself to sit down. He gestured for Yoo Joonghyuk to do the same, to which the latter scoffed, yet abided.
From the inner pocket of his plain white jacket, Kim Dokja pulled out a can of beer, it’s brand that of the one at Yoo Joonghyuk’s ‘party’. How Kim Dokja fit it into his pocket, Yoo Joonghyuk was unaware.
The click of the beer opening sounded in the quiet night, as Kim Dokja took a glug. He then passed the can over to Yoo Joonghyuk, who politely declined.
“Come on, just this once.” Kim Dokja nudged the can nearer to Yoo Joonghyuk.
Yoo Joonghyuk mumbled a quiet ‘fine’, as he took a sip.
“Hehe, now we’ve shared an indirect kiss.” Kim Dokja laughed playfully, as he pulled the beer back to himself. Yoo Joonghyuk couldn’t help but roll his eyes, wiping his lips with the back of his hand as his signature frown reappeared.
They chatted lightheartedly for an hour or two, as happy laughter echoed through the still empty streets, which they had once ran through.
By the time Yoo Joonghyuk had thought to check the time, it had reached midnight. Kim Dokja and himself had resorted to sitting together in peaceful silence, having finished discussing topic after topic.
Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes scanned the pale blue moon, not shining at its usual brightness that day. Its crescent shape was accompanied by foggy clouds, straying clear of it, as if the moon was repelling every other constellation and cloud in the night sky.
“I should get some rest..” Yoo Joonghyuk murmured as he stood up, eyes resting on Kim Dokja’s.
Kim Dokja smiled in response, as he got out of the chair as well.
“We probably won’t meet again, will we?” Kim Dokja asked, while chuckling, as he tossed his long emptied can of beer into a nearby trash bin.
Yoo Joonghyuk shook his head.
“Well then, goodnight, Yoo Joonghyuk.” Without any hesitation, Kim Dokja reached up and kissed Yoo Joonghyuk lightly.
Yoo Joonghyuk stilled, and all at once, it felt as if he had been put into a trance, a spell cast onto him by a witch.
His face flushed, as he pushed Kim Dokja away. His mind was still a mess, recovering from the effect of the magic Kim Dokja had worked on him.
“Haha, I need something for you to remember me by, don’t I?”
Yoo Joonghyuk opened his mouth to speak as he sputtered incoherently, unable to form a valid response.
And with that, Kim Dokja stuck out his tongue at Yoo Joonghyuk playfully, before waving and walking off.
That was his first meeting with this strange man he would come to ‘love’.
——
The fact that both men thought they would never meet again became absurdly humorous a week after their meeting when Kim Dokja was introduced to Yoo Joonghyuk by Han Sooyoung.
And so, having found each other once again, they started talking to each other, be it physically or online.
Yoo Joonghyuk found himself falling into a rabbit hole called love, with every word exchanged with Kim Dokja making it harder to climb out.
Yoo Joonghyuk tried his hardest to claw his way out of the hole, yet an unknown force kept pulling him deeper and deeper in.
His mind was a mess whenever he was with Kim Dokja, as if his brain was finally malfunctioning, and he was breaking apart mentally.
He would find himself flustered whenever Kim Dokja flirted with him as a joke, and felt oddly flattered when he heard through Han Sooyoung that Kim Dokja had been conversing about him.
One day, when Yoo Joonghyuk had been playing a mobile game in his dorm, he heard a knock on the door.
With none of his roommates home, Yoo Joonghyuk had no choice but to answer the door by himself.
When the door opened, in the place of a person lied a note.
The owner of the scrap of paper was nowhere to be seen, as if he had vanished without a trace, or perhaps he had been a ghost to begin with.
Yoo Joonghyuk bent down to collect the paper, and noticed the handwriting on it belonged to a familiar cheeky boy who went by the name of ‘Kim Dokja’.
Muttering a complaint, Yoo Joonghyuk read the contents of the paper.
‘ Meet me at the cafe which we sat at after we met :D (or I’m coming back and breaking the door if you don’t open up.)’
Yoo Joonghyuk scoffed at Kim Dokja’s foolishness, as he hurriedly put on his shoes and left the dorm.
——
It turned out that Kim Dokja had invited Yoo Joonghyuk to that cafe to ask him to date. Being Kim Dokja, he had said it in passing, over a cup of iced tea.
And being Yoo Joonghyuk, his words had not been ignored. After watching Kim Dokja get flustered for the first time ever, Yoo Joonghyuk agreed, and their relationship continued, this time on a more intimate level.
There was something about Kim Dokja which kept Yoo Joonghyuk leashed to him. He had ended up at the bottom of the pit representing his love for Kim Dokja, and he feared that every path to escape from it had been blocked.
Late nights staying up talking to each other, early mornings to go on dates, and afternoons spent conversing over tea. Yoo Joonghyuk relished every moment they spent together.
It was as if the time they had together was an everlasting dream, as there were never any hitches in their relationship, both men being satisfied and blissful with each other.
That was where Yoo Joonghyuk was wrong. Every relationship had its ups and downs. It just happened that his ‘down’ had a greater impact on him than others.
A new look of rage on Kim Dokja’s face. An expression of helplessness on Yoo Joonghyuk’s. It was dauntingly obvious to Yoo Joonghyuk that he had fucked up.
“I cannot believe you right now.” A shaky voice from Kim Dokja. Yoo Joonghyuk tried his best to put up a facade of impassiveness.
“I’m leaving. Don’t follow me. Not that you’d bother to, knowing you.”
Yoo Joonghyuk wanted to chase after him. He really did. But he was rooted to the ground, unable to move. The one spark in his life flickered, slowly losing its life, as Kim Dokja grew further away from him.
Despite the fact that Kim Dokja was still in sight, Yoo Joonghyuk already missed him. What the hell was happening to him? When had he grown so attached, to the stage where he felt that he would have rather been beheaded than left by Kim Dokja like this?
He had never experienced an emotion as horrid as this.
And then, Kim Dokja was gone. He was really gone. It was not an illusion. Kim Dokja had fully and readily abandoned him.
His lower lip quivering, Yoo Joonghyuk grabbed the edge of the table beside him, as he slowly sat down.
That night, Yoo Joonghyuk lay in bed, eyes glued onto a crack in the ceiling, which he had failed to repair since owning his own house.
He turned his head to the window, and noticed that the moon was the same shape as the one he had seen during his and Kim Dokja’s first meeting.
That goddamn moon, which had watched as Yoo Joonghyuk foolishly lost himself to Kim Dokja. He inwardly cursed that object in the sky, as he was overwhelmed by this feeling of sorrow and self-pity.
The misery ate at his soul little by little, until it felt as if his world was closing in on itself.
He now understood how easy it was to get heartbroken as it was to fall in love. It was utterly sad, how the person to steal his heart for the first time was the same person to break it.
But, of course, wounds would heal, people would be forgiven. If that was impossible, Yoo Joonghyuk would never have been able to reach where he was now.
And so the memories disappeared, and Yoo Joonghyuk was returned back to reality, Kim Dokja still caged in his arms.
Yoo Joonghyuk gently placed a kiss on Kim Dokja’s lips, as Kim Dokja smiled.
“I love you.” Yoo Joonghyuk whispered, as his lips left Kim Dokja’s, and he placed his head in the crook of the shorter man’s neck.
“I love you too, Joonghyuk-ah.” Kim Dokja replied, closing his eyes and wrapping his arms tighter around the other, to which Yoo Joonghyuk made a sound of fondness.
Many things started, many things ended, but Yoo Joonghyuk would ensure that their love was eternal.
Yoo Joonghyuk didn’t want to know what would happen to him if it wasn’t.