Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

After the Star Stream slowly dissipated and the world began to rebuild itself back to normalcy, the memories of those apocalyptic years began to fade too. 

The most prominent figures of the time were of course lauded as heroes, the likes of Moonlight Empress, Pure Steel Sword, and the Judge of Destruction. Their feats of bravery quickly became mythologized as legends, stories to be told around a campfire, while the horrific day-by-day minutia of living under the frivolous whims of dokkaebi and constellations dulled to nothing but hazy film reels at the back of the collective consciousness. 

Nobody knew exactly the reason behind this slow unraveling. Perhaps when the fantastical powers of the Star Stream disappeared, it took along with it the memories of what it had been like beneath its omnipotence. Or perhaps, the trauma and pain it had inflicted on the global population had simply been too great, and humanity had somehow made an unconscious, unified decision to put it behind them in order to move forwards and onwards. 

Whatever the cause was, in the era that followed the apocalypse, the world was able to find itself spinning on, against all the odds. 

Yoo Joonghyuk, immortalized as the Supreme King, was no exception. 

However, even as most people were barely able to recollect how they had been able to survive through what was now called “The Calamitous Years”, Yoo Joonghyuk’s memory loss was somehow worse than anyone else’s.

He knew that he and his companions had lived through a ruined world, fought side-by-side, cried, laughed, suffered, sacrificed. Went to hell and back for each other, so that they could see the end of the story, together. And they had succeeded.  

But there were many things Yoo Joonghyuk couldn’t recall anymore. Much like others, he couldn’t quite make out the details of their journey, nor the exact trials and tribulations they faced. The memories that were once in sharp focus, memories that he’d tried to hold onto as tightly as possible for they were precious for a reason he could no longer quite remember, had crumbled into dust against his will. 

He’d been alone – in a vast, dark, cold space, and time had passed like the infinite grains of sand on the earth. Both all at once and not at all, slipping around him, through his fingers, dragging him further into nothingness. As eternity passed, those once vivid recollections within his mind had frayed and frayed. Even after he returned, the gaps in his mind stayed. 

His companions had tried to fill them back in for him the best they could, but the accounts they told weren’t much different than the exaggerated tales children whispered of their group during sleepovers – they were just bedtime stories to him at the end of the day. And as time passed, everyone, even Han Sooyoung, began to wonder which of their adventurous exploits were fact or fiction. 

At some point, they decided it no longer mattered – after all, this was a new world now. And they had new lives to lead, ones that did not involve slaying monsters or hunting down demons, but of going to school, establishing a career, and making a home. 

Days turned to weeks turned to years. Time passed again, but unlike his time in space, each hour that came and went brought with it the rhythm of life. Sunrise then sunset. Day then night. Breathe in then breath out. Life moved forward, and this time, Yoo Joonghyuk moved with it. 

But he found himself largely alone again. His companions had dispersed into the world, and Yoo Mia soon left for post-secondary school. 

He couldn’t really complain though. He lived a quiet, mundane life which was exactly what he preferred. Each day he went to work, then on his way home in the evening, he would pick up fresh groceries to make dinner with. At night, he would sometimes read, or play a game for old time’s sake. Occasionally, he would catch up with Mia over the phone. Then, once the sun had long sunk beneath the jagged skyline, he would go to bed.

His work days were long and tiring, and Yoo Joonghyuk had never been one to struggle with sleep, and so he would often be dragged into a swift, fitful slumber.

But…

But every so often, he would lie awake and there would be something he did recall. 

Someone. 

He had lost someone.

He had spent entire lifetimes searching for them. He had lost his memories in the process of looking for them. He had spent so long that he couldn’t even remember their name, their face, or their voice. Sometimes in his dreams he would get snatches of a sly smile, a call of his name, but they would always dissolve into mist by the morning – chased away by the rise of the sun as if they’d never existed in the first place. 

He knew he wasn’t the only one. When he’d first returned from his journey, he would sometimes catch glimpses of it in the eyes of his companions – a quiet sorrow, an unknown grief. It seemed they’d all gone through a heartbreak in which none knew the source of. Perhaps it was why they’d all drifted away in the end, as they all saw a much too familiar pain within one another, yet nobody was able to voice it into words. 

Sometimes, Yoo Joonghyuk considered his amnesia as a blessing in disguise. Overall, he was content with his life and didn’t wish to recount the violent, difficult years behind him. There was rarely a thing to worry about beyond ensuring that Mia’s tuition was paid and deciding what to make for supper. 

And the only time he felt the echoes of that empty piece within himself was late into the night, under the secrecy of a hushed blanket of stars across the sky. The only time he felt that ache was when his eyes drifted out his window, scanning the constellations scattered across the deep midnight. Searching and searching, as if there was a pinprick of light he was looking for in particular. 

If there was, he never found it. 

⧫⧫⧫

It was early spring the first time he met the man. 

Yoo Joonghyuk always opened his cafe each morning at 10AM sharp. He would arrive early to check and ensure the night shift staff had cleaned and closed up shop adequately before preparing the ingredients for the day. Then, when it was almost time to open, he would put out the sign at the entrance, listing out the specials of the day in chalk. 

He was crouched low, writing in careful, neat cursive when a voice came from behind him. It was tentative and soft in tone, but clear and dulcet. 

“Excuse me, do you–”

He turned and the speaker abruptly cut off, their face turning as pale as a sheet, as if they’d seen a ghost. Yoo Joonghyuk took in the person before him. It was a man who looked to be in his late-twenties, slim in stature, almost edging towards frail, with ink black hair falling into his face. His features were pleasant, but in a plain, nondescript way. 

“Yes?” he responded, slightly impatient. 

The expression on the stranger’s face only grew more shell-shocked.

“Y-Yoo Joonghyuk?” the man whispered. 

Yoo Joonghyuk wasn’t unaccustomed to being recognized by people on the street. In fact, some even came to his cafe with the prescribed goal of seeing him. Although it happened less frequently as more time went on since the end of the Star Stream, he knew he had once been perhaps the most well-known incarnation around the world. In addition, his physical appearance did nothing to dissuade starstruck fans. 

So, he turned back to finish his chalk sign. “I don’t do autographs.” 

He expected the stranger to slink away in disappointment as they usually did. But this one seemed to be more persistent than normal. 

“Are you really Yoo Joonghyuk?” 

Yoo Joonghyuk didn’t feel the question warranted much of a response, and only made a small grunt of affirmation over his shoulder. He didn’t bother hiding his identity either, as a quick internet search would quickly reveal him. 

Silence ensued but he could feel the person still standing behind him, their eyes boring into his back heavily. 

They spoke up again. “D-do you not know me?” 

Yoo Joonghyuk finished writing the list of specials and brushed his hands off before facing the man once more. 

He raised an eyebrow. “Should I?” 

The stranger didn’t reply and once again fell quiet. Yoo Joonghyuk was beginning to feel discomfited by the way the other was staring at him, dark grey eyes flicking across his face as if studying him, memorizing him – looking for something. He waited for him to speak. 

“No, I suppose not,” the man finally said, pressing his lips together in what almost looked like a smile, but wasn’t quite. There was an emotion that passed behind those eyes but was gone a moment later. 

“Is this your cafe?” the stranger abruptly asked, glancing at the doors behind him. 

Yoo Joonghyuk gave a short nod, but furrowed his brows. He wasn’t sure why he was still standing here, entertaining this odd person. 

The man gave a soft chuckle. “A PC bang… I guess that makes sense.” 

“I need to open soon,” Yoo Joonghyuk responded impassively. “If there’s nothing you need, I’ll get back to work.” 

“Ah, of course,” the other nodded slowly. “No, there’s nothing I need.” 

He turned to leave. “... Have a good day, Yoo Joonghyuk.” 

Yoo Joonghyuk watched his retreating back, his narrow shoulders hunched in, as if almost trying to disappear within himself. He watched until the strange man was no longer in sight. 

There was a moment just now – the way the man’s lips had curled up when he laughed, it felt –  it felt as if there was a momentary spark of something that was almost akin to recognition in Yoo Joonghyuk’s chest. However it’d been so fleeting that it had likely been imagined. 

Yoo Joonghyuk returned inside to resume his day, putting the entire matter out of his mind. It’d been a weird fan encounter but nothing too crazy compared to some of his more enthusiastic followers.

He realized later that the stranger had never told him his name. 

⧫⧫⧫

A few weeks later, Yoo Joonghyuk was craning his neck to peruse the titles on the highest shelf of his local bookstore when he bumped into someone. 

“Oof!” came the startled sound below him.

“Sorry,” Yoo Joonghyuk instinctively apologized, taking a step back. 

He glanced down, only to meet the gaze of familiar grey eyes. They widened in surprise to see him. 

“Yoo Joonghyuk?” His name slipped from the other’s lips easily, just as it did the first time. 

 Yoo Joonghyuk frowned. “You’re that fan from the other day.” 

The man coughed and looked away, as if suppressing a laugh. “Ah, yes.” 

He narrowed his eyes – bumping into this person twice was too much of a coincidence for him to not suspect intent. “Are you following me?” 

The shorter man’s mouth dropped open, looking both shocked and offended. “Wha– no, of course not!” 

“Then what are you doing here?” 

“Shopping for books, obviously,” snapped the other, clearly miffed by the accusation. “I wasn’t aware you had exclusive access to this store.” 

“Well, this is the bookshop I frequent most often.”

“And is that supposed to be common knowledge?”

Yoo Joonghyuk didn’t respond, as he had a point there. Instead, he studied the other a bit closer, finding himself somewhat amused by the perturbed expression the latter was making. Stalker or not, this person seemed relatively harmless.

“I didn’t think you were much of a reader,” the stranger muttered under his breath, before quickly continuing. “I mean, er, you just don’t look like the type is all.” 

Yoo Joonghyuk raised an eyebrow but decided to ignore the slight barb. 

“I enjoy a good book as anyone else would every now and then,” he replied simply, turning to browse the shelves again. 

They stood there in companionable silence as they both slowly looked over the tightly packed titles. Yoo Joonghyuk wasn’t searching for anything in particular – he rarely was when he came to the shop – but just casually grazing the shelves to see if anything caught his eye. It was hard to say what captured his attention, whether it was something in the title, cover, or summary – maybe it depended on his mood. But he was most often drawn to a particular genre, thus he usually found himself in the same area of the store every time he came.  

After a few minutes, he could sense the man next to him sneaking glances, and repeatedly sucking in his breath as if wanting to ask something but conflicted over it. 

“What is it?” Yoo Joonghyuk spoke up somewhat impatiently. 

The other shifted on his feet. “You like fantasy and sci-fi?” 

He gestured, with a lift of his chin, to the sign above their heads that denoted the section. The black strands of his hair swept back for just a second, drawing light into his irises. Just a fleeting moment, then his bangs were back in his face again. 

Yoo Joonghyuk raised his eyes to read the sign as well. Fantasy and Science Fiction. 

“I suppose,” he answered. 

“What do you mean, you suppose?” 

“It’s what I read most of the time,” he shrugged. “I suppose it’s my favourite.” 

The man gave a pensive hum. “That’s… surprising.” 

Yoo Joonghyuk tightened his jaw, wondering if this person was purposefully trying to insinuate that it was somehow a revelation that he was literate, or if the guy was truly just naturally, mindlessly irritating. 

He found himself responding as if he felt the need to explain the reasoning behind his preference of reading material. “I enjoy it because it reminds me of someone I used to know.”

The man twisted to stare at him, eyes wide at his answer.  

“Really? Who?” 

“I’m not sure,” Yoo Joonghyuk's gaze went far away, and he frowned. His head felt murky, as it always did when he strained to recall something that seemed just out of reach. As if fog obscured his mindscape, and all he could make out were shadows and whispers, ephemeral shapes and ghostly mirages. 

He shook his head to chase the smoke away, focusing once again on the stranger in front of him. 

“Apologies, my memory is not what it once was,” he shrugged again. 

“I see,” the man looked momentarily shaken for some reason, but quickly collected himself. “Because of the Star Stream’s disappearance?” 

Yoo Joonghyuk nodded shortly. He didn’t want to bother with explaining his eons spent floating between worlds, swimming through space and time. It wasn’t something that could really be comprehended by a layperson, nor was it an experience he ever really talked about. Even when he had just returned, he didn’t discuss it with his companions – it simply wasn’t something that could easily be put into words. 

“Well,” the man turned away, hair falling over in such a way that obscured his expression. “I’m sure whoever it is appreciates you carrying on their memory in such a way.” 

Yoo Joonghyuk gave no response to that. 

He only continued to scan the shelves, perhaps slightly slower than usual. The other man did the same, not moving away. 

Finally, he reached the end of the section, ultimately not finding anything that drew his attention. He glanced down at his watch, and realized it was past time to go home to prepare dinner. 

Yoo Joonghyuk made towards the exit, but paused. His eyes flitted back to where the stranger was still standing, fingers slowly dragging across the colourful spines as if he wished to pick out and devour each one. He looked a lonely figure. 

“What’s your name, by the way?” Yoo Joonghyuk asked.

The man turned to meet his gaze, ash to coal. He looked taken aback by the question, but at the same time emboldened somehow. 

His lips parted, before closing again. A million calculations flickered behind those enigmatic eyes. He opened his mouth once more. 

“Kim Dokja.” 

Chapter Text

Yoo Joonghyuk was passing through the supermarket aisles when a set of narrow shoulders in a beat up t-shirt caught his eye. They were faced towards the ramen shelf, the obnoxiously bright plastic packaging of various brands and flavours nearly swallowing them entirely.

Usually, he wouldn’t be caught dead in this unholy section of instant food at the store but this time, he found himself stepping inwards. 

In the otherwise empty aisle, the other person lifted their head from where they were pondering the noodle selection as they heard footsteps approaching.

“Yoo Joonghyuk.” His name, once again. It was becoming familiar. 

“Kim Dokja.” 

The grey eyes appeared surprised to see him again, but less startled than their previous encounters. 

“Fancy seeing you again,” Kim Dokja’s lips turned up. 

“Are you certain you’re not following me? This is our third time running into one another.” Yoo Joonghyuk raised his chin in question. 

The other laughed with genuine mirth, crinkles forming at the corners of his eyes. “I’m sorry, is this grocery store yours as well? At this point, you must have exclusive rights to this entire neighbourhood.” 

Yoo Joonghyuk’s mouth twitched. 

“I will admit it’s a bit coincidental this keeps happening,” Kim Dokja continued, still amused. “But you found me this time – so are you sure it’s not the other way around?” 

“I assure you I have better things to do with my time,” Yoo Joonghyuk snorted. 

Kim Dokja chuckled again and the sound gave him a strange sensation, like the first rays of morning sun hitting the back of his neck. 

“To be honest, I’ve been out and about more than normal so that could be why I keep running into you,” he shrugged. “I’m usually more of an indoor person but my wifi hasn’t been installed yet so there’s not much to do at home.” 

Yoo Joonghyuk gave a puzzled look. “You don’t have internet at home?”

“I sort of just… moved to the area,” Kim Dokja’s eyes flickered away. “So there’s a lot I need to set up.” 

The taller man nodded slowly and the two fell into a delicate silence for a moment. Kim Dokja didn’t seem keen to elaborate further. 

“Well,” Yoo Joonghyuk spoke again. “You can come into the cafe if you’d like. It gets busy on the weekends but there are always open PCs on the weekdays.” 

Kim Dokja squinted up at him and gave a small, thoughtful smile. “Alright, I might.” 

Yoo Joonghyuk nodded again and with nothing else to say, left Kim Dokja to continue on with his own shopping. As he moved away, he noticed two bulk packages of instant noodles in the other man’s basket and grimaced. Hopefully that wasn’t all he was buying for his groceries. 

⧫⧫⧫

“Oppa you look tired.” 

Mia was peering at him in exaggerated fashion through the phone screen. He set her down against the wall so that he could continue prepping his dinner. 

“I’ve just had to take over a couple things at work for now,” he answered, slicing an onion with efficient cuts. “It’s temporary.” 

“You should’ve never let Jihye-unnie quit,” she grumbled. 

He frowned. “Jihye is doing better things now.” 

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Mia waved her hand. “Gilyoung met up with her recently and says she looks pretty happy so I guess you’re right.” 

Yoo Joonghyuk hummed. He was glad to hear that his old student was doing well. 

“Oh!” Mia brightened up. “Did you know Sangah-unnie got a new job?” 

“No, I wasn’t aware.” 

“Her new office is apparently just around the corner from campus so last week she came to visit and took us out for ice cream!” 

He gave a soft puff of a laugh. “Aren’t you three too old to be asking Yoo Sangah for ice cream?”

Mia stuck her tongue out at the camera. “No, you can never be too old for ice cream.” 

Yoo Joonghyuk chuckled again as he began to drop his freshly cut vegetables into the pan. He quickly followed it up with slices of beef. 

“You know,” his sister continued nonchalantly, “Sangah-unnie said that she and Sooyoung-unnie have been wondering after you. If you’ve been well.” 

“And did you tell them that I’m good?” he asked over his shoulder, tossing the stir-fry as it sizzled. 

“I mean yeah but..,” Mia trailed off, tone clearly indicating that there was more she wanted to say. 

“But?” 

He could hear her sigh come through the speaker. “I just think they’d rather hear it from you directly.” 

“What difference does it make coming from me? I would just tell them the same thing,” Yoo Joonghyuk replied.

“ Oppa you know what I mean.” 

He took the pan off the heat and turned off the fire before turning back to face Mia’s stern expression on the little smartphone screen. She had her arms crossed and clearly wasn’t ready to drop the subject. 

Sometimes, he really missed the days when she was only waist-high and easily distracted by a shiny toy. She’d always been perceptive but now she was stubborn, headstrong, and old enough to argue back on top of it. Well, perhaps he only had himself to blame for some of those traits. 

“Fine, I’ll text them soon,” he relented, wondering wearily who exactly was the older sibling here. He was rewarded with a flash of a brilliant smile and his heart softened, just a bit. 

“How has school been?” He changed the subject, feeling the need to exert some semblance of authority here. “Have your grades in chemistry improved yet?” 

At the mention of her most hated subject, Mia’s nose pinched up in irritation. 

“It’s not my fault my professor is an old fart I can barely understand,” she grumbled. “But yes, I studied really hard for the last test and I got an 87 this time.” 

Yoo Joonghyuk scooped his dinner onto a plate and gave his sister an approving nod. “That’s good, keep it up.” 

Mia peered closely at his actions, licking her lips. “What’d you make today, oppa?” 

“Just some beef stir-fry,” he shrugged. “Nothing too special.”

“I miss the food at home so much,” she whined. “The cafeteria here is so bad. Well, Yoosung and Gilyoung like it but I actually have standards when it comes to what I eat.”

This prompted her to launch into a twenty minute story about how the japchae on the dinner menu yesterday had been appallingly dry. She’d ended up giving her portion to Gilyoung who then proceeded to get sick because he ate too much, because he’d also stolen Yoosung’s bowl. 

Yoo Joonghyuk ate quietly as he listened, letting out huffs of amusement as she rambled on. 

“When you come and visit next break, I’ll make you better japchae,” he offered after she finally ran out of breath. 

“Can I bring those two idiots too? Clearly they need a lesson on quality cuisine.”

His lips pulled up. “Sure.”

Mia grinned before looking over at her clock, her thick, dark waves, identical to Yoo Joonghyuk’s own only longer, bobbing around her shoulders.

“Oh shoot, I’ve got to run. I have to meet some classmates at the library for a thermodynamics project.”

Yoo Joonghyuk nodded. “Go ahead, we’ll talk later.” 

“Okay, bye oppa!” She gave a cheerful wave. “And make sure to find a replacement soon so that you’re not working so much.” 

“I will, don’t worry.” 

The last thing he saw before she ended the call was her furrowed brows, the kind she wore when she was trying to be strict with him. And the last thing he heard was the affectionate, but pestering click of her tongue – a habit she’d picked up from who knows where for when she wanted to admonish her much older brother. 

He could only shake his head and smile. 

⧫⧫⧫

The next time he saw the thin, hunched shoulders and inky hair falling into smokescreen eyes was when they stepped into his cafe, a week after their last encounter. 

Kim Dokja came in, scanning the establishment with a hesitant expression. He took a half step back, as if changing his mind about something, but then his eyes slid to behind the counter where they landed squarely on Yoo Joonghyuk. 

He looked surprised to see him, or perhaps just caught off-guard that the taller man had already noticed his presence at the door. 

Seeing as Yoo Joonghyuk’s gaze was already pinned on him, Kim Dokja had no choice but to give a sheepish smile in greeting and approach the table. 

“Good morning, Yoo Joonghyuk,” he said, stuffing his hands into his sweater pockets. 

Yoo Joonghyuk nodded back. “So you came. I thought you weren’t following me?” 

Kim Dokja rolled his eyes in pretend annoyance. “Ha-ha, very funny.” 

He glanced down at the display case of elaborate pastries and sandwiches, giving an impressed whistle. “This is the fanciest PC cafe I’ve ever seen.” 

Yoo Joonghyuk pushed the menu towards him. “We have hot food too.” 

In the aftermath of the Star Stream, Yoo Joonghyuk had considered returning to pro gaming but ended up opening the cafe to opt for a quieter life. However, he abhorred the greasy, additive-laced fares served at most internet cafes, and thus decided to create a more refined menu for his shop. He prided himself for his personally curated recipes and locally sourced, seasonal ingredients. 

Kim Dokja’s eyes widened as he perused the menu. “Wow, I knew you were– ahem, I mean I heard this spot was popular for its food but this really all looks so good.” 

Yoo Joonghyuk crossed his arms. “Are you just here to gawk or did you want to order something?” 

He watched as the man’s gaze lingered on the photo of steak omurice, before ripping his eyes upward to meet his. 

“Oh, no it’s okay,” Kim Dokja gave a little laugh. “I’m just here to get online for a couple hours. The internet company says it's going to take at least another week or two for them to get someone in to get it installed.” 

Yoo Joonghyuk nodded and gestured towards the kiosks near the entrance of the cafe. “You can get a guest card over there.” 

Kim Dokja thanked him and began to turn away.

“Are you sure you don’t want anything?” Yoo Joonghyuk asked again. 

He looked back and gave a thoughtful smile, eyes curving up ever so gently. “Alright, maybe just an iced americano.” 

Yoo Joonghyuk nodded and went to prepare it, leaving Kim Dokja to find his own way to an open computer.

After he’d finally persuaded Lee Jihye to take the generous post that the naval academy had offered her, he’d picked up her previous duties which was why he was behind the counter rather than in his office. She’d been resistant to the idea of leaving the cafe, but it would’ve been absurd to turn down the opportunity in lieu of being a barista. 

It was true, what Mia had said, he was working more than normal – but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle at the moment. Anyway, it was good to stay busy. 

He finished making the coffee and placed it onto a tray. He stared at it for a moment, then found himself wandering into the kitchen. His chefs all looked over in confusion, as he rarely took care of orders himself, but didn’t question him as he pulled ingredients out of the fridge. 

Twenty minutes later, he placed a steaming, fresh steak omurice in front of Kim Dokja, along with a newly made iced americano (the first one had melted too much by the time he’d finished cooking). The man stared at the perfectly grilled strips of meat smothered in glistening demi glace sauce as if bewitched. 

“What’s this?” he asked, swallowing. He looked up at Yoo Joonghyuk questioningly. 

“Omelette rice.” 

“I mean, I know that – but I didn’t order this.”

“It’s a special deal for today.” 

“I didn’t see any deal at the front.”  

“Well, there is one.” 

Kim Dokja squinted. “What’s the deal?” 

“The omelette rice comes with the coffee,” Yoo Joonghyuk replied blankly. 

Now the other pressed his lips together, as if trying not to laugh. “That doesn’t seem like it’d be very profitable for you.” 

“Fine, I’ll take it back if you don’t want it,” Yoo Joonghyuk scowled, making to snatch the plate away. 

“No, no!” Kim Dokja jumped to grab it.

For a fleeting moment, their hands brushed – Yoo Joonghyuk’s calloused, warm palm grazing Kim Dokja’s slender fingers, cool to the touch. They felt soft, he noted to himself. 

But it was only for a second. In the next, Kim Dokja was quickly pulling away, as if the brief contact had shocked him. He turned his head so that Yoo Joonghyuk could only see the reddened tips of his ears. 

A beat of silence passed. 

“I didn’t say I didn’t want it,” he muttered finally, pulling the tray closer to himself now that Yoo Joonghyuk had retracted his hand. “Thank you.” 

Yoo Joonghyuk gave a snort, but felt satisfied. As he turned away, he caught sight of Kim Dokja’s screen – it was the local job board. 

He did mention that he just recently moved here. Returning back to his spot behind the counter, Yoo Joonghyuk felt slight sympathy for the other man. He knew what it was like to start anew – whether it was somewhere or something, it was never an easy task. 

The rest of the day crawled by, with foot traffic picking up slightly when the local middle and high school students were let out of class. Yoo Joonghyuk was too occupied with filling drink orders to check in on Kim Dokja further. He only briefly stopped by his station a while later to pick up his tray, plate scraped clean, and saw that the man was now engrossed in some sort of web novel.

As he entered the kitchen to drop off the dirty dishes, one of his younger staff called him over. 

“Manager-nim, I finished the flyer you asked for,” Im Yoona, a college-aged part-timer, gestured him to where she was sitting with her laptop. 

“Hm?” He stepped over, peering down to where she was pointing. 

Despite previously being a pro-gamer, Yoo Joonghyuk often found himself technologically challenged these days. While he still knew his way around a video game, when it came to things like social media and online marketing, he felt out of his depth. And so he often let his younger staff manage anything of the sort, including graphic design. Previously Lee Jihye had handled a lot of it, but since her departure, Yoona had taken over. 

“It’s the job ad for the barista opening,” Yoona explained animatedly. 

On the screen was a clean but prettily coloured flyer design, the logo of the cafe prominent along with bolded letters that read: Barista Wanted 

“If you think it looks okay, I can get it posted online and print a couple out for the storefront too.” 

Yoo Joonghyuk studied it, an idea suddenly forming in his mind. A half-baked, impetuous, possibly terrible idea, but an idea nevertheless. 

“Manager-nim?” Yoona prompted.

“Hold off on it for now,” Yoo Joonghyuk instructed, straightening up.  

“Are you sure?” she cocked her head with curiousity. “We’ve been getting so busy after school and on weekends, you’ve barely been able to take a break.” 

“Jihye-unnie told me to make sure that you weren’t overworking yourself, you know!” Yoona crossed her arms with a frown. 

Yoo Joonghyuk gave a little scoff and shook his head. “No need to worry, I just have someone in mind who might be interested in the job is all. If it doesn’t work out, we’ll put the flyer up.” 

Im Yoona narrowed her eyes but then shrugged in relent. “Alright, whatever you say. As long as it’s not Jihye-unnie’s weird, psycho friend.” 

“Don’t worry, Kim Namwoon’s got his hands full with his own job these days,” Yoo Joonghyuk turned to return to the front. “Thank you, Yoona.” 

A few hours later, Kim Dokja came up to the counter to settle up his balance, finally deciding to head home. 

“Business seems pretty good,” he commented, looking around at the packed cafe while Yoo Joonghyuk ran up his total. 

“There aren’t too many other PC cafes around this neighbourhood,” he shrugged. “Not too much competition, luckily.” 

“Well, I’m sure the food is a draw too,” Kim Dokja smiled. “Thanks again for the meal by the way. It was the best thing I’ve eaten in… a very long time.” 

There was something in his expression when he said that that caught Yoo Joonghyuk by surprise. A faraway, almost lost look that felt intensely, intimately familiar. And even though he knew it was impossible, Yoo Joonghyuk wondered for a delirious moment if perhaps Kim Dokja would be able to understand if he told him about the millenia he spent in limbo, drifting in nothingness, flitting through a million universes that weren’t his. He wondered if Kim Dokja had ever felt something as profoundly and soul-achingly empty as eternity. 

Something in his expression made Yoo Joonghyuk say something like: “You’re welcome to come back anytime.” 

Kim Dokja looked just as surprised as he was to hear words so warm fall from his lips. 

“You’re quite different from, ah, what the stories say about you,” the other furrowed his brow, not upset in any way, but rather just baffled. 

“What do the stories say about me?” Yoo Joonghyuk raised an eyebrow. 

“Oh, you know, the usual about the Supreme King,” Kim Dokja shrugged with a sardonic pull at his lips. “Cold, ruthless, unhesitating to cut down any beast or man who blocked his way.”

His tone was somewhat teasing, but there was truth to it too. Yoo Joonghyuk was well aware of how the legends went. 

“That’s a name for stories told between schoolchildren,” he looked down at his own rough hands. They were still scarred, it was true, from battles he could scarcely remember anymore, but they were well-worn and faded by time.

“It’s a title that has little to do with my present life.” 

“That’s true,” murmured Kim Dokja. “I suppose I don’t know you as well as I may think.” 

He pushed the money toward Yoo Joonghyuk, then gave a little nod of finality. “Anyway, I suppose I’ll be going now. I’ll… see you around Yoo Joonghyuk.” 

As Kim Dokja was turning to leave, his right hand shot out – the one that used to wield his Black Heavenly Demon Sword, the one that once slew monsters and humans alike – to grasp his elbow. 

The other looked back in surprise, pausing. He let his arm drop. 

And before Yoo Joonghyuk could question himself: “Are you looking for a job?” 

Kim Dokja’s cheeks pinkened in embarrassment. “You saw?” He nodded in response. 

“Yeah, I am,” he admitted. “Like I said, I’m kind of… getting my whole life set up again right now.” 

“If you’re interested,” Yoo Joonghyuk took a breath, “we have an opening for a barista right now.” 

Kim Dokja opened his mouth, his grey eyes crinkling in confusion. “Are you offering me the job?” 

“If you want it.”

“But…” he smiled faintly, still seemingly lost. “I don’t have any experience making coffee.” 

Yoo Joonghyuk shrugged. “So I’ll train you. It’s not difficult to pick up.” 

Kim Dokja stood there, and he could almost see the cascade of thoughts barrelling behind the younger man’s conflicted expression.

To be honest, Yoo Joonghyuk wasn’t exactly sure what had compelled him to offer in the first place. Kim Dokja was right – it would make more sense to just hire someone with previous experience. His cafe was popular and he ensured to pay his staff fair wages, meaning there wouldn’t be a shortage of applicants if they posted the ad. 

Hell, he barely even knew this man standing in front of him. The majority of their interactions had been coincidental and short-lived. There was no reason to trust him. 

And yet… 

And yet there was something about Kim Dokja. Something about the way the light caught his eyes, the way his ink black hair curled behind his ears, the way he seemed to be hiding an entire cosmos behind a fast smile. 

There was something about Kim Dokja that made Yoo Joonghyuk want to keep him in front of him, within eyesight, within arm’s reach.

“You can think about it,” Yoo Joonghyuk finally said, seeing that the other was struggling to make a decision. 

Kim Dokja nodded slowly. “Yeah, okay. I’ll think about it. I’ll let you know.”

Yoo Joonghyuk mirrored his movement. “Okay.” 

This time when Kim Dokja turned to depart, he didn’t stop him. They said their goodbyes and Yoo Joonghyuk watched as his back disappeared out the doors.

Chapter Text

There was a nondescript box in the back of Yoo Joonghyuk’s closet. It contained remnants of his past lives. For someone who had lived through 1865 regressions, an innumerous, uncountable number of years all together, it was almost a pitiful little thing consisting of nothing more than a black, folded-up coat, some once magical weapons that had now been reduced to ornaments, and a few other trinkets. 

Among its contents, at the very bottom, sat a silver pocket watch etched with intricate, sharp, swirling details. When unclasped, the glass was smooth and perfectly unblemished, and the carved face beneath it looked as crisp as the day it was gifted. Hand-painted embellishments encircled the inside, soft and beautiful. And when picked up, it served a cool, reassuring weight in one’s hand.

Sometimes on long nights, the ones where Yoo Joonghyuk would toss sleeplessly in his bed until he tired of searching across the inky night, he would silently pad across his room into his closet. In the darkness, he would sift through this box until his hand enclosed around the cold kiss of metal. He would lift it out, its delicate chain dragging behind it. 

And then he would listen. Breath held, feet digging into the worn floorboards, crouching amongst his loosely hung shirts. 

He would listen for one heartbeat, then two, then a few more. 

And the silence would stay absolute, apart from his own soft puffs dissolving into the dark. There was no rhythmic tick or fragile spinning of cogs. The weight in his palm, while solid and real, stayed still and soundless. The dainty, curled hands of the watch, while exquisite, no longer moved. 

Yoo Joonghyuk didn’t know when it had broken down – he’d found it this way when he’d returned from his journey. In fact, he couldn’t even quite recall where it was from or when time had last moved across its ornate face, but he knew it must have, once upon a time.

In the end, he would return the timepiece to its resting place, nestled among all the other articles that no longer belonged in this new age of the world. He would quietly reseal the box, push it back into the corner behind his winter coats, and return to his bed that had long cooled. 

And he would slip it from his mind. At least, until the next long night. 

⧫⧫⧫

“No, you have to—“

“I’m trying!”

“You’re twisting it wrong.”

“Well, if you would just move—“

“You’re the one holding it wro—“

“Just let me— “

“Um, are you two okay out here?” Yoona’s head poked out from the kitchen door, her eyes squinting at concern at the men currently shoving each other in front of the espresso machine. 

Yoo Joonghyuk looked over at her. “I have it under control.” 

“Whatever you say, manager-nim,” she muttered with no conviction in her tone. “Just wanted to remind you that we open in 15 minutes.” 

He nodded and she thankfully retreated back into the safety of the kitchen. He turned to glare at the shorter man next to him who was still struggling with the milk foamer. 

“Let me just show you how to do it one more time,” Yoo Joonghyuk sighed. 

Kim Dokja gave a little huff of annoyance, but stepped back to allow him to take the handle. 

Three days ago when Kim Dokja had returned to the cafe to accept the job, Yoo Joonghyuk wasn’t quite sure how to name what he’d felt. If he described it to Mia, she may have called it something like happiness or excitement, however those words felt a bit too big to wear, like an ill-fitting sweater that’d been stretched out by someone larger than him. But it had made him smile. 

He wasn’t smiling now as he re-created the steps of how to make a latte for what felt like the 50th time. Surely Kim Dokja’s talents lay somewhere, but it wasn’t coffee-making. Yoo Joonghyuk was wondering now what had possessed him in the first place to offer this random man he’d only just met a job, as he was definitely paying the consequences for it.

Yoo Joonghyuk topped the drink with perfect foam, lines artfully sweeping into a delicate leaf, and stepped back. “See?”

Kim Dokja gave a large, rather dramatic sigh. “I mean, I saw the first ten times too but it doesn’t mean I can do it.” 

Yoo Joonghyuk pushed down the urge to throttle him. “Just try it again.” 

The other steeled his face and nodded, stepping back up to the machine. 

Luckily, it was early in the week and even after they opened, the flow of customers was relatively slow for the day. It allowed time for Yoo Joonghyuk to walk through the steps of each drink order for his new barista. Despite the man’s lack of talent for coffee, at the very least, it seemed that he had a knack for customer service.

“Sorry for the wait, I’m new here!” Kim Dokja would say to each person he served, flashing a genuinely apologetic smile. And Yoo Joonghyuk would watch as their expression, whether impassive or slightly annoyed, melted into a responding smile of their own, almost unconsciously. They would shake their head then, and tell him that it was okay. 

Perhaps Kim Dokja had some sort of superpower. Despite his unassuming aura, he had a disarming charm, a quiet energy that put others at ease. And Yoo Joonghyuk couldn’t help but watch in fascination — after all, it was so different from himself. Where Kim Dokja soothed over tension, Yoo Joonghyuk built walls.

It was why he rarely worked out front, and previously he’d let Lee Jihye do most of the serving. Maybe Kim Dokja would be a decent replacement after all. 

Near the end of the day, Kim Dokja called him over from where he’d been helping a customer sign into their account. 

“What is it?” Yoo Joonghyuk asked, stepping behind the counter. 

“Look!” 

Kim Dokja pushed a cup towards him. Within it, a latte with a slightly wonky leaf art. The pouring was messy and the proportions were just a tad off, but at the very least, he could tell what it was meant to be. 

“I know it’s not perfect, but not bad right?” He bounced on the back of his heels, proud. “I think I’m finally getting the hang of it.” 

Yoo Joonghyuk’s lips twitched up at the clumsy lines of foam and raised his eyes to meet the other’s expression. There was that magic-wielding smile, this time directed at him. It rendered him speechless for just a second.

“No, not bad,” he finally grunted, looking away. 

From the corner of his eye, he could see the other man’s expression brightening further, eyes wrinkling at the corners. 

“Wow, Yoo Joonghyuk, that’s almost a compliment from your lips,” Kim Dokja teased, clicking his tongue for emphasis. The quirk felt curiously familiar. 

“Hm.” 

The other laughed in delight, and Yoo Joonghyuk turned away further, hiding the way his own mouth was turning up at the corners. No, perhaps he would make a very good replacement after all.

⧫⧫⧫

As the days quietly lengthened, the sun shone just a bit brighter and warmer, rays dipping the evenings into hues of violet-pinks. Crisp winds slowed into languid, balmy breezes and Yoo Joonghyuk found himself gradually wandering home later and later. It was a lovely season after all, and it would be a shame to spend it cooped up inside. 

It was on one of these warm evenings that Yoona popped into the break room to find Yoo Joonghyuk tapping away on his computer, finalizing the budget for their next quarter. Kim Dokja sat a few seats away, scrolling through new drink recipes. The latter had gotten really enthusiastic recently about providing input for their upcoming summer menu and was doing fervent research. 

“Manager-nim, ahjussi, you’re still here?” she asked. “It’s almost dinner time.” 

Yoo Joonghyuk glanced at his watch and was surprised to find that she was right. He’d completely lost track of the time. 

He nodded and began to put away his laptop. Kim Dokja on the other hand, lifted a bright blue convenience store bag from beneath the table and threw the girl a grin. 

“Thanks for the reminder Yoona!” 

The two watched in horror as he proceeded to pull out two kimbap rolls with red discount stickers atop the plastic packaging. Unaware of their stares, he hummed as he unrolled the first one – a greyish bulgogi stuffed in with what vaguely looked like pickled vegetables. 

“Ahjussi, no way that’s your dinner,” Yoona shook her head in disbelief. Kim Dokja looked up from his phone again, a slice already halfway to his mouth. 

“What’s wrong with it?” He asked defensively. 

Her mouth opened and closed rapidly, not unlike a fish, lost on where to begin. “Manager-nim?” She turned instead to Yoo Joonghyuk, certain that surely there was something he had to say. 

“That’s garbage food,” Yoo Joonghyuk sighed, crossing his arms.

Kim Dokja looked affronted that he was being seemingly attacked for his food choices out of the blue. “The kimbap has spinach in it, isn’t that healthy?” 

Yoona rolled her eyes. “That barely counts.” 

Yoo Joonghyuk had noticed the other man’s penchant for convenience store meals now and then when he caught him on his lunch breaks. He also hadn’t forgotten his basketful of instant ramen that time he’d run into him at the grocery store. Despite his own distaste for the stuff, he’d held back on making any comments as Mia had chided him multiple times in the past for being overly critical of other people’s food choices. 

However, Yoona had a point – if Kim Dokja was even eating this stuff for dinner, he couldn’t even begin to imagine the catastrophic state of the man’s daily nutritional intake.

As his two employees bickered over the culinary qualities of Kim Dokja’s 1000 won kimbap, Yoo Joonghyuk calmly continued to pack away his things. 

After he finished, he turned to the still seated man. “Follow me, I need you in the kitchen.”

Kim Dokja cut off mid sentence of his defense against Yoona, and blinked up at his manager in confusion. “Aren’t you going home?” 

“Not yet, there’s a new recipe I need to try out.” 

“What do you need me for?” 

“Just come,” Yoo Joonghyuk gritted out. 

Kim Dokja said his goodbye to Yoona as she was heading out for the day, and trailed behind him into the kitchen. 

Yoo Joonghyuk began to pull vegetables from the fridge: carrots, onions, shiitake mushrooms, and peppers. After a quick wash he began to cut them into thin slices, knife sharp and efficient. Kim Dokja settled himself across the counter, resting his hands against his chin to watch, curious and impressed as always at the other’s skill. 

“What’re you making?” he asked. 

“You’ll see.” 

Yoo Joonghyuk could feel the grey eyes on him, on his hands, as he moved deftly around the kitchen – putting a pot of water to boil, tossing the vegetables into a pan for a quick sauté. It was peculiar, he usually disliked being watched while cooking, or rather doing anything, unless it was Mia. But under the gaze of Kim Dokja, he felt perfectly content, even pleased at his undivided observation. 

Finally, when he dropped sweet potato noodles into the pot of boiling water, Kim Dokja made a gasp of insight. 

“Japchae?” A smile spread on his lips, fringe sweeping back as he tilted up to meet Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes.

“Took you long enough,” Yoo Joonghyuk replied. 

Kim Dokja gave a little laugh, unbothered by his deadpan response. “I love japchae.” 

Yoo Joonghyuk hummed. “Good.” 

The younger man continued to watch as he went on to mix the prepared ingredients in a large bowl, adding in sesame oil, soy sauce, and other seasoning. 

“Is this for the summer menu?” he wondered aloud. 

“No, it’s for my sister,” Yoo Joonghyuk looked up from his mixing. 

Kim Dokja’s eyes widened imperceptibly. “O-oh. I, ah, didn’t know you had a sister.” 

“Yes, she’s quite a bit younger,” Yoo Joonghyuk gave a little smile at the mention of Mia. “She’s away in her first year of university.” 

The other’s expression grew quiet – contemplative, gentle, yet somehow somber all at once. “University, wow. I imagine she’s a handful at that age.” 

He went back to his mixing, a chuckle releasing from his throat. “Yeah, she is sometimes. But she’s a good kid.” 

“You must miss her.” 

“Sometimes,” Yoo Joonghyuk admitted without thinking, surprised at his own transparency. “But I’m glad for her, she’s doing well and with her closest friends.”

“Her friends, huh?” Kim Dokja repeated, voice soft and almost achingly tender. “That sounds really nice.” 

Noticing his affected tone, Yoo Joonghyuk glanced back up. “Do you have siblings?”

“No,” Kim Dokja gave another short laugh, but this time it sounded like a violin string pulled just a bit too tight.

“Family?” 

“Ah, it’s complicated.” He looked down now, those damned bangs obscuring his eyes once more. Yoo Joonghyuk wanted to push them away so that he could see exactly what was being hidden. 

“They’re a bit out of reach but… as long as they’re doing well, I’m happy,” Kim Dokja finished quietly, face still tucked away.

There it was again. A throb in his words, a heavy weight of inexplicability behind his voice that left Yoo Joonghyuk wondering and, for some unfathomable reason, aching. There was so much he felt he needed to know and yet there were no questions he knew to ask. 

There were no questions he had any right to ask anyway. Family was a sensitive topic, he knew that perhaps better than anyone. And so he braced away the non-questions and unspoken desires, instead scooping a generous portion of the finished japchae noodles into a bowl, pushing it towards the enigma across from him.

“Eat.” 

This brought Kim Dokja’s attention back, eyes brightening into near suns. He brought a forkful to his mouth without hesitation and leaned back in glee at the taste hitting his tongue.

“Joonghyuk-ah, you’ve outdone yourself.” 

Kim Dokja paused midchew, clamping a hand over his mouth in horror as he abruptly realized what it was he just called him. “Ah, sorry!” 

Yoo Joonghyuk snorted in amusement. “You’ve never addressed me formally anyway, why start now?” 

The other’s eyes flicked away in embarrassment. “Still, that’s rude of me – you’re my boss after all.” 

And that was true. It was impolite and devoid of convention and overly familiar and he really shouldn’t be allowing it at all from this person that he knew almost nothing about, this person as full of secrets as he was of those alarmingly bewitching smiles. 

But why did Yoo Joonghyuk’s entire being fill with warmth just now? Like the clear blue of a summer sky, the last whispers of sun at dusk, the light of a billion stars over a silent night. 

Why did it feel as natural and ordinary and sure as the moon carving its path around the earth? 

“You can call me anything you’d like.” 

Their eyes met. Char to ash, as inseparable as they were inevitable.

Chapter Text

Yoo Joonghyuk was in trouble, he knew that much.

Did something good happen, oppa? Mia had asked that on their last call, pointing out the ease in his shoulders and quiet contentment in his tone. The way his eyes looked brighter than she had seen in forever. 

He’d shrugged it off, saying that he was just getting more rest now that they’d found a new barista. 

But that wasn’t technically true. In fact, he was probably tossing and turning at night even more so than before; some strange, erratic force in his chest keeping him awake long after the sun had set. A pale face, slender shoulders, and pair of burnished grey eyes materializing into his mind when he should’ve been fast asleep. 

Yes, there was definitely something strange happening to him. 

At work, he was more distracted than ever and it was wholly Kim Dokja’s fault. 

The cafe’s broad windows did nothing but let in the blinding summer light, only for it to refract against Kim Dokja’s soft strands, leaving Yoo Joonghyuk yearning to run his hand through them, to feel if they were as silken as they looked. Each time the younger man tilted his face down to punch in a customer’s order, all Yoo Joonghyuk could see was the pale expanse of skin upon his slender nape and it took his entire strength to tear his eyes away. His waist, every time he stretched his arms up in a deep yawn between their busy periods, and Yoo Joonghyuk couldn’t help but wonder how his hands might fit on those delicate curves. 

But most wicked of all – that damned mischievous smile that he would occasionally grace Yoo Joonghyuk with when they had the displeasure of serving a particularly irksome patron. There were always one or two of those, with an uppity attitude and a snappish mouth filled with complaints. Kim Dokja, being a natural at placating even the most vexing of personalities, would usually be able to resolve the issue within a few minutes of gentle coaxing and upturned eyes. And perhaps Yoo Joonghyuk would feel more envious of his own customers and the seemingly endless, easy smiles that Kim Dokja had on reserve for them, if not for the fact that there was a secret, second one that Kim Dokja directed only at him. 

It was always once Kim Dokja had successfully shooed the fusser away, he’d turn to Yoo Joonghyuk, sometimes with a little roll of his eyes, sometimes with a dramatic sigh, but always with an exasperated, amused lift of his lips and a sly glint in the grey of his irises. A shared teasing moment between the two, through the all too relatable experience of dealing with tedious customers. 

And it was with the way Yoo Joonghyuk’s heart began to beat just a little too quickly for comfort each time he was blessed with that smile that was just for him, that he realized it was much too late for him to turn back. 

⧫⧫⧫

Yoo Joonghyuk was a man with a one track mind at the end of the day, undeterred and decisive when it came to the things he wanted. Once he realized he wanted– craved– to touch Kim Dokja, he put in little effort to conceal it. 

He didn’t go out of his way to – after all he didn’t know how Kim Dokja felt about him – but if their hands grazed as they silently filled orders side by side, or if he pulled him gently by the waist when the air-headed man stepped too close to the stoves in the kitchen… Well, it was only natural. 

Yoo Joonghyuk never let himself linger too long, but he did observe the other’s reactions and allowed himself to enjoy the fluster that painted his face every time their skin brushed. Kim Dokja would turn red, blubbering like a fool, then pulling away yet leaning in all at the same time. As if he himself wasn’t sure how to react, how he wanted to react. 

It got to the point where it was more than obvious, and Yoona didn’t miss a chance to tease them when she noticed. Kim Dokja would vehemently deny anything inapropos going on while Yoo Joonghyuk stayed silent and blank-faced as usual. 

They danced like this for weeks, a familiarity settling in between the younger’s pestering jabs and Yoo Joonghyuk nagging for the former to consume proper meals. As the early summer drafts turned to heavy, humid blasts, the weather soon brewed with a thickness that spelt oncoming monsoon rains. 

Then, on one of those particularly muggy days where it felt as if the air itself had turned to an electrically charged stew, the clouds sitting weighty and low upon the sky, Yoo Joonghyuk received a package. 

Hey shitty bastard, hope you’re still alive.
Mia says you’re doing fine so I suppose you must be.
Anyway, thought you might like this. It’s what you read these days right?
Hope you like it. Or don’t – I don’t care either way. 

Don’t be a stranger. 

He rolled his eyes at the unmistakable, crass language – even without a name, he didn’t have to wonder who the sender was. And even if he hadn’t been convinced by the boorish message, the gift spoke for itself. 

To the Ends of the World. By Han Sooyoung. 

It must be her newest release. He hadn’t been to the book store recently but he remembered seeing promotional posters for it a few months back – Sooyoung was one of the most popular authors in the country these days and her books always dropped with great fanfare. 

He flipped it over and quickly skimmed the synopsis. As she’d promised in the message, it was a science fiction story, something about a battle for a space republic. He pulled his phone out and typed a quick thank you text. He hadn’t quite gotten around to having a conversation with her as he’d previously promised Mia, but it was on his mind. 

Putting his phone away, an idea occurred to him. With a small smile, he slipped the book, along with an umbrella, into his bag before setting off for work. 

“Good morning, Yoo Joonghyuk,” Kim Dokja greeted as he stepped inside the glass doors, lips upturned. 

“Good morning,” he nodded, a responding smile appearing on his own face before he could stop it. 

They fell into a comfortable quiet as they each went about the opening routines. With Kim Dokja now more than capable of handling the front alone, Yoo Joonghyuk spent the morning in the kitchen helping his chefs test recipes for next month’s pastry rotation. 

The hours petered by. Some time in the afternoon, the thick humidity that sat in the air finally broke apart in the form of a heavy rainfall, pounding down into the ground and washing away the last vestiges of spring. Yoona rushed to bring the sign inside before banging the doors shut to keep the moisture out. 

“I was only out there for three seconds and look how soaked I am,” she complained, pulling at her darkened, drenched strands of hair with a frown. 

“There are towels in the back,” Yoo Joonghyuk told her. “Dry up before you catch a cold.” 

“Thanks manager-nim,” she chirped, skipping toward the storerooms. 

“You sure are caring of your employees, manager-nim,” Kim Dokja teased as Yoo Joonghyuk went to mop the drips of water Yoona had left behind on the tiles. 

“Don’t be bothersome,” Yoo Joonghyuk replied, earning a laugh from the other. He tilted his head to hide the reddened tips of his ears.

Business remained slow for the rest of the day due to the weather. Seeing no need to stay late today, Yoo Joonghyuk began to prepare to head home once his usual hours ended. 

Passing the counter, he noticed Kim Dokja was also getting ready to end his shift, amicably greeting the night shift staff who were trickling in. 

“Did you bring an umbrella today?” he asked the younger man. Kim Dokja looked up from where he was carefully folding away his apron. 

“Ah… no,” he chuckled sheepishly. “But it’s okay, I have a hoodie with me.” 

Yoo Joonghyuk frowned. “You’ll get sick.”

“No, no I’ll be fine!” Kim Dokja insisted. “Anyway, it’ll be my own fault for not checking the weather.” 

Yoo Joonghyuk sighed. “Get your things,” he instructed. “I’ll walk you home.” 

“It’s alright,” the other frowned. “I’m going the opposite direction from you.” 

He ignored him and headed towards the exit. “I’ll be waiting at the door.” 

He heard Kim Dokja grumble behind his back, but a few minutes later the man emerged with his sweater pulled on and backpack slung across his back. 

“You really don’t need to…” he mumbled as Yoo Joonghyuk wordlessly pushed open the door for him. 

The moment they stepped outside under the store’s awning, the beating sound of raindrops hitting the pavement grew twice as loud. It was nearly deafening, a raucous chorus of storm all around them. 

“You’ll walk in this?” Yoo Joonghyuk raised an eyebrow at him. He opened the umbrella above their heads. 

Kim Dokja bit down on the soft curve of his lip. “Alright, but you don’t have to take me the whole way,” he protested, even though they both knew that Yoo Joonghyuk would anyway. 

They walked in silence, their shoes splashing against the sidewalk despite their best efforts to avoid puddles. Yoo Joonghyuk could feel the hems of his jeans dampening, the cold cuffs brushing against his ankles, but he didn’t mind. Somehow, he’d always found the rain somewhat comforting. The rhythmic cadence of drops falling around and above him was a steady, grounding sound. It brought with it the smell of earth and sky, something that he’d missed sorely when he’d been in space. After that eternal void, the way the rain invaded all his senses felt like a revelation.

Next to him, Kim Dokja’s shoulders brushed against his arm, a slight warmth emanating each time they made contact. He found himself chasing it, wishing for more. This too, was a revelation. 

As they turned onto a busier street, Yoo Joonghyuk absent-mindedly adjusted himself so that Kim Dokja was walking on the inner side of the sidewalk, shielded from any potential splashes from the cars speeding past them. 

“You’re getting wet,” Kim Dokja pointed to his right shoulder. Yoo Joonghyuk looked down, surprised to see that his shirt was indeed darkened there. 

“It’s fine,” he shrugged, keeping the umbrella where it was. 

“Aren’t you just a gentleman?” Kim Dokja needled with a grin. “I feel positively pampered.” 

“I hope so,” Yoo Joonghyuk looked down at him, expression unchanging. 

A captivating flush spread across his cheeks, crawling down to where soft skin met his collar. Yoo Joonghyuk wondered how much farther down it went. Wanted to see it. Wanted to reach out and brush his neck to see if it was as velvet as it looked. 

“You’re such a bastard,” Kim Dokja muttered, averting his gaze to stare at the ground in front of him instead. 

Yoo Joonghyuk only smiled and turned his eyes forward as well. 

Before long, they stopped in front of a non-descript low-rise building. The pair ducked into the shelter of the entrance, allowing Yoo Joonghyuk to drop the umbrella. 

“This is me,” Kim Dokja announced unnecessarily. He met his eyes self-consciously. “Thanks for walking me.” 

As he was about to turn into the stairwell, Yoo Joonghyuk held him back with a hand to his wrist. “I have something for you.” 

Kim Dokja tilted his head questioningly. Yoo Joonghyuk unclasped his bag and slipped the book out, pushing it into Kim Dokja’s hands. 

“I think you’d enjoy this.” 

Kim Dokja looked down, reading the cover. His eyes widened, pink lips opening slightly in surprise. His hand closed around the spine, his fingers coming up to brush against the author’s name printed at the bottom of the hardcover jacket. 

“Han Sooyoung is a well-known science fiction and fantasy author,” Yoo Joonghyuk explained, in case he’d never heard of her before. Although, that was rarely the case for any avid reader.

A small smile spread across his face, eyes still locked on the book. “Yeah, I’ve heard of her.” 

“I haven’t read this one yet, but I’ve read all her other books,” Yoo Joonghyuk continued. “They’re all quite good.” 

Not that he’d ever say that to Han Sooyoung’s face, but she clearly knew he enjoyed her writing or else she wouldn’t keep sending him her new releases. She always signed them too, with something perpetually irritating like for my favorite, emotionally constipated protagonist or a particularly ugly scribble that was supposed to depict him. 

He was shaken out of his thoughts by Kim Dokja looking up to meet his gaze, clear and bright. Like pools of an oasis where you could see right down to the crisp, sandy bottom. 

“She’s my favorite author, actually,” he said. 

“Oh.” Yoo Joonghyuk was taken aback. “You don’t have this title yet though, do you? Han Sooyoung said she just released it.” 

The other shook his head, smile still in place. “No, I very much look forward to reading it.” 

“You know her well?” he asked, noticing the familiar way Yoo Joonghyuk had addressed her. There was something wistful in his expression – perhaps he really was a huge fan.

“In some ways,” he answered vaguely, looking away. “She’s an irritating, meddlesome woman more than anything else.”

Strangely, rather than looking affronted by the insult to his favorite author, Kim Dokja’s smile only widened, eyes warm. 

He puffed out a small laugh. “Well, thank you for the gift Yoo Joonghyuk. I appreciate it.”

As it seemed he was about to turn away again, Yoo Joonghyuk swallowed. Now.

“I actually have something I’d like to tell you as well.” 

Kim Dokja paused his movement to squint at him, expression turning teasing. “What’s with the serious face? It’s not like you to be so apprehensive.” 

The older man opened his mouth, before closing it again. For the first time in a long time, he felt a nervous energy thrum through his veins. 

He reached out, tentatively taking the other’s hand in his. Kim Dokja’s eyes flared with surprise and looked down at their joined fingers, his grin slowly falling from his lips. 

And although that sent an ache through Yoo Joonghyuk’s chest, he suddenly felt that he absolutely needed to tell him. As if he might not get a chance if he didn’t do it now. As if… as if he had already missed an opportunity to be honest, before, and if he let this slip away again, the regret would be etched within him permanently. 

“Kim Dokja,” he murmured his name, voice lowering until it was barely audible above the sound of the sky pouring into the earth.  

“What is it?” the other asked, the words coming out as if he were holding the air in his lungs. As if he were waiting with bated breath for Yoo Joonghyuk to drop an axe on him. 

“... Be with me.” 

“H-huh?”

“I’d like you to be with me.”

Kim Dokja stilled, taking a sharp inhale. After a long, aching moment, a chuckle came from his throat, dry and stilted. 

“Yoo Joonghyuk, I don’t think you know what you’re saying.”

“I know exactly what I’m saying.” 

The fingers grasped in his palm tensed, then in the next moment they were ripped away. Kim Dokja was shaking his head, pressing the hand to his chest protectively. 

“No, you don’t ,” the man near snapped, the sudden vitriol in his tone making Yoo Joonghyuk freeze. He felt the buzz in his veins intensify. Had he made a mistake? Had he imagined the fond smiles and the way they softly drew in together as natural and undeniable as breathing? Had he pushed too far too quickly? An ice cold torrent of self-doubt cascaded through him, the feeling utterly foreign and new. 

But the tense, angry expression on Kim Dokja’s face crumpled as fast as it came, turning into something more akin to a despairing helplessness – and that was somehow even worse. 

“Sorry,” he said quietly. “It’s just that you don’t know me.” 

Yoo Joonghyuk wanted to open his mouth and insist, yes I do, but he stopped himself. The truth of it rang through him, hollowing him out. Even after all these months, he really didn’t know much about this man at all. 

Kim Dokja. He liked books, omurice, and spending too much time on his phone. He had a compulsive need to be annoying, and he never took care of himself, and he was always patient with customers, even when they didn’t deserve it. He always wore a smile – sometimes teasing, sometimes affectionate, but always hinting at something hidden away. He had a quiet sadness, a look of loneliness, a too familiar sense of desolation, when he thought nobody was looking, 

“Then let me know you,” Yoo Joonghyuk finally replied. 

“I’d like to know everything about you. And I’d like to have you by my side while I learn it all.” 

Kim Dokja’s mouth dropped open, quivering. “I–” 

“You don’t need to say anything right now,” Yoo Joonghyuk interrupted, taking a step back now. “You can think about it, I just wanted– no, needed, to tell you.”

The younger man stood there, looking as if his entire world had just fallen like dominoes around him. His face turned down, his expression hidden. 

Unable to help himself, Yoo Joonghyuk lifted his hand once more to sweep the hair away to reveal those fathomless eyes he longed to see the most. Like stars, he decided. But not the cold, unfeeling blips of light that were always out of reach. No, they were a warm, unwavering presence, fixed and assuring. Watchful and steady. 

He leaned in, lips just shy of brushing his ear. 

“Good night, Kim Dokja.” 

Then he disappeared into the cloud-filled evening, leaving Kim Dokja standing alone with nothing but the sound of rain drumming into the land and his own thundering heart.

Chapter Text

For the next few days, Kim Dokja didn’t come into work. He’d texted Yoo Joonghyuk to assure him that he was just taking some time off to rest but Yoo Joonghyuk couldn’t help but feel that he was to blame. 

Even someone as thick-skinned as him couldn’t help but burn with embarrassment at the idea that he may or may not have chased away the person he’d fallen for with his confession. He decided that if Kim Dokja didn’t show up after a week, he’d go confront him about it. After all, they were adults – even if he didn’t feel the same way, they could continue to be professional. 

“Ahjussi isn’t in again today?” Yoona asked as she came in for her shift, noticing that Yoo Joonghyuk was once again manning the counter again. 

“He’s not feeling well,” he replied, wiping down the espresso machine with concentration. 

“Probably all that instant ramen catching up to him,” she shook her head. “I swear he’s worse than my little brother…” 

When Yoo Joonghyuk didn’t answer, she headed into the back to put away her things. A few minutes later, her head popped back out. 

“By the way manager-nim, my summer break just started so I’m going to be picking up a few more hours – is that okay?” 

He nodded absent-mindedly as he continued to clean, but a few moments after she disappeared once again, he fully registered her words. 

Summer break? 

He turned on his phone to see that there were multiple missed texts and a call from that morning. 

Mia: oppa I’m gonna get home in like 2 hrs

Mia: helloooo oppa???

Mia: ur prob at work now right? I'll just drop off my stuff at home and come see u there!

Mia : don’t forget that yoosungie and gilyoungie r coming tooooo

Yoo Joonghyuk scrunched his eyebrows in guilt. He’d been so distracted that he’d forgotten that today was the day Mia was coming home for the break. 

Checking the time she’d texted him, he expected she would be arriving soon. 

As he waited, he busied himself with cleaning the rest of the equipment and filling orders. He mentally reviewed the ingredients they had in the kitchen right now, ensuring that they had everything he needed to make the japchae he’d promised her. 

It would be nice to see Shin Yoosung and Lee Gilyoung again as well. While the latter could be a bit of a flippant brat sometimes, they were good kids. He’d always felt secretly grateful towards them as they’d kept Mia company during the time he’d been away on his mission – they became much like a second family to her, along with the rest of the team. While Mia never harboured any resentment for his absence, he’d always felt somewhat regretful for having gone for so long. Although time had passed much differently on Earth compared to the infinite space, he couldn’t help but feel as if he’d neglected his role as her guardian and missed important moments with her. 

In some ways, she was a key reason he didn’t end up returning to pro gaming. Even though he couldn’t remember most of it anymore, he knew that in his past life he’d single-mindedly fought to see the end of the scenarios, and then after that, something else. It was no environment for a child to grow up in, and he was no kind of role model for his much younger sister. Given the chance at a quiet life, he wanted to ensure that he could provide and be present for her moving forward. 

The bell signaling a new customer entering the cafe rang, pulling him out of his thoughts. He looked up to greet the patron, but was instead met with a very familiar smile. 

“Oppa!” Yoo Mia practically bounced in, her dark waves tied up in a ponytail today. She was wearing a navy blue hoodie, emblazoned with her university logo. She grinned, eyes identical to his lit up at the sight of her brother. 

Just as he was about to smile back, he was surprised at the sight of Kim Dokja trailing in behind her. His heart gave a thump at the first sight of him in days, and Yoo Joonghyuk felt somewhat relieved that he looked no worse for wear than normal. However, the younger man had a strange expression on, somewhat sheepish but also slightly emotional, as if he’d just seen something that moved him. 

“I bumped into your new barista outside by the way,” Mia explained as she moved behind the counter to give Yoo Joonghyuk a hug. He raised his arm to return it, giving her a pat to the head. 

“You sure are lenient with your staff’s hours, oppa,” she raised an eyebrow at Kim Dokja. “Isn’t it a bit late to be starting a shift?” 

“Your sister is just as brutally blunt as you are, Yoo Joonghyuk,” the aforementioned staff chuckled. Still, just like his expression, there was something in his tone that felt affected. 

“She’s also… tall,” he said, eyes flicking between the two siblings. It was true, she took after her brother, standing nearly as tall as Kim Dokja himself now that she was well on her way to twenty. 

Yoo Mia gave him a weird look. “Uh huh, is there something wrong with that?” 

“No, not at all!” he quickly amended, shaking his hands. “I was just surprised.” 

“This barista ahjussi is weird,” Mia said to her brother plainly. 

“Mia,” he admonished, with a little shake of his head. Kim Dokja, on the other hand, only let out another soft laugh. 

Yoo Joonghyuk turned to him properly, clamping down the nervous quiver of his heart. “It’s good to see you. Are you feeling better?” 

The other’s eyes looked down in guilt. “Yeah, sorry for skipping work these last few days.” 

“It’s fine,” Yoo Joonghyuk’s fingers twitched. He wanted to reach out to see if the man really was feeling okay, but he was fearful of startling him into disappearance again. He’d clearly been too hasty with his confession. 

Mia looked between the two, lips pulling down as if confused about something. But then she only shook her head and rounded back to Yoo Joonghyuk with an eager expression. 

“Oppa, you can hang out with me right?” she piped up. 

Before Yoo Joonghyuk could answer, Kim Dokja nodded in response. “You go ahead, I’ll take over the counter.” 

With that, he let himself be dragged to a booth in the corner of the cafe by Mia. 

“Mia, I'm still technically working,” he told her as they sat. “So I can’t sit here with you all day, but I’ll try to leave early today.” 

“Okay, okay,” she waved her hand in acquiescence but pouting. “What’s the point of you being the boss and you can’t even slack off a bit?” 

“It’s because I’m the boss that I have more things to be responsible for,” he said with amusement. 

“Oppa, you work way too hard,” she huffed before narrowing her eyes at him with suspicion. “Say, what’s up with that ahjussi? I’ve never seen you be so nice to someone.” 

Yoo Joonghyuk just gave her a blank look. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“You’re usually all rigid about rules but he came in three hours late and–” 

“Didn’t you say Shin Yoosung and Lee Gilyoung were coming?” he interrupted.

“Oh yeah,” she answered brightly, taking the bait. “They should be here soon. They just needed to stop by Gilyoung’s aunt’s place to say hi.” 

“We’re probably just going to play some games while we wait for you to finish work,” she said excitedly. “We’ve been playing this new shooter game recently and Gilyoung always gets so mad because I kick his butt…” 

Mia snickered to herself and rambled on, retelling proudly on how she’d been able to achieve platinum rank, leaving the other two in the dust. 

A few minutes later, her eyes seemed to lock on something behind him. A toothy grin stretched across her lips. 

“Yo, we’re over here!” she called, lifting her arm. The cafe was beginning to fill up for the lunch rush and so she had to raise her voice over the din of customers. 

Quick footsteps approached, followed by bobbing blonde hair and scruffy, fluffed up brown tufts. 

“Hi Joonghyuk oppa,” Shin Yoosung greeted with a shy smile, squeezing into the seat next to Mia. Lee Gilyoung leaned on the wall next to them, crossing his arms. His dark brown eyes flickered over at Yoo Joonghyuk as if sizing him up. The teenager straightened himself up just a little taller. 

Yoosung kicked him. “Greet Joonghyuk oppa, you bug.” 

The young boy rolled his eyes and gave a gruff, “Hey hyung.”

Yoo Joonghyuk’s lips twitched up, and he gave a hum of acknowledgement back. Both kids had gotten taller, he noticed, but neither were quite at Mia’s height. 

“The cafe seems even busier than the last time we came,” Yoosung grinned, looking around. “It’s gotten so popular.” 

“Obviously it’d be popular, it’s oppa’s after all,” Mia leaned back with satisfaction. “Although oppa, can that barista ahjussi even keep up with this many people in line? He looks like the type to be slow…” 

“I’ve trained him well,” Yoo Joonghyuk replied. He did, however, glance at the counter. It was indeed getting quite crowded. 

“You three go ahead and play your games.” He stood up. “I’ll make your japchae in a bit and bring it to you.” 

Mia’s eyes lit with excitement and gave a pointed finger at her friends. “Oh yeah, oppa’s gonna show you what real japchae is supposed to taste like today. Not that weird grey stuff the cafeteria serves us.” 

“Your brother isn’t the only person in Korea who knows how to make japchae Mia. I eat it at restaurants all the time.”

“Yeah well, I bet he’s the best though.” 

“Too bad you can’t cook for shit.”

“Hey!”

“Remember that time you almost burned down the dorm trying to make instant noodles?” 

“That was one time–”

Yoo Joonghyuk shook his head, bemused, and walked back towards the kitchen leaving the kids behind to exchange barbs at each other. On his way, he checked in with Kim Dokja.

“If it gets too hectic out here, just let me know and I’ll help out,” he said. 

Kim Dokja looked up from where he was pouring out a latte, and he gave a tentative smile. “Yeah, okay. Thanks.” The younger man quickly turned away to resume his work, response devoid of any of the familiarity they’d built up. 

As much as Yoo Joonghyuk was hoping to have a conversation with him to smooth things over, it was probably better left after their shifts had ended. Resigned, he retreated into the kitchen.

Inside, he began to pull out the ingredients for japchae, however ended up getting sidetracked by Yoona as she began showing him all the new social media content she’d been creating and editing for the cafe. She then slyly asked if she could film him for something she called “thirst edits” which were apparently bound to get them more customer traffic, but he’d vehemently shut the idea down. 

By the time he’d finally finished making the noodle dish, the lunch rush had  died down and the cafe had quieted down significantly. As he brought out the bowls on a tray, he noticed that Kim Dokja had stepped away from the counter. 

Taking a quick look across the restaurant, he realized the man was standing where Mia and the others were sitting at their PC stations, with his own tray in hand. He must’ve gone to send their drinks. 

He approached them and was about to say something, but realized quickly that there was a strange tension in the air. Mia was looking between Shin Yoosung and Kim Dokja with a perplexed expression, biting down on her lip. The man’s expression was obscured from Yoo Joonghyuk’s position but the young, blonde student looked even more dazed, looking up at Kim Dokja with eyes widened and brows furrowed. 

Mia spotted Yoo Joonghyuk approaching and stood up, quickly breaking the silence as if trying to cut through some sort of awkward lull. “Finally! I was starving oppa.” 

Kim Dokja turned at her outburst, taking a step back to make room for his manager as he set down the bowls of noodles. 

“Enjoy your drinks,” he quickly murmured. “I should get back to the counter.” 

“Wait!” Shin Yoosung suddenly reached out her hand, her eyes still trained on Kim Dokja. As everyone’s gaze turned to her she suddenly looked taken aback, as if surprised by her own reaction. 

“Wait, ahjussi,” she repeated, quieter this time. Her expression schooled back into one of deep consideration, her lips turning down as if she was trying to recall something extremely distant. Kim Dokja paused in his retreat. 

“Have we… met before?” Shin Yoosung asked softly. “I’m sorry this might seem strange but, I can’t help but feel that I know you.” 

Yoo Joonghyuk looked over at Kim Dokja who was seeming to stare intently at his feet. A long second of silence stretched between all of them.

Mia elbowed her friend and whispered, “Hey, Yoosung do–” 

“I think you might have mistaken me for someone else,” Kim Dokja suddenly said, raising his face to show a smile. His lips pulled up and tight, his eyes even crinkling at the corners. “It’s okay though, I get that a lot. I suppose I just have one of those faces.” 

Yoosung’s mouth twisted down even further. “No, but really I think…” 

“Yah, Yoosung, stop bothering the poor guy,” Gilyoung cut in from where he was sitting across from the girls. “Are you two going to come back to the game or not? We’re getting pummelled here.” 

“Have fun you three. Let me know if you want anything else to drink.” Kim Dokja gave another quick grin, and swiftly made his way back to the front counter where a line had slowly been forming. 

“Yeah I have to agree with the bug for once,” Mia nodded, turning back to her screen. “You were acting really weird there, Yoosung.” 

“I swear I know him from somewhere,” Yoosung argued, her face now one of annoyance. “It was like… something inside me recognized him.” 

Yoo Joonghyuk’s sister pulled a disgusted face. “Hold up, Yoosung don’t tell me you like old guys…”

“What?!” Yoosung near shrieked, her jaw dropping. “That is not what I meant.” 

With Mia’s mocking jab, the strange incident seemed to be quickly forgotten as the three devolved into squabbling over who was dragging the team down in their shooter game. 

However, Yoo Joonghyuk continued to stare at where Kim Dokja had just been standing.  

Why had he worn that sorry excuse for a smile just now? It was the first time Yoo Joonghyuk had seen something so transparently false in his expression – the man had always held nothing but secrets behind his eyes and raven hair, but the smile he’d just given was so clearly a lie that it nearly felt painful. 

A few hours later, Yoo Joonghyuk sent the kids back to his apartment first with the promise that he would take them to some trending hot pot restaurant for dinner. He waited for Kim Dokja to finish his shift, and caught him outside as the other man made to leave for the day. 

“I’ll walk you home,” he said, pushing off from where he’d been leaning near the entrance. 

Kim Dokja gave a start when he noticed him, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Oh. Ah, there’s no need for that, it’s not raining today.” 

“I want to talk to you,” Yoo Joonghyuk said, stepping closer. 

After a moment of deliberation, Kim Dokja nodded quietly. He began to walk and the taller man fell into step next to him. 

“Actually,” Kim Dokja started, not looking at him. “I have something to say first.” 

Yoo Joonghyuk gave a sound of acknowledgement, indicating for him to continue. 

The other sucked in his breath, as if steadying himself. “I found a new job.”

Yoo Joonghyuk stopped in place to stare at him. “What?” 

Kim Dokja paused as well, looking up at him with a tentative expression. “I apologize for the short notice, I know that’s unprofessional of me but–”

“Is this because of what I said the other day?” 

He bit his lip and shook his head, black strands falling across his face. “N-no of course not I just…” 

“What’s this new job?” Yoo Joonghyuk demanded. 

“I-it’s…” Kim Dokja stammered, looking away, seemingly unable to answer. “It’s just something else.” 

Yoo Joonghyuk exhaled sharply, ignoring the rising tension in his chest. “If you don’t feel the same way as me, I understand and I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”

“That’s not it exactly–”

“Then why ?” 

Kim Dokja shook his head without answer. 

Unable to help himself, Yoo Joonghyuk grabbed his wrist and held it up towards himself. And there it was again – the way Kim Dokja’s hand seemed to attempt to pull away yet his body was leaning in all the same as if there was some sort of invisible battle happening within, hidden from anybody else except the man himself. 

“I don’t understand you,” Yoo Joonghyuk said, hoarsely, honestly . 

The other man chewed on his lips even harder, refusing to meet his fierce gaze. Yoo Joonghyuk let go. 

“Can I just ask you something?” 

He nodded hesitantly. 

“Why did you look like that today? When Shin Yoosung asked you if she knew you?” 

Those starlit eyes widened, finally looking at him again. Something seemed to fall apart behind them, the death of a galaxy. His soft lips fell open, and a shaky breath drew. Then his eyelids squeezed shut, barring away that sudden vulnerable window.

“I can’t tell you,” his voice came out trembling, agonized. 

“Why?” Yoo Joonghyuk felt like a broken record at this point, asking the same question again and again. 

“Yoo Joonghyuk, there are things in this world that are better left unknown,” he whispered, eyes still shut. “People that are better left unknown.” 

Yoo Joonghyuk didn’t understand. He couldn’t comprehend a single word that was coming out of this damned bastard’s mouth, and yet it felt like Kim Dokja was finally speaking the truth for the first time since they’d met that one, unremarkable spring morning. 

“Don’t I get a choice in what I should or shouldn’t know?” he demanded angrily. 

A beat passed and Yoo Joonghyuk realized that they were both breathing hard. Chests rising and falling with violence. 

Kim Dokja finally blinked open again, the long lashes shaking as he returned his gaze. It felt as if he was peering into Yoo Joonghyuk’s very soul, and it struck him once again that sensation of eternity, of emptiness, of being adrift. 

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, and Yoo Joonghyuk didn’t know what he was apologizing for. “I’ve been selfish.” 

“What if,” Yoo Joonghyuk leaned down, closer, his voice rough. “What if I want you to be more selfish?” 

Kim Dokja’s gaze flickered across his face, dragging across his cheeks, down to his mouth, before coming back up to his eyes. He shook his head. “No, I’ve been selfish enough for two lifetimes.” 

He took a step back, the space between them deepening into an impassable gorge, a cold gust filling its place. 

“I have to go, Yoo Joonghyuk.”

And then it was his back once again, retreating from sight. That too, felt familiar.

Chapter Text

Three years ago, on the evening before the grand opening of Yoo Joonghyuk’s cafe, he’d been alone in the building putting the final touches to the restaurant. He’d just finished putting a last layer of paint over a spot that the renovators had missed when he heard the front doors chime open. 

“What are you doing here so late, bastard? I dropped by your apartment and you weren’t there.”

He straightened up at the familiar, biting voice and wiped his paint-flecked hands on a nearby rag. “What do you want, Han Sooyoung?” 

“Is that any way to greet your dear old friend?” The raven haired woman’s face pulled into a sardonic grin. She waved the two coffees she was carrying up in the air.

“Come on Supreme King, I brought an offering.” 

“Don’t call me that.” 

“Yeah, yeah.” 

The two sat on the front steps of the cafe to Han Sooyoung’s insistence, something about the paint fumes inside giving her a splitting headache. It was late spring and the languid nighttime breeze kissed their skin with the promise of summer warmth. The sky was clear, unveiling an unhindered, crystalline view of the countless pinpricks of light that washed the darkness. 

“Wow, you don’t get this kind of view in the city,” Han Sooyoung whistled, leaning back on her elbows to admire the night. 

“What are you doing here?” Yoo Joonghyuk asked while taking a slow sip of his coffee. It was black and bitter, as he liked it. “Aren’t you currently in the middle of the press tour for your newest book?”

“Exactly, I’m on my tour,” she smirked. “And lucky you, my latest stop took me to the area.” 

He gave a small snort to indicate his feelings for his supposed fortune. 

“Anyway, Sangah’s been bugging me to check up on you and Mia for a while too, so, you can thank her for that.” 

“We’re doing just fine.” 

“... Hyunsung and Heewon have asked after you as well.” 

He raised an eyebrow. “They’re back from overseas?” 

“Just for a while,” Han Sooyoung replied, still looking up into the distance. “Hyunsung will probably get deployed again soon.” 

Yoo Joonghyuk gave a hum of acknowledgement. A moment of silence passed, and he could feel her eyes dart to him. 

“Why don’t you come for a weekend? The kids will be glad to see each other,” she propped her chin on her hand.

“They visit enough,” he replied, taking a sip. “And I’m busy.” 

Han Sooyoung swept her gaze across the cafe’s storefront. “Right. Tomorrow’s the opening?”

He nodded. 

She bumped her shoulder against his in good nature. “Tell me why we all had to find that out through Jihye’s social media of all places!” She accused with an over dramatic point of her finger. 

They both knew Yoo Joonghyuk wasn’t the type to announce these things. Or announce anything really, like when he decided to move him and Mia out of Seoul. 

“You’re all busy too,” he said. “I didn’t see the need.” 

Han Sooyoung’s hand slowly fell away. She gave an exhale, something crossed between a laugh and a sigh. 

“Yeah, I guess we are.” 

As if they had all come to some sort of unspoken agreement, their lives had all rapidly ramped up as they threw themselves into the work of rebuilding this new world. As if they all felt the need to keep moving, faster and faster, for if they paused and looked back for too long some formless, gaping maw would catch up. 

Neither of them spoke for a while, and Yoo Joonghyuk finished the last of his coffee. The dredges were sharp and sour. 

“You feel it too, don’t you?” Han Sooyoung murmured later, her tone uncharacteristically soft and careful. Her eyes were once again pinned up at the stars. 

Yoo Joonghyuk didn’t reply, but followed her gaze. Above them, the endless tangle of constellations. The familiar sight that filled him with both seething hatred and resentment as bitter as the lingering taste of coffee on his tongue and, paradoxically, a ceaseless yearning that dug so deep, it felt engraved into his very bones. 

“Like something is irrevocably gone,” she breathed out the words like it was some costly, clandestine truth. Too fragile to be said above a whisper, too frail to take solid form. 

A yawning silence blew in, scattering it to the winds, and no more were exchanged. 

Yoo Joonghyuk sat there, underneath the cold, indifferent flickers of light. He sat until the air next to him cooled, and there was nothing left but empty, discarded takeaway cups. 

⧫⧫⧫

After sending the other two kids to Gilyoung’s aunt’s apartment where they were staying, Yoo Joonghyuk and Mia returned home.

His sister went to bed, and he found himself wandering into his closet for some reason. He crouched down into the floorboards and pulled out that box like he sometimes did. 

However, this time, he didn’t open it. He looked at it, somehow suddenly filled with a strange fear of what he would find, despite having gone through its contents countless times before. In these last months, something had shifted in him. 

Since meeting Kim Dokja, he realized. Since meeting that man with infinite, forlorn eyes, something had begun to scratch in the back of his mind, insistent and asking. If he peered hard enough, there seemed to be a speck of starlight beckoning him closer, but reach too desperately, and it winked out once more. 

His fingers brushed the edge of the lid, slow and tentative. 

“Oppa, what are you doing?” 

Yoo Joonghyuk turned to see Mia standing there, confused and pajamas rumpled from her bed. 

“Why aren’t you asleep?” he asked in lieu of an answer, rising back up. 

“I…” she started, her dark eyes clouded. “I couldn’t fall asleep.” 

His lips twitched upward and he raised a hand to ruffle her hair, like he used to when she was still waist-high and wide-eyed. In the early years after the apocalypse, the young girl often woke up in the middle of the night to nightmares, heart racing and pupils dilated with buried memories of monsters. In those times, he’d sit by her bedside, stroking her hair until she finally drifted back to sleep, her small fingers clutching his sleeves. 

Now, she stood chin-level to him, and he actually had to lift his arm to reach the crown of her head to smooth down the messy tufts of her hair. 

“Don’t tell me you need me to tuck you in like when you were little?” He raised an eyebrow. 

Mia pushed his hand off, but her lips cracked into a small smile. “Don’t be annoying, oppa.” She clicked her tongue with an eye roll. 

Yoo Joonghyuk froze suddenly at the sound of her habit, déjà vu cascading down his back in a river of ice and raising goosebumps as it went. No, it’s just a coincidence. 

Not noticing her older brother’s sudden tension, Mia’s eyes fell downward again. “I couldn’t sleep because, well, you just haven’t seemed like yourself all night.”

She shook her head, as if in an active argument with herself. “No, that’s not true. It seemed like you had gone back to your old self,” she amended. 

Trying to absorb her words but at the same time mind racing attempting to recall now when it was exactly his little sister had begun her teasing tic, he could only land on the thought that it was something she’d started one day in her early teen years and just never stopped. 

“I’m just worried,” she admitted quietly, her expression falling unhappy enough that it snapped Yoo Joonghyuk out of the barrage of impossible thoughts, his heart pulling. He frowned and inclined his head.

“About what?” 

Rather than answering, Mia’s eyes landed on the box behind him. “You still have all that stuff, huh?” She slipped past him and sat down next to it. Silently, he joined her. 

“Yeah.”

“Why do you still keep it?” 

Yoo Joonghyuk opened his mouth before closing it again. “I’m not sure.” 

A moment passed and Mia pressed closer to him, head coming down to rest on his shoulder. 

“These last couple months, I finally thought it was over,” she said quietly, not looking at him but rather the closed lid before her. 

“What do you mean?” 

“You’ve been happier, I could tell.” 

Yoo Joonghyuk’s hand twitched.

“You never said anything,” she shook her head, “but I can always tell. Something was different.” 

“I thought maybe it was finally over,” she repeated, lifting her head a little now so that her gaze could meet his. “That you were finally ready to move on from everything you went through, everything you remember and don’t remember.” 

Her hand slid across the the box. 

“I don’t know what you mean,” he replied, but even to his own ears, it sounded weak. Mia’s eyebrows furrowed in frustration – so similar to his own. 

“Oppa, you don’t get to play dumb, not with me,” she snapped, straightening up. “You think I don’t see how you’ve worked yourself to the bone these last five years? The mornings you woke up with circles beneath your eyes because you haven’t slept a wink? The way you’ve avoided Sooyoung unnie or Sangah unnie, or anyone else? The way you sometimes look at people, even me, like you’re looking right through them, like you’re not actually here–” 

Her voice broke a little on the last word and she sucked in a deep breath. Quiet settled between them for a second.

“Like you’re still out there, fighting monsters, crossing realms, or… drifting alone in space somewhere, a million light years away."

“I hoped that over time you would be okay,” she finally said, casting her head down into her hands now. “Because I didn’t know what else to do. But nothing changed and eventually I thought, maybe this is just what oppa will be like for the rest of our lives.” 

She let out a bitter laugh. “This is just what my older brother gets for daring to go against the gods and saving the world from ruin.”

Yoo Joonghyuk felt as if he could barely breathe, his chest so tight and full with what seemed to be a thousand shards of broken glass. He carefully reached over and pulled her hands from her face so that she would look at him. Her cheeks were reddened with emotion, eyes brimming with wetness. 

“Mia…” 

“But then– then these last few months, everytime we called, you just looked so much brighter, you sounded like… like there was something worth looking forward to everyday.” Her expression turned wistfully earnest. “I thought that finally you’d found something to keep you here , and not back there.” 

“That’s all I’ve ever wanted for you, oppa.” Mia’s eyes misted. 

“I–” Yoo Joonghyuk choked, resisting the urge to shut his eyes and turn away. “I do have a reason to be here, Mia. I have you, don’t I?” 

She gave him a watery smile, half with tender affection and half full of sisterly exasperation for saying such an embarrassingly loving statement. A sharp poke came to his ribs and she rubbed her eyes dry. 

“Of course you have me oppa, but,” she exhaled a soft laugh. “I know it’s not enough  sometimes. And that’s okay.” 

Yoo Joonghyuk made to protest but she shook her head and continued. “And I mean I can’t be here all the time anymore right? So I can’t help but worry.” 

A burning sensation prickled at his eyes. “I’m sorry for making you worry.”

“That’s not my point and you know that,” she said, shooting him a sharp glare. “I just want you to be selfish for once, and let yourself be happy finally.”

He couldn’t help but let out a short laugh at the irony of being slapped with the same words he’d said to Kim Dokja. 

“I don’t think it’s always so simple,” he replied with a resigned smile. 

“It’s that barista ahjussi, isn’t it.” Mia scrutinized him. “You’ve been all happy lately because of him, but now something went wrong.” 

Yoo Joonghyuk narrowed his eyes at his prying sister. “Did Han Sooyoung teach you to be this nosy?” 

“No,” she rolled her eyes. “As if I need anything but my own eyes to see how you were looking at him today.” 

He turned away, but couldn't help the corners of his mouth turning up with amusement at her nosiness. She really had grown up to be now confronting him about this sort of thing. 

“So what?” She crossed her arms. “Did he reject you or something?” 

“It’s complicated.” 

“He’s stupid then, if he did.” 

Yoo Joonghyuk just shook his head. He was still trying to wrap his head around what had happened himself. There was obviously something Kim Dokja was refusing to tell him. Perhaps it was that the younger man simply didn’t return his feelings but Yoo Joonghyuk felt that there was some integral piece of information that he was missing. 

“It’s just not that simple,” he repeated with a shrug.  

“Forget him then, it’s not like he’s good looking enough for you anyway,” she muttered before straightening up again. 

“I just…” she sighed. “I just really don’t want to see you go through another five years like that. Especially now that I’m not living at home anymore.” 

Yoo Joonghyuk let out a breath, honesty gripping up his throat. “I’m not sure I know how to live differently.” 

“Maybe you could start with getting rid of this stuff,” she suggested tentatively, hand on the box. “After all you’re not the Supreme King anymore, right? You’re just Yoo Joonghyuk, my big brother, an internet cafe owner, and the best chef I know.” 

He cracked a smile. Just Yoo Joonghyuk. 

What a novel idea. He’d long cast away that moniker given by incarnations and constellations, perhaps it was also time to let go of the items that tied him to it. 

He gave a small nod. “I’ll think about it. Thank you Mia.” 

Her face slowly brightened into a wider smile and bumped his shoulder playfully. “I’m old enough to tell you off now, don’t forget.” 

“As if you haven’t reminded me since the moment you learned how to talk back,” he raised an eyebrow. 

Mia let out a real laugh now, genuine. “I take after you, you know that right oppa?” 

To that, he could only chuckle and agree. 

After Mia returned to bed, he faced the box of old belongings once again. Juvenile love advice aside, his sister had a point. There really was no use in continuing to keep what had essentially turned into a glorified trove of junk.

Perhaps it really was keeping him tied to that nebulous past, the one he barely remembered but its weight ever present, veiled in his consciousness, entangled in his dreams. 

He made a fast decision. Bending down, he lifted the box up easily and made his way outside his building, carrying it to where the garbage bins were lined up. 

He took off the lid and set it to the side, sifting through the contents with the intention to organize them into the various waste bins. Was a sword recyclable? Yoo Joonghyuk frowned. Perhaps he should wait until tomorrow to take it to a proper depot instead. 

Pushing items aside, a familiar silver glint caught his eye. He lifted the pocket watch out, its weight warming as usual despite the cool touch. Bringing it closer to his eyes, he admired the delicate handiwork. 

It truly was a beautiful piece, and it was the one thing he felt hesitant to part with, some lingering hold over him even if it no longer worked. Perhaps he could bring it to a watchmaker to have it fixed. The idea of this ever silent timepiece ticking once again with the flow of seconds and minutes made something in his chest flicker. 

The quiet knocking at the back of his mind had resumed. 

He pressed down on the small clasp on the side, the metal hinges of the cover springing open with a smooth movement to reveal the ornate clock face. 

All at once, it was as if a strong gust of wind blew past Yoo Joonghyuk, nearly pushing him off his feet. A hurricane of images and sounds crashed into his mind, overwhelming his senses, a reel of a thousand moments fluttering past his eyes. He clutched at his chest, a forceful injection of what seemed to be every emotion a human body could be capable of racing into his veins, flooding his nerves, crackling through muscle – grief, disappointment, fury, wonder, determination, happiness, anguish, longing.

A longing so deep, it pursued him through 1864 lifetimes and boundless worlds. 

Faintly, a tear traced a wet path down his cheek. All of a sudden, he was no longer standing in the back of his apartment building, under flickering dim street lights. 

He was standing under a blazing night sky, before a man in a white coat. Sitting with him and their companions laughing by a fire. Holding his hand high up in front of a crowd of gods. Grasping him by the neck to throw him into the depths of a maw. Fighting alongside him through countless battles. Waiting for him. Searching for him. Watching him die and disappear, again and again. 

The man wore a fast smile full of secrets. Grey eyes that reminded him of stars. A back that seemed always out of reach, always falling out of sight. 

The man was Kim Dokja. His life and death companion.

Chapter Text

On the day Yoo Joonghyuk returned to earth, his earth, he’d woken up gasping in a blindingly white hospital room, sheets drenched with sweat, mind an incoherent tangle. The first thing he registered was how frighteningly bright it was, with the lights on and sun streaming in from the window – too bright after so long in the dark. The second thing he registered was a frantic beeping, so loud, so high pitched, it felt as if his skull might split open, and then he realized it was his own heart monitor. 

A jumble of figures dashed into the room, expressions with varying degrees of relief and worry, the foremost of them dressed in a long white coat and a stethoscope around her neck beneath snowy hair. She approached with an air of calm while the others held back, breaths held.

“Yoo Joonghyuk, how are you feeling?” she asked, soft and careful. 

Lee Seolhwa. He plucked the name out of some long-unused, unknown corner of his mind. He knew her. His eyes carefully scanned across all of their faces. He knew them all.

He opened his mouth to answer the question. Or to call out their names. Or to ask the young girl with thick, wavy locks identical to his own to come closer, to not look so stricken. 

His hands fisted by his side on reflex, and he felt something round and solid press from his coat pocket. He reached in and closed his fingers around cool, silent metal. 

He opened his mouth but what came out was something he didn't understand, with a body tremoring with emotion he couldn't recognize.

“I couldn’t find him.” 

⧫⧫⧫

It was midnight, and it was raining again. 

Kim Dokja stepped out of his apartment building, shivering faintly from the evening chill. He pulled the sweater he wore tighter around him.

“Yoo Joonghyuk?” 

The taller man straightened from where he was leaning against a pillar, looking out from under the shelter into the endless downpour. His hair and clothes were damp as he’d rushed over from his home, not bothering to take an umbrella with him. 

“Kim Dokja,” he turned, a note of relief in his voice. He had been worried that the other might not have seen his message. Or worse, would decide to ignore it. 

However all those thoughts flew from his mind the moment his eyes landed on his companion’s face. Pale, worried, and tinged with that ever-present exhaustion of emptiness that had always felt so familiar to Yoo Joonghyuk for some reason. 

Now he knew why. His entire body quaked. 

He’d thought that it would be impossible for anyone else in this world to ever understand what it had been like, drifting without aim, without end. To be cursed with eternity, to be trapped in time, by time, without time, all at once.  

But of course, there was one other person who would know what that was like. It was just that he hadn’t been in this world, until now. And Yoo Joonghyuk had forgotten him, until now. 

“Did something happen? Why did you call me out at this hour?” Kim Dokja stepped closer with reluctance.

Yoo Joonghyuk closed the distance between them in two strides, reaching out without thinking to his face. But he stopped himself just short. 

What if this person before him was just a wishful illusion? A conjuring of his mind that was finally crumbling after the eons yearning, after the years of his body aching even when his memories had abandoned him.

But no – he wasn’t touching him but he was close enough, just inches away from skin, to feel the slight warmth emanating from the other. Could see the misted puff of breath, just briefly condensing the moment it left his lips before dissipating into the cooled, damp air. 

He was real. This was real. 

His chest burned. The air in his lungs was on fire. His eyes felt like they could incinerate into smoke. 

Kim Dokja gazed up at him with concern. “Yoo Joonghyuk, what is it?” 

Yoo Joonghyuk swallowed. It felt like a hot coal going down his throat. 

“Kim Dokja,” he finally croaked. “I–”

The words lodged themselves at the base of his tongue, and he felt his entire body shudder. 

“What’s wrong?” the other asked again, now looking truly alarmed at the clear turmoil wrought across his every movement. 

Yoo Joonghyuk let out a shaky breath, and tried again. “I remember.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“I remember you.” 

He could see the exact moment the words registered with Kim Dokja. His grey eyes flared just imperceptibly, shock and panic fighting for dominance in them. He bit down on his lip, hard.

“What… do you mean by that?” he managed out, a barely controlled quiver threading through the question. 

Yoo Joonghyuk took a heavy step forward. “I remember you, Kim Dokja. I remember everything.” There could be no mistaking what he meant. 

Kim Dokja took a faltering, fearful, step back, shaking his head, panic winning out in those stormy irises. “No.” 

Yoo Joonghyuk followed him with another step of his own, strangely feeling a calm settle over him in the face of the other man’s agitation. “We were companions.” 

A despairing tear escaped down Kim Dokja’s cheek and he inched back once again. “ No. Stop, you’re not supposed to–”

“We cleared the scenarios together. All of us. We created our own nebula and you became a constellation. We fought gods and reached the Final Wall. We went beyond it and reached the epilogue.” 

With every word, Kim Dokja looked as if a piece of himself was crumbling away, or perhaps, being ripped away, nerve endings snapping without mercy. 

“You sacrificed yourself. Again and again, without telling us a thing,” Yoo Joonghyuk’s voice dropped to a harsh, nearly angry, whisper. And he was, he was angry, he realized. At Kim Dokja, maybe. At himself, yes. At the story that had not given him the ending he wanted, that had taken away his memories on top of it, most of all. 

The younger man took a deep, shuddering breath and shook his head again as if with enough denial his words would be swallowed back up, as if Yoo Joonghyuk himself would disappear into the night like some terrible dream. 

“This is my fault. I– I should’ve stayed away. I knew I– You’re not supposed to remember. None of this was supposed to happen. I’m so– ” Kim Dokja’s words came out rambling, fractured, distressed, like a torrent of white rapids, choking him. 

This time, Yoo Joonghyuk couldn’t hold himself back from touching him – he grabbed Kim Dokja by the arm, fingers pressing hard enough to leave harsh, reddened marks. “Why not?!” he asked, ferocity and pain twisting his voice into something foreign. 

Another tear trailed down that pale, luminous skin. He could only shake his head again, unable to produce a response. 

“We looked for you.” Yoo Joonghyuk could feel wetness forming in the corners of his own eyes now, voice breaking. “ I looked for you. I looked for you in every universe.” 

A sob tore from Kim Dokja’s chest.

“I should’ve stayed away,” Kim Dokja gasped again. “I’ve ruined everything.” 

“How can you say that?” Yoo Joonghyuk demanded furiously, nearly shaking with outrage, desperation, and a despair so deep it felt etched in. “Do you know what it’s been like, to live with this gaping hole and to not have a single clue as to what was once there? To live with the knowledge that it will always be there, no matter what I do, no matter how much time passes, until the day I die?”

“You were all given a chance to forget and move on, to live and find happiness,” Kim Dokja cried. “ Real happiness, not the fleeting, temporary kind that we grasped at during the scenarios, between nightmare after nightmare. And now I’ve dragged you back, all because I selfishly couldn’t stay away.” 

“How could you think we could truly be happy in a world without you?” It was Yoo Joonghyuk’s turn to shake his head. “How could you think we could ever reach a happy ending if it didn’t include you in it as well?” 

Tears were now flowing freely down Kim Dokja’s face and Yoo Joonghyuk allowed himself to bring his hand up to wipe the salty tracks from his cheeks. Real. Real, real, real. 

“B-but you are, aren’t you?” he protested, voice coming out in weak hiccups but at least he wasn’t pushing him away. “You’ve been doing so well. And Mia and the kids too. And everyone else, you’re all–”

“Do you remember this?” Yoo Joonghyuk interrupted him by pulling out the pocket watch from his jeans. The metal glistened in the low street lighting. A noise came from the back of Kim Dokja’s throat as his eyes widened in recognition of the timepiece. 

“I didn’t know where it came from or why I had it.” He softened his voice now, watching the other’s face with a careful, vivid gaze. “And I didn’t understand what it meant to me, but what I did know was that sometimes it felt like the only object that could remind me I was really here, that the sun was going to rise and the world was really turning. That I wasn’t still drowning alone in some empty, timeless place.” 

“Yoo Joonghyuk–”

“I remember now,” Yoo Joonghyuk pressed closer. “You gave it to me to remind me that even for a regressor who has lived a thousand, seemingly meaningless lives, time still flows. That every world, every story, should not be so easily abandoned.”

“You reminded me that this life, the one and only that we can live right now, was precious,” he continued. “And yet, being the hypocritical rat that you are, you threw away your own. Did you really think I would be able to let that go?”

A moment of tense silence fell, their eyes locked resolutely on each other. Five heartbeats passed.

Then suddenly, a sharp, slightly hysterical laugh escaped from Kim Dokja’s chest as his eyelids fluttered shut in almost a defeated manner. “You’ve always been a stubborn bastard.” 

The faintest ghost of a smile appeared on Yoo Joonghyuk’s lips at the familiar insult, devoid of any real thorn. “And you’ve always been a fool.” 

A fragile, quiet atmosphere settled between them, neither quite at ease yet but something had blessedly shifted. Yoo Joonghyuk contented himself with slowly brushing away the other’s tears, revelling at the warmth beneath his fingers. Eventually, Kim Dokja let his head fall against his chest with a soft sigh, burying his face into the folds of his shirt. Yoo Joonghyuk’s hand trailed up to tangle into his hair, silken and just barely tickling his chin. Real. 

“I’m sorry,” Kim Dokja finally broke the silence, his voice slightly muffled by the clothing. 

Yoo Joonghyuk gritted his teeth, a flash of irritation crossing across his face. “Unless you’re apologizing for not telling me who you were the moment we met, I don’t want to hear it.” 

The shorter man lifted his head to meet his gaze, the corners of his eyes still reddened with emotion. “I’m sorry you had to be all alone out there.”

At this, Yoo Joonghyuk’s expression melted once more, mind flickering to that dark endlessness and for the first time, feeling like he could breathe. 

“I’m sorry you had to as well,” he murmured. They held each other’s eyes, relishing in a kind of shared grief, a sort of aching understanding that paradoxically brought a comforting warmth. Yoo Joonghyuk felt as if he himself had somehow turned partway a star, chest glowing, a thousand universes worth of weight releasing from his shoulders that he hadn’t even realized he’d been bearing. 

“But,” and with this he leaned just a millimeter closer, close enough that their breaths melded in the small space between them, “I’d do it again, if it meant it would bring you back.” 

He pressed his hand a little more insistently against the fair, soft skin of his cheeks. “Back to me.”

Scarlet bloomed across Kim Dokja’s face as he gave a shaky inhale that sounded halfway between a nervous laugh and a fearful gasp. “You remember everything now, and you’re still saying that embarrassing stuff?” 

“What’s so embarrassing about it?” 

“I– well–” Kim Dokja waffled, one hand coming up to wave frantically in the air as he grasped for words, but the other curiously still stubbornly twisted into Yoo Joonghyuk’s black t-shirt. “I honestly thought you’d gotten– confused, or something, about– you know.”

“Confused?” Yoo Joonghyuk tilted his head in such a way so that Kim Dokja couldn’t look away.

The younger man made a strangled, helpless noise, running his free hand through his hair. “Yeah, with your feelings… for me,” he mumbled out the last two words as if it were some unspeakable, mortifying detail, but underneath it all lay what sounded like bitter disbelief. 

“I thought that me suddenly coming back was, like, confusing your memory or emotions or… something,” he admitted, eyes looking forlorn and guilty in a way that Yoo Joonghyuk despised. “Because I know you didn’t– never have– wouldn’t feel that way. So that’s why I… well, it would’ve been wrong to mislead you.” 

Yoo Joonghyuk studied him for a moment, watching as he chewed his bottom lip nervously. And it was only until he felt Kim Dokja’s grip on his shirt loosen just a trace, as if the other man was trying to find the will to extract himself away, that he moved, hand coming up lightning fast to hold his right where it was. 

“I was confused,” he agreed quietly. Kim Dokja’s eyes widened just slightly, long lashes trembling, a flash of hurting acquiescence.

Yoo Joonghyuk pushed forward, before anything close to the inevitable shallow, cheerful mask could click into place. He held fast onto his hand. 

“I was confused because I didn’t know you, didn’t recognize you and yet I felt like I needed to. I couldn’t look away from you, I couldn’t stay away from you, and more than anything, I couldn’t even stand the possibility of you being gone somehow. It wasn’t rational, but I felt it.” 

Kim Dokja was staring at him now, mouth agape, shock and wonder bare across his expression. A smile played on Yoo Joonghyuk’s lips. 

“So maybe I did know you a little. At least, my heart did. It knew what it's always known.”

Kim Dokja drew in another wobbly breath, still anxious, still afraid, but also anticipatory with what felt like hope. “And what’s that?” 

He dipped in enough so that all they could see now was each other. All he could see was a shining grey.

“That you’re a slippery, no-good, self-sacrificing fool that I would chase to the ends of the universe,” Yoo Joonghyuk let himself break into a full smile, reverent and breathless and bursting with a kind of light he didn’t know he could possess anymore. 

And he closed the last, small distance between their faces, gently pulling in Kim Dokja by his jaw, other arm snaking around his waist to hold him closer. Close enough to bridge the eternity that had separated them. Lips painting the constellations that had pulled them apart. Hands carving the, whether it was determination of will or draw of fate, Yoo Joonghyuk didn’t care, that had brought them back to each other’s side. 

And Kim Dokja, after a millisecond of awed surprise, surged against him with equal fervour, hands trembling with emotion but finding themselves knotted into Yoo Joonghyuk’s hair nonetheless, breaths coming out heated and uneven when they finally retreated just an inch to lean their foreheads against one another. 

“You’re an idiot,” he croaked out, laughing a little but also crying a little, tears slipping out of the corners of his eyes like tiny diamonds. 

Yoo Joonghyuk leaned in again to press a light, chaste kiss against what he imagined heaven to taste like. “I know. I love you after all.” 

Kim Dokja made a choking noise and fell into the crook of his neck, his arms coming up to hold him tightly. 

“You’re so–” but he cut himself off, and Yoo Joonghyuk could feel the imprint of the smile that stretched across his mouth, a scorching, glorious brand on his skin. 

In the end, it was you who found me.

The rain continued to fall around them, but the previous torrent had slowed down to a quiet drizzle, the pattering of drops drumming a midnight song for the earth. Rhythmic with each beat, calming with each lull. Somewhere in the distance, cicadas were shaking off the dew and waking up to sing for the blanket of night above them. Underneath the safety of an awning, lit just barely by buzzing lamplight, two companions who’d gone through life, death, and everything in between, embraced in a world of their own made up of each other’s starlight. 

Yoo Joonghyuk didn’t know how much time had passed when Kim Dokja finally lifted his head to look up at him. His hair swept back, drawing glow into his clear, effervescent eyes. Not of smoke, not of ash, but of a sailing cloud backlit at sunset, soft dove weaving the delicate lines of the iris and gleaming golden at the very edges. 

“What now?” Kim Dokja asked. 

Yoo Joonghyuk closed his eyes and let that vision of gold chase away the darkness. 

“Now, we rest. Then tomorrow, we’ll go see our family.” 

⧫⧫⧫

Somewhere, deep inside a pocket, too quiet to hear above the lullaby of rainfall and mingled breaths, the hands of a watch began to tick again.