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It begins with tears and heartsickness. Spring bleeds into summer through the crevices between outstretched fingers, decaying petals and cool winds swiftly tempering into overbearing heat against gentle hands. The sky is dark, a heavy looming sanguine draped over the horizon. The sun is dim, swallowed by night’s greed. His ears tingle with a quiet hum.
“Breathe,” a voice whispers to him. He breathes, eyes wide as he stares at the ceiling, unfeeling as the quiet buzz that lingered in his ears crescendo, deafening him and stifling him in its presence. He ignores the cool, still hand hung over the railing of the bed. The light bands of the vestiges of the sun stretch over his face. The breeze is warm. The world is quiet. The tears dry. He parts his lips to exhale. He closes his eyes. A breath. A taste.
Bitter, he thinks.
act i.
"In the end we discover that to love and let go can be the same thing."
- Jack Kornfield
When Yoo Joonghyuk is sixteen, he wins a war. His name is on everyone’s lips. They gossip about his valor, his strength, and his controversial personality. Kim Dokja understands though. Despite the less than stellar first meeting with him, Kim Dokja tentatively admires him. It’s kind of hard not to. Anyone can dislike his arrogance and his demeaning outlook on regular people but Kim Dokja would be hard pressed to find anyone who didn’t have at least a small amount of respect for him.
Yoo Joonghyuk is brilliant; This is a fact that's seeped into the bones of our people like how we know the sun rises and it will fall and when it does, the moon shall rise and descend just as today ends and tomorrow must and will come. Yoo Joonghyuk is the sun, so unreachable but so beautiful, a glorious sight in our mortal existence. But his beauty is like the moon, silver and quiet. The glory of the moon is ensnared in his dark tresses, glittering and untouchable. His eyes are kaleidoscopic, all different shades of black and gold that have ever existed--existing shades and undiscovered hues of it--in his irises like fragmented mirrors containing each different shade of its cousins. His skin is smooth porcelain, soft as the feathers of the gods' messengers, and glows under the light of the moon, glimmering under the affections of the sun. His smile (that light curve of his, that is as rare as a glimpse of diamond) is just a tad too brilliant, easily making many swoon just by a glance of it. His intelligence and his valor are widely known, his strength is unmatched, and his ingenuity impossible to miss.
Yoo Joonghyuk is many things to the people but he has only been one thing to Kim Dokja.
His eyes are kaleidoscopes, fragments of different visions reflected in them, omniscient in their entirety--God's eyes. For all the power and knowledge his sponsor grants him, it cannot comprehend the adoration and affection Kim Dokja hold towards him, that he, indeed, has someone to love not just the Golden Prince, Yoo Joonghyuk, but also the mortal half, Joonghyuk. Or perhaps, Joonghyuk understands too well.
Yoo Joonghyuk is the type of lover who could be in a room filled with the world’s treasures and see Kim Dokja and still think he's the gods’ divine gift, incomparable to all other existences that have ever stepped foot on this Earth, and the most beloved of all the beings and gems that have been graced by Yoo Joonghyuk's attention.
"Kim Dokja," he calls, smooth and deep as if rumbling forward from the depths of Yoo Joonghyuk's throat. Kim Dokja turns towards him and smiles.
"Joonghyuk-ah what are you doing here? I thought there was supposed to be at a war council?" He asks, humor painting his tone, the corners of his eyes crinkling. Yoo Joonghyuk feels his heart beat a little faster, and feels himself softening like snow at the beginning of spring.
"Mhm," he answers back, trailing over to Kim Dokja, hands already coming up to wrap themselves around Kim Dokja's waist. Kim Dokja laughs, a golden thing, expanding beyond the streets of Greece markets, becoming one with everything near; every shop, every silver and golden light tumbling between the crevices of the towers and terraces, every stone used for the structure of Greece became the laugh of his most beloved, overwhelming Yoo Joonghyuk until it devastated the pumping organs of his body, to the bones of his body birthed from the love of the divine, and felt himself shower under love.
"Yoo Joonghyuk!" Kim Dokja admonishes, laughter still lingering in his words, in the bright smile that could shimmer under sunlight. Yoo Joonghyuk bends and wraps his arms around Kim Dokja's legs and raises him up, planting his chin on Kim Dokja's chest, laughter spilling out of his lips, eyes squinting as he stared up at Kim Dokja, who only smiled wider as he bent down to touch his forehead with Yoo Joonghyuk, hands cradling his cheek. They stand there, in love more than words can describe.
"You don't want me anymore?" Yoo Joonghyuk teases, knowing and so very knowing of the love that encompasses them.
"You are Greece's best beloved lord, how could I not?" Kim Dokja asks, eyes crinkling in the corners, fondness dripping from his tone. Yoo Joonghyuk looks up at him through his long and dark lashes, his cheek burrowing further into Kim Dokja's touch, looking as if Kim Dokja had hung the moon and stars they fall underneath of. It's both flattering and fearsome, Kim Dokja of all people had the most beloved lord's grace. He fears losing this, the soft touches of their hands on one another, the soft rumbling of their quiet rendezvous outside, the fluttering kisses they greet each other with, and just--being in love. But it is time to get ready, a banquet was in preparation and Yoo Joonghyuk was expected, and with him, Kim Dokja. Kim Dokja pats Yoo Joonghyuk's arm to let him down. Yoo Joonghyuk lets him down slowly, kissing Kim Dokja once they were eye-level. It was slow, their lips meeting and pressed upon one another like a tattoo, soft as they slowly part and meet again, reluctant to part. Their eyes had fluttered shut to immerse themselves one another and just be in love.
"To the meadow tonight?" Yoo Joonghyuk asks, already knowing his answer. There is a meadow that only they know, where a great oak tree towered over them and its boughs offered as a gift, blessed with the last vestiges of sunlight caught on its leaves and ladened with each tear from moonlight, and beneath it, they would lay, intertwined with one another as the stars as their witness. It is a place of mercy, it is the beginning of their loves story where they only go on certain days, and to ask to come tonight?
Kim Dokja loves him just a little bit more for it.
Like all good things, it must end. The oracle had visited the camp, a prophecy lingering on their lips and driving chills down to the marrow of Yoo Joonghyuk. Kim Dokja's death was foretold, freezing Yoo Joonghyuk to the spot as if he was the great oak tree of their beloved meadow, frozen in time, unmoved unlike others in the face of winter. A war is waged in the meantime, a prophecy that dogs Yoo Joonghyuk rather than Kim Dokja. Yoo Joonghyuk who has been best beloved of the Gods, and who he has hated since he stepped onto the battlefield at fourteen with madness in his eyes and death on his hands--He only hates the gods more. But just as Yoo Joonghyuk has his pride, he would give it away just for Kim Dokja and so when he brings up going to the temples to beg for mercy, Kim Dokja disagrees.
"Gods do not become kind overnight Joonghyuk-ah," Kim Dokja murmurs, his hands cradling Joonghyuk's soft cheeks. Joonghyuk nuzzles Dokja's hand in response, his eyes still closed, but even without his gaze on him, Dokja can still feel his attention.
Kim Dokja smiles.
"Go," he says, tilting his chin up to gesture Joonghyuk to turn his attention towards the exit of the tent where rays of faltering sunlight shyly peek through.
"Go." Kim Doja repeats. Yoo Joonghyuk turns to look at him one last time before he bid his farewell and to memorize him dressed in his white robes, his lengthy hair that fluttered and tickled Joonghyuk whenever they were close enough that their lips were mere inches away from one another, his flushed lips who received the most of Joonghyuk's overwhelming adoration, and his eyes that ensnared the fluorescence of moonlight and its stars within them. He's tall, slightly above average stature. His love, Joonghyuk thinks.
With one last kiss, he goes, and a part of Kim Dokja goes with him.
(Kim Dokja didn’t know that it would be the only part of himself that would survive. The only part that would live after his passing in the bloodiest battle, his body thrown into fire and nothing left but the bones he lived and died with. The only thing Yoo Joonghyuk would be left with was the agony of a lost love and a fury that emblazoned within him, untethered and unchecked.)
act ii.
"When I go, don’t learn to live without me, just learn to live with my love,
in a different way. And if you need to see me, close your eyes, or look in your shadow, when the sun shines, I’m there. Sit with me in the quiet and you will know, that I did not leave. There is no leaving when a soul is blended with another. When I go, don’t learn to live without me, just learn to look for me in the moments. I will be there."
- Donna Ashworth, From ‘LOSS’
Sometimes Kim Dokja sees Yoo Joonghyuk’s dreams--this specific dream is particularly vivid. Seeing his dreams is as rare as the moments he was vulnerable, rarer now as Kim Dokja has passed. As all of the dreams Kim Dokja visits, he’s a mere spectator, a miserable speck of life in an otherwise larger than life world. Kim Dokja comes to Yoo Joonghyuk’s dream in a breath, like a particular breeze sweeping in with tidings before bidding farewell after a time.
Yoo Joonghyuk’s dream is set in a meadow, their meadow, the meadow where flowers bloomed beneath their mortal hands and love filtered in like sunlight through a clear window--the place of safety and vulnerability. The oak tree still grows wide over what seems to be the shape of Dokja and Joonghyuk. It's a bit strange, in his opinion, to look at both of them settling under the kindly bowers of an old tree, protecting them from reality and cradling them in a twisted embrace.
Kim Dokja approaches the spot with small, steady steps, not even bending the grass under his feet as a mere ghost, an invader in this dream of his. Kim Dokja stops a mere few feet from where their (our) bodies lay with one another, Yoo Joonghyuk’s dream version of Dokja resting his head on Joonghyuk’s chest with eyes closed and a ghost of a smile on his face. Kim Dokja feels his breath halt in his throat when his eyes are laid upon him.
The thing with loving Yoo Joonghyuk is the burden of loving a god, of loving someone with an existence larger than destiny--larger than life. Whenever others would whisper to Kim Dokja of how lucky he was, of how well beloved he was by this mortal god, he had always known. Knowing is one thing, but perhaps seeing it in another perspective is another.
Kim Dokja sees it now: the adoration that twinkles in each glimmer of his stygian eyes, the softness in his normally arrogant appearance bellies how deep his affection ran, the smile that never fades from his countenance as Kim Dokjai remained in the apple of his eyes, and the gentleness of his touch–skimming Dokja’s skin as if he was god’s gift that could break by just a brush of a wind.
Despite seeing it so, Kim Dokja knows he loves him more than Joonghyuk could ever love him. How could it be so? He wasn’t the ghost that lingers beyond the mortal veil and the promising grasp of paradise that death invites all who can do so. In the gods’ eyes, Kim Dokja oversteps his boundaries, and normally he would fear the divine retribution such actions bring but just a glance of Joonghyuk’s love has him wisping such mortal fears away.
Joonghyuk is as beautiful as the day Kim Dokja met him; He can tell even from this distance. Kim Dokja is entwined with his existence but not his destiny. Kim Dokja could recognize him from his scent alone, by sound, by touch; He would know him blind, by the way he exists, loud and breathtaking, the way his laugh would echo as he would throw his head back and cheer--his joy so obvious Kim Dokja can see it in the lines of his shoulders, his smile, his eyes. Kim Dokja would know him in death as he knew him in life, at the end of the world.
But Kim Dokja’s at the boundary of the edge of the world, unable to touch, to love, to exist.
He exists just far enough from his ghostly hands.
Joonghyuk lays in the shadows of the tree, the wind gently rustling his as black as pitch plumage, fluttering in the wind like stray feather downs of a pristine and pure bird. His eyes are closed, veiling his black and gold with the dark curtain of his lashes. His face is relaxed, soft even, with a kind gentle smile painted on his features as if he was dreaming of tender moments within his own dream Dokja is residing in.
The guilty part of Kim Dokja hopes he's dreaming of him. Kim Dokja is very selfish. He continues to seek Joonghyuk’s love despite being beyond the grave, and having crossed the river of life. Kim Dokja still wants him. He want his touch, his warmth that pervades Kim Dokja just by existing. Kim Dokja wants to smell the scent of the earth, the fragrance of sandalwood from him, to take a deep breath as he hugs him and feel at home. Kim Dokja misses the way Joonghyuk would look at him as if the world was going to crumble and he wouldn't blink just to be comforted with the way it would be Kim Dokja (always always him) that he would see last in his memories. Kim Dokja misses the madness in his eyes, just a little wild as if he were the forces of nature embodied in the fragile body of a mortal human and Kim Dokja just loved him a little bit more for it.
Kim Dokja misses loving him.
"I miss loving you," he whispered, fully aware that Yoo Joonghyuk could never hear him, never again.
With great effort, Kim Dokja strains himself to look beyond him and look at the figure who lays beside him--Dokja. Kim Dokja breath hitches. Kim Dokja always thought that the memory of himself that would always stay best in Yoo Joonghyuk’s memories is his banquet fittings, dressed to the nines and acting as elegant as Kim Dokja could manage with his very little knowledge in noble practices. Instead of his banquet fittings, the figure of himself that lays on the grass is the one in a healer's uniform. The uniform is dirtied and his hands are calloused, a sign of imperfection.
Kim Dokja feels a sob crawl its way up his throat. To think that the most beloved image of himself was when he was at his dirtiest, knee deep in caring for patients. Kim Dokja misses him just a little more and he loves him a lot more for it. There's something about knowing that for all his perfection, he did not find Kim Dokja the most memorable when he was dressed the best way he could possibly afford but when he was at his most honest.
"I love you so so much," Kim Dokja cries out, just a little heartsick, a little heartbroken, and entirely still in love.
"I would die for you," he hears himself speak, voice echoing in this otherwise empty dreamscape. Wind rushes by, rustling the leaves of the trees and the flowers by his feet.
As if he heard him, Joonghyuk wakes in a rush, eyes so wide that it encompasses Kim Dokja. Yoo Joonghyuk turns his head in search of Kim Dokja, and meets his eyes. No, he must be the one dreaming. In all this time Kim Dokja spent like this–untouchable, ghostly, a mutation of the norms– Yoo Joonghyuk has never seen him nor heard him.
Kim Dokja watches, enraptured, as Yoo Joonghyuk pauses, looking directly at Kim Dokja’s figure as if he could see him. So entranced two were with each other, Kim Dokja didn’t realize that the dream mirage Yoo Joonghyuk created in this dream faded in a slew of leaves as the wind blew it away.
Joonghyuk stiffens, and his smile--his wonderfully divine smile that he blessed Dokja everyday with when he lived and when he still exists, even if the rare--strains on his face like he was wearing his skin too tight, unfit for him. He stands up and walks towards Kim Dokja slowly, as if he was afraid of scaring him away, until he was toe to toe with him.
They both stand there for a few moments, breathing each other in, disbelief coloring both of them. Joonghyuk breathes out a heavy exhale as if this moment alone brings him relief from all tragedies that have dogged his steps. His large calloused hands came up to Kim Dokja’s face slowly, kind and delicate upon his cheek, tracing it with a love so deep, so heartfelt; Kim Dokja could feel it in his bones, here, so far from him, from another plane of existence. Joonghyuk’s eyelashes flutter, stygian black lashes catching sunlight. Even in his solemnity, he's the Gods' perfection.
If Kim Dokja had not been paying much attention to him, he would not have heard Joonghyuk’s reply to his words. His voice is soft, but it does not dull the ache Kim Dokja hears in his words: I would have died for you if you hadn't died first.
His smile is bitter and his eyes are empty.
Kim Dokja opens his mouth to speak, a useless endeavor but, heedless, he still tries-
The dream ends in a rush and Kim Dokja is nestled away from a life without Joonghyuk, without a chance to even say a word of repentance to soothe his heart.
(This is the gods will, he whispers.
My sin for loving you, goes unsaid.)
act iii.
"If I go on, will I ever get to see you again?"
- Yoo Joonghyuk (at the end of the world)
It begins with tears and heartsickness. Spring bleeds into summer through the crevices between outstretched fingers, decaying petals and cool winds swiftly tempering into overbearing heat against gentle hands. The sky is dark, a heavy looming sanguine draped over the horizon. The sun is dim, swallowed by night’s greed (Kim Dokja laughs, "Look Joonghyuk-ah, look at the stars, and smile, knowing that as capricious as she is, Fate allowed us to meet under them.") His ears tingle with a quiet hum.
“Breathe,” a voice whispers to him. He breathes, eyes wide as he stares at the ceiling, unfeeling as the quiet buzz that lingered in his ears crescendo, deafening him and stifling him in its presence. He ignores the cool, still hand hung over the railing of the bed. The light bands of the vestiges of the sun stretch over his face. The breeze is warm. The world is quiet. The tears dry. He parts his lips to exhale. He closes his eyes. A breath. A taste.
Bitter, he thinks.
Yoo Joonghyuk rolls from their cot, swinging his legs to the edge of the bed with his hands as pillars to keep him up, weak and bent from grief. This cannot go on. He does not know how to go on from this. How, how do you do this? He can still feel it, the stickiness of grief, as overwhelming as a tsunami and as unrelenting as the kiss of the sun. He cannot go on.
He had known for a long time that falling in love was having one foot in the grave. Love is the most violent act he partakes in, it swallows him both alive and in his grave. It consumes his heart slowly, as if to acclimate him, to prepare him for the loss of it. It could've been described as freezing over like those books Kim Dokja loved to read, but there's an implication of it warming up again, of a chance of resuscitation, and so it cannot be. Yoo Joonghyuk has been swallowed, and there is no reviving anymore--not after this. Kim Dokja was only his to lose.
And so with legs as weak as a newborn faun, his hands reaching for the stability furniture would offer him, and he goes on. He knows it down to the marrow of his bones, to the atom of his existence, to the heart and the cells that lives inside him--a messenger will come, and then he will go on. To war, to survive, and for vengeance.
(A messenger as arrived! and the call echoes in the gaps of the camp, in every flutter of a tent, and the huffs of each breath.)
"Do not seek vengeance, Yoo Joonghyuk." Han Sooyoung warns, her arms crossed on her chest as she gazes at Yoo Joonghyuk, whose head is in his hand as he sits on their (Kim Dokja, it's you and I forever-) cot. He sits there with his shoulders caving in and Kim Dokja feels it--his weariness, his hatred, and his rage. Kim Dokja approaches Yoo Joonghyuk's figure hesitantly, his transparent hand landing on the soft dark tresses like a sudden chill. Dokja cannot feel him, but for his sanity he pretends as if his hand doesn't go through Joonghyuk, as if he cannot love him, as if insanity isn't seeping into his bones having to watch Joonghyuk spiral into madness as he loses himself in grief.
( This is love, he despairs.
And you died for it, a voice booms.
And I died for it, Kim Dokja echoes faintly.)
"Let go, Joonghyuk." Han Sooyoung asks, not unkind but certainly not gentle. Yoo Joonghyuk doesn't answer but the stiffening of his shoulders and the heavy inhale in the silent tent speaks volumes. Kim Dokja can hear the unspoken plea of Han Sooyoung. She's always been pragmatic, preaching more about the stability of mind than the instability of the heart. Kim Dokja always liked that about Han Sooyoung, and while a part of Kim Dokja feels like it's shattering and being torn up by the seams at the thought of Yoo Joonghyuk no longer loving him, he still holds fondness for her. Her best interest is Yoo Joonghyuk's survival and he cannot fault her for that. Letting Joonghyuk continue to love him, to mourn him, to entertain the idea of avenging him is dangerous; It's a death wish. Yoo Joonghyuk will die in madness and will be remembered as a fool if he continues.
Yoo Joonghyuk lives but his love is dead. His divine half keeps him alive, keeps him stewing in madness and insanity, while his mortal half passes on, heartsick and weary. Kim Dokja loves Yoo Joonghyuk but Kim Dokja loves him alive more than he desires Yoo Joonghyuk to be with him. The ledge was more dangerous than the ground that built it.
Let go, he begs.
"Joonghuk," Sooyoung repeats, slow and steady.
"Don't make me ask. I have already lost one," She pleads, her shoulders faltering.
(Please let go of your love, Joonghyuk, or you will die for it as Dokja had.)
Joonghyuk stands up suddenly, his head down and his bangs hiding his eyes but even without looking at them it's easy to tell what's in his mind.
(I will die for it, nothing less.)
A part of Kim Dokja, that he didn't even know still lived, withers.
He leaves the tent in large sure strides, certainty carved in the furrow of his brow and determination forged on his shoulder.
Kim Dokja already knows in the silence of the tent, in the missing heart he no longer possesses: Joonghyuk will die on this field, on this day, in this battle with victory in his hand.
(This is the result of the arrogance of an imperfect human for thinking they could just love a god without repercussions. )