Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Kim Dokja did not consider himself a gamer. 

He owned exactly one game—if you could call downloading it, never launching it, and forgetting the password "owning"—and his laptop wheezed anytime he opened more than two tabs. His life revolved around webnovels and the dull commute to and from work. All his free time was channeled into the fictional worlds filled with cliche tropes and even more cliche protagonists - as it was, he’d found himself accustomed to stoic, cold characters with names varying from Duke of the North Kingdom to All-Powerful Tyrant Emperor, now coming to enjoy reading the well-used reincarnation tropes and adventures of an isekai-d protagonist. 

Perhaps that was what first drew him in to click on the stream. It was around 1 a.m., when he’d regularly settle in to start reading his favorite gaudy webnovels, when his finger slipped and accidentally opened Twitch. He hadn’t even realized he had the app on his phone. As Kim Dokja went to tab out, one preview caught his eye, or rather, the stoic-looking man gripping his console like it owed him money. What really made him pause though was the uncanny resemblance between the guy and the male lead of the latest webnovel he was reading (I Saved the Wolf Emperor’s Child and Now He Wants to Marry Me ). 

Kim Dokja felt a smile overtaking his features. No way such a guy existed. He couldn’t believe his eyes. [Yoo_Joonghyuk – Ranked Climb. No Chat. No Carry.] the stream read, and a bark of laughter escaped him. No way . He clicked the stream, curious beside himself.

The man on screen was focused like he was conducting heart surgery, and with a face that matched that of the Wolf Emperor. Kim Dokja scoffed in disbelief - how the hell was this guy real? He seemed plucked right out of a cliche two-bit romance novel, Kim Dokja noted morosely, watching as the frown permanently etched on the man’s face somehow made him look even more attractive. 

He never smiled, never spoke, and killed enemies in-game with freakish accuracy. Dokja wasn’t an expert in gaming, but he’d watched enough streams to realize this guy was better than your average streamer. Dokja watched for five minutes, noting down the razor-blade speed and reflexes with which the gamer shot down his enemies, all in perfect silence. The messages in chat were few and far in-between, but Kim Dokja’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets when his eyes caught the viewer count. 46,827 live viewers and only three people were hanging out in chat?? Who the hell was this guy, the Undertaker? 

Kim Dokja took in all this information, and promptly opened the chat.

onlyreader : u look like ur about to fight god

No response. Obviously. The guy didn’t read chat.

Kim Dokja stared at the screen, watching Yoo Joonghyuk pull off a near-perfect flick shot on a player trying to flank him. The man didn’t even flinch.

onlyreader: he dies like this in the webnovel btw

A beat passed. The streamer didn’t so much as blink, eyes freakishly focused on the screen in front of him.

Kim Dokja leaned back on his pillow and grinned. This could be quite fun.

onlyreader: i bet ur teammates are scared of u irl

Still nothing. 

It wasn’t until two hours later (Kim Dokja hadn’t even realized the time had passed, too focused on the hilarious, stoic and captivating man) when the man slipped up the slightest fraction. Yoo Joonghyuk missed. Just barely. A single shot, a small twitch. It did not go unnoticed by Kim Dokja, who immediately opened the chat.

onlyreader : you should’ve dodged left

onlyreader: it’s okay. even the Wolf Emperor had an off day when he accidentally destroyed that orphanage.

There was a pause . A subtle shift in posture.

For the briefest of moments, Joonghyuk’s eyes flicked to the left—toward chat. 

Kim Dokja blinked.

No way .

Did that count as a reaction?

He rewound the stream by ten seconds, watched the shot, the miss, the movement of the eyes. He played it again. And again.

Yup. That was a glance.

Kim Dokja grinned. Victory, small and stupid, bloomed in his chest.

This was probably what it felt like to tame a feral animal in an RPG. Or flirt with a war criminal behind bars who could crush his skull in a single movement. Either way, he wasn’t stopping now.

onlyreader: don’t worry. u still have ur looks.

The next kill Joonghyuk landed was unnecessarily brutal. Like he was punishing the pixels.

Kim Dokja stretched his legs out on his bed, content. He hadn’t laughed like this in days. Maybe weeks. There was something deeply satisfying about seeing a man so composed, so deadly serious, get vaguely irritated by one anonymous shitposter. And Kim Dokja prided himself on his ability of inciting people he shouldn’t.

He watched until the stream ended—Joonghyuk logging off in the same abrupt, silent way he’d started. No goodbye, no raid, no outro music. Just the screen fading to black.

Kim Dokja stared at the "stream ended" message for a while, then finally got up to brush his teeth to the sound of birds chirping. As he glanced out the small window and saw a beautiful orange gradient he forgot all about the stream. The screen of his phone blinked 5 a.m.

“...Shit.”

The next night, he opened the stream again.

He told himself it was a coincidence. He’d been on Twitch to check something else—what, he couldn’t quite remember—and it just so happened that [Yoo_Joonghyuk] was live again. Completely unrelated. Not suspicious at all.

The moment the stream loaded, Kim Dokja felt like he’d been transported into a war zone. Bullets flew. Explosions rang out. One of Joonghyuk’s teammates screamed something in voice chat and promptly got gunned down.

Kim Dokja blinked. Joonghyuk hadn’t even flinched.

Ah. So he was in that kind of mood tonight.

onlyreader: i see we’re reenacting Saving Private Ryan

No reaction.

But Kim Dokja caught it this time—the tiny flicker of attention. Joonghyuk didn’t look at the chat, but his grip on the mouse tightened. His next kill was landed with almost petty precision.

onlyreader: u killed that guy like he personally wronged u

onlyreader: i bet u name ur bullets

Nothing.

onlyreader: this is why u have no party members in the webnovel btw

This time, it was obvious.

Yoo Joonghyuk’s hand twitched. His crosshair jerked just slightly to the left—an error he corrected instantly, but not before his killstreak broke.

On the scoreboard, a red X bloomed next to his name. He'd been shot. Kim Dokja sucked in a dramatic gasp.

“Oh my god. I killed him.”

The chat, which up until this point had consisted of maybe four people making polite emotes, suddenly lit up.

[MOD] mod_bbangtan: @onlyreader please keep comments relevant to gameplay.

Kim Dokja’s jaw dropped. He got mod-warned ? Incredible. Stunning. Never in his life had he felt so powerful.

onlyreade r: relevant to gameplay?? im the emotional arc

[MOD] mod_bbangtan : final warning.

Kim Dokja grinned, fingers hovering over his keyboard. 

onlyreader : ok ok fine

A pause.

onlyreader : just saying the Wolf Emperor would’ve dodged that shot

The camera zoomed in on Joonghyuk’s face at that moment—whether intentionally or due to one of his rare 46,000 viewers clipping the moment. His brow twitched. Kim Dokja was beside himself. 

The next kill was ruthless, cut-throat, and in the split of a second. Kim Dokja winced as the bullet pierced the opponent's skull, a feeling of second-hand sympathy filling him.

onlyreader : and they say romance is dead

This time the glance towards the chat was clear as day, as slowly more messages started trickling in the chat, the viewers emboldened by his crass attitude. An army of his own.

supremekingnoticeme : LMAOO WHO IS THIS GUY

He’d started his own revolution. Joonghyuk’s jaw clenched almost imperceptibly, and Kim Dokja grinned, eyes tracing the minute movement. He truly had a talent.

literally_begging: onlyreader just solo’d the supreme king

mod_bbangtan: can we please not encourage him

Kim Dokja tilted his head. Encourage him? This was him being restrained .

onlyreader : sorry i forgot this was a sacred space for e-sports monks

onlyreader: my bad 

He waited.

Yoo Joonghyuk didn’t so much as breathe differently, but the next two kills he landed were mean . One guy didn’t even have time to pull his weapon. Kim Dokja watched the body hit the ground, then leaned forward with a grin that would get him exorcised in most religions.

onlyreader: was that kill called “shut the fuck up” or do u name them something meaner

The camera flickered. The resolution glitched briefly, like Joonghyuk’s sheer fury had disrupted the connection. His aim was still inhuman—but there was something stiffer now. Not rage. Not quite.

A small ping echoed in chat. A donation alert.

 $5 from PeonyPalace : “is onlyreader ur streamer boyfriend 😳”

$10 from Skull4Skull: “i ship it. when’s the wedding??”

Joonghyuk missed another shot.

Kim Dokja clapped a hand over his mouth to keep from cackling aloud. He could practically hear the furious clicking as Yoo Joonghyuk adjusted his DPI or settings or whatever mechanical sorcery he used.

mod_bbangtan : STOP. PLEASE. HE’S GONNA TURN OFF DONOS AGAIN.

mod_bbangtan: i am on THIN ICE.

Kim Dokja debated his next move. He should back off. Let the man recover. Preserve the delicate peace.

…

No, he couldn’t. He was friends with Han Sooyoung after all, and he’d been possessed by the spirit of the Great Twitch Troll, as many so often were.

onlyreader : i’ll wear white at the ceremony

onlyreader: u can wear the blood of ur enemies

Joonghyuk’s knuckles turned white for a moment, and Kim Dokja feared for his life, even from behind the screen. As Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes fixed on the camera for the first time, Kim Dokja almost tabbed out. A cold sweat ran down his back, and for a moment he pondered whether he’d pushed it too far. Which was crazy to think, what was this guy even able to do to an anonymous troll?

Yoo Joonghyuk leaned towards his mic, saying “You talk too much.” Kim Dokja almost dropped his phone. How the hell did this guy get blessed with godly good looks, otherworldly gaming skills and a hot voice as well? Now this just wasn’t fair.

Kim Dokja stared at his screen. The cold, calculated voice echoed in his skull like a concussion grenade had gone off in his room.

“...Okay,” he whispered to himself, still reeling. “Hot.”

He immediately sat up in bed like it was a full-body jump scare.

“NO. No, not like that. I mean like, intimidating hot. Like a final boss. Or a... sexy Terminator. In a scary way. A completely heterosexual, respectful fear.”

He hesitated for a moment, watching as more people gathered in chat. 

galaxyicon : dkjahsk i haven’t heard the supreme king speak live in like four years

Literally_begging: this is gonna fuel me for the foreseeable future

Peachy_mistress : brb clipping that

Kim Dokja scanned the messages, his lips quirking. Ah, whatever. He couldn’t disappoint the people now .

onlyreader : u speak now??

onlyreader : wow ur like a reverse pokemon

onlyreader : do i unlock new voice lines if i piss u off enough?

There was no response, of course. Not verbally. But Joonghyuk’s camera—normally perfectly still, unshaken by anything short of server crashes—jerked just slightly.

A jolt. Like maybe, just maybe, he was sighing.

Kim Dokja’s grin widened. “Ohhh,” he whispered. “He’s annoyed.”

He leaned forward like a villain in a trench coat.

onlyreader : do u get voice lines like every 100 kills or is it like

onlyreader : rage-based unlocks

onlyreader : u ever consider a podcast where u just threaten people in a monotone?

The game went deadly quiet on screen. Joonghyuk was moving through a quiet area on the map now—between wrecked buildings and scattered loot. It was the kind of lull where most streamers would be talking to fill the silence.

Not Joonghyuk.

Joonghyuk let the silence feel like judgment.

onlyreader : when yr in a ‘who can speak more competition’ and your opponent is Yoo Joonghyuk yk yr doomed 

As two opponents darted from behind a shattered pillar two bullets instantly hit the center of their forehead.

onlyreader: those guys must’ve rlly pissed u off huh

onlyreader: rip to those guys but im different

Yoo Joonghyuk ignored him as usual, moving with predatory calm through the debris-filled map, shadows clinging to the ruined walls around him. The silence wasn’t just judgmental now—it was anticipatory, like the game itself was holding its breath.

Then, it happened.

Three enemies appeared on his flank, coordinating like they'd been in voice chat all night, sweeping in from multiple angles with synchronized grenades. Any normal player would’ve panicked, maybe scrambled for cover, probably died screaming.

Yoo Joonghyuk didn’t flinch.

In a single fluid motion, he backpedaled into a corner, lobbed a perfectly cooked grenade that bounced once off a car hood—then ricocheted into the window of a crumbling second-story building. A heartbeat later, BOOM . One enemy down, no survivors in that room.

Before the other two could react, he quick-swapped to a sniper rifle, peeked one frame around the corner, and wall-banged the second guy mid-strafe through a metal crate.

Kim Dokja’s eyes widened.

The third tried to run.

Joonghyuk let him.

Just long enough for the guy to think he had a chance.

Then a single, silenced bullet followed him around a corner and through a gap in the wall , clipping him in the back of the head with almost insulting precision.

It was quiet again.

Even chat froze for a second. Then:

sirens_call: HOLY—
peachy_mistress: WHAT WAS THAT.

flailingwargod: mama im scared

The killcam played in slow motion, Twitch’s compression barely keeping up. The entire play had taken maybe five seconds. The camera lingered on Joonghyuk’s face—stone-cold, eyes glinting like he knew . And the slightest, almost imperceptible quirk to his lips, appeared and gone in a second.

Kim Dokja, busy collecting his jaw off the floor, didn't notice this. His fingers hovered over the keyboard, his mind suddenly blank. Was he trolling a gaming god or what?? He suddenly felt like he was way in over his head on this. 

His dark eyes boring into the camera, Yoo Joonghyuk leaned forwards, opening the mic again. “So you do know how to be quiet.”

Kim Dokja took a second, counting to three. 

And then he tabbed out.

The next day his normal commute to work wasn’t filled with his usual webnovels, but rather served as a strategic meeting. First, he had to check just who this guy was, so he wasn’t going around insulting some micro-celebrity who could leak his IP address in a second.

To his horror, that theory was instantly confirmed. 

Before his eyes lay Yoo Joonghyuk’s twitch page. Kim Dokja refreshed almost obsessively, but the glaring 15 million subscribers didn’t change.

Okay, so. Some things suddenly made sense.

 The realization that he had been trolling someone who was essentially on the same level as a Kpop idol felt rather horrifying in hindsight. Not that he wouldn’t have had he known from the beginning, he just needed to rethink his strategy a bit. It wouldn’t do him any good to make powerful enemies, even from behind a fake name. He’d have to tone it down. 

That didn’t mean he’d altogether stop though, he just had to sense out the situation.

As he settled behind the sticky counter of the convenience store, Kim Dokja pondered exactly how he should go about from then on. Definitely poke fun at him.

The small store was quiet, the clock above the counter blinking 11 p.m. Outside it was pitch black, and the bright lights in the store hurt his eyes, painting everything in medicinal white light. A refrigerator buzzed somewhere in the background, and the clock ticked unnaturally loud in his ears. He’d picked the night shift specifically for this reason. He could be alone, no one to bother him as he read his webnovels except the occasional drunk and lonely soul.

Kim Dokja was halfway through Chapter 312 of My Husband is a Regressed Sword Saint but Only in His Dreams when the bell over the door chimed.

He didn’t look up right away. Most late-night customers wanted one of three things: nicotine, caffeine, or sugar-induced regret.

“Good evening,” he called lazily, not taking his eyes off his phone. “Welcome to—”
He finally glanced up.

A man stood at the threshold, backlit by the dim streetlight outside. Hoodie, cap, sunglasses.

Kim Dokja blinked.
Was this man robbing the place, or did he just have a terrible sense of fashion?

“...Bottles are on aisle 3. Don’t shank me,” he promptly said, raising one hand to show he didn’t pose any danger, continuing to scroll through his novel with the other.

The man didn’t answer, nor did he spare him a glance. He walked toward the fridge aisle with the slow, almost predatory gait of someone casing a joint—or maybe just very serious about selecting the correct flavor of ramen.

Kim Dokja frowned. There was something weirdly familiar about his posture. The stiff shoulders. The intense silence. Like a cat bred in a lab for perfect murder.

He watched the guy pick up two instant meals, a bottle of water, and—fittingly—a can of Monster Ultra Black. As the man made his way towards the counter Kim Dokja quickly looked down again, trying his hardest to look busy while scrolling through his phone.

“Big night, huh?” he asked casually, eyeing the objects placed on the counter with earth-shattering force and making no move to scan them.

“...” 

Kim Dokja rolled his eyes. “Not much of a talker, got it.” he began scanning the objects, taking his time, and watching as the man very nearly ripped the objects from his hand and scanned them himself with each second that passed by.

Dokja narrowed his eyes. The familiarity tickled his brain like a loading screen that wouldn’t finish.

“You new around here?” he asked casually, handing over the bag. “You’ve got that look.”

The man paused. “What look?”

“The ‘on the run from three government agencies’ one. Real chic lately.”

Silence. A beat too long.

Then:

“...I’m just visiting.”

The voice was low, a little raspy. Weirdly precise in its pronunciation. Dokja’s fingers twitched.

Okay. Either this guy was a serial killer or—

He laughed outloud, beside himself. 

“No offense,” he said, grinning slightly. “But you sound like someone who lectures kids for fun online.”

The man blinked behind his sunglasses.

Dokja could practically see the internal alarm bells ringing. “...Do I,” the man said flatly.

“Mm.” Dokja leaned on the counter, lazily curious. “Let me guess. You do some… pro gaming? Streaming, maybe?”

A beat.

“No.”

“Sure, and I’m not reading a poorly-veiled porn on the clock.”

There was the brief sound of a huff, and Kim Dokja grinned. As the man turned around to leave, Kim Dokja called out, “Hope the cops don’t catch you.”

The next night he cracked his knuckles, took a sip from his energy drink and opened Twitch. With the strategizing out of the way, he was ready to go to war again.

As expected, Yoo Joonghyuk was live, but the title of his stream now read  [Yoo_Joonghyuk – Ranked Climb. No Carry.]. Before his eyes the chat poured in, with hundreds of messages now pouring in. Kim Dokja almost felt proud, feeling a sense of pride at establishing the path of talking in Yoo Joonghyuk’s chat. 

onlyreader : sorry, was busy creating my Yoo Joonghyuk fan acc, what’d i miss

supremekingnoticeme : yr backk

burstingbubbles12 : lol prepare for some god moves again

mod_bbangtan: oh god pls no

The viewer count was higher than two nights before, reading 56,780 live viewers, with more steadily pouring in. Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes were focused solely on the screen in front of him, still deathly quiet in the merciless slaughter of his enemies. 

Kim Dokja grinned. Game on.

$1 from onlyreader: Shh… Yoo Joonghyuk is thinking… or sleeping? 

Almost instantly those dark eyes swerved on the chat, and Kim Dokja almost had to pat himself on the back. Too easy. 

What he didn’t expect though was Yoo Joonghyuk going for the mic. “You skipped yesterday. Thought you’d have a good excuse. Didn’t.”

Kim Dokja sucked in a breath. Huh. So the rock can speak back.

onlyreader : missed me huh?

Yoo Joonghyuk didn’t look at the chat this time, just leaned back with a hand still casually on the mouse. Who gave this guy the right to act so cool . “Missed you? I figured you finally found someone else who doesn’t talk back.”

Kim Dokja stared at the screen. A beat passed. Two. Then—

onlyreader : oh you’re insufferable. i’m free every night this week.

The vein in Yoo Joonghyuk’s temple awoke at that, and Kim Dokja’s grin was back. This should be fun.

Chapter Text

“Please tell me that’s not Yoo Joonghyuk’s face I’m seeing on your phone right now.”

Kim Dokja jumped like he’d been electrocuted, muscle memory kicking in and making his phone fly out of his hands and, predictably, where it most shouldn’t be: at Han Sooyung’s feet.

Said woman faced him with crossed arms and a judging, raised eyebrow. As if things couldn’t get any worse, Yoo Sangah’s face propped out from behind her girlfriend’s head, with a polite wave. 

Kim Dokja scrambled to his feet, most definitely not tangling his legs all the while, before making a lunge for his poor phone (if it broke again he most definitely could not afford to replace it). Alas, years of sleepless nights and a diet consisting mostly of cup noodles and instant coffee couldn’t do wonders for him, and the phone was snatched from right beneath his nose in a moment.

He winced, looking up at the phone dangling between Han Sooyung’s fingers, said woman wearing her characteristic mischievous grin that always spelled trouble for Kim Dokja.  

Han Sooyung turned the phone screen toward herself, humming.
“Oh, wow. It’s even paused on his face. Were you studying his bone structure or something?”

“I wasn’t—!” Kim Dokja tried to grab it back, only for her to take a casual step backward, like she was playing monkey in the middle with a firstborn child.

Yoo Sangah leaned over her girlfriend’s shoulder, blinking politely at the still frame of Yoo Joonghyuk mid-blink, eyes slightly narrowed in stoic judgment. Kim Dokja looked at her with unprecedented hope - of course, Yoo Sangah, goodness personified would help - 

“That’s from his stream yesterday, isn’t it? The lighting is really flattering here.” She smiled at Kim Dokja like she wasn’t in the middle of peeling his dignity like an orange. “Did you screenshot this yourself or…?”

No, she’d betrayed him!

“I just liked the composition!” Kim Dokja blurted, which was not only a lie but also somehow made it worse.

He tried again, tone defensive and rapidly spiraling: “You don’t understand, he looked stupid and I thought it would annoy him if I made an edit out of it—”

“Oh my god, you’re making fan edits now?” Han Sooyung was beaming. “What’s the theme? ‘I hate you but your jawline is a work of art’?”

Yoo Sangah nodded solemnly. “Enemies to lovers. Slow burn. 100k words. Mutual emotional devastation.”

“I’m going to walk into traffic,” Kim Dokja said, with the peace of someone who had accepted his fate. “Right now.”

Han Sooyung, weirdly enough, tossed the phone back at him with all the delicacy of a dodgeball at a middle school grudge match.

Kim Dokja caught it—miraculously—but only after juggling it like it had just been set on fire.

“I never pegged you to be the Yoo Joonghyuk type,” she paused, seeming to think for a moment before snorting to herself. “Actually, scratch that. He’s exactly your type.”

Kim Dokja sniffed disdainfully, pocketing his phone and getting to his feet with all the grace of a newborn deer. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I just stumbled across his stream and found it hilarious how he’s so popular. The guy says barely two words! Somebody had to make fun of him for that, come on.”

Twin looks of judgement fixed him, one accompanied by a disbelieving grin and the other by an apologetic smile. “I’m serious!”

“Whatever, I can’t believe I got betrayed by my best friend,” Han Sooyung clenched her shirt over her heart in an overly-dramatic way, before pointing an accusing finger his way. “You know he’s beaten me the past six years in the Iron Tier Invitational.”

Kim Dokja eyed her with raised eyebrows. “You were competing with Yoo Joonghyuk? When? I swear you’ve never told me this.”

Han Sooyung gave an indignant shout and made a lunge for him, Kim Dokja being saved from having his nose permanently altered only by Yoo Sangah’s built-in girlfriend reflexes. “You bastard! I’ve been trying to get you into gaming ever since we’ve met and you’ve never given a single crap and now you’re watching Yoo Joonghyuk of all people? Betrayal!” she screeched, and Kim Dokja barely spared her a glance, brushing down invisible dust.

“I’m on your side here, you should be happy! I’m only here for the memes.”

Han Sooyung raised an eyebrow, the mischievous spark in her eyes growing sharper. “Memes, huh? What about the upcoming Iron Tier Invitational? You gonna watch that ?”

Kim Dokja nearly choked on his own sarcasm. “Please. I’m not about to subject myself to competitive gaming hell.” And that was true! No matter how funny the concept of a guy like Yoo Joonghyuk existing in the gaming and streaming world was, Kim Dokja wasn’t about to commit himself to anything that might take time away from his novels. He could barely commit to anything in the first place.

Yoo Sangah smiled. “You’re already screenshotting Joonghyuk’s stoic grimace for a fan edit.”

Kim Dokja glanced down at his phone like it was a ticking bomb. “That’s—uh—research.”

“So you are a fan,” Han Sooyung said, triumphant.

Kim Dokja groaned, rubbing his temples. How the hell was he going to make them understand? Sure, all evidence pointed to him having some sort of passion for Yoo Joonghyuk, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth! He wasn’t even into guys!

At that moment, a notification popped up on his phone. He peeked at it and froze.

“Uh… what’s that?” Yoo Sangah asked.

Kim Dokja’s voice cracked with the impossibility of it. “It’s a new tweet from Joonghyuk.”

The three of them immediately crowded around his phone, Han Sooyung murmuring something along the lines of, “He hasn’t posted since… well, ever.”

“3 Days.” the tweet read.

The three of them wore matching disbelieving expressions, watching as the reposts and likes piled up in the thousands in mere seconds. The comments mirrored their shock, people swearing they were dreaming. 

“Oh.” Yoo Sangah said, crouching back with her palm daintily over her mouth.

Han Sooyung blinked once, twice, before she barked out a sound that was somewhere in-between a shout and a laugh. “Three days? Three days?? He thinks he’s so cool, huh? I’m going to show him cool. Just you wait, Joonghyuk! Three days my ass!” she jumped to her feet in a whirlwind, eyes fixed somewhere on the wall and a scary expression on her face. “Come on, Sangah! I’ll show him!”

And with that, the two invaders left Kim Dokja’s small apartment as sudden as they came, only with a hurried greeting from Yoo Sangah.

Kim Dokja didn’t notice this, eyes still fixed on the tweet with the like count now somewhere in the hundreds of thousands. What was in three days?

Kim Dokja stared at the tweet—“3 Days.” Simple. Cold. Like a gauntlet thrown down in silence. The sheer minimalism of it made the anticipation crawl under his skin.

His phone buzzed again. Another notification. This time it was a news alert:

“Iron Tier Invitational 2025: Announcement – Top contenders confirmed; Yoo Joonghyuk to compete.”

The room suddenly felt smaller, tighter. The irony wasn’t lost on Kim Dokja: the guy he’d been mocking in private, the silent streamer who barely said two words, was about to upend the biggest competitive gaming event in the country. 

“Three days,” he muttered. “That’s the start of the Invitational?”

His mind raced. The “Iron Tier Invitational” wasn’t just any competition. It was legendary — fierce rivals, brutal matches streamed live to millions, and stakes so high they practically scorched the players, or at least that’s what Han Sooyung always said. She’d been chasing Joonghyuk’s shadow for years, always just one step behind. He’d just never known the faceless opponent Han Sooyung had been consistently swearing off these years was Yoo Joonghyuk.

He’d been mocking a guy like that? He’d figured out Yoo Joonghyuk was good, but this was just on another level. A god in the gaming world??

His phone pinged with a notification again - a stream being started. 

Kim Dokja now watched with trepidation, fingers hovering over the screen hesitantly. Should he really be messing around with this guy? Nevermind his humongous fanbase that could probably be more than terrifying if needed, Yoo Joonghyuk himself seemed like someone you wouldn’t want to mess with.

Plus, though he’d never admit it to Han Sooyung, she was his best friend. Wouldn’t watching Yoo Joonghyuk’s stream now knowing who he was kind of be like betraying her?

Maybe just a peek. It’s not like he’d been exactly supporting the guy in the first place. What’s one last insult?

The stream popped up instantly, the screen flickering to reveal Yoo Joonghyuk’s usual calm, unreadable expression. The chat exploded immediately—hundreds of messages flying by faster than Kim Dokja could read. The viewer count blinked 156,789 live viewers. Oh yeah, if he’d seen that count from the beginning he definitely wouldn’t have messed with him.

What should he type?  

The cursor blinked in the chat box like a tiny spotlight shining right on his hesitation. Kim Dokja’s brain short-circuited, and all the witty insults and jokes he’d been mentally rehearsing evaporated instantly.

Come on, Dokja, make a joke. Something clever. Something biting.

His fingers hovered nervously before he typed out:

onlyreader : If Yoo Joonghyuk’s whole personality is ‘mute and stare,’ then the ‘Iron Tier Invitational’ is gonna be a real snoozefest.

He hit send and leaned back, watching as hundreds of messages kept pouring in chat.

JoonghyukFanboy: Dude’s like the gaming Sphinx.

MemeLord9000: who’s this guy

IronTierPro: Watch your mouth, new guy

Kim Dokja’s face flushed. His fingers twitched, ready to type a follow-up but frozen by the overwhelming flood of messages. Alright, this was definitely a new playing field. But he wasn’t a professional hater for nothing.

“It’s always the ones who don’t qualify for Iron Tier that talk the most about it.” Yoo Joonghyuk said, cold and calculating, eyes still firmly fixed on the monitor in front of him. That was starting to piss him off - how the hell did this guy read chat without ever moving his eyes? 

There was no way.

There was no way that was directed at him.

But the timing—impeccable. The tone—surgical. The way Joonghyuk didn’t even look at the chat, like he knew. Like he could smell the sarcasm through the pixels.

The chat was having an aneurysm.

[critsandgiggles]: GET HIS ASS

[jungnukem]: BRO HEARD YOU

[0de2salt]: onlyreader you better uninstall rn 💀

[gamergf420]: this is why you don’t bark at people above your league

[404selfrespect]: Yoo Joonghyuk really said “know your place, peasant”

Kim Dokja stared at his screen, expression flatlined. Somewhere in the distance, a tiny part of his soul curled up and died.

Apparently Yoo Joonghyuk made exceptions.

He smacked the side of his phone lightly. “Nope. Absolutely not. This is slander. He doesn’t know I exist.”

The stream did not agree. Yoo Joonghyuk, on-screen, executed a kill so smooth it looked choreographed, and Kim Dokja could’ve sworn his eyes flicked towards the chat for a second as his lips quirked slightly at the corners in a way that had the chat going crazy. This guy. Oh he was really starting to get on Kim Dokja’s nerves. The word “FLAWLESS” flashed in the corner of the screen. Kim Dokja had the creeping, horrifying suspicion that the game was judging him personally.

And then—

His phone vibrated.

A message from Han Sooyung.

“tell me you just saw that.”

Another ping.

“tell me that wasn’t YOU he just flamed on main.”

And then Yoo Sangah, ever the gentle executioner, chimed in with:

“He has excellent aim. Even with his words.”

He stared at the screen. Joonghyuk had moved on like nothing happened, like he hadn’t just dragged an entire user by their shoelaces across the internet.

Alright. If he wanted war, he’d have war. 

Kim Dokja cracked his knuckles (they gave a pitiful sound), before hovering over his keyboard. 

His fingers flew.

onlyreader : At least when I blink it doesn’t look like the game lagged.

onlyreader: You planning to win the Invitational by intimidating the other players into forfeiting through sheer silence or?

The chat exploded—again.

MemeLord9000 : YO HE’S FIRING BACK

critsandgiggles : ONLYREADER LIVES???

dongsaengDestruction98: this is the emotional equivalent of throwing a rock at a tank

The screen shifted slightly as Joonghyuk’s character paused mid-map. Not killed, not ambushed—just stopped . Kim Dokja could feel the judgment radiating through the buffering pixels.

Yoo Joonghyuk leaned slightly forward towards his mic. His voice was calm, almost bored, but every word cut like a knife:

“You talk a lot for someone who’s clearly never played at this level.”

This guy.

onlyreader : You win one Invitational and suddenly you’re Confucius with a mouse.

onlyreader : Chill. This isn’t a poetry slam.

There was a pause. Joonghyuk’s avatar finished off another two opponents with a calculated efficiency that made Kim Dokja want to throw his phone across the room. And then—

Yoo Joonghyuk, without so much as a glance at the camera, said, “Then stop writing sonnets in my chat.”

He might have to take up gaming just to shut this guy up. Who the hell did he think he was?

Kim Dokja smirked, fingers hovering over the keyboard like a cat about to pounce.

onlyreader : careful, at this rate you might actually start talking. scary thought.

The chat instantly erupted in memes and GIFs, flooding the screen with laughter and applause emojis.

Joonghyuk’s voice came through again, dry and unimpressed, “Keep it up. You might learn something before the Invitational.”

Kim Dokja sat back, pretending to consider this carefully. Then, with mock solemnity, he typed:

onlyreader : learning? me? sorry, wasn’t aware u were good at this game.

Joonghyuk’s character froze on screen as its owner gave a huff that sounded familiar and might’ve been a chuckle. If the chuckle vaguely reminded of thousands of poor souls screaming as they perished in a fire. The screen flickered again like the sheer impossibility of Yoo Joonghyuk finding something amusing was interrupting the internet.

“Keep watching closely then.” 

Kim Dokja’s brain might’ve short-circuited, but he didn’t even have time to come up with a proper comeback, as two enemies suddenly appeared in sight. 

The screen shifted sharply as Joonghyuk’s character suddenly vanished from the usual vantage point. Chat went silent for a moment — everyone caught off guard.

Then, without a hint of hesitation, Joonghyuk reappeared behind the two enemies who had just popped into view, completely unseen. His character executed a flawless 360 no-scope headshot with surgical precision. The kill feed lit up instantly:

Joonghyuk — DOUBLE KILL — HEADSHOT

The chat exploded like a volcano erupting:

MemeLord9000 : WTF WAS THAT

critsandgiggles : IS HE EVEN HUMAN?

IronTierPro : THAT’S SOME NEXT-LEVEL SORCERY RIGHT THERE

jungnukem : DID HE JUST PHASE THROUGH THE MAP?
 

Joonghyuk’s expression remained unreadable, lips twitching slightly — almost amused, almost indifferent. Kim Dokja’s probably never hated anyone as much before.

His phone dinged again with a notification and he barely managed to peel his eyes away from the screen. It was another message from Han Sooyung.

HanSooPower : u better have a reasonable explanation for this

HanSooPower : istg if u unfroze this guy the year im boutta beat him i will kick ur ass

He rubbed his temples and muttered, “Why do I get dragged into these things?”

He typed back quickly:

onlydokja : relax, im not about to become his personal coach or anything .

Han Sooyung replied almost instantly:

HanSooPower: good. u better not be watching him when i catch u again

Kim Dokja’s fingers hovered over the keyboard. Now, he couldn’t promise that. 

onlydokja: come on, u need someone to weaken him. Think of me as a double-spy.

HanSooPower: hmph

Kim Dokja rolled his eyes. Seriously, though. He wasn’t making fan edits or anything. For God’s sake he was roasting the guy. Nevermind that apparently roasting him is what got a reaction out of him.

Hesitating only for a moment, he tabbed out. If it really bothered Han Sooyung, he could definitely stop watching him (not that he’d ever tell her that).

That night was as quiet as the others. Kim Dokja stifled a yawn, rubbing his eyes to get rid of the dancing spots caused by the fluorescent lighting. He definitely had to stop watching Yoo Joonghyuk’s streams. The guy only streamed at ungodly hours - was he a vampire or something?

Kim Dokja bitterly eyed the packs of instant noodles stacked on the shelves, stomach grumbling faintly. How’d he even build a fanbase with that personality?

Sure, he was quite possibly the most handsome man Dokja had ever seen, and sure, his gaming skills could disrupt the very fabric of the space-time continuum, but besides that he was terrible!

His unsavory thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the electronic bell chiming above the door. A familiar silhouette entered the store, with the same cap, same sunglasses, same face mask. Was this guy attending a funeral every night or what?

“Back so soon?” Kim Dokja called out. “Lost the cops so quick?”

The guy paused, his face tilted in his direction the only indication that he was looking at Kim Dokja. He seemed to ponder something for a moment, before gruffly saying, “Yes.”

Kim Dokja chuckled despite himself. The guy spoke in such a dead-pan way that he couldn’t even be sure whether the other was joking or not. “You serious?” Kim Dokja asked, half-joking, half-lamenting-he-didn’t-own-pepper-spray.

“...No.”

“Try saying that a little more confidently and I might actually believe you.”

The man gave another huff that now Kim Dokja had the sneaky feeling was a laugh, before moving through the aisles like a ghost - soundless, precise, like even picking out a bag of shrimp chips was some kind of tactical maneuver. Kim Dokja leaned over the counter, watching him with a kind of wary amusement.

“You know, we’ve got a discount on vampire repellant in aisle two,” he called lazily. “Garlic-flavored peanuts. Very exclusive.”

A pause.

Then, to Dokja’s mild horror, the man actually backtracked, picked up the peanuts, and set them down on the counter with all the grim solemnity of someone placing offerings at a shrine.

“...Wasn’t expecting you to take me seriously,” Dokja muttered, scanning the barcode. “You’re really into the bit, huh.”

The guy paid no mind to his question, reaching for his wallet before he froze. “...What are you wearing.” he said, his voice sounding almost strangled.

Kim Dokja raised an eyebrow. “Seriously? You’re going to judge me for my choice in clothing? Have you seen yourself?”

The guy only continued to stare at him - more like stare down at him because he was tall -  judgementally. Kim Dokja sighed and took a step back, turning around and raising his arms for full dramatic effect. “Fine, feast your eyes.”

His sweatshirt was a faded grey on which was written “I Survived 999 Regression Loops and All I Got Was This Lousy Hoodie” in pink cursive. Beneath the writing was a rat holding two flaming swords. 

“...”

“It was on sale. There are matching pants too.” Kim Dokja said proudly, mentally berating himself for not wearing the matching set when there was actually someone around to appreciate it.

The man was silent. Too silent. Kim Dokja squinted up at him, just in time to catch the slightest twitch beneath his right eye.

“Are you—are you laughing ?” Dokja asked, scandalized.

“No,” the man said immediately, but his voice cracked halfway through the word. He cleared his throat like it offended him, crossing his arms and looking off into the distance.

Dokja folded his arms. “You’re laughing.”

“I’m not.”

“Your shoulder is literally shaking.”

“I’m not laughing ,” the man gritted out, as if it were some kind of physical affliction he was trying to resist, his whole body now unnaturally still.

Dokja narrowed his eyes. “You’re just mad you didn’t get one first.”

Another beat of silence passed. Then, as if suffering some kind of moral crisis, the man muttered under his breath, “…Do they come in black?”

Dokja blinked. Slowly, a grin crept onto his face.

“They come in bloodstain resistant , if that sweetens the deal.”

The man turned around, his sunglasses making the entirety of his expression unreadable (though Kim Dokja had a sneaky feeling the other wouldn’t be so different with his face bare either). He gently pushed the bag of garlic peanuts forward.

“I’ll think about it,” the man said, and walked out without looking back.

Dokja stared after him for a moment, then looked down at the rat on his sweatshirt.

“…You’re welcome,” he told it.

That night he told himself it was only recon. A strategic play that could only help Han Sooyung.

But this… he never expected this.

Yoo Joonghyuk was looking at the monitor with a pained expression on his face like he’d eaten something sour. Kim Dokja watched in amazement as Yoo Joonghyuk, the god gamer, for the first time in his life seemed to not know how to play a game.

Wait, focus. What’s going on?

The stream showed a 2d woman dressed in frilly clothing and wearing an excessively bashful look on her face. The background was an explosion of pastel pinks and fluttering cherry blossoms. Heart-shaped UI elements pulsed in time with the music. Three pink option boxes flashed on screen obnoxiously.

 [ Hey. ]

[ Hello. ]

[ Leave > ]

What the hell.

Yoo Joonghyuk’s mouse hovered between the options. He seemed, if possible in his case, slightly unsure about the right course of action.

This guy was playing a dating game ?

This would almost be funny if it wasn’t so painful to watch. How could this guy be so good at games and so bad at them at the same time?

onlyreader : is this how you’re planning on winning the Invitational? didn’t know the moves u were talking ab were these lol

Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes flashed towards the chat, and his grip on the mouse tightened. His mouse immediately made a beeline towards the [ Leave > ] option.

Kim Dokja could consider himself a born hater. But before he was a hater he was an avid webnovel enjoyer. And something in him couldn’t let him mess up so badly.

onlyreader: WAIT

Yoo Joonghyuk, surprisingly so, paused, his lips thinning and his eyebrows pulling even closer in a dark frown. Kim Dokja sighed in relief, before focusing back on the task at hand. No way he was going to let this guy mess up a story like this.

onlyreader: u almost missed the secret ending u idiot

onlyreader: u should probably thank me

Yoo Joonghyuk clenched his jaw (the chat exploded and Kim Dokja wondered when the room had gotten several degrees hotter - he’d have to open the window), knuckles white on the mouse. But at least he wasn’t clicking any options rashly.

Kim Dokja sighed, before deciding to change his approach. Just this once.

onlyreader : ur playing a dating sim right?

onlyreader : u should always pick the options that leave them wanting more

Kim Dokja wasn’t much of a romantic, but he knew romance novels and he knew them well.

“...More?” said Yoo Joonghyuk and Dokja almost dropped his phone. He was actively reading his messages specifically now? He scrambled for the keyboard.

onlyreader : yeah, be cool

onlyreader: can u be cool supreme king?

(He’d heard that was Joonghyuk’s nickname amongst his fans and had nearly died laughing trying to imagine the other’s reaction to hearing it.)

Scowling even deeper, Yoo Joonghyuk clicked the [ Hey. ] option. Kim Dokja grinned as two pink hearts accompanied by a plus appeared on the right side. 

onlyreader : what was that about learning?

Yoo Joonghyuk ignored him, but his eyes had a bizarre glint in them as he read the next dialogue option. 

{ Oh… you’re the one who touched the Arcane Crystal. I didn’t think anyone else could hear its song. }

[ It sang to me… about you.]

[ I was just trying to save the game. What crystal? ]

[ Tch. That thing? It was in my way. ]

[ Draw weapon silently > ]

Kim Dokja watched with trepidation as the cursor hovered over the [ Draw weapon silently > ] option for a moment, before ultimately choosing the third option. Dokja sighed in relief. The lines in the game even resembled Joonghyuk’s own way of speaking. Of course they did. Of course this was his route.

Another two hearts and a plus appeared on screen, and Yoo Joonghyuk now seemed truly invested in the game. He seemed determined to play the game as well as possible. Of course he did, the jerk.

{ The woman looks at you with a mixture of curiosity and challenge. }

[ “Careful. Not everyone can handle someone like me.” ]

[ “I’m not here to play games... unless you want to.” ]

[ “Is that supposed to impress me?” ]

[ “You seem interesting enough. Maybe.” ]

Yoo Joonghyuk’s cursor paused deliberately over the second option:
[ “I’m not here to play games... unless you want to.” ]

He clicked it with a faint smirk playing on his lips—cold, controlled, but undeniably sharp.

Kim Dokja blinked, caught off guard. That was fast.

onlyreader : can’t believe you did that without my help. guess u are good for something after all. 

Without looking away from the screen, Joonghyuk shot back, voice low and casual, “Don’t get used to it. I’m just making sure you’re paying attention.”

Wait a damn minute. Was this the same guy who only a couple of moments ago didn’t know which greeting to choose?

Kim Dokja tried to brush it off, ignoring the faint sound of his heart beating slightly faster in his chest. Probably from that heat again. He really had to get up to open the window.

Alright, he needed to get back on safe ground now that it seemed Joonghyuk suddenly was a master even at dating sims.

onlyreader : smooth for someone who can barely handle a dating sim.

Joonghyuk’s attention was once again solely on his monitor, but his lips were definitely quirked in a visible smirk now. This bastard . “Unlike you, I don’t need practice.”

Chat was losing their minds, and Kim Dokja was, for once, glad for the thousands of messages that drowned his own.

gamer_gal92 : no way he’s actually smooth wtf

glitch_goddess : can we get a kiss cam or something???

chat_overload : y’all hear that? that’s the sound of my ship setting sail

Alright, this was getting out of hand. Dokja had to regain control of the situation quickly. He scrambled his mind for something witty to say to calm things down.

onlyreader : play dating sims often, do you? guess that’s what ur doing instead of preparing for the invitational

Yoo Joonghyuk tilted his head with a condescending look that sent a shiver down his spine. “For someone with such a big mouth you’re here pretty often.”

Hah . Now Kim Dokja was really starting to get pissed off.

onlyreader : i liked you better when u didn’t speak

Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes bore right into the camera, a deep gray that seemed to pierce through the screen. “Look who’s talking. Should I do something about it?”

Kim Dokja’s mouth dropped open. His fingers hovered uselessly over the keyboard. His brain might’ve melted in his head.

Joonghyuk didn’t spare the crazed chat another glance, focusing back on the game and saying in a bored, cold voice. “If that was all it took to shut you up I would’ve done it a long time ago.”

What the hell was going on? Kim Dokja was losing badly .

onlyreader : let’s let the gaming do the talking, yeah?

Joonghyuk offered a sardonic smile. “I agree. You better be watching closely.”

“A dinner with your gamer friends?” 

Han Sooyung nodded from beneath a pile of Kim Dokja’s clothes. She frowned, a messy head of black hair propping up from his closet. “Why the hell don’t you have any nice clothes?”

Kim Dokja shrugged absentmindedly, falling back on his pillows, making no move to get dressed.

Han Sooyung noticed this and threw a sock his way with freakish precision. “Oi. Get dressed right now.”

“Why should I?” he fake-yawned, reaching for his phone. The new chapter of I Saved the Wolf Emperor’s Child and Now He Wants to Marry Me had just been posted, and he was itching to read it.

“I’m paying.”

Kim Dokja hesitated for only one second, before gathering to his feet. He wasn’t about to refuse free food after all. 

“Who’s going to be there anyway?” he said, hopping around on one foot to get his pants up his legs, and so missing the devilish grin on Han Sooyung’s face.

“Oh, just some friends.”

Chapter Text

Kim Dokja has never considered himself a particularly unlucky person. Sure, he hadn’t been granted godly good looks, and his childhood… had left much to be desired. But for better or for worse, at least he had a roof over his head.

But now, sitting about three chairs away from his most recent trolling victim (if you could even call a guy like that a victim), Kim Dokja was really starting to rethink his life choices.

He should’ve known. He should’ve known. Han Sooyung’s smile had been too smug. No one invites you to a casual dinner, lies about the guest list, and tosses socks at your face unless they’re plotting something.

Two hours earlier

“I’m begging you to run a brush through your hair for once in your life,” Han Sooyung barked out, hands on her hips and leveling a judgemental stare at Kim Dokja’s hair, who resolutely ignored her.

“Why should I?” Kim Dokja said, “You should be thankful I got dressed in the first place.”

Though he would’ve much rather worn comfortable clothes made for eating large amounts of food, Han Sooyung had practically forced him to wear one of his usual work dress shirts and black slacks. He drew the line at brushing his hair, though. 

“I don’t even know these people,” Kim Dokja said, before eyeing Han Sooyung’s outfit in disbelief. “You were flaming me about my outfit? You’re wearing camo pants and a cropped shirt!”

Han Sooyung grinned, kicking Kim Dokja’s shin for his troubles and resolutely ignoring his wince. “This is my style, prick.”

“This is why Yoo Joonghyuk has more fans than you.”

“What did you say?!”

Kim Dokja easily dodged the high kick aimed right at his head with years of experience, before glancing out the window. His mouth promptly dropped open.

“You brought the Ferrarghini ?!” Kim Dokja hissed, clutching the handle above the door like it could shield him from the shame of being seen. Oh God, what would his neighbors think?

Han Sooyung smirked and clicked the key fob with all the smugness of a Bond villain. The obnoxiously golden luxury car gave a little chirp, lights flashing. It gleamed under the streetlamp like a neon sign that screamed look at me, I commit tax fraud for fun.

“What, we were going somewhere nice. You want me to bring the old hatchback like a peasant?”

“We’re going to a gamer dinner, not the freakin’ Baeksang Arts Awards,” Kim Dokja snapped. “You’re basically begging someone to rob us.”

“Don’t be jealous just because your most expensive possession is that crusty monitor you’ve had since college.”

Kim Dokja crossed his arms, glaring. “That monitor is a veteran of war. It’s seen more emotional battles than you have.”

Han Sooyung just laughed, tossing him a pair of sunglasses from the glove box. “Whatever helps you cope. Now put these on. You look like a fugitive.”

“I am a fugitive,” Kim Dokja muttered, shoving them on anyway. “From this entire outing.”

“I heard that.”

“And what do we even need sunglasses for? It’s night!”

Oh, she was really going to get it.

Now it all made sense. The plea of brushing his hair, the constant hurrying when Han Sooyung was never on time. He should’ve known it was all part of a bigger ploy meant to embarrass him. Just the usual in their friendship.

Kim Dokja grasped said woman’s elbow in a death grip, maintaining a pleasant smile as he pulled Han Sooyung closer to him. “I’m going to kill you.” he said through gritted teeth.

“Why?” Han Sooyung whispered smugly. She casually tried to reach for a piece of meat but was stopped by Kim Dokja’s grip on her arm. “I said I’d pay for your food, didn’t I?”

Dokja let out a quiet, indignant huff. “Don’t pretend like you don’t know. Didn’t you say Yoo Joonghyuk was your sworn enemy?” Han Sooyung nodded nonchalantly. “Then why the hell do I see him sitting three chairs away from us!”

Han Sooyung bit into a piece of grilled pork with zero remorse. “Haven’t you ever heard of the saying ‘Keep your friends close, and the guys you despise even closer’?”

Kim Dokja stared at her in horror. “That’s not even how the saying goes - Nevermind. You lured me here under false pretenses!”

“No, I lured you here under no pretenses. You chose not to ask.”

“Semantics.”

“Surprise bonding opportunity,” she sang, raising her glass in a mocking little toast. “And hey, I needed backup in case he tried to strangle me with a USB cable.”

Backup. Right .

Kim Dokja discreetly turned his body to the side, away from the rest of the table and particularly away from the guy with perfectly combed black hair and the exact same bored expression as that ridiculous player cam from the stream. He even had that same terrible posture — back straight, neck tense, like someone had told him to sit down and look cool for maximum intimidation.

He was staring down at his bowl of rice like it had personally offended him.

It was definitely him.

Kim Dokja subtly adjusted his position to hide behind a strategically placed pitcher of soda.

He slowly reached for the napkin holder, placed it beside the pitcher, and angled his body behind it like a spy assembling a fort from restaurant supplies. If he stacked a few plates—

“You’re being weird,” Han Sooyung said, not even looking up from her phone.

“I’m being cautious,” Kim Dokja whispered through gritted teeth. “There’s a difference.”

From the corner of his eye, he could see Joonghyuk’s chopsticks pausing mid-air. The man didn’t look up, but Dokja felt the shift in atmosphere like a pressure drop before a storm.

Joonghyuk had definitely noticed him.

Stay calm. There was no reason for Joonghyuk to know who he was. Unless Kim Dokja messed up astronomically and said something he shouldn’t or Joonghyuk had some kind of clairvoyance that let him know who his viewers were just by seeing their usernames (Kim Dokja wasn’t too sure he didn’t), there was no way for the gamer to recognize him.

Ignoring all warning bells and built-in instincts that were screaming at him to not do exactly what he was about to do, Kim Dokja slowly straightened up in his seat, trying to look as casual as possible and missing by a couple of inches when he missed the opening of his cup when taking a sip. 

Thank God for small mercies, the cup was empty, and a small glance around told him nobody had seen his small mishap - Han Sooyung was locked in a passionate conversation with a buff man with a kind face, Yoo Sangah was laughing at a joke, Yoo Joonghyuk was staring right at him -

Wait.

Crap .

Said man was staring at him from underneath his lashes, leaning back in his chair comfortably with his arms crossed. His biceps bulged beneath the dark material of his turtleneck, and Kim Dokja gulped. Though the stream was clear, it didn’t show exactly just how fit Joonghyuk actually was . This guy could probably crush his head just with his hands easily.

Dark eyes were fixed on him, seeming even more unfathomable in real life. One dark eyebrow was slightly raised like he was considering something thoughtfully. Kim Dokja honestly had never wanted the ground to open up and swallow him before as much as he did in that moment.

Forcing down his panic, he sketched a sheepish grin that hopefully said ‘haha funny shared moment’ and not ‘if you somehow recognize me please don’t kill me’.

At that, Joonghyuk’s expression promptly morphed into one of disgust and he thankfully looked away. Kim Dokja released a sigh he didn’t know he was holding, hurriedly taking a gulp of his now-filled drink. Crisis momentarily averted.

His internal dilemma was interrupted by Han Sooyung, who said, “Hey, Dokja. I’ve got a couple of people I want you to meet. This is Lee Hyunsung.”

Yoo Joonghyuk watched as the man Han Sooyung had brought exchanged pleasantries with his teammates. As he watched the man smile, his brows furrowed. 

This guy seemed familiar. Where had he seen him before?

He scanned the man, taking in his short, black hair that curled slightly around his ears, the crinkle beneath his eyes when he smiled. 

Ah. He got it. 

“They come in bloodstain resistant if that sweetens the deal.”

The man from the convenience store with the ridiculous sweatshirt. Joonghyuk carefully watched him. It would be bothersome if the man recognized him and he had to change his midnight convenience run place again . The last time someone had recognized him outside, he’d been promptly ambushed by fans.

The man laughed at something Lee Hyunsung said, and Joonghyuk’s eyes trailed the curve of his cheek. 

No reason for the man to recognize him. He’d been more than careful with his disguise. 

Joonghyuk could always threaten him if needed.

“How about a drinking game?” Han Sooyung called out, a mischievous grin on her face as her words were met with loud cheers from everyone except Dokja and Joonghyuk, whose usual scowl somehow deepened even further.

“I’m actually going to kill you,” Kim Dokja hissed underneath his breath. Han Sooyung ignored him, signalling the bar for a couple of soju bottles.

Han Sooyung’s grin only widened as she slid the bottles across the table. “C’mon, Dokja, live a little. It’s not every day we get to watch Joonghyuk scowl this hard.”

Kim Dokja shot her a look. “You’re asking for a death sentence,” he said, before sneaking a glance at Joonghyuk. “Besides, does he look like the type of guy to play drinking games?”

Joonghyuk’s eyes swerved on his at that, a sharp glint now in them. Whoops, he heard that. Kim Dokja withered in his seat underneath that dark gaze.

“Joonghyuk,” Han Sooyung called out, grinning, blissfully oblivious to the storm brewing in the other’s gaze. “How about you start us off?”

Joonghyuk said nothing for a moment, and Dokja didn’t imagine those dark eyes finding his again.

“Fine.”

Sooyung was miraculously struck in silence probably for the first time in her life, but, to her credit, she recovered fast. “Alright the rules are simple,” Han Sooyung announced, the devilish grin never leaving her face. “Truth or Drink. I ask a question — you either answer honestly, or you take a shot.”

A ripple of cheers went around the table, everyone but Dokja and Joonghyuk showing genuine excitement. Dokja swallowed hard. Truth or Drink? This could end badly .

Joonghyuk’s scowl deepened, but when his dark eyes flicked to Dokja, there was something unreadable in their depths — like a warning wrapped in a challenge. He didn’t say a word, but the tension between them suddenly thickened like fog.

“So, Joonghyuk,” Sooyung grinned, “Truth or drink?”

Joonghyuk’s voice was calm, cool — almost bored. “Truth.”

Dokja’s gaze flicked nervously to Joonghyuk, who met his stare without flinching. The guy’s definitely got iron lungs , Dokja thought, already dreading the inevitable rounds ahead.

“So,” Sooyung pressed, “What’s something no one here would ever guess about you?”

Joonghyuk paused, then said quietly, “I’ve never lost a ranked match in a game I play seriously.”

The table murmured, impressed. Even Yoo Sangah raised an eyebrow, clearly surprised.

Kim Dokja scoffed silently, despite himself. What a show off .

Joonghyuk’s eyebrows pulled even further together and Kim Dokja very nearly slapped himself on the mouth. Did his mouth have a death wish or something?? At this rate he was digging his own grave.

“Alright, Lee Hyunsung,” Han Sooyung turned around with the same devilish expression. “Do you like someone here?”

As Lee Hyunsung turned beet red Kim Dokja sympathized with him deeply. At least no one was safe from Sooyung’s scheming.

As the game went around one round with relatively decent questions, Kim Dokja was lured into a false sense of security. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad.

“Dokja,” Sooyung grinned, and now Dokja slightly regretted ever being friends with her. “Most of us here are in the gaming industry. Do you have a Twitch account?”

Kim Dokja felt a chill run down his spine and forced his expression to remain unchanged. While it might not seem like such a bad question to others, who awaited his answer with slight curiosity, it was quite an inconvenient one to answer considering the current company .

Kim Dokja debated what he should do. Taking a shot over a question that seemed harmless would surely arouse questions, and he couldn’t deny it either because, knowing Han Sooyung, she’d definitely reveal him. “Yeah,” he replied as casually as possible.

“What do you use it for?” Sooyung continued, and Kim Dokja could’ve sworn twin horns appeared over her head.

Kim Dokja smiled, mentally reminding himself of all the things Sooyung hated and how he would pay her back. “I thought it was one question per round.”

Sooyung scowled minutely, but the game went on with a few chuckles from players, no one paying their interaction any mind. Besides one. Dokja resolutely ignored the dark stare burning into the side of his cheek. He truly had a talent.

As Joonghyuk’s turn came again, Dokja avoided his gaze, but kept his ears open and his mind running a mile a minute coming up with possible answering options for tricky questions Sooyung was definitely going to ask him. 

“Joonghyuk,” Sooyung seemed to ponder for a minute, no doubt trying to come up with the worst possible question. Her eyes sparkled, and Dokja might’ve felt sorry for the person being subjected to her questions if it were anyone other than Joonghyuk. “Have you ever read a webnovel?”

A hush ran through the crowd, even the few slightly tipsy people quietening down and waiting for Joonghyuk’s answer.

Kim Dokja, curious despite himself, snuck a glance in the gamer’s direction. The hair on the back of his neck instantly stood up. Joonghyuk’s face had darkened - if possible - even further, and his glare was so piercing Kim Dokja was sure anyone who possessed any semblance of self-preservation would run for the hills instantly. As it were, the glare was currently directed at Han Sooyung, who was probably the only person in the world whose ability of feigning blissful ignorance was on par with Joonghyuk’s murder intent.

Joonghyuk’s jaw clenched for a moment before he very slowly, as if it were physically painful for him to do so, reached for a drink. The room exploded in cheers as Joonghyuk downed his first shot, and Kim Dokja was pretty sure he was the only one who’d noticed just how easy it had been for the other, the alcohol seeming to have gone down like water. Yet another ability of the gamer’s. Seriously, did this guy have any faults, or what?

Joonghyuk set the shot glass down with a soft clink, like he was placing a bloodstained sword on the table. Kim Dokja tried not to look impressed. Or terrified. Or like he was one wrong breath away from giving himself away.

“Didn’t peg him as the shy type,” Sangah said with a curious tilt of her head, smiling innocently.

Joonghyuk didn’t look up. “It was a stupid question.”

Almost instantly, Dokja’s head swivelled his way.

“Webnovels aren’t stupid,” Dokja blurted out before he could stop himself.

Silence dropped like a guillotine.

The entire table turned toward him. Even Sooyung raised an eyebrow. Lee Hyunsung blinked like he’d missed the part of the conversation where things got tense.

Joonghyuk’s eyes snapped to Dokja, sharp and assessing.

Dokja smiled thinly, very aware he had just jumped headfirst into enemy fire. “I mean—there’s good writing in all formats, right? A story’s a story.”

Joonghyuk didn’t reply. His stare remained fixed on Dokja for a long, long moment. And then—

“I suppose,” he said, voice quiet and smooth.

It was the first time he’d responded directly to Dokja all night. The weight of his gaze lingered like static electricity. Dokja could feel it, prickling the back of his neck.

“Oh my god,” Sooyung said suddenly, clearly drunk on her own scheming, “You two are so weird. I’m going to get more soju.”

Dokja exhaled sharply as she stood and wandered off, and leaned slightly toward Sangah for protection, once again using his pitiful napkin tower as a semblance of protection.

“I think he wants to kill me,” he muttered.

Sangah blinked. “He’s been looking at you a lot.”

“Exactly,” Dokja hissed.

“…No, I mean a lot .”

Dokja froze.

She wasn’t wrong.

He could feel it again — that unwavering stare. He didn’t even need to turn around to know. Somehow, even without being on camera, Joonghyuk managed to exude the exact same pressure he did in his streams — this force field of quiet, disapproving judgment that was impossible to ignore and said you’d be stupid to even try.

Sooyung returned with more bottles and more evil plans.

“Alright,” she said, “Next round. Let’s make it spicy. Dokja.”

“Please no,” Dokja whispered.

“If you had to marry someone at this table—”

“No.”

“—who would it be?”

The table howled.

Dokja very, very calmly picked up his shot glass. “Drink.”

But Sooyung leaned forward like a cat who’d found her favorite cornered mouse. “Come on. Just a name.”

Dokja slammed the shot like a man being marched to the gallows. It burned as it went down, and his expression crumpled.

“Fine,” Sooyung pouted. “Huiwon, your turn. Truth or drink?”

Dokja tried focusing back on the game, but the colors in his vision were already ten times more saturated than before. Curse his nonexistent resistance to alcohol.

Two rounds down and the room had turned into something between a celebration and a mild riot. Soju bottles circled the table like it was a championship game, and Han Sooyung was leading cheers like a drill sergeant on a caffeine high.

Kim Dokja tried to keep track of who was who, but after the third round, the names started blending. Lee Hyunsung was somewhere between “that guy with the sweatshirt” and “that guy who just yelled something in Korean I didn’t understand.” Yoo Sangah was definitely still laughing at a joke he hadn’t heard. Han Sooyung was now aggressively insisting Dokja try something called “fireball” that apparently was not actually fire.

Joonghyuk, for all his scowling, had not taken a single shot since the first. His dark eyes flicked between the players, assessing, calculating — occasionally landing on Dokja like a sentinel watching a wayward kid.

Dokja was very aware .

When his glass was filled he didn’t wait for the question to be asked, reaching for the glass himself. 

Timestamp: 22:30

Kim Dokja watched with his brows furrowed as Sooyung launched into a toast that sounded like a mix of a motivational speech and a pirate’s battle cry.

“So! To the champions of tonight—may our shots be strong, our laughter louder, and our regrets minimal!” Han Sooyung raised his bottle high, knocking it with Lee Hyunsung’s and Yoo Sangah’s in a loud clang that nearly made Dokja jump.

“Again!” Sooyung barked, clearly operating on a level of energy previously thought impossible. He downed his shot in a single gulp, then immediately reached for another bottle.

Dokja blinked, trying to keep up as the colors in his vision bloomed like fireworks. “Focus,” he muttered to himself, but his hands already trembled when he reached for his glass.

Joonghyuk was nearby, standing like a shadow sentinel with his arms crossed, watching the chaos with narrowed eyes. Dokja caught Joonghyuk’s gaze for a brief second—part warning, part “don’t embarrass yourself”—and tried to nod seriously. 

Timestamp: 23:00

The room had degenerated into something resembling a stadium tailgate party.

Hyunsung was loudly recounting a story involving a misfired firecracker and a very angry neighbor, arms flailing so wildly that he almost took out the hanging light fixture.

“I swear, I wasn’t trying to start a war! The firecracker just…exploded near the cat!” he yelled, laughter booming over the room.

Dokja, meanwhile, felt his vision wobble. Names and faces swirled together. “Who…is the guy in the red shirt again?” he slurred, pointing vaguely.

Someone came up beside him, voice low, “Hyunsung. Focus.”

Dokja turned his head in the direction of the sound, eyes blinking blearily in a desperate attempt at focusing the blurry colors together. A dark shape was now in front of him and Dokja squinted his eyes. 

“…Who are you again?”

A familiar scowl came into view, and before the shape in front of him could say anything, Dokja took a step back. Or at least tried to, because his legs tangled instantly and he went flying backwards.

“Wait! You… I know you.” he said, racking his brain, the firm hand on his upper arm the only thing keeping him up.

“Joonghyuk,” the voice was low but unmistakable, coated with that signature no-nonsense edge.

Dokja blinked up at him, trying to focus past the spinning room. “Right, right… serious guy, no drinks, protagonist aura…”

“…‘Protagonist aura’?”

Timestamp: 00:10

Dokja blinked up at the looming dark shape, struggling to focus on the blurry edges. The serious scowl was definitely there… but who was this guy again?

“You’re like… like a walking ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign,” Dokja slurred, waving a shaky finger at the silhouette. “A ‘Stop right there, mister,’ but also… wait, are you the bouncer? Or the janitor?”

The shape didn’t move. Just arms crossed and that glare that screamed, I’m judging you.

Dokja gasped, mouth dropping open in horror, “No, you’re a terrorist!”

The shape sighed heavily, a sound like a grumpy bear waking from hibernation.

Dokja stumbled backward, nearly toppling over a chair. “Wait—don’t be mad! I swear I know you. You look like… uh…” He squinted. “You look like someone who has a very serious job. Like a librarian for bad decisions.”

The firm hand that grabbed Dokja’s shoulder stopped his fall. The scowl didn’t soften, but the voice was unmistakable, low and tired:

“Joonghyuk.”

Dokja blinked, trying to put the pieces together. “Right! Yeah, you’re the… the… hmm…”

Timestamp: 00:50

Dokja took a sip from the neck of a bottle. No clue where he got it from. Above him bright spots glimmered across a vast, black expanse. 

“…Get inside.”

Dokja shook his head, even though the action shook the bright spots across his vision. He couldn’t seem to stop the movement though - shake, shake, shake .

Ah. 

A hand very briefly touched his head, steadying it.

Someone sat beside him, the dark shape quiet and unmoving. Dokja tried to make space and instead tipped sideways like a tree in a strong breeze. A hand caught his collar, tugged gently, then stayed—resting warm against the back of his neck.

Dokja didn’t move. Just blinked up at the sky, which seemed impossibly high and maybe spinning a little.

“...We are just like the stars.” a voice spoke, and it took a while for Dokja to realize it was his own. “All scattered and shining… but only ‘cause we’re so damn far apart. Maybe if we got too close, we’d just… burn out or crash or something.”

The air didn’t answer, but the silence wasn’t empty. He could feel the weight of someone listening.

Dokja tried to grin but it came out more like a squint. “But it’s okay… Maybe that’s the point. To shine alone, and still not be alone.”

The vague silhouette beside him said nothing, but Dokja was comfortable only watching the bright spots. He felt vaguely warm, warmer than before.

Kim Dokja sat on the floor in silence.

His mouth tasted like death. His head felt like it had hosted a rave. There was dried tteokbokki sauce on his sock.

Somewhere in the apartment, someone groaned. The toilet flushed. A bottle clinked ominously. Han Sooyoung snored like a chainsaw in the hallway.

None of it mattered.

Dokja had opened his phone.

Dokja had opened his contacts.

And now Dokja was looking directly into the mouth of hell.

[ Yoo Joonghyuk ]

He stared at the screen like it was a bomb. A sleek, neatly labeled, passive-aggressive bomb.

“…No,” he whispered, as if that might undo reality. “No no no. No I didn’t.”

He scrolled down. No message history. No emoji. No explanation.

Just “Yoo Joonghyuk,” sitting there like a smug bastard.

Dokja threw his phone onto the couch, then immediately dove after it like he’d just thrown his only child into a fire.

“WHY would I save his number?!” he hissed, cradling it like it had betrayed him. “When did I even open Contacts?? Who let me operate heavy machinery???”

He rolled onto his back dramatically, eyes wide and staring at the ceiling.

Was this what it felt like to be cursed? To be haunted?? To be emotionally compromised???

“No. It’s a mistake. It’s a glitch. There’s no way I would willingly—”

He paused. Re-checked.

His contacts were sorted by date added.

“…He’s the most recent one,” Dokja whispered, voice cracking like old glass. “He’s the last one.”

He blinked rapidly, shaking his head. “Okay. Okay. Maybe he killed me and stole my phone. Maybe I was unconscious. Maybe I died and this is a revenant’s phone. That’s logical. That’s fine.”

He looked down again.

There it was. That godforsaken name.

And worse—his phone showed it had been favorited.

“FAVORITED?!” he screamed.

In the other room, someone muttered, “Shut up, Kim Dokja,” but he didn’t hear it. He was too far gone. He had entered a full Shakespearean breakdown, pacing in circles with wild eyes and a hand clutched to his chest like a melodramatic regency widow. His head pounded like a bitch, but none of that mattered in the face of such a disaster.

“Did I do this? Did I do this?! Was I—friendly? Flirtatious?! Did I giggle ??”

He looked down at his body like it had betrayed him. “You absolute coward,” he hissed. “You folded like laundry. You melted like ice cream. You put a man in your favorites. What’s next? Matching profile pics?!”

The phone buzzed.

Not Joonghyuk.

Just Sooyoung, sending a video of him drunkenly trying to pet a potted plant while calling it “Hyunsung-hyungnim.”

Dokja dropped his phone face-down and sat in silence.

He slowly picked up the coat still draped over his shoulders.

He’d been too hungover to notice, but it smelled like… expensive soap. And… maybe… discipline and judgment.

Dokja collapsed fully back onto the floor.

Was it too late to give up drinking?

Chapter Text

Kim Dokja had made it precisely fifteen hours since waking up on his floor with Yoo Joonghyuk’s contact in his phone and a coat that did not belong to him.

He was currently hiding in the corner of the convenience store where he worked, hugging a space heater like it could protect him from the consequences of his own actions.

His fifth can of Black Black sat half-finished on the counter, his whole body trembling slightly as he stared at his phone like it was going to jump up and punch him.

[ Yoo Joonghyuk 💀 ]

[ No Messages ]

Good. That meant the world hadn’t ended yet.

And yet .

Kim Dokja had exactly three memories from last night so far:

A hand tugging him up from the sidewalk by the collar.

A coat draped over his shoulders. Too warm. Too nice. Not his.

“Don’t fall asleep here. You’ll die. ”

And—most devastating of all:

“Protagonist aura.”

He buried his face in his arms on the convenience store counter and whispered, “I have to flee the country.”

The coat — not his, still warm, still smugly folded — hung off the back of his chair like it was judging him. He’d checked the tag earlier. No name. Just expensive stitching and the scent of something vaguely like cedarwood and threat.

His phone buzzed with a message from Han Sooyoung (“ lol remember when you screamed at a lamp bc you thought it was yjh? ”).

Dokja closed the message wincing slightly and checked his contacts again.

There it was.

[ Yoo Joonghyuk 💀 ]

No memory of adding it. No memory of how. Just the lingering horror that he must’ve done it himself, or — worse — that Joonghyuk had done it for him.

He pressed his forehead harder against the counter.

Kill me kill me kill me —

The bell above the door jingled, and Kim Dokja pondered whether for a moment there some supernatural being had heard him and had sent someone to do exactly what he’d been asking for. 

“Welcome,” he groaned without looking up.

A few footsteps. Soft. Purposeful. Heavy boots.

Dokja didn’t lift his head until a pair of drinks slid across the counter. He blinked blearily at them: canned coffee and banana milk.

“You again,” he said hoarsely.

Hoodie Guy was back. Mask up. Hood up over a black cap, but this time with no sunglasses. Still unreadable though. Still vaguely intimidating in a “probably killed someone in 2008 and buried them under a train station” way.

“You look worse than usual,” Hoodie Guy said.

“You say that like you come here enough to have a usual.”

No answer. Just quiet, steady breathing. Dokja handed him a receipt.

Then, maybe because the store was too quiet, or maybe because the coat was still sitting there behind him like a ticking time bomb, Dokja hesitated for a moment, finger tracing an invisible pattern on the sticky counter.

“…Hey. Can I ask you something?” he finally asked. He’d probably gone crazy for good, but… there was something about the Hoodie Guy that vaguely reminded him of Yoo Joonghyuk, as insane as that sounded. Maybe it was the way they both looked one breath away from snapping and killing everyone in the room. This guy was probably as close as Dokja could get to an idea of what Joonghyuk currently thought about him.

Hoodie Guy looked at him, or at least tilted his head in a way that implied listening.

“Hypothetically,” Dokja said carefully, “if someone maybe got really drunk and maybe said some things to someone— like, uh, aggressively metaphorical things — and now they maybe have that someone’s contact in their phone with no memory of how it happened…”

He trailed off. Waved vaguely. “…Would you be freaking out?”

Hoodie Guy was quiet for a long moment, and Dokja blinked as two grey eyes fixed on him from under dark eyebrows.

Then: “What did you call them?”

“…Protagonist aura.” Dokja said, wincing slightly at the blurry memory and avoiding the man’s strangely piercing gaze.

The guy was silent again. Not frozen — just still. Completely unreadable behind the mask. Then, casually:

“Hm.”

Dokja squinted at him. “What does ‘hm’ mean?”

“Sounds like you insulted a cult leader.”

Dokja shook his head, though a smile was quirking his lips. That seemed oddly fitting for Joonghyuk in a way.

“No, no. A popular streamer. Which might be pretty close actually.”

Pause.

“…You insulted a streamer and woke up with his contact?”

“I DON’T KNOW HOW IT HAPPENED,” Dokja hissed.

Hoodie Guy gave the faintest tilt of the head, and Dokja had the slight feeling he was being made fun of, which was very upsetting considering he was usually on the other side of such an exchange.  “And this upsets you because…?”

“Because! He’s probably planning my public execution.”

A beat.

“That’s… vivid.”

Dokja groaned and let his head fall back onto the counter. “You don’t get it. He’s scary. Like dead-eyed, too-handsome, emotionally repressed scary.”

Hoodie Guy nodded once, then picked up his drinks and made his way towards the door as strangely-purposefully as he’d come in. Dokja gaped after him.

“Hey. Hey !” he shouted, jumping up from his seat like he’d been burned. “Why are you just leaving? Am I done for?? ”

The guy barely spared him a glance from the door. “Good luck with your impending death.”

He was gone as quick as he’d come, and Dokja was left feeling like the sky had come crashing down on him. Why him??

He groaned, resuming his rhythmic forehead-hitting. He was going to kill himself and then return as a vengeful ghost to haunt Han Sooyung for all eternity.

His forehead was still pressed against the counter when it hit him - not an epiphany, not an asteroid he was desperately hoping for. Just a memory.

It came back not like a slideshow, but like someone flipping on a projector in the middle of a movie. Mid-scene. Blurry at the edges but sharp enough to hurt. 

Timestamp: 01:17

Dokja was laughing. That much was clear.

He was outside again, leaning heavily against a lamppost like it was a lifelong friend, one hand gripping a bottle of something that absolutely wasn’t water.

“Don’t fall asleep here. You’ll die.”

Dokja pointed at the vaguely humanoid figure across from him. “No, see, you don’t get to say that. You saved me from a bush earlier. That makes us friends.”

“I didn’t save you. You tripped into a bush. I removed you from it.”

“Heroism,” Dokja declared, gesturing dramatically and almost falling backward. The figure caught him again — strong hand, steady, way too practiced at this for a stranger.

Dokja squinted up at them. Eyes unfocused, grinning and wagging his finger like he’d figured out the mysteries of the universe. “You’re kind of… nice, aren’t you? Under the whole scary loner vibe?”

“No.”

“I think you are,” he said, leaning forward too much, again. A hand caught him by the collar and yanked him upright before he could faceplant into the sidewalk.

Dokja blinked. He could smell cedarwood and regret.

“…Wait, I know that smell,” he mumbled. “You’re that serious guy. From earlier.”

“I’ve been the same person all night.”

Dokja stared. Something about the guy’s scowl clicked. Too distinct. Too main character.

Then, softly, reverently: “…‘Protagonist aura.’”

The man closed his eyes like he was asking some higher power for patience. Kim Dokja tried to slowly inch away from him and promptly froze when a glare fixed on him. “You’re intoxicated.”

“I’m correct.”

There was silence. A rustle of the wind. Somewhere, a traffic light blinked red.

Dokja grinned and jabbed a finger toward the man’s chest. “You’re the kind of guy who would survive the apocalypse with, like, zero lines of dialogue and a sword the size of a human torso.”

That earned him the closest thing to a smile he’d seen all night — a twitch at the corner of the man’s mouth. Barely there. But it happened.

Dokja beamed like he’d just discovered fire.

The man reached into his coat pocket, pulled out Dokja’s phone — wait, when had he taken that?? — and started tapping.

Dokja’s brain caught up just as he watched a contact being added.

A name.

A thumb lingering on the screen.

When the phone was handed back, Dokja blinked down at the name, then back up at the man.

“Wait. Waitwaitwait. Are you famous?” he asked, slightly horrified. “You don’t have a face. Like, I mean, you do, but it’s very… anonymous. Suspiciously anonymous.”

“You’re going to regret this entire night tomorrow,” the man said, deadpan.

“Too late,” Dokja muttered. “I regretted it during.”

Dokja jerked upright, smacked his knee on the counter, and swore violently.

The memory fizzled out in his brain like someone unplugged the projector again. All he was left with was a racing pulse and the dawning horror that he’d definitely insulted/complimented Yoo Joonghyuk to his face and then let him add his contact info like it was a reward.

And worst of all: he was… kind of polite? Dokja couldn’t remember ever being that civil to anyone. He hadn’t even called Joonghyuk a cryptid once.

He thudded his head against the counter again, before promptly whipping his head back up again. Wait a damn minute. Why the hell was he losing his mind over this? Was it really that big of a deal?

Dokja began straightening slowly, a crazed look entering his eyes. 

Matter of fact, shouldn’t Yoo Joonghyuk be the one to blame in this situation? Nobody asked for his help! Who the hell was he to go around plucking people from bushes and handing them his coat?? Who did he think he was???

Kim Dokja jumped from his seat, suddenly feeling very much awake. Yeah, blaming Yoo Joonghyuk seemed like the right course of action here.

Dokja snapped upright, eyes blazing with a manic sort of clarity, like he’d just found his new mission in life.

“No,” he muttered, pacing behind the counter with exaggerated purpose, “ he’s the one who should be apologizing.”

He sneered, a slow, sardonic grin crawling across his face.

“That’s Yoo Joonghyuk for you. Too handsome, too dead-eyed, too… too everything. ”

Dokja slapped the counter for emphasis. The space heater hummed in agreement—or maybe it was just buzzing, but Dokja took it as a sign.

“Alright, if he wants to play this game, fine. Let’s play. ”

That night, after more copious amounts of energy drinks had been consumed, Kim Dokja cracked his knuckles over his keyboard. He was ready.

When the notification popped up that Joonghyuk had gone live, Dokja clicked it immediately.

Yoo Joonghyuk’s stoic face came into view and Dokja scowled. Oh, he was definitely getting this guy back.

onlyreader : u ever try emoting or is that against your brand deal with the void?

onlyreader : like smile once and mavbe we’d get a secret ending idk

Joonghyuk’s eyes flicked briefly to chat and away. Dokja’s grip tightened around his phone as he glanced out of the corner of his eye at the coat ominously draped over the back of his small couch. Prick .

 “Some people hide behind usernames because they’d combust if they experienced accountability."

Chat explodes.

supremekingnoticeme33 : stream beef???

Dark_wolves2 : IS HE TALKING ABOUT ONLYREADER AGAIN

demonic_judge_of_fire : wait who

Kim Dokja’s vein popped in his head. Hah! This guy was talking about accountability when he was going around throwing his million-dollar coat at people to extort them for money?? Really??

onlyreader : sorry i didn’t realize brooding silently in 1080p was a personality

“It’s a feature, not a bug.” Joonghyuk said, eyeing the glowing black sword floating in front of him. Dokja still hadn’t figured out how he read chat without looking at it.

onlyreader: a feature for what? scaring your viewers into submission?

onlyreader: nothing like the sound of crickets to keep the hype alive.

“I don’t concern myself with such trivial matters.” Joonghyuk said boredly, and Dokja almost threw his phone at the wall. “You’re very active for someone interested in the Iron Tier Invitational.”

onlyreader : says the guy who was playing a dating game like two nights ago

Joonghyuk’s eyes found the camera again, and he tilted his head backwards with an almost imperceptible quirk to his lips like he’d figured something out. “You’re dodging.”

Dokja balked, fingers hovering in the air. And there was the truth. Dokja was trolling one of the best gamers in the world when he couldn’t even install a game without a tutorial open on his phone. 

onlyreader : i know enough

Weak comeback, but the past 24 hours had been a whirlwind. Sue him.

Joonghyuk cut through his enemies easily - he was on a high-level floor too, the show-off -  before replying. “You’re participating.”

Dokja grinned. As if .

onlyreader : wouldn’t u like to know weatherboy

Chat wheezed and Dokja almost rubbed his palms together like an overgrown fly. He was definitely winning this.

Then - 

Dokja froze. Joonghyuk’s eyes suddenly seemed to be glinting, and Dokja sincerely hoped the camera was malfunctioning. Because such a glint spoke of trouble, namely the violent death of one Kim Dokja. 

The arrogant smirk was definitely visible now. “Careful. You’re starting to sound like a fan.”

demonic_judge_of_fire: OHHHHH I SEE WHAT’S GOING ON HERE

Dark_wolves2: HE ATE THAT

supremekingnoticeme: NOT HIM CALLING U A FAN 💀💀💀

silent_sword_77: yjh winning the war with one-liners again

Dokja exited the stream IMMEDIATELY, closing the app and throwing his phone across the mattress. Who the hell was this guy?

Dokja froze. Come to think of it . Had he said anything to Joonghyuk while drunk that might point him out as onlyreader ?? 

His mind raced back to the other night—the drunken haze, the loud music, the blurred conversations. Had he said anything to Joonghyuk then? Anything at all that might have tipped him off? A slip of the tongue, a careless joke, some drunken ramble? The thought gnawed at him relentlessly. He couldn’t remember for the life of him.

A cold shiver ran down his spine, the kind that made the hairs on his arms stand on end. The room suddenly felt smaller, suffocating, as if the walls themselves were closing in. His heart hammered in his chest, threatening to burst free. If Joonghyuk had found out that night… The idea hit him like a fist.

He imagined Joonghyuk’s sharp gaze piercing through the drunken fog, catching him off guard. Wouldn’t he have reacted differently? Called him out? Or maybe worse—been silent but watching, waiting? The mere possibility was enough to send a spike of panic through Dokja’s chest.

But then, a flicker of reason pierced through the fear. Joonghyuk hadn’t acted strange since. No sly comments, no knowing looks, no subtle hints. If he knew, wouldn’t he have made some move by now? Anything?

Slowly, Dokja’s breathing steadied. 

No. Joonghyuk didn’t know.

Not yet.

Dokja swallowed hard, feeling the icy grip on his nerves loosen. For now, he was safe. But the tension remained — because the question wasn’t if Joonghyuk knew, but when.

He was still recovering from the horrifying thought when, five minutes later, Sooyoung sent him a screenshot: 

[Yoo Joonghyuk  @SwordOfTheEnd]
Brooding silently in 1080p is apparently compelling. Noted.

Then, as if things couldn’t possibly get any worse, his mind decided it was the perfect time to recall another mortifying experience from the past night.

Timestamp: 03:42 

The cab’s interior smelled like stale cigarettes and leftover fast food—exactly the kind of place where dignity went to die. Kim Dokja was slouched in the backseat like a deflated balloon, one shoulder higher than the other, head pressed against the cold window. Outside, Seoul’s streets blurred past in smeared neon streaks and Dokja gaped at the dance of the colorful lights.

Yoo Joonghyuk sat rigid in the front passenger seat, his black coat folded neatly on his lap, dark eyes fixed on the cab driver’s pale profile in judgement - poor guy looked a breath away from fainting, Dokja could relate -  and the glowing dashboard. The faint hum of the engine was a strange comfort, but it did little to keep Dokja upright.

He tried to right himself, but gravity had other plans.

“…Hey,” Dokja slurred, voice thick with exhaustion and the residue of too many shot-shaped bad decisions, “just let me stumble home and face-plant in a puddle like a normal person.”

Joonghyuk’s gaze flicked back through the rearview mirror, pinning Dokja with a look that said shut up before I make you shut up.

Instead of answering, Joonghyuk’s hand shot back, fingers grabbing the collar of Dokja’s shirt with a strength that was both sudden and unyielding. Before Dokja could protest, he was yanked upright with a harsh tug that left his neck protesting.

“Sit up. You’re not a corpse.”

Dokja blinked owlishly, throat dry and words slipping out in a slurred mess. “I’m basically undead,” he said, voice pitched low like it was a grand revelation. “A revenant. Immortal but grumpy.”

Joonghyuk’s hand didn’t loosen. Instead, it shifted to his shoulder, pressing firmly to keep him propped against the seatback, forcing Dokja’s spine into a straight line that felt like trying to fit a ragdoll into a coffin.

“Your spine is not a suggestion. Stop flopping around like you’re auditioning for a slapstick comedy.”

Dokja tried to lift his head, but Joonghyuk’s grip was a vice. “I— ow ! I’m not auditioning, I’m performing. ”

Dokja gave an indignant shake of his shoulders that probably looked like a squid flopping on dry land, trying to shake off Joonghyuk’s hand. “Let go, bastard.”

Joonghyuk’s grip tightened even further and his eyes glinted dangerously in the traffic lights shining past the window. Dokja’s breath hitched—partly from the sudden pain, partly because there was no way to squirm out of this, and partly because Joonghyuk looked way too serious about this spinal posture business.

“Stop trying to turn this cab ride into a circus act,” Joonghyuk said flatly, voice low and utterly unamused.

Dokja squinted at him, lips twitching into a crooked smile despite the ache. “Hey, if I’m the clown, you’re the… strict ringmaster with a death glare.”

Joonghyuk’s hand finally eased up just a fraction, but didn’t release him entirely. “You’re lucky I’m feeling merciful tonight. This isn’t a charity cab ride.”

Dokja chuckled softly, head lolling dangerously. “Merciful, huh? Dead-eyed and too handsome,” he added, voice thick, “You probably hide a giant sword under that coat or something.”

Joonghyuk’s lips twitched. “It’s there.”

“Glowing ominously in the moonlight,” Dokja continued, clearly enjoying himself despite the haze, “very handy for lighting up all my terrible decisions.”

The cab slowed as they pulled up outside Dokja’s apartment building — a squat, fluorescent-lit block with flickering hallway lights and peeling paint. The world outside looked cold and unforgiving, much like Dokja’s hangover was going to be. But for now, he was blissfully unaware about his future self’s suffering.

Joonghyuk turned to face him fully.

“Get out.”

Dokja blinked at him, mouth dry and brain fuzzy. “Now? Really?”

Joonghyuk’s eyes were dark and serious. “Before you pass out on the stairs and I have to carry you.”

Dokja groaned, forcing himself upright. His legs wobbled as he opened the cab’s door, threatening to betray him, but Joonghyuk was already looping an arm tight around his shoulders, steadying him like a lifeline.

“You’re such a pain,” Dokja muttered, leaning heavily against Joonghyuk’s side. 

Joonghyuk quietly huffed, the action jolting Dokja awake from where his eyes had subconsciously begun drifting shut. 

Joonghyuk half-dragged Kim Dokja up the dimly lit stairwell, Dokja’s legs threatening rebellion with every wobble. The coat was still slung over Joonghyuk’s arm like a weapon — or a peace offering — and Dokja’s brain was fuzzy enough to debate whether it smelled like cedarwood or impending doom. Both , he decided.

“You’re going to wear this,” Joonghyuk said, voice low and clipped, as if the coat itself were a punishment.

Dokja blinked, eyes squinting like he’d misheard. “Me? This ? Why? Are you going to haunt me if I don’t?”

“Why are you so difficult.” Joonghyuk muttered, voice low but sharp, like he was trying not to lose his patience but failing spectacularly. His fingers tightened just a little on Dokja’s arm as he hauled him upright. “You’re not a child.”

Dokja frowned, voice still slurring slightly but stubborn. He tried to push away the arm holding a coat that was dangerously inching closer to him. “I’m perfectly capable of freezing to death on my own, thanks.” 

Those dark eyes flashed again in the dim, yellow lights of his building’s hallways. 

“Wear it.” Joonghyuk’s voice was low, clipped—no room for argument.

Dokja resolutely shook his head, the motion making his vision blur together again until three Joonghyuks stood in front of him. He wasn’t taking the coat, though. He knew at least that much.

He didn’t need help from anyone.

Joonghyuk didn’t ask again.

With a sudden pull, Joonghyuk yanked the coat around Dokja’s shoulders and shoved the sleeves onto his arms before he could protest. 

Kim Dokja blinked against the sudden weight of the fabric settling around his shoulders. It was warm—too warm—and smelled exactly like something impossibly sharp, like the scent of a storm about to break.

Joonghyuk said nothing, but there was a glint in his eyes Dokja had only seen when he eviscerated enemies using some over-powered gaming techniques that shouldn’t be possible.

Dokja squinted at him, trying to ignore the way the coat felt like armor and a shackle all at once. “You just want me to owe you something.”

Joonghyuk’s eyes narrowed just the slightest bit. “I’m not running a charity. You owe me a debt.”

Dokja let out a dry laugh, despite himself. “Great. Debts. Hey, just take it back now.”

Joonghyuk said nothing, just turned on his heel, pulling the coat’s collar up against the cold stairwell air as he walked ahead. Dokja staggered after him. 

At the landing, Joonghyuk stopped. His back was to Dokja. The dim hallway light caught the edge of his sharp jaw, the shadow under his eyes, the slight crease between his brows.

“Next time,” Joonghyuk said without looking back, “don’t get drunk. It’s annoying to have to rescue you.”

Dokja paused from where he’d been desperately searching through his pants’ pockets for the keys to his apartment. He slowly looked up, a disbelieving and wary grin on his face. “What do you mean, ‘next time’?”

Joonghyuk said nothing, just took the keys from his slippery fingers and unlocked his door, holding it open and pushing Dokja inside, who stumbled gracefully over the doorstep and went sprawling on the floor. He turned around, wincing at the pain crawling up his knees, and looked up at the tall silhouette towering over him. The lights shone behind him, blanketing Joonghyuk’s expression in darkness.

The streamer said nothing, and Dokja only managed to get a glimpse of the door closing before he was out like a light. 

The heat was already unbearable, and it wasn’t even 9 a.m.

Kim Dokja stood beside a battered black SUV with peeling decals of old sponsorships and one surviving sticker that read “EAT CRITS, DIE MAD” . The vehicle looked less like a professional gamer’s ride and more like a very cursed dorm room on wheels. He had one hand on a precarious stack of plastic bins, the other holding a half-eaten convenience store egg sandwich. His shirt — oversized and slightly wrinkled — was starting to stick to his back, and he regretted every decision that had led him to being Han Sooyoung’s part-time roadie.

“Han Sooyoung,” he said, voice dangerously flat. “Why do you have three ring lights.”

“Because the lighting at the venue sucks and I refuse to be filmed looking like I haven’t slept in a year,” came the shout from the stairwell. “Also, two of them are backups. You never know when one’s gonna explode.”

Dokja stared at the lights, then at the rest of the mess: portable monitors, tangled RGB cables, energy drinks stuffed into a cooler with questionable insulation, an anime keychain-covered duffel bag, and a suspiciously dented steel case that he was 90% sure contained her actual keyboard — the one she’d threatened to duel someone over on stream.

“Remind me again why your team isn’t helping with this?” he muttered, shoving a tub into the trunk.

Han Sooyoung finally appeared, looking like she had just walked off the set of a music video and onto a crime scene. She wore an oversized bomber jacket in metallic silver, black biker shorts, and chunky combat boots with mismatched laces. Her hair was tied in a high ponytail, and her sunglasses were the kind that covered 80% of her face. She was carrying a tray of iced Americanos and a croissant sandwich in her teeth like some unholy brunch courier.

“They’re meeting me at the venue,” she barked around the sandwich. “You, on the other hand, volunteered .”

“I said I’d watch the tournament. You tricked me into becoming a mover.”

“Semantics.”

Dokja sighed and picked up a backpack covered in enamel pins shaped like pixelated skulls and tiny knives. “What’s in this one? Please don’t say it’s just makeup.”

Han Sooyoung blinked innocently over her sunglasses. “Okay, I won’t say it.”

He opened the zipper. It was entirely contour palettes, spare lashes, micellar water, and a single USB labeled YJH-Fails_FINALFINAL .

He held it up like evidence. “Is this a war crime?”

“It’s called ‘preparation,’” she said smugly, sliding into the driver’s seat and starting the engine. The interior reeked of peach vape and chili-flavored chips.

Dokja leaned into the open window. “So, what’s your strategy?”

“Easy,” she said, tossing a chip in her mouth and wiping her hands on her jacket (which, on second inspection, had “ CHAOS FIRST ” printed on the sleeve). “Overwhelm them. Distract them. And if that doesn’t work—blame input lag.”

“You’re going to make Yoo Joonghyuk punch a monitor.”

“That’s the dream,” she said, peeling off into the street like a street racer with a grudge.

Dokja held on for dear life as Sooyung swerved dangerously around cars, a flicker of anticipation sparking behind his eyes. The city lights streamed by as the car slid through traffic, the hum of the approaching tournament buzzing in the air.

Dokja’s gaze drifted to the rearview mirror, calm but calculating. Joonghyuk’s reputation was no joke—every move precise, every play sharp as a razor.

He smiled thinly, a plan already perfectly laid out in his mind crafted specifically for dodging Joonghyuk.

Time to watch the master at work… without getting caught in his crosshairs.

Chapter Text

By the time they reached the convention center, the street was already packed. Streamers in custom jerseys loitered around sponsor booths, and a swarm of spectators already lined the entrance, phones out and buzzing. A massive LED banner scrolled the tournament bracket overhead, cycling through the day’s lineup with blinding enthusiasm.

Han Sooyoung parked like she was trying to destroy the handbrake and jumped out with terrifying grace, already answering a call on her headset and swearing at her team in two languages.

Dokja stayed in the car a second longer, face partially buried in his egg sandwich and the hollow ache of dawning dread.

He texted her.

onlydokja: is he here yet

HanSooPower: you’d know if he was. the temperature drops.

He sighed, adjusted his cap lower over his eyes, and joined the crowd with the slow, resigned shuffle of someone marching toward a firing squad.

Inside, the venue was pure chaos.

Neon lights, clashing sound systems, sponsors yelling over the din, booths stacked with merchandise and energy drinks in cursed flavors like “Volcanic Citrus Blitz.” Dokja stuck to the edges, blending in with Sooyung’s staff and crew members as best he could, craning his neck for a glimpse of anyone tall, dark, and brooding.

He spotted him ten minutes later.

Yoo Joonghyuk stood at the far end of the venue like someone had carved a space around him with sheer hostility and godly aura. He was wearing a tight black t-shirt, sleeves rolled just enough to show veins and murder potential. He was testing a controller, long fingers twitching with calm precision, headphones slung around his neck.

He was either completely unaware or deliberately ignoring (probably the latter) the crowd shuffling in his vicinity with excited whispers. 

A dark gaze flicked upwards for just a moment, as if sensing another pair of eyes watching him.

Dokja froze, ducked immediately behind a hanging banner for a mobile game that didn’t even exist anymore.

When he subtly ducked his head around the banner, Joonghyuk’s eyes were back on the controller.

No reaction. No look. No pause.

Okay. Okay.

Maybe he didn’t recognize him.

Something in Dokja’s chest loosened—but it wasn’t quite relief.

There was something bitter about the ease of it.

You dragged me up three flights of stairs and forced a coat on me like a judgmental ghost, and now I’m invisible?

He shook the thought away.

This was good. He didn’t need more complications. 

He was fine.

Totally fine.

Except, of course, that’s when his brain decided to play the highlight reel from that night in the cab like a guilt-inducing music video.

Joonghyuk’s hand grabbing his collar.

The coat, slung like armor.

Dragging.

Lifting.

That damn “You owe me a debt” line.

Why would someone like him bother?

And then—like someone tuning in a radio—Dokja remembered it.

The cab driver.

He’d forgotten until now, how weird the guy had gotten after a few minutes. How the man had kept looking at him through the mirror, asking odd questions, leaning a little too far over the seat to “make sure he was okay.” Dokja had laughed it off at the time, too out of it to notice. But Joonghyuk had.

He’d said nothing. Just sat stiffly in the front passenger seat, eyes fixed like lasers. And after that moment—after the driver made that third weird comment—Joonghyuk had pulled Dokja upright by the collar like he was yanking him out of a swamp. From there, everything had become mechanical. Drag. Haul. Protect.

Dokja blinked.

He shifted slightly, watching Joonghyuk across the venue.

At that exact moment, some indie streamer bumped into a tournament assistant — the guy clearly high or drunk. The assistant flinched back, and it was like déjà vu. Joonghyuk stepped in immediately, like a machine reacting to an input. He didn’t say anything. Just stood there, expression cold and direct, until the other streamer scuttled away. 

Joonghyuk didn’t stick around to hear the assistant’s thanks, leaving without saying anything and with that same scowl permanently imprinted on his face like it was his default skin.

A pattern.

Joonghyuk didn’t tolerate those kinds of moments. Predation. Exploitation (minus the whole coat debacle apparently).

Not because he was kind. But because he didn’t allow the world to be ugly in front of him.

It hadn’t been personal.

It hadn’t been about Dokja.

It was just a rule.

And he just happened to fall inside the radius of enforcement.

Dokja let out a slow breath.

Okay.

That was… actually kind of a relief.

And—honestly? A little anticlimactic.

“Oi,” came Sooyoung’s voice through the headset she’d forced everyone on her team to wear, breaking him out of his daze. Dokja felt like a spy in a high-stakes movie, and he had the sneaky suspicion she’d chosen them for that exact reason. “Where’d you disappear to?”

Dokja turned slightly, his reflection caught in a display screen showing Joonghyuk’s match schedule. His face looked calm, watchful. But his eyes lingered on the name: Rebellion vs. ShineGames_Holystorm.

He smiled faintly.

“Nowhere. Just scouting the competition.”

He shoved his hands in his pockets and melted back into the crowd, suddenly feeling much calmer than before.

Though the whole drunken night would be an endless well of mortification for the rest of his life, at least he’d now figured out why Joonghyuk had stuck with a stranger the entire night.

(He was actually kind of… nice. If one could look past his scowl, his dead glare, and well, his everything.)

But Dokja’s gaze flicked once—just once—back over his shoulder, toward the stage where Joonghyuk was now warming up, every flick of his wrist clean and fast and terrifyingly efficient. It’d still be better for him to dodge the streamer for the foreseeable future.

Beside him, four people were standing closer than one normally would to Yoo Joonghyuk. One of them Dokja recognized as Lee Hyunsung, having met him a couple of days ago. Though most memories from that night were fuzzy (and altogether mortifying), Dokja remembered Hyunsung as a kind and respectful man who’d said ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ every single time. Though he was built like a soldier plucked right out of the army, the smile on his face was the glaringly obvious difference between him and cold-blooded murderer Joonghyuk.

Besides him, there was also a girl who looked much younger than most people there, with dark bangs and a scary grin on her face. Dokja also recognized her from the outing. There was also a tall, thin woman with flowing white hair and of a beauty that seemed impossible, ethereal even, with cat-like eyes and blood red lips. There was also a guy who also looked like a delinquent highschooler who was sporting an ugly grin. Was Yoo Joonghyuk’s team made up of highschoolers or what?

Though he hadn’t met the latter two, he knew who they were thanks to Han Sooyung’s serious debriefing the previous night.

The night before 

Kim Dokja opened the door to his apartment and immediately regretted it.

Han Sooyoung was already inside. He really had to change his keylock again. His small living room had been overtaken by four laptops, a giant whiteboard, three half-finished energy drinks, a Bluetooth speaker blasting dramatic music, and the remains of two convenience store dinners that she’d half-eaten and forgotten about.

Dokja blinked.

“Are we under attack?” he asked, stepping cautiously over a tangled charging cable.

Han Sooyoung turned around dramatically, waving a laser pointer in his face.

“We’re going to war,” she said. “Sit down.”

He didn’t. “You’re not allowed to use my electricity if this is another one of your Twitch beefs.”

“It’s not.” She jabbed the pointer toward the TV, where her phone was screen-casting a slideshow titled: “THE ENEMY.” The subtitle read: “Tournament Meta, Team Breakdowns, and Why Yoo Joonghyuk Can Choke.”

Dokja sighed. “You know, normal people just send links.”

“I’m not normal. Sit down, Kim Dokja. You’re in this now.”

“I literally just volunteered to help you carry shit.” Dokja said, but resignedly sat down. There was no escaping once Sooyung set her mind to something.

“And that means intel. Knowledge. Awareness.” She turned, cape-like hoodie swishing as she clicked to the next slide: a slow zoom-in on the tournament logo. Fireballs. Screaming. Metal music. A chicken boss doing a flip.

Dokja squinted. “…Is that game sponsored by a hot sauce brand?”

“Only for the Iron Tier bracket.” She clicked again. “Now listen up, because I’m only going to explain this once.”

The next slide showed the icon of the game: “Echelon: Vanguard” — a sleek phoenix rising from shattered circuits, glowing with neon blues and fiery oranges. The sharp, metallic font below promised fierce competition and relentless intensity.

“So it’s a 5v5 arena-based PvP-PvE hybrid,” Sooyoung began, pacing the room like a deranged professor. “Each team picks five Avatars. Everyone gets one ult and three skills. You can pick up powerups, artifacts, buffs—”

“You’re losing me.”

“Think: Fortnite meets League meets a dungeon crawler. You at least know those right?” Sooyung paused, eyeing Dokja with a wide-eyed look that was a mix of horror and trepidation. Only out of fear, Dokja nodded. 

Sooyung quickly resumed her nightmarish rambling, “But on fire. With bears. Some maps have traps. One has lava. A few have roaming world bosses that randomly one-shot people. It’s pure chaos and I love it.”

“And this is… casual?” Dokja deadpanned.

“There’s nothing casual about gaming,” Sooyoung said with pure conviction, eyeing the slideshow with shining eyes.

(When Sooyung wasn’t looking, Dokja used his sneaky-texting ability polished along multiple years to look up Fortnite.)

Dokja kicked his feet on the backrest of the couch, his notes app unfortunately open. “So what’s the format? How long do I have to suffer?”

“Three days,” she said, turning the whiteboard (how had she even brought that in??) next to the TV around with a dramatic ta-da!.

She’d drawn a bracket, color-coded with markers. There were doodles of tiny people dying in fire and one suspiciously muscular stick figure with glowing, red eyes labeled YJH 💀.

• Day 1: 20-minute matches. Three teams per bracket. The masses fight and fall. Winning teams are decided on a kill-count system.
  
  
• Day 2: Wildcard 1v1s. Most-voted players from each team get thrown into a gladiator pit for the audience’s amusement.
  
  
• Day 3: Semifinals and finals. No breaks. No substitutions. No crying.
  
  

“So… the wildcard round is just for fun?” Dokja asked.

“Fun? FUN?!” Sooyoung barked a laugh. “It’s bloodsport with product placement. It’s the real show. And I’m going to win it.”

Dokja raised an eyebrow. “Against Yoo Joonghyuk?”

She grinned, teeth sharp. “Especially against Yoo Joonghyuk.”

Han Sooyoung clicked to the next slide.

A video began playing — dramatic slow-mo clips set to war drums and electric violin. The screen read:

“Yoo Joonghyuk’s Team of Pain and Bad Decisions (a.k.a. REBELLION)”

“Tell me this isn’t just a hate slideshow,” Dokja muttered, but sat up to see it better nonetheless. Sue him.

“It’s also informative,” she said, not denying anything at all. “Now shut up and listen.”

LEE HYUNSUNG — “THE WALL”

A clip played of Hyunsung’s Avatar shielding three teammates from a meteor strike, then uppercutting a boss with a glowing hammer.

“He’s their tank. Support-defender hybrid. Doesn’t die. Doesn’t tilt. I once saw him block a troll by writing a full apology to them in chat.”

“…I met him,” Dokja muttered. “At the bar the other night.”

“Oh, right.” She paused. “He liked you, didn’t he?”

Dokja looked uncomfortable. “He said I had a ‘kind aura.’”

Sooyoung gave him a look like she didn’t believe him.

 “It’s true!”

LEE JIHYE — “THE DAGGER”

The next clip was a bloodbath. An assassin Avatar dashed behind enemy lines, sliced three heads, and vanished into smoke. Then the camera zoomed in on her username: “EchoVixen.”

“She’s Joonghyuk’s prodigy,” Sooyoung said grimly. “Fastest hands in the league. Unholy aim. ”

“She looks fourteen.” Dokja said, trying to figure out where he’d seen her before.

“She’s eighteen and banned in most chats,” Sooyoung corrected. “Fear her.”

LEE SEOLWHA — “THE ICE QUEEN”

Footage of elegant, glittering magic covering the entire map in frost. Seolwha’s Avatar looked like a tragic K-drama heroine wielding an ice storm.

“Support main. Ridiculously good at crowd control. Gorgeous, terrifying, possibly immortal.”

Dokja frowned. “She’s good.”

“She’s also Yoo Joonghyuk’s ex.”

Dokja paused for a second. Maybe he hadn’t heard that correctly. “…Excuse me?”

“Yep. Trained with him. Teamed with him. Dated him. And then she stayed on the team post-breakup. Do you know how insane that is?”

“That’s—”

“Crazy? Hilarious? Perfect YJH blackmail material?”

“Unexpected. I didn’t think Joonghyuk could have feelings for anyone. Or, actually, any feelings at all.”

Dokja and Sooyung shared a look of silent agreement founded on a bed of gossip and judgement.

KIM NAMWOON — “THE NUISANCE”

The screen went fuzzy.

Then: pure chaos. A grenade bounced off a wall and hit two teammates. A friendly fire count ticked up. Explosions. Screaming. A player yelling “STOP THROWING FLASHES AT ME YOU GREMLIN.” drowned out by raucous laughter that Dokja instantly hated.

“Kim Namwoon,” Sooyoung said through gritted teeth, but her voice sounded begrudgingly admiring. “Gunner. Plays like it’s a GTA server. Technically brilliant. Functionally a menace.”

“Why is he on the team? He seems like kind of a liability.”

“No one knows.”

BONUS: YOO JOONGHYUK — “THE FINAL BOSS”

Finally, the screen cut to black.

Then Joonghyuk appeared. Silent. Focused. His Avatar slashed through enemies like he’d memorized every frame. No powerups. No assists. Just raw, terrifying skill.

“He only plays melee,” Sooyoung said. “Doesn’t even look at items. Has never said ‘gg’ in his life. People think he’s a bot.”

Dokja grinned. “I mean, have you ever seen him and a bot in the same room?”

“I will fight him. In the wildcard round. It’s tradition now. We’ve done it four years running. Last year he beat me and I’ve never known peace.”

She stabbed her laser pointer into the whiteboard, where her name and his were already scrawled in big letters under WILDCARD DUEL: “FATED ENEMIES.”

Dokja just took a sip of his drink, exhausted.

“I’m in hell,” he said.

“No, you’re in esports,” Sooyoung corrected. “Now grab the snacks. Because here’s the fun part—you.”

Dokja stared. “Me? Why?”

“Wildcard slot isn’t some participation trophy. Audience votes. Highest hype. You remember last year? When I challenged Joonghyuk and the chat lost their minds? We need that energy again.”

She paced, waving the laser pointer like a magic wand. Then she stopped and jabbed it right at Dokja’s chest. “You’re on chat duty. Stir the pot, fan the flames, plant seeds of glorious drama. You said you wanted to be a double spy? Congrats, you’re about to become a double-troll.”

Dokja blinked, the tiniest spark of evil flickering awake. They truly were terrible people. “You’re not saying—”

Sooyoung’s grin was pure mischief. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

That night when Joonghyuk’s stream notification popped up, both of them crowded around Dokja’s phone like evil leprechauns around a pot of gold.

HexinAk: REBELLION CLEAN SWEEP LET’S GO

supremekingnoticeme: WHO’S EXCITED FOR TMRW

Dokja cracked his knuckles before opening the chat with the serenity of a raccoon unscrewing a trash can lid.

onlyreader: warm-up speed’s up to 13%. must be rage training for smth.

A few viewers caught on immediately. The emotes rolled in. The speculation started trickling.

onlyreader: not naming names but someone might be coming for u

onlyreader: short. chaotic. 

That did it.

sparklingchaos: IS HE TALKING ABOUT HSY???

pplvsYJH: wildCardRematch WHEN

snackabletanks: pls let them fight again i’ll sell my bones

Dokja sipped his drink. Let the chat stew a couple of moments with all the grace of a chef watching his signature delicacy cooking on the fire.

onlyreader: just saying audience votes count

On screen, Joonghyuk’s avatar wiped a squad clean with his usual surgical detachment. He seemed perfectly unbothered, even though Dokja was certain he’d been reading the messages using his freakish power of not looking at the screen.

onlyreader: and she almost had him last year

onlyreader: 0.3 seconds

onlyreader: not that anyone’s counting

onlyreader: (except everyone)

The chat exploded.

clown4sooyoung: it’s tradition

noChillHyunsung: run it back!!

guncore94: he never said gg he’s afraid of her

And then — as if summoned by a disturbance in the Force —

“You again.”

The collective reaction in chat was immediate.

omgstepOnmejoonghyuk: SIR?

echoV_knifequeen: THE FINAL BOSS SPEAKS

seolwhasleftglove: this is better than tv

Dokja leaned forward, smug.

onlyreader: just helping with engagement metrics

onlyreader: you’re very marketable when you’re emotionally cornered

“Log off.“ Joonghyuk said through his signature scowl. Dokja grinned.

onlyreader: can’t. i have a job.

onlyreader: (also someone has to document ur downfall for posterity)

Another brutal onscreen combo. Joonghyuk’s K/D was climbing like stock in a scandal.

Dokja smiled, typed lazily:

onlyreader: anyway hypothetically if she did beat u this year

onlyreader: do u think she’d be gracious

onlyreader: or order a commemorative cake

No response.

But the next headshot was so clean it made the hairs on the back of Dokja’s neck stand up. Chat was vibrating with anticipation. Even some of the other streamers were commenting now.

Dokja sent one last message like a letter sealed with a kiss:

onlyreader: look at it this way

onlyreader: it’d be closure for her

onlyreader: and content for us

Still no reply.

But Joonghyuk’s gameplay had gone from “flawless” to “you should probably call a priest.” And the seed of doubt had been successfully planted in chat.

Which, for Dokja, was answer enough.

Han Sooyoung leaned over the back of his chair, watching the carnage unfold like a proud mother at a criminal trial.

“That’s my little PR agent,” she said, misty-eyed.

Kim Dokja eyed the people now standing on stage, sipping from his third coffee/energy drink combination of the day. 

The only truly famous teams were Rebellion and Sooyung’s team, Apostles, both of their leaders being consistently ranked in the top 3 gamers in the nation yet always showing up even for casual competitions like the Iron Tier Invitational. This sparked some controversy, some people considering the competition to become rigged, or unfair. Most viewers were excited to be able to see the two play as much as possible, though.

But, after watching Rebellion’s first round against ShineGames_Holystorm, Dokja could kind of agree with the trolls.

The scoreboard displayed the score in glaring, red writing: 32-3.

The commentator’s enthusiastic voice filled the arena. “ShineGames_Holystorm looks like they came here for a charity round. The score’s 32-3 in Rebellion’s favor, with Yoo Joonghyuk leading the way with 17 kills!”

Dokja winced as he watched the defeated team scuttle off the stage. That had been truly brutal to watch. Rebellion had moved with clean, terrifying precision, and the only reason the other team had racked even three points was because Namwoon Kim had a passion for exploding things in his own AOE. 

Joonghyuk, who had been plenty scary to watch on stream, suddenly seemed ten times more frightening. So this was what he played like when he was truly serious.

Dokja watched as Lee Jihye slapped Namwoon Kim upside the head on the player exit ramp, her mouth clearly forming “Three kills? Really?”, while Lee Seolhwa silently handed out water to a sheepish-looking Hyunsung.

Joonghyuk didn’t even glance back at his team. He was already scanning the bracket for their next opponents, expression unreadable, eyes like a hawk sighting its next target. The man carried himself like this was all beneath him - which, judging by the scoreboard, it was.

Dokja raised an eyebrow. “Overkill,” he muttered.

The person next to him turned with an excited grin. “Right?! That ult chain into the teleport - did you see that? Joonghyuk’s insane.”

“Mm,” Dokja said noncommittally. He had seen it. He had also seen Joonghyuk hesitate for 0.1 seconds when ShineGame’s support fumbled a miscast barrier. Not out of doubt - out of disgust. 

It wasn’t just the win. It was the way Joonghyuk’s movements had tightened around the halfway mark - how the flow of the team had instantly changed, becoming sharper, more surgical. At first, Rebellion had toyed with their opponents, maybe even humored them. Then Joonghyuk must’ve gotten bored.

And when Joonghyuk got bored, people died faster.

Dokja muttered under his breath, “And they’re the crowd-favorite? They seem more like villains to me.”

He wondered if anyone in the next bracket was already thinking of forfeiting.

Joonghyuk still hadn’t spoken, ignoring the crowd that had gathered around his team. He simply stared at the bracket, as if willing the names to reshuffle into something worth his time.

Dokja followed his gaze. The next team up were respectable, mid-high Diamond. They wouldn’t last ten minutes.

Joonghyuk didn’t blink. 

This wasn’t ambition, Dokja thought, eyes narrowing. This was hunger.

From beside him, Sooyung let out a low whistle. Someone on her team let out a slightly-terrified cough and was promptly silenced by her glare.

“That’s not a team,” she said, grudgingly admiring. “That’s a damn scalpel.”

(Dokja heard her muttering under her breath, “I’ve got to get Namwoon Kim to teach me that ult combo.”)

She glanced towards the stage. Her eyes met Joonghyuk’s for a split second.

He didn’t look away.

Dokja watched the interaction closely. He could kind of understand the viewers excited to see them pitted against each other. The two of them were formidable opponents with a matching stubbornness that guaranteed an interesting match.

Joonghyuk’s gaze lingered on Sooyung for a moment longer, unreadable. Then, his eyes shifted-

And landed on Kim Dokja.

Dokja froze.

For a brief moment, he tried to convince himself that Joonghyuk wasn’t actually looking at him, just someone behind him, or next to him, or-

Nope.

Definitely him.

There was something unnerving about the way Yoo Joonghyuk’s gaze settled on people. Not like he was looking at you, but like he was already estimating your threat level, filing you away under “irrelevant” or “potential problem”. Dokja didn’t want to know which category he was currently being sorted into.

And maybe he was overthinking it. Maybe it had nothing to do with him.

…Except Joonghyuk was still staring.

Dokja coughed, adjusted his collar, and muttered a quiet, "I'll be right back” to Sooyung before walking away very casually.

He did not speed up. He did not flee. He was simply relocating to somewhere quieter, less glaring, with maybe a nice vending machine where no terrifying top-ranked pro could laser through him with their eyeballs.

The hallway behind the main arena was mostly empty, the noise of the crowd dimming to a dull roar. Dokja sighed, his hand hovering over the vending machine canned coffee before painfully switching over to water. He didn’t need more caffeine. He needed sanity.

A shadow fell over his shoulder.

Dokja turned - and nearly dropped the bottle.

Yoo Joonghyuk stood there, hands in his pockets, gaze sharp as ever. Dokja, embarrassingly enough, had to slightly crane his neck to look up at him.

How the hell had he even come here so fast?

Dokja blinked, painful, embarrassing moments flashing before his eyes. Please don’t say anything, please don’t say anything - “Uh… Hey.”

Joonghyuk didn’t respond immediately. He glanced at the vending machine, then back at Dokja, like he was analyzing something more important than beverage choice. His dark eyes flicked over him once, an unreadable glint in them that Dokja took as disgust.

The sound of Joonghyuk’s low voice made Dokja nearly jump out of his skin. “You’re walking straight today.”

Dokja blinked, caught off-guard. His shackles were rising fast though.”...Sorry?”

Joonghyuk’s gaze remained steady. “The other night. You were limping.”

Dokja made a strangled sound. Figures Joonghyuk just had to bring it up and rub salt in the wound. “I- what? I was not.”

When all else fails, lie.

“You were,” Joonghyuk said. “Left knee.”

Dokja stared at him. “I don’t remember that.”

“You were also drunk,” Joonghyuk added, clinically.

The twitch in Dokja’s jaw upgraded to full irritation. “Is this just going to be a play-by-play of my most humiliating evening?”

Joonghyuk ignored him, eyes flicking to the water bottle in his hand. “...Better choice this time.”

“Huh?”, Dokja asked dumbly, his brain still trying to catch up with the situation.

“The water,” Joonghyuk said, something in his voice rubbing Dokja the wrong way.

There was something profoundly condescending about the way he said it, like he was congratulating a dog for not chewing through furniture.

Joonghyuk’s gaze returned to Dokja’s face. “You looked worse that night.”

Dokja’s smile tightened. “Thanks.”

Joonghyuk’s gaze was calculating, watchful. Dokja hated it.

“Let me guess,” Dokja hurried to fill the silence, too fast, too sharp. “I looked pathetic. Don’t worry, I’m used to it. Frankly, if that’s the worst thing someone’s said about me this month, I’m already doing above average.”

Joonghyuk was silent again. His expression didn’t change. If he was surprised, he didn’t show it.

Dokja exhaled through his nose. He didn’t know why he was still talking. “Listen, if this is about the coat—”

“It’s not.”

“But it’s yours, right?”

A pause.

“Keep it,” Joonghyuk said. He might’ve meant it as a gesture. It didn’t sound like one. It sounded more like he didn’t want it back after Dokja had worn it.

Dokja looked away, down the hallway. “Right. The charity streak continues.”

Joonghyuk didn’t correct him.

“You do this a lot?” Dokja asked. “Track down people you vaguely pity and offer fashion advice?”

“No.”

“Guess I’m special,” Dokja smiled sardonically.

Joonghyuk tilted his head slightly. 

There was something crackling under his skin now — a kind of residual humiliation that hadn’t had time to settle yet. He could feel Joonghyuk looking at him like he was still unfinished. Like there was more data to collect. It made Dokja want to fold in on himself and spit venom at the same time.

He stepped back, ready to leave.

“Wait,” Joonghyuk said.

It wasn’t loud, but it landed like a command.

Dokja paused, jaw clenched. “Why?”

“You looked like you were about to fall over again.” Joonghyuk said calmly.

Dokja stared at him. “Seriously?”

Joonghyuk didn’t blink. “You’re pale. Unsteady.”

“Maybe I’m just naturally corpse-like.”

Joonghyuk said nothing.

Dokja let the silence stretch. Then, dryly, “Are you always like this?”

Joonghyuk raised an eyebrow.

“You show up, say the most condescending thing possible in a tone that makes it sound like a diagnosis, and expect people to be grateful?”

Still no reply.

Dokja smiled thinly. “Guess I should be flattered. Most people just ignore me.”

Joonghyuk’s gaze narrowed slightly. “I tried.”

That shouldn’t have landed the way it did. Dokja flinched — just barely — then smoothed his expression over again, tighter this time.

“Right,” he said quietly. “Okay. I’ll do you a favor and make it easier next time.”

He stepped past Joonghyuk, the water bottle cold in his grip.

Joonghyuk didn’t stop him.

But he did turn slightly, eyes tracking his exit like he was logging something new. Not surprised. Not sorry.

Just… watching.

And Kim Dokja, halfway down the hallway, hated how aware he was of it.

Dokja barely noticed the crowd parting as he made his way down the hall. The cold weight of Joonghyuk’s gaze still clung to him like a second skin, and his condescending words kept echoing in his ears.

From across the venue, Sooyung caught sight of him. Her eyes narrowed, sharp with concern. She approached swiftly, matching his pace.

“You okay?” she asked quietly.

Dokja forced a shrug, voice clipped. “I’m fine.”

“’Fine’ isn’t your usual ‘fine,’” she said, not pressing further. Sometimes you just had to wait for someone to open the door themselves.

He glanced at her, a flicker of gratitude mixed with stubborn pride. “It’s nothing.”

Sooyung quietly studied him a moment longer but let it drop.

By the time evening settled in properly, the tournament’s edge had dulled. Most of the day had passed in a blur of loud and raucous energy. Dokja had spent most of it moving — from station to station, from idle task to idle task — just enough to keep his hands busy and his mind from wandering. He hadn’t looked across the room more than a few times. Hadn’t meant to. But he’d still felt it, that familiar gaze cutting across the venue like a quiet indictment. Every time, it left behind a residue. Something heavy. Something cold.

Rebellion had continued pulverizing their enemies, earning the top spot easily, with the Apostles right on their heels. 

Sooyung had glared her eyes off and spit curses at Joonghyuk any chance she’d gotten, the latter simply ignoring her like his jacket was made of pure steel built specifically for combating haters. 

They hadn’t had a chance to fight off against one another yet, as they’d been sorted in different brackets (Kim Dokja had no doubt it had been a strategy for marketing). 

The Invitational’s victory scoring system was simple on paper, brutal in practice. Each win awarded a team five points. A draw earned one. Losses, predictably, got nothing but bruises and embarrassment. 

But it wasn’t just about survival—bonus points were granted for clean plays: fast finishes, no casualties, flawless execution. Style mattered here. Efficiency was king. It meant that even in wins, there was room to climb—or fall—depending on how you performed. And it meant teams like Rebellion, all precision and ruthless timing, thrived.

The scoreboard glared back in sharp red letters: Rebellion - 12 points, Apostles - 11 points. Numbers earned in drastically different ways. 

Rebellion had bulldozed their way through two matches with mechanical precision, racking up flawless victories before drawing in a third that had dragged into overtime — not because they were outmatched, but because Yoo Joonghyuk had clearly deemed it unworthy of serious effort. 

Apostles, on the other hand, had bled for their wins. Their loss had come early — a misread formation or a tactical misfire — but they’d adjusted fast, clawing their way back with creative plays and just enough spite to make it look personal. It wasn’t just numbers, Dokja thought as he watched the rankings refresh on the screen. It was fingerprints. The Apostles’ were smudged with sweat and sharp edges, the Rebellion’s pristine and surgical. He wasn’t sure which was worse.

The initial buzz of excitement and chatter had faded to a low, pleasant hum, like the last embers of a fire before it finally went out. Overhead lights cast long shadows across the polished floors, and the sharp scent of sweat and stale coffee mingled with the faint spring chill creeping in through the cracked windows.

People moved with a tired, measured pace now — voices quieter, smiles thinner, shoulders heavy with exhaustion - tidying the mess up and starting the preparations for the next day. Tables once bustling with strategy talks and nervous energy were scattered with empty water bottles and crumpled snack wrappers. 

Dokja found himself near the back, fingers fumbling with a snarled mess of cables. His hands shook slightly, tired and clumsy after a long day of running errands and watching from the sidelines. The hum of the venue faded into background noise as his focus narrowed, frustration bubbling quietly under his skin.

A shadow fell over him.

Before Dokja could flinch or curse under his breath, Joonghyuk was there— of course he was - silent and sharp, like he had appeared out of nowhere. His hands reached out without hesitation, taking the knotted cables from Dokja’s hands and untangling them with precise fingers.

Dokja blinked, caught off guard by the sudden intrusion and the unexpected skill.

“You don’t have to do that,” Dokja said, not meeting his eyes.

Joonghyuk’s gaze stayed fixed on the cables for a long moment, then flicked up. The coldness was still there — distant, unreadable — but beneath it, something watchful, calculating.

“Looks like you’re struggling,” Joonghyuk said flatly. 

Dokja’s lips twitched, a bitter smile forcing its way out. “Gracious of you.”

Joonghyuk didn’t smile back. His dark eyes locked onto Dokja’s face for a heartbeat longer than necessary, as if weighing some invisible scale.

“Don’t make a habit of it,” he added, voice low but firm, as if issuing not just a warning, but a rule.

Dokja swallowed hard, feeling something tighten in his chest. It somehow felt like Joonghyuk was talking about something else entirely that Dokja couldn’t figure out yet. “Yeah. Right.”

The silence between them stretched.

Around them, the last few people were packing up, chairs scraping the floor, footsteps echoing in the cavernous room. The warmth of the day was fading, replaced by the creeping cold of nightfall.

Joonghyuk opened his mouth and Dokja braced for impact-

A voice cut through the air like a whip.

“There you are, dumbass.”

Dokja flinched instinctively—then relaxed only slightly when he saw who it was. Sooyoung was stomping toward them, a clipboard in one hand and a half-eaten protein bar in the other, radiating end-of-day aggression like she’d been saving it just for this moment.

Her gaze zeroed in on Joonghyuk, becoming ten times sharper, then on Dokja, and narrowed. “You didn’t answer your damn messages. I’ve been looking for you for the past ten minutes. Did you fall into a trash can or something?”

Joonghyuk, for his part, didn’t move. He just straightened up from the cables and stepped back slightly, gaze unreadable as he looked at Sooyoung—and then, more subtly, back to Dokja.

Dokja seized the opening like it was a lifeline. “Right. Yes. I was—uh, helping. With this.” He gestured vaguely to the coiled wires, ignoring how Joonghyuk had clearly done most of the untangling. “But I should—yeah, I’ll go—uh. Load the car. Or something.”

He turned to flee—quick, efficient—but not so fast that he missed the faint shift in Joonghyuk’s expression. Not a frown, not surprise, not anything quite nameable. Just a flicker of something in his eyes, a tightening at the corner of his mouth that might’ve meant nothing. Might’ve meant everything.

But Joonghyuk said nothing.

Sooyoung stepped aside to let Dokja pass, eyeing him with a raised brow as he slipped by. Then she turned to Joonghyuk, gaze cooling. “You giving him grief or what?”

Joonghyuk didn’t respond. His hands were already in his pockets again. His stance had turned—angled, disengaged.

“You know,” she snapped, “just once I’d like to have a normal exchange with you that doesn’t end with me screaming into the void.”

Joonghyuk didn’t break stride. “Then stop starting them.”

Sooyoung gaped, actually gaped, before exploding. “You unbelievable brick wall of a man—!”

He raised one hand in a half-hearted wave, without turning around.

“Are you walking away?! Are you serious—hey! Don’t ignore me when I’m yelling, you emotionally stunted blade of grass—!”

Joonghyuk was already gone, disappearing down the hallway like the human incarnation of a door slamming shut.

Sooyoung stood there, fuming.

Dokja, already well around the corner, heard her yell one last thing after him:

“Next match, I’m going to kill you!”

Joonghyuk didn’t look back.

Dokja slowed his pace as Sooyung jogged to catch up with him, metaphorical steam rising from her ears. “Can you believe this bastard?”

Dokja shrugged noncommittally. 

She squinted at him, suspicious. “So… you and him are friends now or what?”

Dokja stopped in his tracks, eyes nearly popping out of his skull as he whipped his head around. “What?! No??”

Sooyoung gave him a long, skeptical look like she was watching someone lie on a game show. “You sure? He’s been watching you all day, and now he’s helping you pack? He never sticks around this late. Not unless it’s to win something.”

Dokja hesitated, trying to come up with a reasonable explanation and coming up short. “That’s…”

Sooyung crossed her arms accusingly at his silence. “Come to think of it, he dropped you off that night too.”

Dokja’s eyebrows flew up. “Wait—how do you know that?”

Then he froze. “Actually, how the hell were you even in my house before me?”

At that, Sooyoung suddenly looked everywhere but at him. “We should probably get going. We’ve got boxes to load.”

“Hey. Answer me!”

Chapter Text

The stadium was even more packed on the second day of the Iron Tier Invitational.

If Day One had been electric, then Day Two was a full-blown lightning storm. The air buzzed with a charge you could feel in your bones—nervous, wired, too much energy for one space. The moment the final Wildcard match had been announced the night before—Han Sooyoung versus Yoo Joonghyuk—the fandom had collectively lost its mind.

Social media exploded. Comment threads turned into warzones. Memes were churned out like factory goods, most of them wildly inaccurate depictions of Sooyoung in a guillotine and Joonghyuk with demon wings and laser eyes. Online betting pools opened before sunrise, and someone had apparently made a tier list based on how attractive each of the wildcard nominees looked mid-combo.

Even Kim Dokja—who usually avoided social media like the plague—couldn’t escape it. His phone was vibrating nonstop. He’d even found a compilation of “moments when Apostles staff was unintentionally hilarious.” (It was mostly clips of him looking miserable while chasing Sooyoung with water bottles.)

And this wasn’t even a major tournament. Just a flashy, casual invitational.

Dokja didn’t want to know what an actual finals event felt like. Probably comparable to a full-blown war. With glowsticks.

The inside of the arena vibrated with noise—fans screaming, speakers crackling, the breathless commentary of two analysts trying to yell over each other in four different languages. The crowd was lit up in neon and glow paint. People were holding light-up signs with messages like:

“YOO JOONGHYUK, RUIN ME”

“QUEEN EXECUTIONER SOOYOUNG SUPREMACY”

“#MAKEITBLOODY”

And in the middle of all this chaos, Kim Dokja was speed-walking down a back hallway with a clipboard in one hand and a half-smashed banana in the other, trying to catch up to Han Sooyoung, who seemed on a one-way path of destruction.

“Eat something,” he wheezed.

Sooyoung was adjusting her wrist guards with the focused intensity of someone suiting up for a boss battle. “I don’t need food,” she said. “I need to win. And maybe crack open a skull or two while I’m at it.”

“It’s a show match,” Dokja muttered. “Not a televised execution.”

“Same difference.” She snatched the banana from his hands and pointed it in his face accusingly, “And you better cheer for me. Loudly.”

“I’ll make a sign,” Dokja deadpanned with his arms raised in surrender. “Maybe get one of those air horns.”

Sooyoung grinned—sharp and bright like the edge of a coin. “God, I’d pay to see you with an air horn.”

They fell into step, weaving around staff, lighting techs, and last-minute crew running cables through the hallways. Their banter was easy—familiar, something long established, well-worn and perfectly timed. Kim Dokja wasn’t good with most people. But with Sooyoung, he didn’t have to try. She understood the rhythm of his silences. He understood the bite of her sarcasm.

“I got tagged in a post calling us the ‘most problematic duo in esports PR,’” she said, tossing the banana over her shoulder. Dokja caught it without thinking, though he had to scramble for it before catching it properly.

“Sounds accurate.”

“I’m framing it.”

“I hope not with my face in it.”

“It is. You’re mid-sneeze. It’s awful.”

They passed the last checkpoint and entered the prep corridor just as the crowd reached a new volume peak. A giant overhead screen displayed countdowns and player stats, while the entire room seemed to hum like it was alive. Apostles staff rushed around the space, checking tech and clearing gear.

And then the temperature dropped.

Rebellion entered from the other side of the arena tunnel, clean and quiet and terrifyingly composed. Their jackets were crisp, their steps in sync, their aura less “we’re here to have fun” and more “we’re here to murder professionally.”

Joonghyuk walked in last.

No words. No grand gestures. Just presence.

The screams from the crowd swelled, shrieking his name.

Dokja’s eyes caught him for a split second like he’d been pulled by a magnet, before getting distracted by a typo on Sooyoung’s heat map schedule. “They spelled ‘Executioner’ wrong. It says ‘Exectutioner.’”

“I’m keeping it.”

“You would.”

Meanwhile, Yoo Joonghyuk’s gaze flicked over the crowd like he didn’t care about anything he saw.

And then stopped.

Right on Kim Dokja.

Who, naturally, didn’t notice.

He was too busy quietly bickering with Sooyoung about whether the arena camera angles would catch her “good side.” (“All your sides look the same.” “You say that like it’s not my strength, Dokja.”)

Joonghyuk’s eyes narrowed, just slightly. His jaw set.

Behind him, Lee Seolhwa leaned in. “Something wrong?”

He didn’t answer at first. Just turned away like nothing had happened.

“No,” he said. His tone didn’t match the word.

A whistle blew, sharp and sudden, cutting through the din.

Dokja turned just as the announcer’s voice boomed across the arena:

“Wildcard rounds begin in five!”

The crowd erupted again.

Sooyoung rolled her shoulders back, the banana still untouched in her hand. “Let’s get this over with,” she muttered, voice steady despite the electric tension coiling around her.

“Other people have to go first,” Dokja said, nodding toward the stage. “You’ve got time to meditate or whatever terrifying thing you do to prepare.”

Sooyoung smirked. “Oh, I’m already mentally writing my post-victory tweet.”

They settled into the back row of the Apostles’ prep area, where staff and reserves were gathering. The big screen above the stage displayed the upcoming matches — match one: Mirae (Vortex) vs. Woo_kkin (Dead_Signal).

“Who the hell voted for Mirae?” Sooyoung muttered.

“Her skincare routine has a cult following,” Dokja offered, only half-joking.

The first round played out fast and brutal. Mirae held her ground longer than expected, but Woo_kkin’s sheer technical skill overwhelmed her within ten minutes. The crowd cheered like they’d just watched a cinematic masterpiece.

More matches followed. A mix of talent, overconfidence, and dazzling displays of ego.

Meanwhile, Sooyoung stretched, paced, cursed, and glared holes into the monitor.

Dokja kept one eye on the matches, the other on her. He handed her water when she forgot to drink and tuned out the rising tension in the crowd to focus on making sure she didn’t forget to breathe.

Eventually, someone from an opposing team passed behind them and muttered something under their breath.

Dokja didn’t catch it, but Sooyoung stiffened.

“What’d they say?” he asked, low.

She shook her head, jaw clenched and eyes flashing. “Nothing important.”

But Dokja’s eyes narrowed. He turned just slightly to catch a glimpse of the offender — some benchwarmer with more attitude than wins under his belt.

He didn’t say anything out loud. Just watched. Memorized the guy’s face.

As the final matches wrapped, a break was called.

The big screen flashed:

FINAL MATCH — WILDCARD ROUND

HAN SOOYOUNG (APOSTLES) vs. YOO JOONGHYUK (REBELLION)

Even backstage, the screams were deafening.

Sooyoung cracked her neck and turned to Dokja, suddenly serious. “You think I’m crazy for this, don’t you?”

“I think you’ve got twenty thousand people watching and you’re still biting into a banana like it’s a war ration.”

She grinned. “Didn’t answer the question.”

Dokja looked at her for a long moment. “I think you’re not the type to walk into something you’re not ready to win.”

She paused, something unreadable flickering through her eyes.

Then: “You better scream your lungs out for me.”

“Already planning to.” Dokja matched her grin, raising a sign that read, ‘Destroy the NPC, Queen!‘.

The lights dimmed.

The crowd didn’t lower in volume—instead, it roared louder, like a creature rearing its head in anticipation. A heartbeat-like bass pulsed through the arena. The screen flashed player stats, matchup histories, and a slow, dramatic pan across each wildcard pick that had already fought and fallen.

Only two remained.

HAN SOOYOUNG vs. YOO JOONGHYUK.

Their avatars loaded onto the screen in high definition. Han Sooyoung’s character flexed a purple energy blade over one shoulder, clad in her signature modded gear with a sleek, sharp-edged silhouette—part assassin, part fashion icon.

Yoo Joonghyuk’s appeared with zero frills: matte black armor, black sword, his expression like someone permanently unimpressed by the concept of gravity.

Even their loading screens radiated animosity.

The announcer’s voice echoed, almost reverent:

“Two of the most volatile players in the scene. One known for chaos, the other for perfection. Let the final wildcard match— begin!”

A countdown clock appeared.

Sooyoung twirled her controller like a gun. Across from her, Joonghyuk remained motionless.

3.

Dokja yelled, “TEAR HIM DOWN!”

Someone next to him jumped.

2.

Joonghyuk finally looked away from the screen. Just for a second.

His eyes found Kim Dokja across the prep box, his dark gaze lingering on the sign Dokja was waving like a flag above his head.

1.

Start.

They launched.

Immediately, Sooyoung vanished off the map, blink-dashing into one of the trickiest corners of the arena terrain. Her avatar split into afterimages—a decoy strat she’d made famous two seasons ago.

Joonghyuk didn’t chase. He didn’t even flinch.

Instead, he drew both weapons and walked forward.

The commentators were already screaming.

“He’s not baited at all—!”

“That’s classic Joonghyuk! He’s scanning her trap radius by memory, no hesitation.”

“BUT WAIT—she’s doubling back! SHE’S GOING AIRBORNE—!”

A flash. A blade. Sparks.

The screen exploded with motion.

Sooyoung hit first—fast, elegant, one precise slash across Joonghyuk’s left flank. The crowd lost its mind. A sea of Apostles fans threw up their hands and screamed like she’d already won.

Dokja shouted, “YEAH! That’s my problematic queen!!”

The camera caught him mid-cheer. Somewhere, a meme was born.

Sooyoung flipped backward, blades spinning. Joonghyuk rolled with the hit but retaliated immediately, his avatar snapping into a parry posture no one else in the league used.

Steel clashed. Dust flew.

They moved like they’d rehearsed it a hundred times in a fever dream.

Sooyoung taunted. Joonghyuk punished.

She baited him. He called her bluff with a perfect counter.

At one point, he launched a parry-chain combo so unnecessarily elegant the commentators went dead silent.

Joonghyuk didn’t need to do it.

He did it anyway.

And somewhere between the sixth hit and the final flourish, his eyes flicked again. Just the briefest glance—toward the sidelines.

Kim Dokja, only watching Sooyung, yelled, “C’MON, HE LOOKS TIRED—SOOYOUNG, SPIN HIS ASS!”

Joonghyuk’s jaw clenched.

The next attack came with twice the speed.

Sooyoung growled into her mic, “The hell’s gotten into him?”

The crowd could feel it.

This wasn’t normal.

“Was that a buff?! That doesn’t look like his usual playstyle-“

“He’s pushing harder than he did against Vortex- what is this?”

Joonghyuk was playing sharp, deadly, on-edge—not angry, but focused in a way that only made sense if you were watching closely. If you were watching the way he kept glancing somewhere toward the side every third exchange.

But Kim Dokja wasn’t watching Joonghyuk.

He was too busy shaking a glowstick like a lunatic every time Sooyoung pulled a successful dodge.

“Kick his face in!” he yelled. 

From the side, a younger Apostles reserve whispered, “…Are they dating?”

“God, no,” someone replied. “She’d murder him. Twice.”

“I meant the Supreme King and—”

The second half of the match began like a storm breaking.

Sooyoung’s health dipped below 40%.

Joonghyuk’s hovered at 60%, but he was moving tighter now—less flash, more kill-zone. His blocks came too fast for most players to react to. His parries flowed like water over stone. He wasn’t just playing well.

He was playing perfect.

Sooyoung, true to her nature, didn’t flinch. Not once.

She gritted her teeth, flicked through her skill menu, and activated a move nobody expected.

“SHE’S USING THE CROWN VEIL BUILD?!”

“That’s a Season 3 loadout! Nobody’s run that in years—”

“Joonghyuk’s never fought against that build before. It’s too outdated!”

Outdated, yes. But unpredictable.

Kim Dokja sat forward. His grin was wild.

“She’s baiting him,” he whispered. “Oh my god, she’s gonna do it.”

The screen exploded again.

Sooyoung blinked mid-strike, canceling her animation into a combo. Her avatar launched a split-second delay feint. Her character shimmered, vanished, and came down on Joonghyuk from above in a drop-strike that would’ve ended any other match.

Joonghyuk dodged it. Barely.

Then he turned, in the same breath, and hit her with a counter-critical.

Her health bar plummeted.

Silence hit the crowd for half a second—shocked, breathless.

Then came the explosion.

The screen flashed the slow-motion replay: Joonghyuk’s blade catching her mid-air, his movement just one frame faster than hers.

The announcer choked out:

“CRITICAL STRIKE! Match Point—Rebellion!”

Sooyoung’s avatar crumpled.

Her screen went dark.

And Kim Dokja’s heart dropped.

For a full second, she didn’t move in her seat.

Then, without a word, she exhaled. Leaned back. Pulled off her headset.

And smirked angrily.

“That bastard.”

The locker room smelled like sweat and static and Gatorade.

The noise of the arena had finally dulled to a faraway thrum, like a war still happening on the other side of a mountain. But inside the Apostles’ back zone, everything was still. Equipment half-packed. Chairs left askew. Monitors glowing dim with leftover menus. A water bottle slowly rolling across the floor.

Sooyoung was sitting with one leg folded up under her, jacket half-zipped, a towel over her shoulder. Her eyes were locked on the screen above them, watching the replay again and again like she could make it end differently just by glaring hard enough.

Kim Dokja stood behind her, arms crossed, silent.

He’d watched the match four times now. Frame by frame. Sooyoung had hit first. Misdirection into overhead cancel. The timing was textbook. No, beyond textbook— hers . Nobody ran that combo because she invented that combo. And Joonghyuk had still slipped inside the gap, caught her in-air, and dropped her like a prize. Even when he hadn’t played against that move before.

“Do you want me to unplug the screen?” he asked, finally.

Sooyoung blinked, slow. “Why? I like watching my self-esteem shatter in slow motion.”

“You’re being dramatic.”

“I’m being devastatingly humbled.”

Dokja sat on the table beside her. “You lost by one frame. That’s not humbling. That’s quantum mechanics.”

Sooyoung leaned back, groaned, and draped the towel over her face. “Kill me.”

“No.”

“I mean it. Just toss me into the crowd and let them tear me apart. One of those signs literally said ‘I want to die for her build choices.’ I owe them blood.”

“You owe them merch,” Dokja said. “That sign’s already a trending hashtag.”

She peeked out from under the towel. “You’re kidding.”

He showed her his phone. #ExectutionerSweep was climbing, typo and all. Someone had already made a bootleg shirt. Another user had posted a gif loop of Sooyoung’s drop attack with the caption “I would have let her kill me tbh.”

Sooyoung squinted. “That one’s hot.”

Dokja gave her a look, but she didn’t stop smiling. Just leaned back further in the chair until it creaked, towel back over her eyes, arms crossed.

“You know what I hate most?” she said.

“Joonghyuk?”

“Besides that. The fact that he didn’t even react. Not a fist pump, not a nod, not a post-match chat. Just—‘critical strike’ and vanished into the darkness like a Blade Runner NPC.”

Dokja sighed in understanding. “That’s just his face.”

“It’s infuriating.”

“Is it more infuriating than the fact that you almost beat him with an outdated build no one’s used competitively since 20XX?”

Sooyoung peeled the towel off and tossed it onto the bench beside her. Her eyes were brighter now—still sharp, still pissed, but lit up the way they always were when she was already plotting something worse.

“I had him,” she muttered. “He fell for the feint. If I’d delayed that last frame by a quarter second—”

“You couldn’t have,” Dokja cut in gently. “The lag window on the Crown Veil blink is too tight. Even Joonghyuk had to slow-cancel to hit it. You both frame-perfected. He just had the advantage.”

Sooyoung stared at him. “Why do you suddenly know exactly how he did it? The only game installed on your phone is Candy Crush.”

Dokja paused.

“…Academic interest.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You’re not the only one who studies tapes.”

Sooyoung stood up and stretched like a cat sharpening its claws. “Maybe next time I’ll bring a knife.”

“Please don’t bring a knife to the next match.”

“Metaphorically.”

“I still don’t believe you.”

She grinned—lopsided, teeth flashing. “Next time I’m baiting him into a sidewall bug trap. He’ll never see it coming.”

“You’re already planning a rematch?”

“Of course I’m planning a rematch. I’m not letting him end it like that. Not after staring me down like he was calculating where to bury the body.”

Dokja snorted. “He looked more like he was calculating your ping.”

“Same thing.”

A beat passed. Sooyoung picked up her jacket and swung it over one shoulder.

Then she paused.

“You really think I played it clean?”

Dokja blinked.

She wasn’t looking at him. Just slightly past him. At the screen, maybe. Or the crowd that wasn’t there anymore.

“You did,” he said. “That was one of the best builds I’ve ever seen you run. And he had to push harder than he’s ever pushed in a wildcard match just to edge it out.”

Sooyoung turned back toward him, studying his face like she didn’t fully believe it—but wanted to.

“Alright,” she said, quieter now. “I’ll take that. From you.”

“From me?”

“Well,” she added with a smirk, “you did wave a glowstick like your life depended on it.”

“I did not —”

“There’s literal footage, Kim Dokja.”

“Deepfakes exist.”

“You made a sign. With glitter.”

“It was not glitter,” he said flatly. “It was—reflective tape.”

Sooyoung laughed, really laughed, head tilted back, teeth bared.

Kim Dokja studied her for a beat longer. “I’ll bring you a Neon Death.”

Sooyung squawked in excitement, the faraway look in her eyes gone. “Really? Get the extra, extra deadly one, would you?”

The door to the Apostles’ prep zone hissed open.

Kim Dokja stepped out with his clipboard tucked under one arm and his phone still open to the stat breakdown. His eyes were half on the screen, half scanning the corridor ahead for the nearest exit that didn’t involve talking to shoutcasters or dealing with Sooyoung’s post-match fan swarm.

He was not expecting to nearly walk chest-first into Yoo Joonghyuk.

“—oh, hell.”

Joonghyuk stopped too. Dead still. Like he’d expected this. 

(Dokja wondered for a second what he was doing in front of the Apostles prep room when Rebellion’s quarters were on the opposite end of the arena.)

They stood there in the half-lit hallway, seven feet of air between them and a hell of a silence.

Joonghyuk didn’t blink. “You’re in my way.”

Dokja sighed through his nose. “Classic.”

They both just stood there.

In the background, a Rebellion staffer rushed past. Somewhere, a producer shouted about cables. A fog machine hissed behind the stage.

But here, in the narrow corridor lit by overhead LEDs and the dull blue cast of the replay screen outside, it felt like the air itself had stopped moving.

Joonghyuk’s eyes flicked down—once—just enough to confirm the words on the sign still clutched loosely in Dokja’s other hand.

‘DESTROY THE NPC, QUEEN!’

His jaw ticked.

“You cheered very loudly,” he said, voice flat.

Dokja blinked. “…Yes?”

“I heard you.”

“Oh no. You heard me while you were too busy beating Sooyung by a single cursed frame. How tragic.” Dokja spoke, then immediately cursed his mouth. 

Joonghyuk’s mouth twitched. “You’re blaming me for winning.”

“I’m not blaming you for winning,” Dokja said, already tired. “I’m blaming you for doing that specific parry-chain combo with a side feint you haven’t used since Season 7 just because she made you work for it.”

Joonghyuk’s eyes glinted in, if Dokja didn’t know any better, satisfaction. For what, exactly, Dokja didn’t know. “She baited me.”

“You took the bait and then personally handcrafted a seven-hit humiliation chain. That’s not strategy. That’s performance art.”

“It was effective.”

“It was rude.”

Joonghyuk didn’t say anything. Just looked at him with that unreadable, focused stare that always felt two seconds away from a swordfight.

Dokja held it. Almost defiantly. Clipboard still under one arm. Hoodie half-zipped. Probably still a little glowstick paint on his sleeve.

“She was good. Better than last year. She nearly had me.”” Joonghyuk said, quieter now, his gaze somewhere off to the side and teeth gritted like the words had to be plucked from his mouth.

“She did have you,” Dokja corrected. “For two full seconds. You just recovered faster.”

Joonghyuk’s gaze flicked sideways again. Like he was remembering it exactly.

Then, almost reluctantly, “Tell her I want the mod file.”

“She’ll ask you to duel her for it.”

“Good.”

Dokja rubbed the bridge of his nose, but a smile was pulling at his lips. “You two are going to kill me.”

“She deserves a rematch.”

That surprised him. Enough to make his head lift a little.

Joonghyuk didn’t flinch.

He just stood there, arms loose at his sides, posture relaxed in a way that wasn’t casual so much as contained. Like every muscle was on standby for something else. Something that hadn’t been triggered yet.

Kim Dokja’s mouth opened. Then closed. Then, after a second, he managed, “You’re serious.”

“I don’t say things I don’t mean.”

“That is debatable,” Dokja muttered, but not loud enough to be heard.

Joonghyuk must have read it anyway. His eyes narrowed the slightest degree. 

Dokja hurried to continue, “Okay. That’s it. This is unnatural. You’re talking. Talking talking. Not glaring. I feel like I’ve entered an alternate timeline.”

“You’re being dramatic.”

“That’s my line.”

Joonghyuk exhaled. A beat.

A pause stretched out. They both stared at each other in dim, hallway-lit silence.

“Your cheering was distracting,” Joonghyuk said.

Dokja blinked. “I wasn’t cheering for you.”

Joonghyuk said nothing, only turned his head just a little. Not fully. Just enough that the edge of his jaw (sharp enough to cut glass, not that Dokja noticed) caught the low blue light from the replay screen behind them. His eyes weren’t hard now, but focused. Intent. A kind of pressure you couldn’t measure, only feel.

Joonghyuk stepped past him, brushing close enough for the static cling between them to raise the hairs on Dokja’s arms.

But right before he disappeared into the tunnel shadows, he added, “Next time, pick a better font for your sign.”

Dokja stared after him, caught between a dozen conflicting emotions—annoyance, begrudging amusement, something dangerously close to adrenaline—and looked down at the poster board still clutched in his hand.

Pink reflective tape. Block letters. A glittery sticker peeling in the corner.

He muttered, “Next time I’m bringing two signs.”

From the locker room behind him, Sooyoung’s voice rang out:

“DOKJA, ACTUALLY I WANT A NEON DEATH WITH EXTRA CHILI!”

He sighed. Pinched the bridge of his nose. Then turned and called back, “Fine—but if you puke in the Uber again, I’m sending you the dry cleaning bill!”

True to Han Sooyung’s word, it seemed like the energy had somewhat toned down for the third day, the team rankings already pretty clear. There would’ve had to be a miraculous performance by one of the other teams to overthrow Rebellion and Apostles, in first place and second place respectively.

The Invitational ended with an interview between the top two ranking teams, to both sum up the best gameplay and stir the drama pot as much as possible.  

The interview setup was sleek: tiered lighting, a digital backdrop cycling between sponsor logos and gameplay highlights, and two long tables pushed together to seat the top teams.

On one side, Team Apostles, led by Han Sooyoung—jacket slung off one shoulder, expression somewhere between bored and dangerous. Her teammates looked varying degrees of dazed, tired, or dangerous, all of them chaotic.

On the other, Team Rebellion, led by Yoo Joonghyuk, who sat like the concept of joy had never personally contacted him. His posture was textbook military: shoulders squared, hands folded, expression unreadable.

The host—young, overly peppy, armed with cue cards and a thousand-watt smile—stood between them like a referee praying for divine intervention.

“Thank you all for joining us after an incredible final match! Let’s start with some reflections—Yoo Joonghyuk-ssi,” they turned with a practiced grin, “how are you feeling coming out of that win?”

Joonghyuk’s voice was cold and clipped: “We achieved our objective.”

“Right.” The host’s smile twitched. “Anything more to add? It was quite the explosive last round—”

“We executed as expected. Anything less would be a failure.”

A pause.

Sooyoung rolled her eyes so hard her soul nearly left her body.

The host pivoted. “Han Sooyoung-ssi, how about you? You came within one frame of the win during the Wildcard Round—how do you feel about the tournament overall?”

Sooyoung gave a long-suffering sigh, then tilted her mic up with a practiced finger-spin. “I feel great, actually. Love losing. Builds character. All part of my long-term strategy to bait him into underestimating me next time.”

The host laughed nervously.

One of the Apostles’ players, a girl with long, sleek dark hair and fiery eyes that looked slightly familiar nodded like this was genuinely inspiring.

Sooyoung added, “Plus, my fans got some good content. And I’m pretty sure we made three new memes and a fake death cult in under twenty minutes, so really? I’m thriving.”

The host chuckled. “Well, there was a lot of buzz online—‘Exectutioner Sweep’ was trending—”

“Typo and all,” Sooyoung said proudly. “I love them.”

The host steered it back to gameplay. “Let’s talk builds—Sooyoung-ssi, you brought back your Crown Veil setup. That hasn’t been used since Season 3. What made you go retro?”

Sooyoung grinned like a knife. “Joonghyuk never fought against it before. And I like being unpredictable. Also, because I wanted to.”

A huff that might’ve been a snort escaped someone on the Rebellion bench. Sooyoung’s gaze snapped over instantly.

“Something funny?” she asked sweetly.

Joonghyuk didn’t blink. “You lost.”

“You won by a frame. Say it louder for the stream delay.”

“It was enough.”

Dokja could almost see the fight about to break out. If he would’ve been a better person, he probably would’ve been slightly worried. As it was, he only leaned forwards to see better.

Sooyoung leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Tell me, did you practice that parry combo just for me, or was it a happy accident born from sheer spite?”

“I don’t waste time on players who can’t push me.”

The crowd watching via stream collectively inhaled.

The host froze, clearly trying to decide if they’d just witnessed a war crime in 4K.

Sooyoung laughed low in her throat, a vein pounding visibly in her forehead. “You don’t get to pretend you’re above this when you used that out-dated parry from God knows when.”

Joonghyuk didn’t deign that worthy of a response, his gaze trailing off to the side like he was bored of the entire conversation.

“ I’m talking to you, you -”

The host made a high-pitched “aaand moving on!” noise and waved a card like it could physically dispel tension.

“Let’s… talk team dynamics! Apostles have had an explosive social presence this season. Han Sooyoung-ssi, do you think that’s helped you connect with your fans?”

Sooyoung flipped her mic in her hand again, this time spinning it like she might throw it. “My fans are smarter than most of the casting panel, so yes.”

A long silence.

“…Was that directed at someone in particular?”

“I dunno. Were you on the casting panel?”

The host blinked. “I—no—”

“Then you’re good.”

Behind the scenes, Kim Dokja watched from just off-camera, face expressionless, drink in hand. He took a long sip through a straw like a man watching a natural disaster he’d seen coming but couldn’t stop.

The host turned (desperately) to Rebellion. “Yoo Joonghyuk-ssi—your team plays with incredible precision. Do you think that level of discipline is sustainable over a longer season?”

Joonghyuk’s answer was immediate: “If it isn’t, we don’t deserve to win.”

“Ah—succinct.” The host nodded nervously. “And uh, thoughts on next year's wildcard contenders?”

Joonghyuk said, “None of them will pose a threat.”

Several viewers spat out drinks simultaneously.

Sooyoung gave him a long, slow and satisfied look. “You’re gonna get crucified for that.”

“I spoke honestly.”

“You spoke like a villain.”

Joonghyuk’s expression didn’t change. But his eyes slid sideways—for just a second. Toward the audience. Toward Kim Dokja.

The camera didn’t catch it.

Sooyoung did.

Her gaze flicked back and forth between the two men, eyebrows slowly raising.

The host—oblivious, sweating—quickly raised the mic again. “Final thoughts before we wrap?”

Sooyoung flashed a grin sharp enough to be classified as a weapon. “I want a rematch. And I want it on stream.”

Joonghyuk didn’t even hesitate. “Accepted.”

And just like that, the panel ended just as it had begun, in pure chaos.

Kim Dokja wasn’t trying to defend Yoo Joonghyuk.

He told himself this twice that night as he scrolled past the comments, thumb idling over the thread beneath the clip. It was the same one that’d been circling for hours now: Joonghyuk in an interview, sitting with that familiar stiff-backed posture and answering the post-match questions with all the warmth of a slab of titanium.

“I don’t waste time on players who can’t push me.”

No smirk. No ego. Just clinical fact, delivered like it didn’t even pass through a translator on the way out of his head.

And still—

“insufferable lol”

“he’s literally allergic to humility 💀”

“imagine saying this about Sooyoung after that match. literal war criminal”

Dokja paused on that one.

He rubbed a hand across his face. There was a perfectly acceptable webnovel open in another tab, but his eyes kept drifting back here. To this clip. To the hundreds of haters spiraling through it, dissecting the syllables like Joonghyuk sat there plotting his villain arc mid-interview.

He didn’t.

Dokja knew he didn’t.

He didn’t know Yoo Joonghyuk—not really— and the amount of people praising both his and Han Sooyung’s gameplay far outweighed the number of haters. He knew this. 

Yet something in him couldn’t seem to look away from the few comments commenting on Joonghyuk’s stellar personality.

This bastard really needed to get a grip on his personality sooner than later, Dokja thought, eyes narrowing. 

His thumbs hovered over his keyboard.

(In his mind, fuzzy memories began rewinding like an old movie. Fingers holding him up by the collar. A hand around his shoulders helping him up the stairs. A warm coat draped over him.)

He tapped open the reply field. Thought. Typed. Deleted. Rethought. Typed again.

Then finally:

@onlyreader: He answered what he was asked. People hear what they expect to.

No emojis. No follow-ups. Just that.

He hit send.

It got a few likes. Mostly ignored. For about five minutes.

Then someone quote-tweeted it.

“not onlyreader stepping in like a ghost of christmas clapback 😭”

Then another:

“this reply cuts like glass and i am BLEEDING”

And then, the moment it all turned:

“wait. isn’t this the guy who roasted yjh on stream that one time???”

The pile-on was instant.

“NAH WAIT YOU’RE THAT ONLYREADER?? THE ‘PRIVATE RYAN’ GUY???”

“you dragged him to HELL 😭😭 now you’re DEFENDING???”

“choose a SIDE bestie i’m dizzy”

Dokja sat back in his chair. His phone vibrated—mentions rolling in fast.

He closed his eyes.

Exhaled.

He should mute the thread. He should close the app. Sleep. Rehydrate. Do anything else.

Instead:

@onlyreader : Observation isn’t opposition.

It’s enough. It’s not enough.

Someone screencapped an old stream timestamp where he spent eight full minutes dissecting Joonghyuk’s gameplay like a hostile puzzle.

“you were obsessed with dragging him that day 😭 pick a side fr”

He stared at it. Debated saying something else.

Stopped.

Let them think what they want.

Dokja stretched in his chair, phone thrown facedown on his bed somewhere.

Besides, it wasn’t like he was about to defend that bastard. It was just annoying.

Somewhere in a restaurant, he scrolled absently. 

He wasn’t looking for it. But he saw it.

That username.

That sentence.

Observation isn’t opposition.

He didn’t react. Didn’t like the tweet. Didn’t bookmark it.

But he stopped scrolling.

“Here is your food.”

“...”

“...Can I get you anything else?”

“...”

The waitress joined the line of her friends secretly watching the dark-haired man from afar.

“What did he say?”

“Was he even hotter from up close?”

The waitress shuddered, glancing back towards the dark figure. Something like pity filled her, though she didn’t know for what, or for who.

Dokja’s phone buzzed again, lighting up his dark room. He groaned, blindly reaching for it. He really had to disappear off the face of the Earth one of these days.

One calendar alert, synced by someone else.

Dokja blinked, the blue light making him squint in pain.

“Mountain trip - 6 AM. No excuses.”

He stared at it for a second. Then another.

Then promptly turned his phone off, conveniently forgetting Han Sooyung’s bizarre ability of accessing his apartment.

Chapter Text

“Hey, grab his feet.”

“Could you be more careful with his head, please?”

Dokja stirred slightly, frowning in confusion. Was this a dream? Was he being kidnapped? Again?

“Fine. But only for you, babe. Lord knows his skull’s thick enough to tank a hit.”

There was rustling. Cold air. A door opening.

Something about the motion made Dokja instinctively tighten his grip on the hoodie now wrapped tightly around his upper body.

Wait. Hoodie?

He cracked one eye open, vision blurry.

Huh.

Sooyoung was carrying him by the upper half like a piece of cheap luggage. Yoo Sangah was holding his knees like a particularly fragile IKEA shelf.

...That was odd.

In no reality would Yoo Sangah willingly take part in one of Han Sooyoung’s crimes. Not unless—

“...Are you sure you didn’t hit his head on the cupboard earlier?”

“I didn’t!” Sooyoung snapped, then paused. “Actually... I might’ve. Why is he smiling like an idiot?”

Dokja realized he was smiling, vaguely relieved. A dream. Definitely a dream . He sighed in peace.

They bumped into a doorway.

“ Ow, ” he said.

Sooyoung grunted. “Nope. He’s fine.”

Yoo Sangah leaned over him, gently patting his cheek. “Dokja-ssi? Are you awake?”

He blinked again, now registering the dull ache in the back of his skull, the cramped pressure of being in someone’s arms, and the fact that he was very much not in his bed anymore.

He was being carried.

By two people.

Down a flight of stairs.

“No,” Dokja said, muffled against someone’s shoulder. “No, put me back. I don’t want to go to school today.”

“Sooyoung-ah,” Yoo Sangah said, trying not to laugh, “he thinks this is a dream.”

“That’s adorable,” Sooyoung said. “Remind me to tell him it’s actually a nightmare later.”

“I can hear you,” Dokja mumbled.

“Then use that oversized brain and accept your fate.” Sooyoung adjusted her grip as they reached the car. “Open the door, babe.”

“I got it.”

The next thing Dokja knew, he was being unceremoniously stuffed into the backseat of Sooyoung’s beat-up car like a bag of forgotten laundry. He groaned as his body hit the seat, rolling onto his side with the grace of a disgruntled cat.

The door slammed shut. Kim Dokja tried very hard not to think how it sounded exactly like the gates to his freedom being closed.

Outside, he could hear Sooyoung muttering something about “cramped spines” and “why do men sleep like they’re dead?”

A few seconds later, she slid into the driver’s seat, slapping on her sunglasses like they were battle armor. Yoo Sangah took the passenger side with practiced ease and the resigned air of someone used to apologizing for whatever was about to happen.

Dokja finally sat up, hoodie rumpled, hair flat on one side. “…So this is real.”

“Good morning, sunshine,” Sooyoung said, revving the engine a little too dramatically for a drive to the mountains.

Dokja stared at her, immediately giving up and turning to Yoo Sangah, pleading. “Why are you helping her?”

“She promised we’d stop at a place with those sweet rice doughnuts you like,” Yoo Sangah smoothly diverted, glancing at the GPS. “But also, I think you could use a break.”

“A break from what? My job and emotional repression?”

“Exactly!” Sooyoung said brightly. “You get it now.”

“I’m not dressed. I didn’t bring anything. You kidnapped me.” Dokja said accusingly, peeling an old sticker from his face and holding on for dear life as Sooyung raced down the streets of Seoul like they were her own personal racetrack.

Even so, Dokja was almost freaked out by how not freaked out he was. It seemed like years of friendship with Han Sooyung had desensitized him. Unfortunately. 

“I packed for you,” Sooyoung said. “You're welcome.”

“That’s worse.”

“Be grateful. I even left behind your questionable anime shirt.”

“Wait— which one ?”

But she was already turning up the music and pulling out onto the highway with terrifying confidence.

By the time they passed the last gas station and started winding through what looked like an abandoned horror movie set disguised as forest road, Dokja had fully entered the third stage of grief: resignation.

Sooyoung was humming along to some aggressive idol-pop remix of Beethoven’s Fifth like it was normal. Yoo Sangah was Googling “how to survive hiking with unstable acquaintances” with the brightness on her phone turned all the way down.

Dokja sat wedged in the backseat between a bag of snacks, what he sincerely hoped was not a body pillow of Sooyung, and what he could only describe as the lingering shame of letting this happen to him.

“Okay,” he mumbled, stretching one leg out across a suspiciously crumpled hoodie and trying to make his peace with the situation. Even if he was already planning exactly how he would avoid Han Sooyung for the rest of his life after this. “At least no one else is coming.”

A beat. Too long.

Sooyoung’s lips twitched. Yoo Sangah coughed into her sleeve.

Dokja’s eyes narrowed instantly. “Why did the air just get weird?”

“It’s the pine pollen,” Sooyoung replied without missing a beat. “Causes light delusions. Keep your window up.”

“We’re going uphill with the A/C on and the playlist sounds like a cyberpunk funeral.”

“It’s called setting a tone, ” Sooyoung said. “God, have a little imagination.”

Yoo Sangah handed Dokja a peach-flavored drink. “You like these, right?”

“Why are you trying to pacify me? What are you hiding?” Dokja said suspiciously, but still took the drink.

“Nothing!” they said in unison, way too fast.

Dokja squinted. “You’re both terrible liars.”

Sooyoung just changed lanes with enough speed to make the GPS lady scream. “You say that, but I just smuggled you out of Seoul in your pajamas and you didn’t even notice until we were in the car.”

“That’s not lying, ” Dokja grumbled. “That’s kidnapping.”

“I call it forced wellness. ”

Yoo Sangah was scrolling again. “Did you know this mountain has the highest concentration of meditative retreat centers in the country?”

“Did you know I have a mortal allergy to group activities and forced emotional vulnerability?”

“Noted,” she said gently, and handed him a mini rice doughnut.

Why does everyone think I can be bought with free food??, Dokja thought indignantly, biting into the free mini rice doughnut.

They stopped twice.

Once because Sooyoung insisted she needed “vitamin D and corn dogs,” and once because Yoo Sangah spotted a roadside souvenir shop and haggled – somehow both ruthlessly and politely at the same time – the vendor over a tiny plush rabbit in a hanbok.

Dokja, in the backseat, used the opportunity to text his will to himself and look for a signal.

Every time he brought up the very logical question of “Who else is coming?” they redirected like trained politicians.

“Isn’t the view nice, Dokja-ssi?”

“You like pine trees, right?”

“Look, they have hiking maps in four languages!”

By the time they pulled into the gravel driveway, Dokja was just barely holding onto the illusion that maybe, maybe , this was just a messed-up trip with bonus emotional trauma and a scenic view.

He stepped out of the car and his carefully-crafted illusion immediately shattered into pieces.

The building loomed above them like something out of an overly-funded travel vlog or the backdrop to a weekend murder mystery. It was a massive lodge-style estate, all warm wood paneling and polished stone, clearly designed to look “rustic” in the way only very rich people could afford. The façade stretched wide across the clearing, symmetrical but not friendly. Like it was waiting. Watching.

Three stories tall, with broad wraparound balconies lined in dark metal railings that gleamed faintly under the sun. The entire front wall on the second floor was made of glass, floor-to-ceiling windows that reflected the jagged green treetops like they’d been swallowed whole by the forest.

An enormous double-door entrance sat at the center like the mouth of a beast, flanked by two vintage lanterns and a row of absolutely unnecessary stone steps.

To the right, there was a covered fire pit area with a circle of chairs arranged too neatly, like someone had painstakingly planned a night of forced bonding and forgotten to inform the guests.

A flagpole stood inexplicably off to the side, completely bare. Not even a company logo or cheesy banner about “teamwork makes the dream work.” Just tall, ominous, and squeaky in the wind.

The whole structure was surrounded by a wide ring of gravel and then—forest.

Endless forest. Dark pine and silver birch rising like cathedral spires into the misty sky. The treeline circled the lodge completely, save for the narrow road they’d come in on, which wound through the trees in a long, slow descent that already looked steeper from the top.

Beyond the trees, Dokja could see the curve of a distant valley—and past that, mountains. Real mountains. Tall, jagged, mist-laced. They seemed to grow straight out of the clouds, ancient and indifferent, their dark stone faces half-obscured by drifting fog.

The air was cold in a crisp, clean way that made Dokja want to punch someone. He didn’t trust it. There was too much oxygen.

He turned slowly back to Sooyoung, eyes narrowed.

“This place is too big,” he said, each word deliberate. “It’s way too big for us. Why would you book a place this size?”

“Oh, you’re so right,” she said, sweet as sin, locking the car behind her. “That would be weird, wouldn’t it?”

Dokja blinked. “So?”

“So what?”

“So who else is coming?”

Sooyoung pulled her huge sunglasses down just enough to look him in the eye. Her expression was unreadable—somewhere between glee and the expression of a dungeon master about to reveal a dragon boss fight disguised as a tavern brawl.

Yoo Sangah stepped gingerly out of the passenger side, clutching her tote bag and pretending to look impressed by the woodwork.

“…This isn’t just us,” Dokja said slowly. “There’s no universe where this place is meant for three people.”

“Oh,” Sooyoung said, “it’s not.”

Dokja stared at her, repeating the same question for the hundredth time. “Who else is coming?”

She tapped her phone. “Well, Heewon’s on her way.”

He let out a slow breath. “Okay. That’s fine. Heewon’s normal.”

Sooyoung raised an eyebrow. Yoo Sangah winced like she wanted to disagree, but didn’t want to get involved.

“She’s normal compared to you. ”

“That’s fair,” Sooyung muttered.

“So, are the rest of the Apostles coming, then?” Dokja said, trying to make his peace with the situation. That wasn’t so bad. At least he’d met all of them before, and he actually liked Heewon.

Sooyoung was quiet.

Yoo Sangah looked away, very suddenly fascinated by a pinecone on the ground.

Dokja felt a chill down his spine.

“Sooyoung,” he said, voice dangerously level, “who else is coming.”

“Well,” she said, sliding her phone back into her coat pocket. “You might want to stand back.”

“What—”

But before he could finish, as if affected by the sheer audacity, the forest stilled.

It wasn’t quiet the way nature gets quiet—it was the silence of something watching. Of something approaching .

Gravel crunched behind them.

Measured. Heavy. Like the arrival of fate dressed in expensive tires.

Dokja turned, already feeling the weight of incoming doom. A car came into view—sleek, polished, blacker than any responsible vehicle had the right to be. It glided up the gravel path like it was levitating. The sun gleamed off its windshield with blinding dramatics, as if trying to hide what was inside.

It stopped. Not parked— halted . Like a final boss entering frame.

And then the door opened.

Out stepped Yoo Joonghyuk.

Black boots. Black jacket. He didn’t look angry—he looked bored . Like the mountains hadn’t impressed him. Like reality was wasting his time.

His face was impassive, jaw set in its usual permanent scowl of mild-to-severe disapproval. The breeze hit his hair just right. His posture screamed "I didn’t want to come here, and yet here I am, ready to ruin everyone’s day out of sheer principle.”

The wind moved for him. The light adjusted for him. The earth probably rotated out of his way.

He didn’t say a word.

He didn’t have to.

Dokja went still, brain catching up a few seconds too late.

Sooyoung clicked her tongue softly. “Told you to stand back.”

Yoo Sangah muttered, “I thought the wind changed.”

Dokja didn’t breathe.

This wasn’t a retreat. This was a curse wrapped in rustic wood paneling and probably fake pine-scented air.

The air itself felt heavier now. The flagpole squeaked.

He took in Joonghyuk’s silhouette—broad-shouldered, all tension and restrained violence—and hated that his brain registered sharp jawline before danger to mental health .

He looked away instantly, furious at himself.

This was a mistake. A massive, terrifying , world-ending mistake.

“Sooyoung,” he said, low and haunted. “You schemer.”

She smiled like a cat in the middle of a ruined birdcage.
“You’re welcome.”

"I thought you hated him!"

"That's during the weekdays. Hm, actually, no. I still hate him."

Yoo Joonghyuk didn’t say a word.

He didn’t need to. His presence alone dropped the temperature by at least five degrees, like the mountain itself was honoring his arrival with unnatural silence.

The forest—so vibrant with cicadas and distant wind just moments ago—had stilled completely. Not quiet the way peaceful nature is quiet, but the kind of silence that descends when predators arrive. The kind that presses into your ears until you realize you’ve stopped breathing.

Dokja hadn’t realized how close he was standing to Sooyoung until he was behind her. Fully behind her. Shielded.

“What the hell is he doing here,” Dokja hissed, barely peeking over Sooyoung’s shoulder like a very stressed meerkat.

Sooyoung tilted her head, all smug mischief. “Didn’t I mention? Must’ve slipped my mind.”

“You schemer . You demon. You— this is entrapment. ”

“I prefer the term ‘coordinated ambush with wellness incentives.’”

Yoo Sangah glanced up sympathetically. “He really does look like he didn’t want to come.”

Joonghyuk was still standing by the car, framed by that monstrously luxurious black vehicle like a promotional poster for ‘Death But Hot’ , boots planted in that vaguely aggressive stance of a man judging the entire curvature of the earth. His expression had not changed. Not even a twitch of acknowledgment. Just that bored, exhausted neutrality that somehow made everything worse.

Dokja crouched further behind Sooyoung. “I’m not going over there.”

“You don’t have to. He’s coming over here,” Sooyoung replied, way too casually.

“What.”

But then— click . The second car door opened.

And from the passenger side stepped a woman. Graceful. Controlled. Immaculately dressed in a cream winter coat that somehow stayed clean despite the dust, white hair tucked behind one ear in a sleek twist. She paused beside the car, taking in the lodge, the trees, the people, as if calculating the square footage of everyone’s internal damage before she even stepped forward.

Kim Dokja blinked in confusion. Then horror.

“Wait— is that— ”

“Yup,” Sooyoung chirped, sounding unreasonably pleased with herself. “Lee Seolhwa.”

“The Lee Seolhwa ? The one from his team? The complicated ex?? Are we dying here? Am I going to die???”

“Only inside,” Sangah offered, sipping her drink.

Seolhwa approached with slow, even steps. There was something faintly clinical about it—not cold, but intentional . Like she’d entered this retreat as an experiment and everyone else had become her subjects. She wasn’t rude, not at all—but she was distant in a way that suggested she’d already assessed their vital signs and found them… manageable.

And then her eyes landed on him.

Dokja flinched.

She smiled politely, extending a hand like she hadn’t just walked out of a terrifying void wearing heels and precision.

“Kim Dokja-ssi, yes? I’ve heard about you.”

Dokja, still mostly hiding behind Sooyoung like a shameful cartoon character, blinked. “You have?”

A pause. Just a flicker of amusement in her eyes. “Oh, yes. Joonghyuk-nim’s said… things.”

Dokja froze, eyes twitching to the silent man. Joonghyuk was looking boredly off to the side, eyebrows furrowed.

Things.

The possibilities exploded in his mind like a thousand passive-aggressive landmines.

Sooyoung grinned like a fox watching a henhouse burn. “You’re famous”

Joonghyuk said things. About him . To his teammate.

Dokja was mentally packing his bags. 

He stepped forward with all the poise of a man being dragged by fate and social pressure. Awkwardly shook her hand. Tried to smile. Failed. Tried again. Failed harder.

Had Joonghyuk already sullied his reputation in front of this gorgeous woman?? What the hell had he said??

“I—it’s nice to meet you.” Dokja said, eyes flicking toward where Joonghyuk still stood—impassive, completely uninterested in the social chaos around him. “You must be very patient. Working with him.”

Another pause. She glanced toward Joonghyuk and gave a small, fond shrug that spoke of years of friendship. 

“He grows on you,” she said.

Dokja wasn’t sure if that was a warning or a threat.

Like a fungus, Dokja thought bitterly.

He didn’t get a chance to respond, because that’s when the third car arrived.

This one wasn’t sleek. It wasn’t ominous. It was loud and dusty and had anime decals someone had tried to peel off with shame halfway through. Dokja flinched at the screech of its brakes.

“Oh god,” he muttered. “It’s them.”

Out spilled the rest of the chaos.

First: Lee Hyunsung, ducking to exit the car, somehow already wearing a hiking vest. He looked too cheerful for someone stepping directly into a cursed situation.

Second: Lee Jihye, who exited with a bag slung across her chest and the air of someone who was ready to knife her way through any emotional icebreaker.

Third: Jung Heewon, visibly annoyed, likely already regretting agreeing to this “retreat,” and fourth—

“Why is Namwoon here?” Dokja said in a voice that only dogs could hear.

Lee Seolhwa waved lightly. “I hope the drive wasn’t too long!”

“Not long enough,” Heewon muttered, slamming the car door.

“Oh my god is that a real fire pit?” Jihye was already sprinting toward the lodge. “Dibs on first roast.”

Namwoon had his arms crossed and sunglasses on like he was trying to hide from the emotional responsibility crawling toward him at high speed. “This sucks,” he announced. “Why are there so many trees?”

Dokja stood frozen in place.

“Okay,” he said numbly. “Okay. I see what this is.”

Sooyoung clapped a hand on his back, grinning from ear to ear. “Do you?”

“Group trip. Lodging. Carefully arranged entrances staggered for dramatic impact. You schemed this.”

“And you said I couldn’t plan an effective long game. After all these years of trying to get you out of that damn shoebox, you’re finally meeting my friends.” Sooyung said dramatically, wiping an actual tear from her eye.

“I’m going to walk into the woods and let nature reclaim me.”

“You’ll be dragged back out by your hoodie before you hit the treeline,” she said smugly.

He looked at Yoo Sangah for backup.

She handed him another mini doughnut.

“I’m trapped,” Dokja whispered.

Joonghyuk stepped forward.

Dokja reflexively stepped back.

Their eyes met for a split second too long.

Joonghyuk blinked slowly, then looked away. As if bored. As if none of this mattered to him in the slightest. As if he wasn’t the most terrifying gravitational force at this retreat. And maybe he wasn’t.

Maybe it was Sooyoung.

Maybe it was Dokja’s own terrible decisions, starting with ever speaking to Sooyung during high school.

Maybe the real final boss was the friends he wasn’t making along the way.

Dokja swallowed dryly.

“…Do I still have time to fake a medical emergency?”

Yoo Sangah glanced at her phone. “Not unless you can manifest a kidney stone in five minutes.”

Sooyoung stretched her arms overhead. “Alright!” she called out in a voice so loud it had Dokja jumping away from her and covering his ears. “Let’s get this party started!”

The trunk popped open, and chaos exploded around them. Bags spilled from the cars like broken waves—boots thudded on gravel, zippers ripped open, jackets flung aside. Sooyoung was barking orders about who took what snack, Hyunsung was loudly munching, Jihye barely looked up from her phone, and Heewon was obsessively smoothing out a crumpled map like she was already looking up the nearest hiking trail to disappear on.

Amid all this disorder, Dokja crouched at the trunk, fingers fumbling helplessly at the stubborn zipper of his bag, just out of reach. He sincerely hoped Han Sooyung had at least packed clothes that were somewhat appropriate.

The noise faded into a dull roar behind him as his pulse hammered in his ears. He tugged once, twice—too tight, too stuck.

Then, a shadow settled behind him.

Joonghyuk’s presence was sudden but quiet, like the weight of a winter storm pressing just behind. Dokja didn’t need to turn to know it was him—he could feel it. The brush of Joonghyuk’s sleeve against his arm as the man stepped closer was almost casual, but it made Dokja jump, hitting his head on the trunk in the process.

“Here,” Joonghyuk said, his voice low, calm, edged with something cold that made Dokja’s throat tighten.

His hand brushed lightly over Dokja’s shoulder—just enough pressure to anchor him but not enough to grip. Then, almost effortlessly, Joonghyuk’s fingers closed around the top handle of the bag. With a small, controlled tug like it was easy for him, he pulled it free, shifting Dokja’s balance just a fraction.

Dokja’s eyes flicked up. Joonghyuk was looking down at him with that unreadable, icy gaze—calm and precise, like he was already ten steps ahead.

“You’re making it harder than it needs to be,” Joonghyuk said, not a demand, but a statement of fact.

The lightest brush of his fingers slid from Dokja’s shoulder to the back of his neck, just for a moment—subtle, almost imperceptible—but it sent a jolt through Dokja’s whole body.

Dokja swallowed, forcing his voice out before the chaos could swallow him whole. “...Thanks.”

Was this a new method of intimidation?? Or bullying??

Joonghyuk’s dark eyes didn’t blink, didn’t soften. Only remained watchful. He just stepped back with the bag slung easily over his own shoulder, like it was his.

Around them, the world continued to spiral—Sooyoung arguing with Hyunsung about the cooler’s placement, Jihye still glued to her screen, Heewon meticulously folding maps—but in that narrow space, the tension was sharp and biting.

Dokja stood up straighter, the strange contact leaving a residue of unease beneath his skin. Joonghyuk’s eyes, cold and assessing, held his gaze for a heartbeat longer before flicking away, already calculating their next move.

Dokja swallowed, throat suddenly dry. “Uh…”

Han Sooyung’s loud voice rang through the chaos before Dokja mustered up the courage to ask for his bag back. “Dibs on the south room!”

Joonghyuk turned without waiting, the loose gravel crunching beneath his boots like warning shots as he made his way toward the lodge. He didn’t look back—not once.

Dokja lingered for a second longer, then grudgingly started after him, only to immediately get clipped by a flying duffel bag that Heewon had just unloaded from the trunk like he was wearing a large target on his forehead.

“Sorry!” Heewon called, stumbling out of the car, both arms full of bags and what looked like a tangled tent. “Namwoon! Can you grab the food boxes—wait, no, don’t just throw them—!”

“I’m not throwing,” Namwoon snapped, already half-carrying, half-dragging a suspiciously leaking cooler toward the steps. “I’m innovating. Shut up and keep walking.”

Jihye was sitting on the porch railing with a half-eaten protein bar, watching the whole thing like it was a particularly low-budget reality show. “I told you idiots to pack lighter.”

“You packed a sword,” Namwoon said flatly.

“You said to bring only essentials,” she replied, not even blinking.

“Careful,” Sooyoung said sweetly, walking past them with a large thermos in one hand and a cardboard box marked "FIRE STARTER (LEGAL)" in the other. “If you kill him now, we’ll have to dig a hole before dinner.”

“Too cold for digging,” Jihye muttered.

Lee Seolhwa had set down her luggage with precision and was now carefully unzipping a case of bottled supplements with the slow patience of someone tuning out chaos through sheer willpower. “Is there a kitchen inventory? I brought exact vitamin measurements for nine people.”

“You packed vitamins?” Namwoon asked.

Dokja, meanwhile, had barely made it halfway to the stairs. He was trying to follow Joonghyuk, but the man was ridiculously fast, and every step forward meant dodging another threat: Jihye flinging her hoodie off and nearly clocking him in the face. Hyunsung dropping his bag and letting out a very panicked, “That was glass, oh no.” Sangah almost knocking into him as she rushed to help. A box labeled GAMING EQUIPMENT – DO NOT SHAKE nearly collided with his leg.

“You’re gonna die before you even reach the lodge,” Sooyoung called out from the porch, sipping her drink like a villain monologuing during the opening credits.

“I’m considering doing it myself,” Dokja muttered.

But then, as he– barely– reached the first step alive, he was promptly pushed over the threshold.

“Sorry, ahjussi! First dibs!” Jihye shouted, already bolting up the stairs two at a time.

“Wait—no fair!” Namwoon bellowed, nearly dropping the cooler as he pivoted to follow her. 

Hyunsung let out a strained sigh, still clutching three bags to his chest. “There are enough rooms for everyone—!”

“That’s what a loser with a basement-facing room would say!” Namwoon yelled, elbowing past. Dokja very narrowly avoided certain death by literally jumping out of the way.

“Please walk carefully!” Sangah called after them, voice trailing off as she jogged up after Jihye with her tote bouncing against her hip.

Lee Seolhwa, meanwhile, was methodically studying the layout like she was mapping an emergency evacuation plan, eyes flicking across the exposed beams and soft lighting with quiet calculation. Her duffel remained untouched by the door, perfectly placed.

Dokja hesitated in the entryway, soaking in the scent of pinewood and expensive fireproof varnish, trying to orient himself. A part of him still couldn’t believe he’d made it in without being struck down by the gods of dramatic timing.

And then—he realized.

Joonghyuk was nowhere to be seen.

The cold dread that had been coiled tight in Dokja’s spine began to unspool.

Maybe… maybe he’d wandered off to stare angrily at a tree or something. Maybe Dokja could pretend the last ten minutes of his life hadn’t happened.

He turned sharply and followed the sound of Jihye and Namwoon fighting over whether the top or middle floor had better airflow. On the top floor, a balcony overlooked the open space of the sprawling living room. A hallway branched off to the side with heavy doors lined neatly like teeth. Each one had a little carved plaque above it—Room 1, Room 2, Room 3.

Dokja took a breath.

Then he picked the one at the very end, flung it open, and stepped inside.

It was—

Perfect.

Soft lighting. A big, clean bed with actual bedding that wasn’t suspiciously stained or aggressively floral. A window view and balcony that overlooked the trees, not the driveway. And most importantly—

It was empty and quiet.

He closed the door behind him with an audible thunk, dropping to his knees on the bed with a groan of exhausted triumph. 

Victory.

Solitude.

Salvation.

He flopped onto his back, arms spread, staring at the wooden ceiling. There were faint murmurs in the hall—someone asking where the chargers were, Sooyoung laughing, Namwoon yelling about bunk beds. It all felt distant. 

“I win,” he said aloud to no one. “Suck it.” 

...

...He was definitely too poor to be there.

He basked in the peace for maybe forty-five seconds, wondering just how exactly he’d come to be on vacation with a group of maybe the most famous gamers in Korea, before a quiet, creeping thought slithered its way into the room.

Dokja blinked.

Sat up.

And promptly felt his soul leave his body.

“Oh… no,” he whispered, horror washing over him like cold sea water.

Because the bag—the one he’d been previously trying and failing to wrestle with, the one with his clothes, hopefully his toothbrush—was not in this room.

How could it be when Joonghyuk had slung it over his broad shoulder like it was his own.

Dokja clutched his head.

“No no no no no—”

Because of course he did. Of course Yoo Joonghyuk would pick up his bag and then silently lug it off to some unholy corner of the house just to make Dokja suffer for it.

Dokja squeezed his eyes shut and breathed through his nose.

“Okay. Okay. It’s fine. I’ll just… go downstairs. I’ll go downstairs, pretend to be normal, and ask for it back. Like a functional adult.”

He stood.

Paused.

And immediately sat back down.

He could already see it—Joonghyuk standing there, probably at the end of a hallway like some brooding wall boss, holding the bag with two fingers like it offended him. That flat stare. That faint but unmistakable why-are-you-like-this air.

He stared out the window like it might offer him escape, smiling out of sheer emotional pain.

Outside, the trees danced gently in the breeze, perfectly oblivious to Dokja’s suffering.The flagpole groaned faintly. Somewhere in the house, a door slammed, followed by Sooyoung yelling something about someone stealing “her emotional support kettle.”

Dokja put his head in his hands.

His only options were:

1. Live without the bag.
   
   
2. Wear the same clothes for the rest of the weekend.
   
   
3. Die.
   
   

Or—option four.

1. Go find Yoo Joonghyuk.
   
   

And ask him for it.

Dokja shuddered.

Number three sounded like the best option here.

Dokja stood up from his bed resolutely. This shouldn’t be such a big deal. Joonghyuk couldn’t kill him in a house full of people anyway.

…Right?

Having mustered up the very fragile remains of his courage, Dokja opened the door and stepped out into the hallway.

And immediately ran headfirst into a broad chest.

“Sorry-” Dokja looked up. And immediately took a step back. “Wow. That keeps happening, huh…”

Dokja’s sheepish laughter petered out. Seriously, who had he wronged in a past life?

Joonghyuk didn’t move aside. His dark eyes fixed on Dokja with an intensity that made the air between them crackle—not with anger, but with deliberate control.

“You’re looking for this,” he said, voice low and steady, nodding toward the bag slung casually over his broad shoulder.

Dokja’s throat tightened and he barely managed to swallow down the instinctive snarky reply. There was no way he could afford to act how he normally did around Yoo Joonghyuk.

“Yeah. I need it back.”

Joonghyeok watched him for a beat longer– seriously, why did this guy keep doing that – before the bag was promptly thrown in his face. Dokja squawked in surprise, wrestling with the sudden heavy load.

“How do you even function on your own.” Joonghyuk said, and Dokja’s eyes widened behind the bag, indignation filling him.

“Hey, now,” Dokja said, trying to wrestle the bag in a way that he could actually see the other man and not just the dark material currently filling his vision. “I’ll have you know I’m perfectly capable-”

As if fate itself had it out for him, his feet caught the threshold of his open door, and he promptly went flying backwards.

Before he could fall and hopefully crack open his skull, a large hand wrapped around his upper arm. The bag shifted out of his view and the heavy load was removed from his hands. 

Joonghyuk looked at him with a slightly raised eyebrow. Dokja blinked up at him.

“I can see that,” Joonghyuk murmured.

Dokja’s heart hammered in his chest as Joonghyuk’s grip held firm. It wasn’t exactly a reassuring feeling, but strangely, it wasn’t entirely hostile either. More like… it was natural.

“Thanks,” Dokja muttered, scrambling upright and snatching the bag back with a huff. He adjusted the strap awkwardly over his shoulder, trying to regain whatever was left of his dignity. Probably nothing.

Seriously, why did he keep embarrassing himself in front of this guy??

Joonghyuk let go, stepping back slowly, eyes never leaving Dokja. “You’re lucky I’m feeling merciful today,” he said dryly, voice low but his gaze was careful.

Dokja blinked, the words ringing familiar in his ears.

“This isn’t a charity cab ride.”

Dokja tried a sheepish smile. What the hell. “So you do have a charitable streak after all.”

Joonghyuk’s scowl was answer enough, and Dokja grinned. Serves you right.

“Don’t get used to it.” Joonghyuk said, crossing his arms.

“Too late,” Dokja said. “I’m counting on it now.”

Joonghyuk eyed him like he seriously regretted ever being somewhat civil to him. Dokja’s cheshire grin remained perfectly in place, even if a bead of sweat ran down his back.

“Don’t be loud,” Joonghyuk finally said, turning around and leaving as intensely as he’d arrived. Dokja scrambled after him, eyebrows raised.

“Wait, what do you mean-”

Joonghyuk took his time unlocking the door to the room right next to Dokja’s. Oh no.

Joonghyuk paused, glanced over his shoulder, gaze strangely piercing. “The walls are thin.”

Then he stepped inside and shut the door without another word.

Dokja stood there blinking. “...What the hell does that mean?”

The scent hit him first.

Warm, rich, and savory—like roasted garlic, onions caramelized to perfection, something herbal simmering in a broth that had no business smelling that good in a gamer lodge. Dokja hesitated halfway down the stairs, stomach betraying him with an audible growl.

No. It couldn’t be. He refused to believe—

He stepped into the living room and barely sidestepped a flying throw pillow.

“Namwoon, you’re trash!” Jihye shrieked, nearly lunging off the couch. “You said no items! ”

“That’s not an item, it’s a buff zone! ” Namwoon yelled, white-knuckling his controller. “You’re just mad I’m better!”

“You’re camping like a coward!”

Their voices echoed through the high ceilings of the lodge. Dokja dodged another near-hit and made a mental note to never touch the console while they were in the room. The screen flashed, a character went flying off-screen, and Jihye howled like someone had just betrayed her family line.

Past the chaos, the kitchen glowed like a warm hearth.

Literally. There were pendant lights casting golden halos across the counters, the sound of a knife rhythmically tapping against a cutting board, a pot gently bubbling on the stove. The scent was stronger here—herbs, something meat-based, and butter. So much butter.

Dokja leaned slightly into the doorway and froze.

Yoo Joonghyuk was in the kitchen.

Cooking.

With confidence and frightening competence.

One hand chopping vegetables with frightening speed, the other casually reaching for a container of seasoning, head angled enough for the light to hit him just right in an infuriatingly effortless way. His sleeves were rolled, showing off thick forearms. His expression was its trademark cold and unreadable. He looked like the type of man you’d find in a dramatic commercial for high-end chef knives. Or war crimes.

Dokja blinked. “You’re joking. ”

“Nope,” said a voice to his left. Sooyoung was perched on the counter, swinging her legs, holding a glass of wine like a threat. “He’s been cooking since we got here. Scary, right?”

“Why would you let him do that?” Dokja tried to ask subtly.

“Joonghyuk-ssi’s cooking is really good,” Sangah said from across the room, arranging cutlery with surgical precision. 

“It is,” Seolhwa agreed from the other counter, where she was idly whisking something in a bowl. She didn’t look up. Her white hair was pulled in a chic bun, and she looked like she’d stepped right out of a K-drama. She was also the only other person cooking besides Joonghyuk.

Dokja blinked again. “That’s… unexpected.”

Sooyoung grinned, raised her glass. “Cheers.”

Before he could make a break for it, Joonghyuk turned away from the stove. A single bowl, steaming and artfully plated—some kind of stew over rice, garnished with fresh scallions—was set on the table with deadly precision.

Joonghyuk didn’t say anything.

Just looked at him.

Dokja hovered at the edge of the room like a man being lured into a trap. “Is that… for me?”

“It’s food,” Joonghyuk said, like that explained everything.

“Right. Cool. Normal.”

Sooyoung slid a chair out with her foot. “Sit before he changes his mind.”

Dokja sat. He took one bite and immediately hated how good it was.

“What the hell,” he muttered. “You people are supposed to live on instant noodles and caffeine.”

(“Like me,” went unsaid.)

Dokja looked up just in time to catch Joonghyuk’s glinting eyes, before the man turned back around and handed out plates to the others.

Dokja took another bite, and something burst in his mouth.

He paused. Chewed. Blinking.

No.

No, no, no.

He lowered his spoon slightly and stared at his bowl with growing betrayal.

A tomato.

A fat, smug, perfectly cooked cherry tomato. Sitting there like it belonged. Like it deserved to be in this otherwise heavenly dish.

Dokja’s face stayed neutral. He shifted in his seat, subtly angling the bowl away from view as he began a quiet operation of extraction. Tomato after tomato. Covertly nudged aside like unwanted diplomatic corps.

The others were busy filling their plates, teasing each other, laughing about who stole the best room or who snored loudest. No one noticed. He was safe.

Until—

“Why aren’t you eating.”

Low. Close. Quiet.

Dokja looked up like a bug from underneath a descending shoe.

Joonghyuk had returned to the table, setting a plate in front of Jihye without so much as a word, and now stood beside him, gaze cool and unreadable. His voice had been quiet enough not to draw attention—but firm enough that Dokja knew it wasn’t a casual question.

“I am,” Dokja murmured back. He poked his spoon back into the rice, very carefully scooping up a tomato-free bite and chewing it like he was proving a point. “See? Eating. Mm. So good.”

“You’re picking.”

“I’m… savoring,” Dokja muttered, not looking up.

“You’re avoiding something.”

“I’m avoiding gout , actually,” he replied flatly. “It runs in the family.”

He didn’t miss the way Joonghyuk’s gaze flicked down to his bowl. A single cherry tomato, scooted to the edge. A silent crime scene.

Dokja shoved it further under a piece of meat like that would erase it from history.

There was a pause. A breath. Then—

“Eat all of it.”

The words were soft. But it was a command, not a request.

Dokja looked up, just slightly. Their eyes met. Held.

A slow, deliberate beat passed between them, something unsaid humming in the space. No one else was paying attention. Namwoon was too busy arguing with Jihye, Sooyoung was swirling her wine, Sangah was politely asking Seolhwa where she learned to make such perfect banchan.

But Dokja and Joonghyuk?

Locked in the dumbest, quietest war ever fought across a ceramic bowl.

A war he wasn’t about to lose.

Dokja arched a brow and lifted a spoonful dramatically. The tomato glistened on top.

Then, without breaking eye contact, he tipped the tomato off the spoon and gently let it roll down to the corner of the bowl.

“Oops,” he said.

Joonghyuk stared at him. No change in expression. But there was something sharp and cool in his eyes. Measuring. Calculating.

And then—he walked away.

Dokja exhaled, triumphant.

But when Joonghyuk returned five minutes later with another bowl and set it in front of him, he didn’t say a word.

He didn’t have to.

This one had double the tomatoes.

Dokja stared down at it, face slack with horror. This was an escalation. This was war.

He looked up just in time to see the barest flicker of something smug ghost across Joonghyuk’s face as he sat down across from him and sipped his water like a man who’d already won.

Dokja narrowed his eyes.

Joonghyuk didn't react. Just slowly, deliberately, raised his spoon and took a bite of his own stew— with a tomato in it.

Dokja made a mental note to sleep with one eye open.

The tomato war forgotten for the moment (mostly), the rest of the group began settling around the long wooden table. Plates clattered, glasses clinked, and laughter bounced off the walls like a cheerful echo.

“So, you’re Kim Dokja,” Heewon said with a warm smile, passing him the salt shaker as if that alone could break the ice. “We’ve met before, haven’t we?”

Dokja gave a small nod, trying to look like he wasn’t mentally cringing at the poor, drunken first impression he probably made on Heewon. “Yeah, that’s me.”

From across the table, Namwoon laughed boisterously as if someone had just summoned his spirit, pausing his game controller. “Kim Namwoon. Resident champion and master of trash talk.”

“Namwoon’s trash talk is actually impressive,” Jihye added grudgingly, finally pausing her digital assault to glance up, wiping a smear of chip crumbs from her chin.

“Lee Jihye,” she continued, narrowing her eyes at him. “What’s your gamer tag, ahjussi?”

Dokja coughed, trying to ignore the intense gazes suddenly pinned on him. “Oh, I’m not a gamer.”

Jihye’s mouth dropped open as if it was a personal insult. “What? Really?”

“Well, unless you count Candy Crush.”

Several winces rose from the table, and Dokja smiled sheepishly. “Hey, now. It’s popular for a reason! It’s strategic and requires actual planning ahead—”

“Somebody shut the ahjussi up,” Jihye groaned, shooting him a dirty look like he’d insulted her entire bloodline.

“Dokja, you’re embarrassing me,” Sooyoung said with an amused shake of her head, as if anything could embarrass her.

“As if anything can embarrass you,” Dokja shot back with a grin.

“I beg your pardon—” Sooyoung opened her mouth, but Hyunsung intervened smoothly, sensing the brewing storm.

“How’ve you been, Dokja-ssi?” he asked politely, eyes warm.

“Surviving,” Dokja replied. “You were really good in the Invitational.”

Hyunsung’s eyes widened bashfully, like he wasn’t six foot tall and built like an ideal Korean soldier. “Oh, thank you.”

The chatter around the table slowed at the sound of chopsticks being placed down forcefully.

Everyone expected Joonghyuk to say something—introduce himself, break the ice properly.

Except Joonghyuk didn’t move.

He sat back, fingers steepled on the table, eyes calm but unreadable.

A quiet fell over the room.

The kind of quiet that wasn’t really quiet—more like everyone was holding their breath, waiting.

Dokja cleared his throat awkwardly. “We’ve… met before.”

Joonghyuk’s eyes flicked to him, sharp and deliberate. “Yes.”

Sooyoung, sitting a little apart on the counter, couldn’t help herself. A sharp, mischievous cackle slipped out, low but unmistakable, like a cat who’d just knocked over a priceless vase.

Dokja’s eyes darted to her. “Sooyoung.”

She waved a hand innocently, smirking. “What? I’m just amused.”

Dokja rolled her eyes, but relaxed as the chatter slowly picked back up. A warm, pleasant hum of laughter filled the room, and Dokja felt himself ease into the atmosphere. 

He ignored the gaze pinned on the side of his face, making a point of picking out the tomatoes and pushing them to the side.

“Hey, did you guys see how fast he accepted the food though?” Jihye pointed her chopsticks at Dokja, who immediately braced for impact.

“Oh god,” Dokja muttered.

“You’d think he was starving,” she added dramatically. “Like a man just released from a bunker.”

“That’s because your ahjussi probably was starving,” Sooyoung chimed in. “He’s the type to live off convenience store triangle kimbap and regret.”

“Excuse me,” Dokja said. “I’ll have you know I’ve recently upgraded to gas station sandwiches.”

“Luxury,” Sangah said without looking up.

Seolhwa actually laughed—soft and melodic, the kind of laugh that made the whole room glance over for just a moment. “It’s nice, though. Everyone being here like this.”

“Right?” Namwoon said, rice spilling from his mouth in a way that had Jihye jumping away from him in disgust. “Feels like one of those cozy reality shows. We just need a confession booth and dramatic editing.”

“I volunteer as the narrator,” Sooyoung offered immediately. “Episode one: ‘Lodge of Lies: Who Hid the Good Snacks and Why Was It the Bastard Joonghyuk?’”

“I didn’t hide them,” Joonghyuk said, without looking up from his bowl.

“You absolutely did,” she shot back. “I saw you move the last bag of shrimp chips to the back of the cabinet like a gremlin hoarding treasure.”

Joonghyuk said nothing.

“That’s because if Jihye finds them, they’ll be gone in thirty seconds,” Heewon added, pointedly.

“Okay,” Jihye said, raising her hands, “one time I ate a whole bag and suddenly I’m the national threat?”

“You are the national threat,” Dokja muttered, almost without thinking.

Everyone turned to look at him.

Dokja froze with his spoon halfway to his mouth. “...Was that out loud?”

A beat of silence. Then—

Jihye grinned. “Look at this guy! He gets one bowl of stew and now he’s got jokes!”

“He’s growing bolder by the bite,” Sooyoung said, lifting her wine glass again. “I give it ten more minutes before he tries to instigate a mutiny.”

“He’s already trying,” Namwoon said, nudging his bowl meaningfully. “Look at how he’s pushing those tomatoes off to the side. Treason.”

Dokja glared at him. 

“ Joonghyuk-hyung made this,” Namwoon said, scandalized. “That’s practically sacrilege.”

“Besides,” Jihye added, squinting at Dokja’s bowl, “didn’t yours have more tomatoes before?”

Dokja’s face remained perfectly blank. “Did it?”

“I swear I saw like... five of them.”

“That’s a strange and baseless claim,” Dokja replied evenly. “One might even call it defamatory.”

“Why are you so defensive about tomatoes?” Jihye said with narrowed eyes.

“I’m not defensive. I’m just... setting boundaries.”

“Is this about the fruit or the principle ?” Sangah asked, completely serious.

“Yes,” Dokja said, and shoveled another bite of tomato-free rice into his mouth before anyone could interrogate further.

Across the table, Joonghyuk didn’t say a word—but there was a faint twitch at the corner of his mouth. Not quite a smile. More like a knowing . 

Dokja wanted to kick him under the table. But he didn’t have a death wish.

Actually, he did. He just didn’t want to die in such a brutal and surely painful way.

The table dissolved into overlapping arguments—Namwoon bragging about how many spicy noodles he could eat without crying, Jihye daring him to prove it later, Sooyoung loudly betting he’d tap out after one bite, and Hyunsung very gently trying to convince everyone to drink water with their meal.

Amid the chaos, Dokja found himself laughing again, less guarded now. His posture relaxed. His voice slipped easily into the rhythm of teasing comebacks and dry commentary. Every time someone threw something ridiculous into the conversation, he volleyed it back without thinking.

“So wait,” Jihye said, poking at him with her chopsticks. “What do you do, then? If not gaming?”

“Sleep,” Dokja said.

Sooyoung rolled her eyes. “Try again.”

Dokja sighed. “Read.”

“What, like books?”

“No, cereal boxes. Yes, books.”

“What kind of books?”

Dokja hesitated. “...Webnovels.”

That got everyone’s attention.

There was a very brief, stunned silence.

“You mean, like— actual webnovels?” Jihye asked, blinking.

“I—yeah?”

Jihye gasped like someone had just given her the best gossip of her life. “Really?”

“Yes, really!” Dokja said, defensive. “Is that so hard to believe?”

Two pairs of judgemental teenage eyes raked over him for a long, quiet moment. “Actually… it isn’t.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Dokja barked, but Jihye was pointedly looking at her food like she wasn’t hearing him. He pointed his chopsticks towards her. “You should show some respect to your elders, you know.”

Jihye eyed him like he was the dirt on the bottom of her shoe, and Dokja suddenly clocked the resemblance between her and Joonghyuk. Figured her prodigy would inherit the DeathStare™.

“Sorry… hal-abeoji.”

“What the- did you just call me a grandpa?!”

“...No.”

“You definitely did.”

Jihye was already grinning like the devil. “You’re imagining things, halbae.”

“Oh my god,” Dokja muttered, dragging a hand down his face. “I regret everything.”

Sooyoung was wheezing into her wine glass. “This is incredible. I didn’t even have to start it this time. Nature is healing.”

Namwoon thumped the table. “Halbae Kim! You should tell us a story from the war!”

Dokja stared at him, deadpan. “What war?”

“I dunno,” Namwoon said, shrugging. “Whichever one you fought in to earn the right to those discount vitamins and suspicious posture.”

“I’m thirty-two,” Dokja hissed.

“That’s what a spy would say,” Jihye said. “Honestly, the more you deny it, the more convinced I am that you were around for the invention of dial-up internet.”

“Are you saying he was there when it was invented or when it went extinct?” Sooyoung added, eyes sparkling. She was enjoying his pain way too much.

“Why not both?” Sangah offered mildly.

Dokja gave her a betrayed look. “Et toi, Sangah-ssi?”

She tilted her head innocently. “I’m just saying, you’ve got the vibe.”

She was definitely spending too much time with Han Sooyung.

“What vibe?” Dokja asked, borderline desperate.

“You know.” Sooyoung waved vaguely. “The ‘I yell at kids on forums about lore inconsistencies’ vibe.”

“I do not.”

“You absolutely do,” Heewon added, and that stung because she sounded so sincere.

“I don’t even comment on forums,” Dokja said, affronted. “I lurk silently like a respectable adult.”

“That is somehow worse,” Jihye muttered.

Dokja narrowed his eyes. “I hope every single one of your characters dies in your next match.”

She grinned. “Joke’s on you, I play permadeath mode for fun.”

There was a pause. Then, in the quiet: “...Of course you do.”

Heewon stirred her tea gently and spoke quietly so that only he could hear. “So, is this what you’re usually like?”

Dokja blinked. “What do you mean?”

She smiled at him, soft and genuine. “Relaxed. Comfortable.”

He hesitated. The table buzzed around him—Namwoon arguing that real warriors didn’t drink milk, Sooyoung and Jihye high-fiving over a burn, Joonghyuk still silently eating but very much listening.

And Dokja realized, somewhere between tomato treason and being called a digital war relic, that the knots in his chest had loosened. His shoulders weren’t stiff. His answers didn’t feel like landmines waiting to go off.

“Not really,” he admitted.

Heewon just hummed. “You should be.”

Before Dokja could process that, Sooyoung leaned over with a dangerous glint in her eye. “So, Grandpa Kim, tell us—do you also print out webnovels to annotate with red pen?”

“Do you want to be stabbed?” Dokja asked calmly.

“You’re dodging the question.”

Dokja set his chopsticks down and stared her dead in the eye. “Only the good ones.”

A collective gasp echoed across the table.

“Oh my god,” Jihye whispered. “He’s unhinged.”

“Wait,” Sangah said, “define ' good'. ”

Joonghyuk, very slowly, placed his chopsticks down. His expression didn’t change, save for his eyes, which now glinted in an unreadable way.

“‘I Saved the Wolf Emperor’s Child and Now He Wants to Marry Me’?” Joonghyuk said, and the entire table did a double-take, like they thought they hadn’t heard that quite right.

“Wait, say that again. I wasn’t filming,” Sooyung said, phone in hand and grinning maniacally.

Dokja, in the meantime, nodded enthusiastically. Figures Joonghyuk of all people would defend him.

“Yes, exactly! It’s a classic, ” Dokja said, with the conviction of a man ready to die for his taste in literature. “Emotional payoff, subtle political intrigue, surprisingly decent wolf lore—”

Namwoon leaned forwards in his chair, suddenly looking very interested. “What the hell is wolf lore.”

“He means furry propaganda,” Jihye supplied helpfully.

“It is not furry propaganda!” Dokja snapped.

“That’s what a furry would say,” Sooyoung muttered under her breath.

“Okay,” Dokja said, glaring around the table. “I take it back. None of you deserve my recommendations. I was going to make you a personalized reading list. I had notes. ”

“You annotated webnovels?” Heewon asked, eyebrows high with both concern and... something like curiosity.

“I just like to be thorough,” Dokja mumbled.

Sangah blinked slowly. “You annotated them like schoolwork?”

“Look,” Dokja said, stabbing a piece of rice, “if the power system changes in chapter 42, I will be taking notes.”

“So you do yell on forums about lore inconsistencies,” Sooyoung declared, triumphant.

“I said I don’t post. I just—look, some people crochet. I annotate.”

“Next thing you know he’s going to reveal he has a binder,” Jihye said, deadpan.

Dokja did not answer.

Silence.

“Oh my god,” Jihye said. “You have one.”

“It’s color-coded,” Dokja said with a deep sigh, like he couldn’t believe he was admitting this. “There are tabs.”

Another silence.

Then the table exploded.

Sooyoung let out a scream-laugh and nearly dropped her wine glass. Jihye banged both fists on the table in pure delight. Namwoon wheezed and had to clutch his side like he was dying. Even Heewon let out a quiet, incredulous snort behind her hand. At least Hyunsung and Seolhwa weren't laughing at his pain, the absolute angels.

“I knew you were insane,” Sooyoung gasped, wiping tears from the corners of her eyes. “But this is art. This is performance. ”

“This man is living a double life,” Jihye said. “Day job: sad salaryman. Night job: Webnovel Vigilante.”

“I am not sad,” Dokja said, wounded. He didn’t deny the other title.

“You are absolutely sad.”

The jabs had softened now, woven into the rhythm of conversation like the steady thread in a shared joke. Even Joonghyuk, still silent, looked the faintest bit more relaxed—as though watching the others haze Dokja had granted him temporary internal peace.

Dokja glanced around the table—at the laughter, at the chopsticks stabbing into banchan with competitive fervor, at the comfortable mess of it all—and realized that somewhere along the way, the weight on his shoulders had grown quieter. Not gone, not forgotten. But distant.

He didn’t know when he’d started smiling for real, not just out of politeness. Maybe somewhere between the third tomato insult and being called a grandpa.

But it felt real now. Like warmth in his ribs.

“Okay, fine,” he said, raising his hands in surrender. “Mock me all you want. But don’t come crying to me when you accidentally binge a 600-chapter novel with no plot because you ignored my warnings.”

“You say that like you didn’t finish it anyway,” Jihye said.

Dokja stared at her. “I did it for research.”

“You read all of ‘The CEO’s Secret Omega Rebirth Contract’ for research ?” Sooyoung said, eyebrows raised so high they could’ve left her face.

“It was important to understand the tropes! ” Dokja snapped. “You think I was enjoying it?”

“Yes,” half the table chorused.

And Dokja, utterly doomed, buried his face in his hands.

Of course Han Sooyung’s friends were just as evil as she was.

The bottle clinked as Sooyoung spun it with dramatic flair, her eyes glittering like a dragon who’d just stumbled upon a hoard of new ways to torment people. “Truth or drink,” she declared, voice rising above the noise. “A game of champions and cowards. Let’s see who’s who.”

A collective groan rose from the table.

“No,” Heewon said immediately. “Absolutely not.”

“Come on,” Sooyoung cooed, “don’t you want to know which of us is secretly in love with a webnovel protagonist?”

“That feels pointed,” Dokja muttered.

“It was.”

“Still no,” Heewon repeated.

“We don’t even have enough alcohol for this,” Hyunsung said, ever the voice of reason.

“We have five bottles of soju, three beers, and whatever the hell Namwoon put in that mason jar,” Sangah listed off from memory.

“It’s kombucha!” Namwoon yelled.

“It’s suspicious,” Jihye countered.

“That’s the spirit,” Sooyoung said. “Which you’ll soon be drinking.”

And somehow—because saying no to Han Sooyoung required superhuman effort and everyone had used up their mental stamina at dinner—they all gave in.

The rules were simple: answer the question, or take a shot. No dodging, no hesitating. If you tried to weasel out, Sooyoung got to ask two questions next round. There were groans. There were threats. There were people reaching for the bottle even before the first question was asked. 

Dokja prayed for his dear life.

“Oh, we’re all dying tonight,” Jihye said, grabbing a shot with the gleam of a gremlin ready to fight god.

“You just want to see how fast Namwoon gets sloshed,” Heewon muttered.

“Incorrect,” Jihye said. “I want to speedrun it.”

“I’m not drinking anything poured by Han Sooyoung,” Namwoon said, leaning away.

“You’ll drink when I say it’s your turn, you coward,” Sooyoung declared, already sliding a glass toward him.

Dokja slowly pushed his chair back like he might escape unnoticed.

“Don’t even think about it,” Sooyoung warned without looking. “You don’t get to ride the vibes and then run when it’s time to suffer.”

“I have to go home,” Dokja tried.

“You’re staying the night.”

“I have… work tomorrow.”

“It’s Saturday,” Sangah said kindly, sipping her tea.

Dokja gave her a betrayed look.

And so, reluctantly, Kim Dokja sat down. Like a man on death row. Possibly because he was.

The first few rounds were exactly as chaotic as one might expect.

“Hyunsung-ssi,” Sooyoung purred. “Have you ever had a dream about anyone here?”

(Dokja was filled with an uncomfortable sense of deja vu.)

Hyunsung turned red instantly. “I—I think I’ll drink.”

“Aha!” Sooyoung slammed the table. “ Interesting. ”

“Heewon,” Namwoon said. “What’s the most illegal thing you’ve done?”

Heewon paused. “Does murder count?”

Everyone stared.

“What?” she said, sipping her shot calmly. “It was a hypothetical.”

“...Was it?” Sangah asked quietly.

Meanwhile, Namwoon had already spilled half his drink down his chin trying to suppress a laugh and nearly fell out of his chair.

Sooyung pointed at Joonghyuk next. “Okay, you. Have you ever cried because of a game?”

“No,” Joonghyuk said flatly.

“Liar,” Dokja muttered under his breath.

Joonghyuk’s eyes cut to him immediately. “Say that again.”

“Nothing,” Dokja said, quickly pretending to study the wood grain of the table.

“Oh, no,” Sooyoung said, grinning like a cat about to push a glass off a ledge. “We’re circling back to that. Dokja—your turn.”

“I refuse to participate,” Dokja said primly, pushing his shot glass aside.

“Then drink,” Sooyoung said.

“I don’t want to.”

“Then answer.”

“I’d rather die.”

“So dramatic,” Sangah said.

“He always is,” Sooyoung agreed, like she wasn’t the one who’d organized a full-blown scheme just to get him out of the house. “Dokja. What’s your biggest turn-on?”

“I will light myself on fire,” Dokja said.

“Drink,” Jihye cheered.

Dokja stared down at the shot glass. The clear liquid inside reflected the warm lodge lights back at him like it was waiting to betray him in high definition.

This wasn’t going to end well.

He lifted the shot, wincing.

And then, before he could blink, a large hand engulfed his.

Joonghyuk.

He took the glass from Dokja’s fingers, movements clean and quiet.

Dokja barely managed to say, “Wait—”

But Joonghyuk downed it in one smooth motion.

The table went quiet for all of half a second.

“Wait, what the hell—” Jihye started.

“That’s not how the game works,” Sooyoung said with a grin that was far too wide.

Joonghyuk set the glass back down with a soft clink . “He didn’t want to drink.”

“You can’t just take someone else’s punishment,” Sooyoung said, sounding absolutely delighted.

“I just did.”

A beat passed.

“Wha—wait, what?!” Dokja hissed under his breath. He leaned sideways toward Joonghyuk. “What are you doing?”

Joonghyuk didn’t look at him. His face was the picture of blank, steady indifference. 

Dokja felt personally victimized. “I had it. I could’ve—”

“No, you couldn’t,” Joonghyuk said.

Dokja opened his mouth, closed it again, and sank back in his chair, flustered and scowling and red to the tips of his ears.

The table had moved on, like a tide rolling forward, but Dokja still felt like he was left somewhere in the wake—adrift, disoriented, mildly electrocuted. His hand tingled where Joonghyuk’s had touched it, and he was deeply, irrevocably annoyed by that. He shook it out of pure spite to get rid of the lingering feeling.

“Sooyoung,” Sangah said, turning toward her with an expression that promised violence. “If you make one more person combust from embarrassment again—”

“I’m doing God’s work,” Sooyoung replied serenely, already spinning the bottle again. “You should be thanking me. Bonding!”

But Dokja wasn’t paying attention. Not really. Because out of the corner of his eye, Joonghyuk leaned slightly closer—not enough to draw attention, but enough to speak, low and even, only for him.

“You can’t handle your alcohol.”

Dokja blinked. He turned, expression incredulous. “Excuse me?”

(He wasn’t about to own up to his mistakes, after all. What was he, some kind of moral compass?)

Joonghyuk spared him a glance that fell somewhere between disgust and condescension.

Dokja narrowed his eyes. “You’ve known me like five minutes.”

“I’ve known you long enough.”

That shut him up.

Joonghyuk’s gaze stayed fixed ahead, face unreadable. But Dokja swore he saw the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth—a ghost of something smug.

“...You know, that’s very dramatic for someone who once said I was the dramatic one,” Dokja muttered.

“Hm.”

Dokja gave him a look like what the hell does that even mean , but before he could say anything else, the bottle pointed at him again.

“Ohhh, round two!” Sooyoung crowed.

“Nope,” Dokja said immediately, hand already reaching for another shot.

“Come on, that one didn’t count!”

“I don’t trust you,” Dokja said. “I won’t fall for your traps again.”

“But you’re so fun when you squirm.”

“You’re not helping,” Dokja said to Jihye.

“I’m not trying to,” she said, smiling behind her cup.

“Fine,” Sooyoung said, practically vibrating. “Dokja, if you had to kiss someone at this table, who would it be?”

“OH MY GOD—”

Dokja went for the drink.

And Joonghyuk, once again, beat him to it.

There was an audible gasp from Jihye.

“You’re not serious,” Sooyoung said, staring like it was Christmas morning.

Joonghyuk set the glass down again, calm as anything. “He didn’t want to answer.”

“You’re—he’s—what is happening ,” Dokja spluttered. “Why are you doing that?”

Joonghyuk tilted his head, finally looking at him again. His expression didn’t shift—cool and unreadable as ever—but something about his eyes felt sharper now, intent like a knife pressed against silk.

“You’re going to embarrass yourself,” he said. His eyes lingered for a moment, and Dokja swore his lips pulled minutely upwards at the corners. “Again.”

“I am not ,” Dokja hissed, stared at him, then pointedly turned his entire body away like that would protect him from the secondhand smugness radiating off this man.

Dokja needed to set a reminder to bleach Joonghyuk’s coat the second he got home.

Across the table, Sooyoung was howling, doubled over against the table like she’d just witnessed divine intervention and was planning to make a religion out of it. “This is gold . Someone get a camera. We’re bottling this energy. Selling it as a drama pilot.”

“Don’t you dare,” Dokja snapped.

“Oh, I dare,” Sooyoung said gleefully.

Jihye looked between them with wide eyes like she was seeing her mentor with new eyes. “Wait, so is this, like, a thing?”

“It’s not a thing,” Dokja and Joonghyuk said at the same time—though Joonghyuk’s was more of a mild grunt while Dokja’s came out at full volume, brittle as shattered glass.

Sangah, ever the traitor, hummed thoughtfully. “It feels like a thing.”

“I hate all of you,” Dokja muttered. “Except Hyunsung-hyung. Hyung, please tell them to stop.”

Hyunsung blinked, looking thoroughly cornered. “Ah... maybe we should keep the questions light.”

“Hyunsung, you angel,” Dokja said dramatically, reaching out across the table full of glasses like a damsel reaching for her savior.

And promptly being stopped by two fingers hooking in his collar. He reared back with the pull, choking in surprise. “What the-”

“Sit down,” Joonghyuk said, before roughly pulling him back in his chair.

Dokja eyed him in pure disbelief and indignation. “What is wrong with you?”

Joonghyuk didn’t spare him a glance, calmly watching as Namwoon tried and failed to dodge an invasive question. “You were going to make a mess.”

Dokja eyed him from the corner of his eye, silently brooding. “Unbelievable.”

And then, mercifully, the bottle landed on Hyunsung again and the attention shifted. The table burst into new fits of laughter, accusations flying faster than drinks.

Dokja didn’t fully rejoin the chaos.

Because Joonghyuk, of course, was still watching him. Not obviously—not in a way that anyone else would notice—but Dokja felt it. A quiet gravity to his gaze. Heavy in a way that made Dokja feel like a nail under a hammer.

Sooyoung, now clearly possessed by chaos itself, slammed her hand against the table.

“ Dokja, ” she announced, like it was a summoning spell. “It’s your turn to ask. Pick someone.”

Dokja froze.

Jihye leaned over, smile sharp. “Come on. Make it count.”

Heewon raised her glass. “Vengeance is encouraged.”

Dokja took a breath. Then another.

Then slowly turned toward Joonghyuk with the expression of a man accepting his fate with dignity.

“Truth or drink?”

A pause.

Joonghyuk tilted his head. “Truth.”

Dokja smirked.

Everyone leaned forward.

“You’re all insane,” Hyunsung said quietly

“So… are you compensating for something, or is that just your natural vibe?” Dokja asked, grinning from ear to ear. 

The entire table inhaled collectively like they’d never heard anyone dare to address the Supreme King like that. Sooyung let out a delighted and proud ‘ ha! ’.

Joonghyuk’s eyes flickered towards him sharply. “You really think that’s clever?” he said, voice low and cool, like ice sliding over steel.

Dokja just leaned back, unapologetic, letting the silence stretch between them. “What I think is that you’re dodging the question.”

“Compensation implies something lacking.” Joonghyuk replied, and the table around them erupted into wild cheers.

Dokja looked at him in disbelief, before hissing, “I can’t believe you just said that. There are kids around, you know.”

“You asked the question.”

Dokja stared at him, before pointing an accusing finger in his face. “Yeah, and you could’ve drunk! You’ve been doing that all night anyway!

Joonghyuk ignored him, and Dokja was left staring at his broad back with his mouth agape.

What the hell.

Dokja made a rude gesture behind his back.

His eyes met Han Sooyung. The phone in her hands flashed.

A pause.

“Delete that.”

“No way.”

The house was finally still.

After a full day of laughter, teasing, and the inevitable chaos of a game fueled by too much soju and reckless questions, everyone had finally retreated to their own corners of the world. Doors closed softly, footsteps faded down hallways, and the usual nighttime creaks and groans filled the spaces in between, like the house itself was settling in for rest. A quiet calm had draped over the rooms, like a well-worn blanket pulled tight against the dark.

Dokja lay on his bed, propped up by a pile of pillows. His phone’s soft glow illuminated the lines on his face, casting pale light over the exhaustion that weighed him down. He’d pulled up his favorite webnovel — a story he’d read and reread more times than he could count — but tonight, the words refused to anchor him. They floated just out of reach, dissolving into the jumble of thoughts he couldn’t stop turning over. Joonghyuk’s calm, unreadable expression kept flashing behind his eyelids, uninvited and impossible to shake.

With a deep, tired sigh, Dokja locked the screen and set his phone on the nightstand. He stared up at the ceiling, tracing the faint cracks and shadows with his eyes, wishing for the restless energy to quiet itself. But it only grew louder inside him, like a storm brewing under his skin.

Just then, the sky outside darkened suddenly, as if someone had pulled a thick velvet curtain across the stars. A sharp, fresh scent seeped into the room—the unmistakable, electric tang of rain. The first heavy drops hit the windowpane with a sudden, irregular tap-tap-tap, each one a small percussion against the quiet house.

A small smile tugged at Dokja’s lips. Storms were a kind of comfort to him. When everything inside got too loud or too complicated, the raw power of the weather outside — the wind whipping through trees, rain pounding the earth — somehow cut through the noise in his head. It reminded him that some things didn’t need words. They just were.

Without thinking much, he swung his legs over the side of the bed, bare feet finding the cool floor. He moved quietly through the darkened room and slid open the glass door to the balcony.

Outside, the world was alive and wild.

The rain fell in thick sheets now, blurring the edges of the world and turning the streetlights into soft pools of gold light shining through a silvery veil. Trees bent and swayed under the force of the wind, their leaves shuddering and rustling like a thousand whispered secrets brushing against each other. The branches scratched softly against the building, a natural lullaby that vibrated through the wooden floor beneath his feet.

Thunder rumbled low and deep somewhere far away, a slow, rolling growl that seemed to shake the air itself. It was the heartbeat of the storm, steady and relentless. Raindrops drummed on the railing like a million tiny fingers tapping a secret rhythm.

The air was thick with the smell of wet earth, fresh pine, and the sharp, clean scent of ozone — that electric fragrance that always made Dokja’s chest feel tight in the best way. His breath came out in small clouds, misting softly in the cool night.

He closed his eyes and let himself soak in the moment, the chaos inside his mind slowing as the storm outside roared. For once, the silence wasn’t empty — it was full of something raw and honest, something he didn’t have to explain or fight.

And then, without warning, he felt the soft scrape of footsteps on the balcony floor behind him.

Dokja’s eyes snapped open. He turned his head slowly, and there, framed by the dark sky, stood Joonghyuk.

His hands were tucked into his pockets, and despite the storm, his expression was calm, almost unreadable. The dim light caught the edges of his face, casting sharp shadows beneath his cheekbones and jawline.

Joonghyuk’s gaze settled on Dokja with quiet steadiness.

Of course. Shared balcony.

Chapter Text

“You should go inside.”

A blink. A flutter of eyelashes, somehow sparkling, despite it being pitch black out. “Why should I, when you’re out here?”

A scoff, deep and knowing, the sound of someone repressing a smirk with all the success of a soap opera villain. “You’re not even trying to hide how in love with me you are.”

A delicate hand flew up to cover a laugh, pale fingers curled just so. “How could I, when you’re this handso–”

Kim Dokja slammed the tab shut.

The darkness in his room was immediate and blessed.

“…Yikes.”

He leaned back in his chair, scrubbing a hand down his face as if it could erase the secondhand embarrassment. He had a high tolerance – years of reading romance webnovels had built him up like a seasoned veteran in a war zone of thirst traps and dubious metaphors – but even he drew the line at breathless confessions paired with weaponized eye contact.

Cringeworthy one-liners were one thing. Dramatic declarations in the rain? He could handle those. But sparkles? At night? No one sparkled at night. That was just light pollution.

He sighed, closing his laptop.

For better or for worse, at least real life wasn’t anything like that.

“You should go inside.”

The door slid shut behind him with a soft click. Barefoot. Dressed in black. Hair slightly mussed in that aggressively effortless way that didn’t seem possible outside of character creation screens. No ceremony, no greeting. Just Yoo Joonghyuk appearing like an environmental hazard: calm, cold, and probably about to ruin someone’s day.

Kim Dokja didn’t turn around. “You know this is a shared balcony, right?”

A sharp flicker of nerves rose uninvited in his chest. He shouldn't have stayed out here this long. The less alone time he had with Yoo Joonghyuk, the better. It’s fine, he told himself. He doesn’t know.

The silence from the other man stretched thin, letting the sound of rain and thunder bleed in like a warning. Then the soft shift of footsteps – deliberate, unhurried – and Joonghyuk moved past him to lean a little further down from him on the railing. The distance between them wasn’t much. The pressure was worse. Dokja could feel his presence the way animals probably felt earthquakes.

He risked a glance. Joonghyuk, arms crossed, gaze pinned on the treeline like he was judging it for existing.

Dokja sighed. “Don’t tell me you came out here to brood.”

“No.”

“Right,” he muttered. “You just always look like that.”

Still no response. The man was silence personified. And yet somehow, he made even that feel like a judgment.

Dokja looked back out at the storm. Lightning cracked through the clouds in the distance. Thunder rolled slow, lazy.

You’re fine, he told himself. He doesn’t know. There’s no way he knows.

He knows.

Did I say anything suspicious today?

He has to know.

…But he hasn’t said anything. Hasn’t looked at him differently. Hasn’t confronted him in a dark alley or threatened bodily harm via private message.

That had to count for something, right?

Dokja risked another glance at the tall man. His profile seemed cut right out of marble, and his brows were low over his eyes like he was in a perpetual state of disappointment.

No, he doesn’t. Look at him. No one can be that handsome and have a brain as well. The hidden balance of the world would probably be disrupted if such a thing occurred.

“You can go back in,” Dokja said. “I’m not planning to fling myself off the balcony anytime soon.”

“You look cold.”

“I’m fine.”

Joonghyuk didn’t argue. Just reached behind him – without looking, of course – and tossed something to the side. A hoodie landed on the railing next to Dokja. Zero eye contact.

Dokja blinked. “What… is this? A peace offering?”

No response.

He eyed the fabric warily. Black. A tad larger than his own. Expensive.

Suspicious.

He probably doesn’t know. Probably.

“I already have one of my own, thanks,” Dokja muttered.

His mind faithfully chose that exact moment to remind him he still hadn’t brought Joonghyuk his coat back. He coughed, choked on his spit for a second.

Dokja nudged the hoodie a millimeter away. Then, for good measure, added, “I don’t need babysitting.”

“I didn’t offer.”

Dokja narrowed his eyes. He almost said something else – something defensive and unnecessary – but stopped himself. That was exactly the kind of behavior that would draw suspicion.

Suspicion that could lead to recognition. Which could lead to… that entire situation unraveling.

He was fine . Absolutely normal. Totally innocent. Not, for example, the anonymous user who had spent three consecutive livestreams calling Yoo Joonghyuk “an NPC with the personality of expired tofu.”

(He still thought it was funny.)

“Are you trying to make up for the tomato incident?” he asked, purely out of spite.

Joonghyuk didn’t respond. Just watched the storm like it owed him something.

A branch cracked somewhere in the woods below. Wind swept across the balcony. Rain misted sideways into their faces. Still, neither of them moved.

And then – quietly, casually – Joonghyuk reached past him and slid Dokja’s drink away from the edge of the railing. One smooth motion. Not even a glance.

Dokja didn’t react right away. Just stared out at the lightning. Then frowned.

“…Did you just –”

“It was going to fall.”

“You could’ve let it. Might’ve taught me something.”

“You don’t seem quick to learn.”

Dokja’s eyebrows rose. “Okay. Rude.”

No apology. Just wind, thunder, and Yoo Joonghyuk’s utterly unreadable profile.

Dokja almost laughed. Not because it was funny, but because of how not funny it all was. He was cold, vaguely damp, and standing next to someone who absolutely had it in him to throw him off a building and still somehow make it seem professional.

And yet.

He wasn’t moving either.

Dokja let his elbow rest against the railing. Slowly. Casually. Like he wasn’t thinking about the hoodie beside him or the weird electric pulse in his chest or how this whole thing felt dangerously close to one of those webnovel scenes he’d usually mock.

Except if this was a webnovel, he’d be the underpaid intern with chronic insomnia, and Joonghyuk would be the emotionally stunted war god with a four-volume backstory and abs like a war crime. And they never met.

“…You’re a control freak.”

Joonghyuk didn’t blink. “You’re easy to control.”

“Am not.”

Joonghyuk tilted his head. “Then stop responding.”

Dokja opened his mouth. Closed it. Glared. “That doesn’t count.”

Joonghyuk didn’t smile, but something shifted in his expression – a barely-there twitch beneath his eye – just enough that Dokja narrowed his eyes.

The rain picked up. The wind dragged mist across the space between them. Dokja reached over and pulled the hoodie just slightly closer. He didn’t put it on.

Not yet.

He cleared his throat. 

Alright. Cool. He’s having an actual civilized conversation with ‘Supreme King’ Yoo Joonghyuk of all people. Well. As civilized as a conversation with him could be.

He really would’ve preferred to keep dealing with the other from behind a screen. At least then, he could pretend like Joonghyuk was some kind of faraway celebrity he had no chances of meeting. At least then he could make fun of him freely, knowing that no one really acted like that in real life. 

Nobody except Yoo Joonghyuk it seemed.

If his dark gaze had seemed petrifying filtered through a screen, it was nothing compared to having it fall on Dokja in real life. Though up until now he’d managed to not spend too much time in Yoo Joonghyuk’s vicinity, now – completely alone with him on a large balcony that felt entirely too small in that moment – it was undeniable. 

His gaze was heavier in person. Not oppressive, exactly – Joonghyuk didn’t glare so much as exist with intensity – but when it landed on you, it stuck. Like tar. Like he was pinning you in place and dissecting your code one line at a time.

Dokja was very aware of the way his own breath was catching. He kept his posture relaxed on purpose, one arm loosely propped against the railing, trying to look like he wasn’t having a small-scale identity crisis in the corner of his brain.

He could still remember the exact phrasing of one of his last comments on the stream:

“Brooding too hard makes your brain leak. Touch grass, NPC.”

(Kim Dokja hid a grin behind his hand. He was quite funny, if he did say so himself.)

Now here he was. Standing next to said NPC. Watching the storm together like they did this every night.

This couldn’t be real.

“Why are you still out here?” Joonghyuk asked, voice low.

Dokja glanced sideways. “Why are you still out here?”

“I asked first.”

“Wow,” Dokja muttered. “Riveting maturity levels.”

Joonghyuk didn’t answer. Just tilted his head slightly. Rain caught in the curve of his cheekbone like even the weather refused to make him look bad.

Dokja could feel himself inching toward something. Not quite comfort, but something adjacent. Or maybe just proximity sickness. You stand too close to Yoo Joonghyuk long enough, your brain starts trying to adapt for survival.

He glanced sideways. “You ever talk like a normal person?”

Joonghyuk didn’t look at him. “You ever stop talking?”

Dokja snorted despite himself. He reached over, fingers brushing the edge of the hoodie. Didn’t pick it up.

Didn’t throw it away either.

Just let it stay there, in the space between them.

“I’m not putting it on,” he said. Just in case.

“Hm.”

Lightning again. Brighter this time. Thunder cracked close enough to make the glass rattle faintly.

Dokja’s heart jumped. Joonghyuk didn’t even flinch.

Of course he didn’t. Nothing rattled this guy. Not storms, not stalker fans, not people viciously mocking him in streams for days on end.

Dokja could barely keep a straight face.

He tried. He tried not to smile.

(He failed.)

“I’m serious,” Dokja added, tapping the hoodie like it was a bomb he’d decided to disarm. “I’ll freeze before I give in. You can’t win.”

“I’m not playing.”

“That’s what people say when they’re losing.”

Joonghyuk finally turned his head. Not fully—just enough that Dokja caught the weight of his stare, like a physics problem aimed directly at his soul.

“You talk more when you're nervous.”

Dokja blinked. “I’m not nervous.”

A pause. The rain clicked against the railing. Joonghyuk raised an eyebrow.

“I’m not,” Dokja repeated, louder. “If anything, I’m giving you company out of pity. Do you usually storm-watch in dramatic silence? What is this, a poetry retreat?”

Joonghyuk didn’t respond, but something about the set of his jaw suggested restraint. Like he was calculating how many conversational crimes Dokja could commit before lethal force was justifiable.

Dokja grinned, victorious. He elbowed the hoodie an inch closer, pretending not to notice the way Joonghyuk’s eye twitched in the periphery.

“Do you sigh when no one’s watching?” Dokja continued, emboldened by the fact that his head was still attached to his shoulders. “Gaze wistfully into the middle distance? Practice your tragic backstory monologues in the mirror?”

“You mistake me for someone who finds value in talking.”

“Oh, don’t be modest,” Dokja said, leaning a little against the railing. “There’s definitely a niche audience for the ‘brooding assassin with no social skills’ market. You could have a whole fan club.”

“I do,” Joonghyuk replied coolly. “It’s not composed of people like you.”

Dokja choked on a laugh. “Wow. Okay. Savage.”

Joonghyuk tilted his head again. Slightly, like an apex predator mildly curious about its prey's self-destructive behavior. “Why are you really still out here?”

Something in the way he said it gave Dokja pause. Not casual anymore. Not teasing.

Just… a shift.

Dokja blinked at the horizon. Lightning split the clouds again, sharp and close, spanning the whole sky.

Because you followed me, he almost said. Because part of him had wanted to be alone, and another part had wanted… this. Someone’s company. Even if that someone was the current source of most of his worries.

But instead, Yoo Joonghyuk had offered a hoodie. Moved his drink. Was still here.

Dokja shrugged one shoulder. “Rain’s nice.”

Joonghyuk said nothing.

Dokja tried not to fidget. “It’s… peaceful. You know? Like it’s loud enough to drown things out.”

Another long moment passed. Then Joonghyuk looked away again, back toward the storm, the movement deliberate.

“Mm.”

Dokja blinked. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means your reasoning is shallow.”

“Okay, and yours is?”

“I don’t need one.”

“You’re literally standing out in the rain in silence with your arms crossed like a noir protagonist. You absolutely need one.”

Joonghyuk let out a sound that might’ve been a breath or might’ve been a very quiet kill me now before I kill someone else.

Dokja pressed on. “Come on, give me something. Is it the storm? Is it the ambiance? Are you trying to cultivate your dark and mysterious aesthetic with real weather effects?”

Joonghyuk finally turned his full attention to him. Not just a glance—an actual full-body shift, like he was now giving Dokja exactly 5% of his processing power instead of the usual 2%.

Dokja froze.

“You’re insufferable.”

“Thanks.”

“That wasn’t a compliment.”

“You’re still here, though.”

Joonghyuk stared at him. Long enough that Dokja began internally drafting his last will and testament.

Then, deliberately, Joonghyuk reached behind him again – and without breaking eye contact – dragged the hoodie off the railing, folded it in half, and dropped it directly on Dokja’s head.

Dokja squawked.

Joonghyuk turned and walked back toward the door, completely done.

“I didn’t say I wanted it!” Dokja shouted after him, pushing the fabric off his face.

“You said you were cold.”

“When did I – are you even listening?!”

Joonghyuk didn’t turn back. The door slid open, his silhouette framed against the golden light coming from his bedroom.

Dokja, hoodie still bunched in his arms, glared at the back of his head. “You’re such a–!”

The door closed.

Silence returned. The storm had started to calm. Just a little.

Dokja stood there a moment longer. Hoodie still warm in his hands. He looked at it. Thought about throwing it back through Joonghyuk’s window in protest.

He didn’t.

Instead, with a heavy sigh and a quick glance behind him, he pulled it over his head. It smelled like expensive detergent and rain and something unmistakably, infuriatingly Joonghyuk.

He tugged it down and muttered to himself. “…NPC bastard.”

But he didn’t take it off.

The clatter of chopsticks, faint hum of a rice cooker, and low voices greeted Kim Dokja as he padded into the shared kitchen space. The smell of miso soup and grilled fish hit him like a warm, gentle slap. Not quite enough to fully wake him up, but close.

His hair was still damp from the world’s fastest shower. His socks didn’t match. He didn’t care. He was here for breakfast, not fashion.

Or so he told himself.

Across the room, Yoo Joonghyuk was already seated at the table like he'd never actually left it. Back straight. Arms crossed. Steam curled up from his untouched bowl of rice like he’d intimidated even the food into staying warm.

Dokja hesitated in the doorway.

For one brief, traitorous second, his brain replayed the hoodie incident.

The deadpan expression. The warm fabric. The thump of it landing on his face like an insult wrapped in cotton.

And now Yoo Joonghyuk was just sitting there, like nothing had happened.

Yoo Sangah looked up and smiled at him. “Dokja-ssi! Good morning. Come eat before the soup gets cold.”

Too late to turn around.

Dokja gave a vaguely human grunt in response and shuffled over to the table. He sat beside her, across from Lee Hyunsung. There was an empty spot beside him. The one next to Joonghyuk.

He refused to look at it. He was not going to acknowledge its existence. That way lay madness.

He picked up his chopsticks. Quiet. Calm.

And then—

Clink.

His elbow bumped the edge of the pitcher while reaching for kimchi. The glass rocked precariously.

Before it could topple, a hand shot out and caught it.

Joonghyuk. Without even looking.

Dokja blinked at him.

“…Thanks,” he muttered.

“You’re clumsy,” Joonghyuk said.

Yoo Sangah paused mid-sip. Across the table, Hyunsung blinked. Even Sooyoung, who had been busy stealing fried egg from someone’s plate, slowed her chopsticks.

Dokja squinted. “Okay. First of all: rude.”

“It’s an observable fact.”

“Wow, good morning to you too.”

Han Sooyoung leaned her chin into her palm. “You two are awful conversationalists. You bicker like a divorced couple.”

“Don’t say that,” Dokja began, horrified.

Joonghyuk didn’t even bother looking up. He just sipped his soup with the unhurried calm of someone who had already come to terms with the fact that he would be misunderstood in every group setting for the rest of his life, and that clearing things up was far beneath him and required too much time and effort.

“Just saying. You seem awfully chummy with someone you allegedly hate,” Sooyung said lowly, so that only he could hear, eyes sparkling.

“I don’t hate him,” Dokja whispered reflexively.

Even Sangah, who sat close enough to hear them, was staring now.

“…That came out wrong,” Dokja muttered.

“I think,” Hyunsung piped up, a smile on his face and blissfully unaware of anything that was going on, “maybe it’s nice you two are getting along.”

“We’re not getting along,” Dokja protested, too loudly.

Yoo Joonghyuk set his chopsticks down. Very neatly. Very calmly. “If you’re done being loud, I’m going to prepare for the hike.”

He rose.

His plate was almost untouched.

The room went weirdly quiet.

Joonghyuk moved past Dokja without a word – close enough that Dokja could feel the brush of his sleeve – and left.

The sound of the door sliding shut echoed like a mic drop.

Nobody said anything for a second.

Then Sooyoung turned back to Dokja, all teeth.

“You are so obvious,” she said, poking his cheek with her chopsticks.

“I am not,” Dokja replied, trying uselessly to bat her hands away.

“You are. You're like a middle-schooler throwing rocks at your crush.”

“It’s literally Yoo Joonghyuk. If I threw a rock at him, it would bounce off and hit me in the face.”

“So romantic,” Sangah said, barely hiding a laugh.

Hyunsung looked between them, visibly sweating, and everything having flown over his head completely.

Dokja stabbed a piece of fish with unnecessary force.

“I hate this trip.”

The sun peeked through the dissipating clouds, casting a gentle golden light over the mountain path. The air was crisp and clean, still tinged with the earthy scent of wet pine and damp soil, remnants of last night’s storm. Birds chirped tentatively, their songs hesitant as if testing the calm after the tempest.

The group stepped carefully along the uneven trail, the soft crunch of hiking boots mixing with the distant drip of water trickling from leaves still heavy with rain. Yoo Joonghyuk led the way with his usual unyielding stride, silent except for the occasional crunch of gravel underfoot.

Behind him, Hyunsung spoke with Heewon, the two sharing an easy camaraderie. Seolwha, with her infectious, twinkling laugh, tossed a playful wink toward Sangah, who was walking beside Namwoon, their conversation filled with animated hand gestures and bursts of laughter.

“So, you’re telling me,” Namwoon said dramatically, “that the actual meaning of life is just to eat as much spicy food as humanly possible?”

Sangah rolled her eyes but smiled. “If that’s true, I’m ready to be enlightened.”

Jihye was nearby, expertly balancing a walking stick and a bright pink selfie stick, trying to capture the mist rising off the wet rocks. Every now and then, she stopped to snap a quick photo – the delicate spiderwebs sparkling with droplets, the vibrant green moss clinging to bark, or the stubborn wildflowers peeking through the cracks.

“Nature’s flexing,” Jihye whispered, crouching low. “Can you imagine if the game graphics looked like this?”

Sooyoung flitted between the groups, mischief glinting in her eyes. At one point, she flicked a bit of mud at Namwoon’s leg, who jumped and spun around, scowling.

“Oh, it’s on!” Namwoon declared, chasing after her. Sooyoung laughed, quick on her feet, darting up the path with Namwoon close behind. Sangah and Hyunsung paused, watching with amusement as the pair turned the hike into an impromptu game of tag.

Seolwha, ever the peacemaker, sighed but smiled softly, picking up a handful of wet leaves and tossing them at Namwoon, who yelped in surprise. “Hey! You’re cheating!”

“Cheating?” Seolwha shrugged innocently. “This is nature’s justice.”

Farther back, Dokja’s pace had slowed considerably. His breathing came in ragged bursts, and his legs ached with each step. 

How the hell did these people have so much energy? Weren’t they gamers, for God’s sake? Weren’t they supposed to spend their entire day sitting in front of their computers?!

He glanced back to find Sooyoung had appeared beside him, arms crossed, a teasing grin on her face.

“Enjoying the view?” she asked, plopping down on a mossy rock. “You’re supposed to be leading, not lagging like a turtle.”

Dokja grimaced. “This mountain hates me.”

“So, what’s up with you and Joonghyuk?” she prodded, her tone light but sharp. “Still pretending you don’t like him?”

Dokja tried to suppress a groan.

 Before he could respond, Joonghyuk’s voice cut through the trees.

“Quit wasting time.”

Joonghyuk appeared just ahead, standing with arms crossed, eyes narrowing ever so slightly as he looked back at the two. The rest of the group had already climbed further ahead, terrifyingly quick.

“Move it,” he said curtly.

“So serious,” Sooyoung mocked with a smirk. “Lighten up, Supreme King.”

With a wink Dokja didn’t like sent his way, Sooyoung bounded up the rocks, following after the others while whistling a song in horrible pitch.

Dokja might’ve had a mind to be irritated at whatever she was plotting if he wasn’t currently fighting to get air in his lungs. As it was, he merely remained in his pathetic position on a tiny rock, contemplating his choices in life for what felt like the hundredth time in the span of two days.

“...Are you dead.”

Dokja snorted, which he really couldn’t afford, considering how restricted his airflow currently was. He blindly waved a hand, as if that could disperse the other man from existence.

“Unfortunately,” a gasp, his lungs wheezing pathetically, “Not yet.”

A beat of silence, before –

Two fingers hooked in the back of his collar, and he was roughly pulled up. His throat, already barely working, strained even further.

“ Hey –”

Joonghyuk’s face came into focus, stupidly handsome even to Dokja’s oxygen-free brain. The irritated frown pulling at his lips only made him look that much better.

Not that Dokja was noticing.

“Keep slacking off, and I’ll leave you behind for the bears to find,” Joonghyuk said. His cold fingers brushed against the back of Dokja’s sweaty neck for a second as the man adjusted his grip on his collar.

Dokja tried unsuccessfully to bat away the hand holding him from the back. “You really need to stop doing that. I’m not some dog–”

“You’re right. Dogs are better at following.”

Dokja’s mouth dropped open. He pointed an accusing finger in Joonghyuk’s face, the man’s gaze briefly flickering boredly to the offending digit before finding his face again. “You can’t say that! I thought we had a moment – well, not a moment. More like… uh… Whatever. You get it.”

Joonghyuk raised an eyebrow in disdain at him, like he was the mud on the back of his expensive boots. “Did we?”

Without another glance, he let go, and began a freakishly fast ascent after the others.

“What the– You can’t just walk off like that–” Dokja called after Joonghyuk, but the man was already a shadow among the trees, his unflappable pace swallowing the distance to the group.

Dokja heaved himself with a groan and forced his legs to follow.

The summit opened up like a secret stage just for them, a wide clearing rimmed with jagged rocks and wildflowers swaying lazily in the breeze. The sun had fully claimed the sky, casting warm light that made the damp leaves sparkle like a scattering of jewels.

Hyunsung was the first to collapse dramatically onto a boulder, throwing his arms out wide like he’d conquered the world. “Victory is ours!”

Seolwha giggled, plopping down beside him and taking out a white thermos from her bag. 

Jihye immediately started crouching by a patch of moss, whispering, “Look at these colors. I swear, nature’s an artist.” She snapped photo after photo, her selfie stick shooting goofy angles of the group in between.

“Sooyoung,” she said, “Are you ever going to stop climbing everything? You’re like a squirrel on caffeine.”

“Look who’s talking,” she grinned, perched halfway up a tree trunk in a way that, by all gravitational laws, shouldn’t be possible. “I’m just scouting the perfect spot for the group selfie. Can’t let you nerds photobomb with your ‘serious gamer’ faces.”

Sangah and Namwoon were still busy debating loudly about whether spicy food was actually the meaning of life or just a delicious distraction.

“I’m telling you,” Sangah said, waving a water bottle for emphasis, “if you can’t handle spice, you’re not living.”

Namwoon rolled his eyes. “You’re the reason the group chat is full of people asking for milk recommendations.”

Joonghyuk stood apart from the raucous crowd, arms crossed, his expression unreadable as he scanned the view. But even he wasn’t immune to the lighthearted energy – when Seolwha threw a handful of wildflower petals in his direction, he caught one between his fingers without missing a beat, flicking it gently into the breeze.

Dokja tried to stay out of the spotlight, still painfully out of breath, but every time he moved, someone pulled him back in.

“Hey, Dokja!” Sooyoung called, tugging at his sleeve. “You can’t skip the summit celebration!”

He groaned. “I survived. That’s my cause for celebration.”

“Let’s take the picture!” Jihye called, her eyes lingering on Joonghyuk. “Master, do you… want to be in the picture as well?”

A beat of silence – as if the entire group was holding its breath – during which Dokja’s eyebrows raised until they nearly flew off his face. ‘Master’?

And then, a curt nod. 

Multiple heads swivelled instantly in Joonghyuk’s direction, and Dokja watched the interaction closely. Wait, what?

“He doesn’t like being in pictures. Thinks they’re useless,” Sooyung’s voice aggressively whispered in his ear, too loud to be considered an actual whisper. “I’ve known the bastard for eight years and I think I have, like, three pictures of him.”

As the group shuffled into place awkwardly, with a sigh almost too quiet to hear, Joonghyuk stepped forward and slipped into the middle of the cluster like it was no big deal.

Dokja blinked, caught between disbelief and mild horror. The “Supreme King,” who apparently considered selfies an existential threat, was here, quietly, but definitely here, in the picture.

Jihye lifted her phone high. “Alright, everyone say ‘Rebellion rules’!”

“Rebellion rules!” the group chorused, some louder than others. Almost immediately, Sooyung’s face morphed into indignation.

“Wait, what -”

Dokja tried to edge backward as Sooyung spit insults to an uncaring Jihye, but Heewon grabbed his arm and dragged him forward with a grin that said, no escaping this. “Come on, Dokja. You’re in it too. No excuses.”

He opened his mouth to protest but thought better of it when Joonghyuk’s dark eyes flicked his way with a glare that seemed to say, ‘If I’m forced to be in it, you are as well’.

Click.

The photo popped up on Jihye’s screen, and the group burst into laughter. Dokja was smack in the middle, looking like he was about to keel over, Joonghyuk was as stoic as ever, Sooyung’s scowl put Joonghyuk’s to shame, and everyone else was caught mid-laugh or goofy pose.

Before he could say anything, his phone buzzed. 

[ HanSooPower has added you to: ‘ XP Overlords ’. ]

Dokja stared at the screen. A flurry of messages popped up immediately—mostly memes of bears, spicy food emojis, and GIFs of someone dramatically falling down a mountain (which, judging by the sender, was probably Hyunsung).

He sighed and looked up just as dark clouds rolled in from behind the ridge.

“Uh-oh,” Sangah said, eyes wide. “Did anyone check the weather forecast?”

The first fat raindrops began to fall, then suddenly the sky opened with a crackling roar.

“Storm’s back!” Hyunsung shouted, scrambling to gather everyone’s things.

Joonghyuk didn’t hesitate. His usual cold calm turned into sharp efficiency as he barked out orders. 

“Move! Find shelter. Stay together.”

As they frantically began making their way down the mountain, the sky darkened ominously, the drops falling more often now and a distant rumble of thunder scaring away the birds from the trees. As the wind howled against tree trunks, Dokja fought not to slip on the mossy rocks. Though he’d been the last during the ascent, he was leading the way during the descent. 

He wasn’t about to be caught by a storm in the forest with bears and Yoo Joonghyuk. No thank you.

Then the rain picked up.

What started as an ominous drizzle quickly turned relentless, the sky cracking open as if in warning. A sheet of silver mist rolled down from the peaks above, swallowing the mountaintop path in a cold, wet blur. Fat droplets drummed against leaves and soaked through clothes in minutes. The stone underfoot, slick from the earlier storm, became treacherous. Every root was a trap. Every step was a gamble.

“Careful!” Heewon called back, her voice half-lost in the rain. She reached to steady Jihye, who was clutching her selfie stick like a staff.

“My socks are squelching!” Namwoon complained as he stumbled past, arms out like a tightrope walker. “Someone carry me! I have weak ankles!”

“No one’s carrying you,” Heewon snapped back.

Hyunsung grabbed a branch to keep his balance as Sooyoung skidded ahead of him, yelling something gleeful about “natural slip ‘n slide mode.” Seolwha, not far behind, had turned her coat into a makeshift hood and was half-carrying Jihye's pack to lighten the load.

“Slow down!” Dokja shouted from the front. “We’ll get separated!”

No one heard him.

The group had fragmented slightly, each person navigating the trail with varying degrees of skill and desperation. Leaves slapped against cheeks, wind howled through the trees, and somewhere in the distance, thunder cracked again — closer now.

Dokja cursed under his breath. His shoes were definitely not waterproof, his hair clinging to his face like wet seaweed, and his backpack felt like it had tripled in weight.

He squinted through the gray and caught a glimpse of Sooyoung yelling something to Joonghyuk — who, of course, looked completely unbothered by the downpour. Rain slid off him like he was part of the landscape, his dark figure moving steadily, unwavering, as though the elements respected him too much to interfere.

Dokja rolled his eyes.

But the rock beneath him didn’t care about how unimpressed he was.

His foot slipped. Just slightly, but enough. The world tilted, and before he could do more than grunt, his balance was gone. A sharp jolt of pain flashed up his leg, and his arm flailed to catch something, anything — a branch, a root, a miracle —

Strong hands caught him before gravity could finish its sentence.

A rough yank brought him back against something solid and warm, and the next thing he knew, Dokja’s back collided against bark — and Joonghyuk.

Rain pattered relentlessly around them, the forest roaring with wind and motion, but here — in the crook of an old, twisted tree where Joonghyuk had braced him — it was strangely still.

Dokja’s hands curled in Joonghyuk’s jacket, unthinking, chest heaving from the adrenaline and the abrupt stop. His heart beat too loud.

Joonghyuk’s arm was firm across his chest, keeping him pinned with infuriating ease. Rain slid from Joonghyuk’s jaw and dripped down the curve of his neck, tracing a line over the collar of his soaked shirt.

Dokja coughed, trying to catch his breath. Thunder cracked again, closer this time. The forest lit up in a ghostly flash.

“Thanks,” Dokja muttered, not quite looking up

“You really do have a death wish,” Joonghyuk murmured, and Dokja immediately glared at him.

Joonghyuk was gazing down at him, closer than he’d ever been before. Close enough that Dokja could see the tiny flickers of grey in his dark eyes, the raindrops clinging to his dark lashes as he gazed down at him.

The sound of rain on leaves swelled louder for a moment, filling the silence between them, until it felt like the world had gone still again — a quiet, stormy cocoon holding just the two of them. Dokja suddenly became hyper-aware of everything: the heat of Joonghyuk’s hand still pressed flat against his chest, the thunder rumbling in his bones, the damp chill seeping into his clothes... and the steady beat of another heartbeat too close to his own.

Hurriedly, he pushed back against the firm weight of Joonghyuk’s body. The loss of warmth hit first. Then the cold.

“I’m fine now,” he said, through chattering teeth. 

Joonghyuk stepped back, his gaze dropping as he adjusted the strap of Dokja’s bag where it had twisted during the fall. 

“Don’t fall again.”

Dokja swallowed hard and nodded. 

Joonghyuk glanced around the forest for the others. “We need to move before it gets worse.”

Before Dokja could say anything more — ask something stupid like why do you always show up in the most inconvenient moments — Joonghyuk was already walking, his dark silhouette swallowed by the trees and mist ahead.

Dokja let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. He stared up at the weeping sky for a long second, rain streaming down his face in rivulets, then pushed off the tree and followed, heart still pounding. Probably from the storm.

They stumbled through the tree line like drenched rats.

The storm howled behind them, wind clawing at their backs as the lodge finally came into view — squat and sturdy, its lights glowing soft and golden through fogged-up windows. The porch light flickered once, then held steady like a beacon. No one even bothered with the shoes-off rule as they charged up the steps and threw open the door.

Heat hit them like a punch to the chest.

Sooyoung groaned dramatically and collapsed face-first onto the hallway rug. “I’m never touching nature again.”

“Shoes off–!” Seolwha called, peeling off her coat and immediately throwing towels from the storage closet at whoever looked the most likely to ruin the floors.

Inside the living room, the fireplace had already been lit earlier that morning. Someone had remembered to leave kindling. The flames were slow and lazy now, crackling like they were amused by the chaos pouring in. Everyone migrated toward it like moths, peeling off jackets, wringing out clothes, and arguing over towel distribution.

Dokja trailed in near the end, his bag soaked, socks squelching, and his ankle throbbing. Not broken — definitely not — but the ache was sharp enough to make him wince every time his foot hit the ground wrong. So he didn't let it. He limped subtly. Steadied himself with the furniture when no one was looking. Easy.

He slipped off to the side, grateful when the rest were too busy arguing over who had the driest socks or whose phone had survived. He didn't need attention. He needed a hot drink and a seat and for no one to notice the way he was definitely not putting full weight on his left foot.

So, naturally, Yoo Joonghyuk noticed.

It wasn't immediate. He didn't say anything while Seolwha wrapped Jihye in a towel the size of a blanket, or while Namwoon loudly declared himself king of the drying rack and tried to stake claim over the front seat by the fire.

It wasn’t even when Dokja slumped down into the far armchair, doing his best impression of a normal human being and not a soggy mess with a potentially injured limb.

It was a few minutes later. When everything had settled a little — when Heewon passed around hot cocoa in mismatched mugs, when Hyunsung had begun quietly repacking the emergency kit, and when Sangah was squinting at her waterlogged phone with mournful eyes. When Dokja had slipped into a false sense of security.

Joonghyuk approached like a shadow — silent, looming, and annoyingly perceptive.

“You’re limping,” Joonghyuk said, voice quiet but unyielding as stone.

Dokja froze mid-sip of his cocoa. “I’m not.”

“You are.”

“I’m not, ” Dokja repeated with the blank insistence of someone hoping reality will shift if he just lies convincingly enough.

Joonghyuk stared at him, unimpressed. Then — in a move both calculated and infuriating — crouched beside his chair without warning, like a predator that had spotted the exact weakness in its prey.

“Hey—what are you doing—”

Joonghyuk reached for his leg.

Dokja flailed, trying to pull away, nearly sloshing hot cocoa on himself in the process. “What the hell—don’t just touch people’s legs !”

“You’re hurt.”

“I’m fine. It’s just,” Dokja paused nervously, “—just sore. Normal soreness! From hiking! Like everyone else!”

Joonghyuk didn’t even blink. “You’re the only one limping.”

“I’m limping normally, ” Dokja shot back.

“That’s not a thing,” Joonghyuk said, and then — ignoring all protests — he grabbed Dokja’s ankle.

“ Joonghyuk! ” Dokja hissed in pain, trying to yank it back. “You can’t just—! I didn’t ask for help, you lunatic!”

Joonghyuk tightened his grip just enough to still Dokja’s flailing. “Stop moving.”

His hands were wet and cold, but somehow still sure and maddeningly gentle as he pushed up the hem of Dokja’s pants, revealing the angry, swelling twist of skin around the ankle.

Dokja immediately clamped his mouth shut. His jaw tensed. The pain spiked, and he hissed through his teeth but said nothing.

Joonghyuk’s eyes narrowed. “How long?”

Dokja didn’t answer.

“Kim Dokja,” Joonghyuk said, low.

Dokja exhaled hard through his nose and looked anywhere else. Why had anyone told Joonghyuk his name in the first place. “Since the fall.”

“That was over an hour ago.”

“Yeah, well, I walked it off. That’s a thing.”

Joonghyuk gave him a look that could wither forests.

“You walked it off. Down a mountain. In a thunderstorm.”

Dokja made a helpless little shrug with one shoulder. “I didn’t want to slow everyone down.”

There was a pause.

A long one.

Then Joonghyuk’s voice, soft and flat in a way that only meant he was extremely, deeply pissed: “You could’ve made it worse.”

“I didn’t.”

“You didn’t know that. You didn’t even check.”

“I was busy , okay? With—being in a storm! Not dying! It didn’t seem like the right moment to go, ‘hey everyone, give me a minute while I nurse my tragic anime ankle’—”

Joonghyuk’s grip tightened around his ankle.

That shut Dokja up.

The room was still bustling around them — someone was loudly scolding Namwoon for trying to hang his socks on the fire poker — but here, in the corner of the room, it felt like everything had gone momentarily quiet.

Dokja stared at him. Joonghyuk wasn’t looking at him now — he was focused on the injury, hands moving methodically. The scarf he’d taken from who-knows-where was now being wrapped carefully, expertly, around Dokja’s ankle.

The pressure was just tight enough. It hurt. It helped.

“You’re an idiot,” Joonghyuk muttered, fingers brushing the edge of the swelling as he tied off the makeshift bandage.

“I’m not —”

“Stop,” Joonghyuk said. Not harsh. Just… final.

He looked up then, really looked at him — and Dokja suddenly felt pinned in place. Not by the grip on his ankle, not by the injury — but by the look . Steady. Direct. As if Joonghyuk had peeled away every defense with one glance. Dokja didn’t like it.

Joonghyuk’s hands lingered for a moment more, warm through the scarf, then gently let go. He sat back on his heels, still watching Dokja with that unreadable expression — somewhere between frustration and concern and something quieter.

Then he stood.

Dokja didn’t stop him. Couldn’t. His throat felt too full.

But before Joonghyuk turned away, he said — almost offhand, almost like he was done with this particular conversation but not quite —

“If it hurts more later, tell me.”

And he walked back to the fire, slipping into the group like nothing had happened.

Dokja stared after him for a long moment, then slouched deeper into the chair, pressing his now bandaged ankle against the armrest, and pretended his face wasn’t burning.

He sipped his cocoa. It was still warm.

The rest of the afternoon passed in a haze of damp clothes, shared towels, and half-hearted attempts at drying hair with a single ancient hairdryer that Namwoon claimed as his divine right.

Arguments bloomed like mushrooms in the warmth of the lodge — petty, stupid, predictably loud. Someone accused someone else of cheating at cards (Namwoon). Someone else tried to hang socks too close to the fire again (also Namwoon). The rest of them ended up arguing about whether or not being called a "furry" was a compliment.

(“It’s a lifestyle, not an insult!” Namwoon declared proudly, wrapped in a blanket and sipping cocoa through a straw.)

(“You made me look at that wolf-boy VTuber for forty minutes,” Heewon said, dead-eyed.)

(“And you liked it!”)

Dokja avoided Joonghyuk like the plague out of pure spite. Every time Joonghyuk so much as moved, Dokja repositioned himself somewhere else — behind Sooyoung, across from Sangah, inside the pantry at one point.

That would teach Joonghyuk.

By evening, the lodge was clean-ish. Damp towels hung wherever there was space. Bags were repacked. Phones dried. Chargers were forgotten. Socks were lost. Plans were made.

They gathered at the porch again to say their goodbyes, steam rising from paper coffee cups as breath fogged in the mountain-chilled air.

Someone clapped Hyunsung on the back. Namwoon tried to hug Heewon and immediately got smacked. Jihye sleepily clung to Heewon’s other arm like a barnacle. The second storm had scrubbed everything clean. Even the forest looked soft-edged and forgiving in the gray light.

Dokja lingered at the bottom of the steps, watching it all and feeling like the entire weekend had been a fever dream.

Joonghyuk approached without fanfare. Just… appeared beside him like a shadow. Hands in his jacket pockets, eyes unreadable under the fringe of still-damp hair.

Dokja tensed.

Joonghyuk looked him over once, gaze dropping briefly to the wrapped ankle. “You should keep it elevated when you get home.”

“Wow, thanks, Dr. Yoo,” Dokja said immediately, too fast, too defensive. “Should I also drink water and get eight hours of sleep?”

Joonghyuk didn’t even blink. “Yes.”

Dokja made a face. “You’re very bossy for someone who isn’t my mom.”

Joonghyuk shifted, almost imperceptibly. “Don’t be stupid.”

A beat.

Then: “Rest it properly. Or it’ll get worse.”

The words were plain. Mildly annoyed. Not kind. But the weight of them landed somewhere low in Dokja’s chest, like a stone thrown into still water.

He gave a shrug that was meant to look flippant. “I’ll think about it.”

Joonghyuk stared at him a moment longer, like he wanted to say something else. Then turned without a word and headed back to his car.

Dokja didn’t watch him go.

(Not obviously.)

He tried not to think too hard about how it didn’t feel like a victory. Nor like a loss. More like a draw. A momentary tie between two immovable forces.

The ride home with Sooyoung and Sangah was surprisingly mostly quiet — the kind of tired silence that didn’t need filling. They played soft music. Stopped once for convenience store snacks. Sangah handed him a canned coffee with a knowing look. Sooyoung slept through the second half of the drive with her head propped against the window, Sangha occasionally sneaking glances at her from the wheel with a soft smile.

By the time they reached Seoul, the sky had darkened again. Not with rain this time, just dusk and headlights and the hush of a Sunday evening.

With one last shout of, “See you, bitch” from Han Sooyung, her car sped off into the night like the nightmare creation it was.

Dokja limped his way back into his apartment like a man twice his age.

The moment he was inside, he exhaled. The silence wrapped around him like a blanket — familiar, welcome, his.

He changed into dry clothes. Wrapped the ankle again. Sat in bed with his laptop open, tabs half-loaded. A comfort show played faintly in the background. Nothing had changed. His ankle ached. 

And yet…

His mind kept drifting back to the weekend. To damp laughter in firelight. To warm meals, annoying drinking games, bickering over towels and Joonghyuk crouched in front of him with those impossible hands.

He stared at the wall blankly.

He still wasn’t sure it hadn’t all been some kind of dream.

Maybe he’d been attacked during his last shift at the convenience store, and he’d knocked his head against the counter or something.

Then blinked when his phone buzzed.

Once.

A message. 

Yoo Joonghyuk 💀: You owe me.

Dokja’s eyes popped out of their sockets, as he scrambled for the phone. His thumb trembled as he entered the chat and stared at the text message like it was his imprisoning sentence.

His fingers hovered uselessly in the air, his mind running a mile a minute. Oh no. Oh no no no.

“ Sorry?? ” he typed back nervously.

A beat, during which Kim Dokja briefly ran through the will he’d sent himself the day the hellish trip began, before –

Yoo Joonghyuk 💀: Coat and hoodie.

Dokja stared at the screen unblinkingly for a second, before he leaped from his bed. Ignoring the throbbing pain in his ankle, he maniacally dug through his suitcase. Come on, come on, come on.

Clothes flew around his room in his desperate search, before his fingers finally, damningly clenched the fabric of a black hoodie, the material softer than any of his own shirts.

You’ve gotta be kidding me.

Chapter Text

Kim Dokja’s apartment was exactly as he’d left it — a little too quiet, a little too cold, and somehow smelling faintly of instant noodles no matter how much he cleaned. (Which, truth be told, wasn’t a lot.)

The damp aftermath of the weekend still clung to the space: his wet socks draped over the broken radiator like sad little flags, and a pile of laundry he hadn’t so much folded as rearranged into a different pile.

The coat and hoodie were ominously hanging over the back of his one desk chair. They were big — way too big for him — and still faintly smelled like Joonghyuk. Infuriatingly enough.

He shuffled into the kitchen — if you could even call it that — feet catching on the lip of the worn floor mat his m— someone had given him years ago. His eyes lingered on it for a second. He kept meaning to throw it away — the edges were fraying and one corner had scorch marks from a dropped pan — but somehow, it always survived every round of cleaning

He filled the old kettle, and set it on the single burner that still worked without having to be jiggled. The metal hissed faintly as it heated, a sound that filled the silence in a way that almost felt like company.

The cabinet offered exactly one jar of instant coffee, a packet of salt he’d stolen from somewhere, and a box of tea that had expired sometime before the last election. No sugar. Of course. It wasn’t like sugar was a necessity.

He poured the coffee into his chipped mug — the one with a fading anime character — and drank it black. Like a man. Or more accurately, like a convenience store employee living on a budget where every purchase that wasn’t absolutely vital had to be justified like he was presenting it to a corporate board.

The coffee was bitter and hot and exactly as terrible as he remembered. But it woke him up. Mostly.

On the counter, his phone buzzed with a reminder for rent, lighting up his dark apartment. He swiped it away without opening it. 

He sat in silence, nursing his cup of terrible coffee, eyes fixed on nowhere in particular. Outside the only small window in the room, the sky shifted from pure black to a heavy, pre-dawn blue. The light made the dust in the air visible, drifting lazily as if the apartment itself had nowhere to be. 

The hum of the fridge filled the space between heartbeats. It was the kind of morning where the quiet pressed in just enough to make him notice it — how easy it was to go days without talking to anyone outside work. How no one would notice if he didn’t.

He rubbed a hand over his face, forcing the thought away with practiced ease. The weekend had been loud. Too loud, maybe. The kind of loudness that made his usual silence suddenly feel uncomfortable, unnatural.

But even now, the echo of the trip felt like warmth he hadn’t realized he’d been missing.

His mind drifted back to the chair. The coat and hoodie loomed there like smug, oversized trespassers. Probably cost more than his monthly groceries combined.

He took a slow sip of coffee. Then another. And, before he could stop himself, opened his laptop.

A new tab. Secondhand marketplace.

He didn’t type anything right away, just stared at the search bar, the cursor blinking at him like it was daring him. 

He couldn’t.

…Could he?

Dokja leaned back in his chair for a second, mind running a mile a minute. What were the chances of him running into Joonghyuk again? Sure, he was friends (frenemies?) with Han Sooyung and he had Dokja’s number, but, if he was careful, there’d be no reason for them to meet again.

He told himself he was just curious. Market research. Harmless.

As he typed in the name of the brand he’d spied on the hoodie’s faded tag, his eyes nearly bogged out of his skull. 

₩400,000.

For a hoodie.

He blinked. Looked back at the chair. Back at the screen.

This was highway robbery. Not the selling part — the buying part. Who in their right mind would pay that much for something that didn’t even come with free Wi-Fi or at least a self-defense feature?

He scrolled further. The coat’s brand wasn’t even listed on most sites, which in his mind meant one of two things: either it was really rare and worth even more… or Yoo Joonghyuk had bought it from some boutique so high-end it didn’t even have an online store. Both options made him scowl.

He drummed his fingers against the side of the laptop. He could list them now. A couple of photos, a vague description. They’d be gone in a week and he’d be set for the rest of the month — two months if he was frugal.

The idea sat in his mind like a dangerous little ember, warm and tempting.

His phone buzzed again — this time a group chat ping from Sooyung with some cursed meme involving Joonghyuk’s face edited onto a medieval saint. He huffed out a laugh despite himself.

The ember cooled. He closed the tab. Not today.

(But he didn’t move the coat or the hoodie. Didn’t fold them away. They stayed there on the chair, smug and looming. Waiting.)

The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, humming a steady, aggravating drone that seemed to amplify Dokja’s headache. He stacked cans on the top shelf, each clang a reminder that his life had somehow become an endless loop of minor inconveniences. His brain, of course, was unhelpfully wandering elsewhere. 400,000 won… hoodie…

The bell above the door jingled sharply. Two small figures skidded inside, a young boy and girl, both of them sporting shifty, vaguely guilty expressions usually characteristic of children.

“Uh… hello?” Dokja ventured cautiously.

The boy ignored him entirely and made a beeline for the candy aisle, the girl trailing with a bag of opened chips clutched like it was the crown jewels.

Dokja froze. What the hell? Where are their parents? Why is no one supervising these tiny chaos machines?

“Uh, excuse me. Are you kids—”

“Can we get ice cream? And soda! And maybe some chips!” the taller one shouted before Dokja could finish.

“Uh, sure,” he said, pointing in the directions of the respective aisles. 

“Thank you, ahjussi!” the boy called, before the pair of them disappeared behind an aisle. Dokja blinked at the empty space for a moment, before he shrugged, resuming his monotonous stacking.

Was it too evil of him to sell the clothes? 

Joonghyuk did help him out more than once. Nevermind that he’d done so in a condescending way, like it was more of a bother than a favour, every single time, and that Dokja never asked for his help in the first place.

His train of thought was abruptly halted by a loud shout from the aisle over. Quickly, he rounded the corner, resigned to see anything from the whole aisle knocked over to—

The small girl was on the floor, holding her elbow with tears in her eyes. The boy stood a couple meters from her, on the floor as well and rubbing at his back.

“...What’s going on here?” Dokja said, eyes flicking to the aisle, but everything was perfectly in place, save for a bag of shrimp chips on the top aisle that was slightly crumpled and balancing halfway off the shelf. His gaze shifted to the two kids on the floor again, realization dawning on him. “Ah.”

Careful not to step on any of their tiny fingers, Dokja reached for the bag of chips.

The girl’s eyes widened. “He’s… he’s gonna do it.”

The boy’s jaw dropped, reverent. “Our hero…”

Dokja gave them both a flat look. “It’s a bag of shrimp chips, not the Holy Grail.”

Still, he stretched up on his toes, fingertips brushing the crumpled plastic—

—and immediately misjudged his center of gravity.

His heel slipped on the polished floor, and with all the grace of a dying marionette, Kim Dokja flailed forward. The shelf rattled violently as his shoulder hit it, knocking a rain of ramen packets, snack bags, and exactly one bottle of barley tea onto his head.

The bag of shrimp chips dislodged at last, sailing majestically through the air… before smacking him square in the face and sliding into his lap.

The kids blinked at him from the floor, utterly unimpressed.

“…Wow,” the boy deadpanned.

The girl’s expression was somewhere between awe and disbelief. “You got it, though!”

Dokja sat there for a beat, ankle throbbing painfully, covered in junk food like some tragic discount shrine, before shoving the shrimp chips at them. “Here. Risk assessment says this wasn’t worth it.”

The boy grinned as if Dokja had just saved them from certain doom. The girl clutched the chips like treasure.

“You’re so cool, ahjussi,” she said.

Dokja sighed, brushing crushed ramen from his shirt. “Yeah. I’m a real inspiration.”

The kids practically bounced toward the counter, shrimp chips clutched like trophies.

Dokja followed, muttering under his breath as he tried to clean up the mess behind him. “Why do these things always happen at my shift… why me…”

The boy tried to bang a tiny fist on the counter, but only managed to reach the side of it. “We need ice cream too!”

“And soda!” the girl chimed in, peering around the shelves like a tiny general assessing a battlefield.

Dokja raised an eyebrow. “Wait. Where are your parents?”

The kids exchanged a glance. “Uh… they’re… busy?” the boy said.

Dokja froze for a moment, caught between exasperation and concern. Busy? Busy how? Busy enough to leave these two alone? His inner monologue screamed: should I call child services? Or just… survive this shift…

“Alright, alright,” he muttered, “let’s get what you came for before someone actually gets hurt.”

He rifled through the freezer, juggling ice cream tubs. The girl bounced impatiently. “Ahjussi! Faster!”

“I am moving at the speed of… you know… safety regulations,” Dokja replied, carefully sliding a small tub toward them.

They each handed him coins, jangling and clinking, far less than the total.

Dokja’s eyes narrowed. “Wait… you’re short.”

The boy shrugged. “Oops?”

Dokja groaned. “Where are your parents—” He caught himself and paused. “—I mean, alright, fine. Consider me… sponsoring this poor financial decision.”

He covered the rest himself, grumbling all the while, but the kids’ faces lit up like he’d handed them a million won instead of a few coins’ shortfall.

It was… fine. He could eat plain rice for a couple of days. And if all else failed, he did have ₩400,000 in reserve.

“You’re the best!” the girl cheered. “I’m Shin Yoosung, by the way!”

“And I’m Lee Gilyoung!” the boy added, both bowing slightly, like little knights pledging allegiance to their protector.

Dokja stared at them blankly, caught vaguely offguard. “…I’m Kim Dokja. You’re welcome, I guess.”

The kids, satisfied with the exchange, turned to leave. Dokja watched them go, muttering to himself as he wiped down the counter. Why was even the convenience store becoming a weird place lately…

His phone pinged. Dokja glanced down, expecting another rent reminder or spam ad, but instead it was a notification that Joonghyuk had gone live.

He hesitated for a second, leaning back in his chair.

Before his mind’s eye, scenes from the weekend flashed — Joonghyuk holding his bag hostage, the tomato war, the balcony with the damning hoodie, the embarrassing tumble he’d almost taken in the woods. The scarf wrapped tightly around his ankle.

Dokja scowled. He wasn’t even that clumsy usually. No doubt Joonghyuk thought he was an absolute fool, and Dokja couldn’t even fault him too much. No more than usual, anyway. 

The stream opened to Yoo Joonghyuk in his natural habitat: back straight, jaw set, eyes glued to the screen. His hands moved with clean, almost mechanical precision, the soft click-click of his mouse syncing with the rising kill count in the corner.

Dokja sipped his bitter coffee, already composing his first strike.

onlyreader : Missed your first shot. Rusty already?

There was no pause in Joonghyuk’s play. Just a faint twitch of his eyebrow before he replied. “…I didn’t miss.”

Dokja’s scowl deepened. 

onlyreader : Uh-huh. And I guess your last death was just “tactical retreat”?

This time, Joonghyuk did glance at chat. Brief. Assessing. Like a sniper taking aim. “Only retreat when the battlefield isn’t worth staying in.”

The words were calm, almost too calm. Dokja could feel the arrogance bleeding through. 

onlyreader : And this game is worth staying in?

Joonghyuk eliminated two players with effortless flick shots before answering. “I’m still here, aren’t I?”

The chat began buzzing.

Mangotoast : why is he answering onlyreader so much

Quillnight : bro that’s like his 3rd reply to them

Icequeen_saveme : ??? is this some kind of rivalry?? I thought onlyreader was a troll

Dokja typed again, not entirely sure why his pulse had ticked up. Probably from anger. Talking to Joonghyuk was definitely bad for his sanity. Whatever was left of it anyways. 

But he couldn’t give up now. He wasn’t about to let Joonghyuk have the last word.

onlyreader : You talk big for someone camping in the same spot for 5 minutes.

Joonghyuk’s voice stayed low, steady, bored. “Patience wins fights. Something you might not understand.”

A few laughing emojis spammed the chat.

Blackmastersword : he’s ignoring literally everyone else lol

supremekingnoticeme: this is weirdly intense

demonic_judge_of_fire : did they know each other before??

Dokja narrowed his eyes. He was used to tossing barbs into Joonghyuk’s chat for sport, but now… Joonghyuk was choosing to engage. Zero irritation, zero distraction. Just a cold focus whenever Dokja typed.

It was unnerving. Dokja preferred when Joonghyuk had seemed at least somewhat annoyed. It seemed he’d have to step up his game.

onlyreader : or maybe you’re just scared to move.

Joonghyuk huffed a breath that vaguely reminded of a laugh, and Dokja blinked at the screen, unsure he’d heard it correctly. “You’ll have to do better than that.”

The match ended. First place. Joonghyuk leaned back, finally glancing fully at the chat, and for a second, it felt like he was looking directly at Dokja through the screen.

“Stay tuned. I’d hate for you to miss my next win.”

The chat went feral.

demonic_judge_of_fire: ok he’s totally flirting wtf

Delusional_demon_apologist : nah this is rivalry energy

supremekingnoticeme: idk but I’m grabbing popcorn

Dokja clicked out of the stream with more force than necessary. 

Oh, really?

His gaze drifted to the hoodie draped over his chair, smug as ever. A nerve ticked in his jaw.

₩400,000.

He opened the secondhand marketplace tab.

On Tuesdays, Kim Dokja worked nights. Not because they paid better — they didn’t — but because Tuesdays had a rhythm he’d grown used to.

The streets outside were quieter, the air a little colder. The overhead lights inside the store hummed in a way that almost passed for comforting. And at exactly 23:17 p.m., the glass doors would slide open, and a particular man would walk in.

Today was no exception.

Tall. Broad-shouldered. Black jacket, black cap, blank expression, like a hitman who’d gotten lost and decided to browse the instant noodle aisle instead. His steps were measured, controlled, like someone who’d been trained to walk without making a sound but now tolerated the faint squeak of the linoleum.

Dokja coughed down his smile, aiming for nonchalant and missing by a couple beats when he realized the newspaper he was holding uselessly was upside down. Hurriedly, he flipped it around, just as the dark silhouette approached the counter, silent enough that Dokja didn’t notice him until he was right in front of him. Which was a feat in itself, considering how tall and broad the other man was.

The man had one single dark eyebrow raised beneath his cap. His grey eyes were once again on view, and his black mask was still in place.

“Evening,” Dokja said, leaning against the register with feigned disinterest.

The man’s gaze flicked to him, brief and assessing. “Evening.”

“So,” he said, voice casual and finger trailing absentmindedly down the sticky counter, like he was just making conversation and not confessing to something mildly unethical to a stranger. “Remember that guy I told you about last week? The cult leader.”

The man’s head turned slightly. “Yes.”

“Well,” Dokja continued, tapping the counter with one finger, “I might have… come into possession of something of his. You know. As leverage.”

There was a pause. “…Leverage,” the man repeated.

“Exactly.” Dokja nodded, pleased at the agreement. “And — you’ll be proud of me — I might have sold it.”

The pause that followed was… different. Not the usual, unbothered quiet the man was good at. No, this was the kind of silence that felt like it was measuring the distance between them in paces and calculating the exact force needed to commit a homicide.

“You sold what?” the man asked, his tone so level it looped back to somewhere between disbelieving and dangerous.

Dokja perked up. He’d known if there was anyone who could appreciate his scheming, it was this hitman. “Oh, it was great. You’d have loved it. Four hundred thousand won for a hoodie. Daylight robbery! Well, not daylight, because I listed it online, but—”

“You sold what ,” the man repeated, slower this time.

“A hoodie. Dark color, kind of heavy. You know the type, looks normal until you see the price tag and start questioning the meaning of capitalism.” Dokja leaned closer, lowering his voice conspiratorially. “Honestly, I’m doing the economy a service. Redistributing wealth. Very Robin Hood of me.”

The man’s gaze sharpened. “Describe it.”

“Uh… oversized, good quality, bit of wear on the cuffs. Probably smug if clothing could be smug.” Dokja took a sip from his convenience store coffee. “Why, you want to buy one? I can recommend a site.”

The stranger’s expression didn’t change, but something in the air shifted — subtle, but enough to make the hairs on Dokja’s arms stand up.

“How did you get it?”

“Oh, you know,” Dokja said with a vague hand wave. “From… circumstances.”

“Circumstances,” the man echoed.

“Yes. Perfectly legal circumstances. Probably.”

The man’s fingers curled against the countertop, like he was physically restraining himself from reaching over it. “Why would you sell it?”

Dokja blinked at him. “Because it was worth four hundred thousand won. Why wouldn’t I sell it?”

The pause that followed felt heavy enough to bend time.

“…Some things,” the man said, very evenly, “are not meant to be sold.”

“Ah,” Dokja said, nodding sagely. “You’re one of those sentimental types. You must get really attached to your stuff. Like—” He gestured vaguely in the man’s direction. “That jacket and cap you wear all the time. Probably means a lot to you, huh?”

The man’s nostrils flared.

“Don’t worry,” Dokja added quickly. “If you left it lying around my place, I probably wouldn’t sell it.”

The man’s gaze darkened another shade.

“…Probably,” Dokja repeated.

There was a long silence in which the man seemed to be conducting a private battle with himself, weighing the pros and cons of committing assault in a convenience store.

“You’re very cavalier about this,” the man finally said.

“Thanks,” Dokja replied, clearly taking it as the compliment it probably was. “I like to keep things stress-free. No point in clinging to material goods.”

The man stared at him, unreadable but visibly something .

Dokja tilted his head. “You okay there? You look kind of… tense. Do you need water? A massage coupon? I think there’s a chiropractor down the street.”

The man closed his eyes for one long, slow inhale. “No.”

“Alright,” Dokja said, taking another sip of coffee. “Just making sure. Wouldn’t want you to drop dead in here and ruin my clean-up schedule.”

The man’s eyes snapped open, glinting like polished steel.

For one wild second, Dokja thought the guy might actually vault the counter. Instead, he stepped back. “You,” he said, voice taut as wire, “have no idea what you’ve done.”

“That’s… true,” Dokja admitted. “But you’re making it sound way more dramatic than it is. I didn’t sell state secrets. I sold a hoodie.”

The man said nothing, and his face was now turned towards the floor, hiding his expression from view.

“Seriously,” Dokja went on. “You’d think I burned down an orphanage. You sure you’re not just mad you missed the deal? I can find you another overpriced hoodie if you want—”

“Don’t.” The word was sharp enough to cut.

“…Find you another hoodie?”

“Yes.”

Dokja squinted at him, trying to read his mood. “Wow. You are tense. You should try yoga.”

If looks could kill, the convenience store would have been reduced to ash.

Dokja paused for a moment, feeling slightly guilty for no reason at all. He scratched the back of his neck subconsciously, avoiding the man’s gaze. “Hey… Sorry. Didn’t mean to piss you off… or whatever. I didn’t know you were so invested in clothes and justice. Let’s just forget I ever told you that—”

The store’s sliding doors screeched open again.

A middle-aged man shuffled in, holding a crumpled lottery ticket and wearing the vacant expression of someone who’d already lost before even checking the numbers.

“Excuse me,” the man said, holding up the ticket. “Can you—”

Dokja turned to him automatically, relief flickering in his voice. “Yeah, of course. One sec.”

When he turned back to the counter—

Gone.

No ominous tall guy, no black jacket, no sound of retreating footsteps. Just… empty air and the faint echo of the door sliding shut.

“…Weird,” Dokja muttered. “He didn’t even buy anything.”

The lottery man blinked. “Uh…?”

“Nothing. Just talking to myself.” Dokja scanned the ticket, confirmed it was worth exactly nothing, and handed it back with the practiced sympathy of a cashier who’d crushed dreams before.

The man shuffled out. The store fell quiet again.

Dokja was just reaching for his coffee when his phone buzzed against the counter.

He glanced at the screen.

And dropped his coffee on the counter.

Yoo Joonghyuk 💀: Bring the coat and hoodie. Or else.

He stared at it for a full five seconds. 

“Oh, shit,” he whispered. 

The phone buzzed again.

Yoo Joonghyuk 💀: Tomorrow. 8 p.m. I know where you live.

Dokja slumped against the counter, staring blankly at the shelves. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he was calculating how much cash he had left after paying rent, how far he could run with it, and whether four hundred thousand won was enough to fake his death in another city.

Probably not.

The next day, Kim Dokja existed in a state of slow-motion panic.

From the moment he rolled out of bed on one hour of sleep, every creak in the hallway, every passing car, every knock from the upstairs pipes felt like a countdown to something he didn’t want to face.

Still, he told himself it was fine. Completely fine.

People bluffed in texts all the time. It didn’t mean Yoo Joonghyuk would actually show up at his door. He probably didn’t even remember where Dokja lived. Seriously . He’d been there once , during a rather regretful night more than a week ago.

He was probably just trying to get Dokja to cave under the pressure.

Right. Probably.

By the time his shift at the store started ( night shift followed by day shift was the thing of nightmares ), he’d almost convinced himself the whole thing was a fluke. Sure, he kept glancing at the entrance every time the bell jingled. And sure, his stomach dropped whenever a tall silhouette passed by the windows. But as the hours ticked by with no sight of him, Dokja began to breathe easier.

“See?” he muttered under his breath as he stocked the ramen display. “Not a big deal. I’m not dying today. Perfectly safe. In fact, I might even—”

He glanced at the clock. 7:20 p.m.

His stomach did a neat little backflip.

7:20 meant he could, in theory, clock out, walk home, and be in his apartment by 7:35. Which, unfortunately, also meant he could be cornered by a certain large, terrifying man by 7:36.

…No. Not happening. Not going home. Not walking into an ambush like some rookie in a bad crime drama.

He clocked out, stepped outside… and turned left instead of right.

Just a casual walk. For the air. Fresh air was good for the lungs. And the soul.

The streets were washed in the gold-orange of streetlights, the smell of fried food from late-night stalls drifting in the air. Dokja wandered aimlessly, passing cafés, noodle shops, and convenience stores that were further away from his own. He even stopped to watch a busker for ten whole minutes, nodding along like a man who definitely wasn’t wasting time until 10 p.m. just to make sure a certain someone got bored and left.

This was fine. Totally normal.

He found himself browsing the window display of a tiny bookstore he’d never noticed before. Then he drifted into a 24-hour supermarket, spent fifteen minutes comparing brands of milk he had no intention of buying, and then got lost in the snack aisle debating if he could justify splurging on a novelty chocolate bar.

By 8:45, he’d exhausted his list of “free things a person might plausibly do while totally not avoiding going home” and was down to circling the block like a very suspicious pigeon.

He walked a few more blocks, then, in a moment of rare genius, scrolled to Han Sooyung’s contact.

“Wow,” was the first thing she said when she picked up. “The ghost of Kim Dokja calls. This must be serious.”

“Haha. Yeah. So. Hypothetically, if a friend needed a place to crash tonight—”

“You’re running from something.”

“What? No. Fresh air. Change of scenery. Spiritual renewal.”

“Mhm.” Her voice dripped disbelief. “You’re suspicious. You never want to hang out. Did you finally kill someone?”

“Not that you can prove,” he said.

“You’re buying breakfast tomorrow.”

“Done,” he said, wincing slightly. Whatever. The alternative was much worse. The alternative being death.

Inside Han Sooyung’s fancy, highrise apartment, it was all warm light and mismatched furniture that somehow worked together. A tall bookshelf was crammed with novels, figurines, and enough anime box sets to open a small store. Against one wall, a triple-monitor gaming setup glowed faintly, headset dangling from the side, and the coffee table was buried under game controllers, unopened snack bags, and a single half-finished puzzle that looked like it had been sitting there for months.

The smell of stir-fry drifted from the open kitchen.

“You’re in luck,” Sooyung called over her shoulder as she threw him a pair of slippers. “Sangah’s cooking tonight. If I were you, I’d eat enough to last through tomorrow because I’m never cooking for you.”

“I feel so welcome,” Dokja deadpanned, swapping shoes and stepping inside.

Yoo Sangah emerged from the kitchen carrying a pot, smiling in that gentle, unassuming way that made Dokja instantly feel worse for imposing. “Dokja-ssi! Didn’t think I’d see you again so soon.”

“Yeah,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “Uh… thanks for letting me crash.”

“You’re lucky I’m nice,” Sooyung said, dropping onto the large, white couch that reminded Dokja of a cloud and grabbing a controller. “Now, explain why you’re suddenly pretending we’re friends again.”

“Change of scenery,” Dokja said smoothly, sitting down at the far end of the couch. “You know, mental health, variety, the spice of life—”

Sooyung looked at him like she was actively scrolling through his lies.

Sangah, being Sangah, simply set the table. “Dinner’s ready.”

They ate together, the easy conversation making it almost — almost — possible for Dokja to forget he was hiding from a man who could probably snap him in half. Sangah’s cooking was warm and filling, the kind of meal that left no room for panic, and Sooyung was too busy trash-talking online opponents to keep interrogating him.

Afterward, Dokja helped clear the dishes. It was the least he could do, and also a good way to avoid eye contact.

When it was finally time to sleep, they tossed him a blanket and pillow for the couch.

The living room was dark except for the thin wash of city light filtering through the half-closed blinds. Across the skyline, glass towers blinked with red aircraft lights, windows lit in scattered patches. The hum of distant traffic pressed faintly against the silence inside.

Dokja stretched out on the couch — somehow softer and more forgiving than his own shoddy bed — and stared up at the shadowed ceiling. From the other room, he could hear Sooyung’s muffled voice through her headset, a rapid-fire string of insults meant for some unfortunate teammate, followed by Sangah’s quieter laugh.

It was almost peaceful. Almost.

He’d just started to let his eyes drift shut when the phone on the coffee table lit up.

The glow was sharp in the dark, turning the glass surface into a cold mirror.

Yoo Joonghyuk 💀
[1 incoming call]

His heart jumped into his throat.

The screen buzzed against the table — bzzz bzzz bzzz — each vibration thrumming straight through his ribs. He stared at it like a man watching a venomous snake, perfectly still but poised to strike.

Ten seconds stretched long, each one tighter than the last.

Then, just as abruptly, the buzzing stopped. The room fell silent again, the phone’s glow fading until it was just a black rectangle on the table.

No message. No follow-up. Nothing.

Dokja exhaled, slow and uneven. Somehow, that was worse than any threat.

He rolled over and pulled the blanket over his head, the faint smell of laundry detergent doing nothing to settle his pulse.

I’m fine, he told himself. Made it through today alive.

But tomorrow…

Tomorrow was another story entirely.

He woke to the soft hiss of a coffee machine and faint chatter from the kitchen. For a moment, it almost felt normal. Until his eyes shot open, and he scrambled for the phone on the table.

The lock screen was blank. No new messages. No missed calls.

That should have been a relief. It wasn’t.

Instead, a cold pit formed in his stomach. Yoo Joonghyuk hadn’t followed up. Yoo Joonghyuk hadn’t said a single word.

By the third day, Dokja had perfected the art of looking casual while actually living like a fugitive.

He alternated walking routes home. He checked every reflective surface for tall shadows behind him. He’d even started eating at a fried chicken joint two neighborhoods over, pretending he just “liked the seasoning better” while scanning every face that walked in. He’d even avoided watching any of Joonghyuk’s streams for fear the other man would somehow sense him behind the screen.

But paranoia was exhausting, and when the tall man in the black jacket showed up at the store again that third night, Dokja felt himself… weirdly relieved. This guy was weird, yes, but he was at least predictable weird . Almost pleasant weird.

“Oh, good. You’re here.” Dokja said instantly, leaning on the counter gratefully.

The man halted a couple of steps away from the counter, before finally coming closer, much slower this time.

“...Evening,” the man said in his low, even tone.

“You ever piss off someone so badly you think they might actually kill you?”

The man’s eyebrow twitched. “Yes.”

“Oh good, you get it.” Dokja ran a hand through his hair, making his bangs stick up at odd angles. “I might’ve actually made an enemy out of this guy — huge, scary, built like a brick wall. Remember? I sold his hoodie?”

“I remember.”

Dokja sunk back in his chair with an all-suffering sigh. A moment of comfortable silence ticked by, before Dokja looked up at the stranger again, feeling weirdly relieved to have his steady presence around. The man was rather like a tree — silent, sturdy and dependable. 

“You think I should just hide? Lay low until he gets over it?” Dokja said, wincing.

“People like that,” the man said evenly, “don’t get over things.”

Dokja groaned. “Not helpful, man.”

The man tilted his head slightly. “If you want to survive, you should confront him. Directly.”

“That’s the exact opposite of what I want to do!”

“I didn’t say it would be pleasant.”

“Thanks,” Dokja deadpanned.

“What does he look like?”

“Why?” Dokja narrowed his eyes, a grin pulling at his lips. “You gonna beat him up for me?”

The man didn’t answer. Just kept looking at him until Dokja, against his better judgment, went on. “Tall. Big shoulders. Doesn’t blink much. Kind of has this… permanent scowl thing going on, like he’s already imagining your funeral.”

“Mm,” the man said, as if mentally filing it away.

“And, uh, I think he’s good at finding people. He—” Dokja stopped himself, realizing he was saying too much. He waved a hand. “Anyway. I’ll figure it out. Worst case, I move to Busan.”

The man’s gaze didn’t waver. “Running won’t help.”

“Yeah, yeah, thanks for the encouragement,” Dokja muttered, waving the man off.

Then, like a lightning strike of brilliance, his expression shifted. A subtle widening of the eyes, the half-smirk curling at the corner of his mouth. It was the face of someone about to make a terrible decision and absolutely commit to it.

“…Actually,” he said slowly, “what if I just… replace it?”

The man didn’t move. “…Replace it.”

“Yeah. Think about it. You know those knockoff stalls in Namdaemun? I could buy one that looks exactly the same as the hoodie I sold. Same design, same color, same little stupid embroidered logo thing. He wouldn’t even know the difference.”

The man’s gaze was steady, unreadable, but something sharp glinted in his eyes. “…And you think that would work.”

“Why wouldn’t it? People lose their stuff all the time and buy the same thing again. It’s like… the same concept. Just, uh… in reverse.” Dokja leaned forward conspiratorially, lowering his voice as though this was a masterstroke of espionage. “And the best part? The knockoff would be, like, a fifth of the price. Way cheaper. Win-win. I save money, he gets a hoodie. Everyone’s happy.”

The man’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. “Everyone,” he repeated.

“Exactly. And, honestly, I bet the fabric’s the same. I mean, unless he’s the kind of guy who can tell polyester from cotton at twenty paces.” Dokja laughed a little to himself, proud. “Which, okay, maybe he can, but still. He’s not gonna be inspecting it under a microscope. And if he does … well… I’ll say I washed it too many times.”

The man’s silence was heavy now, oppressive in a way that made the hairs on the back of Dokja’s neck stand up.

“…What?” Dokja asked, shifting in his seat. “It’s genius.”

“It’s not genius,” the man said finally, his voice low and clipped, like each word had been dragged through clenched teeth.

Dokja scoffed. “Wow. No faith at all. Just wait. This is going to work. He’ll be so grateful I even bothered—”

“You think,” the man interrupted, leaning in just a fraction, “that someone like that wouldn’t notice?”

Something in the way he said someone like that sent a flicker of unease through Dokja. “Uh… maybe not right away?”

The man stared at him for a long, long moment, his expression so unreadable it was almost unnerving. Then, without a word, the man turned on his heel and started walking toward one of the aisles.

“Hey, where are you going?” Dokja called after him, pushing off the counter to follow. “Oh, wow. I guess you really don’t want to hear the rest of my plan then—”

He took a step too quick to catch up and instantly regretted it. His ankle twinged sharply. “Shit.”

The man stopped mid-stride and turned, his eyes flicking briefly down to where Dokja was gingerly rolling his foot. A moment of silence passed, before a cup of ice hit Dokja’s chest squarely, knocking the breath out of his lungs for a second. His hand caught it instinctively, and he glanced at the man, who was looking off to the side like nothing had happened.

“Thanks,” Dokja said quietly, before placing the ice against his throbbing ankle. It numbed the pain almost instantly, and he exhaled a sigh of relief.

The man disappeared into the next aisle.

Without thinking, he got up and trailed after him, ankle still sore but functional. “So… you just hang out here at night for fun, huh? You got, like, a favorite snack aisle? Favorite brand of instant noodles?”

The man didn’t answer, just plucked something from the shelf and set it in his basket.

“Oh, mysterious,” Dokja teased, walking backward in front of him now. “Let me guess — you’re a coffee guy. Black, no sugar. The type that judges people for liking caramel macchiatos.”

The man’s eyebrow twitched — the only sign he’d heard him — before he brushed past, forcing Dokja to sidestep to avoid bumping into him.

Unfazed, Dokja followed anyway. “Or maybe you’re a snacks person. You’ve got the look of someone who could down an entire bag of shrimp chips in one sitting. Am I right?”

The man said nothing, but there was a faint, controlled exhale through his nose — the kind that suggested patience running thin but not gone yet.

If Dokja noticed, he didn’t care. For the first time in days, the presence of a tall, intimidating figure near him wasn’t sending his heart into fight-or-flight mode. Instead, he felt… oddly comfortable.

“I’m right, then.”

Dokja watched as the man plucked a bag of shrimp chips from the top shelf — gracefully, definitely not tripping over his feet like Dokja’d done before. “Hey, what’s your name? Or should I just call you Batman?”

The man didn’t flinch, just reached for another item and set it in his basket. Dokja leaned on the aisle next to him, lips dragged in an exaggerated pout as the man continued to say nothing. “I’m Kim Dokja.”

The man’s eyes briefly flicked to his face, before back to the aisle. “I know. Your nametag.”

Dokja nodded in understanding, before pointing an accusing finger in the man’s face. “You just tried to dodge the question.”

The stranger said nothing, brushing past him with barely a glance his way. Dokja trailed after him again. “Are you an idol or something?” he gasped, “You totally are.”

The man stopped in his tracks, and Dokja ran headfirst into his wide back, before stumbling backwards. He turned his head enough for Dokja to see a glimpse of his eyes. “...I’m not .” he said, through what sounded like gritted teeth.

Dokja sighed dramatically as he rang up the stranger’s items, slumping against the counter. “You know, you could’ve at least told me your name,” he muttered, scanning the shrimp chips with exaggerated care. 

The man said nothing, just placed his basket down and picked up a cup of ice. He set it on the counter with deliberate calm.

“It’s not for me,” he said finally, and before Dokja could even blink, the cup slid across the counter and smacked lightly against his wrist. Dokja yelped, blinking at the small splash of melting ice.

“What the—?!” he sputtered. “What the hell—”

“For your ankle,” the man said, voice clipped.

“…Oh. Ohhh.” Dokja’s face twisted into a mixture of pain and begrudging appreciation. “For the ankle! Right, right, sure. That’s… thoughtful.” he pushed the ice cup aside. “I can’t accept it, though.”

“...Why not.”

“Just because,” Dokja said, before continuing to scan the man’s items. “Seriously? You bought ten cans of Black Black—”

The ice cup was placed in front of him again, this time with a stronger grip. Dokja blinked at the large hand running with veins, before up at its owner, raising a brow.

“Seriously, it’s okay! I can handle a sprained ankle. I’ve survived worse.”

The man’s dark eyes flicked to his, unblinking, and the tension was weird enough to make Dokja’s stomach twist. Finally, with deliberate slowness, he pressed the ice cup just a little closer, tilting it so that it nudged Dokja’s hand.

Dokja’s fingers twitched, half out of instinct, half out of sheer defiance. “…Fine,” he muttered, voice grudging. “...Thanks.”

Dokja shifted on his stool, gingerly adjusting the ice cup against his ankle while scanning the array of items in front of him. “…You know,” he said slowly, almost to himself, “I do think my hoodie replacement plan is pure genius.”

The man leaned in just slightly. “People like that,” he said evenly, an echo of his previous words, “don’t get over things. You want to survive? You confront him. Directly.”

Dokja swallowed, doubt bubbling in his chest. “Uh… yeah, but… that sounds dangerous. And awkward.”

A faint exhale through the nose, controlled and deliberate. “Then you survive it.”

Dokja blinked, feeling oddly reassured despite the warning. “If you say so. I mean… I trust you. But…” His voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “…I still think the hoodie replacement is the safer move.”

The man said nothing for a moment. “You can do both,” the man finally said, voice clipped, as if dismissing the thought entirely.

Dokja tilted his head. “Both?”

“Prepare to face him,” the man said, “and take action that doesn’t fail.” His hand flexed slightly around the edge of the counter, almost imperceptible, but enough for Dokja to notice. “…Do not underestimate him—or anything.”

Dokja rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Underestimate him? I don’t want to estimate him at all.”

“Seems like it’s too late for that,” the stranger said, before turning around on his heel, and disappearing into the night like the misunderstood vigilante he probably was.

Confront Yoo Joonghyuk, huh…

Dokja watched him go, feeling weirdly confident and certain. It seemed the man’s strangely solid presence had somewhat emboldened him. Not his advice, though.

…Nah .

Namdaemun, here I come.

Chapter Text

“What do you mean it’s 500,000₩?”

“That’s my final price. Take it or leave it.”

Kim Dokja stared at the vendor in disbelief. This is daylight robbery.

“It shouldn’t be any more than 400,000₩.” Dokja said through gritted teeth. If he could just reach out and—

The man in front of him gave a haughty scoff, picking at his nails. “I like it. It suits me and I don’t really feel like parting with it. You’re lucky I’m even considering it.”

He’d adopted an air of self-importance that hadn’t been there the moment Dokja lingered in front of his stall in the first place, drawn in by the various hoodies on display, each one a seemingly perfect replica of Joonghyuk’s own black one. Only to find the vendor of said stall was wearing one that resembled his perfectly. Almost… too perfectly.

Dokja had pretended to browse through the merchandise, but it was a half-hearted attempt at best. His mind was really running a mile a minute, wondering just how big of a coincidence it could be.

“Say, is that hoodie you’re wearing one on display? It looks good on you,” Dokja had said casually, offering a breezy smile. No way, right? 

But something had been nagging in the back of his mind, a feeling he couldn’t quite shake off.

“Nah, I got it online.” the vendor had said, grinning. “It’s a high-end brand and I got it for almost half the original price! The guy who sold this must’ve really been an idiot, huh?”

Kim Dokja had laughed uneasily along with the man. “Haha, right…”

His eyes trailed the sleeves as the man gestured wildly. A bit of wear on the cuffs, and Dokja didn’t know whether it was his own mind making up things or whether it really was Joonghyuk’s hoodie this man was wearing. It was maddeningly ordinary. No distinct logo, no telltale stitching. It could’ve been one of a hundred others in the market. And yet…

He remembered Yoo Joonghyuk’s profile outlined by the rain, the way he’d thrown over his hoodie without a second thought. He had an annoying habit of being condescending, but Kim Dokja could begrudgingly admit he’d done his fair share of ‘amiable’ things for him, if ‘amiable’ and Yoo Joonghyuk could be used in the same sentence.

At the very least he had a propensity of giving out his clothes to random strangers. Kim Dokja hoped it was more because Joonghyuk had some sort of trace of light in his black heart, and less because Dokja appeared pathetically and desperately in need of a new wardrobe. 

“…Some things are not meant to be sold,” the man in the convenience store had said. 

Kim Dokja didn’t know why his words had popped up in his mind right at that moment. Had he finally grown a conscience? Is this what normal people felt like?

…

He didn’t like it. 

Kim Dokja spared another glance at the hoodie. Could this be considered one such thing that outweighed physical value? 

Dokja wasn’t a particularly sentimental person. 

He’d never really understood the attachment people had to things — trinkets, clothes, old ticket stubs tucked in wallets. In his mind, objects were functional; you used them until they broke, and then you moved on. Easy. Clean. No weight.

At least, that was the theory. 

He carried no reminders from his cold childhood, and even less so from his lonely teenagehood. He’d learned early on not to get attached to anything—nothing lasted forever, and objects only served as painful reminders of things he’d rather forget.

In practice, there was still a mat in his kitchen. Ugly thing, slightly fraying at the edges. His mother had given it to him on one of his very few visits. “Every place needs a proper mat,” she’d said, like it was a universal truth.

Kim Dokja remembered feeling empty. Who gave their child a kitchen mat of all things? He’d almost laughed, if it hadn’t died before it had even taken shape.

She hadn’t given him much else. And she certainly hadn’t given him kindness. Their conversations had always been sharp, practical, sometimes cruel. But he hadn’t thrown the mat out. He stepped on it every morning, bare feet pressing into its worn middle. It wasn’t comfort, exactly — more like a reminder.

The point was: he didn’t need a reason to keep it. It stayed because it stayed, because throwing it away felt harder than letting it be. No attachment. Nothing complicated.

His eyes flicked back to the black hoodie. It might’ve not even been Yoo Joonghyuk’s.

Infuriatingly ordinary. Generic in every sense. But his chest tightened with the same feeling he got when he stepped onto that mat, before he even realized it. The thought he refused to name crawled up from the back of his throat: If it’s his…

He exhaled slowly, glaring at the vendor. “Five hundred,” he muttered, like the number itself was poison in his mouth. “Fine. You win.”

The vendor grinned like a shark as Dokja pulled out the bills. He held them tight, fingers clamped down as if maybe sheer willpower could undo the entire transaction.

“Hey—let go,” the vendor grunted, tugging.

Kim Dokja’s jaw worked. “Daylight robbery,” he hissed, still clinging.

The vendor gave one last vicious yank, and the notes tore free of Dokja’s grip. Dokja stumbled forward a step, glaring murderously at the man.

He’d just paid more for the stupid hoodie than he’d sold it for. His stingy heart wept bitter tears.

But at least… at least it was back.

That afternoon, hoodie and coat freshly washed, Dokja’s fingers nervously hovered over his conversation with Yoo Joonghyuk. Maybe it wasn’t too late to stick to his original plan. Maybe he could just continue on living in total bliss and ignorance. 

“If you want to survive, you should confront him. Directly.”

Kim Dokja furiously swatted over his head, willing the words to disperse from his mind. Damn it, you Batman vigilante! Why the hell was he the voice of Kim Dokja’s newfound conscience?!

Taking a deep breath, he nervously typed.

Kim Dokja: Free to meet? I wasn’t avoiding you, I just felt like a change of pace.

Deleted.

Kim Dokja: Haha, had my phone off the past couple days. No reason. 

Deleted.

Kim Dokja: Hey, sorry. Been busy the past couple of days. You good to meet up now?

Finally, with a deep, dramatic breath — the kind that made it feel like he was launching a rocket rather than sending a text — he pressed send.

Just because he’d grown a conscience didn’t mean he wasn’t above a bit of lying. He hadn’t grown an aureole too.

And it wasn’t necessarily lying either. He had been busy. Avoiding Joonghyuk. 

His eyes stayed fixed on the screen, grip tight on his phone as he waited. And waited.

And waited.

The numbers at the top of his phone switched from 17:35 to 17:36.

Jesus Christ, I’m going to lose it.

After a couple more minutes of silent panic, he’d almost convinced himself Joonghyuk would never contact him again. He’d just decided to put his phone down, when it buzzed ominously. Kim Dokja leapt for it, heart beating wildly in his chest. 

Yoo Joonghyuk: Han River Park. Bench near bridge.

Dokja froze. Park? Bridge? Why does everything have to sound so ominous? Is he planning on killing me and then dumping my body in the river?

Yoo Joonghyuk: 6 PM.

Dokja jumped from his bed as if electrocuted. 6 pm?? He’d have to run to make it. 

Dokja hastily threw the damnable coat and hoodie in a plastic bag and ran for the door. He’d be only too glad to be rid of them. 

Kim Dokja arrived at Han River Park with the bag clutched tightly in his hands, and gasping for breath. The sky was beginning to burn a vivid orange as the sun dipped lower. Streetlights had begun glowing faintly, and the low murmur of the evening crowds filled the air with a steady, pleasant hum.

His eyes flicked to his phone. 18:01. Perfect.

As he took a seat on the bench, his eyes traced the many silhouettes walking around. Couples laughed quietly on benches, joggers kept rhythm with their headphones, parents coaxed children along the path, and old men tossed crumbs to the ducks in the river. Dokja exhaled deeply, feeling his shoulders relax and trying to catch his breath from all the frantic running he’d done.

A shadow detached itself from the far side of the bridge, tall and sharp against the fading orange sky. Joonghyuk.

Black hoodie. Black jacket. Black everything. The kind of black that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it. Dokja absently wondered whether he owned any other colors.

“Late,” he said, voice low and even, eyes scanning the river instead of Dokja.

Dokja, who hadn’t even realized he’d been holding his breath, huffed out a laugh before he could stop it. The both of them seemed taken aback for a moment. 

Dokja coughed, trying to mask it. “By one minute— I mean. Yeah. Traffic. You know. The… city.”

Joonghyuk finally turned his gaze to him, slow and deliberate. His dark eyes reflected the sunset, and Dokja fought the urge to look away. He didn’t like spending time alone with Joonghyuk. It felt rather like being in orbit of a black hole—impossible to pull away. 

Dokja cleared his throat, forcing a casual stance. “So… uh. Hoodie?” He held out the plastic bag like a peace offering. 

Joonghyuk’s eyes lingered on his face for a moment longer, before dipping to the bag. A beat of silence passed, and Dokja’s outstretched arm started to hurt. Finally, Joonghyuk reached out and took it, still with that unreadable expression.

Dokja exhaled, a grin sneaking onto his face despite himself. Victory. He had returned the hoodie and coat. Peace achieved.

Little does he know, Dokja thought smugly. You have no idea what went into this master plan. You’re welcome, bastard.

“Right. So that’s that, then! Goodbye–”

“How’s your ankle?” Joonghyuk smoothly interrupted, not even looking at him. He was inspecting the clothes in the bag. 

Dokja blinked. “It’s fine. Rested it and delevated it—”

“Elevated.”

“Yeah, that.”

Another beat of silence passed, interrupted only by the distant sounds of the city. Dokja said nothing, watching the man hold the hoodie up to the light, check the seams, flip tags. There was no way he knew, right? He was just doing a routine check-up.

His eyes caught the edge of a small street food stand. Maybe he wanted to distract Joonghyuk’s careful inspection of the clothes just in case that wasn’t his hoodie Dokja had spent half a million won on, or maybe the Batman-vigilante-conscience he suddenly possessed had acted up again, but he found himself opening his mouth before he could help it.

“Look! Fried chicken and tteokbokki,” then, though his wallet and mind were simultaneously screaming at him in horror, he continued, “My treat.”

Joonghyuk’s eyes flicked to the stand, then back to Dokja. There was a pause. A beat.

“Fine,” he said finally, tossing the hoodie back into the bag.

Dokja blinked. He actually said yes?

At the stall, Dokja fumbled with his wallet, clutching it like a lifeline. He dug out enough bills to cover both their orders, but not without lingering hand-to-hand with the cash longer than necessary, giving the vendor a death glare as if the money itself was a bargaining chip.

Dokja scowled. Going to have to tighten my belt after this, he thought bitterly.

“I can pay,” Joonghyuk said, and if Dokja didn’t know him to be incapable of humor, he’d almost say he was amused. He snuck a glance at the other, and immediately felt betrayed. Though he wasn’t outright smiling, his eyes were slightly crinkled at the edges, and brighter than usual.

“No,” Dokja said through gritted teeth, glaring at the vendor again. “It’s my treat.”

“Relax,” the vendor muttered, yanking the notes free.

Joonghyuk, meanwhile, was calmly ordering, his tone casual as if this was the most mundane evening in the world. Dokja’s chest tightened at the simplicity of it—here they were, standing together, sharing street food, and somehow it felt… okay. Almost like they were friends. If one could be friends with the North Duke in the webnovels.

Seriously. Dokja snuck a sideways glance at the man. He could make serious money acting if they ever made a live-action after ‘I Saved the Wolf Emperor’s Child and Now He Wants to Marry Me.’

Cups now in hand, they walked down the river. A moment of silence passed, and Dokja racked his brain on conversation topics. What could he even talk to Joonghyuk about? Better to just finish his food as quickly as possible and go. 

“You’re terrible with money,” Joonghyuk said, and Dokja glared at him. If only you knew…!

“I’m not. We can’t all be world-renowned gamers, you know.” Dokja grumbled under his breath. “This is what I get for paying for people’s food.”

Joonghyuk raised one dark eyebrow at him. “People?”

Dokja spoke around a bite of tteokbokki, before he could stop himself. “Yeah, some kids came to the place I work at a couple of days ago. No parents, nothing. I paid for their food, it’s not a big deal. It wasn’t much… but, you know, I—uh…” He trailed off, suddenly aware of how absurd it was to explain himself.

Joonghyuk just tilted his head down at him, like he was actively listening to what Dokja had to say. Which was just… weird to think about.

“Where do you work?” Joonghyuk said, and Dokja paled.

He laughed nervously, eyes jumping around the park for any sign of distraction. Joonghyuk already knew where he lived, no way he’d give him his workplace address too. “That’s funny that you say that, because I–”

“Is that the Supreme King?!”

Dokja froze. Joonghyuk stiffened. A swarm of fans appeared from nowhere, cameras out and phones clicking. Joonghyuk’s scowl snapped into place, sharp and intimidating. 

Dokja, meanwhile, was shoved sideways by a tidal wave of elbows and backpacks. Great. Time to vanish.

As he ducked beneath flying arms and desperate hands, he tried to make it out of the crowd alive. A cellphone nearly smacked him in the face, forcing him to tilt his head sideways. His legs burned, heart hammering, and in a split second, he realized he had no clear exit strategy.

He risked a glance back, half-squatting behind a stray lamppost. Joonghyuk was still there, signing, nodding, raising a hand to push back an overzealous fan—but Dokja noticed the subtle tension in his frame. His shoulders were rigid, jaw clenched just enough that it seemed painful to keep it that way. His scowl wasn’t just the usual cold mask he wore for cameras—there was a tautness there, a flash of something heavier under the surface.

Dokja’s brain stuttered. Wait. That… that’s unusual. He’s… uncomfortable?

Dokja’s eyes lingered on his stiff posture and his deep scowl. So similar to the expressions he always wore, but it seemed Dokja’d spent enough hours staring at his face during the stream to notice the minute differences between Scowl 1 and Scowl 2.

He hesitated for a moment, before turning away.

Ah, whatever. It’s none of my business.

A pause.

…Fuck.

Before he realized what he was doing, Dokja leapt to his feet. “Ice cream!” he shouted, waving his arms wildly, “FREE ice cream!”

The effect was instantaneous. Heads swiveled toward him, startled, mouths opening mid-shout. Surprise worked in his favor—people hesitated, confused, trying to figure out why someone was yelling about ice cream in the middle of a Han River Park fan mob.

Dokja lunged for Joonghyuk’s sleeve. “Come on!”

Joonghyuk blinked, a fraction of surprise crossing his face before his scowl reasserted itself. The man’s body moved with fluid precision, grabbing Dokja’s arm in a swift, controlled motion and following him without a word.

They pushed through the crowd, side-stepping bodies, dodging outstretched hands and selfie sticks. Dokja’s lungs burned, sweat trickling down his temple. He felt every bump of a passerby against his ribs, heard the jingle of dropped coins, the squeak of a stroller wheel, the distant honk of a bus.

“Move!” he shouted again, ducking under a low-hanging branch as they veered off the main path. Joonghyuk’s footsteps beside him were soundless, almost catlike, precise. Dokja stole a glance—there was no panic in him. Just… alertness. Calm. And that scowl, still etched deep, but with something softer in the eyes Dokja could barely register.

Distracted for a moment, Dokja’s foot caught one uneven cobblestone, and the only thing that kept him from doing irreparable damage to his face was Joonghyuk shifting his grip so he now clutched Dokja’s wrist and pulled him after him with enough force Dokja felt as if his arm would dislodge from his shoulder.  

They darted into a narrow alley between two shops, the noise of the park fading behind them. Dokja slid to a stop against the brick wall, clutching his chest, gasping for breath. He had a feeling they’d stopped more for his benefit than anything else. 

Joonghyuk leaned against the opposite wall, significantly more composed than him, cup of street food in one hand. His scowl softened almost imperceptibly, but his dark eyes flicked to Dokja. “You’re ridiculous,” he said flatly.

Dokja wiped his sweaty palms on his jacket, chest heaving. “All… strategic,” he wheezed. “Master plan. Ice cream distraction.”

“Quiet,” Joonghyuk said, eyes scanning for any stragglers.

Dokja gaped at him in disbelief from his keeled-over position. “Why the hell weren’t you wearing a mask, or a cap, or something, huh? Actually, what about security? Isn’t that what you famous people are supposed to do?”

Joonghyuk’s lips pulled in a scowl. “...Shut up.” his hand pulled at the back of Dokja’s jacket, pulling him upright despite his protests. “And sit up. You’ll choke on air.”

Dokja swatted at Joonghyuk’s arm, and eyed the tteokbokki cup Joonghyuk still held dangerously close to the plastic bag which contained the hoodie worth more than half of Dokja’s rent. “Don’t spill that. Also, a little thank you wouldn’t hurt.”

Joonghyuk’s expression showed exactly what he thought of that. Before he could help it, Dokja huffed out a laugh. “You’re actually pretty easy to read, you know that?”

Joonghyuk’s eyes sharpened in a glare like he dared him to repeat it. Dokja coughed in his hand to hide his smile— he hadn’t narrowly avoided death-by-Joonghyuk-mob to get killed by Joonghyuk himself.

“I’ll get you back for that,” Joonghyuk said, and this time Dokja really couldn’t hide his grin.

‘You know most people just say ‘thank you’, right?”

Joonghyuk didn’t spare him another glance, instead looking down the alleyway for any sign of the crowd. “I’ll go first. Don’t come out until at least 5 minutes have passed,” he warned, before he was gone.

Dokja waited precisely 4 minutes before he ducked out as well, head whipping left and right, checking for any angered fan searching for free ice cream.

That night Dokja stretched out on his ratty couch like a self-satisfied cat, momentary crisis averted. 

Unexpectedly, dealing with his problems directly and ripping off the figurative bandaid had, for once, been the right course of action. 

Dokja grinned in the dark of his apartment. His phone pinged once, twice, flashing the room in pale light. With a pleased hum, he rolled over, reaching for it.

His phone vibrated violently in his hand. Confused, he unlocked it, and watched as text messages poured in with an alarming rate mostly from Han Sooyung, two from Yoo Sangah and even one from Lee Hyunsung, who must’ve added his phone number from the groupchat.

Since that was the most unusual one, Dokja entered his conversation with Hyunsung first.

Lee Hyunsung: Hey! I just wanted to say I was afraid he’d made another bad impression, but I’m glad to see I was wrong.

Dokja reread the message twice, brows furrowed. What the fuck??

Deciding to deal with that later, he read Yoo Sangah’s.

Yoo Sangah: I didn’t expect him to move so fast.

Yoo Sangah: Congratulations!

Dokja’s eyes bogged out of his skull. Why the hell was she congratulating him? She couldn't possibly have known about his master plan involving the hoodie, could she?

Dokja seriously considered it for a moment, as Yoo Sangah had a peculiar, omnipotent and omniscient way about her, before dispersing the possibility from his mind.

Finally, he entered his conversation with Han Sooyung, a bad feeling somewhere in the back of his mind.

Han Sooyung had sent him more than a hundred messages, and from what he could see, 90% of them were ‘what the fuck’ followed by various numbers of exclamation marks and stickers with his face mid-sneeze.

Dokja scrolled through them until he found the first message she’d sent him.

A screenshot of a post— a blurry image that looked as if it’d been taken in the midst of an avalanche. Beneath it, in bold, thick letters, was written: Yoo ‘Supreme King’ Joonghyuk seen sharing an intimate walk with unknown man. 

Dokja gaped at his phone for a second, before zooming in on the picture, just to confirm that it was, in fact, a photo taken as the two of them were running away from the fan mob, precisely one taken exactly as he stumbled and Joonghyuk pulled him up.

He remained frozen in shock until his phone turned off, and the black screen mirrored his horrorified face back to him.

What the…

Dokja shook his head left and right, a disbelieving laugh escaping him. 

This was what he got for trying to do the right thing. He should've known not to get involved. His only hope was that Yoo Joonghyuk wasn’t online enough to see the absolute bullshit.

Dokja threw his phone onto the couch like it had burned him.

“Nope. No. Absolutely not,” he muttered to himself, pacing the cramped apartment. “This isn’t happening. This is a dream. A very… very stupid dream.”

The phone buzzed again. And again. And again.

He resisted. He lasted maybe thirty seconds before snatching it back up with a groan.

Han Sooyoung: LMFAOOOOOOO I CANT BELIEVE I WAS RITE. 

Han Sooyoung: Did u hold hands??? Tell me u held hands.

[Attached: a crudely edited photo of Dokja and Joonghyuk with a heart sticker exploding between them.]

Dokja pressed his palm into his eyes. “I’m going to kill her. And then myself. I’ll start with Joonghyuk.”

He typed furiously:

Kim Dokja: Delete that. Immediately.

Han Sooyoung: HAHAHAHAH YOU’RE NOT DENYING IT

Han Sooyoung: THE WAY HE’S LOOKING AT YOU. THIS IS GOLD. SANGAH OWES ME 10 BUCKS.

Dokja scrolled back up to the blurry photo, against his better judgment. Joonghyuk’s face was caught mid-scowl—sharp, annoyed, terrifying. And his hand—His hand was around Dokja’s wrist, hauling him upright, and to the untrained eye it looked… kind of protective. If it were literally anyone other than Yoo Joonghyuk.

Dokja smacked his forehead into the couch cushion and muffled a scream.

The phone buzzed again. More messages poured in from Han Sooyung.

When the buzzing became insupportable, he reached for it.

Kim Dokja: I thought you were famous. Doesn’t this kind of thing happen quite often? Dating rumours or whatever?

A moment of pause, as a bunch of dots appeared and disappeared from Han Sooyung. Finally:

Han Sooyung: Yes. But not for him.

Kim Dokja paused for a moment. Hadn’t Yoo Joonghyuk dated Lee Seolwha? Surely, back then…

Kim Dokja: It’s not a big deal. At least u can’t see my face. It’s fine.

What he really meant to say was, ‘don’t make it into a big deal’. That was the only way he’d manage to remain with his insanity intact.

As Han Sooyung continued pestering him with questions, his eyes lingered on his conversation with Joonghyuk. He had no reason to clear anything up. They both knew it was ridiculous. And still—

He remembered Joonghyuk’s eyes crinkling as he got his food, and how rigid his posture had gotten when swarmed by fans. How he’d tied the scarf around Dokja’s ankle.

It seemed he’d be seeing more of Joonghyuk, whether he wanted to or not. Dokja would rather not have any awkwardness that wasn’t caused specifically by him permeating the air.

Kim Dokja: Hey. Don’t look online.

After a couple of minutes, Joonghyuk replied.

Yoo Joonghyuk: Why

Kim Dokja: No reason. Someone just made a really ugly edit of you and it went viral.

A couple more minutes passed, and Dokja nervously nibbled his lip. A row of dots momentarily appeared and disappeared, before Joonghyuk texted him again.

Yoo Joonghyuk: Ignore that. It’s nothing. 

Kim Dokja reread the message twice, a weird feeling lingering in the back of his mind. He realized it was taking him too long to reply, so he hurriedly typed.

Kim Dokja: Ah, of course. Should’ve known you were a real Casanova, huh?

Dokja waited, but Yoo Joonghyuk only read his message and said nothing else. After it was clear he wasn’t going to reply, Dokja slowly placed his phone away.

Right. Nothing.

…Great! Dokja could relax. It was nothing, after all. Obviously. He’d freaked out over nothing. Like before. Yoo Joonghyuk had only helped him back home the first time they met because he seemed to have some sort of personal code of honor. Nothing else.

Dokja turned onto his back, staring at the ceiling, arms crossed like a corpse.

Nothing. It was nothing. Definitely not something.

He sat up again, glaring suspiciously at his phone like it had personally wronged him. The little “read” receipt under his last message stared back, taunting him. Still no reply.

“Fine,” Dokja muttered, flopping back onto the couch. “Perfect. Better this way. Who needs answers? Not me. Not Kim Dokja. Nope. I am thriving. I am absolutely—”

The phone buzzed.

Dokja yelped, scrambling so hard he nearly smacked himself in the face with the device. He unlocked it, expecting Sooyung’s 300th sticker or Sangah’s ominous congratulations again. Instead—

Yoo Joonghyuk: Stop joking around.

Dokja blinked. Once. Twice. Three times.

Wait. What??

He sat there, frozen, mind blank. That was… not the reply he’d been expecting. At all. He reread it again, then again, as if the words might rearrange themselves into something less confusing.

Finally, he typed, fingers fumbling across the keyboard:

Kim Dokja: Uh. It was a joke. You know. Haha. Ha.

No reply.

Kim Dokja: …You do know what a joke is, right?

Still no reply.

Dokja threw his head back against the couch, groaning so loudly his upstairs neighbor stomped on the floor in retaliation.

Perfect. Now he was publicly humiliated and confusingly scolded by a professional scowler who didn’t know how to use emojis.

He set the phone face-down on the armrest and dragged a blanket over his head like a defeated ghost.

“Not my problem,” he muttered into the fabric. “He’s a grown man. He can deal with his own PR nightmares. Not my circus, not my…”

The phone buzzed again.

Very slowly, Dokja peeked out from under the blanket.

Yoo Joonghyuk: Where are you tomorrow.

Dokja blinked at the message. Then blinked again. He stared so long the screen dimmed.

“…Ah, shit.”

Chapter Text

“Are you serious?”

Joonghyuk’s scowl was answer enough.

Dokja grinned in disbelief, leaning back on the park bench they’d commandeered. “You’re telling me you’ve actually never seen Saving Private Ryan?”

Joonghyuk didn’t look at him. He was staring off somewhere toward the gray horizon, where the sky hung low and heavy, a mirror image of his mood. His jaw worked once, like he was chewing on the urge to throw Dokja into oncoming traffic.

“You’re unbelievable,” Dokja said. “What did you even watch as a kid? The loading screens between boss fights?”

“Shut up,” Joonghyuk said flatly, but it was so devoid of real malice that Dokja just grinned wider.

It was kind of addicting, honestly. Dokja rarely met people who showed their true emotions so plainly. Dokja himself was not a very public person, and it was… almost refreshing, to not have to think twice about what kind of reaction Joonghyuk was going to have. He already knew. 

Joonghyuk only had one default setting: contempt. 

“You have to see it,” Dokja said, tapping his phone screen to pull up the movie poster. “It’s a perfect mirror of your life.”

Joonghyuk’s head snapped toward him, eyes narrowing. “…What does that even mean?”

“It’s tragic. Gritty. Full of emotional repression. People die.” Dokja’s grin tilted. “Basically, your biography.”

Joonghyuk glared. A long, slow, withering stare. But his thumb moved—barely—and Dokja caught the faintest reflection of a search bar open on his phone.

“You’re looking it up,” Dokja said immediately, delighted. “You’re actually going to watch it.”

“I’m not,” Joonghyuk said.

“You so are.”

“I said I’m not.”

“Wow,” Dokja sighed dramatically. “This is how denial looks in real time.”

The glare deepened.

“Fine, fine,” Dokja raised his hands in mock surrender. “I’ll let you pretend you’re above culture.”

They sat there in comfortable silence for a few moments — comfortable in the sense that Joonghyuk radiated silent fury and Dokja found it oddly therapeutic. The park around them was quiet, the afternoon air cool and damp with the faint scent of rain. Few people walked by with coffees and scarves, the normal hum of the city moving around them.

Though the thought of willingly meeting up with Joonghyuk had made Dokja feel all shades of nausea and another feeling he couldn’t quite stick a name to, the outing hadn’t been half as terrible as he’d expected it to be. Though it had made Dokja suspicious of what could’ve possibly made Joonghyuk want to meet up with him again, those questions had been quickly answered by the gamer.

“Don’t tweet anything. And ignore that, it means nothing.”

Dokja had relaxed instantly. So that’s what this was about. “Ah, really? That’s too bad. I was just about to post that embarrassing picture I took of you last weekend. You know, the one where you’re eating the shrimp chips you totally denied.”

Joonghyuk’s scorching glare was answer enough.

From then on, the conversation had quickly delved into something almost… pleasant. Dokja had feared the conversation would be stagnant, and awkward — half from his own tense thoughts whenever Joonghyuk was involved, and half from Joonghyuk’s own stellar personality that summarized to two words maximum spoken per sentence. Surprisingly though, it flowed easy.

Between Joonghyuk’s fervent passion for videogames and Dokja’s obsession with books, they’d found an unexpected common ground: movies.

It started with Private Ryan, but soon Joonghyuk was arguing about pacing and realism, and Dokja—half amused, half genuinely surprised Joonghyuk had other things than just pixels in his brain—was actually listening. They debated over plots, endings, directors. At one point, Joonghyuk compared Interstellar to the mechanics of a game he’d played, and Dokja had nearly choked on his coffee from laughing so hard. It was… unexpected, to say the least.

By the time the rain started to fall, gentle and thin like static, they were still there—shoulders hunched, coffee cups long empty, arguing about which film adaptation of Dune was the least offensive.

Dokja hadn’t expected to enjoy it. Not really.

But neither had he expected Yoo Joonghyuk to be a film nerd of all things. Even if his opinion regarding which of the two Blade Runners was better was completely wrong. 

Dokja glanced at his watch. “Hey, it’s getting pretty late. Don’t you have a stream soon?”

Joonghyuk eyed him then, and Dokja forced himself to not move a single muscle. He could punch himself in the mouth. Great, even when I don’t have things making me suspicious, I do it myself. Good job. 

Joonghyuk’s eyes flicked to his own watch, before returning to Dokja’s with a glint in them. “...You know when my streams are?”

Dokja’s eyes widened, hands flying up. “What? No. No. You just—you mentioned it before! And, you know, it’s kind of hard to miss when everyone online won’t shut up about it.” He forced a laugh, too loud, too fast. “Seriously, you’d think Hitchcock came back from the dead. It’s annoying.”

Joonghyuk didn’t say anything. Just looked at him, that glint in his eye deepening like he was amused.

Dokja scowled, crossing his arms, heat creeping up his neck. “You’re insufferable.”

“Likewise,” Joonghyuk said, standing and brushing off his long, dark coat. “And you’re an idiot for thinking Tom Hanks is better than Matt Damon.”

Dokja gawked at him. “You’re joking.”

But Joonghyuk was already walking away, not even glancing back.

“By the way!” Dokja shouted after him. “That coat doesn’t make you look like you’re from The Matrix! It just makes you look like a serial killer!”

Joonghyuk lifted a hand in what might’ve been a wave—or a threat—but didn’t turn around. And Dokja, grinning despite himself, sat back against the bench, the rain starting to fall harder.

Sooyung’s apartment had completely transformed — gone were the crumpled wrappers, haphazardly thrown anime figurines, scattered makeup brushes, replaced instead by origami cranes garlands, white fairy lights and deep pink and purple ambient lighting.

The room was already filled with mingling, unknown faces— couples strewn on the wide, white couch, loud party-goers exchanged greetings. Dokja heard someone shout something, followed by multiple cheers in return. A glance showed Han Sooyung kissing Yoo Sangah’s cheek, loudly proclaiming her love. It would’ve been an embarrassing display for anyone else, but Sangah merely smiled, two pink spots high on her cheeks.

Kim Dokja held his meek, cheap champagne and giftbag close to his chest, eyeing the large crowd apprehensively. He could bet any and every single one of them possessed more wealth in their pinky finger than his entire life savings. 

He plastered himself as close to the wall as possible, and began painfully making his way towards the kitchen.  

“—and how could I not love her after she ratted me out to the teacher three days in a row,” Han Sooyung loudly said, waving her arm in a wide arc and knocking a random partygoer clean on the floor. She didn’t seem to notice, too caught up in her recollection of her and Sangah’s first meeting.

“It’s a wonder she gave you the time of day after that,” Kim Dokja piped up from his spot, grinning at Sooyung’s outraged expression.

Sooyung dramatically clutched her chest. “I always knew you were going to stab me in the back! I just didn’t expect it to happen so soon.” 

Dokja shook his head amusedly at her — she’d already had a lot to drink it seemed — before turning towards the woman of the hour. “Happy birthday, Sangah-ssi.”

Yoo Sangah smiled at him, before they subtly steered to a quieter corner of the kitchen, away from Sooyung’s loud storytelling. “I’m glad you could make it. Right on time, too.”

Dokja grinned. “I couldn’t very well miss your birthday, could I? Not unless you wanted me to reenact our first meeting as well, in which case I’m afraid I’d shock everybody with my stellar personality.”

Sangah laughed behind her hand, and looked in the bag Dokja’d brought. “Murakami?” her eyes twinkled. “You always know just what to get me. Thank you.”

Dokja grinned in return, shrugging. “I really enjoyed that one, and I think you will too.”

Yoo Sangah smiled again, before bowing her head. “It’s a really considerate gift. I’ll be sure to share my thoughts with you. I have to get back, but you can help yourself to any drinks.”

Dokja watched her rejoin the crowd, much to Han Sooyung’s pleasure, who began shouting off all of Yoo Sangah’s qualities she liked best, ranging from ‘jaw-droppingly stunning’ to ‘the best knitter she’d ever seen’.

He swiped a champagne flute off the counter, before reclaiming his spot leaning against the wall, where he could keep an eye on both the party and the small crowd surrounding the birthday girl. 

His eyes filtered through the crowd, cataloguing any familiar faces; he spotted Lee Jihye in front of the TV gripping a console like her life depended on it, accompanied by a shouting Kim Namwoon, who was dangling one hand in front of her eyes to distract her from the screen. Beside the wide window spanning the night Seoul skyline, Lee Seolwha was engaged in what seemed to be a far too intellectual conversation for the gathering. Dokja had to avert his eyes before he was blinded by her magnificence. In a corner of the room he spotted what seemed to be Lee Hyunsung, and he raised his hand in greeting before pausing. Lee Hyunsung had dodged in another room after a person Dokja hadn’t spotted, but could guess.

He coughed and quickly looked away.

His finger tapped a steady rhythm against his forearm as he continued his observation of the crowd, eyes lingering on any tall figure dressed in black.

Not for any reason in particular.

Completely by chance, Dokja’s eyes flicked to the door just as Yoo Joonghyuk ducked through the entrance. He was dressed in his signature color from head to toe, and wearing his signature scowl. The colorful lights threw harsh shadows across his face, making his features sharper and his eyes darker, as they scoured the crowded room. 

Dokja quickly looked away, pulse a notch higher — probably from the loud, reverbating bass emanating from the speakers — sipping his champagne.

Hah. He arrived after me! I should totally make fun of him for that.

A noticeable ripple went through the crowd as Joonghyuk began making his way towards the kitchen. It was the ripple of murmur that often accompanied an attractive person. From obvious check-outs to subtle glances, there were more than a fair share of eyes trained to Joonghyuk’s towering frame as the crowd parted from his way. 

It was a subtle effect, and Dokja could bet Joonghyuk never noticed, or rather, couldn’t care less about all the attention he received on a daily basis. 

Downing the rest of his glass, Dokja pushed away from his wall. Finally, he’d have at least a familiar face to talk to. He chuckled to himself at his own thoughts. Really. It was insane to think he was now relieved to see Joonghyuk, of all people.

He glanced up. And faltered for a moment.

Someone had sidled up next to Joonghyuk. A tall stranger, black bangs, sleek shirt, glittering smile. She leaned in, said something too close to his ear, laughed bright and loud. 

Dokja expected Joonghyuk’s usual scowl to deepen, for him to push her away, anything—

Joonghyuk’s head tilted slightly, listening. He nodded along to whatever she was saying, seemingly ignorant of the multiple furtive glances sent their way. 

Dokja paused.

Joonghyuk wasn’t pushing her away at all. The woman was closer than he’d been when that damning photo of the two of them running away from the fan mob had been taken. 

And what had Joonghyuk said when he’d mentioned it?

“Ignore that, it means nothing.”

Dokja felt like he was watching the scene from outside of his body. Though he willed himself to shrug it off, to laugh, he couldn’t move an inch. His heart beat unnaturally loudly in his ears. 

Was she a friend of his…? He didn’t think Joonghyuk allowed many people to get close to him — he’d assumed the ones he could consider his friends, or at least tolerate were his teammates. Maybe even Han Sooyung, although that was definitely still under question. 

Maybe even him.

An old, familiar but just as unpleasant feeling began to take root in the back of his mind.

Right.

Dokja swallowed, whirling around from the scene, grip tight on his empty glass and deep embarrassment trickling down his spine, like an old wound that had pricked open again.

So that’s how it is, huh? 

He raised his empty glass to his lips, realized too late nothing was in it, and swallowed hard anyway. Mentally, he berated himself for ever thinking he’d reached somewhat of a common ground with Joonghyuk. Maybe even reached a very, very fragile beginning of an acquaintanceship.

Whatever. Doesn’t matter. Not my problem. He can tilt his head at strangers all night if he wants. Not like I care. Not like I was waiting for him. Not like we’re friends.

The crowd laughed at something near the speakers, the noise washing over him in static.

Maybe I should leave early. Say I wasn’t feeling well. Go home, read a book, do literally anything other than—

But his feet refused to move.

Worse, his ego had taken a rather mortifying blow. He felt stupid, snubbed, and like a complete and utterly embarrassing fool. And there were very few things Dokja hated more than that. 

And it was Sangah’s birthday. He couldn’t do that to her.

Instead, he drifted toward the counter, the champagne fizzing angrily in his head, matching his inner turmoil perfectly. A group of strangers was already there, tossing jokes back and forth like ping-pong. He slipped into their orbit easily enough—he’d always been good at playing invisible until suddenly he wasn’t.

A well-placed quip, dry enough to sting. Laughter burst. Another comment, deliberately self-deprecating, just sharp enough to impress. Someone clapped his back. Another shoved a refilled glass into his hand.

He smiled, wide, too wide.

See? Normal. Perfectly normal. I can mingle if I want to. I can be charming. Like a functioning adult. Talking to people.

The girl next to him leaned in, brushing his shoulder, whispering something in his ear he didn’t quite catch. He laughed anyway, leaning back just enough to look casual, just enough to look like he was enjoying himself.

He sipped. He talked. He gestured bigger than usual. He laughed louder than usual. His words slanted sharper, cooler, funnier. The group was eating it up, and why wouldn’t they? He was magnetic when he wanted to be.

And still—

Before he could stop it, his eyes betrayed him, flicking sideways, across the crowd.

There.

Yoo Joonghyuk.

The bastard’s gaze was already on him. Heavy. Unmoving. Like the weight of a blade balanced at his throat. His scowl hadn’t shifted, but there was something underneath—something dark, simmering, unreadable. More of a frown than a scowl. Not that Dokja was going to analyze his minute expressions any longer.

What the hell was his problem?

Dokja’s grin faltered for half a second before snapping back in place, brighter, faker, teeth flashing. He raised a hand in a lazy mock-wave like he’d only just noticed Joonghyuk, before settling his attention firmly back on the girl.

Good. He’s watching. I mean—not that I care. I don’t. I’m just here. Existing. This has nothing to do with him. Absolutely nothing.

The music thumped harder, someone spilled beer on the floor —- much to Sooyung’s loud complaints — laughter echoed. Dokja threw in another line, let the crowd roar with him. But in the corner of his vision he could see Joonghyuk hadn’t moved. Still watching. Still burning holes through him.

Another laugh, another sip. He leaned in closer to the girl, close enough their hair brushed. It didn’t seem like the girl found him as embarrassing as Joonghyuk did.

He ignored the ugly, foreign twist in his stomach.

And that was when Joonghyuk moved.

Cutting through the crowd like he was made of smoke and knives, each step straight, deliberate, unyielding. He stopped in front of Dokja, towering over the group, dark eyes fixed on him alone, ignoring the various greetings sent his way from the others.

“What are you doing.”

It wasn’t a question so much as an accusation. Flat, low, quiet enough the others barely noticed—but Dokja heard every syllable. Felt them.

His familiar smirk came automatically, plastered on like a lifeline. “Oh, you’re here. Took you long enough. What does it look like? Socializing. People do it at parties. Crazy, right? You should try it sometime.”

Joonghyuk’s scowl deepened by a fraction. His dark eyes flicked the expanse of Dokja’s face searchingly, but Dokja maintained his painful smile perfectly in place. 

“...You’re being ridiculous.”

Dokja tilted his head, feigning ease even though his throat was bone-dry. “What do you mean? I’m just enjoying the party. You should grab a drink too, you look like you need it. And it’s rude to interrupt conversations, you know?” 

A pause. Silence stretched between them, taut as wire. Joonghyuk’s jaw ticked, eyes burning through him, unreadable and relentless.

Dokja forced a laugh, raised his glass, turned squarely back toward the group—like Joonghyuk wasn’t there, like the heat in his veins wasn’t threatening to boil over.

It’s fine. Perfectly fine. Let him scowl. Bastard. If I’m so embarrassing anyways.

Another laugh tore itself out of his throat, too loud, too sharp. The girl’s hand brushed his arm again, and he let it linger.

Joonghyuk’s dark eyes dipped to the movement, before returning to his expression. A pause, before Joonghyuk turned away. 

Dokja’s blood roared in his ears.

Dokja was acting like a dick, but he didn’t particularly care. Joonghyuk knew plenty about being a dick anyway.

The party was roaring now—music thumping, fairy lights casting halos over flushed cheeks and champagne glitter. People shouted, laughed, leaned against each other too close. But to Dokja, it was all background noise.

Every second, every heartbeat, he knew exactly where Joonghyuk was.

Across the room, his figure cut sharp against the soft blur of the party, black hoodie (was that the one he’d bought him back? No, that didn’t matter—) and even sharper scowl lit in shifting pink and violet. And worse—he wasn’t alone. Someone was talking to him, someone leaning in too close, and instead of storming off or shoving them aside like he usually did when people encroached on his personal space, Joonghyuk… stayed. He was listening. Even if his face was unreadable, he was letting them talk, letting another person stand in that space that should have been unbearable.

That would’ve raised more than enough questions, if the tabloids were to take a picture of them then, and post it with headlines like: ‘Supreme King Seen Tilting His Head at Beautiful Woman’, or ‘Yoo Joonghyuk Shares Words in Dark Corner With Mysterious Stranger’. 

Dokja downed half his glass, ignoring the burn.

Pathetic. What am I even doing. He doesn’t care what I do. I definitely don’t care what he does. Absolutely none of this matters. Not one bit.

He laughed too loud at something the girl next to him said anyway, threw his head back just enough to feel the champagne buzz in his temples. His hand brushed hers again, deliberate this time. When he tilted his glass toward her, their fingers touched.

Perhaps he wanted to prove something to Joonghyuk. Perhaps he wanted to prove something to himself. The original reason was lost somewhere along the way.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Joonghyuk glance. Just once. But enough.

His blood roared in his ears. Probably from the anger.

They circled each other without ever crossing the room—two gravitational pulls warping the entire party around them. Dokja leaned in close to one group, dropping lines that made them howl with laughter, all the while sneaking looks toward Joonghyuk. Joonghyuk, in turn, let someone press a hand against his arm, let another laugh at something he said (something?? Yoo Joonghyuk had jokes now??). He didn’t even need to do much — people gravitated around him like he was the sun, and all he had to do was let them keep on talking.

Every time their gazes met, it was like flint striking steel.

By the time Dokja was on his third glass, his smile was razor-thin. This is fine. This is fun. Totally fine. I’m just being social. Not doing this to prove anything. Nope.

He leaned in again, close enough to smell someone’s perfume, to let them whisper in his ear—only for his entire body to freeze when Joonghyuk finally cut back across the room.

He didn’t storm. He didn’t shove. He just walked, steady and deliberate, until he was standing right there, between Dokja and the stranger, his shadow swallowing the both of them.

“Move.”

The single word was enough to scatter the group, a ripple of discomfort sending them scurrying toward safer ground, each with a different, pitiful excuse. All except Dokja, who stood, glass in hand, blood fizzing with alcohol and adrenaline.

He arched a brow, smirk curling at the corner of his lips. “Bold of you to assume you can order people around here.”

Joonghyuk’s eyes bored into him, dark and searing. “What is wrong with you.”

Dokja tilted his glass, watching the bubbles rise. His voice came out smooth, lazy, practiced. “Depends on who you ask.”

Joonghyuk’s scowl deepened, but there was something else under it. Something hot, dangerous, crackling just beneath the surface. “You’re doing it on purpose.”

Maybe it was the alcohol swirling through his veins, or the steady anger and ugly curl of embarrassment he felt, but an unexpected shroud of confidence had enveloped him. Dokja let out a soft laugh, low in his throat, stepping just close enough that their shoulders almost touched. “Doing what?”

Joonghyuk watched him through narrowed eyes, the light painting his face in deep shadows save for the slight glint in his gaze. Like twin bullets, Dokja’s mind helpfully supplied. For a moment he said nothing. Then, ever so slowly, he took a step closer, until his chest was barely brushing against Dokja’s, and he had to crane his neck slightly to maintain eye contact.

A large hand engulfed his upper arm, before Dokja was roughly pulled. 

Due to both surprise and the copious amounts of alcohol swirling in his veins, Dokja stumbled after Joonghyuk. “Hey–! What the hell are you—”

“Shut up.”

Dokja tried to pull his arm back, but Joonghyuk’s grip was like a vice as he led them through the dancing crowd. The beat of the bass loudly reverberated against his own beating heart, and Dokja found his words caught somewhere in the back of his throat. Joonghyuk’s wide shoulders were set in a tense line, and Dokja shuddered to think exactly how strong he really was.

The door slammed shut behind them with a reverberating thud, sealing out the music and chatter of the party. The sudden quiet pressed against Dokja’s ears, too sharp, too suffocating. Joonghyuk’s hand was still wrapped around his arm, fingers digging in like steel.

“Let go,” Dokja snapped, jerking himself free. He staggered a step back, glaring, chest heaving. 

The man stood there, broad shoulders taut, expression unreadable save for the hard set of his jaw. “Why are you acting like this?”

“Like what?” Dokja asked, all feigned innocence, his voice just a little too sharp to be convincing.

“You’re angry.”

Dokja’s smile came quick, thin, a defense more than an expression. “You’ve got a vivid imagination. I should start charging rent if I live in your head this often.”

Joonghyuk’s eyes narrowed. “How much did you drink?”

That earned him a dry laugh. “Ah. Of course. I must be drunk. That’s the only possible explanation for me being… what, loud? Annoying?” He spread his arms, mock bowing. “Sorry about that. I’ll try harder not to exist next time.”

Joonghyuk’s brows furrowed. His confusion was genuine, frustratingly genuine, like he really had no idea what Dokja was talking about. “You’re not making sense.”

“And what do you care?” Dokja shot back, heat spiking in his voice despite his best efforts to keep it steady. “I thought you said I talked too much.”

Joonghyuk’s scowl faltered — just for a second — before snapping back in place. “That’s not what I said.”

“Isn’t it? Going on and on about me shutting up every time we talk,” Dokja’s laugh was softer this time, almost bitter. “It’s fine. I get it. I’ll make sure to stay out of your way, yeah? You see to your life and I’ll see to mine.”

Joonghyuk stared at him as though Dokja had grown two heads. Dokja offered a smile in response, nodding his head morosely, even as his throat was bone-dry. “Years of gaming does wonders for you, I can see that. The tabloids would have a field day. Well, best of luck to you with that. I should probably get back—”

Before he could even take a step, Joonghyuk’s large palm covered his mouth, physically stopping him from getting another word out. Outraged, Dokja tried to remove it, but it was no use. Joonghyuk was perhaps even stronger than he looked.

His eyes were so dark it rooted Dokja to the spot. “Stop acting weird,” Joonghyuk said, quieter this time, but no less firm. “I don’t get what this is, and I’m not going to guess. Just stop.”

Dokja blinked at him, eyes narrowed. Was he serious?

Joonghyuk seemed to misunderstand his silence for agreement. He slowly removed his hand, and that was all it took for Dokja to respond. “It’s my default. What, got a problem with it?”

Joonghyuk’s glare returned tenfold, and the hand that had previously obstructed Dokja’s mouth now firmly clenched his shirt’s neckline, pulling him close. “I said stop.”

Dokja gripped at Joonghyuk’s wrist with both hands, trying to pry him off. To no use — the bastard was immovable. He bared his teeth in the semblance of a smile. “Wow, now I’m really getting worried. Careful, Supreme King, if the fans enter the room now you might give them the wrong ideas.”

Joonghyuk seemed to consider his words for a moment, during which Dokja’s chest heaved. The adrenaline, embarrassment, anger and champagne from the entire night swirled around Dokja’s head. Joonghyuk’s closeness didn’t help, and Dokja was left feeling as if he might run out of breath.

After a moment of tense silence, something akin to realization dawned in Joonghyuk’s eyes. Dokja raised an eyebrow. 

Slowly, his grip on Dokja loosened, and Dokja immediately took the chance to slither away, plastering himself to the opposite wall instead. Joonghyuk’s entire countenance seemed to have… shifted. Towards—

Dokja eyed the sudden glint in his eye.

—amusement.

Dokja scowled. What could the bastard possibly be thinking about?

Joonghyuk’s silence stretched, heavy but not angry this time. He looked like he was trying to piece something together — like he’d just realized there was a puzzle he hadn’t known existed, and now couldn’t stop seeing the outline of it.

Dokja crossed his arms, still pressed against the wall, chin lifted. “What? You finally run out of things to threaten me with?”

Joonghyuk ignored that. His gaze flicked once over Dokja — the too-bright eyes, the forced grin, the tension sitting too squarely in his shoulders — before he said, quiet, “You were fine earlier.”

Dokja blinked. “Excuse me?”

“At the park,” Joonghyuk said simply, as if the connection was obvious. “You were fine.”

“Wow. What an observation. Should I frame that?”

Joonghyuk’s brows furrowed — that same small, unfamiliar crease that appeared when he was… thinking. “Then something changed.”

Dokja barked out a laugh. “What, did you just unlock empathy as a skill? Congratulations, that’s a huge level-up for you.”

Joonghyuk didn’t even react to the jab. He just kept watching him. Too closely. Too long. “Was it because of that woman?”

The question hit sharper than it should’ve. Dokja’s mouth opened, closed, then twisted into something easy and familiar: mocking. “You mean your new fan? No. Why would I care about that?”

Joonghyuk tilted his head slightly. “You clearly do.”

“I don’t,” Dokja said, voice clipped.

Joonghyuk took one slow step closer. “Then why are you angry?”

“I’m not angry.”

“Kim Dokja.”

“I said I’m not—” Dokja stopped, the words faltering on the tip of his tongue. The air between them was so thick he could barely breathe through it. Joonghyuk was close again, too close, eyes steady and burning and frustratingly earnest.

“I didn’t know,” Joonghyuk said finally, voice quieter now. “That you’d be waiting.”

That was all it took for the room to go still.

Dokja blinked, once. Twice. “…I wasn’t. And don’t say it like that, it freaks me out.”

“Right,” Joonghyuk said. But there was something in his tone — not teasing, not smug, just certain. “You were.”

Dokja scoffed weakly, looking away, his throat tight. “You’re ridiculous.”

““I’m not wrong,” Joonghyuk said, and that faint, infuriating smirk was back. Dokja wished he would go back to only communicating through scowls.

“Sure,” Dokja said dryly, forcing a chuckle that didn’t quite sound right. “You never are.”

Joonghyuk stared at him for another long moment before sighing through his nose — that quiet, resigned kind of sigh that was almost like an apology if you tilted it sideways and squinted your eyes really hard. “You’re exhausting.”

Dokja smiled faintly. “That’s me.”

A pause. The edges of the room felt softer now, the charged air cooling into something almost bearable. Joonghyuk’s eyes flicked toward the door. “Let’s go back.”

“What, so you can glare at everyone until they leave again?”

“Someone has to stop you from saying more stupid things.”

Dokja snorted, the corner of his mouth twitching despite himself. “You’re doing a terrible job so far.”

Joonghyuk started toward the door. “Then stop making it difficult.”

And somehow, that — that stupid, clipped line — pulled a real laugh out of Dokja. Quiet, breathless, shaking his head as he pushed off the wall to follow. “You know, for someone who tells me to shut up all the time, you talk a lot when you’re trying to fix things.”

Joonghyuk didn’t look back. “Shut up, Kim Dokja.”

Kim Dokja, as usual, didn’t shut up.