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How did he get into this?
No, seriously—why did he agree?
The last thing Kim Dokja remembered was sipping his lukewarm instant coffee in their safe zone, trying to relax for the first time in what felt like weeks, when Yoo Joonghyuk marched in like a man with a vendetta.
“Change.”
“Huh?” Kim Dokja blinked, lowering his mug suspiciously. “Change what?”
“Into your demon form.”
“…Why?”
Yoo Joonghyuk didn’t blink. “Just change.”
Kim Dokja squinted, skeptical. “That’s not ominous at all.”
Yoo Joonghyuk crossed his arms, exuding that same no-nonsense energy he always did when he thought he was right about something. “I’ll preen your wings.”
“…OK.”
And that was his fatal mistake.
Now, fifteen minutes later, Kim Dokja sat on a floor cushion in his demon form, hugging his knees with both horns poking out from his disheveled hair. He felt weirdly exposed, not because of the wings—he’d gotten used to those—but because Yoo Joonghyuk was behind him… touching them.
“Just relax,” Yoo Joonghyuk muttered, like he’d been planning this for days.
“You don’t even know what you’re doing,” Dokja grumbled, wings instinctively twitching as his fingers ran through the first set of black feathers.
“I do.”
“You really don’t.”
“Be quiet.”
But Kim Dokja had to admit… it did feel kind of nice.
Despite his mouth saying one thing, his traitorous body was already slumping forward, eyes fluttering with the threat of shutting. Each careful stroke through his wings made his thoughts blur and his eyes droop.
Yoo Joonghyuk preened with surprising gentleness—deliberate, even—as if he knew exactly how to detangle without tugging. Not a single feather was bent out of place.
“...Purr.”
Kim Dokja’s eyes flew open.
No.
No no no.
He clapped his hands over his mouth, but the noise slipped out again. A rumbling, low vibration in his throat that betrayed every attempt at dignity.
Purr..
“...He’s purring again,” Yoo Joonghyuk said in that flat, deadpan voice, but he didn’t stop preening.
Kim Dokja let out a strangled noise and half turned around, scandalized. “I don’t purr! That’s a bug in the transformation trait!”
“You purred yesterday when I accidentally brushed past your wings too.”
“I WAS HALF-ASLEEP—”
“You purred.”
Kim Dokja flushed all the way to the tips of his ears. The soft hum in his chest wouldn’t stop, and Yoo Joonghyuk had the audacity to look smug about it—smug in that stoic, unreadable way that Kim Dokja knew meant he was enjoying this.
Kim Dokja let out a dramatic sigh and flopped forward, wings sagging. “You’re taking advantage of me in my weakest form.”
“You’re purring,” Yoo Joonghyuk repeated.
“That’s not a reason!”
Yoo Joonghyuk paused. Then, as if that single pause had the weight of several regressions’ worth of meaning, he added:
“It is to me.”
Kim Dokja blinked.
The brush of fingers continued moving.
A long silence passed, punctuated only by the purring and the occasional soft stroke through his wings. He should’ve protested. Should’ve said something clever, something cutting, something distinctly Kim Dokja.
But instead… he let the silence sit.
Because, honestly?
It was nice.
And if he purred a little louder?
Well.
He blamed the trait.
At one point, The channel suddenly started broadcasting randomly (He blamed Joonghyuk.) and Kim Dokja didn’t notice until the pings of indirect messages flooded into the nearly silent room.
[Constellation ‘Demon-Like Judge of Fire’ has joined.]
[Constellation ‘Demon-Like Judge of Fire’ is staring at her screen in disbelief.]
[Constellation ‘Demon-Like Judge of Fire’ is jumping up and down from her seat.]
[Constellation ‘Demon-Like Judge of Fire’ has sponsored 1,000,000 coins to Yoo Joonghyuk.]
Damnit. That damn sunfish, he did it for Uriel’s money.
… It was hard to admit that the sunfish’s preening wasn’t half that bad.