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Yoo Joonghyuk. 33 years old. Unemployed. Former terrorist. Former Regressor. The Supreme King. Father. Brother. Husband. Companion.
The list could go on forever.
Yoo Joonghyuk is 33 years old when he realizes that now that he’s reached his end, he never planned for the after. He’s running through this sitting beside Kim Dokja’s hospital bed, staring at him as he reads some massive book Han Sooyoung forced into his hands.
“What?” Kim Dokja asks, not looking up from his novel. “Do I have something on my face?”
“No.” He doesn't waste more words.
“So what?”
“It doesn’t concern you.” he gruffly replies, hand tightening on the knife he’s holding. “Continue what you’re doing, fool.”
Kim Dokja looked up at him, and Yoo Joonghyuk tried to find it in himself to hide his exhaustion. He doesn’t. Instead he looked back down at the apple he was supposed to be cutting for them.
He’d woken up a month before. Yoo Joonghyuk had been happy for the first time in a long time; he’d completed his purpose. He’d lived all 1,865 lifetimes and found his sponsor. It ended up being his idiot companion.
He wouldn’t admit just how broken he’d been after the last round, not when everyone but Kim Dokja knew already.
But what now? After all the bloodshed was over, who was Yoo Joonghyuk?
He cut the apple with expert moves, his face never betraying him. He doesn’t have the luxury to worry about himself, not when he knows Kim Dokja’s traitorous mind. He would blame himself.
“Do you ever wish we were back in the Scenarios?” A certain squid’s voice cut through his thoughts.
His gaze flickered up to a pensive looking Dokja, the book in his lap finally closed. He tutted slightly and finished slicing.
“No.” It wasn’t a lie. As much as he was drifting, waking up on that train again sounded like a personal hell. He placed the plate in front of Dokja, stealing a piece for himself when a disturbing thought popped into his mind. “Do you?”
Dokja was silent for a long time, looking down at his hands. Yoo Joonghyuk busied himself with cleaning up the mess he made, focusing on each of his actions. It made it easier for his mind to stay on track.
“No,” Dokja finally said. “I just miss the strength that came with them.”
Joonghyuk hummed, ignoring the nervous peek Dokja threw his way. Being in that coma had taken a toll on the constellation, both mentally and physically, but he was recovering. The man’s stature even seemed to shrink though, his face sunken in the first week he’d been awake.
Through Joonghyuk’s and the others' care however, they’d managed to make him at least a little healthier, even if they had to fight Dokja tooth and nail on some things.
“I understand what you mean,” he replied after a moment. It’s hard to watch the world go back to normal when their own lives seem out of loop. Both of them were not the men they started out as. He didn’t need to explain it to the bedridden star, who constantly looked out the window as if wishing for something.
Yoo Joonghyuk knew he wished for the past. He couldn’t bring himself to be angry about it like he used to.
⊹₊⟡⋆
On Kim Dokja’s first day out of the hospital, nearly a month later, the entire company decided to go out to eat. All Joonghyuk had wanted to do was go home and prepare the house for Kim Dokja’s arrival, but Yoo Sangah grabbed his wrist before he could step away. Her menacingly sweet smile only brightened when she asked where he was going.
Now, he found himself sitting in a crowded hotpot booth, with Lee Jihye on one side and Lee Hyunsung on the other, both of them reaching over him to grab things from the pot. It had been the compromise: if he had to go out, it would be somewhere he could cook.
He’d prepared the pot and placed the meat in before lounging back and just watching. He wasn’t hungry, which happened a lot these days, so he took the few bites he was required to avoid suspicion.
Kim Dokja sat between the kids, both bickering with each other as he talked with Jung Heewon. He paid little attention to his sides, laughing at the outlandish story being told. Yoo Mia stuck a little closer to him as well, unusual but understandable. It was nice to see him outside of the stark hospital room. For everyone to sit together in a small restaurant, weapons out of the way and too squished together to do any real good, was jilting for Yoo Joonghyuk. So many regressions spent always being on edge to suddenly being able to do whatever he pleased. He almost missed the sword tied to his belt.
The food cleared in a record amount of time, the company never ones to take their time eating, and dissolved into needless chatter. They’d been sitting there for nearly three hours, and Yoo Joonghyuk couldn’t pretend he was listening anymore. There was only so much time he could be out. After space and Kim Dokja’s awakening, he found himself growing fatigued more often. He didn’t fight it. This is what he wanted— to find his sponsor and live a normal life. He did so.
Another half hour after his first initial thoughts of going home, Kim Dokja met his gaze and raised a brow, a devious smile tugging on his lips. ‘What? You’re already tired, Hyuk-ah?’ His gaze seemed to say. ‘It’s barely eight o’clock you old man.’
‘As if you’re not older than me.’ Joonghyuk thought back, glaring at him. Kim Dokja laughed and Joonghyuk considered strangling him. Especially since Joonghyuk could see how equally tired he was.
Kim Dokja turned away and laughed at something someone said. Joonghyuk rolled his eyes with a huff and turned to Jung Heewon and listened to whatever she was saying. Something about her day at work. It was painfully normal and as much as he tried, Joonghyuk could not bring himself to care.
It wasn’t until an hour later that everyone decided it was time to separate, someone other than him noticing that Kim Dokja was practically falling asleep in his chair. They walked home side by side, neither of them saying anything in the darkness. Nothing mattered.
He showed Dokja to his room, watched as the man collapsed into the bed without changing, and left to his own room. He wouldn’t chastise the other man today, not when Yoo Joonghuk himself wanted to collapse into bed.
Joonghyuk showered and changed and was in bed within the hour. He didn’t get up until nearly an hour after he normally would.
⊹₊⟡⋆
With his title as a terrorist, no one wanted to hire him. Not the grocery store or the restaurant across the street. Definitely not the bank or a government building… there was only so long their funds would last.
It took him a month to find a job in a shotty convenience store, the pc set-up he’d been gifted upon his return from space didn’t help. He couldn’t stream again, not yet, so he took the job. He stood behind the counter for eight hours. Three days in a row. He wanted to kill everyone who came— either they openly gawked at him, or condemned him for being a terrorist, or some people left the store completely at a mere glimpse of him.
The people loved Dokja and his companions, but no one saved any of that love for Joonghyuk. He didn’t care. He didn’t need public approval. His boss took him to the side at the end of that third shift and fired him. So be it. Maybe Kim Dokja had better luck at the office job he’d held for about a week.
He didn’t. He came home to find Kim Dokja still in bed from that morning. He got fired too. …So they both failed at the simple act of living in the normal world. They’d have to live on what they had. He wasn’t hungry much anyway.
⊹₊⟡⋆
Yoo Joonghyuk’s entire body ached. Every breath sent shards of glass through his lungs, his skin an unnatural hue of purples and blues. Blood still pulsed languidly out of a wound on his forehead, one eye covered in the crimson. His hands were chained above his head. His head was bent forward, lacking any real strength to keep him upright instead of like a slumped puppet.
Asmodeus laughed above him, holding Lee Jihye’s head in his hands. He’d taken the form of a young boy this round, and it was almost a comical sight. Lee Jihye whimpered in the Demon King’s hold, her entire body trembling with exhaustion.
They both knew how this would end.
His other companions bodies laid to the side of the room from the previous days of torture. Joonghyuk made himself look up, glaring at the evil king before him. If only he’d been faster, if only he hadn’t made the mistake of making him an enemy again this round. Curse the divine good for putting him on a path to destruction.
“So, Supreme King,” Asmodeus purred, his fingers stretching Jihye’s features. Her skin was also littered in cuts and bruises, her sword long broken. “Was it worth it to pursue me?”
“Stop this,” Joonghyuk rasped, no longer caring as long as one of his companions made it. Just one. “I led her here. Leave her be.”
“This is a lesson for the future,” Asmodeus said, ignoring him completely. “Attack me again in a future regression, and I will make sure it hurts more next time.”
Jihye’s brows furrowed. Right, he hadn’t had the chance to tell them yet.
“I will kill you,” Joonghyuk growled, pulling on the chains despite the pain lancing his body. Asmodeus tutted, his hands tightening on Jihye’s neck, and Joonghyuk knew what was happening. Knew he was helpless.
“Master—” Jihye started, her eyes widening.
She never finished. An audible crack filling the room. And her tone— her fear seeped into the marrow of his bones. It echoed in his head like an unending chorus.
Yoo Joonghyuk shot up, his hand shooting to the side of his bed. He only grasped at air, his sword no longer kept at his side lest he accidentally kill someone. His heart raced, his shoulders rising and falling in an unsteady rhythm.
It was just a dream. He was no longer in that regression, and Lee Jihye was in her dorm at university. They were all alive.
Yoo Joonghyuk kicked off the sheets, stumbling out of bed to grab his phone plugged on the other side of the room. He flicked open her contact, thumb hovering over it, and cursed himself. He was not one to let his emotions get the better of him.
Making himself take deep breaths, he put the phone down and shut his eyes. After he counted to ten a few times, he padded to the door and inched it open. Surely seeing Dokja breathing and asleep would warm the ice water in his veins and remind him he was out of that temporal prison.
It was nearly five in the morning, earlier than he’s started to wake up recently, and Yoo Joonghyuk knew he wouldn’t be able to fall back asleep. Dokja’s room was quiet, and he half expected him to still be up reading— something he didn’t think Yoo Joonghyuk knew about— but his phone was laid next to his head. The reader himself was passed out, mouth wide open and looking like a corpse. Dokja groaned before shifting, sighing as he turned.
Alive. He was alive. So everyone else had to be too.
The crack of Lee Jihye’s neck still echoed in his mind.
⊹₊⟡⋆
There were some days when Yoo Joonghyuk knew Dokja got wrapped up in his own mind. These were the days Kim Dokja floated around the apartment like a ghost. He went from one room to the other, staring at the pictures on the wall as if he couldn’t believe he had been the ones in them. He turned his phone on and off, a webnovel open and unread.
On these days, Yoo Joonghyuk stayed distant, seeing Dokja like that only reminding him of his own numbness. The scenarios were over, so why did it feel like they would start again at any moment? Why did it feel like one morning he’d wake up on that train?
They both had no real monsters to fight other than their own.
There was no blue box to tell them how to beat it. No reward for figuring it out. Only unending anguish. Yoo Joonghyuk spends those days in the backyard with his sword. He knew repetition. Form and discipline was the only way he could quiet his mind, the focus needed unwavering.
There were only so many times he could use this method before it lost its edge.
⊹₊⟡⋆
Yoo Joonghyuk sat on the pale yellow couch of his parole officer’s office, the green walls and blue rug meant to ease her clients. It made Yoo Joonghyuk more tense.
“So it’s been a few weeks since I last saw you,” the older woman said, pushing her glasses up her pale nose. “How have you been?”
“Fine.”
She sighed, scratching her graying hair and giving him an exasperated look. “We discussed the last time you needed to speak so I can add to your report, Yoo Joonghyuk-ssi.”
Yoo Joonghyuk clicked his tongue and looked away, his nails digging into the plush of the couch below him. “I’ve been fine,” he repeated slowly, glaring at the wall. “I live with my companion and that’s all.”
“That’s certainly better than drifting from place to place,” she replied, scribbling something down on her clipboard. “It’s important to have a structured home environment so you can stay healthy and safe.”
He let out a grunt, meeting her gaze again. “I’m not going to break into anything.”
“I believe you,” she nodded sincerely, “but it's not me you need to convince. The world, the government, the court, they’re the ones who need to believe you. It would help if you spoke more.”
What did she want him to say? That he was drowning on dreams of the past? That the only reason he was still in that house was because he refused to leave Kim Dokja alone again?
“I understand,” he ground out. It should be time to leave soon…
“I know you don’t want to be here, but we can’t stop until I can clear you.”
“I know.”
She pursed her lips slightly and put the clipboard down. She stared at him. He glared back.
“Let’s start fresh next time, yeah?”
He shrugged, stood, and walked the entire way home. Dokja asked how it went, a stupid grin on his face. He didn’t reply, just sitting on the couch, looking at nothing.
⊹₊⟡⋆
At first he tried not to be obvious about relying on the couch instead of training. He’d only sit there early mornings when Dokja thought he was outside training or after he woke up from another blood soaked dream. Sitting on the couch didn’t clear his mind, but it helped isolate it. It was as if the couch was an island in the middle of the sea, and everything else was gone.
Kim Dokja sat next to him some days, doing better by the day thanks to the companion’s—not his-– hard work. There was some residual blame on himself, but whenever he seemed to feel himself sinking into it, he’d seek Yoo Joonghyuk out and blabber about it until he felt better.
It was as if their psyche’s had reversed. Yoo Joonghyuk no longer tried to keep moving forward, not as he watched Kim Dokja soared further and further away.
It didn’t bother him, Yoo Joonghyuk convinced himself. He was happy to see Kim Dokja finally facing himself and his issues. It may have taken him an apocalypse and twenty one thousand years, but he made it.
No, Joonghyuk was happy for Dokja. That’s what he told himself as he lied down in bed that night. He didn’t register falling asleep, only opening his eyes in the murky black recesses of his mind.
Another horror tonight then.
He didn’t know what regression this took place in. There had been countless where he watched Seoul burn. It must have been a later one though because the blood on his blade was not from an enemy.
“You bastard,” Kim Namwoon spat, sitting above Jihye’s dead body. His hands flickered with dark fire, unable to stay alit fully.
He must have not allowed them to be his companions this round.
“This is for your own good,” Yoo Joonghyuk said, his voice devoid of any emotion.
“Just who the hell do you think you are!?” The teen yelled, trying to get to his feet and failing. Yoo Joonghyuk saw the bone sticking out of his leg, pushing it into an unnatural angle.
If this was a round he hadn’t brought them together, then it might have been the two teens on their own. No soldier or doctor to protect them. Just a regressor who has decided to damn them instead.
Yoo Joonghyuk was not a man of many words. He did not say anything before bringing his sword down. Kim Namwoon blocked the first blow with Jihye’s sword, the reverberation tingling up Joonghyuk’s arm.
The blade glowed brightly with Namwoon’s flames, but if Jihye was not talented enough to hold him off, then neither would Namwoon be.
Blood soaked his white hair, turning it crimson. It oozed out of gash on the side of his head, extending down all the way to his throat. There was no saving him, and Namwoon seemed to know this despite continuing to fight. His flames doused though, and before long he couldn’t keep himself up, falling back next to Jihye. Joonghyuk watched the light leave his eyes with a heavy heart.
Then, his sword was pressed against his own neck, and—-
Once again, Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes flew open. He no longer reached for the sword, knowing they were just dreams. He didn’t get up to see if Dokja was breathing, not if he didn’t want to see a sword sticking through his chest. He’d killed him before too.
No, Yoo Joonghyuk just made his way to the couch and sat.
⊹₊⟡⋆
Yoo Joonghyuk woke up from these terrors every night. It didn’t take long before he was sick of it. His solution? Stay awake. He’d keep himself busy and out of anyone’s radar.
He cleaned the house ten times over. He cooked more than enough food for the two of them, even if he didn’t eat much of it. He even started reading and watching tv, which he used to only do when someone forced him to sit with them. Kim Dokja walked into the living room, saw him on his normal spot on the couch with a book in his hands, and burst out laughing.
“What made you start that?” he laughed, a cheeky smile on his face.
“Trying something new,” Joonghyuk grunted out.
He went outside to ‘train,’ instead going on long walks around the neighborhood. He visited his little sister and took her to the arcade. She beat him in every game, puffing the whole time that he was letting her. He couldn’t bring himself to tell her he was out of practice.
Yoo Joonghyuk didn’t know how many days he went without sleep. They began to blend into a blurry stream of life. He did what he was supposed to, put up the mask in front of the recovering Dokja, and went into his room until the house was asleep. If the other man noticed the circles growing under his eyes and the overall sunken face, he didn’t say anything. It didn’t matter.
After the first few days, it became harder. He would lose his temper, forget things, or be too slow. He sat on the couch, mindlessly watching a movie Dokja had thrown on before running to the other room to get popcorn. His head lolled to the side once, twice, and his eyes fluttered closed. Blood filled his nostrils, the ring of a sword echoing…
He opened them again, and Dokja was standing above him. “When’s the last time you slept?” he asked, brows furrowed in concern.
Yoo Joonghyuk shrugged. He’d long lost track.
“Maybe we shouldn’t watch the movie tonight then,” he mused, grabbing Yoo Joonghyuk’s arm to pull him. He didn’t fight it. “Get a good night’s sleep and we’ll try again tomorrow night, okay?”
Kim Dokja didn’t allow Yoo Joonghyuk to pull away, leading him to his room and putting the protagonist to bed himself. Yoo Joonghyuk’s mind was too mushy to process any of it.
“You’ll feel better after a good night’s sleep.”
He didn’t.
Black wings sprung out of his companion’s back, black horns that curled up and up and up protruding from his forehead. His normally gray eyes were red, his entire stature bigger. Their swords clashed, laughter emerging from the now Demon King. All Yoo Joonghyuk felt was pain. Pain in his heart, his lungs, his brain. He was going to kill Dokja.
The other man slowed down, giving him the second he needed to end the blow.
“It was really a great story, wasn’t it Yoo Joonghyuk?” he breathed, falling into his arms. Blood pooled around them.
[Kim Dokja’s fate has been realized].
“Let’s meet again."
And then Yoo Joonghyuk was screaming as his companion turned into dust in his arms. He was screaming as his entire frame of mind fell apart. He killed Dokja. He knew it. Dokja knew it. His companions knew it. The whole world knew it.
Yoo Joonghyuk was on his feet and out of the room before he could understand what he was going to do. It wasn’t very late, and Kim Dokja was scrolling on his phone aimlessly. He looked up when his door flung open, frowning at Yoo Joonghyuk.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, putting the phone down.
Yoo Joonghyuk did not answer as he strode towards him and put a hand around his neck. He killed him. He ki—
“What’s wrong Hyuk-ah.” the fool didn’t even move to get out of his hold. As if he couldn’t break his neck with a mere thought.
“I killed you,” he croaked.
“That was in the past,” the man stammered after a moment. “You had to.”
The conviction in his voice made Yoo Joonghyuk falter. He let go of him, stumbling back a step. Kim Dokja sat up and reached for him, but Yoo Joonghyuk was out of the room before he could say anything.
⊹₊⟡⋆
It only got worse. Now that Kim Dokja was aware Yoo Joonghyuk wasn’t in his right mind, he found reasons to stick to him all day. He didn’t try to convince him he was okay through his words. The other man wouldn’t believe it, and frankly neither did Yoo Joonghyuk. In the past, whenever Kim Dokja annoyed him with his presence, he would snarl and snap until he retreated. No matter how much he pushed him away, Kim Dokja kept coming back.
Yoo Joonghyuk figured since Kim Dokja knew he would stop pretending. The food he’d made hoards of stayed uneaten. Since Yoo Joonghyuk didn’t eat, neither did Kim Dokja—the stubborn man. He stopped going out on his walks. He didn’t leave the house unless needed. Kim Dokja was the one running the show, cleaning everything and trying to make it seem like their home wasn’t crumbling when someone visited.
He began spending his days on the couch again. Movies were turned on for him. He didn’t remember a single one. Regressions replayed in his mind instead. Deaths of his loved ones living in his memory. It didn’t matter that they were here in this regression because he’d damned all the other ones.
“Joonghyuk-ah?” Kim Dokja whispered from beside him on the couch. He was watching some show based on a book he read.
“Hmm.”
“What can I do to help you?” he asked. “Please, I—it hurts.”
His stomach dropped at that. Yoo Joonghyuk tried to reign himself back in. He swallowed, blinking a few times. His entire body shook.
“Do you regret it?” Joonghyuk questioned, turning to face him. Dokja’s face swam before his vision. “Do you regret making me your protagonist? Is this the ending you imagined for us?”
His voice was gravely from disuse. He’d said more words than he had in days.
“No.” Dokja shook his head, his features blurring like they did in the scenarios. “I just wish you were here with me again.”
His heart cracked. He didn’t respond. Not as his mind receded again. He’d failed yet another companion. There was supposed to be nothing left to fight— Yoo Joonghyuk couldn’t help but look for one.
⊹₊⟡⋆
Yoo Joonghyuk drifted from his room to downstairs. Voices filtered from the kitchen, so he stopped before the door.
“I don’t know what to do,” Dokja’s voice cracked. “I don’t know how to help him.”
“The only person who can help someone like Joonghyuk is himself,” Han Sooyoung’s voice crackled from the speakerphone.
“You said the same thing about me,” Dokja snapped, his footsteps thumping as he paced. Yoo Joonghyuk stood as still as a statue.
“Yeah,” she snapped right back, “and you were doing better until that night.”
That night. The night he thundered into Dokja’s room. Joonghyuk was the one who ruined him. He clenched his teeth hard enough to hurt.
“Sooyoung. It doesn’t matter! He brought me back and he’s not happy. He did so much and—”
“You listen to me, you bastard!” Sooyoung interrupted. “What he did was his choice. He doesn’t regret it—I know that much. So don’t you dare try to blame yourself. Listen to me, Dokja. You focus on yourself. Regression depression doesn’t last forever.”
“No, but it ruins his mind.”
“He is not a character. It won’t work the same way.”
“I still know him.”
The both of them went silent, charged energy in the air. Yoo Joonghyuk held his breath and waited. No one said anything for a long time.
“Just… try not to sink back down, okay?” Sooyoung’s voice was small. “I can’t have both of you feeding off each other's negative energy.”
Dokja didn’t say anything. Sooyoung hung up. Joonghyuk crept upstairs to the bathroom.
He washed his face with cold water, staring at his reflection. It had been a long time since he’d done so. All of his features looked gaunt, any life sucked out. His hair was limp and greasy. The muscle he used to have was gone, left behind with nothing other than skeletal features. He didn’t look like himself. Didn’t feel like it.
He turned off the light and washed his face again as if that would fix it.
⊹₊⟡⋆
Joonghyuk passed out that night. And awoke to salty tears on his cheeks. This time he barely remembered the dream—something about the phone call he’d heard the week before, he reckoned. Not as bad as usual.
Kim Dokja stood at his door with wide eyes. The clock on Yoo Joonghyuk's bedside read three.
“What was it about?”
“What?” he rasped, sitting up.
Kim Dokja swallowed and took a step forward. “The nightmare.”
Yoo Joonghyuk wanted to shrug him off, but his mouth betrayed him. “I don’t know. It’s different every time.”
Dokja made his way to his protagonist when he hadn't been immediately kicked out. Joonghyuk didn’t move as he sat beside him, looking at his hands.
“I have nightmares too. Mostly about being left behind… a byproduct of the train,” the man admitted. It was so unlike him. Maybe he really was getting better like Han Sooyoung said. He took a deep breath and faced Yoo Joonghyuk. “Is that why you sleep less now? Nightmares?”
He nodded slowly.
“You know what helped when I was in the hospital?” Kim Dokja continued, clenching his fists on his lap. Kim Dokja squared his shoulders, taking a deep breath. He didn’t talk about the few months he spent recuperating after. “I would wake up and someone would be there… it reminded me that I was back.”
Yoo Joonghyuk didn’t understand what he was getting at, but Kim Dokja forged ahead.
“What if we slept in the same bed?” he suggested, his cheeks going pink. “When I wake up I’ll know I’m not alone. And when you wake up you’ll see I’m still alive—that everyone is still alive.”
He didn’t think it would work, but… But Yoo Joonghyuk was so so tired. He disappointed Dokja enough, so he nodded.
He was in Dokja’s bed that very evening.
⊹₊⟡⋆
It didn’t help.
He didn’t tell Dokja.
No, he just laid there, listening to his breaths.
Counting the days until he could sleep.
Until he could go back to the way he used to be.
If he could.
He hoped he could.
But first he needed to sleep.
⊹₊⟡⋆
Sleep didn’t come, but he stayed in Dokja’s bed. Dokja must have known he was still not sleeping. He didn’t say anything.
“I’m taking a shower,” he announced one night before he was to lie down.
Dokja nodded from where he was already half asleep in the bed. “I’ll be waiting.”
He took a short shower and brushed his teeth mechanically. He was putting the toothbrush back when he spotted it. A bottle of sleeping pills. Kim Dokja’s name was on them, but it was still full. Yoo Joonghyuk vaguely recalled Kim Dokja not being able to sleep the first few weeks after they moved in together. He didn’t know he’d been prescribed meds he didn’t take.
He grabbed the bottle, and popped it open, looking at the little disks of salvation.
Maybe just two would help him sleep. Just this once, he’d cheat. He just wanted to sleep. Then everything might get better.
Two didn’t do it. He stood there for another twenty minutes waiting for them to kick in. He popped in another two, biting on the bitter medicine. Then another two and another and…
⊹₊⟡⋆
Joonghyuk's head was heavy when he came to. Someone shouted above him, their form still blurry in his vision. The bottle of pills was still in his hand, and he wished whoever was standing there hadn't woken him up. It had been the first real sleep he'd gotten in months.
"Yoo Joonghyuk you bastard!" that distinct voice yelled. "Wake up! Just wake up!"
He opened his mouth to respond, his head lolling slightly. The fingers on his collar shaking him were foreign, though he'd recognize them anywhere. Kim Dokja had reversed their roles. Or maybe he had.
"I'm fine," he managed to slur, the figure in front of him finally becoming crystal clear.
Yoo Joonghyuk hadn't seen Kim Dokja look so distraught in a long time. Crystalline tears lined his cheeks, his eyes wide and shaking. Dokja's teeth were clenched, his hair in disarray as if he'd rolled out of bed at the realization Yoo Joonghyuk had never left the bathroom after his shower.
"Get up!" Kim Dokja snapped, punching his shoulder. "We need to go to the hospital! How many of those did you take!?"
All Joonghyuk wanted to do was go back into the depths of sleep where no companions screamed at him as they succumbed to the scenarios. No one died. And he didn't have to live through yet another regression again.
Dokja pulled Joonghyuk's arm, and a distant part of his brain made him help the other man. He didn't need Dokja catching a heart attack trying to get him on his feet. They stumbled downstairs together. His thoughts were blurry, and the bottle was still in his hand. It was much lighter than he remembered it being.
Yoo Joonghyuk had wanted to make it to bed before sleeping; there was an unwanted crick in his neck, and his head was pounding.
They stood outside their building, the only light coming from a street lamp. Dokja was on his phone shouting something into the receiver. He hadn’t even registered him leaving his side. Joonghyuk’s knees buckled, and the next moment he’d fallen onto his ass.
Dokja was back at his side in a second, pulling him up and cursing.
He blinked, and a familiar sports car swerved up to the curve.
Another blink, and the city was speeding past him. Kim Dokja was saying something to Han Sooyoung from where he sat beside him. They both sounded hysterical.
Yoo Joonghyuk’s head fell to the side again. He shut his eyes— a hand slapped him. He shot up. Kim Dokja was demanding he not sleep. He didn’t want to listen.
Another blink, and he was being pulled out of the car and into a sterile white building. People in coats surrounded him in a second. He was being pushed somewhere and his eyes drifted shut again.
Another blink, and something was being sprayed in his mouth. A tube was inserted next. Yoo Joonghyuk tried to fight the people shoving something down his throat. Someone grabbed his hand, their voice wavering. It was so strikingly familiar that Yoo Joonghyuk stilled.
Pump. Pump. Pump.
They finally let him sleep.
⊹₊⟡⋆
This time when he wakes up, his mind is still. Utterly still.
He looked around the room at the unfamiliarness of it. He was in the hospital. Familiar voices argued outside his door. Each one known to him.
“So you two have been sleeping together, so he could sleep?" a righteous judge asked doubtfully.
“I thought it was working!” another moaned.
“How many did he take?” the incarnation of Olympus said.
“I don’t know!” the constellation burst. “I don’t remember how many I’ve taken.”
“It isn’t your fault,” a shield assured. “We should have noticed sooner.”
Silence, then. “He wasn’t trying to kill himself,” a writer said. “He wanted to sleep. He took sleeping pills.”
Yoo Joonghyuk tuned them out; they were talking too fast for him to handle. His mind was clearer than it had been in months. He might have taken the wrong approach, but he couldn’t complain about that.
Someone shoved the door open. The company saw him. He saw them.
“How are you feeling?” his old pupil asked.
He didn’t answer, his gaze stuck on the reader. He didn’t think he’d ever seen him so angry. The man strode towards him, each step like a thunderstorm. “You idiot!” he hissed, balling his fists. “What were you thinking!?”
“Dokja—” someone said before being stopped.
“I wanted to sleep.” Yoo Joonghyuk stated simply. They’d already figured that out, hadn’t they?
“You put me through hell!” Kim Dokja yelled. Everyone, including Yoo Joonghyuk, flinched. “I thought you were going to die!”
“You can’t be angry.” Yoo Joonghyuk snapped, finally able to think clearly after what seemed like a lifetime of static. “I wasn’t trying to die, unlike you. You’ve left us behind more times than I can count. You have no right to be upset with me.”
He vomited these words, each one hot and charged with an unknown bitterness. Kim Dokja’s face went crimson. The company watched them, but Yoo Joonghyuk saw nothing but him.
“I have every right,” he spat back, the soft hearted star shaking. “You’re the one who forced me to come back from the train! If I hadn’t found you, you would have died and left me alone.” Yoo Joonghyuk went to interrupt him, but Dokja flung a hand up. “No, Yoo Joonghyuk. Don’t speak! If you can’t live with what you’ve done, then survive with me. Because I swear to the constellations if you try to leave again I’ll end it all.”
Gasps filled the room. Yoo Joonghyuk’s mouth dropped, the world focusing back in. Kim Dokja would leave if he did. His entire body prickled, a fear he hadn’t felt since before the regressions ended settling deep into his bones. He couldn’t leave, not after what everyone did to bring him back.
“You’re not stuck in a regression anymore,” Kim Dokja finally said, his tone dead. “You cannot reset. You can’t fix it next time. You have to do it now. Just take my hand.”
Yoo Joonghyuk was out of words. He looked between Dokja’s hand and his face.
He could not reply.
Because Kim Dokja did not look angry or disappointed.
He didn’t look scared or nervous.
He looked hopeful.
And Yoo Joonghyuk could not bear to see it.
⊹₊⟡⋆
They kept him in the hospital for a long time. He lost track of days again. Instead of his ritual of staying up all night, they pumped him full of sedatives. He was the one who wanted it, but the mere site of the needle in his arm made him sick.
He thinks they wanted to make sure he wouldn’t kill himself, but no one other than doctors saw him. Some tried to talk about his feelings, and he assured them he wouldn’t try anything again. Every word is forced out of him. He didn’t want to speak to anyone but the person he destroyed.
The day he was released, Han Sooyoung was the one to drive him home. He had nothing but the clothes he arrived in and a real prescription he was told to take per the instructions. He hadn’t argued for once when handed the paper. He was too tired.
They stopped at the pharmacy and bought the pills. He wasn't handed the bottle.
Sooyoung talked to fill the drive, mostly boring details about the company that he soaked up like a sponge. The house was silent except for the tv when she walked him in. Dokja looked at him from the couch. Yoo Joonghyuk looked back.
“Welcome home,” he said flatly.
Yoo Joonghyuk nodded in thanks before disappearing into his room.
⊹₊⟡⋆
They skirted around each other in a way they never had. Yoo Joonghyuk still didn’t eat much, only what was forced onto his plate from whatever frozen meal he prepped himself months ago. He didn’t share a bed with Dokja either.
The pill was given to him at nine, and then Dokja disappeared for the night.
He slept each night for a long time. The pills helped him sleep, and he is swept into oblivion each night. No dreams. No nothing.
He couldn’t tell if that’s how he preferred it.
The pills made him groggy and numb until noon, but he’d take that over the pain.
Kim Dokja pretended he didn't care, but Yoo Joonghyuk caught the way he checked on him often. He asked him if he’s eaten or drunk. He ordered him to bathe and keep his room clean. He tried to make him go outside.
Yoo Joonghyuk listened to everything.
He couldn’t bring himself to train, so he just walked.
Yoo Joonghyuk moved through life like he was in molasses. He’s come to accept it.
A few weeks in, Yoo Joonghyuk woke up earlier than his pills usually lasted. He stayed in bed. Three hours later, he heard Kim Dokja bumbling about downstairs. He didn’t get up then either.
“Joonghyuk!” Dokja called another hour. “Come down and eat!”
That’s what their companionship dissolved to. Making him live.
When he didn’t answer, Dokja appeared at his door. He’d refused to step inside unless directly invited.
“Are you going to get up?”
Yoo Joonghyuk stared at the ceiling and shook his head. A broken noise slipped from Dokja, and that was that.
What he didn’t expect was Han Sooyoung to appear in his room at around lunchtime. She’s flaming, her small body shaking in barely controlled rage. He welcomed the change.
“What is wrong with you?” she snapped, slapping his arm. He didn’t flinch. “Don’t you see what you’re doing to him!? He blames himself, you idiot!”
Yoo Joonghyuk glared at her as she yelled like a rocket. He clenched his teeth until he couldn’t take it. “It’s my own damn fault,” he growled, “so why can’t you all let me be?”
“We won’t let you die.” Han Sooyoung snarled back. “It’s not your fault, or his. I’m the one who wrote you into existence, and I’m sorry you suffered for it. I am not sorry however about our story, and I know you aren’t either. Get up and keep moving like you always have. Get back on your feet before it’s too late.”
Then she was gone, and Yoo Joonghyuk couldn’t help but think. He could destroy himself easily, rip apart every part of himself until he was nothing but a pile of stories. He didn’t think he could live while doing the same to Dokja.
He stayed in bed for most of that day. Only getting up at the smell of meat and the sound of metal hitting metal. Yoo Joonghyuk knew for a fact there were still containers of his premade food, and Dokja had no reason to cook anything.
A flicker of irritation pulsed through him, and Yoo Joonghyuk was on his feet before he could think better. He was the one who cooked for the two of them. That was agreed on from day one.
When he got to the kitchen, flour covered the entirety of the counter. Haphazardly chopped vegetables and diced meat sat in separate almost empty bowls. On a plate sat already cooked dumplings. Dokja was standing in the middle of it all, wrapping more dumplings and placing them into a steamer.
“What are you doing?” He burst, staring at the mess in disgust.
“I’m cooking,” Kim Dokja replied calmly, putting an uneven amount of filling in a wrapper. “One of us has to take initiative to take care of ourselves.”
Yoo Joonghyuk couldn’t argue, not when he refused to cook. He watched Dokja prepare the dumplings, noting everything he would do differently. It wasn’t his recipe, or else his recipe book would probably be covered in flour.
He watched as Dokja cleaned, allowing the dumplings to cool a little. He made two plates and sat at the counter.
“Come here and sit,” he said.
Yoo Joonghyuk did what he was told. The steaming plate of dumplings did not look great. Each one was a different size or sloping at an odd angle. Kim Dokja was the one who made them, not him.
“I don’t care if you don’t eat what others make,” Kim Dokja said as he bit into his own dumpling. “You’re going to eat this. I will not watch you sink into yourself any longer.”
He stared at the former constellation. He didn’t look back, so Yoo Joonghyuk took a bite of his dumpling.
Not as good as his, but… not bad.
⊹₊⟡⋆
The next morning, Kim Dokja was in the kitchen again. This time he tried to make pancakes. Half of them burned. Yoo Joonghyuk still ate them. The same happened for lunch and dinner. And then repeated the next day. The moment he heard Dokja in the kitchen, Yoo Joonghyuk was hovering in the doorway to keep a close eye on him.
He didn’t know why he flew towards the kitchen like a moth to the flame, but he did.
Day after day he watched Kim Dokja cook in a way Joonghyuk would never himself. Day after day he ate.
He was slicing beef for noodles, holding the knife entirely wrong, when it slipped. He moved his fingers out of the way in time. Yoo Joonghyuk was already at his side and snatching the knife.
“If you don’t know what you’re doing, then don’t do it.”
“If you’re so smart, you do it,” Dokja snapped back, crossing his arms.
Blind fury made him take Dokja’s spot. Each movement was familiar but slow. Within a few minutes all of the meat was cut. He turned the heat down on the pan and threw the meat in, adding the spices as it cooked. He couldn’t make the broth—not when Dokja had been prepping it since that morning.
When he stepped back and shoved the plate back into Dokja’s hands, he was grinning at him smugly.
“What?”
“Joonghyuk-ah, you cooked.”
He froze, looking at the beef sitting in Dokja’s grasp. He’d refused to touch the kitchen in months… and in a second he did. Kim Dokja rounded him and sat at the table. He divided the meat into two bowls of broth and vegetables.
Yoo Joonghyuk ate.
Every day after, Kim Dokja did something wrong. Every day Yoo Joonghyuk stepped in. He didn’t realize what he was doing until it was done. And every time he couldn’t believe what he’d done.
Soon, it became a part of the routine to cook with him.
⊹₊⟡⋆
The next thing Kim Dokja decided he must do with Yoo Joonghyuk was play computer games with him. The set up had gathered dust in the months without use. Yoo Joonghyuk wanted to say no, a phantom pain in his wrists at the very thought of playing, but the desire in his eyes made him bend to Kim Dokja’s will. He couldn’t say no, not after what he did.
He didn’t understand why the other man was bothering with him after what Joonghyuk had refused his help. He should have let him rot in his bed. Let the sedatives take him away to nowhere to drift.
But they played.
They played for several days. And then Kim Dokja moved on to the next thing; photography and reading and movies and music. Yoo Joonghyuk couldn’t bring himself to refuse. Kim Dokja kept giving him some other trivial task to learn. Yoo Joonghyuk kept taking the time to do them.
⊹₊⟡⋆
Weeks passed this way. And Yoo Joonghyuk found himself looking forward to what Kim Dokja had cooked up that day. At first it was because Kim Dokja was right when they argued in the hospital. Yoo Joonghyuk had forced him to come back, but it morphed into something completely different.
Yoo Joonghyuk enjoyed the challenge of something new. It was a way for him to get out of his head. Constellation knows he was there far too often now-a-days. So yes, despite himself, Yoo Joonghyuk started to look forward to what was next.
Until he didn’t.
Dokja went to hand him his pill one night. The bottle was empty. All hell breaks loose.
“I’m not sleeping without it,” Yoo Joonghyuk said, retracting his expectant hand. And if he didn’t sleep tonight, he wouldn’t sleep until he got the next fix. He didn’t care how it made him look. He’d go back to the way it was again if he had to see his companions’ lifeless eyes before him again.
“Hey, hey,” Kim Dokja tried to reign his attention back in, but Yoo Joonghyuk raised a hand to stop him. “It’s okay. It’ll be okay.”
“Don’t lie to me, Kim Dokja.”
“I’m not— I— I’ll keep watch, okay?” he said, gesturing towards his room. “Sleep in my bed, and I’ll stay up to keep watch over you, I promise.”
He couldn’t save Joonghyuk from himself. He’d dream of some horrific death and—
“I’ll be here when you wake up.” Kim Dokja assured, putting a hand on shoulder. He flinched away, but Dokja followed. “You’re not alone.”
“I know that! You don’t understand what it’s like waking up with the sounds of death following you. You don’t have lifetimes of memories pressing into you at every moment, begging to be paid attention to,” Joonghyuk snapped, throwing out his arms. His heart beat like a hummingbird in his chest, each one of his breaths swift and erratic. “I wake up and have to remind myself no one is dead in this round. I have to check to see if you’re breathing just so I can have some sort of semblance of mind. And even that doesn’t work!”
He sucked in a breath, choking on his own words. Joonghyuk knew if he slipped up he’d end up back in the hospital. He knew Sooyoung was on Kim Dokja’s speed dial…
“Then stay with me to see that I’m alive.” Dokja begged. “Wake up and see that my eyes are open and my chest is moving. Wake up and talk to me, and we’ll figure it out along the way. Please, just for tonight. Then we’ll try other things. ”
Slowly, hesitantly, he nodded. He’d give it one shot. Only until he got the pills he needed back. Oh, how he hated being reliant on something as small as his pinky nail.
So Yoo Joonghyuk laid down next to Dokja, who sat above him. One hand holding his phone, the other on Yoo Joonghyuk’s chest. Yoo Joonghyuk’s head was on his lap, and he mouthed the words he read.
“Sleep, Joonghyuk-ah,” he demanded, raising a playful brow.
“Why are you doing this?” he blurted. “I refused your help.”
“So talkative tonight,” Dokja laughed. When Joonghyuk didn’t look away, he sobered up. Joonghyuk waited. “You’re the reason I survived back then. If I need to be the reason for you too, then I will.”
It was as simple as that.
He slept the entire night.
⊹₊⟡⋆
Yoo Joonghyuk sat on the familiar yellow couch. One last visit. One last visit and he’d be free of parole meetings. He just needed to play his cards right.
“Yoo Joonghyuk-ssi,” the woman started with the same tired old question, “how have you been?”
Such a simple, yet loaded, question.
Yoo Joonghyuk was not the kind of man to complain about his problems or brag about his feats, but…
“I’ve been better,” he said slowly, tasting the words on his tongue. “Tired, but in a good way.”
“How so?” she asked, leaning forward at the inkling of recuperation.
They took turns every night. Half of the night Yoo Joonghyuk would sleep, the other half Kim Dokja would. It was messy and left them both tired for some of the morning, but it was no worse than the scenarios. Yoo Joonghyuk finally slept. He still dreamt, but it was a little easier waking up to his companion.
In fact, he felt so much better than during one of his early morning shifts he got up. He put on old athletic clothes that hung on him, and went on a run. Every step burned, his breaths short. It was so much more difficult than it used to be, and half way through his old route he had to stop.
“I do things now,” he replied, thumb running over the smooth velvet. “I didn’t before.”
“That’s wonderful,” she smiled. “What kind of things?”
When he had trudged back home, bone tired, Kim Dokja had been grinning ear to ear.
He was running and cooking and sleeping again. He was himself.
“I’m just living.”
The parole officer stopped, her smile faltering, but after a moment she put his words together for what they meant. It didn’t matter what he was doing, as long as he came back to life. The other night he had passed a mirror and stopped short. His face had filled out again, a little muscle piling onto his bones. What had changed? Kim Dokja did. He came like a whirlwind, forcing himself into the thick of Joonghyuk’s storm and refused to leave until he found the end. And he did. He found Yoo Joonghyuk again.
“Any hard days?” she asked a tad quietly.
“Not everything fixes itself without cracking again.” Yoo Joonghyuk nodded, crossing his legs. “Just because I’ve reached my end, does not mean I was automatically happy. It’s not as simple as that. You have to pursue it, even when it’s hard.”
“I couldn’t have put it better myself,” the woman smiled. “You’ve really grown. I’m happy to say you won’t have to see me again.
“Likewise.”
She laughed, and they continued the rest of their mandatory time. It sped by.
At home, Dokja would be waiting for him. They’d cook dinner and watch a movie before bed. It was the kind of mundane Yoo Joonghyuk had never thought he’d get. He’d fall again to find it. After all, Yoo Joonghyuk had always been good at one thing.
He would always be able to keep moving forward.