Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Do you think God hides from his creations?”

The Oldest Dream’s face was awash in a sickly blue glow, deadened eyes fixed on the subway window. He let out a slow breath, his words hanging in the frigid air.

Through the panel, grainy footage showed another civilian cut down by Yoo Joonghyuk’s sword, their face frozen in open-mouthed agony.

That made 24,567 deaths this turn.

He tilted his head slightly, not looking away from the reflection.

“What do you think, Yoo Joonghyuk?”

Behind him, the man stirred. His reflection came into view through the subway window—dark hair, sharp eyes, the faint gleam of a sword resting against his hip. Yoo Joonghyuk stepped forward until his presence filled the space behind the Oldest Dream, a shadow layered over his shoulder.

“I don't know,” he said quietly. “Isn't that something you should be asking yourself?”

The Oldest Dream looked up at him, a dying woman's final breath echoing through the space.

24,568.

“Man lives in fear of God. God lives in fear of what he has created.” Yoo Joonghyuk leaned down, his breath ghosting against the Oldest Dream's ear. “Which one are you, Dokja? Man, or God?”

He didn’t know.

A hand slid from his shoulder up to his jaw, clamping his fingers around with a bruising force and wrenching the Oldest Dream's gaze back to the screen. “If you don't know either, then tell me: Do you enjoy watching them suffer?”

Did he?

“No,” he whispered in a hollow voice, jerking faintly against the hold. “I don't.”

Yoo Joonghyuk grinned. It was something too wide—pulling at his face and splitting the skin into uneven hollows that revealed perfect teeth. His coat billowed behind him, curling around the Oldest Dream with an unknown power. That same hand eased, knuckles swiping across the soft curve of the Oldest Dream's cheek.

“Then why,” Yoo Joonghyuk murmured, “did you dream it that way?”

***

Dokja had always been a slave to the dream.

It started years ago, trapped between the clutter of a closet, holding a desperate hand to his mouth to muffle the sound of shaky sobs. It started then, inhaling dust in the shallow, dizzying air of his childhood home, where Dokja had prayed for a reality where he could be safe.

He had treasured the idea of it, of safety, holding the comfort of it in his hands and stitching together illusions of ruin until they became the new world.

He knew it was selfish of him—selfish to dream of the apocalypse, selfish to burden his companions, selfish to imagine a world where he could be happy.

That’s why Dokja could not sleep.

He stood in the cramped bathroom, the tile cold beneath his feet, the overhead light buzzing and flickering with a near sentience. Dokja looked at the pathetic version of himself reflected in the mirror. Bruised undereyes. Pale face and tired eyes. Thin skin that revealed bulging veins above atrophying muscle, pulsing in time with his heart.

He braced his arms against the ceramic, leaning over the sink—

And stared.

It had become something like a habit, watching his reflection—listening to the faint hum of the house, observing the clogged pores cluttering his nose and the way his fingers twitched against the sink, slick with sweat and water. He watched the way he flashed in and out of existence when the lights flickered.

Dokja blinked.

The reflection in the mirror did not blink back.

He stood very still, staring into the dimness behind his reflection. At the walls that greyed before his eyes, the surface crawling with metal and frost. The way the finest strands of his hair rose in the still air, as if drawn by static.

“No—” he whispered, squeezing his eyes shut. “Not again.”

Dokja’s reflection stared back, its lips moving a fraction out of sync.

“Not again? Has this been happening often, Dokja?” The figure smiled softly, as if welcoming an old friend.

Something vast and colourless loomed behind the body in the mirror, something like a void—the familiar view of an unending galaxy.

Dokja stumbled backward, his back hitting the wall with a hollow sound as the boy in the mirror reached for him, a hand flattening against the glass.

“You’re not real,” he hissed, even as the edges of his voice trembled.

“You’re so naive, Dokja.” The figure’s voice had changed—ambiguously older and younger all at once. It wore a torn middle school uniform, clutching what Dokja knew as a bruised arm. Its smile widened with a gentle tilt, too unnatural to be comforting.

“I’ve always been a part of you.”

The words echoed through his ears—through the floors, the walls, the light itself—

And with a blink, the air seemed to snap back into itself. The bathroom light returned to its low hum, grating against his ears. The mirror blinked into a smooth surface that reflected—him. Just him. A broken man, sweaty, wide-eyed, staring at nothing. The only proof that anything had happened was the tremor in his fingers and the uneven, rapid pace of his heart.

He let out a slow, shaky breath. Placed his palm to the cold glass, right over the space the Oldest Dream had put his own. There was an absurd moment where he thought about pressing hard into that spot—hard enough for the glass to fracture beneath his palm; for the stray shards to push deep into his skin—and claw his way into the void that existed beyond the mirror. Dokja would find that hideous child and destroy it, as he should have long ago.

He didn’t. Only stared, breathing heavily, until the tremble in his fingers seemed concealable. Until he could unlock this bathroom and walk without his knees buckling. Until he could face Yoo Joonghyuk with a smile, who was seated just outside.

He would say nothing. Pretend nothing had happened.

Dokja would always hate that part of himself.

***

Dokja…really shouldn’t be doing this.

There was nothing stopping this from feeling like a mistake. The feeling took hold and solidified in his mind with every step he walked down the hallway, the narrow, dim walls closing around the shadow of a door waiting at its end.

Dokja stood there for a long time, hand resting over the cool metal of the doorknob, half-unlatched. The cold of it almost seemed to burn into his skin, searing something like a brand—a warning—over his tentative palm.

He had walked past this door a hundred times before, but had never dared to step inside.

There was something terribly indecent about it—about intruding into something like Yoo Joonghyuk’s bedroom. A kind of sanctity that Dokja didn’t want to taint with his presence. It was a hero’s room, the room of a savior, one who had suffered through countless regressions for the sake of a single person.

There was supposed to be a happy ending after that long journey—a place for the hero to rest, to tend to his wounds.

Instead, Yoo Joonghyuk had to spend the end of his story tending to Kim Dokja.

The door opened without a sound.

He half expected something horrible to happen when he stepped inside—the punishing hand of God, Yoo Joonghyuk’s angry yell, his own guilt to push out of his heart and scream at him—but no. The room remained still. Blue light filtered through the curtains, clusters of suspended dust visible in the brightening moonlight, and…

Yoo Joonghyuk. Asleep. In his bed.

Dokja froze in the doorway.

His first thought was that this was wrong. Here was the world’s most powerful man, reduced to breathing softly in his sleep, unacceptably vulnerable. Dokja shouldn’t be here, trespassing on something so private.

He stepped closer anyway.

Every sound in the room felt too loud—the scuff of his socked feet against carpet, the sound of Dokja’s heart in his ears, the rustle of sheets as Dokja pressed a hand into the mattress, seated in the empty spot near the edge.

With a low exhale, he leaned down.

Like this, nearly nose to nose, staring at this face made for gods and Constellations, Dokja’s throat ached. Yoo Joonghyuk’s face was turned towards him, bathed in shadow. The harsh edges beneath his eyes had softened in sleep, making him look almost ethereal. Dokja’s hair fell across Yoo Joonghyuk’s forehead, marring the smooth skin with streaks of black, a small imperfection in an otherwise flawless construct.

His hand lifted without thinking, fingers trembling in the air between them, just above his cheek.

It was such a small distance. But to cross it felt sacrilegious.

If Dokja allowed himself this one thing, what would he feel? Warmth, maybe. Yoo Joonghyuk was human, after all. There were moments now—quiet, terrible moments—when Dokja wasn’t sure whether Yoo Joonghyuk existed outside his mind. Ultimately, Dokja was a dreamer. The world had once obeyed his imagination.

What was stopping it from happening again?

The idea had been pressing insistently in the back of his skull, a parasite that slithered into the spongy matter of his brain, eating unseen holes deep into his thoughts.

He drew a shallow breath, staring at the man’s face, at the fragile pulse in his throat. The moonlight flickered out for a moment, covered by cloud and dust, and for an instant, Dokja thought he saw him as a blur—an afterimage burned into the dark, Yoo Joonghyuk dissolving into a silhouette without shape or form.

If Dokja could dream of anything…if he closed this distance between them, believed in something better for himself—then wouldn’t it come true?

Yoo Joonghyuk would be forced to love him.

His stomach twisted, holding back the churn of bile.

Dokja let out a single, shaky breath, fanning over Yoo Joonghyuk’s face, disrupting the splay of hair across his forehead.

Yoo Joonghyuk didn’t stir.

Dokja could almost imagine he did though—the faintest shift of breath, the twitch of an eyelid. His heart hammered in his chest, irrational fear coursing through him.

He leaned in, dangerously closer. Close enough to hear warm breath expel from Yoo Joonghyuk’s mouth with every passing second, close enough to have it fan across his own lips.

“I’m sorry.”

Every one of Yoo Joonghyuk’s deaths—they had been for him.

It was just one more truth he couldn’t look at directly.

Dokja’s hand lowered, fingertips clenching into the sheet, wrinkling the fabric. His nails bit faint crescents into his own palm as he closed his fist, even through the barrier of cloth.

The countless lives Yoo Joonghyuk had burned through for him, the endless years wasted in his name—the weight of that kind of devotion was so terrible it bordered on horror. It wasn’t something possible by a person’s own will. To be treasured in that way—

It must have been something Dokja dreamed for himself.

His eyes flicked towards the window, where he caught sight of his own reflection—the faint outline of a ghost watching over a sleeping saint.

Dokja couldn’t look away.

It was a morbid sight—Dokja, a blight hovering over the shadow of this man—but he couldn’t step back.

Instead, he stayed there until the air stilled around them, the walls brightening with the sunrise. Dokja would stare at Yoo Joonghyuk—the way his lips parted around mumbled words in his sleep, the way he shifted uncomfortably and squeezed his eyes as he fell into the throes of a nightmare.

When he finally turned away, mere minutes before Dokja knew Yoo Joonghyuk would wake to start the day, his knees felt unsteady. He reached for the door, hesitating once more, gaze lingering on the figure still in bed.

A part of him wanted to apologize again.

He didn’t. Dokja was an irredeemable person.

He closed the door behind him with infinite care. The sound it made—a soft click—felt too loud. Too much like an accusation.

Just outside, Dokja slid down the bedroom door, his head thumping against the hollow wood. His hand raised into the still air, curling around itself in a loose fist.

He stared at it until the tremor disappeared.

***

The doorbell rang with a shrill sound.

Dokja flicked his gaze to the front door. He stopped playing with the rice on his plate, watching as Yoo Joonghyuk rose from his seat, making his way over.

Oh. That was right.

Han Sooyung was supposed to come over with the kids today.

He set the spoon down, leaving his meal unfinished. The bowl had been sitting there long enough for his meal to go cold anyway, the pebbles of rice beading into a hard pile of mush that turned his stomach.

He pushed the plate away.

Past the hallway, he heard the lock turn. The door opened, the sharp swell of greetings and excited footsteps filtering through the space. The kids' voices, Han Sooyung’s sharp intake of breath.

“Dokja…?”

Dokja stayed seated, staring into his rice.

“Ahjussi!”

Dokja ignored Han Sooyung, turning towards Lee Gilyoung and Shin Yoosung, who were nearly tripping over each other on their way to him.

“Hey, wait your turn,” Shin Yoosung grumbled, pushing at Lee Gilyoung’s face before turning to Dokja. “It’s—” a last shove “—been so long, ahjussi.”

A small, happy warmth began to bloom at the bottom of his stomach. Just small enough to ignore.

“It really has.”

Dokja thought he had gotten used to living without his children. Of not getting to see them every day, as he used to in the apocalypse—and on the train.

But really, every time, all it took was a glimpse of Shin Yoosung’s smile, now sharper, steadier, to remind him of how much time had passed without him. Without his guidance. Without his presence.

His children had grown. No—they had flourished. He saw it in Lee Gilyoung's confident gaze, in the patience seated deep there. He knew it from the way the two of them watched Dokja with a presence that was almost adult.

The knowledge sat uneasily in his chest, growing heavier when he realized that these two children—who had once clung to him, who had looked up to him—had now built themselves without him. Grown past the space he once occupied.

Dokja was so proud.

Shin Yoosung smiled, kissing his cheek. Lee Gilyoung shifted awkwardly, pulling his cap lower over his eyes. “We’ll set up inside, and then we can talk more. I want to tell you everything.” Behind them, Han Sooyung was still, staring at him.

Maybe this, too, was part of Dokja's punishment. This—watching the people he loved learn how to live without him. Watching them stand on their own, knowing he had been absent for every milestone that had shaped them into who they were now.

Dokja smiled back, letting it lift his cheeks and crinkle his eyes. He ruffled their hair and brought them close, just to feel their warmth, to breathe in their comforting scent once more before letting them go.

It was all he knew how to do.

The two of them went on ahead, leaving…Han Sooyoung. Dokja awkwardly rubbed his neck, lowering his gaze. He didn’t need to see her face to know what expression she was wearing—half frustration, half concern. Her footsteps approached the opposite end of the table, drawing out Yoo Joonghyuk’s chair and dragging it over. She dropped into it, just in front of him, crossing one leg over the other.

“Dokja.”

“Hm?”

She grabbed his chin in the next breath, forcing his face left and right, inspecting it.

“When was the last time you slept?”

“I’m fine.”

“Is that what I asked you?”

Dokja finally met her eyes. She looked tired too, he noticed. Dark circles that almost matched his own, through hers probably came from long nights working, not…this.

“A few days, now,” he admitted quietly. “But I catch a few hours now and then.”

Her hand tightened, fingers digging lightly into his cheeks.

“Why?”

Dokja just smiled sadly, watching how her jaw twitched as she clenched her teeth.

“The kids were excited to see you,” she said, releasing his face.

Guilt twisted in his stomach. “I know. I’m sorry.”

She stood abruptly, the chair scraping back. “I’m taking them home. You need to rest.”

“Han Sooyoung—”

But she was already walking away, making her way towards the kids.

It was Yoo Joonghyuk that stopped her, a hand to her elbow and a low, “Let it go this time.” Then quieter, like he didn’t want Dokja to hear, “They both need this.”

Han Sooyung glared in his direction, as if in challenge. “You—” She cut herself off. “Fine. Come with me. We need to talk.”

Dokja watched the way Yoo Joonghyuk let himself be guided away, lips pressed thin. He hadn’t resisted Han Sooyoung’s touch, as firm as it was. He hadn’t made excuses.

Dokja looked down at his hands, at the way they trembled slightly in his lap. Listened to their voices trickle in from the other room. Muffled bits of hushed yet charged conversation, of “If he gets worse—” and “I’ll call you’s.”

Dokja closed his eyes, picturing the way Han Sooyoung would be studying Yoo Joonghyuk’s face for something—something to prove he was trustworthy. The way Yoo Joonghyuk would meet her gaze unflinchingly, with that immovable stubbornness that had carried him through 1864 regressions.

And Dokja hated them both for it.

Because Yoo Joonghyuk had been trying to help Dokja in his own way. Pressing warm meals into his hands when Dokja couldn’t make himself get up, keeping an eye out when Dokja seemed so tired he could collapse. And some nights, Yoo Joonghyuk would sit beside Dokja on the living room couch, awake with him when the whole world was in slumber.

They would never understand that Dokja couldn’t be helped. If he stayed awake, he could keep the people he loved safe from his dreams. That was all there was to it.

Han Sooyoung could be disappointed in him. She didn’t owe Dokja anything—not even her forgiveness. That didn’t stop him from thinking about it in the dead of the night, blanket tangled around his shoulders, waiting to see whether Yoo Joonghyuk would join him again.

Sometimes, Dokja wished he didn’t need it.

He listened to the kids cheer, listened to their footsteps thunder towards the living room, squabbling loudly. He should get up. He should join them. He needed to.

He couldn’t.

Not until a hand landed on his shoulder, squeezing softly.

“Come on,” Yoo Joonghyuk said quietly. “The kids are waiting for you.”

***

By the time Dokja had made his way over, the living room had transformed into chaos.

Blankets draped over every surface, piles of pillows packed into every seat. Shin Yoosung and Lee Gilyoung had claimed the couch on the left. Han Sooyung was sprawled over the loveseat like a king, half-watching the kids argue over movie choices.

Dokja sank into the other couch, pulling a blanket over his lap. The fabric was soft, worn from use. Yoo Joonghyuk had given it to him weeks ago, wordlessly draping it over his shoulders when he had found him during one of those long, sleepless nights.

He tucked his chin into it now, breathing in its faint scent.

“This one?” Shin Yoosung held up a DVD case towards Dokja. It was some action movie Doka didn’t recognize—the shadow of the protagonist half-illuminated with the light of an explosion, holding a comically large gun.

Lee Gilyoung groaned. “Again? We watched this last time.”

“The main character is good-looking. I can’t get the same experience looking at you.”

The two began immediately squabbling, only stopping as Yoo Joonghyuk plucked the case from Shin Yoosung’s hands, examining it with a stupid kind of intensity. “This one’s fine.”

“See?” Shin Yoosung grinned triumphantly.

“Fine, but I get to choose the next one.”

The lights were flicked off, accompanied with the swelling orchestral music of the opening scene. Dokja watched the screen without really seeing it, his focus drifting somewhere far away.

He was snapped out of it when he saw movement in his peripheral vision.

The Oldest Dream sat by his kids’ feet, eyes glued to the television, squeezed in the space between Shin Yoosung and Lee Gilyoung.

Dokja almost stopped breathing. The kids didn’t seem to notice, too absorbed in the movie, where the protagonist was deep in a car chase through narrow city streets. He forced himself not to react, not to acknowledge the figure there.

The protagonist killed off three different criminals in the shootout.

Three.

He killed off the antagonist’s confidant.

Four.

He killed a violent gang terrorizing the city.

Thirty-six.

The Oldest Dream turned to look at him.

On screen, the protagonist fought his way through a corridor. Six more bodies fell. The artifact to complete the mission was obtained after solving the final puzzles.

Each death wasn’t rendered in graphic detail. Actually, every violent sequence was so exaggerated it bordered on comedy. The fight scenes were clearly only meant to highlight the main character's skills and wit.

But…

Forty-five total.

“This is my favourite part,” Lee Gilyoung whispered, leaning forward.

The Oldest Dream stood, blocking his view of the television, moving with that unnatural grace that made Dokja’s skin crawl. He drifted around the sofa, footsteps silent across the carpet. The kids didn’t react. Han Sooyoung didn’t look up. Yoo Joonghyuk didn’t care.

Dokja’s hands tightened around the blanket, refusing to track his movements, refusing to look as The Oldest Dream made his way around the couch to hover behind him. He just kept his eyes resolutely forward, watching the massacre on screen.

“Hey, Dokja.”

Dokja didn’t flinch. Not like he wanted to. He focused on the television, on the way the flickering light cast shadows across the room. On anything except the figure now standing directly behind him, breathing onto his neck.

“Look at me.”

He swallowed, throat dry. On screen, the protagonist reloaded. Shot twice at the main enemy.

The Oldest Dream moved again, a hand closing around Dokja’s throat. Clamping tight around the soft skin and squeezing—

Dokja choked, the wheezing sound of it drowned out by gunfire.

“I said, look. You can’t ignore me forever.”

Dokja could. He would.

“Woah…” Shin Yoosung exclaimed, pointing at the screen, where an explosion had bloomed in fiery orange. “That was so cool.”

“Totally unrealistic,” Han Sooyung scoffed back, tossing a piece of popcorn at Lee Gilyoung’s face and missing. “That should’ve killed him. They’re just trying to make the protagonist look cool.”

Why couldn’t they see him? See that Dokja couldn’t breathe—

Yoo Joonghyuk made a noncommittal sound, but his eyes were bright with interest, the orange of the television reflecting warmly off his eyes. Dokja glanced at him, at the boyish look in his expression, at the way he leaned forward as the action sequences reached their peak, completely absorbed.

When was the last time he’d looked so relaxed?

“He’s so beautiful when he smiles like that, isn’t he?” The Oldest Dream whispered, squeezing his airway shut, hard enough for Dokja’s vision to swim dangerously. Hard enough for his body to sway with dizziness, bumping into Yoo Joonghyuk’s shoulder—

And suddenly, The Oldest Dream dissipated into nothing, leaving Dokja gasping for air, shirt sticking to him in a cold sweat.

Dokja exhaled shakily, trying to be silent. His hands had gone numb from gripping the blanket so tightly. He forced them to relax, to unfurl from the fabric. Using those trembling fingers, he touched his throat, swallowing twice where the ache still lingered.

The credits rolled.

He hadn't realized it, but Lee Gilyoung was asleep, an arm thrown haphazardly over the top of the couch. Shin Yoosung, too, was nodding off.

How…how much time—?

Han Sooyung was staring at him again, stray pieces of discarded popcorn lying by her feet. She got up without a word, disappearing down the hall and into the guest bedroom, the door shutting with a resounding click.

Then it was just Dokja and Yoo Joonghyuk, alone in the dimly lit living room. The television had switched to a black screensaver, abstract shapes drifting across that inky screen, casting shifting patterns on the walls.

Dokja reflection was visible in the dark glass.

He stared at the ghostly outline of him, shoulders slumped, blanket pooled over his lap. Watched the way the deadened hollows of his eyes struggled to hold themselves open. For a moment, he thought he saw metal paneling behind him instead of drywall, the flicker of an unending hallway. Even the hum of the fridge seemed to vibrate the floor beneath him like the whir of an engine, as if the entire apartment had uprooted itself to travel across the empty space of a galaxy.

He pressed his palms over his eyes, expelling a steady stream of air.

Slowly, inevitably, Yoo Joonghyuk’s chin dipped towards his chest, his breathing evening out with the lull of sleep. Dokja blinked, watching the rise and fall of his chest.

Dokja wouldn’t sleep that night either. Just stare at the television screen as the seconds blurred together, at the silhouette of two shapes sunk into shadow, one half-awake and one lost to sleep. They seemed too far apart in that reflection, even as Dokja threw the corner of his blanket over Yoo Joonghyuk’s body.

For a while, Dokja let himself stare at the ceiling, blankly watching the plaster swim in and out of focus, the popcorn ceiling morphing into metal screws frozen into rusting panels. The stillness of the room made him hyperaware, almost, of his body. Of how the rhythmic sound of Yoo Joonghyuk’s breathing synced in time with Dokja’s pulse.

In a few hours, the orange glow of sunlight would bleed into the room. Yoo Joonghyuk would wake, alone, not knowing that Dokja hadn’t slept at all.

That would have to be okay.

***

There were no bruises on his neck.

His hand drifted up, fingertips pressing into the spot where there should have been a ring of marred skin, the outline of a tight, merciless grip where the Oldest Dream had crushed his windpipe. There was nothing. Just the unblemished, pale stretch of skin.

Dokha had confirmed it last night, after Yoo Joonghyuk had fallen asleep. He'd stood in the bathroom, tilting his head back under the fluorescent light, searching for proof. Some kind of evidence—anything at all—that it had been real.

He had found nothing.

He scrubbed a hand over tired eyes, leaning back against the rough thread of the couch. Every time his eyelids threatened to close now, he felt a dream rise up from the depths, the darkness dredging up images of star-scattered galaxies and a subway cabin so cold he could see his breath in the air.

It was easier not to risk it. Easier to stay awake, counting the seconds until the sun rose above the horizon. Easier to accept the exhaustion seeping deep into his bones than to accept the possibility of waking up completely alone, in an empty husk of metal flying through space.

It was only on nights like these, when his weary body threatened to betray him, when the weight in his bones took the strength from his knees, when the clock hands spun around one another until their motion became meaningless—that he allowed himself to close his eyes for the briefest, shallowest moments.

All he needed to do was avoid dreaming, after all.

Somewhere deep in his mind, Dokja knew that he feared the fragments of memory that haunted his dreams. The burning echo of lives that he ended before their time—thousands of them, lost to a whim. He feared the horrible panic of waking up, of ripping open the blinds to confirm that Seoul wasn’t in ruins again. That Yoo Joonghyuk was still in the other room, safe, as he had been the night before. And the night before that.

The room seemed to spin slowly, a carousel made of nausea and the sparks of colour that bloomed behind his eyes when he dug the heels of his hands into them. In the darkness, the echo of the ticking clock felt too loud, each second drilling into his skill.

And from that same darkness, the shuffle of feet. A soft voice.

“Dokja…?”

He pried his eyes open.

“Why are you still awake?”

Dokja took in slow breath, adjusting himself to the intrusion.

“Because you snore like a cannon, Joonghyuk-ah,” Dokja said dryly, watching Yoo Joonghyuk’s figure approach in the dark television screen. “I could hear it from across the house.”

“I don't snore.”

Dokja listened to the way his socks scuffed the floor, padding closer, the way the couch dipped slightly under his extra weight. Yoo Joonghyuk leaned back against the seat, shirt collar uneven, hair slightly disheveled. It was almost irritating how effortlessly composed he looked like this, even half-awake.

To Dokja’s surprise, Yoo Joonghyuk didn’t look angry. He just tipped his head back with a low, weary exhale, crossing his arms comfortably over his chest.

“You can't keep staying up like this,” Yoo Joonghyuk said quietly. “You'll get sick.”

“I won’t.”

Yoo Joonghyuk side-eyed him, the black of his irises glinting in the dark.

Dokja turned his face to the side, his cheek squishing into the seat. Yoo Joonghyuk’s profile was sharp in the dim light, his jaw set in that familiar, stubborn line. But there was something there—something tired and worried that made Dokja’s chest tighten.

“I just…can’t sleep,” Dokja said, the admission pushing out of him like stomach bile. “Every time I try—” he cut himself off.

“What happens?”

Dokja smiled.

“I think of you.”

Yoo Joonghyuk was quiet for a long moment, working his bottom lip between his teeth. Dokja couldn’t tell if he believed him or not. He didn’t know what was going on inside that head, or what pointless solution he would offer him—

“Would it help,” came the calm voice, interrupting his thoughts, “if you slept with me?”

Huh?

Dokja blinked, exhaustion making his thoughts slow and syrupy. He leaned forward with a wry smile, pressing his cheek further into the couch and meeting Yoo Joonghyuk’s gaze.

“Wouldn’t having sex with you keep me awake?”

“Are you stupid?” Yoo Joonghyuk sounded stressed. “I don’t want to have sex with you.”

Dokja sighed, moving back. “Are you stupid? It would be amazing.”

“Conceited bastard,” he heard the man mutter under his breath, dragging a hand down his face. Dokja ignored it. “I meant—sleeping. In the same bed. Together.”

Dokja…really shouldn’t. He should make some excuse about not wanting to disturb Yoo Joonghyuk’s sleep, about preferring the couch, about not needing his help. He should try to maintain whatever pathetic distance he’d been trying to preserve.

Instead, he found himself nodding.

Yoo Joonghyuk stood without another word, and before Dokja could really process what was happening, a firm, calloused hand wrapped around his wrist.

It was such a ridiculous notion—sleeping on Yoo Joonghyuk’s bed for no reason at all. Nothing to justify himself but some flimsy, inadequate excuse. But his hand was so warm, so steady around his own that Dokja found himself unable to pull away. Unable to resist as he was guided down the narrow hallway, their shadows stretching long and thin across the carpet.

His heart was beating out of his chest.

Dokja…shouldn’t have accepted. He shouldn’t have let himself come in. Because now, as Yoo Joongyuk drew the curtains, exposing them to the pale moonlight, Dokja felt a certain numbness. A cold, gnawing feeling that this was a mistake.

He didn’t want to taint this space with his presence.

But Yoo Joonghyuk was already pulling back the covers, gesturing for Dokja to get in.

Hesitantly, Dokja slipped under the covers, the sheets cool under his skin. They smelled like detergent and something distinctly Yoo Joonghyuk—deep and warm and faintly dusty. Yoo Joonghyuk climbed in after him, drawing the blanket up to his shoulders.

Then, he settled himself on the very edge of the bed, so far from Dokja that half his body was teetering off the mattress.

Dokja stared at him.

“Yoo Joonghyuk.”

“Hm?”

“What are you doing?”

“...Sleeping.”

“You’re about to fall off the bed. I didn’t know you were so chaste.”

“It’s fine.”

“You’re an idiot.”

Dokja reached over and bodily dragged him towards the center, Yoo Joonghyuk sliding across the sheets with a surprised sound, his hair lifting with static.

…This was probably worse, though.

The bed wasn’t nearly big enough. Dokja internally kicked himself for only realizing it now. Both of them lay rigid as boards, staring up at the ceiling, the tiny space between them slowly seeping with warmth. Yoo Joonghyuk’s arm lay mere inches from his own, the heat from his skin bleeding into the blanket.

“Hm. Joonghyuk-ah.”

“Yes?”

“The way you're lying—it looks like you’re imitating a corpse. Are you preparing to be lowered into your coffin?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Yoo Joonghyuk’s jaw twitched. “You’re no better.”

“Sleeping with you is a nightmare.”

“Say that again. I'll throw you off the bed.”

Dokja huffed out a quiet laugh, surprising even himself. The amusement faded quickly, however, replaced with the familiar anxiety crawling up his spine, pressing into his legs and stomach. Yoo Joonghyuk’s leg brushed against his own and—yeah—this bed was way too small for two grown men.

He shifted, trying to find a comfortable position. The mattress creaked.

“Dokja.”

He shifted again.

“Dokja.”

He pulled the blanket higher.

“What is it now?”

“Will you ever stop moving?”

“What? This is how I fall asleep.” It wasn’t. “Not everyone knocks themself out in the first thirty seconds of their head hitting the pillow.”

“You’ve moved thirteen times in the past minute.”

“Why are you counting?”

Yoo Joonghyuk was glaring at the ceiling like he regretted every decision that had brought him to this moment. That was okay—Dokja was regretting this too. He could see the tension in his jaw, the intermittent twitching of his eyebrow, the way his hands fisted the swaths of blanket.

Dokja shifted again, uncomfortable and unable to leave until Yoo Joonghyuk fell asleep.

“For the love of—”

In one fluid motion, Yoo Joonghyuk pulled him to his chest.

Dokja froze.

One solid arm wrapped around his back, holding him in place. When Dokja tried to shift away desperately, the grip tightened.

“Just—” Yoo Joonghyuk murmured, “stay still.”

Dokja’s face was buried in the soft cotton of his shirt, nose pressed into Yoo Joonghyuk’s collarbone. He could feel the steady thump of Yoo Joonghyuk’s heartbeat against his cheek, feel the rise and fall of his breathing.

This was—

This was too much.

“Hey. Bastard—”

“Sleep.”

“Joonghyuk-ah.”

“Try.”

The hand around him was so heavy. Yoo Joonghyuk’s hand splayed across his back, palm burning against the thin fabric of Dokja’s shirt.

Dokja closed his eyes.

In the darkness behind his eyelids, he waited for the dreams to come. For the subway to materialize before him, for the Oldest Dream’s voice to echo through the empty space in his head.

But there was only warmth. The grounding touch of Yoo Joonghyuk’s hand, the scent of him, present with every inhale. The solid presence of his body when the soft darkness of exhaustion began coaxing him under.

Dokja's breath began to even out, consciousness slipping away from him in increments. The tight knot of anxiety in his chest unspooled slowly, unraveling loosely through his body. His muscles felt unbearably heavy, so tired that it hurt. The pain went deep into the marrow of his bones, suckling life from the pockets of strength there.

Maybe, like this, just once—he could…

Yoo Joonghyuk’s hand moved in slow circles across his back, a soothing rhythm that made Dokja’s racing thoughts blur into nothing, scattering into bits of pieces he couldn’t make out.

There had been no reason for Yoo Joonghyuk to stumble his way into the living room this late into the night. No reason for him to invite a person like Kim Dokja into his room, and let himself slip into the vulnerability of unconsciousness. But he did. Dokja felt it, as Yoo Joonghyuk’s breath evened out, steadily deepening, even as his hand lay wrapped around Dokja’s torso, keeping him still.

Dokja should pull away. He should extract himself from this embrace and return to the couch, where he would be more comfortable—where he could keep Yoo Joonghyuk safe.

Instead, almost without permission, he pressed closer, his hand coming up to curl in the fabric of Yoo Joonghyuk’s shirt. Holding on so tightly he couldn't feel the material in his hands anymore.

And despite everything, despite the fear and guilt and the terrible certainty that he didn’t deserve this—Dokja let himself fall into the liminal space between wakefulness and sleep.

Dokja was no God. He had been once, perhaps—had wished for a tomorrow of death and written it into existence. But...he, too, lived in fear of the dreams he had made into reality.

And this room, this little haven pressed against Yoo Joonghyuk’s chest, was where Dokja hid.

***

“Can you take responsibility for the deaths of your family?” Yoo Joonghyuk asked, flicking his eyes towards the Oldest Dream.

On the screen, Lee Jihye grit her teeth, dragging what remained of her body across the ground. One leg was gone, the stump of it leaving a dark, uneven trail as she clawed her way forward through the blood-soaked earth.

The Oldest Dream pressed his palms over his ears as Lee Jihye’s scream tore through the train, hunched over Lee Hyungsung’s lifeless body. The bloodcurling sound rattled his chest.

“I can’t,” he whispered, wide-eyed and trembling. “I can’t.”

Yoo Joonghyuk scoffed, turning back towards the screen.

“But Dokja—you haven’t even tried.”

***

Dokja had gotten two hours of sleep.

It was almost a miraculous feat, he thought, gazing into the pages of his novel blankly. The words swam across the paper in blurring shapes that his eyes traced without comprehension. It was only two hours, but…

Dokja hadn’t dreamed.

He inhaled slowly, stretching lazily across the couch. The bone-deep tiredness in his muscles had lifted slightly from rest, easing the weight pulling his eyes closed. His spine popped as he arched, joints protesting against the movement. The soreness was almost pleasant. Sometimes, it reminded Dokja that his body still existed, still functioned as a human’s should.

He lifted his head a little, just enough to peer over his book, at Yoo Joonghyuk sitting by his feet.

The man was reading some newspaper splayed across his lap, completely absorbed. His reading glasses were slipping down his nose, slowly—Yoo Joonghyuk would push them up in another other minute or so.

He paused, staring.

In Dokja’s opinion, one of the best things that came from the end of the scenarios was Yoo Joonghyuk’s failing eyesight. After thousands of years of life, Yoo Joonghyuk’s body had started showing its age in small ways. The glasses were new. They made Yoo Joonghyuk look bizarrely domestic and all the more irritating, given how good he looked in them.

There was something almost obscene about it. About Yoo Joonghyuk, who had carved his way through apocalypse after apocalypse, now sitting here in shorts and a worn sweatshirt, reading the morning news like any other person.

Despite himself, his gaze drifted lower—to the broadness of Yoo Joonghyuk's shoulders, the loose hug of his sweatshirt as it draped across his chest. The fabric was soft from repeated washes, clinging just slightly to the defined muscles underneath. Yoo Joonghyuk had rolled up his sleeves to his elbows, exposing those ridiculous forearms. Like this, sitting still, Yoo Joonghyuk looked to be carved of stone. The perfect being.

Dokja’s chest ached.

It’s just—the Oldest Dream was also there, hovering over him like a phantom, reading over Yoo Joonghyuk’s shoulder.

The ache curdled into irritation.

The boy’s form bent over Yoo Joonghyuk’s shoulder, dark eyes scanning the newspaper with disinterest. His middle school uniform was ratty, messy stitching done over the hole torn at the shoulder.

How annoying.

Without thinking, Dokja pressed his foot flat against Yoo Joonghyuk’s bare thigh, right below the hem of his shorts.

“Get off,” Yoo Joonghyuk said flatly, not looking up from his newspaper.

“Get off of him,” The Oldest Dream hissed in his direction, the sclera of his eyes blackening at the edges.

“I don’t want to.”

Dokja pressed his foot more firmly against Yoo Joonghyuk’s thigh, feeling the solid give of muscle.

Yoo Joonghyuk exhaled slowly, the sigh carrying the weight of a thousand years. He shifted slightly, trying to dislodge him, his leg tensing, but Dokja only pressed it closer, worming his cold toes under the loose hem of Yoo Joonghyuk’s shorts.

The fabric dragged upwards as Dokja’s foot slid higher, exposing more flesh that was soft and warm against his skin. Yoo Joonghyuk really was blessed with muscles of steel. They wouldn't give an inch, even as Dokja kneaded into them.

“Kim Dokja.”

“Mm?”

“Stop.”

He ignored him, turning his attention to the Oldest Dream, who was watching with those blackening eyes. His heel made lazy circles. Yoo Joonghyuk's eyebrow twitched in irritation, his jaw tightening, even as he kept his gaze determinedly on the newspaper.

Dokja raised his foot further up Yoo Joonghyuk's body, sliding past the hem of his sweatshirt. The fabric bunched up as he went, exposing the pale strip of Yoo Joonghyuk’s skin. And then Dokja was flattening those frigid digits against the firm plane of Yoo Joonghyuk’s stomach, watching the way he jumped at the cold contact.

As soon as it happened, Dokja felt more than heard Yoo Joonghyuk’s breath hitch—a quiet, involuntary noise that broke off into a short gasp.

Oh. 

The sound made his stomach twist sickeningly with excitement, heat flooding into his chest. His heart kicked into a faster rhythm, suddenly too loud in his ears. There was something thrilling about it—about making Yoo Joonghyuk react. It was exhilarating to realize that Dokja could draw something like this out of a person like Yoo Joonghyuk, who was usually so composed. So controlled and unreachable.

Unreachable…

The Oldest Dream sneered in his direction, wrapping his arms tightly around Yoo Joonghyuk’s shoulders. His fingers dug hard enough into Yoo Joonghyuk’s collarbone that Dokja thought he could see little crescents of blood. “What, did you like that sound, Dokja? Does something like that bring you joy?”

Yes, Dokja thought wildly. It does.

It was something so small. He did like it. He liked seeing these little proofs of Yoo Joonghyuk’s existence. The realization was so absurd, so desperate and pathetic that—

Dokja didn’t even know why he started laughing.

The sensation bubbled up too fast to even question it, spilling into the air before he could even think about holding it back. It started as a quiet snort, then grew shaking his shoulders. He couldn’t even believe that this kind of sound could come from him, just a stupid, crazed, belly-deep kind of laughter that echoed too loudly in the quiet apartment.

His book slipped from his hands, falling to the floor with a blunt thud, pages fanning open.

Through the blur of tears swimming across his eyes, he could tell Yoo Joonghyuk was staring at him. Wide-eyed, newspaper forgotten in his lap. Taking in the way Dokja’s shoulders shook from the force of his fit, the edge of hysteria creeping into it.

“Dokja—”

The laughter died in Dokja's throat as he noticed the Oldest Dream's expression had changed.

The boy was smiling now. Mirroring Dokja’s own expression, but wrong, too wide—his eyes watering with tears, streaming down his cheeks like oil, thick and black and viscous.

“Hey, Dokja.” The Oldest Dream’s voice was accusatory. “Is this what you want?”

And then the boy was moving, leaned down in a kind of slow motion that Dokja couldn’t stop. He just watched, paralyzed, as the Oldest Dream pressed those oil-slick lips flat against Yoo Joonghyuk’s own.

A black sticky substance crawled down Yoo Joongyuk’s throat, oozing and spreading like something alive. It leaked out from the small gaps between their mouths, dripping down Yoo Joonghyuk’s chin in thin, black streams. He could almost taste it, almost feel it clogging his own throat, filling his lungs with liquid tar.

No no no no—

Dokja shot up without a word, lunging forward on pure instinct. He cupped Yoo Joonghyuk’s face in his hands, pressing against oil-slick skin, dragging him away from the phantom—away from the Oldest Dream—

His momentum carried them both tumbling backward across the couch, Dokja’s spine hitting the cushions with Yoo Joonghyuk catching himself above him. Their faces were suddenly inches apart.

Dokja’s hands were still on Yoo Joonghyuk’s face, trembling. He frantically searched for any sign of the black substance—any residue, anything—fingers sliding over Yoo Joonghyuk’s jaw, his cheeks, his lips—

“What are you looking for, Dokja?”

The Oldest Dream was by the other end of the couch. And Yoo Jonghyuk’s face was clean.

“Where are you, Dokja?”

“You keep—you keep looking at me like—”

Yoo Joonghyuk’s voice was strained, worried eyes and furrowed brows searching Dokja’s face.

“This apartment, this comfort, are you confusing it with the subway? Think, Dokja. What if you never left? Would you even know the difference between reality and a dream?”

Dokja’s breath was coming too fast now, shallow and harsh.

Dokja exhaled shakily, reaching a hand up with a deliberate slowness, curling it lightly around the nape of Yoo Joonghyuk’s neck. The skin there was warm. He could feel Yoo Joonghyuk’s pulse jumping beneath his fingertips. It was so rapid, matching his own panicked rhythm.

Real. Yoo Joonghyuk was real.

This space between them…it was good. It was better. Yoo Joonghyuk shouldn't have to put his hands on him to make him happy.

“You’re just being paranoid, Joonghyuk-ah.” The words came easily, even as Dokja forced his lips into something resembling a smile. “Everything’s fine.”

Yoo Joonghyuk had a crazed glint in his eye—something desperate and raw and terrified that Dokja had never seen before. It was the look of someone who had seen too many precious things slip away from him. It was a helpless look. Yoo Joonghyuk leaned further down, low enough for his bangs to brush across Dokja’s forehead. Low enough to cover the shadow of the Oldest Dream, hovering just beyond this space, creating a bubble of space that was just the two of them. “There’s something wrong with you. What are you not telling me?”

Dokja smiled.

“There’s nothing wrong with me.”

Yoo Joonghyuk just pursed his lips, drawing a kind of pinching pain across his features. Because Dokja’s hand, still curled at his nape, trembled.

Even now, even after everything, Kim Dokja was nothing more than a liar.

***

The Oldest Dream slid down the metal wall, tilting his face up towards the ceiling. His voice was ragged when he spoke.

“I’m beginning to consider the possibility that…Yoo Joonghyuk is a figment of my imagination.”

The man himself crouched in front of him, eyes glinting with sympathy. “Why is that, Dokja?”’

He looked up, his voice cracking in two. “I just can’t imagine that someone would be able to forgive me for everything I’ve done.”

Yoo Joonghyuk coaxed the Oldest Dream’s arms away from where they wrapped around his legs. “I think you misunderstand,” he said, giving him the most gentle smile. “I don’t forgive you.”

The Oldest Dream’s hands shook violently, curling into himself. “You don't?” he whispered in the most pathetic voice. “Why?”

But Yoo Joonghyuk didn't say anything, didn't pull away. He just continued to kneel in front of him, running a warm hand through the Oldest Dream’s hair. He hated how much he wanted the touch—how he leaned into it, unbearably closer.

It wasn't real.

Maybe that was why it hurt so much to pull Yoo Joonghyuk by the collar, to press their lips together in the barest way, pushing shame and disgust into Yoo Joonghyuk's soft skin. Why it hurt so much to let out a broken sob against that mouth, to feel it mumble back—

“Because you don't deserve anything.”

***

The kitchen was quiet in the soft greyness of dawn.

Dokja stood at the kitchen counter, staring at the steam of the cooling kettle. There was a mug next to it, a teabag waiting inside. Empty. He needed to fill it.

The steam curled out of the kettle in thin wisps, swirling around itself before dissipating into nothing. Something felt off about it—the way it moved, hanging in the air for longer than it should.

Dokja blinked. He pressed a hand to the metal, just to check—

The metal was cool.

Dokja stared at it for a long moment, his hand still pressed against the surface. The steam was gone.

Whatever.

He poured the lukewarm water into the mug, steeping the bloated teabag floating at the top.

The tremor in his hands had become something constant now, a baseline hum of exhaustion that he felt deep in his bones, one he witnessed with every passing hour and every movement.

“You look terrible.”

His spine went rigid.

The voice came from beside him. From where the Oldest Dream was leaning against the countertop, arms crossed over his chest.

“Go away,” Dokja said quietly, turning back to his mug, taking a sip. It tasted like shit—diluted and cold.

“You know I can’t do that.”

Dokja turned on the kitchen sink, rinsing his mouth with the water. He cupped his hands under the stream, letting it pool in his palms before using it to splash his face. Water dripped from his chin, beading at the tips of his lashes. He did it again. And again. As if this could wash away the exhaustion, the image of the Oldest Dream beside him.

“How long has it been since you slept?” The Oldest Dream asked. “Properly. I’m not talking about the two hours you stole in Yoo Joonghyuk’s bed.”

“I don’t want to talk to you.”

Dokja kept his eyes on the running water.

“A week? More?” The Oldest Dream’s footsteps were silent as he walked closer. The boy came to stand by his shoulder, watching as the trickling tapwater ran over Dokja’s pale skin. “You know it’s killing you, right?”

His hands tightening around the edge of the counter, the marble biting into his palms. He grit his teeth, jaw aching with the force of it. “No. You’re killing me. Because you won’t go away.”

The Oldest Dream moved closer, pressing a cold cheek against Dokja’s back. “That’s not it, Dokja. I’m not the problem.”

The boy’s arms came around him from behind. Small hands wrapped around his own, interlacing their fingers together and drawing them away from the marble edge, back towards the running water.

Their joined hands moved under the tap together, water cascading over both sets of knuckles. The Oldest Dream’s hands felt too slick, grossly warm and wet.

“It’s you,” The boy said softly, his breath cold against Dokja’s neck. “The Kim Dokja who refuses to take responsibility for his past. The Kim Dokja who burdens everyone he has ever loved. What are you doing about it?”

Dokja’s throat felt tight. He could feel himself moving in the water as if guided by invisible strings.

“I’m…staying awake. Keeping everyone safe.”

“Do you even hear yourself?” The Oldest Dream laughed. “This isn’t atonement. You’re not protecting anyone like this.”

Then what am I supposed to do?” Dokja ripped his hands away from the water, away from the cold grip, and spinned around. Water flew from his fingers, speckling the floor in damp dots. He pushed at the Oldest Dream’s chest, something hot and furious burning in his chest. “What more could I possibly do—”

“End it.” The Oldest Dream said, smile splitting wider, stretching his face with a crazed look that festered behind those too-young eyes. “End the dream, Kim Dokja.”

Before Dokja could react, his small hand grabbed Dokja by the collar of his shirt and yanked him forward with surprising strength. Their faces were close. Close enough that Dokja could see every sickening detail—the dark circles under those familiar eyes, the unhealthy shade of his skin, his cracked lips.

The Oldest Dream’s voice was too loud, echoing off the bare walls of the kitchen, drilling painfully into his skull. Each syllable drove sharply into his brain, sharp and invasive and wrong, wrong, wrong—

“End yourself—”

Something in Dokja snapped.

Dokja moved on pure instinct, rage flooding the hollows of his chest. His hands came up and he slammed the Oldest Dream backward, the boy’s back hitting the oven door with a metallic bang. The impact drove out a pathetic sound from the boy’s lungs, something between a wheeze and a grunt.

There was a certain look in the Oldest Dream’s eyes, one Dokja was unable to name but stole the breath from his chest. It was something defiant and hurt and irreparably broken, visible through the gaps in the Oldest Dream’s bangs, where his pale features were dipped in shadow.

"People can tell you that you deserve to live. To be happy. But we know the truth, don’t we? This life. This apartment. Him.” The Oldest Dream pulled his lips back in a sneer. “You know better than to think you deserve it.”

Dokja’s fist was moving before he realized it.

His knuckles connected with the Oldest Dream’s face, with cheekbone and nose and soft tissue. The impact sent a shock of pain down his arm. There was the sharp crunch of something breaking under his fist, and then blood was spurting from the boy’s nose, red and hot and viscous. It dripped down over his lips.

Shut up.

“The worst part is that you don’t even understand what you’re capable of—what parts of me you still carry in body and name.” The Oldest Dream grinned, the glint of blackened blood coating his teeth.

Shut up.

“Just look, Dokja.”

It was only now that Dokja noticed the charged air around them. Noticed the strange pressure of something building just behind his eyes, a throbbing, pulsing sensation that made his vision swim. He watched the dishes floating in the space around them.

The dishes...what?

Plates, bowls, glasses—they hovered in the air, suspended by nothing. Held by nothing. A coffee mug drifted past his shoulder, rotating slowly.

“What have you done?” Dokja hissed, his voice breaking on the last word.

His lungs felt tight, his ribs expanding uselessly. He couldn’t breathe. He really couldn’t—

The dishes began to rotate, orbiting each other in lazy spirals. A glass drifted past his head. Then another. The morning light caught on the ceramic edges, glinting faintly, turning the kitchen into a constellation of floating debris.

The Oldest Dream laughed, and it almost sounded hysterical. “Nothing. I’ve done nothing.”

Dokja’s hand shot out, grabbing one of the floating glasses as it passed, his fingers closing around it. In one fluid motion, he smashed it against the counter. The sound of it was sharp, violent, piercing through the quiet of the apartment and the noise in his head. The glass shattered into a dozen jagged pieces, and Dokja closed his hand around the largest one, ignoring the bite of it against his palm.

Dokja pressed the broken glass against the Oldest Dream’s throat.

The shard dimpled the skin there, right over the pulse point. He pressed deeper, feeling the way flesh gave under the sharp edge, watching the way a thin line of blood welled up, dripping lazily from the shallow cut. It ran down the boy’s neck in a single thin line, staining the collar of his uniform shirt.

The Oldest Dream smiled.

“Do it.”

“I hate you,” Dokja grit out. His hand was shaking so badly the glass trembled against the Oldest Dream’s throat, slitting the glass across. “I hate you so much—”

It happened so fast that Dokja barely registered it.

“—ja. Dokja—!”

The sharp pad of footsteps. The crushing feeling of a hand over his own, fingers closing tightly around the sharp edge of glass. Blood bloomed immediately, hot and wet, seeping between their interlaced fingers. The hand pried it from Dokja’s grasp, pulling the glass away despite the way it cut deeper with every movement.

“What the fuck, Dokja?”

Yoo Joonghyuk stood there, red dripping steadily from his fingers, staring at him with an expression Dokja had never seen—so terrified and angry and hurt. “What were you doing?”

His pupils were blown wide, chest heaving. His hair was unbrushed, and beneath the hurt, the pink crease of a pressure mark was pressed onto his cheek. The pressure mark of a pillow.

All at once—the dishes fell, ceramic and glass crashing to the tile in an explosion of sound. The shards scattered everywhere, glittering across the floor like fallen stars.

The Oldest Dream was gone.

Dokja turned his head to the empty space by the oven. “I…he was just—”

He stopped.

There was a stream of tears running down his cheeks, leaving trails of salt that burned as they mixed with the blood dripping down his throat. His throat, where he’d—

Where he’d cut himself.

Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes were fixed there—on Dokja’s neck. On the thin line of red, just shallow enough. His expression seemed to be cycling through something too complicated for Dokja to track, something like grief and rage and horror.

“I—I didn’t mean to.” The words tumbled out of Dokja’s mouth, desperate and thoughtless. “I swear, it’s not what it looks like.”

Yoo Joonghyuk let out a sharp sigh, slowly sinking to his knees and resting his face in his hands. It was just a whoosh of breath—one that sounded horrifyingly close to a sob.

“It’s not,” Dokja said again, voice breaking in two. He knelt on the floor in front of Yoo Joonghyuk, shards of broken glass biting into his knees. “I wasn’t trying to—”

“To what?” Yoo Joonghyuk’s hands dropped from his face, eyes burning as they met Dokja’s. “To what, kill yourself?”

The accusation hung in the air.

“What the fuck is going on?”

I’m sorry.

Yoo Joonghyuk reached for him, bleeding palm face up.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry—

“Don’t—” Dokja stumbled backwards, hands coming up between them, feet sliding on broken ceramic. There was something sick crawling up his throat, something like bile and fear and hate. “Don’t—”

The air rippled.

Between them—in the space where Dokja’s hands were raised—light bloomed.

It was something orange and violent and infinite at once, a nebula forming in the kitchen like the splitting of a wound. It was a bubble of stardust that coalesced into spiraling clouds and pinpricks of light, hundreds of them, thousands, forming a barrier between Dokja and Yoo Joonghyuk.

“What—” Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes were so wide. “Dokja, what is—”

“I’m sorry,” Dokja gasped.

Tears were streaming down his face now, hot and fast and endless. He couldn’t breathe. His lungs weren’t working right, stuttering painfully in place when they tried to expand. The kitchen tilted sideways, or maybe he was falling, or—

It didn’t matter.

The galaxy pulsed brighter, expanding, stars erupted across the clouds that rested across the floor and counter, swallowing the walls and the morning light. Dokja was drowning in it—in the proof, the crushing realization that something in him was still the Oldest Dream, the entity who reshaped reality, a stupid, dangerous child—

“Dokja—”

But Dokja was already moving, stumbling away from the barrier of stars and dust he’d created. His shoulder hit the doorframe, bruising deep into the soft tissue. He bounded off of it, feet sliding over broken ceramic and glass, and then he was in the hallway.

Running.

“Dokja, wait.”

He didn’t want to. Didn’t want to stop, and let Yoo Joonghyuk see his face. What he was.

He scrambled to the front door, his blood-slick hands fumbling with the lock. Behind him, Yoo Joonghuyk was calling his name, getting closer, and Dokja—

He couldn’t.

The lock gave.

Dokja wrenched the door open and ran.

***

The morning air was cold against his face.

Dokja’s feet hit the pavement with a dull rhythm. Distantly, he realized that he had forgotten shoes. He’d run out in socks and his sleep clothes, the jagged portions of the asphalt pushing into his feet.

It hurt. Each step sent sharp stabs of pain through his soles. There was grit and glass embedded in the fabric, the hard skin under it, the warmth of blood seeping into the material.

He didn’t stop.

The world blurred around him, wind combing through his air, flushing his cheeks and cooling the hot pulse of his blood. His breath came in ragged gasps that burned his throat. His vision swam with tears and the exhaustion of…everything.

Dokja didn’t know where he was going. Just somewhere away. Away from the broken dishes he had left Yoo Joonghyuk to clean up. Away from the stars littering the empty space of their kitchen. Away from the proof of it—the proof that Dokja was a monster.

Eventually, Dokja found himself at one of the community parks.

It was completely empty, the playground equipment so old it looked abandoned. Dokja dragged his sore feet and tired body over to one of the rusted swings, the dust of pebbles sticking to the mud on his socks. The chains creaked with every shallow push.

His hands were still slightly sticky with dried blood—his own, Yoo Joonghyuk’s—crusted into the creases of his palm and down the collar of his shirt. It flaked off his skin in blackened fragments when he picked at it.

He should clean them. He should go home. Do something better than sit here, like a child coming down from a tantrum.

Instead, he just stared at the sky as it lightened from grey to a pale blue, the deepening colour helping the last stars in the sky fade into nothing.

The swing beside him creaked.

Dokja’s entire body went rigid. He didn’t need to look to know who it was. After all, Dokja would always recognize this presence—familiar in the way no one else was. One ingrained so deep into his bones that it burned.

“Can’t you leave me alone?" His voice was hoarse. “Just for today?” His hands were shaking so badly he had to grip the chains to steady them, knuckles whitening over the metal.

“No.”

The Oldest Dream’s legs dangled off the swing, too short to reach the ground. He kicked the air idly, moving the swing back and forth with residual momentum. It was almost childlike in the innocence of it. It made Dokja’s stomach turn.

“You—I hate you.” Dokja hunched over, pressing his face into dirty hands. “I never asked for any of this.”

The boy hummed. “Maybe. No one wants to face the consequences of their actions. You’re no different.” The Oldest Dream turned towards him, the line of blood Dokja had cut into his neck still dripping sluggishly. “You’re no God.”

“But I still hurt people. I hurt them, and they have no choice but to obey me. Because I have that power.”

“You do.” The Oldest Dream said, picking at the lint on his pants. “You do. You watched the people you love suffer for an eternity. It was something you wanted.” The world slowly blurred around Dokja, wind combing through his hair, flushing his cheeks and cooling the hot pulse of his blood.

“But Yoo Joonghyuk made that decision on his own. He chose his own suffering—for a chance to reach you. And he took it, every single time.”

“Because I made him—”

“Did you really?” The Oldest Dream’s voice cut through the still air. “Did you specifically ask for it? Did you hold him by the hand as he regressed over and over again? Were you the one who forced him to fight? To die? To stay by your side, even after the story had ended?”

He was looking at him now, the darkness of his eyes reflecting the rich hue of the sky above. They were like glass, Dokja thought—a mirror. “No. That was him. That was always him.”

“That’s…terrifying.”

“If you ask him yourself, he’ll give you the same answer.”

Dokja felt something crack inside his chest—something painfully brittle he had encased around his body. “I don’t deserve that,” he whispered. “I don’t deserve any of it. The people I killed—”

“Are dead.” The Oldest Dream said bluntly. He raised his gaze up, to a flock of birds travelling across the vast expanse of space above them. “Nothing you do will bring them back. And nothing you do will atone for their deaths.”

Dokja let out a long, tired sigh. Expelling air from deep in his lungs and letting it hollow him out. “At least…explain this.”

His hands shook as he raised them. Flecks of blood cracked across his palms, crumbled from where they had pooled under his fingernails. And from them, a single point of light bloomed—small and bright and impossibly delicate. Then another. And another. They multiplied, spreading outwards in spiraling patterns, swirling with colour—with deep purples and blues and golds that couldn’t be described with words.

And Dokja held all of it within the palm of his hands.

A galaxy.

The Oldest Dream glanced at it, the dark circles under his eyes prominent. “It’s just—a side effect. Creation. Projection. That—” The Oldest Dream flicked his chin towards Dokja’s hands, “—is the most useless skill in the world. It doesn’t do anything but prove you are a part of me. And I of you.”

Dokja stared at the little cloud in his hands. The stars pulsed gently, casting flickers of shadow across the playground. He could almost feel the weight of them.

It was so small. Pretty, almost.

Without another word, Dokja closed his hands, and the stars winked out. He didn’t want to see them right now.

His phone buzzed in his pocket. The vibration made him jump. He pulled it out slowly, hands still trembling with the dregs of adrenaline, exhaustion taking over in small increments.

There was a single message, faintly visible in the sharp sunlight. It was hard to see, especially as the screen blurred again, a tight ball knotting in his throat.

Yoo Joonghyuk: 3:47pm

> Come home, Dokja. Please.

“He’s waiting for you,” The Oldest Dream said quietly. “Did you dream that, too?”

Dokja looked up, opening his mouth to respond—

But the swing beside him was empty, the chains still swingingly slightly, as if in goodbye.

Dokja’s lip trembled.

He stayed there, on the rusty swing in the middle of an empty playground, until the sun slipped beneath the horizon. The light grew stale, shifting from gold to grey to nothing at all. The cool breeze turned cold, seeping through his thin clothes and drawing goosebumps to the top of his flesh. He stayed, until only the streetlights and the glow from Yoo Joonghyuk’s open text illuminated the space in front of him.

Something told him that Dokja wouldn’t see the Oldest Dream again.

Wrapping his arms around his chest to protect himself from the chill of the night, Dokja walked home alone.

***

The walk back felt too short.

Each step reminded Dokja of his ruined socks, the pavement cold through the thin, torn fabric. Sharp pebbles pushed through the holes, finding tender flesh. The cut on his throat still stung, hardening with the crust of drying blood. He could feel it move each time he swallowed.

And still, it felt too short.

Too soon, Dokja found himself standing frozen outside the apartment door, hand poised to knock. His knuckles hovered an inch from the wood, hand trembling in the air.

Dokja let his shaking knuckles tap lightly against the wood. Just once, so faintly he didn’t know how Yoo Joonghyuk would be able to hear it.

But—the door opened.

Yoo Joonghyuk stood there, still in the same clothes from this morning. The only difference was the tired look in his eyes, the bone-deep exhaustion carved into his face, and the fresh bandages around his palm, dots of red seeping past the cloth. His eyes swept over Dokja, taking in everything—his ruined socks, tracking in mud and dirt, his dusty knees, the shallow cut across his throat—expression tightening at the edges.

They stared at each other, the quiet hum of the hallway seeping through the silence.

Then Yoo Joonghyuk’s hand wrapped around Dokja’s wrist and pulled him inside. The door clicked shut.

“Yoo Joonghyuk—”

“Not here,” he said, voice hoarse. “Inside.”

He led Dokja down the hallway, past the kitchen. Not a single glass shard gleamed under the ceiling light. It was spotless. The only evidence that anything had happened was the pile of glass in the dustbin, and the way Yoo Joonghyuk’s shoulders were drawn tight. The counters and cabinets had been scrubbed clean—too clean—like Yoo Joonghyuk had poured all his energy into the repetitive, calming motion. 

Guilt churned deep in Dokja’s stomach at the sight.

Yoo Joonghyuk pushed open his bedroom door. He released Dokja’s wrist, if only to close the door behind them, before leaning back against the wood.

The silence pressed down on him.

“Sit,” Yoo Joonghyuk finally said.

Dokja sat.

The mattresses creaked with his weight. He lowered his gaze to his hands, to the blood dried over the whorls of his fingertips. He couldn’t look up—his throat felt too tight, couldn't see whatever expression Yoo Joonghyuk was making.

It was probably disappointment.

Footsteps crossed the room a few times, the sound of someone rummaging through a cabinet. Then Yoo Joonghyuk was kneeling in front of him, reaching for his ankle.

“What are you…?”

Yoo Joonghyuk just pursed his lips, peeling away the ruined sock with unbelievable care. The fabric stuck to his wounds, ripping the scabbing cuts as it was pulled free. Dokja hissed.

Yoo Joonghyuk’s jaw tightened, but the rest of his face remained terrifyingly neutral as he scanned what was underneath—at the small cuts and dirt ground into the broken skin.

He popped open a medkit that Dokja hadn’t noticed. Picked up the tweezers in there and began picking out the small bits of glass embedded into the wounds.

Dokja watched his hands work, disinfecting and wrapping his feet with the methodical detachment of someone who had done it a thousand times before. Yoo Joonghyuk pressed a damp towel over the skin, slowly wiping over the dirt.

The towel was warm. It stung.

White bandages carefully wound around Dokja’s foot, and Yoo Joonghyuk screwed his eyes shut once, letting out a slow breath.

“You don’t have to do this,” Dokja said quietly. “I can do it myself.”

His hands paused for a second, tightening the bandage slightly, just enough for Dokja to draw in a sharp breath.

Okay. Fine.

Yoo Joonghyuk moved on to his other foot without another word. Then raised, reaching for his neck. His hands were so gentle, Dokja realized. Gentler, even, than he had been with his feet, pressing the warm towel against crusted blood, wiping the streaks of it smeared around his collarbone.

But Dokja couldn’t take his eyes away from the hurt look in Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes.

It was a look that Dokja was used to seeing there, like it was some base emotion that permeated Yoo Joonghyuk’s entire being—hurt and tired and so, so worried.

“There is a lot…I need to tell you.” Dokja said finally, the words settling somewhere between them.

“I know.”

“I know you’re tired of waiting for me, but—can we talk in the morning?”

“Okay.”

Something in that quiet, tired acceptance made Dokja want to cry.

Yoo Joonghyuk finished applying the plaster to his neck. It was a small bandage, covering the shallow cut. His fingers lingered there for a moment, fingers brushing just over Dokja’s pulse point, as if checking to see whether it was still beating.

Then he pulled away.

Dokja waited until Yoo Joonghyuk moved to the bed. Waited until he climbed under the covers, holding them open in silent invitation. He followed, sliding in beside him.

They lay still and rigid beneath the glow of moonlight. An echo of the first night like this, an eternity ago.

There was the one question Dokja needed answered tonight—before he could close his eyes, before he would let himself slip into the realm of unconsciousness.

“Why are you so kind to me?”

Yoo Joonghyuk shifted, turning towards him, eyes glinting against the backdrop of stars outside the window. He thought for a long time before he spoke.

“Do you remember my first life? Before everything.”

“...I remember the 0th round.” Dokja smiled faintly. “It was my favourite.”

“Then you know I had everything.” Yoo Joonghyuk was quiet for a moment. “A good life. Peace. That was my first ending.” Yoo Joonghyuk leaned towards him, like he needed Dokja to listen. “Do you want to know why I chose to regress?”

“Why?” he whispered.

“Because I was unhappy.”

That wasn’t what Dokja wanted to hear. It wasn’t—

“And because I wanted to meet you.”

Yoo Joonghyuk dragged Dokja towards him, wrapping a warm hand around his shoulders and pulling him close. “In that life, you reached out to me when I was powerless to fight back.”

There was something infinite in the dark glint of Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes—the sad, enduring weight that came from endless years alone. “That’s why, I promised myself to keep searching for you. I wanted to find you, to reach out in the same way—even if you wouldn’t take my hand.”

Dokja spoke in a whisper, tucking his head beneath Yoo Joonghyuk’s chin. “You know, you could have felt that way because of me.” His voice came out half-muffled against Yoo Joonghyuk's chest. “I could have dreamed it. All of it—your feelings, your actions, everything.”

He held himself in tense silence, waiting for Yoo Joonghyuk’s answer. Fear crawled up his legs, into his spine, holding itself near his heart.

Yoo Joonghyuk took a slow breath, and Dokja felt the rise and fall of his ribs against his side. “If you really had dreamed me into existence, I wouldn’t care.”

The words were so blunt, so matter-of-fact that Dokja almost didn’t process them at first.

“What?”

“I wouldn’t care.” Yoo Joonghyuk was staring at the wall. “It doesn’t matter whether I was your creation or whether I chose this myself. I’m my own person. And I choose what happens to me.”

Dokja wanted to cry. His throat burned with it, breaking his voice with his next breath. “But how can you be sure?”

“I can’t be sure. Neither can you. But it’s what I’ve decided anyway.”

Dokja stared at Yoo Joonghyuk’s blurred chest, drops of water darkening the fabric in uneven spots. Dokja swiped a hand across his cheek to dry it away.

“Sleep,” Yoo Joonghyuk whispered, drawing his bandaged hand heavily through Dokja’s hair, the soothing motion nearly enough to make him burst into tears again. “We can talk more tomorrow.”

Dokja closed his eyes, feeling Yoo Joonghyuk’s breath. Listening to his heartbeat, where it was beating a little too fast. Feeling the way Yoo Joonghyuk’s hand drew comforting circles over his back in a steady rhythm.

Yoo Joonghyuk held him tighter.

And Dokja let himself fall asleep.

***

Dokja woke to the steady pace of Yoo Joonghyuk's heartbeat.

It thumped against his cheek, drawing him into the space between consciousness and sleep, making him all the more aware of the way Yoo Joonghyuk was completely slack beneath him, the way his palm moved slowly over his back in absentminded strokes.

“Dokja?”

The voice rumbled through Yoo Joonghyuk’s chest, vibrating against Dokja’s ear. It was quiet. Careful. Like he wasn’t sure whether Dokja had stirred.

He shifted against Yoo Joonghyuk’s chest, pressing his cheek closer. The hand at his back was so warm, moving back and forth in a way that promised to lull him back into slumber.

He wanted to stay like this just a little longer.

But it was the slight panic lacing Yoo Joonghyuk’s voice that made him blink the haze of sleep away.

Dokja lifted his head slowly.

Yoo Joonghyuk's face encased in a soft glow. Orange-gold light painted his features, flitting across his cheekbones and reflecting colours off his eyes, making him look almost wonderstruck. He wasn’t looking at Dokja at all. His gaze was fixed somewhere above him, at the ceiling.

Dokja followed his gaze, turning his head. Flopping onto his back.

“Wait, don't—”

There, on the ceiling, the projection of a galaxy sprawled across the plaster, shifting constellations pulsing faintly, like a heartbeat. Expanding like breath. Spiraling clouds of stardust drifted across the blank canvas of it in impossible patterns.

His stomach dropped.

“Did I do that…?”

In his sleep—

It was almost an unbearable thought. Almost a horrific, impossible thought. To think that Dokja could dream again, to believe that this cursed ability was clawing its way back into the world. His chest grew tight, breath coming in halting gasps. Each inhale stuttered into the next, blood pounding in his ears until the stars above blurred, smearing together into one orange-gold mass.

His breath was coming far too fast, panic building behind his sternum, pressing in like it the pressure was trying to crack his ribs and burst his lungs. Blood pounded hard behind his ears, drowning out all else.

To bring his dreams to life again—

No.

“See? This is why I couldn't let myself fall asleep, I have to—” Dokja gasped, a hand coming up to pull at his hair. “What do I—”

Yoo Joonghyuk’s shadow moved.

With a blink, he had turned over, holding his body above Dokja’s, blocking the glow. There was a panicked expression on his face, mouth tight, eyes wide.

He was breathing heavily, using his forearm as leverage to keep him hovering just above Dokja.

And suddenly, Dokja's mind went still.

Dokja couldn’t see the stars anymore. Just Yoo Joonghyuk and his wide eyes, eclipsing the stars behind his hair.

He pressed a tentative hand to Yoo Joonghyuk’s chest, feeling the frantic hammer of his heart. Yoo Joonghyuk’s breath caught slightly at the touch, so quiet that only Dokja could have heard it. Dokja’s fingers curled against the warmth of him, bunching in the fabric of his sleep shirt.

Something about the moment took his breath away.

Maybe it was the way Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes fluttered shut as Dokja pressed his hand closer. Maybe it was the way Dokja felt so safe under that strong body, under the warmth that he had come to associate with the word home.

And for that, Dokja threaded his fingers through the curls near the base of Yoo Joonghyuk’s neck, tugging him down slowly, within an inch of his lips.

In the mingling of their breaths, in the liminal space between them, Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes met his, dark and shadowed by the longing of night.

“I didn't…want you to see this.” Yoo Joonghyuk’s voice was barely above a whisper. “Because I knew you'd panic.”

Dokja exhaled slowly, watching Yoo Joonghyuk blink against the brush of air over his cheeks.

“You should have told me. It's dangerous.”

“It's beautiful,” Yoo Joonghyuk insisted, pushing his forehead against Dokja's own, like he could insert the sentiment through his skull. Idiot. “Plus, it…helps me, too.”

“How?”

“Because…when I wake up in the middle of the night,” he whispered, mouthing the shape of the words against Dokja's lips, “I can look up, and see those stars, and remember you’re alive.”

Dokja closed the distance.

Yoo Joonghyuk was unbelievably soft against him, so achingly gentle, that it almost made Dokja want to cry. It was nearly too much—the weight of Yoo Joonghyuk's pressing him into the mattress, the slow, insistent press of his mouth, the faint tremor of Yoo Joonghyuk's hand as it came to cup his cheek.

I never asked you to save me. But you did anyway.

Sometimes, Dokja wanted to forget how much Yoo Joonghyuk had sacrificed for him.

Dokja hooked his arms across Yoo Joonghyuk’s neck, bringing their lips together against the projection of a galaxy in their bedroom, tangled between rumpled sheets in a too-small bed.

For that, I hated you.

Dokja pushed closer into the man above him, the man who had given everything for him, and the man Dokja had dedicated everything to.

And for that, I loved you.

***

“Yoo Joonghyuk. How do I atone for the sin of being alive?”

“You don't. You never had to.”

“And if I still feel guilty?”

“Then forgive yourself,” Yoo Joonghyuk tucked the Oldest Dream under his arm, pulling him close. “Again and again. Endlessly.”

Pressed against a hollow chest with no beating heart, the words echoed straight into his ear.

“Because everything starts from there.”