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Kim Dokja has never been good at loving, nor was he good at being loved.
He wouldn't say that he was born that way, it wouldn't make any sense if he was, but if he was given the chance to choose he would choose to be born carrying it as a curse, because then he wouldn't have to spend most of his childhood to youth to adulthood wondering what was wrong with him and what he did so wrong. If he was born that way, he wouldn't have to mourn over what he could've been if he just had it differently — better, like others. He could just accept it as it is. Yes, it will probably hurt, but at least he would know it was tied with him before he was even conceived. It was inevitable, it carries him like he carries it. He cannot part with it. Saying all these sound like a good excuse and reason every time he is asked why he is the way he is. It is so much better than saying that he is wounded and traumatized, that he cannot move past his history, that he cannot be cleaned of his family's stains.
If he could just say it that way, people wouldn't have to look at him like a broken person who can’t move on and work on it because he is an adult now. Perhaps they will tell him instead that he is pitiful, that it cannot be helped, that he deserved better.
But he was unlucky like this. He wasn't born being bad in relationships and worse in being loved. He was shaped that way. Once, he was soft. A child with a name and a loving mother and father. Soon, he was older and bruised. Cheeks, arms, legs, stomach. There was not a part of his body where he wasn't touched. There was not a part of his body he hadn't hated.
His body made him visible to his father’s violence, the scars on him made his mother weep and apologize. He spent most of his time growing up feeling more like a wound than a person. Not even covering his body and hiding his scars, could take that feeling away.
If only he was invisible — if he could take himself apart and hide every piece of himself away, he would. But he can’t. And because he can’t, he had to learn how to fold himself into different shapes, smaller and smaller, to protect himself, but also write new and false words above the already written chapters of his past.
If he couldn't rewrite it, he’d write above it so that no one can read it well. So that they will have to ask him, and he’ll tell him his version, and no one has to know the truth.
That’s why, Kim Dokja may have never been good at loving and being loved, but he’s damn good at pretending.
It’s a hard-earned skill. He worked hard for it most his life that now, fooling everyone around him and making them follow the narrative of his life that he had written for himself, he might even have his name next to Han Sooyoung, fighting for the bestseller author award. After all, his stories had always been effective, he knew this because he saw the way their ears would perk out in curiosity when someone threw a vague question about his background, and how they would afterward make an expression of awe and envy when he told them the overused storyline he’d created, his mouth way too familiar with every word that he could recite them without making any mistake.
Family, career, body, relationships — all of these were far too interesting to others, and his stories were humbly extravagant but believable that no one would even doubt if they heard. Thanks to this, he had successfully built a good image for himself. He was efficient and well-skilled in his work, he had a likeable personality and was helpful, his body was good and well-maintained, and his relationships were grieved over when they ended because god, they were just so perfect together.
He’s so damn good at fooling people around him that he can almost fool himself too.
And truth is, he was confident that he’d never slip. That no one — not even the next person he’d call his lover, just like his previous ones — would know how filthy and disgusting he truly was. Because he is perfect. He is perfect. He had to be. It doesn’t matter if no one stays, if his lovers turn their backs on him like he was always familiar with — no one can know.
If they know, they’d regret meeting him. Being with him. Fucking him. And the last thing he wants before the curtain falls is a face of someone who pities him.
He is perfect.
And yet.
Yet here he is, in Yoo Joonghyuk’s hands, feeling like an open wound that is gaping and throbbing and gushing with warm, sticky blood. His hands are warm against his cold, sweaty skin, but neither of them pull away.
He doesn’t know when it started, this terrible, painful ache clenching around his chest. All he knows is that he woke up with his heavy and hot body and everything that was wrong in his life came rising to the surface, ready to suffocate him, and he needs Yoo Joonghyuk to fucking go away, to leave him alone — he needs Yoo Joonghyuk to hold him close and never let go.
It’s like throwing a pebble into the gentle tide of a river; a ripple effect, a disturbance of well-crafted peace. Kim Dokja is well familiar with the feeling, knows it very well that he notices it from afar, in its slow and careful approach, before it drops at the pit of his stomach and crawls up his spine and spreads to his lungs and chest. And there, around his ribcage, it pulses. Heavy and numbing, striking his steady breathing and threatening to shatter his heart beneath his feet as he tries to inhale.
And there, in Yoo Joonghyuk’s careful and gentle hands, it shatters.
“Dokja-ya,” was the first thing he caught in his semi-consciousness. Then, there, his rough and gentle hand on his forehead. “How are you feeling?” His voice was soft, everything that Kim Dokja wasn’t, and it hurt.
It hurts.
God, what had he done?
Yoo Joonghyuk is so human, so loveable and kind, and yet there he was, letting him in as if his gentle hands wouldn’t make him come undone. As if his sincerity wasn’t dangerous; his love a knife that was ready to slice through everything he worked hard to build.
Did he overdo it? Did he overestimate himself?
Kim Dokja’s nausea intensifies, his stomach turning inside him and his heart racing. He swallows, throat bobbing, but there’s nothing and it only makes him feel more uncomfortable. It must’ve been noticeable, because Yoo Joonghyuk immediately settles beside him, his voice much nearer and clearer than before. Kim Dokja wants to pull away, because to be seen this weak – this vulnerable, makes all the warning signals in his head go off. Reject, deflect, run. Leave, leave, leave.
And yet, even thinking this, he leans into Yoo Joonghyuk’s side, wrapping his arm around his waist and hiding his face just below him. He’s selfish and disgusting like that. Always wanting more, never giving anything back. Just wanting and wanting, and leaving. “S… sorry,” he forces out, voice unrecognizable even to him. “Sorry… Hyuk-ah… I…”
Yoo Joonghyuk shifts lower from where he’s leaning against the headboard, humming in curiosity and confusion. “What’d you say?” When he’s finally laying beside him, he scoops Kim Dokja and hugs him tight, kissing his forehead. “Can you repeat that? Is something wrong? Can I help you with anything?”
Kim Dokja’s shoulders shake at the tone of his voice, and it doesn’t take long for the sobs to follow. He clenches his fist weakly at the hem of Yoo Joonghyuk’s clothes. Yoo Joonghyuk doesn’t say anything, only hugging him tight and running his hand on his back.
Kim Dokja is falling apart and being pulled together, both at the same time.
“I’m sorry,” he cries, “I’m so sorry.” He doesn’t know how to say it, doesn’t exactly know what he’s sorry for. For being sick? For crying? For being like a burden? For being with him? For loving him?
God, that’s it, isn't it?
He loves him. He loves him, and that's why it’s hurting, because he knows that it's not bound to end well.
Because when he loves, it's never bound to end well.
He loves him. He’s going to ruin him.
Kim Dokja wants to die.
He fists Yoo Joonghyuk’s shirt, gripping tightly like he’s holding his life together there, and forces himself to speak, “I’m sorry… for being a bad person.”
Yoo Joonghyuk hums, not in acceptance and forgiveness, but in recognition. “I love you anyway,” he answers. Not answering why, not pulling away, but holding him close and even leaning to kiss the crown of his head. Kim Dokja freezes. Run, run, run, his thoughts get louder amidst his overwhelming feeling of love, wanting both to protect Yoo Joonghyuk from him and take him as he is fully and never letting go. “I love you, Kim Dokja. Let me stay.” There's pain in his voice, found in the trembles between the syllables, as if he knows already what this is about.
The full surrender in his confession hurts, because it’s spoken like he’s offering his heart to Kim Dokja.
As if Kim Dokja wouldn’t break it.
As if Yoo Joonghyuk doesn’t care.
“No,” Kim Dokja sobs, shaking his head. Don’t say it. No. “I’m…” a liar, a terrible person, I will hurt you and I will leave.
“I love you.”
Kim Dokja shakes his head again. “You shouldn’t.”
“That so?” Yoo Joonghyuk asks, shrugging. “But I do. I love you.”
“Stop.” Kim Dokja raises his hand and slaps his back, wanting to pull away even more now, and Yoo Joonghyuk finally lets him, but only so he could cup his face.
He’s smiling at him, and his eyes shine. It’s endearing, it’s annoying, it’s painful. “I love you.”
Kim Dokja glares at him with tears in his eyes. His nose flares and his eyes blur, his tears keep falling and Yoo Joonghyuk keeps wiping them away. “You… you don’t want that,” he tells him. A promise and a warning. “You don’t.”
It’s Yoo Joonghyuk’s turn to shake his head. “Dokja, I love you but you don’t get to tell me what I want.” A pause. “Not when you can't even tell me what’s yours."
Kim Dokja reaches up and grips Yoo Joonghyuk’s wrist tight with the strength he could muster, which isn’t much.
He stays quiet for a while.
“If I… open that part of myself up to you,” he begins, slowly and carefully. “I will leave.”
It’s the most honest and transparent he ever told him since the day he told him he wanted to be with him.
Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes are knowing, and he smiles sadly, holding back his tears, that Kim Dokja hates himself more. “I know.” His eyes finally water, and his voice cracks when he says, “It’s not hard to tell when you always look like you’re finding an exit.”
Kim Dokja feels like his heart just fell. “I…” he begins, but he doesn’t know what to say. “So then, why?”
Why do you still love me?
Why are you still taking care of me?
Why are you still with me?
He doesn’t ask all of that, but Yoo Joonghyuk seems to have heard him. And oh, isn’t that what scares him the most? Doesn’t that just tell so much about how much access Kim Dokja had given him, even without him being fully aware of it?
Yoo Joonghyuk leans to kiss his wet cheek. “Because I want to stay.”
Kim Dokja’s lips wobble, and he takes a deep breath before speaking again, albeit with so much struggle from his sobs, “And I’m more afraid of everything that stays—” Kim Dokja covers his eyes with his shaking hand in shame, “than those that don't. Because I can't promise the same.”
“Then don't,” Yoo Joonghyuk answers swiftly. “Let me stay on behalf of you.”
I won’t chase after you because I know that will only make you run farther away from me, and I’m scared you’ll go somewhere really far. Somewhere I can’t reach.
I won’t chase after you because you already spent your entire life running, and I don’t want you to get more tired than you already are.
I won’t chase after you so you’ll know where I am.
I’m here, tethered to my love for you.
Yoo Joonghyuk doesn’t say them, but Kim Dokja understands, because Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes have always been more expressive than his mouth, always been louder than his words, and it’s times like this when Kim Dokja wishes that he didn’t understand.
“If I can’t be someone who can make you stay, at least let me be someone you can return to.”
Something snaps in Kim Dokja hearing that, because despite his denials and shortcomings and pulling away, the sight of Yoo Joonghyuk waiting silently for him feels like a knife in his gut.
So in spite of everything he’s done and that’s been done to him, he pulls Yoo Joonghyuk close, nails scratching at the small of his back and biting down his shoulder as he finally, finally wails. It isn’t the same as earlier. It’s loud and open and harsh and ugly. His head feels like it's splitting open, his body is heavy, and he’s screaming. Releasing. Slipping.
He tugs at Yoo Joonghyuk, keeps pulling and pulling, rubbing their bodies close like he wants to stitch their skin together so he could forget himself; he wants to reshape his heart the same as Yoo Joonghyuk’s, because maybe then he could love like him, and he could love him like him.
Through it, Yoo Joonghyuk doesn't let him go.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he sobs in his shoulder, fists in Yoo Joonghyuk’s hair.
“I love you.”
An invitation for honesty and vulnerability. Another knock in his door.
“I’m… scared.”
A kiss on his forehead. “Me too. Go on.”
Kim Dokja stammers, “I–I’m shitty.”
“Hm. And you’re also understanding.” A kiss on his temple.
“You don’t understand… I’m insecure and jealous and sick.”
On his eye. “I do. And you’re also accepting and open and loving.”
Kim Dokja shakes his head. “I lie a lot.”
“Yeah. You also snore a lot.” Kim Dokja glares at him with wet eyes, hiccupping, and Yoo Joonghyuk chuckles and wipes his tears.
“I struggle with honesty.”
“Hm. And yet here you are.” A kiss on his nose.
“I’m selfish.”
On his jaw. “Yeah. You’re also selfless.”
Kim Dokja tightens his grip. “I’m annoying and weird and spiteful.”
On his lips. “And you’re also really smart and well-spoken and a good listener.”
“I… I will burn you out.”
Yoo Joonghyuk pauses for a moment. And just as he's about to think that that’s it, that he finally got him and made him understand what he’s truly signing up for, Yoo Joonghyuk cups his face and makes him look him in the eye. Kim Dokja wants to look away from shame, but Yoo Joonghyuk keeps leveling himself to where he’s headed. “Look at my eyes and tell me if they are burnt out.”
“I’m saying I will,” Kim Dokja pushes, but his previous firmness is slipping, and Yoo Joonghyuk must’ve seen it by the way his smile widens in spite of the tears still gathering in his eyes.
“You underestimating me right now?” Yoo Joonghyuk asks teasingly, but Kim Dokja still frowns. “Kim Dokja, you are the fire. You are the whole constellation in of itself.”
He says it with so much confidence as if he’s never been more sure of his life and Kim Dokja doesn’t know what to do with that because how do you accept someone who looks so sure of you when you’re not even so sure of yourself?
How do you accept a kind of love that only brings forth the ugly and broken things about yourself, all because it’s good? Because the person who loves you is good?
“Yoo Joonghyuk, you can’t fix me,” Kim Dokja says, at last, after a minute of silence. “Don’t be blinded by your love for me. I’m not the person you think I am.”
He’s sure then that Yoo Joonghyuk will let go, will finally give up, because who can take that much attempt of pushing away? That much stubbornness and refusal to accept and take what’s being given?
Yoo Joonghyuk slumps and leans his forehead against Kim Dokja’s shoulder, hiding his face and sighing, and Kim Dokja thinks this is it, Yoo Joonghyuk’s finally had enough of him, he’ll no longer put up a fight—
“God, what do I do with you?” He hears him whisper, and Kim Dokja could hear the helplessness in his voice. He bites his lip. “I… I’m not being blinded by my love for you. I’m open because of it.”
How could Yoo Joonghyuk show him? How could he make him see that?
How could he explain to Kim Dokja that it was with him that Yoo Joonghyuk could open himself up to another day, another chance of life? That maybe, there’s something more to it after all, and he’s not a lost cause? How could he show him how he sees him? How the sound of his laughs is the rhythm his heart follows to beat? How the curl of his smile become his favorite shape the first time he saw it? How his teasing, kisses, hugs, and assurances became the blueprint of peace for Yoo Joonghyuk?
Yoo Joonghyuk swallows the lump in his throat, but his voice still shakes when he speaks, “Kim Dokja, I’m not trying to fix you. I just want to love you.” I just want to be with you, he wants to continue, but he’s afraid Kim Dokja will really leave. “I didn’t enter this relationship expecting it to be easy and you to be perfect. I just… I’ve been waiting, you know.” His grip around Kim Dokja loosens now, and he clenches his fists instead. “Been waiting to see you. To know you. Waiting for you to see me waiting to see you and get to know you, because that's what I thought when you told me you wanted to be with me, too…” He trails off, and chuckles, “but it’s like you’ve had your eyes more on this nonexistent clock than it is with me, checking if it’s time to leave.”
He pulls away and sits up, turning his back against Kim Dokja because he feels like suffocating from all these feelings. He slumps and rests his face in his palm, propping his elbow on his knee. “All the time we’ve been together it’s like I never had you at all.”
Suddenly, he feels arms wrapping around him from behind, and he feels Kim Dokja leaning his head against his back. He’s still crying, more silent now. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Hyuk-ah…”
Yoo Joonghyuk doesn’t say anything, because he’s afraid about what that apology might be now. If it’s for the distance, or because he can’t stay no matter what Yoo Joonghyuk is willing to offer him.
“I… I don’t know what to do,” Kim Dokja continues, after a moment. The words sound forced, but he’s trying. Yoo Joonghyuk is grateful for that, at least. “I was lonely when I found you, so I got together with you. And I… I didn’t want to love you… because I’m not good at loving, so if I loved you, I'd only hurt you. I didn’t want it to be real. But I’m sick of pretending it isn’t.” He hiccups, burying his face in Yoo Joonghyuk’s shoulder. “You’re so good to me I don’t know how to deal with it.”
“And you think you aren’t, to me?” Yoo Joonghyuk asks. “You think you’re not good at loving but my love for you is only an extension of your love. You’re just not allowing yourself to see it.” Yoo Joonghyuk straightens up and faces him, before holding him in his arms again. “Dokja-ya, I’m not denying the parts of you that you see are ugly, but those don’t erase the parts of you that you haven’t acknowledged yet – the parts of you that made me love you even more. They can coexist.”
Kim Dokja stares at him for a while. Contemplating. Observing. Deciding. “I love you, Joonghyuk-ah, but I don’t know how to stay.”
“But do you want to?” Yoo Joonghyuk asks.
Kim Dokja nods, hesitantly.
“Then that’s enough for now.” Yoo Joonghyuk kisses him tenderly. “We’ll figure it out along the way. We’ll see what will work. And if it doesn’t… then I won’t stop you. I’m not here to control you. I’m here to love you.”
Kim Dokja has never been good at loving, nor was he good at being loved, but it’s okay because Yoo Joonghyuk loves him like breathing.
So he'll learn from him.