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“I love you,” Kim Dokja says, out of the blue.
He tells this to you during a lull in the chaos, a quiet moment at the end of the world. Another scenario cleared, another day done, nothing left to do but prepare for the morning ahead and the the troubles that might come. The air is clear, crisp, and so is the sky, presenting an unobstructed view of the stars overhead.
There is you, seated on thick, springy grass, diligently tending to the blade of your sword. There is him, standing with his hands tucked behind his back, staring far off into the distance. In between you both is your own split second of disbelief, a shining moment of incomprehension that dissolves into thoughts of Coins and the favor of distant constellations – but no. The channel is closed. The stream isn’t running. The only reason to say anything at all is for you.
A joke, at your expense – except the silence continues on, Kim Dokja making no attempt to brush it off. A plot, exploiting your emotions – except Kim Dokja isn’t bothering to even make himself sound genuine, like he’d need to if he wanted you to believe it.
He isn’t looking at you. You look up from your sword, look at him, and he does not look back at you. His gaze is distant, contemplative, as if he’s planning his next wild scheme to dominate some hidden scenario you’ve never heard of. Like this, you can easily think you’ve misheard.
This is perhaps the point.
I love you, he says, exactly like how you’d imagine he’d tell a secret. Deliberately careless, carefully casual, so that the intent behind the action is lost altogether. Thrown out in passing so you didn’t know that it was something to be kept close to the chest, set out as a seemingly insignificant, forgettable detail, so that when you screamed at him for not telling you, he could gesture at your previous conversation and say: there, I told you. It's not my fault you forgot. If you didn’t forget, well – it’s not my fault you didn’t understand what I meant.
The thought of it makes your fingers twitch; you think, idly, about cracking open Kim Dokja’s head and examining the contents, as if it would make any more sense if you saw it laid out and neatly organized before you.
“That’s so violent, Joonghyuk-ah,” Kim Dokja says, like he can read your mind – exactly because he can read your mind. After all, you’re thinking about him, aren’t you?
Things would be easier if it was the other way around. If you could read his mind like a book, if you knew exactly what he was thinking, if you knew he was really thinking about you.
“Kim Dokja,” you say, like a warning. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Ignore me, says his tone. It must have been the wind; pay it no mind.
Does he really think you can ignore something he says that easily? He should know that you can’t. He’s made sure of that himself from the very beginning, leaving you hanging for every scrap of planning and prophecy that comes out of his mouth. You can’t break the habit now.
“I’m just being honest,” Kim Dokja says, and now he looks at you, wry smile turning up the corners of his mouth. “I’ve heard it’s generally good for your emotional well-being to examine how you feel out loud. It’s cathartic.”
You can’t believe this. “You’re saying this is an emotional wellness exercise for you?”
Kim Dokja shrugs. This is apparently the only answer he is willing to give you.
Irritating. But then again, you already knew that.
“Why,” you say.
“I’m sure there are studies about it somewhere about the benefits,” Kim Dokja says, completely noncommittal. “Unfortunately, you’ll have to look it up yourself, though. I don’t know much about therapy.”
This annoying son of a bitch.
“Hey,” says Kim Dokja, who knows exactly what you mean and has decided to willingly misinterpret you anyway. It seems to you it’s one of the things he’s best at: refusing to seriously consider what he’s done, running away from the consequences of his actions like they have nothing to do with him at all.
That’s never worked for you. You’re not going to let it work for him.
“Kim Dokja,” you say.
“It’s been a long day, don’t you think?” Kim Dokja says. He stretches his arms over his head, arches his neck with a crack. “It’s good to get some rest, we’ll have a busy day tomorrow, so I’m going to–”
You can practically feel him prepare to run.
But you’re prepared for that, because all Kim Dokja ever does is run, and being able to read your mind doesn’t help him when you move faster than he does. Your base stats outweigh his; your hands are on his shoulders and keeping him still before he can even twitch a step forward.
“...You’re a little too close, Yoo Joonghyuk,” Kim Dokja says, sounding faintly strangled.
“You don’t get to run away from this,” you say.
He’s always like this. Says one thing, does another, runs away from the fallout and leaves someone else dealing with it. What are you supposed to do with his sudden confession if you aren’t allowed to respond? If you let him leave here, he’s never going to give you th chance. He’ll make you leave it as a loose end, dangling uselessly forever.
“Remember, it’s an emotional wellness exercise,” Kim Dokja says. “Don’t think too much about it.”
Obviously, you think about it.
“What did I just say?”
Here is a fact: you are not in love with Kim Dokja.
You can feel him jerk at the thought under your hands, see his smile stiffen into unfeeling plastic, and you wish, not for the first time, that he couldn’t read your mind. You tighten your hold on him; you need to keep him here, because this isn’t the end of the story. You’re not done. That’s not how it works. He shouldn’t hear ‘I’m not in love with you’ and think it means ‘I don’t care.’
You care. Inevitably, you always care. You care and you care and you care, companions turning from tools to treasures as your life cycles on, and no matter how hard you try, no matter how much it hurts, you can’t simply stop yourself from caring. You don’t know any other way to live.
“Yoo Joonghyuk, if you really want to talk about this, all you have to say is, ‘Sorry, I only see you as a friend’, it’s not hard–”
Could he shut up for a second. You need to think.
I love you. I am in love with you. The former is usually used to indicate the latter. There is still a difference between one and the other.
You are not in love with Kim Dokja. This is less of a commentary on him and more of a commentary on you. Of course you’re not in love with him.
“This is the weirdest friendzone talk ever,” Kim Dokja says. “Could you stop–”
“Stop thinking?” you say. “Stop reading my mind.”
You don’t understand the concept of “falling in love”. That makes it sound unintentional; some strange phenomon that simply happens to people, when you first look at someone and feel some involuntary race of the pulse or flutter of the heart.
All the same, it doesn’t make you incapable of loving.
You have been in a relationship before. In a different timeline, it was Lee Seolhwa who crept into your life. Shared meals and long walks in the evening, the intimacy of clasped hands and an increasingly mingled living space, a steady and solid companionship underlying it all. She was important to you, but you never categorized the difference between “friend” and “lover” until one day, she asked you to.
Is this something you would like? Is this something you would want?
You had to think about it. You looked at her – looked at her sharp tongue, at her clever fingers tangling your own at the shape of her love for you -- and decided that this was something you wanted to accept.
Lee Seolhwa had been patient with you.
Kim Dokja had not.
“Can I go now?” Kim Dokja says. “If all you’re doing is comparing me to Lee Seolhwa -- I’m happy to know about your feelings, but--”
Kim Dokja had dropped his love for you carelessly in your lap, like a cat dropping a rat at its owner’s feet, and with just as much grace and nonchalance, decided to walk away. A confession that he deemed you incapable of ever returning.
It isn’t true.
“... What?”
You aren’t in love with Kim Dokja. This is a fact.
It does not mean you could never love him.
Love is something you find difficult to define, but that does not mean you don’t care. It is impossible to share a story like [ Companions in Life and Death ] without caring. Romance or not, Kim Dokja is a precious person to you. Intentionally or not, he has entrenched himself so deeply into your life that it is difficult to imagine a world without him.
It wouldn’t be a hardship, being in love with someone like this.
“What,” Kim Dokja repeats. “But you’re not --”
“I’m not,” you agree.
“But,” Kim Dokja says. His eyes are terribly wide.
But.
He didn’t expect there to be a ‘but’.
There is a certain novelty in surprising Kim Dokja, man who seems to know everything in this world and beyond. Despite his general overall knowledge, he is not actually omniscient. He expected to run up against the insurmountable wall that is your personal opinion of him, and the fact that this wall is much more flexible than he thought --
“You can make an argument,” you say with a nod, crossing your arms. The act of crossing your arms means that you have finally released Kim Dokja. This is fine, as you believe you have adequately conveyed your point. He is free to run, as he initially planned.
Kim Dokja does not run. The complete shattering of his expectations has rooted him in place.
“An argument,” he says. “What do you mean by an argument?”
It’s not really a question. He can read your mind; he should know what you mean.
You are not in love. This is fact. But your position is not unshakeable. This is less a question of your emotional capability and more a question as to whether you can be convinced.
“... You’re serious? You’re going to make me convince you? Don’t you have any shame?”
His tone of voice is unfavorable. But there is a contemplative sharpness in his eyes. There are gears whirring in that incomprehensible brain of his -- he’s thinking about it.
Kim Dokja, whether through actions or words, is used to convincing people. That might be one of the things he’s best at. Talking his way into situations, talking his way out of situations, displaying with his actions that his route is the best to take. He’s done it with the constellations. He’s done it to his companions. He’s done it to you.
“You make it sound so easy,” Kim Dokja says. An incredulous smile tugs at his mouth. “Are this and that the same thing? What exactly am I supposed to say?” His back straightens, chin lifting high. “Hey, Yoo Joonghyuk. Go out with me. I know the future, so I already know you’re going to say yes. You should hurry up and agree.”
What a way to talk.
“Okay,” you say.
Kim Dokja exhales sharply. “Did you just -- no, I wasn’t -- you can’t be -- what, is it really that easy? You call that an argument?”
No. Not really. You were under the impression that dating was supposed to be the argument.
“You...”
You’re not wrong. You’re at least familiar with how an ordinary relationship is supposed to go. Dating is an assessment of compatibility. It’s where you’re supposed to iron out problems. It’s where you’re supposed to figure out falling in love and if you can fall in love in the first place. If there’s any place someone should list out reasons why you should fall in love, it should be over there.
...Isn’t that how it works?
Kim Dokja has stopped talking.
He does not look at you. He can’t look at you, with the way his head drops, hand coming to cover his face. His shoulders are shaking. He makes a sound, almost wounded, and for a moment, you worry.
Only a moment, because it becomes very clear very quickly that this man is laughing at you.
There isn’t anything funny about what you’ve said. You haven’t said anything at all.
“Fine,” Kim Dokja says. “You stupid bastard.”
“Hey.”
“If that’s what you want.” Kim Dokja meets your gaze again, the corners of eyes crinkled. His smile is brilliant and unrestrained, eyes shining fiercely. “Fine. I can do that.”
You look at him -- Kim Dokja, as full as confidence as he ever is, quicksilver thoughts running in his head -- and think. He is a man who conquers impossibility as easily as breathing air. You’ve seen him do unbelievable things, going far beyond anything you’ve ever dreamed of.
This shouldn’t be hard for him.