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The morning came, dauntless in its inevitability. It blanketed what remained of Seoul in golden rays, highlighting the silhouette of the crumbling city skyline.
The light penetrated every crack and crevice, determined to make itself known to ever miserable creature left on the forsaken planet.
Yet, persistent as the sun was, the cold seemed to persevere in the end. The cold did not desperately scratch at rubble, demanding entry. Rather, it seeped into your bones overnight, when no one was around to try and stop it. It was a thief, stealing hard earned rest and joy.
This was what Yoo Joonghyuk was trying to think about as another chilly breeze racked his body, though he did not allow himself to tremble.
He slowly opened his eyes, the oblivion behind his eyelids already compromised by sunlight.
Joonghyuk shut them just as quickly, hoping the warmth of the dark would be forgiving and take him back. But the fogginess in his head was receding fast, and his vision had already adjusted to the blue depths that faced him.
The day had begun, and for all his skills, he was powerless to stop it.
Joonghyuk managed to push his body up, wounds from the previous day burning as they rubbed against the concrete of the roof. It might have been an advantageous spot, with a one hundred eighty degree view of the streets below, but he despised sleeping under the stars.
Joonghyuk thinks he might have enjoyed it once, though he can't remember when or why. All he knows is the experience had lost its romantic touch, knowing those shining specks were peering down at you, cheering for your demise.
Joonghyuk propped himself up against a wooden box, facing outwards onto the picked bones that had once been a lively metropolis.
Where he had expected to see ruins, however, he was greeted with the jarring sight of a white coat. Jarring, though not unwelcome.
Dokja sat on the edge of the roof, back towards Joonghyuk. Still, he could see that the older man must have been smiling, for his shoulders were rolled back and his feet swung back and force as if he were on the deck of a beach house and not the brink of death.
He turned his head over his shoulder, meeting Joonghyuk in the eye. Still, Dokja's gaze seems to go much further. Joonghyuk waited as Dokja seems to inspect his soul, lay it flat on the ground and pick through his favorite parts. Neither flinches. It is peaceful, for a moment.
Joonghyuk imagined this was what Dokja would have looked like before the apocalypse.
Kinder. Maybe happier.
He had never heard Dokja laugh, though he thinks he would like to. Joonghyuk idly wonders if it would be rough from disuse.
"You look terrible." Dokja teases, though his voice is tired. His brows create familiar furrows inbetween his eyes, crevices that shadow his porcelain face. Joonghyuk wants nothing more than to run his calloused finger over them, smoothing out his companion's forehead and the rest of the world with it.
But Joonghyuk does not reach out. His only response is a grumble that comes off too soft and too fond.
"Why so sad?" Dokja had turned his gaze back to the sunrise now, where red had gradually given way to peach. It looked tragically beautiful, a picture that belonged in a museum or gallery and definitely not to monsters.
His question doesn't break the quiet, the words merely rolling out in between them like an offer. Joonghyuk isn't sure what it is for though. He never does, he reflects, until Dokja wants him to.
"Because-" Joonghyuk tries to speak, but essays worth of paragraphs lodge in his throat, simply not enough to explain. His eyes are on fire now, aching more than any of his cuts and bruises ever had. Joonghyuk wished the chilly night air would return, wrapping itself around his body so tight he went numb.
He half expects Dokja to jeer at him for stuttering, but he remains quiet.
"When are you coming back?" Not if. Joonghyuk couldn't handle any more ifs.
If was not a certainty, not even a falsity he could pretend to believe.
If left his fate to chance, and Joonghyuk was not a lucky man.
If meant admitting that Dokja might not be coming back, and Joonghyuk knew that if he thought about that too much, there was nothing stopping him from joining Dokja further past the edge of the roof.
"Don't you want to finish the story?" Joonghyuk did not care about a story. He hated it, if only because Dokja was willing to die for it. But he could learn to love it too, if it made the man stay.
Dokja didn't respond, and Joonghyuk, sitting alone, pressed up between splintering planks and rough concrete, feels his jaw start to tremble. Not as if he was going to explode, but as if his whole body were about to come undone.
Finally, he gave in, reaching for Dokja's hand, clasping it gently as if it were made of delicate pearl. It was not enough.
Joonghyuk lets out a strangled cry as his fingers break thin air. Perhaps the world had not just cursed his mind, but his body too. He would not put it past them.
"Soon." Dokja gives Joonghyuk one last grin, confident and unyielding and painfully fake. Joonghyuk, for the first time, wishes Dokja would frown, or cry, or do something, anything else.
They both know Dokja only smiles when he lies.