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Kim Dokja has a tough time sleeping. The idea of losing himself to dreams takes him back to the idle hum of the train.
It haunts each breath that makes it’s way heavy into his lungs and too feather-light on the way out, like he’s fighting for it.
So, Dokja gets used to lying awake in the bitter rise of the evening as the world grows too still for him to bear as he tries not to lose his goddamn mind.
As always, he somehow makes it Yoo Joonghyuk’s problem. This time, he swears it wasn’t on purpose.
“You’re twitching.”
“Not my problem.” Dokja rolls over, the blanket pools over to his side and Joonghyuk growls under his breath.
“Kim Dokja.” He can feel the way the bed shifts from underneath them as Yoo Joonghyuk sits up.
Dokja hums, doing his best impression of a suffocating ostrich as he buries his face into the pillow. “If it bothers you, go away. I have a guest room, you know?”
Kim Dokja, actually, had many guest rooms.
His childish yet most treasured dream of a big house filled with his closest companions hadn’t come to full fruition, but with the money pooled in and the way nobody could bear to leave him alone for more than two weeks after he cam back, a home with multiple bedrooms cluttered with memorabilia had become his life.
The kids live at the complex, which had included Jihye until she had moved to college.
Han Sooyoung casually stopped by the most, typically letting herself in without warning and crashing for a few days to complain, eat his food, or make a wellness check to satisfy the need to see if Kim Dokja was still alive (despite the fact she saw him at least biweekly).
Jung Heewon couldn’t stop by all the time, as she lived deeper in the city, but she was a constant caller. Sometimes, they stayed up until dawn just chatting on the phone or wasted hours of their weekend bickering about nothing.
The company was close knit after coming close to losing each other so many times and the longing to be near hadn’t stopped once the scenarios had ended (though that might have been partially Dokja’s fault).
However, only the kids usually spirited away into Kim Dokja’s bedroom at night (Biyoo as a typical occurrence with Shin Yoosung and Lee Gilyoung were close seconds, even though they had grown to be Dokja’s height and were starting into high school.
He’s not sure why Joonghyuk was in his room, to be honest.
Yoo Joonghyuk was the only exception to this, apparently, as the man had been showing up randomly to pass out in Dokja’s bed for the last few weeks without saying a word in return.
Joonghyuk scoffed like it was an actual insult.
“Kim Dokja,” he says, and Dokja feels his eyes watching him. “Sleep.”
He suddenly yanks the blankets out from where Kim Dokja had bunched accidentally them all up, nearly flinging him into Joonghyuk’s chest with a squawk.
The cover floats down delicately and Yoo Joonghhuk smooths it over the ends with a knife-life precision, side-eyeing Dokja like a taunt to mess up his handiwork.
“I don’t need to be babysat.”
Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes narrow as he busies himself with a corner. “Prove it.”
“Joonghyuk, I’m not going anyhere,” he chides, feeling oddly guilty.
Joonghyuk looks away, the former light-hearted attitude erased, replaced with an expression that Dokja can’t quite understand.
“It’s still a risk I’m not willing to take.”
The darkness filtering through the room makes the man look moodier than usual.
Dokja pushes himself away, pulling a hand through his hair. “I didn’t invite you over for a sleepover so you could lecture me.”
“You didn’t invite me at all,” Joonghyuk replies, “I have a copy of your key.”
“That you didn’t use, the hell?” Dokja adds with a shudder, thinking back to earlier that day. “You came in from the window?”
Yoo Joonghyuk has the audacity to shrug before shifting, manhandling Dokja into a laying position. Kim Dokja pushes him away again.
“Joonghyuk, you’re in my bed,” Dokja persisted, stunned at how nonchalant Joonghyuk was with that revelation.
“Someone has to make sure you sleep,” the man intones drily.
“I do,” Dokja scoffs, rolling over to cross his arms.
“No, you stare at the ceiling and pace at night. You need supervision or you’ll pass out in the morning and get hit by a car.”
Kim Dokja grins. “So this is you being clingy.”
He kicks Joonghyuk’s ankle.
The man scoffs in reply, “I don’t think that a general aversion to your death is considered clingy.”
“For you it is. ‘Die, Kim Dokja’ was basically your catchphrase for the first year or two that I knew you.”
Joonghyuk goes silent. The humor on Dokja’s face fades as the man begins to look a little distant.
“…I don’t want you to die,” he breathes, and there’s something wrong with his voice like a shard of glass in his throat was making the words ragged.
Yoo Joonghyuk isn’t one that scares easily, so why does he sound winded at the thought of losing him again?
“…I know.” Dokja reaches out and his hand brushes Joonghyuk’s knuckle. “I won’t, Joonghyuk-ah.”
The side of Joonghyuk’s mouth tightens bitterly. “You can’t promise that.”
You’ve never kept your promise before.
Dokja winced, “Yeah,” he admits, “but… no scenarios, remember? I’ll try this time.”
“Really?” Joonghyuk pulls Kim Dokja’s hand closer to cusp it with both hands instead of the tentative rest Dokja offered before.
His furrowed gaze pierces into Kim Dokja’s soul, the impact unfairly effective with how the two of them were lying side by side with only a dim lighting echoing his features.
Yoo Joonghyuk looked like a person Dokja never wanted to hurt again.
“For you, yeah,” he admits quietly.
Joonghyuk’s hold grows firmer.
“I’d do anything for you,” he says sharply.
Dokja opens his mouth before forcing his jaw shut like a fish for a moment before regaining his wits with a lazy eyeroll.
“Well, me too, but it’s not a competition,” he complains with a small laugh, “hm, dramatic much?”
“Not really.” The blatant intensity in his stare was almost unsettling, attempting to unwravel Dokja from where he had haphazardly stuck himself together with hasty seams.
Damn it, Yoo Joonghyuk.
He really meant it.
Dokja kicks him, this time against his calf with minimal aim, flustered. Joonghyuk gives a low chuckle, ruffling Dokja’s hair like he was an unruly child.
“Stop that.”
Joonghyuk holds his ankle in place, releasing his hold to card a hand through Dokja’s hair only after he stills.
“Bastard,” Kim Dokja complained. His face felt warm.
“Glad you’re self aware.”
Dokja splutters, “I hate you.”
Joonghyuk blinks at him slowly. “No, you don’t.”
“I don’t,” he sighs, “Yoo Joonghyuk, you’re annoying as hell.”
The corner of Joonghyuk’s mouth twitched, “Maybe.”
“Glad you’re self aware,” Dokja parrots in a grumbling impression of his voice that causes Joonghyuk to roll his eyes, “so will you stop?”
“No.”
Kim Dokja kicks him again.
Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes darken with contemplation, as if running the idea of flinging Dokja off the bed through his mind.
“You’re too rowdy. Sleep.”
“Like hell,” he scoffs.
Despite his dismissal, Kim Dokja tries to fall asleep, he really does, but he’s a man afraid of dreaming.
There’s a part of himself that he had never recovered from the Oldest Dream, a whisper of his eternity that he had escaped from by the skin of his teeth that wheedled to have him back every time he closed his eyes.
There had been a point, when Kim Dokja hadn’t quite come back to himself yet, where those innocent moments of sleep would pull him under for hours, crumpling to the floor in the middle of chores, or passed out in the middle of a conversation only to wake to the frenzied stares of his company.
Sometimes, after being shook to conciousness, Heewon would lean in with something fragile in her eyes and ask if he knew his name.
He remembers the seconds where he had nothing to say before everything real came rushing back.
My name is Kim Dokja.
Kim Dokja hasn’t forgotten the hold that dreams had on him.
He doesn’t think anyone could forget something like that, experiencing the kind of dreams that he had lived through.
He’s terrified of forgetting himself now that he knows what he has to lose.
My name is Kim Dokja.
He hadn’t lasted more than a half an hour, but Dokja feels his heart beating fast at the thought of falling asleep.
The blankets feel like a trap rather than a comfort. Silence stings with a resounding numbness.
My name is Kim Dokja.
Yoo Joonghyuk doesn’t admonish his tossing and turning, the restless shuffle that emerged from a deep terror threatening to turn Dokja’s mind into static.
He rolls off to the side, feeling aimlessly for the lamp beside the bed. The light flickers on and Joonghyuk stands up.
Kim Dokja watches in silence as the protagonist pulls a few books off of his shelf and lies them onto the blanket as a silent offering.
A moment goes by where Dokja’s too stunned to speak. Joonghyuk looks away, fingers twitching as he scoots rigidly back under the covers.
“…You relax easier after a story,” he mutters.
There had been a time where Dokja hadn’t been able to open a book without his hands shaking. When he remembered how words consumed him so easily and had to wonder if the same release that he had craved all his life would be the thing that made him lose himself all over again.
But the cathartic comfort had remained the same, the only difference was that it could be sougjt solely for enjoyment rather than to run from a numb reality.
The fact that these stories were ones that he could set down, place a bookmark in, and even choose to leave for a while helped.
There were at least seven books laid scattered across the house, each with a bookmark tucked lovingly between their pages on daily basis. Jihye had complains about tripping over them when she visists.
He had forgotten his freedom as a reader, but now he held it close.
Kim Dokja’s mouth falls into a seamless, fond smile. He glances thankfully towards Joonghyuk before shifting himself to rest against the wall.
He reads aloud for a while, voice soft as Joonghyuk migrates to lean against his shoulder to follow along silently.
Dokja does so until his voice trails off into a whisper and his mind is properly soothed by words ever so familiar.
…
“Joonghyuk-ah?” He tilts his head, face pillowed in the sheets as he glances imploringly at the figure beside him.
It’s less of a call for distraction rather than releasing a persistent question on his mind this time.
“Mh?” The acknowledging hum is tired, but humors Dokja’s hushed insistence regardless. Yoo Joonhyuk cracks an eye open, eyelids fluttering with a sleepiness that Kim Dokja’s pretty sure that has only been witnessed by Yoo Mia and himself.
It’s kind of sweet.
“Why did you… wait for me?” There’s something about his tone that doesn’t ask for gentle affirmations, but simply the truth.
Dokja’s eyes flicker from Joonghyuk’s face, worn from how cruel time had treated him but still just as beautiful as he had always been.
(He wonders how tired Yoo Joonghyuk would have been instead if he had taken the ending Kim Dokja had promised in the third round instead of risking his epilogue for a fallen constellation.
Joonghyuk’s face is weary, with scars that he could have avoided, but his shoulders are free from regret.)
Joonghyuk doesn’t correct him, he doesn’t open his mouth to explain that he hadn’t waited, but fought.
(Waiting brought the idea of idle time, and suggesting that Joonghyuk had been able to sit there and watch for a sign rather than bringing down the heavens to create his opportunity didn’t do the furious, desperate years of his life justice.)
A future with Kim Dokja wasn’t something he had left up to fate, but a hopeless dream that he had sought for eternity until it had come true.
He has the feeling Dokja couldn’t believe the words from a simple explanation. Joonghyuk didn’t mind, in fact, he might prefer it.
Kim Dokja hadn’t ever been the kind to trust so easily, not when it came to his own worth. However, Joonghyuk had the rest of their lives to prove it and he was determined to do so.
“How could I not, Kim Dokja?” Joonghyuk replies simply, pulling Dokja closer from underneath his arms and setting his chin on the crown of the reader’s head.
“Stupid question,” he huffs.
After all, Yoo Joonghyuk would erase every star from the sky in his selfish desire to keep Kim Dokja near without a second thought.
Just for a time like this to exist for a moment longer.
“Good night, Dokja.”