Chapter Text
“Before worlds were separated by borders and probabilities, there existed two beings whose union was considered dangerous even by the stars.”
The constellations still whispered that story in hushed voices.
Not because it ended in tragedy.
But because it never ended at all.
They said that long before the creation of modern stories, when gods still walked among mortals and demons ruled forgotten territories beyond the nebulas, there existed a human king blessed by the heavens.
The first king.
The man who united fractured kingdoms, defeated monsters born from ancient calamities, and guided humanity into an era of prosperity so brilliant that even the constellations began watching him with fascination.
They called him the Supreme King.
Yoo Joonghyuk.
But the oldest legends claimed that the true beginning of the story was not the king’s rise—
but the appearance of the demon.
Because in an age when even gods feared Demon Kings, an impossible existence emerged.
A demon who saved people.
One who descended upon devastated villages to feed the starving before vanishing back into the shadows. One who destroyed entire armies only to protect refugees. One who rejected human sacrifices, ignored bloody pacts, and looked upon mortal suffering with a sorrow utterly foreign to his kind.
The constellations called him an anomaly.
The demons called him a disgrace.
And humans began creating stories about him.
The Demon King of Salvation.
Kim Dokja.
It was said that the Supreme King met the demon during a war capable of destroying entire continents.
The stories changed depending on the narrator.
Some claimed they fought first. Others said Joonghyuk drew his sword against him only to discover the demon protecting human children among the ruins.
But every version agreed on one thing:
The Supreme King never looked at Kim Dokja as a monster again.
And perhaps that was the true catastrophe.
Because the man destined to lead humanity began walking beside a demon.
And the demon who had never found a place among his own kind began remaining at the king’s side as though he had finally discovered where he belonged.
The ancient stories said they traveled across worlds together.
That entire cities were saved simply because the two of them existed side by side.
That wars ended before they could even begin.
That humans and demons slowly began to coexist.
And then the gods began to fear them.
Because the balance of the universe depended upon divisions: gods and mortals, humans and demons, saviors and monsters.
But Kim Dokja and Yoo Joonghyuk destroyed every one of those boundaries simply by existing together.
And among all the gods watching from the stars…
there was one who feared them more than anyone else.
Secretive Plotter.
The oldest god.
The one who had watched the Demon King of Salvation for countless eras.
The one who had silently loved the impossible gentleness of a creature born to embody chaos.
Centuries later, the constellations would claim it was fear that drove him.
Others would say it was jealousy.
Perhaps both were true.
Because Secretive Plotter finally descended from the heavens to pass judgment.
And before gods, demons, and kings alike, he declared:
“If their union will bring nothing but the destruction of the world’s order, then they shall never meet again.”
And so he separated their souls.
Not for years.
Nor centuries.
But across entire worlds.
Across timelines.
Across probabilities.
Across realities where even names ceased to exist.
And yet, before they were dragged into separate universes, the ancient legends claimed that Kim Dokja smiled.
Like someone who already knew how the story would end.
And for the first time in his life, the Supreme King became desperate.
As the universe began tearing itself apart, Yoo Joonghyuk seized Kim Dokja’s hand.
“No matter the world, I’ll find you again.”
Then the gods separated them.
And Yoo Joonghyuk spent the next twenty thousand years trying to fulfill that promise.
The constellations claimed that the Supreme King disappeared afterward.
Some believed he died.
Others believed he lost his mind after losing the Demon King of Salvation.
But the oldest stories—the ones forbidden even among the gods—told something different.
They claimed Yoo Joonghyuk defied the judgment imposed by the heavens.
And that he began a journey so long and cruel that it eventually became a legend feared even among the stars.
Because the gods had not merely separated their souls.
They had built an entire universe to prevent them from ever meeting again.
The first eras were the easiest.
He still possessed his humanity back then.
He could still remember Kim Dokja’s voice clearly, the way he smiled while saving people, the strange sadness that always seemed hidden behind his eyes.
So Yoo Joonghyuk crossed worlds convinced that if he searched long enough, he would find him.
But probabilities were cruel.
Some universes had completely forgotten the existence of demons.
In others, Kim Dokja had never been born.
There were worlds where Yoo Joonghyuk arrived too late: cities reduced to ash, stories that ended before they could begin, rumors of a kind demon vanishing like dust through his fingers.
And still, he continued forward.
Because the Supreme King had made a promise.
The legends said he crossed seas capable of devouring memories.
That he fought creatures born from the void between dimensions.
That he traversed realities where time flowed differently, losing entire centuries only to discover that a single day had passed.
And slowly…
the journey began to change him.
There was one universe where he spent five hundred years trapped within an endless war between lesser gods.
Another where the constellations destroyed entire continents simply to prevent him from moving forward.
In one timeline, the heavens condemned him to wander blind for decades.
In another, he lost his voice after defying an ancient deity whose name no longer existed in any story.
But the worst wounds were never physical.
They were the small, silent losses that came with the passing millennia.
The Supreme King stopped sleeping.
Then he stopped laughing.
With time, people’s faces began to blur together.
Deaths no longer moved him the way they once had.
And the man who had once wanted to save all of humanity began resembling the very creatures he fought against.
The constellations watched this with growing unease.
Because Yoo Joonghyuk continued moving forward even after losing essential parts of himself.
As though only one thing still kept him standing.
A name.
Kim Dokja.
And perhaps that was the most terrifying thing of all.
Because even after twenty thousand years, after countless worlds, after becoming something closer to a calamity than a man,
Yoo Joonghyuk still loved him with the same devastating desperation he had felt the day they were torn apart.
But time was cruel even to promises.
And no creature—not even the Supreme King—could endure twenty thousand years without beginning to break apart.
At first, Yoo Joonghyuk clung to every memory of Kim Dokja with almost sacred desperation.
The gentle curve of his smile. The way he spoke his name. His bloodstained hands still trying to save people. The sadness hidden behind eyes far too calm.
He remembered everything.
Like a man clutching the final embers of a ruined world.
But the centuries continued to pass.
And slowly…
the memories began to fade.
Not all at once.
That would have been merciful.
It was something far worse.
First, he forgot the exact sound of his laughter.
Then, the tone of his voice began to blur with the echoes of other worlds.
With time, even the smallest details became indistinct: the precise color of his eyes, the softness of his expressions, the way the wind moved through his hair.
Until one day, while crossing the void between universes, Yoo Joonghyuk realized something that filled him with a terror deeper than any battle he had ever faced.
He could no longer remember Kim Dokja’s face clearly.
The ancient legends claimed that this was the only time the Supreme King ever stopped.
Because after twenty thousand years of searching, after traversing countless worlds, after sacrificing entire pieces of his humanity just to keep moving forward,
the person he had been trying to return to was beginning to disappear even from his memory.
And still,
he did not give up.
Because Yoo Joonghyuk realized then that he was no longer continuing for the sake of memory alone.
He continued for something far more dangerous.
For the absolute certainty that even if the universe tried to take everything from him, even if he slowly forgot Kim Dokja’s voice, face, and hands—
he would still recognize him.
In the same way the stars recognize the night sky.
As something carved beyond memory.
Beyond time.
Beyond even himself.
And perhaps that was what frightened the Supreme King most of all.
Not that he had forgotten.
But that he continued loving someone whose image he could barely reconstruct within his own mind.
Because then Yoo Joonghyuk began to wonder something even crueler:
What if he himself had changed so much that Kim Dokja would no longer be able to recognize him when they finally met again?
After all, the man who had departed twenty thousand years ago no longer existed.
In his place remained a creature born from wars, solitude, and eternity.
Something that had learned far too well how to survive.
And even so, with that fear slowly consuming him, Yoo Joonghyuk continued moving through broken worlds with a single impossible hope:
That Kim Dokja would still calle his name as though it still belonged to him.