Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Peeking through the damp ferns, Dokja's eyes scanned the clearing. There were no microphones dangling from the trees, or any directors yelling cut like he'd been expecting. Most of all, the pungent metallic smell of the dark liquid pooling on the grass was making the situation feel way more real than anything else. The men in royal guard uniform — men, who had been breathing minutes ago, now lay completely still on the grass.

In the center of the carnage, a single tiny figure backed against a moss-covered rock with wide eyes.

It was a little girl, no older than ten, her expensive pink silk hanbok torn at the hem and caked in mud. Even cornered by three masked men in black, her chin trembled with a fierce pride. She didn't scream; she just glared up at the cold steel leveled at her chest with an icy, regal defiance.

The assassin raised his sword and—

Before his brain could calculate the absolute, suicidal stupidity of intervening in an active feudal assassination, Dokja’s body moved. He unzipped his laptop bag and plunged his hand inside, his fingers completely bypassing all the useless jittery things and wrapping around a solid metallic object — his heavy-duty paper hole puncher. 

"Fuck it," he said, raising the makeshift excalibur to his face.

Dokja lunged out of the bushes with a wild yell that caught the assassin completely off-guard, and slammed the metal base of the hole puncher directly into the man’s temple.

CRACK! The man's knees folded instantly, and he dropped face-first into the dirt.

He didn't wait for the remaining two mercenaries to recover from their shock. Dokja stepped between them and the girl, swinging his laptop bag wildly to keep their blades at bay. It was stupid enough to confuse the mercenaries, making them question the intruder's mental stability. 

But quickly enough, they recovered. A sword sliced through the leather strap of his bag, sending loose pens and sticky notes flying through the air like confetti.

Dokja knew he wouldn't last more than thirty seconds with these people. His stamina was that of a sloth on a sleeping pill, and his lungs were already burning from earlier running. 

How funny, he thought through the static of panic — ever since he’d arrived in this bizarre place, all he seemed to do was run.

As one assassin lunged forward, Dokja threw a handful of staples straight at the man's masked face, forcing him to flinch back, and used that split-second window to dive toward the rock. He snatched the little girl’s silk-clad hand and bolted straight down the steep without looking back. 

Behind them, the furious shouts of the recovered mercenaries echoed, accompanied by the terrifying sound of boots in pursuit.

///

It had been an hour or two. They were wedged into a narrow stone crevice hidden beneath a roaring mountain waterfall. Kim Dokja sat with his back pressed against the wet rock, shivering violently. His blazer was ruined, the white shirt beneath it clung to his ribs and his knees were scraped raw.

'If this is a hidden camera show, they really need to tone it down.' Dokja thought, his brain desperately trying to categorize the trauma, 'And if I get tetanus from a fucking office supply, I am going to sue the production company into the stone age.' 

He’d been scanning the treeline for hours, looking for the tell-tale sign of a camera lens or a beleaguered PA with a megaphone. There was nothing. Just the crushing expanse of a thick forest and it's ambient sounds.

And then there was the girl.

"You have been staring at that strange chunk of iron for a very long time," she said at last.

Dokja turned his head slowly. The little girl was sitting perfectly straight, her tiny hands resting on her knees as she meticulously smoothed out the damp silk of her pink skirts. 

"It's a hole puncher," Dokja said. The girl looked more confused. Dokja scratched his head and said, "Um. Paper-biting tool?"

The girl tilted her head, her round eyes fixating on the paper hole puncher in his grip. Her regal mask cracked, revealing the little curiosity of a spoiled child who had never been denied a toy in her life. 

She pointed at the spring-loaded piece of metal and brattily demanded, "Give it to me. I want to see it."

"No," Dokja rasped, instantly pulling it out of her reach.

"I said, give it to me," Mia huffed, her brow furrowing into a haughty offended scowl. "Are you deaf? I want to hold it. Why does it have those little teeth? Is it a toy from your country? Hand it over."

"I said no, kid," Dokja muttered, sighing.

He wasn't trying to be mean. The hole puncher’s base was completely coated in blood. It was the blood of a grown man he had just bludgeoned in blind panic. Dokja's stomach churned violently. 

He felt like he was going to faint at any second, but there was no way in hell he was letting a ten-year-old child touch a blood-stained improvised weapon.

Mia sniffed disdainfully at his refusal, crossing her arms over her chest. "It is a very stupid tool anyway. If you wanted to protect me with a heavy chunk of iron, you should have left me in the woods. At least the bad men had real swords. Your object does not even have a blade."

Dokja choked on his own breath, "Hey, I saved your life with this thing."

"You threw it at a man's head and ran away. That is not a victory," she corrected immediately, sneering, "And, your appearance is embarrassing. Your clothes are too tight and your hair looks like a dog chewed on it. Are you a beggar who escaped from a cage?"

"I am a salaryman," Dokja muttered, rubbing his throbbing temples, completely defeated by a ten-year-old. "Look, kid, I just dragged you across a forest and there are people out there trying to kill you. We need to figure out a plan. What is your name? Where is your family?"

The girl paused, her expression instantly growing guarded. "My family is too important for me to tell their names to strangers. You may call me Mia. That is sufficient."

"Just Mia?" Dokja pressed.

"Do not forget your place!" she replied, glaring. Then, as if she felt like that was too much, or because she simply needed to be in the good graces of her savior, she added, "If you know who I am, it will only bring you trouble." 

Dokja stared at her. Mia. The assassins. The expensive pink silk. Her bratty regal way of talking. The historical setting. The pieces snapped together in his mind one by one. The conclusion he arrived at spread ice through his veins. 

If he was correct then—

"Mia..."Dokja whispered, his heart dropping into his stomach."Your brother, is his name—"

Rustle.

Outside the curtain of the waterfall, the snap of a dry branch cut through the roaring cascade.

Mia’s entire body went rigid. The poised facade she had maintained evaporated in a single heartbeat. Dropping all decorum, she scrambled off the stone and threw herself forward, burying her face into the damp fabric of Dokja's suit jacket. She was trembling so violently her teeth clicked against his collarbone. The ruthless little princess was gone. Underneath it all, she was just a terrified ten-year-old child.

"They have found us," she wept, muffling her sobs against his shirt. 

"Hey, shh, look at me," Dokja whispered frantically, wrapping his arms around her small shoulders, his eyes darting toward the misty mouth of the cave. "I'm not letting them in here. I've got you."

"Joonghyuk-oppa..." Mia choked out, her tiny fingers bunching the fabric of his blazer hard, "Joonghyuk-oppa will kill them all when he finds me... I want my brother..."

Oh.

Oh shit.

Dokja knows that name.