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The autumn leaves fell slowly that afternoon, drifting from the branches before settling across the ruined pavement.
Kim Dokja watched them from his wheelchair, one hand resting loosely on the armrest.
His legs still felt strangely distant beneath him, weak and uncooperative after so long spent unconscious, as though they belonged to someone else and had yet to remember how to carry him.
He breathed in deeply.
The air was cold enough to sting his lungs, but it was clean. Almost painfully clean. Somewhere beyond the broken buildings, birds were singing as though the world had never almost ended at all.
Everything was strange.
Ever since Kim Dokja had opened his eyes, people had been unbearably kind to him.
They brought him food even when he insisted he could feed himself. They adjusted his blankets whenever they thought he looked cold. Someone was always asking whether he was comfortable, whether he needed anything, whether he was tired.
Even the smallest things were treated with a tenderness he had never quite known what to do with.
They looked at him as though he were something precious, something worth protecting, something worth loving.
The thought alone sent an unfamiliar sensation through him, nervous little tingles spreading beneath his skin before dissolving into sudden bursts of warmth. It made him want to laugh and recoil at the same time. He wasn't accustomed to being cared for.
Being useful, perhaps. Being needed. Those things he understood.
But cherished?
That was a language Kim Dokja had never learned to speak.
"You're thinking too hard again." Said a sonorous, but gentle voice.
Kim Dokja glanced over his shoulder to find Yoo Joonghyuk standing a few steps away, his muscular arms folded across his chest and his expression carrying the faint irritation of someone who had been watching him silently for several minutes.
"I'm always thinking." Kim Dokja replied, a smile tugging at his lips. "You should know that better than anyone."
Yoo Joonghyuk scowled, though the expression lacked its usual sharpness. "Then think about resting."
Kim Dokja gave a quiet laugh and turned back toward the trees.
For some reason, he found himself thinking about the people who weren't here to see the beautiful view of autumn.
Millions.
The number was too large to hold inside his head. Whenever he tried, it became meaningless, reduced to a cold statistic that refused to resemble human lives.
There had been faces among them. Voices, names, ordinary people who had simply happened to exist in a world where the apocalypse had arrived and Kim Dokja had been standing somewhere in the middle of it.
He had made choices, he had read stories, he had pushed them forward and people had died because of him.
Yet somehow they looked at him like a hero.
Dokja lowered his gaze to his pale, lithe hands.
Hero.
The word felt almost absurd.
He wasn't a hero, he wasn't a villain either. ( at least, he didn't think he was. )
Heroes were supposed to know what they were fighting for. Villains were supposed to know what they wanted to destroy. They belonged somewhere within the simple shape of a story, with clear motivations and endings waiting patiently for them.
Kim Dokja had never been either.
He had simply been the reader. For most of his life, that had been enough.
Readers weren't supposed to become characters. They weren't supposed to stand inside the pages and watch the people they'd loved become real. They weren't supposed to be mourned, or praised, or held onto with trembling hands as though their disappearance would leave a hole in the world.
And yet here he was.
Kim Dokja blinked and looked beside him. Yoo Joonghyuk was watching him again, his expression unreadable. "What?"
"You've been staring at your hands for five minutes."
"Have I?" Kim Dokja's mouth rounded into an O.
"Yes."
Dokja smiled faintly. "I suppose they're interesting."
"They aren't."
"That's hurtful." Kim Dokja pouted in mock sadness.
Yoo Joonghyuk clicked his tongue, scowling. "Fool."
Kim Dokja laughed again, quieter this time, and leaned back into his chair. A breeze passed through the trees, carrying the scent of autumn with it, and several golden leaves fluttered down around him.
One landed in his lap.
He picked it up carefully, turning it between his fingers. Its veins were delicate, almost translucent in the afternoon light. Ephemeral things had always seemed strangely beautiful to him, perhaps that was why he noticed them now.
"Hey, Joonghyuk-ah."
Yoo Joonghyuk looked down.
Kim Dokja looked at the leaf resting in his palm, then toward the ruined city beyond the trees. "Who am I?"
There was no immediate answer. Instead, Yoo Joonghyuk stepped closer and crouched beside the wheelchair, taking his scarf off and wrapping it around Kim Dokja.
"You don't need to figure it out today."
Kim Dokja stared at him.
The words were simple, almost painfully so. Yet something inside his chest loosened.
He looked away before Yoo Joonghyuk could notice the strange warmth gathering behind Kim Dokja's obsidian eyes.
"Ehh, Joonghyuk-ah. That was so gentle of you." Kim Dokja poked Yoo Joonghyuk on the shoulder in a teasing tone, smiling brightly as his eyes creased.
Yoo Joonghyuk sighed, but there was the faintest hint of amusement in his eyes.
Yoo Joonghyuk wheeled Kim Dokja back inside, the wheels of the chair making a soft, screechy sound against the floor. Dokja had barely reached his hospital room when the smell reached him.
Steaming dumplings sat in a bowl beside a cup of clear chicken broth, the steam curling up that carried the scent of ginger, green onion, and something rich enough to make his stomach immediately betray him.
Dokja inhaled and let out a small, pleased keen.
Yoo Joonghyuk moved around him and positioned the wheelchair beside the bed, then carefully adjusted the blanket around Kim Dokja's legs. He checked the tray, made certain everything was within reach, and only then stepped back.
"Eat while it's hot."
Kim Dokja's fingers tightened slightly around the blanket.
Again, that strange warmth spread through him, beginning somewhere beneath his ribs before creeping outward through his chest and fingertips. It was almost embarrassing, how easily these little acts affected him now.
A bowl of food, a blanket tucked around his knees, someone remembering what he liked.
"Thank you." he murmured.
The door clicked shut behind the taller man. And if Yoo Joonghyuk smiled once he was safely out of Kim Dokja's hospital room, then no one needed to know.
Certainly not Kim Dokja. He had enough things to be confused about already.
Speaking of him, he was digging in his food excitedly.
BANG!
The hospital room door swung open before Kim Dokja had even started his broth.
"Slow down, brats. He's a sickly old man." Han Sooyoung sneered, following the two children into the room with her hands buried casually in her pockets.
"Hyung isn't old!" Lee Gilyoung yelled, immediately rushing toward Kim Dokja's wheelchair.
"Ahjussi is young and beautiful!" Shin Yoosung declared, hurrying after him before shooting Lee Gilyoung a suspicious glare.
Despite being only a year away from graduating, the two had somehow maintained the strange, petty rivalry they had possessed since childhood. Neither of them could stand the other receiving more attention than themselves, and neither was willing to admit that they were essentially fighting over who loved Kim Dokja more.
Kim Dokja couldn't help but laugh. "You flatter me."
"See?" Lee Gilyoung puffed out his chest proudly. "Hyung likes me more."
"I didn't say that."
"He doesn't like you more." Shin Yoosung muttered, folding her arms.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing."
"Say it again."
"I said, nothing."
"Kids." Han Sooyoung sighed, watching them with the weary expression of someone who had somehow been appointed their unwilling supervisor. "Please remember that we're trying to sneak a sick man out of a hospital, not start another apocalypse."
"You're the one who probably planned this, you witch." Kim Dokja pointed out.
"Exactly. Which means you should be grateful."
Kim Dokja sighed, staring at the bowl of broth, ribbons of smoke unfurling slowly.
The soup can wait. Right?
At first, Kim Dokja had assumed they would simply take him outside for some fresh air. Instead, Han Sooyoung appeared to have decided that "fresh air" meant dragging him halfway across Seoul.
Lee Gilyoung pushed his wheelchair for approximately thirty seconds before Shin Yoosung complained that he was going too fast. Shin Yoosung took over, only for Lee Gilyoung to immediately insist that she was going too slowly.
Han Sooyoung eventually shoved both of them aside and took control herself, navigating the wheelchair with surprising competence while Kim Dokja watched the world pass by.
"You know..." Kim Dokja remarked, "I could walk."
Three voices answered him simultaneously. "No."
The hospital disappeared behind them, replaced by streets washed in afternoon sunlight. Autumn had settled over Seoul in earnest, painting the trees in shades of amber and crimson. People moved around them, carrying groceries, talking with friends, living ordinary lives in a world that had somehow learned to continue after everything.
Kim Dokja found himself staring.
He had spent so long thinking about survival that sometimes he forgot there could be anything beyond it.
Then Han Sooyoung leaned closer. "Hey, squid."
Kim Dokja glanced sideways.
"If you tell Lee Seolhwa we sneaked you out..." she whispered conspiratorially. "I'm burning all your books."
Kim Dokja stared at her. "Then I'll get Yoo Joonghyuk to beat you up. Then who's laughing?" He raised his chin with the utmost dignity, as though the argument were so beneath him that he had already won.
Han Sooyoung's eye twitched. "Ugh. You and your weird homoerotic relationship." She fake-gagged dramatically.
"Excuse me-"
"We're here!" Shin Yoosung called out excitedly.
The Han River eventually appeared beyond the trees, glittering beneath the afternoon sun. The sight made Kim Dokja fall quiet.
It was beautiful.
Not the kind of beauty that belonged to stories or constellations, but something quieter. Water moving beneath a pale sky, leaves trembling in the breeze, distant voices blending together until they became nothing more than a pleasant murmur.
Han Sooyoung wheeled him farther from the crowded paths until they reached a small patch of grass tucked beneath several trees.
A picnic blanket had already been spread across the ground, with a basket sitting neatly in the middle.
"Yay! Goliath guarded it!" Lee Gilyoung yelled excitedly.
A dark tarantula sat menacingly on the blanket, its legs shifting as it slowly circled the basket as though personally responsible for its protection.
Lee Gilyoung immediately scooped it up with both hands. "Good job, Goliath!"
"Everyone was too scared to steal the food because of this little bastard." Sooyoung cackled.
"Don't call him a bastard!" Lee Gilyoung yelled, cradling the spider protectively.
"I still think a dog could guard it better than Lee Gilyoung's stupid spider." Shin Yoosung mumbled.
"He's not stupid!"
"He's a spider."
"Exactly!"
"That doesn't make sense!"
"You're just jealous because Goliath is cooler than you!"
"He's covered in hair."
"He's awesome!"
Kim Dokja watched the argument unfold in front of him, the corner of his mouth slowly lifting.
There was something almost surreal about it.
The river flowed quietly behind them. The autumn leaves drifted overhead. The picnic basket smelled faintly of food, and Lee Gilyoung was currently holding a tarantula while arguing passionately with Shin Yoosung about its intelligence.
Han Sooyoung dropped onto the blanket with a sigh. "Well." She announced, looking at Kim Dokja. "Welcome to your illegal field trip."
Kim Dokja smiled. "Thank you."
He didn't think about the apocalypse, he didn't think about the people he'd lost, or the lives that had ended because of choices he had made.
He simply sat beneath the autumn sky and listened to his companions argue about spiders.
Han Sooyoung slowly opened the basket. The picnic basket turned out to contain enough food to feed twice their number.
Fried chicken sat in a paper box, still warm beneath the crinkled lid, while two large pizzas rested beside it, their cheese beginning to cool beneath the afternoon breeze. There were little packets of sauce, napkins folded into messy squares, and a handful of drinks that had somehow survived the journey without being crushed.
Kim Dokja stared at the feast. "...Where did you get all this?"
"The halmeoni down the road gave it to us for free." Lee Gilyoung said proudly, already reaching for a piece of chicken.
Kim Dokja blinked. "All of it?"
"She said we looked hungry."
Han Sooyoung snorted as she grabbed a slice of pizza. "Translation : she took one look at your pathetic little face on the news and decided we were apparently rescuing an abandoned kitten."
'Those damned news reporters, breaking in my room...'
Kim Dokja opened his mouth to argue, then stopped. "...Eat your chicken."
There was only the soft rustling of leaves overhead, the distant sound of bicycles passing along the riverside path, and the occasional crinkle of paper whenever someone reached into one of the boxes.
Lee Gilyoung ate with complete concentration, carefully tearing pieces of chicken apart to feed Goliath while Shin Yoosung quietly picked the toppings she liked from her pizza. Han Sooyoung complained whenever Lee Gilyoung reached too far across the blanket, but she never actually stopped him from stealing another piece.
Kim Dokja sat in the middle of it all.
After a while, Lee Gilyoung nudged the pizza box toward him. "Hyung, you haven't eaten much."
Kim Dokja smiled, patting his head contentedly. "I have."
Shin Yoosung pushed another piece toward him. "Eat."
He sighed, taking it from her. "You're all surprisingly bossy."
"You're surprisingly stubborn." Shin Yoosung replied.
"I wouldn't say surprising." Sooyoung added.
Lee Gilyoung giggled.
"Stop stealing my food."
Kim Dokja scowled at Han Sooyoung, who had been caught halfway through reaching for the last piece of chicken on his tray. He swiped a hand at Han Sooyoung's hand who tried to slither underneath his grasp and grab his food.
Then, very slowly, she withdrew her hand. "...Fine. But you better eat it or else I am."
Dokja snorted, turning back to his own meal with an expression of exaggerated annoyance. "Good."
When the last piece of chicken had disappeared and only a few crumbs remained scattered across the boxes, Han Sooyoung began packing everything away. Lee Gilyoung carefully returned Goliath to his container, muttering something about how the spider deserved a reward for his hard work, while Shin Yoosung folded the corners of the picnic blanket.
Kim Dokja watched them.
He felt strangely reluctant to leave.
The river was still moving beside them, reflecting the pale afternoon sky. A few leaves drifted down onto the grass, and one landed against the wheel of his chair.
Han Sooyoung noticed him staring. "What?"
"Ah, it's all good."
"You've got that face again."
"What face?"
"The one where you're thinking about something depressing."
Kim Dokja sighed.
Han Sooyoung walked behind his wheelchair and gripped the handles.
The wheels rolled over the grass, bumping gently whenever they passed over an uneven patch. Lee Gilyoung and Shin Yoosung walked alongside him, still arguing quietly about whether Goliath could defeat a dog in combat.
"I think Goliath would win."
"He's tiny."
"He's venomous."
"That doesn't make him stronger!"
"It absolutely does!"
Dokja listened to their voices as they made their way back toward the path. The further they got from the river, the quieter it became.
He looked over his shoulder one last time.
The picnic blanket was gone. The empty food boxes had been packed away. The leaves continued falling over the place where they'd been sitting, covering the grass in soft shades of gold and red.
"Hey, bastard." Han Sooyoung was watching him. "You coming?"
He smiled. "Yeah."
She turned back toward the road, pushing him onward. Kim Dokja settled comfortably into the chair, listening to the familiar voices around him as they made their way home.
#
His legs were beginning to ache beneath the blanket, that strange soreness reminding him how long his body had been lying still, but after an afternoon beside the river, even the tiredness felt pleasant.
Han Sooyoung pushed him into his room.
And immediately burst out laughing.
Lee Jihye was sitting beside his bed, her cheeks stuffed completely full as she enthusiastically demolished his chicken broth and dumplings. She had apparently decided that the spoon was unnecessary, because one hand was wrapped around the bowl while the other was fishing dumplings out of it.
"Jihye-yah. Are you eating my dinner?"
Lee Jihye's cheeks puffed out further as she hurriedly shook her head.
Then she glanced down at the bowl, then slowly nodded.
"At least you're honest."
Han Sooyoung leaned against the doorframe, cackling. "She didn't even wait for you!"
Lee Jihye shot her an offended look, although she couldn't exactly defend herself with her mouth stuffed full of food.
Kim Dokja pointed toward the abandoned spoon beside the bowl. "And you didn't use that?"
Lee Jihye followed his finger, then looked away.
"You just used your hands?"
She shrugged sheepishly.
"That's disgusting." Han Sooyoung snickered.
Lee Jihye immediately raised the half-eaten dumpling in her hand like she was preparing to throw it at her.
"Don't you dare." Kim Dokja warned, though there was already a smile on his mouth. "You'll get broth on the floor."
Lee Jihye lowered the dumpling.
Lee Gilyoung wandered into the room and immediately started laughing when he saw her stuffed cheeks. "Noona looks like a squirrel!"
Shin Yoosung followed him in and giggled. "More like a hamster."
Lee Jihye swallowed at last and finally managed to speak. "I was hungry! Plus, I only ate this bowl! It's not that bad."
"Well, there's steam coming from that bowl even though it's been three hours since we left, so you probably took more from Yoo Joonghyuk. Am I right?" Kim Dokja crossed his arms.
"I was really hungry!"
"And most of my chicken broth."
"It was good!"
"That was supposed to be my dinner."
Lee Jihye's expression faltered.
For a second, she looked genuinely guilty, then she carefully pushed the bowl toward him, leaving the three remaining dumplings within his reach. "Here."
Kim Dokja glanced at the tiny remaining portion and sighed. "You're way too shameless."
"You can have these." Lee Jihye insisted, nudging the bowl closer.
Han Sooyoung snorted. "How generous. She leaves you the leftovers from your own dinner." Shin Yoosung and Lee gilyoung giggled at that.
Kim Dokja picked up the spoon, shaking his head as he took one of the remaining dumplings. "It's fine."
Lee Jihye brightened. "You forgive me?"
"I didn't say that."
Her smile disappeared.
Kim Dokja took another bite, trying and failing to hide his amusement. "Eat something else later. Just don't steal my food again."
Lee Jihye gave him an enthusiastic thumbs-up. "Thanks, ahjussi!"
"That's probably the most reassuring response you're going to get." Han Sooyoung remarked.
Kim Dokja leaned back against his pillow. the hospital room felt less like somewhere he had been recovering and more like somewhere everyone had simply decided he belonged.
His dinner had been stolen, his spoon had gone completely unused (luckily), and Lee Jihye was already asking Lee Gilyoung whether there were any snacks left.
Lee Jihye slung her bag over her shoulder and stretched. "We'll come back tomorrow, ahjussi."
Kim Dokja nodded, smiling serenely. "You don't have to."
"We know, idiot." Han Sooyoung replied, already walking toward the door. "We're still coming."
"Do you need help, ahjussi?" Shin Yoosung asked, glancing at Kim Dokja with puppy eyes.
"I can manage." Kim Dokja smiled in return, his arms shaking as he attempted to life himself up. Key word : attempted.
"You've been saying that for days."
"I'll manage."
She narrowed her eyes at him. Then, with a quiet sigh, she stepped aside and let Lee Gilyoung and Shin Yoosung help instead. "Careful." Shin Yoosung murmured, moving beside him.
"We've got you." Lee Gilyoung added.
Kim Dokja placed his hands against the mattress and carefully shifted his weight forward. His legs trembled beneath him almost immediately, still too weak to properly support him, and he instinctively caught himself against the bed.
"Slowly." Shin Yoosung said, steadying his arm.
With their help, Kim Dokja finally managed to lift himself onto the bed. It wasn't graceful, and by the time he was sitting against the pillows, his legs were aching and his breathing had grown slightly uneven.
Still, he smiled like he always does. "See? Perfectly fine."
Han Sooyoung scoffed. "Sure."
Lee Jihye pointed at him. "Rest."
"Right, Jihye-yah."
She looked satisfied with herself, puffing her chest out pridefully.
Lee Gilyoung adjusted his blanket one last time, carefully tucking it around his legs while Shin Yoosung fixed his pillow. "Comfortable?"
Kim Dokja nodded, smiling. "Thank you, Yoosung-ah, Gilyoung-ah."
The four of them began filing toward the door.
"Goodnight, hyung."
"Goodnight, ahjussi."
"Get some sleep, ahjussi!" Lee Jihye warned.
Han Sooyoung was the last to leave and she paused at the doorway. "Goodnight, Kim Dokja."
Kim Dokja smiled. "Goodnight, Sooyoung-ah."
The door closed.
Their voices faded down the hallway, Lee Gilyoung still talking about Goliath, Lee Jihye arguing with him about something, seemingly ganging up on the younger boy with Shin Yoosung as Han Sooyoung cackled.
Then they were gone, and once again, the room became quiet.
Kim Dokja remained leaning against his pillows, listening to the faint hum of the hospital around him. His eyes drifted toward the window, where the city stretched beyond the glass, scattered lights glowing beneath the darkening sky.
There were so many little things.
He remembered the first time he had stubbornly refused to give up on something even when everyone else had told him it was pointless, digging his heels in with an almost childish determination.
Just like Lee Jihye.
Kim Dokja's brow furrowed. "...Why did I do that?"
Then there was the way he had started noticing when people were upset, even when they insisted they weren't, quietly changing his plans or staying nearby because something in him refused to leave them alone when they were hurting.
Just like Shin Yoosung.
He covered his face with one hand. "Ugh."
Fierceness had appeared in him too, that strange refusal to let someone else decide what they were allowed to become, the instinct to stand his ground even when fear crawled up his spine.
Just like Jang Hayoung.
He remembered countless moments where he had given something away without thinking, offered reassurance when he had none to spare, or put himself between someone else and danger simply because he couldn't stand watching them get hurt.
Just like Lee Hyunsung.
He had a small habit of checking whether everyone had pampered themselves, remembering little details, noticing when someone looked tired, taking care of people before they could even ask.
Just like Lee Seolhwa.
Dokja slowly lowered his hand that fell uselessly to his lap again.
He had grit, he had determination, and that cold refusal to give up on something while also giving up on his life.
Just like Yoo Joonghyuk.
Kim Dokja had admired it for so long that somewhere along the way, he'd started doing the same thing. He had taken every setback as another reason to keep moving, every impossible situation as something that simply had to be endured.
He had thought those traits were his.
Hadn't he?
He had spent years reading about people he admired, watching them suffer and struggle and grow, memorizing their personalities so thoroughly that sometimes he knew their reactions before they did.
He'd borrowed Lee Jihye's determination because he admired how she kept moving forward.
He'd borrowed Shin Yoosung's compassion because he couldn't bear to ignore a loved one in pain.
He'd borrowed Jang Hayoung's fierceness because sometimes he needed the courage to defend himself.
He'd borrowed Lee Hyunsung's kindness because kindness was something he'd always wanted to understand.
He'd borrowed Lee Seolhwa's caring nature because taking care of others gave him a reason to stay.
And he'd borrowed Yoo Joonghyuk's grit because, more than anything, he had wanted to survive.
Kim Dokja stared at the ceiling. "...Oh my god." He covered his face again. "Why the hell..."
The realization was so embarrassing that he almost wanted to laugh. For years, he'd thought of himself as the reader, someone standing outside the story and observing the characters from a safe distance.
But perhaps that had never been entirely true, he had loved these people so much that pieces of them had followed him. Maybe that was why he had always struggled to understand himself.
Whenever he looked inward, he found everyone else first.
All of them had become tangled together inside him until Kim Dokja could no longer tell where they ended and he began. He lowered his hands and looked at them.
His pale hands, his slim fingers, his scars, his trembling wrists.
They belonged to him.
Kim Dokja.
Dokja let out a quiet breath. "...I really am an idiot."
This time, though, he was smiling when he said it.
That night, Kim Dokja dreamed again
Not as the Oldest Dream, simply as Kim Dokja.
In another universe, there was a Kim Dokja who had never read TWSA or had an unfortunate upbringing. There was no Yoo Joonghyuk, no apocalypse, no constellation watching from somewhere beyond the stars, no story waiting for him to become something greater than himself.
There was simply Kim Dokja.
He had the same starry obsidian eyes, the same inky straight hair, the same scheming smile, but there was something different about him that Kim Dokja couldn't quite explain.
It was a child who loved the colour of the sky.
He would lie on the grass beneath bright summer evenings and stare upward for hours, fascinated by how blue could become pale near the horizon and deeper overhead, sometimes interrupted by clouds that drifted lazily across his field of vision. He didn't know why he loved it. He simply did.
He loved reading, too.
Not because books gave him an escape from his life, not because he needed stories to survive, but because he genuinely enjoyed opening a book and discovering something he'd never known before.
He loved omurice.
Lee Sookyung made it for him whenever she had the time, carefully folding the omelette over the rice and placing it on the plate as though it were something precious.
Sometimes she'd draw a little smiley face across the top with tomato sauce, and Kim Dokja would complain that he hated tomatoes even though he always ate it anyway.
He loved the feeling of soft, sun warmed grass beneath his hands.
He loved lying outside on bright afternoons, letting the warmth seep into his skin while the breeze moved gently through the trees.
He loved libraries.
He would sit in libraries until his mother came to find him, quietly turning pages beneath the warm yellow lights while dust drifted through the air.
He loved the quiet clicking of keyboards in cafes, the soft clatter of cups and plates, the smell of coffee drifting through the air.
Even when he couldn't afford the expensive drinks, he liked sitting there with the cheapest thing on the menu, reading for hours while sunlight spilled across the table.
Kim Dokja watched him from a distance.
There was no great tragedy in this universe, no desperate need to become stronger, no reason to imitate anyone. This Kim Dokja simply existed.
Kim Dokja stood there, watching his other self laugh as his mother called him home and something ached inside his chest.
Just Kim Dokja.
A boy who loved the sky. A boy who loved books. A boy who loved omurice. A boy who loved sunlight and grass and quiet cafes. A boy who, despite never having learned what love meant, had somehow been capable of loving the world anyway.
Kim Dokja reached toward him. His fingers passed through the silhouette.
"Kim Dokja."
The hospital ceiling came into focus above him, pale morning light spilling through the curtains.
He turned his head toward the window.
The sky was big, bright, and blue.
Kim Dokja smiled.
"Kim Dokja." The voice repeated again. Yoo Joonghyuk stood beside his bed with his arms crossed, watching him with an expression that was difficult to read.
"I heard what happened with Lee Jihye." Yoo Joonghyuk said. "I will cook more-"
"Omurice."
Yoo Joonghyuk paused. "What?"
"Omurice." Dokja repeated, his voice still thick with sleep. "I want omurice."
Yoo Joonghyuk looked confused, but didn't complain, happy that Kim Dokja was finally demanding food instead of having to bargain with him to take one more bite.
He disappeared into the little kitchen area before Dokja could say anything else.
Twenty minutes later, he returned with a large bowl of omurice, the omelette folded neatly over warm rice and topped with a small streak of ketchup. The smell alone made Kim Dokja's stomach rumble.
His face brightened. "You actually made it."
"You asked."
( It made Kim Dokja's heart flutter. )
Kim Dokja picked up his spoon and immediately dug in.
It wasn't the exact omurice from his dream, of course. It couldn't be. That one belonged to a different life, a different world, a mother who existed only in his memory.
But Kim Dokja was still happy.
Kim Dokja ate another bite, then another, until the bowl was being scraped for more. Soon enough, there was egg smeared against the corner of his mouth, and he didn't seem to notice at all.
Yoo Joonghyuk watched him quietly, huffing with amusement and slight pride that came from Kim Dokja enjoying his cooking.
Kim Dokja looked up from his bowl. "What?"
"Shut up and eat."
Kim Dokja narrowed his eyes. Before he could open his mouth and berate Yoo Joonghyuk, the man in question responded with a soft kiss.
Kim Dokja's eyes widened as he felt the soft press of lips against his, Yoo Joonghyuk's calloused hand reaching out to hold his cheek, stroking his eyebag with his thumb.
Kim Dokja’s hands landed on Yoo Joonghyuk’s shoulders to push him away, only, he didn’t. He steadied himself on Yoo Joonghyuk’s shoulders, flushing a light shade of pink.
"You fool." Yoo Joonghyuk murmured affectionately against his lips.
'No way, no way, no way!! Yoo Joonghyuk, the protagonist, is kissing me! And he's smiling!'
"Shut up!" Kim Dokja grunted and became impossibly redder, grabbing Yoo Joonghyuk by the collar, pulling him in for another kiss. No words needed to be said.
They already understood eachother.
And silently watching through the crack in the door, was Yoo Sangah and Han Sooyoung, both smiling with amusement, although, on different degrees.
"Ha, didn't think those idiots would actually work it out someday..." Han Sooyoung huffed.
Yoo Sangah smiled. "Me neither, actually. They've been dancing around eachother for a while."
"'For a while'?? It's been years! This is fucking monumental!" Han Sooyoung whisper-yelled, looking at Yoo Sangah with a grin.
The brunette laced her fingers in Han Sooyoung's smaller ones. "Let's give them some privacy, Sooyoung-ah."
Han Sooyoung glanced at the two one last time, who were chattering along as Kim Dokja's star-filled eyes glistened with tears, a serene smile tugging at his lips.