Work Text:
the resurrected
Kim Dokja, after far too long, returns.
He spends the first few of his days back on Earth - his Earth - in a half-conscious state. People come visit him, leaving flowers and gifts and store-bought cards with best wishes and bad handwriting on the small nightstand next to his bed, but he only finds out about those after he wakes up. The first thing he sees after opening his eyes is a flood of boxes.
Yoo Sangah laughs at his mortified face. She's the one who has been sitting next to his bed all night, keeping watch that nothing bad happens to him while he's asleep. She laughs at his mortified face but, more importantly, she leans forward and pulls him in a warm, firm hug. Her tears stain his hospital gown and her shoulders are shaking and Kim Dokja thinks that he doesn't want to let go of her ever again.
"I'm glad that you're back, Dokja-ssi," she says through a veil of tears and a huge grin that makes her look ten years younger. "I'm glad you finally found your way back."
"Me too," he mumbles. Most of it is still a blur - thirteen thousand years, maybe more, but he lost count long ago. At some point, the years stop making sense to you. "Are the others-"
It's been so long. It's been so long, and their faces have been blurred by time and the gradual loss of his memories, but they're the one thing that kept him alive during all this time. He might not remember their faces on first try, but he will never forget them.
"They are all well," Yoo Sangah says with a smile. "Everyone's busy at the moment, but I'm sure they will be here mo every moment now."
Kim Dokja looks at her, tries to comprehend how she changed so much from the woman he once called his coworker and how she's still so much and so little the person from back then. Unconditionally kind and loving and, despite everything, still the heroine.
"Yoo Sangah," he says. Words are hard, but he manages. His own voice sounds unfamiliar to him, scratchy and hoarse. "Until the others arrive, can you tell me what happened?"
She takes a sharp breath but still smiles at him gently. "What do you want to hear?"
"Everything. Everything that happened after- well. After the train I guess." Kim Dokja has a vague idea of what happened, but he never got the chance to learn about the details. Who was it who first said that they should try to get him back? Who tried to free him from that hellish train, back when they completed the 1865th regression? How had they been while he was gone? So many questions, so little time to answer them all - but Kim Dokja is convinced that eventually, he will hear answers to every single one of them. They have all the time in the world now.
Gleeful joy spreads on her face like she's a little child again and if Kim Dokja isn't wrong, there are tears in the corners of her eyes. "Of course," she chokes out with a smile. "Of course."
She starts with what happened after they left - how Kim Dokja, the avatar, left with them, how they were happy for a while until they discovered that half of him was still stuck in that train. She gets to the point where they discussed whether or not he was actually an Avatar, when the door flies open and a tall figure marches in. When he sees Kim Dokja, he freezes.
Yoo Joonghyuk almost looks like Kim Dokja remembers him - tall, broad-shouldered, a frown on his face. What's new are the silver streaks in his hair and how he carries himself with an aura that's only a tiny bit different than the one Kim Dokja knows from him. More dignified. Calmer, somehow. Like he finally found his place in the universe.
"You're back," he says, so low that it's barely audible. "You're really back."
Kim Dokja gives him a smile and tries not to choke on his own tears. Something clenches in his chest at the sight of him - he didn't know that it was possible to miss a person this much. "I'm back," he smiles and oh, now there's a tear trickling down his cheek after all. "I'm back."
Yoo Joonghyuk takes a few steps closer, like he still can't fully believe it. "You're-" he says like a broken clockwork and takes another step, and another one, and another one. Yoo Sangah stands up to make place on the bed.
Kim Dokja doesn't think he has ever seen Yoo Joonghyuk as close to tears as he is in the moment he sits down puts his hand over Kim Dokja's.
He doesn't know what happened in the years he was gone but it must have been significant, because when he takes Kim Dokja’s hand, Yoo Joonghyuk clenches it as hard as he can and refuses to let go.
A laughter, more a puff of air than anything else, escapes Kim Dokja's lips before he realizes it. "You're actually a huge crybaby, aren't you?" he asks with a smile. He really is back - after so much time spent alone, it feels surreal. He doesn't think he has ever felt quite this happy. His heart feels like it's going to explode every second, filled to the brim with fondness.
Yoo Joonghyuk doesn't even glare at him, just grips his hand tighter, and Kim Dokja snorts and opens his arms. "Okay, okay." He takes a deep breath. "Okay. C'mere. Give me a hug."
To his absolute horror, Yoo Joonghyuk actually does.
He's warm and his arms are steady with a carefulness Kim Dokja didn't know he possessed, and it's awkward until it isn’t. There's a bit of weird shuffling so Yoo Joonghyuk's shoulder doesn't dig into his throat and Kim Dokja doesn't have to lean forward in this weird way, and then it's- nice. Nice, in a way he can’t place. His arms are around Yoo Joonghyuk’s shoulders, holding him close. It feels like an eternity until one of them pulls away.
“Welcome back,” Yoo Joonghyuk says in a husky voice. Kim Dokja smiles at him.
“I’m back.”
He’s still too weak to properly walk, according to Lee Seolhwa, so he gets the tragically sweet reunions they all deserve by his bedside. The first ones to show up, of course, are the children - only they’re not really children anymore, and Kim Dokja gets tackled in a hug by two teenagers he almost doesn’t recognize. For a moment he thinks that he’s going to die. Then they let go of him and one of them promptly begins to sob.
“Ahjussi! It’s really you!”
The boy slaps her lightly on top of her head. “Idiot, you’re gonna scare him into disappearing again.” But there are tears in the corners of his eyes as well, and his lower lip is trembling like he’s holding back a sob.
Kim Dokja looks at them and feels so, so fond. His children, who grew up so well. “Hey you two,” he says weakly. “Don’t kill me immediately after I got back, alright? I still have business here and I’d like to take care of it properly this time.”
Shin Yoosung snorts while Lee Gilyoung give him an unimpressed look that makes Kim Dokja laugh. God, how he missed them. He wants to hug them and never let them go again.
And then the door opens again and there they all are: Jung Heewon, hair in a bun and a hand on the door handle, Lee Hyunsung with broader shoulders and a huge grin on his face, Lee Jihye, arms crossed. Han Sooyoung, hands on her hips, lollipop in her mouth, looking happier than he has ever seen her.
He sighs and smiles. It’s good to be home.
repetition
The first few days are hard. Getting out of bed is a chore, moving hurts like hell and he feels like passing out every time he takes more than three steps at once.
He takes his first proper walk about two weeks after he woke up, once around the hospital and back, to get a first taste of November’s cold air. Surprisingly, it’s Han Sooyoung who accompanies him.
She shoves her hands in her pockets and her face deep into her scarf to block out the icy winds that tug at her hair. It’s not that cold for November, not as cold as it could be, but she’s always been good at complaining. Kim Dokja, who hasn’t had this for a long, long time, takes a deep breath and promptly gets scolded that he’ll get pneumonia if he keeps acting like that.
He laughs and gives some snarky remark that almost makes Han Sooyoung punch him. Almost because she pulls back her hand in the last possible second, like she remembered something. Kim Dokja wonders if he’s really this pitiful, if they won’t even let him have this.
“Hey,” Han Sooyoung abruptly says. “Kim Dokja.”
“Hm?”
“You don’t remember anything about… that, do you?”
It’s the first time anyone has dared to directly speak about what happened. Kim Dokja supposes that it’s nice, that someone finally stops treating him like he’s made out of glass.
He shakes his head. “Nothing. The last thing I remember is the train, and then-” Nothing. Emptiness, something he can’t place no matter how hard he tries, memories he thinks he should have but doesn’t. “Why do you ask?”
Han Sooyoung shrugs. “Just curious.” She chews on her lollipop. It crunches and breaks under her teeth. “A lot happened while you were away.”
“Yeah.” He tries not to feel guilty for what happened - he acted in their best interest, he knows that, but seeing how much they grieved for him, out of all people still breaks his heart. “Yeah, I know. Sangah-ssi told me about it.”
“Did she, now.” Han Sooyoung raises her eyebrows. “What did she tell you, the nice version or the actual version?”
“What’s the difference?”
“The difference is how many people Yoo Joonghyuk threatened to kill after it became clear that there was no way to get you back.”
Kim Dokja blinks. Then he blinks again. “What?”
“You heard me.”
Kim Dokja snorts, because the alternative would be to freak out. “Your jokes haven’t gotten funnier.” He scoffs. “That’s not like Yoo Joonghyuk at all.”
Han Sooyoung stares off somewhere in the distance. “I wonder,” she says. “Or is it?”
for once
"I heard you failed your first course at university," Kim Dokja says instead of a greeting. "Congratulations, I always knew you could do it."
Lee Jihye mumbles something he can't hear, but he's pretty sure that is wasn't flattering. Then she walks up to him, punches him into the arm so heavily that he actually stumbles backwards, and pulls him into a hug.
He receives a lot of hugs, these days. He can’t say that he minds.
“Welcome back, Ahjussi,” she says after she abruptly shoves him away again. That girl definitely had spent too much time with Yoo Joonghyuk. “We all missed you, believe it or not.”
Kim Dokja thinks back to what Yoo Sangah told him about the 1865th round. About Yoo Joonghyuk’s mission. About how they all agreed on taking on the greatest burden they could, in order to bring him back. “You know what?” he says. “I think I’ll believe you for once.”
ricochet
His health checkups with Lee Seolhwa turn from every hour into a daily event, then an every-few-days one, then into something weekly. Kim Dokja finds himself almost missing the weird sense of routine his hospital visits gave him. But on the other hand, feeling his body recover is something that’s pretty nice too.
He never thought that day would come, after all.
“Almost done,” Lee Seolhwa says and puts away the stereoscope. “Give me your arm. I’ll measure your blood pressure, and then we’re good.”
He lifts his arm - the fact that, in any case, you should never mess with Lee Seolhwa was one of the first things he had to learn after waking up. She puts the sleeve around it and notes down the results on her sheets.
She smiles - kind, beautiful, a better person than Kim Dokja will ever be. And while she doesn’t seem to be missing something, he thinks that it’s still unfair to keep her from what she could have had.
Dammit.
“Lee Seolhwa,” he says, while she still has her back turned to him. This isn’t a conversation he wants to have looking her into the eyes. “I never got the chance to tell you, but there’s something about Yoo Joonghyuk you should know.”
She raises her eyebrows, but doesn’t say anything as she sits down on the foot end of his bead and looks at him expectantly.
He takes a deep breath. Something in him doesn’t want to say the next few words - some selfish, selfish part of him wants thing to stay as they are, wants Comrades in Life and Death to be a thing for eternity and then some more. But it would be selfish, wouldn’t it? To keep two people from each other if they could-
“In another regression, you and Yoo Joonghyuk were-”
“Dokja-ssi,” Lee Seolhwa interrupts him with a smile. She seems to know what he wants to say. “What happened in another regression isn’t what happened in this one, you know?”
“It’s still something that happened. It’s still something that could happen again.”
“I respect Yoo Joonghyuk, I like him well enough, but that doesn’t mean that I want to have a relationship with him. That’s in another life, both for him and for me.”
Her smile turns devilish. “And anyway, I’m sure that in this regression, he has someone else he loves.”
Kim Dokja, sadly, has a very detailed idea of what she means by that. “This is not what I meant,” he tries to protest.
“I’m sure it wasn’t.” Damn Lee Seolhwa for being so patient - when she’s like that, it’s impossible not to listen to whatever she has to say. It’s impossible to not find some truth in her words either. “But Dokja-ssi, you shouldn’t be blind to what’s before you.”
He stares at her, dumbfounded for a moment, before he sighs. “All of you are really set on this, aren’t you?”
“I wouldn’t call it set on it,” she says and looks like she has to hide the hint of a laugh. “But to some of us, there are certain things that have been obvious for a very long time, you know?”
Kim Dokja says nothing in return to that, just tries his hardest not to pout. He doesn’t think he’s very successful.
Her smile turns gentle. “Dokja-ssi. I’m not telling you to do anything you don’t want to do. I would never. But you deserve happiness too, alright?”
“Do I, though?” He says the words before he can stop himself. Worry flickers across Lee Seolhwa’s face for a brief moment.
“Yes,” she says, determined. “Yes, Kim Dokja, you absolutely deserve it.”
cohabitation
Ultimately, Kim Dokja moves out of the hospital. It’s not even a question whose flat he moves into.
They all aren’t exactly poor. Out of all of them, Yoo Sangah earns the most money and since she’s also the nicest person any of them know, she probably would agree to host Kim Dokja for as long as he wants to. But in silent agreement, Yoo Joonghyuk prepares his guest room and two days later, Kim Dokja has a new temporary home.
Living together with Yoo Joonghyuk isn’t as awkward - or terrible - as Kim Dokja would have expected it to be. For the most part, Yoo Joonghyuk is gone somewhere and since nobody tells Kim Dokja anything,he has nothing to do except to wait for him to come back.
Maybe it’s his imagination, but Yoo Joonhyuk seems to have mellowed a bit over the years - it’s not just his face or the silver streaks in his hair, but his entire behaviour. Kim Dokja cracks a stupid joke and instead of telling him to shut upor threatening to kill him, Yoo Joonghyuk just blinks and turns away. Kim Dokja even thinks that he saw the hint of a smile on his face. What happened to that man?
When he asks Han Sooyoung about it, she snickers before her face falls. “He spent over a hundred years trying to get you back,” she tells him, more serious than Kim Dokja is used to, “and you really think that he would still act the same way towards you?”
“No, but- That’s not the Yoo Joonghyuk I know.” He has always been bad at losing arguments.
She takes the lollipop out of her mouth and stares at him with dark eyes. “Has it ever occured to you that Yoo Joonghyuk might have sides to him he hasn’t shown you yet?”
That hurts.
The worst part, however, is that he can’t even say that she’s wrong. And, with a grin, she adds, “Besides, he’s totally whipped.”
Kim Dokja frowns. “I don’t know why everyone keeps saying that these days.”
“Oh, like it’s not true-”
“Nobody gossips about you and Sangah-ssi either, do they?”
Han Sooyoung chokes on air. Kim Dokja pats her back. “Fuck,” she gasps as soon as she can breathe again. “Going for the low blows, aren’t you?”
Kim Dokja beams. “I learned from the best.”
“You learned from absolutely no one, you just showed up one day and decided to give anyone who talked to you for longer than five minutes a headache.”
He laughs, because he can’t exactly argue with that.
“And just for the record, there’s nothing between me and Yoo Sangah, alright? We’re friends, nothing more.”
“Alright then. And just for the record, there’s nothing between me and Yoo Joonghyuk either. Got it?”
She grins at him. “I forgot how much of an ass you are. Has anyone ever told you that?”
He smirks. “A few times.”
“Good. Now go annoy your dear Yoonghyuk-ah instead of me. I have more important things to do.”
“For example picking out your wedding dress-”
“Kim Dokja, if you say one more word, I’ll strangle you.”
asymptotes
After a few weeks they decide to get dinner, all of them like back when everything was still alright. It’s nice and he’s looking forward to it, but Kim Dokja needs to kill the time until then somehow, so he goes for a walk and ends up at the place where Jung Heewon spends her part-time job barkeeping. It’s her lunch break, he remembers, and he finds her on the stairs of the bar’s back door.
She sees him from a few meters away and waves him closer. “Dokja-ssi, nice to see you. What brings you here?” For some reason, even though she’s smiling, she doesn’t quite look happy. Like something worries her that she doesn’t want to put into words.
“I was in the area and wanted to say hi.” Kim Dokja sits down next to her and suddenly finds himself reminded of one of their first actual conversations - way back in the 2nd scenario, when she sat down next to him and stared at the dark railway ahead of them. You're not thinking of going, are you?
Now, though, the stakes are so much lower than they were before. No Dokkaebi, no death games to be played for the amusement of constellations. No lives at stake.
"What's on your mind?" he settles on asking. She sighs and pulls a cigarette package from her breast pocket, a lighter, lights one of them.
"Who says that something's on my mind?"
"Oh please." Kim Dokja thinks about stealing one of her cigarettes for himself, but he has never smoked and he has ruined his body in too many other ways already. "I've known you for long enough to know when something is bothering you." You're not exactly known for hiding your emotions.
Jung Heewon sighs, laughs a little bit and exhales a cloud of light grey smoke. It dissolves into the air before her. "It's... complicated."
"Complicated how?"
"You see, back when we cleared the scenarios, when we still thought you were- well, Lee Hyunsung and I were dating, you know? He loved me and I think I loved him too, but-" She takes a deep breath. "In the end, it didn't work out. After the failed 1865th round, seeing each other always reminded us of you. We didn't want to live with our own failures."
Kim Dokja's heart skips a beat. He can't even say anything to that. "I'm-"
"Don't you dare say you're sorry." Jung Heewon gives him a tired smile and takes another drag. Inhale, exhale and Kim Dokja would love to take the cigarette out of her hands and extinguish it. To keep her save from anything that could possibly hurt her. "You're back now, alright? That's all that counts."
After a short pause, she adds, "But it also got me thinking. If maybe we could repair the relationship. Or if it's too late for that."
Kim Dokja isn't sure what to say in this situation - if he's even allowed to give words of reassurance anymore, or if he lost that privilege the moment he sent his avatar out of that train car.
Jung Heewon, however, seems to have read his thoughts because she takes one look at him and starts laughing. "Look at you!" she says. "Trying to figure out this problem, aren't you."
Kim Dokja tries his best not to look like a deer caught in the headlights.
"Don't worry," she tells him with a grin. "You're not our supervisor. We're allowed to have our own problems, alright? You don't have to solve every single one of them all by yourself."
Kim Dokja smiles in response and then, slowly, he starts to laugh too. "Thanks, Heewon-ssi. But if you need anything, I'm there for you."
She hits him on the back of his head lightly in response. "Shush, I'm allowed to solve my own problems. It's cute that you want to solve my relationship problems for me, but God knows you have your own. Deal with those first, then you're allowed to help me."
He has a very specific idea of what she's referring to, and he doesn't like the implication at all. "It's not like that," he tries to defend himself. "You shouldn't listen to everything Uriel says, you know?"
Jung Heewon raises her eyebrows with a grin. "I've talked to Sangah-ssi. Is she wrong in telling me that you two held hands only seconds after you saw each other again?"
Kim Dokja frowns. "You're taking that out of context."
"Am I? I don't hear you offering me an alternative option to read that situation."
He snorts. "I don't remember you being this sarcastic."
"I'm not sarcastic." She smiles sweetly. "Just speaking the truth. You know it too, Dokja-ssi - you're just too much of a scaredy cat to take the first step. Him too, by the way."
Her cigarette has burned all the way down, so she extinguishes it on the concrete stairs and tosses it into the nearest bin. "Anyway," she says with a sigh and stands up, patting dust off her coat and jeans, "my break's over, so I gotta go back. See you later, alright?" She offers him a small smile that he returns. "It's good talking to you again, Dokja-ssi. I missed you. A lot."
"I missed you a lot too," he tells her and feels that inexplicable fondness well up in his heart again. "Take care, alright? See you in the evening."
She waves him goodbye over her shoulder before disappearing into the back door of the bar. Kim Dokja is left sitting on the stairs, staring blankly into nothingness and still thinking about what she said.
You know it too, Dokja-ssi - you're just too much of a scaredy cat to take the first step. Him too, by the way.
He looks up to the sky and laughs. Goddammit.
autocannibalism
Dinner finds them all crammed around a tiny table at their local pizzeria, nine people at a table made for four. Shin Yoosung and Lee Gilyoung are bickering about what kind of pizza they want to order, Jung Heewon is stealing glances at Lee Hyunsung when she thinks he isn't looking and he's doing the same, just more obvious, and Kim Dokja is squeezed into the booth between Han Sooyoung and Yoo Joonghyuk, trying to breathe enough to be able to order his pizza.
It's loud. The kids' bickering covers everything else, there's music playing in the background, Yoo Sangah is laughing quietly at their antics and Lee Jihye joins her loudly after a while, making fun of the two of them until Shin Yoosung reminds her of her college classes with a sweet smile and, in a rare moment of agreement, Lee Gilyoung sides with her and Lee Jihye shuts up.
It's loud, it's chaotic, and there’s no reason Kim Dokja should be enjoying this as much as he does.
“You already know what you’re gonna choose?” Han Sooyoung asks him. When Kim Dokja shakes his head, a diabolic smile spreads across her face. “Alright then. Let me order for you.”
He can’t even bring himself to disagree.
It’s loud and he loves it. The kids are still arguing, Han Sooyoung is making fun of Yoo Joonghyuk for some reason or another, some of the others are quietly talking at the other side of the too-small table. It’s loud, and it’s chaotic, and Kim Dokja loves it - he loves it- he-
He doesn’t know when the shift happens but suddenly the music and noise feels overwhelming instead of comforting, like something closes around his ribcage and makes it hard to breathe. Like he’s drowning in thin air. Kim Dokja, trying his best not to let anyone notice, clears his throat and gets up. "I'll be back in a moment."
On the men's toilet, he splashes cold water into his face and takes a deep breath. His face in the mirror is only a little more pale than usual - nothing to notice if you aren't actively looking for it, he supposes. Good. That way, nobody will ask questions he doesn’t want to answer when he returns.
"Are you alright?"
Wait. Goddammit, he knows that voice.
"Joonghyuk-ah," he says without turning around. "Shouldn't you be with the others?"
Yoo Joonghyuk doesn't look like he will take any of Kim Dokja's bullshit today. Which is a shame, because some days, Kim Dokja has the feeling that he’s made exclusively of bullshit. "I saw you leaving. You didn't look well."
Kim Dokja, despite everything, takes a moment to quietly laugh to himself. He wants to say that of course this is how Yoo Joonghyuk would act - but it isn't, that's the problem, and Kim Dokja really wants to know what he missed in those years they were apart.
"It's very sweet that you care for me, but I really don't think there's anything you can do for me." He still refuses to look into his direction.
Yoo Joonghyuk takes a few steps forward and leans against the wall next to the sink with crossed arms. Kim Dokja has no choice but to look at him now. "Aversion to loud sounds," he says. "You want to spend time with your companions but as soon as you're in a group, everything gets too much for you to handle and you can't do anything but run away."
"Why-"
Yoo Joonghyuk gives him a dry, humorless smile. "I've had my share of experiences."
Kim Dokja looks at him, first in surprise, then in pity, then with an ironic grin. “We really were made for each other, huh?”
“Were we?” The look in Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes is unreadable.
“Jesus Christ, just take the compliment already,” Kim Dokja mutters, but he hopes that they both know that he’s joking. Being made for someone like him isn’t a compliment, but he doesn’t need Yoo Joonghyuk to spell that out for him.
He steals a glance at the stairs that lead back to the dining room. “They probably think that we’re making out,” he says lightly. Tries to sound lightly, anyway. He doesn’t think he’s good enough at lying to fool Yoo Joonghyuk.
Yoo Joonghyuk hesitates and for a split second, Kim Dokja actually thinks that he’s going to say That can be arranged. But of course, Kim Dokja is Kim Dokja and Yoo Joonghyuk is Yoo Joonghyuk, and if Kim Dokja wants anything to ever come from this, he’ll have to do it himself. So in the end, Yoo Joonghyuk doesn’t say That can be arranged but “Let them talk if they want to.” And, with furrowed brows, he adds, “Are you alright?”
Kim Dokja snorts. Let them talk, huh. Don’t even try to deny it. Slowly, the other’s talks are getting to him, apparently, because he finds himself thinking, What is there to deny anyway?
Then, he takes a deep breath. “I will be,” he says. “I will be. Let’s go back?”
“If you’re sure.” Yoo Joonghyuk doesn’t look too convinced, but Kim Dokja has always been good at doing things he isn’t qualified for and he’s too stubborn for his own good anyway, so he doesn’t let Yoo Joonghyuk dissuade him from this.
“I am.” Kim Dokja is already half up the stairs, turning back only to look at Yoo Joonghyuk. “Come on now. Let’s go.”
Yoo Joonghyuk follows him and together, they return to the others. He attributes it to Yoo Joonghyuk’s death glare that nobody dares to do as much as raise their eyebrows teasingly, much less say anything, but Kim Dokja can almost hear the thoughts racing in their heads.
For once, he can’t say that he minds.
something something
First he had been glad to find out that at least the kids didn’t change that much. After that, he had found out that out of everybody in Kim Dokja’s Company, those two probably changed the most. It’s not exactly unwelcome, though.
“Your coat is gone,” Shin Yoosung says. He’s taken the two of them to get ice cream, for old times’ sake - and because there isn’t a faster way to make someone forgive you than to buy them ice cream. It’s a deal that works pretty well, all things considered. They’re sitting on a park bench outside the ice cream shop, enjoying what little sun March has brought them.
“Your coat is gone,” she repeats when she doesn’t get an answer immediately. “Are you not wearing it anymore?”
Kim Dokja hesitates. “The original coat got destroyed when I became the Oldest Dream,” he says. “But even if, by some miracle, it did exist after all, I don’t think I would wear it.”
“Makes sense,” Lee Gilyoung says at his other side. God, out of all of them, he might have changed the most - gone is the small child who used to cling to Kim Dokja’s leg. This Lee Gilyoung is tall, almost taller than Kim Dokja himself, and has all the lanky limbs of a teenager who hasn’t fully grown up yet. His hair has gotten darker and almost falls past his pierced ears now. Kim Dokja fondly thinks that this must be what they call a rebellious phase. Only that, judging by Lee Gilyoung’s personality, his entire life had been a rebellious phase so far.
“I didn’t get the chance to ask yet,” Kim Dokja says. God, they’re his children, the closest he will ever have to that, at least, and yet he knows so little about them. It’s been a long time. “What do you want to do after you’ve finished school?”
“Implying that Yoosung is smart enough to finish school,” Lee Gilyoung says under his breath. She tries to hit him with what’s left of her ice cream, but he elegantly evades the blow. Some things never change.
“I wanna be a doctor,” Shin Yoosung says. “Like Seolhwa-ssi. Maybe for animals, though. I don’t know if I actually want to heal humans.” Kim Dokja should be surprised, but for some reason he isn’t. It fits the Shin Yoosoung he knows. No matter what she does, she’ll do good. He’s sure of that.
“That’s nice,” he offers. “I can see you do that.” Shin Yoosung beams and sticks out her tongue at Lee Gilyoung. “See? Told you he’d say that.”
“He’s just saying that to be nice.” Lee Gilyoung eats his last few bites of ice cream. “You’d make a terrible doctor.”
“Well to you I would be.”
“Stop bickering,” Kim Dokja scolds them with no real sharpness behind his words. “Gilyoung, what about you?”
Lee Gilyoung stares off somewhere into nothingness for a moment before replying. “I don’t know yet. Insects would be obvious, wouldn’t they? But, after everything-”
He doesn’t finish his sentence, but he doesn’t have to. Kim Dokja knows what he wants to say. It’s a feeling he knows all too well himself.
He ruffles Lee Gilyoung’s hair, against the boy’s weak protests. “You don’t have to know what you wanna do yet,” he says and tries to sound as affirmative as possible. “At your age, I didn’t have any idea of what I wanted to do after school either. And look where I am now.”
“Broke, jobless and living at your boyfriend’s home?” Lee Gilyoung asks. Even though it’s obvious that he’s teasing, Kim Dokja still feels the need to justify himself.
“He’s not my-”
“Sure, sure.” Shin Yoosung doesn’t look too convinced, but she doesn’t bring up the topic any further. Anyway, Ahjussi, what do you wanna do now?”
“What do I-” It’s a good question. He hasn’t thought about it yet, not seriously. It had always been survive, never live. He didn’t even think he would ever get the chance to return to the way things were, before. Now that he got it, all of it seems so distant. He laughs. “That’s a good question. I haven’t really thought about it yet, if I’m honest.”
“Nothing at all?” Lee Gilyoung doesn’t look like he’s judging him. More like he doesn’t actually believe it. He’s right, of course, in some way, but this Kim Dokja isn’t the one they knew during the scenarios. This Kim Dokja is a little more lost, a little less alive than he was back then. He’s still Kim Dokja, of course, but they all change. Not always for the better, of course.
But, still. He can’t let the kids know about this.
Kim Dokja sighs. “Well, there are a few things I want to do, I suppose. Fix the things I left broken. Order pizza and eat it with all of you by the riverside. Tell someone I like how I feel about them.” Kim Dokja smiles a bit. “For now though, it’s just nice to be back.”
“And it’s enough that Ahjussi is back,” Shin Yoosung says with serious eyes. Lee Gilyoung, for once in agreement with her, nods. “Everything else can wait. For as long as it takes.”
canon and prose
“I have a problem,” Lee Hyunsung tells him one day. “And I think I might need your help.”
They’re taking Kim Dokja’s obligatory daily physical therapy walk - the very one Kim Dokja originally refused because he thought he could get away with just hiding his physical weaknesses. Not like it was anything new. It was only after he basically collapsed after trying to stroll through the hospital that Lee Seolhwa yelled at him for long enough to finally convince him. To make sure that he would actually do them - without fainting -, she assigned shifts for the Company’s members. It’s Lee Hyunsung’s turn today.
Today is nice - the end of March, where the leaves slowly start growing again and it’s just warm enough not to freeze. The sky is blue with the promise of rain later on, Kim Dokja has his hands tucked into his pockets to keep them warm, and it’s the perfect weather for difficult conversations.
“Is this about Jung Heewon?”
Lee Hyunsung gives him a dumfounded look. “How did you know?”
Kim Dokja sighs and ignores the question. “Based on the rumors going around in the Company as of late, you wouldn’t think that I’m the most competent person to go to for romantic advice.”
“They’re just rumors, aren’t they?” Lee Hyunsung says. “I’m sure your relationship with Joonghyuk-ssi is going well.”
That’s not the point that Kim Dokja wanted to make, but he’s too exhausted to tell Lee Hyunsung otherwise. “Nevermind that,” he says. “What’s your problem?”
Lee Hyunsung hesitates, like he suddenly changed his mind about all of this. Maybe he feels guilty for dragging Kim Dokja into all this, even though he’s technically the one responsible for it - with Lee Hyunsung, who is essentially nothing more than a huge puppy, you never know.
Finally, he sighs. “I don’t know how much you heard about it from the others, but we used to date a while ago. I thought it was going well, and it was, but then the events of the 1865th round happened, and-”
“You broke up because you couldn’t stand to constantly remind each other of what happened,” Kim Dokja smoothly finishes for him. “I heard, yes.” Guilt still wraps around his heart every time he does as much as think about it, but he had enough time to reflect to talk about it without apologising every five seconds. He can do that internally, anyway. Better not to pull any other people into this.
“Exactly.” If Lee Hyunsung is wondering where Kim Dokja got those informations from, he doesn’t show it. Maybe he’s already suspecting that Jung Heewon talked to him, or maybe he still sees Kim Dokja as some sort of omnipotent life form, capable of knowing everything about everyone.
Kim Dokja almost wishes that this was still the case.
“So what now?” he asks. “You want her back, don’t you? You want another chance at this relationship, now that- well, now that I’m back. But you don’t know how to pursue it.”
Lee Hyunsung slowly nods. “I still feel the same way for her,” he admits. “And I’m pretty sure she does, too, only I have no idea how to go from there. So much has happened since back then. The situation is completely different, you know?”
Kim Dokja thinks that he understands, and that he doesn’t understand at all. To him, Yoo- All of this has always been unobtainable. Apocalypse or no apocalypse, some things always stay the same.
“If you really want her back, do it slowly,” Kim Dokja says. “Not all of a sudden, but gradually. Don’t do a grand confession. It’s Jung Heewon, if anything, she wouldn’t want all that attention on her, I’m sure you know that. Start small instead - ask her to have dinner with you, maybe make an effort to text her once in a while.”
Lee Hyunsung nods seriously. Kim Dokja thinks that it’s almost cute how much he looks like he’s not trying to take out a pad of paper and take notes, and he can’t help the smile that spreads on his lips.
“And, whatever you do, don’t force her, alright? I’m sure she feels the same way, but you still have to give her time. She might not be ready yet, so don’t pressure her into anything.”
“Of course not.” Lee Hyunsung bites his lips. “I- I love her. I just want her to be happy.”
“She will be happy,” Kim Dokja says. He tries to make it sound like a promise. “She will be.”
untitled
Dinner is a silent affair, usually - not because they don’t have much to say to each other, but because they both know how valuable it can be to have a moment of peace fully to yourself without being alone.
Sometimes, however, the silence gets suppressing. In those moments, Kim Dokja feels like he has to say something or he’ll drown in his own thoughts and in the quietness around him. Today is one of these days.
“I talked to Lee Hyunsung today,” he tells Yoo Joonghyuk and pokes around in his mashed potatoes. He isn’t exactly hungry, but it would be criminal to not at least try something Yoo Joonghyuk cooked. Especially if it was for him.
Yoo Joonghyuk lifts his head. “During your walk?”
“Yeah.” By now, Kim Dokja isn’t even surprised anymore that Yoo Joonghyuk remembers details like those. He has just accepted it, along with a very long list of other things. “He wanted my opinion on his relationship with Jung Heewon. And help to win her back, I suppose.” He thinks back to his talk with Jung Heewon. “Not that there’s much to be done there, but still.”
Kim Dokja sighs. “I don’t know why he wanted my help, specifically, though. It’s not like I’m good at those things, or anything.”
There’s something unreadable in the way Yoo Joonghyuk looks at him now. “No, you aren’t.” Then he goes back to eating dinner, leaving Kim Dokja equally flustered and dumbfounded.
“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?”
This time, the look Yoo Joonghyuk gives him is just plain annoyed. To be fair, he probably has a right to do that. “Eat your food.”
Kim Dokja sighs and resists the urge to roll his eyes. It’s good to know that despite everything, their old dynamic is still there. “Fine, fine.”
What’s left of dinner passes peacefully. Kim Dokja, who still doesn’t want the silence to spread, keeps talking about this and that he picked up in the last few days. Yoo Joonghyuk seems to realize what he wants to do and chimes in here and there to ask questions or tell Kim Dokja something that happened to him recently. It’s nice, it’s exactly what Kim Dokja needs, and he finds himself enjoying the atmosphere. Who would have thought that eating dinner with Yoo Joonghyuk could be this nice?
It’s only when Yoo Joonghyuk moves to the kitchen to do the dishes and Kim Dokja, insistent on making himself useful somehow, dries them, that he dares to ask again.
“Hey Yoo Joonghyuk.”
“Hm?”
“What did you mean by that? At dinner, I mean.” However, he realizes very quickly in which direction this talk could go and, because he’s absolutely not ready for that, he backpedals with, “Don’t tell me you mean the rumors going around the company.”
Yoo Joonghyuk narrows his eyes. “What rumors?”
Kim Dokja really doesn’t want to have to explain those rumors to him - and he’s sure Yoo Joonghyuk knows exactly what he’s talking about anyway - so he just shrugs. “Nothing that has to concern you. Don’t worry, I have standards.”
Yoo Joonghyuk slightly relaxes at that, though his shoulders remain tense. “Sometimes I wonder,” he mutters under his breath, and then refuses to explain literally anything else about that statement.
“Yoo Joonghyuk!” Kim Dokja hisses when the faintest traces of amusement curl Yoo Joonghyuk’s lips into a smile. “Stop making fun of me without me even realizing!”
“I’m not making fun of you,” Yoo Joonghyuk says flatly. “I’m making fun of the fact that that you’re an oblivious idiot who keeps missing the point, because the other option would be to be slowly driven insane, and I’ve done that too often already.”
Kim Dokja snorts. Then he freezes in terror. “What did you just say?”
Once upon a time, he thought that if he wanted anything to result from this, he would have to do it himself. As it turns out, Kim Dokja was wrong.
“The part about being driven mad?”
“The part before that.”
It’s too late now, anyway. This is something Kim Dokja can’t run away from forever, even if every bone in his body screams at him to abandon everything and run. But he’s still standing in Yoo Joonghyuk’s kitchen, he isn’t running, and he just asked a question that will end this once and for all.
Yoo Joonghyuk takes a deep breath. “Kim Dokja.”
“Yoo Joonghyuk.”
“You’re one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met. You can read people like it’s nothing, and when you say that you still don’t know what I’m talking about, then I don’t believe you. So why?”
Kim Dokja smiles dryly. So many time that he imagined this scene, and in none of them he ever found a way out. “Maybe I simply don’t want to,” he says quietly.
Yoo Joonghyuk looks at him. His eyes are unreadable. “Is that it?” he asks. “You don’t want to?”
“I-” Kim Dokja doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say. He wishes he had a script or anything to read this dialogue off from, but the universe, sadly, isn’t that kind. “No, that’s what I meant.”
“Kim Dokja. Tell me what it is you need.”
“Fuck it,” Kim Dokja says under his breath. There’s no way of getting out of this. Might as well just get it over with. “I- Yoo Joonghyuk, I want this, believe me. I just.” He exhales. “I don’t know how to.”
Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes soften. It’s not something Kim Dokja thought he would experience in his lifetime, but then again - maybe this isn’t his lifetime anymore. Maybe this is the next one already. As long as his friends, his family, Yoo Joonghyuk is there, he can’t say that he cares. “I want this too,” he says. “Can I-”
And then Kim Dokja, who has decided that his life will end here today, crosses the space between them and takes Yoo Joonghyuk’s face between his hands.
For a moment they stay like that: noses almost touching, breathing the same air. Kim Dokja, though his heart is rapidly beating in his chest, takes the moment to appreciate just how handsome Yoo Joonghyuk is. How long his lashes are. How Kim Dokja doesn’t think that he has seen his eyes ever this soft.
Then he leans forward and brings their lips together and oh, this is what he has waited millenia for. He gets it now. He gets it now. Yoo Joonghyuk’s lips are soft and so unlike everything Kim Dokja could have possibly imagined. Yoo Joonghyuk’s hands come up to cup his face and Kim Dokja places his own atop them. They are scarred and calloused, but they’re his hands, and Kim Dokja loves them. Loves every part of Yoo Joonghyuk, and oh, if this isn’t the love story of the century. Of the millenia. God, they’re both so old and it took them this long to get their shit together. Kim Dokja almost can’t believe it, but on the other hand, he’s standing in their shared kitchen and is kissing Yoo Joonghyuk breathless. That train of thought could wait.
Finally he pulls back a bit to take a deep breath. Yoo Joonghyuk looks good like this - lips red, cheeks slightly flushed, looking at Kim Dokja as if he’s the only thing in the world.
There’s a single tear trailing down his cheek.
“Hey,” Kim Dokja says, slightly alarmed. He reaches out to wipe it away, a single drop of salt on his thumb that dries almost immediately. “Is everything alright? Did I-”
“It’s nothing,” Yoo Joonghyuk says. His eyes are still gentle. “I’m just.” His voice catches in his throat, and it takes him a moment to say, “I’m just happy.”
That makes Kim Dokja laugh a little, more a breath of air than anything else. “Yoo Joonghyuk. You’re the only person I know who would cry of sheer happiness.”
That’s a lie. Kim Dokja’s lips are trembling and he has to force himself not to choke out a sob. He knows too well how Yoo Joonghyuk feels.
“It’s been so long,” Yoo Joonghyuk whispers. “I’m glad it has finally come to this.”
Kim Dokja lets his head fall onto Yoo Joonghyuk’s shoulder and grin helplessly into the fabric. “Me too,” he says. Honesty, true honesty, is said to taste bitter, but in this moment, it’s honey sweet. All of this, and now this. Now this. “I’m glad too. We danced for too long, didn’t we?”
Yoo Joonghyuk puts his head on top of Kim Dokja’s. His hands shift to Kim Dokja’s back, holding him in an embrace that feels so intimate that Kim Dokja thinks that he might actually start to cry now. What picture that would make: the two of them, in their kitchen, crying because they’re so happy and don’t know how to deal with it.
“We did,” he says. “Let’s never go back to that point. That was horrible.”
“How would that even work, Joonghyuk-ah?” Kim Dokja laughs. “Now that you’ve done a dramatic confession and I’ve done a dramatic confession, I don’t think we can go back to this point.”
Kim Dokja can’t see Yoo Joonghyuk’s face, but he can hear the smirk in his voice. “Knowing you, you’ll get there somehow anyway.”
He has to laugh. “That's fair.” And because the affection in his chest is too much to take and because he is so goddamn happy right now and because he doesn’t want this moment to ever end, he reaches up and kisses Yoo Joonghyuk again.
possibilities
Waking up in Yoo Joonghyuk’s bed in the morning, warmed by the sunlight flooding through the window and lying next to the man himself, is definitely something Kim Dokja could get used to.
The first few days had been- awkward wouldn’t be the right word for it, but between Yoo Joonghyuk’s trust issues and Kim Dokja’s own refusal to talk about anything that might be even remotely related to himself, there’s a lot of unsureness between them that takes time to disappear. They’re figuring it out, though. They’re figuring it out.
Kim Dokja wasn’t a very physical person before, but after spending so much time in that train, that changed. Every touch feels like salvation now, and though Kim Dokja might not be a Demon King anymore, he still tries to get his fair share. To his surprise, Yoo Joonghyuk lets him, and confirms what Kim Dokja has always suspected: Yoo Joonghyuk, deep down, is just as sappy as the rest of them is. He’s just better at hiding it.
They go on a lot of walks these days. Kim Dokja jokingly calls it quality time and Yoo Joonghyuk frowns at him and doesn’t deny it anyway. It’s almost spring already, but February has left its marks on the world and the air they breathe in is so cold that it sends chills down Kim Dokja’s spine. He borrowed one of Yoo Joonghyuk’s coats because he doesn’t own one yet - well, he owns one, but he isn’t going to wear it anytime soon - and even though it’s a bit too large around the shoulders, it fits him well enough to keep the cold out for now.
At some point, Kim Dokja sighs. “Hey. Let me ask you something.”
“Hm?”
“You’re the only one who ever experienced something like- Well, like the train. Did it ever get lonely?” What a stupid question. Of course it did. But-
Yoo Joonghyuk looks at him carefully. “Lonely in what way?”
Kim Dokja very decidedly looks at everything except Yoo Joonghyuk. The trees are beautiful at this time of the year. Covered in the first snow of the new month. “Lonely like even though the others are right there, and even though you’re with them, you still feel like you’re the only person on Earth.”
Yoo Joonghyuk exhales deeply. “I’ve been though it too often not to feel it,” he says and Kim Dokja gives him a humorless smile.
“Thank god. I thought I was the only one.” He hesitates before asking, “Did- did you ever get over it?”
“Depends on your definition of ‘getting over it’. You get used to it. But it doesn’t ever fully go away.” Yoo Joonghyuk looks at him and Kim Dokja, who isn’t looking away anymore, tries to guess what he’s thinking about. Maybe his regressions. Maybe that time Kim Dokja spent in the train, all alone. Maybe what’s still lying ahead of them, what they can’t see yet. This one is slightly less depressing than the other two, so Kim Dokja decides to focus on it.
It’s funny how they both went through the same hell thousands of times, and yet didn’t do it together.
Yoo Joonghyuk furrows his brows and this time, he doesn’t ask if Kim Dokja is alright. Good, because the constant answer is no, and that’s nothing either of them wants to hear. Instead, he stops. “Is there anything we can do to help you?”
“How do you want to help me?” Kim Dokja thinks about adding if you can’t even help yourself, but he’s not cruel, and he’s not a hypocrite.
“I don’t know yet. But if there’s anything I can give you, then I will.”
Kim Dokja swallows heavily. “But.” He can’t think of a way to end that sentence. But. But nothing. But everything.
“I would walk through hell for you. Every single one of us would. Most already did. We can wait a little longer.”
“Still. You did so much - everything - just for me-”
“Kim Dokja,” Yoo Joonghyuk says, dead serious. “If you are going to invalidate everything we've done, ever single decision we made to get you back, I really am going to kill you.”
That effectively shuts him up, but only for a short while before he breathlessly laughs, cups Yoo Joonghyuk's face with his hands and puts their foreheads together. He's warm. “Joonghyuk-ah, Joonghyuk-ah, what did I do to deserve someone as good as you?”
Yoo Joonghyuk doesn’t move, except to put his palms over Kim Dokja’s hands. “Do you really still think that it's about what you deserve?”
He receives a sigh in return. “You’ll get mad at me if I say yes, won’t you.”
“I definitely will.”
“Fine then. “Kim Dokja smiles at him. “I don’t think that it’s about what I deserve.”
Yoo Joonghyuk narrows his eyes. “Stop lying.”
“I can’t help it, can I? I don’t exactly want to feel this way either. It just… happens, I guess.” Kim Dokja frowns. This is more honesty than he ever expected from himself. He isn’t sure whether he likes it or not.
It makes Yoo Joonghyuk’s face pull into something softer, though. He exhales, and their faces are so close that Kim Dokja can feel his breath on his lips. “I’m sorry,” Yoo Joonghyuk finally says. “I shouldn’t have assumed.”
God, Kim Dokja loves him so much.
“It’s alright,” he says. Thumbs stroking over Yoo Joonghyuk’s cheeks and he has to refuse the urge to kiss him. “You’re such a good person, Joonghyuk-ah. Do you know that? You care so much for me.”
“I’ll always care for you,” Yoo Joonghyuk says. “Always.” And then Kim Dokja leans in to close the distance between and finally kisses him.
curtain call
Once, thousands of lifetimes ago, Kim Dokja promised his children that they would sit by the river and eat pizza together. As far as he knows, this happened, but he can’t remember it, so in his opinion, it doesn’t count.
Which is why, when it finally gets warm outside again, they catch up on what he missed. Han Sooyoung brings the pizza, the children promised to get whatever sweets and soft drinks they can find, Yoo Sangah will take care of the location and Kim Dokja, fifteen minutes early, hurries to open the door of his flat.
His thought process when he finally moved out of Yoo Joonghyuk’s guest room was this: He won’t stay in this flat for long anyway, because he has been promised that they’d be looking for a shared apartment in a while, so it doesn’t have to be nice, or spacious, or in a good part of the city. Yoo Sangah and Han Sooyoung, who got wind of his habitual plans, liked to disagree, which is how Kim Dokja ended up in the most ridiculously overpriced temporal apartment his 28-year-old self could have possibly imagined. It also means that the way from the kitchen to the front door is ridiculously long.
“I’m coming, I’m coming!” he shouts at the person ringing the doorbell. He opens the door and smiles sweetly at Yoo Joonghyuk. “Ringing one time would have been sufficient, you know?”
“You didn’t open the first time.” Yoo Joonghyuk tries and fails to kiss Kim Dokja, who leans out of kissing range with a graceful bow, only to press a quick kiss to Yoo Joonghyuk’s lips once he’s lowered his defense. Yoo Joongyhuk smiles.
“So your solution was to ring again?”
He doesn’t receive an answer. Yoo Joonghyuk follows him into the flat without bothering to take off his shoes. Fair enough, because Kim Dokja usually does the same. It’s not like he’s going to live here for a very long time. He can afford the floor to be a little dirty.
“I’ll be right back,” he promises and disappears to the wardrobe - the walk-in wardrobe, next to his bedroom, which has its own room. God, he’s kind of gonna miss this place. “Just gotta get something first.”
“Take your time.” Yoo Joonghyuk disappears to the kitchen, probably to make himself some of the shitty instant coffee Kim Dokja keeps in a cupboard over the sink especially for him. Kim Dokja watches him leave fondly before turning around and rummages around the unorganized mess that his closet is. It’s gotta be somewhere here- he knows it. He knows he left it in here somewhere, buried deep beneath everything else. He didn’t throw it away.
It’s not the same one he owned back then, of course. It can’t bend space and it’s not quite the same sewing pattern, but it’s close enough to the original that he immediately went to buy it. It’s close enough to the original that he immediately locked it away in his wardrobe and never looked at it again.
He takes it and walks into the kitchen. Yoo Joonghyuk is waiting for him, half-drunk cup of coffee in his hands. “Ready?”
“Ready.” Kim Dokja holds the white coat in his hand for a moment longer before he takes a deep breath and puts it on. It fits around his shoulders with familiar warmth. Everything is going to change eventually. He’s looking forward to it. “Let’s go.”