Work Text:
When Kim Dokja opened his eyes, the world was still.
It wasn't the empty, suffocating stillness of the subway cabin, or the surreal void outside its windows. Rather, it was unnaturally warm and cozy, like a lazy summer morning.
He blinked and dragged his gaze across the room, across the sunlit floorboards and clusters of suspended dust.
Somewhere, a car rattled past faintly, the sound nearly enough to send him back to sleep. Although the temptation lingered, Dokja…felt he had been dreaming for far too long.
For a moment he lay there, listening to his lazy exhales, counting each one, before realizing that he was counting more than just one rhythm of breath.
He turned his head to the side stiffly.
Yoo Joonghyuk was curled over the edge of the bed, sleeping. His arms folded over an open book, the pages pressing into the soft creases of his face. The warm light caught on his lashes, dotting his cheeks with small fragments of light. It was funny—even after years of watching this person, he never seemed to get any less beautiful. The bastard.
He looked too real to be a hallucination. But Dokja had been disappointed many times before.
Although his limbs felt heavy, thick with static and molasses, he forced his arm up to drag it along Yoo Joonghyuk’s curls, applying a light pressure to draw him out of his slumber. The grey streaks there were new, and while their similarity to the 0th round sent a slight thrill through him, Dokja didn't know what to think of them either. They were a physical reminder—proof that Dokja had been sleeping for a very, very long time.
When Yoo Joonghyuk awoke, it was with a silent gasp, shooting up in place to stare at Dokja, wide-eyed in disbelief. The pressure marks imprinted into his forehead and cheek made Dokja want to smile.
“Dokja,” Yoo Joonghyuk said, his voice quiet and thick with sleep. He still looked shocked, his mouth opening and closing periodically like a stupid sunfish. “You're awake.”
“Should I go back to sleep?” he croaked uneasily, throat sandpaper dry.
For a long moment, nothing happened. Yoo Joonghyuk just stared at him with an unreadable expression, brow furrowing slightly before leaning over completely, resting his forehead heavily against Dokja's arm. His soft hair tickled the exposed skin.
He couldn't really remember the last time someone had touched him.
But…this warmth and weight was real. It was almost absurd to think that, after everything Dokja had lived through so far, it was this simple action that made him want to cry.
After all, Yoo Joonghyuk had never been so warm when he imagined this.
Privately, Dokja wished Yoo Joonghyuk would stay like that forever, collapsed on his arm, but soon—too soon—he got up, with a quiet murmur that he would call the others over and a promise of water.
Dokja might have been imagining things, but he could swear Yoo Joonghyuk was smiling softly as he shut the door behind him.
In the quiet, a hollow ache spread through his chest, numbing the tips of his icy fingers.
And when he closed his eyes again, something underneath his skin began to unravel.
***
Dokja was on the train again when Lee Gilyoung took his hand.
The empty scenery snapped into the deep green of a bright garden, and Dokja took a sharp breath as he came back into it.
Lee Gilyoung had only laced strong fingers between Dokja's slack ones, lightly slipping his palm in, but it had been enough to startle him into awareness.
They were sitting in a field, sharp weeds pushing into their exposed ankles. Yoo Sangah had coaxed him outside to enjoy the late summer sun, and the kids had jumped at the excuse to drag him into the garden.
Shin Yoosung was beside him, peeling mandarins with a terrifying focus, chattering away with Lee Gilyoung mindlessly. Lee Gilyoung squeezed his hand periodically, casually, like it was nothing—even though it did everything to keep Dokja from slipping away again.
Dokja knew he'd noticed. Of all the children in the company, Lee Gilyoung was the most perceptive.
He wanted to respond, if only to reassure the boy—but his body wouldn't obey him. Lately, it hadn't even felt like his at all. It should have been so easy to squeeze back, but Dokja's stiff fingers refused to move an inch.
Dokja didn't think Lee Gilyoung had realized that part yet.
It wasn't the paralysis that frightened him, but the idea that one day, he would stop noticing it.
Dragging his eyes towards the edge of the fence—where the tall brush didn't quite cast a shadow—Dokja drifted.
From the corner of his eye, the faintest shadow of the Oldest Dream lurked, dripping black residue staining the darkest patches of grass.
***
It was all too easy to fall into a routine. Sleep. Eat. Recover. These were the only things Dokja had been instructed to do after he woke up, and he was positively failing at them.
From his place at the dining table, he saw Han Sooyoung hunched over the couch, muttering a long string of obscenities at an essay in her lap. There was almost more red ink on the page than actual writing, which was admittedly horrifying, and Dokja spared a second to pray for the student at her mercy.
Yoo Joonghyuk was stationed at the kitchen, experimenting with and modifying his dumpling recipe. The scented steam of stew wafting through the space was good enough to make a grown man beg. Dokja was close to doing so himself.
The background chatter was nice, Jung Heewon passionately talking about something with Lee Hungsung in the other room.
The others went about their day with a straightforward simplicity, and selfishly, it made Dokja feel…inadequate. It was a disgusting feeling, one that slithered up his chest and into his throat, no matter how much he tried to swallow it down.
But the unfamiliar world after the apocalypse was…almost too much to understand anymore. It was too peaceful. After watching the same scenarios play out for an eternity, of watching these precious people fight and die to reach the end—it almost had him wishing he could have the apocalypse back, if only to keep the small comfort of normalcy.
Dokja was a horrible person. But Ways of Survival was the only story he could ever really understand.
From across the table, the Oldest Dream stared sharply at him. His skin was unnaturally pale, drawing Dokja's eyes to the blotted purple bruise across his cheek. He ignored it, focusing his attention on the vibration of steps traveling up the wood floor and into his legs.
“You miss the thrill of the story,” the Oldest Dream whispered, an unnervingly wide smile plastered into his face.
Dokja pressed his thumb into the table’s edge until his nail bent.
“Shut up,” he hissed under his breath. “You're not supposed to be here.”
“And you are?” the younger boy taunted maliciously. He continued without waiting for a reply. “You're the worst kind of person—calling yourself a ‘Reader’ like it's your only salvation while praying for the downfall of others.”
Dokja took a bite of his toast, trying to wash down the bile rising in his throat. The bread tasted like dust in his mouth—like gnawing on tasteless chalk.
What…?
He suddenly got up from his seat, the rickety wood clattering loudly, before making a beeline towards the fridge. Ignoring the Oldest Dream’s knowing stare and Yoo Joonghyuk’s perplexed one, he frantically grabbed the bread packet to check the expiration.
It had been freshly bought.
A short breath. Another. And another.
“This is the cost of defying fate, Kim Dokja. You know what's happening—after all, I am your most perfect truth.”
The boy tilted his head and laughed—a sound too light, too human, to be anything but wrong.
He hadn't known it then, but Dokja's sense of taste had been the first to crumble away.
“This is the epilogue you've been yearning for.”
***
Dokja was scared of falling asleep. To sleep was to dream, and dreaming meant…
Well.
It was starting to show, based on the suspicious looks Yoo Joonghyuk had been throwing him and the bruised purple eyebags he saw in the mirror.
It was the dead of the night, and the steady rumble of the world outside had brought him into the hallway.
Very carefully, he lined one heel to the tip of his toe, counting his steps from one end of the hallway to the other.
Fifteen.
The next day: twenty-one.
On Tuesday, when Dokja was left in the house alone: thirty-five, and the walls stretched like a corridor with no end, like an abandoned subway cabin with no lights.
He touched the wall, once—twice. But the sure feel of plaster and old paint melted under his grip into a smooth metal. A layer of frost painted the surface, and Dokja's breath came out in a visible puff of smoke.
Dokja shivered. He knew it wasn't real. But a mechanical rumble vibrated through his palm; one blink too long and the space warped again, walls shifting slightly to become the prison Dokja despised the most.
He breathed in and out, in and out, as if that would do anything.
Fifteen steps.
Fifteen.
***
The first time it happened, he was wiping the steam off the bathroom mirror. He exhaled in the humid air, running a hand through his wet hair and patting a towel down his damp torso.
Even so, Dokja was cold. And something felt frail and brittle under his skin.
When he looked down, he saw that the skin around his forearm had split slightly. A thin crack, almost imperceptible—but it sent a flash of panic, white hot, down Dokja's spine. It was like a stress fracture in porcelain, hairline and precisely devastating. Around it, the skin had flaked away, in little slivers, curling at the edges like burnt paper.
He brushed a careful finger over it. The flake detached with little resistance, floating up before plastering itself to the bathroom mirror.
There was no flesh under it.
No blood; no bone.
Nothing. Just—the black of an unending void.
It should've been impossible. No wound should be so empty.
Dokja stared at it, the stark bathroom lights catching on the jagged edge of the crack and deepening the shadow of the void etched into his skin.
Then, slowly, he opened the bathroom door, the whoosh of cold air unpleasant on his bare skin.
Dokja tugged his largest sweater over his head. Then, he pulled the sleeves down.
The cool, dry air…it stung his wet eyes. Dokja thought that wasn't quite fair.
. . .
He didn't want to tell anyone.
It wasn't an injury or illness. His body wasn't sick by human standards—Dokja understood this instinctively. Instead, there was something fundamentally wrong with his body’s adjustment to the world outside the scenarios.
It wasn't something Lee Seolhwa could name or Aileen could rebuild. It wasn't something Yoo Joonghyuk could fight against or Lee Hyungsung could protect.
It was inevitable. The sooner he accepted that fact, the easier this would be.
Dokja watched the others cook, argue, and lounge. Smile so brightly at him that he ached. But his arm still stung faintly every time the fabric shifted, dull and faraway. A memory of pain rather than pain itself.
He supposed it was fitting.
Dokja didn't want to feel anything anyways.
In the other room, a muffled, joyous laugh rang out.
. . .
Some nights, he could feel the edges of himself pull strangely when he moved. Not the muscles or tendons that connected tissue and sinew, but the threads of them—the most essential pieces keeping his body together.
He was careful not to let the others notice. Careful not to cough, or wince, even when his organs seemed to burn. Careful not to stare too long in the mirror, so he couldn't see the small cracks that had begun to spiderweb across his skin—so that he could pretend that he didn't see the Oldest Dream in himself when the light reflected at odd angles.
His body was always worse in the mornings.
He would wake up in a cold sweat, the sheets bunched around his legs and find a fine, pale dust scattered across the mattress. When he scratched his stomach absently, he felt a gaping hole against his side. When he pressed into it, it didn't hurt.
He pressed harder. Nothing.
Dokja wanted to cry.
He could never let them know. Because his…his family spent years trying to get him home. And still, Dokja would—
He would still…
. . .
The Oldest Dream wouldn't stop staring at him. He sat by the door as if keeping guard, though his knees were drawn to his chest, half his face hidden in them.
“Did you know this was going to happen?”
Dokja didn't look up right away. He turned a page soundlessly.
Then, without inflection: “No. But I had a theory.”
He would've left it there. But the Oldest Dream flicked his fingers—irritating, insistent. The way that meant 'go on.’
“It's a bit of a stretch, but…my existence right now is stitched together,” Dokja said eventually. “Held in place by a series of worldlines.”
The Oldest Dream blinked slowly.
“What I mean,” Dokja clarified, “is that I can’t survive in a world where Ways of Survival no longer exists.”
After a moment, the Oldest Dream’s breath caught, wide eyes peeking up from behind his knees.
“You mean…” he licked his lips, “After you split from the 49%, the part that stayed behind—”
“—was mostly my memories of Ways of Survival, yes.”
The Oldest Dream’s expression twisted, mouth parting to as if to speak, but no words came. Then, softly:
“That subway, it held you together.”
Dokja didn’t deny it.
“And now that you're not dreaming anymore,” the boy whispered, “there's nothing left to hold you together.”
He started suspecting it after his body began falling apart. The idea that this deterioration was not really an illness. It was an existential rot. Once the dream was over, the body that hosted it was unraveling as well.
The Oldest Dream looked at him with a horrified expression before lowering his head, hair covering his eyes even though Dokja could see his lip wobbling slightly. “I’m sorry,” he started quietly. Dokja hated it. “This wouldn't have happened if I had just…stayed dreaming. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.”
Dokja averted his eyes and grinded his teeth together, looking back towards his novel.
“It’s okay. Hey—it's fine.” The Oldest Dream took a deep, hitching breath before scrubbing his eyes vigorously, forcing himself to calm down. Good.
“...The point is, my return was a miracle. But it’s all just borrowed time.”
He tried to flip the page, but his hand seemed to glitch in the space, phasing through the paper harmlessly.
He stared down at the book blankly, curling his hand into a tight fist, static crawling up his arm, sharp and painful.
“Borrowed time, huh…”
Beside him, The Oldest Dream sniffled.
***
The world had been black for a while.
Dokja didn't realize how far he'd sunk until he noticed he could no longer feel the hardwood floor under his legs. Or see anything in front of him.
His hands felt like they existed somewhere far past his wrists, vague and filled with cotton, almost like they were someone else’s limbs. Dokja could almost sense the gaping holes there, sacrificed as the cost of Probability needed to keep Yoo Joonghyuk safe.
The cold wetness of sweat prickled his collar and soaked the expanse of his back, causing him to shiver uncontrollably. He tried to blink, to make it out of this nothingness, but couldn't even tell if his eyelids moved. Even the air felt thin, shallow; lungs drawing breaths he didn't even register.
Everything was white noise.
Although he knew he was collapsed on the kitchen floor, back pressed uncomfortably against the cabinets, Dokja felt like he was floating.
It was terrifying—static paralyzing his spine, a thick and nauseating heaviness in his gut, and yet, all of it seemed far away. Like none of it mattered. His consciousness scraped against itself to stay tethered, but it was his own mind keeping him afloat.
Distantly, he heard something—maybe footsteps—but even that barely reached him. He might have blinked open his eyes to see who it was—or maybe they were already open…Dokja couldn't tell.
Dokja was losing time.
His body twitched sharply. Once. Twice. His teeth bit through the flesh of his lip, drawing blood, but his throat spasmed, failing to swallow it down.
He choked. A throbbing, ache pounded against the hollow of his skull; a low buzzing filled his ears.
But perhaps, the most terrifying part was being semi-aware—knowing, in some fading part of his mind, that he was still here and not here all at once.
That he was still conscious of how unresponsive he was becoming.
A voice came from very far away.
“—Dokja.”
He couldn't move his head. His leaden tongue refused to answer. Dokja just wanted it to be over. But there was warmth—a small thing clutching around his shoulders and patting over his arms. It was familiar. Safe.
“Kim Dokja.”
The voice was louder now. Desperate. Frayed. Close. It was the voice of someone who had lost too many precious things in life. For some reason, he didn't want that voice to sound so sad.
“That's it. Look at me.”
His limbs jerked again—uncontrolled, aborted twitches flapping the meat of his arms. His eyes rolled back, and he felt warm blood bubble at the back of his throat, dripping slowly from his mouth. He couldn't swallow. Couldn't speak. Couldn't think.
Warmth. Something pressed into his chest.
And Yoo Joonghyuk was holding him. Arms anchored tight across his back and shoulders—a steady, grounding touch.
There were no words after that. No other commands.
But slowly, terribly slowly, Dokja's body began to respond to gravity again. The kitchen found its way back into focus. The air burned his throat. His fingertips began to hurt—so much that he realized the nails had been digging into Yoo Joonghyuk’s back, drawing thin lines of blood.
Both their chests were heaving in tandem, Dokja’s shirt clinging wetly to his torso.
Dokja blinked. Then blinked again, still adjusting to the flood of light and sensation. He drew a slow, laborious breath.
“How…long?” he croaked.
Yoo Joonghyuk took a moment to answer. “Eight minutes. Since I found you, at least. Any longer, and I would have…”
“No. Don't tell the others.” Dokja looked away. “This isn't something they can fix. And…I don't want them to have to watch.”
Yoo Joonghyuk’s face was carefully neutral, but Dokja could sense the disapproval in his gaze.
Yoo Joonghyuk didn't speak. Just held him, still and steady, like he could keep Dokja from slipping back under.
Dokja let his forehead tip down to rest against Yoo Joonghyuk's neck, listening to the soft puffs of breath expelled into his hair.
The warmth was nice. It was really nice. So Dokja held himself still until he could gather the strength to pull away.
Dokja didn't even realize he whispered the words until they were out of his mouth. “I wonder…would you still hold me like this if you knew…?”
If you knew that I was fading away.
A confused hum rumbled through his forehead, the quiet baritone all too loud at this distance. “What don't I know?”
“Ah it's—don't worry. I was just talking to myself.”
If you knew that everything you did for me was worth nothing but a few extra months.
Because Yoo Joonghyuk had spent a hundred years in space trying to get Dokja back.
And Dokja was failing him. He was failing all of them—Han Sooyoung, who wrote Ways of Survival over thirteen years to keep him alive; his children, who waited years for his return.
When Dokja pulled back slightly, Yoo Joonghyuk’s blurry face came into view. His eyes seemed more weary than he had ever seen them.
Lucidity was a curse.
Dokja smiled at him, sadly, when Yoo Joonghyuk didn't speak.
Because the tremor of a warm hand, still pressed against Dokja's spine, gave him away.
***
Dokja didn't know what made him do it.
Perhaps it was the cold autumn morning, or the way time had begun to slip away from him in chunks. But he found himself seated at his desk chair, clutching a ballpoint pen between his fingers in a vice grip, paper stacked before him.
Slowly—carefully, so that his fingers wouldn't give out—he wrote, [Han Sooyoung].
…and then stopped.
Beside him, the Oldest Dream lay sprawled on his stomach, legs swinging lazily behind him.
“You're not going to finish all of them,” he said. And Dokja watched for a beat as his legs swung. Once. Twice.
Dokja tapped the pen against the paper, pulling his hand back when it flickered again. He grimaced. Han Sooyoung would be annoyed if he left stray marks everywhere. He’d have to edit for grammar, too…
“I will,” he murmured, eyes fixed on the floorboards, avoiding the Dream’s gaze.
“Your body can't handle much more,” he said with a heavy look, nodding towards Dokja's minutely trembling hands.
“I'll get them done. If you're not going to help, don't waste my time. Get out.”
The Oldest Dream pursed his lips but stayed silent. Dokja ignored the hurt look there, turning back to the page that stared up at him—empty, intimidating.
Scarlet hues of evening sunlight filtered through the blinds, striping the paper in gold and shadow. And then softly, without judgement, the Oldest Dream offered, “For her…don't apologize. She's not the type to take that well.”
Dokja took a breath. Then lowered his pen.
[Han Sooyoung,
You've always been better at goodbyes.]
For the next few hours, the room held nothing but the quiet scritch of pen against paper. Occasionally, the Dream’s voice would murmur a suggestion, light and unobtrusive, and…it helped. After all, the Oldest Dream was the purest, most fundamental version of Dokja himself. It made sense for these letters to be written by the two of them.
[Lee Jihye].
[Shin Yoosung].
To Jung Heewon, for being stronger than him.
To Lee Hyungsung, for standing by his side.
To Yoo Sangah, who read every part of him without judgement.
And finally, in the early hours of morning, five days later—after restless nights and untouched pages: [Yoo Joonghyuk].
Dokja rested his trembling hand on the margin, just long enough to steady it. Then, he started to write.
***
Yoo Joonghyuk picked the worst possible day to take someone outside.
The carnival was suffocating—jam packed with shrieking kids in strollers, teenage couples, and large families.
Long weekend, oppressive sun, thick air. Of course it would be like this.
“Why are we here again?” Dokja muttered, already regretting everything.
“I'm having fun. I don't get days off, so this was a rare window,” Yoo Joonghyuk replied, barely glancing back, tone bone dry.
“You work from home.”
Yoo Joonghyuk gave a small smile before walking forward again, shoving aside a wailing kid holding a balloon with minimal grace.
Dokja followed, blinking at the reaction.
He wasn't quite sure what Yoo Joonghyuk was thinking. Then again, maybe he wasn't. He really shouldn't have such high expectations.
When Dokja fell into step with Yoo Joonghyuk, the man held out a stick of cotton candy for him. Dokja pinched off a piece with exaggerated flair and shoved it into Yoo Joonghyuk’s mouth—which he received a death glare for—before taking one into his own, letting it melt into his mouth into tasteless water.
Yoo Joonghyuk blinked down at the pastel fluff in his hands and made a face. “This is disgusting. Why did you buy this?”
“It's tradition, apparently,” Dokja said, similarly grossed out. “And overrated.”
After he lost his sense of taste, everything had felt like sawdust in his mouth. Besides, he had never been a fan of cotton candy in the first place.
They agreed to ride everything in the park, from ones that looped around in dizzying circles to those that dropped straight down.
Honestly, although they seemed fun, Dokja thought their thrill factor was kind of…lacking.
Dokja watched impassively as their roller coaster teetered ominously at the top of a 200 foot drop. As the world inverted around them, the ride whooshing down, Dokja caught Yoo Joonghyuk's eyes slipping shut for half a second, his jaw detaching slightly mid-spiral.
Conspiratorially, he leaned to the side, talking into Yoo Joonghyuk's ear so they could hear each other over the roar of the ride and screams of the others.
“Did you just yawn?”
“No.”
The wind blew their hair straight to the side as the ride lurched into a hard left. “You definitely did. It's okay—I also thought it was a bit…”
Yoo Joonghyuk grinned. “Boring?”
Dokja met that smile with one of his own.
“Why don't we try something a little more exciting, hm?”
. . .
“...There's no way this is more exciting than Mind Melter,” Yoo Joonghyuk huffed, staring incredulously at the ferris wheel.
“It's not. The thrill comes from the intimacy, you see? You wouldn't understand with your brutish tendencies.”
Beside him, Yoo Joonghyuk hummed. “Intimacy?”
Dokja shrugged, pulling out his phone and doing a quick search. “Hm. Yes. The ferris wheel symbolizes ‘love, connection, and romantic escapades’, while ‘whisking the pair away to new heights’...I don't see the appeal.”
Yoo Joonghyuk shook his head in exasperation, wordlessly paying for two tickets and motioning him into the cubby.
After a beat, the ride started with a light jolt.
Dokja hesitated. “Why bring me here? Really. Neither of us particularly enjoy rides.”
Beside him, Yoo Joonghyuk didn't blink. “I wanted to talk.”
Dokja tilted his head slightly. “So all this,” he waved vaguely, “just for a conversation?”
“Would you have talked if I sat you down with tea?”
Dokja considered it, then grimaced. “…Probably not.”
The compartment rocked slightly as they settled in. The city slowly sank away below them.
“Still.” Dokja leaned back, watching the skyline dissolve into the distance. “You’ve mellowed out. I expected at least a few death threats before you got to this point.”
“Don’t push it.”
They rose higher. From up here, the world seemed so harmless—so insignificant and small. The chaos smoothed over into a miniature blanket, covering all those Dokja wanted to protect. In the silence, Dokja's hand curled where it rested on the seat, twitching.
He hadn't meant it when it happened—the loud crack! The way he gasped in pain and curled into himself.
“Kim Dokja?” Yoo Joonghyuk asked in a slightly panicked voice. “Was that just…?”
“No,” he denied.
Yoo Joonghyuk reached for him.
“That was…Dokja. Lift your shirt.”
“Are you insane—what is wrong with you—” Dokja said quickly, but he was already being grabbed, coat yanked aside, shirt pushed up.
“Don’t—you stupid pervert—”
They struggled. Dokja elbowed him, but Yoo Joonghyuk moved faster. He was annoyingly strong, even now. One hand caught Dokja’s wrist; the other pulled sharply at the hem of his shirt.
“Ridiculous rat bastard—don’t gnaw my hand off—” Yoo Joonghyuk muttered.
But it was already too late.
The shirt caught around his ribs for a moment, then rode up fully.
Yoo Joonghyuk went completely still.
Because Dokja’s torso was no longer whole.
From collarbone to hip, his body was riddled with cracks—deep, branching, lines that ran through his body like fracturing glass. In places, the skin had peeled back entirely, revealing empty space underneath, a black and dull obsidian. Some pieces flickered like corrupted data, flickering and reforming, glitching across his body.
It wasn’t blood that lined the gaping holes—it was letters. Small, pulsing story fragments that squirmed and lined themselves against the edges of the void pushing out of Dokja's body.
Yoo Joonghyuk stared.
It felt like a long time before he spoke.
“…How long,” he said, low and hoarse, “were you on that train?”
Dokja didn’t look at him. His fingers had curled back against his thigh, flickering out of sync with the rest of his body. He gently pried his shirt away from where Yoo Joonghyuk was still gripping it, pushing the fabric back over the damage.
“Over twenty-two thousand years,” he said softly. “Give or take. After that, I think even the Fourth Wall stopped counting.”
The Ferris wheel creaked. They were nearing the top.
Yoo Joonghyuk’s breath caught again. The light in his eyes almost looked like grief.
“Hey—it's okay. I wasn't alone. I had the Fourth Wall, and I was watching you this whole time. See? Not alone.”
Dokja finally looked up, smiling faintly. It didn’t reach his eyes.
“I like reading. But your story was my favourite. It was the best solution.”
Yoo Joonghyuk didn’t speak. He was still staring where the cracks would be on his body.
Dokja reached for him again, this time patting Yoo Joonghyuk's arm soothingly. “It’s not your fault,” he said, voice softer now.
“I know.”
“…Then why do you look like that?”
Yoo Joonghyuk looked away. The sky behind him was turning violet, deepening the shadows that lined his face.
“I'm sorry. I know. Thank you for bringing me back.”
Yoo Joonghyuk didn’t answer.
And the wheel began its slow descent.
***
In the month after the amusement park trip, the two of them had gotten used to lying. Small, practiced excuses that slid easily from Yoo Joonghyuk's mouth and barely-formed smiles that Dokja gave as backup.
“Fatigue,” Yoo Joonghyuk said when Dokja didn’t come down to breakfast.
“Just a stomach bug,” Dokja added faintly when he was well enough to leave the room.
“You’re overthinking. He's fine,” Yoo Joonghyuk said, in that sharp, dismissive tone no one dared question.
No one asked anymore. Not aloud—even though Dokja knew they wanted to. They trusted him enough to come talk on his own, when he was ready.
It gnawed at him, knowing that he would continue betraying their faith in him.
They didn’t see the way Yoo Joonghyuk carried Dokja to the bathroom when he couldn’t walk. Didn’t see the tremor in Dokja’s hand when he tried to hold a spoon. Didn’t hear the soft keening noise he made when he slipped, mid-step, and cracked his elbow against the doorframe like his bones weren’t quite so solid anymore.
They didn't know that Yoo Joonghyuk sat on the cool tile of the shower floor, fully clothed, his back braced against the wall and water raining down on them both. His shirt clung to his body. His pants were soaked to the seams. But he didn’t move.
Dokja was seated in front of him, half-slumped, knees tucked loosely to his chest. He was boneless, quiet as the water made his hair cling to his face and neck in long, dark strands, sticking to skin far too pale now, too thin.
Yoo Joonghyuk’s hands moved slowly, carding through that hair with methodical care. Gently, over and over again. Lathering shampoo between long fingers before rubbing it into his scalp. Dokja smelled lavender. It seemed too soft a scent for the dead weight his body was rotting into.
“Lean back,” Yoo Joonghyuk murmured.
He cupped the back of Dokja’s head, slowly guiding him until Dokja's body rested against his chest, too weak to hold itself up anymore. Yoo Joonghyuk used one hand to tilt Dokja’s chin upward, exposing the stretch of his throat, the weakly twitching pulse there. His other hand gently combed through the strands, loosening the knots, massaging the shampoo into his scalp with slow, repetitive circles.
The cracks had reached his neck now—small fractures at the jawline, along the collarbone. Not bleeding. Just splitting open, thin and fragile, letting out tiny pulses of distorted shadow with every shallow breath.
Yoo Joonghyuk didn’t look at them. He focused on the hair, brushing his fingers through with soft, yet efficient hands, letting the water rinse out the soap. Every few seconds, he adjusted Dokja’s body, keeping him steady.
Dokja’s lips moved once. A wordless sound. He blinked slowly.
“I’m sorry. You don't have to do this,” he rasped, repeating the same conversation they had every time they did this.
“I know.”
A pause.
“Your shirt’s wet.”
“I know.”
Another pause. Dokja breathed in the warm air.
“Would you…” His voice caught, “keep scratching my scalp? It feels nice.”
Yoo Joonghyuk said nothing, but his fingers moved again, more deliberate this time. Rounded nails dragging lightly over skin with just enough pressure.
“For a guy who did nothing but swing a sword around all day, you're surprisingly good at this.”
Dokja melted with a small exhale, tension bleeding out of his shoulders, his head tipping further into Yoo Joonghyuk’s touch.
“Mm. I do it for Mia sometimes. When she has a bad day.”
“You're a good brother. She's lucky to have you.”
Yoo Joonghyuk stayed silent, though Dokja could pretend he was smiling behind him. Water struck the tile in rhythmic beats. Rinsed foam swirled down the drain.
He reached up, rinsing carefully along Dokja’s jaw, over his ears, the crown of his head. Scooping up stray bubbles and cleaning the creases of skin the water couldn't reach.
Yoo Joonghyuk shut the water off with one hand, the other still bracing Dokja’s body against his chest.
He shifted, rising awkwardly to his knees, then to his feet, stretching across to grab the towel laid against the sink. He threw the larger towel over Dokja's body, shielding him before using the smaller one to ruffle his hair dry. The wet fabric of Yoo Joonghyuk’s clothes rubbed against him uncomfortably, but it was easy to ignore, after everything.
“Up,” he murmured, and gathered Dokja into his arms.
Dokja let himself be carried, his arms hanging loosely around Yoo Joonghyuk’s neck, head lolling into his strong side.
Yoo Joonghyuk carrying him out of the shower was a habit now—this was the fifth time this week alone. He stepped carefully across the steamed-up tiles, water dripping from his sleeves, his hair, the hem of his pants. He toed open the door with practiced ease.
Dokja had memorized the exact way Yoo Joonghyuk lifted him; the way he shifted his arms around when Dokja started to slip from his grip.
He set Dokja down on the edge of his bed, mopping up the water that had pooled in the hollow of his collarbone before running the towel over his shoulders. He gathered his clothes and dressed him, pausing to reposition Dokja's wrist before gently guiding each limb through the soft cotton of his sleeves.
Yoo Joonghyuk glanced down at his own soaked shirt, dripping steadily onto the carpet. He seemed to contemplate something for a moment before shrugging, shucking off his wet clothes with one hand and sifting through Dokja's closet with the other. He found what he needed soon enough and pulled on the extra set of Dokja's dry clothes, stupidly broad shoulders choking the fabric a little.
Then, he simply closed the lamp. Slid a blanket over Dokja, and helped him to lie down, a gentle hand at the back of his head guiding him down onto the pillows.
Yoo Joonghyuk slid into the futon beside the bed without another word.
Dokja stirred faintly. One hand slipped free from the blanket and found Yoo Joonghyuk’s wrist, fingers curling loosely there.
“You'll sleep here tonight?” He asked, voice so soft it almost didn't register.
Yoo Joonghyuk gave an affirmative hum.
“Then…just for tonight, stay until I wake up?” he asked, voice so soft it almost felt like he never spoke the words.
In response, he wrapped his fingers around Dokja's own, the solid warmth of his palm the most comforting touch Dokja could ask for.
“Okay. I'll be here.”
He was so thankful. That in this quiet space, with the person he trusted and cherished most, he would finally be able to…let go.
***
It began with his fingers.
That night, Kim Dokja opened his eyes to the sound of paper shifting. Not rustling—shifting. Inside him. A low, papery flutter, like thick parchment stirring under invisible wind.
He lay still. Yoo Joonghyuk’s hand was still in his, heavy and limp with sleep, and Dokja didn't dare let go. He couldn't wake him now.
That's when he saw it.
The pad of his thumb, where it rested against the sheets, was fading. Not vanishing. Becoming...something else. The skin had thinned into something delicate, fibrous. Translucent ink crawled through the rips of his knuckles in thin, spiraling threads.
Text.
They weren't Dokja's memories. Or nameless fantasies. They were words. Familiar lines of print unfurling and bursting from beneath his skin like they were his veins, too fast and too small to read unless he looked closely.
His free palm flexed once, fingers held up to the light—and the paragraphs there swam, trembling and shifting.
One blink, and they lifted.
They detached from his skin before curling upwards, coiling gently as they rose. The tips of his fingers cracked softly apart, flaking into fragments. Not of blood, or dust, but—characters. Names. Dialogue. Numbers.
His story was bleeding out of him in pieces.
He sat up in bed. Slowly. Carefully. He would not wake Yoo Joonghyuk—he wouldn’t.
When he tried to draw his knees up, they didn't respond.
His calves were already going, the muscles softening into text. Every movement left no trace—only the faint scatter of fading script across the sheets before the words dissolved into nothing.
He sat, staring at his legs.
And he watched it happen.
The story rose from him. A slow unraveling of pages, lines, and long strings of text; detaching one by one, lifting gently from his arms, his chest, his ribs. They were sentences he once read alone in his room. Sentences that had been his only companion through ten years of pain. Sentences he memorized because he had nothing else. Sentences that made him believe he could survive.
And now—
Dokja would dissolve into that story.
He turned his head. A sliver of himself, just below his jaw, split cleanly open with a quiet snap. A line slid from the passage there.
‘Yoo Joonghyuk raised his Splitting the Sky Sword against the Constellations in his path.’
Dokja exhaled. His chest was hollowing, but he didn’t panic. He simply placed his hand over his sternum—what remained of it—and felt his pulse flicker under the last words there.
His breath stuttered.
He could read the words—as they left. That was the final gift.
Reading.
Dokja could read his favourite story; experience it again, one final time.
He read each word peeling from his spine, each sentence swirling into the air, circling him before disappearing into the floorboards with their weight.
His eyes blurred—not from tears, but from the threads of story unspooling across them. The final lines were almost gone now, and when Dokja could no longer see, they whispered their contents into his ears. Each word took with them the final pieces of his body and name.
And yet—
One phrase lingered, fluttering insistently around him. It clung to the curve of his ribs, the place Yoo Joonghyuk’s hand still pressed against his own.
He strained to hear it.
‘Incarnation Yoo Joonghyuk is looking at his Sponsor.’
Dokja smiled.
A final thread pulled free.
And Yoo Joonghyuk’s hand dropped to the ground with a thud.
***
Yoo Joonghyuk woke to stillness.
There were no soft puffs of breath. No shifting sheets.
He already knew. He was alone.
His empty hand reached out automatically, and the sheets were cool.
Instead, his fingers grazed against a teetering stack of paper—a haphazardly arranged pile of letters. He gathered them and set them down on the futon in front of him, eyes drawn to the one placed on top.
It had his name written in familiar handwriting.
Yoo Joonghyuk stared.
Outside, a lone bird chirped with a sharp trill.
The rest of the room hadn't changed. There were no signs of struggle. Of pain. Only a few ink-like stains bled on the floorboards, thin smudges trailing like water-damaged script. Scattered letters had imprinted themselves into the floor, leaving behind nothing but the ghost of their shape.
He picked up the letter, opening the sealed flaps with a hesitant care.
In the early morning light, Yoo Joonghyuk had to bring the letter up close—close enough to breathe in the heady smell of parchment and…something else. Something more comforting.
The penned words blurred into the deep blue around him, but Yoo Joonghyuk read them—slowly, carefully.
He read it. Once.
Then again.
And again.
He read it until the edges curled slightly under his fingers, warm with the weight of his hands. Until the words seemed to swim under his eyes.
After an eternity, Yoo Joonghyuk spoke to an empty room.
“I’ve always hated you.”
In the quiet, for the first time in years, Yoo Joonghyuk let himself cry.