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There'd never been a day when Yoo Joonghyuk hadn't felt a terrible ache in his chest.
Somewhere within the blur of this pain, Kim Dokja had butchered a hole, just big enough for himself, in between the carefully laid and sewn layers of Joonghyuk's sun-kissed skin. Gnawing and scratching at his bones like a rabid dog, Dokja fought against all that was natural - all that Joonghyuk had known. Flailing and howling, Dokja made Joonghyuk bleed more than he'd had through countless regressions, all at the power of his two hands.
Joonghyuk tried to fight him. What good was a timid host against a ruthless parasite? He'd tried to rip him out, playing with his own mortality in exchange for a minute of peace without Dokja at his side. They scurried at each other's throats, crying out for the death of the other.
Yet when that called-for peace came, unexpected like all things in life, Joonghyuk felt the gap in his insides, the lack of oxygen in his veins, the ever-creeping exhaustion that grabbed at his ankles.
Joonghyuk could not live like this. Kim Dokja had carved a place for himself in every period of his life, whether he knew it or not. There was no strength left without him, no vigor in Joonghyuk's swings, no vitriol in his words. Joonghyuk was stripped of all that made him— him. Without Dokja, he was a hound left out to rot in the same fields he'd once chased ducks in for his lord. His paws could not carry the same weight, his nose had grown tired and weak. Joonghyuk could no longer find the last remains of joy Dokja had crammed into the corners of his life.
So he went off to find him. To bring him back home—somewhere within reach.
There was no act of surprise, no overjoyous gasp or tears. Dokja was still as ever, like the surface of a lake in the early hours of nightfall. Wrapped up in work and fighting for much more than his own survival, Dokja could not afford to grovel at Joonghyuk's feet, inquire about the safety of those same people they both had found become their 'family'. All he could offer were cups of warm tea during the nights of eerie calmness and gentle touches where no eyes could see them.
Dokja must've known. Must've known of the gaping hole he'd left unfilled, of the painful way the distance between them left Joonghyuk gasping for air, of the growing weight on his shoulders. Dokja must've known, because why else would he slot himself back in? Why would he hold Joonghyuk's face the same way you'd hold something intrinsically delicate?
There were days, when Joonghyuk had to fight back years of tears as Dokja inched to touch him in places only the sun has. The silent feeling of tender fingers drawing circles around his tendons and ankles wrought a new age of belief from Joonghyuk's shuddering heart. Love was frightening but soft.
Joonghyuk was laid on a pedestal, marble, shimmering and beautiful. He'd become an object of worship for a man he'd come to a certain decision of protecting. Joonghyuk was loved in a way only something as surreal as Kim Dokja could.
Beloved by a man he'd put in danger so many times, Joonghyuk had become placid and moldable. The hole had been filled, carefully thrown by Dokja's unyielding hands. They'd become whole in each other's embrace—all the divinity in their blood shared between two bodies.
And oh, oh how Joonghyuk had wrapped his love around Dokja. Woven between two sets of hands, Joonghyuk's love enveloped the one man equal to him like the outstretched universe. There was a bit of him in every place Dokja turned to, following close by, like a hound guarding his master.
And how could Joonghyuk not love Dokja in such a way? How can you stray from the sole reason for your creation? There is no written or acted text which would allow such infidelity. There is no love that can measure up between a reader and their most beloved character. So Joonghyuk laid himself down on the altar and found his own ways to have Dokja don his fondness.
The nights during which they lied awake, giddy and pressed against each other, were the only things that mattered to them during the day. They knew of each other like no other could. Joonghyuk had become the night's sky, full of constellations Dokja had named and pressed into his skin. Claw marks rained down his broad shoulders like mighty thunderbolts, coloring his skin in every shade of red available to the universe. And Dokja had turned to a priest, calling out Joonghyuk's name like a prayer, pleading for his god to reign over him and the chapel.
There was certain and unmoveable peace in their bones, down to the marrows and blood cells. Dokja and Joonghyuk licked their wounds, and relished in each other's thoughts, protected by lifetimes of yearning amidst seas of unforgiving eyes ready to slaughter them. They were united as one, blood flowing from the vine, just as two sides came together to form a coin. Whole and unyielding—Dokja and Joonghyuk stood against all that could be conceptualized. They were a force of nature, one even the universe could not contain.
And so they'd have to be split. Gripped by the force of all living things, Dokja was ripped from the careful hold of Joonghyuk's hands and placed back in between unwritten lines of their stories, forever to be immortalized by all that was left unsaid; proclamations of love swallowed down by fear and guilt, anger-filled shouts cut down by tense battles, lies that gnashed behind rows of teeth. All that had been unsaid between the two who'd come to be one, now wrapped around Dokja like Joonghyuk's tenderness once had. The 'I love you' of that same morning danced in front of his eyes, reminding Dokja of the man he loved and left behind.
But there was nothing he could do. It had to eventually come to this, because in every story to be told, no hero is ever truly happy.