Chapter Text
The night had gone on for too long, and it was only 8 PM. Joonghyuk was ready to completely blame Uriel for this, even after she had apologized to the team with tears in her eyes and her hands folded as if she were praying earlier that day.
“I didn’t mean to!” she had exclaimed, her eyes wide in a manic sort of way. “It’s just that they asked, and I remembered Hyunsung-ssi’s friends owned a bar!”
Hyunsung looked like he wanted to wither away into the ground. His face was an unappealing shade of gray as he pressed his lips into a thin line and closed his eyes. Weakly waving his hand he stuttered, “No, it’s… fine, Uriel-ssi. I just… don’t think my friends’ bar is the type that the executives would like.”
Now that they were sitting in the small bar, practically shoulder to shoulder, Joonghyuk was tempted to agree.
There was only one bartender behind the counter. She was rather short, with half of her hair held back by the lacy bunny eared headband she wore. Pinned onto her perfectly tailored vest was a name badge with “DIRECTOR” proudly engraved onto it. She had been the only one in the bar when they had entered about an hour ago, and she was still the only one mixing and serving their drinks.
Occasionally Joonghyuk spotted her discretely checking her phone, but she did a good job keeping the executives busy while Joonghyuk and his team stewed by themselves in their seats.
“No suits?” One of the executives—or a secretary? Joongyuk hadn’t been focusing during the discussions—had asked after they sat down. She was a young woman who blinked up at the bartender in a faux demure manner. Director smirked and the expression made her look particularly cat-ish. It was almost like her eyes would shine if he pointed his camera’s flash at her. She grabbed a bottle opener from under the counter.
“Nope,” she replied, popping the ‘p’ as she popped open a bottle of beer. “The boss wasn’t for that idea. She had enough of guys just ogling at girls.”
The executive nodded quickly. Her cheeks were flushed as she peered at Director through her lashes. But Director didn’t seem to notice as she busied herself with pouring the beer into a glass, deftly flicking the bottlecap into the trash.
Joonghyuk wanted to sigh. Instead, he fiddled with his glass of soju. If he was lucky, he’d be able to stretch this single bottle out until he could leave.
Even being seen in a normal bar would make their fans lose their minds on SNS. They all flocked to Uriels’ public SNS accounts to see the photos she posted regularly, and there would always be some sort of uproar no matter what the actual subject of the image was. But Uriel’s inevitable future post about this bar—Stardust, as all of the logos read—would probably trend for at least half a day. The bar itself would undoubtedly be flooded afterwards too.
Plus, if the outfit Director was wearing could be trusted, then all the servers here had bunny ears and tails.
A part of him felt sorry for the employees here. Joonghyuk knocked back his shot of soju before hurriedly refilling his glass before anyone else could offer.
Then Hyunsung spoke up, “Speaking of Heewon-ssi, is she here today, Sooyoung-ssi?”
Director, or, Sooyoung, shook her head. “Nah, she’s out sick tonight. Dokja’s going to be front of house once he’s done in the back though.”
“Dokja-ssi?” Hyunsung repeated. His eyebrows rose to his hairline, “That’s… surprising.”
“It is, but there isn’t anything we can do about it. Sangah’s got a big project lined up at Mino Soft so she isn’t able to fill in either, so it’s either Dokja helps or I man the front by myself.”
Dokja. That certainly sounded like a strange name. Joonghyuk swore it sounded familiar too. Like something from his childhood, long put away in a dusty corner.
He fiddled with his glass, pressing his thumb into the engraving of a little bunny with lop ears and four pointed stars for eyes. The little bunny was littered all around the bar too, was it their mascot?
“Who’s talking about me and why?”
The new voice sounded sweet, if a little exhausted. Like a sigh tinged with the barest hint of smoke.
Turning in his seat Joonghyuk watched as a slip thin man leaned out from beyond a beaded curtain he hadn’t seen before, seeing it was just barely hidden behind the shelf holding a myriad of bottles. The thin man squinted into the bar, the strings of beads rolling down his shoulders like rivulets. As the dim lights of the bar shined against the beads the man looked as if he was covered by the cosmos itself. Suddenly, Joonghyuk’s mouth was dry. He downed his shot.
Sooyoung rolled her eyes. “Me and Lee Hyunsung, idiot. Get over here, I have drinks to mix.”
The thin man—Dokja, he had to be Dokja—just sighed before stepping fully out into the bar. He also had a bunny ear headband on, though unlike Sooyoung’s lacy pair his looked like they were made of satin and sat slightly askew as the beads knocked at them. As he took Sooyoung’s place behind the bar and right in front of Joonghyuk and Hyunsung, Joonghyuk was finally able to see his face.
His face was thin and pale, and his eyelashes cast long shadows over his shallow cheeks. The shadows also made the dark circles under his eyes more prominent, but under the yellow lights his skin looked soft. When he glanced at Joonghyuk from under his lashes, Joonghyuk’s heart suddenly jumped to his throat.
Dokja’s eyes flicked to Hyunsung.
“It’s good to see you again Hyunsung-ssi. And it’s nice to meet you,” Dokja greeted, his voice taking on the placidly polite tone used for strangers. “I assume you’re Yoo Joonghyuk-ssi?”
Joonghyuk kept his mouth firmly shut as he nodded. He wasn’t really sure what might come tumbling out otherwise.
“Hyungsung-ssi’s spoken about you before,” Dokja hummed. He began to rearrange things from under the bar, his head dipping low. The satin of his ears had stars of different shapes embroidered onto them.
“Nothing bad!” Hyungsun hurriedly explained, eyes wide and his hands raised.
Joonghyuk frowned at him before sighing. His frown deepened when Dokja reached for the bottle of soju.
“Let me,” he said lowly, leaning over the bar. Joonghyuk could see the name badge pined onto his pinstripe vest clearly now. “SALVATION” was carved into it in crisp lines. Just as Dokja put the bottle back down, he began frowning.
With his hands flat on the bar, he leaned forward. Nothing too obtrusive, he had barely shifted over the imaginary line between them. And yet Joonghyuk instinctively leaned back.
“You look like someone I know,” Dokja said softly. Like it was a passing thought.
“Hyunsung’s shown us pictures,” Sooyoung stated. She leaned across Dokja’s back and nabbed a bottle opener, a shaker held precariously in her other hand.
“No, I know that.” Dokja pushed her away. “But he looks familiar.”
Hyungsung sat up straighter in his seat. “Dokja-ssi, you said something similar the first time you saw a picture of us.”
“What are you talking about?” Joonghyuk asked. He kept his hands flat against the table, even when he wanted to curl them tight enough for his nails to bite into the skin of his palms. Sooyoung just rolled her eyes before slipping back to the other end of the bar. Dokja was staring at him with wide eyes, his head just barely tilted to the side. Hyunsung cleared his throat.
“Ah, when I first started with you and the team Uriel-ssi posted that photo to celebrate the start of the team. Heewon-ssi ended up asking about it when I was here next, so I showed everyone. Dokja-ssi thought you looked like—”
“Like someone I knew in middle school.” Dokja cut Hyunsung off. He was frowning, his arms crossed tightly across his chest like he was protecting himself. After a moment he slowly continued, “There was a boy in my middle school class, but he was only there for one semester before disappearing. The teachers said he moved, but he told me that he didn’t know where his parents where when I asked him.”
Joonghyuk began to tap the side of his glass with his finger.
He had moved early in middle school. He moved a few times in high school too. Even if he didn’t remember it, he had paperwork listing the dates he changed schools in his office at home. There were some wrinkled pieces of notebook paper in between the paperwork too. All of them were covered in childish handwriting from two different pens, seemingly conversing.
“Do you remember his name?” Joonghyuk asked.
Dokja wrinkled his nose. “It was the same as yours, actually. Yoo Joonghyuk. He was the—”
And as if he bit his tongue, Dokja snapped his jaw shut. The line of his shoulders was tight as he ground his teeth together, almost like he was forcing the next few words from coming out of his mouth. Yet after a moment he let out a slow breath. “Well. I guess it’s easiest to say he was my only friend when he was around.”
Leaning forward Joonghyuk couldn’t stop himself from asking, “What happened to him?”
“I’m not sure.” Dokja shrugged. It almost seemed flippant, but now Joonghyuk could see the furrow between his brows and the way his lips pressed into a thin line. “I was in the hospital for a while in middle school. By the time I came back to school he had already moved away. We didn’t share any contact information, so I could never find him again.”
Hissing through his teeth Joonghyuk could feel his heart in his throat, pumping energy from the tips of his fingers all the way to his lashes. Blinking quickly Joonghyuk clenched his hands. “I… moved. A lot as a kid. I don’t remember most of my childhood very well but…”
He traced the way the lights cast down onto Dokja’s face. In the back of his mind was a student that leaned against his shoulders during lunch breaks, saying nothing even as he curled into himself with every footstep echoing from the hallway. Quieter than the shadows, and paler than a ghost, with a face he couldn’t remember.
“Kim Dokja?” Joonghyuk asked. It felt like all of the air had been punched out of his lungs.
Dokja blinked. Then he bent over and wheezed, his hands bracing himself against the bar. “No. Yoo Joonghyuk?”
“Kim Dokja,” Joonghyuk repeated. Kim Dokja. His seat partner, a slip thin boy who hid behind his back when he realized Joonghyuk wouldn’t look twice, and simultaneously skittered around like some sort of terrified animal.
He had disappeared from class one day. The homeroom teacher didn’t mention it. The Korean Literature teacher admitted that Kim Dokja had been admitted to the hospital when Joonghyuk went to the teachers’ office after class. And then two weeks later Joonghyuk had been pulled out of that school by his parents who only sent a letter with a new school name written on it.
Joonghyuk’s arm twitched. He itched to his bones to grab Kim Dokja.
“What happened to you?” Joonghyuk asked. Why had he been in the hospital? What happened between those scant few months they had and now?
Kim Dokja’s eyes flicked to the other side of the bar. Hyunsung had been dragged into conversation with Uriel, who was entertaining the different executives. Sooyoung was smiling as she began to measure and pour drinks into a shaker.
“Not now,” Kim Dokja whispered, “I’m still on the clock.”
“And when do you get off?”
“Late. This is a bar, Joonghyuk.”
Helpless, Joonghyuk reached out for Kim Dokja’s hand, only for his fingers to wrap around Kim Dokja’s wrist instead. Kim Dokja’s skin was a little cold, but if he focused Joonghyuk could feel his heartbeat under his fingertips.
“I’ll wait,” he replied.