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Yoo Joonghyuk has heard stories regarding the worst thing that has happened to their high school in a long time (Kim Dokja) and a roof five storeys high with loose fences. It’s strange how the boy hasn’t noticed his presence at all, despite being a frequent guest of his preferred place of solitude for the past two months or so, if only to blankly peer over the edge. Then again, Yoo Joonghyuk hasn’t been paying mind to the murderer’s son and he doesn’t see why he should now.
Winter is slowly drawing to a close. The freezing temperatures have died down into a chilly breeze, and the layer of white that washes over the landscape outside the window has melted into a thin sugary frost. The bell is set to ring soon and both of them will soon need to vacate—though Kim Dokja seems to know this when he steadily lifts himself over the tear in the fence for the first time since he came here.
He balances on the edge, one hand on the fence’s frame and looking as if he’s about to take a gamble. Yoo Joonghyuk wonders if he knows what he’s about to do. The drop from that height wouldn’t normally kill a person if that’s what he’s aiming for, but it may be enough to shatter his brittle bones. He supposes the bushes could cushion his fall before he hits the ground, just enough to save him, but that’s a slim possibility.
Yoo Joonghyuk has always been a kind of unfeeling bastard. This has been a fact since he was left alone in a spacious apartment too luxurious for a seven-year-old to manage, house keys thrust into his hands, and a small note detailing directions to the nearest supermarket and school.
Still, he isn’t apathetic enough to turn a blind eye.
Quite obviously, Kim Dokja’s collar is stained red, wearing bruises and welts the large bandage smacked on his face does nothing to hide. He breathes sharply, but Yoo Joonghyuk doesn’t give him time to lean forward.
“Step off,” he says, hand circling a bony wrist, a little too firmly to be suited for talking to a suicidal boy. “Now.”
“W-Who are you?” Kim Dokja stammers, expression falling. “Let go.”
“No.”
“Seriously, hey-!”
“Step off, or I’ll make you.” Yoo Joonghyuk threatens.
Kim Dokja doesn’t get off the ledge and to safety immediately. He chuckles weakly. “Are you telling me to jump or get down?”
“Get. Down.”
“I don’t want to.”
The tremor in his eyes betrays his stubborn glare. It may have been their first meeting, but the boy is already finding ways to get on Yoo Joonghyuk’s nerves. Yoo Joonghyuk doesn’t have much to say to an uncooperative bastard.
He yanks on his arm and side-steps, giving Kim Dokja space to yelp and come crashing down to the floor. In hindsight, perhaps doing that to an injured boy wasn’t the best idea he could come up with, but on the other hand, Kim Dokja looks like he deserves some pain, so.
The boy hisses. “Ow- Ow! What are you doing?”
“I told you to get down,” Yoo Joonghyuk frowns.
“That was none of your business,” Kim Dokja says, slightly louder.
“The-'' stains your blood would leave on the walkways would be disturbing, but Yoo Joonghyuk catches his tongue before the boy jumps for real. He looks like the type to do it out of spite. “Shut up.”
“Go away.”
“What?”
It’s subtle, but the boy shakes. “You could’ve just looked away. I wouldn’t have made a sound. Except when I hit the ground, that is.”
For a moment, Yoo Joonghyuk thinks he feels baffled at how lightly Kim Dokja seems to play with his life. "You think I'd...look away?"
"Wouldn't you?" The boy smiles.
It mustn’t have been anything new for him, judging by the purples and greens poking out of his sleeves. Perhaps today's urge to send himself flying off a building have just been building up like all the bruises on his body and all it took was someone to cement the idea that he wasn’t needed in this world.
Still, how troublesome.
“Get up,” Yoo Joonghyuk grunts, pivoting to leave. He trusts his speed enough to avert his eyes, because he’ll know if Kim Dokja decides to seize the opportunity to take a leap of faith with his back turned.
“What? Where?” Kim Dokja says back.
Yoo Joonghyuk stops at the entrance of the rooftop and glares. It’s sharp enough to reach across the open space, to the boy who returns it with a look of his own.
“No, what makes you think I’d follow you?” he suspiciously asks. “After rudely intervening like that, what if you-”
“Infirmary.”
Kim Dokja blinks. “Huh?”
Yoo Joonghyuk clicks his tongue, swinging the door open. “You’re injured.”
On cue, the bell rings and the hustle of students moving back to their classrooms echo up the stairwell. He raises a thick eyebrow at the boy, who’s still stalling.
“I’d rather not, actually.” Kim Dokja says after what appears to be an eternity. “Thank you. But don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it myself.”
And he’s gone, this time not off the rooftop. Kim Dokja embarrassingly stumbles past Yoo Joonghyuk, disappearing down the stairwell without a word.
He scoffs.
What an annoying bastard.
What he doesn’t expect is to see another figure looming over the same edge a week later, grubby pitch-black hair and slender frame just shy of being pushed over by the wind.
There’s really only one person who could ever fit these requirements.
Kim Dokja is already grousing before Yoo Joonghyuk can fully tug him down. “I was this close. Do you know how much courage I had gathered?”
“ Kim Dokja, ” Yoo Joonghyuk growls through grit teeth. “You seem to think you have nine lives.”
“I don’t, and that is exactly why I’m here,” the boy says, but he doesn’t fight the death grip the taller one has him in as if knowing it would be a futile struggle. “Are you a stalker? Why are you always here?”
Yoo Joonghyuk furrows his brows. “This is my spot.”
“Go away. Find another spot.”
“Why should I?”
“So you can stop bothering me.”
“Find another spot to jump.”
“Maybe I should. Then no one will stop me.”
“Kim Dokja,” he hisses dangerously.
“Yoo Joonghyuk,” the boy sneers back. “What’s with the frown? There’s no one who doesn’t know you in this school or the next, mister popular. Similarly, there’s no one who doesn’t know the murderer’s son either.”
There is a brief silence then, and the atmosphere around them seems to take a different weight. Yoo Joonghyuk takes this time to notice the dark cakey lumps tangled in black strands, something that he isn’t sure he wants to know the identity of. There are a couple of newer marks under his collar too, the fabric sporting an old brown stain with a familiar shape, and suddenly Yoo Joonghyuk’s tongue feels like lead in his mouth.
“Do you pity me?” Kim Dokja says, then quieter, “I don’t want it.”
“It’s not pity.” Yoo Joonghyuk tells him. “I just can’t stand it.”
“Moral obligation? Will it weigh on your conscience?” Kim Dokja asks, eyes fixating themselves on his shoelaces. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll make sure to go inconspicuously.”
Perhaps a lifetime of media scrutiny has made Kim Dokja much more perceptive than he needs to be. At the same time, he seems to be under the impression that everyone would just walk over his dead body like yet another patch of grass, and just the thought of Kim Dokja holding so little significance in everyone’s lives strangely chokes him up. Is the life of a murderer’s son not a life, still?
“Death is hardly inconspicuous,” Yoo Joonghyuk scowls. “Stop going around trying to die. Do you think death is a solution to everything?”
“Probably.” Kim Dokja smiles, kind of calmly. “It’s a win-win situation for everyone.”
At that moment, Yoo Joonghyuk thinks it’s kind of laughable how hard he’s trying to save a boy who doesn’t even want to live for himself.
But the waver in the boy’s voice feels like someone swaying on a tightrope. A lump crawls up his throat and Yoo Joonghyuk can’t stand this, dammit.
“Infirmary,” he says with finality, dragging the other over to the exit. Kim Dokja falters in confusion and puts up some resistance.
“Were you not listening?”
“I was.”
“Then, you can’t-”
“Quiet.”
“Yoo Joonghyuk!”
He doesn’t intend to listen at all when it’s clear the boy has nothing better to say, but sensing his stubbornness, Kim Doka resorts to begging. “Yoo Joonghyuk, really, I don’t want to go to the infirmary. Anywhere but there.”
Stops, because this doesn’t feel like he’s just being difficult. It’s a genuine plea.
Yoo Joonghyuk pauses in his step, causing the other to breathe a quiet sigh of relief. By then his hand has already gone lax in his grasp and Yoo Joonghyuk loosens his grip just a bit, suddenly aware of how fragile the wrist wrapped under his fingers is.
His mouth opens to ask, then shuts, before shifting the boy to stand in front of him. Yoo Joonghyuk is sensitive enough that he won’t ask what Kim Dokja seems like he’d rather not share, though the bar is set kind of low for that.
What a troublesome person.
“Walk,” he commands, shooting the other an impatient look when he glances over his shoulder dumbly.
“What?”
“Walk back to class,” he repeats, then leniently adds, “I’ll follow from behind.”
“What? Are you supervising me?”
“Walk.”
“You don’t have to do this, I can go by myself. What if everyone sees you with me?”
“Worry about yourself first, Kim Dokja.”
“But-”
“ Walk, ” Yoo Joonghyuk glares, not budging. The stairwell is open before them.
“Fine,” Kim Dokja sighs. “But keep a distance. Don’t come too close to me.”
A grunt is the only form of agreement Yoo Joonghyuk provides. Fortunately for the other, he doesn’t have any intention of associating with him beyond this.
Once he is two flights down the staircase, Yoo Joonghyuk casually descends, eyes never leaving Kim Dokja’s back.
The next few days pass without a hitch, as normal as it could possibly be for him. No Kim Dokja wandering around the rooftop and touching the fences as if contemplating something he shouldn’t be; nothing truly life-threatening.
Yoo Joonghyuk would be lying if he said he wasn’t at all concerned about Kim Dokja’s suicidal tendencies—contrary to public opinion, he isn’t all for his funeral to happen. Though since it didn’t look as if Kim Dokja was going to try anything funny for a while, he thought he could finally wash his hands off the matter.
Yet.
Somewhere down the week, he realises that walking down the hallways with a sea of admirers at his tail has never felt as uncomfortable as watching filthy hands pin a helpless boy against the floor by the neck. Yoo Joonghyuk cannot recall the last time he has ever fallen sick, yet seeing fists being rained down on his back— Kim Dokja’s back—stirs something like a raging storm in his gut.
Still, Yoo Joonghyuk slowly turns his head away. His involvement doesn’t reach beyond preventing a suicide—Kim Dokja hadn’t been more than a myth to him before they met and there’s no reason why he should change that fact now.
A sharp cry of pain almost jolts him when another pretentious girl with garish highlights cuts in.
“Just look away, Joonghyuk-ssi. He is a dangerous person,” she says, looking at the trampled body with uneasiness.
All he can see are Kim Dokja’s vacant eyes and thin arms, raised over his ducked head in a poor attempt of shielding himself from raining blows. Yoo Joonghyuk wonders how dangerous Kim Dokja can be when his frail shoulders tremble like a leaf—when Yoo Joonghyuk still feels a bony wrist, so breakable in his grasp.
(The hallways had been quiet previously and Yoo Joonghyuk wonders if teenagers nowadays have gotten better at hiding, or if he’d just gone blind.)
Kim Dokja is the first one who initiates their contact after that. When he does, his textbooks are shredded in his hands and there on their pages are splotches of blood dripping from the small gash in his temple. He doesn’t yet notice the additional presence behind him—the look on his face is so much that of a lost child that Yoo Joonghyuk inevitably approaches him.
The rooftop is as quiet as ever and the break from all the jeering must be unfamiliar. Kim Dokja stands behind the fences awkwardly, like he’s unsure of how to act, before a voice pulls him out of his reverie.
"Don't even think about it," Yoo Joonghyuk says, stopping an arm's length away. The other boy turns around after a brief pause.
"Think about what?" Kim Dokja smiles.
"Jumping," he replies.
To this, the quirk in Kim Dokja's lips turns up. "If I didn't know any better, I would think you are worried for me."
"Stop spouting nonsense," Yoo Joonghyuk retorts.
"Has anyone told you that your personality is bad?"
"No one would dare."
"So you are self-aware," Kim Dokja chuckles, then gulps at the intimidation written all over Yoo Joonghyuk’s face. "In any case, jumping would be impossible."
“Have you finally given up?”
“Perhaps,” Kim Dokja shrugs, and the nasty whirlpool in his stomach mysteriously calms at that. “You seem to fancy this place. With you constantly around, I don’t think I’d be able to die peacefully. Unless I find some other place, of course-”
Yoo Joonghyuk shoots him a nasty look.
“-but dying for them to see doesn’t seem so good,” Kim Dokja shrugs, sending another rivulet of red dribbling down his cheek. “Don’t you think?”
For a while, Yoo Joonghyuk has already stopped paying attention to his words. He frowns at the streaks of blood on Kim Dokja’s shirt. “You’re bleeding.”
“I fell,” Kim Dokja boldly lies. His hand comes up to dab the blood away, though it only draws a wince. “Kind of ruined my textbooks too, haha…”
He laughs lightly, but Yoo Joonghyuk feels hardly assured. Is Kim Dokja even trying to hide it anymore, or does he just want him out of his hair?
Perhaps if he’d been someone else, he would’ve eaten up that lie to justify his lack of involvement. Yoo Joonghyuk’s mind however drags up images of purple handprints and abraded skin and for a horrible moment, he thinks he empathises with Kim Dokja’s obsession with the rooftop.
“Kim Dokja.” Yoo Joonghyuk’s fists clenched into a tight ball. “I can’t understand you. Why do you let everyone step on you?”
Maybe he speaks out of guilt, a selfish desire that wants the boy to fight back so he can continue to observe. That way, Yoo Joonghyuk would stop feeling the unnecessary urge to meddle when he doesn't want to get too deeply tangled up in Kim Dokja’s affairs.
“There’s no point in it. If I retaliate, no matter who’s in the wrong, the administration will only see the murderer’s son.”
The boy looks resigned. More than anything, Yoo Joonghyuk thinks he feels irked at how easily Kim Dokja lets things slide when it comes to himself.
“You. Stay here.”
Kim Dokja hesitates, but he doesn’t look too surprised. “Please don’t bring a teacher or anything like that.”
“I won’t,” Yoo Joonghyuk says, because what he’s about to do is more of a whim than anything. “Just stay here and don’t move. If I find you gone by the time I’m back, I won’t let it go.”
“Aren’t you at least going to tell me what you’re making me wait for- hey, Yoo Joonghyuk!”
His speed picks up once he’s a step over the threshold of the rooftop exit. There isn’t really any need to be in such a hurry; several insignificant people in the hallway spot him but fail to catch up. Then again, he doesn't feel like taking his own sweet time either.
(Yoo Joonghyuk thinks of an unlucky smile and red tauntingly sliding down his face and—ah, that’s why he’s so urgent about this.)
He stops by and leaves the infirmary in record time, to the nurse’s confusion. There are a pack of bandages and ointment in his hands, easily picked out from his experience getting into scuffles.
Kim Dokja better not have done anything foolish in the time he was gone.
(“You don’t have to do this, Yoo Joonghyuk. I can do it myself.”
Yoo Joonghyuk carefully tapes the bandage to the boy’s forehead. It usually stings when he does it, but he wonders why Kim Dokja hasn’t cried out yet.
“Shut up, Kim Dokja.”)
The next few weeks come like a playlist on loop. Kim Dokja seems to be a magnet for trouble anywhere he goes, and only after the kids are done photocopying bruises back onto his face do they really let him go, limping back to class with an expression that gives nothing away. There is, however, a subtle twitch of his lips that betrays the pain blooming in his side, and from inside his classroom, Yoo Joonghyuk briefly wonders when he’s gotten this perceptive.
He hasn’t seen much of Kim Dokja outside the rooftop ever since that day, flitting between classes and bathroom breaks. Occasionally, he catches a glimpse of that familiar thin figure disappearing into the bathroom with his sleeves rolled down and buttoned. Then a while later he’d emerge with wet clothes and grime in his hair before an arm hooks beneath his chin and drags him back inside.
It’s faint, but the insults bounce off the walls of the bathroom just enough to reach his ears. The teacher too stands in a position more likely to notice, but she quietly bites her lip and writes with more vigour, as if the grating of chalk on the board would erase whatever abuse is happening next door.
“Hahahaha—what’s with that look? Unhappy? I mean, what can you do, tell your mother?”
The next thing he knows, a sea of curious eyes has landed on him. His jaw is tense and his fingers have unconsciously curled into a perfect fist, and the teacher has stopped writing at the disruption. She looks somewhat nervously at the student who’d suddenly stood up during class and says with all the audacity in the world, “Is everything alright?”
On cue, Kim Dokja wobbles out of the bathroom with a freshly split lip. Their eyes meet for a split second and Yoo Joonghyuk feels his stomach drop when he slowly shakes his head.
Stupid, idiotic Kim Dokja.
“Don’t do anything silly,” Kim Dokja catches him later on the roof and says. “We’ll both get in trouble. You know how the administration feels about me. I’d rather avoid the mess afterwards.”
Yoo Joonghyuk feels a rush of anger in his veins. “Kim Dokja, you fool. At least defend yourself.”
“Well, I’m not as physically inclined as you are!” Kim Dokja huffs. “Anyway, I’m used to it. It’ll just hurt for a second or so, it’s nothing I can’t handle.”
And Yoo Joonghyuk was right when he called Kim Dokja an utter fool. Yet, there is a look on his face that makes him hesitate and Yoo Joonghyuk finds himself hatefully unable to deny the boy’s request.
“If they bother you again, call me over.”
“Uh, that’s,” Kim Dokja gives him a glance-over. “Remember what I said about not doing anything silly?”
Yoo Joonghyuk clicks his tongue. “I won’t hit them.”
“No convenient accidents either,” Kim Dokja says.
“I have no need for such despicable methods,” Yoo Joonghyuk’s eye twitches, and the reciprocating glance-over he gives elicits a scandalised squawk from the other. “A pathetic fool like you may need them, though.”
“Bastard, what does that mean?”
Ignoring Kim Dokja, Yoo Joonghyuk instead decides to focus on the concerning lack of muscle mass in his frame.
For his age, Kim Dokja looks too skinny and that’s the biggest reason why he cannot hold himself in a fight, Yoo Joonghyuk thinks. Knowing Kim Dokja, he must’ve survived off junk food and crappy instant noodles for a long time now.
“Tomorrow,” he starts, drawing the other’s attention. “Will you be here?”
Inky eyes widen a fraction in barely concealed shock, although Yoo Joonghyuk is almost a hundred per cent sure Kim Dokja did it on purpose to mock him. His suspicions are confirmed when the latter opens his mouth with a sly grin.
“Don’t tell me, the great Yoo Joonghyuk wants to hang out with me?” Kim Dokja smirks infuriatingly, sweetly. “In that case, of course I will be here-”
“Okay,” Yoo Joonghyuk says before turning to leave, having received the confirmation he needs.
Kim Dokja sputters. “Wait. You didn’t deny it, you can’t be serious?”
Yoo Joonghyuk keeps walking.
“So this is why you asked if I would be here today?” Kim Dokja tilts his head ever so slightly in confusion, staring at the lunchbox in his hands. It’s neatly packed, delicately lined with parchment paper and filled to the brim with seven different colours. “This is...for me?”
“I made too much this morning,” Yoo Joonghyuk coolly replies.
He’s not exactly lying. He’d been thinking of how to get Kim Dokja to put on weight so he'd bruise less easily, then the next thing he knew there was an extra layer to his lunchbox, overflowing with nutritional value. Just looking at the damned thing made his eyes hurt, so the most logical thing was to pass the hot potato to the most suitable person around.
And who else but Kim Dokja to eat everything up?
They sit on the floor, back against the fence. Kim Dokja scrutinises the food in his lap for longer than necessary, so much so that Yoo Joonghyuk starts to think he hasn’t seen a single grain of rice in his life.
“By any chance, did you poison this?”
He wants to throttle Kim Dokja.
“Give it back,” Yoo Joonghyuk grumbles and tries to snatch the lunchbox away, only to get his hand swatted away by the boy.
“Shoo, shoo. I haven’t finished admiring this. You went all out, huh?” Kim Dokja smirks, then finally, apprehensively bites into a mouthful of fluffy pearl rice and egg. A beat passes before he lights up, scooping more food into his mouth. “Huh. Itsh gwood.”
Yoo Joonghyuk feels his chest swell with pride. “I poisoned it.”
Kim Dokja gracefully chews on his octopus sausage. “I thought you weren’t fond of such despicable methods.”
In response, Yoo Joonghyuk elegantly raises an eyebrow. The expression on his face must’ve been somewhat funny because it elicits a soft laugh out of the other.
He grits his teeth. “What’s so funny.”
“Sometimes, you remind me of a protagonist,” Kim Dokja tells him with a chuckle. “Strong, handsome and talented, always appearing when needed.”
Yoo Joonghyuk nonchalantly pretends his heart didn’t lurch at his words. “What do you mean?”
“Maybe the reason why I’m still on the rooftop,” Kim Dokja starts, “is to hear that one person stop me when things feel hopeless.”
He draws in a long breath after that, the back of his head in his palms, casually postured in some attempt of playing down the vulnerability in his words. A silence lapses over them, and for a moment they feel like two strangers sitting at a bus stop.
From the start, Yoo Joonghyuk thinks he’s never really understood the workings of Kim Dokja’s mind. Yet, being privy to that small bit of information makes his mouth go dry for reasons he isn’t sure of.
Still, he steals a glance to the side and sees awkwardness start to creep onto Kim Dokja’s face, and decides that, no, he doesn’t want that when Kim Dokja has finally started to reveal his thoughts.
Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes fall on a pile of neglected red fruits instead. “Eat your tomatoes.”
Kim Dokja blinks, then mumbles with a little smile, “Did you put arsenic inside?”
“What?”
He moves them to the side. “It’s bad. Don’t make me eat them.”
“Don’t be picky.”
“Seriously, I hate it. Actually, why would anyone like-” Kim Dokja scrunches his nose like a child being forced to eat his veggies, “This?”
The awkward mood starts to lift a bit, yet a scoff leaves his throat, and the words he’s been repressing at some corner of his mind slowly tumbles out. “Kim Dokja, I’ll feed you ripe tomatoes whole if you try and die again.”
Saying this, Yoo Joonghyuk scowls and looks away. Surprisingly, the disgust in Kim Dokja’s expression washes away, turning amused, and his eyes curve faintly as he bites into an egg. “Why, is that a threat?”
“No, it’s a promise,” Yoo Joonghyuk replies.
It’s one he vows to carry out if it meant never having to see Kim Dokja balancing on the ledge again—if it meant never having to see eyes void of any depth staring right back at him.
(Yoo Joonghyuk doesn’t want Kim Dokja to die.)
The rest of lunch is spent in silence. Yoo Joonghyuk checks on the wound on his temple, throws out an unspoken offer to replace a few of his textbooks in a rare display of generosity. Kim Dokja narrates a novel he’s been into recently and tells him how mundane his days have been, and it’s cute until Yoo Joonghyuk catches sight of swollen red marks from under his sleeves and his face loses some cheer.
Life goes on. A few novel recommendations and pop-quizzes over lunch, some academic rivalry in which Yoo Joonghyuk finds out Kim Dokja is smarter than he thought:
"On the count of three."
"Just open it."
"Fine. I got a ninety-three. You?"
"Ninety-eight."
"Goddammit."
A month passes like that spent lingering on the roof in peace. Additionally, in this time Yoo Joonghyuk has: lent Kim Dokja his uniform sweater to cover up some bloodstains, successfully duped him into thinking his apartment was in the same direction, and found out why he hates the infirmary.
“They caught me patching myself up once, and you know, the infirmary is the most unassuming place to beat someone up and pretend to have brought them there for medical attention when caught,” Kim Dokja says with a bitter smile.
“And?” Yoo Joonghyuk prompts.
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t expect me to believe that’s all there is to it.”
“As expected of the protagonist,” Kim Dokja sulks, unaware of how the nickname made Yoo Joonghyuk’s chest squeeze. “Well, one time I was applying ointment on my wounds and ended up hospitalised for a month. Turned out they swapped it for diluted acid.”
“Diluted acid,” Yoo Joonghyuk repeats gravely, fury clouding his vision because how brainlessly vicious can a mere couple bullies act?
Kim Dokja laughs. “Your temper sucks, don’t you ever take deep breaths or something?”
“Kim Dokja.”
Kim Dokja reads the anger on his face and smiles in that damn consoling way of his, as if he’s a child to be pacified. “It’s a long time ago. Anyway, they’ve done worse so I don’t think about it a lot.”
A surge of dread. “Worse?”
“Like vandalising my novels,” Kim Dokja replies.
“What exactly is your definition of ‘ worse’? ” Yoo Joonghyuk incredulously glares at him.
“Like I said, vandalising my novels, kind of. But I’m fine now, though.” Kim Dokja says, expression wavering and nostrils flaring as he lies.
Yoo Joonghyuk thinks that risking a mark on his record will be justified when he decks the swine that put that expression on Kim Dokja’s face.
It doesn't take much to find the culprit—just a little asking around, not that Yoo Joonghyuk would’ve easily forgotten the face constantly hovering around the boy like a pest. He bumps into Song Minwoo while washing his hands in the bathroom one afternoon, and there are specks of red under his nails that Yoo Joonghyuk once caught digging into Kim Dokja’s neck.
A breath in, a breath out.
Kim Dokja staggers up the rooftop that day wearing the sweater he never did return to Yoo Joonghyuk, cold sweat running down the back of his neck. He keeps his distance for the entirety of lunch break as if Yoo Joonghyuk wouldn’t pick up on the smell of iron in the air.
He doesn’t ask about it. Kim Dokja looked nervous.
A breath in, a breath out.
“You’re hurt,” Yoo Joonghyuk narrows his eyes at him.
“Funny story, I fell-”
“Kim Dokja, I know when you’re lying, so don’t even try.”
Kim Dokja sighs in defeat and confesses once he’s ascertained that, based on how they are positioned, he wouldn’t be able to make it to the exit without Yoo Joonghyuk grabbing him by the neck first. “Okay, so I didn’t fall. What do you want?”
“What happened,” Yoo Joonghyuk demands pointedly.
“I got hit,” Kim Dokja grumbles, lightly touching the welt on his cheek. “Just some hooligans who have nothing better to do.”
“Song Minwoo?” He frowns, eyebrows pinching together.
“How did you- nevermind, you were bound to find out. But I’m okay now.”
“Kim Dokja,” Yoo Joonghyuk’s tone hardens. “Until when are you going to say that?”
From where he stands, sunlight filters through the holes in the fence and gives Kim Dokja’s outline a fragile glow. His shirt turns just the slightest bit translucent then, dark handprints pressed into his torso like sticky notes that Yoo Joonghyuk wants to rip off and clean away.
Unexpectedly, he reaches over and swiftly pulls his shirt up, earning a scandalised screech.
“Bastard, what are you doing- aaahhh Yoo Joonghyuk! ” Kim Dokja squirms as a cold hand traces the bruises stamped on his skin. “Shit, are you a pervert?”
Yoo Joonghyuk clicks his tongue—how troublesome, Kim Dokja—and squeezes him closer by the waist to hold him in place. In order to put some distance between them, the boy arches his back, two hands on his chest, and that’s when Yoo Joonghyuk notes with a frown, “Your ribs are protruding.”
“I know you’ve been feeding me good stuff but no one puts on weight overnight you know ah your hands are really cold please let me go,” Kim Dokja struggles.
So Kim Dokja had a loose tongue when in panic, Yoo Joonghyuk notes with amusement.
He takes the opportunity and starts the interrogation. “When did this happen?”
“J-Just now, before I came here,” Kim Dokja shivers, pinching his arm to try and get him to release him. Yoo Joonghyuk doesn’t so much as flinch. “Fuck you.”
He pointedly ignores it. “What did he do?”
“He held me down and smacked me around that’s it I swear!” Kim Dokja exclaims, before giving up on escaping and instead repositions his hands to block Yoo Joonghyuk’s view of his taut, white stomach. “I already told you, so stop looking-”
“Why?” he whispers.
Now Kim Dokja looks at him as if he were the idiot here. “What kind of question is that?”
“Stop letting him hurt you,” Yoo Joonghyuk demands, and he wonders what kind of expression he’s making to cause that twinge of guilt in Kim Dokja’s eyes. “Promise me, Kim Dokja. “If he lays a hand on you, don’t take it lying down. If you can’t, then scream and I’ll find you.”
The pause Kim Dokja takes is agonising, and his answer is no less disappointing. “Sorry, Joonghyuk-ah,” he says.
His voice is gentle, and all Yoo Joonghyuk wants to do is melt and forget about it like a mere bad dream—but at the same time, there’s something about the boy in front of him that makes him tick. Rage licks at the walls of his chest like a blazing flame, then it douses into a bitter ache when the corners of Kim Dokja’s lips weakly curve at him, because only Kim Dokja could read him quite like that.
A few days, a little more trip-and-falls and a close call with a broken leg. Kim Dokja still thinks they live in the same direction so now they’ve taken to walking home together.
Friday afternoons are a slow thing; Kim Dokja even slower with throbbing ribs and a sprained ankle.
“Sometimes, I wonder if your brain works properly outside of your academics,” Yoo Joonghyuk says to the limping boy.
“Joonghyuk-ah, if I said I didn’t want it, would you do it?” Kim Dokja asks.
After a brief pause, he looks away. “...No.”
“Right...it’s just half a year to graduation, now. Besides, what can really happen?”
Yoo Joonghyuk doesn’t say a thing and adjusts his pace accordingly.
Turns out a lot of things could happen, as it stands. Kim Dokja has never been one to love himself, yet it still comes as a surprise when Yoo Joonghyuk finds him waist-deep in water, arms red and sticky all over. Within three seconds he is hauled back to shore with a cardigan bunched up and pressed to his open wounds and Yoo Joonghyuk doesn’t speak a word throughout to keep his pounding heart from jumping out of his throat.
“What are you doing here?” Kim Dokja whispers shakily, “Sorry, a-ah, for staining your clothes again, ow-”
“Shut the fuck up before I kill you, Kim Dokja-”
An infuriating, vexatious smile. Then a fragile glint of glassy eyes. “Wasn’t that the plan?”
“You always do as you please,” Yoo Joonghyuk’s voice descends into a growl, a threat. He’s so, so furious. “Stop sticking to your horrible plans and find another way, dammit.”
Blood blooms in the sand below them, dripping like tears. Kim Dokja always looks as if he is about to disappear, eyes glazed and drifting in and out of some sick daydream. Just the thought alone unexpectedly terrifies Yoo Joonghyuk more than it irritates him.
His head can’t stop spinning and his trembling hand hasn’t let go of Kim Dokja’s bleeding wrist. Yoo Joonghyuk can’t see straight and it’s all Kim Dokja’s fault that he’s so angry. So afraid.
“This isn’t my first time you know,” the boy says, blinking dazedly through the warm dryness in his eyes. “I jumped out of my classroom window when I was fifteen and survived. I thought everything would get better then, but it never really goes away, does it?”
Two strong arms lift him up, hooked behind his knees. Kim Dokja slumps against Yoo Joonghyuk like a ragdoll, whose breaths are wilder than his own. “Shut up. I’ll bring you to the hospital so stop talking as if you’re about to die.”
“I am,” Kim Dokja murmurs, head lolling to one side. “Not sorry.”
Yoo Joonghyuk feels his chest constrict. “Kim Dokja, don’t you dare fall asleep. If you die, I’ll wreak havoc on Song Minwoo and the rest.”
If only he’d sought them out earlier, if only he’d bothered enough to ignore Kim Dokja’s cocky words and stupid smile to do something, anything. The stench of iron permeates his senses and a wave of dizziness crashes over him like a tide. All this while, Yoo Joonghyuk has taken to calling Kim Dokja a fool when the biggest fool here is himself.
Stupid, idiotic Yoo Joonghyuk.
“Now, that’s not good...But I won’t stop you if you really want to do it, only if you let m’ be.” Kim Dokja murmurs.
“Do you think I’ll listen to you?”
Yoo Joonghyuk has been no better than a bystander, eyes covered and ears blocked just because he was scared of it—Kim Dokja himself asked for it—who the fuck cares what he wants anymore?
“I don’t need your permission to do anything. Tomorrow, I’m going to kill all of them while you read your damn novels and no one can stop me.”
“You,” Kim Dokja weakly smacks the other’s jaw. A smear of red paints his cheek like a love mark. “Troublesome. Seriously, why are you so troublesome? ”
“I could say the same of you, always so irritating.” Yoo Joonghyuk picks up his pace, shifting the boy on his back to let his head fall on his shoulder. “When will you stop bleeding all over my shirts? When will you stop being a pushover? When will you use that damn brain of yours to think about how quiet it’ll be for me when you’re gone?”
He doesn’t brace himself for—actually welcomes—the inevitable mockery, the sound of Kim Dokja running his cocky mouth off, teasing him like a kindergartener. But it doesn’t come, only hot, shallow breaths grazing the crook of his neck, and Yoo Joonghyuk feels his heart twist violently. “Don’t sleep. H-Hey, Kim Dokja.”
A choked sigh barely escapes his lips when he finally hears the boy’s faint laugh.
“Almost sounds like you’d miss me,” Kim Dokja says, and Yoo Joonghyuk can picture his unlucky smile without having to look back. “Will our little Joonghyuk be lonely?”
“If you know that, then why?” Yoo Joonghyuk croaks, and there's no more keeping face or pride when rich, scarlet blood trickles down his shirt, staining his pants, socks, shoes. “Do you want to die that much? Do you want me to feed you a ripe tomato?”
“I’m allergic, bastard ,” Kim Dokja rasps out.
“Then tell me,” Yoo Joonghyuk says, razor-sharp. “Stop going off alone,” a breath in, “Dealing with everything by yourself,” a breath out. “Aren’t you my companion?”
A beat of silence. “...Did you rip that off from ‘Three Ways to Survive-”
“Just stop spouting rubbish and stay awake, Kim Dokja,” Yoo Joonghyuk uncharacteristically begs. “...And who says I’ll be lonely? I won’t let you die.”
“Joonghyuk-ah,” Kim Dokja loosely hugs his neck, “You’re the most annoying protagonist I’ve ever met.”
“That’s just the kind of love interest I am,” Yoo Joonghyuk says. He can hardly believe what is coming out of his mouth, but Kim Dokja’s influence on his life has been stronger than he intended it to be. “When you wake up, I’ll...properly say it for you to hear.”
A moment passes before bony arms tighten around him, somewhat reassuringly.