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Min Jiwon is an actress. She’s young, beautiful, and successful. Everything she wants, she gets. And yet– all those trivialities, all those empty praises are reduced to ashes the moment the apocalypse hits. Min Jiwon, the acclaimed actress, is no longer relevant. No more than the passing face in a sea of people struggling to survive. And all of her success, her privilege, her riches are all of a sudden no longer useful, but instead memories of a world that no longer existed.
Min Jiwon still turns heads when she walks by, not because of her name, but because of her face. When she walks by, people think she’s beautiful. They don’t think that’s Min Jiwon, the actress, and maybe I should get her autograph for my girlfriend. She’s not sure if that’s a good thing or not.
So. Here’s the thing. Min Jiwon, former actress, is used to having everything within her grasp, her delicate, manicured hands. But now, there’s something she can’t have, and against all her will— she’s curious.
Kim Dokja is an enigma. He’s strange. King of a Kingless World? Destroying the throne instead of sitting on it? He’s a paradox of impossibilities and unknown truths, and for the first time in her life, Min Jiwon is intrigued. She wants. She craves something that’s right in front of her, dangling in front of her nose like an enticing cat toy.
If she could just have him, keep him by her side, then…
So Min Jiwon acts upon her desire, her curiosity. She has always been a woman of action, and no matter what, she is not walking away empty handed.
Kim Dokja is leaning against a wall, talking to his companions when she approaches. He doesn’t see her, but she sees him, like she does all the time. Always in the corner of her eye, aware of his presence.
He’s not particularly striking when you first look at him. Really, the only remarkable thing is his incredible skin. But with his big, dark eyes and that soft, curved mouth, it’s impossible to call him ugly.
Min Jiwon wants to run her hands through his hair, but she restrains the urge.
“Dokja-ssi,” she greets when she walks closer to them, and the brown haired woman next to him shifts warily. She’s lovely, all long limbs and soft curves. Jiwon gives her a cursory smile. “May I have a moment of your time? Privately, of course.”
A child— around ten, maybe?— immediately latches onto Kim Dokja’s leg like a parasite, burying his little brown head in his thigh. “Hyung, don’t go!”
Min Jiwon feels the corner of her mouth twitch. She had a nephew, once upon a time, but it’s been months since she’s seen him. Maybe he’s dead. Maybe it’s better for him to be dead than to live in a world as ruined as this one. So maybe, for once, death would treat him better than life would.
Jiwon crouches, her long robes brushing the ground. “Hey. I’m not going to do anything to your hyung, okay? I just want to talk to him.”
The boy looks away stubbornly. She hears Dokja mumble something with the brown haired woman before gentle hands come down to pry the boy away from his legs, setting him gently down on the ground. Dokja crouches, inches away from Jiwon, and his gaze is gentle like his hands.
It would be nice if one day, she’d have earned enough of Kim Dokja’s trust to have him look at her that way, too.
“Gilyoung, I won’t be long. You don’t have to worry, okay?” Dokja runs an affectionate hand through the boy’s hair, ruffling it. He leans into the touch like a cat, expression still disgruntled. “I’ll be back soon.”
Min Jiwon watches as Kim Dokja placates his child(?) nephew(?) random kid he happened to pick up along the way(?) and heads towards a corner across the street, sidestepping wrecked cars and steaming piles of scrap along the way. He seems to glow– and maybe it’s a trick of light, or maybe she’s just so tired her eyes are playing tricks on her, but his white coat cuts a striking figure against the harsh, grayscale background.
“Min Jiwon-ssi?” Dokja looks behind him with a slightly confused look, one hand slightly open towards her. Beckoning. Jiwon shakes herself out of her stupor and hurries towards him, lifting her robes to avoid getting entangled with the scrap metal. She feels the sting of Kim Dokja’s group’s glare on her back, needling into her skin. Such devoted loyalty. It’s admirable. Maybe a little foolish. But in this world, a little foolishness, a little more hope is what they all need.
“Ah, yes,” Jiwon says when she catches up. “I was quite distracted. Sorry.”
“It’s alright,” Dokja says, but he doesn’t look at her, his gaze instead fixed ahead. His spine is straight, stiff– even rigid, like he’s uncomfortable. They slide into an alcove of shadows across the street, in the ruins of what used to be a convenience store.
“I used to have a nephew,” Jiwon says slowly, not sure what she’s actually trying to get at here, but her heart aches all of a sudden. “He looked a lot like your kid there. Make sure to take care of him, yeah?”
“Of course,” Kim Dokja sounds like he agrees wholeheartedly. Thankfully, if he notices the past tense, used to, or the way her voice wanes towards the end, he doesn’t bring it up. “Min Jiwon-ssi, what business do you have with me?”
Ah. Straight to the point, as always. His voice is flat, even, business-like. He has a good poker face.
Unfortunately for Kim Dokja, Min Jiwon is an actress no matter how low she’s fallen since the peak of her career. Her poker face is unbeatable.
Jiwon schools her face into an impenetrable mask, matching Dokja’s blow for blow. “I’ll be straight with you. I want you to become my companion, Kim Dokja-ssi.”
Kim Dokja’s face doesn’t change– but she catches the slight tide of surprise in those dark eyes. He’s intrigued. Jiwon leans in further, casting her bait. “Dokja-ssi, I’ll admit that our first meeting wasn’t exactly ideal. I will also admit that two thousand coins were too low a price to pay for the services of someone as strong as you are. So, this time, if you join me, I’ll give you whatever you desire. Whatever you want, if it’s within my ability, I will grant it.”
Kim Dokja seems to be at a loss of words, but he gathers himself, composing himself yet again. His hands flex at his sides. “Min Jiwon-ssi, I think you misunderstand. I already have a companion.”
“Ah, yes,” Jiwon says, mind flashing into images of an unruly scowl, ruffled black hair, light gleaming off a blade so sharp it seemed to cut even air. The way he looks at Kim Dokja, the fire in his gaze– she has her suspicions. “The Supreme King, yes?”
He nods.
“Well,” Jiwon says. “There are no rules that state one can only take one companion in their life. You could have as many as you wanted. I don’t mind if you have others. In my mind, just having you would be enough for me.”
Kim Dokja stares at her. His lashes are really quite long, sweeping the tops of his cheekbones like delicate lace. They’re charcoal dark, flapping together once– twice– as he blinks, like butterfly wings. Then his throat bobs, a motion obvious even in their dim little corner.
“Jiwon-ssi, I appreciate it, but I’m afraid that won’t be possible. I only intend to stay with my group and my companion.”
Jiwon feels her mouth curve in disappointment.
“Is there nothing I can do to persuade you?” she asks, already feeling imminent defeat. her shoulders slump.
And then–
To her surprise, Kim Dokja’s lips turn upwards into a dazzling smile, eyes scrunching into crescents. Maybe he feels bad for turning her down, but all she can think about, all she can see is that smile, so ridiculously endearing, and her heart flutters a beat. “You already know the answer to that, don’t you, Jiwon-ssi?”
It’s so strange. Min Jiwon is an actress. All her coworkers, her fellow actors and actresses are objectively attractive people. And yet– she’s never had her heart behave so strangely as it’s doing right now, standing in front of a man who should be nothing in front of their beauty.
“I suppose I do,” Jiwon says eventually. “You’re very loyal to them, aren’t you?”
“Of course. I’ll always be with them, no matter what.”
“It must be nice. Having people you can rely on without a single doubt and having them trust you in return,” Jiwon muses. She’s a queen– on the weaker side, she cannot deny– but a queen nonetheless. She trusts her subjects, of course, but she doesn’t have anyone she can talk to so freely like Dokja does with his friends. It makes her a little envious.
Dokja’s smile melts into something a little more bittersweet, a little more sympathetic. “You’ll find someone like that one day, Jiwon-ssi. Trust me.”
It’s a nice thought. A little futile, but nice nonetheless.
“Dokja-ssi, may I ask for one last thing?”
“Of course.”
Jiwon peeks up at him from under her lashes. “Next time we meet, I’d like for us to greet each other as friends. You can drop the honorifics now.”
Dokja’s face breaks out into a small smile, friendly and open. “So we’re friends then, Jiwon?”
Her name rolls off his tongue so easily, a caress of syllables. A shiver slides down her spine. “Friends, Dokja.”
Kim Dokja, once so untouchable and distant, smiles at her, and reaches his hand out to shake on it. Jiwon slides hers into his, shakes once, twice.
“You know, Dokja,” Jiwon says after a moment. “I suppose you must know by now, but I used to have a crush on you.”
Dokja blanches. It’s a bit funny how his whole face pales, eyes lax and wide in surprise. “I know,” he stutters, and it’s really quite cute. He’s usually so composed that when he’s caught off guard, it makes her want to pinch his face.
A woman of action as always, Jiwon does just that. She seizes the pale skin of his cheek between two determined fingers and pinches.
Kim Dokja splutters, hands flying around.
“Ah, you’re just too fun to tease,” Jiwon says, and watches as Dokja’s face and ears flush a brilliant crimson. “But don’t worry. I don’t plan on acting on my feelings any time soon.”
Dokja, finally regaining a bit of that poker face he always has, sends her a jokingly disgruntled stare. “Any time soon? Does that mean you will act on them eventually?”
Jiwon looks him squarely in the eye. “Do you want me to?”
It’s a serious question. Jiwon knows far too much for her own good– knows he doesn’t see her that way, knows that above all his heart probably already belongs to someone else whose name starts with Yoo and ends with hyuk, but she just can’t squash out that flicker of hope. Hope, against all odds, is still alive, and she needs to put it out fully to move on.
A beat of silence.
Kim Dokja looks away, the mood suddenly sombre. He’s struggling for words, so Jiwon does it for him.
“You don’t have to say it. I know already.”
At this, Dokja looks back at her, momentarily surprised. “You know?”
“I always did,” Jiwon tells him. “And your heart already belongs to someone else. For me, it was just a crush, but for you, it’s more than that.” Jiwon’s heart stings, but at the same time, something is released– a weight, taken off her shoulders. Her lips curve into a gentle smile, slow and sweet, brows relaxing. “You should cherish it.”
“What? Cherish who?”
Ah, young love. How adorable. He still doesn’t know.
Jiwon gives him a sympathetic pat on the arm. “You’ll find out soon.”
There’s still a bewildered look of confusion on his face, so Jiwon decides to take mercy on him and leave before she can confuse him even further. She leans onto her toes, grabbing him by the collar, and plants a chaste kiss on his cheek. It only lasts for a fraction of a second before she pulls away.
“I suppose this is where we part,” she says. “I’ll see you again, I hope.”
And that’s that.
Kim Dokja, that fool.
Yoo Jonghyuk has regressed through multiple lifetimes, has seen everything life has to offer and more– and he’s never met someone who infuriates him so completely. Kim Dokja has the unique, absolutely insufferable ability to make him want to tear his hair out and kiss him so hard that he shuts up all at the same time, and it’s driving him mad. How he managed to fall for such a fool is a mystery, because he’s equally endearing as he is annoying.
And currently, that fool is nowhere to be found.
“Yoo Sangah.” Joonghyuk strides up to the two people he knows, Lee Gilyoung sitting cross-legged on the floor, Yoo Sangah studying the gleaming surface of her dagger like it’s the most interesting thing in the world. She looks up at his footsteps, her face shifting into alarm, then recognition.
“Joonghyuk-ssi!” She takes a step towards him. He cuts her off, eyes roving over the two of them– and the glaring absence of Kim Dokja. He’s gone, not even his sword is here, and–
“Where is Kim Dokja?” he demands.
Yoo Sangah’s eye twitches. “Dokja is… discussing something with someone.”
“And who might that someone be?” he asks shortly. Yoo Sangah is respectable, loyal to Kim Dokja and him only. But there’s clearly something barring her from telling him where he is.
Yoo Sangah stays silent, clearly dilberating.
“Where is he. Did he go off on his own for a scenario?”
Sangah sighs, putting her dagger away. Lee Gilyoung glares up balefully from the ground. There’s a grasshopper trailing over his left hand, a path of scurrying ants on the right. He’s never quite liked him, Joonghyuk supposes, though he doesn’t know exactly why.
“He’s not in danger. He’s just… with Min Jiwon-ssi talking about something.”
Min Jiwon?
He feels his jaw clench. The king of beauty, a delicate, frivolous woman with unparalleled beauty. He remembers her very clearly, that pale face with the rosebud lips. For someone so weak, she sure had a great ability to follow him wherever he went in his past regression. And all for what? Because she felt attracted to him? The world was literally ending and yet all she had on her mind was romance. How foolish.
“Why is he with her.”
“I don’t know,” Sangha says truthfully, eying him warily. “She just came up to us and asked to talk to him privately. Dokja said he’d be back soon.”
Privately. He doesn’t like the sound of that word. Min Jiwon, that woman seems to be around in every single one of his regressions. And for some reason, her being with Dokja unnerves him.
Not because he’s jealous. He can’t be. He’s not that emotionally unaware. He likes Kim Dokja, but he hasn’t stooped so low as to be jealous over someone that’s not even his…
Right?
“I think it might have something to do with their relationship,” Sangah goes on, blissfully unaware of the turmoil boiling under Yoo Joonghyuk’s skin, which suddenly feels too tight, too uncomfortable. “Last time we met, Dokja told me Min Jiwon-ssi was ‘slightly attracted’ to him or something. I can’t quite remember, but it seems that she’s taken quite the liking to him.”
Slightly attracted?
Joonghyuk feels a vein pop in his forehead. So it isn’t him in this regression after all. It’s that squid bastard, always too alluring for his own good.
And then the realisation slams into him like a fucking ten ton truck.
Fuck. It is because he’s jealous.
“Where are they now?” he gets out between gritted teeth, and Gilyoung shoots him a suspicious glance, but doesn’t comment.
Sangha points across the street. In the alcove of a ruined store, an advertising board still dangling precariously overhead, there are two figures. A brunette, burgundy robes draping, delicate features in a wide smile, and a slim figure in a white coat, the outline of a sword still visible along the side. And he’s grinning, too, not the fake, plastic one he gives to appease people, but a true smile, all curved eyes and white teeth.
Why is he giving that smile to Min Jiwon of all fucking people?
His heartbeat is pounding fast, deafening in his ears. Irrational irritation swells– his fists clench, he starts striding across the street to intercept them, and then it happens.
Min Jiwon, still wearing that goddamn smile on her face, seizes Kim Dokja by the collar, pulls his face downwards, and presses her lips to his cheek– far too close to his mouth for comfort– in a kiss. Kim Dokja’s ears suddenly flush scarlet.
Yoo Joonghyuk sees red.
“I’ll see you again, I hope.”
With those parting words, Min Jiwon turns away from him, looking satisfied. As she turns, a strand of her long brown hair blows into her face from a sudden gust of a wind and Dokja automatically moves it out of her face, fingertips grazing her cheek. Surprise stains her face before she smiles, finally walking away from him, leaving his hand lingering in the air.
And then–
A hand seizes his hand still in the air, the one he’d touched Jiwon’s face with, and he’s spun around to meet the furious face of Yoo Joonghyuk, far too close to be casual. Yoo Joonghyuk, never once breaking eye contact, grabs his hand and whirls around to drag him deeper into the wreckage of the convenience store. His grip on his wrist is tight, but not painful.
“What’s going on?” Dokja protests, bewildered, but then Joonghyuk is whirling around, bearing down on him, and his knees suddenly feel weak. He’s too close, their bodies almost inches apart.
“Min Jiwon,” Yoo Joonghyuk grits, and Dokja blinks, mystified. He didn’t think Yoo Joonghyuk would care so much about her, but he supposes they did spend a fair bit of time together in his past regressions.
“Oh, Jiwon?” There’s nothing to worry about, she just wanted me to be her companion, but I turned her down. Nothing else happened, so…” Dokja sends a meaningful look out of the window where Jiwon’s figure is slowly growing smaller and smaller. “If you want to go after her, now’s the time.”
Strangely enough, Yoo Joonghyuk doesn’t budge. Instead, he pins Dokja to his spot with his stare. “You’re close enough to call her Jiwon and not Jiwon-ssi?”
“She asked me to,” Dokja shrugs. “We did just become friends, so it’s only natural that we drop the honorifics. It’s not gonna be much of a friendship if we keep calling each other Dokja-ssi and Jiwon-ssi.”
Yoo Joonghyuk seems to grow even stiffer at the words. “Doesn’t she like you?”
Oh. Oh. So this is what he’s getting at. Yoo Joonghyuk, normally so stone-faced, stoic, is jealous.
Now, jealousy, admittedly, is a very attractive look on Yoo Joonghyuk. Min Jiwon is a lucky woman to have the love of someone like him. But the thought of Joonghyuk being with someone else– the mental image that it brings to the forefront of his mind, Yoo Joonghyuk with his god sculpted face and Min Jiwon with her gentle, graceful features, makes him wildly uncomfortable for whatever god-forsaken reason. It’s not right. It doesn’t feel good.
It makes Dokja’s heart ache, even when he has no right to feel that way.
“I guess she does, but she said she’s moving on,” Dokja says, half-dazed. “You still have a chance, so don’t be jealous.”
Yoo Joonghyuk’s angry face suddenly morphs into such a profound expression of dismay and surprise it almost shocks him, too. Was it not supposed to be obvious that he liked Min Jiwon? Should he have waited to bring it up? Was it unrequited love? A million questions whirl in his mind– so much that he almost misses it when Yoo Joonghyuk, in one smooth move, corners Kim Dokja against a wall and plants a solid arm next to his head.
Dokja’s brain malfunctions for five consecutive seconds. It sparks, steams, smokes, and finally explodes in a mushroom cloud of confusion, stupid attraction, and just general panic.
Is he, an ordinary salaryman, being kabedoned by an homicidal handsome protagonist right now?
Yoo Joonghyuk stares into his eyes, like he can reach into his soul and yank out those emotions, that knot of complicated, tangled feelings, and smooth them out with his eyes alone.
Fuck.
Dokja, an ordinary salaryman, is so being kabedoned right now.
The air is quiet, suspended. Their faces, inches apart, stare into one another— Joonghyuk’s breath ghosts across Dokja’s nose, and he shivers. Yoo Joonghyuk, with his stupid protagonist eagle eyes, catches it.
“How did you know?” he asks, and for once, it’s not angry, brimming with fire and fury. It’s soft, quiet, maybe a little inquisitive and wistful. It feels like a caress.
“Know what?” Dokja asks lamely.
“That I like you,” Yoo Joonghyuk whispers at the same time as Kim Dokja asks, “That you like Min Jiwon?”
Silence hangs in the air for a moment.
Then Dokja drops his face into his hands and his ears catch on fire.
For the second time in five minutes, his brain explodes yet again, both times caused by the same asshole.
What does he mean— it can’t— there’s no way—
“I thought you liked Min Jiwon!” Dokja wails into his hands, his voice muffled. He can feel the heat rising into his face, his ears, his neck. He looks like a fucking tomato. He hates tomatoes.
Gentle, warm hands pry Dokja’s hands away from his flaming face despite his best attempts at avoiding eye contact. Yoo Joonghyuk slides a finger under his chin, tips it upwards, soft.
“How did you even come to that conclusion?”
Dokja waves his hands frantically (much like a squid’s tentacles). “When I said you still had a shot, I meant with Min Jiwon! You were acting all jealous over the fact that I was talking with her and calling her by her name! It was just the obvious conclusion!”
Yoo Joonghyuk huffs a silent laugh, his lips turning up slightly— and Dokja stares. He’s smiling. Yoo Joonghyuk is smiling right now. In fact, he’s laughing.
What the actual. Fuck.
Dokja presses the back of his hand frantically to Yoo Joonghyuk’s forehead, his cheeks, his neck. “Are you sick? Do you have a fever? Are you possese—“
Joonghyuk catches his wandering hands with ease and brings it to his cheek, pressing it against the smooth skin. “You thought I was jealous because of her?”
“Weren’t you?” Dokja asks, slowly.
“It was you, you fool. I was jealous because of you.”
His brain freezes.
Time bends around the two of them, slowing down.
“But why?” his voice comes out tiny, thick, and there’s a fragility within it that he recognises as hope. He’s hopeful, he realises. But why is he hopeful? Yoo Joonghyuk doesn’t like Min Jiwon and he’s happy because of that, but why is he happy, exactly?
Joonghyuk leans even closer— their faces inches apart, so close that he can see his lashes flutter, his dark eyes drifting down towards his lips for a fraction of a second before they snap back to his eyes with an intensity that’s almost frightening.
His heart is pounding harder than ever, twice time beats stumbling over one another, a mess, a stampede.
“Do I have to spell it out for you?”
“Yes,” Dokja breathes, a bare wisp of air between his teeth.
“I like you,” Joonghyuk says, and slowly raises a hand towards his face to brush along his cheekbone. The sheer intimacy laced into the gesture is enough to knock the breath out of his lungs, and he’s gasping for air, his mind running a million miles because—
“You like me?” he repeats, and his heart flutters fiercely with each beat.
“Yes. Always.”
“But,” he says very slowly, pressing his back into the wall. “Min Jiwon, and Lee Seolh—“
“They don’t matter to me,” Yoo Joonghyuk immediately cuts him off, like he’s been expecting this rebuttal. His thumb, slow and sure, strokes over Dokja’s jaw in a comforting gesture. “Not if you’re here.”
“Oh,” Dokja says, because it’s the only useless word coming to mind right now, and he’s too jumbled to formulate a coherent sentence. “Oh.”
Yoo Joonghyuk likes him. Not Lee Seolhwa, not Min Jiwon, but him, someone who wasn’t even supposed to be in the original novel.
And then— with that thought, all of those repressed feelings, that strange prickliness that he’d felt when he’d imagined Min Jiwon and Yoo Joonghyuk as a couple, the butterflies that go rampant in his stomach every time he sees Joonghyuk slam into him with the force of a tidal wave. He’s washed away in its wake, struggling to make sense of his jagged edges, his confusion and acceptance in this sea of untethered emotions.
Ah. So that’s what it was in the end.
That strange feeling when he imagined Jiwon and Joonghyuk…
He wasn’t simply bitter because his companion was pursuing another woman. He was jealous because deep down inside, he wanted to be the one that Yoo Joonghyuk would pursue like that.
Dokja lifts his head slightly to meet Joonghyuk’s expectant gaze. That face, those familiar eyes, that strong nose— it's all so achingly familiar, the contours of his face so engraved into his memory he could draw it even in his sleep. He would recognise him even if he was blind, and if he were blind, he would still find a way to him.
Maybe he’d already fallen for him then, before the novel even became reality. The only reader and his protagonist. A story for him and him only, one that he’d treasured— and one that’s standing in front of him now, his hand still cradling his jaw like he’s the most precious thing in the world, like he might shatter if he doesn’t touch him for a second.
“You don’t have to give me an answer now,” Yoo Joonghyuk finally says. “I just… I just wanted to let you know. Think about it, maybe.”
Ah. Of course. There it is. That selfless, caring man that he likes loves.
But then…
“No,” Dokja says decisively. His stomach is still fluttering, butterfly wings still flapping. But his heart is pounding, harder than it’s ever beat before, and the heart never lies. “I don’t need to think about it.”
Joonghyuk visibly deflates like a balloon. “I’m sorry—“
“Because I already like you, too,” Dokja says.
Slow delight spreads across Joonghyuk’s face like an ink stain.
Then he winds his arms around Yoo Joonghyuk’s neck, pulls him downwards, and presses their lips together in a scathing kiss.
“You know, I lied when I said I liked you,” Dokja finally says when they separate for air. Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes are half-lidded, lips swollen and pink, and he runs a finger along his pronounced cupid’s bow just for the hell of it. Yoo Joonghyuk is his now, and he can touch him wherever he wants. Maybe he’ll do just that, once they get to a proper bed.
“Don’t tease me,” Joonghyuk says, pulling him even closer, chest to chest so that nothing can get between them at all. one of his hands rests comfortably on his waist, the other cupping the back of his neck. “What do you mean you lied?”
Dokja reaches upwards to thread his hands through his ruffled black hair. He’s disheveled, maybe from his wandering hands earlier. “I don’t just like you. I love you.”
Yoo Joonghyuk’s hands tighten on his waist. “You… love me.”
“Yeah,” Dokja breathes, slightly breathless. Yoo Joonghyuk leans closer, resting their foreheads together. Their breaths mingle in the shared space, and somehow it feels far more intimate than the kiss. The taste of Joonghyuk still lingers on his lips– sharp and cool, maybe peppermint, and Yoo Joonghyuk’s lips suddenly split into a wide smile.
“Good, because I love you too.”
Yoo Joonghyuk’s breathless admission is the last thing Dokja hears before his lips land on his, that cool, familiar taste invading his mouth again.
“Sangah-noona,” Gilyoung asks, finally uncoiling from his position on the floor. His grasshopper slowly skitters up his sleeve. “When will hyung and the sooty bastard be back? It’s been ages.”
The sun is close to setting. Sangah feels like she wants to cry just a little. She’s helpless against Lee Gilyoung’s wide, guileless gaze– but it’s not like she can just tell him, ‘your hyung’s busy getting his face sucked off by some angry homicidal novel character right now’, so she just gives him a lame smile that probably falls flat of comforting by a mile.
“That’s what I want to know, too,” she says, and puts her head into her hands.
Oh, she’s absolutely going to kill Kim Dokja when he gets back.