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There was blood underneath the specs of his fingernails. The rain had become even more suffocating over the past hour, transitioning from a light, pleasant drizzle to a full-on torrential onslaught of water and, truly, Yoo Joonghyuk thought it was quite fascinating that, despite the flood rushing over him, the blood on his hands remained the same bright, garish vermillion.
His eyes were blurred but Yoo Joonghyuk couldn't tell if it was from the downpour drowning him, overwhelming his senses and scrambling his insides, or his own grief breathing him out, pherenospaming the air from his lungs, stealing it, taking it.
His knuckles are bloody, most definitely sprained, and he stares at them hard, as if the force of his glare could will the stain away. He’s so lost in his own mind, so imbibed into the valley of his thoughts that he barely notices the presence looming over him.
Yoo Joonghyuk looked up just as the lamplights flicked on. His vision was obscured, the glare of the lights temporarily blinding him. He blinked the brightness away and saw him. A boy, most likely his age, staring down at him blankly. The backlash of the lights painted a mural around him. He was drenched from head to toe from the rain but his hair still glistened in the moonlight, as vibrant as a lonely star.
His hand was out, Yoo Joonghyuk realised absently, probably to help him up. Yoo Joonghyuk would have given it to him if he still remembered how to move his limbs.
Yoo Joonghyuk stared at his hand. It was riddled with scars and puce-coloured bruises. Yoo Joonghyuk could still see the fair skin, could make out the lithe fingers and the long nails. One of the boy's fingers twitch and Joonghyuk abruptly realises that his staring has long passed the ‘polite curiosity’ stage.
He tries to summon the embarrassment he ought to feel but he just finds exhaustion. God, he’s so tired.
Yoo Joonghyuk's gaze slid back to the boy's face. The blankness had bled away to mild irritation. The staring may have been a little intense, then.
“Are you done?”
His words were loud, battling with the rain for leverage. His tone however was blank, deadpan, as if all emotions had been sucked from it, contradicting with his coutenance. His voice cracked in the middle, dancing between the line of boyhood and adulthood. Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes went to the boy’s throat, staring as if he could track where it came from.
There was an angry wound peeking out from the collar of his school uniform; The injury spanned the width of two of Yoo Joonghyuk’s fingers, a deep vertical claret against milky skin; a slash of red against white.
The boy’s throat moved again and he cleared his throat, loudly and deliberately, reminding Yoo Joonhyuk that he still hadn't said a word.
He weighed all the options of response in his head. He wanted to say that hearing another person’s voice that hadn't grated on his nerves was relieving. The only sound that had flowed through him for the past hour was the pattering of rain against concrete, singeing across his mind like white noise; the gushing of the cold air, biting across his skin like knives, and his own torrent of thoughts, tumbling over themselves in his brain, nattering at him, useless useless useless useless , all the words he tried his damnest to ignore. Listening to someone else broke through the muddled haze his entire body had sucked him into.
But that would be too much, wouldn’t it? Especially to someone who seemed to find his very existence irritating; the boy's eyebrow kept twitching the longer Yoo Joonghyuk silently stared at him. He was curved towards the side as if he was deliberating whether to leave or not.
Perhaps he could tell the boy that he was looking very much like Yoo Joonghyuk’s saving grace right about now; the flickering lamplights haunting behind him, shadowing against his body like wings, gloomy and angelic all at the same time.
That seems even more outrageous to say to a stranger for the first time, maybe. He should keep these thoughts to himself for now, bottle them up in that fragile box in his mind until he has the mental stability to properly vivisect them.
Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes eventually roamed back to the boy’s hands. It was still held out to him, still crimson with dried blood, still properly soaked, water dripping down his fingers, falling like little crystals, dispersing and conjoining with its familiars on the gravel.
Yoo Joonghyuk clenched and unclenched his fists. When he spoke, it was rough from hours of unuse. “Who are you?”
That wasn’t what he wanted to say. He didn’t know exactly what he was going to say but he knew it wasn’t that.
The boy let out a huff of breath very similar to a scoff, and then the hand in front of him disappeared. Yoo Joonghyuk may have mourned a little bit. It was truly a very pretty hand. On the ground, the boy’s shadow moved. He was shuffling for something in his bag and suddenly, the rain stopped.
Well, it hadn't stopped exactly, no, but he could no longer feel it hammering on top of his head, drowning him and breathing him. Now, however, the only water he felt was the ones sliding down his face and into his eyes. He shivered unconsciously and linked the water away from his eyes. Oh, he’s going to be so sick tomorrow.
There’s a white umbrella hovering above his head. It's big, enough to span the length of his body and cover the two of them but it’s only tilted to cover Yoo Joonghyuk. Even though the boy is just as soaked as he is. He can't see the boy anymore since the umbrella is opaque and that really just can't do.
Yoo Joonghyuk moves the umbrella away with the tip of his fingers and there stands the boy again, drenched through and through and glaring at him with beautiful eyes. Yoo Joonghyuk’s heart does a full acrobatic routine in his chest.
Cold hands slide into his outstretched ones and then he’s pulled up forcibly. The boy may have looked weak but his arm strength was palpable.
They were face to face now, their noses mere inches apart. Yoo Joonghyuk feels his heart trip over itself, once, twice, thrice. This close, Yoo Joonghyuk can see the slope of his nose, the faint freckles that dawned on them like constellations, some close, some far apart, yet still so so beautiful.
His breath, oddly enough, feels warm when it fans across Yoo Joonghyuk’s cheeks, smelling like the strawberry lollipops from the convenience store down the street, the ones Mia always begs him to buy for her whenever they go there. It smells sweet. Artificial sweetness but sweet all the same.
Yoo Joonghyuk feels the hilt the hilt of the umbrella being placed in his palm and he instinctively brings it over the both of them. The rain wasn't hammering over them. Instead, it felt like he could hardly hear it over the thundering of his own heart.
Yoo Joonghyuk swallows, his nerves attacking him, but when he speaks, his voice is firm. “Your name?”
The boy blinks several times and his eyes clear up just a tiny bit, as if he’s waking up from a daze. He stares at Yoo Joonghyuk with unreadable eyes for several seconds before he says, “Kim Dokja.”
“Kim Dokja,” Yoo Joonghyuk repeats, just to taste it on his tongue. The vowels roll around his mouth nicely. Yoo Joonghyuk decides he likes the name.
Kim Dokja’s left eyebrow twitches and his glare sets right back in place. “You know people die from this?”
“From this?”
“Pneumonia.”
“How is that any of my business,” Yoo Joonghyuk asks, a furrow in between his brow.
“You were in the rain. For a long time, I'm assuming,” Kim Dokja says, an annoyed little lilt lining his words. “You could die from Pneumonia.”
“I won't.”
Kim Dokja huffs a laugh. “What, are you Superman?”
Yoo Joonghyuk glares at him. “No.”
“Then you’ll die of pneumonia.”
“If I die of pneumonia, you’ll die of pneumonia too. We were both in the rain,” Yoo Joonghyuk says slowly.
Kim Dokja shakes his head. “You were out here longer than I was.”
“How would you know that?”
“I…saw you? Sitting here and looking like a depressed little sunfish. It was very pitiful.”
His glare intensifies. “What, so you decided to be my knight in shining armour?”
Kim Dokja’s smiles bright and quick, sharp and earth-shatteringly. “Yes, of course! You know me, always helping the helpless.”
“I don't know you,” Yoo Joonghyuk reminds him.
“What?”
“I don't know you,” he repeats. “I don't know if you always help the helpless.”
Kim Dokja raises both his eyebrows at him. And then he laughs. It’s a nice laugh. Very nice. That’s all he’ll say about that.
“You’re funny.”
Now it’s Yoo Joonghyuk’s turn to raise his eyebrow. “I’m really not.” The only person that has ever called him funny is his sister. And only when she’s being heavily sarcastic.
“Yeah, you are,” Kim Dokja says, running a hand through his wet hair. He looks around at the empty park with blank eyes. He turns back to Yoo Joonghyuk. Stares right through his soul. Then smiles, this time warmer. His eyes soften, just a bit. Yoo Joonghyuk’s heart may be doing the exact same thing
“What’s your name?”
Oh.
He hasn't even told him his name.
How stupid can he be? Truly? How? Stupid?
“Yoo Joonghyuk.”
“Yoo Joonghyuk,” Kim Dokja parrots and fireworks fizzle through Joonghyuk’s blood, his skin, his everywhere.
“Why are you here?” Kim Dokja asks when Yoo Joonghyuk doesn't say anything.
“Why are you here?”
Kim Dokja rolls his eyes. “I asked first.”
“Got in a fight. With my parents,” Yoo Joonghyuk says simply.
Kim Dokja hums and then eyes the blood on his hands. “You physically fought your parents?”
“No. That was after. Some kids at school were being dumb.”
“And you put them in their place?”
“Yeah,” Yoo Joonghyuk quips and he feels the tug of a smile at his lips. “I did.”
Kim Dokja laughs again. The sound locks itself in some part of Yoo Joonghyuk’s head. “Good. That’s good. For you, I mean. Not them.”
“Definitely not them.”
“Glad we agree.”
There’s silence now and Yoo Joonghyuk realises that the pattering of rain has been progressively getting quieter and quieter. It’s drizzling now. Kim Dokja notices too and blows a breath through his teeth.
“I need to go.”
“Yeah?” Yoo Joonghyuk hopes he doesn't sound too disappointed.
“Yeah,” Kim Dokja nods. He moves away from under the umbrella and it may just be a step, but it feels like miles stretch between the two of them now. Kim Dokja looks at him again. “School?”
“Star Stream.” Yoo Joonghyuk hesitates. “You?”
“Underworld,” Kim Dokja grins. “Pretty close together, aren't they? Maybe we'll meet again.”
“Maybe,” Yoo Joonghyuk says and tries to make his voice sound disdainful. He fails spectacularly.
Kim Dokja turns around and starts walking away.
“Kim Dokja.”
He pauses. Turns his head to the side.
“Your umbrella,” Yoo Joonghyuk says even as it’s still clutched tightly in his palm.
“You can give me later,” he says, a smile in his voice. “When we meet again.”
Yoo Joonghyuk blinks. “Okay,” he says breathlessly.
Kim Dokja brings up a hand in a half wave. “Bye, Joonghyuk-ah,” he sings. “See you whenever.”
Yoo Joonghyuk doesn't respond. His heart is in his throat. He’s sure if he opened his mouth in this moment, all that would spill out are sonnets and poems and fuck all. He bites his tongue and tries to control his flood of emotions.
Kim Dokja keeps walking until he’s nothing more than a blur in the distance. Yoo Joonghyuk would know; his eyes didn't stray from him once. He was physically unable to.
He finds a swing to sit on. It’s wet but everything about Yoo Joonghyuk is wet so he doesn't care. The umbrella is still in his hands and he stares at it for a second before groaning into his free hand.
He’s fucked. He’s screwed. Han Sooyoung will never let him live this down.
There’s a flush on his neck that's from the cold and the smile on his face is everything but false.
Maybe we’ll meet again , he’d said.
Maybe indeed.