Work Text:
Each soul embodies a season: winter, summer, spring, and autumn. Here is the fable of a soul who holds the stories of winter in its grasp.
Winter is the loneliest season. The sun says a warm good night early, the leaves have bid adieu, and the animals that find their abode atop the breathtaking earth hide within the confines of their burrows for the winter. Spring, Summer, and Autumn all find themselves surrounded and loved by nature: the chirping of birds early in the morning, the humming of cicadas in the dusk of night, and the yips of foxes in the lofty afternoon. Winter lives day after day, year after year, without experiencing the jubillance of nature that blesses the other seasons.
Yoo Joonghyuk holds the soul of winter as the incarnation of the Winter Solstice. Although the winter solstice determines the seasons of the year, an existence that acts as a worldly law, it is the one day of the entire year where the sun is at its lowest and loneliest point. That is the life of a regressor. It is a life that is forsaken, an existence who dictates the pacing of the universe itself but an existence who cannot find comfort within such; an existence who wanders endlessly as the star the universe watches as a savior, but a lone star who bears the weight of the universe itself on its shoulders.
However, past the veneer of winter blizzards lie an unmistakable fondness, tenderness, and vulnerability, protected by the icy facade, facade of a realist to protect the idealist. Winter hidden from the public eye is the sound of pianissimo that can be heard past winter’s fortissimo. Winter brings tenderness saved for one pair of eyes only. Winter is the season reserved for the vulnerable touches, the vulnerable gazes, the vulnerable love. Winter is the season that brings the opportunity to bask in only each other’s presence, bodies cuddled up with one another to protect themselves from the cold: an assurance they are real, they are there, and they are loved. After all, winter is the season where the earth stills, and not a single sound can be heard when dusk blankets the sky. Winter is the sound of dolce. A sweet, gentle, and quiet love.
The man who embodies winter is a man of little words, whose gaze is as icy as the cold winter winds itself. A man so lonely that no words can convey how he feels and how he thinks. So, he becomes a man of action.
After all, true love is felt, not heard.
That is why, with his star, Kim Dokja, he cooks, because he cares for Kim Dokja’s well being. That is why, with his star, Yoo Joonghyuk deals with Kim Dokja’s idiotic actions, but always listens and cooperates with his plans. That is why, with his star, he searched endlessly for three years, despite having little to no evidence that the star he cherishes still glimmers in the night sky. It is the action with the intent always being Kim Dokja. For him not to hear, but to feel that he is wanted. To not hear, but feel that he is loved. Yoo Joonghyuk loves like a tenuto, consciously and meticulously acting with love in each and every action, fully and wholeheartedly.
Kim Dokja is worth counting every star in the sky, because Kim Dokja is worth walking one continuous, unbroken path, that is why the soul of winter lets himself love, to indulge in his vulnerable side, and allows himself to continue being an idealist. Because with Kim Dokja, it feels as if his burden of being the Winter Solstice is less lonely. That there is another to bear the weight of the world's sins.