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Space is weightless and cold. And space is unforgiving as the universe stretches too far from the horizon to see and to expand, and expand, and expand. Nothing eternally survives in its stillness and chaos. Yoo Joonghyuk can tell the tale of many many stars and celestial bodies that have come and gone by. He was a rarefaction of matter after all.
On the edge of nothingness, Yoo Joonghyuk resides alone. Through and through eons, he sees the repeated birth of life and its inevitable death. The bright explosion of colors bleeding in the void of space when a star burns so bright it dies is one of the forms of entertainment he observes (it's not like he can do anything else).
As someone who has only brought chaos to natural cosmicity, he has grown numb of finding things that have given him warmth enough to think there is hope. He was the harbinger of destruction and greed, swallowing everything that went his way. Space is cold, and when you do nothing but destroy the things that reach you, there is only futility.
Until there isn't and Yoo Joonghyuk feels a tug on his arm and suddenly he isn't alone. If he hadn't looked close enough, he might have missed the mildly massive planet that almost entered his orbit. It beams at him as his gasses emit a warmth that Yoo Joonghyuk had forgotten long ago. He tries to inspect it and when he stared too long the planet only stared back.
"Gone rogue?" He asks and the planet turns to him with his colorful swirling bands of green, violet, and blue that ornament his surface.
"Maybe. But I'm on a journey for… something," He grins, and when he did Yoo Joonghyuk swears he saw the universe wink at him.
"What something?"
"Oh, I'll figure it out soon." The planet sways and sways and Yoo Joonghyuk watches in awe as he sees the colorful bands in his surface swirl like a gas spill in the puddle or something more interesting like the reflection of the bidding sun in the horizon of the ocean, not that Yoo Joonghyuk knows either.
“So… How are you, Yoo Joonghyuk?” His words get dragged across space and into the black hole’s earshot, and he looks up to glare at him.
“How do you know my name?” He tries to seethe, but honestly it was the lack of socialization that made him press the wrong reply button, a blunder perhaps.
"I just heard.” He shrugs, “I’m Kim Dokja by the way," he simply adds and Yoo Joonghyuk almost hitches his breath, he knows his reputation wasn’t good but there was a tinge of anticipation in his belly that hopes Kim Dokja knows something good about him or so something warm like the summer morning. He doesn’t even know why he should care.
"Is that why you're here?"
"Not really. I just happened to pass by and you look like you need a companion."
"I don't."
"Uh-huh." And then he was gone.
Yoo Joonghyuk knows that space is cold, but it was colder without Kim Dokja now.
-------
The clock isn't a universal object that exists in space and as it isn't, Yoo Joonghyuk doesn't know how to tell the time. It’s not that he needs to as he didn’t follow any structure. He sees suspended rocks in space gone by, stars bursting to their death, and neutrons that Yoo Joonghyuk has absorbed thereafter. He was one of the most rewarded of the celestial bodies, as everything was almost nutriment for him. But as he swallows stars and planets, he only feels utter emptiness.
As time passed by, or as nothing does, he only observes the newly formed nebula that's splattered and bled with colors on the far edge opposite where he sits. Waiting for its remnants to either disperse or reach him, he looks at its greens and violets but even if they shine so bright it doesn't compare to the ones he saw before. The ones scattered across the rogue planet he briefly talked to.
He almost doesn't notice this but a swift movement passes his sight, and as he follows the trail of gasses it leads to a mildly massive planet adorned with several trinkets.
He blinks in disbelief, "Kim Dokja?"
"You remembered?"
There was a glow in his eyes brighter than the stars when Yoo Joonghyuk called his name, and when he did Kim Dokja only smiled. The smile the void knows all too well. Ah, of course, he remembers.
"You look a little different."
"Yeah, I brought these for you, look." He turns, showing off the planetoids orbiting him, some of them looked a bit misshapen but they looked too good on Kim Dokja.
"For me?" As Yoo Joonghyuk asks, the planet only tosses the satellites that used to follow him towards Yoo Joonghyuk briskly, and when it reaches Yoo Joonghyuk's orbit he only stares, "What are they?"
"Moons I acquired while traveling," Kim Dokja hums, and he looks at Yoo Joonghyuk with wonder as if he wants to probe into his mysteries.
They watch as the several moons enter Yoo Joonghyuk's event horizon, and when they do the glow and sparkle they reflected onto Kim Dokja's cheeks fade into nothingness. When it got too close, the black hole could only indulge in what was once a part of Kim Dokja, it wasn't warm like the planet but he felt all of it until it was gone. Yoo Joonghyuk almost gets nervous, as he can't stop the horror of absorbing the lights out of life with Kim Dokja as a witness. He watched such horror nearly unimaginable for someone like him, but when Yoo Joonghyuk looked up he only met the same sparkly eyes with no hint of disgust or fear.
"How was it?" He beams such radiance unfamiliar to Yoo Joonghyuk and he almost wanted to revel in it closer. Closer. Closer. Closer.
He doesn't say anything about wanting to be close instead he nods lightly and tilts his head, "Is that all?"
"Why? Do you need a companion now?"
Yoo Joonghyuk wished he said yes but then only whispered a small, "No, but the moons were beautiful."
Kim Dokja accepts the answer half-heartedly, shrugging the conversation off about how each of the moons was home to different galaxies. Until there weren't any more stories to tell and Kim Dokja bids his farewell. Yoo Joonghyuk's darkness burned a little stronger when he saw Kim Dokja drift away yet again.
---
There's no knowing how long the black hole has been alone. Yoo Joonghyuk is used to this, but now when he sees shooting stars, he tries to pray for something. The oldest existence of destruction may have learned the desperation of calling to the void as the burning pain claws out of his chest. And as he continues to grow across the vast emptiness of the universe so does his isolation. He didn't know this was the pain of waiting. He tries to reach for the stars but they only get swallowed under his black tide. The blazing fires weren't similar to the remnants- the gifts- of Kim Dokja.
Eternities went and when it did, his darkness only grows.
"Hi, Yoo Joonghyuk."
The black hole almost lost balance as he looked up to the space which was usually void of any life being occupied by a visitor once again. Kim Dokja looked beautiful as he always did. As Yoo Joonghyuk always remembered. But now he looks so much smaller. The atmospheric loss taking a toll on their proximity, and his swirling bands of color are much paler than before.
"What happened to you?" The hoarseness of his voice reverberated through Kim Dokja's shell. Such a voice he hadn't used for eons as he had no one.
He had this small grin, albeit something very different in his eyes, Yoo Joonghyuk hopes it was just because Kim Dokja missed him, "I got a typhoon, it's been a pain in the ass."
"I see..." His mouth left to gape. His eyes try to search for anything wrong with his gorgeous visitor, "I can't really see it."
"Do you want me to come closer?"
Kim Dokja ambles forward, and when he does Yoo Joonghyuk almost feels his heat. He doesn't know if it was the smell of land, clay, or air but his mind twists into mush. He sees the specters of loam spread on Kim Dokja's surface as if freckles to the planet, and the mildly horrifying spiral of red and grey in his south hemisphere, which Yoo Joonghyuk assumed was the typhoon. He was almost too close, Yoo Joonghyuk would've wanted to reach him out to pull him for a kiss or a hug, or really any sort of contact at all. But Kim Dokja just sways forward and back, the lingering thought of wanting to get close to him stops as he sees the planet being drained by their further closeness.
He didn't know if it was shock or fear but a shiver ran down Yoo Joonghyuk's spine. He tries to shrug it off and let himself be carried away by Kim Dokja's shit-eating grin as if he just didn't put himself in inherent danger.
Yoo Joonghyuk musters a small, "Are you flirting with me?"
"Maybe I am- Agh!" It happened so suddenly and Yoo Joonghyuk only watches as Kim Dokja's face contorts with a yelp asking for help, or a hand. Both of which he can’t offer. He had never seen the planet look grim or in pain and when he did it felt like it was crumbling him away.
"Is it because of me?" He tries to ask, it might have been selfish as he was only asking for himself. He couldn’t even help him, he just wanted to know that it wasn’t him causing Kim Dokja pain.
"It's not you, Joonghyuk." He whips his body to turn his back at him. Graceful like the dancing constellations that used to be around, "I'd be back."
Yoo Joonghyuk hoped it wouldn't take him long.
---
After a short while, when the grandness of space has made Yoo Joonghyuk sick of himself he only sees Kim Dokja and his frail-looking frame. He was back, and god was it freeing to see his elated smile.
"How's your journey for something so far?"
"Nothing more interesting than you in this godforsaken pla- Ah!" He yelped; the sudden growl was blood-curdling enough for Yoo Joonghyuk to become worried.
"What's wrong, Kim Dokja?"
"Yea- Ah! Mm. I think I can't feel any more of my southern hemisphere," He tries to bite back the ache slashing his torso, covering it with a faint smile.
"Is it the typhoon?" Yoo Joonghyuk only stands so far away, he wanted to tell him 'I'm here. Don't worry now, Kim Dokja. Please come close, come close, come close...' He doesn't say anything. Yoo Joonghyuk continues to stare.
"I really don't know. It could be the meteors for all I care," He snickers, the fear washing all over him coated with a small snarky remark, "Fucking Kuiper belt."
"You should be more careful"
"Not really my thing."
"What's your… thing then?"
"Whatever sparks joy." He hums, wisping his clouds to go away, Yoo Joonghyuk only wants to see his freckles up close again.
"You should be more careful to experience more joy," The black hole only utters, his nimble tides squeezed in to make himself less massive.
Kim Dokja's eyes glow. In his hundreds of light years of wandering in space, he never had someone like Yoo Joonghyuk to look after him or talk to him. He looks at such darkness gently, hoping he can indulge in it himself.
"Can't help all of this if I'm starless, y'know"
Kim Dokja continued to babble about so many different things, in between gasping for air and faintly yelping. His explorations in the asteroid belt, his pains, his accidents with stars, observing human explorations, and searching and searching until he finds Yoo Joonghyuk again. He rambles about the constellations overhead of the black hole. Telling their tale of wars and passion and love. Kim Dokja learned all of this in his adventures, he was taught almost everything Yoo Joonghyuk didn't know. The black hole had only been known to destroy. He didn't know history, laughter, and the tenderness of it all. Kim Dokja has passed it all onto him. When he heard all the tales Kim Dokja had to tell, he had forgotten about the pain of waiting.
Kim Dokja bats his eyes to Yoo Joonghyuk when he finishes up his story. The myriads of color in the planet's eyes had entranced him in a way he couldn't let go, "Yoo Joonghyuk? Are you listening?"
"Mhm, sure." He sputters and he tries to come back for air, for stillness, for calm. Kim Dokja looks at him with his unknowing eyes.
"I'm just starting to get scared– No... I– I've been scared since."
"Wh– What?"
"I've gone rogue for eons, and I'm starting to feel that it's taking a toll on me. This might sound dumb to you but… I had seen so many things, Yoo Joonghyuk. I wish you were with me then..." Kim Dokja trembles and he sways back as he did, he is so much farther away now than he was and his surface is almost covered with clouds, his land unseen. "I'm glad I could tell you all of this, you know... But if I hadn't been attentive... I might've died the last time I was in the Kuiper belt. I can also feel it, Yoo Joonghyuk... My core– it's almost like it's strangling me whenever it shakes too much... I... I don't understand."
Yoo Joonghyuk doesn't know what to do. It may have been the tears– sea level –rumbling in his ears as it seeped out of Kim Dokja's shaking voice. He couldn't understand what he could do for the planet. The pale swirling bands have looked like a pressurized rope wringing on Kim Dokja and suffocating him rather than an ornament.
"To be very honest, I got so scared when I got a typhoon and it hurt whenever I try to travel. I didn't want to leave last time– I'd never want to leave you without reason– but when... You know, when I saw your eyes when I reacted… You looked horrified...” His voice becomes smaller and smaller.
“I didn't want to see it. I'm so sorry, Yoo Joonghyuk. I don't know. I– I don't even know what I'm talking about now. Ah..."
He sees the very moment the bright and snarky facade of the planet slip out of him. As Kim Dokja swung steps closer to him, Yoo Joonghyuk saw his lips were paler than before, and the peeking soil was wilting away. There was nothing but fear in both of their minds. Fear of loss for the devourer of lights and the fear of defeat for the unbound planet. Their fates have been written longer than they have met. Yoo Joonghyuk knows this, he of all celestial bodies knows this too well. In the unforgiving space, there is only life and death, and the Yoo Joonghyuk can only give one.
"What are you trying to say, Kim Dokja? You can go now and be back when you can, do whatever you want– Do whatever sparks joy."
"You know, Yoo Joonghyuk. I've forgotten where I'm from... I did so much searching to find my home again, my orbit, my sta– Ah!" Yoo Joonghyuk can only look as Kim Dokja bites his lips and force the words out of his mouth, "All the stars and suns and galaxies I've visited... God, they were nothing like home. They were nothing like this– Like you."
Yoo Joonghyuk tries to pick every word that the planet has let go. It was scattered across the space and it expanded and squeezed and pushed itself to his brain. There was always and forever, an urge inside of him to just shut down and deaden himself. Because his existence was pointless for himself, he didn’t want anything. He couldn't do anything, or so he didn't want to do anything.
"There's nothing here for you, Kim Dokja. You know that. "
"You're here," He tried to wipe away the storm that boiled in his belly, but it only rumbled hard and reverberated enough to reach Yoo Joonghyuk's orbit. The pain in Kim Dokja's eyes and its beaten land had pricked Yoo Joonghyuk like the thousand suns.
"Kim Dokja, you know what I do. I can't help even if I want to-"
"Do me a favor and kiss me, Yoo Joonghyuk." Kim Dokja looks at him with pained eager eyes.
"Kim Dokja, wha-"
"Please, Joonghyuk. Kiss me."
He looks at him with with wide eyes. In their meeting, Yoo Joonghyuk had never ever driven him away. Kim Dokja was his brightest light. Brighter than the neutron stars that he had seen. It was too selfish of him to keep him by his side as he withered away. The black hole squeezes on his arms and presses it hard, he wants to be small, to be nothing sort of destructive.
"I know this is such a big favor... It hurts, Yoo Joonghyuk. Please. It hurts. I'd be drowning in my own blood soon, I know... I don't want it– Please, just kiss me, Yoo Joonghyuk." He laments as his land tears up. Yoo Joonghyuk had never seen his beautiful visitor be bequeathed in so much ache he was nearly unrecognizable.
"Kim Dokja, you don't understand." He almost cries. Oh, how he wanted to do it, but he knew what would happen, and he knew it wasn't good. Kim Dokja's pleas only clawed on his chest, again, and again, and again.
"Joonghyuk, I do and I can die happy if it's you." Kim Dokja steps forward, trembling, and when Yoo Joonghyuk feels the heat that he had always yearned for;
He obliges. He was too lost in his own head but he obliged. The light of his life had begged for him to ease his pain, to make it all disappear, and Yoo Joonghyuk was the best at making things disappear to leave Kim Dokja suffering pointlessly.
When Kim Dokja slips into Yoo Joonghyuk's orbit, his slender arms were there to catch him. Kim Dokja was everything Yoo Joonghyuk had imagined in the last passing eons. He was light, but he fit in his arms better than anything before. He sees the planet's eyes closer than he ever did in the past, it was full of bright colors and hope. He had a small smile that mouthed the words, Thank you. And Yoo Joonghyuk closes their distance to kiss him hard.
Yoo Joonghyuk tasted the salt on his lips. In this very fleeting moment of their first, and very last kiss he pulled the young planet closer to his body, and his warmth enveloped him harder than any sun could. The black hole could feel the tremor of his land, and the planet could feel his coldness eating him away and draining the warmth of his body. Kim Dokja's lips ghosted Yoo Joonghyuk's, and he saw the ground slowly slipping away. His seas flood his whole torso, and he coughs for salvation.
Yoo Joonghyuk tries to cup Kim Dokja's cheeks, trying to hold onto the moment they are both afraid of losing. There is only death in his hands. And when someone like Yoo Joonghyuk is adorned in a manner that yearns for warmth and closeness, its end is only met with the cold hard reality of inevitable death. The void looks deeply into the eyes of the planet, and it was everything until it was not. It was a haunting sight, the deep colorful eyes Yoo Joonghyuk had always stared at had looked pale and lifeless and cold. He was everything and nothing as he stretches and decompresses until Kim Dokja fades into nothingness.
It happened too slow enough to make him feel horrible for a lifetime, and it happened too fast that he wasn’t there anymore.
In an instant, everything that Yoo Joonghyuk have known was gone. A planet's only destiny is decay, and Yoo Joonghyuk had wondered if that was all Kim Dokja was doing for the rest of his time, finding things that may be worth it until he died, until he found him. Yoo Joonghyuk tried to curl on himself, but it was nothing compared to the heavy pressure and warmth of Kim Dokja's body against his. The great giant black hole was back to square one. It was easy for him to be alone as he knew nothing else, but he knew Kim Dokja and his tales, and his warmth, and the wonders of his stars that he did nothing but kill.
Yoo Joonghyuk wishes he could eat himself away.