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Kim Dokja had long since accepted that Yoo Joonghyuk was impossible to understand.
It was a simple truth of the universe, comparable to scenarios being unfair or constellations being annoying. Yoo Joonghyuk existed slightly adjacent to ordinary human behavior.
He was efficient, violent, emotionally constipated, and operated according to internal logic nobody else seemed capable of deciphering.
That was exactly why Han Sooyoung’s comment made absolutely no sense.
“You know he only does that with you, right?”
Dokja looked up from the bandage wrapped around his palm. “Does what?”
Han Sooyoung stared at him with open disbelief.
They were resting in the remains of a collapsed office building after clearing a minor scenario. Lee Hyunsung was reinforcing barricades near the entrance while Jung Heewon argued with Lee Jihye over the distribution of coins. Yoo Joonghyuk stood several meters away, cleaning blood from his sword with mechanical precision.
Han Sooyoung jerked her chin towards him. “That.”
“That explains nothing.”
“He’s been watching you for the past ten minutes.”
Dokja glanced over automatically.
Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes met his immediately. There was no visible change in expression before he looked away again.
Dokja frowned. “I think you’re imagining things.”
“I’m really not.”
“He looks at everyone like that.”
“No,” Han Sooyoung said. “He looks at monsters like that. You get the premium version.”
Dokja snorted and returned to wrapping the bandage tighter around his hand. The cut wasn’t deep, but it stretched awkwardly across his palm, making movement irritating. He had barely finished tying it when another roll of clean bandages landed in his lap.
Dokja blinked.
Yoo Joonghyuk had crossed the room without him noticing.
“Use those instead,” he said. “The others are dirty.”
Dokja stared at the unopened bundle. “These are expensive.”
“You have low poison resistance.”
“That has nothing to do with-”
“Use them.'
Then Yoo Joonghyuk walked away before the argument could continue.
Han Sooyoung made a strangled noise beside him. “You see what I mean?”
Dokja looked down at the bandages again. “This is just practicality.”
“Kim Dokja,” she said slowly, “I need you to understand that Yoo Joonghyuk would let most people develop sepsis without blinking.”
“That’s not true.”
Han Sooyoung pointed towards the far side of the room.
Lee Gilyoung was attempting to disinfect a scrape on Shin Yoosung’s knee while she complained loudly about the sting. Neither of them appeared remotely concerned about cleanliness.
Dokja opened his mouth, then closed it again.
“That’s different,” he settled on weakly.
Han Sooyoung laughed directly in his face.
The matter should have ended there.
Dokja had survived this long by understanding Yoo Joonghyuk better than anyone else. He knew the man’s fighting patterns, his habits, the subtle shifts in expression that preceded violence. He knew which provocations would be ignored and which would earn immediate retaliation. He knew Yoo Joonghyuk trusted competence above all else.
The others simply lacked context.
Unfortunately, once the idea had been planted, Dokja kept noticing things.
It started small.
A day later, Lee Jihye asked Yoo Joonghyuk for a recovery item after exhausting herself during training.
“No.”
“Master, come on.”
“You wasted your stamina.”
“It’s called improving my skills.”
“It’s called being reckless.”
Lee Jihye groaned dramatically while Yoo Joonghyuk ignored her completely.
Dokja barely paid attention until later that evening, when he mentioned offhandedly that his own stamina recovery was slower than expected after using Bookmark too many times.
Yoo Joonghyuk immediately pulled a recovery elixir from his inventory and handed it over.
Dokja stared at it.
Across the campfire, Lee Jihye stared too.
“You literally just told me no.”
“You overextend yourself constantly,” Yoo Joonghyuk replied.
“And he doesn’t?”
“That’s different.”
Lee Jihye looked personally offended. “How?”
Yoo Joonghyuk didn’t answer.
Dokja accepted the elixir mostly because refusing it would somehow turn into an argument. Still, he could feel Lee Jihye’s gaze burning holes into the side of his face for the next ten minutes.
“You’re making weird expressions,” he muttered eventually.
“You’re hopeless,” she informed him with an eyeroll.
The scenario three days later involved clearing a nest of venomous insect-type monsters in the underground tunnels beneath Chungmuro Station.
The tunnels were narrow enough to force them into pairs.
Yoo Joonghyuk immediately said, “Kim Dokja. With me.”
Han Sooyoung raised an eyebrow. “You’re not even pretending anymore.”
Dokja ignored her.
The fighting itself went smoothly at first. The insects were individually weak, relying more on numbers and venom than physical strength. Yoo Joonghyuk cut through them with brutal efficiency while Dokja handled support and prediction.
Then one of the monsters slipped past Yoo Joonghyuk’s blind spot.
Dokja twisted sideways on instinct, but the creature’s claws still caught his shoulder.
The pain an ordinary incarnation would have felt was immediately numbed by the Fourth Wall, followed by a system notification.
Before he could even react properly, Yoo Joonghyuk’s sword came down hard enough to split both the insect and the concrete beneath it.
The tunnel shook.
Dokja blinked at the ruined corpse.
“That seemed excessive.”
“You were distracted.”
“It barely hit me.”
Blood soaked steadily through the torn fabric near his shoulder.
Yoo Joonghyuk’s expression darkened immediately.
“You’re poisoned.”
“I have resistance.”
“Not immunity.”
The response came too quickly, edged with irritation sharp enough that Dokja paused.
Yoo Joonghyuk stepped closer before he could answer, gripping Dokja’s chin abruptly and turning his face towards the dim tunnel light.
Dokja froze.
“What are you doing?”
“Your pupils are dilated.”
“That sentence sounds insane.”
“You’re sweating.”
“We’re underground fighting giant insects.”
Yoo Joonghyuk clicked his tongue in obvious annoyance before pulling an antidote from his inventory and shoving it into Dokja’s hands.
Dokja accepted it automatically.
Only after Yoo Joonghyuk turned away to continue down the tunnel did he realize how quiet everything had become.
Han Sooyoung, who had apparently doubled back after hearing the noise, looked like she was seconds away from collapsing from laughter.
Jung Heewon wasn’t much better.
He glared at them.
“What?” Dokja demanded.
Han Sooyoung pressed a hand against her face. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”
“He practically checked your temperature.”
“He was checking for poison symptoms.”
“Mhmm.”
Dokja scowled at her smug expresion and drank the antidote.
Still, the unease lingered.
Because Han Sooyoung was being ridiculous, obviously.
But Yoo Joonghyuk had reacted strangely.
The injury itself wasn’t serious. Everyone in their group had suffered worse dozens of times already. Jung Heewon once fought for nearly twenty minutes with a fractured arm before anybody noticed. Lee Hyunsung regularly treated stab wounds like mild inconveniences.
Yet Yoo Joonghyuk had looked at Dokja’s shoulder as though the situation required immediate elimination.
Dokja disliked thinking about it.
The actual problem began a week later.
The scenario boss was enormous, vaguely reptilian, and deeply irritating.
It also nearly crushed Lee Hyunsung.
The attack happened too fast to fully avoid. One moment Hyunsung was blocking the creature’s tail, the next he was thrown hard enough into the station wall to crack concrete on impact.
“Hyunsung-ssi!”
Jung Heewon moved first, immediately dropping beside him while the others closed formation around them.
Dokja glanced towards Yoo Joonghyuk automatically.
Yoo Joonghyuk looked calm.
Focused, certainly. His sword strikes grew cleaner, sharper, every movement optimized toward ending the fight quickly. He adjusted their formation without hesitation, covering the opening left by Hyunsung’s injury while Jung Heewon checked the damage.
Efficient. Controlled. Exactly what Dokja expected.
Then the monster lunged unexpectedly toward the rear line.
Towards Dokja.
He managed to evade the worst of it, but claws ripped across his side as he twisted away. The pain was numbed by the Fourth Wall, followed shortly by Yoo Joonghyuk appearing in front of him.
The pressure flooding the station shifted violently.
“Kneel.”
Even the constellation messages paused.
Yoo Joonghyuk’s expression remained technically composed, but something in his voice had gone dangerously flat.
The monster hesitated.
That hesitation lasted less than a second.
Then Yoo Joonghyuk cut it apart.
Not killed. Absolutely destroyed. Flesh, scales, and concrete exploded outward beneath the force of the strike.
Silence followed.
Dokja stared.
Bits of monster rained onto the platform.
Yoo Joonghyuk turned immediately. “Where.”
Dokja blinked. “What?”
“The injury.”
“It’s fine.”
“Show me.”
“I said-”
Yoo Joonghyuk grabbed the edge of Dokja’s coat and shoved the torn fabric aside before he could finish.
The claw marks across his ribs weren’t deep, but blood spread steadily through the damaged layers beneath.
Yoo Joonghyuk’s jaw tightened.
Across the station, Lee Hyunsung was still injured. Jung Heewon remained crouched beside him applying bandages.
And suddenly Dokja understood what had been bothering him.
It wasn’t that Yoo Joonghyuk cared when people got hurt. Of course he cared, in his own way.
He wouldn’t have fought beside them otherwise.
But the reactions weren’t the same.
With Hyunsung, Yoo Joonghyuk became sharper. More efficient.
With Dokja-
Something else slipped through the cracks. Something quicker and rougher around the edges.
Yoo Joonghyuk was still inspecting the wound with visible irritation. “Why didn’t you dodge properly?”
“I did dodge properly.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“That tends to happen when something cuts you.”
“You should’ve retreated immediately.”
Dokja stared at him.
Yoo Joonghyuk frowned slightly. “What.”
Around them, the others had gone suspiciously silent.
Han Sooyoung looked unbearable.
Dokja suddenly felt like he was missing part of a conversation everyone else had already finished weeks ago.
Slowly, Yoo Joonghyuk released his grip on Dokja’s coat.
The moment stretched strangely. Then, Yoo Joonghyuk said, quieter this time, “Use a recovery item before the poison spreads.”
Dokja nodded automatically.
For some reason, Yoo Joonghyuk lingered for another second before stepping back.
Only after he turned away did Dokja realize something else.
Yoo Joonghyuk had checked Hyunsung’s condition exactly once after the fight.
He had checked Dokja’s four times already.
The next few days became deeply unpleasant for entirely personal reasons.
Once Dokja noticed the difference, he couldn’t stop noticing it.
Yoo Joonghyuk always looked for him first after battles.
During group discussions, his attention shifted towards Dokja automatically whenever he spoke, regardless of who else had been talking beforehand.
He adjusted pace without thinking whenever Dokja lagged slightly behind the group. He noticed injuries too quickly. He noticed exhaustion too quickly.
At one point Dokja woke up during a night watch rotation to find Yoo Joonghyuk silently draping his coat over him before the temperature dropped further.
When confronted the next morning, Yoo Joonghyuk simply said, “You were cold.”
As though that explained anything.
Maybe it did.
That was the problem.
None of the individual actions meant much on their own. Yoo Joonghyuk remained blunt, impatient, and violently unpleasant exactly as always. He still insulted Dokja’s self-sacrificial tendencies at every available opportunity. They still argued constantly.
Nothing had changed.
Except Dokja kept catching moments he previously hadn’t known to look for.
Tiny pauses. Quick glances. The immediate way Yoo Joonghyuk’s attention sharpened whenever Dokja spoke after being quiet too long.
It unsettled him more than overt affection would have.
Because Yoo Joonghyuk wasn’t trying to make these things visible.
Most of them seemed unconscious. Which meant they were honest.
The realization sat heavily in Dokja’s chest for reasons he didn’t want to examine too closely.
The final confirmation came during another scenario several days later.
The group had split temporarily while navigating a ruined shopping district. Dokja ended up separated longer than intended after triggering a hidden quest alone.
By the time he rejoined the others, dusk had already settled over the streets.
He spotted the group first. Yoo Joonghyuk spotted him faster.
The shift in posture was immediate. Sudden enough that Dokja noticed the release of tension leaving his shoulders from half a block away.
“You’re late,” Yoo Joonghyuk said once Dokja approached.
“There was a hidden scenario.”
“You should’ve informed us first.”
“You make it sound like I disappeared for three days.”
Yoo Joonghyuk stepped closer before Dokja finished speaking.
His gaze moved rapidly over Dokja’s condition with practiced precision, eyeing bloodstains, posture, breathing, and visible injuries.
Checking.
Only after apparently deciding Dokja was intact did some invisible tightness ease from his expression.
Dokja looked at him quietly.
Yoo Joonghyuk frowned. “What.”
For once, Dokja didn’t answer immediately.
And suddenly Han Sooyoung’s comments, Lee Jihye’s exasperation, the formation changes, the constant attention, all of it aligned into something impossible to misinterpret.
Yoo Joonghyuk had never been difficult to read.
Kim Dokja had simply never realized he was supposed to be reading him at all.