He woke up a lot more comfortable and cosy than he usually felt.
It took him some time to realise that the hot air he was feeling on his neck was unnatural.
His eyes snapped open and Yoo Joonghyuk tried to make sense of things.
When he saw Kim Dokja pressed to his chest, his arms caging the younger man in, Yoo Joonghyuk's first thought was to jump out of bed. Then he figured it would startle Kim Dokja awake.
He should find a way to slip out without alerting Kim Dokja.
It was turning out to be a tougher task than he had expected.
They had done this before when they first met, but at that time things weren't as awkward as he found it now. It was probably because he had grown a lot closer to Kim Dokja now.
Yoo Joonghyuk somehow managed to shimmy his way out of bed without waking Kim Dokja up. The something that had been digging painfully into his hip turned out to be his belt and Yoo Joonghyuk wondered what the hell he was thinking when he went to bed like this.
He navigated his way around the room as quietly as possible, getting a change of clothes and then heading to the bathroom to freshen up.
When he walked out of the bathroom, he found his bed empty.
That was a little disappointing. He didn't spend all that time in the shower mentally preparing himself for various scenarios where he would have to face Kim Dokja for no reason.
Walking out of his room, he found Kim Dokja in the living room, already dressed to leave, clearing up the mess they had made last night.
"Joonghyuk-ssi, good morning," Kim Dokja said when he spotted him, shot glasses gathered in his hand.
"Good morning, Dokja-ssi," Yoo Joonghyuk nodded. "You could've let it be."
"It's nothing," Kim Dokja said pleasantly. "Besides, I did contribute to creating this. It's only right that I help with the cleanup."
"Stay for breakfast," Yoo Joonghyuk made his way towards Kim Dokja, joining in to help Kim Dokja with the cleaning.
"I'll bother you for longer then, Joonghyuk-ssi," Kim Dokja said as Yoo Joonghyuk unplugged the karaoke machine and pushed it into the corner it usually occupied.
"Uriel Noona's still sleeping, I didn't want to wake her up, is that alright?" Kim Dokja said.
Yoo Joonghyuk nodded.
"Great. She's sleeping very peacefully," Kim Dokja had a little smile on his face as he picked up the bowls of chips, peanuts and other snacks and piled them into each other before taking them to the kitchen.
How did they even create such a mess, seriously? Holding in a sigh, Yoo Joonghyuk went to fetch the broom.
"Throw the rest away," Yoo Joonghyuk said when he passed by Kim Dokja in the kitchen on his way to get the cleaning broom and the dustpan. "It's probably cold and soggy now anyway."
"Ah, if you say so," Kim Dokja said and put the bowl of chips away. "I think we should store the peanuts though."
Yoo Joonghyuk would have usually just chucked them all in the bin, but since Kim Dokja was saying that. . .
"I have a few empty glass jars up there," he pointed to an overhead cupboard. "You can use them."
"Thanks, Joonghyuk-ssi," Kim Dokja chimed and sauntered across the kitchen. He reached out and opened the cupboard, pulling down the first glass jar he got his hands on.
Yoo Joonghyuk left him to it. He had to clean his living room and rid it of all the crumbs scattered over the table, the floor and the sofa.
Even as he was sweeping the floor, he heard the tap running in the kitchen. Kim Dokja was probably doing the dishes.
Kim Dokja was needlessly polite. He must have been a delight for the adults to have over, he was the kind to be considered a good role model through and through.
Yoo Joonghyuk's imagination about what an adorable child Kim Dokja would have been was ruined when he remembered what had happened in Kim Dokja's childhood.
He put his focus on cleaning his floor.
The water stopped running in the kitchen and soft footsteps headed his way. Kim Dokja joined him soon enough with a wet sponge cloth to wipe down the coffee table in front of the sofa and rid it of the spilt alcohol and snack crumbs.
"I forgot to tell you, but thank you for getting me to bed, Joonghyuk-ssi," Kim Dokja said getting his attention.
"Don't mention it," Yoo Joonghyuk said, watching Kim Dokja bend his knees to be able to clean the table comfortably.
"I'm sorry if it bothered your rest. Next time you can just leave me on the sofa."
"Don't be ridiculous," Yoo Joonghyuk huffed. "It was no bother."
Yoo Joonghyuk wondered if he should just pretend that he hadn't ended up hugging Kim Dokja like a soft toy in his sleep, then he supposed he would have liked to be told if their positions were switched, so he opened his mouth again.
"You didn't bother my rest either," he said. "We slept on the same bed like last time. My bed is big enough for both of us."
"I know," Kim Dokja said calmly.
Yoo Joonghyuk looked away from the dustpan to watch Kim Dokja wipe down the edges of the coffee table.
"I woke up in the middle of the night sometime and it was too comfortable, so I ended up going back to sleep," he said sheepishly. "I wasn't really in the right state of mind to think to leave the room. I'm sorry."
Yoo Joonghyuk noticed that though Kim Dokja sounded very composed, his ears were red.
"It's not an issue," Yoo Joonghyuk said, watching the blush seep down the back of Kim Dokja's neck. "It's nothing strange. I don't mind. You don't have to apologize."
Kim Dokja chuckled awkwardly.
Uriel was still fast asleep even when Yoo Joonghyuk was done whipping up a quick, spicy soup and rice for breakfast.
Kim Dokja asked if he should go wake her up, Yoo Joonghyuk told him not to bother with it, so they sat down at the dining table and started eating by themselves.
"Do you have a hangover, Dokja-ssi?" Yoo Joonghyuk asked.
"It's not as bad as I expected," Kim Dokja said. "I think it's because we mostly had wine. . .It'll probably hit around the afternoon."
"Do you have work today?"
"Ah, no, I asked for a sick leave yesterday," Kim Dokja said. "I thought, if I pass, we'll probably drink too much and I'd end up oversleeping. And if I fail, we'd be drinking to cheer me up and I'd still end up oversleeping."
"You sure are well prepared," Yoo Joonghyuk said with an amused huff. "How did you ask for a sick leave without getting sick?"
"Well, I just pretended I was coming down with a fever while at work and said I'd most probably not make it, and my managers were kind enough to let me take the day off," Kim Dokja explained.
"Are you coming down with a fever?" Yoo Joonghyuk asked, just to make sure.
"I'm not," Kim Dokja looked like he was doing his best to resist rolling his eyes. "I'm in top conditions, Joonghyuk-ssi. . .Well, maybe not top condition, but I'm good."
"Please, take care of yourself, Dokja-ssi," Yoo Joonghyuk said sternly. "I'd hate to be called to the ER again—Does not mean you'll remove my number from your emergency dial."
"Is that clear?" Yoo Joonghyuk stressed at the lack of an answer from Kim Dokja.
Kim Dokja heaved a sigh and muttered, "Yes, sir."
"That reminds me, it's time for you to sign the contract you've been avoiding all this time," Yoo Joonghyuk continued.
"Ah, I think I have a headache now," Kim Dokja said, clutching his head dramatically.
Yoo Joonghyuk raised an eyebrow pointedly. "Seriously?"
"Don't you think you're rushing, Joonghyuk-ssi?" said Kim Dokja, lowering his hand.
"No," Yoo Joonghyuk said immediately. "It's been around nine months since I first asked you. I think I've been very patient about this. And also, you need to submit your resignations to your other jobs."
Kim Dokja made a quiet noise in the back of his throat that sounded a lot like a tired groan.
Kim Dokja insisted he would do the dishes again. Yoo Joonghyuk said he could always just use the dishwasher, but Kim Dokja thought it was ridiculous to run the appliance for just a few bowls.
Yoo Joonghyuk supposed that was true. It was just a few bowls, a pair of spoons and chopsticks.
He didn't find it appropriate to let the guest stand alone in the kitchen and work, but he had nothing to do either, so he found a sponge cloth and got to wiping the counter down, even though there was no need for it.
But there was a time limit to how much he could keep rubbing on the same spot without it being very awkward. So he put the rag away and asked, "Would you like some coffee, Dokja-ssi?"
"Yes, a coffee would be nice," Kim Dokja replied over the running of the tap as he rid their spoons of soap.
"I've always wanted to ask, did you like the coffee you ordered from the cafe I work at?" Kim Dokja asked. He had finished washing, drying and putting away the dishes and was watching Yoo Joonghyuk make their coffee.
"I didn't really find any issues with it," Yoo Joonghyuk said.
"Really?" said Kim Dokja. "You can put in comments, you know. You can let us know if you have a certain milk preference or how much sugar you would like."
"I'll keep that in mind," Yoo Joonghyuk said though he didn't think he would be doing that once Kim Dokja stopped working there.
He handed Kim Dokja his coffee mug and Kim Dokja took it with a soft thanks. They stood there in the kitchen, sipping on their hot coffee, talking about aimless things.
Once he was done with his coffee, Yoo Joonghyuk intercepted the coffee mug before Kim Dokja could get to the sink to wash that too.
He sent the man off, reminding him that he had to put in his resignation as soon as possible and to send him a text once he had done that.
All Kim Dokja had to do was send one word in the group chat—'Passed'. Congratulations rolled in within a couple of hours.
After that, he got to putting in his two-week notice as he was asked to do by Yoo Joonghyuk and he sent the man a text saying he'd done it. Now he had to wait for his managers to accept his resignation and get it processed.
He had no more cramming to do. It felt a little strange, but he could rest now.
His work was only going to increase, Kim Dokja was aware of that and he had mixed feelings about the whole thing. He was already mentally preparing himself for getting fired and his relationship with Yoo Joonghyuk getting ruined over it.
There was a reason why he never mixed work with his personal life. As much as he liked joking about being Han Sooyoung's editor, he wasn't, he was just a beta reader and she had a professional editor who did the job of an editor. Editors didn't just read and pick out typos, they had actual work to do.
Things change when money was involved. Luckily he hadn't taken it too far with Yoo Joonghyuk, both of them still had boundaries they hadn't crossed, and were cordial to each other. So even if Yoo Joonghyuk became his boss, things wouldn't be too bad or awkward among them.
In all honesty, Kim Dokja was expecting Yoo Joonghyuk to stop their karaoke sessions once he got Kim Dokja to work for him. It was a strange thing for a CEO to do with his subordinates. Even Uriel, his secretary and friend, didn't do any of that. Not until she started joining Kim Dokja and Yoo Joonghyuk.
He would miss those days though. It was pretty fun.
Kim Dokja ended up being a very replaceable employee because not a single place asked him for an explanation for his resignation or told him to reconsider it. He didn't have a huge issue with it though.
It had always been like this. He only ever put in resignations to small part-time jobs like these, he always got laid off or his contract ended with his full-time, white-collar jobs.
With nothing better to do, Kim Dokja stayed at home, trying to find some good web novels to read. He didn't find any, so he decided to give the long list that Yoo Sangah had sent him ages ago a try.
. . .Why were so many of them in English?
Reading English gave him a headache. He'd had enough learning for that test.
But hold on, if he had to do it for that test, it meant he would have to do it for the upcoming ones as well. Maybe he should take this opportunity to practice.
Practice? What practice? He was reading for entertainment, reading was a leisure activity, not studying.
. . .This was the exact mentality that got him stuck in the swamps while his friends ended up in better places.
Oh, well, fuck, who cares? He was just going to use a damn translator and read his fiction novels in peace. Fuck learning a new language. He had no interest in climbing the corporate ladder. Hell, he had no interest in living. He would rather have his peace of mind, thanks. He would rather take suffering at full force at the end, instead of suffering throughout the journey just to save some pain at the end.
But he thought of all the hopes Yoo Joonghyuk and Uriel had for him, he thought about how happy his friends were for him, cheering him on and celebrating when he passed a stupid certification that had nothing to do with them.
Kim Dokja groaned loudly and decided he'd put himself through the misery this once. Burn his eyes out with those damn English words and sentences and grammar.
His reading speed dropped drastically. The thing about English was that the word structuring to make a sentence grammatically sound was different from his native language and he had to compute that in his head. To comprehend what he was reading, he would have to find the Korean equivalent of the word in his head and it was a whole process, just understanding. And it was the absolute worst when the sentence was incredibly long, with tons of commas and complicated wordings.
He was incredibly tempted to just go find a Korean version of the book or use the translate function.
He wanted to go back to reading crappy web novels. Waaargh. . .
Ugh, he should have studied harder in school, damn it.
Yoo Joonghyuk and Uriel applauded him when he finally signed the contract with a grim face.
"Are you free this Sunday, Dokja-ssi?" Yoo Joonghyuk asked as Uriel snapped the folder with the official papers shut and skipped off happily.
Kim Dokja felt a looming sense of dread that he couldn't quite explain. He felt he would have to face a lot of headaches from now on.
"Sunday? Yes, I am," Kim Dokja answered. "Why do you ask?"
"We have to go shopping," Uriel said, returning to the living room after having deposited the folder in Yoo Joonghyuk's workroom.
"Shopping?" Kim Dokja said blankly.
Uriel nodded, taking her previous seat next to him. "A special gift for our Dokja," she said brightly.
Right, the clothes he had were pretty worn out.
"You don't have to," Kim Dokja started his attempt and failed, just as he had done all the other times.
Kim Dokja found himself sitting in the back seat of the car with Yoo Joonghyuk, and Uriel in the passenger's seat on Sunday morning, driving towards the departmental store.
Kim Dokja had started zoning out ages ago. This seemed like it was going to be a bit too much for him to take, mentally, so he was conserving his energy.
Did N'gai own departmental stores? He didn't remember. He wanted to do a quick search so that he could calculate how much impact he would have to take that day.
Yoo Joonghyuk glanced at him when he took his phone out, but Kim Dokja had enough years of sneaking around with his phone to do very discreet sleuthing.
He almost let out a sigh of relief when he saw that N'gai, thankfully did not manage the entire departmental store. It did do partnerships with a car company, and a pharmaceutical, but he didn't think he'd visit those places anyway.
Nice.
He scrolled up and exited the page quickly, putting his phone away.
"Joonghyuk-ssi," he spoke and Yoo Joonghyuk looked really glad that he had broken the silence between them. Awkward pauses really seemed to bother that man for some reason.
"Why are you the CEO and not the Chairman if you founded the company?" Kim Dokja asked.
"Because I made the mistake of starting it here," Yoo Joonghyuk said dryly. "They give too much emphasis to age here. I was in my early twenties when I started and not a lot of people wanted me in the position."
"It doesn't change much, however. The current Chairman is a figurehead, the administration is handled by me. I will naturally take the position when I become old enough and continue doing the same, just officially."
"Old enough . . .It's like giving a kid a phone," Kim Dokja said.
Uriel laughed from the front.
"It is pretty dumb," she agreed. "But people here in South Korea think they're going to lose all honour if they listen to someone younger than them. The mess they all kicked up to get Joonghyuk to take a few steps down the corporate ladder was horrendous. I almost quit and went back home. It gave me a headache for months."
"Wouldn't you have the same problem anywhere?" Kim Dokja asked.
"Depends," Yoo Joonghyuk explained. "It is possible if it is a large group. Being the owner works best and easiest when done for smaller establishments. Larger institutions are rarely held together by a single person. It's not manageable that way."
As Kim Dokja listened to Yoo Joonghyuk explain the why and hows, he thought that if Yoo Joonghyuk voiced over audiobooks, he would leave his web novels behind and switch to audiobooks just so that he could listen to his voice.
If Yoo Joonghyuk had done a voice-over for the English novels he was struggling to read, he would have zero complaints about suffering through it.
He sort of wanted to listen to Yoo Joonghyuk speak in English now.
Hey, it was not his fault, alright? Yoo Joonghyuk just had a deep, soothing voice. It was nice to listen to.
Kim Dokja could easily differentiate this Yoo Joonghyuk's voice from his Yoo Joonghyuk's now. Even though they sounded very similar, they weren't.
Besides, his Yoo Joonghyuk spoke a lot more casually to him. This Yoo Joonghyuk was mostly polite. And he spoke a lot more than his Yoo Joonghyuk. His Yoo Joonghyuk had this major tsundere thing going on and gave short, curt answers, on-point information, and no extra ramblings. And the sheer number of times he'd called Kim Dokja an idiot was something else.
"Are you zoning you, Dokja-ssi?" Yoo Joonghyuk said, his lips twitching in a tiny smirk.
"I'm not," Kim Dokja said truthfully.
Just because he was thinking about how nice Yoo Joonghyuk's voice sounded, didn't mean he wasn't paying attention. He was also listening and extracting information from what the man was actually saying. It was a little interesting, it was like strange business gossip.
"I'd say you were zoning out a little though," Kim Dokja said. "You've circled about the same thing for a while now."
Yoo Joonghyuk's eyes widened by the slightest fraction and he cleared his throat.
"I was trying to see if you were paying attention," the man said.
"And what did you find?" Kim Dokja said.
"I suppose you were listening after all."
"I was. It's pretty interesting."
"I see," Yoo Joonghyuk muttered. . .Were his ears a little red?
Kim Dokja heard Uriel snort from the front seat, and when he looked he saw that she was trying her best to keep her laughter in. Why was she laughing though? Did he say something stupid?
Parking the car in the underground parking lot, Uriel got out first. Kim Dokja didn't want to look like he was eager to get away and jump out of the car, so he waited until Yoo Joonghyuk made the move.
Kim Dokja checked if his phone hadn't fallen out of his pocket and opened the door on his side. Kim Dokja got out of the car and spotted that Yoo Joonghyuk was waiting next to the door on his side. . .like he was holding it open.
. . . ah. . .Though Yoo Joonghyuk's face didn't betray any emotion, Kim Dokja thought he looked a little disappointed.
Kim Dokja closed the car door shut and pretended he didn't notice anything. When Yoo Joonghyuk shut his door, it ended up being a little more forcible than what would be considered normal.
Uriel sighed heavily and held her hand out.
"Dokja-yah, come on," he said. "Let's leave this tantrum-throwing baby behind."
Kim Dokja walked around the car and took Uriel's outstretched hand, ignoring the glare Yoo Joonghyuk was giving the both of them as Uriel led the way, pulling him towards the elevators.
It was a large elevator, made to carry a lot of people. So why on earth was he squashed between these two?
Of course, he didn't mean they had to take three different corners, but Uriel didn't have to hold him by the arm like he was going to run off the second the doors opened, and Yoo Joonghyuk didn't have to stand that close either, their shoulders touching.
Kim Dokja considered making a run for it when he saw a sparsely crowded departmental store when the elevator doors opened onto the ground floor. They still had a couple more hours until the busy hours actually started and the place started teeming with people.
He didn't know what he was thinking in his head, but this was very normal. It was like going shopping with his friends. Which it was. . .Huh. . Maybe he could enjoy this.
He spoke too soon.
He fucking spoke too soon.
Uriel dragged him off and bought a soft swirl ice cream cone for him on the ground floor, like he was some child who ought to be kept busy and then pulled out her iPad from her purse, getting into business mode.
What was he supposed to do with the ice cream? He didn't even want one.
"Does it taste good, Dokja-ssi?" Yoo Joonghyuk startled him out of his ice cream confusion.
"I haven't tried it yet," he replied.
"We have work to do, boys," Uriel cleared her throat as Kim Dokja debated on how to eat the ice cream. The swirl looked pretty good so he didn't just want to lick it and ruin it, but it wasn't like he could lick along the swirl. That would make him look like an idiot.
Shame, but there was only one way to deal with this. He closed his mouth over the top.
"It's going to be busy if we want to make it before rush hour."
"It doesn't matter," Yoo Joonghyuk said. "We take our time. Comfortably."
Kim Dokja had meant for a tiny bit of ice cream to go into his mouth. He didn't know he'd end up sucking in almost half of it. He couldn't spit it back out because that would be too obvious and he'd look stupid.
He swallowed and let his mouth, teeth and throat go through the horrible freezing torture that was. His teeth were still stinging when he finished. He parted his lips and blew out the cold air, hoping for some relief.
He forgot to pay attention to what Yoo Joonghyuk and Uriel were saying during these ten seconds and when Yoo Joonghyuk glanced at him, he looked a little surprised to find a fairly large portion of the ice cream missing in less than a minute.
Where was the nearest window? Kim Dokja was going to throw himself out of it.
No, he wasn't starving. No, he wasn't an ice cream fanatic either. It was an accident.
He pretended his face didn't burn out of shame and sheepishly licked the ice cream away from his lips and nibbled on the edges of the wafer cone.
Uriel blinked at him too, a little confused, he could tell.
Of course, it was strange to see an ice cream with a rather tall swirl vanish by nearly half within less than a couple of minutes.
Well, at least they were kind enough to not bring it up. His other friends would have spotted it, made a comment about it, announced it to everyone else and made fun of him about it for years.
He didn't even get to taste it! He was just glad he hadn't choked on it.