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Yoo Sangah opens the car door and smiles back when Kim Dokja smiles at her. It's almost instinctive now. Happiness at his happiness. Joy at his joy. He looks at her with upturned lips and hers are already forming one.
He holds his hands out to her, a little sheepish expression forms on his face as if she will ever begrudge him relying on her. As if this hadn't been one of her largest joys since he's come back. And, it still makes her breathless sometimes. Her new reality. The constant awe and lightning exhilaration of waking up everyday and knowing he's come back. He came back.
There is a waterfall in her, it connects from her fingertips to the top of her head and flows down into her heart. A current and fall, something fierce and beautiful. She is the waterfall, she is the endless river that leads to the edge of oblivion, she is the depthless pool that gathers at the bottom of that abyss, collecting all the river's remains. She raises her head up and tastes the force of her own happiness. Crisp. Overwhelming. A thousand torrential outpouring of every feeling she had ever and will ever feel. It pours and pours and pours, a free fall of the boundless. The sun rises, she takes a sip of coffee every morning before going to work, and there it always is: he's here.
It is: Scarred hands openly and easily reaching back to hold hers. It is the ease of which that makes her heart wrinkle, the simple mountainous act of letting her hold his at last.
"Thank you, Sangah-ssi," he says, as she slips her hands underneath his thin thighs and firm back. He curls his arms around her neck and she easily lifts him up, presses him against her with all the tenderness he deserves. Even with her incarnation strength, it is still a bit too easy to lift him up.
We need to feed him more, she thinks and imagines the future with the press of emotion bearing down on all her heart. Like the impossibility of a fairy tale.
Her smile spreads into a grin at the thought, at his words, at the simple pleasure of helping a dear friend.
Sometimes, especially at times like these, she wants to grab the strangers in her memories and point out how easy it is for this man to make her so, so happy. Look, for there he is. Her happiness.
"You're welcome, Dokja-ssi," she says and takes the extra second to hold him close because time is all they have now and each second is a treasure. So she'll spend her seconds treasuring him and them and together. The waterfall in her is stinging, raining from the sky with water so clear it can do nothing but mirror endless blue skies.
Eventually, the second passes and she moves to do her duty and gently tucks him into his wheelchair. It's not one issued by the hospital but something the company had bought together instead.
Not the first but one of the more memorable bonding activities they've done since Kim Dokja had returned. How easy has it been for them to gather again, circling around the ever star at the centre of their constellation. Like planetary forces always leading them back to his side. Like fate, like prophecy, like a choice they will make everyday. Yoo Joonghyuk, eyes calm and eyebrows twitching in a familiar stubbornness, had practically leaped over Jung Heewon's suggestions and bought the best (all black) wheelchair they could find.
Even aided by the power of stories, recovery has been slow and Kim Dokja will be bound to it for months still. Yoo Sangah still thinks it's already wonderful progress that he's no longer bedridden. And, the kids love wheeling him everywhere. Though, Lee Jihye had been a little over enthusiastic and scolded for hours after trying to race down the hallways.
Now, Yoo Sangah steps back to watch as he settles into place. It is seamless, a smooth operation of wiggling around and shuffling until he's comfortable. There is a weight to his actions nowadays that hadn't been present during the scenarios. Then, it felt like he could take off at any moment, spreading his nightly wings and flying off beyond any of their reaches. Like a star falling back to the sky he belongs to. But now, there is something grounded to his movements. Not the weight of worlds nor the bearing of life and death, the exhaustion of chains and salvation, but simply a present in his eyes and a shift of his shoulders. A gaze that looks towards the now and can imagine a future with him carefully stitched in beside them all. The simple uninterrupted stroke of being whole. Someone who has always gazed at them with their visage in his eyes but now finally lets his be reflected in theirs.
She fixes his hair, a habit that has long since lingered since the days of quiet hospital visits. A few days ago, Sun Wukong had given a shampoo and conditioner set and Yoo Sangah has to commend his taste. She threads her fingers through the dark ink of his hair. Already, the expensive serums make Kim Dokja's hair silky and soft to the touch like down feathers. Although, it's growing a little long and they might need to cut his hair. She'll bring it up later even though she quietly enjoys the way it flutters around his neck.
They start moving once he's settled.
Yoo Sangah doesn't need conversation to enjoy time with Kim Dokja but she enjoys it all the same when he starts talking about the latest web novel he's reading. A fantasy one of Han Sooyoung's students had begged her to look at a few weeks ago but she had only hedged it off to Kim Dokja to read when he complained about not knowing what to read. Only, the man had turned out to have adored it, much to the professor's endless horror (and jealousy). It's a lot different to what he was used to, he explains.
As Yoo Sangah listens to the intricacy of magical farming, she starts to remember a certain train ride all those lifetimes ago and the conversation two certain coworkers had.
Their talk had been transcribed in Han Sooyoung's novel. She knows, she provided the details the empty story fragments hadn't been able to tell on their own. The words had been dragged out of her story later, feeling like memories remembered wrong even if they had been perfectly recalled. Their talk had been in his library too.
It begins with this:
「"At this rate, you'll get sucked into your smartphone."」
The HR worker had said and then asked what the QA worker was reading. The QA worker had floundered and hemmed and hawed before dismissively answering:
「"Lord of the Rings, it's kind of like that…"」
She knows now that it had not been like Lord of the Rings nor any of the books and authors she had listed. It was a web novel about the fall of the world. She wonders if she could find a copy of it now if she searched.
How funny, they really had been sucked into the story of the phone. The power of a powerless dreamer.
But her attention shifts back to the present as he finishes explaining the power scaling of different farming tools. She asks if you have to beat up the vegetables to get a reward and his lips quirks up to crinkle shining eyes.
There is still a bit left to walk so she nudges him to explain more. He does so easily with a few leading questions and her undivided attention. The glow of being heard, the pleasure of conversation and two hearts beating at the same pulse. With the simple joy of having a friend listen, he starts recapping how the protagonist had finally unlocked alchemy skill. How the characters were all focusing on uniting together in the latest chapter. That the party was all banding together to make sketchy fruit potions and use them to save a starving village heavily taxed by the local lord. It is buried under all the talk about dramatic plot points and power levels but the way he spends every other sentence detailing the main character's emotions and struggles reveals a lot more about him than he will probably ever realise. Because, if she knows just one thing about him, it is that Kim Dokja will always love the characters of a story.
The world, Yoo Sangah realises everyday, is ever so joyful.
There is quite a sizable distance from their destination but it feels like time skipping forward with all the excitement of a young girl. Already, they're halfway across the park and it feels like no time at all had passed.
She parked a little further away on purpose so they could take a look at the park. There are two reasons. One so he could get more fresh air and exercise according to Lee Seolhwa's instructions. And the other, well, she kept it a secret to herself. It is a simple coincidence that it is spring, the air is playful with the scent of flowers, and he always brightens at the sight of light falling through tree leaves. How beautiful. The brightness of the world.
"Sangah-ssi, do you still bicycle?"
She blinks at the unexpected question. "I don't think so. I use our company car to work and back and if I need exercise, well, our friends are all ready to beat each other up."
He laughs a little. Quiet laughter. Quiet smiles. Someone who is quiet in emotions. As if he went above a certain volume, he'd be taking up too much room or be caught by a shadow. Though considering his presence during the scenarios and the way he could capture attention simply from his actions, from a few smirking words, and the audacious bravado he readily fans into flames, perhaps Kim Dokja had simply learnt how to navigate the world by hiding himself as much as he could. Hidden in a cupboard and banging on the doors to scare away any who approaches.
But, she knows. If they keep going, unbidden by the loud banging, and open the cupboard, they'll find only the soft silence of snow. Yoo Sangah has long since learnt that Kim Dokja was someone at his truest the quieter he is. That his sincerity was quiet and his devotion mouthless.
"When I get better," he starts and blinks at the way she immediately beams.
Yes, she wants to say immediately because he said when. Because he said better. Because there was very little they wouldn't do for him. And nothing at all he wouldn't do for them. She holds it back and listens.
"Do you think we could bicycle together?" He glances down at his wheelchair and spins the wheels before looking up at her with a face so openly happy it hurts her heart. "Or would this already count as bicycling?"
Yoo Sangah pauses, stares at his smiling face, and then she starts to laugh. It is raucous and a sound she would have rarely if ever let out in the past. Belly deep and aching, she laughs. And laughs. She laughs so hard she's crying. She sees him through her tears. His smile falling into a panicked bewilderment sends her laughing even harder which is perhaps cruel but she can't seem to stop it even if she wanted to. At one point, she almost balances off her feet with how hard she was laughing and ends up crouching instead, reaching out to hold his hands with both of hers. Their scars rub up against each other. It stings a little but Yoo Sangah holds them still. Being hurt and being so very warm. This, she knows, is just how a lifetime of stories say hello.
"Of course," she says, gasping. She uses the back of their clasped hands to wipe her tears away. "Of- Of course we can."
Happiness was a waterfall and it washes through her, sweeps her along off the edge like a free fall. Suspended in the air between Yoo Sangah and Kim Dokja.