Chapter Text
A small bubble of silence followed their greeting where Kim Dokja was at a loss for what to say. The absurdity of the situation overwhelmed him and overran his (admittedly limited) social graces. He was on a call with his idol, the man who kept him from the depths of despair during some of the worst times of his life.
Not that he would ever admit that to anyone. Except for Yoo Sangah, who had gotten him drunk and rambling while celebrating Kim Dokja becoming a Twitch Affiliate. And then again to celebrate him becoming a Partner. Both times he had spilled how much he looked up to Yoo Joonghyuk and how badly he wanted to be on the same level as him, despite how impossible that sounded.
He should really stop letting Yoo Sangah into his apartment when she had alcohol.
“If you weren’t a coward, you would play Escape from Tarkov on Scav,” a deep voice crackled through Kim Dokja’s phone, popping the bubble.
Before Kim Dokja could process who (holy shit— Yoo Joonghyuk) had mocked him, he was already biting out a quip. “At least I actually play Tarkov. Unlike someone who got famous on Dota 2. That game’s community is more toxic than a septic tank in Chernobyl.”
There was a chuff through the phone and Kim Dokja’s heart leapt. Holy shit, had he almost made Yoo Joonghyuk laugh? The possibility sent electricity running through his fingertips.
“Why do you think I quit E-Sports?” Yoo Joonghyuk asked sardonically.
“Horrible treatment by the higher ups?” Kim Dokja said before he realized he probably shouldn’t reveal his in-depth knowledge of Yoo Joonghyuk’s career to the man himself. That was creepy right? He felt like it was creepy. “I mean-”
“That, too.” Yoo Joonghyuk interrupted with his voice keeping the same pitch, but Kim Dokja could detect a tinge of bitterness to it. He couldn’t blame the other man, what had allegedly gone down was serious, career altering stuff that he really shouldn’t have brought up within their first minute of talking to each other.
As Kim Dokja was racking his brain for ways to backtrack, Yoo Joonghyuk continued. “Don’t strain yourself. No sense in acting like that isn’t what happened.”
“Still,” Kim Dokja worried at his lower lip, burying himself deeper into the couch. “It’s not exactly a first conversation topic. Though I bet you’re one of those people that hates small talk.”
“What gave you that idea?” His knowledge of the other man’s mannerisms accumulated from hours upon hours of stream watching meant he could practically see Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyebrow raise through the phone.
Kim Dokja snorted. “Oh, c’mon. Your whole persona is being the stone-face tough guy who lets his actions speak for him. Small talk doesn’t exactly fit into that vision.”
“Are you really going to be the one to act like a streamer’s persona is who they are, Guwon?”
The sound of his internet pseudonym jolted Dokja and reminded him that he wasn’t speaking to Yoo Joonghyuk as Kim Dokja. No, he was supposed to be the Demon King of Salvation. The elusive Guwon. He had been so overcome by the shock of talking to his idol that he forgot that he wasn’t even really the one with that honor.
“What do you mean?” He hedged.
“We’ve been talking for less than five minutes and I can already see the difference between your online persona and your actual personality.”
Kim Dokja’s heart leapt into his throat. This wasn’t how his online interactions were supposed to go— Guwon should be the one in control, but he was so off-balance that Dokja was bleeding through the pages of his carefully scripted composure.
The Demon King fell back as Kim Dokja chuckled. “Sorry to disappoint.”
“Did I say anything about being disappointed?”
Kim Dokja couldn’t detect any hints of dishonesty in his voice, despite his nerves telling him they should be there. Maybe the other man was just good at hiding his thoughts or maybe Kim Dokja wasn’t as good at reading Yoo Joonghyuk as he had previously thought, but he couldn’t believe those words. It was too much like wishful thinking.
He huffed. “I’m glad I’m meeting your expectations, then. I’ve always wanted to impress the famous Yoo Joonghyuk.”
Kim Dokja said it sardonically, but he wasn’t exactly lying. Not that he’d ever admit his awkward fantasies of Yoo Joonghyuk saying he’s proud of him. He would rather choke down a whole three-course meal of unpeeled, uncooked tomatoes.
“Hmm,” Yoo Joonghyuk rumbled consideringly. “You’re certainly not the worst streamer I’ve seen.”
“How flattering.”
“It’s not a very high bar.”
“Hah,” Kim Dokja cracked. “You’re not wrong. Still a small fish in a giant pond, though.”
“You mean an ocean. Ponds are small. By definition.”
“It would at most be a lake.”
“No. You said ‘giant’. That’s bigger than a lake. It’d at least be a sea.”
“Semantics, Sunfish.”
They both paused at that. Kim Dokja could have slammed his face into the coffee table as soon as the privately held nickname that was supposed to be kept in your damn head, Dokja, came out of his mouth. He held his breath instead.
“What did you call me.”
“Uh.”
“How am I a sunfish.” The Supreme King sounded absolutely affronted. “I’m nothing like a sunfish.”
“I mean…” Dokja couldn’t help himself, even if the man hunted him down and eviscerated him because of his answer. He could not let this denial stand; the truth needed to be heard. “You really kind of are.”
“How.”
“You died a lot, at the beginning of your streaming career. Your primary method of solving games you didn’t understand was brute forcing them and experimenting with trial and error until you got the solution, or a solution, even when that meant you died every two minutes through the whole five hour stream. That’s how you got introduced to speed-running. People noticed your methods and pointed out the similarities. You still lean towards your old habits when you’re super frustrated with a game, too.”
The words spilled out like Kim Dokja had been waited to rant to someone about this knowledge for years. Maybe he had.
“And sunfish die pretty easily. In real life.”
He cleared his throat.
“…I may have played a lot of Survive! Mola mola! In university.”
“So you call me ‘Sunfish’ because of a mobile game?”
“Don’t sound so pissy about it, Sunfish.” Dokja taunted. “Mobile games are real games. Besides, you’re totally the type to secretly have Neko Atsume or KleptoCats on your phone.”
“They’re for Mia.”
“What?”
“What.”
Kim Dokja raised an eyebrow at his phone, curious about who Yoo Joonghyuk had just name dropped. He had never heard of a Mia before, not that his lack of knowledge really meant anything. The Supreme King was notoriously private about his personal life, barely even admitting to having a younger sister he looked after.
Though, Mia was probably someone pretty close to him, if he was letting her anywhere near his phone. Cellphones were sacred items, after all, especially to people as terminally online as a lot of streamers were.
There was a weird pit in Dokja’s stomach, which he disregarded it in favor of his curiosity. He opened his mouth to ask who this mysterious Mia was, but Yoo Joonghyuk spoke up before he could get the words out.
“You know a lot about my gaming habits.”
Ah, fuck. He had hoped he would be able to escape the Supreme King super-fan allegations.
At this point he should know better than to believe in good things happening to him.
Still, he had to try to cover his trail, so he pulled out his coolest Guwon Voice. “It’s always good to scope out the competition.”
“You came up with the nickname because of my early career. That’s a long time to be scoping me out.”
Kim Dokja clamped his mouth shut against the various innuendos that threatened to spill out. He was already on trial about his fannish tendencies, there was no need to add accusations of homosexual thoughts to the mix.
Dokja may have been bi, but that had nothing to do with his admiration for Yoo Joonghyuk. It was a perfectly normal parasocial relationship, nothing more.
“It’s hard not to take notice of the Supreme King when you’re into gaming. You’ve been on the map from the very beginning of your career.”
Yoo Joonghyuk hummed. “Is that why you wanted to collab? Because I’m ‘on the map’?”
“What? No,” Kim Dokja burst out before he could help himself. That wasn’t it at all.
He quickly reigned in his fervor once he realized how he sounded. Clearing his throat, he tried to settle for an answer that didn’t reveal himself too much but still let Yoo Joonghyuk know he wasn’t only after his fame. “I mean— It would be pretty shallow of me to only want to collab because of your popularity, not to mention a dick move.”
“You wouldn’t be the first.” If Kim Dokja didn’t know any better, he’d say Yoo Joonghyuk sounded almost hurt. “Or the last, either.”
Dokja bristled despite himself. “If all I really wanted was your fame I wouldn’t have agreed to a call, let alone go this long without trying to bargain the terms of the collab. I’d probably try to do it through the DM’s, too. Not a VC.”
As he said the words, the anger drained out of him. It wasn’t like he could really blame the other man over worrying that Guwon was a clout-chaser, no matter how much he wanted to. Kim Dokja himself had already had to deal with far too many people trying to get a collab with him just for the exposure.
He let out a long breath, head falling against the back of the couch. “Look, I can’t assure you that I’m not clout-chasing in a way that would be believable right now. You don’t know me well enough. But I—”
He stopped.
“You?”
The words had to be choked out of Dokja’s throat. “I. Admire you…’re skill. And dedication to your job. You said it yourself, I’ve been watching your career for far too long to just be ‘scoping out the competition’.”
Silence. Dokja’s throat bobbed as he waited. Then—
“I believe you.”
“Wait— What?” He jolted upright. “You do? How? Why? I don’t—”
“I’ve watched enough of your VOD’s to come to the conclusion that you’re not the type. It’s obvious if you know where to look.”
“You,” Kim Dokja blinked at his phone, watching as his icon lit green when he accused, “You were testing me.”
“Yes.”
Dokja let out a bark of disbelieving laughter.
“You’re a fucking bastard, Yoo Joonghyuk.”
For some reason, that was what got a real, honest-to-god chuckle out of the Supreme King— No, Yoo Joonghyuk. It was Yoo Joonghyuk who had laughed.
What the fuck.
“You are too, Guwon.”
He said it like a compliment.
“So,” Yoo Joonghyuk continued. “The collab.”
And that was how Guwon and the Supreme King ended up solidifying their collaboration. They decided to do more voice calls and a few rounds of co-op’s to test out their working chemistry before their first collab stream.
First. Because Yoo Joonghyuk wanted to do more than one.
Kim Dokja was honestly in a daze.
He couldn’t quite stifle a yawn as they were debating which game to play, and Yoo Joonghyuk immediately paused his heated defense of Portal 2 to bite out, “You need to sleep.”
“No, I—” Dokja was cut off by another yawn spilling out of his mouth. “Okay, yeah, maybe… Oh, shit, I have work tomorrow.”
“Work?”
“I’m a slave to capitalism.” He must be pretty tired to be admitting this so easily. “Suffering under the weight of the unholy 9-to-5.”
He looked up into the darkness of his apartment. Now that he was paying attention, there didn’t seem to be any sounds coming from his bedroom. Lee Gilyoung must be asleep then. Kim Dokja’s gaze finally flickered to the time.
11:23 PM.
Yeah, he should probably turn in for the night.
“You’re a streamer.” Kim Dokja blinked as Yoo Joonghyuk ground out the words. “A Twitch Partner. You stream all the time.”
“…Yeah? Duh.”
“And you work. A full-time job.” The tone of the man’s voice was getting concerning. “While raising a child.”
“I’m not raising hi—”
“Unbelievable.” A huff of annoyance. “You’re going to bed. Right now.”
“I—”
“And I’m calling you in the morning. To make sure you wake up. For your full-time job.”
Kim Dokja 404’d.
“You’re what?”
“Good night, Guwon.”
Then Yoo Joonghyuk hung up.