Chapter Text
Yoo Joonghyuk was angry at the world he was born in. Forced to marry a stranger – an enemy at that – for the well-being of his smaller and weaker kingdom was a wretched fate. For years, he lived in fear and suspicion, waiting for the day for his husband to strangle him in his sleep or feed him an incurable poison. Life was horrible, and thus he made horrible choices in order to survive. He unfairly instigated wars that were avoidable, killed many people out of hysteria, and lost numerous allies until he had nobody left.
After a decade of resentment, betrayal, and the remnants of a ruined kingdom, Yoo Joonghyuk realized a little too late that Kim Dokja never intended to backstab him. Instead, he was an ally he should have kept close all along. When he went through this revelation, they were in the midst of a rebellion. After all, nobody wanted Yoo Joonghyuk, the tyrant king who was controlled by his bloodlust and wrath.
Then Kim Dokja pushed him away.
“Yoo Joonghyuk!” He screamed as a sword pierced through his chest cavity and punctured his lung. Blood gushed from his mouth as the sword was pulled back, revealing one of his knights from the Holy Order behind him. Snapped out of his stupor and with a battle cry, Yoo Joonghyuk fought the hardest he had ever been, swinging his sword like clockwork and killing the rest of his mutinous knights until there were at least fifteen bloodied corpses on the floor of his throne room. Though he was exhausted, he knelt down and found Kim Dokja, breathing heavily in excruciating pain. He held his dying husband in his trembling arms.
“Why…”
Further questions would have been useless. He listed his sins.
“I was a horrible king. I hurt your people.” Yoo Joonghyuk pressed on the wound to stop the bleeding, but knew Kim Dokja’s time was up. His body was losing its temperature; his eyes were more sunken and deep. “I… I never gave you my trust.”
His hands were coated in blood, both literally and figuratively. “Why?!” Yoo Joonghyuk asked, desperate to save one life instead of taking another. His voice shook, “Kim Dokja, why did you save me? What was the purpose?” However, instead of receiving the answer he needed, Kim Dokja gave him a sorrowful smile. Then the man closed his eyes as if ready for a peaceful sleep and passed away. Stricken, Yoo Joonghyuk released the pressure he applied on his husband.
“Dammit…” He pounded his fist against the ground. “Dammit!”
The days after Kim Dokja’s death were the worst. His funeral was a farce that only consisted of a handful of his loved ones, a wooden coffin since nobody wanted to help the tyrant king, and a sparse bouquet. The kingdom they shared together was a ghost of its past.
“He loved you,” Han Sooyoung grabbed him by the collar and slammed him against a brick wall. “He loved you!” She screamed in grief. “And you had no idea! No idea how much he protected you!”
Her gift for him was a permanent scratch on his left cheek. The last of his followers pointed their blades at her, but he withheld retaliation. She doesn’t deserve punishment when all she said was the bitter truth. The bitter truth came to light the next day, revealing Kim Dokja’s actions behind the scenes, hurriedly fixing the famine that riddled their land, getting rid of assassination attempts, and writing peace treaties with neighboring kingdoms. When Yoo Joonghyuk heard that report, his heart was heavy and full of regret. Despite his numerous mistakes, Kim Dokja still saved him.
For some reason, his husband thought there was still worth in his existence.
Yoo Joonghyuk visited his grave for the umpteenth time, except for this occasion he pitifully crawled towards it and laid upon the mud and grass to beg for forgiveness. “I’m sorry,” he quietly wept as the loneliness settled in his bones. Now he was truly alone. His only companion was gone. “I’m so, so sorry,” his voice petered out.
He promised to be a better husband in the next life. He promised to do anything within his power to prevent another tragedy like this from happening again. Lastly, he promised to make Kim Dokja happy even if it cost him his life.
A shining bright light emitted from his chest, illuminating the darkness as he rose up to find a pocket watch emerging from his chest, loudly ticking as its hands moved rapidly. A wave of nausea and dizziness overwhelmed his senses, and with a choked sound, he felt blood dripping from his nose.
Tick, tick, tick.
The ominous ticking sound grew louder. The stars became brighter. Yoo Joonghyuk held his head in a panic, squeezing his eyes shut as the searing pressure behind them continued to grow. Before he fainted, before he took his last breath and died, a prevailing thought remained in his mind: He hoped he could meet Kim Dokja in the next life and repay him for everything he has done.
Tick, tick, tick.
Yoo Joonghyuk startled himself awake. His head was pounding with a massive headache. He groggily rubbed his eyes, but there were no tears to wipe away. The dregs of sleep were persistent as he listlessly shuffled himself out of bed.
First, he heard loud footsteps approaching his door, which was odd for an assassination attempt. His castle no longer had any maids or butlers since he drove them out. His hand reached out for the hidden weapon underneath his mattress, but to his surprise it was missing. With a curse underneath his breath, he reached for his dressing table until somebody barged into his room.
A young woman wearing a man’s suit was carrying a bucket of sloshing water. “We must hurry!” She exclaimed. She looked at Yoo Joonghyuk from head to toe. “Your Highness! There is no time to waste!”
Yoo Joonghyuk stood there, frozen, while holding his breath. “Lee Jihye?” He echoed his thoughts.
The young woman was a squire who followed him like a lost pup. Adamant to learn from one of the best swordsmen of the kingdom, she was one of his most loyal and stringent vassals. She used to be until she died five years ago when she fought in a naval battle against a fleet of pirates, a battle he wrongly instigated as an attempt to steal more grain during the famine.
If this was a dream, it was a cruel dream, to mock him for not only killing Kim Dokja but also reminding him for leading this young girl to her death as well.
“Your Highness!” Lee Jihye urged more snappishly. “Your wedding is in two hours! This is no time to lolligag!”
Yoo Joonghyuk blinked when he processed her words. Wedding? Why would he remarry so soon? He was still grieving.
Yoo Joonghyuk was about to mention that, but he forgot his pupil’s strength as she shoved him in front of a mirror and called the servants to make him look presentable. His eyes shook as he took in his reflection with sheer horror. HIs appearance was visibly youthful without a single scar marring his face. Han Sooyoung’s nail marks were absent, and all the injuries he sustained that disfigured his handsome face were nowhere to be found.
His breathing quickened. His vision slightly blurred.
“What,” his throat was dry as he asked, “What year is it?”
Lee Jihye looked at her master with an arched eyebrow and uttered the year as if it was obvious. The young man tried to school his face to not look too shocked and recollected the evidence in his mind. He traveled back in time — 10 years more specifically and exactly on his wedding day. He was no longer 28 years old. His prayers were answered. Kim Dokja was still alive.
“Your Highness!” Lee Jihye hovered over him. “Is something wrong?!”
Yoo Joonghyuk looked at the mirror again. A single tear slid down his cheek. Before he can provide an appropriate answer, one of his attendants dabbed it away and continued with his makeup.
With newfound determination, Yoo Joonghyuk knew what to do. He doesn’t know what magic was involved, but if he was truly given a second chance, then he will take advantage of this blessing with his all.
Lee Jihye shrugged off his strange actions as wedding jitters. As the man was dressed up like a doll, the squire slammed her fist into her palm. “I almost forgot!”
In a rush, she ran out, which left the servants shaking their head fondly with a click in their tongue. Yoo Joonghyuk forgot how rambunctious she could be since she was still a young teenager. Well, technically he was a teenager, too, but he was mentally more mature.
Perhaps she was the one with the wedding jitters.
Lee Jihye returned to his side in less than five minutes with a wedding veil in her hands.
“From your husband!” She told him.
It was a delicate piece with two tiers, each tier separated by white embroidered daffodils that trailed all the way to his hips. Yoo Joonghyuk looked at it with an air of sadness. He recalled his wedding day. it was a memory he wasn’t proud of.
He thought the gift was an affront to his masculinity, an indirect way of mocking him for marrying another man and placing the assumption he was more submissive, so he ripped it to shreds and burned the veil in the fireplace with no remorse. However, he later found out the veil belonged to Kim Dokja’s mother, Queen Persephone, whose only request was to see it in her son’s wedding. His crude actions created an immediate rift between himself and his in-laws, and afterwards, Kim Dokja lived a strained relationship with his parents since he refused to divorce him.
Yoo Joonghyuk handled the veil with care and wore a solemn expression. He must rectify these sins.
He asked for help as he conscientiously put it on, teasing the bobby pins until the veil was safely secured. He made sure it was not wrinkled.
Lee Jihye gasped with a small squeal, “Your Highness… You look beautiful!”
He was in traditional white wedding attire, his chest adorned with medals of valor and gold buttons decorating his front. His unkempt wavy black hair was slightly combed to the side to expose his face, but now it was covered by Queen Persephone’s wedding veil.
Yoo Joonghyuk doesn’t have the energy to glare at her for that comment. They were empty words. Beauty doesn’t matter when one’s heart was tainted and ugly, and Yoo Joonghyuk earned the right to be called the scum of the earth.
The rest was a blur, being dragged to and fro until he found himself at the church, slowly approaching the altar as Canon in D was played in the background. His heart almost leapt out of his chest when he found his nervous husband waiting there with a fake smile. A lump found its way in his throat. Kim Dokja was here in the flesh, breathing and alive, pretty and unblemished. Even if his smile was not genuine, he would rather have a million of them than receive that haunting sad smile right before he died in his arms.
Yoo Joonghyuk closed his eyes, disgusted with his past self. Before he went back in time, he stormed inside the church in a fury, barking at the priest to skip the formalities and wed them immediately, lest he wanted a public beheading. He remembered breaking glasses, shoving people, and dragging Kim Dokja by the tie to consummate the marriage as if it was a chore. He blamed his husband for this sham marriage and took the man’s virginity even though the sex was full of spite, hate, and pent up anger. Though Kim Dokja took it without complaint, Yoo Joonghyuk left him at the crack of dawn and never touched him again. There was no aftercare, no kisses, and no intimacy. Yoo Joonghyuk was definitely the definition of a bastard.
He snapped out of his thoughts when the priest asked him if he wanted to take Kim Dokja as his lawfully wedded husband. His heart ached, for there was a festering sore that refused to heal. His eyes trembled as he raised his eyes to properly look at his future for the first time. He doesn’t deserve forgiveness. All he can do is atone.
Typically, he was crass with his words. No matter how much education he received on public speaking, he was a lost cause, but still, he spoke.
“I vow to protect this life,” he vowed to Kim Dokja and himself. “Through life and death, I choose you,” he said with a tremulous voice.
The attendees murmured amongst themselves, expecting the supreme king to make a scene to ruin the wedding. Instead, they were taken aback by his sincere and elegant words. The priest hushed the audience, and with a few words, announced them as official husbands.
“You may kiss the bride,” he said in a joking manner, pointedly looking at Yoo Joonghyuk’s veil.
Of course, Yoo Joonghyuk remembered how disliked he was in the past.
Then he felt slender fingers pull back the veil, slowly revealing his husband’s face. He looked starstruck, cheeks dusted a light pink as if Yoo Joonghyuk was the most beautiful person in front of him.
“You actually wore it,” he heard Kim Dokja say in a quiet whisper.
Yoo Joonghyuk lowered his eyes in shame, for he was the reason for this man’s downfall. He was his murderer, his killer.
Two hands lightly touched his jaw. “Tell me if you don’t want this, Yoo Joonghyuk,” Kim Dokja asked for permission before the kiss. To make the ordeal more comfortable, he planned on pressing his lips against the corner of his husband's mouth.
Yoo Joonghyuk couldn’t handle Kim Dokja’s tenderness or his kind hands, his face blooming a bright red. If only he could go down on his knees and apologize for his wrongdoings, but in this wedding, that would have been disastrous. Instead, he closed his eyes with the permission to kiss. Kim Dokja was starstruck again, blood thrumming in his veins, and wondered what changed this man, the one who gripped him by the neck upon their first meeting for the wedding and threatened to skewer him alive.
Perhaps he was in a good mood?
Kim Dokja leaned forward and guided Yoo Joonghyuk to lower his head. Minty breath fanned across his lips. Yoo Joonghyuk stopped breathing when he pressed their lips in a chaste kiss that was as soft and dainty as flower petals. Once they parted, Yoo Joonghyuk turned his head away in shock by its sweetness, and another realization settled in.
Even in the future, they never kissed. They had sex once, but that was out of duty. Yet here, he finally kissed him on their wedding day.
His gloved hand traced over his lips, and though he will never admit it or peep to another soul, he was glad Kim Dokja was his first kiss.