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Kim Dokja sat stiffly on cushions that reeked of perfume and power, wrists aching in their too-tight golden cuffs. His clothes were gone the moment he'd been dragged in, they stripped him like he was some prize animal, dressing him instead in silk so sheer it clung to every line of him, translucent in the worst possible ways.
Not armor.
Not dignity.
Just delicate threads meant to humiliate.
A "gift," they'd called him. A pretty offering for the King.
Humiliation burned in his chest. He couldn't even begin to explain how this had happened.
He'd gone out. Alone. To scout, to strategize, to be useful, and.
Well.
He let his guard down.
[✶ The constellation ‘Demon-like Judge of Fire’ is practically singing, “You look beautiful, incarnation Kim Dokja.”]
Dokja groaned aloud, quietly, dragging his cuffed hands over his face. "Gods..…"
How did this keep happening to him? Why him, specifically?
The Tyrant King.
Sangah-ssi had warned him, hadn’t she? Something about the King and his concubine collection.A soft-spoken rumor. Dokja, in his hubris, never imagined it would apply to him.
He thought shed be in danger so he warned her to not go near him,just in case.
[✶ The constellation ‘Secretive Plotter’ is watching you with sharp, unreadable eyes.]
[✶ The constellation ‘Prisoner of the Golden Headband’ is laughing along with ‘Demon-like Judge of Fire.’ They approve.]
Dokja scowled. “Oh, fuck off, all of you.”
The chains binding his wrists and ankles gleamed faintly, etched with unfamiliar runes. They cut him off from the system completely, leaving him ordinary. Helpless. Pathetic.
Just as before scenarios.
This wasn’t in Three Ways to Survive the Apocalypse.
Yoo Joonghyuk never got caught in situations like this—humiliating, exposed, powerless. Of course he didn’t.
So, Dokja did the only thing he could.
Wait.
Someone would come.
Someone had to come.
The story followed its course—Yoo Joonghyuk would storm in, kill the Tyrant King, and Dokja would…slip away. Pretend this never happened. Change into proper clothes. Return to the group with that smug, infuriating grin and no one the wiser.
Caught? Never. Humiliated? Absolutely not.
[✶ The constellation ‘Demon-like Judge of Fire’ teases: “Perhaps a prince will rescue you, like in the old fairy tales.”]
Dokja snorted weakly. “Prince? Try devil.”
But it didn’t take long.
The grand doors of the throne room,gaudy and ridiculous, carved to intimidate exploded inward in a burst of flames and marble shards. Screams filled the air. The King’s guards scrambled. Chaos bloomed.
And through the smoke stepped-
“Yoo Joonghyuk,” Dokja breathed, heart lurching painfully in his chest.
Of course it was him.
He looked exactly how a protagonist should,in his opinion anyways,dark, sharp, furious, radiating that terrible, unstoppable determination. Blade drawn, expression cold. Walking like he owned the very floor beneath him.
It was,annoyingly.
magnificent.
But Dokja didn't have time to admire him. Not when the only exit,the one away from this nightmare,was across the room. And crossing it meant crossing into Yoo Joonghyuk’s line of sight.
Panic clawed up his throat.
He shrank back, slipping behind the gauzy curtain, clutching the too-soft robes tighter around himself, the translucent silk offering no protection, no comfort.
Please, he prayed, genuinely prayed for once in his life, don’t let him see me like this.
Yoo Joonghyuk didn’t hesitate. His sword cleaved through guards with brutal efficiency. The Tyrant King rose, barking orders, only to be silenced as Yoo Joonghyuk’s blade carved through him like thunder splitting the sky.
The King collapsed.
One of the Seven down.
Or maybe he's already killed them all,who knows.
And then.
The dust settled.
The curtain fluttered.
Yoo Joonghyuk's eyes found him.
For a single, suffocating moment, neither moved.
Dokja's breath caught.
Too late.
He tried to retreat. To vanish.
But the silk tangled underfoot, sending him sprawling onto his knees, the sheer fabric twisting around him, shame crawling hot across his skin.
Great.
Just perfect.
Kill me now,
please.
Maybe if he stayed quiet, Yoo Joonghyuk would…leave. Ignore him. Pretend not to recognize him.
Yoo Joonghyuk…stared.
Unblinking.
Unmoving.
Just…staring.
It was maddening.
Dokja opened his mouth, a joke ready—a deflection, a lifeline—but his voice cracked, tangled in his throat. The silk shifted, exposing more of his flushed skin.
“…Okay, so…this isn’t what it looks like,” he managed, which, hilariously, was exactly what it looked like.
Yoo Joonghyuk stepped forward, slow. Deliberate. His gaze dragged over Dokja's form—the ridiculous silk, the bruised wrists, the faint red mark curling around his throat from the chain, the wide eyes full of something between fear and unbearable humiliation.
“What,” Yoo Joonghyuk said, voice low, dangerous, “is this?”
It wasn’t the coldness that terrified Dokja.
It was the stillness beneath it.
The tension before the storm.
“I got…caught,” Dokja admitted, throat tight, humiliation suffocating him.
Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes darkened. “You were being presented to him.”
“I didn’t ask for this.”
“You didn’t stop it.”
“I couldn’t, Joonghyuk,” Dokja snapped, frustration bleeding into panic. “Do you think I wanted this?!”
The silence that followed made the blood in his veins crawl.
Yoo Joonghyuk stared with that unreadable expression, the one that said everything Dokja didn’t want to acknowledge.
“You would’ve let it happen,” Yoo Joonghyuk said quietly. Too quiet.
Dokja's stomach twisted.
[✶ The constellation ‘Demon-like Judge of Fire’ is gently consoling incarnation Kim Dokja.]
[✶ The constellation ‘Secretive Plotter’ is watching Yoo Joonghyuk with unsettling amusement.]
[✶ The constellation ‘Prisoner of the Golden Headband’ agrees that you need to be watched more carefully.]
Dokja clenched his fists. “No,” he snapped.
“I would’ve escaped eventually—”
“How?”
“You don’t know that.”
“I always have a plan—”
“Not this time.”
The words sliced through him. Sharp. Ruthless.
True.
Dokja flinched as Yoo Joonghyuk approached, looming over him, the chains clinking as Dokja instinctively shrank back. It didn’t matter. Yoo Joonghyuk bent, his hand curling around Dokja’s bruised arm, grip possessive, inescapable.
“If I’d been a minute later…” Yoo Joonghyuk's voice was low, trembling with restrained fury. “…what would they have done to you?”
Dokja didn’t
couldn’t answer.
The image formed anyway.
It made him sick.
It made him ache.
“…Being a slave,” Dokja whispered bitterly, “would’ve been kinder.”
Yoo Joonghyuk’s jaw tightened, teeth grinding.
Without warning, he hauled Dokja to his feet. The silks shifted, the humiliation burning brighter, but Yoo Joonghyuk’s grip never loosened. It was a claim, plain and simple.
“I’m not letting you out of my sight again,” he growled, dragging him toward the exit.
Dokja stumbled, caught between indignation and mortification. “Joonghyuk—”
“You’re lucky,” Yoo Joonghyuk interrupted, voice low and dangerous, “that he didn’t touch you.”
And if he had?
The unspoken words dangled between them, heavy, suffocating.
Dokja couldn’t meet his eyes.
Because he already knew the answer.
And it terrified him more than the Tyrant King ever could.
[✶ The constellation ‘Demon-like Judge of Fire’ is blushing and applauding incarnation Yoo Joonghyuk’s heroic rescue.]
[✶ The constellation ‘Secretive Plotter’ is quietly laughing.]
[✶ The constellation ‘Prisoner of the Golden Headband’ hopes to see this fairy tale unfold further.]
Dokja groaned. “I hate all of you.”
But he let himself be dragged along.
For now.