Chapter Text
Prologue
"Come… on," beneath his gloved palm is the warm and soft muscle of a barely beating heart. Performing a cardiopulmonary resuscitation is the most dreadful part of surgery. Survival chance of patients is lower than a quarter percentage, and a higher risk of complications. During the process, he will feel the very organ that keeps people alive stop completely or beat again.
Clenching the heart lightly as he pumps it, he looks at the monitor, indicating the flat line of a cardiac arrest. He still has more or less a minute to bring back the heartbeat, or the patient is dead.
Sweat and tears drop from his glistening skin, his mask stained with blood. Own heart pounding, he clenches his jaws and goes on to pumping his patient's heart again, all his hope onto it.
His most trusted friend and the nurse in charge of the operation places a gentle hand on his back in an attempt to calm him down. "Captain…" voice little and trembling, the nurse puts more pressure on his back to let him feel his hand.
"You…" his partner specialist standing across the surgeon looks at him with eyes filled with sympathy, as he breathes erratically. "... can't die..." he takes a glance at the face of the patient, whose mouth is filled with tubes and eyes closed, face flushed of colors. He looks lifeless and it doesn't fit him at all. He looks better smiling and laughing, like the sunshine he is.
The surgeon's breath is caught in his throat as hot tears come cascading from his eyes. "...please," he pauses for a while to glance at his patient's right hand, whose finger's light is slowly flickering, like a worn lightbulb. The sight gets him more power, as he charges one more to resuscitate him.
A response. Everyone in the operation room lights up with the beep, and it prompts him to go on. He is going live, do stupid things once more and he will still spend the rest of his life wi-
Felt by his palm was the sudden halt of his patient's heart, like all of its vessels died down within a beat. His trembling hand pulls out of the unnmoving heart, as the stark flickering light from his patient's finger goes out, as if the heart is the switch.
The world stops around him, all sounds tuning out; from the beeping machines around him and the nurse's and the other doctor's calls to him. He steps backwards, his hands covered in thick blood.
He felt how his heart stopped, that one, gentle and final touch leaving him empty like a void. It's the only thing that's left tingling his right palm, bidding him goodbye. He wasn't even able to talk to him, nor ever said the words which he knows he longs to hear. Regrets flood his mind, suffocating him.
He looks back at the light which once shone brightly died down, like a candle that caught a strong breeze.