Work Text:
Namjoon stares at the folder in his hands like it is a heavy book rather than a thin set of papers clipped at the top corner.
It’s just a couple of papers, they shouldn’t affect him so much.
They describe the surgery he’ll go through the next day, the medication guidelines he’ll have to follow before and after, and the possible contraindications he¡ll have to read through, acknowledge, and sign his consent to.
“They’re going to crack my eye open, like an egg, Hobi-hyung!” he squeaks, shutting the booklet violently. “And I’ll be awake through the entire thing, like it’s the... freaking Clockwork orange or something.”
Hoseok laughs from where he’s laying sprawled on the sofa, almost sliding off.
“Ah, Namjoon-ah, they said it takes them ten minutes to do the entire thing. It’s the same procedure they use on older people with cataracts. My grandma did it last summer. You cannot be more of a scaredy-cat than my grandma.”
Namjoon huffs, puffs and stands up from his chair, waving his arms wildly. “But they’re going to poke into my eye!! While I can See Everything!”
Hoseok laughs so hard he almost falls off the sofa, again.
“I’m going to call them and ask if they can sedate me fully.”
Hoseok does fall off, this time.
...
Namjoon is still scared. He knows everything Hoseok has told him is true: it’s a rutinario surgery that the doctors at the clinic are not only trained for, but also used to performing at least fifty times a week. Risks are minimal, basically every single grandparent he knows has had it done, and he’s a strong, young man.
Hoseok drives him to the clinic. He stands by him in the reception desk, where a very kind lady offers him a small bag with sunglasses, an eyepatch and the medicines he’ll have to take later. As the information red that he is, he already knows everything the lady tells him, in more scientific terms even, but he listens to it all politely.
Namjoon gives his glasses to Hoseok ebfore he walks into the surgical area, and his flatmate and best friend stays in the waiting room with the small bag. He squeezes Namjoon’s arm when he goes in with a heart-shaped, cheerful smile. “It’ll be okay, Joon-ah”.
And, rationally speaking, Namjoon knows it will be okay. More than okay, in fact: in a week, when he has both eyes done and all the post-op medicines done, he won’t ever wake up trying to get water in the middle of the night and crash against every possible corner and step. Waking up in the middle of the night and seeing in full hd. What a wild concept.
But, as he sits down in a small hallway and is told to wait for the nurse, fears start creeping in again. Fears and embarrassment, too: he knows he’s big: he’s over 180 cm tall and has been going to the gym regularly for about a year now. Yet the tip of his fingers are shaking a little.
The nurse walks in, a blur of blue fabric and disinfectant smell, and a female voice tells him to stand up so he can be wrapped in a blue hospital gown and cap, and have his shoes wrapped in more blue fabric.
He feels dumb and clumsy, sitting there unable to see anything that happens more than ten centimetres away from his nose clearly, having someone wrap his sneakers with blue sterile felt.
“All right, you’re all done! Let’s go in, now.”
It’s all even blurrier inside. He’s sat on a blue chair, has the same female nurse clean his eyelids with disinfectant, some eyedrops poured into his eye. Even his eyebrow feels numb.
He’s left alone for a while longer, while the eyedrops do their thing and he can0t even blink. He focuses on his breathing, counting seconds in and seconds out, like Yoongi told him when they were in college. Five seconds in, he’s okay, he’s in good hands, five seconds out. Five seconds in, it’s a runtime procedure, five seconds out.
“Hello. Kim Namjoon?”
The voice is low, this time, and it’s a bit breathy but soft and kind. The blur in front of him is blue, and he can’t identify the person in front of him.
“Yes, that’s me.”
“Great! All right, come with me, Namjoon-ssi.”
Namjoon stands up on shaky legs, and the nurse must have noticed because there’s a hand on his arm, guiding him carefully into the operations room. He sits down on the bed, and is told to lie down, and then there is a blue fabric covering his face and a bright light shining on his eye. The heart rate monitor connected to his index finger beeps like crazy.
How embarrassing.
But then, there is a hand holding his, tight and soft and warm and comforting, and the thumb is rubbing at his knuckles.
“It’s alright,” the kind nurse who guided him inside says. “It’s okay to be nervous. It’s a scary thing.”
“Incision,” the doctor’s voice says.
Namjoon does his best to stay still, to not move a single inch. The light in his eye is too bright and he can’t feel anything, but he can still see shadows and shapes and know more or less what is going on up there.
But the hand holding his doesn’t move, and Namjoon thinks for a moment, is my hand sweaty? I hope not. His pulse is calming down, everyone in the theatre can hear that, and the nurse squeezes his hand tighter. “See? It’s not that bad. It’s almost done, now.”
It’s almost done, now, Namjoon repeats to himself. It’s almost done.
The light shining on his eye moves away, and he can blink. He does. He’s very blinded from the brightness, but the edges around him are defined, he can see that much.
“Shh, close your eyes, keep them closed, the lights here are very bright.”
The nurse helps him to a seated position and takes the heart monitor out of his finger. It’s all quiet without its beeping, but Namjoon can still hear its beating inside his ears, feel a rush of blood to his cheeks when he realises he’s still holding the nurse’s hand.
“Come, I’ll help you outside.”
The doctor congratulates him on his surgery, and Namjoon bows his hand slightly, trying not to do any harsh movements, not when he still feels a bit unstable on his feet, and he lets himself be guided by the nurse to a dark room outside, where he sits down on a sofa.
“Keep your eyes closed,” the low voice says. There are fingers under his chin, holding his face in place, and a gauze wet with something cold touches to his eye area, probably cleaning him from disinfectant and betadine.
His hands are so soft and kind.
“There you go! All done!”
“Thank you very much,” Namjoon croaks out. He thinks the nurse is smiling by how his words come out.
“It was no problem.”
Namjoon blushes a little bit. He saw enough of the room before he closed his eyes to see it was dark, so hopefully the nurse didn’t notice.
“All right, I have to go back inside, you’ll be in here resting for a few minutes until one of my coworkers comes and gets you to bring you to the waiting room, all right? Did you eat before you came? Remember to take the pill we gave you only with a full stomach.”
Namjoon nods diligently. He doesn’t respond, afraid his voice will come out in the awkward croak he let out earlier.
He hears a sliding door close and he knows he’s alone in the dark room, and then, only then, he groans. If he hadn’t been told to avoid sharp movements to keep his newly inserted lenses from detaching, he would have banged his head against the wall.
...
Namjoon comes out of the surgical area with still wobbly legs, but he’s soon grabbed by Hoseok, who always pretends he keeps his cool but, Namjoon knows, has bee fretting for the twenty minutes he’s been waiting.
“How did it go?” he immediately asks. Namjoon smiles at his friends.
“Hand me the sunglasses, everything is very bright and the light will hurt for a couple of days, they said.”
Hoseok complies, handing Namjoon the pair of dark sunglasses that were inside the small package the doctors gave them.
“It was okay,” he replies then. Hoseok is probably staring at him, questioning, but Namjoon’s eyes are closed, so he doesn’t see it.
“Okay?”
Namjoon nods.
“Let’s go home? I wanna lie down in a dark room for like ten hours straight.”
It’s only once they’re home, Namjoon laying down in the sofa with his sunglasses on as Hoseok uses his phone’s flashlight to make them cup ramyeon for dinner (get yourself a friend like Hoseok) that Namjoon says, “A nurse held my hand today.”
...
Hoseok laughs at him for being so flustered about the nurse. And Namjoon knows his friend is right: why is he so affected by a stranger holding his hand? Then again, the stranger holding his hand had kept him together through the surgery and after, and he didn’t feel judged or self-conscious at all. And, even though it’s the nurse’s job to have the patients calm and relaxed while the doctors fix up people’s eyes, he still wants to thank him for it.
But when Namjoon, now with one single functional eye, goes to the clinic for his post-op check up, he has no idea how he’s going to recognise the mystery person. All he saw of him was a blue blur, and although he thinks he could know him by voice, the clinic is large and he will most likely not speak to every single worker there. He goes home reassured by the doctor that his eye is healing perfectly, even if it’s still hurting when he looks at bright things, but he doesn’t see his nurse.
He tells himself he’ll doubtlessly meet him again the week after, when he goes to the clinic again, this time to get surgery on his other eye. This time, because he can see perfectly well through one eye (was the world always this high definition? He thinks he hasn’t seen things this clearly since, possibly, ever), he is really to look for the nurse, identify him, see his face.
But he doesn’t. He’s much more calm this time, he knows exactly what he’s going to see and feel and even though there are no nice nurses holding his hand, the heart rate monitor stays at a reasonably calm pace. He hears the voice of every single person inside the operation theatre and none of them have the breathy, smooth cadence of his nurse.
Hoseok laughs at him again when he lays in the sofa with his sunglasses on later that evening. His flatmate is having Way Too Much Fun with this whole ordeal. But he has also taken care that Namjoon doesn’t bust anything open against any sharp corners on the few days between the surgeries for both eyes, and has diligently cooked for him and reminded him to use the eyedrops, so Namjoon will allow it.
Namjoon wakes up the day after, and oh my god, he can See Everything. Through both his eyes. In an almost painful amount of detail. And he didn’t even have to look for his glasses.
Oh my god, he will no longer be the first person to die in a zombie apocalypse if his contact lens stash runs out.
Hoseok finds him giggling at the breakfast table, but if he finds it strange, he only rolls his eyes fondly.
Hoseok drives Namjoon to the clinic once again. He keeps telling Namjoon that he has no excuse any longer, he now has perfect vision and should get his driving license once and for all.
And as they walk into the glass sliding doors to the clinic, Namjoon hears it. His nurse’s voice.
He whips his head to the side, where he sees a tall man in the blue nurse uniform and a darker blue cardigan on top. He has tan skin, dark hair that curls around his face in an angelic way, and a pair of wide, round eyes that lift towards him in an instant of surprise. He has a phone held to his ear, where he must be speaking to a friend, and his hand is large and elegant and has held Namjoon’s and-
-Hoseok pulls Namjoon inside the clinic.
“Come on, we’re going to be late to your appointment.
Namjoon’s mouth opens and closes, opens and closes again, like a fish’s. But he decides not to say anything, and with one last look behind him, he walks to the reception counter.
The doctor says, once again, that everything is perfect. His eyes are both healing magnificently, his eye tension is amazing, the scars are minuscule, and even his astigmatism is now fixed! (did he even have any astigmatism? Oh well, not anymore!) So, with a short, cheerful “see you in three weeks”, Namjoon is dismissed.
Hoseok is sitting in the waiting room, typing on his phone, probably chatting with his boyfriend Taehyung, judging by the speed of his fingers and the smile on his face. Namjoon smiles at that: Hoseok had a long string of unpleasant boyfriends, and Taehyung is nothing but, finally. They’ve been dating for about a year and even Namjoon is a little bit in love with the younger man.
“E-excuse me sir,” comes from behind. And there he is. He, as in, He The Kind Soft-spoken Handholding Angel Nurse. Namjoon almost stumbles back and falls on his ass: when he told Hoseok he didn’t drive because he was clumsy and not because of his vision he was not joking. “We are doing a customer satisfaction questionnaire and would like to ask you a few questions, if that’s okay with you?”
Namjoon takes one look at Hoseok from the side of his eye, his friend looks busy enough, dopey grin on his face. He nods. “Of course!”
His hands shake a little bit as he follows the nurse into a smaller room, this one devoid of medical equipment and instead looking like a small waiting room with a sofa and a clean desk. The nurse smiles at him as he signals at the sofa and Namjoon melts inside.
The nurse has bunny teeth. Bunny. Teeth. Like he wasn’t cute enough already.
“Okay,” he says, whipping out a tablet and sitting on the sofa. He’s on the opposite side from where Namjoon sits, and there is a respectable distance between them, but Namjoon gulps. “So, first question: full name and family name, age.”
Namjoon replies to that and a few of the questions that follow. The questionnaire seems easy enough: what problem he had, what procedure he had to fix it... Inside, though, he’s panicking. He Needs to thank the nurse. For his sanity. That’s all he wants: to give him a heartfelt thank you for treating him so well even if it’s his job.
“Profession?”
That’s an odd question, but Namjoon answers. “Uh, I’m a music producer.”
Jungkook’s eyes smile. “Anything I’d have heard? Ah, uh, sorry, none of my business, I-“
Namjoon chuckles as the nurse lifts a hand to his ears, shy. “It’s okay. I work for JinHit? So maybe?”
Jungkook’s eyes are wide and adorable. How is he so pretty?
“That’s really cool!”
It’s Namjoon’s turn to blush.
“I, uh... Thank you.”
Jungkook makes a few other questions, and then he asks Namjoon for his opinion on the experience in the clinic as a whole. Namjoon swallows. That’s his chance, right? “I, uh, I am very satisfied? The doctors have been very careful and efficient, and they have been very open and available for questions and worries that I had. I, huh, was very scared before the surgery?” he chuckles. He’s red red now. But oh well. “But the people there was extremely nice, as well. Especially one of the nurses, he even... he even held my hand. And I am very grateful for it.”
It’s the nurse’s turn to blush, and he looks down at the tablet, scratching behind his ear once again.
“I, huh, I. Hope you weren’t offended by it?”
Namjoon shakes his head.
“Oh my god no, not at all! I think I’d have run out of the surgical theatre otherwise! Seriously, thank you.”
The nurse smiles. Namjoon can hear his fast heart beat in his ears. At least this time the nurse can’t hear it, too.
“Ah...”
“I guess it must have been surprising,” Namjoon says, the words spilling out without his permission. “That a guy as... large as me would be scared and need to be held, but I-“
The nurse shakes his head fast. “What? No, I already told you! People get scared all the time. You’re awake, it’s terrifying. I wouldn’t do it myself.”
Namjoon chuckles at the nurse’s admission.
“It was all right. Especially if they hold your hand through it.”
The nurse lifts his eyes, looking at Namjoon, and smiles.
“I-I thought you were very attractive,” he mutters, before blushing again and scrambling to his feet, holding the tablet and taking it towards the desk.
“Before you could hear my heart rate and noticed how terrified I was?” Namjoon replies, shyly, making the nurse giggle embarrassedly.
“Ahh no, you’re an attractive man!” he replies. He types something into the tablet and hands it to Namjoon again. “Okay, this is done, can you read through it and check you’re happy with this information being shared on our website?”
Namjoon nods and reads through it. The nurse has omitted the part about hand holding, which is good. Namjoon’s thanks were directed towards him personally.
“Yes, this is all correct.”
“Great! Amazing! Okay, you’re done now, you can leave and go home and-“
Namjoon chuckles as the nurse pushes him back towards the door.
“Hey,” he stops before pushing it open, “You have my phone number in that questionnaire of yours. In case you want to use it.”
The nurse brings his hand to his ear. Adorable. Cute kind nice voice pretty soft.
“Isn’t... isn’t that patient privacy data violation?”
Namjoon winks. Or tries to. His left eye is still a bit sore.
“I won’t tell if you don’t either, huh...”
“Jungkook,” the nurse says. “My name is Jungkook.”
And if Jungkook does, in fact violate patient data privacy that afternoon (with the patient’s permission) to call him and ask him out for a coffee, nobody has to know. Namjoon won’t tell, and Jungkook won’t either.