Chapter Text
The doctors voice was low but undeniably firm when he spoke. “She’s... she’s dying.”
Saeyoung didn’t even hear him. “What does she need?” he asked instead. “Is she deficient on vital proteins or vitamins? Does she need surgery? Leukemia treatment or something?” His brain started whirling a million miles a minute as he considered every possible outcome they could ever encounter.
All outcomes... except one.
“Mr. Choi,” the doctor said again. Saeyoung’s eye twitched at the sound for some reason. “Your wife is dying.”
He gritted his teeth. “And?” he asked while a harsh venom permeated his tone. “You think I don’t know that? That’s why we’re in a hospital right now. That’s why she’s lying in the other room strapped to an IV. So she can stop dying.” His nails were digging into his palms so harshly that they were on the verge of drawing blood.
Saeyoung hadn’t even noticed. “That’s your job. It’s what we are paying you for. So hurry up and tell me what she needs already so that we can help her.”
“Mr. Choi,” the doctor began yet again though this time with a slightly more pointed edge. “As much as it pains me to say it, modern medicine isn’t omnipotent. There are simply some things we can’t control.” The middle aged man took a slight breath, the exhale bordering on something similar to a sigh. “Her heart is failing her. We’ve run several tests but we can’t seem to find the exact reason. We believe she was simply born with a weak heart. Her past medical records confirm this. Regardless, her pulse is weakening. At the rate she’s deteriorating, I’d say she only has a few weeks left before her heart gives up entirely.”
What a stupid reason , Saeyoung thought. As if such a thing as a single failing organ was enough to make him give up and accept the forbidden death sentence. “Then just give her a new one,” he supplied impatiently, as if the answer was obvious.
The doctor stared at him for a moment before speaking. “We can’t just... we can’t just give her a new heart.”
“And why not?” he all but snapped.
The man tucked his clip board under his arm. “Well first of all, the waiting list for heart donations is already-”
“Give her mine then,” Saeyoung quickly interjected, unseeing on why the doctor who he was paying to keep MC alive kept coming up with excuses for why he couldn’t.
The doctors expression twisted in confusion while his mouth opened a closed for a few moments in slight shock. “Mr... Mr. Choi, you can’t.... that’s not...” He sighed before trying again. “You should know that hearts can’t be taken from a living donor.”
Saeyoung was still failing to see what the problem was. “Okay, so don’t. I’m not asking you save my life, I’m begging you to save hers .” Hers. Her life. The one that’s actually important here. The one that really matters. The one that he desperately, desperately needs to be saved no matter what, no matter the cost.
The doctor shuffled his feet a bit awkwardly while he cleared his throat. A disgusting trace of pity could be seen in his eyes that made Saeyoung’s skin crawl. He didn’t need pity. It’s not like he had lost anything yet. He wouldn’t lose anything. Not if the doctor would finally pull himself together and actually do his job for once.
“Mr. Choi, I understand that loosing your wife would be painful for you, but-”
“You have no idea what is painful for me,” Saeyoung interrupted again, patience all but lost. There was no way the doctor could know. If he had any idea, any fraction of understanding how much this reality is cruelly grating against his every nerve, then he wouldn’t be standing here bothering to question him on stupid particulars such as who’s heart to take. If he really understood his pain, then he’d already be in the operation room digging Saeyoung’s heart out of his chest so that it can finally be given to the person it really belongs to.
“Sir, we can’t take a heart from a living donor.”
“So, don’t .” Saeyoung snapped yet again, his voice rising to a shout this time. His nails dug even deeper into his palm while every caustic edge in his body set ablaze in his panic induced fury. “You think there’s any point in weighing her life against mine right now? I’m not here for your sick jokes. Her life has always been and always will be far more important since day one, and if you would remember what I told you in the beginning when I told you to do anything it takes to save her, you would know that I meant anything. ”
“Sir, you’re letting your emotions get the best of you and are speaking irrationally. Please take some time to calm down and think it-”
“Irrational?” Saeyoung parroted, clearly offended by the term. “What part of me saving her life is irrational ?”
“Mr. Choi, you are talking about killing yourself. That’s not rational behavior.”
He scoffed. He didn’t get what part of this whole situation was so difficult for a person with a professed medical degree to understand. “It will end the same either way,” he remarked a bit passively.
But the well meaning doctor wouldn’t let such a comment slide unaddressed. “Excuse me, sir?”
Saeyoung let out a long and deep sigh. Finally, he pried his nails from the deep imprints in his palm to rub his fingers against the side of his face. “Listen. You don’t understand what she means to me. You don’t know what she’s done for me. The thought that...” he swallowed down a choked sob. “...I can’t live in that reality. I can’t. I refuse to. I can’t live without her. Can’t even fathom how I would even try. So saying something dumb like needing to choose between saving me or her isn’t even a debate worth having in my head. It’s not a choice. MC needs to be alive no matter what. No matter what I have to sacrifice. If my death will help her to live, then by all means, put it to good use. It was already hers in the first place anyway.”
He gave a rough sigh as his impatience crawled up his spine again. “It’s not even worth thinking about. Not worth talking it over like this. I can’t live without her. I don’t want to. So if she...” he swallowed painfully, “if she dies ... then... then I will too. I won’t be able to handle it.”
Saeyoung narrowed his gaze on the poor doctor who’s eyes had widened considerably. “Do you understand what I’m saying now?” he asked in a rather condescending tone. “You have two choices. You either save her life and give her the full extent of time on this earth that she deserves, or do nothing and watch us both die.”
Yet to be phased by Saeyoung’s cold hearted determination, the doctor pressed his lips together while considering his next words carefully. He didn’t want to set him off anymore than he already had. “Listen,” he began slowly, cautiously. “I told you that we don’t know for sure what the cause is. There’s a chance that it could be unrelated to the actual organ in and of itself. Even if the heart transplant is successful – which only about 75% are fully – she might have the same complications arise again.”
As he thought, his irritation was slowly getting the best of him. Saeyoung had always been a man of many nervous ticks and jitters, unable to hold still for long periods of time, but the anxiety biting and scraping across his brain and down to his toes only set his nervous habits aflame. He tapped his foot, tightened and released his fists over and over gain, clenched and unclenched his jaw. It was near nauseating. His body tried to rip itself apart in multiple directions, torn between wanting to strangle the doctor, slam his head into a brick wall, run somewhere far, far away, or just fall to his knees and begin the heaviest crying session of his life.
“And how long would it take for you to discover the cause?” he tried asking instead of doing what he really wanted to do of shoving the doctor against the wall and demanding he find a cure immediately .
The man pushed his glasses further up his nose. “As I’ve said before, medicine isn’t omnipotent. There is no way of knowing for sure of how long it could take.”
“You said she only has weeks left,” he interjected quickly, proving that he had in fact been listening despite how quick he was to disregard the words. “Time is what she needs right now. Time she doesn’t have.”
Feeling caught between his own phrasing, the doctor only shuffled his feet. “Well, at the very least... there’s a chance.”
A chance? The thought made him sick to his stomach. He had been holding onto small threads of hope his entire life, absolutely terrified of the day the fragile strands would snap. He didn’t want to live like that anymore. He didn’t want her to be such an unstable dream. Not her.
He wanted her to be real. He didn’t want maybes, he wanted absolutes. Assurances. Guarantees. An eternal promise.
Leaving things to chance was the last thing he wanted when it came to her life.
“You have one week...” his voice came out broken and scared, despite how angry and determined he felt on the inside. Saeyoung’s eyes fell down to stare at the doctor’s obnoxious rubber shoes as his voice continued to tremble slightly. “Until next Thursday, to continue in trying to figure out what’s wrong. If you still don’t know by then...” he took a deep breath, “then start the preparations for beginning the heart transplant.”
“Sir! You ca-”
“One week,” Saeyoung interrupted while shooting his harsh glare back on the doctor with a such a frigid heat that it froze the doctor in place. “I won’t wait any longer. Not if it might be the only way to save her. I don’t want to wait until her body is too weak to withstand the operation.”
“I already said, it might not even be a permanent fix-”
“At the very least,” he interrupted yet again, “It’ll give her more time. That’s better than nothing.” Saeyoung steeled his chaotic emotions while dragging a hand up to clench at the shirt just above his heart. Even through the soft and worn fabric, Saeyoung could feel the heavy distressed beats of his heart slamming against his chest as if already trying to break free from it’s rib cage.
He closed his eyes, confident in his choice. “Even if it just gives her one day more, it’ll be worth it.”