Chapter Text
If I had chosen a different path
What will I get to see?
At the end of this road, where you would be standing
- Road
Taehyung broke another heart today. It was the new—young, sweet, and beautiful—nurse. She must have been charmed by his beautiful profile when she saw him on the TV room or seduced by the way he flirted with the older nurse at the administration table last Friday. Either way, while Jungkook was passing he witnessed the broken-hearted nurse was crying in the pantry. The older nurse must have told her that Taehyung was dying. The young nurse had been missing the fact that Taehyung stayed in the cancer ward.
Jungkook made a mental note. This was why he thought that a dying person should not make others fell in love. But then he was reminded at once that it was never on Taehyung’s control that people fell in love with him so effortlessly, like it was in his nature, for the longest time he knew him.
“Jungkook-ya, are you coming?” One of the other intern boys called him. It was the time for lunch and everybody was ready to leave for the cafeteria.
He bowed his body in response. “I’m sorry I have a plan with a friend.”
When the crowd had left, he went pass the pantry, the administration table, and stopped by the front of a patient room. Number 311: Kim Tae Hyung.
Jungkook welcomed himself in without knocking. “Hey, let’s eat lunch,” he said, lifting his lunch bag to the boy in a plain hospital gown.
Taehyung looked up from his bed, one eyebrow lifted. “Isn’t it the time for you to make friends already? Why do you always came here for lunch?”
“I do make friends.” Jungkook answered while taking a seat beside Taehyung’s bed. “Everyone is just too busy to eat together.”
He lifted the food tray positioned on the table beside and put it above Taehyung’s legs. “And again, I don’t want to miss the delight witnessing you eat all those hospital foods,” he said mischievously. Taehyung looked at him eerily, but nevertheless left his plates empty. He always finished those nasty foods. At least, every time Jungkok was there.
...
Today shift ended late in the night. Jungkook never thought that being a doctor was as tiring as being a slave trainee. Less physical, but the thinking really worth as much as dancing whole day long. He checked up his phone—the first chance for him to do so today—and saw the missing call an hour ago. Mom.
It was twelve already and Jungkook was hesitant to call her. Instead, he sent her a text. “Are you sleeping already, Mom?”
A minute later, his mom’s name showed up on his screen. Jungkook picked up the phone. He first asked why she was still awake at this hour and she told him that her favorite drama had just ended and she was almost gone to bed when his text reached her.
“I don’t think I’ll stay at home this weekend, Mom,” Jungkook said lastly. He came up with reasons that there were still so many left to do and he could concentrate more on doing them here instead of home. His mom had not seen the cramped intern bunks in the hospital, so he could still argue that being in hospital was more ‘comfortable’.
“Again?” His mother sighed.
“I’ll come by for dinner if I can make it, okay?”
His mother sighed in defeat and hummed a yes. “You were so against the idea of becoming a doctor when your teacher told you back then,” she recalled to him. “Then one day, suddenly, you said you wanted to be one no matter what. On top of that, now you want to be an oncologist. I was already giving up the idea for you to be a doctor, why suddenly do it if it’s this hard?” His mother’s voice came out more concerned than ever before. The drama must have some role on making his mother being melodramatic tonight, Jungkook thought.
“It’s okay, Mom. I want to do it.” Jungkook thought of another longer reason to tell. But it was just as it was. So he ended it at that. “Go to sleep, Mom. It’s late already.”
They exchanged goodbye and his mom told him to stay healthy twice before finally hanged the phone up. Jungkook eyes were drowsy from the exhaustion of the day and he ought to fight the urge to lie on the chair before standing up.
The intern ward was on the other side of the building but he chose to take a final see on Taehyung before going back. From the small window on the door, he saw Taehyung sifting from side to side on his bed, too anxious to sleep.
Suddenly, his bunk was no longer on his head. “Cannot sleep?” Jungkook said. Taehyung looked at him with his tired eyes—a result from not being able to sleep he noticed.
“Doing nothing make my body refuses to sleep, maybe?” Taehyung suggested. Jungkook wanted to say it was either the medication or the sickness itself, but he ended up agreeing Taehyung more pleasant assumption.
“I’m not used on sleeping it either. All I do is just making a round.”
Taehyung eyed him. The heaviness on Jungkook’s shoulder and his bleak face must have been so clear to see, but he decided to play along. “Are you going to be back on your ward tonight?”
“I have a day off tomorrow,” Jungkook said while roaming around Taehyung’s table. He found his TV remote on the back of his collection figures. “Let’s just watch TV and catch up to the new girl groups.”
Taehyung was asleep twenty minutes later. Then he wake up after a half hour. He fell asleep ten minutes later listening to Jungkook humming. Ten minutes later he woke up, coughing blood. Jungkook was still awake and tried to calm him by soothing his back. After an hour, Taehyung was back to sleep and this time he was asleep for the rest of the night. In the morning, he woke up to find Jungkook sleeping with his mouth open on the chair. He didn’t left.
Somehow, it was a nice thought to start a day.
...
Today, they were watching a music program on TV room. Taehyung was playing with the children when his attention suddenly averted by the voice from the television. The MC had mentioned the group name ‘BTS’ and from distance, Taehyung could make out every of their faces. They were doing an interview as an older kid shouted It’s Rap Monster!
When they were doing their stage, a few nurse had stopped on their round to steal a watch. Their face lit with excitement, the nurses and the younger female patients were holding back screams, and Taehyung being sandwiched between the TV and the audience kept shifting his gaze from side to side.
“Oppa, who’s your favourite in BTS?” A girl, a high school student who finished her appendicitis surgery a few days ago and had made friend with Taehyung, asked him with her eyes glued on the screen.
“I like them all,” Taehyung said a matter of fact.
She sighed. “Do you even know them or you just play smart?”
He laughed at that and patted the girl on her head. Looking at the way her eyes glued to the screen with her mouth slightly open and hands gripped tight in excitement, a fool wonder intrigued him. “Hey, Jooyeon, do you think I’ll suit them if I were in that group?”
Jooyeon rolled her head to his side and then rolled her eyes to him. “Oppa are you joking? Your face might be handsome but do you see their dance? Can you even dance?”
He laughed at that too, saying that she had a point. But somehow he could hear the different sound from the laughter he made and wondered why it came out so false.
“Jungkook-oppa will do,” she continued, snapping him back from his thought. The stage was over and now she was looking at Jungkook who was standing among the nurse at the back of the TV room. “I heard Jungkook-oppa singing to their song the other day. Actually, I think he is their fans. I always heard him singing to their songs. I tell you, his voice is really amazing and he is already so handsome. I always wonder why BTS is so lacking in vocal while they have so many rappers. Jungkook-oppa should have auditioned for them instead working himself like crazy here. Oppa, are you even listening to me?” She pushed on his back lightly when she noticed that Taehyung seemed too lost on his own thought. But Taehyung was listening. He was listening and thought how true her every word was.
...
“My mom came by and made us pumpkin soup,” Jungkook said while lifting his food box over to Taehyung. It was pass dinner time but Taehyung had not eating anything since yesterday and by an hour ago there was nothing left for him to vomit.
There was never a healthy day. But there were better days. Tonight, was just another worse day. Taehyung was shivering under his blanket, cold sweat streaming down his face. His lips were rough from all the cut he made by biting and tearing down the thin skin on his lips from delirium. His breath was short and rough. Jungkook sat on his bed; softly he wiped Taehyung’s hair to side, and cleaned his sweat for him. “Does it hurt a lot?”
Taehyung reached for Jungkook’s free hand. Taehyung’s hand was cold and his grip was weak. Sometimes, he clenched Jungkook’s hand harder when the pain came back in. From above, Jungkook saw the way Taehyung’s shoulder shuddered. At one point, he thought how in the past he admired those shoulders. Jungkook always thought that Taehyung had the kind of shoulder that could never get tired. They were wide and strong. More than anything, they only shook when he laughed.
Looking at them now, they had become so gangly and vulnerable. His shoulder bones were sticking out below his dry skin. Jungkook suddenly reminded on the day Taehyung had to change his hospital uniform. After a year, his size had shrunk and they had to give him another sets of uniform with smaller number. That day, Taehyung only said ‘Ah, the company was so stubborn on telling me to diet. I told them it was impossible. I never thought I could really lose weights’. Jungkook was already an intern at that time and he was the one who kept record on Taehyung’s weights.
Jungkook never complained about anything. But if there was one thing he particularly hated was to stand beside Taehyung every time he checked on his weight and had to bear with the nauseating feeling every time the number grew smaller and smaller. He hated it more when Taehyung pretended to laugh it off.
“It hurts, Jungkook-ah. It hurts so much.”
...
Taehyung had always been the best in two things. First, he was good at lying. Second, he was good in holding back pain. So when he said that it hurt, it must have hurt a lot. Even for someone like Taehyung.
...
Jungkook was reminded by one particular line from the movie he watched with his Bangtan hyung back in the day. As Taehyung’s breath was becoming even, a sign that he was finally asleep, he said to the quiet softly, “I remember that it hurt, looking at her hurt.”*