The Odd Doctor Out | A Drama | S. 1

111 🩺 Hyung's Sorry

In the low light of the afternoon, Yeosang sat on the recliner in the corner of the room and gazed over at Hongjoong and Wooyoung, both leaning against each other as they slept.

His heart hurt.

After the failed mediation trial through the day, Yeosang felt broken.

When the first signs that the medication was having a negative impact on his brother's body, Yeosang had immediately begun to worry. But when the nausea and vomiting set in, Yeosang was almost disgusted at himself at how close he'd come to walking out of the room. He didn't want to see Wooyoung suffer - didn't want to see his pain - and it would be so easy to just walk outside and close his eyes.

But that was unfair. It was horrible of him to even think that.

And so as Yeosang sat in the chair across the room from the two, he felt tears of frustration, and pain sting at his eyes.

I'm a horrible brother, he thought. Pulling his knees up onto the chair, Yeosang hugged them tightly. How could you let any of this happen, to begin with?

The more that time passed, the more Yeosang became angry with himself. Awful things happened to him, and he couldn't come to me. All because I'm so busy...

Yeosang found himself at a Y in the road. On one hand, he wanted to quit study altogether and go home. He wanted to get a boring nine to five job and spend the mornings and the nights with his family, and he wanted to be present for if, or when, bad things happened. He wanted his brother to feel that he could talk about things, without feeling that was was burdening him with his life.

But then the moment Yeosang made his mind up, to run straight to that facilitator's office and tell them he was done, images of Wooyoung from when they were growing up flooded his memory, and suddenly, he felt himself wavering. All of Woo's life, he had struggled with the death of his parents and grandparents. He struggled with deeply rooted trauma and what Yeosang suspected was probably guilt, and it had been Yeosang's only wish, ever since that day Wooyoung had been escorted up to their house with those child custody officers, to do something to help.

Wooyoung's nightmares and mental health made Yeosang want to become a therapist, and spend his life trying to help his brother. But as he'd gotten older, a thought had popped into Yeosang's mind that had deeply rooted itself in his heart. The image of Wooyoung, sad and crying for his family, asking the world why it had to be them, made Yeosang's heart yearn to become a trauma doctor, the best that there could be. That way, he could prevent the same thing from happening to another child's family... He could save another little boy's heart, from tearing into a million little ribbons like Wooyoung's had...

Tears slid down Yeosang's cheeks. He didn't know what to do. He'd studied so hard to help his brother... Had come so far... But at the same time, he had, in a way, separated himself from the one person he wanted to help. He had isolated himself and let his brother suffer alone, in a way that had almost gotten him killed.

'I don't know what to do,' he choked out, his voice a whisper into the still room.

Unable to keep away, his aching heart pulled Yeosang from his chair and drew him to the bedside. He blinked away his tears and clamped his mouth shut to avoid choking, before sitting and gently hovering his fingers over his brother's hand.

'Youngie,' he whispered, the nickname he'd used when they were only just leaning to speak. He never called him that anymore, but somehow, in his emotional state, it just slipped off of his tongue. It only made him crumble more.

'I'm sorry,' he choked, blinking hot, heavy tears down his cheeks that slid straight down his cheeks and soaked into the blankets.

'Hyung's sorry,' he whispered. He gently pinched a hold of the material of Wooyoung's sweater, not wanting to wake him.

'Sangie's so, so, sorry.'

~~~

A/N: Shit this hurts to write, thank god this book isn't like the serious ones or I'd die