Hospital for souls, ➼ y.jw

010.

♥︎

"Miss Na, apologies but instead of a normal checkup today there's something I'd like to tell you." Doctor Choi sits across from me by the small circular table. Instead of a laptop that he would usually have to take notes with, he instead held onto a dirty blue colored clipboard that had at least five pages of paper with a lot of text and I mean a lot.

Doctor Choi has worse eye bags than usual, I notice and he also has bloodshot eyes and talks more slowly and less harshly than usual. And I would know, having had this doctor ever since I was diagnosed.

"Sure, what's up, Doc?" I ask, pretending as if I had no idea what he was going to say though I already had a small idea.

The doctors takes a deep breath and hands me the clipboard, before I even had it fully grasped in my hand he said it.

"You probably won't make it past the new year."

I let out a dry laugh as I take the clipboard in both my hands. Just like I thought it was about this. It was evident I wouldn't live that long and I had known that for the past two years, yet hearing it now was different.

I didn't want to die.

Sure it may still be months until then but that wouldn't make me any less terrified.

I bit my lip as hard as I could to hold back my tears and just looked up at Doctor Choi. I tried to give him a smile to tell him that I was alright but it didn't work.

He stands up, walks over to me, and pulls me in a warm hug. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I can't do anything." I smile and pat his back.

"It's fine, Hyejin." I laugh. "I'm fine," I tell him though at this point I can't be sure if I'm trying to make him feel better or just myself.

"No." Choi pushes me away, his hands on my shoulders. "You're not fine. I'm not fine. Neither of us is fine, Gyumin. My dad died from ALS, I promised you I'd save you. I-"

"Shhh, darling, it's alright." I try to continue calming both of us down. "Promises are meant to be broken, especially when there's nothing you can do about it."

He looks at me, dries his eyes with his hands, and then stands back up. "We got your test results back a while ago already actually but I just couldn't tell you. My apologies." there he goes, trying to act all professional on me again. This explained why he wanted me to show Yang Jungwon around and help him. He wanted me to have more people around instead of the few I talked to.

I stand up and ruffle his hair, "It's fine. I promise." I then look around the room before looking back at him, "could I be alone for a second?" I ask him.

He looks at me uncertainly before giving me a nod, "Just- Just don't do anything stupid." I laugh at how his voice cracks when he says that. Sometimes I forget that man is older than me.

Doctor Choi Hyejin. 23 years old. One of my best friends and the only one I ever tell things I would never tell anyone else.

I nod to him and shoo him away with a hand movement. When I'm sure he's gone I fall back into the chair, letting the clipboard fall onto the floor. I let out a loud sigh and just stare at the wall in front of me without making a sound.