—St. Vincent's Hospital, Emergency Unit, year 2026. Treatment day 1—
I came back as an outpatient within a week after they confirmed that I was ready to go.
It was the first deal that I made with Dr. Kim and the hospital, and they agreed to let me do it since I was still fit enough to go back and forth to the hospital for treatment instead of staying at a long period of time. Although I would still have to stay in for days after my first induction chemotherapy and its other primer treatments, only to make it easier to go through their observations.
"Are you okay?" Yoongi looked at me all concerned as he helped me settle down on the bed.
"Yeah, I'm—I think I'm fine." I gave him a grin while leaning back on the headboard. I only sighed when I saw his face. "I'm a bit nervous, that's all. There are reasons why I avoided this, and—"
"You were scared, weren't you?" He gave me a remorseful look as he looked at me with pursed lips.
"Terrified." I nodded.
He smiled, before leaning down to gently kiss my temple. "I'll be here until they tell me to go. Even after then I'll only be a phone call away, okay?"
"Thank you."
The nurses came in almost one hour later. The whole process for my first therapy would take hours to go through, and they wouldn't let Yoongi stay that long.
Later that afternoon, hours after my first treatment had started, I was escorted on a wheelchair by one of the nurses along the hallway. I was all lethargic from exhaustion, with an IV tube attached on one arm and an excruciating pain on my back, and all I could do is look around with droopy eyes.
"Aren't you taking me back to my room?" I asked the nurse once I noticed that I was heading towards the opposite direction from the room I was staying in for the night.
"Oh—I'm sorry, I thought the doctor had already told you. There is a special treatment room for chemotherapy patients. You will wait there until the induction is done," she said, pointing at the bag filled with liquid that was attached to the tube that was injected into my arm. "Once there is nothing left of these and we have every drop of the liquid running in your blood, I will take you back to your room so you can rest. But we need to put you in another room for observations while the injections are in process. You will meet other cancer patients there, so you won't feel lonely. It helps motivate our patients sometimes when we let them meet and talk to each other. You can share stories and their experiences while you're there."
I kept my eyes on the IV bag, watched how they were dropping down and imagined them running through my blood. I remained silent while thinking to myself, 'So this is supposed to kill those cancer cells, huh?'
"Here we are," she said almost too cheerfully.
I turned my gaze to look ahead and saw some other patients, mostly older than myself, some sitting on their wheelchairs and some on a few recliners all set side by side, each of them had IV tubes hung on their sides with similar tubes injected on either their arms or legs. An older woman and the man sitting next to her stopped their conversation to look at us entering the room.
"Everyone, we have a new friend today. This is her first day, so please be nice," the nurse spoke to the patients with a taunting voice, and everyone turned their eyes on me. Some studied me with their eyes, some instantly smiled, and others were lost in their sleep to care.
"Oh—finally, another young face. Welcome, dear." The friendly older woman smiled. "Don't mind us, darling. I hope we don't scare you with all of these tubes and bandages on our body."
I returned her smile. "It's okay. I'm all the same as well, anyway," I said, lifting the arm where my own IV tube was linked to.
The old man sitting next to her chuckled, looking pleased to our playful exchange, before lifting his hand to point across the room. "Well, we still have space for a beautiful face. Right there, where you can have a good view." He turned to look away and called out across the room, "Look, Mochi! Finally, you're not the only baby in the room anymore." The man laughed with a raspy voice, earning some others to laugh along with him.
I followed everyone's gazes to look at the one man who was sitting quietly on his recliner seat, right next to the large window at the corner of the room. He was just the same as the others around us; sitting there with droopy eyelids, his arm attached to an IV tube, yet his face looked much younger than the others surrounding him.
He turned away from looking out the window the moment he recognized his nickname being called from the other side of the room. For a brief second, I could see his cold stare looking back as his eyes met mine, before he blinked, and they turned into a crescent shape of eye smile the moment he caught the sight of me.
He smiled at me with his pale plumped lips. "Oh hello, love. I have a feeling that we might get along just fine."
—St. Lucas Hospital, VIP Treatment Room, year 2012. Days after surgery—
I could not really tell how long time had passed before I woke up.
Everything was dark, and it was as if time had stopped.
Until I finally started hearing faint voices from far away, before they cleared out to the sound of those annoying beeping noises again and faint chattering around me.
When will all of this stop?
The first time I finally opened my eyes, I had a breathing mask covering my face. Everything felt heavy, and I could hear myself as I was taking deep breaths. I saw a glimpse of people's faces hovering above me, changing one and another as I came to and out of consciousness. I was powerless and incredibly high of anaesthesia that I couldn't remember any other scenes but white fog covering my eyes.
The second time I opened my eyes the mask was gone. I could breathe more easily. I could even smell the scents of disinfectants which I hated so much. But I still couldn't feel anything else or gain control other than relying on my blurry eyesight and my faint hearings.
"....hear me?"
"How are you feeling..."
It was not long before I went out of it again, without ever getting any chance of responding before I was dragged deep into a long sleep.
It was late at night when I came to fully awake. I had to blink my heavy eyes carefully before I could adjust myself to the light, before I could manage to open them and looked up.
"Hello there," I heard my mother's voice. I still could not move my head as much as I wanted to so I could not see her until she rose from her seat and her face came hovering above me. Her eyes were tired, but she forced a smile. "How are you feeling?"
The only thing I could give her was a soft groan. My body, my head, were all numb and my throat was too dry for me to speak, and nothing came out of my lips as I opened them, still too frail and too weak to do anything at all.
"Oh. That's right, you might need something to ease that dry throat," she said, looking around. "Okay, let me go and ask for some water from the nurse. Taehyung, please keep an eye on her for me?"
I was surprised to find out that he was there, but his deep voice that came next somewhat managed to make me feel warm and secured.
"Yes, of course."
I silently watched through the corner of my eyes as my mother turned and vanished from my sight, possibly heading out of the room since I could not look sideways. Seconds later, Taehyung came into my line of sight, his face hovering above me as he stood next to the bed.
I tried my best to carefully move my numbed head slightly to take a better sight of him to no avail, since I couldn't even feel anything through the numbing feel I got from the rest of anaesthesia still running through my body. But I could still see his face, and recognised his smile when he greeted, "Welcome back."
At that moment, when I saw his face and heard his voice, flashes of my locked memories came to me between the pulsing happening in my head. I opened my lips once more, struggling to speak to him, yet nothing but soft voiceless whispers came out.
"______? What's wrong? Are you in pain? Do you want me to get you something?" He spoke to me, looking around with a face filled with worry, yet he stopped moving when he saw some drops of tears appearing at the corner of my eyes.
"Jimin," I finally managed to speak out through dry whispers.
Taehyung stiffened when he faintly heard my voice, and he only looked at me with a frown. He leaned closer so he could listen to my voice.
"What did you say? What's wrong, ______?"
"Jimin—" I tried once more, and from the look in his eyes, I knew that he could finally hear me. "Tae—"
"Jimin? You remember him?" he asked with wide, curious eyes.
"Ji—Jimin." Tears started to fall like a stream down my face when the memory came clearer. The relentless sobbing stopped me from voicing out the words I had ringing inside my head. Taehyung held me down gently by my shoulders when I unknowingly started to move on the bed. I fought to control my breathing before I could finally speak,
"Jimin. I—I lost him."