#heuk

These robots were granted citizenship in most countries across the globe. No one even addresses them as ‘robots’ anymore — they are each given individual names, like us. The term ‘robots’ are now referring to the mechanic tools you find in huge industrial companies. But there was still a term needed to differentiate between the androids and the actual human mortals. Thus, the creators gave them a group name which classified them apart from the industrial robots and from human beings: Cyborgs.

These Cyborgs, as they became citizens of the country, they’d work, too. There were those times, in the 21st Century yet again, when school teachers constantly lectured the students about the mandatory need to adapt to situations quickly and be open for knowledge from different fields — they even specifically mentioned that half the jobs that were available are likely to be replaced by robots in the future.

And that was exactly what happened.

A major industry that these Cyborgs took over was the healthcare industry. Doctors, nurses, pharmacists, physiotherapists, dieticians — essentially a large majority of the roles involved in the healthcare commerce have been taken up by Cyborgs. All roles but one: the role of a psychologist, whether clinical or otherwise.

Like how the creators of Cyborgs were unable to clone a human brain for the robots, they were also unable to program them to feel anything emotionally. That was a stereotype of the Cyborgs that was confirmed to be true, amidst all the other false rumors. No matter what kind of individualistic personality the Cyborgs had, no matter how kind they were or how smart they were, they simply never understood how emotions felt like. Is it something visible? Can emotions be controlled however you’d like? Cyborgs often asked these questions to their human friends, but definite answers were never able to be provided.

Wonwoo was a Cyborg. A Cyborg doctor, to be exact. He was 21 years old in human age, but everyone knows Cyborgs never has a definite age that was legitimate. Wonwoo worked as a specialist in the pulmonary department ever since he was at the young age of eighteen. Cyborgs didn’t need to study, he’d curtly tell those who immorally shunned him for ‘taking the shortcut’. There were people — a small percentage of the human beings who were still working in the medical industry amidst the integration of Cyborgs into the community — who weren’t happy about how Cyborgs like Wonwoo were granted a workplace so easily, especially when the regular humans had to go through years and years of studying and practicing to get to where they were. On the other hand, there were colleagues who were glad to have Cyborgs to work with as they saw it as an advantage to have someone so knowledgeable as part of their team. It was a controversial issue.

Wonwoo was never one who cared about other people’s spiteful remarks about him or Cyborgs, though. He’d get about his daily life doing what he has to do, scurrying to and fro in the hospital he worked in. His other coworkers pointed out that he always seemed strangely calm, not a crease of a frown showing on his features even if someone’s screaming on the other end of his cell phone to get to the OR in five seconds. And that wasn’t a standardized trait of a Cyborg, mind you — every Cyborg has their individual characteristics.

Your first meeting with Wonwoo was on a late Thursday evening, at around 7pm. You were headed to the hospital to get a check-up for the abnormal sickly symptoms that you were having.

The past 2 weeks had been a blur mess. You had been heading to your workplace as per usual, where you worked as a retailer — but it felt almost as if you were pregnant or something. Random bursts of serious coughing would wash over you, sometimes causing you to make a beeline for the washroom — and you were having a ton of trouble keeping awake in the day. You were easily tired doing simple tasks such as restocking the shelves — tasks that were able to do with ease previously.

You thought it was merely fatigue at first, but you got scared when you coughed up blood one day. It wasn’t a pool of blood spilling out of your mouth like what happens in the movies, but after one of your bad choking-like coughs, you realized your palm, the one that had been covering your mouth, had red splatters dotted all over it.

You went to a neighborhood clinic to get some medication for your symptoms, but the doctor (the one you always go to whenever you were sick) seemed to have an exceptional look of worry on her face. She prescribed you a few pills to last you a week, but referred you to a hospital for a more detailed check-up. When you tried to tell her that you were sure you’d be fine after taking the prescription, she adamantly shook her head.

“It’d be best for you to go to the hospital, dear,” she had told you, a warm smile on her lips. “Just to make sure nothing’s wrong.”

You were a bit confused, although you expected that there was something amiss. People don’t just cough up blood. “Is there something wrong?”

“Our equipment here isn’t advanced enough to determine that,” she explained, an apologetic look in her eyes. You gave her a small smile in understanding, before taking your leave.

She sighed softly after you closed the door behind you, packing up the papers lying over her desk.

So here you are now, standing in front of the registration counter in the hospital and getting your queue number. The receptionist seemed especially unbothered and in a foul mood, so you didn’t say anything more than you had to, quickly retrieving your registration ticket and thanking her. No. 5306, Room 21.

You walked down the hallway and turned into one of the corners where the overhead sign reading ‘Rooms 20-25’ had pointed to, sitting down on one of the blue chairs at the waiting area right outside of the room. You rested your head back on the wall behind you and let your eyelids flutter close — you felt drained of all your energy. The only sound that made you open your eyes were the dinging sounds made by the LED screen hanging at one of the corners of the hospital walls which displayed the queue numbers.

Your number came up on the screen after 15 minutes, which wasn’t very long considering how the hospital was a pretty renowned and busy one. You slung the strap of your purse over your shoulder and stood up, walking over to the room with a big ‘21’ sign on the beige wooden door. Gently knocking twice as a courtesy action, you pushed down on the cold metal door handle when you heard a voice from the inside that had muttered a “come in”.

You were surprised when your eyes first fell on the doctor. Your gaze lingered on his figure for a period longer than it should’ve. A pair of thin-framed round glasses perched on the bridge of his nose as his eyes darted about on the computer screen in front of him, the usual white doctor coat wrapped loosely around his body. A paper cup of hot coffee stood on his desk, and you guessed that was an aid for his mildly tired-looking self. The glowiness of his subtly pale skin seemed too porcelain-like for it to be real, his hair of an ashy cinnamon color which complemented his skin tone. His face was thin, you weren’t going to lie, but he was handsome nonetheless; his bone structure was symmetrical, cheekbones high and prominent.

The man took his eyes off of the monitor and looked towards you, his expression a little more blank and unfeeling than an average person’s. A light chill ran down your spine when his cold eyes met yours.

“Have a seat, Miss Y/N,” he offered, extending an open palm towards the empty chair right beside his desk. You snapped out of your thoughts and sat down at the said seat. At least his voice had some sort of tone to it, you thought.

You felt a cough rise up your throat but you didn’t let it out, not wanting to disrupt the quiet atmosphere and thus simply clearing your throat lightly.

There was another chair in front of the table for the patient’s guardians. Which you didn’t have at the moment. You caught sight of the golden, slightly-rusted badge pinned on the doctor’s white coat — “Jeon Wonwoo”.

Wonwoo proceeded to ask you for a few of your particulars to confirm your identity, to which you responded with ease, like it was something you’d do every day.

“You were referred here from Mori’s clinic, right?” he asked as his attention turned to the monitor again, his finger clicking away at the mouse. You nodded, your hands clasped together on your lap. You couldn’t help but keep your eyes on him.

He hummed softly before turning over to you again, making you flinch slightly and look away. He didn’t catch you, luckily. It was either that or he was ignoring the fact that you were checking him out. Given his looks, he’d probably have to deal with people fawning over him every day.

Wonwoo removed the stethoscope that was lying on his shoulders and rolled his office chair closer to you. He placed the eartips into his ears before taking the chestpiece diaphragm and pressing it onto a spot a little higher than your chest. He noticed how stiff you were, but made no comment about it, simply following the routines of telling you to inhale and exhale, to which you obediently followed. You were trying your best not to let out your crazy coughs — you were pretty sure you’d cough all over Wonwoo’s face.

“Your reports from Mori’s clinic a week ago says you’ve been coughing badly,” he read from his screen, occasionally making eye contact with you. “And you’ve been feeling especially weak. And that you have a loss of appetite.”

When you nodded to confirm his statements, he continued, “Did all this still occur within this week after eating the prescribed medicine from her?”

You put a fist to your mouth as you cleared your throat and nodded again, explaining to him what has been happening the past week. Your voice came out hoarse. Even after the prescription, the symptoms seemed to only get better for a day or two before returning to their original severity. On some days, the coughing was even worse, causing you to start wheezing due to your shortage of breath.

Wonwoo exhaled heavily after hearing what you said, and even though his expression seemed fairly unreadable, you could tell that something was wrong. He flipped the papers of your medical report back to the front page and quickly typed a few sentences into his computer.

“I’ll have to have you to run some tests, Miss Y/N,” he told you. “CT scans.”

You widen your eyes in surprise.

“Now?”

He nodded. “I’ll arrange for yours to be done as soon as possible, so don’t worry about the time. It shouldn’t take long.”

You frowned. “May I know why I have to do those scans, Dr. Jeon? And why am I….” you stopped to swallow and clear your throat once again as your voice became increasingly raspy, “…coughing up blood?”

A flicker of surprise could be seen in his eyes when you addressed him with his surname, but he didn’t show anything more than that. The way he said the next sentence was so monotonous and natural — as if it was a line that he’d say to hundreds of patients a day.

“I suspect you have SCLC, Miss Y/N. In simple terms, lung cancer.”

2 days later

You woke up to the soft chattering and murmuring of voices outside your room. There was a momentary state of confusion when your eyes were met with white walls and white curtains with soft orange linings. You turned your head slightly and saw the heart rate monitors and other medical equipment beside your bedside, and that’s when you remembered why you were here, in a hospital room.

(You had gone through the CT scan, which was more intimidating that you had expected as they put you in a suitable attire — a robe of some sort which was 2 sizes too big for you; it kept falling off your shoulders and you had to practically adjust the entire piece of clothing forward such that it drooped into a U-shape at your neck — and then the nurses took you to a dull room with that big donut-shaped machine.)

You lay on your bed and stared up at the ceiling, taking in slow breaths as the soft whirring of the ceiling fan calmed the atmosphere. You were trying to recall everything that happened in as much as detail as you could ever since the first day you had started experiencing the symptoms which you had never even thought about in depth — although, really, it was a stupid thing to do. It made tears prick at the back of your eyes and pulled you further into reality — the reality you really, really didn’t want to believe.

The dark, abnormal, impending spot that showed up on your scan results had revealed the cancer cells that had spread from your lungs to your lymph nodes — which explains the overly vigorous coughing that you’ve been having for the past month or so.

When Wonwoo told you the results of the test, you were pretty sure your face went through almost every expression possible in the neutral-to-negative range — or rather, the ‘5 emotional stages of grief’. Kubler Ross.

You were in denial at first. Your mind was telling you that it was impossible, as Wonwoo’s words repetitively chanted themselves like a mantra inside your head. You’ve been doing okay, you thought, all there was was a bad cough accompanied by fatigue which, once again, you thought was just due to the lack of sleep. Or maybe work was stressing you out. There were so many possibilities, none being anywhere close to the gravity of the truth.

The next stage was anger, together with bargaining. You got agitated and worked up, demanding to run another test that would show ‘accurate results’ and not ‘the bull results’ that you were being presented. Wonwoo kept his cool demeanor throughout, even when your usually soft-spoken voice started raising in volume. You grew appreciative of that later, after you had organized your disorderly thoughts.

You seemed to skip the next stage, the stage of so-called depression. After calming down (which Wonwoo’s composed mien helped with), you just went ahead to the stage of acceptance. Thinking logically, there was definitely something terribly wrong the moment you coughed up blood — which constantly got worse with each passing day.

So here you are now. Hospitalized and kept under supervision and observation to try to prevent the cancer cells from spreading. You were confirmed to be in Stage 2 of lung cancer when you got admitted, and Wonwoo was your assigned doctor, much to your concealed relief.

You didn’t know how to act, honestly. You didn’t know how to stop the disintegration of your feelings to prevent the disorientation of your mind. You were behaving so nonchalantly, it was almost as if you weren’t just diagnosed with one of the top causes of death in the entire world.

You were told that the treatment for you would be surgery, to remove parts of the organs that the cancer cells had spread to — organs which included your lungs (of course) and lymph nodes.

(Wonwoo, who was your overall doctor-in-charge, had introduced you to your surgeon — a middle-aged man named Dr. Hwang who seemed to have enough experience to make sure that you didn’t die on the surgical table. You were surprised when you realized Wonwoo wasn’t the one who was going to operate on you; you could almost picture him wearing those blue scrubs that you’d see surgeons in as they hassled about in the hospital compounds.

You and Wonwoo grew closer at a relatively slow rate, and a key reason was probably that of how introverted his personality was. You’ve seen him smile though, but the smiles were never like the ones that would show his teeth: just small, meek smiles formed by the raised corners of his pink lips. Wonwoo would come check in on you every 4 hours or so, sometimes with longer durations in between or less, depending on his schedule and your condition.

You were never one to coop yourself up, so you occasionally took strolls in the garden outside of the hospital building but within its compounds. You even made friends with a female receptionist downstairs, a wise lady who seemed no older than 40, who goes by the name of Nora. Not the petty one you met on your day of registration. She chatted quite a fair bit, but her nagging reminded you of your grandmother and she never spoke of untrue matters, so you wouldn’t complain.

However, Wonwoo showed distaste whenever you weren’t in your room while he was doing his rounds. You’d often be sitting on a bench in the garden, a bench that you always returned to because of the pretty scenery and flora surrounding its spot, when you catch sight of a white-coated figure strutting towards you. He’d have his lips pressed into a line, his eyes looking down at you in exasperation — as if you were a little child that he had lost in a shopping mall. You found it a little funny, honestly.

“Didn’t I tell you to not move about so much, Miss Y/N?” Wonwoo spoke, his voice still monotone although it was a question asked, exceptionally using formalities. He’d usually just call you Y/N — you two didn’t have a very big age gap. (You never asked, but you could tell he was pretty young.)

You chuckled a little as you coughed (again) to clear your hoarse throat, standing up and walking back to the building with Wonwoo beside you.

“But I’m fine,” you told him, spreading your arms open as unnecessary proof. Wonwoo simply sighs and shakes his head slightly , his hands resting in the pockets of his doctor coat as always.

“You haven’t gotten your operation yet,” Wonwoo stated, scribbling something onto the small stack of white papers in his hands which were supported by a blue clipboard. “So you can’t say that.”)

You said you weren’t scared but Wonwoo knows better than that. He notices how your body movements were tighter, your appetite reduced. His optics scans facial expressions, and he could easily deduce that you were nervous. He knew you didn’t especially favor hospital food (no one does), but you never complained about it and just ate whatever your dietician brought to your bed. But as your scheduled operation date neared, you started pushing aside the food on your plate, and finding things to do that don’t need doing to distract yourself.

There were days when Wonwoo would have to come into your room in the middle of the night — like literally in the middle of the night at 2am or so — to conduct simple checks or super minor tests on you, some involving the need to wake you up from your slumber. He’d try his best to avoid doing so but checks are checks after all.

These days, when he enters your room ever so quietly (almost tipping toes but he didn’t want to be caught looking like a thief), you’d shuffle on your sheets and turn to the door, sitting up when you saw him. He’d pause for a moment, but doesn’t say anything and just walk over to your bedside to proceed with the tests. You’d quietly let him do his job, sometimes bringing up small talk which he doesn’t really provide long replies to. Not that you mind; you understood and was accepting of his introvert personality.

On the day of your operation, you had an odd mix of feelings. The positive side was that it was a treatment for your disease — you that means you’d (potentially) be cured of cancer, right? Then you’d be able to go on living the life you were living, though things would probably be slightly different. But you’d be able to live.

Then there’s the negative side. Everyone knows that surgeries were subjected to failures and complications. If you were unlucky enough to have been diagnosed with cancer, there was probably nothing stopping the bad omen that your surgery could go wrong.

“Y/N?” Wonwoo spoke, standing beside you with other nurses and doctors who were wheeling your bed to the operating room.

“Yeah?”

“You good?”

“Y-yeah.”

Wonwoo knew better, but simply nods in response after glancing at you with a last look of subtle… something. Cyborgs don’t feel.

(You first found out that Wonwoo was a Cyborg during one of his nightly rounds. He had came into your room, and after finishing the checks, while he was cleaning up, a small, blinking red light suddenly appeared on the left side of his neck. It caused him to falter a bit, his arms swiftly grabbing onto the side rails of your bed for support.

“Wonwoo?” you said as you sat up, confused and worried.

“No, no, lie back down, I’m fine,” he told you, standing back upright and gesturing for you to not get up.

“I’m done with your checks for tonight,” he said, his voice sounding a little more slurred. “Rest well. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

With that, he gathered his items and left (to his charging pod, you assumed), and you could see that he had slight difficulty in trying to keep his balance.

You didn’t have many questions then — you easily confirmed his identity as a Cyborg. You already knew that most of the doctors and staff here weren’t of your species.)

“Will you be in there?” you asked out of the blue.

Wonwoo only hums, continuing to look ahead as his hands wrapped around the side rails of your bed, pushing you forward. Backward, rather.

And for some odd reason, his palms were starting to get abnormally moist, forming an unwanted lubricant between the surface of his skin and the object it was in contact with.

The surgery went by smoothly. ‘Smoothly’ as in, you were still alive, in your hospital bed, breathing.

After you woke up, it took you less than a minute to register your (dark) surroundings and gather your memories. Almost immediately, you noticed the tubes sticking out of your chest (…gross), and with every breath you took, the incision in the centre of your upper body hurt. A short, sharp but bearable pain which irritated you slightly because you couldn’t, well, stop breathing to minimize that sting.

You weren’t sure of what time it was, but it definitely was late.

Feeling exhausted, you let your eyelids fall close, hoping that the stings wouldn’t keep you from falling back asleep.

However, a few moments later, before you could drift off to sleep, your room door slides open. You ignored it at first, thinking that perhaps the person just came in to check on your vitals.

“Y/N?”

You opened your eyes, and saw Wonwoo at the foot of your bed.

When you opened your mouth to speak, you realized that it caused a lot more discomfort than you had expected, your voice slightly hoarse.

Wonwoo immediately moves to your bedside. “Don’t force yourself to speak if you can’t. I just came to check that you’re doing fine.”

You smiled slightly, and it seemed to make Wonwoo’s eyebrows furrow — so slightly and for such a short moment that both you and him did not register that.

“Are you feeling any odd discomfort?” he asked in a voice that sounded a little monotone.

You exhaled, softly saying, “Define ‘odd discomfort’.”

Wonwoo presses his lips together without saying anything, holding back the urge to quote the denotation of the said word, before taking your cold hand in both of his warm ones and giving it a couple light squeezes.

“Any pain?”

You shook your head slowly.

He massages your down your arm and lower legs and asks the same question, to which you gave the same reply to.

“That’s good,” he said.

“…Wonwoo,” you spoke, although your body didn’t want to. It just wanted you to go back to sleep so that it could stop its unnecessary functioning.

“Hm?” Wonwoo hummed, his eyes growing slightly bigger as he turned to you, away from scribbling down your updates onto your medical charts. He leaned down instinctively to accommodate your soft voice.

(He must’ve thought you wanted to tell him something important from the way you called his name. You felt your heart beat a little faster. You probably wouldn’t have noticed it yourself if you hadn’t just gone through a lung operation.)

“I just wanted to ask if you were tired.”

Wonwoo blinked, slightly surprised as he stood back straight up. “Oh,” he mumbled. “I, uh, just charged yesterday.”

“…Oh, right.” You chuckled. “I forgot.”

The corners of Wonwoo’s lips perked up slightly again at your innocent laugh. “Why?”

“Nothing,” you said. “I was just wondering. You always come in in the middle of the night but I always see you in the day too.”

You smiled a small smile again, the one that was really just a weak version of your usual sprightly smile, making Wonwoo have that super-slight-and-swift eyebrow furrow once more. “I guess I was worrying for nothing, right?”

Wonwoo smiled, a little wider this time. “Yeah. I’m fine,” he assured. “I’ve got a long battery lifespan.”

You laughed lightly, unable to bring yourself to laugh your usual laughter. The slight vibration of your chest was already hurting. “Good to hear.”

Wonwoo left the room to continue his rounds, a smile plastered on his face. When he got to the corridor, he let out a soft chuckle, shaking his head.

You were the first human, completely unrelated to him, who asked about his well-being.

Nora folds her arms over the countertop as she leaned forward, smiling when she saw you approaching. You smiled back from a distance, greeting her with a cheery “Hi!” after you got close enough.

“Sweetheart!” she chirped, her voice high-pitched as usual. “How are you keeping up?”

You grinned. “Perfectly fine.” You spread out both your arms (it was a habit of yours, for whenever someone asked about your well-being) for a short moment before tucking them into the pockets of your hospital blouse.

“How’s the incision?” she continued questioning, her eyes falling on your chest. You laughed in embarrassment and instinctively put your arms over your chest, tilting your body away.

“Good, Nora, it’s all good,” you told her, making her chuckle.

Her hazel eyes then turn their attention to something (or somebody) over your shoulder.

“Oh,” she muttered with a small smile, “Look who’s here.”

You turned around and followed her line of gaze, breaking out into a smile when your eyes fell on the said person, who donned a white coat.

Wonwoo had the same exasperated look on his face as he made his way over.

“Good afternoon, Doctor,” Nora greeted politely, and Wonwoo does the same, but minus the warm smile that Nora had on her lips.

“Why’re you out here again?” Wonwoo asked, passing a clipboard over to Nora, whom received it and sat down to get back to work.

You shrugged. “I felt good enough this morning to take a walk.”

Wonwoo sighed. “You just had your operation 3 days ago, Y/N. It’s dangerous for you to be outside.”

You wanted to laugh at his expression. “I’m fine, really. Besides, I’m hungry, and the dietician is still restricting my food choices.” You pouted at the thought of it.

“Good to hear.”

You only scorned at him, causing the corners of his lips to perk up ever so slightly again, his eyes twinkling in amusement more than his facial expression showed.

“Is cake off the list?” you tried asking.

“Anything sugary.”

You scowled again, looking over to Nora who only laughed as she typed away on her keyboard, saving records from the datasheet that Wonwoo had just handed to her.

“Quit whining,” Wonwoo said to you as Nora handed him back the clipboard. “You’ll be able to eat anything you want in a few weeks after you’ve recovered. Now will you please head back to your room?”

Nora laughed again. “Run along, Y/N. Listen to your doctor.”

You hesitated for a split second but obliged after feeling an abrupt, sharp prick in your chest, saying your goodbyes to Nora before heading back to your room with Wonwoo trailing along beside you.

(You had ignored that prick. It was probably the incision healing.)

“Can I ask you a question?” you started, trying to fill up the quietness between the both of you as Wonwoo walked you back to your ward.

“Hm.” He had thought of a witty answer to that, but preferred not to say it.

“Why don’t you laugh?“

He wanted to go with the answer of “I’m a Cyborg”, but that doesn’t exactly answer the question.

“There’s nothing to laugh at,” he responded simply, looking ahead.

“I mean, I’m not trying to be subjective but…” you stopped to turn to look at him as you tried to catch your breath (why were you starting to pant?), “…you definitely should laugh more. Maybe start off with smiling. That works too.”

Wonwoo couldn’t help but chuckle. You were one weird being.

After sending you into your room, you and Wonwoo talked for a bit more before he left to continue his rounds.

Once he does, you put a hand to your mouth and cleared your throat. It felt hoarse again, and a dense, heavy weight was resting itself on top of your chest.

(You felt a little, just a little, suffocated.)

Code Blue, South 6.

Code Blue, South 6.

Wonwoo was annoyed at the disruption at first; he was in the middle of diagnosing a patient. He focused on the patient he was with, but on the third call, he jolted out of his thoughts.

Code Blue, South 6.

His (unauthentic) heart jumped to his throat as his mind frantically registered the meaning of the code and the location that accompanied it. Pupils dilating, adrenaline levels rising;

South 6. The only patient of his that belonged to that sector of the hospital was you.

Wonwoo hastily apologized to the patient in front of him and dropped the chart into its holder, taking huge strides towards the room door and flinging it open. Once he got out to the corridor, he broke into a run.

Then it was a sprint, his white coat almost flying behind him as he dashed past everybody he passed, completely uncaring if he had accidentally bumped into anyone. He could apologize later.

Wonwoo’s mind was firing out negative thoughts that wouldn’t die down even while he was running. They keep coming like waves on rocks on a particularly windy day. The arguments in his head got so fast and so disturbing that it seemed to shut down after a while. His entire body was starting to sweat, strands of hair already sticking to his damp forehead. He didn’t have a real heart, but he felt like his was going to explode.

He pushed everyone aside when he got to your room. There were a ton of nurses inside which unnecessarily irritated him. The stuffiness of the room — he hated it.

You were on your bed, choking, desperately gasping for air and taking in sharp breaths, but nothing seemed to pass through your airways to enter your lungs. Your mind was awake, you knew what was happening around you, but your body wasn’t in sync with that.

“Her lungs are filled with fluid, Doctor,” the head nurse (Jaime, who was actually doing something) quavered, her hands moving swiftly to try to get you to breathe normally again.

Nothing was working. You were turning horribly blue.

“Get an OR now,” Wonwoo commanded in a harsh tone to no one in particular. Everyone shot looks at each other, and when no one moved, Wonwoo snapped his head around to all the other nurses, raising his voice.

“What are you doing just standing there? Didn’t you hear me?”

Someone shuffled and dashed out of the room in response, and the other nurses retreated out in intimidation.

“Y/N,” you heard Wonwoo’s voice stand out amidst the chaos, the muffled words becoming clearer as you felt him rush to your bedside. “Y/N, stay with me.”

The pain that once burned like fire was fading away into icy numbness. You felt black creeping in from the edges of your uncomfortably bright vision, your breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps. You felt something being pulled over your mouth, but you didn’t register what that was.

People were swarming over you, trying to help, you realized. You wanted to laugh if you could. You weren’t any medical expert but you could practically feel that you weren’t going to make it.

Suddenly, a loud, sharp, repetitive beeping sound filled the entire room as your heart monitor started to show smaller peaks. Now, even your mind wasn’t awake. You were unconscious.

Wonwoo shoots a short glance towards the detested machine and a string of curses follows.

“She’s going into arrest,” Jaime said, her voice loud as she grabbed the defibrillator. Wonwoo hastily snatches the device from her, and does the necessary. His jaw was tightened, his grip on the device so tight that his knuckles turned white.

Your body jerks, again and again, as Wonwoo pressed the defibrillator onto your chest. The blasts emitted from the shocks rang in his ears, echoing in the walls of his mind. If the amount of desperation he had while holding the device was transferred to its function, your heart would’ve definitely picked up on its beats.

Your surgeon, Dr Hwang, only came into the room now, his expression confused and was obviously panicked.

“What’s happening? What’s going on?”

No one had the time to reply.

Then the heart monitor started to lower its peaks even more.

Jaime charged up the defibrillator again, and Wonwoo pressed it onto your chest. His always-clear mind was fogged up, the kind when you just wake up and you know what’s going on around you, but at the same time, there’s the feeling of unfamiliarity.

“Y/N.” The corners of his eyes pricked. Why would it prick? Was it sweat that got into his eyes?

“Please.”

Wonwoo took the bouquet of flowers from the florist, the tissue paper used to wrap them crinkling under his touch. It was the first time he bought you flowers, he noticed. It shouldn’t be like that, though — this shouldn’t have been the first time.

(How did he not see it coming? He repeatedly asked himself this question, so often that sometimes he’d find himself accidentally mumbling out those words as he sat alone.

Maybe it was because he was a robot, he thought, a Cyborg; programmed and meant to only process and act on what was happening at the current moment. A Cyborg never grows attachments to anyone, they said. Maybe that’s why he didn’t realize or think much about it when you took longer to wake up in the mornings, or when you stopped going to the gardens even 3 weeks after your operation when the pain should’ve subsided enough for you to do simple tasks that he knew you enjoyed doing.

Maybe that’s why he never even fathomed the thought of not having you beside him.

Now that the situation was like this, where you were gone, his robotic self would process it. Wonwoo never wanted to see you in death, just to recall your vibrant smile. No one was even there to comfort him or to tell him that is was part of letting a loved one go — Cyborgs don’t feel, they said concludingly, so they’re always fine.

“Good for you,” they had told him.

He was stoic throughout, and maybe it was because his usual self was already so unfeeling that no one thought more about his loss.

When he saw you in your coffin at your funeral, his lips curled up in a contorted way and he felt his body shake like a leaf. That was a first for him — he experienced a lot of firsts when it came to you. You looked at peace. There was no greyness; just the absence of the usual pink on your cheeks.)

Wonwoo walks through the lush field, where dew lay on the green grass, and it almost made him smile at the thought of how your bubbly personality would’ve complemented this view amidst the dull stone slabs — but he doesn’t. He doesn’t remember the last time that he did smile after you left.

He stopped at one of the said slabs, one that was just a little shinier than the others, going down on one knee and resting the flowers he bought in front of it. He stays there, staring, and it was almost as if he could see you before him. His brown orbs gleamed in the sunlight, glossy — but no one, not even him, was aware of that.

“I hope you’re having fun playing with the angels, Y/N.”