#kidney failure

The bottle sat untouched on the coffee table. White plastic, amber label, his brother’s name printed in all caps. He could see the faint reflection of it in the TV screen, a glowing shape right under Jun-ho’s face.

He wasn’t angry, not really. Anger would have been easier. What sat in his chest was something meaner, fear that chewed and gnawed and never let him rest.

He remembered the monitors, the smell of antiseptic, the way the doctors had said we caught it just in time. The word rejection still made his stomach twist. It had been weeks since the surgery, and every day he had watched Jun-ho get a little stronger, laugh a little more, sleep without gasping, but he had also watched that bottle shrink one pill at a time. Every dose a lifeline.

He stopped pacing only to look again.

Jun-ho was on the couch, legs folded, a blanket around his shoulders, half watching a rerun of some mindless show. He looked fine. Healthy, even. It was almost cruel, how fine he looked.

“Jun-ho,” In-ho said, his voice already carrying that edge of warning. “It’s time.”

Jun-ho didn’t move. Maybe he hadn’t heard him. Maybe he was pretending not to.

“Jun-ho,” he said again, sharper. “Your meds.”

A pause. Then a sigh from the couch.

“I will,” Jun-ho muttered. “In a minute.”

That was what he had said yesterday. And the day before.

In-ho pinched the bridge of his nose, breath catching. “A minute turns into ten, and ten turns into,” he glanced at the clock again, “exactly what we’re doing now.”

“I said I’ll take them,” Jun-ho snapped.

It hit harder than it should have. The tone. The irritation.

He should have walked away, given him space. But the thought of leaving those pills untouched made his skin crawl. He walked to the table instead and stopped right in front of it.

“They’re not optional,” he said, low. “You know that.”

Jun-ho didn’t look up. The TV kept flickering, soundless laughter from strangers who didn’t have to count their hours in doses.

In-ho breathed through his teeth. Don’t shout. Don’t scare him.

He had promised himself he wouldn’t turn into their father. That he’d never let worry twist into control, but that was exactly what it felt like now, pacing the same three meters, lecturing, hovering like a storm cloud.

He heard himself say it before he could stop: “I gave you that kidney, the least you can do is take care of it.”

And the instant it left his mouth, he regretted it.

The words hung there, too heavy, too sharp.

Jun-ho’s shoulders went still. His face flickered through a dozen unreadable expressions before he schooled it back into calm.

In-ho’s throat felt tight. “I didn’t mean,” he started, then stopped. Of course you meant it. You meant every part that was fear wrapped in guilt, every part that whispered don’t make me lose you.

He sat down beside him, hands clasped so tightly that his knuckles ached. The light from the TV washed them both in pale blue.

“Please,” he said, quieter now. “Just take them.”

The truth was: Jun-ho was counting, too.

Not seconds. Not pills. Just the number of times he had heard this conversation.

It was always the same rhythm: the pacing, the sigh, the Jun-ho, it’s time.

He could have written the script himself by then.

He stared at the TV but didn’t see it. He felt the bottle in his periphery, the label practically glowing with accusation. He knew the drill. Two in the morning, one in the evening. Every day, same time, no excuses. He knew.

He wasn’t trying to be reckless. He wasn’t trying to make In-ho worry. It was just that he was so damn tired of living by the clock.

The pills tasted like metal and dust. They stuck to his tongue and made his stomach twist. But it wasn’t even the taste anymore. It was the weight of it. The reminder that his body wasn’t fully his anymore. That a part of his hyung was inside him now, and that he had to protect it or risk losing both of them.

He thought sometimes about the night before the surgery. In-ho’s hand on his shoulder, steady, calm, like it was no big deal to give away a piece of himself. And how afterward, when they had both woken up in separate hospital beds, In-ho had been the first face he saw. Pale, exhausted, but smiling. That kind of smile that said ‘you’re safe now.’

And now, every time he was ten minutes late, that same man looked at him like he was about to die.

He reached for the bottle, just to make it stop. The pills rattled, echoing in the quiet. In-ho exhaled like he had been drowning. It made Jun-ho’s chest tighten with guilt and annoyance all at once.

He popped the pills into his mouth and swallowed without water. They scraped down his throat.

“Happy now?” he said before he could bite the words back.

The silence afterward was worse than any argument.

In-ho sat beside him, elbows on his knees, eyes on the floor. Jun-ho could feel the worry radiating off him, thick as humidity. It made the room hard to breathe in.

He didn’t hate him for it. He couldn’t.

In-ho had always been everything: brother, father, the person who never left. The man who still looked at him like he was eight years old and sick again, like if he blinked too long, Jun-ho might vanish.

“I’m not a kid,” he said quietly.

“I know,” In-ho answered, just as quiet.

But neither of them really believed it.

The TV flickered again, casting faint shadows across the living room walls. The pill bottle sat lighter now, just a few doses left for tomorrow. And for a moment, Jun-ho let himself imagine a world where he could take them without feeling like he was disappointing someone. Where In-ho could look at him without counting minutes.