Warning: UN-BETA'D. Pre-maturely posted. Depressing. Talks about cancer, a lot. Also, I'm no doctor-- don't take any medical information I spit out of here too seriously. The cast consists of mainly SMTown, but there are a few other idols here and there, too. Keep an open mind?




Soojung sits at the desk right beside Victoria’s in the Researchers office. Like Victoria and Himchan, she is someone who has also lost a loved one to an incurable disease of sorts.

“I’ve been wondering,” Soojung says, turning to Victoria. “Why do you think they have us use a voice changing device for a majority of our interaction with our patients?”

There’s not much to it, really, Victoria reasons. They’re not supposed to get attached, on either end, isn’t that it?

“Well?” Soojung prompts.

Victoria smiles at the younger girl. “I don’t know. Why?”

Soojung shakes her head, raising her pointer finger towards the ceiling as she says carefully, “Because if they hear the hopefulness in our voice, they might actually believe in it. Haven’t you realized it, unnie? All of us here try to suppress our hope, but it’s still so evident in everything we do—the way we speak, the way we act. Isn’t the sole fact that we’re here in the first place proof that we’re hopeful?”

Her words are convincing, even to Victoria, who has long since convinced herself to hold no expectations. “That… sounds about right,” she stutters in reply. “I mean, it doesn’t sound wrong or anything.”

The younger researcher scrunches up her nose and turns back towards her computer. “In any case, just the thought of them coming here with the idea that they’ll end up dying is simply tragic. Isn’t that the same as walking for their own death bed?”

“You think that way because you’re considerably new,” Kris comments as he walks by. “When you’re here as long as Vic and I, you’ll learn to stop wondering.”

Soojung sticks her tongue out at him and makes a face.

Victoria smiles at Kris and they exchange knowing glances.

It isn’t a matter of whether they care or not, it’s just that they can’t afford to keep thinking about things like that when there are more pressing matters in their hands; things like reports they must write, notes they must organize, and faces past that they must force themselves to forget.

Sometimes, there are feelings they must erase too. Feelings like apprehension and passion that burns hard—the ones they’re afraid to admit as love.







“How many days has it been? Bang Yongguk asks.

Victoria hesitates to answer when she sees the way his eyes are struggling to say open. She glances at the date and time on the bottom corner of the computer and holds the receiver button down. “It’s only been nineteen hours since you were first injected, Bang Yongguk-ssi.”

Yongguk furrows his brows. “Ah, is that so…”

Losing consciousness, fatigue, reddening skin and continuously inflating veins.

Those are the notes she scribbles onto her notepad.

“Do you have family?”

Bang Yongguk forces himself to blink a few times before his eyes spring open. The veins in his eyes are darkening, too. “Parents,” he says, “I’ve had parents.”

“Oh,” Victoria replies quite monotonously, “what a coincidence, I did too.”







Luhan runs into Victoria in the hallway on their lunch break.

It’s the evening of the day that Zhang Yixing was finally defeated by the experiments they constructed on him. Both of them are mourning, but neither allows it to show.

“Do you know what it will mean when they finally find the cure they’re looking for?” Victoria asks him, both of them leaning against the wall of the hallway side by side. She has her arms crossed over her chest and he has his hands stuffed into his beige pant pockets.

The doctor smiles, but his expression is slightly stumped.

“We’ll be job-less,” she says.

They share a moment of short laughter before Luhan is on his way again, rushing for a patient that has just sent a ring to his caller. Victoria watches as he leaves; her smile a little bitter on her lips.

No one she’s asked seems to be too regretful about that, she realizes. Perhaps she should consider that a good thing.








“You seem to only have an appetite for water today,” Victoria comments through the microphone. “Is there a reason for that?”

Bang Yongguk, as per always, glances around, trying to find the direction Victoria is speaking to him from. “Ever since Dr. Zhou’s last visit, everything tastes like dust on my tongue.”

“How about water?” She probes again.

He smiles, his rare gum-flashing smile. “I figured since it all tastes like , I might as well just drink what’s actually good for me.”

“Water’s no better then?” Victoria probes.

Bang Yongguk shakes his head. “Maybe next time.”

Sixty degrees to your left, Victoria thinks. If you look sixty degrees to your left and take a couple dozen steps forward, you would be standing right in front of me.

“What do you do in there anyways?” Yongguk asks.

Victoria smiles. “Watch you, all day long.”

“Sounds stalkerish,” Yongguk laughs. “Well, I hope you like what you see, Ms. Invisible.”

She finds it kind of adorable that he’s starting to joke back with her in times like these. “Not bad,” she teases back, “you seem to have kept yourself in great shape, Bang Yongguk-ssi.”

Yongguk grins and falls back onto his bed, staring at the ceiling. Slowly, his eyes begin to flutter close and his consciousness slips from the brink of his sanity.

Loss of taste, paling in the skin and gums, breathing hollow.

Those are some of the many things Victoria observes about Bang Yongguk that evening; those and much, much more.







It’s been two years since Liyin passed away.

Every anniversary, Victoria visits her sister’s grave with a bouquet of lilies; those were Liyin’s favorite flower. This year, nothing has changed.

“Did you know that Siwon has finally found a new person in his life?” Victoria smiles as she brushes some dust and dirt off of the gravestone. “It was so hard for us to convince him to move on, but he’s there at least. You must be relieved, right?”

Although there’s no reply, Victoria feels satisfied.

Withering incents, other bouquets of flowers… indications that other people have been here, too. There are many people missing Liyin, and that makes Victoria happy. Liyin was her baby sister after all.

“Rumor has it that our sponsors are planning on raising our budget by fifteen percent if the stocks rise by a single full amount percentage,” she continues. “Isn’t that great, Liyin? Then we can have a little more to fund for experiments.”

She stops, the sun beating down on her from above, burning her skin.

“There’s this new volunteer…” she whispers, fingers trailing over the black and white photo of her sister on the top center of the gravestone. “He’s a little different from the others…”

“You might call me crazy if you were still here, but there’s something about him that I just can’t scrap away like I do with the others. It’s almost like he’s too willing, too knowing, too aware of everything that’s happening around him. It’s… intriguing.”

The photo smiles at her, just like Liyin always has.

“He’s strong, just like you were,” Victoria concludes. Leaning forward, she presses a quick kiss to her sister’s photo. “My brave little princess.”

If it weren’t for the fact that Victoria and Liyin only had each other growing up, perhaps they wouldn’t be as close as they were. Liyin was only two years younger, but they had a bond that was not unlike mother and daughter.

To Victoria, Liyin was a majority of her world.

Her cellphone vibrates in her back pocket and she pulls it out. It’s a message from work.

“I’ll visit again soon,” she sighs, placing her fresh flowers into the vase beside the gravestone. “Work calls.”








“You seem to really enjoy action thrillers.”

Bang Yongguk nods idly, eyes glued to the screen of is television. “Not as much as your company, though.” He mutters off-handedly.

Something in Victoria’s chest flutters and she has to shut off the microphone, terrified that Yongguk would hear her heart beating—every pulse drumming in her ears until she feels her fingers numb, fear encompassing every single inch of her body.

This… this can’t be happening.








“You should take a break,” Victoria tells Kris, seeing the dark eyes bags and his flawed skin. “You look like a zombie, Kris.”

He brushes off her comment easily, but cups his cheeks in mild irritation. “How.”

“How what?” Victoria furrows her brows.

Kris sighs. “How is it that there is not a single result from this case that I’m working on that’s positive?”

Curious, Victoria glances over his shoulder and peers at his notes. “Maybe you’re just too pessimistic about it. Did what Soojung say get to you, Kris?”

“Even Sunyoung says she’s a little shocked at the outcomes, Vic, and you know how optimistic of a doctor Sunyoung is.” Kris argues. “This is all going to end up going to waste.”

“Well, at least we know it’s a sure-fire way to get a cancer victim dead,” Victoria offers.

And then the hard truth sinks in, biting at her skin. Kris doesn’t say a word, knowing that she’s regretting every thought she’s ever offered to this conversation.

“Like I said,” she says, clearing , “you should get some rest.”

“Yeah,” Kris replies, scratching at his Adams apple. “I think I will.”

This wasn’t even her patient; this was a person she has never met and will never get the chance to meet, but the fact that someone is going to die soon because of them—because of their job and their research—murders every single moral Victoria holds in her heart.

What were they fighting for and why were they fighting for it, if it means killing people along the way?

Small sacrifices for big purposes? Big sacrifice for small purposes?

How do they tell themselves when they’re lying in bed at night that all of this is okay? It isn’t—it never has been and never will be, until one day, someone is actually saved by the results of their years of hard work and many sacrifices.

That night, Victoria cries herself to sleep; she cries for Liyin, for Himchan’s loss, for everyone who is struggling in this battle between life and death. There are so many people who want to live and, to save them, there are so many people waiting to die.

She cries for all of them, until runs dry and her eyes have no more tears.

No one questions why her eyes are swollen and red the next day. In fact, no one speaks a word to her except for Yongguk. Though he cannot see her, he hears the straining in her voice.

“Did something happen?” He asks.

Victoria wonders if she should tell the truth.

“Is it—“

“Two years ago yesterday was the day my little sister passed away,” she interrupts him. “I visited her grave and spoke to her yesterday. That’s all.”

The look on his face is hard to read, but it seems to be a mixture of sadness, remorse, and worry. “I’m really sorry to hear that.”

“Thank you,” she replies. Suddenly, all she wants to see is Yongguk smiling again. “I know this sounds a little weird but… can you smile, for me?”

Yongguk seems to be caught off guard but he collects himself again with seconds and does as she requests, smiling broad and bright, until his gums shine and all she sees are teeth and no eyes. It calms her down a little, but her heart begins to throb again.

“Thank you,” she says again. “You… you are very kind.”

 

One afternoon, Victoria finds Himchan walking out of the HR office with a familiar looking file in hand.

“Off to your patient?” She asks.

Himchan seems shocked to see her, his eyes avoiding any contact with hers. “Yeah. I just needed some paperwork from Kwanghee. How about you?”

“I was a little curious about my recent patient’s history,” she tells him honestly, “it seems like they have no records of his education or occupation whatsoever and it just seems a little fishy to me.”

“Oh,” he humors, fingers running through his hair. “That’s definitely odd.”

Victoria is slightly confused by his reaction. “…yeah, definitely.”

“Well, I’ll catch you later,” Himchan smiles are her, “can’t have my patient waiting too long.”

As he rushes off, Victoria turns around and watches him leave. “Hey, Himchan?”

He stops and faces her. “Yeah?”

“Do you remember when it was you started working here?”

Himchan thinks it over, eyebrows knitted together. “Four years or so, I think? Why?”

Victoria smiles and shakes her head. “Just curious; I’ve been asking everyone but not too many people seem to remember anymore.”

Shrugging, Himchan returns the smile and starts jogging off to his patient. He’s not the best at lying, everyone in the building knows that.

Unfortunately, Victoria does, too. She caught a glimpse of the name on the portfolio that Himchan had been holding.

Bang Yongguk, it had read. It was the file she was looking for but the piece of information she received was much more helpful.

Himchan and Yongguk definitely knew each other and that changes things, a lot.







“I think I’m hungry, Victoria.”

Soojung glances in his direction from her studying but decides not to make a comment as of yet because Victoria doesn’t seem to have noticed.

“Do you remember when you last ate, Yongguk-ssi?” She asks.

He pauses, expression stiff. “Have I eaten already today?”

There is a brief moment of silence before Victoria finds her voice and forces a smile, speaking into the microphone again. “That doesn’t really matter, if you’re hungry, you’re hungry.”

It’s the only thing researchers can really offer to their subject of research: relief and comfort.

As he’s eating, Soojung decides to interrupt Victoria’s note-taking. “Did you notice?”

“What?” Victoria asks in turn.

Soojung grabs Victoria’s hand, forcing the older girl to look her in the eyes. “He called you Victoria. He knows.”

Reality hits her, like a large boulder falling onto her small shoulders. How could she not have noticed? Or, rather, how did Yongguk know her name, when he couldn’t even remember if he’d eaten that morning?

What exactly was happening to him?