Episode 2

Budding

Daesung and YoungBae had been officially dating for a grand total of three weeks. They had been roommates for three years. Not normal roommates that share an apartment but have separate rooms either, no, they had agreed to share a room together on top of somehow being convinced to join in this crazy bakery adventure. Oh yes, there was even a bunk bed built by YoungBae, just to provide the college dorm aesthetic to their tiny room. He had, until recently, occupied the top bunk of the bright blue wooden monstrosity.

The long, and ever growing, list of illnesses had started in early July with pneumonia. After the subsequent sinus infection, the lingering bronchitis, and the two recurrences of walking pneumonia he had finally asked YoungBae to switch beds. He had been sleeping on the couch, the floor, and occasionally just in his Mohawk sporting roommates bed with him because he had no energy to climb the ladder. They had been best friends for…well, for as long as anyone could remember. Even their parents had no answer for when it started. It certainly wasn’t the first instance of them sharing a small-ish bed. When the topic of switching came up YoungBae had asked for payment in dinner dates, and that was the story of how Daesung’s idiot had wound up with a sickly boyfriend and, occasionally, the top bunk of a bunk bed.

So in addition to being deliriously ill Dae was now attempting to navigate the murky waters of a new, but very old relationship. Nothing changed, but everything changed too. Romantically it was new and bright. He supposed that love didn’t always have to just explode out of nowhere; sometimes it was okay to let it fade in comfortably over the structure of an old friendship. Like refinishing an old table, sand it down and paint it a new color and suddenly it’s a new table.

These were the things that Kang Daesung thought about while he sat waiting for agonizing minutes. The room was stark white and terrifyingly sterile with the standard awkward doctors office art from who knows what era hung on the walls in seemingly random places. It smelled of nothing but bleach, lemon and sickness. Sickness has its own particular smell. Dae had gotten very used to this part. The waiting was the easiest part.

Two general care practitioners and three respiratory specialists later he had finally ended up in that inevitable place; the oncologist’s office. Last week had been the week from hell. So many needles had been poked into him. He had expected the blood draw, he’d gotten that in every appointment he’d been to. What he had not expected was the subsequent bone marrow biopsy. Having a humungous needle poked into his hipbone, had not been on his list of things to try, nor had the spinal tap he’d come in for two days after that. The bruises they had left were horrific.

There were worse things, he supposed, than landing in the office of Lee MinHo, just not many. He paused for a moment to consider the amount of Hinho’s in his life, the term “minhoes” came to mind and that made him laugh, which made him cough, and then the door opened. This was really just a formality. Despite his incurable optimism Daesung had done the research, he knew the implications and he knew exactly what the doctor was going to say. It was why he had come alone this time.

Of course the first thing out of Dr. Lee’s mouth was, “No Sunshine today?” as he shoved through the door and unfolded the thick record in his hand to skim through it.

“Work was too busy for both of us to leave,” which was only true because Seungri had failed to return from his lunch break…again,  “And YoungBae is the only one that can drive the delivery truck.” That was true, but irrelevant since they had only one delivery and it wasn’t until seven that evening.

“The perils of small business,” The doctor remarked distractedly as his eyes traced over the file in hand.

“Well,” Daesung began, clearing his throat, “Should I ask how bad it is or how aggressive it is?’

“Are we going to humor route with this?” he asked.

Dae took a moment to push his glasses back up his nose and consider his options. “Yeah, I think so. I don’t feel much like crying yet today.”

“Alright,” the kind doctor offered, slapping the file closed as he pulled the usual worn out rolling stool out from under the awkwardly places cabinet. He sat down and continued with, “The good news is that its still not lupus.”

“The bad news?” Daesung asked, bracing himself despite the relative numbness he had acquired towards these frequent diagnostic meetings.

“The really bad, level five news comes with some good news,” MinHo offered.

“The bad news comes in levels? Dae inquired.

 “I like you Daesung” The doctor tensed noticeably, like he knew what he had just done. He had let something of a personal belief creep into his medicine by the use of a first name, “I mean, I like all of my patients, but you are by far the most reasonable. You came through my door with reasonable expectations of me. You haven’t asked for a miracle, just for the tests to be run, and the diagnosis to be right this time. So, for you, there are levels to the bad news. The worst of which is that; you have leukemia, but it’s not in your spinal cord or your brain.”

The thing that came spilling out of his mouth would probably have been shocking to any other doctor, but Daesung had been waiting on this diagnosis for a while. He had done his research; in fact, he probably knew way more about blood cancer than he should. “Okay. What kind?” he asked. His rich voice caught in his throat for the barest half a second before he could swallow his disappointment.

Dr. Lee ignored this in favor of reopening the file manila file he had set aside previously, “That’s a complicated question at the moment,” he said. “We can go over all of the diagnostics if you really want.”

Essentially the long and the short of it was that Daesung’s body hated him because his bone marrow was bad, and made too many white blood cells. The icing on the cake was that it couldn’t even be bothered to make useful white blood cells, just useless ones that were too lazy to do their job and crowded out the other useful blood cells he should have had.

The thought crossed his mind every five or so minutes for the next hour as they carefully discussed treatment options that he was going to die. That thought had crossed his mind many times in the preceding months but not like it did now that his tiny slivers of hope were gone. He swallowed hard every time he pictured Death’s cold hands wrapping around his neck.

No matter how many times Doctor Lee insisted that cancer was not a death sentence, Daesung couldn’t help but feel like it was. It had already stripped him down to his bare soul and the fight hadn’t even begun yet. He was sick, and tired, and tired of feeling sick. How on earth was he going to go to war with his own body when he could barely function already?

The ghosts of choices he had made without consulting anyone haunted him for the five-mile taxi ride home. The familiar streets and storefronts breezed by in a blur of strangely dull colors as he contemplated life from that point forward. He could have used the time to call his mother and tell her, but then she would insist on visiting and taking care of him… so instead he sat in silence and waited for the drive to end. His stomach made angry protests at the thought of starting a round of fairly intense radiation in a week.

Home had never looked so good. The shades weren’t drawn on huge front window with the logo carefully scrawled across. JiYong, with his fabulous orange hair was draped across the pastry case, apparently enthralled in a conversation with one of the afternoon regulars. It was half past two and gloriously slow. Cha Hakyeon, the N of Neo Dance Studio, which was just across the street and to the left, was in with his Jung Taekwoon (known as Leo to most) like always. They came in to eat sugar and drink coffee before the after school children’s classes started up.

Dae forced himself up the three narrow brick stairs and through the old iron and glass door. The shrill bell that was hung on the door rang out loud and clear in the relative emptiness. He shifted his head immediately to his left where he knew he would find Taekwoon sitting just down the two steps in the mint green room on his favorite fluffy blue chair. With delicate hands the tall, muscular dancer took a moment to whisk the inky black hair out of his face and chanced a rare smile and the smallest of waves at Dae before he went back to sipping at his incredibly large coffee cup.

Hakyeon had turned around at the noise a smiled sadly, “Dae, how was the hospital?” he asked, his chocolate colored eyes read of concern. His sun-stained skin contrasted JiYong’s orange hair the oddest way.

“A bummer, like always,” Dae deflected, chancing to step further into the bakery.

A pop of color crossed his vision as a very blue haired SeungHyun came out from the back room. “Hey Dae,” he offered, looking clumsy and disheveled. He draped his arm over the leaning Ji, which for some reason always made the younger baker smile more warmly. Their relationship was peculiar.

Hakyeon switched between looking at the bakers and looking at the business manager very quickly. He rolled his beautiful eyes and shifted his shoulders in the usual way. N and Leo had a certain body language that Dae had spent well over two years learning, but now he was fluent and N found Ji and SeungHyun’s relationship just as strange as Dae did. 

The blond waved and then his brain caught up to him, “aren’t you supposed to be in bed SeungHyun?”

“We have that wedding cake for Jia’s mom,” the orange dragon offered, “That’s our delivery for today. SeungHyun has been overbearing and demanding all afternoon, making sure none of the chocolate pearls are out of place and criticizing my piping abilities.”

“I took a nap,” SeungHyun shrugged.

All Daesung could do was sigh and shake his head. He was drained. Drained of fight, drained of life, drained of desire. He wanted to curl up in a ball and give up for the day. “I’m going to take a nap now,” he said, “We can talk about it later.”

There were no replies, only silence, and N’s weird body signals to his lover in the other room.

He dragged himself up the stairs and through that apartment, stripped his shirt off somewhere in the hallway, just leaving it out on the floor. It smelled like hospital. He smelled like hospital, but he didn’t have the energy to shower so he just tripped out of his clothes as he shoved his bedroom door open.

Daesung, the perpetually optimistic, always smiling, pillar of the community, felt like life had defeated him that day. Despite all of the research, and the constant assurance that his expectations were no less than completely realistic he had hoped for a miracle. He had hoped beyond hope that it was just a string of infections and nothing more. He ran a hand through his scraggly blond hair and set his glasses down on the dresser ugly old red dresser, catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror that lived on top of it was his breaking point. A shadow of a person stared back at him.

Somewhere between his grief and his exhaustion he didn’t even make it to the bed, sickly, and so beaten, he collapsed into the carpet in his underwear, dragging the fluffy purple comforter from off the ridiculous blue bunk-bed as he sank.

Daesung decided that it was okay to feel like life was unfair and he cried. He sobbed, and let grief wreck him like he had never let it before. Everything pent up just exploded and he was left empty, shaking, and wondering if his soul had fled out through his mouth when he finally gave in to sleep on the floor.

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I am so eternaly sorry for this. My heart ached writing it. I cried more than once just trying to get through it. 

I love you all, I swear.