Chapter 02

How (NOT) to Pass a Knife
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Upon arriving at the hospital, Kihyun was rushed into the emergency room to be treated. And that had been two hours ago. Minhyuk paced the length of the hospital waiting area as he nervously waited for the news of his friend’s condition. He could still see everything so clearly. The horrific scene from earlier played over and over again in his head like a bad movie— as if the whole moment was stuck on replay.

Kihyun-ah, please be okay, please be okay.

Looking down at his bloodstained hands, he felt filthy from the inside and the outside. He felt that he no longer deserved the title of a friend, not even a co-worker. He had ed up big time, and he might have just cost Kihyun his life.

What if he doesn’t make it?

His thought was interrupted and he instantly turned his head when he heard familiar voices coming from the end of the corridor. He saw Shownu and Wonho first. The rest of the members trailed closely right behind them.

“What the hell happened? How is he?” Wonho asked, fervid concern dripping in his voice.

“I-I don’t know… I don’t know,” Minhyuk shook his head dejectedly. “No one’s telling me anything. He’s still in surgery.”

“What? Surgery? Okay, but what the hell happened?” Wonho questioned again, feeling uneasy that Minhyuk hadn’t answered him the first time. He caught a glimpse of the dried blotches of blood tainting Minhyuk’s hands and then noticed the dark stain on his grey sweater.

“I… I accidentally s-stabbed him…” Minhyuk stammered. He kept his eyes downcast, not able to face the other members.

“What?” The boys responded almost in unison, their mouths hung open as they digested the information. They could not believe what Minhyuk had said.

“We were cooking for V Live… I-I…I was just fooling around… trying to be… funny… then I accidentally stabbed him… with a knife…”

Wonho’s face instantly became hard; he was livid. Before anyone could stop it, he grasped Minhyuk by the lapels of his jacket and slammed him back against the wall forcefully. “What the ? You think fooling around with a knife is ing funny? What the is wrong with you?” He growled through clenched teeth.

Surprised at the sudden assault by the older boy, Minhyuk gasped, “I… I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to… I didn’t know that he was standing right there…”  Minhyuk muttered under his breath, eyes swimming in tears. “He wasn’t… then… then suddenly he was—“

“Sorry?” Wonho hacked out a derisive laugh, he was shaking in anger. “You ing stabbed him!” It took everything in him not to punch Minhyuk square in the face at that moment.

Shownu felt that it was time he interfered. He stepped between Wonho and Minhyuk with a hand on each of their shoulders. His voice was low but firm. "Stop it.” The leader’s eyes flashed between the two younger boys. “Hoseok, you need to calm down before you get us all thrown out of here."

 

Wonho shrugged Shownu’s hand off his shoulder and took another menacing step towards Minhyuk, “If anything happens to him, and he dies, it’s on you, Lee Minhyuk!” The second oldest of the group grounded out through gritted teeth, his fists clenching hard to the point his knuckles were turning white and Minhyuk gulped nervously at the words.

Wonho figured that Minhyuk would need to stay out of his face. He didn’t want to do anything that he might regret later. He shot him another deathly glare before walking away to the other end of the hall, leaving Minhyuk frozen in place staring after him.

Before he could realize it, Jooheon and I.M were beside him offering him a reassuring pat on the back. Despite their warm gesture, he could see the flicker of disappointment in their eyes and he knew that he deserved it.

“Have a seat, hyung.” The second youngest of the group guided the older boy towards the bench and they sat at each of Minhyuk’s side.

“So, hyung… mind telling us exactly happened?”

 

MXMXMXMXMXMMX

 

 

The boys had been waiting for news on Kihyun for five long, restless hours. Minhyuk had been waiting for longer. Hyungwon had fallen asleep with his head resting on I.M’s shoulder. Jooheon and Shownu had gone to the cafeteria to see if they could get some decent coffee, while Minhyuk paced back and forth restlessly around the waiting area. Sitting quiet and stoic in the corner away from the rest of the group, was Wonho.

Minhyuk looked up at the clock positioned near the nurse station at the waiting area. The minute-hand seemed to have slowed to a crawl. Time seemed to move at a dawdling pace. From time to time, a nurse or a doctor would appear from the hallway and Minhyuk would tense up, only to let out a restless sigh later when they would walk past them without even looking in their direction.

Shownu and Jooheon had been back from their quest for coffee at some point, and their manager had joined them again after having to leave for a while. Minhyuk wasn’t even aware when. His attention was fully split between looking at the clock and waiting for the person in charge of treating Kihyun to come out and let them know what was going on.

After what seemed like forever, an elderly male doctor with greying hair walked into the waiting area. He made a stop at the nurse station and spoke to a nurse who then pointed directly at the group of boys waiting in the area. I.M stood quickly, tugging the sleeping Hyungwon up with him, causing the older boy to jerk awake from his doze. Their manager stepped up in front of the boys as the doctor walked over.

“Family of Yoo Kihyun?”

“Yeah, that’s us. I’m his manager. I’m responsible for him.”

“How is he?” Wonho interrupted.

“I’m Kim Daehyun, I’m the surgeon who operated on Kihyun-sshi.” The doctor introduced himself to the anxious boys before answering the question that he needed to answer. “First of all, he’s stable.”

The boys, including their manager, let out a collective sigh of relief but the doctor was not done talking. “The blade missed his heart by merely an inch. It would have been a totally different circumstance if the blade had penetrated or lacerated his heart. He’s a very lucky young man in that sense. But... the blade of the knife did indeed nick his left lung.”

Suddenly Minhyuk didn't want to hear what the doctor had to say, fearing that he wouldn't be able to bear it if it wasn't what he desperately needed to hear from the doctor.

Dr.Kim chose his words carefully before he continued. “I’m not going to lie, that it was touch and go at the beginning. When the paramedics arrived at the scene, he had stopped breathing. They were able to get him to breathe again by initiating mechanical ventilation, fortunately. By the time he arrived at the emergency and trauma department, he had lost a lot of blood and his body went into deep shock. He was cyanotic and his pulse was thready due to the collapsed lung and the overwhelming blood loss. So we started massive fluid infusion and immediately brought him to the operating theatre to fix the wound.”

The doctor paused for a moment, allowing the boys to take in the information he had given them.

“His heart did stop on the way to the operation theatre, so we had to perform a posterolateral thoracotomy on him to relive the cardiac tamponade. The injury to his left lung required surgery so we performed sternotomy to repair the damage done by the knife.

Damage done by the knife. 

The knife that he, himself had plunged into his friend’s chest. Fresh tears sprang to his eyes. “I-Is… is he going to be okay?” Minhyuk willed himself to ask.

The doctor gave Minhyuk a sympathetic look. "At this point... we can't tell for certain. Your friend is stable, but not completely out of the woods yet. The next twelve hours will be very crucial... if he's still stable after that time frame or shows any improvement... then the prognosis would be favorable. Besides blood transfusion to replenish the blood loss, we have him hooked up to a heart monitor and a ventilator as a precaution. We also want to monitor his blood pressure every ten minutes to make sure there is no unexpected drop in pressure due to the blood loss.”

“Can we see him?” Jooheon asked, hoping that they were able to see Kihyun with their own eyes.

"He's in recovery now and will be moved to the ICU in the next hour or so. I'm sorry, but we can't let anyone in to see him for at least twelve to twenty-four hours... after that, we should be able to let him have visitors for a few minutes at a time depending on his condition. If his condition improves, we'll take him off the ventilator and move him to a normal room. We want to get him breathing on his own again as soon as possible so his diaphragm doesn't weaken. And hopefully, by then, he’ll be awake.”

"Thank you, doctor," Their manager said, relief that at least Kihyun was still alive with a fighting chance.

"My pleasure, gentlemen." The grey-haired doctor nodded. “I will keep you updated with his condition as it progresses. For now, I would advise all of you to go back home and get some rest. It’s been a long day for all of you I’m sure,” the doctor spared a quick glance on Minhyuk before continuing. “There’s absolutely nothing to be done here since he won’t be allowed any visitors anytime soon.” With that, the doctor excused himself and made his leave.

The boys stood in place wordlessly, they could barely process the news that was just delivered to them.

Shownu

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jhienniee13
#1
Chapter 3: is this really the end :(
this Story is nice Job well done.. :)