“Negative,” Songmi says as she walks into the kitchen.

Yixing's heart sinks. He struggles not to show his reaction, but he knows he's failed when Songmi comes over and sits down on his lap at the kitchen table. She gently removes a piece of stray hair so she can look him in the eyes, and he puts a hand on her hip to hold her in place.

“Don’t be sad, honey. We’ll get there. It’s only been a couple of months.” She presses a kiss to his forehead.

He knows she’s right. He has read up on every article about pregnancy he can find and he knows it can take some time for the body to go back to normal after years on birth control. Even so, it’s disappointing every time the pregnancy test comes back negative. Songmi doesn’t seem to mind the negative tests too much. It doesn’t seem to burn her out the way it does Yixing.

“What are you doing today?” she asks. Yixing nuzzles into her hair, and she writhes a little at the tickle.

“Outpatients,” he tells her, reaching around her for his coffee. They’re still in their pajamas and it’s only 6:30 in the morning. Outside, the January morning is cold and dark, and the street lights cast their shadows on the buildings around them. Songmi pulls the plate of toast closer and picks up a slice.

“Oh, great. I get off at 5 today too, so we can drive home together.”

Yixing nods and pulls her a little closer in his lap. She starts eating and Yixing watches with coffee in hand. She’s beautiful even in her pajamas, so carefree and confident. She munches happily away and once again, Yixing is struck by how much he loves her, and what a great mother she’ll be. When it’s been a minute and he still hasn’t taken a sip of his coffee, she raises an eyebrow at him.

“Eat your breakfast, or your outpatients are going to suffer with a cranky oncologist.”

Yixing promptly bounces his knee, making her jump in her seat on his lap.

“Behave, young lady,” he tells her. Songmi sticks out her tongue and continues eating. She’s right, though. He tends to get hungry around 10 if he doesn’t eat and he would like to last through to lunch. They eat in silence until Songmi suddenly notices it’s getting late and she isn’t nearly done getting ready yet. Yixing slowly chews his toast and watches his wife as she hurries through the apartment, putting on her make-up and styling her hair.

They usually take the bus, but it’s too cold and the car is both more comfortable and more reliable in this weather, so Yixing is driving them both to work today. As he pulls onto the road, Songmi looks across at him.

“Remember I’m going with my sister to her check-up during lunch, so you’re on your own,” she says.

Yixing nods. “Yep, I know.”

She smiles at him and reaches over to pat his hand. “And remember to call your mother and wish her a happy birthday today.”

“Okay, baby,” he says, but Songmi still isn’t finished.

“My parents want to invite us out for dinner this weekend, so please check your schedule and if possible, don’t be on call on Saturday.”

Yixing stops responding as Songmi continues to remind him of every little thing he has to do this upcoming week. It’s unlike her but it’s silly in a cute way, so he doesn’t mind. In fact, some of the things she’s telling him to remember are definitely things he would've forgotten.

“Are you sure the test was negative?” he jokes when she finally runs out of things to remind him about. She snorts.

“Oh come on, I’m not that bad.” Yixing just whistles an innocent tune, and she smacks his arm lightly before getting distracted by messages arriving on her phone.

The oncology ward is quiet when Yixing arrives. The receptionist, Jinsang, scrolls intently through files on his computer, making sure every time slot is filled and that the papers needed for every consultation are in order. He’s wearing a headset and doesn’t notice Yixing smiling at him when he comes in. Yixing shrugs internally and goes into his office, where he sheds his jacket and hangs it behind the door. He has just shrugged his white coat over his shoulders when Jinsang pops his head in with an apologetic smile.

“I had to make a few last minute changes to your schedule.” He hands Yixing a piece of paper that has a few patients crossed out and a few others added in neat handwriting. Yixing starts reading the names of his first few patients. There are a few names on the list that he recognizes and the first one draws a sigh from his lips. He takes a deep breath before leaving his office, list in hand. As he passes Jinsang in reception, he sees the other man already greeting a few of the outpatients he will consult today.

His first consultation is with a certain Mr. Lee, and to his dismay, the man has brought his wife with him. The fighting couple left quite the impression on the entire ward a couple of months earlier. Mr. Lee has recovered well from his surgery and his CT scans don’t show any remission. He shoots a triumphant look at his wife, which falls from his face when Yixing asks how quitting smoking is going. Now it’s Mrs. Lee’s turn to smirk as she tells him that Mr. Lee hasn’t stopped smoking even one bit and is going to die from cancer, she’s sure. Yixing shrinks inwardly as Mr. Lee raises his voice in angry retort. He we go again, he thinks, wishing he could just cover his ears like a child. Instead he pretends to be doing something important on the computer, hoping they’ll stop on their own this time.

Five minutes of shouting argument later he reaches breaking point. He hates yelling so much, whether it's from others or from himself, but he has no choice. He raises his voice to cut through the noise, interrupting Mrs. Lee mid-sentence. Maybe it’s rude, but it’s rude of them to fight in front him too.

“There’s not much more to discuss,” he says loudly, “apart from that I’d like you to keep trying to quit smoking, Mr. Lee. It will greatly benefit your recovery and future health.” He doesn’t pause long enough to let them get another word in, informing Mr. Lee once again of the smoking cessation programmes available and moving on to explain the next course of action - another CT scan in three months and then an appointment to make sure the cancer hasn’t returned. They finally leave his office, already starting to bicker again. Yixing feels shaken, and it takes a couple of minutes of sitting with his eyes closed before he feels ready to call his next patient.

Thankfully, the next couple of patients are not so distressing. A 67-year-old woman with lung cancer is happy to hear she's in remission and an 88-year-old man takes his newly diagnosed prostate cancer with immense calm. He doesn’t want treatment. You have to die of something one day, he tells Yixing serenely, and he’s had a good life. Yixing watches him leave and feels a little soothed. Being naturally empathetic is especially hard when you're a cancer doctor. It's nice to get a chance to identify with peace instead of anger and sorrow.

His 11 o’clock appointment is a 32-year-old woman with a tumour in her ovary. They found the mass a week after labor when she suddenly experienced strong abdominal pains, and Yixing now has to break the biopsy results to her. She enters the outpatient clinic with a pram and her husband by her side. Yixing’s heart sinks as he watches her from across the waiting room. The new mother doesn’t outwardly seem distressed, but the whole scenario is just awful. If Yixing can’t treat her cancer, the tiny human in the pram will grow up without a mother. The thought alone makes Yixing’s heart constrict.

“Mrs. Oh?” he calls, and greets her and her husband when they stand up. She smiles at him and the baby in the pram fusses in its sleep. Inside his office, Yixing asks them to sit down and gently leans over to look at the baby.

“What a beautiful child," he says, glancing up to smile at his mother. "Boy or girl?”

Oh Eunji glows like only new mothers can.

“Boy,” she says. “His name is Seunggi. He is beautiful, isn't he?”

She reaches over to link fingers with her husband, and Yixing is surprised to find Songmi flashing into his mind. He doesn’t usually think of her when he’s working, not unless it’s something really out of the ordinary, but something about Oh Eunji’s situation is rattling him. Maybe it’s because it’s the first time Yixing has had a new mother for a patient since he and Songmi have started trying to become pregnant. He finds himself picturing himself in Mr. Oh's place, a brand new father, waiting to hear if his wife has cancer. Of course, statistically, he knows it's extremely unlikely he would ever be in this position. His perspective is skewed because he meets so many people with cancer. But it does happen. Someone has to be those statistics. Yixing knows it better than most.

He pushes the unhelpful thoughts aside and focuses on Eunji. He always tries to break cancer diagnoses slowly. He’s learned that people can’t process too much bad news at once. They stop hearing what he says. At least Eunji is already a little prepared. She’s had CT scans and a biopsy, and she's seeing an oncologist about them. She knows the tests might show a problem.

“We found a mass on your ovary last week when you went for the CT scan, and they took a biopsy for testing." He pauses, and Eunji nods, so Yixing continues. “The biopsy confirmed that the mass appears to be a malignant tumour.”

The glow Eunji had earlier when he asked about her son fades, and the couple's linked hands tighten. Yixing forces himself to go on. “You went for a PET-CT scan afterwards. This showed that the malignancy has spread to your lymph nodes and that there is another mass in your liver.” With each pronouncement, Eunji and her husband cling more desperately to each other. Yixing can see how much pain his words are causing, can feel it, but he has no choice but to go on. “I’d like to get a biopsy of the liver mass as well, but I’m afraid it’s very likely that it’s a metastasis from the ovarian malignancy, like the lymph nodes.”

The couple in front of him sit in stunned silence. Eventually Mr. Oh says quietly, “What does all this mean?”

Although he doesn’t articulate the question in this way, Yixing knows that what he really means is Is my wife going to die? And though Yixing would never articulate his response this way, the answer is Probably.

“It means Eunji is very sick,” he says gently. “It means she is going to need a lot of help and a lot of treatment.”

“So...it is cancer?” Eunji asks. She already knows the answer, but the question is her last hope, and Yixing is the one who has to crush it.

“Yes, Eunji.” He finds himself using her first name. “It is cancer.”

The silence in the room is so thick it’s almost hard to breathe. It’s Eunji’s husband who breaks it, after what feels like hours.

“What’s the prognosis?”

Yixing absolutely hates that question. He knows the statistics, but most of them are so depressing and he doesn’t want to give them a bleaker outlook. He also can’t lie and reassure them that it's all going to be okay. It really isn't going to be okay, and that is a reality they’ll have to accept.

"I mentioned that we have lymphatic spread and liver involvement. When this happens it’s known as stage 4 cancer. I will be honest with you. The statistics aren't the best. Most women diagnosed with stage 4 ovarian cancer have a five-year survival rate of approximately 17%. However, survival rates are often based on studies of large numbers of people, and they can’t predict what will happen in any particular person’s case.” He looks between Eunji and her husband’s shell-shocked faces. “We have some powerful therapies at our disposal and we’ll do everything we can. People can and do survive this. Don’t give up hope.”

Seunggi starts fussing in his pram. Eunji rocks it until he quiets again, but it doesn’t look like she’s actually present. The idea of probably dying within the next five years is too much for her.

“How will you treat it?” Mr. Oh asks.

“We’ll operate to remove the tumour and the surrounding tissue. Afterwards, we'll start with three cycles of chemotherapy to see how the metastases respond. After the first cycle of chemotherapy, we’ll do a control CT scan to see how it’s going. If the tests show liver metastasis, we may use radiotherapy as well.” Yixing watches them both as they process the information. Eunji sits there quietly, blinking into space for a minute or two before she turns her gaze to Yixing. It’s the first time since he confirmed her question about it being cancer that she has really looked at him.

“What about children?” she whispers, almost inaudible. “Will I be able to bear children again?”

“The safest way to ensure we get the entire tumour is to remove the fallopian tubes and the uterus as well, but that will leave you infertile. It is possible to do a procedure called debulking, in which we remove as much of the tumour as possible without removing the reproductive organs and try to take care of the rest with chemotherapy, but this has a much lower success rate. Your strongest bet for survival is the combined surgery that removes all of it.”

Yixing tries hard not to bite his lower lip as Eunji sinks her gaze to the floor. A couple of seconds later, he realises she’s crying, tears silently flowing down her cheeks. Her husband lets go of her hand so he can embrace her. The appointment time is running out, but unlike the Lees, Yixing isn’t in a hurry to send Eunji and her husband on their way.

“I know it’s a big decision to make," he says after another short silence, "but the quicker we start treatment, the better our chances of fighting the cancer are.”

Eunji sniffles and then sits up straight in her seat. Her husband still holds onto her shoulder, pulling her gently closer.

“Do I have to make a decision now?”

Yixing shakes his head. “Take some time tonight to think about it, and call us tomorrow. If you have any more questions, you can call me at any time. Leave me a message if I can’t come to the phone and I’ll call you back as soon as I can.” He hands one of his business cards to Mr. Oh.

Baby Seunggi starts crying, and the sound is like paper cuts in Yixing’s heart. Eunji lifts him out of the pram and calms him down. When she puts him back in the pram, they both stand up. Yixing gets up too.

“We’ll do our very best, I promise,” he tells them as Mr. Oh shakes his hand. The man doesn't respond verbally. He looks like his whole world has just come crashing down around him, and Yixing knows that it has.

When they're gone, Yixing sits back down, lets out a slow breath, and updates Oh Eunji's patient journal before pulling up the files for his next client. The calm he got from the serene elderly man has been replaced by a sense of bleak depression that he knows from experience will not be easy to shake. He passes a hand over his face. Sometimes he really wonders if he's in the right profession. The way he continually goes up and down with his patients is truly exhausting. But there are so many people he can and does help. Is it selfish of him to wish just for his own sake that he'd gone into research instead, or even studied something else entirely, when he's saving people too?

Yixing isn't sure.

Lunchtime has him entering the cafeteria feeling just as low. He knows he needs company, it's not good for him to be alone when he gets like this, but as Songmi reminded him this morning, she’s gone with her sister for her check-up and isn’t here. S