Lay tiredly shuffled down the hallway of his apartment complex with heavy dull buzz drilling in to the back of his head. His shift at the hospital had been longer than usual and more draining of him this time around. He wanted nothing better than to wolf down enough food to satiate his stomach and then crawl into a comfortable cuddle with his girlfriend while they sleep the night away.

His eyes had already started dropping as he rustled around in his pocket for the apartment key. Just as he put the key in the lock, the door jerked widely open to reveal his enthusiastic girlfriend, who leaped onto his figure tightly. “Lay! Welcome home!” He numbly wrapped his arms around her, but delivered a weak smile when he caught sight of her attire.

Red cocktail dress. High black heels. Curled hair and well done make up. He inwardly groaned at his forgetfulness. It was date night.

“I’m so excited for this date tonight! Especially since we’ve been so busy with work to go out and have some fun. Do you want to take a quick shower before we go?” Fei Yen saw his haggard appearance, and her eyes immediately softened with sympathy. “You’re tired, aren’t you?”

“N-No! I’ll be fine! We haven’t gone on a date for a while, right?” Lay faltered. A few more hours wouldn’t kill him as long as it would keep Fei Yen happy.

She adamantly shook her head and caressed his cheek. “Don’t overwork yourself. It’s fine. Date night can always be pushed aside if you’re beat up. We’ll have a comfy ‘date’ at home with just the two of us? How does that sound?” Fei Yan’s formerly disappointed eyes flared with new bright energy.

He grinned and leaned down to brush his lips against hers in gratitude. “Thank you, honey. I love you!” He pinched her chubby cheek teasingly. “And since we can’t go out tonight, I’ll make sure to entertain you personally!”  His voice huskily left his hot breath trailing down her skin.

“...You’re provocative when you’re tired.” She regarded him with a look of amusement before pushing him in the direction of the bathroom. “Now shoo and shower while I try to find what to do for dinner.”

“But I really am sorry that we couldn’t go out tonight, Fei Yen.” Lay guilty looked down to the floor. He looked up when he felt her brush some stray bangs away from his eyes.

“I told you already; it’s perfectly fine! Besides,” She gazed at him with an affectionate air. “You would do anything for me too, right?”

“Of course!” Lay answered seriously without hesitation. “I would do anything for you, Fei Yen!”

---

After a relaxing hot shower, Lay ventured to the kitchen to watch his girlfriend scramble around the kitchen in complete frustration at her burning cookery. He shook his head at the hilarity of her confusion, before deciding to intervene lest the whole apartment burned down. He absolutely adored Fei Yen; she was absolutely dazzling in every way, except for cooking.

“What was that?” He scrunched his nose at the smell of the charcoal substance on the pot. She grinned sheepishly and avoided eye contact in embarrassment.

“Dinner.” She muttered in defeat.

He chuckled at her adorable crushed disposition and encircled his arms around her waist. He calmly pressed his forehead against hers while she smiled widely enough for her dimples to show. “Dinner can wait.” He murmured softly. A pounding sensation suddenly attacked his noggin, which left him in a blank state.

She pursed her lips in concern as his features scrunched together in mild pain. “Lay? Is it those migraines again?”

He only groaned as a response, but she gently led him to the living room couch. Patting the empty space, he laid down with his head in her lap while massaged his temples comfortingly. Lay let out a breath of relief as the pain lessened from her nimble touch. The comfortable moment stayed in silence, which Lay relished greatly. Normally, he would have pulled away from Fei Yen by now with an on-call from the hospital, but right now it was just the two of them.

"Do you ever picture us together in the future, Lay?" Yei Fen questioned in random thought. He scrutinized her carefully and nodded without hesitation.

"I'll be Mr. Zhang Yi Xing. You'll be Mrs. Zhang Fei Yen. We'll be together forever." He reassured her with his thumb smoothly her cheek affectionately. He paused before a bright beam bloomed on his face. "Maybe with a few little babies running around here and there."

She slapped him playfully on the arm, but smiled in relief all the same. "I'm glad. We'll be together forever, huh?"

That’s the way he wished it would always be.

---

Lay woke up from a peaceful slumber he didn’t even know he had fallen into. His pager was demanding his presence at the hospital again. Feeling the absence of Fei Yen, he groggily found a pillow propping his head and a note from her that said she ran out to pick up some dinner and migraine medication.

“Fei Yen…” He softly called. No answer. He glanced at the clock; it was already 3 AM. He bit the bottom his lip worriedly as he picked up the cell phone to call her. The call went directly to voicemail and he left a message saying that he was needed at the hospital and to hurry home because it was late.

Hastily pulling presentable clothes on, Lay walked briskly to his car and proceeded to drive to the hospital. He had already called Fei Yen an extra five times. She didn’t pick up.

His stomach growled in hunger, but he decided to ignore it for the time being. It wasn’t the hunger, but something didn’t sit well in his stomach. There was something wrong.

Once he ran into the hospital, his nurse hurriedly informed him on the case. A drunk driver had crashed into another car, and both were in need of surgery right away. He professionally went over the two patients’ records, but his eyes stopped just short of the name. Wang Fei Yen.

“Fei…Yen?” His hands shook and his vision started to distort on him. His legs felt like they could no longer support his body as his throat ran dry. “Wang Fei Yen?!” He snapped at the nurse to show him to the patient right away.

Lay barged into her room and it was as if time stopped as he stared at her beaten up body. Bruises and blood adorned her beautiful face and she looked like had got the beating of a lifetime. He ran to her side and encompassed her fingers in his. “Fei Yen! FEI YEN!” He called her name but she made no response.

“I’m sorry sir. She died within a few minutes of arriving at the hospital. She wouldn’t have made it to surgery at all.” The nurse quietly stated.

“No. No. No. No. No. I don’t believe this.” Lay muttered over and over again. “She was just with me a few hours ago! How could this happen?!” He shouted in anguish. He wanted to look at her, but he couldn’t. It was painful to see that death had already taken its toll on her.

Her hand was stone cold. Her normally rosy cheeks were pale white. To see her like this crushed Lay’s heart. He couldn’t breathe properly. This was his worst nightmare come true.

“But the other driver can still be saved! Please prep right away. We can still save this man!” The nurse beckoned him and pulled him away from her.

Lay could only stare at Fei Yen’s body in helplessness. Here was, a surgeon who was meant to save lives, and he couldn’t do anything to save his beloved. He had trained for years and had taken pride in risky operations. Yet, when it came to the most crucial part, he was completely useless.

He was utterly disgusted with himself.

The preparation for the surgery was a huge blank void where he was still traumatized of the actions that had just taken place. His mind couldn’t wrap around the rapid events that he just experienced. This was all one sick, twisted reality. It was when he pulled his gloves on did he realize something.

He was saving the man who had just killed the love of his life.

As he opened the doors to operation room, that one thought dominated his mind. From what he had been told, this irresponsible drunk driver was the one at fault. With one judging glance, Lay saw the drunkard’s appearance that suggested nothing but loathsome recklessness. This man’s carelessness had taken Fei Yen away.

Lay despised this man.

Grasping the scalpel firmly, Lay paused as one vindictive temptation crossed his mind. One slip up. That was all it took to kill this man. This bastard didn’t deserve to live at all. He took Fei Yen, the gentlest, sweetest soul away from Lay. If life was fair, this guy should’ve died, not Fei Yen. But life wasn’t and she had been taken away in the blink of an eye. Life had taken away the one woman whom he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. The irony of the situation seemed cruel to him and back a bitter laugh.

Mid-incision he wondered what the hell he was thinking. He had the integrity of a surgeon to be unbiased to the patients, and consider all life valuable.

But hadn’t Fei Yen’s life been valuable? Why did she have to pay the ultimate price when this man hadn’t? The struggle between revenge and justice fought in Lay’s mind, which only intensified the migraine from earlier. He worked efficiently through the operation whilst his conflicting emotions waged war in his heart.

“You would do anything for me too, right?”

One slip up. That’s all it took.

He mindlessly watched his hand make an “accident” stab at the patient’s vital organs. It was as if he were outside his body, watching another man commit a crime, yet he made no move to stop his hand. Blood rapidly started seeping onto his gloves as the other nurses went into a frenzied panic.

“He’s losing blood quickly!”

“Heartbeat slowing down! We’re losing him!”

Just then, Lay woke up from the numb state that had taken over and sprang into action in a last attempt to save the man’s life. He wildly called out instructions to his nurses, and his usual graceful hands were clumsily floundering around, as if to remember the delicate incisions they had been trained to do so long ago.

The blood of the man was soaking onto his gloves. His mind was shutting down, still boggled at the action he just committed. His hands slumped to his sides in defeat and acceptance of the done deed.

“It’s too late. We’ve lost him…”

---

Lay leaned against the wall while staring in repugnance at his blood stained gloves. He had killed a man with these hands. But he couldn’t comprehend the consequence of his actions.

He felt no guilt.

Was he that heartless? He had killed a man in cold blood out of rash, biased judgment. But for what? Fei Yen wouldn’t magically appear back to life. She was already a lost cause. Yet his conscious was struck down when the image of her lifeless body emerged in his mind. By now, his morals were looped, backwards, and completely foreign to him. He sighed and breathed deeply.

“Doctor?”  Nurse Luhan gently tapped his shoulder. He jumped at a start, but relaxed when he saw the nervous nurse shift from side to side. “I didn’t want to share this with you after your loss…but I feel like you have the right to know.”

A perfect manila envelope was into his face. He grabbed it with his blood stained glove, not caring that it would taint whatever worse information lay in the envelope. “What is this?” He weakly croaked out and stared at it with apparent distrust.

“The autopsy report for Wang Yei Fen.” He her foot to leave him alone, but paused and patted him gently. “And please cheer up, doctor. We all make mistakes.”

He nodded his head curtly in acknowledgement at his departure before shakily opening the envelope. Scanning the information, his eyes glued to one particular spot.

Yei Fen had been pregnant.

Had been.

He crumpled the paper as anger refueled his veins. Lay couldn’t hold all the swarming emotions in him any longer; he broke down and cried. The future that could have been was no longer in his grasp.

But now he held no regrets. If given a second chance, he would have killed that man again. As many times as it was necessary, even if it meant carrying this sin with him for the rest of his life.

“Of course, I would do anything for you, Fei Yen.”