“Please, Sunggyu! Can’t you ju—”

And the door was slammed shut. Half-shivering, Kim Sunggyu could not tell whether it was his anger or just the chilly air of a winter night. The streets were mostly white with some sort of snowy gloom. He slowed down his walking pace after his family-inherited small house had vanished in the distance.

A yellow cab approached him and came to a halt as soon as his driver noticed his hand waving.

“Take me somewhere far,” he demanded. When he saw the driver looking at him funny, Sunggyu could not help but bark in frustration. Was it such a strange request? “Just drive somewhere, for goodness’ sake! I’ll tell you when I want to get off, alright?”

The vehicle at first moved so painfully slow Sunggyu had to check whether they were on thin ice. As soon as it felt like a normal driving speed, he collapsed back. That was when he realized his cheeks had been wet with tears. He sighed. Maybe it was not the strange request that made the driver stared, after all.

Gazing absentmindedly at the snow-covered streets and buildings, Sunggyu cursed inwardly. He did not know how he had the ability to be that mad at the man he loved. He was so furious he could not even bring himself to recall why the younger lad had angered him.

After a long drive, Sunggyu could see a park from afar and asked the cabby to take him there.

The park, much like the rest of the city, was wrapped in thick veil of snow and coldness. There were not many people around there. So he sat at one of the marble bench, taking some comfort from solitude.

Trying to shake off the horrible feeling, he felt some vibration in his pocket. He pulled out his phone a second too late and it stopped vibrating. But it was fine. Sunggyu knew who it was and it was not like he was planning to answer it.

‘9 Missed Calls – Nam Woohyun’

The only thing that bothered the young man was how much his hot temper could distract himself from noticing the annoying beeping of his phone for nine times. He looked at his phone, intending to blacklist the caller so that future calls from his number would be auto-rejected.

A pop-up appeared, asking for confirmation. His thumb hovered about it but was unable to proceed for a while. Sunggyu was a split second away from successfully hitting the virtual ‘ok’ button when his phone vibrated again. He cursed at his lack of strong will to just quickly do it.

It was Woohyun again. He picked it up only to regret the decision immediately.

“H-Hyung?” He could not recall Woohyun’s voice, trembling, if not cowering, like that. He could not decide which one he hated more now, the other boy or himself.

“...What do you want?”

“Look, hyung, I’m so sorry. I never meant to sound so whiny and complaining and—”

“Is that all you’ve got to say?”

 “No,” He quickly replied, slightly surprising Sunggyu that the older man became willing to listen just a little longer.

Woohyun remained quiet for quite some time after that determined ‘no’ and Sunggyu had to look at the phone just make sure that the former was still there.

“You know, hyung, if you are trapped in a faulty elevator, which could fall down and kill you any second, with a child, whom you don’t actually know anything about except that she was fourteen years old, and that there is only enough time to save one of us, would you put the child’s life first?”

Sunggyu was taken aback. “Nam Woohyun, are you, by any chance, trapped in a faulty elevator,” He replied instinctively. “Which could fall down and kill you any time, with a child, whom you don’t know anything about except her young age, and about to do a heroic, life-threatening action to save her?”

“No, of course, I’m not, hyung,” Woohyun said and made a sound that could probably have been a chuckle. The answer came noticeably delayed but Sunggyu shook the suspicion off, sniffing no lies in that. He could tell when the younger man lied to him. He had learned how Woohyun would sound exactly when he was not telling the truth. But he found it hard to think that Woohyun was lying then anyway. If he had the time to call him just to ask that stupid question, surely he would not be in an elevator which could go crashing down any second, right? “Just thought I would ask you.”

“...Yes, I would. I would be the only one who can save her, wouldn’t I?” he replied. It irritated him how he did not sound irritated to the other boy any more. And, thus, he decided he had given the other enough time to talk. “Okay, I’m hanging up.”

“Wait, Kim Sunggyu!”

“What?”

“...Hyung, I love y—”

And a dull beeping cut him off.

Sunggyu glanced at his phone. 59 seconds, the call timer informed him. Stupid ball of grease and his equally stupid time-wasting questions.

His phone did not vibrate for some time after that.

And when it did, hours later, Sunggyu had cooled down enough to figure out that he owed Woohyun an apology for acting irrationally. And, so, swallowing his pride, he answered the phone call.

“Kim Sunggyu?” But it was not Nam Woohyun’s voice. “It’s Lee Howon.”

“Oh. ” He had totally ruled out the possibility of someone else other than Woohyun giving him a call so he laughed an awkward laugh and tried his best to calmly reply. “Hey, doc. Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Can you come to the hospital right now? It’s urgent,” Hoya did not made any attempt to conceal that grave, almost worried tone. “It’s about Woohyun.”

Sunggyu felt his heart skipped a beat. Not having the slightest idea, he asked what was wrong about the other lad but the young man on the other end fell silent. He waited for him to elaborate, completely unsure of what else to do, though he finally thought to ask what had been disturbing him. “This has nothing to do with elevators, right?”

“Eh? Of course not. Why would you ask that?” But for some unknown reason, Hoya’s response did not ease him one bit.

“...Just thought I would ask you.”

“Well, I’m guessing you don’t know about his heart condition?” he asked. And before Sunggyu could ask more questions, the doctor continued. “He has this cardiac abnormality which not only results in irregular heartbeats but also,” he stopped halfway. “You know what, I’ll explain later. Anyway, It’s really urgent. It’s...something about it.”

-x-

Sunggyu was not prepared for that. He was not prepared for the news. For the bad news. He had expected to hear bad news. But it had never crossed his mind that it would be that bad.

“Are you telling me that Woohyun...”

“He...saved a badly injured girl’s life.”

“And traded it with his own?”

The doctor looked down, opening his mouth in what looked like an attempt to reply. No words escaped that awkwardly gaping mouth. He gave up trying to find his voice and nodded weakly instead.

It was not shock nor grief that hit Sunggyu first. It was more of confusion. It was an inability to register what was just thrown at him.

“I’m sorry, hyung,” the doctor offered his apology, realizing that he played a role, though unwilling, in Woohyun’s death. What he did not realize, however, was how Sunggyu had stopped listening. “I should have lied to him about his blood type. I should have insisted that he is illegible to be a donor.”

-x-

Sunggyu just left, slamming the door along with Woohyun's heart which inevitably broke into tiny pieces.

Woohyun stood up, wiping all the tears that he wished would be wiped by Sunggyu. He decided to further clean the painfully obvious sadness off his face and, as he did so, noticed the reflection of the calendar hanging on the wall in the sink mirror.

It was the time for his monthly check up.

Woohyun sat there at one corner of the hospital absentmindedly. He still could not rid himself of the plaguing guilt and pain caused by their argument earlier. Did it bother the older man so much that he wanted to move out of the city? He was just getting sick of the mechanical routine of city life. He never even implied that they had to sell the house that Sunggyu’s parents had inherited.

It had been long since the last time they had a serious argument. And that time, Sunggyu did not flee the scene furiously so Woohyun managed to calm him down. Now, after unsuccessfully trying to call his hyung eight or nine times, he figured Sunggyu would probably just need some time to cool himself down.

There was a bit of a ruckus in the hallway and it stopped Woohyun’s train of thoughts.

“Please, doctor, you have to save our daughter! She’s our only one.” Pleaded one middle-aged man. Beside him, a plump woman was standing, holding her hands together to cover her face. Coming closer to the source of commotion, Woohyun could then see that the woman apparently was trying to restrain her hysterical crying.

“Yes, we’re trying our very best,” a young doctor said. Upon closer inspection, the youth realized that it was Lee Howon, an old friend of his. “But, I’m afraid we can’t promise anything when she has Bombay type blood.”

Bombay type?

“Please, doctor, we’ll pay you whatever amount you ask!”

Woohyun reluctantly returned to his seat, unsure of what to think, much less what to feel, after what he had witnessed. Before long, a young nurse called his name and handed him his medical records folder. He did not open up to see the latest result like he always did.

“Excuse me, I happen to hear about this blood type called ‘Bombay type’,” The nurse turned to see him. “Is there such a thing?”

“Well, it does exist. It’s rather...uncommon but not an utterly different blood type, really. To put it simply, it’s a special kind of type-O blood,” she explained, clearly unsure of how to put it without flashing all her biomedical vocabularies. “People with Bombay type blood can donate blood to virtually people of all blood types but they can only get blood transfusion from others with Bombay type blood. They cannot even accept normal type-O blood.” That took some time for Woohyun to comprehend and, seeing that, the nurse giggled.

“...Wow,” The brunet finally muttered as he began to get it. “But is it really an uncommon blood type? If it’s really just a kind of type-O, shouldn’t more people have it?”

“Nope. In fact, most doctors and nurses know that it is a blatant euphemism when we call it ‘uncommon’,” she said, sighing. “I can’t recall the exact figure but, in some parts of the world, looking for Bombay type blood is like looking for water in a parched desert.”

The youth felt a tiny pang of sympathy for the two desperate parents. And she was their only child. It must pain them greatly to imagine losing their precious princess. Woohyun asked the nurse whether a person with Bombay type blood could be saved in the event of major blood loss.

The lass did not answer at first, hesitation written all over her face. “I don’t think his chance of survival would be very high. Though I once heard that someone with Bombay type blood survived after a donor, who was initially identified as having type-O blood, was found to actually have Bombay type,” Deep in thoughts, she crossed her arms. “I guess it’s entirely possible to mistake Bombay type blood with normal type-O blood. They are quite identical, after all.”

“...I see,” Woohyun looked down, biting his lip. “Thank you for the kind explanation.”

“No problem, sir.”

He looked at the name tag pinned on to her plain, green blouse. “Ms Ahn?”

“Yes?”

“Can I have my blood type rechecked?”

-x-

He had always lived his life believing he had type-O blood. And, Woohyun sat uncomfortably at the same soft-cushioned, spacious hospital bench. There was a small piece of cotton attached just a bit further off his right arm’s biceps.

A nurse called his name and he proceeded to the counter. It was not Ms Ahn. He opened the file and looked at the the paper. What he saw puzzled him.

In his past medical records, the bloody type column always stated ‘O’. That time, however, it was written instead as ‘hh’. He looked through the entire document but soon decided that he would not be able to decode the terms without someone else’s help. He approached the nurses’ counter but realized that the nurses in-charge at that moment looked much less friendly than Ms Ahn.

He saw Lee Howon with a group of doctors walked passed. Woohyun waved at the younger man. Hoya, as the doctor was always called by his friends, noticed him and excused himself from the cluster.

“Hey,” he greeted, smiling warmly. “How’s your heart now?”

“It’s fine, the result I got today says there is some progress and,” Woohyun paused briefly and then chuckled, uncomfortable with the silence he created. “I could probably live longer than expected.”

“That’s great. Have you informed Sunggyu?”

No answer. The lad slightly twitched in discomfort and Hoya noticed how Woohyun’s smile quickly faded.

“...You never informed him about your condition at all?”

Woohyun sighed and nodded. Trying to shift the subject, he handed Hoya the strange report on his blood test. “Hey, can you take a look at this? I just tested my blood and I’m not sure why, instead of ‘O’, my blood type is now written as two lower-case ‘h’ like this.”

The younger man took the paper and looked at it carefully. Woohyun saw the other’s eyes growing wider in surprise.

“...Oh,” And then the doctor gazed at him, still looking somewhat astonished.

-x-

“No, of course, I’m not, hyung,” Woohyun was on the phone. He forced a chuckle out, hoping it would make it sound less dramatic and sad. “Just thought I would ask you.”

“...Yes, I would. I would be the only one who can save her, wouldn’t I?” the man on the other end answered. A brief silence descended and, just as Woohyun was about to continue, he heard Sunggyu hurriedly declared, “Okay, I’m hanging up.”

No. There was something else he had to say. There was something else he had to know. “Wait, Kim Sunggyu!”

“What?”

“...Hyung, I love y—”

A dull beeping sound rudely silenced him before he could finish.

He slowly withdrew his phone. Staring at the screen, he saw a bright, white timer blinking against the black background of his phone’s wallpaper.

00:00:59

So he was not even worth a minute of his time.

He laughed weakly. No man gifted with proper hearing would miss the disturbing absence of mirth in his chuckle.

“I understand, hyung,” he said, shooting the hospital-clean, white ceiling with a stare full of emotions but understanding. The whole hospital reeked powerfully of some sterilizing agent and, although he had learned to tolerate it, it had started to bother Woohyun more than ever. “I’m the only one who can save her, aren’t I?”

-x-

The young man approached the sobbing middle-aged couple slowly but surely. He stood there before the man and cleared his throat. Noticing his presence, they looked up at him. Woohyun could not help but realize how swollen and red their eyes were, especially the woman’s.

The youth smiled. He introduced himself politely, not wishing to alarm the pair further. Woohyun pulled out a piece of paper and unfolded it to reveal its content to the two as he sat beside them.

A white-clad figure watched from afar, biting a lip and clenching a fist – both of which almost bled.

-x-

 “Are you out of your mind?” the doctor half-exclaimed, looking straight into Woohyun’s eyes. “You already have a problematic heart which cannot produce adequate blood for yourself. You know you will kill yourself!”

“Look, I only have about five years left,” The older argued. “She, on the other hand is a healthy fourteen-year-old girl. She still has a long way to go, Hoya,” He noticed how he had started shouting and how the doctor was taken aback by it. “C’mon, man. I can’t pretend like I don’t know a thing when, at this moment, I’m the only one who can save her, can I?”

“You are aware that your latest medical check up suggests that you have a good chance to live beyond that five year, right?” The younger man sighed, frustrated. He gave up rising his voice in the hope that a gentler tone would be more persuasive.

“Yes, I am. But, please, Lee Howon,” Hoya slightly flinched. “You are in charge of her, right? You talked to her parents, right?”

“Woohyun, I,” his voice trailed off. “Don’t do this, Nam Woohyun. What about Sunggyu? Do you really think he would be able to cope without you?”

The thinner male fell as silent as death. He had an eerily sweet smile plastered on his face.

“He can’t go on without you,” he re-warned. “Keep that in mind.”

“He’ll be just fine,” Hoya could swear he saw the other almost losing his already cheerless smile. Woohyun looked away and, as though realizing that the doctor had seen it fading, he put on a wider grin. Still, the younger guy could not detect a hint of mirth in it. In fact, as the man in doctor uniform continued staring, there seemed to be bitterness where mirth should have been. “He will.”

-x-

 “Why are you complaining so much?” exclaimed the hyung.

“I’m not complaining. I’m merely saying that we should probably reconsider moving out of this city.” Woohyun argued.

“And sell off the house my parents worked hard for?”

“No. I never suggested that we have to se—”

“No, seriously. If you have any problem with this house, why don’t you just leave?”

Woohyun froze. He could not believe what he just heard. He did not want to believe what he just heard. He stood there staring at his hyung, immobile and speechless.

Irritated by the sudden lack of response, the furious lad turned his back and faced him. “Oh, fine, you’re not leaving. In that case, I am!”

The younger guy had started to cry. “No. Please, hyung,” he begged. His pleading voice was alarmingly heavy with desperation. “Kim Sunggyu!”

Sunggyu violently swatted the frantic hands tugging at him.

“Please, Sunggyu! Can’t you ju—”

And the door was slammed shut.  

-x-

Requests turned into desperate pleadings and Hoya found himself unable to say no any more. Especially not after hearing Woohyun’s story on the argument the two had. A reluctant nod was all it took and the older guy and the parents of the girl gave him radiant smiles of relief.

Upon Woohyun’s request, the parents of the girl agreed they would hire a top-class lawyer in case Hoya was legally charged for allowing that. But still, the idea of agreeing to a plan which might kill an old friend of his did not seem to sound right. It was not about legal issues or his integrity as a doctor. He could barely even remember the couples’ earlier promise of a large amount of money.

Hoya took Woohyun to a room designated for blood transfusion. He was sure he would regret it but, nonetheless, held his tongue as he saw Woohyun taking a glance, smiling, at the Intensive Care Unit where the girl lied limp. Various sorts of tubes and cables were attached to her and her room was filled with what looked like a set of life-supporting machines.

-x-

Woohyun lied calmly on the white-sheeted bed as Hoya prepared his tools and anaesthetics when the former called out gently. Or, perhaps, sadly. The young doctor could not tell any more. “Howon-ah.”

“Hmm?”

“My mother once told me, how stars were tiny holes in Heaven’s floorboard,” he paused. The doctor thought he was fighting back tears but as Hoya turned to see the older male, he could only see a calm and almost happy face. Almost. “Is Heaven truly that beautiful?”

-x-

And that was when the bitter epiphany like a hard slap in the face – there were nothing he could do to stop it.

Even if they never fought earlier, Woohyun would still have to get his heart checked. He would still go to the hospital and find out about the whole ‘rare blood’ thing. And, knowing Woohyun, Sunggyu was sure that he probably would still beg Hoya to let him donate his blood for the dying child. That idiot.

Sunggyu realized, at that point of time, that he had only one wish. He wished he could just have another second – a full one minute – to talk to him, to hear him talk. To hear Woohyun finished that sentence he had ungraciously refused to hear.

He could not remember going out of the hospital. But the painfully familiar creaking voice of the front door confirmed that he was home.

He stared blankly at the sickening emptiness that the house had become – so full of Woohyun: his chuckles, his smells, his annoying, greasy smiles.

And then he slumped down, his shaky feet unable to support the increasing weight of guilt on his shoulders any longer. Regret seeped into every fiber of his being, saturating him with an intense urge to be sick. After a while, he managed to overcome the nauseating sensation but his chest still clenched in indescribable pain. Tears were trickling their way down his slightly chubby face but he was too deep in grief to wipe them away.

Sunggyu did not know how he was supposed to go out at night after hearing, or rather forcing himself to hear, Hoya recounted it all.

He was too frightened.

He was too frightened to see the stars, too frightened that his beloved lad would be up there, taking a peek from the tiny holes of Heaven’s cardboard.

-x-

A/N: Okay guys here’s the (missing) caveat:

Warning: Character’s death lol

/dodges flying bricks

I know it’s a major thing and that some people go all out avoiding fics with chara death. But I really hate giving warnings which would spoil the whole so forgive me just this once. And every other time in the future when I’ll be writing serious angst.

I’m just going to continue assuming that you all angst lovers are immune to heart attacks caused by chara deaths and all that lol.