“Jaejoong-sshi, Im sorry, but your wife is suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.”

The doctor is young, barely older that Ri In, and possibly younger than Jaejoong, but everything he says has a certain hard gravity to it. He pauses looking at the ground as if he wishes he could disappear. In front of him stands a man, about thirty years of age, dressed sharply in a charcoal business suit. He looks as though he had just rushed from the office as soon as he received the phone call. The mans eyes which had been bright and ignorant as he looked to the doctor slowly dull as he reads the message in the younger mans silent actions.

“Its bad isn’t it?”

The doctor doesn't look up, but instead nods slowly, knowing that his confirmation of this fact would tear apart the life of the man in front of him.

Dr. Han, in all his years of living, had never broken anyones heart nor ruined anyones life. He had hoped, when choosing his profession, that he would simply be able to rehabilitate the handicapped renew their hope and give them a second chance at life. He had hoped the he would have been able to get through his life without having to hurt anyone. Until he received her case. 

Kim Ri In was a case the he shouldn't have had. She wasn't supposed to be under his care, he wasn't supposed to be doing this. But somehow, he had ended up with her.

The man before him is a strong man, tall, fit, and h, but he seems to tremble at the news. His eyes are unfocused as he looked up at the doctor.

“How bad?”

“The average life expectancy is about five years,” he trails off, searching for a way that he could make things better, “Maybe ten”

There is silence to this news. No tears no words of desperation, nothing. Just the bustling sound of the hospital reaches the young doctors ears and he can not break the atmosphere that settles upon them.

“I’m-” he starts to say before being interrupted by the other man.

“Does she know?”

A simple question, yet the doctor can not find the words to answer him. So he nods dumbly. Despite his years of medical school and infinite knowledge, all he can do is nod. And the next thing he knows, the man is gone. Slipping past him into her room, Jaejoong shuts the door behind him.

Then there is stillness, and Dr. Han can hear the painful silence inside the room. He closes his eyes and quickly walks away, trying to forget it.

Because, this is not his story.

______________________________

He often wishes that he hadn't said anything. That he hadn't noticed how her endearing clumsiness had become something more than just that. He wishes that he hadn't insisted on bringing her to the doctors. He wishes that he didn't do so much. He wishes so much.

Because somewhere in his mind he believes that if he hadn't said anything none of this would have happened. That they could have continued, happy and blissful. And somehow, in his mind, its his fault.

The clicking of ice against glass awakens his weary mind and opening his eyes, he can see her shuffle carefully back to the refrigerator to grab a carton of orange juice. Swiftly, he gets up. Before she can grasp it he lifts it up and hands the carton to her. She doesn't look at him as her hand shakes slightly with it in hand. And as she turns back he holds her arm as if to steady her, but inevitably pulls her towards him. Cradling her close he notices that like a green house flower her scent has begun to fade.

“Let me get that for you,” he says quietly, trying to take the carton out of her hands. She holds on tight and her hands turn white from the pressure she uses to grasp the cardboard box. Brushing him aside, she mumbles quietly to him, “I can do it.”

Carefully she reaches her shaky hands up and untwists the cap. She fumbles quietly as the tiny green object escapes her grasp, but he catches it for her and silently places it back onto the table next to her. Watching her struggle slightly to pour a single glass of juice, Jaejoong remembers that night. He swallows hard as his eyes wander towards the tiny black safe in the corner of their living room.

“When the time comes, please promise me, you’ll end it for me.”

He swallows hard and looks at the small woman in front of him. Since that day neither of them had mentioned the issue. Jaejoong had locked the gun up, out of her reach, and had removed every possible object that he thought she could hurt herself with. Still, he feels that its not enough. 

So he never leaves her side. Calls come in from the outside, but neither answer them. And neither return them. As though they're scared, their eyes skirt around the black contraption, trying to ignore the blinking red light. Because they both know the inevitable word that will come across the line. The one word that both are avoiding, scared that it will shatter them once more.

“Why?”

Because it is something neither of them can answer.

______________________________

“You know, the funny thing about Jaejoong and Ri In?” Junsu once said to Yoochun with a slight ironic laugh, “Its that even though she's crazy about him, she-she can live without him. Not that I mean she doesn't need Jae she’d be miserable without him, Im sure she’d cry everyday, till her eyes were melted if he left her. But hyung sad b.astard, can’t even function without her. Maybe he can go a week without her. But then he's like a fish out of water.”

Yoochun had laughed at the description and then proceeded to call the older man an “anglerfish”. 

That was years ago. 

Now Junsu no longer lives in Korea. He moved to Japan to sell “plastics” as he liked the call the appliances that his company made. Jaejoong and Ri In got married and moved out of the city, saying that the city was no place to start a family. And this left Yoochun alone in Seoul.

Flipping through his files, he glances up at the clock and looks at his phone expectantly. It is Saturday and he knows he can be expecting a phone call from either Ri In or Jaejoong inviting the “lonely bachelor” out of his cave of marine life to have dinner with them. So he waits.

Picking up a picture from the folder in his hand, he smiles as he looks at the tiny tadpole like fish. On the corner of the picture in white pen, he has scribbled the words Anglerfish  Male. And he thinks back to the conversation he had years ago. Before he could tease Junsu about the oyaji gags he was learning from his co-workers. Before he could nag Jaejoong about his and Ri In's still absent sons and daughters.

Junsu, of course, didnt get his reference and Yoochun found himself explaining, rather awkwardly, the relation between their hyung and the deep water creature. 

“Well, in reality, there really arent animals that die if their mate dies,” he had looked over at Junsus shocked and laughed, “No, there are exceptions, which I’m sure you've seen on the Discovery channel. But biologically speaking, there are none. The closest that there is is the anglerfish.”

“What’s that?”

Yoochun remembers laughing slightly as he tilted his can of beer slightly in his hands, “Its actually a really scary looking fish, with really pointy teeth, that lives deep in the sea”

“That thing? That really ugly fish?” Junsu had shuddered as he realized what Yoochun was talking about, “That thing is freaky. How does Jaejoong have anything to do-”

“Not appearance-wise. Thats not what I meant. What I meant is that he cant live without her. The male anglerfish cant live without the female. He has to be with her or he dies,” Yoochun had stopped as he realized how eerily similar his analogy was.

“I mean the male fish even has a special sense that tells him where the female is,” he said laughing shortly, “Seriously, sometimes I think hyung is just like that. Ri In could be hiding in the labyrinth that they hid that bull-headed guy in, and he'd still be able to find her.”

At this Junsu had thrown his head back and laughed, “You mean Minotaurs labyrinth?”

“Yeah that.”

“Bull-headed guy,” his friend had repeated, laughing lightly, “That just sounds terrible.”

And Yoochun had smiled as he slapped his friend heartily on his shoulder, “Sometimes the extent of useless information you know is scary my friend.”

Looking at the picture in his hand, Yoochun shivers slightly at the grotesque sight and quickly puts it away. Carefully closing the manila folder, he still cant seem to believe how similar his hyung is to this frightening deep sea creature. Pushing himself back from his work desk, he looks over to his silent cell phone in concern and glances up at the clock.

6:50

Its a good hour after the time they usually call, and Yoochun cant help but feel something is not right. So he reaches towards his phone and prays that nothing has happened to Ri In, because even he's unsure of what he would do.

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Note from author, kawaki:

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, more commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease, is a neural disorder that is usually fatal. It involves the degeneration of motor neurons, which control our muscles and help us move. And since the muscles are unable to function, they weaken and begin to atrophy because of lack of use. Symptoms usually start off with weakness, twitching, and cramping and stiffness of muscles. They may eventually lose all ability to move their muscles, except for their eyes, however in most cases their intellectual abilities are unaffected. The most famous case of this disease, is physicist, Stephen Hawking. The life expectancy is around five to ten years. There is no cure for it yet, but there are treatments for it that can slow the neural decay and help alleviate problems associated with the disease, such as difficulty breathing, fatigue, cramps, and spasms. Men and women can both be affected by it, though it affects men a little more than women.

The Anglerfish, is a deep sea fish, that's mating habits are slightly parasitic. The male is unable to digest/live on his own, unless he finds a female to attach to. Once he is attached, the two fuse together and of course, if the female dies, so does the male.

Minotaurs labyrinth is the nearly impossible maze the King Minos created to house the Minotaur, who, as Yoochun so eloquently says, was in fact a 'bull-headed man', a monster with a man's body and a bull's head.