The Turning Point
Voice Your Love"Mister Kim, please go to room twelve,” A pleasant female voice chimed through the intercom.
The said boy got up from his chair and grabbed his friend’s hand. Jonghyun nodded encouragingly and they walked to the designated room.
"Welcome Mister Kim. Please have a seat,” The doctor gestured to the two chairs in front of his desk.
They both did what the man said and took their coats off. The room was sterile like most hospital rooms. Occasionally there would be a picture frame or a drawing from a former patient. The curtains were blue and most furniture was made from maple wood. Nothing more to say about it.
"So tell me why you are here,” The doctor smiled.
Jonghyun rasped his throat, "I’m sorry sir, but I will speak for Kibum’s sake,”
The man seemed a bit surprised, but mentioned for him to continue.
"You see, Kibum here can’t talk, speak or vocalize anything, due to the operation he had to remove the tumors he had in his throat. Now were we wondering of you could check it out for us and have some idea on how to get his voice back. We don’t care what it takes, we just want to hear him say something, anything!" Jonghyun explained passionately.
The doctor nodded and told Kibum to follow him to his examination corner. The silent boy sat on the bed and anxious waited for the doctor. Meanwhile Jonghyun strolled around the corner and saw Kibum begging him to come to him. Those damn pretty kitten eyes... He sighed and took a seat next to the boy.
"Say ah~" The doctor said.
Kibum tried but nothing came out. It looked like he was just opening his mouth.
"Well, you are definitely trying to say something because there is some movement in the back. Let’s check your throat. If it hurts just pinch your friend,” He explained while closing the boy’s mouth.
Kibum nodded and stretched his throat so the doctor had more access. He started with light pushes that didn’t hurt at all. Then he applied a bit more force going from bottom to top. At the Adams apple Kibum pinched Jonghyun, who squeaked a bit. The doctor nodded and continued upwards until his patient keeled over, covering his mouth and coughing soundlessly. Kibum removed his hand and his eyes widened.
There was blood on his hand.
The doctor rubbed the blood away with a tissue and apologized for the sudden pain.
"You most certainly were operated, and your friend said cancer... Lymphoma am I correct?"
Kibum nodded and massaged his throat lightly.
"All I can say is that we have to make do an MRI scan and see what the problem is. If we can’t get any information from the MRI then we will have to do a diagnostic operation test to see inside your throat. We can always see more with our eyes than with machines,” The doctor explained and helped both boys off the examination bed.
He took them to the MRI room and told Jonghyun to stay outside. Kibum followed the man and did what he told him to do. He lay down on the bed that was stretched out for him and waited until he was pushed into the tube-like machine. There were sounds of vibrations coming from the machine, but Kibum knew that he didn’t have to be scared. Just a bit more and he would be out.
A couple of moments later Kibum was pulled out of the machine and told to wait in the hallway with his friend. When he walked out of the room he hoped everything was okay.
Jonghyun shot on his feet when he saw the younger come out from the room and asked him how it went, if he was hurting anywhere. Kibum shook his head and smiled. He hugged Jonghyun and they bathed in each other’s presence for a while. That was until they heard shouting from the other side of the MRI room door.
"Hmmpp!...I am not- hmmmmp! He has to be- hmmmp! Now!" A voice yelled from inside.
Kibum shot Jonghyun a worried gaze which the other answered with a tight hug. The door was yanked open and the doctor barged through.
"I apologize in advance for my rough behavior you are going to be a victim of, but I assure you it is needed and don’t try to talk,” He excused and yanked at Kibum’s arm.
The boy stumbled and was dragged through the hallways, Jonghyun following closely. The older boy didn’t question the antics of the doctor, if he was acting like this there must be a reason right?
When they stopped in front of a door. Kibum shot the man a glare, something Jonghyun hadn’t seen before. So Kibum did have attitude hm?
"Mister Jung! Mister Jung!" The doctor yelled while knocking on this mister Jung guy’s door.
The doctor kept on rapping on the door until it finally opened, revealing a really cranky man. His outfit was wrinkled and disheveled. A female assistant rushed from behind him and ran off with an equally tousled appearance.
"What!? I was in the middle of something,” Mister Jung barked.
"Yeah, right. I saw what you were in the middle of," the doctor gestured to the hallway the woman had just disappeared in, "and it’s isn’t more life changing than this boy here,” He pulled Kibum in front of him and the silent boy waved shyly.
"What’s so important about this boy that made you barge to my door and interrupt me in my anatomy studies? I assure you if it’s something ludicrous I wi-" the man stopped mid-rant when the doctor pushed Kibum’s MRI scan under his nose.
"This is Kim Kibum, and he was your son’s patient some time ago. He was the one that operated on this boy. It only seems right for you to fix his mistakes,” The doctor preached with authority.
Doctor Jung studied the scan and his eyes widened. He yanked the results out of the doctor’s hand and snapped his fingers at his assistant. A young man around his twenties dashed towards Mister Jung and asked him what he needed.
"I need two other assistant surgeons, a couple of nurses, some interns, and give me an OR that’s empty and sterilized stat! Also get a bed for this boy here and bring him to that O.R and call Sunyeong and tell her sorry and that I’ll make it up to her later,” Mister Jung ordered.
Both Kibum and Jonghyun were scared of the things that were happening now. Jonghyun saw people running around and Kibum being helped onto a bed. The latter was scared to death and was hauled off before Jonghyun could even reach for his hand.
"What is wrong with him?" He asked no one in particular.
"You friend has been wrongly operated. They removed the tumors but didn’t stitch the openings the malignant flesh left behind. Resulting in further trauma of the throat, vocal cords and lymphatic system. And subsequently making Mister Kim unable to speak and cough up blood. If we don’t operate soon he will never be able to talk, and there is a probability of his lymphatic system shutting down because of the severe trauma, and that leads to the worst ending imaginable,” Doctor Jung summed up with a grave tone.
Jonghyun bobbed his head and sat down on a waiting chair. He was horrified by the explanation of what could happen to his sweet dongsaeng, but there was nothing to do but wait and text his band mates. They had to know what was up.
From: Jonghyun
To: Jinki hyung
Kibum’s in the hospital, being operated :(
He didn’t like beating around the bush. Things were faster if you just said it and were honest.
From: Jinki hyung
To: Jonghyun
Eh! What? Why, what is wrong? Tell me.
From: Jonghyun
To: Jinki hyung
From what I could make out from the doctor’s explanation, he has open holes from the tumors in his throat because he was operated in the wrong way. Because of that his throat was getting more traumatized and that had effect on his vocal cords and made him cough up blood.
So they are going to heal him now. All we can do is wait hyung.
A few minutes passed and he got a new message.
From: Jinki hyung
To: Jonghyun
Wait there, we are coming to give you some company O^O
Jonghyun sighed and ran a hand through his hair. Poor Kibum, having to go through surgery without knowing what was wrong. He wished he could be at his side while it happened.
It hadn’t been long before the other boys arrived at the hospital, desperately drawing air into their lungs from running too fast. On their way in the car Jinki had texted with Jonghyun to know where he was so they didn’t have to ask the receptionist. Though they did have to tell her about where they were going.
"May I help you?" The woman asked smiling.
Both Minho and Taemin pushed their hyung towards the woman, snickering at his stuttering and awkwardness. They just loved to tease the oldest even in troubled times.
"Ah, yes, I had heard of an emergency operation in the cancer ward, please follow the blue footsteps on the ground and do not disturb any patients,” She answered to Jinki’s gagged out question.
The three boys bobbed their heads and quickly left to follow the blue markings in the floor that lead straight to their fellow band mate. The latter was still seated on the same light wooden waiting chair and hand his head slumped down, hands tugging on his black locks.
"Jonghyun!"
The boy’s head snapped up, unknowing about his hair was now spiking in the weirdest directions. He didn’t care about his appearance right now, they weren’t idols yet, and his band mate was being operated so who the hell cared about anything like that.
"Hyung, Minho-yah, Taemin-ah…" he choked out with difficulty.
He felt so horrible about this all. Even if it was the best thing for Kibum now, he still felt as if he had done something wrong by not being in there with him. He needed support from the one person that he trusted, at least he’d like to think he was the one Kibum trusted the most.
He had always been there for him these past two months, chatting, touching and watching him. Kibum thought that no one knew about his love for writing, well he was wrong. Jonghyun would always peek into the boy’s bedroom when they were going to sleep, and every night, no exception, he saw his dongsaeng writing in his notebook with fluent motions.
One day he had even entered the room while Kibum was showering and discovered numerous of paper stacks with nothing but the boy’s handwriting on it. He didn’t know it, but Kibum had one of the most unique and elegant ways of writing he had ever seen. It was beautiful, the way he wrote.
But now he was in an operation room, throat cut open with people poking away at it, and the worst was that Kibum hadn’t had a choice in the matter. He had been slammed on that stretcher, injected with anesthetic and rolled off to be operated.
"Don’t cry hyung, Kibum-hyung is going to be fine,” Taemin consoled while he was squatting in front of the sobbing male.
! He was crying again? Hadn’t he promised to not cry again in front of his band mates? Yes, he had, yet here he was again, tears flowing down his cheeks and chocking on air. It was so stupid to cry over a simple operation, Kibum would be fine and they would all go home together soon. Why was he so emotional when it came to Kibum?!
"I..I k..know..w it’s j..just tha-at I fe-el s..so ho..orrible f...for Kibummie~" Jonghyun wailed loudly.
Jinki frowned at the little nickname Jonghyun had given his band mate, but decided not to push it. It was better to try and stop Jonghyun from crying, who knew the tough, manly one of them would cry so easily.
It had been a few hours since they had come to keep Jonghyun company and Kibum was in the OR. The once talkative member of the group was silent as a mouse, pacing up and down and asking every nurse he could about Kibum. The oldest of the group shook his head at the antics of his dongsaeng and had tried to sit him down, after all, he made them all nervous. Though after five minutes Jonghyun was up and about in the old rhythm again. Five paces up, five down, repeat.
Until finally they got the relieving message that Kibum was fine and resting. It hadn’t been a hard operation but he had lost a fair amount of blood. The holes had been stitched closed the correct way and Kibum had a long recovery ahead of him, along with the obligation to go into rehabilitation so he could learn how to speak again.
"You can go and see him, but only one this time. It’s late and he’s weak after all,” The nurse said, carefully eying the short guy that was biting his nails.
They all nodded and thanked the nurse for informing them.
"I think Jonghyun hyung should go in first, we all know he’s the one Kibum has been pulling towards since we met. He trusts him more than any of us,” Taemin suggested, which the others agreed to.
Jonghyun was glad that he could go first and see his sweet dongsaeng again, somehow he missed holding his hand and his eyes looking at him. Weird…
He walked off to the room the nurse had mentioned and softly knocked on the door. He slowly opened it and squinted his eyes to see through the darkness of the room.
Beep, beep, slush, beep, fuuh, beep, beep.
The sounds send chills up Jonghyun’s spine. He looked to where the noises had come from and a sharp pain pierced his heart.
His once, cute and pretty face now adorned with an oxygen mask and a tube in his mouth and nose. An IV was stuck in his left wrist and wires of the cardiograph coming from the hospital gown he was wearing.
"Kibummie..,” Jonghyun whispered solemnly.
This was wrong, Kibum shouldn’t be in a hospital, he should be sitting in his bed writing. It had been a consistent thing he had been doing since forever... It was wrong, but needed.
Carefully he threaded closer to his dongsaeng, scared to wake the boy from his peaceful sleep. He sat on the chair next to the bed and took the boy’s frail hand in his own.
"I’m sorry I wasn’t in there with you... I hope you feel okay. It all just went so fast and I couldn’t react in time to give you some courage... But hey, you’re save right? I guess you don’t need me to give you courage,”
Jonghyun brought the hand to his face and rubbed it against his cheek softly.
"Please be okay, we’ll fight through this. I won’t leave you ever again. I’ll protect you Kibummie,”
He sat on the chair for a while, nothing was better to hear the faint beeping of Kibum’s heart, knowing he was alive. Just watching him, being there by the boy’s side was his place. It felt like he was Kibum’s knight.
"Jonghyun..,”
The said boy gazed up at his hyung who gestured him to leave. He guessed it was time to go.
"I’ll be back soon Kibummie, hwaiting,”
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