Work Text
February 14, 2025
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You should have hurled those roses out the window near the back tire of your car, reversed over them a few times until they were nothing but smears of red on the pavement in front of your apartment building. Surely your neighbor would understand, turning a blind yet knowing eye to the double slaughter of the already dead flowers (or soon to be, not like cut flowers ever last no matter how many water changes are done or packets of the special flower food are deposited into the filled vase). It’s the nerve of your ex, a man so desperate to get you back despite having been the sole reason for losing you— caught under the red lights of his stupid LED’s with the one he claimed you didn’t need to worry about. Right, because that’s how it always goes. The moment those words are spoken, you should just pack it up right then and there and place your relationship resignation down on the countertop, drop those keys in that fishbowl by the door and let whatever luggage you got on hand hit the back of your ankles on the way out. You should have known. That’s always the next step. Acknowledging what you refused to in those mundane moments. A foreign smell that lingered, late nights bleeding into empty mornings, the wind-chime of constant conversations hidden under the veil of lowered screen brightness. The signs were there. In red— the lights, the color of the cologne bottle, the unfamiliar tie in the wash, the embedded trails dragging down the skin of his back. His boss did mention in a fleeting way about how alluring crimson was. Designed to seduce, to attract. It was a warning. To you, for you. The bouquet had been laid on the welcome mat in front of your door, with a blue bow tied around the bulk of plastic swathed stems. A small little card was attached at the front with your name scrolled in the most rudimentary cursive— his attempt. You didn’t care to read what was written on the back, a slurry of ‘sorry’s’ and ‘give me another chance’ all wrapped together by a definite ‘I promise to…’. It’s nothing new, just the same continuous cycle over the span of a month. There’s a stark difference between feeling remorse for doing something terrible and feeling remorse for being caught doing what is universally acknowledged as being terrible. A mistake and a choice are not cut from the same cloth. They almost have a presence to them, those stupid dozen roses. You cast a glare their way, challenging them to push against your mental wall with every singular lie and promise and regret repeated from your ex’s mouth. They were the messenger, and while you aren’t supposed to shoot them, you very much could. Because they were him by extension. That was enough. You break your gaze away from the bouquet to shove your car keys into the ignition, the turn of them a little harsher than necessary. The action draws a soft spoken apology from your lips. The car starts up, the radio you had forgotten to switch off yesterday pops the stifling bubble encapsulating the front seat with the chorus of an overplayed pop song. You didn’t dislike it, but wouldn’t add it to any of your preexisting playlists. The car peels out of the parking space and further out of the lot until it’s wedged within the throes of early morning traffic. The song has ended, and now plays the droning of radio hosts while you try to ignore the splotch of red in your peripheral. You fucking hated Valentines Day.
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“Oh?” Haru looks at the bouquet of roses in your death grip with such a thoughtful expression. Her nails are painted the same exact red with gold tips, a luxurious contrast to the sterile and orderly atmosphere of the hospital. You scowl just a bit, not really at her but down at the flowers. Harmless in their near dead state, thornless and perfectly bloomed. The complete opposite of the relationship you ended and the man at the root of it all. “I didn’t ask for these.” She raises her hands up in mock surrender, “I didn’t say anything.” You move around the space with such a postured look, all tense shoulders and straight gait. If you were a stick, you’d easily be snapped in half. Haru raises a finely plucked brow, “Is he a stalker? A creepy neighbor? Former patient that pulled through at the last minute?” “Not exactly.” You didn’t really want to talk about it. “Which one was the closest?” “Who am I being assigned to?” Perhaps choosing to divert attention from her probing will inevitably cease any further discussion regarding the roses. Haru looks a bit nonplussed for being brushed off but simply turns in her chair and rifles through a stack of folders until she finds the exact one she’s looking for. It’s pulled out without a hitch and passed over within seconds. You look down at the label tab, in basic black pen is the moniker— Choi, Jongho. The file feels only slightly weighted in your hand. Not a good or bad sign but just a telling indication of everything the patient has gone through up until this very moment. More paper will be added to it, any new testing if necessary, documentation worthy of importance, the certificate of death when that day inevitably comes. Haru taps a nail on the counter, watching as you flip open the cover of the file. “He’s new, arrived sometime last night. Pretty young, has a cute face. We don’t get many patients that aren’t just rattling bones in a skin bag. Might be a nice change of pace for you.” You glance over at her. She’s not looking at you anymore but over at those roses, an inquisitive look marring her face. You focus back on the first page to greet you, a hospital face-sheet. In the corner is a small room printed picture of the patient but the quality is terrible enough that you could hardly decipher if he was cute or young or if Haru was just pulling your leg after denying her an answer to her earlier questions. “My ex. The one that cheated on me with his boss, those are from him. Found them on my doorstep this morning. Not sure when or how long they’ve been out there.” Haru’s upper lip tugs upward in displeasure, arms crossing over her scrub top. “Bastard has some nerve.” She then looks over at you, “Did he leave a card?” You jerk your head towards them, “Attached to the bow.” She gets up from her chair and crowds next to you, grabbing the bouquet and twisting it around until the little rectangular piece of card stock comes into view. You see your name, it sees you. Haru purses her lips as she plucks the offending thing from the blue bow, scrutinizing the atrocious penmanship on the front before flipping it over to read what word vomit was on the back. There’s a short lapse in silence before she lets out an indignant scoff, the card tossed across the counter without a single care. Her eyes settle onto you, bouncing back and forth between the paper and her hand that had been holding it. “Glad he’s an ex.” She returns back to her seat without elaboration, muttering quietly under her breath. You look over at the card, fingers twitching to reach out and read what was on it but something kept your slight curiosity at bay. Maybe it was Haru’s reaction, anything but pleased at whatever had been written or possibly it was your subconscious trying to warn you that it wasn’t worth digging into what you’ve tried to keep buried. It wasn’t like you owed it to him. He was nothing to you now. A smudge of dirt you’ve wiped away. You close the file, and scoop up the bouquet. Perhaps the new patient will enjoy them far more than you ever would.
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Room 1117, East wing, floor three. You double check the location on the paper once more before looking up at elevator. The small screen above the door counted down its ascent from the eight floor in bold orange. The color reminded you of your neighbors cat, the chubby tabby who greets you with a plop and roll at your feet in the shared hall after a day’s shift. With a soft ding, the elevator doors open. You step inside the empty space and reach to press the third floor button. You flip open the file once again, staring down at the face-sheet while the elevator whirs softly. He’s about four years younger than you, a former college student previously attending a university for broadcasting and entertainment up until about a year ago. Blood type O, height 175cm… you continue to skim the provided demographics, of which offer nothing of real substance. Until the diagnosis, in a separate section on the next page under the large referral heading glares back at you in dark bold lettering. Metastatic cancer, primarily of the bones. The elevator comes to a stop and the doors slide open, you close the file and shove it under the bend of your armpit. It’s tragic, a sad reality. To be hit with something so profoundly terrible in the days of one’s youth and knowing that this was it, there was no being saved, no definite cure. Sure, chemotherapy and radiation is always on the table but both treatments guarantee absolutely nothing. Either one is caught in the pain of trying to be healed or caught in the suffering of just letting the ailment progress. You count the room numbers under your breath— 1111, 1113, 1115, 1117. The door is closed, beyond it the faint sound of music. You give a courtesy knock, two simple raps against the wood. The music stops and the occupant of the room beckons you to enter with a soft ‘come in’. You open the door slowly, peeking your head in first to establish the first step towards making a comfortable introduction. Jongho is propped against a couple of pillows on his designated hospital bed, hospital-assigned blankets tucked around his waist. He’s got a black beanie on his head, stray clumps of dark hair sticking out from the folded over bottom. Dangling from his earlobes are small gold hoops. You enter without much sound, turning to fix the man with a hospitable smile. The plastic wrapped around the bouquet of roses in the crook of your elbow make a crinkling noise as you move to his bedside. Up close, you immediately zero in on the sunken in state of his eyes. What were most likely wide and endearing at one point in time now seemed to droop under the weight of his ailment. “Hello, my name is Y/N and I will be your assigned nurse. I know this is a stressful time and—“ “Stressful time? I’m dying, biggest understatement of the year.” Jongho’s voice is soft despite the harshness in his tone. What’s left of his brows furrow downward, hair loss having already claimed most of them as well as all of his eyelashes. You let the remark slide off of you like softened butter, choosing to place the roses in an empty vase provided in every room at the bedside table on his right. He watches out of the corner of his eye, huffing at the sight of them. Twelve fucking roses for one of the worst holidays known to man. He despised the sight of them. “Figured you could probably use these more than me.” “Thanks, I hate them.” You pull the chair nestled in the closest corner of the room to the side of the hospital bed, settling down into the stiff cushions which’ll surely have your back aching by the time you leave the room. “So do I.” You shift a bit, balancing the file on your lap, “Guess we have something in common.” Jongho scoffs, “Don’t get ahead of yourself, Mary Poppins. We are nothing alike.” One thing about being a hospice nurse is that no patient is exactly the same but most happen to adopt the same manner of attitude. While you could get those who are sweet and easygoing in their last days, others become hostile and withdrawn when death stands on their doorstep. Just like with grief, everyone copes differently. There isn’t truly a right way to deal with these things. Some cry, some scream, some wither away inside their heads, some make the most of each day, some laugh until they are breathless, some request for the last of their unfulfilled wishes to become the final memories in their dwindling life. You briefly ponder about what Jongho will choose to do with the last of his days. Who he will choose to be. “Of course not. That would be pretty uninteresting if we were. I mean, I can already tell you that I’d probably have to strangle you if you were even a smidgen like me. One is good enough.” Usually a bit of self-deprecating humor can get even the most difficult patient to respond in some type of jesting agreement but Jongho wasn’t amused at all. If anything, he looked… like he was about to be sick— Suddenly the man was lurching over the side of his bed, vomit spraying past his lips and splattering along the vinyl flooring. He heaves and sputters and gags and the mess just continues to grow. You’ve pushed yourself hurriedly out of your seat and rush to the adjoining bathroom where a bucket is located for these particular instances. Jongho coughs, shudders racking his body. You have the bucket held several inches below his face, waiting for anything else to come parting from his body. He heaves again after a rather rough cough and only a small amount of milky green film comes up. He spits, sniffles and then slumps back into his original position. In that short span of time, he looks even sicker. Skin a pale yellow with a gross sheen, eye bags a darker purple and lips cracked and pale with chunks of whatever he had eaten earlier in the morning clinging to the lower one. You swipe a couple tissues from the bedside table, wadding them up and leaning over to wipe gently at his mouth. Jongho wants to protest, to smack your hand away and tell you to fuck off. But he’s so tired. He feels like a prisoner in his own body, incapable of doing anything other than lying there and letting you clean off his mouth and wipe away the sweat that gathered on his skin. He wants to sleep. About halfway through cleaning the perspiration from Jongho’s clammy face did you notice that his eyes had fallen shut and his breathing had grown shallow. You weren’t expecting him to fall asleep all of sudden (or suddenly throw up mid-conversation) but it seems he hadn’t been strong enough to remain conscious after getting sick. You pull away when he’s been fully wiped down, glancing down at the messy puddle of vomit beside your clogs. Whatever the chunks were supposed to be were unidentifiable, possibly eggs or even pieces of fruit. You weren’t sure.
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Haru looks up at your approach, eyeing the mop in one hand and the mop-bucket in the other. It was empty, having been dumped before you returned to the front lobby area. “Well, he’s cute right?” “He threw up and then passed out right afterwards. Not exactly the word I would use to describe him. Plus,” You open a utility closest and deposit both the bucket and mop into the small room before nudging the door closes with the toe of your clog. “He’s a bit of a dick.” “I would be too if I was given secondhand roses.” Haru huffs to herself, nails tapping against the caps on her keyboard. You roll your eyes at the comment. “He doesn’t even know they were given to me initially.” “And you say he’s the dick?” Perhaps he isn’t, not really. He’s sick, dying, painstakingly waiting for the inevitable. But trapped until then in this between of living not for the sake of living but living until death. That is what he is doing— living to die.
Who will you choose to be in your last moments, Choi Jongho?