An Extra Beat of Love

37. Death or not?

Jeongguk spent the next whole day in the hospital, sitting next to Taehyung in the room that he had booked for him. 

His parents, his daughter, Seokjin, Namjoon, Hoseok, Yoongi, Jimin, and Seojoon had come at different times earlier to wish Taehyung good luck for his surgery and the two of them were alone at the moment. 

Jeongguk thought the latter was asleep, but when he lifted his head from his phone to check up on him after an hour of fiddling with it lifelessly, he found Taehyung lying on the bed with his tearful eyes trained on the ceiling of the room. 

His heart squeezed painfully when he noticed a tear track down the corner of Taehyung's eye. "Tae...?" he called out, gently taking hold of Taehyung's hand while minding the tube that was attached to it. 

"Hmm?" Taehyung answered weakly, and Jeongguk could hear the lump in his voice. "What's wrong, hmm? Does anything hurt?" he asked, gently wiping the tears off his face with the other hand.

Taehyung didn't answer right away. He just teared his tired and teary gaze away from the ceiling and trained it on his own boyfriend. Jeongguk's heart squeezed again when their eyes met. "Do you need something, hyung?" he asked once again when Taehyung didn't answer. 

Another tear fell out of Taehyung's eye and ran down the corner of it and crossed the bridge of his nose, finally finishing its journey on the pillow under his head. 

"Why are you crying, baby?" Jeongguk asked again, moving to wipe the tears faster. 

Taehyung looked away from Jeongguk. "I'm sorry," he choked out, reaching up to get the oxygen mask off his face. "What?" Jeongguk asked. Had he heard that right? 

"I'm sorry," Taehyung repeated, "I should have listened to you," he cried, his features screwing up this time, "You were so right, I should have listened to you and Seojoon hyung....." while he stopped to take a breath, Jeongguk took up the job of stroking his head and wiping the continuously falling tears from his eyes at the same time. 

"I don't wanna die, Ggukie, I don't wanna die," Taehyung continued crying, "I wanna live, I wanna marry you and have another kid with you and spend my old age with you but," another breath, this time sounding more like a little gasp than a normal intake of air, "I don't think I'm going to survive this one," another little gasp of breath, "I can feel it coming, I can feel it coming," he hiccupped. 

Jeongguk gently stroked Taehyung's head. He could literally hear his heart break into pieces. "You can feel what coming, baby?" 

"My death," a sob tore out of Taehyung's throat, "I don't wanna die, Ggukie, please, I don't want to leave yet. I should have listened to all of you, it's all my fault, you people kept saying....." he kept crying without noticing Jeongguk's efforts to stop him from going further. 

"Kim Taehyung," Jeongguk called out firmly and loudly, making him come to a stop after a while. He looked back into Jeongguk's eyes pathetically, and that made Jeongguk's heart melt into a puddle next to his feet. He placed the mask back on Taehyung's face.

 "You are not going to die, baby," he said, softening his gaze and voice. "You are going to survive this one and we are all gonna spend the rest of our lives together," he assured. "I even taught Hana how to pray for you and both of us are doing it for you. Everything will be alright, okay? Don't worry. You are not gonna die."

"I don't know..." Taehyung whispered. Jeongguk didn't know what to do. He knew Taehyung was getting more and more scared about losing his life with every passing second and he didn't know how to assure him that he really wouldn't die.