Beyond Repair (Min Yoongi) [UPDATED]

33. Sweet Intoxication

Before the doctor could get another word out, several of the young men closed in on the three people. The doctor was a broad, dark-skinned man still wearing scrubs; his white coat was creased but slightly askew, as if it had been neatly folded and then thrown on at the last second. The other two people were women, one in nurse's scrubs with her hair tied back and one with glasses in a pencil skirt and a sharp blazer. The professionalism they all displayed didn't grant them any personal space; the members formed a semicircle around him to bombard them with questions. Jimin stayed where he was and kept his questions to himself, afraid of the answers, but not being actively involved in the conversation didn't mean he was paying any less attention.

"How did it go? How is he, is he awake?" Namjoon asked.

"Why did the surgery take so long?" Seokjin demanded.

"Is he alive?" Hoseok asked.

At that last question, everyone stopped talking. It was as if they were just now facing the grim reality that, just because the surgery was over, it didn't mean Yoongi had survived it. Sure, they had all had that possibility in the back (or the front) of their minds the whole time, but now it was real. A simple yes or no could make or break the future they'd all hoped for since they'd brought Yoongi home.

"He is alive," said the doctor.

Seokjin, Hoseok, and Jungkook visibly slumped in relief. Namjoon and Taehyung broke into the first genuine smiles Jimin had seen from them since Yoongi was taken the second time. As for Jimin himself, he had to sit down in the nearest chair, suddenly lightheaded. He fumbled with the velcro straps on his neck brace (fuck it, it had been long enough, he didn't really need it anymore) and once he'd gotten it off, he tossed it aside and took a few deep breaths to keep his head clear.

"That's wonderful, but I'm sorry, who are you?" Seokjin asked a stern-looking woman standing next to the doctor.

"My name is Kim Sunhee. I'm a lawyer working on behalf of this hospital," the woman said, bowing in greeting as she introduced herself.

"It's nice to meet you, but why are you here?" Namjoon asked.

"I think it would be best to let Dr. Ahmad answer that," the lawyer said.

Dr. Ahmad closed his eyes for a second before speaking. "I'm ashamed to say, we missed a piece of the bullet the first time around. It was so small, we thought we'd managed to get the bullet out in two clean pieces until forensics put it under a microscope and found a piece missing. It traveled through his bloodstream until it became lodged in his liver. I'm not going to lie to you, it's nothing short of a miracle that that shard didn't go straight to his heart. It did, however, cause a lot of internal bleeding along the way. When his liver shut down, it couldn't release the white blood cells necessary to help fight off the infection in the wounds on his back—and since the infection was unresponsive to the antibiotics to begin with, he went into septic shock, which sent him into cardiac arrest."

"So what you're saying is...the first surgery failed...because of a microscopic piece of metal...but the reason he almost died...was because of an infection in his back?" Jimin said slowly.

"Essentially, yes. But after we got his heart beating again, we did an x-ray to locate the bullet shard and we were able to remove it, stop the internal bleeding, drain the pus, remove the dead tissue, and start him on vasopressors and corticosteroids for good measure. The police helped to confirm there are no pieces left, but we did one last full-body x-ray just to be sure and we're now certain we got everything out."

"So there should be no further complications?" Namjoon asked.

"So long as he responds well to the new medications, which he seems to be doing so far," the doctor said.