... And Other Ships

JungHope: Heartbeat

My heart stopped functioning when I was about seventeen or so. There was something wrong with my AV valves; they wouldn't close, so my heart began to fill with blood. The school had to call an ambulance, and I was certain that they wouldn't get to me in time and I was going to die on the floor of my economics class. 

The doctors gave me this boy's heart. They said he was a few years older than me and the only perfect match. 

To this day, I'm so thankful for Kim Seokjin and his heart; I have a tattoo with his name, date of birth and death over my heart. It was the only thing I could do to thank him. 

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When I came back to school after my recovery, I was greeted by many classmates (and an overly enthusiastic Taehyung), who congratulated me on my life-saving surgery. 

Poor Taehyung wouldn't stop crying as we stood in homeroom, pulling me into his arms. "We thought we lost you, Kook. Everyone was so scared for you." 

I hugged him just as tightly as he hugged me, burying my face in his neck. "I'm okay now, hyungie. You don't need to worry." 

I looked over Taehyung's shoulder to see a boy sat by the window. He was obviously a new student (I had never seen him before). He was hunched over, eyes trained on the desk; they were red-rimmed and puffy, like he had been crying. Every few seconds, a sniffle jolted his skinny frame. 

"TaeTae, who is that boy?" I asked Taehyung once we parted, nodding to the boy by the window. 

Taehyung's happiness seemed to flow out of him; he deflated and his sad pout washed over his face. "That's Jung Hoseok. His boyfriend died and his parents moved so that he could heal a little easier. I've been looking over him while you were getting better. He said that his boyfriend's lungs collapsed while he was sleeping and no one could make it in time. Hobi-hyung's taking it super hard, but can you blame him?" 

No, I really couldn't blame him. If that had been my boyfriend, or even Taehyung, I would never be the same. 

Taehyung put a sad smile on his face as he threw an arm around me, eyes locked on Hoseok. "He's a total sweetie, though. He always finds it in himself to smile at me and thank me for helping him." 

It really sucked that I was the lucky one, while Hoseok's boyfriend had to die. 

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I didn't see Jung Hoseok again until many years later. 

I moved back to Busan to be with my husband, Jimin. I met Park Jimin when I was nineteen; my family spent the summer there, and something about Jimin had drawn me to him. We married four years later. 

"Baby," Jimin said one night, smoothing his hands over my thighs. 

I winced as he found the giant knot in my left thigh, trying his best to massage it out with his thumbs. "Yeah?" I groaned, holding tight to his shoulders; it hurt so bad it brought tears to my eyes. 

My husband licked his lips, then pressed an apologetic kiss to my knee. "Your friend - Namjoon, I think? - called while you were running. He said he was taking his boyfriend on vacation here, and he wants us to meet him. Apparently, they had been friends for a while, but started dating about a year ago." 

"That's cool," I breathed out, loosening my death-grip on Jimin's shoulders when the knot finally came undone. "Thanks, hyung. Are they joining us at the beach tomorrow?" 

Jimin nodded and smiled at me, his eyes falling to my tattoo. Then they shifted to the large, ugly scar that was proof of my surgery. "Is it weird, Kookie, having someone else's heart?" he whispered, tracing over the letters and numbers on my chest.