Chapter 19
May 19, 2026 at 9:01 AM
A week had passed since I was admitted to the hospital, and I couldn’t say I felt any significant changes in my condition. My head still spun from time to time, there was occasional pressure in my chest, and the treacherous weakness could hit me at any moment. But overall, I didn’t feel terminally ill.
However, ever since Jay learned about my diagnosis, an unrelenting worry and anxiety had taken up permanent residence in his eyes.
Even though he tried to act normal and even joked in his usual vulgar-cheeky way to make me laugh — earning himself loving smacks for it — I could clearly see that he was constantly waiting for something bad to happen. Something he didn’t say out loud so as not to scare me, naively believing that I didn’t notice anything.
But it was quite hard not to notice how his eyes now followed me everywhere I went. If I let him, he probably would have accompanied me even to the shower and the bathroom. It made me uneasy too, because it meant he knew far more about my condition than he was telling me. And he continued to hide it.
I understood that pressuring him or trying to make him spill the truth was pointless, so I adopted the principle “The less you know, the better you sleep” and decided to let things run their course.
True to his word, Jay had practically moved into my hospital room. Every night I fell asleep in his strong arms, shielded from the night chill and the rest of the world by the familiar warmth of his strong yet incredibly gentle hands.
And with every passing day, I loved him more and more, realizing that I hadn’t made a mistake when I finally gave in and let him convince me to become his girlfriend.
Only now was I fully realizing how incredibly nice it was to be his.
Jay was unbelievably tender, caring, and attentive. He practically dusted me off with a feather. I was sure it wasn’t just because of my currently weakened, illness-stricken state. He would have treated me exactly the same even if I were perfectly healthy — simply because that was who Jay was: a bad boy and troublemaker with a dark past, but with a huge and incredibly loving heart, ready to protect and cherish those dear to him at any cost.
I don’t know how many guys did for their girlfriends what my beloved doctor did for me, but I treasured it deeply. My heart literally melted with tenderness every time he looked at me with that loving, adoring, gentle gaze — as if he saw only me, and no one else in the world existed for him.
When he was on duty, he would pop into my room every half hour. I even scolded him for neglecting his professional duties and other patients, but he would just wave off my complaints, stroke my hair like I was a child, and assure me that I was his most important and favorite patient. And when his shift ended and he was replaced in the morning by Tae or other doctors, he would go home to change and shower, then come right back and spend the entire day with me.
Between IV drips — and often during them — we watched movies, talked, and kissed. In those moments, it felt like everything in my world was right. Like this was exactly how things were supposed to be.
The cocky brunet especially loved feeding me almost spoon by spoon. No matter how much I protested that I could still eat perfectly well on my own, or shot him indignant glares, it only made him chuckle softly and smile indulgently.
Almost every day after lunch, he would take me for walks in the park on the clinic grounds. Even though winter was clearly in the air, the days were sunny and windless, so our walks always lifted my spirits.
In the evenings, he would climb into my bed and immediately start telling me stories about how happy we would be together. He would purr like a big affectionate cat, and during those long minutes when his warm lips gently and unhurriedly touched mine, making me forget the rest of the world and think only of him, I was already happy. It felt like nothing was wrong with me, like everything was just like before…
But it wasn’t.
I was reminded of that again on Monday afternoon when Jay returned from home and walked into my room. One look at his worried face was enough for me to understand that I wasn’t going to like the news.
He didn’t rush to dump it on me. Instead, he approached my bed, sat down on the very edge, cupped my face with his warm hands, and gently kissed my lips.
“Hey, little fawn. How are you?” he whispered with a smile, stroking my cheeks with his thumbs.
“It’ll be much better if you kiss me again…”
My answering smile was just as sincere and warm as I leaned in for another kiss — the ones I had already missed while he was gone. He responded immediately, without hesitation. Cupping the back of my head with his palm, he pulled me even closer, confidently parting my lips with his and deepening the kiss, making it hot and mind-blowing — exactly the way I loved it.
When he finally pulled back and pressed his hot forehead to mine, my heart was racing wildly, my breath came in shallow, shaky gasps from my thoroughly kissed lips, and it felt like dragons — not butterflies — were fluttering in my stomach. All it took was one kiss from Jay to drive me crazy, and it happened every single time our lips met. I had clearly developed a lifelong addiction to them.
“How do you always know exactly what I need?” I whispered with a dreamy smile, sighing softly as I wrapped my arms around his waist and pressed myself against his broad, warm chest. His arms closed around me in their familiar protective ring, and he breathed softly into my hair with a quiet smile:
“I just love you, sunshine. And I do everything I can to make you happy.”
I let those quiet words sink deep into my heart to stay there forever and breathed almost inaudibly against his warm neck:
“Thank you… Thank you for everything, my love…”
“Silly Bambi…” my Romeo whispered tenderly, gently holding my chin and lifting my face toward him for another long kiss. “You don’t thank someone for love… You just accept it as a gift… and give it back in return.”
“You’re such a romantic, Mr. McFell… And a philosopher too…” I sighed happily, wrapping my arms around his neck once he finally pulled away and let me breathe again. “Where do such deep thoughts even come from in that head of yours?”
Jay snorted and rolled his eyes. Raising an eyebrow with a mocking smile, he asked:
“What kind of hints are those, huh, Bambi? Doubting my IQ again? Or did you think my head was just running 24/7 porn?”
“Well… considering how you used to behave with me…” I tilted my head to the side and gave him a meaningful look, biting my lips hard to keep from laughing. In the end, I couldn’t hold it in and burst out giggling. Jay just shook his head and once again pulled me possessively into his bear-like embrace. Resting his chin on top of my head, he grumbled reproachfully:
“That was a long time ago and it wasn’t true, Bambi. So you’re being extremely unfair to me, just so you know.”
I sighed softly, still chuckling, and gave him a light peck somewhere near his collarbone as an apology and compensation for the emotional damage. Then I whispered quietly:
“Sorry, sweetheart. You know I’m just joking.”
Jay sighed and stroked my hair. Then he pulled back slightly, smiled, and looked into my eyes with a warm gaze so piercing it made me shiver. He assured me:
“Of course I know, baby. But you still haven’t answered. Are you okay, or should I start worrying?”
“Everything’s fine, my love. Now everything’s fine because you’re here…”
I hadn’t even noticed when I had become so sentimental and started speaking in the most cliché phrases straight out of the dramas Jay and I watched together.
If before all that pink fluff only made me smile condescendingly and roll my eyes, now I felt that these words were true and came straight from the heart. So I wasn’t embarrassed at all to say them to him.
Jay smiled and pressed his warm lips to my temple, then whispered softly:
“I wouldn’t leave your side at all if it meant you’d feel good, baby girl… Because every time I walk out that door, my heart stays here with you.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and hugged him even tighter, sighing quietly again.
“Don’t worry about me so much… I feel fine, really. Besides, Jisoo is always just one call away,” I said, pointing to the emergency button by the head of the bed — the one Jay reminded me about almost every day. Luckily, I hadn’t had to use it even once yet.
His quiet sigh stirred the hair on top of my head, where he had pressed his cheek. But when he pulled back a little, I realized that what he was about to tell me wasn’t going to make me happy.
“Sweetheart…” he began, taking my suddenly ice-cold hands in his large, warm ones. “I need to tell you something, but… don’t get scared, okay?”
Hearing that, I involuntarily tensed up, and my lips twitched into an uncertain smile.
“That’s… not the best way to start a conversation,” I noted.
Jay gave a humorless chuckle and looked away, unconsciously stroking my knuckles gently with his thumbs.
“I know, baby, I’m sorry… I’m just… really nervous.”
“Like a virgin on her first date?” I decided to tease him a little to ease the tension.
“Worse, sweetheart. Like a virgin on her wedding night.”
I forced myself to smile, even though my heart immediately dropped to my stomach at his words.
“Wow. So it really is… something serious.”
Jay sighed heavily and looked back down at my hands, which he was unconsciously squeezing tighter and tighter. Then he did something I had probably never seen him do before — he started rambling incoherently with excuses. After about thirty seconds, I cut off the stream by taking his handsome face in my palms and forcing him to finally look at me.
“Jay. What happened? Tell me right now, or I’ll hit you. And you know my hand is heavy and my aim is good,” I declared as threateningly as I could, trying my hardest to keep my voice from shaking.
Hearing this, my Romeo finally came to his senses and smiled guiltily. He covered my hands, which were cupping his face, with his own, kissed my palm, and whispered:
“I got it, Bambi. Hold off on the beating. I’ll tell you everything, I promise. It’s just that…”
He took a deep breath, as if gathering strength for a leap into the abyss. But when neither five seconds nor fifteen later any sound left his lips, I leaned closer, looked into his beloved gentle eyes, and repeated with emphasis:
“Jay. Speak. Now.”
His answer was a ragged sigh, as if even talking about it was incredibly difficult for him. I was already seriously worried myself, but after closing his eyes for a moment and apparently finally regaining control, he said quietly:
“Baby… Your treatment is giving fairly good results right now, but… the latest blood tests have raised some concerns for me, and we… need to perform one procedure…”
At that point, his self-control seemed to crack.
Jay fell silent again, biting his lip and once more hiding his guilty gaze behind his long lashes. Although I still really liked it when he used all those professional medical terms, my anxiety returned a hundredfold.
“What kind of… procedure?” I whispered with disobedient lips, going cold at the mere thought of even more needles being stuck into me on top of the one already in my left arm.
Jay lifted his head. Still holding my hands captive in his hot palms and my eyes in the dark depths of his own, he finally exhaled:
“A myocardial biopsy.”
Well… honestly, the phrase didn’t mean anything to me, so I relaxed a little and finally allowed myself to breathe. During his long silence, I had already imagined all sorts of horrors, and as usual, only one question worried me:
“Um… Will it hurt?”
Realizing that I wasn’t about to faint or throw a tantrum, Jay finally smiled with that relaxed smile of his that had long ago driven me crazy. He pulled me closer, gently kissed my forehead, and whispered:
“No, sweetheart. Of course not. I already told you… I won’t let anything hurt you.”
