Chapter Text
Seventeen hours. One thousand and twenty minutes. Sixty-one thousand, two hundred seconds. It might as well have been a lifetime.
But, after so, so, so, so long, that door finally opened and an exhausted-looking woman stepped into the room, her hair pinned back by a scrub cap and a set of surgical robes hanging off her weary body.
Jimin elbowed Hoseok so violently that he almost knocked him off his chair and the popping sound that came from Jungkook’s knees was deafening but, within half a second of that doctor walking in, all of them were standing, impatiently awaiting the news they’d been craving.
“There was some bleeding,” the doctor said, and even her voice sounded tired. “But we got it under control relatively quickly. He’ll be in the ICU for the next few days and we won’t be able to tell just how successful the procedure was until he wakes up but, with any luck, that should happen by tomorrow morning.”
Numbness. Everybody felt nothing but numbness. Just … Numbness.
“So …” Jungkook wavered, his voice almost as unstable as his legs. “He’s … He’s alive?”
And then the doctor smiled, a smile that seemed to make the entire world a bit brighter just with its presence, “he’s alive.”
“And the tumour,” Jimin spoke up, clinging to Hoseok’s hand like a lifeline. “Did you get it all?”
That smile widened. And the world got even brighter.
“We got it all.”
For a couple of moments, nobody moved, too stunned and relieved and stricken with fear that, any minute now, they might wake up and find out that all of this was just a dream. Because it felt too good to be real.
And then Yoongi started crying.
It was so unexpected and so uncharacteristic but it was what happened. Yoongi just crumpled, knees giving out from beneath him and back sliding down the wall until he came to rest in a tiny little ball on the floor with his face buried in his arms.
His shoulders just erupted into an earthquake of shivers and shudders and he wasn’t even trying to hold it in. When Yoongi cried, he always tried to hold it in. He never wanted anyone to see that streak of weakness but now it was like he wasn’t even in control of his own body.
He just sat there. And he just cried.
He cried as Seokjin thanked the doctor and he cried as Jimin hugged Hoseok and he cried as Taehyung cried and he cried as Jungkook collapsed into a chair with a kind of dazed smile on his face.
He cried.
And, for once, nobody tried to stop him.
--------------------------
If Namjoon was being honest, he hadn’t expected to wake up. Some part of him didn’t even want to wake up if he was going to be a drooling wheelchair-bound mess for the rest of his life.
And so, when he opened his eyes, a tiny sliver of his mind told him that he was in heaven. The walls were white, the ceiling was white, his clothes were white and the bedsheets mummifying his body were white, too.
But then he saw what proved to him, once and for all, that this was real and that he was alive and that, so long as he was thinking clearly, he wasn’t brain damaged.
There was a retractable cot sticking out from beneath his bed, Taehyung and Hoseok curled up together on its narrow mattress, the dongsaeng with both his arms and legs wrapped around the hyung, koala-style.
Seokjin was sitting on a chair beside him, his arms folded on top of the mattress and his face buried in the crook of his elbow, just level with Namjoon’s waist. Jungkook had somehow folded himself into the recliner-thing in the corner of the room, his overly long fringe and sweater hood concealing his face from view.
And Jimin was stretched out over the couch by the wall, his head resting in Yoongi’s lap while the older boy’s chin gradually gravitated towards his chest only to bob back up with a start as though he was trying to keep himself from falling asleep.
But it was clear, even to someone who had just woken up from major brain surgery, that none of these people in this room were conscious.
He wondered how long he’d been lying here, unresponsive, corpse-like, while they contorted their bodies into uncomfortable positions as they awaited his awakening. He wondered if they would continue to stay this way even if he’d never opened his eyes.
Satisfied that they were all here, within view and safe, Namjoon took a moment to try and figure out his own situation.
There was pressure around his head that he presumed was being caused by some kind of bandage. He could feel all the lines and needles in his arms and his hands and the central line was still sticking up out of his chest if the itch below his collarbone was anything to go by.
He was bemused – not at all alarmed – to realise that there was also a tube snaking down his throat and he wondered how it had taken him this long to register its presence. It wasn’t painful or obstructive but it was uncomfortable, more similar to a nuisance than anything else.
And then he started testing himself.
Fingers. Fingers could wiggle. Not much but he could put that down as weakness from all the drugs circulating his system. Toes could twitch, too. So he wasn’t paralysed.
Counting. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Square roots. One, four, nine, sixteen, twenty-five. Cubed roots. One, eight, twenty-seven, sixty-four, one hundred and twenty-five. So his intelligence was intact, too.
Now memories.
That was Hoseok. He was the world’s best dancer. He had a heart the size of the planet and yet had been through far too much for one so kind.
That was Taehyung. He was the cutest little weirdo in the universe. He had a voice that would soothe any nightmare and a face that ensured you always looked twice.
That was Seokjin. He was the funniest person Namjoon had ever met. He joked about being ‘worldwide handsome’ all the time but he was just as insecure and humble as the rest of them.
That was Jungkook. He was the kid who could do anything. They’d raised him since the age of fifteen but that didn’t mean they could take all the credit for the man he’d become.
That was Jimin. He was the sunshine and rainbows they all needed in their lives. He could make the saddest person smile just by walking into the room.
And that was Yoongi. He was the biggest enigma the world had ever seen. He hated any display of affection and yet he would fling himself in front of a train for any one of them.
These were his people. Namjoon’s people. And he remembered them. He remembered them all. And so, therefore, his memory was good, too.
He’d made it. They’d done it. They’d taken that gigantic, poisonous mutation out of his body so that it wouldn’t be able to feed off him anymore. They’d given him back his life.
“Namjoon?”
He blinked, allowing his eyes to switch to the source of the softened whisper and found himself pleasantly surprised to see Seokjin’s sleepy face looking back at him, hair mussed and cheeks streaked with dried tears.
The tube in Namjoon’s mouth prevented him from speaking and his throat was sore enough that he wasn’t sure he would have been able to utter a single word anyway, so all he did was blink pointedly up at his hyung’s dumbstruck expression.
“Namjoon?”
Yes. That was him. Was Seokjin the one who had undergone invasive brain surgery?
“You’re awake?”
He almost rolled his eyes, but that would only increase his headache, so instead he allowed his fingers to wander tentatively over the blankets until he found Seokjin’s hand. And then he squeezed. Tight.
“You’re awake,” Seokjin gasped out, his eyes flooding with tears and his lips stretching wide in one of those smiles the fans always gushed over. “Oh, God, you’re awake.”
Yes, he was. He was awake. Because he’d made it. He'd survived.
----------------------
Recovering from brain surgery was not all fluffy lambs and bunny rabbits.
The first time he stood, he passed out, and it wasn't until several days later that the doctors allowed him to try again.
His coordination was returning, but slowly. Two weeks after the procedure, he was spending ninety minutes a day on a treadmill.
His hair was starting to sprout again, fuzzy little tufts crawling out of his scalp, and the surgery scar was healing well. Another month or two and it would be barely visible.
But he was alive. And that made all of it - the chronic exhaustion, the headaches, the drug store of meds he had to take every day - just about bearable.
Everybody seemed so unbelievably ecstatic to have him still there with them that they brought him whatever he wanted.
He found out Seokjin had read the note he'd left but he wasn't angry. Life was too short to be angry. Life was too short to be anything other than alive.
The doctors gave him a four-week recovery period in which to get his strength back before they resumed his immunotherapy treatment.
But, for some unknown reason, they didn't feel that torturous anymore. They felt manageable, a necessary barrier he had to pass in order to get to that finish line.
Because it no longer seemed out of reach.
Maybe it was because he'd survived the supposedly unsurvivable but he felt stronger than he'd felt in months. He was determined to beat this thing because now he felt like he could.
His new baby hairs fell out but he didn't mind. He'd gotten used to wearing beanies and berets and ball caps to conceal his baldness and now his pretty spectacular scar.
And he did things when he hadn't been able to do them before.
He went for walks, always with somebody trailing along beside him in case he needed to sit down. He started composing and producing again.
He even helped Seokjin cook a meal, an offer that would have been categorically refused had he not been a cancer patient.
And he made a couple of … generous donations to charity.
"300 million won?" Hoseok spluttered incredulously as he looked at the thank you card that had come in the post. "You gave them 300 million won?"
"Yes," Namjoon nodded, arching an eyebrow in an inquisitive way. "Are you opposed to donating to charity, Jung Hoseok?"
"Of course not but … me and the others already sent 150 million won to the cancer research foundation."
There was a split second and then they both started laughing. It had been a long, long time since any of them had laughed like that.
"You regretting it now?"
"Absolutely not."
It was like fate, Namjoon supposed.
Like they'd gone full circle. Yoongi had been with him when he was diagnosed over a decade ago and now Yoongi was with him as he took a seat in the most important appointment of his life.
He couldn't quite believe that his treatment had finished. That it had been two years since he'd collapsed on that award show stage.
How many times had he been on the verge of death since then? How many times had his body been cut into in the increasingly desperate attempts to save his life?
They'd been through so much and now here they were. This was it. This was the moment.
The moment he found out if it had all been worth it. If he was finally - finally - cancer free or if all that torture had been for nothing and they were spiralling right back to square one.
It was terrifying.
But it became slightly less terrifying the moment Yoongi reached over the arm of his chair and took Namjoon's hand.
"Hyung…" he whispered, staring at the older boy in confusion.
"Shut up," Yoongi shot back at once, resolutely glaring straight ahead as he tightened his grip. "We're about to find out if you're going to live or have to go through another two years of treatment, so, although it makes us both uncomfortable, I'm going to hold your goddamn hand."
Namjoon was saved the trouble of answering by the opening of the door and the appearance of his oncologist.
"Good morning," she greeted, circling her desk so she could sit down and opening the file in her hand. "I know you're both very anxious to cut to the chase so I won't dawdle about with pleasantries."
Namjoon could barely breathe. This was it. This was it. This was it. And he could barely breathe.
Yoongi was clutching his hand so tightly that he might have lost circulation but it didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was the smile on that doctor's face as she skimmed through his file.
And then she put it down. And she looked right at him. And she said with all the happiness she possessed,
"Congratulations, Namjoon-ssi. You are officially in remission."
He still couldn't breathe.
"Remission?" Yoongi echoed. "As in… As in cancer free? He's… He's cancer free? The cancer's gone?"
"The cancer's gone."
-------------------
"THE CANCER'S GONE!" Yoongi screamed as soon as they stepped over the threshold into their apartment. "JOON KICKED CANCER'S BUTT!"
Namjoon knew the others had been impatiently awaiting their return, unsure whether they should be preparing to celebrate or commiserate.
But at the sound of Yoongi's shout, the living room door slammed open and there was nothing but chaos in the corridor.
"Are you serious?"
"This isn't a joke?"
"Why the fuck would I joke about this?"
"So the cancer's gone? It's really gone?"
"I will say it one more time, ladies and gentlemen! The cancer is gone!"
And then it was hugging and crying and laughing and calling everybody they knew and notifying Sejin that he could release an official statement.
It felt unreal.
But it was real.
Kim Namjoon was real. And his remission was real. And those tumour-free scans were real.
He had been at breaking point, the sickest that anybody could ever be without dying, and he had survived. The sickest had survived.
"I got Soju!"
"Yes! Oh, alcohol, I have missed you!"
"No, no, no! Absolutely not! You are not having any!"
"Urm...Did you not hear? The cancer is gone, you moron!"
"Yeah, and that's my liver you're about to defile! I was very attached to that thing and I will not watch you ruin it!"
"Just one bottle?"
"No!"
"Jungkook, do the eyes."
"Jungkook, don't you dare."
…
"FINE, YOU CAN HAVE ONE BOTTLE!"