✧･ﾟ: * eighteen *:･ﾟ✧

Madeline's anxiety is ridiculous at this point. You'd think after years of research and anticipation that she'd be ready and excited. Oddly enough, there's dread curling in the pit of her stomach, all the terrible thoughts running through her head. Majority of them, thanks to her anxiety, being quite on the dramatic side.

What if the anesthesia kills her instead of the actual operation? What if she never wakes up? What if the doctor drops a scalpel or some other sharp tool into her throat? What if he doesn't actually know what he's doing and pops her eyes out the sockets? What if the world decides to end right when she goes under into an unconscious state?

But the biggest one: what if it works?

Granted, that's the entire point of coming. To be fixed. However, she's been keeping her expectations so low to avoid getting hurt that she hasn't actually thought about being able to see again. She hasn't considered the idea of waking up and seeing a bright light above her. And she definitely kept herself from entertaining the idea of waking up and seeing Taehyung's face.

Instinctively, the thought of him makes her lean closer into his side. She's shaking from nervousness, but he must think she's cold because she feels his jacket across her shoulders a moment later. She doesn't bother telling him her body temperature is perfectly fine. His jacket is strangely comforting to her right now.

The waiting room is shockingly busy, the receptionist running back and forth between two phones. Nurses poking their heads out into the room to call for patients every five seconds it feels, yet the crowd seems to stay the same. She can hear the hustling of it all. She can feel the crowd, if that makes any sense at all. Another reason she chooses to stay as close to Taehyung as possible. Crowds aren't exactly the best atmosphere for her.

It makes sense now why the doctor only had so many openings, granted there's more than one in this office. He's the only eye doctor, though, the only one qualified for surgeries. Her foot begins to tap on the floor, her teeth chewing on her bottom lip now. It's all become too real too quickly.

Another thing making her uncomfortable is the variety of languages she hears being spoken. Not because she doesn't appreciate other cultures, but when her ears are the main sense she relies on and she can't comprehend what they're picking up in an entirely new, unfamiliar place, it sets her a bit on edge. She isn't completely sure what's all happening around her, and she hates it.

She shouldn't have come.

As if sensing her getting worked up, Taehyung clasps their hands together and gives hers a reassuring squeeze. "It's okay, Maddie."

She doesn't agree.

She feels like she's suffocating.

All of the noise, all of the sounds she can't process, all of the footsteps passing right by her. She feels jumpy. Maybe she's being dramatic. These people are here for their own problems and probably aren't paying her any mind. Still, she feels like she's in the way somehow with all the rushing people around her. She hikes her legs up into the chair with her, turning slightly sideways so she can rest her feet on the edge of the chair under the arm. Curling into a ball right now in the middle of a giant, empty bed sounds very appealing.

She's still situated against Taehyung, still gripping his hand tightly. It's the only thing she can trust in this foreign place.

"Maddie?"

"I'm okay," she forces out, yelling internally at herself to stop being so melodramatic. "Just... uneasy."

"You're worried?"

She nods against his shoulder.

He reaches his free hand out to stroke her hair, his lips close to her ear so she can hear him above the noise. "It will be okay. Do you want to leave?"

She can hear in his tone that he hopes she goes through with it, probably sense she ruined the end of his trip by him feeling forced to drag her here. She can't do that to him, not after all he's done. Albeit, part of her does want to run out the door and act like she never walked in, the other half of her is determined. Anxious and nauseous as hell, but determined.

"No," she says. "I can do it."

She has to do it.

Despite what Taehyung says, she knows she isn't strong enough to live like this the rest of her life. She's cried more the past few years than she probably ever did as an infant. Over stupid shit, too. Once she cried for half an hour over the fact that she couldn't see the cover reveal of the last book in a series she'd been reading before she went blind. She cried another time for longer when her class went on a field trip to the zoo and she couldn't see the tiger cubs playing.

Her mother encouraged her to go on that trip, regardless of Madeline reminding her it'd be pointless. The idea of the zoo is to see the animals, after all.

There are undoubtedly so many strong people who deal with blindness in the world, and endure it wholeheartedly. Not Madeline. She tried before, but she failed.

Her whirling thoughts are interrupted when she hears, "Madeline Reeves."

Her heart stops.

The only thing that makes her move is Taehyung standing up, gently tugging her hand to instruct her to do the same. She holds his hand tight, standing, then decides she needs more support and wraps her other hand around his too. She swallows the lump in her throat, staying close to him as he leads her to the nurse.

"Right this way," she hears, the nurse sounding Italian but with clear enough English. She squeezes Taehyung's hand so tight her own hands start to go numb.

The hallway is long and just as busy as the waiting room. Madeline might as well be glued to Taehyung's back with how closely she's sticking to him, desperate not to get run over by scurrying doctors. He doesn't complain about how tightly she's holding his hand or how closely she's walking to him. If anything, he helps her stay close by holding their hands against his side.

"Take a seat, please," the nurse says once they enter a room, the door shutting out all the chaoticness outside. Madeline takes a breath of relief at the quiet, her grip on Taehyung loosening. He helps her into the patient chair while the nurse continues, "I'm going to check your vitals, and then explain the procedure, okay?"

Madeline nods, the nurse asking her to take off Taehyung's jacket so she can wrap the blood pressure cuff around Madeline's arm. She does so, a bit reluctantly, then proceeds to sit through her temperature check, her breathing, and a prick on her index finger.

She hears a chair with wheels roll on the floor as the nurse sits in it. "Now, the doctor will go through more detail and answer any questions you may have. From your file, you're here with a rare nerve damage that can potentially be repaired. I'm here to remind you that, while success rates are high, there is never a guarantee..."

She continues on and on about the risk factors, how long the surgery will take, what exactly the surgery is, and so on. Madeline zones out for the sake of her sanity. She doesn't want to hear about any more risk factors when she's already made up her own. She wants to keep it simple: if it works, it works; if it doesn't, it doesn't.

The nurse leaves and assures them the doctor will be in soon, and that Madeline should be under anesthesia within the next hour or two.

Which is absolutely definitely not terrifying.

"Taehyung," Madeline starts, "if I die, remember me."

She actually hears him gasp. "Maddie, no! Don't talk that way, okay?"

She grins, the first time today since she woke up. "I'm just kidding, calm down. It's a joke."

"It was not funny."

"Aw." She playfully pouts her lips, jabbing her fingers into his side. "Loosen up, Taehyung. I'm the one that's supposed to be easily offended right now."

Taehyung is quiet, and she knows he didn't understand a word she just said.

She chuckles, shaking her head to herself.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"I want to know," he says, then pauses a moment. Finally, he adds, "What you said."

"Loosen up, meaning don't take everything so seriously."

"Seriously?"

"Yes, seriously." It takes her a minute to realize he doesn't understand what "seriously" means. "It means, uh... geez, how do I explain it?" She sighs, pulling her phone out of her back pocket. She asks Google how to say "seriously" in Korean. She should've been doing this instead of fumbling around for definitions.

"Ohhh," Taehyung says. "Sorry."

The two talk about random things then. She thinks Taehyung is trying to keep her distracted with how often he keeps switching the subject whenever one starts getting too dull. She appreciates that. She truly does. It's working, if only easing a little of her anxiety.

Sometime later, there's a sharp knock on the door before it opens, a man's voice filling the room. She recognizes it from their phone calls. "It's nice to finally meet you, Madeline," he says.

"You too," she replies. "Are you, um, holding your hand out?"

He laughs. "I am now."

She holds hers out as well and he gives it a firm shake, still chuckling to himself. She murmurs, "I didn't want to be rude."

He introduces himself to Taehyung, who responds in the softest, cutest voice Madeline has probably ever heard in her life.

The surgeon explains the procedure more in depth, asking Madeline if she has any questions. She doesn't; at this point she's just ready to do it. She's been anxious since last night, and the sooner she gets it done, the better she'll start feeling.

She hopes.

About an hour later with more preparations and pep talks with Taehyung, the nurse comes to take her away to the operation room. Instinctively, she clutches Taehyung's hand. She both melts and internally freaks out when she feels his lips on the back of her hand.

"I will be here," he assures her, his breath a whisper against her skin.

"Promise?" She feels like a child, but this reassurance is so important to her right now. She doesn't believe for a second Taehyung would leave her, but she also knows logically that the world most likely won't end when she's unconscious. Ironically, her fears are irrational when she's scared out of her wits.

"I promise," he says.

And their hands slip apart when the nurse leads her away.