A Pound of Flesh

Title:  A Pound of Flesh

Pairing:  ChangSoo

Genre:  angst

Rating:  NC17

Length:  oneshot

a/n: Just to warn you guys, this story is about abortion. If you are sensitive to such topics, I advice you to read no further.

A pound of flesh moving, writhing in pain, desperately trying to hold on for dear life that has not even started yet. A pound of guilt unknowingly shared by two. Unsaid apologies masked by casually fake gratitude.

If you're never sorry

Then you can't be forgiven

if you're not forgiven

Then you can't be forgotten

If you're not forgotten

Then you can live forever

If you live forever

Then you'll begin to dream

Of death...

Will it hurt, was her only question. He gave her an honest answer this time. He didn’t ask her who the father was and why she decided upon it only now. He just applied the cure carefully with gloved hands.

It was the first time they felt uncomfortable with each other's touch.

In two days, she will dilate and the bag will break. He said that the service was worth a few grand but he would perform it for free. After all, what was a little helping hand between friends? It was nothing. Nothing, he said.

The problem was some weeks too big to be removed in a simpler way. At the very least she would be bleeding for a few days. He listed down the antibiotics in advance as she sat silently on the cold metal chair. Aside from the prescription, no waiver was signed. No documents shall be kept of their transaction. The ordeal would be their dirty little secret, along with the intimate moments they had, some obscure months ago.

He was a resident doctor while she was just a cheap face cream model. They had nothing in common or so they say. It was purely casual, no strings attached. They'd be back to their regular lives no later than daybreak, they pretended.

She didn't men it to be this way. She wasn't always that careless to forget her pill. Not that she always needed them. She just thought that he wasn’t the type who'd be tied down. He thought of her the same so the word was mum. Little did they know that the little spark of hope and affection was mutual.

It was the fifteenth of February when her fears were confirmed by two clear red lines. That was also the last day he saw her after he denied his feelings out of fear of rejection for the third time.

Ezra pound sat upon my bed

Asked me which books as of late I've read

Asked me if I've read his own

And whether I could spare a pound

Of flesh to cover his bare bones

I says, man, take a pound, take two

What’s a pound of flesh between

Friends like me and you?

What’s a pound of flesh among friends?

Still filled with doubts, Shim Changmin holds a simple silver band in his hand. Forty-eight hours from that moment, will turn the blameless pound of flesh. An incision will be made beneath its unborn skull. Jaundiced tubes will drain out an unlived life and nothing will be left inside but turmoil and regrets.

Choi Sooyoung would lie unconscious on the hospital bed. She would late wake up to ten shades of emptiness. Changmin would go on to dispose the macabre souvenir. He would still have that ring on his coat’s left pocket, not noticing that the pound of flesh had his lips and Sooyoung’s eyes. 

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*** This story is dedicated to Puchikay, an angel called upon by the Lord too soon. Puchikay, you will always be remembered and loved. Anyway, Puchikay was not aborted. She passed on to the next life because of miscarriage. She was a beautiful baby girl. I was supposed to be her fairy godmother. After crying my eyes out, I finally decided to publish this story. It was written before Puchikay left but I'm publishing it only now because.. I don't know. I'm depressed. Yes.