Yours To Claim

A/N: Hello! I'm no pro so feel free to correct any grammar lapses and typographic errors when you see one. Thank you for reading, enjoy!

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Chapter 1: Did I not satisfy you?

One restless night, Seoul City Hospital.

The sound of the clock ticking on the wall had been the only thing Hyerin could hear until the doctor finally looked up from the file in his hands. His face was serious—too serious it made her heartbeat skipped.

"Miss Nam, I already have your test results and unfortunately it's not looking good," he said slowly. "We found a cyst in your ovary track and it's—"

At the sudden mention of the news, Minjae's hand, which had been resting lightly on Hyerin's knee, went stiff.

A cyst? In her ovary?

Minjae's form shattered and his usually compose demeanor became very unstable. Even cutting off the doctor who was supposed to be briefing his patient about her illness.

How could his future wife incur such a disease before their wedding?

"D-Doctor Zhang, please tell me, this kind of ailment is... It, it can still be cured, right?"

Ahem!

Doctor Zhang cleared his throat, making Minjae realize how he was acting over the top. He bit his lips and looked away.

"Young man, you must be very worried about your lover. However, I'm sorry but the lump this time had become very big," the middle aged doctor forego Minjae's rude behavior and fixed the rim of his thick eye-glasses. He replied calmly, with each word falling like stone. "It's already pressing against major vessels. I'm afraid we cannot operate her."

Hyerin could feel her breath growing shallow. The cold from the examination table was already seeping into her bones.

"What?! What do you mean no surgery, doctor?" Minjae asked, voice rising with panic. "How, how can my fiancée survive then?"

What about their wedding? Their plans? Their future family?

"Please tell me, there's a way... There has to be... There's always something, isn't there? Some other method? What about medication?"

Hearing the man's outburst and desperation, in stark contrast to the woman's unusual silence, a flash of sympathy crossed his eyes but the doctor's expression didn't change.

"Well, now that you've mentioned it..." Doctor Zhang's voice trailed off and continued. "Originally, Miss Nam would still have seventy percent chance of surviving an operation but after giving your mother one of her kidneys, her body had deteriorated and become too weak," he explained.

"At this point, if we proceed with surgery or heavy drugs, her chances of survival are extremely low. The cyst is intertwined with tissues we can't reach without risking hemorrhage. Anesthesia alone could stop her heart."

"H-How could this be... Honey..."

Minjae turned to Hyerin and became weak on his knees. He looked stricken, like he had just watched someone draw a curtain over the future. While she could only shut her eyes, trying to muster all the courage she had to stop herself from breaking down.

She was already dying inside but the doctor wasn't finished.

"Even if, by some miracle, we removed the cyst, the damage to her reproductive system had become irreversible. Miss Nam Hyerin, she... I'm afraid to say this but she will never be able to conceive."

That was when Hyerin felt her chest go hollow.

She hadn't cried. Not then. But she felt the weight of the world slowly crushing to her soul.

She had only nodded slowly, as if her head were no longer connected to the rest of her body.

---

That night, Minjae had not spoken much.

The days that followed were worse. His hands stopped reaching for hers. His smile became forced, thin, like it belonged to someone pretending to love her. He began avoiding home, giving excuses that sounded more like apologies.

So when he finally stood before her in the living room, rain dripping from his coat, his face twisted with guilt, she wasn't surprised.

Nam Hyerin knew. She had already known this was coming and that just made her feel more miserable than she already was.

"Honey, I'm sorry. I-I'm really sorry, Hyerin," he said, kneeling down her wet marbled floor, wasted in his tears.

"G-God knows how much I tried. I really tried and I thought I could stay. I wanted to..."

"But every time I look at you now, I see that hospital room. I see a future where we're always afraid. You leaving me all alone and me losing you. I-I can't... I feel like going crazy just thinking about it..."

"I understand." Her voice was steady. Too steady and sounded rehearsed.

"No… you don't. Hyerin, I want children. A family. To grow old with someone and experience many things together. I know we planned this together, everything together but..." He exhaled sharply.

"Honey... What should I do if you can't be in that future? I'm not strong enough to let go of that dream. I'm really sorry..."

"... I understand," she repeated.

No, she doesn't understand at all. Being in the same neighborhoodm, they have become friends since grade school even though they were four years apart in age. They fell in love and thought it was till the end.

During her first year, she had to give up university because his mom needed an immediate kidney transplant and she was the only available match. He was grateful and told her that he would take care of her in the future until they were old.

It was a promise of a lifetime that she held on.

But now, just a few years after giving her that promise, in the sickening reality of being twenty three, to see that same devastated look he had wore on the day he begged her to save his mother...

Hyerin felt so wronged and betrayed.

Even so, how could she selfishly ask him to stay, looking at how he was desperately begging to walk away?

Hyerin was shaking tremendously behind that disgusting fake smile. Her fingers secretly tightened around the hem of her dress, as she tried to be numb from showing her pain.

"You don't have to feel sorry for me or beg."

It's disgusting and making her eyes hurt.

"You did the right thing. If it were me I'd do it too."

It's just that I realized this too late that I fell for a pathetic person of a man. If only I had known this sooner...

She smiled. The kind of smile that was tearing her up inside. Inside, something was already collapsing.

She was the one broken. But he was a damn traitor and a hypocrite.

That night, she watched him walk out the door. He didn't even glance back. Minjae was determined to leave her. To forever leave the home they spend more than three years filled with their memories together.

"Bastard. Minjae, you lying bastard!"

As soon as he left her door, her knees gave out and she collapsed to the cold floor. Hyerin clutched her chest. There, alone, she screamed in bitterness and pain as her repressed tears quickly began to pour and drown her.

"Aghh!"

---

The sky had darkened for many days, as if the heavens had mourned with her.

She had been left alone.

No family. No friends close enough to call. Just silence. Just the echo of the doctor's words and the memory of Minjae's back as he walked away.

Rain began to fall. It was slow at first, then suddenly pouring down as though the sky itself had broken open.

During the past days, Hyerin became a headless chicken. Haggard, depressed and skinny. Today, she stepped outside without an umbrella, letting the cold soak her to the skin.

She walked.

She didn't know where she was going.

Her bright eyes looked dead and her soul resembled the desolate streets.

Each step felt heavier than the last. Her shoes were soaked through. Her long, midnight hair clung to her cheeks. She could taste salt, but she wasn't sure if it came from the rain or from her own tears.

What had she done to deserve this?

Why her?

Why did her body choose this betrayal?

She had tried to be good. Tried to love. Tried to live. Was that not enough?

Her legs moved on their own, taking her past silent cars, puddles that swallowed her steps, faces that didn't see her.

She felt invisible. Forgettable. Defective.

She was walking aimlessly like her bleak future when suddenly, the ground rumbled.

A deep vibration pulsed through the earth. Streetlights flickered. Alarms shrieked. The tremor surged like a living thing. Glass shattered in a building nearby.

The girl who had been weak and depressed wobbled and lost her stability. Her breath caught.

She instinctively turned to grabbed on something to steady herself but just in time, a streetlamp swayed and fell on her direction.

There was no time to run and evade.

Tears escaped her eyelids. Hyerin saw her life ending in a flash along with unbearable pain.

And then, there was darkness.

---

Hyerin woke with a dull ache in her body, but it was the burning pain between her thighs that made her gasp.

Before she could understand what was happening, she felt her bare skin pressed against something cold and smooth, thick and firm, coiled tightly around her lower body.

She froze, her breath caught in her throat. Her eyes widened in fear and her sleepiness vanished at once.

Inside the dimly lit cave, a massive black tail covered in scales was wrapped around her from the waist down like a living shackle.

And beneath her, another figure lay still with eyes close.

It was a man. A beautiful... No, wait... More specifically, a creature having a face of a devilishly handsome young man but with a body of a giant serpent.

Suddenly, she saw the man stirred and slowly opened his eyelids revealing a pair of exquisite crimson red jewels that glowered at her like a meek prey.

Hyerin's body trembled, eventually drowning all her initial admiration with raw fear.

"Woman, stop moving on top of me," the man grumbled sleepily. "You've ridden me night after night until dawn. How are you still not done?"