Work Text:
The Incomplete Wings
The City Central Hospital always prided itself on its gleaming glass buildings, where the world's most advanced medical equipment operated relentlessly to prolong the lives of the wealthy. But few knew that, hidden behind the tree-shaded campus of the bustling surgical department, there was a small, moss-covered pathway leading straight to Building No. 6.
People called Building 6 by many names: The Scrapyard, The Last Stop, or the most brutally honest name—The Death Ward.
It was a four-story building erected decades ago. Large patches of its yellow walls were peeling off, and the cheap smell of bleach mixed with dampness and the thick, decaying stench of death hung heavily in the air. This place housed patients with terminal illnesses, but the prerequisite for being pushed in here was simple: They had no money. When their bank accounts ran dry, when even their relatives surrendered to the hospital bills, they would be tossed into Building 6. Here, people did not cure. They only dispensed the cheapest painkillers, waiting for the day a white-sheet-covered stretcher would wheel them to the morgue.
Oscar Piastri was the resident doctor on the third floor of Building No. 6.
At twenty-four, while his former classmates were radiantly basking in the glory of major operating rooms, Oscar buried his youth in a frayed white blouse in this dark place. He had a face so calm it bordered on cold, amber eyes as still as a windless lake, and a ruthlessly professional demeanor. People said Dr. Piastri had no heart. But in reality, if he hadn't forged a heart of stone for himself, Oscar would have gone mad long ago from the heartbreaking groans of the old men and women slowly dying of cancer every night.
Oscar's duties were simple: Update medical records, measure blood pressure, hand out painkillers, and sign death certificates. A tedious, hopeless, and gray loop.
That was, until Lando Norris appeared.
Yet, in stark contrast to the gloomy atmosphere of Building 6, and far removed from the elderly, exhausted patients here, Lando Norris was like an absurdly brilliant streak of sunlight.
"Hello, Doctor! Are you in charge of this room? You look so young, and handsome too!"
That was the first thing Lando said to Oscar as he dropped his torn canvas bag onto the rusty iron bed of Room 302. Lando's face was gaunt, his skin pale from anemia, and his cheeks deeply hollowed, but his eyes—a crystal-clear ocean blue—sparkled with an astoundingly vibrant light. His curly hazelnut hair was naturally messy, and his radiant smile revealed bright white teeth.
Oscar paused for a moment, flipping through the medical record in his hand, his voice entirely devoid of ripples:
"Lando Norris. Twenty-six years old. Stage four lung cancer. From today, you will stay in this room. I am Dr. Piastri, in charge of this floor. I ask that you do not make noise and do not disturb the other patients."
"Orders received, Dr. Piastri!" Lando gave a military salute, chuckled, and then coughed violently. The dry, hoarse coughs from deep within his frail chest forced him to double over.
Oscar frowned, instinctively reaching out to support him, but Lando waved him off. Wiping away a streak of saliva tinged with blood at the corner of his mouth, Lando smiled, his eyes turning into crescents: "It's fine, it's fine. I'm used to it. By the way, Doc, how old are you? You look like you just graduated! If you stay this serious all the time, you'll age fast, you know!"
Oscar sighed, turned, and walked away, leaving behind the young man's crisp laughter. Deep down, Oscar thought Lando was a madman. In a place where people counted down their days in tears and despair, Lando's positivity felt out of place, even ridiculous.
But Lando was not mad. He simply chose to face death with a smile.
Because they were close in age, and the only two young people on this floor drowning in the scent of death, Lando quickly made Oscar his number one target to pester. Whenever Oscar did his rounds, checking the wards, Lando always found a way to show up. Sometimes he sat perched on a rickety wheelchair, sometimes he clung to the hallway walls, panting as he walked, but his mouth never stopped running.
"Hey Oscar, what did you eat today? The hospital cafeteria's boxed lunch? Ugh, that stuff is awful. When I still had money up in the nice ward, just looking at it made me want to escape the hospital."
"Oscar, do you have a lover? As handsome as you are, you must have a lot of girls chasing you, right? Or do you like guys? If you like guys, let me know, I'll be first in line!"
"Oscar, why do you never smile? Smile for me once, I bet when you smile you look just like a well-behaved koala!"
Oscar always chose to ignore him. He calmly took notes, calmly walked past Lando as if he were a wisp of smoke. But Lando was as persistent as a leech. Lando's noisy, humorous, and somewhat "clueless" nature gradually, unconsciously, chipped away at the solid ice surrounding Oscar.
There were late night shifts, when the whole building sank into a terrifying silence broken only by the wind howling through the cracked glass windows, when Oscar would find Lando sitting alone on the hallway bench. He couldn't sleep because of the tormenting pain; his chest heaved violently under his oversized hospital gown. But the moment he saw Oscar's white coat, Lando would hurriedly hide his high-dose painkillers in his pocket, look up, and grin:
"Dr. Koala on night patrol, huh? Come sit with me for a bit, the moon is beautiful out here."
Oscar didn't sit down, but he didn't leave immediately either. He leaned against the railing, watching the young man—two years his senior—curled up from the cold, yet keeping his eyes fixed on the dark sky.
"Why are you here?" Oscar suddenly asked, his voice low. "I mean... you are still very young. Do you not have family?"
The smile on Lando's lips faltered slightly, a touch of sorrow flashing across his blue eyes before vanishing as quickly as a blink. He shrugged, his tone remaining casual: "My parents died early in an accident. I worked as a freelance designer; whatever money I made, I burned on chemotherapy injections up in the VIP ward. By the time the doctor said, 'We're out of options, Mr. Norris,' my account was at zero. So, they shipped me down here. But it's okay. It's free here, and I have you, Oscar."
Oscar pressed his lips together. The casual intimacy in Lando's tone felt strangely natural, causing Oscar's heart to skip a peculiar beat. He looked at Lando's skeletal hands, covered in the pale blue bruises of IV lines, and a wave of choking bitterness rose in his chest. Lando was too young, brimming with life, yet fate had cruelly shoved him into this dark corner to wait for death.
One bitterly cold night in December, Lando suffered a severe asthma attack combined with heavy coughing up of blood. After Oscar gave him an injection to stop the attack, Lando lay receiving IV fluids on the bed, his face as white as a sheet of paper, his lips dry and cracked.
Oscar sat by the bed, checking the drip rate of the IV bottle. Looking at Lando, as fragile as a torn ragdoll, Oscar couldn't suppress a sigh. The exhaustion accumulated from endless shifts and the powerlessness against reality made his shoulders slump.
"Oscar..." Lando called out breathlessly, his voice hoarse. "You look... so tired. Is something wrong?"
Oscar looked at Lando. His amber eyes, usually so cold, were now brimming with melancholy. For some reason, in front of a Lando who was teetering on the edge of death, Oscar wanted to shed his resilient mask. He interlaced his fingers, bowed his head, and his voice choked:
"I feel so powerless, Lando. I studied medicine for six years, swore under the flag of medical ethics, only to end up pushed into this building to act as a grim reaper. I am not allowed to use the best drugs for you all; I don't have the authority to order surgeries or specialized emergency care if you don't have money. I want to be promoted, to be transferred back to the main building, to be a real doctor... a doctor who can rightfully save people, not sit here watching everyone slowly die."
Lando listened in silence. His blue eyes intently studied the sharp angles of Oscar's profile. He saw the torment, the wounded pride, and the suffocated kindness of the young doctor.
Lando smiled faintly, his gentlest smile yet. He struggled to lift his arm with the IV needle and lightly patted the back of Oscar's hand.
"You are a real doctor, Oscar. To me, and to everyone here, you're the only angel," Lando whispered. Then, as if struck by an idea, his eyes lit up. "Hey, is your birthday coming up soon?"
Oscar looked up, bewildered: "Huh? Early May. Half a year from now. Why?"
Lando grew excited, despite the sharp pain in his chest: "Alright! From now until your birthday, I'm going to fold 1,000 paper cranes. They say if you fold 1,000 paper cranes and make a sincere wish, it will come true. I'm going to use those 1,000 cranes to wish for my Oscar to be promoted, to become the head doctor in the main building, to save so many people! How about it? Aren't I amazing?"
Oscar listened, stunned for a few seconds, before bursting into laughter. It was the first time Lando had seen Oscar laugh—a genuine laugh that melted away his usual icy exterior and brightened the gloomy hospital room.
"You're too childish, Lando." Oscar shook his head, teasing. "What era are we in that you still believe in that paper crane legend? What god has the free time to grant wishes from a pile of scrap paper?"
"Hey now! You have to believe! If you don't believe, it won't work!" Lando pouted, his face scrunched up. "But... I don't have money to buy colored paper. Can Dr. Koala sponsor me some?"
Oscar snorted a laugh, stood up, and walked over to his desk in the duty room. A moment later, he returned with a massive stack of old paper—misprinted medical records, expired lab results, and outdated medical magazines.
"Here." Oscar placed the stack on Lando's bedside table. "Old papers from the duty room. If you want to fold, go ahead. But don't make a mess on the floor."
Lando looked at the gray, faded stack of paper, his eyes shining as if he had struck gold. He hugged the stack to his chest, smiling until his eyes closed: "Orders received, Doctor! Here is my treasure!"
From that day on, Lando's Room 302 turned into a special "workshop."
Day or night, whether sitting up in bed or lying down receiving an IV, Lando's skinny hands worked nimbly to crease, fold, and shape the paper cranes. Because he used old newspapers and medical records, Lando's cranes weren't brightly colored. They were a dull, grayish-white, covered in black printed words, medical symbols, and numbers. But Lando cherished them like treasures.
Every time he finished one, Lando would carefully blow into its belly to puff it up, then drop it into a large cardboard box he had begged from the storage room.
Seeing Lando work so diligently filled Oscar with an indescribable warmth. Every time he walked past Room 302 and saw Lando's messy head bowed low under the dim desk lamp, meticulously working on every fold, Oscar would smile silently. Lando's health seemed to have improved slightly, or at least his spirit was extending the life of his broken body. Lando no longer groaned in pain; he poured all his mind and soul into the paper wings.
Once, Oscar came in to check and saw Lando fiddling with a stiff piece of paper. He stepped closer and picked up a finished crane to examine. On the wings of the old paper, Lando had used a marker to draw goofy, scribbled figures.
"What is this you drew?" Oscar pointed to a round figure with two huge ears on the crane's wing.
Lando giggled, his face flushing slightly: "It's a koala! Looks like you, doesn't it? I draw a little koala on every single one, so the gods know this wish is strictly for you."
Oscar fell silent, his thumb gently caressing the tiny drawn koala on the paper wing. A warm current of electricity shot from his fingertips straight into his heart. He looked at Lando, his gaze no longer carrying the coldness of a doctor toward a patient, but rather the tender, passionate gaze of a man looking at the person he loved. Yes, Oscar realized he had fallen in love with Lando without even knowing when. He loved the way Lando smiled through the pain, loved the loud way he brought life to this place of death, and loved the foolish affection he poured into those paper cranes.
"Keep at it, Lando," Oscar said softly, placing the crane back into the box. "I'm waiting for all 1,000 of your cranes."
But Oscar didn't dare say it. He knew love in Building 6 was a cruel luxury. Lando had no future, and neither did he. Confessing would only tether Lando's final days with regret and tear the survivor's heart to pieces.
"You bet! On your birthday, I'll hand-deliver them!" Lando patted his chest proudly, then covered his mouth to cough a long string of coughs. This time, bright red blood soaked his white handkerchief. Oscar panicked and moved to support him, but Lando just looked up, his blue eyes sparkling with a smile: "It's okay... I can still take it. I have to finish folding..."
Time passed cruelly. The bitter winter faded, making way for the drizzling spring rains, and then the sweltering heat of early summer arrived. Lando's health plummeted rapidly. By late April, he could no longer walk on his own. The tumors in his lungs had pressed against all his organs, forcing him to be on continuous oxygen. The hands that had once moved so nimbly now trembled violently; every fold of a paper crane became an agonizing trial.
But Lando never gave up. The cardboard box in the corner of the room was brimming with gray paper cranes. He counted every single one, eagerly waiting for the day to come.
And then, May 6th arrived. Oscar Piastri's birthday.
Oscar had the night shift that day. He had been busy all day with several patients whose conditions worsened on the second floor, his heart restless. He wanted to run to Room 302 immediately, wanted to see Lando, wanted to receive the gift he had waited half a year for.
Around 8 PM, after finishing the shift handover and his evening rounds, Oscar walked briskly, almost running down the hallway toward Room 302. His heart pounded in his chest. He had promised himself that today, no matter what, he would tell Lando how he felt. He didn't want to hide anymore. Even if they only had one day, one hour left together, he wanted to rightfully love Lando.
Standing in front of Room 302, Oscar took a deep breath, a rare smile appearing on his lips. He pushed the door open:
"Lando, I'm here! Your 1,000 cranes..."
Oscar's words choked bitterly in his throat. The scene before him made all the blood in his body freeze.
The room reeked of the metallic stench of blood.
Lando was not in his bed. He was collapsed on the floor, next to the overturned cardboard box of paper cranes. Hundreds of paper cranes were scattered everywhere, and horrifyingly, they were no longer gray. They were dyed a thick, bright crimson.
Lando was coughing violently. Every cough looked as though it would rip his throat apart. Blood poured from his mouth and nose in streams, dyeing large patches of his hospital gown red, dyeing his hands red as they desperately clawed at his chest. He was convulsing, his blue eyes wide, pupils dilated due to severe oxygen deprivation. He was drowning on dry land, in his own blood.
"LANDO!!!"
Oscar screamed in terror. He lunged forward, dropping to his knees in the pool of blood, and tightly embraced Lando's convulsing body. Oscar's trembling hands desperately tried to cover Lando's mouth to stop the blood, but the warm, cruel liquid just poured through his fingers, soaking the sleeves of his white coat.
"Lando! Look at me! Look at me! Don't close your eyes!" Oscar was in utter panic. He reached for the oxygen mask on the bed and pressed it hard against Lando's face, but the blood instantly clouded the plastic mask.
Lando was in so much pain that his hands clawed fiercely at Oscar's shoulders, his nails digging deep through the fabric, tearing into the flesh. His breathing wheezed and shuddered, tearing out like the sound of a rusty chainsaw.
Oscar burst into tears. The once cold, iron-willed doctor completely collapsed. He crawled trembling to the internal phone on the wall and dialed the main building's emergency switchboard with blood-stained fingers:
"Hello! Hello! This is Piastri in Building 6, Room 302! Patient Lando Norris is experiencing massive pulmonary hemorrhage, acute respiratory failure! I need a suction machine, I need to intubate and need an emergency blood transfusion! Send someone over here with equipment now! Right now!"
The other end was silent for a second, then a cold, monotonous voice replied:
"Dr. Piastri, did you forget the rules? Building 6 is not on the hospital's emergency protocol list. Patient Lando Norris has no insurance and no medical supply deposit. We cannot release machines and blood without a billing invoice."
"FUCK! HE IS DYING!" Oscar roared, his voice cracking with fury and helplessness. Tears streamed down onto the phone's keypad. "I'll pay! I'll use my salary as collateral! Just save him first, please!"
"A resident doctor's salary in Building 6 isn't enough to cover a specialized emergency procedure, Piastri. Wake up. That's Building 6. Your job is just to let him pass peacefully. Don't waste supplies."
*Beep... Beep... Beep...*
The call was disconnected.
Oscar went dead silent. The receiver fell from his hand, hitting the wall with a sharp crack. The cruelty of the system, the coldness of his colleagues, and poverty—the greatest sin in this world—had officially pronounced the death sentence on the man he loved.
The hospital had everything needed to save Lando. Less than two hundred meters away, there were fresh bags of blood, there were the most advanced ventilators sitting in cool storage rooms. But because Lando had no money, they would rather let him suffocate in his own blood.
The clock on the wall read **8:05 PM**.
The 30-minute countdown for a life began.
Oscar knew very well that with such a massive pulmonary hemorrhage, without a suction machine and intubation, Lando could only sustain life for a maximum of 30 minutes before completely suffocating to death. A brief 30 minutes, and he—a doctor—had to watch helplessly as the man he loved endured the grim reaper's brutal torture right in his arms, unable to do a single thing.
Oscar rushed back to the pool of blood and hugged Lando tightly. He supported Lando's head against his chest, one hand continuously wiping the blood from Lando's face, the other frantically but gently patting Lando's back to help him cough the blood out, preventing it from flooding back into his bronchi.
"Lando... hold on... please... hold on..." Oscar sobbed, his choked, desperate cries sounding more agonizing than those of the dying patients. "I'm right here. Don't give up, Lando..."
Lando lay in Oscar's arms, his entire body trembling from violent spasms. Agony. The pain felt as if tens of thousands of sharp knives were shredding the inside of his chest. Every breath he tried to pull in was met with a mouthful of metallic blood surging up. Lando's face twisted in ultimate agony, hot tears welling from the corners of his blue eyes, mixing with the dark red blood on his cheeks.
He didn't want to die. Seeing Oscar crying until his voice went hoarse, seeing the once-cold young man now panicking and hurting for him, Lando wanted to live more than ever. He wanted to live to keep making a fool of himself for Oscar, wanted to live to see Oscar get promoted, wanted to live to love him.
But the grim reaper possesses no compassion.
**8:15 PM.**
Lando's coughing subsided, not because he was getting better, but because he had no strength left to cough. His chest heaved weakly, sporadically. His lips had turned a bruised purple from severe oxygen deprivation. Lando looked at Oscar, his blue eyes clouding over beneath a layer of mist, but the lingering attachment and love in that gaze still burned brightly.
"O... Os... car..." Lando tried to move his lips, but only bloody foam spilled out.
"I'm here! Don't speak! Don't waste your strength, Lando!" Oscar bent down, pressing his forehead against Lando's freezing, sweat-drenched forehead. "I'm sorry... I'm a terrible doctor... I couldn't save you... I'm so useless..."
Oscar cried so hard his chest felt crushed, his breaths becoming ragged. He continuously kissed Lando's blood-matted curly hair, continuously rubbed his hands which were growing colder by the second. Never had Oscar hated the white coat he wore so much. It was a symbol of salvation, yet right now, it was evidence of his humiliating impotence.
**8:25 PM.**
Lando's breaths were reduced to the faintest of wheezes. His eyes began to roll up, his consciousness fading. The excruciating physical pain seemed to have eroded the very last ounce of strength the twenty-six-year-old had.
Oscar knew time was up. Despair pushed him to the brink of madness. He held tight to Lando's cooling body, leaned close to his ear, and choked out a confession from the very bottom of his heart:
"Lando... listen to me... Please, listen to me..." Oscar sobbed, tears falling freely onto Lando's face. "I love you. Oscar loves Lando so much. I don't need a promotion, I don't need any main building... I only need you. Please don't go... Don't leave me alone in this place..."
The belated confession echoed in the hospital room flooded with the stench of blood and incomplete paper cranes.
Lando heard it. A faint glimmer of light flared in his clouded eyes. Oscar's words acted as a dose of terminal lucidity, injecting him with his very last shred of strength. Lando wanted to answer. He wanted to say, "I love you too, my Oscar." But it hurt too much; his chest felt as if it had died long ago, and he couldn't muster even a breath to make a sound.
Using the absolute last of his failing strength, Lando tremblingly slid his blood-soaked right hand into the pocket of his hospital gown. He rummaged with great difficulty, then slowly pulled out an object.
It was a paper crane.
But this crane was unlike the others in the box. It was folded from a pristine, pure white sheet of paper—perhaps the only non-scrap piece of paper Lando had managed to find. The crane was incomplete. One of its wings was only half-folded, the creases unfinished and crumpled because Lando's trembling fingers no longer had the strength to press the corners.
This was the 1,000th crane. The final crane for Oscar's wish.
Lando tremblingly placed the half-folded paper crane into Oscar's blood-stained palm. He looked at Oscar, the corners of his lips twitching upward as he tried to form his most radiant smile, just like the first day he walked into this room and called out, "Hello, Dr. Koala!" That smile carried all of his tenderness, all of his love, and infinite regret for a fleeting life.
**8:30 PM.**
Lando's hand suddenly went limp, dropping to the floor with a dry *thud*.
His clear, ocean-blue eyes slowly closed. The smile froze on his lips. His gaunt chest ceased all movement entirely.
Lando Norris was dead.
He died after exactly 30 minutes of fighting through ultimate agony. He passed away right in the arms of the man he loved, on the exact day of that man's birthday, leaving behind a room awash in blood and 1,000 lifeless paper wings.
"Lando...? Lando...?"
Oscar called softly, his voice trembling so much it cracked completely. He raised two violently shaking fingers to Lando's neck.
A flat pulse.
Oscar froze. The entire world around him seemed to collapse, shattering into tens of thousands of pieces that drove straight into his heart. He didn't scream or wail anymore. He just quietly held Lando's corpse, burying his face into the crook of his neck, his shoulders shaking uncontrollably. The choked sobs emerging from deep in his throat sounded like the cries of a severely wounded wild animal thrashing in a mud puddle.
Lando's blood grew cold, mixing with Oscar's tears, soaking the white doctor's coat. Oscar Piastri's twenty-fourth birthday had been painted in such a tragic, mourning red.
Late that night, after the morgue staff had taken Lando's body away, Room 302 was left with only Oscar. He refused the orderlies' help, dropping to the floor himself, picking up every single paper crane scattered in the puddle of blood and putting them back into the box.
Finally, Oscar sat down on the empty iron bed where Lando used to lie. In his palm was the 1,000th crane—the unfinished paper crane, stained with splotches of blood.
Oscar looked at the incomplete crane for a long time. Then, with trembling hands, he slowly, carefully unfolded every crease of the crane. He knew Lando always wrote or drew something inside the wings.
When the pristine white paper was fully unfolded, the words inside became clear under the dim security light.
It wasn't misprinted text from a medical record, nor were there any medical symbols. On the white paper, Lando had used a blue marker to meticulously write every letter. Because of his trembling hands in his final days, the handwriting was scribbled, distorted, and pitifully uneven.
At the top corner of the paper, Lando had drawn an incredibly silly picture: A little koala bear holding tightly onto a small paper crane. The drawing was so simple and foolish that even a child could have drawn it.
*"Your Lando loves you so much, Oscar 🐨"*
Next to those words, a few dried drops of blood were splattered, as if the writer had to simultaneously cough and fight through the pain to finish it. And there were tear stains that had slightly smudged the blue ink.
Oscar stared at the sentence. Every word, every letter felt like a fatal knife stabbing straight into his chest, shredding a heart that was already torn to pieces.
"Your Lando loves you so much, Oscar..."
Oscar read the line silently, his voice choked thick. Then, unable to endure it any longer, Oscar clutched the piece of paper to his chest, pressing it tightly over his left breast—where his heart was bleeding. He doubled over on the empty bed, his agonizing, choked sobs tearing through the silent night of Building No. 6.
He had gotten his answer. He had gained Lando's love. But the price was the permanent departure of that person. The 1,000 paper cranes were finished, the wish for Oscar had been sent, but the one who made the wish would forever remain twenty-six years old, resting eternally in a cold winter afternoon of life.
Outside, a late, sudden rain poured down, washing away the streaks of blood in the hallway, but it could never wash away the gut-wrenching pain carved into the soul of the one left behind. That paper crane with the missing corner, and the foolish love of Lando Norris, would forever be a bleeding scar following Oscar Piastri through the long, vast years of his life ahead.