March Novel (Completed) - Chapter 61

“Lieutenant Na.”

Gi Taejeong’s call was laced with icy anger.

“Brigadier General, this is an issue you, more than anyone, should be aware of.”

“So you’re telling me this without reporting it to me…”

“What is this?”

A fragile, trembling voice abruptly cut off Gi Taejeong’s words. It was an action Sehwa would never have imagined in his usual state.

“What is this, what does this mean…”

Sehwa stared blankly at the palm-sized printout fluttering before his eyes. Even in his dazed state, he somehow snatched the paper because the man sitting opposite him stirred beyond his blurred vision. I can’t let him take it. I have to confirm it first. Surprised by Sehwa, who was acting purely on instinct, Gi Taejeong, who had half-risen as if to approach immediately, showed no further movement. He merely looked at the ceiling and sighed deeply several times.

With hands trembling as if in a convulsion, he unfolded the test paper. So what… should he say? What should he ask first? Unable to understand what the complex graphs and numbers meant, Sehwa just stared blankly at the paper.

“I know it’s shocking. I didn’t want to inform you so abruptly, but this is a very important time for Mr. Lee Sehwa.”

Important time… Sehwa threw the object he was holding as if it were something profane. The results floated in the air like a butterfly and smoothly landed on the rug. Fearing that what had fallen at his feet might touch his body, Sehwa pulled his legs up to his chest and curled up tightly.

“Lie…”

The mumbled words were mixed with gasping breaths, making them difficult even for Sehwa, the speaker, to understand. He was so dumbfounded and bewildered that he was speechless. Literally, his throat was completely choked.

“It’s a lie, isn’t it?”

Lieutenant Na’s expression, with her lips pressed together as if in pity, resonated more deeply than a hundred words.

“What nonsense… Why are you playing such a prank? If it’s from a military doctor, it doesn’t even sound like a joke.”

It was real. This wasn’t a bad joke. It wasn’t a lie either. But if he didn’t deny it. If he didn’t get angry. It wasn’t just empty words; he truly felt like he was going to die.

“Mr. Lee Sehwa, calm down. First, listen to what I have to say and what the Brigadier General says…”

“…Lieutenant Na, get out.”

Gi Taejeong ground his teeth and pushed away Lieutenant Na’s hand, which was trying to pat Sehwa’s back.

“Does this subordinate of mine find a superior’s orders utterly despicable and laughable? I told you to explain the constitution, who told you to blabber about things I haven’t even heard yet?”

“Subordinate.” Only after Gi Taejeong used a word he rarely uttered did Lieutenant Na straighten her posture.

“…I apologize. However, I believe Mr. Lee Sehwa, as the party concerned, has the right to know the truth, and since his values are not good due to the sudden change…”

“Damn it, you clearly knew his condition was bad, yet you just shoved the results in his face and made him faint? So, Lieutenant Na, does Lee Sehwa look good to you right now? You yourself said just a moment ago that he has to calculate even cold medicine. Does this situation, where I doubt even a sedative would work, look okay?”

“Brigadier General, just a moment, please listen to me…!”

“I’ll hear your explanation later, now get out.”

“…Ah, ugh…”

It’s noisy. I feel like throwing up. Sehwa slowly shook his head. He knew Lieutenant Na was saying something. He also heard the man’s rough voice occasionally interjecting. All sorts of noises gathered and clamored like a broken speaker. The prolonged tinnitus completely faded with the sound of the door slamming shut. Then, silence. All he felt was his own heartbeat. The pulsation that surged from his toes soon became a massive tidal wave, pounding against Sehwa’s eardrums.

Even though it was unprofessional, he had blood tests quite often. When the boss’s loan sharks were overdue, they would gather people in similar situations and draw blood first. They would tie them up, shove large needles into them indiscriminately, and ask to their faces, “Can we sell these organs or not?” They also showed people in the workshop who were sucked dry of blood like mummies. They would smile slyly, saying, “If you can’t sell organs, you should at least sell blood, right?” It was a kind of show. To scare them into paying back quickly.

And each time, Sehwa received the same result: a male with clean blood, incapable of pregnancy. Although this had happened before he was fully established as a distributor, it was absurd for his constitution to change in just a few years. Moreover, it wasn’t “he can get pregnant in the future,” but “there’s already a child in his belly”?

“Lee Sehwa!”

Every time he blinked, the world turned completely white, then suddenly red, blue, and then pitch black. Even to Sehwa, who had no medical knowledge whatsoever, the graph in the results looked unusual. Without significant symptoms, it wouldn’t draw such an explosive curve.

“Lee Sehwa, snap out of it!”

A firm warmth supported the back of his neck. As soon as he saw the large hand gripping his forearm, the area behind his eyelids burned as if on fire. Large tears fell in drops, without time to accumulate. Pregnant? It was a story he couldn’t easily believe, even if they showed him an ultrasound or whatever. Yet, instead of suspecting these people were conspiring, he quickly accepted that it could be true, all because of the owner of this hand.

Because of this man.

Because of Gi Taejeong.

More than the common sense or facts Sehwa knew, it was the way Gi Taejeong had treated him until now that made him easily accept this phenomenon. He was the kind of person who would do such a thing. He knew all along that his body had become like this, and that’s why he had talked about pregnancy from the beginning.

An ember flared up inside him. Because this hand hadn’t rummaged through his rear last night. Because he had only been held tightly, to the point of sweating profusely. That’s why he kept wondering. It felt like something had changed between them. Thinking about it, he wasn’t as harsh as before, he mostly granted requests if he asked cautiously, sometimes he would smile… and if he cried, he would comfort him not to cry. That didn’t seem like the attitude one would have towards a mere plaything, did it? …He had been foolishly worrying about such things.

The suspicion, which had been flowing in a somewhat gentle and ticklish direction, abruptly changed course. Yes, this was right. Such absurd misfortune, such a foolish betrayal, was much more fitting for his life.

He had been preparing to be abandoned by him whenever he had served his purpose. Unaware that he had already been abandoned. No, to begin with, being able to be abandoned was only possible when one was completely owned by someone, but he hadn’t known that. He didn’t even have the right to be abandoned by Gi Taejeong, and he had gotten excited all by himself…

“Huu, ugh…”

He opened his mouth to take a deep breath, but nothing reached his lungs. Sehwa choked and sobbed as if he had forgotten how to breathe. He just hung limply, tears streaming down his face, when suddenly something came to mind, and he swung his hands wildly.

“What are you doing!”

Gi Taejeong grabbed Sehwa’s wrists, which were about to violently strike his stomach, and yelled. Sehwa laughed through his tears, dumbfounded. They said it was a child. They said there was a child in his belly.

“Then, should I just leave this, alone?”

This child would live like him. It was obvious what kind of treatment people would give it. In that case, it would be happier not to be born. Sehwa himself had fallen asleep countless nights thinking such thoughts. Why didn’t they just not give birth to me? Why didn’t they kill me when I knew nothing…? So Sehwa clenched his fists, his eyes bloodshot. They said it was only 5 weeks, so he could end it easily. If he hit his stomach hard. Or if he threw himself somewhere. Wouldn’t it just come out quickly then?

“D-die… I have to kill… ah…”

“Calm down and listen to me first.”

A firm, broad embrace held Sehwa tightly, refusing to let go. The hand that fixed Sehwa’s head, which was swaying limply like a broken doll, was burning hot. The wet flesh that boldly plunged into his parted lips was just as hot. His tongue tangled, saliva gathered and then swallowed, and slowly, air began to flow down his throat. His lacking breath began to fill very slowly. Gi Taejeong, who had burned his insides black, was desperately trying to restore his breathing.

“Lee Sehwa.”

The distance was so close that every split line in his pupils was visible. Absurdly, the man, Gi Taejeong, looked a little flustered.

“From the beginning, it was like that, wasn’t it?”

“No.”

“Sleeping without doing anything last night, patting my stomach and telling me to just sleep… you knew everything, from the beginning…”

“I said no.”

“Why didn’t you just keep treating me badly like you did at first?”

The Gi Taejeong who had only suppressed him with force, saying he would check if he had drugs hidden in his body and make him obey from now on, was still scary to think about, but from his perspective, it must have been a reasonable action. A top-class criminal responsible for drug manufacturing and distribution. Even an accomplice who was involved in suspicious activities with Second Lieutenant Kim. It would have been absurd to show mercy during the interrogation process. But, if that’s the case.

“Just keep beating me, kicking me, locking me up, and treating me badly…”

Don’t hug me and tell me not to cry because you took the ledger from the boss. Don’t give me a cake I’ve never seen before. Don’t take me to a good restaurant just to cheer up a criminal and a mere 4th district resident. Don’t ask me anxiously why you don’t kiss me… Just keep torturing me instead. Why, why did you stop treating my insides like rotting rags, calling me names, and treating me like a rag to wipe your dick with? Why, why…?

“You said no? So… you said ‘good job’ then, didn’t you?”

In a feverish, dazed state, Sehwa pulled out any sentence that came to mind. He wanted to speak coherently. He wanted to accurately explain this anger that felt like his chest would burst. But foolishly, tears just kept flowing. It was difficult to even properly open his trembling lips.

“What?”

“Meaning I bit your dick well until the end, even pregnant, that’s what you meant…”

“No, what on earth are you… Ha, this is driving me crazy.”

The first kind words he had ever heard from Gi Taejeong, that soft, low voice, became a thousand, ten thousand needles, bursting Sehwa’s heart.

“I’m just a bug that can be stomped to death, aren’t I…?”

Sehwa’s head drooped. There’s no reason to be this elaborately cruel.

“Bug?”

Gi Taejeong snorted in disbelief.

“You think I considered you that? Are you serious?”

“……”

“You know better than anyone how I treat bastards I consider worse than bugs.”

At Gi Taejeong’s firm words, even larger teardrops beaded and fell from Sehwa’s chin.

“Damn it, really…”

Gi Taejeong had also been preparing in his own way. So that Lee Sehwa could accept the situation as gently as possible, and so that he wouldn’t know the deep circumstances as much as possible. Although the last sex was intense, he thought he could soothe Lee Sehwa enough in the meantime, as the results wouldn’t come out immediately. But he never imagined that the child would be 5 weeks old, and that Lieutenant Na would blurt it all out without consulting him.

He knew well that Lieutenant Na disregarded everything else and focused only on the patient, that her conviction as a doctor was greater than her role as a military doctor. That, too, was a kind of trauma from the detention center, and even though she sometimes went too far, he didn’t fail to understand. Above all, Gi Taejeong believed that Lieutenant Na’s firm stance would actually reassure Lee Sehwa. But to cross the line like this. Of course, that probably meant Lee Sehwa’s body was not in good condition…

Gi Taejeong exhaled slowly through his teeth, swallowing the rising anger. Lieutenant Na’s disciplinary action was not an immediate concern. What was important now was…

“I didn’t know you were pregnant.”

It wasn’t a lie. He didn’t know he was pregnant either.

“Truly, I didn’t know.”

Gi Taejeong stared at Lee Sehwa for a long time, unable to take his eyes off his deep crying, then slowly opened his mouth. He had expected him to cry loudly when he heard his body had changed. He also liked Lee Sehwa’s crying face. But he hadn’t wanted him to break down like that. This was sincere.

The scales in his mind tilted back and forth, rising and falling. Should he tell him everything he had originally planned, or should he insist that he didn’t know either…?

To kill or to save, this question was rather easy. He would definitely save him. At first, he thought it didn’t matter if Lee Sehwa died, as long as he carried the evidence, the child, well, but now he didn’t want that. He wanted to keep him alive and well as much as possible. He had become too precious to discard once the job was done. He had found the relationship quite interesting, and he wanted to keep meeting him until he got tired of it.

But the story he had to tell Lee Sehwa now was not a simple matter of life or death. It was nothing short of a crossroads for “how he would live” in the future.

Suppose he told Lee Sehwa the truth. If he told him everything: that the drug Second Lieutenant Kim had given him was problematic, that he had known about it from the beginning, and even that he had slept with him because he knew about it… Lee Sehwa would probably break down. He could keep him by his side as long as he was alive, but…

The Lee Sehwa who had reached out and embraced him sometime ago, that clear face, pulled the counterweight on the opposite side. The sensation of his fingers fumbling on his shoulder, the way he squirmed and burrowed into his embrace, his clumsy lips that awkwardly allowed a kiss, and the powerful tears he was shedding now… all immobilized Gi Taejeong.

He was crying so exhaustedly. He was pushing him away with a sorrowful expression he had never seen before. If he found out that Gi Taejeong had known everything and coerced the relationship, and that his words about wanting him to get pregnant weren’t a joke… Lee Sehwa would never look at him again. Even if he kept him alive, what he would have by his side would be a broken shell.

He didn’t want that. He definitely didn’t want that.

“Didn’t I tell you once, that I’m an orphan from a detention center and I hate kids?”

Then.

“What do you think the reason is?”

There was no need to tell him the whole truth, was there? Lee Sehwa would only suffer, and he would lose what he wanted. This wasn’t a good ending for anyone.

“Because if he has a child, it’s obvious he’ll go through the same things I did.”

So Gi Taejeong decided to bring up a story that would inevitably make Lee Sehwa’s heart soften. This, too, wasn’t a complete lie. After all, lies based on truth were always the most perfect.

“I know why you’re suspicious, but I really didn’t know either.”

His soaking, glassy eyes stared blankly at him. Gi Taejeong gripped Lee Sehwa’s tear-streaked cheek and spoke once more with emphasis. Once he made up his mind, plausible words flowed out like a snake. Lying was this easy.

“If I had known, I would have obviously taken precautions.”

The lamb, caught in the cunning and deceitful trap, only blinked his large eyes slowly. Was he calmer than before? He wasn’t sure. Gi Taejeong simply wanted to lick away the tears beaded on Lee Sehwa’s eyelashes. The stinging sensation he had once felt was spreading much more widely than before. It felt as if an invisible hand was scratching fiercely below his sternum.