March Novel (Completed) - Chapter 64

Sehwa mouthed his words. “Something I want?”

“Think carefully.”

Seeing him act so smoothly, it seemed he had a specific answer he wanted. His long fingers tapped Sehwa’s waist as if keeping rhythm. Sehwa swallowed a large sigh, pressing it down. He didn’t want to think about anything anymore. He didn’t have the energy to read his mood and play along.

“Then let me go.”

“Are you serious? Isn’t that too good an opportunity to throw away for such a small request?”

Every time he blinked, his eyelashes brushed against Gi Taejeong’s shirt with a rustle. A precarious silence, as if about to shatter, was pressing down on Sehwa, or rather, precisely on Sehwa alone. He felt like he was about to be crushed, but the man sharing the same air seemed completely unaffected. That made him feel unfairly treated all over again.

“Really nothing?”

“…”

“There must be something you need me for.”

It’s like he’s teasing me… Sehwa carefully pushed Gi Taejeong away. The steel-like body that hadn’t budged when he was throwing a tantrum earlier loosened slightly. Was he going easy on him? Even so, the hand wrapped around his waist remained unreleased. There wasn’t even enough space for him to get off his instep. In the end, he could do nothing but breathe within his sight.

“Lee Sehwa.”

As Sehwa kept his eyes lowered, Gi Taejeong, perhaps sensing something unusual, suddenly lifted Sehwa’s chin. His eyelashes, heavy with water, kept falling downwards, unable to bear the weight.

Gi Taejeong examined every corner of his pale face, then clicked his tongue lightly, and lifted Sehwa again as he had before. His body landed on the soft bed. He gently laid him down, repeating the previous night. The man’s arm was placed under his head like a pillow as his body collapsed.

“Sleep more. They said pregnant women sleep all day.”

The only difference was that this time they were facing each other. Gi Taejeong, who was staring intently at him, felt unfamiliar. It was different from the expression he had earlier, when he seemed caught off guard by the question about payment for sex. This was also a new face. His scrutinizing gaze was persistent. He came so close that it felt like he was counting the strands of his eyebrows, staring directly at him. His tightly sealed lips didn’t move, but somehow, he seemed to be smiling.

Unable to bear his persistent gaze, which felt like it could swallow him whole, Sehwa squirmed and turned over, and he took a short, absurd breath. He didn’t seem angry. It was the kind of laugh one makes when an audacious pet does something amusing.

As Sehwa completely turned his back to him, Gi Taejeong pressed his body close as if he had been waiting. Sehwa instinctively curled up and hugged his abdomen. So he couldn’t touch him. So he couldn’t fall asleep stroking him there like last night.

The moment he crumpled the fabric of his shirt around his belly with his crossed hands, Gi Taejeong buried his head in Sehwa’s sternocleidomastoid muscle. Then he massaged Sehwa’s shoulders and forearms, which were stiff with tension, pressing and releasing them. As if telling him to relax.

That touch was like a fuse, and a dull sensation spread throughout his body. His throat stung as if he had swallowed a ball of fire. The tiresome sorrow, relentless, surged again.

“Lieutenant Na will handle the initial examination, but after that, you’ll be treated by others, so be aware of that.”

“…”

“She said she’d come back tomorrow morning. She brought a bunch of things earlier to look at with an ultrasound.”

A large hand overlapped Sehwa’s hand, which was gripping his shirt. He gently peeled Sehwa’s hand away from the fabric, as if coaxing him not to do anything bad, and then tried to fall asleep with Sehwa’s hand still clasped in his.

“…Clothes.”

Sehwa’s lips parted as he stared blankly at his stretched-out knitwear. It was irresistible. Seeing their intertwined hands, he felt his breath catch. He felt like he had to say something, anything. Otherwise, he felt like he would keep circling back, clinging to Gi Taejeong. “It’s a lie, it’s not. What am I supposed to believe? Isn’t there any way you can prove you didn’t know anything?”

“Please let me wear clothes.”

“Clothes? What clothes?”

“I’m not supposed to wear anything when I’m with the Brigadier General, am I?”

The hot breath pouring onto his skin suddenly stopped.

“What you asked earlier… then I’ll choose this. Please let me wear clothes instead of a gown.”

Perhaps because he was used to it, it didn’t really bother him that much. And clothes weren’t the problem right now. But thinking about it after blurting out the words, this seemed to be the first thing Gi Taejeong had done that made him feel so sad. Not giving him underwear and just throwing him a gown. Depriving him of the right to wear clothes that everyone else wore.

There was no response from Gi Taejeong. He made an indistinct sound, neither groaning nor sighing, and hugged Sehwa with all his might. “Just sleep,” he seemed to have said.

He had just woken up, so it seemed difficult to fall asleep again, but his exhausted body quickly sent his consciousness far away. Was this also because of the pregnancy? The way sleepiness rushed over him as soon as he lay down… In the hazy moment just before sleep overcame him, Sehwa suddenly realized that there was no cigar scent. From the man who would always smoke heavily regardless of who was around, only the scent of his favorite cologne lingered.

The rate of his blinking slowed down. A single tear, stubbornly pooled on Gi Taejeong’s firm forearm, on the prominent blue veins, finally dropped.

When he woke up, the spot next to him was empty again. However, the neatly stacked gift tower had collapsed miserably. A significant number of boxes lay open-mouthed on top of a mountain of shopping bags that had precariously slid all the way to the bed. Inside were new clothes with the tags still on.

Sehwa exhaled a long breath through his nose and reached out his hand towards the pile of clothes, which lay as if in protest. This must be the answer to his request yesterday to be allowed to wear clothes. If all those items had fallen, it would have made quite a racket, but it was amazing that he hadn’t woken up through it all.

He deliberately ignored the dangling price tags, changed his clothes, and stepped outside. Master Sergeant Choi, who was standing at the bottom of the stairs, turned sharply towards him. His face was still expressionless, but Sehwa now understood that he was, in his own way, pleased to see him.

“I was waiting because the Brigadier General said to leave you alone until you woke up, Mr. Lee Sehwa.”

The place he guided him to was a different room from yesterday. Sehwa paused at the doorway for a moment and rubbed his sweaty palms on his pants. The story he had heard from Lieutenant Na, the emotions he had felt then, the words Gi Taejeong had said… His body stiffened uncontrollably at the chaotic flood of yesterday’s memories.

I’m scared. If it’s true that my body has changed to be able to get pregnant. Then from now on, I…

“Oh, you’re here?”

Lieutenant Na, who had been pressing various buttons, greeted Sehwa warmly, sensing his presence.

“How are you feeling?”

“…Well, just…”

Gi Taejeong, who had been standing with his arms crossed, looking out the window, glanced back at him. His indifferent gaze swept over the piece of cloth wrapped around Sehwa’s body.

“We’ve planned to have the ultrasound here today only, and then from next time, you’ll get check-ups at the hospital. The Brigadier General said that no matter how good the equipment he has, it can’t be as perfect as a hospital, and I agree.”

Lieutenant Na pointed to a long chair, telling him to sit. It looked completely different from the examination chairs he sometimes saw in the news. It was comfortably curved, allowing him to lie halfway down, and its sleek design made it look like a decorative object in itself. People from the 5-star probably used things like this in their hospitals.

“Can you just lift your shirt a little? Yes, good.”

As Gi Taejeong sat on the stool right next to him, the examination began. Lieutenant Na squeezed a cold gel onto his belly.

“Hmm?”

Lieutenant Na, who was rubbing the white, round stick over his abdomen, tilted his head in puzzlement. Then he moved the device, widening the scope a little more.

“Ah… I found it now. Do you see it?”

Sehwa, huddled, turned his head towards the screen. He wanted to confirm for himself if he was really pregnant, but he was also scared and didn’t want to see it. Until yesterday, he had been too busy replaying Gi Taejeong’s words to think deeply about anything else, but now that the result was presented before his eyes, it finally sank in. What it meant to be pregnant.

“This is the gestational sac. Mr. Lee Sehwa’s is a little lower than usual for a male body. We expected it to be between 5 and 6 weeks, but looking at the development, it seems to be a full 6 weeks…”

“Is it dangerous? If it’s that low.”

“It doesn’t seem to be an immediate problem. In fact, right now, the shape of the gestational sac is more of a concern than its position… Of course, it’s still early, so it might change over time. We’ll have to watch.”

Gi Taejeong stroked his chin, staring intently at the screen. His intensity was so fierce that it looked like he was glaring at an enemy, not a child. And Sehwa…

“…Excuse me, Lieutenant.”

“Yes, Mr. Lee Sehwa. Are you uncomfortable anywhere?”

“Oh, no. It’s not that… Is that not a baby, but something else?”

Sehwa looked at the monochrome screen with his mouth slightly open. Ah, what should I really do about this? He was still bewildered and flustered, but also so surprised and fascinated that he unknowingly lost himself. In the black and white space, spread out like the net of a cone, a bean-like object was firmly embedded.

Once he saw it, his fear of the child itself actually subsided. In fact, Sehwa had thought that if an ultrasound machine was applied, the baby would stare at him from inside his belly. But that… was just a tiny bean, less than 1cm, with no face yet.

“It’s only 6 weeks. At this stage, it’s not even called a fetus, but an embryo. Because it’s too small. But we can still do all the simulations. We put Mr. Lee Sehwa’s blood test information yesterday, so we can roughly predict the baby’s face, and once the hologram is made, I’ll display it on the screen.”

Is the baby moving now? A graph danced actively below the crumpled bean.

“Oh, you can hear the heartbeat too. Do you want to hear it?”

“…It has a heart? That tiny?”

“Of course. You can hear it from exactly 6 weeks, and the gestational age matches perfectly.”

“Show me, no, let me hear it.”

Sehwa nodded as if possessed, and Lieutenant Na tapped the buttons. A few seconds of silence followed. The throbbing pulse in his ears now seemed to be his own heartbeat. As Sehwa waited, tilting his head in confusion, thump-thump-thump… a sound like something running echoed through the room. It was a rapid and powerful beat, unbelievable that it came from that crumpled bean.

Sehwa alternated his gaze between the ultrasound screen and his belly. It was alive. There was truly a living, breathing thing inside him. A creature the size of a fingernail, with a heart.

He had no desire whatsoever to have a child. Even when he was breaking down and crying yesterday because of Gi Taejeong, and even while he couldn’t grasp whether the pregnancy was real or not, that thought remained firm. Gi Taejeong’s words, that he didn’t need a child who would grow up like him, were something Sehwa fully agreed with.

If the baby had a choice, wouldn’t it naturally want to be born to parents in a better environment? He was a criminal from the 4th district with absolutely nothing. Gi Taejeong would naturally not want to be tied down by a child. It was a child both sides found awkward. Being born would rather be a misfortune.

However… regardless of Sehwa’s resolve, it was certainly a wondrous sight. Hearing the heartbeat of a child he hadn’t even wanted didn’t suddenly make him feel loving and precious. It was just… he had never once thought that he, who only ever saw people dying, would encounter the beginning of life… So he felt a bit strange. All he knew how to do was roll drugs and hanafuda cards. And yet, with such a wicked life, to carry a child in this body…

“Whether you give birth or terminate the pregnancy, Mr. Lee Sehwa needs about a month to prepare, so please be extra careful not to have a natural miscarriage during that time. If that happens, things could get really serious. This is already a period with many miscarriages, but given your constitution, Mr. Lee Sehwa, you need to be twice as careful as others.”

“Uh, um… but… isn’t that heart beating too fast? It seems a bit surprising to be looked at suddenly.”

When he hesitantly asked how he should soothe the baby, Gi Taejeong lightly poked Sehwa’s cheek with his bent index finger. As if he was saying something absurd. For a moment, the corners of his eyes seemed to soften gently, but they vanished so quickly that Sehwa couldn’t be sure if what he saw was real.

“It’s okay. This BPM is normal. Hmm. The condition of the gestational sac is a bit concerning, but the embryo’s development is very good. So, Mr. Lee Sehwa, don’t stress and just take care of your body… Ah, the hologram is out.”

Lieutenant Na tapped several keyboard-like buttons. Even she, who had been calmly explaining at first, was becoming increasingly excited.

“This program predicts what the baby’s appearance will be like after the redness fades when they’re just born, and it’s quite accurate. That’s why people with money order it in advance at this stage. They ask for certain parts of the face to be adjusted when they put the baby in the incubator.”

With a cheerful ‘ding-dong’, the screen split. On the left, the now somewhat familiar black kidney bean floated, and on the right, a naked newborn lay.

“Oh my, the baby…”

Lieutenant Na pressed the buttons, admiringly, and the baby’s tightly closed eyes were greatly magnified.

“Wow. It’s really beautiful. A spitting image of Mr. Lee Sehwa.”

Gi Taejeong’s eyebrows, which had been indifferently watching the screen until now, twitched slightly. As Lieutenant Na said, the tiny face on the screen perfectly resembled Sehwa. So much so that it felt like this was exactly what he must have looked like as a baby.