March Novel (Completed) - Chapter 65

“Let’s see, if it opens its eyes… it would look like this.”

With the sound of a switch turning on, the child in the program slowly began to move. The virtual newborn yawned peacefully, oblivious to the worries of the person carrying him. It was a face of utter tranquility. Lieutenant Na continuously let out exclamations of admiration at each of its movements, turning to look at Sehwa. The baby on the screen and Sehwa, lying on the chair, were blinking slowly with the same expression.

On the other hand, the superior sitting next to him was completely unreadable. Gi Taejeong hadn’t opened his mouth except when Sehwa asked if it was dangerous. The hand propping his chin covered his mouth and jaw, making it difficult to guess his expression, but he didn’t seem displeased. If he truly disliked it, he would have badgered Sehwa, asking when he could get rid of it, regardless of who the child resembled or even with the pregnant person in front of him. Or he would have urged them to find useful information, such as when the gestational sac formed in Lee Sehwa’s body, instead of running such prediction programs.

“Ahem, these days, some even have surgery in the middle of the fourth month, but I’m against it. That’s just them showing off their money.”

Lieutenant Na cleared his throat lightly and continued.

“So, if you decide to give birth, I would recommend completing a full five months, prioritizing Mr. Lee Sehwa’s health and safety. If we set the due date around then, we would need to use stabilizers and induction agents at least by the 8th week…”

Sehwa’s eyes, which had been somewhat unfocused during the discussion of the due date, sharpened.

“No, I won’t have it.”

A sharp gaze fell on the side of his face at his rather firm voice. Sehwa tried to ignore the man sitting next to him and emphasized his intention once more. No.

“Uh… but you still have time, so rather than deciding immediately…”

“You said my condition was very bad yesterday, didn’t you?”

When he interrupted and asked, Lieutenant Na just smiled ambiguously. Seeing her awkwardly avert her gaze, it seemed to be true. Indeed. That’s why she tried to tell him honestly before reporting to Gi Taejeong.

“So I think it would be better to decide quickly and prepare. That would be better for the child, too.”

When he said “child,” Sehwa unknowingly hesitated. He already felt so bad… So, before that round dot grew eyes, a nose, and ears. While its heart was still tiny. Before it grew rapidly like the image on the screen… it seemed better to end it quickly.

“…I understand what you mean. But just in case, I’ll prepare for both options. We still have time, so let’s think about it slowly.”

“I only wanted to give you good news today,” Lieutenant Na said, handing him the printed hologram. Her face somehow looked bitter.

The kidney bean in his belly and the baby in the prediction program squirmed inside the hologram. Sehwa hesitated, then eventually accepted both sheets. He wished he had said he didn’t need them in advance if he had known they would print them out. Since he was going to get rid of it anyway, keeping it would only make him feel more troubled…

“You said you don’t have a tablet, Mr. Lee Sehwa, right? I’ve printed out the precautions, so read them. As I’ve said several times, you can’t terminate the pregnancy immediately, so during that time, Mr. Lee Sehwa will experience everything normal pregnant women do.”

Lieutenant Na handed him a thick towel to wipe off the gel. Sehwa, holding holograms in both hands, fumbled, saying “Uh-oh.” The holograms were a bit too large to put in his pocket. What should he do? Lieutenant Na was holding out her hand, and the table was too far away. He looked around for a place to put the holograms down for a moment, when a long shadow fell over his face. It was Gi Taejeong. He snatched the towel with his large hand and began to roughly rub Sehwa’s abdomen.

“I’ll do it.”

Startled, Sehwa gathered the holograms in one hand and gently tugged at the edge of the towel. The thought, “I should have done this earlier,” belatedly crossed his mind.

“Brigadier General, I…”

He didn’t budge, so Sehwa called him again, and Gi Taejeong merely raised his eyes slightly. It was a talent, if you could call it that, to curse with just his eyes without uttering a word. Sehwa had no choice but to let go of the hand holding the cloth.

“Oh, right. Mr. Lee Sehwa, you’ll need to register a guardian too.”

Lieutenant Na, perhaps feeling sorry for Sehwa’s awkwardness, spoke to him.

“Register a guardian?”

“It’s about listing someone who can be contacted in an emergency as your guardian on your resident registration. It’s automatically deleted after you give birth. This is a legal obligation.”

She said it was common to list a spouse or partner, but it was also frequent for family or friends to do it. None of those applied to him, so Sehwa felt a little disheartened.

He hadn’t intended to have the child anyway, but a child was definitely out of the question. How could someone with no one to turn to in an emergency give birth to and raise a child? He felt embarrassed for getting sentimental over the small face on the screen that resembled him so much. Sehwa shook his head briefly and composed himself.

“Lieutenant, can you do that for me? Be my guardian?”

Lieutenant Na, who was tidying up the equipment, suddenly coughed, as if she had swallowed a fishbone.

“Me, cough, me?”

“If it doesn’t have to be family, I thought it would be good if you, who know all my circumstances, could do it…”

“Uh-oh, that’s true, but…”

Lieutenant Na’s gaze ambiguously avoided Sehwa.

“Hmm, this isn’t an urgent matter, so let’s decide later. If you stress yourself out unnecessarily, Mr. Lee Sehwa will only… Ah! Just a moment. I’ll get you the printouts I mentioned earlier.”

Lieutenant Na, who had been aimlessly rolling her eyes, suddenly sprang up from her seat. She looked so flustered that Sehwa awkwardly rubbed the tip of his nose.

Indeed. A guardian for a lowly commoner she barely knew… It was natural for Lieutenant Na to be flustered. Sehwa bit his dry lips. He would have to apologize properly later. He had only put an innocent person in a difficult situation because of his desperate situation.

“…Lee Sehwa.”

“Yes?”

“If it’s something anyone can do, to the point where you’d ask Lieutenant Na, whom you barely know…”

Gi Taejeong said indifferently, throwing the towel he had been using to wipe Sehwa’s belly onto the floor. No, he thought he was indifferent just by hearing his voice, but…

“Then shouldn’t I do it? The legal guardian.”

Sehwa instinctively flinched backward. Even so, it was only to the extent of sinking deeper into the chair… The man was not indifferent at all. Sehwa knew the moments when he made such an expression. When he refused to eat with him before. It was the same face he had then, when he threatened him chillingly, saying he could make him eat it with his lower mouth if he hated it that much.

“No, it’s right that I do it. Even if I’m going to kill you soon, it’s my child, isn’t it?”

“…But, that’s…”

Gi Taejeong stood up and looked down at Sehwa. Perhaps because of the shadow cast, his gaze felt particularly sharp.

“It’s only deleted from records seen by civilians; it remains intact on the military server.”

So, was he implying not to inconvenience Lieutenant Na, whom he wasn’t close to, and who was even a soldier? But… hearing those words made Sehwa even less willing to list Gi Taejeong as his guardian. Didn’t that mean there would be a permanent record somewhere that he once carried that person’s child, that that man was his legal guardian for a moment?

“If that’s the case… wouldn’t it be even more difficult for the Brigadier General? If it doesn’t disappear from official documents…”

Before Sehwa could finish his sentence, Gi Taejeong cursed crudely with a refined voice, “Ah, damn it.” He fumbled in his pocket, looking for a cigarette, then realized it was empty and clenched his fist tightly. The tips of the pale man’s fingers glittered. It seemed he had gotten some gel on them while wiping Sehwa’s belly.

Sehwa fidgeted his fingers at Gi Taejeong’s reaction, which was more intense than he had imagined. Was being rejected a favor so embarrassing? It wasn’t even a genuine act of goodwill anyway. It just seemed like he was trying to torment and tease him again… There was no need to tamper with official documents for such a reason.

“Why? Are you afraid that the person you’ll eventually screw will throw a fit if they find out you were pregnant with another man’s child before?”

“What? When did I ever say that…”

“You cried your eyes out, asking if you looked like a slut, if you didn’t want to look like a whore when you slept with someone you liked.”

What? Sehwa stared at Gi Taejeong, speechless.

“Why is that…”

He didn’t know why he was bringing that up now… And even if it were true, it didn’t seem like something to get so angry about…

“I don’t know why you’re saying that, but… having a guardian record on the registry won’t do either of us any good, and I don’t want that kind of responsibility from the Brigadier General…”

Before he could finish his sentence, Sehwa’s body was lifted as if he were a piece of paper. The pulling force was immense, but it wasn’t as strong as before, not as if it would break his wrist.

“Brigadier General?”

“Get up.”

Ignoring Sehwa’s faint call, Gi Taejeong gestured towards the door with his chin.

“Since it’s come up, let’s register it right now.”

“Commander Oh!”

Kim Seokcheol rushed to the doorway like lightning. He saluted with such force that the hangnails on his fingers trembled.

“I am truly sorry for causing you concern.”

The man who entered had a rather imposing physique. While Kim Seokcheol recited his lengthy excuses, Commander Oh Seonran looked around the inside of the brig. Still, it was considered a fairly luxurious facility. Of course, being confined here was less due to his rank as a Second Lieutenant and more to the influence of his family.

Yes. Those damned elders were the problem. Succession of wealth was good, but if they were going to do that, they should have raised their children to be decent human beings. Even now, he was disrespectfully addressing a Commander, no less, by his surname while saluting.

“…So, what I think is, since they won’t be able to provide clear proof anyway…”

“The charges listed are quite terrifying.”

Oh Seonran threw a bundle of papers onto the floor, as if he didn’t want to hear any more. It was a copy of the complaint filed by Gi Taejeong. It was deliberately printed in a small size so it could be kept in a pocket and easily shredded at any time, so Kim Seokcheol had to bring his face close, as if he was being sucked into the paper, to read the characters.

“What is this…”

Kim Seokcheol’s hands trembled as he frantically rolled his eyes. All the major crimes listed in the legal code’s table of contents were there. Murder, solicitation to murder, kidnapping, drug distribution and trafficking, attempted destruction of evidence… well, putting those aside.

“Violation of the National Security Act? Is this Gi Taejeong bastard crazy? To slander someone like this and think he’ll get away with it…”

“Several people passed through the checkpoint using the method Second Lieutenant Kim told them about. Of course, Gi Taejeong reported that he had secured all related evidence.”

“The checkpoint, you mean… Are you talking about the spray?”

“Yes.”

Kim Seokcheol was speechless for a moment. Spraying a cheap tanning spray, frequently used by those who performed illegal strip shows, temporarily made thermal detection difficult. It was banned from distribution within the city due to its high content of harmful substances, and it was precisely those substances that caused the detectors to malfunction for a short time.

Of course, it was impossible to pass through a checkpoint just by spraying some spray. The fact that the house thugs could go in and out of the city a few times was ultimately thanks to the money Kim Seokcheol had slipped into their back pockets. Anyway, the effect only lasted a few seconds, merely providing an excuse for the checkpoint guards to save face, and even that only worked in the 1st or 2nd districts.

“But, Commander. That’s not just me…”

Kim Seokcheol genuinely felt wronged. It was a well-known method among those who brought prostitutes from outside the city, and they were trying to pick a fight over the National Security Act with this?

“Then don’t create reasons to be criticized like others.”

Kim Seokcheol, whose cheeks sagged like a catfish, subtly lowered his head at the sharp command.

“Still, don’t worry too much. Gi Taejeong has no backing anyway, and I…”

Something fell with a thud next to the scattered copies of the complaint. They were various insignia worn by soldiers, and among them were rank insignia that could only be worn on dress uniforms.

“Your esteemed family elders sent me this.”

Kim Seokcheol’s face slowly hardened as he looked at the blood-stained items.

“The elders… why would they send this to you, Commander…”

“Your father said he would be a faithful liaison from now on. In place of his foolish son.”

Kim Seokcheol quickly wiped the cold sweat from his philtrum. It was the moment the owner of the blood-stained insignia became clear. They were Oh Seonran’s exclusive adjutants, whom he had bribed with a considerable amount of money, who were either already dead or in a similar state.

Oh Seonran frequently stayed abroad under the pretext of health. By principle, a long-term overseas stay for a general-grade officer was absolutely impossible. He heard that various interests were intertwined, but in any case, it was possible because the head of state had given final approval.

From the beginning, Oh Seonran’s rise to the position of Commander was said to be for the purpose of silently serving the head of state like a shadow, and then empowering the higher-ups at critical moments. To allow an officer of Commander rank to wander outside the country to prevent collusion among officers, it was truly the end of days.

“Then and now, I am against ‘Harvest.’ I’ve already carried out similar work before, so I can clearly see what the outcome will be. So why did I turn a blind eye to your foolishness?”

“…Because there’s someone you need to find…”

“Yes. Because I thought the people involved in that experiment 21 years ago, those broker bastards, might catch the scent and come running again.”

Oh Seonran slowly bent one knee and made eye contact with Kim Seokcheol.

“Ugh, C-Commander!”

Kim Seokcheol, whose hair was grabbed, groaned. His already sparse hair was being pulled out in clumps.

“I… I’ll explain everything.”

Kim Seokcheol clung to Oh Seonran, his face a mess of tears and snot. He was already going crazy from not being able to do drugs, and now the pain he wasn’t immune to was added, making him feel like dying.

“It’s your elders’ problem that Second Lieutenant Kim is lacking, and that’s none of my business, but your foolishness causing me harm is problematic.”

“C-Commander…!”

“How dare you mess up something that even the head of state approved, huh?”

Oh Seonran was looking for someone in their early twenties. He said he had no information, not even a name or gender. He didn’t know the full story, but he initially said late teens, and then gradually raised the age over time, so he figured he was looking for someone young but still trying to maintain some conscience.

He had initially gotten involved with him because of this issue. Oh Seonran, knowing that Kim Seokcheol frequently went outside the city, asked him to send reports on suspicious individuals seen in the outskirts, in exchange for turning a blind eye to minor misdeeds.

So, when the ‘Harvest’ project came up, Kim Seokcheol naturally thought Oh Seonran would help. It was the perfect bait for the brokers he was looking for. His prediction was indeed correct. Although he outwardly opposed it, his tacit approval of using his name behind the scenes allowed the work to proceed easily.

Oh Seonran said he only needed information on brokers who approached them offering subjects for ‘Harvest’ as before. The longer they had been active underground, the better. He said he didn’t need money or anything else, just that.

He did say it would be even better if they found an unidentified person in their early twenties instead of a broker, but Oh Seonran didn’t seem to expect that much. It seemed he thought Kim Seokcheol couldn’t find something that he himself hadn’t found. And it was true. How could a mere second lieutenant find someone a commander couldn’t, someone not even on the resident registration, whose gender was unknown?

So he had only leaked false information that he was working with players like Maejo and Moran, and had kept silent about Lee Sehwa. He didn’t think Oh Seonran would never find out, but he figured that since he was preoccupied with other matters and constantly traveling abroad, it would be enough to just keep the information from him for now.

“The words of your esteemed family elders and the reports you’ve given me so far are completely different. Didn’t you tell me that a guy named Maejo was in charge of drug manufacturing?”

“Th-that…”

Well… he thought that if he liked pretty young guys, he would naturally snatch Lee Sehwa as soon as he saw him. He hadn’t intended to hide him forever. After settling Lee Sehwa in, he thought he could just explain it by saying, “Actually, he did help with the work, but he wasn’t very useful and was far from the person you were looking for, so I didn’t bother to mention him…” He thought that given his relationship with the family elders, Oh Seonran wouldn’t scold him too harshly. But…

“I did mention it in passing. But he’s just a pretty face, so, AARGH!”

The hand gripping the back of Kim Seokcheol’s head tightened. Oh Seonran’s anger was greater than expected. Did he see a picture of Lee Sehwa? Still, until recently, he had been dressed shabbily, so his original face might have looked a bit different.

“C-Commander!”

Kim Seokcheol choked and clung to Oh Seonran. His scalp felt like it was being pulled out. No, it might have already been pulled out.

“He’s a nobody, and unlike the person you’re looking for, his identity is clear. So…”

It wasn’t wrong. Although his gambling-addicted father had gambled him away as a newborn, Lee Sehwa was clearly listed on the resident registration. It was a story he heard from gamblers, so it couldn’t be false. Even if his father was a gambling addict, he definitely existed, so Lee Sehwa didn’t meet Oh Seonran’s conditions.

Also, even if Lee Sehwa had made a name for himself as a drug dealer, he didn’t have the capacity to form factions. He was young and looked the way he did, so he was constantly pushed around. There was no way he would have connections with big-shot brokers who were linked to the military. No matter how he thought about it, omitting Lee Sehwa’s information didn’t seem like it would be that big of a problem.

“I can introduce you to as many young girls good for concubines as you want. So…”

Before Kim Seokcheol could finish his stammering words, sparks flew in front of his eyes.

“What I’m looking for.”

Oh Seonran slapped Kim Seokcheol hard across the cheek. A tearing sound, like a hammer striking an anvil, echoed.

“Is not a concubine.”

Without a chance to make an excuse, or rather, to scream, Kim Seokcheol’s plump head snapped violently from side to side.

“It’s my child, you filthy bastard.”