Be My Baby - Vol.1 Chapter 1 Part 1
7:30 AM.
As the alarm rang at the exact same time as always, the curtains and blinds opened, instantly brightening the room. Assaulted by the indiscriminate sunlight, Seonwoo barely managed to open his eyes and let out a long sigh while lying on the bed.
“I don’t want to get up…”
Somehow his body felt languid. And it kept getting sluggish. He was usually very diligent, so oversleeping was rare, but recently, opening his eyes in the morning had become a struggle.
It felt as if lethargy had enveloped his entire body, and he didn’t want to move an inch. Thinking that he might be unwell, he grabbed the small comprehensive health checker on the bedside table and waited for a moment. With a beep, his temperature, pulse, blood sugar, and blood pressure readings appeared on the small screen.
“Everything’s normal…”
Wondering if it was because of heartbreak, which seemed quite plausible, he remained slumped there before finally managing to get up. But strangely, his body felt chilly. It was cold as if he was coming down with the flu.
“No fever though…”
Thinking it might be early symptoms of a cold, he wrapped himself in a blanket and peeked out the window, spotting the breakfast placed in front of the main gate.
Seeing the food in a neatly packaged box suddenly made him hungry. With his appetite gushing like a waterfall, he dashed out. He brought the box back into the house and devoured the lunchbox in the blink of an eye. But even so, he still felt unsatisfied.
Perhaps this was a transference effect of the brain. Mistaking emotional emptiness for physical hunger.
“Ah… I misshyung…”
Seonwoo was convinced that it was indeed due to the pain of heartbreak. After doing such a thing to someone he had liked so much for so long. Being properly scolded and even rejected after that must have left his heart feeling empty.
“Well… Hyung has been really lenient with me until now…”
Luckily, he had avoided being sent to Germany, but hyung had clearly said it was the last time. That he had given him one last chance, so he shouldn’t approach anymore.
So now he really had to give up. Having made up his mind, he suddenly felt a gaping emptiness in his chest. That must be why he was feeling increasingly sleepy and hungry.
“…Let’s eat some bread.”
No matter how sad, one must fill their stomach. When blood sugar is low, people become pessimistic. The reason everyone instinctively tries to feed someone who’s feeling down and cooped up in their room is because they inherently know about this bodily system.
Thinking he should eat well especially at times like this, he was rummaging through the refrigerator with the blanket wrapped around him when his phone rang. At the sound, he turned on the speakerphone connected to the refrigerator, and his brother’s voice came through.
“Why haven’t you been in touch?”
“Hyung told me not to contact you, right?”
He grumbled that it was strange for someone who had said there was no need for unnecessary contact since any major incident would make the news anyway to be worried now, as he searched the fridge, but there wasn’t much to eat.
Just a few scraps of bread he couldn’t remember when he had bought, some milk, and cream cheese. That was all. Not even eggs. Still, it would have to do as a snack.
“That’s because you keep calling to ask for sperm. But even if I say that, you should know to keep in touch moderately. How can you not call at all? Even if you’re busy, you should at least let us know you’re alive, right? If not me, you should at least call Mom and Dad.”
At his brother’s irritation about being the only one scolded for not keeping in touch with his siblings despite their parents not contacting often either, Seonwoo suddenly remembered an important fact.
“Ah, I turned off outgoing calls.”
“Outgoing? Not incoming?”
Unable to admit that it was to prevent accidentally calling Eungyo-hyung again, Seonwoo brushed it off.
“I can use the lab phone for important work anyway. But why are you calling so early in the morning?”
“Why do you think? It’s about time to take out what you put in your stomach, isn’t it?”
Come to think of it, it was about time to take it out, so he should have called.
“Oh… I should take it out.”
“No matter how much it’s made from your blood and genes, keeping it in for a year is dangerous. If it starts to necrotize, it’ll be a big problem, so stop hesitating and take it out quickly. What kind of madman puts an experimental subject in their own stomach because they’re stingy with blood?”
“I almost succeeded, you know.”
“Almost, but there’s no guarantee it’s completely safe, right?”
That’s true. Because the project was terminated just as they were about to attempt human implantation, they had never kept it in the body for more than two months. But…
“It’s fine. I designed it to stay in the stomach for at least a year.”
“If everything went according to theory, why would accidents happen?”
That’s true. Even if the theory is perfect, experiments don’t always succeed.
“Okay. I’ll check when I’m off duty and call you.”
“Are you going to forget again? Come out now that you’ve remembered. I’ll be busy for a while too. I’m calling because I happened to have time today.”
“I’m busy today. I’ll call you right away when I’m off duty.”
“Didn’t you say you turned off outgoing calls on your phone?”
“There’s another phone in the lab, you know.”
“Alright then. Call me soon. Don’t dawdle.”
“Got it.”
As he poured milk from the fridge into a cup and put the dried-out bread in the oven, he suddenly let out a sigh. He felt hungry and weak.
“What’s with the sigh? It doesn’t suit you.”
“I’m heartbroken.”
He answered listlessly while drinking milk from the glass, and his brother asked curiously.
“Did you date someone without us knowing?”
“What are you talking about? I only have eyes for Eungyo-hyung.”
“Then why heartbreak? It was just one-sided love anyway.”
“I caused a big accident, so now I can’t even have one-sided love anymore.”
Remembering his promise to never call or visit again, Seonwoo fell silent, staring at the ground while hugging the milk carton. His brother snorted.
“Is this the first time you’ve caused trouble? By that logic, you’ve been heartbroken for the past 10 years, so why are you suddenly losing energy?”
“This time I really messed up big. I can’t even go to see him secretly anymore.”
“How big of an accident did you cause?”
“A huge one.”
Unable to tell even his brother that he had raped hyung, Seonwoo trailed off. After a moment, his brother offered utterly unhelpful words of comfort.
“Maybe it’s for the best. A dimwit like you needs to go that far to give up.”
“Don’t say that. I’m really sad, you know. It feels like there’s a hole in my stomach.”
“…In your stomach, not your heart?”
“My heart feels empty so I keep eating. These days I eat three servings per meal.”
“Just take some deworming medicine. You probably got worms again from eating stuff off the floor.”
“No, I don’t eat things off the floor anymore.”
He said he had finally broken that habit because it was dangerous in the lab, but as usual, his brother didn’t listen.
“Or it could be gastritis. Stop dawdling and check when you’re off duty and call me. And get a regular check-up while you’re at it. It’s unlikely, but they’ll find out if you get an endoscopy.”
“No, it’s because of heartbreak.”
“Mm-hmm, it’s not. Well, I’m hanging up.”
“But-“
Just as he was about to insist it was true, there was a click and the call ended.
Seonwoo pouted at his brother’s assertion that he absolutely couldn’t be that sensitive, but just then the oven’s alarm went off.
Hoping that the rubber-like bread had become a bit more chewable, he opened the oven, but as always, reality was a sewer.
He should have put some butter on it, but baking the already dry bread as it was had turned it into a baguette. It looked like it would crumble into sand-like particles if he tried to chew it, but he was so hungry that he decided to eat it anyway. Believing that spreading some cream cheese would make it better.
Holding onto that strand of hope, he carefully opened the cream cheese container, only to be greeted by mold smiling at him this time.
“Haah…”
In this distressing situation, he rummaged through the refrigerator again, but it was still empty.
Yet he was still hungry. Wondering if he really had worms inside him as his brother had said, he put the dried-out bread in his mouth and chewed, feeling like he was biting into an actual rubber shoe. He had never bitten a rubber shoe, but conceptually, this is what it must taste like.
To escape this terrible diet, he needed to go grocery shopping after work today.
“I should buy some meat and vegetables forssam[1].”
Having decided that dinner would besamgyeopsal[2], he started chewing the bread as if it were pork belly.
