Be My Baby - Vol.1 Chapter 2 Part 1
“Hyung, ultrasound! Ultrasound!”
As soon as Seonwoo entered Seonjung’s examination room at a medical center near Seoul, he started making a commotion, shouting only “ultrasound!”
Seeing Seonwoo’s pale face repeatedly yelling for an ultrasound, Seonjung responded irritably.
“What nonsense are you talking about? Suddenly rushing to someone else’s hospital and asking for an ultrasound?”
“Ultrasound! I need an ultrasound!”
“Don’t you have better equipment at your research institute? Why come here looking for an ultrasound?”
“If I use it at the institute, there will be records! Hurry, ultrasound!”
“What do you need an ultrasound for?”
“My, stomach! I need to check my stomach!”
“Why? Your stomach…”
As Seonjung was about to ask if his stomach hurt, he suddenly seemed to realize something and turned pale, starting to hop around.
“Hey! You crazy bastard! Didn’t I tell you to get rid of it quickly? Wait, an ultrasound won’t do. Let’s just do a full body scan…”
“No, ultrasound. Ultrasound is more accurate for this kind of thing.”
Seeing Seonwoo stomping his feet and urgently shouting “hurry, quickly,” Seonjung got up from his seat in surprise and led the way out of the room.
Then, entering the examination room right next door, Seonjung pointed to the bed, and Seonwoo threw his bag down, took off his shirt, and lay down on it.
“Exactly where?”
As Seonjung put on gloves and turned on the machine, Seonwoo quickly added instructions.
“Lower abdomen. Set the depth limit to about 6 centimeters. Magnification enough to see blood vessels.”
“Okay.”
While Seonjung quickly set up the ultrasound machine according to those words, Seonwoo was already applying gel with his own hands.
“If all patients were like you, it would be easier.”
“Check the lower abdomen above the navel. Record everything.”
“Are you the doctor?”
As Seonwoo gave instructions with an urgent face, Seonjung scolded him but still pressed the record button as his brother wanted and slowly started operating the machine.
And as he checked exactly above the navel as Seonwoo wanted, Seonjung slightly frowned at the clear image on the screen.
“It’s not necrotic or anything? The condition is fine… Huh?”
Fortunately, the round, egg-shaped blood clot was intact, just as it had been a year ago during the procedure.
However, the shape was a bit strange.
It was definitely a perfectly round egg when it was put in, but…
“Hyung, move down.”
Seonwoo, also feeling something was off, asked him to check lower.
At those words, Seonjung moved the transducer down as Seonwoo said, and a thin blood vessel-like structure came into view.
“What’s this?”
Seonjung was shocked, insisting he had only put it inside the body and hadn’t connected any such blood vessels. Seonwoo spoke again.
“…Move it to the right.”
Following those words, as Seonjung moved his hand to the right, something connected could be seen on that side as well.
“What is this? Did you do something else to your insides?”
“Probably… since it’s organic, it must have self-modified.”
“Self-modified? Ah, but… what’s this?”
Despite the exceptionally clear image quality, Seonjung squinted at the bean-like object visible inside the round egg.
But still not understanding, he increased the image quality, and when that wasn’t enough, he increased the magnification, staring intently at the bean while muttering softly.
“…Is this… a cyst?”
“…”
“Or maybe a stone…”
“…”
“If not that, did you eat a rock? No, this isn’t the stomach… Did you put something strange in there when you first inserted it?”
Though he said that, both Seonjung and Seonwoo knew what it was.
The moment they saw the tiny tadpole-like thing inside the bean after increasing the image quality and magnification, they both realized.
But Seonjung wanted to deny reality until the very end.
“What are you growing inside your body? No matter how I look at it, that’s a parasite. It must be a parasite. We need to check the hygiene conditions of your lab.”
“In some sense, it is a parasite…”
As Seonjung kept spouting nonsense, unable to accept the unbelievable reality, Seonwoo muttered in a small voice.
Just that this parasite inherited the host’s blood and genes, which was different from a typical parasite, but similar in a way. At those words, Seonjung cursed softly through gritted teeth.
“Shit…”
“Idiot, fool, airhead, moron, crazy bastard. You half-wit!”
After telling the center he had to leave early due to an urgent matter, Seonjung led Seonwoo home and threw off his jacket while raging furiously.
Seeing his brother’s reaction, even more ferocious than usual as if he was seriously angry, Seonwoo followed him into the house and muttered softly with a still pale face.
“What should I do?”
“How can you ask me that? What are you going to do now?”
As Seonjung, who was quite hot-tempered to begin with, lost his composure in shock and shouted, Seonwoo also panicked and blurted out only what he had to say.
“You’re the doctor, you should answer! How can you ask me?”
“Damn it, is a doctor God? How should I know what to do? You’re the one who caused this mess, you should know!”
“But you’re my brother, you should give me advice! What am I supposed to do?”
“That’s why you shouldn’t have done something like this in the first place! What kind of crazy person puts an experimental subject in their own stomach! It didn’t make sense from the beginning! Why did I even do that for you!”
“It was made with my blood! How could I throw it away after drawing so much blood to make it?”
“So you’re telling me there’s an idiot in this world who would put a failed experiment subject inside their body because the blood used to make it was precious? What country is this seven-tenths fool from and whose brother is he?”
“Your brother!”
As Seonwoo snapped back while his brother was jumping around the living room pulling at his hair, Seonjung tilted his head back, grabbing the back of his neck.
“Right, he’s my brother. That half-wit seven-tenths fool is Lee Seonjung’s brother…”
After adding, “Why did Mom give birth to an idiot like him,” Seonjung, seemingly overwhelmed by his rising blood pressure, took slow deep breaths and sat down on the sofa first.
“Let’s sit down. Let’s talk sitting down.”
As Seonjung, who had finally regained his senses after the initial wave of terror and shock had somewhat subsided, said that, Seonwoo, still pale, obediently sat down across from him.
“Okay, fine. Fine. I’ve accepted reality now. But how exactly did you make it so that the egg inserted into your stomach could transform on its own? Does this make any sense?”
Thinking he should first understand the mechanism, Seonjung calmly asked that, and Seonwoo, leaning back on the sofa with his arms crossed, frowned slightly.
“It was made by transplanting my genes into uterine cells and modifying them, but since it’s organic, it seems to have evolved on its own inside the body. I can only hypothesize that it formed channels to supplement nutrients in order to survive. But how did it turn out like this? I thought it was possible, but I didn’t expect it to work this well… Oh, come to think of it, does this mean it was successful? Am I a genius after all?”
As his brother started praising himself once the shock had somewhat worn off, Seonjung gritted his teeth.
“Is that what you should be saying right now? You’re pregnant. A virgin – no, a single man is pregnant and now has a baby in his stomach. What are you really going to do now? If it was a fertilized egg, you should have said so from the beginning. If I had known, I wouldn’t have done the surgery. You clearly told me it was just an egg-shaped temporary artificial uterus. Why did you lie?”
“I didn’t lie. It definitely wasn’t in a fertilized state.”
“Then how did it undergo cell division? Did you clone yourself?”
“No. It just… got fertilized.”
“So how did it get fertilized? That’s even stranger!”
At those words, Seonwoo fell silent, unable to answer, and Seonjung looked at him suspiciously.
Then, at some point, he seemed to reach a certain possibility and his eyes widened.
“…You, don’t tell me…”
“…”
At his brother’s “don’t tell me” question, as if hoping it wasn’t true, Seonwoo averted his gaze and kept his mouth shut, and Seonjung let out a dejected sigh.
The small egg-shaped blood clot, just the size of an egg, connecting channels here and there on its own to survive, and fertilization.
Even up to that point, the answer was clear.
Given that the original purpose of creating that egg was to enable natural pregnancy for women who couldn’t get pregnant, Seonwoo’s mention of “success” made the rest of the story obvious without needing to hear more.
After calmly organizing his thoughts, Seonjung, barely suppressing the urge to smack his brother’s round head that looked ready to burst, spoke to him in the gentlest tone possible.
“Okay, fine. It’s all fine… Let’s talk calmly. Let’s go through this step by step. First, in order, I put the egg from the terminated project inside your stomach, right? And a year has passed, during which time that egg connected to other organs in order to survive. In that situation, you had se… no, an accident with Senior Kang Eungyo, and that’s when fertilization occurred and the egg hatched, right? Putting aside everyone’s shock, horror, and bewilderment in this situation, if we think about the realistic problems that will arise… The most important thing is that you didn’t explain your experiment to Kang Eungyo sunbae and make her understand that fertilization was possible before this happened.”
“…That is the problem…”
“It’s not just ‘that is the problem.’ This is not only an ethical issue but also a huge legal problem. If it were an ordinary person, you could say it wasn’t intentional, get a consent form signed now, promise not to cause any trouble regarding the child, and pay compensation. But this isn’t just anyone, it’s Kang Eungyo, a director at Genitech. If they make this an issue, you could not only lose your Ph.D., but also have to pay enormous damages.”
At his brother’s excessively realistic and worldly words, Seonwoo frowned in displeasure.
“Eungyo hyung wouldn’t do that. He might tie me to a rocket and launch me though.”
“That’s the same thing! And really, in the best case scenario, even if Kang Eungyo-sunbaeoverlooks your stupidity, that family won’t sit still. Realistically speaking, with that family’s wealth, would they accept a child conceived without consent by some half-wit they’ve never heard of? In relationships between men and women, it’s assumed that pregnancy is possible, so it’s considered half consensual, but this case is different. You involved a regular person in your experiment without even asking for permission.”
“…That’s true…”
As Seonwoo readily admitted that it did seem that way, Seonjung repeated what he had been saying in the car on the way over.
“Idiot, fool, airhead. Crazy bastard.”
“…Stop cursing and help me. What should I do?”
“Why do you keep asking me? You need to figure it out yourself.”
“But hyung just finally forgave me enough to let me call…”
“Is that the issue right now? Do you know what men fear most? It’s when a woman they slept with just once shows up out of nowhere saying ‘This is your son’ while holding a baby. For men, that’s scarier than a global catastrophe or aliens.”
Seonwoo could understand that to some extent, being a man himself. He cautiously asked while rolling his eyes for a moment.
“But since I’m a man, wouldn’t it be a little less scary?”
“…If you’re deliberately trying to raise my blood pressure by saying this, I’ll let it slide with just one hit, but if you’re being sincere, I’ll kill you.”
“…Sorry.”
“You’re really an eight-tenths fool. To have a brother like this. Hey, hurry up and call Seyoon.”
“Why?”
“Call Seyoon over and make a plan. He’s your legal counsel, isn’t he?”
“Ah… right.”
“Plus, he’s an expert in medical and scientific fields, so call him right away to check for potential issues and draw up a settlement agreement and consent form.”
“Why do we need a settlement agreement and consent form?”
“You need to go explain everything properly to Kang Eungyo sunbae now and get a settlement agreement and consent form signed, don’t you? It’s a bit late, but since you didn’t do it intentionally, bow your head to the ground and apologize, and ask her to sign a consent form and settlement agreement. Swear that you’ll raise the child yourself, so you absolutely won’t mention parental rights or custody, won’t tell anyone else, and won’t demand child support or inheritance. Write a pledge and beg for your life. The best option would be to abort it while it’s still small, but it’s too risky to attempt abortion without knowing the structure of that egg or whatever it is, and even if it were possible… we can’t get rid of a child that’s already formed.”
Seonwoo fully agreed with his brother’s opinion that life is life, even if it’s still just undergoing cell division, having grown up with parents who above all supported natural conception and childbirth and taught that life is precious.
So this time, he decided to quietly follow his brother’s words without raising unnecessary objections.
“Alright then. I’ll text Seyoon now.”
“And bring me my blood pressure monitor. The back of my neck is all stiff.”
“Hyung, I told you you don’t have high blood pressure.”
“I might develop diseases I don’t have because of you. What are you going to tell Mom and Dad?”
“Mom and Dad will be happy. Thatitfinally succeeded.”
Although things had progressed in a somewhat ridiculous way, Seonwoo could confidently say that the two of them would probably be overjoyed at the fact that the uterus, which couldn’t be touched no matter how hard they tried, had been implemented, albeit in a slightly different way and as a one-time thing.
Even if their son loses his Ph.D. and gets sued, his parents would be delighted just by the pregnancy itself.
And Seonjung had to agree with that as well.
“Right, you’re exactly the product of Mom and Dad multiplied together.”
So if you divide this guy by Mom, you get exactly Dad.
So no matter what, this guy’s words are right. Thinking this, Seonjung told Seonwoo the next thing he needed to do.
“Then, take a vacation from the lab for now.”
“…Maternity leave?”
“Hey!”
“Then what kind of leave?”
“Just take a vacation! When you signed your contract, didn’t you make sure you could take vacations lasting from at least 2 months up to 3 years whenever you wanted?”
“…Did I?”
“You did.”
“But I’m leading the experiment right now, so it can’t be done without me…”
“Someone else will do it. Or they’ll put a full stop to it. Now isn’t the time for you to worry about other experiments. Don’t you need to find a way to remove that artificial uterus or artificial embryo or whatever it is?”
“We can’t remove this now.”
“Then?”
“In theory, it’s designed to be placed in the uterine position inside women with deformed uteruses or no uterus at all, naturally forming connections and allowing natural fertilization. Once fertilized, it can sustain itself for about 5 months by receiving nutrients from inside that egg. After that, it’s supposed to be separated from the body and placed in an incubator. So it needs to stay for 5 months. According to the theory, that is.”
Seeing Seonwoo calmly explaining the basic theory since he created it himself, Seonjung slumped his shoulders.
Looking at his brother who, despite causing an unprecedented major accident, seemed to have the ability to clean it up, Seonjung wore an odd expression, unsure whether to be happy or sad.
“But, hyung…”
“What now?”
“I’m hungry.”
“Do you have a hundred parasites sitting in your stomach?”
“Don’t be mean. No wonder I’ve been feeling incredibly sleepy and hungry lately.”
Seonjung sighed as he watched his brother devour not only the delivered food but also everything in the refrigerator.
“You’re really something else. Are you going to do everything that comes with pregnancy too?”
“Probably, this isn’t normal so it’ll be even more intense. Since there’s no uterus, it’s probably pulling nutrients randomly. The basal metabolic rate is often extremely high in artificial or regenerated organs.”
As Seonjung looked at Seonwoo, who was theoretically perfect as always, he slowly sipped the coffee in front of him.
Problems were piling up like a mountain, and in the worst case scenario, his own life might be ruined, yet his brother was just voraciously eating away. All sorts of thoughts crossed Seonjung’s mind.
Just as he was thinking it’s fortunate that his brother is optimistic, he also felt like smacking him for being so carefree while others were worried sick. But then seeing him eat made him feel pitiful again.
It was such a complex feeling that he wondered if this was what the 108 worldly desires felt like.
From childhood, this kid was always a bit slow, only hearing how cute he was from everyone. Then when he got older, he was declared a genius and even the country pampered him, so he’s still childlike. Worrying whether such a person could really raise a child, Seonjung quietly watched his brother when a question crossed his mind.
“But how did you figure it out? Given that you insisted you were fine until your appendix was about to burst, I thought you wouldn’t realize until the baby started kicking your stomach.”
Thinking it was impressive that this airhead noticed within a month, Seonjung praised him while Seonwoo looked up from shoveling cereal into his mouth and replied.
“I did a blood test. They said there was a new comprehensive blood screening device from Eungyo hyung’s company.”
“Ah, with blood it’d be 100% certain.”
“It’s quite sensitive. It even detects inflammation and location…”
Seonwoo suddenly paused mid-sentence and his eyes widened.
Seeing that expression like he’d just remembered something important, Seonjung put down his cup and looked at Seonwoo as if to ask what was wrong. Seonwoo muttered softly with a choked expression.
“…We’re in big trouble.”
“What now?”
“Eungyohyungsaid he was going to check all the machines because he was angry that my blood test showed pregnancy results.”
At Seonwoo’s words that all the perfectly fine machines might be disassembled today, Seonjung pressed his forehead.
As expected, this guy never causes just one problem at a time.
“Call him quickly.”
“How? I mean, what should I say on the phone?”
“Call and tell him it’s not an error, but that there’s a problem with your body. Given Kang Eungyo sunbae’s personality, he’ll probably recall all those machines and issue a recall. Do you want to ruin the company? And what about the employees there who’ll have to suffer?”
“That’s true, but… What should I say? That I’m really pregnant?”
Thinking that would be the quickest solution but also too shocking to say right now, Seonjung quickly suggested an alternative.
“Medicine, say you took medicine. Hormones.”
“What kind of medicine?”
“The blood test results would show HCG (Human Chorionic Gonadotropin) hormone, right? Just make something up. Say you took medicine, or that you’re taking steroids. No, never mind. You don’t look like you’d take steroids at all… Just say you’re on a diet.”
“What diet?”
“There was a fad HCG diet for a while. Say you’re on a diet because you got too fat.”
“Why would anyone diet with HCG? That’s a luteinizing hormone?”
“Anyway, there was such a thing. Just make that excuse! Stop arguing!”
“But there’s no way I would take something like that.”
At Seonwoo’s question of how someone like him – a genetic engineering genius who memorized DNA maps and protein structures at age five – would do such a thing, Seonjung covered his forehead.
“Ah, right… You specialize in organ regeneration. Dammit.”
As Seonjung covered his forehead, thinking it’s a problem that his brother is smart only in that area but stupid otherwise, the phone rang from the living room.
At that sound, Seonwoo got up from his seat.
“It’s mine.”
As Seonwoo trudged to the living room, Seonjung was about to pick up his cup again when a scream rang out.
“Ahhh! Ahhh!”
At that scream as if he’d seen something terrifying, Seonjung quickly ran to the living room to find Seonwoo standing right next to the sofa, piling cushions on top of it.
And the ringtone kept sounding.
From under the cushions.
“What now? What’s wrong?”
“Eungyohy… hyungcalled.”
Seeing Seonwoo continue to pile cushions on top of the phone and even pat them gently with both hands as if afraid they might collapse, looking as if he’d seen something terrifying, Seonjung recalled his brother’s old habit.
Seonwoo’s motto was to bury and hide anything scary he saw.
“Does the phone disappear if you bury it in cushions?”
“…”
“Answer it.”
“…”
“Answer it quickly. He’ll get suspicious if you don’t.”
Though that was certainly true, Seonwoo seemed to be backing away slowly, not yet ready mentally. Seonjung approached the sofa in Seonwoo’s place, dug through the cushions and excavated the phone.
Then he mercilessly held it out to Seonwoo.
“Answer it and say you’re on a diet for now.”
Under his brother’s pressure not to avoid it, Seonwoo took the phone with a gloomy face.
Then he pressed the call button with a dejected voice and responded listlessly.
“Yes.”
“Where are you?”
“At my hyung’s house…”
“I checked all the machines and there’s no problem… Do you want to come back and check again? It seems to be giving an error only for you.”
Realizing it was indeed about that issue, Seonwoo looked up at Seonjung with a pleading expression, and Seonjung quickly wrote ‘diet pills’ on a notepad.
At the large letters that were almost like coercion, Seonwoo reluctantly opened his mouth hesitantly.
“Um, about that…”
“About what?”
“I… I think I made a mistake.”
“What?”
“Um, I… I took diet pills this morning. A researcher I work with said they were good…”
Seonwoo lied in an almost inaudible voice, and Eungyo asked back doubtfully.
“Diet?”
“Yes. I’ve been eating so much lately that I felt like I was going to burst…”
“Ah, you did look like you were about to burst. You looked like a squashed rice cake when you were sleeping.”
“…Yes. So I took some pills… No, it was actually an injection-type that goes into the skin… Anyway, I tried that and it seems it was HCG hormone. They say that’s trendy these days…”
“You’re dieting with HCG hormone?”
“Yes…”
“Did you know what you were using?”
“No. I just… got it on impulse and when I asked my brother about it because I thought it was strange, he said it seemed to be that…”
As Seonwoo said that and looked at Seonjung with a face that said ‘Did I do well?’, Seonjung made an OK sign with his thumb and index finger.
“Well, that’s a relief then. No matter how I thought about it, it wasn’t a machine malfunction or error, and if the HCG hormone levels were abnormally high, it would be either steroid use or a testicular cancer issue. If it were cancer, that diagnosis would have come up, so definitely not that, and there’s no way you would take steroids, so I thought it was strange.”
As expected, Eungyo knew Seonwoo well.
Hearing Eungyo’s reaction, which was exactly the same as what his brother had said, Seonwoo let out a small sigh of relief, thinking they had just overcome one hurdle.
“Yes… I wouldn’t do that.”
“Still, I’m dumbfounded. A researcher dieting with HCG hormone. Hormone treatments are dangerous.”
“That’s… right. It was a method that was popular in the past, but I guess it’s coming back into fashion now.”
As Seonwoo trailed off, saying that even with all the advances in science, there are still women who take medications completely unrelated to weight loss for dieting and even drink urine for their skin, Eungyo continued the conversation in a slightly more relaxed tone.
“So you’re at your brother’s house now?”
“Yes.”
“When are you going back to the lab?”
“A little later.”
“When’s your next day off?”
“Ah… I’m probably going to take a vacation.”
“A vacation? At this time?”
Eungyo seemed to find it strange to take a vacation in the awkward spring season, neither summer nor winter. Seonwoo didn’t know how to answer and looked at his brother.
At that pleading gaze, Seonjung quickly wrote ‘Suspected stress-induced overeating’ on the notepad.
“Ah, my brother… said it seems like stress-induced eating, so I’m going to rest for a bit.”
“That could be the case, but… do you even get stressed?”
“…I guess so.”
“Well, even puppies get stressed.”
Following the squashed rice cake comment, Seonwoo slumped his shoulders at the puppy remark.
It seemed that to this person, he was just a puppy with a rice cake face, at that level.
Seyoon really is smart.
“So, what are you going to do during your vacation? I mean, how long are you resting?”
“I’m planning to take about half a year.”
“What are you going to do for that long?”
“Ah, just rest a bit… see Mom and Dad, go to the ranch… Oh, I want to raise a dog. A dog. A big dog.”
Imagining the large dog he had as a child, Seonwoo smiled broadly as he answered, and Eungyo also let out a light laugh.
“You like big dogs?”
“Yes. I raised a lot of big dogs when I was young. So I want to raise one again.”
“What breed?”
“Ah… a Lab. Retriever.”
“If it’s a Lab, they’ll be raising you rather than you raising them. Those dogs would be smarter than you.”
“Huh? How did you know? Mom said Hoya was smarter than me.”
Seonwoo asked in amazement, recalling how his mother used to say every day about Hoya, the large Labrador Retriever he had as a child, “This one’s smarter than you, so just follow him around.” Eungyo sighed.
“…It’s sad that I can easily imagine that situation. Ah, I have to go into a meeting now. We’ll talk later.”
“Okay. Go to your meeting.”
Seonwoo quickly hung up, not wanting to drag it out any longer, and his brother, who had been listening to the call, spoke gruffly.
“You’re going to raise a dog? Raise your child, you idiot.”
“I will end up raising one, I guess.”
“Raise it properly, properly.”
As his brother ranted about how someone as lacking as Seonwoo could properly raise a child, Seonwoo put the phone back on the table and looked at Seonjung, suddenly remembering something at the mention of ‘child’.
“By the way, shouldn’t we tell the research institute about this?”
“First get consent from Eungyo sunbae. Everything has an order. If the institute finds out you experimented without the subject’s consent, they’ll call an immediate meeting. First settle things with Eungyo sunbae and then report. Tell them to resume research when there won’t be any issues.”
“Okay.”
“Did you contact Seyoon?”
“I texted him earlier. Asked him to call when he has time.”
“Then, for now let’s go to the institute so you can take your vacation and pack your things. I’ll drive you.”
Though Seonwoo was actually the second of three brothers, he was treated almost like the youngest in the family, even lower in rank than the dog. So Seonjung, as the eldest, had to take care of everything for him.
The grandparents and parents all indulged him, saying he was cute and lovable because he was lacking, but from his brother’s perspective, Seonwoo was just a nuisance.
Even the youngest, Seonkyu, who wasn’t as smart as the other family members, knew exactly what he needed to do and did it well, but this guy, supposedly the smartest in history, was a klutz in everything he did.
So he couldn’t be left alone.
He really required a lot of attention.
Seonjung had thought that if Seonwoo got married, his spouse would take care of him, but now he was about to have a child before marriage, so Seonjung suddenly felt drained wondering what would happen to that child too. He looked at his brother pitifully, when Seonwoo, who had been holding his phone tightly in both hands, snapped his fingers as if he’d just remembered something.
“Ah, cereal! I need to finish the cereal before we go.”
As his brother trotted back to the kitchen with those words, Seonjung muttered softly between his teeth.
“Idiot pig.”
***
