Be My Baby - Vol.2 Chapter 3 Part 3
“That naughty boy.”
Driving at a terrifying speed on the highway that only connected to overpasses and tunnels in the dark night, Eungyo muttered those words softly.
He already knew the guy was lacking, impudent, and shameless, but because he was so innocent and pure, Eungyo never imagined he would backstab him like this.
The guy who had been following him around for over 10 years, causing trouble whenever he drank for the past 7 years, had really pulled one over on him.
“Damn him.”
As Eungyo turned onto the national road leading up to Daegwallyeong, which connected not long after the highway, he continued cursing Seonwoo, who was herding cows in the mountains, saying things like “that rice cake face,” “that beagle,” and “that lacking guy who’s only grown in body.”
As he sped along the winding road where LED lights and colored paint glittered in the night, the navigation suddenly announced that the destination was nearby.
At that signal, after confirming the entrance to the nearby ranch, he turned right from the seemingly endless road towards the ranch entrance, and the white-glowing entrance of the ranch could be seen in the distance, even in the darkness.
With only endless plains stretching out and no lights from houses visible, a terrifying silence hung in the air now that spring had come.
As he approached the front of the ranch entrance along the silent road with no noise, the vehicle detection sensor went off.
At that sound, he stopped the car next to the intercom and rolled down the window, but no sound could be heard.
A brief moment of time passed like that.
Bright lights were clearly leaking out from the house visible beyond the ranch entrance.
Yet the fact that no sound could be heard meant only one obvious thing.
“Really now?”
Thinking they were trying to pretend not to know again, Eungyo reached out the window to press the intercom bell and waited for a moment, but still no answer came.
“I know you’re in there. Open the door. Or should I just break through?”
As soon as those brief words ended, the white gate blocking the front slowly opened.
Seeming to still have some sense, Eungyo drove the car inside and parked in front of the modest single-story red brick house. He then went straight to the front door, which opened without needing to ring the bell, and Seonwoo’s head peeked out through the narrow gap.
Eungyo immediately spoke to that rice cake-like face, still wearing a simple navy suit with his hair neatly combed back.
“Open the door.”
At those threatening words, Seonwoo quickly opened the door and stepped back.
Seeing him rolling his eyes around nervously, Eungyo asked first as he entered the entryway.
“Where are Grandfather and Grandmother?”
“…They went on a trip.”
“How convenient.”
Though it wasn’t extremely late, it was late enough to be quite rude to visit someone’s home. Eungyo answered that it was fortunate as he took off his shoes and entered. Seonwoo scurried over to the side and carefully offered him slippers.
As he put on those slippers and entered the house, the antique interior caught his eye, just like the exterior.
The dark wooden floors, the pechka connected to the chimney, and even the pile of dry firewood next to it.
As Eungyo slowly looked around the interior that seemed more like a vintage European villa than a house, Seonwoo, who had closed the door, ran to the sofa in the living room and cleared away the blanket strewn about.
“Please sit down.”
As Seonwoo sat down obediently at those words, Eungyo kept glancing towards the inner room of the living room.
Noticing that gaze, Seonwoo quickly spoke up.
“Would you like some tea?”
“I’ve had enough tea. More importantly… you must have something to say to me, right?”
“Pardon?”
“I just met with Seonjung. I’ve heard everything, so confess honestly.”
At Eungyo’s intimidating words saying he knew everything so don’t try to be clever, Seonwoo gasped and held his breath.
Seeing that face as if he’d been hit right on target, a strange smile appeared on Eungyo’s face.
He was clearly smiling, but his expression was so fierce that Seonwoo swallowed dryly.
“…You knew?”
“Yes.”
At Eungyo’s brief answer, Seonwoo stopped breathing for a moment.
Then he suddenly looked around anxiously with shaking eyes.
Seeing that half-crazed look, Eungyo frowned. Suddenly, Seonwoo pattered over, picked up the blanket pushed aside by the sofa, and approached Eungyo.
Then with a blank face, he shook out the blanket and suddenly covered Eungyo with it.
And the next moment, he let out a short scream.
“Aaahhh!”
With that delayed scream, there was a pattering sound. Eungyo pushed off the blanket covering his head and stood up.
At that moment, there was a bang and the door to the inner room of the living room closed.
Looking at that door, he suddenly had a feeling.
Perhaps because he had seen Seonwoo glancing there earlier, he just had a feeling.
That there was something in there.
Following that instinctive premonition, he went to the door and turned the handle, but of course it was locked.
In that moment, he saw red.
The phrase “losing it” exists for moments exactly like this.
“Open the door.”
As he spoke those words softly through gritted teeth, trying not to scare the airhead into running away, a scream-like shout burst out from inside.
“I’m sorry! I’m really sorry! Please spare me!”
“Of course you’re sorry, that’s obvious. Now open the door.”
“I’ll never do it again! Please just spare my life!”
“I’m not going to kill you, so open the door and let’s talk properly.”
“You’ll get angry if I open it.”
“I’m already angry, so just open it. Before I get even more upset.”
“I’ll open it if you promise not to get mad.”
“Why do you cause trouble if you’re so scared?”
At the continued conversation, Eungyo burst out shouting angrily, and suddenly it went quiet beyond the door.
Seeing that attitude as if he was too scared to even answer now, Eungyo took a deep breath and spoke calmly again.
“If you don’t open the door by the count of three, I’m breaking it down. One, two…”
“…”
“Three.”
After counting to exactly three, Eungyo stepped back one step from the door.
Then, confirming with his eyes that both the door and frame were made of wood, he unhesitatingly kicked the area with the doorknob, and the door flew open with a bang.
As the door opened wide more easily than expected, Eungyo stepped inside and suddenly stopped in his tracks.
At the same time, a dejected sigh escaped him.
The small cradles and toys filling the room, the spiral mobile hanging from the ceiling and the small rattan cabinet, and decisively, the small 3D imaging device installed in the room.
What was visible on that imaging device was clearly a placenta.
Five years ago, Genitech had started selling consumer versions of devices that showed 3D holographic images of fetuses filmed from multiple angles in real size, and since he had planned that himself, he couldn’t help but recognize it.
He had still been hoping against hope, but there was no room for hope anymore.
The answer was already clear.
Lost for words at the utterly ridiculous situation, Eungyo stood there stunned, and he could see something bulging up on the bed placed in the back of the room.
Thinking “You think I can’t see you just because you can’t see me?”, he quickly approached and pulled off the blanket to reveal the guy hiding underneath, who opened his eyes wide.
Then as their eyes met, he clasped his hands together and begged.
“I’m sorry! I’m really sorry!”
“…”
“I didn’t do it on purpose! It was really an accident!”
“…”
“Really! I forgot about it because it was a year ago!”
At those words, a bitter laugh suddenly burst out.
“A year? So the baby’s already been born?”
“Ah, the baby is a month old! It was put in a year ago!”
Though Seonwoo’s attitude of rubbing his hands together and begging seemed desperate, to Eungyo that desperation came across as emptiness.
As the flow of conversation became more and more absurd, Eungyo suddenly felt a throbbing in the back of his head.
Feeling his blood pressure rising rapidly, he stood there taking deep breaths for a moment, then asked again while trying his best to suppress his anger.
“…So you’re saying you’ve been two-timing for a year?”
“…Pardon?”
“You unfaithful bastard!”
As Eungyo lost his patience and shouted at the increasingly serious situation, Seonwoo flinched and hunched his shoulders.
Seeing him crouched on the bed looking terrified, Eungyo caught himself and barely managed to calm his breathing.
Then after a moment, he asked again in a calmer voice.
“…Alright. Well, that’s not the important… No, it is important, but we’ll talk about that later. More importantly, where is that woman now?”
“What… woman?”
“The woman carrying your child.”
At those words, Seonwoo finally lifted his head slightly.
Then he tilted his head and asked back with a face that didn’t seem to understand.
“…Huh?”
“I’ll handle it directly, so call the woman here. Where is she now?”
“…Woman?”
“The pregnant woman.”
“…Who said someone was pregnant?”
At Seonwoo’s words as he blinked and tilted his head, Eungyo gritted his teeth.
Whether this bastard was doing this on purpose or his head had gone funny from panic, the conversation that wasn’t connecting properly was giving Eungyo a headache.
This lacking, deficient, stupid, troublemaking seven-tenths fool, this airhead.
He knew the guy was lacking to begin with, but seeing him becoming more and more deficient by the day, Eungyo felt a fireball rising inside him. But he barely managed to suppress it and looked at the airhead calmly as if practicing meditation.
Then he spoke in the most level voice he could manage.
“Listen carefully, airhead. Even if it’s not one year but ten years, not one child but ten, I can’t give it to someone else. So just confess quietly. I’ll take care of it.”
Though he said that through gritted teeth, trying his best to be generous, Seonwoo still had a stupid look on his face.
“I’m not going to give it up for adoption though?”
“We’re not talking about adoption right now.”
“So, I’m not giving it to anyone else.”
“That’s why I’m telling you to call the woman.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean why, you…”
Only after that exchange did Eungyo realize that something was very off about the conversation.
He wasn’t sure exactly what, but the content of the dialogue felt very disjointed.
Though Seonwoo was basically always a beat behind and a bit lacking, making people angry when talking to him, he wasn’t the type to give such completely irrelevant answers.
He hadn’t noticed because he was so worked up, but thinking back on it now, Eungyo realized the flow of conversation had been quite strange. He took a breath and went back to the most fundamental issue.
“Wait… Didn’t you have a child?”
At Eungyo’s much calmer voice compared to just before, Seonwoo glanced around nervously and replied softly.
“I do…”
“I’m asking where the mother of that child is right now.”
“The mother is… me?”
“What did you say?”
“I’m the one who’s pregnant?”
“I mean the baby’s mother.”
“So… I’m the mother. The baby is here.”
As Seonwoo gestured to his own stomach, Eungyo was silent for a moment.
At first he thought this bastard was playing a prank, but he seemed too serious for that.
It didn’t make sense, it was absolutely nonsensical no matter how you looked at it, but it didn’t seem to be a lie. Deciding to skip over the common sense issues for now, Eungyo chose to follow the flow of consciousness.
“Alright, fine. Let’s say you’re pregnant. Then whose child is it?”
“Yours, hyung.”
At Seonwoo’s answer as if asking why he was asking such an obvious thing, Eungyo clamped his mouth shut.
And a brief moment of time passed like that.
“So… when the Al(卵, egg) Project was terminated, you put the experimental subject you made then into your stomach?”
“…Yes…”
“And it was fertilized a year later?”
“…Yes.”
“And it’s my child?”
“…Yes.”
At Seonwoo’s increasingly fading voice, Eungyo, who had come back out to the living room to talk, held his forehead.
If anyone else had said such a thing, he would have obviously ignored it, but the fact that it was Lee Seonwoo saying this meant he couldn’t dismiss it as nonsense.
With Lee Seonwoo, anything was possible, so he just accepted it.
“So you ran away because you were scared to tell me the truth?”
“…Yes…”
“Alright, so what are you going to do?”
“I… want to have the baby…”
Eungyo didn’t particularly object to that. Of course, at first he was a bit shocked and dumbfounded, but the child had already been conceived and he had no intention of getting rid of a child that had already been conceived.
He sincerely didn’t want to do anything that would make his father happy, but this wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
This was much better for his mental health than if that airhead had caused an accident with another woman.
“Leaving aside having the baby, what are you going to do with that child?”
At that pointed question, Seonwoo suddenly got up from his seat, scurried to that room from earlier, and came back out holding something. He sidled up and placed a piece of paper and a pen in front of Eungyo.
“What’s this?”
“I’m really sorry, but… if you could just sign this consent form, I’ll raise the child. Since I have to take care of it anyway…”
“Consent form?”
At this sudden turn in the conversation, Eungyo slowly picked up the paper in front of him and read its contents, then gritted his teeth hard at the last line.
The content of the consent form was simple.
It stated that, just like with regular experiments, he consented to participate in this project, and in case a child was born, all parental rights and custody would belong to Dr. Lee Seonwoo who led this experiment, and the test subject would not have any moral or financial responsibility for the child.
After reading the consent form two or three times as if chewing it over, Eungyo put it back down on the table and looked at Seonwoo standing meekly beside him.
“You’ll raise it without asking for any child support, inheritance, or parental rights?”
“Yes.”
Seeing Seonwoo’s face nodding incessantly as if desperately hoping for something, now that he seemed to have come to his senses, Eungyo smiled with his lips twisted.
He felt incredibly irritated for some reason.
“Who decided that?”
“Pardon?”
“Who said you get to raise my child as you please?”
“…Huh?”
“I don’t know what you’re thinking, but if it’s my child, I’ll raise it. Did you think I’d entrust a child to someone as lacking as you?”
At those resolute words, Seonwoo’s eyes widened as if he was about to cry.
Though Eungyo felt a bit stung by that surprised and bewildered face that looked ready to burst into tears at any moment, he deliberately turned his gaze away nonchalantly. Seonwoo asked in a dying voice.
“But you hate children, hyung…”
That was certainly true.
And it wasn’t even from long ago, but until just five days ago, he had gritted his teeth saying he detested both children and marriage.
But that was then.
“That was then. I’ll raise this child. It’s right and natural that I should have the parental rights and custody, and of course I’ll raise it.”
“But…”
As Seonwoo was about to protest, Eungyo cut him off.
“Seeing as you brought out a consent form… it seems you’re hung up on the fact that you involved me in the experiment without consent… but I’m sorry, there’s absolutely no chance I’ll sign this.”
Thinking he’d have to be crazy to sign this, Eungyo flicked the consent form with his fingertip, and Seonwoo looked down at him with a terrified face.
That face that looked like it would cry at any moment made Eungyo’s stomach tingle strangely.
He gritted his teeth at the urge to just slam that guy down and thrust wildly into his lower hole.
Reminding himself that the priority now was persuading that idiot, Eungyo suppressed the impulse with superhuman effort and waited for a moment. Then Seonwoo asked softly.
“Then, are you going to… sue me?”
“That depends on you.”
“…What do I need to do?”
Well, he should just quietly confess, have the baby, and stay by his side, but… Eungyo deliberately avoided saying that.
“You need to think about that. How you can atone for throwing this enormous disaster at me.”
“…”
“Pack your things for now.”
At those words, the guy who had been pouting suddenly blinked.
“You think I’d let someone as lacking as you, who’s even pregnant now, be holed up in this backwater? Go to Seoul to get proper check-ups and prepare.”
“I’ll have to do the check-ups myself anyway…”
“Are you a doctor?”
“I’m not a doctor, but this is my area…”
That was true.
Since this was such an unusual case, in Seonwoo’s case it wasn’t an obstetrician but a genetic engineering center that needed to check him.
“The equipment is the issue. Do it properly in Seoul. Stay at my place for now while getting proper check-ups and monitoring your condition. You weren’t planning to roughly give birth to and raise my child in this underdeveloped region, were you?”
As Eungyo spoke as if asking how dare he try to raise his child in such a backwater, Seonwoo muttered softly with a still gloomy face.
“But… what about the cows if I leave…”
“Are the cows the issue right now?”
“I guess not…”
After answering softly in a half-dead voice, Seonwoo turned to head towards the back, saying he would turn on the automated equipment so the cows could eat fodder in their pens without being let out to pasture tomorrow. Watching his retreating figure, Eungyo let out a small sigh.
This situation was quite bewildering, but not unpleasant.
Thinking about how his father’s wish would be fulfilled made him suddenly feel nauseous and irritated, but strangely he didn’t feel bad about this.
Anyway, it wasn’t that this problem child had caused an accident with someone else, but was carrying his own child, so there was nothing particularly unpleasant about it.
Yes, this isn’t bad.
No, it might even be very good.
Thinking that, the corners of his mouth lifted involuntarily.
Yes, this is a good sign.
At least for him, it was a very good sign.
