Be My Baby - Vol.2 Chapter 6 Part 4
“…So you ran away without even eating dinner?”
“Yeah.”
After first feeding the starving Seonwoo who had come crying that he was dying of hunger, and even giving him a drink, Seyoon listened to his explanation and looked at Seonwoo as if dumbfounded.
“Why did he suddenly come?”
“He saw me with Eungyo hyung yesterday.”
That seemed to make sense. Given how he had called him in a frenzy yesterday, it wasn’t strange that he would go looking for Seonwoo today.
“…So you ran away with just your slippers, no phone or money, because you were scared of that person?”
“It seemed like he would keep ringing the bell until the door opened.”
“Surely not…”
“He kept ringing for three hours.”
Seyoon’s jaw dropped at Seonwoo’s explanation that he had first escaped to the visitor’s underground parking lot to observe the situation, but after he kept ringing for three hours with no intention of leaving, he finally escaped through the back door on the first basement floor and barely managed to catch a taxi and run away.
“He kept ringing the bell for three hours?”
“You know Kang Eunsoo. He doesn’t know how to give up.”
Yes, that’s right. With his extraordinary competitive spirit and stubbornness, once he starts something, he forgets the original purpose and just obsesses over the act itself – that was Kang Eunsoo. Seyoon groaned, able to clearly imagine Eunsoo, who at first rang the bell to meet Seonwoo, but then, getting angry at him not opening the door when he knew he was inside, just kept ringing the bell like crazy.
“Why are all my so-called friends like this…”
Just as he was about to lament if they were all lacking something, he stopped. No matter how strange Kang Eunsoo’s behavior was, comparing his to Lee Seonwoo would be too much. Lee Seonwoo is a total mess.
“Okay, I get it. I now understand roughly what happened. But… are you going home now?”
“I don’t want to.”
“Why?”
“I think Eunsoo might still be in front of the house.”
“Surely not…”
Even as he said this, Seyoon somehow thought it might be true. Somehow, it seemed like he might be staking out in front of the building with his car parked. Knowing his for so long, he knows Seonwoo’s personality well, so she’s probably guarding the front of the building in case he tries to run away.
“…Then go to your brother’s place.”
As Seyoon suggested in a tone that pleaded, “Please don’t cause me any more trouble,” Seonwoo pouted his lips.
“Hyung left for Africa yesterday.”
“…Africa? Why suddenly Africa?”
“Volunteer work.”
“…Does Seonjung hyung do that kind of thing?”
As Seyoon’s eyes widened, wondering why sudden volunteer work from someone he remembered as being disgusted by even the mention of volunteering due to his parents’ excessive volunteer activities, Seonwoo answered with a sigh.
“He went to shake me off.”
“Ah…”
“How mean. He should at least accept the baby before leaving.”
“I’m sorry, but Seonjung hyung ran away precisely because he didn’t want to accept that baby,” Seyoon muttered inwardly. And moreover, he ran away because he couldn’t handle you anymore and didn’t want to get involved. Even if he blocked your number, you can still find his home or workplace, so he ran away abroad where you absolutely can’t go. Thinking he should have taken a vacation and gone on an overseas trip too if he had known this would happen, Seyoon regretted, but it was already one beat too late. Seonjung hyung is faster than him in these kinds of things.
“Well, okay. Then there’s no helping it. Go to your dormitory then.”
“It’s bothersome. Let me stay here.”
“No.”
“Please let me stay.”
“You might think I’m being cold, but… honestly, I don’t want to get involved with you. At least not in this current situation.”
“Is that why you blocked my number?”
“…You knew?”
“How could I not know?”
At Seonwoo’s sulky face, as if that had hurt him a lot, Seyoon showed a genuinely surprised expression.
“Wow, you’ve improved a lot. When Min-woo blocked your number because you kept pestering him for sperm samples, you went all the way to his company saying he must be busy since he kept not answering your calls, asking for his sperm.”
As Seyoon added, “You were really clueless back then,” Seonwoo answered honestly.
“…I found out then.”
Saying that he learned then that when you’re blocked, you just keep hearing the ringtone, Seonwoo started blinking his eyes as if sleepy. Seeing Seonwoo looking like he might fall asleep at any moment, Seyoon abruptly hit Seonwoo’s knee.
“Hey, don’t sleep.”
“…I’m sleepy.”
“This is not the time for you to be sleepy. If even Eunsoo has come chasing after you, you need to start wrapping up this custody dispute soon.”
“…I know that too.”
Expecting him to still not grasp the situation and keep asking “Why? Why?” and talking nonsense, Seyoon looked surprised at Seonwoo’s unexpectedly normal answer.
“What’s this? You actually understand the seriousness of the situation?”
“Hyung seemed to be getting too tired because of me. He can’t even come home.”
“Why?”
“Just, he seems tired of being with me. He’s been staying at a hotel for five days now.”
Now that he mentioned it, he had vaguely heard something like that from Eunsoo yesterday too. But, that’s extremely strange. With a feeling that his suspicions were turning into certainty, Seyoon frowned as he looked at Seonwoo. He had a sense that what position he took here would be quite important, but since nothing was certain yet, he couldn’t decide how to react.
“Then, what do you want to do?”
“…Of course I want to raise the child myself. Yesterday during the ultrasound, we could already hear the baby’s heartbeat… after hearing that, I wanted to raise it even more.”
At those words that the baby’s heartbeat could finally be heard, Seyoon finally realized the reality that this guy was pregnant. Until now, he had known intellectually that he was pregnant, but it hadn’t really felt real, but hearing that the heartbeat could be heard made it very real that a baby would be born in a few months. Right, this guy is pregnant. And soon a baby will be born. Since it’s not a normal uterus but an artificial one, its shape is smaller and there are limits to nutrient supply, so it needs to be separated at 5 months, which means the baby will be born in about 10 weeks. There’s really not much time left. Two and a half months will pass in the blink of an eye. There’s no sign yet, but his belly might start showing a little soon. The image of a pregnant Lee Seonwoo with a belly was somehow a bit creepy, so he shook that vision from his head. That’s not what’s important right now. While it’s somewhat manageable while the baby is in the womb, once it’s out, even if it’s in an incubator, there’s no turning back. They can’t keep putting it off anymore.
“This is driving me crazy…”
“I know.”
“Don’t just say you know, this is really serious. The baby will be born in just over two months, what are you going to do if there’s still no agreement by then? And who’s going to perform your surgery if your brother isn’t there? Even if it’s outpatient surgery, once the baby is born, your name will be registered as the birth parent, so you can’t hide it anymore. Whether it’s surgery or whatever, you’ll have to inform the research center, and if you do that, the process becomes incredibly complicated.”
Even if he’s the experiment director and says he can handle everything himself, he’ll need the hospital’s help for the separation surgery and raising the child in an incubator afterwards. Thinking about it again, the process is complicated. If a man got pregnant, people from academic circles all over the world would flock to it, and the process of explaining that would be complex, and in that process there would be an uproar over whether it was a natural pregnancy or artificial insemination, and then who’s the baby’s father, is it a sperm donor or someone he knows personally, and even if it’s a sperm donor, since it’s such a unique case, did they get consent for it to be used in this kind of experiment… just thinking about it gives him a headache. This is really no ordinary problem.
“Hey, until now I was only thinking about the legal issues, but… this can’t be dragged out any longer. The doctor performing the surgery needs to understand the mechanism to some extent to do the operation. It’s not something that can be done by just blindly taking out the baby.”
It’s not like they can just do local anesthesia and have Seonwoo watch his own belly being cut open in a mirror while directing the surgery. No, Seonwoo might actually be able to do that, but that’s really something they can’t do to other people, so they need to gather the researchers who did the experiment and prepare. And for that, it’s already too late even now.
“The researchers are all from our team so that’s no problem, and for the doctor… I can ask grandmother to do it. I explained everything to grandmother.”
“She’ll do it?”
“Yeah.”
“How are you going to announce it? After all, it was an experiment done at the National Genetic Engineering Center, so your baby is also an experimental subject.”
“That’s true…”
As Seonwoo nodded in agreement, Seyoon started trying to persuade him more actively this time.
“I understand it’s difficult to handle because there’s never been a case like this before, but tomorrow, explain the situation properly to hyung and work out a solution. Even if it can’t be helped for you, hyung’s identity needs to be protected, so talk about that clearly too and ask him to sign a consent form.”
Seonwoo just scratched his head at those words, seeming to have no rebuttal. Seeing the guy who had lived his whole life without any hardship at a loss in front of his life’s greatest challenge, Seyoon emphasized again, repeating:
“Don’t drag it out any longer. Either you give up, or you persuade hyung, but settle this quickly. If this goes on, something really big could happen.”
Although he really didn’t want to get involved or interfere, feeling he should at least let him know the seriousness of the current situation, Seyoon left his final advice. Seonwoo hung his head with a gloomy face. Seeing that face, which this time seemed to be genuinely contemplating, Seyoon clicked his tongue softly and picked up his teacup. Thinking that while Seonwoo might feel he was being cold, he had given the right advice, Seyoon took a sip of tea and looked back at Seonwoo. And just as he was about to ask if he had made up his mind, he gritted his teeth.
“How can you be sleepy in this situation…?”
Seeing him nodding off again unable to wait even that long, Seyoon was about to kick Seonwoo’s knee to lift his leg, but he gently lowered his leg instead. Right, until just now he had forgotten, but this guy is pregnant. And it’s a very abnormal case of pregnancy at that. Even normal women are said to sleep more and feel more tired when pregnant, so with something in his body that shouldn’t be there, his basal metabolic rate would have increased, leading to increased fatigue and more sleep. Unable to bear it any longer, he kept nodding off and finally collapsed sideways. Seeing this, Seyoon shook his head as if giving up and eventually got up from his seat to bring a blanket from the bedroom and gently cover the soundly sleeping Seonwoo’s shoulders. Then he picked up his phone and started checking the database of alumni contact information. For some reason, he felt like he should call Eungyo hyung. It was just a hunch. Although he couldn’t be certain yet, his instinct told him he should let Eungyo hyung know where this guy was right now. That it was a very wise decision was proven just 20 minutes later.
