“Let’s lower the speed a bit.”
Evan, who had lowered his shoulder so the sleeping Siwoo could lean on him comfortably, looked out the window and spoke quietly. They even attached to the car. Didn’t they take enough photos today?
They were in the middle of a lawsuit over Katie’s incident. He’d also said they would hold media outlets accountable if they purchased the paparazzi’s photos and used them in magazines or broadcasts.
“There are quite a few paparazzi.”
“It’s not like they won’t follow just because we speed up, so please drive safely. We’re going home anyway, and they’re the type who won’t give up until they see us enter the house.”
The paparazzi were a problem, but Jadu and Siwoo’s safety came first.
“Jadu, should we go to Korea?”
Siwoo’s words weighed on his mind. Siwoo always said he enjoyed life in England, that he loved when Evan worked, and that everything was happy.
Was it really? It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that what little freedom remained had completely disappeared with the marriage. From last fall until now, Siwoo had been as good as confined to the house.
Siwoo, whose friends and family were all in Korea, had met fewer than ten people over the past few months. But would he still be happy? What had Siwoo gained from this rare outing?
The most precious person to him was Siwoo. There was no reason to suffer like this in England, tied down by company or work.
“Do you even know where Korea is?”
Jadu, who hadn’t fallen asleep yet and had been moving slowly, moved with a thump as if understanding his question, so Evan touched the spot where Jadu had kicked.
“Let’s meet Fayden tomorrow, and if he says it’s okay, let’s go to Korea. Eat Korean food you like to your heart’s content, excitedly meet the people you like. We should go to a place where there are many fans waiting for our Jadu, right?”
Evan, who touched the seatbelt Siwoo was wearing in case it pressed on his sleeping belly, briefly kissed the sleeping Siwoo’s forehead. He should have been the one to suggest going first—the fact that Siwoo, who usually didn’t make pitiful sounds to him, was saying this meant he was that exhausted and tired.
“Should we go home? It doesn’t look like rain that will stop easily.”
At the driver’s words, Evan lifted his head and clicked his tongue briefly. As the saying goes about bad timing, there had been no rain forecast. But who could predict English weather?
“Not home, let’s go to the officetel on the way. It looks like it’s going to rain quite a bit.”
Seeing the dark clouds heavily settled in the sky and the raindrops gradually getting bigger, Evan said to go somewhere closer than home, which would take quite a while, then released a bit more pheromones.
The bigger Jadu got, the harder it was for Siwoo. His back ached and his belly cramped.
After the morning sickness ended, Siwoo had been eating well for a while, but at some point he’d started eating small amounts. The reason he ate little by little frequently was because his stomach felt upset. At night his legs would swell so Evan would massage them for a long time, and because of Jadu who slept and woke up whenever he wanted regardless of day or night, he’d often lose sleep even at dawn.
Jadu kept kicking his ribs? When that happened, there would be a part that bulged out noticeably. Then Coco would say “Mom hurts. Move your foot over there” while gently pressing with his fingertip.
“Jadu. Now’s not playtime.”
Since he placed his hand on the belly and didn’t move, Evan whispered to Jadu who poked him first from inside, then reluctantly took his hand off Siwoo’s belly. If he kept his hand there, Jadu would definitely keep asking to play.
“Huh… Shit…”
At the curse that rarely could be heard—no, hearing it itself didn’t make sense—from the security guard who had been driving in front, Evan lifted his head. And what Evan saw was headlight beams so strong they were blinding.
At the same time the driver sharply turned the wheel, Evan pulled Siwoo tightly into his arms.
* * *
“Evan, you need to get treated too.”
“What’s the big deal about a split forehead?”
Evan still pressed the gauze someone had given him in the emergency room against his forehead as he entered the hospital, looking at the operating room. Originally, accidents happen in an instant.
A decision he made in an instant had brought this result. Would it have been okay if they’d just gone home? The paparazzi who had naturally expected them to go home seemed to have gotten anxious when the car moved on a different road from the one they knew.
Those bastards had no traffic signals or regulations in their heads.
If it hadn’t been the car newly purchased for Siwoo and Jadu, it might have been a miracle that Evan was standing on his own two feet like this. After the strong impact, when Evan came to his senses, he checked on Siwoo first. When he felt pain above his forehead and his vision turned red along with the feeling of liquid flowing, he cursed first.
Looking at Siwoo who was still breathing evenly, Evan roughly wiped away the blood flowing down one side of his face with his hand. As long as Siwoo wasn’t hurt. With this level of impact, it seemed like he should wake from sleep. The moment he saw Siwoo not budging even when he called his name or shook him, Evan’s heart sank.
The pupils of Evan, who hastily unfastened the seatbelt Siwoo was wearing, shook anxiously.
Evan’s eyes, having wiped the blood flowing from his forehead with his hand, quickly scanned over Siwoo’s body.
Simultaneously with the accident, the security guards’ cars following in front and behind stopped, and without time to call an ambulance, they got in another car and moved to the hospital.
“Contact Siwoo’s primary physician and Fayden.”
Evan’s gaze, which had been stroking Siwoo’s face and stroking his belly, finally landed on Siwoo’s pants that were gradually getting wet.
At the same time they arrived at the hospital, the doctors who had come out with Fayden loaded the unconscious Siwoo onto a bed and disappeared, and in the chaotic situation, Evan was already standing in front of the operating room.
“Siwoo and Jadu will be fine.”
His mother’s words, who had rushed to the hospital upon hearing the accident news, didn’t enter Evan’s ears.
“It’s my fault.”
“Why is it your fault? Those bastards did it.”
“We should have just gone home, but I wanted to go to the officetel…”
“First sit down here. Do you want Siwoo to be shocked seeing how you look when he wakes up?”
Evan, who had been leaning against the wall in front of the operating room looking at the tightly closed door and the lit [Surgery in Progress] sign, finally turned his head.
His mother full of worry and the security guard who accompanied her. He could see security guards standing quite far away too. What’s the point of doing this? What’s the use of blocking others like this?
“…”
“Sit down now.”
When small hands approached him, stroked his arm and pressed on his shoulder, only then did Evan plop down on the folding chair next to him. He let someone in white clothes approach, remove his hand pressing on his forehead, and treat him, and into Evan’s eyes came one person walking from afar.
“You’re here now.”
“Yes. Due to the sudden accident…”
“Let’s skip such formalities. Ha-. We’ve been patient enough all this time. With Katie’s incident and all, this lawsuit is in progress and now this happened. They’ll probably come with bullshit like they slipped on a wet road, so please review attempted murder charges first. As of this time, please block all content about the Lloyd family, including me and Siwoo. The accident news will definitely go out as breaking news or something. Request the media outlets to take that down too.”
Evan’s pupils had darkened to a deep green. He should have listened to Siwoo. When Jadu first came, Siwoo said he wanted to go to Korea, and they should have left when he entered the stable period.
He shouldn’t have fallen for that bright smile saying his work was going so well, that his husband was the best after all.
Despite his mother’s restraint saying to calm down a bit and decide on lawsuits or punishment after seeing the situation first, Evan didn’t stop talking. He’d heard that the condition of the people riding in the car that collided with the car they were in wasn’t good, but that wasn’t important to him.
“Nothing will have happened to Siwoo or Jadu, but regardless of them, I’m proceeding with this lawsuit. There will be no leniency and we’ll continue even if it takes decades. Ah, it doesn’t matter if they died either. It’ll be the paparazzi who caused the accident first. But this lawsuit will apply to all the paparazzi who followed us today. If you look up our live broadcast, their faces will be clearly shown, so it won’t be difficult to find them.”
Evan’s gaze, which had been speaking incessantly, turned back to the operating room.
The road to the hospital holding Siwoo who couldn’t regain consciousness and this moment right now were hell for him. Even when he couldn’t find him, even when he found him but Siwoo didn’t recognize himself, even when they missed each other, it hadn’t been this hard and painful.
Siwoo’s pheromones flowing out from the operating room were far too weak. The pheromones of Siwoo, which had been stable and comfortable until he fell asleep in the car, were roughly fluctuating. Along with Siwoo’s unstable pheromones, Jadu’s pheromones, which had always been spirited, not hiding when sulky or happy, spewing pheromones defiantly at him to show his existence, were also far too fragile.
If Siwoo’s pheromones, not knowing what had happened to him, were full of confusion, then Jadu’s pheromones, who had been playing with him until right before the accident, were full of fear. With the strong impact, the child must have been the first to feel that Siwoo’s pheromones, which always comfortably embraced him, were unstable.
The young child who couldn’t even feel Evan’s pheromones that had protected him along with Siwoo was utterly terrified.
“I think I need to go in.”
Evan, who had been burying his face in his hands while letting out a long sigh, jumped up from his seat. Putting those paparazzi who wouldn’t be satisfied even if torn to death before the court of law wasn’t the problem. He needed to soothe Jadu right now saying it was okay, and he wanted to let Siwoo, who couldn’t wake up, know that he was by his side.
That moment.
Jadu’s pheromones, which had been barely hanging on as if they would break at any moment, disappeared.
Evan, who approached the closed operating room door and was about to open it, was grabbed by his own security guards hired to protect him from others. Jadu disappeared. And by a hair’s breadth, even Siwoo’s pheromones cut off.
The reason he could at least be out here with some rationality had disappeared.
