I don’t know what words to start with.
Remember we slept together a month ago? Actually, I think I got pregnant then.
Is that too heavy? Should I be lighter?
Sorry for saying let’s pretend it didn’t happen, but I’m pregnant! Shocking, right? Haha, for me too!
……Is that too light?
How exactly do you come out as pregnant anyway?
Well, normally the situation wouldn’t be like this. It’s not like we’d be in such an absurd relationship as “childhood friend and housemate who unavoidably slept together once by accident.”
I opened and closed my lips several times. I wanted to talk about it without being too heavy, but since the agenda was what it was, it wasn’t easy to choose my words.
After being lost in thought for a while, I shifted my gaze that had been wandering over the table and saw Won Dogyeong fiddling with the sleeves of the sweatshirt he was wearing across the dining table.
If you fiddle with it like that, it’ll stretch out.
I absentmindedly stared blankly at that sight, then the fidgeting hands suddenly stopped and moved my gaze upward.
Because he’d been chewing on them so hard, his plump lips had turned red with blood. Before I could even open my mouth, he opened his lips that he’d been chewing messily.
“I’ll be out of the house often.”
Won Dogyeong was leaning back in his chair pretending to be calm, but the words he blurted out ended gloomily sunken.
“When you’re here, I won’t even come out to the living room.”
He gauged my reaction and added quietly.
“If that’s uncomfortable too, I’ll only come in when you’re not here.”
“What are you talking about?”
“So don’t move out.”
I couldn’t follow what he was talking about at all and just raised my eyebrows.
Did he think I wanted to move out? Because Won Dogyeong made me uncomfortable?
Of course it was a bit awkward, but until I found out about the pregnancy, I hadn’t thought that at all. Why would I leave such a comfortable, spacious, nice house?
And I liked living with Won Dogyeong itself too.
I liked drinking and watching TV in the living room late at night, and I liked having someone waiting when I came home. I liked going around on weekends to spontaneously check off restaurant lists we wanted to try, and occasionally after enduring heat alone, I liked when Won Dogyeong came home carrying something delicious.
If neither of us got married, I thought it would be nice to keep living like this.
Looking back now, when he asked before if I’d keep staying in this house, was that because he thought I might move out?
His request not to move out was unexpected, if anything.
Because throughout the five years of living together, Won Dogyeong had never really shown much satisfaction with our living situation. He was always scolding me to come home earlier when I came in late from things like company dinners, so I’d secretly wondered if he regretted letting me into the house.
Well, I’ve never directly said things like I like living with you either.
That aside, why on earth was he saying he wouldn’t come home?
“You’re the one paying rent, what are you talking about? Why would you vacate the house? If anyone’s leaving, it should be me.”
This wasn’t what I meant to talk about, but I was so dumbfounded that the words that came to mind popped out on their own.
“It’s my house so it’s up to me. Don’t move out. I’ll let you live here while seeing my face as little as possible.”
“Then is that even a home? Where would you live?”
“I said I’d live here. I just won’t come in often.”
“Don’t make me say the same thing again. If you’re not coming in often, where will you be when you’re not coming in?”
“I don’t know. A hotel or whatever.”
Won Dogyeong kept snapping with a sullen face. That clamped mouth showed his stubborn bull-headedness that had continued since childhood, poking its head out, making me keep sighing.
“Why do you have to do that anyway?”
He peeled his back off the chair where he’d been leaning pretending to be relaxed and straightened his posture as if entering battle mode. Then he began firing off rapidly in a low voice.
“……You were going to say you’re moving out, weren’t you?”
“Ah…… that is, um.”
“You can’t stand to see my face anymore so you’re moving out, right? When you said let’s forget it since we slept together by mistake, but then you avoided me the entire month.”
I thought I heard the sound of him grinding his teeth in the middle.
“Do you think I don’t know you’re deliberately leaving early and coming home late?”
“That was because it was a bit awkward….”
“You were looking at rental places.”
I did look. If I was going to have a baby, it would be really awkward to return to my parents’ house.
But how did he know?
“You left your phone lying around with the real estate app open, so I happened to see it.”
Ugh. It was my carelessness for thoughtlessly going about as I always did without thinking.
“So if you’re doing this because I make you uncomfortable, don’t move out. I’ll be careful not to run into you.”
A fundamental question arose in my mind.
“Why?”
“……”
“Why do you want to keep me in this house so badly?”
“I told you. I don’t like living alone.”
“It doesn’t have to be me.”
“Other people are uncomfortable, I don’t like them.”
“But going around like you don’t exist isn’t uncomfortable?”
Won Dogyeong turned his head to the side and clamped his mouth shut. It was a silent sign that he wouldn’t talk anymore. When he made that face, he wouldn’t open his mouth even if he died until he felt like it.
A sharp silence like dissonance flowed.
I carefully examined Won Dogyeong sitting in front of me.
It seemed he’d been home all day, and somehow today he seemed to have done his hair simply, and his clothes were neat for house clothes. Unlike his sharp eyes under neatly arranged eyebrows that were frozen in displeasure, his complexion was bright, probably because he’d rested well these past few days.
He’s handsome. While someone else is worn out from work and hearing a hundred times if they’re sick.
Haa. How would I know what’s going on in that guy’s head?
I gave up trying to figure him out.
If you don’t want to talk, don’t. I’ll just say what I have to say.
“I’m pregnant.”
Won Dogyeong, who had been blinking with displeasure while staring at the edge of the table, stopped as if broken, then turned his head very slowly. It was a creaking movement as if forcibly twisting stiffly frozen neck muscles.
I waited quietly. Until he moved his lips in confusion and spat out a single word dully.
“Mine……”
“Yeah.”
His face, which had closed with a shocked expression, gradually sank darkly. Below his tensed brow, his pupils were shaking mercilessly, showing what he was thinking.
It was a clear rejection. My heart sank.
Countless scenes I’d imagined flashed through my mind. I’d expected he wouldn’t be happy, but facing it directly in front of my eyes was much more painful than I’d thought. I’d resolved to let go of all expectations, but now that it came down to it, I resented him a little.
You don’t have to hate it that much.
Only after facing his reaction in front of my eyes did I realize that in a corner of my heart, I’d been holding faint optimism that things would somehow work out. Because Won Dogyeong sometimes casually let my unreasonable demands slide.
I might have been unconsciously acting spoiled based on that tolerance.
I didn’t want to hear what he would say. A vague fear rose that whatever words came out of Won Dogyeong’s mouth would become a dagger stuck in me.
I hurriedly continued speaking.
“I’m planning to have it. Sorry for deciding on my own. If I don’t have it this time, I don’t know if I’ll be able to have one again or not.”
I said that, but it wasn’t just such a simple reason.
The decisive factor in deciding to have it was actually because if it was Won Dogyeong’s child, I felt I could love it enough. If the person I’d spent heat with was someone else, I wouldn’t have even considered the option of having an unplanned child.
When I thought about the child in my belly, I kept overlapping it with young Won Dogyeong stubbornly sulking. Now he’s an adult bristling with thorns, but when he was young, he was a cute child who cried and laughed easily. Though he was a bit snappy.
If it resembled Won Dogyeong, it wasn’t hard to imagine what face the child would have, what personality, and what kind of days it would spend with me.
I could tell without seeing. It seemed like it would be quite enjoyable.
And they might grow into an adult who was prickly but took good care of others and whose specialty was cooking. They might study hard even though they didn’t like it. They might have talent in acting too.
Taking after someone.
……Won Dogyeong might not want to see that.
My mood crashed to the floor in an instant. I gloomily traced the table’s pattern with my eyes, then carefully raised my head.
He was just staring straight at me with wide eyes. Even though it couldn’t be, I thought I saw some kind of anticipation wavering deep in his eyes.
It must be my imagination.
If I saw something, it would be a trace of my own hope reflected in his eyes. The hope that everything would be resolved smoothly, that is.
I avoided his gaze again and focused on the logo of the navy sweatshirt.
Why did he have to pull that out to wear today of all days? I became even more restless.
“Don’t misunderstand. I just thought you should know, so I’m telling you. I don’t intend to burden you.”
I spat out the words I’d hastily prepared. Before hearing an answer I couldn’t handle, I wanted to spread a defensive line to let him know he didn’t have to do anything.
Not knowing with what expression Won Dogyeong, who had been silently listening to the words pouring out in front of him, was clenching his fists.
“I’ll take care of the child myself.”
“Why?”
Won Dogyeong abruptly cut off my words.
“Why are you taking care of it yourself?”
On his face that I met after tearing my gaze from the logo I’d been looking at as if escaping, rage burning blue was spreading like flames. He clenched his teeth as if suppressing the emotions that instantly swelled and surged.
I was a bit flustered and lowered my eyes diagonally while muttering what I was going to say.
“……I mean, you don’t need to force yourself to take responsibility.”
