“Why?”
Hyedam just shrugged his shoulders while facing Junseok, who was looking at him with a puzzled expression. Are you confused too? I’m confused too.
A situation where he couldn’t eat his favorite gopchang with soju—on top of that, all he’d eaten today was a bit of bread and coffee for breakfast, ice water and yuzu tea he drank when meeting Luna.
Normally, it would be a situation where his stomach lining would high-five his back, not enough even if he inhaled it like crazy, but the symptoms Hyedam was experiencing were motion sickness and no appetite.
“My stomach isn’t great…… Urp.”
Hyedam, who had been answering Junseok’s expression that contained the question of why he wasn’t eating when it was well-cooked while flipping the gopchang so it wouldn’t burn, bolted up and ran to the bathroom. Gripping the toilet and dry heaving several times—having eaten nothing, there was nothing to come out. Eventually, Hyedam came to the sink, washed his face with cold water, and rinsed his mouth.
Usually when he had indigestion, skipping a few meals would make it better, but now it was getting worse if anything, with no sign of improvement at all. Lying face down and dry heaving—whether it was because of that, all the strength drained from his body and his vision even turned black, so Hyedam stood still while gripping the sink.
After his vision that had turned black and seemed to sparkle with stars gradually returned to normal and the dizziness disappeared, only then did Hyedam slowly exhale the breath he’d been holding.
“Are you okay?”
When Hyedam’s gaze met with Junseok, who was standing beyond the mirror with a worried expression—when had he come—Hyedam slowly nodded his head.
“Your condition is really not good?”
“I went on a trip for the first time in my life, so my body must not be adapting. As expected, a pine caterpillar should eat pine needles……”
“Hey, hey. If you’re not feeling well, just go home. Meat and soju when you have indigestion is really not it.”
“Even if I can’t drink soju, I can eat gopchang!”
“Don’t be stubborn.”
“It’s because I haven’t eaten. Because I haven’t eaten. I’m telling you I’ll be fine if I eat, I couldn’t eat properly today so I need to eat meat and restore my body.”
Pushing past Junseok, who was blocking the door with his large frame, Hyedam returned to his seat and glared at the gopchang that was sizzling, beyond being cooked and about to burn, while furrowing his brow.
His stomach seemed more comfortable than before, but he absolutely couldn’t muster the courage to pick up and eat the gopchang. He didn’t want to have another meeting with the toilet after eating……
Hyedam didn’t stop Junseok, who had followed, from pushing all the gopchang to one side and ordering additional beef. Waiting for the beef to cook and drinking a bit of carbonated drink instead of soju, Hyedam suppressed his anxious feelings and carefully picked up and ate a piece.
‘Huh? Beef is okay?’
Just looking at gopchang made him feel greasy, but the beef was edible, so Hyedam smoothly ate another piece.
“When did I tell you to go to the hospital, and you don’t eat properly every day and just drink every night. That’s why you get stomach problems. Do you think you’re still twenty? And I told you to exercise. If you exercise hard and shower with cold water, how refreshing……”
At the nagging that continued, Hyedam made a gopchang wrap stuffed full of garlic and shoved it into Junseok’s mouth.
“I’ll go. I’ll go. I’ll make a hospital appointment first thing tomorrow morning and get a comprehensive checkup, so stop it. I’ll get more indigestion from the nagging.”
“Promise you’ll exercise too.”
Though he’d put in a lot of spicy raw garlic, at Junseok’s words as he just slightly furrowed his brow and chewed and swallowed it with crunching sounds, Hyedam shook his head.
“Ugh. Do you really want to die?”
“Last time you came saying you’d exercise, you fidgeted around a few times and just ate gopchang to your heart’s content and left.”
“I hate sweating the most.”
Though he bickered with Junseok and picked up and ate a few pieces of beef, in the end he couldn’t eat even half his usual amount and eventually had to put down his chopsticks.
After putting the drunk Junseok in a taxi and heading home, when his stomach became uncomfortable again, Hyedam took slow deep breaths. It would be nice to go home pleasantly tipsy, wash up cleanly, and fall asleep, but standing alone on the night street with a clear mind, Hyedam adjusted his collar and looked around.
He’d thought earlier it was more uncomfortable because of an empty stomach, but even after filling his stomach to some degree the discomfort continued, so all that came out was sighs. Uncomfortable when empty, uncomfortable when full. Though these were things he usually felt when he had indigestion, in this unfamiliar situation where dizziness was layered with chest tightness, what caught his eye was a large hospital.
Would he go home in this state and experience an uncomfortable situation all night, or would he at least go to the emergency room to get roughly diagnosed and take medicine—the contemplation wasn’t very deep. Why was there a large hospital in view from the gopchang restaurant of all places—sighs continuously flowed from Hyedam’s mouth as he walked on his own feet to the emergency room, facing the cold winter wind.
Throughout December, the words he’d carried on his lips like a joke were: it’s hard, I’m sleepy, I’m tired, I’ll definitely get a comprehensive checkup next year. These kinds of words—who knew he’d seek out the emergency room on his own feet?
Should I just go back since it seems like severe indigestion? No, wouldn’t it be better to take medicine or get an IV rather than not sleeping all night with this discomfort?
If I’m groaning in front of Leo tomorrow, he’ll spout things like why are you sick, where does it hurt, let’s go to the hospital together without hesitation and take me to the hospital without even thinking about schedules—as that was drawn before his eyes, strength entered his hesitating steps.
Sitting on a bed he’d been given while being far too fine among emergency patients, Hyedam could only scratch his cheek in embarrassment.
“Patient Lee Hyedam.”
“Ah, yes.”
“Where are you uncomfortable that brought you here?”
“I can’t eat properly and feel nauseous like motion sickness, dry heaving and dizziness too……”
Hyedam’s voice explaining his condition to the doctor gradually became smaller. Now that I’m saying it out loud, doesn’t it seem like really nothing?
“Let’s look at the blood test and urine test results first and proceed with additional treatment.”
While moving according to the doctor’s prescription, Hyedam kept regretting it. I should’ve just gone home, washed up, and slept. Until entering the hospital, his stomach that had been severely churning became comfortable at some point. Rather, sleep and fatigue rushed in, and the desire to lie down on his own soft bed surged wildly.
It was because he heard nagging like go to the hospital, exercise. If he hadn’t heard those words, he wouldn’t have impulsively come to the hospital. What kind of nuisance is this in an emergency room with many busy and urgent patients?
“Urine test results…… omega center……”
Shortly after, the night emergency room doctor on duty, worn out from fatigue, came to the bed where Hyedam had been dozing off unable to overcome the rushing sleep, and rattled off while looking at the chart in a businesslike voice. Though he listened to his words with concentration, question marks filled Hyedam’s face as he couldn’t properly understand the unfamiliar and bewildering content that continued.
“What? Why would I go to an omega center?”
“The test results show a small amount of……”
“So you’re saying I’m pregnant? Why?”
“……Because you had relations with an alpha without contraception.”
There was no emotion in the voice of the doctor answering while pushing up his slightly slipped glasses with his fingertips. Where could there be a more stupid question and absurd answer than this?
He couldn’t even bring up the garbage question of whether he was really an omega. Since he’d come this far, with the words to get nutritional supplements, rest, and go as the end, the doctor disappeared.
Left alone to receive an IV in the noisy emergency room, Hyedam raised his hand to cover his eyes. They said they put a bunch of stuff in the IV—his stomach that had faint churning remaining calmed down, and the dizziness that rushed in moment by moment disappeared. Though his body that had felt heavily pressed might have become comfortable, his head felt like it would burst from the complicated situation.
“Huh? You…… what?”
After lying on the cold hospital bed and finishing the IV for almost two hours, the place Hyedam headed wasn’t his home or Leo’s home but Junseok’s home. Rather than tossing and turning alone all night with a complicated head, he wanted to be with someone.
“A person.”
“You didn’t go home? What time is it now……”
“The boiler at home broke so it’s cold. I’ll sleep here and go to work.”
When Junseok, who had been getting up disheveled at the presence he made, fell back asleep, Hyedam found his own clothes he’d left at his place, put them on, and entered the bed where he was lying rather than the floor.
Though he grumbled something, perhaps feeling him burrow in while sleeping, but whether the rushing sleep came first, when Junseok fell asleep, Hyedam lay down using his arm as a pillow.
“What?”
Normally he would have taken out a blanket and slept on the floor. But not tonight—not right now, he didn’t want to do that. When one person with a similar build and equally high body temperature came to mind, pain like someone tightly squeezing his heart rushed in.
“I said I’m cold. You’re warm.”
Though he’d told him to go down, at the words that he was cold, Junseok grumblingly obediently gave his arm and covered him with the blanket. Clearly someone was comfortably holding him and sleeping while breathing evenly—it seemed the same, but it was different. There was no faint coffee scent, no occasional tight embrace that made it hard to breathe. The dimple of Hyedam, who lay on his side using Junseok’s arm as a pillow, deepened.
A child? Suddenly? I was really an omega?
If the coffee scent he’d felt was really Leo’s pheromone, and the bread smell he’d occasionally smelled recently was really his pheromone……
Though he hadn’t answered precisely, he, who knew Leo was an alpha, should have been careful. He’d thought too complacently that it would be okay because he was vaguely an omega when young and the trait had disappeared.
What do I do about this? Should I tell him? If I tell him, what changes?
Suddenly recalling the conversation he’d had in passing with Luna, Hyedam squeezed his eyes shut.
Leo, who had chosen him because he was a beta, said he didn’t like children. He dislikes children, dislikes omegas. Now he had nothing left that Leo would like.
Throughout the night, biting his lips firmly, slowly closing and opening his eyes, and taking deep breaths, one of Hyedam’s hands was placed on his lower abdomen.
