“Who’s that?”
“This kid’s daddy. He says the IV is almost done now.”
*
Coming out of the emergency room, Lee Jeong shrank his body at the cold wind blowing sharply. Though his body still trembled and felt weak, after receiving a whole pack of large IV fluids, he could at least move better than before.
It seemed he had caught a cold from the man. He had tried to sleep for just a moment and wake up, but when he opened his eyes, his body was heavy as if giant lead weights were hanging from it and wouldn’t move as he thought. When he barely managed to lift his feverish eyelids, he saw the Manager’s face looking down at him anxiously and calling his name.
‘Oh my, Lee Jeong-ssi! Goodness, why are you suddenly so sick? This won’t do, we have to go to the hospital.’
Lee Jeong shook his head weakly. With trembling hands, he picked up his cell phone and barely typed out letters to show the Manager. That he had to go get the baby. But the Manager firmly shook her head.
‘No. I’ll call that house for you, so stop by the hospital and at least get an IV. Do you know how hot your body is right now, Lee Jeong-ssi? Your face is pale white, you’ll collapse on the way.’
Fortunately, Yoonkyung, who received the Manager’s call, readily agreed to watch the baby. Even though it was a Saturday when she could finally rest, she showed no sign of reluctance. Since it wasn’t a work day anyway and she had no special plans, she said it was fine, and hearing Yoonkyung’s brightly laughing voice, Lee Jeong’s eyes reddened. She truly was a lifelong benefactor.
‘Let’s go to the hospital. Lee Jeong-ssi. Okay? Min and I will take you.’
Since he had no name, naturally he had no medical insurance either. Fortunately, thanks to the Manager and Min’s consideration, who knew Lee Jeong’s circumstances, he could borrow Min’s name and ID. Grateful to him for readily giving his personal information, Lee Jeong kept bowing even while delirious from illness. The Manager told him not to worry about anything and to rest well, and left after seeing Lee Jeong lie down in the emergency room and get connected to the IV.
Coming out of the emergency room, his head automatically became dizzy in the chilly wind. The cheap padded jumper he was wearing had been put in the washing machine and just run several times, so the cotton had all died, making it unbearably cold even when wearing it. Shrinking his body, Lee Jeong walked with quick steps to the bus stop.
Several taxis with red signs indicating they were available passed by in succession. However, since he didn’t usually take taxis, he didn’t know how warm or comfortable passing taxis were. So there was less temptation. Stamping his feet, Lee Jeong silently waited for the bus. The 6-minute wait time didn’t seem to decrease.
[Feel free to come slowly. My older brother came, so I’m watching Dokyung comfortably together.]
[He bought this much snacks too. lol]
While waiting for the bus, he took out and read Yoonkyung’s message from earlier once again. In the transmitted photo, baby snacks were indeed piled up abundantly. It seemed like more than he had bought for Dokyung in his entire life. Lee Jeong smiled slightly and scrolled down the screen with fingers stiff from the cold. He could also see the reply he had pressed out earlier.
[Thank you. I’m causing too much trouble on a weekend. I’m really sorry.]
[Don’t say such things. Is Dokyung a stranger?]
Along with the warm message, an emoticon of a balding lion holding a baby and lifting him in the air while cooing arrived, and he had sent a reply saying [Thank you.]
While looking again at the text he had sent just a moment ago, a different bus from the one he was originally going to take stopped in front of the station. When all the people who had been waiting together got on, only Lee Jeong remained at the stop.
‘…It’s cold.’
Putting his phone in his pocket, Lee Jeong looked ahead. The road where cars were rushing by was all gray.
Every time he breathed, white breath came out and drew circles like fluffy clouds before soon dispersing. When he blew such white breath in front of Dokyung, he would smile brightly and like it.
Poor thing. Since there are no proper toys to play with, is even something like this fun? His chest ached every time he saw such innocent looks.
He wanted to sell everything he had and give him everything he could give. However, even if he sold his body and sold his soul, even if he gave out all the meager things he had until there was nothing left and the bottom was revealed, it seemed he couldn’t raise him as full and warm as others, so he was always sorry and sorry again to Dokyung.
‘Appa. Daddy. Appappa….’
Every time he heard Dokyung’s innocent voice calling him like that, his chest ached. He cried from gratitude and apology. To Dokyung, his own angel, who called him, a lowly omega with nothing, unable to speak, who just sold his body, daddy, and generously showed him the most beautiful smile in the world.
In a life dirty like filth, Dokyung was the only reason to live, the only existing beauty, and a flower blooming vibrantly while sucking up nutrients from him, who was like manure.
He hadn’t thought that way from when Dokyung first came into his life.
After being suddenly dragged to an unknown place and locked in darkness for several days, Lee Jeong, completely engulfed by the darkness without a sliver of light, eventually began the work of opening his body to men as the broker and Manager instructed.
It wasn’t particularly different from before. Anyway, it was a body he had given to President Park every night. The only difference was that the other party changed in turns. Thinking like that, he tried hard to be detached. Counting the days one by one, he had waited for Wookyung to come save him. Until he realized he had been abandoned.
However, from one day on, his body felt strange.
‘Ahuk, ugh… Haah….’
It seemed the cause was the imprinting with him. As soon as his body separated from his alpha after bonding with him, it desperately longed for his pheromones. The unfulfilled desire ran wild inside his body every day. Moaning like he had a body ache, Ido panted.
He desperately, truly desperately missed a sliver of Wookyung’s pheromones that had left traces on his body. Even if he received pheromone showers from other men who were alphas, the heat in his body didn’t subside. Rather, it only brought greater pain.
Every night, clutching his chest that burned as if on fire, Ido cried. He didn’t know if it was because of resentment toward the man who had imprinted such burning emotions on him yet still hadn’t come to save him, or because of the imprinting pain engulfing his body.
Moreover, as if adding insult to injury, a pain subtly different from the imprinting pain was also budding together inside his body.
‘…Urk.’
He kept feeling nauseous, and when he ate something, his stomach churned and he vomited it out. He felt dizzy and experienced vertigo. Above all, even when he received an alpha male, his body didn’t go into heat.
He could tell instinctively. He was pregnant.
Just before leaving Daneum, President Park, who had toyed with him every night, had from one day been absorbed in playing with a new toy. Rather than directly ejaculating inside, he enjoyed tormenting Ido in other directions by tying or hitting him. So it had been quite a while since he had received his thing inside his body.
However, Wookyung, whom he met secretly every morning, always held him, and also….
His vision became distant. They say the more dominant, the easier to impregnate, and it was true. Ido had never experienced this even once when he received the thing of President Park, a recessive alpha, every day for several months. Gathering and fitting together several scattered circumstances, ultimately only one clear fact remained. Looking at that painfully engraved fact, Ido blankly wrapped his belly skin with his hand.
He was carrying Wookyung’s baby.
‘…I’m crazy. What do I do….’
Ido gnawed on his pale lips. Until his red lips caught between his teeth split and the sharp, fishy taste of blood circulated in his mouth, Ido paced around the room frantically like a beast trapped in a narrow cage.
He couldn’t work in a place like this with a body carrying a baby. If the Manager or broker found out, they would immediately make him have surgery.
However, Ido wanted to protect the baby.
Though Ido later recalled it was a foolish belief, the Ido of that time truly believed. That someday he would definitely come looking for the baby and him. Then this nightmare-like reality that wouldn’t end would also end. Until then, he wanted to wait for Wookyung while nurturing the precious child in his belly. That was because at that time he still didn’t know he had been abandoned by Wookyung.
‘Dokyung. Our Dokyung… Yoon Dokyung.’
He even secretly gave a name. It was a name taking one character each from the name of the person he loved and his own name. Calling out alone a name that would suit whether a girl or boy, Ido smiled bashfully even in sadness.
‘You’ll come. You… someday, you’ll come.’
With such foolishly strong belief, he endured each day.
‘Urk, urgh….’
‘Is this crazy, for a cheap whore. You’re gagging?’
The fortunate point was that the morning sickness wasn’t very severe. However, since it wasn’t completely absent either, he would sometimes gag while having relations with men. Each time, he would be severely beaten or cursed at. The Manager, hearing the story from customers, would curse and starve Ido each time.
‘Unless you’re crazy, gagging while receiving customers?! Don’t eat. You’re gagging because your stomach is too full.’
Locked in a narrow room without even one window, Ido cried. Holding his starving belly that made rumbling sounds and shedding endless tears, even in the midst of that, he worried about the baby in his belly. What about our baby if I starve like this, our Dokyung is in the middle of growing, what about our baby if I can’t eat like this….
While others would properly take care of things like vitamins or health checkups on time and raise their children comfortably in the belly, these were things Ido couldn’t even dream of. For Ido, maintaining the pregnancy was the best he could do. Every time he opened his eyes from sleep, Ido felt relieved. About the fact that he was still safely keeping the baby in his belly. And about the fact that the nightmare he had every night was just a dream.
The nightmare he had more than dozens of times was always the same. The man in the wheelchair, the broker, and the Manager stood with cold expressions, and Ido was kneeling like a sinner before them. Toward Ido like that, they commanded in fierce tones. To get rid of the baby. That it interfered with receiving customers.
No matter how much he cried and begged in front of them, it was useless. Some days he tried running away in the dream. Running and running until his whole body was drenched in sweat, when he opened his eyes with a start, it was already evening. He always received customers all night and fell asleep like fainting only when morning came, but even sound sleep without nightmares didn’t seem to be allowed to Ido.
