Since he couldn’t go to the hospital, he couldn’t even know the baby’s health condition. Once, he earnestly begged the Manager and barely escaped using a cold as an excuse to go to the obstetrics department, but the only answer that came back was “there’s no registered medical insurance.” Hearing those words, Ido realized that the moment he was sold off here, his name was erased from the world.
It was a pregnancy period with nothing but pain and tears, far from blessings. On top of that, after learning the fact that he was abandoned by Wookyung, really, he couldn’t go on anymore. While he was forgetting him and living well, he felt like an idiot for trying to give birth to and raise his child alone.
He just wanted to disappear from this world. There was no hope at all. It felt like wandering through a cave looking at only one light, then suddenly that light went out and he was left alone in complete darkness. After agonizing over whether to abort the child, Ido changed the direction of his thoughts.
He wondered if he should just die. There was no longer any reason or hope to live. There was no justification for cruelly removing only the child from his belly and struggling to live on alone. Ido watched for an opportunity and aimed for when he was alone. Because there were many omegas who took their own lives, the surveillance at the establishment was tighter than expected.
One day while watching for an opportunity to end his life like that, when the child kicked his ribs hard, Ido unknowingly carelessly spoke to the child.
‘Ow. Dokyung… Daddy’s stomach hurts… Stop kicking.’
The moment he said those words to the child, suddenly tears dropped from his eyes.
He thought he was alone, trapped without light in a cave. However, unlike him wandering in fear in the black darkness, in his belly that was equally dark, the child was resting comfortably and growing day by day. He could feel it through the kicks vigorously striking his ribs. That the child was growing healthily.
He wasn’t alone. He tried to end this life as he pleased, but it wasn’t time yet. Someone was holding his ankle with fern-like hands as he tried to shake off his feet and leave without any lingering attachment.
He couldn’t bring himself to die together with this young thing asserting that he was alive here. Ido sat down in that spot shedding tears.
‘Dokyung. Daddy… Daddy… is sorry. Daddy was… wrong. Such a young you… I’m sorry.’
Like that, Ido struggled to live on with the child. It was still a life with no answer or light visible, but he just endured.
There was no grand justification for opening his eyes, breathing, and living each day. Simply because the force of the child kicking in his belly grew stronger day by day, because he couldn’t bring himself to do something to such a child. He just decided to live however things went.
One fortunate point was that Ido’s frame was very thin and small.
Until mid-pregnancy passed, Ido didn’t get caught by anyone about the pregnancy. Though there were occasional regular customers who reproached him asking why he gained so much weight, to the point where even the sharp-eyed Manager didn’t know, his belly barely showed signs of swelling.
However, when he reached about 8 months pregnant, he could no longer hide it. While still not showing when wearing clothes, when naked, anyone could see his belly was swollen round, looking like someone carrying a baby.
‘Manager, I’m not into that kind of preference.’
‘What? What do you mean….’
‘No, how could you put a pregnant person in the room? I’m not into such perverted preferences. Geez, I came to relieve stress but it completely killed the mood.’
It was a day when his belly had swollen to the point of being breathless. When Ido, assigned to a customer’s room, slowly took off his clothes in front of the customer while hiding his troubled feelings, the man who had been rushing in excitedly frowned deeply and showed reluctance. Grumbling and cursing, he picked up his clothes to put them on, then he called the Manager and complained at length, eventually getting replaced with a different omega.
The Manager dragged Ido away and cursed at him thoroughly.
‘Are you crazy? You’re pregnant? And you hid it until now?! Why make things bigger, why! You should have said it earlier!’
The enraged Manager threw a cigarette pack and screamed. Ido could only shed tears with his head lowered before her.
‘What are you going to do now, where can we remove such a big baby!’
‘Please… I’m begging you. Manager-nim, please….’
With a pale face, Ido quickly approached and kneeled before the Manager.
‘Let me give birth. Please… Please….’
‘Ha, Lee Jeong, you really….’
‘Please. I’ll give birth to the baby and come right back to work. Okay?’
‘Then what are you going to do with that crying baby brat!’
To the Manager screaming loudly, Ido shed tears while clasping his hands together and begging earnestly.
‘I’ll, I’ll take care of it myself. I’ll leave it somewhere. Please. Please just, let me give birth to the baby.’
‘Haah….’
Even he didn’t know. Why he was begging the Manager to let him give birth like this.
It was a life that might have perished together with his own life that he once wanted to give up. It was a small ember he tried to let go from his hand because it was too hot and burdensome to hold.
However, as Ido’s belly swelled round, the baby increasingly grew its presence. After giving Ido the realization that he wasn’t alone, the baby gradually expanded its place inside Ido.
And one day when he came to his senses, the baby had become the only thing he had to protect.
‘Please… Please… If you don’t, don’t let me give birth to the baby… I’ll, die. Huk, keup, heu….’
The Manager, who exhaled a long sigh, roughly swept up her hair and lit a cigarette. Before her looking at him as if absurd, Ido continued crying, then threatening, then crying again and clasping and rubbing his hands together. After watching Ido crying and talking incoherently for a long time, only after a while did she sigh and bluntly say.
‘First of all, I don’t know anything about this. Even if Yeodan asks, no one knows you’re carrying a baby. Understand?’
‘Yes, yes.’
Sniffling, Ido nodded as if his head would fall off.
‘Come back right after giving birth to the baby. Take care of leaving the baby somewhere else yourself.’
‘Yes, I will.’
‘Haah… You know you have no name, right? You’ll have to have illegal surgery. I’ll look into a hospital for you, but you take responsibility for everything afterwards.’
Hearing the Manager’s words, Ido unconditionally nodded. Though the Manager usually managed omegas without mercy, she was also a mother of a child in the end. Despite having seen pregnant omegas more than once or twice, she couldn’t help but soften her heart seeing Ido begging desperately to protect the child.
Eventually, with the Manager’s acquiescence, Ido gave birth to the child.
After receiving surgery and waking from anesthesia, Ido opened his eyes in a dark, pitch-black room. The words of medical staff giggling and joking outside asking what to eat for lunch could be heard as is.
As the anesthesia gradually wore off, Ido moaned. He wondered if the child was born well, if fingers and toes were attached properly, but there was no one beside Ido. Terribly sharp pain felt from the operated lower abdomen split his body. Drenched in cold sweat, Ido lost consciousness again.
The child born without receiving anyone’s blessings was fortunately healthy. After regaining consciousness and holding the child, Ido touched the child’s face with trembling fingers. The child was so small and fragile that thinking about dying together with the child felt like such a great sin. And he resembled that hatefully missed person like a carbon copy.
Though he hated this child’s father who made him give birth to the child alone so much, at the same time he wanted to see him madly. That your child was born this healthy and well. That it was a son who resembled you so much. He wanted to place the peacefully sleeping child in his arms, look down at the child together and say words of blessing. And he wanted to cry and act spoiled saying it was so hard raising and protecting the child alone in his belly all this time.
Then Wookyung would hold him tenderly. Saying he really worked hard all this time, offering that broad chest saying to hit him to his heart’s content as much as he hated him. Even if he made a fist with hateful feelings and struck down several times, eventually the anger would dissipate futilely quickly. Anyway, if only he would be together… it seemed like he could somehow forget the hardships until now. Though it would take a long time.
However, Wookyung’s face overlapping exactly on the child’s face vanished futilely like a mirage. That he gave birth to your child, that now in this darkness there are only this baby and me. So it’s too cold and frightening. No matter how much he cried out in his heart, it was useless. Like continuously talking into a radio with communication already cut off, an answer never came back in the end.
Now really, there were only this child and him in this world. The impulse to hold the baby and run far, far away rose to the tip of his throat. He wanted to live with just the child and himself in a place where no one existed. Unable to bring such an impossible wish outside his mouth, Ido sobbed while stroking the child. Even during the few days of holiday given as if doing a favor to recover his body, guards stood watch like iron walls in front of Ido’s room. In case the omega who gave birth to the baby might run away.
Though only 3 days had passed since giving birth to the baby, he had to prepare to part with the child now. Even though he couldn’t properly recover his body, there was no more time. Ido, belonging to the organization, was living in a small room arranged in a corner of the establishment, and he couldn’t keep the crying baby there forever.
‘Dokyung, I’m sorry. I’m too… sorry. I’ll definitely come get you. Definitely….’
It was an extremely windy and cold day. Having just placed the blood-soaked newborn in front of the facility’s baby box, his footsteps turning away wouldn’t fall at all. Crying loudly, Ido pressed the bell at the door.
The wind penetrating with a whoosh was fiercely strong. Stamping his feet anxiously, Ido hugged the baby even more tightly to his gaunt bosom.
Our baby, what if you catch a cold like this… They need to come out quickly and take the baby…
-Who is it?
‘……’
He couldn’t answer. Sobbing, Ido put down the baby firmly wrapped in a blanket in front of the facility. The blood-soaked infant who knew nothing was just sleeping peacefully with eyes closed. My baby, still with the redness not yet faded, so very fragile.
Ido pressed his tear-soaked lips to the baby’s forehead. And he opened his parched lips. He said what he really wanted to say with all his heart. To the baby he wouldn’t be able to see for a while.
