The moment he recalled that specific person, his brain quickly pulled up a scene engraved in the past.
In an instant, lush tree leaves draped over the old, narrow one-room apartment. Leaves collided with each other in the fierce wind, making a sound like waves.
Under the fragmented sunlight pouring through the gaps between the leaves stood a boy with a still youthful face. A person too tall to be called a boy slowly turned this way. The moment their eyes met and those thin lips parted, Saehyeon shook his head left and right as if shaking off the reverie.
‘…What the fuck are you looking at, I’d said.’
There was no need to recall his first meeting with someone whose very thought left a bitter taste in his mouth, over such an utterly impossible matter. Saehyeon decided to focus on the situation before his eyes again.
“Shall we wash your face?”
When he said that, the child raised his hand and stroked his own cheek. The maple-leaf-like hand placed on the white cheek where tears had dried stiffly was very cute.
When he reached out to pick him up again, the child came into his arms familiarly. Seeing how he immediately rested his cheek on his shoulder and wrapped his arms around his neck, it seemed the daddy he was so desperately searching for often held him.
Taking the earlier incident as a lesson, Saehyeon put strength into his arms and slowly walked toward the bathroom. His limbs still trembled, but he was still able to arrive safely without dropping the child.
The bathroom he entered after much difficulty was small and cozy like the house. A sink placed bare without a bathtub, and next to the toilet, a slightly large basin and plastic chair leaning against it—that was all.
Saehyeon quickly stretched out his foot and dragged the chair in front of the sink. Since his arms had been trembling continuously, he couldn’t be more pleased to see this crude red chair.
Seeing the child climb up familiarly, it seemed his guess that it had been placed there for the child was correct.
“Okay, first wash your hands, then your face.”
“Mmm…”
After roughly pushing up the child’s sleeves, Saehyeon turned the faucet and ran the water. When he placed the fidgeting child’s hands under the stream of water and stepped back, the child looked at him for a moment then started washing his hands on his own.
He’d been wondering if he should help with the washing. But it seemed he didn’t need to.
It was when he, having caught his breath, shook off the remaining moisture on his hands and looked up. Saehyeon’s eyes met directly with a man’s.
It was a man with an overall sickly and haggard impression. Black hair hung limply, having lost its luster and looking dry, and below it, deeply sunken eye sockets and murky pupils could be seen.
His face had no flesh at all, making his jawline and cheekbones prominent, and his ashen complexion looked like it wouldn’t be strange for him to lie in a coffin right now.
His height seemed quite tall, but being too thin negated all of that, giving a relatively diminutive feeling.
‘Why… is this familiar?’
He had no memory of encountering someone who looked like this since he was very young. What was strange was that despite this, this man felt quite familiar.
As if he hadn’t tried to remember, but had encountered him every day. Right. That was exactly the feeling.
Saehyeon took one step toward the man as if entranced. Then, as if responding, the other did the same.
In the eyes of the man who had approached closer, even faint foreign matter could be seen. When he looked carefully, he soon realized it was a stain. It was like a stain the mirror originally had, peeling away like rust slowly spreading from the edges.
The light from the unstably flickering bulb, as if about to go out at any moment, cast over that face like fine noise.
Flicker, flicker, flicker.
The moment that repeated about three times, a lightning-like realization struck his brain.
‘This is me.’
In fact, it had already been confirmed that there was no one else in this narrow, shabby house. Right now in this house, there were only two people: the suspiciously pretty young child and himself.
Outside or in this palm-sized bathroom, there was no space for another person to hide.
“Daddy?”
Saehyeon whipped his head around at the voice that suddenly came. The child with water dripping from his face was looking up at him with eyes mixed with anxiety and worry.
He must have thought it strange that Saehyeon was stuck to the mirror just glaring at it as if he might go inside, not paying any attention to him.
If it had been earlier, he would have worried whether the child might get scared and cry again. So he would have immediately spouted some strange nonsense. For some reason, though, as if his throat was completely blocked, no sound came out properly.
At the same time, he saw the child’s eyes. The child was clearly looking straight at him and calling him. No one else but him.
Daddy.
And the man in the mirror had an unfamiliar appearance but was clearly himself.
“Daddy? What’s wrong… Are you sick again?”
The round eyes and himself reflected in the mirror were pale as if having seen a ghost or corpse. His complexion looked like he could lie in a mortuary right now.
‘Is this a dream?’
He raised his hand, grabbed his cheek, and pulled mercilessly. He pulled hard enough to open his tightly closed mouth, hard enough to make his chapped lips split along the grain and show blood.
But even when his cheek became numb and lost sensation, he didn’t wake from the dream.
When Saehyeon staggered and stepped back, the cold tile wall immediately touched his back. He shivered at that coolness and slowly crouched down as he was.
When he looked down with his creaking neck, he saw trembling hands. Hands thin as branches with ashen veins showing through.
As Saehyeon alternately looked at his own face reflected in the mirror, his corpse-like hands, and the pitiful face of the child clinging to his arm, several memories flashed through his mind.
Things like the thought that the daddy who left such an anxious child behind was wrong, or the child’s reactions that became more intense every time he mentioned the word daddy.
Honestly, he thought it couldn’t be. It was something with absolutely no possibility. Because, after all, he was… a virgin who’d never even held a woman’s hand, wasn’t he?
But when all this information was compiled, if this wasn’t a dream, there was only one answer.
In the end, Saehyeon could only spit out these stupid words to the child who was about to cry.
“…Am I… your daddy…? Maybe?”
Words that sounded like he should be wearing a black iron helmet and swinging a lightsaber.
And so, some strange reality came pouring wholesale into Saehyeon’s ‘probably’ normal life.
***
On a night when darkness had fallen pitch-black, Saehyeon lay sprawled out like he’d lost his soul, with the deeply sleeping child placed beside him.
His mind seemed tattered from being hit several times by this truly nonsensical situation. It meant he’d become the same state as his body.
“Mmm.”
At a sound suddenly heard from beside him, Saehyeon flinched. The child sleeping stuck right next to him was, ‘given the circumstances,’ a child he had given birth to.
Not a child someone else had borne for him, but one he himself had gotten pregnant with and given birth to.
Having faced the shocking truth in the bathroom, Saehyeon immediately ran out and turned the whole house upside down.
To be honest, it seemed he wanted to find evidence to deny this situation by any means. Though everything worked in the opposite direction.
“2025…”
The first thing he recognized was the discrepancy in dates. Among the things he found in the room was a phone with a cracked screen, and since it unlocked with a fingerprint, he could open it without difficulty.
Instead, the date written there was the problem. It was several years after what Saehyeon remembered. The calendar in the house, world clock, and even bills all had the same numbers written on them.
A certain movie’s content suddenly came to mind. A movie with the premise of live-broadcasting the life of one human living in a massive set. Unless all of this was a solid scenario like that, the only thing that made sense was that he had skipped that much time.
‘I’m not some girl who leapt through time.’
And to be precise, this was light-years away from the future he’d envisioned.
As a beta eldest son receiving both the reproach of his patriarchal alpha father and his mother’s urging, Saehyeon’s life plan had been clear since childhood.
Enter a good university and join a major corporation, or take the civil service exam to become a professional. Then he could finally become a child not to be ashamed of. He also had a desire to become an independent adult who didn’t lean on or feel inferior to his family.
But after several years had passed, to have become just an unmarried father raising a child alone in a one-room apartment like this.
After the date, the next thing he checked was a notebook embossed with the phrase “68th Anniversary Commemoration.” It seemed he’d received it as a commemorative gift from somewhere, and inside were scribbled writings densely packed.
It seemed like he’d written briefly and stopped repeatedly. But just because the writer wrote it lightly didn’t mean the content was light as well. Especially for the current Saehyeon.
My body keeps getting worse. At the hospital, they said my pheromone glands were damaged and my system became a mess from going through secondary manifestation, pregnancy, and childbirth all at once, so there’s nothing they can do.
Well, I had nothing to say. I’m the sinner and the dick’s host. No wait, since I was the one who got fucked, at least I’m not the dick, right?
“…What?”
Saehyeon’s eyes went wide. Omega, pregnancy, childbirth. They were all unfamiliar words. And what? Fuc… ked? Gave birth to a child? Me? But I’m a beta?
Moreover, there was an even bigger bombshell after that.
They keep saying the medicine is just a supplementary measure and to bring ‘that alpha partner.’ Fuck. If I could have that kind of relationship with Gil Taeseo, I wouldn’t have ended up here in the first place.
Gil Taeseo. That name came up here. Under the title of alpha partner.
‘I… with him, forget holding hands, I only have memories of grabbing him by the collar?’
