***
After nearly one shichen had passed, the sex organ that had swelled to its fullest gradually reduced in size. The Emperor suddenly spread wide the slender thighs of Sansan that he’d been massaging to prevent pain. Sansan, who had been lying on his side, lay flat on his back and vacantly swept his dull eyes meaninglessly over the canopy bed’s ceiling.
“San-ah.”
“……”
“San-ah, am I not calling you?”
“……Yes.”
“The child’s fortune only went that far, so don’t dwell on it anymore. You don’t need to feel guilty either. You simply met your hilakgi.”
Sansan gave no answer. The Emperor, thinking he couldn’t be fine right away anyway, carefully withdrew his sex organ, which had completely returned to its original size, from inside Sansan with determination.
“Hngh!”
The Emperor’s thing flowed out like a snake.
“Ah.”
After the jade stalk had all withdrawn and some time had passed, blood water poured out in a stream from Sansan’s secret place, which didn’t close right away but gaped open, showing its inner flesh.
It was a sensation he could never forget for his whole life. Though Sansan was slower than others, he still seemed to understand what that meant. Sansan hesitantly sat up his upper body. Sitting with his legs spread wide open, he looked down emptily between them.
That must have once been something with life. That fragile life that had been conceived in his belly.
Sansan couldn’t take his eyes away from between his legs.
“Don’t look.”
The Emperor covered Sansan’s two eyes. Sansan stayed still as the Emperor did.
“Summon Imperial Physician Do at once.”
The Emperor shouted toward beyond the curtains. Sansan, who had been docile with his eyes covered, couldn’t endure long and fell backward as he was.
***
Sansan hemorrhaged for five days after that. However, the amount wasn’t much, and since things that needed to come out were coming out, there was no problem. Sansan’s body was recovering quickly without major issues, better than expected.
Imperial Physician Do brewed Gunggwitang and Useultang morning and evening and offered them to Sansan.
After that day, Sansan didn’t bring up any words about that matter. He hardly spoke at all. But since he didn’t cause problems like having fits or refusing medicine, the Emperor decided to wait and see for now. He intended to give him time to collect his heart.
For several days, Sansan spent each day as if he was someone who remembered nothing, not even looking for a pillow, just blankly staring out the window all day long. The Emperor rather wished Sansan would lose his memories. So he hoped it would pass hazily like that.
However, how could that be? As if mocking such a wish from the Emperor, on the seventh day after the miscarriage, milk began to come in Sansan’s body.
“Though extremely rare, there are occasionally cases where due to changes in qi and blood after miscarriage, the body mistakenly thinks it has given birth and milk comes in. However, unlike after childbirth, the act of expressing milk is not recommended after miscarriage. This is because it can greatly strain the body. Therefore, only when discomfort is reported should breast milk be expressed and cold compresses applied to reduce swelling. If Mama is not uncomfortable, it’s best to leave it as is. Even so, it usually disappears naturally in about seven days.”
Unfortunately, Sansan complained of pain. The milk had to be expressed, but the Emperor didn’t allow leaving it to palace ladies. Even if he was a cheonin, he had a man’s body, so the Emperor couldn’t stand seeing him doing such things with a woman.
Palace eunuchs or physicians were the same. Sansan’s breasts had just started to rise with buds swelling up. He couldn’t let men touch Sansan’s breasts. In the end, the Emperor decided to express Sansan’s milk himself.
In broad daylight, the Emperor who had stopped by Mianggung Palace to take lunch first pushed aside Sansan’s jacket before eating. He had Sansan sit on the arhat bed and stood kneeling on both knees between his legs. When he pushed aside the jacket, the breast band wet in circles around the areolas was revealed. When he pulled that down too, Sansan’s small, white breasts popped out.
Above the small coral-colored nipples, white drops were densely beaded. It was a sight that couldn’t help but seem pitiful yet pretty at the same time. The Emperor glanced up once at Sansan, who was just looking at empty air without speaking, then soon grasped both breasts with both hands.
“Tell me if it hurts.”
The small breasts protruded forward, pressed by the Emperor’s grip. At that, breast milk spurted out. The Emperor stuck out his tongue, licked both nipples alternately, then immediately began gently kneading and sucking on the right breast.
“Nngh, ngh.”
The Emperor buried his face in Sansan’s breasts as if he’d become a baby and sucked milk unreservedly. Sansan stayed blankly with both hands placed on the Emperor’s shoulders, occasionally letting out a moan once in a while.
The Emperor embraced Sansan’s waist, which had completely collapsed and become slender again, with one arm and sucked milk in a trance. Not even knowing Sansan’s nipple skin was being completely peeled off.
***
In the dark dawn, Sansan couldn’t sleep and was staring at empty air again. The Emperor had pulled such a Sansan from behind and fallen asleep holding his small breasts.
Sansan looked down at his own chest for a moment in the dimness. The Emperor’s large hands were grasping the breasts that had risen like a woman’s. Even just before falling asleep, the Emperor had been sucking milk. But he didn’t do anything more than that.
“You must get well soon. Once you’re better, I’ll let you have a baby again.”
The Emperor’s habitual words these days circled Sansan’s ears. Sansan smoothly lowered his hand to his belly.
As if it had never swollen, his belly was completely deflated. This too was said to be a characteristic of cheonin. As if the baby had never existed, it was sunken.
However, Sansan remembered. That presence he’d felt inside his belly, the moment it slipped out, the pain like his bottom had fallen out. And also,
Himself shaking his hips and screaming like a madman, not knowing the child was dying. Sansan remembered it all. It didn’t fade even after several days passed. He couldn’t forget.
Silent tears fell down Sansan’s cheeks in drops. He felt empty. Like his emptied belly, he felt completely hollow inside.
The tears from Sansan that finally burst after several days ran down his nape, passed his cleavage, and flowed down to the Emperor’s palm. The Emperor, who had been unconsciously kneading Sansan’s breasts even while asleep, felt that moist sensation and opened his eyes.
“San-ah.”
He laid Sansan flat on his back and climbed on top of him. He grasped his chin and licked his crying face.
“Don’t cry. Crying is bad for your body.”
“……Your Majesty.”
“Yes.”
“The baby is so, so pitiful.”
“It must have already gone to a good place. Don’t dwell on it anymore.”
“B-but it’s pitiful. Because, because……”
The Emperor calmly waited for Sansan, who was sobbing and couldn’t continue his words.
“Because I couldn’t love it.”
“……”
“So it’s too pitiful.”
Surprisingly, the Emperor was shocked by what Sansan was saying.
“I, I also wasn’t loved. But, but I did the same thing to the baby. Sniff, so, so it’s too pitiful.”
“Why?”
The Emperor, who had been listening absently to Sansan’s words in shock for a moment, inadvertently asked back. To him, these were incomprehensible words. Even though things had turned out that way, the Emperor had loved Won with unprecedented feelings. He had cherished him as if he were his first child.
“……What?”
“Why didn’t you love Won?”
Sansan was at a loss for words. He even stopped crying.
That’s right. Why couldn’t he love him?
“……I, I don’t know.”
After answering carelessly, Sansan burst into tears again. Because it was a lie. Actually, Sansan knew why he couldn’t love the baby. He seemed to know.
It wasn’t because the baby seemed like it would be born lacking, and it wasn’t because accepting the fact of pregnancy was difficult. Actually, it was because it wasn’t a child he’d wanted to have.
Sansan hadn’t wanted to sleep with his younger sibling’s husband. He’d never wanted to have a baby with his younger sibling’s husband. He’d never once wanted to give birth from his own belly to a sibling of the child his younger sibling had borne.
That must have been why. Even though he’d felt the baby’s presence, he’d never once spoken warmly to it. He’d never lovingly caressed his belly. He’d only thought of it as inconvenient and awkward. As if he and the baby were stealing his younger sibling and Gang-i’s place.
Then only after hemorrhaging for the first time did he belatedly regret. It felt like he’d received divine punishment for treating the baby too cruelly.
But how was it that the baby received that divine punishment instead of him?
He kept thinking of that blood clot. Sansan cried out miserably with his throat open as if a floodgate had burst, without even properly finishing his explanation.
He himself had never received his parents’ love. So shamelessly, even knowing it was his younger sibling, he clung to that love as if the sibling were a mother. And then he did the same thing to his own baby.
He didn’t love it and treated it like a nuisance. Just as he seemed to know all of his mother’s heart, the baby must have known all of his heart too.
Apologies he was too sorry to even utter completely blocked Sansan’s throat. It was even hard to breathe.
Footnotes
1) Gunggwitang: Medicine to help a stillborn come out, also effective at stopping bleeding.
2) Useultang: Medicine to help the placenta and other attachments come out.
