Bad Relationship 150

* * *

The rumored occult was not shamanism.

Unlike at the seafood ramen and rice meal restaurants, Jaehyuk, who had entered the Chinese restaurant, finished his meal quite deliciously without the slightest hesitation.

He did feel a bit uncomfortable when seafood jjamppong was served at the next table, but that didn’t last long.

Having confirmed this, Junghyun came to a clean conclusion.

“It wasn’t simply shamanism.”

Is it totemism, or animism? No, just a cult? Or really occult? If not those, then folk belief?

As Junghyun kept muttering in wonder after finishing the meal and coming to a nearby café, Jaehyuk looked at him as if asking what on earth he was talking about.

At Jaehyuk’s look demanding an understandable explanation, Junghyun immediately answered his question.

“It’s Couvade syndrome.”

Seeing Junghyun’s eyes shining with excitement, Jaehyuk clicked his tongue as if he had expected this.

“Are you still going on about that?”

“Accept what you need to accept.”

“It’s not certain yet.”

Though grumbling that he didn’t believe it yet, Jaehyuk seemed to have come around quite a bit.

He wasn’t so closed-minded that he couldn’t acknowledge something he was experiencing directly.

“Wow, it really is amazing. Honestly, until now, I thought you were just having neurosis rather than Couvade syndrome since I didn’t know I was pregnant. To be honest, you’re quite finicky. You show some signs of obsession, have a bit of mysophobia, and are much more sensitive than normal people.”

Junghyun kept expressing admiration, saying he had thought it was natural for someone like that to vomit and be unable to sleep when experiencing neurosis, but he hadn’t expected it to be genuine Couvade syndrome.

At his energetic attitude, Jaehyuk asked.

“You seem to be doing fine?”

“What?”

“Your body.”

“Ah… well, I’m very well.”

Beyond just being well, he found this situation extremely interesting and fun, with endorphins flowing, but he decided not to say that as it might cause Jaehyuk emotional instability again.

Instead, he tried his best to look concerned, but Jaehyuk laughed as if finding it ridiculous.

His face said he could see exactly what Junghyun was thinking.

“If you’re going to pretend to be worried, at least lower the corners of your mouth.”

“…Are the corners of my mouth turned up?”

“Yes. They’ll reach your ears at this rate.”

Realizing he couldn’t hide his emotions, Junghyun decided not to make any more petty excuses.

“My sincerity just flowed out unconsciously.”

The moment he gave an honest answer, Jaehyuk looked at him and smiled.

With narrowed eyes, very prettily.

It was clearly a face that said, “Just wait until after you’ve had the baby.”

Noticing this, Junghyun hurriedly offered a service line.

“Still, don’t be too disappointed. Usually, morning sickness ends around the 16th week. It’s about time for it to end soon. Of course, there are a very few people where it continues until the end of pregnancy.”

Jaehyuk’s voice rose at the possibility Junghyun had left open at the end of his otherwise reassuring statement.

“Until the end?”

“Yes. That can happen with first pregnancies or twins.”

“Surely it’s not twins?”

“There was just one nut there. Why? Should we try for two next time?”

As Junghyun smiled and drank his juice, saying it would be convenient to have two at once, Jaehyuk looked him up and down as if exasperated.

“You really must be feeling fine, talking about next time.”

He didn’t say “I feel like I’m dying,” but Junghyun clearly caught the nuance.

“Thanks to you, hyung, I’m managing just fine.”

Honestly, even if Jaehyuk hadn’t done it for him, Junghyun probably wouldn’t have had morning sickness anyway, but he paid him an empty compliment saying it was thanks to Jaehyuk.

Somehow it felt like he should.

And as he had anticipated, Jaehyuk’s mood seemed to improve, and he leisurely drank his coffee.

So easy.

“After coffee, shall we go to the park, avoiding the seaside? Or since we’re here, do you want to surf briefly? Maybe you’ll be fine once you actually surf?”

He thought the sea smell itself might be fine since Jaehyuk had been okay when they were at the pension, but Jaehyuk shook his head as if he didn’t want to go anywhere near the sea.

“No thanks. I hate even the smell of water right now.”

His response was that he disliked all things fishy.

No, more than dislike—he detested them.

That was fascinating. A person who had loved the sea so much now refusing to go anywhere near it.

“Okay then. Let’s go to the park.”

Junghyun made the naive judgment that as long as it wasn’t the sea or seafood, it would be fine.

Although Jaehyuk was picky, since it was a false pregnancy anyway, and the morning sickness would soon end, Junghyun vaguely believed things would be okay.

But unfortunately, Cha Jaehyuk’s sensitivity was beyond imagination.

* * *

“What, you even hate the smell of rain?”

It had definitely been sunny.

At least until the two of them were in the café.

But the moment they stepped out of the café, raindrops began to fall.

It wasn’t a downpour but a light drizzle. So Junghyun had suggested buying an umbrella and walking slowly, but that wasn’t the situation.

As soon as it started raining, Jaehyuk’s face turned almost ashen, and he began to retch.

“I dislike the smell of rain to begin with, but now I hate it even more.”

Junghyun had quickly stashed Jaehyuk, who now said he was getting dizzy too, in a nearby café and hurriedly brought the car around. Now he was rapidly driving away from the rainy area.

Fortunately, the forecast said the surrounding cities would be clear once they left this area.

“I think we’ll be fine once we leave this area.”

Saying this, Junghyun, who was in the driver’s seat for once, slightly increased the speed.

The light drizzle had somehow become a heavy rain.

It wasn’t yet so bad that they couldn’t see ahead, but it was dangerous to speed up, so he moderately slowed down and glanced at Jaehyuk.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine now.”

“That’s good. When we get home, take the medicine the hospital gave for morning sickness. You can’t be like this at work too.”

At Junghyun’s concern that rumors about the Hanju heir’s health issues might emerge, Jaehyuk muttered through his teeth.

“Damn it. Why do I…”

“Exactly. I never thought I’d be struggling because of a partner with morning sickness in the fourth month of pregnancy.”

I thought I would be the one with morning sickness…

Honestly, even now it seemed dubious, but since Jaehyuk was suffering, Junghyun had no choice but to go along with it.

“Still, just in case, you should go to the hospital.”

“On Monday.”

“You might need an obstetric examination too, so I’ll go with you. And let me tell you in advance, if we have a second child, I’ll just do it myself.”

As Junghyun declared in advance that it would be more convenient since he was more resilient and less picky, Jaehyuk shot him a piercing look.

“You think I’m being annoying, don’t you?”

“Yes. I was thinking it’s terribly bothersome.”

At the glance of blame and anger that flew his way, Junghyun quickly changed his words.

“I’m joking. Just joking. Ah, I think we’ll be fine once we get past there. It’s bright over there. We’ll probably reach our house around 5 or 6 PM, so what do you want to do for dinner? Jajangmyeon again?”

“Don’t change the subject.”

“It’s true I’m changing the subject, but we also need to decide on a menu. It’ll take about three hours to get home.”

“…Jajangmyeon. I don’t think I can eat anything else.”

“Jajang-ie is living up to his name.”

When Junghyun said at this rate, the baby might eat jajangmyeon as soon as it was born, Jaehyuk sighed deeply.

“I think we chose the wrong prenatal name.”

“But isn’t it good that there’s something you can eat? I’ve searched SNS, pregnancy forums, and papers, and there are people who can’t eat anything throughout their pregnancy and live on IV fluids.”

At those words, Jaehyuk, who had been looking out the window from the passenger seat, turned to the driver’s seat with a horrified face.

Seeing that look that seemed to say “surely not,” Junghyun now prescribed the medicine after having given the disease.

“You’ll be fine since you can eat Chinese food. I’ll eat everything with a fishy smell before you come home from now on.”

“You’re not saying you won’t eat it?”

“Because I’m the pregnant one.”

Emphasizing once more that he, not Jaehyuk, was the one with the greatest physical damage right now, Junghyun strongly asserted that he must eat and sleep well.

Both Jaehyuk and he kept forgetting that he was the pregnant one.

Jaehyuk realized with a start.

He had really been forgetting.

“You just don’t seem like a pregnant person, so I keep forgetting.”

“It’s okay. I do too.”

“…I’m suffering this much, so how did you endure alone all this time?”

The rain was gradually weakening.

As they were clearly leaving the rainy area, Jaehyuk asked with a somewhat apologetic tone, and Junghyun answered in a nonchalant manner.

“I didn’t have many symptoms other than sleeping… Actually, even that was fine. I just slept at the company the whole time. In the night duty room.”

“Night duty room?”

“Yes. I went to the night duty room as soon as I arrived at work. Yoonho hyung even laid out a mat for me to sleep there. And I didn’t take on any work, so it was relaxed.”

“…Yoonho did one thing right.”

“He’s a good person.”

His taste and aesthetic sense might be twisted to the point of being off the mark, but he was truly a good person.

To put it simply, Seo Yoonho was like a guileless village fool.

“At first, I was worried you two might be dating, but now I don’t even have that concern.”

“Yoonho hyung would faint if he heard that.”

Junghyun guaranteed that fainting would be lucky—he might suddenly break out in hives and be hospitalized.

The relationship between Yoonho and himself was a symbiotic one like that between a crocodile and a crocodile bird. Romantic feelings could not develop between them.

From the beginning, before such chemical reactions could occur, he had seen Yoonho’s fashion, and Yoonho had seen his temperament.

“…The beginning really does seem important.”

The rain streaks and dark clouds had disappeared, and a clear sky appeared.

Just 10 meters away, rain was pouring down, but here it was clear and fine.

As the sunshine instantly blew away the moisture on the car, Junghyun gradually increased the speed.

Meanwhile, Jaehyuk, finally looking better as he lowered the car window, asked.

“Why that, all of a sudden?”

“When I first met Yoonho hyung, he had yellow bleached hair and was wearing a blue aloha shirt with red shorts, and I rudely said, ‘Are you a traffic light or what?’ So we were arguing when suddenly an Alpha senior came into the clubroom and started trouble, so I grabbed his hair and bit his ear until it bled.”

As Junghyun mentioned they even went to the police station because of that, Jaehyuk, who had been pleasantly looking out the window, slowly turned to him.

He had heard about it briefly from Yoonho, but this was beyond imagination.

The statement that it was a miracle he still didn’t have a criminal record was starting to feel real.

“…I don’t know if it’s fortunate or unfortunate, but there definitely couldn’t be any romantic feelings.”

“If romantic feelings developed after that, you’d have to question your taste. At that time, I was a freshman, so I was trying to establish dominance before others could pick on me… But even without that, my personality was quite something back then.”

“I can see that.”

As Jaehyuk looked out the window again, deliberately omitting “even now,” Junghyun smiled and changed the subject.

“So if we had met then, you definitely wouldn’t have proposed to me either.”

Until just a moment ago Jaehyuk had thought otherwise, but now he agreed with that statement.

He could tolerate someone beating people with a surfboard, but biting someone’s ear was a bit much.

“It’s good we met now.”

“Right? If it had been then, we would have ended up in a really bad relationship.”

“It’s not that great now either.”

“Then let’s say it’s an okay relationship.”

As Junghyun said that was not bad, Jaehyuk, who had been opening the window, suddenly covered his mouth.

“Wait, I feel sick.”

At those words, Junghyun glanced at Jaehyuk and whistled.

“Wow, amazing. You’re like a ghost, hyung. It wasn’t just malingering.”

As they approached the seaside, morning sickness emerged without fail, and Junghyun exclaimed in amazement, closing the window.

At the clearly deliberate route selection, Jaehyuk glared.

“You, you didn’t come this way to check if I was faking, did you?”

“Of course not. This is the usual route, isn’t it?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t use this route. This is the coastal detour.”

Certainly, there are multiple routes to Seoul, but this particular road is not used unless someone has a specific purpose.

Because it takes 30 minutes longer on the old highway.

“Really? I always use this route, so I thought everyone did.”

At this lame excuse, a gaze like a laser beam shot toward him.

It contained a long sentence: as if someone like you, who is impatient, never does unnecessary things, and hates doing work multiple times or for long periods, would take such a detour.

Under Jaehyuk’s gaze, Junghyun quickly changed his stance.

“I’ll get onto the national highway right away. It’s a mountain road there, so it should be fine if we go around.”

Watching Junghyun turn immediately to the rightmost road without even looking at the navigation, Jaehyuk was convinced this was definitely intentional.

Someone who knew the roads that well wouldn’t have mistakenly taken this route.

“Why is your personality like that?”

“This area doesn’t have rain right now, that’s why. Going inside would be faster, but it’s raining there.”

It sounded plausible at a glance, but coming from Junghyun, it was a suspicious excuse.

So Jaehyuk immediately picked up his phone.

Sensing he was about to open the map and check the weather in other areas through cameras installed on the roads, Junghyun quickly changed the subject.

“Hyung, think about our Jajang-ie.”

“Don’t bring in the innocent Jajang-ie.”

“He told me from inside the womb to take this road.”

As Jaehyuk was left speechless by this nonsensical statement, Junghyun laughed refreshingly as if he had won and took the next exit. And as he had said, he immediately entered a mountain road.

“It should be fine now.”

As he opened the window with these words, a fresh scent of grass wafted in with the breeze.

In an instant, the air became refreshing again, and Jaehyuk finally seemed to feel like he would survive, sinking deep into his seat.

Then at last, he looked down at the phone he had been holding.

His phone, set to silent mode, was surprisingly not hot.

He had expected it to be burning by now.

Wondering if his grandfather had finally given up, he turned on his phone, but indeed, his grandfather’s messages had stopped coming for several hours.

No calls either.

“Unusually quiet. I thought he would have sent someone to the house by now.”

“The Chairman?”

“Yes.”

“Ah, earlier when you were in the bathroom vomiting, your phone was going crazy and getting hot, so I blocked your grandfather’s number. You can unblock it later.”

“…My grandfather?”

“Yes. Your phone was about to burst.”

At Junghyun’s nonsensical excuse that he had done it because he was worried the battery might explode in the hot weather, Jaehyuk briefly wondered if that was okay, but then dropped it.

Though he had calmed down considerably, his stomach still didn’t feel good, and he didn’t want to worry about that too.

In this situation, his grandfather might get so upset that he would tear down the door and enter the house, but if that happened, they could just move.

They had been thinking of moving to a house anyway.

“Being with you makes me feel like everything will somehow work out, so I just give up.”

“Life rolls along adequately even if you don’t try too hard and just live casually.”

Hearing that, Jaehyuk thought it might be true and casually tossed his phone onto the center console.

While he shouldn’t become too lazy, both relationships and work somehow move along if done moderately.

“Yeah. That’s right.”

“I’m telling you.”

Having now gone deep into the mountain road, Junghyun reduced his speed and leisurely drove down the trail.

The sky was high, the sunshine was scorching, but the air was moderately cool and clear.

The most beautiful spring among all the springs they had ever encountered was beginning.

A genuinely gentle and warm spring.

〈The End〉

Author: Hyacinthus B

Hyacinthus