Jae-jin slowly lowered his eyelids and focused on the kiss. Seo Eui-woo bit and sucked on his lower lip more persistently than usual, tangling their tongues together.
He was about to push Jae-jin back down onto the bed when—
“Uuung, uwaaang. Uwaaang!”
Baby Seo Eui-woo started to whimper. He must have gotten hungry.
“Oh, oh, okay. Time for food now.”
Jae-jin shot a glance at Eui-woo, who was clinging to him tightly, unwilling to let go. Still pressing their lips together, Eui-woo murmured in a frustrated sigh.
“…No, Jae-jin, you go back to sleep. I’ll feed him.”
His voice was low, almost like a growl. The words were sweet, but the tone was not.
“It’s fine. If I put him down, he’s just going to cry again anyway. I’ll just hold him and feed him myself.”
“That may be true, but you need to rest. Give me the baby and lie down.”
“Huh? No, I…”
Eui-woo kept trying to push Jae-jin back onto the bed, insisting that he sleep and take a break. It was a little suspicious. Just then, baby Eui-woo pursed his lips, opening and closing them as he made a sound.
“Ma…ma.”
Jae-jin’s eyes widened in an instant.
“Did you hear that just now?”
“Huh? Hear what?”
“He said ‘mamma.’ The baby.”
“?”
“Look, look. Time for ‘mamma.’ Mamma.”
Jae-jin carefully repeated ‘mamma’ to baby Seo Eui-woo. The baby slowly mimicked him.
“Ma…m…”
“Right now! He’s saying it! He said ‘mamma’!”
“Mm… ma! Mamma!”
No way. He was talking. The baby was actually talking!
Shocked, Jae-jin looked up at Seo Eui-woo with a bright, beaming smile. His expression surfaced naturally before he even realized it. Eui-woo also seemed surprised, his eyes widening as he looked down at Jae-jin.
“Jae-jin.”
“At this rate, he’ll be saying other words in no time. I mean, they say babies start talking around ten months.”
“Mamma! Ma!”
“Ah, yeah. Mamma. Let’s go eat right now. Eui-woo, we don’t have time for this—we need to feed him first.”
“Ha, fine. Let’s go to the kitchen.”
For some reason, Eui-woo let out a long sigh and hung his head low.
A flash of light flickered, and the surroundings brightened.
In an instant, a spatial shift occurred, and the scenery changed from the bedroom to the kitchen in the blink of an eye. Jae-jin, baby Seo Eui-woo, and even adult Seo Eui-woo, who was wrapped around them both, appeared in the middle of the kitchen just as they were.
“I’ll get everything ready right away.”
Seo Eui-woo murmured softly as he used his ability, suspending all three of them in midair. Then, with a sudden clatter, the refrigerator door swung open.
Under his telekinetic control, neatly stacked heat-resistant containers began floating out of the fridge in an orderly line. Their lids popped open with crisp, rhythmic clicks, revealing the food stored inside—baby food that Seo Eui-woo had prepared the night before.
Beef and tofu vegetable porridge, an omelet with minced mushrooms and egg, steamed zucchini, and steamed broccoli.
He quickly heated up the baby food and arranged it neatly onto a bear-shaped silicone plate. The plate had a suction base to prevent spills, allowing it to stay firmly in place on the table. Not that the suction was particularly necessary—Seo Eui-woo’s ability could keep it secure without issue.
In the blink of an eye, the baby’s meal was ready, and the adult meals were prepared at a similar speed. Breakfast today consisted of soybean sprout and dried pollack soup, gondre herbal rice, braised half-dried pollack, stir-fried bacon and mushrooms, pan-fried tofu, seasoned radish salad, seasoned bracken, and pickled onions. To top it all off, there was dongchimi with slivers of ice floating on top—yet another extravagant meal.
Seo Eui-woo’s cooking skills had improved so much that Jae-jin could no longer keep up. The days when Seo Eui-woo couldn’t even fry an egg seemed like a distant memory now.
One by one, the baby’s plate and various dishes were placed on the table. A baby spoon soon followed, floating gracefully through the air.
“Alright, shall we eat now?”
Seo Eui-woo and Jae-jin sat at the table with the baby.
Using his ability, Seo Eui-woo controlled the spoon, scooping up a small amount of the perfectly warmed baby food. The spoon slowly approached the baby’s mouth.
Of course, baby Seo Eui-woo wasn’t about to obediently accept the food today either. He suspiciously eyed the spoon, which was hovering midair, observing it for a moment before losing interest. Then, with a sharp “Pak!” he turned his head away.
As expected. He had no intention of eating. Another exhausting battle to get him to finish his meal was about to unfold.
Just then, a realization struck Jae-jin.
“Wait a second.”
Could it be? Was it possible?
Jae-jin reached out, gently stroking the back of the baby’s head as he attempted a subtle guiding touch.
“Jae-jin, what are you doing?”
“I just thought… maybe the reason he keeps refusing food is because of an imbalance.”
“Hm?”
One of the most common side effects of an esper’s imbalance was a loss of appetite. When Jae-jin had first met Seo Eui-woo in the first timeline, he had barely eaten proper meals, relying only on substitutes instead.
‘If that’s the case… then maybe… this could work.’
Jae-jin finished the guiding through skin contact and withdrew his hand. There was nothing to lose by trying. Seo Eui-woo had suffered from imbalance since childhood due to a lack of proper guiding. If baby Seo Eui-woo was experiencing the same struggle…
“Bbyaa.”
At that moment, baby Seo Eui-woo parted his tiny lips and opened his mouth. Seizing the opportunity, Seo Eui-woo swiftly moved the spoon, placing the baby food right inside.
Normally, he would have spit it out immediately, but this time was different. Baby Seo Eui-woo smacked his tiny lips, chewing the warm beef and tofu vegetable porridge before swallowing it down.
“Bbyau!”
Not only that—he must have liked the taste because he started waving his little arms excitedly, flashing a radiant smile. His bright, bubbling laughter was impossibly adorable, so much so that it felt like there couldn’t be anything more precious in the world.
“Wow. He ate it.”
“See? It worked! The guiding!”
“Oh my god, let me try feeding him again.”
Seo Eui-woo moved the spoon once more with his ability, this time scooping up a piece of omelet with finely chopped mushrooms and bringing it to the baby’s mouth. A tense anticipation filled the air. What if the first bite had just been a coincidence? Had the guiding truly resolved his lack of appetite? As they held their breath in expectation, baby Seo Eui-woo adorably took the omelet without hesitation.
“…!”
“Ah!”
It worked. It actually worked.
All the struggles of the past days flashed through Jae-jin’s mind like a reel. The endless frustration of wondering why the baby refused to eat, the countless attempts to coax him into taking even a single bite, the restless nights filled with worry—all of it crumbled away like sand. He felt utterly foolish for not realizing this sooner.
Baby Seo Eui-woo was still Seo Eui-woo. In his tiny, underdeveloped body, he had no control over his ability, so of course he couldn’t regulate his imbalance either. The side effects must have been exhausting for him. And yet, both Jae-jin and Seo Eui-woo had overlooked something so obvious.
“Wait a second. If guiding helps him eat, wouldn’t it also make putting him to sleep easier?”
“That makes sense. Insomnia is one of the side effects of imbalance too.”
“So that means… we won’t have to spend hours rocking him, soothing him, and patting him to sleep anymore?”
“Probably…? We’ll have to test it, but it seems likely.”
“No, I can already feel it. This is definitely going to work.”
Seo Eui-woo beamed, his smile as bright as sunlight. He looked as if he had just overcome the greatest hardship of his life, even letting out a small gasp of joy.
“This means Jae-jin won’t be passing out from exhaustion anymore!”
…Somehow, the conclusion felt a little off.
‘Wait, was he really that worried about my condition?’
Sure, Jae-jin had been pretty drained lately from taking care of the baby, but still…
“Yeah… I guess so.”
“Haha. Ah, thank god. This is such a relief.”
“…Yeah.”
Watching Seo Eui-woo’s overly enthusiastic reaction, Jae-jin tilted his head slightly in his mind. Something about it seemed a little suspicious, but at the moment, he was too touched by the fact that baby Seo Eui-woo was finally eating properly to dwell on it too much.
‘At last, we can finally have breakfast together.’
With a gentle smile on his lips, Jae-jin took a spoonful of the soybean sprout and dried pollack soup. The clear yet rich broth warmed him from the inside out.
‘Ha. This is delicious.’
He hadn’t even been drinking, yet it felt like the perfect hangover cure.
“Hhheuuh.”
Seo Eui-woo, for some reason, kept giggling to himself, looking utterly delighted. Beside him, baby Seo Eui-woo, who had finally discovered the joy of food, let out a bubbly, happy laugh of his own.
“Kkyau! Mamma, mamma…!”
He was even asking for more now, bouncing excitedly in his seat, his little bottom wiggling in an unmistakable dance of pure joy.
A table filled with laughter.
The peace they had finally found was truly beautiful.
