Chapter 57
Hyeon-woo wasn’t sure how he had managed to get into the taxi. His clasped hands were trembling like aspen leaves. It was a phone call he never wanted to receive twice in his life.
“This is Shinil Hospital. Patient Lee Ji-woo has been brought to our emergency room. We can’t reach her parents, but this number was in Ji-woo’s call log. What is your relationship? It’s urgent. We need to proceed with surgery immediately, so please come to the hospital quickly.”
He got out of the car and rushed into the emergency room. As instructed by the nurse, he filled out the guardian form and signed the surgical consent form. As soon as the paperwork was processed, the surgery began.
After anxiously waiting for a long time in front of the operating room, Ji-woo’s guardian finally arrived. The omega’s face was a mess, wet with tears as she bowed her head to Hyeon-woo several times in gratitude. Hyeon-woo’s heart ached in sympathy.
Even though the legal guardian had arrived, Hyeon-woo couldn’t bring himself to leave. He couldn’t bear to leave the omega alone in front of this terrible operating room where life and death hung in the balance.
The omega’s shoulders, with her head buried in her hands, were constantly shaking. Hyeon-woo saw himself in that figure. This omega, enduring the harsh winds of the world alone without anyone to rely on, was his future. Hyeon-woo unconsciously rubbed his belly. Fear washed over him.
Hyeon-woo couldn’t leave the omega’s side until Ji-woo came out of surgery and was moved to the general ward. It wasn’t until the next day that Hyeon-woo learned the full story of how Ji-woo ended up in the emergency room.
After school, excited by the snow that had fallen the night before, Ji-woo had gone up the hill behind the school with her friends to go sledding. Caught up in playing, she even forgot about the time for her tutoring session. When she belatedly tried to call the tutoring center, no one answered. Driven by a sense of competition with her friends, Ji-woo had climbed a steeper slope and slipped on the frozen cliff, falling. A broken branch had pierced her lower body as she fell.
The nurse’s flat, businesslike voice relating this kept echoing in his ears. After tossing and turning for a while, Hyeon-woo finally threw off his blanket and got up. The yellow light of the street lamp flickered faintly beyond the dark window.
He felt he wouldn’t be able to fall asleep easily. It was a painfully lonely night.
After that day, the insomnia he thought had disappeared returned. Along with anxiety disorder, he developed paranoia. He became extremely nervous, feeling as if someone’s gaze was following him everywhere, inside and out.
Even in his room alone, the feeling of being under surveillance didn’t go away, and he checked the locks on the windows several times a day. On days without appointments, he lived in seclusion in his shaded room, completely cut off from the outside world by thick blackout curtains.
As his nerves weakened, his physical fatigue increased. Perhaps due to stress, his morning sickness had become particularly severe lately, making it difficult even to eat, causing him to lose weight day by day. Due to the nausea triggered by even the slightest olfactory stimulation, it was clear that everyone around him had noticed his pregnancy, but he was grateful that they pretended not to know.
One morning, while tidying up his bed, Hyeon-woo noticed bloodstains on the sheets and quickly removed his underwear to check the state of the blood. A brown bloodstain about the size of a thumbnail had dried in a circle on his underwear.
Alarmed, he hurriedly flipped through the book he had bought from the bookstore, which stated that implantation bleeding could occur up to 12 weeks. The amount and color matched the description in the book. Hyeon-woo closed the book and breathed a sigh of relief.
As days passed waiting for his belly to swell without ever visiting a hospital, relying solely on books, his anxiety grew. He had been told that his endometrium was thin and weak. He couldn’t keep hiding like this forever without even getting essential check-ups. But if medical records were left, he would surely be discovered. He needed to hold out at least until artificial abortion became impossible.
Amidst all this, as if adding insult to injury, trouble arose at the cafe. The owner, who had always made sure to come to the cafe at least once a week no matter how busy, hadn’t been showing up recently. It was strange that the cafe’s atmosphere was becoming more depressed day by day, beyond what could be explained by the confusion of business expansion. Even the usually bright and lively Jeong-hoon was sighing heavily beside him, and Hyeon-woo couldn’t contain his curiosity.
“Why the sigh? Did something happen?”
“Ah… The second branch. We might have to close it.”
“What? Why close it?”
It hadn’t even been a week since it opened. Hyeon-woo asked back in a surprised voice.
“Wasn’t it opened deliberately because the location was good?”
“Hyeon-woo, you haven’t been there yet, right?”
“No. I’ve only heard about the location.”
“…”
“You said there were a lot of people and development potential. Didn’t the owner say she’d be a fool to miss this opportunity?”
“Yeah, the location is good. If only a large coffee chain hadn’t set up shop right next to our second branch.”
Bitterness tinged Jeong-hoon’s voice.
“As soon as we opened the second branch, they started construction in the building right next door. Apparently, an entire five-story building is becoming a coffee house. They seem to be working around the clock; the opening date is less than two weeks away. And next month, another one is supposed to open across the street. A drive-thru or something. You know, where you can pick up drinks by car.”
“…”
“But you know what’s really strange?”
Jeong-hoon’s voice lowered as if wary of his surroundings. Hyeon-woo, also tense, carefully replied, “What is it?”
“I heard this from somewhere, but those two buildings were originally supposed to be built as a medical tower. They were even in the process of pre-selling units, but how could it suddenly change like this?”
“…”
“You don’t think the owner made an enemy of someone, do you? How could this happen right after opening…”
“…”
“Anyway, the second branch is completely ruined.”
Hyeon-woo’s mind was in chaos. He even missed the bus stop where he was supposed to get off. He walked back one stop towards the tutoring center.
It hadn’t even been a week since they had finished construction and brought in expensive furniture and equipment. Just the espresso machine, said to have been imported from Italy, cost tens of millions of won per unit. How much was the total cost of the second branch again? As he roughly calculated the costs of refrigeration facilities, beverage production machines, rent, and construction, his head spun.
The funds had been raised through loans. And from private financiers with murderous interest rates at that. The beta landlady who had taken Hyeon-woo in had stood as a joint guarantor. They were now in a situation where they couldn’t even handle the snowballing interest, let alone the principal.
The owner’s absence was due to preparation for a lawsuit. Against the large coffee chain. There was no way they could win. Hyeon-woo shook his head, thinking it was like throwing eggs at a rock.
It’s not ruined yet. It’s too early to worry. There are still many customers who like the coffee here.
Clearing his mind, he entered the residential area where the tutoring center was located. A black car followed him deep into the residential area. It was the same car he had seen when getting off the bus earlier.
Goosebumps rose on Hyeon-woo’s arms as he realized this. He pulled his hood down low to cover up to his nose. He slowed his pace and glanced sideways to examine the car model. It was a car he hadn’t seen before. A common domestic car that could be seen everywhere.
The windows were heavily tinted, so he couldn’t identify the driver. When he stopped walking, the car smoothly passed by and left the alley. Hyeon-woo watched the rear of the car with anxious eyes. His heart was pounding. Just as he thought it had been getting worse recently, it was starting again.
He couldn’t go to the hospital, nor could he freely get prescriptions. Perhaps because he couldn’t take appropriate measures, he felt his paranoia was deepening. Hyeon-woo tried to distract his mind with other thoughts.
He first recalled the list of winter vacation homework for the children he was tutoring. From crafts to picture diaries and book reports, the amount of vacation homework they brought was quite substantial. Ji-woo would not be able to attend for a while as she needed to focus on recovery. It was already the end of January. It had been three months since he left home. His belly was still flat. Up to 12 weeks, the fetus is said to be 6cm in size. Would 6cm be about the size of an egg?
As Hyeon-woo continued his random thoughts, he entered the tutoring center. The children who had arrived earlier greeted him.
“My mom said to give this to you, teacher~”
“When will the baby come out?”
“Why is your belly so flat, teacher? When my little sister was born, my mom’s belly was like this big balloon.”
Gyuri stretched her hands in front of her belly to make a circle and waddled around, causing the other children to laugh and imitate her. Hyeon-woo’s pregnancy was no longer a secret. After he had dry heaved a few times in front of the children due to morning sickness, the news had reached the parents’ ears.
After that, some parents would personally prepare ginger tea or quince tea, which are good for morning sickness, and send them through their children. The guardians were unanimously grateful to Hyeon-woo, who had stayed with them in front of Ji-woo’s operating room all night.
“Please make sure to tell them I received it gratefully.”
Hyeon-woo smiled brightly as he received a glass jar of preserves from one of the children.
The black car had completely disappeared from Hyeon-woo’s mind.
