Again, Ha-hyun, who had no intention of bringing in anyone other than the baby, seemed to be more confused and annoyed when Cho-seung’s unexpected reaction caused an unwanted cohabitation.
“Are you serious?”
“Ung. I’m serious.”
“Can’t you just pretend you don’t know?”
“No. There are two of us, so why are you working hard alone?”
Why is this Kang Cho-seung guy so sensible?
He might think it was something he should do, but from Ha-hyun’s point of view, it was annoying. To be honest, it was okay to give birth and raise it alone. No, he thought so. The problem was that the children in Ha-hyun’s belly were twins. That was a bigger problem than he thought.
“Everything is uncomfortable without each other.”
“But that…”
“If it was twins, it will be difficult for you even after giving birth. It would be tough to raise the two by yourself.”
“It’s the same when you work.”
“I’ll quit the company until my children grow up some years later.”
Cho-seung answered without hesitation, took out a glass of juice that was held in Ha-hyun’s hand and placed it on the table.
Ha-hyun, who had no intention of drinking, tolerated Cho-seung’s actions. His hands were empty, so he buried himself on the sofa without hesitation.
“Three strangers.”
“Ung?”
“Nothing.”
Cho-seung brushed off Ha-hyun’s bangs, who sighed deeply, and smiled at the thought that the reaction seemed to have allowed them to live together.
Ha-hyun felt Cho-seung’s gentle touch and focused on the voice that fell in his ears.
“I’ll just bring what I need right now and come in right away. I’ll move in on a day.”
“Do you have many home appliances?”
“A little bit.”
As he recalled his belongings at home, he smiled awkwardly. Looking around, Ha-hyun’s home appliances in this house were neither too much nor too little. Seeing that the appropriate items were placed in just the right place, he thought the other rooms would be similar.
Then there would be no need to bring in the home appliances again and there would be no room. It seemed that one or two would have to be disposed of as secondhand or thrown away.
Cho-seung, who gently loosened the slightly wrinkled forehead with his thumb, asked Ha-hyun to make sure.
“I will ask you one last time. Is it okay if we live together?”
“Ung.”
Because the children Ha-hyun had was his children and also Cho-seung’s children.
Ha-hyun shook his head, not wanting to drag on the matter by arguing. Eventually, Cho-seung raised the corner of his mouth and kissed Ha-hyun’s forehead.
“What is it?”
“Please take care of me in the future.”
“Ah. Okay.”
Ha-hyun, who rubbed his forehead, which seemed to have a slight warmth, with his index finger, closed his eyes. Cho-seung, who shed a little smile at the lack of response, began to ask what should be decided one by one.
“We’re going to sleep together, right?”
“Why? There’s a room on the second floor.”
“I saw that it was a two-story structure. Let’s sleep together though. The more pheromones I give to the children, the better.”
Cho-seung had to go to work and he couldn’t just ask Ha-hyun to match the schedule. That’s why it would be better to share a bedroom. Even if Ha-hyun was sleeping, they could lie down and share pheromones.
Above all, there was no guarantee that Ha-hyun wasn’t sick in the morning. Just imagining what happened when they were apart was terrifying, Cho-seung then hardened his expression without realizing it.
“Do you go to work? Personal schedule or something?”
“A rich unemployed man.”
“…okay.”
Cho-seung, who looked at Ha-hyun with envy for a moment, who had achieved the dream of all members of society, straightened his face.
“Then, would it be better to hand over my bankbook to you?”
“Why are you handing over the bankbook?”
“You need money to raise the children. My wealth is relatively small, so it’s better to just hand it over to you and manage it together.”
“Do you believe me?”
Cho-seung shed a smirk at the way he looked at the people. The relationship between the two wasn’t yet deep enough to discuss whether to believe or not. But.
“You said you are a rich unemployed man. My wealth isn’t large enough for you to covet.”
“Okay.”
Ha-hyun decided to just let Cho-seung do what he wanted to do.
He wanted to live a smooth life, so he was generally less dissatisfied with everything. It was the same as listening to the plans that Cho-seung laid out one by one, so he listened to the words that followed quickly.
“It’s mid-trimester soon, right? I have to quit the company, too.”
“Can you quit so easily? Don’t you have any regrets?”
“I can find a job again. Even if I can’t work at large companies, I can work at small and medium-sized companies.”
In response to the confident answer, Ha-hyun roughly nodded his head. He guessed that’s how he was. Once was enough to make him dry.
“If you like a husband who works for a large company, I will continue to work.”
“Husband?”
“When we register children’s birth, it would be more convenient to register the marriage. You’re not going to do it?”
“Ah…”
That’s right. What should I do?
Did everyone tend to register their marriage when they had children? Come to think of it, even when he told the manager that he was pregnant, he was surprised when he revealed that he was single. So, it usually meant that they were registering for marriage as long as they had decided to raise them together, right?
“Should I just report the partner first? I’ll think about registering the birth or marriage later.”
Cho-seung raised his arm and stroked Ha-hyun’s cheek with his complicated mind exposed on his face. As his slightly rough thumb stroked his skin, Ha-hyun turned his head and met Cho-seung’s eyes.
“Okay. Just report the partner.”
To be honest, it was almost like marriage registration, but technically, it was different. Breaking up with the partner was much easier than a divorce and there was less entanglement.
Moreover, the most important thing was that even if the children were born, the relationship as a partner couldn’t be registered. So, reporting a partner was no different than expressing that they were getting married soon.
“So, do I go to work? Or don’t go?”
“You don’t need to make money… if you want to go, go.”
Two kids and one adult.
It didn’t matter how many people increased because he was rich. There was also an additional income, so Ha-hyun was fine whether Cho-seung worked for a large company, a small company, or even a jobless one.
Cho-seung, who exclaimed admiration at the cool answer, caught his pounding heart at the different answer. Ha-hyun looked cool when he said that to Cho-seung, who had never thought of a job that way.
“Are you taking responsibility for me, too?”
“Ung, well. You’re going to quit the company because of me.”
Cho-seung let out a little laugh at what he said with his head tilted slightly and blinked a couple of times, then tapped Ha-hyun’s forehead.
“It’s not because of you.”
“…then?”
“I take responsibility for what I have done.”
If taking responsibility came in the form of quitting the company, wasn’t it a pretty extreme choice?
The reason why Cho-seung said he would quit his job was that he was a recessive omega no matter how much he thought about it. Recessive omega was difficult to conceive. And it was even harder to keep the baby in the womb completely.
It was hard to have ten months with just one child, but they were twins. It was said that even if he was able to endure in the early stages, he could suffer from mild abdominal pain to fainting in severe cases when he passed the middle stage.
The words he heard from the doctor today weren’t unreliable.
That’s why Cho-seung was saying that he would quit the company and take care of him by his side. Ha-hyun, who was staring at Cho-seung who spoke other words than the obvious answer, decided to keep silent.
“If it’s okay, I’ll go home and get some stuff. And the password, you can text…”
Cho-seung, who wanted him to leave the password, stopped when he realized that they hadn’t yet exchanged phone numbers.
Ha-hyun realized what was the problem and took out the cell phone he was holding in his arms and handed it to Cho-seung.
“It will take a long time. I think I’ll come back around dinnertime. Is there anything you want to eat?”
“Doenjang jji—” (장찌된 or 된장찌개, meant soybean pasta stew, here)
Ha-hyun, who was about to answer Cho-seung’s question, frowned at the returned phone screen.
“Wait a moment. What’s with the name?”
“Doenjang jjigae? I’ll pack it for you.”
After telling him that he could sleep if he was tired, Cho-seung kissed Ha-hyun’s wrist with his arms outstretched so that he could see the screen and leave the house.
Ha-hyun, who suddenly got a kiss on his wrist while trying to protest his saved name, lifted up his arms outstretched in the air and laughed ‘huhu’.
“Honey?”
How many times did he see it?
Ha-hyun, who was about to move his index finger to correct his name, stopped. Ha-hyun, who was looking at the letters “Honey” in the name column, closed the phone book and opened the message window. And he left the house password with the saved new number and closed his eyes quietly.
* * *
Trrring.
Cho-seung, who was staring at the side of the road to catch a taxi, looked at his cell phone at the light of the alarm.
[Buy a pineapple when you pack doejang jjigae. The trimmed one.]
He laughed at the behaviour of naturally making him run errands, but when he saw a taxi in his sight, he quickly caught it.
If they had each driven their own car to Ha-hyun’s house from the beginning, there would have been no need to take a taxi, but this also happened because of his insistence.
After returning to the hospital, he got in the car and headed home, quickly packed four days’ worth of clothes, pyjamas, and electronic devices and went out again. As he headed to the parking lot, he used his cell phone to search for doenjang jjigae restaurants and supermarkets.
“It’s a bit far.”
Still, if possible, he wanted to buy it from a delicious restaurant. There was no problem for him to cook as long as he had the ingredients, but it wasn’t something he could do right away because he didn’t know what kind of equipment and seasonings were in Ha-hyun’s kitchen.
Cho-seung decided to check his kitchen while he was eating dinner and washing dishes as he got into the car. He put his cell phone down in the passenger seat and suddenly remembered the call he received from his mother today.
It was true that he should contact her, but Cho-seung thought it would be the first thing to ask Ha-hyun for his understanding, so he decided to postpone it for a while and drove to complete his errand.
* * *
Ha-hyun, who was still lying on the sofa and wasting time, moved out of the sofa at the sound of the front door opening.
“That’s fast.”
“You’re hungry, right?”
“Ung, a little bit.”
As he left the living room and went to the hallway leading to the front door, Ha-hyun, who ran into Cho-seung, stepped back little by little.
Soon after, when Cho-seung stood next to him, he turned around and headed to the kitchen side by side. Cho-seung, who placed the packaged food on the table, opened all the drawers in the kitchen one by one naturally.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m checking what’s in the kitchen. We can’t buy it every time.”
“…why not?”
Ha-hyun, who had been buying or packing every meal outside, secretly kept his eyes away. With that reaction alone, he could see how Ha-hyun had been eating so far.
“I still have the tools, though.”
“Ung. It was there, but it looked bleak.”
There were literally only tools, nothing from seasonings to ordinary rice.
Still, he wanted to see where tools were. When he woke up tomorrow, he had to go home and bring the seasonings and ingredients from his kitchen.
If he left it as it was, he had no choice but to throw it away, so he might think it was fine.
“Sunflower seed oil is not very… is it okay if I throw this away?”
“Just use anything.”
“I prefer to use olive oil.”
That’s tricky.
Ha-hyun, who was staring at the oil thrown away in the trash without any regrets, quickly left the kitchen and became one with the sofa. It was because he had a strong feeling that even though he was there, he would only be a hindrance to Cho-seung.
“Sorry. You said you were hungry, right?”
“I can wait.”
Ha-hyun, who waved his hand, picked up his cell phone and connected to the mobile game, which he had become obsessed with these days.
As he was picking up a glass that was still on the table, sipping juice, and indulging in the game leisurely, Cho-seung took a deep breath as he looked at the freshly cooled food.
Again, Ha-hyun, who had no intention of bringing in anyone other than the baby, seemed to be more confused and annoyed when Cho-seung’s unexpected reaction caused an unwanted cohabitation.
“Are you serious?”
“Ung. I’m serious.”
“Can’t you just pretend you don’t know?”
“No. There are two of us, so why are you working hard alone?”
Why is this Kang Cho-seung guy so sensible?
He might think it was something he should do, but from Ha-hyun’s point of view, it was annoying. To be honest, it was okay to give birth and raise it alone. No, he thought so. The problem was that the children in Ha-hyun’s belly were twins. That was a bigger problem than he thought.
“Everything is uncomfortable without each other.”
“But that…”
“If it was twins, it will be difficult for you even after giving birth. It would be tough to raise the two by yourself.”
“It’s the same when you work.”
“I’ll quit the company until my children grow up some years later.”
Cho-seung answered without hesitation, took out a glass of juice that was held in Ha-hyun’s hand and placed it on the table.
Ha-hyun, who had no intention of drinking, tolerated Cho-seung’s actions. His hands were empty, so he buried himself on the sofa without hesitation.
“Three strangers.”
“Ung?”
“Nothing.”
Cho-seung brushed off Ha-hyun’s bangs, who sighed deeply, and smiled at the thought that the reaction seemed to have allowed them to live together.
Ha-hyun felt Cho-seung’s gentle touch and focused on the voice that fell in his ears.
“I’ll just bring what I need right now and come in right away. I’ll move in on a day.”
“Do you have many home appliances?”
“A little bit.”
As he recalled his belongings at home, he smiled awkwardly. Looking around, Ha-hyun’s home appliances in this house were neither too much nor too little. Seeing that the appropriate items were placed in just the right place, he thought the other rooms would be similar.
Then there would be no need to bring in the home appliances again and there would be no room. It seemed that one or two would have to be disposed of as secondhand or thrown away.
Cho-seung, who gently loosened the slightly wrinkled forehead with his thumb, asked Ha-hyun to make sure.
“I will ask you one last time. Is it okay if we live together?”
“Ung.”
Because the children Ha-hyun had was his children and also Cho-seung’s children.
Ha-hyun shook his head, not wanting to drag on the matter by arguing. Eventually, Cho-seung raised the corner of his mouth and kissed Ha-hyun’s forehead.
“What is it?”
“Please take care of me in the future.”
“Ah. Okay.”
Ha-hyun, who rubbed his forehead, which seemed to have a slight warmth, with his index finger, closed his eyes. Cho-seung, who shed a little smile at the lack of response, began to ask what should be decided one by one.
“We’re going to sleep together, right?”
“Why? There’s a room on the second floor.”
“I saw that it was a two-story structure. Let’s sleep together though. The more pheromones I give to the children, the better.”
Cho-seung had to go to work and he couldn’t just ask Ha-hyun to match the schedule. That’s why it would be better to share a bedroom. Even if Ha-hyun was sleeping, they could lie down and share pheromones.
Above all, there was no guarantee that Ha-hyun wasn’t sick in the morning. Just imagining what happened when they were apart was terrifying, Cho-seung then hardened his expression without realizing it.
“Do you go to work? Personal schedule or something?”
“A rich unemployed man.”
“…okay.”
Cho-seung, who looked at Ha-hyun with envy for a moment, who had achieved the dream of all members of society, straightened his face.
“Then, would it be better to hand over my bankbook to you?”
“Why are you handing over the bankbook?”
“You need money to raise the children. My wealth is relatively small, so it’s better to just hand it over to you and manage it together.”
“Do you believe me?”
Cho-seung shed a smirk at the way he looked at the people. The relationship between the two wasn’t yet deep enough to discuss whether to believe or not. But.
“You said you are a rich unemployed man. My wealth isn’t large enough for you to covet.”
“Okay.”
Ha-hyun decided to just let Cho-seung do what he wanted to do.
He wanted to live a smooth life, so he was generally less dissatisfied with everything. It was the same as listening to the plans that Cho-seung laid out one by one, so he listened to the words that followed quickly.
“It’s mid-trimester soon, right? I have to quit the company, too.”
“Can you quit so easily? Don’t you have any regrets?”
“I can find a job again. Even if I can’t work at large companies, I can work at small and medium-sized companies.”
In response to the confident answer, Ha-hyun roughly nodded his head. He guessed that’s how he was. Once was enough to make him dry.
“If you like a husband who works for a large company, I will continue to work.”
“Husband?”
“When we register children’s birth, it would be more convenient to register the marriage. You’re not going to do it?”
“Ah…”
That’s right. What should I do?
Did everyone tend to register their marriage when they had children? Come to think of it, even when he told the manager that he was pregnant, he was surprised when he revealed that he was single. So, it usually meant that they were registering for marriage as long as they had decided to raise them together, right?
“Should I just report the partner first? I’ll think about registering the birth or marriage later.”
Cho-seung raised his arm and stroked Ha-hyun’s cheek with his complicated mind exposed on his face. As his slightly rough thumb stroked his skin, Ha-hyun turned his head and met Cho-seung’s eyes.
“Okay. Just report the partner.”
To be honest, it was almost like marriage registration, but technically, it was different. Breaking up with the partner was much easier than a divorce and there was less entanglement.
Moreover, the most important thing was that even if the children were born, the relationship as a partner couldn’t be registered. So, reporting a partner was no different than expressing that they were getting married soon.
“So, do I go to work? Or don’t go?”
“You don’t need to make money… if you want to go, go.”
Two kids and one adult.
It didn’t matter how many people increased because he was rich. There was also an additional income, so Ha-hyun was fine whether Cho-seung worked for a large company, a small company, or even a jobless one.
Cho-seung, who exclaimed admiration at the cool answer, caught his pounding heart at the different answer. Ha-hyun looked cool when he said that to Cho-seung, who had never thought of a job that way.
“Are you taking responsibility for me, too?”
“Ung, well. You’re going to quit the company because of me.”
Cho-seung let out a little laugh at what he said with his head tilted slightly and blinked a couple of times, then tapped Ha-hyun’s forehead.
“It’s not because of you.”
“…then?”
“I take responsibility for what I have done.”
If taking responsibility came in the form of quitting the company, wasn’t it a pretty extreme choice?
The reason why Cho-seung said he would quit his job was that he was a recessive omega no matter how much he thought about it. Recessive omega was difficult to conceive. And it was even harder to keep the baby in the womb completely.
It was hard to have ten months with just one child, but they were twins. It was said that even if he was able to endure in the early stages, he could suffer from mild abdominal pain to fainting in severe cases when he passed the middle stage.
The words he heard from the doctor today weren’t unreliable.
That’s why Cho-seung was saying that he would quit the company and take care of him by his side. Ha-hyun, who was staring at Cho-seung who spoke other words than the obvious answer, decided to keep silent.
“If it’s okay, I’ll go home and get some stuff. And the password, you can text…”
Cho-seung, who wanted him to leave the password, stopped when he realized that they hadn’t yet exchanged phone numbers.
Ha-hyun realized what was the problem and took out the cell phone he was holding in his arms and handed it to Cho-seung.
“It will take a long time. I think I’ll come back around dinnertime. Is there anything you want to eat?”
“Doenjang jji—” (장찌된 or 된장찌개, meant soybean pasta stew, here)
Ha-hyun, who was about to answer Cho-seung’s question, frowned at the returned phone screen.
“Wait a moment. What’s with the name?”
“Doenjang jjigae? I’ll pack it for you.”
After telling him that he could sleep if he was tired, Cho-seung kissed Ha-hyun’s wrist with his arms outstretched so that he could see the screen and leave the house.
Ha-hyun, who suddenly got a kiss on his wrist while trying to protest his saved name, lifted up his arms outstretched in the air and laughed ‘huhu’.
“Honey?”
How many times did he see it?
Ha-hyun, who was about to move his index finger to correct his name, stopped. Ha-hyun, who was looking at the letters “Honey” in the name column, closed the phone book and opened the message window. And he left the house password with the saved new number and closed his eyes quietly.
* * *
Trrring.
Cho-seung, who was staring at the side of the road to catch a taxi, looked at his cell phone at the light of the alarm.
[Buy a pineapple when you pack doejang jjigae. The trimmed one.]
He laughed at the behaviour of naturally making him run errands, but when he saw a taxi in his sight, he quickly caught it.
If they had each driven their own car to Ha-hyun’s house from the beginning, there would have been no need to take a taxi, but this also happened because of his insistence.
After returning to the hospital, he got in the car and headed home, quickly packed four days’ worth of clothes, pyjamas, and electronic devices and went out again. As he headed to the parking lot, he used his cell phone to search for doenjang jjigae restaurants and supermarkets.
“It’s a bit far.”
Still, if possible, he wanted to buy it from a delicious restaurant. There was no problem for him to cook as long as he had the ingredients, but it wasn’t something he could do right away because he didn’t know what kind of equipment and seasonings were in Ha-hyun’s kitchen.
Cho-seung decided to check his kitchen while he was eating dinner and washing dishes as he got into the car. He put his cell phone down in the passenger seat and suddenly remembered the call he received from his mother today.
It was true that he should contact her, but Cho-seung thought it would be the first thing to ask Ha-hyun for his understanding, so he decided to postpone it for a while and drove to complete his errand.
* * *
Ha-hyun, who was still lying on the sofa and wasting time, moved out of the sofa at the sound of the front door opening.
“That’s fast.”
“You’re hungry, right?”
“Ung, a little bit.”
As he left the living room and went to the hallway leading to the front door, Ha-hyun, who ran into Cho-seung, stepped back little by little.
Soon after, when Cho-seung stood next to him, he turned around and headed to the kitchen side by side. Cho-seung, who placed the packaged food on the table, opened all the drawers in the kitchen one by one naturally.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m checking what’s in the kitchen. We can’t buy it every time.”
“…why not?”
Ha-hyun, who had been buying or packing every meal outside, secretly kept his eyes away. With that reaction alone, he could see how Ha-hyun had been eating so far.
“I still have the tools, though.”
“Ung. It was there, but it looked bleak.”
There were literally only tools, nothing from seasonings to ordinary rice.
Still, he wanted to see where tools were. When he woke up tomorrow, he had to go home and bring the seasonings and ingredients from his kitchen.
If he left it as it was, he had no choice but to throw it away, so he might think it was fine.
“Sunflower seed oil is not very… is it okay if I throw this away?”
“Just use anything.”
“I prefer to use olive oil.”
That’s tricky.
Ha-hyun, who was staring at the oil thrown away in the trash without any regrets, quickly left the kitchen and became one with the sofa. It was because he had a strong feeling that even though he was there, he would only be a hindrance to Cho-seung.
“Sorry. You said you were hungry, right?”
“I can wait.”
Ha-hyun, who waved his hand, picked up his cell phone and connected to the mobile game, which he had become obsessed with these days.
As he was picking up a glass that was still on the table, sipping juice, and indulging in the game leisurely, Cho-seung took a deep breath as he looked at the freshly cooled food.
