“Both, obviously.”
The shameless demand made Gyujin laugh again. He gently stroked Dajung’s hair and began guiding him.
Apparently disappointed that Gyujin had only granted the second request, Kwon Dajung kept idly caressing Gyujin’s wrist. Gyujin ignored him, finished the guiding, and turned his attention back to the television.
“I like all kids, personally. Someday I’d like to have at least two. Three would be nice too.”
If he was going to have children anyway, two daughters and one son sounded perfect. Wouldn’t three like that leave him with nothing more to wish for?
Adoption wouldn’t be bad either.
As the sound of children laughing came from the television, Gyujin smiled contentedly.
“……Why would you have kids, Gyujin?”
The voice that suddenly cut through the room was cold as frost.
Gyujin glanced sideways.
The face that had been acting as spoiled and affectionate as a well-fed cat only moments ago was gone. Kwon Dajung’s pitch-black pupils gleamed strangely.
He sat up and roughly yanked Gyujin’s wrist toward him.
“Why would you have them? How? With who? Are you planning to give birth yourself?”
“No, I’m not saying I’d be the one giving birth…… I mean, later, if I ever get married or something…….”
“Married?”
Kwon Dajung twisted his lips and glared at Gyujin with blazing eyes, as though he had just been personally insulted.
Gyujin had no idea what the hell had upset him this time.
“Why are you suddenly getting angry?”
“I’m fucking—! Ha. Forget it. There’s no point talking. I’ll just wear my mouth out.”
Kwon Dajung chewed viciously on his lower lip.
All the while, the children on television continued laughing brightly.
In stark contrast to those innocent baby voices, something poisonous slowly filled Kwon Dajung’s expression.
“You’ll never have kids. Not even if you die and come back. I fucking hate kids, okay? Even if you somehow ended up carrying one yourself, I wouldn’t change my mind. I hate kids. I fucking hate them. I don’t give a shit if it has your blood in it—I’d kill it with my own hands. So don’t ever say that kind of shit in front of me again. Understand?”
“Then nod if you understand.”
Faced with the harsh command, Gyujin nodded blankly.
He considered telling him that men couldn’t have children in the first place, then decided against it.
When Kwon Dajung got angry like this and stopped listening to reason entirely, trying to persuade him was less effective than simply leaving him alone until he exhausted himself.
Besides, Gyujin himself hadn’t attached any particular significance to all that talk about children.
But the conversation he thought had ended there went on to torment him for nearly an entire year.
Apparently Kwon Dajung truly hated children that much, because whenever he got the chance, he would chant at Gyujin, “I fucking hate kids,” like some kind of prayer.
Then he started insisting that since Gyujin couldn’t have children anyway, he should just get sterilized.
When Dajung suggested that if Gyujin was scared to do it alone, they could go get it done together, Gyujin recoiled in horror.
Only after begging him, coaxing him, promising never to bring up children again, and even writing a signed pledge that he would never have any did Kwon Dajung’s endless chanting finally stop.
Maybe I should’ve talked to him more seriously back then.
Or maybe I should’ve just given in and gotten a vasectomy.
Who could possibly have known that Gyujin really would end up pregnant someday?
And not with just anyone’s baby, either.
With Kwon Dajung’s……
Even if you somehow ended up carrying one yourself, I wouldn’t change my mind.
I hate kids. I fucking hate them.
Kwon Dajung was the kind of person who never took back something once he had said it.
He almost certainly wouldn’t retract those words either.
That was why Gyujin did not particularly want to tell him about the child inside him.
He hadn’t even decided whether he was going to give birth yet. He had no desire to go out of his way to turn the situation into something even bigger, and he still lacked the courage to face whatever would come afterward.
What if he said, This baby is yours, and Kwon Dajung hated it?
What if Dajung told him not to have the baby?
What if he said he didn’t want to raise it?
Could Gyujin really hear those words from him and not be hurt?
He knew perfectly well that he was not that strong.
Even knowing he was avoiding the issue, he could do nothing but avoid it.
Because Gyujin was neither strong enough nor honest enough to face it.
Snapping out of his tangled thoughts, Gyujin suddenly opened his eyes.
He stared around in a daze.
After taking in the white ceiling, the familiar arrangement of furniture, and the building visible through the window across the way, he finally realized where he was.
The hospital.
“But I was definitely in the middle of guiding……”
He looked down at his palm.
Gyujin’s last memory ended with him entering a guiding room with Kwon Dajung.
So how did I end up in the hospital?
“You passed out while guiding Esper Kwon Dajung.”
Gyujin jerked his head toward the voice near his pillow.
A man was crouched on the visitor’s sofa, playing a game on his phone. Gyujin had no idea how long he had been sitting there.
The man rubbed his bloodshot eyes and yawned.
“Because of that, the operation we were supposed to go on today got completely called off.”
Gyujin’s expression turned awkward at the explanation.
He rubbed his forehead and sighed.
“The Esper Bureau is going to chew us out again……”
Special Operations Team 1 was already infamous for never listening to anyone.
Gyujin could practically hear the director of the Esper Bureau complaining in his ear already.
Special Operations Team 1 consisted of four Espers, including Kwon Dajung, but despite its small size, it caused more than its fair share of trouble.
Managing Kwon Dajung alone was enough to give anyone a headache, yet the other three were similarly impossible troublemakers.
That was why, while most teams had around seven or eight Espers, Team 1 operated with only four.
The man sitting in front of Gyujin now, Song Youngju, was one of Team 1’s resident disasters.
At first glance, he looked like an ordinary gaming addict, but Song Youngju had once been called a “mental disruptor.”
Suffering from chronic lack of guiding and stretched to the limits of his nerves, he had directly and indirectly affected the minds of everyone within a five-meter radius.
Song Youngju’s ability was telepathy.
And because his ability was absurdly sensitive, it had a nasty habit of forcibly gifting everyone around him with horrifying auditory hallucinations.
At his worst, his condition had been so severe that he had needed to be confined to an isolation room.
But after he met Gyujin, that problem disappeared.
Their compatibility rate was reasonably good, and more importantly, Song Youngju’s satisfaction with Gyujin’s guiding was exceptionally high.
After joining Team 1, Song Youngju stopped being called a “mental disruptor.”
Still, the memories of that period had been so intense that people continued to edge away whenever they saw him.
Gyujin couldn’t have cared less.
To him, Song Youngju was still just a kid.
“Is the Esper Bureau really what you should be worrying about? Kwon Dajung looked like he’d completely lost it.”
The cheerful beeping of the phone game continued without a care in the world.
Gyujin dropped his head.
He already felt exhausted, and he hadn’t even heard the full story yet.
“What’s his problem this time?”
“What do you think? You passed out right in front of him. Of course he lost his mind. Mine would’ve gone too.”
Song Youngju set his phone aside and looked at Gyujin.
Only then did Gyujin notice how much worry filled his eyes.
“So what’s actually going on? Why did you suddenly collapse while guiding? Team Leader, are you sick?”
“It’s nothing like that.”
“Doesn’t look like nothing. You were falling asleep during operations all last week, and you even kept dozing off while guiding. You are sick, aren’t you?”
Gyujin quietly averted his eyes.
Well……
That part was true.
Those symptoms were the entire reason Yoon Palsik had dragged him to the hospital in the first place.
At the time, Gyujin had assumed it was simple chronic fatigue, but……
“It’s nothing serious, so you don’t need to worry.”
“How am I supposed to not worry?”
Song Youngju snapped at him sulkily.
Gyujin appreciated the concern, but since any explanation would ultimately end with, Apparently it’s because I’m pregnant, he had absolutely no idea what he was supposed to say.
“Moon Guk and Choi Sunwoo are already on their way here too.”
“What? Why are those two coming?”
“What do you mean, why? You keep making me repeat myself.”
Song Youngju got up from the sofa and approached Gyujin.
He sat on the edge of the bed and looked Gyujin over from one angle, then another.
Anxiety slowly crept into his eyes.
“There really isn’t something seriously wrong, is there? You can tell us if you’re sick, Team Leader. Stop trying to endure everything by yourself.”
Gyujin let out a quiet laugh.
He reached over and vigorously ruffled Song Youngju’s hair.
“Look at our Youngju, all grown up. You even know how to worry about people now.”
“Team Leader, I’m the same age as Kwon Dajung, you know. Do you think I’m a child or something?”
“You and Dajung are both still kids to me. I still remember you running around in school uniforms.”
“That was forever ago. It’s been five years already.”
Despite what he said, Song Youngju made no attempt to pull away from Gyujin’s hand.
Gyujin offered an excuse that wasn’t really an excuse.
“They say first impressions stay with you forever. Guk and Sunwoo are the same. Seeing all four of you together in school uniforms made too much of an impression.”
Song Youngju, Moon Guk, and Choi Sunwoo had all joined the same year as Kwon Dajung.
Their starting dates had been several months apart, but all four were the same age and had been the youngest recruits at nineteen, so Gyujin remembered them clearly.
“Those snot-nosed brats really grew up before I knew it……”
The moment the words left his mouth, his conscience started pricking at him.
After all, he had gone and done all kinds of things with one of those snot-nosed brats.
Enough things to make a baby.
The thought was suddenly shocking all over again.
How the hell did things end up like this?
Was my type secretly snot-nosed brats all along?
“You two look awfully cozy.”
The hand stroking Song Youngju’s hair froze.
Following the amused voice, Gyujin turned his head.
Kwon Dajung stood leaning crookedly against the entrance to the hospital room.
He was smiling brilliantly as vicious words poured from his mouth.
“Stroking some other man’s hair without a shred of loyalty. Anyone looking at you would think the two of you were bonded or something. Hm? Keep this up and you’ll be rolling around in bed together next, won’t you?”