Chapter 13: Medical Endorsement
The ultrasound image was tacked to Donghae’s fridge with a dinosaur magnet. A daily, silent altar. He’d look at it while pouring cereal, a soft, private smile playing on his lips. Hyukjae would catch him sometimes, just staring, his head tilted. She’d feel a flutter low in her belly—anxiety, she told herself, not the quickening the pregnancy apps described. It was too early for that. Wasn’t it?
The apartment had shifted. The cluttered chaos of books and anime merch was now organized around a new, unspoken center. A pamphlets from the prenatal clinic lay on the coffee table, next to a half-finished glass of water Hyukjae could never seem to finish. Donghae had bought a bulk pack of plain crackers. He researched prenatal vitamins with the intensity of a grad student.
He was happy. It glowed off him, a palpable warmth that filled the rooms. It terrified her.
“It’s a check-up. Routine,” he said that morning, squeezing her hand as they sat in the clinic’s waiting room. The sterile blue light made everything look underwater. It smelled of antiseptic and a weirdly sweet air freshener, like fake rain. “Just to make sure everything’s… progressing.”
Progressing. Like a project. Like Heechul’s experiment. The thought was a cold stone in her gut.
She nodded, mute. She wore the new jeans and a loose sweatshirt. Her body still felt like a borrowed suit, but now it was a suit that was slowly, irrevocably changing shape without her permission. The subtle, swelling tenderness in her breasts was a constant reminder. A colony had been planted inside her, and it was expanding its territory.
The nurse called her name—her new, legal name, the one Heechul had forged on the documents. “Lee Hyunjin.” It still didn’t fit.
The exam room was colder. The examination table, covered in crackling paper, reflected the overhead lights like a sheet of ice. Dr. Park was a woman in her fifties with kind eyes and a no-nonsense manner. She asked questions, typed answers. Date of last menstrual period? Hyukjae just stared. Donghae, from his chair in the corner, cleared his throat. “It’s, uh… irregular. Very.”
Dr. Park nodded, typing. “We’ll just date from the ultrasound.” She gestured for Hyukjae to lie back, lift her sweatshirt. The gel was warm this time, a small mercy. The transducer pressed down. Donghae’s chair scraped as he moved closer, his hand finding hers. His grip was tight.
On the monitor, the grainy universe swirled. And then, there it was. Bigger. The bean-shape was now more distinct, a tiny, curved prawn floating in grey static. And in the center, that flicker. Whump-whump-whump-whump. A frantic, tiny drum solo. The sound filled the room, a rapid, mechanical whooshing.
“Strong heartbeat,” Dr. Park said, smiling. “One fifty-two beats per minute. Perfectly normal. Measuring right on track for… let’s see, about seven weeks now.”
Seven weeks. Hyukjae’s mind did the awful math. The first time with Donghae. On the floor of this apartment, desperate and scared. That was the seed. This was the harvest.
“Everything looks textbook,” the doctor said, wiping the gel away. She helped Hyukjae sit up. “Any nausea? Fatigue?”
“Yes,” Hyukjae managed.
“Normal. The fatigue is your body building a placenta. It’s hard work.” Dr. Park tapped at her keyboard. “I’ll see you again in four weeks. We’ll do more screening then. Any questions?”
Donghae’s hand tightened around hers. He’d been quiet, his eyes glued to the screen where their child—the word was a mental thunderclap—had just been. Now, he looked at the doctor, his ears tinged pink.
“Um.” He swallowed. “Is… is it… are there any… restrictions?” He stumbled over the words. “For… activities.”
Dr. Park glanced between them, a flicker of amusement in her kind eyes. “You mean exercise? Light to moderate is fine. Listen to your body.”
“No, I mean…” Donghae’s voice dropped, laced with a shy, painful earnestness. “Sex. Is sex okay?”
A beat of silence. Hyukjae wanted to melt through the paper-covered table.
Dr. Park’s smile widened, genuinely warm. “Sex is perfectly fine. Just avoid anything too… acrobatic.” She chuckled softly, closing her tablet. “Common sense applies. If it causes pain or bleeding, stop. Otherwise, enjoy. It’s healthy for bonding.”
She left the room, the door clicking softly shut behind her.
The silence she left was different. Thick, charged. The rapid whoosh-whoosh of the heartbeat was gone, replaced by the hum of the lights. Donghae was still holding her hand. He turned to her, his eyes dark, the shyness burned away by a heat that was instantly familiar.
“You heard her,” he murmured, his voice low and rough.
He didn’t wait for an answer. He pulled her to him, his mouth crashing down on hers. This kiss wasn’t soft or joyful. It was searing, possessive, loaded with the raw reality of what they’d just seen and heard. It was a claim staked in the shifting ground of her body. His tongue delved deep, tasting her, and she met him with a sudden, fierce hunger of her own. The confusion, the fear, the surreal horror of it all funneled into this—a purely physical, desperate need to feel something other than dread.
He broke the kiss, breathing heavily, his forehead pressed to hers. His thumb stroked the line of her jaw. “Hear that, mama?” he whispered, the word a hot, forbidden thrill in the clinical air. “Daddy gets to keep filling you up.”
A violent shiver ran through her. Not of disgust. Of white-hot, shocking need. She grabbed the front of his shirt, fisting the fabric, and kissed him again, all teeth and tongue.
They stumbled out of the clinic, hands linked tightly. The cool outside air did nothing to douse the fever between them. The drive back to the apartment was tense, silent except for the rough rhythm of their breathing. Donghae drove with one hand, the other on her thigh, his fingers digging in with a pressure that promised more.
Inside the apartment, he didn’t lead her to the bed. He backed her against the front door the moment it shut, the lock engaging with a definitive click. His hands cupped her face, his kiss devouring. She reached between them, fumbling with the button of his jeans. He helped, shoving them down along with his boxers. His cock sprang free, fully hard, veins prominent. She shoved her own jeans and underwear down, just enough.
He hooked his hands under her thighs, lifting her. She wrapped her legs around his waist, her back against the cool wood of the door. There was no finesse, no slow burn. He guided himself to her entrance, wet and ready for him despite the chaos in her mind, and pushed inside in one deep, relentless stroke.
“Fuck,” he groaned into her neck, the sound vibrating through her. She cried out, the stretch, the fullness, the sheer rightness of it obliterating thought. This was a language she understood now. This was a truth her body accepted without question.
He fucked her against the door, hard and deep, each thrust driving her body up the wood with a soft thud. The force of it, the primal simplicity, was everything. He grunted with each drive, animalistic sounds that fueled her own rising pleasure. One arm braced against the door, holding her up; the other hand slipped between them, his fingers finding her clit.
“Gonna make you come,” he panted, his breath hot against her ear. “Gonna feel you squeeze my cock while I’m buried in you. Gonna feel that perfect cunt milk me while our baby’s right there.”
The filthy words, the visceral claiming, tore the climax from her. It wasn’t sweet or floating. It was a sharp, sudden convulsion, a clenching deep inward spasm that ripped a ragged scream from her throat. Her walls clamped down on him in rhythmic pulses, and he swore, his own control snapping.
He hammered into her, once, twice, three more times, his body rigid against hers. With a guttural cry, he buried himself to the hilt and came, his release pumping into her in hot, insistent jets. She felt it, a profound internal warmth.
They slid down the door together in a heap of tangled clothes and sweat-slick skin, still joined. His forehead rested on her shoulder, his breath gusting against her neck. Her legs were shaking, draped over his hips.
After a long while, he stirred. He pulled out slowly, a groan catching in his throat. He didn’t move to get up, just arranged them so she was cradled in his lap, her back against his chest, his arms wrapped around her. He nuzzled her hair.
“I love you,” he said, his voice raw. “All of you. Every part.”
She leaned her head back against his shoulder, staring at the ceiling. The terror was still there, a cold undercurrent beneath the satiated heat. But for now, nestled in the circle of his arms, with the evidence of his claim drying between her thighs, she could almost believe there was a future in this chaos. That this body, this life growing inside it, could somehow be hers.
The dinosaur magnet held the new ultrasound image on the fridge. The prawn was bigger. A head, a body. A heartbeat of 152 bpm.
A person.
Donghae kissed her temple, his lips soft. “My girls,” he whispered.
She closed her eyes, letting the words wash over her. A placeholder for a feeling she couldn’t yet name.
A placeholder for a feeling she couldn’t yet name.
Weeks unspooled into a new, strange domestic rhythm. Donghae returned to campus for his final year, a backpack heavy with textbooks that smelled of library dust and fresh ink. He’d kiss her goodbye at the door, a lingering press of lips that tasted of mint toothpaste and belonging. She’d watch from the window as he crossed the street, a familiar figure growing smaller, a part of her world that left every morning.
The apartment became her domain. The half-finished anime marathons were replaced by the soft murmur of home renovation shows. She learned terms like "crib assembly" and "non-VOC paint." She ordered swatches of fabric online—soft greys, pale yellows—and spread them on the floor where they’d once fucked in desperate, frantic piles. That memory felt like it belonged to another person now. Or maybe it was the foundation this new person was built upon.
Nausea settled into a predictable morning visitor. She’d crouch by the toilet, heaving up nothing but bile and resentment, then rinse her mouth and butter toast. Her breasts were fuller, heavier, a constant tender weight. She bought bras with wider straps and no underwire. Shopping for them alone was a quiet, surreal victory.
One afternoon, she stood before the full-length mirror on the closet door. She wore one of Donghae’s old t-shirts. It strained now across her bust. Her hand slipped beneath the hem, resting low on her abdomen. It was still flat, hard. But she knew. The napkin from the clinic, the one with the arrow pointing to a tiny prawn, was folded in a drawer. A universe hid beneath her palm. She turned sideways, examining the line of her body. A strange, fragile curiosity bloomed where only terror had been.
When Donghae came home, he found her with a tablet, a dozen browser tabs open to changing tables. The late afternoon sun caught the dust motes dancing around her. She looked up, a faint crease between her brows.
“Do you think a dresser-topper is safer than a free-standing one?” she asked. Her voice was casual.Practical.
He stood still, his backpack slipping from his shoulder to thump on the floor. Something in his face shifted, cracked open. He crossed the room in three strides, knelt before her chair, and buried his face in her lap. He didn’t speak. His shoulders shook once, a silent tremor. She slowly lowered a hand to his hair, threading her fingers through the soft strands. The gesture felt ancient, instinctive.
“I’m looking at pale yellow,” she said, her voice softer now. “Not gender-specific. We can add color later.”
He looked up, his eyes bright. “Yellow’s good.”
He began to bring things home. A wooden rattle from a flea market, polished smooth by unknown hands. A textbook illustration of fetal development, carefully torn out and placed under a magnet on the fridge next to the ultrasound. The dinosaur held it all. He’d point to it while making dinner—stir-fry, mostly, because it was cheap and fast. “Week twelve,” he’d say, his finger tapping the drawing of a featureless, large-headed form. “Vocal cords are forming.”
“Great,” she’d say, salting the rice. “It can scream while we’re sleep-deprived.”
He’d grin, that full, unguarded smile that still made something flip inside her chest. “Our little alarm clock.”
The sex changed. It was less frantic, less about proving a point or chasing a reversal. It became deeper, slower. A nightly reclamation. He’d come to bed smelling of ink and autumn air, find her already under the covers, and fold her into him. His hands learned the new landscape of her body with reverent attention. He’d kiss the valley between her swollen breasts, his tongue tracing the new, darker lines of her areolas. “So beautiful,” he’d murmur, his breath hot on her damp skin. “Fuck, you’re so perfect like this.”
One night, she was on her side. He curled behind her, his chest to her back, his knees fitting behind hers. His hand smoothed over her hip, down her thigh, then back up, slipping between her legs from behind. His fingers slid through her wetness with an easy, familiar intimacy.
“Open for me,” he whispered, his teeth grazing her shoulder. She bent her top leg forward, giving him access. His fingers worked her clit in slow, deliberate circles while his other hand cupped her breast, his thumb rubbing her nipple. Pleasure built in a steady, warm tide, not a crashing wave. She pushed her hips back against him, feeling the hard length of his cock pressed against her lower back.
“Want you inside,” she breathed, her voice thick.
He didn’t need telling twice. He guided himself to her entrance, pushing in with one long, fluid motion that filled her completely. A low groan vibrated from his chest into her back. He moved then, a deep, rocking rhythm that stroked a place inside her that made her see stars behind her closed eyelids. Each thrust was unhurried, profound. He fucked her like they had all night, like his only purpose was to be buried in her warmth. His hand stayed on her breast, his fingers on her clit, keeping a steady, maddening pressure.
“You feel like heaven,” he panted into her hair, his pace quickening minutely. “This cunt is mine. This perfect, tight, fucking beautiful cunt.” The vulgarity was tender now, a secret language. “You’re gonna come on my cock. I want to feel it. Milk me dry.”
His words, the relentless deep friction, the possessive grasp of his hands, tipped her over. Her orgasm unspooled in a long, silent unraveling, a series of deep internal flutters that gripped his cock tightly. She cried out, a soft, broken sound. The clenching of her body pulled his own release from him. He drove in deep, held there, and she felt the hot, distinct pulse of him filling her.A claiming. A renewal.
After, still joined, he stroked her stomach. “Hi in there,” he whispered. Then, to her, “My wife.”
The word hung in the dark. It didn’t feel like a costume. Not in that moment. It felt like a warm blanket, a shelter. She pressed back against him, chasing his heat.
In the daylight, she owned it. She bought a cheap, oversized knitting kit from a craft store. She didn’t know how to knit. The tutorial videos were a pleasant, distracting chaos of loops and jargon. She’d sit on the floor, the future-nursery sun-warm around her, tangled in grey yarn, and laugh at her own clumsiness. She made a hideous, uneven scarf first. Donghae wore it anyway, twice, before she stole it back to unravel.
She started a new project. A tiny blanket. The stitches were tighter, more even. A rhythm emerged. She’d pause, her hands resting on her lower belly. She’d talk, sometimes. To it.To herself.
“Your dad’s going to be a terrible influence,” she’d say, smiling at the looping yarn. “He’ll probably teach you stupid dance moves before you can walk.”
The silence of the apartment was no longer hollow. It was pregnant—the word itself a joke she smiled at—with potential. She was waiting. But she was also building. Planning. She was, for the first time since the blue light of Heechul’s lab, not fighting the current. She was floating in it. She was the vessel. And maybe, just maybe, she was also the captain.
The door clicked open just past five. Donghae’s key in the lock. She set the knitting aside, the soft wool a promise in her lap. She heard his backpack drop, the rustle of his jacket. He appeared in the doorway of the sunlit room, a paper bag in his hand.
“I got those samples,” he said, holding up the bag. “The paint. The safe, breathable, non-toxic shit.” He grinned, his eyes tired but bright. He looked at her, surrounded by her swatches and yarn, her hair in a messy bun, his shirt straining across her changed body. His expression softened into something awestruck, fiercely proud.
“Welcome home,” she said. And she meant it.