Chapter 4: The Last Supper
The zipper’s rasp was the loudest sound in the guest room. Each tooth parting felt like a goodbye. Min-seo folded a sweater with methodical precision, her movements calm, her mind a silent, blank plane. The positive test was a hard, plastic secret in the pocket of her coat hanging by the door. Two pink lines that changed everything and, in this house, with him, meant nothing at all.
His mother’s voice echoed in her memory, sweet and cloying. You two are just adorable together. And Ellis’s reaction—that sharp, derisive snort, the exaggerated eye-roll shared with his brother Leo. A private joke at her expense. Confirmation. She was a temporary fixture. A comfort. A warm hole.
She heard his heavy tread on the stairs, too late to hide the suitcase open on the bed. He appeared in the doorway, a silhouette against the hall light. He held two glasses of water. He’d been playing the good son, helping clear the last of the dessert plates.
“What are you doing?” His voice was carefully neutral.
“Packing.” She didn’t look up.
“Why?”
She placed the sweater in the suitcase, smoothed it. “I have an early meeting tomorrow. I told you.”
“You said you’d stay tonight. Drive back in the morning.” He stepped into the room, setting the glasses on the dresser with a soft click.
“I changed my mind.” The lie was flat, effortless.
Silence stretched, thick as the gravy that had congealed on the dining table downstairs. She could feel him watching her, his gaze a physical weight on the back of her neck. The air still smelled of roasted turkey and his family’s expensive perfume, undercut with the faint, ever-present scent of his childhood home: old wood and lemon polish.
“Was it the thing with my mom?” he asked finally. “The ‘adorable’ comment?”
She laughed then, a short, brittle sound. “No, Ellis. It wasn’t the comment.” She finally turned to face him. In the dim light of the Tiffany lamp, he looked like a stranger. Handsome, exhausted, closed off. A fortress of his own making. “It was your face. It was the look you gave Leo. You were so fucking embarrassed by the mere suggestion.”
He had the decency to flinch. “I wasn’t embarrassed of you.”
“You were embarrassed by the idea of you and me. It’s the same thing.” She zipped the suitcase shut. The finality of the sound was a full stop.
He moved then, fast, blocking the doorway. “Don’t go.”
“Get out of my way.”
“Not like this.” His hand shot out, not to grab her, but to land on the suitcase handle, his fingers covering hers. His touch was electric, infuriating. “Talk to me.”
“What is there to say? ‘Thanks for the fuck, sorry your family thinks we’re cute, see you never’?” She tried to pull the suitcase, but he held firm.
“Don’t reduce it to that.” His voice dropped, low and rough.
“You did it first.” She wrenched her hand free. The motion made her coat sway on its hook. The corner of the plastic test, clear now in its little baggie, peeked from the pocket.
His eyes flickered down, followed the line of her arm, past her, and landed on the coat. He went very still. His gaze, sharpened by a survival instinct she’d seen in him only a few times before, locked onto that faint rectangular outline.
“What’s that?” he asked, his tone utterly changed.
Her blood went cold. “Nothing.”
He was past her in two strides, his hand diving into the pocket before she could react. He pulled out the test, holding it under the lamplight. The two lines were unequivocal, a stark pink verdict against the white plastic.
The air left the room.
He stared at it. Seconds ticked by, measured by the old grandfather clock ticking downstairs. His knuckles were white around the test. He looked from it to her stomach, covered by her soft sweater, and back to her face. His own face was a mask of shock, then a slow, dawning horror.
“Is this…” He swallowed. “Is this mine?”
The question was so profoundly stupid, so deeply insulting, that for a moment she couldn’t speak. Then a bitter laugh escaped her. “Who else’s would it be, Ellis? You’re the only person I’ve been with since the alley. Since you fucked me against a wall and came inside me because you were too drunk and too fucking sad to think about consequences.”
He flinched as if slapped, the crude words hanging in the perfumed air. He looked back at the test, his breath coming in short, sharp pulls. “You’re pregnant.”
“Observant.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“When?” she shot back, her voice rising. “During the pumpkin pie? After you made it clear to your entire family that the thought of us as a couple is a hilarious joke?” She snatched the test from his hand. “This isn’t your problem. I’m not your problem. I’m leaving.”
“The hell you are.” The words were a guttural growl. He moved again, not towards the door, but towards her. He backed her up against the edge of the dresser, his hands slamming down on the wood on either side of her, caging her in. His body was a wall of heat and tension. “You don’t get to drop a bomb like that and just walk out.”
“Watch me.”
“No.” He leaned in, his face inches from hers. His eyes were wild, panicked. “Is this why you’re running? Because of what I said? Because of my idiot family?”
“I’m running because I have some shred of self-respect left!” she shouted, shoving against his chest. He didn’t budge. “You don’t want me. You don’t want this. You can’t even say the word ‘us’ without looking like you’ve swallowed a bug. So I’m making it easy for you. You’re free. Go back to your warm holes and your jokes. Just let me go.”
Something in him snapped. The careful control he’d maintained all evening, the casual façade, shattered. “I don’t want you to go,” he said, the words torn from somewhere dark and raw inside him.
“You don’t get to have it both ways.”
“I know that!” He pushed off the dresser, raking both hands through his hair. He paced the small room like a caged animal. “Fuck. Fuck! A baby?” He stopped, staring at her. “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.” It was the truth. The only truth she had.
He looked at her—really looked at her—for the first time all night. Saw the pallor of her skin, the faint shadows under her eyes, the tremor in her hands she couldn’t quite hide. The furious, protective shell he’d seen her build over the last few weeks. His expression shifted, the panic softening into something else, something more terrifyingly intimate.
“Min,” he whispered. He closed the distance between them, but this time his movements were slow, deliberate. He cupped her face in his hands. His thumbs stroked her cheeks. “I’m a fucking disaster.”
“Yes,” she breathed.
“I’ll ruin this. I’ll ruin you.”
“You might.”
His eyes searched hers, looking for an exit, finding none. He lowered his forehead to rest against hers. Their breath mingled, warm in the cool room. “Then stop me,” he murmured, his lips brushing hers. “Don’t let me.”
It wasn’t an apology. It wasn’t a declaration. It was a surrender. A request. And it undid her.
Her resistance melted. She kissed him back, a desperate, hungry kiss that tasted of salt and regret. It was nothing like the violent claiming in the alley. This was a drowning man clinging to a raft. His hands slid from her face, down her arms, around her waist, pulling her tight against him until not a sliver of light could pass between them.
He walked her backwards, his mouth never leaving hers, until her knees hit the edge of the old four-poster bed. They tumbled onto the quilt, a clumsy, graceless fall. He was on top of her, his weight a familiar, anchoring pressure. He kissed her throat, her collarbone, his hands pushing her sweater up, exposing her stomach. He stared at her bare skin, his expression one of bewildered awe. He placed his palm flat against her lower abdomen, over the subtle, unchanged curve.
“In there?” he whispered, his voice cracking.
She nodded, unable to speak.
He bowed his head, pressing his lips to the same spot. The gesture was so tender, so unlike him, that a sob caught in her throat. Then he looked up, his eyes blazing with a new, desperate fire. “I need to feel you,” he said, the raw need stripping his voice bare. “Please. I need to feel that you’re here. That this is real.”
He yanked her leggings and underwear down her legs, his movements frantic now. He shoved his own sweatpants and boxers down just enough to free his erection, already hard and thick, the tip glistening. He didn’t wait, didn’t tease. He positioned himself and pushed inside her with one deep, sure stroke.
She gasped, her body arching off the bed. She was wet, her body betraying her mind’s resolve, welcoming him. He filled her completely, a stretching, aching fullness that felt more like possession than sex. He stilled, buried to the hilt, his body trembling with the effort of holding back.
“Look at me,” he commanded, his voice rough.
She opened her eyes. His face was above hers, strained, his pupils blown wide.
“This is me,” he panted, withdrawing slowly and then sinking back in, deeper, harder. “This fucked-up, broken mess. This is what you get. You get a man who will say stupid, cruel shit to his friends because he’s scared. You get a man who fucks you in an alley like an animal. You get a man who doesn’t know how to be what you need.” He drove into her again, the bedframe creaking in protest. “But this…” He thrust, a sharp, punishing angle that made her cry out. “This feeling, right here, when I’m inside you… this is the only thing that’s been real for me in a year. The only thing that isn’t numb.”
He began to move in earnest, a hard, relentless rhythm that was more about connection than pleasure, more about proof than passion. Each thrust was a punctuation mark. I’m. Here. This. Real. The slap of skin, the wet slide of him plunging deep, the choked sounds from his throat—it was a brutal, beautiful confession.
“Tell me I’m wrong,” he grunted, his pace quickening. His fingers dug into her hips, holding her in place. “Tell me this is just a fuck. Tell me I’m just a warm hole for you.”
She couldn’t. She wrapped her legs around his waist, pulling him deeper, meeting his thrusts with her own. “It’s you,” she moaned, the words ripped from her. “It’s always been you.”
Her admission shattered his last restraint. A ragged sound tore from his chest. He lowered his body onto hers, crushing her into the mattress, his mouth finding hers in a searing kiss. His thrusts became erratic, deeper, faster, a frantic race towards oblivion. She could feel her own climax coiling, tight and fierce, ignited by his words, his weight, the terrifying reality of their situation.
“Come with me,” he begged against her lips, his voice breaking. “Please. I need to feel you come. I need to know you’re here.”
It was the plea that pushed her over. Her body convulsed, a silent, violent storm of sensation that clenched around him, milking him, pulling him deeper. He shouted, a raw, broken sound, and she felt the hot, liquid pulse of his release inside her, wave after wave, as he shuddered through his own climax.
He collapsed on top of her, his full weight driving her into the mattress, his face buried in her neck. They lay there, entangled, slick with sweat, the only sound their ragged, slowing breaths. The clock ticked downstairs. A car passed outside.
Slowly, carefully, he rolled off her, gathering her into his side instead. He pulled the quilt over them. His hand returned to her stomach, his palm resting protectively over the small, secret space.
For a long time, neither spoke. The world had narrowed to this dark room, this bed, the faint, sticky evidence of their joining cooling between her thighs.
“I’m scared shitless,” he said into the darkness, his voice quiet and raw.
She turned her head on the pillow to look at him. In the sliver of moonlight from the window, she saw a single tear track a path through the stubble on his cheek.
“I know,” she said softly. “Me too.”
He shifted, pulling her closer, tucking her head under his chin. “Don’t leave,” he whispered, the words muffled in her hair. “Not tomorrow. Not… just don’t leave.”
She didn’t promise. She couldn’t. But she nodded against his chest, a faint movement. And for now, in the quiet aftermath, it was enough. He held her as if she might vanish, his breath gradually evening out into sleep, his hand a warm, constant weight on her stomach. The future loomed outside the door, vast and terrifying. But for this single, suspended hour in the dark, they were anchored together in the messy, undeniable reality of what they had made.