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Persistent abdominal discomfort, frequent nausea, loss of appetite and slight bloating. Those symptoms were what had driven Jaeyun to the hospital. To find the root of his issue, which if he hadn’t been shitting regularly he would’ve suspected to be constipation. Other things he’d suspected: Irritable Bowel Syndrome, gastroenteritis, an ulcer.
So basically it wasn’t any of that.
What it was, miraculously and improbably, was a baby. He was pregnant. How? Not a fucking clue. He hadn’t had sex in at least four months, if not more, and the last time he’d had sex it hadn’t even been penetrative. Also he didn’t have like, a womb. Or ovaries. Except for now he did and it was up his butt, of all places. Not that any other place in his body would’ve been preferable.
By all means, he thought to his butt-baby, continue growing right where you are. By all means actually stop growing and leave, but for some reason the thought made him feel bad.
”I’m not ready to be a father,” he whispered to a God that wasn’t listening. Or maybe He was, being as Jaeyun was Virgin-Mary-pregnant. In his butt.
It wasn’t ectopic, at least, thank God. Maybe not thank God if by chance he was the one who did this to Jaeyun. Maybe thank Him for that little detail and then not the rest. Anyway, it wasn’t ectopic, because he had somehow grown a womb, which was impossible except for that apparently it wasn’t.
“You can carry it to term,” was one of the options given to him, “With frequent monitoring.” Unappealing.
The other option, “We’d refer you to a specialist who could assess the risk of abortion, and possibly perform one.” More appealing, and less career/life-ruining.
Unfortunately or maybe fortunately this had never been something he’d had to think about before. What he’d do if he got pregnant, that was. Because why would he. Why would he. So instead of answering very firmly and clearly that yes absolutely he was totally abortion-ready and in fact he’d love to get to that specialist this very day this very hour, he said, “I’m kind of… Can I think about it?”
“Of course.”
“I’d like the referral anyway. But I want to think about it.”
Now he was on the way home, thinking about it. Except he wasn’t getting anywhere productive with his thinking-about-it because most of what he was thinking was, what the hell I’m pregnant.
When he got home with a grim look on his face everybody got scared. They weren’t, like, waiting for him, really, but they were all out in the common room, even Riki and Heeseung and Jay and Sunghoon, so they were kind of waiting for him.
They at least waited for him to speak. Or they were waiting for him to speak until Riki blurted, “Are you dying?”
Jaeyun didn’t have time to say no before Riki was off like a rocket.
“Is it cancer? Are you gonna have to shave your head? I'll shave my head in solidarity. If you die I’ll die with you. We all will.” He looked around as if to garner support for this motion and everyone was studiously avoiding his gaze. “Um, okay. Maybe not that last part.”
“I’m not dying.” Everybody relaxed. “I’m— okay, you guys aren’t gonna believe me, and I know this is gonna sound like a joke, but you have to listen to me and you have to believe me and I am not joking. One hundred percent. Okay?”
They all nodded, making various noises of assent.
“I’m pregnant.”
No one said anything for a very long time, and then Heeseung said, “That’s not funny.”
“I told you it— hang on.” He rifled through the folder of pamphlets and test results he’d been given, pulling the ultrasound pictures out and shoving them forward. “Look.” He set the folder down and tapped on the photos where the fetus was. “Baby.”
“That’s a lump,” Sunghoon helpfully contributed.
“Yeah, a lump that is also a baby.”
“How do you know?”
“They stuck like five different sticks up my ass.”
Jungwon was the first to recover. “I can’t believe you’ve been having unprotected sex,” he said, disappointed.
Jaeyun’s jaw nearly dropped in disbelief. “I don’t – didn’t – even have a womb.”
“Oh, yeah. Wait, what?”
Ignoring him, Jaeyun forged on. “I haven’t even been having sex, I swear, cross my heart and hope to die.”
“Please don’t hope to die.”
Reasonably Sunoo asked, “Wait, so what are you gonna do?”
“Um,” Jaeyun dithered a bit. “Probably an abortion?”
“Probably?” Asked Jungwon.
For some reason that pissed him off. “Well sorry for not knowing what I want to do immediately,” he spit.
Jungwon held his hands up, placating. “Woah.”
“Auughh,” he dragged his hand down his face. “Sorry. It’s the hormones probably.”
There was a pregnant silence. And then, “Wait, are you gonna grow boobs?”
Jaeyun shot Riki a glare. “Don’t sound excited.”
“My fault.”
★★★
Jaeyun woke up in a cold sweat and crying hysterically. In his sleep he’d curled up, hand braced over where he now had a womb, as if some invisible hand was going to reach in and tear the fetus from him. That fetus which was his baby, his precious little dot of life. So maybe he wasn’t ready to be a mother but he was maybe even less ready not to be.
He staggered up out of bed, pausing when the force of his sobs had nausea churning his stomach. After a while he managed to calm himself a little and force the nausea back down. He stumbled blindly out of the room.
“Jungwon,” Jaeyun shook him. “Jungwon.”
He was already awake, Jaeyun could tell. The pattern of his breaths had changed. He just didn’t want to deal with Jaeyun. Well, too bad.
“Jungwon, wake up,” he hissed.
“What.” His eyes stayed closed when he said this.
“I can’t abort the baby. I had a dream.”
Now Jungwon was awake. “You what? Huh?”
“I had a dream. Her name was Eleanor, for some reason. I’m not naming my baby Eleanor obviously. I mean, okay, it’s not like it’s that bad of a name, but I just am not going to do that. Doesn’t matter. She was so sweet and small and precious and she looked kind of like you and I can’t get rid of her, I just can’t.” At some point again he’d started to cry.
“...Looked kind of like me?”
“I don’t knowww,” Jaeyun wailed. “I don’t know anything.” Being pregnant was horrible. There wasn’t even a father. What if his baby just looked exactly like him? He didn’t want his baby to look exactly like him. He wanted his baby to look like… Well, he didn’t know. His subconscious apparently said Jungwon.
“Shh, shh, hey,” Jungwon caught him by the wrist and tugged him gently down until he was fully lying down in bed with him. “You don’t need to know anything right now. Think about it in the morning.”
Jaeyun sniffled pathetically. “Okay.” Maybe he’d feel different in the morning. Maybe he’d be ready for an abortion, and fuck Eleanor-who-would-not-be-named-Eleanor, except as soon as he thought that even without being serious he felt like he was gonna die. So probably he wouldn’t feel different, but there was only one way to find out.
Jungwon patted him soothingly on the back and then turned over to fall back asleep. Jaeyun also tried to do that.
A thought struck him awake. “What if I’m carrying baby Jesus?” Said at full volume, because he forgot to whisper.
Jungwon huffed into the pillow he was mashing his face into, too tired to laugh. “Where’d you pull that one from?”
“Immaculate conception. Second coming of Christ.” The dots were connectable enough for him to leave it at that.
Instead of answering, Jungwon rolled over onto his side and hugged Jaeyun like a teddy bear, in the process worming his hand over Jaeyun’s mouth. Well, okay then. Taking the hint, Jaeyun drifted into a dream-blotched uneasy sleep.
★★★
“Jungwon, bad news,” Jaeyun said, as soon as Jungwon woke up enough to comprehend words. Nausea had already woken Jaeyun up an hour ago so he’d gone to the bathroom to throw nothing up and then came back to bed, and had been staring at Jungwon’s sleeping face ever since. “I still don’t want an abortion.”
A long and heavy sigh. Excessively and almost irritatingly long. “...Let’s deal with that later.”