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it was unfair — there wasn’t a god, couldn’t be. why would they be this cruel?
there was a pair of pink baby shoes down seungcheol’s bag— “ a girl? we’re having a baby girl? ”— ready to be shown to the tiny little princess, his daughter.
but it came all different.
there’s no princess, no tiny figure that he’d wrap his arms around, no tears of joy.
his wife had been going into labour hours ago — his job keeping him a two hour car ride from the hospital. he was late, way too late.
she was alone when seungcheol opened the door to her room, her face blank, tears staining on her cheeks.
“hey,” he said, voice barely a whisper. she looked up from her hands and into his eyes, lips quivering as more tears rolled down her face.
his fingers still tightly wrapped around the little shoes buried deep inside the bag.
she smiled— he must be looking so dumb, standing there, not saying a word, hair messed up from running up the stairs.
“hey,” she answered, voice broken, probably from the crying.
“how are you?” he kept mumbling, stepping just a bit closer. “with the— you know…” he bit his tongue, a bit too hard; the metallic taste of blood spreading inside his mouth. it was warm, his insides vibrating by the force of it, almost dizzy. the odd feeling of it engulfing every other word that he could have managed to utter out.
her smile fell, just enough for him to notice. “i’m feeling okay. empty maybe.”
empty. empty ?
how could she be saying that? right now? she was in tears and crying and hurting— so why was she saying strange things like that ?
yet seungcheol huffed out a laugh, nodding just a bit. “i’ll get you the most delicious dinner as soon as we get home, how does that sound? i’m sure they don’t feed you well, do they?”
as he stepped closer he pulled his hands out of the bag, wrapping his warm fingers around her cold ones.
and for a moment, just for the glimpse of a second, there was no pair of baby shoes shoved in his bag for weeks already, waiting for the day he would welcome his little daughter, for when he could present them to her with the proudest smile on his lips.