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Saheon brings it up on a night like any other, summer hanging heavy over the sweat, the hot air sticking to skin and settling uncomfortably into bone.
“You keeping the kid?”
He smokes after sex, but tonight, the cigarette is unlit, clutched loosely between fingers. His hand hangs off the bed, his head turned to the window, watching some unreachable star.
Puffs of smoke dirty the air, and Saheon turns his head, annoyed, as Choi fiddles with his own cigarette, lashes lowered.
“Why? You want it around?”
Choi’s fingers are raised pink tissue crossed over bone, almost hiding the crinkle of skin at the joints, thick and jagged. Saheon used to wonder how he could move his hands so nimbly when they’re more scar than skin, but now it’s knowledge that he just knows how to move to hide weakness.
“Did I say that?” Saheon scrunches his nose, and fumbles for the window, raising the latch and pushing it forward, letting the night slip in. “Can’t I do small talk?”
Choi doesn’t respond, turning his face to puff smoke at the window. He’s still sitting on top of Saheon’s thighs, legs folded next to the hips, ignoring the half-hard cock leaning against his thigh. Saheon can’t help it; even with the gruesome scars, Choi’s naked body is a sight to behold, and he takes it in for the millionth time, raking his eye over every inch of skin.
“People don’t ask if I’m gonna fling my kid as a conversation starter,” Choi finally deigns to look at Saheon, peering down to meet his gaze. His eyes are as dull as ever, blue pupils flickering like dying flames. “You’re in corporate. Come up with something else.”
Saheon rolls his eye. “Good evening, Mr. Choi, oh, wow, you look splendid tonight! Did you go off your diet? What, you’re pregnant? Congratulations! Who’s the father? You don’t know? If you don’t know, are you keeping it?” He purposefully pitches his voice higher, sweetening the tone exaggeratedly.
Choi, the petulant bastard, leans down and blows smoke in his face.
“Are you an aunt?” Choi dodges Saheon’s hand swatting at him. “Did all that Darkness beat the conversation out of you? You act like you’re still a reckless village boy.”
“Shut up,” Saheon huffs, putting his hand on Choi’s hip and digging his nails into the scar tissue just to watch him stiffen. “The hell do I have to do to get a proper answer out of you?”
“You’re so curious,” Choi fixes unimpressed eyes on him. “I’m starting to think you really do want the kid.”
“Can’t I know if my fuck buddy can still be fucked in a couple months?” Saheon sneers. “Are you really going to let that parasite grow in you while you’re on the field? Push it out of you like a mare, then put it up for someone else to give a fuck about?”
He spits out the words, “Or are you planning to let it die naturally because you almost got yourself killed?"
Silence reigns between them. Saheon waits. Choi doesn’t rise to the bait. He never does.
His eyes never get any less duller. His smile gets faker, more forced.
Saheon despises that very same smile appearing on Choi’s face, at odds with the impassive look in his eyes, the exhaustion weighing on him like a storm cloud.
“Look at me.” Choi orders calmly.
“I already am.”
Choi grabs his hand, tugging it off his hip, guiding it to his lower stomach. Saheon’s been avoiding it all night, that they both know. He doesn’t look at it even now, gaze locked on Choi’s.
“Look at me.” He says, again.
He looks. Tentatively, he places his hand over it.
There’s nothing to feel, really. It’s too early for an actual bump to form, and Choi hasn’t been pregnant before, so it’s even more unlikely for it to be visible, but.
Saheon has touched this body, too many times to count. His hands have wandered over every inch, scraped his nails on scars and poked at places that usually go untouched. He’s touched it with his lips, his tongue, his legs, has examined everything that he could. He has never known a body as well as he knows Choi.
The stomach, which used to be flat, toned from hours of grueling exercise, feels slightly thicker under his touch. His hips are a little bit softer.
He puts both hands on the belly, spreading them out to splay the fingers on the skin, whispering around the waist, feeling the soft warmth.
“…You’re getting fat.” He mutters, swallowing the lump in his throat.
Choi flicks his forehead. “Do you want to keep it or not?”
…Hah.
It’s just like Choi to place his life in Saheon’s hands.
Never one to pass up the chance for something else, someone else, to take what he has left and use it for anything other than living.
He wants to say, Why do you keep doing this, he wants to demand, Decide for yourself for once, can’t you live and make a choice, any choice–
He wants to say, Aren’t you scared of knowing I can throw your life away for you.
He doesn’t want to say, I’m scared of knowing that you’ll die if I tell you to.
“Stop smoking,” he chokes out instead. “If you don’t know if you’re gonna keep it.”
It’s not an answer, but Choi puts it out anyway. Saheon grabs his hand, brushing away the light dusting of ash, slotting their fingers together.
“I’ll save up my PTO,” he mutters. “If the baby’s premature, I can probably use it in time… Paternity isn’t even a month…”
He slowly rubbed his thumb against the back of Choi’s hand. The touch was gentle, as it always was when Saheon’s feelings got the best of him.
“We’ll have to move in together,” he decides. “I don’t have a roommate, so it's alright to stay in the officetel until I find a good house… I turned the spare room into an office, but we’ll have to turn it into a nursery.”
As Saheon’s clumsy rambling fades into background noise, Choi loses himself in his thoughts.
It’s not like he didn’t think Saheon would want to keep it, but…
It was an unexpected outcome.
He had thought the chances of wanting to get rid of it were higher, but it seems that even after all this time, Choi underestimated the depth of Baek Saheon’s weakness.
In the end, you still look for a family, huh?
Choi didn’t have anyone else left, either. The people of his past have long since faded into it, with or without saying their goodbyes. The seniors who have long since passed or chose not to return, the juniors that were lost to unreachable disaster.
The frail form of the Elder, gradually chipping away. The view of Jaekwan’s back, right before he left and promised a dinner they would never share.
There’s nothing left for me to hold onto. There’s nothing left to give.
“I’ll report the pregnancy tomorrow,” Choi says. “And give me your address.”
Life takes you to strange places. Choi has long since stopped caring about the destination, whether there’s another stop or if the next one would be his last. Naturally, until then, he will keep trying to save people.
He’s past the time to worry about what will happen in his life.
“If it’s a boy, what do you wanna name it?”
All that’s left is to spend the rest.
“Oh, and if it’s a girl, I’ll be the one naming her, okay?”
“Yeah, yeah. Lay down; it’s getting cold.”
“Then close the window?”
“Just lay down already!”