PIA 21

“Are you crazy? What fight?”

“You bastard. Aren’t you talking with the baby’s father on the phone all night?”

This time, the conversation reached Ji-an properly. He glared at Woo-seok while quickly reaching for water to drink. The Jjamppong went up his nose.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Are you dreaming, Woo-seok?”

“… I warned you. I’ve worked hard enough, and if you talk nonsense about not leaving later, you…”

Woo-seok finished eating in one bite and stood up like the wind after two more stern warnings. It took less than 5 minutes to brush his teeth and change his shirt.

“Hyung-nim is going to make money. Take care of the house.”

“Woof woof.”

“Crazy Chihuahua bastard. Seriously, if you change your words, you won’t be at peace.”

Woo-seok grumbled and slammed the door shut, leaving Ji-an, who was concentrating on his Jjamppong, behind as he went to work. He put a lot of strength on his middle finger until the very end.

Ji-an, who was scooping out uneaten mussel shells, stopped eating and jumped up in haste when Woo-seok left. He thought he could get through it before getting sick, but as soon as he drank water, he got morning sickness again  and couldn’t eat any more.

Ugh.

I’m hungry.

Ji-an entered his room, took out a medicine bag, and muttered while holding it up. He couldn’t stand this apartment. The soundproofing is… terrible.

∞

“Mother, please try to drink this at least.”

Even with Yoon Ok-hee’s careful persuasion, the elderly woman’s stubbornness did not subside. The old woman lay down with a white band tied around her head, emitting a groaning sound, and glared at her daughter-in-law. There was no intention of concealing the discomfort and displeasure in her eyes.

“Do you think the food even goes down my throat? Do you think it will go down?!”

“Oh! Mother!”

The hot ginger tea poured onto the tray with an irritated push. The servant standing nearby quickly handed over a towel to wipe it. The old lady didn’t even bother checking to see if the hot water had gotten on Yoon Ok-hee’s delicate hands.

“This is all because of you.”

“…”

“It’s all because your child unnecessarily made a connection with the son of the Jeong family. Huh? The child doesn’t even understand the situation, and with nothing in his head but arrogance, he goes around recklessly and ends up getting pregnant. As if that were not enough, now he thinks he’s so great that he can leave the house! Get out!”

Yoon Ok-hee’s eyes, which had been sore from crying all night, quickly turned red. Perhaps she didn’t like to see the sight of her daughter-in-law crying, Kang Boon-nam’s mouth twisted even more maliciously and her words became more twisted.

“What are you going to do now? Where are you going to put away that inadequate thing?  Who’s going to take him, huh? Daughter-in-law. If you have any thoughts, speak up.”

“Stop it, Mother. Even if you say so, Ji-an is your grandson, how can you say such things? What do you mean hiding my child?”

Despite Yoon Ok-hee’s cries and pleadings, Kang Boon-nam’s rage was unabated.

“Enough. CEO Jeong is not the kind of person to mock and play around. Quickly, take care of that inadequate thing, let him erase the child.”

“Uh, Mother…”

“That way, I won’t force him to marry into some clueless family!”

Yoon Ok-hee bit her lip until it bled.

“Mother… you really…”

“Can’t you do it? Since the mother is so lenient, the child has grown up that way.”

“Mother, really, do you not know Ji-an’s temperament? What if he rebels…”

“Hmph, does he have any choice?”

Kang Boon-nam stood up with great force, as if she had never been bedridden in the first place.

“If you can’t do it, then I will. Manager Jang! Where is Manager Jang!”

She tried to hold on to Kang Boon-nam’s legs as she rushed out while calling for Manager Jang, but she was an old lady who was only quick at times like this. Yoon Ok-hee cried and crawled after Kang Boon-nam. 

At the same time.

Ji-an was clutching his hungry stomach, unable to imagine that his grandmother was going crazy. No, he had no time to imagine it.

“I’m hungry…”

Ji-an had been fasting for a whole day now. To be precise, he hadn’t eaten properly for almost a few days, and yesterday, he barely put anything in his stomach. As a result, his stomach seemed to stick to his back.

Thanks to the prescription medication, I stopped fainting due to lack of Alpha pheromones, but the morning sickness that even the smell of water made me feel bad was not resolved.

“It’s been a week since I ate, vomited, and repeated. If I eat anything when I’m so hungry, I’ll throw up right away… Damn, how long am I supposed to keep doing this, seriously?”

Even after searching online for similar symptoms using his phone, he found no helpful solutions.

At best what he got were, go to the hospital, get an IV, or get prescribed morning sickness medication. These were the only temporary solutions, and there was no advice like ‘how to enjoy food again.’ When he saw a post recommending lemon candy, a sense of despair overwhelmed him, but he felt compelled to at least get some minimal sugar since not eating at all would be a bigger problem.

One of the posts said that in the case of Omegas, ‘Alpha pheromones’ can relieve nausea, so with hope, he went into Woo-seok’s unoccupied room, laid down on the bed, and even rolled around, but even drinking only water still left him feeling bad.

He probably needed Jeong Hee-seo’s pheromones.

“Ugh, Seo Ji-an. You’re so hopeless.”

Ji-an grabbed his head. Humans were truly treacherous.

He had avoided Jeong Hee-seo at all costs, fearing he might end up having a miscarriage or reaching a suicide ending. Whether it was because his heart had softened after talking with him on the phone in sweet voice or because he was desperately hungry now…

Ji-an even started to miss Jeong Hee-seo a little.

“It’s because I’m hungry. I’m hungry. People need to eat to survive.”

Ji-an tried to justify himself. But he reached the end of his justifications. Anyway, he had to eat to see how the story progressed, right? Furthermore, Jeong Hee-seo was so cooperative to Ji-an that he came up with the ide that could twist the development last night.

A reasoning sprouted and thrived in Ji-an’s heart, suggesting that making Jeong Hee-seo an ally may be useful.  The hunger in Ji-an’s heart naturally served as the light and the rain nurturing this sprout.

Ji-an grabbed a flower from the vase in Woo-seok’s bedroom and plucked the petals.

Calling Jeong Hee-seo…

“Eating. Enduring. Eating once. Enduring. Just eat for now. Endure…”

He’d heard that morning sickness is only terrible for the first few weeks, so why not eat to his heart’s content as Woo-seok prepared things for him to go abroad? Wouldn’t that be good for the baby too? It’s not like eating would change the plot.

In any case, Jeong Hee-seo had already expressed his willingness to generously give himself to Ji-an to be used, and it did not seem like he would be very angry if Ji-an ran away to a foreign country after eating a few meals. They say that people’s perceptions change when they talk to each other, and Ji-an’s wariness was greatly eased by the softer side Jeong Hee-seo showed than expected.

But the flower-divination result was ‘endure.’ Overwhelmed with frustration, Ji-an nervously put down the flowerless stem. His mood hit rock bottom because he was so hungry.

At that time, he heard his cell phone ringing loudly in his room.

When I unplugged my cell phone from the charger and answered the phone, my mother’s urgent voice came out.

– Ji-an! Where are you. Grandma, grandma is looking for you.

“Mom, I can’t go see my grandmother.”

– Who told you to see her? Run away! Grandma was very angry. He even called Manager Jang to catch you.

“Manager Jang?”

Ji-an was surprised to hear that his grandmother used Manager Jang to look for him. When Manager Jang appears in a drama, people always ask whether the genre has changed. He was a tough and rough character.

The character that was used as a device to depict the stark contrast between Seo Ji-an’s rich family and the traditional conglomerate JM Group, as well as to explain the grandmother’s link to the gangster.

“Why is Manager Jang looking for me? No, I mean why is grandma using Manager Jang to find me?”

He couldn’t spit out harsh words against Grandma. Anyway, does it make sense to use a gangster to catch your grandson? No matter how dramatic it is! Ji-an swallowed a curse in his boiling stomach.

– Anyway, Ji-an, you’re not in an officetel right now, are you? Hide somewhere that even your grandmother doesn’t know. You can’t go to Woo-seok’s house either. They’re going to go find you. Driver Kim also reported that you stopped by there.

Ah shit, I’m screwed. Ji-an stood up with his phone against his ear.

– Ji-an, your grandmother… She wants to take you to the hospital.

“Hospital?”

Huh. No way.

– I’m sorry. Your mom is too weak…

There was no time to shower. Ji-an immediately turned over the shopping bag Woo-seok had bought and selected a hoodie from among the clothes scattered around. He hastily wore it.

He grabbed a random plastic bag for his belongings. He also picked up Woo-seok’s baseball cap from the living room and put it on. Putting on sneakers, he rushed out of the house, not forgetting to glance out the window to check the street. There was no unusual movement on the quiet street.

“Got it. Mom. I’ll leave the place for now and contact you later.”

– Ji-an… Ah, what should I do with this situation?

“…Thank you for letting me know.”