A Small Step for One Person
It was a small step for one human being, but afterward, doctors came and went several more times. The number of treatment marks on her skin increased one by one. The physical pain gradually subsided. But what mattered most was this:
In the middle of the room, the two of them clung to each other and wept loudly. Noah was on her knees while Dohyun stood, holding her head in a somewhat awkward, hunched posture. The reason was simple.
The test results had come back. Miraculously, there were no STDs or infectious diseases left behind.
Noah kept thanking Dohyun, who had spent a fortune calling in doctors for her.
And Dohyun was grateful to Noah, who had not gotten sick despite everything.
He was endlessly thankful that her body had endured that horrific ordeal without catching even a single disease.
They kept exchanging thanks like that, filming what amounted to a little comedy skit, until finally—
They soon burst into laughter at how ridiculous they looked. This time, both Noah and Dohyun laughed together.
But a serious issue still remained.
“When was the last time you had sexual intercourse, miss?”
“Um, well, ah, that, uh, so, about four days ago at night in the nearby park… around seven or eight guys?”
Noah, falling into a panic, began blurting out unnecessary details while gasping for breath.
“Did you use contraception—”
“I didn’t, ah, I didn’t, they, all of them didn’t, they all came inside me, they all came inside me.”
Noah’s pupils darted around in the air as her hands began to shake violently. Clutching her suffocating chest, lips moving rapidly, she poured it all out.
She finally twisted her face like a child and began to wail loudly.
“Hic… hic… uuu…”
Noah kept sobbing.
Dohyun desperately stroked her head and patted her back, doing everything he could to calm her down.
“Okay, you can’t hear anything now, right…?”
He placed noise-canceling headphones over Noah’s head, turned on the noise cancellation, and cranked the white noise volume as high as it would go.
“I can’t hear anything…”
She hadn’t caught his question, but she seemed to understand the intent. Noah kept making cute little sniffling sounds—hng, hng—as she answered.
The large over-ear headphones couldn’t quite cover her entire ears and sat precariously like on-ear ones, barely blocking her ear canals. The headband was stretched to its limit, pulled so tight in the middle that it looked like it might snap. It was something he had bought expensively not long ago, but what did it matter?
“Good…”
If Noah didn’t want to hear, then so be it. He was actually grateful the device was working properly in the middle of all this.
“The last intercourse was—”
Dohyun pressed the headphones firmly against both sides of her head in case any sound leaked through and asked the doctor.
“It’s a bit delicate, but there is a possibility of pregnancy.”
“Right…”
Dohyun let out a sigh so heavy it felt like the ground might collapse.
“Pregnancy… it could happen…”
The reality he had desperately pushed to the back of his mind had finally caught up to him.
I’ll prescribe emergency contraception for now. Considering her menstrual cycle and the date of the last intercourse, there is a sufficient chance… and since we’re right at the edge of the window where the medication is still effective, she must take it immediately.
The doctor took out a portable printer and printed the prescription.
“Here you go…”
“Thank you.”
Dohyun had asked if he could receive the medicine directly, but house calls had their limits. They would have to take the prescription to a pharmacy.
The problem was—
Even when he tried to go alone, Noah clung to him, crying.
She was terrified of going out together, too.
Noah ignored every other word and screamed hysterically at the mere mention of pregnancy.
It was because of the massive trauma that still remained.
Dohyun grabbed both of her cheeks and desperately locked eyes with her.
“S… khup… k… hup…”
The panic attack coping methods he had looked up online in advance were helping.
“S… hup… shup… ha—”
Noah’s breath, which had been stuttering and hiccupping, gradually stabilized.
“Yeah…”
Her pupils, which had been cloudy and unfocused, slowly regained their clarity.
“Yeah.”
“Yeah…”
Dohyun reminded himself once again that he had to be careful with even the smallest expressions. He grabbed a towel that was hanging nearby and brought it to Noah’s face.
“Hrrng—”
Noah shook her whole body as she blew her nose hard. A handkerchief or tissue was nowhere near enough to cover her build, so they had switched to using towels. Even so, it quickly became soaked.
“Noah…”
While searching for an appropriate replacement for the word pregnancy, Dohyun continued carefully.
He kept gently wiping away the tears rolling down from the corners of her eyes with his thumb.
“…”
Noah clung to him, whining like a child refusing to go to the dentist.
She started crying loudly again.
“…”
Dohyun simply waited in silence as Noah swallowed her grief.
And a little while later—
He comforted her as gently as possible.
He coaxed her with everything he had.
Dohyun forced a smile and flexed one arm.
A rather unimpressive bicep rose slightly.
Dohyun kept flexing his arm over and over, trying to make his bicep pop.
With her panic subsided, Noah narrowed her eyes and giggled. Her brows furrowed, her swollen eyelids pressed together, and another teardrop rolled down her cheek.
She giggled and wiped her tears with her finger.
Dohyun made an angry face and dropped to the floor, starting to do push-ups.
Dohyun and Noah laughed.
And a little while later—
“Yeah…”
As Dohyun and Noah stepped out of the front door, their current appearance was—
“…”
Noah had pulled down the brim of the sun visor cap Dohyun had bought for tracking purposes and then abandoned. Since there were no sunglasses that fit her, she had layered the sun cap Suzy had left behind underneath it to cover her eyes. She had covered her mouth with a mask like a robber, and she had taken out a blanket and wrapped it around her entire body so that not a single inch of skin was visible. She looked incredibly suspicious, as if she might have dynamite strapped all over her stomach, but nestled against her chest like a doll was—
A very anxious-looking Dohyun.
“Can you… see properly?”
Only her face peeked out from between the folds of the blanket.
“…”
Noah cautiously stepped outside the front door. It was truly a historic moment—much like Neil Armstrong’s famous words, ‘That’s one small step for a man…’
…Well, it wasn’t exactly small; it was actually a very large step, but anyway, Noah stepped forward while holding Dohyun in her arms.
The destination was the pharmacy just one block away. Since it was right in front, there shouldn’t be any problems…
“Ouch!”
Apparently there were.
Before they had even properly left the house, Noah had already banged her head on the doorframe.