Misunderstanding Cleared! Happy Ending! ……………
"……What did you say?"
I couldn't believe my ears. Pregnant? Yeom Hana? With my kid? Even "flustered" didn't cover it. My brain had flatlined completely.
It was true that I'd spent one night with Yeom Hana. And true that we hadn't used protection. But that two-line pregnancy test photo? It was a prank she'd cooked up with AI. She'd confessed it herself, and though I'd been pissed at the boundary-crossing joke, I'd let it slide.
So how the hell does Lee Jin-ah know about that photo?
Where had this ridiculous misunderstanding even started? I couldn't grasp a single thread of it.
"No, what are you talking about?"
The words finally tumbled out, and Lee Jin-ah just shrugged.
"Don't get the wrong idea, sunbae. I'm just worried about you."
"Worried?"
"Exactly. We're in a bit of a gray area, sure, but we're public servants. We can't have weird rumors from bad behavior, right? If the unwed mother thing blows up and gets exposed, it'd be a huge scandal."
Her words sounded logical on the surface. Public servant conduct. Unwed mother issues. Hard to argue against.
But this whole mess stemmed from a misunderstanding in the first place. Even if we cleared that up, the real question was how she'd latched onto something so absurd.
The prime suspect that popped into my head? Yeom Hana.
Did that girl…?
Send the AI-generated pregnancy test photo to some third party? If so, it wasn't a prank anymore—it was crossing a line.
But I dismissed the idea immediately. Yeom Hana had no way of knowing Lee Jin-ah's number. They didn't even have any connection.
So how?
"Hold on. Jin-ah, how do you know about that?"
Her movements froze for a split second at my question. It was brief, but I saw it—her pupils trembled faintly.
She recovered quickly, though.
"I saw it Friday night when we slept together. While you were out cold. Your phone notification went off."
She lifted her cup, sipping coffee to hide her face.
"The preview popped up. Pregnancy test photo and the name Yeom Hana. It was so shocking, I… couldn't help looking."
"……I see."
It made surface-level sense. But something felt off. Even with a preview notification, who peers that closely at someone else's phone? Normally, you'd look away out of courtesy.
Yet she'd memorized the name too? That went beyond curiosity.
Something's not right.
A strange dissonance emanated from Lee Jin-ah, the sweet and bubbly junior I'd always seen her as. Like a faint, unpleasant metallic grind from a finely crafted machine.
Unfortunately, I couldn't dig deeper. What was I gonna do, accuse her of peeking?
First things first—clear up the pregnancy mix-up.
"Jin-ah, it's not what you think."
I wet my parched throat with coffee.
"That pregnancy test photo? It was a prank. One of those trending AI-generated images."
"……Pardon?"
"Fake, not real. I freaked out and asked Yeom Hana about it. She admitted it was a joke."
The explanation hit the air, and realization dawned. It was only half the truth. It proved the photo was fake, sure—but it implicitly confirmed the backstory that made the prank possible. No protection with Yeom Hana. Sex.
She'd figure it out now. What kind of relationship I had with that woman. What we'd done.
No point fabricating an outright lie. She already knew something, and she was sharp—never slow on the uptake. A flimsy falsehood would just poison things worse.
I swallowed hard in the tension.
"……Ah."
Shadows lifted from Lee Jin-ah's face in an instant. The cold pressure she'd exerted vanished like a lie, replaced by a bright, sunny smile like spring sunlight. The temperature shift was chilling.
"What a relief. I really thought it was real…."
She patted her chest and stepped closer.
"So it wasn't, right? I believed in you, sunbae."
Wait, you thought it was real two seconds ago.
"Hehe, there's no way you'd be that irresponsible. That's what happened, huh?"
She lightly stroked my arm. But her following words cut sharp, clashing with the cheerful vibe.
"Still, you need to be careful, sunbae."
"……Careful about what?"
"Girls like that are low-class."
Lee Jin-ah was still beaming.
"Pranks like that always have an agenda. You're a public servant with a decent income, right? She's desperate to latch on. Cheap girls like her sniff out money."
Her words were excessively insulting.
"So you gotta brush them off. Getting tangled with uneducated trash like that will cause huge problems later."
"……Hmm."
Yeom Hana was flighty, oblivious, and selfish, sure. But not the type to chase money. From what I'd seen, she was brutally honest with her feelings—pure, even.
"No, that's a bit harsh…."
I tried defending her, but
"Pardon?"
I couldn't finish. Her head tilted, eyes looking up at me. They held unshakeable conviction. Her words were absolute truth, advice for Han Kang sunbae's own good. Not a shred of doubt.
That excessive clarity sent chills down my spine.
This is bad. Really bad.
My instincts, honed through four deaths, screamed warning. Danger. Defending Yeom Hana here could flip those clear eyes and her self-assurance into something unknown.
In the end, I swallowed my words and stayed silent.
……………
Three days holed up in her room.
Yeom Hana sprawled starfish on her studio apartment bed, staring at the ceiling. Nothing to see there. Cheap LED light and maybe cobwebs in the corner. That was it.
Her gaze naturally drifted to the phone in her hand.
No contact….
Three days since that wild chase with the crazy lady in Hongdae's back alleys.
She hadn't messaged ajusshi. Couldn't.
No calls, no texts. The funny part? Nothing from him either.
"……Was it always like this?"
Thinking back, yeah. She always initiated. Sending memes, asking what he was up to, dropping dumb jokes. He'd just play along.
That was their dynamic. Yeom Hana and Han Kang ajusshi.
"No way…."
Anxiety clawed at her chest. Was ajusshi just replying out of boredom? Tolerating the clingy kid because ignoring her outright felt too harsh for an adult?
Bitter taste in her mouth. The second she stopped reaching out, poof—connection severed. That's all she meant to him.
He'd never cared in the first place. Not about Yeom Hana.
[She's just a cheap slut giving it up for free, so he took it.]
The crazy lady's barb still lingered in her heart.
"Hah, fuck. Fuck. Fuck."
Yeom Hana buried her face in the pillow. She didn't want to admit it. But she couldn't refute it.
Ajusshi was a proper public servant. She was a high-school dropout busking bum.
If they hadn't hooked up, would he have given her the time of day? Days without her texting first, and not even a casual check-in from him.
Was I the only one excited and clinging?
Her chest shrank. The morning after the motel, when he'd said, [If you're pregnant, I'll take responsibility. No running away.] She'd been thrilled. Grinning like an idiot over pork soup.
For that moment, it felt like something was starting. Between them.
But what if it was all delusion? Just her thinking that?
"Haa…."
A sigh slipped out. Regret flooded in. Shouldn't have pulled that prank.
That damn AI pregnancy test photo.
"Argh, you crazy bitch. Why'd you do something so stupid?"
She kicked off the blanket, clawing at her hair. What had she been thinking? Simply put, it'd seemed fun….
But no. Three days locked in her room, dissecting her brain over and over, yielded a different answer.
She'd been testing him. Whether his morning promise—[If pregnant, responsibility]—still held. If they could be something like lovers—or more.
But straight-up saying [Ajusshi, date me!] felt like rejection bait. Scared of [Sorry, we just had fun.]
So she'd chickened out. Hid behind a prank, circled around, but craved confirmation anyway.
Throwing [I'm pregnant!] with the photo, hoping for [Really? Let's get married.]
Despite the insanity. The second he hesitated, she spilled it was a joke. Laughed it off.
"……Stupid bitch."
Result? Total disaster. Psycho stalker lady latched on because of the photo. No contact with ajusshi.
What'd he think seeing it? Freaked at first, she bet. Imagining his bugged-out eyes still made her giggle.
But after she admitted the prank….
Affection dropped cold? 'Old hag pulling pregnancy pranks, what a moron.'
Yeah, had to be. That's why no contact.
Yeom Hana grabbed her phone again. Tapped the screen—still pristine messenger notifications. Group chat in Death Code app buzzing with idiots like [LowIQ] or [LeFrong] spewing nonsense. No awaited name.
"I miss him…."
Her voice leaked out, wet.
She wanted validation. That she wasn't some cheap slut. Not disposable.
But call now and say what? Sorry first? Or nag why no contact?
Either way, pathetic. Screen went dark again. Her face reflected back.
Same pattern every time she couldn't text him. Dozens of times.
"Stupid bitch."
And again, Yeom Hana cursed herself. The cowardly her. The dumb her. The one still haunted by that lady's venom.