You'll Hurt the Baby
I stared at the succubus, the one who said she had been starving this whole time.
…So the baby’s been starving too? Is that even all right?
The memory of that night flashed through my head, and my body answered before I could stop it. Even so, this didn’t feel like something you did to a woman who was pregnant.
She was biting her lip, anxiety written all over her. I took a moment to choose my words. This was all new to me, and I had no idea what you were supposed to say in a situation like this.
Watching her face, I opened my mouth carefully.
“You guys… can’t eat anything besides that essence?”
“……It’s not that we can’t.”
Her heart-tipped tail, limp against the floor, gave a little twitch as she answered in a voice that seemed to shrink in on itself.
“Essence is just… our biggest source of energy.”
“Figures.”
If something else could take its place, there’d be no reason to go chasing essence in the first place.
I sighed inwardly and got to my feet.
The mood wasn’t right for suggesting we do it right now. I ought to feed her first.
The idea that my kid had gone nearly a month without food was not something I could shrug off.
When I stood, the succubus flinched and looked up at me.
Shows up bold as anything, and then she’s this scared.
“Then let’s eat first. My treat.”
“……Buy me a hamburger.”
The plain little order popped out so suddenly that a dry laugh escaped me.
A hamburger. Well, almost nobody hates those. Carbs, protein, fat—reasonably balanced, or so they say.
But then… what has she been living on until now?
The question rose on its own, and I looked at her.
“Come to think of it… what do you eat before your Coming-of-Age Ceremony?”
“……Food from home.”
She dodged the question, her eyes sliding away in a way that felt deliberate.
Eyeball stew or something? I couldn’t tell, but it was clearly the sort of thing that would be hard to explain to a human.
“Right. So what kind of hamburger do you want?”
“I—I don’t really know…… You order.”
“Fine. I’ll pick. If it doesn’t suit you, I’ll order something else.”
“Okay…”
I opened a delivery app, added two of the safest things on the menu—double bulgogi burger combos, sweet marinated beef and all—plus chicken nuggets from the same place, and paid.
I’d never met anyone who hated those.
Even people with a grudge against anything Korean took one bite of a bulgogi burger and started nodding.
Once I confirmed the restaurant had accepted the order, I glanced at the succubus.
She must have been looking forward to it. Her small bat wings fluttered behind her, and she was smiling so brightly that I had to wonder if she was really a succubus at all.
…She’s way too innocent for a succubus.
Her tail was wagging like a puppy’s. Before I could think better of it, I threw a question at her.
“Do you have somewhere to go?”
“…I do. I just don’t want to.”
The moment she said she didn’t want to go back, her earlier words came rushing in—voice thick with tears, about being called an idiot for getting pregnant on the very first day of her Coming-of-Age Ceremony.
…Did they shut her out back home?
I looked down at her for a moment.
There was a faint unease in those red eyes, and under it something quietly desperate. Before I knew it, the words had slipped out.
“Then do you want to live with me?”
“……Huh?”
I’d tossed it out like it was nothing. She stared up at me, eyes round.
“Is that really okay?”
“Yeah. You told me to take responsibility. If it’s my kid, then I should.”
It had been a one-night mistake in a dream, but I wasn’t cruel enough to throw out a woman carrying my child.
She clearly hadn’t expected me to be the one to say it. She just stared, dazed.
Flutter, flutter.
Her face was blank, but her wings had been beating like mad for a while now, saying everything her expression wouldn’t.
At least she didn’t seem to hate the idea.
The red eyes fixed on me were growing strangely wet.
“…Th-then I’ll stay here.”
She nodded, shy in a way that didn’t suit a succubus at all, and a sticky silence settled over the room—the kind that was hard to put into words.
Sitting in it was getting uncomfortable. I cleared my throat and spoke, just to break it.
“Should we start with names? I’m Kim Hyunsung.”
“My name is… Celine.”
Celine.
I turned it over in my mouth a few times. It suited that white hair of hers strangely well.
Until the hamburgers arrived, neither of us said much else.
Maybe the first meeting had simply been too much of a shock. Ordinary conversation didn’t come easily, and the worlds Celine and I had grown up in were nothing alike.
The doorbell cut through the awkward air.
I took the bag from the delivery driver and came back into the room. Celine’s eyes lit up.
So she did like food, at least.
I set everything out on the table and handed a hamburger to Celine, who was swishing her tail with open anticipation.
“Whoa……!”
She took it as if it were something precious, wings fluttering.
Hard to believe anyone could get that happy over a single hamburger—but if it was her first time, maybe.
“What, you’ve never had a hamburger?”
“No… My big sisters said they were good, so I wanted to try one.”
She nodded hard, then peeled the wrapper off with awkward, careful fingers and took a huge bite.
At least she knows how to eat one.
Her cheeks puffed out like a hamster’s as she chewed with everything she had, and then both eyes flew wide.
“This is delicious……!”
Watching her light up over nothing but a hamburger, I couldn’t help smiling.
I let out a quiet laugh and picked a chicken nugget from the box.
“Try this too.”
“Ah—.”
I brought the nugget to her lips, and she opened her mouth and took it as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
She’d said she had only just become an adult. Maybe being the youngest meant she was full of little charms she didn’t even notice she was using.
“It’s good!”
“Glad it suits you.”
At that, she quietly dragged the nuggets toward herself and started in on them. I smiled to myself and held out the cola.
“Do you have anything else to change into?”
She took a big gulp of cola, then flicked her fingers with easy confidence.
Snap!
With that bright little sound, the succubus’s usual provocative outfit began to change in an instant.
A plain white T-shirt and a pair of tiny dolphin shorts. Celine sneaked a look at me, checking my reaction.
“…You changed them with magic? Can you do other clothes too?”
“Of course I can.”
She seemed pleased. Looking thoroughly smug, she flicked her fingers again.
The same sound, a curl of smoke—and the T-shirt and dolphin shorts were gone. In their place hung precarious black lingerie trimmed in lace, and a black garter belt drawn just tight enough to press into her thighs and make the softness above it stand out.
“……!”
She might as well have known my taste. My eyes went wide, and I took the sight in properly.
…Honestly? I was getting turned on.
The lingerie and garter looked a size too small, hugging a body that was already dangerous and making it worse. And when I saw the womb tattoo on her stomach—my name written there as if it owned the place—my head went blank.
I could feel my face flushing hot all at once.
“……You did that on purpose.”
I forced the words out, looking anywhere but at her. Celine swayed her heart-tipped tail, all mischief.
“I have no idea what you mean~.”
A playful smile touched her mouth. She popped a french fry in like nothing was wrong.
“…Some succubus you are.”
“What do you mean, some succubus!”
If I kept looking, I wasn’t going to hold out. I ignored Celine, who was making a fuss beside me, and shoved the hamburger into my mouth.
After we finished, I cleared the table in a rough sort of way.
I’d eaten in such a daze that I hadn’t really tasted the burger at all.
Celine sat quietly on the sofa, glancing around my studio apartment, and it hit me that she had shown up empty-handed.
“You didn’t bring anything?”
“Nope.”
She nodded, perfectly unbothered.
“Just my body.”
She was still in the lingerie, looking up at me without moving.
Something hot and sticky I couldn’t name began to gather in those red eyes. The tail that had been swaying brushed past my thigh.
“……Do you want to do it with me now?”
The question was so blunt that I just looked at her for a second.
Honestly, I wanted to. Right now.
What man would turn down a woman like that?
But if I started with Celine now, I didn’t think I’d be able to stop.
I stepped closer.
Close enough that it wouldn’t have been strange if we touched. Her sweet scent drifted up, and for a moment my resolve wavered—but I set my hand on her head and pressed down, firm.
“You’ll hurt the baby. Later.”