Chapter Nine #3
“The instant ramyeon needs to go,” she says, nodding toward the pantry. “And the dried squid. The sodium content alone—”
“Done,” Hyunwoo says, already reaching for the pantry door.
“Hey,” I protest, stepping forward. “That’s my snack stash. You stocked that for me when I moved in.”
Hyunwoo doesn’t even look at me. He’s pulling packets of ramyeon off the shelf and dropping them into a trash bag. “That was before you were pregnant. Yunhee says the sodium and preservatives aren’t good for the baby’s development, and the MSG can exacerbate nausea during the first trimester.”
“I haven’t had any nausea.”
“Yet,” Yunhee says gently. She gives me a sympathetic smile. “I’ll make you alternatives that satisfy the same cravings. You won’t miss them.”
I watch my beloved honey butter chips follow the ramyeon into the trash bag and feel a pang of genuine grief.
Hyunwoo ties the bag shut and sets it by the door, then turns back to me with an expression that dares me to argue further.
I don’t, because I’ve already learned that fighting Hyunwoo on anything pregnancy-related is like trying to stop a river with my hands—the water just goes around me and keeps flowing.
Yunhee’s meals are, admittedly, incredible.
She prepares three full meals and two snacks daily, each one balanced and portioned and tailored to my specific needs—high-folate grain bowls with soft eggs and avocado for breakfast, iron-rich stews with dark leafy greens for lunch, omega-3-heavy salmon or mackerel dishes with roasted vegetables for dinner, and snacks that somehow manage to be both healthy and satisfying, like sweet potato chips baked with sesame oil or homemade protein balls with dates and walnuts that taste better than any candy bar I’ve ever had.
She labels everything in the fridge with the date and my name, and leaves detailed notes for Hyunwoo about what I should eat when and in what order, which Hyunwoo reads with the seriousness of a man studying battle plans.
The birthing class is worse.
Hyunwoo signs me up without consulting me—I find out when a confirmation email arrives in my inbox for a “Premium Prenatal Preparation Program” at an upscale maternity center in Gangnam, the place has a water feature in the lobby and herbal tea stations in the waiting room and soft piano music piped through hidden speakers in the ceiling.
The class meets twice a week, Tuesday and Thursday evenings, and when I tell Hyunwoo flatly that I’m not going, he tells me just as flatly that I am, and that he’s already paid for the full twelve-week course and it’s nonrefundable.
The first session is a nightmare. We walk into a bright, airy studio space with yoga mats arranged in a semicircle on a polished wood floor, and every other mat is occupied by a bonded alpha-omega couple.
The omegas are in various stages of pregnancy, and every single one of them has an alpha partner sitting attentively beside them, hands on bellies or shoulders, bond marks fresh and visible on their necks.
Bonded pairs. Legitimate, loving, committed couples preparing together for the arrival of their children.
And then there’s us. Me, a male omega who doesn’t look pregnant at all yet and is sitting rigidly on a yoga mat in basketball shorts and a faded t-shirt, and Hyunwoo beside me in designer joggers and a fitted black long-sleeve, looking around the room with the relaxed confidence of someone who belongs everywhere he goes.
The instructor—a warm, maternal beta woman with reading glasses perched on her nose—welcomes everyone and asks the couples to introduce themselves.
One by one, the pairs share their names, how far along the omega is, and something they’re looking forward to about becoming parents.
The answers are sweet and earnest—first kicks, choosing names, building nurseries.
When it gets to us, Hyunwoo speaks before I can open my mouth.
“Hyunwoo and Yugyeom,” he says, flashing his most charming smile at the room. “Four weeks along. We’re looking forward to the whole experience.”
Several of the omegas smile at us. One of the alphas gives Hyunwoo an approving nod. I stare at the floor and wish for a sinkhole to open beneath my mat and swallow me into the earth’s core.
The class itself involves breathing exercises, guided stretching, and demonstrations of various birthing positions using anatomical models that make me deeply uncomfortable.
The instructor walks us through diaphragmatic breathing techniques designed to manage pain during labor, and Hyunwoo—sitting cross-legged beside me with a small notebook balanced on his knee—takes notes.
Actual handwritten notes, in his neat, angular script, filling half a page with bullet points about breath counts and pelvic floor engagement and optimal positioning for different stages of labor.
He asks the instructor questions. Thoughtful, specific questions about pain management and the role of alpha pheromones during delivery and whether there are exercises that can help with the elasticity of the birth canal.
To add to all that, Hyunwoo texts me constantly, even when we’re apart.
A prime example is once when I’m in the middle of demonstrating a proper Romanian deadlift for my ten o’clock client—a middle-aged beta woman who keeps rounding her back no matter how many times I correct her—when my phone buzzes in the pocket of my joggers.
I ignore it. It buzzes again thirty seconds later.
Then again. By the fourth vibration my client pauses mid-rep and glances at my pocket with raised eyebrows, and I mutter an apology and pull it out to check.
Four messages from Hyunwoo, sent in rapid succession:
Did you eat breakfast?
Yunhee left the grain bowl in the fridge, the one with the egg and the avocado. Don’t skip it.
How’s your stomach? Any nausea?
Drink water.
I shove the phone back in my pocket and get through the rest of the session, but by the time my client leaves and I’m wiping down the equipment, there are three more messages waiting for me.
One asking if the gym’s air conditioning is set too cold because he read that pregnant omegas are more sensitive to temperature fluctuations in the first trimester and prolonged exposure to cold environments can cause the body to redirect blood flow away from the womb.
One asking if I remembered to take my prenatal vitamins this morning or if he needs to bring them to the gym.
And one that’s just a link to an article about the importance of staying hydrated during early pregnancy, with no additional commentary, as if the link speaks for itself.
I type back I’m fine, stop texting me and put my phone on silent.
It doesn’t help. The phone still lights up on the counter every few minutes between clients, Hyunwoo’s name flashing across the screen with a persistence that borders on compulsive.
By mid-afternoon my coworker Daejoong, who trains clients on the platform next to mine, leans over during a break and asks if I’m dealing with some kind of emergency because my phone hasn’t stopped going off all day.
I tell him it’s nothing, just Hyunwoo being Hyunwoo, and Daejoong gives me a knowing look and says something about how it must be nice to have a rich friend who has nothing better to do than blow up your phone while the rest of us are working.
I laugh it off, but the truth is I’m starting to feel like I’m being monitored by a very attentive, very persistent surveillance system that happens to wear gold jewelry and drive a Maserati.
It really only gets worse. A few days later Hyunwoo comes to the gym for his morning workout as usual, and we lift together for an hour—him on the cable machine, me doing pull-ups, trading sets and giving each other shit about form the way we always have.
But when the workout ends and I head behind the front counter to clock in for my shift, Hyunwoo doesn’t leave.
He follows me to the desk, leans his elbows on the counter, and starts running through what I can only describe as a pre-flight checklist.
“Did you take your vitamins?”
“Yes.”
“Both of them? The folic acid and the iron?”
“Yes, Hyunwoo.”
“What are you eating for lunch? Yunhee packed you something, right? It should be in the bag I put in the staff fridge.”
“I’ll eat it when I’m hungry.”
“Don’t wait too long. You need to eat every three to four hours to keep your blood sugar stable. If you wait until you’re starving, you’ll crash and then you’ll feel nauseous, and then you won’t want to eat at all, and then—”
“Hyunwoo.” I plant both hands on the counter and look him dead in the eye. “Go away.”
He holds up his hands. “Fine, fine. Just—text me when you eat, okay? And let me know if your temperature feels off. If you start feeling warm or flushed, sit down immediately and drink cold water. And check in around two so I know you’re—”
“Goodbye, Hyunwoo.”
He goes, but not before pointing at me with two fingers—the gesture that means I’m watching you—and backing toward the exit with his gym bag over his shoulder. I watch him leave through the glass doors and shake my head.
Ye-eun materializes at my elbow like she’s been waiting for exactly this moment. She’s got her tablet in one hand and a protein bar in the other, and she’s chewing slowly, her eyes tracking Hyunwoo’s retreating figure through the window with an expression I don’t like at all.
“So,” she says, still chewing. “What’s that about?”
“What’s what about?”
“That.” She gestures toward the door with her protein bar. “The whole … checklist thing. The hovering. The ‘text me when you eat’ business.” She turns to face me fully, her eyebrows climbing toward her hairline. “He’s acting like a worried husband, Yugyeom.”
My stomach drops, but I keep my expression flat. “He’s acting like Hyunwoo. You know how he gets when he’s fixated on something.”