Three Days
“I've been thinking about it ever since I first saw those two lines on the test. I've gone back and forth so many times, too.”
In truth, her mind had been made up from the very beginning.
“But still… I want to have it. I'm going to have this baby.”
At her grave, quiet declaration, his lips parted slightly. Doing her best to look away from the storm churning in Hwi-young's eyes, Som-i clenched her hands tightly in her lap.
“I'm not saying this to make you take responsibility, sunbae.”
His brow furrowed for an instant.
“It's my child, so I'll raise it. I'm not trying to dump the burden on you. I'm only telling you because… you have a right to know.”
Of everything she'd rehearsed, this was the one part she had practiced in front of the mirror countless times over the past three days. Maybe that was why it came pouring out without a single stumble.
Please. Please. Just nod your head. That's all.
Som-i didn't ask for much from him. After tossing and turning all night in anguish over the pregnancy, she had come to a firm conclusion. What she wanted from Hwi-young wasn't a heavy obligation or a promise of any kind.
The night the baby was conceived had been, quite literally, an accident. His reaction now was, in a way, only natural. A child from a drunken one-night stand with a junior he'd barely exchanged a word with? For her, it had been a night she would never forget — for Kwon Hwi-young, it was surely nothing more than a brief lapse.
It wasn't an easy decision for me, either. He's Kwon Hwi-young, the man I've loved for years, but becoming a mother at my age? I'm not so foolish that I can't see how my ordinary college life would crumble like a sandcastle.
And yet — that tiny, shapeless dot flickering on the monitor, announcing its existence so unmistakably.
The moment she saw it, strange as it seemed, every thought in her head simply stopped. The anxiety, the fear, the practical problems — none of it registered. In that moment, only one thing was visible. She had to protect it. This was never a matter of choice.
“I won't let this interfere with your life, sunbae.”
The words slipped out like a plea.
“I'll never be a burden to you. If you want, I'll sign anything — a notarized agreement, whatever. I'll raise the child as mine alone, with nothing to do with you. I promise I'll never appear in front of you again.”
Pouring out the words without so much as pausing to breathe, Som-i added in a trembling whisper,
“I'll take a leave of absence if you tell me to. I'll disappear from your sight right now if that's what you want. I'll do whatever you ask, so—”
Her throat closed up, choking off the end of the sentence.
The feelings she'd carried for him — that much, she could let go of now. The long-cherished crush, the pointless hopes she'd dreamed up while watching him from afar.
All of it was fine. She could give up every last piece of it. But.
“Please… just don't ask me to erase the baby.”
Her trembling voice scattered helplessly into the stillness of the room.
That was the full extent of the mercy Som-i asked of Hwi-young. Yet the longer she spoke, the heavier the storm clouds settled over his face — a face that had always shone like spring sunlight.
Hwi-young pressed his lips shut and said nothing more. A deep crease she had never seen before had carved itself between his brows as he stared at some distant point in the air.
Som-i had no choice but to sit beside him in silence, enduring a stretch of time like a bed of nails, until the bus was ready to depart.
Chilled by his inexplicably frosty attitude, Som-i boarded the bus with her spirits sagging. Perhaps because of the odd hour, the bus bound for Seoul was nearly empty.
She shuffled halfway down the aisle and leaned against the window seat. Hwi-young, who had been breathing ice just moments before, made straight for the seat beside her the instant he stepped aboard, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Just as he moved to sit down, Som-i hastily blocked him.
“Um… could you sit somewhere else?”
“…….”
“There are plenty of seats. I just… need a little space.”
Hwi-young froze mid-motion. She thought she caught his eyebrow twitching crookedly for a split second, but then a faint smile settled over his face.
“Fine. Sure.”
Without a word of protest, Kwon Hwi-young rose and crossed to the window seat on the opposite side. Som-i pressed her forehead against the cold glass. The September sun still blazed outside, but her heart was sinking colder than it ever had.
With each of them staring silently out their own window, far apart, the bus reached Seoul.
“You okay?”
At Hwi-young's voice dropping from above her head, Som-i — who had been walking with her eyes fixed on the pavement — looked up.
“About what?”
“Whether you're uncomfortable anywhere, or tired. You were sitting on that bus a long time.”
So he wears a stone face for the entire ride, and now he decides to act all sweet? Som-i stared up at him blankly.
She resented the way he toyed with people's hearts. It would have been easier if he'd simply stayed cold to the end — then giving up would be simpler, too. It was the needless kindness that unsettled her, and it made her heart ache.
“I'm fine.”
The moment she forced out the words and dropped her gaze back to her feet, his hand landed on her shoulder.
“Give me the bag.”
As he gently tugged at her backpack, Som-i clutched the strap.
“No, I can carry it.”
“I said give it, Som.”
His voice was soft but carried a quiet, unmistakable firmness, and Som-i obediently slid the strap off her shoulder. He snatched up the backpack as if he'd been waiting for exactly that and slung it over one shoulder. The two of them walked on in silence for a long while.
When the crosswalk facing the campus buildings came into view, Som-i stopped and turned to face him.
“You can go now. I can make it from here alone.”
There was no way she could walk side by side with Kwon Hwi-young all the way to the dormitories. If anyone caught them together, she wanted no part of the gossip that would follow. He was, after all, a certified celebrity even outside his own department. She had watched with her own eyes how Bae Ye-ri — who had dated him until recently — had become the center of every rumor on campus and been torn apart for it.
Above all, she and Kwon Hwi-young were not that kind of couple.
Yes, a baby had been conceived between them — but that was, at its root, the accident of a single night. And right now Som-i was digging in her heels about keeping it, while Hwi-young looked, to any observer, like a man in mortal distress over the whole situation.
Whether he understood any of this or not, Hwi-young simply nodded.
“Okay.”
Quick to agree. So very reasonable. That cool composure of his stabbed at a corner of Som-i's heart.
Hwi-young handed back the backpack. As he slipped it onto her shoulder himself and patiently untangled the twisted strap, Som-i could only sway along dazedly, following his movements with a blank face.
“Give me three days.”
At the words that fell without warning, Som-i's head snapped up. She met the unreadable depths of Hwi-young's eyes.
“Th-three days for what?”
A sudden rush of fear made her echo his words.
“I need time to think too, don't I?”
Bending slightly at the waist, he reached his hand out toward her.
“It's not just your life on the line here. Mine is too — and so is the life of the child you're saying you'll have.”
The moment his long, slender fingers — delicate for a man — brushed against the hair hanging over her forehead, Som-i stiffened and hunched her shoulders. Paying her reaction no mind, Hwi-young carefully swept the tangled strands aside.
“Don't be too scared. In three days, I'll come back with the best answer I can give you.”
Watching her own face reflected in his shimmering eyes, Som-i managed at last to answer.
“Okay.”
Hwi-young gave a single nod and turned away. As she watched his retreating figure, Som-i let out the breath she had been holding in a long exhale. The tension drained from her so completely that her legs wobbled, and she nearly crumpled to the ground.
Three days from now.
It was already obvious that this stretch of time would fill her with the restless dread of a prisoner awaiting her sentencing.
“Cut that actor from the film.”
Baek Seol-hee said it as she gave her wineglass a light swirl.
“Why would you slot in some unverified kid? You're not trying to sink the production, are you?”
Seated across from her, Kwon Seung-jun didn't so much as lift his head; he simply kept moving his chopsticks.
“The production?”
Chewing through a bite of red-peppered flatfish, he let out a short laugh.
“I take it you've forgotten how much of my money has melted into that precious production of yours.”
Baek Seol-hee picked up an olive with a perfectly blank face.
“Plenty of money comes in without yours. You flatter yourself.”
Hwi-young scooped up a spoonful of the doenjang soup set before him and brought it to his mouth. The soup had gone a little cold.
“Or what — did you like her that much?”
Baek Seol-hee added, pressing her fingertips lightly to her lips.
“Ah, now that I think of it, all gaunt and pitiful-looking like that — she's exactly CEO Kwon's type.”
Hwi-young lifted his water glass and took a slow sip. Only after the empty cup hit the table with a dull thud did he rise. Despite the considerable screech of the chair against the floor, neither of his parents looked up.
“I'll head in first.”
No answer came.