Dirty Switch

‘I didn’t like that you were a man, but… in a way, there are things I actually like because you are one.’
‘…Because of the child?’
Seo Baekhan raised his brow with a playful grin, as if surprised but not really. How could he not know? He’d said more than once that he had no intention of having children in “this marriage.”

“…Obviously, he’ll tell me to get rid of it.”
The sound of his own voice was so quiet it felt unfamiliar. Seo Baekhan had never gone through rut with anyone else before. But it was also clear he didn’t intend for this marriage to last forever.
Right now, he was being praised for doing well. But eventually, this would end. No one knew who Baekhan had in mind for a second marriage—or when that might be. But if, while he was planning a future family with someone else, he suddenly found out that Taehyun was pregnant…

How would he react?
This wasn’t something as small as lying about taking Switch, or hiding an imprint. It was on an entirely different level. Taehyun had no idea how to explain it. How could he even begin to justify it?
“Ha, fuck.”

Taehyun cursed under his breath and raised a hand to cover his eyes. He just wanted everything to disappear like it had never happened. But even the faint light from the ceiling lamp, peeking through his fingers, felt like it was mocking him.
***
“I figured if I walked in holding # Nоvеlight # a bag, the guards at the front might ask questions, so I shoved everything in my jacket pockets.”

Cheon Seungpil burst into the room, smelling like wind and urgency, then pulled out a bunch of pregnancy tests from both pockets.
“I was so freaked out I thought I’d drop dead.”
“Ah… uh… thanks.”

“I just grabbed every type they had, just in case… But if you are actually pregnant, what happens then? You gonna hold a press conference or something? Like, ‘Actually, I’m not an Alpha, I’m an Omega’—that kind of thing?”
“Dunno. Baekhan-hyung probably wouldn’t be happy about it, so maybe…”
Seungpil seemed to pick up on what was left unsaid and fell quiet.

“Can you keep watch for people?”
Without another word, Seungpil stood and moved to the door. Then, suddenly, he whipped his head around and glared at Taehyun.
“Hey. Forget that Seo bastard. What about you?”
“What?”

“Who gives a shit what Seo Baekhan feels? You’re the one who’s pregnant. Do you not want it?”
“…I…”
It was rare. For Taehyun to be at a loss for words in a conversation with Seungpil.

However Seungpil interpreted the silence, he let out a long sigh and glued himself to the sliding door like a proper sentry.
“First off, um… congrats. I don’t know if you’re pregnant or not, but still. I should’ve said that first, but I was too freaked out earlier.”
“…”

“I get that it might be an unwelcome thing to Seo Baekhan. But that doesn’t mean it’s not something to be celebrated. You’re upset because of Baekhan, not because you hate the idea of the baby, right? Right?”
“…I don’t know yet. I’m still overwhelmed.”
Hearing the word congrats made him feel strangely awkward, so he replied a little half-heartedly. Seungpil, annoyed at the reaction to his good intentions, turned his head away with a sharp flick. Taehyun quietly looked down at his flat stomach.

So it’s something that could be congratulated…
Honestly, he hadn’t even been hoping for that. Just a word of comfort—that it would be okay—would have meant the world. If it had come from Seo Baekhan, it would have been even better. But that was out of the question. So even a vague reassurance from someone else was enough.
“Oh, right. I picked up the new Alpha-use pregnancy test too.”

“Alpha-use?”
“Yeah. Supposedly it measures the Alpha partner’s blood pheromone levels when the genders are the same… or something? The pharmacist explained it but I’m too dumb to get it. You check the instructions.”
Taehyun examined the pregnancy tests scattered across the bed. Whether it was because they were for secondary-gendered individuals or because they were early-detection types, most of them worked with a blood sample, like a glucose monitor.

“Should I do it here?”
“Yeah. You only need a tiny bit of blood.”
“Okay. Let’s start.”

Seungpil puffed up his upper body like he was preparing for a mission and paced near the door. His face was plastered against the small window in the sliding door—did he not realize how suspicious that looked? What if someone walking by saw him?
Still, something about Seungpil’s ridiculous antics helped ease the tight knot in Taehyun’s chest. He let out a soft snort and picked up one of the tests. Given the situation, using the male Omega version seemed more appropriate than the Alpha-use one.
He skimmed the instructions printed on the case, though none of it was really registering. His hands were ice cold, but sweat was pouring down his back like rain. He must be nervous. Part of him wanted to get it over with. Another part wished he could stay ignorant forever.

“Gasp—hey. There are doctors and nurses walking around outside. What do you call that in Korean?”
“Rounds? How many are there?”
“One doctor, two nurses.”

“Hm… Probably the night-duty doc. Did they go into Baekhan-hyung’s room?”
“No. Two doors down from his.”
“How many doors away is that from us?”

“Uhhh, three?”
A glance at the wall clock showed that it wasn’t typical rounding hours. Maybe it was because this was the VIP ward. Either way, late-night rounds wouldn’t take long. They’d probably reach this room soon.
And then they’d start nagging about visitors being banned, so they had to hurry.

Taehyun wiped his palms on his pants and inserted the single-use lancet into the pen. His hand slipped a few times, but it wasn’t hard.
After that, it was a piece of cake. He sterilized his fingertip with an alcohol swab, then pressed the button on the pen’s tip. A tiny needle pricked his skin, and a drop of dark blood welled up like a blocked stomach suddenly loosening. It even looked ominous. He let a few drops fall onto the test strip.
“Uh-oh? Hey. The doctor and nurses at the station came out again. They’re headed straight for Baekhan’s room, I think.”

Peeking through the glass panel in the door, Seungpil began anxiously hopping in place.
“It’s fine. I’ll hide it under the blanket.”
Taehyun said it calmly, but he was getting nervous too. The drop of blood on the strip wobbled slightly. The footsteps in the hall were getting louder. Just like Seungpil said, more people seemed to be moving around.

Then the pink center of the test strip began to change. A single red line slowly appeared.
His shoulders slumped.
Yeah, of course.

No way he was pregnant.
Was it just the tension? He felt relief—but also a strange emptiness he couldn’t explain.
Seungpil had told him to forget Baekhan and think about how he felt. But how could he separate Baekhan from this? Even if he gave the child all the love in the world, how could a baby be happy knowing one of its fathers wanted nothing to do with it…?

“Oh? Hey, hey! Seo—Seo Baekhan’s coming out!”
“What?”
“He’s at the door with the doctor. They’re talking—wait, shit. He’s coming this way!”

The moment Seungpil panicked and darted toward him, Taehyun’s head snapped up.
It was a split second.
Their eyes met—Seungpil, who’d been craning his neck to peek outside, and Taehyun, frozen with the test strip in hand.

Like agents in a mission, they exchanged one sharp glance—and then, without a word, they grabbed all the unopened test kits and stuffed them under the pillow.
“Wait, should I even be here? What if Baekhan kills me? For talking shit about him…”
“If you came to Pyongyang without even being ready for that—”

Taehyun, still holding the used test, froze mid-motion as he reached to hide it under the covers again.
“Hey!”
Seungpil had been about to scold him—What the hell are you doing?!—but stopped dead in his tracks, face going pale.

“J-Joo Taehyun, this…”
A second faint red line had appeared on the test.
“…So, the result appears to be positive…”

Voices were now close enough to hear clearly. Taehyun calmly reached for the last test to hide it, but only his face looked normal. His hand was shaking.
“Lie down—quick…”
Seungpil, clearly freaked, shoved the opened test into his own pocket and started patting Taehyun’s shoulder. Then he suddenly realized what kind of situation this was, smacked himself on the forehead, and groaned.

“Fuck, sorry—I didn’t hurt the baby, right? Just pushing your shoulder like that won’t hurt it, right?”
His attempt to gently lay Taehyun down was clumsy at best.
“Are you hurt? Did I hit you too hard?”

“…I’m fine.”
The door opened just as Seungpil was fussing with the blanket at the foot of the bed.
“But Director—”

“I don’t mind… Seungpil?”
“Ah, ahem—Baekhan-hyung! Hello.”
Seungpil had his hand awkwardly resting on Taehyun’s chest as he bowed stiffly. Then he remembered this was Korea and gave a proper bow—except, in doing so, he ended up pressing his forehead to Taehyun’s chest. A very suspicious scene.

“Nobody told me you’d be coming.”
Seo Baekhan’s gaze swept over Seungpil leaning on Taehyun, the hand on his chest, and their whole position. His eyes didn’t move, just sliced over them in detached angles—colder than usual.
“I-I just got here! I, uh, wanted to apologize for what I said over the phone last time. Thought I’d drop by as a surprise, but then this happened…”

“Security’s a mess. A patient on the floor that just had an incident, and they’re letting in outsiders without permission.”
“…I’m sorry, Director.”
The attending physician tried to laugh it off, but Baekhan’s tone and eyes were icy.

“Taehyun, if you’re conscious, you should’ve contacted medical staff immediately.”
Even as he said it, his eyes never left Seungpil. The metal strip in his hand looked like a deadly weapon.
“He just woke up! And his siblings called—his family in Seoul will be here tomorrow or the next day, so they asked me to stay with him until then…”

Seungpil slowly backed away, still bent awkwardly. Just then, something small and cylindrical rolled out from his jacket.
It was one of the pregnancy tests he’d hastily stuffed away.