ThatGrlJorge

But you both knew that the final test was approaching. The Creative Arts Gala was just around the corner, and with it came the looming threat of judgment. This was it. The moment where everything would be laid bare for everyone to see—the culmination of your work, your partnership, your fears. 

And the closer it came, the more you realized that the stakes were higher than you’d ever imagined. 

But maybe, just maybe, you were ready to face it. Together. 

The day of the Creative Arts Gala was approaching faster than either of you had anticipated. The entire campus was buzzing with excitement, and for the first time since you’d started working with Chan, you felt a strange mix of anticipation and dread. The project had evolved in ways you hadn’t expected—your styles had started to mesh in a way that felt natural, even if it hadn’t been easy. You couldn’t deny that the music had become something more than either of you could have created on your own. It was its own entity, born of both your strengths and weaknesses. 

But with that came a new layer of anxiety. You weren’t just presenting your individual work anymore. This was a reflection of both of you, and the thought of standing in front of an audience, exposing your collaborative creation, made your stomach churn. 

You hadn’t spoken much about it. The pressure was there, unspoken, but it hung over both of you like a storm cloud. You spent late nights in the studio together, tweaking the final arrangement, perfecting every note, every lyric. But in those quiet moments, when the room was still and the only sound was the hum of the equipment, you both knew that this was more than just a project. It was a test. 

The night before the Gala, you found yourself alone in the studio, staring at the final version of the piece. The weight of it was suffocating, and you couldn’t shake the feeling that you were on the verge of something—something big, something that could change everything. But you also couldn’t ignore the fear gnawing at the back of your mind. What if it wasn’t good enough? What if you failed? 

It was then that Chan walked in, his silhouette framed by the doorway. His usual confidence was absent, replaced by a quiet intensity. He didn’t speak at first, just walked over to where you sat and looked at the screen. 

“Hey,” he said softly, breaking the silence. 

You didn’t respond immediately, but his presence had a grounding effect on you. You could feel the tension between you, but there was something different now. The walls you’d both built were gone, replaced by something more fragile, more human. 

“This is it, huh?” he asked, his voice laced with a mixture of anticipation and uncertainty. “Tomorrow night, everything we’ve been working on… it all comes down to this.” 

You nodded, but the words stuck in your throat. You wanted to tell him how much this project had meant to you, how much he had come to mean to you, but the vulnerability of it was too much. You weren’t ready to admit that to him—not yet. Instead, you just looked at him and said, “Yeah. It feels… bigger than I thought it would.” 

Chan stepped closer, his gaze never leaving yours. For a long moment, neither of you spoke. There was a quiet understanding between you now, a bond that had been forged in the fire of your shared frustrations and victories. It wasn’t perfect, but it was real. 

“I know we’ve had our differences,” he said quietly, his voice softer than usual. “And I know I haven’t always been easy to work with. But I’m glad it’s been with you. This… whatever it is between us, this project, it’s been worth it. I think we’ve made something special.” 

You swallowed hard, the weight of his words sinking deep into you. It wasn’t the grand declaration you’d expected, but it was enough. For the first time, you didn’t feel the need to fight him on it. You just let the silence stretch between you, acknowledging the truth in his words. 

“We’ve done something good,” you replied, your voice quieter than you intended. “But we wouldn’t have gotten here without both of us.” 

Chan gave a small, almost imperceptible smile. “Yeah. We’re a team.” 

The simplicity of it hit you hard. For the first time, you understood what that meant. You weren’t just two people working on a project. You were something more. You were connected in a way that you hadn’t expected, and it made everything—every struggle, every challenge—worth it. 

The night was growing late, and the weight of exhaustion was beginning to settle in your bones. But there was a lightness in the air now, something unspoken between you. It wasn’t perfect, it never would be, but maybe that was okay. For now.

“That’s your uterus,” the doctor explains, pointing. “And here—”

Her finger taps a tiny blur.

“—is the gestational sac. Very early still.”

You swallow.

“Is it… okay?” The question comes out fragile. She smiles gently seeming to sense your nervousness.

“It looks appropriate for your dates. No bleeding? No severe pain?”

You shake your head.

“Some nausea,” you admit. “I threw up a few times.”

“That’s very common.” Her tone is light, matter-of-fact. To her, this is one more file in a long day. “We’ll do blood work to confirm your hormone levels. Avoid smoking, alcohol, very heavy lifting. Make sure you rest when you can.”

You nod, absorbing the instructions like you’re back in school, taking notes. You lay there a bit longer as she takes measurements of the tiny dot in your uterus. Your brain slowly spioaraling the whole time.

When you leave it’s with a packet of pamphlets in your bag, a follow-up date on your phone, and an ultrasound printout in an envelope you’re not ready to open. Sitting on the subway home your mind wanders.

You almost text Felix. You should text Felix. You should most definitely call Chris. You don’t.

Instead, you tuck the ultrasound in between the pages of a notebook in your bag to keep it safe and get off at your stop.

The next two weeks blur.

You work small shifts, sleep more, eat more because you have to. Because you are taking care of someone else now, not just surviving. Your world shrinks down to this small, strange secret inside your body.

Sometimes, in the very quiet moments, you let yourself imagine it going differently. Him at the ultrasound, his loose, shaky laugh as the doctor tells us about the ultrasound. His hand covering yours when the doctor points at the screen. The way he would press his forehead to yours afterward and whisper, “We’re really doing this, pretty.”

You shut those daydreams down as soon as they start. You left for a reason, and a baby doesn’t magically fix all of the problems that were already present before. You remind yourself of that over and over, even as you catch yourself tracing idle circles over your lower abdomen while watching dramas alone on your phone.

At night, you lie in bed and listen to your pulse, thinking about the heartbeat you can’t hear yet.

You don’t talk aloud, because it feels ridiculous and too raw, but in your head you think things like:

I’m sorry the timing is so bad. I’m trying. Please be okay.

The city moves on around you, so does he, you assume. You are too afraid still to check.

You wake early one morning, about a week before your next appointment, warm. Almost too warm. The sheet under your thigh is damp, the warmth. For a moment, your sleepy brain thinks you spilled something. You shift, confused, and you feel the wet slip lower.

A chill goes through you in a single, electric line.

You throw the blanket back. Blood. Not a streak, not a spot, a spreading, horrifying stain. Dark and bright at the same time, too much, too fast. Your breath punches out of your lungs.

“No,” you say, nonsense, a reflex. “No, no, no—”

You stand too quickly and your head spins. Another gush, hot down your legs. Your whole body goes to ice. Moving on autopilot, you head to the bathroom. Light on, clothes off. You sit on the toilet and it’s everywhere now. More than a heavy period, more than a bad day. The kind of bleeding that makes some distant, rational part of your brain whisper, “This isn’t normal.”

Your hands tremble as you reach for toilet paper. It’s soaked red before you can use it. You sit there and shake, heart thundering, ears ringing.

You whisper, “Please stop. Please stop. Please—”

That’s when the pain hits.

A cramp, low and deep. Meaner than the ones you’re used to, even though the ones that you are used to are bad. It tightens and doesn’t loosen; a fist clenched around your insides.

Your vision blurs with tears and pain.

You don’t know how long you sit there before you realize you can’t stay in the bathroom forever. That something is wrong enough you can’t just ride it out. Your hands fumble for your phone. It is still too early for your doctor to be open. You still don’t call him, even though you should. You call your doctors emergency number instead.

The nurse’s voice is calm and efficient. You stumble through the details: pregnant, about six weeks, heavy bleeding, pain.

“Come to the ER right away,” she says. “Don’t wait. Can you get here on your own?”

“I… I think so.” Your voice doesn’t sound like your own.

“Bring someone with you if you can. If the pain gets much worse or you feel dizzy, call emergency services, okay?”

You nod, even though she can’t see you. “Okay.”

The cab ride is a blur of gray streets and white knuckles.

You’ve rinsed and pulled on some of your most absot absorbent pad that you still happened to have for emergencies. Your biggest hoodie and your most comfortable leggings. Not caring to look polished in a moment of intense distress.

The world outside the window looks normal. Commuters. Kids in uniforms. A man sipping coffee at a crosswalk. You can feel warmth seeping through, a terrifying reminder that your body is doing something you can’t control. You clamp both hands around your phone. The overwhelming urge you have to roll down the window and scream, “Something is happening! Somebody stop it!” To break down and just cry, but you don’t.

At the hospital, the fluorescent lights are too bright. They take you in quickly after you stammer out “pregnant” and “bleeding” at the triage desk. Blood pressure cuff, questions, paperwork you sign without fully reading. You end up in a curtained-off area on a narrow bed, socks cold, knees drawn up under the hospital gown.

They gave you oddly soft disposable underwear with one of the biggest pads you have ever seen. You had already bled through the last pad. There’s less blood now, which you don’t know if that is good or bad, but the new pad isn’t filling as fast. The pain, though, still comes in waves.

The ER doctor is brisk but not unkind.

He asks you about the timing of your last period, the date of your positive test, the ultrasound, the blood work. He tells you they’ll do more tests, that early pregnancy can sometimes come with bleeding that doesn’t mean the worst. That they won’t know anything for sure until they do an ultrasound and check your hormone levels.

You nod like you hear him, but you don’t really. Not really.

You lie back when the ultrasound tech comes in. You hold still, almost stop breathing too. You don’t watch the monitor this time, but the tech’s face instead. It tells you everything before she says a word. The neutral mask, the professional lines, the tiny softening around her eyes. You know that this situation doesn’t get easier for people in her position, but she does well to hide most of her sadness.

“Is it…” Your throat closes. You try again. “It’s bad, isn’t it?”

She hesitates, just for a second. “I’m not seeing what I’d expect to see at this stage.”

The world falls very strangely still.

She packs up and you know she is submitting her findings into the system. You don’t know how long you sit there. Waiting. Breathing. The original doctor comes in sometime later to deliver the news.

Miscarriage.

Common.

Not your fault.

Happens in a high percentage of early pregnancies.

Nothing you did.

Nothing you could have done to prevent it.

The words float around your head like bubbles you can’t quite pop. In your chest, something keens. You nod, taking in the information being layed out to you, because that’s what people do when doctors say things like this. You nod until your neck hurts.

They keep you for a while.

Observation.

Monitoring.

Pain medication that takes the sharpest edge off, leaving a deep, aching hollow.

At some point, a nurse asks if there’s anyone they should call. Saying there is a “Christopher”

In your emergency contacts that’s on file. You shake your head too fast, fear in your eyes no doubt, but then catch yourself.

“Maybe… not him,” you blurt, startling yourself. “Not right now.”

The nurse tilts her head. “Someone else?”

You think of your family. An ocean between you. The time difference. The questions. The guilt.

You think of him, again. The last month, ring on the nightstand. The way you left without a word.

You think of his face if he walked in here and found you like this, gown and IV and empty womb.

You whisper, “Yes, Felix.” before you can overthink it.

You give them his number with a shaky voice.

They try twice.

He doesn’t answer—it’s the middle of the day at this point. He’s probably in rehearsal, or recording, or trying to keep your ex-husband from collapsing somewhere. They tell you they’ll try again later, but you’re not sure if you want them to succeed.

You lie there and stare at the ceiling.

The pain ebbs and flows; the bleeding has almost stopped for now. The finality doesn’t. You didn’t know it was possible to feel this much loss over something you had only just begun to hope for. You thought that you hadn’t even let yourself fully want it, but now that it’s gone, wanting is all that’s left.

At some point, you realize you’re shaking so hard your teeth chatter. When the nurse offers you another blanket, you say yes. You even say thank you, but your voice sounds very far away. Even to your own ears.

You don’t remember deciding to, you just remember staring at your phone, at his name, at the call button that seemed to beckon you.

Your thumb hits the call button before you can talk yourself out of it, the ringing sounds like an alarm you can’t shut off. You almost hang up before he answers.

His voice hits you like impact.

“Hello?” A bit of rustling. Then softer, hopeful. “Pretty? …Pretty, is that you?”

The sound of the nickname cracks something wide open in your chest. You don’t speak at first, but he hears you on the other end of the call. He seems to go gentle and panicked all at once.

“Hey, hey,” he says, voice dropping. “It’s okay. I’m here. Please talk to me. Are you okay? Where are you?”

You inhale; it shudders, and words come out without your permission.

“I lost it.”

Silence on his end.

You swallow.

“I didn’t know,” you choke. “I didn’t know and I lost it.”

“Wait—what? Pretty, slow down, I don’t—what did you lose? Are you hurt? Did something happen—”

“I killed it.” The words rip out of you, raw and wrong and truer than anything you’ve ever said. “I killed it, Chris. I didn’t—I didn’t protect it, I didn’t even tell you, and now it’s gone, it’s gone and it’s my fault.” You’re crying so hard you can hardly breathe.

On the other end of the line, you hear him go absolutely silent; a door click shut.

“Pretty,” he whispers, voice breaking. “Baby, no. No, no, listen to me—what are you talking about? What happened? I’m coming to you, just tell me where you are, okay? Just—just tell me where—”

“I can’t,” you sob. “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t have you see me like this—”

“Please,” he almost cries. You’ve never heard him sound like this, not even in the worst pre-debut days. It sounds like something being peeled away from bone. “Please, I’m begging you, tell me where you are. Are you at home? Did you go back to Texas? Are you at a- a hospital? Pretty, baby, please—”

His voice is too much. It’s too kind and too frantic and too full of an urgency that arrived too late.

“I can’t do this with you,” you gasp. “I thought I could, but I can’t. I thought I could leave and it would hurt less, but it doesn’t, and I still—” You choke on the rest.

On the love. On the grief. On the part of you that still wants him more than anything.

On the part that knows wanting him hasn’t saved you once.

He says your name in a grasp, like a prayer. You hear a door shut again. “Please don’t hang up. Please. I didn’t know. If I’d known—”

“That’s the problem,” you whisper, voice shattering. A slight sob making its way through. “You did know, I told you, you just waited until it was too late.”

You hit end with a shaking thumb before he can answer; the call cuts off mid-plea. Your chest heaves, and the hospital room swims. You stare at the screen as his name lights up again, vibrating insistently. You immediately end the call and re-block his number with clumsy fingers before another call can come through, tears dripping onto the glass.

You don’t trust yourself not to answer if he calls again. Definitely don’t trust yourself not to run straight back into the fire you barely crawled out of.

You’re still shaking when your phone starts vibrating in your hand. The sudden feeling makes you jump slightly.

“Hello?” His voice comes through faint, a little breathless when you put the phone to your ear but don’t say anything at first. Background noise—counting, music, then a door closing, the sound dampening.

“Lix.” Your own voice cracks on his name.

A pause.

“Noona, Love,” He instantly goes soft, the way he only does with people he cares about. “What’s wrong? Where are you? Are you okay?”

You inhale, the word feels too big and too broken to say.

“I’m at the hospital,” you manage. “Can you… can you come get me?”

You hear the way his breath stutters. “I’m on my way,” he says immediately. “Which one?”

You tell him. He doesn’t ask what happened, not yet. He doesn’t ask why you didn’t call him sooner. He just says, “I’m coming, I'll be right there.” one more time, like a promise. When you hang up, your hands are still shaking.

He gets there faster than he should.

You’re sitting on the edge of the hospital bed, fully dressed, discharge papers in your hand, the IV removed, a dull ache settling into your bones where the sharp panic used to be. The curtain rustles.

“Love?”

You look up. He’s in a hoodie and mask and cap; hair hastily tucked, breath still a little rough like he ran the last part of the way. His eyes find yours. All the air goes out of your lungs.

“Lix,” you whisper.

He steps inside and closes the curtain behind him, giving you both the illusion of privacy. For a second, he just looks at you. The red-rimmed eyes, the hospital wristband, the way you’re clutching the paperwork too tightly.

He doesn’t ask.

He doesn’t make you say it.

He opens his arms instead.

You go.

You fold into him like you’re collapsing into a safe place you didn’t realize you missed until it was around you again. He hugs you carefully, one hand cradling the back of your head, the other banded firm and warm around your shoulders.

“It’s okay,” he murmurs into your hair. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.”

You shake. You don’t say you’re not okay, you think he knows. You soak his hoodie, but he doesn’t complain. After a moment he leads you out, one arm still steady at your back, hip bumping yours softly with each step like he’s reminding you you’re not walking alone.

He takes the discharge papers from your grip and tucks them into his own pocket.

He doesn’t look at them.

You’re grateful.

The ride back to your apartment is quiet.

Felix drives steadily, both hands on the wheel. He looks at you every so often like you might disappear, or jump. Outside the car window, the city is already shifting toward the evening. The world still looks normal. It feels obscene. You watch buildings pass until your voice finally emerges, small and hoarse.

“I called him first.”

You feel Felix go still beside you.

You don’t look at him.

“I called him,” you repeat, staring straight ahead. “I said—I said terrible things. I told him I killed it.”

The word hangs in the air like smoke.

Felix exhales slowly. “Love,” he says quietly. “You didn’t—”

“I know what the doctor said,” you interrupt, sharper than you mean. “I know the statistics. I know it’s ‘common’ and ‘not my fault’ and all those nice words they’re trained to say. But I was the one who didn’t rest enough. I was the one who didn’t eat right. I was the one who didn’t go back when I found out. I was the one who kept it a secret. If I had—if I’d told him, if I’d—” Your voice breaks.

Felix’s hand slips over to yours in your lap.

“Hey,” he says softly. “Stop. Don’t do that to yourself.”

You stare at his fingers curled over yours, knuckles pale. “He didn’t know,” you whisper.

He swallows.

“You didn’t either,” he says, gentle but firm. “Not really. Not how it would go. None of us do.”

You squeeze your eyes shut. Your next confession comes out quieter, like you’re handing over something delicate.

“He was so scared,” you whisper. “I could hear it. I could hear him trying to find me through the phone. And I—” You inhale sharply. “I hung up on him. I blocked his number. I…” Your throat closes around the rest.

Felix’s thumb rubs a slow circle over your knuckles. “It’s not his story to be in,” he says after a long moment. “Not this part. It would have broken him.”

“It broke me,” you say.

“I know,” he replies. “That’s why I’m here.”

You finally look at him. His eyes are shiny, jaw tight, expression torn between anger at the universe and the helplessness of knowing he can’t fix this for you.

“Are you mad at me?” you ask, very quietly.

It’s a child’s question.

For leaving. For not telling him sooner. For hurting your husband. For involving him in this at all.

Felix’s face softens. “No,” he says, and there’s no hesitation in it. “I’m not mad at you. I’m… sad. For you. For him. For… all of this. But I’m not mad at you.”

He walks you to your apartment door like it’s three a.m. in a bad neighborhood instead of early evening in a quiet, middle-class building.

You step in and suddenly feel bone-deep exhausted.

Felix hovers in the doorway. “You want me to stay?” he asks carefully. “Or I can go, if you need to be alone. I’ll just… text. A lot.”

You consider it, you look at the couch, the bed, the bathroom door. The hospital wristband tight on your arm. You think of the way his arms felt around you earlier, solid and steady and not asking for anything you can’t give.

“Stay,” you say, voice small. “If you can.”

His shoulders drop a little, tension easing. “Of course,” he says. “I’ll order food. You don’t have to eat, but it’ll be there. I’ll… sit. Exist. Be decorative.”

A tiny, ridiculous laugh escapes you. He smiles, relieved by the sound. You toe your shoes off by the door and sink onto the couch. He sets your discharge papers on the table, the hospital bag on the floor, then disappears briefly into the kitchen. You hear cabinets. The fridge door. The soft ping of his phone as he orders something. When he comes back, he drops onto the other end of the couch, folding one leg under himself, hands in the pocket of his hoodie.

You stare at the ceiling.

After a long, quiet minute, you say, “I don’t know how to be this person.”

“What person?” he asks.

“The one who left.” Your throat burns. “The one who lost a baby. The one who hung up on her husband when he finally sounded like he needed her.”

Felix is quiet for a moment. “You’re just you,” he says gently. “You’re… doing the best you can with a really, really awful hand of cards. That’s all anyone can do.” You exhale shakily, and he glances at your wristband.

“You should cut that off,” he says. “Or you’ll keep looking at it.”

You nod. “Can you…?” You hold your arm out, suddenly unable to bring yourself to do it.

He takes kitchen scissors from his pocket—of course he grabbed them—and snips through the plastic carefully, like it’s part of you. The band falls away. He drops it into the trash and comes back. You feel lighter and more exposed without it.

“I’m really glad you called me,” he says suddenly.

You blink. “I didn’t know who else to call,” you admit.

He shrugs, a little sheepish, and a little proud. “Still. I’m glad it was me.”

You lean your head back against the couch. “He’s going to hate me,” you say softly. “If he ever finds out.”

Felix looks down at his hands. “He’s never going to hate you,” he says. “That’s kind of the problem.”

You close your eyes.

You don’t have the energy to unpack that.

Not tonight.

Later, after the food arrives and sits mostly untouched and Felix eventually falls half-asleep on the couch, hoodie pulled up, you curl on your side next to him under your blanket. Your body aches, inside and out. The empty space in your womb feels bigger than your whole apartment.

You think about the phone call.

His voice.

The way he said “pretty” like it might keep you tethered.

The way you dropped the lifeline anyway.

You press your forehead to your knees and whisper into the blanket, so quiet not even Felix can hear:

“I’m sorry. I lost it. I didn’t know. I lost you. I didn’t know how else to live.”

No one answers.

But you’re not alone.

Not completely.

Felix shifts next to you, mumbling something in his sleep, as if his body knows you’re still awake. You focus on the sound of his breathing instead of the phantom echo of a heartbeat you never got to hear. You cry again, quieter this time.

When you finally fall asleep, it’s with the knowledge that everything in your life now has a Before and After—

Before the hospital.

After the call.

Before the loss.

After the choice.

And somewhere across the city, your blocked call log still exists on his phone, proof of the moment he heard your heart break from a distance he couldn’t cross.

You won’t know it tonight, but this is the night Chris stops sleeping properly for the next two years.

You’re too busy trying to learn how to exist in a body that was almost two and is now just one.

Waking up tired more often than not is starting to grate. Your body aches in that bone deep way, knowing that it’s from working too hard. From throwing yourself headfirst into anything and everything to keep your mind busy. To keep yourself from spiraling into guilt and self-hatred.

But life finds a way to slow you down.

You start to blame the exhaustion on stress. The brain fog and body lag on not enough sleep and too much ramyeon. You don’t fight with yourself about why you are constantly hollow, that one is obvious. But even knowing doesn’t make it easier to crawl out of the pit that you have seemed to fall into.

You only start to worry when the facade you worked so carefully to create starts to crack around the edges, and friends and co-workers start to notice.

Felix, of course, hints at it first.

“Are you sure you’re alright, Love?” He says to you softly one night on facetime.

You’ve started to talk at least once a week on facetime. Usually making dinner “together” he likes to call it because that is always what he is doing when he calls. You know it’s his way of making sure you’re eating at all.

“Yeah, Lix, why?” You say as you chop some baby bok choy to put into your ramyeon for the third time that week. You avoid his eyes as you answer already knowing that he doesn’t believe you. Knowing that he sees the signs just as clearly as you do, but you keep brushing it off. He sighs deeply. Heavily. You already know this is going to be a hard conversation. You don’t want to have it. Y’all had become friends when you were at one of the lowest points in your life. He knows 'this' you just as well as he knows the healthy you.

“I’m worried about you.” He says it while trying to catch your eye as you drop the bok choy and thinly sliced garlic into your pan to sear a bit.

“I know what you are doing. You and hyung are acting the exact same way. Throwing yourself into the deep and hoping you drown so you don’t have to cope.” He finishes it gently, but that doesn’t stop you from almost breaking your neck to look at him. He doesn’t bring Chris up. Not often at least. He tries to avoid it while also trying to let you know he’s-- functioning.

About as well as you from what you have heard.

“Felix-” You start, but he cuts you off so you can’t fight him.

“No. I know you see what I see. You need to go back to your doctor's. You need to get a checkup, or anything really. I will even go with you if you want, but I want you to take better care of yourself and stop punishing your body and brain for what you felt like you had to do.” He finishes a bit breathlessly. Like he had to get it out all in one go, or he wouldn’t have said it at all.

You slowly remove the pan from the stove as you finish taking in his words. You want to scream, you want to cry for sure, but mostly- mostly you want to hug him so tightly. You know he’s right, and you sit with that for a bit. He’s watching you the whole time. Almost as if he expects you to hang up and bolt.

You do neither.

Taking a deep breath and putting the pan back on the stove. You add the water, flavor packets, and ramen then sit the lid atop.

“Ok.” You say quietly. Almost too quietly, but he sees the way you nod your head as you say it and he beams back at you with such a sweet smile that you can’t help but give a small one in return.

...

You wake up the next morning intending to get an appointment set for later in the day and to, hopefully, have a slow morning so you can try and relax. You stand to stretch and make your way to the bathroom for a quick shower and your morning routine when your stomach lets you know it’s unhappy.

“Okay,” you mumble to yourself resting a hand on your abdomen and leaning slightly forward. “Too much ramyeon. I have had entirely too much spicy ramyeon.”

You spend the morning puttering around your studio, making your appointment, and texting Felix who is trying to get you to have a late lunch with him after you get done with your errands for the day. You agree, you always do, and once your plans are finalized you start to plan what you will wear and start getting ready for leaving your studio.

...

The clinic smells faintly of disinfectant and printer ink. You fill out the intake paperwork on autopilot, checking boxes, answering questions you’ve answered a dozen times before. Allergies. Medications. Emergency contact.

You hesitate at emergency contact for a moment. Realizing that this is another thing that has changed. You write down Felix before you can think too long about who you would have written down just a month ago. You flip over the paper and make fast work of it when a new series of questions makes you pause.

Date of last menstrual period.

You pick up your phone to check the date again. You run the calendar in your head once. Then again, slower. You frown. The number you land on makes your heart stutter, and you check your calendar app to be sure, flipping through the weeks until you find the last little red dot you marked out of habit. You stare at it. You tell yourself stress messes with timing. You know that. Everyone knows that. Still, you hesitate longer than feels normal before writing anything down. You tell yourself it doesn’t mean anything.

But something in your chest tightens anyway.

You meet up with Felix for a late lunch just like you'd planned. You end up meeting him at a Korean barbeque place that you can smell outside as you approach. You talk, laugh, and eat. Felix orders entirely too much food for just you and him and makes sure you eat more than you wanted.

“How did the appointment go?” He asks as you and him take a little post food walk along the river.

“It went.” You reply nonchalantly and when you look at him, he’s giving you a look. You sigh.

“It went fine, Felix.” You say a bit exasperatedly. “They adjusted my medications and suggested that I find someone to talk to either professionally or just a friend that can lend an ear.” You finish giving him a little shoulder bump knowing he would be the first to volunteer.

“Good, I am glad you went, and as you know,” he says stopping and taking one of your hands into both of his.

“I am always here for you. So don’t push me away, ok?” He says the last part while trying to catch your eye even though you are looking down at your adjoined hands. You look up just enough to meet his eyes and give a little nod of agreement. He gives a small smile with a kiss to your hand then you and him resume your, now quiet walk by the river.

You make it home safely, parting ways with Felix before he can offer to walk you home not quite ready to let him know where you live. As you lay in bed later that evening rethinking through your day. You realize that you feel a bit lighter. Not whole, not even fixed, just like you don’t have as much on your shoulders as you did yesterday, and you hope this to be a trend moving forward. You fall asleep hopeful for your future and yet terrified of tomorrow.

...

You barely make it to the toilet.

It’s early morning, too early for you to be up on a Sunday. You had hoped to be lazy today. Maybe even productive later, not sick. Not sitting on your cold bathroom floor heaving into the porcelain bowl. You lean up when you’re done, sitting on the cool tile. Then you bring your cheek to your knee, breathing through your nose waiting for the next wave of nausea. When it doesn’t come you peel yourself off the floor and stumble to your sink on shaky legs. You rinse your mouth, splash your face, and stare at your reflection.

You look pale. You look tired. You look… familiar, and not.

You sit down on the closed toilet lid, stomach still rolling a bit while you try to breathe into your nose, out through your mouth. You go through the previous day to try and figure out what you had ate that would upset your stomach this bad. You hadn’t eaten dinner, too full from the late lunch you had had with Felix after your doctor's appointment.

“Oh.” you say softly. Your hand drifts to your stomach. “Oh.” you say again, this time tinged with disbelief.

Your appointment. The paperwork that you filled out reminds you that you are late. A few weeks late if you had managed to log it right. You pull your knees up and rest your forehead on them for a moment. You don’t feel different, not in a way you’d notice. It can’t be. You can’t be. You sit there in denial for a moment longer and then stand to get dressed.

The pharmacy is too bright, too loud, too something. You walk down the aisle like a sleepwalker. The shelves are a blur of bandages and vitamins and herbal tonics you’ve never bothered learning to read properly because there was always someone else to ask. You stop in front of the pregnancy tests. They stare back at you: rows of small, quiet boxes with smiling women on them, pastel-colored promises and warnings.

You grab one. Then another. You pay without making eye contact all of the sudden self-conscious about something that most definitely can’t be true.

On the train home you try to do something to focus on something, anything besides the weight of the small paper bag in your lap. You think about the last month with him. The stress, the skipped meals. The nights you lay wide awake, not knowing this was already happening. But then there were nights when you weren’t alone. The nights that he came home on time or even early. Those are the nights that have you worried right now.

At home, you dump the contents of one of the boxes onto your bathroom counter. You tell yourself it’s probably stress, that the timing might be off, you’re overreacting. Your hands shake anyways as you follow the instructions and set the test down. You sit on the edge of the tub and stare at the floor. Two minutes. You could call someone.

A friend. Felix. Him.

You shake the thought away.

Instead, you stare at the grout between the tiles and listen to your own heartbeat in your ears, counting the thuds to fill the space. When the timer on your phone chimes, you look up. The line, lines, are so clear it might as well be printed in neon.

Positive.

You laugh once; it sounds more like a sob. You check the second test, because maybe the universe will decide to change its mind in the next thirty seconds. Your throat closes.

“Okay,” you whisper to the empty room. “Okay. Okay.”

You press both hands over your mouth, the tests on the counter blurring through tears. You slide to the floor, your legs no longer willing to support your weight as you try to work through your scrambled emotions. You are alone; you are pregnant. You left your husband a little over two weeks ago and you are sitting on the bathroom floor about to cry your eyes out. Not because you don’t want it, not because you do.

Because there is no version of this where it doesn’t hurt someone.

You live with it, quietly, for a few days; you don’t tell him. You almost do. Once. But that is a lie too; you are thinking about it constantly. Ways to tell him. Ways to make this hurt less and ways to just, what? Figure it out?

You draft the messages in the notes app. Deleted, edited, scrapped completely.

“I need to talk to you.” "Can we meet up so we could talk?" "I don't know how to start this conversation." “I’m pregnant.”

You stare at the words until the screen times out and then think about what happens after you send it. The calls, the arguments, the apologies. The inevitable parade of managers and lawyers and damage control. You think about him, bone-deep exhausted, already stretched thin, adding secret baby with estranged wife to his load. You lock the phone and don’t send anything.

Instead, you go to the clinic alone.

“Y/N…” he started, his voice softer than usual, almost hesitant. 

You didn’t look up from your screen. “What?” 

“You were right,” he said, almost too quietly. “I was… rushing things. I didn’t take it seriously enough.” Your heart skipped a beat, the unexpected apology hanging in the air between you like a fragile thread.  

“I—what?” You blinked, caught off guard. “Did you just admit that I was right?” 

He let out a short laugh, but it lacked the usual arrogance.  

“I don’t always have to be right, you know.” 

There was a moment of silence, and then you slowly turned your head to look at him. The expression on his face was different now, vulnerable in a way you hadn’t seen before. 

 “I’ve been too focused on what I want. I haven’t been listening to you.” 

That admission hit you like a punch to the gut. You hadn’t expected this. Chan, the golden boy, admitting that he was wrong. For a moment, you just stared at him, unsure how to process it. The walls between you, the animosity, the competition—all of it seemed to melt away in that one moment. 

The days following that conversation in the studio felt… different. The air was lighter, but there was still a palpable tension that neither of you could shake. The apology had been unexpected, and it lingered in your mind like an unspoken promise. Chan wasn’t perfect, but for the first time, you saw him as someone who was trying—someone who wasn’t so sure of himself anymore. It was both unsettling and… oddly comforting. 

But despite the newfound shift, the dynamic between you hadn’t completely changed. There were still moments of friction, still that biting edge to your interactions. The collaboration wasn’t perfect, and it never would be. But there were those moments, fleeting though they were, when the music seemed to flow effortlessly, when the ideas you exchanged didn’t feel like a contest but rather a true partnership. 

It was during one of these late-night sessions that the cracks in your walls began to show. 

You were sitting at the mixing board, tweaking the final arrangement, when you felt the weight of Chan’s gaze on you. You hadn’t even realized he was standing there, watching you work, until he spoke. 

“You’ve been quiet tonight,” he said, his voice laced with an almost teasing curiosity. 

You didn’t look up. “I’m just focused.” 

He chuckled softly. “Focused? Or avoiding me?” 

That stopped you. Your fingers hovered over the keys, and you finally glanced at him. There was something in his eyes—something that made your chest tighten. It wasn’t playful anymore. It was real. Raw. 

“I’m not avoiding you,” you said, but your voice lacked conviction. You weren’t sure if you were trying to convince him or yourself. 

He leaned against the wall, his arms crossed. “You know, it’s kind of funny. The more we work together, the more I realize how much we’re alike. We’re both stubborn as hell, but we’re also scared to admit when we’re wrong.” 

The words hit you harder than you expected. “I’m not scared,” you snapped, a little too quickly. “I just… don’t need to rely on anyone else to get things done.” 

Chan’s gaze softened, and for a moment, it almost felt like he could see right through you. “You don’t have to do everything on your own, you know. Not everything has to be a fight.” 

That’s when the walls began to crumble. It was one simple sentence, one small crack, but it made you realize how much you’d been holding onto. How much you’d been resisting the idea of letting anyone in. You’d been so focused on proving yourself, on protecting your own sense of control, that you hadn’t seen how isolating it had become. 

“You’re right,” you said quietly, almost to yourself. “But it’s hard. Letting someone else take control.” 

Chan didn’t respond immediately. Instead, he walked over to your side and stood there for a moment, his presence oddly comforting.  

“I get it,” he said softly. “But you don’t have to carry everything, you could start small, with this project.” 

You didn’t know what to say to that. Part of you wanted to pull away, to keep your distance and hold onto your independence. But another part—an unexpected, vulnerable part—wanted to let go. To let him in. 

For a moment, neither of you spoke. The only sound was the hum of the equipment and the soft ticking of the clock. It was in that silence that you realized how much this project—and this partnership—had come to mean to you. More than you were willing to admit. 

The breakthrough came unexpectedly. It happened during a particularly frustrating session. For hours, you’d been stuck on a melody, unable to make it work no matter how many times you adjusted it. Your patience was wearing thin, and you could feel the tension building, both within yourself and between you and Chan. 

You slammed your hand down on the desk, frustrated beyond measure. “This isn’t working!” you exclaimed, your voice shaky with exhaustion. “Nothing we do is working. We’ve been stuck on this for hours, and I just… I can’t do this anymore.” 

Chan stood across the room, watching you closely. You could see the tension in his posture, the way his jaw tightened as he processed your words. Then, something shifted in his expression. There was a flicker of understanding, followed by a quiet resolve. 

He walked over to you slowly, his eyes never leaving yours. “It’s not easy,” he said softly, his voice surprisingly gentle. “But we’ve come this far. We can’t give up now.” 

You shook your head, frustration welling up inside you. “You don’t understand. I can’t do this. I can’t keep pretending that everything’s fine when it’s not.” 

For the first time, you saw Chan hesitate. He seemed to struggle with his words, as if trying to find a way to reach you. Finally, he spoke. 

“You don’t have to be perfect,” he said, his voice steady.  “Neither of us do. We’re a team, remember?” 

The simplicity of his words hit you harder than you expected. You’d spent so long trying to carry everything on your own, trying to do it all perfectly, that you’d forgotten what it meant to rely on someone else. To let someone else help carry the weight. 

Without thinking, you reached out and grabbed his arm, your fingers trembling. “I don’t know how to do this. It’s not just about the project… It’s about everything. I don’t know how to let go.” 

Chan’s expression softened, and for the first time, you saw the vulnerability in his eyes. “You don’t have to let go all at once,” he said quietly. “But you can trust me. You don’t have to do it alone anymore.” 

And that was it. The walls you’d built around yourself—walls that had felt so necessary, so impenetrable—began to shake. You didn’t know if you were ready to fully trust, but in that moment, you realized that maybe you didn’t have to be. Maybe, for the first time, you could let someone else help you shoulder the burden.