note: ...well, lol. Looks like I have another one (even if it's a bit shorter than the first two chapters. sorry!) This really seems to be the last update for awhile though, because I have to face reality now lmao, but as I said, I really do want to finish this, so...wait a bit, I guess? Thanks again to new subscribers!

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Ginger was the crop of the earth. The best herb, the most effective cure for faulty olfaction, the fragrance of choice for when the residual hydrochloric acid in your stomach wants to hurl out of your mouth, along with the undigested bolus of your breakfast, lunch, and dinner from the past five days, because the baby in your uterus had come in a packaged deal of overstimulated senses and a hormone system that's gone haywire on the vomiting centre in your medulla oblongata. All according to the pamphlets, of course.

Ginger was also very much missing from her refrigerator, her pantry, and her fruits basket to be churned into tea, so she settles for a tepid cup of the last oolong leaf that Gary could find in her spice rack to brew. Goddess of Luck, her .

"This is so bland," she tilts forward to complain, and then instantly has to lean back on the couch to curb the nausea it produces. "Ugh."

"Don't blame me, you're the one who forgot to buy ginger," Gary's voice is still weedy, even an hour past her revelation. He'd put his new shoes out on the foyer—why he didn't take them off before coming into her house in the first place, she doesn't know, so really, it was his fault that they were ruined, she has nothing to feel sorry for—washed off in her bathtub of all the surface chunks of vomit that he could remove. She hadn't expected him to stay afterwards, but judging from all his frantic foot tapping right now, he'd probably end up in a high profile car crash by the end of the night if he did end up leaving.

It was safer for him to stay here. She may hate him a little bit when not nauseous, a whole lot more when she is, but she really doesn't want him to get hurt—not yet, and not by someone who's not her—and least of all does she want to be the cause of his untimely death when she's already going to be responsible for one in a week's time.

He was still annoying, though: all the tapping, all the pacing, all the rapidly averted stares when she catches him looking. "So."

"So," she says back, closing her eyes, because this was the seventh time he'd brooked a conversation with that same word and not contributed anything worthwhile. He hadn't contributed anything at all, actually, but he did just find out that she's currently carrying his illegitimate child in her womb, so she'll cut him a bit of slack. "You know we can't just say so back and forth forever, right?"

"Right," he says, but his eyes look slightly dazed, and all he says after is another, "So."

"I'm going to bed," she mutters, fed up, and stands up—slowly, because she'd rather not have to clean up another puddle of her entrails, even if this was supposed to be a little bit of a dramatic exit—to walk to her bedroom. "See yourself out."

"No, Jihyo, wait," he says, hand wrapped around her wrist, and his voice is clear of anything but an apology. "I was joking, it's a joke. To keep things light?"

"Well, don't," she says, presses her lips into a thin line, trying not to glare. Stress is bad for the mother, which makes it bad for the baby. Not that the baby will be in her for long, or that she should even care for its well-being, but—still. Principle of the matter. She wants to have this abortion performed with dignity and compassion. "This isn't a joke."

"I know," he says quietly, reprimanded, and the pinched arrangement of his face lets her know that he really does. "I'm just—I'm dealing with it. Trying." He rubs at his knees with the heels of his hand, and then turns his head to regard her with a wary look. "Don't get mad, but—I mean, are you sure? It's mine?"

If this is him trying— "I can't believe you just asked me that."

"You're right," he says, all in a rush, has at least some decency left to look abashed. "Sorry."

In the ensuing lull, she realizes that he still hasn't let go of her wrist, his thumb rubbing gently against the bone, calluses tickling her skin. She pulls her hand swiftly away, jostling him, and he clears his throat when he seems to realize what just transpired, as if he wasn't aware that he was doing it the whole while.

She sits back down beside him. As much as she wants to put it all off for a month, or a year, or ideally, the rest of her life, they really do need to talk. Since he's finally looking a little less disoriented and more the savvy businessman willing to negotiate that she knows him to be, she feels like the next discussion will glean something a little more productive than one syllable answers and a lot of overt staring.

"For the record," he ventures, after she's sipped more of his tasteless oolong brew, "I wasn't trying to insult you, or anything. I'm literally the last person to talk about sleeping with however many people in however many days."

"God," she groans, because she's not going to talk about her ual history with him like a girlfriend trying to appease her jealous and insecure boyfriend, just because they've made a baby doesn't mean they're automatically subject to doing things like a couple, god forbid again. "Just—I slept with you, and I don't even know if you're clean."

"Now I'm insulted," he says, and she doesn't hold back on the glare this time. "Which is fine. Insult me all you want." He starts tapping his foot again. "I'm clean, though. I'm always careful."

Careful. That reminds her. "Did we use a ?"

"Uh," he says, "Yeah," but there's enough hesitation in there for her to sniff out the truth.

"Unbelievable," she says, hits him on the arm as hard as she can, feels a great sense of satisfaction from hearing him yelp, "You didn't use a ?"

"I was drunk," he rebuts, hand trying to soothe the sting of her slap. "And you asked to make a baby, so I'd thought—"

"You'd actually do it?" she asks, breathing heavily in vexation.