Chapter Nine:

“Seriously!”

“What? What’s wrong with asking him? It’s safer this way.”

Needless to say, I was once again exasperated with Yesung. Why, you ask. Well, it’s because he is a pain in the , and not only a pain in the , he has to go make life difficult for us. After the two of us came to the ultimate conclusion that we were mostly likely drugged from an unknown substance, rather than mad drunk, we decided to get discreetly checked anonymously by an unidentified doctor. And the one doctor that we should have not called is the one doctor that Yesung decides to call: His uncle. That’s right, folks. Give him a round of applause for calling his mother’s younger brother. His argument was that our secret would be safe if it’s a doctor that he could wholeheartedly trust, but he forgot one thing: our parents. His uncle was sure to tell our parents, or at least his mom, of what the two of us were up to, and it wouldn’t be long until they put two and two together and discover what was going on. And who knows if they’re behind this nightmare that I can’t seem to wake myself up from.

“C’mon, trust me on this. He will keep it quiet, and won’t say anything. Besides, I’ve got some dirt on him, so it will work.” He smiled sinisterly, which made me wonder what sort of dirt he may have on me, and possibly use against me in the future.

“He better keep it a secret,” was all I grumbled back to him, still with that spooky smile.

We were sitting in the lounge area at his uncle’s newly opened clinic, waiting for our turn to be called. It was small and cozy, and probably had a few nurses who worked there along with two receptionists. I wasn’t sure if it was a good thing or not, but luckily for us, there was only one other patient (who looked to be in his 60s) waiting there.

“Mr. and Mrs. Kim Jong-woon?” A nurse came to the lounge and asked. That was our call. As we got up and followed her, I couldn’t help but to grumble at the name usage. Mrs. Kim Jong-woon? As if! I would rather be Mrs. Kim Dong Wan.

“Right this way,” the nurse pointed to the direction we were supposed to follow. “I’m going to go ahead and take your blood pressure, height, and weight measurements now. Afterwards, the doctor will be here to see you shortly.”

After doing as she said, we were once again left to wait. Except this time, we waited in silence pondering over our thoughts. A first for us really, since all hell breaks loose whenever the two of us are in the same room.

“The doctor is ready to see you know.”

We got up and followed the nurse down the end of the hallway to a room named the “doctor’s office.” No really, that’s what the tag on the door said. After knocking and hearing a ‘come in,’ the nurse let us in.

“Thank you, Michelle.” The doctor said after we sat down in the chairs in front of the doctor’s desk.

“Korean American.” The doctor, also known as Choi Won-Yeong, said to our questioning glances.

“Are you on a first name basis with all of your nurses?” I asked him suspiciously.

He chuckled. “Yup. It’s to create a homelier atmosphere.”

“Ah.”

“So,” he continued, “To what do I owe the honor, for you two coming to see me? You two have never visited me at work before.”

“Dr. Choi….” I began, but was rudely interrupted by the snot-faced guy next to me. Did I tell you how much I hate being interrupted by him? No? Well, let me tell you….

“We wanted to congratulate you on opening up your own clinic. Congratulations!” Yesung enthusiastically interrupted my thoughts.

“Right. Clinic…congrats.” I congratulated somewhat much less enthusiastic.

“And since you have started your own business, you should treat us,” Yesung added.

The doctor leaned back with an amused smile on his face, “To someone who comes from a wealthy household? I heard you got the house and the deed to the land. Congratulations. Shouldn’t you be the one to treat me?”

“Oh, come one. It’s customary for you to do so. And you are the elder.” Yesung pleaded with his puppy-dog eyes. Yuck! That look didn’t suit him at all, whatsoever. “Tell you what,” he continued, “Instead of treating us to lunch, how about we get a free service done here, and we’ll treat you to lunch?”

“Mm-hmm,” I nodded along, “So whaddaya say, doc? You name the restaurant, and we’ll name the service.”

The doc looked at us with judging eyes as he assessed our proposition. “Tell me, what are you guys really here for?” Damn. He caught on fast. But before Yesung could say anything, I decided to blurt out the truth.

“We want to get a drug test and a pregnancy test done. Is that possible?” Well, I hadn’t meant to mention the pregnancy test, but oh well. It seems I caught Yesung by surprise too as he looked at me (in what I would say using lightning speed) with an incredulous look on his face. Doctor Choi leaned in with light in his eyes as he smiled at the both of us.

“Am I to assume that congratulations are in order?” He asked. Oh great, now he was sure to blurb that out to our parents.

“Not so fast, doc.,” I quickly tried to remedy the situation, “We don’t even know. I want to get a special procedure done, if you don’t mind.”

“Alright. It’s on the house. No questions asked,” Dr. Choi finally agreed much to our relief.

“And not a word of it to anyone, not even our parents?” Yesung asked.

“You have my word.”

***********************************************************************************

“Okay, seriously, what took you so long?” Yesung asked me.

“What? What do you mean?” I asked coming out of the patient restroom. “I’m a girl so naturally we have our needs to take care of and guys like you…”

“Ugh. No, I am not talking about that,” Yesung rolled his eyes, which reminded me that I should talk to his uncle about his nephew’s little eye problem. “What I am talking about is the extra testing you asked for? What is it about this pregnancy thing? I mean, I don’t know what you do in your night time, nor am I interested, but I can’t have my parents thinking it’s mine. And you should learn to be a little more discreet you know.”

“Okay, first of all,” I flicked his forehead, “A) Yes, I could be pregnant, and B) Yes, the baby could be yours. It’s all your fault, you know,” I flicked his forehead again.

“Ouch, “he rubbed his forehead, “How could any of that be my fault, and how in the world is that my baby?” He glared at me, but I flicked his forehead again.

“Okay, don’t jinx it. We don’t know if I am pregnant yet. But honestly, seriously, did you never once think that you and I might have, could have, you know…” I trailed off, giving him the look.

“No, I don’t know. Might have what?” Oh gosh, he was so stubborn and dense.

“Might have done it. That’s what.” I hurriedly whispered, with shifty eyes. Not only was I embarrassed regarding this topic, but also because who knew who was listening in on us.

“What’s it? And why are you whispering?” Yesung looked at me confusedly, with his arms crossed.

“ERGH!!!” I groaned out load. Could this guy…seriously?! Oh yes, he could get denser apparently.

“I am talking about you and I doing the deed. Climbing the Great Wall of China? Bumpin’ Uglies?” Yesung shook his head, still confused. “The Ole In’N’Out? Feeding the Kitty? Slamming the Ham? Oh my god, !!!” I shouted out loud, pissed that Yesung (the worldly wise guy, as he so likes to call himself) didn’t understand any of what I was trying to say. That certainly got his attention, as well as the others around us. I looked around, and everyone in the room (the two receptionists, a nurse, and a patient who was talking to one receptionists) looked at us. Well that was embarrassing, and I tried to avoid looking at them.

Yesung looked down at me with his eyebrows furrowed, “What? What do you mean ?”

I was about to blow folks. I am serious. I couldn’t handle this anymore. But for my own sake, I must keep calm. Taking a deep breath, I continued on, “Well, did it never occur to you that in the 3 months of our memory lapse, that you and I might have been so drunk in love, that we might have done it. And by it,” I held up my hand, knowing Yesung was gonna ask another stupid question, “I mean having . I mean, we somehow managed to get hitched together. Hitched, by the way, means getting married. Just saying in case you don’t know. Plus, we were always visiting the hotel, for some weird reason. I mean what else could we have been doing.”

“I know what hitched means,” he said still with his eyebrows furrowed, “but I highly doubt that we did the deed...”

“Oh, you know a euphemism for . Wow! Count me impressed.” I exaggerated looking at him with wide eyes.

“As I was saying,” he continued on, like he hadn’t just been interrupted, “we couldn’t have done it, because there is nothing in the world that would compel me to even lie in the same bed with you, much less have with you.”

“Well, there is nothing in the world that would compel me to get married with you, and voila! Here we are!” I waved my hands around frustrated.

“Well, you do have a point,” he said putting his hands on his hips.

“Of course I do!”

“So are you…you know,” he said indicating to my stomach, “pregnant.”

“I don’t know. I lied to your uncle about the pregnancy test. I went in to make sure that we didn’t have .”

“Oh, don’t tell me I took away your ity,” he groaned.

“Hmm?” I looked at him with a fake smile.

He looked at me suspiciously. “Why are you giving me that look?” I just smiled at him. He eyed me up and down. “Wait. You are a right? Or were, before this whole debacle?”

“Hmm-mmm. If you say so,” I pretended to be interested in my nails.

“Kim Eun Min.” He narrowed his eyes at me. Man, I hate it when he gets all serious on me. “Tell me the truth.”

I covered my mouth, lest I blurt out some important information. “Mmmm-hmmm nggg nn mm.”

“Yah. Remove your hands and then answer me.” When I wouldn’t do so, Yesung tried to remove my hands from my mouth. After a couple of minutes, I finally relented. There was no escaping his questioning glare.

“Fine. Alright, I lost it. Sophomore year of college.” I was so doomed. It would be just like him to run off to my brothers and tell them. And me being the youngest, it would be a nightmare for me.

“What?!” He screeched. Whoa! Dude calm down. This is a hospital. I gave him a look telling him so, but he ignored it. “With who?”

“Some guy. It’s not like you know him, and it doesn’t matter. That was ages ago.”

“Ages ago? It was a few years ago. And you’re telling me you did it with some random dude?”

I sat down in a chair in the lounge. My feet were killing me. We had decided to get a full body checkup, just in case, to make sure we didn’t miss anything, as well as various blood tests and urine tests. With the MRI and CT scans, the tests had taken approximately 5 hours. Maybe we should have just gone to a hospital.

 “It wasn’t some random dude. I went out with him for like a few months. And we decided to do it. No big deal. By then everyone had done it, or was doing it.” I looked up at him from my seating position. He sat down right next to me, and I saw him flexing his hand muscles. His expression went back to that of furrowed brows, except instead of looking confused, he looked angry. Weird. I didn’t know this would affect him so much.

“You don’t have a name. I still don’t like that it was someone I don’t know.”

“And what difference would that have made?” I asked him.

Suddenly, he chuckled. “You know, I thought you were going to say that it was Donghae.”

“Donghae?” This time, it was my turn to furrow my brows, “Why Donghae?”

Before he could answer, the nurse called for me. After spending 15 minutes with the nurse, I came back out to the waiting area with a smile on my face.

“Why do you look so happy? Is it good news?” Yesung asked expectantly.

“Yup,” I said bouncing up to where he was sitting, before taking a seat next to him.

“Well, what did the nurse say?”

“I’m not pregnant,” I said it joyously, “And the other extra tests that I did state that you and I couldn’t have had within the past two to three weeks, because of a lack of any male reproductive cells within me.”

“Oh, how were they able to test out that?” He asked, looking amazed.

“Oh there are ways,” I vaguely replied. The nurse had explained it to me very detailed, but he didn’t have to know all the candid information that the nurse had shared with me. Some things were left better off unsaid.

“Hmm. Well that’s good news. If we didn’t do it within that timeframe, then we wouldn’t have done it within the rest of the three months. I mean, we went to a hotel a few days ago, but we apparently didn’t do it. So I highly doubt that we ever did it. This calls for celebration.” Yesung smiled.

I nodded and smiled along with him. This was good news. For the both of us. We sat there pondering

We sat there pondering about what this all meant for a couple of minutes, before our names were called out again. I blinked and looked at Yesung who had a blank face on. Were the results of our tests already out?

We followed the nurse to the doctor’s office again. Seriously, does this guy ever leave his office?

“Oh good, you guys are here,” he said looking up from some scans. Possibly ours. “Take a seat.”

We sat down, and after the nurse had closed the door, the doctor looked at us seriously folding his hands under his chin. “There is something I would like to discuss with you guys privately.”

We nodded our heads, wondering what it is he had to say.

“These are your scans of your hands. I want you two to look at them, and tell me if you notice anything.”

We looked at the scans, but shook our heads because we didn’t notice anything strange.

The doctor sighed. “I want you to feel your wrists and tell me if you feel anything.”

Strangely enough, we both felt a tiny bump. The doctor sighed before opening his drawer and taking out a scalpel.

“W-what are y-you doing with that?” I asked, leaning as far back as I could, as he strode towards us.

“Cutting you open.”

“Uncle!” Yesung yelled bewildered.

“Would you kids calm down. It won’t hurt.”

Reluctantly, we offered him our hands, where he proceeded to pour an iodine solution already prepared on it. The substance was icky and the color yellow making our hands look a little disgusting to the eye. Dr. Choi took his scalpel and made a tiny incision into both of our wrists. With a tweezer, he removed two miniscule black pieces, before placing it into a small surgical tray.

“What are those?” I asked, a little bewildered.

“Ambient Intelligence,” he murmured.

“What?” Yesung and I asked at the same time.

The doctor handed some bandages to place on our cut, before continuing. “They’re RFID transponders.”

“R.F.I..whata?” I asked.

“It’s an implant. Also known as a microchip implant. Often used in the medical field. However, these look a little different. Can’t be sure, until they are checked out.”

“Microchip?” Yesung asked.

“Yeah,” the doctor looked at us, “Most likely a spy or tracking chip.”

I looked at Yesung as he looked at me. We were both thinking the same thing.

Was someone spying on us? And why?