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Taemin’s head was spinning as the phone’s ringing echoed through his consciousness. He felt like the phone had been ringing for 5 minutes by the time the fifth ring bounced around in his surprisingly blank mind and Minho picked up and suddenly Taemin had no idea what to say, sitting there blankly for a few long seconds before his brain kicked back in.

“Taemi—n? Are you there?” Minho was saying, drawing out the end of his name and sounding perplexed.

“Sorry, I’m here” Taemin said, considering his options. If he just came out and said it, Minho would never believe him. The fact that there was a baby inside him was so insane; Minho would have to be there and see it for himself before he might believe Taemin. It wasn’t that Minho wasn’t trusting; it was just that men just don’t get pregnant. That much was pretty much an established fact. Although Taemin didn’t want to see Minho’s face when he finally realized the fact that Taemin really was pregnant, the disgust would be easier for him to handle than if Minho thought it was a joke and started laughing.

“What is it? I thought you were in the hospital?” Minho’s voice came again, and Taemin could detect just a hint of sarcasm.

“Minho-hyung, I haven’t exactly been telling you the truth,” Taemin started, cradling the phone in his hand while the other wrapped securely around himself, tentatively touching his stomach a little. Minho muttered something under his breath that sounded a lot like a sarcastic “really, now”.

“Taemin, I haven’t seen you in a month and you seemed perfectly healthy just a few months ago, so no, I’m not stupid enough to believe you’ve been in the hospital all this time with some mystery illness that was so bad that I couldn’t even come and see you.” Minho’s anger rang through the phone, echoing through Taemin’s head.

“I’m not in the hospital, but there really is something wrong” Taemin shrunk back into his pillow, pulling his legs as far into his chest as they could go considering the new obstacle, already dreading Minho’s reaction. Taemin hadn’t been a very good friend lately, too occupied in his own problems, and he knew that Minho’s anger was well-justified.

“Well, you still could have called…” Minho trailed off, still sounding miffed, but with worry taking over, “why didn’t you? Is it contagious?”

Taemin smiled a little without humor, actually wishing that is was something contagious, something that would at least be easier to explain. “It’s not; I just didn’t want you to see me like this…”

“Like what?” Minho’s voice came again, and Taemin couldn’t read his emotion at all.

“Can you just come here? It’s something you kind of have to see…” Taemin said, hoping that Minho would just come and not try to pester him for the answer over the phone.

“Alright, but let me change out of my soccer stuff first, I just got home” he said, and Taemin was glad that Minho wasn’t the type of person to ask a lot of questions. It seemed like Minho understood that it was something big (even if it wasn’t what Taemin had told him before) and was at least willing to hear him out even though he hadn’t exactly been telling the truth. Taemin was just incredibly nervous and embarrassed and desperate to talk to someone about this, desperate to make someone understand how he felt. He just hoped Minho wouldn’t think he was too much of a freak.

“Oh!” Taemin said, suddenly remembering that he didn’t know if his parents were home or not, “can you come to the window? I’m not supposed to have anyone over and I’m not sure if my mom and dad are home.”

“Sure, but you’re gonna pay if it really does end up being contagious!” Minho , but his voice was colored with a hint of worry. And Taemin laughed a little because, really, if pregnancy was contagious, overpopulation would be an even bigger problem than it already was.

“It’s not!” Taemin retorted right before Minho hung up the phone after promising to be there soon.

Without Minho’s voice preoccupying his mind anymore, Taemin’s mind returned to its current favorite activity, bringing him down. As he tried to picture different scenarios and Minho’s possible reactions, he remembered his parents’ faces when one of his father’s colleagues had finally found out what was wrong with him. His mother’s horrified face was branded into his mind, her first question directed at him being: “how did this even happen,” disappointment flashing in her eyes for the first of many times. Her eyes sparkled and Taemin had briefly entertained the idea that she was going to start crying, but instead she just got angrier and angrier. He was mutated, no longer a perfect son in her eyes. Taemin had later figured out she resented herself just as much as she resented him. His being a freak, having this mutation, somehow made her one too. After all, half of his DNA had come from her and he never would have had the mutation in the first place if they’d never lived near that factory and she’d never drank and used that water. But as much as her actions had led to him being a freak in the first place, he never would have ended up like this if he hadn’t slept with a man. So, in that way, she was still free to place most of the blame on him and his “decision” to be gay and sleep with a man. Or many men, as she probably suspected.

His father’s face was even worse. His first reaction was the same as his mother’s—horrified, but when Taemin looked at him again, his father was looking at him like one of his research experiments. Like a particularly interesting sample in a slide under his microscope that he thought might make an interesting journal article. He got that look in his eyes, like when he stayed in his research lab for days working out some kind of anomaly, but instead of a sample in a petri dish, this time the experiment was his own son. As far as they knew, this hadn’t happened before and as far as they knew, this could be really dangerous for Taemin or for the baby. His body wasn’t meant to carry and nurture a baby. But, the fact that it was carrying a baby had a lot of research implications for his father; the differences between his pregnancy and a normal one could be very interesting. Even if he could never publish the research officially (because his wife might kill him if it were traced back to their family), the fact that he had the chance to study something like this so closely was a once in a lifetime opportunity and he simply could not pass it up. So the baby stayed and Taemin was smuggled into the hospital a few times a week where his father and his closest trusted research associates could study him closely and run tests to see how his body was making this happen.

Since that day Taemin had lost himself, he had no idea who he was anymore. He felt like the same person, but his body was mutated, disgusting. A baby was inside of him, where it wasn’t supposed to be and it all felt so wrong. He was a man, but at the same time, could he even call himself a man anymore? Usually he would have resisted turning into his father’s experiments, he had a strong will of his own which would usually never allow this to happen, but he was lost. His mind was lost inside of a body that he no longer knew.

A tap on the window tore Taemin from his thoughts and he realized that the last 20 minutes had disappeared. He was still in his huge tattered sweatshirt and boxers and he pulled on some basketball shorts (that he’d stolen from Minho in their second year of high school) in an attempt to make himself decent. His heart hammered in his chest, like it wanted to escape and he didn’t blame it. He didn’t want to be here when Minho realized the truth either. He pulled up the blinds and looked at the face he hadn’t seen in a month now and realized just how much he had missed his best friend. Minho was waving little, eyes curving up into a slight smile, one that Taemin hadn’t seen in a month now, as he unlocked and slid the window open.

“Well, you don’t look too bad, Tae” Minho said, giving the younger boy a once over after he climbed into the room, “although you are wearing stolen shorts…”

Taemin laughed a little in spite of himself, “yeah I guess I am.”

“So what’s so bad that you can’t come to school? And why hasn’t anyone seen you in a month? You know Key is really worried about you…” Minho sat down on Taemin’s messy bed and kicked off his shoes.

“Well,” Taemin started, not knowing exactly how to start this conversation since they had pretty much agreed to never talk about that night. He decided to start at the source. “There’s something wrong and it’s been there since I was born, but the doctors only noticed recently because certain events ummm...exacerbated the condition?”

“Ohhkay…” Minho said, eyes looking Taemin up and down as if trying to find something wrong with him.

“Well, you know how my parents used to live in China, right?”Taemin said and Minho nodded, allowing Taemin to finish his explanation without interference, “well there was this factory there and it was really old and not really up to modern safety standards. Anyway, so estrogen was pouring into the water that the people in the town were drinking and my mom was drinking it and using it too while she was pregnant with me, so there’s a kind of...ummm...defect.”
“What do you mean?” the older said, again scrutinizing Taemin’s figure with his eyes, as if squinting them would make the defect pop out.

“Well you can’t see it because it’s inside,” Taemin started, shrinking away from Minho’s stare, “I just didn’t want you to see me like this...it’s so embarrassing.”

“Taemin, just say it!” Minho said, tired of the younger’s increasingly vague explanations.

“I’m pregnant” Taemin blurted out, “there’s a ing baby inside me! I’m a freak...look!” He pushed his shirt up, revealing his expanding stomach to the cold air of the room.

Taemin hid his face in his hands, peeking a little through the fingers to see Minho’s reaction. His mouth was hanging wide open and his eyes were wide; he looked like he didn’t know what to think.

“Please say something…” Taemin said after a few moments of Minho staring at his stomach. He kind of looked like he wanted to touch it to make sure it wasn’t one of those weird fake pregnancy bellies, but didn’t know if he was allowed to.

“I don’t know what to say…” Minho finally said, “I’ve never seen this happen before, are you sure it’s a baby?”

“They couldn’t figure out what it was for almost 3 months, and yes, it’s a baby, they found out during an ultrasound that they were doing to try to figure out what was wrong and then confirmed it by doing a blood test” Taemin said, seriously not very surprised that Minho was doubting that this was real, at least it was better than straight out disgust.

“Ummm,” he said, turning his eyes down to his lap as the conversation turned to a subject that neither of them really wanted to talk about, “it’s mine then right?”

“It is, I’m sorry” Taemin confirmed and he could feel tears pricking at his eyes. Why did he do this, anyway? There was no way this was going to end well. “Hyung, I’m not expecting anything from you or anything, I just really need to talk to someone. I can’t deal with this by myself. I don’t even know who I am anymore…this isn’t me” he said, gesturing to his body.

“Taemin, I know we both agreed that we weren’t going to talk about that night, but I think we have to...” Minho’s eyes were still downcast, but he slowly brought them up to Taemin’s, looking into his watery eyes, “Tae are you gay? I know it’s probably the last thing you’re thinking about right now, but...”

“I don’t really know,” Taemin sighed, eyes inspecting the multi-colored rug he was standing on, and he felt like he was turning red all the way to the tips of his ears when his thoughts turned back to that night, “I know I’m not exactly straight, but I don’t think I’m gay either.”

“Well I think for us to have been able to do...umm...that, even if we were drunk, we couldn’t be completely straight” Minho said, twining his and Taemin’s fingers together in an encouraging gesture, “Of course I’m going to be there for you, you’re my best friend, but right now I can only be here as your friend. I honestly don’t know how far my feelings for you go.”

Taemin raised his eyes to Minho’s, “Really, hyung? I mean, you don’t think I’m a freak?”

“Tae, you’re still the same boy I met in soccer in the 2nd grade, I’m not going to think you’re a freak because of something you can’t even control” Minho said, pulling Taemin to sit down next to him on the bed and pulling him into his side.

“Am I even really a boy anymore?” Taemin mumbled, leaning into Minho’s shoulder, “people already rag on me all the time and tell me I look like a girl, doesn’t this just prove them right?”

“You’re not a girl, Tae, I should know” Minho laughed, rubbing the younger’s shoulder slightly, “have you decided if you want to keep the baby yet?”

To be honest, Taemin had been so busy being lost in himself, berating his body for betraying him, that he hadn’t even thought about it. He’d known from the beginning that he would have to carry out the pregnancy to the end because of his dad’s research, but he hadn’t thought about after that, if he could even care for a baby.

“I haven’t even thought of it…” Taemin said shyly, looking down at his lap, face turning red all over again.

“Well, there’s kind of the technical question of how it will come out…” Minho said, his cheeks also touched with red.
“That’s one of the things my dad’s research team really wants to know…” Taemin trailed off, rolling his eyes a little.

“Your dad is turning this into a research project?” Minho said, eyes widening in surprise again.

“Well, yeah,” Taemin said, looking up at Minho’s close up face, “they think it could be really dangerous since my body’s not meant to do this, but they want to know how it’s managing it. Mom wanted to get rid of the baby from the beginning because she thinks it’s “an abomination”” he finished by using finger quotes.

“It’s dangerous????” Minho said, anger rippling through his deep voice as he suddenly stood up, “Well I guess I should have assumed that, but they’re just not doing anything about it??”

“Well I’m going to the hospital like 3 times a week now, so they’re not really exactly doing nothing,” Taemin was a little surprised that Minho was so angry, his face was kind of scaring him. Not in the same way as his parents’ faces, but kind of in the way that he was afraid the older boy might do something stupid to his parents.

“Well I have to talk to them, this is my baby too and they need to be doing something more to keep both of you safe. Especially you, Tae. We have to talk to them.” Minho grabbed Taemin’s hand as if to pull him out of the room to talk to his parents right now.

“No, Minho!” Taemin said, pulling on the older boy’s arm, “we can’t talk to them!”

“Why not?” Minho said and stopped pulling on Taemin’s arm, although he kept a hold on his hand, searching his eyes for answers, but only finding fear.

“They think I’m disgusting! And they told me not to tell anyone…” Taemin said, avoiding Minho’s eyes and looking down at their entwined fingers.

“Well it wasn’t fair of them to do that in the first place...” At that point, suddenly Minho’s ringtone echoed through the room, his phone picking one of the worst times to ring. Minho hesitated for a second, but relinquished Taemin’s hand and walked across his room to dig through his bag, until he found the small device.

“Ughh, it’s my mom...hello?” Minho said, walking off into the corner and covering his other ear so he could hear his mom better.

Taemin watched Minho as he talked with his mom, sounding annoyed that she wanted him to come home, but not being able to explain why he didn’t want to come home. In the end, he gave in and hung up, turning back to Taemin.

“I have to go back home, sorry…” he said, looking like he really did feel bad for leaving Taemin here alone, “apparently my grandfather had to pick today to come over for dinner.”

Taemin smiled a little, “it’s okay, you should go.”

“I’ll come back tomorrow, okay?” he said, setting his hand awkwardly on Taemin’s shoulder, “think about what we talked about earlier?”

“I will, but you really don’t have to come back if you don’t want” Taemin said shyly, “I know you’re really busy this semester since all the schools are looking at your scores this year.”

“I can handle it, don’t worry, I’m coming back tomorrow,” Minho said, pulling Taemin in for a short hug that was kind of awkward, but Taemin appreciated the sentiment nonetheless.

“Okay then, see you” Taemin said, as Minho released him and picked up his bag to go back out the window, waving slightly before he turned around to jog back to his house.

Taemin couldn’t believe the way things had turned out. It hadn’t come out anything like he’d expected, it was much, much better. He couldn’t help but feel a little bad about getting Minho involved, but overall he was just happy that he wasn’t alone anymore. He didn’t have to go through this by himself anymore.




A/N: This turned out so long! Also when I was writing this, I was constantly being like "no wait, that sounds weird, Minho wouldn't say that!" and having to write it over and I really wanted to switch over to his POV, but I told myself that I really wanted to keep this in Taemin's POV from the beginning hahaha. I might do a little side story thing later from Minho's POV (especially about his confused feelings for Tae and the baby), but I really want this story to stay in Taemin's POV. I hope nothing was too weird!
Let me know what you think~♥~. As always, thanks for reading :).