n’aie pas peur
je t’attends dans le noir
– ATLANTIQUE SUD, m83

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Sooyoung doesn’t understand how those girls can so effortlessly lie to themselves, thinking Oh, no worries, it’s just a bad case of stomach bug, when they are confronted with yet another big wave of nausea, and it is still the white, full cotton gusset of their CK hipster that they see when they go pee, clean and unblemished, free from any red spots that should have been there and yet are not.

Does ignorance provide those girls comfort? She wonders. Can an embryo just disappear if they pretend hard enough that it is, you know, not there? Eyebrows knitted, she leaves the bathroom and the warmed toilet seat, used kits scattered on the vanity, two short pink lines on each of them.

Dumbing down is not her style. She is not one to get trapped in the realm of sweet, useless denial.

If she doesn’t want the truth, or is afraid, or is afraid, she would have saved herself, or she can save herself the trouble and go to Google Chrome. In the darkness of her room, miles away from her parents—from her mother—she can stop her fingers from shaking, toes from curling, teeth from sinking deeper and deeper into her hurting lower lip, and type into a search box placed methodically on the right top of the page: South Korea counterpart of the US Planned Parenthood.

Should she?

Should she not?

She wants her mother so much so suddenly, but they are miles apart, and a quiet voice on the back of her mind whispers Baby, it’s not very safe to run now, is it? Running away, especially. So what she does instead, is she remembers that she is a twenty-one-year-old pro-choice leftist. Her fists a pair of iron balls, she tightens her jaw and exercises her right to do as she wishes with her body.

            xxx

It’s raining hard when she invites him over. He rushes to the kitchen to get a cup of something hot, while she lays his ultra light down parka on the drying rack.

From the couch where he has settled down into, he glances at the window and, shuddering, makes a face.

“I hate monsoon showers,” he pouts and whines like a child.

Sitting down beside him, she watches him blow the surface of his boiling sweetened tea and, slightly amused, thinks How fitting, showers and thunders make an appropriate sound effect for the exact kind of news she is about to deliver. “Sungjae,” she begins. “I’m going to wreak total havoc. Do you want to watch on the sidelines? Or do you want to join me on this one hell of a trip?”

He gapes at her for like five minutes before a lightning strikes in and he jumps in his seat. “Excuse me,” he hesitates, “what?”

She smiles a little sad one and makes the decision-making process easier for him. Taking the mug from his hand, placing it down on the coffee table, she elaborates for him, “Babe. I’m pregnant.”

The thunder makes a grand entrance, rolling in, moving in, surprising him.

He flinches for one more time before he remembers what she has just said and, promptly, laughs clapping his hands, crinkling the edges of his two eyes.

A minute passes, two minutes do. The laugh dies out in his throat and he croaks, “The Reddit joke isn’t over? There’s still more to it?”

Her tiny sad smile turns a little bitter.

She looks down, shifting her focus onto the rim of his white glazed porcelain mug. “I can see where you come from, thinking that this is just a joke.” She shrugs her shoulders and continues, “I guess it can easily be anything depending on who sees it. For a Ed substitute teacher, granted, it’s a nightmare. For a producer and MTV, though, it’s a promising marketing strategy—it’s a new reality show! I’m just…” The rim of the mug no longer an interesting sight, she cranes her neck to check up on him.

It’s predictable. His mouth gaping, complexion as white as a sheet of paper, he looks as if he doesn’t know what to say, how to even begin to fathom what she’s said. “What…”

She understands his shock. He never has had a baby before. He never has had a reason to know the proper reaction to a Congrats! In less than nine months you’re going to be a teen dad! Neither has she but that’s beside the point. The point is “I’m keeping it,” she declares all brave, effectively destroying her budding singing career. “I’m not naïve. I know it’s going to be tough, but still,” she convinces him, and herself, obstinate as a mule, “I’m keeping it.”

Silence falls upon them.

After it’s been quiet long enough to make her feel jittery, he says something at last, “You’re pregnant.” His voice is empty of any emotion. He swallows and his lips. He tries again, “You’re going to stay pregnant.”

Raising an eyebrow, she meets his eyes (dead eyes) and jerks her head Yes, “That sums it up.”

            xxx

At one point he dashes out of the living room clutching his mouth.

When she finds him again, it’s him retching into the toilet bowl in the bathroom, some parts of his late lunch already all over the tiles.<