A/N: 

When I posted the last chapter, someone critiqued be appropriately about my use of pronouns. I added tags and warnings to this story, but I also wanted to address them more in depth. The full reply to the comment is in this tweet: https://twitter.com/puellabona89/status/1163580408799420416

Here is a summary of why I did what I did with the pronouns, in case you were curious:
---It made it easier to write. In slash fics it’s often hard to clarify who is doing what since they are both males. You also don’t want to keep writing down their names over and over again because it sounds clunky. This is often why you read fics that refer to Sunggyu as “the brunette” and Woohyun as “the raven-haired one,” which you’ve rarely seen me do because I don’t add a lot of physical descriptions of the characters. For the most part, I want YOU to imagine them any way that you want to, with the exception of this case which brings me to my next point.
---I did this to control your perception of Woohyun. I used “she/her” pronouns to emphasize how he is outwardly perceived by the other characters and by you. Initially, I had used “he/him” pronouns and then switched because of this issue. I imagined that if I was reading the story and kept reading Woohyun as “him,” then I would only imagine Nam Woohyun as he is now. By switching to “she/her,” you are reminded that he’s different now. It was an artistic decision. This decision was also influenced by the fact that I’m telling this story from both Woohyun’s and Sunggyu’s perspectives. Had it only been Woohyun’s, I might have stuck with “he/him.” But how Sunggyu physically sees Woohyun is important to the story. I didn’t want to ignore that either.
---Woohyun wasn’t himself as a woman. Being a woman, especially a hormonal and pregnant one, changed how he interacted not just with Sunggyu but the world. It changed how he thought, how he felt.
---the discomfort is intentional. It was to make you experience Woohyun’s feelings along with him. This is really why the warning is necessary. If you didn’t want those feelings, I shouldn’t accidentally trick you into them. It’s like not tagging a major character death. I catfished you. I am very sorry for doing this.

With that being said, I am still very sorry for not appropriately tagging the story for fear of losing readers. It was very wrong of me to do. I do regret it.

I really do thank all of you for reading this story. I am really grateful for it. You guys have given me so much confidence as a writer that I challenge myself in ways like this. One day, I will finish my novel and dedicate it to you all! I wouldn't be able to do it without you.

“You’re looking good, Ran Woong-ssi!”

Woohyun smiled and swung her feet back and forth as she sat up on the examination table. Going to the doctor’s office became a part of her routine quite quickly. It was awkward at first, letting a stranger touch a body that she herself wasn’t familiar with, but that stranger was also a doctor. So it was fine, Woohyun reasoned. Furthermore, Bora had been worried about the care Woohyun had received before seeing her, especially since Woohyun couldn’t say anything about her last doctor. But the doctor finally seemed comfortable now, both with Woohyun and where she was in her pregnancy. The doctor put down her tablet and faced the woman. “Everything is as it should be, and your baby girl is nearly full grown. Soon she will be able to be delivered without a problem.”

Woohyun gasped, “Soon?! But I’m not ready,”

Bora giggled at that and shook her head. “Don’t worry. Most first pregnancies tend to be late. You have plenty of time,” she replied. “But things may happen that cause you to go into labor early. I don’t think that would be the case though.”

“Thank goodness,” Woohyun let out a breath with that. She then perked up. “So are we done?”

“We are,” Bora declared, and then Woohyun started to get ready to leave. But Bora wouldn’t let her go without some casual conversation. “So how’s the husband?”

Woohyun hated how warm her skin felt when she heard that. Husband. Well, ever since that one night, they shared a bed at night, shared kisses during the day, and they were very nearly sharing a life together. Kim Sunggyu nearly felt like a real husband now. Woohyun caught her face in the mirror. Yup, she was blushing.

Woohyun cleared and gathered herself together. “He’s doing well,” she vaguely put.

“He’s not working himself too hard?” Bora shot back. The doctor wasn’t looking up from the tablet. Woohyun smirked. She asked, but she wasn’t really interested in the answer because she knew what it would be, what it usually was.

“No, he actually has been coming home early recently,” Woohyun answered.

Bora looked up and smiled. “That’s good. Has it been slow at the company then?” she guessed.

Woohyun shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. I just asked him to.”

Bora laughed out of astonishment. “I’m sorry, what?” she asked with blinking eyes. And Woohyun just shrugged. Bora then looked away to stare at the wall, still blinking. “Woah. I can’t…it’s not that Sunggyu isn’t a nice guy. He is! I just thought he’d never prioritize someone else before himself. But then again, he might’ve grown up.” She faced the other woman again, waving her tablet pen at her. “Ran Woong-ssi, you’re one impressive woman. You escaped oppression, made it to China, where that happened,” she pointed to Woohyun’s stomach. “And now you have Kim Sunggyu wrapped around your finger.”

“Huh?”

“Ah, they don’t have that saying up in the North?” Bora guessed. She then spoke very slowly and empathetically, “Kim Sunggyu-ssi loves you so much that he’d do anything for you. He’d even die for you.”

“That’s an exaggeration,” Woohyun muttered below her breath. Bora was seriously overestimating her and underestimating Sunggyu, in her mind.

“You’re right. He wouldn’t die for anyone. He’s a coward,” the doctor yielded. She then stood up and walked Woohyun to the lobby. When they were saying their goodbyes, Bora added, “I’m glad that you guys found each other.”

Woohyun couldn’t hold back the grin breaking across her face. “Me too.”

---

“What is it? Is everything okay? Did you find something? Is it Woong-ie? Bobae?” Sunggyu had received a call from Bora at work, and he answered it with a flurry of questions. The doctor never called him. Well, Bora herself used to call him quite frequently years ago. But Bora as a doctor never called him. So when he saw her name flash across his screen, Sunggyu went out to the common area to take the call. His heart was hammering in his chest.

Bora, on the other hand, wasn’t as concerned as he was. Instead she scoffed. “You guys named the child ‘Bobae’?”

“Woo-woong-ssi did,” Sunggyu quickly corrected himself. He nearly slipped up, being so flustered. Bora, still, was quite the opposite. She cracked into a laugh. “What?”

“I seriously can’t handle you two. I’m cringing.” She then audibly shivered, showing her disgust at the ‘married’ couple.

And Sunggyu wasn’t having it anymore. “Why did you call? Is everything fine?” he got right to the point.

“Everything is great,” Bora answered. “I told Woong-ssi that I’d call you about a class.”

Sunggyu groaned and leaned against the wall, pressing his forehead against it. “A class? On what? Woong-ssi already made me watching birthing videos,” he grumbled.

“Really? That’s good,” Bora glossing right over that as if watching a birthing video wasn’t a haunting experience for the average person. She’d gotten too desensitized to it. Bora continued, “But this one is on pain coping mechanisms. Woong-ssi said that she wanted her birth to be as natural as possible…”

“Of course, she did,” Sunggyu interjected and rolled along the wall until his back was up against it. Woohyun was too intent on doing nothing unnecessary to the body, not cutting any hair, not exerting it too much, and now not taking an epidural. The only exception to this was…Sunggyu suddenly grew warmer, at the memory and perhaps a bit of shame. Although there were worse things that you could do to a body besides kiss it.

“…So a class like this would be helpful,” Bora had continued talking, and Sunggyu was only half listening.

“I agree, but why call me about it?”

Bora let out a disappointed sigh, which Sunggyu was more than used to hearing. “Sunggyu, who do you think helps the wife to cope with the pain the most?” she asked.

Sunggyu pulled himself away from the wall. “M-me?” he stammered.

“That’s right, so you need to go too. Doctor’s orders.”

“Fine,” Sunggyu gave in. “I’ll see if I can fit it into my schedule.”

“Oh, I’m sure you can,” Bora spoke in a teasing voice.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I told Woong-ssi earlier today that she has you wrapped around her finger,” Bora revealed and poked fun at her old friend, who didn’t take it too well.
Sunggyu groaned and went back to the wall to hit his head against it. “Why did you do that? She doesn’t need that ego boost,” he mumbled.

“You won’t even deny it,” Bora pointed out, still in a sly voice, but then it changed, grew serious, “Sunggyu.”

“Yes?” he noted the change in her voice.

“I take back what I said earlier. I was wrong. You’ve done very well for yourself by marrying Woong-ssi. So many people get too focused on marrying someone with the right specs or qualifications, as if it was a job rather than a life partner. But you know what’s truly important?”

“Love?” Sunggyu guessed.

“Well, I was going to say ‘character’ and ‘connection,’” Bora replied. “Can I give you some advice from on married person to the next?”

“Sure,” Sunggyu agreed because she was going to tell him her advice regardless.

And here it was: “When I was studying, they told us that the lowest point of every marriage is the first child, so you’re in for some tough times ahead.”

“I know,” he muttered under his breath. The raising a child was the least of their worries right now.

Bora snorted. “Of course, you do. You always know,” she said snarkily. “So you should also know to keep in mind what’s important. Which is?”

“Love.”

“‘Character’ and ‘connection,’ Sunggyu! Haven’t you been listening to me?” Bora raised her voice in disbelief.

About OBGYN stuff, yes, Sunggyu listened better to Bora, but about relationships, Sunggyu didn’t listen much to his ex. “What the difference?” it was a rhetorical question and Bora answered it anyway. This was why they worked better as friends.

“I find ‘love’ to be dependent on variables; those variables being ‘character’ and ‘connection’ among others. Those variables are more like constants; they won’t change for the most part. But if you fiddle with the constants a little, the love changes. For example, would you still love Woong-ssi if something about her core character changed?” Sunggyu had been half-listening to her rant until she asked that question. She had his full attention now. “Like if she wasn’t so playful or considerate? Or say that she was older or younger? From America? What if Woong-ssi was a man?” Bora paused for a moment or two, waiting for Sunggyu to answer, but he couldn’t even move now let alone talk. “See you can’t answer that. So character is more important than love.”

“If Woong-ie changed, I’d still love her…I think.” Sunggyu spoke loudly, confidently, until the last part. It probably didn’t sound as convincing as he meant it to sound. And he should be convincing! He and Ran Woong were supposed to be this loving, married couple. But he and Woohyun were…His mind was sorting through a thousand thoughts. And Sunggyu tried to knock them out one by one by hitting his head against the wall.

“Well good because you guys will see the worst sides of each other in a few weeks,” Bora appeared to be pleased with his response. “You’ll do just fine, especially if you go to that class.”

Sunggyu sighed. “Tell me when it is.”

---

“Woohyun?”

“Yes?” It happened. Sunggyu knew it would. He got used to it. He got used to this version of Woohyun. What did the old Woohyun look like again? What did he sound like? Even in his mind when imagining Woohyun, Sunggyu could only see this pretty face with round eyes and hear this high yet soft voice. “What?” Woohyun asked in the only voice Sunggyu could remember her having. She then put down her chopsticks and turned down the burner. She’d been cooking, when Sunggyu came home and called her name and just lingered at the threshold of the kitchen like a weirdo. But Sunggyu couldn’t help it. This was weird. It all was. ‘What if Ran Woong-ssi was a man?’ She had been, and Sunggyu couldn’t even put two parts of his face together. However, Sunggyu wasn’t trying as hard as he could. He didn’t want to.

“You won’t tell me? Do you want me to read your mind?” Woohyun asked coyly and walked over towards him. She stopped, with her face close to his, and stared into his eyes. Sunggyu was terrified. If any being could read his mind, it would be Woohyun with that penetrating gaze of hers, boring down into his soul. “You,” she began. Sunggyu closed his eyes and tried to swallow down the lump in his throat. “You want to go for a walk.”

Sunggyu coughed out a laugh. “How did you know?” he lied.

“You’re an easy read, hyung,” Woohyun spoke proudly as she took a step back. She then spun around to return to the stove. “I just have to look into your eyes, and I know exactly what you’re thinking.”

Sunggyu followed her closely. “Hm, do you think that I can read yours?” he asked as he took her by the hips and spun her back around. “Tell me something.”

What Woohyun tried to tell him at the moment, Sunggyu didn’t know. The light in her eyes faded away. Her eyes were now dark, still, and distant just like…He remembered! Sunggyu remembered that look! Woohyun would often have that expression when they were drinking. All smiles and brightness and then nothing but a blank expression, leaving Sunggyu with nothing to read purposefully. Woohyun was hiding things from him back then. Nam Woohyun with thin eyes, a sharp nose and…

That memory was chased out of his mind by a kiss on his lips. Sunggyu focused again and saw Woohyun smiling cheekily at him. “You failed,” she .

“How? I didn’t even guess yet!” Sunggyu raised his voice.

“Because you couldn’t guess,” Woohyun argued. She then patted him on the shoulder, consoling him. “Don’t feel bad. Not everyone has psychic abilities.”

“Psychic?” he picked out. “Can you tell my future?”

Woohyun sighed and looked over at the stove. “If I could, I would’ve found my body already,” she grumbled as she grabbed the frying pan putting it aside in aggravation. She then tugged at his sleeve. “Come on, get your jacket on, and let’s go for a walk.”

“What about dinner?” Sunggyu asked when she passed him by.

“I burned it. Badly. It’s rubbish,” Woohyun informed him from the living room. She was already getting ready to go outside. Sunggyu sniffed, now noticing the burnt smell. How did he miss that? And miss seeing those black squares in the pan, swimming in oil. Sunggyu snorted. Woohyun was a decent cook and cooked well 75% of the time. But when she failed, there was no way to salvage it or eat it without risking their taste-buds and/or blood pressure.

There was a tug on his hand as another enveloped his. Sunggyu looked over to see Woohyun already in his long, flannel coat and her slides that she bought recently since her feet were too swollen to fit anything else. “Let’s go!” she begged.

“Okay, but why do you want to go on a walk so badly?” he asked and let her lead him away.

“Just because…”

---

Just because Woohyun liked being able to walk hand-in-hand with a special someone in public. She hadn’t gotten the chance to do this in her recent relationships. She hadn’t gotten the chance to give a short peck in public either, but now she did as a ‘thank you’ to Sunggyu for buying her cheap food from a cart. She also never heard strangers gush over her relationships in years. The ahjummah at the food cart said that they were a cute couple. The grandma working the noodle shop next door gave Woohyun a free bowl of noodles “for the baby” and gave Sunggyu a lecture about how to treat a wife properly which her own husband never did. It was nice. It was really nice to see people interested in them and in their relationship. Strangers were looking at them with kind eyes and smiles rather than in disgust or pretending not to look at them at all while obviously looking at them. This wasn’t a silver lining in her cloud; it was pure gold.

While Sunggyu wiped the soup dripping from her chin, Woohyun wondered if Sunggyu realized that she was gay. She often wondered this, especially when he made her heart race. He had to know, right? Or was he choosing to ignore it? But more often than that, Woohyun wondered if Sunggyu was even attracted to men. She’d been wondering that ever since the first night they went drinking together. Was it wrong of her to hope that he did? Or would she be wasting it?

Her golden lining was tarnishing.

---

That wasn’t the only thing that was tarnished. Sunggyu’s reputation at the company was too.

Sungyeol: Kim Sunggyu got reprimanded. I hear that it’s his second time. I guess that even great monuments erode over time. Like the pyramids or that sand castle I built on that class trip.

Sungyeol: Just send me something to show that you’re alive again. Please.

Woohyun: .

Sungyeol: Thanks.

Woohyun had a solution. Sunggyu wasn’t going to like it, but she was going to do it anyway. Heck, she already did it. She was already there. She was currently waiting in the lobby of the company that fired her months ago, with a visitor’s past hanging from her neck.

“Yes, Sunggyu-ssi, your wife is here,” the woman at the front desk repeated. “Her name? Well, Ran Woong, of course! Why…” she pulled the phone away from her face and carefully put it back down on the receiver. The receptionist then put the fakest smile on her face. “He’s coming down. He’ll be here in a moment.”

“Perfect!” Woohyun chirped and then sat down, with her usual groan, but it didn’t wipe the grin from her face. “He didn’t know I was coming. I’m surprising him!”

“Honestly, I was surprised too to hear that Sunggyu-ssi had a wife,” the receptionist spoke with a saccharine voice.

“Hm? He doesn’t talk about the North Korean defector that he knocked up during a business trip to China and eventually eloped with even though his parents were against our marriage but he just loved me so dang much?”

“What?” the smile finally fell from the other woman’s face.

“What are you doing here?” Sunggyu’s voice nearly drowned hers out, and it surprisingly wasn’t angry, just confused.

“Just checking things out,” Woohyun lied.

And Sunggyu knew it. “You want to see who replaced you, don’t you?” he guessed in a low whisper, but he was wrong.

“Sure,” Woohyun replied with a shrug. She then threaded her arm around Sunggyu’s and patted it. “Show me around, sweetheart.”

“Sweatheart?” Sunggyu repeated with a scoff, although visibly liking it. “Okay, I’ll take you up.”

Once on the main floor, Woohyun detangled herself from Sunggyu and walked ahead shouting to no one in particular, “Hello, everyone! I’m Kim Sunggyu’s wife!” She then went up to a poor, shocked intern. “Hello, newbie. Meet my new baby!” she exclaimed, pulling back her coat and proudly showing off her belly.

“What are you doing?!”

“Oh, it’s my old baby,” Woohyun slipped that joke to the intern before Sunggyu pulled her away.

“What…”

“Helping you,” she interrupted him and effectively shut him up. “I’ve heard that you had a few talks with your boss, and so I’m here to show the reason why your performance is slipping, father of my unborn child.”

Sunggyu sighed and groaned at the same time somehow. “You don’t…”

Oh, but she did and she was going to, right now. An unfortunate worker was passing by the couple, and Woohyun stopped her and introduced herself, “Ah, hello, do you know this man? I’m his wife. And this is our baby.”

“Congratulations,” the worker replied, completely disinterested, and went on her way.

Woohyun spun around to face the other. “See, people are happy for you!” Woohyun tried to convince him. It wasn’t working. Sunggyu still didn’t like this idea at all; it showed all over his face. “Let’s just do this. It couldn’t hurt,” she whispered and tried to be cute.

Being cute worked better than words. “Okay,” he finally gave in. “Do you want to eat lunch with me? Let’s go to the cafeteria.”

---

 Sungyeol: Holy ! Kim Sunggyu is married! Look! I took a picture of her. She’s huge!

Sungyeol: I mean she’s really pregnant.

Sungyeol: She’s weird. She introduced herself to everybody, as if being the wife of Kim Sunggyu was something to brag about.

Sungyeol: I think she winked at me.

Sungyeol: There’s ice cream in the office fridge today. Your favorite.

---

The plan worked even beyond Woohyun’s expectations. She got to visit the office again, mess with Sungyeol again, and eat her weight in ice cream. That was all what Woohyun expected would happen. She didn’t expect Sunggyu to be called into the office and be offered paid paternity leave. Heck, Woohyun forgot that paternity leave was an actual thing. But she was grateful that it still existed. Her mind was now spinning with images of her coming home with a bundle in her arms and Sunggyu by her side to help her through it all 24/7.

And that help started now, apparently. That weekend, they attended the pain-coping class, which was helpful albeit bizarre. Along with some helpful advice, they were also asked to imagine a cat, giving birth alone in a dark closet, her ‘safe space,’ as nature intended. Well, Woohyun wasn’t going to give birth in any closet or in the dark for that matter. But she was going to do her best to give birth naturally. And with these strategies and with practice (although without water because Sunggyu nixed the idea of an at-home water birth. “Not in my tub!” The jerk!), Woohyun knew that she could do it. And she hadn’t felt this confident about something in a long while.

After their last class, Woohyun was sitting on the couch, watching a drama and clutching onto ice cubes. The teacher said that the pain of your hand freezing off would be a distraction from the tiny human ripping through your body. And it truly was distracting. Woohyun couldn’t focus at all on the drama or hold the ice cubes for longer than ten seconds. “A-ah,” Woohyun whimpered again and let the cubes fall into her lap.

“Hey!” The ice cubes had also fallen onto Sunggyu’s head. Trust him to lay his head on whatever there was left of Woohyun’s lap. He sat up and shook his head, water flying. “You did that on purpose,” he grumbled.

“I didn’t,” Woohyun argued. “I can’t hold it for long. It’s too cold. You try it! I bet that you can’t last much longer!”

“Bet?” that caught his interest. A sly grin cut across his face. “What do you want to bet?”

“Hm,” she hummed in thought. “If I win, then you have to rub my feet. They’re pretty swollen.”

“What if I win?”

“You won’t win,” she retorted.

Sunggyu snorted. “Cocky,” he muttered. “If I win, then you have to…rub my feet.”

“How creative?” Woohyun said with a roll of her eyes. “Call. Let’s do this!”

After many, many rounds of this ridiculous competition and after much trash talking and bickering over rules, Woohyun won and had her feet gingerly touched for a grand total of two minutes when Sunggyu claimed that he fulfilled his duty. While she’d preferred to have her feet actually massaged for longer, Woohyun let the issue drop. She was able to hold onto the ice cube until it fully melted and replace it with another. All she needed to do that was motivation.

And Sunggyu was surprisingly motivated to go over some of the other techniques that they learned. They practiced breathing and swaying, which looked and sounded so silly that the two of them couldn’t manage to do it for long and crumbled into heaps of laughter. When wiping the tears of joy from her eyes, she could finally see the other clearly again, who had laughed so hard that he was coughing. In that moment, her heart didn’t race; it didn’t skip a beat. It was still and at peace, filled to the brim with gratitude and l…

“Yah, it’s getting late,” Sunggyu broke the tender moment, with his brash (and now raspy) voice. “Let’s go to bed.”

---

After getting washed and changed, the two laid on their sides, facing each other. Although it was rather late, they were still wide awake. Something was keeping them up. Perhaps it was Sunggyu’s soft touches as he played with her hair and remarked about how her bangs grew too long, while pushing them away from her face. Or perhaps it was the way that Woohyun took those hands and held them to her lips.

It was probably the lingering questions that they both had in their minds, and one of them was finally brave enough to ask it.

“Woohyunnie, on the night of the switch, did you only ask me for help because I was there?” Sunggyu asked, pulling their joined hands away from so that she could still answer. But she still didn’t answer with words, only a shake of the head. “Because I’m gullible?” he guessed. Woohyun shook her head again, and Sunggyu was frustrated. “Then why?”

“Because I knew I could trust you.” Woohyun had never told him, but meeting Sunggyu that night, it was a of luck. In addition to being a man of faith, Sunggyu was also very responsible, even for things that mildly pertained to him. He felt compelled to check up on projects that he gave the slightest aide to. And when a project failed due extraneous matters, Sunggyu took the failure personally. Woohyun had noticed this over the years. It was hard not to, especially when Sunggyu made sure that they all went home in a taxi or with a driver after drinking and he’d continuously count and keep track of people during company outings. At times, Woohyun considered it a fault, but that night it was a blessing. Sunggyu barely knew Woohyun, but he still knew her, so…“I knew that you would help me.”

“You trust me?” he seemed to like the sound of that.

“Hyung, look at us,” Woohyun pointed out, although they were doing more touching than looking now. Her fingertips were dancing up his arm. “Would I still be here if I didn’t? Would I do this?” She gripped at his shoulder and pulled him closer, into a kiss. When they pulled away, she laughed. “I wouldn’t let you do that,” referring to his hand that somehow made its way to her .

“True,” he sheepishly admitted and pulled his hand up to her hip. “Do you like me?” he tried to make her as flustered as he was, but it didn’t work. Woohyun kissed him softly and shamelessly. He pouted afterwards. “That didn’t answer my question.”

“I like you…a lot,” Woohyun confessed, her voice dropping at the end. Her confidence faded too, while the questions in her mind grew louder and louder. Did he…

“I like you too,” Sunggyu whispered back and leaned in closer to her, putting his arm around her. It was an awkward hug, with the round belly keeping them apart, but it still made her feel all of the affection that he was trying to give.

She winded an arm around his waist. “Good, now we don’t have to be one of those couples who pretend to like each other just because we’re married,” Woohyun whispered. It was a joke, and Sunggyu did laugh. But it was short and slightly bitter.

Although he tried to hide it by saying, “No we don’t.” He also couldn’t hide his thoughts. Woohyun could tell that he was thinking about their sham of a marriage. But Woohyun had something completely different on her mind.

“Hyung?” she called him out of his thoughts. She grinned. “Since we’re acting like a married couple, let’s act like one completely.” Her hand slipped across his waist, from the back to the front, and her fingertips lightly grazed the hem of his shirt teasingly before gripping it and pulling it up. Or at least trying to, but Sunggyu blubbered incoherently in protest and yanked his shirt back down. But Woohyun knew exactly what y words to say to put him into the mood:

“It’s okay. I googled it.”

Sunggyu sputtered into a laugh and melted, all tension, all reservations left his body and mind. “You’re crazy,” he muttered as he let her pull at his shirt. Soon it was off and tossed aside.

“Eung. And you like me. I drive you crazy,” Woohyun teased. While Sunggyu was raising her own shirt higher and higher, she hooked a finger under his chin and pushed it upwards so that their gazes met. “I have you wrapped around my finger.”

Sunggyu groaned and quickly moved his chin away. “You never needed to hear that,” he mumbled.

“And you’re still not denying it.”

Woohyun had never felt both so in and out of control with her body before that night. Things were very awkward at the start, and no amount of googling could have readied her for that moment. But they both were determined to make it work, to make them work, seamlessly, harmoniously, in the most intimate embrace that either of them had ever felt. And in all sense of the word, they were intimate, with bodies and feelings and exposed, but they had enough faith and trust in each other to know that it was okay. All of this was okay. They wanted this. They wanted each other. They wanted each other’s desire and affection. They needed it. And that made it more than okay.

It was amazing.

---

Growing up, Woohyun had often heard of the ‘glow’ that pregnant women have. Being only pregnant in the third trimester, Woohyun felt as if she did more rolling than glowing. However, today was different. She felt lighter, brighter, and her ending smile shone for all to see. She was glowing and the world was glowing with her.

“Unnie? Unnie! Yah! Ahn Heeyeon!”

A shadow cast across her, masking her glow and making her smile fade away. The shadow belonged to a young woman, perhaps college-aged or recently graduated. She stepped right in front of Woohyun, stopping her in the middle of the sidewalk. The young woman looked utterly offended. “Unnie, did you not see me? Could you not hear me?”

Ahn Heeyeon. The body belonged to Ahn Heeyeon. And that’s who this girl thought she was talking to. “Unnie, are you feeling okay?” the young woman went from offended to concerned.

“I’m sorry,” Woohyun reflexively apologized. “The pregnancy is messing with my mind.” It was severely messing with it right now.

“Ah,” the girl spoke as if she understood. “I should’ve known. You’ve been out of it from the start. I’m not even upset that you haven’t met with me in months, seriously. What’s going on? How’s Kiheung-oppa?”

“Who?”

“Wow, I know that pregnancy really messes with the mind, but how could you forget about your husband, unnie?”

Kim Kiheung was a reporter on an assignment in China. He had been there these last few months, Woohyun had learned this from her trusted friend google. But from Ahn Heeyeon’s friend Junghwa (the girl that she met on the street), Woohyun learned that Heeyeon was a host of a home-shopping channel, who (fortunately for Woohyun) had been put on maternity leave ever since she started showing and the bump was impossible to find. Apparently, Heeyeon didn’t want news of her pregnancy circulating. Woohyun couldn’t understand why. True, she was a very minor celebrity in her own right, but this news would hardly make it to the papers, even with a reporter husband. She was married. She was of an appropriate age. What was Ahn Heeyeon so worried about?

Woohyun didn’t know, but she knew that Heeyeon was messaging people. Junghwa made several references to their texts in their short conversation. Heeyeon was most likely texting her husband as well. And since she was keeping in communication with her friends, Woohyun decided to drop her this clue.

“Junghwa, I keep forgetting, but I want to introduce you to this guy,” Woohyun began.

Junghwa lit up. “Who, unnie? Is a coworker of Kiheung-oppa?”

“No,” Woohyun answered. The younger’s face fell, and Woohyun knew how to bring it back up. “But he’s employed at an elite company. Makes good money. He’s also incredibly handsome. You’d be surprised.”

“Who is he? What’s his number?”

“I left my phone at home, so send a text to me to give you Nam Woohyun’s phone number.”

“Nam Woohyun,” Junghwa spoke slowly as she entered it into the phone. “Got it and sent!” she announced as the text flew away to the real Ahn Heeyeon.

Woohyun smiled at her uneasily. “Fantastic.”

---

Woohyun arrived home far later than she expected. It was supposed to be a quick trip to the market to pick up items for dinner, and it soon turned into a long trip down the path of realization. Junghwa walked with her most of the way down that path. The rest of it she walked alone, in the living room, going down the avenues of the internet in search of Ahn Heeyeon. She took a rest at the webpage of reporter Kim Kiheung, but that was only a brief respite. Looking at his face filled Woohyun with anxiety and guilt. Other than that, she felt very little connection to it, even though the child inside of her was his (theoretically).  But soon Woohyun again found the trails of Ahn Heeyeon on the internet, the multiple social media accounts which were still regularly updated but hadn’t included Heeyeon’s face even before the switch, and the home-shopping host’s professional webpage. It almost seemed as if Heeyeon had never disappeared, as if she were walking this world as she normally had been and not in the body of a man. It was surreal to read about her, to see video clips of her promoting everything from skincare to craft supplies. For over two months, this face and this body had been Woohyun’s. Somehow the full reality of it being someone else’s escaped her all this time. She was living someone else’s life. She was borrowing someone else’s life. And eventually it had to be given back. All of it.

When Woohyun was one step away from fully realizing, she stopped in her tracks. Sunggyu had come home, with a large grin on his face and a kiss ready for Woohyun. With that, Woohyun took several steps back.

“What are you looking at?” Sunggyu asked, referring to the laptop open on the coffee table.

Woohyun slid it towards him as she also made room for him on the couch. “You can look.” There was no point hiding it. Maybe they could walk the final steps of this journey together. Woohyun didn’t want to arrive there alone.

But Sunggyu was several kilometers behind Woohyun. He briefly scanned the screen and guessed, “You got a job on the home-shopping network? Congrats!” He praised while patting her on the head.

“No, look. Actually look at it!” Woohyun urged him, pointing at the screen. “It’s her.”

Sunggyu’s eyes grew wider than Woohyun had ever seen them. He then picked up the laptop and read the page thoroughly. “Ahn Heeyeon,” he muttered under his breath as he kept reading and scrolling. But then he stopped. Woohyun could tell he was reading the same line over and over again. “.”

"What’s wrong? What is it?”

Sunggyu shut the laptop, put it back on the table, and then crumbled into a small ball. His head was almost touching his knees. His hands were buried into his hair, pulling at the roots. “You’re married. I mean, she’s married. I mean…,” Sunggyu threw his head back at the last word.

Woohyun smiled nervously. She reminded him, “Well, we kinda assumed that she was from the start…”

“But we forgot about it didn’t we? Or at least I have!” Sunggyu cut her off, and if they were both honest, Sunggyu had forgotten more than just that, just like Woohyun had. He sprung up from the couch and started pacing the room. His mind breaking piece by piece at every step. “I can believe I slept with a married woman. I’m going to Hell for this. I ruined someone’s marriage.”

“You didn’t,” Woohyun tried to calm him down. But he didn’t even appear to have heard her. He was still pacing and muttering to himself. So she got up and put a hand on his shoulder. “Hyung! You…”

Sunggyu finally registered her, looked up at her. And he was terrified. “Sorry, I…I need to go for a walk,” he stammered and was soon out the door with only his slippers on. He didn’t hear Woohyun telling him to stay and that things were okay. Or if he did hear them, he didn’t believe her. To him, things were far from okay. That was evident when he came back hours later, reeking of alcohol, with red and swollen eyes. He collapsed onto the couch immediately as he came inside. Woohyun came out of the bedroom as soon as she heard the door unlock and watched him do so.

She sighed and walked over to the couch. “Hyung, don’t sleep there. Come to bed,” she spoke as warmly as she could muster at that hour and at him. Sunggyu had left her alone for hours to confront all of this on her own. In all honesty, Woohyun didn’t like Sunggyu very much right now, but she still would rather be with him than alone again. And Sunggyu would rather pretend to be asleep than come to bed with her. “Suit yourself, you jerk,” Woohyun spat and then kicked the couch out of frustration. “Owie!”

That hurt like Hell. The foot that wasn’t even hers hurt like Hell. It wasn’t fair, none of this was. Woohyun never asked to be like this. It was upon her: the body, the child, the feelings, everything! As Woohyun limped towards bed, she was conscious of every motion of the body, the weight growing heavier, the hair brushing against her skin. She raised her hand and just stared at it. The hand was pale and small, yet the fingers were long, thin, and straight. They looked nothing like Woohyun’s real hands, a man’s hands.

Woohyun was crying before she could sense it coming. It hit her, the sobbing and the dysphoria. Nothing was okay. Everything was wrong.

And things stayed that way the following morning. Sunggyu knocked on the bedroom door before coming in and apologizing as he did so. He wasn’t apologizing for the night before but for coming into a room that was already his. Woohyun watched him get ready. They both didn’t speak to each other. She was waiting for him to break the silence first, but he never did. He also didn’t kiss her goodbye as he’d been in the habit of doing recently. And Woohyun didn’t leave the bed to walk him to the door, as she’d been in the habit of doing. Instead she fell back into the bed, wishing desperately to fall back into that dream that the both of them had been living in these past weeks. But she couldn’t. The dream was gone. They were awake now and had to face reality as it was.

---

Woohyun didn’t really know what to expect from this reality, but it wasn’t Kim Sunggyu coming home from work early or sitting down with her to say that his paternity leave was going to start the week she was due. Woohyun wondered if Sunggyu had come to terms with reality better than she had. But he didn’t. After ‘reporting’ to her, Sunggyu went into the bedroom. Through the open door, she could see him opening the box that the changing table was in. He was going to build it to avoid talking to her for an extended period of time, or to simply even look at her.

All of this was really confusing Woohyun, so she came into the room and asked, “You’re still going to help be raise Bobae?”

“Yes,” Sunggyu replied, distracted as he was flipping through the instruction booklet. “Why do you ask?”

“Maybe because you haven’t looked me in the eye all day.”

“Well, I’ve been at work for most of the day,” he reasoned. He then put down the booklet, not to look at her but to pull the parts from out of the box. “And I’m busy now.”

“Never stopped you before,” Woohyun grumbled lowly. She reached her limit. She went up to him and tugged on his sleeve. “Hyung, look at me,” she begged.

Sunggyu set things down and stood up straight. His eyes went wide as they did the night before. “I’m looking!” he declared.

Woohyun was so desperate at this moment that she just accepted it. “Do you not like me anymore?” she pressed.

Sunggyu dropped his gaze. “I like you, Woohyun, but…”

“But what?!” Woohyun snapped. She was shouting. “This body belongs to someone else. It always has.” She stepped closer to him. “But it’s me, hyung. It’s Nam Woohyun. It’s always been. I’m not Ahn Heeyeon. I’m not anything like her! I’m not a home-shopping host. I’m not married. I’m not Ran Woong either! I’m Woohyun, Nam Woohyun. I grew up in Seoul, and I worked at the same company as you for years. You’ve known me for years! Remember?” Her voice lost its strength. She hadn’t talked to anyone all day, and it showed. She was overcome with emotion, and that showed too in tears and shakiness. “I’m not married. I’m…I’m with you.”

“I know,” Sunggyu agreed but there was a caveat, “But it’s still not your body. You said it yourself months ago, it feels wrong to do things with it sometimes. What would she think if she knew?”

Woohyun sat down on the bed, frustrated, and wiped her face as she argued, “Well, who the hell knows what she’s doing with my own body?”

“Then would you like it if she was sleeping around?” she didn’t like how Sunggyu said that or how he was standing over her now.

“I’m not sleeping around,” she growled.

“Woohyun-ah, stop twisting my words around,” Sunggyu whined and stepped back. “Just answer me. Do you think it’s okay for us to be like this?”

Now Woohyun was the one refusing to look at the other. She couldn’t bring herself to do it. “I don’t know,” she admitted.  “I don’t know, okay? I just…” Woohyun didn’t want to finish that. She didn’t want to seem impudent.

“What?” Sunggyu sat down next to her.

“I want to be with you,” Woohyun spoke, barely moving her lips. She raised her gaze to his. Her hand slid across the bedspread, bumping into his. “Is that really so bad? Can we not be together because of this?” those were honest questions that Woohyun herself didn’t know the answer to. But there was one argument that she had on her side: “She doesn’t need to know.”

Sunggyu sputtered into a short laugh. “Why does it sound like we’re having an affair?”

“We’re not,” Woohyun grumbled and retracted her hand. She couldn’t look at him again. She thought she’d failed to get her point across. Woohyun didn’t just want this; she needed it. She needed Sunggyu to treat her as he had been. She needed his affection. Most of all, she needed his friendship and not just his help.

“I know.” Sunggyu seemed to understand. It wasn’t his words that convinced Woohyun of that, but his actions. He put his arms around her and pulled her close to him. His chin hooked over her shoulder. “This should be okay, right?” Woohyun nodded and turned towards him to hug him fully and to wrap her own arms around him.

“I needed this,” Woohyun whispered and then buried her face into him.

Sunggyu raised his head. “I’m sorry, Woohyun. I keep forgetting how hard this is on you. So you have to tell me sometimes, okay?” he said. He then dragged his hands along her back in order to hold onto her cheeks. They stared at each other for a beat before Sunggyu asked again, “Okay?” Woohyun gave a small smile and nodded. Sunggyu grinned too and rubbed his thumbs across her cheeks. “Pretty.”

And Woohyun turned away when Sunggyu leaned in for a kiss, and it landed on her ‘pretty’ cheek.

“What’s wrong?” Sunggyu asked, worried.

“Braxton-Hicks,” Woohyun lied and started to take in sharp breaths through her teeth as if in actual pain. “Those fake contraction things,” she explained because Sunggyu didn’t get it.

“O-oh!” he stuttered. “Why don’t you lay down? Wait, is laying down good? What should we do? Is there anything I can do to help? I can get you ice.” He was on his feet now.

“No, I just need to ride this out,” Woohyun spoke and then groaned, hoping it didn’t sound fake. She’d also hoped that Sunggyu would take it as a hint to leave her alone, but he was still standing in front of her. “I’d rather not have you watch.”

He finally got it. “Oh okay, I’ll be right out here if you need me,” and with that, he left the bedroom and carefully closed the door behind him.

When he did, Woohyun fell back onto the bed and stared at the ceiling. She’d finally managed to convince Sunggyu that they could be together. But now she was having doubts.

“Pretty,” Woohyun repeated and laughed sadly at it.

She then sat back up and gazed at the mirror across the room. That person, Ahn Heeyeon, was a stranger. The pretty face that she was touching was a stranger’s. It wasn’t Woohyun’s. Yet this is what Sunggyu saw and had been seeing these past few months. Was it the face that convinced him or the words that Woohyun spoke? Was it Woohyun’s personality that he liked or Heeyeon’s body?

The truth of the matter was that Woohyun and Sunggyu only came together because of this body. And when Woohyun would inevitably switch back, would there still be an ‘us’?

Her hands held onto Bobae protectively. She didn’t want to let go of any of this…now, right at this very moment. As for the future, Woohyun couldn’t say. She couldn’t even say if she’d want it as a he. In the future, would Woohyun ‘need’ Sunggyu? Would her feelings go away for him after the switch along with the hormones and such? There was a possibility that was true, and Woohyun hoped it was. She hoped the attraction was due to her being vulnerable and Sunggyu being there. It wasn’t because of Sunggyu in particular. Sunggyu could’ve been anybody. Sunggyu was replaceable.

In short, in reality, their feelings probably weren’t real. It could all be part of the dream too.

With those thoughts in mind, Woohyun came out of the bedroom. When she did, Sunggyu bolted out of his spot as if Woohyun had come out of the OR instead of the bedroom. “Are you okay? Are they over? Should I call Bora?” the questions quickly spilled out of his mouth.

. Whether or not it was dream, right now, at this very moment, Woohyun loved him.

“I’m fine,” she muttered, still stunned by that realization.

“You don’t look fine,” Sunggyu remarked. He then went over to her, put his arm around her, and tried to guide her into a seat. “What’s wrong? Tell me. Hm? Tell me, Woong-ah.”

Woohyun stopped and snarled, “What did you call me?”

Sunggyu let go and put his hands in the air. “I was joking! Seriously, I was! I know who you are, Woohyun. Nam Woohyun,” he insisted, but she had a hard time believing him. So he kept going. “I can’t ever forget that you’re Woohyun, trust me. You’re not as feminine as you think.”

She couldn’t fight the smile forming on her face. “I’m not?”

“Nope, not at all,” Sunggyu reiterated. He then began to list every stereotypically masculine thing that he’d seen Woohyun do. She spread her legs out far too wide while sitting. She grunted like an old man, belched and farted shamelessly, scratched her non-existent balls out of habit, talked about them too, referred to herself as ‘dad’ or ‘daddy’ to Bobae, called Sunggyu nothing else but ‘hyung,’ and the list went on.

Woohyun felt happier and happier as the conversation went on. It not only made her feel like a man again, but it also gave her hope. Maybe, just maybe they could fall back into that dream.

So before they fell asleep that night, settling into each other as they were settling into bed, Woohyun asked, “Hyung, what would you do if you woke up and I was in my own body again?”

“Well, I’d be shocked for one,” Sunggyu answered. He kept going, throwing a joke in between here or there, but it all amounted to that answer. He’d be shocked. Which didn’t give Woohyun much substance to set her hopes on. And so she fell back to the thoughts that she had earlier: would she even want this later? Was it even worth hoping for?

Sunggyu’s answer, however, was enough to never make Woohyun ask the question again.

What Woohyun didn’t know was that Sunggyu wasn’t trying to hide anything with his answer. Other than being shocked, Sunggyu couldn’t predict how he’d react, what his heart would do. And he didn’t want to make promises that he couldn’t keep.

And that wasn’t the only question that Woohyun asked that Sunggyu couldn’t answer. However it wasn’t about their relationship. It was about Bobae. And she kept asking it over and over again: “Hyung, do you think if I give birth, we can keep Bobae?”

At times, she was more confident: “If I give birth to her, it’s only right that she’s mine.”

At other times, desperate: “Let’s take the baby and run.”

Underlying all of those questions was this fear: “Hyung, if I can’t have her…”

“I know,” Sunggyu filled in the blank for her, “I’ll go crazy too.”

---

Sunggyu didn’t have to wait for Bobae’s arrival to go crazy, he already was. He hid it well though. He knew how to act strong in front of others and fall apart when alone, like right now. He was walking down the street as if a mindless zombie. Head down, feet shuffling, bumping into people, walls, or poles, and not caring about the subsequent pain. He had to fall apart piece by piece now, like a zombie losing its limbs, and later he’d be able to act like a human again in front of Woohyun. Sunggyu wouldn’t be entirely human or himself with Woohyun though, but she also hadn’t been noticing it lately. She was partially a zombie too, with a parasite gradually out her lifeforce so that it could survive on its own.

Sunggyu halted in the middle of the street and shook his head. He shouldn’t be thinking of Bobae like that. And he shouldn’t be feeling resentment towards the baby, but there it was, growing inside of him like a virus. He still wanted Bobae and wanted to love her. But with Bobae’s arrival, Sunggyu knew everything would come to an end. He came to this conclusion ever since he learned of Ahn Heeyeon and her husband. Bobae was their child, not Woohyun’s and surely not his. Because of that, they’d never be able to keep her.

What really convinced Sunggyu about all of this was the fact that the witch switched them so that Woohyun and Heeyeon could learn to respect each other and not be too hasty to judge. As far as curses go, it was made with good intentions, and that witch was some chaotic good. She wasn’t Maleficient nor Rumpelstiltskin, but more like a Dumbledore. The witch pushed the boundaries past what was appropriate, letting two kids run amok in each other’s bodies, but there was a lesson to be learned in the end and things would generally turn out okay.

Given all of that, there was no way the witch would rob a mother of her child and put it in the hands of some stranger. There was no way she’d ruin a family. Kim Kiheung had miraculously been on a special assignment for these past months, without a clue what happened to his wife or her body. For Sunggyu, that wasn’t a coincidence. That was magic.

Woohyun must’ve realized that too which was why she kept bargaining with Sunggyu to keep Bobae.

They were fighting a losing battle, against time and against themselves. Woohyun could switch back any day now. Woohyun was going to be a man again. It really could happen that Sunggyu would wake up one day and find a man in his bed.

“.”

Sunggyu ran into a pole again, but instead of moving on, he just stopped in front of it, as if it were a wall.

Was he leading Woohyun on? He wasn’t going to saypromises that he couldn’t keep, but surely his actions could come across as silent promises. However, he couldn’t help himself. There was no way that he could not notfeel the way he did about Woohyun, with how she was now. It was too strong for him to control. He did it unconsciously. And most of all, he was selfish. If Sunggyu was going to lose her soon, then he wanted to savor every last moment with her. What made Sunggyu really feel guilty was that, Woohyun really wasn’t pushing him away. And Woohyun had to know what Sunggyu was thinking. She always did. She was psychic...or seemed to be to Sunggyu.

Sunggyu felt like he owed it to Woohyun to at least think about it, to think about them in the future after the switch back. He closed his eyes and rest his head against the pole. He tried his best to visualize the original Nam Woohyun. Recently the image had been coming to him more easily now as he’d been trying hard not to forget it. Also lately, when Woohyun was gone or not paying attention, Sunggyu would pull out his phone and look at Woohyun’s Instagram to remind himself what Woohyun was supposed to look like. Sunggyu was trying. He honestly was. But as the Woohyun in his mind’s eye approached him, the hair grew longer, the eyes bigger, his chest…

“Excuse me.”

Someone knocked into Sunggyu’s shoulder and snapped him out of it. “Sorry.” He’d opened his eyes to see who it was. Sunggyu thought that he was still imagining things. He’d only caught a glimpse of the person’s profile, but there was no mistaking it. “Woo-woohyun? Woohyun! Hey! It’s me!” he shouted after the man jogging away from him. The person didn’t turn around or even register his name. And that was because it wasn’t his name. “Oh , it’s her!” Sunggyu exclaimed and started to run after him. “Hey! Stop! I need to talk to you! Stop!” he yelled while trying to catch up to the other. But the man just picked up speed once he sensed someone following him. But Sunggyu knew how to stop him: “Yah! Ahn Heeyeon!”

Heeyeon stopped and slowly turned around, taking the headphones out of his ears. “How…how did you know?” he asked. “How do you know my name?”

“Your body, it’s at my place,” Sunggyu explained, while panting. He finally caught up to him. But then he realized how his words could’ve come across. “It’s alive! It’s alive, don’t worry! Bo-the baby is doing well too.”

“Oh my goodness! Really?!” Heeyeon gasped. His hand flew to cover his mouth, hiding the wide grin breaking across it. His feet were moving as if he was jogging in place. Heeyeon was very, truly excited, and squealing, “Finally! Oh my goodness!” Now he was jumping.

Sunggyu watched dumbfounded for a few seconds. He blinked a few times just to make sure that he wasn’t still imagining things. But no, he wasn’t. And Heeyeon had more energy than Sunggyu had for his entire life.

“Can I…” Heeyeon didn’t quite know how to phrase the question. And ‘take me to the body’ could be very misconstrued by eavesdroppers.

Sunggyu understood and told her, “Follow me, I’ll take you there.”

“Thank you. Thank you very, very, very much,” Heeyeon replied and fell into step with Sunggyu. But he still couldn’t help but to skip every other step. He was just too excited. “Oh my goodness!” Normally, Sunggyu would’ve laughed at the other’s over-eagerness, but he was rendered speechless at the moment. This was all too strange.

“I’m sorry. I hadn’t asked for your name. I’m Ahn Heeyeon,” he broke the silence.

Sunggyu found his words again, “Kim Sunggyu.”

“So do you live with Nam Woohyun? You said that my body was with you,” Heeyeon asked. Sunggyu nodded, which left him very confused. “I thought he lived with his mother.”

“I took him in after the switch. He didn’t want to tell his mom,” Sunggyu explained.

Heeyeon let out a huge sigh and placed a hand over his heart. “Oh thank goodness! I was worried that I was looking in the wrong place for him. At times, I thought I was looking for the wrong Nam Woohyun. I had the right one, but he wasn’t where he should be!”

“Yes, Woohyun also doesn’t get out of the house much,” Sunggyu couldn’t match her enthusiasm with his response.

Heeyeon nodded along while Sunggyu answered. “I can understand that. I was the same. I wanted to find him, find my baby, find the witch, but at the same time, I didn’t want to be discovered. Nam Woohyun has a lot of friends. So many friends! Every day someone new was coming up to say ‘hi’ to me,” he whined. That voice sounded more nasally than Sunggyu remembered it being. But he still smiled at what Heeyeon was saying. “For awhile, I thought he was a celebrity.”

“No, Woohyun just really likes talking to people,” Sunggyu told him. He wasn’t surprised at all that Heeyeon had that impression. Woohyun would talk to inanimate objects when there was no one living to talk to. Sunggyu once caught her talking to the saltshaker. But it was like that back in the office too. Some things about Nam Woohyun were consistent.

“I can relate to that, if you couldn’t tell already,” Heeyeon admitted with a nervous smile and Sunggyu nodded in agreement. There was no question in his mind that this was the real Ahn Heeyeon because she filled dead air well like a host and could say ‘oh my goodness’ in so many different ways that it was almost like she was saying different words every time. “So I wasn’t out that much because I didn’t want to ruin his life, but…I lost his job.” Heeyeon had grown very quiet and still after that admission. He was reluctant to admit it too. It seemed like Heeyeon tried to do his best too, in this situation, just like Woohyun.

And honestly, that was a relief to know. Sunggyu felt a little easier around the other.

“Woohyun lost he-his job on his own. Don’t worry about it,” he tried to comfort Heeyeon. But then immediately regretted saying anything at all.

Heeyeon didn’t notice the slip up, and apparently was encouraged enough by Sunggyu’s words to talk again, “I’d gotten him a new one, if he wants it. It’s at my channel as a production assistant. I managed to pull a few strings to get it. It pays well, maybe not as well as his last job…”

“You’ll have to talk it over with Woohyun,” Sunggyu interjected when Heeyeon paused to breathe. He didn’t want to think much about the future, or even five minutes from now when they’d be at his apartment. “We’re almost there.”

“Wow, it’s finally happening. Oh my goodness!” Heeyeon squealed again. His steps were bouncy. If Heeyeon didn’t have to follow Sunggyu there, he probably would’ve run to the apartment. It was all so weird. Seeing Woohyun’s body act like this was seriously weird. Heeyeon then noticed Sunggyu side-eyeing him. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

Honestly it didn’t just make Sunggyu feel weird. It made him feel sad. While looking at Heeyeon, at Woohyun’s body, Sunggyu’s heart did nothing. It was still inside of his chest. And his imagination wasn’t to blame this time, but…“I’m sorry. You look like him, but you also don’t look like him,” he still had this one excuse. “It’s crazy. Sorry, but I just can’t stop staring.”

Heeyeon’s hands flew to his cheeks and pinched them. “Did I gain too much weight?” he asked.

“No,” Sunggyu quickly replied. Honestly, Sunggyu wouldn’t even be able to tell you if the cheeks were rounder, but he could tell you that the hairstyle was different. And Woohyun wouldn’t jump around like a wind-up toy or speak in a tone so nasally. But those things were obvious and those weren’t the things that made Sunggyu the most uncomfortable looking at Heeyeon in Woohyun’s body. It was the more subtle things that Sunggyu was still realizing at the moment. Like the way the jaw was set, the way the smile spread across the face, the way the light hit the eyes, it was all different. And Sunggyu didn’t like it.

“This was why I was afraid to go out sometimes. People like you would know that I was a fraud,” Heeyeon spoke with a sign. Even the way he pouted was different. Heeyeon, though, didn’t dwell on their differences for long. He quickly moved onto the one thing they had in common: “How is my baby? You said that she was okay.”

Sunggyu nodded his head until the words came onto his tongue. “We’ve been seeing a doctor regularly. She’s healthy and fully grown,” he replied. “Your body is in good shape too…for birthing, I mean. Wait…”

“Thank you, Sunggyu-ssi,” Heeyeon stopped him before he dug himself into a hole. He then laid a hand on Sunggyu’s should. It felt cold, and while Sunggyu was sure that smile was genuine, it just looked fake to him. “Thank you so much for taking care of us.”

“It was mostly Woohyun’s doing,” Sunggyu spoke almost in monotone but he still tried to keep the smile on his face. But nothing about this made him happy. They were almost there.

“I’ll be sure to thank him when I see him,” Heeyeon, however, was estactic. “Hopefully, he’s not displeased with the shape that his body is in. I tried to take good care of this body too, but I don’t know how well I did.” He then went on to tell Sunggyu of every single one of Woohyun’s pre-existing ailments which ranged from G.I. problems to a nearly frozen joint in his shoulder. “But you probably know that already?”

Actually Sunggyu didn’t. He was reminded again of how little he knew Woohyun before all of this. Did he really know Woohyun at all? Sunggyu was preoccupied with that question as they went up the stairs. He nodded along to everything Heeyeon was saying, pretending as if he was listening. Sunggyu did manage to catch that Heeyeon was living with his younger brother, pretending to be a friend. That made Sunggyu glad that Heeyeon wasn’t alone in this.

But everything else filled him with dread as they walked up to his door. When they got there, Sunggyu asked Heeyeon to wait.  “I’ll come and get you,” he promised and quickly darted inside, locking the door behind him, making sure to keep Heeyeon out and hidden.

And he didn’t do it a moment too soon. Woohyun came out of the kitchen, looking slightly peeved. “What took you so long?” she asked.

Sunggyu couldn’t hear the question. His heartbeat was thumping loudly in his ears and his whole body was screaming at him to do one thing. He went over and kissed Woohyun because this might be the last time he could. And Woohyun went along with it, trying to match his urgency and allowing herself to be held onto entirely too tight. Sunggyu didn’t want to let go, to let this go. But also he couldn’t breathe so he had to.

“What was that for?” she asked once he pulled away. She probably thought that things were going to head into a different direction than where they were.

“I found it,” Sunggyu replied breathlessly.

“Found what?”

“Your body.”

Woohyun stiffened. Sunggyu heard something clang onto the floor. Whatever Woohyun had been holding fell onto the floor. “Where is it?”

Sunggyu pressed his forehead against hers for a second and then stepped aside, gesturing towards the door. “It’s right outside the door.”

Woohyun didn’t say anything. Her eyes did linger onto Sunggyu for a second or two as she made her way to the door. Although she got to the door quickly, this moment felt like an eternity to Sunggyu. And he didn’t dare look away, as if Woohyun was going to turn into a puff of smoke as soon as she opened the door rather than what was about to happen.

What happened was this: Woohyun open the door and saw Heeyeon on the other side. After staring at each other, too shocked to move, Woohyun stepped aside to let Heeyeon in. He did, and neither of them stopped staring. Sunggyu couldn’t even imagine what this must be like for them. It wasn’t like staring at your reflection. This was your living, breathing body walking around beyond your control. It was no wonder why the two chatty people could not find a word to say to each other. Not even a simple ‘hello.’

But Heeyeon was the first to speak.

“Can I say ‘hi’?” He gestured down to Bobae.

“Go ahead,” Woohyun swallowed before continuing. Sunggyu heard her voice crack as she said, “I-it’s yours.”

Heeyeon dropped down to his knees, hands cupping either side of the belly. He was smiling the biggest smile, in spite of the tears threatening to spill out. “Hi, honey. It’s me, mommy,” he spoke to the baby. “I’ve missed you so so somuch. I’m sorry. Mommy’s sorry for going away. But I’m back. Mommy’s back.”

Sunggyu left the room. He couldn’t watch it anymore for crying.

---

He stayed in the kitchen and continued making whatever Woohyun had started. It wasn’t going to be any good, but it was edible and it kept him distracted from whatever was going on in the room next door. However, Sunggyu being who he was, he couldn’t stop himself from trying to overhear what they were whispering about in the living. Occasionally, they’d laugh, and it was jarring to hear both of Woohyun’s laughters mix in his ears. There were goosebumps on Sunggyu’s arms that would just not go away.

When Sunggyu was setting the table, Woohyun finally came in to report what happened, but she had to call his name to get his attention. He did a little too good of a job ‘checking out’ so it took him awhile to check back in. When he did, he didn’t like what he heard: “Heeyeon-ssi asked me to come home with her. Her and her husband live near the office.”

“Is that so?” he tried his best to sound calm about it. “Are you going?”

Woohyun nodded and said, “I’ll be back.”

“You have some things to collect, right? But not my clothes, okay?” he attempted to lighten the mood with a joke, to get her to smile. But Woohyun remained stoic.

“Heeyeon-ssi has things for me to wear,” she answered.

“Ah right.” Of course, Heeyeon would. And that wardrobe would probably suit the body better than Sunggyu’s oversized sweatshirts and shorts. But Sunggyu also couldn’t imagine her wearing anything else. “When are you leaving?” he asked.

“She wants to leave soon,” that was the exact opposite of the answer he wanted. “There’s really no reason for us to linger around.”

“What about dinner?” Sunggyu brought up a little too loudly. He then went over to the stove where the pot and pans were still resting. He showed them off and said, “Stay for dinner.”

Woohyun had followed them and looked at the food with a critical eye, but her lips didn’t say anything but, “I’ll ask.” Sunggyu pouted. It seemed like Woohyun wanted to leave with Heeyeon. But why wouldn’t she? She finally found her body and now the two of them could work together to solve this problem. Woohyun didn’t need Sunggyu anymore. She didn’t need his help with the switch or with the baby. And so it would make sense for Sunggyu to be left behind right now, even though he made (a ty) dinner.

Woohyun looked up from the dishes towards Sunggyu, with a cheeky smile on her face, “Don’t worry, hyung. I’m not going forever,” she leaned in and whispered into his ear. She then pulled away chuckling. “I’m not dying! I’m coming back tomorrow.”

Hearing that, Sunggyu melted and whined, “Then don’t act like you’re leaving forever.”

“It’s fun to tease you,” Woohyun retorted. “I’ll go get Heeyeon-ssi for dinner. It looks like you tried.”

“Yah! What’s that supposed to mean?” Sunggyu shouted but Woohyun just shrugged and waddled out of the room. “You’re no Gordon Ramsey either!”

Dinner continued much like that, moments of seriousness followed by the three of them cracking jokes. And when the two finally left, Sunggyu was exhausted from riding this emotional rollercoaster over and over again. The worst drop of the evening was when Heeyeon brought up that Sunggyu couldn’t come over to the house until things were resolved. It was already going to be hard to explain why Woohyun’s body was living at a newly-wedded couple’s home. If Sunggyu came, that would only invite rumors. So Sunggyu felt left behind again. Heeyeon would be responsible for the baby and for the body. He was obviously better suited for the job.

Before she left, Woohyun promised to come back again but couldn’t give a more specific time than that, not even ‘tomorrow’ as she said earlier. Her and Heeyeon had a lot to do and to go over. There was no saying when she’d come back, if at all. As much as he tried to be happy for the both of them, Sunggyu hated this new situation. And he hated how empty his apartment felt with them gone.

Woohyun did come back, a few days later, with a bag to collect her things and (very bad) news. “My husband is coming home tomorrow,” she tried to turn it into a joke, but it still pierced through Sunggyu’s heart. “It was early than expected. Heeyeon-ssi and I have been scrambling to come up with a plan and put everything in order these last few days.”

“When did you find out?” he asked.

“The first morning that I was there.”

“Woohyun,” Sunggyu spoked through gritted teeth. “We’ve been texting each other every day. You didn’t think to tell me?”

“I thought!” she defended herself. “But I also didn’t want you to nag me constantly to come over when I couldn’t.” Sunggyu couldn’t say anything in response because he knew it’d be true. Was it so wrong to ask that of her? “Speaking of nagging, we can’t call or text anymore when Kiheung-oppa comes home. He might get suspicious.”

“Oppa?!” Sunggyu repeated with a scoff. “Kiheung-oppa? You still call Ahn Heeyeon ‘Heeyeon-ssi’ but he’s ‘oppa’?”

“It’s what she calls him, and I’m trying to make it a habit,” Woohyun clarified. “Don’t be a jerk. I’m trying my best, hyung.” She picked up the bad and sulked off into the bedroom grumbling, “Acting like I never called you anything special…”

Sunggyu groaned when he saw the door slam behind her. He was being a jerk. Yes, he was caught off guard. But if this was really the last time that they were going to see each other, Sunggyu should try his best to, his best to be nice and to make her happy, even though he felt mean and depressed now. So he came into the bedroom with a fake- smile plastered across his face, to see Woohyun packing several of his clothes into the bag along with her things, just out of spite. She even shamelessly stared at him as she stuffed his favorite sweatshirt into the bag. The smile then became real.

Sunggyu picked up a book of hers that was on the nightstand and asked, “So how’s it been living with Heeyeon-ssi? Is she taking you to a new doctor? Or are you still going to see Bora? Did she tell you about the job she got for you? Does she know about Ran Woong? Do you find this reporter guy, I don’t know, sorta handsome? He’s pretty average if you ask me, but I’m asking you so do you?”

Woohyun’s face thawed and she grinned. “Slow down, hyung. I can only answer one question at a time. Ask me just one question. One,” she emphasized, putting up a finger in the air.

Sunggyu settled on this one: “So…did you miss me?”

“Everyday.”

Woohyun was later able to answer all of his other questions too. Living with Heeyeon was better than expected. Woohyun described it as like living with your identical twin, seeing your living reflection, and knowing someone else at a completely different level. The two of them were very comfortable talking about everything and did spend most of their time talking. Heeyeon admitted to resenting his life before the switch. He had tried to keep the pregnancy a secret for fear that it would ruin his image. The pregnancy wasn’t planned, and it happened before the wedding. If any of his viewers did the math, it might equal something disastrous for his career. It was also so early in his career too. With the maternity leave and child-rearing, Heeyeon’s career had to be put on hold for awhile, not by choice. Whereas Kim Kiheung was able to go off to China, during the third trimester, and continue his career as normal. Heeyeon didn’t see it as fair or right. This baby was ruining his life, in Heeyeon’s mind. Without it, Heeyeon would still be working, be more successful, travel with Kiheung, and not need to sit in that damn subway seat that caused this mess.

But when Heeyeon ‘lost’ the baby and his former life, he was besides himself, crying every night. Being a man, who was more encouraged to build his career, who couldn’t get pregnant, it wasn’t what Heeyeon thought it would be. There were new societal pressures that he buckled under. He didn’t act ‘manly.’ He didn’t have ‘manly’ interests. His new job wasn’t ‘manly’ and how dare he think that he could support a family with such a low-paying job. First the pay wasn’t that low and a woman could support a family just as well as a man, Heeyeon would argue, but then he was told it wasn’t ‘manly’ to rely on a wife. Nothing was good enough.

The thing is, no matter the gender, life can be hard, and it always seems like it would be easier to live as someone else. To Heeyeon, Woohyun’s life seemed easy, privileged. Soon the opposite proved to be true. Woohyun had struggled through life just like everyone else. At a young age, Woohyun’s parents divorced, which is never easy for anyone involved. Later in life, most of Woohyun’s school was deemed unimportant for most employers, although it gave its students a well-rounded education and was reasonably priced. It still wasn’t elite. Rejection after rejection came because of it. So getting a job at that company had been the biggest of luck that Woohyun ever had. Now it was gone. And things were going to be hard for Woohyun again.

Heeyeon learned all of this after finding out Woohyun’s name. And he also learned that it wasn’t the life he wanted. In fact, he wanted nothing more than to regain his old life back. That life became more and more appealing the more time passed. And his heart ached for it all, especially the child.

It’s better to bring about the change in your own life, whether the change is in perspective or in situation, than to wish to be a completely different person. Heeyeon needed a new perspective and Woohyun needed a change in situation. Now the both of them now had a greater appreciation for life, especially their own.

Sunggyu could easily see all of this as Woohyun spoke, but he didn’t see which change he needed in his own life right now because he often found himself wishing to be a completely different person, namely Kim Kiheung.

“So I won’t see you again until after the switch back, which should be soon,” Woohyun said as she walked towards the front door. Sunggyu was carrying the bag that was filled to the brim. They both knew that the bag was more of an excuse to come over. They filled it with random things, and they had to do it quickly too. Heeyeon was already downstairs to pick Woohyun up, and they’d spent most of the time talking. Sunggyu regretted not being able to do more. As Woohyun said, this was most likely the last time before the switch back. This could be the last time he see Woohyun as a woman. His last time with ‘Ran Woong’ and that whole fictional life that they built.

Sunggyu hovered in front of the door, running his options through his head as he watched Woohyun slide into her slippers. She kept talking, “In any case, I’ll be at the hospital when the baby is born. You’re welcome to come too. Heeyeon-ssi said it would be okay.”

“I’ll be there,” Sunggyu promised.

“Good,” Woohyun replied, smiling up at him. That was the answer she wanted. “And if we don’t switch back after the baby is born, we’re going to tell Kiheung-oppa, but I’m hoping that the switch will happen before that. I don’t want to give birth,” she chuckled after that.

“If you don’t switch back and you tell him, what then?” Sunggyu pressed and clutched tightly onto his bag. His true question wasn’t as veiled as he thought it was: What about me?

“I don’t know. I don’t think it will happen. We’ll just have to wait and see,” Woohyun answered as honestly as she could. “We’d probably tell our families. And…”

“He might want a divorce,” Sunggyu interjected with the horribly yet hopeful thought. Woohyun appeared skeptical. “Maybe?” now he was sounding like he was begging.

“Maybe,” she allowed it. “I can take the bag now.”

Sunggyu didn’t hand it over. Instead he put the bag down and took her into his arms. She hugged him right back, her hands patting his back as if to comfort him. “Woohyun, it’s going to be weird without you,” Sunggyu admitted. “Are you sure you can’t call? Maybe we could meet somewhere, hm? I’ll treat you.”

“You’re acting as if I’m enlisting,” she joked, giggling.

Sunggyu pulled away a bit, but still held onto her. “I think I might prefer that you did,” he confessed.

Woohyun brought her hands to his face, holding it as if it were precious. “I’ll miss you too. And when I can, I’ll let you know what’s going on,” she promise.

“Thank you,” it was a relief to hear.

She pressed a soft yet lingering kiss on his lips and whispered against them “Goodbye, hyung.”

Sunggyu let go and handed her the bag. “Goodbye,” he could barely bring himself to say it but he had to before the door closed behind Woohyun. And now she was gone, possibly forever.

Possibly. There was a chance. Sunggyu didn’t know how big it was. It could be less than one percent, but there was still a chance that things could work out the way that Sunggyu wanted them to. And Kim Sunggyu was selfish enough to capitalize on it. He opened the door and ran after her.

“Woohyun-ah! Woohyun!” Sunggyu didn’t have to call her name so loudly or run so fast. Woohyun was still waiting for the elevator to arrive and was astounded to see Sunggyu hurtle towards her. When he got there, the kiss he gave wasn’t soft. He hurriedly and roughly pressed his lips against hers. Eventually he was able to rein it in, soften it, try to make it enjoyable for Woohyun rather than try to bruise her lips. So he kissed her again, gentle as a whisper and then said, “I.. I love you.”

Ding! The elevator came. Woohyun pulled herself away and picked up the bag again.

“Take care of yourself, hyung.”

And then she was gone.

---

Living with Heeyeon was honestly enjoyable. Woohyun wasn’t lying when she said it was like living with a twin. It was honestly like meeting her other half, and in many ways, she was. And like identical twins that you watch in movies and dramas, Woohyun was able to make Heeyeon do things that she didn’t want to do. Heeyeon went to the office and cleaned up her old desk. He had been doing that while Woohyun was at Sunggyu’s place. Furthermore, Heeyeon even told her mother that she’d been fired but also has a new job. It was easier for Heeyeon to say anyway. It wasn’t his mother to let down. Heeyeon said that her mother took it alright. She just wanted her son to be happy. And Woohyun had been these past few months, but she was also living a fantasy life. Reality was bearing down on them, and it arrived when Kim Kiheung landed the next day.

Somehow they were able to convince Kiheung that Heeyeon was a family friend who had been taking his wife to appointments in his stead. Undiscussed beforehand, Heeyeon said he was gay and had nowhere else to live after being turned away from home. That hit too close to Woohyun, and it caused a small grievance between them for a while. But it was also effective. Kiheung invited Heeyeon to stay with them for as long as he needed.

Having Heeyeon there was a blessing and a curse for Woohyun. She knew what to say and how to act around Kiheung with his help, but also it pained her every time to see the sadness on Heeyeon’s face whenever Kiheung’s affections was focused on her. It wasn’t like Woohyun wanted it. It honestly made her skin crawl at times, but she had to accept it.

It was a weird shift for Woohyun, pretending to be a wife versus pretending to be someone’s wife. She much preferred to be the former than the latter. Woohyun would like to say that the latter was more painful for everyone involved, but she had no idea how the former situation would turn out yet.

In any case, with each passing say, Woohyun was very eager to switch back into her old body.

And then it happened.

Nam Woohyun went into labor.

---

As much as she prepared for the moment, Woohyun was far from ready when the contractions started. It was really happening. Bobae was really coming. And Woohyun was really delivering her. This came as a shock to both Woohyun and Heeyeon. And this whole situation made the both of them anxious, especially when Heeyeon was moved out of the room and by the nurses by the ‘family only’ policy. And Woohyun was left alone with Kiheung for hours as the time between contractions very gradually shortened. It was painful in every aspect of the word. The pain-coping techniques worked, but not nearly as well as pain killers. Eventually, Woohyun gave in and took the epidural.

Everything wasn’t going as planned. But it didn’t matter. Bobae was coming however she wanted to and when she wanted to. And now seemed to be the time. Woohyun was told to get ready to push. And she pushed with all her might, again and again and again…

---

Sunggyu had been waiting for his call all week. His phone was always out and within eyesight. And his eyes couldn’t stray away from it. People at his workplace caught on quickly. “She’s gonna pop any moment now, isn’t she?” Sungyeol put very elegantly. “Good luck, bud.” Yes, as far as Sunggyu knew, Woohyun was the one who was pregnant. They hadn’t switched back. It was very possible that Woohyun would be the one to deliver the baby. And if that happened, maybe everything else Sunggyu wanted would happen too.

His hopes grew higher when he saw Heeyeon’s name flash across the screen. Sunggyu picked up the phone and heard the words he’d been waiting all week to hear: “Woohyun’s in labor.”

When Sunggyu arrived at the hospital, Heeyeon was there with his brother. They were introduced awkwardly to each other and commiserated a bit about being caretakers for the body-switchers. Although things got even more awkward when the brother tried to probe further into the nature of Sunggyu and Woohyun’s relationship. Heeyeon eventually snapped at him, “They’re just friends from work. Leave him alone and go check on Woohyun, okay?”

“Again, noona?” the brother asked. Unlike Heeyeon, the brother was considered ‘family’ and was allowed into the room. Sunggyu could only imagine how many times he was asked to check in on the room. But the brother gave in, after a nasty glare from Heeyeon, and went to go into the room.

Heeyeon was incredibly anxious. He was in and out of his seat, pacing the room. Occasionally, he’d look down the hall and search for his brother who only left a bit before. And for once, Heeyeon didn’t want to talk to anybody. He just wanted to be there in that room, but was relegated out here with the rest of the rejects, Sunggyu included.

And Sunggyu could relate. He was anxious too. His mind kept going back to all of the things he practiced with Woohyun, the classes that they attended. He wanted to be in that room as much as Heeyeon did and help Woohyun through this process. But Sunggyu couldn’t. And Woohyun had Kiheung-oppa there to help her.

Sunggyu groaned out of frustration and looked over at Heeyeon, who was standing on his tiptoes, searching for any sign of his brother. Sunggyu wondered if the feeling he had for Kiheung, Heeyeon had for Woohyun at this moment: envy. Possibly.

Speaking of possibly, Sunggyu was still holding onto his less than one percent chance. He got up from his seat and went over to the gift shop. He wanted to buy his girls something just in case ‘possibly’ became ‘reality.’ Actually, it would also be fine with Sunggyu if Heeyeon kept Bobae. After a while, Sunggyu and Woohyun could try to have one of their own. That would be better anyway. That way the baby would truly be theirs.

These selfish thoughts were running through his mind as Sunggyu purchased the gifts. And the anxiety was morphing into excitement. Sunggyu peered into the bag, checking up on the gifts and smiling to himself, unable to contain the excitement any longer. It was happening. After three months, it was finally happening.

“Sunggyu…hyu-hyung?” What? Heeyeon had never called him ‘hyung’ before. Sunggyu looked up. Heeyeon was standing in the middle of the waiting room again but not straight. He was teetering, swaying back and forth like a reed in the wind.

“Hee-heeyeon-ssi?”

“I can’t…” Heeyeon’s eyes rolled backwards as he fell onto the floor. The back of his head slamming against the ground with a loud ‘thud.’

“Oh !”

---

One last push. Woohyun was told that she just needed to give one last good push. And like always, Woohyun did her best. Her best finally paid off. Bobae was here. And Woohyun was the one to make it happen!

She had to see her, but for the first time, Bobae was too far away from her and in the arms of other people. Woohyun propped herself up to look for Bobae. “Is she okay?” she croaked.

But Woohyun didn’t get an answer. Everything went black. Then incredibly white. When he was able to focus again. Woohyun saw Sunggyu walking towards him and dumbly smiling at whatever was in the bag he was holding. Woohyun hadn’t seen his face in so long and the room was so incredibly white that Woohyun thought he died in labor. “Hyu-hyung?” Sunggyu looked up at him. Their gazes met.

First the edges of the room greyed before everything went black again, blotting out Sunggyu’s face.

A bright light led Woohyun back into the delivery room. The doctors were at the end of the bed, fussing with something. Woohyun looked over and saw Kiheung staring at the doctors, appearing worried. Woohyun tried to prop herself even higher in order to get a better look. But she couldn’t. Her body felt heavier than before. Then her vision doubled. New, foreign thoughts infiltrated her mind. It was irritating. Woohyun couldn’t focus. She couldn’t figure out what was going on. And she still could see Bobae.

“I can’t…”

She passed out right there on the bed.

---

Woohyun came to again but nearly an hour later this time. He was in a hospital bed, hooked up to an I.V. Woohyun followed the line from the drip to his hand, with his short and knobby fingers. He was in his own body again. He could sense the change now. And it felt oddly unfamiliar after being away for months. But Woohyun couldn’t focus on that for long. There was an old woman at the end of his bed. She was dressed in nurse’s clothes, but they were from another era. She smiled at Woohyun, clapped, and then walked out of the room. It wasn’t until she left when Woohyun recognized that she was the witch. And she came to see him just to say he did well.

Woohyun didn’t know how to feel about that. Okay, that was a lie. He knew exactly how to feel about the witch. He was angry at her. He was royally pissed off. The witch wouldn’t even let him have the satisfaction of holding the child. He just went through all of that pain for nothing. For absolutely nothing.

“Woo-woohyun? Is that you?”

Sunggyu was standing in the doorway. The witch had just passed him by, and he didn’t even notice the odd woman in even odder clothes. His eyes were on Woohyun.

Woohyun nodded and then quickly asked, propping himself up, “How is she?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t in the room, remember?” Sunggyu answered with an apologetic smile. He came into the room, put his bag on a table nearby, and sat down next to the bed. “But how’s your head? It hit the ground pretty hard, when Hee…uh, you fainted.”

“My head?” Woohyun repeated. His hand instinctively went to touch the back of his head. “Ah, owie!” he whimpered. It was completely tender to the touch and now Woohyun realized that, yes, his head was throbbing.

Sunggyu chuckled a bit. “How is it? Can I see it?” Even though he asked, Sunggyu was already looking at it. He had to push Woohyun slightly forward to do so. And just like with everything related to his body, Woohyun was extremely conscious of his touch. How light and fleeting it was.

“How is it?” Woohyun asked when Sunggyu retracted his hand.

“I don’t know. I can’t see anything,” he admitted.

Can’t see. Woohyun was reminded of his frustration from earlier. “Do you think we can go and see her?” he asked the other. It also frustrated too that he couldn’t bring himself to say ‘Bobae,’ but he didn’t have to. Sunggyu got it.

“I don’t know,” Sunggyu replied.

So Woohyun asked him a question that he could answer: “What’s in the bag?” he recognized it from that weird vision he had earlier. Or was it really a vision? Did it actually happen? Woohyun couldn’t say for sure. Heck, he wasn’t even sure about his own body anymore.

“Um, it’s a beanie for…the baby.” Good, Sunggyu couldn’t say it either. “It’s stupid. It’s from the gift shop here. The selection isn’t great,” he was talking quickly now. “I also bought a bracelet for whoever delivered the baby, which I guess would be you. But we’d been waiting there for hours, and it could’ve switched at any moment. But it was you! Good job, you! I knew you could do it. We’d, we had practiced it. And you did it! So, uh, do you want it?”

Woohyun took the bag and the small box from it. “I got an epidural,” he confessed as he even struggled to open the box right now. It had been taped shut. He admitted defeat. “I couldn’t do it.”

“Well, you tried your best, and a lot of people end up getting those. Not just you,” Sunggyu muttered a reply and took the box from him and tore the tape off. “Here.” He removed the lid and showed the bracelet off to Woohyun “Do you want it?”

It was just a plain, thick, silver chain. It probably was supposed to be sold as the start of a charm bracelet. But Sunggyu bought it as it was without adding anything to it. And as he said before, in the hospital gift shop, there wasn’t much of a selection. This was probably the ‘manliest’ piece of jewelry that he could find.

Woohyun took it out of the box and held it in his fist. “Yeah, I want it,” he mumbled, barely moving his lips. “I want something out of this.”

“Do you want me to put it on for you?”

“No.”

“Oh okay. Yeah, you can do it on your own, I guess.”

They were running out of things to say to each other. And Woohyun wasn’t helping the situation at all. But his frustration kept growing more and more. He hadn’t seen the child yet. His head hurt like Hell through no fault of his own. And Sunggyu couldn’t look him in the eye for longer than a second. It was all just really annoying.

He had to get out of there.

But he couldn’t. Soon the doctor was ushered into the room to run some check-ups on Woohyun and go over some possible reasons for him fainting. All of them wrong, of course. But the doctor practiced medicine and not magic. Woohyun was just glad to be given a few pain killers and the ‘okay’ to leave.

He wasn’t going to leave the hospital though. He had one last thing to do. But he was in the completely wrong ward for it and didn’t know how to get to the right one. Then magically, they ran into Heeyeon’s brother, who had been looking for them. “There you guys are! I forgot what room noona was sent to. How’s the head?” he asked Woohyun, who murmured that it was alright. And that’s when the brother said what he’d been wanting to hear since he’d woken up: “Come on, noona wants to introduce you to someone.”

---

Woohyun had a plan. It was simple, just the one step: he was going to steal the baby. There really wasn’t much more to his plan than that and that was because he felt like he had the right to the child. He’d given birth to it. It was his, fair and square.

However, his plan hit a hiccough very early, which was that he wasn’t left alone with the baby. The ‘parents’ were there, of course. The brother was too, and Sunggyu. Woohyun had half a mind to make Sunggyu an accomplice in all of this and wanted to tell him to prepare a getaway car. But given how poorly the two men were talking to each other, it was better to give up on that plot. So Nam Woohyun was on his own in this.

After exchanging pleasantries, Heeyeon offered Woohyun to hold the child first, but he gave that opportunity to Sunggyu. After all, Woohyun was planning on leaving with the baby and not coming back. So Sunggyu could hold her the once before he left.

Woohyun was glad he did just to see the way Sunggyu’s face lit up when he held and talked to the baby. Sunggyu would’ve been a good father. No, he would be. Woohyun knew that Sunggyu would have his opportunity to be one in the future. Just probably not with him.

That was okay though. Woohyun was going to be the father to thischild. And his chance was coming soon. Sunggyu brought the baby over and put her into his arms. And things felt comfortable again. Woohyun hadn’t been apart from this precious little thing for three months and it literally felt horrible to part from it, not just physically but emotionally too. This was what he felt like his body was missing when he woke up in that bed. This was all he needed. Woohyun was about to turn around and walk out of the door, but then…

“What’s her name?” Sunggyu asked Heeyeon.

“Yuhee!” Heeyeon answered proudly. “Kim Yunhee.”

Woohyun stopped and looked back down at the child in his arms. This wasn’t his Bobae. Even as a newborn, she didn’t look like him. She looked more like all of the other people in the room, everyone but him. “Kim Yunhee,” Woohyun repeated her name softly. And then she began crying.

“She probably needs her mother,” Kiheung said and outstretched his arms towards Woohyun, ready to receive the baby. And Kim Kiheung had no idea how deeply this cut Woohyun.

So Woohyun handed the child over and walked out of the room without saying anything to anyone.

He wasn’t the only one to leave the room at that time. Woohyun heard footsteps following him down the hall. He didn’t need to turn around to know who it was. And soon the man was walking by his side. “So what now?” Sunggyu asked. Woohyun bit his lip, trying his best not to scoff. Was Sunggyu really asking what should they do, together? No, Woohyun really didn’t want to be ‘together’ right now. He’s had enough for the day.

“For now,” Woohyun started. “I want to be alone.”

“Alone?”

Woohyun nodded sharply. “I need to be alone and…register everything,” he put as well as he could. His brain was tired and still throbbing. It might take him a few days to ‘register’ anything, or possibly even years. He’d gone through a lot.

“Oh yeah, you should do that, I guess,” Sunggyu stumbled through his words, as he had been doing all day. Woohyun sighed and looked over at him. There was a good few feet between them. Sunggyu’s hands were stuffed deeply into his pockets. So while he was stumbling through his words, Sunggyu’s body language spoke clearly enough for himself.

Yeah, Woohyun had to go. “Thank you for everything, hyung,” he told the other and walked away.

“Woohyun,” Sunggyu called out to him. Woohyun turned around to hear full well what the other had to say, which was: “Take care of yourself.” And this was coming from the man who professed his love to Woohyun and who, even though he hadn’t say it, wanted to marry Woohyun as a woman. And now that Woohyun was a man again, it was ‘take care of yourself.’

This was why Woohyun refused to tell Sunggyu that he loved him earlier. He fought hard against himself not to, to swallow those words down. It was because Woohyun wasn’t sure if their love was unconditional or with conditions. It was conditional, it seemed. And Sunggyu wasn’t the only one with conditions.

And so it had to be like this: “You too, hyung. Take care of yourself.”

Woohyun knew exactly how to change his life to make himself happy again and happy for real and not just for a few, fleeting months. He already had a start with the new career path, thanks to Heeyeon. Also thanks to Heeyeon, he realized the other change that he needed: he wanted to start a family.

But that change, Woohyun was really starting to doubt if he could ever have it. And he doubted if he could ever really be happy with his life. However, the life he had now was his own. And he could be content with that.