Chapter 108: The Man I No Longer Chase

How was Cha Eun-gyeol doing these days?

It would be a lie to say he had never been curious about how Eun-gyeol was getting along.

No, in truth, he thought of him every single day without exception.

There was no helping it.

From the imprinting pain to the life growing inside his womb, every part of his daily life had been shaped by Eun-gyeol.

Eun-gyeol had not shown his face in public for several months already, and the suspicions mentioned in the news earlier had been circulating steadily all this time.

No matter how much Han-geon tried to pretend he was uninterested and shut his ears and eyes, Eun-gyeol appeared in the media so frequently that it was harder not to see or hear about him.

How was he living.

What was happening that he had even stopped working.

And… how had Cha Eun-gyeol reacted to the news of his pregnancy.

Even after leaving Gangwon Province, Han-geon occasionally kept in touch with Jinwoo.

One day, Jinwoo had confessed hesitantly in a deeply apologetic voice.

He said that while talking to Cha Eun-gyeol on the phone, he had accidentally blurted out the fact that Han-geon was pregnant in a moment of anger.

Hearing that, Han-geon calmly replied that it was fine.

Now that he had left Eun-gyeol and gone into hiding, there was no particular need to keep the pregnancy a secret from him.

It was a fact that he was carrying Eun-gyeol’s child, and there was no reason to hide that truth from him forever.

Even after that, Jinwoo cautiously passed along bits of news about Eun-gyeol.

He said Cha Eun-gyeol seemed to be desperately searching everywhere for Han-geon.

He called incessantly, and sometimes even came directly to Jinwoo’s house.

Jinwoo had let out a hollow laugh and said he had never seen anyone as tenacious as Cha Eun-gyeol.

‘Seriously… he seems out of his mind.

His voice is completely wrecked.

You’d doubt he’s even the famous Cha Eun-gyeol you see on TV.

He comes over relentlessly and just keeps asking where you are.’

‘…Hyung, I’m sorry.

This is because of me.

I have no excuse.’

‘Why would this be because of you.

It’s his fault.

Haah… still, he’s not causing scenes like before.

But these days, watching him, it’s kind of… how should I put it…’

For a brief moment, Jinwoo had clearly hesitated.

Han-geon waited silently for him to continue.

‘…You might feel uncomfortable hearing this, but honestly, sometimes he looks kind of pitiful.

It’s like… he’s really fallen apart as a person.’

Still, Jinwoo added coldly that he had no intention of pitying him since he was just reaping what he had sown.

After ending the call, Han-geon let his phone drop limply.

His chest felt dry and rough in the middle.

What did it matter to him that Eun-gyeol was falling apart.

If anything, he should have felt satisfied, laughed and thought it served him right for dragging someone else’s life into the mud.

There was no reason for him to feel this strange.

And yet, why.

Why did everything feel so hollow.

Why did hearing news that Eun-gyeol was being ruined because of him not feel satisfying or cathartic at all.

That day was the same.

The day Eun-gyeol had waited endlessly in front of Jinwoo’s gate, in the pouring rain.

Han-geon still remembered it vividly.

When he shouted that Eun-gyeol should have apologized to him first, he remembered the dark eyes soaked in deep dismay.

He remembered the always-beautiful mouth trembling as it lost its composure.

He remembered the living image of Eun-gyeol’s heart being thrown into bottomless despair.

Watching that, Han-geon had been certain.

This was not a scene he had wanted to see.

He would rather have lived his whole life without ever knowing a version of Cha Eun-gyeol like that.

At times, he even doubted his own feelings.

He scolded himself, asking whether he still had lingering attachment after everything Eun-gyeol had done to him.

No.

Despite all those contradictory emotions, that was not it.

Han-geon had no desire whatsoever to start anything new with Eun-gyeol.

Even knowing that Eun-gyeol was aware of the child he carried.

Podo was wholly his child.

Cha Eun-gyeol might be the child’s biological father, but that was all.

He could hold no meaning beyond that for Podo.

He had no right to.

Because the weight of feeling he placed on the child was fundamentally different.

Cha Eun-gyeol had created a child in his womb without knowing it.

He had only found out much later, and through someone else’s mouth at that.

While Han-geon spent countless nights consumed by endless doubt, self-blame, and self-loathing, and eventually endured a long and brutal process of accepting his irrational decision and bringing Podo into his life, Cha Eun-gyeol had done nothing as a father.

Strictly speaking, it was closer to saying he could do nothing because they could not meet, but that changed nothing.

And anyway…

Hadn’t Cha Eun-gyeol once said it was good that Han-geon was a beta who couldn’t get pregnant.

He was the same man who had firmly stated in interviews that he had no interest in marriage or children.

There was no way someone like him would welcome Podo’s existence.

Even if he was searching for Han-geon, he would not be longing for the being growing inside his womb as well.

In the worst case… if they were to meet, he might even demand that Han-geon get rid of the child.

But it did not matter.

That would never happen.

Podo was his baby alone.

Even if Eun-gyeol did not welcome Podo, he would make sure the child never knew of such feelings.

He would protect the baby thoroughly from anything so negative.

Sometimes, he wondered.

If he were to meet Eun-gyeol again someday, what would Eun-gyeol say then.

Would he cling to him again like before, saying he couldn’t live without him.

Or would he finally apologize for the things he could not say back then.

What was certain was that his heart no longer reacted to the fact that Cha Eun-gyeol needed him.

Even though there was a time when that single fact alone had made him laugh and cry and live.

There were already two beings who needed him now.

First and foremost, there was Podo.

There was an overwhelming amount of preparation needed to raise a child.

Doing alone what people usually did as a pair meant he would inevitably fall short in many ways, but even so, he wanted to raise Podo without making the child feel lacking.

The other being who needed him was himself.

He had lived too long surrendering his own priority to Eun-gyeol.

Since he had left him to reclaim ownership of his life, Han-geon tried his best to be faithful to his own heart within the days given to him.

His goal in life was no longer to protect and love Eun-gyeol, but his own happiness.

So if he were to meet Eun-gyeol at his parents’ house, or if Eun-gyeol were to find him someday, he intended to tell him this as well.

Stop wasting your life and live on with dignity.

If I can live like this even after what you did to me, then what excuse do you have not to.

Stop looking for me and live as if I were someone you never knew.

I will raise my child quietly, so you should move forward toward the heights as you always have, without being held back by anything.

It was not as though Han-geon had been this composed from the start.

From the moment he left Eun-gyeol, he suffered every day while thinking of him.

Even aside from the imprinting pain that periodically ravaged his body, the very act of adapting to life in unfamiliar places gave him reason enough to resent and hate Eun-gyeol.

At times, he wanted to ask him.

Why did you treat me so carelessly.

Did my feelings for you give you permission to handle me however you wanted.

If you said you couldn’t live without me, if you said I was your most beloved friend, then why… why did you hurt me so deeply.

He wanted to resent him without restraint.

There were times he wanted to beat him senseless, just as Eun-gyeol himself had once said.

And yet, at night, he groaned under the imprinting pain Eun-gyeol had left behind.

With trembling hands, he touched his own body and helplessly thought of him and missed him.

Soaked in sweat and shaking with chills, he spent long nights that refused to pass, filled with resentment toward one man.

What slowly diluted emotions that seemed impossible to fade was, paradoxically, the child Eun-gyeol had left behind.

For the sake of the child who constantly asserted its presence inside his womb, Han-geon had to live his daily life.

Podo left him no room to sink into depression.

It did not allow him the luxury of wasting time drowning in hatred and resentment toward Eun-gyeol.

Even when he had no appetite, he had to eat healthy meals on time.

Even when lethargy tried to devour him, he had to go to work regularly to earn a living.

Even if he cried the night before while rolling Eun-gyeol’s name around in his mouth, he still had to wake up on time in the morning, wash himself, and go outside.

Spending chaotic days surrounded by laughing children, daily life passed mercifully without giving him space to collapse.

That was how time flowed.

He lived life like completing an assignment.

And as he did, the turmoil slowly settled.

Emotions that had once been vivid primary colors gradually faded under the steady drip of time.

So subtly that even Han-geon himself did not notice it, little by little.