Chapter 111: You Don’t Know Anything

Time seemed to have stopped.

Two gazes tangled with each other in a trembling silence.

Even though he had expected that he might run into Eun-gyeol from the moment he came here,
Han-geon stood frozen in place, unable to move an inch.

The Cha Eun-gyeol he had vaguely pictured in his head and the Cha Eun-gyeol standing before his eyes were completely different.

Every nerve sharpened itself toward him.

Cha Eun-gyeol’s face, his body, the unstable pheromones spilling out of him, even the faint trace of breath he exhaled.

The moment he faced Eun-gyeol’s face, Han-geon immediately recalled the words he had once said to Jinwoo, and the words his mother had said just moments ago.

Why they had compared him to someone out of his mind, to a wreck of a person—he could understand it now, painfully and vividly, even if he did not want to.

The face that had once been as beautiful as a painting was badly worn down.

The refined features themselves, despite everything, remained an unchanging constant, but the composure that had once made him look almost arrogantly confident had vanished completely.

A jawline sharpened beyond comparison, deep dark shadows settled beneath his eyes, and eyes that held only feral intensity and venom—it was enough to make Han-geon flinch.

Eun-gyeol, stiff as stone, could not say a single word.

Eyes wide open and mouth hanging ajar, his face held no calculation, no pretense.

“Choi Han-geon… you… what I’m seeing right now…”

Only after a silence that felt like eternity did Eun-gyeol speak.

His lips trembled pitifully.

“…It’s you, right?”

“…..”

“…It’s really… Choi Han-geon, isn’t it.”

Eun-gyeol hurriedly reached out with a trembling hand.

But Han-geon reflexively avoided it, stepping back.

The hand that had nearly touched him swept helplessly through the air.

Averting his gaze slightly from the despair pouring out at him, Han-geon spoke in a quiet tone.

“…My parents are here.

Let’s talk somewhere else.

If your place is empty… then go there.”

Eun-gyeol, who had been standing dazed, nodded urgently.

Despite the short distance, he walked obsessively close at Han-geon’s side.

When Eun-gyeol finally entered the quiet house with Han-geon, he couldn’t even think to close the door and just stared at him.

His trembling gaze drifted down like falling petals and stopped at one place.

“Choi… Han-geon, you… that… your stomach…”

Eun-gyeol’s eyes shook as if he had seen a ghost.

The moment Han-geon heard his unsteady voice, the cold words—it’s good that you’re a beta who can’t get pregnant—brushed past his ears.

The aching pain throbbing in his chest was something the child must not know.

Before Eun-gyeol could say anything else, Han-geon spoke first.

“…That’s right.

It’s your child.”

“Choi Han-geon, you… how could you… all this time, carrying a child, alone—!”

Eun-gyeol’s face twisted frighteningly.

As he hurried a step closer, Han-geon stepped back to avoid him.

“Don’t worry.

I won’t… hold you responsible.”

He had already endured his parents’ despair once, the kind that made it seem like the world had collapsed just from the child’s existence alone.

He did not want to show the child any more reactions that rejected Eun-gyeol’s existence.

More than anything, Cha Eun-gyeol was the child’s biological father.

If Eun-gyeol were to despair and rage over the pregnancy in front of him and the child, Han-geon felt he would not be able to bear that.

“…What?”

“Even if I did run into you here…

it’s true I came because I didn’t want to hide it unnecessarily.”

Han-geon’s calm voice settled softly between them, like layers of fallen leaves.

“…That’s all.

You don’t have to worry.

This child won’t interfere with your life.

I have no intention of forcing anything related to the child on you.

If you’re worried your career might be ruined—”

“Choi Han-geon!”

Eun-gyeol’s shout crashed down like thunder, cutting Han-geon off.

His rough, low voice, thick with tears, split uselessly in the air.

“…How could I—how could I ever…”

Like a mortally wounded animal limping, Eun-gyeol parted his trembling lips.

“How could I say something like that to you…

That it would interfere with my life?

That it would ruin my career?

f*ck, right now… right now… is that really the problem?”

“Cha Eun—”

“Right now!

After months, you show up like this, and that—that’s what you think the problem is?!”

Snarling as he lashed out, Eun-gyeol covered his face with one hand.

The masseter muscle stood out sharply along his clenched jaw.

The hand rubbing his forehead impatiently swept his bangs back, then fell away.

At that moment, seeing his exposed face, Han-geon’s eyes widened.

Eun-gyeol was crying.

Tears rolled down his pale cheeks without resistance.

In an instant, with thick tracks of tears carved into his face, Eun-gyeol twisted his expression and stared at Han-geon.

Their gazes tangled together amid hot, uneven breaths.

Slowly, Eun-gyeol’s gaze dropped downward.

Han-geon stared in shock at the man who had dropped to his knees before him.

“…Cha Eun-gyeol.

What are you doing right now—”

“I’m sorry.”

“…..”

“I should have said it earlier…

There were so many moments when I should have apologized to you, but I couldn’t say it even once…

I—I’m sorry.”

He was so shocked that his thoughts completely stopped.

The man kneeling weakly before him, offering a sincere apology, was entirely different from the Cha Eun-gyeol Han-geon had known for seventeen years.

The last day he had seen him—what had Cha Eun-gyeol been like then?

He had come looking like he was about to die, crying, yet still unable to say he was sorry.

All he had done was repeat that he needed Han-geon, begging him to come back.

Han-geon had felt sick to the end, seeing how selfish he was.

That was the kind of person he had been—someone who only knew himself.

And yet, now…

“So… I know it’s shameless, but… please give me one chance.”

Tears streamed endlessly, dripping from his chin to the floor.

Even so, the pleading gaze he lifted toward Han-geon did not waver.

“I want to make up for the wrongs I did to you.

The wounds I inflicted on you with my own hands…

I want to hold them, to heal them.

I’ll live my entire life in repentance.

I’ll live only for you.

So please…”

“…Cha Eun-gyeol.”

“Don’t say no.

Please—don’t say that.”

With his eyes closed, Eun-gyeol slowly shook his tear-stained face.

His broad chest trembled miserably.

When he opened his eyes again, he crawled closer on his knees, desperate.

His hand slowly reached out and touched Han-geon’s stomach, as if caressing something sacred.

Han-geon stood there, unable to step back.

“Han-geon.

The baby… our baby is here too.

Yours… and mine.”

The hand resting on the rounded curve shook violently, visibly so.

“So we should… raise them together.

This isn’t something someone as innocent as you should bear alone…”

“…Get up.

I don’t want this.

And…”

His calm voice gently cut through the rambling, trembling one.

“This child is mine.

You don’t have the right to call them our child.”

The dark eyes, soaked in tears and desperately awaiting Han-geon’s response, fell endlessly into the abyss.

“…Han-geon.

Han-geon…”

“Why is this your child and mine?

Just because you helped make them, does that give you the right to call them yours?”

At Han-geon’s words, which drove him to the edge of a cliff, Eun-gyeol could only stare up at him, speechless.

“You… don’t know anything about this child.”

Han-geon’s voice, calm until now, began to tremble.

“Do you even know whether this baby is a son or a daughter?

When they were conceived… how many weeks they are?

Their name?”

“…Han-geon.

I—I’ll start now—”

“How strong the fetal movements are, when they react the most violently…

how small their head is, whose legs they took after to be so long…”

His vision blurred.

A salty taste spread across his moving lips, and only then did Han-geon realize he was crying.

His throat bobbed painfully as he swallowed back his tears.

“How I… how I decided to stay with this child…”

“…..”

“You… don’t know anything.”

He had thought that if he met Eun-gyeol, he would say everything he wanted to say as calmly as possible.

He had never wanted to show something as pathetic as this.

But no matter how hard he clenched his teeth and tried to hold back his sobs, it was useless.

Once unleashed, the emotions poured out like a burst dam.

The endless days and nights he had spent alone, carrying the child, suffering while rolling Eun-gyeol’s name over and over in his mind, made him cry.

They kept him from being shaken even by the sight of Cha Eun-gyeol kneeling and begging before him.

“I’ll do better from now on.

I won’t ask you to forgive me.

Just let me be the child’s father.

If you don’t want me coming around, I’ll support from afar.

So please… at least let me stay in contact—”

“No.”

Han-geon’s tear-choked voice cut him off, firm and unyielding.

“I don’t need your support.

I’ll raise the child on my own, no matter what.”

“Choi Han-geon!”

“I… don’t want to be entangled with you anymore.”

Tears streamed down his cheeks, over his jaw, down his neck.

Han-geon clenched his fists, gritted his teeth, and glared at him.

These were emotions he had vowed to bury forever after leaving Cha Eun-gyeol.

There was no point in digging them up now.

He knew that—and yet, he couldn’t control them.