6 years ago.
Sejin Hospital, Obstetrics and Gynecology Lobby.
People coming and going, many women and their guardians, some crying and some laughing.
Yoon Eun Jo, 23 years old, sitting alone in a corner chair.
She watched the people coming and going for a while.
“Eun Jo, how do you manage to never miss a scholarship?”
“Just by working hard.”
“Just by working hard? Hey! You not only never miss a class, but you’ve never been late either! Haven’t you ever been sick? I have such a terrible stomachache right now that I want to go home and lie down and die.”
“I get stomachaches too, and it’s tough.”
“So, you’re human too, but you’re like a machine.”
[Don’t do what you shouldn’t, and do what you must. That’s all.]
[It sounds so simple. Is that all?]
[Yes, really.]
Eun Jo smiled brightly at her friend, Sora.
Life as a battlefield against the world.
Distinguishing between what must be done and what must never be done.
To Eun Jo, it was a relatively easy task.
Because it was a matter of life and death.
No matter what happened, she always went to work on time and studied for the prescribed hours.
If she didn’t receive a scholarship for even one semester, she knew what would happen next without needing to see it.
I should earn that much, so I’ll have to work more part-time jobs, which means less time for studying.
Naturally, my grades will drop.
Then I’ll have to take on more work.
It’s a terrible outcome that I can know without experiencing it.
Even among children with well-off parents, there were plenty who staked their lives on their grades.
Since the age of 9, Yoon Eun Jo had shouldered the solitary and bleak fate of her life.
Releasing even a bit of pressure from her tightly held reins would lead to disaster.
What must be done and what must not be done.
For her, deciding these two things was a simple and easy task.
Because she had to live.
“…I did something I shouldn’t have done.”
Eun Jo looked down at the midwife’s notebook in her hand and let out a bitter laugh.
It was an absurd child born during their absurd cold war-like separation.
They had stubbornly asserted their own positions and faced each other with icy hostility, but at times, it seemed like they were eagerly craving each other, as if to say, “When did this happen?”
Love or an unrecognizable hatred, lingering feelings that couldn’t be acknowledged.
Two people ensnared by intense emotions they couldn’t comprehend repeatedly tore each other apart as if the world were ending.
However, those relentless actions were not the end but the beginning of something else.
She had stepped deeply and for a long time into things she shouldn’t have done, things she should have avoided,
And as a result, Yoon Eun Jo found herself standing alone at the edge of a precipice as a storm raged.
Things that had to be done, things that couldn’t be avoided.
Rejecting Jae Ha’s proposal to go to the United States with him, a decision that was difficult to make.
The consequences were miserable in every way.
Her short life, her arduous existence, was being shaken to its core.
For the first few days, she felt nothing.
She was just numb.
Then came doubt.
They both pursued each other relentlessly as if they were out of their minds, but Jae Ha was quite thorough when it came to contraception.
Eun Jo, waking up in the middle of the night, even ran to a convenience store to buy a pregnancy test.
The result was, as expected, positive.
She didn’t bother going to another hospital.
Her body was already different.
And the conflict began.
Could it be possible to handle pregnancy and childbirth with the body of a 23-year-old college student who hadn’t even graduated?
Should she protect it, or…
For a moment, she felt a terrifying thought.
In the dark emptiness of the night, she almost called Jae Ha several times.
But Eun Jo was indeed far removed from a simple, easy, perhaps even foolish life like that.
Even just looking at it, it was clear that what was difficult for Yoon Eun Jo was something Kwon Jae Ha couldn’t comprehend.
Perhaps they were never similar in their approach to life.
Unless they abandoned their life in Korea and left for the United States immediately.
Simply making a call because she wanted to hear his voice felt meaningless and absurd,
It was undoubtedly a “shouldn’t-do.”
Her heart raced, going up and down like that, repeating a dozen times a day. But one night, Eun Jo finally pressed his number.
However…
[The number you have dialed is not in service at the moment.]He wasn’t there!
He hadn’t even read the email she had sent.
Kwon Jae Ha was nowhere to be found!
Leaving only me like this, or rather, leaving me and the baby behind and disappearing completely from the world, could that be possible?
Foolish fear ultimately compelled her to pack her bags.
She impulsively booked a plane ticket.
That’s how, in a long 22 hours,
Eun Jo found herself standing in the heart of New York, a foreign land, barely a day after leaving her house in Seoul.
The Villainous Demon Lord Laid an Egg for Her (Female-Dominated)
Several months after transmigrating into a book, Yu Wu found herself facing the demon lord Li You, who could no longer conceal his dragon horns. With one hand on her aching waist and the other gripping a sharp sword, she stared at him.
The demon lord’s eyes were red with fury:
“This is all your doing! Today, I won’t rest until I kill you!”
Yu Wu rubbed her temples. Putting aside the taboo against bloodshed during pregnancy, wasn’t it this very man who willingly walked into her trap that day?!
Warnings:
- Male pregnancy.
- Height ratios are set to mirror typical male-female height proportions.
- Characters include a foot-loving demon lord and an eldest daughter from an immortal family’s concubine lineage.
