The fluorescent lights buzzed like a swarm of angry bees. My throat felt raw from crying, from shouting, from the ache that wasn't mine to fix.
"Kang—please—" I croaked, trying to sit. The nurse's hand stayed on my shoulder, gentle and useless. "Please. I have to see my baby. I—"
He didn't move from the doorway. His coat hung half-done, the shadow of a man I used to trust. For a stupid second I pictured him crossing the room, scooping me up, laughing at how terrified I'd been. I pictured him holding our child and finally being the person he'd promised.
The picture died the moment he blinked.
"You can't see the child yet," he said, voice small and empty, like someone rehearsing a line and then he smirked.
My mouth opened. "Kang—what do you mean? I'm his mother. I—" My words came out in shards. "You were there. You were with me. You promised. You said you only wanted us to be happy!"
He looked at me like I'd said something vulgar. "Promised what? Lied? Sympathy? Those aren't reliable things."
"You promised me you'd stay," I said. "You promised—"
He cut me off. "I said a lot of things when I didn't know what I wanted."
The nurse leaned closer, soft: "Ms. — We can—"
"No." His head snapped toward her, the first crack in his composure. "This is between us." He turned back to me. "Listen."
"I'm listening," I breathed. My heart felt like an animal trying to claw out. "Say it. Say you won't—say you won't do this."
He smiled, but it wasn't for me. It was a measurement. "Do you even think I'd love a worthless omega?" he asked, casual as ordering coffee. "All I needed was a child that was born a dominant omega. You were so easy to fool."
"B-but…you-"
He started laughing. "No one will ever love an omega who strips in the bar. Someone like you will never be loved."
The words dropped into me and broke something that will never be fixed. "No," I whispered, and the sound of it was a thin, ridiculous thing. "You can't mean that. You can't mean me—us—our child—"
"I mean it." He stepped closer, close enough that I could see the blandness in his eyes. "I will take the child. I will provide for it. I will make sure it's comfortable. But sentiment? Attachment? That's not practical. It's inconvenient."
"You can't—" My hands found the bedsheet and clutched it until my nails hurt. "You made me believe. You touched me, promised things—how can you pretend none of that mattered?"
He shrugged, as if shrugging could erase the memory of his hands on me. "People say things. People change. Needs change. This… this is the result."
"Result?" I laughed, a sound that felt like glass. "Is that what I am to you? A calculation?"
"You were useful at the time," he said, each word a slow, surgical cut. "Useful enough to give me what I wanted. Now I have different priorities. Children are investments. Sentiment is a liability."
The nurse stepped forward, voice shaking. "Sir—please—there are policies—"
"Policies," he echoed, like the word tasted good. "Policies are tools."
Tears blurred everything into watercolor. "So you'd take them? Take our child and call it investment? Would you look at her and—"
"No." He was colder than I expected. "I will not dote. I will not spoil. I will not stoke your illusions. You should be grateful I'm taking responsibility at all."
"Grateful?" My laugh had teeth. "You want gratitude for abandoning me while you—"
"I'm not abandoning the child," he said. "I'm abandoning sentimentality. There's a difference. You'll understand that later, if you're wise enough to stop being sentimental." He looked away, as if pitying me for my inability to see facts.
"Later?" I echoed. "When? When I wake up alone and teach him to sleep in an empty room named after a promise?"
"You're melodramatic," he said, and the word landed like a verdict. "This is sensible. This is practical. You're allowed to mourn if you need to—briefly. But the ship sails, and there's no room for clinging."
"You mean—" My voice snapped. "You mean you want me to let go. To be quiet. To disappear so the world looks tidy."
"If you're useful to me in that state, fine." He folded his hands as if finishing paperwork. "If not, then fade. Either way, I will make sure our child is… provided for."
He said provided for as if it solved everything. As if money stitched up what he'd torn.
"Is that supposed to be something?" I whispered. "Is it supposed to fix the way you set me down like a broken thing?"
He tilted his head, almost bored. "It fixes what needs fixing."
"No," I said, loud enough so everyone in the room would hear. "It doesn't fix anything. It breaks everything."
He let out the smallest sigh. "You understand, then?"
"I understand," I said, but the word felt wrong. The nurse tightened her grip on my shoulder. Outside, the corridor hummed with life that didn't belong to me anymore.
He straightened his coat, the motion final. "Sentimentality isn't necessary. You understand?"
"Yes," I whispered. I might have been answering him, or the way my life had folded. I couldn't tell anymore.
Kang's jaw tightened. "You don't have a place here right now, Seojoon. Rest. Recover. I'll arrange everything. You'll be informed."
"You'll— you'll take my child," I managed. My voice had gone thin. "You'll hide them from me."
He shrugged, as one might shrug at a weather report. "I'll decide what's best." His gaze flicked to the nurse. "Make sure he gets the best care. Private NICU if necessary. No visitors except myself and medical staff."
The nurse's eyes met mine for a breath, pity flashing and gone. "We'll take care of you both," she said, voice soft, but I could tell she'd already learned who held the power in this room.
I felt something split inside me—not wholly breaking and not wholly surviving, but the ragged, dangerous middle where the old me died and something hot and angry took its place.
"You can't do this," I said. The sentence was small, ridiculous, but it was all I had. "You can't keep my child away from me. That's— that's not yours to decide alone."
He looked at me like a man looking at a fault line in stone. "I can, and I will," he said simply. "You were never suited for what I need. That's not cruelty, Seojoon. It's practicality. I don't waste resources on liabilities."
"Liability," I repeated aloud, tasting the word, feeling the poison slide down my tongue. It wasn't just the child; it was me. My whole history reduced to a cost-benefit that declared me expendable.
Anger flared then, sharp and hot, untethered from the fear that had been my companion for months. "You're crue. You are a bastard," I spat, surprising myself with the force of it. "You used me. You put your hands in places you shouldn't have. You bought me like an object—and now you pretend you alone can decide what happens to my child? How dare you—"
He cut me off with a look so absolute it felt like thunder. "Watch your mouth," he warned. "You're weak right now. You're not in a position to dictate terms."
I laughed then, a broken, ugly sound. "Position?" I echoed. "What position do you think you bought with your money? A life? A family? You think payment equals soul?"
He flinched, a small, almost human motion. For a heartbeat I thought I'd reached him. Then he recovered—cold, impassive. "That's enough. Rest."
He left the room as he had entered so many times this last season: composed, distant, and final.
The door clicked shut. The room contracted. The nurse checked my vitals with practiced movements. Machines chimed. Time slid over me like a damp, heavy cloth.
I curled my arms around myself and trembled, not only from the postpartum ache but from the new, ferocious certainty: I would not let my child disappear because a man deemed me worthless.
But I had no plan. I had nothing but a hollow bed, bruised ribs, and a name for the worst kind of betrayal.
Inside, the baby fussed in the nursery I couldn't see.
I could hear nothing but his first small, muffled cry, and it broke me open in a new way: not only grief, but fierce, white-hot resolve.
You can't hide a life forever, I thought, clutching the sheet until my knuckles blanched. And with that thought, something in me stopped giving in.
I would get my child back.
I didn't know how, not yet. But the promise shivered through my blood like ice—cool, sharp, and utterly alive.