Chapter Sixty-Eight: The Unpregnant Conspiracy
The universe had officially declared war on my sanity.
I stood in the kitchen doorway, still wearing the ridiculous fleece pajamas Taehyun had dressed me in last night, and watched the scene unfold before me like a nightmare I couldn't wake from.
Three pairs of eyes locked onto my stomach the moment I entered.
Jinwoo, sprawled dramatically across two kitchen chairs, let out a low whistle. "There she is. The incubator."
"I will END you," I hissed.
Minho, leaning against the counter with his usual stoic expression, didn't even blink. He just raised his coffee mug in a silent toast. To my stomach. I swear to God.
Junho, the absolute worst of them, bounded over like an overexcited golden retriever and crouched down in front of me. At eye level with my abdomen.
"Hello in there, little bean!" he cooed, waving at my belly button. "This is your Uncle Junho speaking! I'm the fun one! I'll teach you how to steal banana milk from your father and blame it on the servants!"
I stared down at him, my eye twitching. "There is no bean. There is no little. There is nothing in there except rage and last night's pancakes."
Junho looked up, utterly unfazed. "That's exactly what someone with a bean would say."
"I will smother you in your sleep."
"Pregnant rage," Jinwoo announced sagely, pointing at me. "Classic symptom. Minho, write that down."
Minho pulled out his phone. "Noted. Symptom one: homicidal ideation toward brothers-in-law."
I turned to leave, but Jinwoo was faster. He blocked the doorway, holding up his phone like a news anchor. "Breaking report from our inside source—"
"Who?"
"Sara."
Of course. "She's not a source, she's a chaos agent with a group chat."
"She sent us the ultrasound photos."
I froze. "What ultrasound photos?"
Jinwoo flipped his phone around. On the screen was a blurry, grainy image of what appeared to be… a sesame seed. Circled in red. With an arrow. And a caption in sparkly font: TINY MAFIA HEIR CONFIRMED.
"That's not an ultrasound," I said flatly. "That's a picture of sesame seeds she found on Google."
"Denial," Minho said, still typing. "Symptom two."
Junho popped up behind me, resting his chin on my shoulder. "So when do we get to hear the heartbeat? I wanna hear the little pitter-patter of tiny feet—"
"There are no feet! There is no heartbeat! There's nothing!"
"Symptom three: auditory hallucinations of non-existent feet," Minho murmured.
I shoved Junho off me and stormed further into the kitchen, where Taehyun sat at the head of the table, watching the chaos with an expression of deep, unholy amusement. He was still wearing the apron. The bastard was enjoying this.
"Tell them," I demanded, pointing at the trio of tormentors. "Tell them I'm not pregnant."
Taehyun took a slow sip of his coffee. Then another. Then he set the cup down and looked at me with those dark, unreadable eyes.
"Are you sure you're not pregnant?"
The kitchen erupted.
"I KNEW IT!" Junho screamed.
Jinwoo started doing some sort of victory dance that involved a lot of shoulder shimmying.
Minho added to his phone: Symptom four: spousal doubt. Highly suggestive.
"I HATE EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU!" I shrieked.
---
The interrogation moved to the living room, where I was forcibly seated on the couch like a hostage. Jinwoo produced a notepad from somewhere. Minho had his phone ready. Junho sat cross-legged on the floor at my feet, looking up at me with the earnest expression of a puppy awaiting treats.
"Okay," Jinwoo began, pen poised. "Let's go through the evidence systematically."
"There's no evidence!"
"Symptom one," Jinwoo continued, ignoring me. "Vomiting. Multiple witnesses confirm you've been sick recently."
"I had food poisoning!"
"From what?"
"I don't know—bad shrimp?"
Junho gasped. "You ate shrimp? You're not supposed to eat shrimp when you're pregnant!"
"I'M NOT PREGNANT!"
"Symptom two," Jinwoo pressed on. "Mood swings. Extreme irritability. Unprovoked outbursts."
"YOU'RE PROVOKING ME!"
"That's exactly what she'd say if she were pregnant," Junho whispered to Minho.
Minho nodded sagely. "Textbook."
"Symptom three," Jinwoo said, checking his notes. "Fatigue. Sara reports you've been sleeping more than usual and skipping classes."
"I was emotionally exhausted from being DRAGGED THROUGH A THUNDERSTORM BY YOUR BROTHER!"
"Symptom four—"
"If you say 'glowing' I will actually commit a crime."
Jinwoo looked at her, deadpan. "I was going to say 'cravings.' Sara mentioned you ate an entire jar of pickles yesterday."
"That was a snack! Pickles are a normal snack!"
"Alone? At 2 AM? While crying?"
I opened my mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
"...That's not proof of anything."
Junho patted my knee sympathetically. "It's okay, Angel. We accept you. And your tiny parasite."
"I will END you."
"Symptom five: death threats," Minho murmured. "Consistent pattern."
---
Taehyun appeared in the doorway, having finally removed the apron. He surveyed the scene—his wife surrounded by his three brothers, all of them utterly convinced she was carrying his child—and something shifted in his expression. The amusement faded, replaced by something softer. More vulnerable.
"Enough," he said quietly.
The room fell silent.
He walked over and sat on the coffee table directly in front of me, his knees almost touching mine. His eyes searched my face, that intensity that always made me feel like he was seeing straight through to my soul.
"Are you?" he asked, his voice low enough that only I could hear.
My heart stuttered. "No. I'm not."
He studied me for a long moment. Then, slowly, a ghost of a smile touched his lips. "Disappointing."
I blinked. "What?"
"I wouldn't mind," he said softly, his thumb reaching out to trace the line of my jaw. "A small version of you. With your fire and my stubbornness. Running through these halls, driving my brothers insane." His eyes held mine, dark and warm and devastatingly sincere. "I wouldn't mind at all."
Behind us, Junho fake-cried into Jinwoo's shoulder. "It's so beautiful. They're in love. They're going to make tiny violent babies."
"We're leaving," I announced, standing abruptly, my face burning. "Right now. We're moving to Antarctica."
Taehyun stood with me, his hand finding mine, lacing our fingers together. "Antarctica has excellent security. Low extradition rates."
"Don't encourage her!" Jinwoo wailed. "We haven't even planned the baby shower!"
Minho raised his phone. "I've already started a group chat. It's called 'Team Tiny Tyrant.'"
Junho bounced up. "I call godfather! I'm teaching the baby all my best pranks!"
"You don't have any good pranks," Jinwoo countered.
"I have EXCELLENT pranks!"
"Last week you tried to prank me by putting a whoopee cushion on my chair and sat on it yourself."
"That was a test run! The baby will benefit from my trial and error!"
I turned to Taehyun, my eyes pleading. "Make them stop."
He looked at his brothers, then back at me. That infuriating, beautiful smirk curved his lips. "Why would I do that? They're right about one thing."
"What?"
He tugged me closer, his arm sliding around my waist, his voice dropping to that intimate register that made my knees weak. "The thought of you, carrying a piece of us… it's the only future I've ever wanted."
I shoved at his chest, but there was no force behind it. "You're all insane. Every single one of you."
"Insanely in love with you," Junho sang.
"Insanely invested in this pregnancy that doesn't exist," Jinwoo added.
"Insanely documenting everything for the memoir I'm writing," Minho concluded.
I buried my face in Taehyun's chest, groaning. "I want a divorce."
His arms tightened around me, his laugh a warm vibration against my cheek. "Denied."
From the kitchen doorway, Mrs. Han appeared, holding a tray of what looked disturbingly like prenatal vitamins and a glass of milk. She surveyed the scene with her usual weary expression.
"The doctor called," she announced flatly. "He said to tell the young miss that stress won't help conception, and her test results came back negative. She's not pregnant."
Silence.
Then, chaos.
"WHAT?!"
"But the sesame seed—!"
"Sara LIED to us?!"
"I already bought a onesie that says 'My uncles are criminals and all I got was this lousy t-shirt'!"
Minho looked at his phone, then at me, then back at his phone. He deleted the group chat with a single, dramatic tap.
"Well," Jinwoo said, recovering quickly. "That was embarrassing."
"For you," I snarled. "For YOU."
Junho clutched his chest. "I'm emotionally devastated. I need therapy. I need—"
"You need to shut up before I actually give your brother a reason to commit murder," I snapped.
Taehyun's arms were still around me, and I could feel his chest shaking with silent laughter. The bastard was laughing at me.
"You think this is funny?" I demanded, craning my neck to glare up at him.
"Immensely," he admitted, his eyes glittering with mirth. "You threatened to kill all three of them in under thirty seconds. It was beautiful."
"I'm adding you to the list."
"Noted." He pressed a kiss to my forehead, completely unrepentant. "I love you, unpregnant wife."
"I hate you. I hate all of you. I'm moving to Antarctica alone."
"We'll visit," Junho promised. "We'll bring the onesie anyway. For when you change your mind."
"I won't change my mind!"
"Famous last words," Minho muttered.
Jinwoo draped himself over the back of the couch dramatically. "So the baby shower's off? I already hired a caterer."
"Fire them."
"Can't. They're connected."
"Everything in this family is connected to crime!"
"Yes," all four brothers said in unison. "That's the point."
I looked up at Taehyun, my eyes pleading. "This is your fault. You created them."
He smiled, that rare, genuine smile that transformed his entire face. "And I'd do it again. Just to see you this flustered."
"I'm leaving you."
"No, you're not."
He was right. Damn him. He was always right.
As his brothers continued to bicker behind us—Junho now trying to convince Minho to start a new group chat called "Operation Baby 2.0"—Taehyun pulled me closer, his lips brushing my ear.
"For the record," he murmured, "I'm not disappointed we have more time. Just the two of us."
My treacherous heart flipped. "We're never just the two of us. Your brothers are like a plague."
"An adorable plague," Junho interjected, proving he had superhuman hearing.
"A plague I will personally eradicate," I muttered.
Taehyun's laugh was warm against my skin. "That's my girl."
"Not your girl. Unpregnant and furious."
"Noted." He kissed my temple. "Now let's go hide in our room before they start planning the next conspiracy."
"Best idea you've had all day."
As he led me out of the living room, Junho's voice followed us. "We're not done discussing this! The onesie stays! IT STAYS!"
I flipped him off without turning around.
Minho's voice, calm and clinical: "Symptom six: aggressive hand gestures. Still consistent with pregnancy rage."
"I'M NOT PREGNANT!"
The door slammed behind us, cutting off their laughter.
Taehyun backed me against the door, his hands framing my face, his eyes dancing with that dark, possessive amusement I'd grown terrifyingly fond of.
"You know," he said softly, "we could always give them something real to obsess over."
I shoved him. "Absolutely not."
He caught my hands, pressing them to his chest. "Just a thought."
"A terrible thought."
"The worst." He kissed my forehead. "But I'll wait. Until you're ready. Until you choose me."
The words from his midnight confession echoed between us. I looked away, my cheeks burning.
"Shut up," I whispered.
"Make me."
I looked back at him, at this impossible, infuriating, devastating man, and for the first time, the war inside me felt less like a battle and more like a choice I wasn't quite ready to make.
But I was thinking about it.
And somehow, I think he knew.