DASH-Chapter 9Vol 2. : Side Story -

“If you check the booklet I gave you before, there’s a method for calculating the appropriate weight gain based on your height and weight. It’d be good to refer to that and manage things ahead of time.”

With that, the doctor began typing rapidly on the keyboard.

“Eat plenty of quality protein and vegetables. As for carbs, stick to complex ones—low sugar, high fiber—and cut back on snacks. Especially anything packed with sugar: cake, cookies, chocolate.”

At that point, the doctor paused her typing. Then, turning her head sharply, she looked Jiheon directly in the eyes and said in an uncharacteristically serious tone:

“Unless it’s one of those I’ll-die-if-I-don’t-eat-it situations, don’t eat it.”

“...Okay.”

I swear I won’t eat it. Jiheon answered through eyes brimming with regret.

Having secured Jiheon’s pledge, the doctor now turned to Jaekyung, seated beside him.

“Dietary control during pregnancy is twice, three times harder than usual. The family has to help a lot. I read somewhere that Kwon Jaekyung here once polished off an entire cake in one sitting? You’ll need to hold back for now. If the husband’s sitting there eating cake in front of his pregnant partner who can’t eat what she wants because of the baby—how unfair is that? If you must eat it, sneak it outside. No—don’t eat it outside either. Sharing the suffering is the least you can do, don’t you agree?”

Jaekyung frowned deeply. He’d been completely ignored until now and suddenly got called out like this. Clearly annoyed, he didn’t respond—just lowered his head and fiddled with his phone.

Soon after, Jiheon received a message.

[idonotlikethisdoctor]

Jiheon pretended not to see it and slipped his phone back into his jacket pocket, just as the doctor spoke again.

“It’s about time you started exercising. Light cardio, like walking or swimming. Actually—swimming’s perfect. For pregnant folks, swimming is the best. And you’re already good at it, no need to learn anything new. Even better.”

Swim, swim. The doctor emphasized again.

Jaekyung, staring blankly at the doctor who kept repeating “swimming,” pulled out his phone again and sent another message.

[i take it back]

The doctor, unaware of how Jaekyung’s opinion of her was changing by the minute, got up and said,

“Well then, shall we do an ultrasound?”

The ultrasound room was right next door. Jiheon and Jaekyung entered first, and the doctor followed shortly after. She gently rolled the probe over Jiheon’s belly, and the moment the fetus’s form appeared on the monitor, she exclaimed:

“Wow. He’s handsome.”

“...Excuse me?”

Jaekyung looked at the doctor like she’d lost her mind.

“You can tell? You can see the face?”

“Of course! It’s all visible. I’ve been looking at babies through ultrasounds for years. This is the most handsome 17-week-old I’ve seen.”

As the doctor rattled on shamelessly, Jiheon quickly caught the hint she’d slipped in.

“It’s a boy?”

Instead of replying, the doctor raised one eyebrow. That expression was all Jiheon needed.

So it’s a boy...

Statistically, he’d expected as much—having a daughter these days was rarer than winning the lottery. Still, he couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed. And not just for himself. Jaekyung, while he never said it, had always given off subtle hints that he hoped for a girl.

Jiheon glanced at Jaekyung standing near his feet. Surprisingly, Jaekyung didn’t seem the least bit disappointed. Arms crossed, he just stared intently at the monitor.

“Look at that—took after Daddy, with a high nose bridge and big eyes.”

The doctor was clearly just saying nice things, but Jaekyung took it dead seriously.

“Which Daddy?”

“...Sorry?”

“Which Daddy did he take after?”

The doctor, caught off guard by the unexpected question, looked visibly flustered for the first time that day. But as a seasoned professional, she quickly regained composure.

“Well... who do you want him to take after?”

“Obviously—”

Jaekyung turned to look at Jiheon lying on the examination bed.

The doctor seemed hesitant. Maybe she thought ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ if she gave a lazy answer like, “Yeah, he looks like your partner,” and the baby came out a dead ringer for Kwon Jaekyung, there’d be drama later. Especially considering Jaekyung’s personality—he might actually come back to argue about it.

So instead, she cleverly deflected.

“What do you think, Dad? Who do you see?”

“No idea.”

His tone implied, “How could I know just by looking at this?”

Jiheon thought the doctor would finally drop the act and confess, “Honestly, I was just saying that to be nice,” but she didn’t.

Instead, her voice turned softer and more sincere.

“No, take a closer look. You’ll see it. The face you’re hoping for.”

That answer was almost like saying, “What you want is in this box”—the kind of vague promise kids fall for. But Jaekyung still stared at the monitor for a long time. Arms crossed, his face unusually tense, he looked and looked and looked.

And finally,

“I think... he looks like hyung...”

Jaekyung murmured uncertainly, and the doctor immediately nodded as if he’d found the correct answer.

“There we go.”

Now satisfied with the image he’d constructed, Jaekyung smiled proudly and turned to Jiheon. Jiheon was just about to say, “Get a grip, Jaekyung,” when the doctor beat him to it.

“Alright, since our handsome baby takes after Daddy, let’s hear that heartbeat too!”

At the doctor’s teasing voice, Jaekyung couldn’t hide his excitement and stepped closer to the monitor. But the moment the loud, booming sound blasted from the speaker, he flinched and froze.

“That’s the baby’s heartbeat...?”

Jiheon couldn’t help but laugh. That reaction—it was exactly what he’d done the first time he heard it at the hospital.

“That’s your heartbeat.”

“Oh.” freewebnoveℓ.com

The doctor, watching Jaekyung relax, said, “You’ll hear it soon—listen carefully.” Just as she said, the loud thudding gradually faded, and a much smaller, faster rhythm began to emerge more clearly.

“Is that... a train?”

Jaekyung laughed. Now that he mentioned it, the tiny, rapid, vigorous beat really did sound less like a thump-thump and more like a chugga-chugga.

“No, that’s a runaway train. Isn’t he a little too excited?”

“Well, wouldn’t you be? It’s his first time showing his heartbeat to his dad—of course he’s thrilled.”

The doctor joked again, saying the baby clearly took after his dads, with a heart and lungs made for athletic greatness.

“If you leave your email at the front desk, we’ll send you the video. Play it on loop at night—it helps you sleep.”

While Jiheon booked the next appointment and paid at the counter, Jaekyung handed over his email. As they left the hospital, he said,

“That doctor’s a bit of a character, but she’s alright.”

Outside, Jaekyung once again suggested they go look at baby goods. This time, it was a different department store. He proudly said he’d already looked up a big one with a baby section near the hospital and set the GPS himself. Jiheon looked flustered.

“We just went, like, three days ago.”

“Yeah, but now we know it’s a boy.”

Meaning they were going to look at boys’ clothes now.

Jiheon was about to say that newborn clothes all looked the same anyway—just different shades of pink or blue—but stopped himself. He remembered that he had said, “Let’s wait until we know the gender,” and shut his mouth.

Once again, Jaekyung went into the store and started piling things into a cart like a man possessed. Jiheon, already anticipating this, stuck close to him from the start and tried to stop him. “Didn’t you hear the doctor? He’s gonna be huge. Like, 6kg at birth. No—I don’t mean literally, but still! Let’s wait until we have a better sense of his size before buying clothes.” Jiheon coaxed him with every excuse he could think of, and finally got him to put the clothes back.

Maybe because he’d heard the same thing about the baby being big, Jaekyung relented surprisingly quickly. He returned all the items he’d randomly snatched off the racks—he hadn’t even “picked” them, just grabbed everything he saw—and instead started browsing non-sized parenting gear.

Jiheon told himself, Fine, let’s just look—not buy. He followed Jaekyung around until they reached the baby carrier section and stopped unconsciously. There was a display panel of a big, burly man wearing a ridiculously cute baby carrier, and somehow that made it even cuter. Jiheon, curious, found the same model and began checking it out. Then he approached a staff member nearby.

“Excuse me. Would this fit h—um, I mean... would he be able to use this? Does it come in his size?”

The employee followed Jiheon’s pointing finger—and, seeing Jaekyung bending over to inspect a baby bassinet, smiled apologetically.

“Ah... that might be a bit too small for him.”

“...I see.”

I guess we’ll have to order it from overseas. Jiheon, holding back tears, placed the adorable baby carrier back on the shelf.

“Hyung, come here for a sec.”

Unable to stay put, Jaekyung called Jiheon over again. When Jiheon came, Jaekyung pointed to an unfamiliar-looking cradle next to the bassinet.

“What’s this?”

“Looks like a bouncer.”

When Jiheon explained it was something that gently rocked the baby automatically, Jaekyung nodded, “Ah, that’s what that is.” Then suddenly crossed his arms and frowned.