my big but adorable pregnant husband

ch 1

I hate this intersection.

In the bright morning sun, women in high heels and men in tight business suits rush past my windshield. I turn my face away to avoid making eye contact with them.

The sign at this three-way intersection to the hospital where I work seems to give pedestrians a few extra seconds. Therefore, the stopping time feels a little longer. Add to that, the side of this area, where the benches and coffee shops are always full, making the streets look even more crowded.

I'm an impatient person. I'm almost always mean to my fellow drivers and start speeding like crazy, making them barbarically honk their horns. When the vehicles in front of me are trucks and start moving, I'll immediately step on the gas pedal while thinking, "F*ck it!" or "Oh dear good driver, just kill me!", and before I know it, half of my car has stopped and I'm in the middle of the crossroad because the traffic sign was blocked by the trucks' body. That's why office workers would frown and stay away from the nose of my car.

Oh, I'm even worse at parking. I'm not good at turning right, reversing, braking, and almost always end up in the opposite lane. In short, I don't deserve a driver's license in the first place. Or well, maybe I'm actually entering a stage where I think I'm not suited for literally anything.

You see, in my entire life, in the thirty-seven years I've been born into this world, I feel that I've never been able to do anything interesting.

And no. I don't think it's my fault either. It's just that I'm not very good at living. For example, I've only been to a karaoke shop once in my life. And that was because of a welcoming party for a new doctor.

When I had just started working in a very large specialty area, a coworker came up and asked me to come to the welcome party.

"It's just a few people," he said. "No one's gonna listen to you sing if that's what you're worried about."

Sometimes I'm a very cooperative person, so I said, "Why not?" 

I don't like parties but I like to get drunk. And karaoke shop usually provides various types of liquor!

Unfortunately, I can never relate to this mysterious phenomenon called socializing and having fun with other humans. I could see that the others were jumping in front of me, exclaiming, "It's fun!" I don't understand why people can be this excited, so happy to laugh out loud. I don't understand why I can't laugh as free as them? Why am I so bad at enjoying life? Anyway, many people are uncomfortable with me. Every time I went to a drinking event, everyone would choose to stay away from me.

At that time, I just felt like there was something inside me. Like a fuse that was thinning and will eventually run out. Oh, how long until the fuse explodes?

A karaoke shop in my mind looked like a karaoke shop in a western teen movie. Where people who want to sing hold a microphone close to their mouth and awkwardly follow the lyrics that appear on a tiny screen. That kind of silliness. Well...I love to sing but I avoided the mic as much as possible. All I did was sipping tea and clapping my hands in the corner of the room.

I really regretted attending the welcome party that night. I had a grudge against my mom for shoving me with sweet teen movies that were far different from reality.

"Yuge! You have to sing!"

At the final moment of the party, a large, thick palm patted my poor shoulder again and again. It was the palm of Kawagoe, one of the interns and a former rugby captain. His pat was so violent that it shook my entire body, to the point where my glasses were almost knocked out of its place. My brain was suddenly jammed and my tongue was suddenly tied. Shortly after realizing what was happening, that it wasn't my imagination, I was held, analyzed from head to toe, and forced to stand up.