TASO | YG [✔]

12. Beomgyu/Yeonjun

Beomgyu

They called the place The House, and it was indeed a house—old and rickety, right outside a small town in the middle of nowhere.

Beomgyu hadn't even had the chance to notice the town's name or the look of it. He only knew they'd driven down a wind-swept main street and then turned away. He'd arrived at The House in the middle of the night, groggy and disoriented, terrified and shaky, and was immediately whisked to the second floor and given a bed in a small room.

He'd slept, fitfully, unable to find a comfortable position, the baby kicking a lot. When he finally drifted off, he was roused in the early morning by a burly beta who pulled off the covers and hauled him out of bed.

"Bath time!" he announced, dragging an exhausted Beomgyu along. "And new clothes."

Beomgyu was numb. He let the orderly undress him and shove him under the water spray, then dress him in a simple gray robe. He wasn't just tired. He was so scared, so helpless, that he couldn't seem to be able to catch his breath.

"Please," he whispered after the orderly had dressed him in the scratchy fabric. "I can't... you can't just sell me. I'm a person. I'm..." He put his hands on his belly. "I'm pregnant. Please."

"That's not up to me," the orderly said and turned away. "Here, brush your hair."

Beomgyu received the hairbrush with shaking hands. "Please..."

"Got to get you pretty for anyone interested. Of course, the auction doesn't happen here, but it makes it easier to fix you up once we're there."

"Where? Where will you take me?"

"Ah." The orderly clucked his tongue. "Can't tell you. Location's a secret, of course."

Of course.

Nobody was coming for him. In the space of night, his life had come crashing down once more. Finding out he was pregnant had been a shock, but it had been a sweet one. Beomgyu wanted this baby. He loved it—him—already.

But he didn't know who might buy him, how they'd treat him, or his baby. And this time he couldn't run away.

"Come, now, time to eat something. You look a bit pale. Don't want you passing out in front of the bidders."

Like a puppet with his strings cut off, Beomgyu once more allowed the orderly to drag him away. He wanted...

He wanted Yeonjun. Yeonjun's arms around him. His scent. His strength.

Yeonjun hadn't stopped sending him packages and messages. Quanrui... was a sad case of a person. Beomgyu wanted to throttle him.

But what he mainly wanted was to sleep and shut the world out.

*****

Sleep wasn't allowed, though. After forcing down a few bites of the stew he was given in an empty, dusty kitchen, Beomgyu was whisked away to a small room that looked like an office.

A wide-shouldered man sat there, dressed in a suit and getting up when Beomgyu entered but his smile was shallow and perfunctory, no emotion reaching his eyes.

"Hi," he said, "I'm a doctor. Not an obstetrician, I'm afraid, but I'm familiar with pregnancies. Undo your robe."

Beomgyu actually took a step back. "No." The man scared him.

The man rolled his eyes. "I won't bite. I'll only examine you. I mean, look at you, you're already round. How far along are you?"

"Two months and a half," Beomgyu whispered.