Jun had a life—one he had worked hard at establishing, and one in which he was tremendously successful. It had been Miles’s own negligence that caused all this to happen. He would not jeopardize Jun’s future by burdening him with such a tremendous obligation. If he was going to do this—which he hadn’t decided yet, because he still had a few more days, okay, get off his back—he was going to do it alone.
His next text was easy to send, but the words it contained were hard ones to admit.
Miles:I really appreciate that, I mean it, but it is too late. I fucked the whole thing up worse than you could possibly imagine, and I doubt there’s any coming back from it at this point. I don’t just mean not calling him or whatever. I made a big mistake, and I can’t burden him with it. Fairy tales are for storybooks, it seems.
He was surprised when Jun’s reply came less than five minutes later. Apparently, sleep wasn’t eluding only him tonight.
Whatever. In for a penny and all that.
Jun:You’re being way too hard on yourself. What kind of a mistake could you have made that would change this guy’s mind? I doubt there’s anything you could have done that would be bad enough
Miles:Can I ask you a hypothetical question?
Jun:Yeah, shoot
Miles:What would you do if you hooked up with a total stranger and they assured you that it was safe to… you know, not use anything. But then you find out months later that he’s actually…
Miles:Omgggg, this is so stupid lol. I can’t even say it when I’m pretending it’s a hypothetical situation. I haven’t said it out loud to anyone. Nobody knows.
Miles:I am one hot fucking mess and I am so unbelievably screwed.
Jun:Wait, did you give this guy an STD? No shame or anything, but if you did, you need to call him so he can get himself checked out
Miles:Yeah, not *that* consequence they talk about in sex ed class. The *other* one. God, I’m so pathetic I can’t even type it. I’m…
Pregnant.
Those three dots sat as heavily in Jun’s stomach as the dumbbell at his feet. Unable to focus on his workout anymore—not that he’d been focusing much on it in the first place—he went to sit on the bench by the wall and slumped against it, letting the back of his head make contact. The cold pressure of bare wall on his flushed skin made him aware of how sweaty he was, but he couldn’t bring himself to move, let alone towel off.
Pregnant.
Kilometers waspregnant.
It shouldn’t have bothered him—the dude was just an internet stranger—but in the wake of the news, Jun was very much not okay.
His hands shook as he composed his response.
Jun:Fuck, dude. Are you all right?
Kilometers:I feel like I should say yes, bc you’re an internet stranger and did not sign up to hear about my baggage, but also since I have literally no one in my real life to talk to about this (bc I am completely HUMILIATED), I’ll just be honest and say that no, I’m not really okay at all. Like, I have so many different emotions going through me at any given time, I don’t know what exactly it is I’m feeling, but I know that whatever it is, it’s not great.
Yeah, of course that was the answer. It was a dumb question to ask. Kilometers had been dropping hints since the beginning of their acquaintanceship that he wasn’t in a great headspace, but it was the only thing Jun could think to ask. He was too dizzy and disoriented to be tactful or to know the right words to say. It felt very much like the world had been yanked out from under his feet and he was falling down and down and down into an endless void.
And not just because he knew what it was like to have to shoulder such tremendous, terrifying responsibility alone.
No.
The reason his stomach was in knots was because the same thing could have easily happened to Miles.
“Christ,” Jun muttered, groping blindly across the bench for his towel. When he found it, he snatched it up and dragged it over his face, but it was no more sobering than the cold wall had been.
He couldn’t get the idea of Miles suffering in silence out of his head any more than he could get it out of his broken heart.
“I’m back with your dinner, Mr. Park,” came Stella’s voice from the doorway. He heard her step into the room, then stop. “Jun… are you okay?”
Fuck.
Jun pulled the towel off his face and—with some effort—lifted his head. He felt out of body, but he tried his best to look grounded. “I’m fine. Just… went a bit too hard with cardio, and it’s got me feeling nauseous. Do you think you could leave dinner in the kitchen? Don’t worry about keeping it warm. I’ll heat it up when I’m ready to eat.”
