“What am I looking at now?”
Kaya blinked her eyes again and again as if she couldn’t believe it in her hand. It was Anderson and Janet’s wedding invitation card.
She turned her head and looked at Min-joon. Feeling a bit pressured by her glance, he said, looking at Chloe, “Yeah, I know they might get married, but it ‘s real!”
They knew that Anderson and Janet were dating because not long after the two started dating, both confessed to them right away. In fact, they were surprised a bit at that time, but they were not that shocked. Since the two had been engaged in some sort of romantic relationship, it was no surprise that they would develop a more intimate relationship someday.
But the two lovers’ marriage was way beyond their imagination. They started dating only a few weeks ago, then how could they think of getting married so early? Besides, they said they were not interested in marriage.
“Look at this!”
Chloe then touched one line of the invitation card message with her finger. It read as follows: ‘As this is a wedding of three, not two, we appreciate it very much if you can spend a more meaningful time together.’ Although the message was figurative, what it meant was clear.
“Is she pregnant?” Kaya asked as if she was dumbfounded.
Likewise, Chloe asked in an embarrassed voice, “Well, yeah, I think so. Who is pregnant?”
“Of course, it’s Anderson. Oh, no, wait, it’s Janet! Anderson can’t be pregnant!”
Although Min-joon spoke with a calm voice, it seemed that he was also quite shocked, given his stuttering tone.
Kaya said, looking at them as if she thought they were pathetic, “How impertinent! How could she get pregnant without our permission?”
“She doesn’t need our permission, right?”
“Shut up! She should have told me she was pregnant.”
“Well, she might have felt it hard to do so.”
Janet must have felt it quite uneasy to tell Kaya she was pregnant even before she got married. So, she might have been thinking of the best time when she could reveal it, and the wedding invitation card was the answer.
“She’s married…” Chloe muttered blankly again.
At that moment, Min-joon and Kaya suddenly felt strange. Of course, marriage was a joyful and happy event, but once the people around a person started to get married, they would feel that they were already old enough to get married.
‘Are they getting married because she is pregnant?’
Kaya didn’t want to mention it. She didn’t throw cold water over their marriage with a little pep talk like that. After reading the wedding invitation card, she opened her mouth in an empty voice.
“Their wedding ceremony takes place ten days from now.”
“I’m not sure if I can take time out…”
Min-joon scratched his head with a slightly embarrassing expression.
He could ask June for a vacation leave, but the question was whether he could take vacation leave in 10 days.
But the real question wasn’t whether he could take vacation leave or not. That night, Min-joon walked into the bedroom and screamed, startled. Kaya was holding his condom and stretching it from side to side.
“What the heck are you doing? It’s kind of spooky.”
“I spoke with Janet earlier. When I asked her how she got pregnant, she said it was because of a cheap condom. Her contraception didn’t work properly.”
“Really?”
Instead of answering, Kaya stared at the stretched condom again.
“Which company made this condom?”
“Why do you want to know that?”
“Man, this one stretches so easily! It doesn’t tear and it’s tough. Don’t you think you’re using a high-quality condom?”
“It’s not really high-quality… Well, a condom is supposed to be like that, isn’t it? If it’s torn and not tough enough, how can I use it? I’m scared.”
“Oh yeah, you’re right.”
Kaya sighed and fell on the bed. Then she glanced at him, putting her finger into it.
“Aren’t you wearing a big condom for your penis?”
“What do you want to say?”
“Nothing in particular.”
While saying so, she seemed dissatisfied, given that she was pouting. He wondered if she was now jealous of Janet, but he could not think so. Kaya had a dream. So, if she was pregnant now, she would lose more than she would gain.
“Why can’t I get pregnant?”
“Because you use contraception.”
“You had sex with me without a condom, right?”
“Yeah, but during your safe days.”
“Well, sometimes I made a mistake in calculating such days.”
When she said that, he looked at her, pretty embarrassed. He could not figure out what she was thinking about.
“Do you want to have a baby?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t give me such a stupid answer.”
“I really don’t know. As a chef, Kaya says no, but as a woman, Kaya thinks that is good, too. So I don’t know.”
“Don’t pretend to know nothing. You have already shown how you feel.”
Perhaps it was because she was poked and prodded by Janet’s pregnancy that she was just sullen now. So, instead of making useless comments, he just hugged her. She was also softly held in his arms.
“I think it’s too early for us to have a baby,” he cautiously said.
She didn’t refute it because she felt the same.
He slowly continued, “If you care about your immediate desire, it’s okay to have a baby. But it will ruin your career in the end. Just giving birth to a baby isn’t all there is. You have to feed and take care of the baby. If we have a restaurant, we can take care of our baby, but right now, we can’t. So, I was thinking of having a baby with you when we open a restaurant.”
“Your plan is pretty ambitious. What if we break up even before that?”
“Well…” he laughed awkwardly.
At that moment, she tore the condom while playing with it using her fingers.
“Man, that’s the only one I have today.”
“That’s fine,” she said with a smile. “It’s safe today.”
But he asked with a slightly anxious expression, “Are you sure you have not made the mistake of calculating the date?”
She didn’t answer.
***
“Okay. You can take a vacation leave,” June said.
Min-joon looked at June with a little surprised expression. When he asked her if he could attend Anderson’s wedding, he mentioned it at a time when he was busy getting used to his role as her sous chef. So, it was obviously not a good time for him to bring it up.
“Are you really okay if I take a vacation leave?”
“Let me bring Dobby while you’re away. He’s busy preparing to open a new restaurant right now, but he isn’t doing much. He will like it if I ask for his help.”
“Ah…”
“He’s my close friend anyway,” she said briefly. “By the way, I hear that Janet and Anderson are getting married.”
She asked rather curiously because the two seemed not interested in getting married. Especially, Janet made her confused all the more because she resembled Janet in many ways. In June’s eyes, Janet was not the type of woman who would get married just because she loved somebody. What if she really got married despite that?
“She is pregnant, right?”
He didn’t really have to reply because she already confirmed it in his eyes.
She said, nodding, “Yeah, that’s right.”
“How did you know?”
“Well, looking at their situation, I can see it. It will be difficult for both of them. She might not have planned to have a baby, so it is really hard to have a baby when she is not prepared.”
“That’s why I’m worried. She’s going to have a tough life as a chef at Rose Island. I wonder how she can overcome it. Have you seen any woman in a similar situation?”
“Yeah. I’ve seen some. Actually, I’ve seen such a couple three times. One of the women resigned right after she was married and had a baby, the second woman resigned with the other two women and then came back after her baby grew. As soon as she gave birth to a baby, the third woman left it with her mother and came back to the restaurant.”
“How did she go?” Min-joon asked, with some hope. However, June didn’t look good.
When he looked at her with grim expressions, she said, “I’ve never seen the three of them chasing two hares at once successfully. The first woman is just living as a normal mother as I told you, and the second woman is struggling to recover her cooking senses, and the third woman got divorced. I hear her former husband is raising the baby, but I am not sure.”
“Yeah, it’s definitely hard.”
She continued, “If Janet can make it, she is going to be a trailblazer as a woman and a chef who has successfully overcome the difficulties. Of course, it won’t be easy. That’s a woman’s life. Well, it doesn’t matter whether a woman has a chef job or any other job, but the moment she has a baby, she feels half her life is already ruined. There are some mothers who hate their children like a curse because of such feelings when they should love them better than anything else in the world.”
She was a bit choked with emotion, then she muttered sadly.
“Our world is unfair to women who want to have a dream.”
He did not reply because he couldn’t really understand such a woman’s situation.
She paused for a moment as if she was lost in idle thought about it, then looked back at him with a gentle smile.
“By the way, it must be a little hard for you these days. Kaya is giving you a lot of a hard time, right?”
“How do you know that?”
“It’s obvious. A woman gets the most sensitive when another woman around her becomes happy.”
He did not ask her whether Janet could be happy after she got married.
He sighed and said with a nod, “Surely she is. It looks like she wants to have a baby. Most of the women I know usually want to have a baby in their mid-20s, but Kaya is different. Maybe because she started a career rather early.”
“Well, is the baby really the problem?”
“Why not?”
“Why is Janet happy now? Because of the baby? Or because she is getting married? What makes Kaya uncomfortable?”
Actually, he didn’t ponder over that question for long.
He replied with a cautious voice, “Because of marriage?”
“Well, you guys have almost a common-law relationship, right? But you’re not married yet, so she might want to get married first, aside from having a baby.”
June hit the nail on the head.
“So, do you have any plans for marriage?”
