There are moments in life that hit like a punch you never see coming.
Not when a client screams in your face. Not when a wrecking crew shows up late and you’ve got thirty workers standing around on your dime. No. It's quieter than that. It’s a voicemail blinking at the top of your phone while you’re parked in the middle of nowhere, trying to finish a late lunch before heading to pick up your daughter.
I had one hand on the steering wheel of the truck, the other wrapped around a half-eaten rice ball, when it buzzed.
Unknown number.
Normally, I’d let it go to voicemail. This time, I pressed play.
“Hi... this is Koh Kaori. We met last month. At that rooftop bar on Yeonhwa Street.”
I blinked, frozen.
“I—I wasn’t going to reach out. But I found your name in the Yeo Group registry, and I figured... I should say something.”
A pause.
“I’m pregnant. It’s yours.”
My heart stopped. For one long beat, the only thing I could hear was the sound of a toddler laughing somewhere in the background of the construction site.
I remembered her, of course.
Kaori had walked into that bar like she didn’t need anyone, her confidence wrapped up in a soft cardigan and a voice that made people lean in when she spoke. An omega, sure—but nothing about her had felt soft when she looked me in the eye and said, “I don’t do complicated.”
I’d laughed. “Me neither.”
It was supposed to be a clean break. One night. No names, no expectations.
But apparently, you don’t get to walk away from everything clean.
I met her again outside a small OB clinic near Mapo. Cold day. Gray skies. I was wearing the same damn jacket from that night—hadn’t even thought about it until I saw her waiting, arms folded over her chest, a scarf looped around her neck.
Kaori.
She looked tired. Not weak. Just... worn. Like someone who’d had to grow up faster than she wanted to.
She spotted me and stood. “You came.”
“Yeah,” I said, stepping closer. “You... okay?”
She nodded, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “I wasn’t expecting anything. I just thought you should know.”
“And I’m glad you told me,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck. “I have a daughter already. I know what this is. It’s not just yours to carry.”
Kaori’s eyebrows twitched upward. “You’re not angry?”
“I was shocked. Still am.” I exhaled. “But I’m not the type to disappear.”
She looked at me long and hard. “I didn’t tell you to force anything.”
“I know,” I replied. “But I want to be involved. If you’re keeping it.”
Kaori swallowed. “I am.”
There was a pause, filled with all the words we hadn’t figured out how to say yet.
“I’m not expecting a relationship,” she said quietly. “I’m not asking you to make room in your life for me.”
“But I want to,” I said before I could stop myself. “Not because I have to. Because it matters. You matter.”
She stared at me like she wasn’t sure she’d heard me right.
“I co-parent with my ex,” I added. “It’s not always easy, but it works. My daughter’s my whole world. And if this baby’s coming into that world, they deserve the same from me.”
Kaori didn’t speak for a moment. Then finally, her shoulders dropped. Just a little.
“I don’t know what this is going to look like,” she said.
“Me neither,” I admitted. “But I’m here. For the baby. And for you. However you’ll let me.”
Something shifted in her expression. Not quite relief. But something close.
The clinic doors slid open behind her, and she glanced toward them, then back at me.
“You coming in?”
I nodded once. “Wouldn’t be anywhere else.”
She turned and walked in without another word.
And I followed—knowing I’d just stepped into something messy, unpredictable, and real.
And I wasn’t going anywhere.