The Baby Isn’t Yours

‘What kind of nonsense is this?’

Kalia bit her trembling lips and raised her eyelids, which had become cloudy due to her fading consciousness.

‘Who inherited whose blood?’

Her sporadically clear thoughts allowed her to partially understand what was being said.

She heard the words ‘the Fairy King’s blood’ and ‘the fairy’s child’ in her belly.

‘How on earth…?’

The first thing she saw was the face of a woman with hair similar to hers.

Through her blurred retinas, she saw Gaia looking at her with concern, her gentle touch carefully stroking Kalia’s sweaty forehead.

Gaia, who had been so calm, murmured to the now-awake Kalia.

-It’s okay.-

‘What’s okay?’

Even though Kalia was clueless and indifferent, the hint was enough to understand.

She wanted to say something to Gaia, but an unfamiliar pain overwhelmed her.

“Ahh, ahh… Ah, ugh!”

The baby in her womb was wriggling.

The pain, squeezing her insides and shaking her uterus, was beyond anything she had experienced before.

Kalia clenched her fists, her face turned as pale as a corpse. She was about to extend her hand, but her blurry eyes saw him clearly.

“Si… Simon.”

“Kalia!”

Simon, who had been in a standoff with Kalexia, immediately turned around and approached her.

Kalia grabbed Simon’s shirt and tried to stand up, but she bit down so hard that her teeth made a grinding sound.

“No, Kalia. Don’t do that. If it’s too hard, bite my shoulder. Okay? Then only your jaw will hurt.”

Her trembling body, panting for air, froze as she felt him press her head into his shoulders and affectionately hold her as if he was hugging a newborn.

‘Ah, ah ah ah. Ahhhh…!’

Kalia, who had been letting out repressed moans, eventually bit Simon’s shoulder, which was pressed near her lips.

Her teeth dug into Simon’s shoulder without mercy. As painful as it may have been, Simon simply drew Kalia tighter into his embrace with a calm face.

Kalexia, who was watching them with a shaky gaze, exhaled as if distressed and spoke up in a subdued voice.

“…She’s about to give birth. I think it would be better to call a human doctor.”

As soon as the words were said, Kalia flinched.

“Hnn.”

Her eyes opened wide and her face contorted in pain.

Simon didn’t know why, he just hugged Kalia tighter. 

With her trembling body, Kalia weakly struggled to push Simon away, but her hands didn’t have the strength.

In contrast to Kalia, who had never experienced such helplessness and despair, Simon only held her more tenderly.

At that moment, something hot burst out of her.

“Ah, hnn…”

“Kalia!”

Kalia’s body sagged weakly into Simon.

Not only the bed where the two were sitting, but also Simon, who was hugging her, were soaked.

Her water had burst.

Simon didn’t care that he was getting wet, and cuddled Kalia closer, stroking her methodically and reassuringly without hesitation.

Unlike Kalia, who was surprised even in her haze of pain, Simon was rather calm, and instead, was focused on soothing Kalia.

“It’s okay. It’s okay, Kalia. Rest, it’s okay. I’m fine, and you will be too. Relax.”

Confused, Gaia, who had opened her lips as if to say something, suddenly got up and tried to find someone.

In place of Gaia, Kalexia sent his subordinate fairies out to fetch a human doctor.

“You stay here. The kids will bring a doctor.”

He lifted the magical barrier that Kalexia had put up to prevent the fairies from entering and exiting. Soon, the little spirits were called out of the room by his command.

Alen and Hemmie, who had been waiting nearby, rushed into the room upon the summons of the fairies.

However, when they saw the unfamiliar figures in the room, they hesitated for a moment.

“Who… Oh, my! Lady Kalia!”

But it was only a brief moment.

Allen’s complexion turned pale as he rushed towards Kalia, who was whimpering, ignoring Kalexia and Gaia and passing through the fairies.

“Oh no, her water broke. Hemmie, Lina! Get ready to receive the baby, quickly!”

“Yes, yes!”

From now on…

It was the realm of humans.

* * *

One hellish hour passed.

The sun was high in the sky, leaving traces of sunshine in various places in the castle, but the expressions of those who hovered in the hallway connected to the lady’s room were all serious.

Kalexia concealed his fairy aura and sat quietly on the couch in human form. Thoughts came to mind that his clan would come to find him, but he remained in his place.

Gaia, exhausted from exerting her power on Kalia, remained in her fainted state, sealed tightly in the room.

Hemmie, who had been evicted from the room, was pacing restlessly in the hallway.

Nervously biting her neatly trimmed short hair, she had completely messed it up. Hemmie was watching the room, not taking her eyes off it, as if ready to rush into the room at any moment.

In the midst of it all, a man was overwhelmed by panic.

‘How pathetic.’

Simon leaned against the wall beside the room where Kalia was moaning with a face ashen as the earth and tightly closed his eyes.

Despite being hailed as a great magician, he felt more powerless and useless than anyone at this moment. All he could do was listen to Kalia’s moans coming from outside the door and pray for her pain to end quickly.

Thud.

Simon pressed his forehead against the wall of the room where Kalia was experiencing the agony and let out a faint sigh.

He remembered the sight of Kalia in pain, her body crumbling as she held her stomach.

The shock was enough to make his mind go blank. He was so flustered and surprised that even his supposedly brilliant mind couldn’t think of anything.

But at this moment, thoughts began to stack up in his head, as if they were falling one by one.

‘Was it because of pregnancy?’

He could easily guess that the reason Kalia left was because of the child growing in her belly.

‘But why?’

His eyes, thinly open, staring at the black wall, were complex.

‘Perhaps… it’s because of me.’

He recalled the contents of the letter Kalia had left.

[…Forgive me for not being able to say anything to you. Please understand that this decision was not just for my sake.]

[I promise it was a decision that wasn’t just about me but about you, me, and everything related to us.

[Just know that I’ll come back when the time is right. With many surprises.]

‘Ha.’

He sighed in disappointment, one by one, understanding the words he didn’t comprehend before. ‘With many surprises’ in her message could mean the baby’s arrival.

Perhaps, but not necessarily. Maybe there were other reasons, other people involved… However, he had a feeling that his own thoughts were right.

And even if it wasn’t because of him, in fact, it didn’t matter. He could make all of Kalia’s reasons his own now. He organized his thoughts in this way.

As he did so…

“Wah, waaah!”

Simon’s head spun around at the thunderous crying.

* * *

“Waaah, waaah!”

Kalia looked at the bright red creature with blurred eyes that was wailing, stretching her throat to the breaking point.

Despite her strength having drained away, Kalia gathered her strength to open her eyes and gaze at the baby.

‘Oh… my goodness.’

The baby’s arms and legs remained tightly folded, unable to straighten out, probably because of having spent so long in the narrow womb.

However, the baby appeared incredibly plump, with well-formed arms and legs, and a round, chubby face.

It had grown so much in the womb.

“Waaah!”

The baby, whose chubby arms and legs wobbled, cried loudly, instinctively celebrating his arrival in this world, and gasping for his first breath with its nose and mouth.

“A very healthy baby boy, a whopping 4.6 kilograms. Haha, he’s the largest baby I’ve ever held.”

Allen handed the baby to Kalia with an even more tearful face than Kalia’s.

“Really, you’ve suffered, Miss Kalia.”

The baby was so small and fragile that Kalia was afraid to touch it too roughly, for fear that it might be injured.

“You can hold him; it’s okay. Let him hear his mother’s heartbeat.”

“…”

Hesitating, Kalia looked down at the baby in her arms.

She didn’t know what to do; if she held him, the baby might get hurt.

“It’s okay to hold him. I’ll support his head.”

“Thank you.”

Kalia held the baby against her chest, gently cradling him and gazing at him in amazement. The baby’s movements, which had been wriggling as if not knowing what to do, gradually calmed down.

The baby was still reflexively twitching, but he didn’t look anxious.

Kalia looked at the baby with her teary eyes.

‘Oh, my baby… you really were born.’

Kalia trembled with the overwhelming emotion that she was experiencing something she had never experienced before.

She was filled with vague happiness, not knowing what she was moved by. She was overjoyed, and she hugged the baby affectionately.

Now she had a real family.

For the first time, her true family, which she had never held before…

Kalia, feeling the baby’s warmth that was transferred to her, murmured with a soft voice that only the baby could hear:

Thank you for being born healthy.

Thank you for coming to me.

…Thank you, thank you, my baby.

The baby felt his mother’s breath and moved hesitantly, opening his mouth as if yawning, even though his eyes were still closed.

Kalia, who saw this, smiled widely with her tear-filled eyes.

“…Welcome to the world, Shasha..”

‘I’ll give you all my mother’s joy, my baby.’