HCWN 09

Episode 09

“About four weeks. You are pregnant.”

That was the conclusion the doctor gave her at the hospital she had visited as soon as morning came, after spending the weekend in a state of confusion.

It wasn’t as shocking as she had expected.

Because she had already confirmed it enough herself.

The sudden, frequent hunger, the drowsiness that struck at any time, chronic fatigue, headaches and dizziness, nausea, and pain in her chest, back, and lower abdomen, along with slight bleeding.

All the symptoms that medical books listed as early signs of pregnancy matched exactly what she had been experiencing for the past few days.

“……I see.”

Yulia answered weakly.

Her condition wasn’t good to begin with due to the early stages of pregnancy, and on top of that, she hadn’t slept properly all weekend. Dark circles were severe, and her skin looked dull.

Anyone looking at her now would think she was a woman suffering from an unwanted pregnancy.

As if he had seen many women like her before, the doctor gave Yulia a brief, pitying look before speaking calmly.

“A child is a precious gift. Be happy that a lovely gift has come to you.”

“……?”

Yulia doubted her ears and stared at the doctor.

His small eyes behind his glasses were flashing with a hint of madness.

W-what is he saying? Does he think a child is always just a gift? It’s a gift only for prepared couples, not for someone like me…!

Yulia felt an impulse to spring up right then and give the doctor’s shiny bald head a good, hard smack, but she barely managed to hold back.

“Hahaha… Surely there’s no chance the test was wrong?”

Yulia suppressed her anger and asked in the kindest voice she could muster.

The doctor quietly shook his head.

Instead, he spoke again in a calm voice.

“Don’t be like that. How about discussing it with the child’s father?”

Oh, this guy, if I could talk to the child’s father, would I have come here alone!

Yulia hid her trembling fist and rose from the chair.

“……I’ll be going now.”

Barely suppressing her surging emotions, she turned around, slammed the clinic door shut hard, and walked out.

Whether this was also an early pregnancy symptom or not, she felt uncontrollable anger boiling up several times a day.

“Oh my?”

Ignoring the hospital staff staring at her in surprise, Yulia strode out of the building.

“Haah……”

Slumping down on a bench right in front of the hospital, Yulia bowed her head and clutched her throbbing head.

She was truly on the verge of going crazy.

Who was the father?

She didn’t want to believe it, but it was probably Cassian.

Not only had this body never been intimate with anyone other than Cassian, but she barely remembered the night they spent together, so she couldn’t even recall if they had used proper protection.

Realizing that fact, fear suddenly struck her first.

First, Cassian was by no means an ordinary man.

He was a member of the Tritan Imperial family, and above all, wasn’t he the male lead of The Embroidered Star of Tritan?

In a novel, there was bound to be a female lead.

She didn’t know if he had already met the female lead or not, but judging by how he had spent the night with her without any hesitation, it seemed he didn’t have a lover yet.

A male lead who fathered a child with another woman before even meeting the female lead?

No trashy novel could top this.

Second, setting aside the original novel’s setting or plot, the relationship between Cassian and her was objectively not good.

Yulia thought of their competitive relationship at the academy.

Especially Cassian – whenever he encountered her, didn’t he show an excessively cold reaction?

“Ugh……”

Yulia rubbed her face irritably.

She thought of the piles of letters stacked on her dorm room desk.

“I have five interviews scheduled just for next week…!”

Fortunately, the Tritan Empire had a very good culture and awareness regarding pregnancy, childbirth, and childcare.

Women with children didn’t easily quit their jobs, nor did they face particularly unfair treatment, disadvantages, or discrimination for that reason.

Rather, genuinely congratulating and encouraging a colleague’s pregnancy was considered a virtue of the middle class in this country.

However, Yulia was an exception.

The one-year gap that would inevitably occur due to pregnancy, whether she liked it or not, filled Yulia with unbearable anxiety.

“Above all, I am not ready to be a mother!”

She shouted, tearing at her hair.

She wanted to tell someone about this fact right now.

Yulia desperately needed comfort, consolation, and sincere advice and counsel.

Someone who knew her current situation well and could give her more realistic advice than anyone else…

Soon, a box wrapped in dark blue cloth came to Yulia’s mind.

The box containing the special tonic that Lady Catherine had kindly prepared for her.

After a moment of hesitation, Yulia stood up without delay.

She had to go to Lady Catherine.

“What… did you just say?”

Catherine lowered the ornate fan she was holding and spoke in a lowered voice.

She looked at Yulia with a serious expression.

“I…”

“Pregnant?”

Before Yulia could finish, Catherine exclaimed.

Then, startled by her own voice, she glanced around the reception room where only the two of them were present.

“You come after so long and suddenly say this? I thought you were busy preparing for job hunting…!”

“I’m sorry. You must be very surprised… You were the only person I could think of right now…”

Yulia bowed her head with a tired expression.

Catherine looked at Yulia for a moment, then patted her with a pitying face.

“Right, you must have been desperate to come to me. You did well. Good job coming.”

Yulia felt a paradoxical sense of relief in her voice, which had calmed down within seconds.

Catherine was always at the center of social circles.

Perhaps because she was used to hearing all the rumors circulating in the Tritan Empire from that social center, she didn’t seem as surprised by this news as Yulia had expected.

“You know who the father is, right?”

Yulia nodded quietly.

She didn’t have the courage to easily utter his name.

“It happened at the graduation ball, didn’t it?”

Catherine asked again.

The question of how she knew that flashed through Yulia’s mind for a moment, but it was obvious in a way.

Because that was the one and only day Yulia, who usually stayed cooped up in her room studying, had enjoyed a brief deviation.

“Yes… I don’t know what happened that day… I must have drunk way too much.”

“Oh dear…”

“I don’t remember anything after drinking. That’s never happened before… But that day, somehow, even more…”

“Somehow even more…?”

Catherine’s eyes sparkled as she leaned toward Yulia.

“Ah! Jerome was pretty drunk too, but…”

Yulia tried to preempt Catherine’s possible worry about not looking after Jerome properly.

She had to say that Jerome was also very drunk, and even though she didn’t remember clearly, she thought he made it safely to his room…

“Yes, yes, I understand what happened.”

“Huh? But I haven’t finished…”

“I can tell just by your eyes.”

Catherine cut her off.

With an unreadable expression, she picked up her teacup from the table and brought it to her lips.

“I’m so worried right now. I was just thinking about getting a job and earning money…”

“You! Is money the problem now? You can work after having the baby. Right now, you need to focus on the baby in your belly.”

Catherine set down her teacup and cried out urgently.

Startled, Yulia looked at Catherine.

Catherine continued with a deliberately firm and resolute expression.

“First, you need to tell the father. And then you must get married.”

“Marriage?”

Yulia shrieked in surprise.

Shocked by the fact of her pregnancy, she hadn’t thought about the step before that.

Me, marry Cassian? How could that possibly make sense?

“Well, were you planning to raise it alone without getting married?”

“W-well, I hadn’t thought that far yet. I was just so shocked by the news of the pregnancy…”

Catherine reached out and took Yulia’s hand, which was resting on her knee.

Perhaps because she had been holding a warm teacup until just now, her hand was very warm and soft.

“Yulia, I know you’re very shocked.”

Catherine said in a gentle voice, patting the back of Yulia’s hand.

“It was an unexpected pregnancy, but let’s think of it as a sudden blessing.”

“My Lady…”

Yulia, her hand held by Catherine, looked up at her.

“You might think having a baby is difficult and scary. But giving birth is like opening up a new universe. Everyone thinks you will teach the child, but in fact, you also learn a lot from the child.”

In that moment, Yulia felt she had made the right choice in coming to Lady Catherine.

When feeling lost and overwhelmed, she desperately needed this kind of caring advice above all else.

“There are things you can only feel once you become a mother, Yulia. Have the baby. The child will teach you many things.”

“…….”

“You are like my own daughter. I will support all the costs and help needed for the birth. Can you… think of me as your mother’s family?”

Catherine looked at Yulia with moist, red-rimmed eyes.

Soon, Yulia’s nose tingled.

She didn’t know if this was also an early pregnancy symptom, but she felt her heart softening and thought she might cry from emotion at any moment.

“My Lady… You’re right. I was so confused, but now I think I can pull myself together.”

Yulia said, catching her breath.

When she had the baby, she would show them to her first.

“There, there, our Yulia. You must have had a hard time emotionally.”