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The fertility rate hit 0.72 before anyone started panicking.
Seungmin remembered the headlines from when he was still an undergraduate—grim black text on news apps that his classmates swiped past with the same disinterest they showed weather reports. South Korea's Birth Rate Hits Historic Low. Population Decline Accelerates. Government Measures Fail to Stem Tide.
He'd been twenty-one, hunched over developmental biology textbooks in a Seoul National University library that stayed open until midnight, and he'd thought: Someone will fix it.
Someone didn't.
By the time Seungmin completed his doctorate in reproductive endocrinology, the fertility rate had dropped to 0.59. Demographers stopped using words like "decline" and started using words like "collapse."
Maternity wards across the country were consolidated, then closed. Elementary schools stood empty in suburbs where young families once queued for enrollment. The government's cash incentives for childbirth—once a generous million won per child—had been doubled, tripled, quintupled, and still the numbers fell.
The reasons were documented exhaustively. Economic pressure. Housing costs have made homeownership a fantasy for anyone under forty. A work culture that left no room for child-rearing. Women who had simply, collectively, looked at the mathematics of their lives and opted out.
"We're watching the end of a demographic," a statistician said on a broadcast Seungmin half-watched while grading papers. "At this rate, within three generations, the South Korean population will be a fraction of its current size. This isn't a decline. This is extinction."
The word landed like a stone in water. Extinction. Not metaphorical. Not alarmist. Mathematical.
It was at a symposium in Daejeon—three hundred researchers packed into a conference hall that smelled like stale coffee and ambition—that the question was first posed publicly.
Dr. Yoon Seungho, a geneticist from KAIST, stood at the podium during the open Q&A and adjusted his glasses with the particular weariness of a man who had stopped caring about propriety. "We've spent fifteen years trying to convince women to have more children. Cash incentives, parental leave reforms, housing subsidies. None of it has worked. The birth rate continues to drop." He paused, scanning the room. "So I'll ask the question no one wants to ask: if women won't carry the burden—why don't the men?"
Silence. Then laughter—nervous, dismissive, the kind that fills a room when someone says something too provocative to take seriously.
But Yoon didn't laugh. He waited.
"The technology exists," he continued, pulling up a slide. Gestational surrogacy. Uterine transplants. Hormonal induction protocols that had been theoretical a decade ago but were now—barely, experimentally possible. "We have the biological framework. We have the surgical techniques. What we lack is the will to develop it."
A colleague of Seungmin's—a genial man named Dr. Ahn who worked in obstetrics—leaned over and muttered, "He's lost his mind."
Seungmin didn't laugh.
He was staring at the slide, at the diagram of a male pelvic cavity with a transplanted uterus rendered in clinical blue, and something clicked into place in his mind.
Not outrage. Not disgust. Fascination.
Because Yoon was right. The technology did exist. And the problem wasn't going away.
The movement started small.
Academic papers with titles like Male Gestation as Demographic Intervention and Hormonal Protocols for Ectopic Uterine Development in Male Subjects appeared in niche journals, initially dismissed as speculative fiction dressed in scientific language. Online forums debated the ethics—was it bodily autonomy or bodily exploitation? Was it progressive or dystopian?—while politicians avoided the topic entirely, terrified of alienating what remained of their voter base.
But the numbers didn't lie. South Korea was dying. Not metaphorically. Literally.
And when the fertility rate hit 0.51—when a prominent demographer published a paper titled The Extinction Timeline that projected South Korea's population would halve within forty years—the conversation shifted.
Public opinion, which had been firmly against male pregnancy research, began to fracture. Young men who had grown up watching their country hollow out started asking why they shouldn't carry the weight. Feminist organizations, initially divided, found common ground: if the burden of reproduction had always fallen on women, then redistributing it wasn't exploitation—it was equity.
The protests were massive. The counter-protests were louder. Cable news ran segments every night. Social media became a war zone.
And then, after a vote that split the National Assembly down the middle, the Male Gestation Initiative passed.
Government funding—substantial, serious, billions of won—poured into research institutions across the country. The National Institute of Reproductive Sciences in Seoul became the initiative's flagship. Top researchers were recruited, poached, promoted. What had been fringe science became national priority.
Seungmin, fresh from his postdoc and looking for a position that would let him do something that mattered, accepted a junior researcher role at the Institute without hesitation.
He met Hwang Hyunjin on his first day.
The lab was a controlled chaos of equipment, data servers, and whiteboards covered in molecular structures and hormone cascades. Seungmin arrived early—habitually, pathologically early—and found only one other person in the room: a man about his age, tall and lean, with dark hair that fell just past his ears and a face that belonged on a magazine cover rather than behind a microscope.
He was annotating a printout with quick, precise strokes, and he didn't look up when Seungmin entered.
"Kim Seungmin," Seungmin said, extending his hand. "New hire. Reproductive endocrinology."
The man finally glanced up. His eyes were dark, assessing, and there was something in his expression—a flicker of interest that lasted a fraction of a second before it was smoothed into professional neutrality.
"Hwang Hyunjin. Developmental biology." He shook Seungmin's hand. His grip was firm, his palm warm. "You're the one from SNU. Your dissertation on progesterone receptor modulation was impressive."
Seungmin blinked. "You read my dissertation?"
"I read everything that comes out of this field." Hyunjin released his hand and turned back to his printout. "We're going to be working together. I like to know who I'm working with."
It was practical. It was professional. It was exactly the kind of thing a colleague would say.
Seungmin didn't think about the warmth of his palm for the rest of the day.
He didn't.
The MP-7 project was Hyunjin's brainchild.
Not exclusively—science is never solitary—but the core hypothesis was his. Previous approaches to male gestation had focused on surgical intervention: uterine transplants, artificial wombs, and mechanical support systems. They were invasive, expensive, and carried complication rates that made clinical trials ethically impossible.
Hyunjin's approach was different. Radical. Chemical.
"What if we don't transplant," he said during an early project meeting, his voice calm and measured while the senior researchers frowned at his audacity, "but induce? A serum that reprograms the body's existing cellular structure to form a functional uterus. Hormonal priming, genetic unlocking, tissue differentiation—all triggered chemically. No surgery. No rejection. The body does the work itself."
Dr. Park Minsoo, the project lead, stared at him. "You're talking about rewriting human biology at the cellular level."
"Yes."
"That's not a serum. That's a transformation."
Hyunjin smiled—just barely, just the corner of his mouth. "Isn't that what we need?"
Seungmin, seated beside him, watched the exchange with a strange mix of skepticism and admiration. The idea was absurd. It was overreaching. It was the kind of hypothesis that ended careers if it failed.
But if it worked—
He looked at Hyunjin's profile, at the certainty in his expression, and thought: This man is either a genius or a madman. A man who believed that if the science was sound enough, ethics would find a way to follow.
He would later decide it was both.
They fell into a rhythm.
Seungmin was meticulous—data-driven, methodical, the kind of researcher who triple-checked results and refused to publish until he was certain. Hyunjin was intuitive—creative, bold, willing to chase hunches that more cautious scientists would dismiss. Together, they balanced: Seungmin kept Hyunjin grounded; Hyunjin pushed Seungmin beyond his comfort zone.
The director called them "the perfect team" in one meeting, and the phrase lodged in Hyunjin’s chest like a hook. The work, the project, Seungmin—they all blurred into one thing in his mind. Losing any part of it started to feel like losing all of it.
The first few months were grunt work. Refining the serum's base formula. Testing on tissue samples. Adjusting hormone concentrations. Running trial after trial after trial, most of which failed.
They worked late. They worked weekends. They ate takeout in the lab while data compiled and argued about methodology while coffee went cold.
"You're too conservative," Hyunjin said one night, three months in, when Seungmin vetoed a concentration increase he deemed unsafe.
"And you're too reckless." Seungmin didn't look up from his monitor. "The cellular rejection rate is already at 40%. Increasing the dose without understanding the mechanism is just throwing spaghetti at the wall."
"Sometimes the wall needs spaghetti," Hyunjin said. "Nothing changes if we sit here being careful forever."
Seungmin rolled his eyes, but Hyunjin didn’t laugh it off the way he usually did. In his head, he was already rewriting the argument in cleaner terms: controlled risk, necessary sacrifice, progress that couldn’t happen any other way.
"That's the worst metaphor I've ever heard."
"It worked, didn't it? You're smiling."
He was. Seungmin looked away, back at his data, and told himself the warmth in his chest was just the coffee.
A few months of patience brought their first real breakthrough.
The serum—now designated MP-7 after seven major reformulations—successfully induced endometrial tissue growth in a male rat. The tissue was functional. The hormonal response was stable. The rejection rate had dropped to 22%.
They published.
The paper made waves—small ones, in the niche community of reproductive researchers, but waves nonetheless. Dr. Park presented their findings at an international conference, and for the first time, the MP-7 project attracted serious attention.
Funding increased. Staff expanded. The lab upgraded to a larger facility with better equipment and more test subjects.
And Seungmin, who had spent his career feeling like a competent but unremarkable scientist, suddenly found himself at the forefront of research that could genuinely change the world.
He didn't sleep much those days.
There was too much to do, too much data to analyze, too many variables to control. But when he did sleep—curled on the lab couch with his lab coat balled under his head—he slept deeply, dreamlessly, with the satisfaction of a man doing exactly what he was meant to do.
He didn't notice the way Hyunjin watched him.
Hyunjin timed the rise and fall of Seungmin’s chest without meaning to, counted the seconds between each breath like he was recording data.
He told himself it was just habit, the researcher in him cataloguing everything. It was easier than admitting he was memorizing the exact weight of Seungmin’s exhaustion, the way his body gave in only when it decided it was safe.
Hyunjin had always been good at wanting.
Not at having—wanting.
Every big thing he'd reached for—his first lab placement, his first major grant, the mentor he’d almost followed overseas—had been taken away by someone else's signature on a form. Reassignments. Budget cuts. "Strategic realignments." Wanting hurt, but at least it was his.
The ache of desire without fulfillment. The slow, controlled burn of obsession kept carefully below the surface, where it couldn't interfere with his work, his composure, his carefully constructed image.
He'd wanted Seungmin since that first handshake.
The warmth of his palm. The sharp intelligence in his eyes. The way he argued—precise and relentless and utterly without malice, like the act of disagreement was itself a form of intimacy.
He'd told himself it was professional admiration.
Then he'd told himself it was a crush—harmless, manageable, the kind of thing you nursed quietly until it faded. Then he'd stopped telling himself anything at all and simply accepted that this want was permanent, that it had burrowed into him like a second skeleton, that no amount of professional distance or rational self-talk was going to dislodge it.
He was fine. He was functional. He was the best partner Seungmin could ask for—reliable, brilliant, always there when needed.
And if sometimes, when Seungmin fell asleep at his desk, Hyunjin stood too close and breathed in the scent of his hair—well. No one had to know.
Month ten. Subject 19—a volunteer in the first human trial—was four months pregnant. Healthy. Stable. The first success case that proved MP-7 could work.
The lab celebrated. Champagne in plastic cups, laughter that bounced off sterile walls, the giddy relief of people who had spent years failing and finally, finally succeeded.
Seungmin grinned—rare, genuine, transforming his usually composed face into something luminous—and Hyunjin clinked his cup against Seungmin's and thought: I helped create life.
He also thought: I created life with him. Not on paper, not in co‑authored drafts, but here, in this body, they’d rewritten together.
The thought came unbidden. It always did. But this time, with the champagne bubbling in his blood and Seungmin's shoulder warm against his, it didn't feel like fantasy. It felt like a possibility.
He looked at Seungmin—really looked, the way he never allowed himself to in daylight—and saw the curve of his jaw, the length of his neck, the way his collar pressed against his throat.
He would be beautiful pregnant.
Hyunjin looked away. He drank his champagne. He told himself to stop.
He didn't.
The news coverage intensified.
MP-7 went from academic curiosity to a national headline. Politicians who had once opposed the Male Gestation Initiative now scrambled to claim credit for its success. Conservative pundits railed against "unnatural interference"; progressive voices hailed it as "the future of reproductive justice." The public was divided, fascinated, horrified, hopeful—all at once.
And through it all, Seungmin and Hyunjin kept working.
There were still problems.
The serum's success rate wasn't high enough for widespread use. Side effects were unpredictable. The biochemical dependency—still poorly understood—meant that subjects required regular insemination from the genetic donor to maintain pregnancy stability. It was a flaw, a significant one, and solving it became the project's next major objective.
But for now, in this moment, they had achieved something extraordinary.
Seungmin stood in the lab at 2 AM, long after the others had gone home, staring at Subject 19's latest ultrasound. The heartbeat was strong. The fetus was developing normally. A man—a man—was carrying a child, and it was working.
He heard footsteps behind him. Didn't need to turn to know who it was.
"You should go home," Hyunjin said softly. "You've been here for sixteen hours."
"So have you."
A pause. Then Hyunjin stepped beside him, close enough that Seungmin could feel the warmth radiating from his body. They stood together in the blue glow of the monitor, watching the heartbeat pulse on the screen.
"We did this," Seungmin said quietly.
"We did."
And for a moment—just a moment—Seungmin felt something he couldn't name. Something warm and terrifying and impossibly tender. He looked at Hyunjin's profile in the monitor's light and thought: I trust this man with everything.
He had no idea how true that would become.
The first time Hyunjin noticed it, they'd been working together for eight months.
Seungmin was hunched over a microscope, the blue glow of the monitor painting shadows across his face. His brow was furrowed in that particular way it did when the data didn't align with his hypothesis—the way that made Hyunjin want to smooth the crease between his eyebrows with his thumb.
"The cellular rejection rate is still too high," Seungmin muttered, not looking up. "Subject 8's endometrial lining is deteriorating faster than we can stabilize it."
Hyunjin set down his coffee. "Increase the progesterone analog?"
"Tried that. It accelerated the immune response." Seungmin finally glanced at him, and something in Hyunjin's chest tightened the way it always did when those sharp eyes focused on him. "We're missing something fundamental about the hormonal cascade."
They were six months into the MP-7 trials. Six months of late nights and shared meals, and Seungmin's dry humour cutting through Hyunjin's tendency toward dramatic frustration. Six months of watching Seungmin's elegant fingers annotate data points, of hearing his voice go rough with exhaustion at 3 AM, of wanting in a way that Hyunjin had learned to push down into a small, tight ball in his stomach.
He was professional. He was fine.
The tenth month rolls around.
They'd celebrated Subject 19's successful implantation with cheap takeout in the lab, sitting on the floor because both their offices were piled high with paperwork. Seungmin had laughed—actually laughed—when Hyunjin accidentally dumped sweet and sour sauce on his grant application.
"You're a disaster," Seungmin said, but his voice was warm. Fond.
Hyunjin memorized the sound of it.
"You love it," he heard himself say, and then froze, because that was—that was too close to something he shouldn't acknowledge.
But Seungmin just rolled his eyes. "I tolerate it. There's a difference."
Later that night, alone in his apartment, Hyunjin stared at the ceiling and thought about the way Seungmin's shoulder had pressed against his while they ate. The casual intimacy of it. The way Hyunjin had wanted to turn his head and press his nose to Seungmin's hair, to breathe him in, to—
Stop.
He was better than this. He was a professional. He was Seungmin's partner, and partners didn't obsess over the way their colleague's throat moved when he swallowed.
Subject 19 was four months pregnant. Healthy. Stable. The first success case that proved MP-7 could work.
Hyunjin watched the ultrasound footage alone in his office, studying the way the fetus floated in the amniotic fluid. Fourteen weeks. A heartbeat that stuttered and steadied, stuttered and steadied.
There was a knock on his door.
"Still here?" Seungmin leaned against the frame, his tie loosened, his sleeves rolled to his elbows. He looked exhausted. He looked beautiful.
"Reviewing the footage." Hyunjin didn't look away from the screen. "The placental attachment is more stable than we anticipated."
"Good." Seungmin crossed the room to stand beside him, close enough that Hyunjin could smell his cologne—something clean and slightly citrus. "That's good."
They watched in silence. On screen, the fetus shifted, a tiny hand flexing.
"Do you ever think about it?" Seungmin asked quietly. "Having one?"
Hyunjin's throat went dry. "A baby?"
"A pregnancy. The whole thing." Seungmin's voice was contemplative, detached—the voice he used when discussing theoretical models. "It's strange, isn't it? We've spent two years making it possible, and I've never actually..." He trailed off.
"Never what?"
"Never imagined it for myself." Seungmin shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe that's cold. Maybe I should care more about the personal implications of what we're building."
Hyunjin finally looked at him. At the curve of his jaw, the mole beneath his eye, the way his lashes cast shadows on his cheekbones in the low light.
Some people aren't meant for it, he almost said. People who are too careful. People who would never risk their bodies the way their research demanded.
Instead, the words that came out were, "You really never thought about it? Not even once?"
Seungmin huffed a faint laugh. "I think about the endocrine profile, not the baby shower. It’s…easier that way."
Say yes. The thought slammed through Hyunjin so hard his fingers tightened on the edge of the desk. Just once, just say you wondered what it would be like. Say you’ve pictured yourself on that screen and I’ll give you anything, I’ll build the protocol around you, I’ll give it to you, make you pregnant with my—
"Why?" Seungmin tilted his head, oblivious to the way Hyunjin’s pulse had started to race. "Have you?"
Hyunjin swallowed. His mouth was suddenly, stupidly dry.
This is insane. Don’t say it. Don’t you dare say it.
"I mean," he heard himself say, light, casual, a tone he’d perfected in faculty meetings, "if you ever wanted to…try it. The serum."
The word hung between them, heavier than it had any right to be. "You’d be the ideal subject. You know the risks better than anyone. You’d be able to tell us what we’re missing." You’d be mine, his mind added, frantic and breathless. You’d be tied to this lab, to this project, to me.
Seungmin blinked, surprise flickering across his face before he looked back at the monitor. "Me?" He shook his head, almost amused. "No. I’m more interested in making sure other people survive it." A beat passes. "Besides, someone has to stay objective."
The faint, decisive finality in his voice felt like a door closing. Hyunjin’s fingers dug into his palm where Seungmin couldn’t see.
Of course. Of course you’d say no. You’d always say no. To the experiment. To me.
He forced his shoulders to relax, smoothed the hunger from his expression.
"Some people aren’t meant for it," he said instead, and watched the way something unreadable flickered in Seungmin’s eyes before he turned back to the screen.
Seungmin hummed. "Maybe." He pushed off the desk. "Get some sleep, Hyunjin. You look like death."
After he left, Hyunjin stayed at his desk for another hour, staring at the ultrasound without seeing it.
He doesn't want it.
The thought sat heavy in his chest. He wasn't sure why.
The obsession began with a single, offhand comment from one of the nurses.
"Subject 19's partner is so devoted," she said, flipping through charts. "He comes to every appointment. Holds his hand during the exams. You can tell he'd do anything for him."
Hyunjin made a noncommittal noise.
"It's sweet," she continued. "The way the pregnancy bonds them. Like, biologically, you know? The carrier needs the partner's hormones—the intimacy—to keep everything stable. It's not just physical. It's..." She sighed dreamily. "It's romantic."
Romantic. That wasn’t the word Hyunjin latched onto. What snagged was the idea of need. Biological, inescapable, written into blood and tissue.
Hyunjin went home that night and couldn't sleep.
It bonds them.
He thought about Seungmin. About his sharp tongue and his steady hands and the way he only ever looked at Hyunjin like a colleague. A friend. Nothing more.
He thought about Subject 19, glowing and soft, and the way his partner looked at him like he'd hung the stars.
He'd never look at me that way.
But—
The thought slithered into his mind like smoke under a door.
What if he didn't have a choice?
Hyunjin sat up in bed, heart pounding.
What if the serum made him need me?
In the nineteenth month, Hyunjin started watching Seungmin differently.
Not the way he had before—not the helpless, hungry wanting that he'd spent a year and a half suppressing. This was colder. More clinical. He observed the way Seungmin's body moved under his lab coat, the width of his shoulders, the narrow taper of his waist.
He'd carry well, Hyunjin thought, and then felt sick with himself.
Stop it.
But he couldn't.
He started imagining it at night. Seungmin spread out on an exam table, round and swollen, his skin stretched tight over the curve of their child. Their child. Hyunjin's cock inside him, filling him, keeping him stable. Seungmin's eyes going hazy with need, reaching for him, needing him, because the serum made it impossible not to.
He jerked off to the fantasy and hated himself after.
He'd hate you.
He'd never forgive you.
I know, Hyunjin thought, hand still wrapped around his softening cock, cum cooling on his stomach. I know.
The television mounted in the corner of the break room hummed with the midday broadcast, the volume turned low enough to be ambient noise rather than distraction.
"—marking the third year since the Male Gestation Initiative passed through global legislature, researchers at the National Institute of Reproductive Sciences announce promising results from their latest clinical trials. The refined MP-7 serum has shown a 73% success rate in uterine formation among volunteer participants, a significant increase from last year's 61%. Dr. Hwang, lead researcher, states that while the procedure remains in its experimental stages, they anticipate—"
Hyunjin glanced up from his tablet, watching the footage of a press conference he'd deliberately skipped last month. Men in lab coats standing behind podiums, looking self-congratulatory about numbers he knew were inflated. Seventy-three percent was generous.
Sure, the uterus formed in 73% of cases. What the headline didn't mention was the rejection rate afterward. The spontaneous miscarriages. The hormonal crashes left some volunteers in psychiatric care.
He scratched something in the margin of his notes—a sharp, angry line that meant bullshit—and returned his attention to the data spread across his screen.
The lab was quiet in that particular way it only got on Sunday afternoons. The hum of refrigeration units. The soft click of Seungmin's pen against his clipboard across the room.
Seungmin.
Hyunjin's eyes drifted without his permission, the way they always did. Seungmin sat hunched over his research notes at the central workstation, humming something tuneless under his breath.
He had the habit of biting his lower lip when he was concentrating, and right now that lip was red and slightly swollen from the attention. His white lab coat hung off one shoulder. He'd rolled the sleeves up past his elbows, exposing the lean lines of his forearms, and Hyunjin could see the blue veins beneath the skin of his inner wrist.
Focus.
Hyunjin pulled up their latest trial results.
Subject 34. Male, twenty-nine, good health metrics.
The serum had taken beautifully—uterine formation complete within six weeks, hormonal stabilization on track. And then week eight, the tissue had begun to necrose. Emergency hysterectomy. Subject 34 was recovering, but he'd never be able to carry again.
They were so close. That was the infuriating part.
The MP-7 serum could create the environment, could trigger the cellular differentiation that formed a functional uterus within the male pelvis, could regulate the hormone cascades necessary to sustain pregnancy. But something in the immune response kept rejecting the new tissue. Like the body knew it wasn't supposed to be there. Like it was fighting against its own transformation.
Hyunjin scrolled through the biochemical profiles, looking for the pattern he knew was hiding there. Some variable they hadn't accounted for. Some factor that made the difference between Subject 19, who was now six months pregnant and healthy, and Subject 34, who was in a hospital bed with his dreams hollowed out.
"Hyunjin."
He looked up. Seungmin was watching him with that steady, unreadable gaze.
"You've been staring at that screen for three hours. Your eyes are going to fall out."
"I'm fine."
"You said that two hours ago. And an hour before that." Seungmin set down his pen, stretching his arms above his head. His shirt rode up, exposing a sliver of pale stomach, the soft trail of dark hair disappearing beneath his waistband. Hyunjin looked away. "The data will still be there tomorrow."
"Tomorrow's too late for Subject 34."
Seungmin's expression softened. That was worse. Hyunjin could handle his detachment, his clinical distance. But sympathy? Pity? That made him want to put his fist through something.
"Subject 34 knew the risks. They all do." Seungmin stood, gathering his notes into a neat stack. "We can't take responsibility for every failed trial. That's why it's called experimental."
"Easy for you to say. You don't have to look them in the face when we tell them their body rejected the procedure."
Seungmin paused. Something flickered in his eyes—hurt, maybe, or resignation. "I've conducted just as many follow-up interviews as you have, Hyunjin. Don't pretend I don't carry this too."
Hyunjin said nothing. He didn't trust himself to speak without saying something cruel, something that would push Seungmin further away, and he was already running out of distance he could afford to lose.
Seungmin sighed. "I'm going to review my notes for another hour, then I'm done for the day. Don't stay too late."
"Wasn't planning on it."
But they both knew that was a lie.
An hour passed. Then another.
Seungmin's humming had gradually slowed, the intervals between notes growing longer, until finally it stopped altogether. Hyunjin heard the soft creak of the sofa in the corner of the lab—the one they kept for late nights and exhausted researchers—and turned to see Seungmin curled on his side, his clipboard still clutched loosely in one hand.
Asleep.
Hyunjin watched the steady rise and fall of his chest. Watched the way his eyelashes cast shadows on his cheeks. Watched the way his lips parted slightly, soft and unguarded in a way Seungmin never allowed himself to be while conscious.
How long have you been tired, Seungmin?
He set down his tablet and stood, his chair scraping against the floor. Seungmin didn't stir. He must have been exhausted—truly exhausted—to sleep through that noise. Seungmin was a light sleeper at the best of times, attuned to every sound and shift in his environment. But now he lay there, vulnerable, trusting enough to let his guard down in Hyunjin's presence.
Trust.
The word tasted bitter on Hyunjin's tongue.
He moved closer, his footsteps soft against the linoleum. Standing over the sofa, he could see the details he was never allowed to examine closely: the faint shadows beneath Seungmin's eyes, the slight furrow in his brow even in sleep, the way his fingers had curled protectively around his clipboard like a child holding a stuffed animal.
Seungmin's stomach was visible where his shirt had ridden up again. Flat. Lean. The taut muscle of someone who maintained his body carefully, controlled every aspect of his physical form with the same precision he brought to his research.
What would you look like if you lost that control?
The thought came unbidden, as it always did. But tonight, something was different. Tonight, the thought didn't slide away into shame. Tonight, it settled into the hollow of his chest and stayed.
Hyunjin's gaze shifted to the refrigeration unit across the room. The one marked MP-7 — EXPERIMENTAL — AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.
Inside were rows of small glass vials, each containing 10ml of the serum that could rewrite a man's biology. That could take a flat, lean stomach and make it round. Full. Heavy with—
Don't.
He could feel his heartbeat in his throat. His hands hung at his sides, but he could imagine reaching for the unit. Entering the code. The soft beep of acceptance. The cold weight of the vial in his palm.
Don't do this.
But the voice that spoke those words sounded weak. Pathetic. Like the voice of someone who had spent years watching the object of his obsession from across the room, making clumsy attempts at flirtation that were deflected with polite distance, pretending that every rejection didn't feel like a door slamming shut on his fingers.
He'd tried.
God, he'd tried.
Dinner invitations that were declined due to scheduling conflicts. Casual touches that were sidestepped without acknowledgment. A confession, once, after too many drinks at a colleague's retirement party, that had been met with silence and then a careful, devastating I value our professional relationship, Hyunjin.
Professional.
As if what he felt was professional. As if the hunger that gnawed at him every time Seungmin bit his lip or stretched his arms overhead or fell asleep on that goddamn sofa was something that could be filed under workplace appropriate.
The email had come at 4:47 PM.
Hyunjin had been at his desk, running viability models on the MP-7 data, when the notification pinged—from Director Park, marked URGENT, cc'd to the entire reproductive sciences division:
Re: Structural Reorganization
— Q2 Review Effective next month, all dual-lead projects will be assessed for consolidation. Teams with overlapping research mandates may be merged or reassigned at the directorate's discretion. Please submit individual project contribution summaries by the 15th.
Overlapping mandates. Reassignment.
Their project—their project—was dual-lead. And Seungmin's name came first on every grant. Seungmin's methodology shaped every protocol. If anyone was "reassigned," it would be Hyunjin. He'd be shuffled to some auxiliary team, some secondary role, while Seungmin continued without him.
Without him.
The thought landed like a blade between his ribs.
The one time Seungmin had stretched at his desk, glanced at his phone, and said casually, "Oh—Jisung asked if I wanted to grab dinner Friday. Some new barbecue place in Hongdae."
Jisung. That annoying fuck from immunology who'd been hovering around Seungmin for months.
"Are you going?" Hyunjin had kept his voice neutral.
"Maybe." Seungmin shrugged. "I haven't seen him in a while. Could be nice to catch up."
Catch up. The phrase curdled in Hyunjin's stomach. He could picture it—Seungmin laughing at Jisung's jokes, leaning in close, forgetting about the lab, forgetting about their work, forgetting about—
Stop.
But he couldn't stop. He'd been stopping himself for three years, and where had it gotten him? Watching Seungmin smile at other people. Watching him leave at the end of the day without a backward glance. Watching him exist in the world as if Hyunjin's devotion was invisible, weightless, meaningless.
And now the directorate might split them up. Now Seungmin might transfer to another team, another building, another life, and Hyunjin would never—
No one will take care of him the way I will.
The thought surfaced unbidden, but it felt true.
Felt certain. Who else understood the serum's potential? Who else had spent years studying the receptor cascades, the hormonal cascades, the way male reproductive tissue could be coaxed into viability? Some random immunologist? Some administrator who saw Seungmin as a line item on a spreadsheet?
He'll be safer with me than in any trial. Any other researcher would treat him as a subject. I'll treat him as—
As what? A partner? A lover?
Both. Everything.
And beneath that, the justification that had been building for months, the one he'd never spoken aloud but had shaped every decision since he'd first synthesized the MP-7 compound:
This will prove the serum's potential. This will save the program, save the funding, save the country's future. Seungmin will be the proof that male gestation works—and he'll be mine, and I'll keep him safe, and no one will ever take him away.
The logic was warped.
He knew it was warped. But it was also true, in the way that desperate things are true—true because he needed it to be true, because the alternative was a world where Seungmin slipped through his fingers and disappeared into someone else's life.
He could do it.
The thought crystallized, sharp and clear.
He could do it right now.
Seungmin was asleep.
The serum was in the fridge.
And once it was done—once Seungmin's body had been remade from the inside out—he would need someone to help him through it. Someone to monitor his hormone levels. Someone to hold him when the changes became overwhelming. Someone who would be there when his belly swelled and his body ached and he was so full of life that he couldn't help but lean on the person closest to him.
Full of my baby. My cum. Mine.
Hyunjin's breath was shallow.
His cock stirred against his thigh, a hot pulse of want that he'd been suppressing for so long it almost felt foreign. He imagined it: Seungmin spread out beneath him, round and ripe, his sharp edges softened by the life growing inside him. Imagined the way those critical eyes would go hazy with need. Imagined Seungmin reaching for him, finally, finally, because he had no one else to turn to.
He'd hate me.
The thought should have stopped him. It didn't.
He'd never forgive me.
That should have mattered more. It didn't either.
Hyunjin's body moved toward the refrigeration unit. His hand was steady as he entered the code. 1-0-2-7. The soft beep of acceptance. The cold handle against his palm.
Inside, the vials gleamed under the fluorescent light. He reached for one, and the glass was cold against his fingers, cold like the thing he was about to do, cold like the space that had grown between him and the man sleeping three meters away.
You could still walk away. Put it back. Pretend this never happened.
But he thought of Subject 12, Felix, six months pregnant and glowing. He thought of the way the man's partner—Chan, all soft eyes and permanent worry lines—hovered at his side in every appointment, one hand braced at the small of his back as if he could hold the whole world steady there.
He thought of the photo tacked to the nurses’ station corkboard: Felix on a worn couch in the family lounge, cradling his baby bump, freckles stark with exhaustion, joy, and perseverance. Chan pressed in close enough that their shoulders touched, both of them looking down at the prospect of their soon-to-be child in just a few months' time.
Reverent. Possessive. Grateful.
Hyunjin had watched them once from the doorway, unseen, the two of them framed in fluorescent halo: carrier, partner, and a baby. A closed circuit. A completed equation.
He thought of how much he wanted Seungmin to look at him that way.
He turned the vial over in his hand.
And he walked back toward the sofa.
Seungmin hadn't moved. His breathing was still slow and even, his face peaceful in a way it never was when he was awake. Hyunjin stood over him, the vial hidden in his closed fist, and felt the weight of what he was about to do settle across his shoulders like a physical burden.
Last chance.
He knelt beside the sofa. This close, he could smell Seungmin's shampoo—something clean and subtle, like rain on concrete. He could see the faint stubble along his jaw that Seungmin would be annoyed about when he woke up. He could count the individual eyelashes that fanned against his cheek.
You're so beautiful. You have no idea how beautiful you are.
Hyunjin raised his free hand. His fingers hovered over Seungmin's stomach, trembling with the effort of not touching. Not yet. Not until—
After. You can touch him after. When he's yours.
He uncapped the vial with his thumb. The serum was slightly viscous, pale blue, designed to be administered intramuscularly for optimal absorption. The protocol called for injection into the abdominal wall, where the active compounds could begin their work on the surrounding tissue immediately.
But Hyunjin didn't have a syringe. And he didn't need one.
The serum could be absorbed through the mucous membranes. Slower, less efficient, but effective. And there was one mucous membrane that would give the compounds direct access to the reproductive structures the serum was designed to create.
Hyunjin's cock was fully hard now, straining against the fabric of his slacks. He could feel the wetness at the tip, the pre-cum that had already begun to leak. If he poured the serum onto himself, mixed it with his own fluids, and then—
Fuck.
His hand shook. The vial trembled between his fingers.
Seungmin made a small sound in his sleep, shifting slightly, and Hyunjin froze. But Seungmin only burrowed deeper into the cushion, his lips parting further, his breath warm and slow.
Do it. Do it now before you lose your nerve.
Hyunjin set the vial on the floor. His hands moved to his belt, then his zipper, the movements automatic despite the roaring in his ears. His cock sprang free, flushed and leaking, and he wrapped his fingers around the shaft with a choked sound.
He reached for the vial again. Uncapped it. And with his other hand still stroking himself, he poured the cold serum over the head of his cock.
The sensation made him gasp—cold and slick and wrong, but also right, because this was the moment, this was the threshold, and once he crossed it there would be no going back. The serum mixed with his pre-cum, turning it slightly iridescent, and he spread the mixture along his length with shaking fingers.
Now. Before it absorbs. Before he wakes up.
Hyunjin leaned over the sofa. His cock brushed against Seungmin's thigh, and he had to bite his lip hard enough to taste copper to keep from moaning. He hooked his fingers into Seungmin's waistband, easing his slacks down over his hips with excruciating slowness.
Seungmin's boxers followed. And then there was nothing between Hyunjin's cock and Seungmin's bare skin except air and intention and the terrible, beautiful weight of choice.
This is it. This is the point of no return.
Hyunjin positioned himself between Seungmin's thighs. The serum made everything slick, and his cock slid easily against the cleft of Seungmin's ass, catching against the tight ring of muscle that guarded the entrance he needed.
Please. Please let me have this. Just this once.
He pushed forward.
The first inch was tight. Impossibly tight.
Hyunjin groaned through clenched teeth as the head of his cock breached Seungmin's hole, the serum-slicked flesh giving way with a resistance that made his vision blur. Seungmin was dry otherwise—unprepared, unaroused, his body locked in sleep—and the friction was almost painful. Almost.
But the serum was already working.
Hyunjin could feel it: a subtle warmth spreading from where his cock pressed against Seungmin's inner walls, the tissue softening, relaxing, yielding in a way that had nothing to do with consent and everything to do with chemistry. The active compounds were designed to trigger cellular receptivity, to prepare the body for what was coming, and god, they worked fast.
He pushed deeper. Another inch. Two.
Seungmin made a sound—something between a sigh and a whimper—and his brow furrowed in sleep. His legs shifted, falling open wider, and Hyunjin's heart stuttered in his chest.
He doesn't know. He has no idea.
The thought should have made him stop. Instead, it made his cock throb.
"Fuck," Hyunjin breathed, his hips pressing forward in a slow, inexorable slide. The serum made it easier now, the tight heat of Seungmin's channel loosening, growing slick with something that wasn't just the serum anymore. Seungmin's body was responding—producing its own lubrication, the first stage of the physiological changes the MP-7 was designed to trigger.
Bottoming out was a religious experience.
Hyunjin held himself there, buried to the hilt, his balls pressed flush against Seungmin's ass. He could feel the rapid flutter of Seungmin's pulse around his cock, the way his walls clenched and released in confused spasms. Seungmin's face had changed—his lips parted further, his breath coming faster, colour rising in his cheeks.
Still asleep. But not for long.
Hyunjin pulled back. Thrust in.
The sound that escaped Seungmin's throat was something he'd never heard before—a high, thin, keen that went straight to Hyunjin's groin. Seungmin's hips twitched, his body caught between sleep and waking, between resistance and response.
"Hyun—"
The word was slurred, barely formed. Seungmin's eyes fluttered, unfocused, struggling to open. His hand came up, pushing weakly at Hyunjin's shoulder, but there was no strength behind it. The serum was flooding his system now, rewriting his neurochemistry, flooding his bloodstream with hormones that his body had never produced before.
"Shh." Hyunjin caught Seungmin's wrist, pressing it back against the cushion. "It's okay. I've got you."
"Wha-what are you—" Seungmin's voice cracked. His eyes opened, hazy and confused, and for a moment, he just stared up at Hyunjin with an expression of bewildered betrayal. "Hyunjin, what—why does it—"
He broke off with a gasp as Hyunjin rolled his hips, grinding deep. The new angle pressed against something inside Seungmin that made his whole body jerk, his back arching off the sofa, his cock—hard now, straining against his stomach—twitching in response.
There it is.
The serum was designed to enhance sensitivity in the newly-formed reproductive structures, to create a positive feedback loop that would encourage repeated insemination during the critical early stages of uterine formation. In clinical terms, it was called "receptivity enhancement." In practical terms, it meant that Seungmin's body was going to want this even if his mind didn't.
"No—" Seungmin's voice was stronger now, but it wavered. His free hand pushed against Hyunjin's chest, but the motion was sluggish, uncoordinated. "Hyunjin, stop, I don't—ah—"
His head fell back as Hyunjin thrust again, setting a slow, deliberate rhythm. Each stroke was deep and purposeful, designed to deposit the serum-laced pre-cum as far inside as possible, to give the active compounds the best chance of reaching their target.
"Stop?" Hyunjin's voice was low, rough. He leaned down, his lips brushing the shell of Seungmin's ear. "Your body doesn't want me to stop, Seungmin. Can you feel it? Can you feel how wet you are? How hungry?"
It was true.
Seungmin's hole was dripping now, slick and obscene, the wet sounds of Hyunjin's cock sliding in and out filling the quiet lab. The serum had triggered a production response, and Seungmin's body was making up for years of absent preparation in minutes.
Seungmin's hands had stopped pushing. They rested against Hyunjin's chest now, fingers curled into the fabric of his lab coat, and Hyunjin couldn't tell if Seungmin was trying to push him away or pull him closer.
"Please—" Seungmin's voice was barely a whisper. "This isn't—I didn't—"
"I know." Hyunjin rolled his hips again, grinding against that spot, and watched Seungmin's eyes roll back. "But you will. You're going to feel so good, Seungmin. I'm going to make you feel so good."
He released Seungmin's wrist to hook his arm under Seungmin's knee, spreading him wider, opening him up. The new angle let him fuck deeper, harder, and he set a pace that made the sofa creak beneath them.
Seungmin was making sounds now—little gasps and moans that he was clearly trying to suppress, his teeth sinking into his swollen lower lip hard enough to leave marks. His cock leaked pre-cum onto his stomach, flushed and desperate, and every thrust made it bob and twitch.
"Touch yourself," Hyunjin said. It wasn't a request.
"I won't—" Seungmin's voice broke on a moan. "I don't want—"
"Your body disagrees." Hyunjin reached between them, wrapping his fingers around Seungmin's cock, and the sound Seungmin made was almost a sob. "Feel how hard you are? That's the serum, Seungmin. It's making you ready. Making you want it."
He stroked Seungmin in time with his thrusts, and Seungmin's resistance crumbled. His hips rolled up to meet Hyunjin's, chasing the sensation despite himself, his body moving on instinct while his mind reeled.
"Fuck—" Seungmin's voice was wrecked. "Hyunjin, I can't—I'm going to—"
"Not yet." Hyunjin released his cock, and Seungmin whimpered at the loss. "Not until I'm inside you. Not until you're full of me."
He fucked Seungmin harder, faster, chasing his own release with single-minded intensity. The pressure was building at the base of his spine, his balls drawing up tight, and he knew he was close. So close.
"Look at me."
Seungmin's eyes opened—wet, confused, furious, and so fucking needy that Hyunjin's breath caught.
"I want you to feel this," Hyunjin said, his voice ragged. "I want you to remember who did this to you. Who made you feel this way."
He slammed in deep and held, his cock pulsing as he came. Hot spurts of cum flood Seungmin's insides, mixing with the serum, coating the walls of his channel in a chemical cocktail designed to take root and grow.
Seungmin cried out—his own orgasm ripping through him without permission, his cock spurting untouched between their bodies, his hole clenching around Hyunjin's cock in desperate, rhythmic pulses. Milking him. Drawing every drop deeper.
Yes. Take it. Take all of it.
Hyunjin stayed buried inside, rocking gently through the aftershocks, making sure nothing escaped. The serum needed time to absorb. Needed the warmth and the motion and the sustained contact to work properly.
Below him, Seungmin had gone limp. His eyes were closed again, his breath coming in shallow gasps, his face streaked with tears he probably didn't know he was shedding. His body was still trembling, small aftershock quivers that made his hole clench around Hyunjin's softening cock.
"There you go," Hyunjin murmured, brushing a strand of hair from Seungmin's damp forehead. "It's done now. It's okay."
Seungmin didn't respond. But his hand—weak, uncoordinated—came up to grip Hyunjin's wrist. Not pushing away. Holding on.
He needs me already.
The thought settled into Hyunjin's chest like a warm coal, dangerous and bright.
They stayed like that for several minutes. Hyunjin didn't pull out—he couldn't risk losing any of the serum-laced cum that was even now being absorbed into Seungmin's tissues. Instead, he shifted their positions carefully, settling Seungmin onto his side on the narrow sofa and curling up behind him, his cock still buried in the slick heat of Seungmin's hole.
Seungmin was quiet. Too quiet.
"Seungmin?"
A long pause. Then, hoarse. "Why?"
The single word held everything—confusion, betrayal, anger, and underneath it all, a desperate confusion that made Hyunjin's chest tighten.
"Because I want you." The words came easier than he expected. "I've wanted you for years. And you never—you wouldn't even look at me."
"So you raped me?" Seungmin's voice cracked on the word. "You used an experimental serum on me without my consent because I wouldn't date you?"
"I made you ready." Hyunjin's hand slid down to rest on Seungmin's stomach—flat now, but not for long. "By this time next month, you'll have a uterus. In three months, you could be pregnant. And I'll be there for all of it. Every change. Every milestone. I'll take care of you, Seungmin. I'll take care of both of you."
Seungmin went rigid in his arms. "You're insane."
"Maybe." Hyunjin pressed a kiss to the back of Seungmin's neck, tasting salt and skin. "But you're stuck with me now."
He felt Seungmin's hole clench around him—involuntary, the serum still working, still making his body responsive—and smiled against his skin.
It's going to be a long night. And Hyunjin's going to enjoy every second of it.
The first orgasm didn't stop anything.
Seungmin lay beneath Hyunjin, chest heaving, his own cum cooling on his stomach while Hyunjin's seed settled deeper inside him. His mind was a shattered thing—fragments of thought that wouldn't coalesce, that kept slipping away like water through desperate fingers.
He raped me. Hyunjin raped me. This isn't—this can't be—
But his body was already stirring again.
The serum.
The fucking serum.
Seungmin had helped design the receptor cascade, had written the grant proposals about "enhanced receptivity" and "positive feedback loops," and he'd never—not once—considered what those clinical terms would feel like from the inside.
His hole was still slick. Still dripping. The muscles that should have been clenching shut in defense were instead relaxing, opening, wanting.
"Feel that?" Hyunjin hadn't pulled out. His cock was softening inside Seungmin, but even that sensation sent unwanted sparks through his nerve endings. "Your body is already preparing for the next round. The serum makes sure you're always ready. Always receptive."
Seungmin's hands came up, pushing weakly at Hyunjin's chest. "Get—get off me—"
"Shh." Hyunjin leaned down, his lips brushing Seungmin's forehead, his cheek, the corner of his mouth. The tenderness was obscene. "We have all night. Let me take care of you."
"I don't want—you raped me—"
"I gave you a gift." Hyunjin's voice was soft, almost reverent. His hand came up to cup Seungmin's face, thumb stroking along his cheekbone. "I've wanted this for so long, Seungmin. Years. Every day we worked together, every night you stayed late, every time you smiled at some stupid joke—I wanted you. And you never saw me. Not really."
Seungmin's vision blurred. Tears? Anger? The serum was messing with his hormones, flooding his system with chemicals his body had never produced, making everything too sharp and too dull at the same time.
"That doesn't give you the right—"
"I know." Hyunjin's thumb traced down to Seungmin's lower lip, pressing against it until it parted. "I know it doesn't. But I couldn't—I couldn't keep watching you exist next to me without having you. Without making you mine."
He started moving again.
Seungmin's body responded before his mind could catch up.
His spine arched off the desk, a moan tearing from his throat as Hyunjin's cock—hard again already, how was he hard again already—dragged against something inside him that sent white-hot pleasure cascading through his nerve endings.
"No—" The word came out broken. "Stop, please, I can't—"
"You can." Hyunjin's voice was ragged now, desperate, the controlled composure cracking to reveal the obsession underneath. "You will. Your body was made for this now, Seungmin. The serum rewrote you. Every cell in your reproductive system is designed to take my cum and make something beautiful with it."
He's insane. He's completely insane.
But the thought dissolved as Hyunjin thrust deeper, hitting that spot again, and Seungmin's cock twitched with renewed interest despite the horror screaming in his mind.
"Please—" Seungmin didn't know what he was begging for anymore. For it to stop? For more? His body and his brain were at war, and his body was winning.
"I know, I know." Hyunjin was murmuring now, a constant stream of words that washed over Seungmin like acid rain. "It's intense. The first dose is always the hardest. Your body doesn't know how to process all the new hormones yet. But I'll help you through it. I'll take care of you. That's what partners do, right? We take care of each other."
"We're not—we were never—"
"We are now." Hyunjin's hips snapped forward, brutal and precise, and Seungmin's words dissolved into a keen. "We will be. Once the serum takes hold, once you're carrying my child—you'll understand. You'll see that this was always meant to happen."
Child.
The word landed like ice water.
"Y-you can't—the serum isn't—it's not approved for—"
"It works." Hyunjin's pace increased, his breathing growing harsh. "Subject 12 is four months pregnant. The success rate is higher than we published. I made sure of that."
He altered the data. He's been planning this.
The realization should have been terrifying.
It was terrifying. But the serum was doing something to Seungmin's fear response, dampening it, redirecting the energy into something else entirely. His cock was fully hard again, bobbing against his stomach with every thrust, leaking pre-cum in a steady stream.
"You altered the data," Seungmin managed, his voice thin and reedy. "That's—that's scientific misconduct—"
"I did what was necessary." Hyunjin leaned down, his forehead pressing against Seungmin's, his eyes too bright in the dim lab light. "For us. For you. For the future we're going to have together."
The second time Hyunjin came, he pulled out and flipped Seungmin over.
The manhandling was efficient, impersonal, like Seungmin was a doll rather than a person. His face pressed against the cool surface of the lab desk, his hips pulled up and back, his legs spread wide.
"Hyunjin, please—" Seungmin's voice was hoarse from moaning, from screaming, from begging. "I can't take anymore—"
"You can." Hyunjin's hands spread Seungmin's cheeks apart, exposing his hole—red and swollen and still dripping with cum. "The serum ensures you'll always be ready. That's the point, remember? Positive feedback loop. Your body wants to be bred."
"I don't—I don't want—"
"Your mind doesn't matter right now." Hyunjin pushed back in, one smooth thrust that made Seungmin's vision white out. "Just let your body take over. Let the serum do its work."
Let go. Just let go.
The thought was seductive.
Seungmin's mind was so tired, so overwhelmed, so utterly unable to process the contradiction between what was happening to him and what his body was feeling. The pleasure was real. The serum made sure of that.
Every nerve ending in his newly-formed reproductive structures was firing, sending signals of yes, more, deeper, breed directly to the primitive parts of his brain that didn't care about consent or ethics or the fact that his colleague had just raped him on their shared desk.
"Please—" The word came out as a sob. "Please, I can't—"
"You can." Hyunjin's voice was gentle now, terrifyingly gentle, like he was soothing a frightened animal. "You're doing so well, Seungmin. Taking me so perfectly. Your body was made for this."
His hand reached around, wrapping around Seungmin's cock, and the touch was electric.
"No—" Seungmin's hips jerked, trying to pull away, but the movement just drove Hyunjin deeper. "Don't touch me there—"
"Why not?" Hyunjin's hand started moving, stroking in time with his thrusts. "It feels good, doesn't it? Your body knows what it needs. Why fight it?"
"Because I didn't—because you didn't ask—"
"Would you have said yes?"
The question hung in the air. Seungmin's breath caught in his throat.
"That's what I thought." Hyunjin's thumb swept over the head of Seungmin's cock, smearing the pre-cum that had gathered there. "You would have said no. You would have kept saying no forever, and I would have died wanting you. Is that what you wanted? For both of us to be miserable?"
"I—"
"Tell me you don't feel this." Hyunjin thrust deep, grinding against that spot that made Seungmin's whole body shake. "Tell me your body isn't begging for more. Tell me you're not hard and dripping and needing it, and I'll stop."
Seungmin opened his mouth. Closed it. The words wouldn't come.
Because his body was begging. His cock was throbbing in Hyunjin's grip, his hole was clenching around Hyunjin's shaft, and somewhere in the fog of his fractured mind, a voice that sounded nothing like him was whispering more, please, more.
"That's what I thought." Hyunjin's pace increased, his hips snapping forward with brutal precision. "Just let go, Seungmin. Let me take care of you. Let me give you what you need."
The third time, Seungmin stopped fighting.
It wasn't a choice. It was survival. His mind had simply... folded. Collapsed under the weight of too much sensation, too much horror, too much cognitive dissonance to process.
He lay on the desk, limp and pliant, while Hyunjin used him. His moans came unbidden, his hips moved without his permission, and when Hyunjin kissed him—deep and claiming and possessive—he opened his mouth and let him in.
This isn't happening. This isn't real. When I wake up, everything will be normal.
But it was happening. And it was real. And when Hyunjin came inside him for the third time, Seungmin's body accepted it with a shuddering orgasm that made his vision go black.
"Good." Hyunjin's voice was hoarse, satisfied. He pressed a kiss to Seungmin's shoulder, his lips lingering on the sweat-damp skin. "So good for me. Taking everything I give you."
Seungmin didn't respond. Couldn't. His mind was a white void, empty of everything except the sensation of Hyunjin's cum settling inside him, warm and thick and permanent.
"One more." Hyunjin hadn't pulled out. His cock was still half-hard, already stirring again inside Seungmin's abused hole. "The serum works best with multiple doses in the first 24 hours. It helps the uterine tissue form correctly."
Uterine tissue.
Seungmin was going to have a uterus. Hyunjin was growing a womb inside him with every thrust, every load, every chemical compound that was rewriting his cellular structure without his permission.
"Please—" The word came out as a whisper. "No more. I can't—"
"You can." Hyunjin started moving again, slow and deep. "And you will. Because I'm not going to let you go, Seungmin. Not now. Not ever. You're mine now. My partner. My subject. My creation."
By the time the sun started to lighten the windows, Seungmin had lost count of how many times Hyunjin had come inside him.
He was hollow. Empty and full at the same time, his body a vessel for Hyunjin's obsession, his mind a shattered thing that couldn't remember what it felt like to be whole.
Hyunjin pulled out finally, his cum sliding out of Seungmin's ruined hole in a thick stream. He watched it with something like reverence, his fingers tracing the swollen rim, pushing some of the fluid back inside.
"Beautiful," he murmured. "You're so beautiful like this. Fucked open and full of me."
Seungmin didn't respond. Couldn't. He lay on the desk, his legs splayed, his cock soft and spent, his stomach covered in his own dried cum, and waited for whatever came next.
Hyunjin lifted him. Carried him to the couch in the corner of the lab. Laid him down with surprising gentleness and covered him with a lab coat.
"Rest now." Hyunjin's lips brushed his forehead. "The serum is working. By tomorrow, you'll start to feel the changes. The uterine tissue will begin to form. Your hormones will shift." A pause. "And you'll need me. The serum creates a dependency—you'll need regular insemination to maintain the pregnancy. Without it, you'll get sick. Fever, pain, eventually... complications."
Seungmin's eyes closed.
"I'll take care of you," Hyunjin promised. His voice was soft, tender, the voice of a lover rather than a rapist. "I'll make sure you have everything you need. You and the baby. Our family."
Family.
The word should have meant something. Love, warmth, safety. Instead, it meant ownership. It meant Hyunjin's hands on his body forever, Hyunjin's cum inside him always, Hyunjin's child growing in a womb that shouldn't exist.
Seungmin fell into unconsciousness, and he dreamed of drowning.
The first three days were a blur of denial.
He didn't go home.
He couldn't. The lab was familiar, controllable, safe in a way his apartment suddenly wasn't. He sat on the couch where Hyunjin had laid him, wrapped in the same lab coat, and stared at the wall until the sun came up.
Every time he closed his eyes, he felt Hyunjin's hands. His mouth. His cock, still inside him, still moving.
You're mine now. My partner. My subject. My creation.
Seungmin's stomach heaved. He made it to the wastebasket before he vomited.
He went home.
The shower was a mistake.
The water was hot—scalding, nearly—and he scrubbed himself raw, trying to remove the feeling of Hyunjin's skin against his. The soap stung where his hole was still swollen, still tender, and when his fingers brushed the entrance, he flinched so hard he nearly slipped.
He came inside me. Multiple times. His cum is still—
Seungmin gagged.
He stayed in the shower until the water ran cold, then stood there shivering, unable to make himself step out. The bathroom was steamy and claustrophobic, and he could hear his own breathing, ragged and wet, and he thought: I'm falling apart. I'm falling apart and there's no one to—
No. Stop. You're a scientist. You don't fall apart. You analyze.
He got out of the shower. He dried off. He put on clean clothes.
He did not sleep.
He opened his laptop at 2 AM, staring at the blank email screen.
To: Human Resources, Reproductive Sciences Division
Subject: Incident Report —
His fingers hovered over the keyboard.
What would I even write? "My research partner sexually assaulted me after injecting me with an experimental serum that has fundamentally altered my reproductive system"? And then what? They'd ask for evidence. They'd want medical documentation. They'd want to examine me—
They'd find out about the serum. The serum was unauthorized to consume. The one I helped create.
If he filed a report, he'd be implicating himself. He'd be admitting to his role in the MP-7's unauthorized development. He'd lose his career, his funding, his reputation—everything he'd spent eight years building.
And Hyunjin would—
Hyunjin would deny it. He'd say I consented. He'd say we were partners, that this was an agreed-upon experiment, that I wanted it as much as he did. Who would believe me over him? He's charming. He's convincing. He's been planning this for God knows how long.
Seungmin stared at the email.
Then he deleted it.
He closed the laptop and sat in the dark, listening to the sound of his own breathing, and thought: I can't report this. I can't tell anyone. The only thing I can do is understand what he's done to me.
Data. I need data.
It was the only coping mechanism he had left.
Seungmin reported to the lab each morning at precisely 7:15 AM, same as always.
He logged his hours, reviewed the data from the overnight monitoring systems, and pretended that the soreness between his legs was from sitting too long in an uncomfortable chair. He pretended the tenderness in his lower abdomen was stress. He pretended the waves of heat that washed over him at unpredictable intervals were a fever—just a virus, something he could take medication for, something that would pass.
He pretended he hadn't been raped by his research partner on their lab sofa.
Pretended he hadn't come untouched while it happened.
Pretended he hadn't cried.
"Seungmin."
Hyunjin's voice cut through the fog on the morning of day four, and Seungmin's hand froze over his keyboard. He didn't look up. Couldn't. If he looked at Hyunjin right now, he didn't know what he would do—scream, cry, throw something, or worse, beg for something he couldn't name.
"We need to talk about the serum."
The serum.
The serum that was even now rewriting his cellular structure. The serum that had been designed for volunteers, for informed consent, for controlled conditions and extensive monitoring. The serum that was now coursing through his body without a single document signed, without a single protocol followed.
The serum that had been inside Hyunjin when he—
"We don't need to talk about anything." Seungmin's voice came out steady. Remarkably so. He was proud of that. "I have work to do."
"Seungmin." Hyunjin's hand landed on his shoulder, and Seungmin flinched so hard his chair scraped against the floor. "You're running a fever. Your hormone panels are—"
"Don't touch me."
The words came out sharp, cutting, and finally Seungmin looked up. Hyunjin was standing over him, his expression caught somewhere between concern and something darker—something possessive that made Seungmin's stomach turn.
"Your cortisol levels are through the roof," Hyunjin continued, undeterred. "Your estrogen is climbing faster than any of our volunteer subjects. We need to run a full panel, monitor your—"
"We don't need to do anything." Seungmin stood, his legs unsteady beneath him. He was warm—too warm—and his skin felt tight, sensitive, like every nerve ending was closer to the surface than it should be. "I'm going to submit my report on the Phase Three data. And then I'm going to work in the archives for the rest of the day."
"The archives?" Hyunjin's brow furrowed. "You haven't worked in the archives since you were an intern."
"Exactly." Seungmin moved toward the door, putting distance between himself and Hyunjin's overwhelming presence. "It's quiet there. No distractions. No—"
He stopped. His hand had drifted to his lower abdomen without conscious thought, pressing against the faint cramping that had been building all morning. It wasn't painful—not exactly. More like a deep, internal shifting, a sensation of his organs rearranging themselves to accommodate something new.
Something growing.
"You can feel it, can't you?" Hyunjin's voice was softer now, almost reverent. "The changes starting. The uterus forming."
Seungmin's hand dropped like he'd been burned. "Shut up."
"It's remarkable, really. The speed of the cellular differentiation. We've never had a subject with your genetic markers before—we don't know how quickly the—"
"I said shut up!" Seungmin whirled around, and the fury in his voice surprised them both. "You don't get to—you don't get to treat me like one of your fucking subjects, Hyunjin! I didn't volunteer for this! I didn't sign any forms! I didn't—"
His voice cracked, and he hated himself for it.
"I didn't ask for any of this."
For a moment, they just stared at each other. The lab was silent except for the hum of equipment and the distant sound of footsteps in the corridor outside. Seungmin's chest heaved with the effort of holding himself together.
"I know." Hyunjin's voice was quiet. "I know you didn't."
"Then why?" The word tore out of Seungmin like something physical. "Why did you—I trusted you, Hyunjin! We've been working together for three years! I thought—I thought we were—"
Friends. Colleagues. Something.
"I told you why." Hyunjin took a step closer, and Seungmin forced himself not to retreat. "I want you. I've always wanted you. And now—"
"Now I'm your experiment?" Seungmin laughed, but there was no humour in it. "Now I'm just another data point in your research?"
"No." Hyunjin's hand came up, hovering near Seungmin's face but not quite touching. "Now you're mine."
The words sent a chill down Seungmin's spine.
"I'm not yours." His voice was flat. "I will never be yours. What you did—what you're still doing—"
He broke off, pressing his palms against his eyes. The heat was getting worse, a flush spreading across his chest and up his neck, and he could feel his body responding to Hyunjin's proximity despite everything.
The serum. It had to be the serum. Making him receptive, making him want—
"I can't afford to lose my job, Hyunjin." The words came out smaller than he intended. "Do you understand that? If anyone finds out I was exposed to an unapproved serum—if they think I tampered with laboratory property—"
"No one will think that."
"No one will think that because there's no evidence!" Seungmin's voice rose again.
"It's my word against yours, and you're the lead researcher on the MP-7 project! You have clearance I don't have, seniority I don't have, connections I don't have! If this comes out, I'm the one who gets blamed. I'm the one who gets fired. I'm the one whose career gets destroyed because I misused experimental compounds!"
His breathing was ragged now, the familiar tightness of panic building in his chest.
"Why?! Why did you do this to me?!"
Hyunjin was silent for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was careful, measured. "I told you. I want—"
"You want to own me." Seungmin's hands dropped to his sides, clenched into fists. "You want to control me. This isn't—it's not about wanting me, Hyunjin. It's about taking something you couldn't have any other way."
"Is it so wrong to want to be close to you?"
"Close?!" Seungmin laughed again, hollow and bitter. "You raped me! You—injected me with an experimental drug without my consent—and now I'm—"
His voice broke on the last word. He couldn't say it. Couldn't acknowledge what was happening inside his body, the cells dividing and reforming, the organ that shouldn't exist growing in a place it had no right to be.
Your baby. He put his baby inside you.
The thought made him want to vomit.
"I need to sit down."
He made it to the nearest chair before his legs gave out. The cramping in his abdomen had intensified, a deep pulling sensation that radiated into his lower back, and he doubled over with a gasp.
"Seungmin—" Hyunjin was at his side in an instant, reaching for him.
"Don't." Seungmin held up a hand, warding him off. "Just—give me a minute."
He breathed through the wave, focusing on the clinical facts. Uterine formation typically begins 72-96 hours post-exposure. Accompanied by cramping, hormonal fluctuations, and increased sensitivity in the pelvic region. Subjects report discomfort ranging from mild to severe, manageable with standard analgesics.
Standard analgesics. Right. Because this was a standard situation.
"Here." Hyunjin pressed a bottle of water into his hand. "You need to stay hydrated. The serum accelerates cellular metabolism, and—"
"I know what it does." Seungmin's voice was flat. "I've read the research. I helped write the research."
"Then you know you need to eat, too. The caloric requirements for uterine formation are significant, and your body will start breaking down muscle tissue if—"
"I said I know!"
Seungmin's shout echoed in the empty lab. He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes again, trying to stem the headache that had been building for days.
Silence stretched between them. The cramping slowly subsided, leaving Seungmin exhausted and shaky.
When he finally looked up, Hyunjin was watching him with an expression that might have been concern on anyone else. On Hyunjin, it looked like ownership.
"I need to think." Seungmin's voice was hoarse. "I need to—I need to figure out what I'm going to do."
"There's nothing to figure out. I'll take care of you. I'll—"
"You've done enough."
Seungmin stood on unsteady legs. He needed to leave. Needed to get out of this lab, away from Hyunjin, away from the memories of what had happened on that sofa. But where would he go? Home, to an empty apartment and a bed that suddenly felt too big? To a hospital, where they would ask questions he couldn't answer?
He was trapped. Completely, utterly trapped.
"I need to document this." The words came out before he'd fully formed the thought. "If I—if something goes wrong, there needs to be a record. A medical history. Something."
"I've already started a file—"
"Not you." Seungmin's voice was cold. "I don't trust you to document anything accurately. You have—you have a conflict of interest."
Hyunjin's jaw tightened. "Seungmin—"
"I will never forgive you, Hwang Hyunjin."
The words hung in the air between them, heavy and final. Seungmin met Hyunjin's eyes steadily, letting every ounce of his anger and betrayal show.
"But for the sake of professionalism—for the sake of my career, my life, my future—I need to be rational about this. I need to—" He swallowed hard. "I need to monitor my own condition. Because I don't think I could trust you anymore. Even if the thing growing inside me is your baby."
Something flickered across Hyunjin's face. Pain, maybe. Or satisfaction. It was hard to tell.
"I'll submit daily reports to the internal database," Seungmin continued, forcing his voice to stay steady. "Symptoms, hormone levels, ultrasound imaging. Everything. If something goes wrong—if there are complications—at least there'll be data."
"You're treating yourself like a research subject."
"I am a research subject now. Thanks to you."
Seungmin moved toward the door again, pausing with his hand on the frame.
"I want access to the serum formula," he said without turning around. "All of it. The molecular structure, the synthesis process, the clinical trial data. If I'm going to be living with the effects, I need to understand exactly what's happening to my body."
"Seungmin—"
"And I want you to stay away from me." His grip on the doorframe tightened. "In the lab, outside the lab—everywhere. Unless there's a medical emergency, I don't want you touching me. I don't want you near me. I don't want to see your face unless it's absolutely necessary."
"That's not practical. We work together—"
"Then I'll request a transfer." Seungmin finally turned, meeting Hyunjin's eyes. "I'll tell administration we have creative differences. I'll take a position in another department, another project—anything to get away from you."
"They won't approve it. Not with your current—"
"Then I'll quit."
The words surprised him as much as they surprised Hyunjin. But even as he said them, Seungmin knew it was an empty threat. He couldn't quit. He had rent to pay, student loans, a life he'd built around this career. And now, apparently, he had medical expenses to consider.
Prenatal vitamins. Ultrasounds. A fucking delivery.
God, he was going to have to give birth.
The realization hit him like a physical blow, and he had to grip the doorframe to stay upright. He'd read the case studies, watched the videos, observed the volunteer subjects as they progressed through their pregnancies. He knew what male pregnancy entailed—the swelling, the weight gain, the shifting of internal organs to accommodate the growing uterus. The delivery, with its mandatory C-section and weeks of recovery.
He was going to go through all of that. Because Hyunjin wanted to own him.
"I need to go."
He was out the door before Hyunjin could respond, his footsteps echoing down the empty corridor. He made it to the archives before his legs gave out again, collapsing onto a dusty chair in the back corner where no one would find him.
The cramping started again almost immediately, sharper this time, and Seungmin pressed his palm against his abdomen with a gasp.
It's growing. Inside you. Right now.
He could feel it—the subtle wrongness in his body, the sense that his insides were rearranging themselves. The uterus was forming. Cells were dividing. And somewhere, deep in the chemical soup that Hyunjin had left inside him, a fertilized egg might already be implanting.
His baby. His fucking baby.
Seungmin buried his face in his hands and, for the first time since it happened, let himself cry.
He stayed in the archives for hours. Long past the end of his shift, long past when the cleaning crew had come and gone, long past when the building grew quiet around him. He pulled files at random, reading about MP-7's development, about the early trials, about the volunteers who had carried pregnancies to term and the ones who had lost them.
He read about the side effects.
The mood swings. The increased libido. The attachment that subjects reported feeling toward their impregnators—a psychological phenomenon that the researchers attributed to hormonal bonding but that Seungmin recognized as something far more sinister.
Stockholm syndrome with a chemical assist.
By the time he emerged, it was nearly midnight. The lab was dark, empty, and Seungmin made his way through it on autopilot. He paused at the sofa—the same sofa where it had happened—and felt a fresh wave of nausea roll through him.
He should burn it. Report it as contaminated. Something.
Yet instead, he walked past it to the small refrigerator where the serum was stored. Three vials remained. He took one, tucking it into his pocket, and then grabbed a syringe from the supply cabinet.
If he was going to monitor his own condition, he needed baseline data. And he needed to know exactly what Hyunjin had put inside him.
The formula was complex—pages and pages of molecular diagrams and synthesis instructions—but Seungmin had helped develop it. He could read it. Could understand it.
Could, if he was very careful, figure out how to counteract it.
Too late for that now, a voice whispered in his head. It's already done.
But maybe—just maybe—there was a way to make sure it never happened to anyone else.
Seungmin left the lab with the vial in his pocket and a plan forming in his mind.
The research notes kept him sane.
Seungmin had always been that way—when the world felt uncontrollable, he retreated into data. Numbers didn't lie. Chemical reactions didn't betray you. A hypothesis could be tested, verified, replicated. Science was reliable in a way that people, in a way that Hyunjin, never could be.
So he threw himself into the research with a desperation that bordered on obsession.
He set up a workstation in the archives, away from the main lab, away from Hyunjin's watchful eyes. He pulled every file on MP-7—the original proposals, the animal trials, the human volunteer data, the biochemical analyses. He read until his vision blurred, took notes until his hand cramped, and tried to ignore the way his body was changing around him.
Day five. The cramping had subsided, replaced by a persistent ache in his lower abdomen. His nipples were tender, sensitive to even the brush of his shirt. He documented everything.
On day six came the first ultrasound.
He performed it himself, hands shaking as he guided the wand over his gel-slicked skin. The image on the screen made his breath catch—a dark mass forming where nothing should be, the unmistakable shape of a uterus taking form. He saved the images, labeled them clinically, and didn't cry.
Day seven: The hormone panel. His estrogen had tripled. His progesterone was climbing. And there, in the hCG results, the confirmation he'd been dreading: positive.
The fertilized egg had implanted.
He was pregnant.
He had known that the serum was fast-acting but…
Seungmin stared at the results for a long time, the printout trembling in his hands. Then he filed it in his growing folder of documentation, wrote the date and time in his log, and went back to reading.
It was on day eight that he found it.
The file was buried in the appendices of the Phase Two trial data—a section he'd skimmed before but never studied in detail.
The title was innocuous: Symbiotic Properties of MP-7 and Donor-Specific Protein Markers.
He almost skipped it. He'd read dozens of similar papers, all discussing the serum's interaction with various biological systems. But something made him pause, made him read the abstract more carefully.
Preliminary data suggest that the MP-7 serum creates a biochemical dependency on the genetic material introduced during the insemination event. Subjects who received donor semen concurrent with serum exposure demonstrated significantly improved uterine formation rates when regular exposure to the same donor's seminal fluid was maintained. Conversely, subjects who did not receive subsequent exposures exhibited elevated core temperatures, increased inflammation markers, and in two cases, spontaneous rejection of the formed uterine tissue.
Seungmin read the paragraph three times.
Then he read it again.
Biochemical dependency.
Regular exposure.
Spontaneous rejection.
His hands were shaking as he flipped to the detailed findings. The data was limited—only a handful of subjects had been studied for this particular phenomenon—but the pattern was clear. The serum didn't just create a uterus.
It created a need. A need for the specific genetic material that had triggered the transformation in the first place.
The researchers had called it "immunological attunement." The serum rewrote the subject's immune system to accept the foreign tissue of the forming uterus, but that rewriting required regular reinforcement. Without it, the body would reject the changes. The uterus would break down. And the resulting systemic inflammation would—
Seungmin couldn't finish the sentence.
He sat in the dim archives, surrounded by files and data, and felt the walls closing in around him.
You need his cum.
The thought was clinical, detached—the same way he'd thought about all the other changes. But this was different. This wasn't just his body transforming. This was his body, requiring something from the man who had violated him.
You need Hyunjin to fuck you again. And again. And again.
"No." The word came out loud, echoing in the empty room. "No, there has to be another way."
He pulled more files.
The serum's molecular structure. The protein markers. The immunological pathways. There had to be a workaround, a synthetic alternative, something that could mimic the donor-specific properties without requiring the actual donor.
But the more he read, the more hopeless it became. The dependency wasn't just chemical—it was genetic. The serum had bonded his immune system to Hyunjin's specific DNA markers, and only Hyunjin's seminal fluid contained the proteins necessary to maintain that bond.
It was elegant, in a horrifying way. The serum ensured that the impregnator remained essential. That the subject couldn't simply take the pregnancy and run.
He knew. He must have known.
The thought made Seungmin's blood run cold. Had Hyunjin read this file? Had he known, when he injected himself with the serum and climbed on top of Seungmin, that he was creating an unbreakable bond?
Of course he had. Hyunjin was meticulous. He would have reviewed every aspect of the serum's properties before using it.
This wasn't just rape. This was ownership.
Seungmin didn't sleep that night. Couldn't even if he tried.
He sat at his kitchen table, surrounded by printouts and notes, and tried to find another answer. He cross-referenced the protein markers with known synthetic analogues. He calculated potential dosages of immunosuppressants that might trick his body into accepting the uterus without the donor fluid. He considered every possibility, no matter how unlikely.
By morning, he had nothing.
His phone buzzed. A message from Hyunjin.
You missed your morning check-in. Are you okay?
Seungmin stared at the message, his thumb hovering over the screen. He should ignore it. Like how Hyunjin is ignoring everything and brushing everything aside. Should maintain the distance he'd demanded. But the words on the printouts kept running through his mind, and a terrible, practical part of his brain was already calculating.
If I need him anyway...
"No." He said it aloud, to the empty apartment. "There's another way. There has to be."
He didn't respond to the message.
Seungmin woke with a strange feeling of warmth spreading through his body. Not unpleasant—not yet. Almost like standing in sunlight, a gentle heat that seeped into his bones.
He took his temperature: 37.8°C. Elevated, but not dangerous.
He documented it and went to work.
By noon, the warmth had intensified. His skin felt flushed, sensitive, and he found himself squirming in his chair. The ache in his lower abdomen had returned, sharper than before, and there was a new sensation—a hollow feeling, an emptiness that he couldn't quite name.
Temp read 38.2°C.
He took meds and tried to focus on his work.
By three o'clock, he was struggling. The heat was oppressive now, radiating from somewhere deep inside him, and his thoughts kept drifting to Hyunjin. The way his hands had felt on Seungmin's skin. The way he'd whispered mine as he—
Stop it.
Seungmin pressed his palms against the desk, trying to ground himself. His cock was half-hard in his pants, had been for the past hour, and no amount of mental distraction seemed to help. His body wanted, and what it wanted was—
38.9°C.
He should go to the medical bay. Should ask for help. But what would he say? I'm running a fever because I haven't let my rapist fuck me in over a week?
The thought made him laugh, a bitter, broken sound.
He stayed at his desk.
By the tenth day, Seungmin couldn't get out of bed.
Temp read 39.4°C when he finally managed to reach the thermometer, and every inch of his body ached with a deep, bone-level pain. His skin was flushed and damp with sweat, and the hollow feeling in his abdomen had intensified into something unbearable.
Need. Need. Need.
The word pulsed through him like a heartbeat, and he knew—logically, scientifically—what it meant. His body was rejecting the changes. The uterus was starting to break down, and the resulting inflammation was killing him.
He needed Hyunjin.
"No," he whispered to the ceiling. "Please, no."
His phone was on the nightstand. Hyunjin's number was in his recent calls—Seungmin had programmed it in for emergencies, never thinking he'd actually use it.
This isn't fair. This isn't—
He thought about his career. His research. The years he'd spent building a life, a reputation, a future. All of it could end here, in this bed, because he refused to let Hyunjin win.
But dying wouldn't be winning either.
His hand shook as he reached for the phone.
As he bit his lip to draw the feeling of blood. To the feeling of pain that should've made him wake up from this disastrous nightmare.
Hyunjin arrived in twenty-three minutes.
Seungmin knew because he counted every second, staring at the ceiling while his body burned and ached and needed. When he heard the apartment door open—he'd given Hyunjin the emergency code months ago, for lab-related crises, never thinking—his heart started pounding.
"Seungmin?"
Footsteps in the hallway. Then Hyunjin was in the doorway, his expression shifting from concern to something darker as he took in the sight of Seungmin sprawled on the bed, sweat-damp and trembling.
"Your temperature—"
"39.6." Seungmin's voice was barely a whisper. "The last time I checked."
"You should have called me sooner."
"I didn't want to call you at all."
Hyunjin crossed the room in three strides, his hand pressing against Seungmin's forehead. The touch was cool—blessedly cool—and Seungmin couldn't stop the broken sound that escaped him.
"I read the research," he said, hating how weak his voice sounded. "The symbiotic properties. T-The dependency."
Hyunjin's jaw tightened. "And you didn't think—"
"I thought there might be another way." Seungmin's eyes burned with fever and something worse. "I thought—I'm a scientist, I should be able to find a solution, I should—"
His voice cracked.
"There isn't one, is there?"
Hyunjin was quiet for a long moment. Then, slowly, he shook his head.
"The protein markers are DNA-specific. There's no synthetic alternative. I looked, too, before I—" He stopped, his expression flickering with something that might have been guilt. "Before."
"Before you decided to make me dependent on you for the rest of my life."
"I didn't—"
"You did." Seungmin tried to sit up, but his body wouldn't cooperate. The movement sent a fresh wave of heat through him, and he collapsed back against the pillows with a groan. "You knew. You read the same research, and you knew what would happen, and you did it anyway."
"I thought—"
"You thought you'd own me." Seungmin laughed, but it came out as a sob. "Congratulations, Hyunjin. It worked."
The silence stretched between them. Seungmin could feel his body getting worse, the fever climbing, the hollow ache intensifying. He needed—
"I hate you." The words came out broken, desperate. "I hate you so much."
"I know."
"I'll never forgive you for this."
"I know."
"Then why—" Seungmin's voice cracked again. "Why are you doing this to me?!"
Hyunjin's hand was still on his forehead, cool and steady. When he spoke, his voice was quiet.
"Because I couldn't have you any other way."
"That's not—"
"I tried." Hyunjin's eyes met his, and for the first time, Seungmin saw something raw in them. Something almost like pain. "I tried for three years to get your attention. To make you see me as something other than a colleague. And you were so—so focused on your research, on your career, on being professional—"
"So you raped me?"
The word hung in the air between them, ugly and sharp. Hyunjin flinched.
"There's no excuse for what I did." His voice was barely audible. "I know that. But I—"
"Stop." Seungmin closed his eyes. He couldn't listen to this. Couldn't handle the justification, the rationalization, the excuses. "Just—stop talking."
Another silence.
"Your fever is getting worse."
Seungmin opened his eyes. Hyunjin was watching him with an expression that was difficult to read—concern, yes, but also something else. Something hungry.
"I need—" Seungmin's voice caught on the word. "I need you to—"
"Tell me."
Say it. Ask him for what you need. Admit that he's won.
The thought made his stomach turn. But his body was burning, and the ache was unbearable, and he was so tired of fighting.
"I need you to fuck me." The words came out flat, defeated. "I need your cum inside me, or this fever is going to kill me."
Hyunjin's breath caught. "Seungmin—"
"Don't." Seungmin turned his face away, staring at the wall. "Don't say you're sorry. Don't say you wish it was different. Just—do what you came here to do."
For a moment, nothing happened. Then Seungmin felt the bed dip as Hyunjin climbed onto it, felt hands pushing his sweat-damp shirt up his torso.
"I'll take care of you." Hyunjin's voice was soft, almost tender. "I promise."
"You'll own me." Seungmin's eyes burned. "That's what this is. That's what you've always wanted."
"Yes." The admission was quiet, honest. "But I'll take care of you, too."
Seungmin didn't respond. There was nothing to say.
Hyunjin's hands were gentle as they undressed him.
It felt wrong—being touched like this, being cared for—by the same person who had violated him. But Seungmin's body was beyond caring about right and wrong. It arched into Hyunjin's touch, desperate and needy, and he hated himself for it.
"You're so hot." Hyunjin's palm slid down his chest, his stomach, stopping just above the waistband of his boxers. "Your skin is burning."
"That's the fever."
"The fever is because your body needs me." Hyunjin's fingers hooked into the elastic, tugging downward. "Because you're mine."
Seungmin's hips lifted involuntarily, helping Hyunjin remove the last barrier between them. His cock was hard—had been for hours, the fever making him constantly, painfully aroused—and it jutted up from his body, flushed and leaking.
"Look at you." Hyunjin's voice had dropped, roughened. "So desperate. So needy."
"Shut up."
"I've thought about this so many times." Hyunjin's hand wrapped around Seungmin's cock, stroking slowly. "Thought about how you'd look spread out for me. How you'd sound when you begged."
"I'm not begging—"
"Aren't you?" Hyunjin's thumb swept over the head, smearing the pre-cum that had gathered there. "Your body is begging, Seungmin. It's been begging for days. You just wouldn't listen."
"It's begging because you forced it to." Seungmin gnawed.
His hips jerked, pushing into Hyunjin's grip despite himself. The touch felt good—too good—and the fever was making everything hazy, making it hard to remember why he should fight.
"Please." The word slipped out automatically before he could stop it.
"There it is." Hyunjin's smile was sharp, triumphant. "That's what I wanted to hear."
He released Seungmin's cock, ignoring the broken sound of protest, and reached for the nightstand. A bottle of lube materialized—Seungmin didn't ask where it came from, didn't want to know—and then Hyunjin's fingers were pressing against his entrance.
"Wait—" Seungmin's hand shot out, grabbing Hyunjin's wrist. "I haven't—since you—"
"I know." Hyunjin's voice softened slightly. "I'll be careful."
The first finger breached him slowly, and Seungmin gasped at the intrusion. It had been over a week since Hyunjin had fucked him, since that night on the lab sofa, and his body had tightened back up. The stretch burned, but beneath the burn was something else—a deep, satisfying sense of rightness, like his body was finally getting what it needed.
This is the serum talking. This isn't you.
But it was getting harder to tell the difference.
By the second finger, Seungmin was writhing. By the third, he was pushing back onto Hyunjin's hand, chasing the sensation, desperate for more. The fever was still burning through him, but the hollow ache was starting to ease, replaced by a different kind of need.
"Please." He didn't recognize his own voice. "Hyunjin, please—"
"Please what?"
"Fuck me." Seungmin's eyes were squeezed shut, his face turned away. "Just—do it. Get it over with."
Hyunjin's fingers withdrew, and Seungmin heard the rustle of clothing, felt the bed shift as Hyunjin positioned himself between his legs.
"Look at me."
Seungmin kept his eyes closed.
"Look at me, Seungmin."
He opened his eyes. Hyunjin was above him, naked, his cock hard and flushed and pressing against Seungmin's entrance. His expression was intense, possessive, and something else—something that might have been tenderness on anyone else.
"This isn't just about the fever." Hyunjin's voice was quiet. "This is about us."
"There is no us."
"There is now." Hyunjin pushed forward, the head of his cock breaching Seungmin's body. "There has been since that night in the lab."
Seungmin's mouth opened in a silent gasp. The stretch was intense—almost too much—and for a moment he felt like he was being split open. But then Hyunjin was sliding deeper, and the ache was fading, and the fever was starting to break, and it felt so good—
"That's it." Hyunjin bottomed out, his hips flush against Seungmin's ass. "Take it. Take all of it."
Seungmin's hands fisted in the sheets. His body was trembling, caught between pleasure and revulsion, and he couldn't tell anymore which feeling was real.
"Move." His voice was barely a whisper. "Just—move."
Hyunjin obeyed.
He started slow, his thrusts deep and measured, each one pressing against that spot inside Seungmin that made stars burst behind his eyes. The fever was breaking, the heat dissipating with every stroke, and Seungmin could feel his body relaxing, accepting, welcoming the intrusion.
This is what you need. This is what you'll always need.
The thought made him want to scream.
"Your body knows." Hyunjin's voice was rough, strained. "It knows who it belongs to."
"It doesn't belong—"
"It does." Hyunjin's hand wrapped around Seungmin's cock again, stroking in time with his thrusts. "It's mine. You're mine. And after this—after I fill you up again—you'll never be able to deny it."
Seungmin's hips were moving now, pushing back to meet each thrust, chasing the pleasure even as his mind recoiled from it. The fever had broken, but the need remained—a deep, aching emptiness that only Hyunjin could fill.
"I hate you." The words came out breathless, broken. "I hate you so fucking much."
"I know." Hyunjin's thrusts were speeding up, his grip tightening on Seungmin's cock. "But your body loves me. Your body needs me. And that's never going to change."
Seungmin came with a cry, his cock pulsing in Hyunjin's grip, his ass clenching around the cock inside him. The orgasm seemed to go on forever, wave after wave of pleasure crashing through him, and when it finally subsided he was left trembling and empty and full at the same time.
Hyunjin followed moments later, his hips stuttering, his cock buried deep. Seungmin felt the warmth spreading inside him—the cum, Hyunjin's cum, filling him up exactly the way his body needed—and something inside him broke.
You'll always need this. You'll always need him.
He lay there, limp and pliant, as Hyunjin pulled out and collapsed beside him. The fever was gone, the ache was fading, and all that remained was the horrible, inescapable reality of his situation.
"How often?" His voice was hollow. "How often will I need—"
"The research suggests every 48-72 hours during the first trimester." Hyunjin's voice was clinical, detached. "Less frequently as the pregnancy progresses."
"Great." Seungmin stared at the ceiling. "So I'm dependent on you for the next nine months."
"Longer, probably. The immunological changes don't reverse immediately after birth."
"Of course they don't."
Silence settled over them. Seungmin could feel Hyunjin's cum inside him, could feel his body absorbing it, using it to stabilize the changes that the serum had wrought. It should have made him sick. Instead, he felt an uncomfortable sense of relief.
Your body knows what it needs. And what it needs is him.
"I want a schedule." Seungmin's voice was flat. "Documented. Clinical. I'll come to your apartment, or you'll come to mine, and we'll do this like a medical procedure."
"Seungmin—"
"I'm not doing this because I want to." He finally turned his head, meeting Hyunjin's eyes. "I'm doing it because I have no choice. And I need you to understand that. I need you to understand that this doesn't change anything between us. You raped me. You violated me. And now you've made it so I can't survive without you."
Hyunjin's expression flickered. "I—"
"I'll see you the day after tomorrow." Seungmin turned away again, staring at the wall. "Now get out of my apartment." Clinical, cold. Strictly professional.
For a long moment, Hyunjin didn't move. The same dreading feeling he's felt when Seungmin rejected his advances resurfaced. The bed shifted, and Seungmin heard him dressing, heard his footsteps moving toward the door.
"I am sorry." Hyunjin's voice was quiet. "I know that doesn't mean anything to you right now. But I am."
The door closed behind him.
Seungmin lay in the dark, his body finally cool, his mind finally quiet, and tried not to think about how right it had felt to have Hyunjin inside him.
It's the serum. It's not you. It's not you.
But as he drifted into an exhausted sleep, he couldn't help wondering if there was any difference anymore.
Schedule Protocol: 48-hour reintroduction interval
Day 12.
The fever started during their weekly division meeting.
Seungmin had been taking notes, pen moving mechanically across paper, when the heat crept up his spine. Not the fever-heat of before—this was different. Lower. Settling in his pelvis like a second heartbeat, pulsing in time with his pulse.
No. Not here. Not now.
He shifted in his chair. The friction of his pants against his hole—still tender, still sensitive from the serum's tissue reconstruction—sent a spark of unwanted arousal through his gut.
Forty-eight hours. It's been forty-eight hours since the last—
"Seungmin?"
He looked up. Director Park was watching him with mild concern.
"Are you alright? You look flushed."
"I'm fine." His voice came out rougher than intended. "Just—warm. The HVAC has been inconsistent."
The director nodded and continued his presentation, but Seungmin could feel Hyunjin's eyes on him. That knowing gaze. That waiting gaze.
He knows. He can probably smell it on me.
The thought made his stomach turn. But beneath the disgust, something else was stirring—something the serum had planted, something that made his hole clench around nothing and his breath come faster.
Need. Need. Need.
By the time the meeting ended, Seungmin was sweating. His hands trembled as he gathered his papers. His legs felt unsteady when he stood.
Hyunjin appeared at his elbow.
"You don't look well." Quiet. Concerned. For anyone watching, a colleague is checking on a sick teammate. "Let me walk you back to the lab."
No. No, I don't want—
"Okay." The word came out without his permission. His body was already leaning toward Hyunjin, already responding to the proximity of what it needed.
This isn't me. This is the serum. This is what he did to me.
The distinction felt thinner every day.
The space was barely two square meters. Shelves lined the walls, crammed with outdated reagents and broken equipment. The door didn't lock properly—anyone could walk in, anyone could hear—
"Shh." Hyunjin's hand covered his mouth. "You need to be quiet, Seungmin. Unless you want someone to find us like this."
Seungmin's back pressed against a shelf. His lab coat was bunched around his waist, his pants pooled around one ankle, and Hyunjin's fingers were already inside him—two, then three, stretching him open with clinical efficiency.
"Forty-eight hours." Hyunjin's breath was hot against his ear. "Your body's learning the schedule. Learning to expect me."
Stop talking. Stop acting like this is—like I wanted—
But his body was betraying him. His hips rolled into Hyunjin's touch, chasing the pressure, and when Hyunjin's fingers curled against his prostate, a moan escaped into his palm.
"There it is." Hyunjin smiled. That terrible, tender smile. "Your body knows what it needs, even when your mind resists."
He withdrew his fingers. Seungmin heard the zip of Hyunjin's pants, the rustle of fabric, and then the blunt head of his cock pressing against Seungmin's entrance.
"Tell me you need it."
No. I won't. I won't give you that.
Hyunjin pushed in anyway.
The stretch was still too much—would always be too much—but the serum had done something to his nerves, rewired them so that pain and pleasure blurred together into a single overwhelming sensation. Seungmin's head fell back against the shelf, his eyes rolling, his body clenching around Hyunjin's cock like it was trying to pull him deeper.
"That's it." Hyunjin's hands gripped his hips, holding him in place as he started to move. Short, controlled thrusts, barely enough to stimulate, just enough to remind Seungmin of how full he was. "You're doing so well. Taking everything I give you."
Stop. Stop acting like this is a gift. Stop acting like I should be grateful—
But the fever was receding with every thrust. The desperate, gnawing need in his gut was being replaced by something else—satisfaction, relief, a horrible bone-deep rightness that made him want to scream.
"You're mine, Seungmin." Hyunjin's voice was soft. Almost reverent. "Every part of you. Your body knows it now. Your cells know it. You were made for this—for me."
He angled his hips and drove in hard, hitting Seungmin's prostate with brutal precision, and Seungmin's moan was muffled by Hyunjin's palm but it echoed in his own skull like a scream.
This is rape. This is rape and I'm moaning and my body is loving it and he's going to make me—
Hyunjin's pace quickened. His breathing grew ragged. And when he came, he buried himself to the hilt, flooding Seungmin's insides with warmth, and Seungmin felt his own orgasm tear through him—untouched, unwanted, inevitable.
"There." Hyunjin pressed a kiss to his forehead. "Good boy."
Seungmin wanted to vomit.
Instead, he cried.
Schedule Protocol: 36-hour reintroduction interval
Day 18.
The interval had shortened.
Seungmin had noticed it three days ago—his body starting to ache at 40 hours, then 38, then 36. The dependency was intensifying, requiring more frequent exposure to maintain the uterine tissue.
He's probably pleased. Probably planned this too.
He lay on his bed, naked from the waist down, while Hyunjin examined him with clinical detachment. Fingers inside him, pressing against the newly-formed tissue, checking for signs of inflammation or rejection.
"Tissue integrity is excellent." Hyunjin withdrew his fingers and reached for the bottle of lubricant on the nightstand. "Your body's adapting beautifully."
My body isn't adapting. It's being colonized.
Seungmin didn't say it out loud. He'd stopped saying things out loud. What was the point? Hyunjin would just interpret it as resistance, as denial, as further evidence that Seungmin needed to be taken care of.
"Roll over."
The sex was faster this time—less preparation, less hesitation. Hyunjin had learned exactly how to open him up, exactly how much pressure to apply, exactly when to push and when to pause. It was efficient. Professional. Like a medical procedure with an orgasm at the end.
This is what my life is now. A schedule. A protocol. A body that needs to be filled every thirty-six hours or it starts to eat itself.
Hyunjin finished inside him and pulled out. Seungmin felt the cum trickle down his thighs, warm and wet, and he didn't move. Didn't try to clean it up. What was the point? It would be absorbed into his tissue anyway, feeding the thing growing inside him.
"You're quiet tonight." Hyunjin lay beside him, propped on one elbow, tracing patterns on Seungmin's bare back. "Is something wrong?"
Everything is wrong. Everything has been wrong since you injected me with that serum.
"Just tired."
Hyunjin hummed. His fingers drifted lower, tracing the curve of Seungmin's hip, the swell of his ass. "You're handling this remarkably well. The adjustment period is usually harder for first-time subjects."
First-time subjects. Like I'm one of many. Like you've done this before.
"Have you?" The question slipped out before Seungmin could stop it. "Done this before? To other people?"
Hyunjin's hand stilled.
"No." His voice was soft. Almost surprised by his own honesty. "You're the first. The only one I've ever wanted like this."
Wanted. Like this is a desire. Like this is love.
"That doesn't make it better."
"I know." Hyunjin's hand resumed its path, gentle and possessive. "But it makes it true."
Seungmin closed his eyes.
True. Everything he does is true, in some twisted way. He wanted me. He took me. He made me need him. All of it is true.
And I can't figure out how to make it stop.
Schedule Protocol: 30-hour reintroduction interval
Day 25.
The cramps started during a viability assay.
Seungmin's hands froze over the microscope. The pain radiated from his pelvis, sharp and insistent, and he knew without checking that his hormone levels were spiking.
Thirty hours. It's been thirty-one.
"Hyunjin."
His voice came out strained. Hyunjin looked up from his desk, saw Seungmin's white-knuckled grip on the lab bench, and immediately understood.
"Here?"
"Can't—can't wait."
Hyunjin was already moving. Locking the lab door. Closing the blinds. Clearing a space on the desk.
"Bend over."
He did.
It was routine now. Mechanical. His body knew the sequence—pants down, back arched, hole exposed—and it responded before his mind could catch up. By the time Hyunjin's cock pressed against him, he was already open. Already wet. Already ready.
This is what I am now. A body that opens on command. A hole that needs to be filled.
The thrusts were perfunctory. Hyunjin's hands gripped his hips, steadying him, and the sound of skin against skin filled the quiet lab. Seungmin stared at the microscope in front of him, at the sample he'd been analyzing, and tried to focus on the science instead of the cock inside him.
MP-7 induces uterine tissue formation in male subjects. Tissue requires donor-specific seminal fluid for maintenance. Reintroduction interval decreases over time as dependency stabilizes.
Stabilizes. Like this is normal. Like this is sustainable.
Hyunjin came with a quiet groan. Seungmin felt the familiar warmth flooding him, and his body relaxed—the cramps easing, the need receding, the horrible satisfaction settling into his bones.
"Better?"
"..." He stayed quiet.
Hyunjin pulled out and tucked himself away. Seungmin stayed bent over the desk for a moment longer, cum dripping down his thighs, before straightening up and pulling his pants back into place.
"I need to finish the essay."
"I know." Hyunjin was already back at his own desk, pulling up data files, as if nothing had happened. "I'll order more reagents for the next batch."
As if this is normal. As if we're just colleagues. As if he didn't just fuck me over our lab bench and fill me with cum like it's a scheduled procedure.
Seungmin returned to the microscope.
His hands weren't shaking anymore.
Schedule Protocol: 24-hour reintroduction interval
Day 32.
It became daily now.
The interval had stabilized at twenty-four hours—once a day, every day, or the fever returned and the cramping started and Seungmin's body began to consume itself from the inside.
He stopped fighting it.
He'd stopped trying to find alternatives.
He'd stopped imagining a future where this ended.
This is my life now. Hyunjin's essence in my body every day. His hands on my skin. His voice in my ear. His name signed on every inch of skin.
Hyunjin was still asleep beside him. Early morning light filtered through the curtains, catching the sharp angles of his face, and Seungmin watched him breathe and felt something twist in his chest.
Gratitude? Is that what this is?
The serum had rewired his hormones, his receptors, his fundamental biochemistry. But it hadn't touched his mind—not directly. His thoughts were still his own. His hatred, his disgust, his rage—those were still real.
Weren't they?
He takes care of me. He shows up every day. He makes sure I have what I need. He's never late, never forgetful, never treats me like anything less than—
Stop. Stop it. This is what abusers do. They make you dependent. They make you grateful. They make you feel like you can't survive without them.
But I can't survive without him. That's not psychology. That's biology. That's the serum he designed specifically to make me need him.
So where does the rape end and the dependency begin? Where's the line between trauma and—and whatever this is?
Hyunjin stirred. His eyes opened, still soft with sleep, and found Seungmin's face.
"Morning." A small smile. "You're awake early."
"Couldn't sleep."
"Cramping?"
"No." Seungmin's voice was flat. "Just thinking."
Hyunjin propped himself up on one elbow. His hand found Seungmin's hip under the sheets, thumb tracing the bone. "About what?"
About how you ruined my life. About how I can't tell anymore if I hate you or need you or both. About how the line between those things gets blurrier every day.
"Nothing important."
Hyunjin studied him for a long moment. Then he leaned in and pressed a kiss to Seungmin's shoulder—gentle, unhurried, almost tender.
"You can tell me. You know that, right? Whatever you're thinking. Whatever you're feeling. I want to know."
You want to know so you can use it against me. So you can shape my emotions to fit your narrative. So you can convince yourself that what you're doing is love.
"I know."
Hyunjin smiled again. His hand drifted lower, finding Seungmin's entrance, and Seungmin's body opened for him automatically—trained, responsive, his.
"Good boy."
The words should have made him angry. Should have made him resist. Instead, they sent a spark of warmth through his chest that had nothing to do with the serum.
That's the part that scares me.
Hyunjin pushed in.
And Seungmin let him.
Post-Coital. 07:43.
Hyunjin had left for an early meeting—something about grant funding, bureaucratic necessities—and Seungmin lay alone in the bed, staring at the ceiling.
His body felt satisfied. Full. The cramps had eased, the fever had receded, and the gnawing need in his gut had been temporarily quieted.
But his mind—
Is this codependency? Is that what's happening?
He'd read about it, in the weeks since the injection. Trauma bonding. Capture bonding. The psychological phenomenon where victims develop emotional attachments to their captors as a survival mechanism.
It makes sense. My body needs him to survive. My mind is just... catching up. Creating a narrative that makes the dependency bearable.
But that's not the same as wanting him. That's not the same as—
He thought about the warmth in his chest when Hyunjin called him "good boy." The way his body relaxed when Hyunjin walked into a room. The small, terrible part of him that felt safe when Hyunjin's hands were on him.
That's not trauma bonding. That's something else. Something the serum didn't create but didn't prevent either.
Something that was already there, maybe. Waiting.
No. No. I didn't want this. I never wanted this. I wanted to be his colleague, his partner, his friend—not his—not his—
He couldn't finish the thought.
Because the truth was, he didn't know what he was anymore. Didn't know where the violation ended and the need began. Didn't know if the feelings crawling through his chest were the serum's manipulation or something realer, darker, more dangerous.
He raped me. He designed a system to make me need him. He took away my choice, my body, my future.
And I'm lying here, full of him, feeling something that looks terrifyingly like affection.
What does that make me?
Seungmin closed his eyes.
He didn't have an answer.
He wasn't sure he wanted one.
Seungmin's footsteps echoed against the pavement as he moved through the university district, the afternoon crowd thinning as evening approached. His hand kept drifting to his stomach—a habit he'd developed without realizing, one he forced down each time he caught himself doing it.
Stop. Someone might notice.
At four months, the curve was undeniable to him. Protruding, but not obvious enough.
A gentle swell beneath his navel, firm to the touch, his skin stretching in ways that still felt impossible.
He'd stopped wearing his fitted shirts weeks ago, trading them for oversized sweaters and coats that hung loose on his frame. The change in wardrobe had raised eyebrows at the lab, but he'd brushed off questions with murmured excuses about weight fluctuations, stress, anything that wasn't the truth.
Four months. Almost halfway.
The thought made his throat tight.
He passed a storefront with a television mounted in the window, the volume loud enough to catch fragments of a news broadcast. His pace slowed despite himself.
"—landmark announcement from the Ministry of Health today, confirming the success of the MP-7 serum distribution program. Officials report a ninety-two percent success rate among participating male subjects, with healthy pregnancies and deliveries across all monitored cohorts."
Seungmin's feet stopped.
The screen showed footage of a press conference—government officials in suits, charts and graphs projected behind them. A ticker scrolled across the bottom:
MP-7 PROGRAM EXPANDS TO THREE ADDITIONAL DISTRICTS / APPLICATIONS UP 340% FROM LAST QUARTER.
"The program has exceeded all projections," a spokeswoman was saying.
"Beyond the demographic benefits, we're seeing a profound social shift. Couples who previously had no path to biological children are now building families. The legislation supporting male participants has created unprecedented protections and support systems."
The footage cut to an interview—a man in his thirties, arm around another man, both of them beaming.
"We thought we'd have to leave Korea," one of them said.
"Adoption was nearly impossible for us. Surrogacy was legally complicated and financially out of reach. But this—" He pressed a hand to his partner's stomach, visibly rounded beneath a fitted shirt. "This changed everything. We're having our baby here, in our home country. We don't have to choose between our family and our homeland anymore."
Seungmin's chest ached.
They chose this. They wanted this.
The broadcast continued, shifting to footage from a pride parade—colourful banners, rainbow flags, couples walking hand-in-hand through Seoul streets. Something that would have been unthinkable a decade ago.
"The MP-7 program has accelerated social acceptance of LGBTQ+ relationships in unprecedented ways," the reporter narrated. "What began as a demographic solution has become a civil rights milestone. Pride events have seen record attendance, and recent polls show approval of same-sex partnerships at an all-time high of sixty-seven percent."
A clip of a celebration—men kissing openly, children on shoulders, signs reading OUR BODIES, OUR CHOICE, OUR FAMILIES.
Seungmin turned away from the window.
Our bodies, our choice.
The irony tasted bitter.
He hadn't chosen. He hadn't consented. His body had been stolen from him, repurposed for someone else's obsession, and now—
Now I'm part of a statistic. A success story. A number in someone's spreadsheet.
A laugh cut through his thoughts—bright, unmistakable. Seungmin's head turned instinctively, and there they were: Chan and Felix, emerging from a café, Felix's sunny hair catching the light as he adjusted the blanket around—
A baby.
Seungmin's mind stopped.
The infant was tiny, face scrunched in that newborn way, wrapped in a soft blue blanket. Chan held it with an ease that spoke of practice, of late nights and learned instincts. His bicep flexed as he shifted the bundle closer to his chest, dipping his head to press a kiss to the baby's fuzzy crown.
"Seungmin-ssi!"
Felix's voice broke through the haze. Seungmin blinked, forcing his expression into something neutral, something professional, as they approached.
"Felix-ssi. Chan-ssi." He bowed slightly. "I didn't expect to see you here."
"Maternity leave," Chan said with a tired but genuine smile. "Well—paternity, technically. Eight weeks now." He looked down at the baby with an expression so tender it made Seungmin's chest ache.
"This is Minho. After my dad." Chan beams.
"Minho-ssi," Seungmin murmured. The name felt strange on his tongue.
Felix bounced on his heels, that perpetual energy radiating off him. "He's been such a good baby, honestly. Only wakes up twice a night now."
"Only," Chan laughed, but there was no complaint in it.
Seungmin's researcher brain kicked in automatically, trying to fight the other pregnant thoughts. "Felix-ssi, have you experienced any lingering side effects? The MP-7 protocol can sometimes cause hormonal fluctuations postpartum, especially with the uterine reabsorption phase—"
"Still the dedicated scientist," Chan said warmly.
"We've been monitoring everything. Felix's checkups have been clear. The artificial womb dissolved on schedule, hormone levels are normalizing." He paused, something flickering in his eyes. "We have you and Hyunjin-ssi to thank for that. The refinements you made to the serum..."
Seungmin's stomach churned.
"Yes," he said flatly. "The refinements."
"Have you heard from the review board?" Felix asked, tilting his head. "About the next phase of trials?"
"We're... in discussions."
The lie came easily. What could he say? Actually, I'm part of an unauthorized single-subject trial conducted by my obsessive colleague who raped me and now I'm carrying his child?
Chan shifted Minho to his other arm, the movement drawing Seungmin's gaze back to the baby. Small fingers curled around the edge of the blanket. A tiny nose. Rosebud lips.
There's something like that inside me.
The thought hit him like a physical blow.
Forming. Growing. Half me, half—
"Seungmin-ssi? You look pale."
He blinked. Felix was watching him with concern.
"Just… tired," Seungmin managed. "Long week."
"You should take care of yourself," Chan said, that natural caretaker authority in his voice. "Research is important, but burnout helps no one."
Burnout. If only that were his only problem.
"Congratulations," Seungmin said, the word thick in his throat. "Minho-ssi is... he's beautiful."
And he meant it. That was the worst part.
They exchanged a few more pleasantries—Felix's recovery timeline, Chan's adjusted schedule, the university's new funding allocation. Normal. Domestic. Everything a family should be.
Would Hyunjin hold our baby like that?
The thought was intrusive, unwanted. Seungmin shoved it down.
"We should get going," Chan said finally, adjusting Minho against his shoulder. "Little one needs feeding. It was good seeing you, Seungmin-ssi. Take care of yourself."
"You too."
Seungmin watched them walk away—Chan's protective posture, Felix's hand resting on his partner's lower back, the baby a small bundle of hope cradled between them. Felix gave him one last glance down, and Seungmin thinks he saw Felix give him a raised eyebrow, but he disregards it.
A family.
Chosen. Wanted. Loved.
His hand moved unconsciously to his stomach. Beneath layers of fabric, beneath skin and muscle, cells were dividing. A heartbeat would form soon, if it hadn't already.
Would he be happy with a baby he never wanted?
But it was still his baby.
But he never wanted it. Not with him.
The contradictions swirled, a storm with no resolution.
Seungmin stood on the sidewalk long after Chan and Felix had disappeared around the corner. The afternoon light was fading, casting long shadows across the pavement.
What now?
His career—once a clear trajectory of publications and grants and meaningful contribution—had become a minefield. He couldn't publish about MP-7 without acknowledging his own... involvement. Couldn't continue the research without Hyunjin. Couldn't escape Hyunjin without—
His body remembered the fever. The need. The way Hyunjin's cum was the only thing that kept the burning at bay.
Dependence. Designed. Deliberate.
And the baby?
Seungmin had never wanted children. Had never imagined himself as a father, especially not like this—not as a victim, not as an experiment, not bound to a man who'd violated every ethical principle they'd sworn to uphold.
But the embryo didn't know that. It simply existed, growing inside him, innocent of the circumstances of its conception.
Could I hate it?
Should I?
And Hyunjin...
Seungmin's jaw tightened.
Hyunjin, who had been his colleague, his co-author, his trusted partner. Hyunjin, who had smiled at him across lab benches and brought him coffee during late nights and then—
He shudders.
The most terrifying part wasn't the violation anymore.
It was the way the lines had blurred. The way his body responded to Hyunjin now, trained like Pavlov's dog. The way some small, broken part of him had started to believe this was inevitable.
What comes next?
He didn't know.
But as he was about to turn towards home, Seungmin realized the question wasn't just about survival anymore.
It was about what kind of life—what kind of future—could possibly emerge from this wreckage.
His hand found his stomach again. He let it rest there this time, feeling the firmness beneath his palm.
Four months.
The pregnancy books he'd bought—hidden in his apartment, spine cracked from anxious reading—said the fetus was about the size of an avocado now. Developing fingerprints. Growing hair. Possibly even able to hear sounds from outside the womb.
Can you hear me?
The question surfaced unbidden.
Do you know what I think about? Do you know I didn't want you?
Guilt crashed over him, hot and suffocating.
It's not your fault. None of this is your fault.
But the fault lay somewhere, and the person responsible was the same person Seungmin now depended on for survival. The serum had seen to that. His body craved Hyunjin now—his touch, his presence—with a desperation that horrified him.
Four more months. Maybe five.
What would happen then?
The question had been circling for weeks, growing louder as his body changed. Would Hyunjin expect them to raise the child together? Some twisted version of a family? Or would the baby be another data point, another experiment to document and analyze?
And what do I want?
The question was almost laughable. When had what he wanted mattered?
He thought of Chan and Felix—Minho's small face, the way they'd looked at each other, the ease of their partnership. A family built on love, on choice, on mutual desire.
That could never be us.
Hyunjin had seen to that.
A bus shelter ahead displayed another screen—this one showing an advertisement for MP-7 consultations. A smiling couple, a positive pregnancy test, the tagline: THE FUTURE IS YOURS TO BUILD.
Seungmin looked away.
His phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out, glancing at the screen.
Hyunjin: Coming home?
Two words. Simple. But they carried the weight of expectation, of obligation, of a dependence he couldn't escape.
Seungmin: On my way.
He tucked the phone away and kept walking, one hand still pressed to the curve of his belly, the other hanging limp at his side.
The city moved around him—couples holding hands, families with strollers, the ordinary choreography of lives being lived. Somewhere nearby, Chan was probably feeding Minho. Somewhere, Felix was resting. Somewhere, the men from the broadcast were celebrating a future they'd chosen.
And Seungmin was walking toward a man who'd stolen his choice, carrying a child he'd never asked for, his body no longer his own.
Four more months.
The thought was a countdown and a sentence.
Four more months, and then—
He didn't finish the thought.
He just kept walking.
The apartment door clicked shut behind him, and Seungmin stood in the entryway for a moment, toes curling against the cold tile. The warmth of the living room washed over him—Hyunjin kept it warmer than Seungmin liked now, always commenting on how pregnant bodies needed extra comfort.
As if he knows. As if he's ever carried anything but his own delusions.
"You're late."
Hyunjin's voice drifted from the kitchen, soft and unhurried. A moment later, he appeared in the doorway, dish towel slung over his shoulder, wearing one of those oversized sweaters he'd started buying for both of them. Matching. Couple items. The kind of thing Seungmin would have rolled his eyes at before.
Before.
"I stopped to look at something." Seungmin toed off his shoes, avoiding Hyunjin's gaze. "A broadcast. About the program."
"Ah." Hyunjin's smile was gentle. Infuriatingly gentle. "They're doing a segment on the success rates? I saw the preliminary report last week. Impressive numbers."
Impressive numbers. As if we're discussing stock portfolios instead of people's lives.
Seungmin moved past him toward the bedroom, but Hyunjin caught his wrist—not roughly, never roughly, just enough to pause him.
"Hey." A thumb stroked across his pulse point. "You're trembling."
"I'm fine."
"You're not." Hyunjin stepped closer, pressing the back of his hand to Seungmin's forehead. His expression shifted—concern folding into something more clinical. "Your body's burning up again."
The words settled in Seungmin's stomach like stones.
No. Not now. Not yet—
"I think it's time for another—"
"What if I didn't want the baby?"
The words tore out of him, sharp and sudden, silencing the room.
Hyunjin's body went rigid. His hand still rested against Seungmin's forehead, but the warmth had drained from his eyes—replaced by something flat and unreadable.
"What?"
"What if I said I wanted to stop taking your—" Seungmin's voice cracked. He swallowed hard. The word caught in his throat like glass. "Your—"
He couldn't say it. Cum. Seed. The thing that keeps me alive and chained to you.
"Then you'd d—"
"What if I wanted to?"
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Hyunjin's hand dropped from Seungmin's forehead. He took a step back, then another, until his shoulders met the wall. His face was pale, jaw tight, and for a moment—just a moment—Seungmin saw something crack beneath the composed surface.
Fear.
He's afraid.
"You don't mean that."
"I do."
"You don't." Hyunjin's voice was barely above a whisper. "You're upset. You're hormonal. The pregnancy is affecting your emotions—that's normal, Seungmin, the literature says—"
"The literature?" A laugh bubbled up Seungmin's throat, hollow and jagged. "You're quoting literature to me? You—who did this without asking, who—"
"I saved you."
The words landed like a slap.
"Saved me?" Seungmin's hands shook. "You raped me. You pumped me full of experimental serum and—and used me—"
"I gave us a future." Hyunjin pushed off the wall, something desperate clawing into his voice. "You were going to leave. Transfer to another lab, another city, disappear from my life entirely. I couldn't—I couldn't let that happen."
"So you trapped me."
"I kept you." Hyunjin's hands found his shoulders, gripping tight. "There's a difference. I kept you close. I kept you safe. I made sure you'd never have to wonder where you belong."
"I belong nowhere near you."
"You belong with me." Hyunjin's voice broke. "You've always belonged with me. From the moment you walked into that lab, from the first time you corrected my methodology in front of the whole team—I knew. I knew you were it for me."
"This isn't love." Seungmin's vision blurred. When had he started crying? "This is obsession. This is—"
"This is everything."
Hyunjin's hands moved to his face, cupping his jaw, thumbs brushing away tears with a tenderness that made Seungmin's chest ache.
"I love you." The words were fierce, trembling. "I love you so much it terrifies me. Every day I wake up and you're here, you're real, you're carrying something we made together—and I know you hate me. I know you think you do. But I can take that. I can take your anger and your fear and your resentment, because at least you're here. At least you're mine."
"I'm not yours."
"You are." A thumb traced his lower lip. "Your body knows it. Your blood knows it. Every cell in you is wired to need me now—that's not just the serum, Seungmin. That's fate. That's us."
"It's chemical manipulation."
"It's bonding." Hyunjin leaned closer, forehead pressing to Seungmin's. His breath was warm, familiar, carrying the scent of the tea he'd been drinking. "Your body recognizes what your mind is too stubborn to accept. We were meant to do this together. The research, the program, this baby—all of it."
Seungmin's legs trembled. The fever was building now, crawling through his veins like fire. He needed—
Don't think about it. Don't admit it.
"The baby," he managed. "I never wanted—"
"You didn't know you wanted it." Hyunjin's lips brushed his temple. "You didn't know what you were capable of. I showed you. I gave you something no one else could."
"You took my choice."
"I gave you a different one." Hyunjin pulled back just enough to meet his eyes. "And I know you're scared. I know you're angry. But I also know that right now, your temperature is rising, your body is aching, and you need me to make it stop."
Seungmin's breath hitched.
"Don't—"
"Let me take care of you." Hyunjin's voice dropped to a murmur, honey-dark and persuasive. "Let me prove that this isn't just about possession. Let me show you how good it can be when you stop fighting."
"I don't want to stop fighting."
"You're exhausted." Hands slid down to his waist, pulling him closer. "You've been fighting for months. You're tired and you're sick and you're carrying a life that scares you. Just—let go. Just for tonight."
The fever pulsed through him, a desperate throb between his legs, his body screaming for what only Hyunjin could provide.
Just for tonight. Just to make the pain stop. Just because I have no choice.
"I hate you," Seungmin whispered.
"I know." Hyunjin kissed his forehead. "I can work with that."
They made it to the bedroom, barely.
Seungmin's back hit the mattress, and Hyunjin followed him down, covering his body with warmth and weight. The fever had reached critical—Seungmin's skin burning, his hole clenching on nothing, desperate and empty.
"Please—" The word escaped before he could stop it.
"Please what?" Hyunjin's hands pushed up his oversized sweater, baring the swell of his stomach. "Tell me what you need."
"You know what I need."
"I want to hear you say it."
Say it. Admit it. Give him the satisfaction.
Seungmin's pride warred with his body. The body won.
"Your cum." The words tasted like ash and surrender. "I need your cum inside me."
Hyunjin groaned, low and satisfied. "Good. That's good. You're so good for me, Seungmin."
Clothes disappeared in fragments—Seungmin didn't remember removing them, only the relief of skin against skin. Hyunjin's hands were everywhere, stroking and soothing, tracing the curve of his belly with a reverence that made Seungmin want to scream.
Don't be gentle. Don't act like this is romantic.
But Hyunjin was gentle. He always was—maddeningly, unbearably gentle. As if he truly believed this was love.
"You're so beautiful like this." Hyunjin's mouth found his nipple, tongue circling the sensitive bud. Milk had started to come in last week—another indignity, another violation of a body that no longer belonged to him. Hyunjin lapped at it eagerly, humming with satisfaction. "Carrying our child. So perfect."
"Stop talking."
"Make me."
Seungmin grabbed his hair and pulled him into a kiss—angry and desperate and tasting of tears. Hyunjin melted into it, sighing with pleasure, as if this was everything he'd ever wanted.
Maybe it is. Maybe this is all he ever wanted.
The thought was unbearable.
Hyunjin's fingers found his entrance, slick with the excessive lubrication the serum produced. One finger, then two, stretching him open with practiced ease.
"You're so ready." A third finger joined, curling to find that spot inside him that made stars burst behind his eyes. "Your body was made for this. Made for me."
Seungmin bit his lip hard enough to taste blood. He wouldn't give Hyunjin the satisfaction of moaning. Wouldn't—
"Ah—"
"There it is." Hyunjin's smile was radiant. "There's my good boy."
Don't call me that. Don't act like I'm yours.
But he was. The serum had seen to that. Every cell in his body recognized Hyunjin as necessary—as the only thing that could ease the fire consuming him from within.
"Please." The word scraped out of him again. "Just—do it. Get it over with."
"Get it over with?" Hyunjin positioned himself between Seungmin's thighs, the head of his cock pressing against the fluttering entrance. "This isn't a transaction, Seungmin. This is us. This is connection."
"This is survival."
"Same thing."
Hyunjin pushed inside.
The relief was immediate and devastating. Seungmin's body arched off the mattress, a broken sound tearing from his throat as the fever began to recede—replaced by something worse. Something that felt like wanting.
"That's it." Hyunjin bottomed out, hips flush against Seungmin's ass. "Take me. Take all of me."
You gave me no choice.
But his body was already moving, hips rolling to meet Hyunjin's thrusts, inner walls clenching to keep him inside. The serum had rewired him completely—every touch now interpreted as pleasure, every stroke a balm to the chemical fire in his blood.
"I love you." Hyunjin's voice was ragged now, punctuated by the slap of skin against skin. "I love you, I love you—I'll never let you go. I'll never let anyone take you from me."
Seungmin's hands fisted in the sheets. His cock was hard between their bodies, leaking against the swell of his stomach, and he hated himself for it.
Don't enjoy this. Don't give him that.
But his body was traitorous, climbing toward release with every thrust, every brush of Hyunjin's cock against his prostate.
"Come for me." Hyunjin's hand wrapped around his length, stroking in time with his movements. "Show me you feel it. Show me you're mine."
"I'm not—ah—I'm not—"
"You are." Hyunjin's thumb swept over the head of his cock. "You're mine. This body is mine. This baby is mine. Everything you are belongs to me."
Seungmin came with a sob, spurting over Hyunjin's hand and his own stomach, his hole clenching desperately around the cock inside him. Hyunjin followed moments later, grinding deep as he spilled, filling Seungmin with the cum his body craved.
The relief was absolute.
The shame was worse.
Hyunjin collapsed beside him, pulling him close, one hand settling possessively over the swell of his belly. His lips found Seungmin's temple, pressing a kiss there.
"See?" The words were soft, satisfied. "This is where you belong. Right here. With me."
Seungmin stared at the ceiling, tears sliding silently into his hair.
His body was cooling now, the fever receding, the desperate need fading into a boneless exhaustion. He should push Hyunjin away. Should get up, shower, scrub every trace of this from his skin.
Instead, he let his eyes fall closed.
Let Hyunjin's warmth seep into him.
Let the darkness take him.
Just for tonight. Just because I'm tired. Just because I have no choice.
The lies were becoming easier to believe.
He woke to fingers in his hair.
Hyunjin was propped on one elbow, watching him with an expression that might have been tenderness in another life. In another story. In a version of this where Seungmin had actually chosen any of it.
"You're so beautiful when you sleep." The fingers traced down to his jaw. "Peaceful. No anger in your face."
"I'm not angry." Seungmin's voice was hoarse. "I'm exhausted."
"Same thing, sometimes."
The room was dark now—hours must have passed. Seungmin's body felt heavy, satisfied in a way that made his skin crawl. The fever would return eventually. It always did. And he'd need this again, and again, until the baby came.
And after that?
He didn't know.
"Hyunjin."
"Mm?"
"What happens when the baby is born?"
The fingers stilled for a moment, then resumed their gentle path.
"We raise it. Together."
"And if I don't want that?"
"You will." Certainty colored every syllable. "You'll hold your child, and everything else will stop mattering. That's how it works. That's biology."
"You don't know that."
"I know you." Hyunjin leaned down, pressing a kiss to Seungmin's shoulder. "I know you stay up late reading parenting books even though you think I don't notice. I know you've started researching strollers. I know you flinch every time someone mentions termination, because you've already started loving something you pretend to hate."
Seungmin's throat tightened.
He's wrong. He has to be wrong.
But the books were hidden under his bed. The search history was on his phone. And sometimes, when he was alone, his hands drifted to his stomach without his permission—cradling the curve like it was something precious.
Something wanted.
No. I didn't choose this. I don't want this.
But the line between wanting and accepting was blurring more every day.
"I'm scared," Seungmin admitted, so quietly he barely heard himself.
Hyunjin pulled him closer, chin resting on top of his head.
"I know. But you don't have to be scared alone. That's what I'm here for. That's what I've always been here for."
To use me. To control me. To make me need you.
"To love you," Hyunjin murmured, as if reading his thoughts. "Even when you can't love yourself."
Seungmin closed his eyes.
The arms around him were warm. The body pressed against his was familiar. The heartbeat beneath his ear was steady and sure.
This is wrong. All of this is wrong.
But wrong was starting to feel like home.
Six months. Twenty-four weeks. One hundred and sixty-eight days since his body had stopped being his own.
Seungmin sat at his desk in the lab, one hand pressed absently to the swell beneath his shirt. The curve was undeniable now—impossible to hide beneath lab coats or oversized hoodies. He'd stopped trying weeks ago. The other researchers had stopped asking questions. Male pregnancy was normalized, legislated, celebrated.
A pregnant man in the laboratory was simply... progress.
His other hand scrolled through his research logs on the tablet, the blue light casting shadows across his tired face.
He was looking for something. He couldn't remember what.
That happened more often now—these gaps, these moments where his thoughts seemed to slip sideways, like water through cupped hands. He'd attributed it to pregnancy brain, to the hormonal fluctuations that Dr. Park had warned him about during his last checkup. Elevated cortisol. Spikes in progesterone. The body under stress redirects resources to the developing fetus.
Perfectly normal, she'd said. You may experience some memory lapses. Difficulty concentrating. It's temporary.
He scrolled back further. Three months ago. Two months before that.
Subject response to MP-7 variant 12-C demonstrates continued uterine wall integration. Hormonal supplementation was reduced to bi-weekly intervals. Subject reports decreased discomfort during—
His own words. His own clinical observations. Documented in his handwriting, his voice captured in the attached audio files.
But there, in the middle of the entry dated approximately fourteen weeks prior, a gap.
Not a missing file.
Not a corrupted segment.
Simply... nothing. The entry ended mid-sentence and resumed three hours later with a completely different topic. No notation. No explanation. Just white space where approximately one hundred and eighty minutes of his life should have been documented.
Seungmin frowned, tapping the screen as if the action might reveal hidden text.
He kept detailed logs.
Obsessively so. It was one of the things that had made him valuable to the project—his meticulous documentation, his refusal to leave anything unrecorded. Every observation, every anomaly, every stray thought that might prove relevant later. It was how he'd built his career.
So why would he leave a three-hour gap?
He scrolled to the previous day's entry. Another gap. Smaller this time—perhaps twenty minutes—but unmistakably present.
The day before that. Forty minutes, carved out of the afternoon like someone had taken an eraser to his timeline.
Seungmin's heart rate quickened. He could feel it—a flutter of anxiety that made the baby shift inside him, a rolling pressure against his ribs.
It's just the hormones, he told himself. Cortisol spikes. Dr. Park said memory consolidation can be affected during the second trimester. This is normal.
But his hands were trembling slightly as he opened the backup server, searching for the original files. Maybe there had been a system error. Maybe the automatic archiving process had glitched, swallowed portions of his documentation without his notice.
The backup files showed the same gaps.
Precise. Clean. As if they'd never existed at all.
"Hyunjin?"
Seungmin's voice came out smaller than he intended. He stood in the doorway of Hyunjin's private office, tablet clutched against his chest, the swell of his belly visible even in his peripheral vision.
Hyunjin looked up from his own screen, and his expression shifted immediately—softening into that gentle warmth that had become so familiar over the past months. The warmth that made Seungmin's chest ache with something he couldn't name.
"Hey." Hyunjin pushed back from his desk, concern knitting his brow. "What's wrong? You look pale."
"I—" Seungmin hesitated.
What was wrong, exactly? That he'd lost a few hours? That his meticulous documentation had holes in it? It sounded absurd when he tried to articulate it.
"I think there might be something wrong with the server. Some of my log entries are... incomplete." It came out small and unguarded.
Hyunjin's concern didn't waver. If anything, it deepened—his brow furrowing, his chair rolling closer as he reached out to take Seungmin's hand.
"Incomplete how?"
"There are gaps. Missing segments. Hours where I should have documented something, but there's nothing there." Seungmin's voice was steadier now, his researcher's brain kicking into gear. "I thought maybe a system error, but the backups show the same thing. It's like the data was never recorded in the first place."
Hyunjin was quiet for a moment, his thumb tracing absent circles on Seungmin's knuckles.
"Seungmin-ah... have you been sleeping?"
The question caught him off guard. "What?"
"Your cortisol levels have been elevated for weeks. Dr. Park mentioned it at your last appointment. And pregnancy insomnia is common in the second trimester—you've told me yourself you've been waking up at odd hours." Hyunjin's voice was gentle, patient. "Maybe you simply didn't log those hours because you were resting. Or distracted. It's not unusual for documentation to slip when the body is under stress."
Seungmin opened his mouth to argue, then closed it.
Was… that it?
Had he simply... forgotten? The gaps aligned roughly with the times he'd been most exhausted—the mid-afternoon slumps, the moments when the baby's movement had left him drained and foggy. He'd been working himself ragged, trying to maintain his research output while his body transformed around him.
Maybe Hyunjin was right. Maybe he'd simply rested, and in his exhaustion, hadn't thought to document the downtime.
"I suppose that's possible," he admitted slowly. "But it's strange. I don't remember deciding not to log those hours. I don't remember... anything about them, really."
"The mind does that when it's overwhelmed." Hyunjin stood, guiding Seungmin toward the small couch in the corner of the office. "Prioritizes. Filters out the non-essential data so the important things can process. You've been under enormous stress—physically, emotionally. It makes sense that your brain would start... pruning."
Seungmin let himself be guided, sinking into the cushions with a sigh. The baby shifted again, and he pressed a hand to the curve, a gesture that had become automatic.
"You really think it's just stress?"
"I think you're growing a human being inside your body while maintaining a full research schedule." Hyunjin sat beside him, close enough that their thighs touched. "I think your hormones are doing things that would break a lesser person. And I think you need to give yourself grace."
His hand came to rest on Seungmin's belly, warm and possessive. The touch sent a familiar ache through Seungmin's core—that biochemical need that had become as constant as breathing, the dependency that Hyunjin's presence both soothed and exacerbated.
"I can check the server logs if it would make you feel better," Hyunjin offered. "Run a diagnostic. But I suspect we'll find that everything is functioning normally, and you've simply been too hard on yourself."
Seungmin nodded slowly.
The anxiety was receding now, replaced by the bone-deep exhaustion that had become his constant companion. Hyunjin's presence always did that—quieted the noise in his head, smoothed the jagged edges of his worry.
"Okay," he murmured. "Maybe you're right."
"I'm always right." Hyunjin smiled, pressing a kiss to Seungmin's temple. "Why don't you rest here for a bit? I'll wake you before your next appointment."
Seungmin's eyes were already heavy. The couch was comfortable. Hyunjin's warmth beside him was grounding. And the gaps in his logs seemed less concerning now, less urgent.
Just stress. Just hormones. Just the body doing what it needed to do.
He closed his eyes, and within moments, he was asleep.
Hyunjin watched Seungmin's breathing even out, watched the tension drain from his face as sleep claimed him.
Beautiful. Even now—especially now—with his body rounded and soft, his features slack with exhaustion. This was what Hyunjin had wanted. This was what he'd worked toward.
He waited five minutes. Ten. Until he was certain Seungmin was deeply under.
Then he rose, moving to his desk with quiet, practiced steps.
The private server was hidden behind three layers of encryption—accessible only from this terminal, only with his biometric verification. He'd built it himself in the early days of the project, when the MP-7 was still theoretical and the government's interest was still speculative.
The files within were the real documentation. The true record of what the serum could do.
MP-7 VARIANT 12-C: SUPPLEMENTAL PROPERTIES (UNLOGGED)
Property 7-A: Hormonal memory consolidation interference
Preliminary trials indicate significant impact on hippocampal function during periods of elevated cortisol and progesterone. Subjects demonstrate reduced recall of events preceding serum administration, with particular impact on emotionally charged memories.
Interference appears cumulative. Repeated exposure to variant 12-C in conjunction with elevated stress hormones accelerates memory degradation.
Note: Property remains unlogged in official documentation pending further study.
Hyunjin scrolled through the data, his lips curving slightly.
The memory interference hadn't been intentional—not at first.
It had emerged as a side effect during early trials, one he'd noticed almost by accident when a test subject had failed to recall a significant adverse reaction. He'd documented it privately, set it aside, and continued his official work.
And then he'd begun to imagine the possibilities.
Chan had been the first to demonstrate the full potential.
His friend from university, now happily partnered with that bright-eyed Australian boy, their relationship the picture of domestic bliss. Chan had been one of the early volunteers for the MP-7 program—eager, idealistic, convinced that male pregnancy was the future.
What Chan didn't remember was that Felix hadn't wanted children. Hadn't wanted to be pregnant. Had argued with Chan about it for months before the serum, before the pregnancy, before the baby that now completed their perfect little family.
What Chan didn't remember was the fight. The ultimatum. The night he'd made a choice that Felix had never truly consented to.
And now they were happy.
Felix had adjusted.
The memory interference had seen to that—the serum's properties smoothing away the sharp edges of violation until all that remained was acceptance. Love. A family that looked, from the outside, like a fairy tale.
Hyunjin had watched it happen. Had seen the way Felix's resistance had faded over months, the way his memories of that final fight had fragmented and dissolved until he couldn't quite recall why he'd ever said no.
Chan had been so grateful. Had thanked Hyunjin for his support, for his friendship, for helping them build the life they now shared.
And Hyunjin had thought: If it worked for them, it could work for anyone.
He looked back at Seungmin, still sleeping on the couch.
The gaps in Seungmin's logs were small now—hours here, minutes there. But they would grow. The cortisol spikes of the third trimester would accelerate the process. By the time the baby arrived, Seungmin would have trouble remembering anything about that night in the lab—the injection, the violation, the desperate pleas that Hyunjin had so carefully ignored.
He would remember only fragments. Sensations without context. Emotions without a source.
And Hyunjin would be there to fill in the blanks. To provide the narrative. To be the partner Seungmin needed, the father his child deserved.
Property 7-B: Suggestibility enhancement during memory consolidation interference
Subjects demonstrate increased receptivity to external narrative framing during periods of active memory degradation. Provided explanations are incorporated into reconstructed memories with high success rate.
Note: Property remains unlogged pending further study.
Hyunjin closed the file, leaning back in his chair with a satisfied exhale.
The serum worked. It was working now, rewriting Seungmin's perception of reality one gap at a time. Every moment of confusion, every fragment of lost time, was proof of concept.
Soon, Seungmin wouldn't remember ever saying no.
Soon, he would believe this had always been what he wanted.
Hyunjin smiled, watching the rise and fall of his partner's chest, the curve of the belly that held their child.
Progress.
The lab was empty at this hour—officially closed, the night shift reduced to a skeleton crew that rarely ventured into the restricted wing where Hyunjin kept his private office. The hum of equipment was the only sound, a constant white noise that had become as familiar to him as his own heartbeat.
He was reviewing the latest batch of data when the door slid open.
Hyunjin didn't look up immediately. He knew those footsteps, had been expecting them for days now. The timing was almost poetic—the official announcement had dropped that morning, and the congratulations had been pouring in all afternoon.
"You're late," he said, finally glancing up from his screen.
Jisung leaned against the doorframe, his usual slouch present but his eyes sharp. Calculating. "Traffic was hell. Everyone's celebrating the 'medical breakthrough of the decade.'" He made air quotes, his tone dry. "You'd think they'd announce the end of world hunger with less fanfare."
"Progress is progress."
"Is it?"
They held each other's gaze for a long moment. Something passed between them—an understanding, a recognition. Two men who had seen behind the curtain of progress and found the machinery beneath.
Jisung pushed off the doorframe, crossing the room to drop into the chair across from Hyunjin's desk. He didn't speak immediately, his fingers drumming against the armrest in a rhythm that matched the hum of the servers.
"Seungmin's been getting hectic," Jisung said finally. "Like, he's forgetting. I saw him yesterday, trying to recall a conversation we'd had the week before. He kept apologizing, saying the pregnancy was making him foggy."
Hyunjin's lips curved. A slow, knowing smirk spread across his features like ink through water.
"Six months," Hyunjin said. "The cortisol spikes are accelerating the process. By the time the baby arrives, he won't remember ever objecting to the pregnancy."
Jisung let out a low whistle. "That fast?"
"The hormonal interference compounds with each trimester. The third will be the most effective." Hyunjin leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers. "He came to me last week, concerned about gaps in his research logs. Couldn't understand why entire afternoons had gone unrecorded."
"And what did you tell him?"
"That he was tired. Stressed. That his brain was filtering out non-essential data." Hyunjin's smirk deepened. "He believed me. He always believes me."
Jisung was quiet for a moment, processing. Then his expression shifted—something darker creeping into the corners of his smile.
"What about you and Jeongin?"
The question hung in the air between them.
Jisung's smile widened. Wicked. Triumphant.
"I finally got him."
Hyunjin raised an eyebrow. "And?"
"Used the same method you did. Well—" Jisung paused, reaching into his jacket pocket. "Similar. I inserted the serum as a makeshift lube. He didn't even realize what was happening until it was already absorbed."
He pulled out a folded document, smoothing it across Hyunjin's desk. An ultrasound image, grainy and clinical, showing the unmistakable shape of a developing fetus. Dark spots dotted the image where the serum's mutative properties had begun their work.
"Three months along," Jisung said, satisfaction dripping from every syllable. "He's been having the memory gaps too. Keeps asking me why I'm being so attentive lately. Thinks I've finally decided to be a 'good boyfriend.'"
Hyunjin studied the image, noting the formation patterns. The fetus was developing within an artificially constructed uterine environment—the serum's primary function—but there were anomalies. Darker patches that suggested the mutative properties were taking hold faster than expected.
"Variant 12-C?"
"Modified. I adjusted the concentration based on your notes." Jisung tapped the image with one finger. "The memory interference seems to be working faster with him. Maybe because he was already prone to anxiety. Higher baseline cortisol."
"Useful data."
"That's what I thought."
Hyunjin handed the image back, his expression settling into something like approval. "Then that's settled. Congratulations on manipulating him."
Jisung's grin was sharp enough to cut. "Congratulations on even getting Seungmin. I know how long you wanted that."
Years. Years of watching Seungmin across the laboratory, across conference tables, across crowded rooms at academic gatherings. Years of wanting something that had always been just out of reach—until the serum had provided the means to take it.
"He's mine now," Hyunjin said simply. "Body and mind. By the time the baby is born, he won't remember ever belonging to anyone else."
"Beautiful."
The word hung between them, heavy with shared understanding. Two architects of violation, congratulating each other on their handiwork.
Jisung stood, tucking the ultrasound back into his jacket. "I should go. Jeongin's expecting me for dinner, and he's been... emotional lately. The hormones, I think."
"The third trimester will be worse."
"I'm counting on it."
He moved toward the door, then paused, glancing back over his shoulder.
"The broadcast's starting soon. You should turn it on."
Hyunjin nodded, reaching for the remote as Jisung slipped out into the hallway.
The screen flickered to life, filling the quiet office with the polished tones of the evening news anchor.
"—historic day for medical science and social progress. The Ministry of Health has officially confirmed that MP-7, the groundbreaking serum enabling male gestation, has received full governmental approval for widespread distribution."
Behind the anchor, footage rolled—laboratories like the one Hyunjin worked in, researchers in pristine white coats, smiling couples holding ultrasound images. The picture of progress. The face of the future.
"Licensed medical facilities will begin receiving shipments next month, with storefront distribution expected by the end of the quarter. The government has allocated additional funding for training programs, ensuring that medical professionals across the country are prepared to administer the serum safely and effectively."
Hyunjin watched, his expression unreadable.
"Advocates are calling this a watershed moment for reproductive rights and LGBTQ+ families. For the first time in history, male pregnancy will be accessible not just to research participants, but to any qualified individual who wishes to carry a child."
The footage shifted—interviews with excited couples, with doctors praising the breakthrough, with politicians patting themselves on the back for their progressive legislation.
None of them mentioned the memory interference. None of them mentioned the dependency mechanisms, the way the serum rewired the brain to accept what had been forced upon it. Those properties remained unlogged, undocumented, known only to the men who had discovered them and exploited them for their own desires.
"Population growth is expected to increase by fifteen percent within the first five years of distribution. The economic and social implications are—"
Hyunjin muted the broadcast.
The images continued to play in silence—smiling faces, hopeful futures, the brave new world that MP-7 had created. A world where men could carry children, where families could be built without limitation, where progress was measured in lives brought into being.
A world where consent was optional, if you knew which properties to exploit.
Hyunjin smiled, turning back to his private server.
The real documentation was secure. The truth of what MP-7 could do—what it really did—would remain his secret. His and Jisung's. And Chan's, though Chan didn't remember enough to know he was part of it.
Soon, there would be others.
Men who saw the potential, who recognized the power that the serum provided. A network of architects, building families on foundations that their partners would never remember objecting to.
Progress.
Hyunjin closed the files, leaning back in his chair as the silent broadcast continued to play.
In the other room, Seungmin slept on, his body heavy with the child Hyunjin had forced upon him. His mind was already beginning to fray, the edges of his memories wearing away like cloth beneath a blade.
By the time the baby arrived, he would be grateful. He would be loving. He would be exactly what Hyunjin had always wanted him to be.
And he would never remember that he hadn't chosen this.
The afternoon light was golden through the apartment windows, casting long shadows across the floor where Seungmin sat propped against the couch cushions.
Eight months.
His belly swelled heavy beneath his hands, the skin stretched tight and warm. He'd been feeling off all day—a persistent ache low in his back, a pressure that made it difficult to find any comfortable position.
But Hyunjin had been there. Hyunjin was always there now.
"Let me get you more water," Hyunjin said, appearing at his side like he'd materialized from the air itself. His hand found Seungmin's knee, squeezing gently. "You need to stay hydrated."
"You take such good care of me," Seungmin murmured, and he meant it. The words came easily, naturally, as if they'd always been true. "I don't know what I'd do without you."
Hyunjin's smile was soft. Devoted. "You'll never have to find out."
Seungmin's chest swelled with warmth.
This was right. This was how it was supposed to be.
He couldn't quite remember when he'd first realized that—the timeline was fuzzy, the early months of the pregnancy blurred together in a pleasant haze—but he knew it with certainty now. Hyunjin loved him. Hyunjin had always loved him.
And Seungmin—
The pain hit like a lightning strike.
He gasped, his body seizing, and felt the warm gush between his legs before he could process what was happening. The water soaked through his sweatpants, pooling on the floor beneath him, and panic seized his chest.
"Hyunjin—"
"I'm here." Hyunjin was already moving, already pulling him up from the floor with strong, steady hands. "I'm here, Seungmin-ah. It's time."
Time.
The word echoed in Seungmin's mind, distant and strange. He felt Hyunjin guiding him toward the door, felt the cool air hit his skin as they stepped outside, but everything seemed to be happening at a remove. Like watching himself from very far away.
"Stay with me," Hyunjin was saying. His voice was calm, measured, the voice of someone who had prepared for this moment. "Focus on my voice. We're going to the hospital now."
"My water—" Seungmin stammered. "It's too early, it's only been eight months—"
"The baby's developed enough. You've done so well, Seungmin-ah. You've done perfectly." Hyunjin's tone seemed so familiar, seemed so right in the sense.
Perfectly.
Something about the word snagged in his mind. Hadn't Hyunjin said that before? In another context, another time?
The car ride was a blur of city lights and pain.
Seungmin's hands gripped the door handle, his knuckles white, as another contraction rolled through him. He could feel his body preparing itself—muscles he hadn't known existed tensing and releasing in waves.
"Hyunjin," he gasped. "Hyunjin, I'm scared."
"Don't be." Hyunjin's hand found his, squeezing tight. "I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere."
He's not going anywhere.
"Besides," Hyunjin continued, his voice dropping to that familiar, intimate register, "I told you I'd take care of you. Remember? I said I'd make sure your body accepted everything I gave it."
Seungmin's brow furrowed. The words seemed... wrong. Out of place. But another contraction seized him before he could dwell on it.
Seungmin clung to it as the hospital came into view, its bright lights cutting through the afternoon haze. He barely registered the car stopping, barely felt Hyunjin helping him out and into the wheelchair the nurses had brought to the entrance.
Everything was loud.
The wheels squeaking against the tile floor, voices calling out instructions, the fluorescent lights humming overhead. Seungmin's head lolled back, his vision swimming.
"BP is elevated, pulse is racing—we need to prep for C-section, the baby's in breech position—"
"Get him into Delivery Room 3—"
"Sir, you'll need to wait outside—"
"No." Hyunjin's voice cut through the chaos, firm and unyielding. "I'm staying with him."
"He's family?"
"I'm his partner. The father."
The father.
Hyunjin leaned closer, his lips nearly brushing Seungmin's temple as they wheeled him through the corridor. "You're doing so well. Just like I knew you would. You were always such a perfect vessel for this, Seungmin-ah. Even when you didn't know it yet."
Vessel.
The word sent a chill down Seungmin's spine. Why would Hyunjin say—
Another contraction. Stronger this time. Seungmin cried out, his back arching off the gurney.
"That's it," Hyunjin cooed, his hand stroking Seungmin's sweat-dampened hair. "Let it happen. Don't fight it. I told you that first night, didn't I? The more you resist, the harder it becomes."
The first night.
What first night?
"You were so beautiful like that," Hyunjin continued, his voice almost dreamy. "Spread out on the couch, trembling. You kept saying no, but your body knew better. Your body always knew what it needed."
Seungmin's heart hammered against his ribs. "Hyunjin, what are you—"
"Shh. Don't tire yourself out." Hyunjin smiled down at him, warm and affectionate. "I'm just reminding you of how far we've come. How perfectly you've adapted. I knew from the moment I saw you in that lab that you'd be mine. Body and mind."
Body and mind.
The hallway seemed to stretch endlessly before them. White walls, white ceiling, white coats blurring past. Seungmin's mind felt thick, sluggish, like trying to think through a layer of gauze.
Why can't I remember?
They were approaching the double doors now. DELIVERY ROOM stencilled across them in bold letters. The team of nurses bustled around them, preparing equipment, calling out stats.
Hyunjin leaned in close. So close that his lips brushed the shell of Seungmin's ear.
"Do you remember what I whispered to you? When I first pushed inside?"
Seungmin's breath caught.
"I said: This is what you were made for. To be filled by me. To carry what I give you."
The words hit like ice water.
And then—
Flash.
The laboratory. Late at night. The sharp sting of him. Hyunjin's hands on him, inside him, the horror of realization.
"This is what you were made for."
Flash.
His own voice screaming, begging, pleading. The serum burning through his veins. The fever that only Hyunjin's cum could cure.
"To be filled by me."
Flash.
The documentation he'd tried to file. The incident report he'd written and deleted and written again. The slow, creeping realization that something was wrong, that his mind wasn't his own.
"To carry what I give you."
Flash.
Hyunjin's face above him in the dark, his hips snapping forward, his voice low and satisfied: You're mine now. Body and mind. And you won't even remember to fight it.
Flash.
Chan and Felix, smiling with their baby. The domestic image that had made his chest ache with something that wasn't longing—it was mourning. Mourning for a life he'd never wanted, a choice that had been stolen from him.
"No," Seungmin choked out. "No, no, no—"
The memories crashed over him in waves.
Every violation, every manipulation, every moment of chemical dependency that had been engineered to break him down and rebuild him into something compliant. Something grateful. Something that would look at Hyunjin with love and never remember why he shouldn't.
"You—" His voice cracked. "You did this to me. Y-Y-You made me forget—"
Hyunjin's smile didn't waver. If anything, it deepened—warm and affectionate, the smile of a man who had already won.
"I gave you everything," Hyunjin said softly. "I told you that night: You'll thank me for this later. You'll beg me for more. And you did, Seungmin-ah. Every single time."
The doors slid open.
"I made you perfect," Hyunjin whispered. "And now you're going to give me everything in return."
The team of nurses surged forward, lifting Seungmin onto the operating table, strapping his legs into the stirrups. Someone was holding a mask over his face now, telling him to count backward from ten.
"Ten... nine..."
He tried to fight. Tried to scream. But his body wouldn't cooperate—too heavy, too weak, too broken by months of hormonal manipulation and forced dependency.
"Eight... seven..."
Through the haze, he saw Hyunjin standing at the edge of the room. Watching. Waiting. His expression was serene, almost beatific.
He's going to take the baby.
The realization cut through the fog. Hyunjin was going to take the child, take this Seungmin, and the Seungmin he wanted to be would be left with nothing but the hollow ache of a body that had been used without his consent.
And I'll never remember any of this.
Because the serum would keep working.
The memory interference would continue, erasing this moment just as it had erased all the others. By the time he woke up, he would be grateful again. Loving again. A perfect, compliant partner who couldn't recall why he should be anything else.
"Six... five..."
Hyunjin's voice drifted through the chaos, soft and tender:
"Sleep well, Seungmin-ah. When you wake up, everything will be exactly as it should be."
Hyunjin plants one more kiss.
"Just like I promised it would be."
The last thing Seungmin saw before the darkness took him was Hyunjin's face—beautiful, devoted, utterly satisfied.
The doors slid shut behind him.
The sedative pulled him under.
And Kim Seungmin, who had once been a brilliant researcher with a promising career and a future of his own choosing, disappeared into the dark.
In the recovery room, hours later, Seungmin stirred.
His body ached. His abdomen throbbed with the dull pain of recent surgery. But there was something else—a warmth against his chest, a small weight that shifted and gurgled.
"Shh," a familiar voice soothed. "You're awake."
Seungmin blinked his eyes open.
Hyunjin was there, perched on the edge of the bed, his face radiant with joy. In his arms, he held a small bundle—pink and squirming and impossibly, terrifyingly real.
"Look," Hyunjin breathed. "Look at what we made."
Seungmin's arms moved without his permission, reaching for the baby. His chest swelled with an emotion he couldn't name—something overwhelming and all-consuming.
Love, he thought. This must be love.
He couldn't remember the birth. Couldn't remember the pregnancy, really—just flashes of warmth and comfort and Hyunjin's steady presence at his side. But that was normal, wasn't it? The doctors had said the memory loss was a common side effect. Hormonal changes. Stress.
Nothing out of the ordinary.
None of it mattered now.
What mattered was this moment. This baby. This man beside him, looking at him with such tenderness that it made Seungmin's heart ache.
"Thank you," Seungmin whispered, and he meant it with every fibre of his being. "Thank you for giving me this."
Hyunjin's smile was beautiful.
"I told you," he said softly, "you'd thank me later."