Stranger Who Found Spring

“Ah.”

Ha-hyun, who was lying on the sofa in the living room and blinking while looking at the ceiling, suddenly remembered something and picked up the cell phone that was on his stomach. As he opened the calendar and checked the date, he realized that two weeks had already passed.

“I have to go to the cafe.”

Um, our manager doesn’t even push me to work and that’s great.

Maybe he knew the boss didn’t like being at work, so he deliberately didn’t contact him after two weeks, but it didn’t matter. He didn’t like going to the cafe to work in the first place, so it was a good thing that the manager didn’t contact him.

“I’m pregnant, so should I just hire someone to handle the paperwork?”

He didn’t mind paying the manager an extra salary and letting him do the paperwork, but he didn’t want to be a vice boss. To Ha-hyun, the manager still handled a lot of work, so he thought it would be better to just hire one person.

Still, he couldn’t get them right away, so he forcibly got up his sluggish body and started preparing to go out slowly. He said he was going to tell and post an announcement today, announcing the fact that he was pregnant, and…

Ha-hyun, having organized the things to be done one by one in his head, put on a coat and organized his appearance.

After finishing all the preparations, he left the house, got into the car and headed for the cafe a little further away.

* * *

Jingle.

Ha-hyun, who entered through the open door with a light bell, headed straight to the counter.

“Are you here?”

“Hello.”

“I was going to call you if you don’t come this week, but you came just in time.”

Ha-hyun waved his hand to greet the manager who always stood at the counter and greeted him.

With a slight smile on his lips as he waved his hand, he headed to the small office he had made on purpose and called the manager.

The manager, who was wondering at the rare call, followed Ha-hyun and all the strange thoughts came to his mind. Did something happen to the cafe, or what happened to the boss? If not, would he get fired?

After considering the worst situation, the manager swallowed his saliva in tension and faced Ha-hyun, who sat in the office chair.

“What’s the matter?”

“Um, you know what.”

“Yes.”

“I’m pregnant.”

Ha-hyun spat out the main point. Following the manager who tilted his head at an unexpected word, Ha Hyun also tilted his head in the same direction.

The manager, who frowned slightly at his playful attitude, gradually changed his expression as he interpreted Ha-hyun’s words in his head. Surprise, disbelief, astonishment. Ha-hyun, who had captured all the emotions that could be interpreted, just closed his eyes with a dull face.

“Who is it!?”

“Me.”

“What?”

“Yes.”

The manager slapped him on the chest as if it was frustrating for Ha-hyun to say that without giving accurate information. Ha-hyun, who was watching him, felt sick even just hearing the sound, so he raised his arm and carefully stroked his chest.

“Suddenly? Are you married? No, did you have a lover? There wasn’t!”

“Yes. There was none.”

“But pregnant? Boss?”

“Um. That’s what happened.”

I had a one-night stand with someone I met at the hotel and a baby came in. It was a bit embarrassing to say this, so Ha-hyun talked around moderately. There was no need to disclose such an inside story.

When the consistent calm response returned, the excited manager also calmed down. Ha-hyun, who watched the manager sigh deeply, smiled bitterly.

“Alright. You can get pregnant.”

“Right?”

“Yes. That’s the things are.”

Shaking his head, the manager first checked Ha-hyun’s condition. He didn’t know much about beta-omega’s pregnancy. (그는 베타라 오메가의 임신에 대해서 잘 알지는 못했다, I’m not sure)

However, there had been times when one of his acquaintances had been seen suffering when one of them was pregnant. For this reason, Ha-hyun’s condition was also taken seriously.

In his eyes, it was no different than usual and after letting go of his nervousness, he scratched his head for a bit. Now that he thought about it, when Ha-hyun announced that he was pregnant, he seemed to have overreacted, so he was a little embarrassed.

“It will be more difficult to move towards the end of the pregnancy, can you do the paperwork?”

“Therefore, I’m going to hire one person.”

“What? Do you have to? Just leave it to me.”

“Isn’t that too much work?”

“Please raise my salary instead.”

Ha-hyun said that he would do it with a good attitude in response to the demanding posture. Of course, the more work he did, the more money he had to pay. He brushed his flowing bangs and tilted his head slightly.

“How much would you like me to raise it?”

“Half of my current salary.”

Half?

At the manager’s words, Ha-hyun blinked slowly with a puzzled look.

“Only?”

“Pardon? Only that?”

“You’re going to do one more person’s work? So shouldn’t we start with double?”

At that, the manager wrinkled his brow. Although he had already been with Boss Lee for five years, he truly had a justice attitude that a manager didn’t have.

“Boss. I’m asking you seriously, have you never worked for someone else’s money before?”

Ha-hyun, who tilted his head to the words unrelated to the context, blinked his eyelids and nodded slowly.

After graduating from school, many jobs overlapped and he didn’t even get a job. So, let alone working, he had no experience working part-time.

“That’s why you don’t know the world of working?”

The manager, who was muttering a little, sighed heavily. Our boss, who didn’t know anything, made him worried that he might be caught somewhere.

“How many jobs do I start with Boss’ double jobs?”

“Um, there’s a lot, right?”

“There isn’t. If that’s a lot, other office workers would be a pile of work.”

It was an amount that could be processed in less than half a day if he set a date once a week and processed it. That’s why Ha-hyun only came to the cafe once every two weeks to work.

Even though it was his dream to receive a double salary monthly, the manager’s conscience was strongly opposed to asking for that.

“Just add half of it, please.”

“Even if I give you more, you don’t like it…”

The manager was furious when he shook his head and mumbled that he was a strange person. No matter how much he thought about it, the strange person here was Ha-hyun. Which employer doubles the salary for a little more paperwork?

“It’s a waste of money if you have to raise a child!”

At the manager’s words, Ha-hyun blinked in wonder. It was because he had never considered it a waste of money that he doubled the manager’s salary.

By the way, if he had to raise a child, he shouldn’t waste his money. But how much did he say was a waste of money?

While Ha-hyun was suddenly obsessed with one subject, the manager who was standing in front of him clapped his hands and changed Ha-hyun’s focus. After that, Ha-hyun, who returned to his senses, smiled embarrassedly.

“Um. Does it cost that much money to raise a child?”

“I don’t know. I’m single. I think it’s because everyone says so.”

Indeed, he was the same that he had never experienced. While pondering the manager’s words, Ha-hyun let out a sigh of relief at the fact that he suddenly realized it.

“I’m single, too.”

“Pardon?”

“I’m single.”

“Yes…?”

Aren’t you getting married…

A faint voice was scattered in the air, but Ha-hyun smiled, satisfied with the fact that he delivered accurate information.

The manager, on the other hand, had a bewildered expression on his face. Well, his boss was the one who would hand over the wedding invitations if he was going to have a wedding.

Ha-hyun, not paying attention to the manager’s reaction, leaned his arms crossed on the desk and slightly held out his upper body. He was happy to find someone to replace him unexpectedly and quickly.

“When can you start doing it?”

“Do you want me to start doing it today?”

“What about the handover?”

“I’ve done it a few times, so it’s okay if you don’t do it.”

At the manager’s words, Ha-hyun’s expression brightened at once. It was annoying for him to do the handover.

Following Ha-hyun, who revealed his inner feelings without hiding, the manager took a deep breath. He remembered that he was lazy to process paperworks in the first place, so it wasn’t that he didn’t understand the reaction.

Still, he couldn’t be rude to a pregnant person, so the manager made eye contact with Ha-hyun.

“Now that you’re at the cafe, would you like something to eat? Ah, do you have morning sickness?”

“Um. I think strawberry drinks are a little difficult.”

Even though he thought he would have morning sickness, the manager’s eyes turned round when he said that it would be difficult to eat strawberry drinks. He couldn’t believe that Ha-hyun, a strawberry lover, couldn’t eat strawberries.

“Surprised?”

“Yes.”

“I’m surprised, too. I can’t believe my child can’t eat strawberries.”

When the manager saw Ha-hyun’s gloomy look, he shook his head and quickly thought. Then he found a story that was barely useful and opened his mouth.

“Even someone I know said that they thought they couldn’t eat it throughout their pregnancy, but then they wanted to eat it again, so they ate it?”

“Really?”

Ha-hyun couldn’t hide his surprise. There was a thing called a baby’s whim in the womb.

While he was thinking about it, the manager shrugged his shoulders.

“That’s what they said.”

“Still, I don’t feel like it today.”

Ha-hyun groaned and clenched his chin.

He was concerned because he thought that he had offended the boss by overreacting to the sulky boss’s appearance. The manager felt the need to change the topic, so he picked an appropriate menu and said it with his mouth.

“How about grapefruit ade or lemonade?”

“I’m not very attracted to it.”

“And plain yoghurt? Wouldn’t it be sour if I added a little lemon juice to it?”

Lemon juice with plain yoghurt?

Just thinking about it made his body tremble. However, what stimulated him salivating was, Ha-hyun felt a strong desire to eat it. When he nodded his head as if possessed, the manager would make it soon and opened the door to leave.

“Wait a minute.”

“Do you need anything else?”

“What dessert do we have?”

“We made Madeleine today. It was delicious, would you like some?”

Patissier’s skill, who went to work in the morning and only made dessert, was very good. Ha-hyun swallowed the saliva in his mouth.

“Yes. Sure.”

“Yes. I will take care of it.”

Ha-hyun stomped his feet in anticipation of the upcoming dessert. He was too lazy to come to the cafe when he was at home, so he took a deep breath, but he was happy when he came.

After all, this was why he opened his own cafe.

Ha-hyun, thinking of it as he wanted, simply nodded his head happily.