Flowers Are Bait Novel - Chapter 11

“And lock the door well.”

She tilted her head. It was the opposite of his behavior, which had been pleading like someone being strangled all along. Yiyeon instinctively scratched her arm, feeling a strange uneasiness.

—Creak.

Finally, Kwon Chaewoo was retreating. She watched his fading shadow and finally let her stiff shoulders drop.

“Just a word of caution, don’t come up to the second floor.”

“……What?”

“I’m thinking of scrubbing my lower half for the first time in a while.”

Yiyeon’s face is filled with question marks. She couldn’t shake the feeling that he was smiling, even though she couldn’t see outside.

“Then, Ms. Yiyeon, take care.”

His subtle goodnight greeting sounded as if he knew of a temporary farewell.

That night. Yiyeon tossed and turned all night, and Kwon Chaewoo didn’t wake up for over a week.

I had a terrible dream.

Yiyeon woke up drenched in cold sweat, her pajamas damp. Her lips were pale and her eyes were ragged from how much she had suffered all night.

She stared blankly into space before finally snapping out of it, recalling what day it was.

‘Ah, that day……’

Before the day even began, her energy was already drained.

“So Wonjang!”

She checked the clock and saw it was well past her commuting time. She quickly got out of bed, and her vision swayed.

“Are you having a fever?”

Just then, Chooja entered the room, supporting her and touching her forehead. Her scolding gaze, as if she had expected this, was quite worried.

“Why can’t anything just pass by smoothly?”

“…….”

“Take a break today. There’s not much work anyway.”

At her words, Yiyeon frowned, immediately pushed Chooja away, and stood up straight. She clenched and unclenched her tingling fingers.

“This is when I need to do more. I’m going to stake out today.”

“Tsk—! I told you not to do that embarrassing thing!”

Chooja put her hands on her hips and bit her lip threateningly.

“If that’s the case, just stare at your plant on the second floor!”

Chooja shouted at Yiyeon’s back as she headed to the bathroom. Yiyeon paused but then turned the faucet on hard.

In the mirror, there was a frail woman. The child who used to walk with tangled, uncombed hair covering her eyes was now, as if by magic, nowhere to be seen.

‘I am a child born wrong.’

The girl in her dream wrote and wrote something with her small, fern-like hands.

‘I am a child born wrong.’

‘I am a child born wrong.’

She had to keep writing without rest. The stacks of A4 paper piled up, far exceeding young Yiyeon’s height. It was Yiyeon’s self-reflection journal, which she had to write whenever she had a moment, until she left home at seventeen.

“But So Wonjang, I forgot to ask something. How does our plant son-in-law pee when he just sleeps like that?”

Yiyeon couldn’t help but let out a chuckle, even with her chapped lips.

Yes, it was just like any other day. She would quietly endure it, as always.

For she had long since discarded her birthday.

When Chooja first stepped onto the second floor, she meticulously inspected the house like a real estate agent. And she mentally took notes, impressed by the surprisingly neat structure and luxurious furniture. Check: ‘Rich.’

“I heard he does go to the bathroom.”

“While sleeping?”

“Yes.”

“Oh my, how peculiar.”

Indeed, when Yiyeon saw Kwon Chaewoo moving sluggishly, her heart almost stopped. He was already a tall man, standing tall in the darkness. She had gone to see him without much thought and was utterly startled.

“Look at that guy’s skin, like bone broth, so good.”

As Chooja reached out, Yiyeon quickly grabbed her arm.

“……He might wake up.”

“If he wakes up when I touch him, I would have shaken him long ago.”

“Still.”

Yiyeon avoided her gaze and took a step back from the bed.

The tumultuous days, which had felt like her nerves were burning, were now blurry, like a dream. It felt unbelievably good to have regained her peaceful daily life. With a serene expression she hadn’t worn in a long time, Yiyeon looked down at the man lying as if dead.

Just like this. Please, just keep sleeping like this.

While Kwon Chaewoo fell into a deep sleep again, Chooja, who had been dragged into this absurd lie, turned the house upside down. She subtly scattered toothbrushes, cups, spoons, slippers, and personal items stained with human touch, which were clearly present but seemed to have lost their owner, making them look dry. Her seasoned skill was perfect and undetectable. The plausible environment was set up in an instant, all thanks to Chooja’s experience.

“Oh, did you see the newspaper? That elementary school we worked on before, the principal is in big trouble, they say. The school construction was a mess, and the playground became a wasteland, it’s all over town……”

Chooja suddenly stopped talking and looked at Yiyeon.

“Surely not.”

Yiyeon scratched her cheek. At her gesture, Chooja’s eyes widened.

“Was it your doing, ratting him out to the newspaper?”

“Well……”

“You crazy girl, aren’t you going to run your business! Didn’t I tell you we’re a business that makes a living by customer management!”

Yiyeon didn’t answer and left the second floor. Chooja’s nagging continued to pierce her ears as she went down the stairs, but she couldn’t help it.

“You immoral girl—!”

Yiyeon, on the contrary, pressed down on the corners of her lips, which were trying to curl up into a smile.

She, who only used trees for ornamental purposes, neglected them and abused them—was that principal the only one?

A world that prioritizes trees over humans might never come, but then, isn’t it okay for one person to go the other way?

‘Then, Ms. Yiyeon, take care.’

Suddenly, Yiyeon felt a chill and shivered.

A week when he didn’t wake up. Kwon Chaewoo might have been anticipating the result of not sleeping together.

Sometimes, that greeting lingered in her ears.

“Crazy, just crazy……!”

Yiyeon tasted the soil at the base of the tree with her hand and gritted her teeth. Her face, as she nervously took off her straw hat, was unusually grim. She immediately entered the fish restaurant.

“Boss!”

“Welcome…… Oh, get out! Get out!”

The middle-aged owner, who was about to greet customers with a smile, stiffened when he saw Yiyeon.

“Are you going to kill it again?”

“I don’t know anything, nothing.”

The owner roughly pushed Yiyeon’s shoulder and forced her out the door. But she held onto the doorframe firmly and didn’t easily let go.

“Last time, you secretly put herbicide in the IV drip to kill it—”

“If you’re going to be meddlesome, I’ll call the police fairly too.”

“This time, you poured seawater, didn’t you?”

She smiled and smacked her lips. The salty taste still lingered on her tongue.

The customers began to murmur at the inexplicable altercation, and the owner’s face turned red and blue. This unlucky and annoying woman was ruining his business.

“I thought it was strange that this ginkgo tree kept withering.”

“Well, I never called you. Why are you meddling in other people’s business unnecessarily!”

He pushed Yiyeon out with strong force. The man glared at her, as if he wanted to kill her, but his anxious, trembling pupils were amusingly easy to read.

“Your hospital is failing because you keep meddling and acting like a lunatic in everyone’s business. Do you know that?”

“I know.”

“If you know, please be more considerate!”

He spat and stood with his legs apart.

No one in this village didn’t know Director So Yiyeon of the Fir Tree Hospital. Recently, her notoriety had grown even more with the article about a certain elementary school principal who had messed up the school construction, making the playground a wasteland. It was because a truckload of residents had been victimized by her innocent face and not-so-innocent actions.

Crucially, this tree doctor couldn’t understand people’s circumstances. She never engaged in personal conversations, yet she would relentlessly pounce on anything concerning trees.

“Just quietly leave, okay?”

“…….”

“I have the right to do what I want with my tree, and I’ll never use your hospital, so please stop being a nuisance and just go! This is overstepping your bounds!”

“Then who will?”

“What?”

“Who will help that ginkgo tree?”

Yiyeon stretched out her arm and pointed at the ailing tree.

“You were trying to get rid of it because it blocked the fish restaurant sign, weren’t you?”

“……!”

The owner’s annoyed face instantly stiffened awkwardly.

“Pouring seawater every morning, peeling off the bark and applying waste oil to kill it, injecting insecticide into the xylem, cutting it with a chainsaw. This is just how many incidents I’ve seen nearby.”

Her voice became messy and distorted.

“What happens to them if I ignore them?”

“…….”

“Even if they look no different from utility poles to people’s eyes, they are living beings. Humans distinguish between those who deserve to live and those who deserve to die, but trees don’t. If they’ve rooted, that reason alone is more than enough.”

Yiyeon felt her tumultuous morning heart swell.

“But who are you, boss, to kill them?”

A bitter taste rose in her mouth. She remembered her small hands trembling while holding a pencil, and the self-reflection journals piling up to her height.

“They are wronged even when they are used and discarded.”

The owner was merely angry at what he considered childish stubbornness, but for some reason, his throat tightened when he saw the woman’s reddened eyes.

“Shall I tell you something scary?”

“…….”

“Even if you die, the trees will continue to live.”

—They will live for centuries. Yiyeon gritted her teeth, trying to hold back her blurring vision.