Flowers Are Bait Novel - Chapter 127

From the moment Kwon Giseok pulled out the miniature in-ear device, her legs moved on their own.

The instant he aimed his gun at the small receiver, Yiyeon recalled Kwon Chaewoo, who had acted as if he was on the phone with someone. When these disparate actions unexpectedly connected at the corners, she couldn’t think of anything. No, too many thoughts whirled, making her breath quicken.

Yiyeon pushed through the crowd that had gathered to watch, or to join the game, and moved forward.

Kwon Giseok pulled the trigger, and Yiyeon rushed at Kwon Chaewoo, unbuckling his pants without a word.

Bang, bang, bang—!

All of this happened in an instant.

As his straight calves, thigh muscles split above the knee, and drawers that fit snugly around his pelvis were revealed, Yiyeon frantically stood to shield him.

Startled by the gunshots for a moment, the bewildered people soon turned their attention to So Yiyeon, who had unbuckled the buckle no one else could touch and finally pulled off his pants.

“……”

“……”

Yiyeon anxiously watched the man clenching his molars.

Kwon Chaewoo was enduring the ringing tinnitus caused by the burst machine. Aside from his eardrums being torn, a sudden dizziness overwhelmed him, as if the violent vibrations had touched something in his ear.

The veins in his neck bulged, and his face flushed. But people couldn’t tell if it was pain or shame.

Only she knew the truth, because of the vice-like grip that seized her shoulder, as if growling.

‘Bear with it.’

Yiyeon moved her lips silently.

The man was a sight to behold, soaked from head to toe in yellow and red liquor.

His lips were cracked, and his eyelids were swollen like a boxer’s. His once fine upper body was covered in someone’s handprints, and the area around his nipples was filled with scars where flesh had been deeply gouged. All sorts of evidence of humiliation were starkly before her eyes. Yiyeon bit her lip with a hardened expression.

Soon, she hooked her thumb into Kwon Chaewoo’s drawers and looked at Do Kyungjin.

“I can take these off, so the game’s over, right?”

She wanted to somehow scatter the clue Kwon Giseok had seized, the gaze fixed on Kwon Chaewoo.

She tried to appear nonchalant, but her vocal cords trembled. Nevertheless, she painstakingly pushed through the sharp, almost shattering air with a dry and light tone.

Do Kyungjin blinked his hazy eyes again. Kwon Chaewoo, who had been indifferent to violence but sharply reacted to blatant flirtation, was strangely compliant.

“What a trashy family…”

Yiyeon muttered coldly, nominally pulling down the man’s underwear before quickly putting it back on. In the interim, his underwear got caught because his penis had suddenly hardened, but Yiyeon, flustered, said, “Why is this…?” and let go of the band.

The smell of liquor and fishiness completely covered the man’s cozy and cool scent. It was like the smell of sewage.

Her stomach twisted like a pretzel, feeling as if she had become the perpetrator of this party. It was hard for her to even look Kwon Chaewoo in the face now.

Yiyeon approached Kwon Giseok with stiff steps.

“This wasn’t in the contract.”

She said, panting.

“I came here to manage the garden, not to be a plaything at some lewd party.”

Kwon Giseok narrowed his eyes, as if trying to grasp the situation. He continued to scrutinize So Yiyeon, still aiming his gun at the shattered in-ear device. That fleeting gaze felt endlessly long.

Yiyeon held her neck stiffly, trying not to look at the person Kwon Giseok had dragged along. Dry saliva automatically went down her throat, fearing the black gun barrel.

“Mr. Kwon Giseok, do you even intend to protect your employees?”

“……”

“I still don’t understand. Why did I have to get caught up with these people and feel threatened? If you are my employer and the host of this party, please deal with me first, not with gunshots.”

Kwon Giseok slowly looked down at Yiyeon, who wasn’t even wearing shoes. His slow pupils were like a machine trying to catch an error. Yiyeon, hiding her clenched fists behind her back, urged him again forcefully.

“Right now.”

She took another step closer, skillfully covering the broken in-ear device.

“I want to get out of here as soon as possible.”

Kwon Giseok’s expression wavered for a moment at Yiyeon’s earnest and desperate gaze. Yoon Jooha had always turned people’s stomachs thousands of times with words like that. Kwon Giseok felt a sudden surge of distant memories and loosened his grip on the pistol.

“I will take you.”

Soon, the garden lights began to turn on one by one again. Each time a large light turned on, the generator hummed, like iron gates clanging shut.

Darkness receded from one area at a time. It was the sound of the terrible time finally coming to an end.

“Ms. Yiyeon.”

At that moment, a hoarse voice stopped Yiyeon, who was following Kwon Giseok.

At the mere mention of her name, her mood plunged back into the mire.

‘You’re terrible, and this place is terrible too.’

Yiyeon didn’t react, only clutching the clean white shirt she was wearing. Her back tingled from the persistent gaze, but Yiyeon didn’t look back until the very end. Just like Kwon Chaewoo that day.

It was a miserable night that had stripped him bare.

The boisterous party left only trash when the sun rose, and daily life became quiet again.

As always, when she was troubled, she worked even harder, touching the soil and tending to the trees.

However, at midnight, she couldn’t help but recall Kwon Chaewoo from that day. Before, he tormented her with his cold demeanor, keeping her awake, but now, he churned in her mind with his dirty appearance, having fallen into sewage.

Whenever there was even a slight gap in her mind, Kwon Chaewoo, who had been beaten as if waiting, replayed itself.

The underside of pleasure she had witnessed was more foul and primal than she had imagined. Because of this intensely negative impression, Yiyeon’s heart pounded and she felt anxious every night.

It was after that day that she seriously dedicated herself to prenatal care. Fearing that bad memories and the anxiety etched by them might infect her child, Yiyeon diligently read encyclopedias while listening to Gyubaek’s calm, even voice. Then Gyubaek would quietly look at her belly, as if he knew something.

“Oh dear, Director. Why aren’t you eating well?”

“……”

“Director?”

She spent time with Gyubaek whenever she had the chance, and she didn’t run into Kwon Chaewoo even by accident.

Nevertheless, as the bruises on her fingers faded, she found herself looking around more often.

“—Director So Yiyeon!”

“Ah, yes, yes!”

The chopsticks she was holding fell with a clatter. She snapped her head up.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes, it’s delicious…!”

“You hardly moved your chopsticks, though?”

A male staff member in his early forties, with his hair neatly parted two to eight, asked worriedly.

Yiyeon was currently having lunch with the management team in the internal cafeteria, and she vigorously shook her head.

“No, I ate it inside!”

Only after seeing the bewildered expression on the male staff member’s face did Yiyeon realize her slip of the tongue.

“I mean… I was eating slowly.”

“You’ve been a bit strange lately, are you worried about something?”

Yiyeon put the single remaining chopstick to her lips and forced a visibly awkward smile.

Among her overflowing worries, Kwon Chaewoo’s disappearance and her midnight anxiety were not the most troublesome. The problem was… her frustration was becoming a big issue.

Wanting to eat but being unable to.

Being unable to cook it herself.

Yiyeon was slowly withering away in this barren truth. She was trying her best to eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner regularly for the baby in her belly, but was her mouth satisfied? No, it wasn’t.

“Oh, Director. I’m thinking of bringing in tangerine trees, what do you think?”

“Tangerines?”

“Yes, it’s a tree grafted with Cheonhyehyang onto an early-ripening tangerine tree, and we might be lucky enough to get it.”

“Wow…”

Now, even a slight nudge would make her mouth water. It was absurd that she now thought of the taste of the fruit before the tree itself.

Grafting was the process of cutting a branch, root, or bud from one plant and attaching it to another part. Then, two different plants join to become a completely new, independent entity.

Like a tangerine tasting of trifoliate orange, a chili pepper tasting of cucumber, or a peach tasting of plum.

At that moment, Yiyeon, who was picking up the fallen chopsticks, paused. A sudden question spontaneously drifted towards one person.

‘Then Kwon Chaewoo…’

The man who had mercilessly abandoned her and the man who had endured humiliation for her—

Who, or what, was he exactly?

What did he ultimately want to become?

Today, Yiyeon groaned and buried her face in a soft pillow.

Even when she tried cooking herself, or followed famous recipes, she couldn’t replicate the taste she remembered. She even went to her aunt, who was known for her good cooking, and asked for a special favor, but it still wasn’t the taste she was looking for.

As these failures accumulated, she strangely became depressed. She consciously didn’t skip meals, so her stomach was full, but her heart felt emptier.

It was the moment Yiyeon sighed and turned over to the other side of the bed.

“Gasp…!”

A figure stood like a shadow in front of the large window.

“Haa… damn it…”

Yiyeon clutched her heart and glared at him.

“How did you get in here?”

Kwon Chaewoo stood like a shadow in front of the curtains fluttering in the night breeze. It was already dark with the lights off, but he seemed to be wearing the night itself.

A carbon fiber top pulled up to his neck, black military pants, and combat boots. If it weren’t for his light, hazel irises, she would have mistaken him for a pillar.

The man casually pulled down the mask that covered half his face. A faint smell of blood wafted over.

“…Are you hurt?”

“It’s not my blood.”

It was the first time she had seen his face since leaving Kwon Chaewoo behind. His once swollen red cheeks now bore bluish bruises, and his lips were scabbed.

Yiyeon asked without realizing it.

“Do you want to sleep together? So you’re going to kidnap me again?”

“No.”

But Kwon Chaewoo said no.

At the same time, Yiyeon felt a hunger that only she could recognize and rubbed her belly under the covers. The sound of something bubbling inside her curled inwards.

Suddenly, Kwon Chaewoo’s head tilted strangely.

“What on earth is in that belly?”