Flowers Are Bait Novel - Chapter 130

Perhaps there are dogs in the world that cannot be obedient. There might be bad dogs.

Yiyeon muttered that all day and safely finished her work. Kwon Chaewoo personally carried her to the mansion’s infirmary, and her wounds were treated unexpectedly.

The young master’s whim, due to Yiyeon’s accident, changed as easily as flipping a palm, and fortunately, the management team staff could put down their saws.

“Ugh… ugh…”

Yiyeon, even in her hazy state, burrowed into the blanket. It felt chilly whenever a cold wind blew. What time was it now?

She remembered having a terrible nightmare about lampreys chasing her. She had slept so tensely that her pajamas were soaked with cold sweat.

Even without that, her physical condition wasn’t good. Her head throbbed, and hot air hissed from her nose.

It seemed like she was really sick with a severe cold.

In fact, it was understandable. From the moment she arrived at the Kwon family mansion, a place unsuited to her nature, and met Kwon Chaewoo again, it was the beginning of prolonged stress. The work was harder than she expected, and their family customs and the aspect of high society she encountered here were shocking. Moreover, the changing environment coincided with a change of seasons.

She reached out a feverish hand and fumbled for her phone. She felt like she was burning up, but even under the blanket, she felt as cold as if she were in an extreme cold.

She hoped she wouldn’t get a fever…

Such a worry briefly crossed her mind, but she was just dazed. Her senses were blurred, unable to tell where she was or who she was. The warm heat gathered in her eyelids, and tears welled up physiologically.

First, call Chooja… She pressed the numbers by instinct. Ring, ring, the dial tone lasted for a very long time.

Her vision was dark, too weak to lift her eyelids, the terrifying nightmare, the worrying baby in her belly—all of it suddenly felt so sorrowful. Click, and when the call finally connected, tears came out naturally.

“Hmph… Chooja-ssi.”

The other end of the line was quiet, but Yiyeon breathed heavily and spoke in a fading voice.

“I’m sick…”

Even the hot breath she felt with each inhale stung and hurt her.

“I really feel like I’m going to die… I can’t trust the people here…”

At that moment, a rough sound of something being dropped was heard from the quiet receiver. Or perhaps it was the sound of a door slamming shut—! and someone urgently leaving. But Yiyeon’s mind was too muddled to even care about such minor noises.

“I want to go home quickly. Go and… I want to eat.”

Yiyeon endured the chills that made her molars clatter and mumbled like a sigh.

“The ingredients here are better, and the cooking is better than at my house, but strangely, I have no appetite.”

—…

“So no matter how much I eat, I keep feeling hungry… and I just suck on my spoon…”

Yiyeon kept repeating the same words, unaware of what she was saying in her feverish state. I want to eat. I want to go home quickly and eat.

“Chooja-ssi, do you know? This place really isn’t a place to live… I saw a huge fish tank, ugh, and there were disgusting monsters in it. And the garden? Who on earth planted those phallic trees…?”

—…

“It feels like I’ve been kidnapped to a strange foreign country after having my passport stolen. The food doesn’t suit me, I can’t adapt, and the boss is mean…”

Yiyeon sniffled.

“I want to go back to Gyubaek quickly… If I stay here, I’ll go crazy first. I’m tired of being surprised, shocked, and scared. And because I keep getting tense, my stomach hurts a little too.”

—…

“I wish time would pass quickly. I wish tomorrow was the last day…”

After that, she seemed to have said many things she couldn’t remember.

How much time had passed? She heard rough breathing from the receiver, and then the door slid open.

As expected, I was too much of a nuisance, wasn’t I? Did Chooja-ssi rush over after being woken up? Yiyeon mumbled, moving her lips. Suddenly, a cold hand touched her forehead and cupped one cheek.

“Ms. Yiyeon.”

A calm, low voice settled.

“Open your eyes.”

Yiyeon rubbed her cheek pleasantly against the cool palm that was cooling her fever.

At the same time, the end of the blanket was abruptly pulled back, and someone rolled up her pajama bottoms to her calves.

Suddenly, the cold air stinging her skin made her try to pull her knees back under the blanket, but her ankle was abruptly seized, and her leg was straightened.

Someone was carefully removing the gauze that had been applied to her ankle and calf in the infirmary yesterday.

“Ugh…”

Yiyeon used all her strength to lift her forehead and half-opened her hazy eyes. Then, two men appeared vaguely in her blurry vision.

She frowned, trying to figure out what was happening, but with her mind constantly breaking off, even that was difficult.

“—The possibility of sepsis cannot be ignored. We need to draw blood immediately and start a culture test. Sepsis can lead to death in a short time after onset, so we need to go to the hospital quickly. Since organ dysfunction or shock can be accompanied, if it spreads acutely, the mortality rate exceeds 70 percent.”

“…What did you just say?”

Kwon Chaewoo’s face hardened coldly. The hand holding Yiyeon’s ankle suddenly lost an absurd amount of strength.

To erase the traces of his idiocy, he had destroyed all items related to himself after leaving Hwaido. Canceling his phone was for the same reason.

But after accepting that So Yiyeon was still the one who awakened him, the man must have revived more than just his old number.

It was the first call he had received like that. When he heard Yiyeon’s terribly weak voice, he thought she was saying her lamprey bites hurt, so he dragged the sleeping doctor by the collar.

“…Death?”

But what was this absurd talk?

He gripped the doctor’s collar, then, hearing a groan, turned his gaze back to Yiyeon.

Death.

Who?

Kwon Chaewoo’s pupils were trembling finely, as if shattering all the walls he had built until now. The word, consisting of only two syllables, became an artillery that instantly shattered the sturdy man.

He glared fiercely at the doctor, then released his hand as if it was futile. Kwon Chaewoo embraced Yiyeon, who was shivering with chills, from behind and gestured for the doctor to do his job immediately.

The doctor straightened his flushed face and opened his medical bag.

“The… the culture test will take some time. For now, I’ll give an antipyretic injection.”

He skillfully inserted the needle into the medicine and drew up the liquid.

“The injection… no.”

At that moment, Yiyeon spoke quite firmly, despite her slurred pronunciation.

“Shh—it’s okay, it’ll be over quickly. They say they need to test you.”

Kwon Chaewoo rolled up Yiyeon’s sleeve to make it easier for the injection and clasped her hand.

But the sharp needle and unfamiliar doctor in her translucent vision, the teeth from the nightmare that made her shudder—all of it drove Yiyeon into terror.

She flailed her arm and scratched the arm that was holding her. Kwon Chaewoo entangled her legs like tenacious vines to prevent her from moving further.

“No… you bastard…”

An alcohol swab was rubbed on her arm, and an unfamiliar hand tapped her bare skin.

No, I don’t want it, I’m pregnant…! She desperately mouthed the words, but no sound came out. It was then that red tears welled up from her frustration.

Creak, the door suddenly opened. There stood Gyubaek, rubbing his sleepy eyes with sleeves that covered his hands. The child looked around the room for a moment, then suddenly clenched his fists and rushed in.

“…Director!”

Gyubaek immediately ran to Kwon Chaewoo and bit his forearm tightly.

“Male is really stupid, male is disappointing! As expected, rotten things should be thrown away!”

Gyubaek was unusually agitated. The child alternately slapped the man’s forearm like a laundry paddle and urgently shouted.

“This is wrong. Male is crazy…! Owl monkeys shouldn’t be like this!”

“Kid, move aside.”

He twitched his eyebrow, but that was all. There was no time to humor the kid in this situation.

“Owl monkeys are the best fathers among all primates…! If the male harms the brave baby, I will take revenge for life. Giant hornet Oosuzumebachi, bullet ant Paraponera, African honey bee, soldier ant, horsefly…!”

Gyubaek chanted dangerous insects like a spell and this time clung to the doctor’s clothes. At Gyubaek’s sudden rampage, the two men seemed momentarily dumbfounded. At that moment, a clear light passed through the doctor’s eyes.

“Young master, is this patient… married?”

“What?”

Kwon Chaewoo frowned intensely. Just that alone created pressure, and the doctor wiped his forehead.

“Yesterday, because of the lamprey, I only thought of sepsis, but actually, in early pregnancy, the body’s temperature regulation ability also decreases, so a low-grade fever of up to 37.7 degrees can persist.”

“……”

“It’s even more so when the patient sweats, has chills, and is not feeling well. This feverish sensation can easily be mistaken for a cold or body aches, but most of the time, it recovers naturally.”

Only the ticking of the clock intruded into the strange silence. Even the fine lines on Kwon Chaewoo’s forehead hardened like white plaster.

The anxious doctor adjusted his glasses, which had slipped down, and said.

“Still, just in case, we need to do a blood test quickly.”

“…Pregnant?”

Kwon Chaewoo’s voice, which broke the long silence, was extremely unfamiliar. There was no trace of emotion in his tone, as if he was asking again or chewing on the word.

Kwon Chaewoo looked at the pale Yiyeon, whom he was holding, with a very strange expression. He rested his chin on Yiyeon’s shoulder and pressed his whole body against her, as if a dam had broken.

Kwon Chaewoo irritably pulled out the earplug he had in one ear and placed his hand on her belly. His eyes, tightly shut as if to block out noise, trembled.

Her body temperature, which was different from when they were in Hwaido, the pretty blush that had risen on her face, the cute freckles that had appeared frequently lately, her rapidly changing mood swings, and…

Her subtly changed body scent.

He had thought the reason he hadn’t noticed Yiyeon’s changes until now was due to the strangeness that came from her having sorted him out.

But what if she had been filling herself with something else?

And part of me, inside her.

At last, the stitches that had sewn Kwon Chaewoo to Kwon Chaewoo were fading. When the stitches were removed at the right time, what grew like new flesh was none other than So Yiyeon.

‘Ah—I can’t live without you.’

Please, don’t leave me behind.

And so, the pendulum, which had never stopped its gradual tilt, finally swung completely to one side.

“…Ms. Yiyeon.”

A terrible pain he had never felt before began to overwhelm him.

She was already ready to be happy without Kwon Chaewoo, but the bitter premonition that she would have nothing crushed him like a headache.

There was no way to turn back time.

Falling from ecstasy to rock bottom was instantaneous.