Flowers Are Bait Novel - Chapter 132

The man’s features, always strong and distinct, were subtly trembling.

It was a face Yiyeon had never seen before. She was used to his angry and cold demeanor, pushing people into a corner, but this fragile face, as if it would crumble at a touch, was utterly unfamiliar. Her body, which had been frozen by Kwon Giseok, now stiffened for a different reason.

“…Why are you like this?”

Yiyeon instinctively took a step back. Kwon Chaewoo reflexively flinched his arm but then clenched his fist and stood at attention.

“I think I clearly conveyed it last time.”

“……”

“I told you not to waver.”

Yiyeon stared at him with wary eyes. She couldn’t help but be sensitive with the man who was once again trying to tread on her life before her.

But the more resolute Yiyeon’s eyes became, the paler his face grew. His sudden illness and her pregnancy had ultimately broken his stubbornness, but even in this moment, Yiyeon was building bricks brick by brick, and the gap felt like a biting wind, cutting into his skin.

“What just happened… I’ll pretend I didn’t hear it.”

Yiyeon quickly averted her gaze and turned her back.

“I…!”

At that moment, a thick voice, bursting as if about to shatter, stopped her.

“What if I’m still Ms. Yiyeon’s husband?”

She visibly flinched.

“What if, on the day I left Hwaido, I didn’t remember you at all?”

“……!”

Yiyeon’s eyelashes trembled. She looked back at him with unfocused eyes, like someone whose most vulnerable spot had been poked.

“When my memories originally returned, the time I spent in Hwaido became a blank slate.”

“……”

“I just thought I had been played by some woman.”

Kwon Chaewoo’s face, which had always been sharp, was now completely contorted.

“Back then, I hated Ms. Yiyeon so much for lying and manipulating me as she pleased. I felt like I had to hate a lot to stay myself. So I acted even more cruelly. I had no memory of it, but this damn body reacted to Ms. Yiyeon’s scent and focused only on her movements, and that scared me.”

“……”

“Honestly, it felt like some horny bastard had borrowed my body, and it felt like shit.”

Kwon Chaewoo spoke with somewhat aggressive language, as if confessing, and watched Yiyeon intently. His bloodshot eyes didn’t blink once. There was a sense of obsession, as if he wouldn’t miss a single second of her reaction.

“So I also pretended to be your husband. You can call it a petty revenge, childish, I don’t care.”

“……”

“The truth is, that was my mistake and my downfall. The longer I pretended to be your husband, the more I disliked leaving Hwaido.”

“……”

“I was insanely jealous of Ms. Yiyeon’s husband, wanted to kill him, and even considered completely taking his place. On days when Ms. Yiyeon didn’t even look at me, I would get so angry that my departure schedule was postponed several times.”

Kwon Chaewoo suddenly swallowed his agitated breath, his chest heaving.

“And then… old memories merged.”

“You must have been confused.”

At her rather gentle response, Kwon Chaewoo lifted his head with a glimmer of hope.

“But whatever you are, whoever you are, what does it matter now?”

“……”

“I’ve already held a funeral.”

Kwon Chaewoo slowly frowned. His expression was blank, as if he couldn’t believe his ears.

“A funeral?”

He rolled the rough word on his tongue, as if hearing it for the first time. From dawn until now, the sharp words surrounding her felt as if they were tearing him apart. Death, pregnancy, and now a funeral.

“Yes, I’m sorry, but you’re a dead person.”

Kwon Chaewoo’s face, which had been burning with hot, vibrant emotions, instantly froze.

“I wore black clothes and personally dug the ground to bury your fragments.”

“……”

“And I have no intention of pulling you out of the grave I made.”

Their relationship, which began when he was caught being buried alive, finally ended only after one person buried the other.

Kwon Chaewoo leaned his head back and covered his eyes, overwhelmed by an inexplicable sense of despair. Had he ever felt this helpless before?

Since becoming an adult, he had only known how to stab people at the right time, but he had never learned how to revive a dead heart. It felt as if a part of his body was just dangling.

As Kwon Chaewoo shattered into more and more pieces, what seeped through the cracks was idiocy.

The innate rejection, suspicion, stubbornness, and defense that had formed him shattered, and what regained control was a blind man who had only experienced life as someone’s husband.

“…What should I do?”

Kwon Chaewoo clutched Yiyeon’s clothes with his claw-like hands.

“I’ll do whatever Ms. Yiyeon tells me to. I’ll cook, I’ll work, I’ll do the housework. I’ll give you as much money as you want, and if I can, I’ll even breathe for you.”

Yiyeon clenched her fists and averted her gaze. The crumpled edge of his clothes was as shabby as they were now, and as time passed, Kwon Chaewoo’s face returned to something she knew well.

Yiyeon, ignoring her stinging throat, pushed him away once more.

“Are you saying that because you truly trust me?”

“……”

“No matter what, how can you trust me, a liar? What if I actually sold your mother?”

Yiyeon’s eyes glinted maliciously. She deliberately denigrated herself without hesitation.

“When I dealt with you, I was always busy just getting by with lies. I was always that kind of person, don’t you think I might have just made excuses for my own benefit?”

“I don’t.”

At the man’s choked voice, Yiyeon let out a laugh that sounded convincing.

“Why are you so easy?”

“…Even if that’s the case, it doesn’t matter anymore. It’s my part to bear it. No matter what kind of person Ms. Yiyeon is, I want to embrace all of it. If there’s a sin, I’ll take the sin, if there’s a debt, I’ll take the debt, I’ll take all those wrinkles.”

Kwon Chaewoo gently held her wrist and laid down everything he had. The man, who chose to become foolish again, naturally looked only at one woman.

As his sweat-dampened palm clung to her soft skin like grass, a sweet sigh, a languid relief, flowed out.

“My heart defeated me, and so I lost to Ms. Yiyeon.”

He suddenly stroked Yiyeon’s neck with his thumb. She flinched and recoiled.

“Ms. Yiyeon even accepted a bastard like me, so why do you think I can’t?”

‘I could have lived pretending not to know until I died! But why…! Why can’t you! I could have endured whatever kind of person Kwon Chaewoo was…!’

“Do you think Ms. Yiyeon is dirtier and more wicked than me?”

The moment their eyes met, Kwon Chaewoo’s melting with pain, Yiyeon slapped his hand away—! and turned to flee.

She had to escape this place, she absolutely had to. Her body urged her frantically before her mind did.

Even though it was a bright midday, the sky was cloudy today, and the gloomy hallway, deprived of light, stretched endlessly. Yiyeon swallowed her stifling and complicated emotions and ran forward, looking only ahead.

She ran desperately, just as she had fled from him in the back mountains once. If she was caught this time… If she was caught this time—! Kwon Chaewoo’s face came to mind, and she suddenly felt nauseous, but she didn’t stop.

At that moment, a heavy weight fell behind Yiyeon, and someone strongly restrained her whole body.

“Ugh…!”

A shiver, like cold, spread through Yiyeon’s body due to her trembling arms.

“I’m Kwon Chaewoo too, so why don’t you recognize your husband!”

“……!”

“I’m here, Ms. Yiyeon. I’m still here.”

“L-let go of me—”

“I’m Ms. Yiyeon’s husband, why on earth don’t you recognize me!”

His indignant voice scratched Yiyeon’s ears. Yiyeon bit her lip and struggled to shake off his arms, but the more she resisted, the more desperately Kwon Chaewoo hugged her small body.

“No, I don’t want to let go. Ms. Yiyeon, please. Don’t leave without me.”

“Let go!”

“I don’t want to let go.”

“……”

“Don’t go. I’ll do well. Please, take me with you too. I’ll do everything. Hug me too. I’ll do better.”

Kwon Chaewoo kept repeating the same words, burying his face in her neck. Hot, ragged breaths fell like a downpour. But his desperate voice gradually became eerie.

“Why do I have to be separated from Ms. Yiyeon? Why am I not one with Ms. Yiyeon? If you leave like this, I’ll wait for Ms. Yiyeon forever. I’ll wait in one place until I die. Damn it, I’ll wait even after I die.”

Yiyeon realized that no matter how much Kwon Chaewoo acted like he was backing down, his true nature hadn’t changed.

“Okay, ugh, just let go of this first…!”

“I can’t let go, I don’t want to.”

“You asked what to do, didn’t you? You said you’d do what I told you. Didn’t you want to change my mind even a little?”

She felt him flinch. As Yiyeon waited quietly, the man slowly loosened his arms.

Soon, the two faced each other again. Kwon Chaewoo, his neck red, stared at Yiyeon’s lips as if to devour them.

“If you don’t keep even one of them—”

“I will keep them.”

He hastily cut her off and replied.

“First, don’t lay a hand on my body.”

It was the moment when dominance was perfectly reversed.

“Second, don’t follow me.”

Her command seemed to contain chains, truly making his legs unable to move. Kwon Chaewoo endlessly watched Yiyeon as she moved away, and then answered his vibrating phone.

—Young Master, I found him.

Jang Beomhee gasped on the other end of the line.

—It’s Mr. Choi, the driver who worked for the Kwon family 15 years ago. At the time, all the personal secretaries on the chairman’s side who handled Ms. Yoon Jooha were either declared dead or missing, so I dug into other areas, and I found Mr. Choi, the driver who quit around that time.

“Just the point.”

—Ms. So Yiyeon didn’t accept the reward money.

“What?”

A suppressed groan escaped Kwon Chaewoo’s throat. His face hardened coldly, as if he had never been desperate in front of a woman.

—He said he heard muttering that the student refused the reward money to the very end, and that it became troublesome. After that, he remembered hearing a phone conversation from the driver’s seat reporting that the destination was changed to a hospital and that the hospital bill was paid directly.

Kwon Chaewoo’s hand, holding the phone, began to tremble subtly. Jang Beomhee cautiously added his personal opinion.

—Young Master, in this incident, Ms. So Yiyeon…

“…I know. I understand enough.”

He couldn’t breathe, and bile rose in his throat. His eager heart wanting to embrace all of her was one thing, but confirming the facts was another.

Kwon Chaewoo put his large hand to his cheek and gasped for breath. He covered his mouth, but it looked as if he was trying to suppress something that was about to pour out.

It had only been about ten days since he reunited with her.

But it felt too late, far too late.

Pressure built up in his eyes, as if they would burst.