Flowers Are Bait Novel - Chapter 134

Yiyeon left work late that night because of the garden dug up by the dogs.

Although she hadn’t squatted down to work herself, she felt awkward leaving alone and stayed late with them. As she massaged her stiff shoulders and headed to her room, Yiyeon’s legs suddenly stopped.

A large, dark mass was sitting alone in front of her door.

Looking closely at what seemed like a clump of shadow, it was a person hunched over. Specifically, Kwon Chaewoo was leaning against Yiyeon’s door.

She had been on edge all day, not knowing when Kwon Chaewoo might suddenly appear, but to see him so crumpled.

Kwon Chaewoo was leaning his head against Yiyeon’s door, melted as if exhausted. His hair, heavy like wastewater, fell towards his tilted head, and his tight black clothes strangely smelled of blood.

But his skin, so pale it seemed translucent, looked as if he wasn’t alive. Because of his alien appearance, her legs wouldn’t move easily.

However, Yiyeon no longer held the naive thought that he was asleep.

“It’s late. You should go back.”

She nudged Kwon Chaewoo’s shin with the tip of her foot. Fortunately, her voice came out cold.

“Don’t stay here, go to your room.”

“…”

Then his eyes, which had been closed as if dead, slowly blinked, blinked. His light irises made his eyes appear even clearer in the dark, fixed precisely on Yiyeon.

“I need to go in, so move.”

Yiyeon gestured to the door with her chin. Then, thump—! Kwon Chaewoo slammed the back of his head against the door.

“Ms. Yiyeon, I’m sleepy.”

The man exhaled a sound that was neither a laugh nor a sigh. His voice, moist and heavy like a swamp, seemed to pull her in.

What on earth did he do every night to come back so exhausted? For the first time, Yiyeon felt a flicker of curiosity about the young master in front of her.

But she was also sick of the strange gravitational pull Kwon Chaewoo exerted so naturally.

“…Before you came crawling to me just because you’re sleepy, did you try enough?”

“Try what?”

“Did you sleep next to other women?”

“…”

Kwon Chaewoo seemed speechless and couldn’t answer, his face instantly crumpling as if hurt.

As his pale, still face silently trembled violently, Yiyeon felt a secret thrill welling up from somewhere deep inside her chest.

‘—So Yiyeon, was fucking that good?’

Yiyeon bit the inside of her tongue at the thought that flashed through her mind and repeated it back.

“You liked it too, f-fucking. So you should have tried something, skillfully.”

Kwon Chaewoo clenched his fist and thumped the floor once. His hand, with taut veins, trembled faintly. Watching the man who couldn’t bare his claws even if he wanted to, Yiyeon’s insides churned.

“I don’t want to hear such things.”

He complained, not quite a complaint, in a terribly cold voice, his head bowed low.

“Why would I leave Ms. Yiyeon for another woman—”

“Why? Do I have an obligation to accept you?”

“…”

“It’s shameless to come straight to me just because you’re sleepy. That’s just you trying to solve things easily.”

He ran a trembling hand through his hair. His smooth brows furrowed, and a faint, humorless laugh escaped him.

After seeing Yiyeon’s hallucination, he had voluntarily refused sleep. Jang Beomhee always stiffened his face and didn’t hesitate to speak harshly, but Kwon Chaewoo was quite satisfied with the current situation.

Even while tormented by the temptation to hold onto her hallucination and lie with her, he gritted his teeth, thinking of the days, or even weeks, he wouldn’t be able to wake up. He couldn’t leave Yiyeon alone in the Kwon family, which was teeming with all sorts of things. So if it was abstinence, it was abstinence, but suddenly ‘fucking’?

“Do I look like a slut to Ms. Yiyeon?”

“What kind of talk is that—”

“You’re treating me like a guy whose lower half acts independently. I can’t even get an erection without Ms. Yiyeon in the first place. Sleeping, eating, sex, everything is controlled by Ms. Yiyeon, but…!”

His eyes, looking up at her, polished and solely for her, suddenly gained intense power.

“It really hurts to hear that.”

His gaze, tightly clamped and silently glaring at Yiyeon, was red. At that innocent yet burning emotion, Yiyeon felt as if she had fallen into her own trap again. As she always did when dealing with Kwon Chaewoo.

“I only want to be worn out by Ms. Yiyeon. I only want to be dirtied by one person.”

“I understood enough, so please, stop.”

“Did you want to turn me into a rag because you hated the sight of me so much? But what can I do? I only give myself to one person, but I can get it up anywhere. If you want to roll my body, then damn it, Ms. Yiyeon, you should squeeze out every last drop. You don’t know jack shit about using a rag, and yet—”

“Stop talking!”

Yiyeon squeezed her eyes shut and frantically scratched her earlobe. Then, Kwon Chaewoo, his momentum subdued again, grabbed Yiyeon’s pants leg and rested his forehead against it.

“Now, does even my face bother you?”

Even though only her clothes were pressed, Yiyeon flinched, and Kwon Chaewoo, keenly sensing her reaction, lifted his forehead again.

“I haven’t touched you carelessly, nor have I followed you. And you don’t even praise me.”

That persistent gaze, immediately checking Yiyeon’s complexion, was indeed her husband’s, as she remembered.

Suddenly, something welled up inside Yiyeon. Not wanting to know what it was, Yiyeon deliberately raised her voice.

“If there’s a person sitting in front of my door, wouldn’t that bother me?”

“You can just pretend it’s not a person.”

At his naturally self-deprecating words, Yiyeon now let out a hollow laugh.

“You were a dog anyway, so if you don’t like that, be a plant.”

“…”

“Ms. Yiyeon is good at pruning branches. Keep adding first, second, third restrictions, cut off all my limbs. Then, if I can’t do anything, you can just pour a little water on me each time.”

The man, clinging to her pants leg and panting, suddenly seemed pathetic and pitiful.

Unconsciously, she reached out and lightly touched his hair. Kwon Chaewoo instantly held his breath and looked up at Yiyeon as if she were the sky. Even in the darkness, she could see his eyes beautifully coloring.

Coming to her senses belatedly, she flinched, pulled her hand away, and bit her lower lip.

It was a huge mistake, a disaster. Because—

“…Let me touch you, just once.”

Yes, he would crawl back like this so quickly.

“Please let me touch Ms. Yiyeon’s stomach.”

“…!”

While Yiyeon stood stiff, his eerie voice crept up her legs.

“Kwon Giseok touched it.”

That one sentence struck her again with a forgotten truth. Kwon Giseok had found out about her pregnancy. Yiyeon, flustered, hid her hands behind her back as if handcuffed.

“He touched your stomach, of all places. What man wouldn’t go crazy seeing that?”

“…My stomach, why?”

“Because I filled this stomach.”

Yiyeon’s gaze stopped at the slightly upturned corner of his mouth.

“Wh-what are you…?”

Yiyeon’s eyes immediately flickered like warning lights. Kwon Chaewoo wanted to embrace Yiyeon and shower her with kisses right then and there. But the reality that he couldn’t do so wore him down so much that one side of his face seemed to collapse.

Still, he couldn’t scare her. Just as it had been from their first meeting, he couldn’t predict what she would do when frightened.

It was best to eliminate variables as much as possible, so Kwon Chaewoo decided to remain completely silent about the pregnancy.

Until she fully returned to him.

“Did you forget I cooked for you?”

“Ah…”

Yiyeon, ashamed that she had immediately thought something lewd, quickly grabbed the doorknob. Then, her pants leg stretched taut.

“Don’t go, allow me.”

“I won’t allow it.”

She wouldn’t care if he froze to death in the hallway. Yiyeon flung the door open and slammed it shut again right in front of his nose—bang!

Eventually, she finished showering, huffing, and lay in bed, pulling the blanket over her head.

I don’t care. I won’t care.

Yiyeon kept repeating that to herself, but in the end, she couldn’t sleep.

It was from that day.

That strange rumor started circulating: the youngest young master was sleeping in the hallway.

“I’m leaving first, good work!”

It was another day she was leaving work late after selecting flowers to redecorate the garden for the charity auction. Yiyeon habitually checked the time, calculating Kwon Chaewoo’s presence in her mind.

Since that day, at midnight or dawn, something large would invariably thump—! against her door. It was the sound of Kwon Chaewoo letting all the strength out of his body and slumping against the door.

For several days, the large dog guarding her door gnawed at Yiyeon’s nerves. He didn’t scratch the door loudly or bang on it, but rather, his stillness tightened around her like a thin thread.

Especially whenever Kwon Chaewoo’s face resembled the husband Yiyeon knew so well, somewhere on her lower back would feel warm and beads of sweat would form.

“Ms. So Yiyeon.”

Just then, someone in a neat suit blocked her path. Yiyeon nervously looked around, though no one else was there, and stepped back.

“You’ll have to come with me for a moment.”

“Who are you?”

The person looked strangely familiar. Where had she seen him…? She kept tilting her head. She was sure she had seen him somewhere, but she couldn’t remember at all.

“Director Kwon is calling for you.”

Jang Beomhee was consistently polite, but his eyes were not friendly.

What power could a mere subordinate have?

Gyubaek and the pregnancy. With two weaknesses already exposed, Yiyeon couldn’t utter a sound and followed Jang Beomhee into the annex. She unconsciously clutched her stomach, repeatedly biting her dry lips.

Wait, isn’t this where Kwon Chaewoo stays?

The moment that question arose, Jang Beomhee, who had been silently leading the way, suddenly turned around.

“I apologize.”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s not Director Kwon, but actually because of the young master.”

“…!”

As her shoulders visibly flinched, Jang Beomhee quickly added.

“You can rest assured. The young master doesn’t know.”

“What?”

“The young master receives injections sometimes—”

“Is he perhaps doing drugs?!”

Yiyeon shrieked, cutting him off, and Jang Beomhee paused before replying.

“No, it’s a type of nerve stimulant. He’s been taking it to endure since Hwayido.”

“…!”

Yiyeon’s face hardened coldly at the unfamiliar words.

“But I replaced it with a sleeping pill. It’s not just the young master who’s reached his limit; I, who’s been watching him, have also reached mine.”

Jang Beomhee stood with his back to a door, looking down at her frozen, expressionless.

“So please, help me a little.”

“What exactly…”

At that moment, Jang Beomhee opened the door.

And there—

Kwon Chaewoo collapsed on the bed, seemingly unconscious, and a woman she had never seen before.

“Please lend me the clothes you’re wearing now.”

Jang Beomhee’s voice fell chillingly.