Flowers Are Bait Novel - Chapter 137

Where did it all go wrong?

Kwon Chaewoo clung to Yiyeon even as he drifted into a deep sleep. He fell asleep, gripping her wrist like a handcuff, as if worried she would suddenly leave.

Yiyeon’s ear and lips, which he had abruptly swallowed, still throbbed and burned as if the skin had been peeled off. He was a man who would act pitifully but then bite fiercely when given a chance, and Yiyeon had to fight back even harder to avoid being swayed.

Her palms felt hot, and when she opened them, there were crescent-shaped nail marks, bright red.

‘Ugh… So tiring… Refreshing but tiring…’

She couldn’t forget Kwon Chaewoo’s eyes, which would be utterly subdued one moment, then fiercely turn as if to devour someone the next.

Nevertheless, a hollow laugh escaped her, as if some of the black grime that had been neglected in a corner of her chest had been washed away.

It was truly an exhausting battle of wills.

Verbal restrictions would always have been nothing more than trivial stickers that people with power could easily peel off. So Yiyeon’s palms were raw and she was constantly breaking out in cold sweats, not knowing when or how Kwon Chaewoo would pounce, but surprisingly, he played along to the very end.

Yiyeon, who had been suspecting his unexpected motives in various ways, at some point found herself dozing off and waking up repeatedly.

Each time she closed and opened her eyes, she heard Kwon Chaewoo’s breathing and saw his relaxed face.

After repeating this several more times—

“This is what a good morning was like.”

“…!”

“I thought it was another hallucination because Ms. Yiyeon was sleeping next to me.”

Their eyes met, and he spoke calmly, as if unable to believe it. These were not the hazy, half-closed eyes from yesterday, clouded by sleeping pills. The pallor and fatigue were gone, and his eyes clearly held Yiyeon. Looking out the window, she saw that dawn had broken.

“…A hallucination?”

She asked, awkwardly sitting up, but Kwon Chaewoo merely pulled up the corners of his lips without a word.

“Was it fun yesterday?”

“…Huh?”

“I went crazy several times.”

It was when she took a deep breath, wondering what other fault he might find, thinking, ‘But Mr. Kwon Chaewoo, you were the one who first bit my ear…!’

“If I ask you to do it again, will you keep playing with me?”

“…!”

Far from being subdued, Yiyeon was so dumbfounded by the man, who was completely revived, that she couldn’t say a word.

His eyes, infused with the yellow morning sunlight, curved beautifully.

“Ah—it felt so good to act cute in front of Ms. Yiyeon.”

“You’ve been having lunchboxes every day lately, haven’t you?”

At lunchtime, as employees streamed out of the office, someone noticed her, who was taking out her lunchbox alone. Yiyeon saw them off with a somewhat embarrassed smile and opened the lunchbox lid.

The thermos contained warm, steaming doenjang-jjigae, there were a total of seven side dishes, and the white rice gleamed.

In the past few days, this lunchbox had made life a little more enjoyable. She knew whether it was Kwon Chaewoo’s cooking or if he had someone else do it by tasting it. He faithfully packed her lunchbox himself as promised, and at night, he would again guard her door.

Slurp—

Blowing on the soup and eating it, a warmth that warmed her insides spread roundly.

Kwon Chaewoo, who even delivered her lunchbox himself to match Yiyeon’s commute time, always looked at her with expectant eyes, either pitifully or directly. The eyes visible above his white mask were her husband’s, as Yiyeon remembered, making it difficult to meet his gaze for long.

‘What if I’m still Ms. Yiyeon’s husband? What if I didn’t remember Ms. Yiyeon at all the day I left Hwayido?’

It was useless to think about it now.

‘…Haa, Ms. Yiyeon might have had to bury me to live, but I couldn’t breathe unless I dragged Ms. Yiyeon out, even if it killed me. Then who do you think is more ruthless?’

The power struggle between the one who buried and the one who tried to dig out was a significant drain on mental energy, and unless one side gave up, it seemed it would never end.

Yiyeon, engrossed in such an unanswered problem, unconsciously clicked her tongue.

She had barely managed to consider him dead, so why did he appear now and give her such a headache?

She stopped eating with her chopsticks and gulped down only water. Regardless of needing food that suited her palate, as time passed, it became harder to swallow his sincerity.

As she was touching her deeply furrowed brows, a noisy sound came from outside the wide-open window.

“Team Leader, where are the ones we ordered last time?”

“No, not that way, this way—! Line them up evenly!”

Today was the day of the Miraehoe charity auction.

The garden managers were busily moving around with their tool cases, setting up semi-circular arches and decorating the stage and tables with flowers.

Yiyeon, who had already exterminated pests, had no more work to worry about and leaned back deeply in her chair.

The autumn weather, enhanced by the scent of flowers, was truly pleasant.

—Wow, what a perfect day to kill someone.

The garden manager, with dirt under his fingernails, opened the common tool case that had been provided to everyone.

—You’ve worked hard playing in the dirt all this time.

Kwon Yijoon’s relaxed and cunning voice flowed through the in-ear monitor.

Inside the case, a sniper rifle was disassembled, and the man began to assemble it piece by piece. Cold metal clicked and clacked, joining with familiar sounds. He placed the assembled rifle on a bipod and extended the barrel outside.

The core of a sniping mission is not shooting, but infiltration. The man, who had been disguised as a garden manager for several years for this one opportunity, finally received his mission.

—Let’s humbly cut off just one source of funding.

The outline was simple.

To assassinate the Pakistani ambassador’s wife.

Her main occupation was smuggling, her family had amassed wealth through smuggling for generations, and they were a powerful family that had contributed to making Pakistan one of the most drug-addicted countries. Currently, she served as an inexhaustible source of funds as an important client of the Kwon family.

Miraehoe was merely a gathering for cohesion; the charity auction had been a superficial pretext from the beginning.

Kwon Yijoon wanted to crack the trust of those involved as accomplices. He wanted to properly show the Kwon family’s solid partners that something that had reigned supreme could easily be broken. To do so, he had waited for years, penetrating the security of this place.

—It’s time for the Kwon family to personally learn that their front yard is no longer safe.

Even with Kwon Yijoon’s chilling laugh piercing his ears, the garden manager didn’t bat an eye. Soon, the man put his eye to the scope and slowly steadied his breath.

People were entering.

The guests, seating themselves at the elegantly decorated tables, all exuded grace. Yiyeon watched the garden fill up from a distance, tidying up her now empty lunchbox.

Just then, the wide sunlight disappeared, and a shadow suddenly fell, followed by a rustling sound. She turned her head to see a person filling the wide-open window like a picture.

He brushed off the leaves stuck to his hair and stood with his back to the sunlight.

“What… How did you get here…!”

Yiyeon abruptly stood up, and her chair scraped roughly. She nervously looked around, wondering if anyone was watching.

“Do you prefer the office, or your room?”

“Huh?”

He grabbed the windowsill and asked abruptly.

Kwon Chaewoo’s attire always differed between morning and night, and sure enough, he was now dressed in a neat suit. During the day, he was a relaxed young master, but at night, he became a man steeped in all sorts of dirty sediment. He gazed at her with a strange intensity.

“I’m thinking of confining Ms. Yiyeon from now on.”

“What?”

“I came to see if negotiation is possible before that.”

For several days, the man who had frowned and reddened his ears every time she saw his face now examined Yiyeon quite coldly. Nevertheless, something denser than caution lingered between them. Yiyeon, no longer surprised by his unilateral actions, retorted calmly.

“Please explain without cutting things short.”

“I’d prefer it if you didn’t come outside until the auction was completely over. And by the way, it’s not a suggestion.”

“…Why?”

The man tilted his head slightly, looking at her. His expression suggested he was debating whether to speak or not.

“It’s expected to get a bit noisy.”

At that, Yiyeon’s expression immediately stiffened.

Was she overly sensitive if she thought he wasn’t just talking about noise?

After seeing the sex party and the swimming pool, no, the fish tank, Yiyeon had given up on judging the Kwon family by her own standards, and Kwon Chaewoo’s warnings were always accurate.

A sudden shiver ran through her. It was advantageous to be as cautious as possible here.

“…Alright. I don’t have much to do today anyway. I’ll just tidy up the office and go to my room.”

When Yiyeon answered obediently, Kwon Chaewoo was speechless for a moment. He just stood there, then reached out and wiped Yiyeon’s lips.

She subtly frowned at the man who pushed in with the sunlight.

“I’ll be back.”

With a low voice, his fist, with clearly defined knuckles, hovered over Yiyeon’s hand. She instinctively opened her palm, and at the same time, soft flower petals showered down on Yiyeon. Her eyes widened, and she quickly cupped her hands.

“Ms. Yiyeon cherishes even things dropped on the floor and picks them up, so I tried to imitate that.”

“…”

“I thought if I did this, you might pick me up again.”

The moment Yiyeon stiffly looked at him, Kwon Chaewoo abruptly turned around. His receding figure, striding away, strangely lingered in her retina for a long time.

A chilling wind blew, and all the petals in her cupped hands flew away and fell to the ground. Scattered on the ground, they looked like drops of blood, red.

Yiyeon stared blankly at her suddenly empty palms.

—All hunting dogs, strengthen security.

Meanwhile, Kwon Chaewoo’s face hardened coldly as he listened to Kwon Giseok’s emotionless instructions.