Flowers Are Bait Novel - Chapter 143

 “Hello? Chaewoo, are you coming? Where are you now?”

Her excited voice came through the receiver, clear as glass. At the same time, the sound of an instrument tuning, the twisting of a string instrument he had long forgotten, pierced through a momentary silence.

How many days had it been since he last slept? Why hadn’t he just gone back to his main home, why had he been dawdling in Hwaido all this time? Was it all just to see this? Kwon Chaewoo smiled chillingly, listening to the discord that tore through the subtle cracks. It felt like a fuse had blown in his head.

“…What an unforgettable gift, Ms. Yiyeon.”

“…Chaewoo?”

“It’s a perfect finale.”

The precarious nerve snapped, and in the fleeting moment his vision went black and returned, Kwon Chaewoo was already slamming the cello down, again and again.

What shattered into pieces wasn’t the instrument’s body, but his own sanity. A violent urge, making his fingertips tingle, surged within him.

He hated listening to music, especially the cello; he couldn’t stand the sight of it. He thought she knew all of this and was mocking him. It was pure paranoia.

Please stop, just listen to what she has to say. But his strong arms were pouring all their strength into smashing the cello to smithereens. He gasped for breath only after finally splitting the cello’s neck in two, his eyes wild.

“Did you have fun taming the duckling?”

He calmly smoothed his disheveled hair and regulated his breathing before approaching her. Yiyeon’s eyes, filled with terror, trembled, but the man who had endured until now, intent on shattering her trust, felt a thrill instead.

“…I’m sorry for lying. I, I was so scared of you back then, Mr. Kwon Chaewoo. I really… I just wanted to live, but no one believed me. It was someone else who made you fall… Mr. Kwon Chaewoo’s brother wasn’t even interested in what I had to say.”

His heart suddenly ached at her face, stained with sorrow. Just before their relationship was irrevocably broken, she spoke with all her might, her eyes resigned to accepting everything. She tried to converse.

It was his own rage-blinded self that ruined it, and his stubbornness, not wanting to be swayed, that made him deliberately cover his ears.

A groan escaped his clenched lips as belated regret flooded over him. Then, the barrier blocking his mind shattered, and as his vision flipped upside down, memories of past moments he had stubbornly ignored came flooding back.

“Take my hand.”

He pulled her, left alone amidst the airplane wreckage, and descended Mount Motdae together—

“I want to too.”

He immediately nodded to her, who was making a vow with the butterfly.

Kwon Chaewoo knew this was futile, yet he couldn’t help but act differently. Even if it only satisfied himself, he wanted to personally remove every thorn embedded within her. He wanted to cover her wounds anew.

“—But Chaewoo, at least you know that I acted in self-defense.”

“I know.”

He felt Yiyeon flinch at his ready admission. Despite the scene already beginning to unravel, Yiyeon, like a tape recorder, forced out the words she had to say.

“What I’m sorry for is the absurd lie, not the action I took to protect myself.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

Kwon Chaewoo nodded repeatedly and added,

“You did well, Ms. Yiyeon. If you ever experience something similar in life, don’t think twice and swing the saw just like that. I’ll take care of everything else, so don’t show any mercy and crush them.”

“…”

“And I hope you only ever lie about being my wife to me.”

Despite the man’s changed reaction, Yiyeon somehow continued speaking.

“I’m really sorry for lying…”

To that, Kwon Chaewoo returned the very words she had once desperately uttered.

“That lie completely changed my life.”

“…!”

“How could I forget that? You nurtured me carefully, like a beautiful flower. You looked after me diligently, like a vegetable garden you tended yourself, and caressed me.”

“He still hasn’t woken up from his dream.”

It was from that moment. When the words they had each spoken were completely reversed.

“It’s no use, no matter what you do. You will never, ever meet your wife again.”

She said, turning chillingly cold. It was the beginning of the true nightmare.

“Right here, right now, all memories related to you will be discarded.”

“…Yiyeon.”

“What’s there to feel wronged about? We’re just putting everything back to how it was.”

“…”

“So you forget too.”

Kwon Chaewoo couldn’t lift his head at all, having all his words thrown back at him. Did I really have such a cold expression? His heart throbbed, and he helplessly contorted his face.

Yiyeon’s expressionless face, a hint of a sneer reflecting on it. Not a conversation, but a unilateral declaration of a severed relationship. It would have been far better if she had cut off his fingers, joint by joint.

How on earth did she endure this situation? Kwon Chaewoo just clenched his lower lip.

“But we… Yiyeon, you…”

“Did I ever explicitly say I love you?”

“…!”

He finally furrowed his brow silently, as if what was coming had arrived. A metallic taste filled his mouth from his tightly pressed tongue.

“As far as I remember, I’ve never said anything like that. Didn’t you ever think that I was scared of you, that your brother threatened me, and I was just playing along? You came on so strong to me. What was I supposed to do in that situation?”

Kwon Chaewoo swallowed a groan, running his hands over his pale face.

I need to go quickly. I need to break this illusion and go meet Yiyeon. The words, piercing like daggers, seemed to slowly break his will and try to keep his feet rooted here.

The pain, which began in his chest, soon spread throughout his body, throbbing as if his limbs were twisting. And so, the man gradually lost courage.

I was wrong. Please don’t say that. Words like pain gasped through his clenched teeth.

“…Every moment, even to a bastard like me, Yiyeon, you taught me.”

The man’s voice trembled precariously.

“You taught me what it’s like to live a normal life, to prepare meals for you with water on my hands instead of blood, to rescue animals instead of harming others, that I too could live like a human being. You taught me that, Yiyeon.”

“…”

“How amazing those ordinary feelings were.”

Living in hiding with Yoon Jooha, completely deprived of education and medical care, was an abnormal life, separate from memories. Moreover, his teenage years, lived solely as a musician, were lonely, and after becoming an adult and a hunting dog, his life completely deviated from a normal trajectory.

So it was the first time. The first time he had lived such a quiet and comfortable daily life, solely as one woman’s husband.

Making three meals a day, tending the vegetable garden in the yard, picking up his wife from work, and at night, unleashing the love he had held back.

It was all new. The time they warmed the blankets, relying on each other’s warmth on cold, lonely nights. So—

“I want to go back to Hwaido.”

He smiled wryly, his chest heavy with a sense of loss.

‘I came to Hwaido intending to bury you from the start.’

“Because when my life ends, I want to be buried next to you, Yiyeon.”

Now, he finally seemed to understand why Yiyeon had wanted to present him with an orchestra as a gift.

Why Yiyeon had invited him as the first audience, and why, of all things, she wanted him to hear music.

The forest, ruined like a wasteland, must have been Yiyeon’s idea of family, but the husband she had accepted back must have been music.

The comfort she had experienced was only the music of the boy carried on the wind. Yiyeon had offered the most sparkling moment she possessed.

Let’s continue to live like that.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t need a husband anymore.”

But Yiyeon turned her back as if relieved, and Kwon Chaewoo’s heart was torn.

As he watched Yiyeon gradually move away, feeling empty, strength suddenly surged into his legs.

His hesitation was exceedingly brief.

He dashed forward and forcefully pulled her rigidly turned body into his embrace.

“…You can go.”

Yiyeon’s body swayed from the recoil. But contrary to what he said, Kwon Chaewoo crushed Yiyeon’s upper body in his embrace. He desperately rubbed his disheveled hair against her shoulder.

“Even if you leave like this now, I’ll keep waiting here.”

“…”

“I’m not tired at all. I can do this my whole life. So—”

Kwon Chaewoo clenched his jaw as a hot lump surged up his throat. Every time he swallowed something burning down his throat, his esophagus stung as if rubbed with sandpaper, yet he continued to gulp.

“Keep walking as much as you want, Yiyeon. You can abandon me hundreds, thousands of times along the way. Consider me the most meaningless thing and drop me first.”

“…”

“But… please pick me up last. I don’t care when that is.”

When Yiyeon went on the stage she had beautifully prepared with her heart and smashed the cello, the place of family was completely shattered then. Yet, how great a decision and courage it was for him to run back and hold her again. The man who had dared not even try to fathom that effort was now hurting as if his insides were melting.

“…I’m sorry for not understanding your feelings at all during that time, Yiyeon.”

Nevertheless, Kwon Chaewoo spoke with all his heart towards her, who was listening somewhere.

“Don’t be scared just because I got shot a few times.”

“…!”

“Don’t pity me either.”

“…”

“Don’t waver.”

Kwon Chaewoo put a terrifying amount of force into the arm holding her tight. He pulled her persistently, as if he would never let go of her body, but then slowly released his grip. At that, Yiyeon’s fragile, trembling back suddenly stiffened.

“Is this old man crazy!”

Just then, Chooja’s voice was heard, and a furious crowd of residents rushed in. Chooja angrily tried to block them with her body, but they were too many.

“This is all because of this quack doctor! How are you going to take responsibility for this? Our village’s sacred tree died because of you…!”

The enraged residents stretched out their grasping hands, trying to drag Yiyeon away, but all their attempts were blocked by Kwon Chaewoo’s solid body and came to nothing. They only clawed at Kwon Chaewoo’s innocent back and pulled at his clothes. Even buried by the residents, Kwon Chaewoo did not let go of a single strand of Yiyeon’s hair.

The woman who saved the tree and the man who cut it down.

Only that unbridgeable gap remained now.

His vision gradually began to turn white. His limbs felt heavy, and a headache surged. From the experience of his vision flipping over several times, Kwon Chaewoo instinctively knew what lay at the end of this path.

The man, with his eyes tightly shut and nose wrinkled, had to endure the feeling of a violently rocking and capsizing boat. Finally, the rough vibrations stopped, and when he lifted his eyelids…

Ah—.

Kwon Chaewoo couldn’t say a word, as if a ball of fire was stuck in his throat.

“…”

“…”

He could feel her tension, her shoulders hunched as if on guard, entirely in his palm. He met eyes directly with Yiyeon, who was held in his arms, wearing a pure white dress.

Her reddened whites of the eyes, as if angry or suppressing emotion, stared directly at him.

It was, at last, the cold and sweet reality he had so longed for.