Flowers Are Bait Novel - Chapter 157 (End)

The long winter has passed.

Despite the severe cold and frequent heavy snowfall due to a cold wave advisory for the first time in over ten years, Yiyeon had the warmest winter of her life.

Whenever she worried that the trees might suffer from frost damage, Kwon Chaewoo would climb the mountain behind their house instead of her, wrapping the crape myrtle and persimmon trees with straw.

Yiyeon spent her free time knitting clothes for street trees and sending them to the local government, and her house gradually filled with adorable baby items.

Let’s overcome this winter well and surely sprout leaves. She muttered like a spell all winter long.

Now, Yiyeon was sitting leaning against a tree, listening to a gentle melody, just like on a day long ago.

“Salut d’Amour,” blooming from the man’s hands, was soft and warm like the early spring weather.

In the middle of the dense forest, sparkling glass lanterns, a moderately sized table, and beautiful flowers adorning various spots were secretly placed.

It was a baby shower Kwon Chaewoo had meticulously prepared for Yiyeon, who was nearing childbirth.

Soon, after finishing his performance, he delicately wiped the fingerboard, body, and bridge of the cello with a cotton cloth, while Yiyeon’s gaze swept over Kwon Chaewoo’s black hair, his straight neck, his taut shoulders, and his thighs revealed as he bent his knees.

Making a hand shade against the sunlight filtering through the leaves, she suddenly asked,

“Chaewoo, isn’t living with me boring?”

“What did I just hear?”

Kwon Chaewoo squinted one eye and chuckled.

“I feel like I’ve turned you into a grasshopper.”

“I’m sorry, but I had a full winter.”

“But originally, you were a bit more…”

“A bit more?”

“You were busy. At the Kwon family’s….”

Yiyeon lowered her voice.

Kwon Chaewoo there always carried the smell of blood. During the day, he was either listless or highly agitated, and at night, he wore a black mask, revealing only his reddish eyes.

But after coming down to Hwaido, he spent his days tending the garden, cleaning the house, and attending to Yiyeon’s every need.

The man who once stood on the stage of the Berlin Philharmonic Hall was now playing music on the ground like a poor student. Every time Yiyeon saw him, a faint anxiety began to settle in her heart.

Perhaps he would miss the wealth and fame he once enjoyed. Perhaps he would say one day that he was leaving to find his true place.

But Yiyeon doesn’t know.

That this grasshopper had become the next successor of the Kwon family and had hidden himself even deeper.

While the prosecution was extensively investigating Suguk Pharmaceuticals, Kwon Chaewoo opened a secret family account and established a children’s welfare foundation. Illegal businesses like gambling, private loans, and auctions still continued, but he cut off the sponsorship system that exploited people to the bone and gave the hunting dogs a choice. And he completely demolished the Kwon family’s mansion.

Except for the basement where Kwon Giseok was imprisoned.

The Kwon family, having lost its form, would gradually exist only as a rumor. The successor, who had thus retired to the countryside, was currently the hidden pillar of Hwaido, subtly taking control of the island.

In particular, there was no area his hand didn’t reach, including a comprehensive survey of elementary, middle, and high schools their child might attend, the distribution of criminals within Hwaido, and restrictions on accident-prone areas.

That was the true side of Kwon Chaewoo, whom Yiyeon now perceived as a grasshopper, but she didn’t need to know all this. This was the meaning of an invisible fence.

“Yiyeon, I’m satisfied with how things are now.”

“Even so, they say that drastic environmental changes can lead to depression.”

Kwon Chaewoo endured the tickling in his chest at Yiyeon’s innocent concern.

“Something similar did come.”

“Huh?!”

“But it’s not me who’s depressed, it’s my lower half.”

Yiyeon’s eyes, which had been clouded with worry, suddenly turned cold.

“It wants to cry but can’t shed tears.”

“Hey… no, Chaewoo…”

He grabbed the cello’s neck and suddenly let out a hollow laugh. It sounded like a cold breath.

“In early pregnancy, due to miscarriage risk, in mid-pregnancy, due to bacterial infection, and now, due to premature labor. They say to keep it short and not to insert aggressively, but how can a man not go crazy?”

He poured out his complaints, but Yiyeon felt somewhat wronged. It was Kwon Chaewoo who would heat her whole body with foreplay, only to violently grab his own penis right before insertion, as if scared. The man, his face suppressing anger, mechanically and quickly induced ejaculation, gritting his teeth and saying he’d get her later, and each time, Yiyeon felt a chill down her neck.

“I can not do it at all, but once I start, I can’t finish it quickly.”

“……!”

“Of course, I’ll go crazy and get rough.”

He closed his eyes tightly and tilted his head from side to side as if stretching.

“So I’m not bored at all, Yiyeon, because I only live to devour you.”

Sometimes, Kwon Chaewoo found Yiyeon so adorable when she slept with her arms raised that he showered her cheeks with bird kisses until they were raw. Then she would whine for a long time and eventually turn her head sharply, and each time, the stray hairs pressed against the pillow were so maddeningly cute that his groin ached.

He had become a pervert whose dick got hard habitually, at any time.

Nevertheless, if he could just stay by her side, he didn’t care what he became. Yiyeon, noticing that the man’s eyes had suddenly deepened, changed the subject at the perfect moment.

“Ah, should we have invited your older brothers too?”

Then, as if he had heard something utterly bizarre, Kwon Chaewoo’s face crumpled.

“Did I hear that correctly?”

“Huh?”

“……Who, who is inviting whom?”

“Uh…, your other brothers, are we inviting them?”

As she lowered her voice at his chilling demeanor, Kwon Chaewoo immediately smoothed his expression.

“Consider those bastards, no, those people, as nonexistent.”

Even without that, everyone was already interested in the life of the youngest, who had become a prospective father before his brothers.

But when he didn’t answer any calls, one day Kwon Yijoon, who had hacked the youngest’s phone, completely stole all the nephew’s ultrasound photos. Kwon Chaewoo’s forehead would throb just thinking about that time.

“My family is all here.”

He pressed his forehead and the tip of his nose to Yiyeon’s round belly for a long time. Seeing him do that, Yiyeon opened her mouth before she even thought.

“Even if there wasn’t a child—”

“……!”

At the unexpected topic, Kwon Chaewoo’s body stiffened.

“If you were here, Chaewoo, I would have regenerated countless times.”

Both of them instinctively recalled the moment when acrid flames had surged. Kwon Chaewoo raised his head blankly.

“Yes, I would have.”

Yiyeon once thought that the child in her belly had made her useful. The mother, who should have been a strong pillar, had instead stood on her own two feet, rooted by this child.

She had fallen into the dangerous error of thinking she had become a new person because of the child, almost giving up on everything.

The fear that if she lost the child, she might return to being a rootless person. That was a hole within her that she hadn’t seen. But spending the cold winter with Kwon Chaewoo, she became certain.

“For you, I will live steadfastly, and I will survive. I will not be intimidated or despair by anything.”

“……”

“No matter how arduous a day I’ve had, when I open the front door and step into your arms, Chaewoo, I…”

“……”

“Can start over countless times.”

Kwon Chaewoo, who had been barren to everyone, met her and became the broadest and most fertile land, and Yiyeon, who had been like a withered old tree, finally bloomed upon meeting him.

“Now I believe I can.”

“……”

“I’m sorry I told you so late.”

Yiyeon lowered her eyebrows and stroked Kwon Chaewoo’s head soothingly. She looked at him anxiously, wondering if her words weren’t too late, and he was stiff, as if he had forgotten how to breathe.

On a warm spring day, the man finally shed the tears he had suppressed in his heart for so long. Someone’s winter was ending just like that.

“—In spring, ladybugs, butterflies, stag beetles, caterpillars, longhorn beetles…”

Meanwhile, Gyubaek, who had arrived in the forest early, was running around wildly, adorned with his insect collecting kit.

Gyubaek, who had been wandering around with a collecting net around his neck and a dragonfly net in one hand to celebrate the arrival of spring, stopped then.

The child stared endlessly at Yiyeon, who was sitting leaning against a tree, and the man, who had broken down with a voice even lower than a cello.

“——!”

At that moment, Gyubaek finally decided on a gift for the baby. It was the first children’s book the nine-year-old insect expert would write himself.

“Male, you clearly promised me.”

Kwon Chaewoo, embracing Yiyeon who had fallen asleep leaning on his shoulder, looked at someone’s short legs.

Just then, Joo Dong-mi and Choo Ja’s boisterous laughter could be heard from afar. They must all be coming this way, holding beautiful bouquets in their arms.

In addition, Jang Beomhee, who had recently moved, was invited to this gathering to be formally introduced. Kwon Chaewoo’s face was still nonchalant, unaware of his mistake.

“If the male helps you marry the director—”

Those were the words the man had whispered to the child in front of the Kwon family mansion days ago. It was the condition he had offered to Gyubaek, who was captivated by the taste of money.

He would also give him a heavier and better golden toad, and also…

“He promised to officiate the wedding.”

“He did. But the male hasn’t gotten married yet.”

“No, I practice every night these days.”

“Why does it feel close?”

“It’s right around the corner.”

At Gyubaek’s meaningful words, his lips twitched. Kwon Chaewoo carefully re-covered Yiyeon with the slipping blanket and gestured with his eyes.

“Then have a rehearsal.”

“This is the doctor’s officiating speech.”

Gyubaek clasped his hands together and bounced on his heels. He had practiced so much that he could now recite it fluently even in his sleep. The child’s small lips moved meticulously.

“Macaroni penguins, gray wolves, pangolins, gibbons, black vultures…”

“Wait, wait.”

Kwon Chaewoo twitched his eyebrows and cut him off.

“What on earth is that?”

“The groom does not interrupt.”

“……”

Whether he was speechless or pleased with the title, Kwon Chaewoo snapped his mouth shut.

“Macaroni penguins, gray wolves, pangolins, gibbons, black vultures, owl monkeys, swans, and bald eagles are animals that love only one female until they die.”

A small chuckle escaped Kwon Chaewoo’s shoulder. Yiyeon tried her best to suppress her urge to squirm.

But the man, who had already realized she was awake, immediately pressed his lips to the top of her head.

“From now on, the male will take care of childcare like a macaroni penguin. He will rush to his mate’s aid, risking his life, like a gray wolf. He will let the female go first and walk only behind her, like a pangolin. He will raise the young together and groom each other, like gibbons. He will stay together every single day, all year round, like a black vulture. He will eat less when his mate is away, like a swan. He will never cheat, like an owl monkey. He will spend at least twenty years together, like a bald eagle.”

His posture, with hands clasped tightly, was quite plausible, but his encyclopedia-like tone remained unchanged. Yiyeon bit her lower lip with all her might, and Kwon Chaewoo couldn’t help but let his lips part slightly.

“Honestly, I don’t really know what a blessing is.”

“……”

“But when I see the director and the male, words I didn’t know just pop into my head. There are so many things here that aren’t in the dictionary.”

The child, who had always been expressionless, showed his neat teeth for the first time. His emotionless face curved, and dimples she didn’t even know he had appeared on his cheeks. His gaze, which was fully focused on people rather than books and insects, sparkled for a fleeting moment.

“……”

“……”

Yiyeon tightly hugged Kwon Chaewoo’s arm, and he gazed at Gyubaek with remarkably gentle eyes.

The baby, when born, would have a pure and upright older brother, something he himself never had. His son would walk a path completely opposite to the life his father chose, and perhaps grow up to cherish his brother more than anyone.

But Namwoo’s brotherly devotion, which would lead him to build the nation’s largest insect ecological park for his precious sibling, was a story for a very, very distant future.

“Director So Yiyeon—! I’m here!”

“Yiyeon-ah, I’m here!”

“Young master…”

“……You, you bastard?!”

Guests began to gather in the forest one by one.

Seconds before a boisterous commotion erupted.

Kwon Chaewoo hoped she would quickly discover the wooden box hidden behind the cello.

Inside, yellow sticky notes, like pebbles, were piled up—the precious moments when the girl had secretly attached them to the tree trunk, whispering, “Hello, thank you, you gave me strength, I miss you, I want to meet you.”

“I want to live my whole life as Yiyeon’s flower.”

The man, who had started as a plant, once again became a plant and gently fell upon her.

But now, she wouldn’t be fooled.

There was no need for lies either.

Because she was the only tree doctor in the world who could handle this terrifying plant-human who might change at any moment. Yiyeon whispered confidently,

“Not as your husband?”

“……!”

At the same time, the growling Joo Dong-mi finally knocked Jang Beomhee to the ground.

Early spring, the beginning of a festival.

That night, Yiyeon opened a children’s book in her dream. On the very first page, she saw traces of “Baby Tree—” written, then crossed out, and rewritten.

To Baby Namwoo.

It was a story about a deep-rooted tree and a singing tree meeting and living happily ever after. It was a letter saying that in Hwaido, where music, trees, and insects harmonized, everyone could love and laugh.

So come quickly.

The author was Lee Gyubaek, and the title was…

Another unforgettable summer was approaching.

– End –