Flowers Are Bait Novel - Chapter 2

On a bed connected to all sorts of wires and machines.

The man slept as if dead.

With his eyes closed, it was impossible to guess his age. His eyes, subtly upturned at the corners, were fierce, and his sharply defined nose boasted a sleek elegance.

However, his large body, which had been instantly noticeable even in the dark mountains, had gradually diminished over two years. Yet, his broad, angular shoulders, perhaps due to his natural bone structure, remained unchanged even as muscles elsewhere wasted away.

“Phew…”

Thinking of the past two years, a heavy sigh escaped, as if it had been waiting.

Vegetative state.

A patient without consciousness, only performing vegetative functions like breathing and circulation.

Yiyeon slumped into a chair and dry-washed her face. Even for a tree doctor, it was an utterly absurd contract, even in hindsight.

Even if he was a patient in a vegetative state, he was still clearly a man.

Accepting this object so readily was the result of a coward’s premature submission and loss of judgment.

Moreover, was he just any ordinary person?

‘You don’t have to run away, do you?’

She had swung the tool, thump, thump, in a daze, but the man hadn’t budged. Even with bloodstains on the tip of the saw, he remained still.

A flustered Yiyeon had resigned herself to dying right there—

But still, she thought, let me at least see the murderer’s face before I die.

Let me torment him every night as a ghost with all sorts of wicked deeds. It will surely be his fault. She turned her body and looked at the man.

The moment she clearly witnessed his eyes, which had been hidden by the hood.

She had the illusion that the man had lost strength. He seemed surprised by something, yet ravenously devoured Yiyeon’s gaze. For some reason, he clenched his jaw.

—Thwack!

And then, it happened in an instant.

Someone had repeatedly struck the back of the man’s head with a rock, thwack, thwack, thwack. The attacker was the person who had been buried alive, his entire body sticky with dirt and blood.

The murderer cursed and tried desperately to keep his eyes open, but eventually collapsed and rolled down the hillside.

“Kwon Chaewoo.”

Yiyeon uttered the name, still unfamiliar and rough on her tongue.

“Please… don’t wake up.”

To live quietly, long, and without trouble. That was the only wish that had never changed since she ran away from home.

Yiyeon knew all too well, to her bones, what a great privilege it was for someone to live an ordinary, boring life.

“I only accepted you because you’re in a vegetative state. You can’t move, you can’t talk. I find those kinds of friends relatively easy to handle.”

“……”

“So please, don’t wake up.”

“……”

At that moment, Yiyeon did not know that the man’s fingertip had twitched as if flicked.

“Yiyeon, it’s time to wake up from your dream.”

Inside the office, where flowerpots were stacked high on the dressing table and shovels of various sizes and colors were neatly arranged.

Gye Chooja suddenly thrust her phone forward. Yiyeon, who had been writing a treatment log, looked up at the glaring profile picture.

“What is this?”

“The son of Solle Landscaping Company.”

Yiyeon only rolled her eyes to check the photo and then pursed her lips. A short exclamation of “Oh” escaped, but she quickly averted her gaze. At her plain, almost indifferent reaction, Gye Chooja furrowed her brow.

“Is that it?”

“Manager, is your new crush your grandson’s age?”

“Not me, you!”

“Me?”

When Yiyeon looked at her innocently again, she sighed heavily.

“That’s enough effort. We can’t last like this.”

“Manager.”

Yiyeon tensed both her eyebrows.

“All the big contracts are already cut off. The kids from D Hospital, their skills are no joke.”

Yiyeon stubbornly closed her mouth and stared at her. To hide the sense of defeat that threatened to burst out like a sneeze, she tensed her entire face.

D University Agricultural Life Sciences Affiliated Hospital.

A large tree hospital that had built a new five-story building and even had its own research lab.

D Hospital, which had made such a grand entrance into Hwayi-do, aggressively entertained landscaping companies, seedling merchants, civil engineering contractors, and agricultural corporations, and then swallowed up their enormous network all at once.

Yiyeon’s hospital was not safe from the fallout.

Yearly contracts vanished instantly, and only sporadic calls came from the old lady next door’s flower garden, the village hall’s health check-ups, and clients trying to haggle.

“We can’t go on like this. Shouldn’t we find another way?”

“Then should we just close up shop here and get jobs at D Hospital?”

Her voice was subtly tinged with resentment. It was a sarcastic remark about how all the small business owners in Hwayi-do were crawling into the large hospital.

“Goodness, it’d be a blessing if you just quietly got a job. Just don’t scribble curses in every bathroom stall.”

Chooja snorted, implying Yiyeon would hardly be docile.

A few years ago, there was a permit issued for a golf course development in Hwayi-do. While environmental activists lay down in front of excavators and protested, this timid tree doctor had rolled balls of strongly smelling fertilizer at the excavators and then fled.

And watching her giggle again as she kneaded special fertilizer, Gye Chooja realized that ‘the tricks of narrow-minded people are more unpleasant than imagined.’

“You’re good at something, aren’t you? Being cunning and sly.”

She thrust the phone screen forward again.

“Then shouldn’t we take back the contracts we lost?”

“……!”

Yiyeon, seeing Chooja’s sly eyes, immediately stiffened her face. Her intention, thrusting a man’s photo at her, was obvious.

“Just go and have tea.”

“W-what.”

Yiyeon unconsciously recoiled.

“They say Solle’s son came back to Korea for an arranged marriage. If this isn’t an opportunity, then what is? This Gye Chooja even got a waiting number in advance. Go and at least introduce yourself.”

Then, Yiyeon, pale, shook her head.

“Your intentions are too impure. I’m not going. I’m not a gold digger!”

“What kind of nonsense is this, a tree pounding rice cakes?!”

Gye Chooja raised her voice in exasperation.

“Do you know, Yiyeon? You’re not cut out to be a gold digger, neither in character nor personality. Don’t make a fuss.”

Yiyeon’s face flushed. Unlike Yiyeon, who only wore work pants, Chooja always dressed impeccably. Yiyeon found herself captivated by the beautiful Chooja anew.

“How could a girl who scratches her arm at the mere mention of love knead that?”

Still wearing heels even in her sixties, she elegantly pointed her finger.

“And think carefully. Where’s the romance in this day and age? There are countless young men who scrutinize face, body, profession, family background, and these days even their concepts and spending habits. Are you going to censor even a cup of tea?!”

“Well, I mean…”

Yiyeon rubbed the corner of the desk, trailing off.

“It’s not like I handed you a hotel key!”

The one who should really be crying out “Goodness gracious” was actually her. Yiyeon shook her head at Manager Gye’s free-spirited love life, but still slumped her shoulders in defeat.

“……But, who told you that?”

“What?”

Her distinct accent sounded quite haughty.

“About Solle’s son returning home. And what’s a waiting number?”

At that, Gye Chooja meaningfully raised one eyebrow.

“Old man Solle tipped me off.”

“Pardon? The chairman? Why would he…?”

“Why? Because I was involved with him at one point.”

“Chooja-ssi!”

She jumped in place, inadvertently using the old honorific.

Chooja’s flamboyant love stories had a somewhat cruel fairy tale aspect to them for Yiyeon, whose experience was meager.

Yiyeon, who had to learn how to use sanitary pads by herself, met Chooja when she was seventeen.

Chooja taught her more complex and secretive things, but the teenage girl was conservative. Chooja did her best, but Yiyeon, who considered love a poison, covered her ears.

“A sturdy spouse isn’t found by fate, but by using foresight and picking wisely.”

“……”

“In a short life where you should eat only better things, if you act anachronistically, you’ll only be left with rotten bread crumbs.”

While Chooja was engrossed in her sermon, Yiyeon quickly fled the spot. The ultimate Confucian girl was too different from the wild old lady.

“Hey, you crazy girl, are you going to be a lonely old maid your whole life?!”

Night covers all sounds.

In the dark and silent room, a shadow was climbing the stairs. Creak, creak, the careful footsteps eventually reached the end.

Dong, dong, dong—

The tall grandfather clock, bought for the opening anniversary, chimed midnight.

Going to the second floor every night had long become Yiyeon’s routine.

At first, it was just an excuse to check once. To see the murderer lying helplessly, a sight that was amusing, and to remind herself of her subordinate position.

But now, she visited ‘it’ to conclude her day. To confirm with her own eyes that her daily life would be safe tomorrow too.

A doctor who treats trees, watching the misfortune of a man in a vegetative state, doing nothing.

“……”

Soon, Yiyeon familiarly entered the password and turned the doorknob.