Flowers Are Bait Novel - Chapter 53

‘Why is he there…’

All her attention was drawn to the window.

Raindrops like dotted lines were obliquely smudged on the window. It wasn’t a wrongly solved test paper, but diagonal lines kept filling the space between them.

How long had he been standing there? Yiyeon’s fingertips grew cold. She bit her lower lip slightly, feeling dismayed that she had shown something that shouldn’t have been seen.

Just then, Kwon Chaewoo, who had been staring intently at Yiyeon even from a distance, suddenly shifted his gaze. His eyes slowly scanned the man sitting opposite her, from head to toe, with a cold and eerie intensity. Yiyeon instinctively sprang to her feet.

“Yiyeon?”

The other person grabbed the rattling edge of the table.

“……Excuse me, but I think I have to go home now.”

“Huh?”

Yiyeon, who was hastily packing her bag, paused and looked at the other person. This person, who was also confused and shifting in his seat, was innocent. She let her eyebrows droop and opened her mouth.

“I’ve already stepped into the wrong path.”

“Pardon?”

“I… I prefer someone who has even less family affection than I do. I hope they’ve forgotten all about ex-girlfriends or past memories, and ideally, they’re as problematic as I am.”

“Huh?”

The man widened his eyes as if he had heard the strangest thing.

“My ideal type, you see. That way, I feel more comfortable.”

“……”

“Even if a time comes when I have to explain or excuse my flaws to others, I hope they won’t react sensitively. But such understanding is probably only found in religious circles… So, it might be a better fit if the other person also has flaws. I don’t want to be the only one held accountable.”

“……Yiyeon. That sounds a bit dangerous. I don’t know your circumstances, but you shouldn’t put your eyes on your feet.”

He pointed out sternly, and Yiyeon inwardly nodded.

“You’re right. Usually, trees with many wormholes are considered inferior.”

Yiyeon slung her bag over her shoulder and straightened her back. Her gaze instinctively turned towards the window. Her eyes, fixed on one spot, trembled.

“But chestnut trees are an exception.”

The brownish chestnut tree was very hard, and its weight was directly conveyed.

“Those wormholes are characteristic of the chestnut tree’s grain.”

Her voice, seemingly gloomy yet full of conviction, no longer wavered. Yiyeon bowed and left the cafe.

But as she opened the door and stepped out, Kwon Chaewoo, who had been like a still life amidst the hurrying people, was nowhere to be seen. Yiyeon restlessly looked around, frantically searching for him.

She was checking alley after alley, not even realizing her clothes were getting wet. Someone suddenly yanked her arm. Her shoulder blade hit the wall with a thud, aching sharply. Before she could scream, a familiar scent reached her first.

“……Kwon Chaewoo.”

His translucent, wet white shirt clung tightly to his upper body, revealing his physique without filter, whether he wanted it to or not. Rainwater streamed down his high nose bridge from his now utterly black hair.

“You’re trying to abandon me, aren’t you, Yiyeon?”

A cold, acrid breath scattered from his mouth.

“There’s a strong smell of something fishy.”

Kwon Chaewoo tilted his head slightly as if sniffing. At that small action, Yiyeon’s neck stiffened.

Her body trembled, sensing something. This pattern of being cornered was quite familiar to Yiyeon. She swallowed hard and clenched her fists.

She wouldn’t be swayed by Kwon Chaewoo every time. This time, Yiyeon decided to try his method.

“W-women, when they have a social life, they meet all sorts of people, don’t they? And where have you been, Kwon Chaewoo, in this rain?”

Yiyeon put strength into her eyes.

“You clearly didn’t say you were going out. What did you do again?”

Her carotid artery throbbed fiercely below her neck. It was a pathetic sight, like the pot calling the kettle black, but the one with the louder voice always wins. Kwon Chaewoo replied without much expression.

“I just got my ID made.”

“……!”

However, at the unexpected answer, she froze. What… What did he make? Her widened eyes tightened.

“You seem surprised, Yiyeon.”

“N-no, that’s…”

The two, now thoroughly drenched, silently stared at each other. Yiyeon’s mind went blank, unable to fathom his thoughts.

“Am I really not enough for you?”

“……Pardon?”

“So you meet other men, even lying about it?”

His voice sounded as if he had just been pulled from a swamp.

“Is it because we haven’t been intimate? Sometimes, Yiyeon, you seem to forget that I’m your husband. Or should I have forcibly opened you up and pushed into you, even though you weren’t ready?”

“……!”

She froze for a moment at the man’s twisted gaze, then Kwon Chaewoo’s face completely contorted, and he slowly collapsed onto her shoulder.

“Can’t you separate me from your ex-husband?”

“……”

“Was it that difficult?”

He lifted his head and pierced her with a pleading gaze.

“Enough to churn a person’s insides like this?”

When the whites of his eyes turned bloodshot, Yiyeon visibly flinched. At her clear reaction, he let out a self-deprecating laugh.

“I know, Yiyeon, how much of a bastard that Kwon Chaewoo you desperately tried to hide was. And what lies you told me.”

“……!”

At his sudden words, Yiyeon couldn’t breathe. It felt as if something inside her had been coldly pierced, and she was momentarily stunned.

“H-how…”

Did he remember something? Did his past come back to him? Did he recall that night? Or what he had buried? As Yiyeon’s mind spiraled into chaos, he pressed her again.

“Let’s stop beating around the bush.”

“……”

“Yiyeon, you don’t like me, do you?”

“……Pardon?”

“Did you think I wouldn’t know?”

Yiyeon was completely overwhelmed by the continuous unraveling of her lies.

“I understand if you were just thinking about when and how to get rid of a useless piece of trash who used to lay hands on his wife.”

“W-what…? Laying hands?”

Yiyeon blinked rapidly at the sudden word.

“But the more I think about it, the more unfairly furious I become. I’m just starting, but someone else has already seen the end. Would you, Yiyeon, willingly accept that?”

He let out a dry, sarcastic laugh. But it didn’t sound like mockery.

“So, I’m sorry.”

Kwon Chaewoo scrunched his eyebrows violently, then quickly smoothed them out.

“I intend to go all the way with you, Yiyeon.”

“……”

“Unfortunately, consideration ends from this moment on.”

His large hand painfully gripped Yiyeon’s waist. A heat that could evaporate the falling raindrops boiled fiercely in his eyes. Yiyeon gripped her clothes tightly with her now cold hands.

“……I, I wasn’t beaten by Kwon Chaewoo…! That’s a misunderstanding. How did you come to think that?”

“So, never once?”

Yiyeon’s mouth opened, then closed. On their first meeting, maybe once…

Kwon Chaewoo grabbed her chin, which had awkwardly turned away, and forced her eyes to meet his. He sharply lowered his head as if he would immediately part her lips and murmured. So Yiyeon felt as if she was almost within his grasp.

“Tell me, then why were you so afraid of me?”

“……”

“From the moment I first regained consciousness until now. Why do you still call me ‘Kwon Chaewoo,’ and why do you try to distance yourself or pull away whenever you get a chance? I need to hear it, right here, right now.”

His drenched face was far from pathetic; it was fierce. Under his sharp gaze and intense pressure, Yiyeon wanted to run away, just as his words implied. The raindrops hitting her face stung.

“That… that’s…”

He watched Yiyeon without blinking.

Her small, futile attempts to distinguish between fear and excitement were thus caught by the tail and dragged along once again.

From the moment she found Kwon Chaewoo, her heart had pounded like a seizure, and each time, it crushed and scattered the lines Yiyeon had drawn. It was scary yet welcome, scary yet necessary. It pounded and pounded, as if to lump all those absurd things into one.

“What are you hiding from me?”

The problem is that guilt grows in proportion to emotion.

“Th-that’s because I lied to you, Kwon Chaewoo…!”

“Lied?”

“We… we didn’t register our marriage!”

She squeezed her eyes shut and shouted forcefully. It was the moment Yiyeon, whose heart had finally wavered, uttered the truth for the first time.

Shhh—

The ceaseless rain drenched Yiyeon’s eyelashes. After a moment of silence, she cautiously opened one eye.

And there he was—

“……!”

Kwon Chaewoo, smiling with his lips stretched wide.

At a reaction so different from what she expected, goosebumps rose through her wet blouse. That expression wasn’t surprising or shocking.

Rather…

It was the laughter of a man who, by chance, witnessed yet another lie, a man who had already been sharpening his hunting instincts, as he stroked the smooth barrel of his gun.

“You, I guess I can’t be nice to you.”