Flowers Are Bait Novel - Chapter 6

“……‘Please don’t wake up.’”

Kwon Chaewoo had repeated those words several times even in his hazy consciousness.

The doctor walked down the empty hallway, constantly rubbing his chin. His deeply furrowed brows refused to relax.

“Director Kwon must be troubled with his brother in this state.”

He stretched, cracking his back.

Although it would be much better to receive treatment at a large hospital, Director Kwon’s order to send him back to that shabby house had a somewhat suspicious aspect.

Nevertheless, he didn’t delve deeper. Even though he was living a life no different from a caregiver in this distant land, the salary he was receiving was beyond imagination.

“……Ah!”

Just then, he paused and snapped his fingers.

“I didn’t mention that.”

Hypersomnia wasn’t the only aftereffect.

Sleeping Beauty Syndrome.

That is, Kleine-Levin Syndrome usually also presents with symptoms of behavioral abnormalities, excessive intake, aggression, and hypersexuality.

“Well… it should be fine today.”

What could possibly happen in just one day?

He yawned widely and nonchalantly.

That night.

“Hmm-hmm-hmm…”

Yiyeon was humming a tune as she climbed the stairs again.

A narrow escape from death. She had spent the day feeling as if she had miraculously been rescued, after trying to escape a cruel man, falling into her own trap, and then being saved.

Now, Yiyeon had received a call from the medical staff saying they had returned Kwon Chaewoo to the second floor, and she had come to check on him to shake off her last bit of anxiety.

And when she entered the password and opened the door.

“……!”

She felt a déjà vu.

“This Forsythia Spiraea…!”

Dong, dong, dong. The sound announcing midnight echoed.

For tree doctor So Yiyeon, such an unpredictable plant was undoubtedly a first.

The back door was broken as if a car had rammed into it.

“Where on earth did this troublemaker go…?”

Yiyeon had been circling the dark, unpaved road, where old utility poles were sparsely spaced, for over thirty minutes.

Should I just contact that person?

Kwon Chaewoo’s brother.

The ‘alpha’ on paper who had designated Yiyeon as the ‘omega’.

She rubbed her phone screen over and over until it was shiny. But she didn’t want to give those people even a fingernail-sized weakness. So, she tightly tied her long hair and sped up.

“Kwon Chaewoo!”

At her firm shout, the sleeping dogs sprang up and barked. As Yiyeon looked around, searching the narrow neighborhood, she suddenly found a strange trail.

A trajectory as if a large snake had crawled.

“……How persistent.”

A hollow laugh escaped her. With conviction, she turned towards the disturbed earth.

As she moved, she heard a flap, flap, flap sound closer by. Her heart pounded wildly with an ominous feeling.

And what she witnessed was—

“Kwon Chaewoo! Th-that, put it down.”

Yiyeon gasped, pointing at the chicken the man was holding.

But Kwon Chaewoo was already chewing on something raw with murky eyes. She could clearly see his jaw muscles bulge and disappear with the strong chewing force.

When he spat out the raw flesh in his mouth, Yiyeon had to forcibly suppress the sour nausea that rose. The rooster was already dead, its neck broken.

She felt disgusted, but more than that, her hands trembled. She was scared of the man standing there languidly with blood on his lips.

“You must be having trouble moving, why did you come out…?”

Yiyeon tried to feign concern.

The aggression of the powerless usually comes from the tongue. Therefore, information manipulation or deception is the best and most effective method.

From then on, Yiyeon desperately began to read his mood. To gauge the perfect timing to fix her lie.

“Go back. You shouldn’t be here.”

“……”

Then, Kwon Chaewoo threw the chicken down and looked at Yiyeon. The moment he shifted his interest was uncomfortably fast.

The man stood tall like a ghost in a place untouched by moonlight.

He must be over 185cm. He looked about two heads taller than Yiyeon. His sleeves, legs, and stomach were stained with dirt, as if he had been crawling and walking on the ground.

As the wind suddenly blew, his clothes fluttered, revealing his flat silhouette helplessly.

Yiyeon, with a slightly dazed mind, recalled the Dragon’s Blood Tree from Socotra Island in Yemen.

The tree that bleeds.

It was a strange tree that exuded a sap like blood from its body.

Two years ago, when she first saw Kwon Chaewoo, and a month ago, when he pinned her down. And even at this moment, the man always came with blood.

“……Kwon Chaewoo.”

“Name.”

“Pardon?”

“What’s your name?”

His emotionless gaze rested on her. His calm eyes, only flickering with sparks, rarely revealed their depths.

‘I can’t be dragged away.’

Yiyeon furiously racked her brain.

However, she wasn’t the only one in a hurry.

“Where on earth were you?”

“Pardon?”

Yiyeon, caught off guard, answered with a start.

“You’re the only face I can even remember.”

“……”

“The door wouldn’t open, you see.”

He rumbled slowly in his throat. An innocent-like ignorance lingered in his hazy pupils.

The second-floor door Yiyeon used to enter and exit was originally designed not to open from the inside.

So, in the end, it meant he had kneaded the back door like a rice ball and crawled on the floor to find Yiyeon. A shiver ran down her neck as she recalled that series of events.

As seen, Kwon Chaewoo was not normal. But the man who woke up after twelve days was a mess of sweat, blood, and dirt. There seemed to be an opening.

Perhaps it was my last chance. Instinctively, a green light flashed. This was the time to cross.

“I… I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The man slowly tilted his head at Yiyeon’s feigned ignorance. A deep shadow fell on his brow, clearly furrowed into the character for ‘river.’

“Maybe you… had a long dream.”

“……”

“I’m Mr. Kwon Chaewoo’s doctor, and…”

Her voice trailed off with the intentional omission.

“This is the village head’s farm, so it’s best to leave quickly. I’ll… compensate for the chicken.”

The man watched Yiyeon’s lips, which moved subtly, with a subtly distorted expression.

“Mr. Kwon Chaewoo, do you know you’ve just been sleeping? Before that, you were sick and couldn’t wake up for a long time. Your mind must be confused and jumbled.”

“……”

“But don’t worry. Everything will be a dream.”

She emphasized, putting force into her words.

“Seeing things and hearing things that aren’t there are all tricks of the brain. Go back to sleep and wake up. Then you’ll feel at ease.”

But Yiyeon had overlooked something. That innocent plan to attribute everything to a dream was, in fact, a foolish dream itself.

“A dream, you say.”

The man slowly licked the chicken blood from his lips with his tongue.

“Certainly.”

He gestured with his chin towards Yiyeon’s lower body.

“If that were true, I wouldn’t be able to stand like this.”

She looked down at her legs in confusion. Just then, a quiet voice pulled at the crown of Yiyeon’s head.

“I dreamt of nothing but sex while I was asleep.”

“……!”

“With a woman who was my wife.”

“……”

“I kept going in and out between your legs.”

She almost screamed instead of the dead chicken. She had clearly made up her mind bravely, but his simple words froze her mind.

“So I wasn’t confused.”

“……”

“Rather, I remember everything clearly.”

At those words, Yiyeon instinctively recoiled.

Did he remember everything, even what happened on the mountain behind her house? She didn’t let her guard down.

“I have a wife.”

“……”

“And that wife is trying to run away without fear.”

“……!”

“Right now, in front of my eyes.”

Kwon Chaewoo approached with large strides, but at a never-fast pace. As he pointed out, Yiyeon desperately wanted to run away. Her legs twitched as if to push off the ground immediately.

She was clearly the one who had set the trap, but why did she feel like she was caught in a snare herself?

As he got close enough to touch her with an outstretched hand, Yiyeon finally realized.

“Do you think your husband has become more useless than you thought, so you want to abandon him now?”

He was no fool.

“Name. I don’t want to ask three times.”

“……It’s So Yiyeon.”

Her lips were forced open by an invisible grip.

“So Yiyeon. Yiyeon.”

Perhaps it was because of the blood around his lips. Kwon Chaewoo swallowed her name deep in his throat, as if savoring it.

“Why are you trying to back out? Am I useless because I can’t function as a human?”

Something was terribly wrong. Something sticky was wrapping around her ankle. Whether it was the coldness of shackles, the gravity of a swamp, or a beast’s tail, Yiyeon was clearly feeling a danger signal now.

“Kwon Chaewoo, it’s not that—”

“Not that?”

The situation had now completely reversed.

Yiyeon wiggled her toes, truly feeling like a wife being interrogated. Still, she had to put out the urgent fire, so she barely managed to squeeze out an excuse.