Flowers Are Bait Novel - Chapter 62

“…Is something there? Is it a wild boar again, or something like that?”

Yiyeon abruptly stopped what she was doing and asked in a lowered voice. But Kwon Chaewoo was glaring at something in the air with a visibly fierce expression, and his sensitive demeanor made her swallow hard too.

After a long moment, Kwon Chaewoo finally looked at Yiyeon with unreadable eyes.

“I wonder.”

“Huh?”

“I don’t know. What this is, what this sound is.”

As a misty anxiety spread in her eyes, Kwon Chaewoo changed the subject.

“Ms. Yiyeon, do you want to win the Hwaidom project?”

“Oh…”

She scratched her cheek.

“Would someone laugh if they heard that? Does it sound absurd?”

“No. Who else loves trees as much as Ms. Yiyeon?”

Kwon Chaewoo spoke gently, but he kept clenching and unclenching his hands behind his back. He couldn’t shake off the strange tension.

Since he first set foot here, a faint sound he had never heard before kept reaching him, yet the mountain was utterly silent. From an indeterminate direction, sometimes a crackle, sometimes a thud, grated on his nerves.

All his senses were on edge like needles, but he maintained a relaxed expression. He hid and re-hid his uneasy feelings, never letting them show in front of her.

Because this was Yiyeon’s dream.

“Guaranteed contracts and money are one thing, but…”

Kwon Chaewoo raised an eyebrow at another small noise that reached him. Just then, a bird flew nearby.

What was it, just the sound of wings?

“I thought I had to do even better because Mr. Kwon Chaewoo was watching.”

Suddenly, his sharp nerves reached a voice as careful and soft as a bird’s feather.

“Back then… I was really sorry. When I couldn’t stand up to Hwang Joyoon, seeing Mr. Kwon Chaewoo’s reaction to everything made me think I shouldn’t put things off like that. So I wanted to face it more maturely. If possible, with my own skills.”

“…”

Kwon Chaewoo had exceptional hearing, yet at this moment, the world felt muffled as if he had gone deaf. He couldn’t hear anything.

Her eyes filled with emotion, her diligently moving lips, her eyebrows subtly shifting with her expression—each detail was imprinted, making him feel breathless.

“I hoped that seeing me like this would help Mr. Kwon Chaewoo finds stability quickly. Because it hadn’t been long since he woke up. I’ll really work hard. If I earn a lot of money, I’ll buy you many good things.”

He desperately wanted Yiyeon’s innocent and diligently shining eyes.

“And treating sick trees is always good.”

The moment she folded her eyes into crescent moons and smiled shyly, the man, whose fuse had blown, hastily bent down at the waist.

“Ugh…!”

And instantly sought out her lips and bit them. His handsome nose was pressed against her cheek.

Parting the lips he had swallowed deeply from the start, a red fleshy mass skillfully pushed its way in. He brutally rubbed his tongue and unsparingly opened her prominent jaw. He licked her lips as if exploring a nipple, wrapped around her fleeing tongue, and slowly stroked and pressed her pelvis as if caressing it.

The overflowing saliva was sweet each time he stimulated the inside. When she stumbled back, overwhelmed, he forcefully lifted her small face and joined even deeper.

“Ugh…!”

Her resisting voice was weakly swallowed. With every bold twist of her head, there was no breath left. Between her subtly parted lips, a moist, red tongue appeared, then slid into the other’s mouth.

His mud-stained hands were sticky, and the gloomy forest was the worst place for a kiss. Nevertheless, his head boiled hotly, and he passionately kissed her, momentarily setting aside what needed to be done. It was when the man could no longer hold back and violently grabbed Yiyeon’s chest.

“Ugh, ugh…!”

She desperately pounded Kwon Chaewoo’s back, as if she was suffocating. He kept rubbing his firmly erect cock against Yiyeon’s lower abdomen and bit his tongue with bared teeth.

“Hmph…”

When she whimpered as if in pain, their lips, which had been stuck together as if with glue, finally parted.

What she saw first were Kwon Chaewoo’s intensely bloodshot whites of his eyes, and a bluish vein prominently bulging in the middle of his neat forehead.

“Su-Suddenly, not here. We’re in the middle of an assessment and…”

“I know.”

But for a simple answer, the man’s Adam’s apple bobbed violently. Both of them were heaving their chests heavily. Their eyes couldn’t leave each other’s lips, glistening with saliva.

“I need to tie the wire… I need to finish tying that wire.”

“Right.”

Yiyeon hesitated for a moment, then moved away first. Even after just a few steps, the air felt different. A cool breeze wiped her forehead, as if she had unknowingly sweated.

Her lips stung as if stung by a bee, and his harpoon-like gaze remained fixed on her. Somewhere, a throbbing heat made Yiyeon have to move her hands busily.

“Ahem…”

First, she firmly wrapped a long wire around one tree, and the other end around a tree that looked like it was about to fall.

And as she tightened the wire on the healthy tree, Yiyeon’s face also contorted.

“What’s wrong?”

Kwon Chaewoo immediately approached and forcefully pulled her hand away. A jolt of electricity ran through their touching hands. Yiyeon’s ears quickly turned red, but she didn’t show it.

“No, it’s not that.”

Yiyeon felt a little awkward looking at the man who met her gaze directly.

“This, it’s going to hurt a lot. As long as that injured tree is alive, this one can’t escape from here.”

Kwon Chaewoo’s indifferent gaze turned to the tree that relied on a single wire for its life.

As he watched the precarious scene, his expressionless lips gradually began to curve upwards. Yiyeon paused and asked,

“Why are you laughing?”

“That’s me.”

“Huh?”

“That tree that’s on the verge of falling.”

He pointed a finger at the precarious tree.

“But Ms. Yiyeon, you feel sorry for this healthy one, don’t you?”

“…I guess so. It’s become a support without ever intending to. This wire really hurts, you know. Over time, it’ll even dig into the bark and leave a scar.”

“That’s truly pitiful.”

His words carried a subtle hint of amusement. At Yiyeon’s slight frown, Kwon Chaewoo crossed his arms over his chest and gestured with his chin at the injured tree.

“I think that one is laughing. It’s enjoying itself. I’m happy that it can live facing this beautiful tree, even like this.”

“…”

For some reason, Yiyeon couldn’t say anything. She carefully observed the two trees that had no choice but to be bound together by a single wire, but she couldn’t come up with an interpretation like Kwon Chaewoo’s.

She casually rubbed her forearm and began to organize the tools scattered here and there, such as saws, scissors, scrapers, and hammers, and medicines like diluents, epoxy, and sap sets.

And at that moment.

“…Oh, oh, Mr. Kwon Chaewoo!”

He inexplicably grabbed Yiyeon’s wrist and pulled her without explanation. Losing her balance, she swept the ground with her backside, but Kwon Chaewoo just pulled her with force, without any explanation. Every single movement was self-centered. And by the time Yiyeon stood properly, he started running forward like crazy.

Her tightly held wrist hurt as if it would break, and her shoulder blade ached. She was running after him in a daze, but matching his speed was difficult from the start.

Her thighs burned as if they would burst, and she quickly became breathless up to her throat. Kwon Chaewoo, who couldn’t have been unaware of Yiyeon’s condition, didn’t look back once. He just desperately clutched Yiyeon’s wrist, and her hand, deprived of blood, quickly turned reddish and tingled.

“My doctor’s bag…! You can’t leave that behind…!”

“Run for your life.”

His voice was rough and cracked.

His bangs, as he turned his head towards her, were disheveled by the wind. The moment she saw his terrifyingly hardened face, Yiyeon’s heart sank. Kwon Chaewoo, with two backpacks slung front and back, pulled Yiyeon again with force.

Bang—! The ground shook.

“Oh… oh oh…!”

Whoosh— Something made an unidentifiable sound and began to surge forward with a faint vibration.

It was when she instinctively looked back at the chilling sensation on the back of her neck.

“Wha-What—”

The layered ground of the mountain was collapsing.

Perhaps it was due to the two days of heavy rain. The thickly accumulated mud and rocks, propelled by the force of the surging debris flow, were sweeping down at an incredible speed.

No matter how much she looked around, there seemed to be no place to take shelter. Even on the trees, it wasn’t safe. The trees, already weakened, had no strength to withstand the terrifying debris flow.

Last year, a massive landslide had already engulfed a residential area once. Seeing it with her own eyes, a shrill scream burst from Yiyeon’s lips. The moment her legs gave out, Kwon Chaewoo lifted her into his arms and placed her on his shoulder.

“…!”

Her vision was soon stained with black terror.

The swamp overflowed.

A dense debris flow, rapidly covering the forest like a wave, was rushing towards them, as if to swallow them whole at any moment.