Flowers Are Bait Novel - Chapter 77

Kwon Chaewoo, arriving late at the scene, pushed his way through the people shouting and pointing fingers. He immediately spotted the face, blackened like coal dust from dirt and moss.

Yiyeon, with a rope tied around her waist, climbing up the tree, looked as precarious as if she were standing on a guillotine. But it was not she who trembled, but the electric saw.

She held the roaring electric saw and vigorously cut off the dead branches. She looked less like a doctor and more like an environmental vandal, and Kwon Chaewoo secretly curled his lips, watching his wife’s bold surgery.

Crunch, thud. Crunch, thud.

Each time a branch fell to the ground, gasps followed from the crowd.

“Aaaah!”

The elders either collapsed to the ground or shrieked, “Why aren’t you arresting that woman!” Kwon Chaewoo’s hands twitched involuntarily, wanting to break the necks of those spewing sharp accusations.

“Found the rotten spot!”

Finally, Yiyeon’s booming voice called out to Chooja.

Upon finding the decayed hole, it was already teeming with insects. In human terms, it was like a hole in the spine rotting like mold, with inflammation spreading uncontrollably, leaving no way to intervene.

Yiyeon briefly held her breath and turned her head at the strong stench that spread. As she slowly cleaned out the decayed parts and dead branches, a thick pile of insect shells and droppings accumulated.

Kwon Chaewoo couldn’t take his eyes off Yiyeon, who was so engrossed.

“…”

Her tightly pressed lips were resolute, and her gaze, unlike usual, was not just serious but slightly sharp. It was a facial expression he had never seen before, and the man helplessly and nervously moved his Adam’s apple. Suddenly, the sunlight pierced his vision. Kwon Chaewoo squinted one eye, looking at her as if to devour her.

“Ms. Yiyeon.”

He longed to brush away the damp bangs clinging to her forehead and to cover her knees scraped by the tree.

Just then, his eyes inadvertently met someone in the crowd. Their attire was striking, yet their appearance was not unfamiliar. The shaman who had performed the ritual here last time was staring intently at Kwon Chaewoo, as if scrutinizing him. He openly narrowed his brows, meeting the shaman’s gaze, which was rude in its intensity.

“…”

“…”

From a distance, the shaman muttered something silently. It was strangely legible, her lip movements, too clear to be dismissed as mere self-talk.

‘When the moon is full, the dog howls.’

The shaman stretched her lips into a wide smile. Her mouth curved eerily upwards, while her eyebrows drooped sharply downwards, as if mocking, pitying, or finding something amusing about Kwon Chaewoo.

At the same time, his head began to ache as if blunt instruments were repeatedly striking it. The crowd’s protests and the rhythmic drumbeats further exacerbated Kwon Chaewoo’s throbbing headache.

‘What is this sudden…!’

Kwon Chaewoo bit his tongue hard until he tasted blood, enduring it.

His face contorted fiercely, and his eyes blazed with murderous intent, as if the ground he stood on was flipping over. He looked up again for the shaman, but she was nowhere to be seen.

The Divine Tree’s appearance changed moment by moment. The grand and mysterious divine tree of old no longer existed there.

‘You will return. Tonight.’

Kwon Chaewoo distinctly heard the shaman’s last words, whispered subtly like butterfly wings.

Something was definitely changing.

“Chooja, you worked hard.”

The surgery, which lasted a full five hours, was finally over.

Yiyeon only let out a long sigh of relief after even administering an IV. As the tension left her body, her limbs finally trembled.

People stared blankly at the emaciated divine tree, which now looked like a mere utility pole. Some cried, others stomped their feet, and some even tried to rush at Yiyeon.

However, Kwon Chaewoo, easily pushing them aside, stood proudly by Yiyeon’s side. As the tall, well-built man coldly scanned the surroundings, those who had been about to unleash something hesitated and retreated.

“…Oh? Chaewoo, how did you get here?”

She widened her eyes, looking at the man who had appeared without warning. Welcome filled her eyes, and her lips parted in a bright smile. Kwon Chaewoo suddenly felt a prickling in his throat. It was a moment he wanted to engrave forever, without a doubt. As he rested one cheek on the crown of Yiyeon’s head, she flinched and pushed his large body away.

“I got a lot of moss dust on me, you’ll get it all over you!”

“It’s okay.”

Yiyeon paused at his unusually tired voice.

“Chaewoo, why are you so weak? Are you sick somewhere?”

“…”

“Are you running a fever?”

Yiyeon hastily felt his forehead, but far from having a fever, it was as cold as ice.

“It’s nothing.”

Kwon Chaewoo recalled the shaman’s strange murmuring and immediately hardened his face. He felt an unexplainably unpleasant premonition. So he tightly embraced Yiyeon’s waist, clinging even closer.

“How’s the tree? Do you think it’ll be okay?”

“We’ll have to observe it for the next two weeks. We finished all the urgent parts, but whether it will endure well…”

“You’ve worked hard, Ms. Yiyeon.”

By now, the sun was slowly setting. The colors, like violets dissolved in water, were mysteriously otherworldly.

As the wind blew, the wind chimes hanging from the eaves of the village shrine tinkled with a clear, resonant sound. Yiyeon stroked the ailing tree, which must have struggled more than anyone, and said,

“Chaewoo, come to think of it, that felt like a divine tree to me too.”

“You mean the singing tree?”

Kwon Chaewoo sought and took her hand. Soon, the two stood before the dismantled tree.

“Since it was my biggest memory and my greatest comfort, it’s fair to call it my guardian deity.”

“Every time I hear that story, I feel strange, like it’s a hidden first love.”

Kwon Chaewoo subtly contorted his face.

He knew well about the singing tree Yiyeon often told stories about. When they ate, after sex when they shared the lingering feelings, when they fell asleep hugging tightly. Each time they shared those brief moments, Yiyeon carefully revealed herself, and the subject was always the tree from her childhood. That was all the memories Yiyeon unfolded with a smile.

A tree that sings…

Couldn’t it just be an imagination created by Yiyeon, exhausted from loneliness? That’s why every time Kwon Chaewoo heard that anecdote, he wanted to force himself into her past. He was the one with amnesia, yet sometimes Yiyeon felt empty, as if something was missing.

“Then I’ll only tell you, Chaewoo, who my divine tree was.”

“Just don’t say it was a male tree. I don’t want you to hate me for nitpicking even the tree’s gender.”

“It was a girl.”

“A girl?”

Amusingly, a look of relief crossed Kwon Chaewoo’s face. With a visibly lighter expression, he tucked Yiyeon’s stray hairs, blown by the wind, behind her ear.

“I’m not an idiot, and I was a high school student back then, you know? I was too old to believe in fairy tales.”

No, I think you did believe. Kwon Chaewoo forcibly suppressed and hid the smile that threatened to bloom.

“I was only flustered at first, but I quickly realized it was someone playing an instrument.”

“…”

“One day, when I cried, I heard a comforting melody, and when I laughed, I heard a dance tune. Another day, they would intentionally play all the notes wrong, as if playing a prank.”

At that moment, Kwon Chaewoo’s vision unexpectedly wavered, and Yiyeon’s face blurred into two or three images. It was a moment when her profile, over thirty, suddenly looked like a teenage girl in a school uniform. He strained his brows to refocus his eyes.

“After that, I often left Post-it notes or messages on the tree. I’d ask who they were, ask what song it was, or write about my feelings like a diary. It’s embarrassing, but I even said I wanted to meet them. I was excited, thinking I might finally have a friend…”

“…”

“Of course, I never received a reply.”

Kwon Chaewoo slowly blinked, gripping Yiyeon’s hand tightly. It was an instinctive action. If he didn’t hold her now, if he didn’t embrace her—such strange thoughts kept swirling in his mind like black ink.

“Then, there was a time when the village was a bit noisy. I once hid an older sister, and before she left, she told me to dig under the tree I often visited.”

“…”

“That was the first gift I ever received in my life. So I believe that my older sister was the singing tree. All the old records there were only songs I had listened to and that she had played for me.”

A strong wave of nausea, enough to make him want to vomit, washed over him like a sticky swamp. Yiyeon’s pleasant voice pierced his skin, sharply cutting somewhere. Kwon Chaewoo bit the inside of his lip, desperately suppressing the surging repulsion.