Flowers Are Bait Novel - Chapter 8

“Ah, so I seduced you.”

“……!”

“I sweet-talked the quiet Ms. Yiyeon and took her to bed. Right?”

“…….”

“I was a shameless bastard, wasn’t I?”

Contrary to his words, he was laughing as if enjoying himself. He seemed to find it interesting to look down on his completely erased memories as if they were someone else’s.

She was slowly getting entangled in his rhetoric. If she got caught up thoughtlessly like this, she would be the one whose hair got caught in the drain and died.

Suddenly, Yiyeon felt a familiar anxiety, wanting to run away. Since they had even shared a blanket as a married couple, the next step would surely be sex.

A chill ran down her spine at that certainty. She became desperate, thinking she had to prevent that at all costs.

“It’s not necessarily like that. Our sexual compatibility wasn’t very good.”

He slowly began to wipe the smile from his face.

“We weren’t good at it.”

“……Sex?”

“Yes, yes. That.”

“Who wasn’t good at it?”

Even if she wanted to avoid his gaze, his eyes, urging an answer, were persistent.

“……Both of us were probably awkward, weren’t we?”

Then he let out a scoffing laugh, “Ha.” His entire facial features are subtly distorted, quickly turning into a fierce expression.

“This is more shocking than losing my memory.”

Kwon Chaewoo’s eyes held a simmering anger for some reason. Just when he seemed like an imbecile who didn’t know what he had done, now he looked clear, like someone who knew something well. He rubbed one side of his face as if washing it and let out a hollow laugh.

“So we were sexless.”

“Yes……”

“Exactly where, and how, was the problem?”

His gentle voice gained emphasis.

“Uh……”

Yiyeon felt like she was going crazy. His questions were increasingly far beyond her level. But a thirty-two-year-old adult couldn’t chicken out here.

“First of all, we……. I don’t think we were suitable sizes for each other. I didn’t feel anything at all……. I still don’t know what an orgasm is.”

“…….”

“And Mr. Kwon Chaewoo said he didn’t have much libido either. Fortunately, I actually liked that aspect. It wasn’t about sexual compatibility; it was the fleeting glimpse of his monastic side that made me think, ‘This is the man.’”

Yiyeon delivered the decisive blow.

“……Monastic? Me?”

He furrowed his brows, as if unable to understand. Amusingly, the arrow was aimed at himself, or rather, at a non-existent, illusory Kwon Chaewoo.

“So we lived platonically with each other.”

Yiyeon cautiously observed him and then drove the nail in.

Kwon Chaewoo seemed speechless, staring at the ceiling for a long time. As the silence lengthened, Yiyeon was about to check if he had fallen asleep, when he suddenly murmured.

“So, I’ve been nursed for two years by a man I had no physical intimacy with, huh.”

“…….”

“Just how much did Ms. So Yiyeon love me?”

He let out a puff of air. It was a moment when another layer of misunderstanding was added.

Yiyeon felt uncomfortable, like she had drunk spoiled milk, but she didn’t show it. The stronger the misunderstanding, the better. This was the only way to keep Kwon Chaewoo subdued.

“Go to sleep quickly.”

Yiyeon changed the subject, using a goodnight greeting as an excuse. The more she talked to this man, the more the rope she had thrown to bind him felt like it was coiling around her own wrist.

“……Alright. You sleep well too, Ms. Yiyeon.”

He also closed his eyes obediently, as if he no longer wanted to know about the past.

Yiyeon prayed to the tree gods.

‘Please, let this man fall into a deep sleep. If possible, I hope he sleeps for over a week. It’s possible, right? They said it was a syndrome. Please!’

She earnestly wished and wished inside.

Then, Kwon Chaewoo whispered again, his face showing no sign of understanding.

“But what exactly does ‘awkward’ mean? Was the penetration bland, or was the foreplay lukewarm? Surely I wasn’t a virgin.”

She was momentarily stunned by his relentlessly persistent questions. But Yiyeon didn’t back down either.

“……Well, I don’t know for sure, but it seemed to end unusually quickly.”

He was silent for a while, as if in shock, then let out a self-deprecating sigh and muttered, “Idiot.” After that, his breathing gradually quieted.

Yiyeon, who was about to leave the room immediately, struggled for a long time, unable to pull her hand away from his grip. The moment she released the tension from her stiff body, her consciousness also snapped, as if pushed.

Why did you kill the chicken?

Burying that one unasked question in her heart.

The next morning.

Yiyeon, who woke up feeling refreshed—

“Aargh!”

Could only scream.

“Did you sleep well?”

Kwon Chaewoo was looking down at her, propped up by one arm.

Sleeping Beauty Syndrome, they said!

Unlike the expectation that he wouldn’t wake up for days, or even weeks, the man greeted Yiyeon perfectly fine, bathed in the morning sunlight.

His amber irises, filled with sunlight, were unusually reddish.

Standing in a corner of the room, Yiyeon kept glancing at the man who was calmly undergoing an examination. Stroking her arm, pulling at her sleeve, biting her nails—nothing seemed to calm her down.

How could this be? How could this happen!

She buried her face in her palms. Her heart pounded relentlessly out of rhythm. Perhaps due to the excessive pulse, her entire body felt like a drum beating.

“It’s too early to draw conclusions. We need more diverse sleep data to establish a pattern. The patient could fall into a long sleep again as early as tomorrow. It would be best to observe the progress further.”

Today, Kwon Chaewoo woke up ‘normally.’

The man who had first woken up after 3 days, then 5 days, and finally 12 days, suddenly opened his eyes normally after just one day.

For Yiyeon, who desperately wanted to put him back into the abyss, it felt like a punch to the back of her head.

“There’s nothing wrong with the patient’s head. In that case, it’s highly likely to be a psychological issue. Especially since the home and hospital environments are different, something might have been unconsciously triggered. Observing those factors in the future will help define the sleep pattern.”

While the doctor spoke, Kwon Chaewoo’s eyes followed Yiyeon.

“If that’s the case, I do have one guess.”

He muttered, rubbing his lower lip. The doctor, who was busily writing something on his tablet, didn’t miss even the patient’s mumbling.

“What is it?”

“I slept with my wife last night.”

“…….”

For a moment, silence hung in the room. The doctor blinked slowly a couple of times, then looked back and forth between Yiyeon and Kwon Chaewoo. Then, his expression quickly returned to a professional one, like that of a seasoned public servant.

“Are you saying you had sexual intercourse?”

“No!”

Yiyeon quickly denied it, and Kwon Chaewoo, for some reason, rubbed the back of his neck.

“Then let’s try various things. For the time being, it would be good for the two of you to sleep together and observe the trend.”

Yiyeon’s complexion instantly turned ashen.

While Kwon Chaewoo went to the hospital for physical therapy, Yiyeon collapsed on the sofa. She watched the news, which flowed meaninglessly, with an exhausted face.

『Voice phishing is becoming increasingly sophisticated.』

However, Yiyeon’s mind was exceedingly complex.

If Kwon Chaewoo’s condition improved, she wouldn’t be able to hide him as she was now. The moment he came downstairs, it would be only a matter of time before Chooja found out. But if Chooja found out…….

“—If this contract is leaked, I will consider it to mean there is another accomplice.”

The threat that would make Yiyeon a perfect perpetrator might extend to Chooja.

Train Kwon Chaewoo to deceive Chooja.

Or confess everything to Chooja.

At that crossroads.

The clear voice of the announcer once again pierced Yiyeon’s ears.

『—Like this recording, fraudsters reportedly threaten victims not to hang up the phone, saying, ‘If you hang up, it will be considered a flight risk.’ This is a tactic used to prevent victims from getting help from those around them in advance.』

Yiyeon had a private meeting with Kwon Chaewoo’s brother from the night the incident occurred until before sunrise.

In her most mentally vulnerable state, an environment where she couldn’t consult anyone was enough to make her passive. With threats and pressure applied, Yiyeon hastily signed, simply wanting to escape the situation quickly.

『Recently, these methods of psychologically isolating victims……』

Yiyeon couldn’t take her eyes off the TV screen.

Her heart inexplicably sank, and her fingertips grew cold. She hugged a cushion and hunched her body, trying to ignore the anxiety rising to her throat. But it only made her breathing more rapid, with no other effect.

She had been sleeping poorly for a month since Kwon Chaewoo woke up. No, it was even before that. Somewhere in the world she saw, it had begun to stiffen.

The moment the announcer’s voice became muffled, like water in her ear, Yiyeon finally ended her deliberation.