Flowers Are Bait Novel - Chapter 94

When she opened her eyes in the morning, the spot beside her was empty.

The only traces of Kwon Chaewoo’s stay were ointment for abrasions and her tightly fastened shower gown. The gown, in particular, was tied so tightly that it took a long time just to untie it.

She thought about calling him but decided against it. After causing such a commotion in the lobby last night, word would have traveled far and wide. And so, Yiyeon felt sluggish from the morning.

“Hey—, Director So. You don’t look well, so just take it easy. Take it easy!”

The morning of the second day of the evaluation.

At Director Park’s words, Yiyeon awkwardly stroked her cheek.

“Are you telling me to let my guard down?”

“Aha, it’s disappointing to misinterpret someone’s feelings like that!”

Unlike his eyebrows, which drooped in an inverted V-shape, his twitching mouth was an utterly perplexing combination.

Director Park carelessly stubbed out his cigarette on a takeout coffee cup and flicked the butt towards a pile of scrap metal. Yiyeon immediately frowned.

“Director, why would you throw it here?”

“It’s a trash heap anyway. Sorry, sorry.”

Yiyeon felt deflated as Director Park smiled nonchalantly and walked away.

“Whew…”

She let out a heavy sigh and sat down on a rock for a moment.

It had already been thirty minutes since Chooja went down the mountain to buy medicine, seeing Yiyeon’s increasingly pale face. Yiyeon wiped the beads of sweat from her forehead, recalling her breathless morning schedule.

The ground, with its red flesh exposed.

Useless scrap metal pieces formed a small, round hill.

The place where screams for help filled the mountains, and where the most human and airplane wreckage lay scattered.

Yiyeon inhaled the murky air, looking at the uncleaned aircraft remains. Seeing the charred scrap metal somehow reminded her of Kwon Chaewoo, but she consciously erased the thought.

Jeobeok-jeobeok.

Then the sound of stepping on dirt particles and leaves grew closer. Yiyeon, seeing a large silhouette, abruptly stood up. A sharply gleaming scythe, reflecting the sunlight, pierced her gaze.

“…”

“…”

His attire, with his jersey neatly pulled up to his chin, was spotless. Unlike his violent demeanor yesterday, he exuded the impression of an innocent young man beneath the green leaves. Yiyeon just blinked silently.

Kwon Chaewoo, who appeared by pushing through the bushes with his scythe, clearly saw Yiyeon but instead of acknowledging her, he surveyed the messy forest first.

An unknown displeasure was evident in his slightly contorted nose bridge. Despite having intertwined their bodies so much last night, she couldn’t easily approach him. Yiyeon clenched and unclenched her fingers, then opened her mouth.

“Yesterday… Did you sleep well? Did you sleep next to me?”

“Yes, I slept soundly.”

An unexpectedly soft answer came back, but Yiyeon felt pushed away.

“By the way, Ms. Yiyeon, you were in a good place.”

“Pardon?”

Here…?

Uncollected debris was grotesquely piled up, and all the trees were torn.

As Yiyeon looked at Kwon Chaewoo with a bewildered expression, he raised and lowered the corners of his mouth emotionlessly.

“A place where there are no people.”

“…What does that mean?”

“We didn’t have enough time to talk, Ms. Yiyeon. And the evaluation schedule was set right after you woke up.”

He came a little closer and re-gripped his scythe.

“What was the reward money?”

“…!”

“I was curious about a story I didn’t know. Can you tell me?”

“Well…”

She flinched at his abrupt question about the past. Yiyeon nervously clasped her sweaty palms together.

“It’s just an old, insignificant story.”

Her voice dwindled as if crawling. Even though she subtly showed her discomfort in such a passive way, Kwon Chaewoo looked at her without wavering.

His harmless, clear, light brown eyes. His transparent gaze, revealing even the gray stone fragments scattered over his pupils. Yiyeon found it harder to just stay silent.

“…I once helped someone who seemed to be in a hurry. Do you remember when I told you about the singing tree in front of the divine tree, a long time ago? Before you fell asleep.”

One of Kwon Chaewoo’s eyebrows twitched slightly. Even if it wasn’t specifically in front of the divine tree, the stories about trees she shared in the house appeared quite frequently in the report Jang Beomhee had given him. He nodded vaguely.

“It was that unnie. She said she had a son, but she still looked young. She stayed at our house for a little over a month and then went back home… It was a short connection, but her family gave us reward money as thanks. My uncle was sick then, so we used that money for his hospital bills… It’s just a story like that.”

Strangely, the more she talked, the more her head bowed. Her heart ached, and her mouth felt dry. Yiyeon scratched somewhere on her nape, trying to hide her low, trembling voice.

Then Kwon Chaewoo bent down and looked deeply into Yiyeon’s eyes.

“Ms. Yiyeon, I told you to stop lying.”

“…!”

Yiyeon felt a sudden chill at his piercing gaze.

“I’m sick of it.”

“Ah…”

Her throat tightened, and her tongue stiffened.

“Ms. Yiyeon, I know how to extract the truth from people. It’s easy for me.”

Yiyeon’s pupils trembled erratically.

“But I want to hear it from you without effort, Ms. Yiyeon. I’m your husband, after all, I should be gentle with my wife.”

Kwon Chaewoo recalled what Kwon Giseok had told him before he came to Hwaido and became a vegetable, and he tried to persuade her.

His voice was consistently soft and without sharp fluctuations. But Yiyeon unconsciously kept backing away.

He was smooth and gentle on the outside, but he was holding a sharp scythe. Her body moved before she could even think. The pebbles caught under her shoes made small noises.

“What’s wrong? Are you reluctant for a couple to share their past more deeply?”

He tilted his head slightly and asked casually.

“Should I not?”

“…”

She was already troubled by the talk of a “rut” and other things, and now she felt threatened, using their relationship as an excuse.

How long did she stand there, just mouthing words?

Suddenly, Kwon Chaewoo’s expression subtly changed.

His nose bridge, repeatedly scrunching and unscrunching as if smelling something, was irritable. Frowning, he stared intently at the haphazardly piled fragments of aircraft. A trickling sound caught his keen hearing. Beyond the scent of grass, a faint smell of oil wafted up.

Kwon Chaewoo briefly tilted his head back and closed his eyes.

“Now everything depends on you, Ms. Yiyeon.”

His prominent Adam’s apple moved up and down.

“What, what did you do?”

Finally, his gaze, aimed directly at her, was as cold as a gun barrel.

Perhaps she was suffering from heatstroke, Yiyeon’s legs gave out, and cold sweat streamed down her face. In the midday summer heat, her mind boiled and felt sticky like a swamp.

Through her softened thoughts, an old flyer flashed by.

Looking for a person.

‘S-someone is chasing me. Please, please hide me! Save me!’

Reward: 200 million won.

She was so stunned by a number she had never heard before, more than whose situation was more urgent.

The moment she confirmed the face on the flyer she accidentally found in the city, Yiyeon crumpled that piece of paper and stuffed it into her pocket.

Chooja’s weak voice, saying she had to repeat surgery and chemotherapy, echoed in her ears. So—

“…I called.”

Kwon Chaewoo’s fist, holding the scythe, suddenly bulged at the joints. He himself had been the one who told his mother about the girl’s house.

“I told that unnie, she’s here, come get her.”

“…”

“I had to prioritize, and I don’t regret choosing my uncle.”

“You don’t regret it?”

A voice with a faint laugh interrupted Yiyeon’s words. His mother, whom he had wanted to see so badly, was said to have been trapped in the basement of the boy’s room. She had died at his feet. Kwon Chaewoo looked meaningfully at the ruined forest with lifeless eyes, like a still life. His gaze, completely avoiding Yiyeon, was empty.

“Aren’t you curious what happened to that woman? Even if she’s a stranger, and it was a long time ago, you extended your uncle’s life by selling her out.”

At his subtly barbed words, Yiyeon lowered her chin to her throat.

“…She definitely said ‘home.’ So, I want to believe she’s been doing well all this time.”

“How convenient for you.”

That remark was also aimed at Kwon Chaewoo himself. The self-loathing that had become a weapon grew like a monster.

“A prey, you know, can’t leave alive.”

He whispered something unintelligible and began to step back, one step at a time. As the distance between them gradually widened, Yiyeon faintly narrowed her brows.

The incomprehensible conversation, his unpredictable feelings, and the anxious moments made her hesitate. Yiyeon just helplessly watched the man move away.

“It seems the first button was wrong after all.”

“…I don’t understand what you’re saying right now, Chaewoo.”

“It’s okay, even if you don’t understand.”

“…”

“My head is originally a bit messed up, you know.”

He pointed to his temple, then let out a chuckle and let his arm drop.

“I heard your answer well, Ms. Yiyeon.”

His face, twisted as if laughing and crying, remained deeply etched in her mind. Soon, the man turned his back without regret.

He swung the scythe he was holding, firmly embedding it into a tree trunk, and then calmly descended the mountain.

“Kwon Chae…!”

Yiyeon, in her anxiety, tried to grab him, but her voice couldn’t continue to the end.

Kwa-gwang—!

A loud explosion erupted, something no one had expected.

Startled, she covered her head with both arms. A pillar of fire fiercely rose from the abandoned aircraft. An acrid smell instantly spread, and Yiyeon covered her nose with the back of her hand, hastily putting distance between them. The burning flames were so hot that her skin tingled as if peeling, just from the black smoke.

It was a sudden explosion of residual aviation fuel.

But amidst the fierce flames, Yiyeon stood bewildered, fumbling for the spot where the man had disappeared.

Peo-peo-peong—!

Once again, a large explosion shook the mountain.