Flowers Are Bait

As Kwon Chae-woo turned away, he heard a panicked voice from Kwon Hee-joon.

“Chae-woo…!”

No, he instinctively thought. No, no.

“All the hunting dogs I planted around Lee-yeon have lost contact…!”

The sound of Kwon Ki-seok’s deranged laughter echoed incessantly behind him.

“Teacher, I told you so. I look just like Chae-woo. What else is there that’s different…? I’ll show you exactly how alike we are.”

Suddenly, water splashed into the air.

Kwon Ki-seok did not lose his unique, twisted smile until the moment he fell into the water tank.

He was smiling like a happy young man in his twenties, probably thinking that he had finally shaken off the feeling of defeat that had been rotting away for a long time.

“Teacher, look at this. Teacher.”

However, Kwon Ki-seok, who once held tremendous power and controlled everything, was essentially a slave.

The boy who first met Yoon Joo-ha had spent his life being drawn to her phantom, and his life had been nothing more than struggling to fill the void left by the woman.

Kwon Chae-woo found such a man amusing, but he clenched his jaw against the confident face.

In the end, Kwon Ki-seok, who wanted to protect and control someone, was no different from Kwon Chae-woo. Disgustingly, the thought, there was no denying they were brothers. They are just the same…

Kwon Chae-woo looked with no emotion at the water tank that was quickly becoming stained with blood, and then turned his back.

Kwon Ki-seok was about to experience all the horrors of his teenage hell, and this was just the beginning.

As he came out, the sky had darkened imperceptibly. Kwon Chae-woo, with blood-soaked hands, stared apathetically at the water tank. He turned his back on it, feeling no excitement or satisfaction.

He restrained the breath he had endured for so long, and it burst forth like ash, burning his esophagus.

The shackles that Kwon Ki-seok had suffered were now targeting him.

Anxiety emanated from him with his every step.

“Chae-woo, it’s the ferry.”

At that moment, the urgent sound of typing on a keyboard resonated clearly.

“The hunting dogs have all lost contact at once, and when we investigated the ferry, all the passengers, except for Lee-yeon and that brat, have fake identities. It seems like tehy it was planned to black out everyone except those two.”

Damn it. Kwon Chae-woo cursed himself for his negligence. The atmosphere around him became so chillingly cold that he couldn’t even say anything. His eyes and flesh were trembling intermittently, enduring pain.

“Have you tracked the chip?”

“…The last location is just a damn ocean.”

Kwon Hee-joon sighed heavily. All the hunting dogs of the Kwon family had chips implanted in their bodies. However, their location wasn’t on land or near the port. It was in the middle of the vast open sea, making it absurdly impossible for Kwon Hee-joon to find them.

Kwon Chae-woo’s gaze intensified.

“We’ve searched everywhere, but they suddenly disappeared! No traces of their arrival at all.”

“Look into the coastal area instead of the passenger terminal of ships.”

“What?”

“They might have switched midway. Either repainting the ship or replacing it with another one, with only Lee-yeon aboard.”

He tightened his fist forcefully.

“And check the tickets.”

“What?”

“Items touched by all the passengers. They probably couldn’t discern the disguised hunting dogs among the citizens. So, it seems efficient for them to insert fake passengers and neatly blackout everyone. There’s a high chance they mixed anesthetic gas with the ventilation system or absorbed it through skin contact.”

Kwon Lee-jun’s hands typed quickly.

Kwon Chae-woo raised the mask he was lowering below his eyes. His fierce eyes were like sharp knives, and his pale irises seemed more animalistic today.

At that moment, the sound of a propeller gradually became louder from afar. His jet black hair was shaken by the strong wind.

“Your way of living will eventually harm her. You, the hunting dog, the Kwon family, will end up killing her. You will lose everything again.”

If I don’t have her Lee-yeon, if I lose her like this–

Dreams of living an ordinary life, and the pledge to become a good father, would be all in vain.

When she only thought about her, her heart, which had been growing without knowing her extent, suddenly tightened as if it were being crushed.

If Lee-yeon disappears, morning would never come for Kwon Chae-woo. He will be trapped in the endless darkness. Not a dog, not a plant, not a person, but just something useless.

The man who wanted to live with her might end up dying in a more pathetic and wretched way than Kwon Ki-seok.

Kwon Chae-woo, thinking of being alone for years, felt like all the moisture in his body was instantly drained. The warmth of embracing her still lingered around his arms, but the harsh reality of a dreadful nightmare didn’t feel real.

He thought it would have been better to live with her cold shoulder and indifference than to be robbed of her so empty-handedly.

Only in the face of adversity did he realize that his emotions, clinging and begging to her, were nothing but his own selfishness and imposition.

Even the moment when he seemingly nodded obediently, pretending to patiently wait, was driven by an absurd desire. After losing her, Kwon Chae-woo began to truly empty his heart.

Anything, any form, just please let her live.

That’s all he wished for.

If he met Lee-yeon again, he wouldn’t dare to stand with her as an equal husband. He would just be a perpetual servant to a woman.

He swore, over and over again, that he would become nothing more than that.

“Chae-woo, Lee-yeon is somewhere underground.”

Kwon Chae-woo’s eyes, stained with regret, looked straight ahead.

“You, the hunting dog, the Kwon family will end up killing her.”

Suddenly stopping in his tracks, he instinctively clenched onto the words that bothered him.

“Brother, look for any surviving hunting dogs.”