Flowers Are Bait

“If you don’t want to lose your teeth, shut your mouth.”

He nodded in fear.

“Good boy!” Kwon Chae-woo dragged Hwang Jo-yoon out of the house. There was no one passing by on the street outside. Hwang Jo-yoon burst into tears. Kwon Chae-woo walked without hesitation to the house across the street. It was the house Hwang Jo-yoon had recently bought.

Hwang Jo-yoon struggled. He was bleeding from his mouth. He was scared to go into that house with this man.

“Are you wondering how I found out about your hide-out?” asked Kwon Chae-woo. “Well, one night, I was outside on the porch of the hospital, and I looked at this house across the street. If I were to be intimate with Lee-yeon, anyone looking outside the window of this house would see everything.” His voice was hoarse, as though he was trying to restrain his anger.

“You should have hidden until the end so that Lee-yeon wouldn’t have noticed you,” said Kwon Chae-woo, dangerously, “You only made her suffer.”

Hwang Jo-yoon was petrified. “It’s better to grow up than act like a kid in an adult body and get kicked.”

Kwon Chae-woo dragged the man, kicked the front door open. An instant before Hwang Jo-yoon was dragged inside, he saw a pedestrian walking by carrying a plastic bag. He yelled desperately at the person. It was his only chance.

The man in the baseball cap stopped in his tracks. He looked at them. He would definitely have seen Hwang Jo-yoon with his hands tied. He saw me! He saw me!

A glimmer of hope flashed across his face, but the pedestrian turned away and walked on in a hurry. His last hope was gone. Another pedestrian walked into another house in the neighborhood without a glance.

What’s wrong with the people in this country! There was no escape for Hwang Jo-yoon.

The man with the baseball cap entered the house and put down the plastic bag on the floor. Newspapers were scattered everywhere; some were piled up in bundles. Some kind of high-magnification lens was installed near the window. The man sat by the instrument and peered through it at Lee-yeon’s house like it was his daily routine.

He was making a fuss yesterday, and it looks like the man has been finally caught. “He messed with the wrong person. He was caught by the master,” murmured the man.

It was his first-time seeing Kwon Chae-woo so close in years. But this happiness over reunion didn’t last long. The moment he saw Kwon Chae-woo mercilessly dragging the man inside the house, goosebumps broke out on his skin.

If only he wasn’t injured in the head…. The man’s eyes widened, and he pulled out his phone. Kwon Chae-woo looked strangely calm. He had never seen him so calm and docile. As far as he had known him, Kwon Chae-woo had a fiery temper and murderous intent. It seemed that he had really lost his memory.

“Director, this is Beom-hee.” My master… even if he was rendered docile by the injury, he is still capable of murder.

* * *

For the first time in days, Lee-yeon was glad she could enjoy a deep and sound sleep. She sat in her bed and enjoyed the peace. She was subconsciously getting used to the unfamiliar scent on her pillow. For the first time in a while, Lee-yeon could enjoy deep and sound sleep. Just then the face of a man flashed through her mind. So much for peace!

She rubbed her eyes and walked to the living room. “Kwon Chae-woo…”

The man standing at the wok table, trimming bright red flowers looked quite adept at removing the thorns and pruning them without any sort of reluctance. Lee-yeon’s eyes widened. Kwon Chae-woo looked at Lee-yeon standing in the middle of the living room.

“Lee-yeon,” he said with a smile. “Did you sleep well?”

He put the flowers down. Looking at him casually smiling at her, she felt that the pat events of the week had been so unreal. He walked to her.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I have been practicing flower arrangement.”

“Why?”

“Well, I want to start working again,” he said, “I want to get back to my normal life. Or what it used to be before I lost my memory.”

Lee-yeon felt a prick of her conscience. She had never felt any regrets with the lies she had created because she had done it to save herself. But… right now she couldn’t look him in the face. She turned her eyes away.

“Where did you get the flowers from?”

“I picked them from the flowerbed outside.”He gestured towards the window.

Lee-yeon glanced at him as he looked at the window. He had a sharp jawline and smooth skin. He turned back to her, and their eyes met.

“Do you want me to tie your hair up?”he offered.

“Ah… I look a bit messy now, right?” Embarrassed, Lee-yeon combed her hair with her hand.

“No,” he calmly walked closer to her and grabbed her shoulders and turned her around. “It’s just an excuse because I want to touch your hair.”