Flowers Are Bait

Chapter 209:

His once-strong and distinguished face was now trembling slightly, a sight Lee-yeon had never witnessed before. She had grown accustomed to his cold and angry expressions, but this display of vulnerability was entirely new. Her body, which Kwon Ki-seok had frozen by fear, now seemed to freeze in a different way.

“What… What are you doing?” Lee-yeon took a cautious step back, and Kwon Chae-woo’s arm instinctively flinched, but he quickly composed himself.

“I believe I made myself clear last time,” he replied firmly.

“I told you not to be swayed.”

Lee-yeon shot him an alarmed glare. She couldn’t help but feel on edge around a man who was attempting to re-enter her life. As her eyes hardened, his face grew even paler.

Despite his breaking point being reached due to her illness and pregnancy, Lee-yeon was now building a wall between them. This difference in their emotional states created a palpable chill that made him recoil.

“I’m going to… pretend that I didn’t hear that just now.”

Lee-yeon quickly turned around.

“What if…!”

His thick voice that burst out that moment grabbed her.

“I’m still your husband?”

She couldn’t help but flinch at his words, her heart pounding in her chest.

“That day I left Hwaido, what if I didn’t regain my memories at all?” he asked, and her world seemed to tremble. Lee-yeon gazed at him with unfocused eyes, as though struck in the worst possible way.

“And as my actual memories returned, all the time I spent in Hwaido became a blank page,” he continued, his voice heavy with the weight of his revelation.

Her silence spoke volumes.

“I thought I was always being played by some woman as well,” Kwon Chae-woo confessed, his brow furrowing in frustration.

“At that time, I despised you for lying and manipulating me as you pleased. I believed that I had to hate you intensely to hold onto my sense of self, so I behaved terribly. I didn’t even have my memories, yet I was terrified that my body was responding to your scent and your presence.”

Lee-yeon listened attentively as he used strong language to convey his feelings. His eyes remained fixed on her, unblinking, displaying a determination not to miss a single nuance of her reaction.

“So that’s why I acted as if I were your husband. You can blame me and call it childish,” he concluded, leaving a heavy silence in his wake.

“…”

“Honestly, that was my mistake and loss. The longer I pretended to be your husband, that more I hated leaving Hwaido.”

“…”

“I was crazy jealous of your husband, my past ignorant self when I haven’t got my memories back. I wanted to kill him and I considered even taking his place. The days when you wouldn’t even look at me, I was so angry that I pushed back my schedule on leaving.”

Kwon Chae-woo panted angrily.

“Then… My old memory merged.”

“You must have been confused.”

Kwon Chae-woo looked up hopefully at her somewhat soft response.

“But whatever you were, whoever you were, why is that important now?’

“…”

“I even held a funeral.” Lee-yeon muttered just loud enough for him to hear.

Kwon Chae-woo slowly frowned. He was doubting his ears.

“Funeral?”

The words hung in the air like a heavy shroud, each syllable tearing at Kwon Chae-woo’s soul. From dawn until now, the weight of the harsh truths surrounding Lee-yeon seemed to shred him apart. Death, pregnancy, and now a funeral.

“Yes, I’m sorry, but you’re a dead person,” she declared with a cold finality that cut through him like a blade.

Kwon Chae-woo’s face, which had been filled with hot and lively emotions just moments before, instantly froze, his features contorted in disbelief.

“I wore black, personally dug a hole, and put your piece in it,” she continued, her tone unwavering.

He remained silent, unable to find words to respond.

“And I have no intention of taking you out from the tomb I built.”

Their relationship, which had begun with the shocking discovery of someone being buried alive, now concluded with one person figuratively burying the other alive.

Kwon Chae-woo threw his head back, his hand covering his eyes. Had he ever felt so utterly helpless? Throughout his life, he had only known how to efficiently harm others, never learning how to mend a broken heart. It was as if pieces of his very being were crumbling away.

The more Kwon Chae-woo disintegrated, the more that foolish man, who had blindly embraced his role as a husband, filled the void. Rejection, doubt, stubbornness, and defenses that had defined him were being dismantled, leaving behind the man who had lived in blindness as a fake husband.

“… What do you want me to do?”

Kwon Chae-woo held Lee-yeon’s clothes.

“I’ll do whatever you tell me to do. I’ll cook, work, and do all the chores. I’ll give you all the money you want, and if I could, I’ll breathe for you.”

Lee-yeon clenched her fist and looked away. The end of her crumbled clothes clothes mirrored the wreckage of her feelings, and as time went on Kwon Chae-woo face turned back to what she was familiar with.

Lee-yeon didn’t bother with how she felt and pushed him away again.

“Are you really saying that because you believe me?”

“….”

“How can you believe a liar like me? What if in truth, I truly did sell your mother?”