Flowers Are Bait

Chapter 104:

Chapter 104:

“If you understand me, don’t ever show your face again.”

Jang Beom-hee was speechless. Kwon Chae-woo, the man who would storm an area the moment he saw blood, was now being so polite. Just the thought of it made him cringe.

Kwon Chae-woo left without looking back and Jang Beom-hee frowned at him while holding his aching arm.

He felt his cellphone vibrate and he reached into his pocket to get it.

It was an unsaved number, but he already knew it all too well. It gave him a headache just looking at it. It was a text from someone that he had accidentally spent the night with. She had been messaging him for a few days now and it was starting to get troublesome.

You may forget my name, but I know that you remember my body.

Jang Beom-hee scratched the back of his neck as he read the text, then he looked back up at where Kwon Chae-woo had disappeared to.

Nothing was going his way.

***

“He should be ashamed of his name!” They were in a Korean barbeque restaurant and the conversation was loud and wild.

“Director, did you know that tigers mate 100 times?” Joo Dong-mi asked without care.

“Huh?” Lee-yeon’s eyes widened as she spluttered and coughed out the water she was drinking.

“That man, his name was Beom—it means tiger,” Joo Dong-mi drawled. “He was as sweet as an herbivore!”

There was a little temple beside the 500-year-old spirit tree. The townspeople were trying their best to save the protector of the town but nothing seemed to work. Because of the ever-growing rumors surrounding the tree, the perfect time for it to be treated had ended already and now it was about to die.

Lee-yeon thought that the forest ministry had chosen some annoying case.

“I can’t do anything about it,” she had said. “I have to try. Have you ever seen me pick my patients?”

Choo-ja had frowned at that.

“You should pick your friends but not your tree,” Lee-yeon had continued.

Choo-ja had scoffed and looked at her with narrowed eyes. “Of course,” she had said, rolling her eyes. “It seems like it was only yesterday when you were pissed about that dangerous man in his vegetative state. You were always saying how much of a pest he was and you made me lie as well. But now you’re with him.”

Lee-yeon had flinched and quickly drank her tea.

“But, of course, you must pick your friend but not the tree,” Choo-ja had mocked her, laughing.

Lee-yeon had tried her best to hide her face behind her teacup.

Another thing that had happened since the landslide was that Kwon Chae-woo had become an intern at the Wildlife Rescue Center, his rank right under Joo Dong-mi’s. He was the backup for rescuing injured animals and transporting them, and he was very busy going to rescue sites as well as studying. Thanks to that, he and Lee-yeon spent a little less time together.

But, surprisingly, they still had three meals a day together. He would always come to see Lee-yeon during their lunch break. She knew how ridiculous this was from a perspective of view so she always tried to send him back, but he would never listen.

Lee-yeon had become scared of lunchtime. She got anxious every time the door opened, worried that it would be Kwon Chae-woo coming to get her.

On top of that, every night, he would bully her so much that Lee-yeon felt like her back was being broken every day. Some nights, he wouldn’t even let her sleep a wink and she would go to work the next day without any sleep.

Something was wrong. They were both earning income but Lee-yeon knew that something was a little off!