If Silk Flowers Bloom by the Water’s Edge Chapter 106

It was an ordinary greeting, but the kitchen staff shivered and scattered all over the place. Woohyun, who hadn’t thought much about the rumored gigolo, was becoming intrigued as he looked at that face, which anyone could see belonged to an outsider. He had wondered who on earth was striding proudly around the Nanjubeol mansion bearing the disgraceful label of ‘gigolo.’ That black pair of eyes, which didn’t suit his humble haenang outfit, brought the young lady’s discerning eye to mind. He had wondered why she kicked Shinwoo out, but a new flower had spread its vines in her heart, a fresh one brought in from the outside that didn’t even have a matching pesticide yet.

“Are you going to see the young lady with snacks? Do you want to go together with me? I happened to be bored… and I’m curious about the inside of the Nanjubeol mansion too. Nobody kindly guides me around.”

The kitchen staff letting out sounds of inhaling and exhaling every time a single word came out were cute. Certainly, it had a human feel and was fun to tease. The stride of the young man who fell for a provocation that was nothing at all was youthful. It was a novice-like walk with force put into it. However, the words handed over by the young man who stopped in front of Woohyun were not novice-like at all.

“What kind of snacks?”

“…Pardon?”

“You said let’s go with snacks.”

He expected that if the man knew Woohyun was the fiancé, he would be annoyed or eager to annoy him back. However, in the black pupils reflecting Woohyun, there was no light of envy or jealousy. Not the young lady, nor the fiancé, but getting worked up over snacks, Woohyun was temporarily impressed by his unique behavior.

While Woohyun kept his mouth closed, the chef spoke to Yirok as if taking over.

“Why snacks for the young lady? The landowner said to restrain it because she’s gaining too much weight. We sent some up earlier too.”

“With what?”

“My goodness… such fuss. Wouldn’t I have sent up something delicious?”

“Did you give her what came in as gifts from outside?”

“No. Just in case with the gifts that came in, I made what I gave to the young lady myself, Haenang Yirok. Don’t tell me you’re trying to make them yourself to give to her?”

Something like a battle of nerves between a fiancé and a gigolo was a topic welcomed by the kitchen staff, far from being uncomfortable. Just as the worry that it might reach the young lady’s ears in the worst case was rising, the young man bowed his head politely. It was Woohyun who ended up bewildered by his back as he left abruptly after only asking about the snack menu. There was a very high chance he would run off like that and whisper today’s events into Chaehwa’s ear. Thinking he should follow, Woohyun also stood up quickly.

“Thanks for the coffee.”

“Come anytime. They say Haenang Yirok drops by very frequently too.”

It was a tone expecting another spectacle while sharing playful winks. Woohyun felt like a clown who couldn’t earn a single penny, so his goodbye became awkward, and his steps became awkward too. Waving off the laughter and glances of the kitchen staff, the first thing he looked for after coming outside was the young man putting on his sneakers. Walking slowly toward the narrow veranda, he set his gaze on his broad shoulders.

“Are you going to the young lady?”

Really, he didn’t want to become the protagonist of a hot love triangle over the reckless Chaehwa. Wasn’t it Woohyun’s goal to spend a stretch of time vaguely, going with the flow like water in water, wine in wine? He also wanted to decline receiving a cold gaze like the one directed at him any longer. He was already stuffed full from getting glare from the elders of the household.

“I’m not stopping you, nor teasing you, so there’s no need to act prickly toward me. I’m just clinging to Chaehwa right now to extend my life.”

Escaping the pressure of the ladies who were packed with thoughts of selling him off at a high price, he wakes up at the time he wants and eats what he wants. Chaehwa’s fiancé status was, so to speak, a golden ticket. Though she looks naive, that young lady will use the card called marriage at the right time with the right opponent. He, with only a flashy family background, was like a toad temporarily plugging up a hole in a broken crock. He was trying his best to enjoy a golden vacation as long as possible while catering to Chaehwa’s mood. If a moment requiring a staged nerve war with a useless gigolo arose, he would use him. Only when the mouths of subordinates became loose and rumors became concrete would the landowner of Nanjubeol try to hold onto him.

However, the young man who sat with his back turned, tying his sneaker laces, looked far from such stale circumstances of adults. Like a swan accidentally born among a flock of ducks, he turned around to look at him aloofly.

“I am prickly.”

“…Pardon?”

“Are you next to Chaehwa often?”

This was neither a provocation nor a jealous question. It was hard not to notice that it was a nuance investigating something. Having no way of knowing what that something was, Woohyun sent a suitable mix of a sigh and an answer.

“I don’t know with what intention you’re asking. Shouldn’t that usually… be something asked from my side?”

“When you’re together, don’t let her eat just anything. Because Chaehwa likes sweet things. Don’t let her eat things that look suspicious, and don’t let her eat things given by people she’s not close with.”

“I’m asking because I don’t know the intention, but may I ask the reason?”

“Don’t ask. I have no intention of answering truthfully.”

The young man walking slowly down the stone steps possessed a personality that ended up stimulating human’s petty curiosity. Should he say his reaction wasn’t ordinary, leaving a bitter aftertaste? The young man holding the bright moonlight didn’t look like the type to tittle-tattle everything to his young lady. Therefore, the question he was asking now was not for preemption, but purely out of Woohyun’s own personal curiosity.

“By the way.”

It didn’t look like steps heading to the young lady, as he seemed to have a lot on his mind. Tart moonlight pooled in those eyes looking at Woohyun as if disliking him interrupting his own thoughts. It was undeniable that he was a handsome man whose looks wouldn’t fall behind anywhere.

“When Chaehwa and I are together, don’t you get jealous?”

“I do.”

At the admission that was drier and calmer than expected, Woohyun was finding the conversation with the man interesting. Though not to the level of Chaehwa, Woohyun also had some degree of goodwill toward outsiders, after all.

“You’re not going to go to Chaehwa and talk about what just happened, right? I really don’t think I did anything wrong. Still, if you felt bad, I apologize.”

It was fun devising how to make him commit a slip of the tongue like a novice gigolo. At that moment, a unique light flickered across his eyes that were black as ink. A gaze cold as a winter stream rested on Woohyun’s shirt, which he had received as a gift from Nanjubeol among many places.

“It would be natural for me to apologize. But since I’m temporary. You yield just for a bit.”

“…Temporary, you say?”

“I won’t do things like telling Chaehwa. You’re right. You did nothing wrong to me today.”

It seemed he was not one to flatter him, nor was he one to give up Chaehwa even less. The enigmatic gigolo forgot Woohyun’s existence again with a face lost in thought. The steps of the man who entered as an outsider and became a gigolo felt extremely heavy.

“At this rate….”

He couldn’t shake the feeling of being a villain intruding upon the young lady’s fresh first love. Even the successor of Nanjubeol, who would remain in history, paints a love like a spring day. Feeling it regrettable that spring ends eventually, Woohyun let out a bitter smile. It seemed he was indebted not only to Chaehwa, but also to that young man.

🌹₊ ⊹

Sniff– she blew her nose not even refreshingly, but like a newly married bride who had just come over. The time when her grandmother used to scold her not to act like an undisciplined child seemed faded. When one keeps just one picture-perfect person beside oneself, the strict teachings of a home tutor are unnecessary. Not knowing that until now made her a filial-less daughter who only ruined her grandmother’s precious throat for nothing.

“…Is there something on my face?”

Even during class, to the extent that Teacher Myeongil pointed it out, Yirok’s gaze was taking up residence on her. Whether he was trying to face the rumor of being a gigolo head-on or what, Yirok stepped forward to take care of the snack time that came after class ended. From receiving it from the kitchen to setting it up. Sitting in a pavilion with a good view, she received a tray of snacks. Yeonrye, who had been stripped of the work she had done since the young lady was in diapers, merely gasped her mouth like a crucian carp. Yirok, acting as if determined, ignored those fierce glances and picked up a handkerchief. The gaze with which he tapped and dabbed Chaehwa’s lips stuck with sesame seeds couldn’t be so sweet.

“…Yirok, by any chance, you’re not leaving anywhere, right? Huh? You’re not hurt anywhere?”

“I’m not hurt.”

“Then why this princess treatment? Because you’re acting like this, Yirok, the rice cake isn’t even going down my throat.”

The snort sound of Yeonrye, who was prostrate as if determined to wipe the entire pavilion floor with a dry rag, could be heard. How could one live when Yirok’s tray, brought after stacking a tower of rice cakes, was heartbreaking? Yeonrye was gasping for air trying to swallow her laughter inside, but Yirok’s expression remained untouched.

“Because I grew to hate studying. To act as your royal food taster.”

“You hate studying? What we learned today was difficult, though…. If I were born outside, I would have been last in the whole school every time.”

“Why when I’m here? You’d avoid last place.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah. This… I tried it and it’s fine. Eat one more.”

Would she dislike Yirok’s princess treatment when he used to look at her like a cow looks at a chicken just last year? She received and ate up the white, soft rice cake dipped in honey without refusing. Even though it was just the other day she said she would keep her distance because of the gigolo rumor.

“It’s delicious. You eat one too, Yirok.”

“I’m eating while tasting.”

“Eat a whole one. At this rate, I’ll become a pig.”

Because the dimples of Yirok smiling humbly were pretty, Chaehwa forgot something important. She ended up missing the fact that he did not answer her question about whether he was leaving anywhere. It was a time that was merely pretty like a glass marble, unaware that spring flowers were blooming all over the world to hide the foul smell.