If Silk Flowers Bloom by the Water’s Edge Chapter 17

A man who would glare and get angry at the drop of a hat. Yet, as if the moonlight had poor eyesight, it selectively shone only on Yirok’s lovely half-face. The expression of the one receiving the moon’s blessing was very composed, but his eyes told a different story. His firmly shut lips, clenched in fluster, were a much better sight.

“Stay quiet like this. Until I’m done applying the medicine. Otherwise, you’ll be put through the wringer, course by course, tomorrow.”

“‘Course by course’?”

As she pulled her fist away, his somewhat deflated reply returned. Chaehwa grinned, teaching him who had the upper hand.

“Changing clothes, going to the bathroom, changing clothes again. While we’re at it, want to try some winter swimming?”

It seemed shoving a fist in his mouth was effective; he became the most taciturn man in the world. There must have been people who would run away whenever he growled or said something mean. Yirok, whose way of dealing with people was so one-dimensional, was bound to get his nose broken someday.

Chaehwa slowly rolled up the pant leg of Yirok, who had been foolishly taking his corporal punishment. Yirok, leaning against the wall, sat quietly with eyes that knew this was an unavoidable fate. Just then, Yeonrye’s snoring, who was sleeping with her mouth open, was reaching its peak. After rolling up the pant leg to the wounded area, Chaehwa swallowed the scream that was about to escape.

“Crazy, you’re crazy. Do you have ten calves or something? Hah….”

Even though her grandmother would raise a switch when she misbehaved, Chaehwa was a master of running away. She was also good at begging for forgiveness to appease her grandmother’s heart. Thus, Chaehwa, who had never been hit more than three times in total, was seeing three switches break for the first time. She was also seeing for the first time a brat who wouldn’t beg for forgiveness even as the switch struck again where blood had already been drawn.

Recalling the bloody punishment session from earlier, Chaehwa hurriedly spread the ointment. Without even a complaint that it stung, Yirok was unresponsive, merely resting his arms on his knees and looking at the wall. Chaehwa, who had been gently applying the medicine, narrowed her eyes at him.

“You must like being in pain. If you leave this, it’ll become a chronic problem. Hmm?”

“Chaehwa.”

“Yeah. Go on, talk.”

“I hate you.”

Just when she thought she might hear something nice for a change, he said something completely out of left field. For Chaehwa, who heard demonic screams as part of her daily life as a jeongmusa, such words had no effect. She could distinguish between thorny insults and feigned malice. As if she had heard something she shouldn’t have, Chaehwa lowered her head and rolled his pants up to his thigh. It wasn’t to find another place to apply medicine, but to shut Yirok’s mouth.

“How boring.”

But the one whose mouth was shut was Chaehwa herself. The red welts from the switch on his calf were one thing. Chaehwa, doubting her own eyes, pulled the pant leg up further. Scars that started just above the knee, as if placed by a ghost, were not from just a day or two ago. Traces of being gleefully slashed with a knife were left on his thigh. After looking at the scars- short, long, drawn without rhyme or reason- she slowly raised her gaze. A delighted-looking Yirok crinkled his nose.

“Ah. Are you going to put medicine there too? That… it’s far too late for that.”

“Did you do this? Or was it the family that sent you?”

“It excites me when it hurts. And….”

Yirok impulsively grabbed Chaehwa’s wrist as she was closing the medicine case. His eyes, devoid of any playfulness, were full of hostility. Seeing him up close, he was as threatening as a goblin.

“Getting hit with a switch, getting beaten… that’s a blessing to me. But you keep getting in the way.”

“You still haven’t answered. Who did that?”

Having lived as the young mistress for several years, she doesn’t waver at threats from an outsider. Seeing her unyielding gaze, Yirok soon whispered, “I did.” As Yirok pulled Chaehwa’s arm, the distance between them narrowed, but their gazes and breaths were like those facing an enemy.

“Just because they call you ‘agissi’ doesn’t mean you’re an actual baby. My wounds, my scars, my meals… don’t worry about things like that. Why are you giving yourself a headache?”

“Hah.”

“Think of me as a crazy bastard from the outside and be wary. Don’t be so confident that you can save me with this stupid medicine kit. You know… you’re so damn annoying.”

“Speak kindly, act inconveniently. I know that’s your strategy, but I need to make one thing clear.”

Dizzy from the sweet scent of his breath, Chaehwa struggled and shook off his arm. Even in that moment, Yirok, smirking playfully and leaning his head against the wall, was clearly a dangerous element. Chaehwa gathered the skirt of her nightgown that was dragging on the floor and stood up. She tossed the medicine kit in front of him and delivered a cold goodnight.

“I never had any intention of saving you. You just need to do your job as a haenang and then leave.”

That was the pure, unadulterated truth. Chaehwa turned her back on Yirok, who was smiling wryly without a glance at the medicine kit. She thought she had held back well, but his words, “Sleep on your guard. Don’t sleep soundly,” made her lose it. In any case, Yirok had kicked away the medicine and pity offered to him at his dead end and flipped the board. Just before lying down in bed, Chaehwa said something she didn’t need to.

“I had no idea the box cutter in your pocket was for that kind of purpose. What a shame. I thought you were just peeling fruit with it.”

His thighs, and though she couldn’t see them, both his arms were probably full of similar scars. She had roughly guessed it from the moment she felt the box cutter in his pocket, but the reality was an even deeper cesspool. She cursed Yirok’s foolish past and future in her mind, but it wasn’t particularly satisfying. A man so covered in wounds, inside and out, that you don’t even want to touch him. Chaehwa shook her head from side to side and buried her face in her pillow.

Of all the things that could have come, a withered one had to arrive.

Chaehwa pulled the blanket over her head to block the moonlight and closed her eyes. Her only comfort was the cell phone hidden under her pillow. It was a night where, as ever, nothing had changed.

🌹₊ ⊹

One could tell just by looking at the window that the morning sunlight was exceptionally beautiful. Yeonrye woke up at 5 a.m. every day to tend to the young mistress’s bed and see to her breakfast. It was a process she had never once failed to follow, ever since the young mistress had weaned off formula and started eating baby food. That was, until a certain strange outsider meddled in.

“Take it away.”

“Eat.”

It had been over a decade since an outsider entered Nanjubeol, so frankly, expectations were high. If a mere subordinate felt this way, how much more so for the young mistress, who spent her days with her ears perked for any news from the outside? She was our young mistress who would come running out in her socks at the mere mention of the word ‘outsider.’

But the outsider who came through the gates of Nanjubeol was a man so tall he didn’t look eighteen, and as handsome as a professional male entertainer. Not only did every instinct scream that he shouldn’t be left alone with the young mistress, but she had even discovered the scene yesterday. Hadn’t he pushed his lips out as if to set fire to our innocent young mistress’s heart?

Even after it was revealed that it was partly a misunderstanding, Yeonrye’s suspicions did not cool. However, the switch incident had been a mistake committed in a moment of emotion. She had intended to check his wounds early in the morning, but an empty medicine kit was rolling around next to Yirok. It was obvious the two had bickered over the medicine kit during the night. But the fly in the ointment was that, judging by their words, their relationship was worse than ever.

“I grabbed this first, too.”

“Then eat a lot.”

“You bet I will.”

She had served sausage and fish cake side dishes, which the young mistress loved, but as luck would have it, their chopsticks clashed wherever they went. She had felt anxious from the moment the outsider, who had insisted on only packaged bread, sat down at the dining table. It seemed Yirok’s disposition had become completely twisted after being hit on the calves, and her heart was in turmoil.

“How did you get so tall when you’re such a picky eater?”

The outsider dared to ignore the young mistress’s words and just ate plain rice, but for some reason, it was awkward to point it out. And rightly so, because every time the young mistress shot a remark, dozens of rice grains flew and soiled the space in front of Yirok’s setting. The young mistress, waving her chopsticks impolitely, was blinded by her confrontation with the outsider.

“Don’t eat this either. I’m going to eat it all and grow to be 2 meters tall.”

“That’ll be a sight to see. I’m cheering for you.”

“Meatballs! Don’t eat those either!”

Finding the sight of Yirok quietly eating only plain rice embarrassing, Yeonrye intervened. She grabbed the shoulders of the agitated, rampaging young mistress and managed to sit her down, only for the outsider to add his own annoying spoonful.

“Let’s talk after you finish what’s in your mouth, Chaehwa. If you’re marking your territory with rice grains… well, I’ll cheer for you anyway.”

“When did I ever, with rice grains- !”

The culprit who was still spraying rice grains while shouting not to frame her was clear. She had been so worried that the young mistress would be bewitched by the outsider’s handsome face. But now, it seemed she was the one who needed to apologize for beating his calves out of a misunderstanding.

Yeonrye sat far away from the dining table where rice grains and shouts were flying back and forth and clutched her head. She would have to take out a whole pot of the sweet rice punch and cinnamon punch from the storehouse and give it to the outsider. Yeonrye tried to pull herself together, but upon seeing the expressionless outsider and the frantic young mistress, she just closed her eyes.

It was a scene that made her want to ask the heavens to turn back time. Please.