If Silk Flowers Bloom by the Water’s Edge Chapter 18

He wished for the sky to collapse and leave him in darkness, but the sun cruelly returned to its place every day. If it was going to place him in a bright place, it could have at least made his eyesight poor. But as luck would have it, his eyes were good, so he could see the light directly. If Yirok were to list the reasons he hated the sky, he would be up all night.

“Here, Yirok haenang. Eat this too. It must be hard going around with just the young mistress. The master will soon calm his anger too. Yesterday, I misunderstood….”

As if hitting his calves two days ago was such a big deal, Yeonrye fretted over him like a subordinate. Yirok hated things that were indecisive, gentle, and weak. Even as he shook his head and refused, Yeonrye stubbornly pushed a tea table before him. Seeing the table laden with sweet cinnamon punch, traditional Korean sweets, and honey cookies, Yirok hid his gaze within his book.

“Were you bothered that I don’t always prepare something just for you, Yirok haenang? It’s just… I’m in the habit of only preparing things for the young mistress.”

There were no warm words to offer Yeonrye, who had gone to the trouble of carrying the tea table. Yirok kept his eyes fixed on the book and stripped the emotion from his voice.

“I don’t eat much, so please don’t worry about it.”

“Even so….”

Just then, from the closed door behind the veranda, a booming voice shouted, “Yeonrye!” Startled, Yeonrye quickly picked up another tea table and opened the sliding door. Although she couldn’t be far from Chaehwa, they could be separated by a single door. The young mistress, in the midst of a cold war with him since the medicine kit incident, was sitting behind the door, playing the game <Star Knight> all day.

“What’s so special about him that you’re giving him cinnamon punch and honey cookies?”

With his eyes, Yirok took in the printed words; with his ears, he listened to the young mistress’s predictable lines. For two days straight. Yeonrye, as if used to it, humored her flirtatious complaints for a bit before closing the door and coming out. Yirok, who was reading a book while leaning against a veranda pillar, suddenly found his gaze drawn to the quiet space beside him. Yeonrye, who should have left, was for some reason not getting up from her seat.

“You might have to go outside with the young mistress in a few days, so you should stop being so stubborn too, Yirok haenang.”

She must have spoken quietly so as not to be heard inside. Yeonrye, confident her words would work, put on her shoes with a pleased face. Yirok powerlessly put down his book and looked at the ryeongju tied to his arm. There were still many things he had yet to do. He couldn’t even go look for the red envelope containing Sarira’s orders. Shouldn’t at least his arms be free for him to find a way to survive? Being tied to a young mistress who stared at her phone 24/7 had turned his life into a countdown to death.

Three days ago, he would have just ignored Yeonrye’s scolding words. But maybe his head had broken because of Chaehwa, who pretended to be a good person with the medicine kit. Or maybe he had grown bold because his death was near. No, it was because a sense of dread, that he must not be dragged along by Chaehwa, had washed over him. To the one who tried to embrace him with broad affection, snide words came out.

“I have nothing to be sorry for.”

“…Hm?”

“If you gave me honey cookies and what not to make me apologize… I don’t like sweet things. If you’re going to give me something, please give it to me in a bag of sliced bread. You couldn’t possibly not know. That I steal only sliced bread from the kitchen every day.”

While Yeonrye was agape, her lips just moving, the door to the guest room, which was usually difficult to approach for anyone but the nanny, opened. Drrrk, along with the sound of the door being pushed aside, a sharp reprimand came through.

“Yeonrye! It looks like it’s going to rain soon, so tell everyone to bring in the laundry they hung out.”

“Ah, r-rain? Goodness… the sky is so fickle.”

Chaehwa buried Yirok’s heartless words with the sudden weather forecast. Yirok, whose opponent had been snatched away, shifted his gaze behind him. There was no way it wasn’t a way to vent her anger. It was a mistake to have let Chaehwa see his knife scars that day. He felt anxious as if being chased by a wild dog, and at the same time, he wanted to see it through to the end, and then he felt sorry for his older brother who would be ruined along with him.

“Chaehwa.”

When his head got hot, he couldn’t bear it without taking it out on someone. Chaehwa stood holding the door, as if she knew Yirok’s state, which was only outwardly composed. Yirok’s lips, curved in a sneer, had found the perfect target for his frustration.

“You can’t live without that thing in your hand, can you.”

“…It has a name, it’s called a cell phone, you ignoramus.”

If you lined up all the people who tormented Yirok, who drove him into a corner, they would probably fill the heavens and the earth. Those people had no heart, no humanity. So, it was a fight Yirok could handle by being heartless, by emptying himself of humanity.

“Hearing that from you, who can’t even solve the first problem in a math concept book, is refreshing. Ah… then how about this.”

But Nanjubeol was the opposite. It overflowed with affection, testing his limits in a different way. The young mistress beyond the threshold was the best at it. Yirok shook his arm, bound by the ryeongju, as if to mock their mutual predicament.

“Untie this. That… cell phone. Isn’t not tattling on you worth the price?”

But Chaehwa, who he expected to fly across the threshold a moment later, placed her cell phone face down on the floor and wore a blank expression.

“I told you. I’ll get scolded by Grandma. In a few days, if I talk to her nicely….”

“No.”

“No?”

“Yeah, no. Untie it now.”

“What if I say no, too.”

Why did he feel better the more Chaehwa’s brow furrowed? Yirok unconsciously swung his left foot, which he had dangled off the veranda.

“Precious young mistress. You should get scolded twice for something you’d only be scolded for once.”

After he delivered the decisive blow, Chaehwa, for once, flinched and twisted the door she was holding as if pinching it.

Just then, as if the sky were venting its anger on her behalf, the rain began to pour down like crazy. The rain, flowing down the black-tiled roof, soaked his left foot. Chaehwa just stared blankly, as if the rain had stolen her voice. At that, Yirok’s heart was shouting that it still wasn’t enough.

“Why. Are you scared? That I’ll tell on you to Grandma?”

After provoking Chaehwa, he smiled brightly. Both Chaehwa’s tea table and Yirok’s tea table remained untouched. If he just grabbed onto anything and held on, wouldn’t Chaehwa reveal her true feelings too? Just as his lips were itching to speak, Chaehwa lowered her arm as if to close the door and said.

“Let’s stop. I’m getting really irritated and I feel like I might destroy everything. Be quiet.”

At the sudden words, Yirok’s smile vanished. For half his life, what he had heard were Sarira’s threats and the curses of the maengmusa. Yirok, who had endured and survived within that, now felt a bone-chilling cold. It felt the same as climbing a mountain bare-bodied and coming face to face with a tiger. In the moment Yirok looked away, the door closed. The pyong, pyong sounds of the cell phone being frantically pressed disappeared. Only the round shape of her head could be seen faintly as a shadow on the paper screen.

It was the first time the sound of the rain felt so gloomy. It was also the first time he understood the meaning of words striking one’s heart. His chattering mind had finally, finally shut up. Yirok turned his eyes toward his soaking shoes. The raindrops falling from the toe of his black sneakers felt chilling.

He stuck his other foot out as well, letting it get wet in the rain. As he kept getting hit by it, the winter rain began to feel lukewarm. How long had he been watching his two shoes get soaked? The rain hadn’t stopped, but a new guest entered the guest room. The sound of squelching through muddy puddles in rain boots dug into his ears.

Yirok’s gaze, which had been lowered since the young mistress had her say, slowly rose.

On a not-so-distant wall, a person as tall as a pole was staring at Yirok. Even though the winter rain obscured his vision, he could recognize his features at a glance.

The wall of the Nanjubeol estate was neither particularly high nor low. It was taller than his own height, which had grown past 185 centimeters over the years, but the wall was less than 2 meters in total height.

However, the one who was looking at Yirok, even turning his head to do so, surpassed the height of the wall. Furthermore, he had a straw mat like the kind from a cowshed draped over his body and a traditional gat on his head.

Yirok froze in the same position he was in while soaking his shoes and met his eyes. I swear, it was not of his own will. From the moment he recognized its existence, he couldn’t pull his gaze away as he wished. His hands and feet froze as well, and there was nothing to do but receive its gaze.

[Have you not seen a dead person here?]

The cold rain was not falling only around it. Its skin was grayish, and it was naked and barefoot. The whites of its eyes were as black as leeches, and its pupils were red. Even looking at just one of these conditions, it was not a normal person.

[Have you really not seen a dead person here?]

The white mist rising from its shoulders was sounding an alarm. Yirok, not letting down his guard, glanced at the young mistress’s room, which was tightly sealed. Overcoming the resistance of his hand that didn’t want to move, he reached into his pocket.

In the time it took to slowly pull out the box cutter from his pocket, the gray man turned his body. Facing him directly, he tilted his head and asked the same thing.

[You’re telling me you really haven’t seen a person who burned to death here?]

It was the moment Yirok, who had revealed the blade, raised his hand without hesitation. The knife, on its way down to his thigh, was caught in the middle. A palm as white as a small egg covered his eyes. As darkness fell, things that were invisible began to reveal their identities one by one through sound and scent. The hand that grabbed his wrist, the palm that covered his eyes, both belonged to the same person. The ryeongju, which had become as familiar as his own skin, swayed in the wind, making a sad, clicking sound.

“Don’t move.”

The woman’s knee pressing gently against his back slowed his heartbeat.

Thump-thump, it was a strong tremor.