If Silk Flowers Bloom by the Water’s Edge Chapter 57

The moonlight greeted his steps, which seemed to quicken to avoid the one chasing him. It is the fate of the weak to be unable to voice their complaints. Chaho walked silently, guarding Jansi’s back.

Ever since they left after the messy sick visit, Jansi’s small shoulders had been slumped. He didn’t know how long it had been since they were alone. Chaho cleared his throat in preparation and quickened his pace.

“Hey. Are you going straight to the dorms?”

Jansi didn’t answer, just trudged on, dejected. He had to admit it now. What was so special about that damn outsider? Not only the young lady, but Jansi and the other female Haenangs were all restless over him. He could understand the others, but he thought Jansi would be different.

“Why aren’t you answering? Did you get indigestion from the tangerine earlier?”

Chaho and Jansi had been close because their families were geographically near each other. Jansi, the youngest of three sisters, and Chaho, who lived sandwiched between an older and younger sister—they had things in common and, if things went well, they were on a path to promise a future together.

“You’re saying Jansi is strange?”

One day, his mother informed him, as if it were a notice, that Jansi had been sent as a Haenang to the Nanjubeol family. He had been hurt that Jansi left without a single word. But since he himself was planning to enter a great family as a Haenang anyway, he voluntarily entered Nanjubeol as a Haenang the year after Jansi left. But the Jansi he met there was not the Jansi he knew.

“Don’t talk to me. You’ll be scared, I’m sure of it.”

“Why would I be scared of you? You’re so much shorter than me.”

He tried to reassure Jansi with that promise, but she would often run away in a panic. Around the twelfth time he had sworn he wouldn’t be scared, the Yogwi possessing Jansi’s body spoke to him.

[You like this child, don’t you.]

He had met Janghee when Chaho was turning from thirteen to fourteen. The stone bridge of their relationship, built even by giving the Yogwi the name ‘Janghee’, crumbled overnight. With a single act of running away, the twelve vows became useless. Jansi, as if she knew it would happen, no longer expected anything from Chaho. Chaho thought he had to repay the price for breaking the twelve vows by watching over her for a while.

“If I get hurt, are you going to offer me a basket of tangerines like that too?”

But as if to mock the years he had spent in repentance, Jansi had created a new sanctuary for herself. Chaho himself had become a fifth wheel. Jansi stopped her weak steps and looked back at him.

“Why are you suddenly acting like this to me?”

“Like what?”

“You never paid attention to me before. Just like everyone else.”

It had been time he left for her to resent him, but it wasn’t like he enjoyed it either. He got a canker sore from wanting to talk to her more than twenty times a day.

“Because you hate me. I was waiting until your hatred subsided.”

At those words, Jansi smirked, raising one corner of her mouth. Still, Chaho was so happy to see that expression after so long that he grinned foolishly for three seconds.

“It’s not that I hated you, you hated me. I understand why you ran away after saying you weren’t scared. But do you know how cold you were to me after that, Chaho?”

“That was…”

“Yirok is different. He’s… the first person who didn’t run away. He’s the only one who sees me as Jansi, not a Yogwi. So who do you think you are…”

“……”

“Who do you think you are to eat the tangerine.”

Jansi’s shortened bangs did not give a positive impression. Jansi, her face still the same as before, welled up with tears, then turned and started to run. Chaho couldn’t bring himself to follow her and instead just clutched at the clichéd moonlight. His indecisiveness of the past few years had reached its peak today.

He shouldn’t have done that, that day.

🌹₊ ⊹

The moonlit night deepens, a time when Yogwis grow stronger and humans weaker. The moonlight streaming through the window was annoying, so Yirok got up and drew the curtains. Chaehwa, for her part, was still giggling, engrossed in some video on her phone, showing no signs of leaving despite the late hour.

Yirok wanted to just cut his lips, which felt glued shut. Because when the tiny Chaehwa acted stubbornly, he became a complete mess. He’d rather have her stay where he could see her, get caught by Yeonrye, and get a good scolding. It was not a lie that he wished she would hit his calves until the switch broke.

Even as Yirok deliberately rustled the covers and lay down in bed, Chaehwa was lost in her phone. Yirok staged a protest, pulling the blanket and pressing the pillow, signaling that he was about to sleep. He had already turned off the light before closing the curtains. The only light was the lamp on the bedside table. The one that could make the whole world go dark with a single button.

“Yirok. Are you asleep?”

When Chaehwa finally paid attention, Yirok reached out and pressed the button. It was a hint for her to leave, for goodness’ sake. But Chaehwa, perhaps having eaten something bad for lunch, didn’t get off the bed even after the light went out. Yirok was in the middle of pondering how to get this Chaehwa out without saying anything harsh.

“Gotcha.”

As if waiting for the right moment, Chaehwa’s body fell over and she climbed onto his torso. The bright-smiling girl and the color of the pink silk suited each other horribly well. Her brownish hair fell down like before, strands sticking to his cheek. Yirok could only watch Chaehwa, whom he could easily push away, as if she were a sacred relic. The only thing he could say was this.

“Stop being annoying and get down. Have you gone mad in the moonlight?”

“You don’t like me doing this?”

Chaehwa’s hand, which had been pressing on Yirok’s wrist, moved down like a swarm of ants. Its final destination was his cheek. Chaehwa, gently cupping his cheek, pressed her body against his. A groan escaped at the unexpected collision.

The line of Chaehwa’s supple lips was sketched out in his mind. Feeling like he might start drawing the wrong things, a sense of mission arose in Yirok.

“Get down… while I’m still rational.”

“Yirok. Then how about this?”

Chaehwa, reborn as a fox Yogwi, stuck out her tongue and licked her red lips. Then she lowered her head and buried her cheek in his shoulder. What was presumed to be Chaehwa’s lips slickly grazed past his ear. Yirok’s hips arched up, his gaze roaming distractedly across the ceiling.

As if that weren’t enough, Chaehwa’s hand lifted his blanket and slid inside. It would have been a thousand times better to stick his head in a bathtub full of electrified water.

It was when Yirok, with a trembling hand, pushed Chaehwa’s shoulder away. Her teary gaze inevitably made his conscience ache.

“Do you hate me?”

At that moment, he heard the sound of a string snapping in his head. Yirok hurriedly lowered his head and swallowed those dainty lips. As if to explain that it wasn’t true, he hurriedly, without any skill or technique, sucked on Chaehwa’s lips. He, along with her, turned what could have ended as a clear case of molestation into a major incident.

Far from hating you, the next words wouldn’t register in his mind. Yirok was content just tasting the inside of her mouth, sweet like a yakgwa pastry. His was a life lived by excluding instinct and will. Yirok felt like he was about to cry, so glad was he to have met Chaehwa while walking on the edge of impulse.

Knock, knock, knock.

If it hadn’t been for the sound of knocking on the door, the dream would have continued.

“Yirok Haenang!”

He had sated his hunger with what he received through Chaehwa’s lips. Forcibly ejected from that dream, Yirok raised his sluggish body. The shadow shimmering outside the door was probably Yeonrye. Yeonrye, who had come to bring him breakfast, was flustered by the absence of Yirok, who always woke up early to open the door.

“Yirok Haenang. Are you still sleeping?”

And Yirok, feeling that the blanket felt different from a normal morning, hastily lifted it.

“Yirok Haenang!”

Bang, bang.

Yeonrye’s knocking, trying to wake him, grew more distant in his ears. Compared to the boyish mistake an eighteen-year-old Yirok had made in his bed, all the humiliation he had endured until now was nothing.

“Wait…”

At the sound of Yeonrye about to open the door, Yirok jumped out of bed. He ran as if he would fall, blocking the door with his body.

Thud.

Yeonrye screamed at the sound of the door closing.

“I’m up.”

Yeonrye said she understood and placed the breakfast tray in front of the door. Only then did Yirok let out a short breath and slide down to sit in front of the door.

As he sat there, not wanting to see the trace he had left on the bed again, his phone, clueless, rang in his pocket. Yirok, with an exhausted hand, took out his phone and pressed the message icon.

「Let’s study together later hehehe」

Chaehwa had sent a picture of a math problem, saying it was something she wanted to ask about. Yirok, with immense guilt, pressed his forehead against the phone.

He now had a secret he could never tell, even with a knife to his throat. He stared blankly at the messy blanket, then stood up.

Clean-up. That was the first order of business.