If Silk Flowers Bloom by the Water’s Edge Chapter 79

Sunlight so brilliant that it could not be slighted for being spring sunshine sat upon the wall. The spring outing passed in a blur, but how could the classes return so quickly? As soon as the news of Teacher Myeongil’s return was announced, a class date was set.

Chaehwa, who had come out for a stroll, was digging at her ticklish ears while searching for the silk skirt and flower shoes that the Moji had stolen. Grandmother had scolded her for three hours, telling her not to cut her fingernails at night. How could even Chaehwa have known that the Moji, which usually stayed cooped up in the back mountain with its own pack, would suddenly appear?

Since a Moji inherits a part of the memory and heart of the person whose fingernails it ate, it probably would have been impossible for others to distinguish whether it was Chaehwa or the Moji. There was no way to know where it had been acting out frivolously before getting caught, which was frustrating.

Saying she utterly lacked caution, Grandmother had taken away her cell phone for the time being. Chaehwa, who had become empty-handed due to the commotion brought on by a single rat, kicked a round pebble for no reason.

“It’s something I treasure.”

With class ahead of her, there was a heap of things she wanted to ask Yirok. She had intended to chat with Yirok while resolving the troublesome homework of math, Korean, and English. However, after coming back from the canola flower field, Yirok went around hiding thoroughly as if he had made up his mind. He refrained from entering the dining hall so completely that not a single strand of his hair could be seen.

From that time until this very day when the class was set, she had not seen Yirok’s face once. Of all things, because her cell phone was taken away due to the Moji commotion, the way to contact him became even more bleak. Furthermore, Chaehwa’s heart was not as active as before. When she recalled Yirok, who wouldn’t even come out to the dining hall to avoid her, her flank throbbed.

“Hmph to you too then.”

It wasn’t that she expected those like flowers to rise just because it was the sun of spring, but the relationship with Yirok, which was worse than winter, was disappointing. Even just this morning, Chaehwa had yelled fiercely at the window, chasing away the birds that woke her from her sleep. Yeonrye, knowing that Chaehwa’s state of mind was uncomfortable after having her cell phone taken away, suggested a walk.

“I hear the kitchen staff are making yeot candy. If you go around for a turn and come back, I will have a basket of yeot candy waiting for you.”

She was grateful for Yeonrye’s thought, but Chaehwa did not like strolling around the mansion. It was circling like a train track the places she saw just the day before yesterday, saw two months ago, and saw three years ago. Without even any wild flowers newly growing, the exact same things grew in the exact same spots every year. At the scenery she grew sick of just by looking at it, Chaehwa’s lips bit a sigh.

If there was a saving grace, she had no immunity to sweet things, so her heart thumped at the sound of yeot candy. The handmade yeot candy was made by the kitchen staff by melting a sheet of yeot, coating it with nuts, and hardening it like candy. They even inserted a stick so it was easy to eat, presenting it as Chaehwa’s snack.

However, on the way back to her quarters, there was already the smell of yeot candy. Following the scent flowing near the laundry area, Chaehwa walked like a fish biting a bait. It was a moment when wrapping cloths dyed with natural pigments were left to dry in the sun because the spring sunshine was good. When the season with warm weather arrived, Nanjubeol became rainbow-colored. Cloths of colorful hues like a gujeolpan hung on the clothesline and fluttered.

Chaehwa’s steps, having dropped by to steal and eat the laundry area yeot candy, crossed the clothesline. A gold-colored cloth dyed with gardenia fruit tickled Chaehwa’s cheek. A brake was applied to the steps of Chaehwa, who should have passed by flicking it away with her hand in annoyance.

“Yirok…”

The kitchen staff must have put the yeot candy in a wicker basket and brought it here for the Haenangs and the laundry room staff to eat. There was someone sitting in the small pavilion built at the laundry area, eating yeot candy. Cradling a flowerpot with sprouted leaves in one arm, he licked the yeot attached to the end of a long stick with his red tongue. Looking properly again, there wasn’t much yeot candy left in the basket. It seemed he had dropped by a very long time after hearing the call to eat.

Looking up at the sky with eyes devoid of thought, his lips stole the amber-colored yeot. Shade and sunlight entered as if competing over Yirok’s cheek, which sparkled as if transparent. The candy that came out after being held in Yirok’s mouth strangely caught her eye. Whether her heart was projected onto the melted yeot candy, she felt fearful every time Yirok stuck out his tongue. To be precise, she was afraid of the boundaries inside her crumbling down.

It was a sweet peeping that was enough to make even the anger she had toward Yirok vanish. It was around then that Yirok, who was eating yeot candy while sitting at Mangwujeong in the laundry area, discovered Chaehwa. Her eyes met with Yirok, who had a candy stuffed in his cheek, making it bulge. Chaehwa, although knowing it was no use, hid behind the wrapping cloth dyed with gardenia fruit.

‘No. Why am I the one hiding?’

In less than ten seconds, her thoughts were written differently, showing how severe her fickleness was. At any rate, Yirok was bound to leave Mangwujeong by exerting his runaway disposition. Chaehwa, who intended to stop running around trying to catch him like a slave hunter, came out from behind the wrapping cloth once more. It was at that moment when she was glaring at the empty spot where Yirok would have run away from and be gone.

“What are you doing here.”

“Ack!”

Out of nowhere, a voice came piercing Chaehwa’s cheek. In the meantime, Yirok, who had come down cradling the flowerpot, was looking at her with innocent eyes. She completely forgot her vow up until a moment ago to ignore Yirok. Chaehwa, embarrassed at having peeked, took backward steps and widened the distance between herself and Yirok.

“Huh?”

As if it were tedious to ask the question of what she had been doing again, Yirok asked with a ‘Huh?’. His lips, smooth as if coated in yeot candy, came and sat within her field of vision.

“It’s nice for you, Yirok, eating candy and all, right?”

“What?”

“Not contacting me. Not coming to the dining hall. You intend to pretend not to see me in class too, right? I, too, from now on…”

There was bound to be an influence of spring, which lavishly controlled the weather. Grandmother’s scolding, the confiscated cell phone, Yirok who had been consistently heartless ever since they met, the scenery with nothing changed, the long and distant road to becoming an adult—there was much laden upon Chaehwa’s small chest. She even hated the flowerpot Yirok was holding preciously. To think he was so tender toward a single blade of grass that couldn’t speak.

“Even though I showed you the canola flowers that I don’t show to anyone, and always greet you first… I won’t do it anymore. You play well with that flowerpot. Who was it that lived where that gifted that?”

“Chaehwa who lives in Nanjubeol.”

If she had sarcasm this much, Yirok would have more than left the spot given his personality. However, Yirok cautiously thrust out the flowerpot to her with a face that showed no hurt feelings. Chaehwa, whose lips had been like a duck’s beak, scanned the flowerpot with surprised eyes.

“Grandma Yomyeong took care of it while I was away. Because I felt like things became awkward with it… I came out for a walk.”

“Whaat?”

“They say that if it receives good sunlight, a flower might bloom. I don’t know well.”

It was the first time Yirok had stopped her while she was going and spoken such useless words for this long. Come to think of it, he did not avoid the gaze that met hers. She felt unfamiliar with herself reflected in his eyeballs, whose atmosphere had changed. Yirok’s gaze did not move, as if trying to deeply take in Chaehwa’s face. Yirok even opened his own cell phone screen with his characteristic slow movements and showed it to her.

“And… I did, contact you. The one who didn’t reply was you.”

Looking into it with doubting eyes, she saw that Yirok had sent text messages in succession on the day her cell phone was taken away.

「I have something to say」 「Take your skirt and shoes」 「The rat stole them and came to my room」 「Don’t tell other people」

She had only scanned down and read it just once, but she could understand all the past circumstances. The Moji had gone to Yirok’s room while imitating her. Feeling as if she knew the reason yet didn’t quite know it, Chaehwa hurriedly averted her eyes from the cell phone as heat rose. Chaehwa, becoming awkward, grumbled, changing the subject.

“Even though, even though you wouldn’t come to eat rice.”

“My stomach wasn’t good for a few days.”

“I…”

Yirok’s role was a running rabbit, and Chaehwa’s role was a gun-wielding hunter. I’m saying her role was to catch the rabbit and tease it. She could laugh in front of the rabbit that revealed its cute front teeth. However, she could not endure Yirok, who looked at her tenderly after becoming a man. Even when words were about to come out, they went back in because it was ticklish deep inside her throat.

“Is something the matter?”

“Yirok, you… why are you being like this suddenly? Are you sick somewhere?”

“What is.”

“You should be arguing with me, saying ‘It’s a matter that has nothing to do with you. So who told you to send a text message?’.”

It was a statement that lacked coherence even when she heard it herself, so it would be natural for Yirok to be flustered. As expected, Yirok, holding the flowerpot, tilted his head, then gazed at Chaehwa with a face that had turned calm. Chaehwa’s cheeks, having thought that a criticism toward her would come out ten times out of ten, turned red then blue like a traffic light.

“Do you want that kind of feeling?”

“…….”

“If you want it, I’ll do it.”

“…If I want it, can you become any kind of feeling for me?”

At those words, Yirok’s eyes shook just like in the past. It was better to shake together than to be composed alone. However, Yirok lightly embraced the flowerpot and lowered his voice.

“It’s hard to act like a bastard to you. Really… I feel like I’m becoming a son of a bitch worse than a dog.”

Although he was packaging it with harsh words, his true heart flew over and wagged its tail. Chaehwa’s wriggling hand hung onto her dress ribbon. Yirok’s face, showing the heart he had organized by himself in the meantime, was mature.

“Anyway, yeah. I’m in the middle of deliberating, concerning you, Chaehwa. Because to you… I want to become a less bad son of a bitch. I’m wondering how I can do that. Since you gave me this kind of thing too.”

Lifting the flowerpot, a faint smile hung at Yirok’s mouth corners. Whether the person had changed in the span of a few days, or whether the Moji was imitating Yirok. Chaehwa swallowed her saliva hard and turned her head.

“Honor… that, I mean, it’s an honor.”

She had dropped by to steal and eat yeot candy, but she ate her fill of absurd words instead. It was funny that her heart fell for the statement that he would become a less bad thing, not even that he would become a good thing.

“Go find your clothes. Knock on the door three times so I’ll know it’s you, Chaehwa.”

To think the Moji left her shoes and skirt in Yirok’s room, making a fool out of a person. The back of Yirok, who was vanishing saying he was taking the flowerpot for a walk, looked broad today of all days. Chaehwa kept looking as if chasing Yirok’s back view, continuously, continuously, while pounding her thumping chest with her fist.

It was self-evident that spring melts something, but it was ambiguous whether it was a good thing or a bad thing.

At any rate, a breathtaking spring had arrived. A spring more hot and ticklish than previous years.