If Silk Flowers Bloom by the Water’s Edge Chapter 8

Her head bobbed back and forth, and she even snored from time to time, yet no one dared to give Chaehwa a hard time. There was a 99 percent chance they were making a tear-jerking effort to pretend they didn’t notice. A faint smile appeared on Yirok’s lips as he surveyed the single squiggly line drawn on the notebook across from him.

That the two of them, sitting opposite each other, made eye contact at that moment could only be called a terrible coincidence. Yirok was just closing his book after organizing his notes, and Chaehwa, instinctively sensing the class was ending, was just rubbing her sleepy eyes. The tragedy, if there was one, was that a smile resembling a sneer was still hanging on Yirok’s lips. It must have been clearly captured by Chaehwa’s half-opened, drowsy eyes.

Chaehwa, who first fixed her disheveled posture, realized that Yirok was looking at the single squiggly line on her book, and her ears turned red. She closed her book belatedly, but its contents had already been revealed to all.

The way she hastily tried to clean up her mess, as if she were the one who had done something wrong, showed Chaehwa’s terrible attitude during class. Even if Yirok just kept his hands still and smiled, Chaehwa grew as embarrassed as the emperor with no clothes.

“You were just laughing at me, weren’t you.”

What was so funny about a flower-like young lady having no interest in math? But seeing her get worked up after being baited by a cheap smile was certainly amusing. To confront him in the middle of a class, right in front of the teacher, no less. Yirok, whose only interesting time in recent memory had been disturbed, let his smile die.

“No.”

“Yes, you were. You were smiling like this, with your mouth open.”

“…Do you need the notes?”

With that, the perfect notes Yirok had written were pushed toward Chaehwa. Even the teacher, who should have been mediating, was fidgeting restlessly as Chaehwa furrowed her brow.

“I don’t need them. I can just borrow someone else’s.”

As if he understood the situation, Yirok nodded and took his book back. A young lady who uses class as nap time and outsources her note-taking. At this level, it was as if Sarira had been dreaming all alone, banking on a distorted rumor. Another laugh escaped him at her behavior, which lacked even a speck of ‘elegance’ or ‘intellectual beauty’.

“Why do you keep laughing?”

Around that time, Teacher Myeong-il, as if afraid the anger would be directed at him, hastily gathered his chalk and book and left the classroom. The haenangs, their faces as white as paper, stood behind Chaehwa, cautiously observing the situation. Math class ended without a word that it was over. Seeing that a confrontation was bound to continue until the next Korean language class, Yirok swallowed a sigh.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about… What’s wrong with smiling a little during class.”

There was no way Chaehwa didn’t know his words were intentionally off-topic. Although it was a one-against-many situation, Chaehwa somehow looked like she was losing as she huffed and puffed. A young lady raised wrapped in sacks of gold and treasure, she was vulnerable when it came to arguments and fights.

“You were, you were laughing at my notes.”

“It was just funny… the squiggles.”

“And you didn’t take the pen I gave you.”

“What does that have to do with me laughing?”

“Exactly! Why do you hate me? I’m being so nice to you. You laugh at my notes, and you refuse my pen.”

Hit by the sunlight coming through the window beyond the chalkboard, the top of Chaehwa’s pen glinted white. As the conversation lost its direction, the expressions of the haenangs who had been taking her side also became strange. Sensing the somber mood, Chaehwa suddenly turned around and gave a cold command.

“You all get out.”

As if a feast would appear even in their sleep at the young lady’s word, they all left the study hall without a peep. Yirok felt like he was facing a seven-year-old throwing a tantrum because things weren’t going her way. With the spectators gone, a false peace settled in the study hall. The two, who had been pushing and pulling with their gazes, now showed their true expressions. Yirok concluded that it was impossible for him to cater to the whims of a young lady who had lived her entire life as she pleased. That left only one option: to talk with Chaehwa in his own way.

“So what do you want me to do.”

Before Yirok’s cold words had even dried, Chaehwa pointed to her eyes with her index finger.

“Look at this. Your eyes have been like that since you first came. I was so excited when I heard you were coming that I couldn’t sleep. I waited so long. I stayed up all night with my nanny sorting through things to look at together…!”

“I get it, but I don’t want to know. ‘Feel the same way I do… or I’ll keep bothering you like this.’ Is that what you want to say?”

“When did I ever ask you to feel the same? I was just looking forward to it… I was just saying you’re too cold to me.”

“Then am I warm to other people?”

“No… Shinwoo told me you don’t even talk to him when you go to your room.”

“See, that’s just how I am. So… what exactly is it you want to say.”

Chaehwa, who had no talent for arguments, glanced toward the door as if looking for someone to help her. The passion from before was gone from her eyes as they met his. In the unique tone of a young lady who was nothing without her pride, Chaehwa muttered.

“Who asked you to treat me like a princess? Put your hand on your heart and think about it. Why are you so cold to someone you’ve just met? You’re doing it on purpose, aren’t you? Huh?”

Enduring sharp words and glares was something he was used to. He had intended to play along moderately, apologize if she wanted an apology, and even say a few kind words in front of an audience if that’s what she desired. But Chaehwa’s words, as she glared at him with a pouting face, were the complete opposite of what he expected.

“You’re doing this to get my attention, right? You don’t have to do that. I’m already interested enough in you, Yirok, so stop being so cold.”

“Hah….”

Faced with a self-love that surpassed even Sarira’s, Yirok let out a hollow laugh. It seemed the imagination of the young lady, born in a flower garden and walking a silk road, had hit a wall at that point. As Yirok remained silent for a long time, Chaehwa’s cheeks slowly turned beet red.

Even the neckline, wrapped in a neat collar, was turning a pale pink. Chaehwa, unpredictable as ever, suddenly threw her eraser lightly as if playing a game of dice. The round eraser rolled and rolled until it came to a stop in front of Yirok’s fingers.

“Hey.”

Yirok was just about to end the meaningless argument and prepare for the next class. Chaehwa’s eyes, now twice as wicked as before, grew sharp.

“See. You won’t even give back the eraser.”

Unable to distinguish between a joke and sincerity, Yirok flicked the round eraser with his fingernail. Chaehwa, who picked up the eraser that rolled back to her, grew more petulant with each passing minute. Crossing her arms firmly, she issued a declaration of war.

“I’m going to go greet your grandmother soon. And I’m not going to help you until you change your attitude.”

At such a truly spine-chilling threat, Yirok’s appetite was whetted in a different sense. He closed his book, which the shifted sunlight was drying out. His life was a blank page without threats, grudges, and curses. Even coming to a place adorned with flowers and silk, the river of his life ultimately flowed in one direction. Yirok finally emptied his emotions, like a fish that had returned to the sea.

“Ah, so I should remember the precious young lady’s affection as being worth one pen, some potatoes, and an egg? How… cheap, I suppose.”

Yirok’s characteristically slow and sharp words seemed to have pierced the flower-like young lady’s heart. He decided to leave Chaehwa, who was turning paler by the second, in the study hall. Yirok pushed back his chair to enjoy a proper break. He wanted to go outside for some fresh air and to ventilate the room. As he was crossing the classroom to leave, he heard Chaehwa’s disgruntled mutter.

“You, Yirok. You have no intention of getting close to me at all, do you.”

The doorknob of the study hall, which he grasped, was as cold as if it were coated in winter. Having no more energy to deal with her, Yirok pulled the doorknob. And at the same time, there were things that toppled over like dominoes with a loud crash.

“Ah!”

The barnacle-like figures who had been pressed against the door tripped over each other’s feet and fell. Too bothered to take in each and every one of them—the person scrambling to get up, the person hiding behind the door in embarrassment, the person staring out the window pretending not to have been eavesdropping—Yirok walked away, leaving the chaos behind.

He left the warm interior where a single shirt was enough and opened the large sliding door. The sky, where the white snow had stopped falling, was just clear and blue, as if it were mocking him.

Closing the door so that no one could follow, Yirok soothed his insides by breathing in the wind. Compared to the threats and curses he had heard so far, Chaehwa’s were ticklish. He admitted that. But what made them more cheap and heavy than Sarira’s threats was her sincerity.

I want to be friends, be kind to me—she was asking too much of the person who would stab her in the back.

The breath that spread into the winter sky was hazy like cigarette smoke. As his body and mind cooled in the cold wind, Yirok blinked his dry eyes.

“Put your hand on your heart and think about it. Why are you so cold to someone you’ve just met.”

It had been three days since they met, but he had heard about her for a long time. It was a far more prim, arrogant, and sweet greeting than he’d expected, so much so that he had to recalculate.

His dry gaze rested on the birds perched on a thin branch, preening each other’s feathers.

“Even the birds are being a pain in the ass here….”

For Yirok, for whom it was easier to hate than to love, this was a mission with a tremendous loss.

A warm breakfast, a kind roommate, and a naive young lady—they were all in on it together. He was sick of it.