If Silk Flowers Bloom by the Water’s Edge Chapter 94

Even though the night was deep, having nothing to do led her to observe the person beside her. The lover of ‘Park Hyun,’ who she thought would arrive in two days, had given no word for over three days. Could he have already met with a bad accident and died? In Chaehwa’s mind, Park Hyun’s lover was the crucial blind spot. Had the character she immersed into suffered a terrible fate in the mountains? Or was it Park Hyun’s deep sorrow that her lover had died from the start and could not come?

“Stop…”

However, her thought of looking for clues could not continue properly. The nineteen-year-old, whose body was aching with desire because he hadn’t become an adult yet, used sweet kisses as a substitute for firewood. Saying it was good for maintaining body temperature, Yirok kept bringing his lips to hers until he fell asleep. He was even more active than Chaehwa, who had provoked him unnecessarily with a kiss. Chaehwa, who barely managed to get her mercilessly sucked lips back, turned her head to the opposite side. It wasn’t because she hated Yirok. It was to block early on any situation where their eyes might meet and her lips would be stolen.

“Why.”

As if a new world had opened up through kissing, Yirok acted like a different person. He hadn’t changed completely as if the heavens and earth had overturned from his usual indifferent attitude, but he leaned his head against her shoulder to beg for a kiss. When he called her with lips as red as if they had been painted with something, there was no way she could resist. Chaehwa pulled her blanket tight, shrinking her neck like a turtle. Fortunately, there was a good excuse to avoid the kiss.

“I’m… hungry.”

Though Yirok treated her lips harshly, he restrained himself at the mention of being hungry. In fact, provisions were extremely scarce, so Chaehwa also knew that Yirok’s nerves were on edge. He was a man who could hold out on just a single slice of bread, but Chaehwa couldn’t, after all. He was treating her like some plump, fat pig.

“Eat this, at least.”

“No. That’s emergency food. Anyway, this isn’t reality, so it’s not like that…”

It was just something she said because the words to tell him to stop kissing wouldn’t come out of her mouth. Yirok, whose ultimate goal had become survival, had left some beef jerky just in case. She snatched his arm as he was about to produce the beef jerky hidden at his waist.

“I can just drink water, just water. Save it. Okay?”

“Saying you won’t even kiss because you’re hungry is a lie, right?”

While bickering over the bundle containing the beef jerky, Yirok asked a sharp question. There was no way Yirok would miss Chaehwa’s face instantly burning red.

“You don’t want to kiss me?”

“Ah…”

“If you don’t want to, you don’t have to. I’m not forcing you.”

“…….”

“Do you really hate it? Should I stop?”

With their faces so close that they could hear each other’s breathing, it was hard to say she hated it. Moreover, she didn’t hate it. She just wanted to say that the frequency was excessive. Chaehwa gently bit her distressed lips and cast her eyes down.

“You do it… too much. Like… you try to do it whenever our eyes meet.”

She tried to shake off her embarrassment by curling the tops of her feet, which she had been holding toward the campfire. Would he get furious and say they should never do it again? Having heard her grumbling, Yirok silently added firewood to the flames where sparks were scattering. His stubbornly closed lips were scary.

“I didn’t mean we shouldn’t do it at all…”

“It’s been a while since something felt so good, that’s why.”

Yirok silenced Chaehwa by handing her the roasted beef jerky. His eyes showed that the moment she refused to eat, he wouldn’t let her sleep. Sadly, the beef jerky obtained through a lie tasted good. The sound of tearing the tough jerky with her front teeth felt exceptionally embarrassing.

“It’s not like I hated it either, you know?”

“Then can I keep doing it?”

Snatching the opportunity, Yirok smirked and grinned. Chaehwa’s eyes, while she was munching on the jerky, grew as wide as lanterns.

“What? Yirok, why are you being so… sly like a snake? You really are Yirok, right?”

Even the roar of the blizzard shaking the door could not match the thumping of Chaehwa’s heart. Yirok, who fed another piece of wood to sustain the flame, said,

“It’s because I’ve lived with nothing. No days of laughing, no delicious snacks… nothing good. But kissing makes me feel good. It’s been so long since that happened, so I want to do it whenever I see you.”

“…What is that supposed to mean.”

“I used you. Kim Chaehwa.”

Yirok, who spoke like the worst man in the world, wiped away his smile the moment their eyes met.

“Since I’ve learned a way to quickly feel good, things will get hard for you from now on. If you think you really can’t handle it, run away. What am I to the young lady anyway. If we don’t see each other, that’s that…”

“How can I manage without seeing you. Wherever I go in Nanjubeol, you are there.”

“Do I roam around that much? Isn’t it… that you’re following me around?”

There were times when she got the illusion that Yirok didn’t speak slowly, but rather dragged out his words because he wanted to be sarcastic to the other person. Chaehwa crossed her arms and was about to turn away in a huff, but she ended up thinking of the wounds hidden beneath his clothes. She just had to think of them at a time like this. Even though she disliked his words about being obsessed with kissing just because he wanted to feel good, could she like them at the same time?

“Yirok, do you get hurt often? And have no happy events?”

She had phrased it subtly, wondering if just asking would be hurtful. Taking his hands off the firewood, Yirok was dignified, unlike Chaehwa whose eyes were rolling around. When spring passed and summer came, he would have to wear short sleeves, after all. She had never imagined a case of being struck with a whip on the arms, shoulders, and back, instead of the calves. The silence created by his lips, which rarely opened, was as heavy as a lump of lead.

“Kim Chaehwa.”

“Yeah?”

“Why do you want to go outside of Nanjubeol?”

She received an unexpected question in return, as if he wanted to make her forget the question about his wounds. When Chaehwa couldn’t answer because it was so sudden, Yirok kindly met her eyes.

“Hmm?”

Unable to resist that gentle attitude, Chaehwa ended up baring her heart.

“I… because I’ve seen and heard so many things. I want to know if they’re real. What it really feels like to fly in the sky, whether there really are countries that use different languages from me, whether there really are such tall and beautiful castles… I want to see them all.”

“Why bother? You have no reason to starve, no reason to be sick… no reason to get hurt. You can just live comfortably in Nanjubeol.”

“You think I’m immature too, right? Since I’m the successor and all. You probably think it would be good if I led the Ministry of Political Affairs and did all that, right?”

Her grandmother had only clicked her tongue, saying she took after her free-spirited mother, and failed to understand her young granddaughter’s ambition. She had said not to even dream of airplanes until dirt entered her eyes. It felt like she knew why there were so many people addicted to the atoll. If it really wouldn’t work out, they could at least achieve it in a dream.

“No, live just the way you want, freely, like that.”

“Huh?”

“You live like that. Kim Chaehwa.”

Yirok’s hand, entangled with hesitation about whether to do it or not, slowly touched Chaehwa’s face. Wasn’t he a man who was overflowing with confidence when it came to kissing? The most he did was tuck her hair behind her ear. To think that tucking hair was harder than kissing. Yirok was truly a difficult man to understand.

“It will be hard because grandmother opposes it. Everyone tells me to just live the way I’ve been living…”

“So. Are you going to live like that?”

“…No.”

“Living the way she wants suits Kim Chaehwa. You live like that.”

“What about Yirok?”

From the day she was born, hers was a life where she only needed to dance upon the flower path her grandmother had paved. However, pointing fingers of criticism were bound to come toward Chaehwa, who said she disliked a pretty dance and disliked an easy flower path.

“I’ll live like this.”

Because she didn’t hate Yirok, who was abruptly sweet and abruptly playful with his words, Chaehwa smiled brightly. Yirok said it was fine. Her heart welled up as if she had gained a massive army. The cabin, which looked ready to collapse in the blizzard, felt like a palace.

“If you want to live feeling good… we have to kiss.”

“I thought you said you didn’t want to?”

“I, well, didn’t say I didn’t want to.”

“You said it was excessive.”

Though there was nothing particularly funny, the two of them held smiles like children. It was at the very moment when their hands were about to touch while exchanging meaningful glances.

Thud, thud, thud. It was the sound of something heavy kicking the door. Yirok, whose expression vanished, stood up while covering Chaehwa with the blanket. Pressing down on Chaehwa’s head as she flapped about like she was caught in a net, he said quietly,

“I’ll check it out. You sit over there covered with the blanket.”

“Don’t move alone. Who knows what’s coming…”

“You’re the one on the run. You know that?”

“I know. But the person coming here must be related to me. Yirok, you are even…”

The words of Chaehwa, who barely managed to make Yirok sit back down by grabbing his arm as he tried to go alone, were cut off. With a roaring sound that seemed to explode, the blizzard rushed in. The person who had kicked the door open with his foot like a thug in the dead of night was buried in white snow. As if thrilled to have come into a warm interior, he let out a ‘haha’ laugh.

“It’s really warm here.”

Yirok hid Chaehwa, who was more important than anything, behind his back. Yirok quickly drew a military knife from behind his thigh, but he could not move any further. The person who revealed his face while taking off his snowman-like hat was someone he knew. Seeing the uninvited guest’s face, Chaehwa patted Yirok’s back with her palm as if her tension had eased.

“What, you really startled me.”

Anyway, the person expected to come to the cabin was one of Yeonrye, Jangsi, and Shinwoo, who had been scattered like seeds in the atoll world. The person closing the door while taking off his fur coat was Shinwoo. The three who had fallen into the trap of the atoll had managed to gather together with difficulty.

Relieved, Chaehwa quickly tried to pull away the blanket to bring it to Shinwoo. However, Yirok pulling her wrist and Shinwoo drawing his gun happened at the exact same time.

“Hello, Hyun.”