Flower Fiancé Chapter 69

Covering Ji Yeonwoo’s mouth, he spoke as if threatening him. Ji Yeonwoo’s eyes shook violently upon hearing the voice.

‘This voice, don’t tell me…!’

From the moment he recognized who it was, his body grew increasingly stiff and his breathing became ragged. His mind went blank white. It wasn’t that he couldn’t scream because his mouth was covered—something had lodged itself in his throat, and no sound would come out. Through the fingers covering his mouth, his quickened breath escaped pitifully due to the terror that had reached its limit.

Without caring, the man approached, still covering Ji Yeonwoo’s mouth. As Ji Yeonwoo flinched and stepped backward matching his steps, the door closed behind the man who had fully entered the house.

— Click, beep.

Upon hearing the door lock, the man stared straight into Ji Yeonwoo’s eyes and removed the hand that had been covering his mouth. Watching Ji Yeonwoo’s gasping breath tremble, the man nonchalantly twisted up the corner of his lips.

“It’s been a while, Yeonwoo.”

He pushed back the black hood hat he had been wearing deeply. Under the bright sensor light of the entrance, he revealed himself, a black baseball cap pulled low.

“Why on earth…”

Ji Yeonwoo looked at him as if he couldn’t understand and squeezed his voice out to speak.

“I told you. If you didn’t want to see my face, you should have answered your phone.”

Lee Hyunjoon, whom he had lived forgetting for a while while staying within Choi Moohyuk’s fence, had appeared before Ji Yeonwoo again.

Lee Hyunjoon pushed Ji Yeonwoo against the wall of the entrance and stood facing him at a distance where barely a single fist could pass back and forth. As they stood facing each other like that, still, the entrance sensor light turned off, and complete darkness settled around them.

The gaze looking down from above was palpable even in the darkness. Looking straight into his eyes, Ji Yeonwoo slowly regained his reason. When Lee Hyunjoon had first called, he had been flustered and unable to say anything, but now there wasn’t the slightest reason for that. Lee Hyunjoon was someone who no longer had anything to do with him, and there was also no reason to cry and grovel in front of such a person.

Showing tears or fear here would only serve to fuel his sadistic impulses. Just as Lee Hyunjoon had been in the past.

After staring for a long while, Lee Hyunjoon turned his gaze into the house. Taking advantage of his momentary distraction, Ji Yeonwoo carefully took his phone out of his pocket.

“Ha, Yeonwoo.”

But Lee Hyunjoon, having noticed the movement, snatched the phone he had been hiding behind his back and threw it away. The phone, sent flying feebly, fell somewhere in the living room with a dull thud.

“What are you doing. I said let’s talk face to face—is that so awful?”

When even that threadbare hope vanished, his vision went dizzy.

“What were you planning to do, taking out your phone. Report me to the police or something?”

“Isn’t that obvious? Right now you’re inside someone else’s house without permission. You know that?”

“Given how long we spent with our bodies pressed against each other, is merely that much time apart enough to make me a stranger?”

“What’s wrong with your head in the meantime? Showing up in front of me and shamelessly…”

The pent-up resentment burst out all at once. He had thought that he might run into him at least once in his life. But he had never once imagined a rude encounter of this sort.

He was sick and tired of it. His chest felt tightly clogged, as if he had escaped it all only to come full circle like a hamster on a wheel.

“Talk? What would I have to say to you, sunbae.”

“Ji Yeonwoo.”

“Leave. Because I don’t want to see your face either.”

“…Leave, you say?”

When Ji Yeonwoo spoke in a resolute tone, Lee Hyunjoon let out an empty breath and turned his gaze to the air.

“Yeah. This is my house. If the homeowner tells you to leave three times and you keep holding your ground, that’s clearly trespassing. So I said leave, right now.”

Turning his head back, Lee Hyunjoon stared intently at Ji Yeonwoo.

“Are you not hearing me?”

Lee Hyunjoon didn’t budge an inch. The moment he met his staring eyes, old memories surfaced. As those thoughts he had desperately tried to forget passed by one by one like film, terror-stricken, his body trembled and shook regardless of his will.

Scanning over Ji Yeonwoo like that, Lee Hyunjoon let out a deflating sound and laughed.

“Why… are you laughing? Is this funny to you right now?”

Dumbfounded and horrified, Ji Yeonwoo furrowed his brow. He couldn’t understand his actions at all.

“Even after I acted like such a bastard, you still call me sunbae.”

Muttering as if to himself, Lee Hyunjoon came a little closer. Sensing his movement, Ji Yeonwoo flinched and pressed even closer against the wall. Reflected by the light that had triggered the sensor, the area under Lee Hyunjoon’s eyes was shadowed darkly.

“Actually, I thought the moment you saw my face, you’d slap me first and we’d start from there. But seeing that we’re having a proper conversation, I’m a bit relieved.”

“…What?”

“See. You haven’t changed one bit. Right down to that useless excess of affection.”

He was, rather, becoming calmer as time passed. At that voice of his, Ji Yeonwoo’s heart, on the contrary, began to pound furiously.

“Why did I come? Obviously, I came to see you. I got to thinking, and it turns out there’s never been anyone in my life I liked as much as you.”

A fear so intense he wanted to flee this house right then crept over him. Only then did he feel he understood, if only a little, what it was that Lee Hyunjoon wanted. The thought flashed through his mind that if he stayed facing him like this, he might suffer something terrible.

“Don’t talk nonsense. You’d better leave now. My lover will be here soon.”

Putting on the most nonchalant expression he could, he glanced at the clock hanging on the wall. It was only just now approaching 8 o’clock. There were still at least a full two hours until Choi Moohyuk would come, but he deliberately managed his expression and spoke as if he might arrive any moment. He thought that if Lee Hyunjoon knew someone was coming, he wouldn’t dare any reckless behavior at the very least.

But upon hearing those words, Lee Hyunjoon, on the contrary, made an amused expression. It was almost as if it were a sneer of someone who already knew everything.

“You’re one to talk—you do know what Choi Moohyuk is doing right now, right?”

“…What?”

“You know as well as I do that Choi Moohyuk can’t come.”

“…!”

Ji Yeonwoo’s eyes sharply twisted. His startled heart wouldn’t easily calm down. From the name that had never been told to him flowing from Lee Hyunjoon’s lips, to the way he spoke as if he knew everything. He was only confused about what on earth was going on right now.

“He probably didn’t tell you, right? What kind of schedule he has today.”

“…How do you know Mr. Moohyuk?”

“Is it important that I know Choi Moohyuk? Isn’t what that bastard is doing, that fact, what’s important?”

His manner of speaking was irritating, but he couldn’t say anything. Lee Hyunjoon was right. Choi Moohyuk had said he had an important appointment today. He had said that if he didn’t show up, someone important could get hurt, and Ji Yeonwoo hadn’t specifically asked what that was.

“Choi Moohyuk, right now he’s at 00 Hotel.”

The moment he heard those words, his heart dropped with a thud. Even though he had prepared himself not to be shaken no matter what was said, the moment he heard the word ‘hotel,’ his mind emptied like a blank canvas.

‘He went to a hotel? Why there…’

“If you think it’s a lie, ask him right now. Whether what I’m saying is a lie.”

“Th-there’s no way…”

“Why do you think that bastard went to a hotel? Aren’t you curious?”

“…I don’t want to hear it from your mouth.”

Lee Hyunjoon twisted up the end of his mean lips and deliberately continued speaking.

“Choi Moohyuk is probably at that hotel right now with Assemblyman Park’s eldest daughter.”

But hearing Lee Hyunjoon’s following words, even the thoughts he had been trying so hard to deny were utterly blown away.

“You don’t know what that means? He’s meeting a marriage prospect right now, leaving you behind.”

“…A marriage prospect?”

“Yeah. Ah, you must know the reason they meet at a hotel, right?”

Ji Yeonwoo’s eyes flinched and wavered.

“They pick a hotel so that if they hit it off during the meeting, they can go up to a room. He’s probably got a suite booked too, don’t you think?”

The human heart was truly fickle. Even though he knew Choi Moohyuk wasn’t such a shallow person, he even felt disgust at himself for being shaken by Lee Hyunjoon’s plausible words.

“That’s what dating is like for trait-bearers. It means a dominant alpha like Choi Moohyuk is too much for a naive kid like you who doesn’t even emit pheromones to handle.”

“Don’t spew nonsense. Managing Director, Mr. Moohyuk is…”