The Snake, the Flower, and the Tiger - Chapter 76

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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76

Then a hand, cold and lifeless, cupped his cheek.
It held the warmth his own body had cradled the night before but never possessed. Where her skin touched his, heat bloomed like fire. In that instant, Kim Je-eon was seized by an emotion beyond his control, his features contorting. Then Hee-seo leaned close and whispered, barely audible.
“Tell me what you want.”
The woman held in the fading sunlight was beautiful, and her words were law.
In the end, he crumbled helplessly before her.
“I want you.”
Kim Je-eon was powerless. His feelings for her had become a great weight, sinking him to the deepest point beneath the surface. And in that airless place, he did not dream of escape.
He curled his body inward and buried his face in her palm, finally exhaling the secret he had barely kept hidden all this time.
“I want to hold you, to consume you, to possess you entirely. I want your tears shed for me even as I wish for your happiness. I want your life, and I want you until the very moment you exhale your last breath…….”
A confession he could never make face to face. Yet once the dam broke, his heart spilled forth like a torrent.
“I want to be the flaw in your life. An imprint that cannot be erased no matter how hard you try. I want to be your scandal, your weakness……. What I desire is something so ugly.”
Kim Je-eon had never learned what love was. No one had taught him; he’d never had the chance to learn.
All he had taught himself was resignation—waiting for the moment his life would end. Because of that, he thought he should not covet Hee-seo.
“You were right. I waited for death. I didn’t want to live a life obtained by killing my mother. I thought that was my Atonement…….”
Her palm grew hot with moisture. Just as she had confessed her guilt, Kim Je-eon now confessed his Original Sin to her.
“It was because it was you. For the first time, I had something of my own, and I was happy to end my life by the hand of my own wife. That’s why I loved you.”
Everything Kim Je-eon had ever possessed was preparation for Je-seon. His name, his material wealth—even his body belonged to Je-seon, the true heir of GM Group.
But Hee-seo was different.
“Because you are my wife.”
Kim Je-eon still remembered Hee-seo’s brilliant first appearance.
The pure white Dress, the Veil that softly obscured her clear features, her piercing gaze that saw through him, and the faint fragrance she carried.
It was the most precious memory he would hold when death drew near.
“Because you’re someone I can never harm……someone strong.”
A woman who stood in direct opposition to him—resigned to what was given, waiting for death.
A woman who spoke of being unable to harm herself by any means.
How could he not desire someone like Hee-seo?
Tears streamed ceaselessly between Kim Je-eon’s closed eyelids.
Hee-seo gathered his tears and swallowed every emotion he poured out without discarding a single drop, chewing it thoroughly.
“I desire you. With an impure and tainted heart, I want you.”
Kim Je-eon steadied his breath, his lips trembling.
“So run from me…….”
Before I swallow you too.
Kim Je-eon swallowed the sorrow that rose in his throat and encircled her wrist with his hands. Both trembled violently, but that was all—he was a pitiful man incapable of leaving even a fingerprint.
Hee-seo whispered softly, her eyes closed, heat radiating from them.
“That’s love.”
“…….”
“To desire someone with an impure and tainted heart, to long for them, to wish to monopolize every moment. That’s love, Kim Je-eon.”
Though she had squeezed her eyes shut, her lashes grew wet. His sorrow seemed to have transferred to her, and her chest ached so deeply that speaking was difficult.
Hee-seo caressed his cheek gently with her damp fingers. With just the slightest pressure, Kim Je-eon lifted his head to meet her gaze.
His face, stained with tears, was still beautiful, yet she had learned through him that another’s pain could cut deeper than one’s own.
The life he had lived, the time he had endured—all of it seemed to pass directly to her.
“You love me.”
Hee-seo spoke in a strained voice, her face scrunched against the tears she fought to hold back.
Kim Je-eon loves her.
And Hee-seo loves him in return—an emotion no longer hidden behind falsehoods and pretense.
“So…….”
Hee-seo gazed into his eyes, which brimmed with sorrow ready to overflow.
Love grants no qualifications. She could not force him to continue a painful life simply because she loved him. But the same was true for him.
“I’m going to protect you. I’ll expose everything connected to Kim Jong-hyeop and my parents, and I’ll protect you. And if, even after time passes, it still seems like you should die…….”
Tears rolled slowly down his cheeks. She whispered against the lips drawing near to hers.
“I’ll do it for you. So live for now. ……Let’s go to the end together, Kim Je-eon.”
Kim Je-eon did not answer. From their joined lips came the taste of sorrow and anguish. His sadness was salty and tender.
In that instant, strong arms pulled her close. Then came a kiss so deep it stole her breath. Rough wind howled up from below the Cliff, but Kim Je-eon did not step back, holding Hee-seo to him.
He no longer hid his desire for her.

***

It was while Hee-seo had stepped away with the monks to arrange for their prayers.
Go Yeom sauntered over and came to stand beside Kim Je-eon, then leaned against his car at an angle and struck up a conversation. His manner was intimate, as though they were old friends.
“So, what’s your plan going forward?”
Rather than answer, Kim Je-eon turned to face Go Yeom. Now that he understood the nature of their relationship, courtesy demanded a certain restraint. He glanced in the direction Hee-seo had gone, then spoke in measured tones.
“I intend to help Hee-seo find her parents.”
“Yes, but how?”
Go Yeom pressed him, arms crossed like a fussy dormitory supervisor. Yet his appearance—shabby in a way that suggested a wanderer from some neighborhood—made him look less interrogator and more like an unemployed vagrant cadging cigarettes.
Kim Je-eon hesitated before responding. He knew Hee-seo called Go Yeom uncle, but he couldn’t quite gauge how much he ought to reveal.
Then Go Yeom, as though reading his thoughts, said something breathtakingly shameless.
“Look, until Hee-seo’s father comes back, think of me as—well, how do I put it—her prospective father-in-law, more or less.”
“…Father-in-law? Sir?”
Mere seconds after he’d resolved to treat this man with deference, Kim Je-eon found himself repeating the words back incredulously.
He’d heard they were roughly the same age, more or less—which meant the age gap between them couldn’t be more than fifteen years, if that. And yet this man spoke of being a father-in-law? Had he lost his mind? Kim Je-eon worked to keep his expression neutral.
But the more Go Yeom spoke, the harder it became to maintain that mask.
“Look, I find the whole father-in-law business a bit much myself, but we can’t exactly call each other brother and younger brother, can we? Going by appearances alone, the gap between us isn’t that wide, so if we don’t settle on proper terms, people are bound to get the wrong idea.”
Go Yeom was, admittedly, handsome enough. Yet his hair, grown long and shaggy, and his unkempt beard conjured the image of one of those naturalists one sees regularly on television.
Standing beside Kim Je-eon in such a state, they’d look like a young aristocrat next to a bandit.
Kim Je-eon’s eyes instinctively darted to his reflection in the car window. His obsessive fastidiousness—scrubbing himself in cold water before dawn—was the reason his spine now crawled at Go Yeom’s claim of similarity.
Fortunately, Kim Je-eon’s jawline remained clean-shaven and his hair was neatly groomed. Thanks to his habit of keeping spare clothes in the car, not a wrinkle marred his sleeves or trouser cuffs.
Kim Je-eon caught himself imagining what it would look like if he wore Go Yeom’s disheveled appearance, and promptly shut his eyes tight.
“If you find brother and younger brother uncomfortable, sir, surely you’d find father-in-law just as cumbersome. And I doubt Hee-seo would welcome it either. I’ll call you teacher instead.”
He hoped that day would never come, but it seemed unavoidable. He didn’t understand the logic of a man who rejected being called brother yet insisted on father-in-law, but rather than point out the contradiction, Kim Je-eon wisely invoked Hee-seo’s name instead.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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