BFRS 9

“Which one?”

“Killing someone, and… dismembering a dead person like that. What on earth is the difference?”

“They’re different.”

What? The man’s eyes truly looked like he didn’t know the difference.

“Killing a living person is a scary thing.”

The man’s expression showed he didn’t understand until the very end. Well, it’s possible if you don’t know much. It wasn’t like I said it expecting him to understand.

Mr. Seonggoo sat there blankly for a long while, then stood up when he saw me yawn.

“Sleep well.”

The man looked as if he hadn’t heard me. Well, it can happen when you’re tired. His face was paler than usual as it was. Since he was startled, he would probably need some time to calm down. I was also quite tired. I had pushed myself late into the night to finish the work I hadn’t completed, and I was overcome with sleepiness.

After confirming that Mr. Seonggoo had gone into his room, I washed up and lay down on my bed. Now I finally feel like I can live. To be honest, I had desperately wanted to lie down while carrying the man here earlier, but I couldn’t because I had brought him to my bed of all places.

Still, now that Mr. Seonggoo knows about my work, I probably don’t have to do it in secret anymore, right? Thinking that, I felt a sense of relief. I can just finish the rest after I wake up, without having to worry about him. I closed my eyes with a much lighter heart. I felt at ease, thinking that things would work out well.

The next day, I ended up oversleeping. I scratched the back of my head and got up, seeing the sun high in the sky. I had been oversleeping more frequently lately.

Today, I slept quite soundly for the first time in a while. Recently, I had been losing sleep, worrying about the unfinished work or stressed about the sleep paralysis, but not today. I had at least started the work, and I wasn’t paralyzed in my sleep either. Perhaps because I had worked late into the night, I was tired and slept well.

It seemed Mr. Seonggoo was still sleeping. He would usually come out of his room and greet me by the time I woke up, washed, and came out, but his door was still closed.

In that case, I should prepare breakfast. It had only been a few days, but preparing meals together had become an established rule.

I scooped rice and put it on the dinner table, and as I was taking out the side dishes, I saw the beef. Chairman Jang must have bought so much of it that even with Mr. Seonggoo eating so much at every meal, there was still a lot left. I remembered the man fainting last night.

He seems tired, so wouldn’t it be good for him to have some meat? Thinking of the man, I picked up a pack of meat.

“Ah, good morning.”

I was grilling the meat, recalling the amount he used to eat, and carrying it to the dinner table when I ran into the man coming out of the bathroom. The man, who was drying his face with a towel, paused for a moment when he saw me. Even after a night’s sleep, the man’s face was still pale.

“Please, eat.”

He seemed to hesitate for a moment at my words, but then the man sat down across from me.

“I grilled it for you today.”

“…Thank you.”

The first thing the man picked up with his chopsticks was the braised soybeans. I thought he usually didn’t eat that much of it, but not today. The pace at which he ate was also different from usual. He picked up the rice with his chopsticks as if counting the grains and chewed and swallowed slowly. The man, who had been staring at the dinner table the whole time, glanced at the meat I had grilled, then squeezed his eyes shut and covered his mouth.

“You’re not eating?”

“My stomach doesn’t feel very good.”

The man answered when I, unable to hold back, asked. What a shame. If I had known beforehand, I wouldn’t have grilled it. It was a problem if he wasn’t feeling well. I considered taking him to the oriental medicine clinic in town, but the man didn’t say anything else until he finished his meal, so I felt awkward asking.

Nothing much changed even after Mr. Seonggoo found out about my work. I ate my meal and went straight out to the greenhouses to tend to the flowers. They were coming to pick up the peonies soon, so I had to get them ready in advance. The peonies, with their light pink hue, were very pretty. Looking at the layers upon layers of petals gave me a strange sense of comfort.

“They’re beautiful.”

Looking at the well-grown peonies made me feel good. It was hard work raising them, but seeing the flower buds form so beautifully filled me with a sense of pride. They seemed to be the best-grown ones I had ever raised. I could have sent the bulbs last year, but the client didn’t seem interested in growing plants, so I deliberately said I would send them a year later, which I thought was a good choice.

I gently pulled out the root part, carefully packaged the lower part with the soil, and came back up. All the while, Mr. Seonggoo sat on the wooden porch and watched me work. He wouldn’t be able to see me well when I was inside the greenhouse, but he always stuck to that spot. Perhaps because he wasn’t feeling well, he didn’t even go for a walk today.

I placed the peony on the wooden porch, brought an empty flowerpot from the warehouse, filled it with soil, and planted the peony.

“Here you go.”

Mr. Seonggoo stared blankly at the pot of peonies I held out. He seemed unsure why I was giving it to him.

“They say people take a lot of flowers when visiting the sick. You said you were feeling unwell.”

“…Thank you.”

It was my own little gift for the sick man. I had never visited someone who was sick, but Chairman Jang would sometimes order flowers for hospital visits. It was through him that I learned that white chrysanthemums were used for both funerals and hospital visits. This wasn’t a chrysanthemum, but a peony was also pretty to look at, so it wouldn’t be bad, right?

The man didn’t take his eyes off the peony. He seemed a little confused. He would occasionally look at me, but that was all.

Contrary to my expectation that he would recover quickly, the man was sick for quite a long time. He barely went out for walks and sat on the wooden porch watching me work. Perhaps because I had gotten used to his gaze, the back of my head no longer prickled.

I would often bring flowers to the man who still hadn’t fully recovered. One day it was a peony, another day a rose, and another day a sunflower.

“I’ll give you the morning glories later.”

The man, who was lightly tapping the fully bloomed sunflower, looked at me.

“Morning glories need a little more time to bloom.”

The morning glories still needed a bit more time to bloom, so I was keeping an eye on them. I found a small, unused vase in the warehouse, filled it with water, and held it out to him. I mean the real warehouse, not the workshop where I do my work. The man took the vase from me and put the sunflower in it. The stem was too long, so I trimmed it a bit, and it looked nice.

“Why do you keep giving them to me.”

He asked with a face that truly couldn’t understand.

“Because you said you were sick.”

It wasn’t like I had any medicine at home, and this was the only thing I could really do for him. Still, doesn’t it help a little when someone shows they care?

“If you don’t like it, I won’t give you any more.”

Mr. Seonggoo’s room must be filled with the flowers I gave him. The first peony I gave him should be starting to wilt by now, but the man still hadn’t thrown it away. As a man who couldn’t take good care of flowers, I thought he might feel that they were a nuisance. Mr. Seonggoo thought for a moment at my words, then opened his mouth.

“That’s not it.”

I felt a little relieved.

I continued to work as usual, leaving the sick Mr. Seonggoo behind. If he was in unbearable pain, I would have to take him into town, but it didn’t seem to be the case. So, I just had to wait for him to get better.

Still, it was nice that I could come and go from the warehouse freely since he had found out about my job. I would wake up in the morning to tend to the flowers, and then during the hottest part of the day, I would go into the warehouse to continue the dismantling work.

“I’ll just be in the warehouse for a bit.”

Mr. Seonggoo, who always sat on the wooden porch watching me work, didn’t follow me into the warehouse. Every time I announced my destination, Mr. Seonggoo would make a peculiar expression.

In the meantime, I had disposed of all the bodies Chairman Jang had entrusted to me. I put the small, dismembered chunks into the incinerator and burned them, and they turned into white powder. I scraped up all that powder and set it aside. I had to apply fertilizer soon, so I was planning to sprinkle it around then.

One day, as I was heading down to the greenhouses, Mr. Seonggoo asked me.

“Can I go with you?”

To the greenhouses?

“I can work perfectly fine by myself.”

“I want to go and watch you work, Mr. Kim Mooyoung.”

Is he very interested in flower cultivation? If so, it was fine.

These days, I didn’t have much reason to go inside the greenhouses. I had to check on the newly planted chrysanthemums, so I checked on them from time to time, but most of the work was done outside the greenhouses. Lately, I had been trimming the harvested peonies. Tidying up the messy leaves, bundling them into bunches of a few stalks, and then putting those into buckets again to move them to the flower-only refrigerator was my work these days. Even that was almost finished.

“Here you go.”

I held out a hat to the man. It was a design with a wide brim in the front and a long cloth covering the sides and back of the hat, coming down to the shoulders. Mr. Seonggoo’s expression soured again.

“I won’t be wearing this.”

“If you don’t, your skin will get all burnt and sting.”

“Still, this is a bit much.”

“You could get a burn if you’re not careful. Look here.”

At the word “burn,” Mr. Seonggoo reluctantly took the hat, but still hesitated. After a long while, he placed the hat carelessly on his head. Unlike the village chief, when he wore the hat, it looked passable.

My father wasn’t the type to care about his appearance, but he always made sure to wear a hat and arm protectors. One day, I saw a part of my father’s nape, which he had forgotten to cover, burnt as black as if it had been painted, and ever since then, I too have always worn a hat when I go out.

“It looks good on you.”

“That’s a relief.”

To be honest, it didn’t look that good, but I gave him a special compliment for his sake. Mr. Seonggoo’s lips curved up into a bright smile at my words. That was a relief.

On one side of the greenhouse, there was a plastic chair. I had brought it there to sit and rest while I worked. I had gone to town on market day, saw a pile of chairs, and bought one.

Mr. Seonggoo sat in that spot and watched me work.

“You should sit down and do it.”

“It takes too long if I sit down.”

I could do it, but it wouldn’t be fast. The dealer was scheduled to come and pick up the flowers soon, so I had to finish organizing them quickly by tomorrow. The work was just simple labor. In fact, most of the work I did was like that. I would pile up the peonies with their unnecessary twigs and leaves removed on one side, then transfer them to buckets, and when I had several such buckets, I would load them onto a cart and move them to the refrigerator.

“Ah, thank you.”

Mr. Seonggoo, having figured out the work process, moved the buckets for me a few times. Thanks to him, I didn’t have to move around multiple times and could just focus on trimming the flowers, which was nice.

“Here you go.”

I picked one of the well-trimmed flowers and gave it to Mr. Seonggoo.

“I’m all better now, so you don’t have to give me any more.”

“It’s a thank you for helping me.”

“…Thank you.”

The man, who had initially declined my words, accepted the flower. Come to think of it, this was the first time I had seen Mr. Seonggoo holding a flower. I had always just given them to him in a pot or a vase.

“It suits you. The flower.”

This expression was a bit strange, but Mr. Seonggoo holding the flower was quite a sight to behold. Even the peony’s bud was on the flamboyant side, but the sight of him holding the flower wasn’t awkward. The man made a peculiar expression at my words, then chuckled softly.

“That’s the first time I’ve ever heard that.”

“Do you remember if you’ve heard it before?”

“…No.”

Does he remember something? I asked back with a sense of anticipation, but the man shook his head. Mr. Seonggoo seemed to think for a moment, then tilted the flower toward me.

“In my opinion, it suits you better than me, Mr. Mooyoung.”

He held the flower up next to my face and smiled slyly. That was the second time I had seen him smile already. The dimple that formed deeply near his right cheekbone was peculiar. Without realizing it, I reached out my hand and poked that spot, and he widened his eyes and leaned his body back.

“Ah, I’m sorry. It was just fascinating.”