Hambaek Flower Restaurant - Chapter 12
“That’s right! I came to my hometown after a long time and showed her around my house!”
“Showed around the house….”
The eyes of the villagers softened somewhat.
Someone asked with a suddenly polite attitude.
“You didn’t come to kick out Tae Rin, did you?”
No way. I was going to beg her to live here for the rest of her life.
“No,”
Choi Yoon answered firmly.
The villagers’ faces brightened.
However, one person still looked dubious. Ji Chun Bae, who had come to fix the forklift last night with black wings drooping behind his back, asked accusingly.
“Then why did you come?”
“As you know, I’m the ambassador for the census survey. I felt responsible when I heard rumors of protest, so I came to check the situation.”
For a moment, the air froze chillingly.
Though not unexpected, Choi Yoon felt slightly tense. He added politely.
“I couldn’t find any related articles, so I had no choice but to visit in person.”
The villagers looked utterly bewildered.
Some faces even showed signs of displeasure.
Ji Chun Bae muttered.
“You expect us to believe that? After supporting every yokai suppression policy all this time, now you say you feel responsible?”
Following this, everyone started chiming in.
“Did you come to interfere? To spy?”
“This isn’t a place for you to be. Is the hometown house thing just an excuse? It’s strange that you suddenly came after never visiting before.”
“Are you planning to secretly film and maliciously edit to post on SNS? That precious SNS of yours where you constantly trample on yokai.”
Choi Yoon tried to explain.
“It’s true that my image has become fixed due to me taking the lead on various policies for a long time. But I absolutely don’t want the census survey to lead to discriminatory policies…”
However, no one was willing to listen.
“Shut up!”
“Don’t make excuses!”
“Think we’ll fall for that handsome face? You don’t know what a yokai’s life is like! You’re just a silver spoon human who grew up pampered in Haeu!”
“I lost my job because of the policy you promoted!”
“Get out of our Tae Rin’s restaurant right now!”
“Yeah! Go to those no-monster zone restaurants you keep recommending! This is a no-Choi Yoon zone!”
“Get out! Get out!”
“Choi Yoon! Wake up!”
“We oppose the census survey!”
There was no need to go all the way to Jangcheon County Office.
This was the protest.
Just then, a cranky old man’s voice flew from behind the villagers.
“What’s going on? Why is everyone standing around instead of going inside?”
The people’s faces instantly lit up.
“Village chief!”
“The village chief is here!”
The people parted neatly to both sides.
An old man strode briskly through the gap.
It was the village chief I had met last night.
As soon as his eyes met Choi Yoon’s, the village chief opened his mouth cheerfully.
“Ah, that young man from yesterday…”
The village chief trailed off, his eyes widening as he muttered.
“Choi Yoon?”
Choi Yoon reflexively tried to take a step back, but regained his balance and stood firm.
“You, you, last night… I thought I’d seen you somewhere before!”
I should have shown my face and revealed my identity from the start. It was too late to regret now.
“Yes, that’s right.”
In that moment, the village chief’s face contorted terribly.
Choi Yoon instinctively confirmed that he had no pickaxe or broom, just empty hands.
He immediately backed away. The village chief’s dry fist grazed his chin.
Kim Tae Rin hurriedly pulled the village chief back and hugged him from behind as he lunged at Choi Yoon.
“Village chief! You can’t just hit people like that!”
“After eating his own father, what more does he want, crawling in here!”
“What do you mean eating? Don’t say such things!”
“If you had any conscience, you shouldn’t have come here! What face do you have to walk in here on your own two feet!”
“Village chief, please stop! He can come if he wants. It’s his hometown after all.”
“What hometown, that damned…!”
The village chief spat on the ground. He shouted at the top of his lungs.
“How many died because of him!”
Choi Yoon did not avoid the village chief’s bloodshot eyes.
Though he didn’t remember that wrinkled face, he must have been one of the survivors of the village.
One of the few survivors.
Kim Tae Rin forcibly sat the village chief down in a chair and strode over.
“Choi Yoon, come here for a moment.”
A pretty hand reached out and firmly grasped Choi Yoon’s hand.
Moist, cold and soft.
His mind went blank. A chill ran down his spine.
It wasn’t his first time holding someone’s hand. He had skillfully done even more in front of cameras.
Yet his heart kept beating unfamiliarly.
After that, everything was a blur. In an instant, he was led by the hand through the restaurant door and out to the yard.
At the edge of the yard, Kim Tae Rin let go of his hand. She stood with her back to Choi Yoon as if protecting him, and gestured for the villagers to go inside.
“Unless you want to ask the celebrity for an autograph, everyone go inside.”
The villagers obediently filed into the restaurant like a flock of sheep, and the door slammed shut.
Soon, people were packed tightly against every window. With wide eyes, they jostled each other, busy gawking at this side.
Kim Tae Rin clicked her tongue. As she was about to say something to the neighbors, Choi Yoon spoke first.
“I guess it was my selfishness. The very idea of going together with the people here.”
“I suppose so. It seems unrealistic to go together. They’re not prepared at all mentally.”
Then Kim Tae Rin added.
“You don’t seem to be either.”
“Me?”
“You look like you’re about to faint.”
“I’m just, a little surprised.”
Choi Yoon pretended to be nonchalant as he touched the back of his neck, then flinched. Kim Tae Rin’s moisture still remained coolly on his fingertips.
“I guess it’s rare to see yokai gathered like this, loudly asserting themselves in big cities. I heard they don’t even act with yokai actors.”
He couldn’t answer.
He was confused. Was his flushed body due to his breathing tightening at the sight of yokai, or because of senses heightened sensitively from just a brief touch?
Kim Tae Rin rubbed the ground with the toe of her sneaker, then looked up.
“Let’s be clear. Is it true? That you came feeling a moral responsibility. Not because you dislike the protest?”
“It’s not.”
After quietly steadying her breath, Kim Tae Rin spoke as if she had made up her mind.
“Then wait down below. Come with me. I’ll just pack up the villagers’ lunchboxes and come down too.”
“May I come again?”
Choi Yoon asked abruptly without realizing and tensed slightly.
Kim Tae Rin furrowed her brow.
“Pardon?”
“Can I come here again?”
“This is a restaurant and we don’t turn away customers. But the villagers won’t like it.”
Then Kim Tae Rin added.
“It’s not your fault though.”
It’s not your fault.
It was a phrase he heard countless times outside of Soseul-ri.
When his past became a hot topic as he debuted in the entertainment industry, many people grasped young Choi Yoon’s hands and repeated it.
‘It’s not your fault.’
He could have let it slide like back then. He could have taken it as mere courtesy, nodded politely and said see you later before leaving.
But strangely, Choi Yoon felt the urge to refute.
“I was the cause. I guided the gumiho to the village.”
Kim Tae Rin calmly nodded.
“I know the details of the incident too. It was all over the news for a while, and I heard a lot from the villagers. Though everyone’s words were different, they all said it was because of you in the end. I think differently. It’s not your fault.”
“My mistake was the cause. Are you playing word games?”
He blurted out sharply without realizing.
In contrast, Kim Tae Rin was not shaken at all.
“If we trace back the causes, there’s no end.”
She continued slowly.
“If you hadn’t let the gumiho into the village. If the gumiho hadn’t escaped before that. If it hadn’t been caught. If it hadn’t committed the act that led to its capture. If a gumiho had never been born in the first place. If we keep going back like that, nothing remains in the end. I don’t see the point in singling out and condemning your mistake in this situation.”
“It happened because of me.”
“It’s not your fault. At least this.”
Choi Yoon rubbed his cheek as if wiping away tears that hadn’t fallen. Then he said as if spitting it out.
“How can you be so sure? When you weren’t even there.”
The conversation flowed opposite to the pattern Choi Yoon had experienced so far.
Unlike always reflexively defending that it wasn’t his fault, Choi Yoon was startled to realize he was trying to thoroughly convince Kim Tae Rin why it was his sin.
Kim Tae Rin gazed at Choi Yoon steadily, as if caressing him with her eyes. She said.
“How should I explain this? It’s not your fault because it’s not your fault.”
The wind blew, gently scattering the May air pooled between them.
The clouds moved.
Light fell on Kim Tae Rin’s clean, expressionless face like a child’s palm, then faded into shadow, then appeared again as a faint light shadow.
Like a god.
Choi Yoon thought that the way the sun rippled over her coldly exquisite features didn’t seem human.
His heart began to beat fiercely. Newly, as if it had never properly beat even once before.
With a radiant face, Kim Tae Rin declared.
“There were no perpetrators in that incident. Everyone was a victim.”
A voice straight as if cut by a knife, yet warm.
“So it’s not your fault.”
Unable to look her in the eye, Choi Yoon turned his head.
He felt dizzy.
He couldn’t even tell why.
Maybe because he hadn’t eaten since yesterday afternoon. Because the speaker was unrealistically beautiful. Because the sunlight was just right and the wind was gentle. Because the scent of grass and flowers grew stronger with every breath.
If not this or that, then because he heard the words he had earnestly wished for through someone else’s mouth in a way he had never experienced before.
Overwhelmed, Choi Yoon lowered his gaze.
Why would this person say such things with such a face? If only one had been less.
“You dislike me, don’t you?”
He looked up with a sigh-like utterance and flinched.
Too close.
Those densely black pupils were close enough to touch. He endured without showing it.
The gap was barely three spans. The warmth of the May midday breeze or Kim Tae Rin’s exhalation gently seeped in.
Afraid his breath might reach her, Choi Yoon barely suppressed his breathing.
As he had gauged last night, Choi Yoon’s lips were at a height to reach Kim Tae Rin’s forehead.
To kiss, he would have to tilt his head slightly.
Of course, he had no such thoughts. Absolutely none.
He repeated with difficulty.
“You dislike me, don’t you? Then why are you taking my side?”
“I don’t dislike your past, I dislike your attitude.”
The look in her eyes as she gazed up was not the anger she had poured out last night, but closer to empty resignation. There was no sign of holding back tears.
Yet her smooth, luminous eyes, the even lashes around them, seemed to always hold tears.
He vaguely thought they didn’t look like human eyes. That her large, moist pupils looked just like those of a beast.
“It’s horrifying how you trample on others with a single word without realizing it’s wrong.”
Kim Tae Rin continued slowly.
“I would never have come in if I had known it was your restaurant.”
Male lead fell into her trap — and shattered when she walked away
This is also on my reread list!
This one is a slow burn, but when it burns, it burns hard.
Definitely worth a read, y’all!
The story follows a thousand-year-old seductive spirit who, on a bet, sets out to charm the male lead—a once-promising but unfortunate cultivator.
But just when she succeeds in making him fall for her, she heartlessly leaves, driving him to madness.
Determined to find her at all costs, he captures her, keeping her by his side no matter what, even if she hates him.
I love this kind of trope—I enjoy watching the male lead suffer in agony.
The ending drags a bit with unnecessary filler, but that’s fine.
As long as I enjoy the beginning, I’m good.
Intro
As an enchantress, Su Heng possesses captivating eyes and charming beauty, easily manipulating the joys and sorrows of living beings at her fingertips.
But to enchant a god, making him taste the bitterness of love’s separation, long-lasting resentment, unattainable desires, and inability to let go…
Do you dare?
Su Heng assists a divine lord in his cultivation, aiming to make him experience all the sufferings of love, so that he can attain the Great Dao.
Only after being chased down from the heavens by the divine lord, confined and completely possessed by him, does she realize how successful she has been.
The once gentle and polite youth has transformed into someone she no longer recognizes.
[Touch the gear icon in the bottom right corner of the screen to move to the next chapter if you want.]
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