A Forest flowing with Milk and Honey - Chapter 2.1

It has been fifteen days since the head of Baekmu Construction collapsed.
A malignant tumor was found in his lungs, but it was discovered too late, and its location was not favorable. The condition of Chairman Baek Jin-mo, who had reached the age of 80, rapidly deteriorated to the point where even breathing became a struggle.

Although his close aides tried to keep it quiet, it was generally believed that recovery was impossible for the elderly chairman, who was over 80 years old.

As rumors spread, Baekmu Construction’s stock plummeted. Woo-rim, Baek Jin-mo’s only heir, had taken a leave of absence from school and confined herself to her home.

But that changed nothing. With signs of pneumonia, even visits were difficult. After each daily visit, Woo-rim would anxiously glance at her phone, dreading any bad news that might come.
“Baek Woo-rim.”

Without knocking, the door was thrown open violently, and a harsh voice called out to her. Woo-rim, who had been lying with her back to the door, flinched at the sound. As she slowly turned around, the heavy footsteps drew closer, approaching with determined strides.
“Are you starving yourself again, even when you’re already so thin and weak? Are you out of your mind…?”
Woo-rim reached out and hugged the man, who was about to lash out with angry words, his face flushed with rage.

“Sniff… why are you just coming now, sniff, I’ve been waiting for so long… waaaa!”
With tears streaming down her face, Woo-rim buried herself into Tae-oh’s chest. Through his shirt, she could feel the warmth of his body and smell the scent of his cologne. She pressed her face deeply against him, sobbing and trying to stifle her cries.

“Let go.”

If it were anyone else, they would have been startled and scared by his cold, sharp tone, but Woo-rim didn’t move an inch. She clung tightly to his broad chest, soaking the fabric of his shirt with her tears.
Tae-oh, on the other hand, gritted his teeth, glaring fiercely at Woo-rim, yet he didn’t push her away forcefully. He made a few attempts to shove her off, but when she stumbled under his strength, he ended up catching her and awkwardly supporting her.

If anyone had dared to ask Tae-oh why he acted that way, he would have yelled, asking if they thought he was such a piece of trash that he’d use violence on a powerless kid. But if that was the measure of trash, then Tae-oh was indeed trash. If it had been anyone else, he would have simply pushed them aside without a second thought, whether they fell or not. Even if Tae-oh stubbornly denied it, that was the truth.
Woo-rim cried as if she was about to drench his entire shirt with her tears, but after a while, she managed to calm down. Her eyes widened when she noticed how wet Tae-oh’s shirt had become.
“I-I’m sorry, Director.”

Director. Tae-oh’s face twisted with annoyance at the way she addressed him. But whenever she called him “oppa” (older brother) like she did when they were younger, his face would turn even more intimidating, so Woo-rim settled for calling him “Director.”
“Enough.”
As the end of June approached, the room was warm, as if the air conditioning hadn’t been turned on. Tae-oh’s irritation flared up. He brushed his bangs, which were annoyingly sticking to his forehead, and looked at Woo-rim.
“……?”
For a moment, her thought process stopped.

The front of Woo-rim’s clothes, right where her nipples should be, was dampened in a perfectly round shape. It was as if someone had created a mirror image, with both sides matching exactly.
Though she was skinny, her breasts were strangely – and this was something that really annoyed Tae-oh – quite full. It was almost as if all the nutrition she rarely consumed went straight there, making them so plump that even tears might have fallen on them. However, Woo-rim had been in Tae-oh’s arms just a moment ago, and her tears had already been absorbed by his shirt.
Even if tears had dripped down, it wouldn’t have made her clothes wet in such a strange pattern. More than anything, the way Woo-rim, now glancing down at her own chest, reacted with visible shock and discomfort made it clear. She nervously tried to cover herself, her hands fumbling over her chest, and as she did, the thin pajama fabric clung to her, outlining the swell of her breasts.
“Hey, you, that……”
Tae-oh averted his eyes, stammering uncharacteristically. A flurry of thoughts crossed his mind. That looked unmistakably like milk, but why would a woman’s body leak milk? It was a stupid thing to think.
“They said… I have a condition……”
“A condition?”

“Galactorrhea, they said…… um, it started suddenly, not long ago. They said it would go away quickly with medication, sniff… but it just keeps hurting…….”
Woo-rim stammered through her explanation, her tears returning as she spoke. Tae-oh wiped his face with his hand, wondering if he should just step out of the room for a moment.
“I’m scared, and anxious……. Not just because of this……”
Her voice wavered with fear, and her tear-streaked hand reached out to grasp Tae-oh’s fingertips. Although he hadn’t pushed her away, he also didn’t clasp her hand in return, but that seemed to be enough to bring some comfort to Woo-rim, who let out a shaky sigh.

“It’s like… someone secretly tattooed my body without me knowing…….”
“What?”
Tae-oh snapped his head up at her words, which he couldn’t just dismiss. Woo-rim bit her lip and moved her long hair aside to reveal the right side of her neck.
It looked like a mark left by a brush that had been pressed down with pink paint. Upon closer inspection, it became clear it was an illustration of petals. There were only three petals, as if the drawing was incomplete, making it hard to tell what kind of flower it was meant to be.
“Some crazy bastard……”

A sharp grinding of teeth followed. If Tae-oh’s nails had been any longer, his palm might have been torn and bleeding. He stared at Woo-rim’s neck with a gaze that could only be described as chilling, like a wounded beast.
The color of the petals was so faint it seemed like it might disappear at any moment, blending seamlessly with Woo-rim’s pale skin. That was why it felt so ominous. It was as if the mark could melt right into her and take her with it. Whoever had done it had an impressive, albeit disturbing, skill.
Ever since she was young, Woo-rim had often attracted the attention of all sorts of trash. If she didn’t have bodyguards attached to her, or if she wasn’t draped in luxury, making it clear she was from a wealthy family, all sorts of sleazy people would flock to her.

Accidents were frequent. Cars that accidentally hit the accelerator instead of the brake as she crossed a pedestrian crossing, bricks falling from rooftops, and even the latest electronic devices exploding due to battery overheating.

Tae-oh had witnessed these incidents more times than he could count. If not for his sharp instincts and the numerous times he had intervened to save Woo-rim, she might have died several times over.
Maybe this was why his dreams were restless last night. Something felt off.

“Tell me everything. Since when has this been happening?”

Tae-oh swiftly pulled the blanket off and wrapped it around Woo-rim’s trembling shoulders, guiding her to sit on the bed.
“……Since the day Grandpa collapsed. At first, there was only one, but it increased to three, with a new one appearing each week.”

Whenever Woo-rim looked in the mirror and saw the increasing number of petals, her heart raced as if she was facing a monster she shouldn’t lock eyes with. It drove her to near madness, thinking about who could have done such a thing and why she hadn’t noticed it happening. She couldn’t sleep properly, startled by even the slightest noise, her nerves frayed to the point where she felt nauseous and couldn’t eat.
She had no idea what she had done so wrong to be cursed like this over and over again. It felt like someone was cursing her to die, suffocating her.

Since the petal marks started appearing, she found it hard to trust people. She was suspicious of everyone who approached her, terrified that someone might try to harm her. It felt like she was losing her mind.
“Director, do you think… I should get an exorcism or something?”
Tae-oh’s eyes turned icy cold.

“Stop talking nonsense and get dressed. Come down to eat. ……I’ll find out who this bastard is soon enough.”

His response was firm, with a hint of mild disapproval, and it made Woo-rim smile slightly. For some reason, having Tae-oh close made her feel unusually reassured.
As if she instinctively knew he was the one who would protect her.

“Yes, Director.”

Tae-oh clenched his fists as he saw her shy smile, now looking more at ease, and then left Woo-rim’s room. Approaching the security personnel stationed in the house, he glared at them menacingly.

“Bring me all the CCTV footage. Every last one of them.”

Chairman Baek had kept the fact that there was a miniature CCTV camera outside Woo-rim’s room hidden to prevent her from feeling watched or stressed. Although there were no cameras inside the room, the footage might still help them narrow down the suspect.