"You locked the door well."
She tilted her head slightly. The words were the complete opposite of her earlier behavior, like someone who had been pleading desperately. Yi Yeon reflexively scratched her forearm at the peculiar creepiness.
—Creeaak.
Finally, Kwon Chae-woo was stepping back. Watching his shadow fade, she finally let down her shoulders that had been stiffly raised.
"I'm saying this out of needless worry, but don't come up to the second floor."
"...What?"
"I'm thinking of shedding the lower bark for the first time in a while."
Yi Yeon's face filled with question marks. Even though she couldn't see outside, she couldn't shake the feeling that he was smiling.
"Then, Yi Yeon, take care."
The subtle evening greeting was like someone announcing a temporary farewell.
That night. Yi Yeon tossed and turned all night, and Kwon Chae-woo didn't wake up for over a week.
* * *
She had a terrible dream.
Yi Yeon woke up drenched in cold sweat, her sleepwear damp. After suffering all night, her lips were pale and her eyes were dazed.
She stared blankly into empty space, then came to her senses after remembering what day it was.
'Ah, it's that day...'
Even before starting the day, her energy was already draining away.
"Director So!"
Looking at the clock, she was well past work hours. When she hurriedly rose from bed, her vision swayed.
"You're running a fever, aren't you."
Chu-ja, who had entered the room, supported her while touching her forehead. Her scolding eyes held deep worry, as if she had expected this.
"You never just let things slide, do you."
"..."
"Rest today. There's not much work anyway."
At those words, Yi Yeon frowned and pushed Chu-ja away, standing upright. She opened and closed her tingling fingers.
"At times like this, I need to work more. Today I'm going on a stakeout."
"Tsk—! I told you not to do that embarrassing stuff!"
Chu-ja put her hands on her hips and bit her lip threateningly.
"If you're going to do that, just stare at your plant on the second floor!"
Chu-ja shouted at Yi Yeon's back as she headed to the bathroom. Yi Yeon hesitated but soon turned the faucet forcefully.
In the mirror was a frail woman. The child who used to walk with tangled hair covering her eyes no longer looked like a lie.
'I am a child born wrong.'
The girl in the dream wrote something over and over with her small fern-like hands.
'I am a child born wrong.'
'I am a child born wrong.'
She had to keep writing without stopping. The A4 papers that piled up grew well past young Yi Yeon's height. These were the reflection papers she had to write whenever she had a moment until she left home at seventeen.
"By the way, Director So, I forgot to ask something. Our plant son-in-law sleeps so deeply like that, how does he even pee?"
Yi Yeon couldn't help but burst into a laugh even with her rough lips.
Right. It was a day just like any other. She would endure quietly as she always did.
She had long since abandoned things like birthdays.
When Chu-ja first stepped onto the second floor, she examined the house thoroughly like a real estate agent. Then, impressed by the neater-than-expected structure and luxurious furniture, she mentally picked up her pen. A check mark next to 'has money.'
"I heard he does go to the bathroom."
"While sleeping?"
"Yes."
"My goodness, how peculiar."
It was no wonder—when she saw Kwon Chae-woo moving unsteadily, Yi Yeon thought her heart would stop. He was already tall, and standing tall in the darkness like that. She had gone to check on him without any particular thought and was terrified.
"Look at that smooth skin for a man."
When Chu-ja reached out her hand, Yi Yeon quickly grabbed her arm.
"...He might wake up."
"If he'd wake up from my touch, I would've shaken him awake long ago."
"Still."
Yi Yeon avoided her gaze and stepped back from the bed.
The commotion of the past few days that felt like it would burn her nerves now seemed hazy, like a dream. She was so glad to have regained her peaceful daily life that she couldn't believe it. Yi Yeon looked down at the man lying as if dead with a peaceful face she hadn't worn in a long time.
Just like this. Please, just keep sleeping like this.
While Kwon Chae-woo fell back into deep sleep, Chu-ja, who had been brought into this absurd lie, turned the house upside down. There definitely was a presence, but she scattered items like a toothbrush, cup, spoon, slippers, and the man's personal belongings with worn traces so they wouldn't look out of place, as if their owner was simply away. Being a veteran, her skill was perfect and seamless. The instantly set-up convincing environment was all thanks to Chu-ja's expertise.
"By the way, did you see the newspaper? That elementary school we worked with before? The principal there is in big trouble. They say the school construction was done so sloppily that the playground became a mess, and the whole neighborhood is talking about it..."
Chu-ja suddenly stopped speaking and looked at Yi Yeon.
"Surely not."
Yi Yeon scratched her cheek. At that sight, Chu-ja's eyes grew wide.
"You reported it to the newspaper!"
"Well..."
"You crazy brat, are you trying to ruin your business! We're a company that lives off customer relations, didn't you know that!"
Yi Yeon didn't answer and left the second floor. Chu-ja's scolding followed her down the stairs, but there was no helping it.
"You shameless brat—!"
Yi Yeon instead pressed down the corners of her lips that tried to rise.
Using trees only for ornamental purposes, not even feeding them properly and abusing them—who was that principal to judge?
A world that values trees more than humans might never come, but so what if one person goes against the grain?
'Then, Yi Yeon, take care.'
Suddenly feeling a chill, Yi Yeon shivered.
The week he didn't wake up. Perhaps Kwon Chae-woo had anticipated the result of not sleeping together.
Sometimes that greeting lingered in her ears.
* * *
"This is crazy, absolutely crazy...!"
Yi Yeon, who had tasted the soil at the base of the tree, grit her teeth. Her face as she irritably removed her straw hat was unusually fierce. She went straight into the fish restaurant.
"Owner!"
"Welcome... ah, get out! Get out!"
The middle-aged owner who had been smiling to welcome a customer turned stern when he saw Yi Yeon.
"Trying to kill it again?"
"I don't know anything, nothing at all."
The owner roughly patted Yi Yeon's shoulders and pushed her out the door. But she firmly held onto the door frame and wouldn't let go easily.
"Last time you secretly put herbicide in the IV to kill it—"
"If you're going to meddle, I'll call the police on you too, fair and square."
"You poured seawater this time, didn't you?"
She smiled and clicked her tongue. The salty taste still lingered at the tip of her tongue.
Customers began murmuring at the incomprehensible altercation, and the owner turned red and blue. An annoying and unlucky woman was ruining someone else's business.
"I was thinking it was strange that ginkgo tree kept withering anyway."
"Look, I told you I didn't call for that. Why meddle in other people's business for no reason!"
He used his strength to finally push Yi Yeon outside. The man glared at her as if he would kill her. However, his anxiously trembling pupils were pathetically easy to read.
"Going around like this from house to house, that's why your hospital is failing. Do you know that?"
"I know."
"Then read the room already!"
He spat and propped up one leg.
There was no one in this village who didn't know Director So Yi-yeon of the Tree Hospital. Recently, with the article about a certain elementary school principal who had botched the school construction, her notoriety grew even more. There was a truckload of residents who had been victimized by her innocent face and not-so-innocent actions.
Crucially, this tree doctor didn't know how to consider people's circumstances. She never engaged in personal conversation but would pounce instantly whenever it came to trees.
"Let's quietly leave, okay?"
"..."
"The right to do what I want with my tree belongs to me, and I'm never using your hospital even if it dies. So stop causing trouble and go, go! You're overstepping!"
"Then who will do it?"
"What?"
"Who will help that ginkgo tree?"
Yi Yeon reached out and pointed at the ailing tree.
"You wanted to remove it because it blocked the fish restaurant sign."
"...!"
The owner's face, which had been clearly annoyed, froze awkwardly for a moment.
"Pouring seawater every morning, stripping the bark and coating it with waste oil to kill it, injecting pesticides into the crown, cutting with a chainsaw. Just what I've witnessed nearby is this much."
Her voice was terribly shaken.
"If I ignore it, what happens to them?"
"..."
"Even if to people's eyes they look no different from utility poles. That's a life. Humans distinguish between those who should live and those who can die. Trees don't. Once they take root, that alone is reason enough."
Yi Yeon felt her turbulent heart since morning suddenly swell.
"But who are you to kill it?"
Bile rose up her throat. Remembering her small hand that trembled holding a pencil, the reflection papers that piled up as high as her height.
"Being used and discarded is unfair to them too."
The owner was angry at what seemed like childish stubbornness, but seeing the woman's reddened eyes, his throat somehow tightened.
"Shall I tell you something frightening?"
"..."
"Even if you die, the trees will keep living."
—They'll keep living past centuries. Yi Yeon grit her teeth, holding back the blurring of her vision.