EPISODE 2.10
Seeing me in my full cha ya-ryun disguise, he lunged at me with a short tongue-lashing motion. Instinctively, I tried to maintain a nonchalant demeanor as I braced myself to step back.
I looked him straight in the eye, hoping to appear as bold as possible. There was no reason for Cha to be pushed around by Park Eunwoo.
His eyes glittered like a fierce beast of burden. I swallowed hard, my throat tightening as I did so. After scanning me, he gave up and sighed softly, speaking in a hollow voice.
“You’re not Cha Ye Ryun, and you never will be.”
“Mr. Park, Eunwoo. Why don’t you moderate yourself?”
“If you insist on claiming to be Cha Ye Ryun, then I’m warning you, don’t shake the flower of this trial anymore.”
“……!”
Unspeakable words came out of his mouth. A word that no one in this world would ever know, or maybe could never know.
As I stood there stunned and speechless, Park Eunwoo pulled the corners of his mouth into a fake smile and said.
“I’ve been very rude, Ms. Ye Ryun. Make yourself confortable now.”
I turned around and grabbed his arm as he was about to leave the room. Feeling my trembling touch, he turned around, silently holding onto my hand.
“Now, just now what did you say? You…”
“I told you not to change the settings of this drama.”
“How, how…….”
“I said, don’t let me be mistaken and mislead from my role because of your interruption into this drama. Because I’m sick and tired of this torture.”
Nonsense. How can the words flower of trials come out of Park Eun Woo’s mouth, how?
The characters in this drama would never know the name of the Flower of Trials. They can’t mention it, and they shouldn’t know it. I’m the only one who can fight this lonely battle all alone.
“How do you know about the Flower of Trials?”
“Because I’m not Park Eun-woo, just like you’re not Cha Ye-Ryun.”
I clamped my mouth shut.
“What is this, what is this, how is this possible?
I wondered if I should believe him or not.
“What if this is a warning from the Flower of Trials itself?”
Some of the evil deeds that the tea ceremony requires are illegal. But what if the Flower of Trials is warning me in this way, since I’ve been cleverly avoiding them, only to end up as a bully?
In this damn world, with all the fake people who only move according to the settings, I was trying not to go crazy.
I’ve been fighting this lonely battle alone for as long as I can remember, and now I’ve finally found someone who’s like me, someone who’s no one else but Park Eun-woo.
“You’re not Park Eun-woo? You’re not Park Eun-woo? You’re not……?”
If you’re not Park Eun-woo, why did you keep quiet all this time? How can you say this isn’t a trap from the Flower of Trials in the first place?
Even if I wanted to remember how many ways the Flower of Trials has tried to sanction me, I can’t remember them all. The Flower of Trials has enough ways to screw with people like this.
Endless doubts curled around my tail, a combination of wanting to believe and not wanting to be betrayed.
I shook my head slowly.
“To be honest, I don’t trust you.”
“It doesn’t matter if you don’t believe it, because it’s true that I’m not Park Eun-woo, and, indeed, you’re not Cha Ye-ryun, and I know it for sure now.”
“…….”
He smirked, his face full of conviction. It was as if Park Eunwoo had already been convinced that I wasn’t Cha Ye-ryun, because the moment the word “drama” came out of his mouth, I threw off my mask and grabbed Park Eunwoo’s arm.
I am equally convinced that he is not Park Eun Woo.
If he is Park Eun Woo, I would never know that this is a drama and that the title is Flower of Trials.
But it’s only because of me that I can’t fully trust him like this.
Maybe this is the Flower of Trials’ warning to me for acting out of character. My resolve to trust him, to believe that he is a real person like me, will be shaken. I’m afraid of such complacency.
I’m afraid that one day I’ll realize that Park Eunwoo is the real character of Park Eunwoo, and that I am all alone in this world, that we’ve never been together, that what happened today was an illusion the drama itself has created….
If there was a real person like me in this world, I’d want to lean on them for everything. My sanity, was already so fragile, and
was so precarious.
I wouldn’t trust him so easily. I couldn’t admit that he is a person and that too same person as it was for me.
“Tell me about yourself. When did you first come here?”
“Okay. I don’t know from where to start.”
* * *
He was possessed by Park Eun-woo four years before the events of Flower of Trials began in earnest because of a single scene in which Park Eun-woo reminisced.
When he woke up as the heir to the chaebol, he initially thought it was a prank and walked out of the office to go home.
But one by one, people passing by on the street surrounded him, preventing him from going any further.
They all turned to him and said in unison
“Where are you going, Master?”
“Eun woo, where are you going?”
“Your place is here. Where are you going?”
“I apologize for my initial reaction, but where do you think you’re going?”
