Chapter 1:
The Haeil Guild Headquarters, located on Seoul’s prime real estate, boasted a magnificent exterior that rivaled any large corporation, as befitting the top guild in South Korea. Perhaps that’s why walking past it always made one feel a bit intimidated.
A man hunched his shoulders and hurried past the building. He nearly bumped into a woman who crossed his path.
“Ah, I’m sorry.”
The woman replied that it was alright and quickly slipped into a shop.
It was a shop next to the Haeil headquarters, so unassuming that it was barely noticeable.
“There was a shop here?”
Perhaps because the Haeil headquarters next door was so conspicuous, he hadn’t noticed the shop at all, despite having walked this street quite often.
He approached and peeked through the window. He could see a woman in an apron bustling about inside. It seemed to be a flower shop.
‘But something’s a bit strange.’
Firstly, for some reason, the name of the flower shop on the sign was <Fire Flower Path>.
What kind of flower shop, or any shop for that matter, would use such a name?
And that wasn’t the only strange thing.
The sign hanging on the door read ‘Customers Warmly Welcomed’. The small sign strongly exuded a feeling of desperate longing for customers.
‘But this makes me even more curious.’
Moreover, the shopkeeper he had glimpsed seemed ordinary, so the man gathered his courage and stepped inside.
Tinkle. As soon as the clear bell attached to the door chimed, the shopkeeper turned around.
“Welcome!”
The eyes of the seemingly ordinary shopkeeper flashed. The man felt a little intimidated.
“Uh, is this a flower shop?”
“Yes, it is!”
“I, I was thinking of buying a bouquet for my girlfriend.”
“Do you have any flowers in mind?”
“No. Could you recommend something?”
“How about this flower? It’s called a gladiolus, and it’s especially beautiful today.”
The shopkeeper pointed to the flower closest to the door. The scarlet flower blooming on the vivid green stem was indeed very beautiful, even in the man’s eyes.
“I’ll take this one.”
While the shopkeeper selected three of the most beautiful blooms and began wrapping them, the man glanced around the shop.
But this place was even stranger than it looked from the outside.
Unlike other flower shops that also sold small potted plants, this place only had flowers scattered about. The problem was that these flowers were all placed in rough tin buckets, the kind you’d see at a construction site.
The floor was also quite dirty due to carelessly swept soil and leaves…
What on earth was this shop?
“Um, the sign says <Fire Flower Path>. Is that really the name of the flower shop…?”
“Yes, it is! Isn’t it a pretty name?”
The shopkeeper replied with a bright smile.
Short black hair, a mole on her right cheek, and a friendly impression. She was a very beautiful person, but…
Whether it was because of her messily tied hair or the strange shop, he felt a bit apprehensive.
I shouldn’t come here again.
“Here you go! It’s done!”
Just then, the bouquet was finished. As he reached out to receive the bouquet with a delighted expression…
“…?”
He doubted his eyes.
Was this, a bouquet?
The wrapping paper looked crumpled instead of neatly folded, the ribbon was loosely tied and seemed like it would come undone any minute, and the flowers, which were fine just a moment ago, suddenly looked a bit grimy.
Even the color of the wrapping paper was a fluorescent pink that didn’t match the scarlet flowers at all.
“…”
What was this? How could this be a bouquet sold at a flower shop? Was he supposed to give this to his girlfriend? A bouquet made of carnivorous plants from a dungeon would probably look better than this.
Was the reason the shop was called Fire Flower Path because it intended to turn the relationship between couples into a blazing inferno?
“That’ll be 20,000 won!”
“…”
A person smiling brightly while holding a bizarre bouquet in a messy shop. Now that he looked at it, the shopkeeper herself was the strangest thing about this place, not the shop itself.
The man stood there blankly for a long time, unable to even take the bouquet.
***
“Finally, I earned 20,000 won after a week!”
Seo Jae-yi, the owner of the flower shop <Fire Flower Path>, carefully held the precious 20,000 won in her hands as soon as the customer left.
No wonder the gladiolus bloomed especially beautifully today. Thanks to its placement closest to the door, it attracted a customer and even managed to be sold. It was the MVP of the day.
Half a year since opening, the average number of customers per day was about 0.14.
For Seo Jae-yi, who ran a flower shop on the verge of bankruptcy, with barely one customer a week, this 20,000 won was incredibly precious.
“I need to show everyone that I can do this well on my own. But they never come around at times like this.”
After carefully placing the money in the cash register, Seo Jae-yi thought of the Haeil Guild members who lived in the building next door.
Although she was now a retired flower shop owner, she had once been a part of that place. And not just a part of it; she was the one who laid the foundation for that building.
But those ungrateful guild members opposed her opening the shop.
Their reason was absurd. They couldn’t let a perfectly good shop explode.
“This shop is so precious to me, why would I make it explode?”
Of course, it had caught fire and nearly burned down a few times.
And hundreds of flowers had been burned to ashes.
And she had received help quite a few times, not just once or twice!
Seo Jae-yi decided to ignore the minor details. The important thing was that this precious shop was hers. It was her own space, the first one she had gotten after awakening as an Esper.
“Well, let’s tidy up a bit.”
The table was a mess after wrapping the bouquet. As she reached out to clean up the cut stems and leftover wrapping paper…
“Ah!”
The dizziness that had been getting worse lately once again consumed her mind.
With her vision blurring, Seo Jae-yi bit her lip and quickly grabbed the table. She tried to calm down by taking deep breaths, but that wouldn’t be enough.
Her ability, which she had been desperately suppressing, began to run wild. The sweet scent of flowers that filled the shop was suddenly overwhelmed by the smell of burning.
As soon as Seo Jae-yi, who was staggering, realized that the surrounding temperature was rising, she screamed.
“No!”
But hot shimmering air was already rising. The beautiful gladiolus she had so carefully arranged began to wilt, unable to withstand the heat.
“No, my flowers! My babies!”
Losing her composure at the sight of the petals withering unsightly, Seo Jae-yi grabbed the water bucket next to her. She then poured the water, which contained three or four flowers, directly onto the gladiolus.
At that moment.
“Hello…”
As if by fate’s cruel joke, someone entered the shop.
Why, why now of all times? Why were there two customers in a row today when she barely got one a week?
But what could she do? The water had already been splashed. Seo Jae-yi had no way to make the flying water disappear.
In the end, with a refreshing splash!, the customer was drenched from head to toe. It was a perfect drenching, a 10 out of 10 from any angle.
The man, soaked along with the gladiolus, was completely drenched. His suit clung to his body, revealing his physique.
Water droplets gathered on his chin and dripped onto his chest, plop, plop.
“…”
“…”
A silence descended, as cold as the water that had been splashed.
After a few seconds of standing stiffly, too flustered to even apologize…
“…This shop has a rather… enthusiastic way of greeting its customers.”
The man spoke first, running a hand through his wet hair.
Seo Jae-yi, whose mind had gone blank and could only open and close her mouth, sputtered a nonsensical excuse in response to the man’s icy words.
“I, I thought you were a flower because you were so handsome… so I tried watering you…”
“…”
The man gave a chilling smile beneath his brown hair, which looked darker due to the water. It was an overwhelming force that could intimidate even an S-rank Esper.
“…I’m sorry.”
Subdued by the even colder atmosphere, Seo Jae-yi quietly put down the water bucket and bowed her head, as if she were about to bang it on the floor.
She heard a deep sigh from above, filled with a mixture of emotions.
This was the truly terrible first meeting between Esper Seo Jae-yi and Guide Baek Joo-won.
Neither of them could have imagined that after this encounter, they would be tied together in a sticky and persistent relationship, just like the water that had been splashed.