Page 46 of Perfect Happiness

Yuna’s voice was tight, as though she was holding in a cackle. Jane couldn’t think of how to respond. All she could do was bring an extinguisher to the chemical fire that had ignited in her body.

Stop shaking. You’re bigger and stronger than Yuna. Smarter, too. And you’re holding a cleaver. Act like it!

But it wasn’t easy. Despite all these years, it looked like her body still hadn’t produced antibodies to defend against Yuna.

“Why are you here?” Yuna asked. “You even hopped the fence like a thief. Once a stealing bitch, always a stealing bitch.”

Yuna continued to grin. Jane turned off her cellphone flashlight and put the phone in her pocket. Then with her sweaty hands, she adjusted her grip on the cleaver.

“Where’s Joon-young?”

“If you want to see Joon-young, I don’t know why you would come looking for him here.”

“You brought him here. About twenty days ago. Don’t you remember?”

Yuna suddenly tilted her head sideways. Her oblique gaze was brazen, as if she had nothing to hide.

“The last time I saw that man was three years ago.”

Yuna’s ability to lie with such a straight face never ceased to astonish Jane. She could lie about anything with eyes like that. Jane pulled out the pen from her pocket.

“I gave this as a present to Joon-young seven years ago. I found it here under the sofa.”

“So what?”

“That’s why I asked where he is.”

“And I’m asking, why are you looking for him?”

“I was contacted by the police yesterday. They wanted to know if you were really at Mom’s from the 16th to the 20th. When I asked why, they told me Joon-young disappeared on the 16th.”

Yuna raised one eyebrow, as if to say, Keep going .

“I thought something was strange, too. I couldn’t get in contact with him for almost a week.”

Jane hoped this lie would strike a nerve.

“That day when you called Joon-young, he was with me in Chungju.”

Yuna straightened her head. The smile that had been dancing around her eyes vanished.

“I drove him to Kyochon. And I watched from afar as you drove off with him in your car.”

“You’ve been meeting him behind my back?”

The tail end of Yuna’s words quivered minutely. It was a sign that Jane had found the right button. Finally, Jane felt herself starting to relax. She now had the courage and leverage to push the issue.

“Where’s Joon-young?”

Jane put the pen in her pocket again and walked around the table toward Yuna, who turned her body to keep Jane in front of her. Yuna was mumbling in Jane’s direction like someone in a trance.

“You did it again, didn’t you?”

Jane stopped walking about twenty centimeters from Yuna.

“You touched my things again, didn’t you?”

Yuna continued to mumble to herself. She had the special ability of selectively only hearing what she wanted to hear and tuning everything else out. In hopes of shaking Yuna out of her trance, Jane refocused the conversation.

“Yuna, where is Joon-young?”

“Stealing bitch.”

Not this time. Jane raised the cleaver and put it up to Yuna’s neck.

“Think carefully before you say that again.”

Jane could feel through the blade the muscles in Yuna’s neck twitching.

“Well, well. Look at you.”

Yuna’s tone suddenly became calm.

“Is this any way to treat your younger sister?”

Yuna was a hypocrite, but that didn’t make her wrong. Jane decided to give Yuna a quiz.

“Jiwoon, Istvan, Dad. What do these three people have in common?”

Yuna stared at Jane without answering.

“They all drank coffee that you made for them, and then a few hours later, they all fell asleep at the wheel and died in car accidents.”

Jane tightened her grip on the cleaver. Yuna’s jugular wriggled beneath the blade.

“And they all abandoned Yuna Shin. In fact, Dad did it twice.”

Yuna made her eyes into slivers. Flames of a blazing inferno were escaping between the slits and burning Jane’s skin.

“You were too young the first time it happened to do anything about it. But you weren’t going to forgive him a second time.”

Jane took one step forward.

“Of course, Joon-young did something even worse than Dad. Not only did he abandon you, but he was also a thorn in your side for several years, and threatened to put you in jail if you didn’t let him visit Jiyoo. Knowing you, you wouldn’t be satisfied with just sending him off in his sleep.

“You should have been the writer, not him.”

Yuna’s lips barely opened as she said this. Her pronunciation was half jumbled. Her words were hissing through her teeth.

“I want you to show me the room upstairs. The one with a lock on it. If I’m really just imagining all of this, then prove it to me.”

Jane moved to the side and pointed to the stairs with her chin.

“You first,” Jane said.

Yuna started moving. She walked toward the stairs with light footsteps.

Jane followed behind her, leaving about two feet between herself and Yuna.

As Yuna passed in front of Jane, the edge of the cleaver went from pointing at her throat to pointing at the back of her neck.

Her arm was tingling, and her hand was shaking.

And yet Yuna looked not the least bit nervous.

Jane was amazed by Yuna’s temerity. From the moment they saw each other, Yuna hadn’t shown much more than a flinch.

Even right now as Jane had her at knife point, Yuna didn’t seem very nervous.

Jane couldn’t judge if it was because Yuna didn’t think she was a threat or because she simply didn’t fear death.

If she was just acting like she wasn’t nervous, she was the best actor Jane had ever seen.

Jane stopped thinking. But by the time her eyes moved to the handbag hanging from Yuna’s wrist, it was already too late.

The handbag was slicing through the air and flying toward her head.

Jane instinctively leaned back, but it wasn’t enough to dodge the surprise attack.

The heavy horseshoe key chain on the handbag smacked her in the right eye.

Pain shot through her head as though her eyeball had been shattered.

At the same time, Jane felt an immense force shoving her shoulder.

Jane had the wind knocked out of her as her body bent backwards and her heels lifted off the stairsteps.

She went flying through the air and landed on the hardwood floor headfirst.

It happened so fast that she didn’t even have time to scream.

Even before she had the chance to open her mouth, darkness overtook her.

The last thing Jane saw was Yuna picking up the cleaver off the ground.

Just before Yuna brought the back of the blade down on her, Jane blacked out.

From the darkness, she could hear Yuna’s voice.

“Stealing bitch.”

*

Mother came back later that night. Jiyoo was sitting on the living room sofa, mindlessly watching Ballerina . Felicie and Camille were in the middle of a dance battle when Jiyoo heard Mother’s voice.

“Jiyoo Cha.”

Jiyoo was suddenly brought back to reality. She turned her head to find Mother standing at the entrance to the living room. In one hand she had her coat, and in the other a large plastic bag. Jiyoo jumped to her feet.

“You’re still up?”

Mother glanced once toward the wall clock. Jiyoo followed Mother’s gaze. 11:00. Jiyoo had no idea it was so late.

“I was watching a movie and didn’t know—”

Mother headed into the kitchen. After placing the plastic bag and her coat on the table, she sat down on one of the chairs with her legs crossed.

“Turn that off and come over here.”

Jiyoo did as she was told. With her eyes, Mother motioned Jiyoo to the seat across from her. Again, Jiyoo did as she was told.

“Have you had dinner?”

“No.”

“You must be hungry. I was going to save this for tomorrow—”

Mother took out a Happy Meal from the plastic bag and placed it in front of Jiyoo. Then, she took out a bag of French fries and put this in front of herself.

“Eat.”

Jiyoo hated cheeseburgers. She never ate mozzarella sticks and didn’t like milk.

And yet, all three of these things were included in the Happy Meal.

And Jiyoo already had three SpongeBob and Krusty Krab toys.

It would be difficult to have such a perfectly horrible Happy Meal without trying.

It almost seemed like this was Mother’s cruel way of punishing Jiyoo. But for what?

Of course, Jiyoo couldn’t express her discontent.

That was the kind of thing that Mother never allowed, not even when she was in a good mood.

And right now, because Mother had caught Jiyoo watching a movie when she should be sleeping, because Mother didn’t look like she was in a good mood, it was even more important that Jiyoo eat the food with a happy look on her face.

And yet despite knowing this, Jiyoo’s mouth didn’t do what she told it to do.

Feeling like she was about to throw up, Jiyoo simply nibbled on the edge of the bun.

“Why are you eating like you’re a rabbit?” Mother asked.

But as always, this wasn’t really a question. It was a command to stop picking at her food and eat already. To show she understood, Jiyoo took a big bite out of the burger. She swallowed the whole thing without chewing to avoid tasting the cheese. The same way Father did that day in the car.

“What did you eat for lunch?” Mother asked as she picked up a single French fry. Jiyoo quickly swallowed the food that was stuck in the back of her throat. But it didn’t go down easily because her throat was dry. She let out a sound as if she was being strangled.

“R—rice.”

“What rice? The curry rice is still there.”

Mother pointed to the three-minute curry rice that was placed next to the microwave. Jiyoo frantically opened the carton of milk. She guzzled the milk until she washed down the bite of cheeseburger lodged in her throat. As she did this, she searched her brain for an appropriate answer.

“Actually—I didn’t eat.”

Mother blinked once. Jiyoo lowered her head.

“I’m sorry for lying.”

Mother tapped on the table with her long nails.

“Why didn’t you eat?”

Jiyoo hated curry rice as much as she hated cheese.