Na AhJung

Standing at the kitchen countertop wearing an apron and headband, I started to prep the ingredients. Behind me, Lee JiHan stood scrutinizing my every move.

If it wasn’t for this guy, I would be eating pork feet with a glass of soju rolling around in front of the television, enjoying my lavish single life. Instead, I was struggling with this darn beef bourguignon, or blue marble, or whatever it’s called. I couldn’t believe I had to try to concoct a French dish I’d never even laid eyes on before. Not only that, but I had to complete the feat in front of those hawk like eyes that followed even the slightest movement of my fingertips.

"Are you really going to stay here for the whole two months?" I asked cautiously, pretending as if there was no deeper meaning behind it.

Lee JiHan articulated his answer in a firm tone of voice. "For two whole months. 24 hours a day. I will be living here with you."

"What? All 24 hours?" This was news to me.

"Just think of these 2 months as a beta test to see if my brother will actually be happy living with you. A beta test where I will experience it first and evaluate the situation. To do that, sharing all 24 hours with you is fundamental."

"Ah…okay…" I murmured.

He wants to live with me, his future sister-in-law, for two months just the two of us? It sounded ludicrous, but strangely I was unable to think of a retort. It was definitely ludicrous but somehow logically so…

"Your mother will be a bit disappointed," I said. "She won’t be able to see her youngest son’s face for two months, and you won’t be able to see her very often when she leaves for America. Wouldn’t it be a good idea to spend a couple days with your mother within that time?"

I casually threw out this idea while I was dicing up the carrots, being careful to make it sound as if it was for the sake of his mother when in actuality, it was for my benefit.

"I don’t see her that often at home anyways," he replied. "She spends more time on a plane than at home."

This was true. Whether it was his younger brother’s preschool graduation, elementary entrance ceremony, or any event that parents usually attended, JiKyung seemed to always go on her behalf. As a result, there had been no one to attend JiKyung’s preschool graduation or elementary entrance ceremony. Because my mother had been alive at that time, JiKyung and I, like twin brother and sister, were able to walk through our graduation and entrance together, both of us holding my mother’s hand. After elementary school, however, even that option was no longer a possibility.

"Your mother is such a busy woman, it is a bit difficult to see her," I admitted. "She even told me I could plan the wedding on my own."

After I finished cutting up the carrots, I dumped them into a pot. Then I took out the beef I had put in water and continued on.

"Wait!" Lee JiHan shouted as I went to place the beef on the cutting board.

I froze momentarily and turned my head to look at him. He looked at me, horrified.

"How could you do such a thing," he scolded. "Are you even human?"

"What, why?" I asked, bewildered. "Is something wrong?"

"How could you put the beef on top of your vegetable cutting board!" he shouted.

"What?" I stared at him in confusion.

"Vegetables with vegetables and meat with meat. Don’t you know you have to use separate cutting boards?"

His yelling spooked me so badly that I apologized automatically.

"Ah, Sor…Sorry," I stammered.

"This was intentional. You didn’t differentiate between the cutting boards so that I would get food poisoning!" Lee JiHan said accusingly.

"Oh, no it’s not like that," I insisted. "I really didn’t know!"

"What? You didn’t know? You’re really one dangerous person aren’t you. You are going to kill someone with your cooking! You don’t even know something as simple as that, and you dare to even think about living with my brother and making his food!"

Lee JiHan went into a wild rage, treating me as if I was a girl determined to kill my husband. I hurriedly pulled out a new cutting board and placed the beef on it.

While trying to maintain a smiling face, I answered sweetly, "You’re right, it’s such a relief to learn about this before I made a big mistake. If it wasn’t for you, I could have made JiKyung sick! At least now, that won’t happen. This is all thanks to you young master."

I folded my two hands over my stomach and bowed a full 90 degrees. When my head came back up, Lee JiHan’s expression was incredulous.

"Stop it with that young master crap. Hearing it makes me cringe," he said.

"But isn’t that what one calls a brother-in-law?" I spoke in the manner a granddaughter-in-law would approach a grandmother-in-law.

"That title will only ring true if you do eventually end up dirtying my brother’s good family name by marrying into the family. As of right now, you are not my sister in law," he spat back.

"Dirty your family name?" I asked, hurt.

"I’m talking about marriage, marriage. Your name is a smear of dirt on my brother’s pure as the first December snow family lineage."

However obnoxious he is, let’s be patient, I told myself. However angry he makes me, I must keep my cool. Don’t talk back, don’t talk back….

"But isn’t calling you young master better than calling you, you there, dude, jerk face…something to that extent?" I asked.

"Not necessarily." Lee JiHan replied as if both options were extremely unappealing.

"Then should I call you by your name? JiHan–"

"Wow, no way," he interrupted. "That’s the worst."

Lee JiHan shuddered in disgust.

Wow, me calling you by your name is that spine chilling? If I say your name, does some bad omen spirit clamp itself onto you? Really.

"Well, how about instead of master, I call you mister."

Mister, mister, freakin mister.

I cursed him inside my head as I sliced the beef with the knife I was holding. The knife blade must have been a good one because it cut the thick meat smoothly in one stroke. Lee JiHan stood next to me, watching and evaluating my knife skills.

"You probably imagined yourself a wealthy housewife living comfortably with a housekeeper by your side, but you are sadly mistaken," he said. "It’s not like we’re bringing some great princess into the family. We’re taking in a peasant."

It took all my effort to stop myself from cringing at his continuous nagging.

"If you’re not going to do anything other than eat us out of house and home, I don’t know why we should bother bringing in a slave…"

I had been planning to ignore his comments, just let them go in through one ear and out the other, but he suddenly stopped talking. Wondering what happened, I chanced a quick look in his direction. Lee JiHan stood frozen, staring at the cutting board.

"What, what now?" I asked.

The disquieting atmosphere left me terrified of what was to come. Lee JiHan muttered something without taking his eyes off the cutting board.

"Cock…" he murmured.

"What?" I was confused.

"Cock!" Lee JiHan yelled, grabbing my shoulders tightly. His sight was still locked onto the cutting board.

"Cock?" Still confused, I examined the cutting board. There, crawling at the edge of the cutting board, was a cockroach.

"Oh, cockroach!" As I finally understood, he nodded his head in agreement."

"I guess you don’t like cockroaches," I said.

"Are there people who like cockroaches?!" He asked in disbelief.

"I don’t, like, hate them," I admitted.

I’ve killed so many cockroaches at the theatre and in my house that they were nothing but a very familiar, commonplace bug to me. Without much hesitation, my hands went out toward the roach. With the side of the knife, I swung down hard and killed it.

Upon seeing this, Lee JiHan screamed as if he himself had felt the pain of the cockroach.

"It’s okay now. It’s dead," I assured him.

I took the knife with the cockroach carcass stuck to its handle and carried it to the sink. I turned on the faucet and watched as the cockroach washed down the sink, then continued to clean the knife with soap.

I walked back to the cutting board with the now clean knife in hand.

Lee JiHan grabbed my arm and cried out, "What do you think you’re doing?!"

I blinked rapidly in confusion. Lee JiHan was shaking in anger. So much so that even his hands were trembling. His anger exploded.

"How could you bring that knife back! Do you know how many viruses could have seeped out of that roach’s body the moment you crushed it with that knife?!

"Oh, it’s fine," I said. "I cleaned it really well."

I was wondering what all the fuss was about, He sure was a worry wart. Unfazed, I went to cut the beef with the knife.

"Disgusting!" Agitated, Lee JiHan roughly grabbed at my wrist which was holding the knife.

Violently, he twisted my wrist painfully, causing me to lose my grip on the knife. Without any way to stop it, the knife slid through my fingers toward the ground.

My mind went numb the moment I looked to the floor. I had thought this cold hearted man had neither blood nor tears. Turns out he does have tears. And a weak spot. And…blood. I came to this somewhat obvious realization while staring, dazed, at Lee JiHan’s knife grazed foot.

***

I sat crouched, hugging my legs and crying into the phone as I confessed to JiKyung what had just happened.

[That could have been big trouble.] Jikyung said through the phone.

"It was lucky, the knife only grazed him."

The image of Lee JiHan’s bleeding foot brought tears to my eyes again.

"If it had stabbed him, his toe could have been chopped off!"

[Not that. Your cooking would have been finished.]

"What?" I asked, unsure of what he meant.

[If you were able to complete your cooking, that would have been big trouble.]

"Why would that be trouble?"

[You don’t know? You’re no good at cooking.]

"Me?" This sudden revelation stopped my tears.

[If JiHan ate your cooking, all hell would have broken loose. He would rant about how this wedding cannot happen and will probably refuse your very existence.]

"I cook reasonably well, don’t I?"

[It’s good for your taste buds. Because you eat anything. But there really isn’t a lot of people out there that can eat like you.]

"Oh…" I was shocked and disappointed to hear this.

[Plus, my brother is extremely picky. I’m sorry my brother got hurt and all, but the fact that your cooking got stopped is the best luck in the world.]

"Is…Is that so?"

[So, how is JiHan doing?]

"He went to the hospital right away…."

[I thought it was just a scratch? He went to the hospital for that?]

"It’s not that. He’s afraid he’ll get an infection because it was a knife that I used to kill a roach. He went to get it sterilized…"

JiKyung laughed out loud. I, on the other hand, could barely hold back my tears as the memory was renewed fresh in my mind.

"What am I going to do? What do I do? He’s bleeding because of me! He’s going to hold this against me! What do I do about this?"

I pleaded for an answer, but I heard someone at the door. Thinking it must be Lee JiHan, I hurriedly hung up the phone. Lee JiHan soon stomped into the living room.

"Wel..welcome back," I stammered. "How’s your foot? What did they say at the hospital?"

I stood up quickly and stepped towards Lee JiHan. The moment he saw me, he stopped in his tracks.

"Luckily, there is no threat to my life."

He said this as if such a possibility had been real. Then, in a decisive tone, he said,

"Out."

"What?!"

I knew it, I knew it this would happen. I am getting kicked out again!

In that moment, I felt so deflated, but then Lee JiHan said something unexpected.

"Let’s go out. To the mall."

"The mall? Why all of a sudden–"

"All of a sudden? That’s what I’d like to ask. Why did a cockroach all of a sudden appear in this house?" he said harshly.

"Huh?"

"Before you showed up, this never happened. My brother’s house, which is as pure as the first snow of December, has never had something so dirty appear. This is your fault, you brought in that dirtiness." He glared at me.

"Come on, it’s natural to have bugs in a house where people live," I said. "You won’t find a house that doesn’t have bugs."

"This house didn’t have bugs! Before you stepped foot in it, this one didn’t!"

No way. What, is this the corporate headquarters of Cesco?

I wanted to argue but I resisted. Instead, I hung my head in shame like a repentant sinner.

"I’m sorry. I should have watched my surroundings before coming here. I didn’t know the roaches would follow me. I’ll call Cesco right away."

"I’ve already called Cesco. So what you have to do now is to replace everything. Immediately. Now."

Lee JiHan spread his arms and pointed at the kitchen.

"Everything?" The shock of seeing the sheer size of the kitchen prompted me to question him when I shouldn’t have.

Realizing my mistake, I quickly shook my head. "No, no. Of course I will. I’ll change everything. All brand new."

I was determined to do whatever he desired.