[POINT OF VIEW: LEE JUNG-JAE - THIRD PERSON]
The morning after the ghost's return, Lee Jung-jae woke up with the strange sensation that the world had gone off its axis. He had gone to bed with the image of Kim Jong Un in pajamas chasing Leo down a hallway, a scene so surreal that his brain still struggled to accept it as a real memory and not a fever dream. He went downstairs in the villa expecting to find... he didn't know what. A team of intelligence agents interrogating everyone? Global headlines about an incident in Pyongyang?
He found something much stranger.
In the huge, bright living room, bathed in morning sunlight, reigned an almost absolute silence. Mr. Choi was in a corner, talking on the phone with what appeared to be his cardiologist. Min-jun and Ho-yeon were sitting on the sofa, trying to watch a movie on a tablet, but their eyes kept darting to the other corner of the room, holding back nervous giggles. Wi Ha-joon stood by the window, observing the scene with the fascination of a naturalist discovering a new and bewildering species. And Helena... Helena was sitting in an elegant armchair, reading the Financial Times with reading glasses perched on the tip of her nose, calmly sipping a cup of tea.
And in the opposite corner from her, facing the wall like a five-year-old caught drawing on the wallpaper, was Leo.
He stood motionless. He had showered and changed, and now wore a grey tracksuit that Min-jun had lent him. With his messy hair and slumped posture, he looked less like an international treasure hunter and more like a teenager whose phone had been confiscated. The scene was so domestic, so absurdly normal after the madness of the past few days, that Jung-jae had to stifle a laugh.
It was, he concluded, the only logical way to handle a man like Leo. After faking a nuclear apocalypse, a childish punishment seemed like the only proportionate response. Helena didn't fight Leo's chaos with more chaos; she fought it with an order and discipline so severe and mundane that it was humiliating. It was genius.
He observed Jo Yu-ri. She was sitting on another sofa, pretending to read a book, but he could see how her eyes constantly drifted towards Leo's back. Her expression was a battlefield of contradictory emotions. The anger from the prank was still there, but it warred with an obvious sympathy. The man had returned from the dead, had crossed hell to come back, and now he was being punished facing the wall. Jung-jae watched her bite her lip, lost in an internal debate. The strange, dysfunctional family that had formed in that villa was finding its new, strange normal.
[POINT OF VIEW: JO YU-RI - THIRD PERSON]
With each passing minute, Jo Yu-ri's anger eroded a little more, replaced by a pang of something dangerously close to pity.
He deserves it, she told herself for the umpteenth time, trying to focus on the page of her book. He faked the end of the world. He terrified us.
But then, her gaze would drift back to him. Standing in the corner. Silent. Probably hungry. She could see the slight tremor in his shoulders, a sign of the exhaustion he must be feeling. His incredible feat, his impossible return from North Korea, now ended like this, with silent humiliation. The slap and hug from last night had been her own cathartic release, but this prolonged punishment felt... different. It felt cruel.
He's an idiot, her rational side argued. An arrogant, reckless idiot.
But he's our idiot now, a new voice whispered in her head, a voice that surprised her.
The idea flustered her. Somehow, over the course of a few crazy days, this man had become a shared responsibility. His safety, his madness, his well-being... they now belonged to all of them in a strange, inescapable way. And in that moment, his well-being involved food.
With a sigh of resignation, she closed the book and stood up. She felt everyone's gazes on her as she headed for the kitchen. It was a silent declaration. She was going to defy the authority of the icy matriarch reading the newspaper in the living room.
The villa's kitchen was a chef's dream, with stainless steel appliances and a pantry better stocked than a gourmet supermarket. Yu-ri wasn't a great cook; her idol and acting life barely left her time for anything other than takeout or meals prepared by her staff. But she knew how to make one thing. Something her mother had taught her, something that always comforted her. Kimchi-jjigae. The spicy, savory stew that tasted like home.
She set to work, her movements a little clumsy at first, but soon she found a rhythm. Chopping the kimchi, the pork belly, the tofu. The sound of the knife against the cutting board, the sizzle of meat in the hot pot. These were normal sounds. Sounds of life. For the first time in days, she felt anchored to reality, performing a simple, meaningful task. She was cooking for the man who had faked a nuclear war. The irony was not lost on her, but she pushed it aside. In that moment, he wasn't a legendary treasure hunter. He was just a hungry man who was being punished in a corner.
When the stew was ready, she filled a large bowl, the aromatic steam rising and filling the kitchen. She added a bowl of rice next to it and placed everything on a tray. With her heart beating a little faster, she walked out of the kitchen.
The whispered conversation in the living room instantly stopped. All eyes were on the tray she carried. She saw Helena slowly lower her newspaper, her grey eyes fixed on her over her reading glasses. The tension was palpable. Yu-ri swallowed hard and walked with determination to the corner of punishment.
[POINT OF VIEW: LEO - FIRST PERSON]
My back was killing me. And my pride was in tatters. Facing the wall for three hours was, officially, worse than being chased by the North Korean army. At least then I could move. And there was adrenaline. This was just humiliating boredom.
I could hear the others whispering, probably making fun of me. I could feel Helena's gaze on the back of my neck, a cold, watchful presence. And my stomach sounded like a dying bear. I hadn't eaten anything decent in days, and my body was starting to loudly protest.
Then, a heavenly scent wafted to my nose. A scent I knew well. Spicy, savory, comforting. Kimchi-jjigae. For a moment, I thought I was hallucinating, that my hungry brain was fabricating aromas to torture me.
"Here."
The voice was soft, right behind me. I slowly turned around.
It was Jo Yu-ri, holding a tray with the most glorious bowl of stew I had ever seen, and a perfectly cooked bowl of rice. She was looking at me with an expression I couldn't decipher, a mix of compassion and resentment.
"You need to eat," she said softly.
My heart, that cynical, battered organ, skipped a beat. After the slap, after the reprimand, she was offering me food. Food that she herself had cooked, judging by the slight blush on her cheeks and the apron she had forgotten to take off.
"Yu-ri..." I began, my voice hoarse. "Thank you. You're an angel. An avenging angel who hits hard, but an angel nonetheless."
I reached out to take the bowl, my stomach rumbling in anticipation. I could taste it already.
And then, a shadow intervened. A black leather-gloved hand intercepted the tray in mid-air, just as my fingers were about to touch the hot bowl.
"Thank you for your kindness, Miss Jo," Helena's icy voice said. She had moved from her armchair without a sound. "Your gesture is very considerate. But the delinquent has not completed the entirety of his punishment."
"But he hasn't eaten!" Yu-ri protested, her voice gaining strength. "He just came back from... from there! He needs to regain his strength!"
"And his actions almost caused an international conflict of incalculable consequences," Helena retorted with terrifying calm. "A few hours of contemplation and hunger will help him reflect on the cause-and-effect relationship. Go sit down, dear. I'll handle this."
Her tone brooked no argument. With a frustrated glance, Yu-ri retreated. Helena, with a cruelty bordering on artistic, placed the tray on a low side table, about two meters from me. Close enough that I could see the steam rising. Close enough for the aroma to torture me.
She returned to her armchair, picked up her newspaper, and continued reading as if nothing had happened.
I looked at her. I looked at the food. My stomach let out another pathetic growl. This was psychological warfare.
"You're cruel, Helena," I said, my voice laden with a theatricality I knew she loved to hate. "A cruel, heartless woman. Letting a man starve after everything he's been through."
She didn't look up from the newspaper. "Hunger sharpens the mind. Perhaps it will help you think of less... nuclear ideas next time."
"You know, for a moment in Pyongyang, when I heard your voice, I thought you actually cared about me," I continued, raising my voice. "But now I see clearly. You didn't care about my safety! You just wanted the screen clue for your collection!"
Silence.
"And now you torture me with this delicacy! Stealing food from a kind young woman to torment me!" I put a hand to my forehead, feigning a swoon. "You're a witch! An evil witch!"
[POINT OF VIEW: HELENA - THIRD PERSON]
Helena slowly folded the Financial Times and placed it precisely on the arm of her armchair. The movement was so deliberate that the entire room fell silent. She stood up, smoothing a non-existent wrinkle on her wool trousers.
The group watched her, holding their breath. They knew that calm. It was the calm before the storm.
"Leonidas," she said, her voice a silken murmur. "Over the years of our... association, I have tried to instill in you a modicum of discipline and common sense. I have used logic. I have used deprivation of funds. I have used emotional blackmail. I have used disappointment as a weapon. And while they sometimes work temporarily, you seem to have a remarkable ability to revert to your natural state of glorified chaos."
She walked slowly towards him. From a pocket in her trousers, she pulled out a small, black, rectangular object. "So I have decided it is time to try a different pedagogical approach."
She pressed a button on the object. Two small blue sparks sprang to life between two metal prongs, emitting an electrical buzz, a menacing zzzzzzt that made everyone wince.
It was a taser.
"Today," Helena continued, her voice still perfectly calm as she approached Leo, "we will try Pavlovian conditioning. A direct, immediate negative reinforcement for inappropriate verbal behavior."
[POINT OF VIEW: LEO - FIRST PERSON]
Shit.
I know that look. It's her "academic lesson" look. It's the look she had before she left me stranded on an island in the South China Sea to teach me to "appreciate basic modes of transport."
All my theatrics, all my bravado, evaporated. Hunger was forgotten.
"Wait, Helena," I said, my voice rising an octave. I raised my hands in surrender. "It was a joke. A hyperbole. A way to express my discontent with the current state of food service, which I consider deficient. I take back the witch part!"
She took another step. She was a meter away.
"You're a guardian angel! Stern, yes, but fair! A strong, guiding maternal figure in my otherwise chaotic life! Helena, please, don't...!"
She didn't lunge. She didn't run. Simply, with the calmness of someone testing the water temperature of a swimming pool, she took one last step and touched my thigh with the two metal prongs.
The world became electricity.
A ZZZZT-CRACK echoed in the silent room. My entire body convulsed in a violent, uncontrollable spasm. A sharp, unmanly yelp escaped my throat. My hair felt like it wanted to flee my head. For a second, I saw all the colors of the universe. And then, my legs decided they no longer wanted to be part of the equation, and I collapsed to the floor, a trembling, whimpering heap.
I heard Helena deactivate the taser and put it back in her pocket.
I looked up from my humiliating position on the floor. She stood over me, her expression completely neutral. Then, she walked to the small table, picked up the bowl of kimchi-jjigae Yu-ri had prepared for me, and took a spoonful.
"Now," she said calmly after savoring it. "The punishment is over."
She looked at a completely horrified Jo Yu-ri.
"It was delicious, dear," Helena told her with a small smile. "You have real talent."
And with that, she sat back in her armchair and calmly began eating my meal of redemption while I lay on the floor, my nervous system rebooting and my dignity fleeing to a distant country from which it would probably never return.
This family, I decided as my right eye twitched, was going to be the death of me.