Chapter Text
“Go away. Just leave me alone!”
Ju-ri had screwed up all her courage to yell at her best friend. Moon Young looked a tiny bit astonished before smirking and walking off. As the elegant girl walked away, Ju-ri felt the adrenaline leave her body as she started to cry. She had only wanted to have a friend and be a friend, but instead everyone was back to hating her. Her dad was a construction worker, and her mom ran a small restaurant that barely covered its own bills. The rest of the kids in her class either had parents that worked in the tourism industry, or they belonged to more wealthy families that chose the small beach town as a laid-back alternative to life in the city. Somehow, the class lists had always put the rest of the kids like her in a separate group, leaving Ju-ri alone to face the bullying.
After school, she walked slowly to her mother’s restaurant. As usual, it was sitting empty with the late afternoon light filtering through the windows. “Mom?” Ju-ri called.
“Hello, daughter! Is Moon Young not with you today?”
“No, she couldn’t come,” lied Ju-ri. She hated lying to her mother, but she knew how bothered the woman had been before she started bringing Moon Young by occasionally. She couldn’t bring herself to break the news – not yet at least. “I have a lot of homework,” she added. This, at least, was true.
Ju-ri pulled out a math workbook and started solving problems as her mother cleaned up the kitchen from lunch. She pulled out some chicken from the fridge and started seasoning it. “Never forget, Ju-ri. The dry brine is key to making cheap meat taste expensive.”
Ju-ri hummed in acknowledgment as she struggled her way through word problems. Night was falling fast – maybe her dad would come by to pick her up on his way home so she didn’t have to sit through her mother’s chicken-prep commentary again.
“And after you brine your chicken, you need to prepare a good coating.”
Ju-ri barely heard her mom anymore, as her thoughts drifted back to earlier today. Everything had been going so well at school until Moon Young decided she needed to destroy her life. What was wrong with the girl? Her smile never seemed to reach her eyes, and she always made Ju-ri wait outside while she checked to see if the coast was clear when they went to play at her house.
“Make sure the eggs are fresh, that’s important.”
There was definitely something wrong with her. No one else wanted to be Moon Young’s friend either, so Ju-ri had assumed that they were alike. But she had been wrong.
“And after the eggs are beaten…dear, hi!”
Ju-ri’s dad walked in the front door of the restaurant. “Dad, hi!” exclaimed Ju-ri. “Are you here to take me home?”
“Of course!” he replied with a smile. “I know how you feel about chicken day.”
Ju-ri grinned. It had been a hard day, but at least she still had her dad.
The next week something was different at school. Ju-ri first noticed a group of boys pointing at her and whispering. Then some girls did the same. She was used to being ignored and bullied by her classmates, but this was a new tactic.
Finally, one of the girls came up to her. “What do you know, Nam Ju-ri?” she asked.
“Sorry, about what?” Ju-ri replied nervously.
“About your BFF. She disappeared. I heard that both her parents were murdered and she did it.”
A boy walked up beside them. “No, I heard her mother fled to Europe and took Moon Young there for boarding school.”
“That...seems unlikely, but I don’t know anything,” said Ju-ri. “I haven’t even talked to her for two weeks.”
The other girl looked suspicious, but stopped her questioning.
Moon Young’s mysterious disappearance had a positive effect on Ju-ri’s social standing. She was the only one who had ever been to the cursed castle, so she was in high demand to describe it to groups of her classmates. They all had a million questions. She was also the only one who had ever seen Moon Young’s now-vanished mother, even from a distance. Her classmates couldn’t get enough of her stories, and by the time Moon Young was forgotten, Ju-ri had finally become an accepted member of the class.