Read the Excerpt: Petty Lies by Sulmi Bak
Pages 13-20
For several months, I struggled with my guilt.
Why hadn’t I been able to stay by my family’s side? Had it really been necessary for me to room at my friend’s place near the university? Wouldn’t I have been able to prevent their deaths if I’d been with them?
Above all, my heart was heavy with the memory of what I’d said to my mother the day before the accident. She’d called me after hearing your vicious words, but instead of comforting her as a daughter should, I’d said to her, “Well, why did you do such a stupid thing? See what comes of caring too much about other people’s business, when you could have just reported it to the police. Why did you put yourself through that?” Even in my grief, I resented her for deciding to kill herself and leave behind a scarcely college-age daughter.
But that was only for a fleeting moment, because right away I thought:
What are you and your son — who’d trampled on my family — doing right now?
In the days following the incident, my head was entirely filled with thoughts of revenge. Not even hacking your son to death in front of your eyes felt like it was going to satisfy me. No — since I’d lost my mother and my brother all at once, it would only be fair if I hacked other members of your family to pieces as well.
First, to get my revenge, I had to gain access to you. How would I be able to enter that house? How might I be able to slowly tighten my grip around their throats? I kept going over these questions, again and again, in my mind.
You must be wondering how I was able to enter your home as a private tutor.
You’ll remember Kim Minhyeok, who introduced me to you. As you know, he’s the private tutor who taught Yuchan’s younger brother, Yujae, at your home for half a year until he passed the job on to me.
I had been watching your house every day, and one day I spotted a man coming out of the house. He turned out to be a senior from the same university as me. When I approached Kim Minhyeok at university and greeted him, he was very glad to see me, and I suggested we have a conversation at a nearby café. I’d worn my hair long and put on a fluttering chiffon skirt in an attempt to look demure and innocent; and, as it happened, he was into that type of girl.
After that day, we met up often and soon grew very close. The more we talked, the more we discovered that we had other things in common. Like me he suffered from insomnia, he adored cappuccinos, he couldn’t handle spicy foods very well, and he loved listening to Rachmaninoff. We even shared a love of animals. He also kept two cats, he said. It wasn’t long before we became involved. I’d only intended to use him when I’d made my initial approach, but little by little I’d fallen for him.
But it turned out he’d had misgivings from the start. One day, lying in bed, he told me he wanted to hear the real reason I’d approached him. I made a full and honest confession. I didn’t want to hide things from him anymore, nor did I think there was any reason to. And I trusted this man would be able to understand my feelings. True to form, after listening to all I had to say, he said he’d be on my side.
Everything after that is as you know it. A month later, citing family problems, Minhyeok abruptly announced he wouldn’t be tutoring anymore, didn’t he? And then he introduced me to you as a trustworthy student he knew from university.
I’ve answered the question of how I was able to enter your home as a tutor. This should quench any remaining thirst for answers that burns inside your throat.
There are several pieces of information that Minhyeok gave me at the time, one of them being that you rarely replaced a tutor once you found one to your liking. He even wrote down for me a few things about the type of tutor you preferred.
1. Arrives ten minutes early
2. Concludes the tutorial ten minutes later than agreed
3. Does not take a break for longer than five minutes on the dot
4. Never, under any circumstances, misses a lesson
5. Does not dress too ostentatiously (<- This is the most important part!)
Were you aware of this?
Of the little amount of effort I put in so I could gain your approval, for instance? I even cut my hair into a short bob for you, when I hadn’t given myself an above-the-shoulder haircut since middle school, not even once.
Minhyeok also gave me a detailed description of his student, Yujae.
He’d had the impression, he told me, that the boy was smart but seemed uninterested in studying. This was despite the fact that he had a brighter mind than most children. In fact, two months ago, Yujae showed me the results of an IQ test he’d taken at his school, and he had earned a pretty high score. Do you want to know what he got? Of course you do, since he wouldn’t have shown it to you. Yujae’s IQ was no less than 168. The test was administered by the school so its accuracy might be somewhat suspect; but even allowing for that, the score’s hardly mediocre.
Then what was going on here? Why did Yujae lose interest in studying?
It was only later that I discovered why, but the reason was that he’d lost all motivation.
When I met Yujae for the first time, I thought he looked like a boy trapped in a world of his own making. He gave off the strong impression of a teenager who didn’t easily open up to others. I know children like that quite well. Outwardly, they appear to bristle like hedgehogs if you provoke them, but inside they’re hoping desperately that someone will listen to them. I don’t think you knew this — even though it’s the most important thing.
I pitied him for having a parent who was as selfish, coldhearted, and rude as you. I wanted to rescue him from having to live under the same roof with strange people like you and Yuchan.
I was sincere in how I treated Yujae.
In response, he began to gradually open up to me. There’s really no cure like attention and dialogue, it seems. We shared many conversations. We discussed a range of topics, including which foods we liked and which countries we wanted to visit. Do you know how much he came to love Albert Camus?
Do you get it now?
You were neglecting a child starved of affection.
It’s said that childhood and adolescence are the most important periods in a person’s life. The levels of trust and affection in a parent-child relationship during those periods greatly influence not only the development of an individual’s personality but also the entire arc of the person’s life. I’ve read articles suggesting that murderers, psychopaths, and sexual perverts turn out the way they do because of problems relating to parental affection.
Right now, you’ll be growing increasingly defensive.
But I loved my children without discrimination, you’ll be confidently assuring yourself. I understand. It’s an illusion and a form of arrogance from which all parents suffer. As they say, however: No finger won’t hurt if you bite down on it, but some fingers will hurt a little less.
Without realizing it, you will have played favorites with your children. It would have been subtle, so neither you nor Yuchan might have noticed, but Yujae would have felt it. Wouldn’t it be stranger if he hadn’t been able to, with an IQ of 168? Having realized he would never be able to redirect your attention away from his brother, no matter how hard he tried, he’d decided to go in the opposite direction: My mother won’t take any interest in me even if I turn myself into my brother — so I might as well become a second- rate human being. He’d thought his mother would at least look his way if he acted out like this. It’s a very adolescent form of reasoning. He thought that if he deliberately stopped studying and his grades dropped, his mother would take an interest in him. In the end, the child’s plan worked. Just as he hoped, you hired a tutor for him.
How agonizing it must have been for him.
Pretending the ploy was going to work, though he knew it wouldn’t, would have been a very difficult thing to do.
Was he tormented by these things? Is that why he turned out the way he did?
You probably can’t begin to imagine why I’ve suddenly brought up Yujae, or the things he’s done.
If I may, I’ll begin by saying that you may have trusted your children too much.
As a rule, no one should be too trusting of others. What’s the first thing we learn as babies? Don’t trust another person for no good reason. Even your own flesh and blood to whom you gave birth is no exception. After all, one’s offspring are other people, too.
Yet nowadays people trust others too easily. They open the door to anyone claiming to be the deliveryman, they’re unable to refuse the pleas of a child or elderly person asking for directions, and they’ll knock back any cold drink that someone hands them on a hot day. There are even some women who’ll invite a traveling salesman into their homes for coffee if he happens to be good- looking. Such people fail to suspect that the other party might be exploiting their altruism, curiosity, or sexual desire — the three greatest human weaknesses. And that’s because the other party is a frail, elderly person, a small child, or even a pretty youth. Both my mother, who’d taken the boy at his word, and you, who believed your child was kinder than anyone, trusted other people too easily.
I realize now that, in your case, there’s one more.
Next time, don’t be too trusting of private tutors, either.
To repeat what I said earlier, my desire to hack Yuchan, your eldest boy and the one who killed Bell, to death was genuinely heartfelt. So when I heard he’d had that accident, I was — I regret to say — elated. Lost his footing on a pedestrian overpass? It felt heaven- sent. But I’m human, too, and when I saw the boy lying unconscious in a coma, my resolve began to weaken. For a brief second, the sight of you weeping over your son moved me to pity.
But that’s nothing.
He may be in a coma, but he’s not dead yet.
It’s only fair if he dies.
At least, that’s what I thought, until I discovered who the real suspect was.
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