Smile Like You're Happy
I spent a day of that bizarre, dream-peculiar calm. Mid-meal I was casually texting a friend from my past life, fretting over how I'd explain this changed body when she suggested we meet up.
Then I snapped awake, thought what an absurd dream, caught my breath, let the tension drain from my limbs — and my heart suddenly hammered at the thought that I might have overslept.
Then I registered that today was Sunday, and the tension dissolved in an instant. I let out a long, heavy sigh of relief and rolled onto my side, the mattress a little too firm — clank.
Ah. Right. The thought landed. My heart didn't pound the way it did when I worried about being late for work, but something still churned uneasily in my gut.
"…"
A dull ache pulsed through my fingers. I wanted to thrash and scream for a mother and father who didn't even exist. I nearly did — until my senior opened the door at exactly the right moment, and I barely swallowed the urge.
"Heeyeon. Morning!"
"Ah — hello…"
I couldn't even manage a proper nod in this position.
"How's the hand?"
As she asked, I noticed the phone in her grip. One that looked like mine — maybe was mine.
"Ah… i-it's fine. Seon— Unnie."
Was it the thought that was the problem? I'd only started calling her senior a short while ago, and already the word stuck to my tongue. Two missing fingers were enough of a reason to correct myself in a hurry.
"Pfft. Right. Close call, huh?"
She walked over, sat on the edge of the bed, and held the phone out toward me.
"Here."
"Uh — yes…?"
"Ah, right."
She pulled a key from her pocket and unlocked the handcuff binding my right hand. Only then could I move the arm that had been locked in the same position for hours; blood rushed back into it with a tingling flood. Without thinking I wriggled my fingers — only the ones not splinted would move.
So with my newly freed right hand, I took the phone she offered.
"You never take selfies, do you, Heeyeon?"
"Sorry? Ah — well, I just…"
"Why let a face like that go to waste? I don't get it."
She murmured it like she genuinely couldn't understand. Then she opened her mouth again.
"Take one for me. Just one. Smiling. Okay?"
The request made no sense — until it did, and I wondered if she meant a nude shot of me. I unlocked the phone, and she kept talking.
"Not the kind where your body's showing, um… not that. Anyway, you have to smile. Got it?"
"I — that — but why…"
"Just because. I've got a use for it?"
She grinned, all easy cheer. For a second I considered sneaking a text or a call to the police — then dropped the idea. Whether I could even manage it with three fingers was doubtful, and the risk if I got caught felt far too high.
"…J-just a second…"
"Sure. Take your time."
Then a thought hit me out of nowhere — the kind manga draws as twin jets of piss shooting past either side of a character's head. What if she was going to use this photo to impersonate me?
I didn't know many people, but I did have social media. Technically I'd only made the account, but still.
Once you start university, looks alone tend to pull people toward you — and whether it's group projects or exams, surviving without connections is hard. So I was linked to a fair number of people.
And if a smiling selfie of me went up, who would ever think I'd been kidnapped? Not many people dig through someone's SNS just because they no-showed at work — but even if someone did, one look at that photo and they'd think, ah, she just ran off.
From my position as the one who'd been taken, it felt greasy and wrong. To anyone living a normal life, it would just be something to dismiss — out loud or in their head — with a muttered crazy bitch.
Once the thought got that far, I started to hesitate. I glanced at her face, gauging her mood…
"Not taking it?"
"Ah — aha — i-it's just awkward…"
"Hmm. Hurry up and take it, okay?"
"Um, but is it really necessary? I mean — I'm not saying I won't…!"
"…"
The more I pushed back, the more her expression went dead. My fingers throbbed without warning and I curled in on myself before I could stop it. The clank of the remaining cuff was quieter this time. I'd managed to cover myself with my right arm, at least.
"I told you what happens if you don't listen, Heeyeon. Punishment."
"…A-ah! I-I'll take it, I'll take it! J-just a second…!"
She climbed onto my thighs, folded her arms, and looked down at me — like she was doing me a favor by waiting — so I snapped the photo in a rush. When I moved to hand the phone back, she kept her arms crossed.
"Again."
"Huh — what?"
"You weren't smiling. Take it again. Like you're having fun."
"…Okay."
I opened the camera again, dragged a smile onto my face by force, and clicked. Only then did she uncross her arms, take the phone — and immediately crumple her face in disgust before tossing it back at me. More of a flick than a handoff.
"Hwah—!"
It hit my injured fingers. A searing jolt of pain punched the air out of my lungs.
"Again."
"Augh — r-right. J-just a second…!"
The way she stared at the fingers the phone had struck, like she might rip another one out on the spot, sent me scrambling. I snatched the phone up with shaking hands and clicked — watching her face, smiling as hard as I could manage. Click, click.
And again. And again. Again and again.
"I-I've never really taken selfies. I-I'll do it again."
"Haa. This is exhausting. Aren't you happy, Heeyeon? Even with me here?"
"Ah — I-I am happy, i-it's just — n-nerves. Yeah — I mean, yes."
"…"
Her hand came up. The angle looked like a slap, so I squeezed my eyes shut — but no pain came. I cracked them open carefully, and only then did heat bloom across my cheek in a sudden rush.
"Uwah…!"
Another crack —
My head snapped the other way.
"Heeyeon."
"Ah — uwah…"
The phone dropped from my right hand onto the bed. It was a pointless gesture, but I pressed my palm to my cheek — and her hand came flying again. All things considered, taking it on the face still seemed better than the already-ruined fingers, so I yanked my hand down fast. My cheek burned.
"Smile."
She said it. My head felt strange, spinning. I tried to remember the last time anyone had hit me and landed on a male middle-school teacher from my past life, a strike across the back of the hand. That was the last clear memory.
"I-it hurts…!"
"Hurry up. Smile."
"J-just a second. Just a second…!"
So of course my reaction was that slow. Both eyes were open, and still my left one felt like it was sliding shut.
—Crack.
A sharp, splitting sound. My head whipped sideways again. I couldn't understand how those thin arms produced that kind of force.
"Kkuhp…! I-I'll do it, I'll do it…!"
I squeezed my eyes shut, covered my face with my right hand, and said it — and she reached down, picked up the phone.
The lens pointed at me.
"Ah — hi…"
I lifted the corners of my mouth. My cheek throbbed with heat. I wondered what I looked like right now — but if it was like this, maybe anyone who saw the photo would feel at least a flicker of doubt. So I just smiled.
She still hadn't pressed the shutter. Phone held steady, she raised her hand again and swung. And swung. And swung.
"Hyaaak…! I-I'm sorry…! I-I'll smile…!"
"Smile. Now."
She said it again. My right cheek burned like it might come off. So this time I meant it — I beamed, playing the part of someone who'd just quit a shitty job.
"Hheuk."
My right arm was still free, so I could keep touching my cheek until the heat faded. When I laid my palm against it, the warmth told me this wasn't some glitch in the signal — it was real, and it was hot.
"…"
She was working on my phone. From the angle I could catch, a story was being carefully assembled — a song titled Dokyo laid over it, my face cut in half at the corner of the frame, smiling like I was having the time of my life while one side of it blazed an ugly red —
Ah. Only then did I start to understand what she was thinking, what she was doing.
She tapped a button at the edge of the screen. Something spun in the middle of the display, and then the photos uploaded in a cascade.
"Kkueuk…"
I clamped my mouth shut to kill the sob, and a thin, high sound leaked out of my throat instead. She studied the uploaded photo once more, murmured yeah, that works, then tossed my phone onto the floor without care and turned toward me.
"Ahah — ha. Haa."
A strange voice. Her expression was nothing like what I'd seen before — thick with raw lust. I sucked in a breath and the tears cut off cold.
"I-it's done. Right?"
My voice shook. I stumbled over the words like I'd bitten my own tongue mid-sentence.
She yanked the blanket off me and climbed on top. Through my stomach I could feel every texture of the sweats she was wearing.
She ran both hands over my ribs, then stripped her top off in one motion and flung it far away. She stared down at me, face flushing red.
"Haah, Heeyeon."
A wet, thick voice. I looked up at her, and she covered her face like she was embarrassed — then told me to wait a second, scrambled off the bed so fast she lost her balance and nearly slipped, and yanked open the nightstand drawer with a rattle.
"This — just this for a bit. Okay?"
In her hand: an ordinary black blindfold.
"Looking you in the eye is just too embarrassing, I guess? Ahah. I freeze up without meaning to…!"
The expression of someone offering flowers to a lover. She climbed back onto the bed, back on top of me. Both hands hooked through the blindfold's ear loops, rising toward my head.
Between the blindfold and the bridge of my nose, light filtered in — faint, and thinning.