Page 30 of Perfect Happiness
“Mom—” Eun-ho raised his voice.“Would you quit it?Noah’s here.”
What Eun-ho really wanted to say was:It’s because of you that Noah’s like this.But Eun-ho didn’t want to waste his energy; the real fight was yet to begin.Besides, it wasn’t like he was going to make his mom like Jiyoo by arguing with her.
Eun-ho’s mom hadn’t liked Jiyoo from the outset.Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that she didn’t like that Jiyoo existed.In her own words, when both parents were divorcees with kids, one child had to disappear for the other to receive devotion.“You really believe Noah won’t become the other child?”In her opinion, Noah was being sacrificed for Jiyoo.
Wife could only be half blamed for Noah’s living with his grandma.The other half of the blame resided with an idiot who acted like a slave to his new wife.Eun-ho recalled last summer, the day he proposed to her.
Yuna spent that weekend at Eun-ho’s place.They’d been seeing each other for over a year by then.He knew everything he could know about her, at least, that’s what he thought.They got along so well that he wondered sometimes if they would ever fight.He believed she believed he was her soulmate.He was positive Yuna would say yes without hesitation.
But Yuna’s reaction was unexpectedly lukewarm.Dating was fine, but marriage?She said marriage was only possible if the other person wanted what she wanted.
“And what do you want?”Eun-ho asked.
Her answer was so banal that he thought it ridiculous.
“Happiness.”
Was there a human alive who didn’t want this?Eun-ho said that he wanted the same thing she did.He added that happiness was precisely the reason he was proposing to her.
“Tell me, Eun-ho, what do you think happiness is?And be specific.”
This caught Eun-ho off guard, like he had been sucker punched.He hadn’t expected his proposal to lead to such a philosophical conversation.Honestly, he had never thought much about what happiness was.Overthinking happiness never made anyone happier.Eun-ho hesitated for a while before answering.
“I think you will eventually become happy if you slowly collect happy moments over a lifetime.”
“Wrong.Happiness isn’t addition.”Yuna stared out the balcony window, as though she were searching for a distant horizon.Although he doubted she could see much more than the reflection of their apartment in the glass pane.“Happiness is subtraction.It’s getting rid of the possibility of unhappiness until life becomes perfect.”
Eun-ho couldn’t agree with this, but he didn’t have anything really to say.He waited quietly for her to continue.
“I’ve lived my whole life striving for that perfect happiness.”
Yuna’s eyes turned back to Eun-ho and regained their focus.
“A married couple is a team.Your effort needs to match my effort.”
“I can do it,” Eun-ho replied without hesitation.
She was asking him to strive for happiness, so what was there to object to?And he sincerely wanted to be happy.He thought marrying her would make him that.
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
Eun-ho shouldn’t have taken this promise so lightly.Only when they started preparing for the wedding did Eun-ho get an idea of what she really meant by “effort.”
That day was the first time he had taken Yuna to Hanam.His mom asked Yuna if she was going to take Noah in when they got married.
“I will when we have a house for four.”
This answer was the promise she made when they got married that Mother brought up day in and day out.The problem was that the two women had interpreted that promise differently.Mother thought the important part was “when you get married” and Yuna thought the important part was “when we have a house for four.”
At the time, Eun-ho was living out of an apartment near school.Only having one bedroom, one bathroom, and a living room, it would be difficult to live with two kids there.Yuna’s apartment was located in a high-rise apartment in Seogyo-dong.It was big enough to raise two children, but too far from Eun-ho’s school.They either would have to live apart during the weekdays or he would have to commute more than an hour to work every day.
Yuna suggested a house as an alternative.She told him that they were building houses on the outskirts of Cheongyeon, and that there were still lots available.Most importantly, she convinced Eun-ho that it would be good for Noah.It would have lots of fresh air from all the trees in the area, and they wouldn’t have to worry about inter-floor noise.
“Didn’t you say Noah likes soccer?”
When they went to the open house, Eun-ho fell in love with the place immediately.It was a proper stand-alone house with plenty of space between neighboring plots.It also had its own garage and a small backyard.The house itself was built like a rambler with a loft.Not to mention the fact that it had four bedrooms and a large walk-in closet.They would be able to give Jiyoo and Noah their own rooms and still have one to spare.Yuna told Eun-ho he could use the remaining room as his study.He was thankful as he had just started his master’s program.
