"What do your parents do?"

Father, you can skip that cliché of a question!

The mood couldn't have been more different from when Clara came.

This wasn't the father who'd told me Clara would be fine even as a foreign daughter-in-law.

He sat there stiff and solemn.

A very late lunch.

She'd showered at my place and even washed her hair.

Im Yun-a had jumped into a chauffeured car with no makeup at all, so all she had on was some basic lotion and toner borrowed from my sisters.

I'd stopped her from having clothes delivered by helicopter.

If that ever got out, people would never let us hear the end of it.

On a Jangju street, she'd picked out a skirt suit from a decent brand.

She called herself short, but she was a good 163 centimeters.

Her figure was a size 44. (TL Note: Korean women's clothing sizes run 44, 55, 66 and up; a 44 is the smallest standard size, about a US 0–2.)

The suit on the mannequin went straight onto Im Yun-a.

Whatever she wore, the effect was pure luxury.

She had a special grace ordinary people couldn't match.

And then we arrived at my parents' country home.

On the way, Im Yun-a had asked about all sorts of things.

She went over everything thoroughly, from my parents' personalities to whether the twins were prickly.

She knew more about me than I'd guessed.

And when we arrived, the mood in the house was weird.

As if Mom had given him a heads-up, Father had taken his seat without a word.

The meal was exactly what Mom usually made.

Pumpkin soybean-paste soup, cucumbers, eggplant, kimchi, a special rolled omelet and spicy stir-fried pork.

I was hungry, but there was no way I had an appetite.

Mom's three exclamation points kept sticking in my throat.

I was so nervous I couldn't taste a thing.

Still, I mixed my rice into the soup and forced it all down.

My family's eyes kept following Im Yun-a and me.

Im Yun-a ate surprisingly well.

"It's delicious!" she kept saying, and…