Finding The Real, True Face
Once upon a time in a castle deep in the forest, there lived three people who had their real faces stolen by the Shadow Witch. There was the boy who wore a mask that only smiled at its lips, the Empty Can Princess who was loud but all empty inside, and the man who was trapped inside a stuffy box. Unable to make any facial expressions because their faces were stolen, they had no way of understanding each other’s feelings so they always misunderstood one another and fought everyday.
The Box Man spoke, “If we want to stop fighting and find happiness, we must retrieve our stolen faces,” so they hopped in their camping car and began their journey to find their faces.
One day, they ran into a mother fox who was bawling, curled up on the snow. The Masked Boy asked the mother fox, “Ma’am, why do you keep crying?”
“Oh, I came out to find food in this snow field but I lost my baby whom I was carrying on my back,” the mother fox, whose tears had run dry, wailed while beating her chest. When the Masked Boy saw that, warm tears started gushing from his eyes. Then the snow began to melt quickly, and the baby fox, who was frozen under the snow, soon appeared.
The three of them resumed their journey and soon came across a clown dancing naked in a field of thorny flowers. The Empty Can Princess asked, “Why are you dancing with all your might, knowing you’ll be pricked by the thorns?”
“I feel that this is the only way people will look at me, but it hurts, and no one is looking at me,” he answered.
The Empty Can Princess entered the field of thorny flowers, and started dancing with the clown. “I’m an empty can, so I won’t be hurt even if I get pricked by the thorns.” As she hopped and danced, loud clanking noises echoed from her empty torso. Upon hearing these sounds, people began to flock to where they were, and applauded while they watched their dance.
They began a new journey to find their stolen faces, and the evil Shadow Witch appeared once again. She kidnapped the Masked Boy who shed tears on behalf of the mother fox, and the Empty Can Princess who danced with the clown. “Now the two of you will never be able to find your happy faces,” she cursed, and locked them in a deep, dark mole tunnel.
The Box Man found the mole tunnel a few days later but the entrance was so narrow that he could not go in. “Oh, what do I do? I have to take this box off my head if I want to get inside the tunnel.”
At this moment, he heard the Masked Boy’s voice coming from the inside of the tunnel, “Mister, don’t worry about us and just run far away. The Shadow Witch will return soon.” However, the Box Man mustered up the courage to take the box off his head, went into the tunnel, and saved the Masked Boy and the Empty Can Princess.
Upon leaving the tunnel to the bright outside, the two of them saw the man’s disheveled face instead of the box, and burst out in laughter. They laughed and giggled, and as he held his belly and laughed uncontrollably, the Masked Boy’s mask suddenly fell off. The empty can around the Empty Can Princess also made a clanking noise as it fell off her and rolled away.
Seeing the two of them find their real faces while laughing, the man, who removed his box, said this:
“Happy. They’re happy. I’m happy.”
After all, what the Shadow Witch stole from them was not their real, true faces but their courage to find happiness.
– from It’s Okay to Not be Okay by Jo Yong
(Modified Netflix’s translation to be closer to the original language’s nuances.)
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