By Zephyria 
■ The Old Future ■
I was putting on my shoes when the front door opened from the outside.
“…….”
A man standing with his hand on the doorknob, looking at me, faltered. His expression said the timing was bad, and he lowered his gaze.
He was also the man who, just half a year ago, would smile as if he owned the world every time our eyes met.
“Where did you go?”
After tightening the laces of my Converse and straightening up, I asked him. My attitude towards him had become just as dry.
“Just… for a walk.”
In the cramped entryway, barely large enough to flatten a ramen box, we exchanged awkward conversation as we shuffled past each other, bumping shoulders. We had spent about five hours the night before in a fight disguised as a debate, and when I woke up late, he had already gone out without eating.
“Going to your tutoring?”
He asked in a perfunctory tone as he took off his sneakers and headed towards the kitchen.
Since that spring, I had been drawing with the son of my older sister’s friend at his house. I had taken the job to alleviate our financial struggles even a little, but as I continued the lessons for nearly a year, I found myself enjoying and looking forward to the time with the child. It was perhaps the only time I could breathe and dream during that period.
The joy of encouraging and watching the growth of someone full of potential, possessing both talent and passion, brimming with a hot energy that constantly changed form.
While it wasn’t wrong to call it art tutoring, as I was being paid to look at his drawings, I never instructed the child to fix overly individualistic aspects that could become bad habits, nor did I teach him techniques like where to place highlights and reflected light to depict spheres.
The child was already drawing using techniques beyond what was expected for his age. There was no need to guide him on techniques he hadn’t yet mastered. It was clear he would discover them himself, slowly.
“I’m heading out. Make sure you eat.”
I left the entryway, leaving him behind as he took off his jumper, dropped it on the floor, and immediately crawled back into bed. The air outside was chilly enough to make me pull the collar of my coat tighter, but I felt as suffocated as if I were breathing in 40-degree heat.
■ ■ ■
As soon as I opened the front door and entered, the child brought out his sketchbook and practice books. A week’s worth of sketches and colored drawings.
Thanks to his parents, who were an oil painter and a comic artist, the house was overflowing with various art supplies. The child had an exceptionally developed sense for choosing the most suitable materials for the feeling he wanted to express and using them effectively. His drawings, featuring crayons, poster paints, acrylics, oil paints, markers, colored pencils, and even ballpoint pens, showed astonishing growth each week.
This wasn’t just about innate talent. The child was a fanatical practice bug. Though for him, it was more like play than practice.
The theme for that week was profile views. One practice book, containing what looked like over thirty pages, was filled entirely with drawings of people’s profiles. For some reason, he was fixated on profile views that week.
The moment something particularly caught his eye, he wanted to transfer it onto paper exactly as he saw it. He drew and drew until he was satisfied with his depiction. In that process, his techniques naturally developed.
Whether it was hyperrealistic works requiring precise replication or abstract art that omitted, discarded, and simplified, solid descriptive ability was a fundamental quality required in all artistic domains. And the child was born with a strong obsession for it.
I would often feel a thrill at the potential of his talent whenever I discovered this almost fanatical obsession and immersion in a child who seemed like a perfectly ordinary elementary school student—shy and quiet, but laughing often, lively, and occasionally playful like an eleven-year-old, yet fundamentally bright and gentle.
It was a crucial quality for an artist. The desire to transfer what my eyes see onto my canvas exactly as it is. The fever, like jealousy, that made it impossible to sleep or eat if it couldn’t be realized, as if something of mine had been stolen.
Looking through the vibrant drawings, which captured features precisely and with a detail unbelievable for someone about to turn twelve, I had to try hard not to show my excitement in front of the child.
In an era where prodigies emerged in every field, the drawing skills of an eleven-year-old, not a five or six-year-old, might not have been cause for such a stir.
But what I discovered in the child was not just the perfection of technique.
Simply copying like a photocopier is not art. The child could add his own emotions and interpretations to the subject of his drawings. At just eleven years old. Though perhaps clumsy, each drawing was a ‘self-expression’ that only that child could create.
“Lee Hyun, how many of these are there? Doesn’t your arm hurt?”
The child smiled at my worried question. As he rubbed the table where we sat facing each other, his silent smile seemed to convey his joy at being able to show me his hard practice. He also looked a little bewildered, as if he didn’t quite understand the meaning of my words.
My question was akin to asking a ten-year-old who had just run around playing if their legs were tired.
Except for exceptional geniuses or prodigies, schoolwork was a game where results followed with a certain amount of time and effort. It was a common hurdle everyone passed, without needing to feel miserable comparing oneself to exceptional geniuses or prodigies.
But drawing was different.
It was a field chosen voluntarily based on the judgment that one had more talent than others, and it was natural to feel miserable if one couldn’t achieve results there. It was a harsh process of confirming the reality that one, who thought they were special, was actually nothing special.
Practicing and investing time would, of course, improve technique to some extent, but eventually, one would hit a limit that technique alone couldn’t overcome. A realm of the ‘real’ that couldn’t be surpassed by simply being able to ‘draw well.’ The moment one encountered the arena of those who truly spoke through their art and asserted themselves, one faced the humiliation of realizing that what they had been drawing was merely a corner of the universe, not the universe itself.
To put it somewhat cruelly, my drawings were merely ‘fancy diaries’ that failed to move anyone or evoke empathy, stopping at the level of personal stories.
I, too, was an art student who entered university after attending art academies for college entrance exams, but students who possessed their own style in addition to technique were so rare they were difficult to quantify by percentage. Not 10 or 20 percent… it was a matter of one in tens of thousands. Not even comparable to the ratio of Omegas, who are rarer than Alphas.
When I first learned of him, the one rumored to be a monster in the Oriental Painting department. When I encountered his paintings, which seemed hesitant and wavering, yet at one moment boldly asserted himself and attacked head-on.
I was captivated by the shock of seeing another person’s inner self so clearly through their art. In front of paintings that revealed flaws, which everyone tried to hide, without exaggeration or reduction, technique or skill were secondary concerns.
It was the moment I first realized I had a talent not for ‘drawing’ but for ‘recognizing’ art. In front of his work, instead of feeling jealousy as a fellow art student, I found myself excited by the desire to introduce his paintings to more people.
We had so strongly believed we were soulmates who understood each other’s worlds best, so why, how, did we end up like this…
The child didn’t know it, but at the time, I was a married university student.
It was a marriage between a female Alpha and a male Beta, undertaken despite strong opposition from family and acquaintances. Because of it, I had almost cut ties with my parents, moved out, and had to live through financial hardship, but I was confident in our choice and his talent.
However, behind the passion that made us feel like we were floating, reality awaited, demanding we accept each other’s bare faces.
His talent was exceptional. But he was overly self-conscious. He spent more days in melancholy comparing himself to others than showing enthusiasm in front of his art.
With my innate personality that tackled anything enthusiastically and his nature of retreating inward and curling up, we were fundamentally unable to understand each other. While I can now accept more about others than I could then, it was difficult to understand someone at the extreme opposite end of the spectrum when I was around twenty-one or twenty-two.
I admit it. As people around us said, we were too young to understand the practical meaning of marriage. We were at an age where we couldn’t even properly control ourselves or our own dreams. Sometimes, we were even crushed by those dreams.
His drawings, though not yet fully mature, had a unique charm with a style distinct from everything else. Each time I encountered them, the initial tremor I felt standing before his work seemed to recede further into the distant past.
Pushing away the bitter feelings that followed, I forced a smile and asked the child,
“Where should we go today? What do you want to draw?”
We usually went out and explored our surroundings to find subjects for the day’s drawings.
“Hmm…”
The child, who seemed to have already decided, hesitated for a moment, then grinned and pointed at me.
“Me?”
I widened my eyes and asked again at the unexpected answer, and the child nodded with a smile.
That day, after about 10 months of drawing together, I became the child’s model.
With the winter sunlight, which seemed exceptionally cozy in that house, falling on us against the backdrop of a veranda full of plants, I read a book while stealing glances at our little artist capturing my likeness on an 8-k size sketchbook, not a canvas. For a moment, I could dream again in peace.
And when I received the drawing that the eleven-year-old child had completed in two hours without even a 10-minute break…
I learned that providing answers to problems isn’t the only form of quality comfort. That words of understanding and agreement that temporarily numb current pain aren’t the only comfort.
Since the working time wasn’t long enough for coloring, the drawing wasn’t precise. Instead, it conveyed the atmosphere he wanted to express through other elements. It was one of the child’s specialties.
Despite not using oil paints at all, the bold strokes that created a texture like that of being carved with a rough chisel, the warm colors that seemed to draw out a dark atmosphere, or the warm hope planted within a dark atmosphere.
In the drawing, I was suffering from dissonance and division. There was a person who didn’t look happy. The drawing was me, at that moment, so vividly that the thickness and sharpness of the pain made me frown.
Yet, strangely, there was comfort there.
It’s not uncommon for children of that age to comfort someone through their drawings. But most children of that age draw the person looking bright and happy when they want to comfort someone. With the wish for that to happen.
But the child had captured me exactly as I appeared to his eyes. It wasn’t comfort that sugarcoated the situation, minimized it, and injected baseless optimism like, ‘Everything will be alright.’
It was a realization that he had been watching my changes, my emotions, every expression, so attentively. And that he was worried about me.
It was a feeling I had long forgotten—that the beginning of comfort is interest and empathy.
In front of someone who already knew everything about me and didn’t try to see it distortedly, we didn’t need to hide ourselves or feign our emotions. That itself was comfort.
The child who speaks through drawings.
People born with the fate of being able to speak through drawings.
When I received the drawing the child made of me, I reaffirmed that my mission was to announce their language to the world.
I already knew the limits of my own talent for drawing and had no lingering attachment to it. Instead, I had been given another role, and my top priority was to enable him, who was lying under the covers at home, to speak through his art again in front of the canvas.
“Thank you, my artist.”
The child seemed amused by the word ‘artist’ and shrugged his shoulders with a smile. He laughed easily and had a decent amount of playfulness, but he was a child of few words. Perhaps it was natural. He likely had a more comfortable language.
About 3 months after that, my husband and I left for Hong Kong. I believed only in his talent, and he believed only in my passion. Like our marriage, we defied everyone’s opposition and ventured into an unknown world with no connections. Fearlessly.
Those were days when everything seemed like it would go well, and passion and drive alone felt like they could light the way.
■ ■ ■
Teacher lightly shook the can of drink in his hand. Throughout the story, his gaze remained fixed on the river before him. Perhaps he was overlaying the past time onto the flowing river.
“It didn’t work out in Hong Kong either. I got a job at a gallery and worked day and night, and he, who initially felt some stimulation and creative urge, started to wander again before long… we ended up forcing ourselves on each other… and after both of us were worn out, we decided to go our separate ways. He returned to Korea, and I stayed in Hong Kong.”
Perhaps because a considerable amount of time had passed? Teacher’s voice didn’t carry the unquelled agitation of the wounds that would have clearly remained on his self after exhausting arguments with a loved one. It was simply calm. However, he couldn’t quite hide the scratched marks revealed in his gaze as he watched the river’s flow.
It was on our way home from work together, having left at the same time for once.
After getting out of the underground parking lot, Teacher suggested a walk by the river, and we headed towards the Han River after picking out drinks from a convenience store.
It was a short walk from the apartment to the Han River promenade, just through a small tunnel. Since the height of summer hadn’t officially begun yet, the riverside was comfortably cool after sunset.
After walking leisurely along the bike path for about 10 minutes, we were lucky enough to find an empty bench, and it was there that Teacher’s story began.
It wasn’t a long story. He didn’t go into the details of his marriage and divorce. But I could guess that complex values were intertwined there, which couldn’t be simply dismissed as ‘a failed marriage.’
He must have been Teacher’s partner in love, romance, and marriage, as well as an understanding confidant as a human being and a partner with whom he dreamed.
“I didn’t know… that you were married… or that you broke up.”
I mumbled, fiddling with the can in my hand. Teacher ruffled my hair.
“Whether I was married or not, that information wasn’t necessary for us to draw together… and your parents aren’t the type to gossip about other people… they wouldn’t have told a child such things.”
He then let out a light sigh and took a sip of his drink.
“If I didn’t know you were married, it’s natural I wouldn’t know you were divorced.”
Teacher added, trying to lighten the weight brought up by the mention of my parents, and gave me a light smile, but I couldn’t smile back. It had been a long time since I had heard about my parents from someone, but it wasn’t for that reason. I was thinking about Teacher more than myself now.
“Back then, I was truly desperate, and I was certain. Now I know how precarious the certainty a twenty-one-year-old has about life can be… but what can you do? That’s a matter of hindsight, and if humans could skillfully suppress current desires by calculating future regrets, the world’s population would probably be half of what it is now.”
Teacher continued,
“My tendency to go all out once I fixated on something was even worse back then, because I was young. Everyone around me desperately advised against it, saying that dating would be enough, but… dating alone couldn’t satisfy the emotion. I kept wanting more ways to become completely bound to him…”
Teacher’s voice trailed off. He withdrew his gaze from the river and looked down at his lap, gripping the can in his hand with force, and added,
“If he had been an Omega, I could have gotten him pregnant. I thought about it to that extent.”
And turning back to me, they smiled. As if that past passion was embarrassing and fleeting. As if recalling the unripe emotions of adolescence and laughing them away.
While living within Phantom, I had guessed to some extent from the members’ conversations and subtle atmosphere, but as expected, Teacher was a female Alpha. If the partner was an Omega, pregnancy was possible regardless of primary gender. However, for Teacher to become pregnant, they would have had to pair with a male Alpha. I didn’t know the specifics, but pregnancy wasn’t 100 percent possible even with a male Alpha. The reason people around them opposed Teacher’s marriage was likely not solely due to their young age. Involuntarily, Morae and Hyung came to mind.
“So I don’t regret getting married itself. No matter what the outcome, I know it was something I couldn’t not do at the time. It’s true that marriage was as vital as life itself back then, and if I hadn’t been able to get married then, I probably would have regretted it endlessly given my personality. That person felt the same way. That we could live as a couple of a painter and an art dealer, as the best partners, as soulmates for life… I was 1 percent sure, without any doubt. Back then. When such clear certainty occupied my entire mind, how could I possibly postpone the decision?”
A young couple who, driven by strong attraction not only emotionally but also as human beings, dared to marry despite the opposition of those around them. It was a similar story with Mother and Father. Though the outcomes were different.
Teacher’s couple, after clashing until there was nothing left, grew tired and weary of each other and ended it themselves. My mother and father, on the other hand, had the ideal relationship they dreamed of through each other, but one day, a sudden external accident violently took it away, completely against their will.
Which couple’s ending was more tragic was a question that couldn’t be easily answered.
“For people to understand each other… it’s a much more arduous task than I thought. I understand why humans are called a microcosm. It’s complex. But sometimes, there’s no logic or reason to it. It’s bound to be difficult to understand. If the person involved doesn’t know the reason, how can I, an outsider, understand? It’s the same for the other person with me.”
For me, who hadn’t even dated, let alone married, or liked anyone… it was a bit of a difficult topic. However, I could vaguely grasp the frustration of not being able to read the intentions of a complex and difficult person.
“That person, for whom painting was as natural as eating three meals a day, who couldn’t imagine themselves not painting… watching them gradually fall apart because of painting… that felt like a form of love, too. Sometimes, love that goes awry can eat away at each other, can’t it? Like the love between that person and me. That person’s love for painting, instead of expanding or developing, burrowed inward, eating away at themselves, and eventually led them to abandon painting… that’s how it ended.”
Love that goes awry, consuming both the other person and oneself. Yet, a love so intense that one couldn’t bear it without consuming oneself by clashing with the object of that love until all energy was depleted.
Even if the end was separation, could such an experience be defined solely as a failure? Even if I couldn’t provide an answer to that, I felt I understood that such a fierce emotion wasn’t a common experience everyone went through.
I remembered Representative’s words, who had advised me about my relationship with In-woo Hyung, saying I would likely value a relationship where we slowly get to know each other and connect.
I myself didn’t yet know what kind of person I was when it came to dating and love. But vaguely, I had a thought that perhaps I wasn’t that kind of person. Perhaps I was someone who could easily give myself over to momentary curiosity or impulse.
However, unlike Teacher, Mother, and Father, I felt I wouldn’t be able to muster the courage to clash in the face of a fierce emotion that threatened to consume me, an emotion I couldn’t possibly resist. I felt I wouldn’t have that courage now.
“In Hong Kong, and then back in Seoul… as I watched many artists, the thought that became increasingly firm was… that even with talent, if the mental fortitude to continue nurturing that talent isn’t there, results won’t come. That person clearly had innate talent, but they crumbled by constantly doubting it, comparing themselves to others, and becoming frustrated.”
I raised my head and looked at Teacher’s profile.
“A desperate, persistent, and consistent direction to keep painting, no matter what happens. You need that to break through a certain point and shine… and I clearly saw that energy in Seo Yi-hyun at eleven years old.”
Teacher’s face slowly turned towards me.
“You can eat and breathe without painting, yes, you can do all those things. You won’t die. You know that’s not what I’m talking about, Yi-hyun. I just want you to honestly think about whether painting is necessary for you to live as the unique Seo Yi-hyun with your own individuality, not just as one among countless people. Only that. Before it’s too late.”
Looking at oneself honestly.
Perhaps it was because I could no longer be honest in front of myself that I stopped painting. I had embalmed my heart, sealed my lips, and closed my eyes. There was nothing more to say. Or rather, I didn’t want to say anything. I wanted to hide many things instead.
While listening to Teacher’s story, what pressed in from around my chest, demanding I make a decision, was strangely not painting. It was something bigger, including painting. A concept that hadn’t yet resonated, but if I had to say, like life…
Teacher’s last words remained in my heart, heavy like a calm but unignorable solemn warning, like a rock slowly sinking to the bottom of a flowing river and not moving. Before it’s too late.
■ ■ ■
Spicy skate sashimi salad and plump, glossy jokbal, tuna kimbap, and potato pancakes. It wasn’t a harmonious spread, but it was enough for a luxurious meal together for the three of us after a long time. A meal accompanied by drinks.
Yooni Noona and Juhan Hyung often joked that a love for money and alcohol was common among Phantom members. Even if alcohol wasn’t strictly necessary, I had to admit that adding drinks to a conversation made it easier to start.
“You started by cornering me, asking what I was doing lingering around here… it was a whole scene with people gathering. And that person didn’t just stand by, of course. It almost turned into a fight. No, it wasn’t just fists flying, it was a full-blown fight.”
Morae shot Hyung a slightly accusatory glance before drinking soju.
A man had been loitering near the bus stop entrance for several days. At first, neither Morae nor Hyung thought much of it, but as the man, who seemed to have no particular business, continued to wander between the bus stop and the stairs, Hyung grew suspicious. He confronted the man, asking what he was doing lurking around and threatening to call the police. It turned out the man was the boyfriend of a neighborhood resident who had been persistently visiting for days to beg for forgiveness after an argument with his girlfriend.
It had happened just yesterday afternoon.
“When Seo Yi-han threatened to drag him to the police station, the guy was completely flustered… and it only ended when his girlfriend showed up and confirmed he was her boyfriend.”
“There are so many crazy people these days, aren’t there? You can’t even trust someone saying they’re a girlfriend. He could have been a stalker mistaking them for his girlfriend. Anyway… thanks to that, the two of them made up, so it turned out for the best.”
Perhaps embarrassed by his mistake, Hyung, while saying that, just kept downing soju and didn’t look at me much.
Normally, Hyung was never that overbearing. The precarious situation had brought out a different side of him. To be able to maintain a level of composure, to laugh and talk like this, while sleeping and waking up every day under the threat that their current life could be destroyed at any moment, was, when I thought about it, quite remarkable.
“It’s because you’re on edge. I understand seeing a needle as a kitchen knife.”
Morae patted Hyung’s back and concluded. Though said casually, it was also the most accurate description of Hyung and Morae’s current situation.
A life where even a needle looks like a kitchen knife.
Even if they were laughing and talking to me as if nothing was wrong, that life couldn’t possibly be truly alright.
This time it was a misunderstanding, but what about next time? Or rather, was this incident truly a misunderstanding? It was a question no one could be sure of.
I wasn’t yet very accustomed to soju, but I downed my fourth glass in one go. It wasn’t the loosening effect of intoxication, but the sensation of alcohol tightening my throat that seemed to jolt me awake.
“Aren’t you going to Bali?”
Hyung, who was opening a new bottle of soju, paused and looked at me.
“Bali? What?”
“Bali. Aren’t you going?”
“What’s this all of a sudden?”
This time, Morae, who was picking up some skate sashimi, stopped his chopsticks with a puzzled expression.
“I’m fine, so go to Bali.”
“What’s wrong with this one?”
Hyung put down the soju bottle, and Morae put down his chopsticks.
I knew from experience that situations wouldn’t wait for me to be ready, even though I was delaying my decision, saying I just needed a little more time to prepare myself.
Everyday life is an extremely fragile glass floor. It’s an unsecured peace, vulnerable to destruction by unexpected forces at any time, in any way. This was even more true in our current situation.
“We don’t know when I’ll be dragged away again from here. I know that the longer we delay, the more dangerous it becomes.”
Since hearing Teacher’s story a few days ago, Morae and Hyung’s thoughts hadn’t left my mind.
Even though the three of us weren’t a couple, the essence of the relationship between humans wasn’t fundamentally different. Forcing oneself to cut ties with a partner out of exhaustion and self-preservation wasn’t an outcome exclusive to lovers. Unlike Teacher and their partner, we couldn’t push our relationship to the breaking point where we were both worn out. I truly didn’t want that.
“The surfing camp, the conditions were good. Opportunities like that are rare.”
“Hey, I was just looking into it. Where would I go right now? The deposit is tied up.”
Morae picked up his chopsticks again, his tension easing, asking if I was saying this because of the doodles in the practice room.
“It’s not an issue that can’t be resolved if you try.”
“……”
Morae’s chopsticks stopped once more. This was the first time I had been so insistent with the two of them.
“I… might start painting again.”
Morae and Hyung’s eyes widened. They reacted more strongly to the possibility of me painting again than to my suggestion of going to Bali.
I hadn’t definitively decided anything about painting yet. However, even if I didn’t end up painting, I had no intention of keeping the two of them tied here under the name Seo Yi-hyun. I had clearly made up my mind about that. My first step, at least, would start there.
■ ■ ■
My words about possibly painting again made the two of them happier than I expected, but even so, they showed complex reactions, still reluctant to leave me behind.
I explained in detail to reassure them about encountering
The conclusion reached after much persuasion was lukewarm.
Whether to try painting again. Whether to leave for Bali. We decided to each think about it and discuss it again after the Hong Kong trip. That was the harvest for today.
The intoxication from soju was different from that of beer or wine. It seemed fine while drinking, but when I stood up to tidy up, my vision blurred, and the drunkenness hit me hard. Morae and Hyung seemed quite drunk too, as it was quiet beyond the sliding door.
Was it the alcohol? I felt like the floor was undulating, as if I were on a boat or a surfboard. Even the light filtering through the kitchen window seemed to curve and sway at the boundary between the ceiling and the walls. I felt like I would fall asleep soon, but my insides were restless, like the night before moving. Mixed with anticipation and worry for a new life, my mind couldn’t settle on the ground for a long time. I tossed and turned, then reached for my phone placed by my head.
[I apologize for contacting you so late. I… as we discussed last time, can I make my decision after I go to Hong Kong first.]
There was no need to report my decision right away. It was just an impulse. Half of it was drunken rambling, fueled by the light tipsiness. — That’s what I wanted to insist.
I didn’t expect to get a reply from him so late, past 11 o’clock. But then, my phone started ringing.
It had only been a few seconds after I sent the message.
Seeing ‘Representative’ on the screen, I involuntarily sat up. It was still quiet beyond the sliding door. Clutching my vibrating phone tightly, I kicked off the blanket, put on my slippers, and went to the entrance.
Fortunately, the call didn’t hang up and continued to ring persistently. The ‘Representative’ calling from the screen felt like a signal sent from the distant future. I sat on the porch and answered the call.
“Yes.”
[…Were you sleeping? You sent the message just 1 or 2 minutes ago. You weren’t, right?]
He paused, his voice hoarse, and asked.
“Yes, I wasn’t. I came outside to take the call…”
[You said you were going to your old place, right?]
“…Yes.”
I hadn’t told him I was going to Morae and Hyung’s house today, nor had I spoken about it in his presence, but it might have come up incidentally while Teacher and their partner were talking.
Thinking back, he had known a few things beforehand that I hadn’t told him. He had also discussed me with others. Whether I majored in art or not, whether I was an Omega or not. According to Yooni Noona and Juhan Hyung, he had asked questions about me when I wasn’t around. Yet, in front of me, there were only indifferent glances.
“You must be outside.”
Unlike the silence here, the other end of the phone was noisy. Rubbing my slippered feet on the floor, I tried to focus on his breathing amidst the laughter and high-pitched, cheerful voices of people.
[Ah, I was invited. It’s all part of business, you know.]
His voice sounded bored. On the day we drank wine at the Spanish bar, he had leaned back on his chair crookedly, looking uninterested in the gathering. But according to In-woo Hyung, he had come there entirely of his own volition. In-woo Hyung said he had never invited him to go.
I found it amusing that I was now adding new interpretations to his actions, which I had previously overlooked without much thought. Moreover, the direction of those interpretations was uncharacteristically optimistic.
Perhaps that day, he simply wanted to escape a boring after-party. But if that were the case, there would have been no need for him to return to Phantom with In-woo Hyung…
I stopped thinking, let out a silent chuckle, and shook my head. Whatever it was, it was a meaningless speculation and calculation.
“You must be tired.”
[…….]
He seemed to be moving away from the group, as the noise behind his voice gradually grew fainter. And as if he had moved to an isolated space, it became almost inaudible. The clinking sound of a lighter igniting a cigarette, a click, and a deep breath followed. Listening to it, I strangely felt calm.
[I feel good because I think I’ll be able to recruit the artist I’ve been wanting soon… so I can endure it.]
He said, exhaling a long breath.
Ah, he was talking about me. It took me a moment to realize. The phrase “I’ve been wanting” tickled my ears.
“It’s not definite yet… the decision will be later…”
[Seo Yi-hyun, you will definitely want to paint again.]
I wanted to ask how he could be so sure. He didn’t know me well, and even if he had seen my painting, it was only one piece. Was this also a feeling from someone with the ‘ability to recognize art,’ like Teacher mentioned? Or was it confidence in his own discerning eye, which he spoke of so assuredly?
I raised my head. The lights of Seoul, viewed from the rooftop, shimmered and swayed again, like squid fishing boats on the sea.
Stepping out of a lively and cheerful-looking gathering, he was focused on our call, but it suddenly felt dissatisfying that he wasn’t where I was, and I wasn’t where he was. His cologne scent, as if on the verge of revival, teased the memory of my sense of smell. I rubbed the sweat on my palms onto my shorts and gripped my phone tighter.
“I want to draw. But… I haven’t been able to draw for a long time.”
I hadn’t expected to make such an honest confession. And not to anyone else but him.
He didn’t try to console me with sweet words. Instead, he was certain.
[Don’t worry. You’ll find something else you want to draw.]
He spoke with strong conviction, yet his tone was gentle.
I had never wished for anything more than for his words to come true.