“No, it wasn’t much of a shock…. You told me about it before, Hyung.”
“Ah….”
Recalling the time we met at a bar in Hongdae that had a cat, Hyung gave a small, awkward laugh and vigorously rubbed his recently cropped hair.
“A guy you’d just met started spouting off stuff like that, you must have been pretty surprised back then, huh?”
It was the opposite.
“I was actually glad because I felt like I got to know you and Noona a little better…. I’m not good at talking about myself.”
I definitely had a good feeling about Yuni-Noona and Hyung, but given the circumstances at the time, where I had to be wary of strangers, and with my introverted personality, I probably wouldn’t have made an active effort to pursue that good feeling.
Hyung, who had been looking at me for a moment, shrugged and looked back down at the sheet music.
“It’s nothing meaningful. Just something I could tell any random person on the street. You know I have a loose tongue.”
Perhaps. At the time, Hyung’s tone didn’t sound like he was taking what had happened to him seriously, nor did it seem like he was seeking understanding or sympathy from others.
Since Hyung wasn’t like me, he might be able to easily tell anyone about that incident—what seemed like the most horrific form of conflict that could happen between a parent and child—as if it were just a matter of getting caught in a random fight on the street.
But just because his tone was light, or because he might have shared it with a light heart, didn’t mean the events themselves could be light. At the very least, through that story, I came to feel Kwon Juhan as a more concrete individual.
If I hadn’t heard his story back then, even if I had started working officially at Phantom, I wouldn’t have hung out with him privately or followed him to the Old Future filming set. I wasn’t the type of guy who opened his heart so easily and mingled with new people.
Just as I thought he was about to play again, Hyung took a sip of beer, hugged his guitar, and began to speak hesitantly.
“This is kind of a pathetic story, but… to be honest, I felt a sense of kinship with you at first.”
“……”
“The people of Phantom are all people who are a cut above the rest, the artists we meet through work are like that too, and a lot of our clients are creators. Full of flair, overflowing with talent, successful…. Being surrounded by people like that all day, frankly, it can be a little intimidating.”
His unexpected words made my hand stop completely. To me, Hyung was also one of those brilliant people.
Strumming the guitar strings softly from top to bottom, creating a pleasant sound, Hyung spoke.
“But you just seemed like a normal guy my age, so I was a bit relieved when you came. It gave me a basis to think that you and I were the normal ones, and everyone else was just excessively brilliant.”
After saying that much, Hyung took a sip of beer and placed his fingers on the guitar’s fingerboard, as if to resume his practice. Then he shot me a playful glare and said.
“But in the end, you turned out to be a brilliant guy too. Traitor.”
“No, I still… haven’t shown anything yet. I’m not even sure if I can really live up to expectations from now on…. You’re much more… you’re skilled at the work for Phantom and you even run Old Future.”
“I started at Phantom because they said they’d provide room and board, and honestly, Baek Yuni is the real owner of Old Future. I’m just a perverted delinquent who happened to meet good people and luckily landed a role that’s cooler than I really am. And you were picked by the Director. I don’t know about other things, but you can trust the Director on this—he’s a real demon when it comes to spotting potential. He’s built up the gallery by discovering many artists that way.”
A perverted delinquent who happened to meet good people and luckily landed a role that’s cooler than he really is. I never imagined that Hyung, who seemed so self-assured and uninhibited, would judge himself so harshly.
Looking at it from that perspective, I was just a coward who happened to meet good people and was luckily given a chance. Before, what sustained me was Morae and my brother, and now… it was the many people in front of me, including Juhan-Hyung, and one special person.
If anything, I was the one who had keenly felt my own insignificance among solid people like the Director, the General Manager, Noona, and Hyung. Hyung seemed like someone who wouldn’t need to feel such emotions, but I knew better than anyone what that feeling itself was like.
As if he was having trouble with a certain part, Hyung played a short melody over and over. It was a melody that stirred something deep inside.
“And actually, that painting, I liked it too. Your piece that was hanging in the Director’s living room. I got into the Western painting department, but that was just because my parents got me an admissions consultant to get me into a school in Seoul, so I wasn’t really interested in art, and I especially disliked abstract paintings because they seemed pretentious and empty… but that one was good. In my opinion, art is closer to poetry than literature; you can’t pinpoint a clear narrative or theme like in a novel, but that painting… looking at it made me feel comforted. Like, hey, you’re not the only one having a hard time in this world, cheer up! That kind of feeling?”
As he said the last part, Hyung briefly looked up and grinned at me. And then, that same melody repeated again.
Regardless of his own self-assessment, to me, Hyung, who could confess these stories so honestly and without making a fuss, still seemed to shine.
Hyung’s long, thin fingers pressed the strings on the fingerboard with speed and precision, creating notes. Though his hands were the most beautiful in my eyes… Hyung’s hands, so thin that the movement of the bones was visible on the back, had another kind of charm.
A fragility that looked dry and cold, but moved delicately, pleading of loneliness… something like that.
Perhaps it wasn’t just art, but music too, that was closer to poetry than to a novel. As a layman, I couldn’t explain it logically, but I could tell just by listening to Hyung play. That he wasn’t the light, shallow, merely lucky person he claimed to be.
I stopped the full-body croquis, switched to a harder pencil, and focused on sketching his hands. The practice slowly transformed into a performance.
The individual bars, which had been broken into pieces and repeated several times, became a smooth, connected melody, taking on a consistent color and forming a single flow. I didn’t know if Hyung was playing it with that feeling or if that was the original feel of the song, but even though he was only playing the melody without lyrics, it was a piece that seemed to paint a story.
I stopped my pencil and asked.
“What’s… the title of this?”
“It’s by Jeff Beck, one of the world’s three greatest guitarists…. Well, opinions are divided on who the three greatest are, but anyway, it’s his song.”
Hyung answered with the most animated expression he’d had since I entered the room today.
“The song is called ‘Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers,’ and it’s because I’m fumbling through it in practice, but the original is absolutely killer.”
With a flushed face, like a child talking about dinosaurs, cars, or his favorite anime characters, Hyung even sent me the guitarist’s name, album title, and song title directly through a messenger app.
“Download the album and give it a listen. If you like this song, you’ll probably like the other songs on the same album. Make sure you listen to the original.”
I had thought I would be able to draw Hyung, thinking I knew him a bit more concretely than I knew Noona, but now I had no idea what kind of Hyung I should draw. At the very least, the Hyung I had come to draw today was not here.
There were still about two hours left until the promised 6 o’clock, but during that time, I could do nothing more than sketch his external appearance. It was a sketch of just a shell, no different from a still life. Just like the drawings in the notebook I had shown him.
When 6 o’clock came, Hyung suggested we leave together, pulling a T-shirt over his head and preening in front of the mirror. He slowly transformed into the image of a punk, full of confidence and a cheerful spirit of rebellion, not at all like someone who belittled and diminished himself.
Standing in front of the mirror, adding to the number of piercings adorning his ear, Hyung spoke.
“Did the Director say he was coming to pick you up?”
“……Yes.”
“A date?”
I was flustered by the unexpected question, but telling myself it was just my own guilty conscience, I feigned composure.
“He just said there was an exhibition he wanted to recommend….”
“Isn’t meeting up one-on-one on a weekend evening to see an exhibition a typical date? Well, not that I know much about typical dates.”
Shrugging as he said that, Hyung looked at me through the mirror with a sly expression.
“Good for you, Seo Yeehyeon.”
“……”
It felt like he knew something. As I hesitated, chewing on my lip, unsure how to react, Hyung made an even more flustered face and turned to face me.
“Hey, your reaction is making me more flustered. Your crush on the Director, don’t tell me that was a secret?”
His attitude suggested he didn’t even need to confirm the truth with me. Hyung was completely certain.
“Uh… how….”
“What do you mean, how? The day of the barbecue, I knew because every time I touched the Director, you looked like the sky was falling. But… this is a real sky-is-falling face right now.”
Hyung comforted me, saying that Noona couldn’t have known since she wasn’t in a position to see my face, and the General Manager was oblivious when it came to matters of love, so he wouldn’t have noticed. But at the same time, he also pinched my cheeks as I sat on the bed and stretched them out, saying I was too obvious for someone trying to hide it.
“I thought you were being so obvious because you wanted to shout it from the rooftops. ‘I like the Director. The Director is mine! So, Juhan-Hyung, don’t touch the Director!’ like that.”
It was true that I had been envious of Hyung and his casual physical contact that day, but I truly had no idea that Hyung had been aware of my gaze. The fact that I was that easy to read was… a bit of a shock.
No, maybe it was just my feelings for him that I couldn’t hide. After all, even Juhan would sometimes get angry, unable to stand my impassiveness.
“But what’s this, are you seriously into him? It’s not just admiration, like for a celebrity?”
At my reaction, which must have been pale with horror, Hyung’s expression also grew more serious. He ruffled my hair, then crossed his arms and let out a light sigh.
“Right. You seem like the type who wouldn’t even know what it means to like someone casually.”
Having never liked anyone before, I had been slow to recognize my own feelings for him. I was even more confused because I had no information on what state I would be in when I liked someone, or what I would want from them.
And yet Hyung, a third party, simply said he thought I would be like this. I felt like asking him instead—how did he think I would like someone?
“But I thought you wouldn’t even consider someone like the Director as a romantic partner. This is a real surprise.”
“……”
With my expression, I asked the back of Hyung, who was turning back to the mirror, for his reason.
“The Director, as a boss and an elder, he’s easygoing, doesn’t hold grudges, takes good care of you, and doesn’t make a big deal about it. He’s great in many ways and there’s a lot to learn from him, but… honestly… he doesn’t seem like a person who’s serious about romance, does he? That’s why I thought, of all people, you would never fall for him.”
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