But it wasn’t an unpleasant buzz. Feeling my thoughts and body hazily dissolving, I let my posture slump a little more.
“I wasn’t looking for you to give me an absolute conclusion. From the start, I just wanted to hear your opinion, Seo Yeehyeon-ssi… so you don’t have to add those self-deprecating words. It’s an original perspective, and it’s quite interesting.”
He said this with a stunned expression, as if he’d been struck, then fell silent, lost in thought.
He ordered another bottle of the same sake, and until he had drained the first glass of the new bottle, until the conditions for a stable conversation were met again, his eyes were turned inward, deeper and darker than usual.
Rolling the empty glass in his hand, he opened his mouth, his gaze angled down toward my chest.
“While turning away from the truth, or hiding the truth… is it possible for that process not to be accompanied by lies? In that sense, silence… could be seen as already containing a lie in some ways.”
The sake glass, a bit larger than a typical soju glass, felt smaller than it was in his large hand. I watched his hand, clean and without a single hangnail, before moving my gaze to his face.
It was only a guess, but it didn’t seem like he was just talking about the exhibition’s theme. His expression was that of someone who had either been a victim of a silence that contained a lie, or, conversely, had experience embracing one himself.
And so, in the end, it felt like he too condemned silence more than lies.
“We can’t always be on the side of truth… but what’s important is whether you make excuses for silence or lies and become numb to them, or… you continue to feel the prodding of your conscience and strive to get closer to the truth… I think… that’s what matters.”
These weren’t words I had fabricated just to comfort him.
Although I had answered his question with my father in mind, I didn’t think I myself had always stood on the side of dazzling truth. No, in some ways, I wasn’t so different from my father. I might have just been a more diluted version of him.
So my words were an excuse for both of us.
As if laboriously lifting something heavy, he raised his gaze to my eyes. He was smiling, faintly, but it was literally a bitter smile.
“This is much more… agonizing than I thought.”
“……”
“For a cowardly adult whose life is impossible without silence and lies… this is quite… a piercing remark.”
He was speaking as if it were a joke, but I could tell I had struck a nerve. As he tilted his glass, I followed suit, downing my drink a little too quickly. I couldn’t pretend to be an innocent victim, a pure little lamb, after making him the ‘bad guy’ twice in one day.
“Even though I’m a legal adult… I’ve never thought of myself as one yet… but it’s not just… adults who are cowardly. When it comes to the cowardice of silence, I have… a lot of it too.”
He chuckled lightly and glanced my way.
“Compared to the cowardice of my silence, yours, Seo Yeehyeon-ssi… would be as refreshing as the morning dew.”
“That’s not true.”
Perhaps thanks to the slight buzz, my tone was quite firm. It might not have been a silence or cowardice that entangled someone else and caused them harm, but that was likely not because I was closer to the truth than he was, but simply because I wasn’t in a situation that carried social responsibility.
Even if I were to become entangled in various networks of relationships, bound by many expectations and duties, could I promise with certainty that I wouldn’t drag silence deep into my life?
As if trying to shake off the dark weight from moments before, he leaned toward me with a subtle smile.
“Is that so? You have a sinister, murky, and fishy silence? In a body this clean and pretty?”
“……”
The conversation had veered in an unexpected direction, and for a moment, I was at a loss for words. After wiping my face, which was quickly heating up from the sudden lewd turn in conversation, I downed some more of the undeserving alcohol.
“I welcome you drinking… but eat some food while you’re at it. If you neglect eating because you have no appetite, your stamina won’t hold up when it counts.”
He placed a chicken breast skewer topped with wasabi on my plate for me to eat, and he seemed to have no intention of continuing the previous topic.
He was terribly worried that I had a poor appetite lately and was eating less, as if I’d been struck by the heat, even though I was rarely exposed to it. To be precise, it wasn’t so much a lack of appetite as it was an occasional aversion to food, which made me wonder if it was a mild case of gastritis, but it seemed better to just say I had no appetite to lessen his worry.
The chicken he served me was soft and moist. It was a dish made with fresh ingredients, but the unique smell of the chicken still faintly turned my stomach. Still, it was bearable. Knowing it was an issue with my condition and not the food, I nodded, said it was delicious, and offered him some as well.
“About Choi Inwoo’s work, you said it reveals an honesty about his own dishonesty. You said that before, right?”
He said, filling our two empty glasses instead of picking up his chopsticks.
“I know that when you draw, Seo Yeehyeon-ssi, you’re the type to face your deepest self, like that artist from a moment ago… but you don’t have to force yourself to draw the extreme every time. If it’s hard to face your own rock bottom right now, try drawing the self you feel is cowardly. If that is the Seo Yeehyeon of now, wouldn’t it be meaningful to leave that behind?”
“……”
He was like someone who had seen right through what I had been struggling with since I started drawing again. To the point that I briefly tried to recall if I had ever consulted him about my worries…
“Art isn’t only the sublime conclusion reached after overcoming a process of endurance.”
Raising his filled glass to propose a toast, he added with a slight smile. From the time he first suggested I start drawing again until now, looking back, he had been an incredibly insightful confidant who pinpointed my psychology with precision. Even his move of playing the Suki Kim card was a proposal made possible because he understood me so well.
After draining about half of the glass we had clinked together, I held it tightly without setting it down.
“CEO-nim.”
His gaze turned to me, soft.
“Juhan-Hyung’s sketch. I want to draw it in the garden next time… would that be okay?”
He raised his eyebrows and asked back.
“Hmm, my garden?”
“Yes.”
“Of course, use it whenever, as much as you want.”
“Well, the thing is… I’m planning to… draw a… n-nude….”
“……”
His stiff face as he looked at me seemed to hope he had misheard.
“Whose? Kwon Juhan’s nude?”
I nodded, and he swirled his glass, falling silent for a moment with a complex and inscrutable expression. His lips parted several times as if to say something, but instead of speaking, he filled and emptied his glass twice.
Then he asked if I wanted to have dessert now, if we were going to skip the rest of the meal course. Since I was already tipsy and had no thought of eating, I agreed. Matcha ice cream in a neat dish was served promptly, and he focused on eating it with a spoon as if he hadn’t heard what I’d just said. At least, that’s how it seemed.
Our eyes met, and faced with me waiting for his answer with anxious tension, he let out a sigh of resignation and relaxed his shoulders.
“You said it because… you thought I’d throw a fit and oppose you drawing Kwon Juhan’s nude, right?”
“Uh… um….”
I fidgeted with the handle of my spoon, mumbling. I couldn’t say no, but it was also awkward to admit it was true.
“If that’s what you thought, you saw right.”
It was an unexpected confession. He let out a self-deprecating sigh and placed his spoon on the plate.
“I’ve been surrounded by art since I was born, and I’ve been in this business for years, but to think that now… I can’t even distinguish between art and personal feelings, that I’d lose my mind over you saying you’re going to draw some other guy’s nude… I really didn’t know.”
“……”
A little surprised by his unfiltered, direct expression of emotion, I dropped my spoon and fumbled for a moment.
“Don’t make that face. I’m just saying that’s how I felt, not that I’m going to stop you from drawing it. Fortunately… I still have that much sense. For now.”
He reached out and lightly pinched my cheek, forcing a smile. It didn’t hurt, but I found myself smiling as I needlessly rubbed the spot he had pinched.
“If you just wanted to draw a nude, I’d offer to do it myself… but that’s not it. You want to draw Kwon Juhan as a nude, don’t you?”
Even while saying he wouldn’t stop me, his expression was still displeased.
Would he really get jealous over something like this? I, who had sometimes dismissed my own worries as being self-conscious, was relieved that he wasn’t angry, but I couldn’t stop smiling at his disgruntled face that didn’t hide his jealousy.
Perhaps taking my suppressed laughter as a jeer at his jealousy, he scratched his forehead and said, as if making an excuse.
“I know it’s pathetic… but I’m feeling a jealousy I never even felt as a teenager. That’s right, I’m incredibly jealous. But because I know you were considerate, knowing I’d be jealous, I think I can stop at just light jealousy without getting uglier. So… I’d appreciate it if you’d tell me in advance about things like this in the future, just like you did now.”
“I… get jealous sometimes, too.”
His eyes widened. And soon, a smile full of anticipation spread across his entire face. He folded his arms on the table and leaned his upper body toward me, as if telling me to elaborate.
Partly because of the alcohol, and partly because his confession gave me courage. He wasn’t the only bad guy, nor was he the only one suffering, seared by the heat of jealousy.
Gripping the spoon and holding it upright, I meaninglessly scraped the plate under the ice cream as I revealed my own childishness to him this time.
“Noona and Hyung I definitely like them too, and I know it doesn’t mean anything like that at all….”
“But?”
“The piggyback rides and things like that… I’d be.. glad… if you didn’t do them.”
“……”
Leave a Reply