Weakened by the shock of being disowned by his family and the double whammy of impoverished living, Johan Hyung, who had been putting on a consistent performance as a human being with a crumbling reason and gaping flaws, delivered the final blow on the live performance day. Through the mouth of the band’s vocalist, not himself.
[Actually, our guitarist has been going through some tough times. He’s been having a lot of hard days. Please give Juhan a particularly big cheer on stage today so he can cheer up. And I’d also like to ask that person. If you really love Juhan, please be there for him during these difficult times. Juhan needs you right now.]
The stalker was suspicious and cautious, but after a month of elaborate acting, he was convinced that Hyung’s mental state was not healthy.
After the performance, a reunion took place in the cramped waiting room, and Johan Hyung initially added a sense of reality to the situation by lashing out with anger and resentment. After spewing out a torrent of curses, insults, and emotional outbursts, he ended with a self-abandoning murmur, “You’re the only one I have left,” followed by a warm embrace.
The two decided to take a short trip to resolve their accumulated resentments and recover their spirits.
The stalker, who had built a long career as an art academy instructor, was the head instructor and secretary to the director. On Saturday night, with tears, resentment, and pity fluctuating, and after a conversation that led to accepting yesterday’s enemy as today’s only ally, the stalker promised to negotiate with the director for a two-day vacation as soon as he went to work on Monday for a trip with hyung.
“That bastard must have been walking on the pinnacle of happiness on his way to work on Monday. I outed him just to tell him to screw himself because I couldn’t get my way, but he must have been so excited that I fell into his hands because of that.”
Hyung chuckled, finding it satisfying even after thinking about it again, and Yuni noona next to me smiled meaningfully while drinking beer.
One of the stalker’s regular duties was to report on the overall situation of the academy while delivering the day’s mail to the director when he came to work late in the afternoon.
According to Hyung, the stalker, ‘eagerly waiting for the director to come to work, excited at the thought of finally satisfying his perverted sexual desires with a man who would fill them in a lodging on a trip,’ sorted and delivered the mail that arrived for the director that day as usual, and confidently believed that his request for paid leave would be smoothly accepted, conveying the good news that the number of students had increased by about 5% compared to the previous month.
“The materials I sent to my parents about him stalking me. He ended up handing them over to his boss himself. I can just imagine him talking about paid leave to a boss who was trembling while looking at screenshots of messages begging a guy almost twenty years younger than him to treat him like a dog on the bed again because he was wrong about everything…”
Hyung paused for a moment, smiled gently, and rubbed his cheek against the cheek of the cat he was holding.
I could guess what kind of reaction the director, an extremely ordinary middle-aged man who wouldn’t even be immune to men holding hands, would have to that ugly mail without having to hear it.
The revenge play was concluded with a text message hyung sent to the stalker.
「You said you wanted to see the sea, right? I’ve made time for you to see it as much as you want. I overlooked your stalking as a cute gesture. You knew better than anyone that I have a bad temper, so why did you cross the line? You messed with the wrong person. If you want to continue the revenge match, go ahead. Even if my life turns to shit, I’ll cling to you until the end and plunge your life into shit water that will make even a shithole look clean.」
If the only goal was to put him at work, nearly a month of acting would have been unnecessary, but hyung wanted not only social revenge but also psychological revenge. The client was Kwon Juhan, and the script and direction were handled by Baek Yuni.
“First, you pull that person up to the pinnacle of happiness. And then, from that pinnacle of happiness, it’s like, pewooooooong.”
Hyung changed the direction of his index finger, which had been pointing high at the ceiling, and slowly dropped it onto the table, imitating the sound of a plane crashing.
“He shot himself in the foot. If that stuff came to our house, I’d be outed, and if it went to his house, he’d be outed. We chose the company over the house. The knife that slashes others can also become a self-harm tool that stabs oneself. Thanks to Baek Yuni, I learned that very clearly.”
“It must have been… a refreshing Monday morning.”
Yuni noona looked somewhere in the air with a gaze filled with a faint light, as if reminiscing about a precious old memory.
“A bastard who makes others cry has to have tears of blood squeezed out of him. No matter how long it takes, no matter how much manual labor is required, even if my whole life is grounded to it… I have a principle that I will never let a bastard who screws me over get away with it.”
While saying words that could sound a little scary, Johan Hyung lightly rubbed his nose against the cat’s nose. In a voice mixed with aegyo, “Right, Kooshong-ah…”
I was curious about what happened to the stalker, but I could guess to some extent. If a 40-something office worker was outed in that way within the company, the things that would happen afterward were obvious. Families would be shocked and cut ties, but they would hush it up to others, but society wouldn’t be like that.
“Are you feeling sorry for that bastard?”
Hyung’s prediction was wrong.
I was just thinking about how clearly an incident with a clear target of revenge and resentment could be concluded. I shook my head.
“I think it was a clean ending.”
“You’re cold-hearted, unlike how you look.”
Saying that, hyung grinned. The representative of Phantom suddenly overlapped with the mischievous villain-like smile.
We all ordered another beer each. It was their third beer, and it was my second.
“That’s the beginning of Baek Yuni and me. If it weren’t for her, I might have gone to that bastard and poured out my anger and become a real criminal. Our parents would never have paid a settlement fee at that time. Well, the situation hasn’t changed much even now.”
Juhan hyung, with beer foam on his lips, made a bitter expression.
“But Baek Yuni, when I found out, all that stuff about working hard at the gallery was old news, and she was already doing well at Phantom with a hefty salary. She was working hard because there was a shortage of manpower, but she had already escaped the 1.5 pyeong studio apartment a long time ago.”
“Phantom was growing rapidly at that time, so if we weren’t so short on manpower, I wouldn’t have let you interview at Phantom. Ah, what perfect timing…”
Following Juhan hyung’s accusation, which seemed unfair, Yu-ni Noona’s playful grumbling continued.
In the meantime, other tables left, and only the owner’s acquaintances near the entrance and us remained in the bar. They seemed to be making some kind of bet, and for a moment, they split into teams, and cheers and disappointed exclamations burst out together. The cat was startled by the sound and pricked its ears back and forth, burrowing further into Hyung’s arms.
“I quit the band a month after joining Phantom. I still like punk, and I was so into it at the time that I thought I wanted to make a living from it… but honestly, I knew even then that I didn’t have the talent. Looking back, I realized that I didn’t want to do band music, I just thought punk itself looked cool. It was like a young age’s pretense. I was satisfied just wearing the clothes like that. Then I fell into clothes this time.”
Then Hyung looked down at himself with a ‘as you can see’ feeling. I didn’t know much about clothes, and even less about punk looks, but they both suited them naturally, as if they had been dressed like that since birth.
To them, clothing was not a matter of social etiquette or taste, but a most self-expressive way of showing what kind of person they were and what kind of life they aspired to. Just like painting was to me in the past.
I took a couple of sips of beer. After coming to Seoul, I learned about the comfort and reward of a can of beer after work, but today’s beer had a different taste from that.
Returning to the starting point of the story, I asked one thing I had been curious about throughout the revenge play.
“What happened to the boots?”
“Boots? Ah… those boots.”
Hyung grinned and lifted his right leg higher than the table. The cat, startled by the sudden movement, jumped off the chair and disappeared into the back of the bar.
“I’m not a person who says one thing and does another.”
Yuni noona said, proposing a toast.
Three glasses clinked on top of the cold french fries. I didn’t know exactly what it was for, but it seemed like a toast to celebrate something.
“So, Yeehyeon-ah, would you like to work at Phantom full-time?”
“Yes?”
Hyung, as if trying to shake off the lingering afterimages of the past, drank more than half of his beer and put down his glass with a refreshing onomatopoeia, suddenly bringing up the topic. A sigh was heard from Yuni Noona next to me.
“Is it okay to just say ‘so’? You said you’d bring it up, so I left it to you, but I knew this would happen.”
“Why? Wasn’t it natural? I’m explaining how I met you and started working at Phantom. Isn’t it natural to recommend that you work here too?”
“Never mind.”
Hyung raised his eyebrows and pulled down the corners of his mouth, making an unfair expression, and instead, noona started talking in her unique, fast but calm tone.
“Phantom is tough, but it offers almost the best treatment in the industry. In fact, most galleries have worse working conditions than Phantom. There are many places of similar size to us where there is only one employee. We have been increasing the number of employees each time the gallery has grown, but it seems like we need a new employee again this time. We want you to join us.”
“First of all… I’m so grateful for the offer. It seems like you think highly of me. But I’m not an experienced person, so I don’t know if I’ll be helpful…”
Just like when I heard from Ms. Han that the two of them wanted to meet me privately, it was unexpected and welcome at the same time. But I myself doubted how much ability I could demonstrate as an employee in a professional space like a gallery.
“But actually, the manager… suggested that I work as a live-in helper.”
“Live-in?”
“Yes, I haven’t decided yet, but I think that’s what I’ll do.”
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