After consulting with Yeehyeon, her parents asked the gallery hosting the competition to keep the artist’s real name and personal details strictly confidential. When a publishing house in Hong Kong contacted them about a month later, wanting to use Yeehyeon’s painting for the cover of a Hong Kong edition of a world-renowned novelist’s new book, they arranged for all business to be handled through the gallery. Thanks to this, Yeehyeon was able to protect herself from becoming a victim of the media.
In any case, her grandparents’ dinner invitation came immediately after Yeehyeon’s award was announced. She remembers her mother raising her voice during a phone call with someone that evening, which was very rare.
Although she reluctantly agreed to the dinner invitation after her father’s long persuasion, her mother still couldn’t accept them. As soon as she saw Yeehyeon, she roughly pulled Yeehyeon’s hand and hid her behind her back when her parents tried to hug her, tears streaming down their faces. It was the first time her mother had acted that way.
A few days later, she quietly came to Yeehyeon’s room and told her that regardless of her own feelings, if she wanted to interact with her grandparents, she could. It was up to her to decide. Although she nodded in agreement, her grandparents were just people who had suddenly appeared one day, even if they were her grandparents.
But she seemed to know this much.
Whenever her mother told ‘old stories,’ she would mention pleasant memories that were now nothing, but deep down, she resented, sometimes hated, and still loved her parents.
Yeehyeon could vaguely empathize with her mother’s feelings, who criticized them for contacting her for materialistic reasons as soon as Yeehyeon won the award, but who was also a parent and inevitably weakened by the reunion after 17 years and the tears.
Starting with Yeehyeon’s award, the second half of that year was a time when the efforts and hardships of the past seemed to be bearing fruit for Yeehyeon’s family.
Her mother’s parents did their best to prove that they had not decided to accept the three of them solely because of the artistic talent shown by their grandson, Yeehyeon.
They were much older than his mother remembered, and they humbly acknowledged that everything that had once seemed so important was ultimately a futile illusion, mere face-saving that did nothing to complete a happy life.
Now, the decision of whether or not to accept her was no longer in her parents’ hands. It was up to her to choose whether or not to accept her parents’ hearts, and everyone was making an effort, little by little, cautiously.
That autumn, her longest full-length work, which she had been serializing for about 10 years, came to an end. It was an unusual event in the recent comics industry, where provocative material and short-form webtoons accounted for most of the market. Despite the long serialization period, it was praised for its high-quality ending and was commercially quite successful.
In November, her work won the grand prize at an event hosted by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Creative Content Agency.
She had won many awards, both large and small, but this one felt particularly weighty and meaningful. The result of the award was not directly linked to the passion or perfection of the work, but it was comforting to think that someone had watched and acknowledged her long struggle.
The awards ceremony was on the second Monday of December, about two weeks before Christmas.
Yeehyeon’s father, who could not attend the awards ceremony because he could not freely adjust his working hours, prepared a small plan to congratulate her instead.
He knew that she wanted to accept her parents’ efforts, but the love and hate she had harbored for so long was preventing her from doing so. He could tell, even if no one else could, that she wanted to tell her parents the news as soon as she heard about the award. At the same time, she was hesitant to contact them because she wasn’t sure if her parents would be happy about winning an award for comics, not painting.
First, he contacted her parents without her knowledge and told them the news of the award. As he expected, they were happy enough to feel it over the phone. No, they were almost excited.
He suggested that they all celebrate her together on the evening of the awards ceremony, and they readily accepted the offer and thanked him for his suggestion.
At the time, they were staying briefly in Europe due to her father’s exhibition, but they immediately contacted a travel agency to adjust the date of their return ticket and canceled all the hotel reservations for the remaining schedule, bearing a considerable fee. Just for the purpose of congratulating their daughter for winning an award for ‘just comics.’ Willingly.
In Yeehyeon’s father’s opinion, she deserved all this happiness.
She did not regret giving up many values that her parents’ wealth and fame could have given her more easily. Instead of simply getting on the proposed life that others had already planned, she chose to live a life as a process of getting to know herself.
She, who was a young girl in her early twenties sparkling with passion, was now approaching forty and entering middle age.
She was a person who deserved to be congratulated and supported by her aging parents who regretted their past, her husband who was a reliable colleague, a sweet lover, and an ardent fan, and her lovely son who showed abundant talent under the influence of his parents.
He booked a more upscale restaurant than he usually used to. He decided to take Yeehyeon to the restaurant near the Express Bus Terminal after school, and she promised to come there directly after the awards ceremony. She joked that she didn’t know how many years it had been since she had been to a hotel buffet, and that she would fill up on snow crab and Peking duck, even that morning, with an excited face. Little did she know that her parents were flying in from Berlin to celebrate her award.
The plan was that her parents would arrive at the restaurant first and be seated, and the three of them would meet in the lobby downstairs and come up together. When they were guided to their reserved seats, her parents, who had just arrived from Berlin, would give her a bouquet of flowers with words of congratulations.
However, the flight was delayed due to weather problems in Berlin, and Yeehyeon’s grandparents arrived in Incheon about an hour later than scheduled. They started to move towards the city.
Fortunately, although the awards ceremony was longer than expected, Yeehyeon’s grandparents would inevitably arrive later than her if they were to move to the hotel in Gangnam.
Yeehyeon’s mother was already in a taxi. She chose a taxi, which she doesn’t usually take, because the news said that the entire Line 2 was delayed due to a train breakdown on Line 2 at Seongsu Station.
Yeehyeon’s father changed the plan. He changed the restaurant to a place where Yeehyeon’s grandparents, who had arrived at the airport, could arrive a little earlier than Yeehyeon’s mother.
He called her and asked her if she would like to change the location to a Thai restaurant that the three of them were regulars at, and she agreed, saying it was a good idea. Of course, going to a hotel restaurant after many years would be nice, but she thought that spending a comfortable time with her loved ones in her favorite place would be a more suitable way to celebrate on such a good day. It was also the place where the three of them celebrated when Yeehyeon won the award, so it seemed even more meaningful.
“Shall we go through Tunnel 3 or go in front of Seoul Station?”
When the destination was changed, the driver asked that, and she simply answered Seoul Station because she didn’t like the stuffy tunnel.
Just before the taxi heading towards Samgakji from Tongilro in front of Seoul Station passed the signal waiting line, the signal changed at the last minute. The driver grumbled that he wouldn’t have been caught waiting if the car in front hadn’t been dawdling at the previous signal, but she was in a very generous mood.
Wham’s ‘Last Christmas’ was playing on the radio. Humming the song that evoked warm nostalgia, she leaned back in her seat.
For about a month since she heard the news of the award, she had been constantly thinking about where to spend the fairly large prize money, and a good idea came to her while she was sitting in the audience waiting for the award today. An art museum tour to Europe with her husband and son during Yeehyeon’s winter vacation.
She was going to suggest it to her husband and son over dinner. Thinking of the faces of the two people who would be surprised and happy, she was already smiling as if she had seen them in person.
“Uh? What’s that? What’s wrong?”
At the driver’s flustered voice, she reflexively looked forward.
Vehicles that had received a signal from Hangang-daero to Tongilro were moving in a gentle curve. And the next moment, a blue 1-ton truck speeding from Sejong-daero towards the line of vehicles came into view.
It was a deafening noise that seemed to stop everything around it.
It wasn’t just a loud noise. It was mixed with a strong smell of violence and misfortune, which was completely different from the huge noise that occurs at construction sites or cheering stands at sports games.
Both the taxi driver and she were witnessing the scene of the blue truck rushing towards the mid-sized sedan. It was a run that could only be seen as an intentional suicide.
She covered her mouth with both hands, and the driver also screamed in succession.
The silver sedan, which was hit on the right rear door, changed direction and rushed into the back seat of the taxi she was in, along with the truck that had hit it. The taxi driver was seriously injured, and she died instantly.
From the time she focused on the front at the driver’s shout, everything happened within 30 seconds.
Leave a Reply