“Mm… I’m not going to do it today.”
[Liar.]
I caressed Yeehyeon’s face on the screen as he laughed derisively, his expression clearly showing he didn’t believe me. It didn’t matter if he thought I was joking. No, in fact, I hoped he wouldn’t fully understand the true nature of my loneliness. It was enough for him to know just enough to feel assured of my affection.
“We’re going to see each other in a few days, so I’m going to be celibate starting today.”
[Uh… I don’t think you have to do that. I won’t tease you. It might be bad for your health….]
Seeing Yeehyeon’s expression stiffen as he tried to persuade me in earnest, likely frightened by the thought of the lust that would be unleashed upon him after several days of abstinence, I felt like showering the screen with kisses. It was astonishing how naturally I now wanted to express my affection in ways I had once scoffed at as childish and overly dramatic.
Instead of confessing that even masturbation now felt like a self-tormenting confirmation of his absence, I braved the embarrassment and self-reproach, puckering my lips.
[…….]
Yeehyeon, realizing what I was asking for, buried his face in his pillow and chuckled for a moment. I knew I was doing something that didn’t suit me, but since I’d decided to be childish, I waited without giving up. Yeehyeon looked back at the screen, his face still full of laughter, and rolled his eyes as if debating whether to do it or not, clearing his throat a couple of times. Then, he pursed his lips, leaned in, and pulled back with a distinct smooching sound.
He disappeared from the screen for a moment with an embarrassed groan of euuugh. Hearing his muffled laughter from the pillow, Liu also shook his shoulders and let out a laugh. They were both aware that they were doing things that didn’t suit them, but Liu defended both Yeehyeon and himself with the thought that in a 9,000-kilometer long-distance relationship, this level of occasional childishness should be forgiven.
“I’m telling you now, I’m not going to let you sleep for the whole week. No, even if Seo Yeehyeon falls asleep, I’m going to keep going.”
I declared in a childish, pouting voice to Yeehyeon, who had returned to the screen.
To Liu, the number 9,000 kilometers was less a physical problem and more an emotional one. It was more painful than he had prepared for, but he was always careful with his words so that Yeehyeon would perceive it merely as the wistful longing that came with a long-distance relationship. Compared to the days when he had to secretly fly back and forth to Paris every weekend just to catch a glimpse of him, this was a very happy, dream-like pain that was well worth enduring.
■ PARIS ■
The collaborative work proceeded like a relay.
Without any prior planning, Yeehyeon, who had faced the canvas first, used a painting knife to create a rough texture, covering the entire canvas with a deep blue image. Then, Ben arranged a photograph of a night sky with clouds, which he had graphically enhanced, like a collage. As if they had agreed on a specific theme from the start, the indigo depths of the sea and the night sky harmonized, pointing in the same direction.
Taking it back, Yeehyeon was in the process of blurring the boundary between the photograph and the background, painting over the connection points and adding three-dimensional clouds using gesso and paint.
Ben’s photograph had been printed on a special canvas using UV flatbed printing, so it was possible to paint over it with oils. Yeehyeon chuckled to himself, thinking this was probably the most modern art technique he had ever personally experienced.
When he had cautiously decided to start painting again, he couldn’t have imagined collaborating with another person, let alone a mixed-media project with a different genre. He hadn’t even been sure if he could truly paint again.
“Even before you knew about Changing, you knew. That you had to go to Paris.”
What Liu had said in the car on that rainy beach in Donghae was right. He shouldn’t have given up the opportunity he had earned for himself, settling for the comfort of the boundaries Liu provided out of fear of physical distance. He must have known it subconsciously, which was probably why he hadn’t told him about The Hands’ offer, using the excuse that his mind wouldn’t change even if they discussed it.
The embrace of his first love had been comforting.
Within Liu’s unconditional acceptance and understanding, he felt as if his past was being compensated for. The protection of someone who possessed life experience and the conviction verified by that experience had a different kind of power than the camaraderie shared with peers. If Liu hadn’t pushed him, a little stubbornly at that, the Yeehyeon of that time would never have even considered painting again.
But the past, which was not his fault, could not be compensated for by him. It was something he shouldn’t even have tried to do.
Pausing his brushstrokes, Yeehyeon straightened his back and walked over to the table next to the entrance. He turned up the volume of the music playing from the Bluetooth speaker in the studio, stretched for a moment, and drank his cold coffee.
In the wide, open, I-shaped communal studio, Yeehyeon was alone except for one person working on a sculpture. The space was silent but for the music, with no footsteps or the small noises of tools being picked up and set down. The colleague who had been working around the corner, out of sight, might have gone back to their room at some point.
The coffee was already cold, but Yeehyeon cupped the mug as if it could transmit warmth and looked back at the piece he had been working on just moments before.
The canvas, 250 centimeters wide and 180 centimeters tall, was a large size Yeehyeon had never handled before. But since it wasn’t a style that required precise depiction, the act of filling the canvas itself wasn’t burdensome for its size.
However, to handle a canvas of this size in his usual solitary manner would require considerable mental and physical concentration and exhaustion. The experience of boldly filling a wide surface with a knife was new, but this project was also quite helpful in re-evaluating his own shortcomings. He wanted to build more stamina, and he needed to study color combinations more deeply.
For now, rather than having a fixed style, he wanted to naturally reflect his changes in his paintings. Even if it drew criticism from critics that he was an amateur who couldn’t show a unique style (and indeed, there were quite a few critics who looked at Yeehyeon unfavorably from that perspective).
The only rule Ben and Yeehyeon had set for this project was not to try to convey something or implant meaning, but to focus only on the rhythm guided by the lens and the brush from moment to moment.
For the Yeehyeon of the past, shortly after he had arrived at The Hands, abandoning intent or design for how to fill a work and relying solely on the sensation in his fingertips would have been impossible. Back then, he had believed that meticulous planning and flawless execution according to that plan were the only ways to show respect, sincerity, and seriousness toward art. According to his colleagues, it was a time when he had been as strict as a monk.
Yeehyeon remembered the decisive turning point that had made it possible for him to transfer his present self onto the canvas so naturally and without doubt.
Just as an athlete trains at the same time every day regardless of the weather or their condition, Yeehyeon had gone down to the studio at his usual time that day. Following his routine of continuing with drawing or coloring studies until a specific plan formed, he had chosen a canvas and sat before the easel. He had started with the lighthearted intention of just warming up his hands.
The size of the canvas, the color mixing on the plastic-wrapped wooden palette, the choice of the right technique—everything had been effortless, as if he were following a perfect plan without any painstaking deliberation. He felt like a dancer who could move their body as they wished to express themselves, or a singer who could wield their voice like an instrument.
It was in a state of immersion, faithful only to that very moment and to himself—like sex with Liu, where he had broken all taboos and learned frameworks of socialization and felt even liberation and freedom—that he had painted ‘Colorful Ghost’.
And while painting it, he knew. That it was time to face him again, that he himself wanted it.
Just as no special awakening is needed to realize hunger or the need for sleep, just as no coercive force is needed for the bud of a rose whose flower eye has matured to bloom. So very naturally.
The refreshing clarity of that time, when all doubt about his choice had vanished as if all residue had been cleanly purified, remained not in his head, but in his body—in his palms and cheeks and lips, and somewhere deeper inside. It was not a transient phenomenon that disappeared, but an experience that had become a part of him.
Yeehyeon put down the mug, picked up a brush again, and knelt before the canvas. Only after enough time had passed for Jeff Beck’s “Blow By Blow” album, which he had first been introduced to in Juhan’s officetel, to play through one more time could he finally put down his brushes completely.
The sound of the music, which had faded into the distance while he was in the midst of his concentration, slowly returned to his ears. The intro to the last track, ‘Diamond Dust’, was just beginning. (While telling Liu about this coincidence on the phone, Yeehyeon had to try hard not to get too excited.)
After another thirty minutes or so of cleaning up, Yeehyeon finally left the second-floor communal studio. He hadn’t intended to, but having skipped dinner to focus on finishing, it was an escape after a full seven hours. Among his colleagues, there were often people who would hole up in the studio for twenty hours at a time when they were so-called “in the zone,” but for Yeehyeon, it was a very rare occurrence. Perhaps because he was now conscious of the time he’d spent, he felt his entire body go limp.
“Seo Yeehyeon.”
Just as he was about to step onto the stairs leading to the third floor, Yeehyeon, gripping the railing, looked down at the landing below. Yuni, dressed comfortably in jeans and a thick plaid jacket, was walking up the stairs holding a small bouquet of flowers. It looked like she was just getting home from a date.
“What’s up? You were in the studio this late?”
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