SSL 19

“……”

“I was the only one talking too much.”

Jaehyun belatedly showed signs of embarrassment.

“Look. What about you?”

What about what.

Doyoon almost parted his lips to ask. But he bit the inside of his cheek and closed them again. He felt dizzy.

That question is an entrance. If I start to answer that, I will enter somewhere and become captured. Into some space that Jaehyun has prepared.

I do not know where that is. It does not seem to be like the box prison, dense with thorns, that Park Kanghyuk and the entire student body had created in middle school. I understand that now. But in some ways, this is more frightening. A sense that it will be even more irreversible.

Doyoon swallowed dryly. It’s similar to the piano incident. The association proceeded on its own in his mind again. It was a similar feeling to when he was asked questions like whether he had ever played a keyboard, what songs he had learned, and so on. But this is deeper than then.

Deeper? Doyoon was surprised by the expression drawn in his mind, and just then, Jaehyun asked again. Perhaps thinking his question had been too vague, he elaborated.

“I’m asking which of these you like the most. Or, which one seems most similar to your drawings?”

“……”

“Mr. Kang Doyoon, you promised you would answer when I ask.”

Jaehyun pulled all the books and printouts together on the floor in front of Doyoon, pointing to them one by one, and then urged him. Doyoon took a breath. It seemed he could not avoid it any longer.

“……This one.”

His finger pointed to the picture that had entered his heart from the moment he first saw it. Entered, deep. Doyoon once again mulled over the expression in his mind before he heard a voice.

“Right.”

The corners of his mouth, the shape of his eyes. Jaehyun smiled brightly.

As he did, Jaehyun also tapped the corner of the book page with the tip of his index finger. On the page was a palm-sized print of a drawing showing the carcass of a dormouse. It was a black and white drawing that the artist had supposedly made over seven days, leaving the carcass he found in front of his door to rot as it was.

“I thought so too. I think this one is the most similar to your drawings in terms of style. Or not? What do you think.”

“……”

“Mr. Kang Doyoon?”

“……Yes. I think it’s similar.”

“Right. You probably used a pencil or a mechanical pencil, and this person used etching, but both are black and white and drawn in a way that doesn’t miss a single detail, completely like a photograph. I heard he’s a pretty well-known artist in the hyperrealism field.”

Jaehyun asked, tracing a circle around the dormouse’s tail.

“A photograph is just a click and it’s done, but to draw this realistically with a drawing, they say the drawing process itself is quite painful. Was it like that for you too?”

“……?”

“You drew with incredible detail too. I’m asking if it was hard. Like your hand hurting, or something like that.”

“……A little.”

Doyoon answered, recalling the sensation of opening his notebook and gripping the mechanical pencil. He had always tried to draw the image of the carcass in his memory exactly as it was, without missing a single detail. He had tried hard not to accidentally emphasize and leave only the pretty or eye-catching parts while omitting and rejecting the ugly parts. Because he wanted to tell it that everything was okay. All of it.

But in doing so, it took a long time, and his head and fingers would often ache. Jaehyun nodded in satisfaction and said.

“Yeah. This artist said it was hard for him too. But he did it on purpose.”

“……Huh?”

“This is something I only thought of after reading the critique published on this side. I’m not sure if I understood it all correctly but…….”

Jaehyun rummaged through another book, pointed from one spot to the end of a sentence in the text surrounding the drawing, and spoke softly.

“This one died a hard death too. So the person drawing shouldn’t just pass over it too easily. To respect the dead thing instead of treating it like an object, it’s better for the person drawing to take their time and suffer. Only then does death truly seep into the drawing, or something like that. It sounds like a superstition in some ways……. But you can understand the sentiment, can’t you.”

After a sigh, Jaehyun raised his head again and stared into Doyoon’s eyes.

“So, uh……. When I was looking at your notebook earlier, I kind of… understood it in this way. I thought maybe you drew with a similar heart.”

“……”

“Of course, it’s just my own interpretation. How is it. Am I wrong?”

Although he said, “Am I wrong?”, his tone was closer to “I’m right, aren’t I?”. Unaware of that confidence, Doyoon clenched his fist on the floor, almost unconsciously. He was in the grip of a shock he had never experienced before in his life.

‘Deep.’ 

Doyoon blinked. The one-word expression spun like a hamster on a wheel dozens of times in his head before it seemed to finally reach a threshold and summon the next words, which began to connect into disjointed sentences. It came in deep.

This deep. What happened? How can something like this happen? How……. Muttering frantically to himself, Doyoon realized at some point. It wasn’t me. It’s not that I entered somewhere else. Cha Jaehyun came in. To where I am.

You came in.

You listened. You read. My performance, my notebook. And to the place where I am……. His heart pounded. As his breath quickened, he felt a pressure on his eyes from within. Doyoon clenched his fist, bit the inside of his lip, and looked down at the page. Staring intently at the drop of blood that had flowed from the dormouse’s nose, he spoke, almost like a whisper.

“Probably. I think it’s similar.”

“So I wasn’t completely wrong?”

“Probably……. But I think I need to think about it more.”

“Okay.”

The sound of laughter.

Doyoon looked down at the book on the floor. He took in all the details of the white paper, the words, the drawing, the pattern of the flooring, and the sound of laughter before his eyes and ears. I’ll never be able to forget this for the rest of my life, he just had a premonition, without any basis.

Jaehyun also asked for Doyoon’s opinion on the other drawings. Doyoon remained silent for a long time with a frown while thinking, or stammered even when he spoke, or spat out only the certain things in short bursts and swallowed the rest, but he did not avoid answering. Finally, Jaehyun asked for the notebook. Saying he wanted to look at it again.

Doyoon opened his bag. His movements were slow, but it was not because he was consciously hesitating. It was just that his hand, which was picking up the plain black notebook, had stiffened due to an ingrained fear. Jaehyun quickly took it, opened it, and expressed his admiration anew as he carefully flipped through it, page by page.

“Have you ever learned to draw?”

“No.”

“Then you’re a real genius. Weren’t your art practical scores good?”

“Only sometimes. I only use a pencil, and this is the only way I can draw. It depends on the assignment.”

“True, school art assignments are a bit pointlessly diverse.”

There’s craft, and abstract painting, and oil painting, and sculpture, and printmaking……. Jaehyun grumbled, counting on his fingers, then added.

“Anyway, you’re a really good drawer. When I first saw this, I was just amazed at how purely well-drawn it was. You’re amazing.”

“……”

Doyoon felt the corners of his mouth tingle.

A warm, expansive feeling spread across his cheeks, and his eyes felt strange too. He felt muscles he did not even know were tense delicately loosening. In contrast, Jaehyun, who had been smiling, slowly saw his expression harden. With his gaze fixed on the center of Doyoon’s face.

Noticing that Jaehyun’s face had changed from a ‘smile’ shape to some strange, unidentifiable form, Doyoon’s stomach dropped. Did something go wrong? Did I, without realizing, do something that ‘ruins the mood’ or is ‘clueless’ again. But Jaehyun soon composed his face. He raised both corners of his mouth again to form a pleasant shape and tossed out a comment.

“……You know how to smile.”

“Yes.”

I was smiling. Only upon answering did Doyoon realize it.

He does know how to smile. Because when he looks at pictures from when he was young, he was always smiling in his mother’s arms. Come to think of it, it seems he hadn’t smiled since some point, but that’s just a phenomenon, not that he lacks the ability itself. As he reminisced, Doyoon suddenly noticed the change in the other person as well. The color has changed.

Jaehyun’s cheeks turned red. No, his ears too. As Doyoon was staring at him blankly, Jaehyun abruptly turned his head to look at the wall clock, then let out a slightly unnatural exclamation. As if trying to change the subject.

“Oh. Hey, it’s past four.”

Doyoon followed his gaze to the clock and was surprised. It had been well over an hour since he arrived at Jaehyun’s place. Jaehyun gathered the books on the floor and stacked them, saying.

“Should we get going soon? I’m not trying to kick you out, but you have to study now.”

“……Yeah.”

“I left the past exam questions on the table earlier. Solve the pages I marked by today, and get them checked by me tomorrow. Tomorrow, my place, one-thirty. Got it?”

Doyoon nodded. Jaehyun casually placed the books on his desk, then added a word as he watched Doyoon stand up and put on his bag.

“I won’t tell anyone else about the notebook. But don’t misunderstand. Absolutely do not. It’s not because there’s a problem with you, but because there are a lot of stupid people in the world. Let’s keep it a secret between us for now.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

“It was fun.”

Jaehyun said as he opened the bedroom door for him. When the two of them went out to the living room, the noonas looked back.

Joohee and her friends had now finished making something that gave off a sweet smell and were sitting around the dining table sharing it, but when they saw Doyoon leaving, they once again all waved their hands and said “Bye!” in unison. Doyoon also bowed back in farewell from the entryway before leaving the house.

When he returned home, his father was not in the living room. Because he goes out to work his part-time job from the weekend afternoons. Doyoon quietly went into his room and solved the problems, and in the evening, he came out and prepared dinner for his younger brother. After the meal, as he was putting on gloves at the sink to wash the dishes, his brother, who had brought over the plates, asked.

“Can I eat the madeleines in the cupboard?”

“Huh?”

“Dad told me to ask oppa. He said your friend brought them as a gift when he came over.”

“Ah. Yeah. Go ahead.”

At the end of his sentence, Doyoon saw his brother frowning. Not so much in a bad mood, but more like when one cannot see well, as if he could not believe what he was seeing and was trying to look closer again.

“Did a friend really come over?”

“No. Not a friend.”

“Then who was it.”

“A guy I know from my class. He didn’t come to hang out, he came to teach me.”

“……”

His brother’s expression did not relax, but without asking further, he just turned and went toward the cupboard. As he turned on the water, Doyoon thought. It had been a long time since his brother had spoken to him.

And a long time since he had made eye contact, even with a frowning face. When Doyoon was in his third year of middle school, his brother was in his first. He was supposed to go to an all-girls’ middle school, but he somehow ended up assigned to the same co-ed school as Doyoon. After that, his brother stopped talking to Doyoon much, not only outside the house but inside as well. It seemed he had heard various things from the upperclassmen.

Placing the plates on the rack, Doyoon went back into his room to study some more, and at night, he slept very well. So much so that when he woke up the next morning, he felt his body was more comfortable than usual. And in the afternoon, he took the bus to Jaehyun’s house.

[Fare: 800 won / Balance: 4,800 won]

When he tapped his card on the reader, red and light green letters appeared, and they scratched at his heart like tiny claws.

He could walk to school. But Jaehyun’s house was farther away, and the route from Doyoon’s house was difficult. Doyoon is not good with directions. Even with school, for the first month or so after starting, he would often get lost and wander, so he had to allow plenty of time for commuting. So he thought he had no choice but to take the bus.

Three times a week, every time he boarded the bus to go to the study location, Doyoon’s heart ached. But today, it was okay. Of course, it was not that it did not hurt at all. Because the balance on his card was depleting just the same. The money his father earned was being chipped away for his own useless self. It was impossible not to feel piercingly sorry and regretful about that.