Intoxicated by the Scent of Peonies (2)
“Well, we honestly deliberated for a long time, Mr. Song, because we liked your work too. But one of the artists participating in this exhibition is the master painter Kim Ye-chan. You know of him, of course?”
“…I do.”
The moment an untouchable figure entered the picture, Young-jin — who had failed his entrance exams three times and never managed to become Kim's disciple — deflated on the spot. Of course you did. No matter how insufferably full of yourself you are, you have to bow down a little in front of the name Kim Ye-chan. If you had any eye for painting at all, you'd understand that his work and your scribbles exist on entirely different planes.
“Master Kim's painting is the centerpiece of this exhibition. So I think you'll have to understand, Mr. Song. You know how galleries work — we can't very well ask a master to step aside so a newcomer can hang in the spotlight. Not when Master Kim's name carries the weight it does.”
“I know that, but… my spot is still way in the corner. I noticed earlier that the lighting barely reaches it…. At the very least, I expected to be placed in Exhibition Hall One. That's what my father said, too. He said the Director would take special care of me.”
Ha, your father. A tendon twitched near Ji-won's temple. Go be a good son to him sometime. It's because your oh-so-great father hassles me through every channel imaginable that your unspeakable painting has been hanging in my gallery for two whole weeks. My curator looked at it and asked if my kindergartner nephew had drawn it. You're the one with no talent — why should I be the one who burns with shame?
— If that were the case, I'd gladly and proudly hang it. But I'm an only child, so I don't have a nephew.
— So you really want to hang this painting? Are you serious?
— Dead serious. The artist who painted that… ah, forget it. Even I can't call him an artist. Anyway, the person who owns that painting is Assemblyman Song Tae-yoon's youngest son.
When Ji-won had first laid eyes on Young-jin's work, he had seriously considered closing the gallery's doors for a while under the pretense of renovations. If he hadn't been obligated to bring in Émile Gallé's vase, there was a very good chance he would have gone through with it.
Hey, I'm hanging this for you at the cost of genuine humiliation. It's going to be a lasting stain on our gallery's exhibition history. You've gotten plenty out of my pride by now, so let's call it quits, all right? I'm not the type to grovel for people's favor. Even if it weren't you, I've got more headaches than I can count — so back off before I really lose it.
Afraid that the slightest lapse in concentration would send his venomous inner monologue spilling straight out of his mouth, Ji-won had to pause now and then to draw a breath and steady himself.
“As you saw in the exhibition proposal, Mr. Song, your paintings differ considerably in style from the pieces going into Exhibition Hall One. It's a thematic exhibition, so we have to consider the overall mood—”
“Then make my painting the centerpiece and fit the rest around it. There's still plenty of time before the exhibition opens.”
Ji-won had steeled himself to send the man off with as pleasant a face as he could manage, but this time he failed to keep his expression from shifting. I thought I'd made myself perfectly clear, and after all that we're right back where we started? Wow, Cha Ji-won, your temper has really mellowed. But this is where I draw the line. His lips slowly hardened into a thin line as he stared in silence at Young-jin, who was throwing a shameless tantrum. If the man kept spouting nonsense, Ji-won resolved, he would pour out his unvarnished thoughts exactly as they were — and Young-jin had better be prepared to deal with the fallout.
Does this shameless fool even hear himself? Did you come here to burn someone else's gallery to the ground? Listen, I have social standing and a reputation in this world. Everyone in this industry knows you bought your way into — and out of — a school that would enroll a monkey if the price was right. Why would I hang your painting as my centerpiece just to be humiliated?
After regarding Young-jin in silence for a long moment, Ji-won finally spoke, his voice pitched low.
“Mr. Song.”
“…Yes.”
“If the spot truly doesn't suit you, shall we do this another time?”
“Excuse me?”
“Autumn exhibitions need to carry a quieter, more subdued feel, and your work is so vivid and bursting with bravado that honestly, it sticks out a little. So I was thinking we might display it fresh in next spring's exhibition instead. That would also give us more room to consider your placement.”
Feeling Ji-won's whole demeanor shift at once, Young-jin involuntarily averted his gaze and mumbled his way through a vague reply.
“Ah…. that's a bit….”
Right, that would be a problem for you, wouldn't it? I know all about you scrambling to pad your résumé so you can take a full-time post at some provincial art council early next year. The director of the Sorae Museum called me in tears this morning. You sent them a piece that's 120-ho, apparently. Honestly — no talent, and no conscience either. What business does a 120-ho canvas have in a museum that primarily exhibits small works?
“I'll give it some more thought. The deadline isn't close yet, so if you want to withdraw, you can.”
“N-no, that's all right.”
“Then I'll take it that you have no further objections.”
“…Yes.”
Ji-won saw the thoroughly deflated Young-jin off with a smile, and the moment the man's car pulled out of the parking lot, he yanked loose his tie and spat out a string of words richly seasoned with harsh consonants and plosives.
“You've worked hard, Director.”
Ji-won gave his secretary's commiserating look a small nod, picked up his car keys, and headed straight out of the director's office. The fury churning inside him made it impossible to sit at his desk another minute.
“I'm leaving for the day.”
“Of course, have a good evening.”
Scanning the street with heated breath, Ji-won ducked into the first café he saw and ordered the largest iced Americano on the menu. The moment the coffee arrived, he popped the lid and crammed his mouth full of ice. As he crunched through it with a satisfying crackle, and the crushed shards slid cold down his throat, he finally felt something inside him begin to loosen.
At any rate, that mess is more or less handled. So that leaves the Director problem.
— I like you, Director Cha.
Last night's confession had been, for Ji-won, very nearly a natural disaster. It was true that the appearance of King Yeomma had spooked him into a sense of urgency — but he had never, not for a moment, intended to hurl out an unprepared confession with the odds so obviously stacked against him. Ji-won was not that reckless a man.
And yet the instant he saw Gaon's face as she drank in the scent of the flowers, his mouth had opened on its own, as if he'd been hooked to a lie detector. Nothing ever rattled Ji-won, but that one time, he had broken into a genuine cold sweat. How do I salvage this? Since it's come to this, should I just plant my feet and go all in? And if I get banished from Jungcheon for good because of it? No matter how hard he racked his brain, no clever solution presented itself, and while he was still lamely licking his parched lips—
— Yes. I like you too, Director Cha.
Astoundingly, Gaon hadn't even registered that his words had been a confession. Every ounce of strength had drained out of him. But Gaon, unaware of the shock she'd dealt him, had smiled up at him with a face flushed pink, then gazed quietly up at the sky a moment later and remarked, in the most casual tone imaginable:
— It looks like the rain's finally letting up. Shall we head back?
It was the feeling of a fighter who'd spent months stockpiling stamina for a long war, only to be knocked out cold the instant round one began. It stung that he'd never even been given the chance to show what he could do — but what truly left him dumbfounded was that the opponent who had floored him with a single blow didn't even know why he was lying there. In other words, she had never seen him as a man at all. She hadn't even entertained the possibility. Clutching his head and suffering in silence, Ji-won called the one person alive to whom he could confess the whole sorry affair. He was craving a drink with genuine desperation — but on a day like today, drinking alone without anyone to stop him carried a real risk of his body being found the next morning floating in the river.
[Hyung, I'm working right now….]
“Director Seo. Let's drink. Come to my place.”
[Huh? It's not even four yet? Let's meet this evening. I'll come after work.]
“Come now. If I'm saying this in broad daylight, don't you think there's a reason for it?”
A brief silence followed, and then the sound of hurried movement came crackling through the receiver. The scuff of footsteps climbing stairs told him that Do-gyeom, deciding Ji-won's voice sounded distinctly off, was probably relocating somewhere quiet.
[What is this? You were over the moon just a couple of days ago — why does your voice sound like that? Why do you suddenly sound half-dead? Did you do something?]
Do something. Oh, he had. A catastrophe of the highest order.
“Yeah.”
[You spent all of yesterday attending the Director — what could you possibly have done since then…. Wait. Hold on! Is it something to do with the Director?]
“Haah…. yes.”
[What?! Has this hyung actually lost his mind! Don't tell me you actually confessed?]
“You're a ghost, you know that?”
[What?!]
It was as if he could see Do-gyeom leaping out of his chair on the other end of the line, and even through all of this, Ji-won managed a small laugh. He'd always assumed the saying that voicing your troubles was half the cure was just a sales pitch cooked up by counseling professionals to earn their keep — but today, for the first time, he found himself in modest agreement.
“And then I got dismissed. Cleanly, completely.”
[Ah….]
“She didn't give a single thought to the possibility that I might be approaching her as a man. She just regarded me with the deepest affection, the way you'd look at a puppy wagging its tail for its owner.”
The analogy was so painfully on point that even as he said it out loud, Ji-won took no small amount of hidden damage. Ji-won abruptly pressed his lips shut, and Do-gyeom, apparently just as unsure what to say to him, also struggled for a long while to find his words.
[Mmhm…. give me an hour. I'll wrap things up fast and come.]
“All right.”
[Don't drink alone before I get there. Understood?]
“I said I understood.”
Ji-won took a long swig of the coffee gone cold around its half-melted ice, then heaved a sigh that seemed to swallow the earth whole. He had always insisted that it wasn't the coffee that wasn't warm — it was him. Yet somehow the coffee, watered down and flavorless now that the ice had half melted, tasted surprisingly drinkable.
“Ah, seriously…. what is wrong with me lately? Why does meddlesome work keep piling onto a man with no business meddling? Is it because I'm at that cursed age of nine?”
After hanging up and heading down to his workshop, Do-gyeom spotted the young woman still pacing in front of the building and let out a long, weary groan. It was shock enough that Ji-won — a man of such cleanly icy temperament you could practically feel the chill — had fallen head over heels for a woman and lost all composure. And then there was the headache of being saddled with a former girl-group main vocalist who came trailing a ghost behind her.
The young woman's ghost, which had clung tightly to Roa and slipped inside the workshop with her, had bolted in fright the moment it laid eyes on Do-gyeom — and cleverly, it never once strayed into his range, merely circling the building's perimeter. Its face was as young as a high schooler's, but the eyes were sharp and ferocious; this was no run-of-the-mill spirit. Judging by the fact that it couldn't simply leave, it was surely bound to some object.
“I'm sorry. I got an urgent phone call out of nowhere.”
“It's no trouble.”
“Singing — you said you'd done it professionally?”
“Eternal Memory.”