Jin Woo-yeon's Path

Woo-yeon had a gut feeling that the decision she made in this moment would change the rest of her life. It was a dangerous choice, one where she couldn’t see even an inch ahead. Her father had told her that if she wanted to go, she should go on her own money—but she had no idea how he would react if she actually used this money to enroll at Seolim Arts University.

Fear clenched her throat like a noose. When she had resolved to die, the only thing that scared her was how much it would hurt. Now that she had resolved to survive, everything terrified her to the point of death.

“Um, mister.”

“Hmm?”

The man met her gaze and smiled. Her breath caught in her throat. How could a person smile so kindly? How could a person be so dazzlingly beautiful? Her chest felt tight, though she couldn’t tell why. It wasn’t sadness, and it wasn’t pain, yet her eyes kept prickling and her heart ached as if it might burst. Woo-yeon asked, one word at a time, as if whispering.

“If I force myself down a path my mom and dad told me not to take… what… what will happen to me?”

The corners of his eyes crinkled softly.

“A new path for Jin Woo-yeon will open up, I suppose.”

Jin… Woo-yeon’s path?

Jin Woo-yeon’s path. My path. Woo-yeon repeated it over and over under her breath. Such a perfectly ordinary, obvious statement struck her square in the chest. Not a path her parents arbitrarily dug up, broke, and overturned—but a path for herself, Jin Woo-yeon’s path that grew brighter and wider with every step she took.

Somehow, a way would appear. If she just set her mind to it, step by step, one by one, somehow.

If she just took the first step, the second would be easier. The third even more so.

She gripped the check tightly in both hands. Her lips trembled so hard she couldn’t tell whether it was from anxiety or excitement.

“Mister, what am I supposed to do if I can’t pay this back?”

“I’m not lending it to you so you’ll pay it back.”

His matter-of-fact answer actually made fear lurch through her. Those ads for card loans and this-or-that money—they were all scams. If you grabbed the money, you’d get dragged off somewhere later, have your eyes gouged out, your kidneys cut out, your heart ripped out, and die. Her parents’ threatening voices roared in her ears.

But Woo-yeon fought those voices with everything she had. To take one step onto Jin Woo-yeon’s path, she had to believe the words of this man she had met for the first time today—not her parents’. She had to believe this kindness was pure. By every rule she’d ever learned, you should never trust a complete stranger’s goodwill. She knew that well. And yet Woo-yeon desperately wanted to believe.

“But still, how can I take this huge amount of money for free? It’s just… too weird and scary, and I’m not a beggar either… I mean…”

Her mind was such a mess that the words tumbled out unfiltered. The man let out a thin sigh and answered in a slightly drained voice.

“Do I look that weird and scary to you?”

“N-no, absolutely not, it’s just…”

“…Well, I suppose that’s fair, since we only met today. All right. If you really want to pay it back, earn a lot of money later and pay it back slowly. That should work, right?”

“N-no! Even if I don’t earn a lot, even if I only earn a little, I’ll pay it back. Once I’m in college I’ll get a part-time job, and—ah, I’ll sell my paintings to pay you back.”

His sigh grew a little longer.

“A part-time job alone will barely cover living expenses, let alone tuition. How do you plan to pay it back by selling paintings?”

“But if I sell them cheap, won’t they sell? I don’t know how much a painting goes for, but…”

“Well, I’ve heard that around the time of a fine arts graduation exhibition, collectors sometimes buy works that look promising. Very occasionally. About twenty thousand won per ho, or if you’re lucky, thirty thousand per ho? For a size 10 painting… Ah, do you know painting sizes? Something about the size of a quarter sketchbook might fetch two or three hundred thousand won. But student work doesn’t even have a market price. Who’s going to buy that?”

The man seemed surprisingly knowledgeable about art. Woo-yeon felt so upset and frustrated that she pushed a little harder.

“B-but what if I do a half-price sale? Then if I sell fifty pieces, that’s five million won.”

“There’s gallery rental fees and sales commissions, though? They take half right off the top.”

“Th-then… a hundred pieces? I-I can paint really fast. Or… what if I sell them online instead of a gallery? On auction sites or something…”

“Which auction site? Seoul Auction? K Auction? You think they’re going to sell an undergrad’s paintings when she hasn’t even had a single exhibition…”

But just as he seemed about to spit out something cutting, he saw Woo-yeon flinch and hunch her shoulders in fear, and immediately shook his head, pressing a hand to his forehead.

“I’m sorry. That wasn’t what I meant to say. This really isn’t money I’m giving you to pay back. School’s hard enough as it is—why would you go looking for that kind of hardship?”

“…”

“If it really bothers you that much, I’ll buy Jin Woo-yeon’s paintings myself, and you can consider that the repayment. How about that?”

Suddenly it felt as if rays of salvation were cascading down right in front of her eyes. Woo-yeon nodded frantically before he could take the words back.

“Yes, yes yes yes! Just say the word! I’ll paint whatever pictures you want!”

“All right, all right. I get it…”

“Um, I’ve learned watercolor, acrylic, and oil. I can do portraits, landscapes, still lifes well too. If you want a portrait or something—yes, I’m good at portraits! I’ll match whatever pose, composition, and mood you like! A hundred pieces or a thousand, just say the word. Really!”

Her heart began to pound. Yes. Portraits! With this man as the subject, she was certain a magnificent portrait would come out. Paint a great picture and pay off the debt at the same time. Wasn’t that killing two birds with one stone?

The more she looked at him, the more captivating a subject he was. Fair, clean skin; features that were both elegant and neatly harmonious; if real emotion filled that restrained expression, what kind of painting would emerge? If she could only paint those mesmerizing eyes that seemed to draw a person in…

Especially, she wanted to paint that body where perfect proportions and volume were in harmony. The more she looked, the more certain she became that it was an astonishingly beautiful body. Not some pale plaster cast, but a full-body figure of a living, moving model. If she painted it properly on a large canvas, she had a feeling something incredible would come of it.

“Of course, for hanging just anywhere, landscapes or still lifes would be better, but what really makes you imagine a story is a portrait! Imagine a room full of your portraits, mister! Like that Louis-whatever who lived in the Palace of Versailles, the one who tossed his rocker perm around—wouldn’t you feel like you’d become that king? Then every time you looked around the room you’d feel amazing!”

“I wouldn’t. A room packed with my face on every wall—what kind of nightmare place is that?”

He added with a low sigh,

“And Louis XIV was bald. That ‘tossing around’ was a wig. Besides, painting the same portrait over and over—does that even make sense?”

“Why wouldn’t it? Grandpa Monet painted hundreds of the same water lilies. People have way more variety in their faces than flowers that can’t even cry or laugh.”

At Woo-yeon’s rebuttal, the man’s eyes went round.

“Still, um, to hang a hundred portraits on the walls, your house would have to be as big as Versailles, but my place is tiny as a bean…”

“Th-then… couldn’t you stack them on the balcony or in a storage room? If that doesn’t work, under the bed, or under the sofa…”

“Balcony? Storage? Under the bed? The paintings would all get ruined.”

Woo-yeon wilted. Why did he keep trying not to accept?

“Ah, um, are you worried I’ll twist your portrait into something scary like the sketchbook drawings?”

“…”

“I won’t. Absolutely not. If I painted a model as handsome as you weirdly, I’d get divine punishment and break all ten fingers, ten toes, both wrists and both ankles.”

“No, why are you being so extreme…”

Pfft, heh heh heh heh—finally giving up, the man laughed and held out his pinky finger.

“Fine, all right, all right. But a hundred portraits at fifty thousand won each feels like too much of a rip-off for my conscience, so let’s settle it with five portraits at a million won each. Size twenty or larger, okay?”

Instead of linking pinkies, Woo-yeon looked up at him sulkily. He didn’t seem to be taking this promise seriously. Looking at that finger of his, she understood perfectly.

Adults’ promises—especially contracts involving this much money—weren’t made with pinky swears. Even Woo-yeon, with no social experience yet, knew that much. Unless you were giving alms to a beggar or deliberately fleecing a sucker.

Of course Woo-yeon had no intention of becoming a beggar, and even less of making a sucker out of this man.

“You can’t do it like this, mister. For something like this you have to write a proper contract.”

“A contract?”

For a moment the man looked dumbfounded, then quickly turned his head and gave a short cough. Woo-yeon’s pride was thoroughly stung, and she raised her voice.

“Are you looking down on me because I’m a high schooler? I might be a little short, but I’m an adult just like you!”

“No, I wasn’t looking down on you, there’s just no need to go that far…”

“See, it’s because middle-aged men keep dismissing younger people like this that they get called old fogeys and ‘ajumma energy’ and all that.”

The corners of his mouth stiffened for an instant. Oh no. Why did I say that. I should’ve just held back a little. Her heart pounded.

But instead of getting angry, he held out the sketchbook with a lukewarm expression.

“…Well then, why don’t you write it for me, Miss Fresh-and-Green Jin Woo-yeon—the contract.”

Woo-yeon pulled out a flower-pink fluorescent ballpoint pen and wrote the contract terms on the back of the page where she’d sketched him.

After writing one sentence, she had no idea what to do next. As she hesitated, breaking into a cold sweat, a voice came from above her head: “Resident registration number, address, date, signature. You’ve memorized your resident number, right?” There was a hint of laughter in the voice. I know, mister. I know that much too. It’s okay to flounder a bit when you’re writing a contract for the first time. Woo-yeon, head bowed low, signed as prettily as she could, enough to cover up her embarrassment.