After we’d been eating on our own like that for a while, Jukyung looked at me as if something had come to mind again.
“Wait, why are you trying to just move on? Why aren’t you telling me what you were saying before?”
“What I was saying before?”
When I stared blankly, Jukyung made a face like he was about to sigh.
“Are you a goldfish? Why does a young person keep forgetting things? You said besides going to Europe, you were thinking about something else.”
“Ah.”
I remembered. But.
“Well, the thing is… um…”
Somehow it felt newly embarrassing to talk about it.
“So…”
“Why are you stalling so much? What amazing story are you going to tell?”
At Jukyung’s urging, I sighed automatically.
“No, it’s not an amazing thing at all. Because it’s not, it’s hard to say. I just had something I wanted to do when I was young, but I gave it up because my father opposed it.”
“What was it?”
“Sculpture.”
The more I hesitated, the more embarrassed I became, so I answered as if spitting it out in one breath.
“……”
“……”
There was no reaction from Jukyung, so I became too embarrassed to face him. I kept just poking innocent clam meat with my chopsticks, when I finally heard Jukyung’s voice.
“Sculpture? Not painting?”
“Yeah, sculpture.”
“Well, looking at what you drew of me, it did seem like painting wasn’t quite it.”
When Jukyung spoke in a tone of understanding, I felt unnecessarily offended.
“Hey, what do you mean painting isn’t it, I at least…”
I was going to say I’d been told to keep doing paintings, but come to think of it, I’d never properly drawn and shown Jukyung’s face. Except for the very first time when I was distracted and ruined it by scribbling lines and swirls. But I’d drawn things like flowers and small animals pretty well to show him, yet he says it’s not right. Heat gradually rose inside me.
“But why did you give up sculpture? Did your father tell you to stop the nonsense and inherit the business?”
If that had been the case, I wouldn’t have felt so wronged at least. I didn’t choose economics giving up on that just to make some arranged marriage.
“No, my hyung will inherit the business. That was decided from the start. I just…”
I took a deep breath.
“I guess sculpture just looked like useless nonsense in my father’s eyes.”
“If you had enough guts to leave home and become homeless at that age over being told to go on blind dates, why did you so obediently give up your dream during your turbulent youth?”
“Back then…”
I hesitated. Honestly, leaving home in the summer was more in a fit of anger than guts. During puberty… no, did I even have a so-called puberty period that could be represented by the word rebellion?
“Back then I wasn’t the type to rebel and be stubborn… I just… lacked confidence.”
“Confidence in what?”
“Confidence that I could succeed… and be acknowledged by my father through sculpture.”
“……”
An awkward silence fell. Having put it into words, I felt so childish and idiotic that I didn’t dare face Jukyung’s expression. He must definitely be making an absurd face.
I seemed to have shamelessly talked about running away from home or asking to borrow money just fine, but now I felt embarrassed for revealing my inner thoughts too candidly. I suddenly felt like I was naked alone. No, there have actually been times like that in bed occasionally, but with a different feeling than then. Because of that, this time innocent braised radish was shattered to pieces under my chopsticks.
“But looking into that means you’re going to try it again?”
Jukyung spoke again. Fortunately, it wasn’t a mocking or teasing tone. A low and serious voice.
“Uh… I’m not sure. I still lack confidence, and I’ve known since I was young that I don’t have tremendous talent. I should say lingering attachment remains, I want to do it but… it seems too late… I wonder if I could achieve anything starting now, so it also seems like a waste of time…”
“Do you have to achieve something?”
At Jukyung’s question, I finally raised my eyes to face him. Jukyung’s eyes were still serious.
“Huh?”
“Do you only have the right to do it if you achieve something and reach somewhere? Can’t you do it just because you want to? Is you doing sculpture greatly harming someone?”
“That’s not it, but.”
I grimaced.
“If you don’t achieve anything, isn’t that the same as just living without a goal? If you live drifting along like that and when you die you haven’t achieved anything and haven’t been acknowledged by anyone, what’s the fun in living and what meaning is there?”
“Of course achieving small goals one by one would have its own fun like clearing missions in a game, but goals have an end too. After you achieve a goal, suppose there’s something like a sculptor’s award that the world acknowledges as the best. So after you receive that, what happens next? If you can’t receive that award until the very end, does that life become meaningless? No, you talked about your father’s acknowledgment, so then is a person’s life who didn’t receive their father’s acknowledgment meaningless? Even if you received the world’s best sculptor award but your father said that kind of thing is useless, does it become meaningless?”
That… doesn’t seem right, but.
“Can’t you just be satisfied with doing what you want to do, as much as you want, as far as you can? Isn’t it meaningful just to do what you want to do and be satisfied with yourself?”
“……”
“Think of it as lucky just to have something you want to do. I honestly, though I’ve dabbled in this and that since I was young, still haven’t really found what I want to do, so I’m just doing what I’m best at. Actually, this too when I was young you…”
“Hm?”
“No, when I was young I…”
Jukyung suddenly coughed as if choked.
“No, well anyway, you can just do what you want to do. It’s not like you don’t have skills to make a living now, and though your father doesn’t seem to have had a very good influence on your mentality, he taught you various things well so you can speak English and getting employed won’t be very difficult, and you must have learned sculpture basics well too. You’ve already run away from home, so why carry your father on your back? You’re an adult now too, so become completely independent mentally as well. Stop worrying about your father, work and earn money while doing what you want to do. It’s not complicated.”
It wasn’t wrong, no, rather because it didn’t seem wrong at all, I felt unnecessarily angry. It’s not like I haven’t thought about it myself. But reality doesn’t roll along that ideally, does it?
“If I just do what I want, when will I pay back the debt I owe you? At the current rate, it’s tight just making a living by myself.”
Jukyung shrugged his shoulders.
“You were blessed to meet a benefactor like me. Be grateful for that fortune and enjoy it fully. I told you that you can pay back the money slowly. You just can’t run off without paying. Your spending habits are a bit extravagant now too, but once you get a bit more used to ordinary citizen life it’ll improve and then you’ll save some money.”
I was dumbfounded. That bastard is spouting a bunch of plausible-sounding words acting all smart, then slipping up in a strange place. No, I’ve been well-adapted to ordinary citizen life for a long time, okay? The debt automatically increasing is purely your fault for buying a bunch of luxury goods without even asking me and tossing them to me saying they’re mine, okay?
Anyway, while talking with him, I felt like I’d become a person who’d been wracking my brain worrying over nothing much. I felt a bit deflated too.
Yeah, well. What’s life and what’s happiness? As long as I don’t have the ambition to become a sculptor who’ll remain in world art history, as long as I give up the greed to be acknowledged by my father. Honestly, if I just gave up the greed to be acknowledged by my father, I didn’t particularly want to become a famous sculptor anyway.
What I wanted was to occasionally see world-famous sculpture works up close in person, and whenever I received inspiration, to spend time touching, carving, and refining to my heart’s content in my personal studio.
Even if that wasn’t possible and I had to do other work to earn money, if I could be buried in sculpture and forget my worries for just a few hours a day, or a week, I felt that alone would be happy enough. After all, the reason I liked sculpture from the beginning wasn’t to use it as a tool for my fame and success.
It would just be perfect if someone, someone close and precious to me, could look at my work and enjoy and be happy together with me. Then I wouldn’t be lonely. Even if not necessarily my father.
Having that thought, somehow the area around my heart felt heavy. My eyes also seemed to sting. I threw my gaze out the window as if covering my face with one hand for no reason. My heart began to beat little by little. I didn’t know why. Maybe because I drank too much wine.
Beyond the window submerged in darkness, the snow-covered mountain rose hazily.
“Let’s rest well today and start moving in earnest from tomorrow. If you want to snowboard, there’s a place on that mountain where we can quietly board just the two of us. There’s a ski resort nearby, but that place will be swarming with people so you probably won’t want to go.”
Thinking I was looking at the mountain, Jukyung suddenly brought up snowboarding. I looked back at Jukyung, looked at the mountain outside the window once more, then tilted my head.
Snowboarding on a mountain that’s not even a ski resort?
“It’s maintained to some extent. I’ve also come here with friends occasionally since I was young to ski or snowboard… well, even if it’s not great, it’s enough to get a feel for it briefly.”
