Gi-hyeon cracked open a bottle of water, stealing glances at Do-gyeom, who was absorbed in washing the dishes.
Setting aside his face — which could easily rival any model’s — something else about him kept drawing the eye.
Was it the dissonance between his delicate appearance and the atmosphere he carried?
Gi-hyeon had been studying Do-gyeom with a searching gaze when he suddenly shifted his attention to the other servants.
I’d wondered why every single servant here was so good-looking — turns out it’s because of his taste in men.
He tilted the water bottle to his lips and drank, letting the sounds drifting down from upstairs serve as background music.
“Ah, Artist-nim.”
As Do-gyeom moved to pull off his rubber gloves, Gi-hyeon shook his head, bottle still at his mouth.
The man who had been wiping dishes near the dryer sensed someone’s presence and turned around.
Recognizing Gi-hyeon, he slammed down the dish he’d been holding.
“The fuck, you splashed water on me.”
“Sorry. I’ll wipe it up.”
“Get lost, you little shit.”
Over the course of the week, Gi-hyeon had easily gathered two things: that Gwok Un was not in his right mind, and that every single employee hated both him and Do-gyeom.
Since Gi-hyeon was merely a guest, they couldn’t do much to him directly — but toward Do-gyeom, a fellow servant, they showed their hostility without any attempt to hide it.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Gi-hyeon upended the water bottle he was holding onto the floor.
The water hammered against the smooth marble and soaked the hem of the man’s trousers.
The deliberate provocation made the man clench his back molars.
“Oh. My bad.”
At Gi-hyeon’s unbothered tone, the man’s eyes turned dangerous.
Gi-hyeon stepped between the man and Do-gyeom and gripped the edge of the sink.
Having blocked the man off as naturally as if nothing had happened, he spoke in a friendly tone.
“Today’s the day I’m getting the confirmation — could you tidy up the studio for me?”
“Yes, understood.”
Gi-hyeon placed a hand on Do-gyeom’s back to guide him toward the studio.
At a glance, Do-gyeom’s dry lips had a small scab of dried blood sitting on them.
Suddenly, something from a few days ago came back to him.
“Ngh……”
At the unexpected sound, Gi-hyeon had turned his head.
Do-gyeom, who had been wiping down the window frame, lightly creased the corners of his eyes.
His severely chapped lips had split — a bead of blood had formed there.
Gi-hyeon had stared, unblinking, as Do-gyeom raised a finger to the corner of his mouth.
Carefully confirming the blood, Do-gyeom swallowed a sigh.
The red tongue visible between cracked lips was decadent, like a flower blooming in the desert.
Before any conscious thought to draw this moment could form, his hand had already moved.
The pencil was quick, but captured everything with precision.
The back slumped naturally against the wall, the parched lips pressed by a middle finger, the eyes as dry as those lips — all of it was etched onto the paper.
An aura born from the firmly interlocking forms rippled outward.
Gi-hyeon had stared at Do-gyeom, as if entranced.
Sensing the gaze, Do-gyeom had looked back at him.
The scratching sound of the pencil stopped.
“……”
Do-gyeom stared at Gi-hyeon in silence.
It was a stillness that made it feel as though time itself had stopped.
Gi-hyeon had expected Do-gyeom to get angry — but instead, he quietly slipped away without a word.
When the door closed, Gi-hyeon let out the breath he’d been holding.
After a brief moment of deliberation, he set down his pencil and opened a drawer.
Inside the drawer was what appeared to be a brand-new lip balm.
Ever since that day, it had been difficult to take his eyes off Do-gyeom’s lips.
Every time he caught sight of those still-rough lips, Gi-hyeon would absentmindedly roll the lip balm around in his pocket.
Not even knowing what this feeling was.
Do-gyeom twisted his back and slipped out from under Gi-hyeon’s hand.
As he turned toward the studio, Gi-hyeon followed after him.
Closing the distance quickly, Gi-hyeon fell into step alongside Do-gyeom.
Even sensing someone beside him, Do-gyeom didn’t look back at Gi-hyeon.
Though they had been living together for a week now, he treated Gi-hyeon the way one tends to flowers growing in a garden — attentive, but impersonal.
Conscientious yet dry. Between them stood a wall that permitted no entry into the personal.
Gi-hyeon carefully opened his mouth.
“I’m sorry if it made you uncomfortable.”
Do-gyeom paused at the apology.
He slowly turned around.
The face that met his was still dry.
“I mean touching your back.”
Do-gyeom’s eyes blinked, as if replaying the moment from just before.
Then, seeming to understand what was being said, he let out a quiet, humorless laugh.
“Isn’t there something else you ought to be apologizing for?”
“Pardon?”
“Are you aware that your eyes are far more blatant than your hands, Artist-nim?”
Eyes colder than his voice turned toward Gi-hyeon.
Do-gyeom warned him in a low voice.
“Be careful. That kind of gaze is easily read in a place like this.”
“……”
When Do-gyeom opened the door to the studio, there was a figure seated in a chair that should have been empty.
Disheveled hair fluttered out from behind the easel.
As though he had come straight down after finishing — Gwok Un looked thoroughly rumpled.
The voice that hadn’t yet shed the languid haze of pleasure was slow and drowsy.
“I don’t understand it.”
Gwok Un trailed his fingertips along the canvas.
As if the pure white canvas were a masterpiece, he continued in a voice tinged with wonder.
“It’s already perfect just as it is — why does everyone try so desperately to fill it?”
“……”
“Do you also plan to defile this flawlessness?”
It didn’t seem like something Gwok Un — who dealt in everything from hyperrealistic paintings to abstract works — had any right to say.
Gi-hyeon found his contradictory attitude distasteful, but calmly countered.
“I’m not sure.”
“……”
“If there had been no one who sought to fill the canvas, every myth and narrative would have remained only in written words. Is that the kind of life you’d want?”
At Gi-hyeon’s bold words, Gwok Un’s eyes lit up.
He seemed to find the audacity of someone refuting his view not entirely unpleasant.
“Hmm.”
“Here are the esquisse sketches.”
Gwok Un took the sketchbook from Gi-hyeon and immediately flipped to the last page.
Sharp eyes dissected the drawing piece by piece.
After studying it for a moment, as though he had seen enough, he rapidly flipped through the remaining esquisse sketches.
Gwok Un mocked Gi-hyeon in a bright, cheerful tone.
“Dilettante.²⁾”
“Pardon?”
“Looks like drawings by some little girl. Didn’t you say your father was Painter Kim Seung-ho? He was a man who led the art world — but I suppose even great men have their twilight years.”
As Gwok Un dropped the sketches at his feet, the corner of Gi-hyeon’s mouth twitched.
The unexpected insult sent cracks running across that sculpted face.
“If there are problems, please point them out — I’ll make corrections.”
“Me? For something not even worth using as a rag?”
“……That’s going too far.”
“Wasn’t it just the other day you were trembling — seems like life here suits you after all.”
“……”
“Why didn’t you draw the burn scar on my neck?”
Gwok Un bent down and picked up one of the sketches that had fallen to the floor.
He thrust the paper right into Gi-hyeon’s face.
“An elegant corpse — is that how I look to you?”
Gi-hyeon wanted to argue back, but could only chew at his lips.
Even to his own eyes, the drawing didn’t capture Gwok Un’s dynamism.
Gwok Un folded the precise esquisse neatly and slipped it into the breast pocket of Gi-hyeon’s shirt.
He then drew his fingers slowly along the opening of the pocket, as if sealing it shut.
“Everyone would want this, I imagine, but I don’t want a cookie-cutter painting. Could it be you drew it this way just to please me?”
Pushed back by the intensity of those blazing eyes, Gi-hyeon stepped away — only for Gwok Un to close the distance again.
“Forget anatomy, Vitruvius, all that theory — look properly. How do I look to you?”
“……”
“Trust your senses. The eye is relative, but the version of me that only you can perceive — that will be absolute.”
Gwok Un smiled deeply, close enough that his breath could be felt.
Up close, he wore no ordinary expression.
An expression that couldn’t be defined by any dictionary entry.
A smile laden with all manner of contradictory emotions made him look like a savage.
The moment Gi-hyeon grasped the essence of who Gwok Un truly was, the word slipped out before he could stop it.
“……A savage.”
Unlike Gi-hyeon, who had just let it slip, Gwok Un remained completely unfazed.
He brushed a fleck of dust off Gi-hyeon’s shoulder.
“Then draw me that way — so obscene, so grotesque that the audience can’t even bring themselves to look at me. I’ll add more on top of the fee my father promised you.”
Having said what he came to say, Gwok Un turned around without hesitation.
He was walking away with that same unchecked stride when he suddenly stopped in front of a side table.
Something seemed to catch his attention — he carefully pulled out a piece of paper wedged between the table.
Slender fingers gently unfolded the crumpled sheet.
Recognizing the man in the drawing, Gwok Un’s brow twitched.
“Did you draw this?”
“Yes.”
The Do-gyeom who had always worn a gentle face and a soft smile was nowhere in this drawing.
Leaning against the wall, wiping the blood from his cracked lips — he was an utterly different person.
Eyes bone-dry as though tired of life, and the tongue barely visible between his lips, seized the gaze and held it fast.
Gwok Un narrowed his eyes and studied the drawing.
It was clearly in a different league from the esquisse sketches from earlier.
From those rough lines, an aura unlike anything he had seen before was beginning to stir.
It was an unfinished drawing — yet even that quality felt somehow special.
The instinct he had felt the first time he saw Eunhyeong’s paintings raised its head once again.
After staring at the drawing for a long while, Gwok Un carefully smoothed out the curling paper.
“……Good. Proceed with this.”
With those single words, Gi-hyeon’s face lit up in an instant.
His hand clenched into a fist.
To think that the drawing he’d done of Do-gyeom on a whim — just for practice — would catch someone’s eye like this.
It seemed he would be able to reach his goal sooner than expected.
“Understood.”
Gwok Un, who had scrutinized even the individual character of each line, turned around.
The intense look on his face was gone — in its place was an expression full of mischief.
He dangled the paper between his fingers, swaying it lightly.
“Do you want to sleep with Do-gyeom?”
At the blunt question, Gi-hyeon’s brow furrowed sharply.
He let out a disbelieving laugh.
“That is incredibly rude.”
“If you want to, just say so — if it helps with the work, I’ll permit anything.”
“Is this some kind of brothel? And what does that make you — the madam?”
“If you can, you should use your body to draw out inspiration. It’s strange that someone who drew something this lousy is still being picky about methods.”
“Ha.”
“An artist has to know how to desire.”
