I was relieved hyung hadn’t taken much interest in it. The shock had been great enough that even after he left, the tension didn’t leave me.
A little while later, I walked slowly inside.
Two months remained until the ceremony now. I didn’t want Bert hyung to catch on that my attention had drifted elsewhere — and it occurred to me that I hadn’t gone to visit him even once in all this time.
A whole month had passed without a visit to the ducal estate. That wasn’t like me at all. I had been telling myself I would have to go at some point so as not to raise suspicion, but the reluctance kept building and I put it off day after day until a full month had gone by.
I couldn’t put it off any longer.
I’ll bring a painting.
As I often used to do, I thought I would bring Bert hyung a painting as a gift.
Having made up my mind, I went to the studio inside the house rather than to my room. It had gone unused for over a month as well, and dust had settled thickly in every corner. I ran a finger roughly along the top of the easel to clear it, shook the dust from the chair with a cloth, and sat down.
Bert hyung’s face — I could have drawn it with my eyes closed. I had painted it so many times since childhood.
All I could do was capture the plain, unchanging face of someone who wore no expressions — in different ages, from different angles.
What would I do this time? What version of Bert hyung should I paint? I picked up my pencil, deliberated, and then let my hand do as it pleased, drawing lines wherever it went.
In that hand — there was no longer any love.
I had started it the night before and fallen asleep partway through, so I brought the unfinished painting along with me to complete during any spare moments at the art class.
Between checking in on my students’ work, I would come back to my own spot when time allowed and touch up Bert hyung’s painting. I approached it the same way I would approach a task that had simply piled up and needed to be done.
“That’s a painting of him, isn’t it. Has something changed for you?”
Sir Edgar, who had come up behind me at some point, asked. I gave a small, wry smile and answered.
“No. I’m only pretending to still care for him so as not to let on that anything is planned.”
“That’s a relief — I was worried. I wondered whether your resolve might be softening.”
“You seem more invested in this than I am.”
“Of course — the thought of being able to help Sir Rowell, my benefactor, makes me genuinely happy.”
“Thank you so much, Sir Edgar.”
I turned to look at him and smiled. There was so much I owed him gratitude for.
That day, once class ended, I headed straight for the ducal estate. The finished painting was carefully rolled and tucked under my arm.
I arrived at the front of the house, exchanged greetings with the butler, and followed as he led the way to find Bert hyung. We arrived at the door to hyung’s study, and the butler knocked and announced that I had come. A voice came from inside.
“Come in.”
And so I entered through the door the butler opened for me. Bert hyung had been writing something with a quill and looked up as I came in.
Out of habit, I smiled and greeted him.
“Hello, hyung. I came to give you something.”
I hugged the rolled paper to my chest and continued, a little shyly.
“I’ve actually been busy drawing this lately. I’m sorry I haven’t come to visit in so long.”
Bert hyung’s gaze, which had been resting on me, dropped to the paper I held. It had only taken me two days to draw — but saying this seemed likely to put any doubts of his to rest.
He had been looking at me in quiet stillness, but then he set down his quill, rose, and said,
“Follow me.”
He moved toward a door to his right, and I lengthened my stride to keep up. It was a rest space set within the study. I could recall going in there just once when I was young.
Standing behind Bert hyung as he opened the door, I could see a room that resembled the one in my memory. I had no idea why he was leading me here.
Bert hyung walked further in, took hold of the curtain drawn across one of the walls, and pulled it aside. And there, on the wall it had concealed, paintings were affixed in dense rows.
I was genuinely startled, and my eyes went wide. They were the paintings I had brought Bert hyung over the years.
The very first one I had ever drawn was pinned at the top left, and they were arranged in order from there.
There were so many paintings I had given Bert hyung as gifts that I couldn’t begin to count them. I had never once thought about how he might be keeping them.
I had thought myself lucky if he hadn’t thrown them away. Seeing this, my heart stirred into disarray, and I opened my mouth but could not bring myself to speak.
Why had he kept them like this? How was I supposed to understand him?
It was only when Bert hyung turned toward me and held out his hand — clearly asking for the painting I’d brought — that I found my voice.
“You… kept them all? And displayed them like this… I’m embarrassed.”
I gave an awkward smile and handed the new painting to Bert hyung. With his usual impassive face and his flat, even voice, he asked,
“What kind of painting is this one?”
“This time I drew hyung again.”
I watched anxiously as Bert hyung unrolled the paper. The subject was the same as always — but this one was a little different.
Bert hyung’s brow furrowed slightly as he looked at what was drawn on the paper.
It was a drawing of Bert hyung crying. Every painting I had made before this one had shown him expressionless.
Even drawing a smiling version of him had always felt like something I had to approach with great care. I worried what weight it might place on Bert hyung.
A smiling Bert hyung didn’t exist — so something like that wasn’t really him at all. I had always felt that if I were to paint something born entirely of my own imagination and call it a portrait of Bert hyung, he would be displeased.
That was how carefully I used to handle him. Always thinking things through again and again, always anxious.
“I’m curious what it means.”
“They’re tears of joy.”
“That’s the emotion I understand least of all.”
I simply smiled quietly. I hadn’t painted it with any particular intention. It was just — I had the feeling I would never get to see Bert hyung cry, not ever, and that was why I drew it.
I had wondered whether I should even show it to him, but I hadn’t wanted to think too deeply about it, so I simply finished it and let it be.
“Do you want me to feel emotions?”
Hyung, who had seemed briefly startled when he first saw the painting, quickly settled back into blankness and asked in his dry way.
“No, I love hyung exactly as you are!” — that was what the old me would have said. And in fact it was something I really had said to him once, at some point.
The things Duke Kildun had done in his attempts to make Bert hyung feel emotions had been horrific, and I had always wanted Bert hyung to be free from all of that. I had wanted to tell him that he was enough as he was, without being able to feel — that he was already a whole person.
All that anxious care I had given — you probably don’t know a thing about it. Nothing at all.
And this is what it had come to.
After everything, it all felt as though it had lost its meaning.
To Bert hyung, every person who didn’t trouble him was the same. Whether they liked him or disliked him, whether they were cold or warm toward him — it made no difference.
All those things I did for hyung after so much deliberation — they were worth nothing.
I could never have become someone special to him. It had been impossible from the very start.
My heart may never have reached him at all — so what had I been doing all that time?
But then… that’s not hyung’s fault…
I realized, suddenly, that this wasn’t something I could hold against Bert hyung. It was simply that I had been wrong in my thinking from the very beginning.
I had just drained myself in the wrong direction, of my own accord.
No one had made me do it. No one had wanted it — not even Bert hyung himself. It had simply been something I chose to do because I wanted to.
And so I couldn’t blame someone else for not appreciating that effort.
I had been pretending to be good, all this time. Devoting myself to Bert hyung in that way had given me a small, self-satisfying illusion that I was somehow a good person.
Pitying him without his asking for it. Offering kindness without his asking for it.
A hypocrite through and through. And on top of that, growing quietly resentful that none of it was acknowledged.
Was this my punishment, then?
Having spiraled deep into thought, I finally opened my mouth after a long while.
“I don’t know — I just drew it.”
Hyung said nothing more, walked to the wall, and pinned the new painting in an empty space lower down. Watching him do it, I felt a sting behind my nose, and I turned my gaze elsewhere.
The thought crossed my mind — why was it that hyung couldn’t feel the same emotions I did — and it made me unbearably sad. Even if I was a hypocrite, the love I held for Bert hyung was real. I truly wanted him to be happy.
It wasn’t as though Bert hyung had harbored ill will toward me and conspired with my father out of spite. Hyung couldn’t feel emotions — he had simply accepted the arrangement because it was of benefit to him, nothing more.
I would think to myself that his coldness was the fault of the curse, not Bert hyung’s own, and yet the moment I recalled how he had manufactured that smile and proposed to me, resentment surged up without warning.
You didn’t have to do that. You didn’t have to make me misunderstand like that… Is this at least something I’m allowed to blame you for? You know how I feel about you. You know how much I care about you — and if you know that… you’ve learned by now, surely, that if you say something like that to someone, they’ll be hurt…
I clenched my jaw and steeled my heart.
It’s alright to hate Bert hyung for this. The plan keeps moving forward. Don’t I have to protect myself as well? The fact that he can’t feel emotions doesn’t absolve him of having hurt someone.
I tried to dry the tears gathering in my eyes before hyung turned around — tilting my head back and blinking rapidly. My feelings were too tangled for words. I bit down on my back teeth with a heavy heart and dropped my head.
Then, quietly, I let something slip out.
“Hyung — what do you think it would be like if I died?”
“I’m not sure.”
I thought that brief reply was the whole of his answer — but a moment later, one more word followed.
“I’d feel a void.”
