When he’d driven here himself, he knew it would take at least an hour to drive to the downtown area with cafes. The villa was in such a remote location. That meant driving two hours round trip for one cup of coffee.
“Wait a little.”
Seok Iseo, who hung up the phone right away, said this while bringing his portion of tea to his lips.
After only seeing him blush or get flustered at his own words, this fast action, along with the shameless decisiveness that made people run around, even seemed stylish.
“He’s going to buy it?”
“Yeah.”
At the face that seemed to ask why he would ask such a thing, Taeju smiled deeply. Without fail, one eye crinkled smaller.
“You really show that you’re a child from a privileged family.”
What he’d only thought slipped out of his mouth. Taeju still smiled brightly regardless. Rather, it was Iseo who became flustered.
“What?”
Ah, I didn’t come to tease Seok Iseo, I came to charm him, right? Only then did Taeju recall his duty. Seeing him send people around like servants made him feel irritated.
He himself wasn’t exactly an upright person if you were to judge him on a scale of right and wrong. No, in fact, he was the least righteous person.
Perhaps that’s why Taeju’s rebellious nature wanted to provoke Iseo. Quietly going along then sharply telling him not to touch, sitting at the table like an idiot then ordering people around with his fingertips—it subtly got on his nerves.
Pick one if you’re going to do it. Either grovel nicely or hold your head high and make people prostrate before you.
“Why don’t you drink coffee? Is it not that you don’t drink it but that you can’t? Something like arrhythmia?”
“I just don’t like it.”
He must have been too blatant about probing regarding his illness. At Iseo’s sighing answer, Taeju finally thought his questions had been too biased in that direction.
“Ah, I thought. Hyung, do you hate it when I ask about you being sick?”
Yet the question he threw out was another fastball. His white face wavered as if contemplating something serious.
Actually, there was also the fact that he asked more mischievously because of this expression. This person who seemed to say what he wanted to say became flustered without realizing it when asked about his illness.
“Well, a little?”
“I’m sorry, hyung. You might hate it, but I was too inconsiderate.”
“No, it’s not that bad… it’s just that it’s uncommon, so it’s a bit hard to explain everything.”
“Is that it? It’s not bothersome?”
Whether it was really bothersome or not, Seok Iseo said it was fine like a sigh and stood up from his seat. The tea in his cup was still there.
“You asked what I usually do, right? Usually I draw in the workshop.”
Seok Iseo took the lead first. At the end of the hallway leading to the kitchen was a sliding door. When he opened the thick wooden door, there was a place completely different from the house.
Taeju wanted to call the space widely revealed half a floor below a hangar. Or an atelier. From the epoxy floor to the ceiling with two giant fans attached, it took a while just to roll his eyes from bottom to top.
As soon as he entered, the smell of oil paint that stung his nose was felt first.
“Wow, you use this all by yourself?”
He nodded with a face that looked both shy and sullen at the same time. Iseo went down below and opened the folding door facing the ocean.
In an instant, the sea breeze rushed in and the oil paint smell was ventilated.
Just listing what was visible, there were easels of various sizes, music stands gathered in one corner, a pottery wheel, woodworking timber, canvases from palm-sized ones to ones that had occupied an entire wall in the house—endless varieties.
Taeju rolled the pottery wheel pedal a few times and got covered in clay dust. Meanwhile, Iseo roughly organized the solid wood desk that was several times his height.
“Do you play the piano outside too, hyung?”
“Before. I played it often when my professor came.”
This time what caught Taeju’s attention was a canvas that still had empty space. While he tapped the plywood covered in paint, Iseo shook food into the tank at the very end of the workshop.
“Tropical fish?”
“Yeah.”
Taeju touched here and there halfheartedly and eventually stood next to Iseo. It was a tremendous-scale tank. The tropical fish gathering to eat food in the tank fitted to the wall size horizontally were charming.
Even his hobbies are just like him—thinking this, Taeju tapped the tank glass with the back of his hand.
“Don’t do that, stop.”
Seok Iseo, who had stood right next to him at some point, shook his head with a solemn face. That stern expression made him laugh first.
“Ah, does this stress them out?”
“They’re already living trapped, so I feel sorry for them.”
“With this size, they probably don’t even know they’re trapped.”
Taeju tapped the tank again and earned Iseo’s glare. Looking at their appearance, barely the size of two fingers put together, the tank’s size seemed as good as the ocean.
“Let me try feeding them.”
“Just three more spoonfuls.”
Even giving just one spoonful the size of a fingernail, Seok Iseo seemed completely untrustworthy.
“How many are there?”
“I stopped counting after it passed 50.”
Taeju made a sullen face once and then sprinkled food into the tank. The fish swarming over were tiny as mice but incredibly colorful. They opened and closed their mouths wide.
“How do you change the water?”
“There’s a filter attached below, so I don’t need to change it separately.”
When he scooped exactly three spoonfuls, Iseo hurriedly took the spoon away.
“Do you do everything here, hyung?”
He nodded briefly while vacantly looking into the tank. Seok Iseo’s face receiving the tank’s light from the front was blue. His face reflecting the blue light seemed both young and mature.
“If there’s anything you want to do, you can. If you look over there, there’s a clay shooting gun.”
“A gun?”
At the sound of incredulous laughter, the face that had been fixed on the tank finally turned toward Taeju.
“Isn’t it illegal? Possessing a gun?”
Iseo just raised his shoulders once without much expression change.
“Don’t you do clay shooting?”
“I do, but…”
Iseo, who walked toward the stairs, hooked his fingers into the thinly grooved area and pushed the wall. Inside, a shotgun was hanging there properly. Below the gun, items needed for shooting from earmuffs to shoulder pads were organized.
Seeing a real gun, even his incredulous laughter stopped.
“If you want to do it, tell ahjussi. He’ll launch the pigeons.”
He sometimes went to suburban shooting ranges when he had time for clay shooting. But seeing it inside the house like this, the size was newly burdensome.
“Um, if you look over there, there’s also a ping-pong table. We need to take it out again though…”
At this point, Taeju’s thoughts changed slightly. He vaguely grasped what the tremendous hobbies filling the giant hangar were trying to say.
He was being confined. He didn’t know. Whether it was confinement or seclusion. Whether it was voluntary or involuntary he couldn’t tell, but one thing was certain. His flow of time was too slow. So slow that he absolutely couldn’t endure it without doing something.
This time, Iseo approached the solid wood table and started sharpening a shortened pencil. It was exactly the right height, as if fitted to Seok Iseo’s standing height. He busily rustled about doing something. That appearance felt worn and worn like a print stamped thousands of times.
“Hyung.”
Slowly, Seok Iseo turned his head to look at him. When he first entered the workshop, he was surprised by the tremendous size and overwhelmed by the extravagant hobbies.
“Is this enjoyable?”
Taeju was genuinely curious. Various, consumptive activities filling a perfectly isolated space.
Seok Iseo’s expression became ambiguous for a moment. Neither smiling nor crying. Neither lonely nor satisfied.
Like an oil painting quietly drying in the shadowed corner behind him, the colors of his expression were mixed in various ways.
“Why are you asking that?”
Unlike his expression, his answer was sharp as if snapping. For a moment, the sea breeze passed between them through the wide open door.
“Are you enjoying yourself?”
“What?”
“My answer is the same.”
He turned his twisted head back to its original position. This time he started scribbling something. Heat suddenly surged up. His answer is the same?
Just moments ago, it seemed like he could be kind as it welled up from deep in his heart. It seemed like he could genuinely sympathize with Seok Iseo without acting affectionate like a facade. But he’s quite irritating.
