“I have a few pieces I painted before remaining. They’re unpublished works, so the Minister wouldn’t know them either. Honestly they’re closer to practice sketches so I’m embarrassed to give them as gifts, but if I work on them a bit more, they’ll be passable enough.”
Yu-shin, thinking of it now, took out his phone from his pants pocket to handle it. Without a moment’s hesitation, he pressed his mother’s contact.
“Yeah, Mom. Just one favor. You know the white magnolia among the works in the separate room? Yeah, send me that.”
At the sudden request, Madam Hong asked why.
“It’s Jun-wan’s father’s birthday. I’m going to give it as a gift.”
Signs showed the call would drag on. Madam Hong poured out ten questions for every one thing Yu-shin said.
“…Wouldn’t I? No, I think I’ll just eat dinner and come back. It’s a family gathering. How can only I be left out?”
Madam Hong spoke without even breathing. Yu-shin moved the phone away from his ear briefly.
“Why is fairness coming up here? It’s a birthday, so of course I should go and congratulate him.”
Yu-shin protested in his own way. His nose bridge wrinkled slightly. His face clearly showed signs of being worn down.
“Don’t say ridiculous things. Why are you putting me in a difficult position? What? Park Seobang is… No, I don’t want to, I won’t let you. I said no.”
Jun-wan knew he was being discussed. He casually stretched out his arm and took the phone stuck to Yu-shin’s ear.
When he put it to his ear, Madam Hong was still denouncing. She already felt like her son had been taken away so her heart was disturbed, and she was even more upset that Yu-shin was acting like a Park family person.
—Yu-shin, as much as you interact with that family, Park Seobang should also come to our house. That’s proper. Don’t you understand what Mom means?
Jun-wan, who had been quietly listening, opened his mouth.
“Mother-in-law, this is Park Jun-wan.”
—Oh my, what a surprise.
The excited voice immediately changed to an elegant tone. Though the situation of caring about propriety when everything had already been heard might look somewhat ridiculous, Jun-wan never laughed.
“I was short-sighted. I’ll visit soon.”
—Oh, a busy person like you… It’s fine. I just said it casually.
“Have you had dinner?”
Jun-wan talked with Madam Hong for a few more minutes. Starting with light greetings, he answered Madam Hong’s unreasonable questions quite well. His courteous tone was enough to win an elder’s favor. Madam Hong melted smoothly as if she’d never been angry.
—Alright, see you soon. I’m entrusting our Yu-shin to you.
“Yes, take care.”
After the call ended, he pushed the phone toward its original owner. Yu-shin didn’t even glance at the phone and buried his heated face in both hands.
“Ugh, I really… I’m so embarrassed I can’t lift my face.”
“Nothing was wrong. We should be fair to both families.”
“…Thank you.”
Yu-shin slowly lowered the hands covering his face. Both cheeks were still reddish, but he made his best effort at an indifferent expression.
“And I’m sorry for misunderstanding. Since I experienced it… I understood what Jun-wan said earlier. As soon as I heard it, I also first thought that Jun-wan was uncomfortable.”
“There’s nothing to apologize for. I spoke in a way that caused misunderstanding.”
Jun-wan regarded it as nothing serious. He gestured at Yu-shin’s plate and added nagging that there wasn’t much left so finish it all.
Yu-shin picked up his fork again. The pasta had long since become lukewarm and the noodles had swollen, but it still suited his taste perfectly. He thought Jun-wan’s considerate gesture, though not grandiose, was so like him.
***
The painting arrived.
Even if it was a practice sketch, ‘Ungang’s’ work had considerable value. The 50cm square panel was delivered through a special transport company, packed in several layers of tie bag wrapping, bubble wrap, and a custom box.
Yu-shin looked down at the painting, deeply lost in thought. Looking closely, it was full of places to touch up. The perfectionism that manifested only regarding paintings slowly began to activate.
After drawing a blueprint in his head and taking a deep breath once, he gripped his brush. With pigment made from ground pearl powder, he layered colors onto the painting one by one. The brushstrokes with all his heart were not for someone else, but solely Yu-shin’s own will.
Around past 5 PM, Jun-wan received a message. The sender was Manager Min Ae-gyeong.
Young Master Yu-shin has been holed up in the studio from morning until now. He’s skipped all his meals. He’ll probably be working until you get off work, Jun-wan-nim. It’s presumptuous, but I’m contacting you to ask you to look after our young master.
“……”
Jun-wan read the text with one eye squinted. He quite disliked the content that took Kim Yu-shin for granted as his responsibility. He was merely a spouse on paper, not Kim Yu-shin’s nanny. He was neither idle nor generous enough to attend to a full-grown adult.
He deliberately didn’t reply to the earnest request. Even without Kim Yu-shin, he had a mountain of things to worry about. Jun-wan straightened his posture and threw himself into writing the experiment report. For him, concentration was as easy as breathing.
On the way home, he bought porridge. The work he had to do grabbed at Jun-wan’s pant legs, but he put it all down and left work on time. If he had to give a reason, his concentration kept breaking. The porridge was simply because he wanted to solve dinner easily.
When he crossed the threshold, an eerily quiet stillness greeted Jun-wan. Since Manager Min had been there, no matter where he looked in the house, there wasn’t a disheveled corner.
He put the heavy shopping bag on the dining table and first took off his jacket. After washing his hands cleanly, the place he headed was Yu-shin’s studio located deep inside the corridor.
After knocking, he opened the door. The spacious studio had tools scattered everywhere with no place to step.
Still, he’d somehow preserved just enough space for himself to lie down. Yu-shin, who had been sprawled out resting, greeted the person who’d come home from work in a worldly lazy posture.
“You’re back?”
“……”
“Just let it slide once. I know I need to clean up… but I’m so tired I can’t lift a finger. I’ll do the cleanup tomorrow with Ae-gyeong.”
As if having poured out all his remaining energy, Yu-shin smiling palely definitely looked exhausted. Jun-wan swallowed the words circling on his tongue to the back of his throat and rubbed his furrowed brow that had wrinkled without him knowing.
“Stop and come out.”
When the short instruction fell, Yu-shin barely raised his powerless body. Walking slowly while showing his tired state, he ended up stepping on a porcelain dish containing pigment.
“…Ah!”
The overturned pigment wetted Yu-shin’s foot a grayish white. Watching the pigment flow between his toes, Yu-shin was quite troubled.
He really makes a mess in diverse ways. Jun-wan readily entered the empty space. He pulled out wet wipes and roughly cleaned up Yu-shin’s accident, but it was impossible to wipe all the pigment from his foot. At this rate, white footprints would remain wherever he walked.
“…I’m not very heavy.”
Yu-shin slightly raised both arms. At the blatant request to be carried, Jun-wan rolled his eyes as if dumbfounded.
But his arms on their own supported under Yu-shin’s thighs. At the light weight, a sigh escaped. While exiting the studio and heading to the second-floor bathroom, Yu-shin stayed quietly nestled without saying anything.
Only after putting him inside the bathroom did their bodies separate. Yu-shin picked up the shower head then stopped and said,
“Jun-wan, I also need clothes to change into.”
“Kim Yu-shin should handle that much yourself.”
He closed the bathroom door with a bang and turned around. Jun-wan exhaled enough to make his bangs fly and headed downstairs. The studio he returned to was a domain difficult for him to touch. The best he could do was wipe the pigment on the floor with wet wipes and a dry cloth.
While also cleaning up trash in the process, a panel set at an angle entered Jun-wan’s field of vision. Strength momentarily entered the fingertips that had been pressing on the floor and veins rose on the back of his hand.
In the naturally drying panel, pure white flowers were blooming. Not flashy, but the purity the flowers possessed was overwhelmingly enough to captivate the viewer in an instant.
The layers built by painting and drying hundreds of times were very solid and delicate. The grain of the brush was alive and vitality budded in each petal. That pure white color possessed, dare he say it, a noble beauty Jun-wan had never seen before.
Could a price be put on it? Even an engineering student who didn’t know the ‘a’ of art could see the work’s value was considerable. To the point where offering criticism of Yu-shin’s painting itself would be rude.
“A genius is indeed a genius.”
There was nothing to say but acknowledgment. What would Father think seeing this?
Though he desperately tried to hide being Ungang, his skill was leaking out beyond the painting, making one wonder if the secret could really be maintained.
That wasn’t a problem for Jun-wan to worry about. He raised his bent legs, turned off the studio light, and came out. Jun-wan’s hands had gotten equally dirty. He washed simply in the separate bathroom and came out to belatedly prepare dinner.
The porridge had cooled to just the right temperature for eating. After transferring it to ceramic bowls and even setting out spoons, Jun-wan pulled out a dining chair and sat. Kim Yu-shin was originally slow at washing. Holding his phone, Jun-wan spent time reading emails he hadn’t checked yet.
The wait was endless. It seemed like a full hour since entering the bathroom, but there was no thought of coming down.
The porridge had completely cooled and even the surface had dried and stuck. Unable to bear it any longer, Jun-wan kicked back his chair and stood up.
He stepped up the stairs two at a time and arrived in front of the bathroom in one go. Beyond the closed door, the sound of water gushing could be heard.
Out of courtesy he knocked, but there was no response.
“Kim Yu-shin.”
Even calling out, there was no answer either. His annoyed mood transformed into worry. Jun-wan turned the door handle without hesitation.
Muggy humidity poured out like a tide through the opened door crack. Hot water endlessly flowed over the already overflowing bathtub. Jun-wan went in and turned off the faucet first. Making his worry pointless, Yu-shin was asleep leaning against the tub.
His face was drowsy enough to feel sorry to wake him. It made sense he’d be tired having drawn such a thing. Normally he would have woken him without consideration, but having directly seen Yu-shin’s labor, he couldn’t bring himself to touch him.
