The front door opened, and a cool draft slipped out from inside like a refrigerator being opened.
The room was cool enough already, but Juhan, who opened the door for , wasn’t wearing a T-shirt.
“Just keep your shoes on. Western style.”
In ripped black skinny jeans and heavy work boots, he turned his back and headed into the room, stretching wide. He must have just finished a shower; water still clung to the tips of his hair.
“Honestly, it’s just that sweeping and mopping all the ti is a pain, so I live like this.”
He added that, glanced back, and snickered.
For the place to draw, I wanted where he felt most at ease, and the place he chose—unsurprisingly—was his ho.
The officetel overlooked the Seosomun overpass that links Chungjeongno and City Hall, a rare unobstructed view for Seoul, and even at rush hour it was close enough to Phantom that a thirty-minute commute would do.
“When I beca a full-ti at Phantom, the director handed this over for to use as housing. Baek Yuni’s upstairs on the twenty-third.”
He lifted his index finger and pointed at the ceiling. His place was on the twenty-first.
“She wanted to co look around, but I told her not to—might get in the way of your work. Let’s see... drinks... looks like it’s just beer. Want one?”
Peering into a fridge that looked empty at a glance, he turned and asked. I’d been standing awkwardly in the middle of the room; I said I was fine and slipped the bag off my shoulder.
The crack of his beer tab sounded crisp.
“So, what do you want to do? If I need to hold a pose the whole ti you’re drawing, I should loosen up first.”
“Just... stay comfortable, like you normally are. Until I know exactly what I want to paint, I’ll sketch a bunch of different looks.”
Fingering the piercing in his lip, he glanced around the small room and grabbed one of the two guitars resting on stands along the wall by the bed. There wasn’t a speck of dust on them—clearly cared for.
“Then maybe I’ll ss with the guitar.”
It was a studio-style one-room, not very big, but the lack of bulky furniture kept it from feeling cramped. A curtain-style double-deck hanger taking up one wall, a single bed on the opposite side, and a round table in front of the big window with the view—that was basically it for furnishings. Even if he didn’t sweep and mop often, the light load kept it from looking ssy.
“Want to sit there and draw?”
He set a little amp—about a handspan square—on the table by the window and plugged in the guitar, then jerked his chin toward the bed.
“Or I can play on the bed and you draw over here? Conditions aren’t exactly ideal for painting.”
He looked around the tight room with a sheepish face.
“I’m just doing simple croquis sketches today, so it’s fine. If I need to, I’ll bring an easel next ti. Whatever’s comfortable for you is best.”
“Letting the model do whatever’s comfortable—unusual, artist.”
With a {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} faint grin, he opened a clear file stuffed with sheet music and started tuning. I pulled my sketch tools from my bag and perched on the edge of his bed.
Taking a calr look around, I noticed there wasn’t a single torn-out magazine photo or poster on his walls. Given his punk-band past and his taste in clothes, I’d imagined a certain vibe for a place he lived in—but there was almost no sense of taste or lived-in personality here. Not quite “neat,” just... a space you sleep in and leave.
“Co to think of it, this is the first ti it’s just the two of us like this, huh?”
Pressing chords with long, thin fingers stacked with more than five rings total, eyes down on the guitar, he spoke.
“Other than when we’re working, yeah.”
“Rember when we first t?”
Thinking of that first day, he chuckled, bare shoulders shaking. I laughed too, rembering how I’d startled him into swearing without thinking.
Back then, I had no idea I’d end up working at Phantom for real, and I certainly couldn’t have guessed I’d beco a Phantom-affiliated artist and start drawing again.
I t Teacher Sookie Kim, and Morae and he left Korea. I fell for soone, and pushed myself into a relationship too tangled to define.
It was only early spring to midsumr, but so much had changed.
Following the fingers he set down, electronic tones spread through the room. It was my first ti hearing an electric guitar up close; the inherently mournful timbre of a stringed instrunt, with a delicate shimr on top, was compelling.
I didn’t know the piece, but it wasn’t punk. Slow, languid notes resonated through the space, expressing sothing beyond simple feelings like joy or sorrow. I’d expected what he played to be more aggressive, brisk, and direct; I was wrong. In the tension woven by complex tones, a ringtone bled in. His phone.
“Can I take this?”
“Yeah. Move however you like.”
“Generous artist.”
He snorted, stood up, and picked up the phone from beside the sink. One corner of his mouth curled when he saw the caller. A villain’s smile.
“Yeah. I’m modeling right now. No, not photos—drawing.”
He dropped back into the chair and took a long pull of beer.
“Today? Kinda sudden... What ti? ...That could work, I guess... If I co over, what do I get out of it?”
His expression turned more suggestive. Whatever the answer on the other end, his shoulders bounced. I didn’t lift my hand; I just watched him.
He was different from the Juhan I saw at work at Phantom, different from when it was the three of us with Yuni, different from when other Phantom folks were around. It felt, literally, like his private life. A face he didn’t make with us. A voice he didn’t use.
I’d asked him to model because I thought I knew him a little better than I knew her—but maybe even that was a fragnt, a suspicion crept in.
Proof was in the way the sketch refused to move. Since stepping into this place, I’d lost the thread of what to draw, who to draw.
“Man... I’ve been buried in work stress lately. Lucky day for you, sir. Just wait right there.”
Ending the call with a light laugh, he tossed the phone onto the mattress. Then he picked up the guitar again and flicked a glance at .
“That’s a shocked face.”
“No, not really... You told about this before.”
“Right...”
He thought back to that bar in Hongdae where there was a cat, scratched the very short hair he’d cut the other day, and laughed, a bit bashful.
“Didn’t even know you that long and I dumped all that on you—must’ve startled you.”
It was the opposite.
“I actually liked it. Felt like I got to know you and Yuni better... I’m not great at talking about myself.”
I definitely liked Yuni and him, but between the situation then—where strangers had to be t with caution—and my own introverted nature, I probably wouldn’t have made steady efforts to keep that fondness going. I was grateful they ca to first.
He watched for a mont, shrugged, and looked back down at the sheet music.
“It’s nothing aningful. Stuff I could blab to a random passerby. I’ve got a loose mouth, you know.”
Maybe so.
He isn’t like , so even that thing that looked like the worst kind of conflict between parent and child—he might be able to talk about it to anyone, like a scuffle he happened to get caught up in on the street.
But just because his tone was light, or because he told it light, doesn’t make what happened light. At least for , through that story, the person nad Kwon Juhan ca into focus.
He hugged the guitar and, after a sip of beer, hesitated into a new thread.
“This is kind of pathetic, but... at first I felt a kinship with you.”
“...”
“People at Phantom all have sothing, and the artists we et on the job too, and a weird number of our clients are creators. Gifted, talented, successful... When you live surrounded by people like that all the ti, you do get a little cowed, honestly.”
My hand froze. To , he was one of those sparkling people too.
He stroked the strings downward, smooth, making a sound that was lovely to hear.
“But you felt like an ordinary guy my age, so when you showed up I was a little relieved. It gave a reason to think you and I were normal, and it was the others who were just ridiculously good.”
He paused to drink, set his fingers on the fingerboard again, and then, shooting a playful sidelong look, said:
“But turns out you’re a hotshot too. Traitor.”
“No, I still... haven’t shown you anything. I don’t even know if I can really live up to expectations from here on... I’m not confident yet. You’re the one who’s smooth with Phantom work and even runs Old Future...”
“I only started at Phantom because they said it ca with room and board, and honestly Old Future belongs to Baek Yuni. I’m just a deviant punk who happened to et good people and lucked into a role cooler than I really am. And you got picked by the director. If nothing else, trust the director’s eye for spotting potential. She’s dug up plenty of artists and grown the gallery with them.”
A deviant punk who happened to et good people and lucked into a role cooler than he is. I hadn’t expected soone who seed so self-assured and unflinching to judge himself that harshly.
Seen that way, I’m the coward who happened to et good people and lucked into an opportunity. Before, the people who propped up were Morae and him. Now... many people, starting with the Juhan in front of , and one person in particular.
I was the one who had felt small among solid people like the director, the general manager, Yuni, and him. He seed like soone who didn’t need to feel that way, but if he did, I knew that feeling better than anyone.
He repeated a short lody as if sothing wasn’t quite working. It was a line that touched sothing deep.
“And about that painting—I liked it too. Your piece in the director’s living room. I might have gotten into Western Painting, but that was just my parents paying a college consultant to get into a Seoul school—I had no real interest in painting, and especially abstract stuff, which always felt like it was pretending to be sothing without any core... but that one, I liked. To , fine art is closer to poetry than literature; you can’t poke at a clear narrative or the the way you can in a novel. But that painting... looking at it made feel comforted. Like, ‘hey, life isn’t only hard for you—hang in there!’ That kind of thing.”
He lifted his head and flashed a grin. Then that sa lody cycled again.
Whatever he thought of himself, to , the way he could be this honest and unvarnished still shone.
His long, thin fingers pressed fast and sure along the fingerboard, making notes. His hands were the most beautiful part of him to my eye... and there was another charm to them, so lean the bones’ movent showed on the backs.
They looked dry and cold, but moved delicately, carrying a fragile plea of loneliness... sothing like that.
Maybe it isn’t just painting that’s closer to poetry than to prose—maybe music is too. I can’t explain it with logic, being a layman, but I could tell when I listened to him play. He wasn’t, as he said, so shallow, lightweight guy who only got by on luck.
I set aside the full-body croquis and switched to a firr pencil, focusing on his hands. Practice slowly beca performance.
Bars he’d broken up and repeated stitched together into a smooth lody, took on a consistent color, and ford a single flow. Whether he was putting that feeling into it or that was just the piece itself, I don’t know, but even with only lody and no lyrics, it felt like a story.
I paused my pencil and asked:
“What’s this one called?”
“It’s a song called ‘Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers. I’m stumbling through it right now, but the original absolutely kills.”
His face lit up more than at any point since I’d stepped into the room.
“A guitarist nad Jeff Beck—one of the big three in the world. Well, people argue about who the big three are, but anyway, it’s his.”
Like a kid talking about dinosaurs, cars, or a favorite ani character, he got flushed and even sent the guitarist’s na, album title, and track na over ssenger.
“Download the album and give it a listen. If you like this track, the others on the sa album are good too. Make sure you hear the original.”
We still had about two hours left before the promised six o’clock, but in that ti all I could manage was his exterior. A shell no different from a still life. Just like the drawings in the notebook I’d shown him. I’d thought I knew him a little, so I could paint him—but the person I’d co here to paint wasn’t here today.
At six, he said we should head out together, flipped a T-shirt on, and preened in the mirror. Piece by piece he beca the Kwon Juhan I knew, a punk brimming with confidence and cheerful defiance.
Standing at the mirror, adding to the piercings in his ears, he said,
“Is the director picking us up?”
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