[Chapter 4] Awkward~
Yikyung's phone had four missed calls by the time he got back to his room.
All from Director Joon.
He sat on the edge of the bed, still in his jacket, and looked at them for a moment.
Then he called back.
It rang twice.
"You're alive," Director Joon said, by way of greeting.
"I'm alive."
"Where are you?"
"Somewhere quiet."
A pause. The particular kind that meant Director Joon was deciding whether to push.
He pushed.
"Yikyung. I need a location. What if something happens? What if—"
"Nothing is going to happen, Hyung."
"You don't know that. You're just — out there, somewhere, and you won't tell me where and the clients are already asking if you've started and I don't know what to tell them because I don't know anything because you won't tell me anything—"
"I know what I'm going to paint."
Silence.
Complete, immediate silence.
Then — "...What?"
"I know what I'm going to paint."
Yikyung leaned back against the headboard, looking up at the ceiling. Outside his window the sea moved in the dark, quiet and endless.
"I haven't started yet. But I know. And when I know, Hyung, it always comes."
Another silence. Softer this time.
"You're sure?"
"I'm sure."
He could hear Director Joon exhaling slowly on the other end — the specific exhale of a man releasing two months of accumulated tension in a single breath.
"It just needs time," Yikyung said.
"Give me time."
"You have six weeks."
"I know."
"Yikyung—"
"Six weeks. I know." He closed his eyes. "Goodnight, Hyung."
He hung up.
The room was very quiet.
He lay in the dark for a while, listening to the sea move outside his window, and thought about a boy laughing in a market with his head tilted back and the morning light choosing his throat to rest on.
~~~~~~~
The order was a small one.
Shampoo, hand soap, a particular brand of face wash he hadn't been able to find at the convenience store down the lane. He'd asked Ahjumma Park about it over breakfast and she'd told him the market carried it — he could go himself or they delivered for a small fee.
He paid the fee.
He didn't think anything of it.
He was at his desk, notebook open, when the knock came.
"Coming," he called.
He pushed back his chair, crossed the room, and opened the door.
Riwoo stood in the doorway.
Paper bag in hand. Hair slightly windswept. Cheeks carrying the faint flush of someone who had been moving fast in cool air.
The surprise on his face lasted exactly one second before he recovered.
Yikyung recovered at approximately the same time.
They looked at each other.
"Oh," Riwoo said.
"Oh," Yikyung agreed.
A beat of silence that was somehow louder than it had any right to be.
Yikyung stepped back from the door.
"Come in," he said.
I stepped inside.
I told myself I was just going to hand over the bag and leave.
That was the plan. A simple plan. A reasonable plan.
And then I saw the room.
It wasn't anything dramatic — a low bed, a wooden desk, papers spread across it, a sketchbook propped against the wall that I very deliberately did not look at too closely.
But there was something about the atmosphere of it. Quiet in a specific way. Like the room had been held very still for a long time and was only just beginning to exhale.
I set the paper bag on the desk.
"Your order," I said.
"Thank you." He glanced into the bag.
"How much do I owe you?"
I told him.
He paid me.
Neither of us moved toward the door.
"Is that the sea?" I asked.
I don't know why I asked that. It was obviously the sea. I could see it was the sea. I have lived next to the sea my entire life and I know what the sea looks like.
"...Yes," Yikyung said. "It's the sea."
"You can see the whole stretch from here."
"You can."
I drifted toward the window.
Behind me I could feel him watching, that steady considering quality he had, like he was always quietly taking stock of something.
It should have been uncomfortable.
It wasn't, which was its own kind of problem.
"The light here in the mornings," I said, looking out at the water. "It comes off the sea around eight. Goes completely different by ten." I paused. "Good light for working."
"I know," he said quietly. "I've been watching it."
I turned.
He was leaning against the desk with his arms loosely folded, looking at me with that expression I still hadn't found a name for — attentive and unhurried, like I was something he was trying to understand without rushing.
I looked back at the window.
~~~~~~
They talked for longer than either of them had planned.
Riwoo told him about the market — which stalls were worth visiting, which ahjummas would keep you talking for half an hour if you weren't careful, the best time to arrive for the freshest catch.
Yikyung listened the way he always did. Completely. Like nothing else existed.
It was a disconcerting quality in a person.
Riwoo found he kept talking anyway.
At some point he had drifted from standing at the window to sitting on the windowsill.
At some point Yikyung had pulled his chair out from the desk. At some point the paper bag Riwoo was supposed to deliver and leave had been entirely forgotten on the desk between them.
The light through the window shifted.
Riwoo looked up and realised with a small jolt that significantly more time had passed than he'd accounted for.
He stood.
"I should go. Halmeoni needs—"
"Are you going to the east wall this evening?"
Riwoo stopped.
The question was casual. Entirely casual. The way you asked about the weather or the market prices.
"Maybe," Riwoo said carefully.
"Seven o'clock," Yikyung said. "You said the light is best just before seven."
Riwoo picked up his empty paper bag.
"I said that yesterday," he said. "About a different spot."
"I know," Yikyung replied.
"I was listening."