Chapter 19: Masterpiece

Time goes fast, I think. Distances diminish, I think. Thinking…

65, 66, 67, 68…

Hearts will break, I think. Situations will shape shift, I think. Eyes will curve and teeth will show, I think. Still thinking…

69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74…

Maybe I’ll go, maybe I’ll grow, I think. Maybe she’ll get married and have kids and forget about me, I think. Maybe one day I’ll wake up and just know…just know…what…? Know why the earth spins…why the sun misses the moon…why stars hang and never fall, I think. Insistent thinking…

75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82…

But maybe one day I’ll fall into the deepest sleep imaginable and I’ll stay there, floating in the black, I think. But maybe it won’t just be black; maybe my dreams will resonate there, and things then will make sense, I think. And maybe there’ll be no Jessica, and no Sooyoung and no Tiffany and just no one else and it’ll be me alone, solely me, lost in my mind…but that doesn’t sound very appealing does it…no…that sounds like being crazy. But what even is crazy…? Are people in those institutions crazy, or…are we the crazy ones…? Maybe I can ask Tiffany and she’ll give me one of her answers that somehow manages to always make perfect sense. Or maybe she’ll purse her lips together and look to the sky, with her thoughtful expression, and tell me that there’s no way of knowing. But that still makes sense…What doesn’t make sense is…is the way she…how she always…-

“Kim Taeyeon,”

I lose count. Always thinking.

The weight of eyes falls upon me, and suddenly I feel so small. I swallow and lift my gaze to the teacher at the front of the class, the beads hanging loosely from my fingers.

“Can you tell me the answer?” She asks, eyebrows raised, finger to the board.

I look to the board, and then to her and then to the board and then to her, empty handed.

“No...” I reply.

“Maybe you’d be able to if you actually paid attention.” Her tone is harsh, and I feel myself shrink into my seat.

The attention flickers away from me. Pens against paper, whispering across the spaces, the teacher and her single-noted voice; I zone in on the rhythmic ticks of the clock and just watch as the sound of the bell approaches.

I count the beads in my hand, thumbing passed each and every one, thinking about Jessica and what she’s doing right now, Sooyoung and what she’s doing right now, Tiffany and what she’s doing right now. About my parents and what they’d be doing right now…About what I’d be doing if they were still here…if I’d just shouted or got help…or helped them myself then maybe they’d still be ali-

“Sorry,”

I look up and he smiles at me, apologetic.

“I wasn’t looking where I was going.” He says, bending down, picking my pen and placing it back on my desk.

I watch him turn and leave, and then I realise that the bell has already rung and that everyone else has already gone.

I stand, twisting the beads around my wrist before proceeding to pack up the rest of my stuff. I hear the sound of Mrs Byun approaching, the sound of her heels against the floor. When I feel her and see her from my peripheral vision standing by the side of my desk, she says my name.

“Taeyeon,”

I look at her.

“Your essay is not in here,” She says, holding up the stack of papers in her hand. “Do you have it?”

“No.” I answer.

She raises a brow. “And why is that?”

“Because I didn’t do it.”

She flexes her jaw slightly. “What’s your excuse?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. I just didn’t do it.”

She sighs and sets the papers down before looking at me. “Taeyeon, I’m becoming increasingly concerned with your effort and attitude in this class.” Concerned. Why is everyone always so concerned? “That’s twice now that you haven’t handed in an assignment. If this continues I’ll have to inform your guardian and the issue will be taken to someone more senior than I. Is that clear?”

I think that maybe I’m supposed to care, but for some reason I don’t, and that scares me slightly, and I wonder when exactly I stopped caring.

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“I’ll give you one more chance on this assignment. I want it handed in by tomorrow. If it’s not done by then I have no choice but to take further action.”

“Okay.” Is all I can say.

And Mrs Byun gives me this forlorn look that makes my throat feel constricted before picking up her papers and turning to go back to her desk. “You should get going. Class is over.”

I watch her for a second or two before shouldering my bag and leaving.

I’m about to exit through the front doors but then I stop, deciding that the orphanage, busy with kids and Sooyoung, is not somewhere that I want to be. So, I turn around, go through corridors and up stairs before reaching the Art Department and going into my usual classroom, trying to shake of this feeling that I know but wish I didn’t know.

The classroom is empty and I stand there for a moment. I look around at the desks and stools, arranged into a horseshoe shape, all of them vacant. I take a moment to look at the walls and realise that I’ve spent five years going in and out of this classroom, but have never even noticed half of the stuff inside of it.

The colour charts, the work of past students, shelves of art history books cluttering the walls all stare back at me.

I walk further into the room before taking a seat on a stool at a desk with my back facing the windows. And I don’t know why, but I just want to sit here and feel the black swirls in my chest rotate like spin tops turning into tornados.

“Just stay here, okay? Taeyeon?”

“Okay.”

A door shuts somewhere down the hall. I exhale.

I push myself up and go about the classroom, finding my work and finishing off my annotations for my final portfolio. I get lost a little as I work, forgetting to watch the time.

When a light knock sounds into the room, I look up and see Tiffany.

Tiffany always seems to be standing in doorways, always looking so sincere and pretty, and if I could, I’d ask her to just stand there for a little while so I could paint the picture of her in my mind and then put it down on canvas. I would…if I could.

Her gaze seems to soften when our eyes meet. She smiles a little.

“Hi,” She says, stepping into the room.

“Hey,” I return, watching her as she glances around and at the walls.

“I was waiting for you outside the gate,” She says, gesturing behind her. “When you didn’t come out with everyone else, I thought something was up, so I came looking for you.” But her face shows no sign of annoyance.

“No, I’m just working.” I say, my eyes seemingly glued to her.

She places her bag on a desk and pulls out the stool next to me before taking a seat. She leans her head on her fist and gazes at me, watches me for a moment, and it seems that all my concentration has gone out of the closed window.

“What are you working on?” She asks, her eyes flickering to meet mine.

I look away, down to the pencil in my slackened grip. “Uh…just written stuff for my final portfolio.”

She nods slowly before looking around the room again. “What about your practical work?”  

“I’ve finished it all.” I reply, my fingers tightening around the pencil, suddenly forgetting what I’m supposed to write.

“Can I see it?”

“See what?” I look at her.

“Your practical work.” She looks back.

“Oh…” I breathe and look away. “Uhm…yeah, sure.”

I get up and she follows me out of the room and into the Art Department base where the more important work is kept so it doesn’t get lost or mixed up.

“Wait here for a sec.” I say when we enter, and she stays put while I go to the far corner where all my paintings are kept. And I feel nervous. Yes, she’s seen my work back in my room, but this is different. I’m not sure exactly how, but it just is. This is work that I’ve spent nearly a whole year perfecting, but still somehow it seems, to me, so far from perfect.  

I set up a couple of easels in the shape of a semi-circle, facing the wall, and put my work onto them. 

I stand in that semi-circle and look through the gaps between the easels to her as she looks at the other work set around the room, and there’s sudden sense of gratefulness that swims down to the tips of my fingers. How grateful I am to have met Hwang Tiffany.

I carefully remove myself from the semi-circle and place myself next to her. I look at the painting she’s looking at – an arrangement of various objects.

“The girl who painted this is in my class.” I say, and Tiffany glances at me as if she didn’t know I was here.

“There’s not much feeling in it.” Tiffany says, and my eyes find her and take in the concentration on her face.

I look back to the painting. “This year we could choose anything we wanted to inspire our work.” I say and Tiffany nods. “Some people chose world issues, their favourite movie or book or…something.” I swallow down and pause for a moment. “This girl chose objects that represent her interests.” Tiffany looks at me. “And that’s all they are, I suppose.” Our eyes meet in the midst of amateur art work. “Just objects. That’s why there’s no feeling.”

“I see – good skill but no passion.” She says, tilting her head at the painting. “What did you choose?”

“I’ll show you, c’mon.”

She follows me into the semi-circle and my heart races a little more despite the fact that there is nothing to win.

“Taeyeon…” She says, and it sounds as if it’s her last breath. Her eyes move quickly over every painting, dazzling and beautiful. And then she takes her time, walking by and pausing at every canvas. She doesn’t say anything for an eternity.

My fingers tense and I think I’d give anything to just run. Run and never hear what she has to say. Because she probably thinks I’m weird and obsessed and just…broken.

“These are all inspired by…?”

“Jessica.” Her name comes out easier than expected.

She nods, “I guessed. They’re all so…so…” She waves her hands in the air to compensate for her loss of words. “…Inexplicably beautiful.”

I find myself smiling a little at that.

I step forward and scratch behind my ear. “I decided to call the collection as a whole ‘Rose-tinted’.”

I think maybe she’s going to ask why or where the name came from, but she doesn’t. She just smiles inspiringly and says, “I like it.”

And then we stand side-by-side, in the semi-circle of my painted past, and I just look at every piece. I know what I want these paintings to mean, what I want them to say, but I have no idea what Tiffany is hearing.

“How long did it take for you to paint these?” She asks, glancing at me.

“Under a year.” I answer.

“You’re extremely talented, Taeyeon. I hope you know that.”

I look down to my feet, letting the tornadoes spin within my chest, tracing the light that slices into the floor and my shoes. “Thank you.”

“I’m sure you’ll get an amazing grade.”

I nod, but there’s a part of me that knows that no grade or award will ever mean as much to me as Tiffany’s approval does. The thought shakes me.

Her fingers graze my palm before locking around my hand in a gentle manner. “Thank you for showing me your work.”

She looks at me, but for one of those same, many reasons that I’ve began to use almost habitually, I can’t bring myself to look back at her – see the beauty that will seep into the very depths of my mind and leak into my non-existent dreams.

“Let’s go.” She says with her gentle voice, tugging me with only innocent intention.

I follow her, because following Tiffany always somehow feels like the right thing to do.

* * *

I want the sky to swallow me. I want to wade through clouds and get lost in brilliant blue. But I suppose I’ve already been successful in that without the sky’s aid.

I lower my eyes to Tiffany beside me, watching her hands as they delicately craft the links of her daisy chain.

“I haven’t made a daisy chain since I was a kid.” She says with a fond smile, her eyes trained on the flowers. “There used be this field behind my old school. The boys used to play games of football in the middle, and at the bottom of the field the grass grew a little higher and the trees were huge. I used to sit there and make daisy chains by myself.”

“Why by yourself?” I ask without much of a thought, eyes to the sky.

I feel Tiffany shrug. She leans back. “I don’t know. I quite liked being alone when I was young. A lot of the time I felt…different from the other kids.” She looks at