Part Two
The Painter
December soon left us as quickly as it had came. I had spent the rest of the month cooped up in my room, trying to avoid my father as much as possible. I drew, I read, I did my homework all while stuck in the comfort of my room and I only went downstairs when I needed something to eat - my father and I never had to cross paths. He probably felt the same way as I did and decided to take on more hours at the office, not returning to the house until the dead of night when I was fast asleep. We didn’t have to speak or see each other and that was perfectly fine with me, and I’m sure he felt the same. The only time I think I had to speak to him throughout the rest of December was on Christmas Eve and Christmas day, where we entertained our guests, my grandparents, while they decided to join us and enjoy the holiday. He only ever spoke to me when he had to ask me to do something, like take grandma’s bag to the guestroom or go out and buy a toothbrush for grandpa because he had left his at home, claiming that Grandma had rushed him out of the house knowing that they were going to be late. I didn’t say anything to him though except from a meek ‘Thank you’ for my Christmas presents - I didn’t have anything that I wanted to say to him.
The snow that had landed on the ground weeks earlier was gradually melting into slush when we returned to school in January. I met up with Kyungsoo and Sehun who were waiting for me in front of my locker when I walked into school, both talking to each other animatedly about their Christmas and what presents they got from their parents. Soojung walked past about a minute later, pink hair flowing down her back as she wrapped her jacket tighter around her small frame, her cheeks red from the cold wind as if she was blushing. She looked up as she passed by my side and I thought I saw what may have been a smile lingering upon her lips as she met my eyes. I had never seen someone so beautiful, and I wanted to move forward and plant my lips against hers.
My dream was short-lived and I was brought back to reality by Sehun’s irritating whining about how I wasn’t listening to his story. She continued to carry herself down the hallway and before I knew it, she was no longer in sight and I was left only to dream, and listen to Sehun of course. Some day, I would gather the courage to capture those lips.
The day seemed to pass us by so slowly that at some points, it seemed like time would never be moving. Every time I checked my watch in each of my classes, it seemed like no time had passed at all, still stuck at the same moment it had been the last time I glanced at the clock hands on my wristwatch, and when the time changed, it changed so solemnly. I just couldn’t seem to wait for school to end, to have time to spend with Soojung while she found me in the Art room or we met up after school. I couldn’t wait to speak to her and when the bell rang to signal the end of the day, I leapt up from my seat and rushed to gather my things as quickly as I could.
“Jongin, can I speak to you for a moment?” Ms Waters called out, just as I was about to walk through the door and escape from the confines of the classroom, just as I was about to leave to meet Soojung.
I turned back and dragged my feet towards her desk as the last of my classmates piled out of the door and into the hallway, ready to meet up with their friends and head home. She was a middle-aged women around 50, my teacher, her hair greying but still holding remnants of the brunette shade that once coloured her hair. She was friendly with everyone and always cared, always showed interest in everyone’s artwork because she believed that there was something brilliant in everyone. I think she may have been one of the nicest people I had ever met and the best teacher in the school by far, which was probably why I always went and listened to what she had to say. The chair legs screeched against the vinyl floors beneath us as she moved back and stood up to face me. A smile tugged at the corners of her lips as she leaned forward and passed a sheet of paper into my hands, my eyes quickly scanning over the contents as I tried to understand why she had chosen to hold me behind.
“There’s a state-wide art contest being held and I thought that you may have been willing to enter,” she explained, the excitement glittering within her worn eyes. “It’s so exciting. The top paintings in the contest will be put up in an exhibition in Lansing where the winner will be announced. The best part is that the representatives of the different art schools will be there to look out for possible students to offer scholarships to. You’re applying to an art school, right Jongin?”
“I’m not all that interested in this contest,” I replied almost soundlessly. “I’m not sure if I’m going to be applying to an Art School anymore.”
My father’s words had put some impact on me and when I came back that night, I started thinking that what he had said was true. I started thinking that he may have been right in that I wouldn’t be able to start a real career in art because it was almost impossible for anyone to be successful as an artist, and I didn’t want a future living in poverty with only my art to keep me company. I wanted to be able to get married, start a family in the future and I didn’t want them to be ashamed of me - I had to start thinking of my other choices in life. His words had managed to somewhat dishearten me from painting, from art altogether.
The colour drained from her face and she stared at me in shock, her eyebrows knitting together in confusion as if she couldn‘t understand the words that I had said. “What do you mean you’re not applying?”
“I don’t think it’s the right choice for me. I mean, what kind of job will I get by painting and learning about Art?” I asked her. “Most painters don’t become famous until after they have died. I can’t commit to a life of art knowing that that is what will happen.”
She lowered her head, and I knew that she knew the words that I had spoken were true. She didn’t want to show me that she agreed with my words no matter how talented or creative she thought I was. “Well, can you at least just think about it? Please.”
I nodded my head in agreement and turned away, holding the leaflet loosely in my hands as I walked towards the door, knowing that she was watching me with hope in her eyes. I couldn’t have said no to her, not to someone who believed in me and thought that my hobby, my dreams were reachable if I just tried, someone who had aided me in becoming the painter that I was. I would think about it, just like I had unconsciously promised her that I would, but I wasn’t sure if I would do it or not. There was something holding me back from making that kind of decision on my own.
……
“Hey, I thought I would find you in here.”
I turned my head and found her leaning against the doorway, a jacket draped over her arm, bag swinging from her shoulder. Her fingers ran along the smoothness of the metal handle as she took a step inside, her feet guiding her through the room before she pulled out a stool and brought it over to my side, just like she always did. Her cheeks had flushed to a deep shade of red that stood out against the paleness of her skin and her hair was pulled back into a ponytail except from a few strands that fell into her eyes, brushing against her forehead. She looked tired and she was panting, like she had ran over to the classroom because she had forgotten that I would be there.
“I’m quite predictable,” I replied, the words taking their time to leave my lips.
She took a seat upon the stool, her jacket dropping into a pile upon her bag which lay upon the floor. “You’re not painting?” She asked, the disbelief audible within her tone as she raised an eyebrow and scanned her eyes around the room, searching for the painting which she thought I had probably hidden from her as a joke.
“Nope. Too busy thinking.” I said simply, my shoulders slouching as I leaned forward and rested my elbows on the table.
“Well, what are you thinking about? Maybe I could help you clear your mind.”
As if I already knew that she would ask that, I rummaged through my pocket, finding a few pieces of lint within the lining of the fabric, and pulled out the flyer which had become crumpled at the edges in the time that I had packed it away. She took it with hesitation and unfolded the sheet of paper until the words became visible. Her eyes squinted, moving along the page urgently as she pursed her lips together, and then, when she looked up at me, I knew she understood my situation clearly.
“A contest?”
“My teacher said I should enter,” I said almost monotonously. “Representatives of the art schools will be there and she thinks it would be a good opportunity for me. I don’t know though.”
“Of course you should enter. Your work is amazing,” I could sense the excitement sparkling within her voice, just like the way the teacher’s had merely twenty minutes earlier. “This is your chance to prove how good you are.” She rested her hand upon my shoulder, as if she would be able to reassure me in doing so. I didn’t respond. I didn’t know what to say to her, how to admit how disheartened I felt from painting, how disheartened I felt from my artwork completely.
“It’s your father, isn’t it?” she asked, after waiting for some time with no response. “That’s what’s holding you back from entering.”
“How could you tell?”
“It’s pretty obvious.”
I looked down, trying to keep my face out of her line of sight. I didn‘t want her to see the sadness, the desolation scrawled across my features. I didn‘t want to her to see me so weak and cowardly, so useless. There were tears trying to force themselves over the rims of my eyes, a choking cry stuck within my throat which made it difficult and painful to breathe and speak.
“I don’t feel like it’s worth my time anymore - painting and drawing,” I whispered softly, an acute pain within my throat almost rendering me speechless. “It just feels kind of useless to me now, and I don’t know what to do about it. When I don’t paint, I feel like I’m dying inside and when I do, I can’t make anything turn out right. I don’t know what to do anymore, Soojung.”
When I looked up, I met the warmth of her eyes, the welcoming nature that they seemed to cast within her and draw me in. She sat there and didn’t say anything for a few moments and I could tell that she was contemplating the words within her head, keeping them frozen between her lips until she knew what she wanted to say to me. And I waited patiently, knowing that whatever judgement she would make, I should follow because she always seemed to be so good with everything, so good at giving out advice, so good at reassuring, even if she just looked into my eyes.
She brushed strands of dishevelled hair from her face and allowed her lips to open, the words slipping from them with ease. “Maybe you just need to escape from reality and find your happy place, somewhere in your mind where you can paint freely with nothing to disturb you.”
Then something happened and she stopped speaking. She glanced down at the screen of her phone, pressing a few keys quite urgently and there was still a gap between her lips as if she had more to say, but not the time. Soojung leapt up from the stool, leaning down as she lifted her jacket and bag into her arms. She turned to me with an apologetic smile lingering upon her lips, as if she was sorry that she had to leave so soon - I was already able to tell that that was the case. The heels of her boots clicked upon the ground as she took a few steps towards to the door.
She clutched the handle of the door and gave me one last look, one last piece of advice before she would leave. “Please, just enter the contest. If you don’t do it for yourself then please just…just do it for me.”
I don’t know what caused me to do it but as soon as she turned, I leapt up from my chair and rushed after her and just as she was about to step out of the door, I wrapped my fingers around her wrist, forbidding her from leaving. She looked back at me, brows furrowed and eyes widened in confusion, and she was merely inches away. I don’t know what lead to what happened next. I don’t know which part had seemed to have caused some kind of reaction. All I did know was that it felt like the right time.
I leaned down and captured her lips, grazing her beautiful, painted lips tentatively against mine. My hand raised from my side, the tips of my fingers brushing against her ashen, pale cheeks as our lips moulded together so perfectly. I knew nothing but wanting that moment, our moment together, to last forever, holding her within my arms as our lips moved together in perfect sync, her heavenly scent lingering in the air around us. But forever wasn’t as long as it seemed and when our lips parted, she merely smiled at me before she left hurriedly down the hallways to where she had to go.
“Thank you,” I whispered, looking down in the direction that she had left in with mixed emotions battling against each other in my mind.
……
I did as she had asked me to that day and considered the Art Contest, spending my entire weekend contemplating over whether it seemed like a good idea or not, whether it was actually worth my time, and, after the weekend had passed, I had struggled to come up with a final decision. It seemed like it would have been better to have entered than to have not, to have at least given it my best shot even if I didn’t manage to produce a painting adequate enough to have been entered. I mean, at least I would have tried. I would have tried for her.
I waited for her in the Art Room after five days had passed since I had last seen her, wanting to let her know of the news, of my decision. I waited around, searching for materials that I could have used, scanning my eyes over paintings that could have been some inspiration for what was to come, lounging at my desk as the seconds ticked away on my wristwatch. Soojung never came that day. She didn’t come the day after either. Or the day after that. And I didn’t know whether I would ever have a chance to let her know.
It was like she had somehow managed to disappear and nobody, not even the teachers that I had asked, seem to have known where she had gone or when she would be back. She had just gone, left, and I started to worry that I was the one that had caused for her to leave. Maybe she hadn’t appreciated the fact that I had stolen a kiss from her. Maybe she thought I had somewhat forced my self upon her. Maybe she didn’t feel the same way as I did.
I tried not to let her absence affect me too much, and I tried my best to finish the painting, as if my life depended on it. As if finishing it could bring me back to a place that I wanted, a place where I could paint and draw peacefully and didn’t have to worry so much about my future. I wanted to go back to that place, as if it still existed after so much time that it had disappeared for. I wanted to let the notes of the song flow through the air freely and bring me to serenity as I painted by the window. I wanted to be myself again.
Somehow, I thought it would be best if I painted her, Soojung, because she had become my muse and I couldn’t paint anyone else but her. I wanted to steer away from the embarrassment that I had within me, the worry that she would mock me when she saw it, and just paint. Just paint her in the way that I wanted to see her, the way that I seemed to see her once she had slowly managed to open up to me and let me in, the way I saw her as she became my friend. Of course, I didn’t have any images of her saved in my camera, I had never dared to a picture of her, too worried that she would notice and ask why, so instead, I drew and painted her from memory. I pictured the sweet smiles that would linger upon her lips, the way she managed to relax as she sat by my side, the fascination glistening within her dark orbs. I painted her the way that I knew her best, the kind but conserved and shy girl that hid behind a face of makeup and pink hair. I thought I knew her well.
I didn’t show it to anyone until it was completely finished and even then, I wasn’t entirely satisfied by what I had managed to accomplish on the canvas, scrutinising every dab and splodge of paint, each corner and colour. It just didn’t seem to be the best that it could have been and it just felt as if there was something, something that I had forgotten and was supposed to be there. Ms Waters, who had requested to see the finished piece before it was sent off to the competition after having realised that I would probably be entering, said it was probably the best work that she had ever seen from me. She looked at with such amazement in her eyes, and a gratitude that seemed to waft from her and into the air, and told me that I did a good job. She was probably just proud of the student that she managed to find in her class for four consecutive years.
Kyungsoo managed to see it too, somehow he also managed to find about the competition and was dying to see what I was entering, and when he saw it, he just stared at me, with a hint of disbelief and confusion, as if he couldn’t believe that I knew that girl. And then, as if everything had somehow managed to piece themselves together in his mind, he nodded his head and the corners of his lips upturned into a smile.
“It’s beautiful,” he told me, patting his hand against my back. “There’s no doubt in my mind that you’ll be the winner. It’s the most amazing painting I have ever seen from you, so real that it feels like there’s a story behind it.”
I sent it off to the competition the day after, still feeling like there was something missing, something that I should have done before it had left my hands and was heading to the judges. It felt like I should have shown it to Soojung too, as Mrs Waters’ and Kyungsoo’s words were not enough. As if I needed her approval first. But she had gone missing and I didn’t have any way of finding her. Now, I realise that there probably was a way for me to find her and I just didn’t try hard enough then, thinking that if I tried a little harder, I would have had that peace of mind that it was okay, probably because she had spent so much time around my paintings that she was able to differentiate between a good and a bad painting, probably because I had painted her.
The next few weeks seemed to pass me in a blur that I can’t remember the exact details of what seemed to happen or the events that occurred. My father apologised for his behaviour during that night back in December, said he shouldn’t have spoken to me like that knowing how much I loved my art. He said he would rather that I try and apply to both, the Art Schools and the universities where I could study Law and Politics, in case something didn’t seem to work out for me, for me to finally reach a decision of what I wanted to do. I agreed, knowing that he was probably right.
That night, at least I think it was that night, Sehun called me up and told me that his grandmother had died and as his friend, he requested that I be at her funeral which was held three days later. Both Kyungsoo and I went, supporting Sehun as he forced the tears back - he had always been quite close with his grandmother and it was quite difficult for him to accept her death - and one of his family members, I think it was his older sister that worked in New York, asked if I would be willing to paint a portrait of her using the one of the images that they had taken of her a year earlier. I agreed, I wasn’t the kind of person that could say no in someone’s moment of grief, and I painted the image whilst reminiscing about the few moments when I had spent time with her while I was with Sehun. She was quite funny and also very blunt at times but she was a nice woman and it was a shame that she had passed us by. The happier, more optimistic people always seemed to leave us too early.
I had also been loaded with so much work, so much extra work that the teachers were piling on us that I didn’t have as much spare time as I usually did. I was juggling subjects and rushing to finish papers and piles of homework each night, struggling to find the time to do each of them that time seemed to pass me by so quickly. I didn’t even realise that the night had flown by until I could see the sun rising in the morning and realised that I hadn’t even slept a wink that night, or perhaps I did but hadn’t even realised it in the busy haze that seemed to encompass me within those weeks. It was as if we weren’t going to be given a break in the months leading up to the moment where we would leave high school and move off into the world on separate routes.
A month and a half after I had sent the painting away for inspection, about 44 days, I received a letter. I didn’t normally get letters addressed to me so when my father handed it to me as I struggled to shove my breakfast down before school, I was quite surprised, and so was he. I held the envelope within my hands, wondering what to do with it before I tore the paper apart and pulled the sheet inside out. The feelings that surged within me as I read those words off the page, I can still remember them. I remember the feelings of excitement and anxiety rushing through me, my mouth hanging open with shock. I remember leaping up from my chair and almost knocking my bowl of cereal over, the spoon clattering to the ground as drops of milk sprayed from it and I shouted in joy. My father didn’t understand what was going on until he grabbed the letter from my grip and read the words from the page.
“You’re a finalist in an art contest?” He asked, his eyebrows knitting together in confusion. He stood there for a few moments, not knowing what to do before he pulled me into his embrace and hugged me. “Well done, Jongin. I‘m proud of you.”
It had been the first time that he had hugged me in a long time. I couldn’t even remember the last time that he had ever held me, when he had complimented me, when he genuinely cared about me. That moment, it just meant so much to me that I struggled to even explain how it felt. It made me feel as if I had my father back, the father that I had before mother had died. It was as if he had finally returned after 10 years.
Kyungsoo was as excited and overjoyed as I was when I told him the news , jumping up and down in ecstasy. Sehun also seemed quite pleased with me and congratulated me just as everyone else had, well that was before he went off after one of the new girls that he had began pursuing and left us behind. Mrs Waters had staggered backwards when I had told her, covering her open mouth with her hand as her eyes widened in surprise, glittering in excitement, while she told me she knew I could do it. There were so many people that were proud of me, happy for me, ecstatic when I told them. But there was only one person that I really wanted to make proud, and that one person happened to walk through those doors that day. I had never been more happy to see her in my whole life as she strolled past me through that hallway, acting as if she had never even gone anywhere, and I couldn’t wait to let her know.
…..
“Hey!”
I found her by her locker at the end of the day, while everyone else continued to escape from the school grounds in a busied haze of books flying out of lockers and people running through the hallways and shoving the doors open in their pursuit to get out. The vibrant pink that had once coloured her hair had slowly began to fade, her locks grown to cascade down her back in waves of a paler shade. Her skin was paler, as if all of the colour had been drained out of her, and she was seemingly more thin, the clothes hanging from her body loosely, unlike the way that the fabric once clung to her body.
“Hi, Jongin,” she spoke slowly. She lifted her head and briefly glanced at me before attending to the books she held tightly in her grip. “It’s been a while.”
“I know,” I replied meekly, not knowing what else to say as the words remained frozen between my lips.
My hand raised and I ran the tips of fingers through my hair as if it would have been able to style the dishevelled tufts of hair, watching as she contemplated which books she would need and what ones she didn’t. I decided that it would have been better if I just got straight to the point, rather than just watching her trying to figure out how to carry on a conversation that was at a dead-end. “I entered that contest like you asked me to,” I let the words slip from my lips before I could find a reason to hold them back.
She glanced up at me again, but the smile that I thought would have been lingering upon her lips as I spoke didn‘t appear. “Really? I’m glad you did,” she nodded her head. If you had read her words, you would have thought that she had a response of excitement or joy, that she was happy. But if you had heard her say them, you would have realised that they were nothing but monotonous. Bland. Lacking.
She showed no emotion as she replied to me.
“I got a letter from them this morning. I’m a finalist!”
“Congratulations.” It happened again. No smile. No emotion. Like it had all gone missing, disappeared like she had.
“It’s going to be shown off in an exhibition next weekend in Lansing, where they’ll announce the winner.” The corners of my lips tilted upwards but there was no change in expression on hers. She stared at me blankly, her face holding no emotion, as if she suddenly didn’t care about anything, as if she no longer cared about me or my artwork when she was the one who convinced me to enter. It was as if something had managed to change her so drastically.
“That sounds fun.”
“I was wondering if you would be able to come. You know, since you encouraged me to join, I would love for you to be there,” I suggested, hoping that somehow I would have been able to receive some kind of excited response.
“Erm, sure,” That was all she said, and nothing changed. “I’ll see if I can make it.”
Her phone vibrated in her pocket, I could hear the buzzing sounds as it moved against the fabric, and she pulled it out swiftly. She held the phone to her ear and the voice of someone was almost audible as Soojung nodded her head to their words, not saying anything but a mere, ‘Okay’ before hanging up. She looked up and turned to me, her lips parting slightly but the words didn’t come out. It took a few moments for me to hear her voice again.
“Look, I’ve got to go. I’ll see you around.”
That was all she said before she turned in the opposite direction, leaving me standing there leaning against neighbouring lockers as her heels clicked against the vinyl floors and she disappeared into the distance. Somehow, I expected more of a response, I expected her to say something else, like a promise that she would come to the exhibition. I thought I deserved more than just those words. I thought I deserved some kind of explanation for her disappearance over the past month because we were friends. She returned after over a month and acted as if it was nothing strange or peculiar. Her behaviour had changed completely. And for some reason, I thought I was the one to blame.
“I’ll see you later.” I lifted my backpack from the floor and followed in her footsteps a few minutes later. She had already managed to disappear by then.
…….
The next week seemed to pass by quite normally, if normal was a term that I would have been able to use. At times, time seemed to pass by so quickly, the seconds leaving us so swiftly, as if I was dreading the upcoming moment as if I was approaching a punishment or a moment of death. At others, time passed by so slowly that the second hand would barely move beneath the sheet of glass, as if I was unable to wait any longer and I needed to reach that moment of truth as soon as I could.
Soojung didn’t appear very much during the week. I only saw her a few times, in the hallways between classes where she would lower her head like she was trying to avoid my eyes, in the cafeteria where she would leave just as I entered. It seemed like she was constantly trying to get away from me. She barely said a word to me and it was just like she had managed to disappear once again. I couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to make her the way she was, whether it was somehow my fault that she tried to escape from me every time our paths would cross. And I began to worry that she wouldn’t attend the exhibition that weekend.
Soon enough, the exhibition managed to fall upon us. My father drove Kyungsoo, Sehun and I up to the art gallery in Lansing where we would meet Ms Waters, who was determined to attend saying she wouldn’t miss it for the world. I had somehow managed to find myself in a nice, tailored suit that father had picked up earlier in the week for the big occasion, claiming that I had to look my best if I was going to stand in front of a huge crowd of people when I gave my acceptance speech. I thought his claim may have been a little too far-fetched, but I was just glad that he was excited, that he thought so much of me that I could be the winner.
I found myself sipping on a glass of a tropical juice, I can’t exactly remember which flavour it was during the business of the moment, but I do remember shaking frantically and keeping a consistent eye on the door as I moved through the room filled with bodies, sounds that had managed to fill the room beyond capacity - a band playing in the backdrop, microphone testing, the dozens of conversations between the many different groups, Sehun and Kyungsoo’s included. I couldn’t think about anything but the fact that it was way too loud in there and that Soojung hadn’t yet arrived though I had explicitly told her that the event started at 6pm and at that point, it was 7pm and the winner would be announced very soon.
“What’s wrong?” Kyungsoo asked, resting a hand on my shoulder as if it would have been able to stop the vibrations flowing through my body, the worry evident within his voice.
I glanced at the door from the corner of my eye, “Have you seen her?”
“No, I haven’t,” His voice dropped to an almost soundless whisper, as if he didn’t want me to hear him, “I’ve been watching the door for an hour and she hasn’t came in yet.”
“They’re going to announce the winner soon,” I glanced down at the clock hands on my watch. “Why isn’t she here?”
I began to worry, worry that she wasn’t going to be coming, worry that she wasn’t going to be there at a moment where I wanted to feel her presence the most, where I wanted to have her by my side. I had never once thought that she would be the kind of person that would betray you once you had done something for them, that wouldn’t appreciate what you had done as if it wasn’t in any way important or meaningful. Call me melodramatic, but it somehow felt like she had managed to betray my trust.
“Did you give her the right time and place?” Sehun asked, gulping the liquid in his hands down in one swift motion before lifting another glass from a tray of a moving waiter, swirling it around as he stared into it before taking a small sip.
“I’m pretty sure. Oh, , what if I didn’t?” My hand clasped over my mouth as I contemplated it out in my mind, wondering whether or not the details I had given had been correct or not.
“Jongin, calm down. I’m sure she’ll be here.” Kyungsoo put his hand on my shoulder, squeezing it as if his actions would have been able to reassure me. I don’t think that it had. I think it may have made the situation worse, and I could tell from the tone of his voice, the strained notes escaping from his lips that he doubted that Soojung would actually be there that night.
“Ladies and Gentlemen,” The voice blared from the speakers and the whole room dropped into silence, an unbearable silence that almost seemed quite suffocating the longer we were stuck in it. “Could you please quieten down for a few moments as we acknowledge the work of these talented individuals?”
There was a man, broad shouldered and carrying a little extra weight for his height, holding a microphone in his hands as he travelled across the floor and pointed across to the various paintings that sat upon the stage. I could see mine, in between two landscape watercolour paintings, it’s colours shining brightly as the ray of light hit it and I could remember feeling a sense of accomplishment between the nervousness and continuous glances to the door. I felt proud of myself knowing that I had managed to achieve so much, managed to come to such a place, managed to even finish the painting despite the constant stresses that sat upon my shoulders. I also felt a sense of disappointment that the person that had helped me get to where I was was not there to celebrate the achievement I had made.
He started saying a few things, I wasn’t paying too much attention distracted by her disappearance, but I picked up a few words and it seemed like he had began talking about the different paintings and which ones that he preferred, igniting a few laughs from the anticipating audience that were waiting eagerly for the announcement of the first place winner. I could see the other competitors standing by their parents and their loved ones, the anticipation eating them from the inside as they squeezed someone else’s hand, faces lit with excitement.
I probably would have been just like them if she was there.
“And the winner of the 54th Annual Interschool’s Art Competition is…” The others squeezed tighter and everyone held in a breath. The moment of truth.
“Jongin Kim!”
What happened afterwards seemed like just a blur. The flashes of different colours moulded together, people’s faces became less distinct that their features were merely just splodges of paint across the canvas of their faces and they could no longer be recognised. The sounds around me intensified and I struggled to distinguish between one sound and the next, voices playing in my mind but I couldn’t tell what the people were saying as their words became hidden beneath the thundering sounds of clapping hands in applause and continuous words of acknowledgement from people that I didn’t know.
I had been pushed onto the stage as someone handed me a bouquet of flowers and the announcer introduced me to the crowd once again and beckoned me forward to say a few words about the achievement that I had just made. I stepped forward unwillingly as he tugged onto my arm and chuckled as if he had just told me a joke as he shook my hand. The crowd went silent as I cleared my throat, my free hand wrapping itself around the microphone stand as I forced the frozen words out of my lips. I didn’t know what to say and it was almost like I didn’t know how to say anything anymore. I stole a glance at the painting which had been pushed forward to my side, as if it could have given me some inspiration while the crowd waited for me to say something, and then at the door. She was standing there, a smile lingering upon her lips as our eyes met and somehow, I knew what I wanted to say.
“I want to thank the person that helped me most through this contest,” My eyes were locked on her, “Who told me that there was no harm in entering at a time where I felt my most vulnerable because I felt that I had lost what was most important to me. They helped bring back my inspiration and I don’t know what other way I could have been able to thank them than to dedicate this painting to that person.”
I fell silent and the crowd applauded. I glanced around the room quickly, finding father and Ms Waters among the many faces in the room, Sehun and Kyungsoo that stood by the stage ready to greet me as I would step down with the award. I looked back at the door, thinking she would still be there, but she had disappeared. Stepping down from the stage, I searched frantically for her around the room but couldn’t find her anywhere.
“Have you guys seen Soojung?” I asked quickly. “She was just standing by the door and now I can’t see her anywhere.” The two of them just looked at me, eyebrows knitted together in confusion and they glanced at each other, mouthing something as if it could help them understand the situation.
“What do you mean?” Kyungsoo replied after a few moments. “She never came. We were watching the door the whole time and she didn’t come in.”
……
“Jongin, what are you doing here?” I could sense the hesitation and panic within the shakiness of her voice. She clutched onto the gate with both hands, taking a step back into the harsh winds washing over our surroundings, causing vibrations to run through the metal as it creaked within the night air. “Aren’t you supposed to be at your art contest?” She asked through chattering teeth, her shoulders covered only by a thin sweater.
I had once walked her home when winter had began to approach us. It had been raining and there were strong gusts of wind that day so I offered to her back under the large umbrella that I had been holding over my head, and she accepted since she had no other choice but to have to trudge through the heavy drops of liquid with nothing but a jacket to protect her. Somehow I had remembered that path, picturing it in my mind and following it once we had got back to the house after having returned from Lansing. I wanted to clear something up - I had to ask her why, and school would have been too late. I needed to know as soon as I could.
“It ended an hour ago,” I stated blankly, glancing at the clock hands beneath the sheet of glass on my arm. I tried to channel my emotions, my disappointment, trying to hide it from her, trying to maintain feelings of serenity within me. The disappointment had found it‘s way out though. “Why weren’t you there?”
“I… I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” I asked mockingly, feeling the anger that I tried to hide burning within me like fire. “How do you not know why you didn’t come?”
She lowered her head, hands clutching onto the gate more tightly until her knuckles had started to go red. A flash of lightning sliced through the darkening clouds above our heads and a few moments later, thunder rumbled in the distance, growing louder each time it repeated. I could feel so many emotions burning inside, trying to escape from within me and the more I tried to force them in, keep them hidden, the more they grew and the more frustrated I became. There were so many things that I felt angry by, so many things that she had managed to do which bothered me, angered me, and they wouldn’t have been able to leave my mind until I said them to her upfront.
My cheeks were burning, red and too warm to be a normal temperature as my bodily heat increased with each passing second. Words were flying across my mind, hanging upon my tongue until they were forced out in a stream of impatient remarks and criticisms, things that I needed answered.
“Where did you even go? You were missing for over a month and yet, I waited for you every day hoping that I would see you for you to never come. And then when you do come back, here‘s the ‘good’ part, you ignore me as if you never even knew who I was,” I couldn’t hold the words in any longer, saying them in an hyper and excited rush as if I had just smoked weed and was beginning to feel the effects. “What is up with that? Do you hate me or something?”
“I’m sorry… I...”
“Is this because I kissed you? Is that it?” I asked, my voice a few tones louder while knowing that there wasn’t much chance I would be able to get a response. “Well then, I’m sorry for kissing you!”
She tilted her head forward and lowered it until her face was no longer in sight, hidden by the blush pink tufts that streamed down in waves and concealed her face. The darkness was growing as night fell upon us, stars hidden by storm clouds moving across the black sky. I felt myself becoming so infuriated and angry and upset but I didn’t understand why everything seemed to come out so suddenly, emotions that I never normally displayed taking over the features on my face.
I could hear creaking in the backdrop, thinking that it was only the wind blowing the gates back and forth as she continued to clutch onto it. I raised my head and looked up to find a strange man standing at the door to her house, peering out at the two of us with a scowl lingering upon his lips, his nose wrinkled in distaste.
“Krys, what’s going on?” He called out to her. When she didn’t respond, only turning her head to him, he loosened his grip on the door handle and walked out towards her. His hand rested upon her shoulder as blonde strands of hair fell into his eyes and he was towering over her small stature as he straightened out his back.
“Why are you harassing, my lady?” He glared at me in infuriation as I tried to suppress my own feelings. The man tried to open the gate but Soojung clutched onto it firmly, not allowing it to move as if she was a barrier in his path. He turned to her, eyebrow raised in curiosity, lips pressing together firmly. “Who is this guy, Krys?”
“He’s just a friend from school.” She replied simply after a few moments of silence.
“He better just be a friend.”
“Look, just go back to the house. I’ll be there in a minute.”
She looked up at him and pressed her hand against his arm as he leaned down and whispered something to her. He glared at me precariously as I met his dark and unwelcoming eyes before he treaded back up to the house to wait for her there. Unconsciously, I knew that my earlier question had already been answered without a response from her. I knew why she was avoiding me, why she had probably disappeared, why she had left so quickly after I had kissed her. I felt like I understood everything that there was to understand.
“You have a boyfriend?” I asked, a hint of disbelief escaping into my voice.
“Jongin, I can explain. I…”
“You can explain what? That you played with my heart and made me have feelings for you while you had a boyfriend. That’s why you came and met me in school, just so you could play with my feelings like I was some kind of toy you could throw away once I grew attached!” My nerves erupted into a frantic shout, muscles tightening, hands clenched into fists. There was an urgent need to let all of my rage out, to smash a window, hurt someone, hurt her. I couldn’t control my emotions, my heart crying out to me in pain. It hurt so much.
“I fell in love with you, and you don’t even care!” I yelled, grabbing onto her shoulders as my body shook in an erratic flurry of infuriation. The thunder erupted above us, rain cascading down from the clouds urgently as the people beneath would become drenched in the cool liquid.
She looked up at me, wide-eyed as fear streamed out from her darkening eyes. She tried to reach up and press her hand against my shoulder, as if she would have been able to console and reassure me. “Jongin…”
“Don’t Jongin me!” I shrugged her hand off, teeth clenched together as I took a few steps back from her. “I wish I’d never met you.”
I wanted to leave her standing there, shivering beneath the heaviness of the rain as the breezes grew colder. I wanted to just go back home, leave her behind me and never go back, never look back. I wanted to leave the part of me that fell in love with her behind. But something continued to hold me back even after I had stepped away from her. I had something that I needed to do first before I could finally leave that part of me behind.
I turned back and walked towards her as she glanced up in surprise.
“This was my entry to the contest.” I passed the covered package into her shivering hands. “I won.”
I turned away, feeling part of myself washing away with the rain. The year I turned 18, I fell in love with a stranger named Soojung Jung. The year I would turn 19, I left those feelings behind me, and Soojung Jung was still a stranger.
……
I didn’t see Soojung again after that night and just like the last time she had managed to disappear, she did it again. Those strands of pink hair didn’t pass through those hallways or by my locker, there were no people watching in shock, there was no one to accompany as I stayed in school for an extra few hours after the bell rang - everything was back to normal, the way that it had once been and somehow, it seemed right for it to be that way. But at some points, I missed her presence. I missed the coconut scent that hung on her and lingered into the air, I missed the way that she smiled at me as she watched me paint, the way that her body moved across the landscape whenever she ran. I missed all of it and whenever I seemed to listen to the song, all it would do was remind me of that night and the way she ran into my picture the first time I saw her.
A couple of art school representatives had been at the contest that night and a few weeks later, some of them had decided to get in contact with me. I had been offered a place at five different art institutes across the country, scholarship included, to continue to paint and draw as the ‘promising’ young student that I was. It took time to reassure father that it was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life and after some time, he gave me his blessing and said it was okay with him if it was what I wanted to do.
I decided to choose Carnegie Melon, and in the fall, I made the move to Pittsburgh. Father coincidentally found another job in Pittsburgh also, after having lost his in March as a result of financial cuts so the two of us left our house in Camden, Michigan behind. It was difficult leaving a place where I had lived for so long, where I had spent the final months with my mother, where I had developed my love of art, where I had first seen Soojung, but the both of us assumed it was for the better. After 10 years, it was time for us to move on. Sehun and Kyungsoo were there to see us off. Kyungsoo had been accepted to the State University in Ann Arbor to study law and would be leaving a few weeks later while Sehun was going to start working in his family’s plumbing business since his grades were poor and he couldn’t stand another few unneeded years in a teaching environment. We wished each other well and I promised that I would try to keep in touch.
We left the country house almost 11 years after we had first moved in. We tried not to look back but sometimes, we just did. We couldn’t help but look back at our past lives, our memories, our history.
I spent the next four years of my life, until the year I turned 23, struggling to finish an Art Degree that seemed to take up so much of my time. I would work into the early hours of the morning on paintings in the Art studio on campus or struggle to finish an Art History essay on the works of artists like Van Gogh and Picasso in the library that was due at midnight, living on instant ramen and at least five cups of coffee a day. I plugged my earphones in when I was most annoyed and tired and the song would help me finish what I was doing, ease the tasks for me and make them seem easier than they were - it just had that effect. I don‘t know what I would have done without it, or my father constantly nagging me to finish an assignment, or the friends that I managed to make, Myungsoo and Daehyun. Eventually, after years of hardship, I finished the degree and graduated while father watched from the crowd with a video camera in his hand, claiming, whilst a chuckle left his lips, that it was a moment that he would want his future grandchildren to see, a moment of utter achievement.
One day, when I was working on a painting for an exhibition in Paris for the month after, I received a call from Kyungsoo. He said that he saw on my Facebook profile that I was in Paris and he wanted to meet me since it had been years, about three, since we had last seen each other. We met up for coffee in a small café a few blocks away from the art gallery that I was working in, and reminisced over our pasts together over cappuccinos. Kyungsoo was fighting a case for an important French businessman who had hired him after hearing how successful Kyungsoo was at winning cases and so Kyungsoo had found himself in Paris. He told me that he had seen Sehun a few months earlier and surprisingly enough, he had settled down with someone and they had two kids together - something we would never have expected from the 18 year old Sehun that we had last seen several years earlier. I told him I wasn’t planning on settling down yet, especially since I hadn’t found someone and he said the same. And then, as he was leaving, he passed something into my hands and told me it would be better if I read it, saying it would clear up some things from the past.
It was a newspaper dated a few months back, a local newspaper from our town in Michigan. On the front page, there was an article about this huge investigation into two Chinese men that lived in the town that had reportedly trafficked a few girls from Korea into the states. Apparently, these men had kept these girls trapped in a house for a number of years, first living in a small town in Maine before moving into Michigan when a few neighbours had started to become suspicious about what was going on in the house. They kept them in there the whole time but once people started becoming suspicious again, they decided that they had to let the girls out for some time to let their situation seem more normal. One of the girls had been allowed to go and finish school but the two men kept a close eye on her the whole time, informing the school that she was a troublemaker so the teachers could too keep a close eye on her.
I wondered after I had read that if Soojung had ever been the person that I thought she was. I wondered if she merely just hid behind an image that she had created, if she was someone that was actually very broken on the inside rather than the hard, unnerved image that she had first portrayed, and she had played this act so well that I never would have thought that she would have been different from that. Everything about her and the way she acted seemed to make so much sense after I heard the story, the fact that she had bright pink hair, her urgency to leave whenever she received those text messages, her disappearance, the man that came out from the house the night I went to see her. Everything seemed to make so much sense and I wondered if I had just looked at things more closely, if things would have been different, if I would have been able to help her if I realised what was happening to her.
I could only just wonder how she felt when I said those things to her, when I said those things without knowing what the truth actually was, a truth that she couldn’t let me know or she would have been hurt.
The rest of the article said that the girls had been moved to a rehabilitation centre in Maine and they would spend a few months there receiving therapy and help for the trauma that they had been through in a period of over 8 years stuck in somewhat captivity, forced away from their families to be slaves for those two men. I pitied her, felt bad for her and every time over the rest of that day I couldn’t help but think if there had ever been a way I would have been able to help her, save her, free her. She could never have told me any thing that I had read from the newspaper article but somehow I wished I could have saved her earlier. She had always been so secretive and even until the moment she disappeared for the second time, she was just a stranger. I hardly knew anything about her, and I just wished that I had.
Seconds continued to pass. Days passed. Years passed since the days that I had once spent with her and with every second it felt like I was growing more distant from the days of my youth, the days I spent with my friends, Sehun and Kyungsoo, the days I spent with the girl, Soojung. I wanted to have those days come back, those carefree days where I could just paint without having too care so much about what people’s expectations were of me or what they would think of my paintings - I missed those days where only I would care about how those smudges of paint looked against the canvas.
The year I turned 29, I found myself slouched against one of the marbled pillars in the art gallery one evening, the same art gallery where I had won that art contest so many years earlier. There were people constantly approaching me, telling me how much they admired my work once they realised that I was the artist behind the paintings and all I could do was smile at them and thank them for their kind words. I was assimilated to the fact that people were interested in my work and found it so spectacular, unlike the way that people used to view it, at a time when only Kyungsoo, Ms Waters and Soojung were amazed by it. I missed those times, when the three of them would look at me with such fascination in their eyes, their amazement glittering within them. But I also missed the simplicity of my life, the times when I didn’t have to worry about what anyone thought.
My phone vibrated in my pocket, sending buzzing sounds through the air to my ears. I searched through the contents of my suit jacket, pulling it out as my father’s image flashed onto the screen. I pressed against the screen and took a few steps away from the bustling crowd that surrounded me, lifting the phone to my ear as the background noise seemingly increased from behind me.
“Dad?”
“Hello, Jongin. How are you?” He asked, his voice rough and husky, as if he had caught a cold. He was quite poorly those days, his health deteriorating drastically from the way it had once been.
“I’m fine. What about you?”
People were flooding past me and into the coolness of the hallways as the temperature inside grew increasingly warm. I held the phone closer to my ear, cautious of not being able to hear my father’s voice. I hadn’t been able to see him since the last Christmas and since I was always so busy, travelling back and forth between countries for different exhibitions and working on a variety of different paintings, I barely had any time to speak to him and ask him how he was or what he was doing. Time was flying by so quickly that one day he wouldn’t be there anymore and I would have regretted not speaking to him when I had the chance.
“I’m not bad.” He started coughing over the phone, followed by a sniffle or two. “I heard you were in Lansing for the weekend.
“Yeah, I am.” I replied simply.
“A friend of mine was driving in for a business meeting and I decided to tag along with him,” he started chuckling over the phone as if he was laughing at some private joke. “I’m in Lansing too and I was wondering if you wanted to go back and see the house with me.”
My eyebrows knitted together in confusion, as if I wasn’t able to understand his words. “You want to go back to the house?”
“I haven’t been there for 11 years and I just wanted to reminisce,” He stated and I could sense the nostalgia within his tone, as if he was looking back at the times we had spent there in reminiscence.
When we made the move to Pittsburgh, my father didn’t sell the house. He told me a few years earlier that he couldn’t let go of that house, when I told him to consider selling it, that he wanted to keep it in his possession, because he didn’t want anyone else to make memories there, make memories over the existing ones that we already had. He wanted that house to be special just to us. He had wanted to move back there once I had finished university but never had the chance because he loved his job back in Pittsburg. Father always said he wanted to go back there though, to relive the memories that were held within the house, around the house, memories that we had made with my mother in her final days.
“Eh, okay. I’ll pick you up some time in the next hour.” I could sense his lips tugging up into a smile over the phone.
…..
Two hours later, we found ourselves at the front door of the old house as day began to transcend into night. It hadn’t changed so much since I last saw it, though the paint had began to peel in certain areas, and Father pulled the keys out from his pocket, his hands shaking vigorously. I could tell he was growing weaker, so much so that he was barely able to lift his arm up properly to insert the keys into the lock of the oak door, and I had to take the keys from him myself because he couldn’t do it properly. The door swung open and the house that we had left so long ago unfolded before us, everything remaining in the same place that they had been in when we had last seen it, except from a few items that had been lifted and moved by the few people we had asked to take care of it for us before we left.
When I walked through that doorway, I felt same way that I had when I had first entered the house, eyes wide in amazement as we stepped across the vinyl floors as the sun rays shone in from the windows looking out into the backyard. I imagined my mother holding my hand as she led me through the grand hallway and up the staircase to my bedroom 22 years earlier and I followed the same path, travelling back up to the same bedroom that I had slept in for 11 years.
I slowly walked in, the floorboards creaking beneath my feet as my feet carried my weight through the room. The sounds of the floorboards downstairs became audible as I heard my father moving through the kitchen before the water started running from the taps. The room was exactly the way that I had left it, not that I had assumed it to be otherwise, the bed set the same way I had done it the last morning that I had woken up from it. I could see my mother tucking me in and planting a kiss on my head as I lay snuggling between the folds of fabric. I reached forward to touch her but she disappeared just as I rested my hand on her shoulder - she was only fragments of the memories that I had once shared with her.
My eyes searched through the room as if I was expecting for something else to be there, finding a few paintings that I had left peeking out of the closet that I had left them in because we didn’t have enough space to take them with us. I lifted them out, looking at them more closely as I brushed my hand against the rough texture of the paint that coated the canvas, colours dancing from it in beautiful arrays and mixtures. It was one of those paintings that I had made of Soojung, one of the ones that I had imagined from her. After that evening I went to see her, I had burned them all, all but this one, the first one, because I couldn’t bear to bring harm to it. It reminded me of that summer I had spent watching her, one of the things that I tried to forget as I moved on from her, one of the things I couldn’t rid my mind of. It was permanently inked within my brain and no amount of willpower could erase it.
I pulled out the chair from under my desk, taking my phone out from my pocket and plugging my earphones into my ear lobes as I settled into the seat. My fingers unconsciously reached to play that same song and I sat there just as I had that night, staring out of the window trying to capture the scenery in front of me in my mind before painting it out onto the canvas before me. I didn’t have a canvas with me, merely holding the same one that I had once painted, but the scenery remained almost the same - the sun setting in the distance as red and orange flooded against it’s backdrop before the darkness would envelope us. The feelings of reminiscence fluttered inside me as I leaned forward and cupped my chin in the palm of my hand, merely staring out into the view with the canvas in my free hand. I don’t know how long I was sitting there just staring out like that, I merely just tried to enjoy the simplicity of the moment.
Then, just as the sun was lowering against the horizon, something cut into my view. A shadow. A runner. Soojung, running past the oak tree as my past replayed before me outside the glass. I was sure I was probably just seeing things, leaning forward to ensure my sight was correct but she was still there and she was still there as I tried to rub the drowsiness and haziness away from my eyes. She was out there. She was still in Michigan.
I’m not sure at what point I knew I had to go out and see her, but before I knew it, my body had leapt up from the chair, feet pushing myself against the ground as quickly as it ever had as I escaped from my room, struggling to run down the staircase before fleeing the house as quickly as I had entered it while my father watched my actions in curiosity as he had just walked out of the living room. The coolness of the air hit me as I ran out into the surrounding fields, eyes searching for her in the incoming darkness like that night I had gone out in the rain to bring her inside.
I ran in the same direction that I saw her go in, dressed in the tailored silver suit that I had worn to the exhibition hours earlier, tie loosened from around my neck and shirt ed at the top. I ran for as long as I had to, feet crunching upon the fallen leaves strewn along the ground. I ran as much distance as it would take for me to see her again, after so many years, after the night that I had yelled at her because I didn’t know the truth. I needed to apologise for my behaviour. I needed to say sorry, because I couldn’t rest knowing that I had hurt her, made those tears stream from her eyes.
I just couldn’t find her anywhere, not matter how much I ran, no matter how long I ran for her. She seemed to have disappeared from my path as I panted and struggled to breathe. She probably had only been a fragment of my imagination, just as my mother had, and I fell to the ground in dissatisfaction, angry and annoyed that I had lost her.
“Jongin?” A voice asked in the distance. I raised my head, searching eagerly for the source of the sound within the darkness. “Jongin, what are you doing out here?”
The voice grew nearer until the source of it was standing before me, looking down at my exhausted figure as my pulse and breathing tried to recover and return to normal. I had never been much of an athlete. She crouched down before me as I tried to lift myself up, her head tilting forward as her hair fell in waves framing her face, her delicate and beautiful face, and it was like I had just seen an angel. She was as beautiful as I had last seen her, the age hardly evident behind her pale skin and ashen cheeks.
“I…I was looking…for you,” I panted, the words escaping from my lips in choked, heaving breaths. “I have wanted to see you for a long time.”
“So have I.”
The moonlight shone upon her, casting light upon her face as she held out a hand to help pull me up. I took it gratefully, a grin lingering upon my lips as her lips curled into a smile. I had missed that smile. I had missed everything about her, about the stranger, but somehow I knew I would finally get the chance to know her. I would get to know Soojung Jung 11 years after the first time I saw her, and for the first time in such a long time, I felt happy.
Somehow I'm not entirely satisfied with the ending, it feels a bit rushed at points but I shall fix that. However, I have finally finished my journey back to writing - it was quite a long journey but I enjoyed it, even if I wanted to quit at points. I hope you guys enjoyed reading this because I enjoyed writing it and let me know what you think, please.
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