By then the empty table beside us had found its owners, and the restaurant filled with the sizzle and scent of skewers, the lively chatter of people out for the weekend.
I could feel glances from the table next to us—a group that looked like friends catching up after a while—but he didn’t let his attention stray for even a heartbeat. As if we were alone in a quiet room, as if there were only me in his field of vision, he focused solely on me, and thanks to that I could gradually erase everything else.
“Between silence and lies, which do you think is more violent?”
He deftly slid a scallop, glazed with yuzu sauce, off the skewer and onto my plate, asking the question without looking at me.
Then he corrected himself.
“No—personally, which do you find more repugnant?”
It was the sort of theme anyone who had taken the exhibition seriously would have turned over in their head at least once. I couldn’t help worrying it while I walked through the show, so answering wasn’t hard.
“I think lies are... the lesser evil.”
He looked surprised.
“Silence changes value depending on the situation... but if we mean the kind of silence toward truth the artist was trying to depict... then silence feels more... not so much violent as... cowardly.”
Putting thought into words isn’t easy; the spaced-out words I used for caution probably came out like a jumbled ramble.
He held me in a heavy gaze for a moment, as if pressing down, then looked away and poured what little was left of the sake into my glass.
“Don’t most people feel lies are far more negative than silence? Especially in Korea, where the influence of Confucian culture is still strong; the atmosphere says silence is golden and the fewer words, the better.”
“I’m not much of a talker either... but if we’re talking about silence and lies as attitudes toward truth, I still think I’d take lies.”
He braced an elbow on the table, laced his fingers loosely, and covered his lips with them.
“May I... hear why?”
Maybe they were celebrating a birthday; the table next to us was busy setting candles into a cake. But looking at his serious face—listening, inviting—I could keep going without feeling interrupted.
“Lies themselves can be a violence that wounds, of course... but wherever there are lies, there also seems to be, as a reaction, a drive to dig for the truth. If what arises on the far side of truth is silence... that feels much more bleak... as if it would draw out a longer, more harrowing dark age before truth comes to light. That’s what I think....”
I was thinking of my father.
I was answering while thinking about silence as a weapon he chose—maybe to protect himself, or maybe to punish and ruin himself. And about the present, where no one can be happy, that silence helped bring about.
“It’s just a short thought... a purely personal view.”
Had I pulled the talk too far into the heavy? Would he read something ominous in my expression or tone and worry? I laughed it off as if it were only exhibition talk and raised my glass.
I’d thought my slowing cadence was the weight of the subject making me careful, but maybe it was the tipsiness creeping up. The two of us had drained a bottle at a pretty quick clip; it made sense.
It was a pleasant buzz. Feeling thoughts and body gently come apart, I let my posture loosen.
“I didn’t want an absolute conclusion—I wanted your view from the start. So there’s no need to tack on language that diminishes it. It’s an original view, and it’s plenty interesting.”
He said it with a stunned look, like someone who’d just taken a clean hit, then fell quiet, thoughtful.
We ordered another bottle, and he stayed turned inward—darker, deeper than usual—until we’d emptied the first glasses from the new one, until the conditions for steady conversation were back in place.
Rolling the empty glass in his hand, he looked down about the level of my chest and spoke.
“If you avert your eyes from the truth—or hide it—can that process really happen without lies tagging along? In that sense, you could say silence... in some ways already contains lies.”
The sake glass, a little larger than a standard soju cup, looked smaller than it was in his large hand. I watched his spotless hands, then lifted my gaze to his face.
It was only a guess, but it didn’t feel like he was talking solely about the exhibit’s theme. His expression looked like someone who’d either been hurt by a silence that contained lies, or who had held such a silence himself.
So in the end he, too, seemed to condemn silence more than lies.
“You can’t stand on the side of truth every moment... but whether you make excuses for your silence or lies and dull yourself, or... keep letting your conscience prickle and try to move toward truth—that’s what matters, I... think.”
It wasn’t something I invented to comfort him.
I’d answered while thinking of my father, but I don’t think I’ve stood with blazing truth every moment either. In some ways, I’m not so different from him. Maybe just a watered-down version.
So what I said was an excuse for both of us—for him and for me.
He lifted his gaze to meet mine the way you heft something heavy. There was a smile, faintly, but it was a bitter smile in the literal sense.
“It hurts... much more than I expected.”
“......”
“For a cowardly adult whose life can’t function without silence and lies... it stings quite a bit.”
He said it like a joke, but I could tell I’d touched something. I matched him, tossing back my glass a little too fast. Twice in one day, I’d made him the “bad guy” while I played the innocent lamb; I couldn’t keep pretending that way.
“Even if the law says I’m an adult... I’ve never thought of myself as one... but it’s not only adults who are cowardly. If it’s cowardice by silence, I... have a lot of that too.”
He glanced over with a smile.
“Compared to the cowardice in my silences, yours would be... as fresh as morning dew.”
“That’s not true.”
Maybe thanks to the slight buzz, my tone was fairly firm. Even if my silence hadn’t entangled others and caused them harm, that wasn’t because I was closer to truth than he was—it was likely because I wasn’t in a position bearing social responsibility.
Even if I became bound up in many networks—with their expectations and duties—could I really swear I wouldn’t drag silence deep into my life?
As if to shake off the earlier gloom, he leaned toward me with a sly smile.
“Is that so? There’s a kind of silence that’s murky and sour and smells of blood? In a body this clean and pretty?”
“......”
The conversation swerved in a direction I hadn’t expected, and I was struck dumb for a beat. Heat flushed through me at the sudden, brazenly sexual line dropped into a defenseless moment; I swept a palm down my face and took another drink out of sheer helplessness.
“I’m all for drinking... but eat a little while you drink. If you neglect food because you’ve lost your appetite, your stamina won’t hold when it counts.”
He portioned a chicken-breast skewer topped with wasabi onto my plate and seemed to have no intention of pursuing the earlier topic.
He was very worried that my appetite had gone short lately—as if I’d taken heatstroke even though I wasn’t out in the heat much. It wasn’t exactly a lack of appetite; sometimes I felt a rejection toward food, enough to wonder if it was a light gastritis, but “no appetite” seemed like the version that would make him worry less.
The chicken he served was tender and moist. The ingredients were fresh, but even so, little wafts of chicken’s native smell prickled at my stomach. Still bearable. Knowing it was my condition and not the dish, I nodded that it tasted good and urged him to have some too.
“About Choi Inwoo’s work—you once said it reveals an honesty about his own dishonesty. Right?”
Instead of picking up his chopsticks, he refilled the two empty glasses.
“I know that when you paint, you face the deepest part of yourself, like that artist earlier... but you don’t have to force it to the extreme every time. If facing your bottom right now is hard, try painting the self you feel is cowardly. If that’s who Seo Ihyeon is right now, wouldn’t leaving that behind have meaning?”
“......”
It felt like he could see straight through what I’ve been wrestling with since I started painting again—so much so I had to think whether I’d actually consulted him about it.
“Only conclusions reached after endurance and trial aren’t art.”
He lifted his filled glass, inviting a toast, adding it with a faint smile. From the moment he suggested I try painting again to now, looking back, he had been a startlingly precise understander of my mind. Even playing the Suky Kim card had been possible because he’d grasped me properly.
We clinked and I drained about half, then held the glass without setting it down, gripping it tight.
“Director.”
His eyes softened toward me.
“About Juhan’s sketch. Next time, I want to do it in the garden... Would that be okay?”
He lifted his brows and asked back:
“Mm, my garden?”
“Yes.”
“Of course. Use it whenever you like.”
“I, um... I want to draw... a nude.”
“......”
The set look he gave me said he was hoping he’d misheard.
“Who? Juhan Kwon’s nude?”
I nodded. He rotated his wrist, sloshing the sake, and went silent with an unreadable expression. He parted his lips to speak several times, but instead of talking he filled and emptied his glass twice in a row.
Then he asked if, since we were skipping the rest of the set course, I wanted dessert now. I wasn’t thinking about food at all with the buzz on me, so I said yes. A neat dish of matcha ice cream arrived quickly, and he focused on eating it with his spoon as if he hadn’t heard ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) what I’d said. Or at least that’s how it looked.
Our eyes met, and facing me—waiting in anxious suspense—he sighed, resigned, and let his shoulders drop.
“You told me in advance because you thought if you said you wanted to paint Juhan Kwon nude... I’d hit the ceiling and refuse, right?”
“Uh... mm...”
I stalled, fiddling with the spoon handle. I couldn’t say no, but saying yes felt awkward too.
“If you thought that, then you read me right.”
An unexpected admission. He let out a self-mocking sigh and set the spoon on the dish.
“I was born surrounded by paintings, and I’ve been doing this job for years, and now... I can’t even separate work from private feelings? That I’d see red at the words ‘paint another man’s nude’? I really didn’t see that coming.”
“......”
The undiluted bluntness of it startled me; I fumbled and nearly dropped my spoon.
“Don’t make that face. That’s how I felt, not me saying I won’t let you do it. Thankfully... I still have that much judgment left. For now.”
He reached out and gave my cheek a light pinch and forced a smile. It didn’t hurt, but I rubbed the spot anyway, and couldn’t help the little laughs escaping me.
“If all you wanted was to paint a nude, I’d volunteer to stand in... but that’s not it. You want to paint Juhan Kwon as a nude.”
