The Melting Moon
But more than any sense of apology, what came first was irritation. Lately Se-gun hadn't seen a single person who could ride a bike better than him, so his pride had soared high enough to kill a man—how dare they treat him like some rank amateur?
"Hmm. Well, if you put it that way, I've got nothing more to say. Take your pick."
The employee shut his mouth, cowed by Se-gun's presence.
"Hmm… What should I go with this time? Would it just be better to stick with the RX-125, or…"
Se-gun carefully inspected the merchandise. The bikes stashed away inside the old container reeked of oil. Most of them would have looked like scrap if they hadn't been wiped down, but that arrangement was deliberate—a layout designed to weather any crackdown. Scanning the surroundings, Se-gun suddenly spotted a familiar machine.
"Ah, this is an MX-125…"
But the engine was different. Yes. A two-stroke V-cam racer. This was unmistakably the bike Se-gun had once ridden. That day… the first time he had killed a "human" who was trying to become a vampire.
"…"
"Oh, you like that one?"
"Ah… very much."
Se-gun had no choice but to say so. This was the first sin he had committed after stepping into the darkness, when he still had no idea how deep that darkness ran! The machine he had been riding when he first stained his hands with blood… Looking back, it was almost strange that he had managed to forget it until now.
"You've got a good eye for gear. The frame's a bit worn, but the machine itself is solid."
"Yeah. I know—I've ridden it."
The moment Se-gun said that, the employee's face stiffened. He glanced around warily, then brought over the ledger.
"…Just so we're clear. Ahem. Even if it is stolen goods, we bear no responsibil—"
"Yeah, yeah, shut your trap. So how much?"
"Four hundred."
"You're insane. For an MX-125?"
"That's an MX-1500 now."
He said it casually. An MX-1500. A two-stroke twin-cam 1500cc engine was certainly rare. Dumping something like that for four hundred was a bargain compared to the old price of a YZ-125. These guys were fretting over the fact that it was stolen after all. Se-gun smirked at the thought.
"I'll take it for four hundred."
"You're getting a deal."
"Mm. Buying back something I used to ride myself doesn't exactly feel like a steal even if it were free."
"Well now…"
The employee looked around again. Tsk, tsk. Too timid. He would never amount to anything big.
In the end, he spent the entire morning buying the bike. He had made an unplanned expenditure—just shelling out four million won like that—but he still had money left, and by afternoon his thoughts drifted back to that painting.
"Besides, this bike is ridiculously strong."
It was hard to believe he had ever been outpaced by something like a Vulcan 800. The frame was ultra-light, the engine a two-stroke 1500, and even the gears and transmission were brand new. Now that he thought about it, the instruments had been swapped out, so the revs ran higher. The gauge went all the way to about 14,000, which meant that what he had once thought was floor-it speed had only been mid-range for this engine! A true racing machine! With this, he might even be able to break through the atmosphere.
"As if that were possible."
A lightweight frame, a 1.5-liter engine, and revs up to 14,000… Even recklessness had its limits. One wrong move and he would be flying. This was a machine that demanded the rider stake his life. But that was exactly the kind of machine that lived in a man's dreams.
"Like a personal machine, you know… Hmm. Should I paint it red?"
Se-gun muttered something that a certain particular group would have wholeheartedly agreed with, then picked up his phone and dialed Seongran Gallery. Enough time had passed that this time someone actually answered.
"Yes, Seongran Gallery."
"I'd like to ask about visiting. How do I get there?"
"Take Subway Line 3 to Yaksu Station, then come out Exit 4 and look for the Segwang Building. That will be all."
They hung up fast. Oh my. They must have been getting hammered with inquiry calls. That kind of stress had to be something else. Se-gun nodded in sympathy even though he had never done that kind of work himself.
"Alright then—let's go!"
Just what had that painter been thinking when he made those works, and what kind of people were the gallery-goers gathering there? Turning those questions over in his mind, Se-gun mounted the bike and tore off.
"Huh?"
The scenery around him was whipping past far too fast. Checking the instruments, he saw that even in first gear he was already hitting 120 kilometers per hour.
"…"
It was a speed completely unsuited to an off-road bike. Even with the tires swapped, a high-seat off-roader with massive vertical travel simply could not handle this kind of monstrous velocity. He had thought it was a bit much back when he used to ride it, but now the speed limiter was completely off, making the machine extremely hard to control. Even so, Se-gun soon settled into skilled handling and raced toward the gallery.
"After coming all this way, if the paintings turn out to be nothing special, I won't let it slide!"
Shouting something whose target was anyone's guess, Se-gun weaved between the cars.
What is man?—that classic proposition has always been one of humanity's favorites. Whether the blank is filled by "a thinking reed," "a cultural animal," or "a social animal," that rhetorical habit of universalizing a single fragment of what humans are has, it seems, held a peculiar charm for people since ancient times.
Though "the universal" itself may be nothing more than another kind of illusion. Just as not every human can be treated as the same thing, neither can vampires, monsters, good, or evil… Nowhere in this world does anything remain that can be interpreted in its literal, absolute sense. The concept of "the universal" certainly exists, yet every existence is still "unique."
"I am pretty unique myself, that's for sure."
Se-gun muttered as he turned his steps toward the parking lot. He had expected a gallery to be something small, like a framing shop, but this was a massive space that occupied an entire sizable building. It would not have been out of place as a small museum or art museum. Staging a solo exhibition in a place like this meant the painter definitely had a name.
"Kim Hyung-nam, huh…"
If Se-gun possessed any culture at all, it was the bloody kind that involved putting a silver bullet through someone's skull or slicing open a belly and spilling the guts. Art, to him, was nothing more than how prettily you could scatter a vampire's blood and entrails across the asphalt! But what had drawn Se-gun to Kim Hyung-nam's solo show was not artistic passion.
The entrance to the exhibition hall was fairly crowded. Normally, solo shows by domestic painters or recitals by domestic musicians were places where few people showed up—that was the rule—yet far more ordinary visitors than expected were in evidence. It was unlikely that interest in contemporary painting had suddenly surged, so… had even ordinary people fallen under the thrall of those melting-moon works?
Stepping into the lobby, Se-gun bought a pamphlet from the stand.
"Let's see."
Unlike the exterior, the interior of the gallery had an open atrium spanning every floor, with a spiral walkway leading upward through the exhibition spaces. Though it was called a gallery, the design allowed for the display of more space-consuming sculptural works as well as paintings. For a mere gallery, the facilities were almost excessively fine.
The résumé of Artist Kim Hyung-nam printed in the pamphlet was… flashy enough to justify renting a space like this. As a university student he had won a prize at the National Art Exhibition, then held invitational shows across Europe—though those "invitations" were mostly anniversary events for provincial cities and the like. Even a painter of that stature, it seemed, could hit a slump: today's exhibition was the first he had held in the twenty years since he had declared he would stop painting.
"A twenty-year blank."
Se-gun folded the pamphlet, tucked it away, and looked around. The first thing that caught his eye was a painting of a moon rising above a distorted concrete jungle, melting as though it were shedding tears. At a glance it recalled the surrealism of Dalí, yet he knew better than anyone that it had not come from Dalí.
"…"
He had seen it countless times, yet it was a sight so beautiful he could not look away. A pale yellow moon floating in a deep-blue sky. The color of that moon, melting as if weeping, possessed a truly dreamlike quality.
Photography had long since forced painting to abandon its realism, yet here was a scene that only the human eye could see—and only the eye of someone who had inhaled Psychedelic Moon—rendered with such fidelity that Se-gun could only marvel, and marvel again. Of course, to ordinary people this was not a realistic painting. To humans who had never glimpsed the world of the moonlit night, it was surreal. But to Se-gun it was a reality that might as well have been the shackles of fate!
Though it was still daytime, Se-gun felt as if he were standing in the dead of night. The sticky scent of blood, the excitement of roaming the dark like a male in heat—it all came flooding back, and he trembled. A pleasure that kneaded his whole body, a thrill…? Had he been killing vampires all this time in a state like this?
"No. No way."
Se-gun pulled himself together and moved on. Stopping before the next painting, he again lost himself, chewing over the world of the Psychedelic Moon he had once beheld.
Artist Kim Hyung-nam allowed himself a bitter smile at the larger-than-expected crowd that had gathered for his solo exhibition. He had first told the owner of Seongran Gallery that he wanted to hold a show two years earlier… but the owner had refused. Provide exhibition space so that a painter who had declared he would never paint again could make a comeback? With any other artist it might have been different, but taking in someone like Kim Hyung-nam—who had caused trouble and been effectively cast out—was tantamount to announcing you were done eating in the art world.
And yet here he was, holding the show. This exhibition, the first he had opened after breaking a twenty-year silence… was unexpectedly thriving. Of course you could not judge the full response from the first day alone, but the sheer number of ordinary gallery-goers was especially striking. Were that many people responding to the demonic allure that radiated from his paintings?
Lately, after all, grim rumors had the entire city in their grip. The appearance of monsters that ate people. Urban legends that gnawed at the edges of reason. Night after night, human minds crushed under some unidentifiable sorcery and judicial power; nights that stretched on as if one were swimming through a dream… In the midst of all that, it was only natural that nightmare paintings like these would find an audience. And these paintings captured the very essence of that nightmare, did they not?
"Hm?"
Listening with half an ear to the gallery staffer's flattering chatter as he walked the corridor, Artist Kim Hyung-nam spotted a young man. A green-haired youth in a jacket stood before a painting, nodding. For someone who looked as if he had never so much as shaken hands with refinement, that kind of behavior could only sour the mood of the other gallery-goers.
Yet the near-religious intensity of the admiration he showed the painting was unmistakable to everyone watching.
Dangerous.
He clicked his tongue. The way that youth looked at the painting was different from other people. For a young man who seemed to be neither an art critic nor a connoisseur to be so captivated, there could only be one reason. Deliberately turning away from the youth, he shifted his gaze back to the gallery staffer.
The gallery operator, who had even handled the display himself, was the scion of a prestigious family that had inherited the business for a second generation. The sort of man who would grow scales on his back if he did not hear at least one word of thanks directly from the painter. Not that Kim Hyung-nam had any intention of offering gratitude. Still, if it meant escaping that youth's gaze, he would gladly deal with a few hundred low-grade humans.
"Ah, I'm Jang Seok-jun from Yemun. You're Artist Kim Hyung-nam, correct?"
A young reporter approached just then and held out a business card. The green-haired youth who had been walking past them stopped in his tracks. For someone who had not known who Kim Hyung-nam was, this was excellent information.
"…"
If someone was talking with gallery staff, they might be an art-world insider or a potential buyer. That was why he had ignored the man who had just walked past while chatting familiarly with the staffer. But now—Artist Kim Hyung-nam? Come to think of it, the man who had just passed had reeked strongly of petroleum and turpentine.
"Congratulations on your first solo exhibition in twenty years."
"Ah, yes… Yemun, was it? The monthly from Seorim Publishing?"
"It's a quarterly."
The reporter pushed up his thick horn-rimmed glasses once, then drew a voice recorder from his jacket.
"May I record?"
"Yes. Just refrain from taking photographs."
"Of course."
The reporter said so, then happened to glance at the youth standing motionless behind Artist Kim Hyung-nam. The young man with the flamboyant hair that might have gotten his head cut clean off in the Park Chung-hee era was rooted to the spot as if a stake had been driven through him.
"Shall we move elsewhere?"
"Let's."
The painter, the reporter, and the gallery staffer shifted away to avoid the youth. But the youth remained where he was, only casting a single glance over his shoulder before turning his eyes back to the painting.
In the end, only after public hours were over did he finally turn his back on the paintings and walk out into the darkened city.
Se-gun returned to his empty hideout, took out the milk, and poured it into a bowl. He added cereal, finished that utterly simple meal, and headed for the bathroom.
Shhhhhhhh!
He turned on the shower, let the cold water hit him, and leaned against the wall. His clothes soaked through and clung to his body. Since he had been planning to wash them anyway, he simply rested his head against the wall and let the water run. The cold touch of the tiles sank through his skin and into his bones.
But he stayed leaning against the tiles with his eyes closed. The moment he shut them, the melting moon that had been driven into his brain rose onto his retinas. That dissolving moon, the grotesque concrete jungle, the forms into which even light and shadow had melted—remembering them made his heart pound like a boy fallen into first love.
When his entire body pulsed as if it had become a single heart, a vitality flooded him as if he had just woken from sleep. A pressure so hot that if he did not open the floodgates and pour that vitality out, it would destroy him!
"No. Not yet…!"
He brought a hand to his mouth and bit down on his nails. His long hair, soaked, veiled his face. All he could feel was the trembling of his body—but he had to endure it.
"Hah… hah! No! I—!"
He clawed at his throat and strangled his own voice. Breath that reeked of something sweet, a genitalia that felt ready to burst at any moment.
He was in heat!
Se-gun scratched at the nape of his neck. His nails tore the skin and blood welled up. Then, as if he had scratched an itch, his body cooled. Under the shower he raked at himself. Blood from the torn skin mixed with the water and was sucked, diluted, down the drain.
"Hah, hah, hah…"
He finally managed to calm himself. But no sooner had he forced his uncooperative body to settle than other things came calling.
—Ooooooh…
The wraiths began to chatter. Come to think of it, it was night now. For someone suffering from Haunting, without Noctis he had no choice but to spend every night with those evil spirits.
"Ah…"
Se-gun stripped off his wet clothes and wiped himself down with a damp towel. A liquid half water, half blood soaked the cloth.
"Having too much blood-qi is a problem too, damn it."
He went out and approached the wardrobe. Inside were clothes prepared for summer. A Gore-Tex-and-Starbond vest made to protect the vital organs of the torso while releasing heat, and wide-legged Starbond pants. (Starbond: a special fiber trademark of DuPont, used in ballistic and stab-resistant gear to reinforce Kevlar's weakness against knives.) He had maximized breathability as much as possible, yet leaving both arms, the neck, and the head exposed was still fatal.
But this was the limit of compromise. The head, at least, he would have to cover with a helmet or something.
Right now, more pressing than those worries was what to do about these wraiths. The vampires would have to lie low for several days—no, at least several weeks—because of what Se-gun's group had done. No matter that they had fired it into the sky, they had still detonated a Claymore with a sixteen-meter blast radius in the middle of the city. The aftershock had naturally traveled along the buried sewer pipes, and sewage had even backflowed into the residential district. It was a mercy that no one had died.
—Heeheeheehee…
The ghosts and evil spirits were laughing at Se-gun.
So don't get hard while you're killing vampires, Han Se-gun. No matter how much you want to deny it… feeling pleasure at the moment of slaughter is even more grotesque than the vampires who kill in order to feed, isn't it?
Ever since he had thrown that bag of money into the welfare facility, this excessively rational one among the evil spirits had refused to leave Se-gun. And as always, with razor-sharp insight, it stabbed precisely at the part Se-gun most wanted to deny.
From the beginning you've killed vampires for money. Taking joy in that work is a truly Puritan, desirable thing, isn't it? Finding pleasure in what you do. Highly desirable.
If you truly thought that way, yours would be a blessed life. But once you become aware of it, you grieve.
Was this a wraith that had contacted Se-gun through Haunting, or was it Se-gun's own thought? Suddenly he found himself doubting.
This bastard was far too sharp.
It woke him to things even Se-gun himself had not been conscious of—enough to make one cry out "Eureka!" of its own accord. Of course Se-gun was no Archimedes, and even granting every benefit of the doubt he was not a man who enjoyed unproductive activities like conversing with wraiths. Instead of continuing the dialogue, he pulled on his clothes and gripped Noctis where it stood against the wall. At once the quality of the countless voices that had been pouring in changed. The chattering wraiths all fell silent, cowed with fear.
"Pleasure, is it?"
Feeling pleasure while killing vampires? No. Wrong. If that were true, there would be no reason for him to be having these fits now, would there? No reason to claw at his own throat and suffer over this twisted love, would there?
The point was that painting. The painting!
Ah… Se-gun laughed as he realized he had discovered a desire to possess something. Yes. Possessiveness. How long had it been since he had felt such a healthy emotion! But paintings were luxury goods, expensive items—so they would cost a fortune, right? And with a solo exhibition only just opened, any transaction would require connections in the art world. Of course, for Se-gun, whose resident registration had been erased, buying art through any legitimate route was impossible.
But if there was a single person in this world who had the right to own that—
"That person is me. Painter, you merely glimpsed it while high on drugs—but that is the land I live on! The world I live in! The confessional where I alone face death!"
Crash! The table, desk, and chairs that barely qualified as furniture toppled over. Standing amid the wreckage of those pieces, Se-gun roared as if vomiting blood, then collapsed like a stone onto the floor. And like a dead man, he sank into sleep.
Rat Gunip pulled out a CD he had brought so he could listen to music for the first time in a while. Investigating vampire activity and reporting it to Esprit was Monty's job; handling the violent work Monty could not manage was Rat's. But for the past few days it had been nothing but stringing beads and sealing envelopes—this was an insult to Bram Stoker, who had worked so hard to villainize vampires!
"But come to think of it, we're supposed to sleep in coffins too. Ugh. That I don't like. Anyway, where's my best friend Monty hidden his CD player? Hahaha. Don't tell me he's some kind of alien who shouts, 'I hate music!'?"
"…I've heard quite enough!"
Just then the front door opened and Monty stormed in, fuming. The thin gold-rimmed glasses that usually made him look intellectual now seemed ridiculously out of place.
"Ooooh. Monty. Come to think of it, you look like Woody Allen. Truly my best friend."
"Who's your best friend? And Woody Allen?! Anyway, there's no CD player here! Here—take this."
Monty, wearing an extremely displeased expression, pulled a transfusion blood pack from a plastic bag and tossed it to him. Rat caught the single pack and clicked his tongue.