The Same Eyes
Had he never expected to hear such a thing? Bewilderment lay across the department chair's face. It was hardly the sort of remark an eleven-year-old ought to make.
"Aigoo, look at me. A guest walks in and I don't even offer a drink. You're a student, so coffee's a bit much—shall I pour you some tea?"
He was buying time to think while the tea steeped.
"This came up from Jeju. The taste is completely different."
A voice with no soul in it. He chattered on with whatever came to his tongue, and all the while, inside, he was working to parse the true intent behind my words.
Had he put his thoughts in some kind of order? He set the tea down, leaned back in his chair, and asked.
"I don't really know how things work among people in high places, so forgive the question. At Hyeon-gang, do they just go around starting businesses while they're still in school?"
"No."
"But just now you said business..."
The department chair stole a glance at my face. He wanted to ask whether Grandfather had put me up to it. He couldn't say it outright to the third generation of Hyeon-gang, and the frustration must have been killing him.
"Jihoon, business is really the domain of adults, isn't it? Did someone in the family perhaps tip you off about an idea? Or is there support coming in from here and there..."
"No. None at all."
"Then this is truly, purely a venture you planned by yourself?"
"Yes."
Whether he ought to believe that... The department chair's face was crowded with doubt.
"I'm only asking because I wonder if I've misunderstood. Please don't take it the wrong way."
I nodded.
"This may be far too early to bring up, but succession... that is, the business of inheriting something. Hmm. If you want to receive something, and you need a record worthy of it, then for a third party like me to step into such complicated affairs... well?"
"It isn't like that."
"Th-then what is it?"
"What else? Money. Money."
"Pardon?"
"I'm going into business to make money. Do I need another reason?"
His eyes said it plainly enough: Didn't he already have more money than he could ever spend?
"It isn't my money."
"Well, that's true, but... given time, it will naturally become your share..."
This frustrating man. And when, exactly, was I supposed to sit around waiting for that?
He seemed to catch my meaning. Scratch, scratch. A blank look settled over his face—the look of a man who, had he been born into Hyeon-gang, would have spent his whole life playing and eating.
My plan isn't so different. Even so, there's twenty billion won sitting right in front of me. I can hardly pretend I don't see it and just let it go.
The department chair wanted to read what I was thinking.
"Mmm."
It wasn't easy. Soon enough he went on.
"Then let me ask just one last thing."
"...?"
"If you need help with the business, wouldn't it be better to ask the elders in your family? The reason you came to me, of all people..."
"I told you. It's the money."
"What?"
"If more spoons go into the pot, everyone has to share."
"Ah. So that's how it works."
The department chair scratched his head again.
I began to explain, as vaguely as I could manage.
"I want to send people to America. There's something they need to look for."
"America isn't like our country. It's enormous. You'll have to be at least somewhat specific..."
"This is the kind of work where information is everything."
"And since I might refuse, you'll only tell me up to a reasonable line for now. Is that it?"
"Of course."
"Hmm."
"If you sought me out, the odds are high it's something to do with art."
"..."
"About how many people do you need to send?"
"Judging that is your role, Professor."
"Ah... you want me to determine how many are needed, and find the right people?"
"Yes. The point of consulting is to provide a solution, isn't it?"
"I've felt this since last time. You know an awful lot of difficult words. Heh."
The department chair put on a slick face and played for time. Getting tangled up with Hyeon-gang clearly made him cautious. The suspicion that this might touch the family's succession would still be alive in him, and he might well be worrying about slush funds built through artworks, or money laundering. Was that why?
"Jihoon..."
He drew the name out long.
"I don't think I can give you a firm answer here today. Standing at a lectern, there are a great many things I have to consider."
"I understand."
"You came a long way, and I'm sorry I don't have better news for you."
Sorry, he said. I rather liked the caution.
If he had gone blind with greed at the chance to tie himself to Hyeon-gang and snapped the offer up at once?
Then I would have been the one to refuse.
What I wanted was a ferocious kind of prudence. The thoroughness of a man who doubts every stone bridge and raps it, every single time, before he crosses!
"Take all the time you need, and answer me then."
"Thank you, Jihoon."
I bowed and rose from my seat. I was just about to step out of the office when, as if I had forgotten something, I turned slowly and asked.
"Oh, Professor. When does the new work come out?"
"...?"
"Once you finish a new piece, I'd really like to see it."
At my words, the department chair's throat bobbed hard.
At the same hour, in Bucheon, in front of Yuwon Semiconductor.
"This the place the vice chairman wants to buy?"
At Park Yonghak's words, the Chief Secretary took one step forward.
"And the books?"
"They could shut their doors tomorrow and no one would find it strange."
"They've got proprietary technology, you said?"
"Yes. They have the only three-inch wafer processing equipment in the country. But they're struggling with mass production."
"So they need investment?"
"Yes. Several companies have shown interest, but the capital required is so enormous that the mood is one of everyone clicking their tongues."
"Hmph."
"It is a sum Vice Chairman Park Jongin's personal fortune couldn't begin to cover."
"So in the end he'll have to go around hat in hand, to this one and that one."
"Unless he sells the shares he owns, there is no other way."
The moment you held out your hand to someone else, your own share shrank to almost nothing.
"Even the little one's charging in to swallow the whole thing himself... and the father cooks the porridge just to feed it to the dogs. What kind of father is that."
"A... a child, sir?"
As if to say there was no need to dwell on it, Chairman Park waved a hand.
"That rascal Jihoon. What's he running around doing these days?"
"Ah, yes. He has been meeting frequently with Professor Jo Sudeok of the College of Fine Arts at Seoul National University."
"Jo Sudeok?"
As if he had prepared the report in advance—click—the Chief Secretary drew a catalog of paintings from the trunk of the car.
"He is called a professor at Seoul National, but he is not a man who has made a name as a painter."
While Chairman Park turned the pages one by one, the Chief Secretary went on, unhurried.
"I asked around. They say he has shown no zeal for making work in a long time."
"Meaning the professorship's the greatest thing he ever did."
"Yes. The prevailing view is that his painting shows little progress."
As if in agreement, Park Yonghak shut the catalog without a second look.
"Meets Jo Sudeok that often... so the business that rascal Jihoon talks about must be on the art side."
"It seems so."
Look at a man's partner, and you see the measure of him. Was he disappointed in his grandson's choice? A bitterness caught at the corner of Chairman Park's mouth.
Then again, the boy was only eleven. That he didn't come begging to his grandfather was praiseworthy enough.
Is it because the rascal keeps startling me these days...
Chairman Park found himself holding a fourth-grader to a grown man's standard again and again.
"Jo Sudeok..."
"Shall I look into him further?"
"Enough. Nothing more worth seeing in that one."
He said as much. Even so.
"..."
On Chairman Park's face there lingered, to the very end, an expectation he could not quite let go. If that grandson of his had caught the true worth of Jo Sudeok—the worth even the Chief Secretary had missed?
An absurd fancy. He knew. He knew.
What I know for certain is, I was taught to eat it all by myself.
This one would be hard to split with Grandfather.
You'll understand, won't you?
That his grandson's words kept circling at his ear was, even for him, something he could not help.
Meanwhile, in Jo Sudeok's office at the College of Fine Arts, Seoul National University.
After Park Jihoon had gone, Jo Sudeok slowly took the measure of his own station. Department chair of Western Painting, College of Fine Arts, Seoul National University. In the Korean art world, a career that left nothing to be desired. Hand over a business card, and everyone looked at him with respect.
But Jo Sudeok was a man who looked endlessly upward. The trouble was that above a man like him there had always stood one artist: Kim Hwanki, the legend of Korean abstraction. Because of him, Jo Sudeok forever had to crane his neck until it nearly broke, just to look up.
Someday he would catch Kim Hwanki. No—he would set the legend of Korean art beneath his own feet. Even his taking a post at Seoul National had been purely because of Kim Hwanki. His rival had become a professor at Hongik University's College of Fine Arts, so Jo Sudeok, too, had needed a title to match.
Just when he had begun to think their careers as professors were roughly on a level, Kim Hwanki ran far ahead again. Of the ten most expensive paintings in Korea, fully nine were Kim Hwanki's. As painters, their achievements admitted no comparison. Worse, the legend of Korean art had departed this world at the age of sixty-one. He had become a star in that high sky, one no outstretched hand could ever reach.
After that day, Jo Sudeok became a wreck adrift on the sea. It was a natural result. Unlike Kim Hwanki, who had been faithful to art itself, Jo Sudeok's art had been nothing but a tool for competition.
He didn't know how he had lived after that. Chasing money. Hitching himself to power. Flailing this way and that. What was certain was that once the goal vanished, he had broken his brush for good. All he did was occasionally exhibit works he had painted long before, and thereby keep his professorship.
And yet, why?
Professor, when does the new work come out?
How had the little one from the Hyeon-gang family said a thing like that? Simple coincidence? Had he been pricked by a mere pleasantry and taken it seriously all on his own?
Hard to call it that. The boy had looked at Jo Sudeok with eyes that seemed to know everything. And not only then. Park Jihoon wore those eyes in every moment.
Jo Sudeok had met eyes like that once before, on the day he first saw the young Kim Hwanki. Two eyes so clear they seemed to hold the whole world. Kim Hwanki's eyes had looked vaster than any canvas on earth. Perhaps the masterpiece Universe had already been finished, long before, inside those eyes.
"Damn it."
Just when he thought he had finally slipped free of Kim Hwanki's ghost, a brat of barely eleven appeared wearing the very same eyes.
And yet, why? Ahead of a ship he had thought was nothing but a wreck, far off, he had the feeling a single island had shown itself. He didn't know what lay there.
Am I needlessly stepping into the Hyeon-gang succession? Might I be used to raise a slush fund for the owner family?
Unease ran ahead of him. Even so.
Thump. Thump.
He could not turn away from a pull that was perfectly clear. Would it feel like this, to face Kim Hwanki again? Jo Sudeok could only smile bitterly at the strange feeling.