Desires Chapter 0 - Prologue

For Song Yeongin, who had nothing left anymore, the only thing that kept him alive was painting.

Song Yeongin had been drawing things almost instinctively since he was a child, as soon as his hands touched them, but it was neither Song Yeongin’s poor and tragic mother, nor his heartless and ferocious father, who put a canvas and paints in his hands.

The one who saved Song Yeongin from the darkness where no light could be seen was Father Peter Kang Hajong, who had looked after Song Yeongin’s family since his distant childhood.

Each time Song Yeongin lost the things he held precious, one by one, his artwork grew explosively along with the hardship.

When the work <The Dead Mother’s Ear> was finally completed, Father Kang Hajong received a calling that he must introduce Song Yeongin’s paintings to the world.

The reason Song Yeongin relied solely on Father Kang Hajong was not because he had preached the existence of God to him, nor was it because he had sent his mute younger sister to a Catholic school for the deaf. It was also not because he had made inquiries in all directions about the life or death of his older brother, who had left home early after becoming a delinquent, saying he was sick and tired of their pathetic home life.

The reason Song Yeongin followed him was that, among all the people he knew, he was the only one who did not have that ominous shadow.

That shadow, seen on the hunched shoulders of his mother, who was deaf and mute. That ominous shadow that could sometimes be seen on the flaming cheeks of his drunkard father, who, possessed by the liquor demon, would beat his wife and children; in the bitter tirades of his older brother, who resented their pathetic home as if it were an enemy; and on his deaf and mute younger sister, who had inherited her mother’s condition exactly as it was.

Father Kang Hajong was detached from all the joys and sorrows of life and death. He did not grow anxious in the face of tragedy, and he was the only one who discussed with Song Yeongin a small, unquenchable hope instead of money and misfortune.

Song Yeongin wanted to be like him. He was once intoxicated with the futile dream of wanting to become a priest. He wanted to be him, so he sought to walk in his shadow. However, fate has a habit of being particularly ungenerous to those who hold futile dreams.

When the shadow of misfortune, which had already grown too large, swallowed Song Yeongin, what Song Yeongin could do was neither follow in Father Kang Hajong’s footsteps nor become a priest.

Song Yeongin simply threw himself into that hotbed of misfortune and painted like a madman. It was not a matter of living or dying; it was simply something he did.

It was an exceedingly miserable and shabby death. Song Yeongin had to witness his own mother’s death right in the middle of that tragedy.

Song Yeongin’s mother, who had to live her entire life as a deaf-mute, passed away so meaninglessly. Her serene smile, which could not hear the screams no matter how loud they were, was buried in the empty air along with the people’s shrieks. And, Song Yeongin remained here, continuing to paint the afterimages of that tragedy.

Three years—it was by no means a short amount of time. He painted because he could not live. Buried in the pungent smell of oil paint in a tiny room, he wished for the dawn never to come.

All that was left for Song Yeongin was this one cramped rooftop room where he could barely move his body, his able-bodied self, and his deaf younger sister, whom he met a couple of times a year to ask how she was doing. No, all that was left for Song Yeongin was a single thing—painting.

Just as misfortune was familiar to him, Song Yeongin found the pungent smell of oil paint and the cramped rooftop room exceedingly comfortable. So he had absolutely no intention of breaking out of that greenhouse of misfortune.

They say a sailor gets land-sickness when he comes ashore.

Song Yeongin was exactly like that. He was like a sailor who had adapted to the waves of misfortune. Now it felt as if he would get land-sickness, spewing vomit, if he were to break out of that unfortunate home.

For a long time, Father Kang Hajong had inquired about the life or death of Song Yeongin’s older brother, Song Yeongho. No news was surely good news. The reason news came easily was that the news was a harsh tragedy.

Even when he heard the news that his brother’s bike had been hit by a dump truck while he was making a delivery, killing him instantly at the scene, Song Yeongin did not cry.

Song Yeongin had never had a deep bond with his violent older brother, who was three years his senior. His violent nature was a terrible hereditary disease that was a carbon copy of his father’s inferiority complex.

His father had left, his mother had left, and now even his brother had left. And so, the succession of this terrible misfortune was now only waiting for its next turn—Song Yeongin’s.

Even then, Song Yeongin, with the cramped rooftop room as his companion, was idly waiting for misfortune to extend its evil clutches toward him.

Just when he had learned such empty resignation, that woman came to find him. That unfamiliar woman, holding a newborn baby.

“Her name is… Song Yoon. She is the child of the late Song Yeongho.”

The woman, who had come with the suckling infant who could not even open its eyes wrapped in a swaddling blanket, looked extremely weary. On her dry face, which showed she had only recently recovered after giving birth, not a trace of vitality could be found.

Song Yeongin saw that ominous shadow on her face. That ominous shadow he had seen on his mother. That shadow sometimes spreads to its surroundings and, before one knows it, swallows everything up without leaving a seed behind.

However, a brilliant life force that contrasted with that ominousness, a pouring, dazzling life, was in her arms. What woke Song Yeongin up was the newborn baby left behind by the deceased Song Yeongho.

“……May I hold her?”

When he felt the breath of the small child, brilliantly stirring within a dead embrace, his dried-up eyes finally blazed up like a fire. He wailed. He beat his chest and collapsed, sobbing.

He barely suppressed the words “I’m sorry” that rose up to the tip of his throat. It was not because of Song Yeongin. It was no one’s fault. But Song Yeongin, without reason, atoned and atoned again to that little one.

She said that the young couple, who were practically orphans in this world, had done everything they could with all their hearts to try to live. Song Yeongho, who had roamed here and there on his motorcycle doing delivery jobs, ended his life on the cold asphalt, leaving this little blood clot behind. It was not because the child’s life, or this woman’s life, was so star-crossed.

Song Yeongin had seen his own birth in that newborn baby. Another reincarnation of himself, born carrying the heredity of misfortune.

On the face of the woman holding the blood clot, he foresaw the shadow of misfortune that would once again be cast over this family.

This child had committed no sin. He could not let her grow up to be a coward who would tremble, cover her mouth, and hide in a corner of the room even if misfortune just stood before the wall by the house gate, just like his own childhood.

That is why Song Yeongin had to escape. He had to run out of that greenhouse of misfortune. It was now time to face that land-sickness, which had only ever been terrifying, with his whole body.

Song Yeongin knew someone who was always detached in the face of misfortune. He knew someone who did not grow anxious in the face of tragedy. Without a second thought, Song Yeongin grabbed onto Father Kang Hajong.

The nine-year-old boy who had babbled with his small lips about wanting to paint, wanting to have paints, had now grown into a young man well past the age of twenty.

However, those weak and shabby lips were still, even now, begging the saint for his desires.

Song Yeongin did not know the way, so he clung to the priest and pleaded. He had lived for three years in that corner of the room like his mother, a deaf-mute, with his perfectly fine ears closed and his able mouth shut. No, he had been dead for three years. Song Yeongin was now no different from a complete fool who knew nothing.

“…I need money…. I, I want to earn money….”

How can I help that child? That innocent woman who sent her young husband off alone. My poor younger sister, who could not hear from the moment she was born, must absolutely not live a life like our mother’s.

‘Father, how can I help them? What is there that I can do? Please help me go out into the world.’

For the first time since he was born, Song Yeongin struggled pathetically, like a bird with torn wings.