ANTITOXIN Chapter 3

Considering one’s sense of shame, it was right to refuse. After all, the crumbs he had received from Park Moonhyuk until now were quite numerous. However, Seolwon, who was desperate for every single penny, could not bring himself to refuse and quietly accepted it.

“Thank you.”

Knowing Seolwon’s situation well, where he couldn’t even put on a show of refusing, Moonhyuk sent a sympathetic look and tapped his shoulder lightly.

Seolwon smiled weakly. It was a comfort that gave as much strength as the 50,000 won.

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The Face of Mindlessness KUSAYOGY 2016 Oil on canvas 227.3 x 162.1

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The artist Kusayogy is a philosopher, an artist, and a rising star who is gaining sensational popularity for his unique painting style. Active in France and recognized worldwide, he primarily captures his philosophy in his works using humans and animals as themes. The Face of Mindlessness is an impressive work with a grotesque atmosphere and intense color contrast, a portrait created based on figures emerging from the inner subconscious and internal hypotheses.

“…”

Upon the large canvas, Seolwon quietly gazed at the painting, which could only be described as unique, just as the explanation stated. Even if at a glance it looked like he was just fixing his eyes on it without any thoughts, in reality, he was recording it with his eyes. Because it was a painting he had to replicate from now on.

The judgment of whether he could do it or not was finished as soon as he saw it. The painting style, precisely the brushwork, was so unusual that it wouldn’t be easy to imitate, but it wasn’t at an impossible level. The working period proposed by the client’s side was roughly two months. It was a period that was not leisurely but not tight either. If it was that much, he thought he could pull it off somehow.

He did not include any sentiments in the recording. In fact, he didn’t even feel such a thing as a sentiment at all. Was it because he didn’t like the piece? No, it was because he had no interest. To Seolwon, a painting was nothing more than a means to earn money. Only whether he could copy and draw it was important, and sentiments or interpretations beyond that were unnecessary. It was for this reason that even though a long time had passed since he entered inside, this was the only painting he had looked at properly.

In the first place, he hadn’t majored in art either, and it was a skill he acquired by learning intensely under Park Moonhyuk for two years. Of course, the fact that he came to possess enough skill to earn a living in just two years must be because he basically had talent. This was a fact recognized even by Park Moonhyuk, who had majored in Western painting and prided himself on being an expert.

This year marks the eighth year since he escaped from his hometown island and came out to the mainland. Right now, a job he could do had been created so he could live and eat relatively stably, but the process up to settling down like this was arduous. It was bound to be so.

As a descendant of a shaman family passed down for generations, he was born with a heavenly shamanic star, so his spiritual eye naturally opened, and his spiritual gate was even opened due to the initiation gut ritual. It meant he possessed a damn constitution where, not to mention seeing all kinds of things, if he let his guard down, he would become prey for low-grade ghosts. Because of that, there weren’t many things he could do.

As much as he had escaped with difficulty, he had to settle down and live somehow, but the society outside the island was more fierce and bleak than imagined. To a young man with no notable specs to speak of, who was virtually significantly lagging behind others, a stable job was like a paradise in a dream. The money he had barely packed from his hometown also ran out in no time after being spent on the security deposit for a monthly rented room and this and that. Even that security deposit, he ended up losing to a real estate scam in less than half a year.

At this point, Seolwon ended up making a wrong choice. He borrowed private loans. At a time when the way to make a living was bleak, a private loan advertisement business card he happened to pick up felt just like a lifeline at that time.

The first two or three months were fine. However, the interest grew uncontrollably. The principal of 3 million won exceeded a whopping ten million won including interest in just a single year. Seolwon learned at that time that money easily obtained is all the more terrifying.

Real estate scams, private loans. They were all mistakes stemming from ignorance. It was because he had lived only on the island his whole life and hadn’t even attended school, so he lacked common sense. How dangerous private loans were, what to be careful of when writing a real estate contract—there was no need to know such things in his hometown. Therefore, there was no one to tell him either.

Even so, to try and live somehow, he went around looking for work at labor offices. He bounced around daily jobs such as construction sites, delivery, cleaning, and flyer distribution, and lived a life of earning one day and living one day for a whole year. Despite that, the money he had to pay back increased if it did, but seldom decreased. It was equivalent to falling into another mire. He hadn’t expected a brilliant future, but he also hadn’t known it would be that dismal. If the interest payment date was delayed by even a single day, the thug bastards who appeared without fail to threaten him were as sickening as ghosts.

Since basic living was difficult, he almost entered a bad path as well. While handing out flyers in an entertainment district, he got cast as a host. Hearing that if he did well, earning an amount around a large corporation’s annual salary would be child’s play, he was tempted and went to work. This was also a misjudgment arising from ignorance. However, after working for exactly two days, he came to quit. He had so little gift of gab that he couldn’t mingle with customers, and he also couldn’t handle the decadent negative energy peculiar to entertainment establishments.

In noisy and insidious places, spirits are bound to gather without fail. That establishment was no exception either. Although he was born in a shaman’s house and lived there for nearly 18 years, it was the first time he had seen so many resentful ghosts in one space. He also felt a lot from the point that most of them were women with deep tear stains.

The person he met in such a hopeless situation was none other than Park Moonhyuk. It was thanks to an introduction from the manager of the labor office he frequently attended.

‘I’ve been watching you, and you keep a tight lip and have good dexterity. You do everything diligently too. That’s why I’m connecting you.’

Park Moonhyuk, who was doing an art brokerage business, was looking for someone to use as an office assistant at the time. The problem was that the brokerage business he was doing was not carried out only within legal boundaries. He also had his foot in illegal replica trading, and virtually most of his profits were generated here.

Illegality usually required security. Therefore, he did not hire people carelessly. Even if he looked big-hearted on the outside as if this is fine and that is fine, he was very cautious and fastidious when choosing people. The point that he couldn’t find a person to work for a whole year proved this.

Yet, he introduced Seolwon to such a position. In the judgment of the manager, whose eye for seeing people was extraordinary due to his occupation, he was certain that Seolwon would satisfy the fastidious criteria of Park Moonhyuk. In conclusion, it was a correct judgment.

However, he hadn’t entered as a technician from the start. The beginning was an office assistant. But one day, Park Moonhyuk, who caught a glimpse of potential from a doodle drawn for fun, proposed the technician position, and Seolwon, who could do anything as long as it made money, complied without a murmur.

From then on, for over two years, without missing a single day, he did nothing but draw paintings for more than twelve hours just as he was taught. Until the evaluation that it was ‘identical to the original’ came out from Park Moonhyuk, he brought all kinds of famous paintings and copied them. As a result, he was able to settle down as a technician relatively quickly, and thanks to that, he was also able to completely clear off the private loan, which had felt only distant, starting from last year.

In the aspect that he nurtured his ability to make a living, Park Moonhyuk was like a savior to Seolwon. Was that all. Even though the commissioned work fell through twice due to the divine illness that suddenly onset since last year, far from casting him out, he even listened to the circumstances and showed consideration. The figure of Park Moonhyuk, who did not laugh at the confession made reluctantly—that he actually ran away from his hometown because he didn’t want to become a male shaman, that he had even done an initiation gut ritual, and that the illness arose because of that—but rather seriously asked how he could help, was still vivid in his mind.

Therefore, Seolwon did not want to betray Park Moonhyuk’s expectations. Money aside, he did not want to disappoint him. In order to repay the consideration and goodwill received until now, he wanted to do it properly at least this time.

Embodying greed, he scrutinized the painting thoroughly once more. He engraved it and engraved it again in his mind. The materials necessary for replication, Park Moonhyuk would provide sufficiently. He knew that, but a printed image had a different feeling from the reality. That’s why he took the time to come and see it directly, despite the fact that he loathes long-distance outings that require using the subway or bus.