Episode 3: Smile Inside the Raindrop-Beaded Screen

Episode 3: A smile on a liquid crystal display with raindrops. 11:20 p.m. On the small office window of Atelier 'Nebula', the rain did not stop until late at night, forming thick water droplets and flowing diagonally. The two employees had already left work, and the only 15-watt yellow incandescent lamp lit in the corner of the drawing board was shining lonely light in the dark room. The relief that he had successfully completed the contest screening was momentary, but as he was left alone in an empty space, the tension in his nerves that had been tense during the day was instantly relieved, and a deep swamp of loneliness grabbed Junwoo's ankles.

Junwoo picked up the black smartphone that was lying on the desk. A few drops of rainwater from my recent trip to the convenience store had formed a round shape on the surface of the tempered liquid crystal glass. When I pressed the power button, the dark OLED display emitted blue light and brightened up the lock screen. Transparent water droplets refracted the sub-pixel light of the liquid crystal display, brilliantly magnifying a scene on the screen like a magnifying glass. Junwoo and Seoyeon's happiest moments were stuffed there. It was a selfie photo taken at Anmok Beach in Gangneung, Gangwon-do, exactly one year before Seoyeon left for Paris, to celebrate their third anniversary.

With the eye-chilling blue horizon of the East Sea in the background, the two people were staring at the camera, face to face, on a white sandy beach with white sea foam splashing around. Although the sea breeze was blowing her hair mercilessly and hitting her cheek, Seoyeon's lips were wide open, forming a clear half-moon shape, and her brown eyes were filled with joy as if she had the whole world. Jun-woo, too, lost his usual blunt expression, and was hugging Seo-yeon's shoulders, showing his teeth and laughing as if he was bragging to the whole world.

Just as a camera scans the surface of a liquid crystal screen with a very slow macro lens, a raindrop slid across the smartphone screen and slowly ran down Seoyeon's smiling cheek. That image created a heartbreaking optical illusion, as if Seoyeon in the photo was quietly shedding tears while looking at Junwoo beyond the screen. Junwoo raised his trembling thumb and carefully snatched away the raindrops. However, what my fingertips touched was not Seoyeon's soft and warm skin, but only the cold, hard, inanimate surface of tempered glass that contained no warmth.

The clothes Seoyeon was wearing on screen was an oversized white linen shirt that she sewed herself with a sewing machine. Small constellations were closely embroidered around the collar with blue embroidery thread, and Seoyeon proudly said that the night she finished the shirt, she hung it around Junwoo's neck.

'The stars on this collar are a compass just for you and me. No matter where we get lost in the world, we can always find each other by fiddling with this collar.'

In the photo, on Junwoo's left fourth finger, a thin silver ring that he had bought for 30,000 won at a silver workshop in the back alley of Gangneung Jungang Market was shining in the sunlight. On the inside of the ring, the latitude and longitude values ​​of Anmok Beach, '37.77° N, 128.95° E', were engraved in small letters. Junwoo looked down at his left hand. The surface of the silver ring was covered with numerous scratches and scratches after touching the rough cement powder and rough rebar at the construction site for three years. But every night before going to bed, Junwoo would carefully wipe the ring with a soft cloth.

That small silver ring, which no longer easily falls off as his knuckles have become thicker, was the only holy object that anchored Junwoo's soul so that it would not be swept away by the world's storms and collapse. This smartphone terminal was also a couple model that the two went to the dealership together and got it fitted the day before Seoyeon left the country three years ago. Meanwhile, the tempered glass that protected the screen had been replaced four times after being dropped at a construction site, and the paint on the aluminum frame at the corners was peeling off here and there, exposing the silver interior. It was a world where the latest smartphones were pouring out, but Junwoo could never replace this old device.

This is because it was the last physical device Seoyeon touched, and it was a huge ark of memory containing tens of thousands of conversations and voice files from the three years she shared with her. This little 6-inch glass prison called a smartphone. The most convenient miracle that modern civilization has gifted to mankind is, paradoxically, also the most cruel torture device for those we love. It shows the other person's face in high-definition pixels at any time, creating the illusion of being next to them, but the moment you reach out, you are blocked by a cold glass wall 0.5 millimeters thick, painfully reminding you of the absolute isolation that 'you can never reach'.

For the first few months when Seoyeon left for Paris, the two spent video calls every night. ‘Junwoo, can you see my face? The sunlight is so pretty here right now. The waves of the Seine River sparkle.'

However, Seoyeon's video on the screen frequently stopped with broken pixels, and the voice rang out with a slight delay of 0.5 seconds. When Jun-woo whispers “I love you,” there is that excruciating, fleeting gap before the words cross the underwater optical cable that crosses the Eurasian continent and reach Seo-yeon’s ears. In that minute latency, the two people had to desperately realize that they were living on a completely different planet and in a different time zone. As Seoyeon cried on the other side of the screen, there was nothing Junwoo could do except rub his fingers toward the small cluster of pixels on the screen.

The helplessness of not being able to wipe your tears, hug your cold shoulders, or pat your back. In the end, video calls only amplified the unfulfilled lack and thirst rather than comforting each other, and at some point, the two people were afraid of seeing each other's tired faces and began running away with short text messages and voice memos instead of video calls. The legend of the seventh lunar day has been handed down as the archetype of the most earnest love among the people of the East for thousands of years. However, if the cowherd and Jiknyeo of the ancient agricultural society were blocked by the transcendent power of the Jade Emperor of the Sky, the modern version of the cowherd and Jiknyeo of the 21st century were torn apart by a much more secret and gigantic 'system of capital and success.'

An era in which youth must leave their hometown and lover and head to a megapolis or across the sea to a global center in order to blossom their talents. In order to become someone, you inevitably have to leave the side of your loved one, and the tragedy is that the space you leave is filled only with a dry bank account balance and an immigration stamp in your passport. For modern youth, the Milky Way is not a cluster of silver stars flowing in the sky, but a despairing wall of sky-rocketing plane ticket prices, monthly rent, and unrenewable work visas. Junwoo would sometimes squeeze his chest and ask himself:

Why do we have to live apart while missing each other so desperately? Is it really an impossible luxury in modern society and a foolish loser's choice to live in a single room with only love? But there was always one answer. Seoyeon's brilliant talent could not be confined in a narrow room in Seoul, and Junwoo's own architectural pride could not live on Seoyeon's sacrifice. They loved each other so completely that they willingly chose to cross the galaxy of this devastating separation so that each could burn as the brightest star in their respective skies.

Modern digital communication promised infinite connectivity to humans, but at the same time, it was the medium that most cruelly volatile human emotions. In the binary signal replaced with 0 and 1, it was not possible to capture the subtle smell of sweat from the other person's skin, the trembling of the fingertips, or the secret rhythm of life that causes the collarbone to slightly move when the person breathes in. No matter how clearly you can see into the other person's pores with a 4K or 8K ultra-high definition camera, the being beyond the liquid crystal screen is ultimately nothing more than a ghost trapped behind a glass plate. Junwoo often stared blankly at his smartphone every night, wondering if the handwritten letters filled with the smell of ink that ancient people exchanged had a much deeper soulful weight than today's optical fiber communications.

The curves of the handwriting pressed down on the paper, the fingerprints and tear stains left when the paper was folded, and the salty smell of the sea that I felt when I finally held it in my hand after crossing the sea for several months. Because of that physical accumulation of time, love was able to become a myth. However, all that was given to them now was a blinking blue reception confirmation check mark and an empty piece of glass that instantly turned into a black mirror when the battery ran out. The three-day summer vacation spent in the Gangneung sea was a time remembered as the purest light in Junwoo's life.

A seaside pension filled with only the sound of waves and the cries of seagulls, away from the musty smell of mold and the nightmare of finishing drawings in a university town. During the day, I would run barefoot on the sandy beach and collect seashells, and at sunset, I would eat grilled pork belly and drink soju on a small terrace overlooking the sea.

'Junwoo, why do the waves constantly come to land?'

When Seoyeon, slightly drunk and with red cheeks, leaned against the terrace railing and asked, Junwoo answered while looking at the waves. 'It's because the moon attracts sea water. The moon, which is hundreds of thousands of kilometers away, pulls the ocean with its invisible gravity, so the waves constantly break as they reach for the moon.'

Seoyeon held Junwoo's hand tightly and leaned her head on his shoulder. ‘Then I guess I’m a wave too. No matter how far away I am, my heart is always constantly pushing towards the moon called Junwoo.'

That sad, beautiful smile that Seoyeon had back then. She may have already had a premonition of the loneliness of a thousand miles away and the harsh fate of having to cross the sea. Junwoo opened his desk drawer and took out a small velvet box. Inside the box, a piece of seashell and blue sea glass that I had picked up with Seoyeon on the beach in Gangneung were lying quietly. A small shard of glass with rounded and smooth edges that has been cut and polished by rough waves over many years. Junwoo placed the sea glass in his palm and gently rubbed it with his thumb.

Like sea glass that never loses its original brightness even after being hit by a rough rock and breaking, I wanted to believe that if their love also endured the harsh waves of time, it would eventually become a clearer and harder jewel and they would be able to be held in each other's arms. On the afternoon of the second day of their trip to Gangneung, the two took a leisurely stroll through the black bamboo forest path of Ojukheon. The crunching sound made by tens of thousands of bamboo trees as they passed by in the wind was as sweet as the sound of an ancient lute. Seoyeon picked up a dry bamboo leaf that had fallen on the side of the road, placed it on her palm, and stared at the thin veins of the leaf.

‘Junwoo, even within this single leaf, there is an elaborate highway through which water and sunlight flow. 'Wouldn't architecture or clothes, ultimately, be imitating the law of small leaf veins created by nature?'

Her eyes always shined with clear insight into the essence of things. Junwoo carefully placed the bamboo leaves in the pages of his diary. Even now, the diary was on the bookshelf next to the drawing board, and the dried black bamboo leaves still had the faint scent of the forest. Even if life withers, the form remains, and as long as the form remains, memories never die. That was the only truth that architect Junwoo believed in. Junwoo opened the voice memo folder on his smartphone.

In the folder classified under the name 'Seoyeon_Paris', 84 audio files sent by Seoyeon over the past three years were sorted by date. It was a secret radio broadcast just for the two of them, and a diary of their souls. Junwoo touched a 45-second recording file that Seoyeon sent from the Saint-Ouen flea market in northern Paris a year ago in the winter. In the background, the murmur of French merchants and the sound of accordion playing played softly, and Seoyeon's excited breathing could be heard.

‘Junwoo! I just found some 19th century vintage brass cutting scissors. You have no idea how heavy and sharp the blade is. The merchant grandfather said that these scissors have been used by three generations of tailors for a hundred years. Junwoo, with these scissors, I will cut away this terrible distance and time that stands between us. And I'll weave the strongest, warmest fabric and dress you in the nicest clothes when we meet again. love you!' Seoyeon's bizarre yet lovely declaration that she will cut the street with scissors. Every time he listened to that recording, a tearful smile would spread across Junwoo's lips.

Although she was struggling alone in the fierce competition of Paris, she had a strong artist's heart that never crumbled. The spirit of Jiknyeo who wanted to cut the veil of fate with those small brass scissors. Junwoo quietly listened to that voice and clenched his fist once again, saying that he too would fight against the world's prejudices and win with the weapon of a pencil.

'KakaoTalk.'

At that time, a clear notification sound rang from the smartphone, breaking the silence. Junwoo’s heart sank. A blue notification bar appears at the top of the screen. [Han Seo-yeon: One video was sent. (0:32)] Junwoo held his breath and touched the notification window with trembling fingers. The chat room opened and a 32-second video clip thumbnail appeared. It was the background of an atelier studio in Paris. When I pressed the play button, a familiar mechanical sound came out of the speaker along with a subtle white noise crackling. ‘Dalgak, Dalgak, Dalgak…’ … .'

It was the heavy sound of the needle of an old German-made Singer industrial sewing machine regularly sewing thick linen fabric. The camera in the screen was at an angle where the smartphone placed on the workbench was set at an angle on a stand. Seoyeon was seen in profile, wearing a white cotton shirt and her long hair tied back. Wearing small round reading glasses on the tip of her nose, without taking a deep breath, she adjusted the spacing between stitches in units of 0.1 millimeter. Her touch was truly reverential and fierce, like that of a craftsman. Although her knuckles were covered in bandages, her fingertips caressing the fabric were filled with deep affection and pride.

As the camera's gaze swept across the background of the studio, Junwoo captured a drawing sketch pinned to a cork note board behind Seoyeon. It was a draping drawing of a men's cashmere long coat with broad shoulders and long sleeves. The numbers written in Seoyeon's handwriting next to the measurement line caught my eye. [Shoulder width: 48cm / Sleeve length: 65cm / Total length: 112cm / Subject: Junwoo]

These were Junwoo’s body measurements. In the night breeze of faraway Paris, Seoyeon was making a coat with all her heart, stitch by stitch, for her lover who had to endure the cold winter alone in Seoul. Clothes made by a modern-day Jiknyeo. It was not a silk robe for a heavenly god, but an armor of love to protect earthly lovers from the cold. And amidst the sound of the sewing machine, a soft hum came from Seo-yeon's lips and came through the speaker. ‘The moon, the moon, the bright moon, the moon where Taebaek Lee used to play…’ … There, in that moon, there is a cassia tree... … .'

It was the same old folk song that her mother had sung as a lullaby when she was young, and which Seoyeon playfully hummed whenever she got tired from working all night in college. Seoyeon stopped sewing for a moment while singing and looked up at the night sky of Paris outside the window. Although his face was full of fatigue, he smiled slightly as he looked at his face reflected in the window. Then he turned his head towards the camera and silently whispered four letters with his mouth. 'paper. go. I want to. all.'

The video ended and the screen froze. The world is beautiful because there is unchanging love despite any trials. The invisible Ojakgyo Bridge, created by the souls of the two people, was already firmly stretching out into the dark night sky. The smile stuffed into the screen of this small smartphone was not a memory of the past, but a living promise that must be recovered one day in the future. As long as that promise existed, no darkness could block the young man's path. Junwoo faced the blue dawn outside the window with overwhelming courage filling his heart.

A faint blue dawn began to spread over the eastern ridge of Achasan Mountain. The dark clouds that had been pouring rain all night began to thin, and the cool air of early morning rose through the forest of buildings. Down the street, sanitation workers wearing fluorescent orange vests were sweeping up wet ginkgo leaves from the sidewalk blocks with long bamboo brooms. The regular sound of rain sounded peaceful, like a prelude to morning awakening the city's sleeping pulse. Junwoo carefully placed his smartphone on the cleanest spot next to the drawing board.

It was now deep at night in Paris, and Seo-yeon had crawled into bed in the attic of Montmartre after a hard day's work. I hope that in her dreams, she will walk with me on the warm sandy beach of the Gangneung sea, forgetting the prick of needles and the loneliness of being in a foreign country. The young man prayed earnestly in his heart and brushed off the last dewdrops that had formed on the window frame with his fingertips. Even the vast galaxy of distance and time could never quench the hearts of two people who burn towards each other like this every night. A large tear drop fell from Junwoo's eye and landed on the smartphone screen.

The snowdrops merged with the cold raindrops remaining on the screen to form one large puddle. In that puddle, Seoyeon of the Gangneung sea, Seoyeon of the Paris atelier, and Junwoo of Seoul overlapped into one distorted image. “Seo-yeon… I also… I really miss you too…”

Junwoo held the phone with both hands and hugged it tightly to his chest. The cold metal edge pressed painfully against my breastbone, but even that pain felt like the only physical entity that Seoyeon gave me at this moment. She wasn't giving up. In that strange and cold workroom in a foreign country, sewing until her fingers were swollen and her eyes were sore, she was weaving her own world for her promise to Jun-woo. Junwoo pressed the voice recording button. He brought the microphone close to his lips and whispered softly in a trembling voice. “Seo-yeon, I enjoyed watching the video. I thought about you all day today and finished judging the contest well. The coat you made... I really want to wear it. On the bridge I will build, I will wear that coat and hug you tightly. Tonight, I send you the sound of rain in Seoul.”

Junwoo brought the smartphone microphone towards the window. The lyrical percussion sound of autumn rain hitting the window was captured in the file for 10 seconds. When I pressed the send button, the blue progress bar filled up and the audio file flew toward Eurasia. Junwoo suddenly got up from his seat. I roughly wiped away my tears with my sleeve and laid out white tracing paper on the drawing board again. There was no time to wallow in grief and despair. While Seoyeon was pioneering her own territory with a needle, he had to complete the bridge that would connect the two with a pencil and a ruler.

He sharpened his 4B pencil and held it. The friction sound of graphite crunching over the drawing began to resonate. On the cable layout of the top of the Mapo pedestrian bridge, Junwoo woven a wire net that was as dense and strong as the stitches on Seoyeon's sewing machine. The most sturdy and merciful structure that can safely support the steps of tens of thousands of people without being shaken by any strong typhoon on the Han River. 2:40 in the morning. The rain outside the window gradually thinned out, drenching the city like a night fog. Junwoo leaned his back against the window frame, holding a cup of hot mixed coffee.

The raindrops that had formed on the screen had already dried completely, and Seoyeon's bright smile on the screen warmly illuminated his soul like a lighthouse in the darkness. Being away wasn't a curse. It was the biggest and most brilliant stage the universe had prepared to prove how deep and strong their love for each other was. The young man smiled and sat down in front of the drawing board again. The drawing of a bridge stretching towards the stars was spreading dazzling wings at the fingertips of a young man who stayed up all night. The memories and emotions of all those moments remained forever as a brilliant light deep in my heart, giving me calm comfort.