Drink and Song
A "Painter of the Wind" fanfic
immo
author's note: inspired! So that's why a new one's out so soon! :D
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She looked at her hand, feeling like the world was ending, feeling a deep sense of anguish over the thought of losing her ability to draw the next day, and also the thought of WHY she would lose her hand.
'Obscene?' Yoon Bok stumbled, hot and cold at the same time, still reeling from the news. 'My work is... obscene? It was just a painting! It captured the longing of a woman for her man! Is that obscene?'
As a woman entrenched in a man's world, Yoon Bok was constantly frustrated with this secret love affair the men had with the women. Men loved women. They were, frankly, obsessed with them. Men watched them from the wine houses, spent ridiculous amounts of money at gibangs on kisaengs, fought over them, committed crimes because of them, killed for them, died for them... yet, a picture was obscene? A picture that showed the depth of feeling, of longing. A picture of a woman with her head bowed and wishing fervently for her man? The picture was just the truth. What was obscene about what the eye saw? What was wrong with a woman's feelings?
The one thing she had left of her father's, was her craft. Her mother and father had given her the tools to create... and tomorrow, she would lose one of the most vital ones. Her right hand. What use were her sharp eyes when the hand could no longer draw? The tools were all connected. Lose one, and lose all. She remembered her father with a pained smile and how he had, one night, lit a candle and used his hands to bring a butterfly to life. Thrust brush and paper to her and let her draw to her heart's content.
Yoon Bok's head swam with sharp and painful memories deep in the past. Even the memory of Danwon flitted through her mind, holding her brush with her and teaching her how to draw a tree... She didn't want to go back to Dohwaseo. Her brother, Young Bok would know immediately something was wrong. Young Bok was too perceptive and Yoon Bok was too transparent. Since they were young, she had never been a good liar and too honest for her own good. That was why she was always getting in to trouble and did not get along very well with everyone.
"Why are you just standing in the middle of the road like that?" A man gruffly asked her, pushing by. Yoon Bok looked up at the well-lit sprawling building, blinking owlishly.
"Oho, young sir!" A kisaeng tittered, spotting her. Yoon Bok was reminded of the prickly flower from the cloth shop. This one oozed a cheap friendliness, easily bought with a few nyang. Yoon Bok blinked, slowly being brought to reality as the pungent smell of a perfume shocked her back to the present. The kisaeng that had hailed her was now was pressed against her side, arm hooked companionably into her own.
"My, such handsome gentlemen grace us tonight!" The kisaeng tugged Yoon Bok in the direction of the gibang, where the sounds of guests and the women entertaining them filled the air with noise. "Come, quickly! Everybody's waiting for you!"
"Everybody?" Yoon Bok let herself be lead. She had nowhere else to go tonight. It might as well be here. "Who's everybody?"
"Why, your handsome friends!" The kisaeng tut-tutted. "Young lords, you've paid so much tonight, Jeong Hyang will be coming soon!"
They passed rooms full of men drinking and talking too loudly, and the women on their arms laughing too loudly. The aroma of wine and shochu was thick in the air, mixed with the heady scent of various perfumes of these working women. Stumbling past these rooms, she was finally thrust into one where familiar faces looked up at her.
"And who do we have here?" Jang Hyowon sneered at her from the head of the table. Dimly, Shin Yoon Bok remembered it was his birthday and he had invited all his classmates for the celebration at this gibang. "A yearning teacher? A painting is yearning?"
'Still sore about the afternoon?' Yoon Bok just stood there and let Jang Hyowon make fun of her. Since they've known each other, they've clashed numerous times. Hyowon always wanted to be number one. And for some reason, he always saw the slim, girly Yoon Bok as competition. Tonight, Yoon Bok didn't want to fight, so she let the barbed words wash over over.
Jang Hyowon's right hand man pointed at her accusingly, noticing that she brought no gifts. "You came with empty hands?"
"My heart came," Yoon Bok retorted. "Isn't that enough?"
"Your heart came, hm?" Jang Hyowon stared at her challengingly as she sat down at the end of the table, facing him. With a motion of his head, someone to the right of Yoon Bok emptied the brushholder they had with them and two of her classmates filled this makeshift cup to the brim. A regular wine cup was about the size of her thumb. The brushholder was almost the length of Yoon Bok's forearm.
"Drink it!" Jang Hyowon tilted his head back, eyes gleaming maliciously. "I want to see this heart you bring!"
"Can you drink with that womanly form of yours, little boy? Are you gonna cry?" The man beside Hyowon teased, going along with his friend's bullying. "Call your brother! Hyung Nim! Hyung Nim!"
The room burst into laughter as they all watched her sitting there, staring at the brushholder-turned-cup. Grabbing her drink, she stood up, affectively silencing them as they stared at her in shock. She hadn't wanted to butt heads, but Jang Hyowon always needed to be taken down a couple of pegs.
"This is nothing." She cast her eyes around the room. "You think I'm afraid to drink it?"
Tipping her head back, she drank in huge gulps, knowing that they were all watching her. She ignored the liquid searing down her throat and lighting a fire in her belly, drinking until she knew there was no more. Kneeling back down to the ground, she held the brushholder upside down, showing them that she had drank it all, then slammed the brushholder down on to the table.
"Hmph." Jang Hyowon was slightly impressed. And to run off the young slim man who had met Hyowon's challenge would make him seem extremely petty. "Well then, I see your heart's in the right place. Stay for a bit if you want."
"Come, come, Yoon Bok." Some of her friendlier classmates motioned her towards them as the noise resumed in the room and Jang Hyowon chose to ignore Yoon Bok. "Come drink with us!"
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Jeong Hyang bowed low to the young men, schooling her face into an impassive mask. Skilled at doing so.
"Aigooo... beautiful!" A young man sitting on the right side, closest to the head of the table pronounced. "Beautiful!"
Jeong Hyang didn't acknowledge the praise. Her skin crawled at this man's voice, so very like so many before. They said beautiful, but that same tone and affection was also used on things like horses, dogs, houses and paintings.
"You are Jeong Hyang?" By the tone of this man's voice and where he sat, Jeong Hyang immediately recognized him as the leader of the group.
"Yes," Jeong Hyang bowed again, knowing she had to keep these guests relatively happy. "I am Jeong Hyang."
"You are really beautiful," The heavier-set man sitting to the left of the head was trying not to drool as he oogled Jeong Hyang openly, only to be slapped on the arm by the kisaeng already accompanying him.
Jeong Hyang's maid handed her her gayageum, but before she had even settled the instrument in her lap, she was interrupted.
"That will be fine." The leader of this motley crew leered at her, leaning forward a bit and slapped his thigh. His horsehair hat high on his head, his robes were still pristine though his friends' were in disarray. "Come and sit here."
A cock on top of a dung heap. But this young man paid for her services tonight. Perhaps he was a little slow and did not know what kind of entertainment she provided?
Giving the young man a quick tight smile that faded all too quickly, Jeong Hyang lowered her eyes to the ground and informed him. "I am a gayageum player, sir. I am not a prostitute."
The silence that followed was deeply satisfying. These Yanbans needed to be reminded that even though she was low in their eyes, she would not be made low. Jeong Hyang was a 'guem gi', a kisaeng who was skilled in the gayageum. That was how she entertained her guests. Through her art.
"You are still full of thorns." That pleasant alto voice, slightly slurred, broke the silence. Jeong Hyang raised her head slowly and spied the young man from the market, glancing at her sideways. He was not in his student-painter clothes today, but in sombre robes that were slightly ruffled and a noble hat that was comically askew on his head. Though he spoke rudely, this young man seemed to look at her and really see her. And the game they had played before was very pleasant, his face, screwed up in a pleading look was still fresh in her mind.
So why not continue the game?
"The more beautiful the flower is, the more thorns it has." Jeong Hyang replied, pleased with her own reply. The young painter blew out a small laugh.
"I've never seen a flower calling itself beautiful." His soft smirk drove into her, and Jeong Hyang just had to smile. The image was amusing. A thorny flower calling itself beautiful? Ridiculous.
"Even if it says so itself, a beautiful flower is still beautiful."
He acknowledged her point carefully, swaying slowly in his drunkeness but showing an interest in what Jeong Hyang's next answer would be even though he appeared to be talking to his jar of wine. "If nobody sees the beautiful flower, what's the use?"
Jeong Hyang briefly pondered this question, noting the underlying depth of it. The painter was testing her.
"A flower is just a flower." Jeong Hyang replied. "Saying whether it's beautiful or ugly is just a passing figure of measurement."
And finally, the painter looked up from his wine and faced her. His eyes were still sharp and the look he gave Jeong was one of admiration, as one would regard an equal. Why did this young painter look at her like that?
Before Jeong Hyang could dissect this confounding man further, he had gone back to staring at his wine jar.
"What is this?" The man to the right of the leader looked from the young painter, back to Jeong Hyang. "Do you know each other already?"
"What are you doing?" Another young man who seemed drunker than the rest, slurred. He had trouble concentrating on Jeong Hyang and kept blinking irritably, like he was fighting off sleep. "Just start playing!"
With that, the drunk threw his cup at Jeong Hyang and thankfully, it missed the musician. Unfortunately, it hit the zither instrument across its strings. Not only did the impact of the cup snap one of the strings of Jeong Hyang's gayageum, but the contents of the cup splashed her violet jeogori shirt.
"You wretched brat!" The man at the head of the table shouted. "What are you doing?!"
As Jeong Hyang wiped away the droplets of clear wine from her face, she could hear someone slapping that man and rebuking him. The worse thing about entertaining guests was that some times they might have had a bit too much to drink. The painter just stared at her, smooth brows suddenly furrowed with worry. But he said nothing and let Jeong Hyang collect herself.
"Are you okay? He is dead drunk. He behaved rudely." The prim young man at the head of the table explained, in ways of apology.
Jeong Hyang kept a polite, vacant smile on her face. "It's already happened. There's no use crying over spilt milk."
The young man smiled and nodded, as if she had said the correct thing. Then a sly smile pulled up one corner of his mouth.
"A string snapped. Since the gayageum can't be played, why don't you put it aside and come over here to have a drink with me?" The 'request' was more of a command than a real request. This young man wasn't used to people saying no to him.
"Ah," The young rooster said absentmindedly, as if just remembering. "I'm the head of the pupils, Jang Hyowon."
Jeong Hyang didn't even bother to give a reply to his request or react to the blatant flaunting of his position. She wanted to play, then she wanted to leave. Even the amusement the young painter provided her didn't pursuade her to stay longer than their alotted time with her.
"The music tune is," Jeong Hyang could see the self-assured smile fall from Jang Hyowon's face. "Dong Chon Nion Lo, Han Jang."
Raising her hand gracefully in the air, she stroked down gently on the strings, relishing the sounds that poured from this simple wood and string instrument. Focusing on her music, she could block out everything else, go to a place where she was not a kisaeng who played the gayageum, but just a gayageum player. She could be somewhere other than in a gibang, entertaining men at all hours of the day and night. She could escape.
A break in her music and Jeong Hyang looked up and met the eyes of the young painter, who watched her intently, body facing her. No drink in his hands, he listened attentively, eyes bright with the music as if it were a physical thing and he could see it. When the painter closed his eyes and the stress left his face, she could feel her heart suddenly do a little hop in her chest. And as Jeong Hyang played, she sneaked peeks at him and watched his face being transformed by the softest of smiles that did nothing except make his face even kinder and gentler than it already was. And when the last note quavered in the air, Jeong Hyang could feel the walls she put up to keep out the world, crumble a little bit at his wet eyes and the grateful smile on the painter's face.
Jeong Hyang was frozen in that look and could not do anything except return that gratefulness with a smile of her own. Someone had listened and appreciated her. Those people were far and few in between. And fewer still, those who have been transported with her away from the present, by her music. They had occupied the same space and time and left everyone behind. Their eyes, still locked, maintained that illusion, and there was nothing but that last quivering note in the air.
"What are you all doing?" Jang Hyowon's voice shattered the solitude the painter and Jeong Hyang had been sharing, bringing everyone and everything back into sharp relief. Jeong Hyang was a guem gi again. The painter turned his head away from her to give his attention to the head of the pupils. "Clap your hands!"
The applause was boisterous, and she would have smiled politely to receive it if she hadn't been so shocked. The young painter had wormed his way past her shields. She couldn't help but duck her head when he passed by in front of her, on the way out the door. And couldn't help following his movements out of the corners of her eyes so she caught him turning back to look at her and quickly raised her eyes meet his.
"Your performance was excellent." He said simply. But his words were heartfelt.
Only then did Jeong Hyang smile. She could feel herself flush, just like when she had been a young girl, a novice at the gayageum, and had just received praise for the first time.
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endnote: how you like dem apples?