61. Surrealism

Somin, Mia and Teho

After the exhausting schedule and some light socializing with her classmates, Mia found the dashing photographer chilling in the living room area as he promised. He stood bent near the armchairs, tilting his head at Somin's art book collection as he inspected the one book gap there.

The gorgeous dancer sprawled on the sofa, heated dinner from the fridge resting on her lap. Quietly eating, already half-asleep. The afterschool wine took longer than she'd expected, that be in part because of her nervousness from the morning meeting with the distant boy. The outgoing girl cherished these moments, making herself feel wanted. At least by others when the complicated boy was still strangely absent.

"Ya Somin-ah!" he shouted as loud as ever. "I started to fear you forgot how to read." He played surprised.

"W..at t..e.. h..ll?" Somin peeked from the bathroom brushing her teeth, waiting for him to finally leave.

The boy kept on staying late even though both girls were fainting with tiredness.

Is he just too lazy to go back to his place?

"You have so many books here, but you weren't able to answer my surrealist question..." he mocked her.

"...as I wrote it down, you know, with my own hand." He couldn't let it go, feeling a sting of disappointment.

...

Teho left Somin a handwritten note and put it as a seemingly random bookmark in her surrealism book in the hope she would text him, asking what it meant so he could stage a date-like event to explain, but nothing happened.

The astounding boy started to casually read the heavy book last week during the shared dinners so when the time came it was the best prop to use. He placed the book conveniently onto Somin's bed after they came back from the tree hanging out. Teho accompanied the drunk paintress back home and wrote the note secretly, before leaving while Somin undressed in the bathroom, dirty from the mud.

The talkative artist marked the chapter about Rene Margitte's paintings "The lovers I. and II.", wherein two sets of pictures were captured couples with white sheet hoods over their heads. One time posing for a family-type portrait, the other times kissing.

The note read:

"Do you think he's trying to say, there will always be a distance between the people who are in love, or does he mean to show us how we blind ourselves willingly to its true nature?"

In his own drunken state, the melancholic boy improvised, thinking immediately of this passage he read not so long ago, feeling soft after the wine bonding.

Somin did want to ask him about the strange bookmark but was scared she'll make a fool out of herself or confess her feelings by mistake so she chose the ignoring route.

Maybe he just wanted to have a talk about surrealism, Magritte's work invites itself to be reproduced in photography. Somin excused it.

...

"F...k y..u." She swirled her toothpaste in her mouth, went to the bathroom to spit it out, and repeated sharply,

"Fuck you," she got out as she wiped her mouth and sat in the armchair close to Teho, tilting her head to look up at him.

The amused boy only winked. "Back at you," he said and Somin rolled her eyes.

"Hey guys chill for a second, don't bark, converse." Mia moderated the heated exchange from the sofa, wary about the strange dynamics between them.

Why can't they just get along? The ever-present question bothered her.

"If you are such a surrealist enthusiast why don't you make it palpable in your work?" Somin asked him.

"It's hard for me to wrap my head around its omnidirectional interpretation quality. Every day I could interpret it differently depending on my mood. I prefer viewers to understand my artistic intentions rather than second guess themselves with inaccurate interpretations which will inevitably lead to their bad feelings created by my pieces." He tried to let the context known in this seemingly analyzing banter.

"You can easily create surrealistic photos if you want," Somin argued, trying to guess what he was implying.

"You said you like abstraction before, why don't you make it yourself? It's possible to convey feelings with other -isms just as well in photography as in painting."

Fucking tell me already, what the hell is going on? Somin shifted in her seat.

"Fair point, I do love abstraction, but I, as an artist, prefer to frame my photos in a way that they seem dressed as one of the -isms, yet staying clear enough that you'll eventually see its true nature. I don't warp the ability to recognize the captured object. I only ask the viewer to give the art itself a fair share of time to realize the satisfying truth."

"So you just like to dress up the simple truth as a lie and leave it in plain sight." Somin snickered.

"If by lie you meant the wrongly interpreted intense first impression then yes," Teho clarified. "If you walk by you'd say it's abstract, if you stay and inspect you'll see through it."

"But eventually it is just a different perspective of rendering out the truth," she continued.

"Correct," he said.

"Basically you are just saying, it's not that deep," Somin concluded by mocking him and he gave her a snarky smile.

"I'm going to sleep happy that we found out that Teho's work isn't that deep," Mia reported, tired from this never-ending art talk she couldn't understand.

Yet between their seemingly empty words, the face of the silent and ominous boy appeared.

"Hey, my nails match your hands!"

Mia recalled her own words while noticing his intense beer-clouded eyes. She stood up and left being tired as ever, dinner was eaten and the feeling of emptiness with distance to Teho lingered.

The silence set in until Mia's door didn't make the soft closing sound.

...

"I haven't seen any of your abstract works yet," Somin half-whispered, realizing she only ever saw his semestral exhibition of more expressionistic nature.

"You haven't seen all of me..." he whispered back.

"...yet." Teho left it hanging again, looking for understanding in her light eyes.

Somin panicked in the tense atmosphere so she quickly broke the silence.

"I think Magritte's saying that people aren't willing to open up and speak their truth to their partners so they just end up living in a happy lie which is more comfortable than facing the messy reality of their miserable lives," the confused girl answered and he nodded.

Like me and Cholsu. Is he trying to make me open up about it? Somin confusedly thought.

She didn't even give me a chance to try. The boy sadly realized.

He really wanted to have a conversation about surrealism. Somin concluded.

...

😳 Author's corner 😊

💕Is it hard for you to confess love?💕

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