#09. Before Dying, Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday And

[Wednesday]

“The sky feels strange.”

A man sitting alone on a bench along the trail senses a subtle unfamiliarity in the air.

Thinking it might simply be because there is no fine dust today, he tilts his head upward and inhales deeply, spreading his nostrils wide as though the breath might reach even the place where his appendix used to be.

The moment odor molecules bind to the olfactory receptor cells deep inside his nose, chemical signals transform into electrical impulses and pass through the tiny openings of the skull toward the brain.

It feels richer than the expensive diffuser he bought two months ago, yet somehow it does not sting his nose.

He feels as though even his heart — sticky like tar, impossible to define like dark matter — could be healed by a scent like this.

Nature always embraces him.

Perhaps only nature does.

Within the new city divided into rigid blocks as though trying to separate right from wrong,

he stares at an undeveloped field of reeds for nearly twenty minutes.

Without a camera, he frames compositions with his eyes alone, but none of the arrangements satisfy him.

It is not a beautifully designed park.

Nor is it a completely abandoned place.

Yet he always feels at ease in spaces like this.

He wonders if it resembles the strange calm one feels after wandering through a crowded department store and suddenly stepping into a silent empty space where no one else exists.

Places that were too organized,

and places that were too abandoned,

both failed to hold him for very long.

Born and raised in Seoul, he once loved the city as a child.

Especially the streets of Mok-dong, where trees stood thick between massive apartment complexes.

But as time passed, the overflowing people and buildings gradually began to suffocate him.

At the same time, the countryside — where everything felt frozen in place — did not feel like somewhere he belonged either.

Perhaps an hour had passed.

He walks home along an awkward walking trail lined with pine trees.

 

 

 

[Thursday]

Water boils inside a white Xiaomi electric kettle.

He listens to the sound of boiling water as though it were a countdown while quickly pouring G7 coffee powder into a cup.

Without wasting a single movement, he opens the refrigerator and places milk beside the cup.

Judging from the sound, he senses there are still a few seconds left.

After glancing at the coffee stains around the mouth of the bright white kettle, he looks out the window.

He thinks to himself that moving into a high-rise with a good view had been the right decision.

With a sharp “tick,” the water finishes boiling.

He pours in only a small amount of water and stirs the coffee without using a spoon, relying solely on the snap of his wrist.

The thing he cares about most is the ratio between water and milk.

He never uses measuring tools.

To him, finding the perfect balance through pure instinct is itself a kind of amusement.

Sipping the coffee, he feels today’s mixture resembles the previous one closely enough.

Good enough, he thinks.

Small amounts of coffee slide slowly across his tongue and down his throat.

 

 

 

[Friday]

Just as he no longer possesses an organ called the appendix after surgery,

he no longer possesses a camera either.

For a brief moment he recalls the tactile sensation of the Nikon D850 once praised as a masterpiece, along with the medium-format film camera Mamiya 7-II.

His index finger twitches twice in the air while his left hand unconsciously forms the familiar grip posture.

Lowering his gaze, he stares at the tripod resting beside the computer.

It does not compare to the Leofoto tripod he once used, yet the carbon texture and locking mechanism still satisfy him somehow.

Perhaps this one will remain by his side until the very end, he thinks.

Wondering whether it would someday become an object abandoned by its owner, he leaves the thought unfinished and turns his eyes toward the monitor.

There are still countless photographs left unseen by the world.

A perfectionist by nature, he has recently begun sensing something changing within himself.

His works once needed to be multilayered, flawless, and structurally precise enough to tolerate not even the slightest error.

In other words, he always needed to construct a blueprint beforehand before creating anything.

That was why there had always been tension in his work.

Perhaps it came from an obsession with needing to create something great.

Yet lately, for some reason, he no longer seems to care about imperfection or being misunderstood.

To have his work mocked or mistaken for something entirely different had once felt to him like having a finger severed from his body.

Without understanding exactly what had changed him,

the only thing he truly feels now is that, at some point, the work itself began to feel alive.

Like a living organism with its own homeostasis.

Even without constant feeding,

even without endless worry,

living things continue sustaining themselves simply because they possess life.

Suddenly, he recalls an interview with director Hong Sang-soo.

“The truth is, I know absolutely nothing about anything.”
“Rather than pursuing some truth, I suppose I simply dance with whatever has been given to me.”
“If you can truly concentrate on what has been given to you, even the smallest fragment can expand into something enormous.”
“And then, suddenly, you feel a profound sense of satisfaction.”

For some reason, he feels lighter.

He glances at the red clock on his desk and begins preparing to leave.

Perhaps because the shoes are new, his steps feel strangely light

as he leaves home carrying an invisible smile.

 

 

 

[Saturday]

That day, he wanted to sit at the café and quietly admire the scenery of Bukhansan.

He wondered whether it might feel like traveling somewhere far away without actually leaving the city.

Arriving there, he searches for a seat while feeling the warm sunlight and gentle breeze.

The child, delighted by the unfamiliar place, repeatedly remarks on how incredible the weather is, speaking in an oddly adult-like tone while agreeing with him.

While his wife searches for seats, he and the child begin playing a joking game, moving their hands as though fencing.

The rules are simple:
whoever pokes the other’s stomach ten times first wins.

As the score remains close, perhaps sensing danger,

the child picks up a branch and loudly declares that anyone struck by this magic staff becomes unable to move.

After the game ends in the child’s victory, the family settles at the table and drinks signature coffee topped with walnuts and strawberry lattes.

Finishing the strawberry latte almost instantly, the child announces that new strength has awakened and challenges him to arm wrestling.

Usually he only uses a single index finger while the child uses both hands, so it is never difficult.

But that day feels different.

Somewhere along the way, the child had grown stronger.

“Maybe turning one year older really does make a difference,” he thinks, pretending to lose.

After several more rounds, the child becomes unstoppable with confidence.

Soon the child challenges the mother as well.

Laughing, she says she will not go easy and grabs the child’s hand.

At the same moment, he notices how unstable the child’s posture looks.

Still, assuming no one would wrestle seriously against a child, he briefly turns toward the mountains outside.

Perhaps ten seconds pass.

Suddenly the child screams.

He looks at the child’s face.

It is not the expression of someone crying because they lost.

It looks like actual pain.

A curse slips from his mouth instinctively.

His wife frowns at him as though his reaction is absurd.

To him, she had always been like this.

Not malicious, yet capable of hurting others while remaining unable to objectively see her own actions.

Feeling that explaining anything would neither make her understand nor justify the energy required, he simply says it is time to head to Starfield.

While driving there, he suddenly remembers himself yelling at the child before,

the moment dirty fingers had accidentally slipped into a strawberry latte,

making the child nearly cry.

 

 

 

[Afterward]

His parents sit inside the funeral hall, appearing swallowed by grief.

His final request — not to hold a funeral at all — was ultimately ignored.

At some point, they recall the information secured by the police and begin to feel that their son had been someone fundamentally impossible to understand.

Sorrow, anger, confusion —
all of it remains tangled together.

His younger sister enters the restroom inside the funeral hall building and absentmindedly opens YouTube, where she encounters news about him.

Unable to bear watching the video itself, she stops it and begins reading the comments instead.

“If you had the courage to die, you should’ve used it to live.”
“Irresponsible piece of trash…”
“If you’re gonna die, at least go die somewhere in the mountains!”

After reading several comments, she hurriedly scrolls downward.

Further below, she notices another comment:

“Checked out this guy’s site and turns out he had artist syndrome lol”

She quickly searches for the site.

Inside the closed restroom, time itself seems to collapse inward like a black hole.

How many minutes pass?

Ending on the line:

“Even today, the father is the last to put down his spoon.” from one of his writings,

she exits the restroom.

Though she had never been particularly close with her brother, she feels an inexplicable tightness in her chest.

Stepping outside the building, she stares at the sky for a while.

For some reason, the sky feels strange.

Having not eaten for hours, she returns inside the funeral hall and begins eating yukgaejang.

Something — perhaps beef, perhaps not — presses strangely between her teeth.

The texture feels oddly unfamiliar, unlike anything usually found in yukgaejang.

Suddenly losing her appetite, she quietly sets down her spoon and looks toward her father seated across from her.

Even that day,

her father was the last to put down his spoon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

→ Last Family Photograph

마지막 가족사진 (Last Family Photograph)