[EDITING]
When Jeon Jeongguk's sister gets engaged to his friend's brother, almost everything changes.
Desperate to hold onto a fragile friendship, Jeongguk is willing to get himself into sticky situations--even to the point of ruining his sister's...
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Chapter Forty-Three: Calla Lilies
It was Thursday morning and Jeongguk was sitting out on the patio with his mother. The sun was mild but bright, casting a warm glow over everything. The plants all seemed to stand a little taller, drinking in the light. A bee was circling the flowers with a drunk-like trajectory and a little beetle was crawling over the table they were sitting at. His mother was wearing a light dress, beige and brown colours with all kinds of patterns on it, and a sunhat to shade her eyes from the sun.
"Mom," he said. "When did you know you loved dad?"
It took his mother's mind a while to wander back to reality, always over on some distant planet, but when it did, she stirred and looked at him. "When did I know?" she asked.
Jeongguk nodded.
She didn't question why he wanted to know––wasn't the type to do that––but instead, pondered it, observing the sky while she did. "Well," she said. "I knew long before he did, first of all." A slight pause, maybe for effect. "I had almost given up on him when he finally came to his senses."
Jeongguk had heard the story before, in snippets. But now, he asked her to tell it to him in full.
"We met on a Saturday," she said. "It was some party at university ... this was during my pre-med years, and he was there with his friend, who was also studying medicine. I knew his friend a bit and started talking to him, and then he left to go do something and I was left alone with your dad. He charmed me off my toes. He was ambitious and handsome and had big dreams. He was fascinated with Hitchcock, Kim Ki-young ... and you know how much I love horror films ... so we bonded over that. He was making his first big film at the time, and I somehow got swept into his world. Everyone was fascinated by him."
She cleared her throat and adjusted herself on the chair. "I remember I would sometimes sit at his desk studying ... and he would sit in his bed scripting, all the pages spilling everywhere, some on the floor. Sometimes I would look at him. He was so focused. So lost in his work. He never even noticed me watching.
"His film––his career––came to life before my eyes because I spent so much time with him on set. He wanted my opinion on everything––the wardrobe of the cast, the lighting, the camera angle. And it's not like I knew anything about these kinds of things. I was studying to become a podiatrist. Not a film-director. He was the expert. But he valued my opinion. He thought I had an 'eye' for these kinds of things. Maybe he liked that I was always honest with him. I think I might have been the only one brave enough to tell him when I didn't like something. At first ... he got a little angry ... felt a little hurt. He wasn't expecting me to tell him the truth. He was so used to compliments. But when he got over that initial shock, he never finalised anything without asking me my thoughts." She smiled. "I honestly don't know how I made time for all of this, but I'm glad I was a part of it. I'm glad I could see all the hard work that went into the film.
