After Min-Jun left Ji-Won by himself, the house seemed eerily quiet and empty.
Ji-Won remained rooted to the spot for a few seconds, afraid to move or even breathe. Then, he realized just how embarrassing it was to just stand in the middle of an empty room like a silent pole.
Due to his withdrawn personality, Ji-Won wasn't used to making visits to friends' homes. He also didn't feel very comfortable with entering other people's houses, regardless of whether he went alone for the visit or accompanied by someone else.
After racking his brain for a while, thinking of what he could do to shake off the awkward feeling he was having, Ji-Won ultimately began pacing around the room. As it happened, his eyes soon found interesting things to see.
The living room furniture consisted of a couple of low cabinets, a short table and a sofa.
The cabinets were placed on either side of a TV. This entire ensemble occupied an entire wall of the room. On the opposite side from the TV was the large sofa. The short table was placed in front of the sofa and was currently filled with drawing sketches, pencils and erasers.
Seeing those objects scattered over the table, Ji-Won suddenly had a strange thought.
'Su-Jin did say that she found an artist who could be the substitute for the marketing department's graphic designer. Could she have meant… her boyfriend? Is he the one who drew all these?'
As he kept pondering over the matter, Ji-Won subconsciously stretched out a hand towards the sketches. He picked one up and glanced at it curiously.
As it happened, the sheet Ji-Won chose contained a pencil drawing of two people, a woman and a man, kissing passionately in front of an artesian fountain. Even though it was just a little more than an outline, and there was still a long way until the drawing could be said to be finished, one could still see how talented the artist was.
The lines that detailed the characters' features were strikingly beautiful. Both their hair and clothes were drawn realistically, the fine details of their bodies already starting to become visible under the artist's talented hand.
Ji-Won gazed down at the drawing with a complicated feeling. On one hand he knew they would be lucky to get to work with such a skillful person for their project. But on the other hand, his heart protested against that person being Su-Jin's boyfriend.
Nevertheless, it wasn't for him to approve or reject an employee, even a temporary one, based on personal considerations.
Since Ji-Won was too quick to assess Min-Jun as being the creator of those sketches, and because Su-Jin herself hadn't told her boss whether the artist she had found was a man or a woman, yet another misunderstanding was born.
Ji-Won placed the drawing back on the table and turned towards the two cabinets on the opposite side of the room. They were both shorter than modern looking cabinets, made of dark wood and with an interesting design. Looking at their appearance, they seemed to be an interesting mixture between the traditional style and a more modern looking one.
The top surface of both cabinets was entirely filled with photographs. At a first glance, they all looked like family pictures.
Unable to keep his curiosity in check, Ji-Won strode towards the left-side cabinet.
The first picture he saw was of a little girl standing next to a young woman. The latter, despite looking quite beautiful, had a somewhat showy appearance. She was wearing a bright blue dress, decorated with silver feather patterns scattered all over her body.
The pattern changed around the bottom hem, where it transformed from feathers to small wisps of clouds. When she walked, she must have seemed to float on fluffy clouds instead of stepping on the ground.
Both the woman's wrists were adorned with silver bands and an eye-catching silver necklace hung around her slender neck. These ornaments were all stylish and delicate. Instead of appearing gaudy, they highlighted the woman's grace and elegance.
Looking at the exquisite dress, that seemed to have been designed by a professional, and taking into account the expensive jewelry, Ji-Won instantly understood that this woman wasn't a simple person.
While her clothes looked out of the ordinary, due to their coloring and striking pattern, her face had the grace one usually sees in people who work with artists.
In heavy contrast with this dreamy image, though, the woman's dark hair was pulled up in a tight bun, with no strands astray. That, together with her square, rimless glasses, gave her the appearance of a headmistress at a school rather than an artistic leader.
Ji-Won made all the conjectures he could possibly make regarding the woman's occupation, but he couldn't figure out what was her relation to Su-Jin.
There was no resemblance between the two people, so she couldn't be Su-Jin's mother. Besides, the woman in the picture already held a little girl by the hand. The child clearly wasn't Su-Jin, for the little one resembled the woman next to her way too much. Looking at them was like looking at two versions of the same person. One was younger, around nice or ten years old, while the other one was in her late twenties.
There was something distinctly familiar about the two people's faces. If he merged the younger version with the older one, Ji-Won could almost see the face of someone he just met the other night.
That time at the public bathhouse Ji-Won had been too flustered to pay attention to the third person that accompanied Su-Jin. But if he thought about it carefully, that young woman did seem to look like this other person from the picture.
'Could this woman be Su-Jin's aunt? Then, does that mean the girl I met last night was Su-Jin's cousin?' Ji-Won hazarded another guess.
After glancing at the picture several more times, to the point where he could probably recognize the woman if she were to pass him by on the street, Ji-Won finally moved onto the next photograph.