VIP Early Access
Eksklusif untuk member VIP
Password Protected
Chapter ini dikunci dengan kode khusus
Chapter 67: The Sea Where the Sun Sets, the Sea Where the Sun Rises (3)
TL: Enuma ID
The sea. The sky.
And the sun.
This was what Lee Jun had seen.
A sky staining red as the sun was swallowed by the sea.
Ẽ.num̄а̊..ï d
A sea shining gold. And then pitch darkness.
The sea the sun had gone from.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
Lee Jun painted that lonely sea.
The sun was already gone. It had sunk below the horizon.
Lee Jun had watched the whole process. Touching the horizon, becoming a half-circle, thinning to a single thread, and finally vanishing.
There was no sun on the canvas.
W е̌ ḃ ñ о̊ v е ĺ E̊ňū.m̊а.
What was there was everything the sun had left behind.
The afterglow of light. The afterimage on the water. The color bleeding across the sky.
The mark of something that had been there and then was gone.
The canvas was a 20-ho, the larger of the two the hotel had provided.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
The painting was already well underway.
The outline of the sky had taken shape on the canvas. He'd drawn the horizon, too.
Ё ń ũ m̀ӑ. і́ d̃
A sky bleeding from orange to red, red to purple, filled the upper part of the canvas.
On the sea's side, a deep navy was just beginning to spread.
He was mixing Burnt Umber into the Ultramarine and pushing it below the horizon with a broad brush.
A dark sea. Near the horizon, light lingered and it was bright. The farther out, the darker the sea grew.
A sound came from behind him.
Tap, tap. A knock.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
Aunt went to the door. She said something in a low voice.
The sound of wheels rolling in. The sound of a plate being set down.
The presence of a stranger.
It reached Lee Jun's ears.
The brush paused, just barely.
His concentration was starting to slip.
Е nū m а̃
[Don't mind it.]
The Shadow spoke. Firmly.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
[Paint the sea you've called up before it fades. If your concentration breaks, the memory blurs with it. Whatever's going on behind you is nothing you need to worry about. Just look at the canvas.]
Lee Jun nodded.
He didn't look back. He fixed his eyes on the canvas.
The brush moved again.
Е n u_m а̄.і̆ d̈
He laid down the navy. Downward from the horizon.
Near the horizon it was bright, catching the light of the sky.
An orange glow was reflecting off the surface of the water. The pillar of light he'd seen earlier was etched into his eyes.
He mixed Cadmium Yellow and Cadmium Red. He laid the orange glow over the navy sea.
Baca cerita ini hanya di situs resmi Enuma.id!
Light reaching toward him from the place where the sun had sunk.
He drew short, broken horizontal strokes.
W_ѐb̂ n̆ò v.е̃l̈ Е ńüm̈ а_
They were ripples. Light was breaking across them.
[Ripples don't run in one direction. Even when the water looks calm, there's a fine grain to it.]
He shifted the direction of the brush little by little.
Horizontal. A slight diagonal. Horizontal again.
The pattern of the shattering light was no longer monotonous.
All at once the sea at Busan came to mind.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
The ripples of the Busan sea were rough. There were waves. They rushed in and pulled back out.
Here it was calm. There were no waves.
The same sea, and yet the grain of it was different.
That difference settled into his hand.
Remembering the Busan sea, he paints a different one.
The brush trembled faintly.
Ёn ů m_â .î d̊
The tremor went into the ripples. A calm sea, and yet the ripples were somehow uneasy.
He hadn't painted it on purpose. It was Lee Jun's unconscious, his hand painting on its own.
Baca cerita ini hanya di situs resmi Enuma.id!
Just then, something entered his mouth.
It was bread. Soft bread.
Something was tucked inside it. A sandwich.
He chewed. He swallowed. He could taste it.
Ё ň ù mа̄
He didn't turn his head. His gaze stayed on the canvas.
Something came into his mouth again.
This time it was meat. Tonkatsu. A crisp texture. The one he'd eaten earlier in the day.
He chewed. He swallowed.
Baca cerita ini hanya di situs resmi Enuma.id!
"Jun. Eat slowly."
He heard Aunt's voice.
Е̄ n_ú m̌ a .і̂d
For some reason it sounded far away.
He nodded. Even as he nodded, the brush kept moving.
[You're doing well. Keep going.]
Maybe he'd been hungry. Only once he ate did he realize he had been.
But painting was more urgent than eating.
The tidal flat.
Baca cerita ini hanya di situs resmi Enuma.id!
He picked up the palette knife.
He mixed a touch of Ultramarine Blue into Burnt Umber. A dark brown.
With the knife he laid the paint on thick. Impasto.
The tidal flat wasn't flat. It was uneven.
There were patterns the receding water had left behind.
He rendered that texture through the thickness of the paint.
Еnǔ m̂а . і́d
Again he scooped paint with the knife and set it on the canvas. He pressed and pushed.
The surface of the tidal flat turned rough.
Baca cerita ini hanya di situs resmi Enuma.id!
[Try varying the thickness. Thin where the water's still standing, thick where it's dry.]
He changed the angle of the knife.
Where there were puddles he laid the paint thin. Smooth.
Where the flat was exposed he laid it thick. Rough.
Ӗ n̈ ům̂ а̀
Smooth patches and rough patches came in turns.
Water and mud. Light and shadow.
The difference in thickness was what told them apart.
He felt another presence behind him.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
This time it was different from before. Someone who wasn't Aunt had come in.
Two sets of footsteps. Careful footsteps. They were holding their breath.
É n u mа . іd̊
He paid it no mind. Just as the Shadow had told him.
It didn't matter who was standing behind him. Whether they stood there or filmed him, it didn't matter.
All Lee Jun had to do was look at the canvas.
The puddles.
This was the heart of it.
He switched to a small brush. The finest one.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
The puddles on the tidal flat. Each one was a little mirror.
They reflected the sky. The orange and red and purple.
He painted one puddle.
Over the thinly laid tidal-flat color he set orange. Small. Very small.
One of them shone.
Next. Another one.
Е̇n ūṁа̌ .і d̃
A little way off. This time an orange with a faint touch of red mixed in.
Each was in a different spot. Each was a different size. The color of each was subtly different.
Baca cerita ini hanya di situs resmi Enuma.id!
Exactly as he'd seen them. One by one, he set out the puddles from his memory.
The aquarium at the Busan sashimi restaurant came to mind.
The aquarium had been like this too. Light held inside a small box.
In the mornings the sunlight would pass through the aquarium and cast blue light on the wall.
Еṅ ũm̆a. id
Here, the puddles on the tidal flat were the aquarium.
Little vessels holding light.
He loaded Cadmium Yellow onto the brush. He put light into one of the puddles.
It was bright. Brighter than all the rest.
Baca cerita ini hanya di situs resmi Enuma.id!
That one was the aquarium.
An aquarium only Lee Jun knew.
Ë n̂ ům а .ìd̄
Anyone looking at this painting would just see a puddle.
But to Lee Jun it was the aquarium at the Busan sashimi restaurant.
That feeling traveled down the brush and into the painting.
From behind came the sound of something being set down.
It seemed someone else had come.
A moment later he heard Aunt's voice. Almost a whisper.
Baca cerita ini hanya di situs resmi Enuma.id!
"What are these?"
"Snacks and drinks. Our hotel prepared them so Lee Jun-gun can have something to eat while he paints."
"Oh...... thank you."
The voices faded. The door closed.
Lee Jun wasn't listening. No, it reached his ears, but the meaning never made it into his head.
For Lee Jun there was only the sound of the brush grazing the canvas.
Еn̂u mа
Something entered his mouth again.
It was sweet. Chocolate.
Baca cerita ini hanya di situs resmi Enuma.id!
He chewed. He swallowed.
He drank water too. A straw came to his lips.
Still his eyes never left the canvas.
A familiar smell reached him.
Ẃ еb́n̈о̀ v е̃ĺ Е̌n̄ům̊ ӓ
Meat. Bread. A patty.
A burger. The smell of McKing Burger.
Aunt slipped a small cut piece into his mouth.
He chewed. It was good. He swallowed.
Baca cerita ini hanya di situs resmi Enuma.id!
Even now his hand didn't stop.
The last of it.
W̃ĕb̃ ṅ o v ël. E n̂um̂а
The place where the sun had vanished.
Just above the horizon. The brightest spot. The place where the light had lingered longest of all.
Lee Jun looked at the paint left on his palette.
Cadmium Yellow. Cadmium Red. White.
He mixed the three. A pale orange.
No, not orange. Closer to apricot. A warm color.
Baca cerita ini hanya di situs resmi Enuma.id!
It was the color of the sun rising over the Busan sea in the morning.
When the sun had just cleared the horizon, the sky had been this color.
Lee Jun laid that color above the horizon. In a thin line.
Into the place where the sun had set, he put the color of the sun rising.
It was a West Sea sunset, and yet an East Sea sunrise had been painted above the horizon.
It wasn't intentional.
Е n̈ um_ӓ . і̂ d̂
He had simply put in a color from memory.
Instead of the intense sunset that had caught his eye for a single moment, it was the sunrise he'd watched his whole life that had stayed in Lee Jun's memory.
Baca cerita ini hanya di situs resmi Enuma.id!
And that was what carried over into the painting.
The morning color of his hometown had come out of his fingertips all on its own.
[.......]
The Shadow watched the painting in silence.
Ẇ e b n̄ о vӗl_ È n̄um̃а
A sunrise painting, made from watching a sunset.
The scene Lee Jun had just seen with his own eyes and the scene lodged deep in his memory had blended together into a single painting.
[...So this is homesickness.]
The Shadow murmured softly.
Baca cerita ini hanya di situs resmi Enuma.id!
This painting was the very homesickness Lee Jun felt.
He had seen a beautiful West Sea sunset. He'd seen it and moved it onto the canvas.
Е n̄ ŭm̊ӓ
But what had settled in his mind was the sea of his hometown. That memory had painted itself, naturally, into the picture.
[A beautiful painting....]
Someone might call this painting wrong.
A sunset and a sunrise have different light. To put the light of both into a single painting at once, they'd say, is a mistake.
But for the Shadow it was different.
It was a painting that called to mind a hometown he had long forgotten.
Baca cerita ini hanya di situs resmi Enuma.id!
A hometown he had stubbornly refused to return to, even as he suffered bottomless poverty, even as he clawed at his aching chest.
He had sworn he'd sooner die than crawl back in misery. If he went back, it would be after he'd made it, in glory.
But that dream had guttered out, never to be realized.
[......Era già l'ora che volge il disio ai navicanti e 'ntenerisce il core.......]
A poem Dante had written seven hundred years ago.
A verse he had recited countless times, drunk, in a cheap Paris garret.
Е̌ n ú m ä
[The hour the sun goes down. The hour when longing wells up in the hearts of seafarers.]
Back then he hadn't understood.
Baca cerita ini hanya di situs resmi Enuma.id!
Why this verse brought him to tears.
He'd thought the sea of his hometown came to mind because of the drink.
[The hour when the heart melts, remembering the day one bade farewell to those they loved.]
It wasn't that.
W̌ е b̃nо̀ v́ е̌ l̂ En̊ũ mа
When the sun set, longing came.
To anyone.
Seafarers, wanderers, a poet from seven hundred years ago, a penniless painter in Paris a hundred years ago.
And a six-year-old child, too.
Baca cerita ini hanya di situs resmi Enuma.id!
[The hour when a bell tolling from far away seems to grieve the dying day, and pierces the wanderer's heart with love.......]
Lee Jun set down his brush.
Ѐ n̈ü mа .і̌ d̊
He had no idea how many hours had passed.
The moment he let go of the brush, exhaustion crashed over him all at once.
His legs shook. His arms were heavy. His back ached.
Plop.
Lee Jun sank to the floor in front of the easel.
And for the first time, he looked around.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
The room had changed.
Food was piled on the table beside the easel.
Cut-up tonkatsu. Mini sandwiches, half gone.
A McKing Burger box. Bags of snacks. Chocolate.
Water bottles. Juice. And two banana milks.
The camera he'd seen at the award ceremony stood set up behind him, too.
Ė ńûm̊ а̃
What is all this?
He'd eaten, sure. He remembers something going into his mouth.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
But he has no idea what it was.
Aunt came over.
She crouched down and peered into Lee Jun's face.
Her eyes were red.
Еn̊ù m̂ ã
Aunt must have been crying again.
"Jun. All done?"
"Mm."
His voice came out cracked. His throat was dry.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
Aunt picked up a banana milk.
She poked the straw in for him. She brought it to Lee Jun's mouth.
Enumă . і d
Slurp, slurp.
Sweet.
Cool.
His favorite taste.
One sip. Two sips. Three sips.
Drinking loosened his throat. It felt like strength was returning to his body.
Baca cerita ini hanya di situs resmi Enuma.id!
His legs were still shaking.
But it was fine. It was a good kind of shaking.
It was the sense of accomplishment that could only be felt after finishing a painting.
Sucking on the banana milk, Lee Jun looked up at the canvas.
The angle of looking up from where he sat on the floor.
There was the sea.
Еń ú_m̌a
A sea after sunset. A sky of red and purple.
A navy sea. A pillar of light. Uneasy ripples.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
A rough tidal flat. Smooth puddles. Each one held light inside it.
And above the horizon.
A thin apricot light remained.
The light left behind where the sun had gone.
W̆ е̇ b̊ n̆ ȯ vе̂ľ Е̂ ṅ uḿа̌
A sunrise within a sunset.
Lee Jun nodded.
It meant he was pleased with the finished painting.
Lee Jun looked at the painting, slurping away at the banana milk.
Baca cerita ini hanya di situs resmi Enuma.id!
Aunt sat down beside him. Together with Lee Jun she looked up at the painting.
"It's a beautiful painting......."
Е ń ǔ m̂ á .і d
Aunt choked up again.
"It's such a pretty painting...... so why is it this lonely? Hm? Jun."
And then she pulled her nephew, sitting beside her, into a tight hug.
Lee Jun finished the rest of his banana milk without a word.
The straw let out a gurgle.
"Auntie."
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
"Hm...?"
"Can I have some tonkatsu?"
"Of course you can."
Aunt brought over the plate of tonkatsu.
She speared a piece with a fork and slipped it into the mouth of Lee Jun, still slumped on the floor.
The tonkatsu had gone cold, but it was good.
Е́ ǹ û m̊а
Aunt fed him the tonkatsu, tears dripping down her face.
*****
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
For more chapters, you can check out my Patreon here --> https://www.patreon.com/enumaid
Konten Bab Belum Tersedia
Bab ini belum memiliki konten teks atau sedang dalam proses penyuntingan.
