New Normal - Chapter 2

Giving in to her boss’s pressure and the injustice that runs deep in this society.

Having to go on a work trip she never planned for.

The fact that the day she had to leave turned out to be the hottest heatwave ever recorded.

[It reminds me — when the red persimmons ripen, I think of my mother.]

Even the fact that she ended up in this rattling old taxi was just the same.

“When the red persimmons ripen, I think of my mother who fed me her br3asts instead of a lullaby—!”

The humming taxi driver’s hair was white as snow, and the taxi seemed just as old.

The ride rattled noisily, the stale smell of cigarettes clung to every corner, and the warm air leaking from the A/C only made her nausea worse.

To top it off, the speakers were blasting old-style trot music so loud it made her ears itch.

In the back seat, Jisoo stared out the window with a gloomy face.

The scenery was as old and dull as the song playing — endless rows of shabby slate-roof buildings, plastic greenhouses, and rice fields. Low hills in the distance.

Then, through the untinted window, a sudden ray of sunlight came in.

She lowered her head against the glare and spotted a clump of dust in the corner.

”…….”

It looked so old that it had piled up into little balls rolling around. Just seeing it made her throat feel scratchy, so she cracked the window to get some air.

But instead of fresh air, a wave of hot wind and a horrible smell rushed in like it had been waiting for her.

…This is driving me crazy.

Frowning hard, Jisoo let out an annoyed sigh and rolled the window back up.

Feeling more and more on edge, Jisoo thought it might be better to block out at least one of her senses. So she leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes.

As she tried to focus on the singer’s drawn-out notes, suddenly the whining voice of Manager Yoo Inhye — whose nasal allergy was always bad — echoed in her ears.

“Is Mr. Kang Susan just any ordinary person?”

Right. Is he just any ordinary person?

You’d have to fly fourteen hours to visit him in his Paris studio, or spend almost three hours one way by train and taxi to reach his Gangcheon studio. Either way, it took a lot to meet him.

Painter Kang Susan was a master who had joined Korea’s Art Informel movement as its youngest member back in the 60s. He was now an elder statesman of the art world, decorated with a national cultural medal.

After showing his work at the avant-garde exhibition Salon de Mai, he spent decades on the international stage as a pioneer. For over half a century, he kept working without pause, setting an example for younger artists.

But just as famous as his impressive career was his prickly personality, harsh words, and uncooperative attitude. Even though he avoided the media as much as possible, everyone in the art world knew about his temper.

There was even a legendary story about how he once threw soybean paste in the face of an art critic — now deceased — with whom he didn’t get along.

He’d always lived by his own rules, and after losing his lifelong wife, people said it was nearly impossible for even the best museum curators to handle him.

And now, Jisoo was the one sent to deal with him alone. She’d basically been picked for the job everyone else avoided — like a scout, the first sacrifice… or cannon fodder.

“Sigh.”

Her uneasy mind wouldn’t settle down at all. She let out another long sigh, and the taxi driver’s hand, which had been drumming on the wheel in time with the music, came to a stop.

“Aigoo… you’ll sink the ground with all that sighing. The ground’s gonna sink, miss*.”

TL/N: *Korean idiom, means ‘you’re sighing a lot, you must be really worried or stressed.’

Haha.

Instead of answering, she just let out a half-hearted laugh. Worried he might keep talking, she pretended to yawn, but then his curious voice poked at her again.

“Miss, are your legs okay? I saw you limping a bit earlier.”

Through the rearview mirror, her eyes met the driver’s, hidden behind sunglasses. Jisoo looked down at the brace on her right ankle.

She had badly sprained her ankle — surprisingly, it had happened right after she tore up the talisman the shaman gave her.

At first, she really had tried to trust that so-called amazing shaman. But once he started talking about the big one, she couldn’t hide how absurd it all felt. And the solution he offered seemed even more ridiculous.

“So listen, Ms. Shin Jisoo. When the helper shows up, you must hold onto him. No matter what you have to do, you need to make that energy yours. Absorb it. That’s the only way you’ll survive. Got it?”

“Wait a minute. Sir, you’ve been talking about… manhood this whole time… Are you saying the big one is what I think it is?”

Jisoo still clearly remembered Seok Doryeong’s face when she asked him that.

He, who’d been rattling on like he was possessed the whole time, suddenly lost his words for a second — then hurried to add more.

It could be a man part, he said, or it could be something not physical at all — but either way, it would carry precious, powerful energy.

“What I mean is! It’s something strong enough to change your whole flow of luck. No matter what it takes, you have to make it yours. Absorb that energy. All of it! Got it? Remember this. And most important — you need to have the eye to recognize the helper when they appear. If you let them slip by, the chance is gone. Understand?”

It was truly a ridiculous reading.

Keep the helper close and suck up all that energy? The more she thought about it, the more absurd it felt. So Jisoo decided to ignore Seok Doryeong’s words, tore up the talisman, and tossed the pieces into the trash without a second thought.

And the moment she turned around…

“I fell down the stairs.”

At her flat answer, the taxi driver’s eyes gleamed with interest.

“Did someone push you?”

”…No. I just slipped while going down.”

“Aigoo, please be careful. You’re not some newborn calf — how can a young person be so weak?”

At the driver’s tongue-clicking scold, Jisoo just gave him a faint smile.

It was hard to feel fully confident. She had hurt her leg right after tearing up that talisman. And now, barely two weeks later, here she was, suddenly sent on an unplanned business trip.

Seeing how things were turning out, she couldn’t help but feel like that grim prediction was slowly becoming reality.

Something about it kept nagging at her, but she kept trying to brush it off as overthinking.

The only way to block bad luck is to find the big one and hold onto it… Honestly, it still sounded ridiculous.

The same old views outside the window passed by, and then came a winding, twisting road. The studio was deep in the mountains, and even getting into the village wasn’t easy.

Because of that, the driver sped up and drove rough.

Thud.

While the driver, channeling his inner Na Hoon-a*, hummed along with the song, the car jerked again over a bump. Every jolt of the rough road hit Jisoo’s body directly, making her feel carsick.

TL/N: *Korean famous trot singer.

With her face pale, swaying weakly, she grabbed the handle above the door with one hand and clutched her camera — worth more than her yearly salary — tightly with the other.

[Ah! This harsh world pushes me back, makes me ache for love! Ah—ahhh!]

Right as the driver’s improvised singing hit its peak, the car’s bumping reached its worst too.

As the speeding taxi slammed into a bigger bump, Jisoo’s body lifted off her seat for a moment — her short scream got buried under the dull, cracking sound that followed.

The startled driver finally turned back to look at her.

“Whoa! You scared me! What was that? Sounded like a watermelon just cracked… goodness…”

She could already tell there’d be a bruise on the top of her head for sure. She wiped away the tears that had welled up, and through the rearview mirror, she saw the driver giving her an awkward smile.

“Miss, did you bust a hole in the roof or what?”

Jisoo forced a smile through gritted teeth.

“Luckily, the ceiling’s still fine…”

The bruise on her head was aching badly.

***

A few days ago, at the museum’s curation office.

“You want me to do the inspection?”

Jisoo’s eyes widened as she whispered. But even though she spoke softly, it was loud enough for the others in the quiet office to hear.

“Mr. Kang thinks he already handed everything over to Ms. Saeyeon. We even sent out the official notice last week.”

“Director’s orders.”

”…The director?”

Manager Yoo Inhye, tapping her pen on the desk, let out an annoyed sigh.

“Ms. Shin. Saeyeon just finished her probation, remember? What if she makes a mistake? Do you think Mr. Kang Soosan is just some regular guy? We only have a few of his works in this museum, you know. Anyway, it’s not even the first inspection — it’s the second one. Just check the condition of the pieces and come back. It’s not that hard, right?”

“Manager, but I have that meeting about the LACMA overseas touring exhibit transport at that time…”

“No, Saeyeon will be going to that instead.”

“Ms. Saeyeon?”

“Yeah. The chief curator said it’d be better for Mr. Choi to handle that in the long run, especially for networking on that side… so, well, that’s what he said.”

Inhye trailed off, avoiding Jisoo’s eyes. Jisoo felt her shoulders shrink. Her eyes drifted over to Saeyeon’s desk. She could see Saeyeon quietly ducking her head under the partition.

“Saeyeon, I heard your family’s place is a three-story detached house in Cheongun-dong? That’s close to our museum.”

“It’s actually five floors because there are two basement levels too. But it’s an old building from the 60s, so the inside is really dated. They’re redoing the whole interior, so I can’t move back in for another two months.”

“Aren’t you teaching at D University next semester too? Was it a special advanced program or something? How are you going to travel during the semester? Didn’t you say you’re going to the Maldives?”

“It’s D University in name only — it’s not a real undergrad or grad course. It’s just a continuing education class for networking. If I have to, I’ll just cancel a class or two.”

Ha ha, ho ho.

Thinking back to that casual chat made Jisoo’s forehead tighten. She forced her expression to stay calm and turned her head back, just as Manager Inhye added in a coaxing voice:

“Jisoo, you know how it is. It’s Kang Susan we’re talking about — this isn’t the time to quibble over whose work is whose. You’re not an amateur…. And if you think about it, Ms. Lee Sunhee was in charge of Mr. Kang before, so now it’s your area, right? Honestly, it should’ve been handled by a pro like you from the start.”

By the time she heard that last line, Jisoo’s clenched teeth were pressing tight on their own.

Jisoo didn’t have strong family ties or a powerful network of old school friends. All she had was a so-so connection through her grad school. In other words, she wasn’t part of the real inner circle.

She only got her foot in the door because her former department head had ties to her master’s advisor — a lucky break in this tight-knit art world.

The problem was, she’d been stuck in the same spot ever since, just going in circles.

All this time, she’d been pushed aside by senior curators and coworkers with fancy foreign degrees and impressive family backgrounds.

So when they started leaving her out of the important work so openly, it stung even more.

But what could she do? She had to endure it — and somehow find another chance. So maybe this kind of unfairness was just part of the deal.

She still remembered how the whole office felt a few months ago when Choi Seyeon’s name showed up on the list of new full-time curators.

…There’d never been a bigger celebration.

Seeing Jisoo’s face darken at the thought, Manager Inhye nudged her side and bent down to whisper.

“Ms. Shin, we all know how hard you’ve worked. Of course we do. Just hang in there a little longer. You know about the new Modern Art Team, right? It’s already been decided. You know what I mean, don’t you? There’s no one better for it than you.”

Jisoo had plenty she wanted to say back to her slippery manager, but she kept her mouth shut. She forced herself to manage her stiffening face and put on her brightest smile.

“Yes, I understand. But about seeing Master Kang Susan’s work in person — you’re not going, and even Minyoung the coordinator can’t go? Aren’t these research trips supposed to have two people?”

“Oh, right. Ms. Shin.”

The manager cut her off. She pushed her chair back in, as if the talk was over, and gave Jisoo a quick glance.

“About that S Motors series budget plan — can you double-check that for me?”

***

Bzzz, bzzz, bzzz.

It was the middle of summer, when the heavy air pressed down on everything. The sunlight was so bright it hurt her eyes, shining through the leaves like the California sun.

“Haa… ha…”

Jisoo, climbing the hill, caught her breath. Her sprained ankle didn’t help — she couldn’t walk any faster. She wiped her sweat once and looked up to where the studio must be.

To reach the buildings stretched along the ridge, she still had to climb at least as much as she already had.