I like beautiful things.
It may sound arrogant, but ever since I was young, I have judged the worth of every existence by its beauty.
The bar, however, was low.
First, I would judge the outer beauty that could be confirmed at a glance. Then, whatever points were lacking, I filled in with inner beauty.
As a result, most things ended up meeting my standards.
"What kind of ticket even is this...."
The ticket held in my hand right now is also beautiful, by my standards.
Though who knows how other people would see it.
[Museum - Exhibition Admission Ticket]
Location: ...... OO Building, 2nd Floor
Thick paper stock, a design with an antique atmosphere.
Even gold-foil ornamentation that must have cost a fair bit to print.
'The information written on this ticket is simple. Way too simple.'
It seemed like they'd deliberately omitted the miscellaneous details to create an air of mystery.
Even so, this was the level of not even trying to draw people in.
Not that I didn't like such thorough commitment to a concept, but....
'What if I go and end up dragged onto a shrimping boat on the other side of the globe?'
Yesterday, when I came home from work, there was an envelope in my mailbox.
Assuming it would be bills of every kind, I let out a deep sigh.
That was when the museum address written on the envelope caught my eye.
Sending an exhibition ticket out of nowhere — how did they even know my information?
'Well, personal information getting leaked is common enough these days. Still, it doesn't feel great.'
But the ticket's design suited my taste so perfectly that I decided to visit at least once.
If it looked suspicious once I got close, I'd turn right back.
I walked along, following the address written on the ticket.
I was only going because it was my own neighborhood. If the venue had been somewhere far, I wouldn't even have tried.
Honestly, I surprised even myself.
Spending this golden weekend on pointless nonsense, of all things.
'Ji-san, what do you do on weekends? Doesn't seem like you have a girlfriend either.'
'I rest at home.'
'Ah.... Unexpected. You're young — go enjoy a hobby at least~'
The company president's sour expression came to mind.
It was a sneer that seemed to say: if I were your age, I wouldn't live like that.
The kind of place people call an "X-tier small company," where three employees slave away with overtime every single day. And now I'm supposed to live busily on weekends too?
'Instead of laying groundwork with "your pay might come late," how about just not paying late. If it actually gets delayed, this time I'm really quitting.'
With a company like this, the right answer is to bolt the moment you join.
But back when I got hired, I had no other options.
At the time, I just wanted to be employed anywhere at all.
I thought life would be better than an eternal part-timer's existence. ...How stupid of me.
'All I've done this whole time is work. ...My only hobby was appreciating art, after all.'
Since my parents passed away, I hadn't so much as opened a single book related to art, so even my most recent hobby dated back more than ten years.
Of course, it wasn't that I got worked up over the president's words and started moving.
Art — which I had kept out of my life so thoroughly that not even a short-form video could reach me — had suddenly come to find me.
In the past, I would have ignored the ticket, even deliberately.
'I can't put it into words..., but somehow I was drawn to it. I couldn't help myself.'
Right. My mood had been utterly foul these past few days, so indulging a little greed shouldn't earn me any punishment.
Just this once should be fine.
"It should be around here...."
After arriving at the location written on the ticket, I looked around.
An old building sitting at the end of the street.
My neighborhood was shabby to begin with, but I'd never seen a building like this — practically a derelict commercial block.
"...Here?"
Of course, I'd known from the start that there was no way a 'museum' could exist in this tiny neighborhood.
For something to earn the name museum, it needs a wide range of materials, relics, and works of art.
I'd figured it would just be a simple exhibition built around a museum concept.
"Exhibition, my foot. That was a wasted trip."
I was a fool for expecting even a small-scale exhibition.
Maybe it was for the best — a chance to suppress my personal desires all over again.
Relieved that at least I wasn't being dragged off anywhere, I was about to turn and go.
"Khack...!"
At the sound of a phlegm-rattled cough, I turned around.
An old man in shabby clothes came trudging this way, pulling a handcart.
The worn handcart wheels rattled noisily.
'I didn't hear any handcart wheels at all until just a moment ago....'
Then, the old man's eyes met mine.
A knit cap and a thick coat, a sleeping bag sprawled across the cart, and bare feet.
His appearance, so out of step with the season, made me wonder if he might be homeless.
'Ugh-'
My face scrunched up on its own.
Shoes steeped in the smell of a body long unwashed. I barely managed to force down the nausea rising in my throat.
"...?"
'What?'
The old man, who I'd assumed would pass me by, suddenly stopped walking.
He parked the handcart beside the building, then rummaged through his pockets and pulled out some tape.
Then he picked one sheet from the stack of papers piled on the cart and stuck it on the front of the building.
[Museum Exhibition]
Seeing the logo on the poster, a hollow laugh escaped me.
The old man calmly entered the small booth beside the building.
I'd taken it for a parking attendant's booth, but a ticket office? This wasn't even some little theater in Daehak-ro.
'Gah-!'
Just then, the old man, leaning back in his chair, began to smoke.
A cigarette burning inside a sealed space.
The cramped booth soon filled with cigarette smoke, turning hazy.
Watching the flame flicker inside that murky smoke, beads of sweat formed on my forehead.
My teeth chattered together in an unsightly way, and my breath grew short.
'What if the fire catches on some part of the booth? What if there isn't enough oxygen and he suffocates to death...?'
Frightened, I took a step back.
Even if it looked rude, I couldn't help it. The anxiety was overwhelming — that fire might swallow the old man whole and then engulf me too.
Just as fear and unease were clouding my mind, the old man opened the small window and abruptly held out his hand toward me.
Apparently, he wanted the ticket.
"Oh, n-no. I was just passing by, that's all."
A crumbling commercial building and a barefoot, homeless-looking employee. Deeply suspicious.
On top of that, I was afraid the cigarette smoke leaking out through the small window might touch my hand.
I put on an awkward smile, trying to escape this place.
But the old man, unbothered, picked something up inside the booth and tossed it toward me.
Thwap-
I instinctively caught the flying paper.
It was the leaflet for this exhibition. But the leaflet, which should have carried the exhibition description and images of the works, was completely blank — with only a short phrase written dead center.
[The Museum That Grants Wishes]
- Opportunity is offered only to visitors.
"Ah. Is it an interactive exhibition?"
Reading the description on the leaflet, I found myself asking the old man a question without thinking.
Strangely, the urge to run away settled in an instant the moment I saw the leaflet.
If anything, curiosity welled up at the unexpected nature of the exhibition.
'...A wish.'
The italicized phrase on the leaflet wasn't bad.
The exhibition title leaned rather hard on sentiment, but since I'm the sentimental type, I fell for it exactly as intended.
'Even so, having zero information about the artist or the works is a bit....'
Even as I tilted my head in doubt, I couldn't take my eyes off the leaflet.
It was an exhibition I'd meant to walk right past, yet my curiosity only kept growing.
The slapdash exhibition signage and the booth employee who did as he pleased.
I knew that entering that building to view this bizarre exhibition would be nothing but a waste of time.
But from beginning to end, there wasn't a single part of it that wasn't fascinating.
"Actually, I received this ticket for free. It arrived by mail...."
Riiip-
I'd at least wanted to know why this ticket had arrived at my home, of all places.
But the moment I held out the ticket, the old man snatched it away, cold and curt.
Then he tore off the edge of the ticket and handed it back.
'I guess that means: go up and see for yourself.'
For all I knew, he might not be able to speak. I'd been tactless.
"Thank you."
When I bowed deeply in thanks, the old man flicked his hand at me — hurry up and go.
I carefully stepped through the building entrance and stood before the stairs.
I could hear boisterous noise from above.
'So it's not completely empty up there.... Could they be human traffickers?'
I'd lived in this neighborhood ever since becoming an adult. Was imagining crime on that scale too paranoid of me?
Living while thinking death could come at any moment — that's what made me this way.
'Right. Even if I haven't exercised lately, I used to run a bit. ...Back in school, but still. Point is, if something seems off, I can just bolt.'
Unlike my usual self, I was drawn to this exhibition enough to get my hope circuits spinning.
I swallowed hard and slowly climbed the stairs.
[1F: Museum Exhibition]
'They even got the floor number wrong. What a complete mess.'
Climbing the stairs, I clicked my tongue at the scrawled writing on the paper stuck to the wall.
The leaflet and the ticket had looked so polished, and yet they made a mistake like this.
The smell of stale dust was enough to make my head swim.
Reaching the second floor, a scrap-metal door greeted me. I gripped the handle, turned it, and opened the door — and in that instant.
"...?"
The moment the door opened, I doubted my own eyes.
An unbelievably vast space stretched out before me.
'From outside, the building's footprint looked tiny. How can it be this wide?'
Looking around, I cautiously stepped inside.
As I let go of the handle, the steel door slid shut with a whisper.
Inside, a dozen or so visitors were milling about in a stir.
'Someone besides me actually came into this rundown exhibition hall? Surprising.'
An empty space with not a single work on display. Nothing but gray cement walls and floor.
Everyone wore dumbfounded expressions.
"Good grief. What is this...."
"Mom, I'm bored!! Let's leave already~ Okay?"
"Okay, we're leaving. Shh! Mom told you to be quiet once we're out, didn't she!"
A middle-aged man laughing hollowly, a child throwing a tantrum, and the mother soothing him.
It was hardly an atmosphere for viewing anything.
'Well, noise aside, there aren't any works to speak of anyway, so it hardly matters.'
I moved away from the bustling crowd and over into a corner.
People grimacing inside a mold-scented space.
Rather than staying among people who would disturb the viewing, I preferred to isolate myself.
'Seeing as the works from the leaflet aren't here either, this is a complete scam. ...Huh?'
I looked at the leaflet in my hand and started in surprise.
The text printed on the leaflet vanished clean away, and new letters surfaced over it.
It must have been the same for the other visitors — murmurs rose from here and there.
Are you satisfied with your life right now?
That slanted italic font again.
A phrase that tied into the exhibition's theme — a museum of wishes.
'I read in a book once that there are inks that make letters disappear or appear depending on ultraviolet or visible light.'
My memory's on the decent side, so the contents of a book I'd read long ago came back quickly.
The visitors, flustered, were staring holes into their leaflets, in an uproar.
Seeing how excited they looked, there hardly seemed a need to explain the trick behind this magic.
[Speak your wish.]
Again the previous sentence erased itself, and new writing appeared on the paper.
'A wish, huh.'
It would be nice if the overtime let up, for one.
Or leaving this company for a better one.
Ah. I'd like to have enough money that I never have to set foot in the research industry again.
[Is that your true wish?]
'...What is with this leaflet?'
The timing of the text changes should have been fixed from the start.
And yet, somehow, it felt like the leaflet was seeing right through me.
'They composed the timing of the changing text exquisitely.'
I hadn't expected the exhibition to be this well-built.
Soon enough, something even more incredible would probably appear in this bare space too.
Even if it turned out to be an interactive exhibition angling for social media buzz, I didn't care.
'To think I'd get to enjoy an experience like this again. ...Mom, Dad. I'm sorry for being the only one who's happy.'
My heart swelling, my lips quivered open and shut.
I felt sorry toward my family, but my heart was pounding.
The happiness of encountering art. Something I was no longer allowed to have.
Unaware of what was to come, I was as excited as I'd been as a child.
Ever since I was young, I had longed for a beauty I could never possess. Art was so dazzling to me.
Today, I entered a museum where that beautiful art and hell coexist.
TL Notes:
TL Note: Daehak-ro — a Seoul district known for its many small independent theaters.