Chapter 34
Psyche was able to become Eros's wife thanks to Zeus's intervention.
Her hands trembled.
A tiny cup rested upon them.
Inside, liquid gently sloshed.
Nectar.
The drink of the gods.
Just a single cup.
Yet its meaning overflowed far beyond the rim.
It was the path that would let her transcend human limits and step toward eternal love.
Psyche gripped the cup tightly with both hands, afraid she might drop it.
The pose almost looked like desperate prayer.
Or perhaps an offering of gratitude.
Beside her, Eros, who had remained at Psyche's side and helped her throughout her trials, pressed close.
One arm wrapped around her.
With his other hand, he helped support the weight of the cup.
Psyche brought the nectar to her lips.
Eros's eyes remained fixed on her mouth.
The instant Psyche safely swallowed that first sip...
The moment the miracle occurred...
Fresh grass and tiny flowers bloomed beneath the young couple's feet.
Butterflies fluttered upward around them.
Tap.
I set my chisel and hammer down on the worktable.
Then I slowly checked the sculpture's details.
The grass pushing up between the gods' toes.
Their fingers intertwined tightly together.
The tendons standing out along Eros's arm from tension.
The butterfly wings slowly unfolding from Psyche's back, almost as though she were shedding an old skin.
The moment when all of Eros and Psyche's suffering finally reached a happy conclusion.
"...All that's left is sanding."
Sanding was one step where I couldn't rely on the power of my itemized tools.
Because of that, ever since turning my sculpting tools into items, sanding always felt slightly different.
It was still the same careful work.
Yet somehow, I always felt as though I poured even more concentration into sanding than anything before it.
Maybe it was because sanding marked the beginning of the final stage.
It felt like I was breathing the last of my soul and wishes into the sculpture until the very end.
This time, that wish was simple.
I wanted my brother and his wife to be happy.
Scrape. Scrape.
I switched between different grades of sandpaper as I refined the surface.
I focused all the way to my fingertips.
I had to preserve the textures I'd created with the chisels.
And at the same time, I needed to add the subtle textures the chisels alone couldn't achieve.
My clothes were soaked through with sweat and stuck to my back.
But the smile on my lips never disappeared.
The day of Do Yeong-in and Kim A-rang's wedding.
Do Yeong-in arrived early to help prepare and stopped in his tracks when he saw the sculpture standing tall amid all the bustling people.
It was beautiful.
A man and woman stood together in a field of flowers in full bloom, leaning on each other for support.
He had no idea what the woman was drinking.
But from their expressions alone, he could tell it was part of some deeply important ritual.
Do Yeong-in had little connection to mythology.
He knew the names Eros and Psyche, but knew almost nothing about their love story.
He hadn't even been told the title of the sculpture yet, so there wasn't much he could infer.
But great art could tell dozens, even hundreds of stories through a single scene.
At least I can tell they're in love.
What caught Do Yeong-in's attention wasn't the wings growing from the man and woman's shoulders.
It was their faces.
The man's arm wrapped tightly around the woman.
Their fingers desperately intertwined.
The two of them must have loved each other deeply.
They had probably suffered quite a bit before reaching this point too.
Every story had conflict.
And this scene looked like the final happy ending.
Especially for the woman.
The fact that she was the one drinking from the cup supported that guess.
But more than anything, it was the man's expression as he watched her.
Proud.
Worried.
Maybe because he was a man too, Do Yeong-in felt he could read many emotions from that face.
Will A-rang make a face like that during our wedding too?
Their marriage had only happened because of Kim A-rang's efforts.
He had been the one ready to give up because that was how he'd lived for over thirty years.
Kim A-rang was the one who held onto him.
She was also the one who made him think seriously about what he could give up and what he couldn't.
If she hadn't gathered the courage to come find him...
Then someday far in the future, perhaps even until the day he died, he would have regretted giving her up so easily.
Even after I decided I couldn't give A-rang up, I still acted like an idiot for a long time.
If he had to make excuses, it was because he'd never truly rebelled against his parents before.
He didn't know how.
He couldn't figure out how to protect Kim A-rang while also preserving his relationship with his parents.
Back then, he'd thought about his younger brother a lot.
Strangely enough, he'd even regretted not helping out with at least some small acts of rebellion whenever his brother stood against their parents.
Still... both that sculpture and I got our happy ending.
Life wasn't a novel.
But weddings were often treated like ending scenes.
A day when you were allowed to imagine a happy future as much as you wanted.
A day when pure optimism was acceptable.
A day to drink the wedding cup with the person who would remain at your side for life, just like the figures in that sculpture.
Do Yeong-in took a deep breath.
Only then did he look around the sculpture.
He immediately spotted his father, standing off to one side and looking angry all by himself.
His mother was still staring at the sculpture.
And beside him stood Kim A-rang, looking completely happy.
His wandering gaze stopped on her.
Without thinking, Do Yeong-in wrapped an arm tightly around Kim A-rang's shoulders, just like the man in the sculpture.
When he looked back up at the artwork, he suddenly thought about the long history of his younger brother's struggle.
His brother had charged toward his goal endlessly, enough to exhaust even those watching him.
Even after becoming an adult, he had never stopped moving forward.
And now he was blessing his brother through the very sculpture he'd always wanted to pursue, while proudly showing himself to the family.
Judging by Mom and Dad's reactions, maybe reconciliation isn't completely impossible.
Everyone had been captivated by the sculpture the moment they saw it.
Their parents were no exception.
He must've worked incredibly hard while living apart from the family to become capable of making something like this.
Even Do Yeong-in, who knew nothing about art, could tell how extraordinary the sculpture was.
I should work hard for A-rang too.
He had no intention of simply letting his wife carry everything anymore.
After Do Yeong-in, Kim A-rang, and both families' parents went inside...
Guests gradually began arriving as the venue filled out.
Among the bride's guests was Oh Gi-ul, director of the private art museum [Oneul].
He frowned slightly while looking up at the wedding venue entrance.
The walls were high enough that he couldn't see inside.
But farther away, white fabric hung in a rounded shape and fluttered in the wind.
That girl really went through with this marriage.
Kim A-rang was an employee Oh Gi-ul personally cherished.
It was difficult not to like someone who genuinely loved their work.
So he'd begun taking care of little things for her, and over time they'd developed a fairly close superior-subordinate relationship.
The reason Oh Gi-ul knew Kim A-rang's love story was because he'd watched her struggle from nearby.
Her in-laws hate art, didn't they?
Tsk.
"What bizarre people."
Were they machines from some science-fiction novel?
How could anyone hate art?
For Oh Gi-ul, who loved art enough to establish his own private museum, it was incomprehensible.
I wonder if today's wedding will be all right.
Kim A-rang's mother was also a professor who had majored in art history.
Because of that, most of the bride's guests were her mother's acquaintances, artists Kim A-rang had befriended, and her own friends.
In other words, most of them came from the art world.
The groom's side was the exact opposite.
Since the groom had studied engineering, many of his guests worked in IT companies.
And Oh Gi-ul had heard that his parents' acquaintances were also people with no connection to art, reflecting their personalities.
The two sides were already filled with people from completely different worlds.
If the groom's parents openly showed discomfort toward the bride or her guests...
Kim A-rang would be the one placed in an awkward position.
Oh Gi-ul was already feeling sorry for her over an incident that hadn't even happened yet.
But the concern he'd considered practically prophetic vanished the instant he stepped inside the venue.
"Gasp...!"
Directly in front of the entrance stood an extra-large marble sculpture.
It was pale red, likely carved from Portuguese marble.
"Eros and Psyche!"
The trembling excitement contained in the sculpture met that soft reddish hue and described one word.
Love.
The nervousness and joy of lovers who had finally reached the end of their struggle.
Many faces Oh Gi-ul knew were already gathered around the sculpture.
He pushed between them and stood directly before it.
A golden plaque beneath the pedestal displayed the title.
[The Marriage of Eros and Psyche
(An Allegory of the Marriage of Do Yeong-in and Kim A-rang)
│ Work by Do Hwa-in]
The plaque design was one frequently used at Oh Gi-ul's private museum.
It was probably Kim A-rang's doing.
It's an homage to <The Marriage of Hebe and Heracles (An Allegory of the Marriage of Napoleon and Marie-Louise)>! He's showing that this sculpture was created to bless this wedding!
<The Marriage of Hebe and Heracles (An Allegory of the Marriage of Napoleon and Marie-Louise)> had been intended to add sacred meaning to Napoleon and Marie-Louise's marriage and portray it as a union blessed by the gods in the painting.
The sculpture before him seemed similar.
It appeared to comfort Kim A-rang, represented by Psyche, and Do Yeong-in, represented by Eros, after their difficult struggle to reach marriage.
And at the same time, it blessed their future.
"Oh...! Oh, wow!"
