The Form of Blindness
The leather sofa occupying a corner of the spacious living room was Lee Young-jin’s preferred spot to spend time alone. When Seo Seung-hyun was away, he would either lean back against the sofa or prop himself up on the armrest, lying down to watch the sunlight reflecting off the Han River’s surface dance across the white marble tiles of the living room. The sight of the water’s shadow shimmering across the Bianco tiles was mesmerizing, something he could watch all day without growing tired.
Of course, Lee Young-jin had many other ways to spend his time now, beyond counting the waves in the marble tiles or tallying the stains on the ceiling.
One of them was the array of civil service examination books spread out before him.
With a short yawn, Lee Young-jin pushed the math book, which he had read dozens of times to the point of tedium, down onto the floor beneath the sofa. He flipped through a few pages of the Korean history book piled underneath it. Each page bore the marks of fervent study, highlighted and underlined with a fluorescent pen. With sleepy eyes, he read the text blurrily before his head drooped down.
Seo Seung-hyun had said Lee Young-jin had a talent for “such things,” but Lee Young-jin disagreed.
“Such things” were unbearably tedious.
Math formulas only induced yawns, memorizing Korean history twisted him up with boredom, and deciphering the intentions behind social studies exam questions was perplexing. Not to mention the other subjects.
Lately, what interested Lee Young-jin was something entirely different. The thought momentarily chased away his drowsiness, and his heavy eyelids snapped open. A lively sparkle returned to his previously dull eyes.
With an effort, Lee Young-jin tensed his abdomen, pushing himself up from the engulfing comfort of the leather sofa. He gathered the scattered textbooks and exam papers from the floor and around the sofa. Neatly compiling the weary traces of his arduous study battles, he set them aside in a corner of the sofa.
Descending from the sofa, Lee Young-jin crossed the vast living room and entered the hallway. His destination was the room opposite his and Seo Seung-hyun’s bedroom.
Previously used only occasionally for Jang Young-hee’s stays, the room had undergone a complete transformation, bearing no trace of its past self.
Three walls of the room were adorned with warm ivory wallpaper, while the remaining wall showcased a dark navy, sprinkled with glittering dots tracing the orbits of stars and celestial bodies of our galaxy.
Mobiles depicting animals, plants, mythical creatures, extinct species like archaeopteryx and stegosaurus, planets, and stars of all shapes hung from the ceiling, each rotating at its own pace. The mobiles, reflected in a large hexagonal mirror on one wall, made the room seem surrounded by twinkling satellites.
At the corner where two differently colored walls met, a mountain of plush toys of various sizes and shapes piled up, and beside them, an ivory wooden cabinet contained hundreds of intricately detailed models of cars, trains, and airships, worth as much in craftsmanship as in price. The glass doors of the cabinet remained firmly shut, at least until the room’s owner learned that those delicate and hard toys were not meant to be chewed on.
A soft, squishy ball rolled and bumped against Lee Young-jin’s foot as he entered the room.
At the sound, the room’s owner rustled and wobbled their head up from inside the large crib placed in the center of the room.
With surprisingly quick steps, Lee Young-jin rushed to the crib and reached inside to shake and lift the small creature that was shaking their big head back and forth.
The baby neither seemed surprised nor particularly pleased.
They simply gazed up at Lee Young-jin with large black eyes remarkably similar to his, merely bubbling their lips without making much sound beyond soft babbling.
The baby flailed their limbs slightly, as if longing to return to their own luxurious fortress of premium fabric and padding.
Skilfully supporting the baby’s bottom and leaning their head against his shoulder, Lee Young-jin stabilized them, and the baby, giving up on returning to their bed, comfortably settled in his arms.
Carrying the baby, Lee Young-jin made a round of the room. With each step, toys like dolls, balls, and fabric blocks rolled and tumbled.
Having been surrounded by at least hundreds of different types of toys from the moment of birth, the baby showed little interest in the colorful playthings. They simply watched Lee Young-jin with dark, damp eyes.
Whenever Lee Young-jin met the baby’s gaze, he fell into skeptical wonder if this incredibly small life form was truly born from him.
To his eyes, the baby didn’t resemble either Lee Young-jin or Seo Seung-hyun.
This baby looked too small and delicate to resemble Seo Seung-hyun, and too intelligent to be like Lee Young-jin.
The baby could distinguish between the shapes and colors of mobiles and had a favorite toy. They even remembered meal times. When it was time for formula, as if by magic, the baby would sit quietly inside the crib, waiting for either Lee Young-jin or Seo Seung-hyun. (Seo Seung-hyun insisted that the baby could read the clock, but in truth, Lee Young-jin secretly thought that claim was utterly absurd.) Nevertheless, both agreed the baby was exceptionally intelligent.
Unknowingly, Lee Young-jin furrowed his brows deeply, locking eyes with the baby.
Doubts surged once again.
Was this new and wondrous life truly born from Lee Young-jin?
Lee Young-jin remembered the pregnancy.
He also recalled, when a few months were left before the due date, how he and Seo Seung-hyun deliberated over the baby’s birth date.
However, his memories of giving birth were somewhat blurry.
Lee Young-jin had been admitted to the hospital the day before the agreed date. As with unusual births, they chose a more secure and rational induced sleep delivery. The specialist, with a friendly face, assured, “Don’t worry. It’s not much different from a sleep endoscopy,” but Lee Young-jin, having never undergone a sleep endoscopy, found it hard to compare. Nonetheless, he only remembered being administered the anesthesia.
He fell into a deep and comfortable sleep, and upon waking, the baby was already there.
Simply there.
The baby was pink, with fluffy hair and damp, glossy eyes. And they was exceptionally quiet.
If there was any resemblance to Lee Young-jin, he could have dismissed his doubts…
Lee Young-jin, looking skeptically at the baby’s eyes and quickly averted his gaze at the baby’s displeased grunt of “Eh!”, as if offended by the scrutiny.
He laid the baby flat on a soft surface and tickled their side. The baby wriggled momentarily, then flipped over and started crawling on all fours. Lee Young-jin, on his knees, followed the baby and obstructed their path with a doll against their nose. After repeating this a few times, the baby frowned as if annoyed.
“Huh, ahb…”
Lee Young-jin humbly accepted the baby’s discontent.
Removing the doll, he carefully laid the baby flat, buried his nose in their chubby belly, and blew raspberries, tickling them wildly. The baby flailed their arms, expressing their displeasure noisily.
During their play, Lee Young-jin’s phone alarm went off in his back pocket.
It was time for the baby’s meal.
Lee Young-jin picked up the baby and slowly rose to his feet.
Then, he left the room.
The kitchen had everything Lee Young-jin needed. Holding the baby lightly in one arm, he adeptly prepared the formula with his free hand. He adjusted the water from the purifier to 40 degrees, added the right amount of formula, and then topped it off to exactly 200 milliliters. Seeing Lee Young-jin shake the bottle, the baby’s eyes sparkled.
Lee Young-jin, anticipating the meal, carried the baby to the living room and sat on the sofa. He began feeding in a practiced manner, positioning the bottle vertically based on the angle of the baby’s nibbling lips.
The baby ate comfortably. Now and then, driven by a desire to feed alone, they reached out to grab the bottle, though Lee Young-jin firmly kept it in control.
After the meal, Lee Young-jin carried the baby around the living room, showing them the Han River. He pressed the baby’s hand against the full-length window, explaining that the Han River was not something they could touch, but was far away. Then, he introduced his GED study materials to the baby, who yawned. Lee Young-jin nodded as if he expected it. ‘This’ was boring, not just to Lee Young-jin but naturally to the baby as well. Perhaps, this was their first thing in common.
Lee Young-jin quickly took the baby, fighting sleep while pressing their cheek against his chest, back to the room. After placing the baby in the crib and shaking the mobile above, the baby reached out toward the white radish-shaped mobile, struggled for a bit, then fell asleep as if they had fainted.
Lee Young-jin sat down on the floor, resting his elbows on the soft bumper of the crib, and watched the sleeping baby for a long time.
Then, he remembered that Seo Seung-hyun had reminded him not to forget to eat when feeding the baby. He stood up and checked if the air purifier in the room was working properly, if the angle of the blinds for adjusting the light was appropriate, if the baby’s crib was soft enough, and if the blanket might accidentally cover the baby’s nose. He carefully checked several times. Finally, he took out his smartphone to ensure that the video cam installed in the baby’s room was functioning correctly. He checked if the entire room was properly filmed, if the inside of the crib was visible without any blind spots, if there was no time lag between the video and reality, and then, since he had his smartphone out, he took a picture of the baby sleeping soundly. He sent it to the baby’s half genetic donor. Seo Seung-hyun was probably in a meeting, so he wouldn’t see the photo until about two hours later.
Lee Young-jin left the room.
Dragging his feet slowly, he went to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. Inside, there were various side dishes, fruits, and drinks neatly organized, brought by Manager Yoon, who oversaw the overall housekeeping of this vast penthouse. Lee Young-jin took out eight containers of side dishes and moved them to the island bar. He opened each one and served a bit on a plate. He scooped a little of fresh kimchi, more of braised soy sauce dishes. The rest were taken out just enough for a bite. On the kitchen counter, there were pollock soup and freshly made homemade grilled short rib patties, prepared by Manager Yoon that morning and neatly placed in white bowls, covered with five-color covers to keep them ready to eat. Lee Young-jin removed the cover and scooped out just one piece of the patty into a rice bowl, then covered it back. He filled the bowl with rice directly from the rice cooker.
He ate his meal while monitoring the baby room on his smartphone. The baby slept without tossing and turning, their chest rising and falling lightly. Occasionally, the baby seemed to mumble in their sleep. Lee Young-jin zoomed in on the baby’s pink cheeks. The neat forehead and the dark, distinct eyebrows somehow resembled Seo Seung-hyun. With that thought, he wondered what Seo Seung-hyun might be doing at that moment.
Lee Young-jin hurriedly finished his meal and placed the empty dishes in the dishwasher. After fumbling over the touch button to start the dishwasher, he rushed to his room.
This room was his own personal space, separate from the couple’s bedroom.
There, a soft gray rug was laid out, a wide white desk by the window, with a slender laptop on it, and three monitors each connected to the laptop. One of them displayed live footage from the baby’s room across nine split screens, while the other two were turned off.
Lee Young-jin moved to his desk and pushed the chair back to sit down. He opened his laptop and entered a thirty-three-character password, which lit up the other two monitors. He launched a map software along with several programs and entered a few lines of code into a CLI window. Seven dots appeared on the map. This simple location tracking code was linked to the built-in GPS of six vehicles owned by Seo Seung-hyun (plus the personal vehicle of Jang Young-hee) and automatically displayed their routes and current locations. Lee Young-jin found that two of the six vehicles were in the penthouse’s underground parking lot, one was at a townhouse in Yongin, two were at a villa in Hannam-dong. Jang Young-hee’s car, which was on a business trip to San Francisco, was at his residence in Cheongdam-dong. The last one was just entering the SH Financial Building.
Lee Young-jin confirmed that the last vehicle, Seo Seung-hyun’s limousine, which had left the penthouse that morning, departed SH Financial Building around 1 PM for Kwanghwamun, then returned to SH Financial Building just before now. Lee Young-jin started tracing its movement backwards.
At 2:30 PM, from SH Financial Building to Kwanghwamun. Likely a late lunch meeting. Before that, two hours at a factory in Guri, a medium-sized company manufacturing carbon fiber. Not typically interested in traditional manufacturing, but Seo Seung-hyun had a significant interest in investing in new manufacturing technologies, making it a plausible location for him to spend two hours. Further back, 9 AM at a luxury hotel in Gangnam for a regular breakfast meeting.
It was an unremarkable morning schedule for Seo Seung-hyun.
Lee Young-jin was about to access the CCTV of SH Financial Building he had linked to when a small message popped up on the right side of his laptop screen.
It was a new email from Ji Jung-hoon, who was currently in China.
Lee Young-jin quickly clicked to open the email.
The content was nothing special, just a simple greeting and the pleasant news that he would be visiting Korea soon, along with a brief inquiry about how the baby was doing.
Lee Young-jin began drafting a reply immediately.
He wrote that he was doing well and asked how things were in China. He also didn’t forget to ask Ji Jung-hoon to contact him when he arrived in Korea. And about the baby, he wrote a brief update on its height, weight, food intake, and daily routine. As he detailed the baby’s recent developments concisely and precisely, it occurred to him that including media would better convey the information.
However, his smartphone already contained 1,372 photos and 491 videos, totaling 171 hours, 38 minutes, and 17 seconds, but all of them were dated and not precise enough to be considered accurate information.
Lee Young-jin got up from his chair and went back to the baby’s room.
As if sensing Lee Young-jin’s footsteps, the baby was already wide awake by the time he entered. Sleep seemed to have fled entirely. Upon Lee Young-jin’s entrance, the baby spread their arms and kicked their legs—a rare occurrence. This small, independent creature that enjoyed solitude seldom sought embraces from Lee Young-jin. Quickly, Lee Young-jin took a photo with his smartphone and then lifted the baby from the crib into his arms. As expected, the baby’s desire wasn’t for an embrace but rather to be freed from the confining crib. Once out, the baby made a strong case for being put down on the floor, twisting their waist significantly. Lee Young-jin complied, placing the squirming baby upright on the floor. The baby skillfully flipped over, propped itself up on their arms, and began to crawl away briskly. Lee Young-jin followed, recording a video. Unaware or indifferent to its privacy being entirely invaded, the baby crawled around the room aimlessly, occasionally putting whatever they could grab into their mouth before spitting it out and moving on to the next target. After recording for a while, Lee Young-jin threw his smartphone aside and sneakily approached the baby from behind, tickling their sides vigorously. The baby protested noisily, gasping for air.
Feeling sulky, the baby crawled away from Lee Young-jin as soon as they escaped his grasp and buried themselves among the toys in a corner.
As a gesture of apology, Lee Young-jin went to the kitchen and brought back a banana teether he had prepared that morning. At the sight of the teether filled with soft mashed banana, the baby blinked their black eyes a few times, their long eyelashes fluttering intensely. Caught between the indignation of being tickled unexpectedly and the allure of the sweet banana, the baby seemed to hesitate but ultimately appeared to forgive Lee Young-jin generously, crawling out from among the toys towards him.
Lee Young-jin lifted the baby with one arm and offered the banana teether with the other.
Only after having their fill of banana did the baby graciously forgive Lee Young-jin.
Pressing their cheek against Lee Young-jin’s chest, the baby burped contentedly a few times before their eyelids drooped heavily. Lee Young-jin carried the baby around the room a few times. Then, despite gripping Lee Young-jin’s clothes tightly with their chubby hands and refusing to let go, he returned to his room with the baby in his arms.
While looking down at the baby’s black hair, snugly pressed against his chest asleep, Lee Young-jin used one hand to finish writing the email to Ji Jung-hoon, attaching photos and videos.
After sending the email, Lee Young-jin and the baby moved to the living room.
Holding the softly snoring baby, he sat on the sofa, gazing at the flowing Han River, then lay down with the baby on his chest and fell asleep.
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