Chapter 677 – #95. Mei Lin and Joanna (1)
“It’s been a while, but they’re not happy to see you. What’s going on?”
The expression of Mei Lin, a friend I haven’t seen in a long time at a wine bar with a good atmosphere, is full of boredom.
Joanna looked at her friend’s expression, understood her mood at once, and asked.
“Me? No, nothing else.”
“Isn’t that the expression of a person who says nothing happened?”
“Does it look like that?”
“Are you saying no?”
Mei Lin pondered for a moment, then she meekly nodded her head.
“I think you’re right. I’m not feeling well these days.”
“Is things not going well?”
“No, I’m doing well. You know because you heard the news.”
“That’s why it was unexpected. He said he won an award this time.”
“Huh.”
Mei Lin was slowly building her reputation as a photographer.
In the past, Mei Lin hated Westerners because of the racism she suffered, and because of that, she did not want to include her Westerners in her photos.
However, it was not easy for her to survive in the world of a racist photographer who took pictures of her, so she chose to earn her fame by digging deep into the charms of Asians.
She was so talented that her choice was a success.
Asian beauty was subtly absorbed by Westerners.
“Then why are you such a bigot?”
“I’m not very excited. I’m not having fun. Is this a slump?”
“A slump? Something like the one you’ve been through before?”
Since she only included Asians, people around her used to denigrate her as a writer with clear limits.
So she pushed her own limits.
She escaped from the adjective of ‘a writer who only takes good pictures of Asians’, which was putting a stigma on her reputation.
Of course, it wasn’t easy for her to go beyond that limit.
If she hadn’t met a muse whose looks transcended race, she would have had to spend more time pushing the boundaries.
“Before? Ah…It’s a bit different from back then. I don’t really feel like I’m lacking while working now. I’m good at it.”
In fact, Mei Lin was a photographer with excellent skills that she could pretend to be proud of.
“It’s not a slump caused by work. Depression?”
People who work in the arts and sports are prone to depression.
It is because it is a job that deals with emotions.
She may ask what emotions a photographer is dealing with, but she once said that Mei Lin’s photography is fleeting, and she is how well she captures the emotions of a person is what determines her skill. There was.
Since it is such a job, it was also important to manage your emotions.
“Isn’t that so? In the past, it was thrilling when I took a picture I liked, but these days I’m just calm. I still like taking pictures, but I can’t feel the enthusiasm like before? But even if I fall into a slump, my skills aren’t going anywhere It’ll turn out well.”
It’s not a slump that diminishes my skills, but I could see it being more serious than that.
This slump was not in a hurry to overcome.
“Is that why you left it unattended? Is it because it doesn’t interfere with your work?”
“At first, I thought it would end like this. I was busy with work, so I lowered my priority. I should have nipped the buds in the beginning.”
But at the time, it was probably just because of my mood, so it was at the level of passing it off lightly.
She didn’t even know that the subtle crack would grow in size and shake her spirit.
“Because of neglect, it started to annoy me little by little. Suddenly, I couldn’t sleep, I didn’t want to work, and I became lethargic.”
“It’s serious.”
“I thought I might have to take medicine for depression. Haha!”
“What about treatment?”
“I thought maybe I should go to a psychiatrist, but I don’t think going there will make things better.”
“Still, if you don’t go, you won’t know? I don’t think it’s time to drink.”
“Meeting you still gives me a chance to breathe. So don’t worry. I know I shouldn’t just leave you alone, so I won’t leave you like this.”
Mei Lin’s words reassured Joanna, but she wondered if there was anything she could do to help.
“If I can’t sleep, I’ll be in pain…”
Being lethargic is a very difficult physical change, but not being able to sleep was a serious problem that greatly reduced the quality of life.
“That’s why you drink. You can fall asleep when you’re drunk.”
“You’re only doing bad things.”
“I’m not saying this because I’m worried, but if you do this, I’ll feel even worse? So just stop there.”
If I say more here, I think my mentality will be shaken, but there is no way I can say it.
Eventually, Joanna let out a sigh of relief and the only thing she could do was to cheer her on so she wouldn’t be lonely by her side.
“It’s the end of the year, so we met to create a party atmosphere, but I just lost my mind. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I don’t want to get an apology from you. If it’s for me, show me your sanity the next time we meet.”
“It should be. No, it will be like that. By the way, how are you these days? What about your company?”
“We are now fully established. Recognition has increased a lot through star marketing.”
Creating a luxury brand is not an easy task.
Luxury goods are not something that you give yourself, but when people who purchase their products call them luxury goods, you can get the value.
Joanna didn’t think she was lacking in skills, but she knew very well that achieving a prestigious image was separate from skills.
So she started ‘star marketing’ to get a luxury image.
“Isn’t Haesol still the main model?”
“He’s still my muse.”
“When I think of the brand ‘Anna’, she is the first face that comes to mind.”
Making a model the face of a brand was not an easy task.
If a model gets entangled in bad things and becomes famous in society, her company’s image will be fatally damaged.
So, luxury brands usually change the face of the model they represent on a regular basis.
However, ‘Anna’, her latecomer, was not in a position to consider such a thing.
So, she boldly borrowed a model named Jin Hae-sol to publicize her popularity.
“At first, I thought you’d regret your choice. Making the main model the face of a brand was fixing the image.”
“I knew it too. There were many employees who were against my plan in the beginning.”
“But that turned out to be a godsend. Did she trust Jinhae-sol?”
Joanna’s skills, Jin Hae-sol’s recognition, and his fraudulent appearance showed a surprisingly perfect synergy.
The momentum was good even before making him the main model, but the development after making Jin Hae-sol the main model was dazzling.
“I believed it. And even if I made a mistake, I thought it didn’t matter if it was him.”
“It doesn’t matter if I make a mistake?”
“Because he will always be the most beautiful man in the world.”
“…!!”
Even if he became a criminal who kills people, that proposition would not change.
I believed in it and bet on it.
“And if Haesol became a criminal and could no longer engage in entertainment activities, wouldn’t the value of our brand’s pictorials increase?”
“You’re really smart. I’ve never thought of that. I’m afraid that you’re really going to do what you say.”
“I thought you would understand if you could capture the brilliance of beauty in a photograph.”
“Ha, right. Maybe if I can capture him slowly growing old with my hands, he won’t slump while doing this?”
Jin Hae-sol was such a man.
He’s too good a man to break up with because he has to work.
But he had no choice but to make that choice then.
Because he had something to prove himself.
“Come to think of it, I wonder if the reason why I fell into this useless depression was because I lost my goal.”
“Loose your target… That’s very dangerous.”
The greater the will to achieve a goal, the greater the feeling of exhaustion after achieving it.
If you can’t control your emotions properly, it’s enough to get depressed.
Joanna also had to do quite a bit of emotional labor while running the company.
It was not easy to control the emotions that came when I took a break at the end of the season after suffering from the pressure to keep up with the trend every day.
That’s why people do hobbies and pay attention to stress management.
‘In the past, I also drank a lot to try to deal with those feelings.’
Why do I get so lonely at times like that?
Mei Lin also thought that maybe that’s why she came looking for him.
“Aren’t you lonely?”
“It’s lonely. There’s no way you won’t be lonely.”
“Then, why don’t you meet Haesol? I don’t know why you’re avoiding it. If he’s that person, he’ll hold your loneliness, slump, and depression tightly. Just like he did to me.”
Joanna felt sorry for May Lin’s reluctance to meet with Hae Sol.
She was no longer afraid when the season ended when she started dating Jin Hae-sol again.
There was no reason to be lonely when he was around, and the word ‘hyeonta’ in his native language often did not come.
If the semen that fills the stomach is so thick that it never dries out, all negative emotions will disappear.
However, while Joanna felt these emotions positively, Mei Lin was afraid of the emotions Jin Hae-sol gave.
“He’s someone who can hold and shake my life. That’s why I’m scared because I don’t know what will happen if I meet him again. I just feel like I’ll be swept away without my will in it. I hate that.”
Since each person’s disposition is different, he thinks he can.
However, he couldn’t sympathize with Mei Lin’s rejection of such happiness.
Joanna recalled her past as she spoke her mind honestly, she said.
“Actually, it’s something that requires a little compromise, but I don’t understand why you don’t. I wonder if this is something you’d reject that much. But thinking about it, I think you’ve been like this since you were little.”
He never let go of injustice, and he was a strong-willed and honest boy who pushed for things that required a little compromise.
This incident must have been created by such a tendency.
If she had been her compromising character, she would not have made the decision to only include her Asians in her photos because she was racist.
‘This is a person who fought against injustice and won.’
If she hadn’t made that choice, she wouldn’t be where she is today.
Joanna, who had heard a lot from her about the hardships she went through, respected Mei Lin as her friend.
“I fell in love with you like that… Am I doing something too bad?”
“If you know, stop flirting. Jin Hae-sol is a demon to me.”
“Devil?”
She didn’t know how to describe Haesol as a demon.
“The devil always tempts humans with sweet suggestions. To me, that person is the devil. A devil who shakes up my outlook on life.”
A demon so sweet you want to swallow it in one bite.
Mei Lin filled her empty heart with alcohol.
Already she had heard from her Joanna.
She says that meeting Jin Hae-sol will relieve her of the sense of exhaustion she feels at the end of the season.
She says sex with him is still enchanting and feels like walking in heaven.
It is said that a single bedtime fills the empty brain with all sorts of new inspirations, and the sensation is so addictive that it drives people crazy.
‘The moment we meet, everything will change.’
Mei Lin once immersed herself in that dizzying sensation.
So she knew
There may be people who have never tasted it, but she knows that no one will give up after doing it once like she did.
That’s why there are more come.
Compromising with the order of her world was something she hated to pretend.
Of course…
‘It seems that there is not much time left to do this.’
The photos that used him as a subject, stored in a storage room deep inside the house.
It didn’t seem like much time left to bring it out.
