As soon as he said that with a mischievous smile, his phone vibrated on the table. Peeking at the phone over my shoulder, he wrinkled his nose and grimaced as if disappointed.
“Ah… looks like some tactless person is calling to have the garage opened.”
As he predicted, the caller was the Chief. While he opened the garage door with the remote he had placed next to his phone and finished a short call with the Chief, I had to struggle to scatter my thoughts about our recent skinship.
I didn’t know what eyes that wanted a kiss looked like, but I couldn’t say his guess was wrong. If such a desire was showing so plainly in my eyes, that was… more embarrassing than showing him my naked body.
“The Chief is here, right? Huh? What’s this? You haven’t even put the lamb on yet?”
Juhan-hyung, who had been pushing the front door open with his shoulder while holding a tray full of food, stopped in his tracks with a disappointed face when he saw the empty grill.
“What on earth is in your stomach? It’s obvious you were snacking on this and that while we were prepping, are you still that hungry?”
“It’s because there’s nothing in my stomach that I’m like this. You think those little snacks can fill me up?”
The petty push-and-pull between the two continued as I approached the hyung, who was grumbling while standing at the entrance, took the tray from him, and moved the food onto the table.
Noona, who appeared after Hyung holding another tray, also joined in, pouring out complaints at him as he had just started grilling the meat. Feeling partly responsible, I placed the basket full of leafy greens on the table and uncomfortably studied his expression.
He had generously drizzled olive oil on a wide, rectangular pan and placed the seasoned lamb on it, paying no mind to the two’s complaints, contrary to my worries.
After emptying the tray Hyung had brought, I approached to take the tray Noona was holding, but just as she was about to leave, she suddenly frowned and stopped.
“What’s this, Representative, are you dating someone these days?”
“Why are you making up stories again?”
“You never used to wear things like cologne. You suddenly started recently, and….”
Pausing for a moment, Noona leaned her face closer to his shoulder and sniffed.
“Today, you’ve put on a shocking amount. I wonder who you’re trying to seduce, dousing yourself in such a seductive perfume….”
Frowning as if to ask what a seductive perfume was, he lifted his arm and buried his nose and lips in the sleeve of his thin summer knit.
“Is it that strong?”
“It’s a strong perfume to begin with. Though it does seem like you put on a bit too much. Do you have a cold, perhaps? You’re not the type to be so unsophisticated as to not be able to control something like this. Or does your partner like it this way? So intense it’s suffocating?”
Noona looked delighted as she grinned and patted his shoulder. It felt like she was being deliberately provocative to tease him. But he just chuckled, refusing to be provoked.
I approached the two as they continued to joke around and took the tray from Noona. I could feel his gaze on me, but I deliberately avoided looking his way.
I had no way of knowing if he had another partner, as Noona had said. I had no right to ask him about such matters or demand the truth. It was just that, until now, I had never sensed any indication of it, so I had tried not to consciously think about his other affairs or relationships that might happen when I wasn’t around. Just thinking about my relationship with him was overwhelming enough, let alone his other relationships.
But even a light conversation like this could easily let terrifying imaginations take hold of me.
“But Representative, I thought you only insisted on custom-made, but you do use ready-made perfumes. It seems like you mixed two or three… Hmm, I think I know what one of them is.”
Noona narrowed her eyes, concentrating, and named the brand and product name of the perfume she had guessed.
“Hoh… you’re sharp.”
His eyes widened as he clacked the barbecue tongs together.
I wondered if the name of the perfume Noona had guessed was ‘that scent.’ Perhaps the scent I recognized as ‘that scent’ was the result of a mixture of several perfumes.
I shook my head, imagining my own gloomy self stopping by a perfume store I’d never been to, paying what would surely be a fortune for me to buy the perfume, then hiding it in my room and secretly smelling it to be reminded of him.
“Wow… the meat smells so good!”
Just then, the Chief appeared, opening the door that led from the garage to the garden.
“It’ll be another 20 minutes before we can eat.”
The Chief ruffled Juhan-hyung’s hair as he explained with a puffy face, glancing at him as if giving him a hint. Next, he caressed my cheek and asked how I was. It had been five days since I’d last seen the Chief, who was on his way back from a cosmetics brand event he had attended on a client’s invitation, even though it was a Saturday.
“Look how happy Seo Yeehyeon is now that the Chief is here.”
“He seems aloof, but it all shows on his face.”
Noona and Hyung pointed at me and said teasingly. I thought I had only smiled a little, and wondering if it was that obvious, I swept a hand over my face as if to feel it. Not that a facial expression could be felt by touch.
Feeling a gaze, I lifted my head toward him in front of the grill, but our eyes met for only a brief moment. Perhaps his gaze had only brushed past me as it moved elsewhere.
Only after he had fairly divided the finished lamb steaks onto each of our plates was he finally able to take a seat. Since the table was for four, he brought a chair from the terrace and sat on the side.
“How is it, is it to your liking?” he asked, looking past Noona, who was sitting between us.
“Yes. It’s very… delicious.”
“That’s a relief. It seems you’re not a picky eater.”
As I nodded, Juhan-hyung, who was sitting diagonally across from me, spoke up for me.
“Seo Yeehyeon doesn’t complain when he works, either. People like that usually eat without complaining, too.”
“You complain a lot, but you still eat well. A special case, are you?”
Hyung, who had been tearing at the lamb holding a thick bone, his face practically in his plate without needing a fork and knife, glared up at him. He raised both hands in surrender. Then, instead of cutting the meat he had portioned for himself, he drank his wine.
I was worried about him, as he barely touched his food and only drank, perhaps having lost his appetite while grilling the meat. But in a setting like this, it felt like me, of all people, stepping up to worry about him would draw attention, so I swallowed my words.
“Yeehyeon, how is it? Is life as a full-time artist treating you well?”
“For now, it’s just….”
I dodged the question from the Chief, who was seated directly in front of me, with an awkward laugh. Even the term ‘full-time artist’ still felt cringey.
“Representative, have you seen Yeehyeon’s practice work? He’s too shy to show us.”
“You think he wouldn’t be shy with me? He says he’s just practicing and won’t show me anything.”
Answering Noona’s question, he brought the wine glass to his lips and looked at me with a gaze tinged with slight resentment.
He had asked what I was working on, but he had never asked to see it. I hadn’t thought he would want to see practice-level sketches. Maybe he was trying not to pressure me, the thought belatedly occurred to me.
I had been slowly cutting the ribs he had specially grilled with barbecue sauce for me, as it was my first time eating lamb. I briefly set down my fork and knife to wet my parched throat with wine when Juhan-hyung suddenly, with a triumphant face, tossed the cleanly picked bone onto his plate.
“Ah… then it seems I will be the first to critique artist Seo Yeehyeon’s work.”
“He’s like that because Yeehyeon asked him to be a model.”
As if she didn’t like hyung’s smug attitude, Noona’s lips curled up on one side as she spoke. In contrast to Noona’s frown, the Chief’s face brightened.
“Are you already starting on a real piece? But why is Juhan your first model of all people?”
“It’s not a real piece yet…. I’ve been drawing mostly still lifes this week, so I wanted to try drawing a person…. Hyung’s bone structure and face shape are unique, so I asked him.”
That was my answer, but in truth, that wasn’t all of it.
I didn’t know how other people worked, but unlike the still life sketches where I honed my technique by copying what I saw, I needed a certain amount of story when drawing a person. When drawing a complete stranger, my imagination or my emotions were projected, but I didn’t want to draw about myself yet.
The people I could ask to model for me with relative ease were Noona and hyung, and the bigger reason I asked Hyung was that I knew his story in more detail.
The subject I felt a strong, natural urge to draw was him, but I wasn’t yet ready to capture that emotion in a drawing.
“If you want to draw a person properly, I can get you a professional model.”
He spoke, lightly swirling the wine glass in his hand, and Juhan-hyung jumped up, incensed.
“Hey, what’s this! Yeehyeon said he wants to draw me! Why are you interfering…. Perhaps, are you jealous that he chose me as a model over the devastatingly handsome Representative?”
At hyung’s rather childish teasing, he frowned and brought the wine glass to his lips.
“I’m glad you at least admit I’m devastatingly handsome.”
“Hmph, the Representative may be devastatingly handsome, but the one chosen as the model is Kwon Juhan.”
He looked at Hyung, who was leaning back with his arm on the back of the chair and a haughty look in his eyes, and shook his head. Then he set his glass down on the table, pushed aside his own barely-touched plate, and rested his elbow in the empty space to look at me.
“Since we’re on the topic, if there are any tools, materials, environments… models, or anything else you need, don’t hesitate to tell me. We spare no support for our exclusive artists, not just you, Seo Yeehyeon-ssi, so I hope you don’t feel burdened in that regard. It’s all for the sake of the art.”
Noona nodded emphatically in agreement.
“Right. A few artists with high incomes like artist Shu shu handle their own tools and studios, but for people like you who are just starting out, the gallery provides support up to a certain point. If you’re worrying about materials and what not, your work won’t come out the way you want. Not just any gallery offers this kind of treatment, you know?”
Noona put her arm around my shoulder and spoke with a proud face, but at the mention of artist Shushu’s name, my attention was drawn there, and my body tensed slightly. My gaze unknowingly turned to him. Startled by my own transparent shift in gaze, I quickly turned my head away, but he, for his part, seemed completely unfazed.
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