○
The party went on until 2 AM. Most of the guests had left between midnight and 1 AM, but it was around 2 AM when the last of us, our group included, were seen off by Jane and Connor and scattered into the Chicago night in our respective sedans.
After bidding a boisterous farewell to everyone as if they were old friends, he got into the car, immediately ran his fingers through his hair to mess it up, and put a cigarette to his lips. When he, in the front seat, rolled down the window, the cold, humid night air brushed against my face. It was refreshing.
“The New York branch. Don’t you have anything to say to me?”
My Noona, sitting with me in the back seat directly behind the driver, seemed unable to wait any longer and brought it up first.
“You know this is something I’ve been thinking about for a long time. Is there any need to be so flustered, as if you’re hearing it for the first time?”
He answered, blowing a long stream of smoke toward the window. His voice was heavy, low, and cracked with fatigue.
“You did mention it in passing, over drinks, over lunch, over coffee, like a dream you wanted to achieve someday in the distant future—that you’d open an overseas branch one day. But now you’re telling me that dream has suddenly become a reality without me knowing, and you’re leaving for New York right away… How can I not be flustered?”
Her tone wasn’t accusatory or rapid. It seemed my Noona was doing her best not to be emotional. Her crossed arms were gripping her own biceps tightly.
“With the Chicago exhibition and the preparations for the joint exhibition in the second half of the year, I, you two… the entire gallery has been swamped. I knew bringing up the New York branch would only unsettle you, so I deliberately kept my mouth shut. I was planning to talk about it when we returned to Seoul. I’m sorry you had to find out this way… but, Yuni.”
He turned his body to meet my Noona’s eyes.
“Let’s not read too much into the timing of when I brought it up. Okay?”
From my angle, I couldn’t see his face head-on, but his haggard profile was enough to tell me that the day had not been easy for him.
But that was probably true for my Noona as well. I didn’t know if she had heard about the blond man and the commotion he’d caused, but it wasn’t a matter of objectively comparing degrees of hardship… The thought that this night hadn’t been entirely pleasant for any of us—him, my Noona, and me included—made the unavoidable chill in the atmosphere all the more regrettable.
“Does the Chief know?”
My Noona asked. He turned back to face the front and took a drag from his cigarette.
“He’s against it, says it’s too soon. His reaction will change when I go back and tell him about the results we achieved this time. I’ll persuade him, one way or another.”
“Why are you in such a hurry all of a sudden?”
“……”
She waited for a moment, but my Noona received no answer to that question.
“Suddenly agreeing to an interview, throwing a party on a scale so excessive you had to use your own money… I thought it was strange. You’ve never used your personal funds for business matters before.”
My Noona paused for a moment, let out a long sigh, phooo, and ruffled her hair. It wasn’t a long drive from Old Town to the hotel. The entire city was still shrouded in fog, but I could tell our destination was approaching at the end of the straight road before us.
“You paid for the flights and accommodations for all those major gallery officials you invited from New York, didn’t you, Director?”
He rested his right arm on the window frame and pressed his fingers to his temple. Even from the back seat, I could hear the deep breath he took as he inhaled the smoke.
“I didn’t use them because I didn’t feel the need to, not because I was consciously trying to draw a precise line between my personal funds and Phantom’s.”
“I’ve been with you for years, Director. Do you really think I’d believe that?”
“……”
He leaned forward from his seat and stubbed out his cigarette in the car’s ashtray.
“I knew you probably didn’t come from an ordinary family. But… I also know you’ve never once used your background since Phantom opened. But… why has your ambition for a new branch suddenly grown so large… to the point where you have to do business by revealing the family background you’ve hidden for so long? To be honest, I don’t know who you are right now.”
My Noona’s voice sounded more confused than accusatory. His behavior today had been puzzling even to me, so I didn’t need much imagination to guess how it must have seemed to my Noona, who had been with him for years.
After the smoke had completely cleared, he left the window down and answered in a dry voice.
“It was purely a business judgment. Shushu’s exhibition would be a good catalyst, and there would be no better promotion than opening the branch with a sensational debut for Seo Yeehyeon. —That’s all there is to it. I made a decision, and I simply changed course and moved boldly in accordance with it.”
If that was the answer I would receive were I to ask him the same question as my Noona, I felt I probably wouldn’t be able to fully accept it.
His rather complicated feelings about his parents, and the cynicism he’d felt among people who linked his every move to his background, didn’t seem to have stopped at mere dissatisfaction with a darkly tangled life; they seemed to have become a part of his core beliefs, his very identity.
Not revealing his background, not using it for his business—those could not have been meaningless actions. That was the impression I had gotten from his stories about his family.
Perhaps he had decided this wasn’t something he could explain in detail right now and was planning to arrange a proper time after returning to Korea.
Soon, the hotel came into clear view even through the fog. My Noona rubbed her bare arms and spoke.
“After you came back from Hong Kong, you started working from your villa in UN Village… you were pushing forward with the New York branch from there, weren’t you?”
By now, Noona’s voice sounded very tired, too. It seemed she had no intention of pressing him for more answers. At least not here.
“To think you were really plotting a conspiracy there, just like Kwon Juhan said.”
Recalling the joke my Hyung had made on the day the four of us ate hamburgers on his rooftop, back when summer was still in full swing, my Noona let out a belated, deflated laugh.
The car stopped in front of the hotel’s main entrance. Amidst the brittle silence, my Noona was the first to get out of the car.
As we walked toward the elevator hall, I glanced at his face. He seemed almost unfazed by the confusion my Noona was showing. A deep fatigue was palpable, but he seemed preoccupied by another problem, something bigger, though I didn’t know what.
In the elevator at 2 AM, it was just the three of us.
My Noona, who had to get off before us on the 12th floor, stood by the door, fiddling with her clutch.
“I know you’re the owner of Phantom, Director, and that you have no obligation to explain every decision about the gallery to us as it happens. Not to mention your private life or family matters. Still… finding out this way… I guess I can’t help but feel hurt. I’m sorry. No matter how much I pretend to be mature, I’m still just a kid.”
He, who had been leaning against the wall opposite the door next to me, couldn’t bring himself to speak rashly as he gazed at my Noona’s back. He just swept his hair back and let out a long breath. The elevator was just passing the 7th floor, heading to the 8th.
My Noona turned halfway and looked back at me.
“Did you… know?”
Her gaze was half-filled with the certainty that I had known. In other words, it was also half-uncertain.
“Ah… well…”
“Seo Yeehyeon only heard about the New York branch this afternoon, too.”
As I hesitated, wondering what the wisest answer would be, he answered for me. Depending on how one heard it, it could have sounded like he was trying to protect me.
“So, you’re saying he knew beforehand that you were the son of Nick Liu and Suki Kim?”
It was a sharp question from my Noona. That’s not to say it was a malicious question, as if she had been waiting to stab at an exposed weakness in a single breath.
“……”
He didn’t deny it, and my Noona sighed. Then, she reached out and placed a hand on my shoulder.
“I didn’t ask because I was going to say, ‘Why did you tell him but hide it from us?’ I was just genuinely curious, so don’t make that face.”
The doors opened with a calm announcement that we were on the 12th floor. Forcing a smile that was worse than no smile at all, my Noona squeezed my shoulder once before her tired gaze shifted to him.
“You worked hard today. I’ll see you in the lobby at 10 tomorrow.”
The doors closed before he could finish telling my Noona that she had worked hard, too.
From the 12th floor to the 16th, the less-than-a-minute journey felt suffocating, as if the air was being silently sucked out of the silence.
“What should we do… about not being able to spend Sunday together?”
Was it an effort to change the mood? As we got off the elevator, he brought up a completely different topic and wrapped his arm around my shoulder. A deep fatigue emanated from him as he pulled my head closer and kissed my temple.
Toward the end of the party, he had been invited to a Sunday luncheon with Chloe Kent and a few other key figures. It seemed the conversation he’d had with Kent was about to move in a positive direction. Because of that, we had to cancel the lunch plans we had made.
What I wanted to ask and hear from him right now wasn’t about things like that, but it didn’t seem like the right time.
“We can still spend the evening together, so…”
I mumbled, awkwardly wrapping an arm around his waist as he opened the room door with a card key. Click. Pushing open the right side of the double doors, he gave a short smile, as if thanking me for understanding.
In the small hall in front of the entrance, where the path split to his room, the master suite, the living room, and my room, he didn’t let me go, instead pulling my hand toward his room.
“Um…”
He stopped and turned around at the force of me hesitating and pulling my arm back.
“Should we… sleep separately tonight?”
“……”
“It’s really late… and you have to go out in the morning for the official opening.”
For a moment, his eyes looked like the screen of a phone that had been horribly scratched after sliding across the asphalt.
Letting go of my hand, he meaninglessly traced the edge of the console table—which held a vase of flowers, a lamp, and a telephone—with his fingertips. As if checking to see if it had been cleaned properly.
“Is it really because you’re worried about me? Or is it an indirect way of showing me you want to sleep separately?”
“……”
I knew he regretted his words even before he finished speaking. He clamped his mouth shut, breathed heavily through his nose, and rubbed his face as if to crush it.
“Sorry. That was just a stupid way of taking things out on you. I’m sorry… I think I’m on edge because so much… happened all day… so I think it’s best we sleep separately tonight, like you said.”
Following my Noona’s lead, he too forced a smile. He thanked me for holding up so well through what must have been a difficult day. He told me to sleep well. He gave me a heartfelt goodnight kiss, but I couldn’t sleep properly. He probably couldn’t either. If I had known it would be like this, I should have just slept with him, tracing each other’s bare skin and sharing body heat to soothe our fatigue and anxiety. I tossed and turned for a long time, regretting it.
○
Leave a Reply