“I received the offer when I was in Chicago. It was unintentional… The timing overlapped with the talk of the New York branch, but that’s not why I made up my mind.”
As if she didn’t know why she was making such an excuse, Yuni smiled bitterly and lowered her head.
Then, for Manager Han and Juhan, who knew nothing about this, she briefly relayed the situation in a composed but weary-sounding voice. There wasn’t much to say, really; the situation was clear.
“No one will think you’re betraying Phantom for accepting that offer.”
“Manager Han!”
Juhan shouted at Manager Han’s reaction, roughly grabbing her shoulder. But he had to swallow his words at her calm gaze as she turned to him.
“It’s a position you were offered for all your hard work and the skills you’ve built up, and it’s not like we don’t know you’ve been constantly striving to work in a city where art is handled more actively. Besides, for a global organization that doesn’t borrow the identity of a single country or city, it seems like there couldn’t be a better opportunity for you, right?”
“……”
Lightly taking Yuni’s arm, Manager Han looked deep into Yuni’s chaotically wavering eyes.
“You’ve fulfilled your obligation to Phantom with all the hard work you’ve put in since you came here.”
Yuni nodded at Manager Han’s words, but her eyes were still a mix of hesitation, guilt, and confusion.
“CEO, say something!”
Juhan was several times more emotional than when he had heard that Liu and Yeehyeon were leaving in two weeks to open the New York branch. No one here was unaware of what Juhan and Yuni were to each other, or how much the two, cast out from their families, had relied on one another.
That was also why it wasn’t hard to guess how difficult it must have been for Baek Yuni to bring this up with Juhan before making her decision. He was running wild with shock and agitation now, but with time, Kwon Juhan would probably come to understand her feelings. More deeply than anyone else.
“It’s Baek Yuni’s life. What do you want me to say?”
Believing this, Liu deliberately poured cold water on Juhan’s agitation with an even colder tone.
“Baek Yuni is doing this because you said you’d abandon Phantom! It’s your responsibility, so you fix it!”
At Juhan’s fierce accusation, this time it was Yuni who raised her voice.
“Kwon Juhan, what are you talking about? Do you think I’d make an important decision about my life out of something as petty as defiance? That’s not why I decided. And I don’t think the CEO is abandoning Phantom, either.”
“Oh, really? Well, what can I do when it feels like nothing but you and the CEO abandoning Phantom?”
Clenching his jaw and glaring, Juhan roughly pushed back his chair, stood up, and snatched the jacket slung over the backrest.
“Did we… stick together for all those years just to be notified like this after everything’s already been decided? If you were all going to claim sole ownership, saying it’s your life and yours alone… why didn’t you just draw a clear line and keep it strictly professional from the start? If it was going to be like this, why did you act like friends… like family until now?”
No one could offer a plausible rebuttal to those words. Juhan’s reaction was immature and emotional, but at least for the people present, the ones who had built the relationship together, they couldn’t apply an objective standard and scold him to stop being childish.
Faced with the raw cry of a child who wants to believe that life is something lived together… they couldn’t feign maturity, as if the bitter realization granted by time and experience was that life is ultimately each person’s own burden… as if they had become adults who could no longer be hurt by anything.
As Juhan picked up his phone from the table and turned to leave, Liu spoke in a low, tight voice.
“At least take your travel gift.”
Juhan glanced down at the shopping bag filled with miscellaneous travel souvenirs that had been handed out before the meal and placed under the table. Instead of picking it up, he looked at Yeehyeon, who was sitting next to Liu, and spoke forcefully, as if giving a warning.
“I told you, didn’t I? He’s the kind of person who would never hold on to you if you actually said you were leaving. He might be kind and affectionate, but he never tries to enter the truly deep parts, and he never lets you in either.”
“……”
“You should think carefully, too.”
Revealing the chill emanating from the raw cross-section of the wound, Juhan left the dining room without a backward glance. Only after the sound of the front door being deliberately and loudly slammed shut from beyond the living room did Liu sigh and get up from his seat.
Conscious of Yeehyeon’s gaze following his profile, he gave Yeehyeon’s shoulder a squeeze and release, offering a stiff, awkward smile. He’d done it hoping to reassure Yeehyeon, but the eyes looking up at him were still filled with concern.
Grabbing his cigarettes and a lighter, Liu walked to the window, leaned against the half-open frame, and lit one.
He watched the three figures in the glass, which reflected the room’s scenery like a mirror, took a deeper drag of smoke, and exhaled it lower. The memory of them laughing and chatting while having a barbecue in the garden just a few months ago felt like a lie, and he shoved his non-smoking hand into his pants pocket and chuckled with a click of his tongue.
In the black windowpane, Yeehyeon’s reflection, which occasionally glanced his way, seemed like an untouchable illusion. An image formed on the glass, but one that didn’t exist in the actual space if he were to turn around…
Thinking that his imagination had become uncharacteristically sentimental, Liu let out a dry, derisive laugh and pressed his forehead against the glass.
In the silence where no one dared to make a move, the sound of the front door opening and closing suddenly pierced the dining room. At the hopeful thought that Juhan might have returned, everyone’s gaze turned to the dining room entrance connected to the living room.
“Kwon Juhan just stormed out, totally pissed. What’s up with him?”
But the one who appeared, shrugging, was Choi Inwoo.
“What are you doing here?”
Liu stubbed out his half-smoked cigarette and immediately took on an aggressive stance. The timing was not good.
“I was about to ring the bell, but Kwon Juhan came running out. So I just came in?”
“I’m asking why you’re here when you weren’t invited.”
“I heard rumors you were back but didn’t get any word from you, so I came because I was curious. Why? Is there a problem?”
Looking up at Liu’s face, who had stepped right up to him with a furrowed brow as if he would shove his shoulder at any moment, Inwoo smirked provocatively. Then he looked past Liu’s shoulder, confirmed the faces of the three people, and shook his head.
“Hmm… Looks like there is a problem. This isn’t the love-and-happiness-filled Phantom I know.”
Manager Han, who had been lost in thought with her elbows on the table and her chin resting on her lightly clenched fists, rose from her seat.
“I’m going to get going. Yuni, let’s go. I’ll give you a ride.”
After gathering her trench coat and briefcase, Manager Han let out a heavy sigh and opened her mouth as if she had made up her mind.
“I can’t argue if CEO Liu says Phantom is his. But… the fact that the kids are shocked and hurt, that’s something you have to accept, CEO Liu. I’ll proceed as instructed since the owner has made the decision and insists it must be done, but as someone who has brought Phantom this far together, I’m not in a situation where I can completely accept it either.”
“I don’t think of it as mine. If you hadn’t come with me from Hong Kong, Manager Han, Phantom wouldn’t even exist.”
Liu, standing behind Manager Han near the dining room entrance, said as he carelessly ran a hand through his hair, messing it up.
“Right, I don’t doubt you think that, CEO Liu. But fundamentally, and on paper, Phantom is your property. This is something that could have ended without anyone getting hurt if you had taken more time and prepared with respect. The reason you have to push it through in such a hurry right now… honestly, I still don’t completely understand it. You were never the type to be that ambitious about success or influence. Or… was there a lot about you that I didn’t know, CEO Liu?”
Finishing her words, Manager Han glanced down at Yeehyeon for a moment. Through the story of Liu taking Yeehyeon, who had yet to even make his official debut among Phantom’s many artists, to New York, Manager Han had probably put together the clear picture of their relationship only today.
Yeehyeon lowered his gaze out of guilt for having kept the relationship a secret, but Manager Han’s eyes, as she looked at him, spoke not of resentment but of worry and concern. Liu, his gaze fixed on Yeehyeon’s lowered head across the table, muttered powerlessly, as if all the venom had been drained from him.
“You can never know everything about someone… Like Kwon Juhan said, I’m a person who can’t let anyone in deep.”
Yeehyeon’s face, unusually pale today, slowly turned toward him. Looking at that small face that trusted him, that was trying with all its might to love him with its wounded young heart, he felt as if he were slowly sinking into an irredeemable abyss.
“If that’s the case, then it wouldn’t be surprising… if there are things I haven’t told anyone here.”
He added with resignation, his eyes and voice hazy, then roughly shoved Inwoo’s shoulder and went back to the window to find a cigarette.
Manager Han’s voice followed him from behind.
“I hope you won’t say anything about Juhan’s reaction being unprofessional. You didn’t treat the kids just as employees either, CEO Liu.”
Before following Manager Han out, Yuni placed a hand on Yeehyeon’s shoulder, and Yeehyeon silently squeezed her hand back.
No one spoke until the sound of the two leaving the dining room, crossing the living room, and disappearing out the front door faded away. Only the shopping bags with the souvenirs they had left behind remained under the table.
“Isn’t this Kyubey sushi? What a waste.”
Inwoo plopped down in the seat Manager Han had occupied and looked around the table.
He had served luxurious omakase sushi, specially requested from a regular spot that didn’t do takeout, for dinner, but everyone had only touched it formally, and the food was almost untouched.
“It’s fine, just leave it.”
As Yeehyeon hesitantly stood up to clear the dishes, Liu stopped him in a low voice. Yeehyeon glanced back and forth between Liu and Inwoo, then quietly set the plate down and rubbed his own arms.
“Then I’ll… go downstairs.”
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