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The drive from the resort in Jimbaran to Double Six Beach took over forty minutes. The straight-line distance wasn’t very far, but the road closest to the beach was too narrow for cars, forcing them to take a winding inland route.
Liu stopped the car in front of a café building with exposed plaster walls decorated with climbing vines, then passed the row of parked motorcycles and stepped onto the beach.
He habitually pulled out the sunglasses tucked in his left pocket, put them on, and began walking further north.
Beanbags, parasols, and colorfully painted tables set out by the various beach bars occupied half the sandy shore. Among Bali’s many beaches, Double Six Beach was particularly famous for its beautiful sunsets. There were still more than two hours until the sunset would truly begin, but people wanting a good spot had already ordered cocktails and were leisurely waiting for the sun to go down.
Morae and Yihan.
Both of them worked as full-time instructors at a large surfing school. Their schedules were packed from the morning shift until before dinner, and after lessons, they had to monitor their students’ form using recorded videos to provide additional guidance. In exchange for room and board provided by the company, it was an extension of their job to mingle with students and guests as school staff and create a fun atmosphere. From what he had gathered, it didn’t seem to be a life of leisurely enjoying their own surfing and living freely in a resort paradise.
They could have worked as part-time instructors or found other jobs with more time to spare, but that level of income would only be enough to barely get by.
Judging by the amount of money the two of them sent to Liu every month via Yeehyeon, it seemed they had resolved to endure hardship for a year or two in order to pay off the 100 million won debt even a little bit faster.
Arriving at the beach bar run by the surfing school they belonged to, Liu settled into one of the beach chairs set up in pairs in front of the traditional Balinese wooden building. An employee in a white piqué shirt and shorts uniform immediately approached and handed him a menu. Liu requested a bottle of his favorite brand of beer and an ashtray, then took out a cigarette.
While waiting for the beer, he held the unlit cigarette, filter between his lips, and gazed at the sea. The waves were calm. They rolled in from the distant sea at a uniform height, then disappeared, seeping into the sand with a soft hiss.
Watching it, his desire to smoke faded along with the waves. Liu dropped the unsmoked cigarette into the ashtray and, sipping the pleasantly cool beer, followed the movements of the surfers on the water with his eyes.
The sea breeze fluttered his comfortable, wide-legged linen pants, and sand crept between the leather sandals on his feet. The unique heat and languid haze of the resort seemed to slightly loosen the inner self that had felt stuck in a harsh winter for nearly the past year.
Liu leaned his body fully against the backrest, pulled his legs up onto the chair, and stretched them out long. He crossed his ankles, clasped his hands behind his head, and his eyes closed on their own.
He didn’t know why he had decided on a trip to this place.
Even though he had already been to Bali three or four times, from the moment he decided on a two-week vacation, he couldn’t think of anywhere else.
Perhaps he wanted to check on the two of them in person, on Yeehyeon’s behalf. Or perhaps, by indirectly coming into contact with people who knew the past Yeehyeon that he did not, he just wanted to trick, even for a moment, the longing that had starved him for so long.
In any case, they didn’t know his face, and he thought there would be no harm in confirming that they were healthy and doing well. Just in case… for the day he might be able to tell Yeehyeon.
Not far from the shore, among the beginner surfers who were repeatedly standing up and falling off their boards with the help of an instructor, one surfer caught his eye, gliding over the waves in a smooth curve.
As the waves were calm, the surfer wasn’t showing off any flashy techniques, yet they drew his gaze. It was hard to believe they were on water; they rode a natural current as if the waves were gently carrying them to shore. Above all, though they were too far away for their expression to be visible, it was clear that they were enjoying this moment on the sea with their entire being. Liu was certain that this was Morae.
He couldn’t help but think of a younger Yeehyeon, who must have sat alone on the sand, just as he was now, watching Morae and Yeehan freely ride the waves.
Even if it was a time already past, he wanted the silence and solitude the young Yeehyeon must have felt then, like being submerged without a sound in the deep sea, to transfer directly into his own heart. As much as he had greedily wished to be a part of Yeehyeon’s future, he had wished for even a single one of the many nights Yeehyeon must have tossed and turned, unable to sleep easily in his past, to be shared as his own burden. Even at this moment, that desperation had not faded in the slightest.
Walking out of the sea, she, contrary to her name, which meant ‘sand,’ more closely resembled the endless ocean that met the shore. Although he was familiar with her face from photos, he hadn’t expected to recognize her at a glance, wearing a wetsuit with her hair soaking wet.
It seemed she had given a demonstration at the students’ request right after a lesson ended. Coming up onto the beach, she chatted for a moment with two or three other Koreans who were waiting, then led them and slowly moved toward the bar.
Liu, who had been following her movements from behind his sunglasses, felt as if she too had recognized him as the group drew closer and was offering him a smile. Even if she did recognize him, she would have no reason to wear the happy expression of someone meeting an old friend in an unexpected place, so it had to be a misunderstanding.
But perhaps it wasn’t a misunderstanding, because she stopped right in front of Liu’s beach chair as he was turning to pick up his beer bottle.
“Huh? Mr. Rabbit!”
“……”
Liu furrowed his brow behind his sunglasses. He couldn’t tell what she had said, or if he had heard her correctly. She, who had been about to explain something with words, soon shook her head and gestured for Liu to follow.
Stepping into the bar, which was filled with an exotic atmosphere and decorated with plush sofas and oriental-style cushions, she wiped her sun-kissed face, beaded with water droplets, and grinned as she pointed to a wall.
“……”
Amid a carelessly torn corner of a magazine, maps of various places around the world, and Polaroid photos of people with diverse smiling faces who seemed to be past visitors, was a drawing by Yeehyeon.
It was a sketch on a piece of paper slightly smaller than an A4 sheet, likely torn from a spiral notebook, drawn casually as if doodling with a ballpoint pen, but he could tell at a glance that it was Yeehyeon’s drawing.
Next to a drawing that was clearly of Yuni and Juhan, the figure wearing large rabbit ears and looking at a pocket watch hanging from a vest was unmistakably Liu himself.
He had flown all the way here to soothe his longing for him, even just a little, but not like this. He was completely unprepared to encounter a trace of him in such an unexpected place.
Standing beside him, she tilted her head, looked at the drawing, and said.
“You can’t miss it, right? Yeehyeon is really talented.”
He could truly feel what it meant for emotions to crash over him like a wave. The patience of the past year was all crumbling, and he felt like he would be thrown back to that moment when he had watched the pouring rain over the sea with Yeehyeon. Back to that moment when he had wanted to cling to him and beg him not to go, to somehow remind him of the love for him that remained inside, even if it meant selling his own past to stir his pity.
Feeling the cool air of the sea coming from her, Liu covered his eyes.
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On my third day here, I had my first meeting with Josef Ruth.
He was a young master with a gentle image, and thankfully, like most of the people I deal with in this line of work, he didn’t resent me or treat me with hostility for the situation of having to become an Omega.
I don’t know if it’s an Austrian custom or a tradition unique to the Ruth family, but Josef’s Omega attendant waited on us throughout the meeting. Alpha and Omega attendants are usually married off to lower nobles or merchants for a large sum of money, so for a family trying to solidify its status by turning their son into an Omega to marry an Alpha, to keep an Omega attendant as a personal servant… that itself was strange, but to expose an Omega servant who was defenselessly emitting pheromones in front of an Alpha guest was, in any case, a rare occurrence.
Josef’s Alpha friend came over, and the three of us had tea in the afternoon. The Alpha who visited today is the one Josef will propose to if this matter is successful. Of course, he has no idea why I am staying at Josef’s house. He only knows me as the scion of a ‘great’ noble family visiting from England, and he treats me kindly. I wonder if he would still be willing to have tea with me at the same table if he found out my true identity. The thought alone is laughable.
When Josef becomes an Omega, he will think of him as a naturally presented Omega and accept Josef’s proposal. It’s not a problem that will be solved by me feeling guilty.
The strange thing is that Erich was in attendance the whole time today as well, but he didn’t seem to sense Erich’s pheromones at all. If he had detected them, the two would have had no choice but to react to each other’s pheromones immediately. It’s impossible.
Erich bought me some Swiss chocolate from the market at my request. It’s one of the few things I enjoy that I occasionally think of.
I thought he wouldn’t be able to find it, but for him, who knows the market inside and out, it seems it wasn’t a difficult task.
We shared the chocolate and talked during Erich’s short break.
Erich says he’s envious that I’ve traveled to many countries and asks me to tell him stories of other lands whenever he has a moment. But the only stories I can tell, as someone who just moves from a nobleman’s mansion to a wealthy merchant’s villa, and then to another nobleman’s mansion, are funny anecdotes of the arrogant nobles I’ve met or embarrassing incidents due to cultural differences between countries. Yet, Erich listens to even those stories as if they are incredibly amusing.
At times like that, Erich’s pheromones are as tender as a May rose bathed in sunlight, yet they stimulate me so much that a sweet sigh escapes on its own. It is a dizzying, ecstatic scent I have never experienced with any other pheromone before.
Erich.
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