○
Getting out of the taxi, Liu shoved his hands into his coat pockets and let out a long breath. The sight of Phantom, visible through the dissipating cloud of his breath, was unfamiliar.
The small parking lot in front of the building was packed with trucks carrying various demolition tools and waste that had already been torn out and loaded up. Through the main entrance, which was wide open unlike usual, the bustling interior could be seen.
A worker, carrying a dismantled door on his back, glanced this way, as if intrigued by the man of rare height with exotic and striking looks. After tossing the wood he was carrying into the truck’s cargo bed, he hurriedly disappeared back inside.
Liu followed the worker, slowly stepping into Phantom.
Large, yellow sacks typically used at construction sites were piled up on one side of the entrance, filled to the brim. Fragments of torn-out plywood and broken tiles were scattered on the floor. On the first floor, most of the temporary walls had already been demolished, so that most of the space was visible even from the entrance. He could see Manager Han and Juhan, talking with serious expressions to the head of the firm in charge of this construction, in the spot that had been an exhibition hall until just yesterday.
Feeling a little different than he had when they bought this building and renovated it to expand Phantom, Liu hesitated to walk further in, lingering around the entrance.
Juhan, spotting Liu, approached and handed him a mask. Come to think of it, though not even five minutes had passed since he stepped inside the main entrance, a white layer of dust had already settled on the front of his coat.
“What brings you here?”
“Still, it’s the first day of work. I had to come see.”
Liu looped the mask over his ears and looked around the messy interior.
“It’s a madhouse, isn’t it? It looked the same until dawn today. The way it used to be feels like a lie.”
Juhan, too, seemed to be feeling something out of the ordinary; a rather complex sentiment was evident in his voice, speaking from behind the mask. Liu smiled silently and nodded, but to him, it looked less like a madhouse and more like a ruin.
Even knowing that this demolition was a process for a new beginning, a bitter taste kept rising from below his chest, as if he were watching the final moments of something being dismantled, its value gone after everything was over.
Looking up at the chandelier on the ceiling being carefully detached and lowered, Liu, with his hands still in his coat pockets, nudged Juhan’s shoulder.
“I even went ahead with the construction just the way you wanted, so don’t you even think about skipping out.”
“You never would have said okay if you didn’t think it was right, so why are you acting like it’s all because of me? I just suggested making a small café in a corner. You’re the one who blew this up by deciding to do a full remodeling while we were at it, Mr. CEO.”
At Juhan’s reaction, who took a step back with a straight face, Liu chuckled through his nose and slung an arm over his shoulder.
“If I make a big deal out of it, you won’t think of straying, if only out of a sense of responsibility.”
“A clingy CEO is just weird, you know?”
Liu laughed, pulling Juhan by the shoulder into the room that had been used as an office.
The office, where he had been busy organizing with the staff until midnight today, had already been completely demolished, its ceiling and walls exposed to their original state. Walking over to the open window, Liu pulled his mask down to his chin and rummaged through his pocket for a cigarette.
“Turns out I was always a little weird.”
His own self, unable to stop changing like someone trying to ruin himself even while knowing that only catastrophe awaited at the end, was weird. Because until then, his life had been one where control and regulation were second nature.
But a human who could perfectly control themselves could not exist. Not even for a Golden Alpha who could control their pheromones to a degree that was close to a Beta.
“Things get weird when what should be there isn’t in its rightful place.”
“……”
Liu’s hand, which had been bending over to rest his elbows on the windowsill and bring the lighter’s flame to the tip of his cigarette, stopped. For a moment, he couldn’t hide his surprised expression and looked back at Juhan. Juhan, who had pulled down his mask, was looking at Liu, almost glaring, with serious eyes.
“Go and take him back.”
Liu let out a short laugh at the expression that was so very Juhan-like, laying his desires bare, then turned his head back and lit the cigarette. He took the first drag, exhaled a long stream of smoke, and muttered.
“It’s not that he was taken from me.”
“Have you not seen the paintings Yeehyeon has been doing lately?”
“……”
“‘Colorful Ghosts,’ what do you think all that means?”
Since around autumn, Yeehyeon had been releasing a series titled ‘Colorful Ghosts.’ The paintings, which depicted various figures in his signature style, were a series that exaggeratedly highlighted the characteristics of each subject and visualized each model’s personal story, filling the background. In Paris, opinions on the series were sharply divided.
Juhan, who didn’t know Liu’s identity as Ghost, was speculating that Yeehyeon wanted to come back here simply because he had titled his series ‘Ghosts,’ a play on Phantom’s name, but Liu thought differently.
He was not the type of person to make up his own mind and then wait for someone to notice and make a move. At least, not anymore.
“I told you you didn’t have to come. Why are you here?”
At the voice from the entrance, Liu and Juhan turned around at the same time. Manager Han was stepping into the office, its door now torn off. It seemed her conversation with the firm head was over.
Juhan, glancing at Liu one more time, readjusted his mask and disappeared out of the office as if trading places with Manager Han.
“Why’s that kid pouting like that? Just this morning he was running around all excited that the construction was starting.”
Liu shrugged at Manager Han, who was looking at Juhan’s retreating back with a puzzled expression.
Manager Han came to stand beside him and tossed a file related to the construction outline onto the windowsill, leaning against the wall.
“The electrical wiring is a bit more tangled than we thought, so it’s a little tricky, but it looks like the demolition will proceed on schedule. I don’t think CEO Liu needs to come by for about a week.”
Clutching the stub of his cigarette, Liu turned to her.
“Is this your plan to gradually exclude me from management?”
“I’m giving you a vacation.”
“……”
“Of course, you’ll have to check on the site from time to time, but still, getting a few months off like this is a rare opportunity, you know. I plan to work you hard for a while after we reopen. So get some rest. Do what you want to do… go where you want to go. And stop spending twenty-five hours round-trip on a plane over the weekend.”
What he wanted to do, where he wanted to go. Her words, which seemed to already know everything, including where he had been going on some weekends, left Liu unable to even feign ignorance and ask what she was talking about. He pulled up the corners of his lips into an awkward smile and crushed the tip of the cigarette with his fingers to extinguish the ember.
He tossed the butt and his mask into a trash bag and left Phantom, his hands shoved in his coat pockets. The northwesterly wind coming over Bukhansan made him hunch his shoulders. It was the second winter since Yeehyeon had left. Just as he didn’t know the twenty-three-year-old Seo Yeehyeon, the Seo Yeehyeon of winter was also uncharted territory for Liu.
Under a sky that hung so low it seemed ready to snow at any moment, Liu began to walk down the sloping road. Imagining Yeehyeon, wearing a scarf and breathing out white puffs of air, walking this path with him.
○
Bringing two mugs of freshly brewed coffee from the machine to the dining table, Yeehyeon placed one of them in front of Jun.
“Thank you for the coffee.”
“It’s too simple a repayment for the homemade bourguignon. It was delicious.”
“I just made an extra serving while making my own. I’m the one who’s grateful you ate with me. It’s no fun eating alone.”
He knew of Jun’s consideration in deliberately adding a spicy kick to suit his own palate, and he was grateful for it, but knowing that Jun would only get more embarrassed if he said it out loud, Yeehyeon expressed his thanks with a quiet smile instead.
It was after the exhibition hall had closed and the office staff had gone home, so the entire building was quiet. Only the peaceful, everyday noises of someone using water in a bathroom, the patter of footsteps up and down the stairs, and the sound of a door opening and closing could be heard from time to time.
“Hyung… you seem to have no hesitation in revealing yourself in your work.”
“……”
Jun, who had been lost in thought, gazing down at the table while holding his mug with both hands, suddenly spoke.
“When I look at it… I feel like my existence is being embraced. It’s a little easier to be honest with myself in front of someone who first reveals themselves honestly.”
Yeehyeon smiled back at Jun, who was smiling and rubbing the back of his neck, as if embarrassed by his own words.
“I heard it failed to garner empathy because it contains overly personal content.”
“If it failed to garner empathy, would it have been sold as soon as it was hung in the gallery, and would so many people be coming to see it?”
Jun shook his head firmly.
“You can’t please everyone anyway… and being able to secure people who understand your work and find comfort in it, that in itself is amazing enough.”
Watching Jun, who spoke with a hint of envy as he lowered his gaze, Yeehyeon silently repeated the act of drinking his coffee for a moment. He knew well that Jun had been struggling for a long time to find a breakthrough in his work, so it was difficult to speak rashly. It was all the more so because he, too, had gone through such a period and, as someone who still moved his brush while fighting uncertainty every moment, he empathized with his worries.
But for that very reason, he also wanted to gather his courage and tell him his honest story, rather than keep his mouth shut just because it was a difficult problem.
“There are probably more universal stories that more people can empathize with. I don’t know for sure, but maybe those are better paintings, more valuable paintings. But… I’m just… trying my best to paint the pictures that I can paint now, and that I must paint now. Anything more than that is beyond my current abilities, so I’m just trying to faithfully focus on what I can do.”
Meeting Jun’s serious eyes, Yeehyeon carefully added the story he had hesitated to tell, wondering if he was talking too much. He felt he had to confess to Jun that he wasn’t a warrior fighting his anxiety all on his own.
“Scars are a part of one’s individuality… so you don’t have to cover them up, or try to overcome them cleanly like a hero… someone told me that. That’s probably why I, too, was able to gather the courage… to show myself.”
Jun, who wore an expression that seemed to say he knew who had said those words, looked at him the next moment with a slightly challenging gaze.
“Your boyfriend… why does he never come to see you?”
“It’s because… I won’t let him.”
Stroking the rim of his mug, Yeehyeon smiled faintly.
“Why not? Don’t you miss him?”
It was the first time in a little over a year that he had been asked such a direct question. The people who knew both him and Liu didn’t deliberately avoid talking about Liu in front of him, but they didn’t actively try to convey news about his current life either. Especially regarding his and Liu’s private relationship, they made no mention of it, as if such a thing had never happened. The Liu they spoke of was merely the CEO of Phantom, and the Liu who was connected to each of them individually.
He felt a little sorry for Jun, but that was why, when Jun occasionally asked about his boyfriend in a roundabout way, he could faintly feel the situation that their love, their relationship, was still ongoing, that he was still his ‘boyfriend.’
Upon being asked the straightforward question of whether he missed him, a wave of longing lapped precariously at the edge of his heart, as if it were a signal. Like a child who had bravely gotten up after falling, only to have tears well up in their eyes as soon as someone kindly asked if they were okay.
So he couldn’t answer readily. He replied by smiling vaguely and drinking his coffee.
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