Sweeping back his bangs with the hand that had been stroking the tip of his chin, Liu fiddled with Yeehyeon’s hand, which he was still holding on the table.
“This might sound selfish, but if my Diamond Dust had been someone other than you, and… if I had to watch myself crumble for someone unworthy of my love, I… wouldn’t have been able to bear it. If everything I’d strived for with all my being since my presentation became a worthless scrap of paper because of an empty person….”
Liu shook his head, lowering it as if he didn’t even want to imagine it. Then he looked back at Yeehyeon.
“The person who renders my solidly maintained defenses helpless is you… I’m so, so grateful for that. For me, there are so many reasons why it has to be you.”
The other’s presence, which couldn’t be fully contained in the single phrase ‘I love you,’ was something more than a simple emotion. It was true that there had been mistakes and disappointments, but they were desperate for each other for the sake of fundamental fulfillment and happiness. That, too, was an undeniable fact.
Unlike people who love for no reason, they had too many reasons to love each other, reasons why they couldn’t help but love each other.
Yeehyeon squeezed Liu’s hand, which was stroking the back of his own with its thumb. He thought he understood what Liu meant when he said that defining their relationship as ‘dating’ felt insufficient. It was also true that he hadn’t chosen to rekindle their relationship with the mindset of trying things out for a bit and then deciding on a complete breakup if it still didn’t work out.
Looking back, Liu had never upset him by not understanding his heart.
“Before I met you, Director, my response to my father’s silence was silence. If I now have the strength to face the situation properly, even if it’s from a distance, it’s… because you were there.”
That Liu had enabled him to draw again was equivalent to him enabling him to live again. It was Liu who had gently lifted the silence surrounding him, who had made him get up, walk back into the world, and find things he wanted to draw and say.
He was the one who had given him the most difficult task of forgiving the unforgivable, but also the one who had given him the gift he most desperately needed. A strange person.
Perhaps he was the same kind of existence to Liu.
An invincible beast, living alone inside high, sturdy castle walls, ensuring he had no relations with anyone.
Yeehyeon pictured the beast, flustered and breaking out in a cold sweat at the appearance of an intruder who, without any weapons, lightly crumbled a section of the world’s strongest fortress as if it were a sandcastle. He let out a small laugh.
At his sudden laughter, Liu peered deeply into his face, his expression questioning the reason. Perhaps because Yeehyeon was laughing, Liu also began to laugh without knowing why. Yeehyeon cupped his cheek and shook his head.
To each other, they were intruders from a strange land. Intruders who had brought the very thing the other had most desperately needed as a gift.
○
Like any other gallery in Paris, ‘The Hands’ was also holding a party to match the Christmas season, but most of the people attending the party on the night of the 24th were singles who lived apart from their families. This was because the perception of Christmas as a holiday spent with family was still strong in France.
“This is no different from last year.”
“As long as you can drink for free, you don’t care about anything else, do you, Ben?”
Jun shrugged at Ben’s complaint.
“What do you take a delicate artist like me for?”
Ben retorted.
“Is it a party just because there’s alcohol and music? The searching gazes, the taut sexual tension! None of that is here. How could that kind of thing happen between people who see each other every day?”
“Delicate, my ass….”
Jun clicked his tongue, his face scrunching up, but Ben paid him no mind, busy looking around the exhibition hall that had been transformed into a party venue.
Contrary to Ben’s grumbling, the exhibition hall was filled mostly with new faces. Besides the small-time patrons and frequent visitors invited by the gallery, there were also quite a few guests who had purchased tickets themselves.
‘The Hands’ party was quite popular among the artists around the Canal Saint-Martin and the hipsters of Paris.
“Seo Yeehyeon, Yeehyeon.”
“Huh, yeah?”
“That guy who just came in, isn’t he good-looking? What are you thinking so hard about?”
Turning to Ben, who was shaking his shoulder, Yeehyeon wiped his face. He had only lost the thread of the conversation for a moment due to his nervousness; he hadn’t been lost in thought.
“You keep looking at your watch. Don’t even think about slipping out early this year. This time, I’m going to make sure you get drunk….”
Oh, God.
Ben, who had his arm slung over Yeehyeon’s shoulder, stopped talking and invoked a higher power.
“There’s my sexual tension right there.”
Liu was standing by the entrance where Ben had fixed his gaze, muttering as such. Yeehyeon moistened his lips with the little wine left in his hand.
“What’s this? Does he know Reed? Is he one of the patrons? He’s obviously not your average luxury, but… why would someone like that be at ‘The Hands’ party on a day like this?”
Ben muttered rapidly, his arm tightening around Yeehyeon’s neck as if to choke him. He seemed far less composed than usual.
“He’s coming this way? Could it be, did he recognize me?”
“Ben… hey, that’s not it….”
Yeehyeon tried to explain, but it seemed Ben could no longer hear him. After quickly neatening his appearance, Ben downed the remaining half glass of wine in one go.
Liu, a wide smile on his face, had his eyes fixed on only one person. As he closed the distance, it became increasingly clear who that gaze was directed at.
“Merry Christmas. You look especially wonderful today.”
Stopping in front of Yeehyeon, Liu lightly wrapped an arm around his waist and kissed his cheek. Glancing sideways at the bizarrely contorted faces of Ben and Jun in their shock and confusion, Yeehyeon bit his lower lip. He didn’t dislike the physical contact. But he couldn’t help but blush.
Gently pushing against Liu’s chest, Yeehyeon cleared his throat with a dry cough.
“This is Liu Wi-Kun. My… boyfriend from Seoul.”
Ben and Jun’s eyes grew even wider than before. If he hadn’t emptied his glass, Ben might have spilled his wine.
“These two are… Ben and Jun, who I live with at ‘The Hands’.”
Liu, who was standing close with his arm still lightly around Yeehyeon’s waist, reacted quickly when Jun was introduced.
“Ah, Jun! The one who lives in the next room…. Nice to meet you.”
“Hyung… you talked about me?”
“He told me he had a younger brother from Hong Kong in the room next door, but you look younger than I imagined. To be supported by ‘The Hands’ at such a young age, you must be incredibly talented.”
There was no way Liu didn’t know that calling boys Jun’s age ‘young’ wasn’t a compliment. Yeehyeon got the impression that he was deliberately emphasizing Jun’s young age, but he couldn’t find any mischievous playfulness anywhere in his gentle smile.
“Hello. I’m Ben Schweiger. Well, fancy seeing you here again.”
“…Pardon?”
Before the awkwardly stiff handshake between Jun and Liu could even finish, Ben abruptly inserted himself between them.
“Uh… Ben… apparently saw Kun a few times at the café by the canal.”
“Ah….”
Hearing Yeehyeon’s explanation, Liu nodded with a look of understanding and took Ben’s hand.
“He said he had a boyfriend, but since he never showed up for over a year, we thought Yeehyeon might have made it up. We figured he was just saying he was taken to block off any romantic possibilities and focus on his art.”
At Ben’s words, Liu glanced at Yeehyeon with a ‘Is that so?’ expression, but Yeehyeon pretended not to notice his gaze and tilted his glass to swallow the last sip of wine.
“Of course, I’m not so close-minded as to think that just because someone is taken, all possibilities are blocked off.”
At Ben’s added remark, Liu laughed silently.
Yeehyeon knew well that no matter how much of a punk Ben pretended to be, he wasn’t the type to hit on someone who was already taken, let alone his own partner. But Ben’s attitude, not being as playfully teasing as he usually was with his objects of interest, was bothering him.
“If you don’t mind my asking… what do you do for a living…?”
“I run a gallery in Seoul. It’s also the gallery Yeehyeon was affiliated with before he came here. I worked with Yuni as well.”
Since the topic had come up, Liu naturally took a case from his inner pocket and handed his business cards to the two of them.
“Truthfully, there’s no one more trustworthy to entrust your work to than your lover. Not to mention their understanding of the work and respect for the artist…. As you well know, this industry is full of robbers trying to fleece others. It’s the ultimate partnership. As a fellow artist, I’m envious of Yeehyeon.”
After examining the business card with a serious gaze, Ben grinned not at Liu, but at Yeehyeon, and said as much.
“But, don’t lovers usually want to spend a day like this alone? Especially if it’s been a while since you’ve seen each other….”
“Well, honestly, I wanted to.”
Liu replied instantly to Jun’s muttered comment.
Feeling Ben and Jun’s surprised gazes on him once again, Yeehyeon tried to escape the awkwardness by drinking, but his glass was empty.
They had probably thought his love life was blandly simple, boringly placid. That he would choose a similar kind of person as a partner.
“But being with Yeehyeon at a place that’s important to him is also meaningful. Well… we do have separate plans to be alone together after this.”
He tightened the arm around Yeehyeon’s waist and pressed his lips to his cheek. It was a kiss that felt a little deeper than a greeting, and this time, Ben and Jun averted their gazes, pretending to drink their wine.
“Hey, wine… should I get you some? There’s only one kind, so there’s no choice, but….”
“It’s fine. I can drink later… just stay with me a little longer.”
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