Even as the lens changed direction to capture his profile as he drank his beer, to capture his lips parted wide to eat a hamburger, to capture his bare feet stepping on the mat, neither of them showed any unnatural self-consciousness. In fact, he even deliberately smeared ketchup from a french fry on his lips and played around for the camera.
I didn’t feel at all that they were excluding me, but the essential difference between them and me was too clear for me to feel like a natural part of this group.
A beautiful, well-managed two-story house and its contrastingly messy garden, two people with distinct personalities and presence, and a sophisticated, wealthy Golden Alpha with an overwhelming appearance, all at an early summer picnic.
For me, it was an experience as unfamiliar as becoming ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and peeking at the March Hare and the Mad Hatter’s tea party.
Based on looks alone, Yuni-noona suited the March Hare, and Juhan-hyeong, the Mad Hatter. As it happened, Hyung was also wearing the hunting cap he had worn for the photoshoot today. Dressed in black from head to toe again today, Noona would be a black-furred rabbit, not a white-furred one.
Then what role should I give him?
It was hard to find a character in ‘Alice in Wonderland’ that fit him perfectly, but if I had to choose one, I thought it would be the rabbit in the waistcoat.
I considered the selfish queen, the cynical caterpillar, or the smiling cat that suddenly appeared and disappeared, but setting aside all other details and their actual roles in the story, the rabbit in the waistcoat was, to me, a symbol of ‘Wonderland’ itself—for being the guide who led Alice to ‘Wonderland’ and the first to pique her curiosity.
The visitor Alice, who was at times excited and curious about the experience in Wonderland, and at times confused by the incomprehensible events, was of course me.
Imagining myself in a blue dress with a white apron, like the commonly pictured Alice, made my face scrunch up on its own, as if I had drunk a bizarre-tasting beverage.
Under the late afternoon sun of early summer, they all looked free and radiant. Unlike me, who had seized the good fortune of being here through a series of coincidences and the kindness of many people, everything they had, from their work performance to a single smile, was something they had created themselves.
They were the ‘people of Wonderland.’
Noona’s and Hyeong’s laughter grew louder at his exaggeratedly provocative pose for the camera.
It was the same during yesterday’s event, but he seemed to be in a really good mood today. It might have been because all of artist Shushu’s works were sold at the VIP opening, which also served as a press conference. He—no, to be precise, Phantom—had purchased a third of the entire collection, but that was an investment for sale at the Hong Kong Art Fair in July. They weren’t troublesome pieces the gallery was forced to take on because they didn’t sell.
As I fumbled, flustered by the camera suddenly turning toward me, Noona came up beside me and, changing the camera’s angle this way and that, mimicked a reporter at the scene of a scoop. “How does it feel to be the muse of Phantom’s Mr. Liu Weikun?” she asked, and a flash went off in front of my eyes.
“Rumors are rampant that the two of you are more than just a photographer and a model. Is this true? Looking at the photos Mr. Liu Weikun has taken, it seems the rumors aren’t entirely baseless? Mr. Seo Yeehyeon, please give us a statement!”
Taking the beer bottle I was fiddling with and holding it to my lips like a microphone, Noona looked at me with eyes full of laughter. His gaze, visible over her shoulder, was also directed this way.
“Um… No comment.”
“You are aware that ‘no comment’ is taken as an admission, aren’t you?”
“In that case… no comment.”
“……”
The playfulness vanished from Noona’s face, and in contrast, he burst out laughing. Juhan-Hyung whistled and drummed on the mat.
I knew myself that I wasn’t a fun or pleasant person to be around, but in a mood like this, I wanted to play along to some extent. Noona let her surprised expression crumble into a grin and gently shook my cheek without hurting me, saying, “Aigoo, our cute Seo Yeehyeon.”
Returning to her spot, Noona opened a new beer and drank it down coolly. Then, picking up a french fry, she said.
“CEO, anyone else is fine, but not Yeehyeon. Don’t even dream of it.”
“Hmm… What dream?”
“The naughty dreams that unfold in your adult land.”
“……”
Before he could react, Juhan-hyeong, who had taken the camera Noona had set down and was now clicking the shutter at this and that, chimed in.
“You don’t have to worry about that. I mean, sure, if you strip Yeehyeon down, he’s got a slender body with fine muscles, a handsome face, and skin like it’s been coated in honey, but! Thank goodness he’s not the CEO’s type.”
“Isn’t that sexual harassment? Aren’t you going to say something? That’s a much more high-level comment than mine, isn’t it?”
While appealing his own unfair treatment to Yuni-noona, he skillfully turned the situation into a joke, but an affirmation or denial of Juhan-hyeong’s statement that I wasn’t his type was, in fact, unnecessary.
I still remembered what he had said to Inwoo-Hyung when we first met in front of Phantom, after I got out of his car, and Inwoo-Hyung had pointed at me and asked if I was his new lover.
Just as I thought the beer suddenly tasted more bitter, it turned out to be the last sip of the one I was drinking. As I reached for a new beer in the icebox, he, being closer, took one out and handed it to me.
“Right. I once stopped by here on a holiday because I needed to pick up a piece urgently, and I saw one of the CEO’s men. He was a surprisingly burly type?”
“What? Really? CEO, is this for real?”
At Hyeong’s voice, which had risen to almost a shout, he grimaced and covered his ears.
“What if it’s real, and what if it’s not? Is there some reason burly can’t be my type?”
“Wow… The person you see on a daily basis is someone like artist Shushu, so how can burly be your type? Do you start wanting to live recklessly if you only see beautiful things?”
“I never said burly was my type, you know? Just that even if it were, it’s none of your business. And not everyone who’s been to my house is my partner. Besides, Kwon Juhan. I don’t think you’re in any position to be talking about other people’s tastes, are you?”
A man in his late thirties whose facial lines were just beginning to soften, caught in a state of lethargy on the border between youth and middle age. There was no way he didn’t know the information I had about Hyeong.
“The whole world knows my taste is niche, I myself admit it, and even my parents know… but you, CEO… honestly, you can pick whoever you like, can’t you? I hate to admit it, but you, the very picture of a Golden Alpha in terms of looks, swapping out and getting tangled up with burly guys… Ugh, my delicate aesthetic refuses to imagine it.”
Waving his hand several times as if to chase away a vision, Juhan-Hyung gulped down his beer.
As I wiped away the condensation on the beer bottle with my thumb, I felt his gaze flicker toward me for a moment from the corner of my lowered vision, but I didn’t raise my head to confirm it.
“Hmm. Burly or whatever, that’s fine… but pushing this narrative that I mess around with a random assortment of people is a bit much, don’t you think? Sleeping with someone who isn’t your lover doesn’t automatically make you promiscuous. So, should an adult of this age with no lover only resolve their sexual desires through masturbation? Well, I’m sure there are people like that, but choosing that life for yourself doesn’t give you the right to criticize those who don’t. If sleeping with someone who isn’t your lover is the definition of promiscuity, then… as far as I know, you two aren’t exactly chaste either.”
At the end, he looked back and forth between Noona and Hyung with a rather sly smile. Noona and Hyung nodded with expressions that said he had a point, and Hyung even raised a hand as if making a declaration.
“Whatever sex life one has in a consensual relationship is a personal matter. I agree with that the most.”
“Yep, it’s strictly a personal matter.”
Noona followed suit, raising her hand in agreement.
Though masturbation was the entirety of my sex life, I didn’t view those who were different with a negative eye. I also agreed with the CEO’s opinion that sleeping with someone who wasn’t your lover didn’t automatically equate to promiscuity.
If so, what about when it’s someone you like? For someone we like, could we—the people gathered here—maintain the same stance and not be hurt by that person sleeping with someone other than me?
Since it wasn’t a romantic relationship, one couldn’t condemn the act itself, but it would be difficult not to be hurt. Not just by sleeping around, but one would probably feel pain just from seeing that person treat someone else with affection.
“The critics are enough with their talk of casting couches and whatnot, treating me like some guy with a messy private life. Ah… If I had actually played around promiscuously, at least I wouldn’t feel so wronged.”
I had arbitrarily judged that he was someone who didn’t care about such things at all. But thinking about it, even for someone who could just shrug off vulgar and malicious evaluations of himself, it would naturally be unpleasant. Being able to endure it, being able to maintain one’s composure, probably didn’t mean that one didn’t take any damage at all.
Looking down at the beer label, which was now soaked enough from the condensation on the surface that it would easily peel off the bottle with a light push, I scoffed at my own naivety in having secretly looked forward to today with the simple, excited curiosity of being able to visit his house.
“But CEO, why are you so passionately defending yourself? It’s not like you. You know we’re all just joking. Between us. Or could it be… you hated the idea of Yeehyeon misunderstanding that much?”
“Of course I hate it when a handsome man misunderstands me as being promiscuous.”
At Noona’s playful provocation, he opened his pale blue eyes wide and spread his arms in an exaggerated gesture.
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