Even though I clearly had a prior engagement, I hesitated for a moment.
There was a question I’d been holding onto for days, with no one suitable to ask.
I’d thought about asking the Chief, but it seemed like too sudden a topic, and while I’d considered casually asking Juhan-hyung during a delivery, I hesitated because he was so quick-witted. The closest alpha to me was, of course, Morae, but she rarely ever mentioned her own alpha tendencies. I didn’t want to make her uncomfortable for no reason.
In-woo-hyung was a relationship that was neither too close nor too distant, and I thought his characteristically lighthearted atmosphere might make it easier to bring up any topic. That was the thought that had crossed my mind.
But a prior engagement was a prior engagement. After thanking him for his concern and declining his offer, explaining that I already had plans, I ended the call with a disappointed-sounding In-woo-hyung.
The more I got to know In-woo-hyung, who at a glance seemed merely frivolous, the more I realized he was a subtle character. Nearly all his words and actions were so playful that they made me wary, thinking I might end up looking foolish if I took him at his word, but there were times when it felt like he was hiding his true feelings within that playfulness. It was hard to distinguish where the sincerity began and the jokes ended… He was a person just like his paintings.
The feeling I got from his art and from him as a person matched so perfectly that, funnily enough, it was enough for me to lower my guard around him more than I had at first. He might hide his true feelings from others with his flirtatious way of speaking and his unattached lightness, but I had a conviction that he, at least, was not a person who deceived himself.
“What’s this you’re drawing? A person? A rabbit?”
When I returned to my seat, Morae was standing there, looking down crookedly at my drawing. As I drew, it had become a bit too serious to be called a doodle, and feeling embarrassed, I tugged the notebook slightly toward me as I sat down. Even in the past, I wasn’t one to show my drawings to others. To me, they were like a diary.
“It’s the White Rabbit.”
“The White Rabbit?”
“From Alice in Wonderland.”
“Ah… that White Rabbit. His sunglasses are cool.”
Sitting down next to me, Morae stretched out her long legs and hummed along to the tune of the music that was playing. She wasn’t looking at my notebook, but I still couldn’t concentrate. The real reason the tip of my pen had grown dull was something else entirely.
“Noona… can we have dinner some other time?”
“Why? Did something happen?”
“It’s not that something happened, but…”
It was surprising enough that I was holding on to a lingering attachment to an invitation I had already refused, but figuring out what to say about In-woo-hyung was also a dilemma. It occurred to me that quite a few things must have piled up that I hadn’t talked about since we stopped living together. It wasn’t that I was the type to report every little thing, but before coming to Seoul, we were always together, so it was impossible not to know what was happening in each other’s lives.
“Is it someone from the gallery?”
“Uh… no, just forget it.”
“What’s with you… Didn’t you bring it up because you want to go there?”
“It’s not that I want to go…”
Morae was sensitive to my emotions. No, it wasn’t just me; she reacted delicately to her own emotions and to those of the people around her. That didn’t mean she was an impulsive person who made life decisions based on what her emotions demanded every time.
“Hey, what are you hiding between us?”
“No, I really didn’t bring it up because I want to go. I’m not going. I don’t want to go.”
“Seo Yeehyeon .”
She draped her arm over my shoulder, deliberately putting a heavy weight on it.
“I’m begging you, pleeease go meet other people. Huh?”
She made an exaggerated face, like someone trying to shake off an annoying stalker.
“I’m so happy that you’re working and hanging out with people now that you’re in Seoul. Is it because of what I said the other day, about being disappointed or whatever?”
I had thought so, too. That there was nothing we couldn’t say to each other. What could I possibly not be able to tell the two people who knew everything, even my greatest weakness? But that wasn’t true.
I hadn’t been able to tell them that I’d seen my painting at the Director’s house. I couldn’t tell them, for fear of worrying them, that I had been so terrified upon seeing the painting that I’d hyperventilated, and that when I came to my senses, I had been asleep in his bed. I had no intention of telling anyone about sleeping with the Director.
I’m not having the deficient thought that these changes are proof that we weren’t as close as we thought. Rather, it’s that my life until now had been overly simple. In my twenty-two-year-old world, if you took out Morae and Hyung , the space was completely empty.
So it was no wonder that those two couldn’t bring themselves to leave me and go. They couldn’t be so cruel.
Leaning her temple against my shoulder, which must have been showing a complicated expression, Morae tapped the White Rabbit on the notebook.
“I like this. Can I put it up in our shop?”
○
In-woo-hyung said he would come pick me up wherever I was, but my condition was so perfectly fine that there was no need for him to go to such trouble. When I stubbornly insisted and vaguely told him I was near Hongdae, he sighed on the other end of the phone and said, then let’s meet at such-and-such place in a few minutes.
The meeting spot was a newly opened hotel near Hongdae. As it was a boutique hotel, it wasn’t a stiffly formal space, but it was just as intimidating in its trendiness and sophistication.
Hyung, who had been waiting for me in an egg-shaped chair in the lobby, found the elevator hall with the ease of someone who was not a first-time visitor and led me to the bar on the 15th floor.
It seemed to be a popular bar; I could see about five or six groups, maybe twenty people, waiting at the entrance for a table. It must have been difficult to reserve a table for such a sudden meeting, but an employee in a simple black suit that appeared to be a uniform guided us straight to the outdoor rooftop.
The indoor area I’d glimpsed on the way was also full, and the outdoor rooftop, with its great view and cool air, was likewise overflowing with people. The customers’ age range was diverse, from their 20s to their 40s and 50s, but regardless of age, everyone was stylishly dressed, which made me look down at myself, wearing my usual striped t-shirt and jeans.
I wondered if there was a dress code, but In-woo-hyung didn’t seem to care about my attire at all, so I too averted my gaze from the worn-out sleeves of my t-shirt. It wasn’t as if I could change my clothes now.
“You really have gotten a bit thinner.”
After I asked him to order something suitable and he finished doing so, In-woo-hyung sent the employee away, then leaned his upper body forward, resting his arms on the table.
“No, I haven’t…”
I hadn’t even been sick with a cold, yet I was causing the people around me to worry, to the point that I felt guilty. I mumbled, rubbing my hands all over my face in embarrassment.
“I’m a doctor, you know. You’ve gotten gaunt, your face has. Your complexion isn’t great either. Did I call you out for no reason? I heard you started going to work the day before yesterday, and it’s Saturday tomorrow, so I just gave you a call.”
“I’m really okay, physically. If anything, I’m the one who said no and then called you back… I’m sorry for causing you trouble.”
“I’m the one who called first saying I wanted to see you. I was disappointed that we couldn’t meet, so you have no idea how thrilled I was when you called me back. But that… it’s not some kind of technique, is it?”
“……”
I tried to read his expression, to understand what he meant, but In-woo-hyung lowered his shoulders and let out a soft laugh.
“I’m just saying I was happy to see you when I thought I couldn’t.”
I wasn’t sure if it was his usual joke or if he was being sincere, so I couldn’t show any reaction and just sat there awkwardly. Just then, the drinks and appetizers we ordered were served.
Instead of the employee who had taken our order, a man with a gold name tag indicating he was the manager brought the wine and appetizers and greeted In-woo-hyung warmly. Judging from their conversation, it seemed In-woo-hyung had been a regular at a famous bar where this man was a popular bartender, and he had recently been scouted as the manager of this bar.
These were matters of a world that had no connection to me, so I sat there quietly until In-woo-hyung introduced me, at which point I bowed my head. When the word “Phantom” was mentioned, the manager’s eyes, now visibly filled with curiosity, quickly scanned me over.
Thinking of the sophisticated, stylish, or unique styles and personalities of the Director, the Chief, Yuni-noona, and Juhan-hyung, I felt a little bitter wondering how I must look in this manager’s eyes right now.
“So, what did you want to talk about?”
“Pardon?”
As soon as the manager, who had opened the wine and filled our first glasses, had left, In-woo-hyung proposed a toast, and before I had even taken my lips from the glass, he asked his question.
“You said you couldn’t see me because you had a prior engagement, then called back to meet. I could be wrong about other people, but when you do something like that, Yeehyeon -ssi, doesn’t it mean you have something to say? Am I wrong?”
I was embarrassed that he seemed to have seen right through my reason for accepting his offer to meet alone, but on the other hand, I was also relieved that I wouldn’t have to wrack my non-existent conversational skills to figure out how to bring it up.
The stage was set, but I needed a bit more courage to do something I wasn’t used to. Even if it was just bravado borrowed from the alcohol. I picked up the glass I had just set down and drank three or four more sips of wine.
“Lately… I’ve become curious about something… but I don’t really have anyone around to ask…”
Across from me, In-woo-hyung’s face, with its gentle smile, was encouraging me to speak more easily, but I felt like a patient in a counseling session, insisting ‘this is about a friend of mine…’ while talking about their own problems.
“I… until now, I haven’t really had many opportunities to interact with alphas or omegas. But Phantom’s main clients are almost all alphas or omegas…”
“Hmm…”
In-woo-hyung, who had been resting his elbows on the table with his hands lightly clasped at his chin, changed his posture and traced the base of his wine glass with his fingertips.
“I thought it might be helpful in the future if I learned about their characteristics…”
It was a clumsy excuse, but I couldn’t tell him the truth. I had a feeling that In-woo-hyung would either see that I was making an excuse and let it slide, or he would try to dig into it playfully—one of the two. He was that difficult to read.
But even if he was playful, he didn’t seem like the type of person to treat someone’s heart as a joke. That baseless feeling was probably what had subconsciously made me call him back.
“Did you have some kind of trouble because of an alpha or an omega?”
“That’s… not it…”
My words denied it, but my gaze automatically fell downward. From the moment I had decided on In-woo-hyung as the person to consult, I had expected him to see through the situation to some extent. I had braced myself for it, but the words still wouldn’t come out easily.
Leave a Reply