“Go on, ask away. If you’re curious, Mr. Yeehyeon, I’m more than happy to be your fountain of knowledge. The internet is full of too much hearsay, after all.”
After taking a sip of wine and setting down his glass, In-woo hyung leaned his upper body further forward as if ready, but I, who had come this far on impulse alone, needed a moment to catch my breath. It felt as though just a moment ago I had been drawing the rabbit from ‘What Happened in Bali,’ and in the very next, I was sitting across from In-woo hyung in an unfamiliar rooftop bar.
I excused myself and stood up from my seat.
I had fled to the restroom to buy some time, but the bathroom, extravagantly decorated with pop-art elements, did nothing to calm me down. I washed my face next to men my age loudly discussing where to go next, then left the restroom with little to show for it.
In the meantime, In-woo hyung was on the phone. I didn’t know who he was talking to, but the look on his face as he focused on the call—leaning back loosely against the backrest, his outstretched legs ending in a tapping foot—seemed very pleased.
“He’s back now. I should hang up.”
Spotting me, he started to sit up and end the call, but then he suddenly flashed a mischievous grin and called out to the person on the other end, stopping them from hanging up.
“Ah, aren’t you curious who it is? Say hello, at least.”
After saying that to the other person, In-woo hyung immediately passed the phone to me as I was about to sit down. I took the phone, flustered, but I was just as clueless as to who was on the other end. Still, I didn’t feel like making the anonymous person on the other side of the phone wait for long while we bickered over it.
“…Hello….”
[…]
There was no response from the other side. I glanced at In-woo hyung across the table, but he just made a gesture encouraging me to keep talking.
“Hello.”
[Are you drinking?]
“Ah….”
A stupid sound that was neither a gasp nor a groan escaped me. Come to think of it, there were only a few people In-woo hyung would put me on the phone with.
“Yes… a little wine….”
The way I trailed off while fiddling with the glass on the table sounded just like I was making an excuse. It turned into an excuse even though there was no reason for it to be, because his question, ‘Are you drinking?’, seemed to carry a hint of reprimand.
[You were sick… not that long ago.]
There was a long pause between his sentences. After a good while, he added that. I could feel a certain roughness, as if he was hesitant to bring up what happened that day. We both knew I hadn’t exactly been sick, after all.
“Yes, I’m just planning to have a glass or two.”
I had thought he would never mention that day again, so his words made me tense.
All week at Phantom, he had shown no hesitation in looking me in the eye and talking about work, and I couldn’t find any change in his attitude or tone from before. I had been accepting that what happened that night—the ‘Isolation,’ the hyperventilation, sleeping together… all of it—was just an unavoidable accident that happened outside the realm of daily life, and that this was his intention.
[You have a habit of drinking whatever’s in front of you when you get nervous. Didn’t you drink quite a lot of wine last time, too?]
On the day we went to the Spanish tavern, he had seemed uninterested in our table’s gathering, myself included. But that was the only day I had drunk wine. Just as he pointed out, I had already drunk more than I’d planned, again for the reason of being nervous.
I didn’t know how to react to him, who seemed to be worrying about me by uncharacteristically repeating the same thing several times. As I just moved my lips, he let out a long sigh. It was a breath so real that, despite being on the phone, I felt as if I could feel it on my cheek. It brought to mind an image of him running his hands through his fine but thick hair, messing it up.
There was no reply. I couldn’t tell what the silence was meant to induce. I was only listening to the sound of his breathing over the phone, but my ears began to tingle again and my shoulders felt like they were about to shrink back. Like a conditioned reflex, his scent lingered at the tip of my nose.
All week, I had to endure the assault of that scent, which ambushed me without warning. There were even times I sensed it when he wasn’t at Phantom. And now, that scent inevitably reminded me of our sexual union that night. It was a difficult situation.
The silence stretched on, and unable to bear it, I took another sip of wine. Over the phone came the sound of movement, a click, and then the sound of a deep inhale followed by a thin exhale. It sounded like he was smoking a cigarette.
Our silence continued while a couple, seated behind In-woo hyung with a tall planter separating us, had a long selfie session. After a few more drags of his cigarette, he spoke in a voice that seemed to have made up its mind, and therefore sounded almost light.
[Can you put Choi In-woo back on.]
After such a long hesitation, I didn’t think what he had to say to me would be to ask for In-woo hyung.
Can I come over? Where are you?—or at the very least, I thought he might warn me about my relationship with In-woo hyung, telling me he wasn’t a very good man to date, just as he had at the director’s dining table last time. It might have been an excess of self-consciousness, but I had felt a tense hesitation in his silence, the kind that precedes such words.
“Yes, of course.”
My reply was a little slow because my prediction had been wrong. Feeling foolish for having gotten my hopes up all by myself, I lightly bit my lower lip and let go. I held the phone out to In-woo hyung, who still looked to be in a good mood.
“What do you mean, why? He said he called because he was curious about what’s happening with the art fair.”
Whatever he heard, Hyung’s expression soured slightly the moment he put the phone to his ear. And in the next moment, it relaxed again with a scheming smile.
“Well, I don’t know. I’m not a prude about pheromones like some people.”
Hyung, who had been swirling his wine glass, tilted it and let the small amount of remaining wine flow into his mouth.
It might have been an over-reading, but I had a strong feeling that hyung was deliberately provoking him. His playfully sarcastic tone and smiling face gave that impression. But I couldn’t guess the exact content of the call.
“Excuse me, Mr. Liu. What are you so worried about? Pheromones don’t work on betas. What’s with you, are you in the early stages of presenting? You think having pheromones will solve everything, that people will just strip and jump you as you walk down the street?”
As soon as Hyung’s glass was empty, a staff member appeared from somewhere, took the wine bottle from the iron basket on the table, and quietly refilled the glass with a polite demeanor.
My hands, which had been loosely clasped on my lap, interlocked tightly. Beta. Pheromones. The topics I had wanted to ask about were coming from hyung’s mouth first. I was curious what he had said to hyung to elicit such an annoyed reaction.
“Just worry about the Hong Kong Art Fair. Let me sell some paintings in the foreign market, too. I’m hanging up.”
Without giving the other side a chance to reply, hyung ended the call as if fleeing and pushed the phone to the other side of the table, deliberately shrugging his shoulders in an exaggerated way. “The guy’s hopeless,” he added, as if the person on the other end of the now-disconnected line could still hear him.
“Sorry. You were surprised I suddenly put you on, right? I wanted to brag.”
I must have been looking at him with a ‘Brag about what?’ expression.
“That I was meeting with you, Mr. Yeehyeon, just the two of us.”
Hyung added that and brought the glass to his lips, his gaze fixed on me.
Bragging could only work if the other person was envious of the content. If he was being sincere about wanting to brag about our meeting, then hyung had picked the wrong person.
Hyung’s deliberate effort in making that call must have gone to waste, I thought with a small laugh, and unconsciously started to bring the glass in front of me to my lips, but only touched them to it lightly before setting it down.
“What you said just now….”
After moving my lips a few times, I finally brought it up. It seemed like a good time to talk about it, since the topic had come up.
“Betas… they can’t detect alpha or omega pheromones, right?”
Hyung crossed his legs and leaned back loosely against the armrest.
“What do you mean?”
“Since I’m a beta… does that mean I can work without worrying about pheromones, even if my clients are alphas or omegas….”
In-woo hyung, who had been watching me with an amused gaze, leaned forward and reached his hands out over the table.
“Mr. Yeehyeon, can you look at me for a second?”
His two hands, held out naturally with palms facing up, seemed to be asking me to take them. Hesitantly, I placed my hands lightly on top of his. His fingers curled inward slightly, taking hold of my hands.
The smile gradually faded from his face as he stared at me. Like a doctor trying to find signs of illness in a patient’s complexion, like a fortune-teller trying to read portents of the past and future in a client’s eyes, hyung slowly and deeply examined both of my eyes.
I couldn’t tell his intention, but it was the first time I had seen In-woo hyung look so serious, so I couldn’t laugh or look away. There were tall planters between every table, so there was no need to be conscious of other customers, but a staff member passing by our table saw our clasped hands and glanced back and forth between my face and hyung’s. Bothered by the stare, I peeked over, and at almost the same time, hyung let out a small laugh and released my hands.
Letting go of my hands and picking up his wine glass instead, In-woo hyung leaned forward against the table and smiled, his eyes crinkling.
“If a beta could detect an alpha’s pheromones.”
“……”
“We’d probably be running downstairs right about now, tangled up together in the backseat of my car.”
If I understood correctly, it seemed hyung had just released his pheromones toward me.
But there was nothing. Not only was there no sexual arousal, but I couldn’t detect any special energy different from usual. All I felt was the refreshing early summer breeze blowing across the 15th-floor outdoor seating, and the mixed gaze of puzzlement and curiosity from the passing staff member.
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