The content of his words was almost cruel, but to put it coldly, there wasn’t a hint of mockery in his tone or expression toward the work, the artist, or the director who claimed to have discovered the artist. He was simply conveying his exact thoughts, completely unfiltered.
In the past few months, I had come to understand his way of speaking to some extent. Especially when it came to work, he never beat around the bush or sugarcoated things. There were times when he gave orders not only to me but also to Yuni-noona and Juhan-hyung without any consideration for their feelings.
He seemed to believe that if what he was saying was the truth, then sugarcoating it was simply inefficient.
But of course, for someone who didn’t know him well, his way of speaking was hard to accept. In the normal world, a certain amount of sugarcoating was a form of courtesy.
The director was trying his best to maintain his composure, but his round face, shiny with oil, couldn’t help but contort.
Although his words were, once again, unfiltered and raw, I unfortunately had to agree with the content of what he said.
To think it was $15,000, and in US dollars, not Hong Kong dollars. No matter how much of an amateur I was, having never properly studied art, there was no doubt in my mind that this painting was not worth that much.
The director, who had approached us with a kind smile and been all sweetness and light, didn’t even offer a simple goodbye to his back as he left the painting without a second thought and headed for the next booth. He, in turn, paid no mind to that reaction.
As I hurried to leave the booth after him, I glanced back one more time.
I had unintentionally criticized another’s work, but I had a feeling that if I were to pick up a brush now, I would end up painting something just like that. A painting that couldn’t express itself naturally, one that denied and fabricated its own identity.
I was afraid. But I didn’t tell him that.
That wasn’t the only residue that ‘Lovers on a Bed’ had left in me.
Was it a coincidence that he had asked for my impression in front of that painting, of all the paintings there? The bluish chill that had blazed in his eyes bothered me. ‘Lovers on a Bed’. Unless I had seen it wrong, the artist’s name was ‘SEONEW’. Seonew. A Korean artist in their twenties. I repeated the name in my mind as if chewing on it, so I wouldn’t forget.
○
“Mr. Liu.”
Just as we were crossing a hall where an experimental installation of translucent sculptures suspended in mid-air showed the flow of the air and were about to enter the next booth, someone called his name in a very cheerful tone.
It was an Asian man with a sharp and shrewd look, about a head and a half shorter than him. He immediately put on a business smile and accepted the other’s handshake.
“He’s someone I used to work with in Hong Kong. I’m just going to say a quick hello, so take a look around this booth. There should be quite a few pieces you’ll be interested in.”
After emphasizing once more that I should stay in this booth and not wander off, he disappeared around the corner with his former colleague. The Asian man, handsomely dressed in a well-fitted tuxedo suit with a glossy sheen, seemed to be leading him to where a group of other people, happy to see him, was waiting.
In any case, this was the place where he was born and raised, and where he had worked before moving to Seoul, so it wouldn’t be strange to run into an acquaintance anywhere.
It took a bit of courage to enter the booth alone and look at the paintings without him. Even without dredging up past incidents, right now I was just a clueless twenty-two-year-old who had set foot in a foreign city for the first time in his life.
A staff member inside the booth smiled slightly and gave a nod as if to say I should look around at my leisure, which put me a little at ease. It seemed to be a major gallery, as the booth was quite large and there were many visitors. Thanks to that, the staff didn’t have the capacity to pay attention to me, which was a relief.
Before I had even looked at a few pieces, I immediately understood why he had said there would be works I might be interested in.
Intensely or palely, explicitly or coldly. Though their methods of expression differed, the place was filled with works that spoke in a language I could understand.
“A shame it’s already been sold for 35 million dollars, isn’t it? If we’d been a little faster, we could have acquired it.”
I turned to my side to see an unfamiliar face. Of course it was an unfamiliar face; no one would strike up a conversation with me in English in Hong Kong. I gave an awkward smile to the man who had spoken to me in a joking tone.
“Ah… you must be a staff member from one of the galleries at the fair.”
“Yes.”
“Let’s see… Seoul. Gallery… Phantom.”
The man leaned back and peered at the ID card hanging around my neck, reading my affiliation aloud. Then he offered a handshake. His eye level was similar to mine, but his hand was much larger. I hesitated for a moment, looking down at his hand, before taking it. His soft chuckle seemed to see right through all my surprise and awkwardness. It wasn’t a mocking laugh.
“This is me. I’m with a gallery in New York, but I’m from Hong Kong, so I know this area well.”
The man, holding a champagne glass in one hand, with some difficulty pulled a case from his jacket pocket and handed me a business card. The simple rectangular art paper introduced the man’s affiliation in English.
The man looked like he was of mixed Eastern and Western descent. The contours of his face and his hair had a strong Eastern feel, but his eyes were a deep blue. Facing that incongruity, I was reminded of the shock I felt when I first saw him. The thought that a person like this must be a Golden Alpha…
The man chattering on about the painting in front of us didn’t exude that kind of overwhelming pressure or unique aura, but there were the rather broad commonalities of being of mixed Eastern and Western descent and having blue eyes.
“We’re hosting a party at our gallery in Soho on Sunday. If you’re free, would you like to stop by with your other staff? I think it’d be fun if you came. We can network between galleries, and if you’re lucky, you might get a chance to make some private travel memories….”
As he lowered his voice to say that, a somewhat noisy group behind him was being guided by a staff member toward the paintings in the section over there. To avoid them, the man turned and stepped closer to me, tilting his chin up slightly to look at me strangely from under his lowered eyelids. Because of our similar height, the distance was so close that I tensed up, thinking the tip of my nose might brush against his if I turned my head the wrong way.
“Alpha? Beta?”
Up close, his eyes were completely different from his. His eyes weren’t a distinct, mineral-like blue like this man’s, but a more precarious and delicate color, as if they could vanish at any moment… like the foam of a wave, or… yes, like a ghost….
“Seo Yeehyeon-ssi.”
As if the voice calling me from behind had pulled my head, I immediately turned around.
He was striding toward me from the entrance of the booth. His eyes, which usually looked so delicate they might disappear, were now… blazing fiercely. It was completely different from the chill he had shown in front of ‘Lovers on a Bed’.
“Wow… a Golden Alpha, plain to see. If I’d known you were running around with one of those, I wouldn’t have bothered.”
The man muttered to himself as if shaking his head, then left with a brief “nice to meet you,” practically fleeing the scene.
“What was that?”
Before I could answer, he stopped in front of me, replacing the man, and snatched the business card from my hand.
“I think he’s from a gallery in New York… He said there’s a party on Sunday, and I should come with the other staff….”
I didn’t know why I was making excuses, but his grim expression seemed to demand an explanation.
After examining the card, he glanced once in the direction the man had disappeared. He followed the man’s trail, and I followed his eyes, when suddenly I remembered the man’s question.
The man had asked me if I was an Alpha or a Beta. Omega wasn’t even an option.
“We’ve already been invited to another party on Sunday. So I guess we won’t be needing this.”
Before I could even lift my head from nodding my understanding, he had already crumpled the business card in his hand.
Only this man suspected me of being an Omega.
“The meeting with Suki Kim is scheduled for Friday.”
“……”
He spoke quickly as he put the crumpled card into the inner pocket of his jacket.
“It would have been nice to meet her at a more leisurely pace on the last day, but it was a last-minute appointment, so that was the only time we could get.”
“No, that’s fine. Even ten minutes… I’m grateful.”
He looked down at me in silence for a moment, then sighed, wiping a hand down his face from his forehead.
“Keep it a secret from the kids. If they hear we’re going to see Suki Kim, they’ll cause a scene, begging to be taken along.”
When I nodded, his eyes, looking at me this time, seemed a little calmer. His gaze traced every corner of my face as if to confirm my safety, then he averted his eyes, muttering a curse whose target was unclear.
The works I saw after that didn’t really register. My mind was completely filled with the thought of meeting Suki Kim-seonsaengnim.
I had decided to come here on his word that he would arrange a meeting with her, but it hadn’t felt real until now. The excitement, which was finally starting to feel like reality, made me feel like I wasn’t getting enough oxygen even when I breathed.
I was newly impressed by him. His ability to arrange a meeting with Suki Kim-seonsaengnim was one thing, but the sheer tenacity of going to such lengths to make me paint… that kind of unwavering conviction felt incredible.
He was certain about me, a stranger, but it was different in nature from the certainty my grandfather had about Hyung’s life, or that Teacher Lim had about Morae’s life.
Did he trust his intuition that much? Even though the only thing I could paint right now would be a decorated fake, just like the artist ‘Seonew’?
After a full tour of the venue, he returned to our booth and, looking quite thirsty, poured himself a full glass of champagne and downed it. Then he picked up a few nuts, tossed them into his mouth like popcorn, and immediately pushed the plate far away.
“Ah, can someone get rid of this? I don’t even like this stuff, but I keep eating it when it’s in front of me.”
“I brought that out to snack on when I get sleepy. Unlike other booths, a certain someone’s booth involved three hours of hard labor unwrapping bubble wrap, you know.”
“Hmm, as far as I know, that certain someone’s booth is staying at the F Hotel, unlike all the other booths.”
“Damn it. I’ve got nothing to say to that.”
Bantering with Juhan-hyung, he had already returned to his usual self.
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