“Oh dear, your thigh is all wet!”
“I have a spare pair in the office. Don’t worry.”
Liu, who had been shaken by the name Seo Yeehyeon, reassured everyone with his usual smile. He roughly dabbed the champagne soaking his thigh with a napkin, then excused himself and stood up.
“I need to wash my hands first. Please, continue your conversation. Excuse me.”
Manager Han watched Liu’s back as he crossed the hall toward the restroom.
No one suspected any connection between the name ‘Seo Yeehyeon’ and Liu’s mishap. Only Manager Han, Choi Inwoo, and Kwon JoohJuhanan exchanged bitter glances.
“I also saw the article about Artist Seo’s new work. The ‘Colorful Ghosts’ series. The power in it was extraordinary this time, too, wasn’t it?”
“Artist Seo, he’s so diligent for a young man. Working so earnestly—that’s a very important virtue for an artist.”
The woman with the white brooch, who had always thought well of Yeehyeon, nodded with a pleased expression and said. After her, someone else cautiously raised a different opinion in a flushed tone.
“It seems the critics’ reactions to this work are also sharply divided, though?”
“You have to do that kind of work when you’re young. You have to push your own individuality to its limits before the real thing can emerge. Can you call yourself an artist if all you do is watch what the critics think? His recent works are good, of course, but I’m really looking forward to the works Artist Seo will release after he turns thirty.”
“Still, I have my reservations about that artist.”
The man named Jungmin, who had been listening silently until then, cut in with a stiff voice.
“Hm? Reservations?”
“You have to be a person first before you can be an artist. I’m the type who can’t separate the work from the artist.”
“Why? What do you mean? Did Artist Seo have some kind of scandal?”
The man in the horn-rimmed glasses asked, tilting his head.
“Honestly, the only reason Artist Seo was able to get to where he is was thanks to CEO Liu. CEO Liu discovered him and barely managed to build a foundation for him, but for him to leave for ‘The Hands’ right after… Honestly, it seems opportunistic.”
Just as Jungmin was finishing his sentence, Liu’s footsteps could be heard. Manager Han instinctively checked his expression. It was a placid, blank face, but given the distance, he had almost certainly heard everything Jungmin said.
“CEO Liu, what about your pants? Will you be alright without changing?”
“They’re downstairs. The party seems to be winding down soon anyway, so I’ll just change later.”
At someone’s concerned words, Liu shrugged and sat down. It couldn’t be that he hadn’t heard Jungmin, but it seemed he had decided not to react to every little thing. That was a relief.
“Opportunistic… I’ve only exchanged greetings with Artist Seo Yeehyeon a few times at Phantom, but he didn’t seem like that kind of person.”
“That’s right. He was such a gentle young man, it was surprising that he was the one who created such intense works.”
“Like a mild milk soap, Artist Seo.”
He had hoped the talk about Yeehyeon would end there, but the situation did not go as Manager Han wished.
Liu, feigning indifference to the topic, was merely fiddling with the stem of his champagne glass. Then, for a moment, a brief smile flickered across his lips and vanished. It was a reaction to the comparison to mild milk soap. It was the kind of smile one might have when hearing news of a once passionately loved ex-lover, getting lost in old feelings for the first time in a while.
Was he okay with talk of Yeehyeon now?
Had the feelings for the person he had been so abnormally obsessed with become a thing of the past, a memory?
And his mistake from a moment ago—was it not because of the name Seo Yeehyeon, but simply a coincidence?
“You can’t know what’s inside a person just by their outward appearance.”
No matter what others said, Jungmin stuck to his opinion.
He had become a client of Phantom after Yeehyeon left for Paris, so he wouldn’t have had a chance to notice that there was something between Liu and Yeehyeon. Was it not simply jealousy, but a genuine, firm misunderstanding about Yeehyeon’s move to Paris?
“That’s also true.”
Someone agreed with Jungmin, though hesitantly. But the woman with the white brooch spoke with a tone full of conviction.
“But it’s also true that by our age, you develop an eye for telling the real from the fake. The way I see it, Artist Seo is not a two-faced person.”
“Still, it’s an undeniable fact that he received an offer from another place and abandoned Phantom before his contract was even up.”
Jungmin’s intransigence was gradually making the atmosphere awkward. Kwon Juhan, who had keenly sensed this, smoothly inserted himself into the conversation with his characteristic slyness.
“Hey, don’t be so harsh. Artist Seo Yeehyeon got the offer because he had the talent, and it was the CEO who pushed him to go and gain experience there since it was a good opportunity.”
At the end of Juhan’s words, Jungmin looked at Liu across from him. The indifferent man, who didn’t even spare him a glance, sat at an angle, sipping his champagne.
Jungmin thought. Perhaps trying to seduce Liu with pheromones had been too rash a decision.
The intentional release of pheromones was the same as baring one’s naked body to another. He had stood before him, stark naked without a single thread, and had been met with a rejection tantamount to, ‘Your naked body doesn’t excite me, so put some clothes on.’
Just how desperate must I have been to go that far? Couldn’t you have been a bit more of a gentleman in your rejection, maybe thrown a towel over my naked body?
And yet, even after suffering such a humiliation, he didn’t feel like giving up on him.
“Well, CEO Liu is someone who always thinks from the artists’ perspective. Someone that good deserves more loyalty. Just because he was encouraged to go, for him to actually leave… I don’t see it in a good light.”
“Let’s stop this conversation. He was our artist, and it was a matter we settled amicably.”
Liu, who had been silent until then, spoke to Jungmin in a low voice.
“You were taken advantage of because you’re too generous and soft, CEO. That opportunity wouldn’t have even existed if not for you. There’s a limit to how ungrateful one can be.”
“No, I’m telling you, Yeehyeon… Artist Seo Yeehyeon did not betray him.”
Kwon Juhan, in an awkward posture, glanced at Liu, unsure of what to do. But Jungmin, convinced that Liu had been betrayed by Seo Yeehyeon, intensified his criticism of Yeehyeon. His strategy, in his own mind, was to defend Liu.
“Everyone was fooled by his meek appearance. In reality, he was more of a fox than any…”
Clack.
Liu’s hand was rough as he set down his empty champagne glass. He glared at Jungmin across from him with simmering eyes. His glistening eyes were bloodshot, as if he had suddenly become drunk in that short moment.
“It might be the other way around.”
“The other way around?”
“That it wasn’t Seo Yeehyeon who used me, but that I committed a mortal sin against Seo Yeehyeon, and he had no choice but to leave.”
“How could that be? What could someone like you have possibly done wrong to a fledgling artist like that? Going around backstabbing people with that innocent face that knows nothing…”
This time, Liu shot up from his seat. He walked around the long table and approached Jungmin from behind.
“Get up.”
“…Pardon?”
“Shut your mouth, get up, and get out.”
“What did you say?”
“Get the hell out of my gallery. Now.”
All hell broke loose. Liu grabbed the scruff of Jungmin’s neck and dragged him out of his chair.
The chair toppled, the table shook, champagne glasses fell, and startled clients rose from their seats in agitation. Ignoring the resisting Jungmin, Liu dragged him toward the stairs.
“CEO Liu, what’s going on? I’ve never seen him like that.”
“I know. Such a gentleman…”
“The CEO must be very drunk today. You know how much he cherishes his artists. He and Yeehyeon… no, he and Artist Seo didn’t part on bad terms, so I think he just snapped because of the constant misunderstanding.”
While Juhan quite skillfully calmed the other clients, Manager Han called the event staff to clean up the mess. In the meantime, the two men were halfway down the marble staircase that curved in an elegant arc.
Sighing deeply and rubbing his temples with his fingertips, Manager Han started to follow Liu. But someone placed a hand on his shoulder, stopping him. It was Choi Inwoo.
“I’ll go.”
Downstairs, Liu was already pushing open the heavy double doors. Choi Inwoo chased after him, running down the stairs.
Who said he was getting by?
That man hadn’t forgotten, nor did he have any intention of forgetting.
He might look fine on the outside, but he had clearly suffered a severe internal injury and was bleeding somewhere no one could see. His heart wasn’t here. Here, without Yeehyeon, he was merely wandering like a ghost.
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