He deliberately leaned his head on Yeehyeon’s shoulder, pressing his whole body against him. As a result, Yeehyeon’s upper body tilted, and to support Liu’s weight, Yeehyeon had no choice but to all but embrace his shoulder. It was a playful act, but also an intimate form of skinship one would never attempt unless they were lovers. It was more than enough to earn the group’s disapproval.
“Excuse me, you two over there. Could you separate a little?”
Someone tapped the table a couple of times, voicing their complaint. Liu, who had been leaning completely on Yeehyeon, straightened up and feigned innocence, resting his arms on the table as if nothing had happened.
Just as he was about to lift his wine glass, the woman with dreadlocks carefully posed a question.
“But… even if your profession is a gallerist, when you see your lover collaborate with someone else, doesn’t that make you a little jealous?”
It was a sharp question. Setting his glass back down, Liu smiled a little. Then he looked back at Yeehyeon.
Yeehyeon, holding a wine glass half-filled with the dark red liquid, was looking at him with a rare, expectant gaze. It was a look that hinted at his anticipation for a certain kind of answer… that Liu felt jealous of the collaboration, or that he was conscious of the person Yeehyeon had worked with.
It was a different emotion from the hurt he showed when Liu displayed jealousy during their phone calls. For a moment, the emotion he revealed was so lovely that Liu wanted to cup his blushing cheeks in his hands and shower him with kisses.
To suppress the impulse, Liu bit his lower lip firmly. Instead, he gently traced Yeehyeon’s face from his forehead to the tip of his chin with his fingertips. As the contact between them continued, some let out envious sighs, while others jeered. It seemed that for today, they would have to resign themselves to being the sacrificial lambs of the group’s mischievous curiosity.
Liu took a sip of wine and cleared his throat.
“Separate from my affection for Yeehyeon, I’m confident that my affection for and understanding of his work is second to none. So I’d like to say I don’t get jealous, and that that would be the mature attitude… but honestly, it does bother me. The rapport shared while creating something together is a realm I can’t experience with him.”
It was a brief answer, one he tried to make as honest as possible. Yeehyeon showed no clear reaction, only taking another sip of his drink. Liu lightly tousled his hair. It was an attempt to hide his own awkwardness.
“Ah, I shouldn’t have asked. That answer is so perfect it’s making me mad.”
The woman with dreadlocks shook her head and leaned back as if to withdraw from the conversation.
“We’ve had enough of the affection confirmation, so tell us about the downsides of a long-distance relationship. I heard that being apart makes you feel hurt over trivial things, and you start suspecting each other even if you’re briefly out of touch. And the bedroom issue is honestly not something you can ignore.”
This time, Ben stepped in. He provoked Liu more directly, as if telling him to hurry up and toss the crowd the bait they wanted—the hardships of a long-distance relationship, petty complaints about each other—and get it over with. But Liu had no intention of doing so.
“I don’t know about other people, but long-distance relationships have their own advantages. We miss each other so much from being apart that most problems don’t even feel like problems.”
This time, Liu was determined to flaunt their affection. Though he seemed mischievous, Ben was an easy person to deal with. When he was the one Liu was talking to, he could afford to be a little more relaxed. Liu added boastfully.
“And the bedroom stuff is a very trivial matter compared to him building his career here.”
“A person who says that, on Wednesday….”
It was Jun again, who suddenly cut in, muttering to himself with a sneer.
“Huh? What about Wednesday? What happened?”
The young Malaysian man pushed up his horn-rimmed glasses, showing his curiosity. Jun kept his mouth shut about the specific details of ‘Wednesday.’
But Yeehyeon, who had figured out what Jun was talking about, turned completely red up to his ears. As if conscious of his own flushed face, he rubbed it vigorously with the hand that wasn’t holding the glass.
Wednesday was the day Liu had arrived a day earlier than scheduled. It seemed that despite their efforts to be careful, the sounds of them having sex had faintly reached Jun in the room right next door.
Someone brought up the story of an artist from ‘The Hands’ who had broken up after a long-distance relationship. It seemed to be a story about someone they all knew well. Seizing the opportunity as the topic shifted, Liu stood up, saying he was going to step out for a smoke.
Yeehyeon’s face, as he looked up and told him to go ahead, seemed slightly relieved. He probably thought that if at least one of them was gone, the group’s teasing would subside. Yeehyeon was by no means naive for his age, but he had an innocent side in matters like these. Liu could almost understand the group’s desire to tease him a little mischievously. Giving Yeehyeon a short smile, Liu stepped out of the café.
The temperature was slightly above 5 degrees Celsius, but it felt more refreshing than cold. Lighting a cigarette under the narrow awning, Liu glanced back inside.
He had a thought that their over-the-top reaction might be because the person in question was Yeehyeon. They had probably assumed that Yeehyeon’s relationships were the so-called cool type, with little expression and not much skinship. If Yeehyeon himself had been reticent about his boyfriends in the past, the probability was even higher.
On the street, faintly veiled in a watery mist, lights were beginning to turn on one by one. Feeling the damp, cool air on his skin, Liu exhaled a long stream of smoke.
His thoughts inevitably turned to Yeehyeon’s past situation, where he couldn’t openly talk about his boyfriend. The memory of their reunion was distinct. The sensation of a chill running down his spine when Yeehyeon mentioned that his next-door colleague from Hong Kong had shown interest was also vivid.
「I told him I have a boyfriend. I thought I should draw a line. Did I… lie?」
The title of boyfriend, which he had named him, had felt like a special honor that Liu had strived his whole life to obtain. Because that title implied Yeehyeon’s forgiveness.
He wanted nothing more than to be accepted by him and to live by his side. Before that meaning, all the values he had pursued throughout his life became trivial. It was the same now.
To empty oneself, and to entrust the judgment of one’s own worth solely into the hands of another. It was a humble earnestness he had never once experienced before.
He felt like he was becoming smaller, fainter, just one of the countless specks of dust in the universe. But it wasn’t miserable. As for how that could be, Liu himself couldn’t properly explain why.
It wasn’t because he was certain of Yeehyeon’s forgiveness. Rather, it might have been because he had finished preparing and steeling himself to wait for Yeehyeon for a lifetime. He had committed a wrong of that magnitude, and Yeehyeon was a person worth waiting for, even if it meant paying such a price.
It was also the first time he had endured an ordeal in front of third parties to play the part of someone’s lover. He had lived his life thinking he was the type to detest such things, that he would never meet someone he wanted to be with enough to shoulder such a burden.
He was better off living alone than revealing his abnormal identity as a Ghost to someone. He was lonely because of his strange nature, but it wasn’t because he needed someone to understand him. His self-esteem wasn’t so low as to require another’s understanding to alleviate his solitude.
But now, he could no longer afford to be so arrogant.
Even if Yeehyeon hadn’t been a Diamond Dust, and so he hadn’t committed the wrong of Changing him, he would have eventually wanted to show him his ultimate self anyway.
No one else mattered. With the understanding and acceptance of just one person, the loneliness that had clung to him like a part of his being was resolved. Because of Yeehyeon, neither his Alpha self nor his Ghost self was monstrous anymore.
In its place, a deep groove was left by the pain Yeehyeon had to endure to forgive and accept him. Now, the outline of that wound was his self, and the life he had to live. His life’s direction had been diverted by an event he had never before considered.
Separated by a single pane of glass, the boisterous laughter from inside the café sounded distant. Liu raised his left hand, which wore a ring, and brought the cigarette to his lips, a faint smile on them.
“Director!”
He turned his head at the familiar Korean. From the entrance of the alley by the canal, Yuni was waving as she approached.
“Took you a while?”
“Yeah, well… I was talking with Michelle for a bit….”
Her face, as she avoided his gaze and mumbled, looked more tired than usual.
Glancing into the café over Liu’s shoulder, Yuni asked to borrow a cigarette. Her smoking was a rare event, as she went through less than half a pack a year. Liu silently offered her the pack, and as she took a long first drag, he asked lightly, as if in passing.
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