Chapter 190
Having moved to a fishing village right after finishing middle school, and lived in a narrow, monotonous world he had confined himself to, with almost no interaction with anyone other than Morae and Leehan, Phantom was a new world to Yeehyeon—vibrant, glamorous, and unpredictable, yet a place where passion and respect for art coexisted.
The feeling he’d had in the taxi on his way from Phantom, on the day he first followed Chief Han to help with an exhibition, was still vivid. An unreal sensation, as if he were to turn the car around and go back, he would find the spot where ‘Gallery Phantom’ had been overgrown with weeds. Or the dazed feeling one has after waking from a dream that felt all too real.
Back then, behind that strangely warped sense of reality, Yeehyeon had felt a ‘desire.’ He had wanted Phantom to be real, for it to remain right where it was.
As if to prove that even if you block out the light and let it go dry without water, light will eventually seep into the human heart and water will permeate it, allowing desire to one day grow, Yeehyeon had steadily cultivated his desires thereafter.
On the night he had hyperventilated because of ‘Isolation’, he had not rejected Liu’s touch when he climbed onto the bed. He had clearly revealed his desire for him—that he wanted Liu to not kiss, have sex with, or knot with anyone other than him.
And Liu… had been pursuing his own desires through me. There was no guarantee that the object of my desire would desire me back in the same way. —Scoffing at the man he had been, who had cautiously held an optimistic view that this time, it would lead to fruition, to flowers blooming and bearing fruit, who had summoned concepts like future, hope, and overcoming… Yeehyeon shifted his gaze out the car window.
The streets, lined with trendy cafes and shops, were bustling with people trying to enjoy the short autumn atmosphere, despite it being a Monday evening. As he carefully studied each face of the people he had unconsciously regarded as Betas and passed by, as if they were the faces of old friends, the Phantom building came into view. Yeehyeon wet his lower lip with his tongue and clenched his empty, sweaty hands tightly on his thighs.
In front of the entrance to the building, a barricade was set up along with a sign announcing that visiting hours were over, but the heavy main door, though closed, was not locked. The door, which felt heavier than he remembered, Yeehyeon pushed open with almost his entire body and stepped inside.
The interior was still a morbid wash of white. Pausing for a moment in the entrance hall, he slowly looked around at the ivory, curved staircase and the high ceiling. With everyone gone for the day and only Liu left in the office, all the other lights were off, and only the structurally designed chandelier hanging from the hall ceiling cast a pale light down on Yeehyeon’s head.
Phantom, which had been like the castle of a wealthy nobleman always bustling with elegantly dressed guests, now resembled a desolate, abandoned house rumored to be haunted, one that held onto a once-glamorous past. But that was just a projection of his own feelings; in reality, nothing had changed. Hadn’t he decided to suppress sentimental reactions as much as possible? Twisting the shoulder strap of his backpack, Yeehyeon took a breath and walked toward the office.
“……”
Liu, whom he hadn’t seen in two days since they parted yesterday morning, was standing behind his desk at the far end of the room, on the phone. He turned to look this way at the sound of a presence, smiled, and waved the A4 paper in his hand. He was so unchanged it was disarming.
Alone in the office, he had loosened the knot of his tie and rolled up his shirt sleeves to below his elbows in a relaxed state. Yeehyeon kept his eyes fixed on him and walked slowly toward the large conference table, just in front of the entrance.
Even now, if he were to approach him pretending to know nothing, it seemed Liu would reach out, wrap an arm around his shoulder, and kiss him, just as he had yesterday morning. He most likely would.
From the moment he first heard the story from Shushu until this very instant… he had felt that temptation countless times. The temptation to pretend he had heard nothing and simply entrust himself to Liu’s judgment and remain silent. To throw himself away like that, to ignore his secret, and to choose the future of false hope that had been planned….
But a twisted impulse to dismantle him in the most brutal way, to viciously expose his hypocrisy, would immediately follow, boiling up and tormenting Yeehyeon. The two different impulses were still barking ferociously at each other, even at this moment.
Yeehyeon swallowed dryly and set his backpack, which was stretched to its maximum capacity, on a chair. Putting down the paper he was holding and picking up another, Liu seemed to be discussing the placement of each artwork for the joint exhibition in the latter half of the year with the person on the phone. It seemed the conversation wasn’t going well; he tossed the paper he had just picked up back down, scratched his forehead with that hand, and then placed it on his hip.
With so many things to finalize as it was, the reason he was personally involved in matters usually handled by Yuni was probably because he wanted to do his best for his Phantom until the very end.
It wasn’t that his affection for the current Phantom had faded, nor had his convictions about its operation changed. And it certainly wasn’t that he had naturally changed his operational direction for a greater purpose, as he himself had explained.
“You’re here?”
Having finished his call, Liu looked this way and smiled. Feeling a surge of cruelty, a desire to shatter that defenseless smile in an instant, Yeehyeon tried his best to offer a short, smile-like expression in return.
“It’s been a while since you’ve been to Phantom, hasn’t it?”
His eyelids sunken and the whites of his eyes bloodshot, Liu walked toward him between the desks.
“Did you want to stop by one last time before you leave?”
He didn’t have the confidence to respond nonchalantly to the brief kiss and touch he would offer as usual. Yeehyeon walked toward the window and, instead of answering the question, offered him coffee. Liu asked for it strong, then showed interest in the backpack Yeehyeon had taken off, grabbing its handle and pulling it up a couple of times as if to gauge its weight.
“What did you pack that’s so heavy? You look like someone who just got back from a trip for a few days.”
Liu seemed to think that he had had a boisterous farewell party at Yuni and Juhan’s place late last night, spent a leisurely day at their house after they left for work, and was on his way here after meeting them again for dinner.
Not ‘someone who just got back,’ but ‘someone who is about to go.’ To suppress the urge to mock him as he brought up such an ordinary topic in his ignorance, Yeehyeon bit his lip in front of the coffee machine. He had thought that once he saw him in person, his emotions would somehow flow in a single direction… but his insides were still just as tumultuous.
Returning to the table with two mugs, Yeehyeon handed one to Liu. Then, by throwing out a topic that would pique his interest, he once again prevented any physical contact.
“It’s not that, I was just at the studio… at my old house.”
“……”
As intended, Liu’s hand, which had been reaching for the mug, paused. As if it were no big deal, Yeehyeon brought the mug to his lips and said in a flat tone.
“I’m thinking of going to see my father.”
“Now?”
“Yes.”
He stared at Yeehyeon for a long time with a sharp, searching gaze, trying to read his inner thoughts. His scrutinizing gaze, which had once seemed to be based on tender concern, now felt… suffocating, like a restraint and a shackle.
“Leaving without seeing him in person… that wouldn’t sit right, would it.”
Liu said, nodding his head slowly in agreement.
Just as Yuni had gone to see her family. That he had decided to seek out his father to sort out some of his heavy burdens before leaving for a faraway place. That was likely how he had concluded Yeehyeon’s reason for heading to the East Sea.
But the catalyst for his decision to see his father was neither as voluntary nor as constructive as Yuni’s, Yeehyeon sneered inwardly.
“Mr. Lim… you probably don’t have to worry too much. He seems to have mellowed out since his eldest son and his wife had their first granddaughter about a month ago.”
Pausing for a moment to take a sip of coffee, Liu added as if to himself.
“Maybe becoming a grandfather changed his perspective on the world a little.”
Placing the steaming mug on the table, Liu turned his head to look at Yeehyeon, who was standing three or four steps away, separated by the corner of the table. Perhaps that sharp glint in his eyes had made him wonder about the subtly different distance between them, Yeehyeon thought. Just as he was about to bring the mug to his lips, Liu closed the distance in a single stride.
“Mm.”
Standing not in front of him, but next to Yeehyeon’s right shoulder, he wrapped his arms across his chest and back. Clasping his hands over Yeehyeon’s left bicep and squeezing, Liu kissed his temple. Yeehyeon’s gaze remained fixed on the mug in his hand the entire time.
“……Will you be okay?”
“With what.”
“Going back there alone. And… facing your father.”
“……”
Tilting his chin, Yeehyeon looked up at his face. Liu tilted his head, lowering his eye level, and looked at him with a worried expression. Yeehyeon tried to feel the same trust and intimacy from him as before. But that effort soon twisted into a hostility that made him want to stab him, to poke a hole in him and drag his grim secret out into the open.
“Should I take you? We could see the ocean, too.”
Yeehyeon scoffed and shook his head, trying to dismiss his words as a joke.
“Why, isn’t it a good idea? If you think of it as a short, impulsive trip together….”
Liu turned Yeehyeon by the shoulders to face him. Awkwardly holding the mug, Yeehyeon dropped his gaze somewhere around Liu’s chest. Liu’s arms wrapped around his waist, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“My mother has a studio she sometimes uses in Gangwon Province, near Inje. The previous owner built it as a vacation home, so the view from the window is tranquil, it has a fireplace, and it’s quite cozy. We could leave now, take a leisurely drive… catch a couple of hours of sleep there… watch the sunrise together in the East Sea….”
“You have a lot of work to do here.”
He cut off the voice that was whispering slowly while kissing his temple, cheek, and the corner of his mouth in succession. He tried not to, but he couldn’t completely erase the chill from his voice. It seemed it was only a matter of time before he found out.
Liu let out a light sigh and pressed his forehead against Yeehyeon’s.
“Ah… I really do have a lot of work. H&W is nagging me to schedule Pettibone’s exhibition soon, so I think I’ll have to go to Hong Kong before long. Even when I get to New York, I’ll have to deal with that first, rather than the Phantom branch opening.”
Yeehyeon felt despair at the fact that Liu’s breath, as he spoke as if complaining, no longer felt sweet, and he resented him for destroying it.
“Then, you don’t have to rush like this.”
“……Rush with… what?”
A slight, grating stiffness could be heard in Liu’s voice as he asked back.
“There’s no reason for you to rush to New York—no, to leave Seoul—while pushing yourself this hard.”
His arms dropped from Yeehyeon’s waist.
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