Inside Phantom I had heard hints from the mbers and sensed the atmosphere, and the teacher was indeed a female Alpha. If the partner were an Oga, pregnancy could occur regardless of primary sex—but for the teacher to beco pregnant she would have needed to partner with an Alpha male. From what I knew, even with an Alpha male it wasn’t a hundred percent guaranteed. The objections around their marriage were therefore not only about youth. Inevitably, my thoughts drifted to Morae and Gwon Juhan.
“I don’t regret getting married. Whatever the ending, at the ti we couldn’t not do it. I needed that marriage like life itself. If we hadn’t married then, given my nature I probably would have regretted it forever. He felt the sa. We were certain we could live as a perfect artist and art dealer couple, as top partners and soulmates—without a single doubt. At that ti you can’t put a decision on hold when that kind of certainty occupies your whole mind.”
A young couple who, both swept by attraction and drawn to each other as people as well as lovers, went ahead despite everyone’s objections. My parents had a similar story. Their endings differed.
One couple clashed until there was nothing left, then both, exhausted, called it over. The other couple—the parents—had the ideal relationship they once dread of, only to have it violently taken from them by an accident that had nothing to do with their will. Which outco was more tragic wasn’t an easy question.
“Understanding another person is much harder work than you’d think. That’s why people call a person a microcosm. It’s complex. Sotis there’s no logic or reason. If the person themselves doesn’t know why they feel a certain way, how can an outsider like understand? The other person feels the sa about .”
For soone like —who’d never been in love, perhaps never even liked soone—that was a difficult idea. But I could faintly grasp the suffocating frustration of being unable to read a complicated, prickly person.
“The person who once painted as naturally as breathing, who couldn’t imagine himself not painting—watching him decay because of the painting...that felt like a kind of love too. Sotis love that goes wrong eats you up from the inside, like ours did. His love for painting didn’t expand or evolve; it burrowed inward and consud him until he had to give it up.”
Love that destroys both lover and self when the thod is wrong. But it was a love so intense you couldn’t survive without throwing yourself wholly at it until your energy ran out. Even if it ended in separation, is that necessarily a failure? I couldn’t answer that, but I understood that such violent feeling wasn’t common.
I rembered Director Ryu’s advice that I seed like the sort to value slow, mutual courtship—his counsel about my relationship with Choi Inwoo. I still didn’t know how I loved or what kind of person I would be in love. Vaguely, though, I suspected I wasn’t that sort of person. Maybe I was soone who could give myself away on a mont’s impulse.
But I didn’t think I had the courage to crash into fierce feelings like the teacher, or my parents—feelings that would swallow whole. Now, I lacked that courage.
“In Hong Kong and back in Seoul, watching many artists, one thought solidified: talent alone isn’t enough. If the ntal fortitude to keep cultivating the talent isn’t there, nothing follows. He had talent, but he doubted it, compared himself to others, and crumbled.”
I looked up at the teacher’s profile.
“You need desperate, obsessive, consistent direction—sothing that keeps you going no matter what. That’s how you break through to the light. I saw that energy in eleven-year-old Seo Ihyeon.”
The teacher’s face turned slowly toward .
“You can eat and breathe without painting. Sure—you can live. That’s not what I an, Ihyeon. I want you to ask yourself honestly whether you need painting to live as the unique Seo Ihyeon you are, not just another face in the crowd. I want that honesty from you. Before it’s too late.”
Facing yourself honestly. Maybe I’d stopped painting because I could no longer be honest in front of myself—I’d stuffed my heart, shut my mouth, closed my eyes. I no longer wanted to speak. I wanted to hide many things.
During the teacher’s story sothing pressed at my chest and demanded a decision—not about painting alone, but about sothing larger that included painting—sothing like life itself. It was a concept that didn’t yet fully register, but his last words settled in my chest like a heavy rock at the riverbed: a gentle but unavoidable warning. Before it’s too late.
■ ■ ■
Spicy stingray sashimi salad, glistening pig trotters, tuna kimbap and potato pancakes. The nu wasn’t harmonious, but it was enough for a rare luxurious al for the three of us—food with alcohol. Yuni and Gwon Juhan joked that love of money and drink was a Phantom mber trait. Even if you didn’t need alcohol to loosen tongues, adding drinks made conversation easier.
“You started by accusing him of hanging around here all the ti—people gathered, it was chaos. He didn’t stay idle either. There was almost a fight. No, it was more than that—nearly a full-on fight.”
Morae shot a glance at Gwon Juhan with a mild reproach and drank soju. A man had been loitering at the bus stop steps for days. At first neither Morae nor Gwon Juhan thought much of it, but the sa man pacing between the bus stop and the steps kept appearing. Gwon Juhan grew suspicious, confronted him and threatened to call the police, only to find out the man had been coming every day to seek forgiveness after a fight with his girlfriend. It had happened just the previous afternoon.
“When Seo Ihang charged like he would drag the man to the station, the guy was totally flustered... It ended only after the girlfriend showed up and confird he was her boyfriend.”
“Nowadays how many crazy people are there? You can’t even trust soone saying ‘girlfriend.’ Maybe he’s delusional and stalking so woman. Still—if it led to a reconciliation, then it turned out okay.”
Gwon Juhan, embarrassed by his own mistake, kept gulping soju and avoided looking at . He wasn’t the type to act so aggressively; fear had drawn out a different side of him. Living every day under the threat that the life you have could be destroyed at any mont—being able to sleep and laugh like this was sothing extraordinary.
“You’re just on edge. I get it—where a needle looks like a knife.” Morae patted his back. It was a light remark but it captured their current state best: living on a glass floor where even a pinprick seems deadly. Smiling and talking didn’t an that life was not fragile. This ti the incident was a misunderstanding—next ti? Nobody could be sure.
I wasn’t yet used to soju, but I downed a fourth glass at once. Instead of loosening , the alcohol tightened my throat and cleared my head.
“Aren’t you going to Bali?” Gwon Juhan paused, bottle in hand.
“What?”
“Bali. Aren’t you going?”
“Why now?” Morae, picking at the stingray, looked puzzled.
“I’ll be fine—let’s go to Bali.”
“What’s gotten into you?” Gwon Juhan set the bottle down; Morae put down her chopsticks. I’d been stalling, asking for a little more ti to prepare, but I knew from experience the situation wouldn’t wait on . Life is a fragile glass floor; any unexpected force might shatter it at any mont. I also knew that the longer you delayed, the riskier it could be.
Since hearing the teacher’s story a few days earlier, thoughts of Morae and Gwon Juhan wouldn’t leave my head. The three of us weren’t a couple, but the nature of human relationships isn’t all that different. Exhaustion and the need to protect oneself can lead people to cut ties—that isn’t a fate exclusive to lovers. I didn’t want our relationship to be pushed to that ragged edge like the teacher’s—really I didn’t.
“The surf camp has a good offer. Opportunities like this don’t co often.”
“I was only checking it out. Don’t go anywhere now—we’ve tied up the deposit.”
Morae relaxed and resud eating, teasing for making this announcent while showing his practice pad. “If we solve the deposit issue, it’s not impossible.”
Morae’s chopsticks paused again. I’d never been so stubborn with these two.
“I might start painting again.”
Their eyes widened more at that than at the suggestion of Bali. I hadn’t decided anything definitive about painting, but I’d decided I wouldn’t let my na bind them here any longer. That, at least, was clear. That would be my first step.
■ ■ ■
They were happier than I expected at the news I might paint again, but still reluctant to leave behind—their reactions were complicated. I explained Director Ryu seeing , discovering it was mine, and his urging to try painting again, even his offer about the Hong Kong trip. I left out the hyperventilation and the night after.
After long discussion the verdict was lukewarm: try painting again or go to Bali. We would each think it over and talk again after the Hong Kong trip—that was today’s outco.
Soju’s intoxication is different from beer or wine. As I stood to clear the table, the world tilted and dizziness hit. Morae and Gwon Juhan must have been tipsy too; beyond the sliding door it was quiet. The floor felt like water under a surfboard; even the light through the kitchen window seed to ripple where ceiling t wall. I felt like I might fall asleep, but my stomach churned in the way it had the night before moving—torn between excitent and worry about a new life. I tossed and turned, then reached for my phone on the bedside.
[Sorry to contact you so late. Could I, as you suggested, go to Hong Kong first and decide afterward?]
I didn’t need to decide right then. It was impulsive—half a tipsy joke I wanted to deny. After sending the ssage I didn’t expect to get a reply past eleven. But the phone rang seconds later.
The contact na “Director Ryu” flashed on the screen and I sat up. Beyond the sliding door it was still quiet. I slipped on my slippers and stepped outside, phone trembling in my hand. The call persisted like a signal from a distant future. I answered on the living-room couch.
“Hello.”
[...Were you asleep? You just sent a ssage a minute or two ago. Are you not?] His voice was husky; he hesitated.
“No. I’m out—so I could take the call.”
[You went back to your old place?]
“Yes.”
I hadn’t told him I was coming to Morae and Gwon Juhan’s house; perhaps it ca up when he and the teacher were talking earlier. He seed to know things about I hadn’t said. He’d asked about behind my back—my art major, whether I was an Oga. Yuni and Gwon Juhan had told he asked questions when I wasn’t present. In front of he usually acted indifferent.
“You’re out then.” The noise behind him faded as he distanced himself from the gathering. I rubbed my slippered foot on the floor and tried to focus on his breathing through the laughter and high voices on the line.
[...I was invited. It’s all part of work, what can you do.] His tone sounded bored. Even the day he drank wine at the Spanish tavern he’d leaned back like he wasn’t interested. But according to Choi Inwoo, he’d co by choice—Inwoo insisted he hadn’t invited him along. I found my new annotations about his actions amusing and oddly optimistic. Maybe he just wanted to get away from a dull after-party. But then he’d returned to Phantom with Inwoo...
I stopped thinking and let out a quiet laugh. It was all aningless speculation.
“You must be tired.”
[...]
The party noise receded as he moved to a more private spot. The click of a lighter, a cigarette’s spark, the sound of deep inhalation—those small noises cald strangely.
[...I’m buoyed by the thought we might soon sign the artist I’ve wanted. It helps get through it.] He exhaled slowly.
Ah—he was talking about . The implication that he’d wanted all along tickled my ear.
“It’s not decided yet. I’ll decide later.”
[Seo Ihyeon will definitely want to paint again.]
How could he be so sure? He barely knew ; he’d seen only one painting. Was this the sa “ability to recognize painting” the teacher talked about—or just his own confident eye? I lifted my head. Seoul’s lights beyond the roof shimred like squid fishing boats again.
He’d excused himself from that boisterous gathering to focus on . I felt a strange irritation at being absent from his place while he was where I was not. His scent tickled mory at the edge of my nose. I rubbed the sweat from my palm over my shorts and gripped the phone tighter.
“I want to. But I haven’t been able to paint for a long ti.”
I ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) didn’t expect to admit that so plainly—especially to him. He didn’t offer saccharine comfort; he sounded confident instead.
[Don’t worry. You’ll get the urge to paint again.]
His certainty was strong but his tone remained gentle. I had never wanted his words to be true as much as in that mont.
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