The escape had been more meticulously planned than I expected. Everything was arranged through people none of us knew directly.

The truck that took us to Seoul was a one-ton vehicle on the verge of being scrapped, borrowed through a contact of Yeehan's from the surf shop. Once we arrived and parked it at the pre-arranged spot, the owner — who would follow us by express bus — would come to retrieve it.

Through a sunbae of Yeehan's from his surfing days, we were connected to a private investigation agency. We only stayed at the inn for the first two nights; by the end of them, the agency had already arranged a room for us to lease.

We had left behind a letter implying that if they came looking for us before we made contact ourselves, we would resort to stronger resistance — perhaps even self-harm. Even so, there was a real chance they'd go to Morae's address first, trying to pick up our trail. In fact, it was very likely.

To prepare for that, we needed the agency's help to cover our tracks as thoroughly as possible.

The director of the agency didn't look like someone who worked in that line of business — though I couldn't be sure what that was supposed to look like. If anything, the owner of the surf shop looked far more the part.

"Don't even touch the money in your bank accounts. We'll take over that account as is. For us, we just need to launder it a few times to get it out. I'll give you the cash equivalent, so use only cash from now on. I assume you won't be using credit cards either — I don't even need to say it, right? These days even ordinary people watch enough movies to have that much common sense."

While complaining that work had gotten tough lately because clients who'd watched a few movies now acted like experts and tried to tell him how to do his job, the director retrieved from his safe the cash equivalent of what Yeehan and Morae had saved.

The money Yeehan had set aside over roughly a year between high school graduation and enlistment — spending nothing, buying nothing new — combined with the allowance Morae had been quietly accumulating since childhood amounted to a considerable sum.

"What? Does it look small now that you're seeing it in cash? Should I count it out in ten-thousand-won bills just to spite you?"

The director gave a slight smirk toward us as we sat stiffly, still tense. No matter how neatly he was dressed in his office suit, no matter how cleanly his hair was styled, moments like that made it clear he was someone who moved in the shadows.

"Just kidding, just kidding. Fifty-thousand-won bills are simply easier to store."

That money went entirely toward securing a place to live — no need to hide it deep in drawers or beneath the floorboards.

It was a large sum for us, but the only rentals we could afford in Seoul with that amount were a semi-basement or a rooftop room. In terms of being hot in summer and cold in winter, both were equally miserable — but we agreed the rooftop was better, since at least you could see the sun.

Even though it was far from the subway station, and reaching the bus stop meant climbing a rather steep staircase, we felt reassured by the director's guarantee that we could live there undetected for at least one or two years.

A guarantee that this escape wouldn't end as nothing more than a feeble act of defiance.

For now, that was enough.

Since we had no spare money, the only furnishings in our small rooftop room were a modular storage box for clothes, bedding, and a few essential kitchen items. That was it. Morae remarked that it actually made the room look more spacious, which was a nice way to look at it.

It had already been about three weeks since we moved in.

Whether the meticulous preparation had paid off, or simply luck, our daily lives had settled in without any serious signs of threat. Before a week had even passed since the move, I had started working part-time at a moving company, while Morae and Yeehan had both secured jobs beforehand.

"What Happened in Bali."

The café, tucked deep into a residential area instead of a busy commercial district, evoked a free and unhurried southern beach atmosphere that matched its name perfectly. The owner was an old sunbae of Yeehan's from his surfing days — the same one who had connected us to the agency. Yeehan worked as a prep cook, and Morae worked the floor.

After finishing the evening service, the owner would share the day's leftover ingredients, and then Yeehan would practice by cooking the café's menu at home.

Sitting on the wooden platform near the rooftop's edge — which had been there since we moved in — drinking a can of beer and swapping stories about the day over hyung's cooking had become one of our daily rituals.

We were young, more than the word "young" could capture, and things like the noise from the newlywed couple downstairs who fought like clockwork every other day, or our modest rooftop room that would surely turn into a sauna come midsummer, didn't matter to us at all.

Even though the climb up sixty-two stairs was arduous, the night view of Seoul from up here wasn't cold or forbidding. It sometimes resembled the lights of squid fishing boats floating far out at sea, and at other times brought to mind Van Gogh's The Starry Night.

Those were days when liberation and vague dread swirled together — a baseless excitement in my chest, and underneath it, the feeling of being chased.

"So who was that person?"

Morae asked, clearly interested in the story of my day.

"She's the younger sibling of my mom's friend. She was my art teacher briefly when I was little."

Hearing that the person was connected to our parents, a subtle expression flickered across both their faces before quickly disappearing.

"And you ran into her again just like that? That's something. You'd probably win a gift certificate if you sent it in as a story to a radio show."

Morae gathered the last bite of her nasi goreng onto her spoon as she spoke. Despite her effort to lighten the mood, Yeehan's expression remained slightly tense.

"She already knew about my family's situation. My aunt told her."

"...Really?"

Only then did Yeehan relax and take a sip of his beer.

"She worked in Hong Kong until about four years ago, then came back to Korea. Now she's at a private gallery."

"A gallery? If she was teaching you art and now works at a gallery, she must have been in the art world all along."

Morae finished chewing her last bite of nasi goreng and swallowed before looking over at me.

"I guess so," I said idly, spinning a beer can with about a third of its contents left in my hand. "She mentioned she has three exhibitions lined up right now, so she doesn't have time to worry about the house. When I went to help her move, the place was a complete mess."

I'd drunk a little more than usual today. Maybe that was why I felt a slight warmth in my cheeks despite the pleasant breeze.

"Are you going to do it?"

That was Morae — her tone suggesting she hoped I'd accept the Teacher's offer.

"I'm still not sure."

Yeehan hyung said that if seeing that person was difficult, there was no need to go through with it. He was worried it might only end up reopening old wounds.

But seeing the Teacher's face hadn't felt difficult at all. In fact, the very first honest emotion that came to mind when I recognized her was that I was glad to see her. Her face wasn't connected to painful memories.

"Seo Ihyeon is practically a god when it comes to organizing. She's not offering this because she knows your situation and wants to help — she happened to need someone qualified, and you fit perfectly. If you're worried about being a burden, don't be. That would be more of an insult to her. Just decide based on what you truly want."

After finishing her meal, Morae said this and took a long, refreshing gulp of the beer she'd been saving.

"Right. I should."

That was my answer. But it wasn't easy to pinpoint where my heart was actually leaning.

"Morae and I are both working, and we're not in any urgent need of money right now, so take your time deciding."

"Okay."

Yeehan seemed to be approaching this more cautiously than Morae. People react to wounds in all different ways...

The next day I had to be in Gwangjin District by seven. It was time to wrap up before the newlyweds downstairs started their nightly war. I needed to fall into a deep sleep before that.

When I opened the flimsy front door — the kind that looked like it would fall off its hinges if any reasonably built adult gave it a few hard shoves — the narrow kitchen space just beyond was barely large enough for two people to lie down side by side. Past the sliding doors that opened on either side was the room.

The private investigation agency director, who had shown us this place on behalf of the landlord who'd moved to Jeolla Province, had emphasized that it was a "semi-separated studio apartment."

Morae and Yeehan took the room, and I took the kitchen. That was how we divided it and laid out our bedding.

The two of them had strongly objected — asking why I insisted on sleeping in the kitchen when there was space in the room, accusing me of making them feel like a burden — but I simply wanted to protect them that much.

Even if they didn't act like a couple in front of me, I knew their relationship wasn't made up only of the easy, friendly warmth they showed me.

"Ihyeon-ah, just sleep in the room with us. I'm fine, okay?"

Leaning against the frame of the open sliding door, Morae nuna watched me lay out my bedding in the kitchen and delivered the same line as always.

I sat down on the soft new mattress, hugged a pillow, and looked up at her with a deliberately playful expression.

"Nuna."

"Yes?"

"I'm fine too. I'll sleep here."

Morae nuna let out a small laugh, then smiled warmly with affectionate eyes. With a quiet "good night," she disappeared beyond the door.

Still, we couldn't keep living like this with only one door between us. It was fine now while the weather was warm, but once autumn came, cold air would seep in through the flimsy front door. And I didn't want the two of them to keep feeling sorry for me, keep carrying that weight on my behalf.

I knew their escape wasn't simply a romantic elopement — it was a kind of struggle to live as themselves. That was precisely why I hated that even after finally seizing that hard-won freedom, even after finally having the chance to love openly, they still couldn't share even casual physical affection without restraint.

I'd followed their lead up to this point. But there was still the matter of my own life.

Lying on my back with my hands clasped behind my head, facing the ceiling, I could faintly hear hyung and Morae nuna talking quietly beyond the sliding door — its opaque glass panels divided into chocolate-square shapes. I couldn't make out what they were saying.

Even though I'd told them I wasn't sure what to do when they asked, I was well aware that this was not the time to be picky. If the work paid, I had to do something first.

Even when I lay down to sleep, even when I closed my eyes, the absence of the sound of waves made me truly feel how far we — how far I — had come.

· · · · ·

I drew alone every day. Around fourth grade, I wanted to try attending an art academy. My parents enrolled me right away. But once I actually went, it wasn't very fun.

What I wanted was a way to express the things I wanted to draw the way I imagined them. Most of the time, we just smeared paint on our palms and stamped it onto sketchbooks, or idly swished our brushes around in water containers.

After a week, I declared I didn't want to go anymore. My parents didn't ask any questions — they simply said that was fine. Of course, we couldn't get a refund for the remaining three weeks of the month's tuition already paid. At the time, I didn't realize how generous that was given our family's modest circumstances.

Then I got a teacher who came to the house to draw with me.

She was someone who taught me not only how to transfer the world I saw onto paper, but also how to see the world through an artist's eyes.

Lessons with the Teacher felt like an exciting adventure. The ordinary surroundings I thought I already knew transformed vividly — like pop-up cards exchanged at Christmas.

I drew not just a tree, but the gnarled roots jutting out from the soil. Not just a house, but the shadow of the neighbor's house cast against our wall. The world was full of things I wanted to paint, and what I saw today would feel fresh again tomorrow.

I drew with the Teacher for about a year. Looking back now, she probably stopped teaching when she graduated from university and left for Hong Kong. That was already ten years ago.

Yeehan and Morae seemed worried that seeing the Teacher would stir up the past. But the past that surfaced when I saw her went further back than that — to a time when the world was full of adventure and mystery.

"Ah, I feel alive again now that there's something in my stomach."

The Teacher had neatly finished all twelve pieces of sushi arranged in the rectangular lunchbox. She set down her chopsticks and leaned back loosely against the chair.

"Things kept coming up, so I only had a kimbap roll around three and haven't eaten since."

She explained with a slightly embarrassed smile, looking at me as I chewed the sushi — a texture I was tasting for the first time.

"Take your time eating. I'm sorry I can only offer store-bought food."

"Not at all. I've never had sushi this delicious."

I had accepted the Teacher's offer, and today was the fifth time I'd been to this house. Her claim that she was so busy she wouldn't notice if she left wearing mismatched shoes hadn't been an exaggeration — today was the first time I'd actually been able to see her face properly.

She wasn't fully off work even now. She had stopped by to pick up some materials she needed, and to eat dinner while she was at it. After that she had to go back to the gallery. It was already almost eleven o'clock.

"You didn't... go to college?"

The Teacher asked in a cautious tone as she twisted open a bottle of water.

"No."

"And art? Are you still drawing?"

"No..."

The first emotion that surfaced when I recognized the Teacher's face had been warmth. Immediately following it came guilt over having stopped drawing.

What I'd learned from her wasn't so much technique as the very gaze one holds while drawing. The excitement and pure immersion of those days — when it felt like a new world had opened up — still faintly lingered in my body, making the guilt all the more profound. My eyes dropped on their own.

"I'm sorry."

"Ihyeon-ah, don't be like that. What is there to be sorry about? I was just wondering how you've been lately. I haven't picked up a brush in quite a while myself, you know."

The Teacher said this in a light tone, as if it truly meant nothing, and tilted the water bottle to drink.

"It's a shame. I really liked your paintings."

"I liked your paintings too."

This time she smiled at me with a hint of mischief. Feeling awkward, I smiled back.

"That's just how life goes. Circumstances change, and people change with them. In my case, I didn't quit under duress. I just got tired of everything and wanted to throw myself into a completely new situation — somewhere fresh from top to bottom. Working at a gallery turned out to suit me and felt rewarding, so I stayed. I'm very satisfied now. It's the same with other arts fields — only a genuinely talented few ever get recognized as artists. The rest either exhaust themselves paddling around the fringes of art, or just go around playing the part of an artist without the substance. It's easy to end up that way, isn't it? If I'd kept painting, I probably would have ended up the kind of artist who puts on exhibitions with her own money and has friends buy the pieces. No regrets."

The Teacher's words left a light aftertaste. She meant every word.

But I couldn't so neatly say the same about myself — that I had no regrets, no lingering feelings. So I kept my mouth shut and cast a meaningless gaze at the two remaining pieces of sushi.

"The gallery I'm at now is really growing. The first few years were all about building the foundation with nothing to show for it — psychologically that was rough. But now that things are finally picking up, it's exhausting and exhilarating all at once. It's the same principle: row hard while the tide is in. I have three more exhibitions scheduled, so I'll be this busy until the end of next month. I'm glad I ran into you. Otherwise coming home would have been stressful on top of everything else."

As if the very thought was dreadful, the Teacher ran her hands through her neatly trimmed hair, thoroughly messing it up.

"I don't really do that much."

"Coming home to everything in its place. Everything neatly arranged. That is more than enough."

I didn't have to cook or do laundry. I didn't even know how to cook. My responsibilities were organizing and cleaning. The house was large, filled with all manner of decorative objects and paintings, so it did take some time — but none of the work was difficult or complicated. I was relieved if this small effort was genuinely helpful to her.

"Once these current exhibitions are over, let's sit down and actually talk. I've been wanting to visit that place too. 'What Happened in Bali'?"

We had already given the Teacher a general outline of our situation, just in case someone tried to find us through her.

"Yes, let's definitely go together next time. It's fun."

After sharing the two remaining pieces of sushi, we stood up from the dining table.

"I'll give you a ride on my way to the gallery. Let's go together."

"No, it's fine. I'll finish cleaning up and head out. I can take the bus."

The Teacher checked her wristwatch and lightly pinched my cheek across the table.

"Help me clean up and then get in my car. The bus schedule is tight anyway."

Before I could protest, one of the two cell phones she'd left on the table rang loudly.

"Sorry, is it too loud? I keep the ringer up in case I miss something important. Just a moment."

While the Teacher turned slightly away to take the call, I quickly began clearing the table. The disposable containers made cleanup simple.

"Yeah. Why? Artist Yoon?... Ha... Why does that guy always get fixated on such useless things? Yuni, can you...? No, you're probably working on the display right now. Okay, I'll handle Artist Yoon — just ignore his calls from now on and focus on the display... Yes, I'll take responsibility."

Even before I'd stopped drawing, I'd known nothing about the inner workings of the art world or how galleries operated. But judging by the Teacher's lifestyle, it clearly wasn't an easy field.

From what I could hear, it sounded like another problem had erupted at the gallery. I was glad she'd at least finished eating, and rinsed out the lunchbox containers.

"Ihyeon-ah, what should I do? Something came up at the office — I need to get back quickly. I'm sorry, I said I'd give you a ride first. Take a taxi instead, okay?"

"No, it's fine. I've finished cleaning up, and if I leave now I can still catch the bus."

I turned to look at the Teacher while shaking the water off the rinsed container at the sink. Out of habit, she had one hand resting on her hip, the other fiddling absently at her eyebrow, her lip caught between her teeth. Then her gaze shifted and landed on me. A faint glimmer of expectation crossed her face.

"You said you don't have the moving company job tomorrow, right?"

Still holding the container, I nodded awkwardly. The Teacher strode forward and took hold of my wet hand.

"Ihyeon-ah, save me. No — save my kids."

· · · · ·

Gallery Phantom.

The gallery, with its somewhat grandiose name, was located midway up the slope leading toward Bugaksan, tucked behind the Hanok Village. The lot wasn't particularly spacious, but compared to the charming, smaller buildings surrounding it, it was a fairly substantial two-story structure.

The Teacher had given me a rough overview of the situation on the way over, assuring me that the tasks I'd be assigned were simple and required no special knowledge — nothing to worry about. Even so, as I followed her through the heavy main gate that radiated a cool, imposing presence, I still doubted whether someone as completely unfamiliar with this world as I was could actually be of any help.

"Just do exactly as the staff instructs. I haven't seen you in ten years, but watching how you manage my house tells me everything I need to know. These are simple tasks any beginner can handle, so don't worry. Okay?"

As we passed through the compact, high-ceilinged hall just inside the entrance and climbed the stairs to the second floor, the Teacher lightly patted my back.

The staircase was elegant and wide, made of a material that was nearly white — almost the color of pale ash. Each step felt too delicate to land on carelessly.

"Manager! Artist Yoon is currently..."

"I'll handle Artist Yoon from here. Here — the present I brought."

"......"

The Teacher positioned me in front of her, placed both hands on my shoulders from behind, and gently pushed me forward a step. The person who suddenly found herself face-to-face with me at close range simply looked up at me without a word. Her expression showed she hadn't grasped the situation. Mine wasn't much different.

As soon as we stepped onto the second floor, several spaces divided by partition walls came into view, and through the corners that turned in different directions like a small maze, glimpses of artwork hanging on the walls caught my eye.

The space was overwhelmingly, almost pathologically, white. Even though the partitions holding the paintings were understandable, the floor — like the staircase — was the same pale, near-white ivory. The structural ceiling, elevated above the partitions with a gap of open space, was the same.

In that white space, the only person standing before me was entirely black.

Everything was black: the short, bobbed hair that looked as though it had been deliberately dyed an even deeper black; the blouse with puffed shoulders; the sweatpants that clashed completely with the blouse; the slippers; even the oversized horn-rimmed glasses.

From my natural stance, I found myself looking down at the crown of her head. Despite her petite height and small frame, the image she projected was intense. Even the eyes looking at me over the lenses were a clean, sharp black. It was a gaze devoid of hostility or warmth — a direct, unfiltered look that simply asked who I was.

"This is the friend who's been helping with my new place — the one I mentioned. I asked him to help out at the gallery just for today. He's good at everything, so he'll be useful."

That was the Teacher's answer to her unspoken question. She turned her gaze away from me and shrugged.

"Having one more person is better, I suppose. Manager Han, please deal with Artist Yoon quickly. My phone is about to explode."

"Alright, I'll go take care of it right now. Where did Juhan go?"

"He went down to Section C to get some pieces."

That was the end of it. The woman with the short black bob returned to where she'd been working, and the Teacher hurried out of the gallery to resolve the trouble with Artist Yoon. She was probably overestimating my social skills.

The woman, who had been cutting something at a makeshift workbench, glanced my way and spoke quickly.

"I'm sorry to bother you right after meeting you, but I'm quite busy, so I'll get straight to the point. Could you go down to the basement and help move some artwork? Open that door and go down the stairs — there's a beanpole down there who could use an extra pair of hands."

This wasn't the time for standing around feeling awkward. Following her instructions, I opened the white door marked "STAFF ONLY" and headed down. A narrow staircase led directly to the basement storage.

The heavy steel door fitted with a security system was wide open, so I didn't need to search for the person she'd mentioned.

In the large space — entirely white, just like the floor above — I easily spotted a man dressed head-to-toe in black, just as the woman upstairs had been.

He was roughly my height, maybe slightly taller, with a lean build and unusually long limbs, his back turned to me as he moved between the paintings. The heavy lace-up boots he wore looked like something off a punk rock stage.

"Excuse me..."

"Aargh! Shit, you scared me!"

I thought I'd made enough noise coming down the stairs, but perhaps he was too absorbed in his work to notice. Even my cautious call made him jump violently — he nearly lost his footing.

Turning around, the man's face was as distinctive as his attire. It had a mask-like quality that made it difficult to categorize as handsome or not — just distinctly, memorably its own thing. His bangs, cut in a perfectly straight line that almost poked his eyes, emphasized that individuality further. It was a face you wouldn't forget after seeing it just once.

The woman upstairs seemed to have two or three piercings on her face, but this man had far more accessories. Both exposed ears were densely adorned with hoop earrings of various sizes, like the rings of a spiral notebook, and piercings decorated his eyebrows, nose, and lips as well. A thin chain connecting a ring through the center of his lower lip to his eyebrow immediately drew the eye.

Neither the woman upstairs nor the man before me looked like what people typically imagined gallery employees to look like. And yet the aura emanating from both of them was strikingly similar.

In that all-white space, the two of them stood out with a vivid, outlined presence — as though someone had traced their silhouettes with a marker.

The man, who had stopped working and stood with his hands on his hips holding a file, wore a slightly stern expression. He was waiting for me to introduce myself.

"Manager Han sent me. The staff member upstairs told me to come down here and help out."

"Oh — sorry, you startled me. Our Director always says this basement is haunted, so..."

The man touched the piercing on his lip absently, then seemed to collect himself.

"I'm sorting through the paintings that need to go upstairs. When I find one on the list, go ahead and move it over here."

He pointed toward the paintings gathered near the entrance and led the way into the inner space.

He would check the list and identify the section where each painting was located. The sections were clearly and systematically divided — A-1, 2, 3... B-1, 2, 3 — so finding the paintings wasn't the challenge. It was a battle of time and labor.

When he found a painting, I moved it to the entrance while he located the next. That was the process.

"By the way, what's your relationship with Manager Han?" he asked, rechecking a painting I'd just moved — the first personal question he'd ventured since we started. "She didn't find you through some last-minute gig app, did she?"

"I'm the housekeeper at her new place. The gallery was busy today, so she asked me to come help out."

"Ah, the housekeeper she recently hired..."

I nodded as he looked me over once more.

"I didn't realize you'd be this young. What's your name? Even if it's just for one night, we should at least know each other's names. I'm Kwon Juhan."

"Seo Ihyeon."

He knelt before a painting while I held the edge of the canvas to keep it from tipping. We shook hands — much later than we should have.

"Since we're only working together for one day, let's ust use first names."

I nodded again in agreement.

He brushed the dust from his knees and stood up. Now we had to move the paintings upstairs. Twenty-four pieces in total, some mixed in that looked to be size 120 or larger. These were the works and items that would be exhibited and sold starting tomorrow. We decided to carry everything together — excluding the smallest pieces — to handle them with care.

"I might not look that sturdy, but you don't look much sturdier yourself... These are quite heavy. You absolutely cannot drop them, so stay focused. Seriously. If you drop one, our Director won't leave you, Ihyeon, alive."

We positioned ourselves on opposite sides of the first piece. Juhan gave me a light warning, his shoulders already trembling slightly at what the Director might say.

Juhan led the way up the stairs, and I carefully followed behind. The exhibition space was on the second floor, and the staircase from the basement wasn't short. On the landing between the first and second floors, Juhan signaled for a brief pause.

"Are you... working out? You're stronger than you look... N-not bad."

"I work part-time at a moving company."

His gaze swept over me again, as if searching for signs of hard physical labor.

While we weren't drastically different in build, carrying heavy loads up and down stairs had become something I did nearly every day. It wasn't strange that I'd developed some technique.

"If it's too heavy, should I take the top end next time? Walking backward seems harder on you."

"No, it's fine. It's just that I've already moved about thirty pieces today... I'm usually not like this. Let's go again."

Juhan adjusted his still-uneven breathing and hoisted the painting again with his long, lean arms — the joints particularly prominent and sharp-looking.

Once we reached the second floor and carefully set the painting down, he immediately collapsed onto the floor.

"Argh, I can't do any more! I moved thirty pieces by myself today! My legs are shaking!"

He shouted and slapped the floor while lying flat, but the woman with the short haircut didn't even glance his way. She began briskly unwrapping the painting we'd just brought up.

It depicted stacks of old books rendered in a hyperrealistic style. Judging by the texture of the cross-sections, it didn't look like it had been created with paint alone.

"Over there. See the paper marked 'No. 1'? That needs to go on that wall. Let's carry it together."

She wasn't particularly large in build, but she clearly knew every detail of how things ran here. It seemed unlikely she'd misjudge whether she could lift a canvas based on its size.

Sure enough, the two of us had no trouble lifting the vertically oriented piece — approximately as tall as I was. This kind of work was more about technique than brute strength.

"Baek Yuni... superhuman strength as always. When did you hang everything in Section B by yourself? I told you to just leave it."

Juhan, still lying on his back staring at the ceiling, only turned his head to watch us hang the painting. Come to think of it, the section next to where she'd been working when Juhan and I first came up — which had been a mess — was now completely tidy.

"I only did what I could. You two can handle the rest later. I need to match the captions for the Section B pieces now."

"Okay."

Juhan, who'd declared he couldn't lift another finger, seemed to have recharged somewhat and suddenly sprang up, grabbing an ion drink from the makeshift workbench and twisting off the cap. I wasn't particularly thirsty, but he offered me one and I took a couple of sips.

"By the way — did you greet Ihyeon yet? You didn't, right? You probably just put him to work the second you saw him, without so much as a hello."

"Is it wrong to ask someone to work when we met specifically to work?"

She was arranging the captions — containing the artwork's title, materials, and year of creation — in her preferred order on the workbench, but despite what she said, she paused for a moment and turned to look at me. Whether it was my imagination or not, her expression seemed slightly apologetic.

"I'm Baek Yuni."

"I'm Seo Ihyeon."

This is a pencil, and that is a desk.

Juhan, watching our introduction — as flat as the example sentences from a beginner's English textbook — stifled a laugh from across the way, his shoulders shaking.

"That was painful to watch. Call each other Yuni and Ihyeon — that's what we agreed on with me too."

It wasn't at all surprising that he judged me as shy. Anyone looking at me could probably tell I wasn't outgoing. I had that much self-awareness. But his assessment of her was unexpected.

Could someone who gave off the impression of bold, heavy Gothic lettering ever feel the way I did, like she was standing alone on the outside of a crowd? I couldn't quite picture it.

"Shut up. I can transform into the god of socializing if I put my mind to it."

"That's true. It's just that it's not a god — it's a machine. You're completely soulless when you're selling."

Yuni had her eyes trained on the captions, and the two of them were busy talking, so neither of them noticed — but I, standing near the stairs, couldn't miss the new presence approaching.

First came a few strands of fine hair catching the light, then a face with distinct and deep-set features came into view, and a man dressed in a sharp suit stepped swiftly onto the second-floor lobby. He was incredibly... incredibly large and striking.

"What's the point of putting your soul into sales? Souls are for artists to put into their work."

Yuni said it sharply as she placed the final caption in position. By then, the tall man had arrived right in front of the workbench where we were gathered.

"Well said."

The man interjected into the conversation with a smile.

"Director!"

Yuni's face and voice lit up with genuine delight as she addressed him.

Ah, so this was the gallery Director that Juhan had mentioned. The one who scared Juhan with rumors about ghosts haunting the basement storage.

He was very tall, lean in the way that makes height look effortless rather than heavy. His face suggested a foreigner at first glance, but something faintly Eastern lay beneath it.

"Why are you only just arriving now?"

"You know how those two are. They wouldn't let me leave, using reservations as an excuse."

He was a very tall, very handsome man. His exotic features — inexplicable unless he were mixed-race — gave him a glamorous and singular aura, something that set him apart from everything around him. This was what it meant to be someone who existed not as a person who gazed upon others, but as someone others could only gaze upon.

It was the first time in my life I'd thought something like that.

Could someone like this be a Golden Alpha?

"So, did you secure the reservations?"

Yuni had an energy about her that suggested she might grab him by the collar if the answer was no.

"Three pieces. Here's the reservation list — please put up the 'Sold Out' cards."

Yuni took the list from him, looking as if the sales revenue from those pieces were flowing directly into her own pocket. She tucked the memo into her notebook, which now appeared nearly twice its original thickness with various receipts and papers.

"We seriously thought we were going to die. We haven't even finished moving all the Section C pieces, and Artist Yoon is throwing a fit because he doesn't like the order of the pamphlets."

"Yes, yes, I heard. You've both been through a lot. Manager Han will deal with Artist Yoon, so let's just wrap things up here. Hmm... let's get this done within three hours."

The man glanced at his watch, and his gaze suddenly shifted to me. All the important matters had been addressed — now he seemed to want to know the identity of the outsider who'd been standing here the whole time.

My own gaze, which had been stealing glances at him out of curiosity about this unfamiliar presence, dropped instinctively toward the base of his neck.

"Manager Han brought him just a little while ago. Asked him to help out for today only. Ihyeon, this is our Director."

Even without looking directly at him, his gaze was inescapable. It showed no consideration for how I might perceive being stared at — he surveyed me freely, from whatever angle he pleased, as much as he wanted. The sensation was like a vice slowly tightening around my entire body.

"Hello. I'm Seo Ihyeon."

I forced the words out over the reluctance that made me want to shrink back, and greeted him.

I wasn't unsociable, but I usually felt awkwardness in new relationships — not intimidation. Yet right now, I was shrinking.

Assuming he was an Alpha, I couldn't tell whether this unfamiliar tightening came from Alpha pheromones I'd never encountered before, or simply from his presence as a person — the kind built on accumulated experience and confidence.

As far as I knew, it was impossible for a Beta to detect an Alpha's or Omega's pheromones.

If I'd still been in that seaside village, even someone with this level of striking looks and imposing presence wouldn't have immediately made me think Alpha. But here, it was entirely plausible.

I desperately wanted the ion drink Juhan had given me. I was still holding it in my hand, but couldn't bring myself to open and drink it.

"How do you know Manager Han?"

The question came at the end of his gaze — the one that felt like a hand slowly closing and tightening.

His voice was cold and rigid, entirely unlike the one he'd used with Juhan or Yuni. There was even a hint of hostility he wasn't making any effort to conceal.

"I work as a housekeeper at Manager Han's residence."

At the edge of his gaze, his lips twitched. He seemed displeased with my stated affiliation. Fortunately, the questioning stopped there.

Turning his attention away from me, he draped his jacket over a chair at the makeshift workbench. As he rolled up his sleeves, Yuni gave him a brief update on the progress. He and Juhan would handle transporting the artwork, and my role would shift to assisting Yuni on the second floor.

Once he disappeared down the stairs with Juhan, the tense atmosphere relaxed, and it felt as though oxygen was finally being supplied again. I realized my shoulders had dropped — my muscles had been rigid the whole time.

After draining half the ion drink, Yuni held out a roll of heavy-duty double-sided tape.

"Shall we try getting along, two shy people together?"

The work proceeded smoothly. We finished attaching all the captions beside the Section B pieces, and as each painting came up from the basement, we hung it in Section C. After completing the displays through Section D in this manner, the exhibition floor was littered with all manner of debris. While the others made the remaining preparations to receive guests the next day, cleanup fell to me.

By the time both floors looked presentable, the Teacher returned with late-night snacks. Since the sun was about to rise, it was closer to an early breakfast than a late-night snack.

Everyone gathered in the office on the first floor, around the large conference table with sandwiches and coffee laid out. There was lively chatter over who would eat which sandwich.

Even with the Teacher present — the only person I knew here — I didn't feel any more at ease. He had that kind of presence: the kind that makes everyone around him feel slightly out of place just by standing near it.

Such a person truly did exist. Without looking at anyone or speaking to anyone, that man could make me feel as if I were trapped behind a glass wall, isolated entirely on my own.

It was different from being simply ignored. There was something deliberate in it — a cool, sustained indifference directed at me specifically.

"Manager Han, Ihyeon works well. Compared to when Kwon Juhan first started, you'd believe he'd already had experience."

Yuni's praise — which she didn't seem like the type to offer lightly — was a small comfort.

"Baek Yuni, was there really no tadpole phase for you?"

"I was a frog from the start. Right, Director?"

"Hmm, Yuni never had a tadpole phase. That's why I poached her."

The man nodded as he chewed on an avocado sandwich. He was a doting boss to his own people.

After nearly five hours of labor, his appearance was considerably more disheveled than when he'd first appeared in the second-floor hall. His unusually soft-looking hair no longer held its shape, falling loose constantly. His shirt and trousers were wrinkled, and the shadows under his eyes and on his cheeks showed clear signs of fatigue.

That didn't make him look shabby, though. Just a little tired. And because of that — a little more sensitive, a little fiercer.

"Thank you, Ihyeon-ah. If it weren't for you, we might've stayed here all night and rushed to wash up at a nearby hotel before the opening. I don't know what I would have done if I hadn't run into you."

The Teacher, seated beside me, rested her temple against my shoulder and pretended to cry. Whether it was my imagination or not, the gaze coming from the man across the table felt sharp.

"You must be tired. Would you like to take the sandwich home and eat it there?"

Perhaps due to the mental strain, I wasn't sleepy despite being long past my usual bedtime. That didn't mean I wasn't physically exhausted, though. I was too worn out to refuse the Teacher's offer.

I tucked the sandwich into my bag and was about to say goodbye when Yuni — who had been sitting at the head of the table with a corner between us — suddenly sprang to her feet.

"Ihyeon! Could you possibly come back for tomorrow's event, just one more time?"

She seemed surprised by her own words, as though she'd blurted out the thought the moment it surfaced. She took off her glasses and set them on the table, her dark eyes still sharp after working through the night.

"Why? We've been managing fine with this team up until now."

Her short hair swung as she turned sharply to look at the man. From my angle I could only see her cheek, but she seemed to be glaring at him intensely.

"We've been barely hanging on by a thread this whole time! And Director, I think the current schedule is quite inhumane, don't you?"

"......"

The man pressed his lips together as if resigned and shrugged his shoulders. Everyone's expectant gaze — everyone's except his — fell on me. Pausing with my bag strap halfway over my shoulder, I looked at each of their faces in turn, unable to find words.

Juhan, sitting beside the man, held up one finger and made a pleading expression, his face contorted. The Teacher regarded me with a faint smile.

"Feel free to say no if you're tired or have other plans. But if, just maybe, you might be okay with it..."

"As long as I don't have to deal with clients directly... I'll help. I'm not very good with people."

I didn't entirely know why I said yes.

Maybe I sensed a nostalgia for the past in the Teacher's expression. Maybe it was the unconscious excitement of being surrounded by paintings again, helping with art-related work for the first time in so long. Or maybe it was something very twenty-two-years-old — a simple, quiet satisfaction at being useful and needed, even for small tasks.

But there was one clear reason I couldn't deceive myself about.

The moment I saw the man eating his sandwich with an expression that said he couldn't care less what decision was made, a feeling like defiance stirred in me. It wasn't powerful — but it wasn't so faint I could deny it ever existed.

While I was being given the next day's schedule, the man went on eating his sandwich and drinking his coffee — as though the whole matter was simply unavoidable.

As I left the office, he remained seated and merely gave a slight nod over the others' shoulders. Before I could even return the gesture, his gaze had already withdrawn.

The moment I got into the taxi heading home and closed the door, reality rushed in as if that had been its cue. The song playing on the radio, the driver humming along from the front seat, the scenery outside the window — all of it demanded energy just to be accepted as real.

If I turned the taxi around right now and went back, I felt certain that the place called "Gallery Phantom" would simply have vanished.

· · · · ·

The VIP opening was scheduled to begin at 3:00 PM.

Yuni explained the later-than-expected opening time:

"Most of our gallery's main clients are big names in the fashion and entertainment industries. If we opened in the morning, no one would come. Most of those people don't start their day until around noon."

It was a reasonable explanation. Even though I had no idea who the most popular celebrities were these days and had never flipped through a fashion magazine — someone completely removed from trends and sensibility — I still had enough common sense to guess at the irregular lifestyles of people in those fields.

It puzzled me slightly, though, that a gallery dealing in fine art would draw its primary clientele from the fashion and entertainment worlds.

The two industries might overlap with each other, but their connection to fine art had never struck me as particularly deep. Perhaps the consumer base for art had diversified so much during the years I'd spent in that fishing village that galleries now ran on crowds like these.

From a traditional perspective, Yuni and Juhan looked more convincing as models or designers than as gallery staff explaining the power and resilience of brushstrokes or the imagination conjured by negative space in a traditional East Asian painting.

I had assumed they might dress more neatly — like typical curators — on a day dedicated to receiving VIP clients. That assumption was entirely wrong.

They were wearing even more piercings and accessories than the day before, their looks coordinated with makeup, appearing even more deliberately styled.

After moving all the freshly printed pamphlets from the printer into the office, I separated them into the batch for the main exhibition and the ones to be distributed today. While doing that, I asked about something that had been quietly nagging at me since yesterday.

"Phantom seems to have a pretty relaxed dress code."

Juhan, who had just set the stack of permanent exhibition pamphlets on the windowsill shelf and turned back, chuckled as though he'd been expecting the question.

"Our gallery?"

I nodded, and he continued.

"Our gallery has a fairly unique business philosophy. Since our main clients come from the entertainment and fashion industries, the Director's policy is that staff should have a certain flair to appeal to them. So distinctive looks are actually encouraged."

"If that weren't the case, Kwon Juhan probably would have failed his interview."

Yuni remarked as she passed by the table where we were working, having just returned from checking on the catering company's progress.

"And who was it that dragged someone to an interview they didn't want to attend?"

Juhan turned around bristling, but couldn't draw any reaction from Yuni. Her phone, which had been ringing almost incessantly since I'd arrived that morning, started ringing again.

Juhan quickly turned back and resumed putting pamphlets into plastic sleeves. He gave up fast.

"For us, it's genuinely great. We don't have to split ourselves into a work persona and an after-work persona, and the clothing expense allowance comes through reliably."

I understood that there were no dress restrictions because the main clients came from fashion and entertainment — but how those circles had come to make up a gallery's primary clientele in the first place remained a mystery to me.

It wasn't the kind of question that would keep me up at night without an answer, so I let it go with a nod.

"You know there are lots of Alphas and Omegas in the entertainment industry, right? You're in for quite the visual today."

Of the celebrities popular these days, I could only match a name to a face for maybe one or two people. But if I picked up a few names, I could at least bring them up with Morae nuna and Yeehan hyung later — decent enough material for our beer-time conversations.

Still, I doubted anyone today would be more Alpha than that man from yesterday — Phantom's Director.

Even if he weren't an Alpha at all, even if he were just a Beta — to someone like me, an ordinary person — he was the very image of a Golden Alpha.

It wasn't only the exotic features, that face where something faintly Eastern lingered beneath a stronger Western impression. I hadn't confirmed whether he was mixed-race, but those features and that eye color made purely East Asian ancestry seem biologically impossible.

The aura he carried wasn't something you could reason your way into — it was felt. I might have been able to paint it, but I couldn't have put it into words.

It wasn't the sensation of someone being greater or more impressive. It wasn't even the feeling of encountering someone of a different race. Seeing an unrealistically beautiful foreigner in person would still produce the thought: same species, just different.

With him, the feeling was different. What exactly is this standing in front of me? That was the kind of quiet, mild shock he produced.

If those slightly parted, sensuous lips moved to speak, it felt as though some beautiful, unfamiliar language would come out — something that sounded like music.

His personality didn't seem particularly agreeable. But I couldn't deny the natural curiosity that came with encountering something genuinely new, or the way my gaze kept being drawn back to him regardless.

Whether the level of presence he carried was simply common among Alphas, or something rarer still — today's party would probably answer that.

After dropping off the bagged pamphlets at the temporary desk in the second-floor exhibition hall, I returned to the office to find the Teacher had arrived and was talking with Yuni. I approached with a smile, happy to see her, and she smiled back and lightly brushed my bangs aside.

"Where's the Director?"

The Teacher asked Yuni.

"He's having lunch with Inwu ssaem and coming straight here afterward."

"Then we're practically ready. Ha... I honestly wasn't sure this insane schedule was actually achievable, but here we are. It even feels more relaxed than usual! Just adding one more person makes such a difference, doesn't it?"

The Teacher draped an arm over my shoulder and looked to Yuni and Juhan for agreement that I'd been helpful in keeping things on track. Both of them responded as if they'd been waiting for exactly that question, strongly expressing how desperately the gallery needed more staff.

With only the upstairs catering setup left to finish, the 3:00 opening would be fine. We gathered around the table, each with a cup of coffee the Teacher had brought, to enjoy one last moment of ease before things got underway.

"Yuni and Juhan will take turns with clients. There are times when clients have questions about the artwork and both the Director and I are unavailable. When it gets busy, there might even be moments where both Yuni and Juhan have to leave the desk unattended. Ihyeon, all you need to do is hand out pamphlets at the desk."

I wasn't shy — just unused to this kind of thing — so I figured I could manage that much somehow.

"Smiling and being warm... will it be all right if I can't quite manage that?"

"It's fine, it's fine. Ihyeon, your expressionless face is actually charming — clients will probably like it even more. Don't worry about that..."

The Teacher's encouraging words — that my deadpan expression was charming, a claim I found hard to agree with — gradually trailed off and then stopped entirely. The smile slowly drained from her face until, in the end, it contorted into a full grimace, as though she'd just swallowed something bitter.

"I must be losing my mind... Of course. I knew things were going too smoothly this time."

The three of us fixed our gaze on the Teacher as she muttered, rubbing both palms across her face.

"I think I left the book the Monsieur A Editor-in-Chief just published in the bathroom! I was holding onto it until this morning so I'd at least look like I'd read it. What is wrong with me, seriously?!"

No sooner had she finished blaming herself than Yuni was already on her feet.

"I'll take a cab and go get it. Thirty minutes round trip, at most."

"We can't do without it, Yuni. No matter how well I say I've read it, without the physical copy it won't work... That man will sulk over something like this for months."

By the time the Teacher said that — in a near-panicked voice that was almost a shout — Yuni had already retrieved her wallet from her desk at the back of the office.

After a brief moment's hesitation, I stood up and gently caught Yuni's arm.

"I'll go."

I glanced at Yuni, who paused, then checked the wall clock hanging by the window pillar. It was nearly 3:00.

"Without you here, things grind to a halt. Nothing catastrophic will happen just because I step out for a bit. I'll go."

"...Then I'll leave it to you."

This was a different side of her from yesterday, when she'd given work instructions before we'd even properly introduced ourselves. She seemed reluctant to ask me — someone who was only here temporarily — to handle an unplanned task. I gave her the biggest smile I could, sensing her discomfort. I was beginning to understand what Juhan meant when he described the two of us as the shy type.

I got the book details sent to my phone and hurried out of the office. Behind me I could hear Yuni's light scolding and the Teacher's nearly tearful voice asking for forgiveness.

Just as Yuni had said, there was a large bookstore about a ten-minute taxi ride away. I'd visited it a few times in middle school with friends, using buying study guides as the excuse. The interior had changed considerably since then — probably a major renovation — but I didn't have time to marvel at the transformation.

Finding the book wasn't difficult, but hailing a taxi for the return trip took some time — it was a Sunday afternoon in the city center. Only after receiving a message from Yuni saying the author hadn't arrived yet and there was still plenty of time could I finally exhale and lean back in my seat.

The road back to the gallery was more congested than the trip there. The narrow streets and alleys of the area were bustling with people out for a Sunday, packed with stylish cafés and restaurants on every side.

As I took the book out of the paper bag and quickly flipped through it, I kept stealing anxious glances out the window to check how far along we were.

When we were about ten meters from our destination, a large car with a solid, imposing silhouette caught my eye as it entered the parking area in front of Phantom. It wasn't a vehicle you saw every day. And yet despite its overwhelming size and somewhat authoritative, straight-lined design, it didn't look clumsy in the slightest. There was an elegance to it. Even without any knowledge of cars, anyone could tell it was an extremely high-end vehicle.

Imported sedans on the road were common enough, but this one had something different about it — perhaps its frame, larger than most SUVs, or its exterior that set it apart from regular sedans, making it resemble an official escort vehicle. It had a presence that simply overwhelmed.

It might have been a hasty assumption, but I thought I knew who the owner was.

There was still a short distance to Phantom, but I stopped the taxi in front of a quaint hanok-style café.

The person stepping out of the driver's seat, having parked in the small lot in front of the main gate, was — as expected — Phantom's Director.

Dressed in a shirt with wide, open lapels that revealed the base of his long, solid neck, and a suit of thin, light material, his hair fell in soft, natural waves as he stepped out of the car.

The man wore a sky-blue suit tinged with cobalt — a shade or two darker than his own eye color, though he was wearing sunglasses now — and looked more flamboyant than yesterday, yet somehow more relaxed too. His attire reminded me of Italian men in a film I'd once seen, heading out to the countryside for a weekend picnic. A suit — but not stiff. Comfortable — but not casual.

"The weather is far too nice. To think I have to spend the whole day cooped up in a windowless gallery, plastering on a social smile... You really owe me an expensive meal."

"Like you're doing this just for me? Stop complaining."

Another man climbed out of the passenger seat, grumbling at him, and he responded firmly. The passenger was also tall and well-built, wearing dark sunglasses — but he was clearly Korean.

I hesitated at the entrance, wondering whether to quietly slip in first and pretend I hadn't seen them, or wait for the two of them to enter ahead of me. While I was weighing it, their gazes turned toward me. I gave a brief bow in greeting.

"Haven't seen you around before — who are you? A new lover?"

The passenger greeted me with unabashed curiosity. The Director frowned immediately.

"You'd need to have had a lover in the first place for there to be a new one."

"What, aren't you Liu Weikun — the one who becomes a sweet lover to whoever you're with, at least while you're in bed together?"

He let out a soft scoff — but it had the sound of someone who'd just heard something genuinely amusing.

"Someone's been going around saying that? That I was sweet."

After handing the keys to the valet he'd apparently hired just for the day, he removed his sunglasses and tucked them into his jacket pocket.

"Then that bastard must not have actually slept with me."

A faint smile lingered at the corners of his lips — the kind that meant he knew he'd won that round, and was quietly pleased about it.

There were about ten steps between us. I considered going in first and leaving the two of them to their exchange, but he was, after all, the owner of the place I'd come to work at.

"So in any case — you're saying he wasn't your lover?"

The passenger walked around the front bumper to stand beside the Director, lightly massaging his shoulder. He took off his own sunglasses, rested the arm between his lips, and looked at me — asking for confirmation once more.

This man was considerably good-looking too, with a well-proportioned build — but he didn't have that particular quality, that faint sense of being not quite of this world. At least he felt like the same species as me. Just someone who'd been dealt a better hand in the looks department.

"Shouldn't you have figured out my type by now?"

The Director spoke as if the conversation were a waste of time, adding with a faint sigh, both hands shoved into his trouser pockets,

"He's a part-timer."

Finally, an answer to what the passenger had been curious about from the start. A part-timer.

It was a May afternoon, sunlight spilling everywhere — bright enough to warrant sunglasses. They were standing with the sun behind them, so I had to squint looking toward them.

"Is that right?"

The passenger immediately broke into a bright smile and stepped toward me, extending his hand.

"Hello. Sorry about that conversation, right in front of you. I hadn't heard Phantom was taking on part-timers — maybe I should apply too."

"Hello. I'm just helping out temporarily for today."

As we exchanged an awkward handshake, the Director started walking toward the main entrance. Placing a light hand on my back as if guiding me along, the passenger glanced at the paper bag I was holding.

"Ah, that's a shame. What's in there? Is it heavy? I'll carry it."

"It's just a book."

I hadn't said anything remotely amusing, but the man threw his head back and laughed anyway.

We entered the gallery just a few steps behind the Director, and the opening had already begun. Soft music drifted through both floors, and something lively and charged was already building upstairs.

With a promise to see me later, the passenger hurried after the Director and disappeared up the ivory-colored staircase.

The sight of the two men — both well-built and dressed in high-quality suits — ascending the marble stairs was visually striking. But one felt too complex, and the other too simple. Not in terms of who they truly were, but in the immediate impression they projected.

And both of them lived in worlds that had nothing to do with mine.

After leaving the book in the office, I hurried up to the second floor, where more than half of the fifty or so VIP guests who'd confirmed attendance had already arrived. Just as I'd been told, they were, at a glance, a decidedly glamorous crowd.

A rather boisterous round of greetings was taking place centered around the Director and the passenger who'd just arrived. I could also see the Teacher and Yuni, each attending to small clusters of people.

Juhan was manning the temporary desk.

"How did it go?"

"I left it in Manager Han's bag in the office."

Juhan widened his eyes for a moment and looked at me. Then he nudged me with his elbow and smiled.

"More meticulous than you look."

I paused for a moment, unsure whether to take it as a compliment, and settled for an ambiguous smile.

The main event hadn't officially begun yet. People seemed more preoccupied with spotting familiar faces and exchanging greetings than with appreciating the artwork. The atmosphere around the Director was the most vibrant.

"We invited about fifty VIPs, but each of them can bring two or three guests — potential new clients. It's not even 3:30 and we already have over thirty attendees. Today's off to a good start."

That was Juhan's assessment after glancing at the attendance list.

In the hall just before the staircase, a long buffet table had been set up overlooking the first-floor lobby from behind a railing. Simple finger foods and desserts were arranged across floor-length tablecloths, floral arrangements tucked between the platters. Catering staff in uniform moved among the colorfully dressed guests, serving food and refilling champagne flutes.

The party had a relaxed rather than stiff atmosphere, and even at the temporary desk where Juhan and I were stationed, drinks and a few light snacks had been set out for us.

I picked up a water bottle with an unfamiliar label to quench my thirst first.

"The people here right now account for over seventy percent of our gallery's revenue. But they're not the type who come because they have a genuine eye for art or because taking in a painting over a cup of tea is a highlight of their busy days."

Chewing on a bite-sized sandwich, Juhan leaned a little closer to me.

"See that person wearing the wide-brimmed hat? The one who just arrived."

Following Juhan's gaze, I easily spotted a man ascending the second-floor stairs, accompanied by two people who looked like assistants.

"That's the Editor-in-Chief who published the book you just bought."

The man, who appeared to be in his mid-to-late forties, was on the shorter side, with a slightly fleshy, pale face and expressive features. He seemed fairly close to the Director — the two greeted each other with French-style cheek kisses.

"Kun, congratulations on the opening. Why have you been so busy? I can never catch a glimpse of you."

As the Director guided the slightly disappointed man into the inner exhibition space, he smiled. Undeniably handsome, so of course the smile was attractive — but it had a mechanical quality to it, like something pressed from a mold. Not that there was anything to criticize. This was simply his work.

"It's a fashion magazine called Monsieur A — a subsidiary of a major corporation and part of a powerful company that publishes over ten different magazines. And that man isn't just an ordinary editor-in-chief. He's related to that group by marriage — distant, like a second cousin's connection, but not someone you can afford to ignore."

Juhan swallowed the sandwich in his mouth, washing it down with champagne from his tall, slender glass.

Thanks to the guests busy exchanging greetings and being introduced to new people, the temporary desk was entirely deserted. Not a single person came to pick up a pamphlet.

"We focus more on fashion, lifestyle, and luxury magazines than art publications. Honestly, the gallery market in Korea is already saturated. You don't need a license — anyone with money can open one — so the sheer number of galleries, big and small, is enormous. And plenty of them fold within a few years. On the surface it looks sophisticated, hanging paintings and talking about an artist's distinctive style or the message behind the work — but the competition is brutal. Walk in thinking you'll get a glamorous business card out of it because you have some money, and you'll get pushed out fast by people who are actually fighting for their lives. And you can never underestimate the established galleries. The market is small — barely room to squeeze in."

Finishing his explanation, Juhan started coughing and thumped his chest, so I offered him my share of the champagne. He nodded gratefully, downed the glass in one go, and reached for a cookie.

Today his lip piercing and ear piercing were connected by a chain. It looked like it would be inconvenient for drinking and eating, but Juhan himself looked perfectly comfortable — as if he'd long since accepted it as part of his body.

"So our Director decided to go after people who'd never really spent money on art before."

After hearing that much, I felt like I was beginning to understand why the gallery's primary clientele consisted of people from the fashion and entertainment industries.

"This market is almost entirely built on social connections. It's not like going to whichever gallery has a painting you happen to like and buying it on the spot. Pulling clients away from galleries they already have existing relationships with is incredibly difficult — so the strategy was to target people who have money but haven't really spent any of it on art."

Juhan made a circle with his thumb and index finger — the universal gesture for money.

"The result, as you can see, is a huge success. We even relocated to a building like this in Samcheong-dong."

As if it were nothing — or perhaps with a hint of quiet pride — Juhan shrugged and popped the remaining crumbs of cookie into his mouth.

To be honest, I had vaguely assumed Phantom might be one of those galleries started with exactly the mentality Juhan had described: I have money, I might as well get a fancy gallery-owner business card.

Not for any particular reason, but the Director of Phantom gave off the impression of someone born into enough money that striving for something had never been necessary. And in the way he moved through the room with clients, there was no trace of the desperate servility that real financial pressure leaves on a person.

A polite, friendly service smile lingered on his face at all times — but that was all it was.

If anything, it was the people around him who were working harder to please, and those with looser ties to him were visibly watching for any opening to get closer. Even I could read that much clearly.

Setting aside the abrasive attitude he'd shown me from yesterday until now, I quietly offered an internal apology for the image I'd formed based solely on his outward appearance: the sheltered rich kid who had everything handed to him.

I didn't think there was anything inherently wrong with starting something on the foundation of family resources — but I also believed that achievements built entirely through one's own effort were a different kind of thing.

Whether he had built Phantom up entirely from nothing or had received some support from his family, I couldn't say. But at the very least, it didn't look like a sandcastle erected on sheer capital and inherited connections alone.

The first person to approach the desk since I'd started my shift took a pamphlet — a woman wearing oversized sunglasses that covered half her face. Looking more closely, it wasn't that the sunglasses were large; her face was simply that small. I didn't recognize her, but she might have been an actress or singer.

After she took her pamphlet and disappeared into the inner exhibition space, calling out someone's name with obvious delight at running into them, Juhan told me her name and mentioned she was a currently popular actress. Again, it was a name I'd never heard before.

"Anyway, because of the Director's management style, he's considered a complete heretic or troublemaker in the art world — basically treated like Satan. They say a blue-eyed Golden Alpha charmed people with his pheromones and sold paintings, dragging the dignity of art down into the mud. One critic even spewed nonsense calling him a male prostitute who sells art with his body."

Juhan, resuming the earlier thread of conversation, raised his fist into the air as though he might grab the critic who'd said such things by the collar. He still looked indignant just thinking about it.

Meanwhile, the very subject of this story stood surrounded by many people, smiling like a painting.

This was a gallery that exhibited and sold artwork, yet most of the people here seemed far more interested in the man himself than in anything hanging on the walls.

A middle-aged woman in a tweed two-piece subtly displayed her closeness by lightly hooking her arm through his, and genuine envy mixed with jealousy flickered in the eyes of those watching. Their emotions were so openly worn that it vaguely reminded me of elementary school — those days when children tried so hard just to catch the teacher's eye one more time.

The Director of Phantom, as if entirely unaware of the complex web of desires swirling around him, skillfully held the atmosphere together — drawing out warmth with an agreeable, charming ease.

Or perhaps he was fully aware of the intensity and direction of those desires, and was in fact orchestrating the whole entanglement himself.

To belatedly point out the description of him as "the blue-eyed Golden Alpha who bewitches people with his pheromones to sell paintings" — his eyes were not a simple blue. They were closer to pale blue, as though sun-bleached, or as though the pigment had faded from crying too much.

It had the clear, jewel-like quality of a deep blue — but not the kind that feels lifeless. Instead it was more delicate, more alive, like the foam riding the crest of a wave just as it breaks. A color that looked like it could shatter and disappear.

It was a shade that sat in sharp contrast to the rest of his impression, which was otherwise overwhelmingly strong and commanding.

"But the Director doesn't release his pheromones. I don't know what he's like in private, but in public? Never. His control is maxed out to the point where even Golden Omegas can barely detect him. Oh, do you know about Golden Alphas — that kind of thing?"

"Not very much."

"Not interested?"

Among the vast Beta population, there weren't many who had no interest in Alphas or Omegas. Sometimes it was curiosity about those with a secondary gender. Sometimes it was admiration for people who were generally held to possess remarkable looks and exceptional talents. And sometimes it was simple, light interest in something unusual.

Even though I thought he had — in blunt terms — a somewhat unpleasant personality, I'd been curious whether he might be a Golden Alpha given that distinctive presence, so I answered that I wasn't entirely uninterested.

Yes. He was a Golden Alpha, as it turned out. The result was disappointingly predictable. His appearance was large, strong, and beautiful enough that he could serve as a mascot for Golden Alphas.

But the fact that he released no pheromones at all — that was something I'd had no prior knowledge of.

"Alphas and Omegas ultimately come down to reproductive biology — not really the kind of thing to get into here. Anyway, the Director isn't at a level where pheromones leak out involuntarily or where he's helpless against other people's. There are plenty of Betas who discriminate against Alphas and Omegas — calling them beasts who've surrendered their humanity to instinct — but a Golden Alpha can regulate even their own ruts through pheromone control, so there's no real basis for that criticism to begin with. And yet they still criticize. Willfully blind, every one of them. But listening to them go on about pheromones and dignity... honestly, I wonder who exactly is lecturing whom."

The only Alpha I knew was Morae nuna, but she wasn't the type to discuss her identity in any detail. And I hadn't had enough interest in Alphas and Omegas to go looking for information on my own.

The things Juhan was saying — about Golden Alphas, about Phantom's Director — were probably already well-known in this industry. Whatever he chose to share was clearly just casual conversation at the level a temporary part-timer with no real stake in any of it might overhear. Yet more than half of it was information I simply hadn't known.

"It's impressive, isn't it? Being a Golden Alpha isn't just something you're born as — apparently, more than fifty percent of it is achieved through training. That means he's been consistently working to manage his instincts since puberty and built himself up to this level. He smiles as though everything comes naturally... but the tenacity behind that is anything but ordinary."

Juhan took a sip of champagne, gaze fixed on the Director over the rim of his tilted glass.

Following Juhan's line of sight, the Director was still at the center of the group, holding the room as naturally as before.

As host and owner, his smile was fair to everyone — but it carried a different temperature from an ordinary smile, warm enough to be misread as something more by those without immunity to it.

In sharp contrast to the hostility he'd shown me, I tried to imagine this man — who responded to every guest with equal, sunlit kindness — privately driving himself through solitary inner training where no one could see. But the image wouldn't form.

Right beside me, I heard Juhan crunch through another cookie.

"But I like that kind of thing. Becoming ruthlessly determined to get what you want. Looking relaxed on the surface, but underneath — gritting your teeth and kicking furiously to get what you crave."

Crunch, crunch. Juhan chewed his cookie with satisfaction and grinned.

Was it really like that?

Was there really a desperate struggle beneath the surface — teeth clenched, legs churning?

It was impossible to picture, looking at him now — so completely at ease, as though everything he had was simply his by birthright.

Even now — standing slightly askew with one leg crossed, champagne glass in hand, smiling — he looked, to put it mildly, like a natural-born ruler.

I tried to imagine him making fierce, hidden efforts beneath the surface, but what surfaced instead was an image of him pedaling one of those swan-shaped paddleboats at an amusement park. Even that scene didn't suit him — but strangely, it was easier to picture.

My meandering imagination was briefly interrupted by Yuni, who arrived at the desk nearly tripping over her high-heeled platform sandals.

"Here. Two are sold out."

She dropped a small notebook onto the desk with an utterly exhausted expression. Juhan brightened and snatched it up.

"Already? You really are something. Want to switch?"

"Yeah. My mouth is about to cramp."

"Okay."

Full of enthusiasm like a reserve player finally called off the bench, Juhan stepped out to the exhibition floor in Yuni's place.

It seemed Yuni had managed to sell two pieces after pushing herself through client after client until her facial muscles were on the verge of cramping. Since I'd worked with her on the captions the day before, I had a rough idea of the price range for the works on display here. Selling two such high-priced pieces in under an hour — Juhan was right, she was genuinely capable.

"Should I get you something to drink?"

As if she didn't even have the energy to reply, Yuni nodded while sitting in the chair behind the desk, tapping her leg.

"There's juice too — lots of kinds."

"Alcohol. Get me alcohol."

"Is champagne alright?"

"Not in a flute. Fill a regular glass to the brim."

Following her instructions, I poured champagne into the largest glass available and returned to the desk. About fifteen or sixteen steps away, the Teacher — who was attending to a client — raised her voice slightly in our direction. The entire exhibition hall was buzzing, so the tone didn't especially stand out.

"Yuni, could you grab the Editor-in-Chief's book from my bag in the office?"

I stopped Yuni just as she was about to rise almost reflexively, and handed her the glass instead.

"I'll get it. I know exactly where it is."

I hurried downstairs and retrieved the book from where I'd left it. On the way back after handing it to the Teacher, I felt like a student submitting copied homework to a teacher. It wasn't as though I'd done anything seriously wrong, but I was inexplicably nervous — and found it hard to even turn my head in that direction.

"Manager Han, you even underlined it while reading? You really are something. That difference shows. Plenty of people buy books just to be seen with them and get a signature, but I know better — most of them never actually read the contents. But Manager Han doesn't treat people like that. There's real sincerity here. No wonder I can't help opening my wallet whenever I come to Phantom!"

Fortunately, he hadn't noticed the copied homework. He'd even praised it.

Yuni, who had drained half her champagne as if it were grape juice, looked up at me with wide eyes — just as Juhan had a moment ago.

"You actually went and underlined it in the meantime?"

When I nodded at her whispered question, a cool smile returned to her face.

Whether he'd been considering a purchase all along or it was an impulsive decision fueled by the heightened mood, the Editor-in-Chief of that powerful magazine showed active interest in buying — asking for a recommendation for a painting to hang in his recently promoted daughter's office.

"It's nothing much, but it's funny how delighted someone can get over something so small, isn't it? But that's how it is here. Even when we're selling paintings, sometimes it really just feels like we're handling people's feelings. Put nicely, it's a profession where salesmanship matters. To put it more bluntly, it's about flattery. Sometimes that makes me wonder a little."

Yuni gave a wry smile as she watched the Editor-in-Chief move to another section with the Teacher to look at the recommended work.

Before I could ask her more about that smile, she was called back to the exhibition floor. The social portion of the event was over, and it was time to promote the real stars of the day — the paintings.

Left alone at the desk, I busied my idle hands with clearing away the empty glasses and needlessly reorganizing the remaining pamphlets, when suddenly a shadow fell across the desk.

"Could I get a pamphlet?"

Looking up, I found the passenger smiling at me.

The smile itself was bright, but something about it put me faintly on guard — the easy, unhurried swagger of someone accustomed to being liked.

I handed him a pamphlet, but he didn't seem particularly interested in it.

"I recently moved to the thirty-second floor. I used to live in a detached house with a garden — moving to a high-rise makes me feel trapped. It's bleak. Could you recommend a painting? The name is..."

His gaze drifted toward my chest, as if searching for a name tag.

"Seo Ihyeon."

He studied me for a moment, then gave a slow shake of his head.

"Even your name is my type."

It came out like a muttered complaint — as though he found it inconvenient.

Since he hadn't made any direct proposition, I couldn't find a reason to react. He didn't seem to expect one, either.

"I'd like Ihyeon to recommend one piece. What do you think would be good? Something relaxing."

"I'm just a part-timer helping out for today..."

"That's fine. Just recommend one. I'll only use it as a reference."

The Director and Yuni were already occupied with clients. The Teacher and Juhan were nowhere to be seen — probably attending to guests in other sections. Though I was reluctant, since he'd asked knowing I was only a temporary helper, I didn't think any trouble would arise from complying.

"Where are you planning to hang it?"

"Hmm... if it's something you recommend... then maybe the bedroom?"

What a textbook playboy line. I looked at his easy, flirtatious expression — straight out of a TV drama — and stepped out from behind the desk.

Approximately fifty works were displayed throughout the exhibition hall.

This exhibition was a group show featuring seven or eight artists affiliated with the gallery; some had as few as two pieces displayed, others ten or more. Since I'd helped with preparations through the night before, the images and general locations of the paintings were already organized in my mind.

Without hesitation, I walked forward and stopped in front of a square canvas measuring fifty-three centimeters on each side.

It had the grotesque, fractured interpretation of Cubism combined with a cheerful, almost cartoon-like exuberance. At the same time, the palette was dark and heavy.

"This one? This painting?"

The man asked again, as though he couldn't understand why I'd chosen it. I nodded twice, firmly.

He glanced back and forth between the painting and me a few times, then turned and scanned the room as if searching for someone, and called out to the Director, who was conversing with three or four people in front of a large Pop Art-style work.

"Kun, come over here a moment."

The Director excused himself from the group and walked over.

I wasn't particularly short, but I wasn't tall either. At my height, the passenger's lips were roughly level with my nose, and the Director's lips were roughly level with the passenger's nose. He had to be easily over 190 centimeters.

He approached wearing that same expression of mild annoyance — as if everything were a bother. In any case, a warm smile like the one he kept for everyone else would have been an unnecessary accessory in front of both the passenger and me.

Standing at a slight angle with one hand in his trouser pocket, he urged the passenger to get to the point.

"I asked him to recommend a painting for the bedroom, and he recommended my work. What do you make of that?"

The Director's gaze shifted to me. In the two days of knowing each other, it was the longest he'd looked at me. And it was the first gaze that was neither indifferent nor hostile.

It wasn't the instinctive sizing-up of something unfamiliar that had strayed too close — it was a gaze that simply looked at me, directly, as an individual.

As his eyes moved away from me — having examined me carefully, as if receiving information through my gaze — only then did it register: the painting I'd recommended was actually the passenger's own work.

"You think this painting suits me?"

"I... didn't know you were the artist."

"You wouldn't have known. I'm not saying that as a criticism — I'm just curious why you recommended this specific painting to me."

The passenger seemed thoroughly delighted by the situation.

"Will you be honest with me? Please."

Was he so starved for an honest reaction that he even added "please"? He clasped his hands together in a prayer-like gesture, looking at my lips. Behind him, I took another look at the painting.

I had only ever lost myself in art and painted for myself alone — I had never been curious what others thought of my work. But if I recalled the feeling that single award and its accompanying critique had given me, I could understand the mood of the man before me.

"It seems to show everything honestly... but there's something it can't quite show."

"Something like what?"

"It feels similar."

"Me and this painting?"

"Yes."

"I'm dishonest? Me and this painting?"

As he leaned his face closer, peppering me with questions, I found myself stepping back involuntarily.

"It's not quite that... It's more like — wanting to be honest, but not being able to be. Something like that. And in the sense that it exposes that state without reservation, you could also call that a kind of honesty..."

At my attempt to elaborate, the playful look vanished from the passenger's face. The Director, by contrast, let out an audible laugh. Brief — but unmistakably a laugh.

"I'm sorry. I don't express myself well... And it's just a personal impression, so please don't take it too seriously."

The passenger, who had seemed momentarily thrown off, immediately leaned forward again in the next instant, studying my face with renewed curiosity. His characteristic lightness had already returned to his expression.

"What are you doing after work today? I heard you finish at six."

I struggled to follow the sudden shift in conversation.

"I have to clean up."

At my answer, the man finally dropped the broad, performative grin and, for the first time, wore a genuinely disappointed expression. Then he nudged the Director's arm, looking for backup.

"That's what you'd call a solid wall, right?"

The Director looked at me with a serious expression, as if searching my face for the answer. I didn't look away.

What I was facing was an extraordinarily beautiful color. For a moment I forgot it belonged to a human eye, and became absorbed simply in the living beauty of that color — slowly taking in the left eye first, then the right, one by one.

In the next instant, his focus disengaged from my gaze without hesitation.

"Wall or not — he's ten years younger than you. You sure you want to do this?"

With a click of his tongue, the Director said that, then turned his back and returned to his original spot.

As the passenger went on about knowing the best mandu-guk place in Seoul and wanting to make time for it sometime soon, I found myself wondering: had I ever mentioned my age to him?

· · · · ·

"Did you really read the Editor-in-Chief's book — with underlining and everything?"

Juhan and I set five or six leftover bottles of champagne from the party onto the large conference table in the office. The Director opened one and poured a glass, asking the question with a teasing smile.

"Did you even have time for that lately? The book hasn't been out two weeks — and think about how we've spent those two weeks."

The Teacher accepted the glass the Director offered, moistened her lips, and rested her tired legs on the table before answering.

"Then what was it?"

"What was it, Ihyeon-ah?"

As if she'd been curious all along, the Teacher turned to me for an answer.

"I didn't want it to look too new... So I got some wear on it in the taxi — added some underlining, folded down a few corners. That's all."

Strictly speaking, the only instruction I'd been given was to buy the book. But I'd heard the Teacher mention she was actually reading it, and I felt embarrassed at the thought of her having to present a book that was obviously brand-new, bought purely for the sake of appearances and a signature. Now that it had become a topic of conversation, I felt a creeping unease — had I done something unnecessary that no one had asked of me?

The warm atmosphere that had settled over the room as we celebrated a successful party and decent sales figures briefly grew stiff and cold. The source of that chill was, of course, the Director. As I'd sensed even the day before, he had a talent for controlling the mood with nothing more than the angle of his gaze or a shift in his expression. Others couldn't help but read and adjust to his mood — and that wasn't solely because of his position as owner.

"He could have been offended — you were mishandling his book. Underlining, folding pages... there are plenty of people who dislike that sort of thing."

He murmured it into his champagne, as though speaking to himself.

"I only thought it needed to look like it had actually been read. I'm sorry."

"Ihyeon-ah, what do you have to apologize for? Kun — what is this? You're going too far."

The Teacher set her champagne glass down on the table with a sharp thud.

"I wasn't saying anything — I was simply asking whether the opposite perspective had occurred to you."

Shrugging, he pretended to drink his champagne while avoiding the Teacher's gaze.

The icy hostility from yesterday wasn't there, but the sharp edge remained. The Teacher looked mildly annoyed. That was rare.

"You are results-oriented and performance-driven. Thanks to Ihyeon, the Editor-in-Chief was in a good mood and sales went up. You should be rewarding that, not picking fights. I brought him here. Do you have something against him?"

His eyes turned slowly toward me. I didn't know what their private relationship was or how close they were, but I could sense that he trusted the Teacher completely. Toward her, at least, he didn't wear that expression of weary annoyance, or that villainous smile, or the mechanical smile armed with artificially sweet charm — the kind that felt manufactured rather than meant.

"Like or dislike doesn't come into it. He's here to help out temporarily. You know I'm uncomfortable working with strangers. If Manager Han says to give a bonus, I'll give one."

"That's not what I'm talking about. Ugh... I thought you'd changed a little, but you're still exactly the same."

Shaking her head, the Teacher finished the rest of her champagne, emptied the glass, checked the time, and stood up.

After this, the Director and the Teacher had a follow-up gathering with VVIPs — even more important than the regular VIPs.

"People don't change after twenty-five," the Director said in a playful tone, as if teasing her, and lightly massaged the Teacher's shoulder. Then he took a card from his wallet and handed it to Yuni.

"You worked hard today. Once you've finished tidying up, go enjoy yourselves."

Yuni, who had been organizing the remaining pamphlets, darted over and snatched the card. Her eyes lit up immediately.

"Is this the company card? Or your personal card?"

He lightly pushed her forehead and scowled.

"Why are you all so obsessed with that? Do you really enjoy spending my money that much?"

"Yes. It feels like affection."

"There's no affection in a personal card either, so stop talking nonsense."

The catering equipment and leftover food had already been collected by the vendor. All that remained was a bit of tidying inside and out before the day was done. As we headed upstairs to the second floor exhibition hall to begin cleaning up, Juhan hesitated with an apologetic look and spoke.

"Our Director is... a bit overwhelming, isn't he?"

"Don't worry too much about it. He's not like that only with Ihyeon — he's just like that with everyone he meets for the first time," Yuni added.

I smiled to show it was fine and folded the legs of a temporary table that had been set aside.

"When I first came here, it was even worse. I was so furious I seriously considered keying his car and disappearing. Seriously. Not even joking."

Thinking about how he treated Juhan now, it was hard to picture. But looking at Juhan's expression, it didn't seem like something he'd made up to console me.

"But if I'd done that, he'd have tracked me down by any means necessary and made me pay... so I gave up on the idea. I figured he'd find me, strip me naked, and scratch my whole body with a nail instead."

Juhan grimaced and shuddered dramatically, as if he'd actually received such a threat from the Director.

"Or maybe the real issue is that you don't realize how aggressively you came on to him in the first place."

Yuni said from inside the exhibition space where she was attaching "SOLD OUT" stickers to the works that had sold that day.

"What do you mean I came on to him! It was the pheromones! How am I supposed to resist a Golden Alpha's pheromones?!"

"What are you talking about? Why would the Director release his pheromones in front of you? And you're a Beta."

Perhaps embarrassed by how flimsy his own defense sounded — especially after the lengthy explanation he'd just given me about the Golden Alpha Director's exceptional pheromone control — Juhan shot me a self-conscious glance.

"What I'm trying to say is, the Director's personality is just rough — he doesn't particularly dislike you, Ihyeon. That's the point. He's not hostile because he dislikes someone. He treats everyone like that before he starts to like them."

I wasn't sure whether that was comforting, but at least it seemed true that he wasn't singling me out specifically for torment.

As we lifted the folded-up table together from opposite sides and moved it toward the railing, Juhan added,

"And honestly, someone at the Director's level could probably project his pheromones at a Beta if he really set his mind to it."

Yuni leaned against the partition wall with a frown.

"Are pheromones some kind of superhero finishing move? 'Shoot and conquer'?"

"If you intend to use them, they can basically become one. Hey — do you know what's stronger than pheromones?"

He looked back and forth between Yuni and me. Neither of us had an answer. Juhan tilted his chin up slightly, adopting a somewhat self-satisfied posture.

"Preference. Preference is above pheromones. At first I was a little shaken by Golden Alpha pheromones, but once I came to my senses, I realized he wasn't my type. My type is..."

What followed was a passionate lecture on the subject of his ideal: a man in his late thirties whose facial features were just beginning to soften, caught in a kind of listlessness on the border between youth and middle age.

From their conversation so far, it seemed Juhan's romantic interests were men. He didn't appear to be making any effort to conceal it in front of me — someone he barely knew — and I had no inclination to push him past some invisible line because of it.

Yuni, who had probably heard this particular speech dozens of times, shook her head. Then, as if deciding there was no point in listening further, she took my wrist and led me down the stairs.

When I thought about it, there was no real reason to resent someone I'd only met twice. It was simply his consistent attitude toward strangers — nothing personal.

And yet I found myself curious. What would it feel like to be specifically disliked by him?

Among the people who had filled the exhibition hall just a while ago, there were probably quite a few who would have preferred his hostility to his indifference — if it meant becoming something "special" to him.