· The Old Future ·

I was putting on my shoes when the front door opened from the outside.

"......"

The man stood gripping the doorknob, froze when he saw me, and dropped his gaze. His expression said the timing was bad.

Just half a year ago, he was also the man who smiled as if he owned the whole world every time our eyes met.

"Where have you been?"

I tightened the laces of my Converse, straightened up, and asked. My attitude toward him had grown just as dry as his toward me.

"Just... a walk."

In the cramped entryway—barely wide enough to flatten a single ramen box—we shuffled past each other and kept the conversation going in strained half-sentences. The night before, we'd spent nearly five hours in what passed for a debate but was really a fight, and when I woke up late, he had already gone out without eating.

"Going to your tutoring job?"

He asked in a perfunctory tone as he took off his sneakers and headed toward the kitchen.

Since that spring, I had been working with the son of my older sister's friend at their home. I'd taken the job to ease our financial struggles even a little, but as the lessons stretched on for nearly a year, I found myself genuinely enjoying and looking forward to that time — it was almost the only space left where I could breathe and allow myself to dream.

There was a joy in encouraging someone from up close and watching them grow—a potential brimming with hot energy that constantly shifted its form, possessing both talent and passion.

Since I was being paid to look at his work, calling it art tutoring wasn't wrong. But I never instructed the boy to correct parts that were too idiosyncratic and might harden into bad habits, nor did I teach him techniques—like where to place highlights or reflected light to render a sphere.

The boy was already painting using skills beyond what was expected for his age. There was no need to guide him on techniques he hadn't yet grasped. It was clear he would come to understand them on his own, in time.

"I'm heading out. Make sure you eat."

I left him behind—his jumper dropped on the floor, himself already crawling back under the covers. Outside, the air was chilly enough that I had to pull my coat collar up tighter, yet breathing felt just as suffocating as inhaling through a 40-degree heatwave.

· · · · ·

The moment I opened the front door and stepped inside, the boy came running with his sketchbook and practice notebook—a week's worth of sketches and color studies.

Thanks to his parents—an oil painter and a cartoonist—the house overflowed with art supplies of every kind, and the boy had developed an exceptional instinct for choosing whichever medium best suited the feeling he wanted to express and using it effectively. His work—featuring crayons, poster paint, acrylics, oil paint, markers, colored pencils, even ballpoint pens—showed astonishing growth week after week.

This wasn't simply a matter of innate talent. The boy was a practice fanatic, to an almost obsessive degree. Though for him, it felt more like play than practice.

That week's theme was the profile view. One practice notebook, which looked to have over thirty pages at a glance, was filled entirely with drawings of people in profile. For some reason, he had become fixated on side views that week.

The moment something caught his eye, the boy wanted to transfer exactly what he saw onto paper. He drew and redrew until he could express it to his satisfaction. In that process, technique developed naturally.

Whether it was hyperrealist work demanding precise replication, or abstraction that involved omission, deletion, and simplification—solid descriptive ability was a fundamental quality required across all fields of art. And the boy possessed an intense, inherent drive for it.

Whenever I discovered that almost fanatical tenacity and total immersion in a boy who appeared to be a perfectly ordinary elementary school student—shy and quiet, but quick to smile, lively, occasionally playful in the way an eleven-year-old could be, yet fundamentally bright and gentle—I couldn't help but feel a thrill at the potential of that talent.

It was a crucially important disposition for a painter: the burning desire to bring exactly what one's eyes see onto the canvas. The feverish state—akin to jealousy—of feeling as though something had been stolen, making it impossible to sleep or eat unless it could be brought to fruition.

As I flipped through the vibrant, precise paintings—capturing characteristics with an accuracy that seemed unbelievable for a boy about to turn twelve—I had to consciously hold back from showing too much excitement in front of him.

In an age where gifted children seemed to emerge in every field, the painting skills of an eleven-year-old—not even a five or six-year-old—might not have warranted much of a stir.

But what I discovered in the boy was more than just technical mastery.

Simply copying something exactly, like a photocopier, is not art. This child was capable of adding his own emotions and interpretations of the subject onto the canvas. At only eleven years old. However clumsy, each painting was a unique "self-expression" that only that child could create.

"Ihyeon, just how many of these are there? Didn't your arms hurt?"

At my worried question, the child smiled. Rubbing the table where we sat facing each other with one hand, his silent smile seemed to express joy at being able to show me how much he had practiced. And yet he also looked a little bewildered, as if he hadn't quite grasped the meaning of my words.

The question I had just asked was no different from asking a ten-year-old who had just come in from playing hard whether his legs were tired.

Barring exceptional geniuses or prodigies, schoolwork was a game where results followed once you invested a certain amount of time and effort. It was a common gateway everyone passed through, with no need to feel miserable by comparing oneself to rare geniuses or prodigies.

But painting was different.

It was a field you chose to enter based on the judgment that you had more talent than others, and it was natural to feel wretched when you couldn't produce results there. The process of confirming that you—who had believed yourself special—were actually nothing special was a harsh one.

Practicing and investing time would, of course, improve technique to some extent. But eventually, you would hit a limit that skill alone could not overcome. The realm of the real ones—those who could not be surpassed simply by being "good at painting." The moment you encountered the arena of those who truly spoke through their art and asserted themselves through it, you were forced to face the humiliation of realizing that what you had been painting was not the universe, but merely a corner of it.

To put it rather cruelly, my paintings were nothing more than an "elevated diary"—stopping at the level of personal stories, incapable of moving anyone or drawing out genuine empathy.

I, too, was an art student who had gone through prep academies and entered art university. But students who possessed their own style on top of technique were rare to a degree almost impossible to quantify as a percentage. Not a matter of ten or twenty percent—it was one in tens of thousands. Not even comparable to the ratio of Omegas, who were rarer than Alphas.

When I first came to know of him—the one rumored to be a monster in the Oriental Painting department. When I encountered his paintings, which seemed to hesitate and waver one moment, then boldly assert themselves and charge forward head-on the next.

I was seized by the shock of confronting another person's raw interior directly through their art. Before paintings that exposed the flaws everyone tried to keep quiet about—without exaggeration or reduction—technique and skill were secondary concerns.

It was the first time I realized that my talent lay more in "recognizing" art than in "creating" it. Standing before his work, instead of feeling jealousy as a fellow art student, I found myself exhilarated by the desire to introduce his paintings to more people.

We had been so strongly convinced that we were soulmates who understood each other's worlds best—so why, how, did we end up like this...?

The child didn't know, but at the time, I was a married college student.

It was a marriage between a female Alpha and a male Beta, undertaken against intense opposition from family and everyone around us. Because of it, I had nearly cut ties with my parents, moved out, and had to struggle through financial hardship—yet I had conviction in our choice and in his talent.

But behind the passion that felt like floating on air, reality waited for us—the reality of having to accept each other's bare faces.

His talent was exceptional. But he was overly self-conscious. He spent more days sinking into gloom, comparing himself to others more talented, than showing enthusiasm in front of his art.

With my innate drive that charged at everything head-on, and his nature of turning inward and curling up, we were fundamentally unable to understand each other. I can accept far more about others now than I could back then, but at twenty-one or twenty-two, it was not easy to understand someone standing at the complete opposite end of the spectrum from myself.

I admit it. As everyone around us said, we were too young to grasp the practical meaning of a union like marriage. We were at an age where we couldn't even properly control ourselves, let alone our own dreams—dreams that sometimes crushed us under their weight.

Each time I encountered the boy's paintings—not yet fully mature, but possessing a style so distinctly his own that it set them apart from everything else and drew me in—the memory of that first tremor I felt standing before his work seemed to recede further and further into the distant past.

Pushing away the bitter feelings that followed, I forced a smile and asked the child,

"Where should we go today? What do you want to paint?"

We usually went out and looked around the neighborhood to find something to paint for the day.

"Hmm..."

The child, who seemed to have something already in mind, paused for a moment, then grinned and pointed at me.

"Me?"

I widened my eyes and asked back, surprised by the unexpected answer. The child nodded, still smiling.

That day, about ten months into our time painting together, I became the child's model.

With the veranda full of plants as the backdrop, bathed in that house's uniquely cozy winter sunlight, I read a book—stealing glances at our little artist capturing my likeness in an eighth-size sketchbook, not a canvas—and allowed myself to dream again, if only for a little while, in the peace of it.

And when I finally held the painting that the mere eleven-year-old had completed in two straight hours without even a ten-minute break...

I learned that answering a worry wasn't the only form of genuine comfort. That words of understanding and agreement—which temporarily numb the current pain—weren't the only form of solace.

Since the working time hadn't been long enough for coloring, the painting wasn't precise. Instead, he conveyed the atmosphere he wanted to express through other means. That was one of the child's specialties.

Bold strokes that created a texture as if carved out with a rough chisel—though no oil paint had been used at all—a dark atmosphere drawn out by colors that seemed warm at first glance, or perhaps the warm hope embedded within that seemingly dark atmosphere.

The me in the painting was suffering from dissonance and division. There was a person there who did not look happy. It was me at that time, rendered so vividly that the thickness and sharpness of the pain made me furrow my brow.

Yet, strangely, there was comfort in it.

It's not particularly unusual for children that age to comfort someone through a painting. But most children that age, when they want to comfort someone, paint that person smiling brightly or looking happy—with the wish that it would be so.

But the child had captured my appearance exactly as it looked to him. It wasn't a comfort that packaged the situation, minimized it, patted my shoulder, and injected baseless optimism like, "Everything will be fine."

So he had been watching my every change, every emotion, every expression, this closely. And he had been worried about me.

It felt like I had long forgotten that the beginning of comfort is attention and empathy.

In front of someone who already knew everything about me and wasn't trying to distort what they saw, there was no need to hide ourselves or feign our feelings. Being seen as we were—that itself was already a comfort.

A child who speaks through paintings.

People born with the fate of having no other way to speak but through paintings.

When I received the painting the child made of me, I confirmed once again that making their language known to the world was my mission.

I already knew the limits of my own talent when it came to painting, and I held no lingering attachment to that. Instead, a different role had been assigned to me—and my top priority was to get him, who was probably lying under his covers at home right now, to speak through art again in front of a canvas.

"Thank you, our little artist."

As if amused by the word "artist," the child laughed and hunched his shoulders. He laughed easily and had a decent sense of humor, but he was a very quiet child. Perhaps that was only natural. After all, he had a different language he was far more comfortable with.

About three months after that, my husband and I left for Hong Kong. I believing only in his talent, he believing only in my passion. Just like our marriage, we defied everyone's opposition and ventured into an unknown world with no connections. Fearlessly.

Those were the days when it seemed like everything would go well—when passion and drive alone felt like they could light the way.

· · · · ·

Manager Han lightly shook the can in her hand. Throughout her story, her gaze had remained fixed on the river before her. Perhaps she was layering the past over the flowing water.

"It didn't work out in Hong Kong either, in the end. I got a job at a gallery and worked day and night. He seemed stimulated at first—I thought his creative drive might return—but before long he started to wander again... We ended up forcing ourselves onto each other... until we were both worn ragged, and only then did we decide to go our separate ways. He returned to Korea, and I stayed in Hong Kong."

Perhaps because so much time had passed. There was no unquelled agitation in Manager Han's voice—none of the wounds that grinding fights with a loved one leave so clearly on the self. She sounded simply calm. Yet she couldn't quite hide the scratched-looking marks revealed in the gaze she fixed on the flowing river.

It was one of those rare occasions when we finished work at the same time and walked home together.

After getting out of the underground parking garage, Manager Han suggested a walk by the river, and we each picked out a drink at the convenience store and headed toward the Han River.

From the apartment to the Han River trail, it was just a short tunnel away. Since the height of summer hadn't officially begun yet, the riverside was comfortably cool after sunset.

After strolling leisurely along the bike path for about ten minutes, we were lucky enough to find an empty bench—and that was where Manager Han's story began.

It wasn't a long story. She didn't go into the details of the marriage and divorce process. But one could sense that complex values were tangled up in it—values that couldn't simply be labeled a "failed marriage."

After all, he had been Manager Han's partner in love, romance, and marriage, as well as a fellow human being who understood her and shared her dreams.

"I didn't know... that you were married... or that you separated."

I mumbled, fiddling with the can in my hands. Manager Han ruffled my hair.

"Whether I was married or not—that information isn't necessary for us to paint together... and your parents aren't the type to gossip about other people's affairs, are they? They probably didn't go telling a little kid something like that."

Then, with a light sigh, she took a sip of her drink.

"You didn't know about the marriage, so of course you wouldn't know about the divorce."

As if trying to lighten the weight that the mention of my parents had brought, Manager Han smiled faintly toward me—but I couldn't return it. It had truly been a long time since I'd heard someone mention my parents, but that wasn't the reason. Right now, I was thinking more about Manager Han than about myself.

"Back then, I was truly desperate, and I was certain. Now I know how precarious the certainty a twenty-one-year-old has about life really is... but what could I do? That's something you only understand after time has passed. If there were people who could skillfully suppress their present desires by calculating future regrets in advance, the world's population would probably be only half of what it is now."

Manager Han continued.

"My personality—the kind that goes all out the moment something captures my interest—was even worse back then because I was young. Everyone around me desperately tried to dissuade me, saying that just dating instead of marrying would be enough... but the feeling couldn't be satisfied with just dating. I kept wanting a way to be bound to him more completely somehow..."

Her voice trailed off. She withdrew her gaze from the river and looked down at her lap, then gripped the can tightly and added,

"If he had been an Omega, I could have gotten him pregnant. I thought about it to that extent."

Then she turned to look at me and smiled—as if that past passion was something embarrassing and fleeting. As though she were laughing off the unripe emotions of adolescence.

While living within Phantom, I had guessed to some extent from the members' conversations and the subtle atmosphere, but as expected, Manager Han was a female Alpha. If the partner was an Omega, pregnancy was possible regardless of primary gender. But for Manager Han to become pregnant, she would have needed to pair with a male Alpha. I didn't know the specifics, but even with a male Alpha, pregnancy wasn't guaranteed at 100 percent. The opposition to Manager Han's marriage from those around her had probably not been solely due to their young age. Involuntarily, Morae nuna and Yeehan hyung came to mind.

"So I don't regret getting married itself. Whatever the outcome, I know that back then we were in a state where we couldn't not do it. It's true that marriage was as urgent as life itself at the time, and if I hadn't been able to get married then, I probably would have kept regretting it, given my personality. He felt the same way. That we could marry and live as a painter and art dealer couple—the best partners, soulmates for life—I was certain of it, without even one percent of doubt. Back then. When that kind of clear conviction occupies your entire mind, how can you possibly postpone a decision?"

A young couple, drawn powerfully to each other not only romantically but as human beings, who dared to marry against everyone's opposition. It was a story similar to that of my mother and father—though the endings were different for each.

Manager Han's couple collided until there was nothing left, grew sick and tired of each other, and ended things themselves. My mother and father, on the other hand, had sustained exactly the ideal relationship they had once dreamed of through each other—until one day, an unforeseen accident from the outside violently snatched it away, completely against their will.

Which couple's ending was more tragic—it was not a question one could easily answer.

"For people to truly understand each other... it's far more arduous work than I ever thought. I understand now why they say a person is a universe unto themselves. It's complicated. But sometimes there's no logic or reason to it either. It's bound to be hard to understand. If the person involved doesn't even know the reason themselves, how could I, an outsider, possibly understand? The same goes for them looking at me."

For me—who had never even dated, let alone been married, who had never once liked someone—this was a somewhat difficult topic. Even so, I thought I could faintly grasp the suffocating feeling of not being able to read the intentions of someone complicated and hard to figure out.

"Watching that person—for whom painting was as natural as eating three meals a day, who couldn't even imagine a version of himself that didn't paint—gradually fall apart because of painting... that felt like a kind of love, too. Sometimes, love that takes the wrong path ends up corroding both people, doesn't it? Like the love between him and me. His love for painting, unable to expand or develop, burrowed inward, consuming him, and eventually led him to give it up entirely... That was the ending we reached."

Love that goes awry and corrodes both the other and oneself. Yet a love so intense that one couldn't endure it without crashing headlong into that object, consuming oneself until all energy was spent.

Just because that end was separation—could such an experience truly be defined as failure? I couldn't give a definitive answer to that. But I did feel certain of one thing: that level of fierce emotion wasn't a common experience everyone went through.

I recalled what the Director had said when he advised me about my relationship with Inwu hyung—that I seemed the type to value a romance where partners got to know each other slowly and connected deeply.

I didn't yet know what kind of person I was when it came to dating and love. But vaguely, I had the sense that perhaps I wasn't that kind of person. Perhaps I was someone who could easily surrender to a momentary curiosity or impulse.

But unlike Manager Han, unlike my mother and father, I didn't think I was the type of person who could summon the courage to crash headlong into a fierce emotion—one that threatened to swallow me whole, one that simply couldn't be refused. It seemed like I didn't have that kind of courage right now.

"In Hong Kong, and then after returning to Seoul... watching many artists over the years, the thought that gradually solidified was this: even with talent, if the mental fortitude to keep nurturing that talent isn't there to support it, results won't come. He clearly had innate talent, but he crumbled—constantly doubting himself, comparing himself to others, and sinking into frustration."

I lifted my head and looked at Manager Han's profile.

"A desperate, tenacious, and consistent drive to keep painting no matter what happens. You need that to break through a certain point and shine... and I clearly saw that kind of energy in eleven-year-old Seo Ihyeon."

Manager Han's face slowly turned toward me as well.

"You can eat, breathe—yes, do all of those things—without painting. You won't die. You know that's not what I'm talking about, Ihyeon. I just want you to think honestly about whether painting is necessary for you to live—not as just one among countless people, but as the unique Seo Ihyeon, with your own individuality. Only that. Before it gets any later."

Looking honestly at oneself.

Perhaps it was because I could no longer be honest with myself that I had stopped painting. Because I had preserved my heart, sealed my mouth, and closed my eyes. There was nothing more to say. No—I didn't want to say anything. I wanted to hide many things instead.

As I listened to Manager Han, what pressed in around my chest and demanded I make some kind of decision wasn't, strangely enough, painting. It was something bigger, something that included painting. A concept that hadn't quite landed yet—but if I had to put it into words, something like... life.

Manager Han's last words settled heavily in my chest—like a steady, undeniable, solemn warning, like a boulder slowly sinking to the bottom of a flowing river and remaining there, unmoving. Before it's too late.

· · · · ·

Spicy seasoned stingray, glossy springy pig's trotters, tuna kimbap, and potato pancakes. Not exactly a harmonious spread, but more than enough for a long-awaited lavish meal shared among the three of us. A meal accompanied by drinks.

Yuni nuna and Juhan hyung often joked that a love of money and alcohol was the common trait among Phantom members. Even if getting drunk wasn't strictly necessary, I had to admit that adding drinks to a conversation made it a lot easier to get started.

"He started by cornering me right away—'What do you think you're doing, always lurking around here?'—people started gathering, and it was complete chaos. Of course, the other guy didn't just stand there either. It nearly turned into a fight. No—it practically was a fight, punches and all."

Morae nuna shot hyung a look tinged with mild reproach before taking a sip of soju.

For several days now, the same man had been loitering around the stairwell entrance next to the bus stop. At first, neither Morae nor Yeehan thought much of it. But when the man—who didn't seem to have any particular business there—kept pacing back and forth between the bus stop and the stairs, Yeehan grew suspicious. He confronted the man, demanding to know what he was doing lurking around and threatening to take him to the police. It turned out the man was the boyfriend of a local resident who had been coming by consistently for several days, trying to beg forgiveness after a fight with his girlfriend.

This had all happened just yesterday afternoon.

"When Yeehan Seo came at him like he was actually going to drag him to the police station, the guy was completely flustered... It only ended when his girlfriend showed up and confirmed he really was her boyfriend."

"There are more than a few unhinged people out there these days. You can't just take someone's word for it that they have a girlfriend. For all we know, he could be some delusional guy stalking her, convinced she's his girlfriend. Anyway... thanks to that, the two of them made up, so in the end it worked out fine."

Perhaps embarrassed by his mistake, hyung kept his eyes away from mine, downing one shot of soju after another.

Normally, hyung was never the type to act that aggressively. The precarious situation had drawn out a different side of him. To keep sleeping and waking up every day under the threat that their current life could be shattered at any moment—and still maintain enough composure to laugh and talk like this—was, when you thought about it, quite remarkable.

"You're just on edge. I understand seeing a needle as a kitchen knife."

Morae nuna patted hyung's back and concluded with that. Said casually, but it was also the phrase that most precisely captured their current situation.

A life where even a needle looks like a kitchen knife.

Just because they were laughing and talking to me as if nothing was wrong didn't mean that kind of life was truly fine.

This time it was a misunderstanding—but what about next time? Or rather, was even this incident truly a misunderstanding? It was a question no one could answer with certainty.

I still wasn't that accustomed to soju, but I downed my fourth glass in one go. It wasn't the loosening effect of tipsiness—it was more that the burning sensation of the alcohol tightening my throat seemed to snap me to attention.

"Aren't you going to Bali?"

Hyung, who had been opening a new bottle of soju, stopped and looked at me.

"What?"

"Bali. Aren't you going?"

"What's gotten into you all of a sudden?"

This time Morae nuna, who had been reaching for some stingray with her chopsticks, stopped and looked at me with a puzzled expression.

"I'm fine, so just go to Bali."

"What's wrong with him?"

Hyung put down the soju bottle, and Morae nuna set down her chopsticks.

I had been postponing the decision, telling myself I just needed a little more time to prepare mentally. But experience had taught me that circumstances wouldn't wait for my convenience.

Daily life is an extremely fragile glass floor. It is an unguaranteed peace—vulnerable to being shattered at any moment, in any way, by any unforeseen force. In a situation like this, there was even less to say about it.

"We don't know when I'll be dragged away from here again. Even I know that the longer we delay, the more dangerous it gets."

Since hearing Manager Han's story a few days ago, thoughts of Morae nuna and Yeehan hyung had not left my mind.

Even though the three of us weren't a couple, the essence of the bonds people form wasn't fundamentally different. Growing exhausted and cutting someone off to protect yourself wasn't an ending reserved only for lovers. We couldn't drive our relationship to that breaking point where both parties ended up tattered—the way Manager Han and her person had. I truly didn't want that.

"The surfing camp—the conditions were good. Opportunities like that don't come around often."

"Hey, I was just looking into it. Where would I go right now? My deposit is tied up."

Morae nuna relaxed and picked up her chopsticks again, her expression suggesting she thought I was reacting to the graffiti in the practice room.

"If you wanted to resolve it, it's not an impossible problem. Not to that extent."

"......"

Morae nuna's chopsticks froze once more. This was the first time I had been this insistent with the two of them.

"I... might start painting again."

Morae and Yeehan's eyes went wide. They showed a far stronger reaction to the possibility of me painting again than to my suggestion that they go to Bali.

I hadn't settled anything definite about painting yet. But even if I didn't end up painting, I was firm in my decision that I would no longer keep the two of them tied to this place under the name Seo Ihyeon. On that point alone, my mind was clear. My first step would start right there.

· · · · ·

My saying I might paint again made the two of them happier than I expected—but even so, they showed complicated reactions, still reluctant to leave me behind.

I explained everything in detail so they could be reassured: encountering Alienation at the Director's house, his suggestion that I try painting again after learning I was the artist, and even the proposal for a Hong Kong business trip. But I left out the part about the panic attack and where I slept that night afterward.

The conclusion reached after lengthy persuasion was lukewarm.

Whether I would try painting again. Whether they would leave for Bali. We would each think it over and discuss it again after the Hong Kong trip. That was today's harvest.

The tipsiness from soju was different from beer or wine. It had seemed manageable while I was drinking, but the moment I stood up to clear the table, my vision swam and the intoxication hit me hard. Morae and Yeehan must have been quite drunk as well—it was quiet beyond the sliding door.

Perhaps it was the alcohol. It felt like the floor was undulating beneath me, as if I were on a boat or a surfboard. Even the light filtering through the kitchen window seemed to warp and tremble at the boundary between ceiling and wall. I thought I would fall asleep immediately, but my insides were unsettled—like the night before moving. Anticipation and worry for a new life blended together, keeping my heart floating, unable to touch ground. I tossed and turned for a long time, and then reached for the phone resting by my pillow.

"I'm sorry for contacting you so late. I... as you mentioned last time, can I make my decision after I return from Hong Kong?"

There was no real need to report my decision right now. It was purely an impulse—half of it spurred on by the light buzz of tipsiness, a kind of drunken bravado I would've insisted it was, if pressed.

I hadn't expected a reply from him past 11 PM. But then my phone started ringing.

Only a few seconds had passed since I sent the message.

Seeing the saved contact name "Director" appear on the screen, I involuntarily sat up straight. It was still quiet beyond the sliding door. Clutching the vibrating phone tightly, I threw off the covers, got up as quietly as I could, slipped on my slippers, and went out to the entrance hall.

Fortunately, the call hadn't dropped and kept ringing persistently. The call from "Director" summoning me from the screen felt like a signal sent from a distant future. I sat down on the floor mat and answered.

"Yes?"

[...Were you sleeping? You sent the message just a minute or two ago. You weren't, right?]

He paused, his voice husky, and asked.

"No, I wasn't. I came outside to take the call..."

[You said you were going to your old place, didn't you?]

"...Yes."

I hadn't told him I was going to Morae nuna and Yeehan hyung's house today, nor had I mentioned it in his presence—but perhaps it had come up incidentally while he was talking with Manager Han.

Thinking back on it, there had been other times when he already knew things about me that I hadn't told him. He had also discussed me with others—whether I had majored in art, whether I was an Omega. According to Yuni nuna and Juhan hyung, he sometimes asked about me when I wasn't around. Yet in front of me, there was only ever an indifferent gaze.

"You must be outside."

Unlike the stillness here, the other end of the line was noisy. I rubbed my slippered feet against the floor and tried to focus on his breathing through the laughter and the high, cheerful voices surrounding him.

[Ah, I got invited. It's all part of business, you know.]

His voice sounded bored. That day at the Spanish-style wine bar, he had leaned back crookedly in his chair while drinking wine, looking entirely uninterested in being there. But according to Inwu hyung, he had come to that place entirely of his own volition—Inwu hyung had never even suggested going together.

I found it faintly amusing that I was now attaching new footnotes to his past actions—things I had previously overlooked without a second thought. What's more, the direction of those interpretations was uncharacteristically, excessively optimistic.

Maybe that day he had simply wanted to escape a boring after-party. But if that were the case, there would have been no need to follow Inwu hyung all the way back to Phantom...

I stopped thinking, shook my head, and let out a silent chuckle. Whatever the reason, it was all pointless speculation and calculation.

"You must be tired."

[......]

He seemed to be moving away from the group, because the background noise behind his voice gradually faded. Then, as if he had stepped into a soundproofed space, it fell almost entirely silent. There was the click-clatter of a lighter, the crisp sound of it catching, a deep inhale. Listening to it, I felt my heart strangely settle.

[Thinking I might finally be able to recruit the artist I've been wanting for so long puts me in a good mood... so I can manage.]

He spoke as he exhaled, a long slow breath.

Ah—he meant me. It took a beat to register. The phrase "I've been wanting" tickled something in my ears.

"It hasn't been decided yet... I'll make the decision later..."

[Seo Ihyeon-ssi will definitely feel the urge to paint again.]

I wanted to ask how he could be so certain. He didn't know me well, and even if he had seen my work, it was only one piece. Was this some feeling from the "ability to recognize art" that Manager Han had spoken of? Or simply confidence in the discerning eye he had boasted about himself?

I looked up. The lights of Seoul, seen from the rooftop, were shimmering and swaying again—like squid fishing boats out on the sea.

He had stepped away from what looked like a lively, cheerful gathering and was focused on talking with me—but I suddenly felt dissatisfied by the simple fact that he wasn't here where I was, and I wasn't where he was. The memory of his cologne teased my sense of smell, almost strong enough to bring it back. I wiped the sweat from my palm onto my shorts and tightened my grip on the phone.

"I want to paint. But... I haven't been able to paint for a long time."

I hadn't expected to say something this honest. And in front of him, of all people.

He didn't try to comfort me with sweet words. Instead, he was certain.

[Don't worry. You'll have new stories you want to paint.]

He spoke with strong conviction, yet his tone was gentle.

I had never wished for anything more than for his words to come true.