"Wasn't it you who said that for a work's value to be properly recognized, the work alone isn't enough—that management that can present it attractively is essential, Rao Weikun? Not every creator is lucky enough to meet a gallerist who takes conscientious care of them."
With his arm hooked over the armrest and his eyes on the tips of his shoes, Rao slanted his gaze at Shushu.
"In my view, Hong Seonyu has been given far too generous an assessment up to now, and he's already enjoyed plenty of luck on that alone. Thanks to offering his ass to the gallery's old owner."
"......"
"Jung Sein, no matter how important a gallery's role is in getting a work known, not everyone uses their ass to be recognized."
Hong Seonyu had been in an affair with the owner of the gallery he belonged to. He was probably one of several young lovers kept by a rich old man. He was just barely passing for someone in his twenties by American age, but by Korean count he was now thirty. Rao neither wanted to know nor needed to know why Hong had dropped off the old man's list of boy toys.
If his skill had held up, even if the old man who no longer felt any attraction to his body had cast him off, there would still have been any number of galleries wanting to work with him. But there was no gallery that wanted to sign a vain artist ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) who took paintings not worth even 5,000 dollars and, with slick copy and strategic promotion, overwrapped them to sell for 15,000. Rao could not see as the same thing the marketing that lays a footing for proper evaluation and the marketing that inflates value to chase blind profit.
There was a brief bustle near the piano by the entrance, and soon a live jazz performance began. The tunes and playing were gentle enough not to disturb conversation; the other patrons seemed to be enjoying a rainy autumn night's jazz show, but the sweet melodies simply did not reach these two.
In the silence, Shushu stared hard at Rao's face for a long time; his lips fluttered as if to speak, then not to speak, several times.
"Seonyu became that pathologically fixated on success because..."
Not knowing at all that Rao already knew this, Shushu carefully began to share Hong Seonyu's past and family circumstances—and Rao had to endure the painful prodding of the guilt he had held as part of himself for years.
What’s more, to his surprise, as he listened he began to think that Shushu and Hong had shared more than he had expected, and perhaps... a deeper communion. Rao already knew about the father's business failure, but he had not known—and had not cared about—the later story of how that twisted into a pathological obsession with success.
Shushu was talking about a depth of understanding that is hard to grasp when only one side harbors a one-sided interest; he was talking about the concrete, individual history of the human being named Hong Seonyu.
Unless one side opens up their depths, and unless the other listens with trust, deep affection, and a patience that does not judge—in other words, unless it is an intimacy like lovers—one cannot approach the backside of a person's soul; that was what Shushu was talking about.
Whatever the initial purpose of approach might have been... perhaps, while he was with Shushu, Hong had not treated him with nothing but pretense and performance. Perhaps the more than three years they spent together were not only a show staged from a crude script that was both cruel and tragic.
Rao did not want to think that now. He did not want to come to understand Hong Seonyu in any way.
"That... doesn't sound like a sufficient excuse for making a flesh trade with the gallery owner for success."
When Shushu's story came roughly to its end, Rao hurried to mark out his conclusion like someone who wanted to look away from a possibility he had sensed there. Watching Shushu's face harden with disappointment and resentment, Rao repeated to himself that this was the choice for his sake. And he hammered the nail.
"And it's even less a reason for what he did to you."
"......"
"When I think about what that bastard did to you... I cannot for the life of me understand you coming out like this. Jung Sein, in case you've forgotten: that bastard didn't love you. For that long a time, in that filthy way, he... used you."
Even as he watched Shushu's face contort with hurt, he did not stop provoking, thinking he had to make him face reality so he would not be swayed by Hong any further.
"Why are you doing this? Whether Hong gets thrown out of the gallery or expelled from the art scene, what does that have to do with you? Do you still have lingering feelings for that bastard? Don't tell me you still love him?"
"Do you think only your love with your genius boy has value?"
There was no intent to sneer emotionally in Shushu's voice; rather, it was a voice with no strain anywhere, as if the words had passed through reason, not emotion. But the content alone was enough to scrape at Rao.
He wetted his lower lip with his tongue and looked at Shushu with a gaze gone cold.
"......Why bring that up here?"
Unlike Rao, who bared his emotions aggressively, Shushu spoke with the same calm eyes, as if he had expected the reaction.
"Not only relationships where two people approached each other in the same direction and with the same depth remain as love."
Rao's gaze slanted even more. After a short beat, Shushu continued.
"If Ihyeon were the one to turn his back on you first, do you think you could cleanly put your feelings away for that reason? Do you think you could brand him a traitor and immediately rewrite the name of your feelings for him?"
"......"
He couldn't say a word.
He couldn't say a word, but his head was boiling. He wanted to shout that that and this were different, but in that moment, he became unsure. Whether that and this really were that different.
He wetted his lower lip, then bit down hard. Turning his gaze to the window, Rao let out a heavy sigh and raised his glass to empty his drink.
Shushu had hypothesized Ihyeon's betrayal, but in the actual relationship between Rao Weikun and Seo Ihyeon, the "traitor" was Rao himself.
He wanted to defend himself that it couldn't be compared to the things Hong had done to Shushu, but after the second night he "changed" to Ihyeon—no longer a mistake—there definitely existed another self who looked at all the situations and processes more coldly than anyone and treated himself like trash.
How Ihyeon would take his "betrayal." Once he began to think about that, he couldn't answer Shushu's question.
To hurl blame and curses, heap on humiliation and resentment, to hit and break him until he felt satisfied—fine, let him. Because Rao himself was hoping Ihyeon would forgive his betrayal, hanging his hope on the words that Ihyeon loved him.
"I don't think what Seonyu did in the past or what he's doing now is right. I'm not trying to cover for him. But... strictly speaking, he didn't do anything illegal or criminal."
"You call that something to say..."
"But that's me speaking from my side of the relationship with Seonyu. What doesn't change is that whatever Seonyu was thinking while he was by my side, I loved Seonyu. Just because there was falsehood mixed into his love for me doesn't mean my love for him also has to be false, right?"
Ha...
All he could do was swallow a sigh, rubbing his face with his palm. It was hard to endure the way the line between good and evil—the line that had once so clearly divided Hong Seonyu and what was not Hong Seonyu—was blurring. Rao was too burdened right now to spend energy on anything related to Hong; even dealing with his own problems was more than enough. His nerves were thinning, so thin that now he was too fragile to bear even a single light feather more.
"Fine. Back then."
Pressing his fingertips into his eyelids, Rao opened his mouth.
"He approached with the intention to deceive, so fine—say you couldn't help being deceived. But even if that bastard tries to use you or me one more time, you'll still accept it? What if this doesn't end with just once? Don't you think he's more than capable of that? At this point, do you really want your life to be tossed around by him again?"
Not only had he lost a lover; because of that he had had to give up dance as well—his past. The wretched time he had to pass through to pick up a camera and, through it, stand up again—had all that become dim inside you now? Rao shook his head and looked at Shushu.
"As your friend, I don't fail to understand the feelings that make you hostile to Seonyu. And as you say, it's true Seonyu has been over-evaluated by improper means. That's why now, even if the evaluation is harsh... I only want to help him have a chance to start over by receiving a proper evaluation."
"......"
"Fine. If you can't help, I'll handle it with my own strength. Luckily, thanks to meeting a diligent gallerist, I've come far enough to offer at least that kind of help."
Was Shushu always someone who wouldn't bend like this? Where had the emotional, indecisive artist with delicate, sensitive feelings gone?
No—perhaps he'd noticed. Bit by bit, the photos Shushu was making had been hinting that he was no longer a "powerless victim of life's tyranny" who hid, ran, turned away, and collapsed.
Downing the drink in his glass, Shushu left a word of thanks for making time despite jet lag and fatigue and began to rise—and Rao drove the nail. Just because he'd grown stronger, just because he'd escaped, didn't mean Rao could stand by and watch him volunteer to become a "victim" again.
"Don't make useless efforts. I can make it so Hong Seonyu can't sell even a single drawing in the Korean art scene."
"I thought you'd changed at least a little thanks to Ihyeon, but it turns out you were only a different person with Ihyeon."
"......"
"I know this isn't a way you like; even if it looks foolish to you, even if you're worried about me... this is the foolish me, and this is the way I love. I have at least the right to live my life foolishly, don't I?"
Like someone with no regrets at all, Shushu stood up. Leaving the table and walking away in silence over the plush carpet, Rao still did not look at him. He turned his head toward the rain-flecked window. His silhouette floated in the glass as if suspended in the dark.
A man exhausted and worn, cornered, and even so, willing to gladly throw away everything else to keep hold of the one thing in his hand.
Wherever he looked, whatever he faced, he could not be free of that specter that looked exactly like himself—that hunger of the ghost that truly resided within him.
■ ■ ■
After listening in silence for a long time to the talk going back and forth across the table, Juhan knocked back his beer and set the bottle down with a grimace.
"What are you even saying?"
It wasn't so much an expression of displeasure as one closer to bafflement at not grasping the point. Sitting directly across from Juhan, Rao dodged his question by lifting his glass and drinking wine.
"You're joking, right? How are you going to wrap up the work here in two weeks and go to New York?"
With a short, incredulous laugh, Juhan looked around at the faces seated around the table. When he realized no one was meeting his eyes, his face went stiff.
"What is this... Everyone knew except me?"
"I only found out on the business trip."
"And you still kept your mouth shut?"
When Juhan snapped at Yuni's words, she raised her head and glared back at him. In the rough current between the two, Chief Han placed a light hand on Juhan's shoulder and pressed gently downward.
"Juhan, let's not be emotional. This isn't that kind of thing. We set up this meeting so we could talk about it properly, and Yuni is also hearing the details of the decision for the first time now."
"......"
He closed his mouth, but Juhan's expression was still defiant. His gaze wandered, as if he'd been thrown into the center of confusion. Looking down at Juhan's hand gripping the beer bottle so hard the knuckles of his thin hand had gone white, Rao touched the slender stem of his wineglass and spoke in a cracked voice.
"Before the Chicago trip, both the trip team and the joint-exhibition team were insanely busy. I put it off till after, worrying you'd be even more unsettled and unable to focus on work. I'd like you to understand the timing of me bringing it up."
"Fine, say you told us now. But that you're going to New York in exactly two weeks... that's way too sudden. Two weeks is..."
"Two weeks is too short a time to accept a parting and get ready for it?"
"......"
Pinpointing that Juhan was taking the situation personally, Rao clenched his glass as if he might snap it and bit his lip. Then he forced himself to lower his voice as gently as he could and spoke again.
"Diligently, patiently working and waiting isn't the only answer. If you don't have the judgment or drive to seize a chance when it comes and you feel 'it's now,' the Phantom you have now wouldn't exist."
"......"
Juhan stopped protesting, but his face could not hide his bewilderment and hurt. Watching Juhan look like a child hearing from his parents that they're getting divorced, Rao pushed away the plate in front of him, propped an arm there, and leaned his upper body forward.
"I'm not leaving to start another company; Phantom is expanding. It's not something to feel sore about. Once things are settled there, I can give you new opportunities too. Instead of going to another gallery to start at the bottom and suffer to adapt, you'll be able to work at Phantom's New York branch—doesn't that make you excited?"
"......"
Despite Rao's attempts to lighten the weight of the atmosphere somehow, Juhan's expression hardly eased. Rao turned his body this time toward Yuni at the head of the table.
"Hey? Baek Yuni. I'm calling you over to New York soon. Come on, brighten up."
Her face was as rigid as Juhan's. But she looked as if she were deeply sunk in her own thoughts.
"I have something to say."
At the tension in her voice, every gaze focused on Yuni. Keeping her eyes fixed on her empty plate, she went on in a level, calm voice that nonetheless trembled.
"Since the CEO even arranged a meeting like this and laid out the talk about the New York branch... if I kept my mouth shut now, it would feel like a deception. So I'm going to say it."
She lifted her head and slowly looked around at everyone.
"I'm thinking of going to Paris."
