A barricade and a notice announced that visiting hours were over at the entrance to the building, but though the heavy front door was shut, it wasn’t locked. The door felt heavier than he remembered; Ihyeon pushed it open with almost his whole body and stepped inside.
The interior was still white to a pathological degree. He paused in the foyer and slowly took in the ivory, curving staircase and the high ceiling. With everyone gone for the day and only Rao left in the office, all the other lights were off; only the structurally designed chandelier hanging from the hall ceiling cast a pale light over his head.
Phantom, which had always felt like the castle of a wealthy nobleman bustling with elegantly dressed guests, now felt like a bleak, abandoned house rumored to be haunted—a place fallen from its once glittering past. But that was only his emotions projected; in reality, nothing had changed. Hadn’t he resolved to suppress sentimental responses as much as possible? Twisting a strap of his backpack and drawing a breath, Ihyeon headed for the office.
"......"
Two mornings after they’d parted yesterday, Rao was behind his desk in the very back, on the phone. Hearing someone, he looked over and smiled, waving the A4 sheet in his hand. He was so unchanged it drained the strength from you.
Alone in the office, he had tugged his tie loose and rolled his shirt sleeves up to below the elbow—at ease. Keeping his eyes on him, Ihyeon walked slowly toward the wide conference table right by the door.
Even now, if he went up acting as if he still knew nothing, Rao would probably reach out to hug his shoulders and kiss him the way he had yesterday morning. He almost certainly would.
From the first moment he’d heard it from Shushu until now... he’d felt that temptation over and over. To act as if he hadn’t heard a thing, entrust himself to Rao’s judgment, and keep silent. To throw himself away like that, to look away from Rao’s secret, to choose the future of false hope as scheduled....
But a twisted urge had followed hard on its heels—to dismantle him in the cruelest way, to viciously expose his hypocrisy—and it tormented Ihyeon. Even now, the two opposing urges were snarling at each other.
He swallowed and set the backpack, puffed to its taut limit, onto a chair. Rao set down the paper in his hand and picked up another; over the phone he seemed to be discussing where each work would be placed at the joint exhibition in the second half of the year. Perhaps the talk wasn’t going well; he tossed the sheet he’d just grabbed back down, scratched his forehead with that hand, and put his other hand on his waist.
With so many things to wrap up as it was, the reason he was personally involved even in work Uni usually handled was no doubt because he wanted to do his best for his Phantom right to the end.
His attachment to the current Phantom hadn’t faded, and his convictions about how to run Phantom hadn’t warped. It certainly wasn’t, as he himself had tried to explain, a natural shift of course for a greater purpose.
"Here?"
Ending the call, Rao looked over and smiled. Feeling a cruelty twitch inside him—a desire to shatter that unguarded smile at once—Ihyeon did his best to push out something like a brief smile.
"It’s been a while since you came to Phantom, hasn’t it?"
Eyes sunken, bloodshot ringing the whites, Rao walked out from between the desks toward him.
"Want to drop by before you leave?"
He knew he couldn’t respond casually to the usual quick kiss and touch he expected from Rao. Instead of answering, Ihyeon walked toward the windows and offered him coffee. Rao asked for it strong, then, showing interest in the backpack Ihyeon had set down, took the handle and tugged it up twice as if to gauge its weight.
"What did you pack so much for? You look like someone who’s been away a few days."
As of last night, he still thought they’d held a noisy farewell at Uni and Juhan’s place until late. Maybe he figured Ihyeon had lazed around their place until they got off work, then met up again and hung out, and that’s why it was this late.
But Ihyeon had come from Rao’s home, not Uni or Juhan’s officetel.
Not someone who "went and came back," but someone "about to go." Biting his lip at the coffee machine to suppress the urge to sneer at a man chatting about everyday things without a clue, he had thought that facing Rao directly might settle his feelings in some direction—but inside, the fight was still ongoing.
He returned to the table with two mugs and handed one to Rao. Then he threw out something that would hook Rao’s interest, blocking another attempt at touch.
"Not that. I stopped by the studio... and by home."
"......"
As intended, Rao’s hand, which was taking the mug, paused. Playing it as nothing special, Ihyeon brought his mug to his lips and said flatly:
"I’m thinking of going to see my father."
"Now?"
"Yes."
Rao stared at him for a long time with a searching, unblinking gaze, reading for what was underneath. That caring scan that had used to feel like gentle concern now... felt only stifling, like restraint and binding.
"Leaving without going to him in person wouldn’t sit right, would it."
Rao nodded slowly in assent.
Like how Uni had gone to meet her family in person. Before leaving for a far place, he must have decided to find his father to lighten the load a little. He seemed to have concluded that Ihyeon’s trip east was that.
But inside, Ihyeon sneered: unlike Uni, his decision to go to his father was neither voluntary nor constructive.
"Don’t worry too much about Mr. Im. A month ago his eldest son and daughter-in-law had their first granddaughter, and he seems to have calmed down since."
He paused, took a sip of coffee, then added as if to himself:
"Becoming a grandfather might have changed how he looks at the world a little."
Setting the steaming mug on the table, Rao turned his head. His gaze at Ihyeon—standing three or four paces away across the table’s corner—shone sharp. He might have noticed the subtle difference in distance and found it strange.
Just as Ihyeon went to raise the mug to his lips, Rao closed the gap in a stride.
"Mmm."
Standing not head-on but at Ihyeon’s right shoulder, he made the kind of sound you make when you lift something with effort and wrapped his arms around Ihyeon. He clasped his hands over the left upper arm and squeezed, then kissed Ihyeon’s temple. All the while, Ihyeon’s eyes stayed fixed on the mug in his hands.
"......Will you be all right?"
"What will I."
"Going back there alone again. And... facing your father."
"......"
Tilting his jaw, Ihyeon looked up at his face. Rao, head inclined to lower his eye level, was looking at him with a worried expression. Ihyeon tried ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) to feel the same trust and closeness as before. But the effort soon turned into hostility—the urge to pierce him, make a hole, and drag the gloomy secret out.
"Want me to take you? We could look at the sea."
He snorted and shook his head to treat it as a joke.
"Why not? Isn’t it a good idea? If you think of it as a short trip we take on impulse together...."
Rao turned Ihyeon by the shoulders to face him. Holding the mug, Ihyeon let his gaze fall awkwardly around Rao’s chest. Rao’s arm slipped around his waist as naturally as if it belonged there.
"In Gangwon-do, near Inje, my mother has a studio she uses sometimes. The view from the windows is peaceful—there’s a fireplace—it’s quite cozy. If we leave now and take our time driving... we could catch two or three hours’ sleep there... and watch the sunrise on the East Sea together...."
"You have a lot to do here."
He cut across the languid whisper that marked his temple, cheek, the corner of his mouth in turn. He had tried not to, but he couldn’t erase the chill from his voice completely. It felt like only a matter of time before Rao noticed.
Rao let out a light sigh and pressed his forehead to Ihyeon’s.
"Ah... I really do have a lot. H&W keeps pushing to lock Pettibon’s exhibition schedule sooner, so I’ll probably have to go to Hong Kong before long. Even in New York, I’ll have to throw myself into that first before the Phantom branch opening."
The breath of him, the warmth of him—spoken in a mock-complaint—no longer felt sweet, and the realization filled Ihyeon with despair; he resented Rao for having ruined it.
"Then there’s no need to rush like this."
"......Rush... what, exactly?"
In his voice as he asked back, there was a faint rasp of tension.
"It’s not like there’s a reason you have to push yourself this hard to hurry to New York—or to leave Seoul at all."
His arm fell from Ihyeon’s waist.
His tilted gaze, checking his expression, did hold suspicion at this not-quite-usual Ihyeon, but it was still closer to concern. Rather than suspecting Ihyeon had learned about the chaining, he seemed to have decided Ihyeon was tightly strung and confused before meeting his father.
"Did something happen?"
His voice, stroking the end of Ihyeon’s shoulder slowly, was careful. In the hand that touched and the question mark at the end of his words—down to the very feel—he was the Rao Ihyeon knew. The care aimed at him contained Rao’s sincerity to a degree that made it hard to believe this wasn’t all of him.
Unable to meet his eyes, Ihyeon pressed his lips together and rubbed the warm mug with his thumb before speaking.
"The New York branch—it's because of me, isn’t it?"
Because he didn’t lift his head, he couldn’t see Rao’s face. He looked at the firm wrist connected to the hand on his shoulder. The body he had stroked and smoothed as if it were part of himself until just recently now existed with a completely different meaning.
"When people who’ve known you a long time found it strange—were shocked, worried—I should have rethought it at least once.... I guess I just... wanted to believe."
Just because they had shared the inner loneliness they’d never shared with anyone else, it didn’t mean they knew everything about each other. Maybe he had too easily glossed over the reactions of those who had stayed at Rao’s side longer. The selfish motive to see what he wanted and believe what he wanted had blinded him.
"That because of me, you’re ignoring the convictions you’ve stood on, worrying the people around you, losing their trust... choosing something that takes you further from yourself...."
He drew a big breath to tamp down the surge of feeling.
"I must have been afraid to face that being together is making you sick."
The hand on his shoulder gripped hard this time.
"I appreciate that people think I set myself some grand moral goal and lived like I was doing penance for it... and I can’t say I have no convictions at all, but in the end business is business for me. I told you: I happened to have a good talk with some people I met in Chicago, and I judged it was the right opportunity to open a branch."
Plausible logic—but to Ihyeon now, the holes showed. He never hesitated to get his hands into the so-called vulgar side of things so the works of his artists could receive the recognition they deserved; but that was completely different from using art as a mere vehicle for business.
Ihyeon lifted his head.
"If it isn’t because of me, then you’d go to New York even on your own, right?"
Rao’s face hardened, mean. Then he quickly smoothed it, as if to shake off a bad feeling. Moving his hand from shoulder to neck to cheek, he slowly searched Ihyeon’s face.
"What’s wrong. Did you hear something somewhere? Did someone say something? Hm?"
He wanted to believe that the pupils holding him and the gentle touch he’d grown used to were the whole of Rao’s truth. He wanted to shut his eyes and ears to any other truth.
But at the same time, resentment surged at the man who had built up enough trust that even after seeing with his own eyes that his body had changed, he still wanted to believe him—who beyond that high, thick wall had been cultivating another truth.
Ihyeon shook his head and dropped his gaze. He bit his lip. The coffee in his mug trembled. Then he jerked his head up, as if setting a resolve, and looked Rao in the eye—their shine turned sharp.
"I’m thinking of considering The Hands’ offer."
Rao’s eyes narrowed. Blue irises broke to ash; his cheek twitched short.
"What is that supposed to mean?"
It sounded like he wanted to believe there was some hidden meaning besides the straightforward one he’d just heard.
Ignoring his anxiety, Ihyeon turned his shoulders fully toward the table. At that decisive move, Rao’s hand—cupping his neck and shoulder—fell limp into the air.
Setting his mug on the table, Ihyeon gripped the chair back with both hands. As Rao stepped close, the mix of agitation and excitement came off him. A big hand seized Ihyeon’s shoulder and forced him to face him.
"No, that’s impossible. You didn’t forget we drafted an exclusive contract that included a 100-million-won signing bonus, did you?"
"Even if it weren’t about the money... how could I forget all the things I’ve received from you until now."
Separate from the situation, that was sincere. He wasn’t keeping The Hands in mind to punish Rao. It was simply what he should have done from the start.
Uni was right. If they had been in a serious relationship, if they had truly trusted each other, when The Hands’ offer came in, he should have talked it over with Rao.
