I’d assumed it would be a dinner for just me and the chief, but a white SUV with sleek lines—like a polished sports car—was pulled tight to the curb with its hazard lights on along the two-lane road leading to the restaurant entrance. If my memory was right, one of the two cars I’d seen him use before was the same model.
The driver who got out to hand over the car for valet parking was, of course, him. The attendant—hurrying over to the driver’s side to take the key—looked up before he could stop himself, startled by his height, then yanked his gaze down, realizing he’d just been rude to a guest.
It was a quiet curb in a residential street just off a busy district, but his presence snapped every gaze in the vicinity toward him at once: a woman walking her dog, a foreign man with a grocery bag and a baby carrier strapped to his chest, a young couple out on what looked like a weekend date. It wasn’t only that he seemed to clear one-ninety centimeters, a height rare in Korea.
“Listen, I swear I saw an insanely handsome guy on the street today.” —People who saw him would tell their family or friends something like that. Once he entered your field of vision, he wasn’t something you could just treat as everyday background; he was the kind that made you turn your head and fix your eyes. Outside Phantom, seeing him in public, that fact became even clearer.
When the chief gave a light honk, he—who’d been circling the rear of the car toward the entrance—looked our way. The chief waved. He slowed his stride and smiled.
“Let’s bleed Director Ryu dry tonight.”
Watching him stop on the sidewalk as if he’d been waiting for us, the chief grinned like a cartoon villain.
“The director’s eating with us too?”
“Huh? I didn’t say? Ah... I must’ve only said ‘let’s have dinner,’ so you wouldn’t have guessed. Sorry.”
“It’s fine. I don’t mind at all.”
He looked so apologetic that I waved my hands to deny it emphatically.
“My head’s been like this lately. I think something and assume I’ve said it out loud.”
Lately the chief had been focused on finalizing the list of works to take to the Hong Kong art fair and on deciding prices and placement. Yuni and Gwon Juhan were handling the logistics of the exhibition, but the core was the work itself, so it made sense he felt the strain.
Under the premise that no one can know which artist, which work, will draw attention when and how, the task demanded both an immense command of global market trends and the foresight to predict a step ahead.
At the Phantom office, the chief had been spending most of his working hours in meetings with the director. Sometimes they agreed; sometimes they didn’t. The two of them made calls in Korean, in English, in Cantonese and in Chinese; sometimes they were warmly grateful; sometimes they planted their hands on their hips, pinched the bridge of the nose, and got angry.
As the fair drew near, a tension ran through the gallery—but I could feel every member of Phantom converting that tension into excitement, and even I, who wasn’t directly tied to the trip, felt lifted by it.
Given all that, it was understandable he’d forget to mention that the dinner was effectively a Phantom group meal. He’d been busy enough that I was glad I’d decided to move in then and could help on the spot, even a little.
In a way, I was relieved.
Since the chief was busy, he probably wasn’t free either, and he’d have no time to dwell on the fact that a subordinate had suffered breathing trouble in his living room (and then, like first aid afterward, we’d had sex), no time to dig into it.
But sometimes the things that had happened that night felt like a dream. The kind of dream you have when you doze off for a moment on a couch in a sunbeam. You look at the clock and only five minutes have passed, but it feels like a very long dream with a very long story.
He exchanged a laughing greeting with the chief and gave a short nod to mine. As a staffer led us in from the entrance toward the building, the two of them talked about the art fair, and while I followed quietly behind, it felt like my relationship with him had reset to the beginning.
It wasn’t that I was complaining, asking him to take an interest in me too.
But the way he modulated his eyes and his bearing—cleanly isolating me outside his sphere of influence—was just like then. He treated me as if he’d completely excluded the thin layer of familiarity we’d slowly built. Thinking of how, that night, he’d ladled porridge for me, shrugged out of his sweatshirt for me, and, unlike his usual self, indulged my plea to stay with me... he felt like a completely different person, too distant to call back that kindness.
The first sexual experience is a vivid memory for anyone. Not only for me. Not only because I liked him.
When the sensation of his hot breath warming the edge of my ear crossed my mind, my hand would twitch toward my ear before I knew it. I wondered if there were moments like that for him too, my partner that night. Moments when, in the middle of ordinary life, the memory of my reactions from that night flashed and the hand turning a file page, brushing teeth, or thumbing a phone paused. It was much better to return to the original relationship than to act awkward after sex, but—I was simply curious.
From the way he traded pleasantries with the restaurant owner who had come out to the entrance—like someone who’d been here before—the view of his back itself seemed to answer my curiosity with a “No.”
It had only been curiosity. It didn’t mean I hoped or expected him to share my aftereffects. There was nothing to be disappointed about.
We were shown to a private room with a plaque above the door that read “Samcheolli.” The restaurant was a converted old family house; they’d hardly touched the overall layout, and the interior felt modest and cozy, like stepping into the sitting room of a home. From our room on the second floor, a small but well-tended garden lay below. I thought how it contrasted with his garden and laughed silently to myself.
“Director Ryu said you’d been sick, and that you needed something fortifying, so he suggested this place.”
Sitting beside me across from him, the chief flipped the menu and said that.
He didn’t contradict it. As if he hadn’t heard the chief at all, he just looked out at the garden through the window.
“I’m all better now... Thank you for thinking of me.”
“You look sturdier than you are—still, you’re quite thin. Gwon Juhan and Baek Yuni are both like little sticks. Are you all dieting on purpose?”
He said it with his brow furrowed like he truly didn’t understand, and the chief leaned back against the floor chair and laughed.
“You know how much Juhan eats and you can say that? He eats like he’s been starving for three days. Yuni’s a little picky, but she eats a normal amount. What can they do if their bodies just don’t put on weight.”
It surprised me that he’d arranged this dinner with my collapse in mind, but it wasn’t a special kindness meant only for me. I was essentially included as an extension of the kindness he felt for Juhan and Yuni. I wanted to hide the part of me that felt disappointed at that. Wanting to be special, compared to others... that wasn’t me.
“Juhan and Yuni are running late... Should I give them a call?”
“......”
The papery hush that pooled in the room made the hand fishing my phone from my jeans pocket stiffen, awkward.
“I didn’t invite them. This is to build you up, so eat with an easy mind. If Gwon Juhan were here, you wouldn’t taste a bite of the eel.”
Adding a touch of playfulness, the chief hurriedly rang for someone to take our order. If this was a place they visited often, it showed: he and the other man ordered without hesitation.
Even while we waited for the food, they had to talk work. I felt like an elementary schooler at a holiday gathering with no cousins my age, wedged among adults.
The chief argued that, because Shushu’s work had a bigger response domestically than overseas, they should push a different artist as the main feature at this fair. He didn’t disagree outright, but he didn’t accept it easily either.
In the meantime, grilled eel with garlic and a braised short rib dish were set in the center to share, and a nourishing soup with abalone and octopus was served to each of us. The thick earthenware bowls had wide mouths that looked easy to eat from; the soup gave off a faint medicinal scent—probably from jujubes and ginseng.
“Whatever else, finish that. Think of it as medicine, not food.”
Pointing at the bowl in front of me, he said it in a slightly stern tone—though he barely touched his own portion.
Their conversation resumed, and I focused on eating. Tried to. But it was my first time eating with the two of them without my sister or brother, and I could hardly taste anything. It was basically a meal between the top executives and the bottom intern.
As if to check whether I was eating properly, he glanced into my bowl between sentences; I had no choice but to empty it diligently.
“Look at that—mature as he is, a kid’s still a kid.”
Thinking I’d done about as well as I could, I set my spoon down, and the chief laughed, pointing into my bowl. I’d worked hard to fish out the abalone and octopus, and the jujubes and ginseng were bobbing in the broth. He was also looking at me, smiling.
At least he no longer wore the indifferent look I thought I’d seen at first, but my face went hot at the “kid-like behavior” that had slipped out before I even knew it—just like he’d said.
“Do you really feel like doing /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ that with someone ten years younger than you?” —A thing he’d once said to Inwoo popped into my head. In that line was the implied meaning that someone ten years younger didn’t register as “that kind of partner.” Which would mean either I was an exception to him or... the events of that night had been nothing more than rigorous first aid. One of the two.
How did I wander from the embarrassment of leaving jujubes and ginseng to this point? There was no logic to the leap.
When all the empty bowls and the ones I hadn’t finished were cleared, simple refreshments were set out: several pretty-colored traditional sweets and hot tea. The tea—floral and fruity—was the perfect temperature for a room softly cooled by the air conditioner.
“I discussed you a little with Chief Han.”
There was no hesitation or caution in his voice. He had been quietly waiting for my meal to finish, and now there was no reason to delay anything.
I lifted my lips from the cup and looked at him. The way he faced me, eyes signaling the weight of what he was about to say, dried my mouth. I swallowed, but it didn’t help.
“How about you start painting again.”
“......”
My grip loosened and the cup slipped slightly. I caught it before I dropped it and set it on the table. Without thinking, my eyes searched for the chief—no, my teacher. He held my hand tight with a gentle smile. He’d known this would come up—or rather, that this dinner itself had been arranged for this conversation. I thought I understood why my sister and brother hadn’t been invited.
Start painting again.
He’d put out a notion I hadn’t even considered, and he showed no disturbance at all; with light-colored, pale irises, he simply waited—for me to be ready to hear the rest.
He’d been lightly interlacing his fingers on the table. Now he extended them, touching fingertip to fingertip to make a triangle.
His hands were large in proportion to his height, but the fingers were long and well-shaped, giving them an elegant, clean impression. The slightly prominent, sturdy-looking joints; the even thickness maintained to the tips; the dark blue veins that rose on the back of his hand—all of it seemed to hint, just faintly, at the aggression behind his elegance, the cool, drastic decisiveness that would risk any danger to achieve a goal once he judged it necessary.
But a hand is just a hand. Like a scent is just a scent. It implies nothing.
“I won’t beautify my intent or speak around it.”
He declared that in an easy, ordinary voice, then continued.
“Phantom represents about twenty artists, but to be frank, only three or four of them are what actually keep a gallery running and growing. If we want to hold even our current place against the big galleries, a small gallery like ours has to keep discovering fresh newcomers. Of course it matters that our existing artists keep producing good work, but you can’t guarantee output by sitting for a fixed number of hours... You never know when a slump will hit or their value will slip. It’s just as important to consistently present newcomers who can shock the public and spark conversation. A lot of people think of art as lofty... and each artist can work with that stance, apart from money or fame, according to their convictions—and we try to give them the environment they want—but we, dealers, aren’t artists. You can’t pay staff salaries with the feeling that you’ve become an artist.”
He lifted one eye slightly toward me, as if asking for agreement, but he didn’t leave space to agree or disagree.
“Who becomes a well-reviewed artist, who becomes a bestselling artist—unfortunately, that isn’t decided purely by the value of the work. The value of a work, to a large extent, depends on subjective interpretation; a universally accepted ‘objective’ evaluation is even harder. To be more blunt, even the value of a work can be created through marketing and business—that’s the power of the big galleries and mega-dealers who drive today’s global art market. The current art market isn’t all that different in nature from the show-business circuit.”
He wasn’t speaking particularly fast, but it was hard to keep up with the speed and direction of his thoughts. I still stood at the starting line without having confirmed our destination, and he was already ahead of me, pulling me along.
“It’s true Phantom’s finances have grown sturdier in the last year or two, but... that’s thanks to the performance of marquee artists like Shushu. We haven’t discovered any newcomer who’s expected to follow them or surpass them. That’s a big problem. From university grad shows to tiny café galleries in the provinces, even SNS... Chief Han and I have been combing through like madmen, but... meeting an interesting artist has not been easy.”
Tok tok. He tapped forefinger to forefinger like a comma, paused, and looked at me with a gaze that pressed me back against the wall.
“Long story short, I expect you to be that artist, Seo Ihyeon.”
I hadn’t asked a single question, but he held my face with dogged attention, as if waiting for an answer. Or maybe he was simply reading my reaction. In any case, it was all far too sudden.
I had painted long ago, and there was a time when painting was my language—but even then I’d never considered or imagined what place my work might occupy in the “art market” he was describing now.
Apparently satisfied he’d observed me enough, he let the triangle of his fingers fall apart and leaned back against the chair.
“Now the chief will say the same thing in a way you’ll like better.”
My teacher sighed and shook his head at him; he lifted his shoulders as if he didn’t see the problem—or as if this was the best he could do within his role.
There was no malice in his words. It was a difference in position, that was all. He’d explained from the standpoint of the gallery’s owner and of a dealer who had to sell pictures; that wasn’t immoral or a crime. Realistically, if he failed to sell pictures, some artist might no longer be able to paint at all.
