Inside Phantom I had heard hints from the members and sensed the atmosphere, and the teacher was indeed a female Alpha. If the partner were an Omega, pregnancy could occur regardless of primary sex—but for the teacher to become pregnant she would have needed to partner with an Alpha male. From what I knew, even with an Alpha male it wasn’t a hundred percent guaranteed. The objections around their marriage were therefore not only about youth. Inevitably, my thoughts drifted to Morae and Gwon Juhan.
“I don’t regret getting married. Whatever the ending, at the time we couldn’t not do it. I needed that marriage like life itself. If we hadn’t married then, given my nature I probably would have regretted it forever. He felt the same. We were certain we could live as a perfect artist and art dealer couple, as top partners and soulmates—without a single doubt. At that time you can’t put a decision on hold when that kind of certainty occupies your whole mind.”
A young couple who, both swept by attraction and drawn to each other as people as well as lovers, went ahead despite everyone’s objections. My parents had a similar story. Their endings differed.
One couple clashed until there was nothing left, then both, exhausted, called it over. The other couple—the parents—had the ideal relationship they once dreamed of, only to have it violently taken from them by an accident that had nothing to do with their will. Which outcome was more tragic wasn’t an easy question.
“Understanding another person is much harder work than you’d think. That’s why people call a person a microcosm. It’s complex. Sometimes there’s no logic or reason. If the person themselves doesn’t know why they feel a certain way, how can an outsider like me understand? The other person feels the same about me.”
For someone like me—who’d never been in love, perhaps never even liked someone—that was a difficult idea. But I could faintly grasp the suffocating frustration of being unable to read a complicated, prickly person.
“The person who once painted as naturally as breathing, who couldn’t imagine himself not painting—watching him decay because of the painting...that felt like a kind of love too. Sometimes love that goes wrong eats you up from the inside, like ours did. His love for painting didn’t expand or evolve; it burrowed inward and consumed him until he had to give it up.”
Love that destroys both lover and self when the method is wrong. But it was a love so intense you couldn’t survive without throwing yourself wholly at it until your energy ran out. Even if it ended in separation, is that necessarily a failure? I couldn’t answer that, but I understood that such violent feeling wasn’t common.
I remembered Director Ryu’s advice that I seemed like the sort to value slow, mutual courtship—his counsel about my relationship with Choi Inwoo. I still didn’t know how I loved or what kind of person I would be in love. Vaguely, though, I suspected I wasn’t that sort of person. Maybe I was someone who could give myself away on a moment’s impulse.
But I didn’t think I had the courage to crash into fierce feelings like the teacher, or my parents—feelings that would swallow me whole. Now, I lacked that courage.
“In Hong Kong and back in Seoul, watching many artists, one thought solidified: talent alone isn’t enough. If the mental fortitude to keep cultivating the talent isn’t there, nothing follows. He had talent, but he doubted it, compared himself to others, and crumbled.”
I looked up at the teacher’s profile.
“You need desperate, obsessive, consistent direction—something that keeps you going no matter what. That’s how you break through to the light. I saw that energy in eleven-year-old Seo Ihyeon.”
The teacher’s face turned slowly toward me.
“You can eat and breathe without painting. Sure—you can live. That’s not what I mean, Ihyeon. I want you to ask yourself honestly whether you need painting to live as the unique Seo Ihyeon you are, not just another face in the crowd. I want that honesty from you. Before it’s too late.”
Facing yourself honestly. Maybe I’d stopped painting because I could no longer be honest in front of myself—I’d stuffed my heart, shut my mouth, closed my eyes. I no longer wanted to speak. I wanted to hide many things.
During the teacher’s story something pressed at my chest and demanded a decision—not about painting alone, but about something larger that included painting—something like life itself. It was a concept that didn’t yet fully register, but his last words settled in my chest like a heavy rock at the riverbed: a gentle but unavoidable warning. Before it’s too late.
■ ■ ■
Spicy stingray sashimi salad, glistening pig trotters, tuna kimbap and potato pancakes. The menu wasn’t harmonious, but it was enough for a rare luxurious meal for the three of us—food with alcohol. Yuni and Gwon Juhan joked that love of money and drink was a Phantom member trait. Even if you didn’t need alcohol to loosen tongues, adding drinks made conversation easier.
“You started by accusing him of hanging around here all the time—people gathered, it was chaos. He didn’t stay idle either. There was almost a fight. No, it was more than that—nearly a full-on fight.”
Morae shot a glance at Gwon Juhan with a mild reproach and drank soju. A man had been loitering at the bus stop steps for days. At first neither Morae nor Gwon Juhan thought much of it, but the same man pacing between the bus stop and the steps kept appearing. Gwon Juhan grew suspicious, confronted him and threatened to call the police, only to find out the man had been coming every day to seek forgiveness after a fight with his girlfriend. It had happened just the previous afternoon.
“When Seo Ihang charged like he would drag the man to the station, the guy was totally flustered... It ended only after the girlfriend showed up and confirmed he was her boyfriend.”
“Nowadays how many crazy people are there? You can’t even trust someone saying ‘girlfriend.’ Maybe he’s delusional and stalking some woman. Still—if it led to a reconciliation, then it turned out okay.”
Gwon Juhan, embarrassed by his own mistake, kept gulping soju and avoided looking at me. He wasn’t the type to act so aggressively; fear had drawn out a different side of him. Living every day under the threat that the life you have could be destroyed at any moment—being able to sleep and laugh like this was something extraordinary.
“You’re just on edge. I get it—where a needle looks like a knife.” Morae patted his back. It was a light remark but it captured their current state best: living on a glass floor where even a pinprick seems deadly. Smiling and talking didn’t mean that life was not fragile. This time the incident was a misunderstanding—next time? Nobody could be sure.
I wasn’t yet used to soju, but I downed a fourth glass at once. Instead of loosening me, the alcohol tightened my throat and cleared my head.
“Aren’t you going to Bali?” Gwon Juhan paused, bottle in hand.
“What?”
“Bali. Aren’t you going?”
“Why now?” Morae, picking at the stingray, looked puzzled.
“I’ll be fine—let’s go to Bali.”
“What’s gotten into you?” Gwon Juhan set the bottle down; Morae put down her chopsticks. I’d been stalling, asking for a little more time to prepare, but I knew from experience the situation wouldn’t wait on me. Life is a fragile glass floor; any unexpected force might shatter it at any moment. I also knew that the longer you delayed, the riskier it could be.
Since hearing the teacher’s story a few days earlier, thoughts of Morae and Gwon Juhan wouldn’t leave my head. The three of us weren’t a couple, but the nature of human relationships isn’t all that different. Exhaustion and the need to protect oneself can lead people to cut ties—that isn’t a fate exclusive to lovers. I didn’t want our relationship to be pushed to that ragged edge like the teacher’s—really I didn’t.
“The surf camp has a good offer. Opportunities like this don’t come often.”
“I was only checking it out. Don’t go anywhere now—we’ve tied up the deposit.”
Morae relaxed and resumed eating, teasing me for making this announcement while showing his practice pad. “If we solve the deposit issue, it’s not impossible.”
Morae’s chopsticks paused again. I’d never been so stubborn with these two.
“I might start painting again.”
Their eyes widened more at that than at the suggestion of Bali. I hadn’t decided anything definitive about painting, but I’d decided I wouldn’t let my name bind them here any longer. That, at least, was clear. That would be my first step.
■ ■ ■
They were happier than I expected at the news I might paint again, but still reluctant to leave me behind—their reactions were complicated. I explained Director Ryu seeing , discovering it was mine, and his urging me to try painting again, even his offer about the Hong Kong trip. I left out the hyperventilation and the night after.
After long discussion the verdict was lukewarm: try painting again or go to Bali. We would each think it over and talk again after the Hong Kong trip—that was today’s outcome.
Soju’s intoxication is different from beer or wine. As I stood to clear the table, the world tilted and dizziness hit. Morae and Gwon Juhan must have been tipsy too; beyond the sliding door it was quiet. The floor felt like water under a surfboard; even the light through the kitchen window seemed to ripple where ceiling met wall. I felt like I might fall asleep, but my stomach churned in the way it had the night before moving—torn between excitement and worry about a new life. I tossed and turned, then reached for my phone on the bedside.
[Sorry to contact you so late. Could I, as you suggested, go to Hong Kong first and decide afterward?]
I didn’t need to decide right then. It was impulsive—half a tipsy joke I wanted to deny. After sending the message I didn’t expect to get a reply past eleven. But the phone rang seconds later.
The contact name “Director Ryu” flashed on the screen and I sat up. Beyond the sliding door it was still quiet. I slipped on my slippers and stepped outside, phone trembling in my hand. The call persisted like a signal from a distant future. I answered on the living-room couch.
“Hello.”
[...Were you asleep? You just sent a message a minute or two ago. Are you not?] His voice was husky; he hesitated.
“No. I’m out—so I could take the call.”
[You went back to your old place?]
“Yes.”
I hadn’t told him I was coming to Morae and Gwon Juhan’s house; perhaps it came up when he and the teacher were talking earlier. He seemed to know things about me I hadn’t said. He’d asked about me behind my back—my art major, whether I was an Omega. Yuni and Gwon Juhan had told me he asked questions when I wasn’t present. In front of me he usually acted indifferent.
“You’re out then.” The noise behind him faded as he distanced himself from the gathering. I rubbed my slippered foot on the floor and tried to focus on his breathing through the laughter and high voices on the line.
[...I was invited. It’s all part of work, what can you do.] His tone sounded bored. Even the day he drank wine at the Spanish tavern he’d leaned back like he wasn’t interested. But according to Choi Inwoo, he’d come by choice—Inwoo insisted he hadn’t invited him along. I found my new annotations about his actions amusing and oddly optimistic. Maybe he just wanted to get away from a dull after-party. But then he’d returned to Phantom with Inwoo...
I stopped thinking and let out a quiet laugh. It was all meaningless speculation.
“You must be tired.”
[...]
The party noise receded as he moved to a more private spot. The click of a lighter, a cigarette’s spark, the sound of deep inhalation—those small noises calmed me strangely.
[...I’m buoyed by the thought we might soon sign the artist I’ve wanted. It helps me get through it.] He exhaled slowly.
Ah—he was talking about me. The implication that he’d wanted me all along tickled my ear.
“It’s not decided yet. I’ll decide later.”
[Seo Ihyeon will definitely want to paint again.]
How could he be so sure? He barely knew me; he’d seen only one painting. Was this the same “ability to recognize painting” the teacher talked about—or just his own confident eye? I lifted my head. Seoul’s lights beyond the roof shimmered like squid fishing boats again.
He’d excused himself from that boisterous gathering to focus on me. I felt a strange irritation at being absent from his place while he was where I was not. His scent tickled memory at the edge of my nose. I rubbed the sweat from my palm over my shorts and gripped the phone tighter.
“I want to. But I haven’t been able to paint for a long time.”
I ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) didn’t expect to admit that so plainly—especially to him. He didn’t offer saccharine comfort; he sounded confident instead.
[Don’t worry. You’ll get the urge to paint again.]
His certainty was strong but his tone remained gentle. I had never wanted his words to be true as much as in that moment.
