The melody and vocal style popped and grabbed the ear. It wasn’t a fast-tempo, hard-hitting track, but the funky rhythm made even a bored person like me wiggle my toes inside my sneakers.
It was famous enough that even I knew it. Prince’s “Kiss.”
Yuni in the front passenger seat and Juhan behind her, next to me, were practically screaming as they sang along.
Smooch smooch smooch smooch smooch. Kiss!
Bellowing the fairly direct lyrics at the top of their lungs, the two of them mimicked kiss sounds into the air at the end of the first verse to match the sound effect in the song. Their action synced as if prearranged, and I laughed. It was the kind of timing you only saw between people who had shared tastes for a long time.
In the rearview mirror, the driver was shaking his head as if they were hopeless, but smiling. Maybe it was my imagination, but it felt like our eyes met in the mirror. He was wearing sunglasses so I couldn’t be sure, but it felt awkward somehow. I pretended to push back hair blown by the wind and turned my gaze.
Leaving the airport, we passed the flashy luxury streets of Tsim Sha Tsui and a tunnel and entered Hong Kong Island. To the right, a city where modern supertalls coexisted with old buildings; to the left, Victoria Harbour with Tsim Sha ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ Tsui across the water; we were gliding along an elevated road.
The car, a deep blue that evoked the color of a lake with a great depth, was a cabriolet, a convertible, in more common terms an open-top. I didn’t know who had pulled it up to wait at the arrivals gate, but it definitely wasn’t a rental. He had taken the key himself out of his own key wallet.
Spotting the waiting car, Yuni and Juhan had screamed and sprinted toward it. Their reaction was as loud as if they were meeting long-lost blood relatives. Whether he had prepared the car on purpose for the two of them or not, the Director couldn’t hide a smile as he watched them.
He was a gentle boss to his employees. Even when he’d been hostile toward me at the start, that much was clear. He wasn’t someone devoid of kindness in his heart and manner, cold only to others.
Only, that kindness wasn’t open to everyone equally. To be included inside it, you had to spend time proving yourself to him. That you had the right to enjoy his kindness.
I didn’t know how I was being defined to him. His attitude had softened since the beginning, he’d made the unexpected decision to bring me into Phantom, he’d ladled me rice porridge and given me his sweatshirt, and there were those glances with a viscosity and warmth aimed at me. From all that, I could only suppose that at least he no longer kept me at the same distance as before.
Pretending to watch Hong Kong approach through the windshield, I snuck looks at him driving and thought all that, and “Kiss” was ending.
“Ah, this is why I work at Phantom!”
Turning the volume down, Yuni shouted with the relieved face of someone who had blown off stress at karaoke for the first time in ages.
“Hey... your boss is going to feel hurt hearing that.”
“Why would you be hurt? It’s a compliment. Do you think bosses who are capable enough to drive us around in a car like this are common? Even if they exist, other bosses don’t do it.”
“Mm, does it mean anything if the boss bought the car with inherited money?”
“As long as the car I ride and the house I live in are paid for with my own money, that’s enough. This is the Director’s. So I just have to enjoy it, and the hand-wringing about inherited wealth is the Director’s share.”
Saying that, Yuni even clapped as if teasing him and laughed. He shook his head.
“Wow... ruthless, Baek Yuni.”
“You’re just too finicky about that stuff, Director. Just enjoy it. You can give your babies a good time like this, and it’s great. Having a lot handed down doesn’t mean it’s all advantages, but if you don’t even enjoy the advantages, that’s just a loss.”
Leaning between the driver’s and passenger’s seats, Juhan joined their conversation.
“I completely agree with Baek Yuni on this one. If it really feels burdensome, you can hand it all over to me. It’s your baby, Director.”
This time, in the mirror, he scrunched his face.
“Did you catch it from Choi Inwoo or what—why do you keep going on about ‘baby.’ Why would you be my baby? You’re all grown, and it’s creepy.”
“Anyway you call your lovers honey and baby, don’t you, Director. Are your lovers not grown? They’re all going to be huge, bulging muscle men. Ugh...”
Juhan was still treating the talk from the garden as a settled fact. Since he hadn’t exactly denied it or confirmed it, I couldn’t know whether brawny men were really his type, but even someone not brawny like me had ended up in bed with him. Of course, we hadn’t gone all the way, and if my faded memory was right... I had knocked out before he even finished....
“If they’re lovers, they’re lovers—what do you mean lovers plural. And have you ever actually seen my baby or honey? Talk after you see one, please.”
Sliding off the elevated ramp and slowing for a green light ahead, he reached between the seats and pinched Juhan’s cheek.
The Phantom family looked close beyond a simple workplace relationship, but it seemed they didn’t really know his private life. Inwoo, his long-time friend, seemed the same. He was open and kind with people close to him, but the hidden parts stayed his own territory. It was probably like that not only for bedroom matters but for his private life in general.
Whether there had been someone in the past who was allowed inside a private interior that didn’t yield easily, and whether there was someone now. With that curiosity, I found myself studying his face in the mirror.
I know I’m not seasoned about things like this. Conversely, for him, catching the clumsy glances of someone ten years younger sneaking looks would be nothing. Feeling again like our eyes had met in the mirror, I hurriedly turned my head and looked out at the exotic street.
We were diving deeper and deeper into Hong Kong’s crowded streets where red signs covered in brush-script Chinese characters, gaudy electronic boards, and neon lights all mingled.
The car moved off with the light, and at the next light we slid straight through without waiting.
“Huh? What is this, Director. Why aren’t we going toward the apartment?”
Yuni snapped her head back toward the hill road on the right and asked in a puzzled voice.
“Didn’t I tell you? We’re staying at a hotel this time.”
“That’s the first I’ve heard.”
“Mm... I thought I’d said it.”
He scratched under his chin with his index finger and spoke breezily. I didn’t know why, but judging by her reaction, it seemed likely he’d left it unsaid on purpose.
“Even if we’re staying at a hotel, since when have you handled that kind of admin yourself, Director? Hm?”
A little flustered by the schedule change, she thrust her phone toward him and made a fearsome face.
“You looked too busy, Baek Yuni. I figured if I told you to book the hotel too, you’d grab me by the collar, so I handled it.”
At his playful tone, she sank back into her seat and pushed up her sunglasses.
“Even so, I wouldn’t grab you by the collar. I would have just glared hard enough to burn through the back of your head.”
Laughing, he stretched an arm out and lightly mussed her hair.
“During the fair, you need real rest at night. We can’t each have our own room in my apartment with five people.”
“The master bedroom is a sports field. If we each sleep at opposite ends of that bed, it’s basically like separate rooms. Ihyeon won’t take up much space anyway, and he won’t gripe that this is this and that is that like Gwon Juhan.”
“Why are you dragging me in when I’m minding my business again.”
Juhan grumbled, but she didn’t respond to that.
“Mm... so you’re saying I should share a room with Seo Ihyeon?”
This time I could be sure he was looking at me in the mirror. His expression seemed like he was even imagining what it would be like if we did share a room.
“Why? You can’t even share a room with a guy who isn’t your type?”
Yuni bristled, but he only laughed. Then he changed the subject.
“Will you forgive me if it’s the F Hotel?”
At the hotel’s name, her complexion changed. Juhan’s ears perked too; he widened his eyes and looked back at me, but with no information about that hotel, I couldn’t join their reaction.
“It’s not about forgiving or not forgiving... It’s just, if there are changes, please tell me ahead of time.”
Rubbing a finger along the dashboard, she couldn’t hide a smile.
“A harbor-view, one person to a room, for everyone?”
“Whether you tell me ahead or not—how is that even important?”
Switching tack immediately as if nothing had happened, she turned to face Juhan and they shared their delight. That hotel had them both pretty excited. Maybe this too was part of a surprise he’d prepared for them.
“Honestly, spending the Director’s money in Hong Kong doesn’t even feel wasteful.”
“You two don’t feel wasteful spending my money in Seoul either.”
“Because you’re rich!”
They shouted in unison. He shook his head, still smiling.
With a large, old-looking beige building on the right, he turned the wheel left. Soon the lavishly dressed hotel drive appeared. The car was slowing, but my heart seemed to run ahead of it.
My first impression of Hong Kong was passionate humidity and heat, a blend of past and present, the strange balance born of disorder, and the glances that probed one another through the rearview mirror.
■ ■ ■
Phantom had about one hundred and twenty works to show at this art fair.
With no time to admire the hotel room’s extravagant view and interior—Victoria Harbour and Tsim Sha Tsui spread out below—we headed straight to the exhibition hall and began by unwrapping the bubble wrap that had the one hundred and twenty-odd paintings swaddled tight.
Because we would have to repack the works in the same bubble wrap after the show, we couldn’t just rip it apart at random. All five of us had wrapped them in multiple layers through the night, and unwrapping each carefully one by one could have been tedious, but whether from a light excitement, I felt neither tedium nor bodily fatigue. Compared to packing, unwrapping was simpler anyway.
He only dropped us off and left the hotel right away to meet staffers from other city galleries we had ties with, and the manager was scheduled to arrive here a few hours later after finishing Phantom’s work in Seoul, so display was up to the three of us.
In five hours there would be a preview opening for VIPs. Before that, we had to finish the display, go back to the hotel to get ready, and return. The schedule wasn’t generous, but we were fairly confident now about our working rhythm.
Yuni took on unwrapping; Juhan took on hanging the unwrapped works. I went back and forth, lending a hand wherever it was short in the moment.
“I could just die from how smug they are, seriously.”
Handing the thirty-second piece I’d received from Yuni over to Juhan, he muttered while glancing past my shoulder at the booth across. I snuck a look back—mm... their situation was very different from ours.
Unlike our side, where separated bubble wrap and still-wrapped works filled the whole booth in a mess, the staff across the way were chatting and installing with total leisure. At a glance, they’d brought maybe only thirty pieces, so there was no need to hurry.
“They can sell for full price just fine in their own country, so there’s no need to schlep heaps of work all this way paying airfare, shipping, and staff travel. And they probably brought expensive works that make back the cost with just a few sales.”
Yuni said it as she worked the wrap with practiced hands. Her explanation continued.
“Compared to small and mid-size domestic galleries, the fact that we can even participate in overseas art fairs means we’re on the lucky side. For the next few years we’ll still have to bring a hundred-plus and suffer like this. Just watch. Someday I’m bringing only twenty, hanging them in a flash, and heading out to Kau Kee for noodles.”
Even looking composed, she had her competitiveness toward them too; she even raised a fist in the air before going back to unwrapping. If she said she would do it, I really believed she would.
“Even so, they’ll end up sleeping in some palm-sized business hotel room and suffering the tourist noise, right? You can search this whole venue and you won’t find any staff who got driven from the airport in a Phantom and have one-person rooms at the F Hotel except us. Even the big galleries—Perrotin, Gagosian—they don’t go this far. In a way, we’re the winners.”
I carefully lifted the next work, fresh out of its wrap, and carried it to Juhan. He hung the picture in the position marked on the plan we’d prepared and drew a line through item 33 on the list.
“Was that car earlier... a Phantom?”
While helping Yuni peel tape from the bubble wrap, I asked lightly. Without pausing her hands, she glanced up at me and grinned.
“Yeah, funny, right? I don’t know whether the car Phantom came first or the gallery Phantom came first, but it must be the Director’s thing. He seems to have three or four Phantom models alone. The one in Seoul is a Ghost, a kind of baby Phantom, but for a ‘baby’... it’s bigger than most full-size luxury sedans. Cheaper than a Phantom, sure, but the price is still over four hundred million won, so if anything it’s a giant baby.”
Handing me the thirty-fourth work, she added this:
“In my view, what matters to him about those cars isn’t their price or prestige. It’s the names. Phantom, Ghost... they’re all ghosts.”
Gallery Phantom.
If I pictured his pale blue eyes like sea-foam that seemed ready to shatter and his indifferent, detached air, it was a very fitting name. I’d never thought about whether there was a reason behind it, but buying up high-priced cars named Phantom and Ghost as if fixated on the meaning of “ghost” didn’t feel like a simple collecting itch.
But since even Yuni and Juhan didn’t know the story behind it, if I asked, they would surely shrug and change the subject.
