He leaned his upper body back to peer at the ID card hanging from my neck and read my affiliation out loud. Then he offered a handshake. Our eye level was about the same, but his hand was much larger than mine. I hesitated, looking down at that hand for a moment before I took it. The little snort of laughter felt like it saw straight through my fluster and awkwardness. It wasn’t a sneer.
“I’m this kind of person. I’m with a gallery in New York, but I’m from Hong Kong, so I know this side well too.”
Holding a champagne flute in one hand, he fished a case out of his jacket pocket with some effort and handed me a business card. On a simple rectangular art paper card, his affiliation was introduced in English.
He looked like a mix of East and West. The outline of his face and his hair felt strongly East Asian, but his irises were a deep blue. Facing that incongruity brought back the shock of when I first saw him. The kind of person who made me think, this must be what a Golden Alpha is like....
Talking to me—who was just standing there blankly—about the painting hanging in front of us, he didn’t give off that kind of pressure or singular aura, but there was a broad overlap: mixed East and West, and blue eyes.
“There’s a party our gallery is hosting in Soho on Sunday. If it’s okay, would you drop by with the other staff? I think it’d be fun if you came. Galleries mingle, and if you’re lucky, you might even get a chance to make some private travel memories....”
As he lowered his voice to say that, a somewhat noisy group was being guided by staff toward the paintings in the other section right behind his back. To avoid them, he turned his body and stepped in closer to me, tilting his chin slightly and looking at me from under half-lowered lids. Because we were about the same height, the distance was so small that if either of us turned our head wrong, our noses might brush; my body tensed.
“Alpha? Beta?”
Up close, his eyes were nothing like that. His eyes weren’t a distinct mineral blue like this; they were more precarious, delicate, as if they might vanish at any moment... like sea foam, or else... yes, like a ghost....
“Seo Ihyeon.”
At the sound of that voice calling me from behind, my head snapped around as if tugged.
He was striding in from the booth entrance with quick, long steps. Eyes that usually looked as if they would fade at any moment were now... blazing fiercely. Completely unlike the chill he had shown in front of .
“Wow... he’s a Golden Alpha, even at a glance. If I’d known you were walking around with that, I wouldn’t have touched it.”
Shaking his head and muttering that under his breath like talking to himself, the man slipped away with a short “nice to meet you.”
“What is that supposed to be.”
Before I could answer, he stopped in front of me as if trading places with the man and snatched the business card out of my hand.
“Seems like he’s with a gallery from New York... he said there’s a party on Sunday and asked me to come with the other staff....”
I didn’t know why I was making excuses, but his grim expression felt like it was demanding an explanation.
After studying the card, he glanced once toward where the man had disappeared. He tracked the man’s path, and I tracked his eyes, when the man’s question suddenly resurfaced.
He had asked me whether I was an Alpha or a Beta. Omega hadn’t even been an option.
“I’m already invited to another party on Sunday. Then we don’t need this, right.”
I hadn’t even lifted my head to nod okay before he had already crushed the card in his hand.
Only this man suspected I was an Omega.
“I set Sukhee Kim for Friday.”
“......”
Without throwing the crumpled card away, he slipped it into his jacket’s inner pocket and spoke quickly.
“It would have been nice to meet at leisure on the last day, but it was a hastily made appointment, ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ and that’s the only time I could get.”
“No. Even ten minutes... I’m grateful.”
He looked down at me in silence for a moment, then dragged a hand from his forehead down his face with a sigh.
“Don’t tell the kids. If you say you’re going to meet Sukhee Kim, they’ll raise hell asking to come.”
When I nodded, his eyes on me grew a little calmer. As if checking my safety, his gaze searched every corner of my face, and then he let out a low curse at something I couldn’t name and looked away.
The works I saw after that didn’t really register. My head was filled with nothing but the thought that I would be meeting Sukhee Kim.
I had decided to come because he said he would let me meet her, but until now it hadn’t felt real. Only now, with excitement that finally felt somewhat true, it was like my feet were floating a hand’s breadth above the floor.
He suddenly seemed formidable. Not only because he had the ability to let me meet Sukhee Kim, but because he was willing to go through such a troublesome process just to make me paint... that determination itself was astonishing.
He was certain about me, a stranger, but that certainty was different in nature from Grandfather’s certainty about my brother’s life, or Teacher Im’s certainty about Morae’s life.
Did he trust his own instincts to that degree? Even though what I can paint right now is only a dressed-up fake, like something by an artist named “Seo New”?
After making a loop of the venue and returning to our booth, he seemed fairly thirsty and poured himself a full glass of champagne to down at once. Then he plucked a few nuts, tossed them into his mouth like popcorn, and immediately pushed the plate far away.
“Ah, somebody clear this. I don’t even like this stuff, but if it’s in front of me I keep eating it.”
“I put it there to grab when I get sleepy. Unlike other booths, somebody’s booth did heavy labor for three hours popping bubble wrap.”
“Hmm, as far as I know, that somebody’s booth—unlike all the others—is staying at the F Hotel.”
“Damn it. I’ve got nothing to say.”
Trading jokes tangled up with my brother Juhan, he had already returned to his usual self.
■ ■ ■
I don’t know how many times it had been already when I looked down at the phone in my hand again, let out a long breath, and set it beside me. To keep even a little of my attention off the phone, I got out of bed and went to the full-height window.
From Tsim Sha Tsui at the western tip of the peninsula to Kowloon Bay in the east spread out in one unobstructed sweep within my field of view.
When people say Hong Kong’s night view, the most famous is generally the panorama looking down over the whole city from Victoria Peak, and second is the composition looking at the dense high-rises of the main island from the peninsula. That’s what my sister and my brother told me, but for me, the view right now was enough.
The buildings that had been built up close to the harbor and the lights strung along the harbor’s edge were unlike the harbor scene from the slope at Grandfather’s place, and unlike the Seoul night view I used to look down on from the rooftop platform.
It felt like proof that I had come all the way to a place that had never been on my map, exposed to a very unfamiliar situation.
This room was the same. Even after two nights here, it still felt unfamiliar and awkward, as if I’d been invited into someone else’s dream.
In just a few months my environment had changed multiple times, the people I was with had changed, and unexpected events and experiences had piled up... and now I had drifted as far as this strange city. It was hard to believe that whole journey was truly my own past. Like Hong Kong’s night view seen through thick glass, it didn’t feel real.
—♬
I turned around.
The phone, set to ring instead of its usual silent mode, was shining on the bed and emitting a plain tone. My heart vibrated in response, and that told me this wasn’t someone else’s dream. Gooseflesh rose from my back down my armpits and along my sides, across my whole body. Maybe the way my body reacted was the most vivid sense of reality.
At least in this moment, even if it was a dream, it was my dream.
“...Yes.”
[Come down. I’m at the main entrance.]
His voice was no different than usual.
That was all we said.
After a deep breath, I left the room.
As I quickly crossed the refined corridor and elevator hall dressed in beige marble and the grand lobby where elegantly dressed people came and went, I ran a hand down my forearm where it showed under my short sleeves.
I stopped at the main entrance and looked left and right for him or his car, and one of the doormen approached to say that Mr. Lau was waiting and led me.
The car waiting near the hotel entrance was different from the one we’d taken from the airport to the hotel. Much smaller, but still a luxury vehicle.
He was in the back seat the doorman opened. Sitting on the inside, he tilted his head slightly to say get in. I climbed in awkwardly, the doorman shut the door, and the car that had been waiting with its hazards on started to move smoothly. Unlike the “Phantom” he had driven himself last time, this car had the driver’s seat on the right for Hong Kong traffic, and a middle-aged stranger was at the wheel.
“When we see those guys we’ll end up drinking anyway. He’s driving us tonight.”
“Okay....”
Sensing how out of place I felt, he introduced the driver. I greeted him briefly in English, and the kindly looking driver glanced back and returned a nod.
Yuni and my brother Juhan had headed out as soon as we got back to the hotel, saying they were going to enjoy Hong Kong’s Friday night. I had said I’d rest a bit more at the hotel and get in touch. His plan was to meet the teacher first and then join them.
“Did you eat anything in the room?”
Maybe my awkwardness as I exchanged greetings with the driver amused him; he let out a small laugh and asked. He was fiddling with a camera of some sort—small enough to fit neatly in his hand.
He had told us to use room service for anything we needed while we were at the hotel, but I wasn’t in any state to swallow food. I didn’t even feel hungry. I toyed with the zipper of the bag resting by my thigh and shook my head.
“No need to be that nervous. She’ll treat you comfortably.”
His words, a little reassuring, were a relief. I nodded slowly. His gaze lingered for a long time on my hand worrying at the zipper. Eyes like he might actually reach over and squeeze, telling me not to be nervous. That didn’t actually happen.
Leaving the hotel entrance and passing the front of a large mall, the car climbed a narrow slope into the Soho area. It was a street I had so wanted to see, but right now none of it registered.
“When you meet her... what do you want to do?”
“Ah....”
I turned my eyes from the meaningless view out the window to him. After that dull little exclamation, what I said came out feeble.
“Should I have planned what to say in advance?”
Leaning his elbow on the glass and his head against it as he looked my way, he shook his head and sat up.
“No, it won’t matter. Like I said, she’s the kind of person who puts the other party at ease. Unlike me. Whatever biases or anything else, that’s a personality you rarely see in artists.”
As he said that, he took a cigarette pack out of the armrest drawer between us, glanced out the window, then put the cigarettes back and instead looped the long strap of the camera around his neck.
On the boisterous Soho street, the car was slowing down.
On a Friday night in Soho, with people of all sorts of backgrounds mixed together, music spilling from pubs and laughter and shouts from people already tipsy made the place buzz.
We got out in front of a corner building that sat against a steep uphill separating it from the building across the way. A café with a small terrace occupied the first floor, and at the terrace tables a group of about five—Westerners and East Asians mixed—were cheerfully talking over bottled beer.
“This way.”
While I was thinking, are we really meeting her in a place like this, he led toward stairs up to the second floor. Instead of calling someone, he personally unlocked the door lock at the stair entrance. As with most buildings in Soho, the exterior was old and worn, but the interior was notably modern and minimal.
I climbed the white steps—so white I felt like I ought to tread carefully—and a white door appeared. The interior we entered was white on all sides. White tile floor, white ceiling, white walls. In the middle of it, a white table and chairs set quietly.
It reminded me of the first time I set foot in Phantom. But it was far from the strictness that demanded cleanliness and purity so nothing would get so much as smudged.
Just a few steps away the whole street was in revelry, but inside this space it was as if the light of midday had pooled. It was a white that called to mind the warm, bright light that used to fill the living room of the old apartment where I lived with my mother and father.
“Is this....”
“It’s Sukhee Kim’s studio.”
“......”
“Sit for a minute and wait. She’ll be out soon.”
I had assumed we’d meet at some outside place he arranged, a restaurant or wherever, and had never imagined she would permit an outsider like me to visit her studio.
Just the awareness that I was in her studio made my palms damp, and he, having tossed me a bomb, calmly disappeared down the corridor in back.
He told me to sit, but I only set my bag on the table and stood frozen, facing the direction he had gone.
