I clenched my fist at the end to hold the tears tight. Showing feeling isn’t always weakness, but I didn’t want to be sentimental now.
Unfolding her arms, the teacher pushed off from the shelf and came up to me. She set both hands on my shoulders, smiled, and looked deep into my face.
“Take it as an expression of thanks for that.”
Was she his mother.
From the air between them I’d had a faint suspicion, and while listening to her, suspicion had edged toward certainty. It didn’t seem likely that someone who wasn’t family would know about the alienation he felt—alienation that even family or parents couldn’t fully share. He wasn’t the type to share his solitude with others.
Like a teacher from childhood, she gently cupped my cheek once and let go, then went back to the shelf and began to wrap the picture.
“A long time ago... I decided there were things more important than painting, and that for them I’d put painting down for a while. For about two years I let it go. Not painting, the slump naturally came. This was painted at the end of that slump, and it’s like a diary I never meant to put out into the world.”
Her hands slowed for a moment as she wrapped the picture in paper with a texture like hanji and tied twine around it. She lifted her gaze to the window that ran wide along the wall like a horizontal frame, holding a view of Hong Kong.
“I thought something had died inside me and that was why I couldn’t paint anymore... and then one day I thought, maybe it’s that I’m dead because I’m not painting.”
She pulled the twine tight in a knot, took the picture, and came back to stand before me. Handing it over, she smiled.
“That I can’t be myself except through painting... probably means something like that.”
She said she was sorry she couldn’t spare more time, but it was hard to believe we’d shared only about thirty minutes; what I saw and heard and felt in that span flowed far past anything I’d expected or braced for.
After a brief hug and goodbyes, when I went down the stairs with him and we stepped back out into the noisy street, I felt hazy, as if I’d crossed a boundary between dimensions. My senses couldn’t keep up «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» with the speed of the experience. It was like the state I’d been in when I woke on his bed after hyperventilating.
“Are you okay?”
At his voice I slowly lifted my head. From a little higher than me, worried eyes looked down. It struck me afresh that he was worried about me.
No, there was nothing new in that.
He was the one who steadied me when I spiraled into hyperventilation and couldn’t pull myself together—moments I don’t even remember. When I finally calmed down and left his bedroom and returned to the living room, the picture was already gone. Thinking it might have been the trigger for the attack, he had deliberately put it away. According to the teacher, that picture he’d cared for to the point of obsession.
I’d known for a while that the hostile wariness he showed at the start wasn’t the whole of his consistent, stubborn way of dealing with people. He could be cold even to Phantom’s members or to Inwoo, but that wasn’t all of him either.
How had I clung to him? To someone who knew I wouldn’t die but suffered as if I would, clinging with everything—how had he soothed me, managed me, changed my clothes, and laid me in bed?
What was his alienation. What kind of alienation made him resonate with .
I thought after meeting the teacher I’d think only of her, but against expectation I could think only of him.
“Looks like you burned a lot of energy... If you want to rest, I’ll take you back to the hotel. I’ll make something up for those two.”
He was right. I hadn’t wrestled with the teacher, but I felt limp, as if all the moisture had drained from my body.
And yet—why didn’t I want to be apart from him.
The lassitude was there, but excitement was rising too. Even if I went back to the hotel, I clearly wouldn’t sleep easily. I didn’t avoid his gaze and shook my head.
Why—something like discomposure flickered in his eyes as he looked at me. Not the kind of discomposure that wished I’d go back to the hotel because I hadn’t; it was the kind that broke through his control and showed emotion, like when he crushed the business card he’d taken from me. But it didn’t last.
“Okay then. Let’s get in the car.”
He didn’t try to persuade me further.
For a moment he seemed to hollow himself out, then he pulled his gaze back in a hurry and brushed past me. Holding the rear door open, he urged me in with a look. Chasing the faint scent that lifted from his shoulder, I climbed into the car.
■ ■ ■
It was a local restaurant with a signboard lettered in bold, vigorous gold characters.
When we went in, several people were finishing late meals at tables lined along a narrow corridor to the right. Despite the fancy sign, the interior was simple and friendly. A casual Hong Kong place where you could fill up without a fuss.
Farther in, at a corner table set diagonally like a rhombus as if to add a touch of style, were my sister and my brother. My face lit up before I knew it. I hadn’t been wandering alone in a strange place, and yet in this unfamiliar city, just reuniting after a few hours apart made their faces look that glad.
“Oh? What’s this. Why are you two coming together?”
Sitting facing the corridor, my brother Juhan spotted us first, threw up a hand, and called out. True to people who’d been hyped to enjoy Hong Kong’s Friday night, both of them were more amped up than usual.
“He said he felt better, so I swung by the hotel and brought him.”
He answered as he perched on a backless old wooden chair. My sister and brother sat facing each other across the square table, so he and I also took seats across from each other.
“Right, you were really looking forward to seeing Soho. You can’t miss Soho on a Friday night.”
My brother grinned and tapped my back, and I grinned back. Saying I’d really been looking forward to Soho felt a little embarrassing in front of him, but it was true.
“For a guy who never says what he wants to do, the way you were searching this and that on your phone was so cute.”
Yuni joined in, pinched my cheek without hurting, and giggled. This time he suddenly weighed on my mind. I didn’t really want it known that I’d been as excited as a kid.
I pretended not to notice his gaze crossing to me—do you really—then rubbed the spot she’d pinched with my palm, though it didn’t hurt.
“Let’s get some food too. I haven’t had dinner yet either.”
Before I could answer, he waved someone over and (of course) spoke with the staff in fluent Cantonese. Maybe it was a familiar place—he ordered without even looking at a menu.
Hearing him in Cantonese made him seem like a slightly different person; it was fascinating. I’d heard him switch among a few languages on the phone at Phantom, but watching him speak with a local in front of me felt different again.
“The wonton is soft—easy to eat.”
His eyes suddenly came to me. Caught staring, I glanced at my sister in a fluster.
I still didn’t have much appetite, but I nodded belatedly, thinking he might have remembered I hadn’t eaten anything at the hotel.
“Boss, another wonton noodles for me.”
My brother Juhan cried out urgently as he lifted the very last strand from what little noodles remained.
“Milk tea for me.”
That was Yuni’s request this time. Glancing between the two, he finally looked down at the stack of empty dishes on the table and let out a light sigh.
“Right, for our staff who work day and night, I should buy as much as you can eat.”
After the server took the order and cleared the empties, he shifted, crossing his legs, then suddenly slanted his eyes at my sister.
“What. Why are you looking at me with that ominous smile again.”
She was smiling with playful mischief, straw between her lips in what little milk tea was left.
“Honestly, I love Hong Kong enough to live here, but I don’t find the language itself—Cantonese—all that charming.”
“......”
“But you’re kind of sexy when you speak it. Maybe because it’s a side we never see.”
A handful of old Hong Kong films were all I had to go on for Cantonese and for Hong Kong, and in my recollection those characters traded noisy lines in an accent that felt rather strong. But his Cantonese was calm and easy. I wanted to hear more of that unfamiliar language in his slightly husky low voice. Maybe... sexy was the word. I suppose a lot of people think of him that way.
“The content is praise, so why does the smile feel so ominous.”
“I just find it funny that I’m suddenly thinking you’re sexy.”
Chewing the end of her straw, Yuni kept grinning. There was no sexual meaning in her “sexy.” It was the suddenness of discovering an objective charm in someone you live with like family. He accepted it without putting any weight on it either. Maybe because it was a compliment he’d heard too often.
Shaking his head as if she were hopeless, he lifted the camera hanging from his neck and clicked the shutter at her impish smile. Just like in his garden, she wasn’t the least bit awkward when a camera turned on her without warning.
“What did you buy, all this?”
Bending to check the image on the screen, he noticed something under the table and spoke in surprise.
“Old Future’s new pieces. Cleaned them out again.”
I’d noticed them when we sat, but properly looking, I saw more than ten shopping bags hidden under the flashy floral tablecloth. In the little free time they’d had, it seemed the two of them had bustled for Old Future instead of eating, drinking, or taking time for themselves.
“Anyway, amazing. Where does that energy come from. You on tonics or something?”
At his genuinely astonished face, my sister and brother burst out laughing.
“Today we came fully prepared to set our Seo Ihyeon up right.”
Setting her milk tea down, Yuni dug through one of the bags under the table and pulled out a tee. A striped knit tee. I caught her hands as she held it up under my face to see if it suited me.
“Sis, this... I can’t take it. I can’t.”
“Hey, who said I’m giving it. Pay later when Old Future updates it.”
That was my brother Juhan, draining the last broth from his wonton noodles.
“Oh, strong-arming him. So don’t refuse, Ihyeon.”
She brushed my hands aside. I knew they were saying it on purpose to put me at ease. Whether I paid or not, I was grateful they’d thought of me at all, in the middle of being that tired and that busy.
“The moment I saw it, it screamed you. I couldn’t not get it.”
This time I couldn’t refuse as she brought the tee to my chest again.
A loosely knit sweater in thin yarn, with an easy neckline and an overall drape that seemed to fall downward—oversized. On someone like my brother it might work, but on me it felt too fashionable; still, I trusted her eye absolutely.
“It’s pretty, but... won’t it be a bit hot.”
He raised the camera to eye level as he spoke. Worried the lens might swing my way, I tilted my head toward my sister.
“Everywhere you go the AC’s blasting—you’ll be fine. And it’s thinner than it looks, the knit is loose so air moves right through. Look.”
She slipped her fingers through the spaces between knots. Not see-through, but loose enough that if you tried, you could see inside.
“Mm... isn’t it a bit racy?”
“......”
Without meaning to, I looked at him—and click, the shutter snapped. Whether it was because I wasn’t used to the camera or because of the word racy out of his mouth, my ears burned in an instant.
Having emptied his bowl, my brother popped the last fish ball into his mouth as if none of this interested him, and my sister silently stared at him, steady.
“What now.”
“You look at Ihyeon and think that? Total beast.”
Scolding his put-upon look, she spread the knit tee and covered my face. I hated my own inexperience, heating up too easily at a meaningless little tease. I wanted to handle myself and the situation more deftly, more calmly, but keeping my mouth shut was the best defense I had.
Just then new dishes arrived at the table, and the topic shifted naturally.
“Boss, you had the driver with you, right? When we head out, call the car around for a minute. We need to load this up.”
My brother Juhan looked up at him, a noodle clamped in his teeth. In Seoul he always seemed to drive himself, but in Hong Kong it seemed common for him to ride while someone else drove.
“Yes, understood. Mr. Gwon Juhan.”
