Golden

Gallery Phantom.

The gallery, with its somewhat grandiose name, was located midway up the slope leading toward Bugaksan, tucked behind the Hanok Village. The lot wasn't particularly spacious, but compared to the charming, smaller buildings surrounding it, it was a fairly substantial two-story structure.

The Teacher had given me a rough overview of the situation on the way over, assuring me that the tasks I'd be assigned were simple and required no special knowledge — nothing to worry about. Even so, as I followed her through the heavy main gate that radiated a cool, imposing presence, I still doubted whether someone as completely unfamiliar with this world as I was could actually be of any help.

"Just do exactly as the staff instructs. I haven't seen you in ten years, but watching how you manage my house tells me everything I need to know. These are simple tasks any beginner can handle, so don't worry. Okay?"

As we passed through the compact, high-ceilinged hall just inside the entrance and climbed the stairs to the second floor, the Teacher lightly patted my back.

The staircase was elegant and wide, made of a material that was nearly white — almost the color of pale ash. Each step felt too delicate to land on carelessly.

"Manager! Artist Yoon-nim¹ is currently..."

"I'll handle Artist Yoon from here. Here — the present I brought."

"......"

The Teacher positioned me in front of her, placed both hands on my shoulders from behind, and gently pushed me forward a step. The person who suddenly found herself face-to-face with me at close range simply looked up at me without a word. Her expression showed she hadn't grasped the situation. Mine wasn't much different.

As soon as we stepped onto the second floor, several spaces divided by partition walls came into view, and through the corners that turned in different directions like a small maze, glimpses of artwork hanging on the walls caught my eye.

The space was overwhelmingly, almost pathologically, white. Even though the partitions holding the paintings were understandable, the floor — like the staircase — was the same pale, near-white ivory. The structural ceiling, elevated above the partitions with a gap of open space, was the same.

In that white space, the only person standing before me was entirely black.

Everything was black: the short, bobbed hair that looked as though it had been deliberately dyed an even deeper black; the blouse with puffed shoulders; the sweatpants that clashed completely with the blouse; the slippers; even the oversized horn-rimmed glasses.

From my natural stance, I found myself looking down at the crown of her head. Despite her petite height and small frame, the image she projected was intense. Even the eyes looking at me over the lenses were a clean, sharp black. It was a gaze devoid of hostility or warmth — a direct, unfiltered look that simply asked who I was.

"This is the friend who's been helping with my new place — the one I mentioned. I asked him to help out at the gallery just for today. He's good at everything, so he'll be useful."

That was the Teacher's answer to her unspoken question. She turned her gaze away from me and shrugged.

"Having one more person is better, I suppose. Manager Han, please deal with Artist Yoon-nim quickly. My phone is about to explode."

"Alright, I'll go take care of it right now. Where did Juhan go?"

"He went down to Section C to get some pieces."

That was the end of it. The woman with the short black bob returned to where she'd been working, and the Teacher hurried out of the gallery to resolve the trouble with Artist Yoon. She was probably overestimating my social skills.

The woman, who had been cutting something at a makeshift workbench, glanced my way and spoke quickly.

"I'm sorry to bother you right after meeting you, but I'm quite busy, so I'll get straight to the point. Could you go down to the basement and help move some artwork? Open that door and go down the stairs — there's a beanpole down there who could use an extra pair of hands."

This wasn't the time for standing around feeling awkward. Following her instructions, I opened the white door marked "STAFF ONLY" and headed down. A narrow staircase led directly to the basement storage.

The heavy steel door fitted with a security system was wide open, so I didn't need to search for the person she'd mentioned.

In the large space — entirely white, just like the floor above — I easily spotted a man dressed head-to-toe in black, just as the woman upstairs had been.

He was roughly my height, maybe slightly taller, with a lean build and unusually long limbs, his back turned to me as he moved between the paintings. The heavy lace-up boots he wore looked like something off a punk rock stage.

"Excuse me..."

"Aargh! Shit, you scared me!"

I thought I'd made enough noise coming down the stairs, but perhaps he was too absorbed in his work to notice. Even my cautious call made him jump violently — he nearly lost his footing.

Turning around, the man's face was as distinctive as his attire. It had a mask-like quality that made it difficult to categorize as handsome or not — just distinctly, memorably its own thing. His bangs, cut in a perfectly straight line that almost poked his eyes, emphasized that individuality further. It was a face you wouldn't forget after seeing it just once.

The woman upstairs seemed to have two or three piercings on her face, but this man had far more accessories. Both exposed ears were densely adorned with hoop earrings of various sizes, like the rings of a spiral notebook, and piercings decorated his eyebrows, nose, and lips as well. A thin chain connecting a ring through the center of his lower lip to his eyebrow immediately drew the eye.

Neither the woman upstairs nor the man before me looked like what people typically imagined gallery employees to look like. And yet the aura emanating from both of them was strikingly similar.

In that all-white space, the two of them stood out with a vivid, outlined presence — as though someone had traced their silhouettes with a marker.

The man, who had stopped working and stood with his hands on his hips holding a file, wore a slightly stern expression. He was waiting for me to introduce myself.

"Teach-- Manager Han sent me. The staff member upstairs told me to come down here and help out."

"Oh — sorry, you startled me. Our Director always says this basement is haunted, so..."

The man touched the piercing on his lip absently, then seemed to collect himself.

"I'm sorting through the paintings that need to go upstairs. When I find one on the list, go ahead and move it over here."

He pointed toward the paintings gathered near the entrance and led the way into the inner space.

He would check the list and identify the section where each painting was located. The sections were clearly and systematically divided — A-1, 2, 3... B-1, 2, 3 — so finding the paintings wasn't the challenge. It was a battle of time and labor.

When he found a painting, I moved it to the entrance while he located the next. That was the process.

"By the way, what's your relationship with Manager Han?" he asked, rechecking a painting I'd just moved — the first personal question he'd ventured since we started. "She didn't find you through some last-minute gig app, did she?"

"I'm the housekeeper at her new place. The gallery was busy today, so she asked me to come help out."

"Ah, the housekeeper she recently hired..."

I nodded as he looked me over once more.

"I didn't realize you'd be this young. What's your name? Even if it's just for one night, we should at least know each other's names. I'm Kwon Juhan."

"Seo Yeehyeon."

He knelt before a painting while I held the edge of the canvas to keep it from tipping. We shook hands — much later than we should have.

"Since we're only working together for one day, let’s call each other Juhan-ssi² and Yeehyeon-ssi."

I nodded again in agreement.

He brushed the dust from his knees and stood up. Now we had to move the paintings upstairs. Twenty-four pieces in total, some mixed in that looked to be size 120 or larger. These were the works and items that would be exhibited and sold starting tomorrow. We decided to carry everything together — excluding the smallest pieces — to handle them with care.

"I might not look that sturdy, but you don't look much sturdier yourself... These are quite heavy. You absolutely cannot drop them, so stay focused. Seriously. If you drop one, our Director won't leave you, Yeehyeon-ssi, alive."

We positioned ourselves on opposite sides of the first piece. Juhan-ssi gave me a light warning, his shoulders already trembling slightly at what the Director might say.

Juhan-ssi led the way up the stairs, and I carefully followed behind. The exhibition space was on the second floor, and the staircase from the basement wasn't short. On the landing between the first and second floors, Juhan-ssi signaled for a brief pause.

"Are you... working out? You're stronger than you look... N-not bad."

"I work part-time at a moving company."

His gaze swept over me again, as if searching for signs of hard physical labor.

While we weren't drastically different in build, carrying heavy loads up and down stairs had become something I did nearly every day. It wasn't strange that I'd developed some technique.

"If it's too heavy, should I take the top end next time? Walking backward seems harder on you."

"No, it's fine. It's just that I've already moved about thirty pieces today... I'm usually not like this. Let's go again."

Juhan-ssi adjusted his still-uneven breathing and hoisted the painting again with his long, lean arms — the joints particularly prominent and sharp-looking.

Once we reached the second floor and carefully set the painting down, he immediately collapsed onto the floor.

"Argh, I can't do any more! I moved thirty pieces by myself today! My legs are shaking!"

He shouted and slapped the floor while lying flat, but the woman with the short haircut didn't even glance his way. She began briskly unwrapping the painting we'd just brought up.

It depicted stacks of old books rendered in a hyperrealistic style. Judging by the texture of the cross-sections, it didn't look like it had been created with paint alone.

"Over there. See the paper marked 'No. 1'? That needs to go on that wall. Let's carry it together."

She wasn't particularly large in build, but she clearly knew every detail of how things ran here. It seemed unlikely she'd misjudge whether she could lift a canvas based on its size.

Sure enough, the two of us had no trouble lifting the vertically oriented piece — approximately as tall as I was. This kind of work was more about technique than brute strength.

"Baek Yuni... superhuman strength as always. When did you hang everything in Section B by yourself? I told you to just leave it."

Juhan-ssi, still lying on his back staring at the ceiling, only turned his head to watch us hang the painting. Come to think of it, the section next to where she'd been working when Juhan and I first came up — which had been a mess — was now completely tidy.

"I only did what I could. You two can handle the rest later. I need to match the captions for the Section B pieces now."

"Okay."

Juhan-ssi, who'd declared he couldn't lift another finger, seemed to have recharged somewhat and suddenly sprang up, grabbing an ion drink from the makeshift workbench and twisting off the cap. I wasn't particularly thirsty, but he offered me one and I took a couple of sips.

"By the way — did you greet Yeehyeon-ssi yet? You didn't, right? You probably just put him to work the second you saw him, without so much as a hello."

"Is it wrong to ask someone to work when we met specifically to work?"

She was arranging the captions — containing the artwork's title, materials, and year of creation — in her preferred order on the workbench, but despite what she said, she paused for a moment and turned to look at me. Whether it was my imagination or not, her expression seemed slightly apologetic.

"I'm Baek Yuni."

"I'm Seo Yeehyeon."

This is a pencil, and that is a desk.

Juhan-ssi, watching our introduction — as flat as the example sentences from a beginner's English textbook — stifled a laugh from across the way, his shoulders shaking.

"That was painful to watch. Call each other Yuni-ssi and Yeehyeon-ssi — that's what we agreed on with me too."

It wasn't at all surprising that he judged me as shy. Anyone looking at me could probably tell I wasn't outgoing. I had that much self-awareness. But his assessment of her was unexpected.

Could someone who gave off the impression of bold, heavy Gothic lettering ever feel the way I did, like she was standing alone on the outside of a crowd? I couldn't quite picture it.

"Shut up. I can transform into the god of socializing if I put my mind to it."

"That's true. It's just that it's not a god — it's a machine. You're completely soulless when you're selling."

Yuni-ssi had her eyes trained on the captions, and the two of them were busy talking, so neither of them noticed — but I, standing near the stairs, couldn't miss the new presence approaching.

First came a few strands of fine hair catching the light, then a face with distinct and deep-set features came into view, and a man dressed in a sharp suit stepped swiftly onto the second-floor lobby. He was incredibly... incredibly large and striking.

"What's the point of putting your soul into sales? Souls are for artists to put into their work."

Yuni-ssi said it sharply as she placed the final caption in position. By then, the tall man had arrived right in front of the workbench where we were gathered.

"Well said."

The man interjected into the conversation with a smile.

"Director!"

Yuni-ssi's face and voice lit up with genuine delight as she addressed him.

Ah, so this was the gallery Director that Juhan-ssi had mentioned. The one who scared Juhan-ssi with rumors about ghosts haunting the basement storage.

He was very tall, lean in the way that makes height look effortless rather than heavy. His face suggested a foreigner at first glance, but something faintly Eastern lay beneath it.

"Why are you only just arriving now?"

"You know how those two are. They wouldn't let me leave, using reservations as an excuse."

He was a very tall, very handsome man. His exotic features — inexplicable unless he were mixed-race — gave him a glamorous and singular aura, something that set him apart from everything around him. This was what it meant to be someone who existed not as a person who gazed upon others, but as someone others could only gaze upon.

It was the first time in my life I'd thought something like that.

Could someone like this be a Golden Alpha?

"So, did you secure the reservations?"

Yuni-ssi had an energy about her that suggested she might grab him by the collar if the answer was no.

"Three pieces. Here's the reservation list — please put up the 'Sold Out' cards."

Yuni-ssi took the list from him, looking as if the sales revenue from those pieces were flowing directly into her own pocket. She tucked the memo into her notebook, which now appeared nearly twice its original thickness with various receipts and papers.

"We seriously thought we were going to die. We haven't even finished moving all the Section C pieces, and Artist Yoon-nim is throwing a fit because he doesn't like the order of the pamphlets."

"Yes, yes, I heard. You've both been through a lot. Manager Han will deal with Artist Yoon, so let's just wrap things up here. Hmm... let's get this done within three hours."

The man glanced at his watch, and his gaze suddenly shifted to me. All the important matters had been addressed — now he seemed to want to know the identity of the outsider who'd been standing here the whole time.

My own gaze, which had been stealing glances at him out of curiosity about this unfamiliar presence, dropped instinctively toward the base of his neck.

"Manager Han brought him just a little while ago. Asked him to help out for today only. Yeehyeon-ssi, this is our Director."

Even without looking directly at him, his gaze was inescapable. It showed no consideration for how I might perceive being stared at — he surveyed me freely, from whatever angle he pleased, as much as he wanted. The sensation was like a vice slowly tightening around my entire body.

"Hello. I'm Seo Yeehyeon."

I forced the words out over the reluctance that made me want to shrink back, and greeted him.

I wasn't unsociable, but I usually felt awkwardness in new relationships — not intimidation. Yet right now, I was shrinking.

Assuming he was an Alpha, I couldn't tell whether this unfamiliar tightening came from Alpha pheromones I'd never encountered before, or simply from his presence as a person — the kind built on accumulated experience and confidence.

As far as I knew, it was impossible for a Beta to detect an Alpha's or Omega's pheromones.

If I'd still been in that seaside village, even someone with this level of striking looks and imposing presence wouldn't have immediately made me think Alpha. But here, it was entirely plausible.

I desperately wanted the ion drink Juhan-ssi had given me. I was still holding it in my hand, but couldn't bring myself to open and drink it.

"How do you know Manager Han?"

The question came at the end of his gaze — the one that felt like a hand slowly closing and tightening.

His voice was cold and rigid, entirely unlike the one he'd used with Juhan-ssi or Yuni-ssi. There was even a hint of hostility he wasn't making any effort to conceal.

"I work as a housekeeper at Manager Han's residence."

At the edge of his gaze, his lips twitched. He seemed displeased with my stated affiliation. Fortunately, the questioning stopped there.

Turning his attention away from me, he draped his jacket over a chair at the makeshift workbench. As he rolled up his sleeves, Yuni-ssi gave him a brief update on the progress. He and Juhan-ssi would handle transporting the artwork, and my role would shift to assisting Yuni-ssi on the second floor.

Once he disappeared down the stairs with Juhan-ssi, the tense atmosphere relaxed, and it felt as though oxygen was finally being supplied again. I realized my shoulders had dropped — my muscles had been rigid the whole time.

After draining half the ion drink, Yuni-ssi held out a roll of heavy-duty double-sided tape.

"Shall we try getting along, two shy people together?"

The work proceeded smoothly. We finished attaching all the captions beside the Section B pieces, and as each painting came up from the basement, we hung it in Section C. After completing the displays through Section D in this manner, the exhibition floor was littered with all manner of debris. While the others made the remaining preparations to receive guests the next day, cleanup fell to me.

By the time both floors looked presentable, the Teacher returned with late-night snacks. Since the sun was about to rise, it was closer to an early breakfast than a late-night snack.

Everyone gathered in the office on the first floor, around the large conference table with sandwiches and coffee laid out. There was lively chatter over who would eat which sandwich.

Even with the Teacher present — the only person I knew here — I didn't feel any more at ease. He had that kind of presence: the kind that makes everyone around him feel slightly out of place just by standing near it.

Such a person truly did exist. Without looking at anyone or speaking to anyone, that man could make me feel as if I were trapped behind a glass wall, isolated entirely on my own.

It was different from being simply ignored. There was something deliberate in it — a cool, sustained indifference directed at me specifically.

"Manager Han, Yeehyeon-ssi works well. Compared to when Kwon Juhan first started, you'd believe he'd already had experience."

Yuni-ssi's praise — which she didn't seem like the type to offer lightly — was a small comfort.

"Baek Yuni, was there really no tadpole phase for you?"

"I was a frog from the start. Right, Director?"

"Hmm, Yuni never had a tadpole phase. That's why I poached her."

The man nodded as he chewed on an avocado sandwich. He was a doting boss to his own people.

After nearly five hours of labor, his appearance was considerably more disheveled than when he'd first appeared in the second-floor hall. His unusually soft-looking hair no longer held its shape, falling loose constantly. His shirt and trousers were wrinkled, and the shadows under his eyes and on his cheeks showed clear signs of fatigue.

That didn't make him look shabby, though. Just a little tired. And because of that — a little more sensitive, a little fiercer.

"Thank you, Yeehyeon-ah. If it weren't for you, we might've stayed here all night and rushed to wash up at a nearby hotel before the opening. I don't know what I would have done if I hadn't run into you."

The Teacher, seated beside me, rested her temple against my shoulder and pretended to cry. Whether it was my imagination or not, the gaze coming from the man across the table felt sharp.

"You must be tired. Would you like to take the sandwich home and eat it there?"

Perhaps due to the mental strain, I wasn't sleepy despite being long past my usual bedtime. That didn't mean I wasn't physically exhausted, though. I was too worn out to refuse the Teacher's offer.

I tucked the sandwich into my bag and was about to say goodbye when Yuni-ssi — who had been sitting at the head of the table with a corner between us — suddenly sprang to her feet.

"Yeehyeon-ssi! Could you possibly come back for tomorrow's event, just one more time?"

She seemed surprised by her own words, as though she'd blurted out the thought the moment it surfaced. She took off her glasses and set them on the table, her dark eyes still sharp after working through the night.

"Why? We've been managing fine with this team up until now."

Her short hair swung as she turned sharply to look at the man. From my angle I could only see her cheek, but she seemed to be glaring at him intensely.

"We've been barely hanging on by a thread this whole time! And Director, I think the current schedule is quite inhumane, don't you?"

"......"

The man pressed his lips together as if resigned and shrugged his shoulders. Everyone's expectant gaze — everyone's except his — fell on me. Pausing with my bag strap halfway over my shoulder, I looked at each of their faces in turn, unable to find words.

Juhan-ssi, sitting beside the man, held up one finger and made a pleading expression, his face contorted. The Teacher regarded me with a faint smile.

"Feel free to say no if you're tired or have other plans. But if, just maybe, you might be okay with it..."

"As long as I don't have to deal with clients directly... I'll help. I'm not very good with people."

I didn't entirely know why I said yes.

Maybe I sensed a nostalgia for the past in the Teacher's expression. Maybe it was the unconscious excitement of being surrounded by paintings again, helping with art-related work for the first time in so long. Or maybe it was something very twenty-two-years-old — a simple, quiet satisfaction at being useful and needed, even for small tasks.

But there was one clear reason I couldn't deceive myself about.

The moment I saw the man eating his sandwich with an expression that said he couldn't care less what decision was made, a feeling like defiance stirred in me. It wasn't powerful — but it wasn't so faint I could deny it ever existed.

While I was being given the next day's schedule, the man went on eating his sandwich and drinking his coffee — as though the whole matter was simply unavoidable.

As I left the office, he remained seated and merely gave a slight nod over the others' shoulders. Before I could even return the gesture, his gaze had already withdrawn.

The moment I got into the taxi heading home and closed the door, reality rushed in as if that had been its cue. The song playing on the radio, the driver humming along from the front seat, the scenery outside the window — all of it demanded energy just to be accepted as real.

If I turned the taxi around right now and went back, I felt certain that the place called "Gallery Phantom" would simply have vanished.

TRANSLATOR'S NOTES

1. 1 Yoon-nim (윤 님) — The suffix -nim (님) is a respectful honorific added to a person's name or title to show a high degree of respect. ↩ Back to text
2. 2 Juhan-ssi and Yeehyeon-ssi (-씨) — The suffix -ssi (씨) is a polite honorific used when addressing someone of equal or lower professional status, somewhat like "Mr." or "Ms." Here, its use between peers who have just met establishes a courteous, professional distance rather than close familiarity. ↩ Back to text