Wonderland

In the photo, Yuni nuna and Juhan hyung stood in a narrow alley on a steep slope — looked comfortable as themselves without exaggeration or concealment — they looked like part of that city rather than tourists.

Just as Bali symbolizes paradise for Morae and Yeehan hyung, perhaps Hong Kong is that kind of city for Yuni nuna.

And while reading that passage, for the first time, I felt a desire to visit a strange city I didn't even know well. I had listened to Morae and Yeehan hyung go on about Bali for years without ever once thinking it might be somewhere I could actually go.

A desire to look at things with curiosity, to experience them directly with my own eyes and hands rather than through photographs or books. These desires were confusing.

Because I had been thinking that every desire to want something had naturally faded away.

It seemed as if they had simply dried up and withered on their own from some point in the past — like unwatered plants, quietly returning to dust. I never tried to kill them deliberately. It was only my inaction that let them die.

So the reactions I'd been having lately — to things around me, to small stimuli — were bewildering before they were anything else. Before welcome, before frightening: just bewildering.

It felt like opening eyes I'd long kept shut, certain they no longer worked — and finding out I could still tell light from dark. Not clearly enough yet to make out the shapes of things. But something in me was beginning to register that the world had light in it, and shadow, and that they created depth.

I wanted to visit Hong Kong. I wanted to smoke cigarettes in those streets in the photographs with nuna and hyung.

Hong Kong — a city I'd had zero interest in before, merely a former British colony returned to China at the tail end of the twentieth century, yet one that still maintained its own distinct language, culture, and customs separate from the mainland, a city frequently cited as among the most expensive in the world alongside Singapore and New York — suddenly came at me as a living fascination, with its own expressions and scents, its own habits and distinctive ways of speaking.

I scrolled all the way to the bottom. In the final photo of the post, the two of them stood close together against a glittering Hong Kong night street, smoking. It wasn't a posed shot — it looked like a candid moment someone had caught.

As if they'd spotted something captivating, both were looking in the same direction with their eyes open a little wider than usual. Someone who had been watching them continuously must have caught the moment in the lens.

In the corner of the photo: Photo by Kun.

Liu Weikun.

I only learned his full name once he officially became the Director of the organization I belonged to.

I imagined him on the other side of the lens, framing the two of them. It wasn't hard to picture — the three of them in those Hong Kong streets, passing the camera back and forth, living in the moment. People who, each with the most distinct individuality, could share the same space without needing to wear each other down.

I brought the mug to my lips, thinking about their bond — how they moved through the world together, different in age, background, and standing at Phantom, without ever sorting themselves into the one who had power and the one who didn't. The coffee was cold. A light sigh escaped me.

The awkward friction I'd felt that night at the tapas bar — tucked away like a hideout — wasn't entirely down to my own cheerless personality.

Until now, I had tried to protect myself by "choosing nothing." I believed that by continuously refusing to move forward to whatever came next, I could stay in the present and hold myself together.

But doing nothing wasn't a way to maintain the status quo.

Bricks, plastic cups, and erasers can hold their current state if left untouched. Generally speaking, they can.

But living things couldn't. Without water, without nutrients, without a window cracked open for air — they would grow impoverished. The mind, the emotions, even a person's unique individuality and talent.

Morae, Yeehan hyung, Yuni nuna, Juhan hyung, the Teacher, and the Director. Even Inwu hyung. They were all luminous people. People who poured their own convictions and passions into their lives.

Surrounded by their abundant light, I myself was nothing more than dried-up mud, lacking even the nutrients to sprout a single blade of grass.

That was the result of my "choosing nothing."

I took another sip of coffee. I exhaled slowly, the way you might open a window to let the air in. Sitting here any longer wouldn't change anything.

I closed the tab and opened the illustration program instead. The work, using only two colors — black and white — was the result of a week's worth of practice.

It goes without saying, but I had almost no professional skills to speak of. What I could do at Phantom was mostly miscellaneous: helping deliver sold artworks, moving heavy loads, providing basic guidance to visitors when others were away or busy.

Thinking I needed to at least learn the basics of Illustrator or Photoshop right away, I'd borrowed Manager Han's laptop and bought a few books Yuni nuna and Juhan hyung recommended. They came with video tutorials, so I could pick up the most basic functions quickly — but it still wasn't enough to be genuinely useful at work.

But just because I wasn't useful right now didn't mean I could stay stuck with only tasks like updating the client address book, sorting returned mail, cleaning, or driving. I had to be more useful. I wanted to be.

A daily life that would continue even without doing anything — I had already given that up myself, from that rainy dawn when I stepped over the threshold of the front gate and left my father behind.

"What's this, Seo Yeehyeon, studying illustration these days?"

Someone placed a hand on my right shoulder from behind and leaned their face over my left shoulder. It was Juhan hyung.

As he took off his sunglasses and looked at the screen, I felt embarrassed by my clumsy work under his gaze, but I didn't try to hide it.

"Oh? Is this, by any chance, an advertising draft you were sketching out?"

Yuni nuna hopped onto the stool next to me and angled the laptop more toward herself.

We had voluntarily decided to come in on Saturday to reduce some of Monday's workload. Because Yuni nuna wanted to buy a few plants to decorate the gallery, the plan was to meet here, stop by the flower market, and then head over to Phantom. I hadn't expected the two of them to arrive a full twenty minutes early.

Showing someone my weak spots brought on as much tension as showing my work to others.

"It's not that… I was just practicing…"

"Not bad. It's more surprising you pulled this off with basic skills, hey."

Tapping my shoulder, Yuni nuna spoke in a quiet tone. It didn't sound like something she was just saying.

All of Phantom's work these days was focused on preparing for Shushu's solo exhibition, which had been moved up a week ahead of schedule.

Since Shushu was one of Phantom's key artists, Phantom had decided to take out an advertisement for the exhibition in an art magazine, and nuna and hyung had to draft the concept on top of everything else.

It wouldn't be much help, but I had squeezed these ideas out as a way to practice the skills I was learning, and to do something. It felt like I had to do something.

"You've been studying Shushu's work a bit, haven't you?"

Juhan hyung patted my shoulder and smiled.

"The clear outline is good. The color palette is simple overall, but the imagery is dynamic — it's exactly the artist's style, isn't it? We can definitely keep this part and use it as is. Is that okay?"

Nuna pointed toward the image — something like a wave, fluid and moving, built entirely from black letterforms.

"I'd be grateful if you did."

"Then shall I send it to my email right now?"

While nuna opened a browser window to log into her email, Juhan hyung stepped away briefly to order drinks.

I fiddled with my coffee cup, waiting for nuna to finish.

The front of the café opened directly onto a large window with a view of the street on a Saturday afternoon. Sitting in a place like this watching people felt utterly unreal, almost like watching television. My surroundings had changed so rapidly over the past month or two that my current life often didn't feel real.

It was the same feeling I'd had in the taxi on the way home after my first day at Phantom — that strange fear that if I went back, Phantom would simply be gone.

It was all a dream, Seo Yeehyeon-ssi. Time to return to reality — as if someone was about to grab me by the collar and say those words.

"Oh? Were you looking at the Old Future website?"

Seeing Yuni nuna smile at me as she said that brought a measure of relief. It was still reality. At least, for now.

"Yes, the content is quite varied so I was looking around for a while. Oh, nuna — there's a pair of pants I want to buy from Old Future. These ones."

I found the thumbnail of the pants I'd been looking at on the Old Future site and showed it to her.

"Is it okay if I give you the money directly and take them?"

"What, are you trying to repay me because you received a gift?"

"No. Well, not entirely no — I just thought they were pretty."

At my strange answer — neither a yes nor a no — nuna touched her eyebrow piercing and laughed.

"Doing it that way is fine — but you could just sign up and pay yourself."

"My phone… it's not under my name. When I tried, I couldn't sign up."

"Not in your name? Then whose? In this day and age, it must be really inconvenient if your phone isn't registered under your own name."

Juhan hyung returned after placing the order, set the vibrating buzzer on the bar, and naturally joined the conversation.

"It's something like a burner phone…"

Even if I couldn't become a full employee at Phantom, Yuni nuna and Juhan hyung were connections I wanted to keep. But since I had now reached the position of working at the same gallery, I expected that someday I would have to give them some sort of general explanation of my current situation, even if I couldn't tell them everything.

If you spend time together every day, seeing each other's faces, you're bound to sense when someone's circumstances are not ordinary.

"A burner phone? Why are you using one?"

Juhan hyung lowered his voice as he asked, pulling his stool a little closer to me.

"It's not just related to me, so I can't go into detail… but before I moved to Manager Han's place, the hyung and nuna I was living with — it's more or less like we ran away from the village we were originally from. So…"

"The three of you ran away?"

Juhan hyung's long, narrow eyes took on a slightly shrewd look.

"Yes."

"An unusual escape. Two men and one woman?"

"Yes."

"Are those two by any chance a couple?"

This time I just nodded, and Juhan hyung nudged me with his elbow, smiling somewhat slyly.

"Hey — Seo Yeehyeon has no sense of social cues."

"You think he'd just thoughtlessly wedge himself between a couple? There has to be more to it than that."

Yuni nuna was being generous with me... but perhaps I really was as clueless as Juhan hyung said.

I knew Morae nuna and Yeehan hyung had never seen it that way. But whatever they thought, if you looked at the situation on its own terms — two of them a couple, three of us running — it was hard to argue with "clueless." There wasn't much room for defense.

"So that's why you couldn't get hired as a full-time employee."

Yuni nuna rested her chin on her hand, tapping the piercing on her lip with her finger, nodding as if she finally understood.

Given the circumstances, working in a way that left records accessible by the National Tax Service or any other agency was risky. Because of that, I couldn't sign a formal employment contract and ended up getting paid slightly less per day than others even at the moving company. That sort of thing sometimes happens with day labor, and the foreman — who was essentially my employer — was someone who had seen all sorts of people and hired me without asking too many questions. I was lucky.

What I hadn't expected was that Phantom's Director — known to be particular about people — would try to hire me even after learning about my situation.

That night, at Manager Han's dining table, I had assumed the offer stood only because he didn't yet know my situation. That once he understood I couldn't be registered as a proper employee, that there'd be no clean paperwork, that he might get pulled into something messy — he'd take it back.

But when Manager Han came back from speaking with him, she laid out the terms: he'd agreed to skip the formal registration for now, until things improved. Even setting my circumstances aside entirely, the terms of the offer were excellent.

Even if there were other reasons for his decision that I wasn't aware of, and even if it might later become my weakness, for now I was grateful anyway.

Right now, I wanted badly to be part of Phantom — badly enough to take the risk.

"But I see you differently now, Seo Yeehyeon. I thought you were just a good boy from a good home, but you turn out to be a troublemaker with a burner phone. Still — you aren't running around after committing some crime, are you?"

Juhan hyung gnawed at the end of a green straw as he asked, and I burst out laughing and shook my head. Perhaps embarrassed by his own question, he let out a small laugh too.

"I'm curious about your story, but just looking at you, Seo Yeehyeon, you're clearly not the type to spill — so I won't ask."

Nuna playfully draped an arm over my shoulder and said,

"I always thought it was funny how well you fit with us — we're openly greedy about everything, and you always looked like someone who needed nothing at all. Turns out there's a reason. And honestly, scratch the surface of anyone and there's something there. You can look completely fine and have no idea what's going on underneath."

This time, Juhan hyung placed his hand on my shoulder with a soft, heavy thump.

The buzzer on the bar rattled violently. Yuni nuna frowned at the unpleasant noise and quickly grabbed it.

"Let's get our drinks and head out. We need to leave if we're going to stop by the market before heading to the office. It should line up roughly with the Director's arrival at the gallery, right?"

This place, where Phantom still existed, was still my reality.