Wonderland

"Director!"

Yuni nuna waved her hand out the taxi window and called out to him in her cheerful voice.

That familiar large sedan was already in the lot. He'd just finished parking and was stepping out of the driver's seat — he raised one hand to shoulder height in answer to her greeting. A gentle smile beneath dark sunglasses.

Nuna got out first. Juhan hyung and I followed after paying, and by the time we reached the lot, she was already standing by his car.

"What about the artworks?"

"Right behind. But —"

He slipped off his sunglasses and narrowed his eyes at the one-ton truck slowing into the space the taxi had just vacated. Ten or so pots of varying sizes were loaded in the back.

"I told you. I was going to bring some plants into the gallery."

He crossed his arms and stroked his chin.

"Hmm. Doesn't seem like a great idea to me. We'll probably just end up killing them all."

"We have someone who won't let that happen."

Nuna draped an arm over my shoulder with full confidence. He looked at me with an expression that wasn't quite convinced.

"Have you grown anything like this before?"

"My parents… they used to grow a lot of plants."

Both of them really loved plants. From relatively easy ones like snake plants, cacti, Chinese money plants, and anthuriums, to large pots like rubber trees, areca palms, and alocasias. Our small balcony used to look like a jungle.

"Well." He slipped his sunglasses into his chest pocket. "Seeing how he keeps Manager Han's place going, at least he won't let them die."

Yuni nuna caught that. "Has it gotten that clean?"

A smile spread slowly across his face — faintly mischievous.

"If you're that curious, why not come see for yourself sometime? Instead of always trailing after Kwon Juhan for nothing."

"I'll pass on equally fruitless advice from the Director. Why not help unload the plants instead?"

He laughed — a short sound — and ruffled Yuni nuna's short hair. They were exchanging barbs, but the way people who are genuinely close do, where the sharpness is part of the warmth. To someone outside that particular frequency, it was a code impossible to read.

The delivery driver handed down the pots from the truck, and the four of us quickly carried them inside.

When he suggested grabbing coffee outside while we waited for the artworks, I assumed he meant a café nearby. He didn't.

Just past the main entrance — without crossing the parking lot, turning right along the building wall — there was a secluded space ringed with well-kept shrubbery. A small courtyard, a parasol, a four-person table set.

"Working on a Saturday is already unfair — why does the weather have to be this nice?"

Taking out the sunglasses he'd tucked into his pocket and putting them on, he tilted his head back to squint at the sky past the edge of the parasol.

"The artworks could have come in tomorrow, but you're the one who wanted them fast, Director," Yuni nuna said, scraping at her ice cream with a plastic spoon.

At the café next door, he and I had ordered iced americanos; Yuni nuna and Juhan hyung had gone for ice cream. The season had leaned fully into early summer — the kind of weather where cold things were the only reasonable choice.

"Can't help it. Thinking about making money puts me in a good mood."

He lifted the takeout lid, pulled out the straw, and drank straight from the cup, grinning.

I stopped stirring my coffee. His attitude toward Shushu was so particular — so unlike anything else I'd seen from him — that reducing the artist's work to money felt jarring. He leaned back, fingers laced behind his head, entirely at ease. His face had the contentment of someone about to start humming.

"Are the new works really that good?"

"……"

Silence. Only the satisfied smile beneath his sunglasses deepened slightly. That was enough. His talk about money was just talk.

He held Shushu's work so close he couldn't bring himself to speak about it carelessly — as if even saying it aloud would diminish something. Perhaps he held the artist who made those works just as close.

"Then we need to make some money too. You remember we have a photoshoot scheduled for next Sunday, right?"

Juhan hyung had already demolished his ice cream. He dropped the spoon into the empty cup and rubbed his palms together — the expression of a very pleased Tom contemplating what to do with a caught Jerry.

The Director straightened up from his easy slump and made a face.

"Ah…"

"You forgot?"

Juhan hyung's voice went up.

"Does it have to be that day? Saturday's the opening. We'll definitely be drinking all night."

"You drink yourself into the ground and sleep it off. We'll handle the shoot and head back on our own."

Yuni nuna didn't seem the least bothered that he'd forgotten.

"I don't remember paying you poorly. What are you doing with all that money?"

"We have to go study abroad."

"Then maybe I shouldn't let you do the shoot. If you two leave, I'm the only one who loses."

They were going back and forth playfully. I seemed to be the only one caught off guard by the mention of studying abroad. Whether it was Yuni nuna's plan alone or something that included Juhan hyung, she clearly had it in mind — and the Director's reaction said it wasn't news to him.

The shadow cutting diagonally across the table had deepened. Everyone here was moving — steadily, purposefully — toward something ahead of them.

"And half my ambition, I learned from you, Director."

Working around her lip piercing as always, Yuni nuna angled the spoon in from the side to finish her ice cream, then pointed it at him. He lifted the corners of his mouth and laughed.

"I always consider that an honor. But isn't making money the most fun thing there is?"

"Exactly. What's the point of just playing? Making money is what lasts."

"You make money doing what you love — having fun doing it. Kids these days are something else. I'm jealous."

"Though we could never match your scale. We could work our whole lives and probably not afford one car like that."

Nuna gestured toward his car at the main gate — only a sliver of the front bumper visible from where we sat. He let out a short, flat laugh that didn't quite sit right. Then, as if to shake it off, he reached over and intercepted Yuni nuna's hand just as she was lifting the spoon to her lips, eating the last bite of ice cream himself. It wasn't the first time he'd pulled something like that — nuna didn't even blink, she simply scooped up more ice cream.

Judging solely by the look of him, you'd expect a certain fastidiousness. Someone particular about cleanliness, about order. In reality, he didn't seem that way at all.

"What are you talking about when you have no greed for things like that? My only joys in life are making money, buying things like that, and showing them off."

He spoke lightly, but I could feel a subtle shift among the three of them — this was a topic that could only be raised in jest. Push any deeper and the ease of the gathering would break. His materialism, Yuni nuna's studying abroad — both felt, to me, like carefully handled ground.

"What are you talking about, Director, when you don't want to live on dreams any more than we do? Give people in their twenties somewhere to work — people who have nothing but their bodies and their ambitions. Open the gate. That's all you need to do."

He still looked unhappy about it but didn't push further.

He would likely object if anyone at Phantom were to leave, but I couldn't picture him interfering deeply in someone else's life in order to keep them.

"If you don't have plans, want to come along? We're doing a shoot for new Old Future pieces, and we're using the Director's garden. It's perfectly bleak, so the photos come out really well. Completely unmaintained."

Juhan hyung had invited me — but the space in question was the Director's house. I didn't quite know how to respond. At a loss, I glanced at him, but he only grumbled playfully, as if to say, Why am I getting this kind of criticism when I'm just providing the venue? It was actually Yuni nuna who noticed my gaze and caught the implication.

"Is it because you're worried about the Director? It's fine. We're only shooting in the garden anyway. Director, is it okay if Yeehyeon comes along?"

"You said you'd do whatever you wanted while I was sleeping and head back. Do as you like. Just don't wake me up."

He said it nonchalantly, rummaging through the jacket on the back of his chair for a cigarette. Nuna scooped the last bite onto her spoon and held it out toward him in a silent question. Instead of lighting the cigarette, he leaned over and took it from the spoon. He ran his tongue over his lips and pulled a face.

"Ugh, sweet things really aren't my thing."

Yuni nuna and Juhan hyung burst out laughing.

His dislike for sweets was no surprise — but then why did he always accept whatever was offered, and why had he reached over and taken nuna's ice cream just now, when no one had offered it? I started laughing too, a beat behind everyone else, at the sheer unpredictability of it — this big, composed man behaving like a child.

The delivery truck carrying the pamphlets arrived, and as Yuni nuna and Juhan hyung got up, nuna pressed down on my shoulder: there was no need for three people to jump in for a task one person could handle, and she was planning to work me hard enough later anyway.

If it only takes one person, why not send me and let nuna stay? Being alone with just the two of us — it's still awkward.

"Speaking of which, did you quit the moving company? Or rather — now that you can't really move around freely, you had no choice but to, right?"

At least he was asking questions now. He'd stopped treating me as though I weren't there.

"Yes. It was always the kind of work you showed up to when you could."

That didn't mean he'd started caring how I felt. He was the one who'd brought it up, and he still wore his disinterest plainly.

"How have things been since then?"

"……"

But his expression changed when something caught his interest. Just like now. He finally lit the cigarette he'd been holding between his fingers and looked at me with a mischievous gleam.

I didn't know what he was referring to. I fixed my gaze on his sunglasses — or more precisely, on the eyes hidden behind them.

"Things going well with Choi Inwu?"

He seemed to recognize his own question was slightly absurd. He chuckled softly and added:

"Is he still in touch?"

"Sometimes... asking if I'm eating well. Things like that."

"Choi Inwu? Asking about food?"

As if it were impossible — like someone refusing to believe a notorious troublemaker had genuinely turned over a new leaf — he even snorted. Then he took off his sunglasses, set them on the table, and tilted his head toward his shoulder, looking at me sideways.

"Choi Inwu must be treating you like a child, Seo Yeehyeon-ssi. Asking about trivial things like whether you're eating."

I couldn't work out what he meant. Hadn't his "something like responsibility" already done its job that night — served its purpose and been retired?

Watching him smoke and drink coffee, I held back the urge to ask, Then why do you keep asking about Inwu hyung? It felt like a provocation I'd regret. Worse — it felt like it wouldn't even land as a provocation. It would just become a weakness.

The gallery was closed, but Samcheong-dong on an early summer Saturday was full of people. The courtyard was shielded by tall shrubbery, but the voices beyond were close enough to hear clearly. Every voice out there was lit with excitement.

My coffee sat untouched. The ice had melted, but the level hadn't dropped. Smoke from the cigarette in his hand drifted from shadow toward light. The edge of the parasol — cheerful blue and white stripes — fluttered. I had a sudden urge to try on the sunglasses lying on the table. But I didn't have the courage to act on it.

He rested his elbow on the table and leaned his upper body toward me. He brushed his eyebrow with the finger holding the cigarette.

"Or — did you lose his interest, now that you're not an Alpha or Omega?"

"……"

It looked, to me, like the opposite of how it had been before — as if my not being an Omega was now exactly what had caught his interest, in some crooked way. A man who had been furious I wasn't an Omega now seemed curious about it.

But even that twisted interest didn't last long. His phone vibrated on the table. He pressed out the cigarette — barely half-smoked — without a moment's hesitation, and was on his feet immediately.

The truck with the artworks had arrived.