Alienation 2

Our booth wasn't particularly large relative to the number of pieces, since we couldn't pour in the budget that the "rich galleries" — as nuna and hyung described them — could afford.

A booth that was too large wouldn't have been practical anyway, since nuna and hyung were essentially responsible for managing it on their own, aside from him and Manager Han, who often had to step away.

The location, however, was quite good. It wasn't far from the experimental large-scale sculpture installed in the center, and there was ample space between us and the booth across the aisle.

Manager Han and he were walking side by side down that corridor. They were such a captivating pair that my gaze followed their movements even knowing it might look foolish.

I recalled Juhan hyung's exaggerated comment from some time ago — that seeing Shushu in person had nearly made him want to bow. It wasn't quite that level of shock, but it certainly wasn't everyday beauty either. Not enough to prostrate myself, but I couldn't tear my eyes away from the magnetic pull they exerted.

As it was a VIP preview, the venue was packed with stylish people in what I could only think of as party attire — utterly unfamiliar to me. Hyung, nuna, and I had also dressed in the neat black-toned outfits we'd prepared in advance and had our hair styled differently than usual, but we couldn't compare to the presence of those two.

They were the definition of the high-society Alphas I had never had cause to encounter back in that small fishing village.

"Manager Han, you look incredible! You're really radiating that Alpha energy after so long!"

Apparently I wasn't the only one thinking that, because Juhan hyung ran ahead to the booth and caused a commotion, hugging Manager Han.

"What do you mean, 'after so long'? What am I like usually? Huh?"

Manager Han laughed and grabbed Juhan hyung by the back of his neck. Though she was wearing a sharply tailored black two-piece suit — unlike her usual comfortable attire — her tone and actions were exactly the Manager Han everyone knew.

"Even in jeans and a T-shirt you're stylish, but dressed up like this is a different kind of cool entirely."

"Well, that's true. There is something to suddenly putting on a suit when you usually walk around in a T-shirt and ripped jeans."

Still holding the back of Juhan hyung's neck, Manager Han draped an arm over his shoulder and surveyed the completed display behind us, eyes widening.

"Hey… look at what our crew can do. I really didn't expect them to finish in just three hours. Maybe we can increase the number of pieces for the next fair?"

"Ha… I love Phantom, but I think I'll be submitting my resignation now."

Everyone burst out laughing at Juhan hyung's earnest joke.

All five of us were still pre-dinner, each for their own scheduling reasons. They began to quiet their hunger with simple food from the buffet tables set up around the venue.

Though I said "simple," with event tickets priced at around 4,000 Hong Kong dollars each, the variety and quality of the food were superb. To me, the dishes were so beautifully presented it almost felt like a shame to eat them.

"It's overwhelming for a first fair, isn't it?"

I must have been hungry — the only thing I'd managed to eat all day was the chicken dish served during the flight — but excitement and nerves were keeping me from feeling it. I was just prodding a tiny, dainty-looking dim sum with my chopsticks when he appeared at my side and started talking.

He had claimed he was starving, having had no time to eat while flashing business smiles nonstop, yet he also wasn't touching much of the food. He was only sipping champagne while picking at a few nuts that Juhan hyung had brought over.

"A little… but it's still fun."

Wearing a navy suit made of a material that flowed smoothly along the lines of his body rather than being stiffly angular, he looked accustomed to these settings — and he belonged in them. While boldly revealing his solid, well-proportioned physique, his suit remained dignified and elegant.

Visitors of various ethnicities touring the booths invariably paused to look at him at least once, and this in turn pulled them directly toward our booth.

"The actual event starts tomorrow, so it's going to get even more hectic. There will be incomparably more visitors than right now. Would you like to look around some of the pieces beforehand?"

With about 200 galleries from 26 countries participating, the venue's interior was substantial. That vast space was divided into hundreds of booths, forming a complex maze. I had picked up a pamphlet with a floor plan, but I honestly lacked the courage to venture out on my own. Not just because of the complicated layout — I was slightly daunted by everything being unfamiliar at once: foreign country, unfamiliar city, language barrier.

"If it's because it feels unfamiliar, I could go with you."

As if sensing my hesitation, he offered with a slight, crooked smile. Sometimes he smiled like a villain in an animated film, and this was one of those times. Don't want to go? Would you rather not go — just get into bed together? It was the same feeling as when we had slept together.

I nodded without refusing. His eyes, which had been fixed on me as he sipped his champagne, paused for a moment before crinkling at the corners in a smile. This time, it was a smile that seemed to lightly regret his own teasing from a moment ago.

He said we could take as much time as we wanted, strolling through and pausing as long as we liked in front of anything that caught my eye. As he spoke, he fell into step beside me, matching my pace.

"Do you like the room?"

As we passed by the booth of a gallery from Beijing, decorated primarily with Eastern paintings, he asked casually.

"It's my first time somewhere like that… I was surprised by how nice the room is. The view is incredible too. If it weren't for the Director's generosity, I never would have had this kind of experience… Thank you for everything."

"Hmm, it wasn't out of generosity."

I turned to look at him as he murmured that, his tone playful. His light blue eyes were sparkling.

"It's full of ulterior motives."

"……"

"To get Seo Yeehyeon to pick up a brush."

I don't know what I had been expecting from the words "ulterior motives." I quickly averted my gaze, afraid he might see the disappointment on my face. But even when he wasn't within my line of sight, the mere fact of being within his made me feel as though everything I wanted to keep hidden would be laid bare.

Even if it was just the defensive delusion of someone considerably younger than him, this feeling of being at a disadvantage whenever I was in his presence kept nagging at me.

He had been tapping the rolled-up pamphlet against his palm; then he reversed it and tapped it against my shoulder.

"It seems like the best possible arrangement for you, Seo Yeehyeon, since you have to keep a low profile. I don't know who's chasing you or why, but if you become a contracted artist for Phantom, I'll protect you with everything I've got. I'm good at that sort of thing."

I managed an awkward smile at his childlike boasting tone, as if he were proudly announcing he knew how to read and write. He was deliberately lightening the weight of his words with a casual air, but what he said was probably true. Given his methods and the shrewdness he showed in running Phantom, he was certainly not the type to stand by while someone took what was his.

However, what I was being chased over wasn't a simple matter ending with just me, and even if he protected me, it would only be because I was an artist worth investing in. Or, putting it in the best possible light, a business decision on the part of a dealer responsible for a talented artist — or so he seemed to consider me.

I wasn't hoping for anything more than that. If I wanted anything at all, it would be the safety of Morae nuna and Yeehan hyung — not my own well-being, which was, at best, a footnote to Morae nuna's father.

I was simply turning over the true meaning behind his words, "I'll protect you." It was a dangerous way of speaking.

He was appealing once more to the psychology of someone like me — anxious about safety while being chased — by highlighting the advantages of becoming a Phantom artist. But he didn't press for an answer right then. After all, we had mutually agreed the decision would be made after the business trip.

Although the star artist Shushu was a photographer, and the gallery occasionally had sculptors on its roster, Phantom was fundamentally a gallery focused on painting. Still, even someone as ignorant of art world news as I was had a vague sense that contemporary art had long since expanded its domain to include installation art, sculptures, and performances that invited audience participation.

Because of this, the atmosphere at the event was considerably more dynamic and vibrant than stuffy or authoritative. Works with humor and individuality predominated over classical, somber pieces. At a glance, that was the impression.

Nevertheless, I found myself uninterested in anything that wasn't painting.

"You don't seem very interested in recent artists."

He addressed me with curiosity as I stopped in front of a piece depicting a close-up of a woman lying on her side on the floor. I checked the caption: a work from 2002.

Though there were many art books at home, I had always been like a child who only looked at the illustrations and never read the text — I took in the works themselves and paid little attention to the artist's name or the title. Neither my mother nor my father, nor my Teacher, had ever tried to teach me about the lineage of painters or art history.

"I… don't know much about artists."

"Looking at it, you keep stopping in front of works by older artists. Artists who were at least active in the 1990s. This piece is relatively recent, though."

"Is that so."

I turned my head back toward the painting.

The woman in the painting seemed to be in a painful situation, but strangely, what emanated from her wasn't frustration, helplessness, or erosion — it was a vital, pulsing life force, like a beating heart. Different from romantic optimism like hope or dreams. It was closer to a warning: that even if someone harmed her, even if it led to her death, they could never dominate her spirit. What I sensed there was rather a frenzied struggle — a humanity that bled and stayed warm, that refused to give up being itself even at the extreme.

Even if I couldn't know the artist's true intention or what had drawn them to paint this piece, that was the feeling I received from the work in that moment.

The more I looked, the more it drew me in. I wanted, if possible, to place my hand on the hardened texture of the paint and vaguely feel the artist's breath and energy.

"For a piece to be evaluated purely on its artistic merit, independent of marketing or gallery power, ten years isn't even enough these days. All the works Seo Yeehyeon seems interested in right now… their value continues to climb even now — at a minimum twenty years later, at a maximum a hundred."

I felt his gaze and looked over at him. He was looking at me with eyes that seemed to be exploring something interesting. His eyes were shining — sparkling like waves breaking finely under sunlight. Undeniably beautiful.

"And you seem to prefer quite wild pieces. I wouldn't have thought that matched your usual personality. Or perhaps… maybe that's not entirely true either?"

His low, drawn-out voice commenting on my personality was pulling something private inward at that moment. The way he watched me — steadily, from beneath lowered eyelids, rubbing his chin with his arms crossed — instantly changed the color of the air between us.

I didn't know how to respond to his last remark, unsure whether he was asking for an answer or simply speaking to himself.

But his observation that I seemed to prefer wild works wasn't wrong. Whatever it was, I liked works that revealed themselves as they truly were. It had always been that way.

The reason was simple. Simply put… the language they used was similar to my own. It was a language I could understand.

As we lingered before the painting, a gallery staff member approached and asked if we needed more detailed information about it. He smiled politely and declined, and we moved on.

He, who had been following my pace, stopped first in front of a booth belonging to a gallery from New York. More precisely, in front of a single piece displayed near the booth's entrance.

His gaze maintained its usual composure, but something about it was subtly different. Closer to a chilling cynicism than objective detachment.

"What about this piece?"

As he asked and turned to look at me, his expression quickly shifted into a playful smile. He tilted his head slightly, pointing at the artwork as if knocking on empty air, and looked at me. His cheerful tone seemed, conversely, to reveal a twisted state of mind.

I looked at the painting again, carefully.

The canvas, which appeared to be about four meters wide by four meters tall, was an abstract work featuring complex, intertwined curves of various colors against a deep, blood-red background. Yet no matter how intently I tried to focus, I could only vaguely sense the colors and atmosphere rather than any coherent energy or emotion.

Despite the use of intense colors and the arrangement of large, potentially engaging curves in abundance, it somehow didn't appear bold.

Because it was trying not to show anything at all.

This was completely different from the feeling I had gotten from Inwu hyung's paintings — that honest exposure of one's own dishonesty. This piece was trying to conceal its dishonesty, and beyond that, was using various techniques and devices to construct a false self, presenting it as though it were the real thing.

Hoping it might offer a hint for appreciating the work, I checked the caption. The title was Lovers on the Bed. A title more naturally suited to a figurative or realistic painting than an abstract one. I looked at the painting again. It was like holding a map while surrounded by fog, unable to see the road. Like a quiz where the answer refuses to come even with a hint.

"I… don't really understand it."

"……"

His gaze, demanding a more specific explanation, resembled that of a teacher hoping his favorite student would astonish the world by giving a wise answer to a foolish question. Since I couldn't tell which direction he wanted the answer to lean, I had no choice but to speak honestly.

"I can see the technique — the use of color, the composition — but none of it connects to any particular message or feeling. I'm not good at putting things into words… It's like when you've only ever exchanged greetings, pleasantries, or business talk with someone, so you can't really know them. That's the feeling I get."

"You can be more honest."

He was convinced I was hiding a harsher critique. He was pushing me, urging me to pour it out without any pretense of politeness. Looking at him — eyes sparkling, a smile playing on his lips — I hesitated, then opened my mouth.

"It's form without substance… like a magnificent bowl and table setting with no food to actually taste and savor. That's how it feels to me."

I didn't want to speak about another person's work that way. Even if it was purely my own impression, from someone who had never properly studied painting, and even if the artist wasn't listening somewhere.

Whether a work honestly revealed itself or not, it was still a fragment torn from an individual — and unless it was praise, I didn't particularly want to discuss it out loud.

Yet contrary to my feelings, he turned completely away from the painting to face me, his expression utterly satisfied. His movements were almost buoyant. A smile seemed to overflow from his lips — the most abundant smile he had ever shown, and it was because of me and no one else.

What could possibly please him so much?

"This is why I feel like I'm treating Seo Yeehyeon like a fortune teller. What do you see in this painting, what do you see in that one?"

Then he bent his waist slightly to meet my eyes at the same height.

"But… that fortune teller really is something."

His face was still smiling, but for a moment I felt a chilling coldness emanating from him. The blue in his eyes intensified, as if ice flowers were scattering. That chill wasn't directed at me, but the back of my neck still prickled.

That he called me "really something" meant, in other words, that he completely agreed with my assessment of the painting. He was directing a very cold, sharp sarcasm toward that piece — toward Lovers on the Bed.

"Are you interested in the artwork? May I help you?"

He and I turned our heads toward the voice. A middle-aged, medium-height Caucasian man, whose belly was starting to protrude and whose hairline was beginning to thin, approached us with a gentle smile.

People were generally kind to him. His handsome appearance played a part, but anyone would naturally be warm toward a "client" who appeared to have the financial means to purchase anything on the spot, regardless of what was being sold.

"I personally scouted this artist, so I can recommend them with full confidence. They're one of the young artists currently making waves in the New York art scene. I imagine you may have heard their name. They're gaining attention for their sensual use of color and bold expression. They're a Korean artist in their twenties, and with the current rise of East Asian artists globally, their investment value is quite high. Their style seems like it would suit you perfectly. Besides this piece, there are two more works by the same artist — would you like to take a look?"

The man who had initially given a round, warm impression had an extraordinary gleam in his eyes upon closer inspection. Despite his relaxed expression, his ceaseless flow of words gave us — or rather, him — no room to interject. Just keeping up with his speech was a struggle with my English, which was limited to what I had learned through high school.

Hearing that he had personally scouted the artist, I glanced at the ID badge hanging around the man's neck: the title "Director" was attached before a rather common name, the kind you often encounter in English-language dramas or films. He wasn't just a staff member — he was someone in a leadership position at the gallery.

"Sensual and confident…"

Tilting his body slightly to face the painting halfway again, he murmured as if savoring the man's words, tapping his own cheek with the rolled-up end of the pamphlet he held clasped in his arm. Then, turning only his face back toward me:

"Do I suit that painting?"

He asked in Korean. His face was smiling, but he made no effort to hide the impression that he felt deeply insulted by what he had just heard.

I answered his question by shaking my head.

He smiled and placed a hand on my shoulder. The hand that had gripped my shoulder firmly, as if kneading it, then moved to my head, lightly ruffled my hair, and withdrew.

"……"

It was physical contact I hadn't anticipated at all. While this kind of casual contact was frequent with Juhan hyung or Yuni nuna, it had never extended to me before.

Even though we had once been the "lovers on the bed" with each other — if only for a single night — this kind of spontaneous physical contact in everyday life felt more awkward than that one unexpected encounter in bed had. Until now.

Heat rushed to my face as if he had just showered me with passionate kisses in the middle of this event hall. Taking advantage of the moment he turned his upper body toward the gallery director, I raised my arm and rubbed my face as if wiping away sweat. But the air conditioning was running strong enough inside to make the room feel faintly cool.

Shaking his head slowly, as if regarding something highly suspicious, he cast his gaze toward the painting once more.

"Hmm… I'm in the same industry, so I understand. Inflating and packaging a work beyond its actual worth is a sales tactic I use myself — but buying a piece that's obviously going to be worth half its price within a year or two after paying $15,000 for it will only end up casting doubt on the gallery's judgment."

The content of his words was almost cruel, but to be blunt, his tone and expression conveyed no mockery toward the artwork, the artist, or the director who had discovered them. He was simply conveying exactly what he felt, "without any packaging."

Within a few months, I had come to understand his way of speaking to some degree. He never minced words or sugar-coated things, especially when it came to work. There were times he gave instructions to Yuni nuna and Juhan hyung just as directly as he did to me, excluding emotional consideration entirely.

He seemed to believe that if the content of the words was true, packaging the delivery was simply inefficient.

Of course, when I hadn't known him well, that style of speaking was hard to accept. In the normal world, a certain degree of softening was simply politeness.

The gallery director was trying to maintain his composure, but his round face, glistening with oil, was involuntarily contorting.

Unfortunately, I couldn't help but agree with the substance of his words myself.

Fifteen thousand, and not in Hong Kong dollars but in US dollars. No matter how much of an amateur I was, there was no doubt that this painting was not worth that much.

The gallery director, who had approached with a gentle smile and acted the part of the eager flatterer, left the painting without a second glance and moved on to the next booth without even offering a simple farewell. He, too, paid no mind to the man's sudden change of demeanor.

I hurried out of the booth behind him, glancing back one more time.

Though I hadn't meant to criticize someone else's work so harshly, I feared that if I picked up a brush now, I would end up painting something just like that — a painting that couldn't express itself naturally, that denied and fabricated the self.

I was afraid. But I didn't tell him that.

That wasn't the only residue Lovers on the Bed left in me.

Could it have been a coincidence that he had asked for my impression in front of that specific painting and no other? The bluish coldness burning in his eyes bothered me. Lovers on the Bed. If I hadn't misread it, the artist's name was "SEONEW." Seonew. A Korean artist in their twenties. I repeated the name silently to myself, savoring it so I wouldn't forget.