Silence and Lies

The exhibition was held at a small, experimental gallery in an old detached house far from the city center. Its theme was Silence and Lies.

According to the pamphlet, the Helsinki-born artist had never received formal art education. Although she had been offered world-class training by a prominent figure who recognized her talent, she declined.

She was known for never signing exhibition contracts with major galleries, and she donated thirty percent of her income from painting sales to various foundations supporting women and children.

Due to her free style — which ignored traditional technique entirely — and her unconventional conduct, critical opinion of her work was sharply divided. The pamphlet also noted that she was unreserved about expressing her critical stance toward the contemporary art world.

While the attitude she showed outside her paintings was social, the works filling the exhibition space — several small rooms — were intensely personal. Terrifyingly deep in their inward focus, they gave the feeling of meeting eyes wide open in the abyss: eyes that reflected everything almost mechanically, hiding or softening nothing.

By the time I exited the final room, I felt as if all my energy had been drained. Similar to the exhaustion after a suspenseful film that keeps you locked in from the title sequence all the way through the credits.

I emerged into what had probably been the living room when this building was still a home, before it became a gallery — but I didn't see him right away. We had parted at the entrance, agreeing to view the exhibition separately and meet afterward, and our paths hadn't crossed since.

He stood out anywhere — not just because of his looks, but because of his height — so if he were in the same space, I would have noticed him. I looked around, pamphlet in hand, through the crowded room.

"Seo Yeehyeon."

"......"

I turned reflexively toward the voice. He stood at the entrance, calling my name with a coffee in each hand. He must have finished viewing first and gone down to the cafe to buy them.

Since that night, he occasionally called me without the honorific, and each time, the back of my neck prickled as if someone were tickling it — but it felt different from when he called me like that when it was just the two of us at home.

A fluttering sensation made me freeze, unable to move right away. Instead he walked toward me, smiling. It wasn't my imagination — everyone in the room was looking at him. Whether openly or in glances, the only difference was the degree. Everyone was looking at him. Even knowing and accepting that it was natural... I still disliked it a little. Childishly, I couldn't help it.

"Crowded since it's the weekend. Shall we head out for now?"

I took the cold iced Americano he held out and made my way through the crowd. Unlike inside, the air beyond the door was thick with heat.

The gallery entrance had no dividing wall, blending seamlessly into the alley, and a car was waiting about ten meters away. Wherever we went, a car dropped us off right at the entrance and waited the moment we came out. Walking was virtually never required. Feeling awkward alone with that fact, I got into the car.

The car soon exited the alley and merged onto the road. The sun was setting, and the heat had eased somewhat compared to midday, but people passing outside the window were fanning themselves or tilting portable fans toward their faces, looking worn down by the midsummer heat.

"I feel like I barely noticed it was summer this year."

"Hmm?"

He raised an eyebrow at the words that had slipped out.

"In Hong Kong, and then after we got back — I went straight to your place and we've been moving around by car ever since, so I don't think I really registered that it was summer."

"You've been tending the garden. That must be hot."

"That's something I do because I enjoy it, just for short stretches. Complaining about the heat from that would be too much."

With his permission, I had been looking after the garden lately. Just light work — rough pruning, pulling weeds, watering with the hose — but even in a garden laid out according to a plan, that time facing nature was a meaningful change of pace. The garden, which hyung and nuna had called gloomy, now clearly showed signs of someone caring for it.

"...Are you feeling stifled?"

After a moment of silence, he lowered his voice to ask. I shook my head firmly.

"No, that's not what I meant..."

I had no complaints about my current life; the words had just come out without thought while I was looking at the street. Watching the regret and distress cloud his darkening face, I wondered if I'd said something I shouldn't have.

He was taking care of everything — my safety, my comfort, the time I needed to focus on painting — and yet every time this topic came up, he looked pained.

It was me who was living under his kindness and care, to a degree that went so far beyond gratitude it edged into guilt. And yet why did he keep looking like he owed me something?

At moments like this, the gap between us became strikingly real. Socially, economically, in terms of experience and wisdom... I was insufficient to be his support, and I still lacked the ability to give him anything substantial in return. Painting. I had to paint quickly. Because right now, that was the only thing I could do for him.

He looked at my face in silence for a moment, then let out a short sigh and gently took my hand.

"Just a little longer... please bear with me a little longer."

"I wasn't really someone who enjoyed going out or had an active personality to begin with — you know that. And you take me out often. I didn't say it because I was feeling stifled, so please don't worry."

Hoping he would smile again, I smiled first. He reached out, brushed my hair aside, and softly pulled the back of my neck to press his lips to my forehead. It was the first time we had engaged in physical contact beyond holding hands in front of the driver in Seoul.

I was conscious of it, but I didn't want to pull away. His lips against my hair felt pleasant, so I quietly rested my face against his wrist — where his hand had reached toward my neck — and stayed still.

Meanwhile, the car slowed and turned into the entrance of our destination.

"This place is..."

The hotel where I had met my uncle with Yeehan hyung and Morae nuna. Not far from his house. Now that I thought about it, the gallery from earlier was also only about a ten-minute drive from his house.

"I thought you haven't had much of an appetite lately, so I picked somewhere we can have a light meal and a drink. Today, I promise — no pressure about eating this or that."

The places he took me were all high-end restaurants serving what looked like expensive cuisine, which inevitably made me feel burdened. But I didn't want to show that and ruin the mood of someone who had gone to the trouble of thinking of me. My thoughts were complicated, but I managed a smile in return as he tried to keep things light.

Walking into the hotel lobby with him felt strange.

It had only been two weeks since I last came here, but so much had changed — the person beside me, my feelings, the situation. Morae nuna and Yeehan hyung were scheduled to arrive safely in Bali in a few days, and my uncle had had no particular contact since I'd paid off the debt. While not everything had settled into place, I no longer needed to feel anxious as if someone were right at my heels. All of it was because of his help. And yet why did he keep looking sorry toward me?

Even as we descended the wide staircase leading to the lower floor just inside the main entrance, people coming up the other way glanced at him and whispered.

"It's a casual izakaya inside the hotel, so the atmosphere should be comfortable."

He didn't seem bothered in the slightest. Having lived his entire life under this kind of attention, it would probably be impossible to function day to day if he still registered every gaze.

As he had described, even Seoul's luxury hotels were now trending toward refreshing their image — trendier interiors, menus aimed at younger guests, psychological accessibility. Opening the door and stepping in, the atmosphere felt more approachable than expected. At least, the cold aloofness typical of hotel restaurants wasn't there. Perhaps being with him also made it feel more comfortable.

"Liu-ssi, thank you for visiting. We've been expecting you."

A staff member with a pleasant smile approached immediately. As at the many other restaurants I had visited with him, here too he was received not as an unfamiliar stranger but as an important guest.

"The atmosphere is still wonderful. This is my companion for today."

"Welcome. I'm the manager here. Please feel free to let me know if you need anything at all. I'll show you this way."

When he replied in Korean to the greeting offered in English, the manager switched without missing a beat and exchanged greetings with me as well, his smile unwavering.

The interior wasn't very spacious. About ten counter seats offered a view of the chefs at work, and perhaps five or six tables in total — rather cozy. But naturally, the calm and sophisticated atmosphere made me a little tense.

Our table was at the very back, nestled snugly beneath a slanted ceiling reminiscent of stairs leading up to an attic. Since we had pre-ordered the chef's tasting course when making the reservation, there was no need to choose from a menu. I had never tried sake before, but on his recommendation we ordered a variety that was low in alcohol and easy to drink.

"Please skip the dish explanations today. I'd like to focus on conversation."

"Yes, of course."

The staff member smiled at his request and withdrew.

"Director... English is the most comfortable language for you, right?"

After the staff member left, I fiddled with the cloth napkin — bleached so white it looked scrubbed clean — and asked him.

"That would be right. My formal education was in English, and since English was the common language between my parents, we used it for family conversations too."

"But your Korean is excellent. I was surprised when I heard you'd never actually lived in Korea. There's absolutely no awkwardness to it..."

As if embarrassed by the compliment, he looked down and smiled. His face, cast in deep shadows by the dim ambient lighting, was attractive in a way that was different from usual. Watching the shadow of his long, thick eyelashes fall across his cheek, I kept my focus on his story.

"I spoke Korean with my mother when it was just the two of us, and my parents were also active with their Korean friends, so I became naturally accustomed to it. They continuously exposed me to Korean culture through various programs and events, so the culture itself wasn't unfamiliar... And my mother owned a lot of Korean literature, so I was familiar with the written language — but the vivid spoken language I learned mostly through Korean friends I made at school."

He paused for a moment, his brow furrowing with a faint expression of displeasure.

"I had made friends with a few bastards like Choi Inwu. The kind who taught me dirty words and curses first."

I could somewhat picture Inwu hyung and his school days, so I managed a small laugh and then continued carefully. The topic had come up naturally, so it seemed like a good opportunity to ask.

"Artist Shushu... went to the same school as you, right?"

He paused before answering, raised his glass to wet his lips, then set it down again. The whole time, he didn't take his eyes off me. A mischievous smile played at the corner of his mouth. He even cleared his throat, which was rare.

"Hmm... why do I get the feeling you're concerned about Shushu? Am I imagining it?"

Given our current relationship, I knew Shushu and I weren't in the kind of relationship I had imagined and agonized over. Still, I didn't feel as comfortable with Shushu as I did with the Phantom family or Inwu hyung. I was still conscious of Shushu. Knowing my feelings weren't exactly healthy or mature, my face flushed as if I'd been caught in something shameful.

But he leaned his upper body toward me, biting his lower lip slightly, and looked genuinely pleased. His clear blue eyes sparkled with mischief.

"Be a little more jealous. Ask me what my relationship with Shushu is. Ask if it's something more than just gallery owner and artist on contract. Push me, interrogate me... and even after I explain that it isn't, keep picking at me, kicking me..."

"I... I wouldn't do anything like that..."

Even though the seat beside us was still empty, as if reserved, the couple one table over bothered me. Glancing at them, I denied it hastily in a lower voice.

"Hmm, I wouldn't mind."

Whether he was being serious or playful, I couldn't tell.

He frowned as if disappointed and leaned forward, chin resting loosely on one arm. The table wasn't very wide, so his face was extremely close. His playful face, comfortable enough that his cheek was almost pressing into his hand, was slightly below my eye level.

I had the urge to reach out and touch his handsome face, but given the location and my own nature, it wasn't easy to act on.

"Is your possessiveness toward me still only at that level? Last time, you were so explicit about how I shouldn't do it with anyone else... what was it... not kissing, or putting fingers in other..."

"Hey, Director!"

Unlike me, sitting with my back to the wall facing the room, he had only me in his line of sight. Spotting the manager approaching, I panicked and grabbed his hand on the table, cutting him off.

He widened his eyes, looking back and forth between me and the hand I was holding.

"The exhibition was truly wonderful."

"......"

He soon broke into a smile, understanding the reason for the awkward, abruptly abandoned topic — like a child sounding out words while learning to read aloud.

Even knowing he would never make the clumsy mistake of letting someone overhear our private conversation, I still wasn't experienced enough in these matters to enjoy the anxiety as a thrill.

He squeezed my hand once, let go, and straightened up in his seat. As if perfectly timed, the manager stopped beside our table.

"We'll bring out the appetizers first."

A salmon salad with cucumber was served, and the manager immediately brought a tray with glasses of various shapes and colors, letting me choose. Still flustered enough to break into a cold sweat, I just grabbed whatever caught my eye.

"I'm sorry. I went a bit too far."

Once we were alone again, he pulled his chair closer and met my gaze.

"I got carried away because it seemed like Seo Yeehyeon was getting a little jealous."

"......"

As a mature adult, he would likely find immature and consuming emotions like jealousy tiresome. The psychological warfare of trying to possess and bind each other through a partner — the kind that came with romantic feelings — would probably exhaust him. His portrayal in Juhan hyung's account hadn't deviated much from that image.

But the things he was saying now were turning every opinion people had of Liu Weikun into prejudice.

I suddenly wanted to know. Was this how he always was in conversations like these? Or was this an exception?

"Part of it is that your reaction was just too... cute. I couldn't control myself. You're not angry?"

It wasn't an intention to tease me meanly — I could tell he was genuinely enjoying this moment. I couldn't miss it when I looked at his expression and his eyes. And once I realized that, I felt like I too might start to enjoy this silly, childish back-and-forth.

A ticklish feeling at the word cute. I shook my head. Manager Han, Yuni nuna, and Juhan hyung had said similar things before, but it had never felt like this.

He gave me a soft smile, visibly relieved, and picked up his chopsticks to offer me food.

"So — how was the exhibition, really?"

I swallowed the last of the salmon I'd been chewing and answered a moment later.

"It was... intense. And very impressive."

His reaction suggested he had expected as much.

"You, Seo Yeehyeon, want paintings where the artist confronts a version of themselves pushed to the absolute limit, pouring out everything. You're not someone who can sit down in front of the easel with a light heart, thinking, what shall I paint today... That's why I thought you would like this artist's work."

"I don't mean to say that painting with a light heart is bad... and it's not as though I've only ever painted about my deepest suffering. It's just that for me, painting is a means of being honest. So it happens that I often express emotions or thoughts through it."

I wasn't sure if my thoughts were coming across accurately, but I felt I could speak to him without worrying about being misunderstood.

He nodded.

"I know. There's no need to distinguish what's more valuable — each artist simply has a different style. That's what makes art richer. Most critics and power-driven galleries like to rank things by high and low, but still."

The drinks arrived and the conversation paused briefly. Sake, chilled in a bowl of crushed ice, was placed alongside a dish called tataki — tuna seared only on the surface.

The sake he recommended, which I was trying for the first time, had fruity notes — strawberry and apple — making it easy to drink. The round, transparent glass with a slight bluish tint that I had picked up almost at random had something about it that reminded me of his eyes.

After a brief exchange about the taste of the sake, the conversation returned to Silence and Lies.

"And I found it refreshing that the theme came through so clearly in the paintings — quite different from me. The artist seemed like someone with no hesitation about expressing her own feelings or thoughts, which made her work even more attractive."

"Your paintings seem quite bold too — they just carry more complex emotions."

"......"

He leaned comfortably back against the table, toying with the rounded bottom of his glass with one hand, and sent me a suggestive look.

"Looking only at the work, it's hard to imagine your usual quiet demeanor."

In reality, the work is far closer to how you are in bed, he added with a knowing smile, raising the half-empty glass to his lips. Watching him, I felt thirsty too and tilted my own glass.

As the conversation deepened, we raised our glasses far more often than we moved our chopsticks.

Even after the tataki, neat tempura and several kinds of skewered grilled meat were served in succession, but we both only picked at them. Meanwhile, the 720-milliliter bottle of sake was already nearly gone.

The neighboring table, which had been empty, had found its occupants by now, and the restaurant filled with the sizzle and aroma of grilling skewers and the lively chatter of people enjoying their weekend.

I could feel glances being cast his way from the table beside us, where a group of old friends seemed to have gathered. But he didn't let his attention waver for even a moment. It was as if we were alone in a quiet space, as if I were the only thing in his sight. Because he kept his full attention on me, I was gradually able to erase everything else.

"Between silence and lies — which do you think is more violent?"

He asked without looking at me, skillfully separating a grilled scallop from its skewer and placing it on my plate with its yuzu sauce.

Then he immediately corrected himself.

"No — personally, which do you detest more."

Anyone who had seriously viewed the exhibition would have had to think about this at least once. I had been unable to stop turning it over while looking at the work, so answering wasn't difficult.

"Lies are... better, I think."

He looked surprised.

"Silence can change value depending on the situation... but if it's silence about the truth, the kind that artist was trying to express... silence feels more... not violent, exactly. More cowardly."

Putting thoughts into words wasn't easy, and the carefully spaced-out words I had chosen ended up sounding like a confused jumble.

He pressed a heavy gaze on me for a moment, then looked away and poured the last of the sake into my glass.

"People usually perceive lies as far more negative than silence, don't they? In Korea especially, where Confucian influence still runs deep, silence is golden — the fewer words the better."

"I'm not a very talkative person myself... but if we're talking about silence and lies as attitudes toward the truth, I honestly think lies are better."

He rested his elbows on the table, covering his lips with loosely clasped hands, and asked.

"May I... hear the reason?"

The table beside us was bustling, apparently preparing to celebrate someone's birthday, taking out a cake and inserting candles. But seeing his serious face turned toward me, intent on listening, I could continue without interruption.

"Lies themselves can certainly become a violent act that inflicts wounds, but... where there are lies, I think there's also a corresponding movement that emerges to uncover the truth. Whereas if what happens on the opposite side of truth is silence... that seems far bleaker. I think a longer, more brutal darkness would follow before the truth finally came to light — that's why."

I was thinking of my father.

I was answering while thinking about the weapon of silence my father had chosen to protect himself — or perhaps to punish and destroy himself — and the result it had brought: a present in which no one could be happy.

"It's just my limited thoughts... and strictly... a personal view."

Had I pulled the conversation into too heavy a place? Was he reading something ominous in my expression or tone, starting to worry? I brushed it off with a smile, pretending it was merely an impression of the exhibition, and brought the glass to my lips.

I'd thought my slowing speech was a result of the weight of the subject demanding care, but it might also have been the alcohol gradually taking hold. We had finished a whole bottle between us at a fairly quick pace, so that was understandable.

But it wasn't an unpleasant kind of intoxication. Feeling my thoughts and body hazily come undone, I let my posture relax further.

"I never wanted an absolute conclusion — I wanted to hear your opinion from the very beginning. You don't need to add self-deprecating words after saying something like that. It's an original perspective, and a genuinely interesting one."

He said it with the slightly stunned expression of someone who had just taken a hit, and then fell silent, lost in thought.

We ordered another bottle of the same sake, and until the first glass of the new bottle was empty — until stable conversation was possible again — his eyes were darker and deeper than usual, turned inward.

Rolling the empty glass between his fingers, he looked down toward my chest and spoke.

"When turning away from the truth, or hiding it... can that process really happen without lies being involved? Seen from that angle, silence... could already be said to contain lies, in a way."

The sake cup, a little larger than a typical soju glass, felt even smaller in his large hand. I looked at his hands — clean, without a mark — then shifted my gaze up to his face.

It was only speculation, but he didn't seem to be talking merely about the exhibition's theme. His expression suggested he had either been a victim of silence laden with falsehood, or had, conversely, experienced holding it himself.

In the end, it seemed he too condemned silence more than lies.

"We can't always stand on the side of truth in every moment... but ultimately, what matters is whether we make excuses for our silence or lies and let ourselves go numb — or whether we keep feeling the prick of conscience and strive to approach the truth. That's what I think."

It wasn't a statement I had manufactured to comfort him.

Though I was answering his question with my father in mind, I didn't believe I had always stood on the side of dazzling truth either. No — from a certain angle, I wasn't so different from my father. Perhaps I was just a more diluted version of him.

So my words were an excuse for both of us.

He raised his gaze to meet mine, as if lifting something heavy with effort. There was a faint smile on his face, but it was a bitter one, quite literally.

"It's much more... painful than I expected."

"......"

"For a cowardly adult who can't get through life without silence and lies, what you said... hits a little too close."

He was speaking as though it were a joke, but I could tell I had touched something in him. Following him as he tilted his glass, I drained mine quickly. Twice today I had made him the "bad guy," and I couldn't keep pretending to be the innocent victim, the pure lamb.

"Even if I'm legally an adult... I've never really thought of myself as an adult. But it's not only adults who are cowardly. When it comes to the cowardice of silence... I have plenty of that too."

He glanced over at me with a smile.

"Compared to the cowardly silence I carry, Seo Yeehyeon-ssi's silence must feel as fresh as morning dew."

"It really isn't."

Perhaps because of the slight buzz, my tone came out quite firm. The silence or cowardice I had exercised might not have involved hurting anyone by getting entangled with them, but that was more likely because I wasn't bearing any real social responsibilities — not because I was closer to the truth than he was.

Even if I were caught up in various networks of relationships, bound by many expectations and obligations, could I really guarantee I wouldn't drag silence deep into my life?

As if shaking off the somber mood from a moment before, he leaned toward me with a subtle smile.

"Oh? There's dark, murky, fishy-smelling silence? In a body this clean and pretty?"

"......"

I was momentarily speechless at how the conversation had veered in an unexpected direction. After wiping my face — which had quickly flushed from the sudden intrusion of a suggestive remark at such an unguarded moment — I took another sip of the innocent sake.

"I welcome the drinking... but eat something along with it. If you neglect meals because you have no appetite, your stamina won't hold up when it really matters."

He put chicken breast skewers topped with horseradish on my plate, cut into easy-to-eat pieces, and showed no inclination to return to the previous topic.

He seemed genuinely worried that I had lost my appetite lately — perhaps from the heat, even though I was rarely exposed to it. To be precise, it wasn't so much a lack of appetite as occasional aversion to food, making me wonder if it was mild gastritis — but I thought saying I simply had no appetite would cause him less worry.

The chicken he put on my plate was tender and moist. It had been made with fresh ingredients, and yet the faint inherent smell of the chicken still lightly pricked at my stomach. Still, it was tolerable. Knowing the problem was my condition and not the food, I nodded that it was good and offered some back to him.

"About Choi Inwu's work — you once said it revealed an honesty about oneself that one couldn't be honest about otherwise. You said that before, didn't you?"

Instead of picking up his chopsticks, he refilled two empty glasses and continued.

"I know that when you paint, Seo Yeehyeon, you're someone who confronts the deepest part of yourself — just like the artist we were just discussing. But you don't have to force yourself to always aim for the extreme. If facing your own rock bottom right now is too hard, try painting the part of yourself that feels cowardly. If that's who you are right now, wouldn't it be meaningful to leave something of that behind?"

"......"

It felt as if he could see straight through what I had been struggling with ever since I started painting again. I paused, briefly wondering whether I had ever actually consulted him about it.

"Art isn't only about the sublime conclusion reached after enduring a painful process."

He raised the glass he had filled and proposed a toast, adding that with a slight smile. Looking back from the moment he first suggested I start painting again until now, he had been an astonishingly accurate reader of my psychology. The suggestion to bring up Suki Kim had only been possible because he understood me so well.

After we clinked glasses and each drank about half, I kept holding mine tightly without putting it down.

"Director."

His gaze turned toward me, gently.

"The sketch of Juhan hyung... next time, I'd like to paint in the garden. Would that be alright?"

He raised an eyebrow and asked.

"Hmm, my garden?"

"Yes."

"Of course. Whenever you like, as much as you need."

"Um, well... I'm planning to paint... a nude..."

"......"

His stern expression as he looked at me seemed to wish he had misheard.

"Whose? Kwon Juhan's nude?"

I nodded, and he turned his wrist, swirling the sake in his glass, and fell silent with an unreadable expression. He moved his lips several times as if trying to say something, but instead of speaking, he refilled and emptied his glass twice in quick succession.

Then he asked whether I'd rather have dessert now, skipping the rest of the meal course. Already tipsy and with no appetite for a full meal, I agreed. Matcha ice cream in delicate dishes was brought out almost immediately, and he focused on scooping it with his spoon, behaving as though he hadn't heard a word of the previous conversation. At least, that was how it appeared.

Our eyes met. Facing me as I waited with nervous tension for his answer, he sighed in resignation and let the tension leave his shoulders.

"You thought if you said you were going to paint Kwon Juhan nude, I'd jump up and object — so you brought it up beforehand, right?"

"Uh... well..."

I fiddled with the spoon handle, evasive. I couldn't say no, but admitting it felt awkward too.

"If that's what you thought, then you saw things correctly."

An unexpected confession. He let out a self-deprecating sigh and put the spoon down on the plate.

"I've been surrounded by art since the day I was born. I've been doing this work for years. And now... to not be able to separate my professional judgment from personal feelings, to lose my mind at the thought of you painting another man nude — I genuinely didn't see that coming."

"......"

Slightly startled by the blunt, unfiltered emotional honesty, I dropped my spoon and fumbled for a moment.

"Don't make that face. I'm just saying that's how I felt — not that I'm going to stop you from painting it. Fortunately... I still have that much discernment left. At least for now."

He reached out and lightly pinched my cheek, managing a strained smile. It didn't hurt, but I kept rubbing the spot he'd pinched and couldn't stop myself from laughing.

"If you just wanted to paint a nude, I'd offer to pose. But that's not it — you want to paint Kwon Juhan nude, don't you."

Even as he said he wouldn't stop me, his expression remained displeased.

Would he really show jealousy over something like this? Having sometimes dismissed my own worries as excessive self-consciousness, I felt relieved he wasn't angry — but his unhappy face, openly showing his jealousy, kept making me laugh.

Perhaps he took my suppressed laughter as mockery of his jealousy, because he scratched his forehead and spoke as if making an excuse.

"I know it's pathetic... but jealousy I've never even felt as a teenager is coming out of me now. That's right, I'm insanely jealous. But because you knew I'd be jealous and still thought to tell me first — I think it can stay as mild jealousy and not turn uglier. So... in the future, if something like this comes up, I'd appreciate you telling me in advance, like you did this time."

"I... get jealous sometimes too."

"......"

His eyes widened. Then a smile full of anticipation spread across his entire face. He rested his arms on the table and leaned toward me, as if silently asking me to go on.

Partly the alcohol, and partly the courage I'd found from his confession. He wasn't the only one who had been the "bad guy," and the burning heat of jealousy wasn't a hardship that belonged to him alone.

I held my spoon upright and aimlessly scraped the plate holding the ice cream, and this time I revealed my childishness to him.

"With nuna and hyung... I clearly like them both, and I know there's no deeper meaning in any of it, but..."

"You know, but?"

"Giving piggyback rides and things like that... I'd prefer it if you didn't."

"......"

Saying it out loud made it sound like an incredibly childish demand — no, a tantrum. When he had carried nuna on his back, or when he was casually affectionate with hyung, I had felt envious, ugly little emotions flaring up — but I had never once thought of asking him to stop. I knew those feelings were foolish.

I looked down at the slowly melting ice cream, then glanced sideways at him, who was quiet.

"Just... pretend you didn't hear that..."

He caught my wrist as I was about to put the spoon down. The grip wasn't entirely playful.

"Am I the only one you're going to make childish? So from now on, it's fine if I carry Baek Yuni every time she gets drunk?"

He wanted me to admit it. To not hide the ugly desire to exclusively possess the other person — even while knowing the feeling was unreasonable — by being wary of painting models or acquaintances around us. Looking at his face, demanding we be childish together, I slowly shook my head.

He made a satisfied expression and released my wrist.

"How does my face look right now? Not hideous?"

He was performing — touching his own cheeks with a dead-serious expression — and I couldn't help but let out a small laugh.

"It must be hideous. A face trying desperately hard not to let its mouth stretch into a grin because someone twenty-two years old is jealous — isn't that what it looks like right now?"

He brought his face close to mine, asking me to look carefully, and I gazed at it for a moment before cupping his cheek in my palm. This action required more courage than his confession had moments before.

"You're just... handsome."

Perhaps it was a compliment he had heard so many times it no longer registered — and yet he stared at me, frozen, with the expression of someone hearing for the first time in their life that they were born handsome.

He looked slowly from my left eye to my right, then gently placed his hand over mine. It was embarrassing, but for a moment, it felt as if all the surrounding noise and gazes had been cut off. The illusion that only the two of us existed. Strangely, it was in that moment that this finally felt like a date.

"The poolside and garden here are quite lovely. Shall we take a walk before heading home?"

No matter how much he saw me as a pure, innocent lamb, I was worldly enough to grasp the meaning in the gaze he was sending me now — and to feel a light flutter of anticipation.

I met his eyes and nodded.

I could feel curious glances from the neighboring table, but they didn't bother me anymore. The sudden drop in volume over there made it even more obvious that they were talking about us, and I occasionally caught the words Alpha and Omega mixed in.

Perhaps they saw him and me as an Alpha-Omega couple.

Regardless of primary gender, Alphas and Omegas could legally marry. Although Betas made up an overwhelming majority of society, Korea had long carried a deep emotional resistance to such unions, and the legal framework had only been fully established within the last ten to fifteen years. Currently, there was an active movement domestically to legally recognize not only Alpha-Omega unions but all relationships capable of pregnancy.

Separate from legal allowance or effect, public prejudice against same-sex unions still existed. But among the upper class — who placed more value on the interests arising from marriage than on heterosexual alignment of primary gender — same-sex Alpha-Omega unions were already common.

Particularly in marriages among chaebol families or celebrities, it was no longer unusual. Even though homosexuality was still ostracized in mainstream society, dramas and films featuring same-sex Alpha-Omega couples were hugely popular, and Alphas or Omegas with same-sex partners working actively as public figures were common as well.

The glances from the neighboring table held more curiosity than disgust — likely because of the images projected through that kind of media. Perhaps one of them, as an Omega, felt drawn to him. Though of course, Omegas weren't the only ones who felt that way about him.

The only society I had ever really known was school and the military, both environments where second genders were clearly established, so I had never been mistaken for an Alpha or Omega before. Looking back, those kinds of misreadings had only begun after I left the village and started working at Phantom.

While I felt an awkward discomfort under their gazes — which seemed to mistake me for an Omega paired with him, an Alpha — there was also a part of me secretly imagining myself being with him as an Omega.

A memory surfaced that made me uneasy: during a night we had spent together, I had urged him to knot me, and for a fleeting moment had hoped for the changes that might come to our relationship if my body were actually capable of pregnancy.

That kind of self-negation wasn't a pleasant thing to revisit, so I cut the thought off quickly and followed him, gathering my things.

After settling the bill, we left the restaurant and boarded the escalator to go down one more floor. He had mentioned a club downstairs that could get a bit noisy, but tonight, it seemed like something more than that.

Screaming and shouting from somewhere out of sight, warnings trying to restrain people, and radio voices calling for backup were all tangled together in a tense, chaotic way. People riding the escalator going up were turning back toward the source of the commotion and whispering to each other.

As the escalator carried us further down, a small crowd became visible at the club entrance, which had no separate door. Through the gaps between the club staff and hotel security surrounding a bench placed against the wall, I caught brief glimpses of two or three men and women slumped across it.

They were loudly proclaiming the legitimacy of their sexual arousal and their grievance at being interrupted, using explicit language. Words like pheromone, heat, and sex felt like props placed incorrectly — jarring against the hotel's elegant interior.

From the radio chatter, it sounded as though the hotel had decided to turn them over to the police and was simply waiting for them to arrive. Staff were struggling to restrain and quiet them, but it didn't seem to be going easily.

"Sometimes Alphas or Omegas come to places like this without taking their suppressants on purpose. They think that going into heat and drinking alcohol together can substitute for drugs."

He was clearly trying to keep his personal feelings out of it, but he couldn't hide his intense disgust.

Once we stepped fully off the escalator, we could see them more clearly.

Stocky security guards were holding them back as they groped themselves and tried to remove their clothing. One of the troublemakers even lunged at a guard, rubbing against him and pouring out obscene words with eyes completely glazed over. Even when their mouths were covered and threats were shouted at them, they were unstoppable.

Even though I didn't want to look, my gaze kept drifting there.

They were definitely... different from the drunk Betas I had seen before.

They didn't have the intoxicating, hazy quality that Juhan hyung had once described about artist Shushu, nor did they appear sublime. It was simply uncomfortable — like being forced to witness the extremely private state of others, something that should have belonged only to a bed.

He put his arm around my shoulder and pulled me close, as if shielding me from something harmful.

"This isn't really the atmosphere for a quiet walk. Should we just... walk home?"

He tried to smile, but he seemed to be having a harder time bearing the scene than I was.

We turned around immediately and took the escalator back up. As the commotion from below faded, my mood gradually returned to normal. There was no reason to let people with nothing to do with us ruin the lingering warmth of the time I had spent with him.

We sent the driver and car ahead, and then we began to walk slowly. A comfortable ten-minute walk to his house.

The temperature was high, but a breeze blew intermittently.

Walking with him like this was probably the first time since we returned from Hong Kong.

Maybe it was the sweet intoxication of the sake — a taste completely unlike beer, soju, or wine, which I was experiencing for the first time — or maybe it was simply the heightened awareness that I was walking beside him, but I found myself unusually giddy, giggling to myself, and he kept turning his head to check my face, as if he found me amusing.

Passing the short shopping strip right in front of the hotel — a mix of high-end tailors and old, modest hair salons — the atmosphere of the street changed completely. In the upscale residential area lined with large houses enclosed by tall, long walls, cars passed only rarely and not a single person could be seen.

As we passed a mansion whose wall was built from slate-gray bricks as large as boulders, he lightly took hold of my arm, exposed below my short sleeve. His hand stroked slowly downward until it found mine and gripped it.

Walking hand-in-hand with him down the street suddenly felt more unbelievable than kissing him or sleeping with him, so I kept raising our joined hands to shoulder height to confirm with my own eyes that it was real.

He looked back at me, chuckling. Feeling giddy, and aware of my own tipsiness, I pushed lightly against his shoulder.

"Why... why do you keep looking at me?"

Behind an SUV parked in the designated spot in front of the mansion with the gray brick wall, he suddenly pulled my hand and drew me with him.

Leaning his back against the wall, he held me and raised his index finger in front of his lips. Before I could say anything, he covered my lips with his. Not a deep kiss — shallow, playful pecks, lips meeting with a soft sound before parting, repeated many times. I found myself laughing without realizing it.

"Mmm... why are you laughing like that?"

I was clearly drunk, because I was the one laughing more, and yet I was asking him why he was laughing.

"I can't help smiling when I'm with someone pretty. Can't really blame me for that."

As I laughed at his nonchalance, our lips met again. This time, the warmth of his tongue tracing my lips made the back of my neck tighten. On his tongue, teasing at my lips, I could taste the fruity scent of sake and the sweetness of the ice cream we'd had for dessert.

"You really smile a lot when you're drunk. If you had to put a face to the word beaming, this would be it."

He clasped both hands behind my waist.

His voice, lowered to a whisper, made me tense even though there was no one passing by. Or perhaps, exactly because the area was so quiet with no passersby, he had no choice but to whisper.

"If I smile... do you like it?"

"I do. Because you don't usually smile this brightly."

He rubbed his nose against mine as he said it.

The sound of a car approaching from below and the sweep of its headlights made me startle and freeze, and instinctively I pressed myself closer to him. He pulled me tightly into his arms as if to hide me — even though I was neither small nor delicate — and pressed his lips deeply into my temple.

Being with him, in the living room or his bedroom or the kitchen or the downstairs studio, there had never been any restrictions on physical touch. This felt different from all of that.

He was someone who could instantly secure a completely private space anywhere outside of home whenever he wanted, and right now, the house was barely five minutes away anyway — there was no need to hide in the dark shadow behind a parked car, lowering our voices for fleeting kisses, bracing ourselves for the moment someone might discover us.

But I didn't dislike it.

I looked up at his face, thinking that this was probably what dating was like for most people my age — arriving somewhere and then lingering outside, unwilling to part, slipping into a secluded corner to whisper.

When our eyes met, I smiled foolishly again. Remembering that he had said he liked my smile, I didn't look away even as I tried to hide my flushed face. He was looking at me with a gaze that seemed to carefully trace every contour of my face.

"I want to keep making you smile like this..."

As if moving between the small joys of something like love and the anxieties it brought, I wanted to wipe away the shadows that flickered occasionally in his eyes.

"Well, then... if you kissed me again... that would work..."

Where those words came from in my head, I had no idea. I wanted to blame it on the alcohol.

Watching his blue eyes widen, a mortifying rush of shame and regret squeezed through the cracks of my tipsiness. If I was going to say something like that, I should have drunk more first.

"If it makes you smile like this, I'd do it all day."

His eyes curved gently and he tightened his hold around my waist. I placed my hands on his chest and leaned into him a little more, and he tilted his chin and pressed his lips firmly against mine.

The kiss continued, our lips opening and closing, taking each other in and releasing again. Beneath our lightly lowered eyelids, neither of us lost sight of the other.

My hands, which had been tracing the broad, firm curve of his chest muscles, moved upward past his shoulders and neck until I was cradling his face in both palms. He caught my wrists and turned his head, rubbing his lips against my palm. I could feel his cock, hot and hard, pressing against my lower body.

I, too, wanted deeper contact. The craving for his scent — which drifted near and then receded — made me restless in an instant.

"Tonight, I want us to sleep together without having sex."

"......"

He whispered it calmly, pressing his cheek and lips against my palm.

At first I didn't immediately understand what he meant. When I looked up at him with a questioning expression, he smiled and lightly flicked my forehead with his finger.

"Ah."

He pulled my hand away from where I'd been rubbing my forehead, pressed a kiss to that spot, and chuckled softly.

"When did you get so accustomed to sex?"

He was teasing me for having come to treat this kind of atmosphere as a natural lead-up to sex — but it was understandable. Recently, we had been having sex almost every day.

When we first arrived back at his place we had sometimes stopped at petting or caressing, cautiously, but lately, the kisses after dinner had become an established routine that led to sex. That change had clearly started after the barbecue party and the night with the lace lingerie — because that night, we had decided to cross a line we'd only circled hesitantly before and no longer hide the seriousness of our feelings for each other. At least, that was how I understood it. As time passed, I was growing more and more certain that he felt the same way.

During the day, painting alone, it was manageable. But after dinner together, conversation, being exposed to his conscious, wanting gaze and his heavy, provocative scent — self-control became impossible. Lately, neither of us waited for the other to initiate.

That was why I didn't immediately understand what he meant. Even now, his cock was hot and hard. It wasn't that he didn't want sex.

He rubbed my forehead for me, lifted his chin to look up at nothing in particular, and murmured playfully.

"Once we start, not thrusting is impossible... and if I thrust, I knot, and that puts a lot of strain on your body."

"But... we've knotted almost every time lately... and we've even knotted twice in one night before..."

"......"

It wasn't meant as an accusation about the knotting, but he looked down at me with that complicated expression again. It wasn't as if he had been the only one who wanted to knot.

"Even though we did it that often... my body was fine, wasn't it? That's what I meant..."

He cupped the back of my head and pulled me closer. As I pressed near his nape, his scent — mixed with traces of perfume — grew a little clearer.

The force of his hold was strong enough that my torso ached, but I felt no discomfort and no urge to pull away. The warmth of his lips against my ear was warm.

"I want to be with you too, Yeehyeon. I always want to. But... just once. I want to know what it's like to wake up in the morning and have you right there beside me. I won't ask for much. Just once, for me too..."

I still couldn't fully connect how not having penetrative sex — or not knotting — was related to staying together until morning. But thinking about it, even with all the passionate nights we had shared, we had never actually fallen asleep together.

As much as I loved having sex with him... I was just as curious about what it would feel like to go to bed without it and wake up together in the morning.

"Okay."

Leaning against the wall meant I couldn't wrap my arms fully around his back, but I held gently onto the backs of his arms and whispered toward his nape.

I wanted to ask — why couldn't we sleep together after sex? But the alcohol made clear thought difficult. My questions took shape only to crumble again, dissolving into the deep heat of his scent.

"Seo Yeehyeon."

His voice whispering my name by my ear overlapped with the voice that had called out to me when I'd been searching for him. I hoped that even if I were to lose him, he would find me like that, call out to me. And that I could do the same for him.

Instead of answering, I buried my face deeper into his nape and quietly felt the steady beat of his heart against my own chest.