Close Out

Seated at the table farthest from the entrance, by the window, Liu looked out at the drizzling autumn rain. In the roughly five days he had been gone, Seoul's temperature had dropped considerably. The trees in the hotel garden below were already in full autumn color.

Seasonal changes always felt abrupt. Especially the transition from summer to autumn. Just the day before, the high temperature could still exceed thirty degrees, making September feel like a lie — only to plunge overnight to the point where you'd need a trench coat. And before you could properly enjoy the foliage or the high, clear skies, winter would rush in.

And this time, he would leave this city before even that short autumn deepened. He hadn't expected to leave in this way, at this time — but it didn't matter. As long as he could safely get Yeehyeon out of this place, the destination didn't even have to be New York. What came next could be figured out afterward. He was prepared to absorb any material or temporal loss.

He had been resting his arms on the armrests of the cube-shaped minimalist sofa, hands loosely clasped over his crossed knees, gazing out the window — when someone stepped silently across the dark carpet and stopped in front of his table.

"Help Seon-yu have a solo exhibition at Phantom."

"......"

When he looked up, Shushu was standing there with a grim expression. Liu turned his gaze away and gripped his glass.

"Sit down."

After signaling the waiter for another glass, Shushu poured from Liu's whiskey bottle and downed half of it before the ice could even begin to dilute it. Unusual for Shushu, who didn't care for strong liquor — but Liu made no comment.

"Did Hong Seon-yu call you and whine about something while I was in Boston?"

Since the other party didn't seem inclined to draw things out, Liu brought up the name immediately.

It wasn't an unexpected development. Hong Seon-yu, who had "requested" a solo exhibition in Seoul from Liu in the Chicago hotel library, had looked desperate enough to sell his soul. If he was desperate enough to seek Liu out, finding Shushu as his next step wouldn't have been difficult.

Shushu, who had been sitting in quiet thought with his lips pressed shut despite Liu's aggressive remark, stared hard at the glass in his hand before speaking.

"The gallery he's currently with is penalizing him. They've been excluding him from exhibitions consecutively, and on top of that, demanding revisions during the early conceptual stage of his work — disrupting the creative process itself. That's insulting interference that violates an artist's creativity. It's essentially pressure for him to leave on his own."

Hmm. Liu closed his mouth and exhaled deeply. He pressed his eyelids as if applying acupressure, but managing his emotions was proving difficult.

Hong Seon-yu's moves were entirely predictable. But he hadn't expected Shushu to come forward like this about it. He didn't want to let out the emotions beginning to boil in his already heavily sinking mind. Even without doing that, he was already at a dangerously high emotional level.

The high-ceilinged lounge bar had tall rectangular windows reaching what seemed like three stories — creating an old-fashioned, antique ambiance. Liu ran his fingers absently along the long satin curtain hanging from where the window met the ceiling, trying to cool his head.

"Do you know how he ended up receiving that kind of treatment? Is that why you're saying this?"

Shushu didn't answer. But the way his gaze briefly met Liu's before sliding away was enough for Liu to understand: Shushu knew the whole story, and was asking for his help anyway.

Liu let go of the curtain, scoffed, and shook his head.

"So you know, and you're still saying this. What is this — is Phantom a charity? No. A charity wouldn't help someone who sold himself to succeed. Leaving aside the fact that he destroyed his own life, how does the word 'help' even come out of your mouth? What are you, some kind of saint?"

As if regretting the emotion he had let slip despite himself, Liu bit down hard on his lower lip until it went pale and searched for his glass.

"Wasn't it you, Liu Weikun, who said that for a work to be properly recognized, the work alone isn't enough — that management to present it attractively is essential? Not every creator is lucky enough to find a gallerist who will faithfully take care of them."

Liu, who had been staring down at his shoes with one arm resting on the armrest, turned his gaze sideways toward Shushu.

"In my opinion, Hong Seon-yu has already received more than enough generous recognition — and more than enough good fortune from that alone. All thanks to offering his ass to the gallery's old owner."

"......"

"Jeong Se-in, no matter how important a gallery's role is in promoting art, not everyone uses their ass to gain recognition."

Hong Seon-yu had been in a relationship with the owner of his gallery. He was likely one of several young lovers kept by the wealthy old man. He was still passing for his twenties by Western reckoning, but in Korean age he was already thirty. Liu neither wanted nor needed to know why Hong Seon-yu had fallen off the old man's list of favorites.

If his talent had been solid, galleries would have wanted to work with him even after the old man lost interest in his body. But no gallery would recruit a vain artist who overpackaged paintings worth less than five thousand dollars — dressing them up with clever slogans and strategic promotion — and sold them for fifteen thousand. Liu could not see marketing that built a genuine foundation for fair evaluation and marketing designed to inflate value for blind profit as the same thing.

Some people moved around the piano near the entrance, and soon a live jazz performance began. It was a gentle tune, soft enough not to disrupt conversation, and all the other guests seemed to be enjoying the jazz on a rainy autumn night — but the sweet melody reached only these two people.

After staring hard at Liu's face for a long stretch of silence, Shushu's lips moved several times as if about to speak, each time holding back.

"Seon-yu became so pathologically obsessed with success because..."

Listening to Shushu cautiously unfold Hong Seon-yu's past and family circumstances — completely unaware that Liu already knew all of it — Liu was forced to painfully confront the guilt he had carried as part of himself for years.

And yet, surprisingly, as he listened, a thought began to take shape: perhaps Shushu and Hong Seon-yu had shared more stories than he had imagined — and perhaps even a deeper connection. Liu had long known about the father's business failure, but the subsequent, more severely twisted obsession with success that followed it was an epilogue he had never known and had never cared to know.

Shushu was speaking about the concrete, individual history of Hong Seon-yu as a human being — the kind of depth that could only exist if both sides had genuinely opened themselves to each other.

He was talking about the hidden side of a person's soul. The kind that only becomes accessible when one side opens up their own darkness, and the other listens with deep affection, trust, and patient non-judgment — the kind that requires an intimacy close to lovers.

Whatever the initial motive for their contact may have been... perhaps during the time he spent with Shushu, Hong Seon-yu hadn't treated him with nothing but pretense and performance. Perhaps the more than three years they had been together hadn't been nothing more than a cruel and tragically clumsy scripted show.

Liu did not want to think that way. Not now. He did not want to understand Hong Seon-yu in any way.

"That... doesn't seem like sufficient justification for trading his body with a gallery owner for success."

As soon as Shushu's story wound to a close, Liu stated his conclusion immediately — like someone wanting to shut the door on a possibility he had sensed. When he saw disappointment and resentment harden across Shushu's face, he repeated to himself that this choice was for Shushu's sake. And he pressed the point home.

"And it's even less of a reason for what he did to you."

"......"

"When I think about what that bastard did to you... I simply cannot understand why you're coming forward like this. Jeong Se-in, in case you've forgotten — he didn't love you. For all that time, in that filthy way, he... used you."

Even as he watched Shushu's face twist with pain, Liu didn't stop pushing. He told himself he had to force him to face reality if he was ever going to stop being swayed by Hong Seon-yu.

"Why are you doing this? Whether Hong Seon-yu gets kicked out of his gallery or expelled from the art world — what does that have to do with you? Do you still have feelings for that bastard? Don't tell me you still love him?"

"Do you think only the love between you and your genius boy has value?"

There was no mockery in Shushu's voice — if anything, it sounded like words that had passed through reason rather than emotion, delivered without any strain. But the content alone was enough to scratch at Liu.

He ran his tongue over his lower lip and looked at Shushu with eyes that had gone cold.

"Why bring that up now?"

In contrast to Liu's aggressive display of emotion, Shushu looked at him with steady, calm eyes, as if he had anticipated this reaction.

"Not only relationships where two people approach each other with the same depth and direction remain as love."

Liu's gaze hardened further. After a brief pause, Shushu continued.

"If Yeehyeon were the one to turn his back on you first — do you really think that alone would let you cleanly sever your feelings for him? Could you label him a traitor and just rename what you feel?"

"......"

He couldn't say anything.

He couldn't say anything, but his mind was boiling. He wanted to shout that this and that were different things entirely — but for a moment, he wasn't sure. Whether they really were that different.

He licked his lower lip, then bit down hard. He turned his gaze toward the window, let out a heavy sigh, picked up his glass, and drained it.

Shushu had hypothesized Yeehyeon's betrayal — but in the actual relationship between Liu Weikun and Seo Yeehyeon, the traitor was Liu himself.

He wanted to argue that what he had done was nothing like what Hong Seon-yu had done to Shushu. But since that night — the second time he had performed a Changing on Yeehyeon, an act that could no longer be called a mistake — the existence of another self within him, one who observed every situation with cold clarity and regarded him as nothing but trash, was undeniable.

How Yeehyeon would receive his betrayal. The moment he started thinking about that, he couldn't answer Shushu's question.

Because it was Liu himself who was clinging to hope — hoping that Yeehyeon would forgive him, even after every accusation, curse, insult, and blow of resentment had been spent, even after being beaten and broken until there was nothing left. Liu was pinning everything on those words Yeehyeon had once said: that he loved him.

"I'm not saying that what Seon-yu did — past or present — was right. I'm not trying to cover for him either. But... strictly speaking, he didn't commit any crime or break any law."

"You call that a defense..."

"But that's what our relationship looks like from his side. What doesn't change is that regardless of what Seon-yu was thinking when he was by my side, I loved him. Just because there was deception woven into his love for me doesn't mean my love for him has to become a lie, does it?"

Ha...

All Liu could do was rub his face hard with both palms and swallow a sigh. It was becoming unbearable to watch the clear line that had once separated Hong Seon-yu from everything that wasn't him — the line between right and wrong — grow blurred. He was already struggling under the weight of his own problems. Spending energy on anything related to Hong Seon-yu felt impossible. His nerves were stretched so thin now that they felt too fragile to bear even the weight of a feather.

"Yes. Back then."

Pressing his fingertips against his eyelids, Liu opened his mouth.

"Let's say you had no choice but to be fooled, because he approached you with the clear intent to deceive. But now you're willing to let him use you or me again? What if this isn't the last time? Don't you think he's more than capable of doing exactly that? Do you really want him swinging your life around again now?"

All that miserable time — the time he lost not only a lover, but was forced to give up dance because of it, the time he had to endure until he could pick up a camera and rise through it — had all of that faded within him now? Liu shook his head and looked at Shushu.

"I can understand your hostility toward Seon-yu as my friend. And it's true, as you said, that he received excessive praise through dishonest means. That's exactly why, now — even if it means a harsh evaluation — I just want to help him get the chance to start over and be assessed properly."

"......"

"Alright. If you won't help, I'll do it myself. Luckily, having met a sincere gallery director, I'm in a position where I can offer that much."

When had Shushu become this unyielding? Where had the sensitive, emotional, indecisive artist with delicate sensibilities gone?

Or perhaps Liu had already sensed it. The photographs Shushu had been producing had been quietly hinting at it: he was no longer the helpless victim of life's tyranny — hiding, running, turning away, crumbling.

Shushu drained his glass, thanked Liu for making time despite his jet lag, and rose from his seat. Liu drove the nail in. Just because Shushu had grown stronger, just because he had broken free — Liu couldn't stand by and watch him willingly step back into the role of victim.

"Don't bother with useless trouble. I could make sure Hong Seon-yu can't sell a single drawing in the Korean art scene."

"I thought you'd changed a bit, thanks to Yeehyeon-ssi... Turns out you're just a different person only for him."

"......"

"I know this isn't your preferred approach. I know you see it as foolish. Even if you're worried about me... this foolishness is who I am, and this is the way someone like me loves. Don't I have the right to live my life foolishly?"

Shushu rose as if he had no lingering attachments. Even after he had walked away across the soft carpet and disappeared, Liu didn't try to look at him. He turned his head toward the rain-scattered window. His reflection wavered in the glass, floating in the darkness.

A man worn down and exhausted, driven into a corner — yet willing to throw away everything else just to hold on to the one thing in his hand.

No matter where he looked or what he faced, he could not escape it. The greed of that specter — the Ghost that lived within him, the one that looked exactly like himself.