Diamond Dust Novel - Chapter 12

“Did you really read the editor-in-chief’s book, even underscoring it?”

Juhan-ssi and I placed the five or six leftover bottles of champagne from the party onto the large conference table in the office. The Director opened one of them and poured it into a glass, asking the teacher with a playful smirk.

“Did you even have time for that lately? That book came out less than two weeks ago; think about how we’ve spent those two weeks.”

The teacher, receiving the glass the Director handed him and wetting his lips, hooked his tired legs, fatigued from standing all day, over the edge of the table as he answered.

“Then what was it?”

“What was it, Yihyun-ah?”

As if he had been curious about it all along, the teacher demanded an answer from me.

“I thought it shouldn’t look too much like a brand-new book… so I handled it in the taxi to smudge it a bit, underscored some parts… and folded a few corners… That’s what I did.”

Strictly speaking, my instructions were only to buy the book. But since the teacher had also mentioned that he was actually reading the book, and I thought it would be awkward to present a freshly bought book for an autograph that clearly looked like pure pretense, I had done it. Now that it had become a topic of conversation, I felt nervous, wondering if I had done something unnecessary and unasked for.

The cheerful atmosphere, celebrating the successful conclusion of the party and the respectable sales rate, momentarily turned brittle and froze. The source of the chill was, of course, the Director. As I sensed yesterday, he had a knack for dominating the atmosphere just with the angle of his gaze or his expression. The fact that others had no choice but to watch and adjust to his mood wasn’t solely due to his status as the owner.

“He could have been offended that his book was handled carelessly, couldn’t he? Underscoring it and folding pages… many people dislike things like that, right?”

As if talking to himself, the Director muttered while sipping champagne.

“I only thought that it needed to show proof of having been read. I apologize.”

“Yihyun-ah, what are you apologizing for? Kuhn, what’s wrong? Are you pushing this too far?”

The teacher put his champagne glass down on the table with a sharp clack.

“I didn’t criticize; I merely asked if he hadn’t considered the opposite perspective.”

He shrugged and avoided the teacher’s eyes by pretending to drink his champagne.

While the icy hostility from yesterday was absent, his prickly attitude remained. The teacher seemed slightly angry. It was rare.

“Director Ryu is a consequentialist and focuses on results. Thanks to Yihyun, the editor-in-chief was pleased, and our sales went up, so you should give him a bonus, not pick a fight. Do you have a problem with the kid I brought?”

His eyes slowly turned toward me. I didn’t know the nature or intimacy of the teacher and the Director’s private relationship, but I could sense that he completely trusted the teacher. At the very least, he never gave the teacher a bothered look or an evil laugh. Not even the mechanical smile, armed with a factory-made, harmful sweetness.

“What does liking or disliking him have to do with anything? He’s someone who came to help briefly and will leave. You know I’m uncomfortable working with strangers. I’ll give him a bonus if Director Han says to give him one.”

“That’s not the point. Ugh… I thought you might have changed a bit, but you’re still the same.”

Shaking his head, the teacher finished the rest of his champagne, emptied the glass, checked the time, and stood up.

After this, the Director and the teacher had an after-party with VVIPs, guests even more important than the VIPs.

“They say people don’t change after twenty-five,” the Director said, lightly kneading the teacher’s shoulder in a playful, affectionate manner. He then pulled a card from his wallet and handed it to Yuni-ssi.

“You worked hard today. Go enjoy yourselves once you finish the cleanup.”

Yuni-ssi, who was tidying up the remaining pamphlets, quickly ran over and snatched the card. Her eyes shining, she asked:

“Company card? Or Director’s personal card?”

He pushed Yuni-ssi’s forehead with a flick of his finger and frowned.

“Why are you all so obsessed with that? Do you enjoy spending my money that much?”

“Yes, because it feels like affection.”

“There’s no affection even on the personal card, so stop talking nonsense.”

The catering utensils and leftover food had all been cleared and collected by the company, so today’s work was finished once the inside and outside were tidied up slightly. I was heading up to the second-floor exhibition hall to start the cleanup when Juhan-ssi, with an apologetic expression, hesitated and spoke.

“Our Director… he’s a little startling, isn’t he?”

“Don’t worry about it too much. He’s not like that just to Yihyun-ssi; he’s just naturally like that with people he meets for the first time.”

Yuni-ssi added a word of reassurance.

I smiled to show it was okay and folded the legs of the temporary table that had been set up nearby.

“I was even worse when I first came here. I seriously considered scratching his car all over with a nail and just disappearing into the wind because I was so pissed off. Seriously. I was dead serious.”

Thinking of the way he treated Juhan-ssi now, it was hard to imagine. But judging by Juhan-ssi’s expression, it didn’t seem like a fabricated story to console me.

“But I figured he was the type of person who would find me and make me pay for it no matter what… so I gave up on scratching the car. I thought he’d find me, strip me naked, and then scratch my body all over with a nail.”

Juhan-ssi grimaced and dramatically shuddered, as if he had actually received such a threat from the Director.

“I wonder about that… Don’t you think a big reason was you shamelessly hitting on the Director?”

That was Yuni-ssi’s comment, who was in the inner exhibition hall attaching ‘Sold Out’ stickers to the artworks sold today.

“Hey, who hit on who… P-Pheromones! How am I supposed to resist a Golden Alpha’s pheromones!”

“What nonsense. Why would the Director release his pheromones in front of you? And you’re a Beta.”

Perhaps embarrassed by the lameness of his self-defense, since he had just finished lecturing me extensively on the Golden Alpha Director’s excellent pheromone control, Juhan-ssi glanced at me.

“What I’m trying to say is that the Director is just naturally ill-tempered; he doesn’t specifically dislike Yihyun-ssi. That’s the point. The Director picking a fight isn’t because he dislikes someone. He treats everyone that way before he starts to like them.”

I don’t know if this was truly comforting, but at least it seemed to be true that he wasn’t ‘specially’ tormenting me.

Juhan-ssi added, as he and I jointly lifted the folded-up table and moved it toward the railing:

“And the Director is probably capable of shooting pheromones at a Beta if he really wanted to.”

Yuni-ssi leaned against a partition wall, frowning.

“Are pheromones a superhero character’s finishing move? Shooting them?”

“Well, if you decide to use them, they can indeed be a finishing move. Hey, do you know what’s stronger than pheromones?”

Saying that, Juhan-ssi looked back and forth between Yuni-ssi and me. Neither of us had an answer. Juhan-ssi raised his chin slightly, adopting a somewhat arrogant posture.

“Taste. Taste is above pheromones. At first, I was a little out of it because of the Golden Alpha pheromones, but once I came to my senses, I realized he wasn’t my type. My type is…”

Juhan-ssi’s impassioned lecture on his preference followed: men in their late thirties whose facial lines were just beginning to lose their sharpness, caught in a sense of listlessness at the boundary between youth and middle age.

Judging from their conversation so far, Juhan-ssi’s romantic interests seemed to be men. And he didn’t seem to make any effort to conceal his orientation, even in front of me, who he wasn’t close to. I, too, had no intention of pushing him over some special boundary in my mind because of it.

Yuni-ssi shook her head, as if she had heard this story dozens of times already. Then, as if there was no need to listen any further, she grabbed my wrist and led me down the stairs.

Come to think of it, there was no reason to like or dislike someone I had only seen twice. As the teacher said, and as Juhan-ssi and Yuni-ssi suggested, it was just the man’s consistent attitude toward strangers.

I became curious. What would it feel like to be ‘specially’ disliked by him?

I had a feeling that among the people who had visited the exhibition hall just now, there might have been many who would have wanted to be ‘special’ to him, even if it meant being disliked