Diamond Dust Novel - Chapter 24

I took another sip of coffee. I let out a long breath, like a deep sigh, to clear my head. This wasn’t a problem that would change just by dwelling on it for a long time.

I minimized the window I was looking at and brought up an illustration program on the screen instead. The artwork, created using only black and white, was the result of my brief study over the last week.

It was obvious, but I had almost no social capital to speak of. The tasks I could handle at Phantom were almost exclusively miscellaneous work: assisting with the delivery of sold artworks, moving heavy items, and providing simple guidance to visitors when others were absent or busy.

I immediately thought I should at least learn the basics of Illustrator or Photoshop. I borrowed the teacher’s laptop, got recommendations from Yuni Noona and Juhan Hyung, and bought a few books. Since video lectures were included, I quickly picked up the most basic functions, but I wasn’t yet proficient enough to be helpful for official tasks.

But I couldn’t remain stagnant, confined only to tasks like updating customer address books, sorting returned mail, cleaning, or driving, just because I wasn’t helpful right now. I wanted to be more helpful. I wanted to be that way.

A mundane daily life that continued without effort was something I had virtually given up on the moment I stepped over the threshold of the front gate, leaving my father behind, on that rainy dawn.

“What is this, Seo Yihyun, are you studying illustration these days?”

Someone reached over my left shoulder, resting their hand on my right shoulder, and peered over my face. It was Juhan Hyung.

My clumsy work felt embarrassing under the gaze of Hyung, who took off his sunglasses to look at the screen, but I didn’t try to hide it.

“Oh? Did you try to draft an advertisement design?”

Yuni Noona climbed onto the stool next to me and tilted the laptop further toward her.

We had voluntarily decided to come in on Saturday to reduce the workload for Monday. Noona wanted to buy some plants to decorate the gallery, so the plan was to meet here, stop by the flower market, and then head to Phantom. I didn’t expect them to arrive twenty minutes before the scheduled time.

Exposing my deficiencies to others brought as much tension as showing my paintings to someone else.

“It’s not that… just practicing…”

“It’s good… It’s even more surprising that you pulled off this much with basic skills, wow.”

Noona patted my shoulder, speaking in an unexaggerated tone. It didn’t sound like a hollow compliment.

All current tasks at Phantom were focused on preparing for Artist Shu-shu’s solo exhibition, which had been moved up a week earlier than planned.

Artist Shu-shu was one of Phantom’s main artists, so it was decided to place advertisements for the exhibition in art magazines, and Noona and Hyung had to create the advertisement mock-ups while working on other tasks.

It was an idea I squeezed out, thinking it wouldn’t be much help, but would at least give me practice in mastering the skills I was learning. I felt like I had to do something.

“You must have researched Artist Shu-shu a bit, huh?”

Juhan Hyung patted my shoulder, smiling.

“The outline is clear, I like it. The overall color is simple, but the image is dynamic, it’s totally the artist’s style! We could definitely use this part. Would that be okay?”

Noona pointed her index finger at the fluid, wave-like image composed of black letters.

“I’d be grateful if you did…”

“Then I’ll send it to my email right now, shall I?”

While Noona opened a browser window and logged into her email, Juhan Hyung stepped away briefly to order drinks.

I waited for Noona to finish, fiddling with my coffee cup.

The area in front of the bar was a large window, offering a view of the Saturday afternoon street. Sitting here and watching people felt unreal, like watching TV. Because my surroundings had changed so quickly over the last month or two, I often felt disconnected from my current life.

It was a similar feeling to that time in the taxi, after finishing work on the first day at Phantom, when I felt that if I returned to that spot, the gallery would have vanished…

Like someone might grab me by the scruff of the neck and say, “It was all a dream, Mr. Seo Yihyun. It’s time to return to reality.”

“Oh? Were you looking at the Old Future website?”

Noona’s face, smiling at me as she said that, was somewhat reassuring. It was still reality. At least for now.

“Yes, the website has a variety of content, so I was looking around for a while. Oh, Noona. I want to buy a pair of pants from Old Future… these ones.”

I found the thumbnail of the pants I had noticed earlier on the Old Future site and showed it to Noona.

“Would it be possible for me to give you the money directly and receive it?”

“What, are you trying to return the favor for the gift?”

“No. Well, not entirely no, but… I saw them and they’re pretty.”

Noona pressed the piercing in her eyebrow and laughed at my ambiguous answer, which was neither yes nor no.

“That’s fine, but… you could just sign up and pay for them.”

“My phone… isn’t under my name. I tried, but I couldn’t sign up.”

“It’s not under your name? Then what? In this day and age, it must be really inconvenient if your phone isn’t in your own name.”

Juhan Hyung, who returned after placing the order, put the vibrating buzzer down on the bar and naturally joined the conversation.

“It’s like… a burner phone.”

Even if I hadn’t become a Phantom employee, Yuni Noona and Juhan Hyung were connections I wanted to maintain. But since I was now working at the same gallery, I had anticipated that I would have to give them a general explanation of my situation someday, even if I couldn’t tell them everything.

It would be impossible for them not to notice that I was in an unusual situation, spending time with them and seeing my face every day.

“A burner phone? Why are you using a burner phone?”

Juhan Hyung lowered his voice and pulled his stool closer, asking the question.

“It’s not just about me, so I can’t go into detail, but the older brother and sister I was living with before moving to the Director’s house… it’s basically like we ran away from the village we used to live in. So…”

“The three of you ran away?”

Hyung’s long eyes narrowed even further.

“Yes.”

“A unique elopement. Two men and one woman?”

“Yes.”

“Are you two a couple, perhaps?”

This time, I only nodded my head in reply, and Hyung poked me with his elbow, laughing slightly slyly.

“Wow… Seo Yihyun is so clueless.”

“Would he have just butted in on a couple? There must be more to it than that.”

Although Yuni Noona thought kindly of me like that… perhaps Juhan Hyung was right, and I was clueless.

I know Morae and Han Hyung wouldn’t have thought that of me. But regardless of what they thought, looking only at the situation itself, it was true that I had gone through a period where the label ‘clueless kid’ was hard to argue against.

“So that’s why you couldn’t sign a formal contract.”

Yuni Noona rested her chin on her hand, tapping the piercing on her lip with her finger, and nodded, as if she finally understood.

Given the circumstances, working in a way that left a traceable record with the tax office or anywhere else was risky. Because of this, I couldn’t sign a formal employment contract and was paid slightly less than others at the moving company. Such cases occasionally occurred in day-labor jobs, and my employer, the team leader, who had dealt with all sorts of people, had hired me without probing deeply. I was lucky.

However, I hadn’t expected the Director of Phantom, who was notoriously ‘particular about people’ as he himself stated, to try to hire me, even knowing my situation.

That night, when he offered me the job at the teacher’s dining table, I thought it was because he didn’t yet know my situation. I figured that once he realized I couldn’t be formally registered as an employee for cost processing, and that he might easily get entangled in trouble, he would withdraw the offer and distance himself.

But the teacher, who spoke with him, explained the terms of the offer, saying that he had agreed to my working without formal employee registration until my situation improved. Considering my circumstances, no, even without that, it was a remarkably generous offer.

Even if there was some other reason for his decision that I didn’t know, and even if it later became a weakness, I was grateful for his decision for now.

I felt ambitious about becoming a part of Phantom and working there, and I was willing to take the risk to seize the opportunity.

“But I have to hand it to you, Seo Yihyun. I thought you were just a sincere young man who had a good upbringing, but you turn out to be a troublemaker using a burner phone. But hey… you’re not running away after committing some kind of crime, are you?”

I chuckled and shook my head toward Juhan Hyung, who was chewing on the tip of the green straw with his teeth as he asked that question. Perhaps embarrassed by the question himself, Hyung also laughed softly.

“I’m curious about the story, but I have a feeling Seo Yihyun is incredibly tight-lipped, so I won’t ask.”

Noona put her arm over my shoulder, saying this playfully.

“There was a reason you got along so well with us, the embodiment of materialism, even though you seem like the personification of desirelessness. Well, if you look into everyone’s past, who doesn’t have a story? Even if someone looks normal on the outside, you never know what’s inside.”

This time, Juhan Hyung placed a heavy hand on my shoulder.

The vibrating buzzer on the bar started shaking loudly. Frowning at the irritating noise, Noona quickly snatched the buzzer.

“Let’s grab the drinks and head out right away. We should get going if we want to stop by the market before the office. It should overlap with the Director’s arrival time, right?”

This place, where Phantom hadn’t vanished, was still my reality.