Diamond Dust Novel - Chapter 35

A man in his late thirties, whose facial lines were starting to soften slightly, caught in the listlessness between youth and middle age. There was no way he didn’t know the information about hyung that I knew.

“The whole world knows my taste is niche, I admit it myself, even my parents know it… But CEO… frankly, you can choose whoever you want. I hate to admit it, but for a Golden Alpha whose looks are the epitome of the class, to be swapping out burly guys and getting tangled up with them… Ugh, my delicate aesthetic refuses to be imagined.”

Juhan hyung waved his hands several times as if chasing away a vision in front of his eyes, then gulped down his beer.

I was erasing the condensation on the beer bottle with my thumb. From the corner of my eye, focused downward, I felt his gaze flick toward me for an instant, but I chose not to raise my head to confirm it.

“Hmm. Burly or whatever, that’s fine… but I do mind being lumped in as someone who sleeps around with random people. Sleeping with a non-romantic partner isn’t necessarily promiscuous. Otherwise, do adults our age resolve their urges only through masturbation if they don’t have a partner? Well, there might be such people, but just because they choose that life doesn’t give them the right to criticize those who don’t. If sleeping with a non-partner is the definition of promiscuity… I don’t recall you two being particularly chaste either.”

In the end, he smiled somewhat slyly, looking at nuna and hyung alternately. Nuna and hyung both nodded, showing an expression that agreed with him, and hyung even raised a hand as if making a declaration.

“Whatever sexual life happens within a consensual relationship is an individual’s domain. I agree with that most of all.”

“Yes, it is strictly an individual’s domain, indeed.”

Nuna followed suit, raising her hand in agreement.

I was a person whose entire sex life was masturbation, but I didn’t view those who weren’t like me negatively. I also agreed with the CEO’s opinion that sleeping with a non-partner wasn’t automatically promiscuous.

If so, what about a person you love? Could we, the people gathered here, maintain the same stance even regarding someone we love, and avoid being hurt if that person slept with someone else?

Since they wouldn’t be in a committed relationship, the act itself couldn’t be criticized, but it would be hard not to be hurt. Not just by the sexual act, but they would probably feel pain even if the other person was just treating someone else affectionately.

“Dealing with critics accusing me of being disorganized in my private life, saying things like ‘sleeping around for business,’ is enough. Ah… if I were actually playing around that promiscuously, it wouldn’t feel so unfair.”

I had wrongly assumed that he was the kind of person who wouldn’t care about such things at all. But thinking about it, even for a person who merely shrugs off vulgar and malicious appraisals about themselves, it must, of course, be unpleasant. Just because he can tolerate it, or maintain his composure, doesn’t mean he isn’t affected.

I looked down at the beer label, which was sufficiently soaked with condensation on the surface that it easily separated from the bottle with a light push. I ridiculed my own naiveté for having inwardly looked forward to today just for the excited curiosity of visiting his house.

“But CEO, why are you defending yourself so passionately, which is unlike you? You know it’s all a joke. Between us. Could it be… that you really hated the idea of Hyunie misunderstanding?”

“Of course, I hate the idea of a handsome man misunderstanding me as promiscuous.”

At nuna’s playful provocation, he widened his light-blue eyes and exaggeratedly spread his arms.

In fact, all of this was meaningless joking. Jokes were only possible because everyone knew that although the photo happened to be taken with that kind of atmosphere, he had absolutely no private interest (or “lust,” in nuna’s terms) in me.

Feeling consumed by those innocent conversations, I felt like an overly sensitive person. Or, perhaps, there was a special reason why I had to be sensitive to this kind of joke. Whatever it was, I didn’t want to think about it right now.

The beer he had handed me was also already nearing the bottom. Since I didn’t yet know my exact limit, I tended to drink faster if I wasn’t careful. Since I wasn’t articulate, I also ended up drinking more whenever I felt awkward or embarrassed.

I wasn’t drunk, but I felt slightly hazy and wanted to clear my head for a moment.

“Nuna, is the shoot completely finished now?”

“Why? Do you want to change?”

“Yes, and I want to wash my face a little too…”

I answered, lightly rubbing the cheek, where the freckles were drawn, with my fingertips. I felt his gaze glued to the left side of my face, but I pretended not to notice.

“Go inside, change your clothes, and wash your face. You know the room where you changed earlier? There’s a bathroom right next to it. It’s the guest bathroom anyway, so use it freely.”

“You talk as if it’s your house?”

“Then why don’t the CEO guide him himself? This is what I get for doing the bothersome job for him.”

I watched nuna and him exchange casual, unrestrained conversation, put down the empty bottle, and stood up from my spot.

The moment I passed behind him toward the entrance, he gently grabbed my wrist. He looked up at me, tilting his head, and said,

“Feel free to use anything in the bathroom.”

It was probably the kindest tone I had ever heard from him. Was it because he had been in a good mood since yesterday?

I thought that the person who made him so generous was probably writer Shushu, who wasn’t here. I didn’t dare question why that thought made me feel an unpleasant discomfort.

“Thank you.”

I murmured in a small voice and headed straight for the entrance.

Because he possessed a certain arrogant leisure and a glamorous atmosphere, I had expected his house to be a towering mixed-use high-rise like the Tower of Babel, or a unique, modern luxury mansion overlooking the Han River.

Of course, the house was large enough to make my jaw drop, like the mansions on the hill where More lived, but judging by the small, winding stone steps from the gate to the garden, and the exterior walls that retained the red brick, it gave the impression of a house built quite a long time ago.

The interior, however, seemed to have been completely remodeled.

The hallway starting from the entrance branched off to the left and right. We had opened the main gate with the key we had received from him beforehand, and had been using the back door leading to the kitchen at the rear of the building to avoid disturbing him. Once I found the kitchen, finding the room would be simple.

I used my sense of direction and turned left. What appeared before me was the living room.

Unlike the dim hallway that lacked windows, the living room, which had a high, open ceiling reaching up to the second floor, was richly filled with the slanted late-afternoon sunlight. If I crossed the living room and turned right, the kitchen would probably be there.

But I couldn’t take a single step into the living room.

I was confronted with an incomparable terror, more so than the camera lens that felt like it was dissecting me, more so than his gaze that had ‘caressed’ me with the lens that felt like lips and had stepped right up to my thighs.

In a completely unexpected place, without warning or hint.

Like a knife plunged into my abdomen the moment I casually turned a street corner.

I had believed I knew better than anyone that malicious tricks of life could be sudden and violent, like a bomb dropped in the most peaceful location, without rhyme or reason.

Once life decided to play a trick, a human being was simply destined to fall for the same trick two or three times.

I had thought I had moved past it.

My father had abandoned me, consumed by his grief, but I had Han hyung and More. I had also sacrificed five years, a not insignificant amount of time out of my whole twenty-two years of life as a scapegoat.

I had felt the impulse, when someone provoked me, not to turn and avoid them, but to stab and provoke them back. In front of someone else’s artwork, I was seized by the intense desire to pick up a brush again.

Perhaps I hadn’t overcome it, but I had learned to accept it as a part of myself, like a lump risen on the skin, or a hideously distorted scar that no longer bled.

I had been greatly mistaken.

Nothing had changed. I was still a denied child.

From outside the entrance, through the large full-length window of the living room, I could hear the laughter of the three people. I wanted to run out to the world where they were, those who possessed passion, talent, and the strength to confront their wounds.

But I couldn’t. My past, which I thought had been preserved, was resurrecting itself into the present, more vivid than ever, and was laughing as it strangled me, and I had no strength to loosen a single joint of that hand.

“I followed you because I thought you might not be able to find the room.”

It was his voice. But I couldn’t turn my gaze to look at him. I couldn’t turn my head away from myself.

“Ah… do you like it?”

I felt the presence of him coming closer, having probably followed my fixed gaze.

“The artist who drew this was sixteen at the time. A monster.”

“……”

“What do you see in this picture, by any chance? I’m curious what the Seo Yihyun-ssi, whom Choi Inwoo praises so highly, sees.”

“Alienation.”

“……”

I whispered the word in a very small voice, like a monologue, and his silence that followed grew heavy.

No, silence couldn’t possibly have weight. I couldn’t deny that I had been conscious of his presence since our first meeting and had shown unfamiliar reactions related to him over time, but his gaze, watching me with interest right beside me, was meaningless at this moment.

“Hmm. No one has gotten this right until now. Should I seriously ask Seo Yihyun-ssi to write the preface? How did you know? Even though it’s a boldly expressive work, it gives the feeling that the two people have affection and rely on each other. The colors are warm, too. Most people interpret it as love or being lovers, or something similar. But Seo Yihyun-ssi… why did you think it was a painting about alienation?”

He was more excited than ever, putting his hand on my shoulder, gripping it firmly, and pouring out his words.

I turned my head to look at him. I moved only my face, keeping my neck straight, like a person whose neck was rigidly held by some device, or whose whole body was stiffened because a knife was pointed at their back.

When I focused on his gray-blue eyes, his unique scent, which was as intensified as his excitement, enveloped me as if assaulting my whole body. But this time, even the subtle stimulation of that scent couldn’t reel me in. Why did you think that? I answered.

“Because I painted it.”