Diamond Dust Novel - Chapter 7

Gallery Phantom.

The gallery with the somewhat grand name was located halfway up the hill that stretched towards Bugaksan Mountain, behind the Hanok village. The grounds weren’t particularly vast, but the two-story building was quite sizable compared to the charming, smaller structures around it.

Although the teacher had briefly explained the situation on the way here, assuring me that the tasks assigned to me were simple jobs requiring no special expertise, I couldn’t help but doubt my ability to be helpful as an outsider and a novice, even as I followed her through the heavy main door, which exuded a cool, detached image.

“All you need to do is follow the staff’s instructions. I haven’t seen you in ten years, but seeing how you manage my house is enough proof. These are simple labor tasks a beginner can handle, so don’t worry, okay?”

The teacher patted my back lightly as we ascended the stairs leading to the second floor, past the cozy, high-ceilinged hall right by the entrance.

The stairs were elegant, wide, and made of a nearly white ivory material. So much so that one stepped on them with caution.

“Director Han! Artist Yoon is currently…”

“I’ll handle Artist Yoon starting now. Here. The gift I brought.”

“……”

The teacher positioned me in front of her, then placed her hands on my shoulders and nudged me forward about a step. The person who found themselves suddenly face-to-face with me merely stared up silently, an expression of confusion on their face. My situation wasn’t much different.

As soon as we stepped onto the second floor, several spaces partitioned by temporary walls appeared, and glimpses of artworks hanging on the walls flashed into view around the corners, which bent in different directions like a small maze.

The space was obsessively, overwhelmingly white. Even the floor, like the stairs, was a pale ivory, let alone the partition walls where the paintings hung. The structural ceiling, set high above the partitions, was the same.

In that white space, only the person standing before me was clad entirely in black.

From their jet-black bob haircut, which looked intentionally dyed to be darker, to the blouse with puffed shoulders, the mismatched sweatpants, the slippers they wore, and the exaggerated frame of their horn-rimmed glasses, everything was black.

From my natural standing position, I looked down at the top of their head. They were small and petite, yet the image they projected was intense. Even the eyes looking at me through the lenses had clean, black edges. The unfiltered gaze, devoid of hostility or friendliness, seemed to be asking about my identity.

“This is a friend who’s been taking care of my new house, the one I told you about. I asked him to help out at the gallery today. He’s good at everything, so he’ll be a big help.”

That was the teacher’s answer to her unspoken question. She shrugged her shoulders, turning her gaze away from me.

“It’s better to have one more person, I suppose. Director, please deal with Artist Yoon quickly. My phone is about to explode.”

“I got it, I’ll go solve it right away. Where did Juhan go?”

“He went down to get the artwork from Section C.”

That was the end of it. The woman with the black bob returned to the spot where she had been working moments ago, and the teacher quickly left the gallery to deal with the trouble with the person named Artist Yoon. I suspect the teacher may have been overestimating my social skills.

The woman, who had been cutting something at a makeshift workstation, glanced at me and spoke quickly.

“I’m sorry to do this the moment we meet, but I’m a bit busy right now, so I’ll ask for a favor immediately. Could you go down to the basement and help move some artworks? Open that door and go down the stairs, and you’ll find a stick-in-the-mud struggling in the storage room. Just ask him and help out.”

This didn’t seem like a situation to stand around awkwardly. As instructed, I opened the white door marked ‘STAFF ONLY’ and went in. Following the narrow stairs down, I immediately arrived at the basement storage room.

The thick steel door with a security device was wide open, so I didn’t have to wander to find the person she mentioned.

In the large space, which, like the floor above, was entirely white, I easily spotted a man who, like the woman upstairs, was clad head-to-toe in black.

Similar to me, or slightly taller, the man with a thin build and unusually long limbs was busy moving back and forth between organized paintings with his back to me. His heavy, lace-up work boots, the kind a punk rock band might wear, were striking.

“Excuse me…”

“Agh! Fuck, you startled me!”

I thought I had made enough noise coming down the stairs, but perhaps he was too engrossed in his work to hear me. Even though I called out cautiously, the man was so surprised he stumbled.

The man who turned around had a face as unique as his attire. It was a mask that gave off a distinct vibe, difficult to categorize as handsome or plain. His perfectly straight bangs, long enough to poke his eyes, further accentuated his individuality. It was a face you would never forget after seeing it once.

The woman upstairs had only two or three piercings on her face, but this man had even more accessories. His exposed ears were entirely covered in rings of various sizes, like a stack of spiral notebooks, and piercings also decorated his eyebrows, nose, and lips. A thin chain connecting the ring-shaped piercing through the center of his lower lip to his eyebrow piercing drew my eye.

Neither the woman upstairs nor the man in front of me looked like typical gallery employees. However, the atmosphere they exuded was quite similar.

In the all-white space, the two of them emanated a distinct presence, as if their outlines had been drawn with a marker.

The man, who had stopped working and stood looking at me with his file-holding hands resting on his hips, frowned slightly. He must have been waiting for my introduction.

“I was sent by Director Han… The staff upstairs told me to come down and help in the basement.”

“Oh… is that right? I thought… our Director is always saying there are ghosts down here.”

Perhaps embarrassed by how startled he had been moments ago, the man fidgeted with his lip piercing and said that.

“I’m picking out the paintings that need to go upstairs. I’ll find the ones on the list, and you move them over here.”

The man pointed toward the paintings grouped near the entrance and led the way into the inner area.

The man checked the list and identified the area where the paintings were located. A-1, 2, 3… B-1, 2, 3… The areas were systematically organized, so finding the paintings wasn’t difficult. It was a battle of time and labor.

The man found the painting, so I moved it to the entrance. In the meantime, the man found the next painting. That was the system.

“So, what’s your connection to Director Han? She wouldn’t have hired someone from a job site or something at this hour.”

There had been no small talk at all during the work, but he asked me a personal question for the first time while double-checking the paintings we had moved.

“I’m the housekeeper for her newly moved house. She asked me to help out because the gallery is busy today.”

“Ah, the housekeeper she just hired…”

I nodded to the man, who was staring intently at my face again.

“I didn’t realize you were so young. What’s your name? We should know each other’s names even if we’re only working together for one night. I’m Kwon Juhan.”

“Seo Yihyun.”

He was kneeling in front of the painting, and I was gripping the corner of the canvas to keep it from falling, as we exchanged a significantly belated handshake.

“Since we’re only working together for a day, let’s just call each other Juhan-ssi and Yihyun-ssi.”

I nodded once more in agreement with his suggestion.

He dusted his knees and stood up. Now we had to move the paintings upstairs. There were a total of twenty-four pieces, including some large ones that looked to be over 120 ho (a unit for canvas size). These were the artworks and commodities that would be exhibited and sold starting tomorrow. To handle them carefully, we decided to carry them together, excluding only the very smallest pieces.

“It’s not just me, but you look pretty scrawny too… and these things are quite heavy. You absolutely must not drop them, so stay focused. Seriously. If you drop one, our Director will not let you live, Yihyun-ssi.”

We took our positions on opposite sides of the canvas to move the first piece. Juhan-ssi lightly warned me, perhaps imagining the scolding he might receive from the Director, while simultaneously giving his own shoulders a shudder.

Juhan-ssi led the way up the stairs, and I cautiously followed behind him. Since the exhibition hall was on the second floor, the number of stairs leading up from the basement was not small. On the landing between the first and second floors, Juhan-ssi signaled for a short stop.

“Do you… work out? Your strength is… p-pretty good, better than you look.”

“I work part-time for a moving company.”

His gaze examined me again, as if looking for signs of strenuous physical labor.

On the surface, there wasn’t a huge difference in our builds, but climbing and descending stairs while carrying heavy loads was something I did almost every day now. It wasn’t strange that I had picked up a trick or two.

“If it’s too heavy, should I carry it from the top next time? It seems harder for you walking backward.”

“No, it’s not heavy. It’s just that I already moved about thirty pieces by myself earlier today… I’m usually not like this. Let’s go again.”

Juhan-ssi regulated his still irregular breathing and lifted the painting again with his long, thin arms, whose joints were noticeably sharp.

As soon as we reached the second floor and carefully set the painting down, he collapsed onto the floor.

“Aargh, I can’t do any more! I moved thirty pieces by myself today! My legs are shaking!”

He shouted and pounded the floor while lying down, but the woman with the bob haircut didn’t even spare him a glance, immediately starting to strip the packaging off the painting we had just moved.