Diamond Dust Novel - Chapter 9

The VIP opening was scheduled to start at 3:00 PM.

Regarding the unexpectedly late opening time, Yuni-ssi explained it this way:

“Our gallery’s main clients are mostly big shots in the fashion and entertainment industries. If we opened in the morning, no one would show up. Most of them start their day around noon.”

It was a plausible explanation. I was far from trendy or sensitive, someone who barely knew who the most popular celebrity was and never flipped through a fashion magazine, but I had enough common sense to guess at the irregular lifestyles of people in that field.

However, I was slightly puzzled that the gallery’s main clientele consisted of people from the fashion and entertainment industries.

Though the fashion and entertainment worlds were closely linked, the connection between a gallery dealing in fine art and those two fields didn’t seem very deep. Perhaps the demographics of art consumers had diversified during my time living in reclusion in the fishing village, to the point where a gallery’s primary customers were celebrities and fashion insiders.

Even Yuni-ssi and Juhan-ssi, from a traditional perspective, looked more convincingly like models or designers than gallery staff guiding visitors on the power and elasticity of line or the imagination evoked by blank space in front of an Oriental painting.

I had half-expected them to wear neat, curator-like attire for the day of welcoming VIP clients, but that wasn’t the case at all.

With more piercings and accessories, plus makeup to match their looks, they were even more dressed up than yesterday.

After moving the pamphlets that had just arrived from the printing house into the office and separating the ones for the main exhibition from those to be handed out today, I asked about something I’d been curious about since yesterday.

“It seems clothing is pretty free at Phantom.”

Juhan-ssi, who was returning after placing the stack of pamphlets separated for the main exhibition on the window shelf, gave a small smile, as if he had already anticipated the question.

“At our gallery?”

When I nodded, he continued his explanation.

“Our gallery has a unique operating policy. Our main customers are people from the entertainment and fashion industries, right? The Director’s policy is that the staff must also have a certain level of style to appeal to them, so unique clothing is actually encouraged.”

“If that weren’t the case, Kwon Juhan would have failed the interview, you know?”

Yuni-ssi, who had just returned to the office after checking on the catering company’s progress, said this as she walked past the table where we were working.

“Who was it that dragged an unwilling person to the interview in the first place?”

Juhan-ssi turned around, bristling as if wronged, but couldn’t elicit a response from Yuni-ssi. Her phone, which had been ringing almost nonstop since I arrived this morning, started ringing again.

Juhan-ssi quickly turned back to me and continued putting the pamphlets into plastic bags. He was quick to give up.

“It’s totally great for us. We don’t have to separate our ‘work self’ from our ‘off-duty self,’ and we even get regular support for clothing expenses.”

I understood that there were no clothing restrictions since the main clients were from the fashion and entertainment industries, but the question of how the gallery’s main clientele came to be filled with these people still remained.

However, it wasn’t the kind of curiosity that would keep me up at night if I didn’t get a clear answer, so I nodded silently.

“You know, right? There are a lot of Alphas and Omegas in the entertainment industry. You’ll definitely have an eyeful today.”

The number of currently popular celebrities whose names and faces I could match was only one or two. But if I kept track of the names and told Morae and Hyung, it could serve as decent conversation fodder during our beer time.

Juhan-ssi told me to anticipate the celebrities, Alphas, and Omegas I would see at today’s party, but in my opinion, I doubted there could be anyone more ‘Alpha’ or ‘Alpha-like’ than that man from yesterday, the Phantom Director.

Even if he weren’t an Alpha, but merely a Beta, he was the very image of a Golden Alpha to an ordinary person like me.

It wasn’t just the exotic mystique typical of a mixed-race person, with slightly Asian features mixed with features so close to foreign that they were almost certainly not pure-blooded (even if I hadn’t confirmed whether he was mixed-race, it was biologically impossible for his features and eyes to be purely Asian).

The unique and unparalleled atmosphere and presence he exuded were matters of sensation, not logic. I could probably draw it, but trying to describe it in words would be difficult.

He’s more impressive. He’s greater., It wasn’t a concept like that. Nor was it a feeling of belonging to a different race. Even seeing an unrealistically beautiful foreigner in front of me would likely only elicit the feeling, ‘It’s the same person, yet so different.’

What exactly is this in front of me?, The shock he invoked was of that lighter, more puzzling kind.

When his sensuous lips, with the slightly lifted upper lip, parted, it felt like he would speak in a strange, beautiful alien language that sounded like music.

His personality didn’t seem particularly agreeable, but I couldn’t deny the natural curiosity I felt for this new being, the compulsion to glance his way one more time.

Whether he truly was an ‘even more’ special Golden Alpha, or if that level of presence was common among Alphas, I would get some idea after seeing a variety of Alphas at the party today, as Juhan-ssi suggested.

After moving all the bagged pamphlets to the temporary desk in the second-floor exhibition hall and returning to the office, the teacher had arrived and was talking with Yuni-ssi. When I smiled and approached them, happy to see her, the teacher smiled back and lightly stroked my bangs.

“Where’s the Director?”

The teacher asked Yuni-ssi.

“He’s having lunch with Teacher Inwoo and said he’d come straight here with him.”

“Then everything is basically ready. Ha… it was such a death schedule that I honestly wondered if it was possible, but somehow we’re pulling it off. It’s even more relaxed than usual! Just one extra person makes a huge difference, huh?”

The teacher put her arm around my shoulder, seeking agreement from Yuni-ssi and Juhan-ssi that I had been helpful in executing the schedule. The two, as if they had been waiting for that question, strongly expressed how desperately the gallery needed more staff.

Now, with the catering preparations upstairs almost complete, there would be no problem for the 3 o’clock opening. We sat around the table with the coffee the teacher had bought, taking a final moment of respite before the opening began.

“Yuni and Juhan, you two need to take turns attending to the clients. There will be customers curious about the paintings, and there might be times when the Director and I are both unavailable. When it’s busy, both Yuni and Juhan might have to leave the desk. Yihyun, you just need to distribute the pamphlets well from the desk.”

Since I wasn’t shy, just unskilled, I figured I could handle that much.

“What if I can’t… smile and be friendly?”

“It’s fine, it’s fine. Your expressionless face is charming, and the clients will like it even more. Don’t worry about that…”

The teacher’s voice, which was encouraging me with the hard-to-agree statement that my emotionless face was charming, gradually trailed off until it completely stopped. The smile slowly vanished from her face, eventually replaced by a full grimace, as if she had drunk something bitter.

“I must be crazy… of course. I knew it was too smooth this time.”

The three of us focused our gaze on the teacher, who was mumbling, rubbing her face with both hands.

“I think I left the book the editor-in-chief of Monsieur A published in the bathroom! I was holding onto it until this morning because I needed to show I’d read it. Why am I like this, seriously.”

As soon as the teacher finished her self-reproach, Yuni-ssi shot up from her seat.

“I’ll take a taxi and buy it. It’ll only take 30 minutes round trip.”

“We can’t be without the book, Yuni. Even if you say you read it well, we can’t be without the physical copy… He’s the type of person who would hold a grudge over that for months.”

The teacher exclaimed this, almost shouting, with an expression of terror, just as Yuni-ssi was already getting her wallet from her desk in the inner office.

I briefly hesitated, then got up and lightly touched Yuni-ssi’s arm.

“I’ll go.”

I looked at the briefly wavering Yuni-ssi, then checked the wall clock hanging on the pillar by the window. It was almost 3 o’clock.

“If you leave, work will grind to a halt, but nothing major will happen if I step away, right? I’ll go.”

“…Then, please do.”

This was a different side of her from when she had given me work instructions before we even introduced ourselves yesterday. Yuni-ssi, looking apologetic about asking me, who was temporarily helping out, to do an unplanned task, was met with the best smile I could muster. I could somewhat understand why Juhan-ssi had described us both as socially awkward people.

I agreed to receive the book information via phone, and as I quickly left the office, I heard Yuni-ssi’s light scolding and the teacher’s tearful voice asking for forgiveness.

As Yuni-ssi explained, there was a large bookstore about a 10-minute taxi ride away. It was a bookstore where I had gone a few times with friends, under the pretext of buying reference books, until middle school. The interior was drastically different from my memory due to extensive remodeling, but I didn’t have time to admire the phenomenal change.

I found and bought the book easily, but it took some time to hail a taxi back, perhaps because it was the middle of the city on a holiday afternoon. I only sighed in relief and leaned back against the seat after receiving a message from Yuni-ssi that there was still plenty of time before the author of the book arrived, so the current timing was fine.

The road back to the gallery was more congested than on the way down. Narrow roads and alleys were crowded with people out for a holiday stroll, as stylish cafes and restaurants were concentrated nearby.

I felt a slight impatience as I checked outside the window to see where we were in between quickly scanning the book I’d taken out of the paper bag.

About 10 meters from the destination.

A large car with a solid silhouette, turning into the parking lot in front of Phantom, caught my eye. It was a huge, rarely seen car. But despite its overwhelming size and somewhat authoritarian, linear design, it was elegant and didn’t look clumsy. Anyone could tell it was an exceptionally luxurious vehicle, even without knowing about cars.

Imported sedans were common on the road, but perhaps due to its skeleton, which was larger than most SUVs, or its appearance, which set it apart from typical sedans and resembled an official state vehicle, it possessed an aura that overwhelmed the viewer.

It might be premature judgment, but I thought I knew who the owner of the car was.

Though we were still a short distance from Phantom, I had the taxi stop in front of a small Hanok-style cafe.

The person who had just parked the car in the small parking lot in front of the main entrance, which could fit about four or five vehicles, and was stepping out of the driver’s seat was, as expected, the Director of Phantom.

Stepping out of the car in a shirt with a widely spread collar that exposed the base of his long, firm neck, and a suit made of thin material, his hair fell naturally in a soft wave.

The man, wearing a sky-blue suit faintly mixed with cobalt, a shade darker than his eye color (though he was wearing sunglasses now), looked more flamboyant than yesterday but also more relaxed. His attire brought to mind Italian men in a movie I once saw, heading out for a picnic in the countryside on a weekend. He was in a suit, but didn’t look stiff; comfortable, yet not casual.

“The weather is ridiculously good. To have to be stuck in a windowless gallery on a day like this, wearing a social smile… you seriously owe me a very expensive meal.”

“Am I doing this just for myself? Don’t be so dramatic.”

Another man, who got out of the passenger seat, grumbled at him, and he responded firmly. The man in the passenger seat, also wearing dark sunglasses, was tall and well-built, but clearly Korean.

While debating whether to pretend not to notice and quietly enter the gallery first, or wait for the two of them to go in, their attention turned to me. I quickly bowed my head in greeting.

“A face I haven’t seen before, who is this? A new lover?”

The man in the passenger seat greeted me with a face that revealed unconcealed interest, even more welcoming than the Director of Phantom. At the absurd question, the Director immediately frowned.

“I’d have to have a lover to have a new one.”

“What, weren’t you Rawoo Wikoon, who turns anyone into a sweet lover the moment you’re on a bed?”

He snorted derisively at the man’s teasing interrogation. Although it was a snort, it sounded like a laugh, as if he had actually heard a funny joke.

“Someone must have been spreading that rumor? That I was sweet.”

The Director, who handed the key over to the valet parking attendant hired just for today, took off his sunglasses, tucked them into his jacket’s breast pocket, and added:

“Then that bastard definitely didn’t sleep with me.”

A trace of a smile still lingered on his lips. It was a smile whose motive didn’t seem pure. The kind of smile a person would wear who was delighted at having found a weakness, rather than being displeased by the other person’s rudeness.

There was about ten steps’ distance between them and me. I considered going in first, ignoring them talking about me, but he was, after all, the owner of the place where I had come to work.

“So, you’re saying he’s definitely not a lover?”

The man in the passenger seat, who had walked around the front bumper, lightly massaged the Director’s shoulder and asked again, as if confirming, while taking off his sunglasses and holding the arm to his mouth with his teeth.

This man also had a remarkably well-proportioned and handsome face compared to the average person, but he didn’t possess the peculiar sense of heterogeneity that made the Director seem almost alien. At least this man was the same kind of human as me. A more refined person with better external attributes.

“Shouldn’t you have figured out my taste by now?”

The Director sighed, as if the conversation was draining, and stuck both hands in his pants pockets before adding one more word.

“He’s a temp.”

Finally, he offered an answer to the question about my identity that the passenger had been curious about from the start. He’s a temp.

It was a May afternoon, with sunlight streaming everywhere, bright enough to necessitate sunglasses. Since they had their backs to the sun, I had to squint my eyes to look at them.

“Oh, really?”

The passenger immediately grinned broadly, walked over to me, and offered a handshake.

“Hello. It was a bit rude, our conversation right in front of you on our first meeting, wasn’t it? I hadn’t heard that Phantom hires part-timers, but maybe I should apply here too.”

“Hello. I’m just helping out temporarily for today.”

While we exchanged an awkward handshake, the Director walked toward the main entrance. The man from the passenger seat placed a light hand on my back, guiding me toward the entrance, and showed interest in the paper bag I was holding.

“Aww, that’s a shame. What’s in there? Is it heavy? Let me carry it for you.”

“It’s just a book.”

I hadn’t cracked a joke, but the man threw his head back and laughed.

Entering the gallery only five or six steps behind the Director, I saw that the opening had already begun. Gentle music flowed throughout both the first and second floors, and an excited buzz emanated from upstairs.