By Zephyria 
It took about two hours to slowly tour Harvard University. On a clear autumn day in mid-September, the two of us leisurely walked around the campus, which felt more like a rural village than a university.
There were, of course, many people who looked like students, but it wasn’t uncommon to see local residents out for exercise or a walk. Thanks to a structure where the university and its surroundings weren’t precisely demarcated by fences or walls, it was quite community-friendly, unlike the authoritative and solemn image associated with the title of a world-renowned prestigious university.
After having breakfast with Marcus and Ellen, we left their home around 11 AM. We then visited the Boston Museum of Fine Arts to admire Edward Hopper’s
That’s right. We took the bus together. He deliberately didn’t have a car waiting in Boston, so we could have a more casual kind of trip.
Although, yesterday, we took a private jet from Chicago to Boston.
Traveling by bus and private jet.
He mentioned that most domestic US flights don’t even have proper business class seats, let alone first class, which is why he primarily uses private jets for travel within the US.
He tried to reassure me, saying that private jet rentals are quite common in the US (like rental car companies stationed at every airport, according to him) and “not as expensive as you might think.” He explained that he would have taken a private jet even without me, and since the rental cost is the same whether there’s one person or two, as long as it’s within the standard capacity, it wouldn’t be an additional expense for me. However, I still didn’t feel entirely comfortable with the situation.
Upon arriving at the airport, he and I took a taxi directly to a neighborhood called Beacon Hill. It was the home where he had lived while being homeschooled from the ages of thirteen to fifteen, the home of a mentor who had guided him to become the near-perfect Golden Alpha he was.
Marcus, a world authority on pheromones, especially Alpha pheromones, had been researching and teaching at a university in Boston for many years. He and his wife, Ellen, had been residing in that house for thirty years.
Marcus and Ellen were even kinder and more affectionate than I had imagined. They welcomed him not out of politeness or social obligation, but with genuine warmth. Their words, which could have expressed resentment for his not visiting for years, instead spoke of their happiness at seeing his face again after so long.
They showed me the same warm welcome, too, introducing me as his partner. Just as Jane, whom he had described as “my precious person,” had offered me a tender smile as if I were her own son.
Our accommodation in Boston wasn’t a suite in a five-star luxury hotel, but Marcus and Ellen’s home. It was the very last room on the second floor, overlooking the alley in front of the house, the room that had belonged to him when he was a teenage boy, left just as it was.
Yesterday, we arrived in the afternoon and spent the evening enjoying a meal prepared by Marcus and Ellen, accompanied by good wine, filled with lively conversation. And today, we had the opportunity to sightsee with him until dinner time. It was the only time we had to ourselves during this trip to the US.
Perhaps it was because of the attire, which was different from the sophisticated suits or smart casual wear I usually wear in Seoul, or perhaps it was because he wasn’t behind the wheel of a luxury sedan or sitting in the back seat, but he looked much younger than usual, and even a little… roguish.
In black pants, black shoes, a black t-shirt, and a leather jacket, with his hands in his back pockets or jacket pockets, or with his arm around my shoulder, his gait and expression were also slightly different from usual.
As he told me the legend that touching the instep of John Harvard’s statue’s left foot would ensure one’s descendants would be admitted to Harvard, he leaned in close to my ear and whispered a mischievous joke, “When we get back to Seoul, I guess I’ll have to start working hard on making descendants who will be admitted to Harvard first.”
In front of the statue, he and I took our second selfie together. We still looked awkward in the photo. Even he, who was comfortable and at ease in front of a lens directed at him, seemed to struggle with selfie mode. Looking at the photo, he chuckled, ruffling my hair.
After the tour, which concluded with the awkward commemorative photo, we stopped by the souvenir shop to buy gifts. He mentioned, with a hint of annoyance, that Boston, like Chicago, didn’t have any particular local specialties, so we should just buy a few Harvard t-shirts. Watching his profile, I smiled subtly. If he were truly bothered, he wouldn’t have bought anything at all.
The store, branded with the sign “COOP,” was enormous. It seemed like every everyday item had a Harvard logo on it. Though he appeared uninterested, as if he were only there to fulfill an obligation to buy gifts, he nudged me to try on a gray hoodie with “HARVARD” in brick red lettering.
“So… what do you think?”
I asked him after coming out of the fitting room, but it was a perfectly ordinary t-shirt that would suit anyone, with nothing particularly remarkable about it.
He tilted his head slightly towards my shoulder, looked at me for a moment, then rolled his eyes, put on a playful expression, and sighed, looking up at the ceiling. Unable to understand the reason for his reaction, I stood silently. He approached me, cupped the back of my neck, and pulled me close, pressing his forehead against mine.
“People will think I’m dating a minor.”
“That’s not…”
“It is.”
“I’ll have to take it off quickly if you don’t want to see me dragged away,” he said in a low voice, looking around. His expression was serious, but this was his joke.
I went back into the fitting room and changed. He took the t-shirt from me and, instead of returning it to its original spot, added it to the shopping basket.
As if sensing my puzzled gaze, he picked up one of the many mugs displayed on the three-tiered shelves, turning it over in his hands, and explained.
“I didn’t say you couldn’t wear it here, just that I wasn’t buying it. It makes you look young, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t suit you.”
He chuckled, shaking his head. He turned to me and smiled. Then, repeatedly attaching and detaching a magnet with the Harvard logo on it from a metal pillar, he said.
“How about buying something for Hyung and Noona too?”
“You bought a t-shirt, mugs, notebooks… and pencils,” I replied, pointing to the already overflowing basket he was holding.
“No, Bali.”
“……”
My gaze involuntarily drifted downwards, though it wasn’t intentional. While I was enjoying this trip thanks to his kindness and consideration, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of guilt and burden alongside my gratitude. He was always very generous to the people around him, especially those younger than him, even without me. But what he gave me far surpassed mere generosity, favor, or kindness. Even as his partner.
He had even given me separate pocket money in Seoul for my personal use during the trip. With that money, I bought popcorn and coffee for Noona, had a muffin at a cafe, paid for museum admission, and bought a tumbler for In-woo Hyung. I could have bought gifts for Morae and Hyung with that money too, but ultimately, it was still his money. I was trying to spend it sparingly, intending to return it to him later.
“Seo Yi-hyun, aren’t we dating?”
He must have sensed the meaning behind my silence. He stuck the magnet onto the metal pillar as if playing darts and turned to look at me. Then, approaching me as I stood holding the edge of the mug display, he put his arm around my shoulder.
“Not just dating… we said we love each other, and we’ve even talked about marriage.”
He continued, bumping his temple against my temple.
“Ah, I was rejected when I brought up marriage, though.”
I burst out laughing at his words. He lowered his head, pressing his lips to my ear, and spoke in a low voice.
“That 100 million won, you’ll offset it quickly.”
“……”
“And you’ll become free from me.”
He removed his arm from my shoulder and walked ahead of me, stopping in front of a wall adorned with countless keychains featuring small animal character dolls.
“And even before offsetting the 100 million won, if you go to New York, you could get a part-time job.”
“……Is that okay?”
I stepped closer to him and asked, holding his right hand. He turned his head and looked down, his gaze tracing every feature of my face. It was only then that I realized my eyes were shining and my lips were smiling. He glanced down at the hand I was holding, then rubbed a bear doll dangling from a keychain against my nose.
“Your reaction is better than when I brought up marriage, which is unsettling.”
“……”
He laughed and stepped back, returning the keychain to its place.
“You asked if it’s okay, but that’s not a question of whether I permit it or not. Mr. Im isn’t the kind of person who would send someone to New York to tail or kidnap you, is he? It wouldn’t be dangerous to work there.”
I briefly tried to recall if I had told him that Morae’s father was referred to as ‘Mr. Im,’ but I figured he might have looked into things more thoroughly to ensure everything was handled properly.
After paying for the gifts, including those for Morae and Hyung, we left the store and took the bus back across the Charles River. We still had time until 7 PM for dinner with Marcus and Ellen, and we decided to spend that remaining, albeit short, time entirely by ourselves.
“Is it too shabby?” he asked, leaning his arms on the table.
“I like it. It feels like the America I’ve seen in movies,” I replied, looking around the pub while holding a single-page menu, about the size of an 8-kilo sheet of paper, filled with densely packed text.
Located on the second floor of a building on a corner in downtown Boston, the pub didn’t have the sophisticated or luxurious atmosphere of the other restaurants and bars we had visited. He had brought me here, suggesting we visit the most American-style pub possible while in the US. It was shabby and casual, but also comfortable, and it made me feel more like I was truly in America than visiting museums or galleries had.
Despite it being an awkward time between lunch and dinner, the pub was noisy, and the interior was dim, even with the windows. Although there were comfortable-looking semi-circular seats by the window, since it was just the two of us and we weren’t planning to stay long, we settled at a standing table along the right wall near the entrance.
To avoid losing our appetite for dinner, we ordered two bottles of beer and onion rings. The food was served quickly.
“Speaking of New York, which came up a little while ago.”
After taking his first sip of beer, he leaned his upper body forward, resting it on the table, which came up to about his belly button.
“It looks like things can progress faster than expected.”
He explained that the lunch meeting with Chloe Kent had yielded more progress than anticipated. At the party, he had told Chloe that H&W’s New York branch strongly desired an exhibition by the artist he had mentioned, and he had almost reached an agreement to lend works owned by his father and himself at a favorable price.
“And, of course, in return, the opening of Phantom’s New York branch will also proceed smoothly.”
After a few more sips of beer, he leaned deeply towards me.
“If we hurry with the preparations, it might be possible to open by next spring.”
He continued, saying that among the people Chloe had introduced, there were many suitable business partners who could provide practical assistance for the branch opening, which had saved considerable time.
It was already past the middle of September. Even if I were a naive child unaware of the world, I would know that opening a gallery in a metropolis like New York was no simple task. I also knew that it had its limitations to conduct such business solely through emails, video conferences, and phone calls from a distant place like Seoul. Furthermore, he didn’t want to hire someone to handle this on his behalf. As Noona once put it, Phantom wasn’t a matter of survival for him, but a matter of self-affirmation.
“To achieve that, I think I’ll need to stay in New York a bit sooner than expected…”
He said this with a hesitant expression, then straightened his upper body and drank his beer. Watching him, who stood there touching the neck of the beer bottle, I also emptied my beer.
If Phantom was a means of self-affirmation rather than a livelihood for him, then why was he rushing the opening of the New York branch, making such a drastic change to his usual approach? This was something I needed to confirm. Especially if I were to go to New York with him.
Moving my body closer to the wall, closer to him, I bit my lip several times.
“I’m already receiving so much from you, Representative… Kun… but I hope that because of me, Awi won’t have to sacrifice anything important… or change himself…”
Unconcerned by the increasingly boisterous atmosphere of the pub, his calm gaze met mine.
“I… I’m already content. There’s nothing I lack. So… please don’t push yourself or sacrifice anything… because of me…”
I lowered my head to look at the beer bottle in my hand, then raised my face again, but his eyes remained the same. They were like the sea on a calm day, peacefully reflecting the sunlight.
“Perhaps I’m overthinking things…”
“……”
“But is the rush to open the New York branch perhaps… because of me…?”
As he met my gaze, he leaned back against the wall and moved closer. In the dim corner, away from the direct light, we stood side-by-side, leaning against the wall and looking out at the bar. I turned my body slightly towards him, and he towards me.
Leaning his head against the wall, he reached out his right arm and tucked my long hair behind my ear. A group inside the pub erupted in loud cheers and laughter. They seemed to be having some kind of bet. But I couldn’t take my eyes off his face.
“I have no memory of showing kindness to anyone, so how did I meet an angel like you?”
Was he twisting the situation with his words, or was he being sincere? It was hard to tell from his expression and tone alone. But even if he was twisting his words, I knew the sharp edge was directed at himself, not me.
Slowly scraping the inside of my cheek with my tongue, I pulled away from the wall and drank my beer, watching his profile.
“Yooni Noona and Juhan Hyung both rely on and respect you as their superior and elder. And… they consider you a benefactor.”
“……”
“Perhaps… you already know.”
I fiddled with the beer bottle, a belated anxiety creeping in, wondering if I had overstepped by commenting on their relationship, which had existed for longer than mine.
He leaned his upper body against the table, arms crossed, and stared blankly into the bar. He roughly ran a hand through his hair.
“Whatever I did or gave to anyone else, it was all superficial kindness that happened within the bounds of not affecting myself or my life. I’ve lived that way until now… You’re the only one I can break down anything for, without any limits.”
His eyes turned back to me. Eyes no longer calm, but turbulent like waves.
He pushed himself up from the table where he had been leaning, reached out, and pulled me closer by cupping the back of my neck. The pull was gentle, but our joined lips were passionate. Though we had held hands, hugged, and kissed while wandering around Boston today, this was different from the brief kiss we shared descending the museum stairs. It was a real kiss, with lips crushing and mucous membranes rubbing.
“It’s okay. They’ll think of us as an Alpha and Omega couple.”
Sensing my stiffness, he whispered quickly, our foreheads touching.
“I don’t care what else they think.”
He added, and then his lips met mine again. He didn’t use his tongue, but it was a deep kiss, using his entire lips to lick, rub, and shift angles.
I don’t know how he interpreted my stiffness, but it wasn’t that I lacked the boldness to engage in such intimate contact in a place like this; it was simply that I wasn’t the type to care what people thought of us, regardless of what they thought.
With a wet friction sound, our lips parted, and his hands, which had been around my neck, slowly slid down my shoulders and upper arms. Finally, he lingered for a moment, toying with my fingertips, before letting go. He chewed on the lips that had just kissed me and tapped his index finger on the table.
“But even if I had that kind of intention… it felt like I had nothing to sacrifice for you.”
“……”
“If pouring in values like money, time, or affection doesn’t result in any loss, people don’t call it a sacrifice, do they?”
I couldn’t say anything as he took a sip of beer after a brief, bitter smile. If I didn’t consider the time I spent with him, or the affection I gave him, as a sacrifice, then I couldn’t argue that what he gave me was a sacrifice.
And money.
If the money he spent on me was an amount that had no impact on his finances… regardless of how significant that sum was to me, it was true that it wasn’t a sacrifice for him. At least, I had no grounds to deny his belief that it wasn’t a sacrifice.
He, who had maintained a cynical attitude, deliberately keeping his distance from the issue, closed his mouth and let out a heavy sigh. Then, gripping the neck of the beer bottle on the table, he looked at me.
“Whatever I give you, whatever I do, you don’t have to worry about me or feel sorry for me. In fact, you don’t even need to be grateful. Because I’m not sacrificing anything.”
With long, straight fingers, he traced the side of the beer bottle. His gaze followed his hand downwards, casting a delicate shadow of his eyelashes onto his cheek.
“In Chicago, I said I had plenty of time to think leisurely… but the truth is, I never intended to go to New York without you in the first place. Even if you were included in my considerations for any decision, the ultimate motivation for making that decision is cunning and selfish.”
He chuckled as if clicking his tongue, released the beer bottle, and looked me straight in the eye.
“So, Seo Yi-hyun.”
“……”
“I just want that answer. The answer that you’ll go to New York with me.”
His eyes seemed full of certainty and confidence, yet they held a plea so strong it appeared as such.
I, myself, had no lingering attachment to life in Korea or Seoul. My passion, career, or the results of my efforts weren’t there, and Morae and Hyung had already left. If I were to search for something precious, it would only be the few relationships connected to Phantom.
If his residence changed to another city, and he wanted me to be with him, I had no intention of refusing his offer and staying in Seoul. I was only worried about what motivated him to rush the opening of the New York branch, breaking down his usual approach, just as Yooni Noona had done.
My sister’s words, telling me to discuss it with him regarding Reed’s offer, faintly resurfaced, but that was out of the question from the start. Especially if he were to go to New York, there was no reason to go to Paris when I had the deepest understanding of my art right here.
Looking into his eyes, nestled deep within, I slowly nodded. He smiled with his lips, without baring his teeth.
He wrapped an arm around the back of my neck, as if embracing my head, and brushed my bangs aside, pressing his lips to my forehead. Then he kissed my eyelids and cheeks, and our lips met. Ignoring the awkwardness and shyness of being seen kissing by others, I closed my eyes and responded to his kiss.
Perhaps I would think of us as an Alpha and Omega couple, just as he said. It didn’t matter what else they thought.
■ ■ ■
At Marcus and Ellen’s house, preparations for dinner were in full swing. Not only Margaret, who managed their household affairs in their stead, but Marcus and Ellen themselves seemed to be involved in the kitchen work. They were genuinely delighted by the visit of someone who was like their second son (and yet older than their first son). Even though he had arrived yesterday and would be leaving tomorrow, it was a short stay.
Marcus, wearing an apron, opened the front door, and the aroma of cooking, which had been wafting from outside, intensified. Since he and I had left the pub with the onion rings almost untouched, the smell of food lightly stimulated our appetites.
Ted, their nine-year-old chocolate Labrador Retriever, who was like their second son, came to the door with Marcus, wagging his tail to welcome us home.
“It’s not much of a neighborhood, is it? It might be boring for young people.”
“It felt like a good place to live, quiet and peaceful.”
I replied with a smile to Marcus, who was worried if our sightseeing had been dull. It was my genuine impression of Boston, not an exaggeration or politeness. Thinking that he had lived in this city for two years made every landscape I saw feel meaningful, and with him by my side, the excitement and tension left no room for boredom.
Marcus chuckled, fine wrinkles appearing around his eyes, and patted my shoulder.
“Awi, give Jonas a call. He was so loud when I told him you were here. You’ll have to hear his complaints about your lack of contact.”
Marcus said this to his back as he headed towards the kitchen, then winked at me.
After accompanying him to the kitchen to greet Ellen and Margaret and ask if I could help, they practically ushered me into the living room, saying preparations were almost complete.
While he was on the phone with Jonas in Marcus’s study, I waited in the first-floor living room, sipping a glass of wine Margaret had given me. I browsed through the family photos decorating the living room, which was covered with thick carpets.
“This photo is from Kun’s thirteenth birthday party. He was already unbelievably handsome at that age, wasn’t he?”
Turning around, I saw Marcus standing at the living room entrance, smiling and pointing at the framed photo I was holding.
“He was so popular, despite being so stoic.”
At Marcus’s words, I looked down at the expressionless face in the photo and smiled silently. It was hard to believe he had a raw, immature teenage phase, but the boy in the picture was unmistakably him. Lau Wikun, a little paler, with sharper lines than he had now.
“Can I borrow Kun for a bit before dinner? I have something for him, and I won’t have time later.”
He replied with a “Of course,” and disappeared into the study after telling me to make myself comfortable. In the cozy living room, overlooking the darkening alley, I leisurely looked through the remaining photos. Among the family pictures, there were quite a few of him. Not only photos from his childhood spent here, but also evidence of their strong bond, with continuous meetings over the years, clearly showing the trajectory of a boy growing into a man.
At dinner last night, which lasted over four hours, Marcus had mentioned his childhood nickname: ‘Never Smile.’ The boy who never smiled.
Marcus and Ellen spoke of it lightly, as if it were a distant past, and he, too, merely laughed off their teasing. But as someone who had also lived through a childhood where smiling was not an option, I couldn’t help but be concerned about why he had no choice but to be the ‘boy who didn’t smile.’
Even if it wasn’t to the extent of laughing at a falling leaf, suppressing laughter during a time when one should feel and express emotions most richly—be it laughter, tears, awe, or anger—was a bad sign in any way.
Recalling his story about his parents having to divorce against their will, I held another solo photo of him, standing next to a picture of a younger Marcus and Ellen on a white boat. Dressed impeccably in riding attire, he was photographed with a magnificent horse with glossy fur. In a time I didn’t know, he, younger than I am now, was speaking to me with a challenging gaze.
“Didi.”
“……”
A calm voice from behind me made me slowly turn around. He stood at the entrance of the living room, thirty-two years old.
I didn’t know what he had called me. Perhaps he wasn’t calling me, but pronouncing a word. Holding the frame, I turned more towards him and smiled.
“I didn’t hear you properly. What did you say?”
“Diamond Dust… Have you ever heard of it?”
His voice, devoid of inflection, was dry. After speaking, he swallowed hard, his throat dry.
“I know it as a phenomenon where ice crystals in the atmosphere reflect sunlight…”
“……”
He leaned his shoulder against the wall at the living room entrance, which had no door, and nodded.
Diamond Dust.
Also known as Sebing (fine ice).
It’s a phenomenon where fine ice crystals, or ice particles, suspended in the air near the ground reflect sunlight, causing them to shine. Unlike snow that falls from above, it looks like dust suspended in the atmosphere transforming into jewels and glittering, hence the name.
While not as well-known as the aurora in Canada or Iceland, or the mirage in the desert, I had thought I’d like to see it with my own eyes someday after encountering it in a book.
“Marcus suddenly brought it up. He said a fellow academic traveled to Harbin last winter… and that if you’re lucky enough to encounter large-scale Diamond Dust, it’s an incredibly mystical and fantastical experience.”
My curiosity about why this topic suddenly arose was satisfied, but his demeanor was more concerning. He wasn’t speaking with the lightheartedness of someone casually mentioning a topic that came up in conversation.
He was trying to act as usual, but despite his calm demeanor, I sensed an underlying anxiety, a restlessness of passionate emotion, as if he couldn’t control himself. I placed the frame back in its spot and turned completely towards him.
He pushed off the wall and came closer, cupping my cheeks. As the distance closed, the tension radiating from his entire body became more palpable. It seemed difficult for him to contain the emotions he held within himself, but he showed no intention of letting them break free.
“Later… would you like to go see it together?”
“……”
“After the New York branch opens without a hitch… once everything is settled… the two of us, leisurely.”
He was smiling faintly, or perhaps trying to smile, but he looked exhausted. It seemed like there was more he wanted to say, but I knew it would be useless to press him. He was someone who could decide for himself the most appropriate time to speak.
I simply nodded and wrapped my arms around his waist.
■ ■ ■
As yesterday, the dinner was lively, warm, and pleasant. They were considerate enough not to make me feel alienated, sharing their memories with me to keep the conversation flowing. Thanks to them, I heard many stories about him during his two years in Boston that perhaps no one from Phantom, not even In-woo Hyung or Shushu, knew.
Stories about his past popularity, even though he was homeschooled and not attending school, with letters and gifts constantly arriving (Ellen said it felt like living with a superstar, and she felt a void for a while after he left), how the ‘Never Smile Boy’ showed his first bright smile after completing a half-marathon, persuaded by Ellen and Marcus who were marathon enthusiasts, and the ten-line letter he left the day he returned to Hong Kong for good.
As Ellen and Marcus recounted their stories, he would sometimes scratch his brow, sigh, or run a hand over his face, looking quite perplexed. He tried to change the subject several times, but without success.
To me, who knew him well—the man who could skillfully steer conversations in his desired direction, and who could even interrupt conversations with rather aggressive and mischievous methods if he didn’t like the content—it was new and fascinating to see him willingly offer his past as a topic, even while looking troubled.
To Ellen and Marcus, both in their mid-sixties, he seemed like a son and a grandson. And though I didn’t know for sure, I imagined that most typical grandparents would be happy, just like them now, reminiscing about their grandson’s childhood when he visited after a long time.
“Jonas had a particularly hard time after Kun left. Even though he initially disliked him, calling him arrogant and unsociable, they became like brothers within a month.”
Marcus said this, looking down at the table with a gentle smile, as if reminiscing about good times past. Ellen lightly teased Marcus, patting the glossy back of Ted, who was weaving between the legs of those gathered around the table.
“You had a harder time than Jonas. What are you talking about? You were listless for a month, like someone who had been dumped!”
Jonas was Marcus and Ellen’s son.
When I first heard about Jonas at dinner yesterday, I couldn’t help but be excited. Jonas, two years younger than him, now working as a researcher at a pharmaceutical company in Pittsburgh, was a miracle, born to Ellen, an Alpha female, and Marcus, a Beta male.
While the uterus, ovaries, and eggs of an Alpha female are usually not fully developed, this varies from person to person. Although the percentage is very low, pregnancy is sometimes possible, and medical assistance can further increase that possibility, a fact I learned for the first time last night.
Marcus and Ellen wanted a child, and Ellen fortunately possessed mature eggs. And after several difficult failures, they miraculously had Jonas without a surrogate.
Of course, Ellen’s conditions at the time were excellent, but even after nearly 30 years since Marcus and Ellen had Jonas, the success rate remains low, the cost is exorbitant, and it is a procedure with high barriers. Ellen and Marcus explained that the development and widespread adoption of the procedure have been slow due to the low demand.
I didn’t know if Morae and Hyung knew about this procedure, or what they would think if they found out, or even if they wanted children at all. But as soon as I returned to Seoul, I planned to email them related materials with the help of Ellen, Marcus, and him.
I didn’t believe having children was the completion or proof of love, but the fact that they might have even a slim possibility as an option made me excited.
If the procedure were to be carried out, it would require a considerable amount of expense… but if the two wished to know even the probability of hope through testing, Mr. Im would gladly cover the cost – a resolute thought took hold of me. It was close to a strong, clear will based on enmity and a desire for revenge. And whether or not adhering to such a stance was characteristic of me, I had no intention of reflecting or retracting.
After we ate walnut pie for dessert, several bottles of wine were emptied, and the candles decorating the table here and there had shortened, some of them extinguishing their flames, when Ted began to whimper anxiously, circling the same spot. Ellen, saying he needed to relieve himself, rose from her seat instead of a rather drunk Marcus, and he offered to go with him.
Perhaps uneasy about leaving Marcus and me alone, given our excited chatter, he glanced my way briefly, but then he soon put down his wine glass and stood up. Along with words of concern for Marcus, saying it would be best to stop drinking wine now.
“Ah… I’ve become an old man now. When Kun first came to this house, I was an energetic forty-something, and I could party and have fun until past midnight without issue.”
Marcus, his gaze following his sturdy back as he left the dining room affectionately with Ellen, chuckled with a mix of contentment and sadness, shaking his head slightly.
“Both Kun and Jonas… when did these teenagers who were struggling to define themselves grow into such fully matured young men? They’re not even in their twenties anymore, they’re all grown up.”
“……”
“I never thought I’d live to see Lau Wikun bring a lover home.”
Marcus leaned forward from his relaxed posture in the chair, emphasizing the word “lover” with a playful tone. He also spoke about how special this event was, considering his personality as far as he knew it. Along with how much happier he was that I visited with him than if he had visited alone.
I silently smiled, thinking that at least everyone around him held a consistent view on his romantic life, and drank more of my wine.
Marcus, recalling the conversation we had about Jonas the previous evening, asked a few questions about Morae and Hyung. Since it was about someone not present, he didn’t pry for details, but Marcus was a person rich in experience and wisdom, capable of fully grasping the core of the situation with just a few simple remarks.
“Ellen and I didn’t have it easy either.”
Tracing the bottom of his wine glass with his hand, Marcus lowered his voice slightly.
“To have had a son with her and to have been able to stay with her for decades, until we became old like this… it’s still hard to believe sometimes… there were times when we weren’t confident about our future.”
Watching Marcus smile as if walking in a dream, speaking about his partner of several decades not as a spouse but as a newly fallen love, a gentle smile also spread across my lips.
“Was your decision to research pheromones… also greatly influenced by Ellen?”
I asked the question, mustering my courage, and Marcus nodded slowly, his smile still in place.
“As a Beta, I could never experience the influence of pheromones myself… but I wanted to know her, to understand her, even if only through theory.”
In the quiet room, punctuated only by the occasional crackle of a dying candle, Marcus’s voice continued, low and calm.
“From the time we first met in high school, she could already control her pheromones almost perfectly as a golden, so I never needed to be conscious of pheromones when I was with her… but the more I studied… even though I loved her… because I couldn’t feel it, because she didn’t complain, I came to realize that I had treated pheromones, which had no effect on her, as if they were an illusion, as if they didn’t exist.”
Marcus paused for a moment and finished the last bit of wine left at the bottom of his glass. I looked down at the candle, its flame flickering precariously in its holder, its life nearly over, and waited for the rest of his story.
“That becoming a golden doesn’t mean pheromones disappear, but rather that they are merely suppressed. Even if I couldn’t experience pheromones directly… the stress and burden of having to forcibly control the appetite for food or the desire for sleep, those are things even a Beta like me could imagine and empathize with.”
“……”
“I realized I had been treating her with a profoundly Beta-centric way of thinking.”
Marcus’s words hit me like a blow to the skull. I felt dizzy, disoriented, and ashamed. My gaze darted around the empty air, unable to meet Marcus’s eyes across from me.
“It was hard to find my balance for about a year. Suddenly, she felt distant, like a being from another dimension or planet that I could never understand, and I wasn’t confident I could manage. Looking back, I was unbearably weak and emotional. I had never deeply considered her as an Alpha before that, so everything was that much more confusing.”
I bit my lower lip gently. I gazed at the traces he left behind on the empty seat beside me. The neatly cleared plate, the knife and fork placed side by side, the napkin on the empty chair – each item reminded me of him.
He had never once asked me to understand him as an Alpha.
“If I had been an Omega, we could have been a perfect match. Even if I had been an Alpha, at least I could have empathized and understood pheromones with her, not just theoretically. Why am I… just one of these countless, common… dust-like Betas? Eventually, I even fell into such pathetic self-negation.”
I picked up my half-full glass and downed the wine like water. The hazy feeling of intoxication vanished instantly, and I felt my mind sharpen, needing more alcohol.
“Among Betas, the animalistic impulse of pheromones, the negative aspects, are emphasized, but that’s only the case for some problematic Alphas and Omegas who are negligent in managing their pheromones. Most Alphas and Omegas, unless they are golden, take medication their entire lives to control their pheromones.”
Like a patient with chronic illnesses such as asthma or diabetes, if you were a Beta.
Whether it was the alcohol or fatigue, Marcus rubbed his face with his palms and added in a dry voice. His light brown eyes, with gentle wrinkles at the corners, seemed bloodshot.
“It became even harder to bear when I learned that pheromones aren’t just a dangerous drug that causes sexual assault… but when they act between an Alpha and Omega who love each other, they can serve as a medium for achieving the highest level of connection and feeling a freedom close to liberation. Even knowing she didn’t communicate with anyone else through pheromones, the fact that a deep level of connection, unreachable by me, existed within her, and that I had no possibility of sharing it, was enough to make me swayed by baseless jealousy and feelings of inadequacy.”
I picked up the half-full wine bottle standing nearby and refilled my glass. Marcus also pushed his empty glass forward. Remembering his earlier words of concern for me, I hesitated, but I couldn’t help but pour.
Ted barked twice from the backyard. Ellen and he seemed to be enjoying their first private time together since yesterday at a leisurely pace. Marcus and I focused solely on drinking our wine in silence for a moment.
Everyone around him said he was a golden Alpha who could perfectly control his pheromones, a rare Alpha who extremely disliked and disdained the effects of pheromones.
He had never once expressed a wish that I were an Omega. So I had been completely at ease. I had forgotten he was an Alpha. Or at least, I hadn’t taken it seriously. As Marcus said, with a Beta-centric way of thinking. Just as I had with Morae.
I hadn’t bothered to learn what the characteristics of an Alpha were, what kind of suppression was needed, or how much of a burden it was… simply because they didn’t complain, assuming it wasn’t a significant issue in their lives if pheromones didn’t disrupt their daily routines.
Yet, at the same time, I had been bothered by the existence of Omegas who could enjoy his pheromones and touch his depths through them. Like Marcus in the past.
But it wasn’t because he showed me an ambiguous attitude. When one desires someone other than oneself, the weak anxiety that arises internally can fuel absurd imaginations. That is perhaps an ugly facet of instinct that even the most mature mind, like Marcus’s, would find difficult to avoid.
“The thought that if she were with a Beta like me, she would have to live her entire life denying and suppressing her natural self as an Alpha, losing opportunities for free connection… I concluded that I was a flawed being incapable of loving her completely, and there was a period of about a year when we broke up.”
Marcus rubbed his mouth and chuckled self-deprecatingly. His neatly trimmed short silver beard glinted in the candlelight. Lightly swirling the glass, refilled and now more than half empty, Marcus smiled at me across the table.
“But now, perhaps because we were an Alpha and a Beta… we haven’t forgotten that there is no such thing as taken-for-granted happiness even after our daily lives together became routine, and we’ve been able to appreciate each other’s presence for a long time. I’ve come to think that way. Because we can always remember that we are Alphas and Betas who require constant effort to stay together and understand each other more fully.”
Marcus looked down briefly at Ellen’s empty chair beside him. He smiled gently as if she were sitting there, then reached his arm across the table to propose a toast. I willingly offered my glass.
A love that doesn’t take daily happiness for granted. Perhaps that is the most difficult form of love to practice. Like how we don’t consciously appreciate the preciousness of the sky, earth, and air every day. Nevertheless, it was not impossible. Or rather, it was perhaps the most worthwhile effort to make for the one you love the most. More so than filling special anniversaries with events.
The sound of the back door leading to the backyard opening and closing echoed, and Ellen’s and his voices could be heard. Marcus quickly finished the remaining wine in his glass, destroying the evidence. We looked at each other and smiled silently.
“What were you talking about? More gossip about me?”
He bent down from behind, wrapped his arms around my waist, and kissed my cheek. At his display of affection, Marcus and Ellen’s eyes widened, and they looked at each other. Marcus, in particular, cleared his throat and gulped down water instead of wine.
“I’m scared I’ll get a breakup notice the moment we get back to Seoul. Please, really stop gossiping about me now.”
His joke marked the end of the long dinner. After we all moved the dishes to the kitchen together to make it easier for Margaret to clean up the next day, we left the dining room. Marcus, who had seemed fine while seated, swayed slightly as the alcohol hit him all at once. When we got to the hallway, his face was flushed a dark red. He tried to help him to his room, but Marcus insisted he was fine and disappeared into the bedroom on the first floor with Ted.
As I watched Marcus’s retreating back with a sense of unease, about to head up to the second floor, Ellen lightly grasped my arm. Turning to look at her, he gently cupped the back of my neck and then headed upstairs, saying he’d go up first. Ellen, looking up at him for a moment with a curious and playful expression, gently stroked my arm from below the stairs.
“I was always worried I’d never see that child pour his affection onto someone and want that affection returned. He was so stubbornly resistant to letting others into his life…”
She kissed my cheek, saying this visit was a precious gift for both her and Marcus, and thanked me. It felt like I had received too much gratitude for having done nothing but be loved by him, but I smiled back at her.
He was organizing his luggage in the room. I offered to help, but he said he was almost done and urged me to wash up first, nudging me towards the bathroom. When I came out after showering, all the packing was finished, and the lights were dimmed to make it conducive for sleep. As he entered the bathroom, he told me it was okay to fall asleep first, but instead of lying down on the bed, I settled at the table by the window and opened my drawing notebook.
Although I had taken a few photos with my phone camera, I wanted to leave sketches of the impressions I felt in this room. Next to the sketches I had drawn last night and this morning, I added pieces of the street visible from the window, the dry branches of intertwined trees, the elegant buildings made of red brick… the soft glow of gas streetlights, a symbol of Beacon Hill… landscapes that made me feel like I had traveled back in time to the early 20th century.
As I moved my pencil, imagining the gaze of the thirteen-year-old him, who must have been sitting right here, looking out at this street about 20 years ago, he returned to the room.
He had on thin loungewear on his lower half and was shirtless. As he approached, I could feel the cool moisture.
“Aren’t you tired? You have to wake up early tomorrow too.”
He, standing behind me, slid his hands from my shoulders down to my chest as he lightly massaged them, then lowered his body. Resting his chin on my shoulder, he looked down at the sketch, then turned his head and buried his lips in my neck. The lips, cold for a moment upon contact, soon grew warm.
“What are you thinking about so deeply?”
I gently turned to look at him, stroking his firm arms wrapped around my chest.
“Just… what was Awi like during his time living in this room? That kind of thing…”
He let out a dry chuckle by my ear. Keeping his arms around my neck, he knelt on the floorboards to the left of my chair and gently caressed my lower abdomen and chest with his other arm.
“I think I heard enough from Marcus and Ellen for two days.”
But I hadn’t heard anything about the things that couldn’t be spoken of with a smile. Such stories were not suitable topics for a dinner table with a precious person whom I met after years and who was staying for two days before leaving.
“Here… you trained with Marcus to become a golden Alpha, right?”
“……”
In the dim light, he looked up at me wordlessly, let out a deep sigh, then stood up and slumped into the chair opposite me.
“Yes. I stayed here for two years with my mother, and because too many changes happened at once, I was a typical spoiled teenager expressing my dissatisfaction and confusion through silence and rejection.”
He gave a wry smile towards me as if he had made a funny joke, but I couldn’t laugh. Seeing my reaction, he shifted his posture, leaned his back against the window frame, and swept his bangs back.
“As you’ve met them, Ellen and Marcus are good people, and Jonas follows me well, so it’s not entirely a bleak memory… but if we look at the internal issues, excluding relationships, it could be seen as the period where the foundation for my current, annoyingly twisted personality was laid.”
He leaned his right arm on the back of the chair, his left arm on the table, and rested the back of his head against the window, turning to look at me. And again, he smiled, but I couldn’t smile. He gazed at me silently for a moment, then turned his gaze towards the darker interior of the room.
“There are people who sometimes want to be special. To be distinguished from others by unique abilities or personalities… and furthermore, to be in a higher place than them. When the ego is just forming, such desires tend to be more pronounced. However, when that specialness is not in superior ability or unique personality… but possesses a power that transcends them, for some people, specialness is merely another word for solitude. Like being pushed to the edge, separated from the group, and isolated…”
I unconsciously let go of the pencil I had been gripping tightly and wiped the sweat that had gathered in my palm onto my pants. He then picked up the pencil I had put down with his left hand and skillfully twirled it in his palm.
“Just as being born into a violent home is not a child’s fault, and being myself is not someone’s mistake or sin… no matter how much I tried to think that way, everyone around me kept saying I had to strictly control myself from now on… my thoughts inevitably started to flow negatively. On top of that, my parents, who perfectly respected and loved each other, even divorced because of me, so it’s understandable that a thirteen-year-old would come to hate himself.”
“May I ask why your parents had to divorce…”
He lifted his head from the window and gazed at me for a little longer.
“……Why?”
“I didn’t expect Seo Yi-hyun to be the one to ask about this first. I’m glad you’ve become curious enough about me….”
Glad, and what else? He smiled vaguely, leaving the thought unfinished, and tapped the top of his pencil eraser against the table.
“It was a preventative measure, for something that didn’t happen.”
“……”
“My father’s maternal family is quite prominent in England. My father’s maternal grandfather was one of only about thirty individuals holding the title of Duke in Britain at the time, and now my father’s maternal uncle, the eldest son of my maternal grandfather, has inherited the title. While modern aristocratic titles are often largely ceremonial, it’s not entirely so for a Duke. In European society, including Britain, and in high society circles worldwide, it still functions as an attraction, and indeed, my father’s maternal family has accumulated immense wealth and influence thanks to maintaining that title.”
He was now rubbing the pencil eraser over the table, where there was nothing left to erase. I simply stared at him, mouth agape and forgetting to blink, at a story heading in a completely unexpected direction.
“To put it simply, you can think of it as a divorce to protect my custody and parental rights from them. Because they wanted to make the most perfect Alpha… a ‘Special Alpha’… the heir to their family. And they were ruthless enough to proceed with that plan regardless of my own will or that of my parents.”
The story was that his parents decided to divorce to protect him completely from them until he became an adult, and his father’s infidelity was cited as the reason for the divorce to grant custody to his mother. Of course, his father had never committed adultery; it was all a plan agreed upon by both parents.
I couldn’t help but recall the story he told me long ago, about how he couldn’t help but feel guilty about his parents’ divorce. His words, that he had to constantly question whether he was worth such a sacrifice, felt as vivid as if he had said them yesterday. If this was the reason behind it, no one could force happiness upon him.
He seemed lost in his own thoughts for a while before speaking again, his tone losing the detached, observational quality of relaying someone else’s experience.
“I’ve always chosen to be alone, finding it bothersome and burdensome to reveal myself or to know the hidden side of others’ public faces, but in reality….”
He gripped the pencil tighter, making the veins on the back of his hand stand out more prominently, and lowered his voice.
“I was afraid.”
As if he couldn’t believe the words he had just spoken, he let out a small laugh and shook his head. Yet, with a voice as dry as if it might extinguish at any moment, he added with difficulty.
“I thought that as someone different, someone outside the boundaries, I would never be accepted by anyone.”
Everyone admired Golden Alphas and Golden Omegas. Even Betas did. They were always portrayed as attractive privileged individuals in movies and dramas. But as he said, for some people, being special could simply mean solitude. Specialness was ultimately a relative value, and how it was perceived was bound to differ from person to person.
I lowered my head, thinking that if I hadn’t heard Marcus’s story before, I might not have understood even half of what he was saying now.
“You told me before, Representative… that new stories you want to draw will emerge.”
His gaze, which had been fixed on his own hand holding the pencil, slowly shifted to me.
“Certainly, I was young, and I’m still young… and the series of events were too heavy and overwhelming for me to handle… I felt completely crushed, unable to resist in any way. I had resigned myself to accepting that a bleak, inhumane daily existence, just barely clinging to life, would be my future.”
I took a deep breath, puffing out my chest. I clasped my hands tightly under the table. The alley, filled with a silence so profound that not even a dog barked, and not a single car had passed since I entered this room, was now being traversed by a man and a woman walking by, chatting affectionately. Their voices, which had approached from the east, receded to the west, behind my seated position. When their footsteps had faded, I spoke again.
“But after meeting people at Phantom and learning about their diverse lives… strangely, just that alone made the weight pressing down on me feel lighter.”
Expressing my thoughts into words was still difficult for me, and I worried I might be rambling, but I didn’t stop. As far as I knew, he was a very patient person in conversations. At least, with me.
“That cliché phrase, that the best way to comfort someone’s wounds is to show your own… before, it just felt like it was about the selfish relief of knowing I wasn’t the only one struggling. But now… I can see it as being about empathy and encouragement.”
“You want to deal with wounds? Through art.”
I relaxed my shoulders and let out a soft laugh at his concise, to-the-point remark. Then, I slumped further into my seat and rubbed the back of my neck.
“But… right now, I’m someone who can’t even properly face my own wounds. What I really need to draw isn’t Juhan Hyung, nor the impressive landscapes I encountered on my travels…. Yet, right now, I don’t think I can draw anything beyond that.”
He, who had been sitting beside me listening with his head slightly tilted, stood up. He rummaged through the Boston bag where he had packed his belongings and took out cigarettes and a lighter, offering me one as well. I looked up at him, standing before me, seeming larger than usual in the darkness, for a moment, then took a cigarette from the open pack and placed it in my mouth.
After opening the window slightly to let out the smoke, I sat back down in my original position, in my original posture, and gazed for a long time at his profile as he skillfully lit his cigarette, unlike me. I tried to imitate his breathing, inhaling deeply and then exhaling thinly through a tiny gap between his lips, but it wasn’t easy.
He inhaled the smoke, creating deep dimples on his cheeks, which seemed sharper than when we first met, and said, holding the cigarette between his fingers.
“I don’t know how Seo Yi-hyun himself evaluates himself, but he’s someone who, however slowly, diligently tries to face himself and his surroundings properly. So… don’t talk about drawing as if it’s a challenge that must be overcome.”
“……”
“It’s okay even if you haven’t overcome it, so try touching upon your wounds. Wounds are like unique fingerprints for each person… and drawings made by touching them can’t overlap with anyone else’s. Instead of waiting for wounds to heal on their own, continuously picking at them, letting them fester, and then transforming them into visible or audible forms to reveal them. Isn’t that the role of art? No matter how times change, and even if profound contemplation is no longer the sole meaning of art, ultimately, what touches the deepest part of people’s inner selves, forcing them to expose and confront what they don’t want to see, isn’t about the destruction of form or the mockery of traditional artistic meaning. That’s what I believe.”
As he tapped the ash onto a small decorative plate he had brought with the cigarettes instead of an ashtray, hollows like dimples appeared along the edges of his bare shoulder muscles.
He turned his body, which had been sideways, to lean his elbows on the table, and with the hand holding the cigarette, he stroked above his eyebrows.
“The wounds and flaws we most want to hide and deny… might perhaps be the individuality and identity that make us unique individuals, distinct from anyone else.”
“……”
In the silence, as we slowly smoked, our gazes traced each other’s eyes and lips. He was the first to break eye contact, lowering his head and laughing heavily.
“I never imagined that I would be having this conversation in this room, with someone I love… I probably wouldn’t believe it if I told myself back then.”
The September night wind of Boston, blowing in through the open window, was not entirely gentle. He stubbed out his cigarette, stood up, and leaned over, resting his hand on the back of my chair. He took the still-burning cigarette from my hand, extinguished the ember, and kissed me. His lips were dry, but his tongue, parting the mucous membrane and filling my mouth, was hot and wet.
Right here, recalling the thirteen-year-old who must have been buried in the solitude of being special, in an alienation that was not universal, I cupped his cheek. I hoped that one day I could offer him a comfort deeper than