Diamond Dust Novel - Chapter 19

However, even though I had helped out at Phantom a total of three times up to today, I still didn’t know the CEO’s proper name. I could easily find out if I tried to, but I didn’t want to ask Teacher, Yuni nuna, or Juhan hyung about him. I didn’t even feel like typing ‘Gallery Phantom’ into the search bar on my phone. It wasn’t like anyone was going to see me do it.

“Anyway, that day, I was truly happy thanks to you. While it’s fine for everyone to appreciate a painting in their own way, according to their emotions at the time, isn’t it still nice when someone manages to see the ‘me’ that I unknowingly melted into it?”

Inwoo hyung‘s words as he smiled seemed genuine, so I smiled back. I felt like I could imagine, however vaguely, the gladness he spoke of. It would probably feel overwhelming, exciting… and one might even feel a sense of destiny. Like discovering the one and only person who had deciphered your own personal code.

“Ah, speaking of Yihyun. What do you think he’d say if he saw that painting in your living room? Aren’t you curious?”

Setting down the wine he was drinking, Inwoo hyung lightly nudged the CEO’s arm. At Inwoo hyung‘s question, the CEO’s gaze slowly turned toward me.

From the very beginning until now, I couldn’t erase the feeling of being dismantled piece by piece and evaluated whenever I was subjected to his gaze. His gaze, tinged with an unwavering indifference yet capable of ruthlessly dissecting the other person because of it, roused an awkward discomfort and a thirst-inducing tension in me.

But at the same time, it was also a stimulus that drew out a rebellious temperament I never knew I had—a feeling that even a wretch like me would squirm if stepped on.

The pale, almost light grayish-blue eyes staring at me seemed to appeal to a delicate emotion, as if they might shatter at any moment, blurring the chill left by the cold words that had come out of his mouth thus far.

But that was merely a visual image created by the color of his eyes.

Before his parting lips could produce any answer, his phone resting on the table vibrated lightly.

The moment he dropped his gaze to check the caller, a smile surfaced on his lips. It was a very faint smile, but a genuine one.

Asking for our understanding with a simple gesture, he grabbed his phone, stood up from his seat, and answered the call as he walked toward the entrance.

“Yeah, it’s me… Yes, I wrapped it up well. Right now? No, I slipped away with Choi Inwoo. I’m at an after-party with the Phantom kids right now.”

He stood with his back turned to us, to the point where I could barely see his profile, but I could tell he was smiling. It wasn’t the mechanical smile he used when dealing with clients at Phantom, but a sweet, smiling face.

A personal smile, not a business one. Just like when he pronounced the word ‘Chouchou’.

“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. Even if you came, you’d just be bothered by this person and that person, and it’d only tire you out. You don’t need to care about things like that.”

Just then, the dishes we ordered were served all at once. The owner personally gave a brief explanation of each dish, but my hearing tilted more toward his phone call happening six or seven steps away rather than the conversation flowing across our table.

“It doesn’t matter how few pieces you have, so don’t overwork yourself. You’re Chouchou. People are already lining up to reserve your work before they’ve even seen it.”

Just as it was for me, a human being couldn’t adhere to the exact same attitude in all their relationships. But as far as I knew, he was the person who interacted with others using the most diverse array of faces.

Teacher. Yuni nuna and Juhan hyung. Inwoo hyung. Phantom’s clients. Me. There were distinct differences, big and small, in the way he treated every single one of them.

And seeing him now, leaning his shoulder against the doorframe of the open entrance, entirely focused on his call with a face full of smiles, completely overturned my impression of him as someone who would remain stoic and even-keeled even with a lover.

Chouchou. The sweetness evoked by that name might not just be the nuance of the word itself.

“Yihyun, try some of this. You need to put on some more weight.”

At Inwoo hyung‘s voice calling out to me, I withdrew my gaze that had been glancing at the CEO’s back while pretending to drink wine.

Inwoo hyung transferred some of the dish—which was said to be Iberico pork jowl slow-cooked at a low temperature—onto my plate.

“Teacher, even if he looks like this on the outside, he’s actually pretty solid. He says he works part-time at a moving company.”

Yuni nuna said, chewing on a slice of melon topped with thinly sliced jamón.

Inwoo hyung widened his eyes as if it was unexpected and stared at me. He then slowly scanned my upper body, visible above the table, up and down.

Actually, anyone could do a moving job. In reality, the movers’ physiques were quite average. Rather than being heavily built, most of them were of average build but agile in their movements.

“Did you know? That Yihyun works part-time at a moving company.”

Inwoo hyung said, looking up at the CEO who was returning to his seat after finishing his call.

He simply shrugged his shoulders without a particular answer, sat down, and started drinking his wine again. It seemed Inwoo hyung hadn’t really expected any agreement or reaction from him either, as he soon brought his gaze and attention back to me.

“No matter how I look at it, you’re the artist type… A moving company part-timer. Somehow, Yihyun, you’re getting more and more intriguing.”

Using an often negatively connotated phrase as an expression of favorable interest, Inwoo hyung shook his head and laughed.

“Now that I look at you, Yihyun, your vibe is a bit different today… Last time you looked like a good honors student who came to the gallery holding his mom and dad’s hands, but today, there’s a slight touch of decadent beauty.”

At this awkward type of compliment I was hearing for the first time, I bowed my head and looked down at myself. I pulled at the hem of the T-shirt I was wearing and let it go.

“Because nuna and hyung gifted me a T-shirt.”

“Ah, Old Future?”

The words ‘Old Future’ came straight out of his mouth. It was the phrase lettered on the shopping bag Yuni nuna had handed me. That was probably the title of the website that nuna and hyung ran.

“Come to think of it, I bet Old Future’s clothes suit you well, Yihyun. Isn’t it better than being too explicit like these guys? Hmm… Should I say it leaves room for imagination?”

“What exactly do you mean by that, Teacher?”

Yuni nuna rested her hand on Inwoo hyung‘s shoulder and thrust her fork at him threateningly.

“Honestly, from your very vibe, you guys are just blatantly punk. There’s no element of surprise.”

“Wow… Teacher, you’re really being too much. Even if you took a liking to Yihyun, still. And I don’t recall you coming onto me like this when I first arrived, I’m quite disappointed.”

Juhan hyung also joined in on cornering Inwoo hyung.

Judging from nuna and hyung‘s words, it seemed this wasn’t the first time Inwoo hyung had expressed interest in someone of the same sex like this. Whether that interest was genuine or half-joking.

However, up until now, he hadn’t taken any actions that made me feel threatened or repulsed. He did ask for my phone number in the car while moving here, but that alone was too ambiguous to categorize him as someone to be wary of.

His signature playful tone and expressions, which erased the weight from everything he said, also served as a reason to lightly dismiss his expressions of interest toward me.

Even now, Inwoo hyung raised his hand with an exaggeratedly serious expression and showed his palm to Juhan hyung.

“I just have high aesthetic standards. Sorry.”

“Seeing you act like this even after getting roasted by Yihyun that day is truly impressive. If it were me, I’d be avoiding him.”

Juhan hyung wasn’t one to just take it. Drinking his wine with a sly expression, hyung brought up the incident from the VIP opening when I had babbled about ‘honesty’ regarding Inwoo hyung‘s painting.

“Rather than avoiding him, Teacher probably got even more interested in Yihyun because of that.”

At Yuni nuna‘s words, Inwoo hyung smiled ambiguously. Smiling ambiguously, he sent his gaze toward me over the wine glass touching his lips. His gaze, tinged with laughter, seemed to hold a secret signal, but at the same time, it could just as easily be dismissed as the cheerful attitude of a drinking party.

Unless he asked a question demanding an answer from me, I had no intention of seriously considering the meaning behind that gaze.

Setting his wine glass down on the table, Inwoo hyung spoke as if he had just remembered something.

“Yihyun, you’re an Alpha, right?”

It was the tone of asking a passing question about an indisputable fact that didn’t even need an answer. Inwoo hyung was so full of conviction as he asked that it took some time for my answer to come out.

“…No, I’m not.”

At my answer, the smile vanished from Inwoo hyung‘s face, while Phantom’s CEO was delighted. Laughing with a sound like deflating air, the CEO drank his wine with the most cheerful expression I had seen on him so far.

And as if to say ‘I told you so’, he spoke.

“I told you he wasn’t.”

Had the two of them been talking about me? Following whether I was an art major or not, whether I was an Alpha or not?

“That’s strange… No matter how much he’s suppressing his hormones, there’s no way I wouldn’t recognize an Omega… Then, Yihyun, could you be something like a Diamond Omega, a step above a Golden Omega? Where no one can tell you’re an Omega if you set your mind to it?”

“Where is there such a thing as a Diamond Omega?” Yuni nuna snickered, to which Inwoo hyung flared up, “Can’t you tell a joke from the truth?”

It seemed necessary to correct Inwoo hyung‘s certainty, who was speaking on the premise that since I wasn’t an Alpha, I must undoubtedly be an Omega.

“I’m… not an Omega either…”

“…….”

This time, his expression was even stiffer than when I said I wasn’t an Alpha. Even the CEO, who had been tilting the front legs of his chair with his weight shifted back while wearing the relaxed smile of a victor, stopped moving and looked back at me.

Inwoo hyung narrowed his eyes and asked.

“Then, a Beta?”

“Yes…”

Inwoo hyung and the CEO looked at each other. And the next moment, the CEO’s eyes, turning to face me, were filled with doubt and vigilance, as if looking at an unidentifiable lifeform. It was an expression that seemed to say such a thing couldn’t possibly exist on Earth.

“Are you sure?”

I was the one who wanted to ask back. On what grounds had he been so strongly convinced that I was an Omega?

The test results I received in middle school said I was a Beta, and since then, I had never experienced a heat cycle suspected of being a heat, nor had I ever gone into a rut stimulated by an Omega’s pheromones.