Who exactly is calling whom suspicious right now….
Before I could even show my discomfort, Seon Eunhu launched into his explanation of the work. Despite his playful lead-in, he was surprisingly serious about it.
He started by explaining why he’d sprayed soapy water on the clay sculpture — so the plaster and clay would separate cleanly later — then went on to explain in detail why the splitting balls were inserted in that particular arrangement, and how they divided the work area as a result. Things I’d only ever picked up by watching over my classmates’ shoulders and copying blindly finally started to make sense.
In between absorbing every piece of information into my head, I breathed. The scent that seeped in with each breath was intoxicating — it was something I found myself doing unconsciously, like replenishing oxygen.
Something that smells this good — how could it not be a pheromone?
I knew beta senses couldn’t detect pheromones, yet the smell was so impossibly good that the stupid suspicion surfaced anyway. The fragrance was so sweet it felt like it was dissolving me from the inside out.
“Now that all the splitting balls are in and the soapy water has dried, we’re going to apply the plaster — but don’t put it on thick from the start. That causes air bubbles and ruins all the work you put into the piece. So first we’ll make a thin mix for the base coat.”
Seon Eunhu poured plaster powder into a bowl of water and stirred it with a dedicated knife. The water that had been floating the plaster around soon became a smooth, evenly mixed plaster solution. Wanting to get a closer look at the consistency, I peered into the rubber bowl.
I was training my eye on the fluid consistency of the plaster water.
“Even if it’s hard at first, once you try applying it with a brush yourself you’ll start to get a feel for how thin it needs to be.”
I startled at the voice that came from immediately beside me and looked up — only to come face to face with Seon Eunhu at less than a hand’s width away. He had been looking down at the plaster water and lifted his gaze a beat slower than I did. The brown irises up close were vivid, like peering into the clear bottom of a still pond.
“Ah….”
A stupid sound slipped through my parted lips as I stepped back. Seon Eunhu only looked at my flustered reaction with mild puzzlement. It seemed I was the only one embarrassed.
No, seriously — does this guy not have any concept of personal space? Even accounting for being absorbed in work, most people at least try not to invade someone else’s personal area — but judging by his expression alone, Seon Eunhu didn’t seem to register that anything was wrong. If I had headbutted him by accident from that distance, what then.
…Well. Seon Eunhu was someone who was physically careless with people on a regular basis, so maybe his threshold for personal distance was just different from the average person’s. What did it matter that he smelled good. I’d briefly forgotten, but this alpha was the kind of man who pressed himself against just about anyone — slippery and calculating, like a snake.
While I was talking myself back down from the startle, Seon Eunhu’s expression turned sour. The eyelids above those lake-like eyes I’d seen up close descended slowly and rose again.
“Hey. Let me get one thing straight.”
Seon Eunhu said it as he jabbed the knife into the rubber bowl like he was throwing it. Maybe it was the all-black work clothes — standing there with his weight shifted onto one leg at that crooked angle, he looked somehow larger and more delinquent than usual.
“About what?”
“You like women, right?”
“What?”
I asked back at that out-of-nowhere question with what was surely a thoroughly blank expression.
So… was he asking whether I was promiscuous because I liked women too much?
He’d once lumped me together with An Seungkyu in front of the department building and called us birds of a feather, so that kind of implication seemed possible. Or was it a genuinely simple question — do you like women? But then why bring it up out of nowhere?
Not understanding the intent of the question, I stood there puzzled — and Seon Eunhu, watching me, shook his head.
“No, let me rephrase. Go Taerim — have you ever dated a man?”
“Dated, as in….”
“Have you ever been in a romantic relationship with a man.”
“Ah—!”
I finally grasped what Seon Eunhu was getting at, and let out an involuntary sound.
So this bastard still hasn’t given up on me after all.
Whether this was a studio people came and went from freely or not — the real reason Seon Eunhu had called me here today was still to throw filthy passes at me—
“Hey. I’m telling you this so you don’t get the wrong idea — like I said before, I like women. No matter how much someone is an omega, I don’t spare a glance at men, so don’t go making weird assumptions. Here I am trying to be decent and do right by someone, and every time I see you, you keep—… Actually, let’s just say I’m asking because I want to be good to you.”
Unlike when he was explaining the work, Seon Eunhu’s composure had slipped — as if some emotion kept surging up no matter how much he tried to push it down.
“So just tell me straight. Are you interested in men? Don’t tell me you have a thing specifically for alphas.”
My focus dissolved under the barrage of questions.
What is this….
…nonsense.
Seon Eunhu seemed to already be convinced that I liked men. Why on earth — what had he seen to make him so certain? A thing for alphas. I wasn’t even an omega — as if that made any sense.
It was infuriating. If anyone should be asked that kind of question, it should be Seon Eunhu — someone who went around wrapping himself around whoever was nearby. The idea that I was being asked this — someone who was careful about personal space, who barely exchanged words with other people — was absolutely absurd.
Seon Eunhu was looking straight at me, waiting for an answer. He seemed to have already guessed it from my reaction alone — he wasn’t pressing, just calm.
“All wrong. No. I have not even a speck of interest in alphas — or any trait-carrier for that matter, alpha or omega — and I have never once thought of men as romantic prospects. I think you have a serious misunderstanding somewhere. I really dislike that kind of thing that goes against the natural order.”
“Are you serious? Look me straight in the eye.”
Who does he think he is, a lie detector? The demand — as though looking him in the eye would reveal the truth — was almost funny.
So I held his gaze and opened my eyes wide. It seemed like he was trying to catch the flicker of my pupils to judge whether I was lying, so I stared back at him with full force, letting nothing waver.
Seon Eunhu held my gaze, looking from one eye to the other — and before long, his expression softened and he let out a breath. Apparently he’d read innocence in pupils that hadn’t moved a millimeter.
“Then why do you keep making people misunderstand like that…. No, forget it. Bring the brush over here. We have to apply it before the plaster sets.”
As if barely holding back whatever was still left to say, Seon Eunhu finished his sentence with visible reluctance and picked up the brush again. Even knowing I was watching, he looked only at the piece and applied the plaster in smooth strokes — the profile he presented seemed like a deliberate refusal to let things drift back into personal territory.
So I chose not to add anything more either, and quietly picked up my own brush. The discomfort of being on the receiving end of that messy misunderstanding was still there, but I chose to simply focus on the task assigned to me.
I dipped my brush into the plaster bowl in Seon Eunhu’s hand and pulled it out — the flat bristles came out white. Brushing it across the piece, the plaster left skid-mark streaks wherever the bristles passed.
Seeing Seon Eunhu’s work up close while brushing alongside him, it was precise and strikingly realistic. I found myself impressed — ah, so that’s why he’s so particular about his work — but whenever I dipped the brush into the plaster bowl in his hand, I felt like I was intruding on his territory, and I grew strangely tentative. On top of that, having just been asked whether I liked men, I tried my best to look thoroughly indifferent throughout the process of dipping and applying the brush.
“We’re not doing the full base coat all at once — just this section divided off by the splitting balls. We need to make the second-coat plaster before this one sets, so we have to move quickly… but hey, you’re not currently seeing someone, are you?”
The explanation flowing calmly alongside the base coat suddenly veered off course. The look in his eyes as he held the brush and turned to me seemed to say: if you have a girlfriend, you’d be a pretty terrible person.
“Why? Would it be a problem if I were?”
I stopped mid-brushstroke and asked back. It wasn’t as if I was cheating on anyone, or about to disappear somewhere — I couldn’t for the life of me understand why I was being interrogated like this.
Seon Eunhu stared at me silently for a moment, then slowly shook his head. As he turned his gaze back to the piece, the sternocleidomastoid muscle along the underside of his jaw became visible for a moment, then disappeared.
“It’s not that. It’s just — no matter how many times I look at you, I can’t figure out what you’re thinking. I can’t get a read on you.”
A low voice came out of lips that had parted as slightly as his quiet eyes.
I watched the tip of his brush making delicate touches on the piece, then moved my gaze to Seon Eunhu’s eyelashes — even finer than his brushwork. Still and suspended, dropping at some moment and rising again, they were dense and smooth, like silk threads on a loom.
…But isn’t it only natural that he can’t read me?
I was here assisting with his work, but we had never once had a proper conversation. And what little exchange there had been had all been me being harassed one-sidedly — it made complete sense that neither of us knew how the other thought. It would be strange to know.
I caught a bead of plaster running down with my brush and began spreading it thinly across that spot.
“I’m not seeing anyone. I’m just not really interested in that kind of thing.”
“Right. So it’s been a while since you last broke up.”
“No. I’ve never dated anyone.”
“You’ve never dated?”
“No.”
“Not even once?”
“No.”
“Why?”
Seon Eunhu asked with wide eyes. Maybe it was the downward tilt at the outer corners — even opened wide, his eyes didn’t go round, they just stayed the same shape, and somehow it made him look startlingly guileless.
I’d clearly given him the reason — not interested in that kind of thing — and yet he was asking why again, which left me speechless. Seon Eunhu watched me fail to answer, slowly looked me up and down, then straightened his head and resumed brushing.
“Well. I suppose people don’t just date someone based on looks alone.”
