The Reborn Genius of an Arts High School - Chapter 25

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 25.
“Argh…!”
Ye-ji clutched her head, surrounded by scattered plywood on all sides.
A cramped space was supposed to be no problem at all?
Honestly, how could she have been so arrogant?
Come to think of it, her place in her past life was also plywood right before it collapsed—but it hadn’t been small.
So she’d habitually assumed that space was hardly an issue.
But in Seoul, things were very, very different.
Even after banishing the bed to the dressing room, the room remained cluttered.
“This is the same number, right, Ye-ji?”
“Honey… it’s the other way around. This one’s 61. That one’s 19.”
“Ah!”
Her parents helped her carry out the finished pieces one by one, arranging them neatly outside the living room.
Thanks to careful planning, each work bore a position number.
In the end, only by moving the living room table to the kitchen could they fit all roughly two hundred pieces in a single line.
“…Ye-ji, should we move to a country house?”
“No way… From now on, I’m never making anything this big at home. Never!”
Ye-ji waved her hand sharply at her father’s half-joking remark.
She couldn’t let the whole family move because of her.
Besides, realistically speaking—a house in Seoul?
Obviously it was financially impossible.
And getting a studio larger than home wasn’t exactly easy either.
‘I’ll worry about that later.’
For now, the works came first.
Fifty or so pieces remained.
Rather than work in order, which grew tedious, she’d done some pieces as inspiration struck, skipping around.
That left gaps scattered here and there.
Ye-ji picked up her oil paints and began the work for position five.
From the tip of her delicately poised brush, wild grasses sprouted up one by one as if gaining life.
Fitting the title of the piece “Four Seasons,” the first of the four seasons was spring.
The medium for spring was naturally vivid-toned oil painting.
But the technique was different.
She was employing the Bird’s-eye View Perspective—a technique primarily used in Korean painting.
It was the very expression technique one thought of when Kim Hong-do’s works came to mind.
A technique where you seemed to gaze downward from above, yet perspective was omitted.
‘Since it’s the first thing people think of when they hear Korean painting.’
With that technique alone, one could fully capture the feeling of traditional painting.
Ye-ji had several reasons for employing this method.
Though several meters large, every direction could serve as the focal point.
“Remember? When our Ye-ji was in kindergarten. At the Bamboo Forest, when she said she’d feed the carp and fell into the pond.”
“Right, and instead of crying, she insisted on befriending the carp and dove back into the pond, causing such a fuss.”
Ye-ji smiled, listening to her parents’ voices as they spoke before the finished summer piece.
The memory remained faintly in her own mind too.
A sweltering summer. A bamboo forest filled with vivid green shade. Large, brilliant red carp.
And those memories, residing in her subconscious, transferred onto the canvas.
A stream running across the entire work.
A carp with brilliant red coloring and white patches swam leisurely across summer.
The unrealistic expression unique to the bird’s-eye perspective held an odd mystique.
And that dreamlike quality naturally stimulated people’s emotions.
A landscape from that season, glimpsed long ago.
Among massive yet individually distinct landscape pieces.
People would naturally step closer to the landscape that moved their hearts most.
***
Time passed quickly, and the first day of the new semester arrived.
The fallen snow melted, and pale green buds began to dot the bare branches.
Even beyond the crowded bus window, bright yellow forsythia blossoms whisked past.
The cold lingered still, yet the air touching her skin felt different.
Spring had arrived.
“Hey!”
“Ye-ji, hi!”
“Hey there~!”
As Ye-ji arrived at school as usual, greetings poured in from all directions, catching her slightly off guard.
Being an art high school, each grade had fewer students than at ordinary schools.
Because of that, most students had familiar faces, though they were from different departments.
“Uh, uh… hey.”
Ye-ji, caught off-guard, even received a high-five from an unfamiliar boy from another department.
“What? When did you become so popular?”
Da-hye, arriving from behind, linked her arm through Ye-ji’s and asked.
Ye-ji found it puzzling too, but there was one thing that stood out to her.
“…During the break, a lot of kids were sending follow requests on Instagram. Are they the ones?”
She’d followed them back out of courtesy when they’d followed her profile picture—a shot in Cheong-rim uniform.
She hadn’t realized they were giving her permission to greet them like this.
“You’re not even good at that stuff.”
Da-hye laughed, saying she’d even forgotten Ye-ji had an account.
Da-hye was right—Ye-ji wasn’t the type to actively manage social media.
Last year at the start, she’d tried posting various things, attempting to curate something, it seemed.
But since recalling her past life, she’d been so busy that she now used it only to check current trends.
“Still, it’d be good to engage with it a bit.”
Hyun-min appeared suddenly and added a remark to Ye-ji.
“Long time.”
With that casual greeting, he took the lead and moved ahead of them both.
Yet even as he walked, Hyun-min greeted every student with a warmth that put Ye-ji’s socializing to shame.
“Well, after you graduate from a place like this, most of us end up working in different fields.”
Da-hye whispered that having connections was certainly never a bad thing.
“But you don’t need to go chasing other people’s tails.”
Da-hye was right, judging by her light laugh.
Within the school, Ye-ji wasn’t in a position where she needed to build connections.
Rather, other students were the ones seeking an opportunity to connect with her.
“Hi, Ye-ji~”
“Hey.”
The situation remained the same even as she entered the classroom.
Ye-ji barely made it to her seat feeling as though she’d done a month’s worth of greetings.
The classroom had changed with second year, but since students were divided by major, her classmates were almost identical.
Particularly, those who’d chosen Western painting ended up in the same class.
“Though it’s not new, let’s have a good year together.”
With Da-hye’s greeting from the adjacent seat, the new semester began.
The everyday life of returning high school students wasn’t much different from last year.
The bell rings, class happens, lunch passes, then it repeats.
It wasn’t that she disliked the peace, but filling the day that way left her restless and her mind cluttered with thoughts.
Her head was full of desire to try new paintings, to experiment and draw this style and that, along with countless ideas.
At least she looked forward to art classes, but being the first day, they merely did some light sketching as a warm-up.
And general courses were the worst.
“Now, you’ve all studied the earlier material, so let’s move into this advanced section.”
Why did they always start with the assumption that everyone had already learned it?
In second year, the teaching style had shifted to merely reviewing difficult parts once more before moving on.
“Ugh.”
Besides, who at this school didn’t attend cram school?
Everyone would have done basic review during the break.
Everyone except one: Ye-ji.
Da-hye seemed unbothered as the teacher simply skipped ahead in the textbook.
But catching the bewildered expression on Ye-ji’s face, she frowned slightly, as if realizing something.
“This is exactly why Korean education has problems.”
After class, Da-hye grumbled in a half-joking tone.
‘Maybe I should have studied a bit.’
Having spent the entire break absorbed in her paintings, Ye-ji found herself having such thoughts belatedly.
Of course, she didn’t regret the time already spent, but it was natural to think that way given the circumstances.
For her, the value of life lay solely in painting.
But for even someone like Ye-ji to have such thoughts—
‘Being a Korean high school student is tough…’
Compared to her past life, she’d considered hers far better and happy, but it wasn’t entirely so.
The structure made it impossible not to feel behind compared to others.
But to begin with, Ye-ji’s goal wasn’t to be top of the class.
She’d only ended up there by accident after being spurred on by some madman to excel at everything.
Ye-ji preferred her current life, with her own goals rather than others’ standards.
“That’s not her problem now, is it?”
Hearing Da-hye’s grumbling, Hyun-min sat down in the seat in front of them.
During that brief break, he’d apparently raided the school store—his arms were laden with snacks.
Ye-ji picked out a chocolate and ate it.
As Hyun-min gave one to Da-hye too, he asked Ye-ji a question.
“How’s the Seo-hwa-won exhibition going?”
Da-hye’s eyes sparkled at his question, and she asked too.
“Oh right! You were so busy with that you wouldn’t even hang out with me!”
Ye-ji had basically holed herself up at home during the remaining break because of the Seo-hwa-won exhibition works.
With the exhibition deadline now just a week away.
Because Ye-ji had been so busy, the three hadn’t reunited until the semester started.
Ye-ji nodded and answered.
“Well, I’ve finished everything. Now…”
“What!?”
Startled by her words, Hyun-min even interrupted her to ask again.
“You’ve finished all of it?”
“…Weren’t you supposed to complete two hundred fifty pieces?”
It wasn’t just Hyun-min who was surprised—Da-hye’s eyes widened too as she asked.
“…Yeah.”
Was there really reason to be so shocked?
There wasn’t that much time left.
Naturally, by this point, they should be finished or nearly finished—
“Did you think I couldn’t draw them all?”
When Ye-ji narrowed her eyes at Hyun-min, he shifted his gaze slightly away.
“…No, well… I just thought maybe you’d reduce the number… something like that…”
His voice grew smaller as he spoke, then he quickly changed the subject.
“Anyway, finishing two hundred fifty—you’re really amazing.”
“Right? That’s incredible. Really! I was honestly worried whether you could pull it off.”
At the steady praise from both Hyun-min and Da-hye, Ye-ji hesitated before answering.
“Well, I did push myself a bit…”
She added a modest caveat to their reaction.
In truth, since she’d always believed it was possible, she’d taken on the plan—no strain at all.
After all, a walk outside the house was enough for outings, and a phone let you talk to anyone.
There was Ji-min from the Woodworking Shop, and Grandfather Han-gyu and Grandfather Hae-yun, with whom she shared updates and work progress.
And the messages exchanged with Da-hye and Hyun-min, catching up now and then with gossip.
That was enough for outside activity.
Besides, once Ye-ji focused on something, she saw it through.
Since the plywood sheets were so small, she’d work on four at a time, completing an average of twelve per day.
Even counting the ones she’d ruined and discarded.
‘Time-wise, it was plenty…’
Though she knew her working speed was fairly fast, saying she’d managed fine in this situation felt like showing off.
Even with her modest answer, Hyun-min and Da-hye remained excited, calling her amazing.
“Can we see? Can we go see? Can we go see them?!”
Hyun-min immediately shoved all the snacks he’d brought onto Ye-ji’s desk, urging her on.
Before Ye-ji could even answer, Hyun-min dragged Da-hye along.
“Hey! Come on! You come too. You’re curious, aren’t you!”
“Okay, okay! Okay! Stop shaking me!”
Da-hye, jostled by Hyun-min, also turned to Ye-ji with a request despite their bickering.
“Can I see them too? I have tutoring later, but it’s not till evening.”
Why would there be any reason to refuse?
She’d finished everything anyway, and even if she added some details, there was no time pressure.
“Sure, let’s all go to my place after school.”
And so the boring, predictable classes passed, and dismissal time came.
The three slipped out of school through the crowd of departing students.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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