The Reborn Genius of an Arts High School - Chapter 6

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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 6.
Ye-ji’s work proceeded entirely at school.
The object of admiration itself for young students—Cloe, the artist whose expectations she alone had fulfilled.
With that single fact, whispers of jealousy and suspicion followed Ye-ji.
But it didn’t last long.
“It lost its appeal. You all saw what she was doing, right?”
Before long, children had begun gathering around Ye-ji, murmuring under their breath.
She had known this would happen.
‘Anywhere you go, standing out invites suspicion.’
In her past life too, exceptional skill had often brought doubt in its wake.
No special countermeasure was needed.
In the end, proving it yourself was the best way through.
And so she had climbed from the very bottom to becoming an artist holding a solo exhibition, step by careful step.
‘Compared to that, the jealousy of children is almost cute.’
Ye-ji made a point of working only in the studio where all the students passed through.
The layers of paint accumulating one by one looked like a deep, teal abyss that swallowed everything.
At first, everyone thought it was nothing special.
Some said it was all just brushwork that looked somewhat convincing; nothing more.
But when she began painting flower petals again over that distant, dark blue color, they had no choice but to admit the truth.
“That preliminary sketch—we drew that in our oil painting class too, didn’t we?”
Whether they wished to deny it or not, they had to accept it.
Ye-ji had elevated the drawing they all practiced in class into a finished work.
While others left their practice sketches behind, relying on familiar watercolor and acrylic,
Ye-ji showed a clear difference.
“I heard there was only one person last year who submitted an oil painting for the Annual Art Exhibition.”
“Of course. Who finishes an oil painting in a month?”
It wasn’t simply because the medium was difficult to handle.
Oil painting’s greatest weakness was that it required a long time to dry.
Fully drying, then layering, then repeating—that was oil painting.
‘For ordinary students, completing an oil painting in a month would be impossible.’
Oil paintings cannot be done all at once.
You apply the base color and wait days for it to dry, then lay another layer, and again you must wait days for that to dry.
If you apply a different color over incompletely dried oil paint, the colors mix and the work is ruined immediately.
While the paint is completely drying, you simply have to wait.
In essence, the actual time you can spend painting is cut to one-third.
For a student unfamiliar with completing works, that was a significant loss of time.
But for Ye-ji, who already possessed old, practiced experience, it was not a major disadvantage.
Rather, while the paint dried, Ye-ji gained time to study for her other classes.
…….
Kim Ji-an stood among the murmuring children and watched the back of Ye-ji, absorbed in her work.
First in her grade at the Art Department—a 1st year.
Until now, Ji-an’s public image had been the very model student that adults desired.
In comparison, Ye-ji belonged to the rather ordinary side of things.
‘Ye-ji, of all people….’
But after Cloe’s sudden appearance, the entire school had turned its attention to Ye-ji.
Even her grades from last semester had been right around the middle.
A mere classmate she had never once considered a rival threatening her position.
Ji-an clenched her teeth as she watched Ye-ji.
‘Everything has completely changed now.’
She had always thought of herself as the most watched rising talent in her grade, but in an instant, the situation had shifted.
Ji-an found her appearance thoroughly distasteful.
Moreover, it bothered her that she had failed to recognize her classmate’s skill until now.
“Hey, let’s go. We should work on ours too. Well?”
“Yeah… I just get reality shock for no reason.”
The students who had been watching Ye-ji with suspicion now had to acknowledge her skill and left their places.
Even as everyone’s eyes turned only to Ye-ji’s painting, Ji-an watched her.
More precisely, she watched her hands and brush.
She squeezed pink, yellow, and blue paint haphazardly onto the palette, stirred them a few times with her brush, then simply laid them on the canvas.
It looked like crude brushwork without any delicate calculation.
But as that action repeated a few times, what appeared on the canvas was a landscape where dozens of flowers bloomed in full.
“…Done.”
Ji-an furrowed her brow at Ye-ji’s murmured words.
Laying down multiple colors that were not completely mixed all at once—that wasn’t something ordinary know-how could achieve.
The texture and amount of paint, the control of force applied through the brush—the color would change and mix accordingly.
Ye-ji was perfectly employing the Impasto Technique, something Ji-an had only seen in theory books.
Her brushwork controlled everything and laid color onto the canvas in a single motion.
No wonder she had time left over even doing oil painting….
‘But she… she’s doing that so easily?’
Having watched what Ye-ji was doing here and there, Ji-an had even asked her academy instructor about it.
Studying under a well-credentialed instructor had nearly doubled her academy fees.
‘To reach that level with oil painting, you’d have to practice enormously. Of course, if you practice, you can do it too.’
So she had been confident that such a level could be achieved once learned.
‘But you know we don’t use oil painting for the entrance exam, right? You’re not going to ruin your university prospects over one school exhibition?’
But the answer she received was different from what she’d thought, and Ji-an had actually been persuaded.
It was certainly the right call.
Abandoning effort for a good university just to make an impression on a good artist was a foolish choice.
In designing her future, she was walking a path with no room for error.
But….
“I’m heading out first. See you tomorrow, everyone!”
Watching Ye-ji pick up her bag with a satisfied expression, Ji-an turned away.
As she looked at her canvas, she could almost understand why this sense of deprivation washed over her—but she didn’t want to know.
One week until the deadline for the Annual Art Exhibition.
Since the reality was that she could no longer change her painting, Ji-an had to give her absolute best in her own work.
No matter what she had to do.
She had to produce results.
***
Hellish mornings and tedious classes.
Days filled with pressure-laden brushwork repeated in succession, flowing past in the blink of an eye.
And so, before long.
“Excuse me! Coming through!”
“Wait! Move back! This hasn’t dried yet!”
“What’s on my clothes—who used pink paint?”
The submission deadline for the Annual Art Exhibition had arrived.
Students bringing in their works, students setting things up, and still more hanging their pieces on the walls to finish them.
Amid the disorderly chaos, the 2nd year students manning the reception desk watched the pandemonium with boredom.
“Ugh….”
A 1st year student, avoiding the mess, approached with a work in hand.
Judging by the packaging, it was about size 20.
The 2nd year student manning the reception desk asked with an expressionless gaze.
“Class and name.”
Round eyes, a gentle appearance, a slender, small frame.
The 2nd year student, having briefly scanned the approaching 1st year, mechanically pulled out the roster.
But then a particular name reached his ears.
“Class 1, Ye-ji Lee.”
“Class 1…… Ye-ji Lee?”
The 2nd year student checking the list quietly nudged a friend sitting beside him.
“Hey, isn’t that the name Ye-ji Lee?”
“Oh, yeah…. That her?”
“What? So oil painting—it’s already dry?”
According to rumor, she was definitely painting in oil.
Naturally, they had assumed she’d carry it carefully, not fully dried yet.
But Ye-ji’s appearance was different from what they had imagined.
That she’d packed everything safely with cushioning material meant she had already waited long enough for the work to fully dry.
Ye-ji, receiving their unabashed stares, furrowed her brow slightly.
…….
Only then did the 2nd year students check Ye-ji’s name.
Cheong-rim had the Ye-rim Art Center on campus, serving as both exhibition hall and performance venue.
The Annual Art Exhibition and performances were naturally being held at Ye-rim.
“Over there, Class 1 is in Section A on the left.”
One of the 2nd year students gestured, pointing toward the direction marked with Section A above.
“Just hang it on the wall where your name is. If you need anything else, call the installation technician.”
A concise explanation.
Having heard the instructions, Ye-ji gave a light bow and turned away.
At that, the gazes and mouths of the 2nd year students grew busy once more.
“Hey, hey. You’re letting her go like that? Yu-ra asked you to check the work.”
“Oh, right.”
“Ugh, really…. Hey! 1st year! Wait a moment!”
One of the bickering 2nd year students finally raised her voice to call Ye-ji back.
‘Me?’
Ye-ji turned with that expression, and the student broached the matter directly.
“Can I see your work?”
Surely she wouldn’t dare object to a senior’s request.
The student had thought to send a photo as requested beforehand, but Ye-ji simply stood there, blinking.
“I’ll see it when it’s hung up anyway. Check it later.”
Ye-ji answered firmly, then headed toward her designated section.
The expressions of the 2nd year students at the reception desk turned harsh, but there were also teachers coming and going nearby.
There was no way to call back the bold 1st year student.
***
‘Have them unwrap the cushioning in an already chaotic reception area?’
There’s a chance the work could be damaged. What a stupid request to make.
Walking the path ahead, Ye-ji shook her head with a bewildered expression.
‘And why act like that right in front of someone?’
Did they think she had no ears?
For all their coming in just a year earlier, they had some nerve.
To Ye-ji, whose memories held the experience of a thirty-year-old Frenchwoman, a year or two of age difference meant nothing.
And then, at someone else’s behest, asking to see her painting?
It was a request she couldn’t take well.
‘…But who is Yu-ra anyway.’
Probably one of the 2nd years.
Since Ye-ji had lived so quietly at school, she didn’t know upperclassmen.
Committing the unfamiliar name to memory once more, Ye-ji headed toward Section A.
“Oh, you came?”
“You’re late?”
There, most of the familiar friends and familiar works were already hung.
“Isn’t the deadline 6 p.m.?”
Since there was still some time until the deadline, she asked, but soon she could understand why they’d all come early.
Moving works while the paint was still wet risked damaging them.
Everyone was hanging their pieces on the walls and making final adjustments there.
There was only one empty space, so Ye-ji had no trouble finding the one with her name.
Ye-ji Lee (Art Department, 1st Year, Class 1)
「Full Bloom」
Oil on Canvas, 60.6 × 72.7 cm
The caption she had submitted beforehand was already attached to the wall.
Ye-ji began unwrapping the protective material from her work.
“Ye-ji, you came?”
Then Da-hye, who had been making adjustments even after hanging her work, greeted her.
Da-hye’s work was a detailed piece marked by meticulous sketching.
Painted thinly in acrylic, it featured geometric forms arranged in subtle patterns.
“Oh, you got here early?”
Rather than displaying particular technique or creativity, it was work that precisely calculated fundamentals and golden ratios—geometric designs.
It was a piece that made good use of Da-hye’s strengths.
“I came early to finish up. But man, you’ve really made a name for yourself.”
As Ye-ji briefly examined Da-hye’s work, she let out a small laugh.
“Is it because of Cloe?”
“Probably. I mean, Cloe herself said she was looking forward to your work, right?”
Feeling something subtle at Da-hye’s words, Ye-ji lifted out the unpacked work.
About a month’s time.
Paint layered one on top of another as she adjusted to her new memories and life.
“Yeah. I was looking forward to it too.”
To see what I could accomplish.
As she moved her brush day after day, her own sense of anticipation had only grown.
Ye-ji hung the work properly and stepped back a few paces to view it.
…….
Suddenly, Ye-ji felt moved by the fact that she could now see her own work in its entirety.
No longer did she need to crane her neck this way and that, her vision blurring as it faded, just to see her painting.
Wholly, at a glance. Her finished work came into view.
The original sketch’s trace remained in the white wall and window dividing the center of the painting.
But apart from that, it was almost entirely new work.
Beyond the window, a blue-violet sky, and that blueness pouring in through the windowpane.
The vase once placed before the window had been completely covered and disappeared beneath the blue.
“……Looks like it turned out pretty well, doesn’t it?”
Instead, hundreds of flower blossoms submerged beneath the blue water.
Flowers in full bloom beneath the surface, their colors warped and refracted by the rippling water above.
‘It could use a bit more delicacy.’
But delicacy wasn’t the most important thing in her painting.
It was the sense of longing and heaviness felt through this blueness and the flowers submerged within it.
Yet amid those blooming flowers, a hope that still lingered.
The very emotion she was feeling now—toward this new life. That itself.
“What…. Is that really a 1st year’s painting?”
“No way. Someone from a academy did it for her, didn’t they?”
“Is that her? Ye-ji Lee?”
Before long, Ye-ji felt her surroundings grow noisy and turned to look around.
They had heeded her words to come and see—upperclassmen had gathered around to look, interested.
“Your skill really improved a lot.”
Then Ji-an, with whom she wasn’t particularly close, approached and spoke.
Since it seemed to be a compliment of sorts, she ought to accept it gracefully.
As she was choosing a modest, humble reply, Ji-an continued.
“Anyone looking at it would think someone else painted it.”

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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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