The Reborn Genius of an Arts High School - Chapter 73

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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 73.
A man with unkempt hair and disheveled appearance.
And a pretty enough female student, though nothing particularly stood out.
Ina found herself hesitating involuntarily before the two of them.
“Yes, it’s this way.”
She glanced once more at the staff member guiding them to their reserved table, but the employee confirmed the reservation matter-of-factly.
Of course, she’d checked Park Seongsu’s photos online beforehand.
Still, he’d seemed more put-together in those pictures.
‘I figured they were daily shots, so he’d be a bit disheveled, but….’
Yet Park Seongsu who showed up for this meeting looked even more unkempt than what she’d seen on the internet.
And who was the student beside him?
“Hello. I’m Yun Ina, Marketing Team Lead at Celian. It’s a pleasure to meet you, maestro.”
She felt embarrassed at her own fussing outside the restaurant before coming in.
But Ina quickly composed herself and extended her hand for a handshake with confident, cordial grace.
“Ah, yes. Pleased to meet you. I’m Park Seongsu.”
Park Seongsu accepted the handshake with a slightly hunched posture, bowing repeatedly.
When Ina’s gaze shifted to the student beside him, Park Seongsu introduced her.
“This is Ye Ji, the painter I’ll be collaborating with.”
“Hello. I’m Ye Ji.”
Ye Ji offered a proper greeting, and Ina received it with a bright smile.
While she was managing somehow, Ina still felt bewildered.
Ye Ji? Had she ever heard of an artist named Ye Ji?
An awkward silence hung in the air for a moment, but Ina quickly regained her focus.
“Thank you so much for making time for us.”
Regardless, the fact remained that she had to make this project succeed.
Ina retrieved the materials and laptop she’d prepared.
“First, let me clearly show you our concept.”
She proceeded with her explanation, alongside a PowerPoint with costume sketches and the organized concept.
Park Seongsu’s work, rooted in Naturalism.
And the world-renowned luxury brand Celian.
The reason for attempting this unlikely combination was clear.
“I imagine you must have been quite surprised by our collaboration request.”
Ina displayed a painting on the monitor.
A simple drawing as if sketched with brush pen.
Ye Ji pulled her chair closer.
The curved hem of a skirt fluttering in the desert wind mirrored the curve of the dune ridge itself.
A human figure standing before vast nature, becoming one with it.
The dynamic drawing conceptualized what they wanted to convey this season with striking clarity.
“This season’s collection challenges the uncomfortable image luxury brands typically carry, featuring designs that don’t constrict or oppress the body, with more practical silhouettes.”
In truth, luxury brands shedding their weight was itself a kind of retro move.
Around the 1960s, an era of confusion marked by various wars and conflicts.
Even then, many brands pursued more practical and approachable directions.
Simply put, it amounted to having tried everything, only to circle back to simpler, naturalistic thinking.
“Society is advancing, but everyone seems to have lost peace of mind, living tight, strained lives these days.”
That was ultimately why they’d chosen Park Seongsu.
Even luxury brands could no longer burden consumers with fatigue.
“Of course, that doesn’t mean we’re abandoning our own sense of sophistication.”
Celian’s head designer was an exceptionally talented person.
Someone capable of capturing the world’s most difficult paradox — effortless yet refined, approachable yet dignified.
A person who could embody such contradictory beauty in the form of clothing.
Park Seongsu and Ye Ji listened to Ina’s explanation with full attention.
“So that’s why you thought a painter was necessary.”
At Ye Ji’s sudden remark, Ina tilted her head in confusion.
Where in her own narrative had that thought come from?
But it seemed only Ina hadn’t understood — Park Seongsu nodded in agreement.
“The order’s a bit reversed, but… that does seem to be it.”
How were they already on the same wavelength?
While Ina racked her brain trying to grasp the logic.
Park Seongsu offered an explanation unprompted.
“It’s easy to say, but if we just let those two work well together on their own, there’s a good chance they’ll feel disconnected from each other.”
A naturalistic luxury brand.
To blend what wouldn’t mix — like oil and water — required something to play the role of intermediary.
“So you’re saying you want to use my paintings to lay a bridge between them?”
The girl called Ye Ji, nodding and murmuring to herself, suddenly pulled something from her bag.
A worn Drawing Book that looked like a practice pad.
And as she drew out a Brush Pen as well, she began sketching without hesitation.
“Ah, now that I think about it… you probably came without any information about Ye Ji, right?”
Ina, who had been staring blankly at Ye Ji, nodded awkwardly with a laugh at Park Seongsu’s question.
“Yes. I was only told that you wished to collaborate with another artist, maestro.”
“Ye Ji is a student at Cheonglim Art High School, but her skill is absolutely trustworthy. She was recently accepted to an international competition in Paris.”
Paris, France — a city of art and inspiration that luxury fashion brands simply must capture.
“Recently?”
“Yes. Actually, if it weren’t for Ye Ji, I wouldn’t be the type to participate in a project like this either….”
The collaboration between Ye Ji and Park Seongsu was originally predetermined.
A project that seemed perfectly suited to have Ye Ji in the middle had happened to be proposed by Celian at exactly the right moment.
Park Seongsu’s lack of eloquence made the explanation somewhat scattered, but that was the gist of it.
‘…So that’s what he meant when he said the order was reversed.’
It wasn’t that the Celian project needed the painter Ye Ji.
The collaboration with painter Ye Ji came first, and Celian had simply been fortunate enough to slip into the space between them.
“I see.”
Ina felt oddly unsettled.
Most artists would desperately hope to collaborate with a world-renowned luxury brand like this.
But for these two, such a name held little significance.
And admittedly, it stung her pride a little.
“Is it something like this?”
During that brief exchange, Ye Ji sketched something and extended her Drawing Book.
On the paper was almost an exact replica of the concept image Ina had just shown — the scattered skirt in the desert.
But one thing was different.
Between the desert and the model.
A rectangular space, like an enormous window.
Within it, mysterious curves connecting the two, and a space like an oasis had been drawn.
“After all, luxury is ultimately one element of human basic needs — clothing, food, and shelter.”
“If the designer pursued freedom, comfort, and possibility — then even in vast nature, one needs shelter.”
Vast nature is never a comfortable place.
One might catch a breath momentarily, but it’s difficult to feel comfort watching a model in luxury clothing amid such wilderness.
So if Ye Ji’s painting added artificiality within it, offering comfort to those who saw it?”
“I think it would better match the image the brand is looking for.”
This is what you wanted to do, isn’t it?
Listening to Ye Ji’s words as she asked this, Ina felt a lightbulb suddenly illuminating in her mind.
All the pieces fell into place at last.
And at the same time, Ina realized she herself had been uncertain.
Her excessive nervousness coming to this meeting.
Her overblown faith that the brand’s designer would somehow handle it.
That was all there was to it.
Because she herself had thought Park Seongsu and Celian were incompatible.
“You just… drew that after seeing it, right now?”
“Yes. Wasn’t it the direction you were hoping for?”
Even as she said this, tilting her head slightly, Ye Ji still looked like an ordinary high school girl.
But she was different.
There was absolutely nothing ordinary about what lay within her.
“No, this is… this is better than what I was expecting.”
At minimum, if she’d had the skill to match.
That was all Ina had hoped for, but Ye Ji had far exceeded it.
She understood this project better than Ina herself did.
All her anxiety dissolved with the single image Ye Ji had shown.
With such a bridge in place…?
‘I could understand it.’
And just as she herself understood, it would convince many others.
“Absolutely. I think we’ve found exactly the right place.”
Ina spoke with a visibly brightened expression.
Though it seemed like fortune had arranged this meeting at just the right moment, it amounted to the same thing.
After all, opportunity comes to those who prepare.
It’s all or nothing.
But ultimately, in a project driven by the top decision-maker, Ina had no choice but to roll the dice.
Then there was only one conclusion.
“Let’s do our very best together.”
***
At that same moment, in Jung Hae Yoon’s Studio.
Hyun Min stood before Hae Yoon, breaking into a nervous sweat.
“Thank you for not revealing it back then. Sir.”
“What?”
Hae Yoon answered curtly, despite Hyun Min’s respectful tone.
“Why are you sneaking around next to that kid, hiding your identity so shadily!”
At Hae Yoon’s words, Hyun Min felt slightly wronged.
“Shadily? No, sir. It’s just… I didn’t want rumors that I’m the chairman’s son to spread.”
“You enjoy all the benefits but don’t want the rumor?”
From Hae Yoon’s perspective, this kid wasn’t easy to favor outright.
Was he trying to extract every advantage of being a conglomerate heir while discarding every drawback?
“…Isn’t it still an age where I shouldn’t make such things public?”
Hyun Min couldn’t entirely deny what Hae Yoon said.
“And frankly, the moment to reveal it has already passed. I’m planning to tell my friends naturally.”
Hyun Min spoke in a measured tone, saying he had no intention of losing his friends.
Hae Yoon, listening to his words, asked again in an irritated tone.
“So why did you come here?”
“To thank you for keeping it quiet back then….”
“Nonsense!”
Hae Yoon saw through him immediately.
Hyun Min was someone whose calculations were quick.
Apparently taking after his mother, there was definitely some business he’d come to discuss.
“There’s… something I wanted to ask you.”
At Hae Yoon’s words, Hyun Min finally relented and awkwardly broached his purpose.
“It’s about Han Gyu.”
Me?
Han Gyu, who’d been listening in with some interest from the side, was startled.
Not only the suddenly familiar way of addressing him, but when had this conglomerate heir even learned his name.
What business could the chairman’s son possibly have with someone like him?
Unable to decide between casual or formal speech, Hyun Min spoke.
“You’ve been helping Hae Yoon with his artistic work for years now, haven’t you?”
“I’m interested in trying my hand at that kind of work too.”
So, a kind of career consultation?
Han Gyu asked in response to Hyun Min’s words.
“The… company?”
Han Gyu opted for casual speech, and Hyun Min chuckled somewhat bashfully at the question.
“I’m the second son. Isn’t it better for family harmony if I just don’t take interest in it?”
He genuinely had no interest in it either.
“If I just inherit the art-related side of the family business, that’s enough for me.”
Business just gave him a headache.
He didn’t want to burden himself with such things.
What Hyun Min was after was almost equivalent to being a wealthy gentleman of leisure.
A well-to-do freelancer of sorts, who just picked interesting work?
“I want to live doing things I enjoy, but I’m not talented enough to live off painting alone.”
He could certainly spend his whole life living off family money as a wealthy idler, but Hyun Min loved paintings too much for that.
Even a life of just collecting art information and buying works would eventually grow tiresome.
He needed to set slightly more enterprising aims — very slightly more.
“Compared to that, Ye Ji — her paintings are extraordinary, but she’s seriously lacking in everything else.”
Naturally, even if she were a genius, she remained human.
She was as oblivious to everything outside painting as she was focused on it.
At Hyun Min’s words, Hae Yoon furrowed his brow and spoke.
“So you want to become that girl’s personal manager?”

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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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