The Reborn Genius of an Arts High School - Chapter 79

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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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Chapter 79.
Ye Ji had heard something from Hyun Min beforehand.
[Hyun Min: Now that I think about it. That person who said they wanted to buy a painting from your account back then]
[Hyun Min: Yun So Hee’s Manager was one of them]
It seemed like he’d reached out on Yun So Hee’s behalf, and he added this:
[Hyun Min: But I blocked them all when I was cleaning up the account back then]
If she’d intended to make an exception for a celebrity, she wouldn’t have blocked them in the first place.
So when he asked for the name yesterday, she’d hesitated a little…
“Ye Ji? Ye Ji, second-year student at Cheonglim Art High School? The Montravely Award winner Ye Ji?!”
So Hee, practically bursting with excitement, sprang up with a shout.
She hadn’t expected that hearing the name wouldn’t make the connection click.
Ye Ji grabbed her hand and pulled her back down into her seat, the sudden flood of information about herself threatening to spill out.
In more ways than one, So Hee’s hand was burning hot.
“Quiet… be quiet for a moment…!”
Ye Ji pressed the ice pet bottle she’d been holding into her arms while whispering urgently.
The fact that she worked under the pen name Goyo.
She hadn’t planned to treat it like some top-secret classified information.
But if she went around broadcasting it loudly, the whole point of using a pen name would be lost.
“I thought you’d know since you heard about it yesterday.”
As much as possible, she wanted to keep it quiet.
Ye Ji’s murmur made So Hee quiet down a little, though her expression still showed she didn’t quite understand.
If she kept it just among people who already knew, she could at least avoid unnecessary gossip.
So Hee looked around with an expression that betrayed a hint of hurt.
Seong Soo and Lee Na probably already knew, so there was nothing to say to them.
When she spun around to look at the Manager, he flinched in surprise.
“Oh, so… that’s what I was trying to tell you this morning…”
Never mind, she had no interest anyway, so there was no need to fill her in…
So Hee shot the Manager a sharp look as he trailed off.
Ye Ji stepped between them, playing peacemaker.
“I’m sorry. I should have been more precise yesterday.”
“What are you talking about? What’s going on?”
Seong Soo and Lee Na, unaware of what had transpired between So Hee and Ye Ji, wore confused expressions now.
The shoot had gone well, and they were just about ready to head home—why was all this happening suddenly?
“Well…”
Where was she even supposed to start explaining?
As Ye Ji’s face twisted with difficulty, So Hee suddenly grabbed her hand again and demanded,
“So why did you block me?!”
Ye Ji had blocked So Hee?
Now Seong Soo and Lee Na’s confused gazes turned in unison toward Ye Ji.
“Ah… well, you see…”
In the end, Ye Ji had no choice but to launch into a long, painful explanation to clear up the misunderstanding.
***
Two days later, in Ye Ji’s studio.
“Ha ha ha ha!”
After hearing about what had happened in Jeju Island, Hyun Min nearly collapsed as he rolled around in the corner of the studio, laughing his head off.
A high school student bold enough to block a world-famous model like Yun So Hee first.
To avoid being misunderstood, Ye Ji had had to explain everything from scratch.
“Hey, is this really something to laugh about? I never thought things would get this tangled up just because I use a pen name!”
Ye Ji vented her grievance by slapping Hyun Min’s back a few times.
How mortifying it had been to explain the reason for using a pen name out of her own mouth.
“Ow, your hands are so strong.”
Hyun Min shook his hand, wincing.
“And don’t worry needlessly. Either way, those people understand better than anyone how important it is to separate your public work from your private life.”
They understood well enough, yet still chose not to separate them.
Because that sort of noise—the commotion—was useful as a form of marketing.
Noise Marketing had both advantages and drawbacks built into it.
Even adults often found the flood of public attention overwhelming.
And yet here was Ye Ji, a minor, choosing to separate her commercial activities from her personal artistic pursuits.
Everyone thought she was doing the right thing.
“But still, Yun So Hee is really incredible, isn’t she? How did you not recognize her?”
“Is So Hee your friend? Are you friends?”
If you’re going to be like that, then leave.
When Ye Ji gave him a hard time out of sheer embarrassment, Hyun Min took a step back.
“I’m here because of work anyway?”
He gestured defensively at the laptop he was holding.
“Anyway. There’s nothing new to post on Goyo yet. But the follower count did go up a bit. Probably some of the staff who saw you in Jeju followed.”
By now, Hyun Min had become quite deeply involved in Ye Ji’s work.
Managing SNS was practically a job that qualified him as an employee.
Hyun Min, who’d been sitting on the studio floor where there was nothing but painting materials, suddenly griped,
“Can’t you at least buy me a desk to use here?”
“…Okay. I’ll look for one.”
Ye Ji gave Hyun Min a sidelong glance for constantly trying to strike up conversation, but soon agreed nonetheless.
After all, he was helping her.
She was still thinking about what would be appropriate compensation for him.
It felt too cold to start discussing payment for something he was doing as a friend out of kindness.
She’d need to find the right timing for it.
“But why did Yun So Hee, I mean the model Yun So Hee, want to buy your painting anyway?”
Da Hye threw out a question she’d held back until now.
Da Hye was working alongside Hyun Min.
Now that the new semester was just around the corner,
it was about time to finish the pieces that had been assigned as vacation homework.
Ye Ji glanced over at Da Hye and reminded herself that she too had vacation homework to do.
Well, there was still time for now anyway.
“I don’t think that’s quite it.”
Ye Ji shrugged in response to Da Hye’s question.
“It’s just… when people have nice homes, they usually keep a painting or piece of art by a famous artist, you know?”
On the plane back from Jeju to Seoul,
So Hee, sitting beside her, had shared quite a lot.
Once Ye Ji honestly explained her situation, So Hee was candid enough to tell her the truth as well.
“She said it felt like that kind of thing fills in the empty spaces inside her.”
Having left behind a poverty-stricken childhood and clawed her way to success through sheer determination—a self-made success story.
The inferiority complex and yearning toward the upper class led her to blindly imitate their culture.
But as with everything, suddenly wanting to acquire works she’d never cared about before wasn’t simple.
The artists hot enough that even she knew of them were hard to reach, or their schedules were already fully booked.
And she didn’t have the confidence to spend hundreds of millions on established masterpieces.
Because she didn’t truly understand their value.
Even though she now had the means for such luxury, it still came full circle in the end.
She could buy dozens of designer bags with that kind of money.
That’s the sort of petty comparison she found herself making.
“So she’s not going to buy it now?”
At Da Hye’s question, Ye Ji tilted her head with an odd expression.
When she’d heard So Hee’s story up to that point, she too had thought she’d arrive at that conclusion.
She’d even respected it to some degree.
There were countless values in life.
What was more precious than life itself to her might be ambiguous value to someone else.
But So Hee’s conclusion was different.
“…No, it’s not that. She said she’d study it properly first and then buy it later?”
What?
Da Hye and Hyun Min both echoed the question in unison.
“That’s the real conclusion?”
At Hyun Min’s words, Ye Ji could only shrug again.
She couldn’t know what So Hee had been thinking to reach that conclusion.
But it didn’t feel bad.
The fact that someone who’d never been interested in art was now stepping into another world because of her.
The fact that she wanted to do that—it held meaning.
As the conversation seemed to be winding down around that point, Ye Ji picked up her brush again.
There were more than one or two works ahead of her to complete.
To keep moving forward according to plan, every single day felt precious.
Being so busy that her paintings needed to be shown in all these places—
‘So this day really does come.’
It was moving.
Just as she was about to refocus on her work,
“Hey, but…”
Hyun Min’s voice suddenly came through.
Her concentration shattered, she gave him a sharp look.
“Ah, I get it. I get it. I can’t say anything, can I?”
“Is it important?”
“……”
Not particularly.
Hyun Min let his gaze slip away.
This was exactly why she’d originally not wanted to let people into the studio on a personal basis.
Even when brought in for work purposes, when people gathered, there couldn’t be complete silence—and that was a problem too.
Besides, wasn’t it odd for her to tell people not to speak at all?
But Ye Ji’s working style was rather unique.
She didn’t listen to music, and once she started working, she’d push herself into an extreme state of focus for half a day at a time, forgetting to eat while working alone.
Otherwise, her hands wouldn’t move as fast as they did.
“Anyway, since we’re working like this, you should also straighten your back a bit and actually breathe while you’re at it.”
At Hyun Min’s words, Ye Ji reflexively straightened her posture.
She was grateful for the feedback on her posture, but—
“Still, you know my schedule. It’s not something to think about so lightly.”
“Well, I know, but…”
Tsk, maybe he shouldn’t come to the studio at all then.
At Hyun Min’s muttered, half-muttered murmuring, Ye Ji also found herself hesitating for a moment.
“I’m not saying don’t come at all, but…”
“If you need more space, you can use the First Floor too…”
A start.
At another voice that suddenly came through, Ye Ji turned her head toward the entrance.
There stood Seong Soo, who’d quietly slipped in and left fruit and cake.
“Oh, I wasn’t trying to listen… I just wanted to leave these here real quick, and I overheard…”
It probably looked like he’d been eavesdropping on the kids’ conversation.
Three voices greeted the hastily self-justifying Seong Soo.
“But where did the cake come from?”
Instead of Ye Ji and Da Hye, who were in the middle of working, Hyun Min jumped up promptly and took the snacks he’d brought.
“I’m not sure—it came from Celériant…”
“Wow, that’s amazing. This is from the Demiraire Department Store.”
Though the cake from SS Department Store is better, he thought.
Hyun Min scurried off muttering to himself.
“Thank you. But can we really use the First Floor?”
Ye Ji set down her brush and approached Seong Soo, asking.
“Oh, well. It’s sitting empty anyway, and I’m heading overseas again soon.”
Probably until the project with Celériant wrapped up.
He wouldn’t be back in Korea for several more months.
Since he wasn’t the type to spend much time in Korea anyway, the building would just become vacant again.
“Originally, I wanted to use the First Floor as a space for interacting with different kinds of people…”
The First Floor, designed like a cafe,
Given Seong Soo’s nature, interacting with diverse people was naturally difficult.
Because of that, the First Floor had always remained dark and neglected—it was a waste of space.
“But there’d be quite a bit to clean up if you want to use it…”
Yet at those very words, Hyun Min’s eyes lit up even brighter.
“So we can fix it up and use it?”
“Yeah, sure. If I ask you to do it as part of building maintenance, that works for me too…”
A space that aged day by day, accumulating only dust, was bound to deteriorate.
Things lasted when people actually put their hands to them—that was how maintenance worked.
For Seong Soo, it was more comforting to have them come by and manage the building regularly than to hire some stranger he didn’t know.
“Anyway, don’t worry about it. I’m leaving the country again next week.”
Thanks for the hard work in Jeju.
See you next time…
Seong Soo, his speech clumsy, left his words trailing off vaguely before disappearing again.
“Thank you so much! We’ll keep it clean!”
Hyun Min’s cheerful voice rang out loudly after Seong Soo, who was heading downstairs.
Was it just her imagination, or was Seong Soo’s building gradually becoming her own personal base of operations?

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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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