The Reborn Genius of an Arts High School - Chapter 88

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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 88.
Kang Yura sitting alone in the back row was, in several ways, unexpected.
It didn’t seem like her kind of place at all.
Yesterday had been equally unexpected.
When the Special Class seniors came to the Art Department booth yesterday, it was both a surprise and a welcome sight.
She’d wondered if today she might enjoy the festival with them too.
But today, as she sat alone, Ye Ji suddenly dropped into the seat beside her.
“…Your friends went up front.”
Kang Yura, glancing at Ye Ji, gestured toward Da Hye and Hyun Min ahead.
But to her words, Ye Ji shook her head.
“I just came because I saw you, senior.”
Was there something she wanted, then?
Kang Yura’s gaze seemed to ask exactly that.
Hyun Min and Da Hye sometimes told Ye Ji that she didn’t care about others’ eyes.
‘It’s only because they haven’t met someone who truly doesn’t care.’
From Ye Ji’s perspective, she wasn’t that indifferent herself.
Sometimes, even without a particular reason, there were people and moments where you simply wanted to sit beside them and talk.
In the very back row of the grand concert hall.
Sitting side by side, Ye Ji spoke to Kang Yura.
“Graduation must be coming up soon.”
For third-year students, the College Entrance Exam season was drawing near.
Because of this, most third-graders had little interest in attending the festival.
Most of them came out for a brief time before heading back inside.
“It was pretty fun thanks to you.”
Kang Yura, who had remained silent for quite a while after Ye Ji’s words, finally spoke.
“Outside of drawing, nothing else seemed interesting to me.”
Ye Ji nodded slightly to Kang Yura’s words, her expression carrying understanding.
She knew exactly what that felt like—her past self understood it very well.
“School, academy, nothing seemed to have any real meaning to me either.”
Her life had lacked stimulation.
After she decided that painting was what she loved most, and set a goal to accomplish something with it.
Kang Yura’s life had become single-minded.
Finding joy only in watching herself gradually grow.
Nothing but that sense of achievement felt enjoyable, and everything else seemed unnecessary.
Because of that, interacting with others had been genuinely tedious.
To Kang Yura, her peers felt like slowpokes falling behind by a step.
Just as a hare and a tortoise cannot easily become friends.
That’s what she believed.
Others were merely a means to receive recognition.
Merely a process that existed for satisfaction and achievement.
But with Ye Ji’s arrival, everything changed.
School life filled with unexpected joy and stimulation.
At times it was frustrating, sometimes surprising, and occasionally just plain fun.
“Do you remember what the instructor first said?”
Kang Yura continued slowly.
When the instructor first started teaching.
She had wanted them to play together, not merely learn.
Back then, Kang Yura hadn’t understood, thinking it was just an odd word choice from an eccentric.
But now it was different.
“Now I think I understand what she meant.”
The Special Class sessions wouldn’t last much longer.
Once the serious Year-end Exhibition and final exam preparation periods began, they would end.
The number of remaining classes could be counted on one hand.
After that time passes, all the Special Class seniors will enter full-fledged college preparation.
In fact, they were already well past the point of submitting Early Application forms.
Regardless, it was clear that now was a critical season.
Standing at the threshold of such moments, Kang Yura sat beside Ye Ji and spoke like that.
“We played pretty well together.”
Ye Ji listened quietly to Kang Yura’s words and nodded.
They expressed what they loved and were good at without reservation, and willingly accepted change.
That every moment held meaning. Why hadn’t she realized it before?
“Usually, unless someone dies and comes back to life, it’s hard to understand such things.”
Ye Ji spoke as if joking, but she meant it.
Especially for those who were praised as exceptional, outstanding, and possessed firm self-identity, it was even more true.
Without an impact of extraordinary magnitude, it was difficult for such people to accept genuine realization in their hearts rather than their minds.
Since Ye Ji herself had experienced this, she understood Kang Yura’s heart.
Kang Yura seemed to take Ye Ji’s words as a joke, smiling faintly.
For someone usually so cool-faced, it was a rare smile.
If that’s the case, then we’ve really become quite close, haven’t we?
With that thought, as she wiggled her toes, Kang Yura asked.
“You’ll be a third-year soon too—do you have any plans?”
“Ah….”
Plans.
“I should probably think about that sort of thing too, at this point.”
Ye Ji said this while falling silent as if thinking for a moment.
The final performance of the festival was already beginning on stage.
The orchestra prepared by the Classical Music Department began playing grandly.
If she said she hadn’t thought about the future, it would be a lie.
Everyone would probably say university came first, but for Ye Ji now, attending or not made little difference.
Academic credentials no longer mattered much to her.
And yet.
“……I’m still thinking it over.”
She didn’t want to decide anything too firmly just yet.
Of course, the time spent devoted to work each day was good and precious.
Ye Ji’s gaze landed on her friends in front enjoying the festival.
The landscapes and experiences you couldn’t see while solely focused on work.
You couldn’t gain the many emotions and memories in the art studio.
“…That’s surprising.”
“Is it?”
“I thought you’d say you didn’t have enough time for drawing.”
I thought you wouldn’t even consider something like university.
To Kang Yura’s words, Ye Ji’s expression wavered between laughing and not.
Even though she thought it was greedy, Ye Ji didn’t want to lose any single thing she now had.
No matter how busy, she wanted to keep her family and friends by her side.
At the same time, she wanted to seize the approaching opportunities without letting them slip away.
So now, even with a body split in two, every day was too hectic.
But that was Ye Ji’s choice, and a decision that wouldn’t change in the future.
***
Ye Ji and Kang Yura spoke on deeper topics than they’d anticipated.
What had unintentionally become half a career counseling session drew out sincere depths.
A time to share what had only been thought about, kept unspoken until now.
Had they thought they were the kind of friends who could have such conversations?
It seemed like a relationship they’d barely even considered before.
Before long, the night grew later.
After all the Classical Music Department performances had ended.
The time was filled with loud, exciting music and the cheers of friends.
Ye Ji watched the side of Kang Yura’s face, her eyes calm as she gazed at the stage where lights flashed.
Even she, who was unusually composed and collected for her age, was just an ordinary high school student.
The rivalry and sense of kinship she’d felt toward Ye Ji in her heart, and so on.
Such deep emotions somehow stirred something strange in Ye Ji.
“I guess I should decide on something too.”
Listening to Ye Ji’s story, Kang Yura seemed to have had various thoughts of her own.
“…Then, enjoy yourself.”
With those words, Kang Yura left her seat before the performance ended.
Her proud and composed voice and expression remained to the end.
The parting phrase “enjoy yourself” sounded somehow awkward, at odds with such things.
But because it felt so much like Kang Yura herself, it didn’t feel bad.
For a moment, Ye Ji sat alone.
When she looked up, she could see her friends enjoying the stage in front.
Da Hye and Hyun Min, who had been waiting so as not to disturb her conversation with Kang Yura, gestured to her from beside their empty seat.
Ye Ji got up and went to them.
The brilliant finale of the Cheonglim Festival.
The end was drawing near.
***
The next morning, returning to the weekend.
Ye Ji’s art studio.
After sleeping in for once and coming out, Ye Ji was startled to find Da Hye already there.
“I can’t believe it….”
Having left behind yesterday’s vibrant play, suddenly thrust back into reality.
Da Hye was working with drooping shoulders.
So eager was she that she’d come even earlier than Ye Ji, which rarely happened.
In truth, most of the Art Department students probably felt the same way.
Under various pretexts they’d deceived their parents and carried out the festival together, but the fact remained that time had been stolen.
Having played so much, there was no room left to spare.
Now that they were diving into Year-end Exhibition preparation, everyone felt the fire at their heels.
Currently, Da Hye was doing multiple sketches and receiving advice from Ye Ji.
“I think what you showed me last time was better than this.”
Ye Ji, tying on her work apron, added her thought to Da Hye’s painting.
“Really? But doesn’t that one feel a bit boring too?”
“Well, for your work, I think the calculated approach suits it better. Maybe it’s better to find more of a focal point there instead.”
At Ye Ji’s words, Da Hye fell back into contemplation.
While Da Hye was thinking, Ye Ji continued her own work.
Her schedule remained unchanged.
Even with the festival, she’d continued working in between, and her personal exhibition preparations took priority over school schedules.
For the Year-end Exhibition, she could just submit one of the many pieces she was already working on for her personal exhibition.
In fact, having relieved stress by playing with her friends, she felt refreshed instead.
At this rate, there would be no problem at all until the personal exhibition.
“Oh, by the way. Hyun Min said he won’t be able to come to the studio much for a while because he has to prepare for the Year-end Exhibition.”
“……Hyun Min?”
At Ye Ji’s unexpectedly surprised words, Da Hye let out a little laugh.
So he does manage his internal grades?
“Still, Hyun Min is at least middle-tier in our department, you know?”
Da Hye answered with a giggle at Ye Ji’s words.
Though actually, even that middle tier was a result of grades he’d climbed while hanging around with Ye Ji.
For someone who pokes her nose into everything and runs around playing so much, he was actually pretty smart.
He’d manage just fine on his own, she was sure.
With that thought, Ye Ji picked up her brush to begin working.
Whrrrrr—
But her head turned at the loud buzzing of her mobile phone on the table.
On the screen appeared a call from an unknown number.
Still, since it started with 010, after a moment’s hesitation, Ye Ji answered.
“Hello.”
-Is this Ye Ji’s number?
At the voice coming through the receiver, Ye Ji faltered.
A familiar voice, but…?
After a moment of thinking, Ye Ji recalled who it was.
“Oh? Instructor?”
The caller was the instructor.
Surprised by the unexpected contact, Ye Ji checked her phone again.
“How did you get my number?”
Now that she thought about it, they’d never exchanged contact information privately.
-I can know such things.
Of course the school would have provided the contact numbers of her students.
Though the school certainly didn’t give them out to be used personally.
“What is this about….”
She was curious what business could have come up in just one day to warrant this call.
-I think we should meet and talk. Do you know somewhere quiet where we could talk?
At the instructor’s words, Ye Ji sensed something unusual.
A voice much lower than usual.
Sensing it was important, Ye Ji gave the instructor the address of the art studio.
An hour later.
On the first floor of the art studio, neatly arranged by Hyun Min.
The instructor arrived even faster than expected.
Her neon sports car was visible parked outside.
It really doesn’t seem like the kind of hill for a car like that to be climbing.
“Do you work here?”
“Ah, yes. This is….”
Ye Ji hesitated, wondering whether she should mention that it was Seong-su’s studio, and asked a question instead of answering.
“But what is this suddenly about?”
To Ye Ji’s question, the instructor, now seated, slowly crossed her legs.
Without her usual loose, light demeanor, the instructor carried a peculiar pressure.
As Ye Ji quietly set down a cup of coffee in front of her and sat, the instructor finally spoke again.
“Ye Ji. That’s really you, right?”

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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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