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Chapter 32: For a Fair Evaluation
TL: Enuma ID
Saturday afternoon.
Kim Yo-han's car pulled up in front of Han So-young's officetel.
Today, after the lesson, Kim Yo-han had brought Lee Jun over himself.
He'd heard the competition painting was finished and wanted to see it for himself.
Е́ ñu ḿā
"Professor, come in."
So-young opened the front door.
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Kim Yo-han stepped out of his shoes and came inside. He didn't even take off his coat. His eyes were already turned toward the room beyond.
Lee Jun led the way into the room.
"The painting's in my room."
Kim Yo-han nodded and followed him in.
W̃ е b̂ň о̌ vе l̃ Ӗ ń ù m а́
A small room with the faint smell of linseed oil.
A bed, an easel, a table, an air purifier.
And the canvas.
A size 15 canvas stood on the easel.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
Kim Yo-han stopped.
Right where he'd entered the room.
Ѐ.n̈ u m̌ă ..їd̀
His sharp eyes drilled into the canvas.
There was a sky.
It was blue. But not just blue.
It glowed from within. A depth built up from dozens of layers.
The surface was clear, yet from beneath it, light came welling up.
The upper part was deep. A depth close to a night sky.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
The lower part was bright. The wide-open brightness near a horizon.
No boundary was visible. The two carried into each other naturally.
Dark, bright, deep, far, and near.
From one single sky, every kind of feeling came at once.
Clouds floated in that sky.
Thick paint. Clouds bright on top, dark beneath.
Ё n u̇ mа̇ .іd
At the brightest point, the paint caught the room's fluorescent light and gleamed.
Big clouds, small clouds, and hazy clouds near the horizon.
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The perspective is alive. It felt as though, if he dove into that sky just as it was, he'd be swept up and carried away.
Below was a field of grass.
Grass bent by the wind. Grass with glowing tips.
Bright in front, dark behind. The grass had depth too.
Е n̈ù m a . і̆ d
He could almost hear the grass rustling in the wind.
And then, the silhouette.
A small black figure stood in the grass. The shape of a person gazing up at the sky.
Two white dots shone like eyes.
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A quiet presence. That silhouette was what completed the painting.
Kim Yo-han didn't move.
Е̇ n̂ u m̂а.ї d́
About a minute.
He just stood there, coat still on, eyes fixed on nothing but the canvas.
Lee Jun and So-young waited quietly behind him.
"......."
Kim Yo-han took a step forward. He brought his face close to the canvas and looked.
First he examined the surface of the sky.
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No brushstrokes were visible.
That was because dozens of thin layers had been built up one over another. The paint had soaked into the canvas.
He shifted his gaze to the clouds.
Here it was the reverse. The brushstrokes were alive. The paint stood up off the surface.
The thickest spots were the brightest spots. Under light, these would be the first to gleam.
The boundary between sky and cloud.
Е̊n ûm̄ а̊. і̇ d̂
Where the thick paint met the thin underpainting. It had been blended softly.
As if the clouds were floating in the sky. Not embedded in it, but floating.
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He stepped back. He took in the whole thing again.
Glazing and impasto.
Two techniques coexisting within a single canvas.
The sky glowing from within, the clouds glowing from without.
W е́b̆nӧv èl̃ Е n̈ ú_m̀.а
Two kinds of light, not clashing, but in harmony.
A five-year-old had done this.
Kim Yo-han's back went rigid.
Goosebumps rose on his neck and the hairs on his arms stood on end.
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That was the scale of the shock Lee Jun's painting dealt him.
He thought back to when he'd first conceived of the boy's competition entry.
Е̊ñ ǔmа
The first sky a five-year-old had felt and painted for himself.
Moving it onto a size 15 canvas.
That was all Kim Yo-han had pictured. That the small sky painted in this cramped room would simply be carried over, bigger and more refined.
But the painting in front of him soared past his shallow imagining.
This painting was on an entirely different level. He'd have believed it was a masterpiece some world-renowned master painter had poured his entire being into.
Discovering glazing on his own and applying it. Combining it with impasto.
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Placing the perspective precisely. Painting the wind itself. Anchoring where the eye comes to rest.
Just a month and a half. This was the point a child who had only just taken up painting had reached.
Kim Yo-han turned and looked at Lee Jun.
Lee Jun stood by the door.
A small body. The babyish face of a five-year-old.
Lee Jun was waiting for his teacher's reaction. With a calm, unflustered expression, not the least bit nervous.
W̊ е́b́ nоv еl Ёn̈ ú m а̂
He looked at those small hands.
Young hands that hadn't even formed a single callus. Those small hands, still marked with paint, hands that surely hadn't even gotten the hang of chopsticks yet, had completed a painting like this.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
Kim Yo-han's soul was trembling.
"Professor, what do you think?"
Han So-young waited for his verdict, looking even more nervous than her nephew.
Kim Yo-han opened his mouth, then closed it.
Ŵ е b̂ ň о vӗl̄ Ẽn̊ ũ mа̌
Then opened it again.
"......It's superb."
Even Kim Yo-han was startled by his own words.
That he should praise a student of his like this, a five-year-old, no less.
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It was the highest of praise. Perhaps the first such words in his life.
Unaware of all that, So-young let out a sigh of relief, grateful that Jun had passed muster.
W̆ е̇ bn оv̌ е̌ l. Е̃n ům̌а̃
[Of course. We poured our hearts into it.]
At the Shadow's words, Lee Jun nodded too.
He'd gotten a good evaluation from his teacher, too. The way he'd thought it through and painted it hadn't been wrong after all.
So-young hurried off and brought back coffee.
"Professor, have some coffee."
"Thank you."
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Kim Yo-han took the coffee and sat down with his back against the living room wall. In this apartment, that was his usual spot.
So-young sat down across from him. Lee Jun settled in snug beside his aunt.
A brief silence.
So-young was the first to speak.
"Um, Professor."
"Yes."
Wе b n̆оv̂.е̃l .Еǹ ū mǎ
"I don't really know much about all this, but...... Jun's painting really is good, isn't it?"
So-young had seen it too. The finished canvas.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
She'd known at a glance that this painting was something out of the ordinary.
The sky was glowing. Like a real sky. That was something even a person who knew nothing about art could feel.
"Yes. It's well done."
Kim Yo-han answered briefly.
Е̂ ǹ um̊ а̂ . і̆d̈
So-young asked carefully.
"You'll be submitting this to the competition, right? So then, might it even win a prize?"
A voice mixed with hope and worry.
Kim Yo-han took a sip of coffee and set the cup down.
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Then, after a long while turning it over in his mind, he spoke.
"Han So-young ssi."
Е̊ n u m а
"Yes?"
"It would be best not to get your hopes up too high."
So-young's expression stiffened.
"Why? When it's painted so well. You said yourself it was good."
"Yes. It's good. That's exactly the problem, it's too good."
Kim Yo-han glanced toward Lee Jun's room.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
The door was open. He could see the canvas on the easel.
Even from a distance, the painting was glowing.
"...I misjudged this. If it had been just decently good, it would actually have been fine.
A painting that stood out as clearly well done in the preschool division. The kind the judges marvel at and hand a prize to. That was the sort of level I'd imagined."
Kim Yo-han looked at So-young.
"But Jun painted it far too well."
Е̂ñ ú ṁ а̀ .і̄ḋ
So-young tilted her head.
"Why would painting it too well be a problem?"
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
Kim Yo-han gazed at his coffee for a moment, then said:
"A five-year-old submits a painting that uses the glazing technique, commands impasto, gets the perspective exactly right, and even has the whole composition resolved. So what are the judges going to say?"
So-young couldn't answer.
"They won't believe a child painted it."
Е̂ ñ_ū m ã
Kim Yo-han's voice dropped lower.
"Accusations of ghost-painting will surface. That an adult painted it for him. Or that a teacher crammed the techniques into him and forced him to paint this way. That it isn't a painting fit for a child. That a prize can't go to a painting like this. That's the kind of thing they'll say."
So-young spoke up as if in protest.
"B-but Jun painted it himself, didn't he? I watched him every single day, right beside him. Every day laying down the underpainting, every day practicing—"
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"I know. I know he did.
But the judges don't care about any of that."
Kim Yo-han turned the cup in his hands.
Е̊ ňü m̌ а̄. i d
"To be honest with you, in competitions like this...... the winners are, in practice, often decided in advance."
So-young's eyes widened.
"In advance?"
"It's a competition run by the Art Association. There's bound to be some child being pushed by a person with power inside the association. Once a child like that is in the running, no matter how good you are, you get edged out. There's no way around it."
So-young couldn't understand it. A competition, and yet the rankings weren't decided by ability?
"Are you saying that without connections, there's no chance?"
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
"It isn't all about connections. But when skill levels are close, connections are what tip the balance. And in Jun's case, his ability isn't merely close to the others', it's overwhelming, which actually makes it more dangerous."
"Why?"
"When something's that overwhelming, they can't just bump it down the rankings. So they'll try to throw it out entirely. By inventing some complaint if they have to."
Kim Yo-han looked up at the ceiling.
"Even if you try to prove Jun painted it himself, they won't listen. If a ghost-painting accusation comes up during the judging, they won't so much as glance at any evidence you hand them. 'A painting unbecoming of a child, contrary to the spirit of the competition.' That by itself is reason enough to disqualify him."
So-young bowed her head.
Е́n̈uṁа̊
"So then...... you're saying he might not win anything at all?"
"In the worst case, yes. Of course, since Park Sang-hoon is on it as the recommender, it may not be dismissed out of hand entirely. But the grand prize......."
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
Kim Yo-han let his voice trail off.
The living room fell quiet.
So-young's face darkened.
She had watched the boy paint, day after day, right beside him. For a month and a half.
Wёb̌ǹ ov̄ ё l_ Е̌ n̆ ũ m̊а̂
Underpainting in the morning, practicing in the afternoon, underpainting again in the evening.
And all that time might not lead to a fair result. That was what he was telling her.
"Professor."
So-young raised her head.
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"But we're still going to submit it, right?"
"Of course we are. If we don't submit it, then nothing happens at all."
Е̊ nū.m̆ ӓ
Kim Yo-han said.
"What I described is the worst case. Not every judge is like that. If even one of them looks at this painting and judges it honestly, things could be different."
That was when it happened.
"It's okay."
A small voice cut in.
It was Lee Jun.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
He'd been sitting beside his aunt, listening to the grown-ups talk.
"It's okay even if I lose."
So-young looked at Lee Jun. Kim Yo-han looked at him too.
"Even if I don't get a prize this time, I can just paint another one next time."
Lee Jun's voice was calm and even.
"Because I'm going to keep painting anyway. I can paint every day and just enter again whenever there's a competition, right?"
W eb n̆ о̂v̇ е ĺ Énum̀ á
[That's right! So what if we lose once or twice! So what if they won't acknowledge us!
If they refuse to acknowledge us, then we'll just paint until they acknowledge us!]
The Shadow was running wild, the same as always.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
Kim Yo-han gazed quietly at Lee Jun.
What the boy had just said echoed in his head.
That he could just paint another one and enter it next time.
A painting he'd clung to for a month and a half. A painting built up a layer at a time, every single day.
E ň ũ ma .і ḋ
Even after hearing that the painting might be disqualified, he'd said he could simply keep painting.
Kim Yo-han raised his coffee cup.
As if to hide the tremor in his eyelids.
The unfair judging practices of the art world. Few people carried as much buried resentment toward them as Kim Yo-han.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
And it wasn't only here at home. Overseas it was the same, being discriminated against over his race or where he came from. In Paris, in New York, that was why he'd walked away.
For a man like that, his young pupil's words were like a needle.
Wе̂b n о̌ ve ĺ Е̊nu m̊ a
Even if he was knocked out unfairly, he could just enter again. He was going to keep painting either way.
Words so simple, and yet so radiant. Enough to put a man who had fled from discrimination to shame.
If he, too, had refused to quit and kept throwing himself against it, would things have turned out differently?
Kim Yo-han wanted to avoid Lee Jun's eyes. So he hid his own behind the coffee cup.
He took a sip of the bad coffee. Then set it down.
"......Yeah. You're right, Jun."
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Kim Yo-han's voice softened. Just a little.
"If it doesn't work out this time, you do it the next. A painting isn't something that ends with a single canvas."
Lee Jun nodded.
Han So-young wrapped Lee Jun in her arms and stroked his hair, as though proud of him. The rims of her eyes had gone red.
Kim Yo-han watched Lee Jun and thought.
Even if an unfair result came down, Lee Jun would take it without protest.
Ėń u̇ mӓ
But he, of all people, must not.
He had come to take unfair outcomes for granted. Because that was how it had always been for him, he'd assumed there was nothing to be done if the same befell Lee Jun.
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But Lee Jun's words had changed that.
He cannot leave things as they are.
He cannot simply accept an unfair result.
If only for the sake of this child, who would go on growing without end. He had to change it.
Ẁ е b̄ ñ о.v е l̊ Е̊ň ü m̆ a
"I'll handle the submission myself."
Kim Yo-han said as he stood up.
"We just write the name, age, materials used, and recommender on the back of the canvas and send it off. I'll come pick it up later. Until then, just keep it stored well so it dries properly."
"Yes. Thank you, Professor."
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His business finished, Kim Yo-han made for the entryway.
As he put on his shoes, he looked once more toward Lee Jun's room.
Ẇ ē bn̆ӧ v́ ĕ ľ E̊ n̊ ũ m̂а
Through the open door, he could see the canvas.
The blue sky was glowing.
It was a painting that set the heart pounding.
"Jun."
"Yes."
"Your painting is a good painting. Whatever the competition decides."
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
Lee Jun nodded, though whether he grasped what was in Kim Yo-han's heart, there was no telling.
"Goodbye."
On his way down the stairs, Kim Yo-han took his phone from his pocket.
He placed a call to Park Sang-hoon.
"It's me."
"What is it?"
Е n̊ u̇ḿа́
"It's finished. Jun's competition painting."
"Oh, for real? How is it?"
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Kim Yo-han let a moment hang, then said:
"We've got a problem."
"......With what?"
"It's too good. It's going to throw the entire Korean art world into an uproar."
Е̃nu m̂ ā
On the other end of the line, Park Sang-hoon faltered for a moment.
"Wait, seriously? You're not pulling my leg?"
"Yeah. Probably nobody's going to believe it. That a five-year-old painted this. It's going to get excluded from judging, guaranteed."
"Ah."
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Exclusion from judging.
Being removed from the judging for some pretext or other. In effect, it means disqualification.
W е̊ b̃ńô vе̊ l Еn ù.m̀ а̂
Park Sang-hoon knew full well why Kim Yo-han expected as much.
"Th-then what do we do? What's your plan?"
Kim Yo-han drew in a deep breath and said:
"First, we submit it. And then we fight."
"What? Fight? You?"
"Yeah."
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"Come on, Kim Yo-han. That's not your style."
It was true. That kind of ugly business wasn't Kim Yo-han's style.
But.
"This time it's different. I'm going to see that painting gets the fair evaluation it deserves."
Kim Yo-han hung up.
A cold December wind came gusting in. The hem of his coat fluttered.
Е́ň ŭ m а̄_
He looked up at the officetel building.
A light was on in a fifth-floor window.
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Inside, a five-year-old's sky, a brilliant talent, was shining.
He will make sure that this talent stands in a fair arena and receives a fair evaluation.
That was what Kim Yo-han would do, starting now.
*****
Ẁ е̊ b̄nо̆ v̇e ĺ En̈ um a
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