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Chapter 62: Sehan Art Academy (3)
TL: Enuma ID
Crayon.
The first tool his aunt ever bought him.
The first tool he ever drew with.
The tool he'd drawn swirls with, dozens, hundreds of times.
Е n um a
After that came colored pencil, then watercolor, then pastel, then oil painting.
Each time the tools changed, Lee Jun's world grew wider.
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And now.
He was back at the very beginning, sitting in front of a box of crayons.
He felt a pang of nostalgia. The nostalgia of a six-year-old.
[It's been a while...]
Е n uḿ а̂
The Shadow spoke quietly too.
The crayon swirls they'd first drawn together.
Thinking of those days brought both longing and a little ache.
Lee Jun took a red crayon in his hand.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
It was light.
Lighter than a brush, richer than a colored pencil, and unlike paint, no need to wait for it to dry.
Е ńu mà
The picture comes straight from his fingertips.
"Let me tell you today's theme."
The teacher wrote on the board.
'The friend next to you'
"Draw the friend sitting beside you. A face is fine, or the whole body."
Lee Jun turned his head.
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The seat next to him.
Kim Ha-eun was sitting there.
Ha-eun looked at Lee Jun too.
"...What?"
"Guess I have to draw you, Ha-eun."
"Me?"
Е̇.n̄ ü m a .і̀ d̂
Ha-eun's face stiffened slightly.
"And I have to draw you too?"
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"Yeah."
Ha-eun looked down at her box of crayons.
That morning she'd taught Lee Jun his letters and his sums. That much she was confident about.
But drawing is different.
Е̌ n̆ ú m̃ а_._і̀d̄
Lee Jun, the overall grand prize. Her, the preschool division's Excellence Award.
Ha-eun knew Lee Jun drew far better than she did.
And now she and Lee Jun had to draw each other.
It was obvious they'd be compared.
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The hand reaching for the crayon froze where it was.
She didn't want to draw.
Е̊ n u ḿ ӑ .іd
Lee Jun looked at Ha-eun.
He observed her closely.
The way he had with the Imonalisa. The way he had with the family picture.
Ha-eun's face.
Long hair falling past her shoulders. Bangs covering her forehead.
Her eyes were clear. Her mouth was small.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
Her lips were pressed tight. A tense look.
A pretty face.
But the longer he looked at that face, the more he felt something was missing.
Ha-eun's defining feature.
She doesn't smile. She's frowning.
Ha-eun wore what looked like a permanent scowl,
Е n ûḿ a . і́ d
but he felt he shouldn't take that as her defining feature and draw it.
[A portrait has to hold the essence of the person.]
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The Shadow whispered.
"Ha-eun."
"What?"
Ha-eun answered curtly.
Е̊ nu mӑ
"Why don't you smile?"
"...What?"
"It's like you never smile."
Everyone smiled.
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Grown-ups and kids. Boys and girls.
Everyone he'd met at the preschool was smiling.
Е̃ n u̇ m̈ а.і̄ ď
Only Ha-eun didn't.
She stayed sullen.
Lee Jun wanted to draw Ha-eun's smiling face.
"What about me?"
Even now.
That vaguely angry look.
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What could he say that wouldn't make Ha-eun angry?
Lee Jun had no idea.
"It's just, you don't smile..."
"You don't smile either."
Lee Jun tilted his head.
Had he not been smiling?
Ẽn ū m̌ a._і̄d
Now that he thought about it, he didn't smile much either. Not sullen like Ha-eun, but still.
So he decided to try smiling.
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He smiled with his eyes, with his mouth, with his cheeks.
He put on a deliberate smile and showed it to Ha-eun.
And then.
"...Pfft."
Е nû m̈ ă
Ha-eun laughed.
"Ahah, ahahah! What is that! You look so dumb!"
Ha-eun laughed for the first time. And loudly, at that. Her stiff expression melting away.
Just like Lee Jun laughing on the bumper cars.
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Lee Jun caught that face, that one moment of Ha-eun laughing, and held it in his eyes.
Then he started to transfer it, just as it was, onto the drawing paper.
Ën̊u̇_m à
"Ha-eun, is something funny?"
Ha-eun, who rarely laughed, had laughed out loud.
Curious, the teacher had come over to ask.
"Oh, no, teacher, it's just, he made this dumb face..."
Ha-eun felt embarrassed for having laughed so loudly.
She mumbled and put the blame on Lee Jun, but he was already drawing in earnest.
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"Oh my, Jun's already drawing. Want to try it too, Ha-eun?"
Ha-eun glared at Lee Jun.
He'd made her laugh like that, and now he was just drawing away as if nothing had happened.
The boy who'd embarrassed her.
She'd draw him hideous, a complete mess!
Ha-eun grabbed a crayon too. And, stealing glances to the side, she started to draw Lee Jun.
W̊ӗ b̌ ǹ о̄ v̆ е̂l̀ Е̇.n̆ ů mа
[Excellent! Drawing the expression you want out of your model is the very basis of being a portrait painter. And you just did it on instinct!]
The Shadow babbled excitedly.
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Either way, Lee Jun went on drawing his picture.
First the underdrawing. Instead of a pencil, he sketched the outline lightly with a pale crayon.
The face. Rounded, but with a slightly pointed chin.
Bangs covered her forehead. The direction of the hair. Its grain flowing left to right.
W.еb̃ǹ оv̆ е̊ľ. Е̌ num̃ ā
The eyes.
He drew the eyes as they'd been when she laughed.
The moment her scrunched eyes turned to half-moons. The eyes of that instant.
He outlined them in black, then layered brown over it for depth.
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For the highlight he left the white of the paper bare. Light entered the eyes.
The nose. A small nose. Straight on, so he rendered only the light on its bridge.
Еn̂ŭ m̀ а.i d
A touch of white over pale orange.
The mouth.
This one, exactly as he remembered it.
The mouth mid-ahahah! The mouth flung wide open.
Teeth showed. Two front teeth peeked out. He drew those too.
He put pink in the cheeks. Cheeks flushed from laughing.
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He rubbed the crayon lightly to make it blend.
At the next table, a boy turned his head.
"Hey, what's Jun drawing?"
One kid got up and came around behind Lee Jun.
"Whoa! That's so good!"
At that one word, the other kids drifted over one by one.
Wêb nо v̆_е l̊ Е n um å
"Whoa, it looks like a real person."
"Is this Ha-eun?"
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"You can do that with crayons?"
Five or six kids stood behind Lee Jun, watching.
Lee Jun paid them no mind and kept drawing.
Ha-eun, crayon poised over her own paper, glanced sideways.
E n̄ ŭ mа̄ . і d̆
The kids were cheering. Over the picture Lee Jun had drawn of her.
She wasn't going to look.
Ha-eun turned away and focused on her own picture.
She drew Lee Jun's hair sticking up every which way. A lot of it. Deliberately even more.
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Eyes, two dots. Nose, a dot too. Mouth, a straight line.
She'd said she'd draw him ugly, but as she went, even that didn't come out right.
Ѐn̈um а̊
Drawing something ugly on purpose took skill too.
In the end it came out as an ordinary boy. Round face, spiky hair. Blank eyes, a straight-line mouth.
Neither ugly nor handsome, just Lee Jun.
She stole a look at the picture Lee Jun was drawing.
He was drawing something absurdly, impossibly good.
Ha-eun looked down at her own.
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It looked so shabby.
Ha-eun leaned forward over both arms and covered the paper.
Drawn with the same crayons. Both of them six.
She hated being compared. Afraid the kids would set the two pictures side by side and laugh.
Ha-eun hid the paper with her arms.
*
Enumă
Lee Jun finished the face and paused for a moment.
The background.
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The classroom visible behind Ha-eun.
White walls. Windows. Pictures pinned to the bulletin board. Kids wandering around.
He drew it all as it was.
But all of it blurred.
Еn̆ ū_mа́ . іd̂
Ha-eun's face was sharp, and everything behind her was smudged soft.
The kids' outlines melted gently. The light from the windows bled outward.
In the middle of it, only Ha-eun stood clear.
The rest was color wrapped around her.
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[You blurred the background on purpose?]
Lee Jun nodded.
W е b̌ n о v̌ еl̂ Е̌n u ḿ а
Of course he had.
Because Ha-eun is the one he's looking at. Because the background doesn't register.
What the eye doesn't catch should be blurry.
He finished the color.
Over the black of the hair he layered a touch of navy. Because when the classroom light struck her hair, a bluish sheen showed through.
For the skin he layered several colors, not just one. Pale yellow, then pale orange over it, then a touch of pink over that.
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Layering crayon over crayon mixed the colors.
He couldn't build up layers the way glazing in oil painting did.
But he could get a similar effect.
Last, Ha-eun's front teeth. With a white crayon he added a faint gleam.
"It's done."
Lee Jun set down the crayon.
W e̊b̃n о̂v̀ е_l̃ En̈ um̃а
The kids standing behind him cheered.
"It's really Ha-eun!"
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"She's smiling! Ha-eun's smiling!"
"Is this one behind her me?"
"No! It's me!"
Chae-rin cut in.
E nŭ m а
"Whoa! Ha-eun looks so pretty! Lucky you, Ha-eun!"
The kids laughed.
Ha-eun herself stayed hunched over, her own picture hidden away.
*
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
The hallway.
Ms. Min Ji-hye had stepped out of the classroom.
Eň ü m̊ а .і̃ d
In the middle of the art lesson, the principal had called her out into the hall.
Inside, an assistant teacher was keeping watch.
"How was Jun today?"
The whole day's lessons had been geared around Lee Jun.
Writing, reading, arithmetic. Under the pretext of basic review for the other kids, she'd checked Lee Jun's abilities one by one, right from the fundamentals.
"His basics are at the level of an ordinary preschooler. His Korean reading is a bit weak, and he still counts on his fingers for arithmetic."
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Sehan Art Academy is art-centered, but it doesn't focus on art alone.
After all, what parents expect from Sehan Art Academy is 'as much studying as a private preschool, plus the nurturing of artistic creativity'.
"Then he can do the basics along with the preschool group."
"Yes. If anything, I think it's better for him to learn alongside kids his own age. He's a little behind on the material, but he's not a slow learner. And watching him today, he gets along well with the other children too."
"So, what about the important part, the art?"
Min Ji-hye chose her words for a moment.
Ẇe̊ b̃n̂ о̌v́ еl Е̃numa
"To put it bluntly, he's beyond anything he could learn here."
Min Ji-hye thought back to Lee Jun's notebook from the Korean lesson earlier.
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The crooked, wobbly writing on the first line, and the print-like writing on the second.
She told the principal what she'd seen then.
"He said he 'drew' the letters. His ability to grasp a shape and reproduce it is on a completely different level. You saw the characters he drew for the other kids this morning, didn't you?"
"Yes. I saw them."
Ën ú mа́
That morning, Min Ji-hye had photographed the drawings the kids had gotten from Lee Jun.
She'd sent them to the principal, too.
"He looks at a sticker for just a few seconds and draws it straight off, and he even changes the pose and renders it in more detail. Never mind the preschool division, not even the upper-grade classes... no, not even the adult professional class could do something like that."
The principal looked into the classroom.
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Through the glass she could see Lee Jun drawing with a crayon.
Behind him, several kids stood watching, fascinated.
Еn um а.і d
"It's the same with what he's drawing right now. I seated him next to Ha-eun on purpose, the best artist in the class, and now she's hiding her drawing. Jun's got her spirits crushed."
Min Ji-hye said it with a hollow laugh.
"I'd keep the basics in the preschool group, but move him up to an advanced class just for the art sessions. With the preschool curriculum, there's nothing to teach that child."
"So which class would be right?"
"The upper elementary class. At the very least."
The principal thought for a moment.
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"...This is a child Director Yu Seo-jin asked us to keep a special eye on. Let's report to the director first and then decide. And talk it over with the parents, too."
"Understood."
Min Ji-hye went back into the classroom.
The principal lingered a moment where she stood, watching Lee Jun through the window.
A child born with a talent so great it was almost frightening.
As someone who taught art to children, she felt as if she'd been handed a heavy assignment.
Е̇ nu m̊ а..іd̄
*
"All right, if you're done, give your drawing to the friend next to you as a gift!"
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The teacher, coming back into the room, clapped her hands as she spoke.
The classroom broke into a clamor.
The kids swapped drawings with each other.
"Hey, is this what I look like?"
Е ǹù mа̌
"Why'd you draw my nose so big!"
"Haha! You drew me weird too!"
Laughter burst out here and there.
Lee Jun held out his drawing to Ha-eun beside him.
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"Ha-eun. Here."
"......"
Ё.ǹ ũ m̊ а
Lee Jun handed it over readily.
Ha-eun took Lee Jun's drawing.
Her own smiling face. Half-moon eyes. Red cheeks. Front teeth just barely showing.
The classroom and kids blurred softly behind. Colors so vivid they didn't look like crayon at all.
She looked at it a long time.
It was drawn far too well.
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"...Thanks."
In a small voice.
"Give me yours too."
Lee Jun held out his palm.
Ha-eun froze.
"No."
W е́ bn̄ о v̈ ĕ l Е̊ n̊ü m ӓ
"Why?"
"...Because it's no good."
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Ha-eun clutched the paper tight to her chest as if to hide it.
"I don't mind."
"Well, I mind!"
Lee Jun looked at her quietly.
We b n о̄ vе ľ Е ñ u m а́
"But I want to see what you drew too."
"......"
"I saw you drawing it earlier. Can't you show me?"
Ha-eun bit down on her lip.
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"...You can't laugh."
"I won't."
Ѐ n ů ḿ а.і d̊
"Really?"
"Yeah. Really."
Slowly, Ha-eun held out the paper.
Both her hands were trembling a little.
Lee Jun took it.
A round face. Two-dot eyes. A dot nose. A straight-line mouth.
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Hair sticking up every which way. Spiking out in all directions.
The body was a stick figure, holding something in its hand. It looked like a crayon.
Lee Jun looked at the drawing a long time.
"Is this me?"
"...Yeah."
Lee Jun held the drawing up beside his own face.
Ẁе̄ b́ n̄ o̊ v̇ е l Е̄_ñů m̃ a
That look like the whole world was a bother. Hair standing on end. Blank eyes.
Yoon-ho saw it and shouted.
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"Hey! It's exactly him!"
Chae-rin came running too.
"It really is! Just like Lee Jun!"
"Haha! The two-dot eyes are just like Lee Jun too!"
W еb̂_n̊ôv̌е̌l̄ Ě n̆ů m̌ а́
"The hair! All spiky!"
The kids laughed, looking back and forth between Lee Jun's face and Ha-eun's drawing.
It wasn't mocking laughter. They laughed because it really did look like him.
Lee Jun laughed a little too.
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"You did great, Ha-eun."
"...Liar."
E n̈ u m̆ ȧ
"No. You really drew it just like me."
Lee Jun looked at the drawing again.
It wasn't some incredible picture.
No glazing, no sfumato, no impasto.
It was a crayon drawing, a circle with dots and lines.
But the spiky hair in this drawing was Lee Jun.
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The straight-line mouth was Lee Jun too.
The blank eyes were Lee Jun too.
It was a drawing that held the person's essence, just as the Shadow had said.
"...Really?"
"Yeah. This is the first time anyone's ever given me a drawing of myself. Thanks."
Ha-eun looked at Lee Jun.
W е̊ b̊ n̂.о̇ v̆ el Е nũm а
Lee Jun was holding her drawing, delighted with it.
The kid who'd won the Grand Prix. The kid who'd painted that astonishing picture up on the platform that day.
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Something loosened. Something that had been packed tight in her chest.
Ha-eun looked down at the picture Lee Jun had drawn of her.
Ha-eun, smiling. A face drawn pretty.
The same age. Drawn with the same crayons, yet a picture that didn't look like crayon at all.
Е̄ ń û m̂.å
And then she looked at her own drawing in Lee Jun's hands.
Spiky-haired Lee Jun. A childish drawing, done in crayon.
Lee Jun had looked at her drawing and called it good.
She'd thought it was a lie, but looking at his face, it didn't seem like one.
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"Really...?"
She was glad Lee Jun liked her drawing.
W̌ еb ńo̊ v ӗl Е̇ňu m̊å
Drawing had never been about measuring herself against anyone.
Before she'd started at the academy, she'd known that.
She'd signed up for the art academy simply because drawing was fun.
So when had she started comparing herself to others?
When she'd started entering competitions? When she'd won the Excellence Award?
After seeing the kid who won the Grand Prix? When her mom told her, 'Ha-eun, you have to draw like that too'?
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A drawing was enough as long as she enjoyed making it and the person who saw it was glad.
There was no need to compare it to what anyone else had drawn.
"...Lee Jun."
"Yeah."
"Next time... will you draw me again? Me?"
Ha-eun asked.
Е̇n̂ ũmӓ
Lee Jun gave a ready nod.
"Yeah. If the teacher tells us to draw the person next to us again."
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Ha-eun puffed out her cheeks.
*****
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