Chapter 4

 The Atmosphere of the Final Exam

Scratch, scratch. Swish, swish.

The practical exam room was filled with the busy sounds of pencils moving across paper.

Tap, tap. Bang, bang.

The sound of erasers hitting the paper on the drawing boards as they erased something filled the room as well.

Everyone was trying to calm their nerves and concentrate on the practical exam, but—

“Ah, this is so annoying.”

Kim Ha-young could not concentrate at all.

She had firmly believed that Caligula would appear on the final exam. She had spent weeks preparing by practicing only that plaster statue, but then, out of nowhere, it was Julien.

She was confused and angry at the unexpected situation.

‘Who the hell did this?’

Her thoughts kept wandering somewhere else.

She had watched everything that happened at the scene, but there were too many things she could not understand.

‘Fuck. I was guaranteed an unrivaled A on this exam, so why did they have to pick Julien, something everyone and their dog can draw well?’

She wanted to scream at the top of her lungs.

But if she did that, everyone would think she was crazy, so she was barely holding herself back with the last bit of reason she had.

The problem was that with her mentality shaken this badly, she could not even draw Julien properly, even though it was a statue that everyone and their dog could draw well.

“What is wrong with me?”

Tap, tap, tap.

Kim Ha-young angrily tapped her eraser against the paper as she erased the wrong shapes.

“This is driving me crazy.”

The clock was already pointing to two.

She needed to finish the basic form within at least fifteen minutes so she could lay down the base color and add the shading.

But perhaps because her emotions were running wild, she could not even show half of her already mediocre usual skill.

“Of all places, I had to get this seat.”

Her seat was also a problem.

The seat she had drawn just before entering the classroom was number 10.

Second row, far-right side view.

It was an especially difficult position where even a slight mistake in calculation could greatly distort the form.

The neck could easily look too short, so she had to use the vanishing point and shading properly.

But just because she understood that in her head did not mean her hands could actually do it.

“Haa.”

After repeatedly scrubbing away the forms she did not like, the paper had become thin and rough, making it difficult for the pencil to stick properly.

“Fuck……”

Kim Ha-young quietly cursed.

She had a feeling that she had completely ruined this exam.

But it was all her own fault.

Although the situation of the exam had changed because of Su-hyeon’s quick thinking, her actual ability had always been around this level.

There was no one she could really blame.

“How did this happen?”

After sending the students into the practical exam rooms, several teachers gathered at the end of the hallway and brought up what had happened earlier.

“Who could have sent those notes?”

“Exactly. Haa, this has never happened before, but something like this happened with the first-years this time.”

“Exactly. This is something that has never happened since the school opened. It is quite shocking.”

The teachers with relatively long teaching experience complained first, and the younger teachers nodded along, but that was all.

The ordinary instructors could not get any closer to the truth of the incident.

“Well, Teacher Choi Hyeong-wook will check it and tell us something later.”

One male teacher who was Choi Hyeong-wook’s junior subtly tried to smooth over the incident, then gestured for them to go out and have a cigarette.

“Yeah. What can we solve by talking about it here?”

“That’s right. Teacher Choi will probably tell us later.”

Several teachers nodded and slowly went out to smoke.

Kim Yun-su watched them meaningfully.

“Something’s suspicious.”

Left alone, Kim Yun-su looked down the stairs toward Choi Hyeong-wook’s office and muttered.

After sending all the students into the exam rooms, he had expected the remaining teachers to examine the prepared drawing box together to see whether there had been something wrong with it and then deal with the incident.

But Choi Hyeong-wook had quickly taken the drawing box and gone into his office alone.

He had looked extremely angry, and Kim Yun-su had missed the chance to talk to him, so he had left him alone.

But was it really okay to handle things like this?

“Excuse me. I heard that Caligula was going to be today’s exam subject……”

“Teacher. I got a note saying that even if I drew eight times, Caligula would definitely come out.”

“Teacher. But if someone really played a bad prank, couldn’t they have tampered with the drawing box too?”

The words the students had said while tilting their heads in confusion kept ringing in his ears.

Had the notes simply been a prank?

Or had they been a warning?

If it was the latter, and the exam subject had already been decided, then if someone who knew about it had reported it, there was a high possibility that an insider existed.

Perhaps some of the teachers were deeply involved.

And that person could even be Teacher Choi Hyeong-wook.

“Well, I guess we’ll find out if we keep watching.”

Kim Yun-su let out a short sigh and shook his head.

If this ridiculous suspicion, which almost made him laugh, turned out to be true, he had no intention of simply standing by and watching.

Even if it meant suffering a huge disadvantage himself.

At the same time.

‘At least I fixed one thing.’

Originally, this exam would have been conducted unfairly because of Kim Ha-young and the others’ cheating.

But Su-hyeon had interfered, and everything had been thrown off course.

And this first change would surely become an important step that would change Su-hyeon’s future environment.

Feeling his heart beating excitedly, Su-hyeon slowly looked at the plaster statue in front of him.

‘It’s been a long time.’

Su-hyeon’s expression was strange as he looked at Julien.

When he was in his first year of high school, he had been deeply absorbed in drawing.

Even without anyone telling him to, he had practiced difficult line exercises every day and even given himself thirty-minute form tests.

He had been burning with the desire to develop an eye for form and draw skillfully.

Passion had created hard work, and the eyes he had trained for such a long time were still naturally imagining the lines he needed to draw on the paper.

His sharp senses had returned intact to Su-hyeon’s body, now that he was a high school student again.

Swish.

There was no hesitation in the line he drew by extending his shoulder—.

Scratch, scratch.

His hand movements, carving out the form, were accurate and confident.

‘This is incredible.’

Su-hyeon smiled in emotion.

He had been worried that his hands might have become stiff after living fifteen years without drawing.

But fortunately, they felt as natural as if he had been practicing every day until yesterday.

And that was not all.

Su-hyeon took a deep breath and opened his senses.

Well-trained hands, a light and energetic teenage body.

On top of that, he had the experience he had gained from creating art until he was thirty.

All of it had become an additional bonus.

‘This is the perfect situation. This is way too easy.’

For Su-hyeon, drawing Julien was nothing more than a warm-up with absolutely no tension.

Swish, swish. Swish, swish.

Su-hyeon moved his shoulders.

The overlapping lines on the blank paper wriggled and slowly formed a shape.

Julien.

His full name was Giuliano di Piero de’ Medici.

He was said to have been a member of the prestigious Medici family of Florence, Italy.

The plaster statue revealed perfect balance and beauty, as it had been created by the genius painter and sculptor Michelangelo at the request of the Medici family.

Su-hyeon had drawn Julien hundreds of times in the past, all the way through his university entrance exams.

From seats close to the plaster statue to the farthest back seats, he had drawn it from the front, right three-quarter view, right side view, left three-quarter view, and left side view over and over again.

He had drawn it so many times that eventually he could draw it without even looking at the plaster statue.

And he was lucky, too.

Su-hyeon grinned.

The seat Su-hyeon had drawn was number 7.

Second row, left three-quarter view.

It was a position he had always preferred because it showed Julien’s charm particularly well.

He first gave the mass of the front hair, which represented the curls, plenty of volume.

Then he drew the large double-lidded eyes and the smooth line of the nose.

After that, he drew the thick lips and the sharp, slim jawline.

Then he turned his gaze to the left again and accurately captured the angle of the long, straight neck.

It took only fifteen minutes to finish the entire form.

Maybe he would have some time left.

Su-hyeon glanced at the wall clock in the practical exam room.

Swoosh—.

Then he moved his shoulders widely again and began laying down the base color.

It was the moment the Hand of God had completely returned.

“This is crazy.”

“Wow, shit! Guys, look at this!”

“Whoa. Han Su-hyeon, starting tomorrow, please just go straight to the third-year classroom.”

5:30 p.m.

After the exam ended, the students were busy spraying fixative so that the pencil lines would not smudge.

Then they discovered Su-hyeon’s drawing and swarmed around it like a cloud of bees.

“As expected from the Hand of God. It’s perfect again.”

“Teacher, but isn’t drawing him better-looking than the actual plaster statue against the rules?”

“That’s right, Teacher. Making him more handsome than the statue seems like a distortion of the form, too. Does that count as a negative factor?”

The students praised Su-hyeon’s drawing while joking around.

Seeing their cute reactions, Su-hyeon unknowingly chuckled.

“There you go again, messing around.”

Cha Yun-hee, who had apparently already submitted her drawing and was wandering around another classroom, spotted Su-hyeon and confidently walked into the practical exam room.

“Wow, shit. You really drew this well. What the hell are you?”

Cha Yun-hee said excitedly.

“Ah, everyone was making a fuss saying I was the best in my classroom, but this is on another level. There’s no comparison.”

At her open praise, Su-hyeon lightly grabbed Cha Yun-hee’s wrist and gestured for her to stop.

But it had the opposite effect.

“What, what? Are you embarrassed? You know what embarrassment is? Then how can you draw like this? Why are you drawing it so well that everyone’s attention is on youuu!”

“Ah, she’s gone crazy again. Stop it. Get out. This isn’t your classroom.”

“Ah, whatever. Hurry up and submit yours. I’m starving to death.”

Cha Yun-hee giggled, and Su-hyeon chuckled as he submitted his drawing.

Earlier, he had been a little excited after fixing the drawing incident.

But after calmly taking the exam, he felt different again.

He was seventeen again.

It was a time he had always missed somewhere in his heart.

A time when he had drawn with the purest passion and searched for things worth drawing.

Of course, there had been difficulties.

There had been many times when his complicated family situation had caused him pain.

Even so, had there ever been a time in his life that shone as brightly as this one?

As Su-hyeon headed toward the school store with Yun-hee and the other students, he kept checking his reflection in the hallway windows and mirrors several times.

This isn’t a dream.

It really isn’t a dream.

He was so grateful.

But unlike Su-hyeon, who was living his second life, the young people of this era had so many things that could make them happy one moment and miserable the next.

“Haa. I’m screwed.”

Cha Yun-hee let out a sigh as if the world had collapsed and pointed at the long line with her finger.

“Looks like the theater department kids were late because they were practicing today, too.”

The line stretched all the way outside the school store.

Just looking at it, it seemed like they would have to wait at least twenty minutes for their turn.

“Aaaah. It’s almost time for my van.”

Cha Yun-hee rubbed her stomach dramatically and frowned.

“Right, you take the school van. Was yours the Yangjae van?”

“What? Don’t you care about me? I was obviously in a hurry because of my van.”

Cha Yun-hee pouted at Su-hyeon’s question.

Sehyeon Arts High School was a special-purpose high school that accepted students from all over the country, so the students lived in many different areas.

The students living in the dormitories did not have to worry about transportation, but commuting students usually came by their parents’ cars or used vans grouped by region.

The vans were organized according to areas such as Yangjae, Jamsil, and Anyang.

Cha Yun-hee was in the Yangjae van.

Since the departure times for going to and from school were fixed, she could not waste time hanging around the school store if she wanted to keep the agreed schedule.

“Let’s just buy some bread and go.”

At Su-hyeon’s suggestion, Yun-hee shrugged.

“I can solve it that way, but what about you?”

“Huh?”

Yun-hee’s words reminded Su-hyeon of another fact he had forgotten.

It was from the first semester midterm exam in his first year.

That was when he had started living in the dormitory.

“Didn’t you say you didn’t have anyone to eat dinner with?”

Yun-hee lowered her voice and asked with concern.

Thanks to that, Su-hyeon remembered the face of another friend whose relationship with him would have to be rebuilt.