Chapter 1
Preview
The back of the woman walking through a door into an unknown world was painfully familiar.
.
Even the title was exactly the same.
If there had been only one, she might have tried to think of it as a mistake……
But , , .
Every painting that followed was vividly familiar.
‘He really took everything and used it well.’
Suhyeon let out a deep sigh.
She had known for a long time that her style and ideas had been stolen. Even so, she had deliberately come to the exhibition to check the details that could not be seen in the small pictures from the articles.
The essence of a work always stood out best when seen in person.
Kim Min-jun, who had now become a world-famous artist.
He had copied Suhyeon’s work exactly and risen to a position where everyone praised him.
‘……Who could ever imagine that Kim Min-jun stole my portfolio, entered RISA with it, completed those works, and received offers from New York galleries, eventually becoming a world-famous artist?’
Suhyeon let out a small sigh.
She had deliberately avoided the first day of the exhibition. On the opening day, the great artist Kim Min-jun and all the classmates, seniors, and juniors who had come to congratulate him would have gathered together, so she had chosen another, quieter day.
She was afraid that someone might recognize her. She also did not want to experience once again what it was like to have no one on her side.
Of course, it had been a needless worry.
Suhyeon gave a bitter smile.
Even if she had not covered her face with a mask, no one would have recognized her.
Her messy, poorly maintained hair, rough skin, and heavy body that had grown unpleasantly plump made her look completely different.
Would anyone even remember her name?
Fifteen years had passed since she left the art world.
That was more than enough time to completely erase her from such a glamorous world.
Step.
Suhyeon walked heavily.
What if the next section, after turning the corner, was also filled with her stolen portfolio pieces, completed and displayed as if they were his own?
Should she expose Kim Min-jun for stealing her shining days and taking all the glory?
The thought suddenly came to her mind, but she coldly shook her head.
She could not do that.
The evidence was gone, and no one would believe her.
More than anything, she had abandoned her own talent.
But—
“Haa.”
Suhyeon’s eyes trembled.
“……This is crazy.”
The painting was far beyond what she had expected.
Like a butterfly breaking out of its cocoon and spreading its wings wide, Kim Min-jun had entered a completely different world.
.
It was an incredible work.
Thump, thump.
Suhyeon’s heart began to pound.
Then, slowly, the strength left her legs.
Tears suddenly filled her eyes.
‘You’ve come this far before I even realized it. You used the things I had, but in the end, you made it all the way here.’
, , ……
As the paintings continued, Suhyeon’s colors gradually became weaker, until they disappeared completely.
Instead, the presence of the artist Kim Min-jun grew larger and larger, burning so fiercely that it seemed ready to swallow the viewer whole.
It was completely different from his early works.
His powerful brushstrokes were filled with emotions that seemed ready to explode and suffocate the viewer.
They were truly overwhelming paintings.
It seemed Suhyeon was not the only one who felt that way.
Every work had a round sticker beside it, meaning it had been sold out.
“…….”
Only then did Suhyeon realize.
To Kim Min-jun, who had pioneered his own world and seized it in his hands, she had merely been the fertilizer that helped him grow.
“So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying he’s on another level. I’m admitting that bastard is a world-class artist.”
At a neighborhood beer bar.
The day drinking session Suhyeon had started after calling her high school friend, Yun Hui, had already been going on for three hours.
“Bullshit. Hey, Han Suhyeon. That bastard stole your ideas and your work and threw you away, and now you’re even admitting that Kim Min-jun is a talented artist? That’s ridiculous. Seriously. What are you, some kind of saint? You’re the hope of humanity. The hope.”
“Well, whether I admit it or not, it’s a fact that Kim Min-jun became a world-famous artist.”
“Exactly. Ah, this is pissing me off. Just drink.”
After venting her anger, Yun Hui alternated between soju and beer, roughly filling the empty glass.
“Isn’t that ratio a little crazy? It’s almost one to one.”
“You’re not drunk enough. Just drink. Today, forget all the useless thoughts and get a good night’s sleep. That’s my kindness as your older sister.”
Rattle, rattle, rattle.
The old electric fan shook its head as it rotated uneasily.
Whiiiiir—.
The ridiculously large air conditioner gave off a nasty smell, as if all its gas had run out.
Christmas lights that had not been taken down even though it was midsummer. A menu board covered in layers of marker, making it hard to see the prices without squinting. A sticky table and swarms of flies persistently attacking the chicken.
‘Yeah. A place like this suits me.’
Suhyeon gave a bitter smile as she swallowed a mouthful of lukewarm alcohol.
The exhibition hall during the day had been clean and elegant. As the best gallery in the country, which had hosted solo exhibitions by world-famous artists one after another, it had been beautiful and refined.
Tap, tap.
The people walking around and looking at the artworks were dressed formally even in the middle of summer.
They probably drove expensive sedans and visited places like cafes and exhibition halls, so they could dress properly without having to suffer from the heat.
Suhyeon, on the other hand, looked shabby.
Her T-shirt was soaked with sweat from climbing the hill. Her worn-out flat shoes clattered with every step, making her more uncomfortable. Her sticky thighs kept rubbing against each other beneath her old-fashioned, loose skirt.
It was ridiculous.
To end up in this state, peeking at her ex-boyfriend’s paintings like a stray cat.
Glug, glug, glug.
While Suhyeon was lost in thought, Yun Hui once again poured soju and beer into the glass with frightening generosity.
“Boss! One more bottle of soju and one more bottle of beer!”
Suhyeon smiled as she watched Yun Hui raise her hand and place the order.
Yun Hui was a friend very much like herself.
Once, they had both been artists who had made the world noisy with talk of their genius and exceptional talent.
They had even experienced the same sudden fall from grace.
The days when they had been able to draw and sculpt wonderfully at arts high school now remained only as vague memories between them.
Still, having a friend to spend a day like this with was something to be grateful for.
As Suhyeon quietly looked at Yun Hui’s face, it happened.
“What’s that?”
Yun Hui pointed at Suhyeon’s bag across from them.
A small box was sticking out from the bulging end of the bag.
“A souvenir from Kim Min-jun’s exhibition.”
“Huh?”
“They gave it to me when I was leaving.”
Suhyeon told Yun Hui more about the exhibition.
It was not only the artworks that had sold out. The posters and catalogues—a book containing pictures and information about the exhibition—had also completely sold out.
“……You were going to buy the catalogue too?”
“I just thought I probably wouldn’t go to another Kim Min-jun exhibition again.”
“Huh. It’s ridiculous, but it is a little disappointing. I wanted to see how much he copied your paintings. But I didn’t want to go all the way to the exhibition hall.”
“Anyway, everything was sold out, so I was about to leave. Then one of the staff members gave this to me.”
It was oil pastels.
A high-quality art supply with packaging designed with Kim Min-jun’s signature and an image of one of his representative works.
“They said they prepared it because they felt sorry that the catalogues were sold out.”
“Let me see.”
When Suhyeon took the oil pastels out of her bag, Yun Hui raised one eyebrow and carefully examined them as if she were judging them.
“Wow. Kim Min-jun really made it big.”
“Right?”
“Even having an art supply brand with his own name on it. Isn’t he almost at the level of Holbein or Rembrandt?”
“It’s not that much.”
Yun Hui looked at Suhyeon with an unhappy expression as she shook her head.
“You should use all of these here. No. Let’s just throw them away.”
“Huh?”
“I can already imagine you getting upset every time you look at them after keeping them around. Am I wrong?”
“I wasn’t planning to do that.”
“Then fool a ghost.”
Suhyeon smiled quietly as Yun Hui became heated.
“I’ll do it later. I’ll throw them away and send you a picture as proof. Okay?”
“Yeah, right.”
Yeah, right.
Near dawn, Suhyeon woke up to drink some water because her throat was dry.
She looked awkwardly at the oil pastels still inside her bag and muttered,
“I forgot to throw them away.”
She should not have accepted them in the first place.
Even if it was a souvenir, she could have simply refused it.
Let’s get rid of them now.
Suhyeon reached into her bag and pulled out the oil pastels.
Thump.
But perhaps because she was drunk, she was suddenly overwhelmed by an emotion she had not felt in a long time.
I want to draw.
I…… actually really want to draw.
It was a thought that had not crossed her mind for a long time.
Was it because the exhibition that day had stirred something inside her?
Or because she had remembered too many things from long ago?
She felt as if something had possessed her.
Whoosh—.
Suhyeon took out any piece of paper.
Swish—.
She picked a color she liked.
Whoosh—.
And roughly drew a line.
Then,
“……!”
Strangely, she felt as if a forgotten sensation had come back to life.
The days when every scene in the world had seemed miraculous.
The days when she had been filled with the desire to give new meaning to everything beautiful.
Suhyeon hurriedly drew many things.
At night and during the day, whenever she was awake, even when sleep was about to take over.
It was fun and happy.
The joy she felt when she finally brought an image from her mind into reality with her hands had always made her heart swell.
Suhyeon could not stop drawing.
As if she had been born only to draw.
If the hospital had not mistakenly diagnosed her with a disease that could cause her to lose her eyesight, if the illness that started at exactly that time had not caused such a huge misunderstanding, if her self-esteem had not been destroyed by the secret revealed after her father’s death, Suhyeon would have continued drawing.
She would not have run away like that.
“It really is a shame. I wish you had kept drawing.”
The words Yun Hui had said before they parted earlier finally reached her heart.
Drip, drip.
It had not even been anything special—
“Huh? Why am I like this?”
Perhaps it was because she was alone in the early morning.
Sad tears fell onto the paper.
“Sniff.”
The emotional lock she had firmly shut opened, creating a storm of sorrow.
There had been a time when one difficult thing after another had happened.
The shock had been too great to endure with passion alone, and when she let go of her art, she fell into an endless abyss.
Later, the misunderstanding was resolved and she put her heart back in order, but it was already too late to return to where she had been.
Her place had already been filled by someone else, and new opportunities never came.
Perhaps it was only natural.
Thanks to the talent she had shown from an early age, she had received enough support to keep drawing.
But she had thrown it all away and run.
She had not even escaped from her long slump.
And after even losing her own paintings, who would care about her?
She should have endured it somehow.
If only she had gone to another hospital back then.
If only she had not become trapped in the wounds her parents had given her.
Then perhaps she would have been the owner of today’s exhibition hall.
“Haa.”
They were useless what-ifs.
It was not as if she could turn back time.
“How pathetic.”
Suhyeon laughed helplessly.
The painting she had drawn while overcome by emotion was truly terrible.
The colors, the shapes, the composition.
Every aspect was embarrassingly lacking.
While Kim Min-jun had advanced that far, I had actually fallen this far.
This is who I am now.
Reality was painfully miserable.
“Why…… Haa. Why……”
Eventually, Suhyeon began to cry, her shoulders shaking.
She cried that she wanted to go back to those days.
She cried that she should never have given up drawing, no matter how difficult things had been.
She poured out all the pain burning inside her as she sobbed.
How long had she cried like that?
“Haa. Let’s sleep. Let’s just sleep well.”
Swish—.
Thinking that she had cried enough, she pulled up her sleeve and roughly wiped away the remaining moisture from her eyes.
Then—
“……?”
The scene before her eyes had changed.
Had she not sobered up yet?
Was this a dream?
What…… was happening?
The place reflected before her was a classroom.
Bright sunlight poured through the large windows in the middle of the day.
Scratch, scratch.
The students sitting at their desks were busy moving their pencils.
“Han Suhyeon. You’re already done? Why did you stop and space out, huh?”
At that moment, a familiar voice came from behind her.
Whoosh—.
The moment Suhyeon turned around, her heart sank.
‘Teacher Song Min-sik?’
Suhyeon was in 1995, at Sehyun Arts High School.
