Chapter 58 – The Hidden Truth
Tap! Tap! Tap!
Han Yu-ra and Kim Rok-hee walked down the dormitory corridor with serious expressions.
Along the way,
Rok-hee asked a kid they passed in the hallway.
“Have you seen Kang Min-Hyuk?”
“Right now? Probably resting in his room.”
“I see…”
Then Rok-hee’s lips curled into a sly grin.
BAM!
“Kang Min-Hyuuuuk!”
She flung the door open and stormed inside.
“Eek!”
“What the—suddenly?!”
Oh Dong-gyo, Kang Min-Hyuk, and two other kids jumped in surprise and turned toward them.
From the way they were holding <New Chance> volumes, it looked like they’d all been reading it together.
“Huh? Me?”
Min-Hyuk blinked and pointed at himself. Rok-hee grinned wider, thumbing over her shoulder as she said,
“Yeah, come out for a sec. I think… you’ve got some explaining to do with us.”
***
A short while later, in a quiet corner of the mostly empty corridor.
Kang Min-Hyuk, Oh Dong-gyo, Kim Rok-hee, and Han Yu-ra.
The four of them stood there.
Rok-hee and Yu-ra had their arms crossed, staring straight at Min-Hyuk, while Dong-gyo stood awkwardly in the middle, blinking in confusion.
Rok-hee flipped open <New Chance> to a specific page and tapped it repeatedly with her finger.
“You read this week’s <Brave King>, right?”
“…Yeah, I just finished it. Why?”
Min-Hyuk gave a light smile. In response, both girls’ faces twisted into scowls.
“Why?! Why do you think?! Are you seriously pretending not to know?”
“…Shameless.”
“Look at this—the armor design for the Reverse Heaven’s Monarch. Doesn’t it feel super familiar?”
Rok-hee leaned in close, her face half-shadowed.
Min-Hyuk tilted his head and scratched his cheek.
“Hmm… not sure…”
“Not sure?! A month ago we were in the drawing room together and made that exact armor design! You don’t remember?”
“Ohhh, really? Now that you mention it, it does kinda look similar.”
“Kinda?! Anyone can see it’s almost identical! Even if the style’s a bit different, the screen-tone layering and overall balance are practically the same!”
Rok-hee’s voice rose.
Han Yu-ra stepped forward too, joining the pressure.
‘Ah… so it finally came.’
Well, he’d expected this.
Unless these two were complete idiots, anyone could tell the design was basically the same one they’d worked on back then.
‘I did try to change it a little, though.’
No helping it now.
He’d twisted and tweaked as much as he could, but if that didn’t work…
Time for the direct approach.
Min-Hyuk gave a small smile and said,
“Sigh… guess there’s no point hiding it since you figured it out.”
“What?”
“You don’t mean…”
“Min-Hyuk-kun!”
All three tensed up, faces full of anticipation.
Then Min-Hyuk squeezed his eyes shut for a second before opening them again, putting on the most serious expression he could muster.
“What you’re thinking… is exactly right.”
“Then that means…”
“I helped ‘David’ with the character design.”
The moment the words left his mouth—
“Whaaaaaat?!”
“What?!”
“Huh?!”
All three of their eyes went wide as saucers.
Kim Rok-hee immediately asked,
“Helped with character design? How?!”
Min-Hyuk raised the corner of his mouth and explained,
“Well… David is actually close with Shin Pil-ho sunbaenim. So when he was struggling to come up with a villain design for Chapter 15 that really hit hard, he apparently consulted Shin Pil-ho sunbaenim for advice.”
“…And that’s how you ended up helping?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah, honestly I didn’t expect much either. I never thought he’d actually use it like that… Guess I got lucky.”
Min-Hyuk deliberately put on a smug, puffed-up expression.
He was desperately acting the part of a smug high school freshman whose character design had been adopted by a famous comic artist’s work.
Then…
“……”
All three kids narrowed their eyes at the same time and glared at Kang Min-Hyuk.
‘Didn’t buy it?’
The drawing room seat was tucked in a corner, and he’d done his absolute best to keep the fact that he was working on <Brave King> manuscripts hidden.
He’d also thoroughly concealed anything else that might raise suspicion.
As long as no further circumstantial evidence came up, he should be able to get through this for now.
…Provided that little performance just now had been convincing enough.
‘…It didn’t work?’
Right then—
“No way! If something like that happened, you should’ve told us! Did you mention me to David-sensei? That I helped a ton?”
“Oiii, Min-Hyuk-kun! You owe us a treat! A character design in <Brave King>? What the heck!”
Rok-hee and Dong-gyo jumped up and down in their spots, laughing excitedly.
“Ahaha, yeah yeah, I mentioned you guys a lot. The meal… I’ll treat you sometime when I’m free.”
Somehow… it seemed to have worked.
While Min-Hyuk let out a quiet sigh of relief inside,
Han Yu-ra—who had stayed silent the whole time—finally spoke with a serious expression.
“Have you… ever actually met David?”
“Me? Nah, not really. I only hear things through Shin Pil-ho sunbaenim every now and then… Why?”
Han Yu-ra let out a sigh.
“Never mind. Forget it.”
She looked visibly disappointed, almost regretful.
Just as Min-Hyuk was about to ask what she meant—
“Kang Min-Hyuk! Kang Min-Hyuk!”
Kim Rok-hee shouted again, and Oh Dong-gyo joined in enthusiastically.
“Hey, keep it down.”
“Should we tell the teachers? Or is it okay to tell the other kids?”
“Please… just hold back…”
And so, somehow or another…
Kang Min-Hyuk had successfully dodged the “comic artist coming-out” crisis.
***
The first week of May, after the release of <New Chance>.
Korean comic communities were experiencing an unprecedented boom.
[Deadline VS Brave King—who do you think wins?]
└[KimchiWarrior: Ah man, picking is brutal lol. Both were insane.]
└[silence11: Directing goes to Deadline for me, but if we’re talking pure enjoyment of this chapter alone, Brave King takes it.]
└[Milo: Wait, isn’t it the other way around?]
└[kirikiel: Honestly this one’s pretty subjective, hard to say definitively.]
<Brave King> and <School of Deadline>.
Both works had already carried high expectations from the start, but this issue’s manuscripts had exceeded even those expectations in quality.
Honestly, even the people arguing on the boards about which one was more fun or which had better foreshadowing… deep down, they all knew.
In the current atmosphere—where the Korean published comic market had been steadily declining for years—these two works were nothing short of white knights riding in on white horses.
And there were two of them?
Calling it a two-horse race—or even a two-white-horse carriage—wasn’t an exaggeration at all.
And the people screaming with the most joy over this result were, of course, the <New Chance> editorial team.
“Director… Comic Zone just called. They’re saying this week’s <New Chance> stock is running low already.”
Phone calls from bookstores and distributors pouring in without pause.
One staff member looked at Song Mi-hyeon with a grave expression as he relayed the message.
“The distributor says everything they had is already sold out?”
“Yes… They said it sold out in just two days, so they called us after the distributor told them they had none left.”
Song Mi-hyeon tapped her fingers on the table for a moment, then clenched her fist as if she’d made up her mind.
“Call the printing house and the bookmark manufacturer. Tell them we’ll pay rush fees—just print another 10,000 copies each.”
“10,000 copies? That many?”
“Yes. We need to ride this momentum properly if we want the volume sales to follow. Hurry.”
“Ah—yes!”
The staff member immediately started making calls.
Normally, <New Chance> printed around 10,000 copies per issue.
In the past five years, it had never once sold out completely…
A situation like this—where they had to do a rush reprint—was extremely rare.
In the midst of all this chaos,
Go Gwang-jin (Brave King’s editor) and Song Jae-kyung (School of Deadline’s editor) both had tense looks on their faces.
‘The reader poll… we have to come in first.’
‘We have to win. If we lose here, I won’t be able to face Yang Jae-han sunbaenim.’
Only two days had passed since the magazine’s release.
Starting today, reader poll postcards were pouring into the editorial office one after another.
The official announcement of poll results was done every two months…
But internally, they were tallied in real time. Placement within the magazine, cover features, and the scale of future promotions were all decided based on these numbers—so the editors couldn’t help but feel the pressure.
And according to the postcards that had come in so far…
‘It’s neck and neck.’
‘Ughhh, seriously impossible to predict!’
The gap between the two works was practically nonexistent.
***
Friday morning, May 5, 2006.
“Alrighty~ let’s head homeee.”
“Haaah… how long has it been since I last went home?”
Kids carrying suitcases in one hand streamed out toward the AniGo parking lot.
A shuttle bus was already waiting in front, diligently ferrying students to the subway station or bus terminal.
It was Children’s Day falling within a golden holiday weekend, so quite a few kids were heading home.
And naturally, in that line were…
“Dong-gyo, where’d you say your house is again?”
“Mine’s in Suwon. Hehe…”
“That’s kinda far from mine.”
“Huh? Gwanak to Suwon… I thought it was pretty close?”
The two newest freshmen—Kang Min-Hyuk and Oh Dong-gyo—were part of the group too.
“Well, anyway… what are you planning to do over the holiday, Min-Hyuk-kun?”
“Me?”
Min-Hyuk tapped the handle of his suitcase lightly with his finger as he answered.
“Mother’s Day is in there too, so I’ll eat something nice with my lady… maybe meet up with some neighborhood friends.”
“Your lady? Who?”
“Ah, my mom.”
“Omae—why do you call your own mother ‘lady’?”
“Just… habit?”
…You try living to my age.
Stuff like this just slips out naturally.
Min-Hyuk huffed through his nose. Dong-gyo adjusted his glasses and asked,
“What about Shin Pil-ho sunbaenim? Gonna meet him too?”
“Well… if time allows?”
“Krrrrr… so jealous. Comic industry connections.”
Min-Hyuk snorted.
“Jealous of what? You know him now too.”
“But I don’t even have his number… no other way to contact him either.”
“What would you do with it anyway?”
“Just… personally, I want to show him some of my comics. And if we get closer…”
“Closer?”
“I kinda want to ask for David-sensei’s number too.”
“…Huh?”
Min-Hyuk flinched for a split second.
“Why David?”
“Why not?! As a reader and an aspiring comic artist, I have a mountain of questions I want to ask him!”
“Like what?”
“Like what on earth he was thinking when he made Chapter 15, what direction Brave King’s story is heading in, what he thinks about the future of Korean comics… I just want to hear his thoughts!”
“He probably wouldn’t say anything that profound… David’s not some grand oracle or anything.”
“Hey! Min-Hyuk-kun! What do you know that you’re talking about our David-sensei like that?!”
…Can’t exactly say I am David…
And even worse—
“Kang Min-Hyuk, apologize to Dong-gyo!”
“Yeah! Brave King is sacred scripture! David is a god!”
Other kids standing nearby jumped in, throwing in their own comments.
“Uh… yeah, sure.”
In the suddenly awkward situation, Min-Hyuk could only give a sheepish smile.
At the same time, a thought crossed his mind.
‘If my identity gets out… it’s not just going to be “a little tiring.”’
He had planned to reveal it naturally at some point…
But now he wondered if that timeline might get pushed back quite a bit.
Meanwhile—
Vrrrrrm!
The shuttle bus doors opened.
“Come on, Min-Hyuk-kun! Let’s go!”
“Yeah…”
The kids loaded their suitcases into the luggage compartment and piled onto the bus in a rush.
A short while later…
Vroooom!
Several buses pulled out of the parking lot and disappeared.
And at one window—
“Mother’s Day is coming up soon…”
Han Yu-ra, who had been walking down the corridor, paused for a moment. She stared blankly at the buses driving away.
A faint, bitter shadow seemed to settle over her usually expressionless face.
Then she…
“Idiot.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, let out a deep sigh…
…and walked straight into the drawing room.
**************
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