Chapter 68 – Just This Once, A Temporary Alliance!
As the sports festival drew nearer—and especially after Teacher Choi Jung-an put a pizza bounty on first place—Kang Min-hyuk’s otherwise peaceful school life became considerably more exhausting.
“Pizza! Pizza! Pizza!”
“Let’s go practiceeee!”
Perhaps caught up in the hype, the kids rushed to the auditorium whenever they had a free second to practice.
To an outsider, it looked exactly like the atmosphere of some youthful sports comic.
‘This is getting awkward…’
And that wasn’t all.
“Kang Min-hyuk! Han Yu-ra!”
“Huh? What.”
A girl with sleepy-looking glasses and a face full of freckles approached them, glaring with wide, axe-like eyes.
Song Hyun-hee, the class president of the first-year Comic Creation Department… and a person who seemed to live with nagging permanently attached to her mouth.
When Min-hyuk blinked in confusion, Song Hyun-hee clenched her fists and practically spat out her words.
“You two—absolutely, positively have to get first place! If you guys rack up the points, then our chances of eating pizza… no, I mean, winning first place go way up!”
“Wait, why are we suddenly the expectations?”
“You’re good! I saw everything you did in the auditorium last time.”
“……”
Damn it, my head.
Min-hyuk pressed hard on his temples.
“Hmph.”
Han Yu-ra let out a derisive snort, clearly displeased at being lumped together with him.
Regardless, it seemed their class president had zero intention of backing down.
“You two need to practice too! Don’t just play around during lunch—practice! Practice!”
“No, I’m in the middle of storyboarding for the grade project right now…”
“Our class’s pizza is on the line! Is some stupid grade project more important right now?!”
“Uh… I’d say the grade project is way more important, actually.”
“Enough! Come with me right now!”
In the end, Min-hyuk and Yu-ra were more or less forcibly conscripted(?).
And so… during what should have been their precious blood-like lunch break, they arrived at the auditorium.
“Aja aja let’s goooo!”
“Pass hereeee!”
Inside, kids from various classes were all mixed together, sweating and exercising like crazy.
Somehow, the scene felt so far removed from Animation High’s usual vibe that it gave off a strong sense of dissonance.
They were probably all fired up, determined to win the sports festival.
“Come on, hurry up! That court over there is empty!”
“Got it…”
Shoulders slumped under the class president’s relentless nagging, Min-hyuk and Yu-ra stepped onto the court.
Taaang! Taang! Taaang! Taang!
As always, they swung their badminton rackets and sent the shuttlecock flying back and forth.
At first, they had burned with pointless competitive spirit, but after doing this a few times…
‘It’s actually not bad. My head feels a bit clearer too.’
Lately his mind had been all twisted up from thinking about the grade project storyboards, but sweating like this seemed to melt some of that tension away.
And that wasn’t all.
‘Sports comic, sports comic…’
When he entered that trance-like state during the rallies, he sometimes got the faint, ticklish feeling that he might be on the verge of grasping some clue for the grade project.
The problem was that it still wasn’t enough to fully unblock him.
So… while he was rationalizing(?) and somewhat enjoying the moment—
“You guys are from the Comic Creation Department, right?”
“Hm?”
At the voice coming from the side, Min-hyuk turned his head.
Thwack!
A shuttlecock smacked right into his forehead and dropped.
“Yeah, why?”
Standing there were a boy and a girl, both holding badminton rackets.
Their faces were full of fighting spirit, and their builds were quite imposing… Just looking at them, you could tell they were the “athletic type” through and through.
The muscular boy, who looked like his entire body was made of muscle, flashed a handsome smile and said,
“We’re from the Game Department. There aren’t any free courts, so mind if we join you? Since it’s mixed anyway, wouldn’t it be better for you guys to practice 2v2 too?”
“…Hmm.”
Well, not a bad idea?
Since they were practicing anyway… doing something closer to the real match format would probably be more efficient.
Min-hyuk scratched his forehead and glanced over; Han Yu-ra gave a small nod as if she agreed.
After moving to share the court…
Kang Min-hyuk and Han Yu-ra stood side by side, facing the two from the Game Department.
“Do your best.”
“You too.”
After a brief moment of their usual bickering…
The Game Department boy gripped the shuttlecock and said,
“Then, let’s begin.”
He tossed it lightly into the air—
Fwaaaaang!
—and smashed it with ferocious power.
In that instant, it felt like a typhoon was sweeping through.
The shuttlecock came flying toward them in a smooth, rapid arc.
‘Strong!’
Kang Min-hyuk dashed forward to receive it, but—
Thud!
By the time he came to his senses, the shuttlecock had already hit the floor.
“Wake up, Kang Min-hyuk?”
“No, it’s just that…”
Han Yu-ra let out a sigh, but there really wasn’t anything he could say in response.
Because he genuinely hadn’t managed to do anything.
But the real problem was…
“Then let’s go nonstop.”
“Okay.”
The true power of the Game Department’s monster duo hadn’t ended there.
Baaang! Baaang!
“Han Yu-ra, catch!”
“Grrr!”
A relentless barrage, as if they were firing cannons.
“My!”
“Okay!”
On top of that, those two had clearly practiced together a lot—their movements were perfectly in sync, almost like a single entity.
They looked like a pair of happily married gorillas.
Meanwhile, on this side…
‘Damn it, our coordination is completely off!’
Their feet tangled, their timing for going in clashed, and chaos ensued in every possible way.
They had only ever done 1-on-1 rallies during “badminton practice”…
There was no way doubles would suddenly work out.
And so, point after point slipped away.
“Haaah… haaah.”
“Damn it……”
By the time sweat was pouring down Min-hyuk’s and Yu-ra’s foreheads,
The gorilla couple on the opposite side looked down at them with expressions full of mockery.
“Pfft, that’s all you’ve got? We heard the Comic Creation kids were pretty good at badminton, so we had high hopes… but you’re way below standard.”
“Right? This isn’t even practice-level.”
Their tone and faces were blatantly dripping with ridicule.
“Well, see you at the sports festival. Losers.”
“Do your best~ Keep trying hard~”
The two waved lazily and disappeared to the other side of the auditorium.
Then—
“Those damn bastards……”
“Grrrrr!”
Min-hyuk’s and Yu-ra’s pupils trembled violently.
Veins bulged on their foreheads, expressions twisted.
A bone-deep, simmering rage boiled up like aged beef bone broth.
‘Should I just wipe them all out?’
In his heart, he felt like quoting Master Kim Hwa-baek’s famous line from the comic world and slaughtering them so thoroughly they couldn’t even open their mouths.
Min-hyuk whipped his head toward her and said,
“Han Yu-ra.”
“Speak.”
“I suddenly really want to take first place… What do you think?”
No further words were needed.
Flames began to roar in both of their eyes at the exact same moment.
Han Yu-ra gritted her teeth and said,
“After dinner, straight to the auditorium.”
“Okay.”
Thud. Thud.
As the two walked out of the gym, the resolute determination of gladiators settled over their faces.
***
Down with the Game Department! For pizza!
And further—for the victory of the Comic Creation Department.
After Kang Min-hyuk and Han Yu-ra—the two who could never exchange a single nice word whenever their eyes met—finally joined forces…
Their school life changed just a little.
Of course, during regular classes and drawing periods, they still focused intently on their work as usual…
“Kang Min-hyuk! Now!”
“Okay!”
But even during P.E. class.
Lunch break, after-school hours.
The two swung their rackets like mad professionals you’d believe had gone pro.
And the key point of this training was…
‘Matching our coordination is the most important thing.’
Just by meeting eyes, they knew who would go for the shot.
How to position themselves.
“When a smash comes from the left, I go in first. If it’s out of reach, then you take it…”
The two of them continued to discuss and drill the details obsessively.
“Hmm… In this situation, the coverage range isn’t easy to handle, is it?”
The two of them prepared set pieces for almost every conceivable scenario they could imagine.
Little by little, as they started filling in the gaps…
Their coordination gradually began to click into place.
To the point where…
“Haa… You didn’t score a single point?”
“Damn it… What the hell?”
When kids from the same class who were said to be decent at badminton stepped in as opponents for practice, the results were so overwhelming that they barely managed to take even one point.
But even so…
The two of them weren’t satisfied.
“When you went in earlier, it felt a bit late, didn’t it?”
“The shuttlecock detection speed was slow.”
“Then let’s have the person who sees it first call it out.”
“Okay.”
They kept searching for even the smallest areas to improve, syncing their breathing more tightly and refining their movements.
And though it might have been a slightly offbeat thought…
Min-hyuk felt that this process wasn’t all that different from drawing comics.
‘Thinking, acting, revising. Repeating over and over… Well, this is kind of fun in its own way.’
In the end, the very act of immersing yourself in something and struggling desperately to change the outcome felt exactly the same.
And the fact that he wasn’t doing it alone, but together with Han Yu-ra—a pretty fiery and competitive person—made it feel…
‘This reminds me of the days when I worked at Pil-ho sunbae’s studio.’
The sensation of creating something together with someone else came flooding back to him in a fresh way.
How long had they been training like that?
“Huu… Let’s take a short break.”
“…Yeah.”
The two, who had been running nonstop, finally slumped down in a corner of the auditorium to cool off their sweat.
For some reason, now that they were just sitting like this…
‘This feels kinda awkward.’
While playing badminton, they had the shared topic of badminton itself, so they never stopped talking.
But once that vanished, there suddenly didn’t seem to be anything to say.
Ever since enrollment, the two of them had barely ever had a proper conversation in the first place, so this situation felt completely unfamiliar.
‘What do we even have in common…’
Min-hyuk quietly scratched his forehead and asked,
“How’s your grade project going?”
“Hm? What?”
“The grade project. Is the work going well? I haven’t even started mine yet.”
Han Yu-ra twisted her eyebrow and asked,
“You haven’t even started? Why?”
“I’ve drawn quite a few storyboards, but none of them feel right… Or maybe I should say, nothing I really want to do has come up. So yeah, I’m still at a complete blank.”
“…Idiot. Just do something. Why are you looking for something you ‘want’ to do?”
“That’s a bit harsh.”
“I’m just stating facts. If it were me, I would never take this long.”
“Yeah, yeah, the genius comic artist has spoken.”
When Min-hyuk pouted his lips, Yu-ra let out a small snort and replied,
“Well… bring them over when you have time.”
“Bring what?”
“The storyboards you’ve worked on. I’ll read them and give you feedback. Whether you should pick one and develop it, or wait until something really clicks like you said.”
What’s with her all of a sudden?
Han Yu-ra was the one who always openly showed displeasure the moment their eyes met.
For her to say something like that…
Even though her words were as prickly as ever, he could somehow sense a trace of goodwill behind them.
“…Fine. I’ll do that. And, well, not that it’s an exchange or anything… but if you ever want feedback too, bring yours to me.”
“I’ll pass. My grade project is going fine.”
“Not the grade project—the contest one you’re doing.”
In that instant, Han Yu-ra’s eyes went wide.
‘Bingo… I was right.’
Her reaction was way too honest.
Min-hyuk shrugged his shoulders and said,
“Lately you’ve been grinding hard even after finishing all the assignments… I just guessed it was probably that. If you don’t want to show it, no big deal.”
“…I’ll show you.”
“You will?”
When Min-hyuk tilted his head in surprise, Yu-ra squeezed her eyes shut for a second before opening them again and saying,
“But give proper feedback. If you half-ass it… this deal is off.”
“Whatever you say.”
Man, she’s stubborn about the weirdest things.
For some reason, it felt oddly childish, and Min-hyuk couldn’t help but lift the corner of his mouth in a faint smirk.
Right at that moment.
“Min-hyuk? Yu-ra?”
“Huh?”
“Teacher?”
When the two turned their heads toward the voice coming from in front…
“Here, drink these.”
Choi Jung-an stood there holding two cans of drinks, smiling brightly at them.
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