Chapter 72 – Enlightenment Gained Through the Body
Inside the first-year Comic Creation Department classroom.
Normally, this would be the time when students were at the cafeteria and the room would be empty and quiet, but for some reason today it was bustling with life.
The reason was…
“Thank you for the meal, Jeong-won seonsaengnim!”
“Krrrrr, pizzaaaa.”
Pizza boxes were piled high on every desk.
Choi Jung-an had kept her promise from the sports festival: if they won first place, pizza for the whole class.
Choi Jung-an waved her hands with a bright, sunflower-like smile.
“Haha, no no, it’s nothing that big.”
And truthfully… Choi Jung-an hadn’t taken much of a loss at all.
The real reason she had boldly made the pizza promise in the first place was—
—We have to get first place no matter what, Choi Jung-an seonsaengnim!
—First place won’t be easy with the Game Department in the way…
—Game Department? You think our great Comic Creation Department is going to lose to those street thugs? We’ll do whatever it takes to get first! I’ll support you however I can!
—However you can?
—Yes! Anything!
Because Ma Dong-hyun, the department head who would rather die than lose, had promised massive backup.
The pizza bill would obviously be charged to him anyway.
So from Choi Jung-an’s perspective, she was smiling on the outside while someone else paid—pure profit.
In fact, the one who should really be grateful was…
“More importantly, shouldn’t we give one more round of applause to the futsal team and badminton team who showed insane skill and carried us to victory?”
As soon as Jung-an mimed clapping—
“Oh Dong-gyo! Oh Dong-gyo! Ooooooh!”
“Kang Min-hyuk! Kang Min-hyuk!”
“Han Yu-ra! Han Yu-ra!”
The kids erupted in wild, baseless cheers and applause.
And naturally, right in the center of it all was Kim Rok-hee again.
“Sigh… What’s the big deal.”
Anyway.
Under that shower of applause, Dong-gyo smiled contentedly and stroked the bridge of his nose.
‘This is kinda embarrassing.’
A faint trace of awkwardness appeared on Min-hyuk’s face.
“…Shut up.”
Han Yu-ra wore her usual blank expression.
But just as the classroom was heating up with the joy of victory and the heat of pizza—
Screeech!
The door slid open, and four or five teachers poked their heads in.
“Choi Jung-an seonsaengnim.”
“Ah, you’re here.”
The homeroom teachers from Animation, Comic Creation, and Video departments—the very ones they’d been sick of seeing all day during the first-year sports festival.
“Come on, let’s go. The reservation time is almost up.”
“Ah, right, right. Haha.”
Choi Jung-an clasped her hands together with a bright smile.
Min-hyuk, who had been watching while gulping down cola, stared at her.
As someone who was both an adult uncle and a teenager, Kang Min-hyuk knew exactly what that mix of leisure and joy on her face meant.
‘The face of someone who won a bet and saved on drinking money.’
They’d been talking about hanwoo this and that… so they were definitely heading out to eat meat.
For just this moment, Min-hyuk felt genuinely envious of Jung-an.
“Alright, kids. Teacher has a dinner appointment, so I’ll head out first. Finish the pizza, clean up properly, and work hard during drawing time too. See you tomorrow!”
“Yessss!”
“Take care, seonsaengnim!”
Choi Jung-an waved enthusiastically and hurried out of the classroom.
“Did you see that new anime that dropped?”
“Ah, that one was actually pretty good.”
“Eat another slice of pizza. I’m full.”
“Really? Thanks.”
The classroom quickly became lively again.
About twenty minutes passed like that.
“Okay, okay—pizza boxes and PET bottles, stack them neatly by the trash. Anyone staying in the classroom, rest up. Everyone else, don’t be late for drawing time!”
“Aigo… drawing time again.”
“Damn it… I’m dead tired. Work again today?”
At class president Song Hyun-hee’s urging, the kids finished cleaning up after the pizza party and began to scatter.
“Should we head to work too?”
“Ahem, yeah, let’s do that.”
The sports festival was over now.
Time to finally… focus solely on work.
At Min-hyuk’s words, Dong-gyo started gathering his things alongside him.
But just as they were about to leave the classroom—
“Kang Min-hyuk.”
“Hm?”
Han Yu-ra stood there with her arms crossed, staring straight at the two of them.
“…What?”
“Don’t you have anything to say to me?”
…What is this all of a sudden? Something to say?
Min-hyuk tilted his head in confusion before replying lightly,
“You worked hard too. Playing badminton with me and all.”
At that, a crease formed between Yu-ra’s brows.
“Haaa… Not that. After all that badminton, nothing came to mind at all?”
“…I seriously have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Min-hyuk-kun… Ahem! I’m heading out first!”
Dong-gyo, who had been watching from the side, blinked rapidly, then backpedaled before bolting out of the room.
‘Ah, that guy’s misunderstanding everything on his own again.’
Now only the two of them remained in the classroom.
Min-hyuk let out a heavy sigh and scratched his head.
Yu-ra shook her head slowly, then continued in a slightly displeased, curt tone.
“I’m talking about the grade project. You went through all that effort and trouble, and still nothing clicked?”
In that instant—
“Ah.”
So that’s what she meant…
Min-hyuk’s eyes widened like saucers, then the corners of his mouth slowly lifted.
Perhaps reading his expression,
Yu-ra let out a deep sigh.
“You finally get it. Well… figure out the rest on your own.”
With that, she turned and walked straight out of the classroom.
“…Huuu, wow. The lamp under which it’s darkest, huh.”
The sports comic ideas he had been working on had always felt somehow lacking.
But now, thanks to the sports festival, he had gained the exact piece he needed to fill that gap.
That was precisely what Yu-ra had just pointed out.
“She really is sharp when it comes to noticing things…”
Only now had he finally grasped the thread.
A confident expression spread fully across Min-hyuk’s face.
***
A short while later, inside the drawing room.
“Zzz… huuuu…”
“Mmmnya…”
Perhaps because of the aftermath of the sports festival.
Or maybe thanks to the unique sense of fullness from all that pizza.
Most of the kids were nodding off, heads drooping.
Even the supervising teachers, knowing roughly what had happened, didn’t bother stopping them.
The scene was indistinguishable between nap time and drawing time.
Of course, there are always exceptions.
Scratch scratch!
In the middle of it all, Kang Min-hyuk alone was furiously scribbling away on his practice sheet with his mechanical pencil.
Eyes fixed straight ahead, the corners of his mouth lifted—he looked visibly excited at a glance.
The grade project planning that had tormented him for weeks over material selection—
The direction of that very work was now exploding wildly inside Min-hyuk’s mind.
And what had breathed life into that inspiration was—
‘Playing badminton definitely helped.’
The process of preparing for the mixed doubles badminton, and today’s result—it was undeniable.
He didn’t hold any particular ill will toward Han Yu-ra, but honestly, until recently he hadn’t paid her much attention.
She was the type who openly built thick walls around herself when it came to people around her, separate from how good she was at comics.
But through this experience, he had come to understand quite a lot about Han Yu-ra.
Han Yu-ra had a deep-seated lack when it came to family, and to fill that void… to be acknowledged by someone she wanted to be acknowledged by, she would grit her teeth and refuse to lose at anything.
The way she had gone all out during badminton probably started from that same emotion.
‘But something changed along the way.’
Because he had synced up with her directly and even won together, he knew it well.
The miraculous result of overcoming the Game Department’s gorilla duo.
The movements and coordination in that moment.
The sensation of becoming one with the entire atmosphere of the auditorium.
Two people reading each other’s thoughts, moving with a single shared will.
Even for Min-hyuk, living his second life, it was a strange feeling he had never once experienced before.
If Han Yu-ra had been driven purely by the desire to win, she never would have felt that sensation.
‘I’m going to draw that experience into the grade project.’
Two people whose thoughts, directions, and personalities were completely different.
The process of those two moving forward to achieve a single result: victory.
And the medium connecting them… was, of course, badminton.
Because even though it was only for a very short period, Kang Min-hyuk himself had felt those vivid sensations and emotions firsthand.
‘The best way to express this would be…’
He would keep the basic skeleton of the storyboard he had already planned.
What he needed now was a directing style that perfectly captured the contrast between two opposing existences that fit the concept of the work.
‘Black-and-white color contrast? Or maybe go with completely different visual styles… The dialogue needs to give a strong sense that they’re completely out of sync too.’
At first, two beings who couldn’t understand each other at all.
Through the medium of badminton, they gradually closed the distance between them, and in the end, they created a single shared result.
As one complete flow clicked into place like a puzzle in his mind, the corners of Min-hyuk’s mouth curved upward.
At the same time, he wrote a single word on the practice sheet.
[Dissonance]
‘That’s perfect as the title.’
The one word that defined this work’s concept and ran through its entire core.
Notes that should never harmonize come together to create one beautiful piece of music.
Thump! Thump!
His heart began to race.
And then…
The emotion he had desperately searched for all this time but could never quite grasp started to rise in his chest.
It was—
‘This is going to be fun.’
The certainty that the work he was about to draw would bring fun—not just to others, but to himself as well.
The pounding excitement that came from that conviction.
‘Alright… Let’s do this properly.’
Rip!
He tore off the densely written practice sheet, set it aside, and…
Began drawing the storyboard.
***
The next day, around lunchtime, in the meeting room.
“Hmmmm……”
Flip, flip.
Choi Jung-an, sitting across from Min-hyuk, turned the practice sheets with a serious expression.
After checking them over several times—
Thud!
She set the sheets down on the table, crossed her arms, and thought for a moment.
“Hmmmm… Can I ask you just one thing, Min-hyuk?”
“Ah, yes, go ahead.”
“Did you… take the motif for this comic from…”
“Yes. It’s badminton.”
He answered before she even finished.
His voice was filled with certainty, and the eyes staring straight at her didn’t waver in the slightest.
He clearly had complete confidence in the storyboard he had drawn.
‘Wow… He really is something.’
It had been Choi Jung-an herself who suggested he might find a hint from the sports festival.
But she had only thrown it out as one possible direction because he had been so lost.
She never imagined Yu-ra and Min-hyuk would take the sports festival so seriously, let alone actually win.
Maybe that’s why.
Looking at the storyboard in her hands now, regardless of how well-made it was… she felt a strange sense of emptiness.
How should she put it…
‘It feels like the god of comics really loves him.’
The ability to create experiences himself, then perfectly reinterpret them into comics.
Watching this made her proud as his teacher… but at the same time, standing in front of that dazzling talent, she couldn’t help but feel a little small.
That was when—
“…Teacher? Are you okay?”
“Hm? What’s wrong, Min-hyuk?”
“Your expression just now looked off. Is the storyboard not good? I thought it was okay…”
When Min-hyuk asked with an awkward smile, Jung-an shook her head and lifted the corners of her mouth into a wide grin.
“No, no—the comic is really good. Honestly, I was a little shocked. The concept is much clearer than the ones you brought before, and it definitely has fun in it. I’m already curious what it’ll feel like once it’s finished.”
“Ah, that’s a relief.”
Min-hyuk let out a sigh of relief.
Jung-an handed back the practice sheets, clapped her hands lightly, and said,
“Alright then, I think it’s fine to proceed like this. If there’s ever anything I can help with, just tell me anytime. For now… you can head back.”
“Thank you, seonsaengnim.”
“Then, let’s go out together.”
The two of them left the meeting room right away.
As Kang Min-hyuk bowed his head and headed toward the classroom…
Choi Jung-an, watching his retreating back, clenched her fist tightly.
‘Well… no helping it. I’ll just have to work hard in my own way.’
This wasn’t a vow from Choi Jung-an the homeroom teacher…
It was from Choi Jung-an the comic artist.
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