Chapter 2

02

My past life was Michelangelo.

Unable to believe the reality, I stared at the ceiling, blinking, and before I knew it, it was morning.

– Beep beep beep beep!

The alarm clock blared. Six thirty. Time to get up. I got up and pulled back the tattered curtains. White sunlight poured in as if it had been waiting.

Bright sun.

It was a new morning, different from all the others.

– Beep beep beep!

After silencing the blaring alarm with my palm, I stepped out of the room.

"…Are you up?"

"Good morning."

I walked to the kitchen, receiving my mother’s morning greeting.

The narrow kitchen of the narrow house, where I could reach in four steps from my room.

Due to the layout of the table barely squeezed into the kitchen, there were only three sides where one could sit.

For everyone to sit, one person had to sacrifice their seat. Today, it was my younger sister. Her back, bent in front of the corner of the table, was visible.

A familiar scene.

A different thought intruded unexpectedly.

When I make money, I should move to a place with a bigger kitchen. A place where we can use all four sides of the table would be nice. Ah, while we’re at it, we should get a bigger table too.

Goals that I, in my usual self, would never have dared to imagine, were set haphazardly.

Perhaps something inside me had changed when I became aware of my past life. That thought crossed my mind. Then, my younger sister, sipping barley tea, broke the silence.

"Are you okay now?"

"Um."

A groan from my father followed. Are you okay? Me? I turned my head. I noticed that my entire family was watching me, their faces filled with concern. I could feel their worry for me.

I smiled.

"Yes, I’m fine."

It felt like everything was really okay.

"…That’s a relief."

My younger sister mumbled, scooping up a spoonful of rice. My mother and father also picked up their spoons with more relaxed expressions.

Suddenly, I realized how long it had been since we had all gathered like this. At the same time, my thoughts became clear.

"It’s been a while since all four of us have gathered for a meal."

My parents also looked surprised at my words.

"Come to think of it, it has been a while."

"Mother… Now that you mention it, it has."

Father and mother, who started work early in the morning at a furniture store.

My younger sister, who was aiming for a scholarship for top students, always short of 24 hours.

And me, who saved on school bus fares by cycling long distances to and from school.

We hadn’t been able to have breakfast together for quite a while, overwhelmed by our busy daily lives. It was the price we paid for saving money by spending time.

A long time since we had all gathered for breakfast. It was good. It was really good. Looking at the rice my mother had cooked with all her heart, I spoke.

"It’s nice to eat together like this."

I wanted to give this kind of morning to my family every day, it was so good.

.

.

.

The sky was a pale gray, and the high sun followed me on my way. Thanks to it, the surroundings were unusually bright for a winter morning.

"Huff, huff…!"

I pedaled the bicycle hard. In this life, I was born with a lot of blessings.

Kind parents. Affectionate family. Support and encouragement for my dreams. I had never had any of these in my past life. Suddenly, a very distant past came to mind.

– "Ouch!"

– "You wicked boy! A disgrace to this family! You should think about reviving the family!"

– "…I want to do art, Father!"

– "This, this is still…!"

In the rugged Tuscan mountains, high up, in a place far from Florence, a land full of goats, Caprese.

There, I was born as Michelangelo Buonarroti, the son of Ludovico Buonarroti, the administrator of Caprese. At the age of thirteen, I had to endure harsh beatings from my uncle and father.

My father, Ludovico, wanted me to become a member and officer of the Florence wool guild to revive the family, but I dreamed of being an artist.

Thirteen.

At the age when my past self was having a willpower battle with my father, in this life, I showed my father the laundry soap and received praise.

The firm support of my family.

This was truly a blessing.

So.

So, every time I pedaled towards school, I repeated it dozens, hundreds of times.

Do well.

Do better than anyone else!

For my father and mother who gave me everything without limit.

For my younger sister who didn’t complain even when the money went to her clumsy older brother.

How far had I cycled, making resolutions and more resolutions, when the winter cold seeped through the gloves on the bicycle handlebars, and I saw the school with its blue sky in the distance.

The best art high school in South Korea, Cheonghua (菁華) Art High School.

* * * *

As I led my bicycle through the school gate, Mercedes, Audi, Bentley, and Porsche cars passed through the threshold one by one. The cars stopped far away, and students in padded jackets got out one by one.

At Cheonghua Art High School, it was a common sight, not even worth a glance.

I looked at the cars and bowed my head to tie my bicycle. When I straightened up, I was the only one with a bicycle tied up at the bicycle stand today.

I turned towards the main building without hesitation. At the entrance, students who had arrived earlier by car were changing into indoor shoes.

When I reached the shoe lockers, they were already climbing the stairs. Their steps looked confident and relaxed.

"Hello."

"Hey, everyone, hello."

A few teachers, holding attendance sheets, mingled with the students, exchanging greetings. The faces of the students who greeted them were radiant, without a shadow.

"Hello, teacher."

"Hello, teacher."

They were the type who, with their affluent backgrounds and solid grades, received favor from the academic teachers, known as the "aristocrats" within the school.

Click. I closed the shoe locker and threw my indoor shoes on the floor, and the back was noisy. As I stuck to the shoe locker, students who had come from the dormitory and those who had arrived by school bus poured in.

"…So you went to the concert yesterday?"

"Yeah. Professor Yoon said it would be good for me to hear it in person, so he gave me a ticket. I was lucky, that’s all."

The students exchanged stories while changing their shoes.

"Ooh… But does Professor Yoon know you’re trying to get into Seoul National University instead of Seohee University?"

"No."

"Wow. There’s going to be a big fuss later."

They were the type who, with their comfortable backgrounds and shining talents, received favor from the practical skills teachers, known as the "talents" within the school.

Click click click.

I watched the group of students who filled the stairs and climbed up in a pack. When they turned the corner and disappeared, the preparatory bell finally rang.

Hearing the preparatory bell, I moved slowly.

I was the only one left on the first floor.

I, who didn’t belong to any of their groups. An outsider. An outcast.

.

.

.

When I opened the classroom door and entered, the students were gathered in small groups, chatting.

My seat was right in front of the back door, the last row attached to the wall. I hung my art bag on the coat hook and sat down. Unlike usual, I could feel the gazes.

"Yesterday… the teacher… said…"

"…Senior year… college entrance exam…"

"…From the beginning… family… poor…"

The murmurs didn’t reach me, but I could guess what they were saying.

Advice to give up the lessons.

It was clear that the story of how the sculpture teacher had called my father and talked to him had spread through some channel.

The moment I looked at them, one of the group walked over to me.

Kim Dong-hwi.

A student whose parents were both in the education field, and who had loudly declared from his first year that he would enter the HanYang University of Arts for Western painting.

"Is it true?"

Kim Dong-hwi’s prominent cheekbones moved annoyingly.

"What is?"

"That Mr. Jo Byung-kyun told you not to take lessons from senior year."

"…"

To be precise, he didn’t say not to take lessons, but that it would be better to prepare for the college entrance exam instead.

Kim Dong-hwi was leading the conversation in a more sensational direction.

"…But I’m really surprised. Didn’t Mr. Jo Byung-kyun like you for being hardworking? Or, when did he start liking you for being hardworking and then turn around and hit you in the back?"

While Mr. Jo Byung-kyun was saying it was too much, his cheekbones were rising as if they were about to ascend to heaven.

He must be enjoying this. A few days ago, Kim Dong-hwi, who couldn’t stand the sight of me pretending to know things when I couldn’t even do well in practical skills, had been gossiping.

Now, pretending to care. I turned my eyes to the timetable, finding it unbearable to look at him. Today was Friday. There were four periods of sketching from the morning.

"Anyway, are you not going to apply to art school? They said they’ll let you study during the practical skills time."

While I was wondering when to take out the transparent multi-purpose box from my art bag, Kim Dong-hwi’s words continued.

As if trying to get me to say something, he kept prodding, not for the first time.

I looked at Kim Dong-hwi silently, finding his provocation too childish to even consider responding to. The students who were leaving through the front door turned to look at us.

"Hey, Kim Dong-hwi! Stop it and let’s go to the sketching room."

"Right. Stop it. Our Gang-seok is so heartbroken!"

"Ah, that’s funny. Right! Stop it! Seok will cry."

"Will he?"

Kim Dong-hwi turned around, chuckling. He moved towards the front door, closer to the sketching room, with a sketching pencil case tucked under his arm.

"See you in the practical skills room, Seok."

After the group of talents left, calling out to me jokingly to hang in there, I was alone in the classroom.

I slowly got up from my seat.

And I took out the multi-purpose box from my art bag. In the semi-transparent box, erasers, a cutter, a pencil sharpener, and pencils rolled around.

"Sketching…"

* * * *

"Today is a test."

Five minutes after Mr. Ko Doo-han, the sketching teacher, made his calm but sarcastic announcement, the students moved with their easels.

The students’ mouths were agape.

There were two reasons.

"…Teacher! What kind of test all of a sudden!"

"It’s almost winter break, teacher…!"

One was that it was a test just before winter break, when the final exams were over and the report cards were out.

"What I say goes. Any complaints?"

"Ah… No, but who does plaster sketching these days?"

"Hey. Have you ever done plaster sketching?"

"No. Never."

The other was that the topic of today’s sketching test was plaster sketching, which rarely appeared in college entrance exams these days.

However, Mr. Ko Doo-han was firm.

"Use this time to form a circle."

At Cheonghua Art High School, practical skills teachers were the real power. The students had no choice but to form a circle in front of the plaster Venus.

Before long, the students, separated into classes A to D based on their sketching practical skills, took their seats in front of the four Venuses, twenty each.

Most of them took seats in front of the Venus’s face, but those who wanted to fool around or show off their skills placed their easels behind Venus.

And I, the outcast who couldn’t fit in with them, had to sit right in front of the back of Venus’s head.

"The time is three hours, including the break. Evaluation will follow the test."

The students stiffened at the word "evaluation." With the report cards already out, there was only one thing that could be called an evaluation.

The sketching class placement test.

Some students whispered to each other, wondering if this was the test that would determine the sketching classes in the third year. A few of them moved their easels to where they could see Venus’s face.

Meanwhile, other sketching teachers entered the practical skills room one by one.

As the atmosphere grew more convincing that this was indeed the "sketching class placement test," I quietly sharpened my pencil.

I sharpened the graphite with a cutter, more sharply than a blade, and quietly looked at the back of Venus’s head.

"Then, let’s begin."

Everyone placed their pencils, equipped with pencil holders, on the paper to make quick sketches. They all looked anxious, given the unfamiliar form. Soon, the sound of pencils scratching filled the practical skills room. It was the sound of pencils moving on the A4 paper.

In that intense silence.

Feeling like I was on a deserted island with empty space all around, I slowly lifted my head. The back of Venus’s head on the stand was truly empty.

I closed my eyes.

I pressed the pencil with my thumb. The texture of the wood was felt through my fingerprints. At the same time, the coolness of the silver pencil sharpener traveled up my palm.

Enjoying the sensation for a moment, I closed my eyes and drew a line with a swish. The sharply sharpened graphite moved, creating a thick line.

It was a beautiful gray.

A gray so beautiful that if Michelangelo’s tense and vibrant lines had reappeared in the world, transcending time, it would be believable.

3. It was a beautiful gray.