“Oh dear. Late on the very first day. I’m sorry.”
Just in time to prevent anyone from catching Seon Eunhu’s shift in expression, the professor came in. Whether he’d rushed over, every small movement carried a trace of flustered urgency. The atmosphere in the woodworking studio shifted in an instant, and soon all that could be heard was the professor’s voice as class began.
I seized the moment while everyone’s attention was on the professor to steal a glance at Seon Eunhu. But he had already straightened up in his seat, so I couldn’t see his face. Given the angles, I should have been able to catch at least his profile — but instead, his broad back was facing me head-on. The way he was sitting, crooked and off-balance, was almost like he’d turned his back on me deliberately.
“Why the sudden swearing?”
The upperclassman sitting next to him flinched in surprise and asked. Seon Eunhu seemed to say something back, but I couldn’t make out his lip movements. The way he tapped the upperclassman’s back probably meant something like don’t worry about it.
People like Seon Eunhu.
The more time I spent in the same space as him, the more I felt it.
The way everyone turned to look at him whenever he laughed felt almost like they were currying favor, begging to be noticed. It wasn’t as though Seon Eunhu aggressively held the room — and yet a hierarchy existed around him, and everyone willingly dissolved into it. Was it simply because Seon Eunhu was an Alpha? The professor may have been leading the class, but the center of this space was Seon Eunhu.
So then — why does Seon Eunhu dislike me?
This was the mystery that had dropped on me just before class and was why I couldn’t focus on the lecture. I could accept being disliked — that couldn’t be helped — but what gnawed at me was that I couldn’t even begin to guess the reason. I kept telling myself not to think about it, but all I could do was keep arriving at the same certainty: even if I’d been standing in that general building in the rain holding a hundred umbrellas, Seon Eunhu would not have shared one with me.
“So based on what each of you has come up with, bring in a model by next week. It would be better to buy the chisels and mallets together as a group rather than individually…. Tsk, I suppose we’ll need to pick a woodworking class rep?”
The professor swept his gaze across the students and settled it on the side where the third-year upperclassmen were clustered. When the upperclassmen, not wanting to be stuck with the hassle, blatantly looked away or dropped their heads, a burst of laughter went around.
The professor laughed along and stood up properly to go ahead and choose a rep.
“These things go smoother when an upperclassman takes charge. Let’s see~ then~ the woodworking class rep will be — Seon Eunhu, who has just fallen into a very deep sleep!”
“Ah…!”
Seon Eunhu had been shamelessly pretending to be asleep with his eyes closed, and his groan of resignation brought another round of laughter.
“I picked you because you’re the best-looking one, so feel proud about it — everyone send your contact info to Seon Eunhu and get your payments in! Our woodworking rep will handle the dealings with the tool supplier on everyone’s behalf. Okay?”
“Yes.”
“Alright, see you next week!”
As the students said their goodbyes and the professor made his exit, Seon Eunhu stepped out and filled the empty space at the front.
The bashfulness he’d shown when he was appointed class rep was nowhere to be seen. Whether he’d already settled into the role, he stood with both hands on his hips and swept a fairly serious gaze across the students.
“You all heard the professor, right?”
At his warm, easygoing voice, the second-year university students answered obediently — “Yes” — like well-behaved small children. Everyone in the woodworking studio understood that Seon Eunhu now stood in as the professor’s representative.
But that, it seemed, was not what Seon Eunhu was asking about.
“He said I’m the best-looking one here.”
He shrugged with pride, and the students burst out laughing. Seon Eunhu, who had been stretching his smile wide, soon broke into a full grin, showing his neatly aligned teeth. Having taken over the room with just a few words, he was entirely shameless and unruffled even with all eyes on him.
“Today I’ll be giving you the special opportunity to get the number of the best-looking person here. It’s an incredibly rare and precious number, so keep it just between you all. Everyone take out your phones.”
At Seon Eunhu’s instruction, everyone quickly pulled out their phones. Once he confirmed everyone was ready to take down the number, he began reading his number out clearly and distinctly. After the last digit, he repeated it a few more times.
“Now everyone send me one message at this number. Nothing pointless — just your student ID and name. Right now.”
I typed on my phone as Seon Eunhu instructed and found myself impressed by his cleverness. By giving out his number, he’d eliminated the time and effort of collecting each student’s number one by one and entering them himself. There was an energy to him — practiced ease with handling a crowd.
“Just so you know in advance — if you send me game invites or bother me with useless links, I’m blocking you immediately. Those who’ve sent the message can go now.”
With Seon Eunhu’s dismissal, students began leaving one by one. The moment I sent my message, I stuffed my phone into my pocket and stood up. By then Seon Eunhu had returned to his seat and was slinging his bag over his shoulder, chatting with another upperclassman.
…But why does he dislike me, though.
I was curious about the reason, but more than the curiosity, there was a bitterness — the bitterness of being disliked by someone you feel favorably toward.
I’d like for him to think well of me, too.
I dragged that deflated feeling behind me like a shadow as I walked out of the woodworking studio. Anyway — I had to get to the second-year studio quickly.
Today was my turn to work on the clay pig’s head.
In one corner of the second-year studio sat a large pig’s head made of clay. The chubby, cheerful-looking pig’s head was big enough that even wrapping both arms around it wouldn’t quite reach. After passing through several classmates’ hands over the past few days, it was already close to finished.
“Don’t you think the pig’s smiling too much? I think we need to tone down the mouth and eyes a little…”
I observed the smiling pig’s face from the front and asked my classmate An Seungkyu. He gave a slight shake of his head and pushed up his glasses — using the heel of his palm so as not to get clay on the frame, as naturally as if he’d done it a hundred times.
“I thought exactly the same thing and asked about it — apparently the pig for the ritual offering has to have a smiling face. Since it’s the one that delivers wishes to the spirits, it has to look cute, they said.”
“Ah. Is that right?”
Instead of saying that the superstition was getting a little too specific, I just smiled faintly and let it go. It was a bit ironic that a fake pig made of clay looked happier than I did.
I tied on an apron and rolled my sleeves up past my elbows. Focusing more on the level of finish than on the feel of the clay under my fingertips, I started smoothing out the rougher areas.
The reason I ended up in the Sculpture Department was simple. It had started when my homeroom teacher in my third year of high school mentioned that the Sculpture Department at Hanguk University had a Special Admission Track for Orphanage Graduates, and that it had gone unfilled this year.
I’d had no intention of going to university at all — but my homeroom teacher called me into the faculty room during every break to persuade me, and in the end I applied just to get her off my back.
She’s working hard to build up her results.
That’s what I thought at first. But when she heard the news of my early admissions acceptance, her first response wasn’t congratulations — it was heartfelt relief. Thank goodness. And that’s when I understood. She had wanted to breathe fresh air into my life. She’d wanted to get me moving, the me who had no drive for anything.
In the end, I ended up living each day busy, just as she had hoped. Because the school didn’t cover all of the tuition, I had to keep my grades in the top tier to receive a full scholarship.
The general education courses I could brute-force by memorizing — the problem was the major. Since I hadn’t prepared for this through an entrance exam process like everyone else, my practical skills were absolutely terrible.
So I had no choice but to work at it. Thinking I may as well give it my best now that I was enrolled, I stayed late into the night doing drawing practice and pushing the finish of my sculptures in an empty department building. There were multiple times the teaching assistant handed me the key to the supply room and clocked out for the day.
Because of that, while my skills didn’t improve dramatically, they did reach a certain level. Touching clay and drawing pictures every day, I even started finding genuine interest in the work.
Being someone who understands the necessity of death more than I find reasons to keep living, there are times when I want to give up everything — but even so, I was spending my days in a fairly active way, in line with my old homeroom teacher’s wishes.
“The two ears aren’t symmetrical.”
I used a hera — a sculpting tool I’d shaved from bamboo — to reshape the pig’s ears. Where the hera passed, a convincing ear shape emerged.
I was about to move to fix the ear on the other side when the screen of my phone, sitting on the worktable, lit up. I wiped my clay-covered hands roughly on my apron and checked my phone — there was a message from an unknown number.
010-XXXX-XXXX: Go Taeling lol what
010-XXXX-XXXX: Name again
…Is this spam?
Not understanding, I scrolled up — and there was a message I had sent a few hours earlier.
[Go Taerim]: XX student ID Go Taeling
Only then did I realize the sender was Seon Eunhu. Whatever state of mind I’d been in when I sent that message from the woodworking studio, there had been a typo. I quickly sent a correction.
[Go Taerim]: It’s Go Taerim!! I’m so sorry
After sending it, I read Seon Eunhu’s messages again. The texts, laughing playfully, updated my image of him in a new way. He had seemed like someone who wasn’t easy to approach — but seeing the barrage of “lmaos,” he felt a little more approachable.
Could it be that he still doesn’t know it’s me?
I guessed this from his playful tone, so unlike how he was in person. It seemed like Seon Eunhu hadn’t matched my face to my name yet.
