The Lunchtime Workshop (1)
About fifty minutes had passed since then.
Maybe the world felt a little guilty for dropping my body and mind straight into this rom-com universe, because it was as if I'd actually received some kind of possession perk.
Ten minutes before the nine o'clock bell, I finally succeeded in finishing the Dogaki carving that made no clack-clack typing sounds—the exact goal I'd set for myself. I had barely moved a muscle for nearly a full hour. After a brief moment of hesitation, I held the finished piece out to Jeong Hyein, who had been sitting beside me the whole time watching me sculpt.
"If you're okay with it, want this?"
At my question, Jeong Hyein widened her eyes even more than before, as if she hadn't expected it at all.
"...You seem to have worked hard on it, and you're giving it to me?"
"Well, I did work hard on it, but I didn't make it because I wanted to keep it... If I had to explain, I just made it to keep my sense of touch sharp, you know?"
"......"
She blinked at my answer for a moment, then carefully accepted the wooden Dogaki I held out.
"...It's really well made."
She gazed quietly down at the miniature keyboard resting in her small white palm, then reached out with her other hand and lightly tapped the wooden keycaps. The way her fingers moved, as if she were actually producing those clack-clack sounds, looked surprisingly serious.
...In the original she was just the prickly, aloof type, but seeing her in person, she's got this quietly eccentric side too.
After tapping the keys a few more times in that pretend fashion, Jeong Hyein lifted her head.
"Thanks."
Her voice was as flat and emotionless as before. But the corners of her lips, as she offered the thanks, seemed to lift just a little.
In any case, she tucked the carving into the pocket of her school uniform skirt as carefully as if it were something precious, then started to rise from her seat without lingering.
That was the moment.
From the far end of the hallway came the noisy clatter of someone running full tilt, and then—
Rattle— bang!
"Safe!"
The front door of the classroom flew open and a familiar silhouette burst inside. Exactly as he had every day last year, Lee Hyunwoo strode in precisely five minutes before the bell.
His uniform jacket was rumpled, his breathing rough. Looks like he'd barely made it through the school gates again today.
"Ugh, running after so long really takes it out of you."
He caught his breath and roughly smoothed his messy bangs while his eyes quickly scanned the classroom. Then he spotted Jeong Hyein, who had been sitting beside me and was just now gathering her bag to leave. Without even taking off his own bag, he dashed straight over to my desk.
"Would you look at that? The quiet cat's already climbed onto the warm stove first."
Lee Hyunwoo planted both hands on the edge of my desk and whispered in a voice full of mischief.
"Already building up your high-school girlfriend route for that sweet, cozy campus life? And with Jeong Hyein of all people. That's seriously impressive."
"......"
The noisy face of the male lead, making a fuss first thing in the morning, shoved itself uncomfortably close. I silently swept the wood shavings from my desk into my palm, dumped them in the trash, then casually raised my middle finger and aimed it straight at the center of his face.
"Instead of spouting nonsense, try getting to school on time. Stop rolling in at 8:55 every day yelling 'safe' like an idiot."
My scolding didn't faze him in the slightest. He just dropped his bag on his own seat, then plopped down in the empty desk right in front of me so he could face me and keep talking.
"Hey, the real thrill of school life comes from that five-minute aesthetic. More importantly—that thing peeking out of Jeong Hyein's pocket earlier, you carved that this morning, right? You're something else. Make one for me too."
"Want me to carve your mouth shut first with this chisel so you'll finally be quiet?"
"Brutal, man. Seriously."
Lee Hyunwoo casually parked the male student who'd come to claim his seat into the desk next to mine as if it were the most natural thing in the world, then launched into full chatter mode.
"Anyway, today I really couldn't help it. On the way to school there was this cat stuck up on a high wall in an alley and couldn't get down. I almost ran late saving it."
"......"
A story about nearly being late first thing in the morning because he'd rescued a stray cat. A classic tutorial-level event, perfectly suited to a rom-com male lead. He'd probably locked eyes with a heroine by chance while saving the cat, or planted some kind of flag.
I pulled my first-period textbook from the drawer and asked,
"So you climbed up and carried the cat down yourself?"
"Yeah! But the cat started thrashing around and almost ripped my uniform jacket. Luckily a first-year freshman nearby helped me get it down safely."
"...Was it a girl?"
"Obviously! And it was Shin Yuna—the famous idol trainee! I even got her number right then and there."
See? He's already unlocked a junior heroine route.
As expected, every minute of that guy's life was a continuous stream of events. A loud, flashy existence completely different from mine—and one most people would envy.
Not that I was envious, of course. Even in a world that allowed harems and polygamy, people still didn't look kindly on one person monopolizing a bunch of romantic interests.
Though when you think about it, Lee Hyunwoo—with his overwhelming diamond-spoon background and actual talent—probably doesn't have that problem...
Anyway, from then until the homeroom teacher arrived, I just nodded along appropriately to his empty hero stories.
And around the time his endless talking finally began to quiet down, the noisy atmosphere inside the classroom started to settle as well. A very familiar set of footsteps was approaching from the hallway.
Lee Hyunwoo must have instinctively recognized the homeroom teacher's footsteps too, because he quickly switched seats back to normal and opened his first-period textbook.
The morning class bells rang one after another, and at last the melody signaling lunchtime poured from the school speakers.
As always, I had decided to skip the cafeteria meal today. I stood up and headed straight into the hallway. While the flood of students poured toward the cafeteria like an outgoing tide, I turned the opposite direction and made my way toward the fifth-floor stairs with slightly hurried steps.
There was a tiny worry that curious new students, exploring every corner of the school for the new semester, might stumble across my workshop.
But the multipurpose room tucked away in the corner of the fifth floor was just as quiet as yesterday. When I opened the door, the dust—slightly less than the day before—greeted me once again.
Thankfully, no one's taking any interest.
I set my bag down, hung my outer jacket on the chair, and immediately walked over to the Agrippa bust whose basic form I had blocked out yesterday. I'd already roughly built up the shoulders and neck, so now it was time to fill in the volume of the most important part—the head.
I had just unwrapped the oil clay from its bag, set it on the workboard, and was about to start kneading when—
Rattle— bang—!
Exactly like a déjà vu of yesterday, the tightly closed multipurpose room door burst open with a racket. The dynamic entrance style made it unnecessary to check who the intruder was.
I stopped pressing the lump of oil clay and turned my gaze toward the door.
There stood Choi Sua, arms full of bread, instant sausages, and banana-flavored milk that looked like she'd just raided the school store.
"Hoo... hah! Thank you for today's daily bread!"
She was panting, about to kick the door shut with her foot, when she spotted me standing in front of the workboard and froze solid. Her eyes darted rapidly between my face and the pile of store snacks clutched to her chest.
"...Oh, Junior Sihun was here too?"
Her voice was thick with fluster. She awkwardly rolled her eyes, then thrust one of the red-bean buns toward me.
"W-want one?"
"...If you're offering, I'll gratefully accept."
Haa, yesterday I got carried away by the mood and said something useless like 'come by whenever you want.'
I never expected to feel the consequences in less than a day... Of course, regretting it now was water under the bridge.
I walked over without a word, took the bread she held out, and asked flatly,
"Who were you running from today?"
At my question, Choi Sua dumped the snacks in her arms onto an empty desk with a clatter, as if she'd been waiting for the chance, and launched into a rant.
"Don't even get me started! Today every kind of weirdo was crawling out of the woodwork."
She pulled out a wooden chair with practiced ease, sat down, and immediately tore open a sausage wrapper. This girl knew how to eat.
"I mean, one guy was going on about how the back seat of his motorcycle was empty and we should go see the ocean at dawn after school. Another total psycho was bragging to me about the money he made from illegal online gambling! I was seriously speechless!"
"I see. I didn't realize even Hanyoung High—one of the top five schools in the country—had thugs like that."
I tore open the bread packaging, stuck a piece in my mouth, and returned to the turntable. I started pounding the oil clay on the workboard with my fist, softening the texture of the lump.
Behind me, Choi Sua—whom I'd only known for two days—was dumping her personal TMI all over the place exactly like yesterday.
"Just because the water at the top is clear and clean doesn't mean the gravel underneath isn't the same!"
She had clearly forgotten my request from yesterday not to interrupt while I worked. Between the wet slap and roll of clay hitting the board, her high-pitched voice kept boring in without pause.
"I really want to report every single one of them, but I have to manage my image too—do you know how hard that is?"
My once-quiet personal space felt like it had turned into a complete mess in an instant. Still, I didn't try to shut her up. Once I entered university and joined the sculpture department, I'd have to get used to working in the same space as other people anyway. I decided to treat this as training for keeping my focus amid noise.
I tossed out only the occasional "Ah, yes," or "I see," while concentrating every nerve on the sensation at my fingertips.
After she had talked alone for quite a while and nearly finished off the bread and milk she'd brought, Choi Sua's voice—having thoroughly vented every complaint piled up inside her—finally began to fade. Soon only the sound of clay being kneaded remained in the workshop.
At the same time, as if she had finally read the room, I felt a cautious presence behind me checking my reaction.
"Um... sorry. Thinking about it, I talked way too much, didn't I?"
Her voice was completely deflated and sheepish. When I glanced back, Choi Sua was fidgeting with the empty milk carton. The pitiful image of her slumped over the desk yesterday overlapped with the present one, leaving a faintly uncomfortable feeling in a corner of my chest.
I wiped the clay from my hands on my apron and spoke in a deadpan tone.
"No. I just treated it as a slightly noisy white noise while I worked, so it was fine. More than that, you can't even go to school comfortably—you really have it rough every day."
It was a blunt, somewhat clumsy attempt at comfort. But the moment I finished speaking, Choi Sua set down the milk carton she'd been fiddling with and simply stared at me.
Sitting by the window where sunlight slanted in, her eyes fixed on me wavered ever so slightly.
Talk about a photoshoot. She looks like she walked straight out of a painting.
After holding that silence for a moment, Choi Sua finally curved the corners of her lips into the tiniest smile.
"Still, thanks to you I feel a little better inside. Is this the kind of feeling that makes kids want to get close to juniors... no, to younger guys?"
She muttered something I couldn't quite parse, then brought her thumb and index finger together and raised them to her lips. She made a show of zipping her mouth shut, then winked one eye and whispered,
"From now on I'll really keep my mouth shut and just watch quietly."
"......"
I briefly doubted how long that vow would last, but I nodded once without a word. Then I went back to diligently tearing pieces off the oil clay lump.