What Lua Can't Do
I might sound a little harsh saying this, but I honestly think Lua is a complete cheat character.
Her looks are outstanding, her voice is gorgeous, and maybe because of that she sings beautifully whenever we have music assessments, she can play the piano, and she's insanely good at sports.
Academics? Don't even get me started. Right now she's the undisputed number one student at our school.
She's the real deal — a genuine cheat character who checks every single box people mean when they say "someone else's perfect daughter." That person is Lua Im.
And today, for the first time, I got to see something Lua couldn't do. What was it?
"Uuuuugh…"
…Art.
Looking only at her face, I'd assumed she'd be good at drawing too, but it was a complete surprise.
Come to think of it, Lua had never really liked drawing since we were kids. So that was why.
"…Lua."
"What."
She was snappier than usual, and I almost didn't dare speak — but I still had to say it.
"…That part over there looks kind of warped."
—Flinch!
Lua flinched and glared at me, like she was saying mind your own business.
No way. Maximum interference, coming right up.
"Lua, when you draw a line, don't keep going over it again and again — just draw it through."
"Draw it through?"
"Yeah. Not necessarily in a single stroke, but don't use a ton of those little sketchy lines."
"Uuuuuum…"
She didn't seem to get it, so I looked at her and demonstrated the lines.
—Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh.
Exactly three strokes. In exactly three strokes, a pretty decent circle was done.
"See?"
"Uuuuuum…"
Lua tilted her head, then asked me a question.
"…What if I mess up?"
"What?"
"If I do it in three long strokes like that and mess up, I'll have to erase a lot more."
It sounded almost reasonable, but it wasn't reasonable at all. Why?
"…That's not something the person who spent ten minutes drawing nothing but little sketchy lines and still failed her circle should be saying."
"What did you just say."
The second she glared at me hard, I whipped my head away.
Any more than that and I was pretty sure she'd actually kill me.
"Ahem… Anyway, that's the idea. Don't be so scared of it — just think of whipping it out in two or three strokes."
"Easy for you to say…"
Even as she grumbled, Lua started trying to draw the circle the way I'd told her.
—Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh.
Just like I had, she split the line into three strokes.
…It didn't exactly go well.
She tried hard, but some things just don't work.
Still, I saw hope in those lines of hers.
"That's way better than before, though?"
It really was much better than earlier.
"…You're right. It does look a lot better than before."
Saying that, Lua erased the warped bits and started reinforcing the circle again.
Once she finished reinforcing it, she could finally draw a proper circle.
"How's this…? It's kind of okay, right…?"
Without a single second of hesitation, I nodded.
"It's really good."
"Thank goodness."
Lua let out a deep breath and nodded.
But "thank goodness" was a little premature. There was still more to go.
"Now you have to draw the shadow too. You gonna be okay?"
"The shadow… We're doing this until the week after next anyway."
"True."
"Then… I should try a few different things."
With that, Lua started looking at the art textbook, then at her circle, then back at the textbook, then at her circle again.
I don't know. It was such an honor-student approach that I couldn't help smiling.
Not because there was anything wrong with it. And definitely not because it was funny.
I smiled because that behavior itself was just so Lua.
Making a mistake is one thing — using a completely textbook method to make up for it. That was pure Lua.
Separately, the teacher had been pretty unhelpful with the explanation. It must have been tough for kids drawing for the first time.
As a side note, in my case I'd done a little art, briefly. I hadn't been good at it — I'd only learned the basics.
Thanks to that, I was already almost finished with my sphere.
Right. Today's topic was drawing a three-dimensional sphere with a light source and the shadow it cast.
A very easy, utterly foundational drawing exercise.
I'd almost finished that foundational drawing, and Lua stared at it before she started praising me.
"Jinwoo, you're amazing."
"…What's amazing about it?"
"Of course it's amazing. There are only two people in our class who finished as fast as you."
"Really?"
"Yeah, and those two are aiming for art school."
Ah, so that was why. I'd said I was fast, sure.
If they were aiming for art school, it made sense they'd be about as quick as me.
I shook my head and pushed back against her words.
"They still draw way better than me, though. I just draw this circle okay — their details are totally different."
And it was true. Their shadow detail was better than mine.
Really, they drew much better than I did.
Right after lunch, the second I got back to the classroom, the food coma started rolling in.
I was about to surrender to it and drift off when someone who apparently didn't like me sleeping spoke up.
"…Jinwoo, are you going to sleep?"
"Dunno."
"You are, though."
"…Pretty much."
I looked over at the person calling me while I was face-down on the desk: Lua.
She looked down at me and started poking my cheek with little jabs.
"What are you doing?"
"Waking you up."
"Yeah, but why specifically poke my cheek?"
"…Because it looks so different from mine?"
"How would a guy's cheek and a girl's cheek be the same? They're completely different."
"That's why I'm poking it."
It felt like her four-dimensional personality had kicked in.
I playfully puffed air into my cheek on purpose, and Lua burst into a giggle.
"What are you doing?"
"Putting air in my cheek."
"Pffft—hahaha."
She was cracking up over something that small. Well, at that age even watching a leaf roll by is entertainment. We were the same age, though.
While I was having that stupid thought, Lua hit me with an unexpected question.
"Jinwoo, have you ever learned art?"
"Art?"
"Yeah."
"No, never."
"Liar."
Liar, huh.
Yeah, it was a lie. I told her the truth again.
"I learned for about a month."
"You learned for about a month and the art teacher praised you?"
I didn't have anything to say, so I just nodded.
Right. I'd only studied art for one month, and with nothing but the shortcuts and know-how from that short stretch, I'd gotten praise from the art teacher.
You did way better than I expected, she'd said.
Unexpected praise, but honestly it had felt good. These days I didn't get praised for stuff like that very often.
"Maybe you have talent for art?"
"I dunno. Probably not."
"Why?"
"Because I can't draw well."
Lua tilted her head like she didn't understand and looked at me.
While I kept ignoring that gaze, I thought back to something from a year ago that Lua would never understand.
A year ago… around then, I'd gotten interested in VTubers.
The friends I'd made for the first time after starting high school had introduced me to that world, and once I dipped a toe in, it was completely my thing.
That was how I'd ended up working as a clipper, but before the clipper stuff, I'd actually wanted to try being an artist.
An artist who drew pictures of VTubers, I mean.
People say with AI you don't need artists? Still, I figured the joy and satisfaction of finishing something by hand would be on a whole other level.
So I signed up for an academy I'd never been interested in and never attended before, and started drawing.
And while I was drawing, I became sure of something.
I had no talent for drawing.
More precisely, I had a very middling talent. Too middling — the kind of talent that would take far too long to get where I wanted to go.
The kind of talent where I was sure my skill wouldn't climb steeply the way it did with video editing.
So after studying for about the month I'd paid for, I dropped art right away.
Instead I studied video harder, and now I'd gotten hooked on making videos.
…Though lately I did kind of regret it a little.
If I'd known I was going to meet Lulu — if I'd known my favorite who filled my heart would come along — I would have studied drawing a bit more.
Drawing Lulu in my own art style… that would have been so much fun.
Of course, right now I was busy making videos as a clipper and also fulfilling my duties as a student, so I figured I probably wouldn't pick drawing up again.
While I was lost in the past, Lua kept poking my cheek.
"Why do you keep poking me?"
"Because you're not looking at me?"
"…What are you talking about? I've been looking the whole time."
"You were thinking about something else."
I looked at Lua while she poked my cheek.
There was nothing calculated in her eyes — just pure playfulness — and from that behavior of hers, I could be sure of one thing.
The reason people kept misunderstanding that Lua and I were dating was that she contributed to it a lot more than I did.
If a girl acts this familiar with a guy, of course everyone is going to get the wrong idea.
Not my fault. All your fault. So next time we get that misunderstanding, you handle it.