H Has Gone Insane
The first time I ever put pencil to paper, I was convinced I was overflowing with talent.
"Oh my god! Honey, you have to see what our kid drew!"
"Wait — our son actually drew this?"
For my age, the pictures I produced were genuinely impressive. My first piece was a skeleton swordsman, the kind that showed up constantly in those afternoon cartoons. The lines were clean, and for a mere elementary schooler I even knew how to lay down some clumsy shading. At a glance, it could have passed for fan art some working professional had dashed off as a joke. That was the kind of reception my very first drawing received.
"Wow, this is genius-level work. He could debut as a painter right now."
"Right? See, teacher? I think our kid really has talent."
To anyone looking in from the outside, I would have seemed like a prodigy. So I believed it too. The moment I entered middle school, I threw myself onto the college-prep art track. This was the only road for me, I decided. Someday I was going to be a successful webtoon artist.
For all that resolve, I didn't actually work that hard at drawing. I had talent, after all. Unlike the other kids, I was already a few steps ahead — and that much was true. I entered a few school poster contests and even brought home prize money. My friends used to call me Golden Hands.
You could say the middle-school version of me was arrogant.
"Hmm... Se-won, you're going to need to put in more effort."
"At this level, a university in the capital region is a pipe dream."
That arrogance shattered the instant I moved up to the high-school class and stepped into a bigger pond. The world was crawling with people more talented than I was.
There was a guy at the prep academy who could paint a red apple so faithfully you'd try to take a bite out of it. There was a lunatic who loved anime characters so much he cranked out over twenty drawings of them a day. And there were plenty of kids who had gone to art high school and staked their entire lives on this path. The college-prep art scene was packed with people like that. I only figured it out after I entered the high-school division.
From then on, I had no choice but to get my head on straight. Of course, the self-loathing hit so hard at first that I dropped drawing entirely for about six months... but after that half year, I really did give it a proper shot. I went back to the basics like everyone else — spheres, cylinders, tetrahedrons. I alternated between those godawful gesture sketches and master copies, pumping out thirteen pieces a day.
The sense of volume actually started to click. Composition began to leap out at me. The high-school version of me worked my ass off.
......But apparently even that wasn't enough.
"You've been rejected."
"Well... you draw very well, but it doesn't quite seem like a fit for our university."
My first round of applications as a senior was a complete disaster. I got turned down by every school I applied to, and naturally ended up taking a gap year to try again.
Fine... just one more year. If it still doesn't work, I'll drop art school for good.
With that thought, I ran even harder. This time I drew like a man possessed. Last chance — I was going to do this like my life depended on it. I rented a closet-sized studio and repeated the same loop every day: sleep, draw, eat, draw. I even picked up weekend shifts to cover the money I was short.
But...
"We're truly sorry."
"We deliberated on this quite a bit."
Rejected again.
That was when I understood. Half-baked talent never beats the real geniuses. The kids who had been eating, sleeping, and breathing art since they were little were running on a completely different store of experience. That was when I gave up on art school.
......So what am I doing now?
I drew a nipple.
From flesh-tone to pink, from pink back to flesh-tone. I picked a color that felt like it lived somewhere in between and filled in the circle, and what came out was a rather atmospheric pinkish skin tone, blending naturally into the surrounding flesh.
Then I added a modest highlight. I established where the light was coming from and drew a thin white line in that direction. To anyone else's eye, it would look like a glossy, glistening nipple.
Once I had roughly filled in the color and shading, the thing was filthy as hell. The areola blooming off that ample breast was the finishing touch — the proverbial last stroke that brings the painted dragon to life. After working a little further, a completely nude woman sat finished on the canvas.
"......"
NSFW artist.
A job that wrung the filth out of other people's heads.
That was my current occupation. What I had started as a simple way to earn pocket money had become my actual career.
"Hah. Fucking finally done."
I stretched after finishing the piece. After about a year of this shit, I had gotten pretty good at it.
At first, every drawing drowned me in self-loathing, but once I got a taste of the money I could take even the weirdest commission requests without batting an eye. And the money was pretty damn decent. Thanks to it, I paid my studio rent without worry and could even indulge in a few small luxuries. Adding string cheese to a cup of fire-chicken ramen, say, or blasting the AC until the room turned into a meat locker on a hot day... that kind of thing.
"Save first."
I dumped the finished drawing into a folder and dropped my pants. Today's schedule was done, which meant it was time for a little happy hour. Given the nature of the job, drawing this stuff tended to build up a certain urge. When that happened, you had to let it out like this.
"Might as well do some research while I'm at it."
I made that excuse to myself and opened a website. A site whose name started with the letter H. A treasure trove where every artifact of human civilization gathered in one place.
It was a 2D kind of day rather than 3D. I scrolled down, looking forward to whatever had been posted.
And I couldn't help but swear on the spot.
"...The fuck?"
Everywhere I looked — nothing but flat chests. Muscular men, every last one of them, stripped naked.
"What the hell? Why is this all gay shit?"
I scrolled faster. But no matter how far I went, all that appeared were half-naked bastard dudes. When I hit one with a pink nipple highlighted for emphasis, I nearly threw up.
"Did the site get hacked?"
Or had some ass-bandit dumped a whole collection? Either way, it was fucked. My dick, which had been standing at attention, died on the spot. My face twisted like I had just bitten into a bug.
"Nope. Mood's gone. Completely gone."
Realizing today was not the day, I just shut the computer off. The excitement had already gone ice-cold. Even Dionysus would have packed up the party and gone home looking that gloomy.
How many people get screwed over because of one single ass-bandit? It was not just me and Dionysus. Tens of millions of fellow strokers who had logged on dripping with anticipation had all taken damage. The casualties were practically astronomical.
Uploader bastard. If I ever find you, you're dead.
"I need a drink."
Thoroughly pissed off, I decided to have a few to take the edge off. It was a beer-and-butter-squid kind of night. There happened to be a convenience store near my place, so I threw on some clothes and headed out.
The door swung open with a chime.
Behind the counter was a single part-timer. A woman with medium-length hair that fell to her shoulders and a bright, approachable face. That is right — a woman. And she looked every bit the social butterfly, too.
Now, online I was a Casanova who ogled every female character's naked body imaginable, but in real life I was a total recluse with zero immunity to actual women. Naturally, there was a vast, unbridgeable wall between me and people like her.
"Ah."
Then she spotted me and started to greet me.
"Welco— ...huh?"
Or rather, she tried to. The moment she saw me, she froze mid-bow. She just stopped, as if her gaze had locked onto me and refused to move.
...What?
I tilted my head at the bizarre behavior. Was it how I looked? Yeah, I did look pretty pathetic. Three-stripe slippers, shorts, a tank top with a tracksuit jacket thrown over it. I was the textbook shut-in bum. Yeah — that would make anyone stop and stare.
"Hello."
The awkward silence was uncomfortable, so I gave a rough nod of greeting and ducked toward the side shelves. Recluses have a disease where they die if a social person's gaze stays on them too long. I needed to get out of her field of vision before my HP bar hit zero.
Humming under my breath, I started a pleasant little shopping trip. First, two cans of beer, light and easy. Then a pack of butter squid. While I was at it, I grabbed a bag of chips too. That should be enough to empty both beers for sure.
Arms full of snacks, I headed for the counter. Even then, the convenience store girl's eyes were still nailed to me. Her gaze bounced around, using me as the center point. Then she seemed to snap back to her senses, ducked her head, and spoke.
"Ah, I-I'm so sorry!"
She must have thought staring was rude. That bright face scrunched up in helpless panic. Anyone watching would have thought she had committed a capital crime. It really was not that big a deal. I had not felt anything particular about it, so I waved her off.
"Nah, it's fine. My fault for coming out looking like a slob."
She seemed so sorry that I told her it was okay, in a playful tone I almost never used, and even threw in an awkward smile. She looks like the social type. She'll take a joke like that, right?
She didn't. The clerk just froze solid, her gaze still nailed to my face.