Drinks This Evening
When you draw digitally, you've got no shortage of tools. Changing pen types, the eraser, sliders for sharpness and thickness, color adjustment, the fill bucket — and the one function you truly cannot live without, undo.
Plenty of features, sure. But of all of them, I took the layer function seriously.
What even is a layer?
Simple version: imagine draping a fresh sheet of transparent canvas over a drawing you've already made. You keep what you've already drawn separate from what you're about to draw, then stack them back together when you want to see the whole picture.
Hearing it explained like that, it might not click — might even sound pointless. For anyone who actually draws, though, it's a feature you literally cannot do without. Break a picture into parts and keep them separate, and revising or erasing later becomes dramatically easier.
Say you're working on a single layer and something needs fixing. You're painting a blue sky, but the clouds came out weird. Or you botched a line and undo won't save you. Your hand naturally reaches for the eraser, right? Just to wipe out that one section of cloud and redo it.
Except the moment you start scrubbing, the background goes with it. The eraser treats the clouds and the sky behind them as one single image. That's what happens when you don't split your layers. Result: you have to repaint a chunk of the sky just to fix one lousy cloud.
Layer separation is what stops that from happening. Layer 1 gets the vivid blue sky. Layer 2 gets the clouds that dress it up. Then if a cloud comes out ugly, you erase just the cloud. The eraser knows the two layers apart. That's the whole trick.
Break things down finely enough like that, and revisions get dozens of times easier. And that's not all — you can hide layers you don't need. A sloppy rough sketch. Guide lines you threw down for composition. Separate them onto their own layers and editing becomes a breeze.
Layer separation is king.
Back then, you would've been stuck with a single canvas.
It wasn't the digital age. There was no way they could have used conveniences like these. Splitting layers, undoing mistakes, filling in color — all of it would have been done by hand.
"Oh, fuuuck."
The curse slipped out on its own. I was genuinely, sincerely grateful I hadn't been born in the past.
My respects to the people of old.
...Alright. Enough of that nonsense.
Anyway, I was drawing.
The subject was reverse-rape content — by my original world's standards it was just regular rape, but when in Rome. A request that had come in a few hours ago. The composition was a man forcibly stripping a woman in a deserted alley... I'd drawn something like this a few times in the other world, too.
Everything I'd drawn since landing here had been complete garbage. This time, at least, it felt like I was drawing something that actually suited my tastes.
"Been a while since I did a two-shot."
The reason being: there was a woman in the picture.
How much garbage had I been churning out? Nothing but brutal solo shots of naked guys. I'd only been here six or seven days, but that was more than enough to wreck my mental health. And now I was drawing a woman. How could I not be happy?
It was like stumbling on a tiny oasis in the middle of the desert.
Thanks to that, I was working fast. I'd been sitting in this chair drawing for about six hours, and most of the work was already done. Rough to lineart, lineart to coloring. Now I just needed to drop in some shadows and punch up a few details, and it'd be finished.
It'd been so long since I'd drawn something I actually liked that the focus on the woman was a little heavy-handed, but...
She'll understand.
I'd drawn what the commissioner asked for. I just hoped they'd be satisfied.
That's enough for today.
I set down the tablet pen. Six hours of focus, and it was already past midnight. Plus I had university again tomorrow.
"Nnngh..."
I stretched hard and stood up. The drawing looked like it'd be done tomorrow. Not much left — a little more time and it'd be finished in no time.
So I'd wrap it up tomorrow... and I thought briefly about tomorrow's classes. That's when one of Lee Se-won's memories surfaced.
One major lecture at 1 PM.
"...Oh."
Jackpot.
For once, it wasn't a 9 AM class. I'd been dragging myself out of bed at eight every morning — tomorrow I could actually sleep in.
And even better: tomorrow was Friday.
One more day of school and I could rot at home like a complete shut-in. I was so happy I almost teared up.
"Hnngk."
What a brutal week this had been. Suddenly the internet was overflowing with gay pics, I was drawing naked dudes right along with it, and I'd even ended up at a university I never signed up for, getting psychologically abused.
But that was over now. Survive tomorrow and I'd have at least two days to live like a total bum.
Now that's what I call sex. What's sex even supposed to be, anyway? Going to bed late and sleeping in. When everyday life is this rough, even a little pleasure like that counted as sex.
And so, for the first time in a while, I fell asleep in a good mood.
"Zzz..."
Morning.
The alarm I'd set for around noon went off in a racket. I snapped my eyes open and sat up.
"Early bird, up and at 'em!"
It wasn't exactly early morning, but the world turns according to your own clock — so for me, this was morning. I'd slept well for the first time in a while, and my head felt pretty clear.
Good. In this condition, I was confident I wouldn't drag myself through campus only to collapse the second I got home.
I ate something half-assed, washed up quickly, and headed out. The streets were reasonably empty. Everyone was already at school or work. The subway was pretty spacious too. Normally it was packed so tight that scoring a seat was like picking stars out of the sky. Now there were so many open seats I could sit wherever I wanted.
The reward for dodging rush hour. I sat down in comfort.
"Hahh..."
Yeah. This was the feeling. The luxury of sitting with both sides empty. During commute hours, people were jammed in on both sides of you so tight it didn't even feel like sitting.
I wanted to savor that freedom, so I spread my legs a little. Not quite full manspreading, but close enough. A bit of public nuisance you can only get away with when there's room to spare.
Then, suddenly, I felt eyes on me.
"......?"
The gaze was coming from in front. I looked up. Two girls who looked like friends were staring right at me — mostly at my lower half.
Hm.
I was wearing shorts. A reasonable length that showed about half my thighs. Apparently that was a turn-on around here too. Their stares were pretty intense. Intense enough that they hadn't even noticed I was looking back.
I really don't get this place.
Honestly, being stared at didn't feel bad. But I figured I'd startle them a little, so I gave my foot a twitch — then stomped the floor hard.
Thud!
The girls flinched and jerked their eyes away, one of them breaking into a sudden cough. Something about it was weirdly cute. I snorted out a laugh.
My current looks were definitely doing some work. Those two weren't even the only women who'd been glancing at me on the way here. Every commute, there were always those little sidelong looks. My face must actually be pretty decent. That's why strangers keep staring.
But why don't I have any friends...?
The moment that question crossed my mind, another of Lee Se-won's memories shoved its way up.
I dumped every last one of them.
He's bragging. That bastard.
Thanks to him, I'm sitting here looking like a complete loser all by myself. Appreciate it, you asshole. On top of that, all the groups were already formed, so joining one wasn't easy. And honestly, I was just as socially anxious around crowds as the original Lee Se-won had been. Approaching people first wasn't happening.
So was I just going to spend the rest of college lonely like this...? While I was thinking that, one face flickered through my mind.
Lee Eun-byul.
We'd only met yesterday, but with that natural friendliness of hers we'd already dropped the formalities and swapped numbers. The only girl I actually knew at this university.
I wonder what she's thinking.
I still couldn't figure her out. Her behavior patterns made zero sense to me. Maybe she'd only approached me because of my looks? But that didn't feel quite right either... there were plenty of guys better looking than me. A face like hers could knock most guys flat, honestly.
While I was turning that over,
Now arriving at ——— Station—
I'd arrived at my destination without noticing. I stopped thinking and stood up. It was a question with no answer anyway. At least I knew one person at university now. I'd take that as a win for now.
Wonder if she'll even be around today.
She was in a different department, so running into her wouldn't be easy. And I'd come in late for an afternoon class. Probably wouldn't see her today.
And then, right as I thought that—
"Huh? Oppa!"
Someone called out to me the moment I stepped onto campus. Lee Eun-byul. The girl I'd just been thinking about. She came running over, her navy hair bouncing.
"Did you just get here?"
"Ah, yeah..."
"Must be an afternoon class, huh. I just finished one and I'm heading home."
She struck up a conversation the second she spotted me, all easy familiarity. That bright, beaming smile of hers was genuinely pretty. Looks like she'd had morning classes. She'd spotted me on her way home and come over to say hi.
It was a little disappointing that this would just be a brief run-in, but I figured that was how it went. I hadn't even been sure I'd see her today.
I was about to tell her to get home safe and head off when—
"Oh, wait — so you only have the one class today?"
she asked.
"Yeah, that's right."
I answered. Technically I had a drawing to finish at home, but there was no need to mention that. I was curious why she was asking.
"Why do you ask?"
"Then..."
Lee Eun-byul let the word hang for a moment, then said,