“Hmm?!”
At the few words Siyeon let slip, my jaw and spoon came to a halt.
Suddenly? What on earth happened? Did some brat at the academy pick on her?
Otherwise, there wouldn’t be a reason for her to quit the academy out of the blue…
With countless thoughts swirling in my head, my body felt frozen as if time had stopped.
In that moment when I couldn’t even muster the courage to ask ‘Why?’, Siyeon spoke first, looking surprised at the pause.
“Ah, it’s not that it doesn’t fit or anything…! I just want to try drawing alone now.”
As if she could read my thoughts, Siyeon calmly explained her reason for wanting to stop attending the academy.
“What? You scared me there for a second.”
Finally relieved, I chimed in with a few words of relief and took up my chopsticks again.
Now I was a bit reflective on my own inclination towards violence, considering who I might need to smack into a pancake next.
By the way, she wants to draw alone without the academy’s help starting now.
Can I think that she’s gained some confidence in her skills?
As this thought crossed my mind, I dipped a chicken nugget deep into some chili sauce and popped it into my mouth.
“So, can you show me your drawings now?”
“Hmm… a few pieces?”
While she wasn’t overly confident about perfectly drawing alone, Siyeon said she could show me a few pieces.
Immediately after our meal, I washed the dishes without dragging it out too long.
I rubbed my hands on a towel clipped onto the cabinet handle to dry them, then leisurely made my way to her room.
Just then, I found Siyeon connecting the tablet to the PC, fiddling with the pen.
Even after returning from the academy, she seemed to be pretty motivated to draw on her own.
“What are you going to show me?”
“Ah, this isn’t it… but I can show you that!”
When I barged into her room and asked, Siyeon hurriedly used Alt + Tab to escape from whatever she was just engrossed in.
She must have had a satisfactory complete piece because she double-clicked one of the files on her desktop to show me.
It was a well-drawn male character, though there was no background.
From my perspective, the proportions weren’t odd at all, and nothing stood out as bothersome in that one drawing.
While it lacked a striking personality, it felt like one among countless images uploaded to art sites, blending in without feeling out of place.
As if waiting for my reaction, Siyeon left the drawing up and kept an eye on me.
No need to wrap up my thoughts in fluff; I expressed my feelings honestly.
“Nice job! There’s nothing weird about it, right?”
“R-really? But there are still a few awkward spots…”
Though she claimed there were awkward parts, she seemed pleased to hear my compliment, lowering her head slightly and sheepishly scratching her neck.
From my perspective, not being knowledgeable in artistry, I wasn’t sure about the awkward bits…
It was simply a fantastic drawing of a male character.
After my first compliment, it seemed she gained some confidence, starting to show me other drawings, too.
“This one….”
Among them were two relatively familiar female characters.
Dressed in fluttering outfits, they were the Magical Girl Sun character and the Moon character that I’d seen at the convention.
Along with them were a teddy bear character and a long, snake-like character.
Though they had been cute-ified in character form, given this combination…
Just as I was about to voice my guesses, Siyeon jumped in and explained first.
“That’s us transformed, plus Baemi and the Bear—weird, right?”
“Um….”
Siyeon’s question left me unable to instantly say no.
It looked like she had drawn it during a time when her skills were still clumsy, with many obvious awkward and unfinished parts.
“I-I’ll redraw this later!”
Seemingly embarrassed by how it turned out, Siyeon hurriedly pressed the arrow key to flip to the next drawing.
Compared to the others, the quality of this drawing was notably lower; was it one she decided to keep instead of deleting?
Well, whatever the case, that was Siyeon’s plan.
Believing one must experience the harshness of the world to learn, she considered creating a personal account on a platform to continuously upload her drawings.
Surprisingly, she had made such plans in secret, and I was once again taken aback.
As someone who knew little about the art world, I could only offer her encouragement to do well.
“So, are you really quitting the academy?”
“Yep, it’s time for the real thing!”
Siyeon clenched her fists tightly and enthusiastically confirmed that she’d be leaving the academy.
Just like that, she decisively cut ties with the art academy she had attended for less than a year.
She mentioned how there are many good videos teaching how to draw these days, so it seemed she intended to continue her studies from home.
Occasionally watching Siyeon draw was intriguing; I’d see her effortlessly sketch a few lines and then produce a completed character.
“How can she draw like that?”
As I continued to watch her in fascination, I naturally found myself getting curious.
I began to wonder how others drew their art and started looking up videos here and there.
The characters’ head shapes, bodies, arms, joints, etc.
It seemed a complicated process, as she would lump everything together as a foundational guide, then layer on clothes or hair based on that.
It felt quite different from Siyeon, who would just draw lines directly on the blank page to create characters.
When I shared such thoughts with the bear cub, he replied with clarity.
“You’re talented.”
Gomteng firmly declared Siyeon’s talent without hesitation.
I wore a face that read, “Is that so?” while he continued recounting stories of artists he had heard online, claiming they found human proportions difficult and that their eyes seemed cross-eyed, as if the stories were his own.
Compared to those tales, Siyeon’s artistic results were quite decent relative to the time she spent.
At the end of such tales, he mixed in his honest opinion.
“Since she hasn’t even drawn for a year, that’s pretty impressive.”
“Oh, really….”
Hearing Gomteng’s honest feedback, I answered rather nonchalantly.
While I think Siyeon is amazing for being serious about her hobby, such talk about her talent did not resonate strongly with me.
After all, while browsing the internet, I came across a stunning array of artwork, and I still didn’t fully grasp things yet.
As these thoughts rolled around in my head, Gomteng asked me a question hinting at his own curiosity.
“By the way, what site are you uploading your drawings to?”
“I didn’t really ask that….”
It seems he also shows interest in Siyeon’s art activities.
A site where Siyeon’s drawings are uploaded?
I remember hearing that she created an account, but I had no clue which site it was.
Naturally, since it’s art seen by family, it would be somewhat limited in terms of content and freedom…
I had often heard artists around me say they didn’t share that they were drawing comics, so I didn’t bother asking.
When I replied I didn’t ask that much, he let out a short grunt, seemingly displeased.
“Hmmm, I worry it might be diving into the abyss….”
“The abyss? What abyss?”
Unable to ignore the oddly negative undertone in his muttering, I asked back what he meant by “abyss.”
The abyss regarding artwork—what on earth does that mean?
He then appeared surprised, as if scolding me for not knowing, and quickly pressed forward.
“Don’t you know about it?”
“What? What is it?”
He dismissed with vague terms like ‘that’ and ‘abyss.’
When I asked again with a genuinely puzzled expression, Gomteng’s face became serious.
Then he let out a deep sigh and pointed at his smartphone, seeming to really not want to say it.
“Ugh… Just search for ‘Commission Troubles’ on X.”
“What’s with all the fuss….”
I hesitantly did as told and typed it in the search engine.
Suddenly, a post from a gallery caught my eye, pulling my attention instantly.
[Commission Villain (334)]
Commission—ordering or requesting, it generally means the transaction of creative requests.
But why a word like ‘commission’ is stuck with ‘villain’ doesn’t look right from the title itself.
Inside, just as Gomteng had said, was the ‘bottom of the abyss.’
People taking animal photos from video games asking, “Can I get this character in a lewd way?” with confused replies of “Huh?” from the commissionees.
Moreover, there were crazed individuals spelling out the bizarre fruits of their sexual desires through text.
It was a tableau of insanity where utterly ludicrous terms were thrown into requests for drawings, impossible to summarize even in words.
“Did you see that?”
“Stuff like this, just keep to yourself.”
On that day, a middle school girl felt nauseated and couldn’t eat her late-night snack.
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