I was always somewhere around first or second in my class, and I guess I could draw pretty well too.
What are you going to be?
That question was slowly turning into something real.
As a kid, sure, you just blurt out whatever — a scientist! the president! an astronaut!
But now it was starting to actually collide with reality.
What was I going to do?
Physics, chemistry, biology, earth science — I always found those fun.
Korean, English, math were unbearably boring.
So, science, maybe?
Except that meant going the science track, which required Math I and Math II as mandatory subjects.
While I was going back and forth on all this, my art teacher came up to me and asked,
“Want to try drawing?”
I thought, what kind of nonsense is this — but by the time I got home and thought it over, it actually started to make sense.
Designer?
Painter?
Sounded kind of cool, thinking about it.
Plus it was humanities track — just regular math required.
So I enrolled at the art academy a close friend was already going to.
It was about a 30-minute bus ride, and looking back, it was good in all sorts of ways — getting to know a new neighborhood on the way, meeting new friends, and as a bonus, the art academy was full of pretty girls.
Do pretty girls go into art, or does art make you pretty?
Either way, it wasn’t a bad deal.
I had a consultation with the academy director, who said I studied well and had decent fundamentals, so let’s aim for Hongik.
There were eleven departments — Industrial Design, Visual Design, Printmaking, Sculpture, Oriental Painting, Ceramics, Painting — and Painting looked coolest to me, so I set my sights there, and my life at the Sadang-dong academy began.
It wasn’t the cool, painting-focused academy life I’d imagined, though.
Every single day was grinding out sketches and watercolors to fit the entrance-exam rubric.
My shoulders ached like they were about to fall off, my eyes were tired enough to pop out of my head, day after day.
But alongside that came a chance to enjoy a bit of rebellion too — the art kids apparently had good taste in music as well, so we traded good tips and good songs, and before I knew it exam season was on top of us.
I poured over twelve hours a day into the academy, prepared as thoroughly as I could.
The results were brutal, though.
I applied to three schools — Sejong University, Chung-Ang University, and Hongik University — and only got an acceptance letter from Sejong.
Rejected everywhere else.
The following year I switched academies to one in Hongdae called Saramdeul Art Academy.
My thinking was that to actually get into Hongik, I needed to quickly absorb whatever the latest trends were at the academies near campus.
But that opened a Pandora’s box.
In 1995, Hongdae was genuinely an up-and-coming, exploding hip neighborhood.
I’d wander around to live shows, and there was even a café that played MTV videos all day long — something that was hard to come by back then.
I needed more academic study too, so I enrolled at a place in Noryangjin called Jeil Academy, known for being brutal but effective for retaking the exam.
It was a prison, plain and simple.
The academy was a five-story building completely wrapped in iron bars, and once you walked in in the morning, you couldn’t leave until it let out at 5.
There was a girl there I’d occasionally lock eyes with, and it didn’t feel bad.
Who is this bold, blank-slate kind of girl?
Eh, probably nothing, whatever.
Honestly, up to that point I’d never had a girlfriend and never even seriously thought about it — I’d definitely thought about approaching girls countless times, but I never had the confidence, and that petty fear of getting rejected never once gave me the courage to make the first move.
We’d talk here and there, and since her academy happened to be just three buildings down from mine, we’d sometimes walk together after study hours on our way to the art academy.
One morning I got to the academy and she was slumped over her desk asleep, eyes completely hollow.
At lunch, she came up to me.
“It’s your birthday, right?”
“Huh? Oh — is it?”
“Here, take this.”
It was a T-shirt.
I unfolded it.
Something was off.
It was a Nirvana shirt, but Kurt’s face and the band’s logo were bumpy, textured.
Huh, I thought, do they even have printing tech like this these days?
“Wow, thanks — when’s your birthday?”
— in my awkwardness, that’s what came out of me.
When’s your birthday.
God, what a clueless idiot.
I looked at the shirt more closely.
Wait.
Wait, what?
It was drawn.
It had actually been drawn by hand.
She said she’d stayed up all night drawing it.
What the hell — how?
Why me?
Was this girl even in her right mind?
That evening we had soju together.
We went to Woodstock in Sinchon, had a bit more beer, and walked out.
We ended up walking across Mapo Bridge.
It was pouring rain, hard, for a long time.
We were soaked through.
Neither of us cared.
It was early morning by the time we made it to Sindaebang.
One more stop and we’d be at her place, but our legs were aching, so we got on the subway — not too crowded yet.
Sillim Station.
I was supposed to get off.
I didn’t want to.
I let it pass.
We kept talking a bit more, and I think I dozed off.
When I woke up, we were back at Sindaebang.
We ended up circling Line 2 twice like that before I finally walked her home, then walked back myself.
My steps were light, and everyone heading to work looked happy.
I got smacked on the back by my mom, showered, ate breakfast, and headed off to the academy.
That was the start of my very first relationship — with Hyoseon.