Golden Print [EN]: Chapter 20

Even though they were in the same year, Woojin was meeting Jayden for the first time. Jayden had missed the orientation for new students, and his main classes were in section A, unlike Woojin who was in a different section. But today, their ‘Visual Graphics’ class was together for all first-year students, no matter which section they were in. They happened to meet in the department lounge at the same time. Even though it was Woojin’s first time meeting Jayden, Sunbin already knew him. Sunbin had been the one chatting with Jayden on the entrance ceremony day, the day Woojin had only shown up briefly before disappearing quickly.

“This is the freshman lounge, right, Jayden?”

“Oh, you found it.”

Jayden was British, but he spoke Korean fluently.

He was of mixed heritage, with a British father and a Korean mother.

His mixed Korean and British background made him very handsome. He was as tall as Sunbin and looked like a model.

Woojin, meeting Jayden for the first time, greeted him with a slightly awkward expression.

“I’m Seo Woojin. You must be Jayden?”

“Oh, Woojin! I’ve heard about you from Sunbin.”

“Umm… Heard what?”

“That you’re a Modeling master?”

“What? A master of what?”

Woojin looked at Sunbin, confused. Sunbin scratched the back of his head and shrugged.

Sunbin had only told Jayden that Woojin was really good at making architectural models. Jayden had just exaggerated a bit.

Seeing Woojin’s confusion, Jayden grinned and casually extended his hand.

“Anyway, nice to meet you, bro.”

“Nice to meet you too.”

Woojin shook Jayden’s hand and smiled. It was English that Woojin disliked, not British people. And Jayden’s cheerful and handsome first impression was quite favorable. Jayden was more talkative than expected, but he seemed like a fun friend.

“So, Woojin is two years older than me, so is he ‘hyong’?”

“Not ‘hyong,’ but ‘hyung’.”

“Okay. Hyong.”

Woojin started to really like Jayden, especially because Jayden was interested in taking the same extra classes as him. Suddenly, course registration, which had seemed difficult, felt a little easier because of Jayden.

“Woojin hyung, are you going to take ‘Understanding Global Culture’?”

“Pick one, Jayden, either ‘hyung’ or ‘you’.”

“That’s not the important thing, Woojin.”

“Then?”

“The important thing is that I signed up for that elective class.”

“Oh…? Really?”

Woojin was interested in what Jayden said. If he was with a British person who spoke Korean well, it would be worth trying, even if it was a class taught in the original language.

‘Besides, it’s a Pass or Non-Pass class. This could be a real steal!’

In fact, if it weren’t for the language barrier…

‘Understanding Global Culture’ was a class that was as good as ‘Humanities Reading,’ which Hyejin had successfully registered for.

With such an excellent translator, it was a class he couldn’t refuse.

“Alright. Let’s do it!”

Woojin, who had been fiddling with the mouse while talking to Jayden, quickly opened the course registration page and added the new elective to his schedule.

Ding-!

[‘You have successfully registered for the ‘Understanding Global Culture’ course.’]

Right after Woojin registered, the ‘Understanding Global Culture’ class became full and turned red on the screen. Sunbin, who was watching, looked slightly envious.

“Wow, this hyung. You’ve totally hit the jackpot?”

“Heh heh. Life is all about timing.”

Sunbin had also succeeded in registering for his classes like Hyejin. But if he had known that Jayden was taking this class, he would have wanted to change one of his subjects.

“What are you going to do about the remaining two credits now?”

“Well… I’ll have to look for them little by little.”

Woojin looked up at the clock. There were about twenty minutes left before the major class started.

‘Since I saved one subject, should I go grab a coffee?’

He was a little dazed because he had gone to bed late yesterday. Woojin wanted coffee to wake up and avoid falling asleep in class. Besides, thanks to those two guys, he had also snagged a decent elective…

“Sunbin, Jayden. Want to go to the main building and grab a coffee before class starts? I’ll buy you a cup.”

Woojin was willing to buy his younger friends a cup of coffee each.

“Sure.”

“Treat me? Nice.”

With that, Woojin took the two lanky fellows and headed to the cafe on the first floor of the main building.

Visual Graphics, like Basic Drafting, was one of the required major classes for freshmen in Spatial Design. The Visual Graphics class taught the basic design tools, like Photoshop and Illustrator, needed to show their ideas visually.

Compared to other main classes, Visual Graphics was easier and didn’t require a very experienced professor.

The professor in charge of this Visual Graphics course was Lee Arang, a part-time lecturer in her early thirties who was teaching in the Spatial Design department for the first time this year.

Even though it was an easier class, it still needed a qualified part-time lecturer to teach it.

Before being a part-time lecturer, Lee Arang was a senior from K University’s Spatial Design department. She was a promising talent who would soon be given the title of assistant professor.

“Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve been to school.”

Lee Arang got out of her car and looked around the campus, remembering her student days. It had already been nine years since she had received her diploma here. Quite a long time had passed, but the school hadn’t changed.

‘From today, I’ll be… teaching the new freshmen?’

Lee Arang was class of ’97, and this year’s freshmen were class of ’10. Although there was a 13-year difference in class year, Lee Arang was still more comfortable with the title of ‘senior’ than ‘professor’.

Clack, clack—went Lee Arang’s heels on the polished floor. Her heart gave a little flutter of nerves as she stepped inside the Department of Design building. It smelled faintly of coffee and new computers. The building was modern, all glass and steel, letting in bright morning light. As she walked down the hallway towards the lecture hall, she saw someone she knew.

“Well, well, look who it is!” Arang said, smiling. “Kim Yunho, is that really you?”

“Senior! You’re teaching today?”

“Of course. Who else would want an old-timer like me to come teach?”

“Haa… Senior, I’m a fossil now too. Don’t say such sad things.”

Kim Yunho, who was working as an assistant in the department office, was a student from the class of ’03. Lee Arang had worked in the same position when he was a freshman.

Yunho greeted Arang warmly and offered to show her to the lecture hall.

“It’s at the end of that hallway, Senior. The biggest computer lab.”

“Okay, thanks, Yunho. Let’s grab dinner together later.”

“Sure, Senior. See you then!”

After exchanging friendly words with her junior, whom she hadn’t seen in a while, Lee Arang shook off the slight nervousness and walked towards the lecture hall.

Creak—

A moment later, her first class began.

Woojin even bought a coffee from the café. His attitude in class was very different from his attitude during Basic Drafting.

He felt a little bad for sleeping in Basic Drafting class. But that wasn’t the only reason he was paying attention now.

Unlike Basic Drafting, where he already knew most of the material, the Visual Graphics class taught tools that Woojin had wanted to learn for a long time.

‘I need to learn Photoshop and Illustrator well while I have the chance,’ he thought.

It would be a mistake to think that architectural designers, who build structures in three-dimensional space, don’t need 2D design tools.

Even the most famous designers need to get approval from their clients before finalizing a design.

To persuade those clients, they have to present beautiful proposals, from the floor plan to the elevation, the side view, and the exterior design.

It’s only natural to show these drawings to the client before building anything. And people tend to think the contents are better if the proposal looks good.

Also, the perspective view of a building modeled in 3D looks much more believable after some Photoshop magic.

It’s like how you can completely change a person by photoshopping their portrait.

So, Woojin really wanted to learn Photoshop and Illustrator.

‘Photoshop and Illustrator are essential for making a portfolio, too,’ he thought.

Woojin listened to the class with great enthusiasm. Sooyeon and Hyejin, who were sitting next to him, were surprised.

“What’s this? Are you the same person as yesterday?”

“Wow, look at him concentrating now that a pretty professor has arrived.”

“Oppa, do you like older women?” Hyejin asked playfully. Woojin knew ‘Oppa’ is a way for a younger girl to address an older boy.

“That’s not it……” Woojin replied.

Professor Lee Arang was quite pretty, so there were some minor misunderstandings. But it was hard to explain everything.

‘I already know Basic Drafting, and I need to learn this because I don’t know it well,’ he couldn’t exactly say that, could he?

“Instead of teasing me, why don’t you try drawing lines one more time?” he suggested.

“Wow, acting like a model student.”

“But I am.”

“At least wet your lips before you lie, Oppa.”

Woojin diligently attended class, even with the two troublemakers nearby. The three-hour practical session quickly passed.

“Alright, I’ll see you all next week, everyone. The class representative should collect the assignments and send them to me by email the day before class.”

“Yes, Professor.”

As soon as the Visual Graphics class ended, Woojin started moving busily again. His destination was Euljiro. Today was another busy day.

Sitting on the bus to Euljiro, Woojin suddenly thought of Jayden. He had just met him today, but Jayden had the most interesting personality of all the classmates he had met so far.

‘How did that guy end up enrolling in our school? There are many more famous architecture schools in England,’ he wondered.

Although he didn’t show it when he was with Jayden, Woojin felt uneasy when he looked at him.

Jayden clearly had an unusual background, but for some reason, he felt strangely familiar. Woojin couldn’t understand his feeling of unease.

‘A mixed-race child born to an English father and a Korean mother… And Jayden. Why does that name sound so familiar?’ he thought.

It couldn’t be from a past life. Woojin, who hated English, had no foreign friends in his past life.

‘Is it just my imagination? Is it because he’s being too friendly?’

Woojin sat by the bus window, watching the cityscape and letting his thoughts wander. The cityscape included tall buildings and busy streets.

Suddenly, a memory popped into Woojin’s head, and he almost jumped up from his seat.

‘Wait a minute…! The architectural designer Taylor. Now that I think about it, Taylor’s first name was Jayden, wasn’t it?’

At the same time, the unidentified sense of unease he had felt from Jayden began to make sense.

‘Jayden Taylor. Why couldn’t I think of that?’

Before Woojin’s regression, Jayden Taylor had debuted as an architectural designer in his mid-30s and gained fame in Europe as a genius architect.

Despite being a European architect, he became very famous in Korea because he was of Korean descent.

Moreover, the work that made him a star architect was a building built in Hannam-dong, Seoul. So it was natural that he became famous in Korea.

Woojin vaguely remembered his face from magazines.

‘Yeah, that’s right. I’m sure of it. That funny, lanky guy I saw earlier is definitely Jayden Taylor.’

Woojin, having learned something he hadn’t expected, wore a peculiar expression.

To think that one of the architects he had admired in his past life had become a classmate in the same department and year. It felt unreal.

But one question remained for Woojin.

Why hadn’t Woojin easily remembered Jayden Taylor until now, even though he had heard the name Jayden?

‘Hmm, but Taylor definitely said he was from AA School… Why is he here, then?’

In his past life, designer Jayden Taylor’s alma mater was the prestigious AA School in England. So how did he end up enrolling as a freshman in the class of ’10 at K University?

‘Did the future change because of me? That doesn’t make sense…….’

No matter how much the butterfly effect could cause a storm, it didn’t make sense that Woojin’s regression would change Taylor’s school.

It wasn’t as if it had been several years since the point of regression.

But Woojin decided not to worry about it anymore.

What was important to Woojin now was that a future star architect had become a classmate, and he had somehow gotten the chance to become friends with him.

‘This is getting too interesting, isn’t it? It seems like school life is getting more and more fun.’

Woojin, thinking of Jayden’s playful face, smiled. He had a fun picture in his head.

Golden Print