Golden Print [EN]: Chapter 8

Woojin was curious about Kim Kitae’s role at the school.

‘He’s definitely not a freshman. Maybe a teaching assistant or something…’

Woojin, having served in the military, was older than most freshmen.

Kim Kitae looked about three years older, making it very unlikely he was a freshman.

‘Besides, he probably hasn’t even served in the military…’

Woojin thought Kim Kitae looked older than a typical student. He wondered if Kim Kitae could be a teaching assistant, someone who helps the professors.

But Woojin’s guess was a bit off.

Kim Kitae was still a student, the president of the Spatial Design Department’s student association.

“Hello, everyone! Freshmen, welcome! I’m Kim Kitae, your Spatial Design Department student president!” Kim Kitae’s voice boomed through the speakers. Cheers erupted from the freshmen, loud and excited. To them, seeing him for the first time, Kim Kitae was impressive – a handsome older student, leading the department.

But Woojin just frowned. *That voice,* he thought, a cold feeling settling in his stomach. *Disgusting.* He knew Kim Kitae too well to be fooled by the charming smile.

“Wow…! He’s the president of the Spatial Design Department.”

“What year is the student president?”

“Fourth year?”

“No. Probably a third year.”

“Is your department’s student president handsome?”

“Ooh…!”

Even amidst the murmuring, Woojin struggled to stay calm.

‘Third year? Maybe it’s better this way. A third year is less likely to clash with me than a teaching assistant would be.’

Woojin quickly shook off the unpleasantness. He knew those feelings wouldn’t help him now.

He wouldn’t forget the bad blood from his past life. He decided to hide his feelings for now and wait for the right moment to react.

Surprisingly, Hyejin helped him control his emotions.

“What is it? He’s so cheesy. What’s so handsome about him?”

“Huh?”

“No, I’m talking about that student president. I hate guys with deeper double eyelids than me.”

“Really?”

“His voice is too cheesy, too. Anyway, he’s not my type.”

“Hehe. I guess not?”

“Oops, was my voice too loud?”

Woojin smiled as he watched Hyejin glance around. She didn’t know it, but she had just earned a big bonus from him.

It was a bit strange for her to talk about guys with deeper double eyelids than her when she didn’t even have any, but he was willing to overlook that.

“I like faces with big eyes and no double eyelids, like Sungwan oppa.”

“What is it? When did he become Sungwan oppa so quickly?”

“If oppa connects us, I could meet him as early as next week, you know?”

“Hmm… Okay. If you’re that passionate, I’ll connect you in about a month.”

Woojin replied with a sly expression, and Hyejin frowned.

“A month…? Are you going to keep being so stingy?”

“No, Sungwan hyung has to be discharged from the military, you dummy.”

“Ah…”

Woojin, finding it fun to tease Hyejin, felt his mood improve. His mind became calmer.

‘Right. There’s nothing more unproductive than wasting emotions on someone like that. Let’s focus on the orientation.’

To focus on the orientation, he had to listen to Kim Kitae’s voice, even if he didn’t like it. Kim Kitae was in charge of opening the design department orientation as the president of the Spatial Design Department.

Regardless of personal feelings, his stories contained information about school life.

Fortunately, Kim Kitae only spoke for about twenty minutes and didn’t come on stage again.

“Ugh… It’s boring. It feels like listening to the principal’s speech for hours.”

Hyejin, who was sitting next to him, grumbled, but Woojin carefully wrote notes to avoid missing anything important.

If anything seemed important, he wrote it down in his notebook, even if it was just a brief note.

About two hours passed like that.

Woojin’s eyes, which had been gradually losing focus, suddenly opened wide again.

“…!”

Another person Woojin knew from his past life was slowly walking onto the stage.

Unlike when Kim Kitae came on stage, Woojin wasn’t greatly surprised or flustered. He had expected this man to appear.

‘Professor Jo Unchan…! I didn’t expect to see him at the orientation.’

Unlike Kim Kitae, who was an ill-fated acquaintance, Professor Jo Unchan was a role model to Woojin.

Right now, Professor Jo Unchan was just starting to gain recognition and was in his first year as a full professor.

But in 2030, before Woojin’s regression, he was one of the top three architectural designers in Korea. In his late forties, he even won the Pritzker Prize, the most prestigious award in the world of architecture, for the first time in Korea. It was only natural that he was Woojin’s role model, as Woojin dreamed of becoming an architectural designer.

‘Well. At this point, Professor Jo Unchan is probably the least experienced among the full professors… I guess it makes sense that he was dragged to the orientation.’

As of 2010, the only title used for Professor Jo Unchan was ‘Youngest Full Professor in the Department of Design’.

Being the first person in his 30s to become a full professor in the Department of Design at K University was impressive, but he was the youngest among the full professors in the Department of Spatial Design at this point in time.

The person Woojin wanted to meet the most at K University had appeared on the stage. Woojin’s eyes sparkled.

“Hello, freshmen. I’m Jo Unchan, a professor in the Department of Spatial Design.”

Jo Unchan’s opening remarks were as trite as those of the other professors, so the freshmen continued to nod off.

But after a while, when the page on the screen changed, the atmosphere of the auditorium began to change.

The order that Jo Unchan was in charge of was the ‘Night of Design’ schedule that many freshmen had been waiting for, and the contents of the 2010 Night of Design were revealed on the screen.

Hyejin, who was about to fall asleep, opened her eyes wide at Woojin’s whisper.

“Hey, it’s starting.”

“Hmm…? What?”

“The Night of Design is starting, you dummy.”

“…!”

Hyejin’s interest in the design competition was as great as Woojin’s. Although she was a bit of a tomboy, she was also very competitive.

Otherwise, she wouldn’t have been able to enter the Department of Design at K University, breaking through that fierce competition.

While Hyejin shook off her sleepiness and straightened her posture, Jo Unchan’s voice echoed in the quiet auditorium.

“Among the freshmen here, some of you may know about this Night of Design, and some of you may not.”

Jo Unchan’s explanation of the ‘Night of Design’ was concise and clear. The specific rules would be different for each department, so he focused on the main idea.

“What we have to do tonight is to draw the first line on a pure white canvas that has not been touched by a single speck of dust.”

Jo Unchan looked around at the freshmen and continued to speak.

“And the reason why our Department of Design holds the ‘Night of Design’ every year is… because we hope that first stroke will be drawn solely with the untainted color that you possess.”

A line from his column that Woojin had been deeply impressed with in the past came to mind as he listened to Professor Jo Unchan’s speech.

[Learning is really important for designers, too. But ironically, the moment learning begins, one’s own color gradually fades.]

Surprisingly, Jo Unchan told the story almost exactly like the phrase Woojin had read back then.

“The moment someone else’s subjectivity is mixed in, it is no longer a primary color.”

When Jo Unchan’s husky voice echoed, Woojin felt a slight shiver. The sincere voice of the man he admired stimulated the emotions inside him.

“In the future, as you design… the more technically and sensually mature you become, the more you will become accustomed to inertia.”

Jo Unchan swallowed hard as if his throat was dry, and the freshmen quietly waited for his next words.

“So what you have to create here today is a compass that you can take out and look at whenever you can’t see the way.”

The story continued for more than 10 minutes, but in the end, Jo Unchan was saying one thing: the importance of original intention.

He explained that the work created with the pure heart that he first dreamed of becoming a designer would serve as a guide whenever he fell into mannerism as a designer.

“Of course, this Night of Design is a competition with scholarship money at stake. But I wanted to tell you that that is not the main point.”

The scholarship money was offered as a ‘competition’ only to provide motivation.

This is what Jo Unchan said last.

[Competition can be a means, but it should not be an end.]

“Now, then… let’s start the Night of Design in 2010.”

When Jo Unchan clapped his hands lightly, the screen changed again, showing the location and map of the accommodation assigned to each department.

The introduction to the Night of Design was held in the auditorium, but the competition itself was held in each accommodation.

“Mr. Kim.”

“Yes, Professor.”

“Please escort each department.”

“Yes. I understand!”

As soon as Jo Unchan finished speaking, the teaching assistants moved. The students, including Woojin and Hyejin, got up and started to move as well.

“So… you’re picking scholarship students through a design competition for each department?”

“That’s right.”

“Wow…! Since our department is spatial design, are they going to tell us to build a house or something?”

“What nonsense are you talking about?”

Expectation and excitement grew on the faces of the students as they moved and chatted. It was the same for Woojin.

‘Design… Am I doing my first design in my life today?’

He might not be able to do the best design yet, but he would do the best design he could. And Woojin hoped that his best would be the best, at least within this competition.

Woojin smiled slightly and arrived at the accommodation, following the teaching assistant with motivated steps.

“You all know the number on your name tag, right?”

“Yes, TA!”

“Five people will be using the same room.”

Woojin arrived at the assigned accommodation and was surprised.

‘Why is it so big?’

The accommodation assigned to five people was much larger than he had expected. It was a space that could easily accommodate about ten people.

But that wasn’t the only surprise.

“Wow, what are all those?”

In one corner of the accommodation, unexpected objects were neatly placed.