MTLNOVEL Chapter 3 - You, Sit Down Over There
Chapter 3 – You, Sit Down Over There
‘Aaaaarrrggghhhh!’
I finally lost my mind and screamed.
Talking to this person is worse than talking to a passing ox cart.
Can’t even sleep, what is this nonsense.
“Shut up, kid. Someone might think you’re killing your husband. What is it you want me to look at?”
I barely held onto my sanity.
“It’s on the workbench.”
I don’t want to exchange any more words.
“Uh… what’s that? Looks like a child’s handiwork.”
“…”
“Not going to answer?”
“It’s practice.”
“Practice my ass. How many times do I have to tell you to stop playing with clay—”
She tells me to do it, then criticizes every sculpture I make.
I put my tools on the workbench, covered my ears, and became one with the desk.
“Fine, just look at it once. Please.”
Leona didn’t respond but slightly turned her gaze toward the sculpture.
At least this part of her is artist-like.
“Hmm.”
Leona examined the forearm-sized clay sculpture with her drunken eyes.
It’s not completely finished, but I think the quality is good for something made in three hours.
This person lives in a perpetual state of unfinished work, so she probably doesn’t care about that.
It’s almost done, and now I just need to get some stone and carve it while looking at this model, and it will become a statue.
I’ve been practicing whenever I could since falling into this strange world, and today I finally made something I’m proud of, but then
Leona bluntly spat out a comment.
“It looks like garbage.”
The feeling of my mind shattering into pieces.
I gathered what was left of my pride, held onto my sanity, and shot back.
“Why?”
“Because it looks like garbage, I’m calling it garbage. Can’t you do anything right?”
“Why are you being like this? Why? WHY!”
“Stop yelling. My head hurts.”
“Is it because it’s not finished? Master, you never even finish—”
“No, you got the basics all wrong.”
Damn it.
I was wrong to think this person was a genius.
I got the top score in the entrance exam, and I’ve never been criticized this harshly in my entire life.
Not only is she abusing her authority, but she’s also lashing out because she’s drunk.
“Fine. If you’re not going to be serious, I’m going to bed.”
If you don’t go, I’ll leave.
As I said this and stood up,
she pressed down on my shoulder and made me sit back down.
“Hey now. Where would you go? We’re just getting started.”
“I don’t mind you touching me, you know? But could you at least tell me why I was wrong—”
“What did you just say?”
Leona’s drunken eyes suddenly seemed to flash.
‘Evaluate me properly. Teach me properly. You’re supposed to be my mentor.’
‘No. Not that. Before that.’
She only hears what she wants to hear.
‘…I said I don’t mind you touching me. But first, listen to the end—’
‘Did you just say that? Did you really say that?’
After saying this, Leona wrapped her left arm around my shoulder
and began tickling my side with her fingertips.
Since she was taller than me, it was as if she was pouncing on me from behind.
Her right hand moved deep into my thigh, pushing aside my clothes and feeling my bare skin.
Not long after, Leona’s head rested firmly on top of my crown
and she took a deep breath.
‘Hmm… you smell good. Did you know you have an incredibly sexy scent?’
I don’t know, damn it. If I can learn something this way, I don’t care.
But if she thinks I’m that cheap, she’s mistaken.
‘Stop touching me!’
I slapped the back of her hand that was caressing my thigh.
“Hey! How could you do that with your dirty hands! Ah… you got dirt on my coat too. This is my favorite. My crimson coat.”
This person probably has dozens of other outfits in her closet anyway.
I know because I’m the one who cleans them up. Damn it.
“Whatever. I’m the one who does the laundry anyway.”
You might think a real man shouldn’t do laundry,
but I need to eat to live.
They say you do your own laundry in the military anyway, right?
Is there only one washing machine?
‘Then you should do it since you’re a man. Choose one. Do you like being touched? Or do you like being smelled?’
‘…I don’t like either.’
I’ve been working all day and my back hurts, and now a woman is sniffing around me.
It feels weird.
And her way of speaking is too vulgar.
‘Let me smell your dick just once. Okay? If you don’t like being touched.’
I covered my head and crouched down.
When I say she’s vulgar, she always exceeds all boundaries.
Her words are a complete disaster.
‘First of all, I’m really, like, exhausted right now? Because of you, Master?’
‘Then just lie down and rest. Your big sister will take care of everything.’
‘Just don’t open your mouth. It makes my blood boil just hearing you.’
‘Hey, is there anything you won’t say?’
I think this must be what people mean when they say the more you talk with someone, the more depleted you feel.
I should just focus on the matter at hand and then escape.
‘Then in exchange, please lift my curfew.’
‘No.’
Damn. She suddenly refuses with a single word.
Still, the chilly atmosphere seems to have created a bit of room for conversation.
‘Then at least tell me what was wrong with what I just practiced.’
Leona rolled her eyes once,
Then casually stroked my shoulder while pointing at the sculpture I had practiced.
Your skinship is showing, you woman.
‘Um…well. First, you don’t have the basics down. Look at these eyebrows. The muscle shape is wrong. You’ve never seen a human skull before, have you? Who looks like this? Do you even know what muscles are here?’
My master, being a true artist, is certainly knowledgeable about body structure.
But even so, is she really going to teach anatomy to someone who’s currently sculpting?
‘It’s the Corrugator supercilii, isn’t it? I know that.’
‘Wow. Impressive. Even using Latin. You said you didn’t study, so where did you learn that?’
Damn. I guess muscle names are heard in their original language.
This is still much better than being dropped in a neighborhood where no one understands you,
But her translation standards seem quite arbitrary.
Anyway, what I just mentioned is the muscle used to bring the eyebrows together.
It’s attached to the space between the eyebrows and is mainly used when getting angry or frowning.
As I mentioned when I first started sculpting, I carved it slightly larger and more prominently to capture this feeling of stress I’ve been experiencing lately,
Which makes the whole face appear furrowed.
That’s the point of this bust sculpture.
It’s a technique of my most respected sculptor, Rodin,
And if I describe it as ‘a technique that inspires humanity by emphasizing certain parts,’
It sounds quite sophisticated.
‘Just because you picked up some knowledge doesn’t mean you know everything. You’ve really never seen a human skull, have you?’
‘Well, of course…’
I’ve studied model skulls for sculptural practice to death,
But being a sculpture student, not a medical student, I’ve never seen the real thing.
‘…I haven’t.’
‘See? You don’t know because you’ve never looked inside a person. When have you ever dug up someone’s grave? When have you ever rushed to open up someone’s belly when they died? You need to express things realistically. Realistically. Why are you arbitrarily enlarging and reducing parts of the human body? Are you Michaela over there… Are you even a twenty-year-old kid? Huh?’
She’s done all sorts of ridiculous things in her life.
It’s not arbitrary enlarging and reducing, it’s emphasis, damn it.
‘Since we’re on the subject, let’s talk. You know I don’t like her. She’s an arrogant girl who can’t even show proper respect to her senior.’
‘…’
I don’t know what kind of mindset it is
to tell me not to meet my friend just because she doesn’t like them.
‘But do you really need to borrow methods from someone I hate to feel satisfied? Are you rebelling?’
‘That’s not it…’
‘Then what is it?’
In a world where men and women are reversed, there was a person named Rodin who exploited his disciples a bit more than you,
and I borrowed his technique.
I thought if I explained it like that, this woman wouldn’t understand at all.
I sighed and just spoke honestly.
‘I did it on purpose. Happy now?’
‘So why did you do something I never asked for?’
I felt like my head was being smashed.
Well, how would this person know about modern sculpture?
Even if I brought up Cubism, Dadaism, or Kinetic sculpture, she wouldn’t understand.
‘…Why am I even talking to someone who doesn’t know modern art…’
I mumbled in such a small voice,
but our so-called master, with her incredibly good hearing, seemed to have caught it.
‘Modern art, kid, what I do is modern art. My sister always tells me not to be old-fashioned like in the past. That it’s not an era that only seeks God while praising His glory. It’s the 16th century now, the 16th century. People come first. Don’t you know? Of course you don’t. Not looking for concepts but being real. Stylish. Modern. Do you even know where the word ‘modern’ comes from before you use it?’
…Slogans aside,
I could tell these were words that would make modernist artists collectively go berserk if they heard them.
I was listening with my mouth open in disbelief.
‘If you don’t know, then learn. It’s been around for a thousand years already. A thousand years. It comes from Latin. Back then, people thought their time was the best era, so they used that, what’s it called… ‘modernus’ to mean contemporary.’
At times like this, she even translates well.
I don’t know what’s attached to her ears, but she understands Korean fluently.
Annoyed by her lecturing, I spat out mockingly.
‘Master, you don’t even know Latin. How do you know that?’
The moment I said that,
Leona’s expression changed.
Shit. I’m screwed.
If I mention that this person has never had a proper education, she’ll destroy me.
She barely knows how to read and write.
‘What did you just say?’
‘No, that. That’s not what I meant.’
‘Hey. Have you ever even been near a school?’
I wanted to say, ‘I studied Sculpture at Seoul National University, you uneducated bitch.’
But if I did, my clothes would be torn to shreds and I’d be thrown out the window immediately.
Just because she’s physically strong.
Of course, our master was by no means an uneducated person.
She could recite knowledge about all kinds of organisms off the top of her head
and knew where every blood vessel in the body was located—you can’t call such a person stupid.
Anyway, this crazy woman who calls herself my master
was also a better sculptor than me, who had only carved one piece in 20 years.
Even though I’ve never seen a completed work.
I don’t know if this habit of leaving things unfinished is due to her natural drinking habit,
or because of laziness,
or because she only thinks about touching other people’s bodies and then passing out.
‘Aren’t you going to answer? I asked if you went to school?’
‘…No.’
Since there’s no way to bring a 2021 college acceptance letter to this other world,
I guess I am uneducated.
The problem is with my original world where everything is done online.
“But why are you talking back?”
“Well, about that eyebrow, I think-“
“Your opinion doesn’t matter. When big sister tells you to do something, just do it. We’ll see if it works or not when we sell it later. What did I say was the most important thing?”
“…Art.”
“That’s right. Not just technique. To make art, what do you need?”
“…Money.”
“You speak well. I was just about to say that. How can you sculpt something as tiny as a fingernail? It’s just a waste of materials.”
Indeed, mini busts for home decoration were popular during the Soviet era.
“Make something people would actually buy. Understand?”
“…Yes.”
“Then why do you keep talking so much?”
Leona lightly placed her hand on my cheek
and tapped it while saying:
“In my day, you know. When we got an important commission, we couldn’t even go home for a whole week. We ate and slept in the workshop. I brought in a cute guy as a so-called muse, but all he knows how to do is rebel like this. Life is so hard, so hard.”
She grabbed my buttocks firmly from behind again.
As if my buttocks were a heat pack.
My body trembled, longing for an actual heat pack.
I think my cold hands and feet syndrome has gotten worse since coming to this world.
‘Compared to when big sister was twenty, ten years ago, you’re living quite comfortably. Do you know how I lived? There was a so-called master who didn’t pay wages. There were seniors who just dumped work on me. Friends weren’t any help.’
Except for the last part, it doesn’t seem much different from now.
Is this that frog-tadpole thing?
‘I didn’t get to rent this magnificent building by playing around. It’s because I have skills that I can live at least this well. Do you think it’s easy to live as well as big sister among twelve siblings?’
If she didn’t spend so much money on clothes and fixed that laziness a bit,
she could have bought the entire building instead of renting an attic room in the monastery, and still had money left over.
‘I think I’m going to lose my mind, can we stop?’
That’s not a lie.
I feel like my soul is about to leave my body.
‘You should learn to listen when big sister speaks. This is all advice that will become your flesh and blood. You’re only seven and already wanting to sleep? When I was your age, I couldn’t even sleep because I was working.’
I want to sleep too.
In a world where people sleep when the sun sets and wake when it rises, staying up this late is torture.
“If you’re going to play with clay, at least make something that will sell. And you’re still not finished. Why are you so lazy?”
When the most undoubtedly irresponsible person I’ve ever met says something like this, it’s only natural that my insides turn.
I didn’t feel like responding to this.
“I’m sorry.”
“Why do something you need to apologize for?”
At this point, we’ve reached the final stage of this old-fashioned scolding routine.
They say that asking why you’re doing something you need to apologize for usually sounds hellish,
But to me, it’s a welcome signal that she’s said all she wanted to say and is now ready to go to bed.
Wrestling with a person like this only exhausts me. As usual, I made an effort to somehow usher her into the bedroom.
“You seem very tired. Let’s just go in.”
“Fine. Take off those clothes and sit here for a bit.”
“I’ll sleep alone.”
“No. Take off your work clothes. Quickly.”
Life, seriously.
Sighing, I removed my clay-covered apron
And hung it outside the window to let the dust shake off.
“Now sit here.”
She said, pointing between her legs,
Already having removed her coat, wearing what was essentially underwear.
Did that really make you feel better?
But from my position, already nodding off,
Facing a person with insane stamina who could play with me all night if I didn’t do as told,
I had nothing to say.
It would be better to just do as instructed and speak honestly.
If I whine about wanting to go outside when she’s in a good mood, she would surely listen again… right?
I turned around and sat, embraced in her arms.
I could feel her two breasts pressing softly against my back.
Against my buttocks, Leona’s thigh flesh felt plump and firm.
Yes. This feels nice.
But the desire to sleep comes first.
I slowly closed my eyes.
With nothing visible in front of me, my body gently swayed as if resting on a waterbed.
My body slowly rose and fell in rhythm with Leona’s breathing.
She caressed me in her arms
Like a baby handling a puppy, stroking me here and there.
Carefully arranging my hair,
Tickling the bare skin of my soft shoulders,
Touching from my thighs to my pelvis and inner waist as if caressing me,
My body kept trembling until moans escaped from my mouth.
As if there was no need to caress his genitals, movements that showed she knew exactly where to touch a man to stimulate him.
‘…Ungh…!’
‘See? I told you it’s important to know the body. You were going to do this anyway. Why play hard to get?’