Chapter 1: Canvas of Tension

The faint scent of turpentine clung to Yu Nabi’s hoodie like a second skin, mixing with the crisp scent of late autumn that rolled in through the open studio windows. Her hands, stained with charcoal and oil pastels, moved with the grace of a dancer across the canvas. The portrait wasn’t of anyone real—it never was. It was a storm: delicate eyes holding back tears, wind-swept hair, a mouth parted in a silent scream.

She didn't name her work. It felt cheap to label something that bled so much of her onto the page.

Seol Ah leaned against the studio wall, sipping on a take-out coffee with two fingers—like holding anything more than that might be a commitment. Her cherry-red lipstick was smudged on the lid. “You haven’t slept, have you?” she asked, eyes scanning the stormy girl on the canvas.

“I didn’t feel like it,” Nabi murmured, brushing a streak of cobalt blue across the background. “She wanted to come out.”

“She?” Seol Ah smirked. “I swear your muses are just your moods dressed up in oil paint.”

Nabi didn’t deny it. Her world wasn’t made of reality—it was stitched together from emotion, from sensations too raw to speak. What she couldn’t say with words, she screamed onto canvas.

“You’re gonna be late for Ryu Han’s lecture,” Seol Ah added as she checked her phone. “And you know you never miss his class.”

Nabi paused. Her fingers twitched slightly. “I know.”

Seo Ryu Han.

Thirty, sharp-jawed, quiet, and devastatingly magnetic. His presence filled lecture halls before he even spoke. Rumor had it he was the youngest full professor in the Art Department’s history, with a background in European contemporary sculpture and a personal gallery that only a few had ever stepped into.

He had a fiancée—Beak Jenna, a brand manager at SH Group. Beautiful, high-profile, untouchable. Yet every girl in the department watched Ryu Han like he might reach into the crowd and choose them.

Nabi never fantasized like that. But she did feel things when he entered a room. A strange awareness. Like the air thickened. Like he noticed too much. Like he saw straight through.

The lecture hall buzzed when they walked in—Seol Ah floated to the back, but Nabi took her usual seat, third row, center-left. Close enough to observe, far enough not to be obvious.

Ryu Han walked in three minutes late, eyes cool as a winter morning, carrying a leather folder that looked older than most students. His voice, when he started speaking about the role of chaos in neo-expressionist art, was low and unhurried. Like silk over skin.

But today, his eyes met hers.

Just a flicker.

She felt it.

And then again.

While explaining a brush technique used by Georg Baselitz, his gaze dipped to her. Not to the girl beside her. Not over her. To her.

Her heart skipped. She didn’t blush, but her fingers curled around her pencil like it might anchor her to the ground.

Was it her art? Had he seen the piece she submitted for the pre-exhibition portfolio?

No. It wasn’t professional. It didn’t feel like admiration.

It felt personal.

Too personal.

“You’re flushed,” Yu Han said later as they sat outside the art hall on low concrete steps, sipping canned coffee from a vending machine. The trees around them were shedding yellow, gold, and burnt orange leaves like confetti from another universe.

“I’m fine,” Nabi said quickly. “Just didn’t eat.”

Yu Han studied her. He always did. With eyes that held affection and a pain he refused to name.

“You’ve been... different lately,” he said. “Since midterms.”

“I’m just tired,” she lied.

He nodded but didn’t believe her.

Behind them, Na Eun and Jae Wook were laughing, feeding each other sweet buns and talking about weekend plans. Seol Ah had disappeared into the arms of some new musician she’d met at a bar. The group was warm, familiar—but Nabi often felt like a thread pulled too tightly in a tapestry of comfort.

Yu Han reached out, brushing a bit of paint from her jaw with the edge of his thumb.

She didn’t move away.

“You don’t have to break yourself to be great, you know,” he said softly.

But greatness wasn't the goal. Not anymore.

Not when someone like Ryu Han looked at her with something dark, unreadable, and potent.

That night, Nabi stood in front of her canvas again.

She didn’t know what she was painting at first. Her brush dipped in black, then red, then grey. A silhouette emerged, half-formed. Male. Angular. Distant.

Not love.

Possession.

And for the first time in months, she smiled as she painted.

Because someone had noticed her. Not for politeness. Not for talent. But for something else.

And she wasn't scared.

She was thrilled.

Even if she couldn’t name what it was—yet.

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