Chapter 4

In between classes, I take the time to learn more about where I am in time and what has been happening ever since my abrupt departure more than two decades ago.

This is also the time where it really sinks in that I live again, this time in the body of an art student named Kain Park.

Before, I was Leonard Variel, famous painter of portraits and landscapes whose work gave me the title "The Old Young Master". Now... I'm starting all over again, but in this case, I'm living someone else's life.

While I'm attending art school and learning what's been going on, I'm also studying the life of the person known as Kain Park.

When I first arrived here, I ran into this girl named Tessa Lee. Apparently, she's my study buddy, and has remarkable grades and artistic skill to go with it, and was brought on to pull up my floundering grades.

I also woke up on the day of the Art Theory midterm, a subject the actual Kain Park was very bad at, and I passed that test with no problems at all – though I could've done better.

Still, I was here for a few hours when the test started – given the circumstances, I made a decent showing of myself, and kept Kain Park from getting thrown out of this prestigious art school for sheer incompetence.

Yes, incompetence. I saw the canvases and sketches he made, and while he does have knowledge of art, he has no foundation whatsoever.

It's like wanting to draw comics but all you know is tracing already-established panels, and you have not acquired your own style yet.

Five days' worth of classes, studying and research pass by quickly, and before I know it, it's the weekend again.

Tessa had some things to take care of back home, so I was eating lunch all by my lonesome, looking into some things she left for me, and one of them definitely piqued my interest.

"Digital Art Community: EaselNet"

It was a link that Tessa shared to me via social media – and yes, this was one of the ways where I learned who Kain Park was.

Doing this felt like I was dissecting a person's identity, but it had to be done. Tessa already had some intuition about what was going on, and an answer like 'I got run over by a car two decades ago and woke up here' would be too crazy a truth for someone like her to believe.

That was why I had to do the next best thing here: try to do a passable impersonation of Kain Park himself, and what better way to do it than to look through the man's life?

Pages upon pages of social media feeds, comments, and uploads later, I come to a very sobering conclusion: Kain Park has no artistic talent whatsoever.

I see the 'art' he posted on social media – not EaselNet – and can't help but cringe.

He's a huge fan of a certain animated series from Japan involving giant robots at war, and a lot of the drawings he posts are about it; even his social media groups involve fans of said series. There's also the kind of exaggerated posts people make as some sort of internet game where the first one to get angry loses, and he was apparently very good at baiting people to get angry over the internet.

Pictures of Shiba inu with clever captions aside, EaselNet proved to be the one thing about the internet that would truly inspire an artist such as myself.

Some of the sketches I've done in my spare time this week have already been 'uploaded', or whatever that means, while I've been navigating Kain's social media history to acquire insight into who I am now.

I also wrote several entries into a journal about my memories as Leonard Variel, so that if I become more like Kain Park, I do not forget about who I was before.

Past lives and reincarnations were things that I paid cursory attention to before, but they're a reality in this life I'm living now.

It is with this attitude that I draw and paint during the breaks in between classes, posting them on EaselNet whenever I get the chance.

I find it very odd that Kain Park has an account on the site, but had never uploaded or favorited anything. That's why ever since taking that Art Theory midterm, I've done my fair share in posting my own drawings, sketches and paintings onto that site; even browsing for some digital artwork done in my style, just to cater to my vanity a little bit.

Kain didn't have any classes on the weekend, most likely because his party-hard former lifestyle would make it hard to get up on Saturday mornings, and I use this time to do more drawing or sketching, just to get my bearings back.

I know that my attitude towards art has been a little flippant, and because of my skill as an artist, never really had problems in art school... but in Kain's case, because of who he was... it's like I'm starting at the bottom and working my way up.

If I have to be completely honest, this reminds me of the time where after my first exhibit, I was told I was but a small fish in a small pond.

That criticism motivated me to become world-famous, and now, I'm turning that criticism onto myself again to get Kain Park out of mediocrity in this prestigious art school.

But enough about that; I got a private message on EaselNet asking to meet me in the campus quad from someone who also studies at Moonlight Panorama College of Arts and Sciences.

***

With a few minutes to spare, I make it to the college's quadrangle; students are gathered here talking about the Voyagers, the college's varsity team, as they would be heading to the stadium later for the Voyagers' basketball game.

It took me several minutes to find the person, as she said she would be wearing a checkered coat and a black beret.

No, I wouldn't judge; it's fine and all. Also makes for easy detection in my book.

I make my way to the girl I found wearing the combination of clothes, and call out to her.

"Are you waiting for KP70?" I ask, and she turns around with a smile.

"Yes, that's right. So... you're that guy?" she asks, smiling behind oversized sunglasses as she greets me.

"That's me. Kain Park," I answer, extending my hand.

"Carrie Kim," she says as she shakes my hand. "I'm also a Fine Arts major, but in my second year. Saw your EaselNet works; a lot of our club members also have an EaselNet account."

"Wasn't club recruitment finished before the preliminary exams?" I ask, confused.

"That's the mass recruitment," Carrie replies. "We can do general recruitment whenever we can, but most of our expertise is in digital art and animation, so our membership isn't that high."

"Well, I'm not that into digital art..." I explain, but she stops me.

"I've seen your work. You would be really good for our club, just to put some... spice into it."

She stopped short of saying please, and then I realized that she recruited me because the club really did need someone like me.

I suppose I should at least humor her.

***

The clubroom the Animation Club of Moonlight Panorama called home was a mess when I was led in: this was no art club, it was more of an animation club.

Posters of cute girls with wide eyes doing poses and heavily-stylized mechanical figures lined the walls, and several glass shelves filled with the same kinds of figures and models were what gave the room a peculiar charm.

"Guys!" Carrie said as she pushed open the door. "The EaselNet guy is here!"

Two young men and one young woman turned from the computer screen they were looking at towards me and Carrie.

"Oh," one of the men said, this one looked a bit older than me. "Jared Kang, third year. The guy at the keyboard is Jon Woo, no 'h' since it's short for 'Jonathan', and he's already heard enough jokes about doves, hospital shootouts, and Chow Yun-fat. The other girl here besides Carrie is Sherry Yoon."

"Pleasure to meet you," I replied, bowing to them. "Mind if I ask what this club is about?"

"Well," Jared replied, "we're all in the Fine Arts department, and we're all majoring in animation. We put this group together to study animation techniques, what Japan calls 'sakuga'."

"Scenes where the quality of the animation increases, right?" I asked, and everyone nodded – even if several of the club members were busy doing other things, they were still hanging on to the words I was saying.

"That's right. Say, Carrie, is this really that guy you said you found on EaselNet?" Jon asked.

"Yeah. Found him while I was looking up stuff for the Variel portfolio for my bachelor's thesis," Carrie replied.

Nobody noticed the cold sweat that had broken out over me.