"From the look on your face, this seems to be the first time you've seen this, huh?"
Sari looked at Professor Soohoon who was still flipping to some of the pages with her and would see similar sketches to that of the professor's. It was indeed confusing that something like this had happened. But each of the pages had her father's signature and the date that they were finished.
So she knew that this wasn't a hoax.
The fact that her father would draw something so detailed but not show it to her made her curious as well. But there was no way she'd ask him about it because he was still missing. She had to figure out the answer alone.
Or maybe not alone.
Her eyes widened when Professor Soohoon pointed towards one page. "Didn't your dad show you anything from the start?"
Sari shook her head. "Nothing with regards to these sketches."
But she knew that her father always drew everything in black or gray. He once showed her a sketch of her mother before that he had done and until now, she still had it.
Why would her father hide this from her, anyway? Was there supposed to be a big reason for him to hide this from her all this time, only for someone to give it back to her?
There were a lot of possibilities but none of them felt good, none of them seemed right.
It soon came to Sari’s attention that Professor Soohoon was watching her intently. But she didn't show it to her face. Instead, she tried observing him from the corner of her eyes as his gaze fell on the sketch once again.
His face was a mix of awe and confusion as kept looking at one particular sketch that she knew he had also drawn several times before.
The sketch of a chest box with plum blossom and a soaring phoenix. He once said to her that he wouldn't stop sketching a particular item or scenario until he got to do so to the last clear detail that he could recall.
She wondered what he was trying to find in the drawing before him. If he found it strange enough to have such an intense reaction.
"You... don't think..." Professor Soohoon started but then stopped abruptly. "Your father had the same vision as I did?"
Sari didn't know how to answer that as she had no idea about it at all. So instead, she just watched Professor Soohoon in silence. Waiting patiently for him to continue.
"I thought... I was the only one who experienced this..." There was another short pause before Professor Soohoon spoke up again. "But it seems it wasn't the case at all."
The truth behind Professor Soohoon's words caused a knot to form inside Sari. This meant that her father hadn't really wanted her to hear those words about the drawings. At least for quite some time.
But time became her father's enemy when he suddenly disappeared and now, he entrusted someone to give her the things that he wanted her to know. The journal, and now these sketchbooks.
She wasn't sure if he thought that she could understand these things better than he understood them himself, or if he simply thought that it would be easier to let her take over the task.
In any case, he trusted whoever was going to deliver them to her. The rest of the task of knowing the answer lies in her hands.
And she has no idea if she'd be able to finish it.
A knock on the door followed by opening it snapped Sari out of her musings. Professor Geunhee entered with a somber expression.
"Both of you, come with me."
'Well, that was fast.'
She didn't want to feel scared, but she couldn't help it. As soon as she took a deep breath, she placed the sketchbook back on the envelope. She was supposed to place it back in her bag but Professor Soohoon stopped her.
"What is it?"
Instead of answering, Professor Soohoon took the envelope from her hand and handed it to Professor Geunhee. The female professor looked at her brother in confusion.
"You have a safer place to keep this, right? Somewhere no one would know other than you," Professor Soohoon inquired.
It seemed that Professor Geunhee managed to figure out what her brother meant when she nodded. "Give me that."
All Sari did was to watch the female professor take the expanding envelope from Professor Soohoon's hand and head to her office table. The female professor crouched down and from her position, Sari couldn't see what Professor Geunhee was doing. But she could hear clicking sounds, for some reason, like from a combination lock.
Then again, she wasn't sure since she had never checked that particular area of Professor Geunhee's office. A door opened and closed, and after a few more moments, the professor stood up and looked at them.
"Let's go. Principal Chan is waiting. And also a few others whom we know were involved in spreading those photos and posted the bad rumors online."
The female professor didn't say what else. She walked past them with her long strides and they didn't even try to catch up with her.
When the three of them reached the Principal's office, she knocked twice before entering and taking a seat on the chair.
"You may enter."
They nodded in acknowledgment as the sibling professors went into the office, while Principal Chan motioned for Sari to take the seat in front on a single seat sofa.
She obeyed silently as she looked around to see three students whom she knew were near the bus stop and taking pictures of her and Professor Soohoon that day. There were also two professors whom she had seen from time to time within the campus grounds. She did recall at one point that they would give her calculating and even demeaning looks whenever they would see her. And until now, she couldn't understand why they would do that.
"Why did you call us here, Principal Chan? You know that we still have classes to attend to today and yet, you asked people to drag us here," a middle-aged man started, which soon filled the room with tension.
But when Sari eyed the principal, he didn't even look a bit bothered at all. It was as if he'd been expecting it to start that way.
"Classes, Professor Park? Are you sure it's the classes that you're worried about and not the things that you're about to expose to me when you decided to force your students to do things that they didn't like because you threatened them?"
Straight up, Principal Chan said those words and faced Professor Park who started glaring at Professor Geunhee.
"You!"
"Don't look at me. I'm not the one who dragged you here," Professor Geunhee calmly said and even shrugged. "But let's get to business. Why did you tell Miss Yang to follow Professor Kang Soohoon and my assistant that day and have them take pictures of the two?"
"What are you talking about?" Professor Park now glared at the principal. "Did you ask your minion to drag me here and be accused of such nonsense?"
"They're not nonsense. They're the truth!" One of the three female students exclaimed that made the people there shift their attention to her. Including Sari. "You said that you'd expose my brother if I didn't do what you said about finding anything that can be used to remove Yoon Sari from the university."
"Because she doesn't deserve to be here and be a part of any department of this school. She only used her connection with Professor Kang Soohoon to make sure she got the position."
Sari couldn't stop the rising anger in her as she kept hearing Professor Park's accusations. But Professor Soohoon just placed a hand on her shoulder and lightly squeezed it, as if telling her not to make any move at the moment.
"That's enough, Professor Park. You are clearly under some delusions which have blinded you. Miss Yoon has every reason to be a part of this university and it's not something that she achieved by any means of back-up support. Especially if you claim that it came from a professor from the so-called rival university."
"Oh, I don't believe that!" Professor Park interrupted Professor Geunhee. "Someone with no previous experience with archaeology shouldn't have been your assistant. And yet, here you are. You accepted such an under qualified woman who charmed her way to make sure she has the position."
Professor Geunhee frowned before raising an eyebrow at him. "I don't think so, Mr. Park. I think that you are mistaken. And furthermore, you have no proof that she did charm her way, as you'd claimed it."
"Besides... it's not like Miss Yoon would choose a position to apply for a job that she had no knowledge of," Principal Chan soon said that made Sari face him.
"What are you talking about?" Professor Park asked with a deep frown and soon faced another professor sitting beside him. "What do you know about this, Professor Lee?"
But the portly professor just shook his head, sweat clearly starting to appear on his forehead. He looked too nervous for his own good.
"There was a test involved in the application process aside from the interview that both Professor Kang Geunhee and Professor Baek Jinwoo had conducted that day. And she passed that difficult test while the majority of the applicants failed."
What Principal Chan said about the test was true. It was done twice ㅡ before the interview and after the interview. Two sets of questions, one involving the job of an assistant and the other was about one's own knowledge on archaeology itself. And Sari knew that she had to thank her father for the knowledge she has when it comes to that subject.
"Unlike Miss Lim’s brother whom you've entered in this university to be your assistant using your position even when he truly failed the test needed, Miss Yoon passed the necessary and difficult test that Professor Kang Geunhee required to make sure she would have a reliable assistant."
Professor Park pursed his lips as he continued to glare at Sari. It was then that a certain realization came to mind.
"Professor Park, could it be that you're doing this to get rid of me... because you know my father, Yoon Hocheol?"
No comments:
Post a Comment