I Was Michelangelo in My Past Life

Fact.

Michelangelo was almost indifferent to anything except the study of humanity.

That doesn't mean he couldn't do other things.

When Michelangelo had just begun his apprenticeship at Ghirlandaio's workshop—he was around thirteen years old at the time—

a fellow apprentice, Granacci, showed him a print.

It was a reproduction of a print by Schongauer, depicting Saint Anthony tormented by demons. Schongauer's prints were quite popular in Italy at the time.

Michelangelo also greatly admired the print.

To the young Michelangelo, the image of an old ascetic surrounded by nine demons was deeply fascinating.

A few days later—

Having returned from the fish market, Michelangelo began adding color to the print on cardboard using paints and brushes provided by Granacci.

Condivi, who later wrote Michelangelo's biography while by his side, described that moment like this:

"Michelangelo was so meticulous that he would not add color to any part without first observing it in nature.To accurately depict the demons in the picture, he went to the fish market and studied the color and form of the fins with his own eyes.Only after carefully examining the color of the eyes and every other part did he begin to paint. And then…"

Condivi explained the entire process and finally summarized it like this:

"He cast everything he had seen into the heart of wonder."

Like many of his other works, this one has been lost and cannot be seen with our own eyes, but—like all of Michelangelo's works—it was undoubtedly a masterpiece.

Seoul Suburbs.

At the long-abandoned Yongshin Land, loud banging echoed again today. Those working on murals, as if this were a regular occurrence, lifted their paint-stained headsets with practiced hands.

"Hasn't that building been under construction for ages? Shouldn't it be done by now? It's been noisy forever."

"Didn't they already finish the roof last time?"

"I heard something about needing to fix the stairs or something. But still, they're working pretty fast."

A man painting a mural near the old building turned to look. The loud banging reached his ears through a headset that wasn't playing music.

The team working on the building joined the project shortly after the public art initiative began. With no residents nearby to complain about the noise and decent overtime pay, progress was fairly quick.

"I thought designing alone takes a while. Don't they need approvals and coordination and all that?"

Most people there didn't know that renovations on buildings smaller than 200 square meters and less than three stories tall didn't require permits—just a simple filing, which usually passed in five days.

"Well, since the government's involved, I'm sure it's all above board."

"Yeah, I'm sure the project lead handled everything properly."

At that, people nodded, recalling Ryu Sooheon—often quick and efficient, though with a face like the walking dead. He wasn't someone prone to mistakes.

"But still, what are they building?"

Yongshin Land wasn't going to reopen. Word was that the land would be used to run a themed photo studio—just a way to get value out of cheap land.

So the only possible revenue might be admission fees. Then why all this construction? It was baffling.

Even the on-site team from Yoon Sooncheol Architects, overseeing the renovation, didn't understand either.

…

…

"Damn. That's amazing."

"What is?"

Yoon Sooncheol, head of the architecture office, peeked over at the sound next to him. His employee, Ahn Daehong, was looking at something on his phone.

"This. You know this piece too, boss, right?"

"What are you… Ah."

Displayed on the phone screen was the sculpture Father.

"They say the artist was a high schooler. People are calling him the Michelangelo of Korea and all that."

"Foreigners are saying it's all a setup."

"Only because they haven't seen it themselves. We should invite them to Korea!"

Ahn Daehong passionately defended the work, lamenting that the sculpture couldn't tour overseas for fear of damaging the marble. One might think he'd sculpted it himself.

These days, lots of MZ-generation youth were apparently die-hard fans of Kang Seok.

"So it was you, huh."

"Huh?"

"Never mind."

Yoon Sooncheol turned away, looking bored. Whether the sculpture was good or not didn't matter to him. He was just a middle-aged man clinging to reality, with only a toe dipped into the art world through architecture.

Forget fathers or whatever—he just wanted to make money. Maybe buy some Bitcoin if he could time-travel. What would he do if Monday's lottery ticket actually won?

He looked down at the blueprint. Even for a renovation, it was unusually simple.

The original building had been a gift shop in the amusement park. The renovation involved replacing the central double-height roof—originally meant to house a plush toy tower—with a glass dome, and installing a massive staircase leading up toward it.

All windows letting in light were to be completely blacked out.

That was it.

Almost too minimal to even call it a renovation.

Then again, for a 60-pyeong (about 2,100 sq ft) gift shop, what more was there to do?

"What an odd person."

Who had requested this, and why? He didn't really care—as long as he got paid—but he was curious. Especially about the short poem written in the corner of the blueprint:

[To you who have arrived here][Noble feet climbing the stairs][Noble hands and sword reaching for the sky][At the wave of your hand, as you appear][The dark world][Is painted with the wings of thousands of butterflies]

…

…

While slowly reading the short poem—

This time, Ahn Daehong leaned over toward the blueprint Yoon Sooncheol was reading.

"Now that I think about it, this person's name is also Kang Seok."

"Hm?"

What?

When Yoon Sooncheol gave him a questioning look, Ahn Daehong jabbed at his phone like he was stating the obvious.

"The Michelangelo of Korea. His name is Kang Seok. And the person who drafted this blueprint—his name was Kang Seok too, remember?"

According to Secretary Ryu Sooheon, the author of the blueprint was supposedly Kang Seok.

"No way… same person?"

"Can't be."

Yoon Sooncheol let out a laugh, dismissing the idea. Even if it was a design simple enough for a layperson to do—no way it was the same person.

What exactly is a major renovation?

It involved altering some part of a building's main structural components. Whether it was a wall, a pillar, a roof, or a staircase, changing any one of them was never a simple task.

There were even rumors floating around that the one who painted The Creation of Adam—a reproduction of Michelangelo's fresco from The Creation of the Heavens and the Earth—on the wall of a Renaissance-themed shopping mall was none other than Kang-seok. If that were true, it would mean he not only paints and sculpts but dabbles in architecture as well.

He's not even the real Michelangelo. Ha! Shaking his head in disbelief, Yoon Soon-chul tightened his grip on the blueprint.

"Let's get to work. There's not much left to do now."

He looked over at Ahn Dae-hong, silently telling him to stop staring at his phone and get back to his assigned tasks. Whatever the true identity of the blueprint's creator, they were now close to completing the space exactly as that designer had envisioned.

Yoon Soon-chul smiled with anticipation.

While the abandoned building at Yongshin Land was being prepared to welcome Kang-seok, Kang-seok himself sat on a secluded bench in an ecological park, drawing.

Jo Dong-beom was quietly observing Kang-seok's eyes from a not-so-far, not-so-close distance.

'He's terrifying…'

Seeing Kang-seok from outside, in the open air, made it clearer than ever—his eyes while drawing were truly frightening.

'Now I understand why they call him the marble cutter…'

His gaze, tracing the butterflies fluttering in the greenhouse, shook several times per second.

His pupils dilated and shrank, darting rapidly, pausing abruptly, trembling subtly—completely unhinged. To put it simply, it was madness incarnate.

This is scary. Help.

Jo Dong-beom swallowed his panic.

Regardless.

Kang-seok's eyes continued to tremble, and his hand never stopped moving. No one could say how many colors were being used to capture just a single butterfly.

At first, seeing him pull out countless different colored pencil sets from his bag—120 colors, 150 colors, 82 colors from various brands—Jo had wondered how he could possibly use them all. But Kang-seok changed colors so frequently that it now seemed he might not have brought enough.

'Does it really take that many colors to draw one butterfly?'

Jo Dong-beom frowned and looked toward the butterfly Kang-seok was studying.

'Let's see… just how many colors does it actually have?'

Color, strictly speaking, isn't a concept that can be precisely divided numerically—but Jo folded his hands behind his back and thought.

Physicist James Clerk Maxwell had once defined that the human eye could perceive an infinite range of wavelengths between 380–780 nm.

Jo recalled concepts he'd learned in university.

Around 400 nm: violet.

At 450 nm: blue.

At 550 nm: green.

Around 630 nm: yellow.

At 700 nm: red.

The spectrum of the rainbow came back to him like he'd learned it yesterday.

380–780 nm wavelengths.

That's the range of colors perceptible to the human eye.

'We can't define it exactly, but I think it was something like a million colors…'

Of course, perceiving and distinguishing are two different things. Even though the eye can perceive up to a million colors, most people can only distinguish around 100,000. That number varies greatly between individuals.

Still, 100,000 was an enormous number.

'But in real life, we use maybe 30 colors at most.'

That was the reality.

We're capable of distinguishing up to 100,000 colors but hardly ever use them in daily life, nor do we feel the need to assign names to so many shades.

Only professionals memorize RGB codes and use them that way.

Anyway.

As someone who went to art school, Jo considered himself fairly sensitive to color.

With nothing better to do while waiting for Kang-seok to finish drawing, he decided to entertain himself by trying to count how many colors made up the butterfly's wings.

Jo's eyes followed the iridescent colors formed by the reflection of light on the layers and angles of the butterfly's wing scales.

It was instantaneous.

'Thirty.'

Exactly thirty colors.

No more.

Jo looked at Kang-seok again in confusion. Kang-seok was still pulling out colors from his pencil cases, one after another.

Using all ten fingers, he shuffled through dozens of pencils across multiple sets—120 colors, 150 colors, 82 colors…

'Does it really take that many colors?'

Kang-seok was typically someone who approached his work with a focus on realism. He wasn't the type to create imaginary colors and paint in the impressionist style like the so-called painters of light.

Which meant… every one of those colors he was using must be there in real life. Unable to contain his curiosity, Jo crab-walked to peek over Kang-seok's shoulder.

Holding his breath, he looked at the drawing.

'Wha… What is this?'

It was identical to the real butterfly.

Not a millimeter off. Absolutely the same.

It wasn't just that it was drawn well—it looked like it might fly off the page at any second. Like a photograph. But that wasn't what stunned him.

'How is this…'

Jo alternated his gaze between the real butterfly and the one on the sketchpad. The butterfly floating in the air and the one drawn in the book were the same. And yet, it felt like his own vision had been upgraded.

It was as if reality were QHD (1,440p), using about 4 million pixels, and the world inside the drawing was UHD (4K, 2,160p), using 8 million pixels.

It felt like his eyes had opened to a whole new dimension.

'How is this even possible?'

To examine the drawing more closely, Jo leaned in further toward the sketchbook. Balancing on his toes, he bent forward like a ballerina, peeking in with an awkward but focused posture.

In that bizarre silence, Jo's eyes grew wider and wider, almost as if they would pop out of his head.

The drawing was just that astonishing.

The butterfly was a perfect replica of the real one, but the number of colors differed.

'Thirty… thirty-one… thirty-two… thirty-three… thirty-four…!'

This was… evolution.