01. A sword for you (16)

On the way back to school, in the shaking train, Yoon Seo-hee blankly leaned her forehead against the car window.

“… ….”

A lot happened today. That was the case with Lee Hyun-woo in the morning.

I was going to ignore it and pass it by, but I grabbed it surrounded by numbers and refused to let go. Even up to that point, it was just annoying, but when Kim Yi-jin’s name came out of her mouth, she couldn’t control herself and became furious.

After that it was even worse. I lost my reason enough to be dumbfounded by the trivial words. Hyunwoo Lee His head was full with the thought that he should not let that bastard talk about him anymore.

Why did you do that? It’s not like I’m that angry….

‘No, that’s not it.’

It was right to get angry. No one will feel good when a friend is being insulted.

The matter was too angry. I lost myself to the point that the mana I had stored up because I wasn’t used to using it soared all at once with anger.

‘Why did you do that?’

The sun had already set outside. Looking at the night view of the city where darkness has fallen.

Her face is reflected like a mirror in her dark glass window, superimposed on her dim lighting. It was a complex expression, as if revealing his current feelings.

When Kim Yi-jin was told that her sword had never been made, she was obviously confused.

But more than that, the anger was fierce. In order not to be disparaged by saying that she was a failed student, Kim Yi-jin always tried her best, and she was never worthless even in her own eyes.

A subject I don’t know anything about… I thought.

“I, no way.”

Do you like Kim Yi-jin?

I took a deep breath at the sudden thought.

“No, no no. No that’s it.”

I slammed my forehead against her car window in embarrassment. How long has it been since we met her? It’s not already

Isn’t it really… ?

Yoon Seo-hee remembered what had happened in her health room a while ago.

She looked at herself with infinitely serious eyes, and she looked at his pupils.

Of course, it was all her own misunderstanding, but at that moment, Yoon Seo-hee seriously thought about her confession.

If only. Really if What if he really confessed then?

What would I have answered?

The answer came quickly.

‘… He probably refused.’

Of course, it’s not that I hate Kim Yi-jin. We’ve only known her for a few days, but she still thinks she’s a good kid.

She is sincere and hard-working, and has the altruism of not overlooking the plight of others. She has a wonderful dream that others will not be ashamed of, and knows how to devote herself steadily towards it.

She’s tall, she seems to have a good body compared to Jiwon, and her face isn’t bad if that’s enough….

But. So do you like it If you ask me, it wasn’t.

Yoon Seo-hee has a dream. It’s not a proud and cool dream that stems from a feeling of revenge, but even so, she doesn’t want to give up right away. Recently, there are people who affirm her dream.

You have to be strong. She is prepared to walk even the thorny path for that.

Is it possible for me to fall in love with someone like that?

It might only hurt each other, right?

‘As expected, it’s better as it is now.’

No matter how you think about it, the answer is the same. The more you think about this feeling, the deeper you get into it. It was right not to think about it at all.

‘It’s kind of bitter….’

It’s rattled. The train swayed wildly around the corner of the track.

Yoon Seo-hee didn’t stumble thanks to her excellent sense of balance, but her office worker standing next to her stumbled helplessly as if she was tired from her way home from work and bumped her shoulders with her.

“Oops! Sorry.”

“No, I’m fine.”

If it was her usual girl, she would have easily avoided that much, but she didn’t care because she was deep in her thoughts right now. Thanks to her, she dropped the note she was holding in her hand.

I picked up the notebook that had fallen on her floor and dusted her off.

A handwritten note given by Kim Yi-jin at the health room. Lee Hyun-woo’s gang stole my bag, so I leave all my stuff in the locker, but I had no choice but to bring them because I didn’t have time to go to class today.

She turned the page slowly as she picked it up.

‘You’re more meticulous than I thought. The font is also neat….’

Kim Yi-jin’s personality was revealed in the neatly written handwriting, one character at a time, rather than the fluttering handwriting that boys his age usually do. She was easy to read and easy to recognize at a glance.

Come to think of it, she was good at drawing too. She’s in the business of making swords, so it’s only natural that she has good dexterity? Yoon Seo-hee was thinking of Kim Yi-jin again without realizing it.

‘Math, English, Korean… I missed class 1. What?’

A leaf was stuck on the last page of the page. It’s a little out of the blue to be called a bookmark, and how did it get stuck here?

A plain leaf without any features. She pulled out the leaves stuck in her notebook. Then, the sentence written under the leaf naturally caught my eye.

Perhaps because the 4th period was in the Korean language, the commentary on the four idioms was written in neat cursive.

‘Geumranjigyo (金蘭之交). A term used to describe a strong friendship between friends. It is a word derived from Of , Meaning that when two people are united, their strength can cut through iron, and the beauty of friendship is like the scent of an orchid….’

Unfortunately, a sentence that would normally just pass by without any meaning caught my eye today.

A firm friendship between friends. What was Lee Jin Kim thinking when he wrote this?

Of course she didn’t think anything of it. The teacher just wrote it down, so she just wrote it down.

Yoon Seo-hee smiled once, closed her notebook, and put only her leaves in her pocket.

–

After sending Yoon Seo-hee to her house, I started working on the teeth today in the workshop in the basement.

The materials, tools, and designs are all prepared, so now only production remains.

“… ….”

Can you do it?

Until now, no matter what they were making, they had only repeatedly failed.

Can I really complete Yoon Seo-hee’s sword?

“Hueup.”

Pair!

I opened my palm and slapped my cheek.

Keep your head straight, Kim Yi-jin.

It is useless to be scared. I can’t give up now and I have no intention of giving up. The finished version of the sword was already in my head, so all that was left was to actually move it.

It’s okay if you’re not sure. No blacksmith is sure from the first hammering that this lump of iron can become a sword.

I believe. I believe that the efforts I have made so far have not been worthless, and I only think of what I have to do now.

I put some coal in the furnace and started a fire. Then he began to raise the temperature of the furnace by continuously blowing air into the bellows.

Pushuk, Chiik!

Oxygen is injected and the sound of burning coals can be heard.

Because I inherited my grandfather’s studio, the facilities in this studio are, to put it mildly, traditional.

There is also no magic furnace that heats up with the press of a button, so it is necessary to use a bellows to blow air in the traditional way.

As the wind blows continuously, the oxygen-supplied furnace heats up. The air is warmed up and the temperature inside the workshop rises rapidly.

The heat that touches your skin is as hot as being in a sauna.

But it is still not enough. I kept increasing the heat in the furnace.

600 Degrees, 700 degrees, 800 degrees… When the metal was hot enough, I grabbed the iron sand ingot with tongs and threw it into the furnace.

Dark steel glows red in the roaring flames. I looked at the hot fire with my naked eyes and examined the color of the steel. The steel, which was light yellow, gradually changes color to light red and then to bright orange.

‘This is enough.’

Distinguishing the temperature by the color of steel is the basis of a blacksmith. When it was the right color, the ingot was removed from the furnace and placed on the anvil.

Now I had to shape the metal. I grabbed the hammer and hit the ingot vigorously.

“Suck!”

Kaang-!

The red-hot iron collides with the hammer and sparks fly. Whenever sparks fly, impurities and unnecessary carbon are removed and turned into iron that is good for making swords.

It would have been easier if I had used the smelting workshop’s electric press. It is easy to shape and can hit metal more than 10 times per second, so forging would have been many times faster if it was used.

However, it is useless to regret things that are not there. Each one strikes the steel with their hands to form a sword.

Kaang-! Caang-!

Every time the hammer was struck, a cheerful metal sound rang out. The square-shaped ingot gradually spreads out in the repeated hammering while maintaining a constant beat.

When holding the shape like this, the addition and subtraction of strength was important. If it is too weak, the iron will not change its shape, and if it is hit with too much force, fatigue fracture may occur. Cracks in the metal.

Since iron in the process of forging cools down quickly in the air, it is put back into the furnace to maintain constant heat.

Fire-!

“Suck!”

Kaang-!

The smell of fire and iron filled the studio.

The hammering sound was very loud, but it sounded like a gentle song in my ears.

The corners of my mouth went up as if I was happy before I knew it.

Ever since I was little, I liked making things with my hands. Is it because it’s always been that way?

It’s nice to work comfortably with an automated machine, but I can’t help but feel happy every time I get a little bit of shape with my own hands.

As my grandfather once said, I have the constitution of a heavenly artisan.