Chung-eun is a student of an Arts high school. Her major is Art, and she’s a recognized genius. When other students who envies her ruins her painting in the middle of an exam, she completes her painting in the short remaining time by repainting it over the spoiled part. Even she pulled it off like a magic trick, her schoolmates nods over it as ‘it’s no surprise if it was her’ – her talent is recognized as such.

That Chung-eun has a person whom she longs for a couple of years. When Chung-eun fell down by an accident, – the detail of the accident is not revealed yet – nobody but the girl took an action to save her. Chung-eun remembers her impression only vaguely, and she doesn’t know who the girl is. She just has been drawing sketches of the girl for two years, imagining the girl who saved her.

The mysterious girl appears not long after the story began. Her name was ‘Yumi’, and she has been going to the same Arts high school with Chung-eun. Meeting of the two is not very dramatic. But it doesn’t pose as an issue, because this work focuses on what happens after the meeting, not the meeting itself. Anyway, when Chung-eun meets Yumi and Yumi confirms that she was the girl who saved her two years ago, Chung-eun, beyond just getting a romantic feeling, totally falls in love with her.

Hang on for a moment. The genius girl I mentioned in the title is, understandably, Chung-eun. Then who is the ordinary girl? Unsurprisingly, in this webtoon we have many ordinary girls, but the prime suspect would be, naturally, Yumi. As you just predicted, Chung-eun appears to be a genius with natural talent, and Yumi is the opposite of that. And Yumi doesn’t always watch Chung-eun’s talent and genius with a pure and positive attitude. Considering Yumi’s reaction to Chung-eun’s inconsiderate words or behavior not realizing her talent or status, it would be the total opposite of that.

Let me briefly explain about the high school set in this work. It’s not a very pleasant place for education. Students are separated by class for they’re in the G/T program or not. By each semester exam, they are sorted and assigned to a class. Let’s assume it’s okay so far. They wear different uniforms by G/T or not (it’s totally absurd), school’s support for arts study materials is only for G/T, and even accessibility to occupational information like an art contest is discriminated. Like Yumi’s expression she thought to herself, ‘because Chung-eun lives on the flowerbed’, Chung-eun is not well aware of the environment and she seems to be indifferent to it; but Yumi, who feels keenly the difference as an ‘ordinary’ student, is totally opposite. 

Chung-eun is falling in love with her savior from the past, as deep as she can give Yumi her own liver when it’s asked by her. She’s in the G/T class, and she’s even a genius among them. And it is said, in the art industry, one can benefit a lot from their human network. After becoming aware of Chung-eun’s emotion, at first, Yumi tried to push her away as Chung-eun is a girl from the different world. But after she saw the chance to success as an ordinary student in the ordinary class, she changes her mind quickly and it is followed by action. She made up her mind to make use of Chung-eun by any means. While not forgetting to throw carrots to seemingly captivated Chung-eun from time to time. What would happen to them is well implied to the title of the webtoon. The ‘girl in the Birdcage’. A girl locked in a birdcage, and the other girl looking at her from the outside.

Of course, there are other characters other than Chung-eun and Yumi. There are Sunhwa, who is an ordinary student like Yumi, but not making use of her, reliably watches Chung-eun’s back as a friend, (and she is very cautious of Yumi) and another girl with fierce eyes who appeared at the latest episode as I’m writing this review. It makes me very curious that how the relationship among the girls, who are thrown into an environment where absolutely nobody can remain pure, would end up.