Big Life

As the highpass music rang, Park Do-Joon’s manager nodded and replied, “Of course, that program is under Writer Baek. The radio broadcast should have started by now. I heard that the ratings aren’t their only concern.”

“I want to listen to it.”

Park Do-Joon’s manager was surprised by Park Do-Joon’s decision. He tilted his head to glance at Park Do-Joon. He had been working as Park Do-Joon’s manager for a year now, so he knew very well that Park Do-Joon wasn’t the type to listen to educational programs like Writer’s Night. He obliged and tuned in to Writer’s Night.

— You have recently won the Modern Youth Literature Award and even held your first autograph event, right? Is there anything that you recall vividly?

The female host’s voice was the first voice they heard from the speakers. Park Do-Joon’s manager increased the volume slightly while Park Do-Joon closed his eyes and listened to the conversation in silence.

— I was surprised at the number of people who had come to support me. Many readers who knew me as Poongchun-Yoo also went to the event as well.

— Yes, I’ve heard you used the pseudonym Poongchun-Yoo when you wrote fantasy genre novels. Were you surprised to see an overlapping of readers from both sides?

— Yes, I think so. Even the person in charge of the autograph event was surprised.

— Are you referring to the person waiting outside our recording booth? Hahaha, she must have been extremely flustered. I’ve also heard that another 1,500 books of yours were sold during the event, and 300 of them were for Storm and Gale. As a newbie in the literary society, you’ve made quite the achievement. What are your opinions on this?

— I think there’s nothing else I can say aside from expressing my gratitude to everyone who made this possible.

‘Hmph, hypocrite.’ Park Do-Joon pouted and closed his eyes.

He suddenly recalled that his girlfriend loved reading, so he called her.

— Mm, oppa.

“Where are you?”

— I just returned to the dorms after training. I was about to call you as well. Are you on the way to Gangwon Province? You must be exhausted.

“We’re both exhausted. Chae-Rin, do you know a writer by the name of Ha Jae-Gun?

— Ha Jae-Gun? What novel did he write?

“I heard it was Storm and Gale or something like that. I heard he received a Modern Youth Literature Award or whatever.

— I’m not very sure. Hmm… Ha Jae-Gun…? Ah! That’s right! I think he wrote Foolish Woman, too. I was reading it in the car the other day, and you asked me why I was reading a book with such an annoying title.

“Hmm, I think I remember that…”

— It should be him. Oppa, I’m really sweaty. I’ll shower and call you again, okay?

“All right.” Park Do-Joon ended the call and looked up Ha Jae-Gun on Navin.

Ha Jae-Gun’s novels were all listed in his profile, and the title Foolish Woman was next to Storm and Gale.

‘It even has an ebook version.’

Since even his girlfriend knew Ha Jae-Gun, Park Do-Joon became interested in Ha Jae-Gun as well. Park Do-Joon purchased an ebook version of Storm and Gale and opened the file on his phone.

However, he succumbed to the drowsiness ten lines into the first page and fell into a deep sleep.

***

The late-night radio broadcast of Writer's Night was coming to an end, and there were quite a number of listeners tuning into the show. Ha Jae-Gun's admitted father, his mother, Ha Jae-In, Lee Soo-Hee, Park Jung-Jin, a few of his classmates and even his editor, Jung So-Mi, were listening.

Everyone—no, the people close to Ha Jae-Gun—fought their drowsiness and listened intently to the radio broadcast.

Of course, there were a few exceptions. Oh Myung-Suk, son of OongSung Publication Group's president and the editor-in-chief of the company, broke his usual routine to tune into the radio broadcast from his study.

'He's an incredible guy…'

Oh Myung-Suk viewed Ha Jae-Gun as a monstrous genre novel writer who suddenly dropped out of the sky to eventually win both the Digital Literature Award and the Modern Youth Literature Award.

'For someone who has been writing genre novels, he must have had a hard time writing something that will fit the taste of the literary society…'

Aside from his personal interest in Ha Jae-Gun, there was also something else that connected Oh Myung-Suk to Ha Jae-Gun.

Storm and Gale were published through HaneulSaem, a literary brand under OongSung Publication Group. As time went on, Oh Myung-Suk found that Ha Jae-Gun was becoming more and more interesting.

'Phew…'

Oh Myung-Suk sipped on his lukewarm coffee. No matter how many times he knocked on his head, the throbbing wouldn’t stop. The throbbing was caused by the worries that had been troubling him recently.

The worries stemmed from a new mystery and horror novel brand that he was working on, but he still couldn’t find a suitable novel for the launch of that brand.

'No one's desperate.'

Oh Myung-Suk's desk was piled with mountains of manuscripts from various established writers, but they were all trash from Oh Myung-Suk's perspective.

'How could they send such trashy works like this to me? Where did they get the guts to do this? Do they really think that their names are that great? How pathetic. How dare they become condescending for the rest of their lives after winning just a couple of awards.'

Oh Myung-Suk started tearing the manuscripts apart out of rage. Soon, the efforts of over twenty writers turned into fluttering pieces of paper and fell to the ground.

Just then, the female host's final question for the night traveled into Oh Myung-Suk's ears.

— So, when can we expect a new novel from you, and what will it be about?

— It's still currently in the ideation stage. In fact, just today—no, it's past midnight now, so it's yesterday. I suddenly got my muse yesterday afternoon, so it's just been ten hours since I started the ideation process.

— I see. Can you tell us what it would be about?

— It's not something great to be concealed, but there's nothing much I can divulge at this time since nothing has been set in stone. However, the story would be an unraveling mystery or crime-solving novel about why a female university student chose to commit suicide.

'Hmm…?' Oh Myung-Suk's eyes widened in disbelief.

He didn’t mishear. He had definitely heard Ha Jae-Gun say the words—mystery or crime-solving.

'He can even write mystery novels…?'

Oh Myung-Suk was speechless for a while, but he soon realized that it shouldn’t be that surprising when he recalled the list of novels that Ha Jae-Gun had written so far.

'I’m not sure, but it’s worth keeping an eye on him.’

Ha Jae-Gun could write a decent mystery novel looking at his past achievements. Soon, the radio show ended, and the music of a random advertisement started playing.

Oh Myung-Suk turned off the radio and fell into deep thought. He was planning on signing a contract with Ha Jae-Gun if the latter could write a mystery novel with above-average quality.

It was extremely rare to find newbies as monstrous as Ha Jae-Gun, but it wasn’t that hard to market a book. However, there was an issue of decreased readership and backlash from the readers if a writer were to suddenly write in an unfamiliar genre.

'I am kinda worried about Myung-Hoon, but work is work.'

Oh Myung-Suk picked up his phone and added another line on the agenda for the morning meeting tomorrow. He wrote—meeting on Mysterium’s brand launch and Writer Ha Jae-Gun’s upcoming mystery novel.

***

"Why are you always coming here?" Ha Suk-Jae rebuked and frowned upon seeing his son entering the ward.

Ha Jae-Gun ignored the rebuke in his father’s words and put down the box of fruit juice he had brought with him.

“Please drink one after every meal,” he said.

“Why did you buy this? There are too many things for me to eat, and I still have to move around for rehab. How can I get out of bed after eating so much?”

“Dad, you can’t even walk with crutches, so what rehab are you talking about? Anyway, don’t mind him. he’s just happy that his son has come to visit him. He was even listening to the radio broadcast at the pantry last night before sleeping,” Ha Jae-In said.

“What’s with the nonsense? You and your mom dragged me out of here when I was about to sleep just to listen to the radio broadcast. Ah, I’m annoyed. Move away, I can’t watch the TV.”

Ha Jae-Gun smiled slightly and stepped aside.

Ha Suk-Jae’s attention was fixated on the morning drama with a sour face when he wasn’t usually interested in dramas. He looked so cute that Ha Jae-In covered her mouth to stop herself from laughing.

“Ah, I have to drop by the house for a while. I need to grab some clothes for Dad.”

“I’ll go; you can stay here, noona,” Ha Jae-Gun offered.

“Both of you, just go back. Please,” Ha Suk-Jae pleaded, but the siblings didn’t listen. Ha Jae-Gun left the ward while Ha Jae-In started peeling apples for him.

“Was he your son?” asked a woman seemingly in her fifties on the bed next to them. Like Ha Suk-Jae, the woman was also suffering from a fracture on one of her legs due to a traffic accident. As a fellow ward patient, she had been exchanging a few small talks with Ha Suk-Jae throughout the day.

"Yes." Ha Suk-Jae looked her way slightly and answered curtly without trying to disregard her, although he didn’t have any intentions of wanting to continue the conversation with her as it would mostly be her boasting about her own family.

"The economy is quite bad these days… it’s hard to find work,” said the woman.

However, Ha Suk-Jae had already seen through the topic that the woman had brought up out of the blue. He knew that she had viewed Ha Jae-Gun as an unemployed adult, seeing how he had come to visit during office hours. Her judgment was based on his observations in the past few days he had spent in the ward.

Ha Suk-Jae did not see the need to reply to her and continued watching the TV without saying anything.

However, the woman continued talking as if there wasn’t anything strange.

“I guess my son got quite lucky. He was accepted into HG right after graduation and is already in his third year with them. He’s performing quite well, too. It’s hard to join a huge corporation, but it’s even harder to survive in the system. I’m proud of him, but I also feel sorry for him at the same time.”

“I see.” Ha Suk-Jae croaked a reply, and his eyes turned dark.

The woman really knew how to boast.

The woman asked Ha Suk-Jae, “How old is your son?”

“He’s twenty-eight this year.”

“Oh, he’s younger than my son by a year. So he’s no longer a student. Sigh… anyway, it’s really tough to survive out there. I hope the economy recovers soon.”

Ha Suk-Jae didn’t want to have a childish conversation with her, so he remained silent. However, Ha Jae-In had a different idea.

Ha Jae-In peeled the apples and cut them up into bite-sized pieces before answering in her father’s stead, "My brother is a writer, so the economy isn’t really affecting him. I'm quite thankful that he managed to find decent work."

"Writer? A novelist?"

"Yes."

The woman let out a deep, long sigh. "That's a great occupation. However, isn’t it true that writers struggle to make ends meet unless they’re top-tier writers?"

There was no way that Ha Jae-In wouldn’t notice the woman's contempt behind her seemingly worried tone.

However, it seemed that the woman wasn’t done just yet.

"My son's annual salary this year is probably… around fifty million won? It's enough for him right now since he's living alone, plus he has a small apartment under his name. How much does your brother earn a year? I have no other intentions, I'm just very curious about how much youngsters earn these days since I'm not sure if my son is earning enough for his age and job. Is fifty million won good enough?"

"I'm not so sure either. My brother earns slightly over two hundred million won."

The woman's smiling face stiffened.

Ha Jae-In calmly handed Ha Suk-Jae a piece of apple.

Ha Suk-Jae took it and ate it with relish.

“Two hundred million…? His annual salary is… two hundred million?”

“It’s not his annual salary, he said it’s his monthly income.”

“M-monthly…?!”

“It’s weird to call it monthly salary since he’s a writer. He calls the money he gets royalties, which he receives from his published novels. Anyway, I’m going out to look for a nurse, Dad,” Ha Jae-In replied casually and left the ward.

Ha Suk-Jae extended a piece of apple to the dazed woman and asked, “Would you like one?”

***

“I’ve gotten all the clothes. Oh, right.” Ha Jae-Gun was about to leave the house after packing his father’s clothes, but he turned around at the last minute upon recalling that he should grab a few books for his father, who loved to read.

‘It’s been a while since I came in here.’

The smallest room in the house was being used as a storage room as well as his father’s study. He hadn’t stepped into the room in years since he wasn’t really on good terms with his father until recently.

Everything was dumped at one corner of the room, and along another side of the room was a wall of books that had been stacked up to the ceiling. They were all books that Ha Suk-Jae enjoyed reading.

‘Wow, did Father enjoy Japanese novels as well?’ Ha Jae-Gun pulled out a book that looked interesting. He leaned against what he thought was a wall and flipped the pages to read the book.

However, he mistakenly leaned against a pile of books.

“Woah!”

The pile of books collapsed, and Ha Jae-Gun raised his arms to protect himself.

The chaos soon subsided, and he looked around

“How could I…”

Ha Jae-Gun despaired at the thought of organizing these books. Just as he was about to bend down to clean up the mess, he discovered a cardboard box that had been hiding behind the stacks of books all this while.

The box was open, and Ha Jae-Gun froze upon seeing what was inside the box.