Novelist Running Through Time

TL: KSD

“Ugh…….”

I had a bizarre dream. I can’t remember what it was about. However, I do remember it seemed like a dream where I could hear a woman’s terrifying scream. The scream was so loud and horrific, it was as if someone had seen a corpse, producing a strange and shocking noise.

“Eugh…….”

It’s something I always feel when I sleep slumped over my desk, but it feels like my back is gone. My whole body felt bruised, as if someone had beaten me up. I guess this is what they call aching all over.

Q. Then why not just sleep on the floor?

A. It’s not that simple.

There are times when I have to write to my limits. No, there are times when I can only squeeze out the writing by doing so.

At those times, I have to write until I’m about to fall asleep from drowsiness. If I miss that opportunity, it never comes back.

There’s a minor problem of day and night getting reversed, but it’s nothing.

It’s simple. You can sleep when you’re dead, but if you can’t write now, there’s no next time. The inspiration that comes next will be different from the inspiration that comes now.

It’s similar to why people get hooked on fishing. Like worrying about what kind of fish will come out of the water, worrying about what kind of writing will come out of my mind. It’s like being addicted to the feeling of pulling up a big fish, addicted to the thrill of producing a masterpiece.

So, it was worth the trouble of sitting at the desk until I was about to collapse from sleepiness.

– Moron.

– Why are you swearing at me?

– No. I mean, you’re going to become a moron if you keep this up.

Yu-na always used to criticize me like this when she sees me in such a state, calling it a ‘perverted act of indulging in the dark pleasure of abusing one’s health by being engrossed in one’s own writing’. (It means to take care of your health because I’m worried about you)

Every time I hear such advice, I used to infuriate Yu-na’s patience by saying, ‘I don’t listen to people who can’t write better than me,’ but seeing that I was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer at 22, maybe Yu-na wasn’t wrong after all.

Letting my thoughts wander like this, I woke up.

I stretched and covered myself with a blanket to keep warm.

“……Huh?”

But then, I heard some rustling noises from the living room.

It’s supposed to be my studio, where I’m the only one living…

“……!!!”

A thief! Is it a thief?

Maybe it’s a stalker fan. Or perhaps a robber tempted by my money… Or could it be people claiming to be my relatives, harboring grudges over past events?

All sorts of bad thoughts flashed through my mind.

Fortunately, it seems they haven’t entered this room.

I locked the door quietly, trembling, holding back my breath.

Even when I was physically 23, I would have knelt down and begged if I had to fight a thief one-on-one, let alone at 13. Unless I’m a human weapon like Macaulay Culkin…

I grabbed my phone, ready to call the police, and carefully listened to the noises coming from the living room by pressing my ear against the door.

– Why is this place such a mess when he has so much money?

– It’s cold, so let’s turn up the boiler temperature.

– What if we get hit by a heating bill bomb?

– Well, that would be regrettable…

– Acting like it’s not even their house…

Huh.

The voices sound familiar…

EP 5-A Love Story

“Hahahahaha!”

Min Hyo-chan, the pink-haired senior, pointed at me, then grabbed his stomach and fell backward, laughing.

Even while lying on his back, he didn’t stop pointing and laughing at me.

“You thought it was a burglar? Just as one would expect from a ist, such imagination, hahaha!”

“Stop laughing.”

“Hehehe! Huk! Huhuhu!”

I rolled up the blanket I was covering myself with into a ball and threw it at Min Hyo-chan’s face.

Unfazed, Min Hyo-chan caught the blanket and wrapped it around himself, saying, ‘Actually, I wanted to cover myself with this,’ and snatched my blanket away with an air of nonchalance.

Then, suddenly, Gu Yu-na kicked Min Hyo-chan in the ribs.

“Guehak!”

To be precise, it was more of a jab than a kick.

Gu Yu-na’s big toe precisely pierced between Min Hyo-chan’s ribs like an awl.

With an expressionless face, Gu Yu-na snatched the blanket away from Min Hyo-chan, who was rolling on the ground in pain.

So, naturally, thinking she was going to give it back, I reached out my hand towards Gu Yu-na, but she covered herself with my blanket instead.

“…You’re not giving it back?”

“Spoils of war belong to the victor.”

“Right, right…”

I awkwardly gathered my hands as if I had been refused a handshake, not knowing where to put them.

I still hadn’t fully grasped Gu Yu-na’s personality. It seems I still have a long way to go.

The survival of the strongest, the demise of the weakest!

The law of the jungle, survival of the fittest!

Since her childhood, Gu Yu-na had understood the harsh realities of this world…

I added another entry to my mental “Gu Yu-na Encyclopedia” and pulled out another blanket with a yellow furry creature from the built-in closet on the wall.

Kim Byul, sitting uncomfortably on the floor, looked at me incredulously.

“How many blankets do you have?”

“Kim sunbae… you saw… my secret…”

“What are you talking about? Give me one too.”

Kim Byul snatched the blanket from my hand and spread it over her skirt before finally sitting down comfortably. It seems I lacked consideration.

I pulled out another blanket from the closet and wrapped it around me, then sat down between the rolling Min Hyo-chan and Gu Yu-na.

“Sigh… Thank you all for your concern. I’m not hurt anywhere, just been focusing on my writing and missed some school lately.”

“You should have at least contacted us!”

“To make an excuse, Kim sunbae, you don’t say much when you miss school because of your schedule, do you? I thought it would be okay since writing is like a schedule to me, but I ended up causing trouble for many people, which I deeply regret.”

“Hmph! As long as you know!”

“…”

“…”

Perhaps because it was the first time meeting Kim Byul since the emergency stairway incident, the longer we talked, the more the atmosphere became slightly awkward.

As Kim Byul awkwardly avoided my gaze, I changed the subject.

“Anyway, since we have guests, I should offer something, but I’m sorry I don’t have anything to eat at home. Should I order something now?”

Min Hyo-chan suddenly got up from the floor.

“It’s okay! I already ordered chicken and pizza! And for side dishes, rose tteokbokki and cheese balls!”

“Oh, aren’t you spending too much, Min sunbae?”

“It’s okay! You’re paying!”

“Me?”

“Yes!”

“When?”

“Now!”

“I see…”

I quietly nodded.

Then I signaled Gu Yu-na with my eyes.

Gu Yu-na nodded back.

Gu Yu-na’s big toe sharply pierced again between Min Hyo-chan’s ribs.

“Gyaaaaaak!”

It was winter.

* * *

Baekhak Entertainment’s Publishing Management Department has more than ten employees.

Although about three of them are temporary support staff dispatched from the promotion team, even considering that, it’s an excessive number of people to take care of a single author, Moon In-seop.

Of course, it’s not that CEO Baek Seung-won is spoiling Moon In-seop like a gullible fan. (He is a fan, though. A person who claims to be a fan of all the entertainers in the agency.)

The original form of the Publishing Management Department was the Publishing Management Task Force Team.

The goal of that TF team was to create an ‘entertainment agency for authors’ and to produce ‘star authors’!

Although the TF team was once destroyed, Lim Yang-wook, the sole survivor of the team, took up the mantle.

And the Publishing Management Department, having fired a splendid flare by birthing the star author “Moon In-seop,”

In short, the publishing department is currently in the midst of business expansion to leap forward as an “entertainment agency for writers”…

“But what are we going to do if this causes a problem?”

“Sorry! So sorry!”

Lim Yang-wook, who went on a business trip to negotiate directly with a major Japanese publishing house for exporting Moon In-seop’s books to Japan, was scolded by Baek Seol immediately upon his return.

In the mountain without a tiger, the fox is king. In the department without Lim Yang-wook, Deputy Head Baek Seol is the king. And the king must take responsibility for and lead everything.

While Baek Seol, the princess of Baekhak lineage, was being scolded in the meeting room next to the department, the employees trembled, but the two of them continued with constructive criticism and corrections.

There’s a certain bond among people who have been together since the beginning when there was nothing.

Lim Yang-wook didn’t scold her too harshly and ended his pointed remarks with some harsh words.

“Baek Seol~ssi. You should at least be aware of whether In-seop is attending school or not.”

“I, I did ask him over the phone…”

“Did you? Then why didn’t you check on his condition? You said things ended badly with his family.”

“He said it was okay, and I didn’t need to come…”

“Then it’s not entirely your fault. Anyway, it seems like In-seop can’t live on his own, so we need to assign someone to him. He acts all grown-up, but he’s completely a child!”

The two concluded their report on Moon In-seop’s personal affairs at this point. The Publishing Management Department had more than one or two business expansions in progress.

Besides author Moon In-seop, there was a project to bring other writers to the agency. Contracts with three popular ists were already underway, and positive interactions with Professor Gu Hak-jun were ongoing.

And this business credibility came from the success of Moon In-seop, the department’s flagship author, so they were also monitoring whether the movie “Red Hunter” was progressing smoothly.

However, the most important task was this.

“By the way, Chief. How did the negotiations go?”

“I managed to break through. We’ll start with ‘Cause of Death’ and others and gradually move on from there.”

The Japan expansion.

Translating and exporting Moon In-seop’s books to Japan.

That was the most significant challenge currently facing the Publishing Management Department.

Of course, it wasn’t easy.

The publishing industries of Korea and Japan are so different that comparison is meaningless. Japan’s publishing industry is a vast market. Depending on the method of calculation, it ranks second or third in the world.

Simply put, there are no ‘large corporations’ in the Korean publishing industry. They are all legally classified as small and medium-sized enterprises.

However, Japan is filled with giant publishing companies classified as ‘large corporations.’ The number of zeros is different.

Moreover, many of those giant publishing companies are controlled by conglomerate families, making ‘smooth’ entry into Japan’s publishing industry a very challenging task.

Here, ‘smooth’ means not getting shortchanged in sales revenue distribution, not getting pushed out of bookstore displays, not facing disadvantages in book promotions and newspaper advertisements, managing to find a proper translator for the book, and not facing various petty issues in the book distribution process.

Of course, it is very difficult for foreigners, especially Koreans, to conduct business smoothly in Japan. The detailed reasons are omitted.

But Lim Yang-wook had managed to overcome those difficulties and returned.

He had made his way through the lines, barely squeezing in through the networks he had built during his heyday in the publishing planning department.

Thinking about how much alcohol and abuse he had to endure in Japan, Lim Yang-wook felt nauseous.

“But what’s the use of that if you can’t hold down the fort at home…”

“I’m, I’m sorry…”

It wasn’t just about not realizing that Moon In-seop was skipping school and living like a recluse in his studio.

Baek Seol was causing the department to wobble with minor mistakes in other areas as well.

“Sigh…”

In Lim Yang-wook’s view, it wasn’t because Baek Seol lacked ability.

Everyone knows that Baek Seol is a deputy head. The practical work is done by the staff, and Baek Seol is supposed to supervise from above. And she was capable of doing that.

However, currently, Baek Seol was not preoccupied with her duties as a deputy head, but rather, she was absorbed in something else.

Lim Yang-wook, who had internally anticipated all this, scolded her.

“Ah! That’s why I said to leave the translation to someone else!”

“That, I can’t do that!”

Baek Seol, who had been obediently listening to Lim Yang-wook’s harsh words, rebelled against the chief for the first time.

Baek Seol, with dark circles almost reaching her cheeks, clung to the ‘Guitar’ by author Moon In-seop, revealing her desperate desire.

“I can’t leave this to another translator! From the moment I saw it, I decided I would translate it!”

“Then, Baek Seol~ssi, you could translate just that one and find another translator for the rest! There are so many experts in English literature in Korea!”

“I don’t want to!”

“You are really driving me crazy.”

Baek Seol wasn’t acting purely out of selfishness. (Meaning, it was half because of her own desires.)

“To other translators, this book might just be a job that pays per page, but not for me! Obviously, the outcome will be much better if I translate it, right?”

“Hey, I know a few translators…”

“Did those people earn their degrees in English literature from Oxford?”

“…”

Lim Yang-wook thought to himself, what a cunning bastard.

“And the translator you mentioned, Chief, that’s who you’re talking about, right? I have more than a few criticisms about their translations…”

“Okay! I surrender!”

And so, Baek Seol stubbornly won the translation job.

Because she would have to leave this department next year.

Because she would have to say goodbye to author Moon In-seop forever.

And because she would have to let go of the work she so desperately craved, forever.

She wanted to leave something behind for that boy’s future, one last time.

Thus, Baek Seol left the meeting room, quietly sighing in relief.

And.

Lim Yang-wook, who had been watching her from behind, wore a sympathetic smile.

Nobody knows better than him what it feels like to be unable to do what one desires.

“Ah, my fate.”

Thus, after finishing work, Lim Yang-wook decided to take care of Moon In-seop himself and headed to the boy’s studio.

In his hand were several nutritional supplements and a set of side dishes as gifts.

Knock, knock, Lim Yang-wook knocked on the studio door.

Anticipating Moon In-seop’s surprised expression upon receiving the gift.

“Hey! In-seop! Are you in there?”

There was no answer.

“…In-seop?”

Since he had the door lock code, Lim Yang-wook easily entered the studio.

And the studio was empty.

Lim Yang-wook stood in the living room with a dumbfounded expression for a long time.

* * *

Returning to New Light Spring Orphanage after a long time.

I stood dumbfounded at the entrance of the orphanage for a long time.

At the entrance of the orphanage, there were a couple of banners hung.

The contents were as follows:

[(Congratulations) Celebrating the Film Adaptation of Author Moon In-seop’s ‘Red Hunter’ (Congratulations)]

[Pride of New Light Spring Orphanage, Special Exhibition of Author Moon In-seop]

I stared blankly for a long time at Teacher Bang Jeong-ah, who was climbing a ladder to hang the banners, grunting with effort.

Then, sensing someone’s gaze, Teacher Bang Jeong-ah and I made eye contact.

“…”

“…”

Teacher Bang Jeong-ah looked at my face, then at the banner.

And again, she looked at my face, then at the banner.

“Grrr.”

As if nothing had happened, Teacher Bang Jeong-ah rolled up the banner and climbed down the ladder.

Then she greeted me warmly.

“Ah, hello! In-seop! It’s been a while?”

“Your face is as red as a beet.”

“Yo, you came because it’s the weekend! Come on in!”

“I’ve already seen the banner, though?”

“Hey, hey, hey, kids- I, In-seop has returned!”

With her face flushed red, Teacher Bang Jeong-ah tucked the banner under her arm and scurried away.

I followed her into New Light Spring Orphanage.

Anyway, this damn orphanage never seems to have a dull day; I couldn’t help but laugh.

It was the beginning of winter.

*****

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