Novelist Running Through Time

Chapter 130

TL: KSD

In the light, you cannot see the darkness.

Only in the darkness can you look into the darkness.

EP 8 – Dark Adaptation

Novelists are not a particularly pleasant breed.

They are sensitive, irritable, and filled with pride.

It is a stereotype often summarized as ‘picky artist’ depicted in dramas.

Park Chang-woon knew that this stereotype wasn’t entirely unfounded.

Being ‘sensitive’ was necessary to sharply employ literary imagination,

And being filled with ‘pride’ was essential because one had to believe in their own world.

In fact, without these traits, it was easy to fall apart.

How could someone without a keen literary sense write novels, someone who couldn’t even furrow their brow irritably endure harsh criticism from critics and the public, and someone who didn’t believe in their own writing love literature?

Thus, if you look at novelists who have had long careers, many of them generally had rather fucking nasty personalities.

Talking about this would make you an easy target for criticism, but at least that’s how Park Chang-woon saw it.

And this was also Park Chang-woon’s excuse for justifying his own behavior,

And the reason why he feared Gu Hak-jun, who acted like a saint despite being a top novelist.

Isn’t the one who looks sane among the crazy ones the most dangerous?

Anyway, for this reason, Park Chang-woon didn’t dislike novelists with somewhat abrasive personalities.

It was hard to see his own personality as gentle, and he appreciated the grit a novelist needed.

But-

“This isn’t right, you bastard!”

Just as a sense of justice turns into malice when it harms an innocent person, a novelist’s pride shouldn’t be brandished like a weapon at someone.

Moreover, what was an adult doing to a kid?

Thus, Park Chang-woon couldn’t contain his righteous anger and stood up firmly.

“Hey, you fucking bastard! Have you really gone mad just because you haven’t won a literary award for a few years…?”

And just when he was about to punish this literary miscreant disturbing the order,

“It’s fine. Don’t be too angry.”

At Moon In’s words, who stood up with an enlightened expression, Park Chang-woon calmed his anger.

But enlightenment? Is that how a kid of that age reacts in such a situation?

After being frozen for a moment, Park Chang-woon hurriedly asked as he saw Moon In walking away somewhere.

“Hey, where are you going?”

Then Moon In replied indifferently.

“There’s someone here who hates seeing me. So I’m going to disappear.”

With those words, Moon In disappeared somewhere, attracting everyone’s attention.

Lim Yang-wook, who had been talking on the phone in a corner of the banquet hall, hurriedly hung up and followed Moon In.

“Oh boy……”

Park Chang-woon sighed deeply and looked around.

At the banquet hall, or rather, the literary award ceremony hall, there were now two types of people.

The foolish beings who froze, realizing what consequences a moment’s impulse had brought, and the crowd coldly watching him.

The look in the eyes of that crowd, as Park Chang-woon saw it, was somewhat like the eyes of mischievous children who had just received a toy they could break as much as they wanted.

* * *

As soon as I stepped out of the hotel, I felt like I was thrown into the heart of Seoul. It’s natural since the hotel where the literary award ceremony was held is in the heart of Seoul.

However, the hotel banquet hall is a space detached from daily life, while the heart of Seoul, even the crosswalks, is an intersection full of everyday life.

So, with just a few steps, it felt like I had entered a completely different world.

Thanks to that, my mood was refreshed.

My pounding heart also settled down calmly.

“Haah…”

With a sigh, I shook off the last bit of tension and hurried my steps again.

The forest made up of countless people welcomed me.

I instantly became part of the human wave.

I decided to ignore Lim Yang-wook’s incessant text messages, which were chiming ‘katalk katalk-‘ instead of ‘tring tring-‘, for a while.

After all, I seemed to be a sensitive and self-centered novelist as well.

I needed time to think. Let’s put the awards ceremony on the back burner for now. First, I need mental stability. A novel is written by the mind, not by reputation.

So, I hid among people.

And I walked the streets of Seoul.

The first thing that came to mind was the echo of the story I had just heard. Since the mind is closer to essence than language, the recollection was even more vivid than before.

‘I hate you.’

‘I hate you.’

‘I hate you for monopolizing all the attention just because you’re young.’

‘I hate the public that is crazy about age, looks, and popularity, and I hate the literary world that pushes literature aside.’

‘Your success should have been mine.’

It wasn’t hard to infer such dark emotions.

After all, it was the same thoughts I once had about Gu Yubin.

At one time, I was so jealous of Gu Yubin.

Because she truly had everything.

Born as Gu Hak-jun’s daughter, she debuted as a writer through a poetry book when she was young, gained fame as a beautiful female novelist, and even had her novel turned into a drama (though it flopped).

Of course, Gu Yubin is not an heiress to a conglomerate. Her father isn’t the president, she doesn’t belong to an oil tycoon family, and she hasn’t even won a multi-million-dollar American lottery.

But above all, the reason I was most jealous of Gu Yubin was because she was also a writer.

Writing is like that.

Deep down, you write hoping for someone’s recognition.

But if you repeatedly fail to win literary awards, hear nothing from publishers, and live in such indifference for several years, you go insane.

Poverty is an additional suffering. What really torments you is the voice in your heart saying, ‘It’s all because I’m not good enough.’

Unable to accept that voice, you look for someone to blame. For me, that person was Gu Yubin, and for that person, it was me.

It’s that kind of… self-consolation, that I’m not wrong; it’s the world that cheers for people who succeed through unfair means that is wrong.

Borrowing Park Chang-woon’s words, it aligns with the ‘line’ often appearing in martial arts novels.

Suddenly, the image of Park Chang-woon shouting loudly came to mind.

‘It’s dark magic-!’

“Ahaha…!”

The thought made me laugh a little. Feeling a bit better, I replied to Lim Yang-wook. I said I’d be resting in the studio today.

Even while taking a taxi back, my thoughts didn’t stop.

My eyes saw the world beyond the car window swaying slightly with the vehicle’s movement, but my mind was elsewhere.

Jealousy!

Hatred is a self-destructive emotion. But sometimes, to survive, you have to hate someone.

I understood the feelings of the person who hated me. How much self-loathing did he endure before he spoke those words? It was probably a hatred that festered and festered until it burst.

But didn’t he know what situation he would face once he said it?

He must have known.

Even so, he probably couldn’t endure without saying it.

If I succeeded because I was young, and Gu Yubin succeeded because she was pretty, then it meant he hadn’t succeeded because they were lacking.

But from my perspective, success is determined not by people but by the heavens. It’s one of the few realizations of a foolish time traveler.

But why is it that humans cannot bear it without hating each other?

Why do they ignore the truth in front of them and lie to themselves to the point of hating others?

Looking back, this was my first question about the world.

Let me give an example. This example was also a familiar question to me.

Why do people despise orphans even though it’s not their choice to be one?

* * *

「……After my parents passed away, life in the orphanage was a series of incomprehensible events. I felt as if I had been thrown into another world.」

「Why wasn’t I allowed to have a cell phone, why did I have to get hit if I talked back, why couldn’t I rebel against irrational things, why…….」

「But the strangest thing was that a wall had formed between me and the kids I used to be close with not too long ago.」

「……It was only when I saw the orphanage teacher bowing helplessly in front of the other kids’ parents that I realized the hidden power dynamics behind the lies of human rights and equality.」

「So, I end up remembering those beautiful fish I saw in the aquarium when I was a child. In the end, humans, too, just prey on the weak.」

“Hmm……”

Gu Yu-na doesn’t discriminate in making friends. It’s people who discriminate against Gu Yu-na.

But as she read this manuscript, Gu Yu-na had a rare thought.

It was that ‘if you become close with your favorite, it makes your fan activities better.’

“In-seop.”

“Wh-what?! Why?”

“Let’s stay friends from now on.”

Moon In, who was hit by the 1-2 combo of Gu Yu-na calling him “In-seop” and then saying, “Let’s stay friends from now on,” was completely sunk,

Gu Yu-na felt that transferring to the same school as Moon In to become friends was worth it.

Getting the next work from her favorite author in advance?

There was no greater heaven.

Gu Yu-na paused her reading and savored it as if she was enjoying a fine delicacy.

“Hmm……”

Min Hyo-chan and Min Hyo-min, who had witnessed the shocking remarks earlier and now this strange behavior, widened their eyes in disbelief, but Gu Yu-na remained engrossed in her own world.

“It has a stable taste…….”

Moon In had finally done something notable.

That’s how Gu Yu-na felt.

Moon In, who had been writing only commercial, non-literary, fairy tale-like, vulgar, and convenience-oriented works as if he had conformed to the trends, had finally written something that suited her taste.

Lim Yang-wook described it as ‘obscure, bizarre, and dark.’

But Gu Yu-na liked this piece.

Because it starkly revealed the bizarre nature of humans that was beyond understanding.

In Gu Yu-na’s view, humans were hypocritical beings full of contradictions.

From that perspective, this novel was ‘realistic’ from the start.

A corpse cleaner who rejects the concept of human dignity but wants to be dignified finds a book in the house of a woman who committed suicide.

The book is the memoir of a man. When he was young, he followed his mother to a large mart and witnessed fish being eaten by their own kind, leaving him traumatized.

He loses his parents and goes to an orphanage. There, he experiences the life of the ‘lower class’ that he didn’t know while his parents were alive.

He experiences the class that exists in modern society, experiences unfairness, receives hatred, and finally realizes.

That humans, in the end, are no different from the fish that prey on their kind……

“Ahaha!”

Gu Yu-na laughed.

She laughed brightly and out loud.

The club room was engulfed in shock and horror. Not only Min Hyo-chan and Min Hyo-min, but even author Moon In had his eyes quivering.

However, Gu Yu-na, wiping away tears mixed with laughter as if she had just watched a comedy show, prioritized literature over others’ feelings.

So, she said to Moon In.

“I really enjoyed reading it. The depiction of falling into hell the moment you become an orphan was excellent. The fear, anxiety, and contempt in the absence of a social safety net… As expected from Moon In.”

It could be interpreted as ‘you describe orphans well because you are one,’ causing Min Hyo-chan and Min Hyo-min to gasp and glance at Moon In.

The siblings, being siblings, even rolled their eyes in the same way as they watched.

Fortunately, Moon In was someone who could correctly interpret Gu Yu-na’s language, so there was no misunderstanding.

“Thanks.”

Just as Min Hyo-chan and Min Hyo-min breathed sighs of relief and clutched their chests in comfort.

“But how did you know the difference between living with parents and living without them?”

With a remark that bluntly implied ‘you don’t have a mom,’ Min Hyo-chan and Min Hyo-min were terrified.

They trembled nervously, anxiously waiting for Moon In’s anger to explode.

But Moon In understood that the concept of ‘malice’ in Gu Yu-na’s comment was as minimal as the shrimp in a shrimp cracker.

So, he thoroughly addressed Gu Yu-na’s pure literary curiosity.

“Hmm. I had a helper.”

“Who?”

* * *

Kim Byul trembled.

“D-d-do I really have to do this…?”

“Yes. You do.”

Kim Byul anxiously looked around like a meerkat, worried that someone might be watching her.

Considering this was Baekhak Entertainment’s practice room, it was natural there wouldn’t be any audience.

Nevertheless, the request Moon In made to Kim Byul was something that defied social norms.

Thus, Kim Byul was trembling ‘out of fear that someone might see.’

Seeing Kim Byul like that, Moon In, with interview papers in front of him, mercilessly asked the question.

“Please describe what it feels like to live with your parents. In detail.”

*****

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