Novelist Running Through Time

TL: KSD

Moon In.

With these two characters, Kim Byul could recall a lot of information.

A genius writer who appeared like a comet one day, the author of numerous masterpieces, Seop-seop who hates his real name, the boy who walks around with a blanket draped over him, Booker International nominee, a maverick in the entertainment industry, a cocky kid, a pretty decent friend, and so on…

The list is endless. It was natural since he was a boy with a distinctive presence even in the entertainment industry, which is full of eccentricities.

But it was precisely because of this that Kim Byul couldn’t easily associate the word “orphan” with Moon In.

Of course, she knew, but watching the boy who roamed the entertainment world with a fearless attitude, she would quickly forget that this boy was an orphan.

The stereotype of an orphan as depicted by the media is as follows: timid, pitiful, prickly, despised, poor, craving affection… such weaklings.

It’s an extremely narrow-minded view, but humans are inherently narrow-minded. We’re too busy surviving to meticulously consider others’ circumstances.

Kim Byul, having a job where she plays different characters, had a somewhat broader perspective, but as a human being, she was no exception.

Her perception of orphans was just the typical image depicted by the media.

But surprisingly, it seemed Moon In was no exception either.

“I’m the same. I have some preconceptions about kids from families with parents. Privileged, ignorant of the world, dumb, arrogant, incapable of handling themselves, spoiled by their parents, liking to bully others…”

“Oh… um… that is…”

“I know. The world isn’t like that.”

There’s a term called Tallulah. It’s from a famous sports movie. When a player tries to name a bobsleigh vehicle ‘Tallulah’, his teammates laugh.

– Tallulah? What a stupid name. Where did you get it?

– My mom.

– It’s a really pretty name.

Just like this well-known humor, Kim Byul thought Moon In’s request to ‘tell him what it feels like to have parents’ was a kind of joke. Isn’t he a cheeky and arrogant junior who enjoys teasing his seniors?

But as the conversation continued, Kim Byul could read sincerity from Moon In.

“I’m writing my next work. It’s about the world. Why do humans torment others? Why do they indulge in hatred and pain even at the expense of truth…”

“…”

“Of course, I could just make a rough guess and write it. This is a creative work, after all. That’s why a novel is called fiction in English. But…”

“…”

“Since this novel is not about ‘me’ but about ‘the world’, I want to depict it as accurately as possible. For that, I need to study other people’s perspectives, which is why I’m bothering you, Sunbae. I know you’re busy with your drama schedule, but can you help me?”

“…Hmm.”

From the moment Kim Byul’s ‘popularity’ that sustained her pride collapsed like an illusion, the only thing that maintained her pride was her professional spirit towards her job.

It was the only thing left in her hands until the very end.

And now, Kim Byul felt like she had discovered a veteran actor obsessively researching their role in Moon In.

So, there was no need to say more. The answer was obviously ‘Yes’.

Thus, Kim Byul smiled brightly and, instead of answering, asked another question.

“Why me? Why did you ask me?”

Then Moon In smiled faintly and answered.

Just as Kim Byul thought Moon In had transcended the stereotype of ‘a parentless child’,

Moon In also thought that Kim Byul had transcended the stereotype of ‘a child with parents’.

“Because you’re not on good terms with your parents.”

EP 8 – Dark Adaptation

「Looking back, it was a very indulgent thought, but there was a time when I deeply resented my parents.

In ‘Anna Karenina’, it is said that all happy families are alike, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. I think differently. Our family was unhappy for very common and mundane reasons.

Money.

Of course, we were not so poor that we couldn’t find food to eat, but we were poor enough that we couldn’t buy clothes to show off.

We tormented each other because of money. They tormented each other because my father couldn’t earn enough, making my mom work too, and for not respecting the breadwinner who brought in the money. It was routine to be tormented by friends because they had game consoles that I didn’t.

Reading this, it might seem like my home was a hell where devils killed each other, but it was a very common and everyday conflict. After fights, there were reconciliations, and after reconciliations, there were more fights. Isn’t love always a series of discord?

But what tormented me the most was something else.

It was the pressure from my parents that I should someday become a ‘high earner’.

This pressure was always packaged as ‘for your own good’.

But the more I was urged to study and achieve good grades, the more I kept wondering why I had to give up my current happiness for someone else’s sake.

As a child, I didn’t know what I would become when I grew up, like all other children, and I was in a state of wandering after losing my unrealistic dreams from even younger days (like becoming a president, for example).

At that time, I naturally needed some rest and a period of ‘self-exploration’ to think about my dreams.

So, the adults’ responses like ‘none of that matters, just study,’ and ‘what do you know, we’ve been through it all’ were not going to sound good to me.

Why don’t children have the right to decide their own dreams?

I constantly felt uncomfortable with my parents’ coercion, which felt like it mortgaged not only my present life but also my future.

Moreover, all the jobs that adults favored were those that earned a lot of money. So wasn’t their message essentially telling me to become ‘someone who earns a lot of money’?

Of course, there was a rational part to my parents’ words. I relied on the money they earned for my food, clothing, and shelter. So as a ‘dependent being,’ a virtue of obedience to their commands was required. This is what society demanded of me.

But is that all there is to the parent-child relationship? Obedience or rebellion against commands, is that all a child can do?

I once pondered deeply about these concerns.

However, these concerns became meaningless when I was left alone after losing my parents.

Not because there was no one to proudly share the results of my worries with, but because the answer to my worries became glaringly obvious.

The answer is this:

Money is power. Without power, you get eaten.

My parents didn’t want me to become ‘someone who earns a lot of money’, but they wanted me to survive in this wild world.

However, since they didn’t have a fortune themselves, I was thrown into the wild with nothing, having to struggle to survive.

“When is that idiot going to drop out?”

The predator who treated me as prey was a kid whose mother was the president of the PTA. I heard his father was a doctor too.

But that kid seemed more interested in killing rather than saving people, probably to draw respect from his peers who looked up to him.

Around this time, through several experiences, I realized that I was someone who would not be protected by parents, teachers, or anyone else. So, even amidst the relentless bullying, I could only smile foolishly.

“Don’t laugh, I’m talking about you.”

“Sorry….”

While apologizing, I didn’t even know what I was apologizing for. If I had to pinpoint it, perhaps it was an apology for my weakness.

But regardless of the reason, the person who receives an apology feels their dignity elevated. For one person to trample another brings immense pleasure.

Even as the prey, I could fully imagine that pleasure. Because I was human, that base and cruel primal instinct existed within me.

I despised that.

Understanding the feelings of the person who tormented me was a dreadful experience. Because it reminded me that I was the same kind of human as they were.

So, I mostly hung out with animals. Mainly with the rabbits, chickens, and squirrels kept behind the school.

These animals, purchased with tax money, didn’t exist for themselves but for the mental health and education of the students.

Fortunately, the kids at this school were relatively kind to the animals. Occasionally, during special class sessions, they would even line up to feed the rabbits carrots.

However, I, who watched these animals more frequently than the barn-cleaning duty students, knew that their mortality rate was quite high.

The reason was probably stress. How could they endure being confined in a small space, listening to the noise from the playground, and being touched by hundreds of humans?

So, when I looked after the animals, I walked quietly. I never stimulated them, never made noise, and never touched them.

Sometimes, this led to the animals opening up and approaching me first. Although it was surely because they recognized me as the person who fed them, this warm affection greatly helped me endure my arduous survival.

However, my efforts alone couldn’t change the world. Eventually, the animals, dying one by one, all perished except for one.

The last remaining animal was a single bluebird in a cage.

Only one budgerigar remained, spared the rough handling thanks to its confinement.

I shed tears as I looked at my last remaining friend. Tears for my friends, who, after being tormented by the hands of children, couldn’t even be buried in the ground but were thrown into the trash.

At that moment, my hand cautiously reached for the budgerigar. The hand that had never touched an animal reached for the small bluebird.

Though I was sure this touch would wound the bluebird, I needed to caress something to endure this sadness.

Fortunately, my fingertips did not touch the bluebird.

Because I heard a voice behind me.

“Hey, are you the one who’s been taking care of the animals all this time?”

A girl was looking at me.

Smiling softly.」

* * *

“Hmmm…”

Classic! Lim Yang-wook smiled with satisfaction. The ‘boy meets girl’ plot is unbeatable.

The boy must meet the girl. That’s how romance begins, and that’s how books sell well.

The story that followed didn’t stray much from Lim Yang-wook’s expectations.

A boy who, after losing his parents and becoming disillusioned with humans, relies on animals, and a girl who simply likes animals.

Their story continued.

Both liked animals, but their motivations were slightly different.

The girl’s affection was pure, while the boy’s affection was darker and more obsessive.

This was because, while the girl simply liked animals, the boy liked animals because he hated humans.

As the two grew closer, this difference became more pronounced. It became the seed of conflict and eventually the nutrient for mutual understanding.

Moon In-seop expressed this seamlessly.

A contented smile never left Lim Yang-wook’s lips.

Salvation in the darkness, sweet friendship…

The appeal of this work lies in its artistic quality as well as its extrinsic elements.

“It has a youth literature feel. The setting is simple and modern…”

This comment came not from “Reader Lim Yang-wook,” but from “Editor Lim Yang-wook.”

In other words:

In Korea, young adult literature sells much better than pure literature. Parents buy it for their children, and schools purchase it for libraries with taxpayer money.

Moreover, a simple and modern setting makes it easier to adapt into a drama. With no need for extravagant CGI, the budget can be kept low, relying instead on the actors’ performances.

It’s akin to how a modern romance script suddenly needing a gumiho (nine-tailed fox) or goblin would require the involvement of a CGI team.

In summary, it’s a profitable novel.

“Hmm…”

Lim Yang-wook cleared his throat awkwardly and looked around. Even he thought his inner thoughts were a bit too mercenary.

Originally, Lim Yang-wook did not read novels purely for commercial reasons. Especially not the works of Moon In-seop, which perfectly aligned with his tastes.

It was roughly a fifty-fifty split.

It’s similar to a Cherokee Indian fable:

Inside every human heart, two wolves reside.

A wolf of ‘goodness’ and a wolf of ‘evil’.

The two wolves engage in an eternal struggle.

Which wolf wins?

The one that the owner feeds.

Similarly, two wolves lived within Lim Yang-wook’s heart.

One was the wolf of ‘commercialism’, and the other was the wolf of ‘literary value’,

The two wolves continuously fought an eternal battle, neither yielding an inch.

But Lim Yang-wook had tasted the allure of money.

Since experiencing the taste of money in Japan, the wolf of commercialism has been winning victory after victory over the wolf of literary value. Even if the wolf of literary value protested that it was a rigged fight, Lim Yang-wook remained silent. He was a referee thoroughly bribed by money.

Thus, when deputy manager Kim Ga-ryung asked:

“Department head, what do you think of Moon In-seop’s new work?”

“Oh, it feels good. Really good. I can see potential for media mix…”

However, what Lim Yang-wook overlooked was the fact that Moon In-seop was a walking embodiment of the ‘wolf of literary value’.

A fearsome beast baring its fangs and drooling.

Lim Yang-wook realized this as soon as he turned a few pages of the manuscript.

The wolf had bitten the bluebird to death.

* * *

As a child, I saw the white bones of a fish floating in the aquarium. Bones hidden within the flesh gnawed by its kind.

I saw white, more brutal than red.

I saw white in the remnants of a bluebird crushed under sneakers. Delicate bones, broken bones, murdered bones.

The terror of white, more brutal than red, returned to me.

The child, whose parents had a profession that saved lives, spoke to me.

“How is it? Are you still not angry?”

It was then I realized. He had crushed the bluebird to see the child, who usually smiled foolishly, get angry.

Just to torment another, he had killed a living being.

At that moment, something dark, a mix of pain, despair, and hatred, filled my heart.

I grabbed a brick from the corner of the flower bed and charged at the murderer who had trampled the bluebird’s bones into the dirt.

Then, a girl shouted.

“Stop!”

That’s right.

I shouldn’t.

You shouldn’t hit someone with a brick. That’s not what a pure animal would do but what a wicked human would do.

I lowered the brick, which I had raised high into the air, with a weak motion. Though I still held it in my hand, the girl’s desperate plea had drained all the strength from my arm.

Then the frightened boy, wanting to erase his earlier display of cowardice, spoke to me. It seemed he wanted to make his pathetic, cowering figure disappear.

As if urged by the gaze of numerous spectators, he roughly pushed my shoulder and shouted in anger.

“What are you doing? Aren’t you going to hit me?”

“…”

“Hit me! Come on, hit me!”

The criminal who killed the bluebird stuck his head out toward me as if offering his neck.

I was holding the brick, and had become the executioner qualified to pass judgment.

But the girl’s eyes were telling me one thing until the end.

It meant that the moment I struck this criminal with the brick, I would no longer be human.

Suddenly, a phrase came to mind: To be or not to be, that is the question.

Two choices approached me: to kill or to spare, to remain human or not, to suppress my impulse and anger or not, to avenge the bluebird or not.

With clear-minded determination, I answered resolutely.

I would not remain a vile human being.

One swing, one impact, one fall,

And a scream.

I struck the criminal with the brick and killed him.

That was my first murder.

*****

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