Chapter 185
TL: KSD
I happened to hear the news that Professor Gu Hak-jun had been selected as a candidate for the International Booker Prize Longlist while I was among people working in the publishing industry.
Lim Yang-wook, who had been promoted to an executive at Baekhak Publishing, expanded the Publishing Management Department by gathering old acquaintances, and he intended to introduce those people to me.
So I followed along because he said he would buy me beef, only to find myself surrounded by men in suits.
Lim Yang-wook, now someone of high status, was seated at the head of the table in the company dinner room.
As soon as he saw me being guided into the room by a staff member, he tapped the cushion beside him.
“Hey, you’re here? Come sit here.”
“…Why are there so many people?”
“I said I’d buy you meat, I never said it wasn’t a company dinner.”
“I’ve fallen victim to another underhanded scheme…”Muttering complaints, I sat down pretending to be reluctantly persuaded. After all, the meat wasn’t at fault.
Lim Yang-wook patted my shoulder and introduced the people to me.
“These folks are staff from the Publishing Management Division. Some are people I used to work with, others are professionals newly sent from Baekhak Entertainment. Say hello.”
“Hello.”
Then Lim Yang-wook introduced me to them.
“This tiny high schooler here is Moon In. He just won the Hugo Award.”
“Wowww! Applause!”
Team Leader Kim Ga-ryung, a sycophant in both stable and turbulent times, quickly took the lead in setting the mood.
Everyone clapped enthusiastically, sharing in the joy of the Hugo win as if it were their own.
I bowed my head and expressed thanks.
My face remained expressionless.
Because I wasn’t happy.
The literary award I was happiest to receive was the Baekhak Literary Award I won long ago. That award signified the end of my long streak of failures and the literary world’s formal recognition of me as a novelist.
However, the Hugo Award symbolized Lim Yang-wook’s business strategy and the exhausting media play I experienced in America. There was no beauty in that.
So.
Without much emotion, I just sat beside Lim Yang-wook and grilled meat.
I had to give polite answers to occasional questions thrown at me, and although they were mindful enough to stick to one question per person, it still wasn’t a small number.
I suddenly wondered since when Lim Yang-wook had gathered so many people under his command.
“Publishing Management Division… Didn’t you say you were the head of a corporate venture last time?”
“The Publishing Management Division is that very corporate venture. On paper, it’s called BH Agency, but it’s read as Baekhak Publishing’s Publishing Management Division.”
“That’s complicated.”
“What do you know about our efforts to milk government funding!”
“So it really was a scam…”
Just then, as Team Leader Kim Ga-ryung was sweating bullets while grilling meat, a near-scream of awe and astonishment came from a corner of the table.
“Waaahhh-!”
“Eek!”
Startled, Lim Yang-wook dropped the meat he was holding.
“Who’s raising their voice in front of sacred beef? What? What is it?”
“The first Booker Prize candidate list just came out… and Author Gu Hak-jun made it!”
The excitement quickly spread across the table. Since everyone there was from the publishing industry and Gu Hak-jun was currently under contract with Baekhak Publishing, this wasn’t just someone else’s good news.
The dinner venue instantly turned into a festive celebration.
In the midst of the noisy festivities, Lim Yang-wook barely managed to ask a question.
“What? What got selected?”
The Booker Prize is awarded to a book, not to an author.
The staff member, upon receiving the executive’s question, quickly turned their eyes to the news on their phone screen.
However, the answer came out of my mouth first.
“…Silver Moon?”
The answer I casually uttered pierced through the commotion.
Even in the noisy room, I didn’t expect my voice to be heard so clearly.
As soon as they heard my words, everyone suddenly froze.
Then, as if waiting for the results of an audition program, they stared at the staff member holding the phone.
“Si, Silver Moon…! That’s right!”
“…!!!”
In an instant, sparkling gazes poured in.
People looked at me with shining eyes, as if catching a glimpse of a genius.
Flustered, I grabbed onto Lim Yang-wook…
But his eyes weren’t much different.
“How, how did you know…?”
“…….”
What do you mean, how did I know?
It was Silver Moon last time, too. That’s why I knew.
“…How should I put it? I just had a feeling. I’ve thought from the past that it was a work destined to win a major award someday.”
“You really are a genius…!”
EP 11 – Evening Bell
Despite being a useless time traveler who doesn’t even know the winning lottery numbers, I played the role of a prophet for the first time in a while.
That’s right.
Gu Hak-jun’s novel ‘Silver Moon’ being nominated for the Booker Prize was something that had already happened.
Therefore, when I heard the news, what came to mind wasn’t surprise, but rather, “Ah, so it was this year.”
But looking back, I find myself belatedly surprised.
It’s the surprise at “the fact that something which had already happened occurred again without change.”
“A masterpiece really does shine eventually…”
A masterpiece receives good reviews. It sounds obvious, but I know that it’s actually a very difficult thing.
The literature student who jumped around with joy upon winning the Baekhak Literary Award became a novelist who remained indifferent even after winning the Hugo Award.
It wasn’t because I’d become an arrogant genius used to honor and glory, but because I’d come to realize that even that was an illusion.
Looking back, many things began to change ever since Eisaku Siedehara failed to win the International Booker Prize.
I came to understand that even the judges of the world’s most prestigious literary awards follow political interests rather than beauty.
Eisaku Siedehara lived for a few more years. And during those years, he supported countless artists and wrote an entirely new novel.
‘Beautiful in Itself.’
I still carry Siedehara’s final new work with me. Thankfully, the era is good enough that storing it in a phone doesn’t feel so heavy. Though the smartphone is undeniably the main culprit in the death of the publishing industry.
Countless other changes were born as well.
I say “born” because the changes I brought about gave birth to more changes, and those changes in turn gave rise to entirely new ones.
Such transformations are innumerable, incalculable. It’s truly a world in constant flux.
Within the flow of such changes, the fact that Gu Hak-jun’s ‘Silver Moon’ regained its destiny is something that, though it may not appear surprising, is indeed something to be surprised at.
So, to feel surprised at last, I decided to reread ‘Silver Moon’.
If I remember right, it was a novel that dealt with racial issues, centering around a person afflicted with argyria, who had blue skin…
As a masterpiece and a ten-year-old novel, it was surely still somewhere on my bookshelf.
But since I’ve been under confinement lately, it’s hard to go rummaging through my shelves in the studio.
“Hmm.”
After pondering what to do for a moment, I realized I could just buy a new e-book version.
While I might be stingy about spending money elsewhere, I never regret spending on books.
Without hesitation, I purchased the book, purified my body and mind for reading, and sat in a proper position.
“Proper position” means good posture, and when it comes to reading, good posture means a comfortable one.
So I wrapped myself in a blanket, grabbed my phone, and lay completely flat.
If Teacher Bang Jeong-ah saw me, she would’ve burst out nagging, “That’s going to ruin your back!”
But still.
A prison cell center isn’t the ideal place to read.
“In-seop! Let’s go to school!”
“Nngh…”
Third day of being confined at New Light Spring Orphanage.
Moon Ji-seop keeps pestering me to go to school… it’s a problem.
***
This year, the fact that Baekhak Arts High School’s Creative Writing Department reached the highest competition rate in the country was an extraordinary event.
At least for this year, Baekhak Arts High had managed to surpass all the other prestigious arts schools.
Naturally, the reason was Moon In.
If not for the chance to meet the genius boy who had shaken the world in a classroom, Baekhak Arts High, often treated like an idol training school, could never have outshone those star-studded arts institutions.
‘Moon In… are you really that good at writing?’
Ahn Joo-hee from Ansan, Gyeonggi-do, was one of the literary students who had been lured to Baekhak Arts High by the bait-product named Moon In.
But unlike the others, the emotion she harbored wasn’t admiration or longing, but a blazing sense of competitive spirit.
‘Let’s see who comes out on top.’
Ahn Joo-hee’s fighting spirit was by no means recklessness. Her long list of award wins was proof of that.
From the Gyeonggi Province Governor’s Literature Award to the Gangwon Province Governor’s Essay Contest, Ahn Joo-hee, who swept every literary prize across the country, boasted writing skills that ranked at the very top in the province!
It’s just that some crazy guy suddenly popped out of a weird Christian orphanage and got nominated for the Booker Prize and even won the Hugo Award. Otherwise, someone of Ahn Joo-hee’s caliber was clearly an S-class prospect.
If not for Moon In, she wouldn’t even have imagined applying to some ‘so-called’ department like Baekhak Arts High School’s Creative Writing Department.
Therefore, even the unprecedented nationwide top competition rate for Baekhak Arts High’s Creative Writing entrance exam couldn’t block Ahn Joo-hee’s path this year.
Unlike the literary traitor Moon O-seop who cowardly substituted insufficient writing skills with grades, Ahn Joo-hee entered with full marks on the practical exam in a dignified literary manner.
And so, after busting down the doors of Baekhak Arts High, Ahn Joo-hee…
Was attending the school with the feeling of having been scammed on a used-item trading app profile.
‘Fuck…’
She came to this school because of Moon In, but Moon In wasn’t here.
***
Novelists have nasty tempers.
Aspiring novelists aim to become novelists.
Therefore, it logically follows that the closer one is to being a professional, the nastier their temperament.
As one of the top-ranked literary students in the province, Ahn Joo-hee was no exception.
She did not calmly tolerate this unjust reality.
“Teacher!”
She went with the momentum to smash the faculty office door just like she had smashed through Baekhak Arts High School’s doors to enter.
And she protested to her homeroom teacher, who oddly looked like someone frequently seen in textbooks.
“Is this kind of thing really allowed under school rules?!”
“It is.”
Apparently, it was.
Unbelieving, she checked, and it was true.
“What the hell, why is this real?”
Indeed.
This damned third-rate delinquent school had relaxed its attendance policy to the extreme so it could babysit active celebrities.
The rules were so broken that even if students skipped arbitrarily, as long as the agency submitted a document, it counted as attendance.
No wonder people called it an idol training school. This was truly a multi-facility set up by Baekhak Entertainment…
‘I want to drop out, damn it…’
But it wasn’t just the pathetic school rules that fueled Ahn Joo-hee’s urge to quit.
Her classmates were enough of a reason on their own.
To be specific,
It was the guy next to her and the two girls sitting in front of her.
These three loudmouths had become best friends since the beginning of the semester and never stopped chattering.
“So, about Moon In…”
“There was this incident Moon In caused back in eighth grade…”
“Do you know what In-seop once said to me…”
To make matters worse, the two girls were middle school classmates of Moon In, and the guy was even a childhood friend from the orphanage.
With the three of them talking about that infuriating Moon In 24/7, it was impossible not to get angry.
Honestly, if you’re sitting with three people and you’re the only one left out, it’s normal to wonder if there’s something wrong with yourself, but Ahn Joo-hee was an exceptional aspiring novelist.
And her temper was exceptionally foul.
“Don’t you guys have anything to talk about besides Moon In?”
“Huh?”
“Don’t you get tired of worshipping a kid who’s so full of himself he doesn’t even show up to school?”
At her venomous opening, the reactions of the two girls diverged drastically.
The tougher-looking girl prepared to defend her friend, while the one with the timid impression hid behind her friend but was already planning to spread insidious rumors across the Creative Writing Department to socially bury Ahn Joo-hee.
However, the person most accustomed to “a twisted character suddenly going off” was Moon Ji-seop, who had survived at New Light Spring Orphanage.
Orphanage kids basically come with emotional instability and attachment deficiency as passive traits.
Put simply, mental disorders gifted by their parents.
Thus, Moon Ji-seop knew exactly how to handle needy kids starved for attention and friendship.
It was a kind of secret technique.
If it needed a name…
The Moon Family’s Tai Chi.
“Hey guys, Joo-hee has something she wants to say!”
“…?!”
“Everyone quiet! Miss Ahn Joo-hee is about to speak! Focus!”
Ahn Joo-hee, who had high attack power but low defense, couldn’t withstand the smooth counterattack and blushed.
“N-no, I, I was, that…”
“That?”
“I mean, I’ve never even met Moon In before…”
“And?”
“But you guys always talk about him among yourselves…”
“So you wanted to be friends with us by talking about something other than Moon In?”
“W-what? No, that’s not it?!”
“Then you don’t want to be friends with us? You want to be enemies? Are you picking a fight?”
“N-no, that’s not it either…!”
“Then we’re friends from now on, right?”
“…?”
With his eloquent speech, Moon Ji-seop quickly realized that the girl in front of him had a peculiar condition where saying “I want to be friends” came out as “Don’t you guys get tired of drooling over Moon In all day?”
And the two girls who had been wary of this prickly, confrontational girl quickly realized something unexpected, Ahn Joo-hee was actually fun to mess with.
In the world of teenagers, that was more than enough reason to become friends.
And so, the four high school students who just happened to sit near each other ended up forming a group within the Creative Writing Department.
“Hey, you lot. Don’t mention Moon In in front of Ahn Joo-hee from Ansan, Gyeonggi-do…”
“Ahn Joo-hee is the girl who’ll take down Moon In someday!”
“Cut it out! I said stop!”
A few weeks in, they were close enough to tease Ahn Joo-hee about her initial hysterics.
But even then, one point of contention remained unresolved: their perspectives on Moon In.
Unlike the two girls who came from Baekhak Arts Middle School’s Creative Writing Department and Moon Ji-seop, Ahn Joo-hee had never met Moon In.
To Ahn Joo-hee, Moon In was nothing short of…
“Isn’t he just a total punk-ass bastard?”
A delinquent.
As expected, Moon Ji-seop, staunchly pro-Moon, was the first to defend him.
“Sure, Moon In skips school blatantly and treats teachers like shit, but he’s not a delinquent exactly…”
“Do you not hear how absurd that sounds, even as you say it?”
Though Ahn Joo-hee gave up a prestigious high school just to face off against Moon In, it’s hard to believe that her feelings were purely competitive.
Behind that competitive drive lay admiration, doubt, a desire to get closer, a touch of fandom, jealousy, and curiosity.
That complex tangle of emotions, triggered by Moon In’s absence, condensed into resentment. Before she realized it, Ahn Joo-hee had become the most zealous anti-Moon in the group.
“My In-seop’s not like that?!”
“Ha! If you ask me, the biggest reason Moon In doesn’t come to school is… superiority complex. He’s basically bragging to the world that while his peers are still stuck in the amateur leagues, he alone is playing in the pros-”
“I don’t know if Moon In actually thinks that, but if you were in his position, it’s obvious you’d have that kind of sleazy attitude, and that’s what pisses me off.”
“…?!”
Moon Ji-seop was the first to step in and stop the fight when Ahn Joo-hee threw a tantrum. Yet ironically, he also ended up being the one who fought with her the most.
This is why people say never to bring up politics casually.
Then, one day, in the middle of the extreme standoff between the pro-Moon and anti-Moon factions.
Moon In came to school.
“Do you know how hard it was to drag In-seop here?”
Surprisingly, Moon Ji-seop claimed he had dragged him in by force.
He was going on about how he practically kidnapped him, but Ahn Joo-hee let it go in one ear and out the other. That wasn’t the important part right now.
“Hah, now finally I get a glimpse of his royal presence.”
Her mouth spat sarcasm, but her neck was honest.
She stretched her neck like a giraffe, tilted her head like a meerkat, and scanned Moon In.
“Moon-hi~”
“Moon-hi?”
“It means ‘Hi, Moon In.’”
While the girls from Baekhak Arts Middle threw their weird greetings at Moon In, Ahn Joo-hee took her time to observe him, the person she’d only seen on TV.
The real Moon In was…
Smaller than expected.
Quieter than expected.
The presence of the blanket around him was oddly distracting.
And overall…
He looked pretty unremarkable.
How to put it? Dressed in a school uniform, he just looked like any other boy in the class, nothing more, nothing less.
There was no trace of the terrifying aura of a genius writer.
Judging that it might be okay to go against him, Ahn Joo-hee boldly stepped forward, planning to issue a challenge and confront him about why he hadn’t been coming to school.
Her newly made friends tried to stop her with their eyes, but Ahn Joo-hee was not the kind to back down just because of that.
She furrowed her already sharp eyes, eyes that couldn’t be softened even by her round glasses, into an even more cutting glare.
And just like that, as she approached.
Ahn Joo-hee locked eyes with Moon In.
And froze solid.
The reason wasn’t any sense of intimidation stemming from the fame of a literary giant or genius, but rather something closer to the solemnity one feels upon encountering a critical patient in a hospital hallway.
Through the TV screen, you couldn’t sense the exhaustion and frailty in those eyes. Moon In looked like someone being chased by something. A sense of unknown desperation clung to him.
But why?
Why, when he lacked nothing?
As Ahn Joo-hee faltered for a moment, Moon In also noticed the girl approaching him.
And, surprisingly, Moon In spoke first.
“…Ahn Joo-hee?”
Ahn Joo-hee, who had been grinding her teeth over Moon In for weeks.
Ahn Joo-hee, who had vowed to chew him up the moment they met.
Her eyes sparkled brightly.
“You know who I am?!”
*****
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