Chapter 127

Chapter 127

TL: KSD

“...You went all the way to Japan and came back after saying just that?”

Hearing Park Chang-woon’s account of his trip to Japan, Gu Hak-jun was stunned. Telling a young junior struggling with anguish to just endure with sheer willpower? Even a devil wouldn’t give such a advice.

But Park Chang-woon responded shamelessly.

“Then what should I have done?”

“Still, you should have at least helped him think it through....”

“Oh! Do you think he’d listen to me if I did? As I’ve repeatedly said, it’s impossible for one person to teach another how to write.”

The way and virtue are found within one’s own heart, not in the eyes of society!

Park Chang-woon, who acted according to his convictions, wasn’t ashamed at all.

“When writing, you can teach what not to do. But teaching how to write is fundamentally impossible. Every person has their own literature.”

This was Park Chang-woon’s philosophy.

And this philosophy was a kind of ‘button’ that triggered Gu Hak-jun’s rage.

“Ah, stop talking nonsense!”

Gu Hak-jun’s philosophy was the exact opposite.

“There is no unique literature. There is no unique creation. Thus, all literature must be a form of imitation. Because every human is the sum of their relationships.”

Therefore, Gu Hak-jun believed that learning and exchange were essential for improving literary qualities, which is why group projects were never absent from his classes.

This difference in beliefs stems from seeing humans as either social beings or independent entities. It’s a complex topic that can go on endlessly once started.

And frankly, it’s not that interesting.

But Gu Hak-jun and Park Chang-woon were seasoned, professional, and somewhat eccentric individuals who could carry on such conversations at length, so once their voices were raised, they didn’t easily quiet down.

Meanwhile, the issue of ‘Moon In-seop’s text bomb’ naturally got pushed to the back, and if there was one fact that the two would never know here...

-Ding!

“Ungh...!”

...was that Seo Woon-pil also fell victim.

EP 8 – Dark Adaptation

Park Chang-woon, a participatory writer of the past, couldn’t help a novelist in a post-war era. To him, literature was a tool for war.

Gu Hak-jun, a renowned pure literature writer, couldn’t help Moon In either. Thanks to the whims of time, Moon In had already internalized most of his teachings.

Moreover, Gu Hak-jun’s literature, akin to comparative literature traversing between European philosophy and Korean literature, didn’t quite align with Moon In’s slightly dark, unorthodox style.

Then, what about Seo Woon-pil?

Unfortunately, Seo Woon-pil couldn’t lift Moon In out of his quagmire of anguish either.

It wasn’t because the old monster’s demonic arts, who still held both political and literary power, couldn’t blend with Moon In’s pure inner strength, but simply because their acquaintance wasn’t deep enough.

Honestly, Seo Woon-pil and Moon In didn’t have a great start, and it was hard to say they were close.

Sending a serious text to a somewhat awkward acquaintance at dawn? It was a disaster waiting to happen.

Moon In, intoxicated by the dawn’s emotions, sent a text to someone he wasn’t very close to, and Seo Woon-pil, waking up, awkwardly tapped on his smartphone with his unfamiliar typing.

What they talked about quietly faded into the darkness of history.

Because neither of them would ever blab about it to others.

In fact, they probably wanted to erase it from their memories. It was truly, incredibly awkward.

Moon In regretted it immediately, banging his head on the desk after finishing the texts with Seo Woon-pil.

Did it really have to come to this?

But what could he do, the desperate have to put in the effort.

Moon In knew well how cruel and horrible a crime it was to send texts at dawn.

But he ignored this because of a rather ‘Gu Yuna-like’ reason.

Surprisingly, contrary to popular belief, Gu Yuna wasn’t that ignorant of social norms.

Although there are some gaps, like holes in a slice of cheese, thanks to her parents’ efforts and her exceptional intelligence, she ‘knows’ social norms and human relationship etiquette.

However, her own literature is just more important.

She is the complete opposite of Kim Byul, who loses her sense of self while trying to fit in with the director, her mother, the script, her role, and the atmosphere on set.

And Moon In-seop’s personality was closer to Gu Yuna’s than Kim Byul’s.

From the start, Moon In-seop’s personality was formed by interacting with Gu Yuna.

Literally, it’s like staring into the abyss for too long and losing one’s mind a bit.

But contamination is just contamination; it doesn’t overpower the original source. Unlike Gu Yuna, Moon In-seop felt ashamed when he caused trouble.

Therefore, even though he committed all sorts of eccentricities for literature, he carried the burden of shame for both himself and Gu Yuna.

There was a time when something like this happened.

– “Hey, you passing couple! Would you like to try a duet song?”

– “Hmm. I’ve always wanted to experience singing on stage. What are you doing? Let’s go up quickly.”

– “W-wait a minute...!”

– “Don’t hesitate. It’s all for literature.”

– “Suddenly like this? Besides, you don’t even know many songs!”

– “It doesn’t matter.”

Gu Yuna then went on to sing a random song she didn’t know at a street concert for 2 minutes and 20 seconds before stepping down.

Initially, the crowd clapped out of politeness, but eventually, they grew tired, and the cold stares were directed at the poor boyfriend who was dragged along.

However, from that day’s experience, Gu Yuna could vividly depict ‘all professions that get on stage’ in her novels.

How surprised was he, marveling at her genius?

So, he couldn’t help but join in her next eccentric acts and later regret it, thinking, ‘Why did I do that?’ This had become a routine, and thinking this far, Moon In-seop chuckled.

“Ah... life....”

Moon In-seop took that emotion as a brief solace and continued with his painful literary contemplation.

It was a very lonely task.

There was no muse grabbing him by the scruff of the neck, dragging him through literature and inspiration like in the old days.

But soon after, a strangely familiar inspiration came to him.

* * *

To the students in Baekhak Arts Middle School’s Creative Writing Department, Moon In-seop was a truly complex figure.

While they were trying to become novelists someday, there was already an internationally successful novelist in their class.

It was strange not to feel complicated.

What happened when the boy first transferred to this class?

Inferiority complex, admiration, envy, jealousy, rivalry, longing, affection...

The sensitive teenagers had to manage these tumultuous emotions, losing sleep over them.

But two years have passed.

Unlike other departments, In Creative Writing Department there was only one class. The students in the department spent two years with Moon In-seop.

Admiration is a quickly cooling emotion, and jealousy is exhausting to maintain for long.

Now, his classmates in the Creative Writing Department could look at Moon In-seop with a cool-headed perspective.

No, they were seeing not the writer Moon In-seop, but the person Moon In-seop.

Even if they were not conscious of it, it happened. Humans are socially very sensitive creatures.

Thus, Moon In-seop began to be left out in class.

On the contrary, Gu Yuna, who was ostracized at the beginning of school life, was now well-accepted in the class.

Everyone realized that Gu Yuna wasn’t maliciously looking down on others; she just had a somewhat eccentric personality.

So now, no matter how aggressively Gu Yuna criticized, the students in the Creative Writing Department didn’t get hurt. They seriously took her advice to heart.

Moon In-seop’s writing wasn’t confined within the existence of ‘me’.

It began from the deepest part of ‘me’ and extended infinitely outward.

“...Can you explain a bit more?”

“Sure, it’s not a difficult thing.”

Renowned authors in history often have dedicated fields of study solely focused on them. Shakespeare, Tolkien, Arthur Conan Doyle, Cao Xueqin, Jin Yong...

But ‘Moon In’ had not left a name in history, and even more so for ‘Moon In-seop’. Who would study an obscure author from an orphanage?

However, Gu Yuna did. She gladly did. She loved and studied Moon In-seop’s writings as passionately as if placing them among the greats in history.

And this wasn’t because of his life’s trajectory but because of an inherent imperfection they both shared.

Defective items recognize each other.

So, both then and now, Gu Yuna recognized Moon In-seop’s writing.

“The sixteen novels you wrote before your debut were, how should I put it... a bit all over the place. I liked them because they had a raw feel to them, but you can’t see them as a cohesive collection.”

That was only natural. Each story was written whenever a distressing event occurred in his life, and suffering didn’t arrive in a sequential order.

Eventually, Gu Yuna, who only spoke at length when discussing literature, began to showcase her expertise in ‘Moon In-seop studies’. It turned out that Moon In-seop wasn’t the only expert on Gu Yuna.

“The specific flow started to become noticeable from ‘Cause of Death’....”

‘Cause of Death’ was a story about death, while ‘Guitar’ was a story about life.

Death and life are things beyond human control, determined the moment one is born.

These are stories about existence.

“I still don’t know why death came before life....”

Muttering a hypothesis that briefly made Moon In-seop’s heart sink, Gu Yuna moved on to the next piece of literature.

‘Demonic Sword’ dealt with independence and dependence. ‘A Love Story’ dealt with love. ‘The Show Must Go On’ dealt with dreams.

These are things that humans can decide by their own will.

In other words, they are stories about actions.

“And after that....”

“Isomer.”

“Right. Isomer. That’s where I became certain.”

In Gu Yuna’s view, Moon In-seop’s literature started from the deepest part of a person and extended infinitely outward.

The evidence of this was ‘Isomer’.

Isomer was a story not about ‘me’ but about ‘you’.

For the first time, Moon In-seop, who always wrote literature about himself, wrote about someone else.

“That’s why I hold ‘Isomer’ in the highest regard. It’s a monumental work, isn’t it? Though I didn’t quite like the ending....”

Gu Yuna didn’t mention that part of the reason she liked ‘Isomer’ the most was because she had a hand in its creation.

But if Moon In-seop had looked at Gu Yuna’s face, he might have seen her slightly twitching lips revealing her inner thoughts, but he wasn’t in the right mind to notice.

He was mesmerized by ‘Gu Yuna’s teaching’, something he thought he would never experience again, both before and after going back in time.

“So, what happens next?”

Moon In-seop asked Gu Yuna with a desperate expression.

Gu Yuna, surprised and somewhat delighted that she had caused such an expression on Moon In-seop’s face, concluded the lesson.

“I told you earlier, didn’t I? You’ve written about yourself, and then about others. Now, you should write about the world.”

“....”

“It might seem a bit forced, but isn’t that what criticism is about? The right to interpret lies with the reader, after all.”

Moon In-seop couldn’t respond.

He didn’t have the mental energy to even think of a reply.

His mind was reeling as if a firecracker had exploded in his brain.

It felt like all the teachings he had received over the past years, no, decades, were finally connecting.

– Moon In. There is no such thing as pure creation. Just as all people influence and change each other, literature too changes by influencing and being influenced by other literature. It’s not only influenced by literature, but also by philosophy, music, and the life of the writer... it’s like a living organism. That’s why writers need to study the world....

– Back in my day, literature was a weapon. Nobody listened to those noisy kids protesting, but everyone loved it when a beautifully written poem came along. Seeing that, I realized that literature changes people, and people change the world. Literature had the power to change the world. Although it eventually became a curse for the literary world....

All teachings ultimately spoke about the world.

Of course, not all those teachings were correct.

Gu Yuna’s words were the same. In her study of Moon In-seop, there were interpretations that could be seen as excessive distortions, and even interpretations that Moon In-seop could never accept.

But that conclusion clearly pinpointed Moon In-seop’s greatest agony.

Throughout his life, he had written about his pain and his suffering. It started with him and ended with him.

His literature had always remained within the shell of ‘me’.

But what if he wrote about the ‘world’?

Writing about the ‘world’ instead of writing about ‘me’.

Maybe that was the direction his literature needed to go.

Who knows?

But it was certainly something he had never tried before, and it was worth trying.

So what needed to be done was clear.

“...Thank you, Yuna.”

It was time to break out of the shell.

* * *

Looking down at the blank manuscript paper felt like being in the middle of an empty desert.

It’s overwhelming.

The saying ‘Starting is half the battle’ is used to mean that starting anything is important in any task.

But when it comes to writing a novel, it’s different.

Writing the first sentence is more difficult than writing half of the novel.

Moreover, this time I decided to write about the ‘world’ instead of a novel about ‘me’.

There were no emotions stirring within, no pain I wanted to pour out onto the paper.

So the sense of vagueness was doubled.

This was a challenge toward something new.

So, after briefly staring silently at the blank manuscript paper.

I decided not to wait for inspiration but to draw it out.

When you’ve accumulated experience, you often resort to tricks, and there’s always a way in situations like this.

It’s like when playing a game of finding a specific number between 1 and 100, you first ask if it’s above or below 50.

So, let’s gauge the literary imagery with a simple question.

I ask myself.

Is the world I have experienced white or black?

The answer was obvious.

Without hesitation, I wrote a single character in the first box of the manuscript paper.

‘암’.

It was the character for dark.

*****

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