Chapter 192 |
TL: KSD
「Meeting a man you had sex with sixteen years ago was quite an unsettling experience. Even more so if the consequence of that sexual encounter had nearly ruined your life beyond repair.
Of course, Min-ha did not agree with the adults who had criticized her premarital pregnancy and abortion. The stones thrown by relatives and church elders were nothing more than a way for them to relieve stress.
Looking back, Min-ha had done nothing wrong to them. She had neither stolen their property nor slapped anyone in the face.
Yet they inflicted excessive social violence on Min-ha, who was holding her swelling belly, and her tearful parents.
They gossiped behind her back, clicked their tongues, strongly recommended her to transfer schools, and scolded her parents to raise their child properly…
What was the basis for all of these actions?
Christian ethics and Confucian ethics, in other words, social order.
People around Min-ha behaved as if they had the right to judge her simply because they belonged to the same community.
Amid the endlessly light torment from unqualified judges, Min-ha realized she could not consider what she had done a ‘sin’.
It had to be called a ‘trial’, or ‘suffering’.
Therefore, Min-ha had no reason to feel ashamed. A trial was not something to be ashamed of but something to overcome.
However, Min-ha had not seen Jung-wook for sixteen years. Just the thought of the man who had been part of creating the incident of ‘abortion’ with her made her knees go weak, as if she had committed a great sin.
There was always this moral confusion inside Min-ha.
And the sudden intrusion of the ‘baby’ into her life was like a judge bringing that moral confusion to an end.
This judge had been harmed by Min-ha, and therefore had the right to judge her, and at the same time was proof of sacred moral norms, including the soul.
Min-ha had been undergoing a trial for the past sixteen years. Even if the result of that trial ended in her being found guilty, what mattered now was that the trial would be over.
Sixteen years was too long a time to live in confusion.
Therefore, Min-ha challenged herself to one last desperate effort to prove that the ‘baby’ was not a product of her mental delusion.
She saw Jung-wook, wearing a beige coat, entering the restaurant.
It had been a long time, but it was impossible not to recognize him. The face of a sixteen-year-old boy could still be seen in the face of the thirty-two-year-old man.
Likewise, Jung-wook, who must have seen the face of a sixteen-year-old girl in Min-ha’s, approached with a strange smile and sat down across from her.
“Long time no see, Jung-wook.”
Jung-wook said.
“It’s Sung-wook. That’s my name.”
Min-ha looked at Sung-wook without saying a word.
“Ah, was it?”
“Yeah. It’s been a while.”
“Yeah. It’s been so long I even forgot your name…”
To Min-ha, it was a fairly serious remark, but Sung-wook laughed for a while upon hearing it.
“You haven’t changed, Min-ha.”
Min-ha was no longer the shy sixteen-year-old girl. She was now a thirty-two-year-old working adult who could fill up a couple of hours with appropriate small talk even when she had nothing to say.
So the reason Min-ha fell silent for a moment was not because she was shy, but because she was hesitating.
“These days… I keep seeing a child.”
“……”
“The face is all crushed, so I can’t really tell… but I think it’s our child.”
Min-ha briefly imagined how terrifying it must be for a man to hear this kind of thing from an ex-girlfriend he hadn’t seen in sixteen years.
But Min-ha no longer had the luxury to consider the other person’s feelings. Because that baby was still sitting at the edge of the restaurant table, staring blankly at her.
With a desperate heart, Min-ha asked,
“Do you see it too?”
Sung-wook, with a troubled look on his face for a long moment, finally answered like this.
“Yes.”」
EP 11 – Evening Bell
“Okay! Right now!”
Park Chang-woon slammed the teacher’s desk.
And in a tone like a famous TV show host, he shouted,
“Was Sung-wook telling the truth when he said he could see the baby, or was he bullshiting?”
Gu Yu-na asked back with a serious expression.
“What does ‘bullshiting’ mean?”
“…Whether he was lying.”
“It was probably a lie.”
The moment the communication error regarding the use of a neologism by active PUBG user Park Chang-woon (grandfather of two) was dispelled, Gu Yu-na continued her argument without hesitation.
“From the moment the ‘baby’ is used as a metaphor for the protagonist’s trauma, the baby is clearly a hallucination. Which means Sung-wook is lying too.”
“What if he’s not? What if the baby is a real spirit, and Sung-wook really can see it?”
“Then the novel strays from humanism and turns into a Christian novel delivering the message ‘Do not abort’… Surely Moon In hasn’t regressed to literary movement from centuries ago.”
“What if that’s exactly the case? What if Moon In-seop, a devout believer from a Christian mission school, was inspired by Millet’s ‘Evening Bell’ and wrote a human drama to remind us of the sanctity of life?” (TL Note: ‘Evening Bell’ is a famous painting by French artist Jean-François Millet)
“That interpretation is possible. But it’s not true. The baby is just a trial the protagonist must overcome. The core of the story lies not in the baby but in the protagonist’s internal journey.”
“Are you sure about that?”
Even through the white, sage-like beard covering Park Chang-woon’s chin, the sly curl of his grin was clearly visible.
It looked as if a vein was popping out of Gu Yu-na’s expressionless forehead.
Gu Yu-na glared at Park Chang-woon and replied firmly.
“I’m right.”
Unlike ordinary folks who would’ve thought she was just a stubborn kid, Park Chang-woon, who could read the unsaid “I know Moon In’s novels better than anyone”, started to get more and more amused.
“Is that so?”
Like the main villain from a famous Korean gambling movie, Park Chang-woon gave a wicked laugh, as if to say, “Let’s lay down the cards.” (TL Note: I think this is referencing the movie – “Tazza: The High Rollers”)
“Well then… we’ll just ask the author.”
His wicked hand reached toward Moon In.
Wrinkled and bony fingers like tree branches grabbed Moon In’s head.
“Now, answer! Who’s right?”
Park Chang-woon’s intimidating gaze, and Gu Yu-na’s tenacious stare, were both directed at Moon In.
Moon In, in response, carefully pried off Park Chang-woon’s fingers one by one and pushed them away.
Then he said.
“To be honest… debating this much over an unfinished novel… I find it kind of creepy.”
“……”
“……”
“It’s like reading a good poem and not being able to enjoy it, just obsessing over every word, arguing about what each one means. Like a bunch of lumpen.”
“……”
“……”
“From a writer’s point of view, it’s a bit spine-chilling… Anyway, I hope you can approach literature with a more open mind. Honestly, I wrote it to be deliberately ambiguous, so you can’t just say this is right and that is wrong. Actually, both are right, it’s just…”
“……”
“……”
Since ancient times, the one thing you should never do at a funeral is ‘resurrect’.
If the corpse suddenly came back to life, it would put both the bereaved family and the mourners in a very awkward situation.
In the same vein, the one thing you should never say during a reading discussion is ‘Both are right’.
Moon In had pulled out the dreadful, forbidden technique and stripped the souls of the two literature students exhausted by the long debate.
Wounded, Park Chang-woon scowled with a terrifying expression and emitted the aura of someone thinking, “You are a creature that should not exist”, but Moon In quickly packed up his things.
“Oh, looks like the club time is over. I’ll be heading out now.”
“You, this, bastaaaaard…!”
And he bolted.
The moment he fled into the hallway, the furious roar of Park Chang-woon could be heard from the classroom,
But Moon In, without showing any sign of surprise, hugged his laptop bag and scurried away.
Still, Moon In’s heart was pounding.
“Phew…”
That had really been a dangerously close call.
If those two had gotten any closer to uncovering the truth of ‘Evening Bell’, it would’ve been troubling in many ways…
***
The club activity hours at Baekhak Arts High School are fairly long.
They usually end in the late afternoon, and some clubs even remain in the classrooms until late at night.
So by the time Ahn Joo-hee was on her way home, the sky was already glowing with a crimson sunset, gently coloring the world in a serene red.
Such a sunset was so beautiful that it was nearly impossible to describe with a photograph or painting, yet because it was seen every day, its beauty was hard to notice.
Ahn Joo-hee, too, didn’t recognize that beauty. Carrying her bag over one shoulder, she walked down the sunset-lit street, completely lost in unrelated thoughts.
‘What the heck is this!’
Ahn Joo-hee’s lips jutted out in a sulky pout.
The club activity time she had waited and waited for turned out to be the worst.
Naturally, it was because of ‘that person’.
Ahn Joo-hee recalled the moment when her book review was mercilessly ‘slaughtered’.
‘Ugh…!’
A piercing headache came rushing in, accompanied by a sharp, static-like noise.
Never in her life had she been crushed (in a reading discussion) this badly.
Gu Yu-na had no hesitation in calling her a girl who didn’t even understand the (novel’s) theme, and in the end, she shot the dagger that her (book review) was completely worthless.
She truly ended up emotionally wrecked…
This round of book review presentations was not a time for healthy exchange of opinions, but a merciless massacre.
It wasn’t the massacre itself that disappointed her. Bloodshed during reading discussions is inevitable. That’s ‘common sense’ among all literature students.
What disappointed Ahn Joo-hee was that the one causing the massacre wasn’t herself, but Gu Yu-na.
And that forced her to confront the difference in literary skill between Gu Yu-na and herself.
“Sigh…”
Until now, Ahn Joo-hee had quietly regarded Gu Yu-na as a rival. While Moon In was like a figure on TV, Gu Yu-na was someone she would often see at writing contests, and her win rate was around 20%.
But today, after facing her head-on, the difference in level was unarguably clear.
Gu Yu-na was superior to Ahn Joo-hee as a literary talent.
That said, Ahn Joo-hee herself was also a highly gifted literature student. Her keen insight allowed her to objectively recognize the gap between herself and Gu Yu-na.
Therefore, the frustration Ahn Joo-hee felt was also objective and concrete.
In that tangible pain, Ahn Joo-hee felt the urge to escape from Baekhak Arts High School.
“Should I transfer…”
Ahn Joo-hee of Ansan, Gyeonggi Province, lived in Ansan. Commuting from Ansan to Seoul was a tiring and grueling task.
The reason why first-year high school student Ahn Joo-hee boarded the subway for several hours every day, and the reason she knowingly chose to attend Baekhak Arts High School, was because of Moon In.
As a literature student, the chance to attend school alongside a globally renowned novelist, despite being just a student herself, was a dream she couldn’t let go of.
But now, she had been reduced to a minor character dismissed by someone like Gu Yu-na, not even reaching Moon In’s level. Her passion for literature, just for today, seemed to fizzle out with a sigh.
‘Why am I even doing this…?’
‘What exactly is a dream…?’
‘What even is literature…?’
Thinking such thoughts, Ahn Joo-hee quickened her steps toward the dreaded subway station.
In her field of vision, she saw a boy staggering along, wrapped in a blanket.
‘Huh?’
It was Moon In.
Moon In was clutching his laptop bag to his chest, wandering down the street unsteadily, before collapsing onto a park bench.
Ahn Joo-hee approached him as if drawn by a spell.
Moon In remained seated on the park bench. He lazily waved off the pigeons approaching his feet, then slumped over to lie down on his side.
As if enjoying the warm sunset, he suddenly spotted a still-lit cigarette butt on the ground. His eyes gleamed like some kind of drug addict…
“Ssss… ssspp…”
“What are you doing?”
At Ahn Joo-hee’s quiet question as she snuck up, Moon In dropped the cigarette butt he was holding.
“Oh.”
Ahn Joo-hee witnessed the unprecedented sight of a literary genius, nominated for the International Booker and winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novel, frozen like a statue.
“Ahahah!”
It wasn’t quite a mocking laugh. More like a cheerful chuckle that meant, “So you have flaws too, just like any other human.”
Then,
She pulled a square box out of her jacket pocket.
Cigarettes.
“Do you need one?”
Moon In, frozen like a statue, flinched with a jerk.
At that painfully obvious reaction, Ahn Joo-hee smiled more brightly than ever before.
“Hmm, I’ll give you one if you have dinner with me.”
Moon In looked back and forth between the cigarettes and Ahn Joo-hee’s face, then let out a deep sigh and answered.
“……Never mind the cigarettes, let’s just eat.”
“Great!”
*****
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