Chapter 62

I arrived home, but it wasn’t that late yet. I placed the whale shark plush toy I had brought next to the sofa. Naturally, I hadn’t unwrapped it. It wasn’t even mine to begin with.

After walking around for a long time earlier and getting quite heated over the game, I felt a slight fatigue creeping in. They said my physical age was equivalent to that of a rejuvenated person, but it seemed like I didn’t have the stamina of a child of that age at all.

I was too lazy to change clothes, so I just tossed my outerwear aside and lay down on the sofa as usual. Should I buy a TV, as Hwa-won suggested? Lying here and only staring at my smartphone felt a bit monotonous.

Ah, but a TV seemed a bit burdensome. It’s not a small amount of money, and I wouldn’t watch it that much once I bought it. My contract has ended, and I will be receiving royalties, but it won’t keep coming in indefinitely.

In the first place, publishing isn’t something that pays well. After deducting various expenses, I would only get about a thousand won from each ten-thousand-won book.

If “The Boy’s Womb” had sold a million copies, that would be a different story, but even combining the sales from this time, it probably wouldn’t even reach forty thousand copies. More than half of those likely sold after my transformation was highlighted in the media. I didn’t know the exact number since the publisher didn’t inform me.

Even considering short story collections and other minor income I received for various side jobs, I had little financial freedom. If I hadn’t made donations, it would be a different matter, but I donated more than half of what I earned to the House of Love.

Forty thousand copies is by no means a small number. Given how poor the publishing industry is in Korea, it’s surprising to hear such comments. They say five thousand copies sold make you a promising author, ten thousand makes you the future of Korean literature, and thirty thousand makes you a bestselling author.

In my case, it wasn’t really like that since I’d sold that amount over several years under special circumstances.

I also had to think about the ongoing medical expenses.

… Looking back, it really wasn’t a time for leisure. I had to write something quickly and finalize a contract. Speaking of which, I hadn’t received payment from Jae-Ah for tutoring yet.

Of course, I had agreed to tutor her under the condition of an interview initially, but Professor Seo probably wouldn’t want to keep tutoring me for free forever.

He’s rich anyway, so if I asked for tutoring fees now, he wouldn’t refuse. Of course, since he’s stingy, I wouldn’t expect a large amount, but he would keep it within reasonable boundaries. That might just cover my hospital expenses.

Thinking about it, it had already been some time since I last made a donation. I couldn’t help the situation as it was. It was already a long time since I called the director. However, I didn’t want to make that call in the current state I was in.

It had become a nationally known incident, so the director probably knew about my condition, but that made me want to speak even less.

Anyway, to resolve this problem, I needed to work. I needed to write.

Time had passed, and my condition had improved a lot, but I wasn’t sure if I could write. Whenever I tried to think about writing again—or just the thought of writing—my head became a mess. I didn’t know.

In the end, the choice I made was to run away. I had once said that running away didn’t suit me. Yet, my current state was that of a coward that was genuinely fitting to run. I turned on my smartphone and opened YouTube again. As I watched YouTube, time passed, and my head became hazy.

It was the perfect escape.

If I felt sleepy like this, I’d fall asleep, with the sounds of YouTube as my lullaby. It had been a habit I’d picked up some time ago.

As my eyes slowly began to close, a message arrived.

It was Ji Kang-hyeon.

[Did you get home safely?]

[Yes] [How’s the friend who was sick?]

[Ah]

Huh?

[Actually,] [it was a lie.]

[??]

[They lied to call me out to celebrate with the remaining kids at the dorm.][Sorry!]

It was indeed strange to call someone who was sick, even if they were a friend, to hang out with other actors from the same agency. I had brushed it off without much thought, but was it a surprise party? That seemed like something kids of that age would do.

[It’s okay.][I brought the plush toy, so I’ll send it by courier later.]

[Thank you.][I made some time in the middle of the party.][I’ll be going now.]

[Bye.]

As the short conversation ended, my eyes slowly began to close again. The lit-up living room sofa felt cozy. I hadn’t even been here for a year yet, but it felt remarkably familiar.

With the rain that had fallen not long ago, summer was coming to an end.

It was the beginning of autumn.

~

It felt as if nothing would happen as time passed. If I kept pretending, at some point, it would become the truth. I was slowly moving past the act of pretending and was genuinely reclaiming my daily life.

I had also started playing games occasionally, and the frequency of dwelling on that day’s events had significantly decreased.

Of course, meeting people still felt difficult, but conveniently, Hwa-won had gone to the U.S., and Ham Yejin was too busy with work to come around.

If it hadn’t been for tutoring Jae-Ah, I wouldn’t have had any reason to meet up with her at all, and the only problem was Muk Ha-neul, but fortunately, ever since I suggested meeting last time, she hadn’t asked to see me again.

Of course, she still kept texting me. Recently, whether it was a weird hobby she had developed or something, she would send me photos of clothes, saying they would suit me. Most were androgynous clothing like the ones I had bought before, but occasionally, there were pictures that looked somewhat like skirts as well.

[What’s this?][Isn’t it a skirt?]

[It’s a skort.][It’s safe because it’s shorts.]

[Pfft.]

Anyway, ever since that day, I hadn’t met anyone except for Ji Kang-hyeon. Thanks to that, I still had no idea whether I could meet someone in real life and act normally.

However, no matter how much I returned to mundane life, if I couldn’t write again, it would all be meaningless. Writing was ultimately the beginning, the entirety, and the end for me. That was my daily life as well as my ideal.

Surprisingly, I succeeded in writing again.

However, that writing was not “The Womb.”

I tried to write in various ways, but I could never write “The Womb.” Every time I tried to think up a sexual metaphor, I felt a wave of nausea rise. “The Womb” was a novel that was entirely comprised of sexual metaphors.

I forced myself to come up with sentences while enduring it, but there was no way anything written in that state could be normal. Looking at the completely mangled text, I had no choice but to erase all the new parts I had written.

Still, I had to write somehow in that situation. So, I dug up various themes and concepts I had thought of when I was younger. But even that didn’t go well. I felt repulsed by even simple notes.

The recent notes I had recorded evoked even stronger feelings of rejection. At some point, the stories I was writing had become excessively skewed toward one thought, and all of them were just tales of licking one wound for me.

So, as I sifted through the notes, I gradually returned to my childhood.

I had always been jotting down concepts and themes. The notes contained a variety of words from different genres. Maybe because they were notes written during my childhood, most were just a list of disjointed and fragmented symbols.

Ocean, mermaid, diving, empty barrel, fisherman, princess, escape, giant’s dream, Eve’s shoes, rusty gun, hell of Gyeonggi, name thief, quack doctor, plagiarist, private detective, roving nun, blind buffoon, child that eats flowers, courtesan, don’t open Voyager, yawn, tears, gambling, shark, a human who can’t cross the green light, rightful anger, proper hatred, justified disgust, shadow dog, coal cat, wind wolf, survival girl, lamppost keeper, and so on.

Looking back now, these were remnants of childhood dreams and fairy tales.

It felt like I had once written stories like these. However, they now felt so unfamiliar that I could only feel awkwardness.

And that very awkwardness was just right for me now.

I had become too worn out to write fairy tales. It didn’t require me to be young to write fairy tales, but for a worn-out human, fairy tales were too dazzling a narrative.

So, I began to write something that was neither a fairy tale nor a novel.

The story that I impulsively started without any plan was awkward and chaotic. It was so pathetic that it was hard to believe I had written it.

[There is an orphan girl who is being chased for stealing bread. She hasn’t even received a name, but she has a wish. No, that can’t be expressed in that fluffy word, ‘wish.’ It wasn’t a wish. It was a yearning. What the girl wanted was herself. That alone, and only that.

The girl, who hid in an abandoned graveyard, sighed in relief as the footsteps of her pursuers disappeared. However, it was short-lived as the rain began to pour. Then, she heard footsteps again. The girl, hiding between the gravestones, caught sight of a boy with an umbrella. The boy passed by the gravestone where the girl was hiding. The raindrops masked the girl’s foul odor, so the boy did not notice her.

The boy’s face held a nobility that he was trying hard to hide, yet it still shone through. He held a bouquet of flowers. The boy headed toward a gravestone in the furthest corner of the graveyard. After placing the flowers down, he remained silent for a while before finally speaking.

“Se-ne….”

The two syllables of that name resonated strongly in the girl’s ears.

Soon, the boy left. After he departed, the girl approached the gravestone where he had stood. Only two letters were inscribed on it, nothing else was etched. The girl, who couldn’t read, couldn’t know what it said, but she understood very well what those two letters indicated.

Didn’t the boy call out, “Se-ne” just a moment ago? Of course, it could also be the name of a completely different person. Or perhaps it wasn’t even a name at all. But to the girl, that didn’t matter.

Several times, the girl traced those letters with her finger. She wasn’t sure what it meant or if the pronunciation was correct, but she memorized those two letters and repeated them over and over.

Se-ne

“You… are already dead.”

Se-ne

“You don’t need a name anymore.”

Se-ne

“So… now I’m Se-ne.”

The girl murmured that several times, as if making excuses. However, there was no guilt on her expression. She was smiling. Despite looking shabby, drenched in the rain, and filthy, her eyes were fiercely ablaze.

That day, the girl stole a name from a corpse she didn’t even know. The girl was no longer a nameless orphan.

She was Se-ne.

That day, the girl obtained what she had always wanted, what she yearned for.

The rain did not stop.]

I hadn’t decided on a single thing beyond this. There was no background, setup, or world-building. There was no plan. It was merely a short short story that sprang from the word “thief who stole a name.” The name “Se-ne” was a meaninglessly spontaneous name that I had thought up on a whim.

Of course, such writing had no future. I might continue writing, but I didn’t know what to write about. It was almost a waste of time.

One glance revealed how clumsy this writing was. What had started as a mere enumeration of plot points had somehow taken form pretending to be a novel. It never constituted proper writing to begin with.

Yet, such a pathetic story strangely brought joy. This ridiculous stream of writing that had no meaning was fun.

It was the first enjoyment I had felt since writing that day. Perhaps this was exactly what I needed right now.

So, I felt a little at ease.

Someday I would be able to return. I could return. It would happen. I could see that kind of future. Only after writing this did I finally have the confidence that I would be okay.

Should I rest a bit? Should I take a short break?

I thought.

When I turned on my smartphone, I found messages from two people.

Reporter Gu Ji-ye and my previous editor, Kim Sung-kyu. It was an ominous combination. The moment I saw the names, an indescribable sense of unease washed over me. Slowly, I checked the messages with trembling hands.

Kim Sung-kyu’s message was just this.

[I’m sorry.][I couldn’t stop it.]

Gu Ji-ye’s message contained links to some internet articles. There was more than one. There were two.

As I read the two articles, beads of sweat began to drip down.

After reading all the messages, I involuntarily turned to glance at the bookshelf beside me. That was where I had put Lee Cheon’s book and where I had stuck another book. Among them was Franz Kafka’s “Metamorphosis,” which I had read a few days ago.

However, the novel I should have read wasn’t “Metamorphosis.”

Franz Kafka was right. It was correct, but it wasn’t “Metamorphosis.”

I should have read “The Trial.”