Novelist Running Through Time - Chapter 117



Only Krnovel

EP 5 – Love Story

The udon restaurant around evening was crowded with office workers. Alcohol cannot be missing from office workers’ meals. So this restaurant is a restaurant for lunch and becomes a bar in the evening.

A loud noise could be heard from the table where three or four people sat together. People who smiled forcedly and people who smiled because they liked it mixed together and clinked their glasses.

In the only room inside the restaurant, three people were smiling brightly and clinking glasses while the smell of udon and alcohol were mixed together, giving off a unique and strange smell.

“for!”

“Up, for…!”

Lim Yang-wook shouted coolly, and Baek-seol and Mun-in clumsyly followed along and clinked their glasses.

Yang-wook Lim had beer, Baek-seol had highballs, and Moon-in had cola (he tried to drink alcohol, but it didn’t even work).

“Kyaha…!”

Lim Yang-wook sweetly drank a cold beer for the first time in a while. And then I slurped down the spicy and glossy stir-fried udon with katsuobushi.

The writer looked at Lim Yang-wook’s beer with a blank expression. My hand automatically reaches out to me as if I am possessed by her ghost.

Wow! Baek Seol slapped the back of the writer’s hand.

“I said no alcohol! “Writer!”

“Ha, just one bite…!”

“Sweet! No!”

Baekseol eventually put Yangwook Lim’s beer out of the writer’s reach.

Lim Yang-wook chuckled at that sight.

“Baekseol, just give me one bite. Inseop wants it like that…”

“Speaking of big trouble!” “It’s never going to happen!?”

“Oh my, what should I do with this…”

Lim Yang-wook smiled mischievously and raised his beer glass. Then he took a gulp and wiped away the foam from his mouth.

“Kyahaa! This is it!”

Moonin painfully felt the saying that he hated a sister-in-law who stopped him more than a mother-in-law who hit him.

With mixed feelings, I pour cola into a beer glass and drink it like alcohol.

“Ugh…”

“Why do you drink cola like alcohol?”

“I use cola today…”

“Do you use cola? I am sweet. Is it because I’ve been through so many difficult things…”

“Then would you like to change it?”

“I’m fine, but Baek Seol says it’s not okay?”

Baekseol, who was unconsciously cutting okonomiyaki like a steak, sighed as he watched Lim Yangwook making fun of a writer who couldn’t drink.

It looked so light-hearted that one wondered if he was the same person who put ‘Love Story’ on the top bestseller list.

Even though I felt how difficult it was to become a #1 bestseller without the help of Baekhak Bookstore.

“Whoa…”

Baek Seol, relieved of her tension, sipped a highball and regained her composure.

Because the publishing war over ‘Love Story’ has ended.

That too with our victory.

“Congratulations on your #1 bestseller, author.”

“Thank you. “It’s all thanks to the editors.”

Lim Yang-wook joined in with a sly smile.

“really?”

“······About 6 to 4?”

“Who is number 6?”

“Of course it is me.”

“Hahaha! Have you ever seen such an ungrateful bastard?”

Lim Yang-wook laughed happily and patted the writer’s back, and the writer also smiled and matched with Lim Yang-wook.

Baek Seol looked at the two people living together harmoniously with faint eyes. This familiar sight would soon be the last.

Spring has come. The regular greeting season is approaching. Baekseol will now leave the Publication Management Department and be transferred to the Strategic Planning Department at the headquarters.

Lim Yang-wook, who caught a glimpse of Baek Seol’s mysterious expression, said with a grin.

“Baekseol, are you sad?”

“W-what?!”

“Is it a pity? Breaking up with us.”

“Why are you asking me such a strange question?”

A company is a place where human emotions should not enter. That was Baek Seol’s common sense. So she hid her emotions clumsily.

However, Lim Yang-wook said it backwards.

“okay? “I feel very sorry.”

“···!”

“Baek Seol was a very good editor. And aside from being an editor, he was a really nice guy. I think so. And even though I was an idiot who knew nothing except publishing, I taught Baek Seol everything I knew, so I thought of Baek Seol as my student. “So he thought it would be really fun to work together in the future, but it’s really sad that we have to part ways.”

Recognized.

The moment she felt that emotion, Baek Seol jerked her head up.

She covered her eyes and answered with slightly muffled pronunciation.

“Why… why do you say that…”

“Everyone knows that I miss the Publishing Management TF team members, right?”

The writer nodded his head slightly.

“But you know what’s funny? When I worked for those people, I was extremely cold to them. In terms of ability, they were inferior to me. It’s a given. Because I was first in terms of performance. But when I look back, I was in last place as a human being.”

“……”

“Of course, there was a bit of a harsh atmosphere because I was a Jijabi, right? that’s right. But those people didn’t just treat me like crazy. On the contrary, there were many cases where they treated me well and acknowledged me. But I got it all done? I thought that was cool. Why, that’s right. The trend these days. It’s good to be cool, it’s good to be decisive, it’s cool to be critical, and a machine that just works without emotion looks like a rational elite… Oh, of course, that’s true as an office worker. That’s a good office worker…”

“……”

“But if you ask me if I did a good job as a person rather than an office worker… I have a lot of regrets.”

“Boss···”

Baekseol realized that Lim Yangwook was giving advice from deep within his heart for himself, who was about to leave.

And Lim Yang-wook ordered Baek Seol to become this kind of person.

“I wish Baek Seol would focus more on himself as a human being rather than an office worker. Office workers live for the company, but then there is no one left to live their own life. So, take care of yourself, take care of the people around you, and even beat up ugly people… live like that in a humane way. “In today’s world, people criticize it as unfashionable, but ultimately, it’s for your own good.”

Baek Seol answered with a blank face.

“Yes, team leader…”

Although the name is wrong, the name is probably the Lim Yang-wook that Baek-seol remembers.

A bald, washed-up team leader who survives each day without forgetting humor even though he is stuck in an underground parking lot.

Lim Yang-wook smiled shyly and lightened the mood. His smile, as always, seems to be laughing at something.

“No, well, I was a person who thought my work life would be smooth forever, but my life almost went downhill, so I hesitated to say something. Anyway, don’t go all in on the company and live your own life – well, it’s obvious. Oh my, how dare I say such an outrageous thing to our princess, Snow White of the white crane lineage… I’m sorry if I seemed like an old fashioned.”

“no!”

“huh?”

However, for today, Yangwook Lim does not need to laugh at himself. Baekseol thought so and cut off Lim Yangwook’s self-deprecation.

“Really… I’ll take it to heart. Thank you, manager.”

“···okay. You will do well when you go. Mr. Baek Seol.”

There was a warm silence for a moment.

It was the writer who mercilessly broke the silence.

“How are you going to see me at work tomorrow like this?”

“···Green one!”

Lim Yang-wook gulped down his beer with an even redder complexion. I don’t know if it’s because of the alcohol or because I’m shy.

“okay! Baek Seol, there’s still some time left before you leave, right? How did you translate the love story? “I have to do that!”

“Of course I did it all! “I also sent the manuscript to a publishing company I met on my last business trip to the United States.”

“good. Spring has come again now? “It’s the spring literary season.”

The Spring Literary Festival is back.

The season has returned when new artists compete with their pens and the judging panel for all kinds of literary awards is announced.

Lim Yang-wook chuckled, tapping the writer who was quietly sipping a cola.

“Look forward to it, Inseop. Last year was your year, no matter what anyone said. “When I debuted, it was a literary award that I paid money for, but this time, a real major literary award seems possible.”

“……”

“Honestly, if you don’t ride, who will? Hahahaha!”

But that didn’t happen.

In the following spring, spring literary season, contrary to Lim Yang-wook’s expectations,

The writings of literary authors have not won any literary awards.

* * *

Baekhak Entertainment’s headquarters promotes itself as a ‘home of artists.’

There is a little history here.

Among Korea’s large entertainment companies, Baekhak Entertainment was the only subsidiary controlled by a conglomerate, and naturally faced criticism that it was ‘not sincere about art’.

This was a criticism of Baekhak Entertainment, but it was also an attack on CEO Baek Seung-won, who was not an artist but a white collar worker.

President Baek Seung-won, who was in trouble

‘Well, they said they wouldn’t reveal the money, then?’

‘Girls only have the CEO as an artist, but the white-collar people run the operation, so why are they being so mean to me?’

I used to protest, but I couldn’t say that in an official setting.

If CEO Baek Seung-won was a bold person, he would have laughed it off and said, ‘There is no limit to finding faults to slander competitors anyway.’

President Baek Seung-won was a person who was a bit picky, nervous, suspicious, and a workaholic, so he was a bit negligent about his family.

(It can be said that this monster was created by executives at headquarters who tried to find fault with the president from a subsidiary company at every turn.)

In any case, President Baek Seung-won returned the taffy to them as a response to the slanderous slander that said, ‘I am running an entertainment company while working in an office job and muddying the earth.’

Money was spent like crazy on Baekhak Entertainment’s headquarters building.

Baekhak Entertainment’s headquarters, which underwent extensive remodeling with the motif of ‘an artist’s home,’ is fully equipped with hotel-level amenities, from the lobby to the lounge.

Even the cafeteria and in-house cafe were redesigned under the supervision of a famous foreign architect with a ‘design that enhances the creativity of employees’, and there is a massage room, spa, gym, psychiatry, and even a pet center for the training and healing of the company’s celebrities.

And then President Baek Seung-won says this.

‘As someone from a white collar background, I also take care of our company’s artists like this, but what do these artists-turned-CEOs do other than harass the kids under them?’

That’s it.

However, in the midst of all this, there was a place that President Baek Seung-won could not bear to touch.

That place is-

It’s a rooftop.

The design of the rooftop cannot be changed by the president. Even architects cannot be changed. It is the employees, not anyone else, who create the atmosphere on the rooftop of the company building.

It was Baekhak Entertainment, which spent money on the building, advocating the concept of a ‘home for artists’, but its rooftop was the same as any other company.

Office workers, tired from work, were gathered in groups of twos and threes to smoke cigarettes. The leaf sculpture, which was said to symbolize environmental preservation and sustainable development, has long since been reduced to an ashtray.

And among the numerous smokers, a bald man was smoking a cigarette.

This is Manager Lim Yang-wook.

Director Lim Yang-wook of the Publication Management Department was very famous within the company for a manager-level person.

Because the criminal who was stuck in the underground parking lot flew up like a phoenix, took over an office, and became the head of the department.

They are even making good money.

However, from the perspective of Baekhak Entertainment executives and employees, Lim Yang-wook is an outsider who graduated from Baekhak Bookstore, and even what he is doing now is one step away from the industry.

The rooftop scene where no one approached Lim Yang-wook and even said a simple word of greeting clearly revealed his position in this company.

Of course, at one time, Lim Yang-wook also had people who spoke to him in a friendly manner while he smoked.

However, those colleagues were kicked out of the White Crane and thrown into a cruel society. It was the price of bitter betrayal and failure.

Yangwook Lim lit a cigarette and looked at the cityscape bathed in sunset. The scattered old colleagues were probably living somewhere in this landscape.

Of course, they were not people gathered together to do the right thing. A company is a place to make money, and office workers are people who make money. You can’t just do honorable things. In fact, it was a bit NG from the time they tried to make a star writer by bringing in a person with a smooth face and ghostwriting the writing.

But they were people who wanted to try anything. They were people who tried to do anything to save the slowly dying publishing industry, even while being criticized by others.

Lim Yang-wook could never forgive Yang Seong-jun and Kim Sang-guk, who mercilessly abandoned them and put him in an underground parking lot.

The moment I forgave them, the moment I bowed down in humiliation, I felt like I could no longer live as a proud human being.

But a question arises here.

‘What is the value of this revenge?’

Who is revenge for?

Colleagues?

Of course, the moment they are kicked out, they are deprived of all the time and effort they put into joining this company, as well as the fair compensation for the lives they have poured into this company.

It’s not that I lost my money or my job.

Life and time are lost.

But are they doomed? That’s not it. Some people have successfully found re-employment, some have gone back to being someone’s spouse or someone’s parent, and some have continued their lives as the owner of a chicken restaurant.

They are bearing the weight of life in their respective positions, and Lim Yang-wook is not qualified to take revenge on their behalf. Because no one can live someone else’s life for them.

Yangwook Lim knows. A desire for revenge against Yang Yang-jun and Kim Sang-guk. It is not a noble feeling of avenging his comrades.

It was closer to the hatred that arose because they were jealous of Lim Yang-wook’s abilities and cowardly put him in an underground parking lot for two years.

And Lim Yang-wook has already kicked one of his enemies out of the company. Now only Kim Sang-guk, who has become the precarious president of Baekhak Bookstore, remains.

‘but···’

What will change if you kick him out?

Juniors who still follow Kim Sang-guk are spread throughout Baekhak Library.

Regardless of whether that is possible, the moment Kim Sang-guk is kicked out, Lim Yang-wook becomes the enemy of countless juniors.

So what will become of the literary people?

“ha···”

This spring, no literary awards were given to writers.

To Lim Yang-wook, it made no sense, but at the same time, it also made sense.

The writer caught two birds with one stone: artistic value and popularity. Yangwook Lim made it that way.

However, by purchasing 16 literary prizes, he exposed the ‘commercial fee business’. Lim Yang-wook made it that way.

Senior writers in the literary world view writers in a somewhat positive light.

But a paragraph is not one.

To the historic literary magazines that publish the complete collection of literary awards, writers were already ‘whistle-blowers’.

So this incident is a kind of revenge.

You can’t even resist.

Writers have been included as ‘winner candidates’ in almost all major literary awards.

In other words, there are people who are more suspicious than writers, so the moment you respond to them, things become irreversibly serious.

There is no one in the literary world who would forgive this, belittling another novelist to protect one novelist.

and.

Even Lim Yang-wook couldn’t predict how long this kind of retaliation would continue.

“……”

Of course, it doesn’t mean there is no way.

Just once.

You only need to bow once.

All you have to do is go to Kim Sang-guk, the president of Baekhak Bookstore, and bow your head just once.

This time, such great shame will not return. Now, Yangwook Lim is another player in this industry.

Perhaps Kim Sang-guk would do a favor to make himself and the writer his own.

All Lim Yang-wook has to do is hold the hand of Kim Sang-guk, who smiles kindly, and go around to apologize to the elders of each literary magazine.

Then, from now on, writers can blend perfectly with the literary world.

That is, if Lim Yang-wook just gives up on ‘revenge’.

“……”

Of course, Kim Sang-guk may not be completely unrelated to this matter.

There is a possibility that he may have taken the initiative himself, or at least he would not have known about it.

But that is a secondary issue.

This is the crux of the problem.

‘How long on earth must one drag a writer into one’s revenge?’

That was the core of Lim Yang-wook’s concerns.

The answer to that question was obvious.

“ha….”

Let’s bow down.

You only need to bow once.

For the sake of writers, let’s put aside our pride and bow down just once.

Lim Yang-wook made that decision.

Chiik –

Yangwook Lim put out his cigarette and got into the elevator. Now that I have made up my mind, I plan to take action right away. I decided to meet Sang-guk Kim before she changed her mind.

However, as he passed the underground parking lot to get in his car, Lim Yang-wook felt his fists shaking without realizing it.

I feel the shame of the two years I spent in this underground parking lot. I remember the shock of that day when I found myself in the mirror looking like a half-mad person, with my hair falling out in clumps.

Lim Yang-wook paused for a moment and thought about it until the end, but bit his lip and got into the driver’s seat and drove toward Baekhak Bookstore.

As I was driving the car with the feeling of chewing on bitter gall, my smartphone vibrated.

“hello.”

– Boo, boo, boo, boss!

“uh. “What’s going on, Baek Seol?”

– Boo, boo, boo, booker!

“Boo, what?”

– ‘Love Story’ was shortlisted for the first round of the Booker Prize!

Lim Yang-wook made a U-turn.