Novelist Running Through Time - Chapter 4



Only Krnovel

EP 1 – Cause of Death

The mornings at Saebitneulbom Orphanage are uneventful.

This is because there is a strict rule of waking up at 7 o’clock, folding the blanket, eating, and then rushing to school.

Those who break the strict rules are educated by the officials in charge of discipline at the orphanage.

Therefore, you can never be spoiled and say, ‘Wow, I want to sleep for 5 more minutes,’ like the kids in a girl’s house. One of the reasons is that there is no one to pamper them.

But this morning was a little strange.

“What year is this? Why all of a sudden?”

“Answer me quickly.”

One of the students living in a four-person room seemed to have suddenly fallen into a state of intoxication and had been acting up since the morning.

Have you ever asked what year it is?

Don’t you ask for the names of friends who share the same room?

“ah! “What year is it?”

But the orphanage is large and there are a lot of crazy people. There is no need to make a fuss just because one more crazy person has been added.

Surprisingly, when asked what year it was today, none of the three remaining friends gave a correct answer.

“I don’t know. A blanket or a dog.”

“Nope? You’re not going to tell me? So what can you do? What can you do other than get annoyed? huh?”

“You’re a bitch.”

On the other hand, there were people who became anxious the more they saw their friends’ reactions.

These unlucky guys were definitely the guys from my old memories.

Why are those guys who shared the same room with me here? Can dreams be this realistic?

The boy held out his trembling hand.

“Cellphone… Give it to someone who has a cellphone quickly.”

“Where are our cell phones?”

“Oh right.”

In order to cultivate good character in children, Saebitneulbom Orphanage does not provide idiot boxes containing electromagnetic waves such as smartphones.

It’s definitely not because I don’t have money to pay for communication costs.

“What year is this year?”

The answer was closer than expected.

The calendar on the wall said it all.

“···oh my god.”

You said it was 10 years ago.

And today is Christmas.

* * *

Christmas at Newbit Spring Orphanage is special.

There is no particular need to praise the Lord’s grace.

Contrary to common misconceptions, daycare centers are private facilities, not public institutions. They only receive support from the government.

Naturally, the welfare budget is never sufficiently distributed to all orphanages. For that reason, orphanages are operated with private donations. And most of the private donations come from religious organizations, and most of those religious organizations are Christian.

(Rather than saying that monks are small, they are bound to be the majority if you combine Protestantism and Catholicism.)

anyway.

Christmas at Newbit Spring Orphanage is special.

Since the majority of big donors go to churches or cathedrals, they donate larger amounts at Christmas, so the orphanage organizes events for them.

This year was the same as always.

Saebit Spring Orphanage even rented the gymnasium of a nearby school to prepare a large Christmas party.

Appreciation plaques were made for large donors, and the children gathered together to prepare for a talent show.

The accident happened there.

“what – ?!”

Bang Jeong-ah, a life coach at Saebitneulbom Orphanage, was astonished.

“Inseop, you! “You mean you forgot the whole choreography?!”

“Teacher, I really don’t remember…”

“What do you mean! “I can’t remember how much we practiced together a few weeks ago?”

Bang Jeong-ah thought rationally.

Rather than thinking that the little boy in front of me had returned from 10 years in the future, I decided that he had reached the 5th grade of elementary school and had reached puberty.

So Bang Jeong-ah smiled and knelt down to make eye contact with the child.

“Inseop, since you are now 12 years old, it may feel a little embarrassing to do cute moves to Christmas carols…”

“teacher. “It’s not that I’m embarrassed by the movements, I really just remember-”

“But… all the people coming today are people who sponsored us. How about showing a good performance to express our gratitude to them? “You’re not doing it alone, you’re all doing it together.”

But even with all his kind words, isn’t this brazen kid insisting that he ‘can’t remember’?

If it were an orphanage with no roots, there would have been swearing and assault, but Saebit Neulbom Orphanage is a Christian orphanage full of faith, hope, and love.

This means that instead of controlling rebellious children with corporal punishment and threats, it is a place where they are embraced with warm ‘love’ between seniors and juniors.

Bang Jeong-ah called Mag Ki-hoon, a second-year high school fitness genius who is in charge of the military class leader among the orphanage students.

She explained the situation and quickly left.

Magi Hoon laughed.

“Do you want to go after me, you asshole?”

* * *

[The Lord’s great grace- I love you-]

[I am a child of faith – a child of hope – a child of love -]

Children dressed as Santa and Rudolph danced cutely on the stage. Moon In-seop was also there. The eyes seem out of focus.

Bang Jeong-ah, who was watching the stage, muttered.

“what. “You dance well.”

“I heard you remember the dance moves because I gave you good advice?”

“After all, adolescent kids are tired~”

Meanwhile, Moon In-seop, dressed as Rudolph, was glancing at the person in front of him and trying his best to imitate the dance moves.

‘How did this happen?’

Back to the past.

‘What am I doing?’

I’m dancing to the song.

‘How did this happen?’

dead.

‘Why on earth did you come back in time?’

I do not know.

‘Am I dreaming?’

no.

‘oh my god.’

Moon In-seop knew the answer.

However, it was difficult to believe the correct answer.

* * *

Saebitneulbom Orphanage is a Christian orphanage.

It is difficult to say exactly which one is Catholicism or Protestantism. This is because the director goes back and forth between both sides to collect donations.

In any case, thanks to the director’s connections, the orphanage’s finances were plentiful, and a well-grown zelkova tree was planted in the large yard attached to the facility.

I sat down and leaned against the tree.

“Whoa…”

When I look up, I see the winter sky of Maalgan.

White clouds flow by, and whenever the wind blows, snowflakes accumulated on the tree branches gently flow down.

Birds spread their wings and flow with the wind, and this star I was standing on must also be flowing along its orbit.

Although it is natural for things to flow according to established rules, I ended up going against the flow of time.

10 years.

I went back 10 years in time.

The 22-year-old suicide victim is now a 12-year-old elementary school student.

I can somewhat understand the fact that time has gone back. How can the human race, living in a small speck of dust in this gigantic universe, know all about the grand providence of the world?

The entire universe is full of truths and laws that science has not yet discovered. And some of them may be in the realm of theology rather than science.

However, 10 years is a kind of ‘unit’.

The unit was made by people.

People gathered together and promised to call the time it takes for the Earth to revolve around the sun ‘one year’. Even that is not an accurate calculation.

Therefore, the concept of ‘one year’ was a legal concept rather than a scientific one. It is not a law of nature, but a result of human intelligence.

For that reason, I can only assume that my return back exactly 10 years was due to the intervention of someone who understands human intelligence.

who is he?

Who is the transcendental person who opened the eyes of a failure who committed suicide on Christmas Eve 10 years ago on Christmas?

Santa? jesus? Buddha? Allah?

Santa is a tale originating from Bishop ‘St. Nicholas’, Jesus is a saint from the Roman era, Buddha is an Indian prince, and Allah or Yahweh is a religion created when the monotheistic faith of the ancient Middle East drove out polytheism.

who is he?

Is it God?

In the first place, does God exist?

As I was worrying about such things, someone asked me a question.

“Hey, Inseop Moon. “Aren’t you eating?”

“I don’t really feel like eating.”

“I heard Kihoon will scold you if you don’t eat it?”

“I’ll go.”

Even while I was having dinner at the restaurant, the tangled threads of my thoughts were not easily resolved.

Could it be that you see a dazzling light right before you die? Couldn’t the 22 years I’ve been through be the nightmare I had when I was 12? Could it be that I am a squishy pink brain in a vat?

As my thoughts deepened, I lost control of my young body.

My mouth muscles relaxed and I slurped down the soybean paste soup.

“Bye…”

“Hey! “How old are you when you spill your food like this?”

“sorry···”

I couldn’t shake off my worries easily. In fact, if anyone were to suddenly go back 10 years, all kinds of thoughts would come to mind.

But when I returned to my dorm and looked at the bookshelf, my worries were all gone.

“uh?”

Joy takes the place of worries.

The joy of welcoming bright memories from childhood.

“This···!”

Magic punctuation, Survival series, Greek and Roman mythology, Why?, Les Miserables, Comic Maple Story…

Every time I see a title full of memories, I am reminded of the pure dreams I had as a child.

No, it was a desire so simple it could not be called a dream.

I liked the book.

The writing was good.

I enjoyed reading it.

The moment you add anything here, it becomes an exaggeration.

This was all I had in mind at first.

I just liked it. It was just good.

It was a dream that shined like a candle.

And as we get older, firewood is added to it.

He won a student writing contest and received numerous compliments. So she wanted to write better.

I was bullied because I was an orphan. He decided that one day he would become a greater person than the people who bullied him.

I found out that my parents, who I thought were dead, were actually alive and that they had placed me in an orphanage instead of raising me. She endured each painful day, writing down her heart-rending pain in manuscript.

I naturally learned that succeeding as a writer is more difficult than going through the eye of a needle. So what are you saying? I will leave behind a masterpiece that no one can disparage.

I realized that unless you were born as the son of a chaebol, in a capitalist society, humans are nothing more than parts of the system. It’s none of my business! True beauty lies within.

Those resolutions piled up little by little.

So, little by little, firewood is added to the candle,

It finally burned into a huge dream.

Although I was born insignificant, I wanted to create some kind of beauty. I wanted to have an undying reputation that no one, no matter how much money or power, could have. I wanted to resonate in the souls of hurt people. I wanted to rise from the lowest to the highest and shine like a star. I wanted to create a wonder that cannot even be described as beautiful and have the whole world admire it.

I had such a dream.

I wanted to become that kind of novelist.

But the world spoke to me. Wake up from your dream.

You were born with a gene that will predispose you to lymph node cancer at the age of 22.

“Fuck.”

I walked around the room swearing like a crazy person.

I bit my lip, picked my nails, and circled around the same spot like a goldfish trapped in a fishbowl.

Then suddenly I looked in the mirror.

And then it hardened.

There was a young boy of 12 years old.

A young, unspoiled child was looking at me.

I stared blankly at the boy for a long time.

And put your hand on the mirror.

“······ah.”

The boy was very beautiful.

This feeling was so vivid and wonderful that it could not be compared to the satisfaction I felt one day when I found the yearbook in the corner and looked back at myself when I was younger and brighter.

The 12-year-old me had the same beauty that the 22-year-old me struggled to obtain.

I pinched my cheek to confirm that I was the owner of this body. The boy in the mirror pinched his cheek.

My cheeks were incredibly soft and tender. This texture could be described as pure.

There were no dark circles sagging from overwork, no reddish skin ruined by alcohol, and no bloody lips from constantly biting.

However, the lifeless, cloudy eyes remained.

Those eyes were the only evidence that showed who was controlling this body.

Even though I tried changing my expression here and there, I couldn’t smile as innocently as a child. The boy in the mirror will never be able to smile at his age again.

At that moment, I realized the sin I had committed.

Who abused such an innocent child?

I was slowly ruined by alcohol, cigarettes, and depression.

Who finally went so far as to kill him?

It was me.

“no···”

No, who am I?

I have never killed myself.

All suicides are like that.

I just had a harder time finding the courage to live than the courage to die.

And it wasn’t me that made me that way, it was this world. This damn world pushed me like that.

“Paper… Paper…”

With trembling hands, I looked for a writing utensil in the corner of the room. The pencil case fell over, throwing out the plastic rulers and erasers that were stuck in it, but that’s not important right now.

I took out the backing paper that was scattered randomly on the bookshelf.

I fell to the floor and started writing about the criminals who killed me.

Like a prisoner locked in an interrogation room writing down his accomplices.

I pointed out numerous accomplices to shift the blame on myself.

What killed me was not some huge, irresistible villain, but the numerous sufferings that were part of my daily life.

When I was a child, the child put a lock on my glasses and wouldn’t unlock them. A child who stole a bag of slippers and did not return them.

Teachers who called such children my ‘friends’ as they pleased and forced them to get along well.

At the university I went to while hiding my past, a teaching assistant without a second thought revealed that I was from an orphanage.

Immature young freshmen who couldn’t get over their habit of teasing orphans even after they got older.

A critic who criticized my writing harshly, a literary award with no sign of winning, poverty, deprivation, and loneliness.

The professor thought of me as a student who cared about me, but did not allow me to marry his daughter.

Resentment toward my parents who abandoned me when they divorced, longing for them, and disillusionment toward myself, feeling both emotions at the same time.

The bus driver who splashed water on me while driving without thinking on a rainy day. A child care instructor at a daycare center who seemed to give affection, but coldly enforced rules.

The gang of high school students who locked me in the bathroom and gang-raped me, and the convenience store owner who didn’t give me the money he was supposed to pay while saying nonsense.

From my downstairs neighbor who would come up and get irritated at the slightest sound of footsteps, to my ex-lover who eventually left me even though he said he loved me.

All of that killed me a little bit.

I did not commit suicide one day after being diagnosed with lymphatic cancer, but I eventually collapsed from exhaustion because I could not overcome the pain and suffering that had accumulated little by little since the moment I was born.

okay. I am not the culprit!

I was just one of many accomplices…

“haha···”

When I came to my senses, I found myself in a cold sweat.

Drop, drop, drop of sweat drips and wets the paper.

Paper stained black and full of messy handwriting.

Sreuk.

As always, I held the paper up as if holding a newborn baby.

If you refine and select the language written here, another novel will be born.

okay. That’s all.

“haha···”

I smiled for the first time since returning to the past.

And then I realized.

I realized I didn’t know.

I don’t know why I was thrown into this flow of time. We probably won’t know in the future. Unless, at some point, an angel’s revelation appears before your eyes.

But there is also something I know.

What I do know is that I am a novelist.

Then just write.

“life···”

Nothing has changed.

Before you ran back in time, did you know why you were born in this world? Did you ever know why you had to endure the pain of this life? I didn’t know anything even then.

Everyone born into the world lives like that.

Neither humans nor bugs know why they were born in this world, cats don’t know, and even sunflowers don’t know.

But unlike bugs, people can dream. You may not know why you were born, but you can decide why you will live.

And my dream is to be a novelist.

Then just write.

If I write,

If you live to write,

It doesn’t matter anymore whether I’m 12 or 22.

Because they both have the same dream.

“Life is…”

I don’t know why I was born.

I don’t know why I rushed back in time.

You can decide your own reason for living in the future.

So I devoted my life to writing.

Now not even death can break me.

* * *

“Ah, I want to fucking smoke!”

A girl shouted while looking into the waiting room mirror.

And then he fell down on the chair helplessly.

“Ha…life…”

Child actor Kim Byul, 15 years old, has no other dreams.

And the name is not the real name.

Her real name is different, but she changed her name to ‘Kim Byul’ because it was more advantageous for her to work as an actress.

In her opinion, her stage name seemed much more old-fashioned than her real name, but she had no choice.

Becoming a child actor and changing my name were all decided by my mother.

All she has to do is stand in front of the camera like a marionette being controlled by a string. She’s been like that since she was little.

“Why live?”

Child actor Kim Byeol. 15 years old.

I was at an age when life was difficult.

One
fantasy, modern,