Novelist Running Through Time - Chapter 57



Only Krnovel

EP 2 – Other

“What is that…!”

The filming set was filled with shock. Everyone from the youngest staff member to the assistant director was shocked and paid attention to the director. That gaze contained the meaning of ‘try something.’

‘This damned kid…!’

The director, who quickly became the center of attention, opened his mouth with an expression that said he could not accept this situation.

“Writer Moon. What does that mean? Are you telling me to stop filming? now?”

The writer answered simply.

“yes.”

“This isn’t even a kid’s joke…!”

“It’s not a joke, it’s art. The emotion ‘madness’ does not appear in my novel. The main character doesn’t suddenly become the Joker. “I cannot accept movies like this.”

The assistant director next to the director covered his face with his hands with a deep sigh, and the cinematographer approached the staff and shouted, ‘Did you see something?!’ and disciplined his subordinates.

And the director was so angry that he regained his composure.

The director first glared at Lim Yang-wook and pointed his finger at him.

“···I was showing the utmost courtesy by explaining this to elementary school students in detail.”

Lim Yang-wook calmly shrugged his shoulders.

The director glared at Moon In-seop and muttered as if chewing up each word and spitting it out.

“I think my young writer friend doesn’t know much, so I’ll tell him. This is neither a joke nor art. It’s business. It’s a grown-up’s job. Baekhak Entertainment’s film division has decided to adapt your novel into a movie. It was the boss’s instructions. So, after completing the business feasibility study, the people here at WC Production outsourced the project and started it. They hastily recruited dozens of vacant staff members and cranked it up. The director and screenwriters worked all night long to turn your novel into a movie script, and even though the set looked crude to your eyes, they did their best over the course of several days. We recruited one of the best CG teams in the industry and created music separately for this film. Dozens of adults devoted their time and effort to this project. But are you saying you’re going to throw this away just because you don’t like it? You really are a mean person who doesn’t even think about other people’s situations. Does the world seem that easy because you succeed at a young age? “Everyone else’s efforts but yours seem like shit?!”

The assistant director flinched at the harsher-than-expected language and Lim Yang-wook swallowed his saliva.

The boy, who actually faced the director, shook his head as if he was disgusted.

“I want to do art, but you keep doing business-”

“Don’t hold your tongue! If you’re not even a screenwriter, why do you get involved in movies? “This guy who writes novels doesn’t even know the difference between a screenplay and a novel?!”

“So who is selling this movie thanks to you?”

Those words cut into the director’s chest like a dagger.

“Let’s talk about the business you like so much. “Isn’t this movie based on my novel made to sell to my readers and by using me?”

“……”

The director could not answer.

The writer pushed.

“Aren’t we going to make this movie and run that entertainment show in circles? I’m not doing this to make a movie as cheaply and quickly as possible, grab my novel’s fandom by the collar, drag it to theaters, and make money on ticket prices. And isn’t that money going to be used to pay for incentives and make up for the daily wages paid to the staff here? But you won’t listen to my opinion?”

Only then did the director realize that he had made a huge misunderstanding.

‘It was true?’

The writer’s image of a young and old man was not a fabrication. What was before his eyes was a ‘real’ genius. It was not a star created by someone’s intention, but a star that shined on its own.

He has a different starting line than himself, who can’t even make a proper movie and only works as a salaried employee at an entertainment agency’s own production company, doing only what he is told to do.

As the director, unable to recover from the shock, remained silent, the literary writer issued an ultimatum.

“···great. Then, instead of arguing like kids, do business the way adults do. Manager Lim?”

Lim Yang-wook responded to the call more politely than usual.

“Yes, author.”

“What will my royalties be next month?”

“All of the second printings were sold through pre-order, so including the e-book, the price would be between 100 million and 170 million.”

“Please tell CEO Baek Seung-won that I will invest 100 million won in this movie. Please deduct the money from royalties.”

“Yes, author.”

This was not an actual order, but a blackmail saying, ‘You can do this.’ Only then did the director clearly realize the seriousness of the situation.

It was one thing for a writer to become an investor, but the fact that this situation reached the ears of President Baek Seung-won was a big threat in itself. Because it was clear whose side he would take.

“How is it? In this case, since I am also an investor, I can say this or that, right? “Are we really going to do this?”

In the end, the director raised the white flag.

“······Writer Moon, tell me what you want. Are you trying to film it again from the beginning?”

“The idea is to do art, not business.”

“So what are we going to do with that damn art?”

“What should I do? Didn’t the only actor in this movie ask for a chance? “An opportunity to showcase art.”

The writer pointed to someone.

All eyes on the filming set focused on that place.

“Um, me…?”

It was Kim Byeol.

* * *

Performer waiting room.

Kim Byul, who was alone in the room and sat across from the writer, hesitated and stuttered.

“So, what do you want me to do?”

“I asked for a chance. “You asked for a few more hours to think about your work, so I gave you the chance.”

“Is that really why you attacked the director?!”

Kim Byeol awkwardly added an honorific word at the end of her sentence. He was the original, and it was difficult to speak informally to the person who destroyed the director to such an extent.

“…yo. this?”

“Speak comfortably, Senior Kim. “You kept bringing up things that I didn’t even ask about before…”

“Well, that’s…!”

As Kim Byeol hesitated, the writer organized the situation.

“We can’t re-film the movie from the beginning, so let’s figure out how to save the last scene. How confident were you that you asked the director to film again?”

“No… no matter how much I think about it, I don’t think it’s madness, so I did that… yo.”

“Please speak comfortably.”

Kim Byul was more concerned about something else than that.

“…What if I still can’t film the last scene properly?”

“What should I do? “It’s a bit unfortunate.”

“This is not how it should end!”

“It’s been like that since senior Kim attacked the coach. “I just helped out so that the actors and the director could talk smoothly.”

“I’m crazy… I’m crazy…!”

As Kim Byeol was holding her throbbing head, the writer was salting beside her.

“If it doesn’t work out, go to the director right now, apologize, and run away. Since the director’s grudge is against me anyway, senior Kim must be treated like a small child, right?”

“You can’t do that!”

Kim Byeol gritted his teeth and sighed.

She said after regaining her senses.

“Really… are you the author who wrote the autograph?”

“yes.”

“Then can you help me interpret the role?”

“As much as you want.”

“Then start with this…”

Kim Byeol took out the script and placed it on the table.

Her finger pointed to the area circled in red.

“There’s a scene where you go out the front door and face a world where white snow is falling…”

“If you’re talking about a movie, what is the last scene?”

“okay. Putting aside any strange sounds like madness, I originally prepared this part after reading Professor Hakjun Koo’s interpretation, right? “I originally practiced a different kind of acting…”

“That’s why it hit me. “I’m going to show and prove.”

“It’s not like that…”

There was a note written in Kim Byeol’s script.

– White snow covers the dark world.

– The providence of the world covers the human heart.

– It is not the people that are evil, but the world that is evil.

– What it means for a person to hate another person

– So forgive everything.

Kim Byul drew a circle with her finger to emphasize the note.

“This is it…”

Kim Byeol asked.

“He went out with a knife to kill the people who harassed him, but after realizing that people are not evil and that the world was created this way, you forgave everything, right?”

“……”

“Then… what kind of expression should I make?”

The writer looked back at his memories carefully.

I don’t remember the expression. But I’m sure I cried.

But there was a clearer picture than that.

“···It’s not forgiveness.”

“what?”

Kim Byeol had doubts. However, since the original author’s interpretation would be more important than Gu Hak-jun’s, he put aside his doubts for now.

“It’s not my fault that I suffered, and it’s not their fault that other people bullied me, I just resigned myself to the way the world turned out. “It was a world created for people to harass others.”

“……”

“So many things are decided before we are born. What era, what skin color, and what personality will you be born in? Who will you love, a man or a woman? What kind of parents will you have? What kind of inheritance will you receive? What name might it have…”

“……”

“The moment I realized that it was just that kind of world, the resentment, hatred, and pain all became meaningless.”

Byeol Kim is not a person who lives by her own name.

That’s why I couldn’t just ignore these words.

I had complicated thoughts.

But first, he had to do the job before him.

That completes this story.

“…Was it not forgiveness but resignation? Did you just fall into the abyss of despair and commit suicide?”

The writer answered.

“no. “It was salvation.”

“···what?”

“To stab one’s enemy to death with a sword is to give up one’s humanity. It’s not an action, it’s just that decision alone that makes you give up being a person. But it turns out that this world is wrong, right?”

“……”

“There is no need to hate myself, there is no need to hate others, and there is no reason to stab someone with a knife…. It was all the world’s fault. So I was able to finish everything with peace of mind. To escape from this hell…”

The writer answered like that and kept his mouth shut.

That is the ending of the cause of death that the author had in mind.

Salvation, not forgiveness or resignation.

Salvation from this hellish world.

That was the reason for death.

The silence continued.

Kim Byul muttered quietly and broke the silence.

“That’s so sad.”

A single tear was flowing down Kim Byeol’s cheek.

* * *

The protagonist of The Cause of Death left the front door.

Holding a knife in one hand, facing numerous staff members and camera screens who doubted him on the other side, he walked out the front door and faced a world where white snow was falling.

In a black world where people hate people, white snowflakes quietly fell. The eyes were a providence of God. The colorless providence was bleaching everything white.

Byeol Kim looked up at the sky.

She truly encountered God.

And smiled peacefully.

Relieving and sad.

Like a person who has accepted everything.

I laughed like that.

At that moment, the puzzle was complete.

The director, who was watching the camera, was caught by a strange optical illusion. That strange experience was passed on to everyone at the scene.

Cheap pulp artificial snowflakes turned into fluffy snow blowing in the sky.

The crude set turned into a home for a cold-hearted novelist.

The black powder around Kim Byeol’s eyes turned into dark circles created by time.

Things that were mere imitations changed into ideals at the actor’s fingertips.

The acting that was supposed to be there was included in the scenes that were supposed to be there.

“······Cut.”

That’s how filming ended.

The movie was completed.

* * *

Everything went as planned.

It was decided before birth.

I was taken to the emergency room of a nearby hospital. After receiving the call, my mother rushed to me and admitted me to the best hospital in Seoul. After a long surgery, I overcame the crisis and succeeded in surviving.

But the nameless girl had no one to send her to a good hospital. She remained in the hospital. We were separated, unconscious and led by the hands of others.

Half a year later, when I regained consciousness in the hospital, my mother did not tell me the girl’s whereabouts, saying she was worried that I would run away from home again.

Half a year later, when she could barely walk, she went to the hospital where she was admitted, but there was no record of her.

Time passed like that.

I have become an adult.

I get good grades, get into a good college, get a good job, and live a normal life. Every time my mom looks at me, she smiles like she’s seeing a perfect piece of art.

In the tranquility of everyday life, the memories gradually faded.

When I was young, the splendid palace where we would sneak into the early hours of the morning to play tag was Apgujeong Hyundai Department Store, and the soldiers who chased us were security guards.

The mountain where I searched for the cutest animal in the world was Mt. Gwanak, and the mysterious sandy beach under the full moon was a beach famous for its summer rip-offs.

The oden seller who was once greater than Santa Claus in my heart has now become a person who earns less than me and does not pay taxes, and the concert hall where the girl and I danced, sang, and collected coins was at Exit 1 of Yongsan Station.

As I recalled those memories, I laughed, thinking that it was such a ridiculous thing, and felt depressed as I felt the girl’s face becoming more and more blurry.

So my running away from home became an aberration in my childhood. There is no longer a life that I once dreamed of. Only a short wandering of less than a year remains.

But sometimes, when I look at the sunlight seeping through the leaves, it flows down my cheek and gives me warmth, and I miss the feeling of that exaggerated happiness that I used to chat with the girl all day long.

That’s how it happened.

That’s how I live.

I always felt like I was missing something, and I lived like everyone else.

Then one day, I was passing by the park and heard someone playing the guitar.

The playing skill was so great that it automatically caught the footsteps of passers-by and made them head towards it as if dancing.

A lot of people were gathering in one corner of the park and building a wall. I made my way through the crowd and looked beyond the wall.

There was a girl there.

There was a girl who was missing one leg, had scars all over her body, and was wearing old and worn-out clothes, but she smiled and played the guitar happier than anyone else in the world.

The old guitar now had a sound that automatically drew the listener’s attention, and even I was eventually captivated by the sound and drawn to her.

My childhood wasn’t wrong. My memories are of steadfastly protecting my life even while I was left alone in a corner of the world.

Even after the performance was over and the people were cheering, I remained frozen as a stone, staring at her.

I took icy steps and stood in front of her. My long wanderings have reached their destination at this moment.

While she was working on her guitar, she looked at my face and looked a little lost. The question was directed at her, her self her own, popping out of my mouth as she pleased.

“Have you decided on a name?”

She laughed for a long time like a mischievous child.

And he said this:

“yet.”

* * *

“I want to try this too later.”

Kim Byeol, who was stretched out in the waiting room, put down the writer’s notebook and expressed her thoughts.

The writer responded.

“The main characters are eight and ten years old?”

“Unnies in their 20s and 30s are taking my job by wearing school uniforms, but shouldn’t I be able to pretend to be young and take jobs from my juniors?”

“That makes sense. And I know very well what you think of your seniors.”

Kim Byeol whimpered and laughed even though she was half exhausted after putting all her efforts into acting.

After checking on Kim Byeol’s well-being, the writer quietly got up from his seat.

“You look refreshed, so let’s go.”

Kim Byeol caught the writer who was about to leave.

“wait for a sec! But what does guitar mean? “Is it a musical instrument?”

The writer who was about to leave the waiting room stopped and turned around to answer.

“The lady’s name.”

“what?”

“Names are given by others, and this society gave girls the name Geeta. Children who go missing from daycare without being told are just treated as other children. I can’t find anything in particular. “It remains one of the numbers classified as other.”

“……”

“Are all your questions answered?”

Kim Byeol couldn’t say anything.

“then. Let’s see next time we get a chance. Senior Kim. “The acting was really beautiful today.”

The boy who said that walked away and disappeared.

Kim Byeol stared at the spot the boy left for a long time.

2
fantasy, modern,