Novelist Running Through Time - Chapter 91



Only Krnovel

EP 4 – Hunting Reds

A mistake made by a daycare teacher.

The curiosity of adolescents.

The kindness of teacher Bang Jeong-ah, who took care of transportation expenses for a child who usually travels to Baekiljang. She expressed sympathy for the local office staff who helped the child who was crying in tears.

Subway and bus routes in the metropolitan area allow you to go anywhere as long as you have the money. The insensitivity of an office worker who told a child he was seeing for the first time about his co-worker’s current status. And SNS. etc.

Due to these various reasons, I finally learned the secret of my birth.

There was no tragedy or sad family history that inevitably separated parents and children.

Two immature people got married unprepared, soon grew to hate each other, and both became single fathers and single mothers at a young age, with no intention of wasting their lives raising a newborn child.

So, during the divorce process, both parties gave up parental rights and sent the child to an orphanage.

It’s over.

That’s the whole story of this incident.

But it was only then that the storm in my heart began. Black and terrifying thoughts dyed my soul black.

Life suddenly became filled with pain. It was a pain that couldn’t be compared to being teased for being a parentless kid in middle school and getting punched in the back several times.

The name of that pain was ‘resentment.’

I blame why this happened to me, I blame my parents who abandoned me and still live without it, I blame the daycare teachers who hid the fact, I blame the people who are loved by their parents and live normally, and I blame people who are made up of things like this. I resented the world.

The pain of such a life was so painful that it seemed better to die than to live. I felt like I wanted to die several times a day. Even while walking down the street, I often stopped to throw myself into the driveway, and whenever I saw a tall building, I would go up to the rooftop and look at the world.

The pain in my heart was slowly killing me.

So my shallow self created ‘antibodies’ to counter this logic, like white blood cells that drive out pathogens.

To live.

To continue to survive.

I needed logic to restore peace to my mind.

The conclusion was similar to the story of ‘The Fox and Sour Grapes’.

Parents’ love wasn’t that valuable to begin with.

In the midst of the pain of life, I shook off my sadness by realizing that motherly love is not sacred.

In the end, the parent-child relationship is not a sacred thing that can never be broken, but a shallow thing that can be broken at any time depending on one’s circumstances.

Monkeys that protected their children had their genes preserved, and monkeys that did not protect their children had their genes cut off. That is the true nature of motherly love.

There is no need to blame my parents who abandoned me and still live without me.

They are not divine beings, but merely humans who act as they please.

* * *

“It was a young idea. However, the novel I wrote in the process of completing that idea is ‘Communist Hunting.’

Just as my parents were mere human beings, not divine beings who loved me infinitely.

The independence activists who are revered as heroes of this country are not heroes but merely human beings who act as they please…”

Talking also consumes stamina. I was exhausted, so I paused for a moment and drank a glass of water.

Squeak.

The filming location was so quiet that the sound of pouring water could be clearly heard. I had a sneaking feeling that I had done something wrong again, but what could I do? She already committed it.

I finished my sentence with a sigh.

“Well… I wrote a novel like that.”

“……”

“……”

“……”

No answer came back.

So I said a slightly more specific conclusion.

“Anyway, that’s the reality of the novel, Red Hunt. So it can’t be made into a movie.”

This is not historical fiction.

It was a private novel.

The hatred and resentment of the main character, who was brutally arrested and killed for being a socialist even though he was a fellow independence activist, is not a tragedy in history, but a resentment that came from my heart when I resented my parents.

The main character is like this, so how can we make this into a movie and show it to the world?

It was embarrassing to be embarrassed, but I didn’t have the confidence to watch this story being torn apart and altered in the process of being made into a movie.

This was the deepest wound of my childhood, and the process of overcoming it was itself. This is a novel that is meaningful when it remains as a novel in its own right.

“……”

“……”

“……”

But still no answer.

Everyone was looking at me with mesmerized expressions.

One elderly performer was even dabbing away his reddened eyes with a handkerchief.

The situation is the same in places where staff are lined up. There were quite a few people shedding tears. Even the PD was looking this way with moist eyes and a meaningful smile.

at that time.

Professor Koo Hak-jun, who was biting his lip with a sad expression, pulled out a few tissues from the table and wiped my cheek.

Before I knew it, my cheeks were moist with water droplets flowing from my eyes.

“what···?”

Why am I crying…?

* * *

[Shooting stopped]

– The subtitle appeared, and the screen briefly moved to individual interviews with the cast.

The famous chef couldn’t hide his reddened eyes and expressed his mixed feelings.

[It was confusing. How much suffering must those young children have suffered in a world created by ugly adults.]

The physics professor also expressed his opinion with a sad expression.

[What should I say? I thought it was difficult to see this as an individual writer’s problem. How many children have scars like this? That was really sad.]

This time it was director So Tae-woong’s turn.

He was silent for a while and then stared at the camera.

[···Oops, I thought.]

He remained silent again, and then calmly expressed his thoughts as if he had organized his thoughts.

[I approached the writer with the intention of turning his good work into a movie, but I ended up poking into the deepest wounds of a child… As an adult and a person, I felt truly sorry.]

The screen shows director So Tae-woong apologizing to writer Moonin at the time of filming.

The writer smiled and said it was okay, but So Taewoong bowed deeply and apologized.

After that, Koo Hak-jun’s interview continued.

He spoke to the camera with a confused expression.

[My daughter is the same age as the writer. She’s actually my school friend too. But after hearing this story, I feel really uneasy…]

But Gu Hak-jun did not stop talking there.

Koo Hak-jun’s statement of conviction continued.

[But… The novel called Red Hunt is not as trivial as the writer said.]

The screen changed, and director So Tae-woong’s interview continued.

[The internal conflict and division that the independence activists and the people of the time tried to ignore and cover up while trying to drive out the Japanese Empire… Didn’t that finally come and split this country in half and create a scar that cannot be erased to this day? This is why I fell in love with that novel.]

So Taewoong confessed.

[Actually, my father was from North Korea.]

So Taewoong erased his apologetic expression for a moment, returned to the attitude of a creator, and spoke with confidence.

[Why on earth did this happen? I am proud that I studied much more deeply than others. Therefore, I am convinced that the ideological conflict that occurred during the independence movement is not well known compared to its historical importance. In fact, that was where all the tragedy began.]

The screen showed the filming location again.

It was a scene where So Tae-woong was sitting on one knee, making eye contact with the writer, and saying something.

I couldn’t hear what was being said, but So Taewoong’s interview continued.

[But the literary author’s novel illuminated exactly that part. I started reading it at the recommendation of a junior colleague, and I felt like it pointed out exactly what I was thinking that I didn’t know about. Now I know why, but the whole time I was reading it, I felt like it was a human story, not a historical story. It was a story about people who were hurt, fighting, hating, and trying to heal it… fighting against the world. It was not a story of a hero defeating a huge villain, but a story of people enduring a harsh reality while suffering endlessly.]

In the screen, So Taewoong is persuading a writer. Although Gu Hak-jun occasionally patted Mun-in’s shoulder and made gestures to protect Mun-in from So Tae-woong’s obsession, their story continued for a long time in the middle of the filming set when filming was stopped.

In the end, Moonin shook his head and walked out of the dormitory that was the filming location. Then she sat down on the bench in the yard, rested her chin on his and thought for a while.

The camera captured the writer’s thoughts alone. The boy thought about something alone for a while. So Taewoong approached the boy and took the seat next to him.

* * *

“They’re not making a movie.”

Director So Tae-woong approached me awkwardly and quietly sat down next to me. It was a truly extreme obsession.

Just as I was wondering what on earth made that person so crazy, So Taewoong opened his mouth.

“Hey.”

“…!”

It was the first informal language that came out of his mouth.

So Taewoong looked at me with a hard face and continued speaking.

“I’ll be honest. “I am a very famous film director.”

It wasn’t strange that people continued to say that it’s no fun if they show me hate, but I didn’t think So Taewoong was the type of person to do that, so I stayed quiet.

“I was lucky enough to become famous when I was young, and I knew how to produce some works that would be pleasing to the eyes of foreigners, so I had a mourning outfit. Then he won a very famous award and became a celebrity. “I don’t have to worry about investment money for the movie, and I actually don’t have to worry about not being able to cast the actor I want.”

“……”

“So there is only one thing for me to worry about.”

So Taewoong confessed seriously.

“fun.”

He was half crazy because he wanted to make an interesting story.

When I looked closely, I saw that his eyes were looking at something different, not me.

Movie, ‘Communist Hunt’.

It had already been completed in director So Tae-woong’s mind and was being screened before his eyes.

So he promised me with a confidence that bordered on madness.

“I can’t guarantee commercial success, because movies are so shattered these days. But I promise you this: I’ll make a really, really interesting story. I’ll make it so interesting that you won’t regret it. Just allow me this one time.”

“yes?”

“request.”