The Great Storyteller

Translated by: ShawnSuh

Edited by: SootyOwl

“You know, more than anything, I want to read your writing to my heart’s content. Without any hindrance. I felt that more than the desire to be a novelist,” Seo Kwang said with a smile.

Juho had nothing to say to him. It was his choice. It was his decision. It must have been a difficult one at that. A novel couldn’t be written simply because it had been requested. Unless the author himself was writing, the novel would not move onward even if it were being forced. Life was the same way. For that reason, he quietly listened to Seo Kwang venting.

Once Seo Kwang stopped talking, there was silence. He hesitated for a moment, but soon started talking again in a slightly exaggerated voice.

“Can you do me a favor? Count it as payment for the fried chicken.”

“What’s the favor?” asked Juho. It was a gesture of acceptance.

“It’s about the essay contest.”

The essay contest. Juho had forgotten about it. It was a contest in which there was only one winner at the end.

“Write with all your heart. Not that whack ending you wrote. I want to read the story that you write.”

Juho stared at him briefly and looked relieved. However, he wasn’t happy to see such an expression, so he answered, “I will, if you write with all your heart.”

Seo Kwang’s eyes shook, and the moment turned with his light-hearted remark, “…you got it. It’ll only cost you some fried chicken if you lose.”

*

Seo Kwang left Juho’s house. The sun was setting, and a faint veil of darkness covered the sky. Everything around him looked depressing. Maybe it had something to do with the sun setting. ‘Where are the streetlights when you need one?’ It wasn’t dark enough for streetlights to come on as it was still bright enough for the people who were walking.

He thought about Juho’s room as he walked back slowly. He had never been to a place like that. It was a sight that inspired awe. It wasn’t the amount of paper that was in the room, it was the effort—the passion towards something. It was something Seo Kwang didn’t have. Soon, he stopped in his tracks.

“It’s OK,” he whispered.

He didn’t try like Juho did. He couldn’t dare to. That was the extent of him trying. It was a good thing that he had given up on wanting to be a novelist.

“Well, I’ll probably lose.”

He didn’t know what he had been thinking when he challenged Juho. It had been almost entertaining.

‘There’s a limit to a bluff,’ he thought.

“It’s fine. Even if I lose, it’s only going to be fried chicken. Besides, I had some today.”

‘It’s OK. It’s just fried chicken.’

“Damn it!”

He clenched his fist out of the anger welling up within. Struggling to stand still, he stood in the middle of the street for a while.

*

“Tomorrow.”

The time flowed even if one sat completely still. Juho was lying on his bed. If he went to sleep as he was, the next day would inevitably come, along with the essay contest. The contest was finally happening. It felt like it had been just the day before that Mr. Moon had made the bet with the club members. Since then, everyone in the club had been writing daily, excited for fried chicken. They collected words and revised, repeatedly.

Yet, all that effort wasn’t necessarily equivalent to special training for the contest. As per usual, the members randomly chose a topic and wrote accordingly. That meant that the only thing they had to do was write, whether they were competing in a contest or not. If there was one thing better about the contest, it was that the contestants got to choose the topic they wanted to write about.

Juho got up and leaned against the chair. It was dark out, and his family was asleep. There were remnants of the writing he had been working on up to a moment ago.

He thought of Seo Kwang. When he had gone over, Juho hadn’t seen him out. One reason for it had been that Seo Kwang had declined, but the main reason was the strange sensation in his hand by the time their conversation started coming to an end. It wasn’t a foreign sensation. He would occasionally experience it before he started writing. When most people expressed their emotions in drawings, they often drew a heart near the chest. That was because whenever people were happy or sad, that was where it hurt. In the same way, Juho assumed the sensation in his hand to be coming from his heart.

“A feeling that I could almost touch.”

Except, from time to time, the sensation would move toward the center of his hand. The sensation would spread across his palm and make it itchy and painful at the same time. To free himself from it, Juho instinctively reached for his pen. That wasn’t according to his will. Just as he had no control over his heartbeat, he had no choice but to write. That day had been no different. After Seo Kwang left, Juho went back into his room and started writing. He grabbed whatever paper came into his grasp and began to write. It was impulsive, poorly written trash. He let out a faint sigh. Seo Kwang had asked him a favor, to write with all his heart, and that he wished to read what he wrote.

“Can I really do this?”

When he read Juho’s paper, Seo Kwang thought Juho had intentionally ruined his ending, but that wasn’t true. He had not intended on making up such an end. Unlike his personality, he was impulsive. He couldn’t write anything if he wasn’t in the mood. On the other hand, when he’s at the peek of his inspiration, the only way to relieve the tension in his heart was to write. It was an annoying quality to have. If that tendency flared up during the contest, it would be impossible to write anything, let alone a story that his friend was dying to read.

“That’s a problem.”

It was embarrassing to be called out for not putting in the heart. It wasn’t easy to find somebody who loved books as much as Seo Kwang. They spoke the same language. Besides, the idea of disappointing his friend did not sit well with him.

‘Can I do this?’ he asked himself.

“I’ll only find out tomorrow.”

‘Then, I should just go to bed. It doesn’t seem like I’ll get much out of thinking all night. It’ll only cloud my mind,’ he thought to himself.

The next morning, he woke up after dreaming about being crushed to death by an alien monkey who had invaded the Earth. Unfortunately, he wasn’t in the best of moods.

*

“You all look excited.”

“We get out early today! Hooray for the essay contest!”

Everyone at school was much more lively during the morning assembly. It wasn’t just Juho’s class, but the entire school was boisterous. The essay contest was to take place during the morning periods. After that, everyone was going to be released. The entire school was excited by the idea of leaving early. Some students had already started making plans to go to karaoke with friends. It was as if the contest had been set aside.

“Not a lot of people seem to be interested in the contest.”

“That’s better for us. The Literature Club will take over,” Seo Kwang said with a smile.

“You never know who you’re going to be competing against,” said Juho.

Seo Kwang scoffed and answered confidently, “No way! Even if there was somebody with awe-inspiring writing skills, it’s not a big deal.”

He seemed to be about twice as excited as his usual self. Then, Juho realized that he became talkative when he was nervous.

“Who dares challenge the Literature Club? We’ll accept it any day!” he said boisterously, though it was buried by the entire school getting excited.

Some students had already started thinking about what to write. Just as a true master lived in hiding, there was no telling what kind of monstrous writers would be competing. After all, life always steered toward unexpected events.

At that moment, the door opened, and a teacher walked in. It was someone familiar.

“It’s Mr. M.”

Seo Kwang welcomed him. The essay contest was a test in its own right, so each teacher had to be overseeing a class. In Mr. Moon’s hand, there was a stack of large, gray, recycled paper. Although he gave no instructions, the classroom became completely silent. It was the students’ reflex to prepare for an exam whenever there was gray, recycled paper.

“You didn’t forget about my favor, did you?” Seo Kwang asked.

He sounded calm, and Juho gave him a light nod. At that, Seo Kwang turned around without hesitation, and Juho looked at his back.

‘Here come the gray pages,’ he thought.

“Take one and pass it to the person behind you. You may begin as soon as you receive your paper.”

Juho dook a deep breath as he listened to Mr. Moon’s voice. Seo Kwang handed the paper to him.

There were squares on the large paper that almost covered the entire desk. In those squares, there were list of topics to choose from. Teacher, parents, love, friendship, school, friends, arbor day, independence movement day, etc. The list made it easy to realize that that was for a school essay contest. Juho found a word that was at the end of the list. It was radom, out of the blue.

‘Plaster figure. Where did this come from? Maybe it was Mr. Moon’s idea,’ Juho wondered about the look on the other teachers’ faces.

“Pff!”

A faint snicker came from the front. Seo Kwang had to have thought the same. Juho drew a circle around the word ‘plaster figure.’ His hand had moved awkwardly, and the crooked circle was bothering him.

He realized that he was completely incapable of concentrating in that moment. Other students whispered. They were asking each other what they were going to write about. Mr. Moon didn’t really say much. It wasn’t a strictly supervised environment. If anything, it was more like a festival. ‘A festival.’ Juho pictured the fireworks of a grand festival. People marching with flashy lights walked between rows of crowds. There was uplifting music, and people were filled with excitement, just like the students in that classroom.

‘Speaking of which, when was the school festival again?’

The school festival was usually prepared around the time after the second years’ final exam. Juho didn’t have any special memories of the school festival. It hadn’t exactly been fun. ‘What would the Literature Club do at the festival? Set up a writing experience booth? There probably won’t be anybody interested. The club was already in a classroom that was out of sight. With a boring content like that, nobody would be interested.

‘Actually, are we even doing something?’ he asked himself. The festival wasn’t until much later, but he suddenly became curious.

After thinking about various things about the festival, Juho shook his head.

‘Now’s not the time. Snap out of it. Gotta write,’ he reminded himself.

He concentrated on thinking about images of plaster figures. Agrippa, Venus, Julien, Michelangelo, Hermes, Apollo, Kant. They were in all sorts of shapes and sizes.

There was also a plaster figure in the art class in school. There were splashes of paint on its white, smooth surface. There were scribbles here and there, both written and erased. Her beautiful curves were stained with dark spots. If she were alive, she would have had much to complain about how she was being managed.

When Juho thought about the ivory skin of a plaster figure, his mind naturally took itself to the story of Pygmalion. ‘Pygmalion.’ It was the name of a sculptor who fell in love with one of his own sculptures. He stroke and kissed the sculpture. After desperate prayers, the sculpture finally became a real woman, and the two fell in love.

‘Great, I’m going to read about mythology when I get home,’ he thought.

Juho pinched his own forehead.

‘I’m doing it again.’

<With All His Heart (2)> The End