Novelist Running Through Time - Chapter 58

TL: KSD

My book was placed at the very top of the bookstore’s display shelf.

To be exact, it was in the first position of the first row.

This position is similar to the height of a person.

It’s displayed just slightly above eye level so that anyone who enters the bookstore can easily find it, but also so that the books are unconsciously looked up to.

Because that’s the place befitting the number one.

However, the books displayed at a height slightly above what average adults have to look up to seemed much higher from my perspective.

I tried reaching out my hand stealthily, but couldn’t touch it. ‘A Love Story’ had already flown far out of my reach.

I quietly smiled and lowered my hand. Then, I looked at the books spread out in front of me.

Just the ones right in front of me amount to 16 volumes. Because they’ve gathered the bestsellers from first to sixteenth place.

And right next to those, on both sides, are the non-fiction bestseller sections. There are also 16 volumes in each of those, making a total of 48.

These 48 volumes might seem like just books to someone, but to me, they looked like people.

It felt like I could hear the groaning of people who painfully squeezed out parts of their lives, writing down each letter.

In front of me were books containing the lives and struggles of these 48 people, and among them, my book sat on the throne, being the most loved.

And if I turn around,

tens of thousands,

no, hundreds of thousands of books filled the bookstore.

How many lives would be contained in those?

If we were to combine the time it took to write those books, it would easily surpass the lifespan of a human. Even if one were to dedicate their entire life to reading, it would be impossible to read all those books.

Thus, the time given to a human is so short and superficial.

Our ancestors knew this, and that’s why they started scribbling on cave walls.

It all started like that.

And what started then has accumulated until now. A very small fraction of those records are the hundreds of thousands of books before my eyes.

How could I not revere books in this way?

Therefore, in this country, which is smaller than a baby’s fingernail when looked at from a globe,

for even a moment, in the history of ‘records’ which is but a fleeting moment,

that my book was read by the most people…

came to me as an indescribable touch of emotion.

Of course, I still doubt my talent. I cannot comfortably accept the praise showered upon me. After all, I live in a strange world where being young is a reason to be loved.

But for today, at least, I decided to look warmly at my book, displayed just a little higher than the average adult’s height.

That place was a spot a young man, who wrote alone in a cold room, could never reach until his death.

EP 5-A Love Story

In the evening, the udon restaurant was bustling with office workers. Alcohol is indispensable in the meals of office workers. Thus, this restaurant becomes a bar in the evening after being a diner at lunch.

Noise buzzed from tables where three or four people gathered, a mix of those forcing a laugh and those laughing genuinely, clinking glasses together.

Amidst the unique smell of udon and alcohol mixing, in the only private room inside the restaurant, three people were clinking their glasses with bright smiles.

“To us!”

“To, to us!”

Lim Yang-wook called out cheerfully, and Baek Seol and Moon In-seop clumsily followed, clinking their glasses.

Lim Yang-wook had beer, Baek Seol had a highball, and Moon In-seop had (he tried to argue for alcohol, but to no avail) a cola.

“Kyaha…!”

Lim Yang-wook savored the cool beer he hadn’t had in a while. Then, he slurped up the spicy and glossy stir-fried udon with bonito flakes.

Moon In-seop looked at Lim Yang-wook’s beer with a blank expression, his hand reaching out as if possessed.

Snap! Baek Seol slapped Moon In-seop’s hand away.

“You can’t have alcohol! Author~nim!”

“Just, just a sip…!”

“Ssst! No!”

Baek Seol eventually moved Lim Yang-wook’s beer out of Moon In-seop’s reach.

Lim Yang-wook laughed at the scene.

“Baek Seol, just give him a sip. In-seop wants it so badly…”

“That’s a terrible idea! Absolutely not!?”

“Oh, what to do now…”

Lim Yang-wook smirked mischievously and lifted his beer glass, gulping it down refreshingly and even wiping off the foam from his mouth with satisfaction.

“Kyaha! This is it!”

Moon In-seop felt the truth in the saying that a nagging sister-in-law is worse than a beating mother-in-law.

With mixed feelings, he drank cola from a beer glass as if it were alcohol.

“Grrr…”

“Why are you drinking cola like it’s alcohol?”

“Today, the cola tastes bitter…”

“You find cola bitter? I find it sweet. Maybe it’s because of all the hard times I’ve gone through…”

“Then, do you want to switch?”

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

Baek Seol, who was unconsciously slicing the okonomiyaki like it was a steak, sighed at Lim Yang-wook, who was teasing Moon In-seop for not being able to drink.

He seemed too light-hearted to be the same person who had brought ‘A Love Story’ to the number one bestseller without the help of Baekhak Publishing.

“Hoo…”

Baek Seol relaxed and took a sip of her highball, regaining her peace of mind now that the war-like publishing of ‘A Love Story’ was over.

And it was a victory for us.

“Congratulations on becoming the number one bestseller, Author~nim.”

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

Lim Yang-wook butted in with a sly smile.

“Really?”

“…About 6 to 4 ratio?”

“Who’s the 6?”

“Obviously, me.”

“Kahahah! Have you ever seen such an ungrateful guy!”

Lim Yang-wook laughed joyously, patting Moon In-seop on the back, and Moon In-seop also smiled shyly, matching Lim Yang-wook’s rhythm.

Baek Seol looked at the two of them getting along warmly with a distant gaze. After all, this familiar scene would soon be ending.

Spring has come. The season for regular personnel transfers approaches. Baek Seol will be leaving the Publishing Management Department to be assigned to the headquarters’ Strategic Planning Office.

Lim Yang-wook, having caught a glimpse of Baek Seol’s complex expression, smirked and said,

“Baek Seol, are you sad?”

“What, what do you mean?!”

“Are you sad about parting with us?”

“Why do you ask something so embarrassing…”

A company is not a place for personal feelings. That was Baek Seol’s common sense. So, she clumsily hid her feelings.

But Lim Yang-wook said the opposite.

“Really? I’m really sad.”

“…!”

“Baek Seol, you were a really good editor. And beyond being an editor, you were a really good person. That’s what I think. And although I’m an ignoramus who knows nothing but publishing, I taught you everything I know, so I kind of thought of you as my apprentice. That’s why I thought it would be really fun to work together in the future, but it’s really sad that we have to part ways like this.”

Acknowledged.

The moment Baek Seol felt that emotion, she lifted her head abruptly.

She covered her eyes and replied with a slightly muffled voice,

“Why… Why would you say that…”

“Everyone knows I miss the members of the Publishing Management Task Force Team, right?”

Moon In-seop slightly nodded.

“But you know what’s funny? When those people were working at the company, I was incredibly cold to them. They were less capable than me. It’s obvious. I was number one in terms of performance. But looking back, in terms of being human, I was the last.”

“…”

“Of course, there was a bit of a harsh atmosphere because I’m from a low-tier college, right? That’s true. But it’s not like those people were always harsh to me. Rather, many were nice and recognized me. But I rejected all of that? I thought that was cool. Why, you know. That’s the trend these days. It’s good to be cool, decisive, critical, and seen as a rational elite if you work emotionlessly like a machine… Ah, of course, that’s correct as a company employee. That’s what a good company employee is…”

“…”

“But if you ask whether I did well as a person… I have a lot of regrets.”

“Manager~nim…”

Baek Seol realized that Lim Yang-wook was giving her heartfelt advice for when she would soon leave.

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

“I hope that Baek Seol focuses more on being a human than just being a company employee. A company employee lives for the company, but then there’s no one left to live their own life. So take care of yourself, look after the people around you, and even fight back against those you dislike… Live humanely. These days, living like that might be looked down upon as uncool, but ultimately, it’s for your own good.”

Baek Seol answered with a dazed face.

“Yes, Manager~nim…”

Although the title was wrong, that title was exactly how Baek Seol would remember Lim Yang-wook.

The bald, washed-up team leader who didn’t lose his sense of humor even when stuck in the basement parking lot, barely getting by every day.

Such Lim Yang-wook broke the atmosphere with an awkward smile. His smile, as always, seemed to scoff at something.

“Well, I mean, someone who almost ruined his life thinking company life would always be smooth sailing ended up rambling. Anyway, don’t put everything into the company and live your life – it’s a cliché advice. Ugh, I can’t believe I said such nonsense to our Baekhak bloodline’s Princess Baek Seol… Sorry if I sounded like an old fogey.”

“No, not at all!”

“Eh?”

But today, there was no need for Lim Yang-wook to mock himself. Baek Seol thought so and interrupted Lim Yang-wook’s self-deprecation.

“I’ll really take it to heart. Thank you, Manager~nim.”

“…Yeah. You’ll do well there. Baek Seol.”

A warm silence lingered for a moment.

Moon In-seop was the one who mercilessly broke that silence.

“How are we going to face each other at work tomorrow after this?”

“…Shut up!”

Lim Yang-wook swallowed his beer with a face redder than before, whether from the alcohol or embarrassment, one couldn’t tell.

“Right! Baek Seol, there’s still some time before you leave, right? How’s the translation of ‘A Love Story’? You have to finish that before you go!”

“Of, of course I’ve finished it! I’ve already sent the manuscript to the publishers we made connections with during my trip to the US.”

“Good. Spring has arrived again, right? It’s the season for the Annual Spring Literary Contest.”

The Annual Spring Literary Contest had returned.

A season where newcomers wield their pens in competition, and the judgments for various literary awards are announced.

Lim Yang-wook gently tapped the cola-sipping Moon In-seop, grinning slyly.

“Look forward to it, In-seop. Last year was undeniably your year. You may have bought your way into a debut with a literary award, but this time, even a real major literary award seems possible.”

“…”

However, that didn’t happen.

In the following spring, during the Annual Spring Literary Contest season, contrary to Lim Yang-wook’s expectations,

Author Moon In-seop’s writing did not win any literary awards.

* * *

Baekhak Entertainment’s headquarters is dubbed ‘A Sanctuary for Artists.’

There’s a minor history to this.

Baekhak Entertainment was the only one among Korea’s major entertainment companies to be controlled by a chaebol conglomerate, naturally facing constant criticism for ‘not being sincere about art.’

This was both a critique of Baekhak Entertainment and an attack on CEO Baek Seung-won, who was not an artist but a white-collar worker.

A vexed CEO Baek Seung-won would retort,

“So they claim they’re not after money?”

“Why only criticize me when they also have white-collar workers running things with artists as figurehead CEOs?”

But, of course, these were not comments he could make in public.

If CEO Baek Seung-won were a more daring person, he might have laughed it off, saying, “There’s no end to competitors trying to slander each other.”

However, CEO Baek Seung-won was somewhat prickly, neurotic, paranoid, a workaholic, and somewhat neglectful of his family.

(It could be said that the executives of the main company, who constantly tried to find fault with the CEO from a collateral branch, created this monster.)

Anyway, CEO Baek Seung-won gave them a taste of their own medicine, in response to the bitter slander that he ‘muddied the waters of the entertainment industry by managing it as someone from a clerical background.’

Baekhak Entertainment’s headquarters building was lavishly invested in.

Having undergone a major remodeling with ‘A Sanctuary for Artists’ as its motif, Baekhak Entertainment’s headquarters, from the lobby to the rest areas, was equipped with amenities on par with those of hotels.

Even the cafeteria and the in-house café were redesigned under the supervision of a famous international architect with a ‘design that enhances the creativity of the employees’, and for the training and healing of their own celebrities, there were massage rooms, spas, gyms, psychiatric services, and even a pet center.

And CEO Baek Seung-won would say,

“Even I, coming from a white-collar background, take care of our company’s artists like this. What do those so-called CEOs with artist backgrounds actually do for their people besides pushing them around?”

However, there was a place that even CEO Baek Seung-won dared not touch.

That place was-

The rooftop.

The design of the rooftop cannot be changed by the CEO. Nor by an architect. The atmosphere of a company building’s rooftop is created by none other than the employees themselves.

Despite Baekhak Entertainment’s substantial investment in the building with ‘A Sanctuary for Artists’ as its theme, the rooftop was no different from those of any other company.

Office workers tired from work gathered in small groups to smoke. A sculpture that was supposed to symbolize environmental conservation and sustainable development had long since been reduced to an ashtray.

Among the many smokers, there was one bald man puffing on a cigarette.

It was Department Head Lim Yang-wook.

Department Head Lim Yang-wook of the Publishing Management Department was quite a well-known figure among the staff, even for someone at his level.

After all, he had risen from being a prisoner in the basement parking lot to claim an office and a Department Head’s title like a phoenix.

Moreover, he was also bringing in good money.

However, from the perspective of Baekhak Entertainment’s employees, Lim Yang-wook was still an outsider from Baekhak Publishing, and the work he was doing now was even a step removed from this industry.

The scene on the rooftop, where no one approached Lim Yang-wook to even offer a casual greeting, starkly revealed his position within the company.

Of course, there was a time when there were people who would chat with Lim Yang-wook while they smoked.

But those colleagues were expelled from Baekhak and thrown into the harsh world outside. It was the price of bitter betrayal and failure.

Lim Yang-wook lit his cigarette and looked out at the cityscape soaked in the sunset. His former colleagues were scattered somewhere in this scenery, living their lives.

Of course, they weren’t people who had come together to do right. The company is a place to make money, and office workers are people who make money. They couldn’t always do honorable work. In fact, the moment they tried to create a star author by bringing in a half-baked person and planning to ghostwrite for them was already a bit off.

But they were people who tried to do something. They were people who tried to do anything to save the slowly dying publishing industry, despite the finger-pointing.

Lim Yang-wook could never forgive Yang Sung-jun and Kim Sang-guk for mercilessly discarding them and confining himself to the basement parking lot.

The moment he forgives them, the moment he kneels down in cowardice, he felt he could no longer live as a proud human being.

But here lies the question.

“What is the value of this revenge…?”

For whom is this revenge?

His colleagues?

Certainly, the moment they were expelled, they were deprived of all the time and effort they had invested to enter this company and the rightful compensation for their lives poured into this company.

They didn’t just lose money and jobs.

They lost their lives and time.

But were they ruined? No. Some have successfully found new jobs, some returned to being someone’s spouse and someone’s parent, and some continued their lives as owners of a chicken restaurant.

They are bearing the weight of life in their respective places, and Lim Yang-wook has no right to avenge them. No one can live someone else’s life for them.

Lim Yang-wook knows it. His desire for revenge against Yang Sung-jun and Kim Sang-guk was not a noble emotion to avenge his colleagues.

It was closer to hatred, stemming from their jealousy of his abilities and their cowardly action of confining him to the basement parking lot for two years.

And Lim Yang-wook had already driven one of his enemies out of the company. Now, only Kim Sang-guk, who has become the precarious CEO of Baekhak Publishing, remains.

“But…”

What would change by driving him out?

Kim Sang-guk’s followers are still scattered throughout Baekhak Publishing.

Even if it were possible, the moment Lim Yang-wook expels Kim Sang-guk, he becomes the enemy of countless juniors.

Then what would become of Moon In-seop?

“Haah…”

This spring, no literary awards were given to Moon In-seop.

To Lim Yang-wook, it was an inconceivable situation, yet also conceivable.

Moon In-seop had captured both artistic and popular appeal. Lim Yang-wook had made it so.

But he had also exposed the ‘debut fee business’ by buying 16 literary awards. Lim Yang-wook had made it so.

Elder authors in the literary world viewed Moon In-seop somewhat positively.

But the literary world is not monolithic.

To the prestigious literary magazines that publish collections of literary awards, Moon In-seop was already a ‘whistleblower.’

So, this situation was a kind of revenge.

And there was no room for protest.

Moon In-seop had been listed as a ‘nominee’ in almost all major literary awards.

That is, since there are people who won the awards over Moon In-seop, responding to this situation would make matters irreversibly worse.

No one in the literary world would forgive the act of belittling another novelist to protect one.

And.

Lim Yang-wook had no idea how long this kind of revenge would last.

“…”

Of course, there is a way.

Just once.

Just bow once.

Go to Baekhak Publishing’s President Kim Sang-guk, and bow just once.

This time, the humiliation wouldn’t be so great. After all, Lim Yang-wook is now another player in this industry.

Kim Sang-guk would likely extend his kindness to make him and Moon In-seop his people.

Lim Yang-wook could shake hands with a kindly smiling Kim Sang-guk and go around offering apologies to the elders of each literary magazine.

Then, from now on, Moon In-seop can perfectly blend into the literary world.

If Lim Yang-wook just gives up on ‘revenge.’

“…”

Of course, Kim Sang-guk is not entirely unrelated to this incident.

He might have directly orchestrated it, or at least he knew about it.

But that’s a secondary issue.

The core of this problem is this.

“How long should Moon In-seop be dragged into his revenge?”

That was the crux of Lim Yang-wook’s dilemma.

The answer to that question was obvious.

“Haah.”

Let’s bow.

Just bow once.

For Moon In-seop, let’s put aside pride and bow just once.

Lim Yang-wook decided so.

Click –

Lim Yang-wook put out his cigarette and got on the elevator, intending to act immediately on his decision before changing his mind. He decided to meet Kim Sang-guk before that.

But as he passed through the underground parking lot to get to his car, Lim Yang-wook felt his fist trembling involuntarily.

He felt the humiliation of the two years spent in this parking lot. The shock of the day he found himself in the mirror, balding in clumps and halfway to madness, came back to him.

Lim Yang-wook paused to contemplate one last time but bit his lip, climbed into the driver’s seat, and drove towards Baekhak Publishing.

Chewing over the bitter taste of gall, his smartphone vibrated while he was driving.

“Hello.”

– Di, Di, Di, Department Head~nim!

“Yes, what’s the matter, Baek Seol?”

-Boo, boo, boo, booker!

“Boo, what?”

-‘A Love Story’ has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize!

Lim Yang-wook made a U-turn.

*****

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