The Great Storyteller

Translated by: ShawnSuh

Edited by: SootyOwl

“Man, I’m tired,” Juho said as he stretched out his arms towards the ceiling.

Since the contest had been announced, he had started writing in various styles: portraying characters’ faces from their respective point of views, describing an object’s texture, setting a rock as the narrator of the story, describing the feelings of grass, and more. In the case of the story about the grass, the plot was mostly made of motion sickness. Some days, Juho experimented with a story entirely made of short-tempered characters. Stories like that were like time bombs, ready to blow at any minute. Since there wasn’t enough time for transcribing anymore, the transcription assignment had become an optional homework. There was no punishment for not doing it. Yet, every member in the Literature Club chose to transcribe at home to improve their writing skills.

That day, the literature club was busy writing as always. Everyone seemed spaced out from exhaustion. Juho massaged his shoulder and groaned involuntarily. As he moved onto the other shoulder, Sun Hwa let out in a depressed tone, “I’m afraid of reading what I wrote. I’ve been finding out more and more how much my writing actually sucks.”

“It’s embarrassing to read your own writing,” Bom agreed with her.

A piece of writing that came into existence no more than a few minutes prior came back to haunt the writer as an unbearably embarrassing past. One often felt the urge to lock it away for eternity, and Sun Hwa wanted to write everything all over again.

“We have to push through. If we start revising now, we won’t be able to finish it in time even if we have three years,” Seo Kwang said weakly.

“If you’re seeing how your writing could have been improved, then it also means you’re learning how to write better in the future. Don’t be so ashamed,” Juho encouraged the two people who were writhing in shame.

Regardless, there was little effect. Sun Hwa looked at her draft, feeling dejected.

“Yeah, you’re right. But it doesn’t take away from the embarrassment,” she said as she slammed her draft onto the desk.

“Man, I wanted my story to be prettier. My mind gets so hectic whenever I start writing.”

Juho smiled faintly at her rant. It was a good mindset to have. A writer had to be aware of his own greediness more than anything else. It didn’t mean that they shouldn’t be possessive either. When writing, one had to focus on writing alone. The moment their greed took over, the writing would naturally lean toward pleasing the reader. It would dress itself in bright colors. It would become clouded by obscure jargon while the exploration within the story turned excessive. Wearing too much makeup would damage the skin. It was the same for writing. It got damaged by disingenuity. That was how a piece of writing became pretentious.

Rustle.

Bom reached into her bag and took something out. It was chocolate. The Literature Club was flexible about bringing snacks. For that reason, the members often snacked on sweets after they finished writing. Wanting to share, Bom handed out her chocolate. Each single piece of it was wrapped, so it was easy to eat. After thanking Bom, Juho popped the chocolate into his mouth. There was an explosion of sweetness. It felt rejuvenating, and everyone sat up in their seats.

“Bom brings the best snacks.”

“I feel much better.”

“Pretty good.”

Sun Hwa, Seo Kwang, and Baron said in order, and Bom smiled brightly. Juho opened the window of the science room to let out the sweet smell of chocolate. A pleasant breeze rushed into the room, and he stood in front of the window for a moment for some fresh air. That moment, Juho turned around at the rustling sound. Bom was picking up the wrappers spread across the desk, so he helped her.

“It’s OK, I’ll just finish it,” she said.

Juho answered by folding one of the wrappers into the shape of a notepad.

“It’ll be quicker if we do it together.”

Juho and Bom picked up the chocolate wrappers from the floor. When Juho looked up, he found Seo Kwang and Sun Hwa with wrappers in their hands. Baron was doing the same. Since there weren’t that many, all the wrappers were picked up in no time.

“Rock, paper, scissor,” somebody suggested as a way to decide on a person to take out the trash.

Although Bom had volunteered, the game had already started. Juho joined in. In the end, Bom took part in it as well. ‘Rock, paper, scissor.’

“Ah!”

“Yes!”

Seo Kwang lost, and Sun Hwa gladly saw him out. He walked out into the hallway mumbling, and Juho also waved his hand at him. When Seo Kwang came back, he was accompanied by Mr. Moon. After getting a piece of chocolate from Juho, Mr. Moon said as he was chewing on the chocolate, “Now, I’ll teach you how to polish your writing. You finally get to revise all the embarrassing things you’ve been writing so far. Doesn’t that make you happy?”

Sun Hwa cheered. It was at least ten times more effective than Juho’s encouragement. Seo Kwang and Bom also welcomed Mr. Moon. While watching the members’ response, Mr. Moon questioned Juho, who was sitting quietly in his seat, “Aren’t you happy?”

“I am,” he answered quickly.

“Now, shall we begin?”

Without hesitation, Mr. Moon began to write out an example on the chalkboard. As usual, it was an abrupt start.

“Juho Woo, read it.”

At Mr. Moon’s words, Juho read the sentence out loud, “I’m a person who eats baguettes frequently, even when I came to Korea on a trip, I had more baguettes than kimchi stew, so I think I might as well have gone to France instead.”

It was a strange and awkward sentence.

“Look at this sentence. It’s hard to tell what it’s trying to say because it’s lengthy and awkward, right?”

“I’m running out of breath.”

“It kind of feels awkward.”

“I can feel his stream of consciousness.”

Juho looked at the word baguette.

“Something isn’t quite adding up here. When a beginner tries to write a longer sentence, this is the result they end up with. That’s why longer sentences are harder to work with. Even authors go through several polishing processes when they’re writing a lengthy sentence. As for you guys, get used to writing shorter sentences.”

Mr. Moon wrote another sentence on the side of the chalkboard.

“I eat baguettes frequently. Even when I visited Korea, I had more baguettes than I had kimchi stew. If I had known better, I would have gone to France. I’m sure it would have been a much better trip.”

The sentence was still filled with baguettes, but it was definitely more organized. Even dividing up the sentence into segments made a big difference. There was room to breathe, and Juho thought about what might come next, ‘He stacks a lot of bad memories on his visit to Korea. In the end, he leaves for his dream destination, France. Will he be able to build better memories? Only good memories? That’s no fun. Let’s make it worse.’

At that moment, Juho heard Mr. Moon’s voice, “I’ll give you another example. The subject is baguette.”

Juho had an idea of what Mr. Moon had had for lunch. Unlike Juho, who was resting his chin on his hand, everyone else listened intently. Sun Hwa was especially focused. Seeing him creating an organized, easy to read sentence out of a jumbled up mess made her remember that Mr. Moon was really a teacher after all. When he taught a class, it was obvious that Mr. Moon had no desire to teach. He never went out of his way to teach. He only did the bare minimum. His class came to an end after he covered what was going to be on the test. Even when it came to deciding what was going to be in the test, Mr. Moon would always refer to an older teacher who was more experienced. His attitude was completely different. Anybody could have complained if they saw such a drastic difference in Mr. Moon’s attitude when teaching.

‘Hey, this is discriminatory.’

Then, he would answer without a care in the world, “I hate school. I hate working. I’m proud that I even come out.”

Since it wasn’t like Mr. Moon rejected students with questions or skipped teaching his class, no one would be able to punish him, and he would proudly walk about school.

“Try revising your papers like I taught you. Whatever you don’t finish will be your homework.”

“Yes, Mr. Moon.”

The club members spent their entire weekend facing their embarrassing past, cutting and taking out words and phrases. Juho, too, was keeping himself busy. He was so occupied that he didn’t even hear the door opening. A hand suddenly appeared next to him, and Juho traced his eyes up along the hand. It was his mother.

“Have some fruit.”

“OK, thanks.”

His mother said as she put down a plate of apple slices. She looked at her son with a delighted heart. Juho hadn’t squandered the money or become conceited about his own talent. For that, his mother was proud of her son. She left the room to let her son focus, and Juho put a piece of apple into his mouth and concentrated all the more. He split up certain parts, elaborated in certain places and enhanced the weaker areas in his writing. He toned down the parts that were too dense. Juho was revising his paper so that it was sharp and solid. As he busily moved his pen, he suddenly stopped.

“Should it be ‘he chokes on a piece of boiled carrot?’”

There wasn’t much that could be done with such a bizarre ending. Besides, Juho kind of liked it. It resembled the recklessness of youth. It was rash, but brave at the same time. It was an ending that was both bold and unfaltering, which wasn’t common in recent books.

‘I’ll leave it alone.’

Juho examined the next page. At that moment, his phone vibrated on his bed. He had tossed it onto the bed on his way in. The call was from Nam Kyung, and Juho answered.

“Hello.”

“Hey, Juho. Are you busy?”

“I can talk. What’s up?”

Nam Kyung called him from time to time to check in with him or give him an update on book sales or any recent developments. It wasn’t out of place for him to be calling. Yet, Juho was getting an unusual vibe from Nam Kyung’s voice. It sounded like he was excited.

“Did something happen?” Juho asked, to find out what was happening.

“You know the author, Dong Gil Uhm, right?”

Of course he knew. Juho had bought one of his books from the bookstore not too long ago. It had been a good read.

“Of course I know him.”

“So, he contacted me.”

“He contacted you?”

“He wants to meet you.”

“… excuse me?”

“He says he’s dying to know what you look like. What do you say, should I set up a meeting?”

There was a brief silence.

‘Dong Gil Uhm wants to meet me just because he wants to know what I look like?’

Even in midst of confusion, he calmly analyzed the situation. That had never happened before. He had never met Dong Gil Uhm, so there was no reason for him to reach out to Juho.

One thing that had been different from the past was that Juho had remained anonymous this time. Dong Gil Uhm was saying that he wanted to know what Juho looked like. In the past, it would have been as easy as searching the internet if he had wanted to find that out. This time, however, it was different. There was no way to know what Yun Woo looked like. If Dong Gil Uhm was curious about Juho’s face, then the only way was to meet him in person. ‘How interesting!’

Whenever things played out differently from the past, Juho felt relieved at heart. It meant that he was not repeating the mistakes of the past. Taking a deep breath, he answered Nam Kyung. Juho had enjoyed reading Dong Gil Uhm’s book as an adult. Even when he couldn’t write a single decent sentence, his appreciation for the author had remained unchanged.

‘It can’t hurt to meet him,’ Juho thought.

“Sure. I’m free throughout the weekend.”

‘Sooner the better. Will the actual meeting happen sometime next week?’ he thought.

“Come now!”Nam Kyung said over the phone as if he were reading Juho’s thoughts.

<A Harsh, Citingly Cold Winter (1)> The End