The Great Storyteller

Translated by: ShawnSuh

Edited by: SootyOwl

After a quick breakfast, Juho changed into his uniform and left for school. When he arrived to class, he either read a book or a text in the English textbook. Occasionally, he would stare out of the window or go up to the second years’ floor to chat with Baron.

That day was no different. Juho looked at the text in his English textbook. It was about dreams. The textbook was referring to none other than future careers. It wasn’t about dreaming in one’s sleep or dreaming of something in one’s life.

He thought of a conversation he had with Seo Kwang not too long before.

“What would it be like to be a novelist?” Seo Kwang asked. He sounded excited for some reason.

Juho gave him a brief stare and asked, “Is that what you want to do?”

“I just happened to find myself enjoying being part of the Literature Club, a lot more than I had expected.”

It was true. He did seem much happier as of late. ‘A novelist, huh!?’ It suited him.

“If that’s what your heart desires, then so be it. I support you.”

“I haven’t really decided yet.”

Although he answered vaguely, Seo Kwang’s eyes were sparkling.

“What is it?”

Though it was a day just like any other, Juho had been thinking that something had been different. Seo Kwang had been acting strange as of late.

He had felt Seo Kwang staring daggers at him for some time. He had blatantly turned around with the backrest in between his legs. As a person who sat directly behind him, Juho was feeling rather uncomfortable.

“What?”

He scratched his cheek. It almost felt like it was stinging.

“Why are you looking at me like that? You think I’m cute?”

In spite of Juho’s light-hearted joke, Seo Kwang’s face remained completely still. Usually, he would have, at the very least, made a complete fool out of Juho.

“This world really is kind of unfair.”

With that mysterious remark, Seo Kwang turned back to his desk.

Juho muttered as he stared into the back of Seo Kwang’s head, “…Was it really about my looks?” He briefly looked at his reflection on the window and thought, ‘It’s not half bad.’

When recess started, Seo Kwang asked a question out of nowhere, “Where did you say you lived?”

Confused, Juho tilted his head. It really was a random question. After telling Seo Kwang the location, he asked, “Why do you ask?”

“Just because. You don’t live that far from me.”

“It’s all in the same neighborhood. My side tends to be hillier though.”

This neighborhood was on a mountain, so there were a lot of hills even in the residential areas. There was also a mountain right behind the school. He was met with the cries of turtledoves on his way to school in the morning, and with hikers on his way back. It was like a countryside neighborhood within Seoul.

“Can I come over?”

There was no reason Seo Kwang couldn’t.

“Sure. My parents are out for work. You want to come today?”

“No. Later.”

Juho nodded light-heartedly, but there was something about Seo Kwang’s attitude that bothered him. ‘Maybe he got himself into some sort of trouble?’

The next morning, he had to open his eyes at the sound of the doorbell.

‘Ding, dong.’

It rang once again as he lingered in his blanket. It was rushing him to get out of bed. Soon, he realized that he was the only person around.

Every weekend, Juho’s parents would make a trip out to the countryside to look for a house. They had been telling him that they would put the city life behind them once their son grew up into an adult. Without any objection, he accepted his parents’ future plans. After all, no one could live life for another person.

“Not answering the intercom, for example.”

It wasn’t until after a stretch and a yawn that Juho came out of his room and closed the door behind him. Half asleep, he looked at the intercom screen and saw a familiar face.

“Why is it that you’re ringing my doorbell?” he asked over the intercom.

“Hey, buddy, I said I’d come over.”

“It’s kind of sudden actually.”

“Didn’t you get my text?”

‘I was asleep,’ thought Juho. Because he hadn’t gone to bed until late, he had been sound asleep well into the morning.

“Don’t people usually wait for a response?”

“I brought fried chicken.”

Juho opened the door.

The smell of fried chicken filled the entire house as soon as Seo Kwang walked in. Since he got out of bed late, Juho was hungry, yet too lazy to cook something. That was perfect. Seo Kwang had read his mind. Juho sat Seo Kwang down as he looked around curiously. He went into the bathroom to wash his face, and then joined Seo Kwang for brunch.

The box contained half & half chicken – half fried, half marinaded. After pouring Coke into the cups, Juho and Seo Kwang each picked up a drumstick.

“Let’s eat.”

“This place knows their chicken.”

It was just as Seo Kwang said. It was delicious. As the two ate, they spent time on small talk like what the best part of a chicken was or which place delivered the fastest.

Soon, there were nothing but bones inside the box. Then, Seo Kwang saw the bookshelves filled with books in the living room and said, “You have quite a few books too.”

“My parents read a lot as well, just like I do.”

“I read something interesting recently…”

After starting the topic, Seo Kwang made his way into the kitchen to wash his hands. Juho had an idea of what Seo Kwang was about to say.

‘He’s probably going to talk about a book,’ he thought and listened to Seo Kwang as he cleaned the table.

“… There’s this young psychologist who said that our inner selves occasionally reflect themselves onto the external things around us. Apparently, you can tell what a person is like on the inside by looking at his belongings or the traces he has left, kind of like Sherlock Holmes.”

“Like insight?”

“Yeah. Survival experts figure out the animal that is around them by looking at footprints or excrement left behind. It’s the same for humans.”

“You can’t really find human excrement nowadays.”

“Really?! How do you say stuff like that after a meal?”

“I have a strong stomach.”

Seo Kwang opened the windows to ventilate the house. When he opened a large window in the living room, a light breeze rushed into the house. With Juho standing behind him, he continued, “What I’m saying is that even if you stay one night at a hotel, you leave a trace of yourself. Apparently, you can figure anything out from personality, the life the person has lived, and his future plans.”

“That’s amazing! Is that how fortune telling works?”

“That, I don’t know,” answered Seo Kwang.

“The point is that a space contains a lot of information about the person who has been there. A lot more than we think.” He asked, “Is that your parents’ room?”

“Yep,” Juho answered Seo Kwang as he stood still. Seo Kwang turned around from the direction he had pointed. Juho kept watching him from his place while Seo Kwang raised his hand to turn the door handle.

“Of course.”

A breeze passed through when he opened the door, and Seo Kwang murmured as he walked into the room, feeling the breeze.

‘I knew it. I knew it would look like this,’ he thought.

The room was filled with writing. There were piles of papers and boxes surrounding the bed, the desk and the other furniture. Seo Kwang saw a corner of a page peeking through an opening in the box. All of the papers were filled with letters. They were all used up. Every space was filled with ink. It was almost overwhelming, even for a font fanatic like Seo Kwang. Occasionally, there were things in the English alphabet, Chinese characters, and characters in mysterious languages.

There were sentences made of signs he had never seen before.

“You must have wanted to see my room,” Juho said from behind. He sounded calm and light-hearted. It was as if the room didn’t belong to him.

With a faint smile, Seo Kwang opened his mouth and confessed, “I saw your paper.”

Now it made sense as to why he had been acting so strange. He might have been someone who spent much more time reading than Juho, and Juho’s eyes darkened.

“When?”

“When you came in late to the science room. I was the first one there that day. There were four notebooks on the desk.”

There were written pages in each notebook.

He continued as he reminisced, “Sun Hwa’s was fun to read. Bom’s was sentimental. And yours…”

He couldn’t forget what he had read that day. The ending was disastrous, and the story itself wasn’t all that long. Yet, the moment he read the first sentence, it became all too apparent that something was different.

He had been reading books since he was a child. He had been reading from the time he learned how to read.

Yun Woo’s appearance was an incredibly exciting development. He couldn’t believe that an author his age was capable of producing such work. His writing was pure, brilliant, and controlled.

Seo Kwang had been filled with joy. He couldn’t have been happier that he was sharing time with such an author. Thinking that he would be able to read Yun Woo’s book until he died, Seo Kwang smiled even in his sleep.

But…

“Your writing was different from Yun Woo’s. It was proficient and fluid. It was heavy and cruel.”

There was depth in Juho’s writing. There was no way to know how deep it could be—like a dark hole at the bottom of the ocean that could suck in any divers that came too close. As if he was met with a colossal existence, Seo Kwang’s instincts were getting intimidated. On the other hand, he was impressed. He was moved. If Juho wrote with all his heart, Seo Kwang’s experience would have been even more real.

“Your writing was different from Yun Woo’s. Your skill was impressive. It was hard to imagine that it came from someone my age, but you were different.”

“I’m sure it was.”

Juho was no longer the same as Yun Woo, the author of ‘Trace of a Bird.’ When he came back to the past, he was able to remember what he had eaten the day before. He clearly remembered what it had felt like when he had been drowning in the river. It was the same for his writing style. It was a difficult task for an author to change his writing style. His writing was a direct translation of himself. It was as difficult as changing himself. Juho had gradually changed over the course of thirty years. As a result, his writing style had changed with him. Naturally, he would have forgotten his writing style from the time he wrote ‘Trace of a Bird.’ Naturally…

He had tried writing the day he returned to the past, and he had been able to write in both styles—the one from the time he wrote ‘Trace of a Bird,’ and the one from the time he had written his past failures. It was for that specific reason that he had been able to join the Literature Club without hesitation. Even Mr. Moon couldn’t suspect him to be Yun Woo.

He remembered the day Seo Kwang was referring to. It was the day he came to science room with Mr. Moon after meeting with James.

‘I knew it. I thought somebody had moved my notebook,’ he thought.

Seo Kwang apologized for looking into Juho’s notebook without permission. However, Juho wasn’t all that angry about it.

“It’s fine.”

Seo Kwang was provoked by his unwavering voice, “Are you Yun Woo’s twin? That level of skill in your age, you must be related. Show me a family photo. I want to see if there’s a person who looks exactly like you. Who are you if you’re not his twin? What? Are you saying that the world is wide and full of geniuses?”

He let out an exhausted sigh.

He looked around the room filled with stacks of paper. It would take him well over a year to write that much. He thought about what he had just said. ‘Genius.’ As expected, he realized that he had fallen short. ‘Genius’ alone would not be able to embrace Juho’s talent in its entirety. Yun Woo had to be the same way.

“I enjoy being in the Literature Club. So naturally, I thought about becoming a novelist. But you know what, I changed my mind,” he said light-heartedly. “I’m not trying to blame you. I don’t want to be a writer when there are people like you and Yun Woo. I’m sure a mere bookworm like myself would fall away eventually.”

He had no courage to make his room look like Juho’s. Forfeiting was easy. He felt nothing. After all, it really had just been a passing thought.

<With All His Heart (1)> The End