Chapter 258 - Episode 32. The World After the Fall (8)
Chapter 258: Episode 32. The World After the Fall (8)
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“There are people like that sometimes, people who have no idea how the world works. They don't realize everyone gets their own fifteen minutes in life. That man's fifteen minutes ended a long time ago.”
After saying that, Hwang Inchan stroked his beard and turned to Jaehwan.
“Hmm, Jaehwan-ssi. Have I told you this before?”
“Do you mean Andy Warhol's fifteen minutes?”
“That's right! As expected of our Jaehwan-ssi!”
‘Andy Warhol's fifteen minutes’ was one of Hwang Inchan's favorite sayings.
Everyone had their greatest fifteen minutes in life. It had been quoted so often that it had long since stopped being fashionable.
Even so, Hwang Inchan brought up fifteen minutes whenever he had the chance. Thanks to that, Jaehwan felt as if he would develop a neurosis every fifteen minutes.
“Our writers are the same. Right? Modern fantasy is popular these days, but how long do you think it will stay on top? Trends come and go. Fantasy? Martial arts? Who knows what will be popular next? Just because a writer is doing well now doesn't mean they'll do well next time.”
By then, Jaehwan knew how to respond in situations like this.
“You mean everyone has their own fifteen minutes in life?”
“That's right! Everyone has their best fifteen minutes, and nobody knows when or how those fifteen minutes will end. I think your fifteen minutes are right now, Jaehwan-ssi. Your numbers were pretty good this quarter too. Do you have a knack for sweet-talking writers?”
“I was just lucky.”
“Right. That's how you do it! Seoyul-ssi! You should learn from Jaehwan-ssi too.”
There had been a small change at Jaehwan's company. One of them was that Han Seoyul had joined his team.
“Ah, yes...”
If he had known in advance, he would have stopped it. Yet it had happened regardless of Jaehwan's wishes.
“Don't just be good at answering. You need to bring in a decent writer or two. Don't be so blunt when you talk to writers, either. Change your KakaoTalk profile to a picture where you look better.”
As Seoyul's expression gradually darkened, Jaehwan began to feel uneasy. The previous employee had eventually quit because they could not endure the department head's verbal abuse. It looked as if the same thing was about to happen again before his eyes.
“You have a weapon, Seoyul-ssi. Right? If you ask me, this is exactly your ‘fifteen minutes.’”
Jaehwan could not bear to watch the fear in Seoyul's pale, trembling eyes. He finally spoke.
“Department Head.”
“Huh?”
He had interrupted Hwang Inchan, but he had no idea what to say next. In the novels written by the authors, protagonists always escaped situations like this with some clever turn of phrase. It seemed Jaehwan was not protagonist material after all.
Hwang Inchan looked between Jaehwan and Seoyul. Then, as if he had suddenly realized something, he playfully wiggled his pinky finger.
“Oh, what is this? Was I being oblivious?”
Jaehwan shook his head.
“It isn't like that.”
“Huh? Then what is it?”
Jaehwan did not answer.
He looked around, hoping someone would step in, but everyone avoided his gaze. Hwang Inchan rested a finger against his chin and tilted his head.
“Hm, you're still suspicious. You only ever rush to defend Seoyul-ssi. Are you two dating already? Or are you in that talking stage? Or is it just you?”
“Department Head.”
“Hey, Seoyul-ssi. What do you think of our Jaehwan-ssi? Jaehwan-ssi is the kind of man other men recognize. Does he seem that way to women too?”
“Department Head, it isn't like that.”
“Why? Are you embarrassed? In times like this, the man should step forward first...”
Jaehwan let out a quiet sigh. It was a mistake.
Hwang Inchan had been joking at first, but a strange chill had settled over the office. His expression stiffened.
“Jaehwan-ssi, why are you getting so serious over nothing? No, why are you making me out to be some kind of creep? This is embarrassing.”
Jaehwan's lips parted at Hwang Inchan's sudden outburst.
“I'm sorry.”
“Sorry is all you've got? You don't have some strange ideology, do you?”
“What?”
“You know, the stuff that's popular among young people these days. PC, feminism, all that. Kids who start talking about discrimination and fairness whenever they open their mouths. Are you into that too, Jaehwan-ssi?”
Why was he bringing that up here?
Jaehwan frowned in confusion, but Hwang Inchan kept pressing down on the accelerator.
“Jaehwan-ssi. Didn't you understand what I said? If you have thoughts like that, tell me quickly. The company takes these things seriously too.”
“I'm sorry.”
“What are you sorry for? Are you saying I'm right? Do you even realize you've done something wrong?”
Jaehwan had no idea what he was supposed to say. When he pressed his lips shut, Hwang Inchan continued as if he had expected it.
“Our Jaehwan-ssi is especially frustrating at times like this. You need to get your head straight. Readers get tired of those topics.”
As Hwang Inchan rattled on, Jaehwan let out a small sigh to himself.
Work was always like this. By the time you realized something had gone wrong, it was already too late.
Still, there were moments when Jaehwan could not help but say something.
Jaehwan knew.
He was not particularly smart.
He had forgotten most of the knowledge the Transcendents had given him. He did not even understand the concept of human rights clearly. He knew PC meant political correctness, but did not know what the initials stood for.
Yet that did not mean Jaehwan knew nothing about what was right and wrong in the world.
At the very least, Jaehwan understood that a human being was not defined by a single form of Clothes.
“Think about it. You know too, Jaehwan-ssi. What is life for people like us? Working all day, getting pushed around by our bosses, suffering at work, then going home. A pathetic life.”
“...”
“What do you think they want to read while they rest? Some grand story about human rights? A story about debates over justice? Of course, human rights and justice are all good things. But look at reality. Do stories like that sell in our field?”
Jaehwan knew. So-called didactic works that dealt with such subjects did not merely fail to sell in genre fiction. They could not even get contracts.
“Do you think people don't read those things because they don't know they're good? They know. Everyone knows! They don't read them precisely because they know!”
The words gave him a sense of déjà vu.
Jaehwan had definitely heard someone speak in a similar tone somewhere before.
Had it been at the Tree of Illusion?
Yu Seolha? Maiad? Or had Cheongheo said it?
He could not remember well. Perhaps he was deliberately refusing to remember.
“Every ideology is only popular for a while. Back in my day, you went to prison if you got that sort of thing wrong. You're too young to understand, Jaehwan-ssi. You haven't lived nearly enough life.”
Life.
Jaehwan wondered whether Hwang Inchan could still say that if he knew about Jaehwan's ten billion years.
“Do you think everyone lives like this because they hate justice? We live like this because we have no choice. You grew up watching your mother and father live, so you know that too, don't you?”
Mother.
Jaehwan froze at the sudden word.
“Everyone is struggling day by day just to feed their families and survive. What people need isn't justice. It's sweet comfort. We edit writing that comforts them.”
Jaehwan suddenly glanced at his monitor.
The novel he had been editing was open there. A battle scene crammed full of sound effects and mimetic words. Female supporting characters who spoke only lines that barely sounded human, and male supporting characters who died like disposable extras after serving as predictable villains.
Protagonists pursuing ever greater desires.
Jaehwan thought of the readers who found comfort in such protagonists. Did they really want that kind of comfort?
“Jaehwan-ssi, you're good in every way, but you're sometimes too inflexible. Listen carefully to what I'm saying. I'm giving you this advice as someone with more life experience.”
Was that so?
Jaehwan thought that if such things were truly life, then Hwang Inchan might indeed be his senior.
After Hwang Inchan finished his long speech, Jaehwan returned to his seat. Seoyul gave him an apologetic look, and Jaehwan only nodded slightly.
A YouTube video he had failed to turn off continued playing in a corner of his editing window.
It was a video featuring Teacher.
The sound was off, but subtitles displayed Teacher's words as he spoke at a protest site.
“We have to change... this Tower that takes precious people hostage, this world where people become one another's hostages...”
Jaehwan turned off the video.
His editing window appeared beneath it.
.
.
Kwakakak!
Kugugugugu!
“Urgh, cough! What tremendous power!”
“Ha ha ha! How does it taste?”
.
.
Jaehwan stared silently at the document window.
He understood what Hwang Inchan meant when he said people read this and found comfort.
Jaehwan had been the same.
To run from his memories, he had read stories like this and endured one more day. To run from his own story, he had kept consuming other stories.
Maybe that was what this world had been made for from the start.
After staring at the screen for a long time, Jaehwan began typing again.
He changed Kwakakak! to Kwakaka!
He changed “How does it taste?” to “What does it taste like?”
With an expressionless face, he corrected those things.
Because that was ‘life’ in this world.
Because he had decided to accept it now.
To protect what was precious, he had decided to accept the world.
Jaehwan's resolve lasted exactly one month.
A month later, while Jaehwan was working late at the office, he received a sudden call from the hospital.
His mother was in critical condition.
* * *
After holding a three-day funeral, receiving mourners, carrying the coffin, riding in the hearse, and watching his mother vanish into the flames, Jaehwan felt hollow.
So easily.
Yoonhwan held Jaehwan's shoulders. Seoyul could not hide her reddened eyes. Seeing them, and seeing the empty place left by the father who never came to the funeral, Jaehwan sank into a long grief he could not understand.
He had learned the news about his mother three days earlier. If he had not gone to see her the moment he heard she was in critical condition, he might not even have been able to say goodbye.
“It seems she hid it for a long time. Her condition has already progressed beyond the point where we can do anything...”
Was terminal cancer not something that existed only in novels?
Jaehwan could not adapt to the tragedy that had come upon him so suddenly.
Mother.
His mother had been both the premise and the purpose of his becoming ordinary in this world. Jaehwan had adapted to this world only for her. He had lived in this world for her.
“Jaehwan.”
“Yes, Mother.”
“I, I was only worried about you. I'm sorry.”
His mother left behind words he could not understand.
“Giving you to that Teacher was a mistake. I, I...”
“It's all right, Mother.”
“Your father never hit you. That Teacher was wrong. You aren't unhappy. You...”
After the funeral, Jaehwan lived like a broken man for some time.
He took leave from work and cleaned out his mother's room. There, he found many things he had forgotten, or never known about.
One of them was 『The Little Prince』, which his mother had read to him when he was young.
Jaehwan read the book again from the beginning.
Then, little by little, he came to understand things he had not been able to grasp as a child. He realized it was not a simple fairy tale. He also understood much more clearly what the author had wanted to say.
But that was all.
In the end, it was only a novel.
Reality and delusion were different. No matter how fine its metaphors or symbols were, they could not overcome reality.
Several dozen letters had been tucked into the final pages of The Little Prince. Jaehwan checked the sender and was startled.
They were letters from Teacher.
They had arrived while Jaehwan was serving in the military. His mother had kept every one of them without throwing any away.
“Jaehwan-gun, you were right, and I was wrong.”
“You truly misunderstand. I never meant to hurt you, Jaehwan-gun.”
“Jaehwan-gun, I know. The Tower really exists. So let's talk one more time.”
“Jaehwan-gun...”
Jaehwan read the letters Teacher had left behind all night.
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