the great storyteller
Translated by: ShawnSuh
Edited by: SootyOwl
As Crow remained silent, Juho asked, “Do you think I’m joking?”
“And if I win?”
“I’m gonna jump.”
At that, Crow blinked rapidly, his eyes filled with stubbornness and pretentiousness.
“I’m not backing off, Mr. Woo.”
“You’re dumber than I thought.”
At that moment, a shout came out of nowhere. It seemed like there was a problem on the other side of the street. Glancing in that direction, Juho asked, “What do you have to gain from this bet anyway?”
If Crow lost, he would have to give up writing. If he won, his teacher would die. Then, as Juho started cackling out of nowhere, Crow’s face flushed bright red. When the author started walking, the aspiring writer followed him.
“Were you joking?”
“I didn’t mean any of it, I can tell you that.”
“I didn’t either.”
“… Right.”
Crow remained quiet as he followed Juho, looking down. However, his face lit up the moment he set foot in Juho’s house.
“Yun Woo’s writing space,” Crow murmured, his mouth agape as he looked around the room. Because there was no light, the room had a cold atmosphere. It was filled with mountains of manuscript paper. “So, this is how much you’ve written, huh?”
“Anybody can do it. I’m throwing it all out once it reaches the ceiling.”
“Such a waste…”
“You mean trash.”
Juho had been repeating the pattern of stacking and throwing out his manuscripts for years. He sat on his chair with no intention of telling the aspiring writer what to do. As long as Crow didn’t try to choke him from behind, Juho couldn’t care less about what the aspiring writer did. Since Juho was antsier than he was letting on, he picked up his pen and pulled out a sheet of manuscript paper.
“Oh, shoot! I’m so sorry!” Crow said anxiously after stepping on a piece of manuscript paper on the floor.
Juho remained silent, thinking, ‘Been a while since I’ve felt this way.’
“I think it’s time to get to work.”
“Oh, right.”
As Crow remained still, the room became silent, just like when Juho would write on his own.
“What kind of story are you writing?”
The only difference was that there was a crow in the room.
“It’s about death,” Juho said briefly. When the aspiring writer didn’t say anything else, Juho pulled out another sheet of manuscript paper and added, “I’m planning on killing three people.”
“Who?”
“I’d rather you find out yourself.”
A rude, cocky teenager. A middle-aged addict. A cowardly failure. The three commit suicide at the same time.
“If I remember correctly, you wrote an autobiographical story, right?” Juho asked while moving his hand busily.
“Yes.”
The people in Juho’s story were living in constant fear of the sky collapsing on them. Fighting futile battles against the unseen, they were living with the unbearable fear of imminent death. They didn’t know how to stop it, and in the end, they decided to run away, making a poor choice like they always did. Thirty minutes had passed by the time Juho finished writing. Then, when Juho looked toward Crow, he was caught off guard by what he saw.
“Are you crying…?”
The aspiring writer was covered in snot.
“You haven’t even read it yet.”
“Please, Mr. Woo. I beg you. Take me in as your pupil,” Crow said, spitting all over the place.
“No.”
At Juho’s refusal, Crow started weeping. His tears looked like drops of sweat for some reason.
“Mr. Woo, you’re… truly…” Crow dragged on in a suppressed voice, desperate to get the words out of his mouth. While he struggled with his stutter, Juho waited for him patiently, staring leisurely at his face covered in tears and snot.
“… A genius!”
With that, Crow started raving about the story, giving his thoughts on it.
“I’ve never felt this way before! I’m so humbled by the way you write: calm and humble, yet fast and precise. I almost forgot to breathe there!” Crow said with his hand on his chest. “I’d never seen anything like it.”
“Is that so?” Juho asked, smiling.
“Yes. You’re incredible, Mr. Woo. I wanna be just like you.”
Then, walking right past him, Juho went out of the room and into the kitchen. That time, Crow didn’t follow him out. When Juho went into the room with a couple of cups of tea, he saw Crow reading his manuscript with his face still covered in tears and snot. However, Crow didn’t seem to mind it one bit.
“Oh, thank you,” Crow said, looking at the author with respect.
“Well, this wasn’t exactly the picture I had in mind,” Juho said.
“I’m sorry?”
“You can stick around until you finish your tea.”
Then, turning around, Juho walked out of the room and sat down on the couch in the living room. Shortly after, Crow came out of the room with a bunch of things in his hands.
“What are these?” he asked with an old notepad in his hand.
Staring intently but briefly at it, Juho said, “Real-life stories.”
“Did you actually go out and do the research yourself?”
“Something to that effect. It’s about a person who comes back from the dead.”
At that, Crow’s eyes widened.
“Wait… Are you telling me that the character from ‘The Spirit of Moon,’ was based on a real person!?”
“That’s right.”
“May I?”
“Go ahead.”
Crow opened the notepad anxiously, yet cautiously. However, his expression started to sink as he read on.
“… This is a diary.”
“It’s written by that man himself.”
“It seems like he died around your age.”
“It’s the first thing he wrote after he came back from the dead, apparently. I think he never wanted to relive his past life again. It only took him a few hours to write down the previous three decades of his life.”
“It gets harder and harder to read, though.”
“Seems like he was in a hurry when he wrote it, doesn’t it? Don’t you think it adds to the realism?”
“… It’s all about his failures.”
“It makes sense that he’d be so desperate for a second chance.”
“I don’t know if I would want my life to look like this.”
“Me neither.”
“So, where is this person now?”
Rubbing his mouth, Juho said, “Who knows?”
After saying goodbye to the author, Crow left the apartment. When Juho was left alone, he made sure to put his manuscript in the storage. ‘You’re gonna have to do better than that, young man,’ Juho thought to himself, sinking into his chair. There was an old notepad on the desk. It contained all of his past mistakes.
“I wrote so much when I realized that I’d come back from the dead. It’s a miracle that my wrist is still intact.”
Although Juho had lived his entire life desperate not to repeat his past mistakes, some things in life were simply inevitable, and his current situation was proof of that. If he really was going to die that year at the same exact spot, Juho felt the need to write a certain story before his demise.
“Life can be so damn boring.”
It was a story Juho had been putting off writing, assuming that it’d be boring. He didn’t want to write a story that was subpar at the cost of his career and life. Knowing that even he couldn’t love the story, Juho was confident that it wouldn’t sell and that it wouldn’t appeal to his readers. As an author, it was common sense to write a story that everyone could enjoy, and Juho didn’t want to write anything without literary value or that wouldn’t appeal to the masses. Whenever Juho would try to write out of lingering attachment, his past would always find a way contaminate the story, making it unreadable.
“Mr. Kang said that I should face it.”
Staring at the notepad, Juho rose from his seat, walked toward his bookshelf, which was filled with all of the books he had released up to that point, and started pulling them out one by one. Before long, they made up a towering stack.
“So, ‘Trace of a Bird’ is your favorite, huh?” Juho said as he pulled out the book.
“… What was I thinking writing this?”
Juho closed the book without hesitation. He still couldn’t stand it. If anything, it was so embarrassing that it made him want to hide. In the end, the books he had pulled out of the shelf with confidence did nothing to change his perspective toward his own books.
“What am I doing at this age?” Juho said, chucking the book. Upon hitting the floor, the book made a dull sound, sliding across the floor until it stopped in a ridiculous manner. As Juho lay on the couch, time passed, and death drew near. At that moment, a loud noise reverberated out of nowhere, startling the author.
“Jeez!” Juho let out as he sprung from the couch. Somebody was knocking on the door. ‘Who could it possibly be? Is it Crow? If it is, he really needs to learn to be tactful,’ Juho thought. However, to his surprise, when he flung the door open, he saw somebody completely unexpected.
“You seem agitated.”
“… Mr. Lim?”
Raising an eyebrow, Hyun Do said, “Crow must be giving you a hard time.”
Juho stared intently at the fedora on Hyun Do’s head, which was covering his white hair.
“Are you gonna let me in?”
At that, Juho stepped aside in a hurry, realizing that his apartment was a mess. However, without saying anything about the state of it, Hyun Do walked over the books, sat across the table from Juho and took off his hat. At which point, Juho started picking up the books from the floor.
“Were you reading them?”
“Uh…”
“I can see that you didn’t get very far.”
“Haha.”
Leaning back on the chair, Hyun Do asked, “Why don’t you try having a drink or two?”
“Not funny, Mr. Lim.”
“Well, the more you try to force something to happen, the more things will go wrong.”
“Good point.”
Sitting on a chair deliberately, Juho asked, “What brings you here, Mr. Lim?”
“I heard from Yun Seo.”
‘Of course,’ Juho thought to himself, resting his chin on his hand.
“He’s a tenacious one, that one.”
“Did you let him watch you write as well?”
When Juho rolled his eyes without saying anything, Hyun Do pointed toward the room. The door was still cracked open.
“You’re quick, Mr. Lim.”
“It’s the secret to a long life.”
“Being quick?”
“People don’t die in a particular order. Some might die sooner than others, but that doesn’t mean their lives become irrelevant sooner.”
Hyun Do tended to tell people what they needed to hear most. Smiling, Juho said, “If I had a choice, I’d rather take my time.”
“Again, there’s no guarantee that you’ll get there later,” Hyun Do said, staring at the books. “It’s good that things aren’t predetermined.”
“I agree,” Juho said, looking down.
“You seem down.”
“I’m sorry?”
Crossing his legs, Hyun Do asked, “Is it because you don’t have anyone who could take over after you?”
“You don’t beat around the bush, do you, Mr. Lim?”
“I told you that I heard from Yun Seo.”
“I don’t plan on dying early.”
“So you say,” Hyun Do said calmly. “Unfortunately, death is something out of our control.”
Running out of things to say, Juho threw his head back and asked, “Couldn’t you take over for me, Mr. Lim?”
“What do you mean?”
“If I die before I finish this book, I’d like for you to pick up where I left off.”
Feeling Hyun Do’s piercing gaze, Juho looked away.
“Why me?”
“Because I have no control over when I die.”
After a brief pause, Hyun Do said, “Just don’t kill yourself. Even the thought of it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. If you do, don’t expect me to do you any favors.”
“So, you will as long as I don’t take my own life?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“It would be too sad.”
Just as he couldn’t finish writing his friend’s unfinished book, Hyun Do wouldn’t be able to finish an unfinished book left behind by another author. Instead, he would focus on writing his own stories. Scruffing his hair, Juho said, “You’re embarrassing me, Mr. Lim.”
“It’s natural to be sad when a person dies.”
“That’s true…”
“So, where’s that manuscript that you’re having trouble with?” When Juho remained quiet and fiddled with his nose, Hyun Do smiled and said, “You haven’t even started, have you?”
“Yeah… About that…”
“You also made it sound like you’re going to die soon.”
“I sure did.”
“Well, you can think about those things after you die.”
“Sounds like something Mr. Kang would say.”
“… There’s something Wol used to say like a habit,” Hyun Do said, looking up and reminiscing about those words. “On his deathbed, whenever I asked him if he was sad, he’d always tell me: ‘If I’m not dead, then I have to keep going.’ He would have this silly grin on his face while saying that he’d finally figured out a sentence that was flawless and consistent. His mouth was the only part of his body he could move, so he talked quite a bit.”
As Juho rubbed his stomach, Hyun Do looked toward him and smiled, “What are you thinking about?”
“I’m debating whether I should write that story or not.”
“Well, what’s keeping you?”
“Something tells me that it’s going to be remembered as the worst book in the history of literature.”
“You can worry about that after you’ve written it.” Then, rising from the seat, Hyun Do added, “After all, life is long.”