Big Life

Chapter 6: A Bountiful Gift (2)

“Darn it. That damned old man… I can see that you’re returning those things out of goodwill, but it’s all in vain. I put them next to his grave on purpose."

"On purpose? But he's your father, right? Aren't these your father's keepsakes?"

"Don’t even try to open that can of worms! I don't care if you wanna keep them or throw them out. Do whatever you want! They're all trash, so selling them won't give you much anyway."

The man tried to close the door, but Ha Jae-Gun stopped him.

"W-wait! What about Rika?"

"How did you know its name?"

"The name's on its collar. Rika is yours, right? You should at least take the cat back."

The man laughed coldly and looked at his left hand. Ha Jae-Gun followed his gaze and saw the bandage on it.

"This was thanks to that cat. I wanted to bring it back home, but it scratched me instead. Ungrateful thing. You can do whatever you want with it."

"Wait!" Ha Jae-Gun grabbed the closing door and stared at the man menacingly.

"Just one more thing, what did your father do when he was alive?" Ha Jae-Gun asked as he recalled the elderly man from his dream.

The man looked down and let out a long sigh before mumbling softly, "He was an ink-slinger."

"Ink—a writer? He was a writer?"

"Yes, a writer! A dead writer who only knows to bury his head in writing for the sake of others! Now leave!"

Slam!

Ha Jae-Gun stood there in a daze. He was astonished by the fact that the man actually slammed the door in his face. He stood there without moving, with Rika crying by his feet.

'That old man was a writer…?!'

Ha Jae-Gun grabbed the railing by the stairs to support himself because his legs were trembling incessantly. He couldn't believe that a dead writer's memories had been transferred into his brain.

"Meow, meow." Rika's cries pulled Ha Jae-Gun back to reality, and upon coming back, he looked down.

He suddenly recalled a line from a certain occult text he had read. It was something along the lines that cats could bridge the living and the dead together.

"Rika, you know what's happening, right?"

"Meow~"

Ha Jae-Gun plopped to the ground, still shocked.

However, why did he even expect to get an answer from a cat? He was at a loss. Was this how cognitive dissonance felt for those with panic disorders?

Ha Jae-Gun somehow managed to return to his home while still lost in his thoughts.

'Wait, how did I come back?'

He couldn't remember when he took the subway, alighted, and walked all the way back to his neighborhood. He staggered up the stairs and used his trembling legs to walk up to the second floor of the apartment building he was staying in before finally arriving in his apartment.

'I wonder what's in the laptop…'

After knowing that Seo Gun-Woo was a writer like himself, Ha Jae-Gun grew more curious about the man. After all, he only had bits and pieces of the old man's memories. Moreover, he also wanted to know more about the former.

Ha Jae-Gun didn't even bother to take off his clothes. He quickly retrieved the laptop out of his backpack. He plugged it into an electric outlet and turned it on. It was great because it was still working normally.

'This laptop is really old, though…'

He inspected the laptop's specifications, and the sight rendered him speechless.

The laptop only had 256 MB of random access memory and 40GB of hard disk space, and it was actually running on Windows 98. If he were to give this laptop to anyone for free at this time and age, they wouldn't even accept it.

'There's nothing here.'

There was no further information he could find about Seo Gun-Woo on the laptop. He couldn’t even find the old man’s browsing history through the browser, and there weren’t any other apps installed aside from Word and the default programs.

Ha Jae-Gun opened the browser on his own computer and looked up the name Seo Gun-Woo.

There were many people carrying the same name. He typed in the keyword writer, but he still couldn’t find more search results. He decided to type in the old man's birth year and death year into the search bar as well, but it didn’t really help.

'Did he publish under a pen name?'

Writers would often publish their books under their pen names. It wasn’t that strange and rare. Actually, Ha Jae-Gun was one of those writers with pseudonyms.

However, the fact that he couldn’t obtain any search results from the name Seo Gun-Woo meant that the man had to have published his books under a pen name, but it could also mean that the man didn’t have any published work at all.

Bzzt!

The sudden vibration from his mobile startled Ha Jae-Gun. The name Ha Jae-In appeared on the screen's caller ID—it was his sister, who was three years older than he was.

Ha Jae-Gun took a moment to compose himself before answering the call. The vibration from the phone startled him so much that it brought him back to the reality he had forgotten momentarily.

He had no good news to share with her, but if he didn't answer, his older sister would definitely get worried about him. He knew his sister well, and Ha Jae-In was still treating him like a child playing by the beach, even though he was already at the mature age of twenty-seven.

Eventually, Ha Jae-Gun let out a sigh and finally answered the call.

"Hey, noona."

— Oh? You actually answered? I thought you were still asleep, so I was about to hang up.

"Nah, I was awake."

— Have you eaten yet?

"Of course; look at the time," Ha Jae-Gun replied while pressing on his stomach. It was actually letting out growling noises, so he desperately tried to stop those noises by pressing on his stomach.

— What side dishes did you have together with your meal?

"The side dishes are something I made myself. Anyway, stop probing, will you? I'm not a kid anymore."

— You’re still a kid to me.

"Heyyy…" Ha Jae-Gun replied, seemingly annoyed by her teasing.

Ha Jae-In laughed. She soon calmed down and spoke sternly.

— You'll come back home tomorrow, right?

"Of course."

— Good. You should come back and visit Dad too. He has aged a lot.

"All right."

— Why do you sound so tired? Is anything the matter?

Ha Jae-In sounded anxious. Ha Jae-Gun felt apologetic for lying to her, but that was the only thing he could do to avoid her subsequent questions.

"Sorry, noona, I’m chasing after a deadline right now."

— Ah, you should have said so earlier! I get it, I'll hang up! Go ahead and work!

Beep! Beep! Beep!

The call finally ended. Ha Jae-In had always been supporting Ha Jae-Gun when it came to his writing, and it made the lie extremely effective.

'I'm sorry, noona.'

Ha Jae-In had always joked about wanting to become a Gold Miss[1] through her own efforts, but Ha Jae-Gun knew the truth. He knew that she had been suffering alone to support their poor family to the extent that she couldn’t even afford to go out on dates.

'I should stop wasting time from now on.'

He should at least turn his lie into reality and the truth. Ha Jae-Gun clicked on the program shortcut shown on the desktop and opened the manuscript of the martial arts novel he had put so much effort into writing.

'This is hopeless…'

Had he gotten influenced by the editor-in-chief's words? In his eyes, the novel seemed like a huge lump of jumbled text right now.

Ha Jae-Gun held his forehead and scrolled all the way up to the top of the document.

He had decided to read through the entire thing while trying to catch plot holes, and upon catching them, he wrote them again in a way that would still ensure the overall cohesiveness of the novel.

'Huh?'

While reading his own work, Ha Jae-Gun's face turned paler as time went on.

He didn’t really expect that his work would be perfect, but he also didn’t think that it would be this bad with many issues all over the place. He found numerous mistakes and issues that he hadn’t even noticed yesterday.

'This kind of information is redundant at this point. Readers would just find it tiresome. Let's delete the entire paragraph!'

'This scene is crucial as the main character is about to learn a new skill, but the details are lacking. I’ve got to put more focus on the details!'

'Why is this lady slapping the main character across the face when she should be begging the main character so that her life would be saved? I don’t think a sane person would do that, so let’s change it!'

Tak! Tadak! Tadadak!

Ha Jae-Gun’s pair of nimble hands danced across the keyboard, producing rhythmic sounds that sounded like a mere cacophony of noises at first impression, but it was actually a lively symphony.

How long had it been since he was this engrossed in writing?

Ha Jae-Gun asked himself, but he soon shook his head. He didn’t even bother looking for the answer because he didn’t have the luxury to give the question much thought.

He was completely focused on revising his work. It seemed like a never-before-seen inspiration had struck him. The way he typed quickly and nimbly made it seem like his fingers had grown wings.

1. In South Korea, a gold miss is an unmarried woman between 30-50yrs old with a high socioeconomic status and level of education. These women frequently have long careers and enjoy being single as a result of social changes that have made marriage later in life common and reduced gender discrimination in the workplace. ☜