Chapter 295: True Story (1)

Oh Myung-Suk watched Ha Jae-Gun seriously and even followed Ha Jae-Gun standing up from his seat. Where was he going over right now? They were about to discuss the plans for his novels, but what happened that Ha Jae-Gun had to leave immediately?

“Yes, I’ll leave right away. Thank you, please do me the favor.” Ha Jae-Gun hung up the call, looking extremely pale as he wrapped his forehead with his hand.

The sight of Ha Jae-Gun losing his composure slowly made Oh Myung-Suk ask, “What’s the matter, Mr. Ha? It sounded quite urgent…”

“Chairman Oh, I’m terribly sorry, but a serious issue has come up, I think we’ll have to postpone our novel consultation session to another time.”

“Please don’t say that, let’s go. Where is your destination? I’ll drive you there.” Oh Myung-Suk did not probe further. He knew how much Ha Jae-Gun valued courtesy and promises, and if the situation was so urgent that he had to hurry over, it definitely had to be unusual.

“No, Chairman. I drove over today, so I’ll drive over there myself.”

The two men left the restaurant and headed to the carpark. Ha Jae-Gun opened the door to his car, and before boarding, he turned to face Oh Myung-Suk, saying, “Thank you for your concern. I’ll definitely make up for the inconvenience I’ve caused you today, Chairman.”

“Please drive safely; I’ll be waiting for your call.”

Vroom!

Ha Jae-Gun started the car and set the navigator to a certain university hospital located in Gyeongju. Had he driven out today expecting that something like this would happen? He was even thankful for the empty roads today.

"We still can’t determine whether it was a simple fall or there are any other circ.u.mstances, as the patient has yet to come around."

Ha Jae-Gun’s face darkened as he recalled the police’s words.

The words "other circ.u.mstances" could also refer to the possibility of attempted suicide. If it were an act of attempted suicide… Ha Jae-Gun couldn"t help but wonder what kind of life Seo Sang-Do had been living all this time.

Ha Jae-Gun had been hoping that Seo Sang-Do was somewhere safe after leaving behind that letter. Now that he had discovered the truth, Ha Jae-Gun felt like crying.

‘Guncheon patrol station…’ It was the place where he saw Gyeoja Bathhouse in his dream and brought Lee Soo-Hee along to visit. This time, he was going to meet Seo Gun-Woo"s son there.

Was it a mere coincidence? Although it seemed unlikely, there was no connection between them.

Soon, the tollgate came into view.

***

‘Please don’t do that, Father.’ On a sunny spring day at the zoo, Seo Sang-Do, in his middle school days, was holding back the tears that threatened to burst out of his eyelids. It was painful biting down on his lips, but he couldn’t let it go.

He was on a picnic with his father after a long while, but his father was more often not with him. He had gone to a neighboring table to read their young boy’s writing and was busy complimenting the young boy"s work, not giving his own son any attention. He even went as far as to edit it on the spot and even gave his own name and phone number to them.

‘I’m working hard on my writing, too… I even got first place in my school’s writing contest…’

There was no way he could stop the tears from falling as they welled in his eyes. Seo Sang-Do turned away, swallowing his sobs. As he picked up the kimbap on the table and shoved it into his mouth, he composed himself. He was still young, but he had an inkling as to what was going on.

His father wasn’t the type to be swayed easily by emotions when it came to writing, and there was no way his father was doing that because he disliked his own son. It was purely due to the fact that the boy, who was at least five to six years younger than himself, was much more gifted at writing than him.

“Sang-Do, come over and have some apples, too.”

Seo Sang-Do did not even pretend that he hadn’t heard his own father. The man from the neighboring table sent his own son over, offering Seo Sang-Do to have some of the apples with a bright smile.

“Hyung, have some apples.”

“...”

“Hyung, the adults are asking you to have the apples. Hyung?”

“...Just go.”

However, the little boy did not leave and persisted. Seo Sang-Do was the one who left the table first. As he splashed cold water onto his face at the tap, the unforgettable memory marked the end of his day.

“I’m asking you to leave… Please just disappear…”

“Senior Sang-Do, are you awake?”

“...?” Seo Sang-Do’s eyes slowly opened. The world seen through his eyes was spinning as well. He only began seeing the young boy’s face who had offered him apples before as his eyes refocused.

“Senior? Do you see me?”

Unlike the face of a child, the voice sounded deep like an adult’s voice. Seo Sang-Do squinted, staring at the young boy. Like the morning mist at the lake, the young boy’s figure was still a blur to him, but Ha Jae-Gun’s face soon became clear to him.

“Y-you…?”

“Do you recognize me? I’m Ha Jae-Gun. I rushed over immediately after getting the call. You finally woke up after six hours.”

Seo Sang-Do’s eyes hovered around Ha Jae-Gun’s face, and he finally realized the scene he saw earlier was just a dream. Still, it took him quite some time to grasp the fact that in reality, it was Ha Jae-Gun standing before him.

“…” Still not saying a word, Seo Sang-Do turned his head around and saw his broken leg. Pain surged all over him, but none of the pain was comparable to the pain he felt in his heart.

In the meantime, Ha Jae-Gun waited silently without probing further. However, his eyes were fixed on Seo Sang-Do’s possessions; one of them was a book in a shabby-looking bag, The Malice.

***

“I’ve already started on it. It’s going to be a short story, so it won’t take a few months to complete,” Oh Tae-Jin said into the phone while in the room of his private villa located in Chuncheon. A memory stick was in his hand.

— You’re remarkable, Chairman. I couldn’t even imagine being able to write such a good piece within such a short period of time. I don’t know how I should express my grat.i.tude as the Minister of Culture.

“Hoho, it’s nothing. I just hope that the novel won"t cause any trouble in the Korea-China cultural exchange.” Oh Tae-Jin hung up the call after a while.

A soft breeze flowed through the open window. Sitting down on the rocking chair, Oh Tae-Jin smiled. “Huhuhu… so this is how it feels.”

It was a scenery that Oh Tae-Jin hadn’t seen before. He felt that the world around him had changed drastically ever since the publication of Five Dreams. The ambiguity that those so-called critics had shown before had disappeared, and they were all singing high praises of him from the bottom of their hearts. The applause from readers on the Internet was infinite as well.

“I understand now… the kind of joy you have lived through back during our university days. You pretended to be nonchalant on the outside, but you must be feeling infinite joy inside. I"m finally realizing how that kind of honor truly feels like.”

Oh Tae-Jin did not let go of the memory stick in his hand.

Just like for Five Dreams, he planned to publish this work for the Korea-China cultural exchange. The first two times felt like torture; he regarded himself as lesser than insects, and he even had nightmares from it.

However, those were all in the past now. He had nothing to hide now, so he was all smiles. He was prepared to take in everything that his long-time friend had left behind and replace them with his own name.

For some reason, it felt natural for him to do so.

“You don’t have to feel guilty at all…” Oh Tae-Jin mumbled as he pulled out an old black and white photo from the drawer. It was a photo taken in his early twenties. He looked at his thin-looking friend beside him and said, “I"ve proven that your works do resonate with the public. Just know and understand that it’ll be shown to the world using my name.

"Why don’t you consider this as repayment for my youth which I’ve devoted to you throughout all those years?”

The smile on Oh Tae-Jin’s face disappeared slowly as he was reminded of the truth. He could fool his own son and everyone else in this world, but definitely not himself and his friend.

“You must have brought most of your writings to your grave, anyway, so… why shouldn’t you just… be grateful toward me…!” Oh Tae-Jin crumbled the photo in his hand and eventually tore it up into pieces. As the pieces fell onto the floor, the long-standing friendship between him and his friend crumbled.

***

“Do you feel uncomfortable anywhere?”

“You desperately want to show off your wealth, so how is giving some response a difficult thing to do?” Seo Sang-Do responded with sarcasm.

He was being mocked by the convenience that Ha Jae-Gun had provided him—from a private hospital ward to caregiver services.

Two weeks had pa.s.sed since the accident. Ha Jae-Gun had been traveling from Seoul to Gyeongju daily to visit Seo Sang-Do, who couldn’t move at all. He did not hesitate to stay over at Gyeongju when Lee Soo-Hee took Eun-Chae back to her family’s place over the weekends.

Meanwhile, Seo Sang-Do barely spoke a word aside from the fact that it was an accidental fall and not a suicide attempt. Regardless of whether Ha Jae-Gun was with him or not, Seo Sang-Do spent the entire day looking out the window, watching the spring scenery.

In fact, Ha Jae-Gun didn’t fully believe that Seo Sang-Do had tripped, as his condition seemed extremely bad. Seo Sang-Do would groan in his nightmares at night and wail as he sought for alcohol. Ha Jae-Gun was afraid to even ask how Seo Sang-Do had been living in the past few years.

He didn’t have only one question. He wanted to ask what had happened over the last few years, why he had sent that resentful message, and why he came down to Gyeongju. Ha Jae-Gun also wanted to ask what were those emotions hidden in that hostile gaze of his when they finally met once more.

Either way, Ha Jae-Gun still did not probe further. Seo Sang-Do lay quietly on the hospital bed like a fragile bird that would fly away immediately at the slightest touch. Ha Jae-Gun could only wait patiently for him.

One day…

Bzzt!

Ha Jae-Gun looked up at the vibrating phone, and his face was painted with surprise upon discovering that Seo Sang-Do’s phone was the ringing phone. The name shown on the screen was Kang Yeon-Ju.

“…” Seo Sang-Do put away his phone as soon as he saw that name. His phone vibrated for a while, and Seo Sang-Do let out a long sigh as he looked up at the ceiling.

Ha Jae-Gun guessed that the phone call earlier was from someone close to Seo Sang-Do"s heart, and they could be the one who had brought about the changes in Seo Sang-Do’s life.

“What are you curious about?”

“Sorry?” The sudden question threw Ha Jae-Gun off.

Seo Sang-Do remained expressionless as he looked at the ceiling. “What are you so curious about that is making you stick around for so long? I don’t want to see you any longer, so say it quickly and leave.”

Ha Jae-Gun then recalled the questions he had been wanting to ask for a while, but unlike his will, the first question escaped from his mouth. “Do you hate me by any chance?”

“…”

“If I’m right, I’d like to know the reason.”

“…”

“My admiration only grew after reading the Great Life that you gave it to me. I thought that it would be great if I could complete it in any way possible. That’s why I wanted to meet you so desperately.”

“Complete it my foot…” Seo Sang-Do murmured so quietly that Ha Jae-Gun couldn’t even hear it. His bloodshot eyes were filled with tears, not bothering to conceal the sorrow flowing down his face.

“It’s not your fault.”

“Pardon?”

“After meeting you that day… I’ve been wandering all over the country and reading your novels whenever they were published. Even when I’ve shut my eyes and ears from the world, I still can"t ignore your works.”

Seo Sang-Do controlled his breathing and continued, “Even after plagiarizing, my spirit as a writer still lingered in me. And I became curious about you, as someone who showed interest in my father when you’ve never even met him once in your life.”

“Senior, I…”

”Don’t talk! I’m the only one who’s going to talk here!” Seo Sang-Do yelled with a tearful face.

Ha Jae-Gun shut his mouth immediately.

Seo Sang-Do growled lowly. “I felt it the more I read your works, realizing that you weren’t just a random person who had a connection with my father’s grave. If you weren’t an incompetent writer like me and his son instead, my father would have been extremely happy…”

Seo Sang-Do raised his good arm to wipe away the tears on his face. Then, he reached for the copy of The Malice left in his bag. “I read it thirty times and cried all thirty times.”

“…?”

“It’s a remarkable novel that made me cry so much. How much effort did you put in to have progressed so much day by day? And what have I been doing so far? I’ve forgotten how I’ve plagiarized works, hated my father, and even wasted my precious years of youth. I even consoled myself, persuading myself that this was revenge against my father…”

“…”

“Now I know why I hate you. My insides would always twist just by seeing you as you remind me of my past mistakes that I didn’t even want to think about. So…” Seo Sang-Do trailed off and pulled out the phone which he had put away. He awkwardly scrolled through the contacts on the phone.

Moments later, Ha Jae-Gun felt a vibration from his own phone.

“I’ve just sent you a number and address.”

“…What do you mean?”

“You wanted to complete that novel for my father, right? So take a look at it yourself, and take it with you if you want. If you need me to fill in paperwork for the copyright and the like; just bring the doc.u.ments to me. I’ll give them all to you without regrets.”

Around ten minutes later, Ha Jae-Gun got into his car and keyed in the address on the navigator. The place where the woman called Kang Yeon-Ju lived was not far from the hospital.

Ha Jae-Gun hit the accelerator as he headed for the location where he had visited Gyeoja Bathhouse, which was located in Guncheon, Gyeongju City.