3
Just an Assignment? (1)
Then Ned suddenly became extremely excited and began spilling out words.
“Wow, seriously. This is insane. Absolutely insane.”
“...What’s so insane?”
“No, no, I mean this short story you wrote!”
The excited Ned pointed at the screen of my laptop.
“This is a letter written from Friar Laurence’s point of view, right?”
I simply nodded.
In professional terms, it was an epistolary novel.
It was not a particularly common format in fiction.
But when used properly in a short story, it could produce an excellent effect.
“Wait a second. Isn’t the assignment basically to write a fanfic of Romeo and Juliet?”
“Fanfic? Heh, I suppose you could look at it that way.”
“Yeah, yeah. I read what that senior wrote.”
The senior from the comics club had written his version with Romeo and Juliet as heroes belonging to opposing factions.
“Damn, I never would have imagined changing it like this. You created an entirely new story just by changing the narrator of the novel?”
As expected of Ned, who read everything from comics to genre fiction without discrimination, he immediately grasped the core idea.
“Exactly. From that perspective, I think Mr. Leonard gave us a pretty good assignment.”
Writing a novel, contrary to what most people believed, was not about creating something out of nothing.
The stories I had read, watched, and heard throughout my life.
The countless experiences I had actually gone through...
It was about selecting the right ingredients from among all those things and weaving them together, like threads running lengthwise and crosswise, to create a finished product.
In that sense, parody was an excellent genre for beginners to try.
“It gives you a chance to freely move characters that have already been created by another author inside a perfectly functioning world.”
As Ned had said, changing the setting or genre by placing Romeo and Juliet into a superhero story was certainly a meaningful attempt.
“But you can do it with minimal changes, too.”
“Huh?”
“The narrator of the novel.”
In other words, even if you simply changed the perspective from which the events unfolded—
“The story would be given an entirely new vitality.”
“...”
Sensing that things had suddenly become quiet, I turned my head.
Ned was looking at me with a completely different expression in his eyes.
“Yujin, can you see this?”
Then, out of nowhere, he held out his arm.
“I’ve got goosebumps all over my arm.”
“...I don’t think I said anything that amazing.”
“No, that’s true, but...”
A wrinkle formed between Ned’s eyebrows in the middle of his pale face.
“You’re not the shy Yujin I know. Were you abducted by aliens or something? Did they replace you with a Yujin-MK2?”
“What’s going on?”
The Billie Eilish song that had been playing like background music suddenly stopped.
Adele walked over to us.
“Look at this.”
“...”
Adele stared blankly at my laptop screen, her eyes gradually widening.
“Wait, this...”
She snatched the mouse from my hand and frantically scrolled down, reading the story.
“What happens next?”
“Huh?”
“Where’s the next part?”
“I haven’t written it yet.”
“Oh, right. Of course. No, wait, that’s not what I mean...”
Adele shook her head as if she could not find the right words, then suddenly turned seriously toward Ned.
“I hate to admit it, Ned.”
“Say it.”
“I think I have to admit your theory.”
“Knew it.”
“...What theory are you talking about?”
When I asked in disbelief, Adele answered as though it were obvious.
“The neuron theory.”
“...”
“There’s no other way to explain this unless something incredible happened to Yujin’s brain.”
“See? I told you I was right.”
“I still remember the writing assignment Yujin asked me to look over last week. Back then, the sentences were honestly so ridiculous...”
Her words reminded me of the assignment I had written before my regression, making me feel rather embarrassed.
“See? I told you. Yujin must have awakened.”
“Yeah. Eugene the Awakened.”
Watching the two of them passionately develop their “Yujin Awakening Theory,” I could only let out an incredulous laugh.
“They’re having way too much fun.”
...Strictly speaking, I was not an awakened one.
I was a regressor.
The next morning.
A blue pickup truck drove across a gentle hill.
Kate spoke to Yujin, who could not take his eyes off the green scenery outside the window.
“Yujin, you seem to be in a good mood again today.”
Yujin turned toward her and grinned.
“How could I not be? Being alive itself is a blessing.”
“...What?”
“The weather is nice, the sunlight is bright. It’s perfect.”
Yujin turned his gaze back toward the window and continued.
“When I look at scenery like this, I think, ‘Ah, I’m really alive.’”
“...”
Kate let out a small laugh.
“That boy...”
Ever since he fell from that tree and woke up, he seemed to have suddenly become an old soul.
A little while later, when the pickup truck arrived at its destination, Yujin suddenly turned toward Kate with a serious expression.
“By the way, there’s one thing I want to ask you too, Kate.”
“Uh... ask me?”
The unexpected request made her nervous.
“Cola.”
Cola... why?
“I mean cola. There was an entire box of cola in the refrigerator.”
“Oh, and?”
Yujin furrowed his brow.
“How about we switch to diet cola from now on? If we really have to drink it.”
“Ah, sure, sure. I don’t see why not...”
“And if possible, let’s drink mineral water or tea instead of cola. You should cut down on beer too, Kate, okay?”
Why was he suddenly saying things like this?
Just as Kate was feeling bewildered, Yujin grinned, and a dimple appeared on his right cheek.
“Thanks for giving me a ride, Kate. I’ll take the school bus from tomorrow.”
“...Okay. See you later.”
Click—
Yujin closed the car door and walked away.
“Maybe he really is worried about us in his own way.”
Kate watched his departing figure for a long while with a pleased expression.
And then.
As Yujin had just entered the school grounds, someone came running toward him excitedly.
“Hey, Shy Boy! Yooouuu-Jiiin!”
Ah, Shy Boy.
That was definitely what they used to call him back in high school.
When Yujin turned around, he saw a Hispanic boy with curly hair pushed back by a headband.
What was his name again?
“...Aiden. It’s Aiden, right?”
“What is with that reaction? It’s not like we haven’t seen each other in ten years.”
Aiden grumbled as he pointed the phone attached to his selfie stick toward Yujin.
“Not ten years. It’s almost twenty.”
Aiden Soller was famous among the students for filming vlogs at every opportunity.
Apparently, his persistence paid off, because he eventually became a famous YouTuber.
For some reason, Yujin felt proud of him.
He grinned and looked directly into the camera.
“Filming today’s vlog?”
“Yeah, of course. But bro, what’s gotten into you today? You used to run away whenever I pointed a camera at you.”
“Did I?”
Come to think of it, he probably had.
It was not that he particularly disliked cameras.
He simply hated having his poor English exposed.
“Even though you ran away from the camera all the time, you still ended up getting fans?”
“...Fans?”
“Maybe because there are more K-pop fans these days. I’ve been getting quite a few comments asking when the Korean cutie is going to appear and telling me to show Yujin.”
Hmm.
That was a little embarrassing.
“So, Yujin, introduce yourself once. If you feel awkward, you can just say hi.”
There was nothing particularly awkward about being on camera.
After The Forgotten Saints was published, I had given interviews frequently.
Even before that, I had appeared on camera quite a few times as an editor.
“Can I say more than one word?”
“Huh? Of course! That’d be awesome!”
Yujin faced the camera directly and smiled brightly.
“Hi, everyone! Nice to meet you! Aiden’s vlog—”
“Yo, Aiden!”
“Yeah, Yo Aiden’s channel. Thanks for subscribing. I’m Yujin, Yujin Kwon.”
When he had first arrived here, Yujin looked back at Aiden, who had taken him around and introduced him to people everywhere, and smiled.
“Even though this Aiden guy looks like a bit of a troublemaker, he’s seriously dedicated to his channel, you know?”
“Wait a second. Did I really look like a troublemaker? Huh?”
“He’s so passionate about it that he’s even willing to risk getting detention while filming videos. So everyone, make sure to subscribe, hit like, and turn on notifications.”
After saying that, he stepped away casually.
Aiden looked as though he was about to burst into tears.
“Wooooow, Yuuujiiin... I’m so touched! So touched!”
“What’s there to be touched about? I’m leaving.”
As Aiden watched Yujin walk away, he muttered to himself before suddenly having a thought.
“But was Yujin always this good at English?”
While Aiden was marveling at how much Yujin had changed, Yujin’s story was also the main topic of conversation in the teachers’ lounge.
“I’m telling you, I was genuinely shocked. That Yujin student, who never even opened his mouth once during class...”
Kwon Yujin was known as an unmotivated student who rarely participated in class.
Yet now, not only was he raising his hand repeatedly to ask questions and make presentations—
“And after class, he even came up to me and said that he liked certain parts of today’s lecture and thanked me. Can you believe it?”
“Wow. I’ve seen everything now.”
“I know. They say children suddenly grow up in an instant, but still.”
The teachers chatted excitedly while Leonard, the literature teacher, sat listening on the sofa in the teachers’ lounge.
He had no idea what had come over Yujin over the weekend.
“I’m just glad. I’d been really worried about that kid.”
In the American Midwest, where white students made up the majority.
And at Hillcrest High School, where there were only a handful of Asian students, Yujin was the only Korean student.
“He seemed to have adjusted well to school thanks to Ned and... Adele, was it?”
Perhaps it was because of the language barrier.
It had been painfully obvious that he was gradually losing both interest and motivation toward his studies.
It was even more unfortunate because that was not something a teacher could easily fix.
“I’m so happy to hear that he’s changed.”
Just as the corners of Leonard’s lips naturally turned upward, his smartphone vibrated.
“A new email... I suppose it’s the assignment that was turned in late.”
He opened his inbox without much thought.
Then his eyes widened when he saw the sender’s name.
[Eugene Kwon | English Literature Assignment]
The assignment was to write a parody of Romeo and Juliet.
They were supposed to select the best work and examine it together in class that week.
“I’ve already made my selection and even printed copies to hand out to the students.”
To add to that.
Leonard was a former lecturer who had taught creative writing at a university, and he was also a writer who contributed his own work to a local literary magazine.
Perhaps because of that, the creative writing club he supervised at the high school was popular among students hoping to pursue writing professionally.
There were so many applicants that they even held an entrance test.
The AP English Literature class was also attended by many aspiring writers, so the overall level was quite high...
“Especially since this assignment was difficult even for native students.”
That was why he had not expected Yujin to complete it in the first place.
Although the deadline had passed, Leonard was pleased that Yujin had made the effort.
He immediately opened the attachment.
[The Confession of Friar Laurence]
Dear His Grace, Prince Escalus,
I am Friar Laurence, the friar responsible for the parish of Verona.
Last week, an incident occurred that greatly shocked the good citizens of our Verona...
It began with those words: a short epistolary novel spanning exactly six pages.
As he read the main text, Leonard could not even breathe.
“...”
Like a thirsty man finding a well.
He simply devoured the next sentence, then the next, reading frantically—
“...Leonard.”
A voice suddenly reached him, snapping him back to reality.
“Mr. Leonard, what are you looking at so intently on your phone?”
Even at his colleague’s question, Leonard could only respond with a dazed, “Ah...”
“What are you doing that you didn’t even hear me calling you?”
“Prints.”
“Pardon?”
Leonard abruptly sprang up from the sofa.
“I need to redo the prints.”
Muttering to himself, he hurriedly left the teachers’ lounge.
His colleague stared after him in bewilderment.