4
Just an Assignment? (2)
The next morning.
Kwon Sangjun, Yujin’s father, who habitually woke up at the crack of dawn, was met with a surprising sight.
“I’m heading out.”
It was definitely... six in the morning.
He was surprised enough that his son was awake at this hour, but—
“Heading out? Where are you going at this time?”
“Ah, I’m going jogging.”
“...Jogging?”
Yujin was going jogging.
Had he heard that correctly?
Normally, no, even just last week, his son had struggled to get out of bed even when it was almost time for school.
On weekends, he would often stay up all night reading books and only wake up around midday the following day.
Sangjun had always been displeased by his son’s habits.
“Why? Is the fine dust really bad today? No, this isn’t New York. There’s no way it would be that bad in Iowa City—”
“Why all of a sudden?”
At his father’s hurried question, Yujin shrugged.
“Why? Because a healthy mind resides in a healthy body.”
“...”
He had just said something that sounded like it belonged in a public service announcement.
“They say we live in an age where people can live to be a hundred, right?”
“Hm?”
“If you’re going to live to a hundred, shouldn’t you live a long and healthy life? And for that, exercise is essential.”
“...”
His words sounded like those of a middle-aged man who had spent years in society, making Sangjun flinch for a moment.
“How about you, Father? Do you exercise?”
“Uh, no, I don’t really...”
“Then that works out perfectly. Starting tomorrow, just come out and run with me.”
“Huh?”
At his son’s suggestion that they go jogging together every morning, Sangjun’s eyes widened.
“Jogging? Good heavens.”
He had not run in nearly ten years, nor had he even properly exercised by walking...
“Anyway, I’ll be back.”
Sangjun stared blankly at the back of his son as Yujin cheerfully left the house in his tracksuit.
“Kate really was right.”
Hadn’t she been saying that all week?
“He’s not the Yujin we used to know, honey. It feels like he suddenly grew up over the past few days.”
“That stubborn kid couldn’t possibly do that.”
“I’m telling you, he’s different. And besides, isn’t that what kids are like during adolescence?”
Before the parents even realized it.
Their child had suddenly grown up, walking ahead on his own without even needing someone to push him from behind.
“Without even needing to push his back...”
As he repeated his wife’s words under his breath, Sangjun remembered that he had failed to hold his son’s hand when he
needed it most, let alone push him forward at the right time.
His former wife had died in a traffic accident when Yujin was ten.
It had been such a sudden death, and the loss had been so enormous that even Sangjun himself had struggled to accept it.
“...I didn’t properly take care of Yujin.”
At that time, both father and son had been struggling with their own grief.
That was when Sangjun met Kate.
He received great comfort from her, and by the time the subject of remarriage naturally came up—
“What are you doing? Remarrying?”
“...”
“Who gave you permission to do that... Have you already forgotten Mom?”
His son Yujin had become a child who said such things with hatred in his eyes.
That was right.
Perhaps that was where the rift between father and son had begun.
“...”
Sangjun had loved literature since his youth and was well versed in culture and general knowledge.
Yet strangely enough, he did not know how to have an open and honest conversation with his own son.
“Those were the kinds of things Yujin’s mother used to handle.”
Just as Sangjun was lost in complicated thoughts, a stack of printed manuscripts on the dining table caught his eye.
“Why is this here?”
It was the sample translation manuscript he had brought home a few days ago.
Kwon Sangjun ran a small literary agency that exported Korean works to the United States.
It was also the title his agency was pushing most aggressively.
When the market was active, quite a few works had been sold to the United States at decent prices, and thanks to that,
his agency had been doing fairly well.
“But lately, we keep getting rejected.”
The works were clearly well regarded in Korea, but for some reason, when he introduced them to American publishers, the
response was not very good.
It was difficult to simply blame the difference in market needs and reader trends between the two countries.
“These works have already gone through a thorough trend analysis...”
He lifted the manuscript with a disappointed feeling.
Then he noticed traces of corrections and edits made with a red pen all over the pages.
“The translated English sentences... have all been corrected one by one.”
Some had been changed word by word, while others had been rewritten as entire sentences.
Who could have done this?
Kate?
But then again, Kate ran a small bookstore in the neighborhood and had never corrected one of his manuscripts before.
Wait.
In the middle of the manuscript, he noticed the word grenade.
More precisely, the lowercase g, written with an unusually long, distinctive tail, caught his attention.
There was no mistaking it.
“This looks like Yujin’s handwriting.”
He remembered that his son had a very distinctive habit of writing the letter g.
Could it really be that his English had improved enough in such a short time to correct someone else’s manuscript?
People did say children’s skills could improve in an instant.
But it had only been a few months since he had seen a short story Yujin had written in English.
“Back then, his ability was nowhere near sufficient.”
...Still, he should not have said it so harshly.
Sangjun sighed with belated regret.
More than anyone, Yujin’s father knew that his son had dreamed of becoming a novelist since childhood.
As someone who worked in publishing and had once dreamed of becoming a writer himself, he understood his son’s longing
all too well.
“What you wrote isn’t something you can show other people.”
He knew all too well what kind of lives novelists with insufficient talent, or writers without luck, ended up living.
“Not just anyone can become a novelist, Kwon Yujin.”
“...”
“This is a world you shouldn’t even dream of entering unless you have considerable talent.”
When his son had gathered the courage to bring him his draft, Sangjun had deliberately spoken even more coldly.
...That had been six months ago.
After that, once Yujin entered tenth grade, the boy seemed to close the door to his heart even more tightly.
“So there’s no way that kid could have worked this hard on my manuscript...”
Even so.
Sangjun could not take his eyes off the manuscript covered in red ink.
“Let’s see.”
The manuscript was much more polished from the very first sentence.
As he read one sentence, then another, he naturally became immersed in it.
“...”
He read the entire thing from beginning to end without realizing how much time had passed, absorbed in the revised
sentences.
“This has become... an entirely new manuscript.”
Not only was it much smoother to read than the original version.
The author’s message was also clearer, while the writing itself was much more vivid.
“This isn’t the level of editing an ordinary high school student could achieve just by being good at English.”
At the very least, it seemed like the kind of editing and proofreading that could only be done by a professional editor,
perhaps even one of those elite New York editors who were among the best in the field.
Just as he reached that conclusion, another thought occurred to him.
“Could it be that the sample translation itself was the problem?”
Having worked in the field for a long time, Kwon Sangjun could read English manuscripts freely.
But he was not skilled enough to distinguish whether the English sounded completely natural to native speakers or
whether the translation was awkward and lacking.
“Yes. If that’s the case, then perhaps...”
Perhaps the reason so many contracts had fallen through until now was the quality of the translation.
His grip unconsciously tightened around the manuscript.
“Huff, I’m back.”
Ding.
The door opened, and Yujin walked in, drenched in sweat.
For some reason, Sangjun instinctively shoved the stack of manuscripts under the dining table before turning toward his
son as casually as possible.
“Did you get a good workout?”
“Yes. It feels great to run after such a long time.”
“...Really?”
“Exercise and sweating really do make you feel good. This way, you can properly flush out all the waste products...”
Wasn’t this the same son who had avoided exercise just as much as he had?
Seeing Yujin, drenched in sweat and preaching about the value of good health, was incredibly unfamiliar.
“Starting tomorrow, you’re really coming out with me, right?”
“Uh, well...”
Going jogging alone with his son.
How was he supposed to endure that awkwardness?
Those thoughts were already running through his mind when his hand instinctively reached for the pack of cigarettes
tucked away in the corner of the table.
“Wait.”
Yujin’s hand shot out like lightning and grabbed his father’s wrist.
“What... exactly are you doing?”
“Uh, no, it’s just...”
His son faced him and spoke one word at a time.
“Don’t tell me... after I told you that many times, you still haven’t thrown them away?”
Sangjun’s voice trembled despite himself.
“I-I was going to throw them away.”
“Right? You weren’t... planning to smoke again, were you?”
That sharp gaze, reminiscent of an eagle just before it seized its prey—
“He looks exactly like Hyunhee.”
It was identical to the gaze of Yujin’s mother, who had passed away long ago.
I had not meant to.
But somehow, I ended up nagging my father again from the very morning.
Afterward, I leisurely arrived at the English Literature classroom for first period.
“Huh? What’s this?”
I was surprised when I saw the printed papers placed on my desk.
[The Confession of Friar Laurence]
Come to think of it, hadn’t Mr. Leonard said that they would select the best assignment and discuss it in class?
There was a printout on every student’s desk.
And what was printed on them was none other than the parody novel I had written.
“I didn’t expect this. I submitted it after the deadline.”
It was still only one of the students’ assignments that had been selected, but the unexpected development made the
corners of my mouth rise.
“Wow, I guess this is one of the assignments that got selected.”
“Oh, I can already feel something from the first line.”
The other students seemed to have noticed the story as well.
“This is seriously amazing. I just finished reading it, and I couldn’t even breathe while reading...”
“Wow, who would have thought to change it like this?”
“This is freaking awesome. Who wrote it?”
Exclamations of admiration erupted from all around the classroom.
Naturally, my name was not printed on the handouts.
“This is kind of embarrassing.”
I remained silent, and Mr. Leonard entered right on time.
“Good morning, everyone.”
This was the AP English Literature class I had stubbornly insisted on taking because I had heard it dealt extensively
with creative writing theory.
I remembered it being quite difficult for me before my regression.
“As I announced last week, today we’ll select one of the Romeo and Juliet parody assignments and...”
After the teacher’s brief explanation ended, the students began freely sharing their opinions.
“This novel can be seen as a letter and confession written by Friar Laurence to the Prince of Verona...”
“I never imagined that simply changing the narrator could have this much of an effect.”
“And isn’t the epistolary format really good, too?”
“Exactly. You could say it leaves room for the reader’s imagination to fill in the gaps.”
The atmosphere was incredibly heated.
The students were so excited that their cheeks were flushed as they passionately discussed the story.
“They’re young. So young.”
I watched them fondly with my arms crossed in front of my chest.
Passion for stories was always a wonderful thing to witness.
“There’s a secret and twist on the final page that I never saw coming. It was incredibly shocking.”
“Yeah, I almost gasped when I was reading it.”
“It’s also the moment when the genre of the story suddenly changes from romance to thriller.”
“Honestly, I was genuinely surprised. I never thought a class assignment could produce a story with this level of
completion...”
...
How long had the discussion continued?
Just as I felt as though the temperature inside the classroom had risen by at least one degree—
“...”
I did not know when it had happened.
But I met Mr. Leonard’s eyes as he watched me.
Just as I thought I saw a smile appear beneath his beard—
“Would you like to say a few words too, Yujin?”
“Uh... yes.”
Aware of all the eyes turning toward me, I leisurely continued speaking.
“I think the overall analysis and evaluation of the work have already been done thoroughly enough.”
Perhaps because I had never spoken this much in this class before.
Surprise appeared in the eyes of the students watching me.
“So I don’t really have much to add regarding that. However...”
One corner of my mouth lifted slightly.
“There’s one typo in the middle. ...On page three, in the section where it says ‘proof of love,’ proof is spelled
‘proov.’”
“...”
The classroom seemed to fall silent for a moment.
“Oh, it really is.”
“How did we miss that?”
“Pfft...”
The fiercely heated atmosphere softened, and quiet laughter escaped from various corners of the classroom.
A smile also appeared on Mr. Leonard’s face.
“That’s the perfect review to bring things to a close.”
The laughter continued a little more softly at his words.
“Besides, it’s surprisingly difficult to find a typo in something you wrote yourself. Good catch.”
Yourself.
At that single word, the classroom suddenly became as quiet as though cold water had been poured over it.
“...!”
The students’ heads slowly turned toward me.
As if their eyes were asking—
“What exactly did he mean by that?”