The Critic in Red Glasses
I was taking my time across the campus of Seoul National University. It would be a few days yet before the department chair made up his mind. No need to rush.
That aside—I really have been coming to Seoul National a lot lately. The school was enormous, and the air was clear besides. The students here must actually enjoy their studying.
Since I had been born again anyway... maybe I ought to study hard myself. Just throw myself into it? Don't be ridiculous. Math made that impossible. Ahem.
I walked a good long while before I turned toward the library. I was curious what Seoul National's library looked like. I'm already out. Going straight home would be a waste. Right—I might as well look at a few books before I left. I strode into the reading room. That good smell of books, welcome no matter when you met it!
While I was wondering what to read, English originals came to mind. In my previous life I had truly envied people who were good at English. Right now I have more free time than I know what to do with. Why not study a little English while I was at it? I even had a plausible excuse. Right. Dürer's work just happens to be in America. Studying ahead of time can't hurt.
My footsteps were the only sound. The original-language corner was quiet. There had to be plenty of English majors on campus, and yet this place was strangely empty of people. Suits me fine.
My English had stalled at the college entrance exam. Calling it entrance-exam level was being generous; I had forgotten nearly everything I crammed back then. Let's see. Raymond Carver ought to be about the same.
And then—what was this. This is hard! Or was the difficulty only natural? True enough, even on the exam I had barely scraped a Level 2. Close-reading an original at that level was a joke. Ah. A second turn at life, and I thought English would come easily too.
Still, what could I do. If one spoon of rice will not fill you, you keep lifting the spoon. I'll read until I get it. I leaned back and kept my head buried in the book for a long time. I was about halfway through The Old Man and the Sea when I heard it.
A shuffle of footsteps. For the first time, there was another presence in the original-language corner. Maybe it was because I had been flailing, half drowned in a tide of English, but I looked up oddly glad.
Ordinary height, shaggy hair. A worn button-down and jeans faded of their color. Everything about the outfit was plain, but one thing—the red glasses—made the young man look special.
Huh. This guy?
He was staring straight at me, too. A child reading an original in the library must have looked strange. His gaze did not linger, though. He offered a light smile in place of a greeting and turned back to the shelves. Our eyes met only for an instant. Even so, I was certain who he was.
Right. The red glasses. The film critic most in the spotlight in the 2020s. Yoo Dongjin himself.
I had met Yoo Dongjin in my previous life, because he invited me onto the literature podcast he hosted. At the time I was a writer of no particular account. I could not even sell a thousand copies, and I was costing my publisher money. And that nobody, Yoo Dongjin had personally put on the air. He said I was someone Korean literature could not do without.
After the recording, we went for drinks on our own. He brought out a copy worn soft by his hands and asked, carefully, for a signature, telling me he had read it sentence by sentence, turning each line over. Then he slipped the book into his briefcase like a treasure and said he would keep it safe.
Years had passed. The fact that I still remembered the scene so clearly meant it had been one of the few happy memories of my life.
After that, Critic Yoo Dongjin climbed and climbed, armed with that particular diligence of his. I, on the other hand—well. Tsk.
Perhaps it was thanks to that good memory that I ended up reading nearly everything he wrote, from his travel essays to his volumes of criticism. And to think I would meet a man like that again in this life. And not just any Yoo Dongjin—Yoo Dongjin the college student!
Glad to see him, I went over. He must have thought I was on my way out; he pressed himself toward the shelves and opened as wide a path as he could. But I simply stood near him, blankly staring.
"...?"
A question mark rose on his face.
"Do you need help?"
I had walked up because I was happy to see him. Acting as if we knew each other from a past life was a bit much for a hello. Then again, just walking on felt wrong, too. So I forced the words out.
"Hyung... do you tutor?"
Yoo Dongjin and I were sitting side by side on a bench. He held a paper cup of vending-machine coffee; I held an orange juice. Considering the balance in my account, I should have been the one to pay. As it happened, Yoo Dongjin covered it. Then again, an eleven-year-old buying the drinks at a first meeting would have been odd, too.
"You live around here?"
"No. Over in Hannam-dong."
"Then how did you end up all the way at the university?"
"Looking around... I came to look around."
"Yeah?"
"..."
"You want to study English?"
"Yes. More or less."
"Sorry, but I'm not good enough to teach anyone."
"You're a Seoul National student. I'm eleven."
A short laugh escaped him, and he tried to hide it behind his paper cup.
"Why do you want to learn English?"
"I want to read books in the original."
"Already, at your age?"
I'm thirty-five. Ahem. I could not tell him the truth, so I found a suitable answer.
"There are still so many books that haven't been translated."
"So you want to learn English and read them yourself?"
"Yes."
"That's admirable."
Yoo Dongjin took a sip of coffee.
"Do you have a favorite writer?"
"Fitzgerald."
"The Great Gatsby?"
"Yes. I also like Raymond Carver, Kurt Vonnegut, and Richard Brautigan."
"Hm?"
"What?"
"Richard Brautigan... he hasn't been translated, has he?"
Ah. I had not thought that far.
"I—I stumbled through the original. When I didn't know a word, my dad explained it. Then Dad got tired of it, so... I decided to learn it myself."
"Ah. Is that so?"
Fortunately, he did not look suspicious.
"You really do read hard, don't you."
"Yes. I like books."
"Why do you like books?"
"A person can't live twice."
Except me.
"But when you read, you get to try other lives. I like that I can live as Gatsby today, as Caulfield tomorrow, and as Huckleberry Finn the day after."
"Whose life was the most fun?"
Park Jihoon's. That was the honest answer. Once again, I offered a suitable one instead.
"Gatsby's, of course."
We kept talking after that, about this and that. All of it was literature, and neither of us stalled; the conversation ran on without a hitch.
The sun was sinking low. Around the time a chill began to creep over me, Yoo Dongjin drained what was left of his coffee. For a moment he seemed to sink into thought.
"...Hmm."
He chose his words with care.
"How about coming by campus to hang out now and then?"
"What?"
"Really?"
"Yeah. On one condition. I'm not teaching you. We talk as equals, like friends."
A fourth-grade boy who loved literature. He meant he did not want to make money off that child's heart. The tutoring was half an excuse on my side, too... It was a thoroughly Yoo Dongjin answer.
"But, hyung."
"Yeah?"
At my question, Yoo Dongjin's eyes lit like a child's. Because of that, we ended up talking for a long while after.
In the car, on the way home, I turned it over. It had been a purely chance meeting. And yet that meeting had given shape to a feeling that until then had been nothing but vague.
If I sell the Dürer and make the money—then what?
Right. I was running because I hated to let the twenty billion won in front of me slip away. But once I had reached the goal, what would I do with the money?
There were plenty of choices, but today a very strong candidate had surfaced. What if I started a publishing house? A press packed to the rafters with only the books I wanted to read. Yes. Set up one proper house, and I would never have to worry about books for the rest of my life. Probably.
The idea was appealing enough that one thought chased the next. An eleven-year-old can't run a company. If I could, I would rather bring in a boss who lived and breathed books. Who was there? Someone who loved books as much as I did...
The first name to come to mind, without a contest: the critic I met today, Yoo Dongjin!
Yes. If it was him, I could trust him. Whether it would turn a profit, I had no idea. A company full of good books, first of all! It felt as if I had one more reason I needed to make money.
Starting a press... call it five hundred million won, to be safe? That still left a full nineteen and a half billion. And what would I do with that?
The happy daydream kept my mood bright the whole way home.
At that same hour, Park Jongin, vice chairman of Hyeon-gang, was meeting Dr. Kim Yuwon of Yuwon Semiconductor to discuss an acquisition.
The purchase price itself was something Park Jongin could cover by emptying his private fortune. The problem was the enormous investment that would have to follow. At least a trillion won would have to go in over ten years. Across that same span, they would have to pour in a full three times what the Japanese firms were spending if they hoped for any meaningful result. Without the weight of the parent company behind them, it was utterly impossible.
Perhaps that was why Park Jongin's face had darkened. Dr. Kim Yuwon spoke, his voice heavy.
"Well, it is an enormous sum. Still... if we can only show the result we're aiming for, wouldn't the shareholders allow the investment?"
The result they were aiming for could only mean winning foundry orders from American companies. But simply building facilities that met the American standard would take at least a hundred billion won. Chaebol or not, a hundred billion won was not a sum you could whistle up like a dog.
"It won't be easy, will it?"
Half resigned, Kim Yuwon soon let his head drop. Park Jongin's eyes, by contrast, had not yet lost their calm.
"I will find a way, somehow."
"...You really will?"
"So please keep in contact with the American companies, Doctor."
"Ah, yes. I understand."
"And, as I promised..."
"...?"
"Even after the acquisition, I will guarantee you your various rights. All you need to do is keep concentrating on your research, just as you are now."
"Thank you! I will not forget this kindness."
Dr. Kim Yuwon shot to his feet and bowed from the waist. Park Jongin did not. A hundred billion... Little by little, his heart was burning itself away.