Hong Seon-woong and Kim Dan-woo (3)
19.
Kim Dan-woo never contacted me, not once, all the way to the end. I’d hoped he might, but as expected, he didn’t. It was disappointing, but there was nothing to be done.
Whatever happened from here on out, Kim Dan-woo would have to carry it himself. And so the day of The Boy, Tomorrow’s book concert arrived. The event was being held at Gyeongseong Publishing.
One wing of the building followed the layout of a traditional hanok, which made the courtyard perfect for an outdoor event. I met Hong Seon-woong in the green room.
He put on an exaggerated show of delight. “Hyunsun, right?! It’s been forever!!”
“Long time no see.”
“The Mok Hyunsun who wrote a review for the autumn issue of Gyeongseong Geul is really you! It’s such a pleasure to see you. How have you been?”
“I’ve been well. How’s Father?”
At the word father, Hong Seon-woong’s smile stiffened.
“He’s healthy. Don’t worry about him. I’ve been taking good care of him.”
“I’m glad to hear it. I was planning to call him myself soon.”
“...Ah... but you...?” His face practically asked, Haven’t you two cut ties?
He looked revolting. Just then, one of the staff came in looking for me.
There was no value in talking to him anyway, so the interruption was welcome.
I gave him a casual wave. “See you later.”
Outside the green room, I was handed a cue card and a microphone. “Please take good care of us today, Editor Mok. There are a lot of people here because of you, so I’m sure this will be even more enjoyable.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yes. For now, please build the author up as much as you can. You read manuscripts all the time, right? If you have any questions that might interest the readers, feel free to ask them.”
“Build up the author, and ask whatever I want...”
Not bad. “That sounds great. I think I’ll have fun.”
Before long, the book concert began. Hong Seon-woong had planned all sorts of things for the day: a reading session, congratulatory speeches from fellow writers, even a band he’d invited to sing lyrics lifted from his fiction. In short, he had done everything but sprout wings and fly away on his own ego. My talk with him was scheduled for the final slot.
We sat facing each other on chairs set up on the lawn. At first, I praised him appropriately. And once the mood had ripened nicely, I asked, “Many people call you the Korean Demian. How do you feel about that?”
“Haha... my ears are turning red just hearing it. It’s truly embarrassing to be compared with a master like Hermann Hesse, but I’m grateful that my novels seem to possess that kind of power.”
“Power, you say...?”
“Yes. Well... perhaps the power to lead boys toward the light?” He began comparing his own fiction to Demian.
He must think about this constantly, because the words poured out of him like water. “...In the worlds I create, boys are always given a challenge. And at the end of that challenge, they move toward the light of romance.”
“That’s a lovely way of putting it. A boy’s trial and the light of romance. It reminds me of the old saying, ‘The bird fights its way out of the egg.’”
“Haha, to hear such praise...” Hong Seon-woong’s eyes curved like a Hahoe mask. “Yes. Bold as it may sound, I think I can say that. The literary world of Hong Seon-woong strives to inherit the spirit of Demian.” Applause broke out.
A few audience members even began to look at him with admiration. The author-flattery part was done.
Now it was time for the “free” questions.
The one I especially wanted to ask.
“Then could The Fisherman’s Blade be understood in the same way?”
“Ah—yes, that work. Yes, more or less.” He tried to brush it aside.
I turned to the audience. “That’s the final story in the collection you’re holding now. It hasn’t been published yet, so it might be better to read along as you listen.”
Flick, flick. Pages turned. Since it wasn’t a long piece, they’d probably finish reading it quickly.
Hong Seon-woong’s smiling eyes seemed to be cursing me. Why are you doing something so pointless?
Then, all at once, he laughed. “You really are different, Editor Mok. That’s right. I did write that piece from a slightly different angle.”
“Oh? I’m curious what that angle was.”
“Hmm—the pain of reality that falls upon a boy. It isn’t only dreams that make a boy grow, after all; hardship does, too, doesn’t it?”
Of course, he had understood The Fisherman’s Blade as well.
The problem was that understanding it wasn’t enough.
“Growth, you say... interesting. Can you really call it growth when a minor boy enters the night world of pleasure?”
“Haha. Must growth always mean growing up the right way?” He brushed it off lightly, but I saw it.
The way the readers in the audience tilted their heads at the book.
The Fisherman’s Blade was undeniably a good work.
But it had absolutely nothing to do with Demian.
If Hong Seon-woong wanted The Fisherman’s Blade, then he should at least have kept his mouth shut while showing off with Demian.
There was nothing more ridiculous than an author whose worldview wobbled under his own feet. “I see. Hearing it that way, it does sound like an unusual novel.”
“I was so strongly inspired that I ended up writing it in one burst. It’s hard to explain every little detail. Haha. Next question, please.” He slipped away like a loach.
“Then let’s talk about P’s Ignorance.”
“By all means.” He smiled broadly. “It’s a novel about a boy who travels through Europe and grows into an artist, isn’t it? I read it very fondly.”
“Haha, thank you. I wanted to capture the beauty of the energy that comes from wanting to make a dream come true. And of imagination.”
“Ah, wonderful. Could you tell us a little more? It seems like a thread that runs through your work as a whole.”
“It does. That’s one point I absolutely refuse to compromise on. We were all boys once. That feeling of wanting to cheer on the boy, I believe that eventually becomes humanism.”
“Humanism. Beautiful words.” I’d given him room to breathe, so now I tightened the net again—harder this time. “Then the boy in The Fisherman’s Blade was also drawn with that humanistic gaze, I assume?”
“...” Hong Seon-woong’s brow creased with irritation.
As if to say: Why do you keep asking a question I barely escaped the first time?
He shot a look toward the production staff, but they didn’t catch on.
The event was unfolding exactly the way they had suggested it should. And honestly, who could have imagined that the author himself would be left speechless while explaining his own work?
I asked again. “I mean, like Demian, which loved the growth of the boy.”
“...Yes, something like that.” But then—
“...Isn’t that a little off...?”
“Ssshh...”
The audience, buried in their books, began to murmur.
Hong Seon-woong’s face flushed red.
Then, smoothly, he turned the arrow back on me. “In that case, I’d like to ask you something as well. How did you, Editor Mok, interpret The Fisherman’s Blade?”
So go on, then. Let’s hear you speak.
And I had a great deal to say.
“I think the boy in The Fisherman’s Blade is not an object of growth, but a ‘sample’ of this society.”
“...Excuse me?”
“That work lays bare a society in which poverty is inherited from one generation to the next. In that sense, it is an extremely cold novel.” The readers looked up from their books and turned to me.
“When you see a boy charging headlong in the wrong direction inside that landscape... well, I can’t say I feel like cheering him on.” A few faces nodded along.
“I didn’t think it was a novel written to invite emotional identification. Rather, I thought it wanted the reader to erase emotion and... observe. Like looking at a kind of ‘sample’ that reveals the contradictions of this society.”
And that was also Kim Dan-woo’s strength.
Within that gentle heart of his lay a cold gaze directed at the society around him.
Hong Seon-woong, who had lived as a plant in a greenhouse, could never imitate that, much less understand it. A few readers let out low murmurs of admiration—“Ah...”
And they looked at Hong Seon-woong with odd expressions.
Of course they did.
It was strange for an author to misunderstand his own work this badly.
“Personally, I thought you were truly remarkable. Your perspective, your temperature, your thematic concerns—how did you manage to write a novel so different from your others? I’m saying this half-jokingly, but I could almost believe it was written by an entirely different author. You’re really something.”
Different author.
At those words, Hong Seon-woong’s face went rigid.
And then, one by one, doubt began to deepen in the readers’ eyes. But just then, the hanok gate creaked open.
“...?!” For a second, I thought my eyes were deceiving me.
The person who walked through the gate was... my father.
“M-Mok Pilhyun!”
“No way.”
“Did he come to his disciple’s book concert?”
“He looks incredible...”
The color drained from Hong Seon-woong’s face and then came rushing back.
With an expression so pitiful it was almost tearful, he lurched to his feet as if he were seeing a savior. “Master—”
Then—SMACK!
“Eek!”
“What, what was that?”
“He... he hit him.”
Hong Seon-woong staggered under the blow from my father’s hand.
He looked utterly stunned.
My father said to him, “You lousy bastard. Couldn’t find anything else to steal, so you had to steal a novel?”
Steal a novel.
At that, the crowd was shaken to the core. For a moment, the courtyard fell silent.
Then, from here and there, disappointed voices began to spill out.
“...I knew it.”
“Something seemed off.”
“What... that’s such a letdown.”
What on earth was going on? I had been just about ready to push Hong Seon-woong into a corner myself, so why was my father the one who showed up and finished the job for me?
...Ah.
I saw the person standing beyond the gate and understood.
Kim Dan-woo.
So he’d told him everything.
He might not have been able to step forward and testify publicly, but he’d apparently had enough courage to go to my father.
My eyes met my father’s as he glared at Hong Seon-woong.
I’d thought he had grown frail, but seeing him like this, he still looked fit and sharp, which was a relief.
I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to react.
I didn’t know.
Seeing him face-to-face for the first time in years made my feelings far more complicated than I’d expected. So I simply bowed my head a little and said, “It’s been a while.” Then I left the chaotic venue behind.
Hong Seon-woong’s book was canceled before it could be published.
Kim, the team manager from the Korean Literature Department, took my hand again and let out a sigh of relief.
He’d said he’d wanted to contact me so badly.
It was clear from this that some people never change.
And that night, Kim Dan-woo came looking for me.
Kim Dan-woo’s talent was clearly too valuable to lose.
But if this was his choice, then I had to respect it.
And just like that, Kim Dan-woo left with a sense of lightness on his face. Hong Seon-woong was thoroughly, cleanly buried.
Of course the uproar from the book concert spread through the newspapers, but that was because an audience member had secretly filmed the whole thing and uploaded it online.
Reading that comment, I think I laughed a little.
A few days later, while checking the calendar, I noticed something.
Today was the deadline for the final New Spring Literary Contest, the Dongwol Daily competition.
I’d decided to give one up already, so why was I still feeling regret over it?
Then Manager Lee called me to a small conference room.
He held out a stack of manuscript paper.
“We’ve decided to run a special feature in this winter issue of Gyeongseong Geul. Your father sent us a manuscript out of the blue.”
...My father?
“If you want, you can read it first.”
Without thinking, I looked down at the manuscript paper.
And the moment I saw the title, I froze.
No Face.