Paper Mask
Soop and a webtoon.
That was a remarkably good pairing.
The scale fit, and it suited the atmosphere of social media. On top of that, it was a short webtoon that had been excellent and still gone unnoticed. Even better. It was worth reviewing. There was only one thing that bothered me. "Is this work already available on the platform?"
"No. I took it down. I felt embarrassed for some reason."
Well. In that case, Soop couldn’t review Paper Mask.
It made no sense to cover a work that wasn’t even public. I had no choice, I supposed.
Still, Yoo An-mo seemed like a trustworthy person, so I carefully told him that I was Soop. He covered his mouth. "Y-you’re saying the critic is Soop?!"
"Shh." Someone might hear us.
We had to finish talking before the editor who had gone to answer the phone came back. "This is a secret." Nod, nod.
He nodded furiously. "I follow Soop too... But the way he stirs up attention, or writes those one-line reviews that really grab you—none of it felt like something a mainstream critic would do. Not that I mean it was low-level or anything. It just felt completely different? Like a hidden master kind of vibe. And that was you? How do you switch styles that fast?" He seemed to have about three hundred questions.
I didn’t have time to explain them one by one. "Thanks to being taught well by a few people along the way. Anyway, I’d like to review Paper Mask on Soop. Would that be all right?"
"H-hoot!!" He clapped a hand over his mouth again. "R-really? That work? No, why?"
"It’s a better work than I expected. It just got the wrong platform. So, what do you think? If you’re okay with it, I’ll need you to make the work public again."
"It’s completely fine. More than fine. You can chew it up and spit it out if you want. You don’t have to praise it at all. What I want is just... for Paper Mask to get another chance at life."
There was even a thin shine of tears in his eyes.
His regret over Paper Mask had nothing to do with money or fame.
Yoo An-mo was already a success as a webtoon artist. In that sense, Paper Mask was the child that hurt the most. The one that somehow stayed in his mind, the one he kept feeling sorry for. It was like a parent worrying over the child who had turned out especially unlucky. On the other hand, maybe it was something else entirely.
Maybe Yoo An-mo had poured a lot of himself into the character of Paper Mask. He might seem flamboyant at first glance, but beneath that, he seemed to chase values that went beyond money and fame.
In other words, love for the work. "There are two things you’ll have to promise me, though. Don’t pay any kind of compensation for my review. If it ever comes out later, both you and I will be in trouble."
"Ah... right, of course!"
"And one more thing. You absolutely must never reveal that I’m Soop."
"Yes, sir! Even if a knife is at my throat, I’ll keep my mouth shut."
...If a knife is at your throat, then at that point you might as well tell the truth. Right then, the door went click and opened. "Sorry. I was explaining a few things to the new editor."
The head editor was back. We quickly started eating again, as if we hadn’t just discussed anything unusual at all. I chatted casually with the editor once more, and at some point, when I met Yoo An-mo’s eyes, he winked at me and smiled.
Do you know the real pleasure of being Soop?
It was that I didn’t have to make a grand production out of anything. "I’ll eat lunch alone today."
"Why? Let’s have gamjatang. I’ll buy. It’s more fun when you’re there." Senior Yang kept hanging on me, but I said, "I’m going to a café for brunch. Want to come?"
"Brrrunch? What are you, some newlywed from Cheongdam? Forget it. Bread makes my stomach feel greasy. What about you, Yoon Seo-hoon?"
"Why ask me? Gamjatang, obviously. Since when does bread count as a meal?"
I shook them off beautifully and went out alone at lunchtime to a bakery.
I wasn’t really planning to eat brunch, either.
I ordered a bun stuffed with bulgogi and chicken, plus coffee. Meal time: ten minutes.
That left me fifty minutes.
Fifty minutes was more than enough. I logged into Soop’s account on Enstagram.
I assembled the feed in no time using a program built into the app. After doing it a few times, I had become quite the operator. Now then, first I needed to decide on the theme.
For the independent magazine, it was Empire of the Senses. For this one, I chose the theme of fantasy.
In that case, the webtoon was... "This is perfect." Picture Is Only the Side Dish (1) “Sorrow” — First Webtoon. Picture Is Only the Side Dish.
I borrowed a famous line from a legendary basketball manga.
Rather than a webtoon that might be too taste-specific, it would be more accessible to take a title from a comic that had become part of the medium’s ancestry.
I looked at the Paper Mask Yoo An-mo had sent me once more. I scrolled down quickly, then paused. "Hmm." I fell into thought. After all, the most important thing was...
It’s sad.
That word floated up before me.
What I could see after that was wrinkled paper. "...creased paper." And sorrow. I had to focus.
What, exactly, had been creased?
It was probably not just the hero’s body.
If that had been all, this webtoon would never have felt so sad. "Ah."
Right. I quickly created an image-text card on my phone.
The one-line review Soop was known for.
It’s sad because once the heart has been creased, it can never be fully smoothed out again.
Paper Mask had not only been creased in body.
It was the wound of no longer being able to be a hero.
In other words, it was the sense of loss we all have to feel at least once in our lives. Loss always leaves a mark.
People who have lost something carry that anxiety inside them without even realizing it.
Like paper that, once creased, can never be made perfectly crisp again.
The one-line review was done, so I made the next image.
Here I would introduce the plot of Paper Mask, and in the next image I would cut and paste a panel to help explain the story.
Just enough to stay on the safe side of copyright infringement.
And then the most important image. No, the line of dialogue.
It’s sad because no matter what you do, it can never be made perfectly flat again.
I edited that panel and showed it by itself. Now came the important part.
How would I persuade people of this sorrow?
Paper Mask was exceptional once, then a hero, then an ordinary man growing old.
Only those who fail are not allowed to know sorrow.
Those who succeed learn sorrow under the name of loss.
This was also the story of all of us.
Even the Buddha said that all formed things are bound to vanish.
Human beings are creatures who must inevitably suffer loss.
But Paper Mask did not stop there.
He was not an ordinary human being, but a hero.
I made one more image.
And that is why heroes are heroes.
Instead of trying to smooth out his creased heart, Paper Mask chose to die as a hero, even if only a creased one.
Next image.
And that is what we call the sublime.
That was enough.
Now that I had raised sorrow into sublimity, I needed to give people room to let it linger.
The next image was the back view of Paper Mask flying toward a burning meteor.
That silhouette only deepened the aftertaste.
Here is the sublimity of something wrinkled, stained, and burned away.
I finished all the images for the feed like that. It was more than enough to make people curious about the work.
And it had also distilled the point I wanted to make.
Soop’s regular readers mostly loved the cultish stuff.
They probably liked works that were harder to find in the mainstream webtoon industry all the more.
Without overthinking it, I uploaded the feed.
When I checked the clock, there were still twenty minutes left.
I might as well enjoy lunch a little more.
─┼
When Yomo, Lee Mo-yoon, woke up around noon, she reached for her phone and opened Soop.
Soop was already part of her daily routine. ...Maybe there won’t be a new feed post today either.
Soop didn’t post often.
But every now and then, he would arrive with a work so good it felt like a hammer to the back of the head. Her feelings toward Soop were special.
No, they had no choice but to be special.
After Soop reviewed Cooking, Sex, Murder, Lee Mo-yoon had received offers from many independent magazines.
After that, the new story she published in ZZ: NOVEL also got a strong response. In a way, Soop had given her a new writing life.
At first, she had even wondered: Could it be... Mok Hyunsun?
Wasn’t that strange?
After Mok Hyunsun’s criticism was rejected, wasn’t that when Soop suddenly appeared?
But Jang Hee-soo had said otherwise. —No, it isn’t. He specifically made a promise and came back. He said he’d use his power where it would actually work. He probably won’t touch the independent magazine scene again.
Really, what would Mok Hyunsun have to gain from doing something like that?
And Soop didn’t really feel like Mok Hyunsun anyway... He does feel a bit like some social media operator, though.
In any case, she checked Soop’s account. "Oh. A new feed post."
Then—she shot upright. "Paper Mask?!?!"
Yoo An-mo’s tragic masterpiece, known only to those in the know. Paper Mask was her favorite webtoon.
Her own little webtoon. Her personal, precious little treasure.
She had always had a taste for the minor, the offbeat, the things that didn’t sit well with other people. Even among independent magazine writers, it was the kind of taste no one really understood.
And Paper Mask fit that taste exactly. But then one day, Yoo An-mo had taken the work down, and Paper Mask had become a masterpiece preserved only in memory.
And now Soop was reviewing it?
He had already surprised her by reviewing webtoons at all, and now he was reviewing Paper Mask?
And the quality of the review was another matter entirely. "Once the heart has been creased, it can never be fully smoothed out again... "
My God. It was poetic.
Only after reading it did she understand.
The reason Paper Mask had made her chest ache was not that he was aging, but that he had been wounded.
Everyone feels the wound of loss. "Huh? This panel."
The scene where Paper Mask flies toward the meteor!
To see that in Soop was unbelievable.
And when she looked at the next image—And that is what we call the sublime.—she simply collapsed backward onto the bed.
"...So that’s why it hit so hard."
It was sad, but it was sublime.
People who live minor lives naturally carry a layer of melancholy beneath everything.
And yet, very occasionally, when that minor life is acknowledged, they feel a certain nobility in it. Lee Mo-yoon was no different.
That was why she had loved Paper Mask.
I can’t just sit here.
She sent a message to the independent magazine group chat.
What have I been doing with my life? I should have learned to draw at least a little.
In truth, Soop had already received fan art from several artists.
Every time Soop casually posted those, Lee Mo-yoon felt a faint stab of jealousy. It was the same even now, just from looking at the comments.
—Webtoons too, now! I’m going to check it out right away, sir. Or ma’am.
—Your taste really is niche. Totally my type~ I’d love it if there were a fan meeting or something~
—Yoo An-mo drew this kind of thing too? Soop, where do you keep digging up these diamonds from...?
—Fan meeting, let’s gooo. Can’t we hold one together with Yoo An-mo?
In this way, Soop was quietly building a fandom.
Lee Mo-yoon couldn’t stay still this time.
Not even as a Paper Mask fan could she do that. She wanted to do something for Soop.
She couldn’t bear not to make her presence known to him as a fan.
That was just how a true fangirl’s heart worked.
"...Ah! Right."
Lee Mo-yoon had one well-sharpened weapon.
It was her novel.
She sent Jang Hee-soo a message at once.