Chapter 6
.CHAPTER_TITLE: Intern Presentation (3)
Day one of my internship.
Section leader Lee Jae-woon took us to the chief editor’s office.
It was the usual courtesy call, a round of greetings. The chief editor, Im Myeong-eul, was in the middle of work when we arrived and, with a detached sort of indifference that managed to serve both hello and goodbye at once, said, “Mm. Good to see you. You may leave now.” And then he had the audacity to summon me to the chief editor’s office after that.
Before I could even savor the satisfaction of getting revenge on Song Min-hoon, what was this supposed to mean? Was he planning to ask if I should be held jointly responsible?
Then I’d expose the recording first.
As proof that I had never been tied to that bastard in any kind of alliance.
Creaaak.
The chief editor spoke the moment he sat down.
“Printing for the autumn issue of Gyeongseong Geul begins next week.”
What did Gyeongseong Geul have to do with anything all of a sudden?
“Since a general submission has been selected, we also need to fit in the novel and the review. Between layout and proofreading, we don’t have much time left.”
“…! Does that mean The Man Who Looks for Ghosts was selected?”
“Yes. It’s already been decided internally.”
He said it casually, but this was an enormous deal.
The odds of a general submission winning were extremely low.
But it was too early to be surprised.
“And the review you presented today will be published as well.”
“? My review in Gyeongseong Geul?”
In Gyeongseong Geul, where even most editors found it difficult to get a single review published?
I was dumbfounded.
In every sense, it made no sense.
Even if my review had happened to be exactly to the chief editor’s taste, the one who wrote it, me, would still be unqualified, wouldn’t he?
“Chief Editor. But I’m only an intern.”
“Exactly why I called you here. Because of the employment contract.”
“…!”
“Come in to work tomorrow and go to HR to draw up a formal employment contract. You’ll be assigned under Team Leader Lee Jae-woon in Editorial Team 1. From the publisher’s point of view, it’s a rather strained personnel decision. But...”
“....”
“Your review is worth the strain.”
I think I had just heard something incredible.
The chief editor said it with such complete nonchalance that it took me a second to process reality.
“Is it too much information to take in? Or were you planning to join another publisher?”
“Ah! No. I understand. Thank you, Chief Editor.”
I bowed deeply.
Only then did it feel real.
Who would believe it?
To get hired at Gyeongseong Publishing with a single review.
One review. Nothing more. It felt as if I were about to float off the ground.
Still. “How is your father doing?”
“…!”
I heard something I had not expected at all.
So he knew.
That I was Mok Pilhyun’s son.
But I forced myself to stay calm.
I had expected that someday this situation might come.
I just hadn’t expected it to happen the moment I was hired.
“How long have you known?”
“Since I looked over your intern documents. I saw your surname and checked, just in case. It turned out to be right. Writer Mok Pilhyun is of my generation, so your age was obvious enough.”
So that meant from the very beginning.
Mm. Good to see you. You may leave now.
Even then, he had known.
Honestly, this damned surname was the problem.
Maybe I should just change it to my mother’s.
I decided to be straightforward.
I had no reason to feel inferior if I wasn’t some backdoor placement, and besides, it seemed pointless to hide my feelings from the chief editor.
“I don’t know how he’s doing. We’ve been estranged.”
Silence fell.
Within that silence, the chief editor looked at me closely.
“May I ask why?”
“To put it simply, my father lived only as a writer. He never lived as a husband or as a father. So I also...”
For no good reason, an unnecessary scene came to mind.
Our family living with nothing but the sight of his back.
Especially my mother, who had always looked so lonely.
...Why was this making my chest tighten?
Pull yourself together.
That was all in the past.
“I decided not to live as his son. That is all.”
It might have sounded rude.
But it was my choice, and it was my burden to bear.
And if I was going to draw a line, I wanted to draw it clearly.
“I’ll work at Gyeongseong Publishing as Mok Hyunsun, not as Mok Pilhyun’s son. I won’t create any trouble inside the company.”
“Hmm.”
The chief editor’s expression was hard to read.
Fortunately, it didn’t seem like he was criticizing me.
But it wasn’t sympathy either. That expression was probably... deeper interest.
To put it a little crudely, curiosity that said, This one’s interesting.
At that moment, one of his eyebrows slowly lifted.
“I’ve just thought of a task I’d like to assign you.”
“Ah, yes. Please tell me.”
“Become the assigned editor for a young writer and get his novel manuscript from him. He’s under contract to appear in the next winter issue of Gyeongseong Geul.”
“All I have to do is get the manuscript?”
“Yes. If you succeed, I’ll make sure your review gets printed.”
“!”
He was giving me another chance to publish a review?
It was baffling.
What on earth was the connection between this work and my being cut off from my father?
I couldn’t even begin to guess his motive.
Still, in situations like this, I had always made the same choice.
“Yes. I’ll do it.”
When opportunity came, I took it.
And if I was drawn to it, even more so.
A little later, I left the chief editor’s office.
“Hoo... I really don’t understand a thing.”
In a single moment, I’d become a full-time employee.
My first review was going to be published in Gyeongseong Geul.
And after I cut ties with my father, they were offering me a chance to get a second review into Gyeongseong Geul as well.
This was getting into hidden-camera-prank territory.
Even if I’d been handed every birthday present in my life at once, it still wouldn’t compare.
But above all else, what felt best was this:
Song Min-hoon was out.
By now, he’d probably been thrown out of the publisher’s building.
I walked back to the intern room with a light step.
Even though the office was still in disarray over the Song Min-hoon incident, Team Leader Lee was the only one waiting for me there.
“Mok Hyunsun.”
“Team Leader. What happened to Song Min-hoon?”
“In the end, the police came, and he went with the staff to the station. There’s also the matter of compensating for the laptop he broke. And Yoo So-hyun packed up in tears and said she was quitting too.”
Yoo So-hyun was out cleanly as well. Even better.
But had Team Leader Lee always spoken to me so casually?
His tone was oddly friendly, too.
Pat.
The team leader gave my shoulder an affectionate tap.
“Congratulations on getting hired. I just got a call from the chief editor.”
And so I became a member of Editorial Team 1 at Gyeongseong Publishing.
─┼
After leaving a message with Team Leader Lee and HR, Chief Editor Im Myeong-eul was lost in old memories.
Writer Mok Pilhyun. He debuted the same year I did.
That had been the year of Mok Pilhyun and Im Myeong-eul.
Both men had swept through Korean letters the moment they debuted.
People at the time said that if Mok Pilhyun was a novelist of fire, then Im Myeong-eul was a critic of ice.
But the two had never managed to become close.
That was partly because the relationship between a writer and a critic was rarely friendly in the first place, and partly because their personalities were so different.
Once, at a drinking party, Mok Pilhyun had even grabbed Im Myeong-eul by the collar.
- You say my latest novel isn’t as good as the last one? Do you even know what the pain of creation is?! Don’t talk to me about this burning sincerity for fiction like you’re some critic or other!
- My, my. This friend is quite drunk. And critics judge only skill. I’m not interested in your sincerity.
- Hah, since when am I your friend?! You know what? I can’t stand critics! Always putting in their two cents about someone else’s novel.
- “Friend” is just an idiom. And what a shame, because even after you die, critics will still talk about your novels.
- What, you little-! Have you said enough?
- That was meant as the highest compliment. Pity you failed to understand it. It seems your reasoning isn’t quite at the level of your creativity.
- What did you just say?! You bastard who can’t even get married and has no children! When my son Hyunsun grows up, he’ll get his revenge for all of this! Do you know how smart my boy is?! Ah, what fond memories those were.
He was passionate, emotional, and terrible at relationships. But as a novelist, he was truly remarkable... in a word, a natural artist. Hmm, but how exactly did things come to this?
To think he had never been able to function as a father at all.
There must be some backstory. Family matters aren’t really my concern. Still...
There had been something about Mok Hyunsun.
His nature looked bright and strong, yes, but there was also the hard, barren feel peculiar to someone who had learned to stand alone far too early.
When he saw that, the estrangement did not seem like a lie.
But uncovering that kind of thing required a different sort of courage.
“I decided not to live as his son. That is all.”
And then there was the way he drew his boundaries so clearly.
“...Not bad at all,” Im Myeong-eul murmured. “That look in his eyes.”
Mok Hyunsun had inherited Mok Pilhyun’s fiery passion.
At the same time, he possessed the same cold decisiveness as Im Myeong-eul.
If things went well, he might become a major figure in the new era of literary circles.
And then there was his skill.
Hemingway Is Coming Back.
Team Leader Lee had pretended not to care, but how could he possibly not have paid attention?
In the end, he had even gone out of his way to attend the intern presentation.
Before the presentation was even over, he had decided to hire him full-time.
...He was brilliant. Analytical ability, prose, distinctive emotion, and instinctive taste. He didn’t lack a single thing. Could I have written like that at his age?
He couldn’t say for certain.
If he had been ten years younger, he might even have felt a stab of jealousy.
Too much talent to leave as merely an editor.
He had a mountain of advice he wanted to give him.
It was unusual enough to care this much about a person rather than about the writing.
Even he found his own feelings strange.
But for now, he decided to watch.
What Mok Hyunsun chose to read, and what he chose to write.
He wanted to understand him a little better.
As for the task he had newly assigned him, that was also, in a somewhat perverse way, of personal interest.
Trial by fire strengthens talent.
“Hmm.”
I’m curious. With that nerve and that level of ability, can he control that writer?
─┼
The hiring process was less of a big deal than I’d expected.
I still showed up by 8:30, just like everyone else, and headed straight to HR to sign the employment contract.
Then I went straight to the chief editorial team and handed over my review of The Man Who Looks for Ghosts.
At last, I arrived at the periodicals office.
My desk was now at the very end of Editorial Team 1.
The moment I set down my bag, the three senior editors of Team 1 swarmed me.
Gyeongseong Publishing was overwhelmingly female overall, but unfortunately, our team was all men.
“Hey, Mok. I heard yesterday’s review. It was really good, right?”
“You write seriously well. Out of all the reviews I’ve seen at Gyeongseong, yesterday’s was the best.”
“But how the hell did you end up interning with people like that? Especially Song Min-hoon, that guy was a lunatic. Oh, Mok. Do you smoke? Want to go outside?”
“No. I don’t smoke. But why am I ‘Mok’?”
“Ahhh-.”
They burst out laughing among themselves.
“Just because. It’s easier to say than ‘Hyunsun.’”
“Anyway, let’s do well, Mok. We’re heading out for a smoke.”
The moment the seniors left, Team Leader Lee poked his head out from beyond the partition and said, “Mok. The writer of The Man Who Looks for Ghosts is coming at ten. Come to the meeting with me.”
Oh, so I’d finally get to meet the author.
“Yes. But does that make you ‘Mok’ too, Team Leader?”
“Everyone started calling me that, so it stuck. Mok. Yup, Mok.”
...He’d just slapped a nickname on me as he pleased.
It was embarrassing. A pet name, of all things.
Still, it didn’t feel bad, so I decided to take it in stride.
Besides, I’d already learned since my internship that the people in Editorial Team 1 had good personalities.
A little later, I followed Team Leader Lee down to the lobby.
After waiting a bit, a man entered the lobby hesitantly, almost timidly. He had a heavy build, wore shabby clothes, and looked both mild and lacking in confidence.
“Are you the writer of The Man Who Looks for Ghosts?”
At Team Leader Lee’s call, he bowed his head.
“Ah, yes! My name is Choi Bak.”
That man had written The Man Who Looks for Ghosts?
No matter how separate a work and its author might be, that was still unexpected.
“I’m Lee Jae-woon, team leader of Editorial Team 1 in the periodicals department. You must have been shocked when you heard yesterday’s results and the review, right?”
“Ah, yes. I still can’t believe it myself. Ah, in any case, I’m truly honored. Ah, I’ve also brought all the identification documents you asked me to bring.”
“Haha, take your time. And let me introduce you. This is our youngest member, and the editor who wrote the review of The Man Who Looks for Ghosts, Mok Hyunsun.”
“…! He wrote the review?”
“Hello. I’m Mok Hyunsun.”
Because the writer was so excessively deferential, I made myself even more careful and extended my hand politely.
But then.
“…Sob.”
...What? Why was he suddenly like this?
All at once, tears began to gather in his eyes.