How About You?
I jolted awake with a gasp. “Ugh!! Haa… haa… It was just a dream.”
I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d had a nightmare like this. After the surgery, I’d suffered from them every single night for two straight years. Having one again now left me drenched in cold sweat.
The ten-hour operation. The thirty minutes I’d been left alone in the recovery room. Out of the three surgeries, the nightmare I had most often was waking up in the emergency room right after the first one. If it were just a regular dream, I could brush it off, but this one made me feel the exact pain I’d experienced when coming out of anesthesia. The agony that made it impossible to tell where it hurt most, the crushing pressure of being tied down and unable to move an inch… it was a horror that defied description.
Being abandoned in the emergency room after a ten-hour surgery because the recovery staff’s shift had ended… that moment had truly been hell.
Up until last year, those nightmares had forced me to live on medication. What pulled me out of that life was web novels.
“Son, did you have a dream?”
“Yeah. I hadn’t had one in a while, but it came back.”
“I heard noises from outside and thought something was wrong. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Don’t worry too much.”
I had no choice but to put on a brave face for my worried mother. Even though I kept telling myself I was over it, the day after a nightmare still drained me. Still, there was no need to make Mom and Dad worry on top of that.
I drank a glass of water, went back to my room, and sent a message to Yong-ju. Since he was a high school friend, he knew more about my current situation than anyone else in the writers’ group.
To be honest, I was always grateful to Yong-ju.
If he hadn’t shown me the novel he was writing back then, I’d probably still be living that medicated existence.
In my heart, I’d thanked him more than a hundred times over.
“Son, do you want breakfast?”
“No, I don’t have an appetite. I’ll eat later.”
“I’ll make something before I leave, so make sure you eat, okay? Don’t skip meals.”
“Okay, I will.”
Of course, there was an eighty percent chance I wouldn’t actually eat, but if I told her that now she’d worry and skip work, so I kept quiet.
To lift my mood a little, I turned on the computer and opened my novel writing program.
There was nothing better than writing to shake off a bad feeling.
Because writing demanded my complete focus, it naturally cleared away the mess in my head.
Every time I looked at my own novel, one thought always crossed my mind.
Why on earth do readers like something like this?
I suffered from what writers commonly called “my writing sucks syndrome” more severely than most, so I couldn’t help but think the readers who stuck with my story were incredible people. If I had been a reader and stumbled across a novel like mine, I probably would’ve taken one bite and tossed it aside.
Since I’d started this hobby, I wanted to give it my all. But it was harder than I’d expected.
Having avoided books my whole life, it took forever for me to understand something and make it my own.
Well, if I kept writing, I’d get better eventually.
Since I wasn’t planning to publish it, the words flowed out without a single snag. The result was pretty terrible, of course, but since I wasn’t going to upload it, that didn’t matter.
Before I knew it, the time was already one in the afternoon. I really should eat lunch.
I had to eat something… but I wasn’t hungry. Maybe I’d eat later in the afternoon.
Feeling better after writing freely, I leaned back in my chair and picked up my phone.
“There’s nothing to do. I’d play games, but everyone in the writers’ group is probably working right now.”
As I scrolled through my contacts, Chae-yeon’s number caught my eye.
You know how it is. When boredom hits you so hard you end up doing something you’d never normally do. This was exactly that moment.
I carefully tapped her number and made the call.
"Hello?"
“Oh, you picked up.”
"What the—why are you calling all of a sudden?"
“I was bored. I just finished writing and had nothing else to do. Are you in Gwangju?”
"Yeah, it’s break."
“You probably don’t have much to do either.”
"I live a busy life, thank you very much. I have tutoring."
“Tutoring?! What subject?”
"Math. Even during break, I get home late because of it."
I guess that’s what you’d expect from a med student. Not English or Korean—math. Math had always been an impenetrable wall for me. Back in my senior year of high school, I’d focused solely on math for the final hundred days before the Suneung and barely scraped a grade three. I actually thought I was decent at it… but during my first and second retakes—my samsu year—I realized the truth. I had zero talent for studying in general, and my math ability was completely shattered.
“Then teach me math!! Please!! Teacher!!”
"I heard college math and high school math are completely different."
“Still, it’s math, so it can’t be that different, right? I’m seriously terrible at it…”
"I’ll teach you if it looks like I can after taking a look."
“Thank you, seriously!!”
My major was computer engineering, so math was essential. From sophomore year onward there weren’t any direct math courses, but freshman year was packed with them. Somehow I’d managed to get a B+ this time around.
"I’ll teach you math and you can teach me English. Perfect!!"
“Want to study for exams together later?”
"I don’t know if it’ll work since we’re in different regions, but sure. I’m curious about how coding works anyway."
“What are you curious about?”
"That thing where you have two monitors with a bunch of windows open. It looks so cool."
Chae-yeon, we call that being completely screwed.
When I was younger, I used to think it looked amazing when coders had two monitors full of different screens. But once I actually started doing it myself, I understood. It was just desperate flailing to fix some error that had popped up out of nowhere. When those red error messages appeared, it felt like my entire life was being crossed out in red ink.
“Um… that’s actually a really bad situation.”
"Oh, really? I had no idea."
“It’s the same as doctors rushing around to check on a patient. It looks cool, but…”
"That means something’s gone wrong, right?"
“Exactly what you just described.”
"I get it now. It’s more serious than I thought?"
“It’s not exactly the same, but yeah, that’s the vibe.”
It was amazing that I could have such a natural phone conversation with Chae-yeon when even texting used to feel awkward. I’d thought Kim Su-ho butting in would only cause trouble, but apparently it wasn’t all bad.
"Oh right. I had a dream today and woke up early because it was bad."
“I had a dream too, so I woke up earlier than usual.”
"What was it about?"
“The moment right after surgery when the anesthesia wore off.”
"Ugh… just thinking about it is horrible. That’s such a nightmare."
“I’m okay now, though. I used to take it really hard.”
"I’m glad you’re doing better."
The fact that I could casually mention having a nightmare was proof that I’d grown. Last year, I would’ve suffered alone until something big finally exploded.
"Whenever I have a nightmare, I feel off the whole day. How about you?"
“Same here. I just feel drained and don’t want to do anything.”
"I hate that so much. Are you just staying home all day today?"
“I’m planning to work out later.”
"Workout? What kind of exercise?"
“Gym. I’m doing survival training so I don’t die. At this rate a slime’s gonna kill me.”
"I need to start exercising too. My stamina’s starting to drop."
“You drink so much alcohol… yeah, I figured.”
"Ouch… that one hit me right in the chest. But drinking and having fun is really enjoyable."
“That’s what everyone who has no intention of quitting says.”
"You’ve been dropping way too many facts since earlier. Stop hitting me."
Chae-yeon really loved drinking. Mom had told me once that during a trip she’d spent all her money on alcohol. I used to enjoy drinking a lot before my surgery, but now I couldn’t stand the smell or taste. Plus, I wasn’t supposed to drink anyway.
“Is drinking and partying really that fun?”
"Yeah!! The important part isn’t the partying. It’s the alcohol."
“You don’t have to tell me that, Miss Chae-yeon. I already know.”
"You’ve drunk before, so you should understand."
“It’s been so long that I’ve forgotten.”
"Not knowing the joy of alcohol… how sad."
“Don’t pity me over something like that. Isn’t it better not to know?”
"What are you talking about!! Knowing makes it more fun."
Our debate about alcohol continued endlessly after that. It wasn’t really a debate, but we were still talking. It was fun. Having a conversation that just flowed wherever our thoughts took us like this.