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# Chapter 1. Brave New World — A Wonderful New World (1)
1.
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“I’m sorry, but you don’t need to come in anymore.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“Well, my nephew is going to start working here from tomorrow.”
I was suddenly fired from my part-time convenience store job.
To someone else, it might have been nothing more than a part-time job, but to me, it was a workplace that supported my
entire life, like a pillar holding everything up.
“I’m sorry, but I’m in a situation where I can’t just quit. If that’s not possible, could you at least give me some time
until I find another part-time job?”
“You know how business has been lately. Sales aren’t good enough to hire two part-timers. You worked hard, and I’m
really sorry.”
I tried explaining my situation, worried about how I was going to pay this month’s living expenses, but nothing changed.
As always, the world was nothing but cold to those who had nothing. Yet the reality was that the very same coldness
could become consideration, even love, for someone else.
‘Some nephew somewhere is going to comfortably get a part-time job tomorrow thanks to his uncle’s consideration...’
The moment I got on the bus, I began writing, pouring my sense of emptiness into the words.
It was a short essay filled with the miserable and ironic reality I was facing.
‘Even in a situation like this, I’m thinking about writing. I really am something else...’
I swallowed my bitter feelings and stopped my hand for a moment as I was jotting down notes. Feeling suffocated, I
turned my head and looked out the bus window.
Suddenly, an old memory came to mind.
‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’
It was one of the questions I had heard most often since childhood.
And every time, my answer had always been the same.
‘A writer! I want to become a writer.’
It was the same in kindergarten, elementary school, middle school, and high school.
At first, I simply loved reading.
It was an encounter with wonderful worlds I had never experienced.
There were countless times when exciting stories kept me awake at night.
Those moments of excitement naturally led to imagination. And at some point, a world began appearing inside my head.
A story that had yet to see the light of day.
An amazing world of adventure known only to me.
‘I want to write. All these wonderful stories that come to me...’
And so, as if it were fate, I came to dream of becoming a writer.
Thanks to that, while my friends were worrying about their future careers, I chose the Department of Creative Writing
without hesitation. To me, there could have been no more natural path.
‘Of course, the world wasn’t that easy.’
Things hadn’t gone smoothly from the very beginning. As the years passed, my manuscripts piled up, and the more I
nurtured my dream, the greater the frustration that came back to me. Despite countless attempts, I couldn’t even win a
prize in competitions held by local governments.
‘The ending in novels was so different from the ending in reality.’
Even so, I didn’t give up and continued writing.
That was how much I loved writing.
And today, I was waiting for the results of yet another writing competition.
Posts were beginning to appear one after another from people saying they had received advance emails regarding the
winners.
‘Please, please... If I fail this time too, it really is the end.’
Clutching my phone, I prayed desperately.
Now that I had even lost my part-time job, this was my last chance to continue pursuing my dream of becoming a writer.
Suppressing my trembling heart, I logged into the website.
[[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
Mail: 0 / Messages: 0
“...”
Contrary to my expectations, my inbox was completely empty.
‘Failed again...’
My shoulders drooped.
I had failed not only the New Year Literary Contest but even the smaller competitions.
Including the attempts I had made during my first and second years of university and while I was in the military, it was
a total of twenty-one failures over four years.
Unable to bear the frustration, I opened the bus window.
It was still too cold outside for it to truly be called spring.
Resting my head against the window, I stared blankly outside.
That was right.
There were walls in this world that couldn’t be overcome through effort alone.
And once again, my dream came crashing down in vain.
When I arrived at school, I entered the lecture room listlessly and took a seat at the very back.
A few juniors who saw me began whispering as though they had been waiting for me.
“Looks like Senior Seo-jun failed again?”
“Really? Wasn’t this his twenty-first time?”
“Wow. It’s impressive that he keeps trying like that.”
“His nickname is Genius, you know.”
“Genius?”
“Genius of hard work. He’s really good at putting in effort.”
“Well, I guess that’s a talent too.”
Their snickering reached my ears clearly.
Every single word felt like a thorn piercing into me.
I pretended not to hear them and shifted my gaze to my phone.
“Come to think of it, isn’t that senior doing the presentation for A Walk Through English and American Literature all by
himself?”
“His shaggy hair and those glasses make him look kind of gloomy. And he can’t even write well... I can understand why
people wouldn’t want to work with him.”
My forehead was already almost touching the desk, but my body kept shrinking in on itself.
The juniors’ sharp chatter only stopped when the professor entered.
A monotonous voice soon filled the lecture room.
The Department of Creative Writing.
I had entered this department because I dreamed of becoming a writer.
Yet suddenly, it felt as though everything was floating away from me.
Even the lectures I had once listened to with burning eyes sounded empty.
‘What are you going to eat after graduating from there?’
It was a question people inevitably asked when they heard someone was majoring in Creative Writing.
A question I had always desperately avoided answering had eventually become my reality.
‘Right. Before it gets any later, I should take a leave of absence and change majors next semester.’
Our household finances were far from comfortable, and even at this very moment, Mom was working as a restaurant
assistant.
She endured even being spoken to informally by an owner young enough to be her own child, all for my sake.
Now, even for Mom’s sake, I had to give up on my dream.
‘It’s a shame, but this is the right thing to do...’
Fortunately, it was still the additional application period for a leave of absence.
As soon as class ended, I headed for the Academic Affairs Support Team.
I deliberately quickened my pace so that lingering attachment wouldn’t hold me back.
“What can I help you with?”
“...I’d like to apply for a leave of absence.”
Even though I had done nothing wrong, my shoulders shrank for some reason.
“Did you bring the paperwork?”
“...Here.”
Without even properly making eye contact, I handed over the application I had filled out in advance.
The staff member checked the application with an indifferent expression before handing it back.
“Please sign here.”
Looking again, I saw that the signature field was empty.
“Ah, I’m sorry.”
I quickly picked up the pen.
Once I signed this, I could give up.
But now that the moment had actually arrived, my hand wouldn’t move.
“...”
When I hesitated, the staff member’s brow furrowed.
The change in her expression made me anxious.
In the end, I forcibly pushed strength into my fingertips around the pen.
But then,
A faint floral scent brushed against the tip of my nose.
A fragrance I couldn’t identify.
Suddenly, my head spun with a wave of dizziness.
I barely managed to grab the chair to keep myself from falling.
‘Why is this happening?’
Was it because of the stress?
The dizziness refused to fade, and the world began spinning around me.
The world itself seemed to lose its color, as though a filter had been placed over it.
“Excuse me...”
My body swayed uncontrollably.
I tried desperately to ask for help, but my vision blurred.
At the same time, my consciousness began slowly sinking toward a bottomless abyss.
---
Whoosh.
Rain was falling outside the window,
and an extremely old mansion could be seen in the distance.
The fireplace, the small pieces of furniture—everything about the scene was foreign.
And I had taken up residence inside the body of a sick old man who was approaching death.
“This one, too, and this one... They’re all nothing but trash. No wonder the theater is bound to fail.”
The old man casually set down the manuscript in his hand.
His friend Watson, who had been silently watching from beside him, stiffened.
“They’re writers who are supposedly doing well in London. Are they really that inadequate?”
“Inadequate? Of course they are. For a theater to survive, it needs to attract more than a thousand paying customers
every day. In a world where it’s difficult enough simply to make a living, the story has to be so captivating that
people can’t even think straight. But every one of these is filled with nothing but absurd nonsense. They’ve covered
everything with layers of pretentious words, pretending to be noble. It’s so disgusting I can hardly stand reading it.
This is the sort of writing that belongs in a diary.”
The old man, his neck veins bulging, eventually broke into a dry cough.
The young errand boy who had been dozing nearby immediately got up and brought him a cloth.
By then, the cloth was soaked with blood.
“Edward, get this trash out of my sight. Quickly.”
At the old man’s command, the boy picked up the manuscripts scattered across the floor and hurriedly threw them into the
fire.
Whoosh.
The thoroughly dried paper soon consumed itself in flames, creating a small light before disappearing.
Only then did the old man’s breathing gradually settle, as though he had finally calmed down.
Watching him, Watson spoke with sympathy.
“William. If it bothers you that much, why don’t you write it yourself? You know how many people are still waiting for
your work, don’t you?”
The old man moved his hand, dry as a piece of firewood, and wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth.
“I am writing. I simply cannot show it to anyone.”
At the old man’s admission that he was writing, curiosity appeared in Watson’s eyes.
“Why can’t you show it?”
“The moment they see my writing, the Puritans will probably rise up against me. They’ll call it the work of Satan’s
child. At my age, I might even be burned at the stake.”
The old man’s mocking voice continued.
“Of course, I’m not afraid of death. As you know, I’m dying even today. I simply have no desire to hand my necklace of
pearls over to pigs who wouldn’t understand it.”
It had already been ten years since he had become frustrated with a world that could not understand his work and
returned to his hometown.
Yet he was still a writer.
“Is it really such a unique story?”
“Unique? No. If you could see the world I have looked into, you would have trouble even breathing. You probably wouldn’t
understand it for hundreds of years to come.”
“What on earth did you write?”
“Wonderful, miserable, and fantastical things beyond anything you could imagine.”
His gaze wasn’t fixed on empty space.
He was looking deep into his own mind.
Countless images and words were piled up like books inside a gigantic library.
Every single one was an unpublished work that had never been revealed to the world.
‘This is what art is.’
Even as he withered away, his eyes were filled with delight and longing.
No.
It was something beyond longing.
It was madness itself.
But Watson’s expression only grew more rigid.
“You really have no intention of showing me that writing until the very end.”
“...”
The old man answered with silence.
He had no intention of showing it.
But more importantly, he couldn’t show it.
‘Because it’s a story that has never existed in this world before. A story that exists only inside my head.’
But Watson could never know that.
Disappointment appeared on his face.
“Then again, even Her Majesty the Queen couldn’t change your mind.”
The reason was different, but the result was the same, so the old man saw no need to explain.
In the end, Watson gave up trying to persuade him and turned his gaze toward the window.
The dark clouds had already begun to clear, and sunlight was streaming down.
In the village fields, yellow rapeseed flowers were displaying their beautiful colors.
“It’s truly spring now.”
“Yes. It’s spring. My favorite season.”
For the first time, the old man’s sharp voice softened.
Perhaps it was because of the sadness brought on by the stark contrast between a world overflowing with life and his own
body, which had none left.
An old man who had been born in spring,
who had loved spring,
and who was now facing death in spring.
The old man turned his head and looked out the window.
Then he gazed toward some high place beyond sight and quietly murmured.
‘If spring were to come to me one more time, you might be able to hear this wonderful story too... Tsk, tsk.’
The old man clicked his tongue as though he were the one feeling sorry for someone else.
It was an arrogant proposal directed at God.
And shortly afterward,
the eyelids of the old man who had longed for the radiant spring slowly lost their strength and fell shut.
---
Whoosh.
My consciousness returned like a film being rapidly rewound.
The memories of an old age filled with regret and lingering sorrow.
The life of an unlucky genius who had been born in the wrong era came rushing into me.
‘What on earth happened?’
It had been a dream so vivid that it was difficult to distinguish it from reality.
At that moment, an unfamiliar voice snapped me out of my thoughts.
“Student, you need to sign here.”
The staff member’s impatient expression was becoming irritated.
I belatedly returned to reality.
“Ah, I’m sorry.”
How long had I been like this?
I hurriedly signed with the pen I had been handed.
Scratch, scratch, scratch.
My hand moved on its own, writing something down.
But then,
the slightly slanted handwriting was English cursive I had never written in my entire life.
Even more astonishing was the fact that I could read it.
‘This is...’
The words read exactly as follows.
William Shakespeare.
At that moment,
the memories of a past life from four hundred years ago flooded into my mind.
The memories of a man who was cold-headed, curious, pure, and infinitely arrogant.