Always Watch Your Words
When he was a child, his parents used to tell him this.
"Always watch your words."
He was only five years old. Far too young—and it was far too hard—to understand everything packed into that brief command. Crimes against children, abductions and the like, were rampant at the time, so the only meaning he managed to take from it was be careful of what other people say. He had plenty of questions, but it sounded like common sense, so he accepted it.
That was the day he told his first lie.
"Nine years already. That's a stubborn connection we've got, wouldn't you say?"
The man in the suit sat across the small conference table. He was the publisher's CEO—and the judge presiding over this salary negotiation. As always, he delivered the words with an easy, unhurried expression.
What that "stubborn connection" actually meant was: I'm tired of this.
"Il-yong, you do realize your recent performance hasn't been great, don't you? Projected revenue on the titles you're handling has dropped considerably, and the authors under you don't have much that's kind to say about you, either."
Il-yong already knew the truth. They only ever assigned him the writers with terrible internal reviews—the ones they used for hot-potato duty, or as chips in a gamble.
"Your in-house evaluations aren't doing you any favors, either. The comment I hear most often is this: 'He works hard, but he's a difficult man to get close to.'"
He knew this, too. It was payback for staying out of the office factions. Get tangled in company politics and your job was on the line—so he had kept his distance.
"Perfect attendance and unpaid overtime aren't everything. What's the point of working yourself to the bone if there's no output to show for it? Nine years of experience like that is just empty years on a résumé."
He knew they were saying this while fully aware he had no time to rest—because taking care of his assigned titles and authors left him none.
"Il-yong, let's be honest with each other. I know you've been a founding member of this company from day one, growing with us for nine years. But from a CEO's perspective, you are..."
Whether the twist of his mouth was a sneer or something bitter, Il-yong couldn't tell. The man spat out his true feelings with venom.
"Behind the times. Hard to use. No—I'll be frank. You're someone I don't want to use. All I see is wasted money. There's a reason you've never made it to a managerial title."
X—Il-yong—knew exactly why the man was saying this.
He wanted to cut someone whose upkeep cost too much.
A recommended resignation, in other words.
Which meant Il-yong had to say this:
"Let me take one more title."
"And that's a reason I should keep you on?"
"Among the works we recently contracted, there's one that still doesn't have an editor assigned, isn't there? I'd like to handle that one. Last one. When the series ends, I'll step back—regardless of how it performs."
He said exactly what the company wanted to hear, the opposite of what he actually felt.
They wouldn't want a recommended resignation on the books. It would tank their company rating and cost them government subsidies.
I'll resign cleanly, of my own accord. Just let me work until this one title is finished.
The CEO understood the implication instantly, and a satisfied smile spread across his face.
"Then we'll freeze your salary. I was going to cut it, but seeing as you're a founding member, consider this a generous concession."
Il-yong painted on a bright, foolish smile.
"Thank you! I'll give it everything I've got until the end!"
What if he had played the office politics game? If he had piled on when they smeared an innocent coworker, washed his hands of every author the moment a scandal broke, and chased nothing but titles and pay—what would have become of him then?
Unfortunately, he had a family to feed. He couldn't gamble on an uncertain return when the risk was losing his job.
His daughter would be starting high school this year, besides. He hadn't had a proper conversation with her in three years already—but a father's duty still had to be done, didn't it?
And so Il-yong was assigned to the work of an author who wrote under the pen name Elysia: Saving This Academy.
"Are you fucking kidding me? Hyung! A salary freeze? That's how they treat a founding member who's about to hit ten years? I swear to God I will wring that bastard CEO's neck right now—"
"Seong-tae. Talk like that and I'll get fired."
"How is this any different from already being fired?!"
On the rooftop during break, Seong-tae—years his junior—had listened to Il-yong's story and was now raging as if it were his own life on the line.
"And you! Why do you live like this, so bottled up? Look, I get that you're doing it for your family, but—aah, so this is why readers scream for catharsis! I never got it until now!"
"Ah, I heard you made team leader. I'll be in your care, Team Leader."
"Don't you dare bring that up right now—you make me look like an asshole! Aah, goddamn it."
Seong-tae crushed the coffee can he'd been drinking from and hurled it toward the trash bin. It missed, bouncing off the rim and clattering across the ground.
"It was those bastards from Department Head Kim's clique again, wasn't it? They kick up a scandal, try to dump it on me, you cover for me, and then they stick a knife in your back for it!"
"Knife in the back... more like they jammed it straight into my solar plexus, no warning."
Il-yong quietly dropped his own coffee can in the trash, then picked up Seong-tae's and threw that away too. Seong-tae looked vaguely embarrassed, cleared his throat, and bellowed at the empty air.
"Those fuuuucking bastards~ They scoop up all the veterans and the A-listers for themselves and toss us the bottom-tier scrubs—"
"Hey! Bottom-tier? Bott-om-tieer?? Did I or did I not tell you that if you're going to talk like that, you can go write the damn books yourself!"
"...Fine. I'll watch my mouth. You're only my senior when it's convenient, I swear..."
There was still time left in the break, so the two of them sat on a bench and watched the sun as it began to sink.
"So, uh... how's ......... and ......... doing?"
"Hm?"
Il-yong hesitated at Seong-tae's words. When no answer came, Seong-tae asked again.
"Your wife and your daughter. Are they doing well?"
"Ah. Yeah, yeah. They're fine."
"You said you two had a fight recently. How'd that go?"
"Eh, so-so... We worked it out."
They had not worked it out. They simply kept quiet about it, because they had a daughter about to enter high school. And more than anything, the problem was him—so buried in work that he had neglected his own home.
That was what he had decided to believe. Because otherwise, he couldn't endure it.
Seong-tae furrowed his brow at the short answer and spoke with a knowing look.
"Yeah, that didn't get resolved at all."
"It's all my fault. I just have to put up with it."
"I'm telling you, it's because you two don't talk enough."
"We talked plenty, you idiot..."
Seong-tae let out a long sigh. He had been watching Il-yong from the sidelines long enough to have a decent idea of what the man was feeling. He also knew Il-yong was the kind of person who wouldn't change easily, no matter what anyone said.
He wanted to repay the man who had been his benefactor—but there wasn't much he could actually do. So all he could do was plead, bluntly and without shame.
"Hyung. Grant me one wish. I'm begging you—before you take on a new title, take a real vacation. Just a week. Go refresh, and actually talk to your family."
"Forget it. I'd just be picking at old wounds."
"Then as team leader, I'm ordering you on a week of leave!"
"You don't have that kind of authority!"
In the end, Il-yong put in for a week of vacation. It was the first long leave he had taken in nine years.
"What's this all of a sudden, saying we should go to an amusement park."
Il-yong's wife climbed into the passenger seat, her tone chilly. Her expression was thoroughly displeased—but the way she wouldn't meet his eyes, glancing away, betrayed a small flicker of hope.
If he could live up to that hope, maybe things would get a little better. Silently thanking Seong-tae a hundred times over, Il-yong answered.
"Our daughter's about to start high school. She should have fun while she still can. It's not like we've ever really gone anywhere together as a family."
"Do we have the money for that?"
"I cleaned out my emergency fund, so don't worry about it. Today and tomorrow, don't even think about money. Just have fun."
"You heard that, right~? Honey, later you take the card and swipe it as much as you want."
"...Yeah."
Their daughter sat in the back seat, chatting with someone on her smartphone, answering halfheartedly. In the rearview mirror, the glances she kept stealing at Il-yong looked, for some reason, like she was looking at a stranger.
"Got everything? All right, we're off."
Il-yong hid the bitterness in his chest and turned the key. The three of them sitting in a car to go somewhere for fun felt so unfamiliar it might as well have been the first time. All of them stared awkwardly out the windows. He hadn't even turned on the radio, so the only sounds that occasionally broke the silence were the engine and the navigation system's calm directions.
Even so, Il-yong was the first to speak.
"I'm thinking of looking for something else next year."
But conversation with his family had grown so awkward that the first topic he reached for was a rather heavy one. The other two stared at him, eyes wide with surprise. His wife's first reaction was worry.
"Honey, what about your current job?"
"Ten years is a long time. The overtime's been too much—my body's starting to give out. Publishing's gotten too hard."
"Do you have a plan? You know we're going to need money tight starting next year. Wanting to change jobs and actually changing jobs aren't the same thing."
"There's still time. I'll think it through slowly. Don't worry about money. Ten years of severance pay, at the very least..."
"We're not just sending our daughter to a cram school for a little while. If we're going to prepare for university tuition, we need a more stable income..."
"I'm not going to cram school."
The blunt words stabbed in from the back seat like a thorn. It was Il-yong's daughter, fussing with her smartphone, her face tight with irritation.
"I'll quit cram school. Problem solved, right? I'll earn my own university tuition."
"What did you just say?"
His wife turned a deliberately fierce look on the back seat.
"You think university tuition just grows out of the ground? Quit cram school? So you're giving up on studying and planning to throw your life away?"
"I am going to study. You don't have to go to cram school to study. And I'm sick of every conversation turning into money because of me. It's not like I'm some money-eating monster..."
"What? Look at this—she grows a little and suddenly she's got a mouth on her. Honey, say something!"
"Uh, uh..."
Il-yong chose his words carefully as he drove. Figuring out what to say to his daughter was hard. They were about to merge onto the highway, and his head was a mess. Even so, Il-yong chose the words a father ought to say.
"A monster? Don't be ridiculous. We do all of this because we love you. We send you to cram school because we want you to do well."
"Then why didn't you come to my middle school graduation?"
Il-yong's words died in his throat. His daughter's, on the other hand, kept coming.
"Is throwing money at us your idea of love? Then just give me cash. I'll handle everything myself."
"It's not like I'm some whore..."
The venom in those words was what made the woman in the passenger seat explode.
"You—what the hell is that way of talking?!!"
"What, did I say something I shouldn't have? Mom, you're the one who's always complaining you barely even see his face. I've caught you chatting all cozy with some other guy behind Dad's back more than once."
The poison in those words made Il-yong feel, for an instant, as if he were staring straight at his own childhood.
Only then did Il-yong understand what it had meant.
It had never been a warning to be careful of what other people said. It had been a warning to be careful of the words you yourself let out of your mouth. Just as his daughter, right now, was spitting venom without even realizing it.
"Wh-what are you talking about?"
Whether the accusation was true or not, it burrowed into his heart and set his hands and feet trembling. Il-yong's wife, detonating at the outrageous claim, barked an order at him as if she were shouting him down.
"You, you—! Honey, pull over right now!!"
He couldn't. The navigation system cautioned him to watch for accidents, and announced their current position.
"Wait—we're on the highway now. Just... everyone calm down a little. Today's supposed to be a fun day. Why are you all like this."
Il-yong pretended at composure. It had to be a lie, flung out in the heat of the moment. He knew that couldn't be how she really felt.
"Il-yong! Stop the car right now! No—turn us around right now!!"
"Mom, why are you so mad. Don't you know a strong denial is an admission?"
No. Did he really know that?
And if it was true—then what was he supposed to do?
Whether to press the accelerator or the brake—his mind was in chaos when his daughter asked a question.
"Dad. Do you actually love us?"
The questions, their intent unknowable, kept coming.
"You really love us? Then do you even know my name? And Mom's?"
BEEEEEEEEEEP—!!!!
In that instant, a horn tore through his eardrums from behind. A massive truck slammed into the passenger car Il-yong was driving.
That day, Il-yong lost his wife and his daughter.
"Hah—!!!"
When X opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was a treatment room ceiling that felt, somehow, familiar. He clenched and unclenched his palms, pinched himself, and checked the sensation of reality. Fortunately, this was real.
A dream. It was a dream. Just a dream...
No. It was a memory.
An anchor of the soul that could never be erased. A curse. A nightmare that rose before his eyes no matter how hard he tried to look away. A scar of memory that surfaced the moment he stopped thinking.
Which meant he must never stop thinking.
How long has it been since then?
He turned his head, found the date on the calendar in the room, and only then grasped his present situation.
Friday, April 16th
Beyond the window, the sun was going down.
Didn't die this time, either.
A strange disappointment left a bitter taste in his mouth.
Soul Killer, or whatever it was. A sword that destroys the soul, they said.
It didn't seem to have worked as well as advertised. His body was unblemished—not a single scar.
He needed to check on everything else now. The system. What had happened to the Academy...
His thoughts raced onward like that. It was an instinctive act. A flight from something trying to catch up with his thoughts. Perhaps it was a will to survive, born of instinct.
Wait...
This time, though, it caught him.
There was something he had lost along with the damage to his soul.
The names of two people he could never, in any moment, forget. He could not remember his wife's name, or his daughter's.
No. No, that's impossible.
It was just a lapse. A glitch in his memory. If he said the names out loud, they would come to him by instinct. They were names he had called so naturally, so often, that they lived on his tongue.
And yet.
"..."
He could not call the names.
No. That wasn't all.
"..."
Every time he tried to speak, the words would not come. Something vast stood in his way, and he could not speak.
"..."
X had lost his words.