Thirteen Days and One Reason
Having hurriedly combed my disheveled hair into some semblance of order, I stepped into the café. I scanned the entrance for a familiar face, and what I found was so ridiculous that I laughed out loud.
There, curled up on a sofa, sat a back I knew all too well.
Unlike the editor who had tried to look presentable even after quitting, this author was as careless as ever today. A bob loosely tossed about. A baggy field jacket thrown on with zero effort. In winter she'd at least wear sneakers, but the moment it warmed up a little, out came the slippers, faithful as ever.
I walked toward Author Na Bit, exactly the same as always.
"Hello, Author. It's been a whi—"
The greeting was calculated to make her turn around.
But when she actually did turn, I froze solid.
"......."
Author Na Bit, looking right at me, was crying, tears streaming down her face.
"What am I going to do....... And just thinking about it is.... so painful......."
The moment she started sobbing audibly, every head in the café turned toward us. As the gazes converged in an instant, I panicked and whispered, "A-Author, please calm down. Author?"
But Na Bit only heaved her shoulders, and my anxiety mounted by the second. Author, please, not this! Anyone can see you look far younger than me! Ah—could that actually be it? What kind of misunderstanding have they cooked up? The people around us were looking at me with eyes growing colder by the moment.......
* * *
Finally calmed, Author Na Bit hiccupped out an apology. "I'm so sorry. That must have caught you off guard."
"It's quite all right. I imagine the sudden change in your assigned editor has been stressful. I'm truly sorry I couldn't stay with you to the end, too."
Everyone, you heard that, right? We have a business relationship. None of the morning-drama nonsense you've been imagining exists here. I deliberately enunciated every word with that intent. Fortunately, it seemed to explain enough, because the crowd's attention scattered quickly. Phew.
"I didn't actually contact you for this, but suddenly I'm feeling a bit strange, so....... Uh, haha....... Surely that's not because of me. Right. Of course not."
While I was warily reading the room, Na Bit pulled out a small box and held it out to me.
"What's this?"
"It's nothing much. Just a token of thanks for everything."
"May I open it?"
She nodded, so I lifted the lid. Inside was a pen. Not a fountain pen—a ballpoint, slightly weighty?
"It's a Space Pen."
"A Space Pen?"
"Yes, a pen you can use in space. Ordinary pens won't write in zero gravity, apparently. So this one's designed to work regardless of gravity."
"Handy if I ever find myself headed to space."
"It's useful on Earth, too. You can write lying down, or underwater."
Though there's no paper floating in midair or at the bottom of a pool. I restrained myself admirably from saying so.
"Remarkable. Thank you, I'll put it to good use. Though I'm embarrassed—I came without anything prepared."
"No, what standing do I have to receive anything? I was nothing but a burden the whole time." Author Na Bit lowered her head as she spoke.
Yes, well, reflection is necessary. If not for your sake, then for my successor's. As I nodded inwardly, she said something unexpected.
"Now that it's over, I have a confession to make: every time I received your feedback, I had nightmares."
"Nightmares?"
"I'd dream I was dragged off somewhere and made to do nothing but write. My manuscripts were inspected night and day."
"When did I ever torture you like that......."
"I honestly think you were close to a dictator."
"Me?"
I'd been laughing along, and then I nearly fell out of my chair. A dictator? Why me?
"You always spoke so nicely, but there was no refusing you. Your feedback was too precise to argue with, so opening a marked-up draft felt like getting back an exam sheet where everything was wrong......."
At her litany of grievances, I quietly wiped my brow in relief. But this was no time to relax.
"It got to where sending manuscripts frightened me more and more. Just imagining how you'd sneer at my pathetic first drafts made me want to bite my tongue......."
"Sneer? Author, never. Absolutely never."
"Of course you didn't. But every time I saw my manuscript come back bright red all over, the self-loathing would set in....... Ah, here we go again. That's the Glass Cannon taking another hit. I'm sorry for whining when you've already left the company....... Anyway, thank you so much. It was agonizing, but thanks to you the results were good, and so, and now I don't know if I can manage without you......"
Just when I thought she'd recovered, she dipped again. But tending to that glass heart was no longer my job. It belonged to the new editor she'd soon be working with. The previous editor's proper role was to wave a handkerchief from a distance—though remembering the way she'd been sobbing into it, I swallowed a sigh. Then, with the thought that this was the last time anyway, I began.
"Please don't diminish yourself like that, Author. If it's confessions you're after, here's mine: I'm actually a fan of yours. Becoming an editor was more than half because of your work."
"Hk.......!"
"......Why are you reacting like that?"
The moment I finally revealed my identity, Author Na Bit trembled violently and clapped a hand over her mouth, as if she'd just heard something unspeakably horrifying. Something in me lurched, and I pressed on anyway.
"I mean it. I've loved your work since your very first novel."
"Thirteen.......?"
"No, Ten Days and One Day Later....... Could there be an earlier work I don't know about? Because if so, I'd be immediately disqualified as a fan." When I faltered, Na Bit clarified.
"Yes, that one. I call it 13."
"Ah, because 'ten days' and 'one day' add up to thirteen?"
"No. It was 13 to begin with. I split the number 13 into 'ten days' and 'one day.'"
Right. Any sane person would be asking what on earth that even means. But I happen to love this kind of perverted attention to detail, too.......
"But 13 was written so long ago....... I loved it then, and it's still my favorite of everything you've written."
I watched, in real time, as Author Na Bit's face flushed. She must have felt the heat herself, because she hunched her shoulders and buried her face in the collar of her field jacket.
"The truth is, I knew....... You read my work so meticulously, I thought you must actually like it," she mumbled into the fabric.
Her mumbling was so timid I had to fire back, "Then why on earth were you afraid of me?"
"Because if a fan turns out to be disappointed, it hurts all the more....... Honestly, what a handful she is......." But what can I do? The devoted party suffers in silence. True to my long-fan credentials, I reverently savored even the sight of my author squirming in embarrassment.
After a while, she emerged from her jacket again and grumbled, "I contacted you just to say goodbye, and here I am accepting help again. I envy you. It seems like you'd naturally handle everything on your own, however it comes."
"I highly doubt that."
"Really. Even when my protagonists wandered, you found the right path for them right away. Surely you'd manage your own life just as well."
Her boundless faith made me flinch for some reason. Ah, that reminds me. Section Chief Kwon Mu-seop's assignment. The very thing I still haven't resolved.
Yes, I was good at finding the way forward for protagonists in novels. But that was because I knew every detail of the situation—because even if I got something wrong, I could always go back and fix it. Above all, I was an observer, not the person involved. And now this editor, who'd done nothing but meddle from the sidelines, had suddenly become a party to events himself. So I was in the middle of searching for a motive to grant myself—and still floundering. Because no matter what I reached for, it rang false.
"Author, this is a bit of a different topic, but....... Now that I think of it, let me ask. Say there's a person who could very well die. He needs motivation to survive, and we want to give him a reason he must save himself. What would work best?"
"Mission? Revenge? Love?"
"Those are the classics, yes. But he's not that dramatic a character. Forget conviction or grudges—he has no family, no lover, nothing. Just a person."
"Ah....... And so you'd tell him to get a girlfriend....... His life is on the line, and you suggest that? Isn't that foolish and irresponsible?"
"Thought so, huh."
"Yes. If they'd loved each other for years, maybe, but as of right now, even if feelings sprang up, drawing the line would be the right thing. Besides, forcing meaning onto a hastily manufactured lover is awkward—it wouldn't be for that person's sake at all, only for the sake of yourself, the one who loves them. An inappropriate acceleration."
......No room for rebuttal whatsoever. True—I'd thought it was a bad idea from the start. Having her dissect it point by point was oddly satisfying, though. So what reason do I give to one Seo Do-woon?
"What if he simply accepted death?"
The author's question startled me so much I nearly folded my hands in alarm. "For example?"
"He tries to survive, of course, but if death comes for him, he accepts it. 'So this is my ending. At least I got to die as myself—how fortunate.'"
"That's rather the opposite of what we're going for. We'd rather he not die so serenely."
"Serenity's actually better."
"I'm sorry?"
"Having no mission, no revenge, no love to dedicate your life to means you get to decide for yourself what kind of person you become. For once he's free, so he should simply do what he likes—both living and dying, entirely on his own terms."
"And if that lowers his odds of survival?"
"Wouldn't that be fine too? Merely living long isn't the best possible outcome. I'd take one brilliant, regret-free year over a hundred years stretched pointlessly thin."
"Ha......."
Listening to Author Na Bit, I laughed a hollow, defeated laugh. So that's why. That's why Section Chief Kwon Mu-seop's assignment never sat right with me. A reason I must save myself. If such a reason existed, I would have to shake off Lee Sol and board that train. I would have to hide in the ruins and pray for Baek Sa-ra's death. But I don't want to do that. I don't want to survive that way, swallowing bile while drowning in my own rationalizations. Just as Author Na Bit says—I only want to choose as I please.
"And besides, I don't think death is necessarily a bad thing." As I swallowed a wry laugh, Na Bit rattled on cheerfully. "Death is completion, isn't it? A proper ending. There could be something else beyond the death we believe is the end. For all we know, this is all just a game of pretend, a role-play—and after dying, everyone who killed and was killed might say, 'I lost this round. Shall we go again?'"
Right. Author Na Bit's singular philosophy of death has been constant since her very first work. And I've absorbed no small amount of it myself. For a fan like me, this kind of TMI from the author is a kind of reward. But as I sat there smiling and listening, the happily chattering Na Bit belatedly looked at me—and her complexion drained white.
"......Don't tell me this is about you?"
I simply smiled. Her mouth then sped up in an entirely different direction. "Of course—obviously, one must live one's hardest. Death only comes once, and once it does, nothing can be undone. So everyone should live out the days they're given—no, as long as they possibly can—"
"Yes, I certainly intend to live as long as I can." I cut in casually before she could start crying again. "It's just that the person treating me asked me to try building a reason to live. That's why I asked."
"......The foolish-and-irresponsible bit was only my personal opinion."
"No, I came to a similar conclusion myself......."
The atmosphere turned awkward for no good reason, and I was groping for a change of subject when Na Bit suddenly spoke up.
"Then—how about this?"
"Yes?"
"Decide your ending first. Your ending for the situation you're in right now."
"And once it's decided?"
"You complete the story."
The story? As I tilted my head, Na Bit asked, watching my reaction carefully. "Wouldn't that work as a reason?"
"Ah....... The moment I finally understood, she added shyly, "An unfinished story is simply unforgivable, after all."
"That much is true."
"Even if you die, you owe a proper conclusion."
"Author, our first priority is always the authors' health—"
"Option one: just die. Option two: finish the story, then die."
"The options are a little too......." I ended up laughing, and Author Na Bit smiled gently back.
Decide the ending, then complete the story. Advice fit for an aspiring novelist. And yet it appears I truly am a hopeless workaholic—the fact that this lands far harder than "get a girlfriend" rather proves it.
"That's a good idea, actually," I said, swallowing a bitter laugh.
I am an ordinary person who's gotten by just fine without grand motives—no convictions, no grudges, no family. Just a person neither passionate nor reckless enough to entrust the reason for my existence to anything. At the same time, I'm the secret fan of one particular author, and an editor. For someone like me, if I had to be granted a reason to survive at all, wouldn't "because stories deserve to be finished wherever possible" be about right?
And when it comes to my own ending, I wouldn't even need to think it over.
"Please keep writing, Author. Until I come back." Since my fandom had already been exposed anyway, I let a little personal greed slip in as I said it—because I hoped my epilogue would be a scene of me turning the pages of her new work.
Did any of that reach her?
My dear author simply smiled.