I Didn't Come Up With That Name
"?"
Even though Lee Jaewook had spoken while looking straight at her, Na Yoonjeong could not make sense of the situation. Still seated at her desk, her pupils tracked left, then right.
"The writer... you mean?"
"Yes."
"The writer you mentioned, Chief... that's me?"
"Yes."
She asked more than once, but the person Lee Jaewook had named was Na Yoonjeong herself. And she was not someone who deserved to be called a writer.
The question that rose before all of that, however, was only one.
Chief Aide Lee Jaewook isn't the type to talk nonsense... is he?
Four years of facing each other every single day in the same assembly office had turned her faith in the man named Lee Jaewook into something unshakable. This man was absolutely not someone who would spout nonsense.
The moment she had confirmed Chief Aide Lee Jaewook's face through the crack in the office door — former chief aide, though no one ever thought of him that way — Na Yoonjeong had been certain he would solve, in a single stroke, the problem that had been exhausting and wearing down everyone in the office.
It was a kind of doctrinal faith. Fight a hundred battles and win a hundred, and the trust of the soldiers beneath you becomes a mountain. Somewhere in that mountain a sliver of fear might linger — but what about the hundred-and-first? When you stood behind a general who had fought ten thousand times and won all ten thousand, however, doubt simply vanished. To question him would be like questioning a formula in an Excel spreadsheet.
When her faith in Lee Jaewook forcibly wired the synapses in her brain together, Na Yoonjeong spat out a rather absurd answer.
"From this moment on, I am a writer. There's no way you could be wrong, Chief, so I must have been mistaken."
"...Pardon?"
At Na Yoonjeong's nonsensical reply, it was Lee Jaewook who furrowed his brow — and Na Yoonjeong snapped back to her senses.
"Ah! No — honestly, I have no idea. Why I'm supposed to be a writer..."
At her continuing confusion, Lee Jaewook drew an old booklet from his inner jacket pocket. He rolled it once in the opposite direction, smoothed it flat, and set it on Na Yoonjeong's desk. Where she could see it.
"......Huh?"
With a spellbound look on her face, Na Yoonjeong reached out and began reading the booklet in a rush. There, intact, were the words that had transcribed Na Yoonjeong's imagination years ago.
She looked up at Lee Jaewook with a vacant expression.
"Why do you... have this, Chief?"
It had only existed on her laptop. An old laptop, at that. Was it even still on there? She had never shown it to anyone, and yet it had been printed, bound, and now lay open before her eyes. She was just beginning to wonder whether this omniscient, all-capable man could pull off even this — when Lee Jaewook answered.
"Pen name Na Malchul. Your younger brother Yuntae came up with it."
"...Yuntae? And what's... Na Malchul supposed to be?"
"I couldn't ask what the pen name means. Your brother was extremely busy. He did ask me to tell you to change your password, though."
"Huh?"
Before they knew it, the staff from the assembly office had gathered around Na Yoonjeong and Lee Jaewook, Aide Lee Moon-joo among them. Lee Jaewook looked at Aide Lee Moon-joo.
"Could I borrow Secretary Na Yoonjeong for a moment?"
I walked the lawn in front of the Assembly Members' Office Building with Na Yoonjeong. I spoke first, keeping my tone light.
"Nice weather."
"Ah, yes. It is."
"Cicadas singing, too."
"Yes. The cicadas are singing."
"You can relax. I came today as an entertainment company manager. That thing Secretary Na called a brain-dead career move."
Na Yoonjeong's ears went red.
"The Assemblyman was the one who said that."
"You're the one who brought up the word."
"...Yes."
The lawn was pleasant enough, but there wasn't much shade. We turned at the fountain in the center and walked toward the National Assembly Library.
"It was fun, you know."
"Ah...... that's just... a practice piece I wrote when I was young......"
"Still. It was fun."
It had taken the shape of a synopsis — a vaguely in-between length, somewhere between a treatment and a synopsis. Not that many pages, in any case, which was why I had been able to read it in snatches at the coffee shop in Yeonseo University Hospital, and again in the parking lot of the Assembly Members' Office Building.
It was something I had come to feel while studying to develop an eye for evaluating work. In their early pieces, writers project themselves quite heavily. A person's ideology, their way of thinking. The wellspring of the imaginings they usually indulge in. Their hopes. Their wishes... even their complexes.
In the synopsis Na Yoonjeong had written, the things she dreamed of were woven in with startling nakedness.
I kept talking to her.
"The memories are vivid, aren't they?"
"...I'd forgotten. But the moment I saw it, it all came back."
"That's fortunate. Means we can talk about the work right away."
"It isn't a... work. Just a practice piece......"
Na Yoonjeong lowered her gaze, as if trying to escape the sunlight. A characteristic of hers, if you could call it that. As her years in the office had accumulated and the work had grown familiar, these mannerisms had largely faded. But they still surfaced from time to time.
I didn't bother pointing it out. I simply kept the conversation going.
"Work or practice piece. It doesn't matter what you call it. What's important is that the synopsis made it out into the world somehow. Someone took notice. And for a number of overlapping reasons, it's ready to see the light of day."
"Who am I to... and I haven't written anything in four years."
"Meaning you haven't written since I hired you."
"Yeees......"
Na Yoonjeong snuck a glance at my face.
"The heroine is incredibly pathetic. Jealousy, envy, an inferiority complex — she's got it all."
At my words, Na Yoonjeong's nostrils flared. This, too, was one of her tells.
A Grade 4 chief aide and a Grade 9 administrative secretary actually communicate a surprising amount. Everything from processing expenses to drafting and printing minor documents. Updating the Assemblyman's schedule, too. I would request; Secretary Na Yoonjeong would handle it. Thanks to that, I knew a great many things about her.
When she was nervous or uncomfortable — or even when her emotions simply ran too high — she would clamp her mouth shut and breathe through her nose. Quite vigorously. Which was why her nostrils got rather large.
I kept going, my tone thoroughly unhurried.
"A pathetic heroine, and a male lead who, by default setting, is a chaebol heir, so he has a great deal — but when it comes to being pathetic, he could give the heroine a run for her money. And those two keep getting tangled up."
"......"
"I've always wondered. In stories like this, why is the male lead always a chaebol heir?"
At the question I tossed out, Na Yoonjeong's nostrils flared even wider. Then she answered.
"...Because that's what makes him cool. The fairy-tale prince just got recast as a chaebol's son."
"Then why, in the early setup of your story, does the male lead start out pathetic? If you want him to be cool, wouldn't it be better if he already had everything?"
She had to thump her chest several times before she could answer.
"Then... he's just a prince on a white horse. And the heroine is just a princess waiting to be rescued."
"So you didn't want to simply be rescued."
"...It's not exactly like that."
We entered a stretch where the trees cut off the sun, and I asked again.
"Earlier, when I called you a writer in the office — Na Malchul — with everyone standing there. How did that feel?"
"...I was just overwhelmed, I guess......"
"It wasn't bad, though, was it? Being in the spotlight. And yet... that felt a little like being rescued, too?"
At the continuing questions, Na Yoonjeong flicked a glance at my face, then lowered her gaze again.
"......"
"It wasn't a Cinderella story. It was a story of two ugly ducklings transforming into swans. They became each other's catalyst — it wasn't about one person saving the other. Is that right? My reading of it?"
"Yes...... that's the intention I wrote it with."
Quite honest. That honesty was a product of our relationship — the inertia of having shared so many things in the same space, of having worked side by side.
"Let me get to the point. This is an unusual case. If Secretary Na simply decides, it airs as a TVK Friday-Saturday drama in four weeks. But the decision has to be fast, yes? There's no time. You can write it sloppily. I don't mind. I have no expectations anyway. Of course a minimum quality bar has to be met — but that isn't me talking about my expectations. That's what TVK is thinking."
"Whaaat? What do you mean... ah? ...Ah! Running Today as Well?!"
"Yes. You already know, so I don't need to explain. Convenient."
I stopped walking. Na Yoonjeong, who had taken another two steps, halted and looked back at me, as if wondering why I had stopped. I looked at her too. The person I had spent four years with under the name Na Yoonjeong.
I had thought I knew her fairly well. But people are like onions — just when you think you know them, they shed another layer and reveal new flesh underneath.
From the synopsis she had written, and from her brother Na Yuntae's account, I had glimpsed the fundamental inferiority Na Yoonjeong carried, and the longing she truly yearned for. I would press on that.
If she hadn't possessed that fundamental desire, I would have pushed hard. But this was different. Even if the result of the negotiation was the same yes, the results that followed would differ wildly depending on the process. I wanted to draw out not Na Yoonjeong's inertia, but her very best.
"At first I came here intending to say, let's do this together. Because I believed that if it was Secretary Na, when I said let's do it, she wouldn't even consider another answer."
"......"
Instead of answering, Na Yoonjeong flared her nostrils wide again. This, too, was not a bad thing. It looked pure. I liked that.
"You're a special-appointment civil servant, so unless you resign there would be a dual-employment issue — but that's simple. The Old Man would have followed my opinion in the end anyway. It's not as if I'm stealing you away. Two months or so? That should be enough."
"......"
"Of course, Secretary Na would be exhausted, but I judged that could be coordinated well enough. Aide Lee Moon-joo, Aide Yoon Myeongtae, Aide Kim Hong-ryeo, and the rest. Since it's something I asked for, they would support you for a few months without a word of complaint."
Na Yoonjeong's upper body rose and fell dramatically. Evidence she was breathing hard. I looked into the eyes of a woman who still could not answer. She still showed a lack of confidence from time to time, but you could no longer say she was the same as before. She didn't look away now.
"Writing one drama isn't going to change your life that dramatically."
"...Yes."
"But the duckling inside Secretary Na Yoonjeong might just become a swan."
"!"
I checked the watch on my wrist, lifting my arm a little too deliberately so she could see it. Then I spoke.
Na Yoonjeong answered when the minute hand had moved exactly one mark.
"Can I really write it sloppily?"
"Yes. I don't mind."
I meant it. A drama may devour enormous capital and carry the dreams of countless people as it runs down the tracks — but that is only true when the train itself is large. This train? No one expected anything of it. Moderately. As long as it didn't derail and simply kept running, that would be enough.
You could argue that any work would do, then. But the human heart doesn't work that way. It was that subtle greed that had brought Na Yoonjeong before me as Na Malchul.
"I'll do it."
"We won't disclose the writer's identity. If it goes badly, there'll be damage from it going badly. If it goes well, there'll be problems from it going well."
"Yes. I understand. You're doing that out of consideration for me."
I bowed — not in the usual posture of an aide receiving a greeting from a secretary, but deeper, the way I would when I was the one offering the greeting first.
"I'll be in touch. Writer Na Malchul."
"Ah...! Um, wait — the pen name, not Na Malchul...!"
From behind me came Na Yoonjeong's voice, mixed with lament, but I simply kept walking toward the parking lot.
"Chief! I didn't come up with Na Malchul!"
Meeem—meeem—.
Overlapping with Na Yoonjeong's voice, the cicadas sang again, as if boasting to the world that they had finished their fable — that they had been pupae. In voices fierce with passion.