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### Chapter 2: I Wrote a Script This Time. A Drama Script.
I sat there in a daze.
After the story ended, I found myself back in my goshiwon room, but there was no way I could think straight.
The convenience store manuscript was still in my hand.
I clenched and unclenched my fist.
My body moved freely, without the slightest resistance.
The story hadn't been short.
It felt like I'd binge-watched an entire drama on NFlix overnight.
Strangely enough, though, I wasn't tired.
I checked the time on my phone.
6:14 p.m.
I'd gotten up at six, cleaned my room, finished reading the manuscript, and then that phenomenon had occurred.
In other words, almost no time had passed.
My sense of reality began to blur.
This goshiwon, this room, was undoubtedly real.
Yet my body was still filled with that unreal sensation.
I couldn't feel my body at all, but it wasn't uncomfortable.
That lingering sensation made even my own body feel unfamiliar.
There was more.
The scenes I'd witnessed were replaying perfectly in my mind.
Whenever I focused on a particular moment, I could fast-forward or rewind it at will.
Because of that, I remembered everything I'd seen.
Every single line of dialogue.
That wasn't all.
It was as though my mind had split into two screens.
On one side, the scenes replayed like a video.
On the other, words appeared.
Those words described everything happening in the video.
It was similar to how I used to plan novels.
I'd imagine the scene I wanted to write, then turn it into text.
But this was on an entirely different level.
For one thing, these vivid scenes, conversations, and characters couldn't be compared to the vague fantasies I'd once
imagined on my own.
Even though the convenience store story had been based on reality, what I had just experienced felt far more lifelike.
The writing wasn't vague or simplistic either.
The setting, emotions, and dialogue were expressed with perfect precision.
The sentences were so clear that they felt undeniably right.
And finally...
It wasn't a novel.
The words filling my head weren't prose.
They were a script.
Judging by the volume...
A television drama script.
Why?
Was it because I'd declared that I would never write novels again?
The question barely lingered.
The incomprehensible phenomenon came hand in hand with an overwhelming impulse.
I wanted to write.
I wanted to tell a story.
I wanted to pour out everything overflowing inside my head before it burst.
I couldn't sit still.
I immediately sat at my desk, turned on my laptop, and began typing.
---
Beep. Beep.
My phone alarm rang.
I reluctantly placed a period at the end of the story I hadn't managed to finish.
My fingers and wrists throbbed.
It wasn't as if today was my only chance.
Thankfully, the burning heat in my head had finally cooled.
I picked up my phone and turned off the alarm.
January 1st, 2030.
It was the alarm I'd set to watch the first sunrise of the new year.
That meant...
I'd been writing for twelve straight hours.
Without eating.
Without going to the bathroom.
I'd remained seated in the same chair the entire time.
Reality still felt distant.
Writing nonstop for twelve hours...
And Word had just passed four hundred pages.
It was impossible.
Even back when I knew absolutely nothing about writing novels, it had taken me an entire week just to finish the first
draft of a ten- to twenty-page short story.
I felt like I'd become someone with superpowers.
Stretching my arms, I rubbed my dry face.
As soon as my mind cleared, hunger crashed over me.
Even so, I couldn't leave my seat.
The impulse had faded, but the desire remained.
A story only gains meaning when it's shared with someone else.
I'm going to tell my stories to people all over the world.
At that moment, I realized...
I still hadn't abandoned that dream.
I'd only failed to see it because reality had buried me and narrowed my vision.
It had always been there.
What if this script became a drama?
Countless people would watch my story on televisions, laptops, and phones.
They'd immerse themselves in the characters I'd created.
They'd laugh with them.
Cry with them.
Be moved by them.
Goosebumps spread across my body.
Even though it was nothing more than a fantasy dreamed up in a tiny goshiwon room, my chest swelled with emotion.
Excitement.
Joy.
Fulfillment.
Those vivid emotions filled every part of me.
I opened Yeopseogeul, a literary contest website.
Genre Search.
Tag: Scenario.
I clicked on the first contest listed.
Studio Lion x JTV Script Contest
For the upcoming year 2030, Studio Lion and JTV are jointly accepting submissions for an original television drama
script.
We look forward to receiving fresh and creative stories from new writers.
Category:
Series script, Episodes 1 and 2
(Total of 16 episodes, approximately 70 minutes each)
Theme:
Open
Submission:
Project proposal (official template)
Episodes 1 and 2
(Approximately 35 A4 pages and 70 minutes per episode)
Prize:
150 million won
As I scrolled down the page, my eyes froze on the prize amount.
One hundred and fifty million won.
The highest prize in the New Year's Literary Contest was fifteen million won.
Even that amount was only offered by regional newspapers trying to attract more submissions.
Most contests awarded somewhere between five and ten million won.
One hundred and fifty million...
Ten times the highest literary contest prize.
Of course, a short story and a sixteen-episode drama couldn't be compared.
And I wasn't writing for money.
Still...
I'd always believed that if I won the literary contest, I'd live off the prize money while publishing my next novel,
eventually becoming a full-time writer.
This...
This was an entirely different world.
One hundred and fifty million won...
I scrolled back up and checked the submission requirements again.
Thirty-five pages per episode.
Seventy minutes.
The script I'd just written was around four hundred pages.
I had absolutely no sense of how that translated.
Then something dawned on me.
I've never actually read a modern television script.
I'd read plays by famous writers like Shakespeare and Anton Chekhov while studying novels.
But I'd never once read a contemporary drama script.
I immediately opened ReadyBooks and searched for published drama scripts.
Fortunately, one of the results was from a drama I'd already watched.
"This Is Love Too"
Both volumes together cost 28,000 won.
For someone surviving on instant noodles in a goshiwon, it was an expensive purchase.
I bought it without hesitation.
After downloading the files and reading Episode 1, I roughly understood the format.
While I was at it, I renewed my NFlix subscription as well.
At this point, there were only two possibilities.
Either I'd win the contest and earn money as a screenwriter...
Or I'd give up writing completely and find a proper job instead of another part-time one.
I opened both the drama and its script side by side and began studying.
---
Despite all the pathetic despair I'd wallowed in at the end of the year, my daily life after turning thirty didn't
change much.
I wrote every day.
I went outside for a run.
The only new addition was watching dramas on NFlix.
My finances became a little tight, but I had enough to survive until the contest results were announced.
I'd never been so grateful for the rice and kimchi provided by the goshiwon.
The script went through countless revisions.
Though "revision" wasn't quite the right word.
It was closer to editing.
Adjusting the length to match television format.
Fine-tuning where each episode began and ended.
After watching all kinds of dramas on NFlix and reading their scripts, I gradually developed a solid understanding of
script structure and pacing.
I finished writing all sixteen episodes.
Then I submitted Episodes 1 and 2, along with the proposal, to the studio.
Before I knew it, winter had passed.
The wind was still cold, but the warmth of sunlight had begun reaching the ground.
"Oh, Noah. Long time no see."
A short-haired blonde stepped into view.
After opening the front door, Suhyun greeted me.
At the same time, her eyes remained fixed on the chocolate drink and chocolate cake I was carrying.
"You could at least go buy your own snacks."
"I was coming here anyway."
I followed her inside.
"And if it weren't you, I would've just ordered delivery."
"If you stay indoors all the time, you're going to grow mold."
"You're really the one saying that?"
She had a point.
I wasn't exactly in a position to criticize anyone.
I spent every day locked inside my goshiwon, doing nothing but writing.
Suhyun walked over and sat at the bar table between the kitchen and living room.
The moment I placed the venti-sized chocolate frappuccino and chocolate mousse cake on the table, she snatched them
away.
She'd given me a gift voucher worth 100,000 won, saying I should write somewhere brighter, then asked me to pick these
up on the way over.
Still...
Chocolate drink and chocolate cake together?
That combination was hard to get used to.
"You're going to die young if you keep eating like that."
"If I hold myself back and get stressed, I'll probably die even sooner."
"I'm not even going to argue."
Suhyun took a long sip of the frappuccino before shivering happily.
She looked a little absent-minded at times, but she was undeniably successful.
Her late-night livestreams regularly attracted over ten thousand viewers.
She also had over a million subscribers on YouTube.
"Anything new?"
"...Nah. Probably not."
"Life's nothing special."
She rarely left the house and almost never took breaks from streaming, so we didn't meet often.
Usually, I'd come over on one of her days off.
"My life's a peaceful cycle of streaming, sleeping, streaming, sleeping."
She carefully scooped up a piece of cake as though it were made of gold.
"But..."
She looked up.
"So you're thirty now."
Then she put the cake into her mouth, closed her eyes in satisfaction, and smiled.
Suhyun was a year older than me.
But we'd known each other for over fifteen years, so we'd naturally become friends.
Honestly, though, judging by her appearance and behavior, most people would believe she was still in her early twenties.
"Yeah."
"I'm thirty now too."
"I really should start taking responsibility for my own life."
"How's the writing going?"
"I wrote a script this time."
"A drama script."
"A drama? Out of nowhere?"
Suhyun tilted her head in surprise.
"Did you bring it?"
"Yeah. Hold on."
I took the scripts for Episodes 1 and 2 out of my bag and handed them to her.
"The convenience store?"
"It's that novel you wrote."
"Yeah."
"I adapted it."
"I like stories like this."
"Stories like what?"
"Stories about ordinary people."
"Not those depressing stories where the protagonist spends every day talking about dying, complaining about life, and
lying around feeling miserable."
"...Ahem."
I had nothing to say.
Instead, I quietly sipped the Americano I'd bought for myself.
Back when I'd been crushed by repeated failures to debut, I'd written a lot of strange stories.
I'd claimed they explored themes like "the meaning of life" and "the purpose of humanity."
In reality...
They were just garbage.
They weren't philosophical.
They didn't reveal profound truths about human nature.
They were nothing more than outlets for my inferiority complex and resentment.
Reading them had probably been exhausting.
After all, Suhyun had always been my very first reader.
Before I noticed, she'd already pushed aside her beloved chocolate snacks and immersed herself completely in the script.
In many ways, she was the opposite of me.
If you compared us using MBTI, I was an N while Suhyun was an S.
And considering she claimed chocolate, beer, and NFlix were the reasons she lived, I trusted her judgment on scripts.
She was someone who kept business and personal matters completely separate.
Everyone knew someone like that back in school.
Pretty.
Kind.
Popular with everyone.
Yet the moment someone confessed to her, she'd reject them without hesitation.
She wouldn't even stay friends afterward.
The fact that she'd remained close to me for fifteen years was practically a mystery.
She often joked that it was only because I'd never confessed to her.
Well...
There had been a time when I wasn't entirely sure what I felt about Suhyun.
While I was lost in thought, a hand suddenly appeared in front of me.
Looking up, I found Suhyun reaching toward me, her eyes sparkling.
"What?"
"More."
Her voice was firm.
"More what?"
"Give me more."
She even started waving her hand impatiently.
Was she asking...
for the next episode?
She'd already finished reading Episodes 1 and 2?
"There isn't any."
Her hand froze.
But she didn't lower it.
I'd only brought the first two episodes because those were the submission requirements.
There was no way I was letting her read all sixteen episodes right here.
"Why not?!"
"Because the contest only accepts the first two episodes."
"So you're stopping it there?"
"I can't exactly make you read all sixteen episodes in one sitting."
"You brought me your full-length novels before."
Suhyun shot me an accusing glare.
"So you've already written all sixteen episodes?"
"Yeah."
"What did you think?"
"I guess it was at least interesting?"
Her reaction had been positive so far.
Even so, I found myself getting nervous.
As I'd said before, she wasn't the type to give generous praise out of friendship.
By then, Suhyun had already pulled the frappuccino and cake back in front of herself.
Seeing my anxious expression, she nodded.
Then she broke into a wide smile.
"Very."
"It was fun even just reading the script."
"It felt like the drama was unfolding right in front of my eyes."