People Are the Problem
My gaze drifted to the window.
A pale winter sky hung there like a framed painting, with a few bare branches barely clinging to the edge of it.
Then I turned my head back to reality.
A blinding white hospital room, the faint sting of disinfectant, the sensation of a needle sunk into my arm, and the metallic taste lingering in my mouth.
When you lie there for so long with an IV drip feeding into you, staring blankly at the ceiling, it starts to feel as if your blood is being replaced by medicine, as if you’re slowly turning into a formaldehyde doll.
A kind of helplessness wraps itself around your whole body and steals even the will to struggle against the death creeping closer.
How had it come to this?
The more I thought about it, the more the few decent moments of my life appeared in faded colors.
I had once been a writer with real value.
In the drama and film world, my name was enough to make people say, “Ah! That guy!”
But that was all.
I could never rise beyond that.
Why not? For what reason?
After asking myself over and over, I finally admitted what I had spent my life denying.
“People are the problem.”
“...Out of nowhere?”
“I was looking back on my life. And once I did, the answer was obvious. No matter how I think about it, the problem was trusting those bastards who didn’t even deserve to be called human.”
My throat felt raw.
It felt like I might cough up blood any second, though maybe that would have been better.
“Hyung, remember? My debut drama, Star Village Island People. It was at eleven percent in its third week. Started at one percent when nobody expected a thing, then climbed to eleven. It was the kind of show that would’ve definitely gone over twenty by the end.”
“...I remember. Star Village Island People.”
“Right, the one where the director got caught taking sexual favors and had to step down.”
Come to think of it, the signs had been wrong from the very beginning.
I should have known then.
“Bad luck, I guess. But that was when my talent was recognized, so my next project was...”
“Your next project? The one that got ruined because the male lead had an affair?”
“...”
“And that wasn’t the end of it. Do you remember Sword-Bound Gentleman? The one I spent two years pouring everything into. The one you said should rewrite the ratings rankings for Korean dramas. The one that opened at nineteen percent in its first week.”
“...I know.”
“Yeah. The one that collapsed because the female lead killed herself right after the drama started.”
A shadow deepened across Hyung’s face.
I knew this wasn’t something I should be dumping on him, but I couldn’t stop myself.
“After that, it was every single time, every single moment. Those filthy beasts in the entertainment industry ruined everything. My effort, my results—those bastards smashed it all to pieces.”
I grew sick of the drama world and fled to films.
But inside the single category of entertainment, the two weren’t all that different.
Only after I realized that did I understand there was no paradise in any place you ran to.
And then I was betrayed until I withered away.
Corporate abuse and unfair contracts were almost laughably minor by comparison.
The smug arrogance of overinflated actors was just another passing scandal.
What I went through wasn’t that.
Sexual favors, affairs, suicide, drugs, school violence.
Scandals on the scale of a massive gate.
All I had done was work on the same projects as those people, and somehow I was the one who had to endure looks split somewhere between pity and disgust, as if I needed to prove I was clean.
Like I said, I was a writer anyone in the business would know by name.
But “Ah! That guy!” carried two meanings.
The guy who had once written with real momentum.
The guy whose work kept blowing up because he got dragged into scandal every time he wrote something.
At some point, I’d become little more than a plague.
I thought about it many times.
That maybe some of it had been my fault, not theirs.
That I couldn’t grow if I blamed everything on other people.
I went to church for the first time in my life.
I went to ask for help forgiving my enemies.
And yet.
And still, every time.
In the end, after all my efforts to control my feelings, I always arrived at the same conclusion.
“Why? Why did it have to be me? How could this happen? How can life be this fucking unfair?”
“...Jaekyung.”
“This isn’t how it’s supposed to go. Why the hell were all those bastards fine until they worked with me, and then right at that time they had to pay for every crime they’d ever committed? If it had been a little later, that would’ve been fine. A little earlier, that would’ve been fine too. So why—cough! Hack—”
“Hey! Don’t shout! With your condition like this—”
“Just tell me to die already. What’s the point now?”
“...!”
Ah. I’d said too much.
Hyung’s expression twisted.
It was the kind of face he only made when he was truly angry.
I looked away.
“...Sorry. I said something stupid.”
“Good that you know it. I was really about to hit you.”
Even now, he was trying to stay calm. That was so like him.
Yeah. He really was a good person.
A good-natured fool who couldn’t give up on a human being who had come here with a terminal illness and spent the whole day throwing hysterics around.
A dry laugh escaped me.
“Pathetic.”
“What’s funny now?”
“That I used up all my luck just meeting one person like you. That my life was so flimsy it could only afford that much.”
“Well, I had to be one hell of a good catch. So at least for a day like this, you’d better live and come back.”
Only then did Hyung laugh.
His hand came down and rested heavily on my shoulder.
The usual words of comfort followed.
“I’m a top director now. Those actors who think they’re all that? If I say jump, they jump. So come back alive. Come back alive and let’s make something together. You and me, leaving our names in Korean film history—that’s what we came here to do.”
“They say my surgery success rate is fifteen percent.”
“That’s higher than your ratings.”
“My peak was nineteen percent. Don’t downplay it.”
“My peak is ten million admissions. What’s nineteen percent compared to that?”
Only then did I start breathing properly again.
This damned body finally remembered how to breathe.
But the boiling emotion inside me still refused to settle.
Maybe for the rest of this life that had started over.
No—maybe even after death, those resentful ghosts would cling to me and keep tormenting me.
Hyung stood up from his seat.
“Your surgery’s tomorrow, right? Get some rest. I’ll bring tofu tomorrow.”
“What’s with the tofu? I’m not in jail.”
“You were the one who said jail might be better.”
“Hah.”
I waved him off.
Only then, as if finally relieved, did Hyung leave the room.
Silence remained, and then my hand dropped limply to my side.
The darkness that had been hanging over me returned, wrapping itself around my whole body so completely that all my earlier pretense of being okay felt ridiculous.
Sorry about that.
In the end, I’d only ever done things that made Hyung feel sorry for me.
I’d lied once.
The real success rate for tomorrow’s surgery was less than one percent.
In other words, they were telling me to just die.
I could have held out longer with medication and watched how things progressed, but I didn’t.
I didn’t want to lie here for another year or two, buying a little more time.
In effect, I had decided to kill myself.
If I survived?
Well, I didn’t want to stake my future on such a flimsy hope.
Besides, I hadn’t planned on living longer in the first place.
My life had been fucking hopeless no matter what I did.
All I could think about now was how badly I wanted to be done with it.
I collapsed back and stared at the ceiling.
Even that movement hurt.
With my breathing turning ragged, I looked back over my life once more.
Bastards.
In the end, it had been people who ruined my life.
My thoughts scattered in every direction, but they all converged on the same conclusion: people.
My only crime had been innocence.
No—could that even be called a crime?
Even if it could, I didn’t want to think of it that way.
To be innocent and still be told to accept punishment—it was too cruel a sentence for someone who had already suffered this much.
If even I condemned myself, then who in the world was left to comfort this pathetic wreck?
So I chose to stop.
To pity myself more than anyone else in the world, and grant this version of me the mercy of eternal rest.
That was the only choice in my life that had ever felt truly complete.
I closed my eyes.
But I stayed awake through the night, and the next day, a nurse came to escort me.
I was taken into the operating room and examined.
I knew, somehow, that this would be the last thing I ever remembered.
At last, they fitted me with an oxygen mask.
An anesthetic was administered.
“Don’t worry, sir. We’ll do everything we can.”
There wasn’t time for those words to come out.
The anesthesia was so strong that my consciousness sank almost at once.
And so I, Han Jaekyung, was finally freed from my life of endless bitterness.
* * *
A dull ringing filled my ears.
An unfamiliar sensation wrapped itself around my entire body.
No, not unfamiliar—just old.
The smell of disinfectant that had become routine during my hospital days was gone, replaced by a diffuser scent, and that alone felt strange.
The rest was the same.
An office somewhere.
I was sitting across from someone with a desk between us.
Director Jo?
A potbellied toad with a face full of pockmarks.
The bastard who had taken Star Village Island People, my debut drama, and happily torpedoed it with his own sexual bribery scandal, was laughing uproariously.
And beside me sat Hyung, looking at least fifteen years younger than the last time I’d seen him.
The two of them were smiling.
Only then did I remember what scene this was.
Ah. The first meeting.
“Hoho! It’s great to meet such a fine writer. Hm? Lately, the writers people introduce to me are always a bit vague, but this project—hm?—I can feel it right away! This one’s got the vibe. It’s going to work, and work properly!”
“Hahaha! Our Jaekyung really knows how to write, doesn’t he! I’m so relieved that a director like you is taking the lead, sir!”
“Hahahat! You really are something, aren’t you! But what about the station director...?”
“He’s still the same as ever. He mentions you from time to time, too, Director Jo.”
So this was a dream.
Or maybe a flash of my life before my eyes.
This was the day I regretted most in my entire life, the day the first button had been fastened wrong.
So...
Hyung came from broadcasting bloodlines.
His father was a terrestrial network station director, and his mother had been one of the greatest stars of her generation.
He himself was a new director with a strong visual sense, good enough to win prizes at a university film festival.
Naturally, he had a wide network in the broadcasting world.
That was why the director who was going to work on my debut drama turned out to be this toad, a man wildly successful for his time and utterly beneath his station.
Hyung had read my script, gotten excited, run around showing it to every director he knew, and eventually passed it on to this one.
-This, this has to be made! We have to do it!
-You’re just trying to hype it up...
-I’m telling you, it works! It’s a script that will absolutely work! Wait, I’m going to pass it around to the PDs I know...
It felt good.
It felt good that Hyung, who had always been my mentor since college, had acknowledged me. It felt good that his recognition was enough to put me in contact with a real director. It felt good to believe I could become something.
I thought I was on my way up.
And when I realized that Director Jo was treating my script with genuine seriousness in that eagerly anticipated meeting, my confidence shot clear to the top of my head.
At that first meeting, I’d flattered him in every way I could.
And then I’d agreed to a contract on the spot.
I shouldn’t have done that.
Maybe this was what regret looked like when it took shape.
I should’ve experienced general anesthesia before.
I should’ve had at least one lucid dream in my life.
I hadn’t expected it to feel this real.
In the middle of talking with Hyung, Director Jo held out his hand to me.
“Aigoo, I really haven’t been paying enough attention to our writer Han. Still, from now on, aren’t we in this together? Hmm? Please take good care of me. Let’s keep pushing forward and make something fun together!”
What bullshit.
Bastard.
No—worse than a bastard.
That hand had spent decades stuffing actresses into bed through sexual bribery, contaminating other people’s dreams and youth.
On the day the scandal broke, the number of victims who finally found their voice easily passed into double digits.
A sick wave of disgust rolled through me.
What made it even more horrific was that this had happened while he was working on my debut drama, destroying my career right in the middle of it.
“Hey, hey, hey. Jaekyung, why aren’t you shaking his hand already? Ah, aigoo, our Jaekyung is really nervous!!! I’m sorry, Director!”
Hyung flailed dramatically.
“Hahaha! A newcomer can be like that! Don’t be too intimidated by me, Writer Han!”
Director Jo waved his hand up and down, urging me to take it.
“You going to keep leaving me hanging like this and embarrass me?”
At that question, I answered without thinking.
“Yes.”
“...Huh?”
Director Jo looked as if he’d misheard me.
So I said it again.
“I can’t take it. That hand.”
Yeah. I should have said that on that day in the first place.