The Hydroplaning Pen
"Come on, just tell me already. How are you supposed to write if the pen never even touches the paper?"
I gathered up the materials and turned the question back on Taeseok.
"You ever heard of hydroplaning?"
"Hydroplaning? You mean that thing where your car starts sliding when it rains too hard?"
I nodded.
"That's the one. The Hydroplaning Phenomenon happens when a tire's drainage capacity gets overwhelmed as it passes over standing water. The tire loses contact with the ground entirely and ends up skating across the surface."
I sketched a rough diagram on the whiteboard as I went on.
"Behind the wheel, that's a genuinely dangerous situation. But for a noiseless pen? It's the most useful thing in the world."
"Ah, so then…"
The realization finally clicked across his face. He understood what I was trying to build.
"Exactly. I'm going to create an ink cushion between the paper and the metal, so the ink comes out before the nib ever makes contact."
The two critical pieces were getting that ink cushion to form before the nib touched the page, and making sure it never came out in excess. Using silence as an excuse to flood the paper with ink would be a far bigger problem than the noise itself.
The pen still has to work as a pen.
Taeseok, however, was looking at me with a face full of doubt.
"Is that actually possible? Wouldn't the ink just gush out? And making a nib that can do that doesn't sound easy either."
"Making the impossible happen is what a craftsman is for."
Taeseok burst into applause at the sheer confidence in my voice.
Clap. Clap. Clap.
"Man… I really picked the right company. A boss's got to show this kind of confidence if he wants his people to believe in him."
"Technically there's only one of you, so 'people' is a bit of a stretch."
"Well, that number's going to grow, isn't it?"
Is it, though?
I wasn't so sure. This wasn't some massive workshop, and no matter how fast I worked, there was only so much one person could do.
Then again, you never know how things will turn out.
That was enough small talk. I collected the rest of the materials and sat down at the bench. This wouldn't take long, but I didn't have time to spare either. I needed to work fast.
Let's start with the skeleton.
It wasn't as critical as the nib or the feed, but the grip — the part of a fountain pen that actually meets the hand — still mattered. For hydroplaning to occur, the writing pressure bearing down on the paper had to be reduced to an absolute minimum.
An alloy would have been fine, but since this part wouldn't even touch skin, tungsten was more than enough. I melted it down and formed a pile of tiny spherical beads, then began seating them into the grip.
If I remember correctly…
I called up the exact pressure Kim Jeong-hoon had applied when he'd held a pen, running the numbers again in my head.
A little above the average for an adult man. In that case…
I set four tungsten beads in place, melted a fifth down to roughly thirty-one percent of its original size, and packed that last reduced bead in as well.
Perfect.
I paused for a moment, and Taeseok, who had been watching the whole time, spoke up.
"Boss Kang, why are you packing it with tungsten?"
"This way, when you hold the pen, the center of gravity pulls inward."
All right. That's done.
Two jobs remained — the two that actually mattered. The nib, and the feed.
I started with the nib. As it happened, I still had an alloy sitting around that was perfectly suited for the job. I melted down the leftover KANG3 from the last pair of eyeglass frames and began shaping it into a nib. Light, with just the right amount of strength, KANG3 was an ideal alloy for this kind of work.
It's not about making the tip pointy or rounding it off. That's not what matters.
I needed to widen the very end of the nib. A broader contact area would let the hydroplaning take hold that much more smoothly.
The sharp ring of alloy being worked filled the entire workshop.
And then there's this slit.
The slit that opened at the tip of a fountain pen nib. I needed to spread it a little wider than a standard fountain pen would allow. That way the ink would gather into a convex bead, forming a proper droplet.
"Hoo…"
This step was just as critical. The width had to be calibrated exactly to his writing pressure and the pen's overall balance. Only then would the ink droplet generate the hydroplaning effect when Kim Jeong-hoon put the pen to paper.
Not even a hundredth of a millimeter of error.
Open it too far, and the ink would flood out exactly the way Taeseok had worried it would. On a job with a target this precise, the smallest mistake produced a failure. I sharpened my focus even further and kept working.
Taeseok seemed to understand. He stopped talking entirely, holding his breath as if the slightest sound might break whatever I was doing.
His concentration when he works is actually kind of terrifying…
"Hoo… that's the nib done."
I set the finished nib and the rest of the completed parts aside and started on the most important work of all. A glance at the clock told me it was already four-thirty. Thirty minutes left.
Just about right.
"Huh?"
I'd been sure I'd gathered every material I needed. One item, it turned out, was missing.
Wait. Do I even have this in the workshop?
I got up from the bench, went back to the materials pile, and started hunting for what I'd forgotten. No matter how thoroughly I searched, it wasn't there.
"Hmm. Now what."
Taeseok caught the muttering and looked over.
"Something wrong?"
"I need silver, and I don't think I bought any. A trip to the jeweler would take a while… maybe I should just tell him to come in an hour."
"Silver? How much do you need?"
"Just a little. Not much at all."
Taeseok pulled the bracelet off his own wrist and held it out.
"Then use this. It's pure silver — you can melt it down and go."
"What? Are you sure that's all right?"
"I was going to sell it anyway. It was getting in the way. Don't worry about it."
I hesitated for a moment, then took the bracelet from his hand.
"Thank you. I'll add the cost to your paycheck."
This way, I'll make the deadline with room to spare.
I sat back down and got to work. The base would be Ebonite, with just a touch of silver worked in. Ebonite was natural rubber vulcanized with sulfur — far more hydrophilic than plastic, and unmatched when it came to keeping ink flowing smoothly. Into that, I melted a tiny amount of silver. The silver would act as a heat sink, holding the ink's temperature and viscosity at their optimal point at all times.
And here, once again, the mix ratio is everything.
Blend the same materials one way and you get a masterpiece. Blend them another and you get garbage. I bore down and worked to a tolerance of a hundredth of a milligram. Not a fraction more, not a fraction less.
"Hoo…"
I'd turned the air conditioner up high, and I was still sweating.
Once the feed was finished, I started assembling the fountain pen. Five minutes remained, which was more than enough to put it together. I opened the ink channels a little further here, patched the small shortcomings there as I went, working as fast as the clock would allow.
I was just finishing the last of it when the workshop door opened. I picked up the completed fountain pen.
"Mr. Kim. Perfect timing. I've just finished. Would you like to try it?"
"Yes, hello. I take it the pen is already done."
"I finished it just now. Assistant Manager Hong didn't come with you?"
"No, he had other business, so I came alone. I'm not his only author, after all."
"I see."
Cheol-woo brushed the dust from the fountain pen and held it out to Jeong-hoon.
"Go ahead and try it."
Kim Jeong-hoon turned the pen over in his fingers, examining it from every angle, then looked up.
"It looks rather ordinary, honestly. Does this fountain pen truly make no sound at all?"
Cheol-woo nodded without a hint of doubt.
"Of course. Though the silence only holds when you use it."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"I built it to your exact writing pressure, the way you hold a pen — every variable accounted for. A custom piece. If anyone else used it, the difference would be enough to produce a faint sound."
"I see…"
A thread of skepticism still lingered on the novelist's face.
It really doesn't make a single sound?
Jeong-hoon pulled a small notebook from his bag — the one he used for ordinary jotting. The paper was the same stock he wrote on at home. If this made no sound, neither would the real work.
He opened the notebook and made a request.
"Could you keep the music and any other noise to an absolute minimum?"
Taeseok moved the instant he heard it, cutting off the classical music that had been playing through the workshop and shutting every window and door. Silence filled the room in a matter of seconds.
"All right, then…"
Jeong-hoon sat down, took up the pen, and quietly began recording the day's events.
Fountain pen commissioned. A young craftsman of staggering confidence……
Is it silent? I still can't quite tell.
And then he simply kept writing, filling the notebook without pause.
In the end, what makes a novel entertaining is……
"Excuse me. Mr. Kim. Mr. Kim!"
What… I asked them to keep it down…
Jeong-hoon had been deep in concentration when Cheol-woo's voice shattered it all at once.
"I'm sorry, but… if you could just be a little quieter…"
"That's not it, Mr. Kim. You've been writing for over an hour."
"What? An hour? What are you talking about?"
Over an hour of writing. The claim was so absurd he couldn't begin to believe it. It had to be a lie.
"That's ridiculous…"
But when he pulled out his phone and checked the time, it was already past six-ten. He had arrived at five o'clock sharp. Cheol-woo's claim that he had been writing for over an hour was the simple truth.
Cheol-woo looked faintly apologetic.
"I'm sorry. You were so focused I didn't want to interrupt, but my employee already left, and I need to head out myself."
"You mean I was really just… writing, for over an hour?"
"Yes. You were concentrating so hard I wasn't sure I should even say anything."
I wrote for over an hour? In this uncomfortable space?
It wasn't that the workshop chairs were bad. Jeong-hoon was simply that sensitive — not only to sound, but to place. If it wasn't his own home, writing was nearly impossible. And yet he had sat in a workshop he had visited for the first time today and written for over an hour. He could barely believe it.
I feel like I've been put under a spell…
He looked down at the notebook. The pages were packed tight with everything he had written in that single hour. Even granting that the pen made no sound, the idea that his focus could climb this high was almost impossible to accept.
Kim Jeong-hoon stared at Cheol-woo, his face gone slack with shock.
What kind of magic did this man just work?
He was still staring, still unable to believe it, when Cheol-woo spoke again.
"Uh, Mr. Kim…? I really do need to head home…"
Shocked or not, Cheol-woo's first priority appeared to be clocking out.