When Flies Gather
He finished an entire book in less than a month...?
Even Jeong-hoon himself could barely believe the speed at which he had written. Back when he had still been able to write, his pace had never been particularly slow — but even then, completing a single volume had typically taken several months.
This time, though, the words had come at a pace that defied all reason. From the day he brought home the fountain pen from Master Kang at All-Around Workshop to the moment he set down the final sentence, barely three weeks had passed. Three weeks, and a full-length novel was done.
It wasn't as though the hours he had actually spent writing were few. If you tallied the time he spent sitting at his desk, it was probably about the same as before. But the density of his concentration had been on an entirely different level, and that was what had produced this impossible speed.
Looking back, he had barely even washed himself for those three weeks. He had shut himself inside the house and done nothing but write, eat, and sleep. That was all. And of course he had. The instant he closed his fingers around the fountain pen from All-Around Workshop, every stray thought in his head had simply vanished, leaving behind a single, overwhelming desire to write. On top of that, the pen made no sound whatsoever while he worked, and so he had slipped into something like a trance, wielding a focus so absolute it bordered on the absurd.
Time and again he would come to his senses only because his stomach was screaming, look up, and realize that more than ten hours had flown by.
What on earth is this thing...?
It had gone past astonishing. It was almost frightening. After he finished the manuscript and sent it off to the publisher, he had tucked the fountain pen away somewhere out of sight — just to let himself breathe for a while.
Did it put me under hypnosis or something?
"Well. Anyway..."
For all the feverish intensity with which he had written, one worry still nagged at him: whether what he had produced was actually any good. In his own judgment, the writing was several cuts above anything he had published before. But the writing period had been short. Far too short. And so a sliver of unease remained — a quiet fear that the novel might not, in the end, be a proper piece of work at all.
I concentrated as hard as a person can concentrate...
If the book failed to land, it would no longer be a problem of focus. It would mean his actual craft as a writer had decayed.
Jeong-hoon's anxiety, however, could not have been more misplaced. At the publishing house, the manuscript had been received with something close to jubilation.
In the conference room, Assistant Manager Hong pointed at the pages Kim Jeong-hoon had sent and declared,
"This one is going to be a hit. Guaranteed."
The department head nodded in full agreement.
"You're right. This is huge. Hong — throw everything at it. Promotion, marketing, the works. There is no universe in which this book fails."
Assistant Manager Hong packed his bag with a face lit up like a festival lantern.
"Yes, sir! I'll head to the meetings right now!"
How does someone who can write like this go years without putting a single word on the page?!
And sure enough, the publisher's instincts proved exactly right.
Jeong-hoon's novel exploded far beyond anyone's expectations. Word of mouth caught fire the moment it hit shelves, the entire first print run sold out, and the printers had to run through the night to keep up with demand.
And the triumph of Temple of the Sun was not merely a matter of popular success. The critics were just as lavish in their praise.
"Kim Jeong-hoon's latest is a supreme work of storytelling, one that shares the memories of the past with the wounds of the present."
— Critic Jeong Tae-seung
"Temple of the Sun is, of every novel I have encountered in recent years, at once the warmest and the most daring."
— Critic Lee Sun-ho
And as the novel drew this kind of attention, All-Around Workshop was pulled into the spotlight right along with it. The reason was simple: in the author's own remarks about Temple of the Sun, the only name that appeared was Cheolwoo's.
The press turned its gaze on All-Around Workshop with even greater hunger than before.
Most of the coverage was glowing. But fame, by its nature, draws flies — and All-Around Workshop was no exception.
In a room that looked like a pigsty, a man sat with his eyes glittering, devouring every article about Cheolwoo he could find.
"Oho... a handsome genius artisan, is it?"
Yeah. This one's going to pull some views...
What I need to get done today...
On the way in, I ran through the day's work in my head. That way I could start the moment I walked through the door. I was so absorbed in lining up the tasks that I arrived in front of the workshop before I knew it. I parked the G70 out front and climbed out. Fortunately the industrial park was old enough that parking was never a problem — there was room enough for both the truck and the G70 without anyone having to squeeze.
I was about to head inside when I found a man blocking the way in front of the workshop. And not just standing there — he was filming something on his phone, planted squarely in the path.
What is this.
I stepped carefully around behind him and asked,
"Excuse me. Is there something I can help you with?"
The man jumped at the sound of my voice and spun around. Then he turned the question back on me.
"Ah — are you Kang Cheolwoo?"
He looked a good ten years older than I was, with a generally slovenly, unsavory air about him.
Something about this guy feels off...
I answered with care.
"Yes, that's me. And you are? If you're here to commission a piece, today isn't a request day."
"Nah, nothing like that. I'm with Truth TV, on YouTube."
"I'm sorry... YouTube?"
His appearance had already put me on edge. Hearing the word YouTube made it worse.
"What business does a YouTuber have at my workshop?"
"Nothing major. I just wanted to grab a quick interview."
"An interview...?"
That caught me off guard. It wasn't as though interview requests were unheard of — a few news outlets had reached out before — but even a single television shoot had been more than enough of a burden, so I had turned them all down.
I waved a hand, polite but unmistakable.
"I'm sorry, but I don't do interviews. I'd like you to leave."
I was certain I had refused him clearly, and courteously. The man, however, showed no sign of backing off.
"Aw, come on, why don't you just play along? Viewers have a million questions. Be honest — you're dodging because you've got something to hide, aren't you?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"Let's just put it out there. Does any of this even make sense? A college kid who just turned twenty — what is this, a web novel? Restoration is something even master artisans devote their entire lives to, and you're telling me you just fix things like it's nothing? The whole thing reeks. This is a hundred percent staged, isn't it? You and the TV station cooking it up together. Come on, spit it out. Who's backing you?"
He's doing this on purpose. He's trying to get a rise out of me.
The work I had shown was never limited to what had aired on television. And yet this man was attacking me solely on the basis of a single broadcast segment. There was no reading this as anything other than a hostile approach from the start.
"I don't believe I owe you any further answers."
I moved to step around him and into the workshop. He raised his voice after me.
"So you're running away? If you've got nothing to hide, explain yourself like a man! You going to trample on the people's right to know?"
...This crazy son of a bitch.
I swallowed the curse, walked inside, and shut the door behind me.
A little while later, Taeseok arrived.
"Boss. What's that guy doing out front?"
I was gathering materials for the day's pieces, one by one, as I answered.
"No idea. Some wrecker YouTuber, apparently."
"A wrecker? Whoa... you've made it, Boss. Those wrecker YouTubers don't latch onto just anyone. They only go after people who are actually big."
"Ugh. Anyway, I don't know how long he's planning to stand out there. Maybe I should just call the police."
Taeseok stopped me before I could reach for the phone, and stood up from his seat.
"Police? Please. I'll go run him off myself."
"You sure you'll be alright?"
"Don't worry about it. Back when I was bartending, I dealt with guys like that more times than I can count."
Taeseok went out the door. There was a brief scuffle of voices with the wrecker YouTuber, and then the man was gone, heading off somewhere. A moment later Taeseok came back inside.
"What a complete asshole. A real piece of work."
"That bad?"
"I tried to send him off nicely, and he shoved the camera in my face screaming about obstruction of the press and a bunch of other nonsense. I put on a look and raised my voice, and that finally got him moving."
"Aigoo... thanks for handling that."
And that, I thought, was the end of it.
It wasn't long before the first crack appeared in an otherwise ordinary stretch of days.
Tomorrow's a shoot day.
Shoot days meant carving the filming hours out of the calendar, so the rest of the schedule had to be handled with care.
I'll finish this today... and push that one to the day after.
I was in the middle of rearranging the timetable when my phone rang.
Kim Dae-yu PD
Hm? What's this about?
I set down my pen and picked up.
"Yes, PD. What can I do for you?"
"Ah... Master Kang. This is a little awkward, but — have you seen the video that went up...?"
Video?
"A video? I'm not sure what you mean."
Worry bled through the line in Kim Dae-yu's voice.
"There's a wrecker YouTuber who put up a hit piece on you. He uploaded the footage from when he came by to 'report,' too..."
"I'm sorry...? Ah."
"Does that ring a bell?"
It was him. The one from the other morning.
"A few days ago, when I came in to work, there was a wrecker YouTuber being extremely rude, insisting on an interview."
"I thought so... Master Kang, I'll send you the link. Take a look, and let's talk again in a bit."
I hung up. A moment later, a link arrived from PD Kim.
The title was Suspicions and Character: Jinpoom and Myeongpoom's Master Artisan Kang Cheolwoo.
The content itself was nothing special. The same man from that morning played a handful of clips of me and raised a series of "questions." There was not a shred of evidence among them. The arguments were as predictable as they were tired: there's no way someone his age could have skills like that; TV stations fake things as a matter of course — the same strained claims, over and over.
What came after, though, was something else entirely.
He had deliberately bleeped out every word except a handful, and cut every second of his own rude behavior. Watched on its own, the video made Taeseok and me look like a pair of genuine human garbage.
The closing remarks were a performance all by themselves.
"Ha... would you look at this bastard?"
I was angry. But my head, if anything, had gone cold and clear. A dozen different ways of destroying this man unspooled themselves behind my eyes.
That was when PD Kim called again.
"Master. Did you finish watching?"
"I did. He edited that footage in a way that is genuinely outrageous. And the so-called suspicions are the usual throw-it-at-the-wall kind — not a scrap of evidence among them."
"Exactly. The problem is, most people have never experienced your work firsthand, so even a video this ridiculous is picking up comments from people who buy it. Which is why I wanted to ask you..."
"Go ahead, PD."
He hesitated for a beat, then said it.
"Would you perhaps consider doing a live stream on YouTube?"
"A live stream...?"