18
18. The Woman in New York
Since it was an edited manuscript long enough to fill an entire book, it took a considerable amount of time.
In particular, I didn’t just read through the paragraphs that had been edited. I reread the entire thing from the
beginning myself.
‘It took way too long to write this.’
Emma had checked my writing once every three days, but at the time, I had written less than a thousand characters
whenever I sat down to write.
When I wasn’t tired and inspiration came pouring out, I sometimes wrote as much as twenty thousand characters, but most
of the time, I spent it simply playing around.
‘Since it’s enough material for one volume, the story somehow connects, but there are details missing here and there.’
Whenever I wrote a work, I always kept one phrase in mind: “The difference in details is what makes a masterpiece.”
No matter how small or insignificant a detail might be, if you don’t pay attention to it, the readers will eventually
notice.
‘This is going to take a while.....’
Even if I spent all of tonight working on it, I didn’t think I could finish.
‘But I don’t want to spend several days on this either.’
I couldn’t assume that because my concentration was good today, it would be just as good tomorrow.
I had eaten a hearty dinner, and my concentration was at its peak right now, so I had to finish it all tonight.
“Emma. I’m going to get some coffee. Want me to make you some cocoa?”
“.....Coffee for me too.”
“If you drink coffee from such a young age, it’ll make you stupid later.”
“I’m sleepy too.”
“Then just go to sleep and do it tomorrow.”
“I don’t want to. I want to see the final manuscript.”
“The final manuscript probably won’t be finished until tomorrow morning anyway. You can just wake up and look at it
then.”
At those words, Emma shook her head in refusal.
“I want to watch the writer while he’s editing.”
“.....Fine, then.”
Looking at her right now, I thought she would fall asleep before long because she couldn’t hold herself back any longer.
Even if it was the sight of the writer she admired, there was no way she wouldn’t get sleepy if she just sat there
watching me without saying anything.
‘Did Mina and Jeongmin go to bed?’
When I went down to the kitchen, there was no one in the living room.
I opened the cabinet, took out some cocoa powder and marshmallows, and then took out some instant coffee.
It was the perfect drink for getting both sugar and caffeine at once, so I often made it.
“Should I put marshmallows in the coffee too?”
I put some water in the electric kettle and took two mugs out of the cabinet.
Glug.
Suddenly, the door on the first floor opened, and Mother came out.
“Oh my? You’re still awake?”
“Yes. Ah. Was I making too much noise?”
“No, no. It’s fine. I just came out because I had something to get from the living room.”
“Ah..... Okay.”
Mother picked up a book that had been sitting in the living room and walked toward me.
“Coffee?”
“Yes. It’s instant coffee. Would you like me to make you a cup?”
“No, it’s fine. I’m about to sleep, so why would I drink coffee..... More importantly, cocoa? You’re going to drink
cocoa too?”
“Emma said she was staying here tonight..... Didn’t Jeongmin tell you?”
At that, Mother put a hand to her forehead.
“Sigh..... That’s just like Jeongmin. Emma’s having breakfast here tomorrow too, right?”
“Ah. Yes. She says she wants salad.”
“Salad? Is that enough for her?”
“Yes. I didn’t know Emma liked salad.”
“My goodness..... She doesn’t even seem to be a picky eater despite being so young.”
“She’s a good kid.”
Emma absolutely hated vegetables.
She loved eating meat and sweet things, but she was still a polite child who would force herself to eat food someone
else had prepared, even if she didn’t like it.
‘Being a picky eater isn’t good.’
Believe it or not, I had never been a picky eater when I was young.
I had always had a huge appetite and ate whatever was put in front of me, so I couldn’t understand children who were
picky eaters.
I especially couldn’t understand kids who left behind fragrant spinach seasoned with perilla seeds or spicy and salty
braised pollock with radish every time they chewed it.
“But is something going on?”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“No, it’s just..... You seem much brighter than before. Am I imagining it?”
“My face has always been handsome.”
“No, it hasn’t.”
“......”
“Anyway, it’s nice to see you looking brighter. I’m going back to bed now.”
“Ah. Yes. Good night.”
After Mother returned to her room, I touched my face.
‘.....My face looks brighter?’
I remembered what Jeongmin had said when I first came to Canada.
He had said my face looked different and that was why he was returning my laptop.
“.....I don’t know.”
I genuinely didn’t understand what it meant for my face to look brighter.
I poured the boiling water into the cups and returned to my room.
---
[The Woman in New York] was the story of a girl growing up in a town in northern Mexico.
When I first started writing it, I had considered writing a story about a woman succeeding in the entertainment
industry, but eventually, I had no choice but to change the direction of the story.
‘The story is too predictable.’
A woman who wanted to succeed in the entertainment industry.
The story was far too predictable, so I wanted to change it.
‘More than anything, I wanted to write this novel a little darker.’
A woman who was willing to do anything, no matter how ugly, to achieve success.
That was the setting for the protagonist, Mariana, in [The Woman in New York].
‘The problem was Emma.....’
I wanted to unfold the story in a dark and brutal way, but there was a problem with showing something like that to Emma.
I couldn’t let it become a cliché, nor could I make it into a story that I couldn’t show Emma, so I boldly changed its
direction.
‘I made Mariana extremely ugly.’
To establish the starting point of the story, it was best to first decide what the character’s starting point would be.
Therefore, the first thing I needed to explain was why Mariana was so obsessed with the word “success.”
‘New York is also known as a city of finance.’
Since New York was the world’s number one financial city, it seemed like the place that best suited the concept of
success.
If she had been trying to succeed in the entertainment industry, the title would have included the word “LA.”
‘But even saying that..... the story is still too predictable.’
Succeeding.
And moving forward toward success.
Stories like that were everywhere.
‘It’s not easy to escape the ordinary.’
It was difficult to break away from an already popular story and genre that had been proven to work.
That was why I put a lesson into this work.
And within that lesson, I inserted a small part of my own story.
‘Someone who only seeks success ultimately fails to succeed as a human being.’
Everyone has different goals in life.
For some, it might be success, while for others, it might be happiness.
But no matter what it is, human beings can never live completely alone.
‘Life is lived alone, but a lifetime cannot be lived alone.’
[The Woman in New York] contained the idea that although a person must live their own life, they cannot spend their
entire lifetime alone.
It was the story of a woman who sought nothing but success and completely changed herself.
She underwent plastic surgery, built the body that other people liked, and made enough money to buy a mansion.
But only after reaching her fifties did she begin to regret that success.
“Still, honestly, this is predictable too.”
I smiled faintly as I looked at the sunlight rising outside the window.
It was still undeniably another predictable story.
“Snore..... Snore..... I’m not going to sleep.....”
“You’re definitely sleeping.”
Once I finished everything, I heard sleepy murmuring.
As expected.
Emma, who was still young, had been unable to resist her drowsiness and was sleeping soundly in my bed.
“I forgot to make her brush her teeth.....”
I had been so focused on proofreading and editing that I forgot to make Emma brush her teeth before bed.
‘Let’s send it first.’
I hurriedly sent the final manuscript to Aaron through the email he had sent me.
“Yaaawn.....”
I had been sitting for so long that my body felt as stiff as a stone.
From experience, I knew that sleeping in this condition would make me suffer the next day, so I slowly stood up and
stretched.
Crack!
“Ugh..... That hurts a little.”
Sounds came from various joints.
It felt refreshing, but it hurt a little too.
‘Should I take a quick look around? I should say hello to Chunsik too..... Ah. Wait.’
Then I remembered the raccoon I had picked up yesterday.
‘I completely forgot about it.’
Come to think of it, I hadn’t told Jeongmin’s parents that there was a raccoon in the house.
‘This could cause trouble, so I should bring it into my room for now..... It hasn’t pooped outside already, has it?’
I took the mug that had kept me awake last night and walked out of my room.
Yap! Yap!
“.....You were here?”
Kang!
The moment I opened the door, a raccoon slightly larger than my palm looked at me and let out a happy cry.
“Ah. Are you hungry?”
Kang!
The person who had picked it up yesterday and the person who had fed it were both in this room, so it seemed to have
been waiting outside our room.
‘It didn’t scratch the door.’
The door was made of wood, so if the raccoon had scratched it, there would have been marks.
Fortunately, there were no scratches.
“Stay in my room for now, okay? I’ll bring you some food.”
Kang? Kang!
At those words, the raccoon tilted its head before eventually walking into my room.
‘Does it understand what I’m saying?’
I had heard that raccoons were highly intelligent.
Perhaps it had figured out from my actions that I was telling it to go into the room.
‘Did it poop?’
I quietly closed the door and went downstairs.
‘It tore the box apart.’
The box was fairly large, so it seemed to have had trouble getting out and had made a hole of sorts to escape.
“Did it poop..... Yeah, it did.”
I could tell from the smell without even looking.
I put the mug in the sink and first cleaned up the torn box.
Creak.....
Then I heard a door opening upstairs.
‘Jeongmin?’
There weren’t many people who would normally wake up at this hour, so I assumed Jeongmin had gotten up.
“Oh? Oppa, you’re up early.”
But the person who came down from the second floor wasn’t Jeongmin.
It was Mina.
“Wait, you haven’t gone to sleep yet?”
“.....Is it that obvious?”
“You’re still wearing the same clothes you wore yesterday.”
“I just don’t have many clothes..... Never mind.”
It was too much trouble to explain, so I simply let it go.
“You woke up early.”
“I went straight to sleep after editing yesterday. And maybe because I slept so much yesterday, I didn’t fall into a
very deep sleep.”
Judging by the fact that I hadn’t heard her snoring last night, she didn’t seem particularly tired either.
“That box..... That’s the box the raccoon was in, right?”
“Yeah. It’s in Emma’s room and mine right now.”
“I completely forgot about it.”
Apparently, everyone had completely forgotten about the raccoon yesterday because of the dak-galbi.
“Ah. Right. I finished editing. Do you want to watch it?”
“Now?”
“Yes.”
“Well..... I guess it would be better to watch it before going to sleep.”
I had to upload the video today, so I was curious about what kind of video she had made.
“Wait a moment. I’ll bring it down.”
Mina hurried upstairs, brought her laptop down from her room, and handed it to me.
“Here.”
A video was playing on the laptop.
As I watched it while washing my mug, I suddenly had a strange feeling.
“.....Is this a documentary?”
“It’s that well filmed, right?”