Novelist Running Through Time - Chapter 223



Only Noblemtl

The time when humans become most emotional is 3 AM.

I was wandering the internet for a while looking for ‘good music to listen to while writing’.

Classical music was a bit weird, so I found some suitable new age music and played it.

I took a sip of the coffee on my desk while feeling the calm piano sound coming clearly from my newly purchased speakers.

It’s not just coffee.

It’s called ‘Vietnamese coffee’.

Lim Yang-wook brought one back as a souvenir from his business trip to Vietnam and put it on display at the Baekhak Entertainment business trip office. Even though I forgot the name of the coffee, I remember the name of the coffee-making tool.

It’s a ‘pin’.

It is a coffee tool that looks like a metal cup, and it allows you to make coffee by pressing it with your hand.

It’s a kind of manual coffee machine.

In fact, I used to stir the mixed coffee with a spoon because it was too much of a hassle, but today, even though it was too much of a hassle, I made drip coffee.

The reason is···

Because it was 3 AM, the time when humans become the most ’emotional’.

I sipped the bitter black bean juice with a deep expression and typed on the typewriter-shaped keyboard I had picked up at Hi-Mart.

Knock, knock, knock.

Every time I press a key on the circular keyboard, I hear a sound like pebbles hitting each other.

The sound of the typewriter mixed with the piano melody still flowing from the speakers did not have a specific tone, but it felt like a more harmonious harmony than any other music.

I typed a few more letters on the typewriter (or keyboard).

To the rhythm.

Knock, knock, knock.

“Hmm~”

It was so fucking uncomfortable.

It looked like a typewriter, but it wasn’t a real typewriter. It was just a keyboard, but the keys were so far apart that I thought I’d get carpal tunnel syndrome after using it for just 5 minutes.

And the coffee isn’t that great either.

It smells good, but it’s bitter, and more than anything, when I drink caffeine, my heart pounds and I can’t concentrate.

Even though the soul was already corrupted, the body was pure and untainted by nicotine, alcohol, and caffeine.

Moreover, if a person who can’t multitask is typing on the keyboard while listening to music, will he be able to write properly?

Anyway, it was a total mess.

But that’s okay.

It was 3 AM, the time when humans become the most ’emotional’…

Gam-sung···

Even though my body was smaller but my soul was still the same, sometimes I wanted to go back to the mind of a boy and feel this kind of emotion.

So I listened to piano music, sipped my homemade coffee, and typed on a typewriter-style keyboard that had no real merits other than the clacking sound.

That’s right.

Actually, I’m not writing right now…

I was just playing around.

I wanted to imitate a cool novelist who would appear in a drama. So I went to get some coffee during the day and picked up some 80,000 won worth of odds and ends at Hi Mart.

If Im Yang-wook or Gu Yu-na saw this, it would be like creating a 20-year-long dark history, but I also think that there are times when I want to play like this!

And originally, according to social conventions, it was the national rule not to care what kind of dirty deeds a man in his mid-20s (mental age) committed in the corner of his room at 3 in the morning.

It may sound a bit strange to summarize it like this, but the point is that I don’t need to excuse my actions to anyone.

It’s 3am in the middle of the night.

The time when humans become the most emotional…

Common sense tells you that there’s no reason for someone to suddenly knock on your door at this time, right?

But I had to quickly accept the fact that there is no such thing as ‘absolute’ in this world.

Thump thump-

A loud, urgent knock on the door startled me and I sat up from my chair.

“what···?”

In the short time I spent walking to the front door, a thousand thoughts crossed my mind.

A major accident happened and Im Yang-wook came to see me, or a stalker who wanted my money came to attack me at dawn, or a ghost…

“Ugh······!”

3 a.m.

A time when humans become weak to the occult.

I felt afraid that there might be a ghost beyond the front door, so I quickly ran to check outside through the hole in the door.

And I felt a shock even greater than what I had just felt.

“······?!”

It was Kim Byeol.

The door opened immediately.

As the cold dawn air rushed in through the crack in the door, Kim Byeol, holding her torso with her thin arms, was shivering from the cold.

And her voice was trembling even more precariously than her body.

“You, you···! Why aren’t you answering the phone······”

EP 14 – The Future

Kim Byeol’s running away from home was closer to becoming a monk than running away from home.

Running away is something that young children do. It is an escape from home, without understanding the deep meaning of their parents, and without being able to control their emotions and anger, knowing that it is an unbearable act.

But Kim Byeol wasn’t running away now.

Kim Byeol was facing her own life more than ever.

So, the path that Kim Byeol chose was ‘leaving home.’

Like Buddhist disciples who leave the secular world to attain enlightenment, Kim Byeol threw off all the delusions, obsessions, and shackles of fear that had bound her.

With all the shackles that had been blocking her mind’s eyes freed, Kim Byeol was finally able to see the world.

A quiet city at dawn, yellow streetlights lined up, the damp late-night wind, and the sound of crickets chirping when you listen in the silence.

Kim Byeol could now see what was beyond.

Cause and effect.

The mother lived her daughter’s life, and the daughter lived her mother’s life.

To my mother, how precious was the dream of becoming an actor?

And how painful must it have been to have that dream trampled?

The delusion that blossomed from such preciousness and pain as nutrients caused the mother to abandon her husband and one of her two children.

All she has left is her only daughter.

Everything that daughter enjoys.

My mother was holding onto it and wouldn’t let go.

But how can a person grasp sand in his hand?

What is a mother’s is hers, and what is a daughter’s is hers.

No matter how much you consider your daughter’s things to be your mother’s, in the end, a human being cannot own something that is not his or her own.

So Kim Byeol cut off the two lives that were sticking together like a black tumor.

Now the daughter’s life has become her own, and the mother’s life has become her own.

Today is not Kim Byeol’s independence day.

It was the day that Kim Byeol and her mother became independent.

“······”

Kim Byeol suddenly turned around and looked at the house she had just left and the person inside who was crying in vain.

What was in those eyes was not hatred toward the mother who had been tying up his life, but sympathy for a poor human being.

Believing that her mother would someday understand what she meant, Kim Byeol headed into the darkness of the city with such an endless faith.

‘I will live for myself now!’

It was the beginning of a long escape.

* * *

“It’s, it’s cold······”

Kim Byeol’s ‘Nawisal’ spirit, which could be given a subtitle like ‘Kim Byeol, Standing Up in the World!’ in a web novel, collapsed in about 5 minutes.

It seems that Kim Byeol was still too weak to face the cold storms of the world alone.

The ‘cold storms of the world’ came crashing down on Kim Byeol, who was wandering around the neighborhood.

It means that the chilly dawn air blew like a whirlwind between the buildings.

I came out wearing thin spring clothes because I vaguely thought it would be warm, which was a mistake.

I felt like I was freezing to death.

“Euuugh······!”

As body temperature evaporated, physical strength also disappeared.

Kim Byeol, who suddenly felt lethargic, headed to a park near her house to find a place to rest.

I sit on the bench and take a breather, and now I have some free time.

And that little bit of freedom evaporated in an instant when he noticed that the homeless people sitting in the corner of the park were staring at him.

(It must be a bit unfair for the homeless people who had no choice but to look at someone who suddenly entered their hideout.)

Kim Byeol, gripped by fear, realized belatedly that the streets at dawn might not be as safe as she thought.

Kim Byeol, who was so shocked that she jumped up and ran away from the park, felt her heart pounding and fell into thought.

‘Where should I go?’

Since Kim Byeol had only brought her cell phone and wallet, calling a Kakao Taxi and getting a hotel room was no problem.

However, Kim Byeol has now ‘left home’ rather than ‘run away’. She cannot live in a hotel forever.

Then should I go to the company? Should I ask the company to provide me with a dormitory? No, that would be no different from going back to my mother’s arms. Team Leader Kim Seong-geun is his mother’s puppet.

Then… should I go to where my father pities me and my younger brother hates me?

No, that is no longer a space where Kim Byeol can feel comfortable.

Kim Byeol’s family has already fallen apart…

“······”

Kim Byeol suddenly felt lonely at this moment of crisis, realizing that she had nowhere to rely on.

And that loneliness,

It brought to mind a new option I hadn’t thought of before.

* * *

“So you just came here without a plan?”

“huh······”

Kim Byeol, who was sitting quietly on the floor in my studio, answered my questioning in a sullen voice.

The sight was so miserable that I couldn’t even make a joke like, “Now it’s time to go to Saebitneulbom Daycare.”

As someone who has a keen eye for the spicy fire chicken family history, it didn’t seem like a big deal, but at least for Kim Byeol, today must have been one of the most turning points in her life.

So I prepared a blanket for Kim Byeol, who was shivering from the cold.

Since there were more than one or two blankets, I could have given you a choice.

“Would you like a blue blanket? A red blanket? Or maybe a yellow character blanket that Yuna likes…”

“Get that yellow furry thing out of my sight.”

I sullenly threw away the yellow furry blanket.

Meanwhile, Kim Byeol made a makeshift quilt out of the three blankets I had brought her, wrapped herself in them, and let out a sigh of relief.

“Whew······ Now I can finally live a little.”

“Would you like some warm coffee too?”

When I handed over the coffee I had been fiddling with earlier, Kim Byeol opened her eyes wide in surprise.

“What is this? Coffee beans? Do you even make and drink these yourself?”

“Sometimes.”

Kim Byeol, wrapped in a blanket like a turtle shell, stretched out her neck to look around the house.

Then I looked at the coffee I had placed on the table.

“Oh, it’s Weasel?”

“It’s a weasel.”

I don’t know what a weasel is, but I answered calmly.

Kim Byeol smiled faintly and poked my ribs.

“Do you like weasel poop?”

“Why is there a weasel all of a sudden?”

“That’s coffee made from weasel poop.”

I muttered the C-word in my head.

C foot.

If I had known it was shit coffee, I wouldn’t have had it.

But isn’t Kim Byeol leisurely sipping her coffee even though she knows that it’s made with weasel poop?

“hmm······”

“it is delicious?”

“It’s good because it’s been a while since I’ve had it. Who said you went to Vietnam?”

“How did you know that?”

“This is a famous souvenir. But it must have been a hassle to eat it yourself. I didn’t know you were a man who even ate things like this.”

Kim Byeol continued to look around the studio and express her admiration.

I listened to relaxing piano music, was amazed at the salty typewriter on the desk, and enjoyed the fragrant smell of coffee.

And I checked the bedding, the bathroom, the closet and storage space, the hallway and the shoe cabinet.

Kim Byeol, who had been looking around every corner of the house, confidently placed her hands on her waist as if she had made a decision.

“Well, this is okay!”

“Yes, well, this is fine for a studio like this.”

“No, I think it’ll be okay for me to live there for a while.”

“Are you crazy?”