NOVEL WEB Chapter 23
When I woke up, it was already evening. I rubbed my eyes, still half-asleep, and heard Muk Ha-neul’s voice.
“Did you sleep well?”
“Yeah…”
Maybe it was because I had just woken up, but I responded with a sleepy voice. Muk Ha-neul kept chuckling, making me feel a bit uneasy.
“What time is it now?”
“It’s almost 7 o’clock.”
“It feels like my sleeping hours have increased since things changed.”
“Yeah, I can see that.”
“But why are you still here?”
“If I just leave, it feels too empty.”
I scoffed as I stood up from the sofa and stretched.
“Ugh.”
An odd sound escaped my mouth, and I felt worse.
“Now that we’re in this situation, should we have dinner together?”
“There’s nothing to eat at home. I’m planning to eat porridge. I got an upset stomach from eating jajangmyeon yesterday. There’s fried rice in the fridge if you want that.”
“I’d rather not eat fried rice that’s been in the fridge for over a day.”
“Then just go.”
“That’s harsh.”
Even though I said that, I didn’t truly intend to let Muk Ha-neul leave empty-handed. I genuinely planned to eat porridge, but it felt wrong to send my guest away without offering them a meal.
“Can’t you make something?”
“I can’t cook.”
Cooking is something only women do, so I had never cooked before. I could manage simple tasks like boiling ramen or frying an egg, but I had never attempted anything substantial enough to be called cooking.
Considering I had nothing to eat at home made it impossible, to begin with.
“But you’re a woman now.”
I threw a pillow from the sofa at Muk Ha-neul.
“Well, if you’re going to order delivery, I’m fine with that. You said you don’t have much to eat right now anyway. If you order enough for delivery, you’ll have leftovers, and that’ll just create more food waste.”
“What should I do then? Should I share some porridge?”
“I’m just going to head home. We had lunch together already. This is enough.”
Enough of what?
Muk Ha-neul left my house, leaving a big ripple in my heart with her last words: ‘I’ll keep in touch.’ As she left, her bright smile made me a bit angry, was that feeling just unnecessary spite?
I felt like I had been tormented by Muk Ha-neul all day.
I organized all the clothes I had bought and put them away in the closet. It was a small closet, but my clothes were smaller, so it wasn’t a problem.
From now on, I’d be alone for the time being. The only acquaintances I had left were Gang Hwa-won, Seo Jae-Ah, Professor Seo, and the Director. Gang Hwa-won hadn’t contacted me for some reason, and I had arranged a video call with Seo Jae-Ah. The latter two were busy people who rarely reached out to me.
I didn’t feel lonely or anything. I planned to catch up on all the books I had fallen behind on during my free time and prepare for my next work.
I took out the porridge, heated it up, and ate. Fortunately, it wasn’t the awful hospital porridge but one from a franchise specializing in it, so it wasn’t horrendously tasteless like hospital food. After finishing my meal, I opened my smartphone and saw several messages.
One was from Muk Ha-neul saying she had arrived home safely (I chewed on that.) and the other was from Seo Jae-Ah. Jae-Ah’s first greeting was an apology.
[I’m sorry.]
I knew she would say that.
[I was so flustered that it took me a while to sort my thoughts and reply.]
[That’s fine to know.]
[But I’m really not strange. It’s just a nickname I made up for fun.]
[I won’t misunderstand.]
[Really?]
[Yeah.]
Despite saying that much, was she still not reassured? That wasn’t unusual. After all… I had kind of freaked out.
[So let’s continue with the topic we were discussing. What do you want to gain from this tutoring? To be honest, your writing has many flaws – the basics are lacking, the sentences are juvenile, the structure is sloppy, and the writing is messy, making it a bit confusing.]
[Is that so?]
I could sense Jae-Ah’s disappointment even through the screen. She was easy to read.
[But you’ve written 200 pieces! That alone is impressive, especially at your age.]
[More than that, you’ve made tremendous progress comparing the beginning and the end; your writing is not stagnant, it’s evolving.]
[Honestly, there’s not much I can teach you, and it won’t take a long time to cover everything. I could help you if you really want tutoring, but I don’t think it will reach a satisfying level.]
[But this has over 3 million views, isn’t that incredible? How much have you earned?]
I hesitated a bit before asking that. Asking about earnings is quite rude among writers, and I knew that well. However, I didn’t know what the earnings level in this field was like, and since I needed to know a bit for the tutoring, I asked.
And soon, I regretted asking.
[30 million won.]
This time it was my turn to be silent, not Jae-Ah.
Although it didn’t last long, my mind was already half unconscious.
30 million won?
[You said 30 million won?]
[Yeah.]
It was an astonishing amount. The royalty from my books, which had reached bestseller status as a full-time novelist, never earned that much from a single work. In fact, it was much less.
Naturally, being a novelist wasn’t an easy job. The reason I responded to Professor Seo’s call was that I needed money.
A significant portion of my earnings was donated to Love House, so I couldn’t afford a luxurious lifestyle personally.
Yet, a high school student, a sophomore, said she earned 30 million won.
That was unbelievable.
I didn’t want to believe it.
I even felt a bit envious.
But Jae-Ah had no reason to lie, so this had to be true.
I spoke sincerely.
[Is there really anything I can teach you?]
Of course, there were many things I could teach. Naturally, making money isn’t everything in writing, and I had enough confidence that I could write better than this high school sophomore.
However, I also had a fear that by trying to guide her, her direction might go awry since she had already achieved that level of success. Literary works are certainly more culturally valid than web novels.
But web novels make more money.
Though I had known this in my head, hearing Jae-Ah’s earnings made me feel it more acutely.
And to survive, you need money.
In failing to earn more money, literary writing can be seen as a literature for art rather than survival. But was Jae-Ah pursuing art?
What web novels ultimately chase are fun and money.
Entertainment.
If I were to teach Jae-Ah, who had been writing such novels, and distorted her direction, perhaps she would end up writing something that belonged neither here nor there. She could become a gray character that wouldn’t be accepted by either side.
I was afraid of that.
[The fact is, no matter how I teach you, it will likely lean more towards pure literature or literary writing, whatever you want to call it. If you were entirely at a blank slate, it might be different, but considering the amount of writing you’ve done so far, my tutoring might prove to be toxic. Do you still want this tutoring?]
If I said this much, Jae-Ah would probably give up on tutoring. That would make sense. It was unfortunate, but that was the right direction and the right choice. Even if it wasn’t the correct one.
Yet, Jae-Ah provided an unexpected answer.
[Yes, I want to do it.]
[Why?]
[I want to learn about the basics, sentences, and structure, but I also don’t want to abandon the literary aspect that deals with art itself. To put it simply, it might mean I want to pursue both paths.]
[That’s really difficult.]
[But there are people who succeeded.]
There are cases of literary novelists writing web novels under pen names. Some writers who were into genre literature ambitiously challenged the literary field.
As Jae-Ah said, there had been successful individuals.
But there were far more who failed, and even those who succeeded did not achieve great success.
[But I still want to.]
However, Jae-Ah was still just a child. A sophomore in high school.
If a child wanted to challenge something with their ambitions, wouldn’t an adult respond by saying: “You won’t succeed, let’s be realistic”? A mature adult would be like that.
But I had always disliked becoming an adult and had refused it.
And right now, I didn’t even look like an adult on the outside.
It wouldn’t be strange for someone like me to act somewhat childishly.
[Okay, I’ll help you.]
This is what it means to be an immature adult.
[You can do it.]
Yes, you can. I would help you.
Saying something like that.
[Actually, I’m just in a slump, so I can’t write, and I just want to try something.]
My attempt to sound impressive was quickly shattered by Jae-Ah’s honest confession of her feelings.
Tch.