How to Survive the Horror Novel I Wrote
Chapter 10
Chapter 10
[The blare of a siren shattered the fog in his mind. Ugeum opened his eyes.
He was shoved deep into the dense underbrush, Ji-an's phone still clutched in his hand.
The downpour, which had grown even heavier in the meantime, lashed relentlessly against his body.
Ugeum cautiously pushed himself up. Through the patter of rain and the wail of sirens, hushed voices drifted over.
Paramedics were loading his prey onto a stretcher, while police officers swept flashlights across the surroundings. A shame, but he would have to postpone the hunt.
Using the darkness and storm as cover, Ugeum slipped away from the scene.
Running low along the riverbank, Ugeum suddenly ground to a halt. He couldn’t return the phone to Ji-an. He couldn’t let her know that the assailant in black was him.
Without a shred of hesitation, Ugeum hurled Ji-an's phone into the river.
Splash.]
“Aaargh…!”
A groan tore out of me automatically. My phone. There were still ten months left on the installments! Damn you, Ju Ugeum.
But remaining installments weren’t the real issue. The problem was that Ugeum hadn't given up on the hunt.
Left to his own devices, he would eventually kill someone. What on earth was I supposed to do about this?
Wait. Is this really the time for me to worry about others? If I slip up for even a second, I could end up dead before that man does.
“Ah, what do I do? What do I do…?”
I clutched my head with both hands, repeating the same useless question over and over.
Then, suddenly, like a flash of lightning piercing through bottomless darkness, words Ugeum had once spoken surfaced vividly in my mind.
<Why are you so scared? I only did what you wanted.>
<This is what you wanted me to be.>
What I wanted. What I wished for. My head spun before I could even organize my thoughts.
He was right. Ugeum was a serial killer I had created.
Then couldn't I change him, too? After all, I had this damn keyboard. Even if it was infuriatingly obsessed with narrative plausibility.
Then how do I change him?
I can't alter Ugeum's past. I tried, and it was useless. Ugeum is an irrefutable, undeniable serial killer.
…Still, there's no law saying he has to keep killing in the future.
In that moment, a lightbulb went off in my head.
The genre. What if I completely change the genre?
Turn this story—the one recklessly writing itself about Ugeum and me—into a romance.
Sure, murders happen in romances too. But at the very least, the male lead doesn't murder the female lead. Why? Because he loves her.
…Does Ugeum love me, though?
I had no idea.
With an author's authority, I had claimed the spot of Ugeum's lover, but there was no telling whether I had actually captured his heart.
Out of habit, I bit down on the tip of my thumb.
Ugeum has to love me. That's the only way this becomes a romance. What if he doesn't?
What else? I'll just have to make him fall for me.
No sooner had I answered my own question than a heavy sigh escaped my lips.
The difficulty level is utterly sadistic…
How on earth do you make a guy whose only thought is murdering people fall in love, and make him lose his mind enough to forget about hunting?
* * *
I barely got any sleep from agonizing over a plan.
Lately, my sleep pattern fell into one of two extremes: either I couldn't sleep at all, or I passed out from sheer exhaustion. Thanks to Ju Ugeum, my insomnia had flared up again. The man was a walking hazard to my health.
It was Monday, and the start of the week felt thoroughly grim.
The moment I arrived at school, Teacher Da-jeong in the next seat leaned in with a grave look to tip me off.
“Teacher Ji-an, I heard you blew off the blind date the Principal set up over the weekend. The mood in the Teachers' Room is terrible because of it. The Principal already came by and threw a fit.”
“Ah…”
Right. The blind date. I had forgotten again.
I remembered Teacher Ye-yeon's voice pleading with me that I couldn't cancel last minute, that if I didn't go, she would get on the Principal's bad side. Ruining the date altogether must have caused the exact same result.
It was inevitable because Ugeum had pursued me, but Teacher Ye-yeon must have been put in quite a terrible spot on my account.
I headed over to the second-grade Teachers' Room to apologize to her. But Teacher Ye-yeon wasn't at her desk. Even after waiting for quite a while, she didn't return.
With five minutes left before class, on my way back to the first-grade Teachers' Room, I ran into Teacher Ye-yeon walking out of the Principal's office.
“Teacher Ye-yeon.”
Pretending she hadn't heard or seen me, Teacher Ye-yeon walked right past. She was definitely upset with me.
I hurried after her.
“Teacher Ye-yeon.”
When I called her again, she halted in the middle of the hallway and glared back at me with venomous eyes.
Did she get chewed out over the blind date? Knowing the Principal, who had no concept of separating professional and personal matters, that was more than likely.
“Do you have a moment to talk?”
“No.”
I asked cautiously, only to receive a razor-sharp rejection.
“There's something I need to tell you…”
“Well, I have nothing to hear from you, Teacher Ji-an.”
Teacher Ye-yeon's response was chillingly cold. Still, I had to apologize.
“About the blind date, I want to apologize. I'm truly sorry. I didn't go out with the intention of—”
Teacher Ye-yeon didn't give me even a sliver of room to make an excuse.
“Is being sorry all it takes?”
“Excuse me?”
“You're really something, Teacher Ji-an. What good is apologizing now? After I've already taken all the heat and got marked down. As long as your own conscience is clear, that's all that matters to you, right?”
I was struck speechless. The raw anger and hostility radiating from her made me just want to turn and run away.
Teacher Ye-yeon stared straight at me and declared flatly,
“I don't want an apology from you. And I have no intention of forgiving you, either. You shouldn't have done something you'd need to apologize for in the first place. From now on, please don't speak to me unless it's strictly about work.”
It was practically a declaration that she was cutting ties with me.
* * *
When lunchtime rolled around, I headed to the cafeteria by myself.
The colleagues I usually ate with had sent messages one after another saying they couldn't join me today. Maybe I was being overly sensitive, but I couldn't shake the suspicion that Teacher Ye-yeon's influence had played a role.
Seeing me eat alone, some passing students teased, asking if their teacher was an outcast. Fearing their words might come true, a sudden surge of anxiety gripped me.
After lunch, during a free period, two teachers close to Teacher Ye-yeon came looking for me.
“Teacher Ji-an. Can we talk for a minute?”
The spiteful looks they shot me heralded trouble ahead. But what choice did I have?
Following the two women out to the back courtyard, I felt like a bullied kid being dragged away by the school delinquents.
Once we reached the courtyard, the two teachers flanked me like detectives interrogating a criminal, pressing in ruthlessly.
“Teacher Ji-an. Why did you do that?”
“What? What did I…?”
“The blind date. The one Teacher Ye-yeon set up for you.”
“Ah.”
It was rather absurd for third parties to interfere like this. We weren't children. Wasn't this an issue between Teacher Ye-yeon and me?
These women, however, didn't seem to think so.
“If you had a boyfriend, you should have said so from the start.”
“Well, it happened so suddenly…”
“Even so, you should have told her! What does that make Teacher Ye-yeon look like?”
“Or you shouldn't have agreed in the first place.”
The other teacher chimed in like a nagging sister-in-law.
“Let's say, by some massive stretch, that you can go on a blind date even with a boyfriend. What kind of twisted mindset makes you deliberately go out there just to ruin it?”
“I'm sorry.”
“We're not the ones you should be apologizing to.”
What was I supposed to do? A wave of exhaustion washed over me. The person involved didn't even want my apology.
“Tell us, Teacher Ji-an. Why did you leave Teacher Ye-yeon on read all Sunday?”
Left on read? For an educator, wasn't her choice of words a bit crass? But pointing that out would only make them angrier.
I tried my best to explain calmly.
“I didn't ignore her on purpose. I lost my phone on Saturday night…”
“And you expect us to believe that?”
My mouth clamped shut again. I didn't see the point in being interrogated if they weren't going to believe a word I said anyway.
“We heard you were the one who begged for a blind date in the first place.”
The other teacher accused me, narrowing her eyes.
What kind of nonsense was this now? A sense of injustice and bewilderment crashed over me.
“What? No, that's not true.”
When I hurriedly denied it, they glared at me with sharp eyes and demanded,
“So you're saying Teacher Ye-yeon lied?”
The word Yes lingered on the tip of my tongue.
These women wouldn't believe me anyway. Even if I laid out the truth, they would just take it as an invitation to fight, and I lacked the courage to pick a fight with anyone.
As I stood there unable to say a word, the first teacher who had confronted me spoke up.
“Teacher Ye-yeon told us herself. She said Teacher Ji-an begged her so much for a set-up that she went out of her way to arrange a difficult meeting.”
It was utterly baffling. Who was the one that forced someone who kept refusing to go on the date in the first place?
I refused to be saddled with blame beyond what I had actually done wrong. Mustering every ounce of courage I had, I struggled to push back.
“That's not true. I never made such a request.”
At that, both teachers pressing in on me wore identical expressions of utter disbelief.
“Wow. Teacher Ye-yeon was right. I never pegged you for this kind of person, Teacher Ji-an, but I'm truly disappointed. Now you're even lying?”
“It's not a lie. I kept turning it down, but Teacher Ye-yeon…”
“Stop it. Do you have any idea how badly Teacher Ye-yeon got chewed out by the Principal and cried because of you? Have some shame.”
The two teachers glared at me as if I were their mortal enemy before turning away. Left behind in the courtyard, I stood blankly, sensing the storm brewing on the horizon.
If only Ugeum hadn't followed me to that blind date.
No, if only he hadn't appeared before me in the first place.
Nothing was going right, all because of Ju Ugeum.
* * *
Even after the confrontation in the courtyard, several more people came by to reproach me over the blind date. I was reminded anew of just how vast Teacher Ye-yeon's social circle was.
By the time my shift ended, my stress levels had hit their absolute limit. So much so that I was craving alcohol, something I didn't even enjoy.
I dialed Jung-an.
“I'll buy drinks. Come out.”
—Whoa, Teacher Ha, what's got into you? From the woman who considers drinking and smoking the absolute worst vices in human history?
“Just stop talking and come out. If I don't drink today, I'm going to die of sheer frustration.”
Jung-an rushed over in a flash.
Sitting with Jung-an at a fried chicken joint having chimaek, I poured out everything that had happened. Maybe because I had been craving it, the alcohol went down dangerously easy today. Before long, I had exceeded my tolerance.
Jung-an didn't believe a single word about Ugeum, but when it came to Mo Yeyeon and her clique, she was as furious as if it had happened to herself.
“Mo Ye-what's-her-name—that woman is unbelievable! Is she totally out of her mind? After practically begging on her knees for you to go on that stupid blind date, she turns around and frames you like that?!”
“Not Mo-ye-yo, it's Mo-ye-yeon.”
“In the middle of all this, her name is what matters to you?”
Jung-an retorted, looking dumbfounded.
“No-o-pe.”
I shook my head with a goofy grin. It felt good having Jung-an take my side.
Her cheeks flushed from the beer, Jung-an shot me a look.
“That's why I told you we should go to the hospital together on Saturday. What are you going to do if you keep seeing hallucinations?”
This girl, why can't she ever drop it? Treating me like a mental patient again.
I furrowed my brow and argued back,
“It's not a hallucina-a-tion. That guy is rea-a-l. His card works and his phone ca-a-lls work too. Wanna see-e?”
As I reached into my bag to pull out my phone, the world suddenly tilted violently. My head spun with dizziness.
“An earthquake…?”
I swayed before collapsing forward. The table smacked hard against my forehead, but I didn't have the strength to lift myself up. Across from me, Jung-an let out a dry laugh.
“Earthquake, my ass.”
Clack-clack-clack-clack…
“Huh? I hear typing…”
I muttered blankly.
“She's hearing things again,”
The moment Jung-an sighed, the table vibrated along with a ringing tone. The phone I had pulled out was going off.
It was Ju Ugeum.
I merely watched it with unfocused eyes.
Ju Ugeum, you bastard. I'm not answering your call.
“Hey. Pick up the phone. Hey, Ha Ji-an.”
Jung-an shook my shoulder, but I didn't budge an inch. I was too tired for anything.
“Hello…?”
Jung-an's voice answering the phone on my behalf faded into the distant haze.
