How to Survive the Horror Novel I Wrote
Chapter 12
[Ugeum carefully laid Ji-an down onto the bed from his arms. But just as he was about to lay her down,
Grab.
Suddenly snapping her eyes open, Ji-an seized him by the collar. Ugeum froze in place, his back still bent over her. His surprise lasted only a moment before his lips curved into a picturesque arc.
“Are you awake?”
Ji-an glared at him with unfocused eyes. She was still far from sober.
“Ju Ugeum.”
“Yeah.”
“Because of you, I…”
Ji-an’s eyes brimmed with tears in an instant.
Seeing that, the smile vanished completely from Ugeum’s face. With a hardened expression, he looked down at the tears streaming from the corners of her eyes.
“I’m…”
Unable to finish her sentence, tears welled up and spilled drop by drop from her eyes.
“It’s all right. Tell me.”
Ugeum urged her gently, stroking her hair.
“I’m so scared.”
Ji-an poured out her true feelings through her sobs. Fear and anxiety she had endured again and again, until she could bear it no longer, burst forth like a broken dam.
And she felt so wronged.
“Why do I have to be afraid of you? When I’m the one who…”
Created you.
Unable to bring herself to say the rest aloud, Ji-an wept uncontrollably. In truth, Ugeum had been author Ha Jian’s pride, her joy, and her greatest achievement.
But not anymore. From the moment Ugeum manifested in reality, everything had gone awry. Now to her, Ugeum was nothing more than an avatar of terror, the root of all evil, a living curse.
Ji-an felt such profound sorrow that she poured out her resentment at him.
“Why do you make me afraid of you, why…!”
Ugeum pulled Ji-an into a tight embrace. Buried in his broad chest, uncontrollable sorrow and weeping forced their way out of her frail body.
Patting her lightly trembling shoulders, Ugeum asked softly,
“Are you scared of me?”
“Yeah! I’m scared. I’m scared to death.”
Ji-an replied with a tear-choked voice.
“Even like this?”
Ugeum cupped Ji-an’s face and kissed her rounded forehead.
Startled, Ji-an’s crying subsided. She looked up at Ugeum with confused eyes.
“Even like this?”
Whispering tenderly, Ugeum’s lips settled softly against Ji-an’s eyelids as she reflexively closed her eyes. Her soft, delicate eyelids fluttered like butterfly wings.
When Ji-an opened her eyes after the brief, light kiss, Ugeum gave a playful smile and pressed his lips to the tip of her nose.
“Even like this?”
A tear clinging to the corner of Ji-an’s eye rolled down her cheek.
Right in front of Ugeum as he peered into her face, Ji-an whispered in a tear-drenched voice,
“I’m still scared…”
Ugeum’s gaze darkened. Stroking her cheek, he coaxed her gently,
“Don’t be scared of me, Ji-an-ah.”
“How can I help it when I am?”
“You didn’t use to be scared of me in the past.”
Ji-an pushed against Ugeum’s chest, asking back with a bewildered look,
“…In the past?”
Without a word, Ugeum pressed his lips over hers. Sweetly savoring the lips soaked in salty tears, he slowly laid Ji-an down on the bed.
Ji-an clung to his back as if resisting, but eventually let her arms fall.
His hot tongue persistently explored and indulged in her depths. A deep, thick kiss continued.
The bedroom filled with the sounds of touching lips, the wet drag of tongues, and breathless gasps. The kiss grew increasingly dense, and Ji-an’s consciousness drifted farther and farther away.
Amid the drunkenness and the heat that melted all reason, Ji-an succumbed to the pleasure Ugeum gave her. Before long, a thick, sultry moan escaped her throat.
Hearing that sound, Ugeum’s breathing turned ragged. A fiery desire flared fiercely in his eyes. Ugeum’s lips slid slowly from Ji-an’s mouth to her neck, and then further down.
And so the night deepened.]
Wh-What is this? “And so”? What does “and so” mean? Just what in the world did he do to me…!
I had no memory of it at all. In a panic, I rushed over to the mirror.
Looking into the mirror, I saw reddish marks on my neck. No matter how I looked at them, they didn’t look like mosquito bites.
With trembling hands, I slowly, carefully pulled down my round-neck collar. Below my collarbone, on the upper part of my chest, there was another red mark. A wave of dismay made me dizzy for a moment.
But that was all. Freaking out, I checked under my top and took off my pants to look, but there were no more.
With only two hickeys, there was no way to tell whether I had slept with Ugeum or not. It was too embarrassing to ask him. No, honestly, I was too terrified that I actually had slept with him to even ask.
Once I finished getting ready for work and stepped out of my room, Ugeum, having taken off his apron, approached as if he had been waiting.
“I’ll drive you to school.”
“I have a car too.”
I rejected Ugeum’s offer and fled off to work.
Wearing a languid smile like a sated predator, Ugeum readily let me go.
The atmosphere at school was cold as ice. The Principal, holding a grudge against me over the blind date matter, nitpicked at every little thing, and the fellow teachers, swayed by Mo Yeyeon’s instigation, treated me like a ghost.
Yet I didn’t care at all. Because my entire focus was directed elsewhere.
Toward Ugeum.
‘You didn’t use to be scared of me in the past.’
The line spoken by Ugeum in the Cursed Manuscript wouldn’t leave my head.
When in the past?
I had no idea. Of course, before Ugeum leaped out into reality, I wasn’t scared of him. I was the author and Ugeum was merely a character I had created.
But there was no way Ugeum knew that. What on earth did he mean by “in the past”? I was completely in the dark.
…Past, my foot.
Get a grip. Ugeum was an eloquent speaker, skilled at deception, and possessed a natural talent for bewitching people. It seemed I was dwelling far too much on words he’d merely said to soothe me.
Let’s not get swayed by that jerk. I should focus on how to change him instead.
On how to turn this horror thriller starring Ju Ugeum and Ha Jian, being typed at will by the Cursed Keyboard, into a romance.
Wait a second, that kiss scene.
Come to think of it, wasn’t what was written last night completely a PG-15 romance?
I must have lost my mind. How could I with Ju Ugeum? When I knew full well what kind of bastard he was. It’s all because of alcohol. If I ever drink again, I’m a dog.
And yet, the manuscript written by the keyboard was undeniably a scene from a romance novel.
That was right. That part alone wasn’t horror, thriller, or mystery. It was purely romance. Without even realizing it, I had achieved my goal of changing the novel’s genre.
Stunned by the shocking realization, my jaw dropped and stayed open. How had that been possible?
Because I was drunk. Smashed, to put it bluntly. Because I had let go of my senses and surrendered my body to whatever Ugeum did. Because I hadn’t rejected Ugeum and had accepted him. Because I had ridden along with the romantic mood instead of breaking it.
The story became a romance because the character acted romantically.
Then did I have to keep doing this from now on? Without dodging Ugeum’s touch, without running from his embrace, and sometimes even cupping Ugeum’s cheek myself first, did I have to create a romantic atmosphere?
I didn’t want to. No matter how handsome, well-built, and gentle Ju Ugeum was, what was inside him was a psychopath who punished evil with evil. The only reason I hadn’t run away from Ugeum last night was purely the alcohol.
Could I really do that while stone-cold sober?
Pondering how to create a romantic mood with Ugeum while sober made the day fly by like an arrow.
When I returned home after work, Ugeum was sitting on the living room sofa, reading a book.
From behind the closed door of my room, the clack-clack sound of the Cursed Keyboard typing all by itself drifted out.
“Welcome back.”
Ugeum welcomed me with a glad smile.
But I couldn’t smile. Romance or whatever, I wasn’t in the mood for it in the slightest.
Neither at school nor on my way home had I heard that damn typing sound. The typing sound that had suddenly appeared beside me and started rattling on its own the moment Ugeum manifested in this world.
That meant Ugeum hadn’t reappeared just now. It meant that all day, from this morning until now, he hadn’t disappeared even once.
Don’t tell me he stayed in my house all day?
“You haven’t gone home all this time?”
“I wanted to see you come back before leaving.”
Ugeum replied with a nonchalant face.
Don’t you have a job? I quickly swallowed the rebuke that rose to the tip of my tongue. Ugeum had a job too. Murdering people. That bastard must never go to work.
Instead of bringing up work, I aired the frustration building up inside me.
“It makes me uncomfortable when you’re inside my house when I’m not here. It also makes me uncomfortable that you just barge in because you know the passcode. This isn’t your house. I’d like you to ring the doorbell and come in only when I’m here.”
Only after blurting out everything I wanted to say did it hit me that the man staring blankly at me was someone who could kill me.
Belatedly, I bit my lower lip. Whether I liked it or not, seeing his face every day and occasionally sharing kisses made me constantly let my guard down.
“All right, I’m sorry. From now on, I’ll only come in after getting your permission. I’ll ring the doorbell every time, too.”
Fortunately, Ugeum wasn’t offended and apologized readily.
Thanks to that, my mood softened, and I thought about changing the atmosphere. Romantically. Toward romance.
“What were you reading?”
Trying my best to sound gentle, I walked toward the sofa where Ugeum was sitting.
Instead of answering, Ugeum lifted the book he was reading and showed me the cover.
Captive Night.
Thud.
Only when I heard the sound did I realize I had dropped my bag.
My limp hands trembled violently. My legs shook beneath me.
The blood throughout my body chilled rapidly, freezing all the way down to my toes in an instant. It felt as if I were being frozen alive.
What Ugeum was reading was the Night Series. The novel where every single crime committed by the serial killer Ju Ugeum was documented in meticulous detail from the victims’ perspective.
Closing the book, Ugeum asked in a low voice,
“Where did you get this book?”
