How to Survive the Horror Novel I Wrote
Chapter 35
I was back home.
Ugeum dropped us off and left without a fuss.
His attitude toward me was so calm and nonchalant that it made me wonder if last night had just been a dream.
That I’d been the only one dreaming again.
But it wasn’t. That morning, Ondam had whispered some advice with a beet-red face.
<Teacher, your neck… I think you should cover it up.>
Flustered, I had rushed into the bathroom and looked in the mirror, finding multiple reddish marks across my neck.
Had it been summer, I could have made up an excuse about mosquito bites, but it was autumn now. October, when mosquitoes had long vanished.
Because of that, the entire ride home, I had the black scarf Ugeum gave me wrapped tightly around my neck.
Without batting an eye, Ugeum had spouted compliments about how well the scarf suited me. I had wanted to roll it up and gag him with it.
What on earth was he thinking? Last night included…
If I had guided his hand lower, would we really have gone all the way? Even with Ondam in the other room?
I didn’t know. It all seemed completely insane. Ugeum, pouncing regardless of time or place… and me, getting swept up in it once again.
But honestly, I was helpless. How was I supposed to resist a man born to be a femme fatale in male form? It was a miracle I’d held out this long.
As I lay sprawled on the bed, blankly chewing over last night’s events, a sudden ringtone snapped me back to reality.
Startled, I grabbed my phone.
Jin Jeongan, My Friend
It was Jeongan.
“Yeah.”
The moment I answered, a sly giggle leaked from the receiver.
- Ha Jian! If you went on your first trip with your boyfriend, shouldn’t you be reporting to your unnie?
“What reporting?”
- Did you have a good trip? Did you make history?
Jeongan asked cheekily, amusement lacing her voice.
Thanks to her, the close calls from last night, the agitation still rattling me, and Ugeum’s infuriatingly nonchalant attitude that morning all came tumbling out in my mind like a string of cocktail sausages.
It put me in a foul mood for no good reason.
“Dream on. Nothing like what you’re imagining happened.”
- What? Why? Is he impotent?
There really was nothing this girl wouldn’t say.
That crude word dragged up some embarrassing memories.
Like the vivid description of Ugeum’s private parts in the shower scene hammered out by the Cursed Keyboard.
Or the menacing bulge in the front of Ugeum’s pants as he pulled away from me on the bed.
Impotent? Absolutely not.
“No, it’s not that! It’s just… we didn’t go alone. Ondam came with us.”
- What? Why did you bring her? Your boyfriend is hilarious.
“Then was I supposed to leave the kid home alone?”
I instinctively defended Ugeum. Even though I’d thought it was absurd at first, too. Even though I’d felt bitter, thinking I was the only one reading into this trip.
The funny one was me.
- Of course! Frankly speaking, it’s not like she’s your dongsaeng.
Ondam would have been hurt if she heard that. She’d said she wanted to be my dongsaeng.
- Hey, why would you drag such a huge third wheel along? I didn’t take Mr. Ju Ugeum for that type, but he’s unnecessarily wholesome, isn’t he? That’s not Ju Ugeum. He’s just someone with the same name.
“How does that even make sense?”
- Our Ugeum isn’t that wholesome!
The phrase our Ugeum grated on my nerves strangely. Even though it was an expression practically glued to the lips of every avid reader of the Night Series.
Our Ugeum? Technically speaking, Ju Ugeum is my…
What on earth was I thinking?
- The real Ugeum would swallow you whole in a single bite.
In a single bite…
Remembering that mouth swallowing my breast made my face burn up. If I told her I almost got eaten alive in reality, Jeongan would throw an otherworldly fit.
I deliberately changed the subject, recounting the trip step by step in chronological order.
When the story reached the conversation I had with Ondam, Jeongan was shocked to hear what Ugeum had told her.
- Your boyfriend really said that to her? That he knows why you brought her along?
“Yeah.”
- You must really like your boyfriend, huh?
“Me?”
- I mean, you hate talking about your past like crazy. But seeing that you told your boyfriend…
“I didn’t tell him.”
- Then how does he know?
How… does he know?
Jeongan was right. Thinking about it, it was strange. It was as if Ugeum spoke while knowing all about my past.
But how? Because he’s my lover?
<What is there about you that I wouldn’t know?>
I remembered what Ugeum had said before. Right, Ugeum knew every little detail about me inside and out.
Up until now, I thought it was because of his setting as my lover. Just like how he knew my door passcode, the location of the first-aid kit, and my taste in drinks.
But when I really thought about it, I wasn’t the kind of person who could readily bare the hell inside me to someone else. No matter if they were my lover.
Yet how did Ugeum know?
After ending the call, I sat before my computer and opened the Cursed Manuscript.
And I found the scene where Ugeum and Ondam talked while I was away for my meetup with Jeongan.
It was already a few days ago.
[“I understand why Jian brought you home.”
Ugeum murmured abruptly.
Across the dining table, Ondam, who was eating the carbonara he had made, gave him an inquisitive look.
“Why?”
“Ask her yourself. It’s Jian’s privacy, so I can’t go talking about it recklessly.”
Ugeum drew the line smoothly.]
That was all. Whether Ugeum truly knew something or was just pretending to know, I had no way of telling.
Infuriatingly enough.
Monday dawned.
Whether I was shaking precariously in the midst of the typhoon named Ju Ugeum or not, time heartlessly went on its way, and so did my daily routine.
Midterms were just around the corner. I had to write the exam questions for the midterm.
Overtime naturally began. Since I had a student I taught staying at my house, I couldn’t bring schoolwork home.
It was on one of those days after several consecutive nights of overtime.
Amidst the gentle white noise of the Teachers’ Room—the clatter of typing, the clicking of mice, and the rustle of turning pages from textbooks and workbooks—a phone buzzed with a low vibration.
It was my phone. I checked the caller ID displayed on the screen.
Dongsaeng Applicant Ahn Ondam
Cupping my hand over the phone, I answered.
“Yeah, Ondam.”
- Teacher…!
Just one word.
Yet the moment I heard that single word, thorny vines named anxiety sprouted thick in my chest.
Ondam was crying.
“What’s wrong? What happened?”
Breathless sobs poured through the receiver.
Every time Ondam sniffled, my heart, which had already plummeted, dropped again and again.
“Ondam, don’t just cry, talk to me. I need to know what happened so I can help.”
- Dad… sniff, Dad’s here. Dad came looking for me at your house, Teacher. He’s making a huge scene outside telling me to open the door… What do I do…?
It felt as if a black grand piano had crashed down inside my chest.
A heavy, dizzying roar, like dozens of keys smashing simultaneously, tore through my heart. I was stunned and utterly distraught.
While I momentarily lost my senses in panic, Ondam kept crying and calling for her teacher. And that teacher she was desperately calling out for through her tears was me.
The moment that reality hit me, the weight of my profession—something I often forgot in daily life—pulled me upright and anchored my half-shattered focus.
“Don’t open it under any circumstances. I’m coming right now.”
As I hung up and hastily gathered my bag, the teacher sitting next to me asked quietly,
“Is something wrong?”
Had Ondam’s crying leaked through? The look in her eyes held concern.
“There’s an issue at home… I’ll be leaving first.”
The moment I stood up from my seat, Ugeum suddenly flashed across my mind.
Someone who could help me. Someone who could protect Ondam.
I immediately dialed Ugeum.
- The number you have dialed is currently switched off…
My stomach churned with how desperate I was. What on earth is he doing at a time like this?
I slumped back down into my chair and frantically swapped the keyboard.
The surrounding teachers gave me strange looks, but I had no time to care.
When I opened the Cursed Manuscript, Ugeum had his phone turned off and was meeting someone.
[In the private room guided by the staff, the Joongdong Ilbo Editor-in-Chief was already waiting for Ugeum.
When Ugeum sat across from him, the man nodded toward his powered-off phone on the table.
“I assume you didn’t come here to hear clean talk, so let’s both keep our phones off.”
Without a word of protest, Ugeum switched off his phone and placed it on the table.
There was nothing unusual about it. It was standard practice for people with dirty laundry.
“So, what is it you want to ask me?”
At the editor-in-chief’s question, what came to Ugeum’s mind was an incident that was quite shocking yet completely unknown to the public.
An incident that started with a third-generation chaebol, passed through a politician, and was submerged under the surface by the hands of the man sitting right in front of him.
He hadn’t met the editor-in-chief to do anything to him. Ugeum merely wanted to confirm.
Though he had searched frantically until now, there was no proof that the prey he had killed had ever actually existed.
The same went for the traces of the victims who had driven Ugeum to execute his retribution upon them.
The articles regarding the punishments Ugeum had carried out had also evaporated without a trace.
It was as though the world had hollowed out everything connected to him.
He was now searching for incidents that had nothing to do with him.
Most of those events matched his memories.
In news articles, on social media posts, he could easily find their traces anywhere.
And this time, it was the turn of the unrecorded incidents. The truths that had suffocated without ever rising to the surface.
The man sitting across from him was someone who could confirm them.
In that way, like piecing together a puzzle, Ugeum was slowly fitting it all together.
Just how much of the world he remembered was real.]
Why right now, of all times?
A sharp throb dug into the back of my head. A stress-induced headache.
It was no use. Ugeum was busy breaking apart the world he knew, and I had no way to stop him.
If I tried to come up with some plausible scenario to make Ugeum leave his meeting and rush to my house, Ondam would be dragged away by her biological father before then.
Having no other choice, I gave up on Ugeum and bolted out of the Teachers’ Room.
While driving home, I debated whether or not to call the police, but in the end, I didn’t.
For fear that the police might send Ondam back home simply because he was her biological father.
How many times had the police returned abused children to their parents only for them to end up dead? It was far from just one or two cases.
When I arrived home, a foul-looking middle-aged man was violently pounding on the front door with his fists and feet.
“Ahn Ondam! Open the door!”
The heavy thud shook the door.
“Can’t you hear your dad?!”
Violent bangs rattled the frame one after another.
The sound of the steel door vibrating echoed loudly down the apartment hallway.
A sudden surge of worry hit me that someone might have already called the police.
It was my mistake. I should have anticipated that something like this would happen eventually.
How did he even find out my home address? Did Ondam’s homeroom teacher tell him?
I’d made it here, but what was I supposed to do now? What could I even do?
Harboring worry and dread, I approached Ondam’s father, and a stench of alcohol so vile it made my head throb wafted over.
“Get out here this instant! Come out!”
Ondam’s father didn’t even notice my approach, screaming at the top of his lungs.
Seeing the light on beneath the doorbell button, I realized the intercom was active.
Ondam was watching from inside.
“Don’t come out under any circumstances. Turn off the intercom.”
I spoke calmly toward the intercom. The light went out immediately.
Ondam’s father glared at me with a menacing scowl.
“Who the hell are you?”
“You’re Ondam’s father, aren’t you?”
He and I asked at the same time. And his response came faster than mine.
“Yeah, I’m Ahn Ondam’s father. Are you the bitch who kidnapped my Ondam?”