How to Survive the Horror Novel I Wrote
Chapter 39
“I am so truly sorry about yesterday.”
The moment I stepped into the counseling room, Ondam’s mother bowed low before me.
“Oh, heavens, please, stand up.”
Startled and uncomfortable with the excessive deference, I quickly helped her back up.
With her brows knit in distress, Ondam’s mother said,
“Her father coming to your home… that was entirely my fault. He found out I’d been secretly keeping in touch with On-dam. On-dam only gave me your address so I wouldn’t worry, but yesterday her father snatched my phone away, and…”
Even without hearing the rest, I could picture it perfectly.
Ondam’s father, holding the stolen phone, his face flushing mottled shades of rage as he scrolled through the messages exchanged between mother and daughter.
At any rate, it was a relief he hadn’t asked the Class 2 Homeroom Teacher.
“Ah, I see…”
“There is a limit to biting the hand that feeds you, but to do that to a teacher… To the very person looking after our On-dam. I wanted to apologize on his behalf. I am so deeply sorry, Teacher. Truly, I am.”
What meaning did an apology made on someone else’s behalf really hold? And what meaning did forgiveness granted to a proxy carry?
“Were you all right, Mother? Last night, I mean.”
Instead of telling her I was fine, I asked if she was okay. From what On-dam had told me, she was a victim of domestic violence as well.
“Yes, I’m fine. Her father vents his anger with alcohol. Last night too, he came home, drank himself into a stupor, and passed out. He’s probably still asleep right now. I slipped out while he was sleeping…”
A bitter smile bloomed at the tail of her trailing voice. Hers was the face of pure misery.
Looking at that face, the words On-dam had said suddenly came back to me.
<I just wish Mom would get a divorce. I wish she’d protect herself, not just me.>
How desperate must the child have been to say such a thing?
When a mother is unhappy, the child is inevitably unhappy too. The man I saw yesterday—Ondam’s father—was misery incarnate. Why was this woman clinging to such misery?
I wanted to ask why. I wanted to say something. But by what right? I was neither family nor friend, not even On-dam’s homeroom teacher.
Yet I remembered On-dam sobbing in my arms last night. Her puffy, swollen face, her voice worn raw to a rasp, and the resigned words she muttered after crying—that she was used to it.
That memory moved me.
“Ondam’s mother, um… I know it’s rude of me to ask this, but have you never considered getting a divorce?”
A sorrowful smile crept onto Ondam’s mother’s lips.
“Of course I have. How could I not?”
Then fell a brief silence.
I understood her pause. It was an exceedingly awkward, uncomfortable topic to discuss with someone she was meeting for the first time.
So I waited quietly. Until she could muster the strength to continue.
“Thousands, tens of thousands of times. I still think about it even now. Just in case, I’ve been gathering things that could serve as evidence.”
“Then why, even now…”
“Because of On-dam. I kept thinking… that having a father might still be better than not having one at all…”
Her voice trailed off, hollow and lacking conviction.
I knew all too well that some family members were worse than strangers. I knew that the saying ‘blood is thicker than water’ did not hold true for everyone.
“Mother. It might be presumptuous of me, but there is something I’d like to say.”
“Yes, go ahead.”
Having opened the topic so boldly, I found myself unable to speak easily. It was that difficult a subject for me. It had been difficult my entire life.
“Teacher…?”
“I grew up being beaten too. By my stepfather.”
Her eyes went wide.
In a moment, sympathy would pool in those eyes. I did not welcome it. Because to the me of the past, even pity was a form of violence.
Back then, the pitying looks strangers gave me were just as sharp and painful as my stepfather’s blows. Because they reminded me of my own wretched state.
As Jung-an had pointed out before, I hated talking about my past to others. Doing so meant exposing the festering pus inside me. It meant laying bare my hideous scars and sickening stench.
But if it was for On-dam’s sake. Even if I couldn't be a cure, if I could at least help block the blows. Even if I couldn't be of much help in the grand scheme of things.
Still, I wanted to do what little I could.
“I’m much better now, but I used to suffer from severe depression. At night, I was too terrified to sleep, and whenever I did, nightmares haunted me. That was how I developed insomnia.”
I shared my story as calmly as I could manage.
Just like I had with On-dam at the mountain cabin, but including the parts I had kept from her.
How agonizing and suffocating it was to live carrying trauma. How long it took before I could lead a normal daily life like everyone else.
That paranoia had taken root, making me envision only the worst-case scenario no matter what I saw. That a nervous breakdown had left me saddled with all kinds of neuroses.
When I finally finished my long account, Ondam’s mother asked cautiously,
“Did you… visit a hospital?”
“I did. After graduating from college, I went to a psychiatric clinic for a long time. I can’t talk about this outside these walls, of course. Parents would lodge formal complaints.”
“Ah…”
I reached out and gently enveloped the rough back of Ondam’s mother’s hand with mine.
“I simply wish you would give it a little more thought, Mother. What truly is the best path for On-dam.”
* * *
My final night of overtime was over. I was finally free from the agonizing hell of writing exam questions. I was free at last.
Savoring the sense of liberation, I returned home, where On-dam came pattering out to greet me.
“Welcome back, ma’am.”
Naturally, Ondam’s mother came to mind. The bitter smile on her face when I offered to write a permission slip so she could have lunch with On-dam before leaving.
<Next time. I have to get back before her father wakes up.>
The face of Ondam’s father, whom she feared so much, came to mind as well. Just thinking about him made my skin crawl with disgust.
Surely that monster hadn’t come by my house again while I was away.
“Nothing happened today, right?”
“Nope.”
She answered briskly, then changed her tune as if something had just crossed her mind.
“Oh, wait. Actually, something did.”
“What happened?”
“Someone came looking for you.”
“Who?”
“He said he was from a publishing company. What was his name again… Oh Haejung, was it?”
At that instant, a bone-chilling cold raced through my entire body. It felt as though frost were glazing the inside of every vein.
This was no time to be worrying about others. An unforeseen ambush was gnawing away at my defenses.
“Oh Haejun…”
The man who had tracked down my home just to corner me had come looking again while I was away.
“Do you know him?”
On-dam asked, her eyes round with curiosity.
“Yeah…”
My stomach twisted into knots with anxiety and dread. How had this happened? There was no mention of this when I checked the manuscript before leaving school.
As I bit down hard on my lower lip, the pain brought a sudden realization. The Cursed Manuscript had a major blind spot. It was written strictly from the perspectives of the male and female protagonists.
In other words, because the narrative centered exclusively on me or Ugeum, events that happened to other people could be omitted entirely. Just like this.
“Ma’am, do you know the author Mun Seongwon too, then?”
The unexpected question sent my heart plummeting into my stomach.
“Huh? I mean, of course I know of them… They’re an author I like. But why do you ask?”
“Because that mister kept insisting that this is Author Mun Seongwon’s house.”
“And then? What did you say?”
“I told him he had the wrong address, that no one like that lives here.”
For a moment, darkness washed over my vision. Did he figure it out?
“And what did he say to that? Did he believe you?”
Without realizing it, I grabbed On-dam by the arm and pressed her for answers.
“Yes… He just left. Ma’am, you’re hurting my arm.”
On-dam spoke with a frightened look on her face.
Startled, I quickly let go of her arm.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. What is wrong with me… I must have lost my mind.”
As I muttered miserably, On-dam looked back at me with growing concern.
“No, it’s okay. I’m fine. Ma’am, what’s wrong? Did I do something bad?”
“No. You didn’t do a single thing wrong. I was just… just a little startled. I think I’ll go inside and rest.”
Leaving behind On-dam’s doubtful gaze, I retreated into my room.
Rest was out of the question; I couldn’t even bring myself to sit down. Pacing back and forth across the room, I gnawed relentlessly at the tip of my thumb.
A chain of events played out seamlessly in my head: Oh Haejun discovering my identity, leaking it somewhere, an article breaking that revealed the identity of the masked author Mun Seongwon, my personal details spreading across the internet, and Ugeum seeing it and coming to kill me.
Then it struck me. There had been times when the Cursed Manuscript featured perspectives other than mine and Ugeum’s—like Jung-an’s or Oh Haejun’s. So maybe, just maybe, this time too.
Please.
Frantically powering on the computer, I opened the Cursed Manuscript. Miraculously, there it was.
A flashback scene inserted right into the conversation between me and On-dam just moments ago.
[Ding-dong.
Following the chime of the doorbell, a stranger appeared on the intercom screen.
A mild-looking, bespectacled office worker. None other than Haejun.
Not knowing who he was, On-dam asked in a voice laced with suspicion,
“Who is it?”
And Haejun mistook the female voice coming through the intercom for Ji-an’s.
- Ma’am, it’s me. Assistant Manager Oh Haejun.
On-dam furrowed her brow.
Ma’am? He had definitely come to the wrong house. Because Teacher Ji-an wasn’t married.
“I think you have the wrong address.”
On-dam disconnected the intercom.
Flustered, Haejun pressed the doorbell once more.
Ding-dong.
“I told you, you have the wrong place.”
- Isn’t this Author Mun Seongwon’s residence?
“No, it isn’t.”
- That can’t be… Did you perhaps move in recently?
“No.”
- Excuse me, but what is your relationship to the homeowner?
“Why are you asking me that?”
- I thought the homeowner might have kept it a secret from you.
A surge of indignation rose in On-dam. Haejun’s words rubbed her the wrong way. After all, she and Ji-an shared even their deepest, darkest wounds with each other.
“I’m her cherished student. And once I graduate, I’m going to be her younger sister.”
- A student?
Oh Haejun muttered in bewilderment.
He had assumed she was a younger cousin or a niece. A student?
“Yes, this is a teacher’s home. Not an author’s.”
Is the ma’am a teacher by profession?
Haejun tilted his head in confusion.
Just then, On-dam’s decisive blow struck him like a physical shock.
“And there is no ‘ma’am’ here, either. Our teacher is still unmarried.”
- Is that so…?
Haejun asked back blankly. It was not a question meant to elicit an answer.
Only, in that single moment.
A sudden chill crept over his entire body. The scattered puzzle pieces in his mind began locking into place one by one.
‘Who are you, and why are you standing in front of my house…?’
He recalled the woman approaching hesitantly on the day they first met, looking at him with wary eyes.
Yet when they had coffee together, there was no wedding band on her ring finger—not even the faint indentation of one.
Furthermore, the man she claimed was her husband had rung the doorbell when arriving at this house. He hadn’t punched in the door lock’s passcode.
In other words, he wasn’t her husband. A boyfriend, perhaps, but not a spouse.
Looking back now, her behavior when she showed up at the publishing house was suspicious in the extreme.
Showing up out of the blue to ask him to accompany her somewhere, lying to the man claiming to be her husband, and even forcing Haejun to lie along with her.
She was blatantly trying to hide something. She had claimed it was to prevent a misunderstanding about an affair, but if that man wasn’t even her husband, that excuse fell apart completely.
Then what she was truly trying to hide was…
And this house was, without a shadow of a doubt, Author Mun Seongwon’s residence.
‘Who are you, and why are you standing in front of my house…?’
Damn it.
That damn ‘ma’am’ was the author herself.]