How to Survive the Horror Novel I Wrote
Chapter 9
Flash.
Lightning struck. In that fleeting fraction of a second, the light painted the dark living room stark white, vividly illuminating the face of the man standing before me.
A half-smile on his pale lips, and eyes gleaming sharp within the shadows.
That face, bisected by light and shadow, seemed to represent Ugeum himself. This very face was the essence of Ju Ugeum.
Who was Ju Ugeum? None other than the serial killer from the horror novel I wrote. Ugeum's role was identical to that of a ghost, a zombie, a monster. And things like that never die.
Neither does Ugeum. Ugeum is immortal. I made him that way.
A being who resurrects time and again from deaths that seem inescapable, driving both narrator and reader into shock and terror.
I always relished writing scenes where, just as the narrator breathes a sigh of relief convinced of Ugeum's demise, he reappears like an apparition. Because that was how the fear of both narrator and reader doubled.
Just like right now.
My knees went weak, and my heart hammered violently in my chest. So this was what it felt like when your blood ran cold. It felt as though an icy chill were coursing through every vessel in my body.
As I swallowed dryly with parched lips, Ugeum took his mouth off my index finger and asked with a mischievous grin,
“What was that moan just now?”
His tone was playful yet loaded with meaning. Like a boyfriend expecting something naughty.
It wasn't even funny. Here I was living a horror film, yet he acted as if he were shooting a romance.
“……!”
A sudden jolt hit me in the back of the head.
It wasn't ‘like.’ I had completely overlooked it.
Ugeum was indeed my boyfriend, and when he was with me, he might very well see himself not as a serial killer, but as the male lead of a romance film.
Whether Ugeum truly thought that way or not, I couldn't be sure.
“It was because it hurt. From you licking the cut. Don't just lick it like that. You'll get bacteria in it.”
Trying my best to sound composed, I muttered the blunt excuse and yanked my finger out of his grasp.
……Or tried to. But Ugeum didn't let go. With a picture-perfect smile gracing his lips, he tugged my fingers closer and deliberately pressed a kiss to the back of my hand.
“Really?”
The back of my hand burned as if branded.
I could feel the heat seeping through my skin, encroaching upon the blood vessels that had been running cold just moments ago and spreading through my entire body. It was just like spreading poison.
“Really.”
I brushed his hand away rather coldly.
What I had felt a moment ago wasn't just pain, but my partner was Ugeum. I didn't have the slightest desire to get intimate with a man who murdered people.
When the living room lights were switched on, the broken vase, spilled water, and scattered flowers were laid bare.
Noticing where my eyes were looking, Ugeum said in a gentle voice,
“I'll clean it up. Let's get some ointment on that first.”
Leading me over to sit on the sofa, Ugeum brought the first-aid kit from the TV console. As expected of someone playing my boyfriend, he knew every single corner of my house inside out.
Ugeum meticulously applied antiseptic and ointment to my finger before affixing an adhesive bandage over it.
He really seemed like a remarkably attentive man. But in truth, Ugeum's attentiveness was sheer meticulousness. Since it was the bedrock of his perfect crimes, I couldn't view it in a purely positive light.
Checking to see if the bandage was set firmly in place, Ugeum asked in a casual, offhand manner,
“Did you go out somewhere?”
My heart dropped into my stomach.
Even though you bumped into me earlier. Even though you were caught red-handed in the middle of a hunt. You're pretending not to have seen me, pretending not to know, pretending not to be the assailant who was strangling that drug dealer—just to test me.
In case I recognized you.
How should I answer? I couldn't tell the truth. There was no telling how a serial killer caught in the act of attempted murder would react.
Yet I couldn't lie, either. Ugeum's warning rang vivid in my ears—that he could understand anything except a lie.
I licked my dry lips.
“……How did you know?”
My calculation was that since I couldn't lie, I would make Ugeum do it instead, but the moment the words left my mouth, I felt like I was walking a tightrope between two cliffs.
What if Ugeum answered honestly? What if he said he actually went out to kill someone and saw me there? What if he admitted that the assailant I saw was him? What if he pressed me on how I knew and came there?
Belated anxiety choked the air from my lungs.
Instead of answering, Ugeum reached his large hand toward my neck. My breath hitched.
I thought…… he was going to strangle me. But his fingers didn't close around my throat; instead, they toyed with the strands of hair falling beside it.
“Because your hair is wet.”
I swallowed down the whimper rising in my throat. The damp hair rustled softly in his grasp. It was because I had been out in the rain earlier.
“I went out after you.”
I confessed with a sigh.
“Why?”
To stop you from killing someone.
Even if my lips were torn off, I couldn't speak that truth aloud. I strained to make my voice sound as alluring as possible.
“To tell you not to go……”
Ugeum looked taken aback. But soon, a suspicious smile curved his lips.
“You told me to just leave earlier.”
“I changed my mind.”
“Why so suddenly?”
“I was hurting, and I didn't want to be alone.”
It was an excuse I threw out just to brush it off, but saying it aloud made me realize I truly was in pain. My whole body ached, feeling distinctly feverish and sore.
The smile vanished completely from Ugeum's face. Looking down at my stomach, he asked,
“Does it still hurt?”
“Not my stomach.”
“Where does it hurt?”
“I think I have a bit of body aches.”
No sooner had I answered than Ugeum cupped the back of my neck and brought his face right up to mine.
“……!”
I squeezed my eyes shut instinctively, but what touched me wasn't his lips—it was his forehead against mine. When I opened my eyes, I saw Ugeum's face furrowed in a frown. His long, dark eyelashes were so close they practically brushed against me.
Even though the situation wasn't what I had feared, the tension refused to ease. My heart raced wildly, and heat surged into my face. Even without looking in a mirror, I knew my face had flushed bright red.
“You have a fever.”
Ugeum spoke with a serious edge.
“……Are you sure it's not just because you're cold?”
I retorted in a small voice.
I wasn't the only one who had gotten rained on. Ugeum's hair was wet too.
The suit he was wearing now was stiff and bone-dry, but the black leather jacket that had stalked through the downpour with its owner was bound to be completely soaked.
The hand cradling the back of my neck was also icy cold. Even if my fever was gradually rising.
“Did you get caught in the rain?”
Ugeum feigned ignorance, pretending he hadn't seen me wandering through the pouring rain without an umbrella.
I, too, answered as if I knew nothing at all.
“I didn't know it was going to rain.”
“Next time, buy an umbrella and use it. Don't walk around in the rain. You're already so frail……”
Ugeum moved the hand from my neck to caress my cheek, muttering in a reproachful tone.
His gaze, his expression, and his voice were steeped in genuine, unwavering concern.
I felt as if I had been struck.
“Are you worried about me right now?”
“Do you even have to ask?”
The incredulous retort he tossed back pricked at my guilty conscience.
I felt relieved thinking you were dead. I wished for you to die. Yet here you are, worrying about me. Over something as trivial as catching a cold.
Struggling, I barely managed to part my stiff lips.
“I'm fine.”
“Fine, my foot. You were lying in the emergency room just a few hours ago. Why are you so careless with your body? Are you trying to worry me to death?”
Ugeum scolded me, his voice carrying an equal mix of concern and blame.
A bitter laugh rose inside me. As if you could ever die.
“This won't do. Let's go in.”
Rising abruptly to his feet, Ugeum held out a hand to me.
My tension melted away, and a wave of relief washed over me. Along with a lingering doubt.
Why was he just letting this slide? Without even questioning me properly. When he saw me there. Could it be that he didn't care even if he got caught?
Still, I couldn't bring myself to ask. Right now, I was simply grateful that Ugeum wasn't probing any further.
Even so, I couldn't readily take the hand offered before my eyes. Wasn't that the very hand that had tried to kill a man?
Yet if I refused to take it, Ugeum would doubt my feelings. Pretending I had never hesitated in the first place, I took his hand and stood up.
Ugeum led me into the bedroom. The keyboard typing away entirely on its own atop the desk greeted us, but Ugeum didn't spare it a single glance and walked straight toward the bed.
Don't tell me.
When I hesitated, Ugeum looked back at me and let out a dry chuckle.
“It's not like that.”
Heat flared fiercely across my cheeks.
Led by Ugeum, I climbed onto the bed and lay down with hesitance. As if he had been waiting, Ugeum pulled the blanket over me. Only then did my mind ease.
Letting out a sigh of relief, I closed my eyes.
I had worried over nothing. Today was going to pass safely after all.
Perhaps because I had been woken up mid-sleep, my consciousness grew drowsy and submerged into darkness in an instant. Faintly, in the distance, I thought I heard a rustling sound followed by something dropping to the floor.
Suddenly, a pair of warm arms wrapped around my entire body from behind. My senses snapped wide awake. Ugeum, having slipped under the blanket, was holding me close.
“……!”
Terrified, I struggled against him. What do you mean, it's not like that!
At my movement, Ugeum tightened his embrace and whispered,
“Stay still.”
My body stiffened instantly on its own. Ugeum added in a low voice,
“It'll be warmer like this.”
It went far beyond warm—it was burning. It didn't feel like mere warmth, but searing heat.
The firm grip clasping my arm.
The arm wrapped securely around my waist.
The breath brushing damp against my ear and drifting down the nape of my neck.
The body heat pressed flush against my back.
Everything was so scorching that I felt like I might melt away. My stomach churned. But I didn't deceive myself.
Anyone would tremble in a situation like this even if held by an ordinary man, so how could I not when it was a serial killer who murdered his lovers?
“You're not expecting me to sleep like this, are you? Surely not.”
Squeezing out every ounce of courage to grumble, a low chuckle tickled the back of my ear.
“Lullaby, lullaby.”
With laughter laced in his voice, Ugeum repeated the rhythmic hum over and over while gently patting my arm.
I was utterly speechless. Who on earth, not being a baby, would fall asleep in a killer's arms just from hearing a lullaby?
* * *
That someone was right here. I stared at the ceiling in dazed disbelief.
I couldn't even remember when I had drifted off. The realization that I had let my guard completely down before a serial killer left a foul taste in my mouth.
It was all because of exhaustion. And the body aches. And the lack of sleep. All of it had just unluckily coincided. Even so……
Ugeum was gone. Fortunately.
As I turned my head to check the clock, a wet towel slipped off my forehead.
Through the hazy fog of half-sleep, memories of Ugeum nursing me came back. I had developed a fever while sleeping, and Ugeum brought over household medicine and water, and then……
<Ji-an-ah. Wake up. Can't you get up?>
How he put the pill into my mouth when I couldn't pull myself together, and pressed his lips over mine. I had swallowed the medicine along with the water held in Ugeum's mouth.
Belatedly, my face burned crimson. Why did everything that bastard did have to be so erotic? I couldn't understand it. What I wrote was a horror novel.
While there were plenty of episodes where Ugeum used his looks as a weapon during hunts, I had never written a scene where he acted so blatantly, sensually, and decadently.
Above all, I didn't possess the capability to write something like that.
I was the author. I created him. I thought I knew everything about Ju Ugeum, but I was wrong. I really didn't know a single thing.
Letting out a sigh, I sat up, and traces of his care caught my eye.
The damp towel that had fallen beside my pillow, the water bottle and glass on the nightstand, and next to them, an unfamiliar phone.
The moment I saw it, my body froze.
It looked like Ju Ugeum's phone. Did he not go home?
Yet I couldn't sense any presence around.
Did he leave his phone behind?
Soon, I noticed a note tucked underneath the phone.
Take it.
I made porridge, so heat it up and eat.
Surely he's not using this to track my location or something.
Shaking my head, I walked over and sat in front of the computer. It was to uncover the truth of last night—how Ugeum had returned alive.
