The Great Storyteller

Translated by: ShawnSuh

Edited by: SootyOwl

“How much do you want for it?”

Juho looked up at Jenkins, who seemed quite stirred up, behaving like Coin after a cup of coffee.

“For what?”

“The book! How much?”

“… It’s not for sale,” the employee said with a look of greed on his face, determined to hold on to it.

“I’ll give you fifty books worth.”

“No.”

“OK. I’ll give you ten times that.”

“Now you’re just making me uncomfortable.”

“So, you do have a price in mind, huh?”

Shrugging, the employee looked at the young author, concerned about coming across as shallow to his favorite author. Although Juho was watching him and the director haggling while resting his chin on his hand indifferently, Jenkins caught on to the employee’s intention almost immediately.

“Good. I like the way you think. Very rational. With that, let’s discuss the price. The way I see it, I think it’s a fair amount, especially considering the name that’s on the book.”

“There are things in this world you can’t buy with money. For example, this book.”

“C’ mon, now. Don’t be ridiculous. You work at a bookstore for crying out loud! All right, fine! I’ll give you double the amount I suggested earlier.”

“… No can do. Not this copy, at least.”

“THIS copy, huh?” Jenkins said, smiling, and adding, “I should’ve known. You buy three copies at a time when you buy a book! Enough talk. Sell me a used one.”

‘Now, I get it,’ Juho thought to himself. Jenkins had already taken into account that the book had been sold out on that particular store. On top of that, he had been thinking of getting the book through a certain employee at the store. At that moment, things started heating up between the employee and the director. Just as Juho was about to step in to break them up, the owner beat the young author to it. Placing her hand on the employee’s shoulder, she gently put pressure on her hand.

“But…”

At his hesitation, the owner applied even more pressure on her hand. At which point, the employee let up, saying, “… All right,” closing his mouth and sighing. The owner looked at him as though he needed to work on self-control.

“I was just having some fun. I’ll give you a copy. Think of it as a gift for allowing me to meet Yun Woo in person.”

“How thoughtful of you,” the director said without hesitation. At which point, Juho gave him a slightly disgusted look. He seemed to be the type who had to have what he wanted. Meanwhile, having been forced to give up his book, the employee smacked his lips. From his point of view, each of the three copies he owned served a distinct purpose, and letting even one of them go had to be rather heartwrenching. Pushing through the heartache, the employee went to his cabinet and brought out a book.

“Come again,” the employee said, glaring at the director fiercely. Despite his passive resentment, Juho nodded affirmatively, glad to have discovered a good bookstore. Juho and Jenkins walked out of the store. Although nobody saw the young author, his picture and autograph was proof that he had been at the store at one point.

“Can you slow down?” Juho asked Jenkins, who was walking ahead in a hurry. However, instead of slowing his pace, the director replied, “Let’s go to your hotel room. I’m reading this book right now.”

Juho followed the director unhurriedly, wondering what he would think of the book.

—

“This is the worst!”

Ignoring the voice coming from behind him, Juho moved his hand busily. He had just passed the halfway point of the paper he’d been writing. He was doing a writing exercise where he took a word chosen at random, came up with five different stories related to the topic and connected them all together. That day, the topic was ‘lid.’

“I CANNOT stand this human.”

Juho wrote away.

“If I were the traitor, this would be the one I’d sink my fangs into. Your patience is admirable.”

“Hm.”

Juho looked back and saw the director, who was relaxing on the couch with a book in his hand. He was talkative even while reading.

“I think this paragraph sums up everything there is to know about Traitor. Listen to this. Ahem! ‘Traitor took both of his hands…'”

“I think that’s quite enough, don’t you think?”

At that, Jenkins stopped mid-sentence and looked up, asking, “What is?”

“How many times have you read that book now? How many weeks has it been?” Juho asked, brushing his hair back with his hand. He was coming to realize that he had been underestimating the director. ‘He had to have known that movies and books were inherently different from each other.”

“A month,” Jenkins replied. Since getting his hands on the book, the director hadn’t put it down in a month. It was incomparable to a three-hour movie.

“And how much longer are you planning on reading it for?”

“I don’t know.”

“Can’t you read a different book?”

“What if I get tired of it?”

The same set of questions had been repeating themselves over and over again up to that point. Chuckling, Juho asked, “What is with you and that book? What makes it so special that you haven’t put it down even once?”

Narrowing his eyes, Jenkins replied, “This is a form of self-compliment, isn’t it? I know what you’re doing. I ask myself a similar question all the time. Who do these good looks belong to?”

“This is not a library, you know.”

“You can read anywhere. There’s a sense of freedom in that.”

With that, Juho turned around and resumed writing. However, his peace was short lived as the director started talking again.

“You know, I love the process of the protagonist getting more and more used to war. Do you think it’s human nature, or is he merely adapting to his environment?”

Juho thought of Coin, who wouldn’t have thought twice about calling the cops and filing a restraining order against the director. He would have done it multiple times if necessary.

“OK, hear me out.” In the end, realizing that Jenkins wasn’t ready to stop talking any time soon, Juho opened his mouth and said, “You know who we haven’t seen in a while? Coin.”

“Ah! Coin! What about him?”

“Oh, nothing. It’s just that I find myself missing him whenever I’m around you.”

With the talkative director in front of his eyes, Juho started missing Coin, who knew exactly how to shut Jenkins up. Juho hadn’t met with or contacted Coin since his discharge from the military. However, that wasn’t to say that the young author had severed his relationship with Coin. If anything, it had been normal behavior. Besides, they had never seen each other all that often.

“Me not seeing him for two years is one thing, but I was surprised to hear that you two haven’t met up once,” Juho said, quoting what he had heard from Jenkins about Coin. Apparently, the two had never met during the young author’s service in the military.

“We were both busy with our own works. I was busy with my movie, and Coin was busy with his book. He was doing very well while you were gone. Which reminds me, he really is a man of his word.”

“He never called you? Even after the movie came out?”

“Nope. He must have loved it so much that it didn’t even occur to him.”

“Is that what you think?” Juho asked. However, the director seemed convinced that Coin was fond of the movie.

Then, waving, Jenkins added, “All right, forget about that for a second. Have you read his new nonfiction? It is SO good! I wasn’t able to read it once filming started, but people just wouldn’t stop talking about them, and I couldn’t get away from it. Oh! Did you hear that he sued this one magazine or a newspaper company not too long ago? Wonder how that went.”

Recently, Juho had been binge reading Coin’s books. During which time, he was reminded of just how great of an author Coin really was. Known as an eccentric problem child in the industry, not only was Coin a four-time Nebula and Hugo winner, but he had also won a number of other literary awards. On top of that, he was a prolific writer who wrote in just about any genre, from a scripts to nonfiction, short stories, novels, pure literature, genre novels, and children’s literature. Both his infamous reputation as an author and his talent had remained unchanged during the young author’s absence.

“If anything, he almost seemed reckless and frantic. I remember laughing at just how desperate he seemed.”

‘You’re one to talk,’ Juho said internally, barely managing to swallow the words that came all the way up to his throat. Then, after looking up for a little while, Jenkins reached into his pocket and took out his phone, saying, “Should we give him a call?” calling the infamous author before Juho even had a chance to reply. The two stared at the phone as the ringing echoed throughout the peaceful room. However, after ringing for some time, the phone stopped.

“Why isn’t he answering?” Jenkins said and called Coin once again, only to receive the same result. Just like that, their first attempts at trying to reach Coin for the first time in two years came to a disappointing end.

“Maybe he deleted my number?”

“That’s very likely.”

Jenkins started tapping away on the screen of his phone, so Juho assumed that he was sending a text to Coin and went back to writing. From then on, Jenkins also remained silent for a period, completely immersed in the book. Juho knew the director’s favorite part of the book: the climax. Jenkins tended to be quiet whenever he was at the favorite part. By that point and after a month-long observation, it had become quite obvious to Juho.

Juho stopped writing for a brief moment and thought back to the time when Jenkins had read the book for the first time. Juho had also been writing back then while the director had been reading. It had been so quiet that Juho had been even able to hear the sound his arm brushing against a sheet of paper, much like now.

After putting the finished manuscript into a box, Juho opened his laptop, wondering if Coin had read his new book. He had to have done it. If what the director had told him had been true, the fact that Coin hadn’t tried to reach out to him might be proof that the author had really enjoyed the book. At that moment, Juho hesitated as he pulled up a web browser.

“Hm?”

Juho looked closely at the screen of his laptop and read through the article slowly.

“What is it?” Jenkins asked, walking up to the young author. Without looking back, Juho replied, “I think I know why he didn’t answer the phone.”

“Well, do tell. Was he bashing me in an interview or something?”

Moving his eyes busily, Juho said, “He’s releasing a new book.”

Noticing Jenkins moving around behind him, Juho read the synopsis of the book. It was a full-length novel inspired by the Old Testament of the Bible, taking place in a dystopian future where everything had been created anew after the Apocalypse. Upon reading the description, Juho felt his heart jump.

“This is very interesting,” Jenkins said and added, “It’s just the opposite of your book.”

Then, Jenkins pulled Juho’s laptop toward himself, and Juho followed it with his eyes.

“Whose book do you think would be better?”

Instead of giving him an answer, Juho checked the release date. ‘Now I get why we couldn’t reach him,’ Juho thought to himself while picturing Coin wearing a complacent smile.

—

“C’ mon. Can’t a guy get some sleep?” Juho murmured as he got out of bed. His phone was was about to explode with text messages arriving from various people, which prevented him from sleeping any longer. Seo Kwang, Bom, Sun Hwa, Bo Suk, the twins, Mr. Moon, Seo Joong, Mideum, Sang Choi, the two editors, Sung Pil, the student abroad, etc. There were at least twenty nearly identical messages.

“Coin.”

Something similar had happened when the ‘Language of God: The Glory of Traitor’ had been released. Everyone had written long texts to the young author, telling him about what they had thought about the book after reading it. Of course, there had been congratulatory messages as well. This time, everyone was expressing how excited they were about Coin’s new book, all at the same time, and seeing as though the phone wasn’t going to stop ringing, Juho massaged his neck and sighed. Before replying to all the messages, Juho reached for the water cup by his bed. When he drank some of the lukewarm water, he felt somewhat more awake. ‘Why do I have to go through all this trouble when Coin’s the one who released a new book?’ Juho muttered to himself with Coin’s new book in his hands.

“This is why.”

At that moment, his phone started vibrating. That time, it was a call. After checking the name on the screen, Juho answered the phone.

“The man himself.”

“The hell are you talkin’ about?”

Juho recognized the irritable tone almost immediately. Clearing his throat, Juho replied, “I’m sorry. It’s just that there have been so many people asking me about you.”

“This is nothing like the time when you were anonymous. Were you sleeping?” Coin asked.

“Yep. Just got out of bed, actually. I was starting to wonder if you were still alive.”

“Don’t state the obvious.”

“Mr. Jenkins was sad that you weren’t answering his calls, you know.”

“Why does he keep pestering me!? Do you have any idea how many times I had to replace my phone because of him!?”

“Replace your phone?”

“I chucked it every time he called.”

At that, Juho remembered all the mugs Coin had broken in the past.

“In case you’re wondering, Mr. Jenkins is doing just fine.”

“I didn’t ask.”

As the two authors caught up with each other briefly, Juho told Coin the name of the hotel where he was staying. At which point, Coin sneered and said, “Are you planning on spending the rest of your life in hotels?”

“I am in another country, you know.”

“Ah, right. That explains why you have a pest like Jenkins hanging around.”

“Well, at least I don’t have to worry about getting bored.”

‘Though, he does get pretty distracting,’ Juho thought, swallowing the words. Then, Juho brushed his hand down his face as the air sank into an awkward silence. Although they both had things they wanted to say, neither of them acted on their urges. While Juho was staring at the clock, Coin asked, “Well, unless you have a thing for hotels, how about you stay at my place?”

“At your place?”

“You’ve been here. You know what it’s like.”

It was a lone, white villa in the middle of a cornfield. That was where Coin lived. Since Juho had stayed up nearly the entire night, there was no reason to decline.

“How’s Susan? Is she well?”

“Too well.”

“When should I be there?”

“I don’t mind you coming right this moment.”

“Good. Well, let me get some shuteye before I leave, then.”

“Shouldn’t you be more grateful?”

“I’m tired. You sit tight,” Juho said, chuckling quietly and getting ready to leave.