The Great Storyteller

Chapter 44 – Something I Saw

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Bom and Baron soon joined in on getting a whiff of the bottle. Lastly, it was Juho’s turn. He looked at the bottle in his hand. Unlike the bottle he had been used to, it was clear.

It smelled familiar.

“It smells like alcohol.”

It was the same smell he had reeked with at one point. He revisited how he felt then. He couldn’t stop once he had started drinking. Whatever he needed to do would be ruined by his alcoholism. When he woke up the next day, he had been overcome with guilt. His memory slowly faded away, and he began to find broken things around him.

“Ugh... I hate this,” Sun Hwa said as she shook her head.

She was right. Juho hated it too. He felt that same helplessness from the past at the end of his fingertips. He tried clenching his fist, and it seemed to work fine. His body was functioning well even without alcohol. It was a young body.

‘I should take good care of it,’ he thought.

“It smells like something an upperclassmen would force you to drink,” Bom said.

“Ah... that’s not something I’m looking forward to in college,” Sun Hwa answered vividly. Whenever she thought about her college life, it always ended up in worry. It was a time when people often died from alcohol poisoning.

“I’ve heard some people are allergic to alcohol. I figure they’d hate to even be around it, let alone smell them,” Seo Kwang said.

Everyone spoke with excitement. A bottle of alcohol brought about an odd sense of excitement to people underage. While watching, Mr. Moon snickered as he saw the excitement on everyone’s faces. It was apparent that they were excited to have something foreign in their hands. They wouldn’t be able to experience it anywhere else.

“When would it become fragrant?” Juho asked as he thought, ‘What could possibly be changed by this stench of alcohol? Hm...’ He couldn’t reach an answer.

“I think it might not smell as bad after you drink with somebody you enjoy being around,” Bom said.

“We should all drink together when we grow up!” Sun Hwa added.

“Yeah! Let’s eat fried chicken too!” Seo Kwang told them the location of the fried chicken shop.

“Aren’t you all too young for this?” Baron scolded, but he wasn’t saying that he wouldn’t be there either.

‘Does the fragrance become better as the company gets better?’ Juho reminisced. He had never drunk out of joy. Perhaps that’s why he had reeked.

“Although, I’m sure all alcohol smells pretty much the same,” he said.

The students jeered at Juho’s murmur. It was a sign that he was being a killjoy.

“Aren’t you going to come? You don’t want to drink with us when you’re older?”

He took a deep breath. He smelled happiness. Drinking with those friends as adults didn’t sound half bad.

“I’ll be there,” Juho answered with a smile.

“There’s dust here too. Where’s the person on duty?”

“Do you not see me down here?”

“Oh, I thought you were stretching.”

“Who stretches with a broomstick in his hand?”

Cleaning duty was appointed by rotation. Juho poked fun at Seo Kwang. He was bored. There wasn’t much else to do aside from poking fun at Seo Kwang. After staring out the window for a while, he packed his bag and said, “I’ll be in the science room.”

“OK.”

Nothing was going to change even if he was in the science room, but he figured it’d be better than inhaling dust in the class.

While he was heading toward the stairway, he saw Mr. Moon coming down. Since he couldn’t see Juho in the distance, he went straight into the staffroom. Juho didn’t really feel the need to call out his name, so he too headed straight to the science room.

When he went inside, the window was open. Mr. Moon must have kept it open for ventilation. He walked past the desk and stood in front of the window. He had just come from a dusty place, so even the slightest breeze felt all the more refreshing.

There was the sound of kids playing in the schoolyard. They were shouting something. Most of them sounded playful and mischievous.

As he leaned against the window, his eyes naturally went to the top of the desk. He saw his paper and notebook. ‘Did Seo Kwang really read my notebook at a time like this?’ he thought. Mr. Moon wasn’t very careful when it came to where he kept his notebooks. It could’ve even been taken by other students. Well, the only ones who would intentionally walk into the science room would have been the Literature Club members.

He looked out the door. Nobody had arrived yet, and there was no sound of footstep.

If there was something written where he was, then there was only one thing left to do.

He sat down and picked up the very top page. Their papers were kept in a translucent file, and the page on the top was written by Sun Hwa.

‘She’s impatient.’ That was Juho’s impression after reading her composition. The steps toward the climax were mostly left out. Tension had been at its peak since the beginning of the development. It was more like a field day than the anticipation for it. No push. Just pulling. One would describe her progression to be “wild.” At once, he understood what Mr. Moon had pointed out in her writing.

“It is pretty entertaining.”

Her best work was the paper she wrote at the subway station. It started with this sentence: ‘A bomb exploded in the subway station.’

There was no mention of how it was installed or any suspicious activities. No mention of people peacefully going about their days either. Just like that, she had made the bomb go off. As long as the progression was under control, the story still had the potential to be exciting even with an abrupt intro like that.

Unfortunately, such a control was beyond what Sun Hwa was capable of. A bomb had exploded, but the culprit got caught immediately, and then he let out his pent up anger. It sounded more like she was wrapping up the story than she was setting up a beginning. Juho appreciated its experimental nature, but it wasn’t appropriate considering the lesson was about “writing up to the beginning.” It did get better as it went on, but if the story stayed at a climax throughout, it would be the same as a story without tension or resolution, only moving forward.

It seemed like Sun Hwa was in desperate need of patience. If she learned how to write in steps, she’d be a much better writer. If the fourth floor was the floor above the first, one would be ripped in half trying to get there. At least he’d be able to enjoy the view if he could make it up to the top.

“This one’s written by Bom.”

Like Sun Hwa’s, it was in a translucent file. The notebook was the same as Sun Hwa’s. The entire club knew that they were close friends.

“Huh, this is pretty good.”

It was quite decent. The pace wasn’t too fast or slow. However, her story wasn’t what caught his attention. Her biggest strength was her detailed style in her description of the people walking on the streets.

“People were walking as if they’re walking through the mud. As if they would be buried if they were to stand still. They keep their feet moving.”

She had embodied feelings into the act of walking. People were struggling and urgent in their steps. They seemed like they couldn’t stop walking from fear of something. It might have been subtle, but it had a large impact. There were times when a single sentence was capable of contributing to the entire book.

There were definitely flaws in places, but she’d learn to work with them in no time. It would be another strength of hers. Her composition was quite artistic. He was easily able to picture her as a writer in the future. In midst of being impressed, he suddenly felt curious.

‘Who won an award for the essay contest?’ he asked himself. Sun Hwa had won the award. Judging from the writing itself, it wouldn’t have been weird if Bom had won. ‘Had she been nervous?’ Being Bom, it would’ve been likely.

“Hm.”

For some reason, something was telling him that Sun Hwa hadn’t won because Bom had been nervous. At that moment, he heard footsteps approaching from the hallway.

“Man, I’m so tired. Why’s our teacher making us do all of the work? We have a director for that.”

“It’s because you’re too good at it,” Bom said.

The door opened.

“Oh! Hey, Juho.”

“Hey, you’re late.”

“Our teacher made us run some errands.”

Juho was sitting against the window. The notebooks and the papers were back in their places on the desk. Without suspecting, the two sat on their seats. The wind blew into the room. Unlike earlier, this time it felt lukewarm.

“Why are you just standing there? Don’t block the window. Come sit.”

“Don’t mind if I do.”

He casually exchanged words with them. Sun Hwa took out her comic book while Bom took out her snacks. Already, Juho started observing them in a different light than from a moment before.

“What would you do if the world came to an end tomorrow?” Mr. Moon asked. It was a common question.

“I want to plant an apple tree,” Sun Hwa answered.

For many Koreans, apple trees were among the first things that came to mind when thinking about the end of the world. Baruch Spinoza had quite an impact even to this day.

“It doesn’t take that long to plant a tree. What are you going to do afterwards?” Mr. Moon asked.

“I’m not sure.”

“That’s right,” he nodded at Seo Kwang’s murmur. “Today, we’re going to take some time to plan for the day this world comes to an end.”

“Huh?”

“Wouldn’t it make today the most depressing day knowing the world as we know it would come to an end tomorrow? Would you be able to think of how you were going to spend your time?”

“I do kind of feel helpless.”

Seo Kwang thought of a dystopian movie he had seen recently. Everyone had lost their minds with the incoming apocalypse. ‘In that situation, would anyone be able to carry out the plan they’d come up with previously?’

“Even if we come up with a plan now, would we be able to carry it out then?”

“Who said anything about carrying it out? I don’t expect you to.”

“Well, if you came up with a plan, you gotta carry it out, right?”

Mr. Moon asked after Sun Hwa’s exemplary response, “Do you think the day before the end of the world will come in your time?”

“... It’s always possible.”

Sun Hwa hadn’t really meant what she said either. She scrunched her forehead, and Juho snickered. Everyone had the same thought, ‘Then, what’s the point of planning?’

“This plan is for the present,” Mr. Moon said calmly.

“The present?”

“Yes. Even if the world is coming to an end, you gotta survive the present. You should plan while you’re still around, right? What you want to do, and who you want to do that with.”

A plan for the present. ‘If the world is coming to an end tomorrow, what would I do? What would I want to do on the very last day?’ Nobody knew when that day would come. That was what death was like.

Juho thought about what he had to do that day if he were to die the next day.

Mr. Moon suggested a more detailed situation, “You see it in the morning news. It’s telling you not to go to school.”

“That’s actually kind of nice.”

Everyone nodded in agreement at Seo Kwang’s response. Among them, Mr. Moon was also included. It was exciting to think about not having to come to school.

“It sure is. Imagine the anchor says these words with a shaky voice: ‘Tomorrow, this planet, our home full of life, will be coming to an end. Just now, it was made official by the most influential, powerful, and global organization. The government is yet to make a statement, and people are in chaos. Dear viewers, today marks the last day of the Earth.’”

The last day on Earth, while that day was bound to come, it almost felt like it was right around the corner.

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