Chapter 35: The Woman and Her Guitar

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Hey everyone,

SootyOwl and ShawnSuh here. We are loving the response you guys are having for the novel and for the work we are doing translating it. We come bearing some news that some of you might not like. As you know, The Great Storyteller is a Korean novel. Under Webnovel and Munpia’s partnership to bring Korean novels to a greater audience, Munpia requested that their novels go premium after 40 chapters in order to protect their copyrights and for their authors’ benefit.

We hope the you guys stick with us as we watch Juho’s future change together, but we understand if you are unable to.

Thank you for your understanding.

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Translated by: ShawnSuh

Edited by: SootyOwl

Juho accompanied Pil Sung, who he now referred to as Sung Pil, to the police station. The officers gave the two a dumbfounded look, which made sense considering that teenagers had walked into a police station wanting to return the three dollars one of them had found on the street. As a reward, the two had received a handful of candy. With a satisfied look on his face, Sung Pil popped one of them into his mouth.

In the end, the three dollars he had tried to return ended up in his hands. The two found out that there was a law for the lost items that stated that when a lost item was not claimed within a certain period of time, the finder was given the legal rights to keep the item. At that, Sung Pil asked the officers to hold onto the three dollars. The officers waved their hands to convey that that wasn’t necessary. After going back and forth with the officers for some time, he ended up putting the money into a donation box to combat child hunger.

After watching that strange scene for some time, Juho went home with a peppermint candy in his mouth.

“Haha.”

Aside from the word ‘funny,’ there was no other way to describe what had happened earlier. He had read Sung Pil’s book before. Every character had had a humane charm. The book had made its readers pity them, and at the end, root for them.

‘Now that I think about it, the book was kind of like the writer,’ he thought.

He was in danger, and it felt foreign. It almost felt like he was about to be swallowed up by a colossal wave if he didn’t act. Yet, he wasn’t scared. In fact, he was looking forward to this new future. Pil Sung’s appearance had not been part of Juho’s past. His life was definitely taking a turn, and thanks to Pil Sung, Juho’s uncertain future was becoming more colorful.

He hoped for a future where he discussed their works with his reckless friend.

In order for that to happen, he had to survive in the world of literature. If he were to be pushed out like in the past, that future would never come.

Juho instinctively reached for a pen.

‘Why does a person live?” he quietly asked himself. ‘What was the meaning of living life?’

Before digging any deeper, he thought about whether he really existed. If people could no longer see or hear the person named Juho, he might be no different from being dead.

There was a sound coming from the living room. It was the news. Apparently, somebody had won the lottery for a large sum of money.

‘If one couldn’t be heard, seen, or leave any trace of himself, did that mean he still existed?’

Of course.

“Even if it wasn’t me, there’s always somebody winning the lottery somewhere.”

‘In other words, wouldn’t that mean that there are people living even in unseen places? There’s no need to complicate this.’

He accepted his recently thought-of impulsive logic.

‘What would it feel like to win the lottery?’ he calmly put himself in that position. Various thoughts began to spring up. Happiness, fear, anger, will to live… Yet nothing reached the depths of his heart.

“I got nothing.”

Juho tore his hair out. He looked at the leaves of paper untidily strewn across the room. They were messy. They were his stream of consciousness. Something was left unfinished, and it was bothering him.

“I should try going outside.”

He changed quickly and then left the house for a change of scenery.

He walked aimlessly over the hills and across the bridge. After waiting for the light, he walked past a building to reached a neighborhood park.

Impulsively, he went inside. There were kids and parents. The park was big enough for a playground and a small stage, and there was even an elephant in the zoo.

“It’s been a while,” he said to himself.

The elephant kept trying to go inside the enclosure, showing only its behind to the people watching in front of the cage. A child shouted, “Look over here!”

As if it understood, it lowered its head.

The child started throwing a tantrum at his mother. The mother passively comforted the child. She was preoccupied with the even younger child she was holding her arms.

The elephant was not going to lift up its head anytime soon, and the child’s tantrum was certainly not going to change that.

Juho went further into the park. In contrast to inside, where it was booming with children, the outside was quiet and calm. There were a few elderly people in places. The air also felt strangely calm, and Juho’s pace naturally became slower.

When he walked around the thinner-bodied trees, he saw the green lawn.

‘Maybe I should hang out there,’ he thought as he walked toward it. Sadly, there was a long rope boarding it off. ‘Keep off the grass.’

‘I thought grass grew the more it was stepped on,’ he thought to himself out of disappointment.

After hovering around the lawn for some time, he eventually turned back. There was no other choice.

“No inspiration, and now I can’t even go on the grass. This is not my day,” he grumbled.

As he was about to turn around, he heard a sound.

“What was that?”

It was coming from between an elderly person and the boundary of the grass. The path was still covered in brown leaves. It might have been the place where the street cleaners kept the leaves after raking. It almost looked like the time had stopped ticking in that area.

The sound continued with a thin voice that could be lost in a whisper.

He slowly made his way through the brown leaves and walked toward the sound.

“Yeehaw!”

The sound grew louder as he got closer. He heard a tasteful rhythm in between that did not suit the thin, delicate voice. Curiosity hastened him to get even closer to the sound.

“La, la, la,” there was a woman singing. “La, la, tra-lala.”

The woman had a guitar in her hands. She was singing amid the elderly. Along with the sound of the guitar, Juho was finally able to hear the lyrics.

Well, there wasn’t much to the lyrics. From the beginning to the end, ‘la, la, la’ was the only thing that came out of the girl’s voice. It sounded like she had replaced the lyrics with them.

The woman seemed to be in her thirties, with average look and skill. Her playing was nothing short of an amateurish. One wouldn’t be able to compliment it, even out of politeness. In other words, she was terrible. In spite of it, the elderly were clapping to her songs. They were loving it.

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After performing for some time with only ‘La, la, la’ and “Hm, mm, mm,’ she bowed to her audience to thanked them. It was a professional.

‘I guess she’s not planning on performing through the night,’ Juho thought.

As soon as the woman stopped singing, the park grew silent again. The elderly people left one by one, until there were only a few left. It was a strange sight. There was no wind. The leaves weren’t blowing. The elderly weren’t moving either. The woman walking down the stage was the only movement there was.

Juho approached the woman as she opened her guitar case to place it inside. At the sound of his footsteps, she turned to looked at him.

“Can I help you?” the woman asked wearing the guitar over her shoulders.

It wasn’t so much that he needed help. Seeing him hesitate, the woman started putting her guitar back into its case.

Finally, he asked, “Are you a singer?”

“Nope.”

“Aspiring?”

“Nope.”

“Hobby?”

“How about this?” she tilted her head as she was asked a strange question. Fortunately, she didn’t seem to be bothered by Juho’s questions. If at all, she seemed somewhat entertained. “I’m in the process of looking for work. I couldn’t find a corporate job, which is why I’m singing and playing guitar.”

“So you’re resting in a sense?”

“It’s tiresome to sing and play guitar.”

She emphasized that something tiresome couldn’t be a form of rest. Perhaps that tiresome deed had a deeper meaning to her.

‘Employment.’

Juho thought of what he had seen on the TV recently. A panel of people had asked a successful CEO, “What are some ways that people who went to a no-name school can find a job?”

He responded, “It’s discrimination to be treated equally as those who went to a prestigious school. These people fought for the name of their schools.”

The camera showed the faces of those who were searching for a job after graduating from a no-name school. They seemed burnt out. Perhaps, people could still get burnt out even if they hadn’t tried. Perhaps they’re burnt out precisely because they hadn’t tried. It was the punishment for not trying harder than the others.

Juho wanted to ask the CEO one question, ‘How do you determine the amount of effort you put in?’ Sadly, he couldn’t get a response.

After putting her guitar away, the woman stood up. She was shorter than Juho had thought. She had looked quite tall from afar, but it might have been the stage.

“So, why do you sing?”

“There’s nothing I really want to do, so yeah…”

She didn’t have anything she wanted to do although she was looking for a job. After a brief moment thinking, she continued, “I think there’s a message I want to pass on.”

“Like what?

She thought for a good while.

“I’m not too sure. I might not want to do anything, but I still wanted to say something,” the woman with a guitar said with a smile. “I’m sure I’ll find it someday, whatever it is that I’ve been wanting to say.”

“What about the lyrics?”

“I got a little shy in front of the audience.”

‘She seemed fine. What is she talking about?’ he thought.

“You’re too shy to sing your lyrics?”

“Yeah. I feel like they would know.”

‘What do you think they would know?’ Juho had to swallow the question. To a woman who didn’t even sing the lyrics because of her fear of being known, it would be rude to ask anything further. Instead, he decided to rephrase his words, “I have something I don’t want people to know too.”

“Don’t we all?”

“I guess so.”

Just like that, the conversation came to an end. Although there was nothing left to be said, the two didn’t leave their spot. ‘What else was there?’

Before Juho had a chance to ask her if she sang at the park every day, the woman quickly asked, “How was it?”

“How was what?”

“My song.”

‘Is she looking for a compliment?’ he thought as he looked at her. Just like when she was on stage, there was no smile or annoyance on her face. She was bland. It made it hard for Juho to read her expressions, so he decided to answer honestly, “It was mostly ‘lalalas,’ so it’s hard to say.”

“I’m sure it was.”

She was neither disappointed nor annoyed and she replied calmly as if she had expected it. Seeing that, he couldn’t help but ask the question he had kept himself from asking earlier, “You said you want to send a message earlier. Are you afraid that others will know what you’re thinking?”

“I must be. A heart is a pain in the ass.”

Juho smiled at her use of strong language.

“When do you think they’ll finally come out? Your lyrics.”

“They’ll come out some day. There is something I want to say.”

‘If she had figured out what she’d been wanting to say and found the courage to say it, would she be singing still?’ he asked himself.

“Are you going to keep singing?”

“Of course. It’s not like there’s anything I want to do,” she replied.

“Until when?”

“Probably till I die?”

She smiled as she answered his question. It was an ordinary smile. Even if a person didn’t have anything they wanted to do or had the courage to speak up about it, they’d go on living. They’d lead an ordinary life.

With her ordinary smile, the woman finally left.

In a space where nothing moved, Juho kept thinking on his own.

‘What is it that she wants to say? What are the words to her lyrics that she desperately wants to hide? Whatever it is, it’ll probably resemble her. They’re probably just ordinary lyrics.’

Chapter 35 – The Woman and Her Guitar; The End