TL: KSD

    Film is a visual art.

    That is the dictionary definition.

    Kim Byul preferred a more literary expression.

    Film is the art of light.

    EP 9 – Sound

    The classroom is dark.

    It’s not lighting that makes the classroom dark. It’s the sound of monsters imitating humans while wearing school uniforms, the desires of youth beaten and lost by the teacher’s stick, the grotesque scene of the weakest of their kind pecked to death like chicks packed in a box. These things settle in the air of the classroom like mist.

    That is the darkness I feel.

    But the darkness others feel is not darkness to me.

    They welcome the night that comes once a day. But we live in an eternal night.

    The appearance of that night is free.

    Woo-ju brought me to the school rooftop at night, telling me he would show it to me.

    A blind person holding another blind person’s hand as they walk up the stairs.

    The rusty door opens, the cold winter wind brushes my cheek, and we step onto the rooftop where nothing can be seen.

    「Look up.」

    「Are you crazy? What am I supposed to see?」

    One blind person telling another blind person to look up at the starry sky.

    I wanted to mock him, but instead, laughter came back to me.

    「Imagine it.」

    From the start, I didn’t like Woo-ju.

    A strange transfer student who appeared out of nowhere one day.

    The teacher telling us to be friends because we’re both visually impaired.

    ‘Those things’ biting at us, saying birds of a feather flock together.

    Everything about this guy and everything surrounding him bothered me.

    Even though he couldn’t see, he would approach ‘those things’ and chatter away, smiling foolishly even when he heard them talking behind his back. Clinging to me asking me to teach him echolocation...

    He chattered all day, making me forcibly aware of where he was. He wandered around the school with ‘those things’, arm in arm, without a cane, without fear.

    This guy...

    He lives as if he could see.

    「I’ve never seen anything before. This scenery has always been natural to me since birth.」

    The happiness of my childhood was a curse to me.

    A time when I had loving parents and light I could see.

    The everyday life before the monster that came in through the front door one day devoured me whole.

    Thrown into darkness, I suffer, longing for and longing again for the time when I forever held the light. How cruel is a past that never returns? Especially if it was a shining light...

    However.

    A being who had never once seen light said this:

    「I feel sorry for people who can see.」

    「Stop saying nonsense.」

    「They live in a world where everything is already determined. How boring is that world?」

    「What?」

    「To us, winter wind is blue. That blue isn’t the blue that others talk about, it’s the blue we imagine. Oh, right. You know what blue is, don’t you?」

    I don’t understand.

    Is this how Woo-ju felt when I taught him echolocation?

    But unlike me, who scolded him for not getting it, Woo-ju gently took my hand and slowly led me into a world of imagination.

    「Forget the world you saw when you were young.」

    「I can’t.」

    「Forget all of that, and see the world with your own eyes. You see the world through sound, don’t you? It’ll be easy.」

    The light of my childhood was everything to me. Even if I don’t remember what my parents looked like, even though their faces now look like monsters to me, it was the only shining time in my life. Thrown into darkness, I was wounded, I lost, and I was tainted. I was cursed to eternally long for the light while condemning the darkness.

    Could I escape from that fate?

    That brief hesitation led me into a world of contemplation.

    Now, I no longer see the world through sound.

    I watch the void ripple through the eyes of my heart.

    Woo-ju guided me beyond the infinite void.

    「Let’s start with the night sky. It’s a perfect palette! Paint the sky however you want.」

    「No. The night is black. It has to be black...」

    「Then what about the stars? What do the stars look like?」

    What did stars look like?

    I can’t remember.

    However, stars are things that float in the sky. They sparkle, they are colorful, they are something good.

    Just like what my parents handed to me during my childhood...

    「...Balloons?」

    Then.

    Kim Byul, though awkwardly, smiled sincerely at the same time.

    “Ha, haha... I’m sorry!”

    The film was not yet complete.

    There were still many lines left for her to act out.

    For the first time in a long while, she felt more anticipation than fatigue from that fact.

    * * *

    For some, art is life, but for others, art is business.

    Lim Yang-wook was gradually leaning toward the latter.

    How long had it been since he last watched a movie or read a book?

    He couldn’t remember.

    A publisher who doesn’t engage in any cultural activities... It seems he really hit rock bottom.

    “Ugh...”

    But it can’t be helped. With overtime work every day, when would he have time to read books?

    Besides, Lim Yang-wook wasn’t even in the business of publishing books anymore, but managing authors.

    The Publishing Management Department, which had moved its office from Baekhak Publishing to Baekhak Entertainment, had finished a brief adjustment period and was now operating in full force.

    There were no more villains lurking in the background to drag them down, no employees suddenly distressed by homesickness, and no chronic budget shortages.

    Everything was in place.

    So now, if they failed, it would be 100% due to a lack of competence.

    Lim Yang-wook was living his company life under the weight of that pressure.

    “What did CEO Seo Woon-pil say?”

    “He said it’s still too early to tell.”

    “That won’t do... Let him know I’ll visit him personally to discuss it.”

    Lim Yang-wook’s main task was no longer managing Moon In.

    The Publishing Management Department had fully transitioned from being a one-man team revolving around Moon In to a full-scale management business overseeing dozens of authors.

    They now managed the rights to hundreds of works written by these authors, promoted media adaptations, arranged TV appearances and lectures for the authors, and handled countless tasks not listed in any manual.

    From now on, Lim Yang-wook was treading into new territory he hadn’t experienced before.

    He had leveled up from a middle manager to just a manager.

    In terms of web novels, it felt like a regressor living longer than their original life...

    The “strongest returnee” Lim Yang-wook uttered a line that someone experiencing such overwhelming uncertainty might say.

    “...Status window!”

    Of course, nothing appeared.

    Feeling awkward, Lim Yang-wook scratched his head, but then Kim Ga-ryung, who was passing by, mimicked him.

    “Status window!”

    “Stop with the nonsense.”

    But suddenly, Kim Ga-ryung’s eyes opened wide with a flash.

    “Ah!”

    Lim Yang-wook instinctively jumped in surprise.

    “What? What’s wrong?”

    Kim Ga-ryung hurriedly looked away, trying to change the subject.

    “N-n-nothing.”

    Still, he tapped the air with his hand as if he were seeing something.

    What’s this? Could it be that this guy can actually see it?

    Lim Yang-wook was confused for about two seconds before noticing Kim Ga-ryung’s smirk. That’s when he realized it was just a prank.

    “...Get lost.”

    “Yes, sir.”

    Kim Ga-ryung disappeared.

    Lim Yang-wook, feeling a sense of self-loathing for having been tricked even for a second by such a ridiculous joke, rubbed his smooth head in frustration.

    “Sigh...”

    There really isn’t a single person he can trust.

    Even if he wanted to rely on the CEO, the CEO was relying solely on him, so who else could he turn to?

    Honestly, it’s legendary how, even after going through all this effort running the department, it still brings in less money than what Moon In brought in from Japan last season.

    Ah, right.

    Moon In...

    “Ah, In-seop...”

    Half-tearful, Lim Yang-wook glanced at the movie poster stuck on the office cabinet.

    It was a simple and static design, with Kim Byul wearing black sunglasses, zombies in school uniforms, an astronaut holding a balloon, and a witch in a doctor’s coat, all arranged together.

    Staring at the poster, Lim Yang-wook let out a sorrowful lament.

    “I thought I could at least trust you...”

    *****

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