Chapter 46 – A Flower Yet to Bloom (2)

Translated by: ShawnSuh Edited by: SootyOwl

“So, you are still not making any friends?” Juho asked.

Sung Pil was quite a straight edge, which was unusual for his age. Without any change in his expression, he admitted the fact that he was alone, “Nope.”

“Aren’t you bored?”

At once, Sung Pil shook his head. He wasn’t bored, apparently.

“I write. That’s more than enough.”

Even within a boisterous class, he wrote by himself. Somehow, Juho saw a resemblance to his old self. He too had been alone at one point. That was when he had written ‘The Trace of a Bird.’

He looked at Sung Pil. His real name was Pil Sung Choi. Three years from then, he would accomplish his impressive debut.

‘When did he write his debut novel?’ Juho wondered.

“Have you been working on anything lately?” Sung Pil asked ahead of Juho.

He answered after thinking briefly, “Nothing unusual.”

“I see.”

“Instead,”

“Instead?” Sung Pil asked.

“I’m taking part in an essay contest with the club.”

“An essay contest?”

His thick eyebrows furrowed.

“Yep. The Youth Literary Essay Contest.”

“What’s that? Can anybody take part in it?”

He seemed quite interested, and Juho told him everything he knew about the contest.

“I’ve heard you need a letter of recommendation from a teacher, but other than that, the only qualification is that you have to be a high school student.” Then, he added, “There’s a preliminary round too.”

“A preliminary round? What’s that look like?”

“It’s like submitting your entry. You write about a topic of your choosing. After writing a short prose, you revise it to the set format and then upload it. Whoever gets picked gets to go up to the finals. I heard they give out the subject the day of.”

“That sounds fun.”

His voice was filled with interest, and Juho said, “You should give it a try.”

“Should I?” he asked back immediately. His heart was already more than willing. After suddenly standing up from his seat, Sung Pil told Juho, “We’ll meet at the finals.”

He hadn’t even applied yet.

“If the judges like what I wrote.”

“No! We can make it happen if we work hard enough. We’ll meet at the finals,” he emphasized again. Although it was just before sunrise, his face was already shining brightly.

Juho chuckled with a sigh.

“Fine, if it’s possible.”

There was one week left until the deadline for applications, and Juho was sitting in front of his computer.

“A topic of my choosing, huh?”

He couldn’t resist the yawn forcing its way out. He felt sluggish and was not in a mood to write. There was one week left. He thought about starting back the next day, but soon, he shook his head. There was no guarantee that he’d be more motivated then, so it’d be safer to upload it when he could. He would have looked for another competition if he had been on his own, but now that Sung Pil was involved, Juho had to keep his end of the deal.

“A topic of my choosing..”

The topic was the contestant’s choice, which meant that they’d accept just about anything. Juho applauded their generosity.

“I have to get past the preliminary round somehow.”

There was no time to lose. There were countless kids who had paid a handsome amount of money for detailed analyses of the past year’s winning composition. However, it was hard to say that the Youth Literary Essay Contest would be more popular than Seo Kwang’s or Sun Hwa’s.

“That still doesn’t mean that the competition will be taken over by those private institutes either.”

There was no right answer in literature. Analyzing an award-winning work didn’t always lead to winning an award. A high school literature contest was different from the professional world. What the critics were looking for the most was probably…

“… Writing honestly.”

Heartfelt, unpretentious, honest compositions that made them continue reading despite the crude sentence structures. For example, a mother’s letter was one of those things because there were emotions behind those words. They were heartfelt. Before sincerity, even the most skillfully written sentence became mere pretense.

Writing with sincerity might be something that was easier for those with less writing experience.

“At least, I prefer sincerity.”

In writing, he’d much rather prefer sincerity over skill

“Sincerity…”

He immediately thought of someone. He was loud and had thick eyebrows. When he came across a ten cent coin on the street, he didn’t hesitate to take it to the police station. And, he was not afraid to admit that he was alone.

“Let’s do this.”

He thought about writing about Sung Pil and grabbed a piece of paper that was rolling around the room and picked up a pen. First, he had to give shape to the ideas floating around in his head, ‘Sung Pil, and thick eyebrows… would not be necessary. He’s alone. He writes. He’s honest. His writing. His future, present and past. Freedom. Police station. Race. Sincerity.’

There was no way he could include all those thoughts. The length of the composition was limited. In that case, a core foundation had to be established. He had to pick out the most memorable parts of the story.

“The past of a person who had succeeded.”

That was not a failure. It was a leap toward success. He thought about Sung Pil’s present. ‘He writes by himself in a classroom full of kids…’ In that place, he was alone.

“Is this going to turn into my story?”

He reminisced about his past and revisited memories that were more than thirty years old. He had been alone. He couldn’t figure why that was. A person always became alone at some point.

‘There was no seat for him anywhere. With his tightened lips, he listened to the sounds coming from the classroom.’ One by one, he wrote out his honest feelings, advancing toward something, at least for the duration of his writing.

Just like that, ‘The Trace of a Bird’ was born.

He overlaid his memories with another person’s appearance. Then, he closed his eyes and pictured Sung Pil looking more mature, but slowly getting younger.

“This should do.”

He put his hands over the keyboard. Tick. Tick. For a while, there was nothing but the sound of the pressed keys.

‘An author looking back to his first writing.’

Calmly, Juho wrote out his story.

“Did you apply?” Bom asked, and Juho nodded with a piece of cookie in his mouth. Of course he had.

“Your competition, The Youth Literary Essay Contest, is happening first right?” Sun Hwa asked while bringing some cookie crumbs to her mouth.

“I think so.”

Every contest started on a different date. In terms of order, Juho’s was first.

“Will I make it to the finals?”

“I’m sure you will.”

‘Crunch!’

Seo Kwang had answered while chewing on his chip, and Juho added with a shrug, “You don’t know that.”

“No, I’m confident you will.”

“You sound way too confident. What if I don’t?”

As Juho said that with a smile, Sun Hwa shouted, “Hey! Don’t you say stuff like that!”

“Yeah! You’ll make it!” Bom added, smiling.

“If you did a good job, you’ll be fine,” Baron said indifferently.

“You gotta start us off on a good note.”

“So that we can ride the wave.”

“Have a refreshing start.”

Sun Hwa, Baron, and Seo Kwang said in order. Although hiding behind their presumably encouraging words, their true meaning was obvious. Bom smiled awkwardly.

“I’m moved to tears from all of your support.”

‘Buzz!’

As soon as Juho finished, a phone rang. The five immediately turned their eyes to the same place, and Juho slowly reached for his phone. He checked the screen.

“It’s from the essay contest.”

There was a still silence, and yet, apparent clamoring. In that moment, only Juho was calm.

“Hurry! Read it!”

“I’m sure it’s good news!”

“Goodness! I don’t know why I’m getting so nervous. You should be too!”

“Hurry up and read it!”

Sun Hwa, Bom, Seo Kwang, and Baron rushed him in order, and he calmly checked the message on his phone.

“Congratulations. You have been chosen as one of the finalists.”

The science room was filled with cheers.

Juho was at a subway station. He was about ten minutes early to the appointment, so he walked into a nearby convenience store and bought a drink. When he walked out of the store as he opened his bottle, he saw Sung Pil standing there, looking around.

“You’re early.”

He turned around at the sound of Juho’s voice.

“Here we are, going to the finals.”

He had a satisfied look on his face. That day was the day when the finals were taking place. His thick eyebrows moved up and down with joy.

“Seriously, what luck!”

“You mean skill.”

It was a rare talent to be able to make such arrogant remarks while maintaining such a modest appearance.

Sung Pil urged him on, “We should get going. We don’t want to be late.”

“Yep.”

There was plenty of time, but Juho followed him without arguing. The two got on the subway.

“What do you think the topic will be?” Sung Pil asked with a slightly excited voice. It was apparent that he was looking forward to the contest.

“I’m not sure. It could be anything really. It could be this subway train we’re on.” There was no way to know when they hadn’t even arrived at the conference hall, so Juho just thought out loud.

“The subway. I see. The subway.”

Juho immersed himself in thought, thinking of the place he had just been.

“It could be a convenience store.”

“Convenience store, huh…”

“Well, not likely.”

“You never know.”

‘There’s no way to know, but who knows? We might be lucky enough to guess,’ he thought. Then, he thought about the various topics that had come up with in the Literature Club, “Hunger.”

There was no telling whether a topic would be limited to an object or not.

“Hunger… ”

“Speaking of which, I’m kind of hungry. Did you have breakfast?” he asked as he rubbed his belly.

“I had a quick bite, but I could probably eat a little more.”

“Then, let’s go grab some snacks.”

“Sure.”

The two got off the train and made their way into a noodle shop.

“Now, let’s go inside. Shall we?”

“Yep. You said it’s at a lecture hall, right?”

“It’s down that street over there,” Sung Pil said while looking at the campus directory.

Juho looked at the direction he was pointing. It was in a slight incline.

As they walked toward the building in the distance, Sung Pil asked, “What do you think?”

“About what?”

Upon his question, Sung Pil answered while moving his eyebrows, “Should we race?”

‘A race. Is that really a wise decision before the contest?’ Juho looked at their destination. There was still a long way to go. While he was contemplating, Sung Pil readied himself. By then, there was no choice.

“Fine.”

It couldn’t have taken that long. At Juho’s answer, Sung Pil smiled as if he had been expecting him to agree to it, and they stood shoulder to shoulder before an invisible starting line.

“Should we make a bet? Just to make it more interesting.”

Sung Pil agreed, “Let’s keep it basic. Loser buys ice cream.”

“There was a store on the way,” Juho answered as he thought of the store he had seen on their way there.

As they got in position, Sung Pil gave out a signal, “Ready.”

Juho flexed his legs.

“Go!” Sung Pil shouted.

As soon as he heard the signal, Juho bolted from his place. He saw Sung Pil from the corner of his eyes. They were running forward at a nearly identical speed.

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