The TS Memoir of a Misogynistic Novelist

A very brief moment of silence passed, but it felt like a long time. Seo Eun-a’s face had already turned pale, and she was making strange murmuring sounds like “uh, oh, what?”

After a moment, Seo Eun-a, regaining her composure, immediately pulled me away from the computer.

She grabbed me while I was sitting on the wheeled chair and moved me far away from the desk.

Breathing heavily, Seo Eun-a opened her mouth.

“…Did you see it?”

I didn’t say anything. Not responding was the most faithful answer.

For a moment, heat raised in Seo Eun-a’s pale face, and then she became completely horrified. She then spoke in a voice that tried to conceal something while simultaneously expressing anger.

“Did you just secretly rummage through my computer? That’s really disgusting. I feel nauseous. Even with that cute face, is it true you can’t shake off that chilling rudeness?”

“…What?”

“How can a grown adult think to secretly look through a high school girl’s computer? Even so, I trusted you and left you alone,”

“Wait! I didn’t rummage through your computer! I only saw what you played!”

Seo Eun-a’s unreasonable anger and accusations caught me off guard more than angering me. Of course, until the fourth novel, I felt that this wasn’t enough. I thought about looking for the novel that Eun-a must have hidden, but ultimately, I didn’t act on that thought.

There was no way I could perform such a disgusting action.

“…Really?”

“Seriously.”

At those words, Seo Eun-a returned to the computer. I wasn’t sure, but it seemed she was checking the history of files that had been opened and closed. Soon, pale-faced Seo Eun-a turned back to me.

“…I’m sorry. I’ll apologize. It was my mistake.”

Surprisingly, Seo Eun-a apologized quite readily. Even though I didn’t have any expectations of girls, I had no intention of being harsh to a high school girl caught writing erotic novels by an older male.

“Ah, okay. I get it.”

As I accepted her apology, the room fell silent once again.

We couldn’t figure out what to say to each other.

It wasn’t that the brief moment felt long like before; we genuinely couldn’t speak for a considerable amount of time.

I was here thinking about how to handle the situation so that Seo Eun-a wouldn’t drag me to her father, and Seo Eun-a was probably contemplating how to resolve this situation.

Of course, I hadn’t done anything wrong, but the other party was a high school girl. It was entirely plausible that she could pull me to her father to discuss something. Naturally, I wouldn’t just sit back if that happened.

Yet, I didn’t know how many times I’ve found myself saying something like this.

The words that came out of Seo Eun-a’s mouth never once met my expectations.

“…How was it?”

Incredibly, Seo Eun-a, who seemed so ashamed and wanted to hide, was asking about her own novel that she hadn’t even intended to show me. I wasn’t sure how to judge this yet, but if she was asking like that, I would merely perform my role.

“…About the last, fifth novel?”

“Probably, yes.”

“So, that… erotic novel,”

“Don’t call it that.”

“…Sensual novel.”

Even that seemed to not please her much, but nonetheless, when I used that term, Seo Eun-a nodded.

“…What part do you want me to evaluate?”

“…Any part.”

Of course, I had plenty to say. However, the problem was where to start. Obviously, I couldn’t avoid discussing the intimate scenes. That was the whole point of the novel and its purpose. But even for me, bringing that topic up right in front of a high school girl was daunting.

So, I began with a somewhat awkward but safe topic.

“…I think it reveals a strong literary quality rather than just genre characteristics. Each of the novels you showed was like that; the background is modern, and while it’s closer to young adult literature, this piece had a deeper scent. However, fundamentally, I didn’t feel it was particularly better written than your previous works or that it showed significant potential. What I felt here was… just a sense of disharmony. It felt slightly askew from the beginning; I sensed that you wanted something and that you were yearning for something. I’m not sure if that’s what you intentionally aimed for, but in the difference from your previous novels, this one appears to have more reasons to be noted,”

“No, not that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Seriously, you’re really clueless.”

“…What do you want then?”

Wasn’t she the one who said “any part”? Hiding her intention while wanting the other person to notice is an unpleasant trait of the female species. My slightly wrinkled brow didn’t seem to be visible; unlike before, with a little annoyance, Seo Eun-a made a face as if she wanted me to acknowledge that she was annoyed.

“Are you really this stupid? You don’t know this?”

For a moment, I had the impulse to tell her to shut up if she couldn’t write well. Such statements were at least not something Seo Eun-a should say… As I was thinking that, unexpectedly, what flowed from Seo Eun-a’s mouth was so unforeseen that it surprisingly made me agree.

“…How could you ask a high school girl to say such things…? If it’s this kind of novel, asking would naturally lead to that kind of question. You know, that kind.”

“…That kind?”

“Ugh…”

With a long sigh, Seo Eun-a spoke slowly, in a small voice.

“…Was it erotic?”

“I can’t hear you…”

“Was it hot?!”

…Ah, that’s right. What was most important in erotic novels was indeed that. Unless it was literature like ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ that is regarded as a classic, the most important factor in an erotic novel was certainly that.

So… that.

Were you excited?

“…Are you a pervert?”

“Ah, damn.”

That word slipped out without me realizing it, and the current high school girl covered her mouth in shock.

“No, it, no, seriously, ah.”

“…”

“Okay, fine, call me a pervert. Tell me. What was it like? That kind of thing.”

“…Not much.”

“You mean you weren’t turned on?”

“…Just say something.”

“Since it’s all out in the open, was it really that bad?”

…Honestly, assess the quality of the writing, and objectively speaking, it wasn’t much different from Seo Eun-a’s other stories. Given that metric, I could only say it wasn’t much. But talking about the intimate scenes… well, I wasn’t sure how to respond.

Seo Eun-a’s intimate scenes were still elegantly written, with only blunt developments. However, the warmth felt in that scene was undeniably burning hot.

If I had touched that warmth directly, I surely would have been burned. The small warmth I felt was merely because it was hidden, distanced from me, that I felt it that way.

Because it was wrapped in the skin of young adult literature, there were limitations.

However, even within such constraints, Seo Eun-a’s intimate scenes were slightly… intense.

Of course, at its essence, it was simply about two young people licking each other’s wounds; a very straightforward act of sex.

However, the sex between a male student who had not experienced parental abuse and a high school girl who had killed her parents, who had sexually assaulted her since childhood, was simple yet profound.

Because neither of them had any means to express what they felt nor any ways to do so.

So, they performed what they thought was love. The male student assaulted the female student, and the female student choked the male student. That was the love they had received.

That was pleasure.

They could only love by becoming beasts. That’s how they learned.

“Stop fooling around. You know all those things are just seasoning. Do you really think this novel has such philosophy? Theme? Just say that.”

Did you feel turned on?

“I wasn’t turned on, no, I mean, I didn’t get excited.”

Seo Eun-a cut through my long-winded evaluation with her crude vocabulary, forcing me to answer. Looking at me, who had tried to articulate my thoughts as carefully as possible, Seo Eun-a suddenly pointed at my face.

“Then why from the moment I came in, is your face so red?”

…Ah.

That was the first question Seo Eun-a had asked me since she returned to the room.

“Of course, you’re sitting with your legs together.”

“You’re really…”

“Something about your thighs is squirming while talking.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s true?”

At those words, what came to my mind was not the intimate scene in the novel written by Seo Eun-a.

What I recalled was the ordinary intimate scenes from the porn I had seen before, precisely where my hand had wandered while watching those intimate scenes.

~

“…Why does your face look so pale? I was just teasing a little.”

Of course, Seo Eun-a couldn’t know that. Unexpectedly, maybe because my expression had stiffened, Seo Eun-a seemed a little flustered.

I hurriedly collected my thoughts and changed the subject.

“…So how did you write something like this? You’re a minor, right?”

“Did you fall from the 1980s? Nowadays, minors know everything. It’s the Internet, you know.”

“Professor Seo…”

“Of course, he doesn’t know. What kind of father would let his daughter write something like this?”

“What if I tell him?”

“I’ll go and report you.”

Crazy girl.

“Why… are you writing something like this?”

In response to that question, Seo Eun-a closed her lips and fell into thought. After a moment of contemplation—no, in fact, quite a bit of contemplation—Seo Eun-a began speaking.

“It was back in middle school.”

“Middle school?”

“When I was in middle school, I read something. It was probably a Spanish novel. The novel itself wasn’t explicitly adult or erotic, but it had a young boy as the protagonist.”

“…And?”

“Honestly, I don’t remember the details well… The protagonist meets the sister of his friend in an abandoned house. There, the friend’s sister, with the protagonist… does that. It was a short intimate scene without any detailed description… honestly, I don’t even remember if it was truly an intimate scene. But I felt something a bit erotic about it. That’s when I first wrote.”

“…So?”

It was just like that.

“That day, for the first time… I ended up doing it.”

I couldn’t bring myself to ask what that omitted word was. I didn’t need to, and it was something I shouldn’t ask.

I merely had a little curiosity.

“…Why are you telling me this?”

Why to someone who is older and of a different gender than herself? Someone she had only met for a short period.

“It was my first experience.”

That was a truly significant expression. I felt a moment of tension from its overly ambiguous tone, but Seo Eun-a spoke on with a somewhat hopeless expression.

“When I wrote… such things, it was read by someone.”

What I couldn’t grasp at that moment wasn’t so much Seo Eun-a’s writing or her attitude; rather, it was that I had understood what Seo Eun-a meant by that.

In response to that slightly sentimental remark, I fell silent momentarily, and Seo Eun-a continued speaking again. Her next words were entirely unexpected, which seems to be Seo Eun-a’s style. She always says the most unexpected things.

To anticipate the unexpected has half way understood the matter already.

“And just saying that, I doubt I’ll be able to go and tell my father. Honestly, it’s your appearance that makes it feel alright to talk about it.”

As always, her unforeseen words immediately touched my nerves.

“…I’m going to tell the professor.”

“I’m going to undress right now and scream.”

With a small joke to end, it had been quite a while since I had experienced a complete loss in a conversation with a girl.

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