Author's Note

When we say hey
Give me back the one piece
I want to eat gyukatsu
Half of his egg muffin
night train
Paris Salon
When we say hey

A warm day
Ryu, someone I know
17/24
Prayers for each other
Young-geon is coming
Irish cat
My blue shirt
A warm day

Dancing without saying a word
Dancing without saying a word
Transitivity
Only the boy and the girl
That Summer Arcade
American home video
Christmas greetings

"Yeah, it can't get worse, that's fine."
A tender and thoughtful voice that touches the heart: Kim Geum-hee's new short story collection.

“Will the era of Kim Geum-hee come?
At least right now, what I want to read most is his next novel (literary critic Shin Hyeong-cheol)” “Kim Geum-hee calls out countless hearts that have been crying for a long time, and then gently caresses them with her sentences (poet Park Jun)” “Kim Geum-hee, who creates unique narratives with neat and delicate sentences and a sharp perspective, is one of the brightest stars among the young constellations of today’s Korean novels (literary critic Yeom Mu-woong)”.
It was not only because of her achievements that she received the Shin Dong-yup Literary Award for her first short story collection, “Sentimentality for a Day or Two,” in 2014, the Grand Prize in the Young Writer’s Award for “Love in Broad Daylight” in 2016, and the Contemporary Literature Award for “All About Chess” the following year that she anticipated the coming of Kim Geum-hee.
It was a fundamental expectation and trust in the persuasive power of a young writer who, with his own unique style, weaves our story more realistically than anyone else.
Author Kim Geum-hee, who lived up to expectations with the publication of her first full-length novel, "The Heart of Respect," in 2018, now tells us the stories we've long wanted to read and need now, in her signature warm and thoughtful voice.
The humor and sensibility optimized for the short story genre, the exceptional talent to understand the properties of the story and to convey them to the reader with sincerity, present a different level of anticipation.
It touches the subtle knots of emotions such as shame, guilt, regret, longing, and loneliness that we have experienced throughout our time, generation, and era, and calls out to someone who permeates that time.


He could be “a person who wanted to walk down a dark street and apologize for the insult his failed joke might have caused to the other person, a person who accepted the words, “Seeing people more than anything else,” like ripples on the surface of water, resonating in his heart” (“Ryu, People I Know”), or he could be one of those youths who are “handled with care” who are endlessly put on hold and postponed.
It could be a woman who feels a separation as she watches her lover grow cold, or a man who belatedly realizes his longing after losing his family.
Each of these 19 short stories is “imbued with a special, vivid, and warm affection,” including the story of someone in the midst of countless mornings in the city after crying alone, someone who regards misfortune as the thrill of life rather than resignation or indifference, and the story of an eternal boy or girl who cannot let go of the memories of adults who only gave them sorrow even as adults.


Following Park Wan-seo's "Three Wishes," Jeong Yi-hyeon's "A Good Person, So to Speak," Lee Ki-ho's "It's Not a Big Deal," Kim Soom's "Are You Living as You?", and Lee Seung-woo's "Tears Made, Tears Held Back," the sixth in the short story series "Mind Walk," "I've Thought About It for a Very Long Time," has the patterns of the lives of various "you" sensuously embroidered.


Additionally, this book adds to the enjoyment of viewing by featuring illustrations by illustrator Kwak Myeong-ju, who has many fans for her unique colors and stories.
The 14 illustrations, which bring the story to life and stimulate the imagination, maximize the book's appeal in and of themselves.


“I think love requires such an unlimited investment.”
Love, friendship, youth, labor, and happiness—all the stories we need now.

"I've been thinking about it for a very long time" features a sharp cast of characters that capture the current times and anyone can relate to.
The story of a girlfriend looking for Nam-su, a 'public servant' who ran away from home one day, in "17/24" reveals the image of a youth who wants to be 'treated as a human being'.
The sight of Nam-su, who has been repeating the cycle of “eating, doing, shitting, smoking, lying down, and then going home exhausted” at the library, with his future happiness mortgaged, and then returning home, gathering a chair to sit on is quite heartbreaking.


Namsu was always hungry and always wanted to eat.
Eunji said that if you do that, you really become a pig, that if a person becomes a pig, they will never be treated as a human, that it is okay to not be human, but it is too painful to not be treated as a human, but it was no use.
We're not even thirty yet.
The long-awaited thirties, stability has arrived. Thirty, I'm over nine. Thirty, I felt like I could become something. Thirty.
Even to reach the age of thirty, we had to be careful with our handling.

_From "17/24"

The friendship between the three friends, known as the 'Rare Spirit Sisters', is being weathered by time.
Despite having spent so much time together, their current situation is tied to the 'problem of life', and they each experience a whirlwind of emotions during their trip to Japan to celebrate their friendship.
Still, because they are full of shared memories, I hope their friendship will not be lost to the times of reality.


Fortunately, the three of them resolved their conflicts by meeting up unexpectedly one night and walking along the Han River, going to a restaurant they'd been going to since college, or spending time in a sticker photo booth that now rarely had anyone taking pictures.
But even though I tried to maintain this special and rare friendship, I honestly felt like I was getting old.
As I get older, I realize that not only people but also our feelings for each other change over time.
_From "I Want to Eat Gyukatsu"

Following the heartbreak of a senior who had no sense and zero timing, 'I', who also had a heartbreak, meet him by chance and talk about 'Instructor Kim' from my college days.
I realize that memories of him, a passionate critical intellectual, gave us the strength to endure the unjust times we lived through together and to wait for “the time when things will get better.”


Every time I ride the subway, I sometimes wonder how these empty spaces in the subway can withstand the pressure from the ground.
But in fact, it was not the empty space that endured, but the ground that endured the empty space.
And it is only by enduring each other like that that the everyday world of this city is maintained.
When someone we love and have given our hearts to leaves our daily lives, the pain that remains becomes ours alone, disconnected from the other person, and we have to endure that sense of loss, just as the other person must also endure it in order to be able to completely separate.
_From "When We Say Hey"

This sense of that dazzling moment that first entered the writer's mind and imprinted its own existence with "Hey" sparkles in all 19 stories.
This story teaches us to “give appropriate encouragement and respect to a human life.”


So, if you don't mind, I want to tell you that I will be thinking about you for a very long time.
The story continues, and we will meet and part often in it, and miss each other, but we will never fully understand each other.
But even through all those reunions and separations, I will never lose the sense of that dazzling moment when you first entered my heart and made your presence felt, saying, "Hey."
Because it is the only light that should belong to someone who loved and gave affection to someone, something that those who have left cannot bear to take away from us.

-From the author's note

Hands-Free Reading, Simultaneous Release of Audiobook
The joy of listening to the author's voice together

This book is a new way to read literature, and is released as an audiobook simultaneously with the paperback edition.
Recognizing that short stories are a flexible genre that can absorb contemporary stories, I wanted to experiment with a three-dimensional reading.
Born in collaboration with Naver Audioclip, the audiobook "I've Thought About It for a Very Long Time" will be serialized in four parts over four days starting November 2, 2018, with the full series being released on the 7th.
A lively novel reading experience is presented through the reading of a professional voice actor.
Author Kim Geum-hee also read the included work, “Ryu, Someone I Know,” and compiled a special interview into a special audio file.
The five volumes of the Mind Walk short story series will also be published in December as audiobooks featuring the voices of ordinary readers selected by the authors through a reading contest.
The author also read one of the short stories and included a special interview, adding to the collection's value.