Chapter 19 · 12 min

Chapter 19

I waited at ease until Daisy made a decision.

Rather, Foreman Gary seemed to be heating up.

"Still no contact from the partner?"

"Come on. Wait a bit. A house isn't a thing of one or two coins, would a decision come that easy."

"I said let's just do it with me!"

This was the problem.

Foreman Gary kept pestering to partner.

But I shook my head firm.

"The reason I picked a partner is that person can fill the part I'm short. If it weren't that, I wouldn't have done it."

"Ah! Then how long do I wait!"

"Now. Pressing again. The more it's like this, you have to wait thick, I tell you."

Then a call came.

"Hello?"

[Jeong-su.]

It was Daisy.

"I'm listening. Speak."

In front of the foreman, I used formal speech to Daisy.

[Hm. Someone's beside you.]

"Yes. The owner is with me."

[Yeah? That worked out. First I want to check that property you mentioned myself. Send the address.]

"One moment."

I turned my head and asked Foreman Gary, waiting until his eyes would fall out.

"She says she wants to see the state of the house. What shall we do?"

"Say anytime is fine!"

"Got it."

I said into the receiver again.

"Let's see it this weekend."

[Got it. See you then.]

Hanging up, I said to Foreman Gary.

"Seeing she means to check the house first, she seems almost all the way over."

"It should go well."

Foreman Gary showed anxiety.

I shook my head.

Exactly the posture of a greenhorn easy to be cheated.

* * *

In the meantime, a chest-swelling moment as an Australian site worker came.

Precisely the day of receiving the first weekly pay.

"Jeong-su! Congratulations on the first weekly pay in Australia!"

Around lunch, Rosie, working in the office, came down to the yard herself and held out an envelope with the pay statement.

I threw off the gloves, opened the envelope, and slowly scanned the printed details.

Base rate: $22.00 × 38 hours = $836.00

Overtime, time and a half: $33.00 × 10 hours = $330.00

Gross pay: $1,166.00

Tax, PAYG: -$236.00

Net pay: $930.00 AUD

The moment I saw the number '$930.00' stamped at the bottom of the statement, a corner of the chest strangely ached.

This money was the first honest fruit I had earned myself, body and sweat, drinking rough iron dust on strange foreign soil.

The memory of the days rolling on Korea's tight construction sites overlapped, and every feeling crossed.

"How is it? Fatter than you thought?"

To me soaked in sentiment, Rosie casually came up, bumped my shoulder, and asked.

"Thanks to you. Thank you, Rosie."

"If you're grateful······ after work today, want to eat dinner with me? I know a place that sells tasty Australian steak."

Rosie smiled with her eyes and applied for a date outright.

But in my head there was only Fortescue stock and the drug haunted-house remodel plan.

I stuffed the envelope in the work-uniform pocket and shook my head without regret.

"What to do? I have an important prior appointment today. Let's eat dinner next time."

"······What? A prior appointment?"

At my razor refusal, not one second of hesitation, Rosie's eyes grew, then soon her mouth jutted a foot forward.

"Cheap. You got the first weekly pay and you can't even eat one meal with me? Hmph, fine! Go well to that important appointment!"

She grumbled, turned sharp, and walked plodding to the office with shoulders drooped.

Her disappointed back was a little sorry, but a bigger thing I had to handle right away was waiting for me.

* * *

The place I drove straight after work was the study-abroad agency in the city center.

Jingle—.

"Huh? I wondered who, and it's Mr. Jeong-su!"

Opening the door and stepping into the agency, the branch manager arranging documents inside the office found me and shot up, brightening.

"Branch manager, it's been a while. Have you been well?"

"Me, always the same. But your face has tanned quite a bit? Tanned nice to see."

The branch manager drew an instant coffee from the vending machine, handed it to me, and showed a very pleased smile.

"These days my mood is very good. That share house you were in. The working-holiday friends swarming there are finding jobs fairly, saving money, and leaving the rooms one by one. Seeing them settle in a strange place and go independent, it's like a chick leaving the nest, and even I feel proud."

"All thanks to the branch manager looking after them well at the start."

"Come on, they suffered and survived themselves. Ah, right! Come to think of it, how did you do? Is the job all right?"

At the branch manager drinking the coffee and asking, looking at my appearance, I shrugged light and answered.

"Yes. I got hired as a forklift operator at the Crane Australia logistics yard on the Wetherill Park side. I got the first weekly pay today too."

"······Puhup! Kek, kek!"

The branch manager nearly sprayed the coffee he was drinking like a fountain and burst a mad cough.

He went pale, opened his eyes round, and looked at me as if he could not believe it.

"Wh, what? Crane Australia?! That Crane, Australia's largest logistics company!"

"Yes, that's the place. I'm running the site with the Aussie guys."

"Wow, my god! You were a really tremendous person! That's a place even local Aussies need a career to enter. No wonder the rumor is it's a tight company! Ordinary working-holiday people from Korea, washing dishes or cleaning at a Korean restaurant, or going out to the outskirts to hit a farm, that's the basic course. How on earth did you get in there? English wouldn't have been easy!"

At the branch manager's exaggerated reaction my shoulders went up.

I knew Crane Australia was a huge corporation known in Australia, but I had not thought he would be surprised this much.

Explaining at length that there had been Korean construction-site experience and Sam's recommendation was annoying, so I only grinned it off, "I was lucky."

The branch manager, admiring a long while and kneading my shoulder, soon asked as if curious.

"But what's today? You seem just off work, aren't you tired? Ah, are you looking for a new house to move to, leaving the share-house room?"

"No, I have a place roughly looked into for a house. Today, not that, I came to use internet banking on the agency computer. As it happens I got the first weekly pay, so I mean to send my parents some spending money."

"Aigo, you're really commendable. Looking after parents' spending money first with the first weekly pay. Right, right, the seat inside is empty, so use it at ease!"

By the branch manager's consideration I sat in front of the desktop PC set in a corner of the agency.

I opened the browser familiar, accessed the Commonwealth site, and split off part of the first weekly pay I got from Rosie today and remitted it to my parents' account.

A transaction through the SWIFT network, so relatively complicated, but it only took time, it was not impossible.

I had not known the memory of the previous life would be used like this.

Sending 500 dollars like that, about 400,000 won in Korean money, the insides felt full.

Though only the start of Australian field work, it was the surest certificate that I was doing my share healthy in a strange place.

Probably the remittance would take three or four days to arrive.

I decided to call again then, and I opened CommSec, the stock-trading platform.

Accessing my investment account, a little over the 90,000 dollars I had exchanged was stamped.

I had taken out about 20,000 dollars for the car and living and was using it.

[ FMG ] — Fortescue Metals Group

Hitting enter, Fortescue's current order book came up on the screen.

0.041 dollars.

The price had fallen further than then.

Still, having already confirmed, I was not that surprised.

'Good. Sweep it all!'

I put strength in the hand holding the mouse and clicked the buy tab.

But there was one fatal problem here.

That I was a complete beginner on the stock board, literally.

I did not know at all how the price reacts if you scrape a paper-thin penny-stock order book at market in a short time.

Only the thought that I had to change the money in my account into stock as soon as possible.

Instead of placing a buy at a proper price, I began buying the sell volume up at the current price as it came.

Buy 1,000 shares. Click.

Buy 5,000 shares. Click.

Buy 10,000 shares. Click!

But my finger pressing the mouse without hesitation gradually began to slow.

Because the numbers on the screen were turning strange.

"Huh? Huh huh? Why is this like this?"

The price that had been stopped quiet at 0.041 dollars began to creep up, tailing, to 0.051, 0.052.

As I nibbled the sell wall at market, other investors, startled thinking volume had suddenly burst on the stopped penny stock, began sticking on in an instant like moths.

The quiet FMG chart shook like mad.

In an instant it popped to 0.15 dollars, then on volume the startled day-trade ants threw realizing profit it plunged again to 0.09, then someone bought again and it shot to 0.38, a bizarre thing.

Up and down, a riot, literally.

"Crazy! Wait, stop! Stop!"

Flustered, I hastily took my hand off the mouse and stared through the monitor.

Looking at the fills in the account, I had not even bought 200,000 shares yet.

Not even a quarter of the volume I had aimed for, and because of the ignorant market all-out buy, the average price was about to tangle into a mess.

Looking at the order book on the monitor, red and blue crossing, jumping like mad, I muttered with a blank face.

"Wh... what on earth happened?"

I hastily turned the computer off and left the seat.

However I looked, it seemed I had caused an accident?

"What did I do? I can't even ask Daisy..."

And so I had to spend the first confused night since coming to Australia.

* * *

The next day, the weekend day promised to meet Daisy, came.

I headed for Fairfield West with sunken eyes.

Even on the way I kept worrying.

"Should I ask this? Or not?"

Honestly, more than having caused an accident, the words Daisy would shoot were scarier.

So I decided to keep my mouth shut.

Arriving in front of the brick house, Daisy was already waiting, and the foreman had contacted earlier saying he was on the way.

I got out first and offered a greeting to Daisy.

"Good morning, Daisy."

"You're here."

"You came early?"

"Just. I wanted to see it a bit....But? Did something happen yesterday?"

"Hm? What? What? Nothing happened!"

"Why so startled. I just asked because you look tired."

Daisy gave a short laugh and turned her head.

I thought I was caught and let out a sigh.

Then, looking at Daisy's back, yesterday's situation rises.

'Haa. Shall I really close my eyes and ask?'

Every kind of anguish rose inside... but I held it desperately.

Then Daisy said.

"Is that car over there Foreman Gary's car, by any chance?"

Turning my head, it was the car I had ridden before.

"Yeah. Right. That car."

"The foreman came early too."

At those words I gave a short laugh.

And I asked Daisy.

"Daisy. When the foreman comes, I'll introduce you as an expert. Don't show a clumsy look."

"...Hm? What..."

Before Daisy could ask, I approached the foreman's car and met him.

"Welcome. Foreman. A good weekend."

"Oh! Right. Haha. You were here first."

The foreman, whether in a good mood, walked up laughing.

I introduced Daisy to the foreman.

"Foreman. Please greet. This is Daisy Song of Commonwealth Bank, a real-estate investment expert in partnership with me."

"······A, a real-estate investment expert?"

At my introduction suddenly wrapping it grand, Daisy looked at me with puzzled eyes.

I blinked at her again and again.

Then, whether she remembered what I had said earlier, she hurriedly managed her face.

And as I intended, she showed a confident smile and offered a handshake to Foreman Gary.

"Hello, Mr. Gary. I heard a lot from Jeong-su. I'm Daisy Song, in charge of financial loans and real-estate valuation at Commonwealth."

"Oh! My god, Jeong-su! I didn't think you'd bring a real working banker! Good to meet you, Miss Daisy!"

The two exchanged polite greetings.

After loosening the awkwardness with light small talk, at last Foreman Gary turned the front-door key.

Creak—.

The moment the door opened, again a disgusting chemical smell blew.

Uwa. This really made it hard to bear.

"Uuk!"

Because I had warned hard in advance, Daisy had her nose blocked tight with a thick handkerchief, and still she frowned every kind of face and held down the retch.

She carefully examined the living-room floor, the moldy walls, and the kitchen all torn out in order, then whispered toward me as if sick of it.

"Jeong-su... this really can be repaired? It's a complete ruin."

I grinned and answered quietly at Daisy's ear.

"Of course. But leave it to an ordinary Australian builder or interior company and they'll all run saying they won't. After taking repair cost and labor, there would be no margin left for them."

"Then why are you saying you'll do it?"

"Because my labor doesn't cost. Take it at a dirt price and overturn it with my body and skill, and that itself converts to net profit. Where is a property this good to start a real-estate business with no capital?"

At the confident answer Daisy's eyes deepened.

"All good. Your logic is perfect. But······."

Daisy lowered the handkerchief slightly, looked straight at me, and asked.

"The most important thing. Can you really fix this house alone? I have to know that to set my mind too."

At that question, as if I had been waiting, I took a thick wallet from my back pocket.

And in front of Daisy I spread the wallet flashy.

Flash—.

"You can read Korean, right? Check it clear."

Daisy took the wallet with a half-believing face, and began fumbling and reading aloud the Korean national technical certificates packed in it.

"Buil... painting technician? Interior... building technician?"

Her eyes began to grow.

"Ti, tile technician······ waterproofing technician······? Plastering, bricklaying······? Wait, Jeong-su, you have all these certificates alone?!"

"How is it? My words that raising one house new is nothing, a bit of belief now?"

Those tests are not that hard.

Most of those tests have no written test, and if you only take the practical about six hours you can get them soon.

She looked back and forth between me and the certificates with a blank face, then soon, as if she had firmed her resolve, put a strong smile on her face.

And stuffing the handkerchief she held into a pocket, she reached a hand toward Gary.

"Let's deal, Mr. Gary!"