Chapter 22

Chapter 22

"Heok······!"

Dong-myeong startled awake and opened his eyes sharp.

Cold sweat ran down the spine and the heart beat like mad.

Because Owner Kang's roar, 'come to the pickup spot by 6 in the morning', hit the ear like a hallucination.

He shot his upper body up as if a spring bounced, and first picked up the phone set by his head.

The time on the screen was 1:10 in the afternoon.

"L, late······!"

Dong-myeong went pale and got up in a flurry, kicking the mattress.

The moment he was about to pull on pants, last night's memory jumped like a spark into the not-yet-awake head.

[For now let's start at 18 dollars an hour.]

[From tomorrow you work with me.]

A strange person who had handed him a cold beer. Han Jeong-su.

Strength slowly left Dong-myeong's hand gripping the pant leg.

"Ah······. I don't have to go to Owner Kang's site now······."

When relief pushed in, only then the tension of the whole body let go, tak.

Since coming to Australia he had not slept at ease a single day.

Every night and day, the pain of hands festering and bursting, and anxiety about tomorrow, so he had to sleep light.

But after accepting Jeong-su's offer last night, Dong-myeong fell into a very deep, sweet sleep, as if fainting.

It was when Dong-myeong was sitting blank on the living-room floor catching his breath.

Burst—!

The master-room door opened rough and someone walked out.

It was Park Ji-hun.

"Aigu, shit. The head······."

Park Ji-hun, coming out scratching mussed hair, met eyes with Dong-myeong, only now awake.

A disgusting smell flowed through the gap of the open door.

Empty liquor bottles rolling on the floor, and cigarette butts piled thick.

And on the bed, the bare skin of women sprawled, half covered by the blanket, was visible.

"What, you? A lazy bastard sleeping sprawled till this hour?"

Park Ji-hun walked to the fridge and threw a sneer at Dong-myeong.

"Quite the lord. What are you staring at? Eyes not down?"

Ji-hun's nervous scolding.

Dong-myeong looked down at him quiet, without a word.

On an ordinary day he would have shrunk and bowed saying sorry, but today somehow he did not want to.

Partly because he had learned that human lives sucking the blood of working-holiday people, but above all because Dong-myeong now had a real colleague to trust and rely on.

Dong-myeong turned his gaze without any reply and headed for the bathroom.

"Ha. That crazy bear bastard, really······."

From behind, the sound of Park Ji-hun muttering as if absurd was heard, but Dong-myeong ignored it thoroughly and shut the bathroom door.

Standing in front of the sink, Dong-myeong looked in the mirror to wash his face.

Then suddenly his gaze stayed on his own two crude hands.

On the hands a mess from burst blisters and cement poison, several bandages were stuck.

It was last night.

Jeong-su heard the story of Dong-myeong on the verge of tears to the end, then without a word took bandages from the bag.

[Kid. Work with some knack too. Rolling the body foolish until the hands are this state isn't sincere, it's a foolish act.]

A crude, thick touch, but in that blunt scolding of applying medicine and sticking bandages, a warm warmth was clearly soaked.

Recalling the voice of then, Dong-myeong carefully stroked over the bandages.

'A really amazing person.'

He was like a protagonist who only comes out in comics or movies.

Seeing injustice, not holding it, saying all he has to say, and not caring about the looks around, only looking ahead and quietly pushing only his own work, a real man.

The instinct of Dong-myeong, grown without parents and having gone through every kind of human, was telling him.

That person is real.

Work under that person, and at least being hit in the back of the head or betrayed would absolutely not happen.

"Good. Mustn't be late."

Dong-myeong quickly turned on the shower.

Washing fast and coming out, he wiped his body with a towel, then stuck the new bandages Jeong-su had prepared carefully on the wound spots again.

The time promised to meet Jeong-su was 4:30 in the afternoon.

Still a long time left, but Dong-myeong hurriedly put on going-out clothes.

Fairfield West was a first road he had never been, so he did not want to wander and make the mishap of being late from the first day.

Even if he went early and waited outside for hours, he absolutely could not be late.

It was when Dong-myeong, bag on, heading for the entrance, was putting on shoes.

Creak—

Behind him the master-room door opened again.

From inside the room the women's blatant, noisy laughter flowed, and soon hazy cigarette smoke spread across the living room.

"Heh heh. Crazy. Wait a moment. I'll take a piss."

His friend who uses the master room with Ji-hun, Tae-sik, came out the door with a cigarette in his mouth.

Meeting eyes with Dong-myeong standing at the entrance, he cocked his head crooked.

"Where you going?"

"Yes."

Dong-myeong felt no value in replying more than that, and answered short and blunt.

Whether that attitude did not sit well, Tae-sik furrowed his brow and blew cigarette smoke long.

"Ha. The kid is blunt as hell. Hey, you stop the stubbornness too and just go to a farm. Go there and jobs are everywhere. Don't suffer here."

From what Dong-myeong had looked into, he knew farms were case by case too.

But even so he did not want to go to a farm those ones introduced.

No, now there was no reason to go to a farm.

Dong-myeong tied the laces tight and stood.

"I got a job."

At Dong-myeong's firm words Tae-sik poured a sneer, poot, as if absurd.

"Fuck, is that a job? Getting your blood sucked running all day for Korean owners. Come on, foolish bastard. Do as you like. Do that and the body gets crippled, and you'll beat the ground regretting."

Tae-sik clicked his tongue and slipped into the bathroom.

Dong-myeong looked back and forth at the closed bathroom door and the master room still giving off a dirty smell.

And without looking back he opened the front door without regret and stepped out.

The dazzling Australian sun met the moment he stepped out the door was lighting Dong-myeong's big shoulders.

* * *

"Wow. Shit. Really dirty expensive."

Asking the workers and looking into Australian waste-disposal rules, this really had a navel bigger than the belly.

Compared to Korea, disposal was fussy beyond comparison and the cost was brutal.

All afternoon driving the forklift in the logistics yard, the head was only the worry of how to clear this trash without spending money.

The most ordinary method was a large steel bin, a skip bin.

A system of renting by the cubic meter, setting it in the yard, and a truck taking it when full, and throwing in a smashed 48-pyeong house interior, you would have to call a skip bin five or six times, and it was obvious the cost alone would break millions of won.

'Can't foolishly pay all that money and throw it.'

If I were a site employee I would just say pay and throw it easy, but becoming an owner whose own money goes out, I could not do that at all.

"Plasterboard, no question, step it to powder and smash, timber······. Haa. This is really a waste of money."

In Korea you would burn the timber that came out in a drum and be done, and they say do that in Australia and you take a tremendous fine.

Australians extremely sensitive to smoke... they said there was something like a bushfire trauma.

According to Peter, if you don't want ruin, take it and throw it by the rules.

Since that's so, I have to throw it myself.

In the end the way I can choose seems taking the car to the tip, the landfill, weighing it, and throwing it myself.

Mixed waste is expensive, but soil or pure concrete is cheap or free, so I'll save money.

On top of that, scrap like copper wire, copper pipe, aluminum sash that comes out in demolition, gather separate and hand to a scrap yard······.

The problem is the plasterboard pieces vibrating with drug-soaked smell...

Report it as chemical hazardous waste by the rules, and a special company in dust suits comes out and shoves a bill in the hundreds of millions, they say.

'Crazy.'

Of course if this were a fatal chemical that does tremendous harm it would be a problem, but giving hundreds of millions because of smoke smell soaked in while making drugs······ rather not fix the house.

On the way home I stopped at Bunnings and bought dozens of rolls of thick industrial black plastic bags, industrial deodorant to cover the smell, and a lot of cheap sawdust.

The contaminated plasterboard, mix with sawdust and deodorant, seal two layers, three layers in plastic, lay it on the bottom of the bin, and cover the top with other waste.

A shady demolition concealment that even the grandfather of the Australian environment office would be fooled by.

Sorting every plan in the head, hitching the rented trailer behind the New Korando and arriving at Fairfield West, it was already past 5 in the afternoon.

"Why isn't this guy answering the phone?"

Creak—.

Stopping the car and looking at the yard, a lump like a big rock was visible in front of the old front door.

"Haa. ······That guy, a build like a mountain, why sitting that pitiful."

I muttered, giving a hollow laugh without knowing it.

I saw a few salty guys on Korean sites too, and among them Park Dong-myeong seems top.

Does the kid look that pitiful whatever he does?

I'll go crazy.

He had rolled that big build round like a bean bug, and had been crouched in front of the door waiting for me, lest he cause harm to someone.

At the sound of the car door closing, Dong-myeong startled up and bowed his waist.

"Hyung, you're here!"

"Why not answer the phone? I called saying I'd be late, and it comes up turned off?"

Park Dong-myeong scratched his head and said.

"The owner of the interior company I used to go to keeps calling."

I pressed my forehead with a hand, absurd.

"Then swear at him and tell him never to call again."

"······Still, how can a person do that."

"Aigu. A guy who bursts the insides. Unload the stuff. Let's start fast. And turn the phone on and give it to me."

"Yes?"

"Give it and you'll know."

I took the hesitating Dong-myeong's phone, and took out the key and stuck it in the front door.

And gripping the handle, I said to Dong-myeong.

"Brace hard. The smell kills."

"Yes! Hyung!"

Creak—.

The moment the front door opened, a stale chemical smell pushed, hook.

'Sniff sniff.'

Clearly, taking the carpet out, the smell is less.

I nodded at the satisfying result.

"Uuk······!"

But Dong-myeong behind me, whether this smell was the first since birth, grabbed his nose and reflexively burst a dry retch.

"Wh, what smell is this?"

"Drug addicts made drugs here, they say."

"Yes!? D, drugs?!"

"Yeah. Cigarette smell, chemical smell, living-soaked smell. All mixed. Still, this is reduced to this much because I tore all the carpet yesterday."

"Th······ this is reduced?"

I covered my nose, slapped the wide back of Dong-myeong welling tears, and pushed him into the house.

A smell that will disappear anyway if we demolish all but the frame.

"Don't whine, kid. You don't die from smelling it."

"No······ still, it's drugs."

"Not drugs. Chemicals before making drugs. The smell is strong, but this amount can't do fatal harm to the body. And the work we have to do today is a complete rip. Think of it as scraping off all the smelly flesh stuck to this house."

I pointed at the pry bar and sledgehammer Dong-myeong had brought and added.

"The floor we'll lift all, of course, and the plasterboard stuck on the walls and ceiling, we have to take off without leaving one, until the timber frame shows."

"All of it?"

"Yeah. Leave it rough saying it's a waste, and later the smell creeps up. The smell molecules stuck on those walls, that's what makes it. And the trash you tear off, never just throw it. Reduce the volume, step the plasterboard to powder with the foot, and gather the timber to one side. Later we'll cut it small with a power saw and throw it."

Dong-myeong tilted his head and asked.

"Can't we just throw it?"

"I wish, but volume is all money. The cost of throwing is scary expensive."

"Heh heh."

At my honest complaint Dong-myeong burst a laugh, and I gave a short laugh too.

"Hey. Dong-myeong."

"Yes. Hyung."

"You know? First time you've laughed since meeting me."

"······Ah."

Suddenly Dong-myeong's eyes were about to go red again.

The moment I thought I had brought up a sentimental sound for nothing, 'weeeing', Dong-myeong's phone in my pocket rang noisy.

The caller name on the screen, 'son of a bitch'.

I gave a short laugh and looked at Dong-myeong, huge build, restless.

'Still, seeing he set the caller name like that, he wasn't only a fool softie.'

I lifted Dong-myeong's phone without hesitation and pressed the call button.

"Hello."

[Huh? What, who are you? This isn't Park Dong-myeong's phone? If Dong-myeong's beside you, put that bastard on?]

Beyond the receiver, plain speech and a stream of curses flew from the start.

Ha, really. The way bottom bastards play is disgustingly the same, Korea or Australia.

I shot back in a voice sunk cold.

"Fuck, bursting the mouth on a first meeting. Hey."

[What? Hey? This bastard crazy! Who are you!]

"Right, you bastard! Got a rag in your mouth? Plain speech to a complete stranger. Do you know who I am?"

[······You, who······ are you?]

Whether pressed by my cool force, the guy's voice slipped a moment.

"Me? Dong-myeong's hyung."

Suddenly the phone went quiet as a dead mouse.

But soon the guy who grasped the situation began raving again beyond the receiver.

[These son-of-a-bitch pair gone mad! I'll kill you so you can't even gather bones on the Sydney floor!! @#%@%$!]

I took the phone slightly off my ear and held it toward Dong-myeong.

Dong-myeong's face, hearing the terrible rant leaking out the receiver vivid, was seen going white.

'Tsk tsk. Not even worth the build, and the heart that weak.'

I clicked my tongue, put the phone to my ear again, and said low.

"Done?"

[No, this bastard really! What do you do!? Really want to die?!]

"No. The one dying isn't me, it's you."

[What, you fuck······.]

"Shut that dirty mouth and listen. You think I don't swear because I can't? I hold it because I don't want to mix words with trash like you. Ah, enough. Inspectors will come soon, so prepare to get shaken down and wait."

[Wh······ what!? What inspection! What did I do wrong!?]

"Wrong things packed thick. Cheated working-holiday kids and sucked the blood and fattened the belly? I'll stab the Australian Tax Office for illegal cash-job tax evasion, and stab Immigration for illegal labor exploitation and trafficking, so try blocking it well."

[Hey! I, what trafficking did I do, this rant!]

"You bastard. Not even giving half the legal minimum wage and working them, not enough, forcibly stuffing them in a chicken-coop lodging and skimming rent and pickup? That's 21st-century modern slavery and trafficking, you trash bastard!"

At my roar, beyond the receiver a sound of breath catching, heok, was heard.

Pinning the exact state of what he had been doing, the guy seemed to get scared sudden too.

"How is there a human scum like you? You, just get caught in my eye once. Then you die by my hand, not the tax office."

[······Th, there, sir? No, hyung? Why are you suddenly like this to me? What big crime did I commit······.]

Seeing the voice drop tone in an instant and tuck the tail, typical trash of strong to the weak and weak to the strong.

"Suck compatriot kids struggling to live out in a strange place like that, and you should at least reflect, a vicious one like you I really see for the first time living. Don't think of excuses, wait nicely. Australian officials will barge in soon."

[Haa······ ah, fuck really. Hyung, let's do it nice with words, yes? I get fucked, really. I have a sick old mother and young kids in Korea. Please, I beg. Just once, close your eyes just this once.]

"How, fuck! Do villain bastards like you all have the same repertoire. Hang up, bastard!"

Ending the call one-sided like that, I handed the phone to Dong-myeong standing blank and said.

"Now he won't call you again."

"······Hyung."

"Hm?"

"Is it really all right to do this?"

I gave a short laugh.

"What wouldn't be all right? Those bastards were arrogant because you, with that ignorant build, took it foolish. Trash like that, you mustn't leave them to crawl up from the start."

"Then will you really report to the Australian tax office and Immigration?"

What is this one saying?

"Of course I have to stab it, kid. Leave that kind and poison rises in society."

"······."

Somehow Dong-myeong's eyes looking at me seemed to have gone blue pale.

© Log1#13yd6