Chapter 25

Chapter 25

Andy Hong, recently all-in with his life on the Australian real-estate business, was scanning with fierce eyes the drawings of Brisbane outer development sites piled thick on the desk.

Then the office door opened and Secretary James came in quiet.

"Sir. A request came in from the Sydney side."

Andy Hong's gaze, fixed on the documents, turned slightly aside.

Focused on the real-estate side, he had delegated other work to James.

Even so, if he brought work, it meant some problem had come.

"What is it?"

"A request to touch a man called Han Jeong-su in Sydney moderate, and send him back to Korea."

Andy Hong's brow crumpled.

"Han Jeong-su? A name I've heard somewhere?"

"Not long ago, the very guy Park Ji-hun said was interfering with our work."

In that moment a dry laugh burst through Andy's stiffened lips.

"Hahaha! Yeah? That bastard! This turns interesting."

Andy, tossing the expensive fountain pen he held on the desk, leaned his body on the chair and sank in thought.

Then soon he asked James.

"How many are in Sydney now?"

"Five teams total."

"Contact that Park Ji-hun. Gather the kids left and step that bastard sure. So he can't obstruct our work a second time."

"Yes, understood."

James bowed polite and quietly left the office.

The door closed, and Andy alone again looked down at the Brisbane view outside the window and let a short laugh.

"He would have come to try to live, and it seems a bad tie with us."

Not knowing the face, he snorted at the figure called Han Jeong-su who kept tangling, and turned his gaze to the real-estate drawings on the desk again as if nothing had happened.

Stepping on one mere working-holiday scrap was, to him, no more than shaking off annoying dust.

* * *

The same hour, the Sydney chicken-coop share house.

Inside the master room, a drinking party opened from broad day for the weekend, acrid cigarette smoke and alcohol smell vibrating.

Through the noisy music, Park Ji-hun's phone rang.

"Oh, Hyung James."

The mouth corner of Ji-hun, who took the call, tore as if it would hang on the ear.

"Yes! Yes, understood! The boss permitted it? Aiyu, thank you! I'll step that bastard sure so he can't even gather bones!"

Finishing the call, Ji-hun clenched his fist and cheered.

"Nice! Fuck, finally I can pickle that arrogant bastard!"

Tae-sik, sitting on the bed drinking beer, turned his head.

"Who? Han Jeong-su, by any chance? An order dropped from above?"

"Yeah. The boss instructed direct. Let's loose the kids right away and go into the job."

Tae-sik laughed mean and threw a crushed empty can.

"Keh keh, good. He was grating the eye anyway. Let's call the kids this evening and handle it."

Ji-hun sank in thought a moment.

Then looking at the women giggling on the bed and the liquor bottles sprawled on the table, he grinned.

"No. Stop for now. On a good weekend like this, need for us to sweat tired too?"

"Then?"

"Let's handle it during next week. On a weekday, hit the back of the head when that bastard goes to work and leaves. Today let's drink and play! Hey, turn the music volume up more!"

Ji-hun downed a newly opened beer hard in a refreshing mood.

Not even imagining the huge storm that would hit them in a few days, the parasites of the chicken coop were wasting the weekend riotous like that.

* * *

Weekend morning.

Today was a day off, but I came to check the oil primer applied on site.

I examined the state from the floor to the frame careful.

"Oh······! No smell?"

The stench molecules that had been vicious were trapped in the primer coating and blocked perfect.

Nodding in a good mood, about to go back, the pipes that caught the eye.

In an instant my brow crumpled fierce.

"Haa, I'll go crazy. Really."

Seeing the pipes laid a mess on the floor, the steps would not leave.

If I hadn't seen this I would have just gone back... like this, all day today only this will be in the head.

'Push hard and one day, or by tomorrow, I can finish plumbing and wiring too...'

Anyway Australian builders are no joke either.

I thought only Korean contractors patched shady, and if they did work like this here even taking expensive money, that was no different from a crime.

However I looked, cover it like this and within one or two years a short or a leak could happen, time bombs.

"Dong-myeong."

"Yes, hyung!"

"Sorry, but we'll have to work today too."

"Come on. It's fine. I earn money too, so good."

Dong-myeong answered good-natured.

"But what work are you going to do?"

"I think we have to do plumbing and wiring all new today."

"You know how to do that too?"

"Of course! This much is gum. But this I won't teach."

Then Dong-myeong said, flustered.

"Yes!? Why?"

"Kid. Why is a Japanese blanket."

"······Hyung Jeong-su!"

I giggled and told him.

"This, study yourself later, get the certificate, then do it. Do it wrong and a short or a leak happens and the house is ruined."

"Ah······ yes. Understood."

"Good, then let's start."

I carried the pencil that had been in my arms and said to Dong-myeong.

"Pull out all the pipe and wiring I cut."

Having decided, I took the cutter without hesitation and began cutting the old lines without mercy.

While Dong-myeong lifted the existing waste, I held the pencil and checked where the pipes had to go.

Even without looking at a paper drawing, at this size the answer comes right away.

I set the center of the path the pipe would pass with an X, and immediately drove the Korando and ran to Bunnings again.

There I bought hot and cold copper pipe and PEX pipe to spec, copper elbows, T joints, and with electrical cable bundles and outlet boxes and various materials, I had to give 880 Australian dollars total.

Discounted and that much, so it was expensive compared to other parts.

Coming straight back to the site, I put the tool belt on my waist and picked up the power drill.

I drilled holes in the timber studs marked in advance, and began pushing new cable and pipe in at a fierce speed.

Dong-myeong, watching that fast handwork from behind, opened his mouth sudden.

"Hyung. Is there nothing I can help with this? Shall I pull the line through the holes you drilled?"

"Enough. You just rest and only watch. I said earlier. This is dangerous work."

"Yes."

To Dong-myeong gone sullen, I said, placing the pipe.

"This isn't just pulling and shoving with strength. Plumbing and electric, one slip and the house catches fire or becomes a sea of water, a lifeline. This is a very dangerous area you can touch only with specialist knowledge and a formal certificate, so you only watch with the eyes."

Then Dong-myeong sparkled his eyes and came tight beside me.

A face full of curiosity, as if he would suck even one piece of knowledge over the shoulder.

I gave a short laugh and went on explaining, lifting the newly bought pipes in turn.

"Right, watch well. Plumbing, you use these two mixed."

"Durable copper pipe, use on the main line hot water passes, or where it takes water pressure strong, and flexible PEX pipe, pass through the frame holes and set where the kitchen sink and bathroom will go. Easy to bend, so best for making a path this way and that through a narrow wall. And that thin cable with many strands over there is the line that goes out to the bathroom exhaust fan and the light switch."

I tied the line and let it hang where the bathroom switch would go, and grinned.

Thinking of the interior later, it seems the wiring work has to be done well.

Especially I'll recess the lights as LED, and if this isn't worked in advance it really becomes hell.

To stop water-hammer, the pipe trembling from water pressure, I drove saddles dense between the posts and fixed the pipe tight.

The bathroom side, I didn't pull the pipe out country-style on the floor, and for whatever might happen later I left the water pipe out at wall height in centimeters.

You never know, might even hang a floating basin. In the future this is the trend too.

On the ceiling I marked where the lights would go, pulled thin light wire and stuck it in front with tape, and on the walls I pushed thick power wire in like fishing.

I did not forget the sense of leaving the ends with about 30 centimeters of tail spare, so the Australian electrician would work easy when he came later.

The reason work can be done this fast is that, unlike Korea plastered with cement, the inside is all timber.

The whirring drill sound and the sound of pipe hitting filled the 48-pyeong house.

And when the sun set and it became evening, plumbing and electric line were both complete enough that one or two more days would do.

Dong-myeong, covered in sawdust from head to foot, looked around the house with a soul-gone face.

"Wow······ jackpot. Hyung did all this alone."

The old, dangerous lines that had been dirty until morning were nowhere, and the look of new wire and copper pipe aligned in rows between the white frame was a spectacle.

A rough-in setup perfect enough that a person who knows the site would have clapped and called it a work of art.

I drank a sip of canned coffee and gave a short laugh.

"Now the setup that's hard and breaks a lot of money is all done. The rest, tidy and call an expert I know and only get a check."

The person to call would be Uncle Billy.

* * *

Replacing the tangled plumbing and electric line with new and setting them in place, before I knew it outside had gone pitch dark.

When hard site work ends, greasy late-night food pulls, as a rule.

We roughly shook the dust and sawdust off the work uniform and headed for Macca's on a nearby roadside.

The nickname Australians call McDonald's.

"Two quarter-pounder cheeseburger sets, please."

Taking two heavy burger sets and cola at the drive-through, we stopped the car at a quiet riverside empty lot visible on the way back to the lodging.

Lowering the window halfway, cool night air and a calm river smell brushed the nose and cooled the heat that had risen on site.

"Keu. As expected, on a day you ran labor hard, meat. Though it isn't pork belly, let's eat."

"Yes! I'll eat well."

Dong-myeong in the passenger seat downed the cola and bit the burger large.

When the guy had emptied about half the burger in a rush, Dong-myeong suddenly opened his mouth.

"Hyung Jeong-su. Thank you."

"Suddenly, stopping eating the burger, what sound? What's to thank?"

Absurd, bursting a hollow laugh, Dong-myeong set the remaining burger down and said.

"Just, all of it. Under Owner Kang, getting cursed and only carrying cement, every day was like hell. But meeting hyung, seeing with the eyes what real skill is, filling my share of new equipment······. Working treated as a person is this, I thought, so just, thank you for all of it."

Scratching the back of his head awkward, Dong-myeong's build was mountain-size, and naive beyond words.

I gave a short laugh and dumped fries in my mouth.

"Bland kid. Enough, I'll ask one too."

"Yes. Ask."

"Do you like Australia?"

"Yes? Australia?"

Dong-myeong, flustered a moment, stopped the bulged cheek and looked at me.

"Yeah. Australia. How is it?"

"Well. Until a few days ago it was like a prison of paying debt and enduring, and these days it's a bit different. Following hyung, using the Australian guys' rules, and thinking I'm turning a ruin into a decent house with my own hands······ now it seems I'm really living here. Yes. I like it quite a bit."

"Right. Roll hard and learn the skill proper, and there won't be a day you starve here."

When I nodded, Dong-myeong drank the cola and asked me.

"How about hyung? When this house is all fixed, will you keep living here?"

"Me?"

I looked quiet at the river the dark had settled on, arm on the wheel.

"Well. I don't know well······."

At my words Dong-myeong made a flinching, startled face.

"Why? You bought a house like this, and when it's done you'll make big money? And you got hired at a local company too."

"Haha. I did. I seem to have adapted moderate······ whether this is a place worth leaving Korea and burying my bones here all my life, I still don't know well."

I dipped the remaining fries deep in ketchup and let an idle laugh.

"Honestly saying it plain, if only the money is ample, Korea is a heaven better to live in than anywhere in the world. Safe even drinking late and walking around, delivery fast, the smell of people living hard. Health insurance the best too."

"True, that is so. Certainly if only you have money, Korea is the best for playing and eating."

Dong-myeong wiped his mouth with a napkin and made a tilted face.

"Then why did you come to Australia? If you had been in Korea I think you would have made more money."

I laughed small and giggled.

"Well. Why did I come?"

The cool river wind that came through the window gap shook the air inside the Korando calm.

I quietly recalled the faces of my family, in a far memory.

Family whose memory has grown faint now.

"······A place our family really liked. Australia."

"Your family?"

"Yeah. So I wanted to check it direct with my own eyes once. How good a place it is."

The ice in the cola melted and made a rattle inside the plastic cup.

'What kind of place, exactly. What kind of air and scenery, what smell it has... I wanted to know that, why they abandoned me'

I threw my gaze out the car window and recited low.

"I came wanting to feel it, stepping and bumping with my own two feet. Whether this is a place that really has the worth."

Whether he caught the subtle longing and weight soaked in the tone, the guy only nodded quiet and carefully picked the remaining fries.

In the quiet dark of the riverside, we looked for a while at Sydney's flowing water without a word.

The belly was full solid with greasy quarter-pounder patty, and the night wind brushing the cheek was fairly refreshing.

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