Chapter 33

Chapter 33

At Daisy's sudden appearance and raised voice, Dong-myeong holding the foam gun and I froze like mutes who ate honey.

Daisy, face flushed hard, slammed the front door and came into the house panting, then began getting angry like fire at me from the start.

"Jeong-su! What on earth are you doing here right now?!"

She approached in front of me with long steps, then examined careful the thick gauze on the forehead, the bright-red left eye with vessels burst, and the half cast hung on the neck, and asked urgent.

"Good heavens... you were hurt a lot. How are the sore places? The bone isn't broken? Hurt like this and even a cast... isn't it hard?"

Certainly the reaction was a bit different from Korea.

On a Korean site they would have asked first, "but can you hammer?", "can you come to work tomorrow?" She was worrying about the injury itself and pitying sincere.

I scratched my head with the sound hand, awkward, and grinned.

"Come on, it's fine. The bone isn't broken, just a crack went slight, so this much is very good..."

"Is that something to say now?!"

At the answer that it was nothing much, Daisy got angry like fire again.

"No... I got hurt, why are you getting angry?"

At my question Daisy raised her voice as if dumbfounded.

"Jeong-su, did a ghost who died from not being able to work really stick?"

I regressed, so maybe a ghost stuck?

"Do you know how startled I was hearing from the agency manager that you got hurt? So I ran right away, and when you should be lying in a hospital you're working here?!"

I still only blinked, not understanding Daisy's fierce reaction.

Resting for an injury this much is a bit... rather cutting the air is better.

Seeing my blank face, Daisy pressed her forehead with a hand as if absurd.

She let out a deep sigh, then looked straight at me and asked.

"Jeong-su, since coming to Australia, how many Sydney tourist spots have you been to?"

"Tourist spots...?"

"Yeah. Have you been to the Blue Mountains? Or Bondi Beach or Coogee Beach? Have you ridden the monorail that runs Darling Harbour?"

At her question bombardment I could not answer anything.

Blue Mountains? Bondi Beach? Darling Harbour?

Quite some time had flowed since coming to Australia, but I had not been to a single place.

No, I had not even known there were famous places like that in Sydney.

At my mute-who-ate-honey silence, Daisy stabbed the sore spot exact.

"You went out to work at dawn, and when the main job ended you came straight here every day and only fixed the house?"

Daisy looked around the room we were standing in.

Scanning the white insulation filled without a gap between the studs that had been empty, she stuck out her tongue as if dumbfounded.

Because it was a tremendous construction speed unbelievable for a patient and a beginner, the two of them.

"Why on earth work this desperate..."

At Daisy's mutter mixed with pity, Dong-myeong and I went awkward and only faced each other's faces.

Her saying so, it felt as if we had come even to this beautiful Australia and were doing only useless work.

A place others come even cutting expensive plane tickets, and we seemed fools who couldn't look around romance or scenery once and couldn't put down the hammer even if the body broke.

Daisy, silent a moment, said firm as if driving a nail.

"Jeong-su, fixing this house, the progress speed is already fast. So while you're hurt... how about spending a bit of time for yourself?"

* * *

So. What does she want me to do?

For now, pressed by Daisy's scary force, I nodded in a daze.

But even trying to rest, where to go was utterly blank.

Playing too, the one who has played knows it well, and to me who rolled a labor board all my life, playing was downing a cup of soju and sprawling on the floor watching television.

The words rest or tourism were more unfamiliar than a foreign country's language.

"Now, what should I do?"

Standing blank in the middle of the city, it could not be that awkward.

So I walked aimless toward the Harbour Bridge.

Australians drinking coffee leisurely on café outdoor terraces, tourists sprawled on the grass reading books, even trying to mix I felt like oil floating on water.

I didn't know what to go in and see, and I didn't have a hobby of taking photos.

Turning only the forest of the city's tall buildings meaningless for an hour or two, the thought even came that helping Dong-myeong on site would be better.

"No! Like this it won't do at all. Throwing time on the street like this doesn't fit my constitution."

First I looked around.

Since playing anyway, I mean to play proper, like working.

What did Daisy say yesterday?

Blue Mountains? Darling Harbour? Bondi Beach? Starting from the names that came out, breaking the stamps one by one seems it would do.

I grabbed a bundle of free Sydney tourist maps and English pamphlets stuck in front of a nearby backpackers information center, and went into a nearby McDonald's.

I pushed the burger set aside on the table and spread the wide Sydney map.

As if analyzing a new drawing of a large remodel site, my face was even grim.

"Let's see... here is where I am now, and the seaside in the middle of the city is Darling Harbour. And this painted blue at the east end is Bondi Beach."

For now Bondi Beach is far.

To go you need a car, and I didn't bring the car because of parking fees.

I took out the pen again and began drawing the route, circling hard on the map.

An era without smartphone search, so no choice but to cross-check the bus numbers and train lines written on the pamphlets one by one and find the way.

"Good. Darling Harbour is a fifteen-minute walk from here. Monorail? The station that rides that is the Queen Victoria Building side here. Bondi Beach, take the train from Central to Bondi Junction, then transfer to the beach bus there. The Blue Mountains are far, so next time."

As if winning a new construction order and setting the process, when goal and route were input sure into the blank head, the dead will began to live slow.

When I thought I had to play vague it was blank, and approaching this as a game quest to clear, the fun was fat.

"Good! Shall we go? For now from the closest, Darling Harbour, to finish it."

Having set the direction, I shot up from the seat.

* * *

Pushing the McDonald's glass door and coming out, Sydney's characteristic sharp, intense sun beat down on the crown without mercy.

What weather is this, exactly?

Clearly winter, and standing under the sun it's this hot.

The corner of the stiff paper map stuffed in the pocket touched the fingertip.

An era without smartphones, without Google Maps.

To find the way, no choice but to look all around, check the signs, and spread the paper map.

I took the strength off the shoulders and walked slow.

Passing the grand dome roof of the Queen Victoria Building, a thin steel rail crossing the air long above the head was seen.

Between building and building, on a silver line crossing the air, a small train cute like a toy slides smooth and passes.

To my eyes it looks plain, and this is Sydney's landmark, the monorail that was once a symbol of the future city.

Probably in the future it was all demolished.

Structurally the monorail would be a structure that spends money, not a structure that earns money.

I slowly stepped up the stairs toward the station.

With an awkward gesture I cut a magnetic ticket at the vending machine and passed the gate.

Timing good, the door of the monorail that came in opened soft.

Stepping inside, a peculiar plastic smell brushed the nose.

The train clunked and departed, and Sydney's scenery began flowing slow outside the window.

The monorail's track was very unique.

In some sections it penetrated the second-floor air inside the Galeries Victoria shopping building as if sucked in, and in some places it passed as if brushing right beside an office-building glass window.

Beyond the window, white company workers in suits looking at computer monitors were visible right before the eyes.

Fun.

"Are you okay?"

In my ear, lost in the scenery outside and sunk in thought, a low, clear voice cut in.

Turning my head, a white girl who looked about eight, sitting right beside me, was staring at me.

A cute little kid, freckles on the cheeks, blue eyes full of mischief.

The child was observing with very curious eyes the gauze stuck plastered on my forehead, the left eye bloodshot bright red with vessels burst, and the half cast hung on the neck.

"Hm? This? It's fine. It doesn't hurt as much as it looks."

Answering, lowering my body slightly to the kid's eye level, the child opened her eyes wider and asked.

"Did it hurt when you got hurt?"

"No, not at all. I'm a tremendously strong adult, so I held this much. I didn't shed even a drop of tears."

"Did you bleed?"

At the kid's persistent question I brought a finger to my lips and made a playful shh.

"That's a secret."

"Angie. Sit quiet. The man is hurt and having a hard time, sit over there."

The child's mother sitting beside pulled the child's hem with a face of apology plain.

She seemed a little scared too at the fierce appearance of an Asian man in a cast.

I quickly raised the sound right hand light and laughed.

"No worries. It's fine. I'm touring after a long time too, and a talking companion came, so very good."

The English pronunciation may have been a bit crude, but whether the sincerity carried, the child's mother loosened the tension and gave a light eye greeting.

I exchanged idle talk a long while with the cute little miss called Angie.

Trivial stories, what Australian school life is like, what the dog she raises is named.

To me who lived all my life hearing only curses and shouting on a labor board swarming with rough men, the child's clear voice and harmless questions strangely melted the wall of the heart that had hardened.

It was in the middle of laughing and chatting a long while like that.

The monorail that had been running threading the dark forest of buildings this way and that finally passed the city-center station and entered the Pyrmont Bridge section crossing Darling Harbour.

"Wow... Look at that!"

Angie stuck her nose to the window and exclaimed.

In that moment my view too widened to all sides in an instant, like a lie, and a tremendous scenery poured in.

The dark hidden by building shadows lifted, and sunlight brilliant as if to blind filled the monorail.

Outside the window, Sydney's blue sea was spread without end.

On the water white yachts were moored like a picture, and the glitter receiving the afternoon sun and sparkling like jewels shone beautiful enough to ache the eyes.

Right below the monorail track, people strolling at ease on the old, antique Pyrmont pedestrian bridge made of wood were seen small like ants.

In that overwhelming scenery where the open skyscrapers and blue sky and the boundary of the sea grew vague, the train felt as if floating in the air.

I had always only looked up at buildings, covered in mud and cement dust on the ground.

Even coming here I lived like that.

Unable even to raise my head.

I stared blank at that brilliant scenery, soul gone.

And then, really without any notice.

Tok.

The front of the eyes blurred, and one hot tear fell down the cheek.

"Uh...?"

Flustered, I wiped the tear with the back of my hand.

But the tear gland that burst once, like a dam breaking, could not be controlled at all.

Tears flowed like a broken tap, wet the cheek, and soaked into the gauze on the forehead.

A really sudden, absurd tear.

I myself could not know the reason I was crying.

But from deep in the chest an unknown huge sorrow and relief swirled at once and blocked the throat.

Looking back, my life was always war.

The shabby poverty in Korea, the betrayal of people I trusted, the misery of the body breaking rolling a site all my life.

And even here, where I opened my eyes again like a miracle, I could not once put on leisure and drove myself holding poison to survive.

Even the wrong and misery of having to hold it forced, thinking 'use a fist and the visa flies,' while taking a ruthless club baptism from the guys in the dark lot a few days ago. All those dregs of suppressed emotion collapsed in an instant in front of this dazzling beautiful, peaceful Sydney sea.

"Hup... ukeuk..."

A short breath leaked.

I hurriedly lowered my head and covered my face with the sound right hand.

But I could not hide even the shoulders shaking.

The gazes of people around were felt.

An Asian man, and in a fierce state with the face a blood mess, bandaged and even a cast, leaning on the monorail window crying with shoulders shaking like a child, it would be stranger not to look strange.

Too shameful and embarrassing, a feeling of wanting to hide even in a mouse hole.

Head drooped deep, wiping tears, I drove myself like mad inside.

'Idiot bastard, old and what act is this here. Stop right now. I said stop.'

It was then.

A small, warm warmth carefully settled above the head.

Quietly raising my head, little Angie who had been standing beside me was looking at me with eyes full of worry.

The child quietly stroked the gauze on my forehead with a small bracken-like hand, then began softly stroking my head, as if soothing a wounded large beast.

Angie smiled sunny and whispered low.

"It's okay. You're gonna be really okay."

That short comfort in a clumsy pronunciation became a warm pat I had never heard from anyone all my life, and stabbed deep in my chest without mercy.

"······."

Instead of answering I lowered the drooped head deeper.

Every time the child's small hand swept the hair, the rough sediment piled layer on layer inside me for over ten years became tears and fell drop by drop to the floor.

Inside that small monorail crossing the blue sea of Darling Harbour as if flying through the air, I swallowed crying without a word for a long while like that.

Under Sydney's brilliant sky, the moment my old wounds finally began to heal.

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