Returner's Magic Laundry

Chapter 64

His eyes were somehow familiar, like those of mine when I decided to die in my previous life.

I was startled inside, and maybe because the wind was so staring at me, the man quickly turned his head and looked down on the floor.

He seemed like a small will to block the world’s gaze.

“Ah, Annam. I’m here.”

Kim got up and smiled broadly.

“Yes hello.”

“Oh, this is Grandma Kim’s son. This customer is the person who wants to buy the house. Fortunately, someone showed up to buy it at that price.”

“Good morning.”

When he reached out to say hello, the man just nodded his head and seemed unwilling to hold his hand and didn’t even say hello.

I took my embarrassed hand and gently rubbed it on my pants.

“Is Grandma Kim doing well? She used to be a little friendly, but she went away without a word… … .”

Whether he heard me or not, the man kept his eyes down and didn’t say anything.

When he saw Mr. Kim in frustration, he continued to make gestures as if he was in that state, and then pointed his finger at the printer and said.

“Sit down, Annam. I’ll bring the papers.”

I sat in the front of the man, and Mr. Kim went to the front of the printer and brought the printed documents.

Looking at the documents on the table, the contract had the name of Grandmother Kim Chun-hee written on it.

“Did you bring your power of attorney and your representative’s resident registration card?”

At President Kim’s words, the man presented a power of attorney, his resident registration card, his grandmother’s ID and family relations certificate from his chest.

The man’s identification card had the name “Jang Gypsum” written on it, and the address on the document was the same as the address he gave to his grandmother.

‘Then the story is that this man’s house is the house I’ve been to.’

President Kim wrote the contract in front of us and showed us a copy of the register.

“The house is clean with no loans.”

He said that the documents before registration will be entrusted to the solicitor for processing.

“Here, when the two of you sign the paperwork, the contract ends.”

Having received the ballpoint pen, I stopped to sign the contract and asked Mr. Jang Seok-go.

“Is Grandma Kim doing well? You left without saying a word, so we were a little embarrassed too.”

To my words, Mr. Jang Seok-go replied with his head lowered.

“… … Yeah.”

The man answered as if he was forced to groan, and then remained silent.

“that… … You might hate it when I say this. House prices in this neighborhood are rising these days. If you leave the house unsold, the price will rise considerably later. Until then, I’d like to let Grandma Kim live in that house. Some of her friends also… … .”

“I don’t want to do that.”

When Jang Seok-go stopped talking expressionlessly, I was at a loss for words.

you don’t want to do that

It wasn’t clear if that meant she didn’t want to sell the house, or if she didn’t want to do what her grandmother wanted to live in that house.

Maybe both.

Then, as if in embarrassment, Kim grabbed my shoulder.

It seemed like he meant why he said that.

“Ho Ho. Annam, please sign quickly.”

As President Kim stabbed him in the side, he had no choice but to sign the autograph.

After that, Jang Seok-go signed the autograph as if he was waiting.

“Annam, did you bring your down payment?”

“Yeah.”

I held out the deposit envelope that I had withdrawn from the bank.

“Please check if the amount is correct.”

“That’s right.”

Jang Seok-go put it in his inner pocket without checking the inside of the envelope.

“Then, if Annam pays the balance on the day she moves in, then all the documents before registration will be complete. When will you move in?”

“I will be fine tomorrow. The sooner the better.”

Jang Seok-go said:

The house was vacant anyway, so the move-in date didn’t matter.

“But the things are still there in the house.”

When President Kim spoke, Mr. Jang Seok-go spoke without hesitation.

“Thank you for giving it away.”

At his words, I thrust his body forward like a spring bouncing, and spit out his words.

Unknowingly, there was a bit of anger.

“no. You can’t throw away the things Grandma Kim used. I will figure it out.”

At my words, Jang Seok-go raised his head and looked at me.

Still his pupils seemed soulless, and his impatience trembled slightly on one of his legs, as if he just wanted to get out of this place quickly.

It seemed we were making him uneasy.

Jang Seok-go, who looked at me, slowly shifted his gaze to Mr. Kim, then continued out of the show window and looked at people passing by.

Then he lowered his head to the floor again.

“… … Yes. That’s right.”

After giving a short answer, Jang Seok-go got up from his seat as if he wanted to finish it off, took the documents and went outside.

I hurriedly followed.

“If you have time, would you like a cup of tea? My shop is over there.”

“… … I don’t want to do that.”

“Then let’s talk for a moment… … .”

“I don’t want to do that.”

Then Jang Seok-go answered without looking back.

“there… … Chun-hee Kim Will I be able to meet her grandmother? Still, we were pretty close, so I want to see her face for the last time.”

“like that… … .”

He paused his speech for a moment, took a deep breath and spoke again.

“… … You wouldn’t want to.”

Jang Seok-go, who left the same answer three times to three questions, got on the bus and left.

It’s like drifting out of this town.

Mr. Kim stood next to me and me and looked at him.

“It seemed that he was also in urgent need of money. I kept lowering the price because I didn’t want the house to go out. By the way, you should take good care of Grandma Kim. I’m worried about her grandma, but I’m more worried about Grandma Kim. From what I heard earlier, it seemed like he was working at a construction site and barely came here.”

“Yeah.”

Returning to the laundromat, I was lost in thought.

I thought that the man was speaking like Bartleby, the main character in the scribe Bartleby in the novel Herman Melville that I had read before.

Bartleby, a scribe hired by a Wall Street lawyer’s office, says this with a soulless face whenever his employer asks him to do something other than a given job.

[I don’t want to do that.]

Bartleby eventually refuses to be pushed out of his job, but he dies of voluntary starvation in prison.

We have been divided over different interpretations of whether Bartleby is a social misfit, a powerless worker driven by capitalism, a symbol of a stubborn artist, or a voluntarily chosen life of hunger.

I’ve been saying the same thing over and over again.

It was when I thought that I had no hope of continuing my life, when I laid out plans full of vain hopes and encouraged them to put them into practice.

The people who cared for me had a hard time seeing me ruined like that.

Each time, I endured it and finally spit it out one word at a time.

– What good is that?

– I don’t want to do that.

-It’s only going to fall further down the abyss.

Everyday life, life itself, was full of negativity.

Even a small hope for me, by putting a needle in a syringe, and injecting it into my blood vessels, vomiting came up.

I was worried that Jang Seok-go might be in the same situation now.

Her grandmother Kim might have felt the same way from her son.

* * *

A few days later, I picked up her grandma’s laundry and climbed the hill.

Her hand grandmother was sitting alone in her pavilion, blankly looking down at Seoul.

“Grandma, why are you here? It is still windy.”

“Oh, Annam is here? I get bored just staying at home.”

“It will be warm in a little while.”

“That’s it. When it got warmer, I was going to sit in this pavilion with Grandma Kim and boil corn to eat. Who are you eating with now?”

“I am there. You can eat it with me and Yongcheon.”

“… … okay.”

As Grandma Sohn said so, she looked down at the distant city with soulless eyes.

“It’s okay to live there. However, recently, he often talked about whether he was thinking of his son. It’s a hundred times better to be with my children than to be here with me. If my children had come, I would have already left.”

The hand grandmother made a sound that was not even on her mind.

I hit her with a sound that I didn’t even like.

“I met my son earlier, and he made a good impression, and he seemed to be taking good care of Grandma Kim.”

“okay? If so, that’s good.”

We both looked down at the Seoul sky without a word for a while.

“Nevertheless… … . I want Grandma Kim to come back. Am I too selfish? Without her grandmother Kim, the world cannot be so boring and quiet. Grandma Kim was a little noisy.”

Grandma Son looked at me and smiled slightly.

“Actually, so am I. Without Grandma Kim, I feel bored all over the world. She wants her grandmother back.”

I put her hand grandmother’s laundry in the house and came back.

After that day, I visited Jang Seok-go’s house several times, wondering if I could ever meet Grandma Kim.

However, I couldn’t meet Kim, and I only saw Jang Seok-go a few times, who went to work at dawn.

After he left for work, he knocked on the door of room 315, but there was no sign of popularity.

Then the lady in Room 314 opened the door, and she poked her head out and put out her trash bag.

“Oh, he’s here again.”

The old woman who was about to close her door as she said those words made her face as if she had thought of something.

“Oh, not long ago I saw an old woman standing in front of the front door of Room 315.”

She just said those words and slammed the door in an instant! Closed-up old lady.

With regret, she tried to knock on the door and call her, but she stopped.(Read more @ wuxiax.com)

‘Did Grandma Kim come here?’

As she was about to give up and go back, a thought suddenly crossed her mind.

‘nursing home!’

When I first came here, mail from the nursing home was mixed with the mail I handed over without much thought.

I didn’t mind it because I was checking the name of the head of the household.

If you took Grandma Kim to a nursing home, it made sense that she wasn’t in this house.

Jang Seok-go, who has to work during the day, does not have time to take care of his elderly mother.

Of course he must have looked for a place to leave him somewhere.

Without even opening it, I looked at the neglected mail again.

He must have known several sanatoriums, and there were mails promoting the sanatorium from various places.

Then a low, powerless man’s voice was heard.

“What’s going on here?”

When I turned around, Mr. Jang Seok-go was looking at me with a squint and squinted his body not far away.

Perhaps he looked at me in front of the house and thought about whether to avoid him or not.

I answered in a panic like someone caught stealing.

“uh… … Sorry. I want to see Grandma Kim’s face even.”

The man did not speak for a while, then sat down on the railing and lowered his gaze to the ground.

He wondered where a man would look if there was no floor in the world.

“You seem to think that I came to her mother’s house because I wanted it. Like someone who would do anything bad to her mother.”

I was terrified at Jang Seok-go’s words.

“that’s… … .”

“The real estate owner, his mother’s friend, and the neighbors in the world… … Everyone seemed to see me that way.”

“It was because Grandma Kim suddenly sold her house.”

“It’s boring. That kind of look.”

“… … .”

“I don’t want to clear up such a misunderstanding, but… … It was my mother who gave up the house. He called and said he was going to sign a contract. Even then, she never thought that her mother would not be there.”

When I heard Jang Seok-go’s words, I felt ashamed.

I always looked at him with that gaze.

“I am looking for where she is.”

“Yeah?”

“I also reported it to the police, but they didn’t even listen to me because my appearance was shabby. I have reported it.”

“Then this is… … ?”

Jang Seok-go’s eyes fluttered for an instant when he shook the mail from the nursing home piled up in front of the house.