'What is Soo-hyun thinking? Why do I have to come all this way to listen to these people's stories? Just by looking at them, they seem like people who are having a hard time.'
For someone Jaehee's age, the life stories of elders were nothing more than the consolations of failures, and they held no interest for her at all. But Soo-hyun stared intently at Young-hoo and the faces of the people, as if he were waiting for something.
Young-hoo nodded towards the old man who was eating ramen at the corner of the table.
"Well, that old man has been here since before I came to this neighborhood. I heard he was born here. Do you know about the Korean War? His parents fled here and, having nowhere to live, built a shack here with their own hands. He was born and raised here, and he still lives here."
Soo-hyun said,
"Was it difficult to save money and leave?"
Young-hoo burst out laughing.
"Easy? The only property he inherited was a dilapidated house, and he couldn't get a proper education, so the only thing he could do was manual labor. He learned to repair cars to make a living. That damn time he acted as a guarantor is the reason he ended up like this."
The old man eating ramen, having heard Young-hoo's words, said,
"Still, I eat well and I live. You don't need anything else."
Young-hoo smiled brightly at the old man's words. The old man looked at the two children and said,
"Poverty is a disease. It's the most feared of all. If it's caused by laziness or foolishness, it's truly shameful; but if not, it's no disgrace."
Soo-hyun swallowed the question he wanted to ask: 'Have you ever felt resentment towards your poor parents?' But before he could ask, the old man continued,
"My parents survived the bombings and gave birth to me. Can you believe it? If a single piece of shrapnel had hit them, I wouldn't be here today. They deserve my respect. My father always said that the truly poor are not those without money, but those who are never satisfied."
The life stories of the elderly continued for a while. There was a person who had saved a lot of money but ended up here after being a guarantor. Another woman said she lived here for over ten years, hiding from her husband who abused her daily. A past that seemed equally miserable, yet no one who told their story did so without laughing.
Jaehee, who had been letting the stories go in one ear and out the other, began to listen more attentively.
'Their stories aren't funny. I wonder why they're laughing. If something like that happened to me, I would just live on, unable to die. Why are they laughing like that?'
Soo-hyun, who had been listening, winked at Sambok, who was eating ramen on the kitchen threshold.
"What about that man?"
Young-hoo frowned for a moment.
"Sambok's story… is not good for children to hear."
Sambok, who was eating ramen, looked up.
"What, what about me?"
"No, it's not that you're doing anything wrong. I just don't want to talk about it with the children."
'That makes me even more curious.'
"It's okay, sir," Soo-hyun said. "Does Mr. Sambok live with his family?"
Young-hoo smiled bitterly and shook his head.
"No."
After Sambok finished eating, he sat down on the floor.
"Do you know about the U.S. army?"
Jaehee, frightened by Sambok's large, sturdy arms, took a step back. Soo-hyun nodded.
"American soldiers."
"Yes. U.S. soldiers stationed in Korea. One of them was my father."
"I see. Your name is Sambok, so you must have been born here."
"Yes, that's right."
"Wow, that's amazing!"
Young-hoo smiled bitterly.
'Will you still say it's amazing after hearing the rest?'
Sambok smiled kindly and looked up at the sky.
"My mother was a prostitute."
The elders, including Young-hoo, fell silent. Soo-hyun tilted his head and asked with innocent eyes.
"What is that?"
Jaehee gripped Soo-hyun's shirt tightly. The girl seemed to know what it was. When Soo-hyun looked at her with a questioning expression, she shook her head slightly, signaling him to stop asking questions. But Sambok, pushing his black hair back, said,
"A woman who takes money for sex."
Soo-hyun tilted his head again.
'There are people who get paid just for sleeping. It might be an easy job, but will I be able to sleep well if I lie down with someone I don't know? I can count on one hand the days I sleep well, so that job must be very hard.'
"Well," Sambok said calmly, as if he thought Soo-hyun understood. "I don't know my father's face or name. In fact, I didn't know my mother either. Near the U.S. military base, a prostitute who served the soldiers abandoned me on the street right after I was born, in the middle of summer."
"…"
'A mother who worked there abandoned the child she had with an unknown American soldier.'
Only after hearing this did Soo-hyun realize that "prostitute" was not just a job.
"Luckily, the police found me. They said I would have died if they had found me a little later. They sent me to an orphanage. But look at me now. How do I look?"
Soo-hyun saw Sambok.
'Sturdy build, over 190 cm tall. He looks very healthy. He must have exercised a lot.'
"No, that's not it."
"Well, he's very handsome. He has a small head and broad shoulders."
The pure gaze of the child. It wasn't just about saying nice things. Sambok, who felt that sincerity, said with a bitter smile.
"No, I'm black."
Soo-hyun's eyes widened.
"Why is that a problem?"
Sambok, laughing, continued.
"I've heard that these days, children from multicultural families are popular. But it wasn't like that 40 years ago when I was born. Everyone looked at me with bad eyes. Even though I spent hours in the orphanage bathrooms scrubbing myself to be like my friends, I was still black."
'I don't understand. Why are skin colors different? What's the problem?'
"I envied my friends who blushed when they were embarrassed and turned pale when they were sick. I am always black. Asians also get upset when white people discriminate against them. But those same Asians saw black people as 'dangerous people'."
'People of color. According to Sambok, aren't white people, whose color changes constantly, people of color? Why are people of color the ones who are always the same color?'
Jaehee, worried that Soo-hyun might hurt Sambok's feelings, clung to his shirt.
"Unlike other mixed-race children, I was very black. They treated me like a foreigner. At school, my friends called me briquette, little blackie, charcoal, slave, and fried chicken. As a child, I cried every day. But I didn't have parents to comfort me."
Jaehee pressed her lips together tightly. She knew that feeling well. There are things that not even a father can satisfy.
"I left the orphanage and wandered around. I even thought about going to America. But, you know, you need money to get on a plane. So I thought I should work."
Sambok said with a hollow laugh.
"If I drove a delivery motorcycle, people would complain and not eat the food. If I worked in a restaurant kitchen, customers would say it was dirty because of my black hands. If I went to a construction site, they'd fire me, thinking I'd run away with the money. In the end, the only thing I could do was work in dark factories with people like me or illegal immigrants. I would see people wearing the clothes I made and think, 'Will they just wear them and throw them away?'"
Sambok leaned back.
"Back then, my life was full of resentment. I held a grudge against my parents for bringing me into the world like this."
'That was to be expected. Anyone would have. But Sambok's expression is radiant, not the face of someone consumed by resentment.'
"One day, my mother came to visit me."
Jaehee and Soo-hyun looked surprised at the same time.
'His mother came? How did she find the child she abandoned?'
Sambok looked down with a sad smile.
"My mother abandoned me but kept hiding nearby. She saw the police take me, saw me being sent to the orphanage. When I started elementary school and when I graduated, my mother was always watching me from afar."
'That can't be an excuse.'
Sambok continued, as if he had guessed the children's thoughts.
"I asked her, 'Why did you abandon me? If you were going to watch over me like that, shouldn't you have raised me?' The mother who appeared before me was very sick. It turned out she was already sick when she abandoned me."
'What kind of illness was it?,' I was curious, but I felt I shouldn't ask.'
"I think my mother thought she was going to die soon. She heard that if you abandon a child, they can be protected in a center and then adopted, so she abandoned me and watched over me that way. She fought the disease and worked in a restaurant. She saved money for eighteen years. She was going to give it to me. My mother handed me her savings passbook. There were fifty million won in it."
'Fifty million won... Soo-hyun realized how much money that was.'
Sambok said, nodding at Soo-hyun.
"Are your parents good to you?"
Jaehee's hand, holding Soo-hyun's shirt, loosened its grip. Young-hoo gestured to Sambok, and he coughed. But contrary to their worries, Soo-hyun asked a different question.
"Well, I guess so. And what happened after that?"
"Hmm? Oh, we lived together. Until my mother died."
'The mother who abandoned him. Is forgiveness ever possible? After all the pain he suffered. By Soo-hyun's and Jaehee's standards, it was impossible.'
Sambok said, scratching the back of his neck in embarrassment.
"I had a dream."
Jaehee, who thought her mother had also abandoned her, saw Sambok's face smiling in embarrassment.
"To live with Mom for just one day," he said, smiling with his white teeth showing.
Jaehee's head dropped weakly as she looked at Sambok, who was smiling and speaking indifferently. Sambok looked at the houses in the village with tear-filled eyes.
"I was so happy I couldn't bear it. She only lived for a month before she died. I wanted to complain, curse her, torment her. I wanted to give back some of the pain I had received. But I couldn't. On the way home from work, I would walk faster because I wanted to see my mother, who would be waiting for me with dinner ready."