WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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Chapter 25: Crafting (2)

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"Wow... I'm speechless. That was just so amazing..."

If Kim Tae-yang had anything that could be called a virtue, it was that he worshipped strength. Down to the cellular level, at that.

"Go fetch the bird."

"Mm."

Kim Tae-yang trudged off and picked up the wood pigeon as if under a spell. On the way back, the question floated up in his head: "Huh, why am I playing flunky?" But by then his body, more honest than his mind, had already handed the pigeon over.

Han San took the bird as if it were the most natural thing in the world and picked up a sickle with his other hand.

He snapped the neck off, slit the belly, and pulled out the guts. Watching those practiced hands, Kim Tae-yang kept licking the air.

"Wow, for real. Look how the hands just know it. A guy who didn't get a hunter for a dad, how's he supposed to live with himself?"

Han San gave a short laugh.

He'd never said a word about it, yet Kim Tae-yang just assumed he'd learned it from his father. And only a few days ago this was the same brat who'd looked down on that father as a "crippled slash-and-burn settler"; now here he was, gazing on with such envy. Both things got a laugh out of him.

It wasn't a bad feeling.

"So what's that sack for?"

When he jerked his chin at the sack sitting in the yard, the kid snapped to attention.

"Ah! Look at me, losing my head." Kim Tae-yang smacked his own forehead, then put on a smug face and grabbed the sack. "Alright! Get ready to feast your eyes!"

Whoosh, rattle!

With the dust as its carpet, all sorts of junk came spilling out into the yard.

Han San was speechless.

Cracked roof tiles, rotted straw rope, a sack with a hole in it, a stub of a broom...

"Hey."

"How about it? Lots, right?"

"Lots, sure. Did you come to dump your garbage in my family's yard?"

At Han San's cold reaction, Kim Tae-yang scratched the back of his head.

"No, I mean, the only stuff my uncle wouldn't bother about even if it went missing was junk like this, so what was I supposed to do..."

"What was I supposed to do? I'm going crazy here, for real."

Han San kicked through the heap of trash with disgust. He talked like that, but he'd already started figuring out "what to do."

"Hey, set this one and this one aside. That one too, and, ah, that one as well. And that thing."

"This one?"

"Yeah, that one. And the one next to it... no, not that one, the one under your foot! Yeah, that one."

Every time Han San pointed something out, Kim Tae-yang gathered it up and set it aside without a clue why.

A record split clean in half, a chunk of galvanized sheet metal gone red with rust, a bottle of who-knew-how-old blackened cooking oil, a piece of the wire mesh from Go Tae-chon's chicken coop that the badger had wrecked, and so on...

"What are these for?"

"What do you mean, what for, you idiot? No, seriously, what did you even bring this stuff for? Didn't you bring it to trade for badger oil?"

"No, I mean, that's true, but... what on earth can you even do with any of this?"

The self-proclaimed peddler who didn't believe in his own merchandise wore a face that said he just couldn't understand.

Explaining was a pain, but then a thought struck Han San, and he grinned.

"You wanna know?"

"...Supposing I said I wanted to know?"

Han San shoved the slingshot loosely into the waist of his trousers, thought he really ought to make himself something like a belt one of these days, and gestured with his chin at the cement sack.

"Pick that up and follow me."

"And supposing, now that I think about it, I don't really want to know that badly?"

Kim Tae-yang edged backward. Somehow, the conversation was heading in a direction as dubious as a village mutt's piss stream.

Han San wore an expression that said he couldn't care less.

"Then go. Just know you'll never find out what I'm gonna do with this stuff. Ever."

"Uh, uh..."

Kim Tae-yang faltered. Anguish surfaced on the face of the former Gyeongseong boy.

Han San figured he understood now why medicine peddlers always pulled out a snake before they started selling. There's no surer bait than swelling someone's anticipation.

Han San drove the wedge home.

"Watch the whole thing through to the end and I'll give you double the badger oil."

"Ah, for real? You'll give me double?"

It was the kind of offer he couldn't help being tempted by.

Sure, he'd only grabbed stuff his uncle wouldn't notice, but it wasn't like nobody was watching him at all, and there was no telling how long it would take to gather this much again.

And now that haul was getting copied.

'I get to scratch my curiosity and double the amount... this is just pure profit, isn't it?'

Calculation done, Kim Tae-yang rolled up his sleeves.

"Alright! I just carry it and follow you, right?"

Sadly, Kim Tae-yang didn't know.

That if Han San had decided from the start to give him only a chick's-teardrop amount, then double that came out to a grand total of two drops of a chick's tears.

Han San stretched out long.

'A simple fool playing at being shrewd.'

Now that he had free labor too, it was time to do some patching up on the house.

The empty lot beside the Han family's spring.

"Aaargh! My back! Hey, my back's gonna snap!"

Kim Tae-yang's screams echoed.

Right now he was stomping mud and cement together barefoot, kneading them, his face a picture of dying.

"Stomp it good. If it clumps up, the wall cracks."

"No, why aren't we using sand! Ah! What kind of cement uses dirt, ugh, it's so stiff I'm gonna die!"

"To haul sand you'd have to go all the way to Meokbawi Valley. Then dig it up there, sift it through a screen, and lug all that back here too... You gonna do all that?"

"No, why the hell would I do that!"

"If you're not gonna do it, then just stomp, quietly. And, idiot, the dirt's what makes the amount go further."

A single sack of cement with sand could barely do one face of a wall.

For now, something good enough for the urgent job was all that mattered.

What Han San was doing now ran on the same logic. He was transforming the [garbage] Kim Tae-yang had brought into [tools good enough for the urgent job].

"Hey, hey. When you stomp, don't let it spill out the sides. Cement's precious."

"Ah, shit, ah, I got it!"

Take, for instance, the pile of cement Kim Tae-yang was so busy stomping right now.

The spot where it was being mixed was on top of a scrap of tarp the kid had brought. Han San had spread the pieces out, layered them up, and made a makeshift [mixing board].

"Heave-ho."

Meanwhile, Han San cut the stripped, rusted sheet metal into a rectangle. He ground the sharp corners smooth against a stone.

Next came the broken record fragments. When he held a burning branch up to them, the once-hard plate went limp and droopy, like a taffy stick under the blazing sun.

'For a glue substitute, this beats pine resin by a mile.'

Using the melted record as adhesive, he stuck a block of wood to the back of the sheet metal he'd cut earlier. In no time a passable [trowel] was made.

And then the rancid cooking oil.

"Hey, Tae-yang. When you finish mixing, sprinkle this on as you knead it."

"This? Ah, shit, it's sticky and slimy, doesn't do a single thing right, just makes a whole mess..."

"Waterproofing agent. Mix it into the cement and water won't soak in as easily."

"Ah, for real?"

"Ah, for real."

Half believing, half doubting, Kim Tae-yang poured the oil. The stiff mud-cement mixture, once it had drunk the oil, did indeed start to take on a sort of supple, sticky feel.

"Ah, it really is. Though the feel against my feet's gotten more like crap somehow..."

"When you slap it on the wall it'll stick like a wad of crap too."

There was no telling how many times it had been reused or how long it had been stashed away in some storeroom, but even that scrap of waste cooking oil found another use in Han San's hands.

Tap, tap, hammer, hammer.

Watching Han San splice two or three pieces of junk together and easily turn out a makeshift tool, Kim Tae-yang couldn't keep his mouth shut.

"Where on earth did you learn this?"

"Where do you think I learned it?"

"Where else... ah, wait! Don't tell me. I'll guess... ah! You learned it from your dad, right? Right?"

Asking himself and answering himself, Kim Tae-yang then put on a self-impressed face all on his own.

"Wow, your dad, for real... I respect him. Guess there's nothing a Baekdu Mountain hunter can't do, huh."

Han San only gave a small laugh and didn't bother to correct him. The way the kid seemed to regard his father as some kind of all-powerful mountain spirit wasn't a bad sight either.

That was when it happened.

"San! You've got a visitor!"

It was his mother's voice.

When she'd asked what two grown men were making such a racket about so early in the morning, and whether there was anything she could help with, Han San had handed her the wood pigeon he'd caught and pushed her off with, "Mother, just cook us some food."

After that she'd gone out to dig arrowroot, and it seemed she'd run into someone on her way back and brought them along.

"Huh? Baechil hyung?"

Han San dropped what he was doing, went out through the kitchen, and found Im Baechil sweating buckets, an A-frame carrier loaded with a full heap on his back.

"Ah, hello..."

"What brings you out here, hyung?"

"Um, that, you know how last time you gave me rice and meat... my mom saw it and said, you know, shouldn't I bring you something in return..."

Im Baechil set down the A-frame carrier. Inside it was packed full of glossy oak charcoal.

"The charcoal I was firing happened to be about ready, so... ah, of course, this, um, it can't really make up for what you gave me, but..."

"Aigo, what are you saying! Such a precious thing!" Ham Ssang-sim and Han San cried in unison.

Ham Ssang-sim and Han San looked at each other. Then, with neither leading the other, they burst out laughing. Mother and son's reactions had overlapped completely, right down to the intonation and the posture.

'A few decades passing isn't enough to fool the blood.'

Quietly satisfied by that, Han San ran his hand over the charcoal Im Baechil had brought.

"Not bad. Good sheen, nice and hard too."

The kind of charcoal good enough that even those plundering geniuses at the cooperative would grade it top quality. Even in a poor household, you could feel the care packed into every piece.

'And besides... charcoal isn't something you can only use for grilling.'

Han San's eyes flashed.

"Baechil hyung, you came at just the right time."

"Huh?"

"The base of the house. It's been rotting, and I was just about to do something about it. But with this..."

Han San pulled out a few pieces of charcoal and brought them to one of the spots he'd had his eye on. Just as he'd said, the base of the house was blackened on one side and rotted pale white on the other.

Im Baechil, who'd followed Han San without a clue, still didn't have one once they got there.

"What can you do with this?"

"Charcoal sucks moisture right up, right? You grind it, spread it, then cover it with cement, and it blocks the damp, so it works as rot-proofing. Keeps the termites down a bit too."

"R-really?"

Im Baechil blinked. Come to think of it, the spot where the charcoal had sat did seem less damp.

'Old Woman Wangdae said it too: if you want to drive off evil spirits, hang up some charcoal...'

While Im Baechil was thinking that, Han San grinned and took hold of his hand.

"But there's one problem, hyung."

"What problem?"

"Grinding charcoal's no easy job, right? Especially this. Your family fired this charcoal with so much care. Look how hard it is. Wow. Grinding it with just my own strength would be a real..."

By this point Im Baechil understood what Han San wanted.

He thumped his chest and stepped forward.

"I'll do it! I'm good at the heavy work..."

"I'd be grateful if you would."

Han San clapped him on the shoulder as if he were dependable, but Ham Ssang-sim wore a worried expression.

"Baechil, will you be alright? If you've got other business after this, you don't have to push yourself..."

"I'm fine, ma'am! I told you last time, didn't I? Be sure and call me whenever there's something I can help San with..."

More than anything, helping put Im Baechil's heart far more at ease. Otherwise it would keep popping up like some shameful memory and nag at his conscience.

Han San knew Im Baechil's nature well, which was exactly why he'd brought it up. Slinging an arm over Baechil's shoulder, Han San grinned.

"Alright then, your son's off to work again, Mother. Please make the food nice and tasty."

"Oya! And Kkokko just laid an egg too, so I'll stew that wood pigeon you caught nice and tender for you. Just you wait!"

So Han San came back to the spring with Im Baechil.

Im Baechil started in surprise.

"Tae-yang? What are you doing here?"

Kim Tae-yang, who'd still been frantically mixing the mud-cement, went round-eyed at Im Baechil's sudden appearance. Only for a moment. Then he glared.

"Ah, shit, Im Baechil, is your head really full of rocks? What's it look like I'm doing? Huh? Can't you see I'm mixing cement?"

"Ah... s-sorry..."

"Ha, shit, for real. What kind of mutt's labor is this, first thing in the morning... good thing you came. Hey, hurry up and take over for me..."

Kim Tae-yang, waving Im Baechil over, suddenly stopped mid-word.

Han San was staring straight at him without a word.

After a moment, Kim Tae-yang cleared his throat.

"Wh... what? San."

Han San said it short.

"Baechil hyung's got something else to do."

"Ah, for real? Ah... you could've said so, here I was... no, anyway, I'll keep doing this!"

With a heh-heh laugh, Kim Tae-yang started mixing the cement again.

Only then did Han San pull his gaze off the kid and smile at Im Baechil.

"Alright then, hyung. Grind some charcoal for me like I said."

"Uh... uh, uh-huh! O-okay, San!"

Im Baechil, who'd been cowering, snapped to and started grinding the charcoal.

So the three Sebeom Valley layabouts began working, each in his own role.

One mixed the cement, one made tools, one ground the charcoal.

With three of them at it, the prep for the work was done in no time. Han San scooped up the mud-cement, laid it on a backing board he'd also made on the fly, and stepped up to the outer wall of the house.

A log cabin is built by stacking logs and packing the gaps with mud to harden them. As time passes, the dirt naturally crumbles and the wooden frame inside gets exposed.

Han San held the rusted chicken-coop wire mesh against the exposed frame and eyed the angle. Kim Tae-yang asked him in a low voice.

"That mesh gonna work?"

"Clothes and bandages aren't the same thing."

Han San set the cut mesh against a gap between the logs where the dirt had crumbled away especially deep, and drove in a clamp. Since it was only going to be used temporarily, there was no need to waste a precious iron nail. A wooden wedge he'd taken a quick moment to make was enough.

Then he troweled the mud-cement on over it, slathering it thick, and even a small amount filled the gap perfectly.

"Oh... pretty clever."

Kim Tae-yang was impressed, but Han San clicked his tongue. He really needed to build a proper brick house one of these days.

While he was thinking that, Kim Tae-yang lowered his voice and whispered.

"...Hey, San."

"What."

"But why do you keep going Baechil hyung, Baechil hyung? It's lame."

Han San glanced sideways at him.

"He's older."

Kim Tae-yang's eyes went wide, like a Confucian scholar hearing the news of the Eulsa Treaty[1].

"Hey, what kind of... no, being older makes him your hyung? Does that even make sense?"

"Hmm... Tae-yang."

Han San wanted to put a hand to his forehead. But his hand was a little too dirty for that just now, so he had no choice but to put it to Kim Tae-yang's forehead instead. Wiped his hand off in the process, too.

"Sometimes when I talk with you, I find it hard to follow the way your head works, you know? No, more precisely, I do understand it. Where in the world would there be a guy easier to understand than you? It's just that I don't want to spend my brainpower on that understanding. How should I put it... or rather, I just don't want to understand it, so could you translate it for me? In plain terms?"

"What are you on about?"

"That's exactly what you just said. What are you on about?"

Kim Tae-yang blinked, then caught the drift and shouted with an indignant face.

"He's your hyung just because he's older!? You've gotta act like a hyung to be one!?"

"Hmm... Tae-yang. The reason I went on so long just now was because I was hoping you'd go on and say, at this point, [So what acting like a hyung means is...]. So would you go ahead and spit that part out too?"

"Acting like a hyung means, so... ah, you know! Being strong, being cool! And that thing, having swagger and all, huh? That's the qualification for being a hyung."

How could that exchange not reach Im Baechil, grinding charcoal right beside them?

Unable to bear it, Im Baechil dropped his head low.

"It's-it's fine! Tae-yang's right too... it's true I'm not cool, and..."

Even that trailed off so quietly it was hard to hear. A bear-sized man with the courage of a mouse.

Han San fell into thought for a moment.

'Am I acting a bit like a stuffy old man?'

Was a seventy-four-year-old geezer coming down too hard on the punk just because he didn't like the sight of him?

'Could be.'

Han San nodded. Along with a sigh.

Kim Tae-yang, seeing that, was about to get his swagger back up when...

"Still, Tae-yang, let's just call him hyung. And quit being a brat about it, too."

Han San said it. Kim Tae-yang glared.

"Ah, why!?"

"Because, Tae-yang. I call Baechil hyung my hyung, so if you go around treating him as an equal, the family tree gets tangled."

Han San rubbed the wall with the trowel as he spoke evenly.

"And then, Tae-yang, I'm in a shitty mood. Wouldn't that be reason enough?"

"Hmm..."

Kim Tae-yang shut his mouth.

He thought hard.

Again, if Kim Tae-yang had any virtue, it was that he worshipped strength.

"That does... seem like reason enough."

"Right? Then let's wrap it up and get to work. Yeah?"

"Yeah..."

[1] The Eulsa Treaty of 1905 stripped Korea of its diplomatic sovereignty and made it a protectorate of Imperial Japan; its signing provoked outrage and protest suicides among Confucian scholars and officials.

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