Sunny weather. Vivid sunlight. It’s a weather putting you in a good mood. I came to the park I found before when I passed next to it and took a smoke.
“Hoo…ah. Sweet.”
The tobacco smoke diffusing in the air. I became used to the cigarette I started to smoke in the army when a senior soldier convinced me that it had a taste of apple, and I got so used to it that after 6 years, I could really tell you that it had a taste of apple. And especially the taste of smoke after being deprived from smoking even a single cigarette the whole morning was really even more delicious than an apple.
“Excuse me, mister.”
“This is a park where kids play, so smoking is a bit… It’d be nice if you could smoke in another place.”
“Ah. I’m sorry.”
I hurriedly put out the cigarette with my foot. Even so, I could still feel the madam’s cold stare. When I took the extinguished cigarette butt, the madam took her child’s hand and move away. Is there no place where I could smoke? Nowadays, everywhere is a nonsmoking area. No smoke area were to be found in this park too. Shit. Smokers treated lower than Middle Ages’ slaves, huh.
“Mom. But why is that mister not going to work? When daddy went to work.”
A cute little girl who looked to be around 5 or 6 too easily said something that would’ve hurt me if I really was unemployed. Little missy, you probably will make a few men cry when you’ll get older. Saying such hurtful things like they were nothing. But I’m a proud worker. I don’t get hurt for that little.
“Shh. Don’t say such thing.”
The madam put her index finger on her lips and whispered to her. As if it would be a disaster if I heard it.
“That could hurt when you say it in front of people who are concerned about it. He looks like he’s looking for a job but something went wrong I guess.”
I hear everything you say while you think you talk quietly. Hey madam, I’m not jobless! The way she talks, it seems she’s really convinced that I’m jobless.
“Why? Why would it hurt?”
It does hurt, little missy! You evil. Her mom said something more later on but since they got further away, I couldn’t hear more.
Ha. Well…I’m in the middle of a park in the morning when the sun is at its summit. No matter how I look around, I see no men around my age but mostly old people or madams with their kids. If not, only kindergarten teachers with kindergarteners.
Sometimes, a few old people visiting the park looked at me who sat on the park bench and clicked their tongue. Geez. It’s my problem if I do nothing or not. I don’t know why they are so concerned by me.
Well…I’m smoking alone on a park bench with a black suit. Anybody would see me as a poor guy who’s gone for a job interview that didn’t go so well.
Damn. It makes me want to smoke so badly, even more when I smoked only one and that I had to stop because of other. I looked around the park to find some smoking area but nowhere to be found.
Fucking government. Do you mean smokers shouldn’t even come to the park or what? Why is there no smoking area? Shit. It’s so sorrowful that I should either stop smoking or whatever.
Since I can’t smoke, it makes me want to grab a bite. Should I go eat something? Yeah, the guys who went to eat in restaurants without me are probably eating by now so I should do the same. Let’s eat.
Next to the park entrance, there were a simple snack bar, a cafe and a noodle restaurant. There was a street further ahead and there’d be more restaurants there but I feel too lazy to go that far. I’ll soon have to get back and where I have to go is the opposite side of that street.
I thought a little but just bought two rolls of Kimbap at the snack bar and got back to the park. If I went in the cafe or the noodle restaurant, I could eat a more proper meal but I’m afraid the smell would be impregnate my clothes.
I brought the Kimbap and sat to the long table in the park that could be for the picnic. But when I tried to eat the Kimbap, the gazes around started to feel too much.
I look so pitiful that anybody who sees me while passing around would think so and even I would. Eating a roll of Kimbap in a suit, sitting on a park bench. Doesn’t this look like there’s a behind story? A pitiful one moreover.
‘Shit. I should’ve eaten it in the snack bar.’
I came here as I was afraid the smells like Tteokbokki’s would impregnate my cloth but I now regret the decision. But I cannot eat what I bought. So I ate two or three pieces at once. I ate so quickly that I was choking. I went to the snack bar to ask a cup of water and drank it and finally, the kimbap choked in throat started to go down. I ate so quickly that I don’t even know what taste it had.
“Damn. Still 30 minutes left.”
There’s still a lot of time left even after eating all the Kimbap. The time is going fucking slowly. I should just waste my time looking at people.
Light blue, light red, white, white, white…Oh. That kid is a bit red but very bright. Yeah, that’s how it should be for little children.
…You probably wonder what the heck I’m doing now. I’m observing people. The difference with a common observation is that I’m not just watching the outlook but watching the person’s soul.
Yeah, that’s right. I can see the soul. It’s not a mistake. I really can see it. The soul envelops the person like an aura and shines. But it’s not like I can see the soul perfectly clear. I can just see the color and the brightness. However, I could know few things even with seeing only these.
The color means the personality. The more it was blue, the more cooler the person was, the more it was red, the more hot blooded the person was. The brightness was about deeds? Karma? I don’t know how I should put it but anyway, it’s definitely that the brighter it is, the kinder the person, and the darker it is, the more evil the person was.
I suddenly got this power this morning. I didn’t get it from nowhere but should I say from my dream? I becomes an orc in my dream and that orc received a certain skill from a god. Something called “Karok’s sight”. And the effect of this skill is that you can see the color of the soul. And I could also use that. The skill that the orc from my dream received.
I suddenly got this power this morning. I didn’t get it from nowhere but should I say from my dream? I becomes an orc in my dream and that orc received a certain skill from a god. Something called “Karok’s sight”. And the effect of this skill is that you can see the color of the soul. And I could also use that. The skill that the orc from my dream received.
I know this is just absurd but…it really happened. Thanks to it, I don’t know how big I was surprised in my commute. Suddenly seeing the color of people’s soul, I also thought at first that my eyes had something wrong. But then I soon knew it was the skill the orc from the dream received and not long after that I knew what effect it had….I just got to know like that. Although I did nothing special.
It wasn’t long since I got this power so I didn’t know other utilities it could have but it is fun to watch people’s personality or their karma. Since it’s something only I could see and not others.
Wow, that person is very red. Wouldn’t he directly punch you if you talked to him? I quickly turned my gaze to somewhere else. Let’s not meet his eyes. It’d be only a loss for me if I were to get into a trouble.
I somehow managed to kill 30 minutes by watching soul colors of people passing by. My job’s really great in overall but the time I have to wait from time to time are just too boring.
I came out of the park and went towards the parking lot next to the Hanok standing proudly alone between modern buildings. That Hanok was the restaurant where the people I was waiting on did go.
Using a large single-floored Hanok built in the middle of Seoul full of skyscrapers as a restaurant itself meant that it was a really expensive restaurant. A place so expensive that it’s hard to even eat a single Korean dried seaweed (Kim) there for a commoner like me. And the parking lot was so big there’s probably no problem at all for the restaurant’s customers to park here.
I walked towards the black Sedan. It’s a really expensive car. When you say Sedan, Sedan, we feel like it designates expensive cars but in fact, whichever car with a roof was a Sedan. Expensive or not. But this Sedan in front of me was the best among the bests, a really expensive car. And moreover, the car itself was an expensive vehicle but it also had “Full options”.
The so known “Full options”, costing much higher than its utility. If that car was mine, how fantastic would it be. If that was my car, I’d sell it and open a shop with the money. I wonder if it’s worth as much as two convenience stores.
I opened the car trunk, took out a car duster and wiped the whole car. If it was my car, I wouldn’t do it since it’d be too bothersome but I had to clean it well since it wasn’t mine but someone else’s. And that’s also what I’m paid for. Ah. Look at how it shines. I’m really doing a great work as I thought. You could say that I’m an exemplar citizen in the modern ear. If everybody lives like me, wouldn’t the world be 10 times better?
I ventilate the maybe tiny bit smelling inside by opening the car door and opened the cap of the air freshener that didn’t have a strong but a subtle perfume. I checked the water bottle in the back seat if it was opened. It’s intact. I guess there’s no need to replace it with another. I took a mini vacuum cleaner from the trunk and cleaned the inside of the car.
Perfect. Now the preparation is done. So I waited for car’s owner, sitting in the driver’s seat.
[1] Hanok: a korean traditional house/building
[2] Sedan: UK= Saloon, FR = Berline, DE = Limousine