Returner's Magic Laundry

Chapter 54

The closer I got, the more I could hear Kim Bong-sook’s husband humming a song.

“~Not pretty but cute Sarah~ A woman everyone loves~ Even if it is erased when we break up, love is eternal lover~ Oh Sara~ Oh Sara~”

Isn’t that song ‘Oh, Sarah!’ by singer Lee Sang-woo?

Listening to the uncle’s humming song, it seemed that Yoo Jung-ah knew why she named her doll ‘Oh Sara’.

‘By the way, you ate until your nose was crooked today. Where are you going to sleep today?’

Looking at it, I wonder if she had taken off her shoes and opened the door in front of a public phone booth on the roadside.

‘You chose a public phone booth today.’

The old man went into the public phone booth, took off his clothes, hung them on the phone, and fell asleep.

“Hey. Uncle, what if I sleep here? Wake up.”

A passerby saw it and woke him up, but he didn’t budge.

I was going to report it to the police station, so I ran and stopped him.

“Don’t report it. I will take you.”

“Oh, do you know someone?”

“Yeah. little bit.”

Seeing him sleeping soundly in the booth, an idea suddenly came to mind, so I brought a Polaroid camera and took a picture of it.

Then, I got my uncle’s clothes and shoes, woke me up, and brought him into the laundry.

“Uh, who is this? Isn’t that our beloved Bongsuk?”

Knowing that I was Kim Bong-suk, and hugging and kissing her, she really almost hit the street.

As soon as I sat down on a chair and gave him ‘miracle water’, after a while, he wondered if he had come to his senses.

“Uh, here… … Why am I here? I thought it was our house.”

“Are you out of your mind now?”

“… … Did I drink again and slept outside? Oh, that’s crazy.”

The old man wiped his face with both hands as if in embarrassment.

When he saw the tissue stuck in his side, he panicked, took it out and threw it in his trash.

Maybe it was because he drank the miracle water, so he seemed to have broken down to some extent.

Uncle, as if strangely, put her hands together, blown her breath, and sniffed her scent.

“But it’s strange. Why don’t you smell alcohol?”

“It’s probably because you’re on a drug that makes you drink.”

roughly turned around

“Ah… … .”

The old man, who was sneaking a glance at me, rubbed his palms and jumped up from his seat.

“thank you. Then I’ll go see. I’m indebted.”

“Wait. Could you pass this on to Jung-ah Yoo?”

When I held out Yoo Jung-ah’s doll, the uncle looked surprised.

“Oh, this is our Jung-ah. It’s a doll that I never let go of, how could I be here?”

“Jeong-ah entrusted me with the laundry.”

“That… … huh?”

“Do you know the name of this doll?”

“I do not know… … Does the doll have a name?”

“Yes, this is Osara.”

The uncle was a little surprised when he said that the title of the song he always sang when he was drunk was the doll’s name.

“Osara, haha… … The doll was very dirty, but it is very clean. thank you.”

“When I looked at the doll, there were many traces of Yoo Jung-ah chewing it.”

“Ah yes… … .”

“There was a time when my deceased father was also addicted to alcohol for a long time. Maybe it was because things didn’t work out. When I was young, I didn’t like it, so I avoided it. One day, my father got drunk and tried to hug me, but I got away without knowing it. My mind wasn’t like that, but my body became like that.”

“… … .”

“But then, I guess the shock was great, and after a while, he stopped drinking like a lie.”

The old man fiddled with the doll, and then he thought for a moment.

To me, this guy wasn’t that bad.

It feels like alcohol is a sin, not a person.

“… … Then I will go.”

“Yes, good-bye.”

Seeing him off on the way out, he slipped a picture of me into his pocket.

He said that I had taken a secret picture and was not confident to show it to him.

He just wanted to see himself.

I went out to the laundromat and watched for a moment as the old man went scratching his head.

The old man put his hand in his pocket, and when he noticed something, he stood and looked at it for a moment.

‘Oh, I’ve already seen the picture.’

He looked at the picture for a while and then he looked back at me.

‘Did you notice?’

I responded by nodding my head once.

When the traffic light came on blue, the man crossed the street, went to his mart, and snooped around.

Then he waved his hand as if he had found something.

After a while, Kim Bong-suk came out of the mart with her bag, and she motioned for someone inside to come out.

She came out hesitantly as Yoo Jung-ah, but she did not take a step closer to her father, but stood holding her mother’s trousers in the crotch.

Kim Bong-sook began to look around the uncle.

She was probably surprised to see her not drunk in a long time.

When the uncle held out her doll and enticed her, Yoo Jung-ah approached her father, and the uncle gently held her and lifted her up.

Yoo Jeong-ah, who was held by her father, made a bewildered expression for a moment, and then quickly embraced her in her father’s arms.

The three of them went home.

I don’t know what tomorrow will be like, but for today, for the time being, I think we will be able to see a happy family.

I went back to the laundry and thought about the scenario of Go Kun-soo.

I opened the first page and read it carefully from the beginning again.

And I fell into even deeper trouble.

‘What should I do with this? How many more revisions will it get better? I think it would be better to work with one other screenwriter… … .’

I shook my head and looked for my phone.

While looking at the list, the name Kim Wan-jong caught my eye.

He was a teacher in a scenario class I took three times.

He directed one feature film, and was working as a screenplay instructor part-time because the second didn’t work out well.

In addition to being a lecturer, he had several other part-time jobs, one of which was to read screenplays at film companies and pick out works that he wanted to be okay with.

‘Shall I ask my brother? I also participated in the adaptation work a lot, so I think it will be fine… … .’

After taking the same course three times, we became close and at some point called me hyung.

He called and made an appointment to say hello after a long time.

* * *

As I entered the office, Kim Wan-jong, who was reading the script, welcomed me warmly.

Kim Wan-jong was already in his late 30’s, and his hair was already weak and looked brittle.

He did not smoke the cigarette that he had quit smoking, but only put it in his ear.

“Hey, what’s wrong with Annam? Still, I wondered if all of those shorts were filmed back then.”

“Brother, I don’t do movies anymore. I decided to take over the laundry my parents used to run.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Heh heh, it’s not like this, it feels like scratching someone’s leg in the middle of the night. The guy who said he worked so hard to write a screenplay. You’re the only one who’s taken my course three times.”

“It happened.”

“okay? I’m sorry. It was a decision I made after careful consideration, so I can’t say anything.”

“Yes, it was a thoughtful decision.”

“Hmm… … . But what’s going on here? I thought you were coming to see the script again.”

Kim Wan-jong had a talent for writing his own screenplays, even if he was not good at writing other people’s screenplays.

He had pinpointed the strengths, the problems, and the direction of correction.

So, when he entrusted the screenplay, he was terribly unable to write it.

Kim Wan-jong’s specialty was that even if he wanted to like an item, it would become uninteresting if he solved it with a scenario.

As his specialty, he was doing lectures and screenplay review, so he wasn’t in a very desperate state.

So, I had been thinking about whether it would be right for Kim Wan-jong to adapt the screenplay for Go Gun-soo.

Even though I was sitting facing my brother right now, I was still thinking about it in my head.

“do you want to drink coffee?”

“Yes, thank you. Oh, and I brought coffee as a gift. Hyung also lives with coffee and cigarettes in his mouth.”

I held out the well-roasted beans that had been in the glass jar.

“Coffee and cigarettes, hey, that’s the title of a Jim Jarmusch movie. there’s that line do you smoke? Only for coffee. my favorite phrase. But I quit smoking. Can you see this?”

Kim Wan-jong pointed to the cigarette in his ear.

“Right now, I can only smell it. I think smoking makes my hair thinner. It’s been a year and my body is getting healthier, but my mind is going crazy.”

“But there is still coffee left.”

“I mean, if I stop drinking coffee, I might die. Thanks anyway. It’s kind of awkward when you get coffee beans instead of a script. Wait a minute, I’ll bring you some coffee.”

Kim Wan-jong got up from his seat and he went outside.

While waiting, I looked around his older brother’s desk and saw that the printed scenarios formed two mountains around the desk.

From the looks of it, the small mountain is probably the scenario that Kim Wan-jong caught his eye, and the big mountain is the scenario that Kim Wan-jong did not see.

Most of the submitted scenarios go straight to the trash can.

I got up from my seat and looked at the scenario Kim Wan-jong had chosen.

Among them were familiar scenarios.

I know a few of these are on their way to release.

Then there was a scenario that stood out.

“Legend” by Noeul Choi.

‘Where did you see a lot? … Oh right. Is this what it is?’

A screenwriter with the title of ‘Legend’, a movie that was released around the same time as my first movie in my previous life and went bankrupt.

Noeul Choi.

The movie ‘Legend’ was vying for 1st and 2nd place with my movie in the early stages, but it fell behind and completely ruined.

Since it was a rival film, I was interested in it, so I secretly watched it as Jojo.

The directing could be said to be garbage in a word, and I remember leaving the theater with a smile inside.

But somehow I felt drawn to it, so I got the script for ‘Legend’ and read it.

After reading the script and closing the last chapter, I was at a loss for words.

‘The screenplay is terrific.’

There was nothing else to say but that.

It was a problem not only in directing but also in casting, from one to ten, to directing this scenario like a dog shit.

“Legend” was directed by Cho Seung-jae.

When it came time to become independent after rotting into the directorial department of the famous director Cheon Ji-guk, director Cheon Cheon-guk bought a screenplay and put it into the directing.

As director Seungjae Cho, this ‘Legend’ became the first and last movie, and it became a movie like an anthill that dragged not only the screenwriter but also the actors to be buried.

Writer Noeul Choi writes screenplays so well that he has succeeded in making a comeback after that, and has been reborn as an important screenwriter indispensable to Korean films.

However, that happens a long time after the legend is released.(Read more @ wuxiax.com)

The wrong button for ‘Legend’ was directed by Cho Seung-jae.

If it was directed properly, it would have been a work that could be recognized for its work as well as box office success.

‘Oh, I didn’t think of this, did I?’

Perhaps because he liked the scenario, Kim Wan-jong already caught his eye and was included in the selected scenario pile.

I glanced outside and put the scenario called ‘Legendary’ into the very bottom of the discard pile.

‘Anyway, if we pick here, only the scenario will be a waste. I’d rather do it this way.’

Then, as he sat down, Kim Wan-jong came into his office with two cups of espresso.

Behind them came the staff.

“Could you put some of the scenarios here in the warehouse? It’s too cramped here.”

“Yeah.”

An employee brought a large box, and Kim Wan-jong picked up a scenario that did not catch his eye and went out.

Even with the scenario of Noeul Choi’s ‘Legend’

The employee re-stacked the new scenario in place of the vacated scenario.

“Isn’t that a joke? Scenarios come in every day. It’s my job to pick out only the ones that can be corrected. Come here, have coffee.”

“He still drinks espresso.”

“Coffee is espresso. But what happened? Why did you say see you? He’s a guy who doesn’t usually communicate well, so he must have come for a business?”

“Oh, no. It just came. I want to see your face.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

In his previous life, Kim Wan-jong ended his film career after only reviewing the script with the instructor.

This ‘Blue Pictures’, where he works, also fails to grow and closes.

Looking at it like this, Kim Wan-jong was terrified.

All he needed in life was luck.

If I had a chance someday, I wanted to be Kim Wan-jong’s luck.

But for now, we need to focus on Go Kun-soo.

Kim Wan-jong put the cigarette in his ear under his nose, sniffed it once, and sip the coffee.

“Thank you. It’s nice to see you like this.”

“Me too.”