Pachinko(이민진)_7월 30일(토)_1권_Chapter 5_9_48p

[Frida]

Hansu had brought a large kerchief so he could gather mushrooms as well. HIs obvious delight at their excursion made her feel better, but Sunja was still worried that someone would see them. No one knew they were friends. Men and women were not supposed to be that, and theyh were not sweethearts, either. He had never mentions marriage, and if he wanted to marry her, he would have to speak to her mother, but he had not. In fact, after he asked her if she had a sweetheart three months beforek, he'd never raised the subject again. She tried not to think about jwhat his life was like with women. It would not have been difficult for him to find a girl to be with. and his interest in her did not always make sense.

The long walk to the forest felt brief, and when they entered the woods, it felt evern more isolated than the cove, but unlike the openness of the low rocks and the expanse of blue-green water, immense trees stood high above them, and it was life entering the da가, leafy house jof a giant. She could hear birds, and she looked up and about to see what kind they were. She noticed Hansu's face: there were tears in his eyes.

"Oppa, are you all right?"

He nodded. He had talked for the entire length of the walk about traveling and work, yet at the sight of the colored leaves and bumpy tree trunks, Hansu fell silent. He placed his right hand in her back and touched the end of her hair braid. He stroked her back, then removed his hand carefully.

Hansu had not been in a forest since he was a boy-that time before he became a tough teenager who could hustle and steal with the wisest street kids of Osaka. Before he moved to Japan, the wooded mountains of Jeju had been his sanctuary; he had known every tree on the volcano Halla-San. He recalled the small deer with their slender legs and mincing, flirtatious steps. The heavy scent of orange blossoms came back to him, though there were no such things in the woods of Yeongdo.

"Let's go," he said, walking ahead, and Sunja followed him. Less than a dozen paces in, he stopped to pluck a mushroom gently from the ground.

"That's our first," he said, no longer crying.

He had not lied to her. Hansu was an expert at finding mushrooms, and he found numerous edible weeds for her, even explaining how to cook them.

"When you're hungry, you'll learn what you can eat and what you cannot." He laughed. "I don't like being hungry. So where's your spot? which way?"