5
## Chapter 5: The Genie of the Lamp
Morning.
The sun seemed to rise a little earlier in Itoshima than in Seoul.
I got up early and changed into my work clothes. I wrapped a towel around my head to keep the sweat from dripping down, then rolled up my shirt sleeves instead of wearing arm sleeves.
The supplies were simple.
The bundle of sandpaper I'd bought at the home center yesterday, and a can of oil stain.
I stood in front of the veranda of the annex.
In Japanese, was it called an engawa?
Wooden pillars that might have endured decades, perhaps even close to a hundred years, of exposure to the sea breeze.
They had been blackened with age, and layers of dust had clung to them until they had lost their original color. Someone might have said they were rotten, but they looked different to me.
‘It just needs to be stripped.’
I wrapped a sheet of coarse 120-grit sandpaper around a wooden block.
Then I started rubbing from the very bottom of the pillar.
Scritch.
Scritch.
And again, scritch.
The accumulated grime resisted like it didn't want to give up, making the sanding stiff and difficult.
‘Hmm... Just as I thought... Should I keep at it a little longer?’
I put more strength into my arms and leaned my weight into it.
Swipe.
Swipe, swipe.
As I found a rhythm and began applying more force, black powder started falling to the ground like snow.
A remarkably simple repetitive task.
With a machine, it would probably have taken ten minutes, but I had already been doing it by hand for an hour.
This place was gradually filling with nothing but my faint, labored breathing and the scraping sound of wood.
‘Whew...’
Sweat gathered on my forehead and trickled down the bridge of my nose.
It had been a long time since I'd felt like this.
Maybe that's why I strangely felt refreshed.
Scritch, scritch.
From the spot where the black outer layer had been stripped away, the pale inner surface of the wood gradually began to appear.
Solid zelkova wood with a reddish hue.
It was soft and clean, like the skin of a newborn baby.
‘Just as I thought...’
I stopped for a moment and ran my fingertips over the exposed grain.
‘It doesn't lie. Wood...’
The outside might have been weathered and made unsightly by the passage of time, but inside, it was still solid and fragrant.
It wasn't rotten.
It had simply gotten a little dirty.
“Just like me.”
The words slipped out before I knew it.
I had thought my life had rotted away after being covered in betrayal and filth.
But as I stripped it all away while sweating like this, I felt that there was still something inside me—a passion for creating things, a solid core that remained intact.
I gripped the sandpaper again.
I picked up speed.
Scritch-scritch-scritch.
My mind became completely empty.
A period of time in which only the wood and I existed.
Then.
“Gi-jun...”
I turned at the clear voice.
Haruna stood there holding a tray. There was iced barley tea with ice cubes floating in it, along with a damp towel.
“Oh, Haruna. When did you get here?”
“I just arrived. You were so focused that I couldn't bring myself to interrupt you.”
“You're speaking Korean again.”
She gave a shy smile before carefully sitting at the edge of the veranda and looking at me.
Her gaze settled on my forearms exposed beneath my rolled-up sleeves.
“Here... You should drink this.”
I downed the cold barley tea she handed me in one go.
A tingling sensation ran down my throat.
My thirst disappeared.
“Thank you. You saved me.”
“Not at all. But... this is really amazing.”
“What is?”
“It was just a completely black piece of wood... but when it comes into contact with Mr. Gi-jun's hands, it seems to come back to life.”
Haruna carefully touched the pillar I'd sanded.
“It's warm. The wood. Is that because you rubbed it so much?”
“Because it's alive. It's breathing.”
“It breathes? Wood?”
I wiped the sweat from my face with the towel around my neck and smiled.
“Just a little more. Once I sand the floor completely and apply the oil stain, you'll probably be surprised.”
“I'll look forward to it. Be careful not to get hurt!”
As though she didn't want to get in my way, she quietly withdrew with the empty cup.
But I could feel it.
She didn't go far.
She continued watching me work from a corner of the yard.
Her gaze somehow made me feel supported from behind, and I threw myself into my work even more diligently.
---
It wasn't until the sun was beginning to sink that I finally finished everything.
I applied dark oak oil stain to the floor and pillars after finishing the sanding.
As the wood absorbed the oil, the color deepened and became richer, just as I'd expected.
The floorboards now carried a subtle sheen.
I straightened my back and looked around the room.
The abandoned-looking place that had seemed haunted just yesterday had now been transformed into a room that looked like an elegant old-fashioned ryokan.
Pride swelled inside me.
But.
“Hmm...”
Something was missing.
No, it wasn't merely missing.
It was bothering me.
The light bulb hanging in the center of the ceiling.
A bare incandescent bulb dangling from a wire without even a lampshade.
I switched it on, and the room became brightly illuminated.
‘This won't do.’
I'd gone to all this trouble to give the wood an atmospheric, elegant appearance, but that harsh light was swallowing up all of the wood's subtle beauty.
If I had to compare it to something, it was like wearing a well-tailored suit with slippers.
“The light is too harsh... The tension is all wrong.”
I rummaged through the remaining materials.
Should I make a lampshade out of a thin piece of plywood?
I roughly shaped it and held it up against the bulb.
Not good.
The light poured downward only, making the entire room look dark.
But I didn't have any washi paper or fabric either.
Just as I was sighing and thinking about what to do—
“Mr. Gi-jun, are you... finished?”
Haruna, who had been preparing dinner, came in and stopped in her tracks.
“Wow... Is this really the same room? My goodness... 驚きました... (I'm amazed!)”
She couldn't close her mouth as she looked around the transformed room.
“The floor looks like a mirror. It's so beautiful!”
“But that's the problem.”
I pointed toward the ceiling.
“The bulb is too bare. It's ruining the whole atmosphere. I need to put a shade over it, but I don't have suitable materials.”
Haruna frowned and looked up at the bulb.
“Ah... It really is a little too bright.”
She seemed to think about something for a moment before suddenly grabbing my arm.
“Mr. Gi-jun, please wait here for a moment!”
“What? Where are you going?”
“I think I have exactly what we need.”
“Huh...?”
Without even waiting for my answer, she hurriedly ran toward the main house.
What was she doing?
Was she going to fold some kind of paper lampshade?
A little while later.
She returned carrying something carefully in her arms.
“How about... this?”
What she held out was a work of glass art.
Blue, green, jade, and translucent white.
Small pieces of glass in different colors and shapes had been connected with solder, forming a single bell-shaped lampshade.
“Ah! Is this the... sea glass you mentioned?”
“Yes. It's a lampshade I made.”
Haruna smiled shyly.
“I made it from things I found on the beach. This blue one was probably a soda bottle, and this green one might have been a soju bottle. The waves have worn them down, so they're no longer sharp.”
Looking at them up close, their surfaces had been worn smooth like candy.
‘This is... amazing.’
The resurrection of things that had once been garbage.
Jewels reborn through her fingertips.
“Shall we... put it on?”
At my suggestion, she shyly nodded.
I stepped onto a chair and loosened the screw on the bulb socket.
“All right, hand it to me.”
Haruna stood on tiptoe and passed me the lampshade.
Her fingers brushed against my hand.
Her fingertips were soft.
I secured the shade around the bulb and tightened the screw.
“Done.”
I climbed down from the chair.
“I'll turn it on.”
“Yes.”
Click.
The moment I flipped the switch—
“Wow...!!”
Waves of light seemed to ripple throughout the room.
The bulb's light passed through the pieces of sea glass, scattering into dozens of different colors.
Bluish patterns of light rippled across the ceiling, the walls, and the wooden floor I'd worked so hard to polish.
It was as though we'd entered a deep underwater palace.
Or perhaps it felt like floating across a shimmering sea surface.
Dreamlike, gentle light began to ripple through the room, and an exclamation escaped me before I knew it.
“Wow......”
The rich, weighty color of the wood I'd restored and the refreshing light of the glass Haruna had made blended together perfectly.
The wood became deeper as it received the light, while the light settled onto the wood and became warmer.
A fulfillment of what had been missing.
The emotional element I could never fill myself had been completed perfectly by her.
Haruna carefully asked,
“How... is it? Is it good?”
Blue waves of light rippled across her face as well.
Under this light, she looked mysterious, like a spirit of the sea.
“It's perfect.”
I continued sincerely,
“I never imagined the wood I worked on and the glass you made, Haruna, would go together this well.”
“Me neither... This is the first time my lamp has ever looked this beautiful.”
For a long while, we silently admired the rippling waves of light.
Then I spoke first.
“Want to have a beer? Ah... Is it too early for drinking?”
“Sounds good! I have snacks, too!”
She smiled brightly, showing all of her pearly white teeth.
---
A little while later,
Hiss, pop.
The sound of opening canned beer mixed with the sound of the waves.
“Cheers.”
“Cheers.”
The cold beer slid down my throat.
The taste of alcohol after finishing a day's work.
Add to that a space I'd created with my own hands, and someone whose heart seemed to understand mine.
There was nothing more I could ask for.
Then—
“I... just thought of something.”
Haruna spoke while fiddling with her beer can.
“About these pieces of glass.”
“Yes.”
“They were originally sharp things that could hurt people.”
She looked up at the lamp hanging from the ceiling.
“But after being broken, shattered, and worn down again and again... they produce such beautiful light. It's amazing.”
Her gaze slowly shifted toward me.
Perhaps because of the words she'd just spoken, the look in her eyes began to feel like comfort.
As if she were telling me:
The pain you went through, and the time that was worn away from you, were never meaningless.
Those years would make you rounder and allow you to shine even more brightly.
My throat suddenly felt tight.
I took another sip of beer and murmured,
“Yeah.”
Looking at the lamp, I continued quietly.
“Things that have been hurt come together... and create the most beautiful light.”
Wood and glass.
Me and her.
Two people made of different materials, carrying different wounds, coming together and blending into the daytime glow of Itoshima.
---
That night, the lamp's light refused to go out,
and the tiny flame that had been lit inside my heart continued to burn warmly for a long, long time.