A Red Light in the Smoke
The morning after the beef party, my eyes opened on their own. I brushed my teeth, splashed water on my face, and pulled on my workout clothes.
Been a while. I should get a run in.
Work had made me slack, but whenever I was home I still liked to get out and run. The air was good in the country. I was just about to step outside.
"Where are you off to?"
Mom and Dad were already up.
"Just a quick run."
"All right, go on. Be back before breakfast."
"I will. Half an hour or so."
I said goodbye and left the house. A quiet country village—the opposite of the city at dawn, where the streets were already full of people heading to work. Breathing in grass and damp earth, I started to jog.
"Good morning."
Whenever I passed the neighborhood elders, I greeted them.
"Well now. Seokhyeon, is it? Been a while."
"Seongho must be pleased. His boy's grown up fine."
"Haha. Thank you."
More of the elders were out for a morning walk than I'd expected. But—
They're all in padded jackets.
Glossy, every one of them, as if they'd bought them new for this winter. Mom and Dad, on the other hand—
Theirs were worn to rags.
Old down jackets so old I couldn't remember when they'd been bought. Sometimes they even wore the one I'd had as a student. They used them for farm work, so it wasn't as if it mattered all that much.
This won't do.
Since I was home anyway, I ought to see through everything I'd planned before I left. I finished the run and went back. After a shower and a quiet breakfast, I spoke up.
"Mom. Dad."
"Hm?"
"What is it?"
If I came out and said we were going to buy jackets, they would refuse. No question. So I made it sound like nothing.
"It's been a while since the three of us were together. How about we go out? Into town."
They tilted their heads.
"Town? We just ate. What would we even..."
"That's right. Nothing out there worth seeing. Let's stay home."
They were even more reluctant than I'd expected. At this rate they would never leave the house. I needed another angle.
"What about dessert, then? We could go to a café."
"Dessert?"
Mom bit. I knew she would.
"They've got those cookies that are popular lately. I hear they're good."
"Hmm... do they?"
She was tempted. And once Mom was in, Dad always followed.
"You'll come, won't you?"
"I'd like to... honey?"
"If my son and my wife say we're going, we're going."
And just like that, the trip into town was settled.
"My. Riding in a car my own son is driving. I'm overcome."
I took the wheel on the way into town. I couldn't very well put my parents behind it—not when my license had been living in a drawer. A few clumsy forwards and backwards around the neighborhood, though, and I decided I could manage.
"All right. Shall we go?"
"...Mm."
"...Go on, then."
I glanced back. Both of them had their seat belts yanked tight. Why had Dad buckled two of them, even the one in the seat beside him? Anyway. Even for an outing, they'd come out in those frayed jackets.
I have to buy them new ones.
If not now, when was I ever going to spend the money? We drove a short way, and the town appeared. I turned, easy as anything, toward the department store parking garage.
"Son. This is a department store, isn't it? Why here?"
"Ah—they only sell that trendy cookie at a café inside."
"...They do?"
Mom looked unconvinced, but since I'd said so, she nodded for the moment. It took me ten minutes to park. Then I got out.
"Let's go in. Mom, Dad."
"But is that trendy cookie really in here?"
"Of course. Would I lie to you?"
Sorry, Mom.
The moment we were inside, I headed for the elevator and hit the button for the top floor.
"I can't remember if the café's at the top or the bottom. We'll just look as we come down."
I steered us onto the escalator as if that were the plan. When we passed the clothing floor—
There.
Padded jackets. I let my voice carry just far enough.
"Don't those look pretty well made?"
"You think so? I don't care for them."
"Neither do I."
Next ones, then.
"What about those?"
"Those are a little better."
"Yes. If you're going to wear one, wear something like that."
"Yeah? You like those?"
"Mm. Best of anything here."
"Your father thinks the same."
Okay. This is our stop, Mom. Dad.
I stepped off the escalator like it was the most natural thing in the world, and they stumbled off after me.
"Son? Why are we getting off here all of a sudden?"
Time to tell the truth.
"Your jackets are so old. I wanted to buy you each a new one. I just got paid."
"...What? You don't have the money for jackets..."
"Come on. I make enough for this."
I smiled, bright as I could, and nudged them forward by the shoulders.
"Come on, come on. Quickly."
We went into the shop with the jackets they'd liked.
"Two of those, please. The sizes..."
I finished it before they could get their bearings. Five minutes later, both of them were wearing new down jackets.
"Aigoo... Son. You didn't have to..."
"Ahem. Ahem. Isn't this too expensive?"
It's all right, Mom. Dad.
A good seven hundred dollars had just walked out the door, but I still had enough left to live on.
"It's fine. I wanted to do this."
"Even so, it's too much... I don't feel right taking it."
"If it's too expensive, a cheaper one would do."
Please. Neither of them meant a word of it. They liked them.
"Should I just return them, then?"
At that, both of them turned a little, the way you turn when you're guarding something that's yours. Yeah. That's what I thought.
"Then let's head down."
We still had to go to the café. That was the reason we'd come to town.
We stopped in, bought the Dubai-something cookies that were supposed to be everywhere these days, and started home.
"Oh my! These are really good!"
Mom was thoroughly satisfied. And Dad?
"Hm. They are tasty."
Satisfied, of course. We picked up coffee as well and were on the road back. I wasn't quite ready to go in, so we walked the lanes around the neighborhood—partly so Mom and Dad could show off the new jackets. The reactions came at once.
"Aigoo! Seongho, Gyeongsook. New clothes?"
"Yes, our son bought them for us. Hehehe."
"Ahem. Told him we didn't need them. He bought them anyway. Ahem."
Smiles broke across their faces. There is nothing parents want to boast about more than a gift from their son. We were making a slow circuit of the neighborhood when a flash cut across my sight.
...Huh?
Uneasy, I looked around again. Another flash. Light—from a lonely house a little way off, where smoke was rising. Red light.
"Dad. Whose house is that?"
"Hm? That one? Old Man Kim's. Why?"
"The smoke... that's a lot, isn't it?"
"Oh, that? It's a wood-fired boiler. He's burning wood. Cold out, so he's probably stoking it hard."
A wood-fired boiler—a boiler that ran on burning wood. And from that house, a red light. Not a good sign.
It might be nothing.
But my eyes had never lied to me.
"Dad. Could you call the fire department? Tell them there's a fire."
"Huh? What's that all of a sudden..."
"Just this once. I'm going over there."
I talked him into it somehow and took off at a run.
A red light means danger.
That was how it felt. And from the moment I saw the light, there was never much time before the danger broke.
It had been like that with the team leader's car.
The tire had torn less than an hour after I'd seen the red light. So this time?
It might be a leap.
But if I wasn't wrong, it would spread into a serious fire before long—enough to burn the whole mountain behind the house. I ran for five minutes straight and reached Old Man Kim's.
I hauled in breath after breath and swept the place with my eyes. Smoke was curling up from behind the house, and the red light was flashing, hard enough that even a glance said this was bad. I hurried around back. An old wood-fired boiler was blazing. Not just the inside. The outside, too.
Damn.
I covered my nose and mouth against the smoke and came back out into the yard.
Is anyone inside?
Under the eaves: shoes. No time to think. I threw the door open, and a wave of heat pushed out at me.
"...Huh?"
Old Man Kim had spread his bedding for a nap. He stared at me, still half in a dream.
"Grandpa! There's a fire! Get out, now!"
"What?"
"There's a fire! Fire!"
I didn't even take my shoes off. I got an arm under him and hauled him up.
"There's a fire. We have to go."
"What? A fire?"
He kept asking, as if he still hadn't caught up. Fair enough. If a stranger burst in yelling about a fire and ordering you outside, you'd be rattled too. I got his shoes on him, and we came out into the yard. The smoke was already twice what it had been.
What do I do?
I looked around again. There—a spigot in the yard. Out in the country, every house had one. This one was no different.
Please don't be frozen.
I turned it. Water poured out. Thank God. Basin in hand, I ran for the back of the house, and the fire was roaring. It was already past anything I could put out myself. All I could do was limit the damage, so I didn't throw the water on the boiler. I soaked the ground around it, so the flames couldn't spread, going back and forth between the yard and the back of the house as fast as I could.
He called them, right?
Even if he hadn't, anyone who saw this smoke would have reported it. I decided to believe that. I don't know how long it went on. The blaze had grown so big that more water was pointless—and then a siren wailed.
"This is the fire department. Civilians, evacuate immediately."
The firefighters' radio, too. Only then did I set the basin down and get Grandpa clear of the yard.
A jet of water blasted from the hose. The flames went down in an instant.
"Ha..."
Thank God. Only then did the relief come out of me.
"Seokhyeon!"
"Son!"
Mom and Dad were running toward me from behind the fire truck, faces tight with worry. Exhausted as I was, I forced a smile and waved. Only then did I notice—my arms, my whole body, were black with soot.
They're going to worry.
I was exactly right.
"Aigoo! You brat! Look at the state of you!"
"You're not hurt? How's your body?"
They brushed at me and asked after me without stopping. Ah—soot all over the new jackets.
"I'm fine. I didn't do anything dangerous."
I meant it. I'm a coward; I'm no good at things like that. Only as much as I could handle. Even so, it must have looked dangerous to them. They looked ready to burst into tears, and I smiled at them as hard as I could.
Once the truck arrived, the fire was out in a flash. It felt like less than ten minutes. The house, and the mountain behind it—no real damage. Smoke had filled the room, so they'd have to air it out for a long while, but that was all.
If I'd left Grandpa in there, it would have been bad.
I couldn't say for certain, but there might even have been a risk he'd suffocate.
"The one who reported it?"
"Ah—yes, yes."
I answered before I thought. Dad was the one who'd actually called. The firefighter came over anyway, as if that didn't matter.
"I'd like to ask how you found the fire."
"Ah. At first it was the smoke..."
I explained what I'd seen, piece by piece, leaving out the red light. The firefighter listened closely, then nodded.
"I see. Thanks to you, we stopped something that was about to become a major fire. Thank you."
"Not at all. Anyone would have done the same."
"Haha. Modest. And your name...?"
"Lee Seokhyeon. But—is this going to take a while?"
That would be a problem. I had work tomorrow. I needed to get back to my place.
"Ah, you must be busy. I'll ask your father the rest, then. Thank you for your help."
"Of course. Thank you."
I said goodbye and went to my parents.
"I'm going to head home first, wash up, and get ready to go."
"All right. We'll be right behind you."
"Okay."
Busy. Too busy. I'd come home to rest, and it felt as if a great deal had blown past me. I needed to wash up and get ready to leave.