Time Mansour - Chapter 84
Only Noblemtl
Episode 84: Lost in the Maze
Knock knock. Knock knock.
Children appearing one by one.
Push the ring gate and enter the auditorium.
Every time the wheel rolls, sap drips.
‘There are more children in the hospital than I thought.’
I look at the children on stage.
Clear and transparent eyes.
Even the warm heart was clearly revealed.
like that.
Using the sparkling eyes of children as a light.
Ttatang.
The performance began.
The keyboard keys are pressed down.
The guitar strings are shaking precariously.
The drums thump and shake.
“Uh-huh. Uh-huh.”
Guk-yeong grabs the mic and starts to hum.
He spreads out one hand and acts scary.
That kid had so many complaints when he was practicing.
Now that he’s on stage, he’s doing well again.
Well, even though Kookyoung wasn’t good at singing, his performances were good to begin with.
He moves freely across the stage, dragging the microphone cord.
A famous cartoon theme song flows from the speakers.
The kids sing it along.
So let’s have the kids sing along.
Before I knew it, it was time for Gukyoung to speak on the microphone.
Then he turns the microphone towards the audience.
A festival we all enjoy together.
The sound of joyful singing echoed throughout the auditorium.
Every time I play the keyboard, except for the dress that gets caught in the wind.
It was a fairly satisfactory stage.
“Wow!!”
The last song ended with cheers.
Kook-young waves his hand and neatly concludes the stage.
After finishing the performance in Seonghwang-ri, we finish packing up the equipment.
Everyone, unplug your instruments and put them in your bags.
Gukyeong also handed the microphone over to the nurse.
But suddenly.
“Everyone applaud. Today’s volunteers brought gifts. Please come out one by one.”
While they were organizing, a nurse grabbed the microphone and made an announcement.
What the heck. Why is it going so fast?
Due to the rushed progress, I was pressed for time and had to finish organizing things in a hurry.
.
And then, in a hurry, they started handing out boxes with ribbons to the children.
We were handing out gifts and having a photo time.
At that moment.
A child looks up at me with a hose stuck in his nose.
He tilted his head to himself and asked me a question.
“Are you guys singers?”
“No, you see. Uh… she’s a princess. A princess.”
To be honest, I can’t say I’m unemployed.
I don’t know what to say.
I was just kidding around.
I flicked the fluffy wig with my hand.
“Hey. I’m not a kid. I’m a man.”
But the kid is talking like an old person, which is boring.
Are kids these days mature?
I don’t know if it’s just this guy though.
“Do you make a lot of money if you do that as a singer?”
Continue asking serious questions.
“Well? Why? Is it your dream to be a singer?”
“No, that’s not it. What will I do when I grow up? I don’t know yet. Oh! But I don’t want to be a doctor.”
“Huh? Doctors make a lot of money, don’t they?”
“But you’ll have to live in the hospital for the rest of your life.”
A child frowning.
Just thinking about it makes me shake my head from side to side as if I don’t like it.
“Anyway, I hate this place so much. Once I get better and get discharged, I’ll never come back to the hospital again.”
He nodded with a stern expression.
He turned his back, clutching the gift in his hand.
I stared blankly at the back of the little child.
I can’t even imagine how long that kid has been here.
To keep the grim reaper out.
The interior of a university hospital is transformed into a complex maze.
so.
Once you set foot in the hospital, you can’t get out.
Anyone would have been lost in the maze that is the hospital.
**
After the performance, I came to a nearby cafe.
Oh, no.
To be exact, it was a teahouse.
“It’s still here.”
“So. It’s been a while since I’ve been to a tea house.”
.
It’s a place that holds a lot of memories.
The high school we went to was near the university hospital.
It’s about five or six subway stops from where I live.
There weren’t many high schools nearby, so most people went to school in the city like us.
Early to mid 2000s.
The final stage of transition from teahouses to cafes.
This was the most famous teahouse in this area.
Since it was near the school, we would come here sometimes.
‘I still didn’t know you were doing business.’
Of course, it was famous at the time.
There are so many franchise cafes these days.
Of course, I thought the tea house would have disappeared.
Surprisingly, business was still going well.
no.
In fact, there were more people than before.
“Why does it seem like there are more customers than before?”
“Is it a retro craze or something?”
The place was bustling with people.
After taking my order, I barely managed to find an empty seat and sit down.
I grabbed the cup to drink my drink.
That’s what it was.
“Huh? I ordered iced tea.”
The drink I ordered was not available.
Instead of iced tea, I got iced Americano.
He looked back and forth between the receipt and the cup, with an embarrassed expression on his face.
“Hey. Just drink it. You won’t die.”
“Yeah. Yeah. Whatever it is, once it enters the stomach, it’s all the same.
After thinking about it for a while.
I put the straw in the cup as if it was no big deal.
Going back and ordering and getting it is also work.
Besides, there were a lot of people at the checkout counter.
Those who work will be busy too.
‘Let’s just drink.’
I looked around, trying to come up with an excuse.
An interior that exudes an 80s vibe.
It was already an old teahouse even when we were in high school.
‘I see. It looks like it was introduced on some TV show.’
I think it came out on YouTube or something.
I lean against the old-fashioned scenery, thinking to myself that way.
We all talked a little bit about today’s performance.
“I’m feeling a bit down today. We’re all still kids.”
As expected, the topic of children suddenly came up.
Seongtae drank his coffee with a bitter expression.
“I feel even more sorry for the children, even though they are still children, and I feel even more sorry for their parents.”
Gook-young adds to Seong-tae’s bitter smile.
Most of them were patients with incurable diseases.
Children who may be in university hospitals from cradle to grave.
Because the grief of losing a child is incomparable to anything.
Seongtae misspoke and said one word wrong.
The mood suddenly darkens. Everyone has a gloomy expression on their face.
I opened my mouth and patted Seongtae on the back.
“That’s why I should be more thankful. That I was born healthy.”
“Well, the best blessing is not being sick. It’s a blessing.”
“That’s right. As I get older, I can’t help but think that health is the most important thing.”
Myunggyu nodded.
It was all true.
That’s true, though.
The problem is.
“But isn’t that something you should be saying? If you think health is the most important thing, then you should lose some weight.”
The one who said that was Myung-gyu, who was over 100 kilos away.
“Damn. How much is this body? And surprisingly, people like me are healthy. Rather, skinny guys like Youngjun are the most dangerous.”
Myunggyu points his finger at me.
Why are they fighting among themselves?
Is an arrow flying towards me as I stand still?
I couldn’t understand it at all.
“Youngjun, what’s strange about this guy is that he doesn’t gain weight even as he gets older.”
“Of course. Youngjun, that guy doesn’t even eat because he finds it annoying.”
Suddenly, I became the center of conversation.
Because it didn’t make any sense, I didn’t respond at all and just drank my coffee.
Still, the teasing conversation continued.
“Youngjun, he probably finds it bothersome to even breathe.”
“You look like you can’t breathe. Oh my. Look at your stomach.”
Because Guk-yeong touched Myeong-gyu’s stomach and laughed.
The arrow flew towards Myeong-gyu again.
That’s how I kill time at the teahouse, telling lame jokes.
It seemed like everyone was deliberately trying to tell bright stories.
still.
A bitter taste that did not go away lingered in my mouth.
The coffee was still bitter.
**
A few days passed since then.
Manager Chae brought So-hyeon and Jun-woo to a fast food chain restaurant.
And somehow I ended up getting caught up in it.
There is a patty between the buns.
Sohyun takes a bite of the patty.
The lettuce crumbles and clutters the table.
“Hey! Sohyun! Stop eating so dirty.”
“No! It’s my heart!”
“Why! Why on earth! Are you eating the hamburger buns separately?”
Junwoo and Sohyun are on good terms as usual.
Children smiling while warmly holding each other by the collar.
I just watched that scene quietly.
They pretended to grab each other’s hair.
“But why haven’t I seen Da-eun lately?”
I quickly changed the subject.
“I don’t know. It’s been hard to see you since Dad woke up.”
“Da-eun is always at home. That’s why I haven’t been able to film any videos lately!”
Sohyun gets annoyed with me.
Yeah, you might as well be mad at me.
That was a better picture than fighting with Junwoo.
So I had no choice but to listen to Sohyun’s complaints for a while.
Suddenly.
I was concerned about the deputy sitting next to me.
I guess I should have said something in the middle.
He sat quietly with his arms crossed, seemingly uncomfortable.
I glanced around and then spoke carefully.
“What’s going on these days?”
“It’s just that… the performance test isn’t going well. The performance isn’t good because of the CPU performance. And I can’t replace the server either.”
“There’s a lot of money there.”
“That’s… I already changed all my equipment two months ago. I can’t ask you to change it right away.”
“··· Then I guess I’ll have to lower the product performance. There’s an option for that. Let’s look into it.”
If the game wouldn’t run because the specs weren’t enough, you had to buy a new computer.
However, if you can’t afford to buy a new computer, you have no choice but to lower the image quality to the lowest level.
“I looked into it, but our manager is against it.
“why,”
“I don’t know. He said that if I lower the performance, I won’t be able to use the functions the manager wants.”
Code always has a definitive answer.
but.
Variables always come from people.
It says above not to lower the image quality.
But that doesn’t mean I’ll replace your computer.
At times like this, I had to take on the challenge.
Or persuade the manager through speech.
Or create a function that doesn’t exist yet.
Well, either way, it was a very time-consuming task.
Manager Chae rests his chin on his hand and thinks for a moment. Then he shakes his head from side to side. Manager Chae’s hair flutters in the air.
“Ah. I don’t know. I don’t know. Let it be.”
“I guess it will work out in the end. It’s just that the process is always difficult.”
“Why don’t you just have the CEO come to our company?”
There are too many people who don’t understand each other. Manager Chae gets annoyed.
“I’m not going. I have to convince those people who don’t understand.”
“Director Jeong. You’re good at that.”
“I can’t do it anymore. I’m not like I used to be.”
I shook my head exaggeratedly.
While Manager Chae and I were having a serious conversation about the company.
“Sir, I’m bored. Stop telling me boring stories. Tell me a fun story.”
Sohyun sticks out her lips.
He squints his eyes and glares at me.
I was so touched by that sight that I answered in an affectionate voice.
“Look in the mirror. It’ll be really fun to look in the mirror.”
“Sir! I want to die!”
“Mr. Chae, there is a mirror.
Ignore the angry Sohyun.
I made a gesture to Manager Chae to ask him for a mirror.
“Hey, look in the mirror!”
Eventually, Sohyun got up from her seat and clung to me.
Sohyun, who clings to her collar and hangs on tenaciously.
okay.
Your personality is a bit like that.
But where is the health of the body?
So Hyun grabbed me by the collar and I was swinging in the air.
I try to think positive thoughts on purpose.