The Unbelievers

Chapter 20

Eunseong was pleading to no one in particular. He frowned deeply and shook his head. Yoo Siwoon sat at the bedside, unable to touch Eunseong, and mumbled “It’s okay” several times in a soft voice. As if not getting through, Eunseong’s thrashing and moaning intensified. Yoo Siwoon reluctantly reached out his hand. He lightly touched Eunseong’s cheek, which felt warm.

“Uh, uh, unh.”

As Eunseong still wouldn’t calm down, Yoo Siwoon eventually touched him fully. He caressed Eunseong’s cheek, brushed back his disheveled hair to reveal his cool forehead. He patted Eunseong’s head with clumsy strokes, trying to soothe him. He felt deeply sorry for Eunseong, who was suffering from such an exhausting dream.

“Shh… shh… It’s okay. You’re safe here.”

“Uh… uhn.”

“Shh… Shh.”

As Yoo Siwoon comforted him with soft words, Eunseong’s frown disappeared as if by magic, and he fell into a deep sleep. His labored breathing subsided, but Yoo Siwoon’s hand continued to gently caress Eunseong’s cheek.

Eunseong, who had kicked off the blanket while turning over, woke up feeling the need to use the bathroom. He got up from the bed with half-closed eyes. After returning from the bathroom, as he was about to get back into the warm bed, he smelled Yoo Siwoon’s scent in the comfortable room for some reason. Eunseong looked around the empty room in confusion.

“Haa.”

He sighed unnecessarily. Remembering how boldly he had acted last evening made him feel even more depressed.

He lay back down in bed, but this time he couldn’t fall asleep easily. Eunseong tossed and turned for a long time. Sleep seemed to come but didn’t, and as time passed, he only became more alert.

He heard the sound of rain. Eunseong pressed the button next to the bed. The blackout curtains covering the floor-to-ceiling windows automatically opened. The green lawn and the dazzling array of green that had hurt his eyes were now swallowed by darkness, making everything pitch black as if some monster crouching somewhere might jump out.

Eunseong always closed the blackout curtains at night, scared of the darkness outside. The clock on the wall showed it was past 3 AM.

A light rain was falling in the garden. It was the beginning of the rainy season Yoo Siwoon had mentioned. Still, the moonlight was quite bright tonight. The falling raindrops sparkled faintly. Eunseong stared at the window where water shadows rippled.

What did it mean?

What did it mean when he said he would protect Eunseong from himself?

It’s like a riddle.

The weather should have made the bedding damp due to humidity, but Eunseong’s room was dry. The sheets were crisp and rustled as they touched his bare skin. After staring blankly at the water droplets running down the window, Eunseong got up from the bed.

He put on the slippers he had left under the bed. He opened the door and left the room. The living room was shrouded in silence. The house was too spacious for just two people to live in.

The workers only came and went during permitted hours, so there was no one in the house except for Yoo Siwoon and himself.

Eunseong wandered around the living room where the sound of rain echoed quietly. Although Eunseong had more rough experiences than his peers, he was still only nineteen, and he suddenly felt scared of this place.

It wasn’t anxiety about not knowing what would happen, but just fear because the house was too big, empty, and dark.

After hesitating, Eunseong stood in front of Yoo Siwoon’s room. He knocked, knock-knock, and waited, but there was no response. It was well past the time when he should be asleep. Eunseong carefully opened the door.

A spacious area not much different from Eunseong’s room layout appeared. Before taking a few steps in, he realized Yoo Siwoon was absent. There wasn’t even a trace of someone lying on the dim bed. Yoo Siwoon’s black jacket was draped over the long, colorless sofa.

“…”

As he was about to turn back after confirming no one was there, Eunseong noticed a dim light seeping out like a crack on one wall.

It was another door.

He slightly opened the door with the gap. It seemed to be his study. Inside, where the light was on, Yoo Siwoon was visible, not having changed his clothes. He was stretched out on a recliner, fast asleep.

A book lay open face-down on his stomach, as if he had fallen asleep while reading. The shelves were packed with LPs, which seemed to be his hobby, and books of all kinds. The man appeared to be a collector.

Eunseong’s eyes curiously scanned the study.

A telescope stood right in front of the floor-to-ceiling window. There was a small window that could be opened and closed for comfortable night sky observation. A thick blanket was spread on the floor there, suggesting he often sat there.

Behind it stood two large machines facing each other that looked like they could enable dimensional travel, but they were probably high-end speakers. Rain was pouring down the window, making it opaque.

Eunseong entered carefully, trying not to wake him up. The study was filled with Yoo Siwoon’s scent, which usually prevented anyone from approaching within a 2-meter radius. It was a heavy but refreshing smell. For some reason, this scent had been in Eunseong’s room earlier. It was like the smell of new books, or the pine scent from the garden. Eunseong liked his distant ahjussi’s smell. He liked it so much that if he could have any scent, he would want it to be like this.

He was completely asleep, breathing evenly. One arm had fallen off the side of the chair.

“Why do you protect me? From whom?”

“…From myself.”

Although he said he was suspicious, Eunseong’s distant ahjussi seemed unlikely to harm a mere nineteen-year-old, if anything, he seemed rather uninterested.

As he said he had graduated from university in America, the book he had put down on his stomach was an English original that Eunseong could never understand. He could only roughly guess from the cover image that it was about future energy and industry.

He quietly looked down at his sleeping distant ahjussi. His disheveled hair covered his eyebrows. Perhaps because of this, the shadow of his high nose bridge was particularly clear on one side of his face.

Eunseong had never seen such a handsome man in his life. Not even on TV. Maybe his father had looked like this before alcohol ruined him. Eunseong tried to recall his father’s face, but overwhelmed by the ahjussi’s face right in front of him, he forgot even that.

He filled his lungs with the ahjussi’s scent, which somehow felt cozy. At that moment, Yoo Siwoon stirred. The thick English book on his stomach fell to the floor with a thud.

While Eunseong flinched in surprise, Yoo Siwoon woke up at the noise of the falling book. He opened his eyes hazily, then spotted Eunseong standing beside him and sat up in shock. Startled, he fell off the recliner with a thump.

“…Are you okay?”

“H-How did you get here?”

“I heard a strange noise outside. I was scared, so I came to wake you up…”

Frightened by his reaction of falling to the floor in shock, Eunseong lied on impulse, afraid he might get scolded.

Yoo Siwoon hurriedly got up. He seemed shocked not because someone had unexpectedly appeared in his private space, but because Eunseong was within the perimeter he was wary of.

The speed at which he backed away to distance himself from Eunseong was quick enough to be offensive. Unlike his initial surprise, Eunseong soon felt hurt by his reaction. He stared at him blankly. Retreating to the bookshelf, Yoo Siwoon looked at Eunseong as if he were a carrier of an infectious disease and asked:

“What noise? What kind of noise?”

“I don’t know. There was some noise. You should check it out.”

Even if it was due to mysophobia, this was too much. He was treating people like germs. Eunseong told him to check or not as he pleased and turned around abruptly. He returned to his room, deliberately stomping his feet, and slammed the door shut. He flopped onto the bed and glared at the ceiling, frowning.

“What’s this all about? Saying aesthetics is above ethics, but when does he stare at people? Talking like Oscar Wilde. Really making me feel bad. He doesn’t dislike it so much when he’s with the housekeeper and Director Nam, why only with me…”

The more he thought about it, the worse he felt.

“…Is it because he saw where I used to live, he thinks I’m dirty…? What, is he saying he lived in a better place? If you think about it, shouldn’t I have lived like that too?”

If that was the case, Eunseong felt wronged. It was his father who lived dirty, not Eunseong. On the contrary, he was so attentive to cleanliness that his father would scold him for it. He was even more obsessed with hygiene because his mother wasn’t there. Eunseong had to keep clean and tidy to avoid being called a child without a mother.

Choi Jung-eon from the other class would appear during breaks and lunch times, subtly trapping Eunseong’s arm and burying his nose in his neck, saying he smelled good, and nonsensically claiming that he, who barely washed, should use the same body wash as Eunseong.

Everyone thought Eunseong was clean, and even said he smelled good.

Remembering Yoo Siwoon rolling off the recliner made him feel even worse. As he lay on the bed with his lips pouted, there was a knock on the door.