The Unbelievers

Chapter 47

Yoo Siwoon, returning late from work and unable to have dinner together, loosened his tie as he saw Eunseong lying in his study, playing games on his phone.

“You should get up when an adult comes in.”

“…”

Though his words were odd, he spoke in a tone Eunseong had never heard before from someone who had never acted like an old-fashioned adult. Eunseong, who had been lying on his stomach, sat up awkwardly. He put down his phone.

“As you said, if you’re not going to study like this, it might be better to attend a cram school instead.”

“…”

It was as if he had seen Eunseong rolling around in bed all day. As Eunseong looked at him, suddenly the content and sensation of the dream he had in the morning vividly came back to life. Eunseong was staring at his lips. Noticing the gaze, Siwoon turned his head away.

“I’m sure you don’t really intend not to go to college.”

“I will go, to a good place.”

“Oh, about the move I mentioned before. The date has been set. We can move next week.”

“…What?”

“You said you wanted to live separately, didn’t you?”

“…”

Eunseong’s eyes widened in surprise. Siwoon spoke casually and left the study. Eunseong followed him. He followed Siwoon into the dressing room as he was changing clothes.

Siwoon, who was about to unbutton his shirt, suddenly stopped. His dressing room was filled with black suits and white shirts hanging like work clothes.

“Are you telling me to leave?”

“I thought you said you wanted to live separately. Is my memory wrong?”

“That, that was just then.”

“You said you didn’t want to live with me. That you’d live with Director Nam instead.”

“That… at that time, I just said anything because I was angry.”

“It’s okay. It’s understandable to feel uncomfortable living with a relative uncle you never knew. We were late preparing because of security issues, but you can move next week. I’ll tell Director Nam, so you can go check it out in advance if you want. You’ll like it.”

“…”

Siwoon spoke while slowly unbuttoning his cuffs. He was aware of Eunseong standing there, staring at him. He only unbuttoned his shirt without taking it off. When there were no more buttons to undo, he turned his head to look at Eunseong.

“Would you mind leaving now?”

Despite Siwoon’s request for privacy to change clothes, Eunseong continued to look at him with a bewildered expression, unable to hide his confusion.

“You said you’d protect me. You said you’d take responsibility. It was you who sent my father away somewhere far and brought me here.”

“Yes, that’s why we’re moving. It’s my responsibility to keep you safe.”

“Where could be safer than here? You said I shouldn’t work part-time or go to cram school because it’s dangerous. You said I couldn’t go outside, you said that! You kept me cooped up here saying it was dangerous, though I really don’t know what’s dangerous!”

He rebuttoned the buttons he had undone. Siwoon buttoned several middle buttons of his shirt to keep his chest from showing and turned to face Eunseong.

“I clearly remember you saying you wanted to live separately, that you didn’t want to live with me.”

“…”

“I’ve prepared everything, what am I supposed to do if you say no now?”

His tone and gaze were that of an adult warning that it’s not right and shouldn’t be done to play with an adult, saying that he had prepared everything carefully based on Eunseong’s words, and now Eunseong was saying that wasn’t what he meant.

“After that, there was no more talk about it… I thought you were just saying it in anger too.”

“Why would I say such things in anger? My sincere wish is to grant your desires as much as possible in place of your father.”

“…Why do you keep…”

“…”

“Why do you keep talking like that?”

“What’s wrong?”

He was acting strangely. It wasn’t just keeping a distance; he was building a wall between himself and Eunseong. Eunseong felt perplexed. Then, a premonition that pierced through his mind swept down Eunseong’s spine like a shudder.

“…It wasn’t a dream I had this morning, was it?”

“…”

“That wasn’t a dream, right?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Seeing Siwoon’s expression freeze, Eunseong inwardly sighed.

“It was strange. It was so vivid… so realistic, I thought it might not be a dream…”

“…What are you talking about.”

“You knew that I liked you.”

“…”

Eunseong spoke with his head bowed, tightly gripping the hem of his clothes with both hands. Siwoon’s movement, which had been fiddling with his cuff buttons, also froze simultaneously.

Even when he ran away saying he didn’t want to live with him, someone perceptive might have known.

Eunseong knew what he was doing. It was a confession bordering on a scream. He was begging to be loved by him, saying he liked him. It was a protest saying he was so angry that he ran out of the house because Siwoon wouldn’t love him.

His head was cooling down, but his chest was getting hot. The heat rushed to his face. Eunseong wiped away the tears flowing down his cheeks with the back of his hand. He raised his head to Siwoon, who was silently looking at him.

Siwoon’s eyes, already aware of Eunseong’s feelings, had cooled to an impossibly cold degree of detachment. A cold lump of ice might have been better. But Siwoon’s eyes were just filled with a coldness that felt devoid of any temperature, making Eunseong, who was suffering alone, feel even colder.

Suddenly, the dressing room felt stifling. It felt like the air surrounding him and Siwoon was taking on weight and constricting his body. Eunseong twisted the hem of his clothes.

“It’s weird that I’m like this, isn’t it? You’re… my relative… and you’re much older.”

“…”

“I actually knew… that you were keeping your distance from me. That’s why I ran away. Because you dislike me.”

“How can you say I dislike you? I don’t dislike you.”

It wasn’t true that he disliked him. Siwoon denied it, saying it really wasn’t the case, but Eunseong’s expression showed that it wasn’t a good answer.

“If you don’t dislike me, then what do you think of me?”

“…I don’t think anything.”

“…”

“You’re still young, so you might be confused. When you go to college and see pretty friends, these feelings will disappear.”

He approached and comforted Eunseong like an adult. Patting his shoulder, he said that Eunseong was mistaking his loneliness and fear of being suddenly separated from his father and having no one to rely on, and that he would soon forget these feelings to the point where he wouldn’t even remember when he had them.

“…What if they don’t disappear?”

“You’re misunderstanding right now. That’s not a feeling of liking someone.”

He spoke with a genuinely concerned look. Eunseong was dumbfounded. His vision kept blurring, and Siwoon’s face, worried about him as an adult and guardian, disappeared. He rubbed his eyes hard with the back of his hand. He wiped the hand with transparent tears on his pants.

“If it’s not liking, then what is it? Do you know what kind of emotion it is?”

“You don’t like me. It’s just… something like the pull of blood ties.”

Eunseong couldn’t understand his words at all.

Saying it was an attraction due to blood ties, when such feelings should be even more forbidden because of blood ties, Siwoon was speaking as if Eunseong was confused by the pull of blood ties.

“Then are you… also pulled by blood ties?”

“…”

Siwoon’s fingertips flinched. He deliberately pretended not to know what Eunseong meant.

“It doesn’t seem like the right feeling. What do you think?”

He asked again, putting on the mask of an adult and pretending not to understand. Watching Siwoon, whose facial muscles were subtly trembling as he tried to use a kind tone, Eunseong realized how much trouble he was causing him.

“I ran away because it wasn’t right. But you came to get me, didn’t you? I ran away because I was scared of that, but you brought me back again. You do everything for me that even my father doesn’t do, you keep treating me well. What am I supposed to do?”

“…”

“I ran away because I was scared of that, but you came to get me.”

“…”

“If you had just left me alone then, this wouldn’t have happened.”

“It’s my duty to protect you.”

From that moment, Siwoon felt a delusion of his knuckles getting hot at the realization that Eunseong had liked him and been conscious of him as a man. He clenched his fist tightly. The cross on the back of his hand wrinkled with it.

Siwoon avoided Eunseong’s eyes, which seemed to have more to say. Even as he saw the tearful eyes trembling, he pretended not to know, only speaking in generalities. His sense of responsibility as an adult, his cowardice in turning a blind eye to the pain and fear the child might feel after volunteering to be Eunseong’s guardian, and on the other hand, the ugly desire to hold on and not let go – countless emotions mixed and arose all at once.

“The housekeeper will pack your things, so you don’t need to worry about that. Do you really hate tutoring? Does it have to be a cram school?”

He rambled on as if he couldn’t hear Eunseong’s desperate cry. Eunseong bit his lip.

“I may not be good at studying, but I’m not a fool who doesn’t know what my feelings are.”

“…”

“You might think you’re the smartest and best because you graduated from a university in America, but I’m… I’m not someone who gets confused about such feelings.”

“…”

Eunseong wanted to ask if that meant he disliked him so much. He wanted to provoke even Siwoon’s sense of responsibility, which was no different from labor, telling him that if he had sent his father far away and made him an orphan, if he was his guardian, he should fulfill his duty to the end.

But it didn’t make sense from the start. Siwoon wasn’t just some adult man he knew; he was a relative, albeit a distant one. It was strange even to ask if he disliked him that much, and from Siwoon’s perspective, he was being as considerate as possible to avoid embarrassing Eunseong.

Wiping away the tears flowing down his cheeks, Eunseong said,

“I’ll move out tomorrow.”

He replied without even looking at Eunseong, telling him to do so.