The Unbelievers Chapter 12

The car left the outskirts where Eunseong lived. After driving for about an hour, the surrounding scenery began to change noticeably. The road signs indicated they were crossing a bridge over the Han River.

Eunseong’s tension eased slightly as time passed. He lifted his head and looked out the car window. Having lived on the fringes of Gyeonggi Province where development was slow, the heart of Seoul—a place he was seeing for the first time in his life—looked like a completely different world. Even the air felt different.

Forgetting his fear for a moment, while Eunseong was preoccupied with sightseeing in Seoul, Yoo Siun was checking something on a tablet PC.

Instead of moving away from the city center, they headed into the heart of it, but the surroundings grew quiet until a secluded and beautiful forest path stretched ahead. Eunseong stared out the car window with wide eyes.

They passed a barrier guarded by security personnel and headed up a well-paved road. Below them, he could see the Han River flowing leisurely and the skyscrapers that now looked much smaller. It was only after a long drive up the hill that the car stopped in front of a mansion that felt hard to believe was in the middle of the city, looking more like a resort built into a mountain.

Yoo Siun got out of the car first, leaving Eunseong behind, who was tense and clutching his bag like a refugee. Soon, the car door on his side opened.

“Shall I take this for you?”

The subordinate of his 5th cousin, who had ridden in the car with them, pointed at the bag and asked. Expressing his determination never to entrust it to anyone else, Eunseong gripped the bag and stepped out of the car before he could be dragged out.

Green arborvitae trees, which blocked the view from outsiders, surrounded the perimeter like a wall, and a building constructed in the shape of a large traditional Hanok stood loftily in a “U” shape. In front of it was a meticulously tended garden where sweet osmanthus, crape myrtles, and other trees with unknown names were in full bloom under the early summer sunlight.

The scene was so brilliant that it lacked a sense of reality. The Hanok and the surrounding landscape blended together elegantly and harmoniously. Eunseong had never thought about it before, but he suddenly felt embarrassed, as his school uniform seemed incredibly shabby. He tightened his grip on his backpack.

“Shall we go in?”

Yoo Siun entered the mansion first. Not wanting to be left alone in the garden, Eunseong followed him.

The interior of the mansion was fundamentally a Hanok, but the decor was styled with sophisticated colors that looked like a house moved straight from a television screen.

“Only you and I will be staying here. This is your room. You can use this one.”

He guided Eunseong to the room.

The room was so luxurious that it made the feelings he’d had while being dragged here against his will feel awkward. A large bed, a desk and bookshelf considering his status as a student, a sofa and table large enough to roll around on, and even a vase with flowers placed on top of the table.

Eunseong suddenly felt like an orphan who had escaped a poverty-stricken corner of the world and been adopted into a wealthy home. Standing awkwardly while still clutching his bag, he looked around the room he had been shown.

In the house where he lived before, the window of the house next door was right outside his own, so he couldn’t even open the window at will. Since opening the window often meant witnessing the man next door lying spread-eagle wearing nothing but a pair of underwear, he only opened it slightly for ventilation and usually had to live gloomily with the curtains drawn.

What he liked most about this room was the floor-to-ceiling window that overlooked the lush green lawn of the garden. The shape of the window, which allowed one to view the scenery outside like a framed picture, revealed the extent of the homeowner’s aesthetic sense. The afternoon sunlight, which he had never enjoyed in his life, poured in brightly, staining the white bedding in a golden hue. He could feel the sunlight to his heart’s content. His mouth hung open automatically.

“Do you like it?”

“Yes…? No. I don’t. It’s not mine anyway.”

Eunseong hid his impressed face and pouted.

“It is yours.”

“…”

The owner of this house was his 5th cousin. He was also the owner of the scenery outside the window that made one want to appreciate it like a work of art hanging in a large frame. The tattoos engraved on his body no longer looked scary or dirty. They looked mysterious once again.

“The room across the living room is my room. The dressing room and bathroom are inside here.”

Eunseong looked where he was pointing. Indeed, there was one more door inside the room. Having lived in a house with only one bathroom, Eunseong had to hide behind a locked door to avoid his drunk father, only to eventually have to go outside because of the toilet. Since then, he had craved his own bathroom that only he could use. His exceptionally fastidious personality played a part, but if only the bathroom had been inside, he wouldn’t have had to shiver with the loathing of having to open the door and go outside.

“You can start going to school next Monday. I’ll finish the transfer procedures, so just rest this week. Within these walls, you can go anywhere freely. It would be good to go out to the garden, too. However, the glass greenhouse is off-limits because we are growing plants sensitive to temperature, so keep that in mind.”

“…”

Eunseong didn’t reply and just stared at him. After looking at Eunseong’s face quietly, the man took something out of his inner jacket pocket and placed it on the table. The small rectangular piece of paper seemed to be his business card.

“Here is my contact information. For anything you need in the future, Manager Nam… you remember the person you met earlier, right?”

“…Who, the older Mister?”

“Yes, that Mister will take care of it. If you need anything, you can talk to the Manager.”

“What about you, 5th cousin?”

“You can talk to me, too.”

“…”

“I’ve brought some clothes, but I’m not sure if they’ll fit. Your father said he would pack up the things you left behind and send them. There are clothes in the closet, so wash up and change. Rest then.”

After saying he would explain things gradually as they went, he had pointed toward the dressing room half-heartedly. As if he had nothing left to say, he looked at Eunseong for a moment before turning away.

Once he opened the door and left, the already quiet surroundings became even more silent.

Eunseong just stood still for a long time, clutching his bag. After watching the shadows of dusk creeping in through the floor-to-ceiling window, he set his heavy-feeling bag down on the table.

“…”

He picked up Yoo Siun’s business card lying next to it.

<Seongha Momentum CEO Yoo Si Un>

The business card, written in Korean on the front and English on the back, did not have an office address or a phone number. It simply stated his name and cell phone number concisely.

Instead of entering Yoo Siun’s contact information into his phone, Eunseong searched for the company called Seongha Momentum on the internet. Seongha Momentum was listed as an affiliate of the large media conglomerate Seongha Group, a company involved in various businesses such as infrastructure facilities, transportation, and shipping. He searched for terms to track him down, such as Yoo Siun’s name and the CEO of Seongha Momentum, but there was almost no information available.

There was only the fact that the CEO of that company was a person named Yoo Siun, who was thirty-three years old. It wasn’t a non-existent company, nor was it a small-scale one.

If it was the Seongha Group, even Eunseong knew it well. Yoo Siun was a member of a conglomerate family, and if Yoo Siun was, it meant his father and Eunseong were also members of that clan.

Eunseong understood less and less. As he sat on the sofa to open his bag, he was surprised by its fluffiness and comfort, making his father’s choice seem even more baffling.

If he didn’t want to be the heir, even just clinging to the family as a conglomerate brat would have kept him from living like that. Why his father had refused this wealth and lived in hiding—the more he encountered the environment surrounding him now, the more questions piled up.

Sitting in an uneasy posture with only his butt perched on the edge of the sofa, he didn’t take his hands off his bag, as if someone might snatch it away.

This place was a space far too heterogeneous from the world he had lived in. The awkwardness and unfamiliarity, where even the air he breathed felt different, made the back of Eunseong’s neck feel stiff.

Eunseong called his father. He felt he had to ask because he couldn’t understand it at all. Before the signal could even reach his father’s saved contact, a woman’s voice flowed out.

—The number you have dialed is not in service. Please check the number and dial again.

“…What?”

The same voice flowed out even when he called again. It had only been about three hours since he left home, but in that short time, his father had disconnected his cell phone number.

Eunseong gripped his phone and left the room. There was no one in the living room. Hearing a sign of a presence from the kitchen area, he walked that way.

Yoo Siun was standing at the island table in front of a large cabinet, brewing coffee with a drip kettle. Carefully tilting the kettle to pour hot water over the coffee beans, he looked up.

“Dad’s phone… he’s not answering. It says it’s a number that doesn’t exist.”

“…”

“Did you do that, Mister?”

As he poured the water in circles, brown water trickled into a small glass pot along with the fragrant smell of coffee. Without taking his eyes off the flowing coffee, he asked.

“Do you have a reason to contact your father?”

“I have to tell him I arrived safely.”

“He probably left for another place.”

“Left? Where to? When?”

“I told you before, there are many people trying to find you. The price for hiding you and not giving you up will not be light. Moreover, once they find out you are in my hands… no, once they find out you, Eunseong, are with me, some will feel betrayed.”

“…Does that mean you won’t leave my father alone? That you’ll seek some kind of revenge?”

“He will have gone to a safe place, so you don’t need to worry. You probably won’t be able to contact him. It would be better not to in the future, as well.”

“I don’t understand. Why go this far… Has the line been cut or something? Are there no other boys my age here at all?”

“…”

Yoo Siun had not taken his eyes off the soaking coffee beans and the brown coffee water for a while. For Eunseong, these were only things he couldn’t understand, and Yoo Siun was being excessively sparing with his words.