The Unbelievers Chapter 2

Sunrise was getting earlier as summer approached, but except for the bus stop, the streets were pitch-black as if it were the middle of the night. There was still a sharp chill in the night air. The cold wind cooled his burning cheek.

Eunseong sat at the stop with his shoulders slumped and waited for about twenty minutes for the first bus.

The first bus at 4:30 AM always had a certain number of people on it. Sometimes, there were days when there were no seats left.

Eunseong felt strangely comforted by the fact that there were many people on the first bus. He wasn’t the only one struggling to survive. Everyone was living diligently, and Eunseong was merely one of those people. It was just that none of them looked as young as he did.

Fortunately, there were seats inside the bus today. As he sat in a vacant seat and leaned back, his stiff spine relaxed. Soon, a fatigue that made his entire body sink helplessly washed over him.

As soon as Eunseong sat down, he began to doze off. While dozing with his forehead leaning against the window, the bus turned a curve, causing him to hit his already painful face again. He felt nauseous and dizzy, perhaps because he was so sleepy or because he had been hit in the wrong spot earlier. A grueling exhaustion, making him want to return home quickly, weighed down his entire body.

Getting off the bus, Eunseong walked along the winding alleys. He opened the gate of a multi-unit house where people of similar means lived together. Since it was early dawn, the surroundings were quiet. His father would have guzzled alcohol last night anyway and would be fast asleep now, but he moved cautiously without making a sound, not wanting to wake him.

As expected, the sound of his father’s alcohol-heavy breathing drifted from beyond the half-open master bedroom door. Eunseong moved quietly to wash up and went into his room. His sleepy eyes felt stiff and dry. Because he had to work almost through the night on weekends due to his part-time job, he was tired to the point of hating the arrival of Monday morning.

In the past, when he worked from Sunday night until dawn, he would intentionally pack his school uniform, take the first bus, and go straight to school. He used to change clothes at school and sleep face-down until school started, but his body felt too exhausted after spending weekends like that. Since they wouldn’t even open the school gates that early and he had the inconvenience of having to climb the wall, it was better to sleep even just an hour or two at home.

Eunseong let out a pained groan and fell asleep as soon as he lay on the bed. The one who woke the soundly sleeping Eunseong was his father.

“Eunseong, Seo Eunseong, you have to get up. Aren’t you going to school?”

Startled awake, Eunseong got up while rubbing his sore eyes with the back of his hand.

“Good grief, look at you. A high school senior needing someone to wake him up.”

“…”

His father, who was not drunk, rebuked Eunseong for not being diligent, even though Eunseong had returned after working all night. His father had an exhausted face as if he were carrying all the world’s hardships on his back.

On the day after he had committed all sorts of atrocities while drunk, if his face held a drained tenderness like it did now, Eunseong felt a surge of rage.

He hated that kind of face on his father. His father’s face when his eyes were bloodshot and he was kicking, swinging his fists, and smashing doors was actually better. Because then he could hate him to his heart’s content, and curse him to his heart’s content.

But the father now had a face that he could neither curse nor hate. As always, he looked after Eunseong half-heartedly, worried about him, and struggled to do something as his guardian.

Even though his father knew that alcohol was the cause, he didn’t even bother to hide his self-loathing at his inability to fix it.

A father who would hide liquor bottles in his pants and insist on drinking even while drifting in and out of psychiatric hospitals. Even when he was admitted to a hospital for alcoholism treatment, his father had flushed the abalone porridge Eunseong brought him for nourishment down the toilet and hurriedly filled the empty container with soju. Since then, Eunseong had cut off any lingering attachment to him and did not believe any promises or resolutions he made regarding alcohol.

“Why did you come in so late yesterday? For a student, studying comes first. I don’t care how much you want a new cell phone. Did you work all night? When are you going to get your act together? You have to go to college, don’t you?”

“…”

While saying that, he glanced at and examined Eunseong’s face. Even upon seeing the red, swollen cheek, he would be unable to ask, thinking it was something he did while drunk, and would pretend not to see while rummaging through the events of last night that he couldn’t even remember.

Seeing his father unable to even ask after seeing his injury, Eunseong felt a sense of loathing. Eunseong felt more distressed by a father pretending to be sane than a father exercising ruthless violence. His father’s half-baked paternal love felt like filthy sympathy, to the point where sometimes he wondered if he was truly his father, if he was truly the person who gave birth to him.

Eunseong got up without responding. He rubbed his tired, sleepy face, washed up, and changed into his school uniform.

His father, who was setting breakfast on the kitchen table, called out to Eunseong as he was trying to just leave.

“You should eat breakfast before you go. Sit down quickly. I made bean sprout soup. It turned out very refreshing.”

“…”

“Are you not even going to answer?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Have at least one spoonful.”

“I’m late. I’ll just go.”

“If you don’t eat breakfast, your stomach will be empty and you’ll have no energy all day.”

“I said I’m not eating.”

“You arrogant brat. Who do you think I’m living like this for? I said I was sorry! I won’t drink! I won’t drink anymore! Fine, I know this father of yours did something terrible again yesterday! Is that why you’re rebelling like this?”

He couldn’t contain his temper and screamed. He was certain that he had hit Eunseong’s reddened cheek. Eunseong didn’t even want to tell him it wasn’t his doing. Whether his father misunderstood or not was meaningless. Such injuries occurred every time at home even if it wasn’t at the workplace. For Eunseong, it was rather a part of daily life.

“…I said I’m not hungry.”

Eunseong didn’t want to provoke him further. He was trying to be kind in his own way, reaching out with an apology because he felt sorry, but if Eunseong rejected it, his father’s violence would run wild without knowing any limits. He wouldn’t stop at hitting; he would fiercely criticize Eunseong, who always cared about cleanliness, for being dirty. As if cursing someone born with dirty blood.

Without even making eye contact with his father, he left the house as if running away.

Eunseong’s home was the third floor of a multi-unit house, which was the landlord’s unit.

The three-story multi-unit house was the only and meager asset his father possessed.

Until middle school, he had moved around from place to place as if being chased, and it had already been five years since they settled here.

On the third floor lived Eunseong and his father in the landlord’s unit, and in the second floor, first floor, and the semi-basement, people lived as tenants. Eunseong’s father lived like an idle person on the monthly rent paid by the tenants without having a proper job. He was at an age where he should be working, but he merely lived off the rent—which was neither a lot nor a little—and did no labor.

Having no sense of self-efficacy, his father was always lethargic. Because he hated his lethargic self, his father sought alcohol. When he drank, he would pour out resentment toward Eunseong. He would lament his lot in life, saying he wouldn’t be living like this if it weren’t for Eunseong. When he got even more drunk, he would become emboldened as if he owned the world, but once he sobered up, a self-hatred larger and heavier than the previous day’s lethargy would weigh him down.

The thing he really hated about his father was that he spoke as if his own lethargy and incompetence were Eunseong’s fault. One day with violence, one day with lamentation, and another day with anger, he tormented Eunseong.

Venting his anger in each of those ways, his father took his frustration out on Eunseong as if his own wrongdoings and even the world’s wrongs were Eunseong’s fault.

That a cursed thing like you should never have been born into this world.

That my life was ruined like this because of you.

That I wouldn’t be living so miserably if I had never gotten involved with you.

Did I ask to be born?

Did I even beg to please let me be born into this world?

He gave birth to him as he pleased without even asking Eunseong, the party involved, and then shifted the responsibility onto the innocent Eunseong because his life didn’t turn out the way he wanted. Eunseong hated the fact that such a cowardly and lacking human was his biological father more than the fact that his father was violent.

Eunseong’s school was about a twenty-minute walk away. Whether he commuted by bus or walked, it took about the same amount of time. Eunseong always walked. Walking diligently cleared his fatigue and brightened his mood with the fresh morning air.

Arriving at the classroom where most students had already entered, Eunseong lay face-down on his desk as soon as he sat in his seat.

In middle school, he had studied quite well, but contrary to the words asking if he shouldn’t go to college, his father didn’t have a shred of intention to support Eunseong’s studies. He didn’t have the ability to provide money, but he also had a tendency to hesitate at the very idea of money being spent.

He was a person who blamed Eunseong even now while providing nothing, saying his life had become this miserable because of him. If he asked for even the money to attend an academy, it felt like his father wouldn’t just beat him but beat him to death, so he didn’t even want to bring it up to him. Maintaining grades cost money, and Eunseong’s father had absolutely no interest in Eunseong’s private education.

After he made the firm resolution to leave the house because he could no longer endure it and didn’t want to endure it, studying naturally took a backseat, and he gradually neglected his schoolwork to the point where his grades were now a mess—so much so that he couldn’t even try for a decent college.

Thus, Eunseong gave up on going to college. Whether he would take the exam again later or whatever, college was not the issue right now; leaving the house was the priority. Only then could he plan for the future and try something. It was the fear that if he continued to live with his father, he would be swept away by his father’s ruined life and his own life would also be ruined and broken while blaming others.

“Eunseong is sleeping again. Eunseong, wake up.”

“Our Eunseong is here?”