The Unbelievers Chapter 21

“…Yes.”

When he replied reluctantly, the door opened slightly. With only the door held open, Yoo Siun spoke from outside. His low voice sounded distant, as if it had been refracted once.

“Everything seems fine outside. No alarms went off. What was that sound?”

“I don’t know.”

“When did you hear it?”

“I said I don’t know.”

“…”

A voice filled with pouting, anger, and irritation grumbled back, appealing with its whole being. Yoo Siun’s attitude—standing outside the door and talking in a way that could barely be heard—made Eunseong’s blood boil even more.

Eunseong sprang up from the bed. He chased after him with quick steps. He rushed forward—pad-pad-pad-pad—and suddenly brought his forehead right up to the tip of the man’s nose. Standing there holding the door, he winced and froze.

As if he had just come back from checking outside, his gray hair was wet from the rain and sticking together in strands. His rain-drenched skin glistened. The tattoo he usually kept covered for the sake of Eunseong’s moral education was now revealed. Even the wolf on his nape seemed startled, its expression hardening.

He did not avoid Eunseong, who had suddenly approached. He seemed to have noticed what had upset Eunseong. Instead of backing away, he was simply enduring it. The fact that Eunseong was standing so close to him.

“I don’t smell.”

“…I never said such a thing.”

“There was this kid who said they liked the way I smelled, that they used the same soap as me. You’re just weird, Mister.”

“…I didn’t say anything.”

“Then why are you acting like that? Why are you acting like you’re seeing a ghost? Why do you avoid me like I have a bad smell? You were perfectly fine when you were next to Manager Nam.”

“Wouldn’t anyone be startled? If a person is standing next to them like that while they’re sleeping.”

Eunseong argued back fiercely. Letting out a low sigh, Yoo Siun calmly presented his logic.

“You weren’t startled because it was a person; you were startled because it was me. You have a germ phobia, Mister, and I was too close.”

“…”

Eunseong also knew it wasn’t that kind of reaction. When he couldn’t answer, Eunseong pressed him, saying look at that, I knew it, why do you treat a person like food waste.

“Food waste… it wasn’t to that extent.”

Yoo Siun quietly protested that he hadn’t acted that severely.

“Try taking a sniff. See if a really dirty smell comes out or not.”

Eunseong suddenly stood on his tiptoes, grabbed the back of his neck, and pulled him down toward him. His face, dragged down abruptly, was buried in Eunseong’s nape. To the tip of the nose of the man who had frozen while holding the doorknob, a good scent—a moist scent of flesh holding plenty of sweetness—rushed in. Soft and tender flesh touched his lips.

Feeling the inhalation touch his skin coolly, Eunseong’s shoulders shivered. The wolf was right there, and it felt like he could even kiss the wolf. Eunseong made eye contact with the wolf. Only then did he realize that his actions, done in a state of agitation, had gone too far.

Eunseong let go of the nape he was holding and stepped back.

“See… I don’t smell.”

“…”

“Do I smell?”

He shook his head.

“What was it you said about hearing a sound outside?”

He was asking with an unchanging, expressionless face so as not to provoke Eunseong, but one could tell from his trembling pupils that his internal self was in turmoil.

Eunseong looked up at him cautiously.

“…”

“You said you heard a strange sound outside.”

To him, who valued security importantly, identifying the nature of the unfamiliar noise outside seemed to be the priority.

Eunseong was in the middle of admiring anew how incredibly handsome his fifth cousin twice removed was as he looked at the face close up, and he was also in the middle of not understanding why his heart was fluttering just because his fifth cousin twice removed was handsome.

Things that weren’t clearly visible when far away were seen vividly now that they were standing close. The wolf’s face was like that too. He wanted to try touching the wolf that was hardening its expression and emitting a glint from its eyes.

The eyes that had seemed only scary and cold were delicate as if drawn with a fine brush, and the age of thirty-three had been thought of as just an old Mister, but seeing him up close, he wasn’t even that old. Rather, his fresh appearance, faintly holding water droplets from being wet in the rain, made him look like a young man in his twenties with not much age difference from himself.

Eunseong’s heart suddenly surged. His own state, standing and staring blankly at him, was strange. It felt like he was looking at him while wanting something. It was a surging feeling he had never felt before in his life.

Eunseong, flustered, gave a firm push to the chest of the man who was just standing still without doing anything. He, who had been waiting for an answer, staggered back.

“It… it must have been the sound of a bird.”

“…Is that true?”

“It’s true. It was the sound of a bird. Because there are… many birds here. Because there are many trees, there are many birds too.”

“It wasn’t the sound of a person?”

“No. I must have been mistaken. It was even raining, so I misheard.”

Eunseong mumbled and made excuses, but that alone was not enough. Yoo Siun pulled out his cell phone and made a call somewhere.

“It’s me. Check the surroundings again. Review the CCTV. It seems someone heard a sound. Contact me if there’s anything unusual. Keep up the good work.”

He handed down the order to the staff and lowered his cell phone.

The matter had grown large because of his lie. Eunseong anxiously clasped his fingers together and toyed with them.

“We’ll check for now, so don’t worry and go in and sleep.”

“…I’m sorry for causing a disturbance at night.”

Yoo Siun stared blankly at the crown of Eunseong’s head as he stood looking only at his toes, then told him to go in quickly and sleep.

∞ ∞ ∞

As it rained frequently, his body became heavy too. His limbs drooped as if lead weights were hanging from his arms and legs respectively, and his condition dropped.

Starting tomorrow was final exams. Eunseong, who had sat at his desk until late at night out of a sense of duty to at least pretend to study, only woke up from sleep the next morning after Manager Nam knocked.

It was a time when Yoo Siun, who substituted breakfast with a cup of coffee, might have already left for work. Eunseong, waking up in a total shock, finished preparing for school at lightning speed. Because of the impatience that he might not see Yoo Siun if he prepared late, he even grew frantic and hurried.

As expected, Yoo Siun had already brewed all the coffee and was halfway through drinking it.

On one side of the vast island table, his drip coffee tools were out, and a single apple and a glass of milk were placed at the spot where Eunseong always sat.

“Good morning.”

Yoo Siun, who always drank coffee while standing, nodded as he spotted Eunseong entering with one side of his hair sticking up.

“Did you wake up late?”

“Yes… because it’s exam period. Because I was studying.”

Eunseong, somehow unable to make eye contact with him, sat on the chair he pulled out. He let out a yawn so big his mouth felt like it was ripping. Seeing that, the corners of Yoo Siun’s mouth formed a smile so small it wouldn’t be noticed unless looked at closely.

With droplets of tears hanging from his sleep-filled eyes, Eunseong swallowed a sip of milk.

Drinking his coffee, he flipped over a newspaper folded in half to read it. Holding the milk cup, Eunseong tried to check the headlines of the newspaper he was reading with distant eyes. Then he gazed at his face as he read the newspaper intently. The wolf he had seen on the night of the commotion was hidden today for the reason that it wasn’t good for Eunseong’s moral education.

Feeling the gaze, he lifted his pupils. Eunseong’s eyes and his clashed in mid-air. One of his eyebrows went up slightly as if to say speak if there was something he wanted to say. Eunseong shook his head. He took a mouthful of the milk he held preciously with both hands and set it down. He, who had just been watching quietly, wiped above his own lips with his hand.

“…”

“…”

While looking blankly at Eunseong, he again wiped above his own lips, where nothing was smeared, with his hand. When Eunseong didn’t understand and just stared blankly, he lowered the hand that had been touching his lips awkwardly.

Yoo Siun’s gaze returned to the newspaper. The coffee, with only a few sips left, was sloshing inside the cup.

He didn’t know since when, but Eunseong had come to like this time. Although there were days when Manager Nam burst in without any tact and rushed them, anyway, he liked the peaceful and quiet morning routine that fit perfectly with the man who didn’t have many words, to the point that he looked forward to it from the day before.

Outside, raindrops were falling pitter-patter, but the humidity in the living room was dry, and the elegant scent of coffee vibrated in the air.

Eunseong drank milk, and the man drank coffee. When Eunseong took a crunchy bite of the apple, the man flipped the newspaper. If protecting Eunseong was the duty given to Yoo Siun, he was fulfilling it well. Eunseong was living while realizing poignantly what it felt like to be protected by an adult.

Even though he had caused an unnecessary commotion, Yoo Siun didn’t say anything unpleasant, and there was no lecture. He didn’t even give a warning not to enter his space recklessly. He completely shattered Eunseong’s expectation that he would surely be scolded.

He, who had drunk his coffee slowly as if waiting for Eunseong’s meal to finish, checked the watch on his wrist and placed the empty cup in the sink.

“Well then, do well on your exams.”

“…Yes. Have a good day. Are you perhaps late today?”

“I’m not sure. Why?”

“There’s something I want to show you.”

“What is it.”

“Later. If you come home early in the evening, I’ll show you then.”

“…”

Yoo Siun was curious about what Eunseong said he would show him, but because he didn’t have time, he didn’t ask further and left the dining area after gathering his newspaper and cell phone. Eunseong also put the finished milk cup in the sink and threw the apple, which had only the seeds left, into the trash can.