The Unbelievers Chapter 22

Eunseong packed his bag and headed to the entrance. Manager Nam, who had been waiting for him, unfurled an umbrella. He walked over to Eunseong and held the umbrella high, guiding him from the entrance to where the car was parked so he wouldn’t get wet from the rain.

Having grown accustomed to such natural considerations as if they were a right, Eunseong waited until he was under the cover before stepping forward. After climbing into the back seat of the car, Eunseong hadn’t been dampened in a single spot, even though the rain was pouring down hard enough for a heavy rain warning to be issued. Manager Nam, who got into the driver’s seat after shaking the rainwater off the umbrella, looked at Eunseong through the rearview mirror. Their eyes met in the mirror.

“Why are you looking like that?”

“There is milk on you.”

“Huh? Milk?”

Eunseong quickly fiddled with his lips and the surrounding area. There was milk foam on his philtrum. As he wiped it off with his hand, he remembered how Yoo Siun had kept touching his own lips while staring at him earlier. He was an excessively taciturn person who wouldn’t even tell someone when they had something on their face.

“Hey, Manager.”

“Yes.”

“Mister. My cousin.”

“Yes.”

“Does my cousin not have a lover?”

“I will depart now. You said you had an exam today, right?”

“Does Mister have a girlfriend or not?”

“You’ll likely finish earlier than usual.”

“He’s thirty-three, but he’s not married and doesn’t have a girlfriend… isn’t he working too much?”

“…”

Manager Nam never talked about Yoo Siun. The extent of what he said about Yoo Siun was along the lines of: he’ll be late today, he’ll be late tomorrow, he’s busy, he has a lot of work, or if you have something to say I’ll pass it along.

Manager Nam started the car without responding at all this time either, as if he hadn’t even heard Eunseong’s words.

Eunseong gave up on talking to him and buried his back into the plush rear seat.

Whether it was because it was an exam day, or because the rain had been falling continuously for days without rest, his physical condition was definitely not good. The drooping feeling intensified once he got into the car. Eunseong closed his eyes and seriously pondered why his handsome fifth cousin twice removed didn’t have a girlfriend despite being thirty-three years old.

Still, unlike before when he hadn’t studied at all, this time there were more problems he solved himself than ones he just guessed. He was trying to somehow restart math, which he had completely let go of since middle school. Even if he couldn’t reach Cornell, where Yoo Siun supposedly went, he wanted to go to a university in Seoul.

Returning home early because of the exam, Eunseong sat at his desk and began to study. He wanted to repay Yoo Siun, who was kind to him, through his studies. He felt like he would have something to say to him only if his grades went up even a little.

He started with the determination to work hard, but the habit of sitting at a desk wasn’t something that could be created overnight. After sitting and studying quite persistently for a while, Eunseong eventually twisted his body this way and that before jumping up.

He felt like he might be able to focus better if he changed locations. Packing up his books, pad, and workbooks, he headed toward Yoo Siun’s study. That was the optimal place to focus on studying. Looking at it then, it was no different from a library since it was surrounded by books, and there was a heavy desk that felt like it would make one study automatically just by sitting there.

After dropping his books onto the large desk in the study he had sneaked into, Eunseong didn’t study but instead sat in front of the astronomical telescope he had been curious about all along. He fiddled with the astronomical telescope fixed on the tripod this way and that, but he couldn’t even get a sense of how to look through it. The size of the telescope was larger than the length of Eunseong’s upper body, so even when he tried to move it, it wouldn’t budge. When he moved the round, heavy thing attached to the side of the tripod, the telescope suddenly tried to drop sideways. A startled Eunseong quickly grabbed the telescope.

“… Gasp, I’m in trouble. What do I do? Ah, I shouldn’t have touched it.”

Since it felt like it would crash the moment he let go, he couldn’t take his hands off it, but he couldn’t move either. Then, the sound of a door was heard and Yoo Siun appeared. It was an early return that happened maybe once a week. Since he usually returned home after Eunseong had fallen asleep, Eunseong had assumed he would be late today as well.

“…”

As if he hadn’t expected anyone to be inside, Yoo Siun just stared silently even after discovering Eunseong standing awkwardly while clutching the telescope barrel.

Eunseong thought he would be scolded this time for being in an ownerless room without permission, but Yoo Siun didn’t say much. He was merely looking at Eunseong with eyes full of questioning as to what on earth he was doing.

“… Are you not going to help me?”

“Is this a situation where help is needed?”

“Does it not look like it? It’s a situation where help is very much needed.”

“You can just let go.”

“I can’t. It suddenly dropped down.”

“It’s because the center of gravity shifted. It won’t fall over anyway, so you can just let go.”

“I’m telling you I can’t. It feels like it’s going to tip over sideways.”

As if he was trying not to come close, Yoo Siun only said with words that it was okay and to just let go. When he was with Manager Nam, Yoo Siun didn’t keep his distance the way he did with Eunseong. The germ phobia was only applied to him. Even in this dangerous moment, he wouldn’t come near.

Eunseong couldn’t take his hands off the barrel. It was the anxiety that the astronomical telescope would tip sideways if he let go.

“Please help me.”

Don’t just watch and please help, Eunseong said as if prodding him. Even he thought he had no conscience. It was a situation where he had entered someone else’s room without permission and tried to touch their things recklessly, nearly breaking them. Even so, he didn’t scold Eunseong. He didn’t say unpleasant words, nor did he even let out a sigh that would suggest he found the situation tiresome.

As he approached and adjusted the balance between the tripod’s counterweights and the barrel’s center of gravity, the telescope that had been sliding down precariously became stably fixed as if by magic.

“Phew, I’m saved. I thought it was broken.”

“…”

Even though he had fixed it, Eunseong took his hands off slowly and carefully.

“When I was little, I wanted one of these so much that I begged my dad to buy me one… I was just trying to take a look.”

Even though he wasn’t being interrogated about why he had entered someone else’s study recklessly, Eunseong laid out excuses. He didn’t ask for a reason, nor did he lecture. After just staring silently for a moment, he tried to leave the room, leaving Eunseong behind.

“How do you look through it? I tried to look, but I could only see black.”

Yoo Siun, who was leaving the study while pulling down his tie, looked back at Eunseong. Eunseong was still sitting in front of the telescope with a face full of lingering attachment.

Yoo Siun felt pity and regret for Eunseong, who must have lived his life unable to even speak properly when there was something he wanted, suppressing it internally and eventually always giving up and resigning himself. If it were him, he would have given him whatever he wanted without sparing anything.

Yoo Siun felt a slight sense of loathing toward Seo Jeonggi, who hadn’t raised Eunseong properly, nor looked after him properly, nor fulfilled his needs. The fact that Eunseong still had dreams involving that man made him unpleasant.

“Do you want to come and see?”

Yoo Siun approached the astronomical telescope and gestured for him to come over. When Eunseong got up from the blanket and stepped aside, he sat down in his place with one knee on the floor, put his eye to the lens at the eyepiece, and adjusted the barrel so it was level.

“If you loosen this holder, the barrel moves. This weight is the weight that balances the mass. If you move this back and forth to level it, you won’t get that feeling of it tipping sideways like earlier.”

“Ah, I see. So leveling it is what’s important.”

He explained calmly and clearly. Eunseong’s eyes sparkled with a unique brilliance at the interesting situation.

“You just have to lower the weight all the way down and set the barrel like this. This… I had aligned the polar axis.”

Yoo Siun continued speaking slowly while checking the polar scope on the mount. It meant the polar axis he had adjusted had been messed up because Eunseong touched it recklessly, but there was no irritation or anger.

He watched him intently as he spoke softly and reset the astronomical telescope from the beginning. His handsome profile was making things align while carefully tightening and loosening the screws of the telescope. It was an experience Eunseong hadn’t had in his life.

If his father had been kind to him, would it have felt like this? He was also learning for the first time now that having an adult act kindly toward him as an adult should was such a heart-fluttering thing.

“If the position changes, you have to realign it.”

“How do you do that?”

“This is called a polar scope. You have to align this with the North Pole to make observation easier. Things like constellations.”

“The North Star?”

“The North Pole isn’t the North Star; it’s a point a little further away from there.”

“How do you find that?”

“You find the Big Dipper first.”

“Can’t I look too?”

He took his eye off the lens. Moving out of the way, he taught Eunseong to put his eye to the polar lens.

While doing so, he backed away quite a bit. Having retreated about two steps away, he gestured for Eunseong to hurry up and put his eye to it.

Eunseong found it ridiculous that he was keeping his distance even in this situation, but for now, he followed instructions, brought his eye to the lens, and looked for the Big Dipper.

“It’s about 50 arcminutes away at an angle from the direction of the very last star of the Big Dipper. That’s the North Pole.”

“Uh… this one?”

Eunseong fluttered his hand for him to come quickly and look now that he had found it. Yoo Siun hesitated for a moment without approaching.

“… Will you move out of the way?”

“Huh?”

“You have to move out for me to see.”

“I did move out.”

“Further back…”

It meant to retreat to a distance where they wouldn’t touch, a distance where their scents or body odors could not reach each other.