The Unbelievers Chapter 30

To Eunseong, his genitals were nothing more than a lump of flesh. Aside from excretion, they served no function. He wasn’t even conscious of them, much like the internal organs inside his body—of whether they existed, what they were doing, or if they were playing any role at all. Thus, Eunseong did not think that his inability to feel sexual sensation was a significant problem.

However, because of the emotions he felt toward Yoo Siun yesterday, he began to be conscious of that area for the first time in his life. A sensation that made him flinch when touched gave rise to a vivid, sensitive feeling.

On the morning after dreaming of his fifth cousin, Eunseong’s underwear had been damp and sticky with a slick mucus.

It wasn’t just that his scrotum was empty; Eunseong had another physical secret he could tell no one, and that was a skin lesion located near his perineum. The skin lesion, located in an area that was difficult to even look at properly, felt like something bumpy and protruding when touched with his hand. Since it was a part he never needed to show anyone, he had lived his life assuming it was just something like a wart that had formed in an embarrassing spot.

Yet, as he was swept away by strange emotions while thinking of Yoo Siun, the area of the skin lesion became so prominent that its irregularities could be felt. It had never been like that before. Even now, if he touched it while thinking of him, he felt a rough, creepy surface like that of a reptile. Because this was a change that appeared after he realized his attraction to someone and his desire to touch them, Eunseong felt as though his blood were turning ice-cold.

He could feel the area of the skin lesion throbbing, and he had never imagined he would feel sexual desire as if responding to it.

Eunseong shuddered as he recalled the dream. It was so vivid that the face of his fifth cousin smiling at him in the dream was still flickering before his eyes.

He turned the faucet to start the cold water. He washed his flushing face over and over again in the ice-cold water.

In the dream, after touching the back of the man’s hand where the cross tattoo was engraved, he had gripped that large hand and overlapped their hands. He liked the soft texture of the palm. Eunseong had trembled while holding his hand. When his moist lips touched the man’s, his eyes closed naturally. Eunseong had craved his kiss in the dream.

He, who had never even felt sexual desire, had committed such a terrible act in a dream.

When he opened his eyes as if being dragged out of the dream, his heart sank and his entire body froze cold.

Eunseong, unable to believe it, touched his lower area again, but he quickly pulled his hand away in horror as it seemed to react just by the thought.

“Hey, are you dead in there?”

At the voice of Choi Jungeon accompanied by a knock, knock, Eunseong replied with a start.

“Uh, yeah, I’m done. I’m coming out.”

He hurried to lather up with soap and wash his body. After finishing the shower, he put on the underwear he brought and Choi Jungeon’s clothes. Choi Jungeon’s clothes were loose, like they were several sizes too big. Eunseong stuffed his changed underwear into his pocket and opened the bathroom door. Choi Jungeon was standing with his back to the door anxiously, as if he had been waiting the entire time.

“Fuck, I told you it was okay to stay, but you’re just using water without a care for someone else’s utility bill?”

“Jungeon!”

When Choi Jungeon, exhausted from waiting for Eunseong, shouted ungenerously, his mother must have heard him in the kitchen, as she sharply called her son’s name. Eunseong, knowing he didn’t mean it that way, said he was sorry and entered the room.

Despite Choi Jungeon complaining that the shower was taking a long time, his own shower took twice as long as Eunseong’s. He returned to the room a long while later with a towel draped over his head.

Eunseong, who had been sitting blankly in front of the desk, turned his head toward Choi Jungeon.

“Why are you just sitting there? You should lie down comfortably.”

“This is comfortable too.”

“What are you going to do about your exams? Aren’t your finals still going on?”

“I’ll just fail them, I guess. It’s not like I’m smart like you anyway. My life is over in this incarnation.”

“I need to study. Get out of there.”

“…”

Choi Jungeon, who had been rubbing his wet hair dry with the towel, gestured for him to get away from the desk and get lost onto the bed. Eunseong stood up from the chair and moved to Choi Jungeon’s bed.

“Lie down or roll around, don’t mind me and just be comfortable.”

“You’re the one who shouldn’t mind. I’ll take care of myself.”

“Fuck, the chair is so warm. It feels gross.”

The desk chair Eunseong had been sitting in for a long time had become warm from his body heat. Choi Jungeon grumbled but did not get up.

Eunseong reflexively twitched his lower area. The part he had never been conscious of in his life was vividly reminding him of its existence the entire time. He felt as if Choi Jungeon had caught him twitching while sitting.

“Should I bring you something to drink?”

“I’m fine.”

“Why am I so thirsty? It’s hot as hell.”

Even though the air conditioner was on in the room and Eunseong felt a chill after washing with cold water, Choi Jungeon muttered restlessly.

He got up, went outside, and brought back cold water filled with ice. He looked at Eunseong sitting vacantly on the bed and then sat down at the desk. His irritable hands flipped the pages of the book roughly, as if he were about to tear them. He seemed to be studying for a moment, but then he glanced back at Eunseong and asked.

“Do you want to play a game if you’re bored? You don’t even have a phone.”

“It’s okay…”

“What do you mean okay. Wait a second.”

Choi Jungeon got up and rummaged through the desk drawer. He handed over a box containing a Nintendo Switch and various game cartridges.

“Just do this.”

“Okay.”

Eunseong felt it would be better to play the game as Choi Jungeon suggested to avoid thinking about the horrific things from last night. Eunseong played games on the console he provided, and Choi Jungeon studied.

Choi Jungeon’s mother, who opened the door unexpectedly, saw her son’s back as he studied diligently and Eunseong lying on the bed playing games, and she closed the door with a relieved smile.

In the late evening, Choi Jungeon’s father returned home. Choi Jungeon returned after talking with his parents for a long time. He told the anxiously sitting Eunseong not to worry, saying he had received permission for Eunseong to stay as long as he wanted.

He couldn’t stay in this house for an indefinite period. Choi Jungeon liked him anyway, and just as Eunseong was suffering because of Yoo Siun, Choi Jungeon would likely suffer because of him.

With what kind of heart he said those words to him, Eunseong now understood Choi Jungeon deeply. He even envied his transparency.

If his fifth cousin knew that Eunseong harbored a similar desire for him, how would he react?

The testicles that were empty with only faint traces remaining, the skin lesion between his legs that reacted like an erogenous zone, the genitals that leaked a thin fluid that wasn’t even semen at the slightest touch—setting aside the fact that his body was not normal, Yoo Siun was his father’s cousin and a fifth-degree relative.

He could not be transparent like Choi Jungeon, nor could he be confident.

Choi Jungeon displayed his desires confidently as if feeling them were normal, but if he knew who Eunseong liked and pulled down his pants to see he was a monster rather than normal, his feelings of liking might instantly turn into disgust.

While eating dinner awkwardly, even as they tried to act as if nothing was wrong, Choi Jungeon’s father and mother seemed to want to know the detailed, wretched circumstances of Eunseong—abandoned by his parents and pursued by vicious moneylenders. If Choi Jungeon hadn’t blocked them in the middle, Eunseong would have been forced to make up lies.

After finishing a meal where he didn’t know if the food was going into his nose or his mouth, Eunseong returned to Choi Jungeon’s room and resolved to look for a job with room and board starting tomorrow.

Choi Jungeon, who had been studying the entire time, looked at the clock and muttered stiffly.

“Whew, I should sleep now. It’s already—ahem, time to sleep.”

Since a while ago, Choi Jungeon had repeated that he needed to sleep several times unnecessarily.

“I thought you were a smart son of a bitch, I’m sorry for misunderstanding you. I didn’t know you actually studied this hard.”

At Eunseong’s words, Choi Jungeon snapped, “What?” and glanced back. Eunseong was lying face down on his bed. He was in the middle of installing a job-seeking app on Choi Jungeon’s phone while pretending to play games to look for work.

Choi Jungeon looked at Eunseong and quickly turned his head. Eunseong had assumed that Choi Jungeon—who was actually studying until nearly two in the morning—got good grades because he was smart and because he attended the most expensive academy in this neighborhood, one that Eunseong wouldn’t even dream of attending. But Choi Jungeon was the type to study sincerely. Periodically, his mother would open the door and look at her son studying with a natural and gratified expression, while looking at Eunseong, who only played games, with pity before leaving. She seemed entirely unaware of what kind of thug behavior her son engaged in at school.

“Fuck, you have to study for it to go into your head. How can it go into your head if you don’t study? That would be the mindset of a thief, wouldn’t it?”

Having scolded him for stating the obvious, Choi Jungeon closed his book as if finishing his studies and stood up. He let out a large stretch and then looked down at Eunseong, who was lying on the bed.

“I’ll sleep on the floor.”

Eunseong stood up hesitantly to yield the bed to the owner of the room.

“Mine is a super single, so even if the two of us sleep together… well, it’s fine. It’s not cramped.”

“You’ll be uncomfortable.”

“I won’t be.”

“You have to take an exam tomorrow. Sleep comfortably. Even if you sleep now, you’ll only get a few hours.”

“It’s more uncomfortable for me having you down there. I might step on your guts and burst them in my sleep while going to the bathroom.”

“Then I’ll sleep down there.”

Eunseong pointed to the space under the wardrobe, where people’s feet rarely reached.

“Just be aware that a Mister Cockroach appeared there last time.”

“You bastard.”

“Just sleep there. I’ll sleep on the outside.”