The Unbelievers Chapter 50

“I have prearranged a few security firms that can cooperate with us. I have also sent over your academic data, Eunseong, so they will tailor things to fit you well. I will share the academy schedule with you via your phone. Let me know if there is anything you want to change.”

“Can I invite friends to the house?”

“… Are you talking about that friend from last time?”

“He does not believe me. About how I’m living now. Since I lived like a real beggar before.”

“Are you someone whose self-esteem only allows for proof of existence by showing things off to others, Eunseong?”

“… Pardon?”

Eunseong stared at Manager Nam with a look that asked what on earth he was talking about. Manager Nam cleared his throat with a “hum” and continued speaking.

“Only people whose backgrounds have been checked in advance are permitted. What would be even better is not inviting anyone to the house at all.”

“He is good at studying. I’m planning on studying together with him.”

“Isn’t where he lives too far? If he is a friend who is good at studying, then it’s even more out of the question. Wouldn’t that be a distraction to him right before important entrance exams?”

“….”

Eunseong had not thought that far. Facing the fear of living alone in such a large house, he had been about to call Choi Jungeon, but as Manager Nam said, it would be a nuisance to Choi Jungeon, who needed to study.

Furthermore, Choi Jungeon was currently so fired up with final preparations for early admissions and the Suneung that they couldn’t even exchange the occasional contact they used to have. At a time when everyone in their third year of high school was frantic, Eunseong was the only one around who was idle, without any plan or preparation.

“I won’t call him.”

“Good thinking.”

Manager Nam smiled as if satisfied that Eunseong understood so quickly. He soon instructed him on how he should live from now on. He meticulously took care of things like the days and times the housekeeper would visit, and the cash and cards needed for living.

“Call me immediately if anything happens. Though I will be dropping by every day anyway.”

“….”

“When you go to the academy or travel, a dedicated guard will be attached to you. I will come with them tomorrow to introduce you.”

Since 24-hour close protection would mean knowing everything about Eunseong in detail anyway, Manager Nam was still quite concerned about leaving him alone. He dragged out his departure until the very end, repeating things he had already said several times and checking what he had already checked, before finally leaving.

Once Manager Nam left, the large house immediately became as silent as a dead mouse.

Eunseong stood before the window that looked down on the bustling city center at a glance. The cityscape across the road, now significantly lower than his position, unfolded like a panorama. This spot was likely the highest he had ever been in his life.

Eunseong chewed over and over the strange feeling of being left all alone overnight.

He slowly organized his belongings. Just as he had said he didn’t want to live with him in the heat of the moment, he thought the man had also said to do so in the heat of the moment. He didn’t know the man was preparing this so thoroughly. Though he hadn’t spoken those words wishing for this result, the fact remained that once it was discovered he liked the man, he would have eventually been separated from Yoo Siun regardless of whether he had said those things or not.

“… I should have just kept my mouth shut. I shouldn’t have said I liked him.”

It was a pointless thing to do. Yoo Siun was not the type of personality to interrogate someone over things done in the unconscious state of a dream. If Eunseong had pretended not to know and kept playing innocent, the man might have also pretended not to know and let it pass.

He should have done that. Even if it seemed the man had noticed his heart, he should have acted as if he hadn’t.

He should have suppressed and hidden his feelings, then eaten dinner with him and gone running together. In the morning, the man would brew and drink coffee while Eunseong drank milk, and he would have given a casual greeting to the man leaving for work.

At night, he would wake the sleeping man saying he heard a strange sound, and when the man woke up and checked the surroundings without showing a single bit of annoyance at his words, Eunseong would have stayed close, worrying if someone had invaded their residence.

He should have dragged him along to check if the parrot eggs had hatched. While the man quietly pressed down on his arm and warned him to be quiet as Eunseong made a fuss about how cute they were, they would have looked curiously inside the solidly built nest together… seeing the North Star on some days, and Cassiopeia on others.

He should have just kept living like that.

“….”

Why on earth did he blurt out that he liked his relative?

Because Eunseong had stubbornly insisted on organizing everything himself, the boxes Manager Nam and the staff had dropped off in the room remained piled up exactly as they were, unopened.

Eunseong opened the boxes with listless movements. He took out the clothes and hung them neatly in the dressing room. He placed the books he read frequently by the bed and put the rest on the desk bookshelf. There were more books prearranged by the man on the shelf than Eunseong’s own books.

Once he finished organizing his things, hunger surged. It was the time he would have been running if Yoo Siun had finished work on time. He opened the refrigerator and took out bread, butter, and a packaged salad. It was eerie because the surroundings were too quiet. He turned on a video on his phone. The suffocating silence disappeared, but the forced white noise only made the realization of being alone even clearer.

Suddenly, he wanted to call Yoo Siun. He wanted to call and ask what he was doing. If he had run well while dressed like a crow, how many kilometers he ran today, and if by any chance he heard a strange sound in the garden.

It was an insane thing to do. It was crazy. The man just hadn’t said it directly. He explained Eunseong’s feelings as confusion stemming from an immature age. That was a euphemistic way of saying he was out of his mind. Though the man had always kept a distance from him, this time he had guarded against him and kicked him out, believing he must truly keep a distance.

I shouldn’t keep liking that person.

“Seo Eunseong, are you crazy…? Are you really out of your mind?”

Could he really be mistaken, just as the man said?

Could the deficiency of growing up without receiving proper love from a blood relative have caused him to misunderstand the blunt kindness that man showed and feel it as love? Could he be mistaking the protection of an adult, which he had never experienced, for something else?

I wish it were that instead. So that it would be an emotion that disappears with time.

Barely composing his heart, he was about to call Choi Jungeon this time but hesitated. He recalled Manager Nam’s words about hindering Choi Jungeon’s studies. It was a very important time for Choi Jungeon, who had entrance exams right in front of him. Furthermore, Choi Jungeon had said during their last call that the early admissions he was preparing for seemed a bit difficult. He had to prepare well for the regular admissions to get into the school and department he wanted.

There was nowhere to contact. After contact was cut off with his father like that, there hadn’t been a single phone call or text saying he was doing well, and Yoo Siun took it for granted that his father had vanished.

Eunseong now had no one besides Manager Nam. No one was around him except for that old fogey who only said annoying but correct things that hit home.

Since things had turned out this way, he decided to forget everything and study hard. He had intended to leave the house anyway. Running away from home was one of Eunseong’s grand plans, both in the past and now.

“In a nice house like this? It’s a total jackpot.”

The fact that he had fallen for someone in the meantime was something outside of his calculations, but the current situation was the ideal image of achieving everything Eunseong had wished for.

Was that all? He didn’t even need to fear a shallow future. The road ahead was bright. It was the equivalent of winning the lottery first prize about five times.

Eunseong was a successor with a fairly high rank in a family that valued legitimacy more than anyone. Yoo Siun said he would be exploited, but there was nothing easy in this world. The world Eunseong had lived in was one where he had to bow his head and apologize saying it was his fault even if he was slapped while working normally. Above all, not needing to worry about money anymore was the thing he was most grateful for.

Eunseong tried to act bravely, even if he had to force it.

He settled for a simple dinner and sat at his desk, ambitiously beginning to study. Not knowing what to do, he aimlessly flipped through books before taking out a workbook and solving problems. He solved one, checked the interpretation, solved another, and checked the interpretation, studying until quite late. Once he actually started, he focused well, so he didn’t get up until after midnight.

Before going to the bedroom to sleep, he set the security according to the order Manager Nam had posted on the wall. He was going to turn off all the lights but left some on instead of turning them all off.

From now on, he was truly alone. He had to live alone. The vague realization of being alone and the time of night made Eunseong scared. It was an excessively large house to live in alone. Resentment rose again toward Yoo Siun, who had taken him away from his father saying he would protect him, only to kick him out to live alone in such a big house.

It felt like everything was his fault. If Yoo Siun hadn’t forcibly brought him here, Eunseong wouldn’t have liked him in the first place. Despite deciding not to, Eunseong thought of Yoo Siun again.