The Unbelievers Chapter 8

“…Pardon?”

“I asked if you’ve been well.”

“I think… I don’t think I’ve been very well.”

“You haven’t been well?”

Perhaps finding Eunseong’s answer unexpected, he let out a short smirk. It was a smile that instantly broke through one’s guard. Eunseong suddenly felt a surge of unidentifiable sorrow. It was partly because no adult had ever asked him if he was doing well before, and also because he realized the man wasn’t some scary loan shark.

“Yes… I haven’t been doing well.”

“I see.”

He didn’t add anything else and just nodded, reflecting on Eunseong’s answer.

It was a moment of looking back on Eunseong’s past difficult years in awkward silence with a first cousin once removed whom he was meeting for the first time in his life.

“Were those people earlier your friends?”

“Not friends… he’s someone who bullies me. He followed me all the way home to shake me down for money… He’s a total delinquent, but he’s close with gangsters and things like that, so he beats people up. He’s good at studying too, so he doesn’t even get punished at school.”

They weren’t people who had come to collect on his father’s misdeeds. Only then did Eunseong feel a sense of relief wash down his spine like a shudder. As his tightly held breath escaped in a long sigh, an answer that sounded like a lament flowed out.

“Oh dear.”

The man wasn’t particularly interested, but he responded enough not to make the other person feel ignored.

“He’s been bullying me continuously since school, so I ran away, but he followed me all the way to my house.”

“He’s a bad friend.”

“We were somewhat close in middle school, but he’s become strange lately. Everyone changes as they get older, don’t they?”

The fact that the man in front of him was not a pursuer of a father who had completely lost his son’s trust, but was a blood relative—albeit a distant one—unconsciously reassured him, and Eunseong found himself telling on Choi Jungeon to his relative in a gloomy and sorrowful voice.

“I kept screaming for help earlier. But Dad was inside the house and couldn’t even hear… He didn’t even come out to look.”

Eunseong bit his lip firmly, feeling resentful and angry at the existence of a father who couldn’t serve as any kind of shield for him. He shuddered at the thought of what might have happened if his cousin hadn’t appeared at the right time.

“Are you physically okay?”

“I only got hit a few times.”

Assuming he was asking about the beating he received from Choi Jungeon, Eunseong spoke while covering the wound on his cheek from being hit at the shop yesterday.

The cousin looked closely at the swelling on the face Eunseong was covering with his hand, as if observing it. That direct gaze was embarrassing and suddenly made him feel ashamed. Still, Eunseong didn’t dislike his reaction of looking after him so carefully. The cousin had thoughtful eyes that looked like they would listen to whatever Eunseong said.

Perhaps that was why Eunseong showed him his hit face without hiding it.

“Your cheek is swollen a lot.”

“This, well, that guy didn’t do this earlier… I was hit by a customer yesterday at the shop where I work part-time.”

“Hit by a customer? Why?”

“There was a bit of an argument.”

“…I see. It must have hurt a lot.”

The hand that was approaching as if to touch his cheek momentarily hesitated. He slowly backed away, creating distance from Eunseong.

“But this person, is this person also my cousin?”

Eunseong glanced back and asked about the middle-aged man who was still standing quietly by the door waiting for their conversation to end. The cousin’s eyes naturally glanced at the person standing at the highest point at the edge of the stairs.

When their eyes met, the middle-aged man mildly lowered his gaze, and at that moment, Eunseong realized their relationship was hierarchical. The man explained the fact that Eunseong had noticed.

“This person is an employee who handles my affairs. Were you very surprised?”

“No, not that surprised… Ah, he was your subordinate, Uncle.”

“Something like that.”

Eunseong found it fascinating. That he had a relative living in a completely different world. His father had lived without contacting or maintaining any ties with his paternal side for as long as he could remember. Since he had also never seen or met the maternal side of his mother, who passed away when he was young, Eunseong and his father were truly in the position of heavenly orphans.

Eunseong stared blankly at his cousin standing in front of him. Judging by the atmosphere he carried, he looked to be in his early thirties. At first, he was too surprised to look properly, but looking closely, there were tattoos engraved not just on his nape but also on the back of his hand.

As Eunseong’s eyes kept glancing at the tattoos in curiosity, the cousin, perhaps feeling burdened, rubbed his nape as if covering it. In doing so, Eunseong’s gaze naturally observed the tattoo on the back of his hand carefully as well.

“I only found out today for the first time that I have relatives. Because Dad never said anything like that. I thought there was no one.”

“We also had quite a hard time finding you. I didn’t know it would take this long either.”

The words that he had gone through trouble for a long time to track them down—when they were in a position where no gain could be expected—sounded like nothing more than pleasant rhetoric; he couldn’t believe it literally. Eunseong was in the middle of preparing minimum independence funds for an eternal separation from the father his cousin had searched so hard for.

“You were looking for us?”

A hand so large it seemed like it could cover his entire face repeatedly stroked his nape as if to hide the tattoo.

“Of course I had to find you.”

He muttered lowly.

Eunseong felt like he was dreaming. The existence of the man called his cousin who appeared at the greatest crisis of his life was no different from a dream. His appearance, his voice, and even the faint scent of adult perfume he could smell now. It was completely different from the fishy smell of sweat that came from Choi Jungeon.

“You say Dad is inside?”

“I’ll wake him up. He’s probably sleeping because he’s drunk. Please wait here. I’ll bring Dad out.”

The inside of the house was a mess and would be filled with a layer of disgusting air from the stale smell of alcohol his father emitted. His cousin might scowl if he saw the way they lived. Eunseong, who until a moment ago was only thinking of leaving, now tried to go up the stairs ahead of him.

“No. There’s no need for that. I’ll do it. Will you wait here for a moment?”

“Pardon?”

“It’s because I have something important to say to your father. Wait here with the misters.”

He didn’t want to show the dirty and shabby interior, but unaware of his feelings, the uncle indicated for him to step back, saying there was no need for such trouble.

“Ah… yes.”

He opened the front door and entered the house, guided by his subordinate. The cousin and his employee stepped right into the living room of Eunseong’s house with their shoes on. Eunseong bowed his head deeply in embarrassment, as if he had seen something he shouldn’t have.

“….”

He had been mistaken for a moment. In the end, it wasn’t a good thing.

There was no way it could be a good thing. It was certain that there was another reason why his father had lived alienated from his paternal side in the first place, and it meant that the person calling himself his cousin had appeared to collect the debt his father had incurred while living without them all this time, not to have some sentimental reunion with a blood relative after all this time. He recalled the threatening-looking tattoos engraved on the cousin’s nape and the back of his hand.

He moved his gaze in turn to the black suits who were standing and watching the surroundings vigilantly as if on lookout. He met the eyes of one of them. It seemed Eunseong was included among the subjects to be monitored, as the gaze was sharp. Eunseong slightly avoided his eyes. He gripped the railing uneasily and looked only at his feet.

“….”

Despite quite a lot of time passing while he watched their reactions, no noise could be heard from beyond the front door where the cousin and his tidy-looking subordinate had entered with their shoes on.

There was no sound of waking his father who would be slumped over drunk, and there was no sudden shout bellowed in a drunken state. There was only a chilling silence prevailing in the surroundings, like the silence after the scream he had let out earlier to escape Choi Jungeon’s hands.

The time spent kicking the toes of his sneakers as if waiting for some sentence grew to ten minutes, fifteen minutes, and twenty minutes, and as time passed, the initial tension and ominous premonition loosened, so Eunseong let out a small sigh and looked back at the front door of the silent house.

No matter how much he looked, there was no sign of anything inside.

“What is it, what are they all doing inside…”

Eunseong plopped down and crouched on the stairs. Unlike him, who was getting bored of waiting as his tension released, the cousin’s employees maintained the same vigilance as the beginning and guarded the area.

He craned his neck and looked over the wall into the alley for no reason. In the alley where space was limited, he could see two black sedans, presumably the ones they came in, parked side by side. It was a scene that looked alien and out of place in this kind of neighborhood.

Curious about what was happening inside and worried because there was absolutely no sound, Eunseong finally couldn’t take it anymore and stood up from his spot.

“Why aren’t they coming out…”

Muttering loudly enough for the men to hear, he went up the stairs and stood in front of the front door. The sturdy men only watched Eunseong’s actions and did not stop him.

Whatever demand the cousin made of his father, in any case, Eunseong was the cousin’s relative. He realized through the fact that no one stopped him as he opened the front door that he was not a person in a position for them to haphazardly force down.

Eunseong opened the door and took off his shoes first. Just as no sound had been heard outside, the inside of the house was simply silent. Before he could even move a few steps into the living room, he stopped in his tracks.

The cousin was sitting on a dining chair he had pulled out, and his subordinate was standing silently by the cousin’s side with his hands gathered together. And Eunseong’s father, Seo Jeonggi, was kneeling on the floor, bent over in front of the cousin as if prostrating himself.

“…Dad?”