The Unbelievers

Chapter 10

“…What on earth are you talking about?”

“Your father’s family is not the ordinary household you think it is. Far from ordinary, it’s full of people who, to put it mildly, aren’t in their right minds.”

“You’re sending me to people who aren’t in their right minds?”

Without even looking at Eunseong, who couldn’t understand what he was saying, his father shuddered as if the mere thought of his family made him cringe.

“That’s why I’m sending you. To prevent those not-in-their-right-minds people from harming you.”

“What does that mean? Explain it so I can understand!”

“Your ahjussi is outside, right?”

His father glanced at the closed door, though he couldn’t see through it.

The man with an appearance that made it hard to believe he was related to his father would still be standing in the living room with his shoes on.

“I heard your great-ahjussi passed away a month ago. He would be your ahjussi’s father, so he’d be your great-ahjussi. He helped your mother and me a lot. Yoo Siwoon will follow your great-ahjussi’s will and protect you. They’re the only sane people in that family. We lost contact due to various circumstances, but… anyway, yes, it might be better for you to be there. That’s probably better.”

He kept nodding as if convincing himself while puffing out smoke. His father stubbed out the now-short cigarette between the window frames and turned around. His face looked somewhat lighter, as if he had shed a burdensome load.

“You’ve wanted to do so many things all this time, right? You said you wanted to travel to Europe, and what was it, you wanted a new phone too, right?”

“…”

“Now you won’t need to do part-time jobs, you can have everything you want, and do everything you want to do.”

His father’s ramblings about how different it would be from their current situation, where he couldn’t even afford to send Eunseong to college or even academies, sounded as if he was relieved to be sending off one less mouth to feed to a wealthy family.

“I don’t understand. Why do I have to go? Why are you trying to send me away? I’m old enough to live on my own!”

“They need you because they’re short on heirs. They need a son, a successor.”

“What does that mean? You said you’re also a son of that family! What will happen to you then? Why did you run away from the family in the first place?”

“I was removed from the family registry long ago. They don’t need me, they need you.”

His father’s eyes looked very sad. Guilt, a disgust Eunseong couldn’t understand, and various complex emotions towards the nauseating family he had to run away from were all tangled up.

“What if I say I won’t go with ahjussi? What if I say I don’t want to go? What happens if I say I won’t be their successor?”

“I ran away to prevent them from making you do that. If we run, they’ll find us again. It’s better for you to be in Siwoon’s hands than to be found by other family members. Siwoon is a non-believer. Your ahjussi is a practical person.”

A non-believer…?

Eunseong was getting more and more confused. He didn’t understand what they disbelieved, what exactly they were trying to prevent him from doing, or what his ahjussi being practical had to do with him.

His father was describing his family as if it were some mysterious group shrouded in secrecy, like something out of a movie.

“You say this practical person made you kneel and bow before him? Is that normal? In front of someone much younger than you?!”

The scene of his father kneeling before the ahjussi was so shocking that Eunseong felt a surge of anger every time his father spoke well of him.

“Siwoon may be younger, but he outranks me since I’ve been removed from the family registry. That’s the custom in our family.”

The way he said it was natural to kneel and bow seemed even more abnormal.

“Now pack your things. No, throw everything away. Ask for new, expensive things. Forget about the life you’ve lived with your father and be reborn anew. Your ahjussi will help you. Listen to him well, okay?”

As he was sending Eunseong to the family he had run away from because they weren’t normal, his father told him not to take anything shabby from this house and to forget everything, as if telling him to forget about his father too. No matter how much he disliked his father, no matter how much he had been planning to abandon him, Eunseong had never dreamed of this kind of severance.

“I’m not going. I won’t go.”

“If you don’t go willingly, you’ll be dragged there in a worse way. They’ll try to force you to become the successor. If that happens…”

His father squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, imagining something terrible.

“Siwoon came looking for us because he was worried about that. Listen to your father. This is the best option. Or would you rather keep getting beaten up by your drunk father’s outbursts every day? Is that how you want to live? Is that the life you want?”

“…”

The words “I was going to abandon you before that” caught in Eunseong’s throat. His father’s eyeballs were red and inflamed. His father, who had abandoned everything and run away to prevent Eunseong from becoming that family’s successor, would pour out his resentment on Eunseong when he lost his senses due to alcohol, reminiscing about what he had given up.

Realizing that his father’s mistreatment of him was due to the resentment that made him turn his back on the family, Eunseong felt his back go cold.

“You’re pathetic, really… Dad, you’re really pathetic.”

“…Yeah, your father is this pathetic, so go to someone who can raise you well.”

“…”

He disliked his father’s shallow nature, and he even disliked that this man was his biological father. Yet, Eunseong pitied his father for being so pathetic. His eyes welled up with tears.

He had run away with Eunseong to protect him, but then resented him for the things he had to give up because of it. Sometimes he didn’t stop at violence but accused Eunseong of being dirty, even insulting his mother by calling it dirty blood.

Realizing how shallow and cruel the reasons for his father’s violence were, Eunseong felt his confused mind clearing up. No, it felt like it was growing cold.

Eunseong roughly wiped away the tears falling down his cheeks with the back of his hand.

After standing for a long time in heavy silence without looking at each other, Eunseong turned away first. He left the main bedroom.

His ahjussi was still standing there silently, hands in his suit pants pockets. He was still wearing his shoes.

Eunseong ignored him and went into his room. He didn’t have a large bag to pack his things. He opened his school bag and packed as if he were going on a 2-3 day trip. He put the money he had saved at the very bottom of the bag. He took out his mother’s half-torn wedding photo hidden in the innermost drawer of his desk. After gazing at his mother longingly, he carefully placed it between some books and put it in his bag.

Eunseong left the room with the heavy bag on his shoulder.

“Shall we go now?”

“…”

His ahjussi asked, but Eunseong only glanced at him without answering. His father was cleaning up the alcohol bottles scattered around the house as if he no longer had a reason to drink now that Eunseong was leaving.

Eunseong stared at his father’s back for a while and then left the house without saying goodbye.

The narrow stairs of the multi-family house felt even more cramped with several of his ahjussi’s subordinates standing there, supposedly high-ranking members of some important family.

They made way for Eunseong. The man standing at the bottom followed Eunseong out to the gate. He walked a few steps ahead and opened the back door of a black sedan.

“Please get in here.”

Eunseong glanced at the man’s face but didn’t get into the car. He just walked past him. He passed by the cars parked in the alley one by one.

Eunseong had no desire to go with the ahjussi he had met for the first time today, and he had even less desire to live with his father. He had felt uneasy about running away and leaving his incompetent father behind, but now he felt relieved. If the reason for his father’s pathetic behavior all this time was him, Eunseong was grateful to have been given a reason to abandon his father without any guilt. Now he could sever ties with his father cleanly without any lingering feelings.

As Eunseong walked with the heavy bag weighing down on his shoulder, not caring what his father and ahjussi might do, a sedan so quiet you couldn’t even hear the engine slowly followed him.

Eunseong, who had been pretending not to notice and just walking with both hands gripping the heavy bag strap, turned his head.

“…”

“…”

The handsome man who seemed unbelievable as a blood relative of his father was sitting in the back seat of the sedan. The leather seats visible inside the car looked very luxurious.

Eunseong sent him a warning glare not to follow and hurried his steps again. Yet, because of the car following at a similar pace to his own, Eunseong had to stop again.

When Eunseong stopped walking, the car also stopped moving. His ahjussi, who had been sitting with his arm resting on the car window, raised his cold eyes.

“Are you angry because I entered your house with my shoes on earlier?”

“…”

“Or did it upset you to see your father kneeling before me?”

He asked in a tone clearly meant for dealing with a child. He wasn’t grasping Eunseong’s feelings at all. While those two things could be reasons, they were only superficial.

“Do you think I’ll just follow you without knowing who you are? How am I supposed to know if you’re a distant relative or an ahjussi? Do you think I’ll believe everything just because you say so? Do you think I’m stupid?”