The Unbelievers

Chapter 30

To Eunseong, his dick was merely flesh. They served no purpose other than excretion. He didn’t even think about whether they functioned like internal organs, what they did, or what role they played, so he didn’t consider it a significant problem that he felt no sexual pleasure.

However, after experiencing some emotions with Yoo Siwoon yesterday, for the first time, he began to consciously recognize that part of himself. The sensation of touch sent shivers through him, awakening a sensitive feeling.

After dreaming of his fifth cousin uncle, Eunseong woke up to find his underwear soaked with a slippery, mucous-like substance.

Not only was his scrotum empty, but Eunseong also had another physical secret he couldn’t tell anyone about: a skin lesion near his perineum. It was a part of his body that was difficult to examine, and when touched, it felt bumpy, but he lived with it, thinking it was just a wart in an embarrassing area that didn’t need to be shown to anyone.

Yet, as he recalled Yoo Siwoon, a strange emotion washed over him, and the area of the skin lesion became pronounced enough to feel its texture. This had never happened before. Even now, as he thought of him and touched himself, he felt a rough, reptilian-like surface. The change came after he realized he was attracted to someone and wanted to connect with that person, leaving Eunseong feeling cold as ice.

He could feel the area of the skin lesion throbbing, and he was surprised to find himself feeling sexual desire.

Eunseong recalled the dream and shuddered. The face of his fifth cousin uncle, who had smiled at him in the dream, still lingered vividly in his mind.

He turned the faucet and let cold water run. He washed his heated face repeatedly with the icy water.

In the dream, he had touched the back of a man’s hand, which had a cross tattoo, and he had held that large hand, overlapping their palms. The soft sensation of his palm felt good. Eunseong trembled as he held his hand. When his moist lips touched him, his eyes closed involuntarily. In the dream, Eunseong craved his kiss.

He had never felt sexual desire before, yet he had done such a terrible thing in the dream.

When he opened his eyes, as if being pulled out of the dream, his heart sank, and his whole body froze in shock.

Eunseong couldn’t believe it, so he touched himself again, but it felt like just recalling it made him react, and he quickly pulled his hand away in fright.

“Hey, are you dead?”

Startled by the knock and the voice of Choi Jung-eon, Eunseong replied.

“Uh, yeah, I’m done. I’m coming out.”

He hurriedly soaped up and washed his body. After showering, he put on the underwear he had brought and Choi Jung-eon’s clothes. Jung-eon’s clothes were loose, several sizes too big. Eunseong stuffed the changed underwear into his pocket and opened the bathroom door. Choi Jung-eon was standing anxiously with his back to the door, as if he had been waiting the whole time.

“Damn, I said it was okay to use it, but you’re wasting water like it’s not someone else’s house?”

“Jung-eon!”

When Jung-eon, tired of waiting for Eunseong, shouted harshly, his mother, hearing him from the kitchen, sharply called out her son’s name. Knowing that wasn’t the meaning behind it, Eunseong felt sorry and entered his room.

Choi Jung-eon had taken much longer to shower than he had scolded Eunseong for. After a while, he returned to the room with a towel draped over his head.

Eunseong, sitting blankly at the desk, turned to Jung-eon.

“Just lie down comfortably. What are you doing?”

“This is comfortable too.”

“What about your exams? You guys haven’t finished them yet, right?”

“I can’t take them anyway. I’m not good at studying like you. This life is over for me.”

“I have to study. Come with me.”

“…….”

Choi Jung-eon, rubbing his wet hair with a towel, gestured for Eunseong to get off the desk and move to the bed. Eunseong stood up from the chair and shifted to Jung-eon’s bed.

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

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll manage.”

“Damn, this chair is so warm. It’s uncomfortable.”

The chair Eunseong had been sitting in had warmed up from his body heat. Jung-eon grumbled but didn’t get up.

Eunseong felt a strange sensation in his lower body. A part of him that he had never consciously acknowledged was persistently reminding him of its existence. He felt as if Jung-eon had caught him flinching.

“Do you want me to get you something to drink?”

“I’m fine.”

“Why are you so thirsty? It’s so hot.”

Even though the air conditioner was on in the room and Eunseong had just washed with cold water, he felt a chill, while Jung-eon was restless and muttering.

He got up and went outside to bring back a glass of ice water. He sat in front of the desk, looking at Eunseong, who was sitting on the bed. His nervous hands flipped through the pages of a book roughly, as if they were about to tear them. Then, as if he was studying, he glanced back at Eunseong and asked.

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

“I’m fine with that…”

“Fine, just wait.”

Choi Jung-eon got up and rummaged through the desk drawer. He handed Eunseong a box containing a Nintendo Switch and various game chips.

“Play this.”

“Okay.”

To avoid recalling the terrible events of last night, it seemed better to play games as Jung-eon suggested. Eunseong played with the game console he was given, while Jung-eon studied.

Choi Jung-eon’s mother, who had opened the door unexpectedly, saw her son studying diligently and Eunseong lying on the bed playing games, and smiled reassuringly before closing the door.

As late evening approached, Jung-eon’s father returned home. Jung-eon talked with his parents for a while and then came back. He told Eunseong not to worry and that he had received permission to stay as long as he wanted.

He couldn’t stay in this house indefinitely. Jung-eon liked him anyway, and just as Eunseong was suffering because of Yoo Siwoon, Jung-eon must be suffering because of him too.

Eunseong deeply understood the feelings behind Jung-eon’s words. He envied his transparency.

If his fifth cousin uncle knew that Eunseong harbored similar desires, how would he react?

With empty testicles that only faintly remained, skin lesions between his legs that reacted like erogenous zones, and a dick that leaked a thin fluid just from touch, Eunseong couldn’t be normal, and Yoo Siwoon was his father’s cousin, making them fifth cousins.

He couldn’t be as transparent or confident as Jung-eon.

While Jung-eon openly expressed that feeling such desires was normal, Eunseong feared that if he knew who he liked and saw him without his pants, he might realize that he was not normal but a monster, and that feeling of affection could instantly turn into disgust.

During dinner, they tried hard to act as if nothing was wrong, but Jung-eon’s parents seemed eager to learn about Eunseong’s pitiful situation of being abandoned by his parents and chased by vicious loan sharks. If Jung-eon hadn’t intervened, Eunseong would have had to lie.

After finishing a meal that he couldn’t tell whether it went in through his nose or mouth, Eunseong resolved to start looking for a job that provided food and lodging starting tomorrow.

Jung-eon, who had been studying the whole time, looked at the clock and stiffly muttered.

“Ugh, I should go to bed now. Time has already flown by; I should sleep.”

Jung-eon had unnecessarily repeated that he needed to sleep several times since earlier.

“I thought you were a smart bastard, but I’m sorry for misunderstanding. I didn’t know you were actually studying hard.”

At Eunseong’s words, Jung-eon snapped back, “What?” and turned away. Eunseong was lying on his bed, pretending to play games while installing a job search app on Jung-eon’s phone.

Jung-eon quickly turned his head away when he saw Eunseong. As it approached two in the morning, Jung-eon, who was genuinely studying, had been thought to be smart because he attended the most expensive academy in the neighborhood, which Eunseong couldn’t even dream of. But Jung-eon was the diligent type. Occasionally, his mother would open the door and look at her son studying with pride, while she looked at Eunseong playing games with pity. She seemed completely unaware of what kind of trouble her son was getting into at school.

“Damn, you have to study for it to stick in your head. How can it get in if you don’t study? That’s the real thief’s mindset, isn’t it?”

Jung-eon, who had scolded Eunseong for stating the obvious, closed his book as if finishing his study and stood up. He stretched widely and looked down at Eunseong, who was lying on the bed.

“I’ll sleep on the floor.”

Eunseong awkwardly raised his body to give the bed to the owner.

“My bed is a super single, so it’s fine for both of us to sleep together… well, it’s okay. It’s not cramped.”

“You’ll be uncomfortable.”

“I’m not uncomfortable.”

“You have an exam tomorrow. Sleep comfortably. You won’t get much sleep if you go to bed now.”

“It’s more uncomfortable with you down there. I might accidentally step on your guts while going to the bathroom in my sleep.”

“Then I’ll sleep down there.”

He pointed to a spot under the wardrobe where a person’s feet wouldn’t easily reach.

“Just know that’s where the teacher appeared last time.”

“Damn you.”

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