The Unbelievers

Chapter 7

The man asked, seemingly unfazed by Eunseong hiding behind him.

“Yes, that’s right. Are you a friend of my father?”

Eunseong asked the man who had saved him in this moment of crisis. The man turned to look at Eunseong, who was hiding behind him in fear, with a businesslike expression and asked:

“Is Eunseong’s father’s name Seo Jeong-gi?”

“What? Yes… but why?”

“Is he home right now?”

“I’m not sure. But who are you?”

Only then did the man’s presence, confirming his father’s name rather than Jung-eon’s, feel more unfamiliar and frightening. Nothing good had ever come from anything related to his father. But he couldn’t go back to Jung-eon now, so Eunseong stepped back, distancing himself from both the man and Jung-eon, and asked:

“Friends… I think it would be best if you all left now.”

Unable to find an appropriate word for the relationship between Jung-eon and Eunseong, which clearly didn’t look like friendship, the man turned to look at the group standing tensely at the appearance of a stranger and said. Everyone was fidgeting, watching the man’s reactions, but Jung-eon was an exception.

“Who are you? Eunseong is asking you.”

“I think it would be best if you left now.”

There was no inflection in the tone that repeated the same words. Usually, adults around them would frown or raise their voices at delinquent students who rudely asked who they were, but the man in front of them was completely different.

He showed no reaction to Jung-eon’s glaring and confrontational attitude. Politely repeating the same words in a consistent tone was more intimidating than random shouting. However, Jung-eon was not an ordinary student either.

“Who are you? Ah, shit. I’m going to call the police.”

Jung-eon took out his phone from his pocket and spoke loudly enough for everyone to hear. A faint contempt passed across the man’s forehead.

He turned his head to look down the stairs. Several men in dark suits had appeared at some point and were entering through the narrow, paint-peeled gate.

“I have important business with Eunseong’s father, so I’d appreciate it if you all left now. All of you friends.”

The man’s voice was calm, but it carried a warning that this was the limit of his patience. As several large men who looked like professional security personnel rather than local thugs appeared intimidatingly, Jung-eon’s group whispered among themselves, “Let’s go, let’s go quickly, let’s just go,” and fled down the stairs.

The man turned his gaze to Jung-eon, who was left alone still holding his phone.

Eunseong no longer cared about Jung-eon. Cold sweat seeped down his back. His father must have done something, something Eunseong couldn’t handle, and it was certainly no ordinary matter.

“Hey, Seo Eunseong. Call me if anything happens. Got it?”

Jung-eon reluctantly started to leave, urging Eunseong as several large men quietly pressured him by just staring at him.

Eunseong was more afraid of these people than Jung-eon. Several ominous thoughts flashed through his mind momentarily.

His father might have gotten into gambling debt, or he might have gotten involved with loan sharks. His father was more than capable of such things. Worse still, he might have signed a physical forfeiture agreement. Horrific images of his father promising to sell even his child’s organs to repay debts if he had nothing else passed through Eunseong’s mind.

“W-where are you going?”

Eunseong unknowingly looked at Jung-eon with eyes that said ‘don’t go’. Jung-eon, who had been swaggering with his hands in his pockets until the end, was saying to the man standing firm, “Could you please move aside?”

“If you don’t come to school tomorrow, I’ll report it. Did you hear that? I said I’ll report to the police if he doesn’t come to school tomorrow. Ah, this won’t do. I need to leave evidence. Is it okay if I take a picture?”

With a delinquent look that said “Did you hear me, mister?”, he tried to take out his phone to take a picture.

The man who had been standing silently made a gesture with his eyes, and one of the bodyguards in black suits snatched the phone from Jung-eon’s hand. Jung-eon froze in shock.

“I think it would be best if you just left quietly.”

At the man’s words, the bodyguard turned off the phone he had taken and returned it to Jung-eon. Perhaps surprised by the forceful action of snatching something from his hand, Jung-eon’s hand trembled slightly as he took back his phone. No matter how delinquent he acted, Jung-eon was still just a teenager.

Thinking it might be better to have even someone like him around, Eunseong desperately sent a look that said ‘don’t go’, but Jung-eon, thoroughly intimidated, passed by them and went down the stairs.

After Jung-eon and his friends had all disappeared, the man asked Eunseong:

“Is Seo Jeong-gi at home?”

“I don’t know. He might be… or he might not be…”

Eunseong mumbled without lifting his head. Whatever his father had done, it had nothing to do with him, and he wanted to insist it had nothing to do with him.

“Can I go too? If you’re looking for my father… I have to go to my part-time job.”

He spoke in a small voice and slightly raised his gaze. The man was looking at the front door of Eunseong’s house.

“Could you open this door for me?”

The man spoke with an expression that suggested they could force their way in if necessary, but he’d rather avoid such troublesome procedures.

Eunseong hesitated, then unlocked the front door and half-opened it, setting the stopper. He looked at the man with eyes that asked if he could go now that he had opened the door.

The man opened the door wide that Eunseong had left ajar and was checking things like the shoes in the entryway. Eunseong turned around while watching the man’s reactions. As he was about to go down the stairs as if fleeing, the intimidating men in suits were making way for someone.

Eunseong stopped in his tracks halfway down.

“…”

A perfectly tailored dark black suit, shoe tips polished to perfection without a speck of dust, a well-groomed hairstyle – the handsome man before him looked like he had no connection to this dirty and shabby neighborhood that knew nothing beyond mere subsistence. However, things like his sleeve buttons and tie were somewhat disheveled, as if deliberately leaving traces of imperfection in the corners of an otherwise suffocatingly perfect picture.

Eunseong’s eyes were not fixed on the man’s handsome face, but on his thick neck. On the nape of his neck below his left ear, there was an elaborate tattoo of a fierce-looking eye and the figure of a beast, perhaps a tiger or a wolf.

The man’s eyes, meeting Eunseong’s, momentarily contorted as if looking at dirty trash. It was a gaze that made Eunseong cower, having defenselessly opened the house door to an unknown man as if betraying his father and then trying to run away.

“…Seo Eunseong?”

The man who encountered Eunseong’s presence seemed to have no intention of hiding his displeasure or hostility. Eunseong was just staring blankly at the man and the beast-like tattoo resembling him, in shock. Rather than fear, he felt a strange sense of awe.

He had the absurd thought that people with such cinematic appearances, capable of creating narratives in any way, actually existed in the world, as if realized before his eyes.

After all, it’s rare to have an appearance where even the most unpleasant expression doesn’t transfer that unpleasantness.

“Where’s this boy’s father?”

The man asked, looking at Eunseong who had stopped in his tracks. The middle-aged man who had been examining the inside of the house after opening the door turned to him and bowed his head as if addressing a superior.

“It seems he’s inside, sir.”

Eunseong was startled by the man’s report. His father had been at home, probably passed out drunk, unable to hear Eunseong’s screams for help while dealing with Jung-eon and his gang.

Even in this situation, a fierce disgust and revulsion towards his father churned inside him, and at the same time, he felt a momentary satisfaction at the appearance of these grim reapers at their home, seemingly as a result of whatever his father had done. But this was quickly replaced by a new fear, anticipating that his father would cause him trouble again, as he always had.

“Can I… can I go now?”

“Hm?”

“Since you’re here to see my father… I can go, right? This has nothing to do with me.”

He asked the man who, despite standing a few steps below, seemed to be at eye level with him. There was no time to marvel anew at the man’s appearance that exuded a delicate yet weighty atmosphere. Because ominous premonitions had never been wrong before.

“…”

The man was scrutinizing Eunseong’s features with overly obvious eyes. It seemed like he was appraising, or perhaps evaluating him. His inscrutable gaze lingered long on Eunseong’s face. As he did so, his brow furrowed slightly. Eunseong, unable to gauge such microscopic changes, was the first to avoid the staring eyes.

Perhaps finally noticing Eunseong’s desire to escape like a small animal caught in a trap, the man opened his mouth with an “Ah.”

“I’m late in introducing myself. I am… well, I’m your relative. Not someone to be afraid of.”

“What?”

“I’m your father’s cousin, which makes me your second cousin once removed.”

“You’re saying you’re my father’s cousin?”

“Your paternal grandfather’s youngest brother is my father, so you and I are fifth cousins in terms of kinship.”

“Like an ahjussi?”

“Yes. Your father and I are cousins, and you and I are fifth cousins. In a way, I’m like an ahjussi to you.”

“Ah, I see… my second cousin once removed. Ah, I understand. I’m sorry I didn’t greet you properly. I was flustered.”

Eunseong didn’t miss the bitter feeling that passed over the man’s face. The man was realistically aware that his counterpart was young enough to need such explanations.

“I last saw you when you were very young, and this is the first time since then. You’ve grown a lot. Have you been well?”