Chapter 174
“…You’ll misunderstand me.”
“Yes, it’s not just misunderstanding… he believes you approached him with intention.”
“That might be correct. I’m suspicious of myself too.”
Yoo Siwoon muttered with a self-deprecating bitter smile on his lips.
“Even if it takes time, giving him time to sort out his feelings alone would be better. Here where you have to see each other’s faces will only have the opposite effect. As I mentioned earlier, the penthouse is also a familiar place for Eunseong.”
“No. Even if Eunseong found out everything… even if he hates and despises me, no.”
It would be better to keep distance to ventilate the deepened emotional rift between them, and Yoo Siwoon knew this fact, but he firmly refused.
Director Nam didn’t push his opinion more strongly, thinking he might find it suspicious. Instead, he let out a frustrated sigh.
After realizing something was wrong, Eunseong had checked Seo Jeong-gi’s urn first. It was wrong to try to deceive such a child. Yoo Siwoon probably never expected that looking down on him for being young and not telling him anything would come back like this. He should have at least given a hint, but Eunseong faced the truth in the worst possible way.
Ironically, the problem was that Yoo Siwoon still had rationality and weak conscience left. If he had dealt with Lee Joon-seung then, this wouldn’t have happened. If he had cruelly eliminated Yoo Oseon by setting fire to the medical center, this wouldn’t have occurred.
The ambiguous mercy he showed and Yoo Siwoon’s character that couldn’t be cruel to that extent had escalated things like this, and Director Nam wanted to stop him before he went further wrong precisely because he was that kind of Yoo Siwoon.
While they were immersed in their respective worries and silently sipping their tea, they heard a presence. Both their gazes moved simultaneously.
It was Eunseong. Eunseong went into the kitchen without even looking at them, opened the refrigerator, rummaged through something, then gathered plenty of food and turned around. From when Eunseong entered the dining room until he left, Yoo Siwoon didn’t move a muscle and just watched his movements.
When Eunseong’s back disappeared, Director Nam deliberately let out a relieved comment.
“At least he seems to be trying to eat something now.”
“…That’s fortunate.”
Yoo Siwoon also let out a pained breath and rubbed his chest.
Director Nam knew what signal Eunseong’s behavior was. It was a hint to Director Nam that he would leave here, that he would end things with Yoo Siwoon.
∞ ∞ ∞
It was time for the wrens to build their nests.
He found the nest he had discovered last year among the bushes. The color of the sturdily built nest had faded and was quite damaged. Somewhere in the garden where people couldn’t easily discover it, the wren would build a house again and lay blue-green eggs.
Although he was told he could meet anyone, go out, and even invite friends, Eunseong didn’t go out or meet anyone.
The more he learned about the reality of the Yongse Pacheon Church and Seongha Group through Director Nam, the more he deliberately avoided contact out of fear that something might happen to Choi Jung-eon. To Jung-eon’s text message asking if he wanted hot fried chicken without reading the situation, he gave a half-hearted reply saying he didn’t want to eat it.
Jung-eon was living a normal life as a college student, while he was living in a state of neither alive nor dead, caught in Yoo Siwoon’s trap, and Eunseong resented even this about Yoo Siwoon. Yoo Siwoon had deprived him not only of his blood relatives but also of the right to live as an ordinary human being.
He even thought it might have been better to run away from home and continue being bullied by Kim Dongjun while working at a motel. Eunseong vaguely realized he could never again live that ordinary person’s life that was hard and sometimes brought sorrowful events.
As he sat in the garden searching through the bushes, the sprinkler that operated at set times poured water over Eunseong’s head.
The blue garden that had been so beautiful when he first saw it, so enchantingly lovely that he stared in fascination, and the water droplets that scattered light as they fell over it, soaked Eunseong’s body.
Even making a fuss about his clothes getting wet and hurriedly getting up to shake off the moisture felt meaningless. Whether water fell or rain fell, Eunseong just took it.
When he got up without finding the newly built wren’s nest among the bushes, his whole body was soaked. His hands were stained with green grass. Come to think of it, it had already been well over a year since he came to his house.
Just one year.
Only a little over a year.
He walked back to the house across the garden with his shirt twisted and wringing so that water dripped steadily.
He opened the front door, passed through the living room toward his room, and encountered Yoo Siwoon. He didn’t know how long he had been watching, but his hands held a towel he couldn’t deliver.
Eunseong stopped his steps abruptly and looked up while thoroughly soaking the floor with moisture. He looked at the man standing there, unable to approach while clutching the towel tightly.
“……”
Eunseong didn’t even want to say he hated it to Yoo Siwoon anymore. After learning that he had deceived him, Eunseong kept his mouth tightly shut. He didn’t say any necessary or unnecessary words even to Director Nam. Director Nam was a perceptive person, and already knowing what it meant that Eunseong wasn’t refusing to eat, he was preparing for Eunseong’s escape.
Eunseong quietly looked down at his soaked appearance. The wet shirt clung to his skin, making his flesh show through. His nipples and areolas that he had bitten and sucked hard until strange fluid flowed were revealed in red.
He didn’t tear away the fabric clinging to his skin and blatantly revealing his body, even though he didn’t want to show it to him. He only looked at him with fierce eyes asking what he was staring at. What he wanted wasn’t Seo Eunseong but this lowly body that was unfortunately born.
“What if you catch a cold?”
Yoo Siwoon approached offering the towel. When he approached, Eunseong hesitated and stepped back. His approaching footsteps stopped where they were.
“Bring our mom back to life.”
“……”
“Bring our dad back to life.”
“……”
“If you can’t even do that, don’t talk to me.”
It meant never to speak to him.
Director Nam had said he became strange because of Eunseong. He wasn’t originally that kind of person, but it sounded like Eunseong had appeared and was destroying him.
Though it wasn’t Eunseong’s fault, though it was his fault, it sounded like the unpleasant meaning that Eunseong’s unwholesome birth had made the upright man lose his mind.
Eunseong sometimes felt a rough impulse to give him the worst pain, not just disappearing, not just vanishing overnight before his eyes, but the destructive idea of driving him crazy by having another breeder’s child, which he so hated and feared.
Eunseong also knew that he was only fourteen years old when his birth parents died. He also knew that not everything that happened was done using him as an excuse.
Eunseong couldn’t accept that he wanted him so desperately because he was The Great Crevice, and couldn’t admit that he felt this fact more painfully than being deceived by him, more than being betrayed by him.
“Are you going to keep talking so nastily?”
“…Ha. Yes, I’ll talk nastily.”
“How long are you going to be like that?”
“How long am I going to be like that… I’ll keep being like that?”
“……”
“Want me to really be nasty? If I think ahjussi’s baby is here, I want to hit it like this!”
Eunseong, who let out a tearful sneer, turned toward him and hit his own stomach with his fists. Startled, Yoo Siwoon chased after him and grabbed Eunseong’s wrists as he was hitting his stomach while breathing heavily.
“What are you doing?”
“Let go of this! Let, let go! What are you doing, what are you doing! Why, are you scared something might go wrong? Are you scared!”
“Eunseong!”
“Let go, let go!”
Eunseong stubbornly shook off the grip trying to stop him. With his breathing intensified from pushing him away, Eunseong asked:
“Are you scared The Great Crevice might get hurt?”
“…What?”
“I asked if you’re scared The Great Crevice might get hurt.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Ahjussi liked me… because I’m the kid in that fucking prophecy. Because my thing here is messed up.”
“……”
“Because I’m different from other people, because I’m special so you like me more? I’ll cut it all off with a knife.”
Recalling Yoo Siwoon who had become more excited and thrilled looking at his unwholesome lower body, uncontrollable rage wrapped around his entire body like flames.
Eunseong stomped into his room. He breathed roughly as if determined to do something, and Yoo Siwoon, who had been frozen in shock, followed Eunseong with a pale face.
Eunseong rummaged through the desk drawer randomly, took out scissors, took off his pants and underwear all at once, then held the sharp scissors as if to carve out the area between his legs.
“Eunseong!”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
