The Unbelievers

Chapter 68

Eunseong returned to the motel, hunching his shoulders and pulling his jacket tight. He handed Dongjun a chocolate bar.

“Thanks. How much was it?”

When Dongjun took out his wallet to pay, Eunseong waved his hand, saying it was fine.

“I bought it as part of a buy-one-get-one-free deal. Just have it, hyung.”

“Still, we should settle accounts precisely. That’s my principle.”

“It’s okay. You don’t have to pay. I just bought it while getting mine.”

Although Eunseong hadn’t given it to him expecting payment, Dongjun insisted on precise accounting to avoid any misunderstandings, asking how much it cost and offering to pay half.

Regretting his small act of kindness towards Dongjun’s strict attitude, Eunseong awkwardly accepted the 1000 won Dongjun gave him.

As it was Dongjun’s turn to man the counter, Eunseong cleaned a room that had just been vacated. After finishing work, he went to the staff quarters to organize his belongings.

The three-drawer chest beside the bed was the only storage space, so things would quickly become messy if not tidied regularly. Dongjun, who had to pass through Eunseong’s space to reach his own, wouldn’t tolerate untidiness.

Dongjun was strongly individualistic, almost to a fault. He disliked both inconveniencing others and being inconvenienced himself. He insisted on paying for his share of buy-one-get-one-free items and required room cleaning to be done in turns every other day.

Since Dongjun absolutely forbade looking into his space, and there wasn’t much to clean besides wiping with a cloth a few times and tidying up daily, Eunseong followed along without complaint when it was his turn to clean. When it was Eunseong’s turn, Dongjun would inspect with a critical eye.

After quickly tidying the room, Eunseong pulled out the bag he had stored under the bed. He had put all the money he had saved, including last week’s salary, into a secondhand backpack.

Eunseong, who hadn’t even thought about college and had been focused solely on escaping from Yoo Siwoon, was feeling a sense of crisis watching Dongjun, who was juggling various jobs while attending night university, desperately pursuing a degree.

For a life without parental support, degrees and diplomas were essential to make things less difficult in the future. Moreover, thanks to diligently attending the academy Yoo Siwoon had sent him to, his college entrance exam scores were quite good, making him regret giving up on school too hastily.

At the time, he hadn’t even dreamed of going to college. His plan to first solve the problem of making a living and then decide if he wanted to study something in a couple of years had now turned into impatience.

He might be able to afford tuition for about a year, but school life wasn’t just about paying tuition.

“Even if I keep working part-time, I’ll need at least 10 million won, no, more than 20 million won.”

Muttering to himself, Eunseong opened the bag and reached for the envelope he had put in the inner zipper pocket.

“…Huh?”

He couldn’t feel the bulky volume that should have been there. His heart sank instantly.

“Huh? Huh?”

His hand searching inside the bag became frantic. Nothing could be felt. He unzipped everything and turned the bag inside out. He rummaged through the inner pockets, but the two envelopes that should have been there were nowhere to be seen. Eunseong’s face turned pale with shock.

He put down the bag and rushed out of the staff quarters towards the counter. He saw Dongjun just sitting down after sending a guest up.

“Hyung, um, have you seen any envelopes with money in the room?”

“Huh?”

“I put my salary from the other day and my savings in the bag, but they’re gone.”

His voice, asking about the whereabouts of the money, sounded choked with confusion and distress.

“The money’s gone? Where did you put it? How much was there?”

“I put it in my bag. It was there yesterday, I even took out about 50,000 won to buy something yesterday and put it back, checking it then, but it’s not there. It’s gone. Over 10 million won, including the 1 million won salary I just received, so about 11 million won in total.”

As he voiced the figure of 10 million won, his hands started to shake. It was a large sum. His entire savings.

The money he needed to live on, go to school, buy winter clothes – it had all vanished. The money he had saved from his previous part-time jobs, plus what he had made from reselling things Yoo Siwoon had bought him, amounting to over 10 million won, which had given him the resolve to run away, plus the hefty sum of just over 1 million won he had received as salary the other day.

Eunseong felt like his mind was going blank. He was too shocked to think.

“Where exactly did you leave this money that you lost? Wait, a guest is coming. Welcome. Did you make a reservation through the app?”

A couple walked in just then, and Dongjun turned to attend to them. Eunseong went back to the room. Trying to convince himself that he must be mistaken, he searched the bag. He searched the bag, flipped over the bed mattress, and emptied all the drawers, but the envelope with his savings was nowhere to be found.

His heart was pounding anxiously. Sitting on the overturned bed mattress, Eunseong stared at Dongjun’s side of the room.

“…”

The only place in this room where he had kept the money that he hadn’t searched was Dongjun’s area. He had never opened the curtain that divided the opposite side, even when cleaning, as per Dongjun’s request.

He drew back the dividing curtain. Beyond it was a bed, wardrobe, desk, and a table with instant rice, ramen, canned tuna, and spam.

Eunseong’s space was just the bed and a 3-drawer chest allocated near the door, while the space beyond, which he had believed to be of equal size, was much more spacious.

That didn’t matter now. Even as he thought it couldn’t be, he was about to open Dongjun’s drawer when the door opened and Dongjun entered, shouting like thunder.

“Hey! What are you doing? I told you the inside is my area, didn’t I? Why are you going in there?”

“The money, the money’s gone, I thought maybe…”

“Maybe what? What do you mean by that? Are you saying I stole your money?”

“…”

Eunseong hadn’t thought that. He had only meant to search the remaining space since it had disappeared from the room. But when Dongjun shouted and confronted him like that, Eunseong realized with a start that he might have inadvertently suggested Dongjun had stolen his money.

Dongjun approached with a reddened face, breathing heavily, and shoved Eunseong’s chest hard with both hands. Eunseong staggered back a few steps from the forceful push and fell to the floor.

“What kind of bastard are you? I felt sorry for you and taught you everything, even did you favors like getting your bag for free! Shit, why would I steal your money? Am I crazy?”

“It was there until yesterday evening. It should show up if we check the CCTV. We just need to find who came in and out of here. It was there until yesterday!”

Eunseong quickly got up and rushed to the counter. The motel had CCTVs installed everywhere due to troublesome guests, with one in each corridor, monitoring all entrances.

There was also a CCTV in the corridor of the storage room used as staff quarters. Though not very clear, it was positioned to identify who entered and exited. Only he and Dongjun had access to the staff quarters.

Eunseong desperately hoped it wasn’t Dongjun. He prayed that it was a thief who had sneaked in and stolen the money from the room.

Eunseong’s palms were sweaty as he hurried to the counter with the computer. He sat down in front of the computer that could access the CCTV footage and opened the folder.

He found the CCTV camera numbers stored from last night. There were two cameras at both ends of the corridor. He opened the file from the opposite side first, closed it, and then searched for and opened the folder of the other camera number.

“…”

Leaving his post to ask Dongjun about the money envelope earlier had been a mistake. Some of the recorded footage stored by time was missing, deleted. There was a gap in the middle of the timeline.

“Go ahead, look. You can see who came in and out on the CCTV. Who else could it be besides you and me?”

“…If it’s only you and me anyway, why did you delete it?”

Eunseong looked up at him, still holding the mouse.

“Delete? Who deleted what? Really, you’re trying to frame an innocent person. Are you seriously suspecting that I took it?!”

Dongjun shouted as if having a fit.

“You’re the only one who knows I keep my bag under the bed, and you’re the only one who knows I have a large sum of money. You even saw me put my salary in the bag. No one else goes in there except you and me, so who else could have taken it?”

“So what? Shit, is the fact that you keep cash in your bag proof that I’m the culprit? If you have evidence, bring it. If you have evidence that I stole your money, bring it here, don’t falsely accuse people! Are you sure you really lost the money? Are you not lying?”

“…What did you say?”

“Whether you ran away from home, or you’re running from a murder, or you’re hiding because of your father’s loan sharks like you said, or what crime you committed and ran away from, how would I know? Was it true that you had a large sum of money from the beginning? Are you trying to frame me and extort money?”

“What nonsense…”

He was so dumbfounded that he could barely speak. Eunseong’s face gradually hardened. Dongjun, with an unfamiliar tone and expression Eunseong had never seen before, aggressively confronted him. At this point, Eunseong felt like he was at fault for hastily suspecting Dongjun.