I know history. There are many names in history
but none of them are ours.
- Richard Siken
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
- John 15:13
.
They pierced His side, too, and what flowed forth? Blood and water.
There is blood in this water.
In the night, Yoon clutches his side.
.
Latin has always tasted a little sharp and angular, though he slaved over it in seminary. Now, Yoon finds that it distracts him. It makes the prayers more sacred. He begins with the Pater Noster, and he does not stop.
Sleep, after all, is for everyone else.
.
"I am not Hwa Pyung," Gil-young announces, with the toe of her boot wedged inside his door. Her raven-wing brows are slanted down in disapproval.
"What does that mean?"
It is Sunday. Today, there are no demons. It should be a day of rest.
"It means I don't believe you. I don't believe that you are well." Belief, here, doesn't mean the same thing as faith. Yoon knows that they have faith in him. Gil-young, who believes in almost nothing, and Hwa Pyung, who believes in all the things he has to. They have faith in the priest whose brother wore the devil's face beneath his own.
"Neither does Hwa Pyung."
"Nae. But he left you alone."
"I am tired," Yoon says, in the level tone of a benediction. He wants Gil-young to be well, come to that. He wants her to be happy. Her eyes tell him that she can't be. The resolute set of her shoulders gives him hope for something else. "That is all."
"You told Hwa Pyung you were sick. Which is it?"
The knives split him from hip to jugular last night, and the blood felt so hot and real under his desperate hands.
So real.
"It can be both," Yoon tells her. This time, she lets him shut the door.
.
They come back together. He has spent the gray hours of dawn wondering if it is possible to become accustomed to the flaying of muscle from bone, accustomed to the way that organs puncture and slide.
"We are getting food," Hwa Pyung announces, like this is something ordinary. Like anything can bring them together, other than death.
Maybe it can. Yoon has hope, even if he does not feel it. And he has work to do. He has pain to lift from both their shoulders, these comrades of his. Hwa Pyung is not to blame and Gil-young is not to blame. This, he knows.
(Neither is he. To blame, that is, but that is as far as he can go. After all, he wasted so many chances for his own redemption, and sometimes only took the right path out of fear. That doesn't make a hero, and it shouldn't make a priest.)
(But here he is.)
.
Food feels real. He swallows it gratefully. For a few moments, the name Park Il Do does not cross their lips. Hwa Pyung laughs. Gil-young allows a grudging smile. Yoon's heart twists. It is a different sensation from the puncture or the slide.
.
"Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful."
Yoon marks the place in his Bible, marks his forehead with holy water, and shuts out the light.
He does not shut his eyes until he has to. Weariness will do that; will betray you.
When it begins, the words stay with him.
Faithful are the wounds of a friend.
He can be a friend, he decides, when morning comes again. When he can think. The third time is coming, yes, and it will take him. But there is time yet for friendship, for God's own chosen love.
.
He prays his rosary, clinging to the Mother who has never left him. He prays Mass, and knows it is a sacrifice. He lifts the weight of bread until it becomes something that is not bread.
He says, this is my body, in the words of God.
He means, mine too.
