Archive of Our Own

Mark isn’t sure about much in this life. But if there’s one thing that he knows with absolute certainty, it’s that his God is as Almighty as he is Real.

And that he’s going to Hell.

It is a fact of his life that he has come to terms with. Mark stands in the gravel parking lot of the church every Sunday, and he prays to God each time that it will not be his last. That he will not spontaneously combust. He’s read a lot about spontaneous human combustion, actually. How a person’s body can burst into flames all of a sudden. No explanation. Your torso disintegrates while your hands and feet stay intact. You get to keep your head. It has happened in Ireland. A real life human burning from the inside out like the good word caught him by the throat and held on tight.

Mark often wonders what great sins that stranger committed. If Mark’s are comparable.

It would break his mother’s heart, Mark thinks, for her son to step past the threshold of the church she’s been a member of since she was a girl and burst into flames because he has the tendency to give into temptation. He hopes she’d at least get to keep a lock of his hair if it doesn’t burn off.

But Mark is not the only one. The entire congregation has their secrets. Their vices. Mr. Kim has smelled of liquor since his wife left him over a decade ago for another man. Mrs. Kwon has got a motor mouth. A set of loose lips. She gossips over breakfast, lunch and dinner as far as Mark has heard. And the Choi sisters—aged nineteen and twenty-one—sneak out every night once the sun goes down to meet their older boyfriends. The moonlight grants them bravery. Mark can empathize with that.

For Mark, temptation takes shape in the preacher’s son.

He looks soft today. Cherubic in a light brown cardigan and virginal white tee tucked into slacks that elongate his legs when he stands. He talks to members of the congregation with sweet promises of yard work and baked goods on his lips. That’s what Haechan is good at. Charming a crowd. Not a single auntie or uncle is suspicious of Haechan’s own proclivities once dusk casts her veil upon their small town.

Mark watches him from a safe distance, feeling tight all over in a cramped, wooden pew. An aged leather back Bible passed down by generations of the Lee family sits in his lap like a well-behaved emotional support service animal. He runs an index along its jagged spine. Up and down, up and down until his finger starts to itch. Haechan has a hand on the shoulder of one of the choir girls. The daughter of terminally ill Mrs. Park. They look to be well-acquaintanced. Mark feels his lips pinch. Before he knows it, a sharp pain stings the corner of his mouth.

“Ouch. Shit,” Mark swears, swiping at the area. A smear of blood covers the tip of his finger, and he wipes it off on his hand-me-down corduroys.

A light smack to his thigh. “Don’t swear.”

“Sorry, eomma,” Mark says, sitting straighter.

His mother looks beautiful as ever for Sunday morning church. Straight faced like a bird, but stunning. She’ll stop a man right in his tracks. Have him on his knees in seconds, suddenly God-fearing and Christian. Mark has seen it happen dozens of times. There aren’t many lookers in this town, he knows, so he’s grown a thick skin to the wandering eye of men from all around. His older brother never had the patience. But he’s gone now, shacked up some hundreds of miles away with a pretty woman their mother never approved of. The church is not the right fit for everybody. Mark’s brother figured this out about himself and had no qualms about the potential fallout of his departure.

For all of her beauty, Mark’s mother is equal parts terrifying. She lays one hand flat to the middle of his back and the other around his shoulder. Shifts Mark so that he sits upright. Must not have been good enough when he tried. “What have I told you about those bad habits?” she asks him, voice low and reprimanding. “Sit straight or don’t sit at all. Might as well be laying down. And we don’t lay down at church, do we?”

“No, eomma,” Mark says, robotic. He isn’t listening. Not really.

Across the way, Haechan has his head dipped low into the Park girl’s ear. She giggles, and it must sound sweet as wind chimes or hymnals because Haechan laughs, too, and he rubs the edge of her sleek black ponytail between his index finger and thumb. Mark grips around his Bible hard enough to have his knuckles pulse. He fights the urge to scoot on the edge of the pew to get a closer look. He can’t remember the Park girl’s name, but it’s probably something pretty like Aecha or Jimin. Pretty enough to match a button nose and pair of full lips. Fuller than Mark’s. For one hot, sharp moment he has the desire to take scissors to her ponytail. Cut it clean off.

This is not a thought that settles well in Mark’s stomach. He presses a palm there to quell the ache. Refocuses on the vibrato of his mother’s spiel.

“…if your father were here, I'm sure things would be different. Boys need men in their lives. There was only so much I could do myself…”

Mark zones out again. The first time he became aware that his mother was a sinful woman herself, he was twelve years old and under the assumption that his father jumped the nest the day Mark was born. His father has since lived many lives. A runaway, a martyr, a cronie, an addict. As of late, he is dead. This version seems to Mark the most believable. He started recognizing his mother’s handwriting on birthday cards somewhere between his father traveling with the circus and his fifth rehab stint, so it wasn’t hard to figure that it’d always been her penmanship.

They don’t talk about it. Mark lets his mother have her lies so long as he can have his temptations.

Mass has started. Mark isn’t sure when that happened, but his mother is quiet and the sun pokes its finger through gaps in the church’s mosaic windows. It casts Haechan’s side profile from the front pew in blurry shades of summer berries. Mark can’t take his eyes off how the colors dance along Haechan’s cheek. His skin is golden and it is bright, and Mark knows for a fact that it tastes sweet.

He belongs here, Mark thinks. In a place of worship. The sound of pages turning scratches at his eardrums, so Mark follows suit. The paper is thick and textured between his fingers. He sees the adjustment of Haechan’s shoulder as he does the same. Always the perfect church boy, paying rapt attention to his father’s sermon.

Preacher Lee’s voice sounds garbled. Mark hears it in pops and gasps, lazy rivers of sound in and out his ears. He thinks today’s sermon is about the end of times and how to love thy neighbor. The right path to Heaven. Mark wonders what the preacher thinks he knows about the end of the world. Does he feel it, too, each time he comes into contact with Haechan’s warm skin?

As though he’s heard Mark’s inner monologue, Haechan turns in his seat and catches Mark’s eye through gaps between bodies. Mark stills. His heart dadum-dadums out of tune for as long as it takes for the corner of Haechan’s mouth to curve. He sends Mark a finger wave from across the pews.

Mark snaps his eyes away, focusing instead on the altarpiece behind preacher Lee. It is a painting of Jesus on the cross, hands and ankles bloodied from the nails hammered into his flesh. It offers Mark a sick sense of reprieve. He wants to vomit as much as he wants to get on his knees and pray.

Sometimes Mark hates Haechan. He doesn’t think there’s a better word for it. All he knows is that each time he takes a bite of Haechan, he wants it to hurt. He wants the flesh to tear from Haechan’s skin. He wants to swallow it down and keep it forever. He wants Haechan to feel the missing piece of himself and be reminded only of Mark.

In the same breath, Mark wants Haechan dead. It would be easier for him to get into Heaven, then. If Haechan was just—gone.

Mark sucks in a sharp breath. Holds it and counts the seconds he thinks it would take for him to catch fire.

He tries to be good. He really does. Mark keeps a long list of good-doings to keep him from eternal damnation. There must be a way to save him from hellfire. So, Mark prays. He does so before every meal. He says his Hail Mar-ys, and he helps run the youth group Bible study. It’s about balance. For every vile thought he has, or every temptation he weakens at the knees for, Mark plants another flower at a gravestone in the cemetery. He feeds another mouth at the soup kitchen. Mark is a good boy.

Mark is good.

Right?

He finds it difficult to focus for the rest of mass. Stuck in a loop of his own inner turmoil. When the communal wafer and wine get passed around, Mark denies them. Too distracted by his mother, who is a fidgeter. A real goddamn worry-wart. She shifts from hip to hip beside him. Mark often wonders what goes on in that head of her’s. He’s read a lot about fatherless, brotherless men like him. The kind of readings he’s sure his mother has poured hours into. Tere is not much that can fix him. So they go to church.

But it is so lonely here sometimes. He always feels guilty for thinking this, but it is him and his mother in solitude at the back pew. Not many people feel so inclined to talk to the boy without a father. The mother without a husband. Mark does his best to make them like him, but is met with the hostility of a man who carries the Devil on his shoulder. He often wonders if they can smell the depravity on him. Take a whiff of that other Lee boy, they’d say, he’s weak. Does Mark reek of sulfur? It’s not a fair assumption. They know nothing of his humanity.

Mark would hang on the cross too for his faith. His means know no bounds. There is an ache so primal inside of him to make this known.

People begin to stand from their pews. It’s a cacophony of ruffled skirts and cleared throats. Polite how are you’s, how’s the kids, and did you hear about… Mark drowns it up. Up front, the preacher is a stain amongst the masses. He stands tall and proud as members of the congregation approach to give their thanks. Mark itches to wipe the smug smile off his wrinkled face. Tell him: Pride is a sin, you know? Sinners burn.

Despite his faults, Mark knows he is more Godly than preacher Lee.

Haechan and his three younger siblings stand beside their father with matching looks of placidity on their faces. Like it’s been sewn on, made permanent with string and a hot needle. Mrs. Lee wears her hair in an updo at her husband’s side, not a single stand out of place. She is much more terrifying than Mark’s mother, Mark knows this for a fact. But they are the Lee family far more loved and far more respected in their small town.

Mark thinks he would like to have that. And he could, if his father wasn’t dead, and if his mother wasn’t a spinster and if he wasn’t so tempted.

He watches from afar as Mrs. Park waddles up to the preacher and his family. She can’t move without the help of a cane. It’s a terrible sight. Mark hates to see it. She struggles under the weight of a woven basket covered with a floral hand towel. Her daughter walks beside her, a guiding hand to her lower backside. They stop to chat. Mark sees amicable smiles and heads tilted back in laughter. He wants to know what is so funny.

Just as he’s thinking about finding out, Haechan catches his eye. His mouth tilts the way it always does when he looks at Mark, like he knows something that Mark doesn’t. It’s a mean look. One that digs deep under Mark’s skin and eats away at his bones like termites. They stare at one another for a few moments too long. Long enough for Mark to start feeling hot all over. Oh no, he thinks, it’s happening. But like the cut of a cord, Haechan flicks his gaze away to the younger Park girl.

Mark is on the edge of his seat when a shiver racks through Mrs. Park’s body. He is not sure what has kept her sick for so long, but these convulses are quite common. Could be a demon, kids used to whisper about her. Rumors have spread about demonic possession and exorcisms. But those are all ghost stories, Mark knows, because he’s read a lot about proper demon hosts. The Devil needs a healthy body to latch onto. Mark has lived his entire life in this town and has never once seen Mrs. Park without some sort of illness.

Mrs. Park’s daughter has both hands on her mother’s shoulders. Looks to be guiding her through breathing exercises. She will need to sit down soon. Mark can help with that. Off to the side, Mr. Lee bends low into Haechan’s ear, lips moving in slow motion. Haechan flinches away, violent as the jerks of Mrs. Park’s weathered limbs.

It all happens in seconds. Still-life flashes through Mark’s mind. Mrs. Park’s entire body tenses, a vein in her neck thick and green like a vine that can be snapped clean in half. Haechan hurls himself out of the palm from preacher Lee that comes down on his shoulder. The woven basket from Mrs. Park’s hand falls to the ground with a resounding thump. Baked goods pour out like intestines from a slaughtered animal. Mark shoots up from his seat. Dashes toward the havoc at the front of the church.

“Mrs. Park,” he gasps, bending over to sweep up the array of muffins, cookies and tarts. A large set of tan hands join his own. Mark avoids those. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine. It’s alright,” Mrs. Park says. “Thank you so much, boys.”

“Of course,” Mark says.

The younger Park has expectant hands out in front of her. Mark stares at the cross pendant that hangs between her breasts in an effort to not look her in the eye. Feels like a proper pervert once he realizes how low the necklace dips into her cleavage. Mark shoves the refilled basket into her hands. Clears his throat and flicks his eyes to the ground. Crumbs cover the floor. He moves them around idly with the toe of what he’s been told are his father’s old sermon shoes.

That’s right. Mark’s father was once a pastor, too.

Haechan’s voice pierces through the air with the soft lilt of a woman’s. Mark stiffens. “You can’t go around scaring us like that anymore, Mrs. Park,” he says. “My poor heart can’t take it.”

“I suppose I’m on my last few years,” laughs Mrs. Park, raspy and strained. “But God has a plan for me. I know that much.”

“God has a plan for us all,” Mark says. He doesn’t look up from the pile of crumbs he’s collected. A rodent will find its way here soon enough. Feast on the fruits of Mark’s labor.

“Especially our Donghyuck and my dear Yunhee,” Mrs. Park says.

A quick, sharp stab of ice through Mark’s chest. So that’s her name. Memories flood Mark’s mind. She’s been sitting next to Haechan’s family in the same pew for months now. “How so?”

A palm slaps down on his shoulder, making Mark flinch. His foot jerks into the pile of crumbs, pieces scattering all around like he’d never collected them. He feels his face harden. Dreaded anticipation for something he can’t give a name to quite yet swells up inside of him.

Preacher Lee’s voice is deep, something dug up from soiled pieces of dirt. It hovers over Mark. Tangible. “Donghyuck and Yunhee will be getting married come Spring,” he says. “Mrs. Park deserves to see her only daughter walk down the aisle. Don’t you think, Mark?”

“Um.” Mark laughs once. It sounds hoarse even in his own ears. Unrecognizable and distant. He has to laugh. Because this is a joke, right? “Really?”

“Yes,” says Haechan.

“Oh.” Mark clears his throat. Gathers up all of the strength he knows burrows itself deep inside of him and thrusts it to the surface. When he looks at Haechan, there is a hardness to his face. Low brows set in challenge. Say something. Object. I dare you to. “…Congratulations.”

The preacher chuckles. “I’m very proud of my son.”

“As—as you should be, Mr. Lee.” Mark’s throat is clogged. He presses three fingers there, moves around his trachea. “Congratulations, Yunhee…Donghyuck.”

Haechan slides an arm over Yunhee’s shoulder. He winks, and Mark feels awfully close to combustion. “Thank you, Mark.”

It is too hot outside. The kind of sweltering heat that plummets down in sharp, unavoidable waves. Mirages dance in the distance, blurring out the dried out gravel road that invites you into the church. Mark stands by his mother against their old 1982 Hatchback. He sweats enough to feel it pool on his nape. Drip like rainwater into his eyes. He swipes at it, irritable, and takes the proffered cigarette dangling between his mother’s knobby middle and index fingers. It is the one vice that they have in common. That she does not harp on him about.

One shared cigarette a day. That is the deal.

The smoke fills Mark’s lungs. He holds it there for long enough to hurt before blowing out a long, fat billow. It dilutes the image of parting members of the congregation. Turns their floral and jewel toned church outfits muggy. A trampled-on bed of flowers.

They have the doors to the Hatchback open. The air conditioning unit stopped working years ago, after Mark’s brother left, and repair isn’t a skill that Mark has mastered. Not quite yet. He’s tried reading up on mechanics, but they were attempts made in vain. His mother is cheap and unwilling to let Mark damage the car any further. So they need to air it out. Let all the stale steam from old cloth seats and stained carpet free with occasional breeze.

“Church was nice today,” his mother says.

Mark nods. Hands her back the cigarette. Across the lot, Haechan has Jisung in a headlock. They always play like this. Doesn’t matter if it’s on church grounds or not, they’ll get themselves into trouble. The grannies like to playfully chastise. The preacher likes to bring his foot down with one hard glare.

“It was.”

“I respect preacher Lee. He’s a man with a plan, I can tell.”

Mark hums. He itches for more nicotine, and is disappointed when he casts a sidelong glance to see his mother taking the final puff until it stubs.

Shit.

“He is, eomma.”

His mother hums. Mark watches as she flicks the dead cigarette to the ground and stomps her heel to it. He bends down to pick it up and save it in his pocket.

“I hear the Lee boy is getting married.”

Mark’s chest hiccups and he hopes his mother doesn’t notice. He thinks her focus has been drawn to where Jeno has joined the roughhousing of Haechan and Jisung. His eyes crinkle all crows-footed while picking Haechan up by the waist to move him away. Haechan lands with a dramatic thump. He sways side to side, hand to his forehead. The soles of Mark’s feet itch with the urge to go over there and end this conversation.

“He is, eomma.”

A hmph, feminine and approving. “That’s good.”

“Is it?”

“Yes. Marriage is a good thing. That boy needs to be saved.”

Mark hmphs, masculine and disapproving. “Don’t we all.”

“Yes,” his mother answers despite not having been asked any questions.

Mark lets that marinate. He wants to ask if that includes himself, but he already knows the answer. His mother sees herself as a failure, and that is Mark’s burden to bear. It is not fair. The thought swells, nasty and painful in the forefront of Mark’s mind. What more can he do to be saved?

The answer is not where he wants most to find it.

The parking lot has nearly emptied. Mrs. Park and her daughter have long since left, the first to return home and make sure the old lady rests. Takes her medicine. Mark had watched from the sidelines feeling bitter and sour as Haechan bid them goodbye. He opened the door for both ladies. Held onto their hands. When he helped Yeehun into the driver's seat, he did so with a wandering eye that ventured far and wide until landing on Mark. He’d dipped in real low then, too low, close enough to Yeehun’s pierced earlobe that Mark is sure Haechan’s breath felt warm and tacky on her skin. Mark had to look away then.

He looks hard now. Haechan fakes Jeno out and lunges for Jisung. There is a screech loud enough to sound like a bird taking flight. They run after each other, a pack of wild pups. Their polished loafers kick up pebbles in tiny waves. But the fun is killed in an instant. Around the corner comes the preacher, face hard like he’s been turned to stone. Such a stark difference from the one he uses during mass.

Jeno takes notice first. He walks toward Mr. Lee with his shoulders stretched out. Taller, stronger. A smile is painted onto his face, fake as any copycat art piece Mark has ever seen. He blocks whatever view Mr. Lee could have of Haechan, who tries hard as he might to free himself from the grip Jisung has around his upper arm.

It’s an impressive scene to watch, if Mark is being honest. He files this away as something to repent for later, watching with fascination as Jeno talks with his hands. Uses that docile curl of lips until the preacher no longer looks like he is capable of pain.

Mr. Lee nods. Calls over Jeno’s shoulder to get the attention of Haechan. Words unknown to Mark are exchanged, but for some reason the preacher looks across the lot and makes eye contact with him. It has Mark standing straighter. The rocks under his feet make room for the sudden buzz of nerves under his skin.

There is a nod. Mark returns it. Then Mr. Lee and his family, sans Haechan, pile into a shiny minivan and peel out of the church’s parking lot. Mark watches with bated breath as Jeno turns to Haechan before leading Jisung into his own car. They drive off, too. That leaves Mark, his mother and Haechan.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Lee,” Haechan says after he’s stalked over to them. The sun pelts down on him, making the sweat on his cheekbones gleam. Mark bites down on the inside of his cheek. “Did you enjoy mass today?”

“I did.”

For one hot, sharp moment Mark feels embarrassed. His mother speaks with words of stone. One syllable, sharp, curt. It is her go-to with those around town, and one of the main factors, no doubt, why Mark struggles with acquaintanceship. He wants to grip her by the wrist and toss her inside the car. Drive off and erase the pleased look of shock that pops up on Haechan’s face.

“Always so polite, Mrs. Lee.” Haechan dips at the waist, a curtsy of sorts. The embarrassment spreads like a rash throughout Mark’s body. He begins to pick at a hangnail. “You don’t have to be that way with me.”

No response. Haechan is not deterred. “I was wondering if I could steal your son for a bit? A couple of us are going swimming down by the river, and we’d love it if he could join.”

The hangnail is stubborn. So is Mark’s mother. “Who all will be there?”

“Just a couple of us twenty-something’s from the church. Nobody you need to worry about.”

Mark hates this. He hates it so much. A resentment so sharp it’s nauseating slices down his temple. He doesn’t want to go down by the river. Not even sure that he can right now. The thought of being so close to Haechan in this moment exacerbates the heat that pelts down on him. Turns his brain to mush. He shifts imperceptibly so that it is not noticeable to Haechan. Only to his mother so she can understand: No. Say no. Keep me home.

But Haechan has his gaze locked on Mark. He’s noticed the movement, and it makes his eyes spark. He doesn’t have to say anything for Mark to hear what that look means. You still need mommy’s permission? You’re a grown man, Mark. It is spiteful. Patronizing. Meant to get a rise out of Mark. Dare him to refuse the offer. Haechan holds the apple in his hand, and he wants Mark to take it from him.

But Mark stays quiet. Fights with the hangnail, too deeply embedded into his cuticle. He knows how important it is for his mother to get the final say.

“I worry about everyone Minyoung chooses to spend his time with,” Mark’s mother says.

Haechan’s lashes flutter. “Even me?”

A hum, as condescending as the voice Haechan speaks with. “Have him home before dark.”

The hangnail rips clean off. Mark sucks in a sharp breath. Blood pools around his thumb, so he sticks it into his mouth. Haechan watches with a heavy, impervious stare. Mark looks away. Kisses the air beside his mother’s cheek.

“Bye, eomma. Thanks,” he says, thumb still in his mouth.

His mother yanks it out. “You’re not a child. Stop that,” she says. Her eyes flit to the side and back. A sigh puffs out her hollow cheeks. “God loves you, Minyoung.”

Mark almost laughs. He can taste hot iron behind his teeth, along his gums. Stepping away from his mother, Mark thinks: But not enough to save me, right?

“I know. I love you, eomma. See you later.”

“Before night.”

“Yes, eomma.”

“Good.” She picks up the cross hanging from Mark’s neck and rubs it between two shaky fingers. Lets it drop back down on his chest before stepping back. “Stay safe. Have fun.”

“I will,” says Mark.

Haechan’s voice startles him from behind. “It won’t even be that long, Mrs. Lee. Minyoung is in good hands.”

“Hm. I’m sure.”

The pinch in his mother’s lips becomes too hard to handle, so Mark looks back at Haechan. Wrong choice. It is clear he’s stifling laughter, which irks Mark. What is so funny right now? Mark needs to know, but he will not ask. Digging into Haechan’s mind has never done him any good.

They part ways. Haechan tries to lead Mark to his car with a hand to his lower back, but Mark flinches away. Puts at least a foot of distance between them, lagging behind. He focuses on the crunch of rocks below his feet. How they sift under each step, making him feel unbalanced. Wrong. When Haechan opens the passenger seat for Mark, he slides in without a word.

There is a rosary that dangles from the rearview mirror. It looks old. It is old, a gift passed down by generations of Lee men. Mark watches it swing back and forth like the pendulum of a clock as Haechan reverses out of the parking lot. He grips one hand onto Mark’s headrest while the other swiftly turns the steering wheel. In the mirror, Haechan’s jaw juts out strong and defined, focused as he drives. Mark folds his hands in his lap. Fights the urge to pray.

There are words that have been bubbling up at the back of his throat that not nicotine could’ve burned away. Mark stares resolutely at the rosary. Swallows them down.

The silence is sliced clean open when Haechan catches Mark’s eye through the mirror and laughs once. “Ask your questions,” he says.

“I don’t have any,” says Mark. He shifts in his seat, finding it impossible to get comfortable. The jangle of the rosary begins to taunt him. He wants to rip it from the rearview mirror and press it into his skin. Maybe that would save him, he muses. “And I don’t really feel like talking right now. Why did you invite me out?”

“I miss you.”

“Fuck you,” Mark says, the words coming out sharp and wet.

“Oh,” Haechan says, voice lilted. “You’re angry.”

How exactly does he think Mark should feel about the engagement? The news is as sudden as it is blasphemous. Haechan has no place standing across from a woman at the altar, under the word of God. Mark doesn’t think anything good will come from it. A lie to placate who, exactly? Mrs. Park before she’s due to be buried six feet under? Or the preacher?

“I’m not.”

Haechan’s fingers tap out of rhythm to the music that scratches over his car’s old speakers. “Yeehun’s cool. She’ll be a good wife. D’you think I’ll make a good husband?”

“Stop it, Donghyuck. I hate when you talk like that.”

“Donghyuck,” Haechan spits. The word sounds nasty sputtering past his lips. “Don’t fucking call me that. That’s not my name.”

“It’s the name you were born with.”

“I don’t give a shit. Don’t call me that, not—”

Mark knows how that sentence ends. And if he could bear to look at Haechan, he knows exactly what face he’ll find. A thin layer of stone, hardened over and practiced. Impenetrable to most. But Mark is not most. They both know this.

Not the name he gave me.

Haechan is Donghyuck under the house of the Lord. At home with his family. Around town with the people who worship their special brand of Lee. But with Mark, he is Haechan. That has to mean something. Right?

“I don’t even want to be here,” Mark says.

“Don’t lie. It’s a sin.”

“Fuck you.”

The weak cadence of Mark’s voice spurs on a snort from Haechan. A hand slides onto the innermost of Mark’s thigh. He feels grateful for the layer of clothes that separates Haechan from being able to feel how goosebumps immediately cover his skin. Almost lets the fingers that dig into fatty flesh linger. Roll around. Touch and touch and touch. If Haechan had his way, he’d touch Mark until he vomits. So Mark slaps his hand away.

“Does my touch really hurt you that badly?”

Mark almost feels bad. But not enough for him to reply. He presses into the door. Lets the warmth of the window bleed into his forehead.

Haechan sighs. “Don’t be angry with me, Mark.” His hand takes place back on the steering wheel, loose fingers along the bottom. “You know I can’t help it.”

Mark has been aware for a long time that he doesn’t know much of anything.

Mark was baptized here. Most of the people at the river today were, whether it was the second or third or fourth time. He recognizes everyone. Girls he went to high school with sit on tree stumps in bikinis, painting each other’s nails. Boys he played recreational sports with take turns trying to push each other off the dock. Their giggles blow in the breeze and get lost somewhere past the water. Mark stands by a tree where the smokers go to take refuge. It is shady here, a less likely place to sweat buckets when you’re trying to get high. The marijuana from Chenle and Renjun tickle at his nostrils.

He doesn’t want to be here. But Mark stayed, because he felt he had no choice, and now he stares at the upside down cross someone etched into the bark of the tree he leans on. It’s messy like a child’s drawing. That’s what pisses him off. Not the fact that someone would defile a sacred area, but that they’d done it wrong. Disrespect means nothing if the mangled edges of wood look worse than Mark’s nail after he chews and chews at his fingers.

“Why would somebody do this?”

He hears a screechy chuckle in response, eyes still focused on the cross. “It’s funny, man. Don’t be so uptight,” says Chenle.

“You think this is funny?”

“I think I’d love it if preacher Lee saw. Just imagining that is fucking hilarious.”

Mark shifts on his feet. Feels how soggy mud moves under his shoes. He wants to look at Haechan for his reaction but knows he’s smoked himself into oblivion by now. “It’s not right,” he says.

“A lot of things aren’t,” says Chenle. Half a joint materializes in front of Mark. “You want a hit?”

“I’m good.”

“Mark doesn’t like weed,” Haechan says.

Mark grinds his molars. Presses the pad of his finger to the ragged wood. It stings, so he presses harder. “I don’t like feeling high,” he says.

“He gets all paranoid and fidgety. It’s better if he doesn’t, actually. Gimme.”

“No shit?” asks Renjun. It’s the first time Mark has heard him speak since the joint was lit.

“No,” Mark says. Too quick. He hears Haechan snort. “I just—I don’t like it, okay?”

“If Mark isn’t in control of everything at every single moment, he freaks the fuck out.”

“Can you shut the fuck up?” Marks snaps his eyes up to Haechan, who is already looking back at him. Heavy lids and cherry red cheeks. Stoned out of his mind. Mark feels his pulse in his temples. He thinks about leaving, but Haechan blinks at him and it feels like a dare. “You never—you never shut up.”

Haechan hums. Takes a hit from the joint. A piece of the weed clings to his lips as he blows the smoke out. “You like it when my mouth is open, though. Don’t you, Mark?”

Mark’s heart stills for a moment. He counts the seconds so as to distract himself from the hot flash of anger that strikes down his backside. He sees himself snagging the joint from Haechan and pressing it to his skin. Hear him howl out in pain. It would be a better sound than listening to him talk.

It’s a bad habit of Haechan’s, Mark thinks, to push. What it is about the way Mark reacts that Haechan likes so much, he’s never been able to figure out. But it doesn’t feel like Haechan is playing fair. It’s like he knows Mark is bad at this game. That he’ll give up before he gets a real chance at winning.

There is a thick tension that gets sliced clean open when Renjun breaks into a fit of girlish giggles. “Lots of people do, Haechan. Mark’s not special.”

Mark digs further into splintered wood. Too hard. His nail splits open, a pulsing pain deep under his flesh. It’s a good thing his mother isn’t around to stop Mark from putting it into his mouth. He wants to know what Renjun means. Opens his mouth to ask but the tongue moving around Haechan’s cheek stops him.

Miming a cross over his chest, Haechan says, “I am a good Christian man. About to be wed, in fact.”

Chenle whistles low. “Good luck with that.”

“Yunhee and I will make beautiful babies.”

“Sure, if they’re your’s,” Renjun says.

Haechan laughs around the end of the joint. It’s muddled now, moving like a limp noodle between his lips as he talks. “Are you implying my future wife is a whore?”

“Not implying shit,” Renjun says. He plucks the joint from Haechan’s mouth. “I’m stating the obvious. If you could give birth, it’d be the same way.”

Chenle nods. “Two whores don’t make a right.”

“So long as the preacher gets his way.” Renjun smacks Haechan hard enough on the back that he jerks. “Make lots of babies. Bleed that motherfucker dry.”

“Right,” Haechan says, eyes somewhere far off into the distance. “That’s the plan.”

Mark runs hot all over. He swipes a heavy hand to his forehead, unsurprised at the amount of sweat that clings to his skin. He gets the feeling he used to in grade school, the butt of the joke. Always the last to know that he was being laughed at. It seems everybody at the church knew about Haechan and Yunhee’s engagement. Not Mark, though. Never Mark.

He is done listening to this conversation. Anymore and he thinks he might scream. He wants to shake Haechan by the shoulders and demand answers. But Haechan doesn’t look entirely present. There’s a stillness to his face. Thoughts are coming and going, and Mark wants to know more about them. He’ll dive down Haechan’s throat if that’s what it takes. Not while the others are around. Nothing good ever comes from causing a scene.

So Mark presses a hand to his breastbone in an effort to calm down. Says, “We need to change.”

“What?” Haechan snaps.

“We’re here to swim, right?” Mark fidgets under the seething look that Haechan spares him. “So let’s change.”

The mask of stubborn indifference in Haechan’s face melts in one quick moment. It’s unsettling to watch. His jaw softens and his mouth loosens, lips curling upward. His eyebrows flinch like Mark has said something sweet to him. “Yeah,” he says. “Let’s go do that, Mark.”

Marks lags behind. Pays close attention to how twigs and leaves crack under each heavy step Haechan takes toward the park’s communal bathrooms. It’s impossible to gauge how Haechan feels when he’s always so in control. The dirt doesn’t shift and make room for his anger. It glides along with him. Mark feels jealous for a moment before he remembers that there is a reason Haechan works so hard to ensure he is imperceptible. It’s a gift to scramble up someone’s perception of you.

The bathrooms are filthy. Mark doesn’t think they’ve ever been cleaned. Grime covers the tile floor in layers thick enough for Mark to feel the catch and release of it like tar under his shoes. The smell is rank. Garbage trapped for days in a moist room, the inside of a drunk man’s mouth. The showers are a lazy attempt at privacy. Two units separated by a sheet, one already occupied. This is always Mark’s least favorite part of visiting the river. If he’d known this would be his afternoon plans, he would’ve gone home to change first and drive here himself.

“Who first?” Haechan asks, turning on Mark. The duffel bag he’d dug out from his trunk when they first arrived swings in his hand.

“You can.”

Haechan nods. “Sure.”

While Haechan disappears past a thin white cloth after digging his swim trunks out, Mark takes a seat on a bench with the duffel in his lap. It’s too quiet in the bathrooms. The distant sound of running water isn’t enough to distract his mind from feral thoughts about Yunhee. Mark realizes that he doesn’t know much about her. He knows that she is pretty, and that her mother is perpetually sick, and that the boys around town have chased her since she reached that age of puberty where her tits grew in and makeup became her most important accessory.

Mark has no idea if she is actually a whore. He doesn’t take part in the town’s gossip. Bearing false witness into another person’s life is not only a sin, but it’s what made Mark and his mother the town’s pariah. Mark has learned to kiss enough ass to keep his own relationships cordial and respectful, but dipping his nose into the business of others’ would be yet another smear on his family name. He’s always been careful to save his mother from any more shame.

For the most part.

So Yunhee and what she gets up to outside of the hours they see at church is beyond Mark. He’s grateful she isn’t here today. Images flash through his mind of the dutiful hand Haechan kept on her this morning, like they’d gone back in time and he was working hard to court her, and Mark can’t stand the sight. Not at all. So he shakes his head, dispels it from his mind. Focuses instead on the muffled sounds of Haechan humming in the shower.

There is the creak of a faucet. An older man steps out from the other shower, a towel wrapped around his waist. Mark watches from under his lashes as the stranger whips his head around like a wet dog. Drops of water fly from his tan, toned body and land soundlessly on the walls. The floor. The man is handsome. Maybe too much so. He wears his wrinkles like he was meant to age. Like wine or cheese, and Mark watches the dribble of water slide down the man’s hairy calf curious about how it could taste.

The man rounds the corner without sparing Mark a glance, so Mark hurries into the empty stall with his tongue trapped steel-tight between his teeth. He doesn’t let go until hot iron fills his mouth. The humming is louder in here with Haechan next to him. The ceiling and three-quarters closed off wall around the shower area creates a dome that drills the sound into Mark’s eardrums. It’s distracting. Mark struggles with the zipper of the duffle bag, unable to open it with shaky hands. It falls from his hold.

“Shit,” Mark whispers. He squats to get a better handle on the bag. Under the sheet, he sees Haechan’s feet pivot.

The sheet is old and ragged. Has probably never been switched out. Tiny cuts and holes cover its entirety, and Mark sees flashes of brown and red through the gaps. Haechan’s shadow outlines the curve of his shaft and his ass. Makes them look bigger. Mark shifts slightly and comes face to face with a bigger gash on the corner of the sheet. He finds himself dumbstruck. Unable to move. A shiver racks through Mark’s body as he watches Haechan jerk himself in slow movements.

Is this what’s taken him so long? Haechan should’ve been changed far before the man in the shower finished.

The humming intensifies, swirling around Mark’s head like a tiny fleet of bees before they descend on him. He’s being eaten alive all of a sudden. Haechan is working a tight fist over his cock, and Mark buzzes all over. With the urge to stay or leave or help out, he hasn’t yet decided. He almost falls to his ass when Haechan’s voice rings out.

“Are you watching me?” he asks, voice as soft as it is strained.

Mark closes his eyes hard enough for figures to dance in the dark.

“It’s okay if you are, Mark.” Haechan picks up speed. Without his sight, Mark can hear the wet slide of Haechan’s palm as he slides up and down on his balmy cock. “It’s yours if you want it. You know that.”

Mark’s chest seizes. He grips both hands tight around the stiff handle of the duffle bag and lets the pain spread into his palm. Haechan’s breathing thunders, heavy and stuttered. Mark can only imagine the agonized look of beauty marring his features. Lips parted and brows curved, in so much pain that it would only make sense for Mark to rip the divider from its rungs and wrap them tight within it. So it is only Haechan and Mark. Their skin pressed together as Haechan ruts against him until he finishes. Should be close to that by now. To singing out like a siren. God, Mark loves—

No. Mark slaps a palm to his cheek. Once. Twice. A third time, until he feels it pulse to the erratic beat of his heart and Haechan’s grunt of climax drills into his brain.

Mark will pray about this later. Ask for forgiveness deep in the river where it is cold and dark.

He yanks down the zipper hard, hard, harder until it almost breaks clean off when finally opened. Mark rifles a blind hand through the bag until he feels the texture of a familiar pair of swim trunks that Haechan has stored in his car for far longer than Mark would care to admit. Changing fast as possible, Mark holds his breath and hopes Haechan isn’t paying attention to the hurried sounds of his movements. Once changed, he runs out of the bathrooms, duffel left in his stall. Haechan can retrieve it. Or it can go lost for all Mark cares.

The anti-cross brings Mark to such a rage when he’s back under the tree that he cocks his fist back to swing at it. Decides it’s best if he doesn’t. Chenle and Renjun no longer seek refuge from the sun, but there are still eyes everywhere. People around to watch Mark unravel. That won’t do. So he sucks in a slow inhale and holds it for three seconds before exhaling for five seconds. It’s important that Mark repeats the process until the tightness all over his skin dissipates. He feels sunburnt despite no time spent yet in the water.

Laughter grabs his attention, squeaky and familiar. Mark turns and squints his eyes against the sun. Out on the dock, Chenle has both hands wrapped around Jeno’s biceps. Even from a distance Mark can see how Jeno’s skin indents from how deep Chenle grips onto him. They’re play-fighting. Jeno swings Chenle back and forth hard enough to have his body move like a doll’s, pliant and weightless. They’re having fun.

Mark wishes he were at home. Working under the hood of that stupid old Hatchback or watching sitcoms with his mother. Maybe she’d work on a crossword while Mark laughed at jokes that weren’t at all funny. Anything would be better than the sight of Chenle pulling Jeno down into the water with him. Emerging with copycat looks of glee on their faces as they kiss with wet river water lips.

Mark was baptized here. They all were.

“Does it hurt?”

Jolting, Mark snaps his gaze away to see Haechan beside him with a smile on his face. Fond. He looks pleased with how Chenle and Jeno make out in what was once holy water, and Mark can’t help but wonder what expression he was making.

“What?” he asks. Runs a hand through his damp hair. It’s too fucking hot out.

“Does it hurt?” Heachan tilts his head. Looks Mark up and down. “You’re standing on a big ass rock, Mark.”

He didn’t realize. The pain doesn’t spread until he shifts, shooting up his ankle like he’s sprained it. Mark sucks in a sharp breath and grabs his ankle. Blood pools around his heel. It’s not a lot, so the puncture must be minuscule. Mark rights his posture and avoids the rock.

“No,” Mark says.

Haechan smiles and taps Mark’s chest. “Good.”

Mark jolts away. “Don’t—”

“Don’t what?” Haechan’s voice is nonchalant, but he stares at Mark like he can see through him. Always one step ahead.

Admittedly, Mark has an infatuation with Haechan’s brain. What goes on up there. He finds himself often coming up with ideas on how he can dig around the mushiest parts of Haechan. Figure out what he is thinking. Mark has read a lot about sociopaths and narcissists, and it took him some time, but he realized that Haechan is neither of those. Not entitled or unempathetic enough. But he’s guarded, and it’s a mastered practice, and Mark hates how quick he is to frustration at yet another facet to Haechan he’ll never be privy to.

Haechan lets Mark know only what he allows. Small, selective pieces of his bones. Enough to keep Mark starved and curious for more.

“I’m going swimming,” Mark says, feeling what he knows is temporary relief as he walks away.

The wooden dock is hot and burns the soles of his feet. Mark stands in the middle of it, feeling like an idiot as he fiddles with his fingers and watches Renjun on top of Jisung’s shoulders playing chicken with Chenle on top of Jeno. They create a ripple of waves. Mark watches the muscles of Jeno’s back move as he struggles to hold on to Chenle.

“Can I—” Mark clears his throat. Raises his voice. “Hah. Can I take on winner?”

Chenle doesn’t look over when he calls, “You can top Jisung after I drown Renjun.”

“Not fucking happening,” says Renjun, hands lost somewhere in Chenle’s hair. “I’m gonna beat you, then Mark’s next.”

Chenle laughs like a maniac. “You’ve got little girl hands, man. You’re not beating me.”

A growl rips from Renjun’s mouth. He leans forward so his lower abdomen bends Jisung’s head down. They almost lose their footing, Renjun and Chenle a mess of slippery limbs, but Jisung’s hands are embedded deep into Renjun’s upper thighs. His swim trunks have rucked up, showing how tan skin blurs into a shade more like cotton. Soft. Mark watches and wonders if he would rather be the person in the water with a weight on top of his shoulders, or the person to wrap his legs around someone’s head.

Mark needs to make a decision fast. Somewhere between Chenle digging his fingers into Renjun’s ribs and Jisung splashing water into Jeno’s face, Jeno loses balance. He teeters like a buoy and plummets backward into the water with a loud smack. Chenle screeches as they go down. Water splashes up onto the dock. Gives Mark’s scorched feet some reprieve.

Letting himself fall sideways, Renjun dives into the river with a mouth full of giggles. Jisung is jumping up and down. His shoulders are red from the pressure of another man on top of him.

Chenle emerges from the water with a gasp and shoves a wave of water into Jisung’s face. “You cheated!”

“You played dirty first!” Jisung yells, blocking the splashes with both hands in front of his face.

Mark thinks of what he can say. Should he cheer on Jisung, boo Chenle for his loss? He hasn’t mastered this script. The one that tells him how to be playful in a group full of boys who never made him feel very welcomed up until a few years ago. When he started to spend more time with Haechan. Part of it—most of it, maybe—is Mark’s fault. He knows this. But he is never sure how to make small talk with the friends of a man he either avoids or obsesses over.

Because these people know too much. Mark would prefer his relationship with Haechan stay shrouded under the safety of nightfall and occasion, but that all seems impossible when Haechan insists on dragging Mark around like a dog on a leash. Mark is a good boy. He’ll let himself be yanked until the collar around his neck becomes too tight.

So he scratches behind his ear and says, “Too bad, Chenle. Haha.”

Chenle doesn’t look away from where he focuses on wrapping Jisung in a headlock. “This is bullshit!”

“Babe. We lost. It’s okay,” says Jeno, floating on his back at a safe distance.

Mark fidgets. Focuses on a marred piece of wood that looks like a fruit basket if he squints. It’s a dark, almost gruesome shade of brown. Mark rubs a bare toe to the smear and focuses on loosening his shoulders.

“Losing is…tough,” he says, voice disappearing past Chenle’s shrill.

Renjun starts smacking his hands in the water. “Get in, Mark! Let’s see what you’re made of.”

“Not much.” Mark whirls around on Haechan. He holds a hand above his brow, blocking out the sun. Focus set on Renjun. “Don’t expect a lot.”

That strikes a hot flash of anger to Mark’s chest. He makes a ticked off wet sound with his teeth and says, “Seriously. Fuck off, Haechan.”

Haechan steps closer. His shirt is still on from church, cream and sure to muddy in the water. “I can only get you to talk to me if I piss you off.” He frowns. “‘S not fair.”

“I told you,” Mark says, stepping back so he feels his heel hang off the edge of the dock. “I don’t want to be here.”

“But you are.”

Mark looks up into the sun. Stares long enough for his vision to blur and spark like a low-budget fireworks show. “You didn’t give me much of a choice,” he says under his breath.

A snort. “Choice. What the fuck do you know about choice?”

Perhaps nothing at all. And sometimes, Mark supposes, that’s okay. He closes his eyes and lets his body go limp. Falls back into the water, remembering the feel of the preacher’s hands on his shoulders when Mark was twelve and needed to be saved in this very river. The water hits him like pavement at first, tiny needle pricks all over his skin. A bad rash before it melts into a warmth that coats his skin like oil. Mark wants to sink. He opens his eyes and sees nothing. It's comforting.

Mark resurfaces with a gasp. His lungs are on fire. Wiping wet bangs from his eyes, Mark sees Jeno wrapped around Chenle’s back as they waft around. He catches Renjun’s eyes. Sees a coy smile, brows that lift in challenge.

“Ready now?” he asks.

Mark nods. He can hear Haechan’s voice in the background and avoids looking in that direction.

“Who wants to hold me?” he asks Chenle and Jeno.

“I will,” Chenle says, throwing Jeno off of him. He goes down with a surprised shout. “Let’s kill them.”

“Um.” Mark runs a cold, wet hand down his face. “Yeah. Okay.”

Chenle’s shoulders are lithe, but sturdy and set in determination. He slaps two hands above Mark’s knees. Mark focuses on making sure his trunks don’t ride up too far. Across from him, Renjun giggles and slips. Has to try multiple times to get onto Jisung, whose head is dunked underwater unceremoniously. They make it work. Renjun is flat-chested with protruding ribs. A cross necklace sways back and forth on his wet skin. On instinct, Mark grasps at his own and feels its grooves under the pad of his fingertips. He takes a deep breath.

“Game on,” he says.

Renjun smirks. “I know you’re competitive as fuck, Mark. Give me your worst.”

Mark wants to ask how Renjun would know anything about him if he’s never asked, but the answer sits somewhere behind him sunbathing in swim trunks and a short sleeve shirt.

So Mark laughs. Boyish enough, he thinks (hopes) to get the approval of the men around him.

Loud clapping startles him. “Let’s go, Mark!” Haechan laughs. “Show ‘em what you’re made of, baby!”

Steeling his jaw, Mark thrusts out both arms to shove at Renjun’s shoulders. He pushes as hard as he can, grip far too slippery. Mark’s fingers have begun to prune already. He's never played chicken before, but he’s watched enough to understand the gist of it. Knock your opponent off. Stay the fuck on. And there is a fire in his belly that has him digging his nails in too deep. It pisses Renjun off. Mark can tell because Renjun shoots forward without a care for Jisung’s neck, hands around Mark’s head.

They yank and pull and grapple at each other. Mark hears their grunts at the forefront of his mind. Renjun means business while Chenle and Jisung giggle down below, their splashes flying up into Mark’s eyes. Their positions have switched. Mark isn’t sure when that happened, but he’s just starting to enjoy himself when he catches sight of bare broad shoulders and tight navy swim trunks. A toothy smile.

There is a snake in Mark’s garden.

It distracts him. The laughter that’s been bubbling up in his chest dissipates like the snap of a finger. Mark can’t focus on much else than Haechan sitting on the dock with his knees up and parted. He leans back on his hands, mischief in his face as he talks to Jaemin. Mark recognizes the tongue that pokes into Haechan’s cheek. The slow, tempestuous raise of his brows. It makes Mark feel sick.

Jaemin holds a bottle of sunscreen. He and Haechan exchange words that Mark cannot hear, but he strains his ears anyway. Then Jaemin extends a hand and Haechan grabs it, letting himself be lifted in one easy pull from the ground. They topple into each other. Haechan leans into Jaemin’s chest, lets his hands linger on thick biceps. A brush across Jaemin’s pecs. His head tilts. His lips turn, impressed.

It’s a special kind of pain, watching Haechan take the sunscreen from Jaemin and squirt it into his palms. To see how Haechan takes his time rubbing it along Jaemin’s chest and arms and torso. Haechan is playful. Always has been. Mark knows this, but his chest burns when Haechan slides a finger across the band of Jaemin’s trunks.

It’s not fair. It’s not right. Muscles in Jaemin’s back ripple when Haechan forces him to turn around. He’s not looking at Mark, but the heavy-lidded look of satisfaction on his face as Haechan massages lotion into his shoulders feels on purpose. Like Mark is meant to see. They want him to watch. They want everyone to watch.

It’s not fucking right.

Mark doesn’t realize he’s been squeezing the life out of Chenle with his thighs until he feels rapid tapping on his kneecap. He’s knocked off balance. Sways in the air like a limp blow-up doll before smacking face first into the river. Mark isn’t ready. Water shoots straight up into his nostrils, burning like chlorine in his sinuses. Clogging his throat. He can’t breathe. It’s a long-winded struggle of remembering how to use his limbs before Mark bursts through the surface. Heavy breathing. Snot running down his nose.

Humiliation blinds Mark for a few good moments. There are soft, inquisitive voices that pester him like nosey bird beaks. Poking and prodding at his skin until a violent shiver racks through his body. The load smack of water against his forearms shuts everyone up. Burns his skin like the onslaught from an airbag would. Mark glares at Jaemin under scraggly pieces of soaked bangs, resenting the concern in his pinched brows. Beside him, Haechan busies himself with applying sunscreen to his own neck.

Without a word, Mark swims to the shallow part of the river. His feet dig into cold mud. It moves between his toes like jelly.

He wants to go home. For a second, Mark considers walking. The river is a few miles from his house, and if he were to find his shoes and dry clothes, it wouldn’t be such a hard hike. Laborious, sure. The sun is at its highest in the early afternoon, but Mark figures that sweating out the boiled rage inside of him is better than letting it fester. Or he could walk barefoot and shirtless. Let the pain of twigs and pebbles and asphalt burn the soles of his feet. It might feel nice right now, when Mark wants to hurt.

These are not thoughts that make him feel good. But Mark stomps over to the tree with the upside down cross and sits under it, imagining a wide range of scenarios where he holds Jaemin’s head underwater. Where he makes Haechan watch. It wouldn’t make Mark feel better, he knows this. So he prays. He brings his knees to his chest and he folds his hands over them, reciting psalms from a book he’s remembered every word from since adolescence.

Mark often wonders if when his father left—to become a painter or a monk or a musician or a bum—and then died, he knew that it would make Mark impure.

Does it pain him to know that Mark is in the passenger seat of the preacher’s son’s car while they drive down a beaten down backroad at thirty kilometers-per-hour over the speed limit? Mark hopes that it does. He hopes that wherever his father is, he can see the violent images that flash through his mind when he gets angry. This is your fault, Mark thinks as he shuts off the staticy music playing over Haechan’s speakers. They’ve never worked. Mark isn’t sure why Haechan keeps using them. This is all your fault, dad.

Haechan drives like he isn't licensed to. The thought makes Mark snort. Realize he doesn’t know enough about Haechan to be sure that he does.

“Do you even have your license?”

Haechan turns the music up, just enough so that his voice is louder. “Yes. I have a license, Mark. What the hell?”

Mark shuts it off again. Fidgets in the passenger seat. He’s still a bit damp on his bottom. Not from the river, but because he spent too much time sitting in moist dirt. It bled through his trunks and stained itself onto his skin. Uncomfortable as hell.

They left after Haechan strolled over to Mark half-asleep, a condescending upturn to his lips. Hours must’ve passed. Mark wasn’t sure. He kept himself busy by drawing pictures in the dirt and dazing off. Haechan stood before him, eclipsing the sun and said, “Are you done throwing a fit?”

Mark didn’t reply. He got up to his feet and shoved past Haechan to the bathrooms. The duffel bag was where he left it, knocked to the side so that someone could use the shower. He changed. He walked to the parking lot. He leaned against Haechan’s car and avoided eye contact with any of the other boys.

He could still hear their laughter and splashes like phantom pulls of waves. It made him restless, fidgeting like an addict in a near empty lot. Now, Mark bumps over potholes in the road and tries not to nag Haechan for his horrible driving.

He’s always been a shit driver. The car was a gift from his father, which was a gift from his father, which means that it is ancient and smells like generations of sweat and cigarette smoke. Sometimes Mark finds comfort in the history of these stained leather seats. The carved out initials on the dashboard. He’s never asked Haechan what they stand for because it would ruin the daydreams he tends to distract himself with while in the car.

They’re nearing a sharp curve, one that Mark knows will leave skid marks on the road if Haechan doesn’t slow down.

Haechan doesn’t slow down.

Mark white-knuckles the safety handle above his seat and braces himself to knock into the center console. It digs into the side of his rib cage. Haechan laughs and cranks the music up.

“Jesus Christ,” Mark snaps, shutting it off. “I can’t fucking hear myself think when that shit is yelling at me.”

Haechan side-eyes him. Dusk casts his face a somber orange sherbet shade. “Quit touching my shit,” he says. The music comes back on. “You’ve been pissy all day, Mark. What’s your deal?”

“Nothing.”

“Bullshit.” Haechan scoffs. “Say whatever’s on your mind! I’d love to hear it instead of this passive aggressive shit. Real fuckin’ turn off.”

“Shut up,” Mark says. Each word that Haechan says slices through his skin. Mark will start bleeding soon. Leave more stains on these filthy seats. “Just—shut the fuck up, please.”

Haechan presses on the gas. They’re flying down a road surrounded by lush greenery. Trees that tower over them, snaggle-toothed and vast. They blur in Mark’s vision. He can’t keep up.

“No. I can’t read your fucking mind, Mark. If you have something to say, just fucking say it.”

“I don’t—I don’t have anything to say, Haechan! Just slow the fuck down!”

The car leaps over a bump in the road. Mark rises an inch off his seat and thumps back down. There is an aching flutter in his lower gut that feels closer to fear than adrenaline. He presses a flat palm to the dashboard and whips his head toward Haechan. Sees nothing on his face but a hard set of brows. There is a muscle in his jaw that feathers over and over. Any harder and his teeth will chip away.

“Then what’s the issue, huh?” Haechan’s voice rides a fine line between pissed and hysterical. “I’m fucking—I’m dying to know, Mark. Really. Enlighten me on why you’ve been so weird today.”

“Weird?” Mark asks, voice dipped on the vowels. Affronted.

“Yeah. You’ve been acting fucking weird.”

And that—Mark doesn’t think that’s fair. He resents it. He pictures himself and how he acts around Haechan’s friends, always fidgeting from foot to foot. Overanalyzing their interactions. Thinking of how to respond before one of them has even finished a sentence. Can’t Haechan see that Mark is trying? He tries so hard all of the time. It’s never good enough.

Something sours in the pit of Mark’s belly. The harsh turn they take at a stop sign, that Haechan doesn’t slow down for, exacerbates the snap, fizzle, pop of whatever sickness is brewing. Mark curls in on himself. He’s been on edge all day, blistering at the seams. Pus oozes out when he slams his hand down on the dash.

“Dammit, Haechan. Just—are you sleeping with him?”

A sardonic laugh. “Who, Mark?”

“Jaemin. Are you fucking Na Jaemin?”

“Why do you care who I sleep with?”

Mark snaps his eyes away. It hurts to look at Haechan for too long, sometimes. He’d rather be dizzied by the hurried flashes of trees. “I don’t,” he says.

“Is that it?” Haechan asks, voice low. “Makes you sick, huh? The idea of me with another man.”

“No.” Mark shakes his head hard enough to hurt. “No. It doesn’t. I don’t give a shit.”

“No? Okay. How about me with a woman?”

Gravel kicks up on all sides of the car when Haechan meets a dirt road. It will be night soon. Near impossible to see back here without the protection of overhead street lamps. Haechan’s car’s headlights are shit, cast the world in a yolky haze that’s visible for maybe a mile ahead.

Mark considers wrenching the door open and rolling out. He’ll take the scrapes and bruises of his land over how sick Haechan makes him feel.

“Stop it,” he says, detesting the strain in his voice. “Don’t—don’t fucking talk like that.”

Haechan’s fingers drum a haunting tune on the steering wheel. The blasè hunch of his shoulders disturbs Mark. “What’re you gonna do once I’m married off to Yeehun? Will you be able to stomach the sight of us together every Sunday at church? Around town? What about our kids?”

“Shut up!” Mark yells. His chest concaves with laborious breaths. It’s hard to breathe in the confines of the car, so Mark rolls the window down. Lets cold air slap him hard in the face. Rustle up his hair. “Stop saying shit like that!”

“You can still fuck me once I’m married, you know,” Haechan says, voice losing itself within the wind. But Mark hears him. He always will. “I told you, Yeehun’s cool. As long as I give her babies, I can do whatever I want.”

Mark feels his face pinch. He never wanted to have this conversation, but Haechan pushed. Pushed and pushed and pushed until Mark finally pulled. Fine. Sucking in a sharp breath, Mark readies the words on his tongue before saying, “And that includes Na fucking Jaemin?”

“Includes whoever the fuck I want it to include.”

“So long as it pisses off your dad?”

“Oh-ho-ho!” Haechan bangs the steering wheel a few times in quick succession. Bounces in his seat. “There he is!”

“God, you’re so—”

“So what, huh? C’mon. Get it off your chest.”

“I won’t—” Mark huffs. “No more. After you’re married, I’m done.”

Mark has been running through scenarios where he plays mistress all day. No matter how much temptation runs his life, he doesn’t think he’ll be able to stomach it. Haechan has a point. The idea of seeing him and Yeehun arm and arm together is enough for Mark to consider finding a new church. If he tries hard enough, he could convince his mother. She might even be glad. The preacher’s son will be saved, and Mark will be freed.

“Don’t say shit you don’t mean,” says Haechan.

“I mean it.”

“Fine.” Haechan laughs, breathy and broken apart. “Then I’ll keep on seeing Jaemin.”

“I don’t care!” Mark yells. “Do what you want! You already do. Just take me fucking home.”

The car jerks when Haechan digs into the gas. Mark wedges against the passenger seat. Bug guts and pollen and dirt cover the windshield in a thick layer of filth. Mark focuses on that instead of how he can feel the wheelspin of the tires. Haechan is going to fucking kill them.

“That’s exactly what I’m doing,” Haechan snaps. “You’re so fu—shit!”

An antlered stag is in the middle of the road. His head perks up at the sight of a car flying his way, eyes polarized in the headlights. There is no panic in his face. Mark envies that. What would it feel like, he wonders, to have no fear in the face of death?

The tires screech like a dying animal when Haechan slams on the brakes. Mark whooshes forward, almost cracks his nose on the dashboard. They halt meters in front of the stag. Mark stares down at his fists, clenched tight and shaky in his lap.

“Pull over,” he says, voice heavy. He can’t feel the tips of his fingers or toes, numb from the rush of fear.

Haechan doesn’t say a word. Doesn’t move until the stag shimmies his head like he’s huffing at them. Once the stag has disappeared behind a cluster of trees, Haechan drives forward and parks on the side of the road.

The car is thick with a tension that pulses to the tune of their erratic heartbeats. Mark will dig his hand through the chest of their silence and squeeze around its innards.

“You never shut the fuck up,” he says, turning to face Haechan.

Haechan meets his eye dead on. It’s the first time all day that Mark has seen something other than disobedient nonchalance on his face. He’s shaking. “So make me,” he whispers.

And Mark feels so wound up. Tight all over, like a cocked back fist ready to burst through the windshield. He hates the way Haechan looks at him. Speaks to him. Hates it so much that he’s not gentle when reaching out to yank Haechan across the center console. They kiss hard and fast, each with a point to prove. Haechan’s hands scramble to pull at Mark’s hair, nails digging through his scalp like he wants to leave marks. But they won’t be visible. The marks that Mark wants to make will be.

He unfastens his seatbelt and grapples around the driver's seat to undo Haechan’s. It’s not a surprise to find out Haechan was never buckled. Makes it easier to pull him into Mark’s lap. Haechan lands with an umph, a hot hit of breath to Mark’s cheek. He feels crazed, slipping his hands under Haechan’s shirt to get a feel of flushed skin. Every inch of Haechan is soft and pliant. Perfect for Mark.

“No one else,” Mark breathes against Haechan’s lips. He moves down to fiddle with the belt around Haechan’s slacks. “Alright? No one else.”

“Don’t be mad at me about Jaemin.” Haechan’s head falls back. He looks down his nose at Mark’s fingers over his crotch. “You know you’re my favorite.”

That’s right. Mark better fucking be. Who else would let Haechan sit him on the stove to boil over to the point that the touch burns? That’s what Haechan likes. He likes how Mark kneads his hands into the fatty flesh of his waist. Likes it so much his hips rise and fall in slow circles just to feel some friction between them.

“I’m not mad,” Mark says, mouthing along Haechan’s jaw. He unbuckles Haechan’s belt. “I said I don’t give a shit.”

“Mm. Right,” Haechan says under his breath. “That’s why you were throwing your little hissy fit.”

So fucking mouthy. Mark bites at a pressure point on Haechan’s neck and tugs him closer so their navels stick like dough. Feels how Haechan shivers. It’s perfect. Haechan always feels so perfect against Mark. The thought puts him on edge, feeling out of his mind. He cups a hand around Haechan’s jaw. Peach fuzz sifts under his fingers. Soft. A fruit in the palm of Mark’s hand. He’ll squeeze and bruise as much as Haechan will allow.

For now, Mark just wants silence. He wants to forget about the congregation and the wedding and the other people that Haechan sleeps with. So he presses the tip of his thumb into Haechan’s bottom lip and pulls down. Gummy wet skin gleams back at him.

Mark slides in, a slow pressure along the length of Haechan’s tongue. Far back enough that he can’t fight how his gag reflex fights around the digit. Mark smiles, satisfied. Adds his index finger. “You never shut the fuck up,” he says, focused on the drool pooling at the edges of Haechan’s mouth.

“Am now,” he says, muffled around Mark’s fingers.

Mark hums. “That’s right.”

There is so much saliva collecting on Mark’s fingers, he could cup it in his hand and drink it. His entire body thrums as Haechan’s sucks around a third finger added. He feels around the roof of Haechan’s mouth, presses into his molars. The wet sound of Haechan gagging blurs together in Mark’s mind. This is how he likes Haechan. This is how it should be. He uses his other hand to unbutton Haechan’s pants and reach down into his underwear.

He’s chubbing up. A nice, thick pulse under Mark’s clammy hand. He squeezes around Haechan’s cock once just to hear how he whimpers. A hum that tingles around Mark’s fingers.

Mark was untouched and clean once. He’s been doing this for so long with Haechan that he can’t remember what that feels like.

I won’t tell if you won’t, Haechan told him the first time, upstairs in the attic at church. It felt impossible to say no, and Mark learned early that the tempted must always fall. Haechan has since taken bits and pieces from Mark. Bone and marrow and blood that are his now. It feels more right to make Haechan moan into the sky than it does to pray sometimes. Mark resents this as much as he craves it, so he works loose fingers over Haechan’s cock and takes his own bits and pieces along the way.

Haechan’s shirt begins to ride up, and Mark can’t help himself. A sliver of tan skin is enough for him to wrench his fingers from Haechan’s mouth. He feels an erratic sense of anticipation at what lies beneath. Grips around the hem of the tee and brings it up to Haechan’s chest.

But like the drop of a rock down a well, Mark’s heart plummets into his stomach. He takes his other hand out of Haechan’s pants.

There is a stillness in the air. Haechan’s heaving chest is the only thing that rocks it back and forth, because all of a sudden Mark can’t breathe. His hands hover over bruises that discolor Haechan’s torso. Red and blue and purple shades that look better in a garden, on mosaics, on top of graves. Not on Haechan’s skin. Never there.

“Haech—”

“Take it off.”

Mark flicks his gaze up. Haechan’s face has become hard as stone. He looks the same as he does at church. Imperceptible. Angry or annoyed and nonchalant, Mark is never sure. It’s always been easier to read Haechan when he’s bent over a knee.

“Is he doing it again?” Mark asks under his breath. There is a coldness to his chest. He brings a hand to his breastbone to try and rub it away.

Haechan goes rigid. His jaw ticks. “Take it off, Mark.”

“Haechan, I—I can help you.” Mark’s voice lilts, desperate. “Please. I want to. Let me he—”

Haechan scoots backward so his bottom is on the edge of Mark’s knees. “Shut up,” he snaps. “I don’t want you to save me. I want you to fuck me. Can you do that or do I need to go to Jaemin?”

“Haech—”

“Mark.”

Mark has grown up believing that the good guys get to be happy. What a shame that is not the case.

He ignores how quick his heart races and slides a hand onto Haechan’s bare hip. Spreads his fingers out, watching how the skin turns taut and goosebumps bloom. It’s gratifying. He wants more. Always wants more of Haechan.

“C’mere,” he murmurs and brings Haechan into a kiss.

What would the preacher think? Mr. Lee thinks himself to be God. At church when he stands before the congregation like a false prophet, reciting prayers and spiels Mark isn’t sure the man believes in. At home when he rules his home. When he hurts Haechan. But here Mark is. Heaven at his fingertips, righting the preacher’s wrongs. He’ll give Haechan new bruises, ones that won’t be so hard to look at.

Who else can do that?

“Lift your arms,” Mark whispers against Haechan’s lips.

Haechan’s ribs protrude from his skin when stretched out. He looks down with a watery gaze that could mean anything, watching as Mark trails a finger along bumpy ridges of bone. Mark likes to be looked at like this. He dives into Haechan’s chest just to feel his heartbeat once the shirt is tossed away.

Mark mouths around Haechan’s pecs. Tastes salty skin, river water and sweat. He brings his arms around Haechan’s waist and pulls him closer. There. That’s better. Haechan sits right above Mark’s cock, and he must like the feeling of how hard Mark has gotten because his hips twitch.

A wilted moan flutters into Mark’s ear. It echoes like a swan song in his head. Mark grunts. Pulls Haechan in by the chin to kiss him. He takes his time. Makes sure to hold Haechan as close as he can while he works his mouth open.

The open window blows a cool breeze into the car. Mark shivers, too hot and cold all at once. Haechan’s body is a weighted blanket that breaks Mark out in a sweat. He can feel the stick and pull of his palms on Haechan’s skin as he touches all over. Wild hands that want to replace any other prints that might be on Haechan’s body.

Fuck. The thought ignites a spark in Mark’s gut. He swallows tiny groans of pleasure from Haechan as they makeout, feeling greedy. He moves his hands to grip Haechan by the hips and lay him down against the dashboard.

“This isn’t very comfortable,” Haechan says, resting his forearms on the dash. He looks amused.

Mark doesn’t care much about that. His fingers itch to be inside of Haechan. “Take your pants off.”

“Do it for me.” Haechan shimmies. Their crotches brush and Mark clenches his abdomen.

He’s as beautiful as he is evil. A fallen angel, Mark thinks, as he bounces his knees to prompt Haechan into lifting up as much as he can. They make quick, uncoordinated work of pulling Haechan’s slacks off and tossing them. Mark’s hands immediately dig into the fatty flesh of Haechan’s thighs, indentation lightening around the edges.

“Fuck, Haechan,” Mark groans. He kneads at the thin skin between Haechan’s cock and upper thighs.

Haechan spreads his knees. His cock sits fat and heavy over his lower stomach. Precum gleams like pearls down his hip bone. “You like it?”

He does. Mark likes it so much that he takes too tight a hold around the base of Haechan’s cock. The pressure makes him groan. Flinch up into Mark’s fist. He is warm, throbbing under Mark’s palm.

He works a quick but precise hand over Haechan’s cock. Surges forward to kiss him hard on the mouth. It’s quick and messy, tongues meeting in the middle. Haechan makes girlish noises that dance in the air, sweet and airy.

Mark feels the strain of his hardness in his pants, but the pain is worth it if it means he can focus on the squelch of their wet mouths. The wild fist he runs over Haechan’s cock.

Breathless, Haechan slumps onto Mark’s shoulder. He twitches when Mark runs his thumb over the slit of his cock. “I don’t wanna cum like this,” he mutters. “You need to fuck me.”

Mark presses his thumb down. Haechan whimpers. “Do I?” he asks.

“I think so, yeah.” Haechan wraps both arms around Mark’s neck. His hips move in slow circles. “Mm, fuck, Mark. You really should.”

He wants to make Haechan work for it. To have him get on his knees for Mark, piety on his open mouth as he begs to be fucked. But Mark is eager. There’s an electric buzz under his skin, sizzling in his gut. It hurts more to resist than it would to give in. So Mark blindly reaches behind Haechan to open the glovebox where he knows a hollowed out Bible stashes condoms, lube, weed and cigarettes. All the things the preacher would kill Haechan for.

Haechan plays the hair on Mark’s nape while Mark flicks open the Bible. There are two less condoms from the last time Mark was in here, edging Haechan until he came with a shout and the most beautiful tears down his face. Anger blisters down his temple, but Mark chooses not to say anything. He knows it would be a battle for naught. Besides, under a dime bag of weed is a Polaroid.

Mark thumbs at the picture of him shirtless and smiling low-lidded at the camera, a lit cigarette between his lips. Smoke billows around him. He looks happy here. Mark can’t recall when the picture was taken, but there is a foot pressed on his chest.

They’ve been doing this for so long, sometimes Mark mistakes it as forever.

With a heavy chest, Mark asks, “Do I need to open you up?”

The question makes Haechan laugh. He coos and runs hands through Mark’s hair. “We haven’t seen each other for a bit,” he says.

“Yeah, but—”

“Shh.” Haechan shifts so one knee is between Mark’s thighs, the other on the edge of the passenger seat. He takes the lube from Mark’s hand and tosses the Bible off to the side. Slowly, he pours lube onto his fingers and reaches underneath himself. Mark’s mouth pops open with a wet clack when Haechan’s face pinches. “Mm, fuck. What did I tell you, Mark? You’re my favorite.”

A rush of heat to his groin. With hurried movements, Mark shimmies out of his church pants and underwear. They constrain his ankles once on the floor, but Mark can hardly feel it with his eagerness to slip a finger in beside Haechan’s.

What a relief it is to feel the tightness of Haechan’s hole around his index. Mark groans loud enough for it to travel outside. The sun sits on the cusp of the skyline now, leaving Haechan’s skin a burnt amber. Pulling him in for a kiss, Mark thrusts inside of Haechan until he feels enough give to add another finger. Every whimper that Haechan makes goes straight down Mark’s throat. Tastes like ash. Tastes like wine. Tastes like the end of times.

Mark is bucking up, eager like an animal by the time Haechan removes their fingers. He leans away. Mark chases his mouth with blurred vision.

Pressure around his aching cock. The relief is so pleasurable that Mark curls in on himself. He kisses all over Haechan’s shoulder and neck, feeling his erratic pulse under pressure points. The distant sound of foil ripping open has Mark spreading his knees. He gasps once latex envelops his cock, rigid and uncomfortable.

“Haechan, fuck,” Mark pants, grabbing Haechan by the ass to spread his cheeks. He lines his cock up at the rim. Could cry at the first hint of tightness. “Tell me I’m good.”

“You’re good, Mark,” Haechan mumbles. His brows are cinched, mouth open as he slides onto Mark’s hardened cock. “God, fuck, you’re so good.”

This has always been Mark’s favorite part. That first slow glide into Haechan’s warmth. How perfectly his cock nestles inside, buried deep like it’s meant to be trapped within the walls of Haechan. How eager Haechan is to take it, silent for once as his hole clenches around the new pressure. It sends a spark all throughout Mark’s gut. He stays there, breathing heavily into Haechan’s neck.

Each time that Mark slides into Haechan, he thinks that this is the path to Heaven.

Fingers tap on his shoulder. Mark leans back into the headrest. Haechan’s cheeks glow a warm red, almost feverish. If Mark were to reach out, he knows they’d be hot to the touch. “‘M good,” Haechan mumbles. “‘S good. Go ahead.”

Mark listens. He is well-behaved, and he is out to please, and he is good. He wiggles his hips down and lifts Haechan up by the waist, slamming back with enough force that Haechan is knocked off kilter. A whimper struggles at the back of Haechan’s throat, sounding pathetic past his lips. He shoots out wild hands, one out the window to cup the hood of the car, and the other up against the roof. He bends at the knees for better leverage and rides Mark in tune to each hearty thrust he plunges inside.

Skin on skin sounds so filthy when trapped in the confines of Haechan’s car. Mark feels dizzy off of it. He pounds into Haechan with hardly any leverage. Lifts his knees to try and get Haechan closer. His chin lands on Mark’s shoulder with a mouth full of nonsensical ramblings. They warble past Haechan’s lips like he’s choking on them.

Mark can feel the pull of his shirt as it sticks to Haechan’s wet mouth while he moans and groans. His body writhes, bouncing up and down as Mark fucks into him. Mark needs something more secure to hold onto. The fingers he digs into Haechan’s hip bone isn’t enough, so he searches around for something sturdy.

Metal beads clang against his fingers. Mark grips onto them tight, pulling at the rosary with every thrust into Haechan.

“I’m good, right?” Mark moans once he hits real nice and deep. “‘S good?”

Haechan’s voice breaks apart like his shitty car radio. “So good, Mark. So fuckin’ good.” A palm slaps down on Mark's shoulder. It stings. “Keep fucking me. Ah-hah, ah—yeah. Just like that. Shit.”

Mark whimpers. “N-no one else, okay? No one else.”

“Mm,” Haechan hums. He licks his lips. “Who’s here with me now?”

Mark continues to slam into Haechan until his skin is covered entirely by a thin layer of sweat. He can hardly breathe in the space between Haechan’s neck and shoulder when his head falls there. The beads of the rosary dig into Mark’s knuckles, a subtle reminder of his unrelenting temptation. But right now, Mark doesn’t give a shit. He jams his cock so far into Haechan that the car shakes with it.

He’s close. Mark feels a familiar tight coil deep in the pit of his belly, so pleasurable that it hurts. His hips stutter and still. It’s happening, he thinks. Mark is going to burn from the inside out, and then everything will be easier. He won’t have to try so hard to be good. He won’t have to watch Haechan get married. It’s a relief. A full-bodied rush of relief.

Vision going in and out, Mark comes with a shout. His body releases tension all over, and with that weakness he yanks the rosary off from the rear view window. Hears broken bits of metal scatter all over the ground. His cock twitches as Haechan rides him still, balls achy with his release. Mark spurts hot and heavy breaths out into the open air. His body sags against the seat, and he watches with blurry eyes as Haechan tosses his back after slamming down on Mark’s cock.

The sudden pressure makes Mark jerk. His hands slam onto Haechan’s hips, rosary still in his hold. Haechan comes with a strangled cry, eyes squeezed shut hard enough to look like it hurts.

White ribbons of cum splatter onto Mark’s shirt and over both of their thighs. It’s a beautiful sight, one that prickles at Mark’s nose. He swipes at it. Watches how Haechan’s head lulls from side to side, out of it from his orgasm. He shivers and moans, stretches out his limbs like a cat that’s just woken up from a nap.

The orgasm did not kill Mark, but he almost wishes that it did.

Haechan sits up so that Mark’s cock falls out from him. He moves with ease over the center console. Slouches in the driver’s seat with one foot out the window, the other stretched far below the steering wheel. It is dark now. They’ve broken Mark’s mothers one request. Crickets and cicadas sing their night song loud enough to drown out how Mark sniffles.

But Haechan hears. Of course he does. He rolls his eyes and takes the condom off of Mark before tying the end and throwing it out the window. “The crying after we fuck has really got to stop, Mark,” he says.

But Mark can’t help it. He shivers, half naked in his seat. His voice is hoarse when he asks, “Aren’t you scared?”

“Of what?”

Mark looks up. The moon shines down on them, a jagged fingernail in the sky. “We’re going to Hell.”

A snort. The flicker of a lighter makes Mark flinch. Smoke begins to burn his nostrils. “I’m not scared of God,” says Haechan. He pauses. Mark hears an inhale and the burning tip of a cigarette before an exhale. “I’m not fuckin’ scared of anything.”

Mark is. Mark is scared of everything. The congregation, his mother, Heaven and Hell, preacher Lee, bugs, natural disasters, Haechan.

He’s especially scared of Haechan.

Mark swallows hard. He has yet to control his breathing. “What about Hell?” he whispers.

And when he peers over at Haechan after a prolonged silence, Mark sees him with his left hand in the air, looking at his empty ring finger. The bruises along his torso almost look beautiful in the dark, a field of roses and tulips. Almost like something could bloom there one day.

“I’m already in it,” says Haechan.

Mark doesn’t know much in this life. But he knows with absolute certainty that he is going to Hell. What a relief it is that Haechan will meet him there.