Blasphemy - Minchan

1// Light my candles in a daze because I've found God.

Chan had seen new boys come and go in the church before, but he'd never seen anyone like him. Most of the boys looked the same, visiting for service on a Sunday with buttoned-up shirts and a bible in hand. This boy was different though.

For a start, this boy's boots thumped as he walked down the aisle, walking beside a woman who must have been his mother. She looked like most women who entered the church, perhaps a little prettier like her son was.

The boy already looked fed up, as if he didn't want to be there. Chan didn't want him to leave though, mesmerised by the way his strands of black hair fell into his eyes and the chains on his belt hit against his black jeans.

Chan stood at the back of the church, organizing bibles on a shelf, but he paused when this boy stopped at the end of the aisle with his mother. She yanked him back by his shoulder when he took one step too many. Chan gulped. The boy merely pulled his arms away, crossing them over his chest instead.

"Back to it, Chan," one of the monks said as he appeared out of a back room, a new box of bibles in his arms. He dumped them in front of Chan on top of the bookcase. Chan nodded his head, looking back at the bibles in his hands with the heavy, blue robes hanging over them.

As the monk in charge of youth club, brother Mark, approached the boy and his mother, Chan couldn't help but eavesdrop on their conversation. He didn't mean to pause his bible sorting again, it just happened.

"He's such a troubled boy. He's always been that way really, strayed away from God as soon as he could. I don't know what it is with him! I've been such a good mother and he's still doing drugs, swearing all the time, sleeping with these friends of his," his mother's voice lowered to a whisper, "I think he's been possessed by the devil."

The mother continued to tell brother Mark about all the devilish activities her son had been up to. Meanwhile, her son stood proud in front of her with a smirk on his face.

When the boy looked over at Chan, Chan's breath got caught in his throat. His face didn't make him look like he was capable of being so sinful. It looked like it was sculpted by God himself with a perfect jawline, bow-shaped lips and a glint in his eye. That glint was what made Chan believe the mother's words though. He could almost see the possession... but then it melted away as soon as the boy's smirk disappeared and he looked back at the monk and his mother. Chan tore his gaze away, returning to organizing the bibles.

"It's no problem, Mrs Lee. We'll have your son back on the path to salvation in no time. I'll get Chan to show him to a room and he can join us tonight for our weekly youth club session."

He's moving in? That's new. Nobody new had moved in since... well, since Jisung and that was two years ago now.

"Chan!" Mark shouted. The said boy flinched, dropping the bibles in his hands and knocking the box off the bookcase. All twenty of them went toppling to the ground. Mark's face was stone-cold as Chan stared at him with big, pleading eyes. "Pick them up and show Minho to your room. You'll be sleeping together," he said in a calm voice but there was a warning to it.

Minho. So that was his name...

Minho smirked. A little scoff left his lips and his mother hit him over the back of his head. "Disgusting boy! This is why you're here, to get thoughts like that out of your head. You'll learn your lesson. The boys here don't think those things you do."

"I'll show him now, brother," Chan stuttered his words, scrambling around the floor to pick all of the bibles up. He dropped them into the cardboard box and prayed none of the pages got damaged in the fall. He didn't want to spend another night in the cellar...

-

"This place is shit," was the first thing Minho said to Chan as he followed him through the dimly lit church corridors. The walls were made of stone with no windows in them. All of the light came from candles, littered along the hall in metal holders every so often. Minho scoffed when he saw them, "what is this, the fucking Victorian times? Can't you afford lights here?"