/sette/
In Father Cesar's unexplained two day absence from their small town and more importantly from the church, Jongdae was put fully in charge of the community as head priest, something that he was initially uneasy about since he was so new to Argentina. The first day was a Monday and he didn't have much to do around the church, which he was relieved about. He only gave the morning service at eight in the morning and had the rest of the day to himself. Then he would supervise the youth group which were rehearsing every Monday until Christmas Eve for a holiday performance they were going to put on about the Nativity Story.
It was a tradition at the church that had been going on for decades, as father Cesar had explained to Jongdae over the phone when he asked him to take care of things at the church.
During the morning service which he would be doing alone for the first time, he saw Fiorella and her mother sitting in the front row as they always did. Her mother an older version of the beautiful young girl Jongdae was unable to keep his mind off. This time she was unaccompanied by her boyfriend Rubens. And though Jongdae tried hard to keep his eyes off her, it was virtually impossible for him. He was drawn to her big brown eyes and the look of innocence on her sweet face. And her lips...how badly he wanted to kiss her. But he continuously willed those thoughts away out of fear that anyone would notice how he really felt about Fiorella. It wasn't proper for a priest to lust over a young girl.
After the morning service, he followed Antonella and her seventeen year old daughter to their restaurant where they cooked breakfast for him. He tried to hide from them and refused their offer by saying he had a lot of errands to run at the church. But neither of them would have his excuses and practically forced him to go with them to their family restaurant.
He rushed out of the restaurant as soon as he finished eating and thanked them for the meal, willing himself to avoid Fiorella.
When the seventeen year old returned to his table to ask if he needed anything, the young priest was long gone. She was beginning to fear that he didn't like her or even found her pleasant, as much as she was trying to make him feel welcome in the village. He continued avoiding her, and never meeting her gaze whenever they crossed paths. Fiorella was a firm believer in God, and having a priest dislike her made her feel like she was doing something wrong. He was a man of God, representing God in human form during religious services, she did not want his disapproval.
Jongdae had several hours to kill before having to supervise the teens at their rehearsal for the night, and since he had nothing else to do, he decided to tidy one of the storage rooms down the hall from his room. It was a way to earn the small stipend the church would be giving him every two weeks. He had seen it when Father Cesar gave him a tour of the small church. But he had only gotten a small glimpse of it since the older priest had quickly closed the door, as though trying to conceal the mess inside.
He left his bedroom and went to the small closet like room and didn't even know where to start when he saw the mess inside. Everywhere were boxes upon boxes labeled marriage documents, baptism records, first communion records, confirmation certificates, and other things in Spanish.
The young man with raven black hair and dark eyes went for one of the boxes with the most papers sticking out of it, deciding to start with that one first. He grabbed the stack of disarrayed baptism forms and sifted through them, one by one, thinking that he could probably separate them by the year in which they were submitted. The box he had picked up first went as far back as nineteen sixty six, long before he was even born.
He separated the documents into different piles by year, and eventually went through the whole box and started on another. In the new box, there was the same mess of papers. And he took them all out to arrange them.
There was a specific baptism form that came in its own manila folder, separated from the rest. On the front was the words confidential, do not open stamped in big red letters. Jongdae found it interesting how out of all the other forms, that was the only one that had a folder and apparently was meant to conceal what was inside. But he opened it anyway.
And what his eyes saw surprised him. It was the baptism form for Fiorella Vanella.
Name: Fiorella Maria Vanella.
Date of Birth: September 19th, 1998.
Province: La Pampa, Argentina.
Mother: Antonella Carolina Vanella.
Father: -----
Her father's name was missing on the baptism form, the only section that had been left blank, something that would have been totally harmless if not for the fact that it wasn't the only thing he found in that sealed folder. As he turned the form around to inspect it further, he saw a scrap of paper taped to the back. Pulling it off and turning it over, he saw that it was an official government record, printed in Buenos Aires, and it was for Fiorella's birth.
On there, it had all her information again, but this time, the one space that was empty on her baptism form was filled out.
Parents: Antonella Carolina Vanella & Cesar Diego Romani.
Father Cesar was Fiorella's biological father.
If Jongdae was merely sinning in his thoughts, Father Cesar was doing far worse than that.
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so a big secret has been found out about father cesar, fiorella, and her mother. will jongdae keep the information to himself? sometimes little towns have a lot to hide.
this chapter is a bit shorter than what i usually post for this story.
but i think that's okay because it has enough drama to make up for it. thank you all loads for reading and supporing this story. it means a lot to me. i'm probably just going to post this and then go to sleep because i have to work really early tomorrow.
plus, i have to mentally prepare myself for the hell that is working on fridays.
-clary
