Sineater

Six

An hour later, Jin was waiting outside of the Holy Sanctuary for the Bishop of the Vatican City Diocese to finish his commune with God. He rubbed his hands together impatiently and stood to the side, in front of the waiting young nuns in training.

Again, he had asked Brielle to wait for him, further away than the parlor. He had sent her to a coffee shop a mile away from the Vatican. He did not want to take her inside the Vatican and into the lion's den. He could only imagine the horrors they would make her face for daring to step foot on Holy ground.  He truly did not wish for anything to happen to the one good thing in his pathetic life, his one constant. He simply had to keep her safe.

He paced in front of the entrance to the Holy Sanctuary again, pausing as the Bishop began walking toward him, having finished his prayer.

Jin descended upon him like a vulture to roadkill. "Look, Namjoon's order meant everything to him."

The Bishop, Father Paul, merely looked repulsed that Jin had had the audacity to speak of Namjoon to him. The man the Bishop had believed committed the most unholy of crimes, the man who had sentenced his very soul to the prison confines of Hell. The man who had committed suicide, selfishly damning his soul for all eternity. He scoffed and continued walking past Jin.

"Now," Jin pushed through the Bishop's unwillingness to listen to reason, hands thrown wide open, "Namjoon should be buried with his Order in the Concezione Cemetery."

The Bishop spoke then. "Your order. His former order." His Italian accent was thick and his Rs rolled off his tongue with grace. "The Order of Bangtan, not many of you left in the world."

"Yeah," Jin said bitterly, if not sarcastically, "a dying breed." Even he had heard the irony in the words he spoke. "Look, and when they die, it's the Concezione Cemetery where they are laid to their final rest." He gestured with his hands, intersecting one over the palm of the other in an effort to get the Bishop he was walking with to see reason, once again.

Rounding on him, the Bishop, wearing robes the color of new blood, the signification of his rank within the church, spoke venomously. "Suicide is a cardinal sin." He held no sympathy for Jin, none for Namjoon either. He was righteous in his anger and spittle fell from his pursed lips as he spoke viciously to him.

Spinning on his heel, Bishop Paul turned and walked away from Jin, hands held together behind his back. Jin was left with his brows drawn together and he watched the Bishop's retreating back with his arms folded across his chest and a look of curious disdain on his face.

Shaking his head, he walked slowly toward the Bishop who was descending the stairs leading from the cathedral. "Namjoon did not commit suicide."

Throwing his hands in the air, the Bishop turned his head slightly and called out, "It makes no difference. He had been excommunicated, excluded from our society and our sacraments." Jin followed the Bishop as he strode away, listening as he spoke to him in Latin, before translating in English, to which Jin spoke the words with him.

"There is no salvation outside the Church."

"Yes, I know my Latin," Jin said in a tone that said he was no idiot and invited many arguments.

They walked down several more flights of stairs, through the ginormous cathedral of the Vatican. With its high, arched windows and hundred foot ceilings, the building, made entirely of stone and cement echoed gloriously.

"You know your Latin, yes. Unlike your manners," the Bishop admonished him. "Respect what you are."

"Well, what I am is my concern," Jin was shutting him down without being too hard or harsh. "Thank you." He wished he could throttle this man, the man who spoke and thought so poorly of him, and of Namjoon. He knew what Namjoon would, and wouldn't, do. He never would have sacrificed his soul in exchange for anything. Not knowledge, not riches, nothing.