"Father, if one falls in love with a man, can one still go to heaven?"
In his many years in these hallowed halls, Hu Tianbao has borne witness to many things— proposals, divorces, fights, adultery, funerals— he's gotten used to them, and yet nothing in his years of experience could quite prepare him for this question, nor this scene.
He could recognise that voice in a heartbeat. He's heard it many times in the walls of this very church, a deep and rich voice that blends perfectly with the rest of the choir, and yet, it's most unforgettable on its own, when he's singing to a grey-eyed boy, curled up in his lap late in the night when they think everyone else has left the sacred halls.
He knows who sits across from him in this crammed booth, and it takes everything in Hu Tianbao not to reach across and hug him. Instead, he returns a question.
"Why do you ask?"
"I'm asking for a friend," comes the quiet answer, but the fear in his voice speaks otherwise. There's a desperate edge to his voice, and Hu Tianbao can only smile sadly. He knows the feeling too well, an ode to his own a lifetime ago. He'd made that mistake once, and he will not make it again.
"There's nothing in the Bible against love," he answers simply. "Nothing about God that stands against love, no matter the form."