Chapter 6. Jealousy (6)
“…That day was the first day I received a customer.”
Eckart’s breath caught in his throat. The voice he managed to squeeze out flowed unsteadily.
“A customer… At that time, you were so young…”
“There are more customers looking for young boys than you’d think.”
As Eckart stiffened, feeling his body grow cold with shock, Ronen bit his lips tightly, looking back on that terrible day.
The one who purchased the first night of a boy too young to sell his body, even small and thin for his age, was a count famous for his taste in men. Though he was a giant several times Ronen’s size, fortunately he was a man as generous in heart as he was wealthy and well-built. At least until then.
He took Ronen to an expensive restaurant to feed him delicious food, bought him new clothes, and showed him around various places. A long procession heading to the battlefield happened to be passing through, so there was nothing better to watch.
Though he treated him kindly in his own way, he was still the man who had won the bid for his first night. The moment he was dragged to the bedroom, Ronen knew exactly what would happen there. Every time he faced the raw desire the man occasionally showed him, his neck would stiffen with tension.
He was a cat. A cat that plays with the mouse it caught instead of eating it right away. Since it had already become his, he could take his time enjoying it carefully before devouring it whenever he pleased. He could only wait in terror for the moment he would inevitably be devoured.
In that situation, Ronen happened to encounter Eckart. The moment his gaze met with the boy who had grown much since he last saw him but was still too young to be dragged to the battlefield, Ronen reached out his hand. Perhaps he instinctively realized it. That this was his last chance.
If he was dragged to the battlefield like that, he wouldn’t last long and would die, but he would meet a pure and noble death as a servant of God.
But if he remained here…
As if sensing Ronen’s desperation, Eckart reached out his arm as if to grasp his hand. Just as they were about to touch, Ronen’s body was suddenly pulled back. It was the count. Meanwhile, Eckart passed by him. He moved to a place where they could no longer reach each other.
What followed was so painful to recall that he squeezed his eyes shut. Cold sweat seeped from his palms.
Struggling to steady his rough breathing, Ronen clasped his cold fingertips together.
“…Though my body was defiled, it was still okay. I thought I still had many days left to repent.”
Yes. Though he inevitably committed sins, he thought there would be opportunities to repent. Because every act was nothing but pain itself to him.
Like a page boy who gets beaten instead of noble children whenever they misbehaved, it was merely inflicting wounds on his own body. Only the type of beating had changed from clubs or whips to people, and the beaten areas had expanded to include secret places inside his body.
Thinking that way made it bearable. Even though Madame Cornelia made him take increasingly violent and sadistic customers, he considered it a good thing.
The greater the pain, the more it felt like trials, and he made every effort not to let go of himself. Since he called out to God dozens, hundreds of times in his heart, these were truly times endured by faith alone.
Not only that. The money he received from Madame Cornelia also increased, and the speed of paying off his debts quickened accordingly. Madame Cornelia, feeling somewhat guilty, often brought street preachers. Though he only heard words close to curses about falling into hellfire if he continued sinning, even that provided comfort.
Looking back now, it might have been the most hopeful time in his life. Once he paid off his debts and earned some money, he was no longer a child and wouldn’t have to worry about starving to death, so he made plans to find a monastery that would accept him. He resolved and re-resolved to live a life of atonement.
Then one day, when the end seemed in sight, he met Grand Duke Canis.
He still vividly remembered that day. The banquet hall he was forcibly dragged to because of a customer was filled with such terrible fragrances that they numbed the nose, and it was so bright and splendid that day and night couldn’t be distinguished. Into Ronen’s hazy vision, blurred by pain and ennui, a man entered with hundreds of candles from a chandelier behind him.
The young Grand Duke, whom he had only heard about in rumors, was elegant and beautiful but so imposing that he was difficult to look at directly. His piercingly bright gray eyes scanned Ronen emotionlessly. It was the emotionlessness of examining the condition of an object.
He could even sense contempt. It was the gaze of looking down at something dirty and worthless. Other than that, his face showed no particular interest… Yet for some reason, Grand Duke Canis came looking for Ronen again.
Unlike other customers who tried to break and shatter Ronen, he was different. He crumbled him slowly, from deep within. He took time to carefully make him submit. He gradually tamed his body, trying to clearly imprint who the master was.
By the time he realized this, it was already too late. Because his acts with the Grand Duke were no longer trials. The moment he realized he had become a slave to pleasure, truly swaying his hips like a whore of his own accord, the despair he felt then was indescribable.
Not content with corrupting Ronen’s soul, the Grand Duke wanted to completely possess his body as well. He tried to preserve him in a room like a taxidermy so he could see him whenever he wanted. After taking Ronen’s leash from Madame Cornelia, he instantly multiplied the little debt that remained and put shackles on his ankles.
Perhaps it was all foreseen from the moment he encountered the Grand Duke. Maybe the nightmare had already begun from that moment.
“I have committed too many sins for such a long time… sins that cannot even be washed away.”
“Since God is merciful, He will forgive all your sins.”
“I wonder. Though I spoke to you of repentance and such, I might not even be qualified to seek forgiveness.”
“Qualification is ultimately no different from rules set by humans. Since God is equal, He loves all things equally.”
“Is that really so? Though God says He never turns away from His servants, it might just be a story sinners made up to find comfort.”
Perhaps he had already been abandoned from the moment he succumbed to temptation and stepped into the forbidden. Thinking this way made him so afraid that his pounding heart seemed ready to leap out of his mouth.
He wasn’t afraid of falling into hell at all. If he had sinned, it was only right to pay the price for his sins. Even hell was ultimately within God’s embrace. As long as God stayed by his side, it didn’t matter where that place was.
But being abandoned was different. Believing that someday He would forgive him and extend His hand, thinking of himself waiting endlessly in perhaps unending pain was too sad to bear.
Because of brief satisfaction, warmth, and pleasure, he would gain regret as long as eternity.
Ronen’s pale fingertips trembled pitifully. This was the first time seeing him so terrified since they had been together. He who had always been detached even before death was now afraid.
Warm warmth overlapped Ronen’s cold hands. Eckart, who had turned toward Ronen, wrapped his hands around his and spoke while looking at him.
“Why do you think the merciful God created hell?”
Ronen’s dazed face was reflected in Eckart’s unwavering eyes.
“I have always thought it was not simply to punish sinners, but to give them one more chance to wash away all their sins. A final opportunity to repent.”
Why did God, who was said to be so equal and merciful, create the fires of hell? Wasn’t it so they could feel the weight of the sins they committed while alive? So they could personally realize how heavy their sins were, how terrible the pain someone suffered because of them was?
“Though the Pope exists as God’s representative and I too cooperate in punishing sinners who violate scripture, ultimately only God can judge. Both forgiveness and punishment – that means only God can decide these things. All we can do is guide them to the right path and pray for them.”
Even if sinners were forgiven here, all their sins wouldn’t simply disappear. He believed everyone would stand equally before the judgment seat. True judgment would be rendered by God. Based on that, each person’s burden of sin would have to be paid by each person.
“‘I will cleanse them from all the sin they have committed against me and will forgive all their sins of rebellion against me.'” (*Jeremiah 33:8)
Eckart’s eyes hardened sharply. His hands also gradually tightened. Though he had started speaking to comfort Ronen, it was ultimately no different from speaking to himself.
Punishing sinners based on laws set by humans was different from judgment. Wasn’t spreading God’s will, properly controlling the world so it wouldn’t become chaotic, and guiding to the right path what a true representative of God should do? Wasn’t directly rendering judgment on God’s behalf a mere human wielding the unique divine authority?
If one was truly a priest, wouldn’t it be right to pray for the sins of sinners, rather than cursing them to fall into hell while even taking away their chance to repent – was this truly what God’s representative should do?
Should a mere human dare to be confident that they fully understood God’s deep will? What was right and wrong could ultimately only be known by God.
Once he began to think that the Pope’s words might not necessarily be God’s words, the thought spread uncontrollably. When he thought that perhaps everything he had done might not have been God’s will, he felt endlessly distant.
What exactly had he drawn his sword for? What exactly had been right? He couldn’t know anything.
It was then that fear washed over him, like being lost in pitch-black darkness where he couldn’t see even an inch ahead.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
