Chapter Text
Somewhere in Thailand, sometime in 1996.
Barth leaned against the narrow doorway, gaze fixed tight on the figure across the room — sat and bent slightly forwards at the edge of a bed, shadowed by the bunk above him. Though the silhouette’s back was turned, Barth’s unfocused eyes could make out his desperate hands clasped together, head bowed as whispered prayers cut through the weighted silence. Barth did not dare move, did not as much as blink or breathe.
“In the name of the Father—” The figure’s right hand reached to his forehead, trembling as it traveled to his sternum. “—The Son. . .”
Barth’s unsteady legs guided him forward, one hesitant step after the other to approach the shadow of a boy across the room. The silhouette’s shoulders tensed, He knew Barth was here, and he didn’t want him here.
All the same, he completed crossing himself, hands slowly — too slowly — gliding across his chest. “. . . And the Holy Spirit.”
Barth was in front of him now, looming over his hunched body. The boy in front of him looked up, eyes half-moons and face twisted into a grimace like it burned to meet his eyes. The air between them felt elastic; pulled taut, to its limit, waiting to burst.
Barth was the first to move, as he always was, a featherlight hand coming to rest upon the boy’s shoulder. “Rak.”
Tanrak, the beautiful boy in front of him, the one with Barth’s heart in his hands, his guilty pleasure, his God, sat unmoving. Touching him always felt like a prayer, his body a sacred altar to pray, genuflect, kneel before.
Maybe, Barth questioned, if he touched Tanrak long enough, he’d finally find something like faith.
Tanrak’s eyes widened at the contact, a helpless look replacing the one of apprehension from before. He did not reply.
“Tanrak, seriously, are you praying for me again?” Barth pushed, already knowing the answer. Tanrak flinched, pursed his lips, squeezed his eyes shut. There was a long pause before he gained the courage to open his mouth.
“I want your soul to be saved, Barth—”
“But what if I don’t?” He snapped, his hand tightening around the boy’s shoulder, nails digging into the flesh of it. In the sparse sun of early dawn, only Rak’s eyes were cast in the daylight. He looked like an angel. “You know I don’t.”
“Don’t do this to me.” Tanrak shrugged Barth’s hand from his shoulder, swatting it away like it was a pest, and it pulsed through Barth like a strike to the gut.
“Rak–”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Rak.” Barth’s hands found the sides of Tanrak’s face, and they forced his head upwards before either of them knew. Eye-to-eye, Barth could see every crack in his resolve – the faint remnants of decorum that were thinning by the second.
“If it comes down to it, I’d much rather—” Barth’s face approached Rak’s, impossibly close, sharing the same air in shallow pants, feeling their breaths on each other’s faces. “—that you damn me instead.”
Tanrak’s Adam’s apple bobbed, and in a way, he almost felt like the very fruit in Eden as he moved closer. Sweet, decadent, a sinful pleasure made and designed to test who was most devout.
But maybe, deep down, he instead was the Sacred Heart, flaming in all its divine glory, with his long-suffering and unending love. Bleeding with the devotion. And maybe Tanrak was the arrow that pierced so beautifully into the flesh of him.
Tanrak tilted his head up, breath warm and mouth agape in surrender, eyes turning half-lidded just as their lips dared to meet—
Barth woke up to the unnerving screeches of his alarm.
Beep, Beep, Beep
The light from the window blared into his eyes, making Barth squeeze them shut tighter as he rolled over onto his stomach to mash his face into his pillow. His eyelids throbbed with the booze of two nights ago, his mouth coated with the sour taste of sleep. With a long-winded groan, Barth begrudgingly hauled his heavy body upwards to shut the ringing off. The phone read 9 o’clock in the morning, and he’d never usually wake up this early, unless his job of the month required it. But today was different. Today, he had plans.
Sitting up, he wiped a hand across the sweat sheen on his face and began to blink himself awake. From this position, the soft winds from the air conditioner lifted his light cotton sleep shirt, raising goosebumps in their wake.
Tanrak’s eyes, his hands, his breath, it felt too real.
He needed a cigarette.
And a cold, cold shower.
Somewhere in Bangkok, cool season, 2014.
It was only natural to happen, Barth thought to himself as he toddled to the bathroom and shed his clothes. This time of year always brought upon unneeded memories of that college, the hiding, the gorgeous blessed boy under his fingertips, under him.
18 years ago today – Barth recalled as he looked in the mirror – marked the date of the last time he had ever prayed.
He remembered trembling at the kneeling cushion, barely an adult, pleading to that gaudy cross and that false God he never believed in with tears in his eyes. Commanding him to do something, anything, if he existed at all. Barth never got an answer. Or at least, not one he wanted.
Rather, he had only questions as he packed his bags in an empty dorm. He had still been begging to whatever God would hear him as he ran, not knowing where he’d go, but knowing he had to get out.
His final prayer was when he caught a glimpse of Tanrak, beautiful Tanrak, for the last time — his arm clasped by the deacons and the teachers and Father Matthew like he was a victim. Like they were proud that he had finally come to his senses. Their eyes met then; Barth’s, panicked, to Tanrak’s, stone cold.
Memories from 18 years ago flashed heavy as a thurible while in the shower, as Barth washed his hair, ran his hands over the mosaic of hickeys on his neck left by nameless men from that week, then over his tense shoulders, as he scrubbed over his sternum.
The thoughts didn’t leave his head as he continued getting ready, struggling into slacks and fiddling with the buttons on his black dress shirt, instead they melted and rippled through his consciousness now like wax in a melting pot. The weight of Tanrak’s legs entangled with his as they drifted to sleep beside each other. Tanrak’s soft laugh against his hand, closed over his mouth as they snuck out of the dorms before dawn. The hitched breaths, the gasps, the sighs of surrender as they dared to give into each other. The closeness and warmth in the space between their bodies.
As Barth poured his coffee he wouldn’t end up drinking, he checked the clock on the wall. 9:30.
He made breakfast but left it untouched, letting it rot on the dining table. He fished out his old hymnal from his closet, packed a bag, and left to start his car.
The seminary town was almost a carbon copy of how he left it. The tile walkways still felt cold through the soles of his sneakers, the brick and the marble still ever meticulously polished, yet simultaneously ever cracked. There was still plenty of time until mass, so Barth took to touring the college as he nursed a smoke.
He didn’t know why he decided to come today. Maybe he needed closure. Maybe he secretly wished someone else would be here.
St. Magdalene College, the large, obnoxiously gold sign read.
Mary Magdalene, the woman who Christ seven demons from. Yet nobody knows if the seven demons in her means she was in danger, or if she was a grave sinner.
The closest disciple of Jesus, the first to see him resurrected.
Patroness of the repentant sinners, of sexual temptation, Barth remembered Tanrak used to tell him.
And Barth then would wonder, why couldn’t He siphon the demons out of him?
He never wanted to tempt anyone. He was no seductress, nor was he a tempter. He just loved a boy.
He scoffed.
Barth recognized the trees and shrubbery, trimmed to the same size they’ve always been. He recognized the clouds, the sky where He lies, yet just as before he didn’t see Him at all. As he shouldered past the odd seminarian, he grimaced a little at the collectives of students in his way. Side parts gelled perfectly and shirts tucked in straight; he couldn’t help but get the same impression as he did when he first stepped foot on campus. They all look the same.
He didn’t feel at all holy here — he never did — yet the land felt sacred somehow, something his sinful soul shouldn’t be desecrating with his mere presence. To Barth, the only temple it was, was of bitter memory. Remembrance here felt like prayer, the yearning for the time lost rung in his head like church bells.
He passed the gates he tried to jump over on his first week in the college, needing to run from all the eyes, until a pompous boy grabbed him by the waist and anchored him down. The same gates him and that same pompous boy would run off to before the sun rose, giggling as they pinned each other against the stone and took turns kissing the other’s faces.
He passed by the stone-carved picnic tables, littered with visitors and seminarians chattering with too-large smiles on their faces. He remembered splattering the asphalt there with blood from his knuckles after a fight, being dragged away by ministry staff and made to attend counseling twice a week. He recalled the time he saw Tanrak with a girl one day, perhaps her name was Fah, laughing freely with each other with her hand on his. Barth knew, though, that he was the only person in the world who could tell that Tanrak’s smile didn’t reach his eyes.
He walked along the campus, to the flower garden, to the courtyard, to the nooks he used to hide in, yet Tanrak’s ghost still followed him everywhere.
And to think he was convinced that he was ready for this. That he had moved on enough for it not to hurt.
His feet led him to a statue of St. Joseph holding baby Jesus, planted in the middle of a bridge across the lake that the buildings were built around. He remembered what Tanrak told him, when they had walked here hand in hand near their final days.
“Before the angels told him Mother Mary was carrying the Son of God, he already knew that the child she was carrying wasn’t his. He was going to send her away quietly, so nobody could hurt her.” he commented plainly, fingers fidgeting at his robes. Barth had furrowed his eyebrows.
“. . .Isn’t adultery a sin?” Barth had questioned.
“It is. Punishable by death.” Tanrak had answered surgically, no emotion evident in his face.
“Then why do you think Joseph did it?”
Tanrak had taken a deep breath.
“It’s one of the few things in the Bible I dared question.”
Tanrak’s eyes had held a storm, staring hard at the statue in front of him, and Barth saw him swallow before replying.
“But I think. . . I think he did it because she loved her.”
“And. . . do you think love’s enough? To be forgiven?”
Tanrak had stayed silent.
18 years later, Barth had gotten his answer.
No, it isn’t.
Not to Tanrak.
It was approaching time for service, so he took one last glance at the statue, took one last puff of his cigarette, and stomped it flat before charging to the church.
The stained glass dispersed faint rays of iridescent light across the hall. St. Gabriel to Barth’s left, finger pointed up and a white lily in his hand. To the right, St. Michael in a triumphant pose, foot pushing on the skull of Satan’s defeated body.
St. Michael Archangel, Guardian of the Church, Weigher of Souls. He stands before you at your Last Judgement, weighs your sins before you upon a balance scale.
St. Gabriel, a divine messenger, guardian of the faithful, delivering the word of God to this Earth.
Barth lifted two fingers, dipped it into the basin of holy water mounted on the wall, then began to cross himself. It felt wrong, as if the air resisted the travelling of his hand — out of practice, not himself. In his periphery, he saw the choir line up, young men and women in black cassocks, a God-born light in their eyes that Barth was never able to find.
After giving a polite nod to the over-enthusiastic service greeter, he sauntered to a seat in the second row, closest to the aisle and free of people as more were still filing in.
Hands on the pew, genuflect, kneel. Bow to the cross above the altar, show your devotion to Him.
The church echoed with faint whispers of those already familiar to each other, churchgoers who have known each other for decades, women and children, no faces that Barth could recognize. Unspeaking, he simply people-watched, listening to the odd conversation in the midst of all the whispered voices over the choir.
“Should I make Somtam for supper? Or maybe we should keep it simple tonight,”
“Where’s your hymnal? You must sing this week,”
“Did you see the new priest? It’s tragic how handsome he is. If he weren’t one, I’d totally make a move,”
“The seminary boys look bright, I bet Siao could even be a cardinal one day.”
One thing he did miss about the church, Barth granted, was the community it brought. Maybe if he was a believer from the start, he would’ve belonged somewhere here.
The church filled quickly, guests packed like sardines in the wooden seats. Barth silently let out a sigh of relief, grateful that at least he sat at the edge. He took brief notice of the person sitting beside him, a stout old lady who offered him a crooked smile that felt as genuine as he supposed it could get, to which he returned a smile that came out more like a grimace.
“Son, I haven’t seen you in this church before. What brings you here?” She asked in her croaky, aged voice. Barth visibly frowned, as if he wasn’t already, and he took a few moments to collect himself to answer.
“I used to go to St. Magdalene’s. Travelled here from Bangkok to revisit some old memories,” he stated curtly. Not technically lying, just omitting some details.
“Oh! How lovely. My daughter lives in Bangkok, you might go to the same church as her!” Her voice was too joyous for the sorrow Barth was used to here.
“Actually —” Barth didn’t know what compelled him to honesty, maybe it was the lady’s warm smile, being the first he’s received in a while, or maybe he just needed an ear to listen. “I… lost my faith,” he confessed, referring to his faith in Tanrak more than he was to his faith in Him. “I was wondering if I could get it back.”
The lady stared, inquisitive, judgement free from her expression, and Barth’s shoulders relaxed slightly.
“Young man, believer or not, we all have a chance to find our way up there with Him. As long as He thinks you have done well,” she assured, tapping his shoulder a couple times.
Barth smiled politely, because that is what he was supposed to do. Before he could reply, he heard the sacristy doors open. So he replied in his head: I don’t think He will.
From where he sat, he saw the deacon first: young, chipper and full of life. Why do they all look so damn happy?
Then the priest came into view, and his heart dropped.
Tanrak.
Barth felt the ground under him shake, and the walls start to wobble, yet he knew that it was just his world that was tilting. Time seemed to stop, and there in the suddenly thin air remained nothing for Barth except the only man he had really loved for all his life.
His only real love in his life, had taken a vow of celibacy and become a priest.
Just like he had always wanted to be.
What a joke.
He was never meant to be in Tanrak’s future.
Barth had had many lovers in between those 2 decades away from the seminary.
He couldn’t remember all the one-night stands he picked up from secret underground bars just to feel something again, he was always far too drunk. He barely recalled the names of his various 2-week boyfriends; he could only say Tanrak’s name during their throes of passion, anyway. He remembered his longer term relationships, all a messy tearful ordeal that ended due to the same problem.
And there stood that exact problem, in all his graceful glory, with his glistening emerald green vestment that made his kind (after all these years, still kind, still forgiving) eyes shine in the dim church light. Barth wished it had looked wrong on him, his Tanrak, just out of reach, sleeves falling handsomely over his hands, an annotated bible tucked under his arm — but he looked perfect, divine, as if this was where he had always belonged. It made Barth feel lightheaded. It made him want to scream and curse at Tanrak right there in the isle. It made him want to flee and never see him again. It made him want to jump to him and relearn what was under those robes.
Oh, God (and now only felt appropriate to blaspheme), he really was a sinner.
He only zoned back in when he saw everyone begin to stand, and Barth only found it fitting that now had begun the Lord Have Mercy.
The opening prayer passed by fast to Barth, his mind unfocused on the words as he sat and stood, sat and stood again, as he stared at the glowing priest in the center of it all. He looked terribly in his element, almost relaxed minus the crease in his brow Barth knew only he noticed.
Faintly, Barth wondered if Tanrak had ever looked at him with the same reverence as he did, and his brain quickly supplied him with a sound ‘no.’
If only Barth would have ever rid himself of the thoughts that he was Tanrak’s temptress, that it was he who led a good man down a rotten path.
If only he could have been in love without the looming threat of damnation.
If only, two decades later, he didn’t have the same problem.
Sit, stand, sit, stand, sit again. Go through the motions that were once branded in his memory like a burn to the skin of cattle. Sing the hymns and recite the prayers that made his tongue feel too large for his mouth.
Then the sermon started, and Barth could’ve gone mad hearing Tanrak’s powerful voice echo against the domed ceilings.
Barth remembered back in the seminary, the sermons were his favorite time to space out or draw scratchy doodles to kill time.
Now, he listened to every word. No matter how much it hurt him.
“I would like to direct your attention to a verse we all know very well — Matthew 6.” Tanrak’s voice felt like honey to Barth’s plagued ears, yet at the same time a strike to the gut. “You must all know it by heart, but allow me to recite a quote from Matthew 6:14-15 that has stuck with me since the moment I read it: ‘For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. ‘“
Tanrak took a deep breath before he continued, and Barth almost threw up hearing the barely audible quivers as he inhaled.
“We are all imperfect beings who tend to hold our contempt for others. We may have people who have wronged us, hurt us, left wounds in our hearts that you have tried to heal to no avail in the past—”
The church halls were then filled with a quiet admiration, a devotion that only came with the shared love of God, yet it all felt so far away as Barth’s heartbeat pounded in his ears.
“—but the Lord’s forgiveness only comes when you allow yourself to forgive others.”
Barth had to space out, or else he might have caused a scene right there and then. Far away, he could feel the old lady’s eyes on him, then her hand on his shoulder as Father Tanrak kept talking. For ten minutes, thirty, an hour, it made no difference to him.
“Now, say this prayer after me,” Tanrak said, commanded, and Barth for the life of him couldn’t bring himself to open his mouth.
Faintly, he heard low chanting from everyone in the room, he heard prayer after prayer, words lost from him. Eventually, he saw shuffling at the altar and a chalice being lifted.
An insistent tap on his shoulder pulled his consciousness from his hiding place, and quickly snapped back into his own body.
“Son, the Holy Communion has started now. Come line up with me.” The old lady beside him coaxed him to stand, genuflect, kneel, stand again, and behind her Barth joined the line to receive the communion. He didn’t have the heart to tell her that he most likely didn’t deserve it.
For what felt like hours, bodies shuffled slightly forwards to receive the body and blood of Christ. As Barth got closer, it got harder to stomach the idea of seeing Tanrak up close.
Only 4 people stood in front of him waiting then, and his hands began to shake.
He wondered if he’d see the age in Tanrak’s face, the stress lines formed on his once youthful skin, or if he would look just the same as he did all those years ago.
2 people in front of him. He needed to leave.
It became too late to back out as the line insistently pushed onwards, forcing him closer and closer towards the front. He made it to the front, just one person left to receive communion before him, and he watched Tanrak’s sweet smile as he gracefully placed the wafer in their mouth.
Faintly, a voice in his head recited to him a prayer he hadn’t remembered for years.
You, who already possess eternal happiness in His glorious presence, please intercede for me, so that some day I may share in the same everlasting joy.
Sooner than he would have liked, it came to his turn.
His quivering legs led him to the steps, eyes glued to the floor, now less than 2 feet away from Tanrak. And when he finally looked up, Tanrak’s sweet, beautiful face immediately dropped.
“Barth,” he said with urgency, his expression twisted into something that feigned decorum. Even after all these years, Tanrak had still recognized him.
“F—” Barth swallowed the lump in his throat. “Father Tanrak.”
Barth didn’t spare a glance at the deacon to his opposite, instead deciding to keep eye contact with Tanrak as he lowered his full weight to his knees.
To Barth’s horror, maybe to his delight, he saw Tanrak’s Adam’s apple bob hard as he landed straight onto the kneeler. Tanrak fetched a wafer from the small dish in his hands like clockwork all the same, and Barth felt himself shiver in anticipation.
“Have you not received communion for a while, Barth?” Tanrak remarked, genuine rather than judgemental. “You must first cross yourself — yes, just like that — then put your hands together, on the rail, remember? Easy, now.”
It was too familiar to every moment replayed in Barth’s head, for him to take orders from Tanrak. He couldn’t help but comply with a relenting “Yes, Father.”
After a long gulp, he finally craned his head upwards and opened his mouth, presenting his tongue, staring up at Tanrak from an angle he was well-acquainted with.
Tanrak knew more than anyone that Barth didn’t deserve receiving the Eucharist.
He continued anyway.
“The body of Christ,” Tanrak blessed.
“Amen,” Barth acquiesced.
Barth, despite not knowing if he could even keep food down, had to fight to hold back a slight smirk as Tanrak’s hand approached his mouth with a tremor. The closer he got, the more of his warmth Barth could feel against his face. It was intoxicating, it was everything he had thought about for the two decades that had passed.
He finally placed the host onto Barth’s accepting tongue, and he had to swallow the saliva pooling at the base of his mouth at the realization that Tanrak’s thumb had lingered, even placed pressure onto the fragile wafer as it was administered, making his tongue curl and dip ever so slightly at the barely-there force.
Tanrak knew it too, and Barth could see every beautiful crack of contempt in his resolve as he pulled away and stood to watch Barth cross himself.
The poor deacon, face neutral as ever, obediently waited until Barth had finished praying to touch the chalice of wine to his lips.
“The blood of Christ,” Tanrak continued.
“Amen.”
As the wine coated his throat, he refused to break eye contact with Tanrak, staring deep into his soul through those heady, brown eyes.
Tanrak adjusted the collarbone of his robes, and Barth could see the faint sweat beads forming at the base of his neck, his eyes unfocused, distant. Barth felt a bud of triumph deep within himself, followed by a dizzying surge of guilt.
“Thank you, Father,” Barth offered, his voice cracking.
“Would you stay around for coffee, Barth?” Tanrak asked, sounding weak.
In response, he shrugged, trying to look alive with the last of his energy. “I’ll think about it.”
Faintly, Barth realized that their all-too-familiar push and pull had begun again, just as fear-striking and unsure as it always had been. He felt sick.
The rest of the service passed on as a blur, donations dropped into plates and final hymns being recited all together. The choir coming to crescendo, voices all crying out together until no one person could be distinguished from the other. Barth had to admit, as he contributed faintly to the main melody, that this was the closest he would ever feel to magic.
With service coming to its end, people had begun to file out of the hall. Tanrak went to stand at the exit to shake hands and chatter with the leaving communicants, and Barth alongside other strangers made their way into a small room astride the chapel, where Barth knew had always served biscuits and drinks after service.
When he made his way across the hallway and into the meeting room, eyes immediately fell on him. Not that he didn’t expect it would happen, but he didn’t anticipate how quickly a small crowd formed around him.
An unfamiliar older woman grasped him by his shoulders, slightly more forceful than it was welcoming.
“I haven’t seen you before, I would remember you if you did. What’s your name?”
Barth gulped. “My name is Barth, Phi,” he muttered, hoping the honorific made him sound polite, deserving enough.
“Aren’t you handsome?” Another, younger, female voice chirped, almost cooing.
“Welcome to the church, young man,” a man older than him approached him to shake his hand, Barth tried to reciprocate it firmly enough.
“Does anyone smell cigarettes?” Someone chimed, and he knew it couldn’t be from anyone except him. Suddenly, he felt sweat beads form at his collar.
A couple about his age with a young kid behind them took lead of the conversation then, and Barth cringed at the reminder that people his age were already meant to have kids. He couldn’t even keep a friends-with-benefits deal for over half a year. How embarrassing.
“What brings you to this church?” The lady asks, smiling polite with the illusion of listening.
Barth paused for a moment, gathering his thoughts. “I used to go to St. Magdalene’s. Just felt nostalgic today,” he remarked, to which he received several delighted gasps.
“Oh really? When did you graduate?” Asked the father as he hoisted his kid up in his arms.
Barth didn’t have the confidence to tell them that he never did; he decided it was okay to omit some details. “I was in the same year as Father Tanrak, actually.”
This seemed to make the room burst into pleasant chatter.
“Really?” a different teenage girl butted in, seeming to be starstruck. “How was he as a student? Was he handsome? He must have been brilliant, right?”
Barth could only laugh. “I always looked up to him,” he admitted, not specifying whether it was from admiration or from kneeling before him.
Just at that moment, Father Tanrak — holding a familiar rosary — had entered the room, and the air seemed to shift. It wasn’t just Barth that felt reverent in his presence anymore, as he could tell from the new respectful silence in the room. Barth observed him from afar, sauntering to the dining table to stuff a cookie into his mouth.
Though he made light polite greetings to everyone, Tanrak had simply grazed the general crowd, but he was clearly shouldering his way to a specific part of the room.
It seemed only Barth was watching him then, when Tanrak eventually made to approach two frightened-looking men who stood stiff in the corner.
“Kris, Thawi,” Barth heard Tanrak say as he shook their hands, then clasped a hand over one’s shoulder. With a squint, he could faintly make out that the two men Tanrak was talking to had their hands intertwined, and there was a barely noticeable rainbow-coloured enamel cufflink on one of their shirtsleeves.
Oh.
Well fuck.
Barth stared conflicted at the light conversation, as the couple burst out into pleasant laughter at a remark Tanrak had made. How the three’s smiles came easily even when the rest of the communicants didn’t care to acknowledge them, how Father Tanrak had made a cross in the air and blessed them both.
That could’ve been him, it could’ve been them if Tanrak had loved him a little more.
He spent so long staring at the patch in the wall that he didn’t realize when Tanrak had made his way in front of him.
“Barth,” Tanrak murmured timidly. He sounded almost petrified, though his face remained blank. Barth flinched.
“Your reverence.”
They stared into each other’s eyes for a long while, so close yet so far apart. It felt like coming home.
To Barth, looking at him was a holy prayer. It was watching rain become a tempest before your very eyes. It was death, or a smaller version. La petite mort.
“Barth told me he knew Father in his seminary days.” Unceremoniously, a stranger had intercepted their conversation, and they both had to blink fast to maintain normalcy. Tanrak had plastered a smile on his face in response.
“Yes, indeed. We were—” Tanrak hesitated, just for a millisecond, barely noticeable. “—quite close. It’s been quite a while since we have been in contact.”
Barth said nothing, but he offered a grimace.
“Oh, how lovely!” The stranger supplied. “Forgive me if I’m overstepping, but,” they leaned in, smiling playfully, “How was Father Tanrak as a seminarian? Was he popular? Or a rebel?”
A chuckle escaped from Barth, though the priest to his opposite looked like he had just seen a ghost. If only the people here knew; he rebelled every time he looked at him.
“A little,” Barth replied, his tone fond. “Not more than the normal, we all sin after all. But I don’t think Father Tanrak ever did anything wrong.”
Buried within every regret, every torment that circled through Barth’s mind, there was still a flicker of hope.
A tired sigh escaped Tanrak, but his expression looked a little calmer; the crease in between his brows had flattened. The stranger between them both nodded intently.
“He was a visionary of a student. The teachers trusted him the most to guide his peers,” Barth said with a barely noticeable edge. Testing the waters.
“Yes, supporting my classmates—” Tanrak gulped and smoothed his robes over. “—was some of the happiest times of my life.”
Barth knew, as Tanrak bore holes into the ground, shame creeping over him, that Tanrak wasn’t talking about the peers he recited Psalms with. Nor was he talking about the pretty women who played dumb over verses, asking him with their doe eyes for help, for attention.
“You’ve always had that spirit,” said the stranger, trying to sound proud. “Helping those who are in… unfortunate situations.” Barth could’ve sworn that a cold glance was spared towards the fretting Kris and Thawi across the room. He felt a lump in his throat.
“Indeed,” Tanrak said. It was miniscule, barely noticeable, but Barth knew that expression on Tanrak by heart — tight, uncomfortable, his posture unbearably straight.
“I’ve come to learn that God wants us to love—” finally, Tanrak’s eyes laid on Barth. “—appreciate, and forgive everyone. With no exception.”
Now, it was Barth’s turn to look away.
“. . .How admirable, Father,” the stranger says after a charged pause, a little pale. “I’d better leave you two to catch up, I haven’t had coffee yet.” And just like that, they scurried off without a second to spare.
So left there were the two men with a history, no longer boys with a dream, both trying hard not to shake.
“Barth, you look…” Tanrak supplied, and Barth could fill in the blanks: You look older. You look tired.
“Yeah,” Barth replied, lamely. The silence rang between the both of them. The chatter between attendees and seminarians seemed so far away.
The last thing Barth expected for Tanrak to say was exactly what he had said: “Can I hug you?”
For a moment, Barth convinced himself it was a joke. The realization only sunk in when he registered Tanrak’s pleading eyes.
Hesitantly, he nodded, a barely there gesture. All the same, however, Tanrak sprinted at him to wrap Barth in a tight embrace.
The hug was quick, almost brotherly, unreciprocated by Barth as he remained frozen still. Yet he could still feel how Tanrak’s arms tightened hard around his, how Tanrak dug his chin into his shoulder for just the briefest second, how his breathing started to pick up before he forced himself to step back. The feeling of the hug was unfamiliar, with Tanrak’s body having grown — rugged under his robes and oozing a warmth he never used to.
“I thought about you,” Tanrak said, hesitant. His voice remained robotically neutral. Barth laughed pitifully.
“Thanks, I guess.” Their voices were hushed, like they were talking about something forbidden.
“I’m sorry, Barth, I’m trying.”
“I know.”
More deep breaths. Inhale, exhale.
“But you can’t just say—” Barth felt his words catch in his throat, swallowing them down hard. He still managed to remember to whisper. “You can’t just say that. You can’t say you just happened to think of me sometimes—”
“It’s not like that, Barth—”
“You can’t say that, when all this time I’ve tried everything to stop thinking of you. It’s not fair.”
Barth’s fists squeezed and unclenched rapidly as he panted with the effort of staying quiet, of behaving. Tanrak’s hands remained calmly folded in front of him, proper as ever. Why was it so easy for him?
“Oh.” Tanrak paled.
“Yeah, oh.” Barth was starting to grit his teeth. “I sat in a car for two hours, just to see if coming here would make me stop loving you, Tanrak.”
Barth was heaving, breaths coming with effort, voice watery as he admitted what he had been trying to convince himself wasn’t true for years. “It hasn’t worked yet. I’m sorry. You know, I really tried.”
“Barth, I have another mass in an hour. I can’t do this right now,”
“I’m glad that you can choose when you get to think of me. I haven’t had the privilege for twenty years—”
“Can you come back tomorrow? If you tell me you’ll come back tomorrow, I’ll take a day off. I promise, I’ll talk. Just not here. Just not now.”
Barth could only sigh and stuff his hands in his pockets.
“Tanrak.” He said his name like a prayer.
Tanrak started to grow more desperate. “I’ll go wherever you want me, I’ll drive to Bangkok. Anything. Let me see you tomorrow, please.”
Barth wished he could’ve left. Wished something in him had finally clicked, a lightbulb moment where he finally discovered he didn’t need Tanrak anymore, but it never came. Instead, all that filled his head was Tanrak’s eyes, wounded like an injured stray licking its lesions, his voice, the idea of seeing him again.
He wished he could say anything else. Cuss Tanrak out, shake him by the shoulders, kiss him in front of everyone and show them the priest’s dark secret. But instead, he relented. He always did.
“I’ll be in St. Magdalene’s tomorrow at 11. You know where,” Barth gruffed, and Tanrak’s shoulders slacked in relief.
He offered a final nod, then turned to leave. Tanrak didn’t stop him.
Back in his car, Barth fetched his lighter and nursed three cigars. He could have been in there for an hour, smoking and trying his hardest to blink away the blur in his eyes.
Somehow, he found his way home.
Somewhere in Thailand, sometime in 1996.
Past the courtyard, down the alley between two campus buildings, over a bush, down the road, in a little clearing in a cluster of trees, was where Barth found the only quiet in the midst of the suffocating uniforms and rosaries and perfectly ironed cassocks. After every scuffle, after every time he had gotten into trouble with a teacher, he would follow the same route right back here.
It was the only place that felt like a semblance of home here — not because it was anything like where he grew up (in fact, nowhere could be any less stifling), but because it was only his. He would stay planted in the grass for hours, staring at the sunset as it crept through the canopy of trees, gaze at the glimpses of stars through the dense leaves. And he would stay until his mind would go quiet, until he had stopped crying, or until he felt like he’d get into trouble.
What a regret it was, when he decided to let the boy he had been crushing on into his space for the first time.
He remembered waking up in the middle of the night to shuffling in the hallway, the walls thin and the stiff pillows on the bunkbeds doing nothing to muffle the sound when he stuffed his face into it. He peeked an eye open, and he noticed that Tanrak’s bunk had been left empty, sheets mussed and scuffled like he had never seen before.
Something in him made him get up to look for him.
Eyes wide, ears twitching, he looked for any signs of footsteps, and tried to muffle his own as he treaded towards the source of sound.
Barth found Tanrak in church that night, bent at the altar like he was trying to fold into himself.
“Rak, it’s so late. What can God do for you at one in the morning that he can’t some other time?” Barth joked, expression light — that was until Tanrak had turned to face him, and the flood of tears that rained down his soft cheeks showed itself.
Tanrak sniffled, so loud it echoed through the empty hall, then hiccuped.
Barth was dumbfounded.
“Tanrak?”
No reply. Barth took some steps closer and attempted to place a comforting hand on the crying boy’s shoulder.
It was slapped away.
“Jesus!” Barth blasphemed, out of habit, “Ow, Tanrak, why would you—”
“I’m sorry.”
Before he knew it, Tanrak had pulled Barth into a suffocating hug and buried his head into Barth’s sleep clothes, dampening them with salty tears and snot. Barth simply froze, patting Tanrak’s back in comfort, softly in case he were to snap again. He let Tanrak babble nonsense into his shoulder that he didn’t try to make sense of.
Maybe he was a bad person for doing so, but Barth couldn’t help but blush at the idea of the boy he liked holding him so urgently. What a foolish teenager he was.
Past the courtyard, down the alley between two campus buildings, over a bush, down the road, through the trees. Barth had taken the sniffling Tanrak hand-in-hand to his safe place, in hopes that he’d calm down.
“Where are we?” Tanrak said, voice panicked. Barth squeezed his hand to pacify him.
“I found this place after a fight. Nobody goes here,” Barth assured. “I scream and smoke here all the time, no complaints. Trust me.”
Barth led Tanrak to sit on the grass with him, and they ended up laying down opposite to each other, heads next to each other as the rest of their body faced away.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Barth offered, after he heard Tanrak’s breath had slowed.
Tanrak paused, guilt written in his appearance.
“. . .I was told to guide you. I need to guide you,” Tanrak croaked, and something ugly bloomed in the very depths of Barth.
“But I, myself, have gone down…” Tanrak’s breath hitched in his throat. Barth could only stare blankly. “I’m being tested, by Him, and I don’t know how to overcome it.”
“Hah, welcome to the club,” Barth had recklessly remarked, but immediately shut up when he heard the pained whine that escaped the boy opposite. “...Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. …What do you mean?”
“Barth… when they said that you’re,” Tanrak’s breath caught in his throat. “You’re a sissy, they didn’t mean it right? You aren’t actually one?”
Barth’s eyebrows furrowed. He sat up.
“Why do you want to know? What’s that got to do with anything?” He retorted defensively, voice blade-sharp. Tanrak flinched, sat up and shifted so they were both facing each other.
“Nothing, nothing,” Tanrak drawled, unconvincing, gaze distant. “Sorry.”
Barth didn’t know how to read his face, but he could see the struggle, the hesitance in him.
“Would you have a problem if I liked guys?” Barth asked.
“...I don’t know.”
“Do you?”
“I— I don’t know.”
The confession hung in the air for a long time. Barth was stunned still, shellshock, and Tanrak was almost sobbing again, his shoulders up to his ears.
So they sat in silence for the rest of the night, until the sky got a little brighter, until their faces had softened and they were able to look at each other again.
Later, they’d come back to this exact spot over and over. To talk, to kiss, to fight, to find each other when everything else was lost between them.
Somewhere in Thailand, 2014.
No sooner than when Barth parked his car in the seminary lot did he start sprinting towards the clearing.
He hadn’t expected, though, that Tanrak would already be there, sitting criss-cross in the grass.
Now, he looked awfully ordinary in jeans and a dress shirt. Nothing like the visionary he was when he was in those priestly robes. Though Barth had to admit, he was still a vision.
As soon as Barth had begun to approach him from the edge of the clearing, Tanrak’s head snapped towards him. His posture seemed to visibly relax, and his previously clenched fist unfurled slightly, to which Barth noticed he was holding something. A rosary. It looked awfully like the one Tanrak always used to carry, the one that he pelted at the wall and destroyed, beads scattering all over the dormitory floor.
“Barth,” Tanrak exclaimed, breathily. It felt like a silent agreement between the both of them to not mention what happened yesterday. A stalemate, the eye of the hurricane. The calm they wished they could have.
“Tanrak,” Barth began to say, until he stopped himself. “Sorry. Should I call you Father outside the church, too?”
“As you wish. I never stop being a priest after all, even outside.”
“Okay then. Tanrak.”
Something in Barth cracked when he saw the smile that spread throughout the other man at the casual address. So that his knees didn’t give out, Barth made his way to sit across from Tanrak.
“You still do your hair the same, huh?” Tanrak remarked, a horrid fondness coating his voice.
“Yeah. I never learned any other way.” They both chuckled slightly, just a bit of sadness behind it.
“Did you try dyeing your hair like you said you would?”
“I did. Bright red. Kept it for 2 years until I got bored of it.”
Tanrak laughed.
Barth was the one to speak next. “You dress the same. Isn’t that the same shirt from third year?”
“Oh no, you got me. I thought you wouldn’t have remembered. . .”
They shared pleasant conversation for a good while, and for a few sacred moments (by no means of religion, no, this was something else) they could pretend that things were okay between them. That they had been nothing except friends who drifted apart, finally catching up. Or maybe, terribly, that they had always been lovers.
Barth said something to make Tanrak laugh and laugh and laugh, and then they fell into a weighted silence.
Tanrak was the one to break it after a while, looking sheepish. “So, uhm. It’s okay if you don’t want to answer, but I’ve always wondered.” Always, Barth’s mind repeated, playing it over and over in his head.
“Did you ever— after me, I mean, how often do you date?” Tanrak looked like asking the question stung his mouth, and Barth couldn’t help but be dumbfounded.
“Sorry. It was an invasive question. Let’s find something else to talk about.”
“No, I don’t mind,” Barth squeezed from his lips, swallowing down bile.
Tanrak’s eyes seemed to glow in this daylight, just as wide and hopeful as they were back then, just as glossy and deep brown. Barth took a deep breath.
“I’ve dated around,” he settled on saying, deciding not to sugarcoat it. “The bartenders at just about every gay club in Bangkok know me by name.” Saying it out loud, gay, it felt like a blaspheme itself in front of Tanrak. A test. Tanrak took it by stride, though he sported the same defeated look that he did when he saw him at communion.
“‘I’ve had one night stands. I’m not ashamed of it. I’ve had boyfriends. I’ve had friends with benefits. But I’ve never been able to keep one down. They all leave for some reason or the other.”
“I see.”
“. . .Most of them leave for the same reason.”
“What would that be?”
“You of all people should know, Tanrak.” The answer would have been the same with 5 less words. You, Tanrak.
In Barth’s head, the memory of him whispering to Tanrak yesterday flashed through his mind: ‘Just to see if coming here would make me stop loving you.” He winced a little bit.
“I never thought. . .” Tanrak started, his mouth opening and closing again as he found the right words.
“Almost immediately after you left, I took a vow of celibacy,” Tanrak admitted, sounding about as pained as Barth felt. “I didn’t think I would ever get to see you again. So I just– planned for my life to be alone.”
“And now you’re a priest.” Barth felt like he just got struck by a meteor.
Tanrak nodded. “And now I’m a priest.”
Banrak stared at the grass on the ground, bringing a hand up to massage his temples. And when he felt Tanrak’s hand coaxing his own away from his face, when Tanrak clasped that very hand in between both of his, he just had to let out a bitter laugh. When was the last time Tanrak had touched him like this?
“God, this is stupid,” Barth said, defeated and croaky like he was holding back tears.
“I know,” Tanrak soothed, rubbing his thumbs across the skin of Barth’s palm.
“This is unfair.”
“I know. There was nothing we could have done.”
“Yes, there was,” Barth snapped, and he was met with silence.
“I have always loved you, you know,” Tanrak said, voice soft as if comforting a child. “I tried to block it out, the first year after you left. Then I realized it was no use.” Tanrak’s tone felt too calm for the weight of his words, like he was simply stating the weather.
“As a priest, I’m supposed to love everyone equally. Forgive everyone equally. But even though I have always loved you the most, I struggled to forgive you for ages. For leaving me alone when I was the most confused, for denying me of something that felt so real.”
Barth was crying now, he couldn’t help it.
“I couldn’t forgive myself, either. I let them think that you had tempted me, or tried to defile me on purpose. I still feel guilty. I’m sorry that I couldn’t be there by your side to support you.”
“Tanrak…”
“All these years, Barth, I didn’t pray for you. I held back because I knew you wouldn’t want me to.”
“If I could change anything in my life,” Tanrak’s voice was wavering now. “I wish that I fought for us a little more. You were as dear to me as He was, you still are. I wish I had realized that sooner.”
Tanrak lifted their enjoined hands to his face, pressing himself to their knuckles. Not exactly kissing, just resting his lips against the skin there as he closed his eyes, and Barth let him. Allowed it to happen, allowed himself to feel. They stayed like that until new tears stopped running down Barth’s face.
“Do you regret having met me?” Barth asked, maybe trying to find any reason to be mad at Tanrak.
“Not anymore,” he answered honestly.
“Then… Do you regret becoming a priest?”
“No, I don’t. I love God, I love priesthood. I love meeting families, making people smile, praying for people.” Tanrak let out a gentle smile, light shining from his perfect face. That smile, Barth swore, was somewhere on a stained glass mural, plastered on a creature with wings and a halo.
“As hard as it is, I love the work. Being woken up at 2 in the morning to anoint the dead, hearing and helping those in confession, mourning with families, marrying couples and helping those who need it. It’s what I always wanted to do. I love the people I serve.”
“. . . But?”
“No buts. Actually, I might have to thank you for everything I’ve achieved. Being in love with you for as long as I have—” the casual acknowledgement made Barth’s stomach churn. “—made me better at loving other people. You have to be someone who falls in love to be a priest. Thank you for giving that to me.”
It felt wrong, it stung, having Tanrak’s head in his hands. Watching as Tanrak touched him like he himself was holy. He was nothing of the sort.
“But…” Barth found it hard to object, but he had never wanted to get in the way of Tanrak’s dreams or beliefs.
It was never his intention to stray Tanrak further from God.
“Aren’t you breaking your vow? Aren’t you sinning just by saying it?” Barth whispered, not pushing, not accusing. Just asking, and Tanrak understood.
Before speaking, Tanrak looked up from their intertwined hands and loosened his grip just slightly.
“It’s a mortal sin to lie, Barth.” Tanrak moved Barth’s hand so that it clasped his jaw, and he held it there so very lightly. “You asked, so I don’t want to lie to you. I don’t want to lie to myself, either.”
By instinct, Barth’s thumb swiped over Tanrak’s cheek, the habit resurfacing from so many years ago.
“I spent so long hating you for what happened,” Barth admitted, low and gentle. Tanrak’s face mashed a little harder into his hand. “I didn’t understand why you couldn’t… I needed you so badly to figure out what you wanted. Whether it was just lust or if you really did love me.”
“It was love. It always was.”
“And therefore, not a sin?”
“Not a sin,” Tanrak echoed. He turned to Barth’s palm, kissed his open hand like a promise, as if Barth had any divine office at all, then finally let him go. They separated, hesitantly, but still moved closer together so their knees were brushing.
“Not a sin, but now a break of your vows as a priest.” Still, Barth tried to keep himself grounded in reality.
“Hah,” Barth chuckled, though it wasn’t really funny. “How’s it being chaste?”
Tanrak sighed, long and tired.
“My seniors, some of the other priests I have met left the priesthood to get married. It’s not unheard of. …Of course, that isn’t possible for us yet. It’ll be long before it’s legal, before I’m ready to step down. But I’ve dreamt of it.”
And Barth, he couldn’t say that he never thought about it. He couldn’t deny, either, that he spent the past two decades waiting for a sign that Tanrak would come back for him.
But then faintly he remembered the hiding.
The hands over mouths when they heard footsteps in the corridor. The disgust and shame that wracked through Tanrak’s naked body in sobs no more than a minute after their first time. Having to cradle and reassure Tanrak each time after, that he wasn’t dirty or damned.
Barth remembered the ugly time Tanrak talked about marrying a woman after they had kissed.
He couldn’t do that again.
His hatred from all those years past gave a final stir in him.
Barth looked down, just barely shook his head.
“I can’t promise I’ll wait for you.”
Tanrak nodded, solemn. “I wouldn’t want you to do that to yourself.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
Their hands met after that, both of them reaching towards each other before they knew it, Tanrak’s gentle hands resting over Barth’s larger, calloused ones.
“Thank you for everything, Barth.”
“Don’t say that. You make it sound like you’re sending me off. Like it’s the end. I don’t want that.”
“Me neither.”
“Do you know what you do want?”
“I want to be with you. I want to serve God. I can love you while loving Him, but not as a priest.”
“Same issue as 18 years ago, then?”
Tanrak shook his head. “No. This time, I don’t see a future with a wife and kids anymore. I see my future with you, or I see it alone.”
Barth raised an eyebrow. “Alone, or with God?”
“He’s with me either way. You’re not a barrier to Him. I know that now.”
Imminently, the final wall that Barth had spent two decades building had turned to dust.
“I do love you, Rak.” Barth’s grip on Tanrak’s hands tightened impossibly, like he’d wake up from a dream if he let go. “Still do.”
“As do I. And I missed you terribly.”
“. . . Could you say it? Properly?”
“Of course. I love you, Barth.”
They didn’t kiss, they couldn’t. But this felt like the closest thing: the simple act of gaining strength from where each other’s hands were joined, sharing the air between them. Both of their shoulders felt lighter. Decades of guilt and self-hatred washed away like rainwater down a drain.
Barth made somewhat of an effort to stand up, figuring since they had talked about everything he needed, there was no place for him here anymore. But Tanrak made quick work of pulling him down again.
“Wait. …Let’s get dinner sometime? You choose the place?”
They both smiled.
“...I think I’d like that.”
They exchanged numbers. Barth typed it down on his old phone, still sporting buttons, and Tanrak memorized it by heart.
They talked a little more, shared a few genuine laughs, and when it was time to finally leave, they both shared a deep, warm hug. One that was as much of a promise as it was comfort.
That night, for the first time in 18 years, maybe his whole life, Barth slept quietly, finally knowing peace again.