First Sunday
It was well past dark by the time I left the pastor's house.
On the walk home, I caught myself laughing alone more than once.
Ma Hyunju. And the pastor of Somang Church.
In the span of a single day, two people had come over to my side.
Of course, claiming that this alone made me a man destined to become a god would have been sheer lunacy. I knew that. And yet, somehow, confidence was quietly taking root in me.
Until yesterday, I'd been an unemployed nobody with nothing to my name. Today, I had set something in motion. That much, at least, was the truth.
And just before we parted, the pastor had made a point of asking—did I have time tomorrow as well?
For an unemployed man like me, nothing in this world was more abundant than time.
Two days passed before Sunday arrived, and I spent every one of those nights at the pastor's house.
At first, I felt a little awkward myself. No matter that we had already shared our bodies the night before, there was something surreal about her being the church's pastor by day and a woman alone with me by night.
But the moment I pressed the doorbell, the door opened faster than it ever had before.
"You're here?"
She was the one to smile first.
The next day, she outdid herself. When I texted her roughly what time I'd be over, dinner was already waiting. We ate together. We talked about religion. We talked about Somang Church. And somewhere in it all, we drifted naturally closer to each other.
That was how I learned her name was Kim Soyeon.
And when the night deepened, I would show her again, in her bed, that same Heaven she had spoken of last time.
Friday. And Saturday, too.
As the nights repeated themselves, one thing began to change: the pastor who had once looked at me with doubt now brought up my talk of religion first, as if she had become a believer in her own right—just like Ma Hyunju.
"So you really do intend to make every religion one?"
"Yes."
"Does Christianity disappear too?"
"No."
I answered right away. I'd given that part some thought of my own.
"Erase them, and it's not unification anymore."
"Then how?"
"Churches stay churches. Temples stay temples. Cathedrals go on exactly as they are."
"Then how do they become one?"
"They just have to stop fighting over whose truth is the only truth."
She let out a quiet laugh. "Easy enough to say."
"Which is exactly why I'm going to do it myself."
"You, Hyunwoo?"
"Yes."
She held my gaze for a moment. The her of a few days ago would have pulled an incredulous face at words like those. This time, she didn't laugh.
"...I'll believe in you."
And with that, she laid her head on my shoulder.
Saturday night, I was the one who rose first.
"I should head out early tonight."
Pastor Kim Soyeon's face registered surprise.
"Why?"
"I have church tomorrow, remember?"
"You could come in late and it wouldn't matter."
"Walking in late to my very first service? That's not a look I need."
She studied me for a moment, then smiled. "You care about that sort of thing more than I expected?"
"I do have basic manners, you know."
"And here I thought you were going to become a god."
"Even a god has to mind his first impressions."
She finally broke into laughter.
I was slipping on my shoes at the entryway when she spoke up.
"Tomorrow, you can't act the way you do with me."
"Obviously."
"What happened with Hyunju, too."
"I won't say a word."
"What happened with me, above all."
"I'd die before letting that one slip."
The pastor nodded. "And don't bring up unifying the religions from the start, either."
"Why not?"
"The congregation may be far more conservative than I ever imagined."
I thought about it for a moment. She had a point. If I barged in and declared I will become your religion the way I had with her, this time I really might get thrown out for good.
"Then what should I do?"
"Just be someone visiting for the very first time."
"Sit there quietly, you mean?"
"Yes," the pastor said. "Start by watching the people."
It was solid advice. I nodded. "Understood."
"And..."
"Yes?"
"See you tomorrow."
"Yes."
The door closed behind me.
Making my way down the stairs, I turned it over in my head. A few days ago, this was the woman who had ordered me out. Now she was the one teaching me how to get inside her own church.
Bit by bit, something was beginning to move.
Sunday. 10:37 in the morning.
I stood in front of the commercial building that housed Somang Church. On any ordinary day, I would have been dead asleep until well past this hour.
I caught myself checking my clothes one more time. I didn't look too dressed up. But I didn't look sloppy, either.
"Alright."
I climbed the stairs to the second floor, where the glass door I'd first walked through days ago came into view. But the mood inside was completely different now. Voices drifted out from within.
I opened the door.
"Welcome—"
The woman near the entrance stopped mid-greeting. She looked at me. Then the woman beside her looked, too. One by one, the gazes inside the chapel swung my way.
It happened in an instant. A tiny church of barely fifteen members—and a twenty-eight-year-old man walking into it. In today's world, that alone was more than enough to draw every eye in the room.
I bowed my head awkwardly.
"Hello."
Someone returned the greeting in a small voice. Someone else traded a look with their neighbor.
Then—
"Hyunwoo."
A familiar voice. The pastor was walking toward me from the front.
She looked nothing like she had last night. Her clothes were neat. Her hair was pinned up tidy.
Even her expression was calm and composed, every inch the pastor. It was hard to believe this was the same woman who'd been beside me mere hours ago.
"You came."
"Yes."
I replied as though nothing at all had passed between us.
"Since it's your first time, you can sit here."
The pastor guided me to an empty seat with practiced ease. As I walked toward it, my eyes met Ma Hyunju's.
She was seated among the others. The instant our gazes locked, the faintest smile touched the corner of her mouth. I gave the smallest tilt of my head in return. That was the whole of our greeting. We hadn't promised to act like strangers, but there was no need to give anything away.
I took the empty chair and slowly looked around. A few faces I recognized from the photos were there. Some of the members were older. Some were around Ma Hyunju's age. A few of the women looked younger still.
If they shared one thing in common, it was that every last one of them looked at me at least once. Some quite openly. Some out of the corner of an eye. I feigned indifference and faced forward.
Before long, the service began. Hymns. Prayer. The Word. It was an atmosphere I had never known, and truthfully, I didn't grasp the meaning of all of it. Even so, I sat still and listened.
The pastor's words from last night surfaced in my mind. Start by watching the people. So that's what I did.
Who nodded hardest at the sermon. Who was friendly with whom. Who kept to themselves. Who stole the most glances at me.
And then a curious realization struck me. It wasn't what I'd imagined. I had assumed that unifying the religions would mean studying doctrine first. But sitting inside this tiny church, I could see the real first step lay elsewhere: I had to know the people. Religion, at its heart, was a community built out of human beings. Win no hearts, and nothing would ever change.
The service ended, and the congregation began rising from their seats one by one.
That was when it happened.
"Excuse me."
Someone had spoken to me from right beside me. I turned.
She gave me a slow once-over, top to bottom.
"Do you know the pastor?"
For an instant, my eyes flicked to the front of the chapel. The pastor was watching this way. A little farther off, Ma Hyunju was keeping an eye on the scene as well. I turned back to the woman. And smiled.
"A little. As of a few days ago."
"But this is your first time at church?"
"Yes."
Curiosity kindled in her eyes.
"Then why did you suddenly start coming?"
I opened my mouth to answer—and stopped. I came to unify the religions. I came to become a god. A few days ago, I would have said exactly that. But now I understood a little better. There was no need to lay my whole hand on the table from the very start.
I answered with a smile.
"I wanted to meet some new people."
And I let my gaze drift slowly around the chapel.
After exchanging a light bow with Pastor Kim Soyeon, I fell in among the departing congregation and walked out with them, thinking all the while: today, too, I had to make someone—just one person—into a follower. And that someone was the yellow-haired girl who had been the first to speak to me today.
I turned my head, searching for her. She was walking a few steps ahead of me.
"May I ask your name?"
"...Me?"
I had come up quietly and spoken, and she started slightly, glancing back over her shoulder at me.
"Yes. You were the first to come up and talk to me today... I'd like for us to get to know each other."
"Oh... I'm Jeong Areum."
"Would you like to grab a quick cup of coffee? My treat."
"Oh... coffee?"
She seemed to weigh it for a moment, then answered.
"Sure!"
The small cafe nearby.
"Enjoy your coffee!"
"Oh—thanks."
"You're Kang Hyunwoo, right?"
"........?"
My eyes went round. She knew my name.
"You came by the church a few days ago. You know, going on about how you were going to combine all the religions...?"
"Oh...!!" It hit me all at once. The woman mopping the floor on my first visit to the church—her hair had been yellow.
"Oh...!! So you were there that day??"
"Yep! That's why I asked in front of everyone earlier."
"Why??"
"Honestly? At first I figured you were some weirdo, and I didn't think you'd actually show up today. But then it looked like you and the pastor knew each other!"
"Ah... something like that. Hahaha..."
"So the pastor acknowledges you??"
"Yes, you could say that."
"How???"
With a shocked expression, she leaned her face in close to mine as she asked.
"I showed her Heaven."
"Hea...ven?"
"Yes."
"How?"
"It's possible because I'm the man who's going to become a god."
"But how???"
"Shall I show you?"