Even If Not a Nun
Even if she wasn’t a nun.
“What does that even…”
The call ended with a sharp click, leaving the crucial words unfinished. Sua checked her phone to call back, only for a heavy sigh to slip from her lips. The battery had died completely. Ever since entering the convent, she had kept phone use to a minimum. As a result, she rarely did anything but make calls, and she usually charged it only every two or three days.
Of all days, it had to die today. She should have charged it sooner. Resignation washed over Sua’s face as she hunted for the charger.
If only everything truly was a dream, just as Sister Agnes had said. She tried desperately to wipe away the scenes that clung to her like afterimages. As though casting a spell on herself, Sua repeated the words again and again for a long time.
“Yes… it really must have been a nightmare.”
Father Vincenzo’s order not to do anything today felt especially welcome. If she tried to work in this state of mind, she would be clutching fistfuls of her own hair instead of a crucifix.
Whenever the thoughts she had forced down began to writhe and lift their heads again, Sua buried her face in her pillow.
The following day, Father Vincenzo once more urged her to rest. After working at the church without missing a single day for the past three months, she had finally fallen ill, he said. Faced with the elderly priest’s firm insistence, Sua had no choice but to take another day off. Each time the buried memories rose, she read the Bible she had already memorized cover to cover.
Before dawn had even broken the next morning, Sua slipped out of her room early. A creeping chill rose from the dew-laden stone path. She pulled the front of her habit tighter around herself. She had only been away from the church for two days, yet the path felt strangely unfamiliar this morning. Hurrying her steps, she reached the front of the church, where the holy water font came into view.
The empty space had been filled. The single spot where the cross had been missing.
Without thinking, Sua reached out and traced the newly fixed cross with her fingertips. The cold, polished metal brought the memories of that day rushing back.
“Ha…”
As the memories she had dismissed as a nightmare and tried so hard to suppress threatened to surface again, Sua fled inside the church. The moment she lifted her head, the crucifix on the central altar filled her vision. She had only looked at it, yet guilt flooded her. Her mouth went dry. Forcing her gaze away, she walked to the front pew where she always sat. She clasped her hands tightly, fingers laced together, and closed her eyes.
God would know everything. Please forgive the sins she could not speak aloud and had kept hidden. It was a prayer so desperate it might as well have been a confession.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
As she made the sign of the cross and began to fold her hands once more—
“Praying again?”
At the unfamiliar voice, Sua’s head snapped up on instinct. He was perched casually at the far end of the long pew.
“Hello, Sister.”
It was Tezman.
The man who had driven a cross into another man’s skull and then taken her lips. The truth she had desperately tried to label a nightmare rose to the surface.
Clatter—.
Sua shot to her feet, body trembling as she stared at him. Seeing her terrified expression, the corner of his mouth curved with faint amusement.
“You startle so easily.”
“Y-you…”
“Hmm. I’m sure I told you my name.”
Unlike her, he was perfectly at ease. Elbow resting on the back of the pew, he continued with a calm face.
“Tezman. Say it.”
“That’s… not what matters right now!”
His head tilted at an displeased angle.
“Then what does matter, I wonder.”
“…It wasn’t a nightmare? Did someone really die in front of me? Did you really…”
A low chuckle slipped from between his perfectly curved lips.
“Ah. How kind you are.”
A nightmare? The word was almost insulting to Tezman.
“Are you really calling the son of a bitch who tried to spread your legs a ‘person’?”
Her already pale face turned deathly white. Yet the rims of her eyes and her lips remained flushed with red. He had tried to approach her slowly, carefully. But he couldn’t. The image of those red-rimmed eyes kept flashing through his mind.
“Or perhaps you wanted to be fucked like a dog inside the church and I interrupted.”
The dog had been him. The moment Cact told him the woman who had been missing for two days had finally appeared in front of the church, he had rushed over at once.
“What… are you saying?”
Her lips, as if painted with crushed rose petals, trembled violently. Her wide eyes looked ready to spill tears at any second.
“Ah.”
He let out a sigh-like sound. A mistake. He had meant to speak gently, not crudely, to approach without frightening her. But his true nature refused to stay hidden.
“Sister.”
When he instinctively stepped closer, she cried out in a resolute voice.
“Don’t come near me!”
Seeing her face on the verge of tears sent heat rushing to his lower body. Who would have thought he harbored such perverted desires? Suppressing the surge of excitement, he softened his voice as much as he could.
“That’s rather cold treatment for the man who saved you.”
“…Saved me?”
“I saved you, didn’t I?”
He moved forward slowly, one step at a time.
“If I hadn’t stepped in, you would have been violated by that bastard right there.”
Sua, who had been backing away, froze in place.
“Seeing a man trying to rape a nun in a sacred church made me so furious I couldn’t hold back.”
Before she realized it, he stood directly in front of her. He lowered his head until their eyes were level and whispered like a cunning snake. If it would reassure her, Tezman was prepared to pretend to be in pain. Cact, Leroy, and Duhan would undoubtedly turn pale if they saw him acting so innocently, but it didn’t matter.
Right now, Tezman could see nothing but the rabbit-like Eastern woman before him.
“You lost consciousness, so I laid you on the pew and spent the night cleaning the church.”
So he had been the one to leave the church spotless. Sua’s eyes quivered with unease.
“Is that still my fault?”
Whatever she had been about to say died on her lips. When she thought about it, his words held truth. If Tezman had not come, she would have been assaulted by that man inside the church.
With a bewildered expression, blinking rapidly, Sua asked.
“…What happened to that man? You didn’t really kill him, did you…”
He paused to consider her question. Should he tell her the truth—that he had burned the body thoroughly, ground the remains, and scattered them as fertilizer in the vineyard? Or offer an absurd lie?
“He didn’t die.”
Naturally, he chose the lie.
“He was apparently a very dangerous criminal. The police said they threw him straight into prison.”
Sua let out a sigh of relief. A dangerous criminal. It was fortunate he had been locked away immediately. At least she wouldn’t have to face him again before returning to Korea.
“…I was too sensitive. I was so startled… First, thank you for saving me.”
“Think nothing of it.”
She lifted her gaze, glanced at him briefly, and spoke again.
“Um… by the way…”
“Tezman.”
“Pardon?”
“Call me Tezman. It feels a little more—”
Exciting. He swallowed the word he couldn’t say aloud and curved his lips with practiced ease.
“—friendly, doesn’t it? I want to become very, very close to you, Sister.”
The word “close” sounded strange, but Sua chose not to dwell on it. He was clearly a dangerous man; she should not become further entangled with him. Deciding to humor him a little before sending him away, she answered.
“Ah, I understand. Tez…man.”
“So, Sister. There’s still something you haven’t told me.”
Looking at Sua, who still couldn’t hide the suspicion in her eyes, as if she were utterly adorable, he continued.
“Your name. Tell me your name.”
“…Sua.”
“Sua?”
“Yes. Han Sua.”
He murmured the name softly, tasting it. It didn’t feel foreign. It sat pleasantly on his tongue. He could call it forever.
“Sua. What a beautiful name, Sister.”
His golden eyes clung to her with obsessive intensity. No one had ever looked at her with such burning heat. Having never experienced it before, she had no defense against it. Her whole body tensed, and a strange flutter stirred in her stomach.
“You keep calling me Sister, but I’m not an ordained nun yet…”
“Yes, Sister.”
Cutting her off cleanly, he took one step back.
“I said I would pay the price for the cross I used that day.”
“It’s all right. I fixed it again…”
She had been about to ask him to leave.
“Then.”
As if he had read her thoughts, Tezman turned away. Sua stared at his retreating back, only to freeze at his next words.
“There was one more thing I wanted to ask.”
When he glanced back, the curve of his mouth was dangerously sharp.
“Your lips seem fine. I must have lost control of my strength last time.”
It didn’t take long for her to grasp his meaning. Seeing her face flush crimson in an instant, he whispered his final words.
“See you again, Sister.”