Chapter 1: Confession and Temptation
The air in the confessional was stale, thick with the ghosts of a thousand whispered sins and the damp, earthy smell of old wood. Megumi’s knees ached against the hard, unforgiving kneeler. He stared at the dark lattice of the screen, where the shadow of Father Thomas shifted, a blur of black and white.
His own voice, when it came, was a threadbare thing. “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been one week since my last confession.”
“Go on, my child.”
“I have… impure thoughts.” The words stuck in his throat, coated in shame. He squeezed his eyes shut. The dark behind his lids was no refuge; it was filled with sharper, clearer images—the cut of a jawline, the suggestion of muscle beneath a dark shirt, a low laugh that unspooled something warm and terrified in his gut. “About men. Again.”
There was a long pause, filled only by the faint hum of the sound system. Megumi could picture Father Thomas’s face, the kind patience etched with a sadness that felt heavier than anger.
“These thoughts,” the priest said, his voice a soft rumble through the screen. “Do you invite them?”
“No.” The answer was immediate, desperate. “I pray. I recite verses. I try to… to clean my mind. But they just come. They feel like… like a failure.” He bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted copper, focusing on that sharp pain instead of the hot pressure building behind his eyes. He couldn’t cry here. Not in this box that smelled of guilt and mildew.
“Temptation is a wilderness, Megumi. We are all tested there. The feeling of failure is a trick. It means you are still fighting. You must arm yourself. Prayer, scripture, avoidance of occasions of sin. Are you putting yourself in these occasions?”
A face flashed in Megumi’s mind. Not a vague idea of a man, but a specific one. Crimson eyes holding his across a crowded room two nights ago, seeing everything. A sleek, expensive car idling outside the community college. A voice that wasn’t loud, but seemed to cut through all other sound. “You look lost.”
“I don’t know,” Megumi whispered, which was a lie.
“The body is a temple,” Father Thomas continued, his tone gently firm. “You must guard its gates. These desires, they are not who you are. They are a cross you bear. Offer up the struggle. Find your strength in service, in purity.”
Purity. The word echoed in the cramped space. It felt like a label on a jar that was already cracked, something precious leaking out he could never get back. He thought of the things his father had shouted, the scripture wielded like a knife. Abomination. Broken. Wrong down to your very core. He felt that wrongness like a physical thing, a tangled, shameful secret deep in his body, a biology of sin.
“I try, Father.”
“God sees you trying. That is what matters. For your penance, say the Rosary, focusing on the Sorrowful Mysteries. And I want you to come to the soup kitchen tomorrow. Serve others. It will help quiet the self.”
“Thank you, Father.”
“Now, make a good Act of Contrition.”
Megumi stumbled through the old words, their familiar rhythm a cold comfort. He crossed himself, the motion automatic, and pushed the heavy velvet curtain aside. The church was empty, vast and silent. The last of the evening light bled through the stained-glass windows, casting fragmented colors over the pews. It was beautiful, and it made him feel utterly alone.
He walked quickly down the center aisle, his footsteps echoing. He needed to get home, to his room, to lock the door and maybe just sleep for a thousand years.
The heavy oak door of the church groaned shut behind him, sealing away the scent of incense. The city air outside was cool, smelling of concrete and distant rain. He fumbled for his phone, head down.
“The Sorrowful Mysteries. Appropriate.”
The voice came from his left, low and saturated with a dark amusement. Megumi froze, his blood turning to ice water in his veins. Slowly, he turned.
He leaned against a sleek black car parked illegally at the curb, the vehicle’s contours seeming to absorb the dying light. Sukuna. Arms crossed over his chest, stretching the fine fabric of his charcoal shirt. The intricate black tattoos that curled over his wrists and knuckles seemed to move in the twilight. His sharp features were arranged in a look of casual, predatory interest.
“How…?” Megumi’s voice failed.
“A hunch.” Sukuna pushed off the car, moving with a quiet, powerful grace. He stopped a few feet away, not crowding, but eliminating any easy escape. His dark crimson eyes took in Megumi’s pale face, the lingering redness around his eyes. “You have the look of a boy who just got absolved. Or maybe scoured. Which was it?”
“You followed me?” The question was breathless, more fear than accusation.
“I was curious. You ran out of that party so fast the other night. Like you’d seen a ghost. Or like you were afraid of what you wanted to see.” He took a half-step closer. Megumi didn’t retreat. He couldn’t. “Church seems a strange refuge for a man like you.”
“A man like me?” Megumi echoed, his heart hammering against his ribs.
Sukuna’s smile was a slight, knowing curve. “A man with eyes that can’t lie. Even when he’s kneeling in a box, begging for forgiveness for having them.” He glanced past Megumi at the church facade. “He’s in there, isn’t he? Your priest. Telling you to be strong. To resist. To hate the very things your body whispers to you in the dark.”
“Stop it.”
“Why? He doesn’t know what’s in the dark. I do.” Sukuna’s gaze was a physical weight, probing, dissecting. “The guilt is the hardest part, isn’t it? The sick feeling after, worse than any hangover. It makes you feel small. Dirty.”
Every word was a key turning in a lock Megumi had welded shut. He felt exposed, flayed open on the empty church steps. He should run. He should scream.
He stood perfectly still.
“It doesn’t have to feel that way,” Sukuna said, his voice dropping, becoming almost intimate. A confidential tone for the damned. “What if your… inclinations weren’t a weakness to be scourged, but a hunger to be fed? Properly. With respect.” He tilted his head. “What if the thing you pray to be forgiven for is the very thing that could make you feel powerful?”
The concept was so alien, so blasphemously seductive, that Megumi’s mind blanked. All the sermons, his father’s tirades, Father Thomas’s gentle counsel—they all framed it as a war. A defeat. Sukuna was talking about surrender, but making it sound like a victory.
“I don’t… I can’t…”
“You can.” Sukuna reached out, not touching him, but his hand hovered near Megumi’s arm. The heat of him was palpable. “You’re terrified. I can smell it. But you’re still standing here. Listening. That’s the part I find interesting.”
In the distance, the single note of the church bell tolled, flat and final. The sound broke the spell. Megumi took a jerky step back, his bag slipping from his shoulder.
Sukuna didn’t pursue. He just lowered his hand, the ghost of that terrifying smile still on his lips. “The bell says time’s up. For now.” He turned, opening the driver’s door of his car. The interior light painted his profile in stark relief. “My offer isn’t an event, Megumi. It’s an open door. The guilt will be here tomorrow. The fear will be here. I’m just letting you know there’s another room. One where you don’t have to kneel.”
He slid into the car. The engine purred to life, a deep, vibration that Megumi felt in the soles of his shoes. The window glided down silently.
“Next time you’re in that box,” Sukuna said, his crimson eyes catching the streetlight, “tell your priest you’re thinking about a man’s hands. And watch how quickly his compassion curdles into disgust. Then think about which of us is actually offering you grace.”
The car pulled away from the curb, smooth and silent as a shadow. It turned the corner and was gone.
Megumi stood on the steps, shaking. The cold stone of the church wall was at his back. The scent of Sukuna’s cologne—sandalidan and something darkly smoky—lingered in the air, mixing with the scent of rain.
Inside, the church was empty, a house of peace. Ahead, the city streets stretched out, vast and uncaring. But in his mind, all he could see was that open car door, and the darkness inside that had spoken to the darkness within him, not with condemnation, but with a terrifying, irresistible recognition.