2:37 p.m. That Day
The LED fixture at the back of the chapel etches a stark white cross onto the wall. Hyung-jin buttons his shirt and murmurs,
“You’re taking the solo today, right?”
“Yes. My hands are shaking.”
“Why?”
I don’t answer; I simply look at the nape of his neck. The skin gleaming between the collar and the hairline looks untouchable, yet I know every day my lips have trespassed there.
Cross Above Us
After the service, the church café. My wife, Ji-woo, in a powder-blue dress, stirs her Americano.
“Shall we meet on Sunday too?”
“Isn’t that reckless?”
“Ji-woo doesn’t suspect a thing.”
That was the first time I let the word poly settle on my tongue—polyamory, multipartners, poly. Sin. Two syllables that spear the heart, yet the blade burns deliciously.
Two Beds, Three Souls
Ji-woo’s Prayer
11:23 p.m. Our bedroom. Ji-woo kneels.
“Please, God, don’t let my husband suffer alone.”
She thinks it’s depression. Every afternoon I meet Hyung-jin and Yerin in a hotel whose sheets are printed with “The Love of Christ.” I tremble less with guilt than with rapture.
Hyung-jin’s Confession
The following Sunday, 3:15 p.m. A small prayer chapel behind the church.
“I’m a believer too. I lead the young-adult ministry.”
“…”
“But when I watch you two… something in me shifts.”
On the back of his hymnal, Revelation 2:10: Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life. He reaches for my hand instead of the crown. Before the cross we lock eyes. Beyond the innocence of faith lies a darkness that pulls us deeper.
On the Razor Edge of Taboo
Psychologist Yoon Seok-jun writes in Forbidden Desire: “Religious rigor makes the space of taboo small—and molten.” Reading it, I whisper amen. Polyamory is leagues from doctrine, yet the distance only sharpens the wanting.
The blood shed on the cross washes away our sins. While hearing this, I picture us lying in that very blood. Faith is not conquest but surrender—only the object may be desire itself.
A Final Knock
The chapel door eases open. Ji-woo steps in. I’ve just finished rehearsal and sit among the pews.
“Tonight at Bible study… someone said, ‘Love never ends.’”
Her words hang intact, yet something alive stirs between us. Cross, poly, taboo, forgiveness—all collapse into a single moment.
“Right now, under this cross, whose hand do you long to hold?”
And in the instant you grasp it, whatever you once called light becomes something else entirely.