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Heeseung is lost.
Amidst the crowd of people adorned with an array of beautiful colors, Heeseung finds himself lost in the middle of it all.
The streets were flooded with flags and visitors were clamoring to get to the center of the parade. The air was filled with various chants and songs about liberation and fighting for love. Some people are out with placards for protest, while others are busy lurking around the merchants’ area for art pieces that depict their stories.
The sky bleeds with the prettiest mauve, clementine, and amber—an amalgamation of radiance that reflects the overall atmosphere.
In one corner, he sees a couple, two women, shyly sharing a cone of ice cream with a flag draped over both of their shoulders, while another—a throuple of wonderful men—had their heads together to watch something on a device. He sees an old couple with their cheeks painted with rainbow holding up a cardboard sign that says, “Free hugs for our queer children.”
It’s the perfect scenario out of a movie scene, perhaps something he has seen before.
It makes Heeseung’s heart pound in awe.
After all, this is his first pride parade.
The celebration wasn’t close to his imaginations—it was beyond. The abundance of happiness and joy that emanates from person to person, queer or not, makes his soul quiver in joy.
There is fear, to be fairly honest, as he stands in the middle of the crowd. Fear of people from home finding out, fear of losing himself amidst the festivities, fear of having to step out and embrace.
Growing up in a religious family, Heeseung was raised to worship and obey. He was raised to be a man of God, as his mother described his upbringing.
Humble, authoritative, obedient to the Scriptures.
You must avoid hanging out with those people, Heeseung. What would the brothers and sisters say if they saw you mingling with worldly crowds?
Focus, Heeseung. We are living in the last days, so our mind and body must remain loyal to preaching the Good News of the Kingdom.
Suffering? Humans are suffering because of the devil and it is your duty to spread the Word of God. You are the Chosen One, after all.
You must only love women as you were made to serve the Lord and have your wife be submissive to you.
You are a Witness, Heeseung, a Man of God.
But Lee Heeseung always knew that he was born different. Even as a child, he knew that his heart was made to cherish beyond what was considered morally acceptable. His longing transcended the limits of religion, of what was embedded in his head at a young age.
Coming out was an experience that he never believed he could survive.
When his cousin first left their church, her departure was publicly denounced. She was mocked, called names, and children and teenagers were warned to never interact with her again lest they want “the devil to influence them the way it did to her.” At first, Heeseung thought it was a morally upright reaction. Justified as she was once seen as the child prodigy, the Promised One, the kid who had so much potential to be a loving wife to an Elder.
But when they found out she was gay and had a girlfriend, the condemnation got worse.
Heeseung saw the way his family would relentlessly blow up her phone, throwing insults, demeaning her name, and even condemning the child she and her partner had through IVF (an act of rebellion against God’s provision of natural procreation, Leviticus 18:20 ). He was a witness to their hurtful words, eternally and spiritually shaming the cousin-sister he once considered as his closest.
Heeseung lost an important thing that day.
Not just his cousin, no.
He lost the ability to justify everything he has seen and heard.
When it was his turn to leave, his mother begged him to stay. Promised him that she wouldn’t tell the Elders about his moral sin. He was prayed over by his own father, encouraged to partake again in spiritual shepherding. He was told that they would allow him to feel that way under the condition that he wouldn’t choose that lifestyle.
Leviticus 18:22
1 Corinthians 6:9, 10
Don’t you remember God’s word, Heeseung? Your life, body, mind, and soul belong to Yahweh. We will allow you to feel that way. We know it won’t last.
It’s just a phase.
It was never just a phase.
Nor was it a lifestyle.
Genesis 1:27, God made all men to the likeness of His Being.
So why, pray tell, was he suddenly being shunned just because of who his heart and mind loved?
Coming to terms with it wasn’t as difficult as he thought because he always knew, but accepting the situation had to be his biggest dilemma.
Heeseung already had his questions, and his sexuality was only the tip of the iceberg. He knew that staying inside an organization would only damage him further. After all, if God was an unconditional God, why would he condemn the child He created and gave life to for the reason that his love transcended the religious teachings of man?
It makes him question the existence of a Divine Being, because if God is truly accepting and loving, why did it feel like loving someone regardless of their gender and sexuality was considered rebellion?
Heeseung, what have you done?
He chose to live. To act according to his heart’s desire.
And if choosing liberation was a grave sin, then he would be more than glad to be called the Prodigal Child.
Navigating through life was difficult. Leaving his religion meant leaving the house he grew up in. Leaving meant liberation, but it also meant traversing through an unfamiliar world. Despite having help from his estranged cousin, unlearning old ways was more than just that.
Old wounds were unearthed and new ones were embedded. Abandoning his old self didn’t entirely mean he was uprooted from the things he was taught. It was a struggle, and a continuous one at that. Knowing how devoted he was as a believer, the values he upheld remained deeply anchored in his brain.
But perhaps the universe meant for him to heal.
Meeting a childhood friend again pushed him to fully step out of the dark and into the life he always wanted to have.
He knew that accepting his sexuality was only the first step to full deliverance from the past, but he only ever learned that seeing love through gentle eyes and tender hands was the catalyst to his dissent.
In the eyes of God and His worshippers, it is an act of defiance.
But to Heeseung, meeting Jongseong again, the boy who made him realize that he was different, was his second act of resistance.
He once yearned to hold the bright-eyed boy’s hand when they used to play together at church. A yearning that burned for he believed it was wrong. A sin .
And yet.
Jongseong, in all his eccentricities, was his quiet revolution.
1 Corinthians 13:4
Love is patient and kind.
Jongseong was nothing but.
He was a loud lover. A yearner. Love bled through his skin and was woven through every fiber of his soul. Break his bones and all you can see are fractures of red reeking of longing. He was steadfast, headstrong. He was a storm that no ordinary human can handle.
But he was also tender, soulful, and had the warmth that could rival the sun.
Heeseung knew love tyrannically. It was conditional guised as forgiving. Rigid, stern.
And Park Jongseong was every bit of its antithesis.
Loving Jongseong wasn’t easy, not because it felt suffocating. It was a difficult feat for the reason that Heeseung didn’t know how to handle the kind of adoration he offered. But Jongseong stirred him away from doubt. He never left, stayed despite, and loved therefore.
Heeseung always felt like he had to choose something else, something more Divinely Gracious before his own happiness. He was taught that choosing for himself meant selfishness, that he was turning away from the Lord’s provisions.
Yet Jongseong, his Jongseong, always made sure he felt the opposite.
For once, Heeseung saw the look of love through the eyes of a man whom he knew would choose him over and over again, even if the world shunned them to death.
Jongseong, Heeseung learned, would willingly commit blasphemy again and again and again if it meant choosing him.
The crowd gathered at the center of the streets, chanting and singing.
Heeseung was pushed to the edge of the pavement when a pink-haired guy with whisker dimples handed him the end of a red fabric. “Hold this! It’s time for the show.”
Albeit confused, Heeseung took it from him. Only then did he realize it was to hold up a massive pride flag over their heads. Some started running under it as the people who grasped the flag slowly waved it upward.
Holding the flag was somewhat symbolic, like it was the mark of a new chapter about to unfold. It meant the beginning of a life he is yet to live, a promised tomorrow that meant he can finally be unshackled from the past. A different kind of everlasting life.
“Love wins! Love wins! Love wins!”
And other various kinds of chants about love being the universal truth, about it being nature’s law, reverberated in his skull. The sinking feeling he felt earlier vanished, replaced by euphoria.
It was…
It was freeing.
For the first time in twenty three years, Heeseung felt understood.
Heeseung stands with his heart full and his hands shaking as he clutches the pride flag above his head, feet slightly moving in sync with the beat of melodious voices.
Love is resistance and challenging the restrictive laws of religion is not defiance, but the grandest defining moment of devotion.
He watched as people danced under the massive rainbow cloth that waved above them. Souls sing in bliss as they sway their bodies and move in circles.
In the middle of everyone else, his eyes catch sight of one raven-haired boy crying in laughter, jumping and waving his arms around with no care in the world.
The chaos muffled beneath the wind, the world moved faster, but his gaze remained settled on one person—the one who cradled his heart between the gentlest palms.
Heeseung stands, heart beating faster as his eyes meet Jongseong’s.
God, is this what You meant when You said love creeps in in the most inconspicuous ways?
Genesis 1:27
And God went on to create the man in his image.
Perhaps it was true after all—the existence of God, that is.
Maybe he wasn’t unreachable, unattainable. Maybe God walked among men and lived life like they did. Maybe, just maybe, God wasn’t a rigid, big, scary old man that ruled over the heavens.
Perhaps, God was still unconditional, loving, patient.
Perhaps, God wore a pink knitted cardigan and a pair of jeans that accentuated his body, with a smile so bright it melted Heeseung’s walls, and eyes so loving and expressive it made the older speechless every time he drowned in them.
The hazel-eyed man continued laughing and Heeseung couldn’t help but navigate his way toward him as if the cosmos wrote the inevitable—the red string of fate that tethered him to his love.
Heeseung bumps into people dancing around, and yet he only offers them a shy smile in place of an apology, pupils still enticed by the mere existence of this person.
As if on cue, the boy turns, and good lord.
To what extent is he allowed to freely bask in this beauty?
There is sweetness and innocence plastered on his lips, the corners of his mouth stretched upwards, beaming so prettily Heeseung has to physically restrain himself from kissing him unapologetically with the heavens as their sole witness.
“Hi.” He said, breathless.
And Heeseung’s knees buckle, weak, as the younger beams at him, his eyes lighting up at the mere sight of the older, “Hi.”
Jongseong watched him with a look of knowing, of something deeper. It was a look of recognition, as if saying “I see you.”
I see you. You’re here and so am I.
You are loved, my Heeseung.
The yearning that sat deep in his soul remained restless, truth long caged in his heart. And at that moment, as the crowd roared in triumph, Jongseong held his face with calloused fingers that etched his skin with a confession and an oath, the kind of touch that only the faithful or the damned were cursed to have. It unraveled the gospels lost within the labyrinth of unknowing.
Where others spoke of love like shackles, quoting the Holy Scriptures as chains, Park Jongseong whispered it as though it was rebirth and awakening.
Heeseung, in steady resolve, now realizes that he is, in fact, the Prodigal Son—lost in pursuit of truth and happiness, found by his quiet revolution in human form.
“Happy pride, my love.”
“Happy pride, my Jongseong.”