Home was a cottage outside of the cathedral. It had been strange the first few weeks, living in a little house in the park surrounding the cathedral in the city centre. But after a while, I had gotten used to it; the party-goers on their way home in the early morning hours, the police sirens, the junk on the grass. And it was a perk, living so close to work.

I got out of bed and stretched my arms above my head, looked out the window to a sunny day that wasn't congruent to the gloomy mood that had followed me ever since the incident, now two days ago. Questions and doubts twisted and turned in my head from the moment my day started, and not for the first time, I wondered what I had gotten myself into.

I changed into training clothes and went out for a run. It took me about half an hour to run to my gym, where I lifted weights for an hour before I ran the half an hour back to my home.

Going outside had brought with it a strange sense of discomfort the past few weeks, ever since I had taken on the role as the deacon. It had started when I, only the day after my first service, a few months back now, had gotten recognised in the grocery store. The lady had been very nice and thanked me for my service, but even if that had felt nice then, it had planted a seed of worry inside of me; who else could recognise me as I tried to pick out a bell pepper that was damaged enough that nobody else would want it, making me feel sorry for it, but fresh enough for me to still use?

There had been more things before the incident when my cathedral guests had been beaten up. I had walked past protests, some peaceful, some less so. I had waited for the bus with people talking about the old deacon, wondering what made the new deacon different. I had walked past newspaper stands with my face on it. And to cope with these situations, I had pulled the hood of my coat up so as not to be recognised.

But today, just as the roof of the cathedral became visible as I ran back, I heard just the slightest hint of a murmur on the busy morning street beside me.

"Paedophile."

It made a cold dread clenched at my heart.

I kept running, didn't dare to look back to see whom had uttered the words. At the same time, something started happening to my breathing. I had been working out for most of my life, and always held a slow pace that enabled me to breathe smoothly, but suddenly, it felt as if though I couldn't draw air more than to the very tips of my lungs. I tried to force air in through my mouth, but it felt as if though I was breathing through a straw.

Paedophile... They called me paedophile...

Or did they? Had I just imagined it? Hallucinated it? Why had they said that? I knew I objectively wasn't one, so why did I let that affect me so much?

I couldn't get air. And the air I already had in my lungs seemed to be trapped; I couldn't breathe it out. It felt as if though my body was a balloon, and every breath filled it up with a little more air without ever giving space to anything new.

Am I going to die?

Stars started to swim before my eyes, and I thought I heard people speak around me.

"Sir, are you okay?"

"Do you need help?"

"Paedophile. Paedophile. Paedophile."

The front door of my cottage closed behind me, and I leaned back against the door, slid down. I leaned forwards, hid my face in my arms. Slowly but steadily, I came back to myself.

But I didn't know if myself was a place where I wanted to be. 

That would pretty much be the state I would be in when I first met officer Tobirama Senju.

I don't think he noticed the state I was in, because I did my uttermost to hide it. At the same time, Tobirama was very, very good at hiding his emotions, or not having them at all, at least at that point. Maybe, he did notice, but I didn't have the attention span to notice that he did.

An hour or so later, there was a knock on my cottage door and I opened it. I had managed to change out of my training clothes, take a shower and have breakfast, but I was still trembling after what I now realised had been an attack of anxiety. And that tremble didn't die down when I saw him.

"You shouldn't just open your door to anyone", he said, not even looking up from a notepad he was holding.

Before me stood a police officer in full uniform, hat and all. He had a bullet-proof vest, a baton at his right hip and a gun at his left. Left-handed, I noted.

But when I saw his face, I had to take a step back. My first instinct was that I felt sorry for him. Looking back at it now, I was very, very ashamed of that reaction. But in that moment, the absolute sheerness of it made me gasp.

It was as if he was made of glass. His skin wasn't only fair but white, as if he had painted himself that very morning. His eyes was of a colour I found very hard to describe, but it was as if it was just a window to whatever was beyond them. His lashes were short but thick, a soft contrast to his strong, angular and painfully handsome face. Those lashes matched his hair, that was sticking out of his cap, ragged and coarse.

And that was when I noticed that he was actually taller than me, which was unusual. I was tall, one ninety-five, but he was taller still, not much, but enough for us not to have to stand head-to-head to double-check. And despite my efforts in the gym, he was clearly stronger than I was, his light blue shirt straining over his forearms.

I took all of this in in about half a second. Then, it got to me what he had actually said and it made me angry.

"Excuse me?" I asked.

He didn't even look up.

"You're clearly a target for the public at this moment in time", he said, not even acknowledging the anger in my voice. "You must be careful."

I felt my blood starting to boil. Who was he to come on to the grounds of my cathedral, knocking on my front door and then chastising me for being polite enough to actually open it? Had he become a policeman just to exercise power over people? I didn't doubt that.

"What do you want, officer?" I asked, longing back to the steaming mug of hot coffee I had waiting for me on my kitchen counter and the absence of this intimidating man.

He wrote something in his notepad, using his left hand, of course, then turned a few pages, frowned.

"It's chief, actually. I run this city."

"What, like Batman?" I asked before I could stop myself.

"Yes, Father, like Batman", he said flatly, still not batting an eye.

I just gaped at him. He didn't say anything more, didn't look at me. I didn't know what to say, didn't know what to do. Was I even supposed to say or do something? He'd been the one to come to my door; wasn't it his responsibility to say what he wanted? Instead, I stood there stupidly, still with a lump in my throat and an ache in my heart from that morning, angered by this man who had trespassed all the way to my front door to do what? Insult me? Arrest me? Tell me someone else from my church had been beaten up?

"Look, chief", I said. "I don't know what you want, but let me make one thing very, very clear to you. I am dealing with quite a lot. A handful of my protégées were beaten up so badly, they had to be taken to hospital. I need to deal with the fact that it's my fault, because people believe I'm a paedophile or a paedophile facilitator, whatever that may be, and I cannot prove to them I'm not. At the same time, I have a very, very hard time with trying not to feel sorry for myself, because at the end of the day, I'm not someone to feel sorry for; that's the children that fell victim to the deacon and the innocents that have gotten beaten up because of me, and in a world suffering from war, and famine, and thirst, and sickness, me being called names is nothing. So, if you don't mind, please make my life easier by telling me what the fuck you want, straight to my fucking face."

It had the effect I had wanted. He jerked. Even I jerked; it was the first time in my life I had used a swear word out loud. I wondered how many black masses were being released from my body and out into the world because of it. How much suffering would be caused just for me to get the attention of this fancy-ass police chief with the hat and the gun at his left hip? The thought made me clench my fists in anger, and I was disappointed with myself.

But the chief did look up.

And the strangest thing happened. He changed. His entire demeanour changed before me.

Allowing myself to look back on it, it was crystal clear to me what happened in that moment. But in the moment itself, I didn't see it. Didn't want to see it. Couldn't handle the consequences that would entail if I had been able to see it.

He took me in, from the top of my head and all the way down. My ragged, black hair. My delicate face, that I was embarrassed about because it didn't go with my tall, coarse body. The bags beneath my eyes. The heavy black priest robe weighing down my shoulders for hours a day. My elongated fingers with rings on each finger. My black, polished shoes.

Then, his transparent gaze went up to my warm, brown ones, and as he once more jerked, I did, too.

For me, it was because looking into those pale, pale eyes, the colour of which I couldn't quite discern as they were a mix of light pink and blue and green and also nothing, pierced me to the spot. For him, I guessed, it was the mildness of mine. In any case, we had each other frozen down to the spot

Afterwards, I would know what that frozenness meant for him. It meant that he wanted me. Had I known that then, it would have destroyed me.

"Can I come in?" he asked.

For the first time, I realised how painfully pleasant his voice was.