Jesus Heaven, Unbelief Hell - Chapter 0

To the readers. This story can be crude, intense, and quite offensive to the deeply religious. Despite the title. But this is probably one of the webnovels with the most intense ‘voice’ in the KR scene.

I’ve Got Peace Like a River, Free of Charge

I have a very bad habit of impatience since childhood.

Anyway, the fucking grown-ups said it was a bad habit, so it must have been one.

Aside from that bad habit, I was also a bad kid overall.

I think I was a bad kid because I punched my father in the chin, who was saying that Santa wouldn’t give me a present for Christmas because I was so bad.

When I was only eight years old, I had to skip dinner for openly punching my father in the chin, and I had to copy the Bible instead of writing a self-reflection letter.

Maybe because my mother was a devout Christian, whenever she couldn’t stand my bad habits, she forcibly sat me down at my desk and made me copy the Bible. It was the so-called Biblical version of the punishment.

While I was copying the Bible murmuring the ‘fuck’ word I’d learned from a weekend morning drama, my mother sneaked in through the door and put a cup of warm milk next to me.

Then she said.

– All of this is because Jesus loves you. Do you understand what mom is saying?

Each time, I couldn’t contain my anger, so I used to reply with words like this.

– Where is Jesus!!!! Santa is the best!!!!!!!!!!!!

Of course, every time that happened, the number of papers I had to write on doubled. I remember increasing it up to 8 times.

Thanks to that, calluses were firmly embedded in the knuckles of my fingers by the time I was entering elementary school.

So, did my bad habit of getting angry go away? After such a long time copying, it must have been all right because I was so exhausted and starved for dinner.

– Teacher! I don’t want to be friends with Si-Woo!

– I hate you too, damn it!!!!!!!!!!!!!

– Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

– Si-Woo! Where did you learn such naughty words!!

That bitch, who looked like a steamed bun with thick layers of fat, openly called me a ‘weird idiot’[1] during break time, so I just countered.

The teacher brought me to the class front desk in front of everyone’s eyes and performed a shame play. He pulled my pants down and hit my thigh with a cane.

Wait a minute, everyone may be wondering how such an absurd corporal punishment can be performed in a country that values ​​advanced education and children’s rights.

In conclusion, my homeroom teacher was another faithful stalker fan of Jesus who went to the same church as my mother, and as soon as I was assigned to the homeroom teacher’s class, my mother directly allowed ‘freedom of corporal punishment’.

So, I was the only S/M play tool tolerated at this school, because of my parents.

Han Si-woo, a human being, at the age of eight, knowing the bitter taste of the world, went back to his seat while being ridiculed and pointed at by his classmates.

And the moment I faced the bitch who wiped away her false tears like a crocodile, sticking out her tongue and whispering to me, my bad habit flared up again and I threw a fist.

So, on the first day of elementary school, I was called to the school office for breaking one of the teeth of the ‘bitch’ next to me (another word I learned from the morning drama).

As expected of those who gave birth to such a bad bitch, her parents burst into the room and raised their voices at me, and my parents bowed their backs and apologized over and over again.

In that stuffy space where no one took my side and immediately threatened me to apologize, I naturally activated my bad habit.

– What the hell did I do wrong!!!!!!!!!!!!

Unable to control my anger, I screamed and ran away. In an instant, I made like a runaway ninja through a hole under the school fence and weaved through the bustling city past the dangerous vehicles.

And then I was sitting on an old playground in an old apartment building that was soon to be demolished, digging the sand pit like crazy.

There was no particular reason. My hands were too weak to grab anything and punch, and I couldn’t stand still, so I just dug into the sand like crazy.

– Hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey!!

Had I been stuck on the sand pit for a while with a face that looked like I was about to explode at any moment?

I stopped my dirty hands when I felt the moist, hard soil under the soft sand.

Hungry. When I go home, I’m going to go hungry again for dinner, right? This time, it is unconditionally guaranteed that you’ll have to write 500 times.

So maybe I shouldn’t go home? Damn I’m smart!

– Oh, Lord Jesus, overflowing with love ~

Because of my mother, after watching a weekend morning drama, I was taken to the morning worship service. The hymn that had stuck to my tongue now leaked out.

– Jesus, more beautiful than the fragrant flowers of love ~

Jesus who didn’t give me dinner every day.

Jesus who made me copy the Bible every day.

Jesus who always said that I was the only bad boy.

Also, Santa Claus was the best. Because even if I was a bad child, while growing up, he always left presents by my bedside.

When I went to my maternal grandmother’s house, even when my cousin and I had an ownership dispute for my toy robot, the solemn judge (grandfather) was always on the side of my cousin.

The toy robot that was stolen last year was more meaningful because it was given to me by my grandfather on Christmas when I was five years old.

So, I couldn’t stand my bad habit and overturned my grandfather’s bowl of rice cake soup. At that time, the fact that my maternal grandfather got burned with hot rice cake soup was also the reason why it was eight times.

Still, I was brave. Like now.

– Jesus, Heaven and Unbelief, Hell[2] ~ Jesus is the best ~ Powerful Jesus who can squat bench deadlift total 5000 kilograms ~

He’d never been of any help my whole life, but anyway, I couldn’t help it because the only song I knew was a hymn that praised him blindly.

That was why when the other kids were like this, turututtu~, I only sang hymns.

A big reason why my mother made me sing only hymns was to put me in the church children’s choir.

Still, I couldn’t stand being hungry. In the still chilly spring, the darker the sky, the colder it got.

If you don’t go home, you don’t have to worry about copying the Bible, but if you do, then you can secretly search the refrigerator at night even if there’s no dinner.

You have to go home to sneak into the fridge at night to eat!

– I’ll let it go just this once!

Dusting off my hands, I got up and went back the way I came.

I was smart enough to memorize the lines in the morning drama, so I did not forget the path I had come and found the way back properly. By now I could write without even looking at the Bible.

When I returned home, what I saw was an empty house.

The warmth of the kitchen, where mother would be preparing dinner, the angry voices arguing with each other nervously about how parents should educate the child, the smell of delicious rice that I can’t eat anyway, but can find by rummaging through the refrigerator at night. None of it.

A dimly lit house with nothing but cold air greeted me.

Maybe my parents were looking for me by now, or they were going to skip my dinner anyway, so they were eating out.

With that in mind, I went back to my room as usual and wrote from the Bible. Write it down in advance so you won’t get scolded later.

But even after a day or two passed, my parents didn’t come back to their home. Even when I graduated from school, moving back and forth between my relatives’ houses, they never came back.

Editor’s Notes:

[1] 고로시 (lit. “Goroshi”), a mutated slur derived from a Japansese word.

[2] 예수천국 불신지옥 (Jesus Heaven, Unbelief Hell) – the title of the story is the same as a militant Protestant Christian slogan that has found some purchase in Korea. The doctrine plainly states that those who do not believe in Jesus will go to hell. See: Namu Wiki