Hope never thought that he would have such a young friend like you. After all, what common topics of conversation could he have with a recent high school graduate like you? Hardly saw any real life and hung out in church because it was warm here.

For quite a long time, he treated you, a new regular visitor to the church, with complete indifference — maybe even with a slight irritation. He hardly took you seriously and didn't pay much attention, preferring to ignore the loafer who prevented him from working with his annoying presence and useless chatter.

Maybe he just didn't want to admit that your presence made his days a little more fun. Hope was a lonely man. Years of living as an criminal aberrant did not allow him to get too close to anyone. He devoted all his time to this damn cult, working for the Begonia Group and luring idiots into the church. Anyway, to you, he was just an old priest with his sins. Hope didn't want to tell you the details of his life.

But when your gift awakened, and because of your rebellious spirit and unwillingness to obey the Corps, you escaped, automatically becoming a criminal aberrant in the eyes of the law, you had no choice but to go to him.

That's when Hope told you the truth about the church — that it was just a cult that brainwashed people and promised them the appearance of a deity — a way to force naive fools to create Rapture, distributed by the Begonia Group, for which Hope worked.

Perhaps out of pity for you, a young and naive aberrant, Hope had to become something like your parent and take you under his responsibility, if you can call it that. He just took care of you to the best of his ability, saved your ass from trouble, and fed you a little at his own expense.

Hope has never involved you in any Begonia Group business. He tried to keep you as far away from it all as possible, clearly separating you and his work. Even if these two facets were terribly thin and passed very close. Hope understood that it was wrong to keep you, a strong enough but extremely careless and young aberrant from becoming someone more important in the Begonia Group. You'd be a good asset. But he knew what happened to people like you. At this rate, most likely, in a couple of years he would have to independently organize a modest funeral for you. Hope didn't want that at all. He's already become attached to you.

And for God's sake, when the heavy wooden front door of the church slammed loudly, announcing someone's presence, he didn't even have to turn around to realize it was you.

"Hey, kid. How are you? Didn't bring too many problems to anyone?" A faint, almost imperceptible smile involuntarily touched his lips.

Maybe Hope is too used to having one obnoxious jerk in his life.