The Bracelet Club [EXO]

case of the onryo's curse 3/3

"My grandfather is a monk," Kento was saying, Kyungsoo demanding him to bring us to them. It was obvious that it wasn't something a Catholic church could do. The Catholic church, Kyungsoo explained, was never fond of containing ghosts.

Handlers always had to have a certain religion and Do Kyungsoo's family had been a family of handlers who had been Catholic for so long. Kyungsoo told us that he had many handler friends, however, and they were avid believers of Buddhism, Hinduism or even Zenism; which I didn't know existed until he told us about it.

The temple a little bit further than we expected, all of us getting off the van. Harin was being well looked over, Sehun told us. He didn't want to bring her and worry about her.

The temple had a certain air of serenity around it. The roof was red and dried leaves were on the ground, the crunching sound serving as white noise as we made our way towards the open door traditional Japanese house.

"Kento?" the voice of an old man whispered, and Kento answered with a grunt. Another string of Japanese I did not understand, Kento finally stepping forward. An old man emerged from the side and his beard was white, the male spotting all of us.
The man frowned as he toddled towards us. He was wearing Japanese traditional clothing and when he reached me, he gasped.

"What, what, what?" Kai demanded, the man shaking his head over and over again.

"Kento, what happened?"

"My grandfather is a clairvoyant," Kento explained, a hand going to grab his grandfather around the arm to gently move him to the inside of the house. "He must have seen something. Come in. The least we can do is try to relax."

Once we had seated down, Kento's grandfather; Kaseki, as we learned to know, wasn't the same type of clairvoyant as I was. He could see possibilities, the future that was about to come and he kept muttering under his breath.

"Does that mean we'll all have to die?" I asked Kento, the male shaking his head.

"His visions are simply possibilities; the universe communicates with him and a person's vision changes as things change. For now, all of you will die." Kento told us simply. "But he says he has a way to fix it. My grandfather is what you would call a Sohei. They are Japanese monks and go through a high level of spiritual training."

His grandfather was moving around his little house, grabbing a few books here and there when he finally fell back onto his butt and very adorably struggled to cross his legs.

"Old." He mumbled in English, pointing to himself and we slowly nodded. He grumbled, Kento throwing us a dirty look as if to say that we shouldn't agree with him. We all then shook our heads and he brightened up.

"He wants to tell us about the history of how onryo's came to be," Kento began, his grandfather continuing to speak. "It is believed that the onryo came to be because it was an ikiryo."

"A what? What's that?"

"An ikiryo is a spirit that is disembodied. So basically, a ghost that leaves its body. It's believed that Hara was a lovely woman who was very envied for her beauty. She had turned down multiple suitors when one day, one of them slipped something into her drink and she fell asleep." Kento looked over to his grandfather. "Hara fell asleep but she could disconnect her spirit from her body."

"We believe in those things, too. Lucid Dreaming."

Kento nodded.

"She watched as the man assaulted her sleeping body, Hara feeling betrayed because he was one of her closest friends. And in olden day japan, men and women are not supposed to be friends. She finally realized that he had fooled her to touch her."

"She must have been pissed."

"Those who are able to detach their souls away from their body are known to be able to travel into the spiritual world. And their souls are much more powerful because it has a body to go back to." Kento pressed his lips together. "That kind of soul is called an ikiryo. Guess what happened then."

"Did she begin to kill people while her soul was detached?"

"Yes. As an inkiryo, she began to haunt men who she thought deserved to die. Her ikiryo soul was so filled with hatred for men and the power she got from killing had turned her soul dark. Every night, as she became more powerful, each time she returned to her body, she was less human."

"What happened after that?"

"This story is famous because it speaks of a single person who became multiple creatures of folklore. As she returned to her body one day, the evil had seeped into her skin and she became an oni-- a demon woman. With that, she began to terrorize everyone in her physical form."

"Bitch going through different phases of puberty and I just had one." Sehun shook his head.

"They tried to kill her but she had horns. A monster, per say. She finally died but that wasn't the end of it. She had been killing people without her body, what makes you think that she'd stop now that she didn't have a body?" Kento paused. "She began to kill people as a ghost once more-- With her body said and her being an evil spirit, that is the birth of an onryo."

"Cool." Baekhyun whispered and he frowned at him.

"What did they do after that?"

"They trapped her onryo soul inside her body. It was a dead fresh body and once that happened, they finally put her in a coffin and sealed it. The Egyptians did it too. Like tomb raiders and Indiana Jones."

"Sorry, but I see no relevance," Kai told Kento, the younger male saying that he actually enjoyed watching the movie. "You're saying that we need to find a body and trap her in it? How do we do that? I know they did it before."

"People don't get rid of onryo's because one... Where do we find a body in modern japan? You can't just buy bodies from hospitals., Kento said, Sehun saying that he could and he would if it meant destroying the onryo. "Two, an onryo will only go into a body if someone can keep them there. I think you guys know by now that these souls move very fast. We need someone to lead her back to where she belongs and we have to seal it."

"Can we not obliviate it?" Kyungsoo asked. "Grim Reapers--"

"Yes, but do you have time to contact a Grim Reaper? It's such a long process and Zen Grim Reapers do not like obliviating. They are zen for a reason. They simply come to clean up." Kento rolled his eyes. " They believe that whatever happens to the dead or the living is part of the life cycle. Karma, to say. They do not like helping the living."

"I've heard of that." Kyungsoo nodded. "That is why after we contain this soul, I'll contact one of my own."

"That's good enough. Now, the question is... Where do we find a body?" Kento asked. Sehun and Minseok; the businessmen of our group already on their phones. "They got it, don't they?"

"They do. Let's hope this works," Chanyeol breathed.

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