Cursed Blood | Chaelisa

Chapter 6.

When I got home that evening, Mom told me that Jisoo had called, saying her parents wanted to invite me to dinner at her house. And she would come to pick me up tomorrow night. I asked if it was okay, and Mom simply said, "Yes" without suspecting anything else. What a simple plan my best friend had! But it worked perfectly.

On the next day before we went to the carnival, we actually had dinner at Jisoo's house. I guess it would make us feel less guilty about lying to our parents. After dinner, we hopped into Jisoo's black Benz and drove downtown instead of going back home or school. I sat at the back of the car whereas Joy and Jisoo occupied the front.

"I thought you had a better light bulb to convince my mom," I complained.

"A better idea!" Joy corrected me. I forgot that one of Joy's favorite hobbies is reading dictionaries. She always makes sure that correcting my language is her top priority.

"What? I like metaphors," I said.

"We did have dinner, didn't we?" Joy reminded me.

"And you think going to that carnival is a dessert?" I asked, but Joy just laughed.

"Nice metaphor," she added with a sniff.

"But we're still lying!"

"It's not called lying, Chaeyoung," Jisoo came to declare. "It's called making up stories."

"What difference does it make anyway?" I said.

"Lying is bad, but making up stories is useful," she replied in her surest voice. I had been taught that lying was universally wrong, but no one had ever taught me about making up stories.

"Just once, Chaeng, all I'm asking is you go moral-free for a day, okay?" Joy said.

Jisoo was also looking at me from the rearview mirror. I felt like I was a mom whose kids were begging for extra candies.

"Okay, fine," I surrendered, "Let's go loco then," and the two girls cheered. I laughed along, shaking my head.

When we reached the carnival ground, the place was already crowded. A lot of people kept walking around, carrying corn dogs and cotton candies. A parade of women and men with colorful costumes and feathers marched along the crowded street. We looked at each other for a moment and then burst out laughing excitedly.

Joy may be a genius girl who knows every word from every dictionary in the world while Jisoo may be a Nobel Prize winner for a new physics theory in the next ten years, and I may be a person who likes to put dead stuff in formaldehyde bottles in our refrigerator, but still, we are just like any ordinary girls, and even the Ultara girls need to have some fun.

We bought Nutella churros and ate cotton candies while dancing to the blasting music with the crowd. All of us had grown on all the fun at the carnival that we almost lost track of time. After hours passed, people began to clear away. Some of the booths along the street were being closed down. Jisoo jabbed on her phone, but then she exclaimed because the battery went dead.

Strangely, I kept hearing a flash of faraway sound every few seconds. I asked Joy and Jisoo whether they heard something, but neither of them did. But I personally felt like someone was watching me, and that was not a good sign, so I suggested that it was time to leave the carnival.

As we walked towards the parking lot where our car was, the night air got colder with winds blowing through our clothes. Along the sidewalk, I heard footsteps coming behind us- four pairs of heavy feet. I smelled alcohol and cigarette smoke. Bad case scenario.

Intuitively, I gripped both Joy's and Jisoo's hand, urging them to walk faster.

"Hey, what's wrong?" Joy asked, probably sensing the tension.