Holy Curse • Jeong Yunho

Day Six

January 6th 2019, Friday
22:38

DAY SIX

Seonghwa has a sweet voice. It's neither too deep nor too pitched. Deiji liked it, she found herself getting intoxicated with it. The addiction wasn't limited to his voice or to his sound, rather, Deiji admired his hazel–ish eyes speaking dulcet tones of sheer clarity. He held affection in them; and it grew when he spoke to Deiji, she could see it. There were countless times where Deiji caught herself asking the question doubting if he was real or not. Seonghwa has some charisma, he was always a soft spoken man with integrity and respect.

When Deiji finds herself drowning in her thoughts of praising this man in her mind, she pinches the reality and lets it dawn over her. In the current time, she's talking to Seonghwa, who has the brightest smile on his face. He's talking — more like rambling — about his research to Deiji. As his personality, his attire glowed too, he wore a white button down shirt and covered it with a sleeveless cardigan paired with grey loose trousers; his pink hair was fading gradually, and Deiji hoped he'd dye it back to the colour it was before. Not that the pastel pink didn't suit him, but it was Deiji's perception of him looking better with dark colours.

"It's a local myth actually," Seonghwa trails, "the sacrifice of thirteen people to please the devil."

"It sounds like a bunch of bullshit." Deiji adds, "there's no cult in our town, it's a peaceful place I'd rather say."

"Have you ever stumbled across anyone from the cult?" Seonghwa questions, satirically. "The chances of you meeting one of them are low, but never zero."

"Okay, dark." Deiji rolls her eyes, laughing. "I'm not going to meet any of them because they don't exist."

"That's what you will say until you meet one," Seonghwa says, grabbing a Milky Way bar from the bag of things he had purchased. "Trust me, you can recognise them easily from their cult–y tattoo."

"A tattoo?"

"Every cult has a unique tattoo," he begins, munching on the chocolate bar. "It defines their purpose and the devil they serve to. You must've heard about the cult worshipping Paimon, their sigil is quite unique with swirls and all..."

"So what sigil does this man slaughtering cult has?" Deiji asks, settling herself on her designated chair.

Seonghwa smiles, having a little bit of chocolate smudged on his lower lip. "A daisy with blood dripping down its petals. Pretty normal right? Well, not really, not unless you know what it means..."

Listening to Seonghwa describe the sigil of the so called cult — which apparently exists in this town — Deiji's eyes widen and a spark goes off in his head. She seems to recall the time when she saw the exact tattoo inked on someone's wrist. Although, she doesn't really remember who it was. Which is what is making her panic; how can she not remember who it was, when the person she saw it on had been burning in the back of her mind for a quite long now. Deiji goes silent, intently looking and keenly listening to Seonghwa's conspiracy theories of the so called cult.

"Daisy usually symbolises childbirth," Seonghwa informs, "it's a chaste flower, and shows off humility and innocence. However, the blood depicts impurity. Collectively, it comes to define the impurity of a woman who defies childbirth, in today's terms abortion."

"They don't exist, Hwa..." Deiji bites her lip, "this cult, I don't know, I'm hearing about them for the first time in my lifetime of staying here. I'm a local resident, how come I've never heard about them?"

Deiji picks on the loose cuticle on her forefinger, sighing softly and keeping her eyes away from Seonghwa. Again, she knew staring deep into his eyes is like being charmed up to commit a crime. There inhibits an untamed animal inside them, which encourages her to take drastic measures.