Chapter 33
Saturday morning.
The wind carried a subtle scent of flowers that stimulated my nose. The sun was moderately warm, and the sky was blue without a single cloud in sight. The good weather seemed to improve my mood.
"You're here."
Jun-Hyuk welcomed me when I arrived at the meeting place. For some reason, I couldn’t see In-Ah.
"What about In-Ah?"
"She went to the toilet. Oh, there she is."
With his gaze, Jun-Hyuk pointed toward the direction of the station. In the distance, In-Ah could be seen approaching from the station entrance. It felt different to see her dressed in casual clothes rather than her usual school uniform. She was wearing light blue jeans, a white shirt, and a pink cardigan on top. Overall, her outfit was bright and fresh.
It looks good on her.
It was a thought that came up subconsciously.
Soon, In-Ah flapped her long, stretched-out cardigan sleeves as she approached us and said,
"What? When did you get here?"
"Just now."
"Do you know that you’re five minutes late?"
"Sorry. I took the subway that took me in the wrong direction."
Actually, the truth was that I overslept.
"Let's hurry up and go eat. I'm hungry."
"Where are we going to eat?"
"I decided all that yesterday! Follow me!" In-Ah walked ahead.
Shuffle, shuffle.
The sleeves of her cardigan fluttered as she walked.
Her smile didn’t leave her mouth, and her cheeks were faintly red with a flush. She seemed to be in a very good mood. Jun-Hyuk and I followed In-Ah.
The way to the restaurant was hectic due to the busy streets full of people. The area was noisy with the sounds of conversation. Occasionally, I could hear the sound of car horns pierce through the sounds.
In addition, every passing person glanced at us. To be exact, they glanced at Jun-Hyuk. The reason was not too hard to guess. It was because of Jun-Hyuk’s fashion choice.
"Why are your clothes all... black?"
Jun-Hyuk was all black from head to toe today. He was wearing black shoes, black slacks, a black turtleneck, and a black leather jacket. It was hard to say that it didn’t look good. It actually looked rather good on him. However, Jun-Hyuk wasn’t a person that gave off a particularly kind impression. His gaze was fierce, and he looked rather scary. On top of that, he was dressed in such a peculiar way...
It was difficult to describe, but he looked a little evil. I looked at the back of Jun-Hyuk’s neck. I didn’t doubt him, but seeing Jun-Hyuk dressed in black from head to toe made me want to check whether he was Satanist or not.
As expected, I didn't see anything resembling a goat tattoo, fortunately.
"Why? Do I have something on me?" Jun-Hyuk said, fiddling with the back of his neck.
"No? Just. You look good in your clothes." I changed the subject and avoided answering.
"Oh, right. I think I go well with black clothes," Jun-Hyuk laughed. He seemed to be in a good mood after hearing that it looked good on him.
It was true that it actually looked good on him. The only problem was that the atmosphere was so dark that it unintentionally caught the eyes of passersby. We proceeded to follow In-Ah and arrived at a restaurant. It was a restaurant that sold a fusion of Western and Korean food.
"Wa, wow. Holy. It looks so good."
When the food came out, In-Ah exclaimed her comments and took a picture. The fork that Jun-Hyuk was holding hovered in the air as he couldn’t decide where to start.
We ordered Minari Rose Pasta, Webfoot Octopus Pizza, and other similar dishes. They were somewhat bizarre dishes, but they were surprisingly delicious, so I ate them all in a hurry.
"Wow. Whoa. So pretty."
The next place we went to was a cafe. As expected, In-Ah took a picture when the food came out. The spoon that Jun-Hyuk was holding lost its place and hovered in the air. I felt a strange sense of déjà vu.
"We're here to play, right? Why do I feel like we’re just eating?"
Jun-Hyuk put the spoon down. There was a dry, clack sound. This was something that I found out just now, but Jun-Hyuk said before that he doesn’t really like sweets. He eats them once in a while when he thinks about it.
"Hm? Aren’t they the same thing?" In-Ah said while frantically shoving a custard pudding down her throat. She was very fond of sweets. She says that when she eats sweets, her thoughts disappear.
I realized once again that Jun-Hyuk and In-Ah had opposing personalities. We ate lunch, ate dessert at a cafe, and once we came out, we ate waffles again. Just as Jun-Hyuk said, we really only ate. It was hard to tell whether we came to play or to explore restaurants. We stopped eating when we were so full that we could no longer eat anymore.
At Jun-Hyuk's suggestion, we decided to walk in a nearby park to digest the food. When I checked the time on my cell phone, there were more than two hours left until six o'clock. There was still plenty of time left.
"Arghh~, I'm so full. I can't even walk."
In-Ah stretched her body. Her stretched-out cardigan sleeves fluttered over her head.
"Of course you’re full. How can you eat so much?" Jun-Hyuk said while looking at In-Ah with a frown on his face. During lunch, he didn’t finish most of his food, and in the cafe, he only nibbled at the pudding from time to time. Beyond that, he ate almost nothing else.
His stature was so large that he looked like he could chew through even steel. However, he unexpectedly didn’t eat much.
While Jun-Hyuk sighed and complained as if trying to suppress his nausea, In-Ah was strolling through the park ahead of us with light steps. She had a bright smile on her face.
"She’s so excited," Jun-Hyuk looked at In-Ah and muttered in a small voice. The expression on his face was complex as if it was a mixture of joy and sorrow. In-Ah's expression was clear, so it was easy to guess how she felt, but Jun-Hyuk's expression was always ambiguous, making it difficult to guess how he felt.
"If you look at her closely, she has a very simple personality. She also trusts people easily."
Jun-Hyuk's tone was strangely quiet and calm. The atmosphere was quite different from usual, so I felt a sense of incompatibility.
"Why so serious all of the sudden?" I asked playfully to dispel the atmosphere. Jun-Hyuk listened to me and had a serious face for a brief moment. It was a frighteningly stiff face.
But soon, Jun-Hyuk's playful smile returned to his lips as usual.
"All of a sudden, I was just wondering how I ended up becoming friends with her. I don’t remember her being that violent in the past...."
Jun-Hyuk laughed and touched his shin.
"Come to think of it, since when did you guys get close?"
I naturally continued the conversation.
"I wonder... Was it in the second year of middle school? I think it was around two years ago, but, um, I don’t remember that well. Before I knew it, I just happened to get close to her.”
"If it’s only been two years, then it hasn’t been that long, right?"
I thought Jun-Hyuk and In-Ah were childhood friends because they were so close.
Jun-Hyuk looked at In-Ah with vague eyes. In-Ah was still running around the park.
"Right. But In-Ah has such a good personality, so we got close quickly."
"That's true."
In-Ah had a talent for making friends easily, even with people she had just met. The reason I became close with her was also because she approached me first. As I nodded along to what Jun-Hyuk was saying, I saw her walking toward us from afar, with her pink cardigan swaying like cherry blossom petals.
"What are you guys talking about without me?!" In-Ah asked with a fluffy smile.
"We were talking about you behind your back," Jun-Hyuk said as if it were natural.
Normally, she would have kicked his shin right away, but maybe because she was in a good mood, In-Ah just smiled brightly.
"Really? Let's hear what you said."
"Sun-Woo says you're ugly."
"Oh? Really?"
In-Ah's face turned slightly dark. I shook my head hastily and proved my innocence. "I didn't. He's lying."
"What are you saying? You just said earlier that In-Ah looked like a decomposed peach."
"A decomposed peach...?"
In-Ah drooped her shoulders with a sullen face.
"Ah, I really didn’t say that. Hey, can you stop saying nonsense–"
"Wow, Sun-Woo, you're seriously giving me goosebumps. You shouldn’t be in Florence Academy. Just go to college and pursue a career in acting. You’ll become a legendary actor."
"What? Seriously, no. I can’t believe this."
Jun-Hyuk was driving me crazy. It was him, not me, who needed to become an actor. He was lying without changing his facial expression, and it was so ridiculous and creepy that I was speechless.
In-Ah took turns glancing at Jun-Hyuk and me and eventually asked with a puzzled face, "So, who’s telling the truth? No, are you guys making fun of me?"
"Did you find that out now?" Jun-Hyuk smirked and said. In-Ah had a face filled with anger as she tried to kick Jun-Hyuk in the shin.
As if he had predicted this would happen, Jun-Hyuk was prepared to avoid it. It wasn’t really a big deal, but there was a sense of tension.
Buzz–! Buzz–!
However, the situation that I was worried about did not happen. It was because the phone in In-Ah's pocket let out a vibration sound. In-Ah stopped her kick midway and pulled out her phone. She was getting a call from an unknown number.
"Hello?"
In-Ah answered the phone without any suspicion. A low and deep voice came from the other end of the line. However, I couldn’t understand exactly what they were saying.
"Ah, yes. That's right. Ah. Then on Monday, ah. Yes, yes. Alright. Yes."
Throughout the call, In-Ah's expression was seriously dark. She was short of breath, and her answering voice trembled faintly. I didn't know what was going on, but I was at least sure that it wasn’t a good thing.
The phone call soon ended.
In-Ah looked at us with a stunned expression. "Oh, hey. I..."
"What's the matter?" Jun-Hyuk asked in a cold tone. In-Ah hesitated to answer and kept turning her head as if she was anxious.
Eventually, she sighed deeply and explained, "They said that they found my sister. On Monday evening, they said to go to the Seoul Eastern Paladin Branch."
* * *
Upon receiving the news that her missing sister had been found, In-Ah quickly returned home. It was because there were some things that she had to prepare for. Even if we continued to hang out like this, the situation with her sister would weigh on her mind too much for her for us to hang out properly. Without saying much, we accompanied her to the station and sent her off.
In the end, Jun-Hyuk and I were left alone. Jun-Hyuk asked me to go to a PC room, but unfortunately, I didn't know how to play any games. There was nothing to do, so we just disbanded.
So it was 5:47 p.m. when I arrived at the underground chapel. Uncle and Ji-Ah were waiting at the underground chapel earlier.
"You're here. Shall we go now?"
At Ji-Ah's firm words, we left the underground chapel and set out for our destination. Just in case, I brought Baal's Maw and purchased some radish sprouts and lettuce seeds along the way.
"Why are you buying all that all of a sudden?"
"Just in case."
"Ah, okay."
Uncle nodded and accepted as if he understood what I meant.
Soon, the car started. Of course, my uncle sat in the driver's seat, and Ji-Ah sat in the passenger's seat. I sat in the back seat, looking vaguely at the world passing by through the car window. The sun was hanging on the horizon and throwing up a red sunset.
"So, Uncle. How did you uh meet uh... nuna Ji-Ah... Madam Ji-Ah? Miss Ji-Ah?"
"Relax, you can just call me Ji-Ah."
While agonizing over what title I should call her by, Ji-Ah replied in a cold tone. No matter how young she looked, she was still older than me. I didn't feel comfortable just calling her ‘Ji-Ah.’
"How did you meet Miss Ji-Ah?"
Thus, I just decided to call her Miss Ji-Ah.
"You know that the Voodoo Cult used to run an orphanage, right?"
"I didn’t know that."
"Oh. Well, then again, you were young back then, too. Anyway, she’s from there. It somehow turned out like this."
The explanation was too ambiguous for me to understand the exact situation. Right now, he was busy driving, so my uncle didn't seem to want to start a long explanation. It wasn't anything important, and I wasn't all that curious at the moment, so I decided to just ask next time.
Soon we arrived at our destination: the Laza-ro Central Shopping Center.
It was too ordinary of a shopping mall to be the headquarters of a cult. Rather, it was more cleanly managed than other shopping malls.
"It’s the fifth basement floor. Let's take the elevator."
I followed Ji-Ah's guide and got into the elevator. As Ji-Ah explained the other day, the 'Zapduist' underground chapel was located on the fifth basement floor, but the elevator button only went down to the third basement floor.
“We didn't come to the wrong place, did we?”
“No.” Ji-Ah spoke with conviction and pressed the buttons on the third basement floor and the second basement floor at the same time. The elevator then proceeded to go past the third basement floor to the fourth basement floor and eventually reached the fifth basement floor.
Ding.
With a clear sound, the elevator door opened. Two men in bizarre masks welcomed us. They were very tall but not large, so they looked like scarecrows. The two men silently strode over and guided us into the deep darkness. After following them, we soon reached a huge, rough door.
"We have about thirty minutes until the start of the service, so please sit down and wait while praying. Ah, also, before you enter the chapel, please make sure to wear this mask.”
The two men handed us three masks. The fancy masks looked like they could be used at a ball. We silently accepted the masks and put them on our faces.
Then we opened the door.
At the sight before me, I opened my mouth without realizing it.
The ceiling was very high. Every corner of the underground chamber was covered with purple mist. There were so many seats in the spacious underground chapel that I dared not even count them. The congregation was sitting tightly packed in those seats and praying. Some prayed quietly with their hands together, while others rose from their seats and screamed like mad.
Madness filled the underground chapel. It was a dangerous and blind madness.
"Stop looking around. Let's sit down."
At Uncle Jin-Sung’s words, I finally came to my senses. After finding a vacant seat, we sat down and pretended to pray like the other believers.
Half an hour passed like that.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
In the center of the underground chapel, above the stage, the dry sound of shoes hitting the floor rang out clearly and distinctly.
‘Voodoo Revival Church.’
In other words, the 'Zapduist' cult leader was about to appear.
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