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「6」You Are A Sinful Man (2)

LEON

“SIR, it’s done,” I felt relieved when she talked again. She handed the phone to me before giving me the results. “Nothing’s wrong with your phone, Sir. Everything is working well. There were no bugs in the system. It’s also safe from any malwares,” she declared.

It disheartened me. That wasn’t the answer I was hoping to hear. I expected her to say that my phone had an issue or something.

「What do I do now?」 I helplessly thought.

In the end, I paid the lady for her service and left the shop with a heavy heart.

━━━━━━ ◦ ◦ ━━━━━━

「IT IS over. I’m going crazy,」 I thought to myself as I walked in the corners of the street with an absent mind. I staggered, and didn’t care about the judging eyes of the people that passed by me.

“Psst! Hey, you!”

I stopped in my tracks when I heard a voice coming from a guy, but I had no idea where he was.

“Over here! Look to your right,” the guy instructed me, and I followed what he said. I weakly turned my head towards his direction, and before me was a weird looking man who was about my age, that wore a stupid looking hooded maroon cloak that had golden linings on the edge of its sleeves and bottom most part of the cloak. “Found me!” he happily exclaimed.

「What a weirdo,」 I instantly judged. 「What is he? A street performer? Magician?」

“What do you want?” I asked the cloaked man.

“Do you like fortune telling?” he asked in an excited tone.

“Nope,” I turned down, and strutted my way out.

“Wait, wait, wait!” he pleaded, and grabbed the edge of my jacket. That alarmed me, and I unintentionally raised my voice at him.

“Don’t touch me!” I half shouted, but I quickly realized how rude I was and apologized, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell at you.”

The guy just brushed it off with a silly laugh. “It’s fine. I shouldn’t have grabbed you like that, too,” he admitted. “It will surely make people misunderstand,” he added.

“Look, I’m in a hurry so I think I’ll pass on the fortune telling for now,” I told him.

「I don’t believe in them either. So, what’s the point in getting a reading?」 I sarcastically thought.

“That’s unfortunate,” the guy became a little sad.

“Nice talking to you. I’m really sorry,” then, I excused myself. When I was about to turn my back at him, he uttered words that rang a bell in my ear.

“You look really worn out. I can sense that something is weighing down on you. It’s hard to tell what it is from this distance, but are you having nightmares lately? Perhaps… hearing unfamiliar voices?” All he said was on point, it creeped me out.

“Who are you?!” I grabbed the guy by the collar with a very disturbed look on my face.

He flinched and coiled in fear. “I just told you that I was a fortune teller,” he replied.

“No, you didn’t!” I yelled at him, and tightened my grip on him and that choked him a little bit.

“Yes, I did.” He gasped when I pushed him against the alley wall. “Please, don’t hurt me. I was just trying to help you,” he begged.

“Well, you are not. How did you know about my nightmares?” I interrogated him.

“I was born with a gift. I can see people’s fortunes by touching them,” he proclaimed.

“Why should I believe you?” I asked, anger was written all over my face.

“Because I am telling the truth,” he insisted. “Let me prove it to you. If you think that I’m a scam, I’ll let you leave without paying me. He he,” he added.

I sighed in defeat. I bet this guy was running out of funds, so he became desperate. I gave him the chance to ‘magically enthrall’ me with all his wishy-washy lies until he was satisfied.

━━━━━━ ◦ ◦ ━━━━━━

THE guy led me back to a small space that he rented. It was shabby, and little to no light could reach the inside. The atmosphere, at least, was convincing. But the fortune-teller himself was skeptical all over.

“How long have you been doing this?” I curiously asked while traveling my eyes around the whole area. It was so dark, I could barely see where I was going.

“For a while now,” he simply replied before stopping in front of a small, circular desk that was covered in a black sheet of cloth. “Have a seat,” he offered as he sat on the chair across mine.

I took a quick glance at my own chair. It was painted in black so it was really hard to tell if he put anything somewhere there that would likely make his clients think that they were indeed haunted, cursed, or… whatever.

I sat silently, but all of my senses were heightened. “When did you realize that… You know, that you were gifted?” I asked.

The nameless fortune teller took a deep breath before answering me, “I was six when I accidentally held someone’s hand, and I saw how he died. You know how kids are. I told him,” the guy sighed when I gave him that I-don’t-believe-you look. “He didn’t believe me, of course. Everyone didn’t…” Then, he paused for a moment before continuing, “They only believed me when it happened.”

「Oh, he’s quite good at acting. I’m starting to get shivers,」 I thought to myself. [Why the hell am I wasting my time listening to a fraud?]

“What did you see, anyway?” I went along with him.

The guy stared at me intently. “I know that you don’t believe me too, but, whatever!” he scoffed. “That guy died by drowning. But in reality, something was deliberately pulling him to his death because of hatred. It was the spirit of someone that was killed by the villagers for accounts of stealing. It was the man, who drowned, that falsely accused that spirit.”

I was flabbergasted. “What was everyone’s reaction when the man actually died?”

“They chased me out. I mean, who wants to see a cursed person walking freely, waiting to touch another victim and tell them how they were going to die?” His voice was full of sarcasm and bitterness when he said these words.

I felt bad for judging him just because he looked like a fake. I didn’t even try to put myself in his shoes.

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