“Who . . .” Annisa quickly shook her head and corrected her question, “What are you?”

 

There were millions of peculiar events, where things happened way beyond the valley of human’s senses. There were the scepticals, but there were also the believers. Annisa was never both of them. She thought everything might have explanations, but if they couldn’t be explained, she thought maybe those things were meant to remain mistery, so she let them be. But that night, she chose to be a believer at least once, for the peculiarity itself existed right in front of her in a form of a young man.

“I’d like to think myself as a human but . . . I think there’s no human who can live for thousands of years.” Annisa went stiff when she heard what Chanyeol just said, “well . . . even though I spent most of it sleeping.” He closed his first answer with a light chuckle. But to Annisa that wasn’t something to be laughed about, so she kept her stiff face.

“How . . .  how long?” She hestitated to ask, or more likely hestitated to find out the answer.

“My life?” Chanyeol asked, then Annisa nodded slowly. The guy seemed to think for a while before finally answering, “If I’m not mistaken maybe ten thousands, could be more.” Responding to the answer, Annisa chose to shut and shifted her stare from Chanyeol’s figure, to the lake’s calm surface in front of her. She honestly didn’t know how to react to that. Never in her craziest dream she would talk to someone, or something, aged more than ten thousand years. If it was all a dream, she must’ve hit her head very hard somewhere.

“It’s okay if you’re scared.” Said Chanyeol, following Annisa looking at the dark water in front of them, “I can always keep my distance from you.”

Yeah, sure. Chanyeol could always keep his distance from Annisa, he already was. Since the very beginning he was the life of the class, he already got friends who kept him busy, he was always somewhere with someone. Even though Annisa didn’t know whether that was the real Chanyeol or not, at least keeping a distance from her would be an easy thing for him to do. Realizing this, there was a slight pang in Annisa’s chest. If Annisa asked Chanyeol to stay away from her, then she would just always be Chanyeol’s classmate who happened to know his darkest secrets, never more.

“But not too far. I still need to keep a close eye on you.” A big question mark automatically popped up inside Annisa’s head when she heard what Chanyeol said. Why on earth he wanted to keep a close eye on her?

“Why?” Annisa asked immediately. This time Chanyeol too turned his head to face Annisa’s confused face.

“Promise me you won’t overreact if I tell you the truth.”

“I’ve seen your weird eyes and I’m still here.” Annisa could see Chanyeol smiled when he heard her confident statement. Behind those darken bruises there was the face where Annisa once thought sunshine must’ve stayed there forever. Everytime Chnayeol smiles everything brightens even just for a little. 

“There’s something inside you, Cha.” He said, opening the soon-to-be long explanation with light words. Then he continued, “That thing, is something me and Sehun have been looking for.” Chanyeol went silence, waiting for a response from the girl in front of him and letting her process the information. Clearly there was a confused frown on her face, and Chayeol understoon that, he didn’t expect her to swallow everything in right away.

And when Annisa didn’t say anything, Chanyeol started to open his mouth again, “Her name is Arae, the spirit of curses.”

“The . . . what?” Chanyeol took a deep breath when he saw the frown on Annisa’s face went deeper. He moved forward slightly so he could explain everything. It seemed that Annisa couldn’t take the information pieces by pieces like what he expected.

“The spirit of curses.” Chanyeol repeated, “and her name is Arae.” Annisa’s mind went blank for a moment. She understood none of Chanyeol’s word, let alone giving a reaction to that, so she kept her frown.

“But Chanyeol, I’m feeling perfectly normal. I mean . . “

Chanyeol didn’t let Annisa finished her senteces, “I knew you passed out on your way to Jasmine’s apartment once, right?” He abruptly said. Annisa rolled her eyes when she heard this. Of course Chanyeol knew, all the people in her class knew when she passed out in that small alley. She told  all her classmates and warned them not to go through it for a while because it was dangerous.

“Yeah of course you knew.” Added Annisa.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why did you pass out?”

“Well . . . I just . . . passed out.” There was something that started to bother Annisa when Chanyeol asked this.

“You don’t remember it, do you?” He was right. Annisa didn’t remember the part where she passed out. She recalled the weird feeling when she couldn’t retrieve the memory back to that event. She remembered it felt like a piece of memory was being stolen form her.

“I only remember when . .”

“When you walked into the alley and after that everything’s blank. You feel nothing was wrong but then you just passed out.” Instead of waiting for Annisa to continue, Chanyeol finished what Annisa was about to say, because he knew. He knew what happened, “Right, Cha?”

Annisa narrowed her eyes. Chanyeol was right. She couldn’t remember anything after that yet she was so sure she saw something before that. But how did he knew? How did he knew unless . . . unless he was there? She never told anyone the part where she actually didn’t remember at all why she passed out, where the pieces of her memories seemed to be gone somewhere.

“Wait a minute. How did this accident in the alley has any correlation with the spirit thing living inside me?” Annisa put her hand in front of Chanyeol’s face.

“You didn’t remember aything because the memories wasn’t yours.”

“What?”

“It happened again in the pool, remember? When you feel the stings everytime we touched and after that you collapsed?”

“Y . . yeah.” She did remember that part. How couldn’t she? It was the the first time she ever saw Chanyeol’s crimson eye. She collapsed right after seeing the glimpse of the dark red iris. 

“Actually you didn’t.”

“Didn’t what?”

“After you feel the stings, you actually didn’t collapse, you were very much awake cha. It was just that . . . it wasn’t you. It wasn’t you so you didn’t remember anything happened after that.”

Okay, all these things was making Annisa more and more confused. What did Chanyeol say was totally weird. Annisa was downright sure that she collapsed right after she felt the stings and seeing Chanyeol’s eye. How could Chanyeol said that she wasn’t collapsed? He supposed to see it with his own eyes! 

“What do you mean it wasn’t me? You were the one who saw me collapsed and brought me to Jasmine’s room, right?”

“Yes, you did collapse, but that was after Arae took over your body.”

“How on earth . .” This time Chanyeol was the one who put his hand in front of Annisa’s face. Explaining about Arae alone was complicated enough, he didn’t want Annisa to cut him everytime the girl felt confused or else he would ended up explaining everything all night long.

“Listen,” Chanyeol said, stopping Annisa at the beginning of her speech, “Listen carefully until I finish.”  Annisa had no choice but to slowly nodded and obeyed Chanyeol’s request, even though with a little frown on her face.

“There was a spirit living inside you, Cha. That was why you collapsed at the pool yesterday, that was also why you collapsed at the alley. You may think that you just passed out. But the truth is, the spirit inside you took the control over your physical presence, which means, she took over your body.” Chanyeol stopped for a brief moment to see whether Annisa could proceed the information or not. Then he decided to continue when he saw the confused frown in the face in front of him started to fade.

“The moment you feel the black out, was actually the moment she took over your body. After that, your body wasn’t collapsed as you thought it was. Your physical body was very much awake, but under the control of Arae, therefore you won’t remember what happened during that moment because basically the memory belongs to Arae, not you. It’s like having a different personality.”

Silence hung in the air after Chanyeol uttered his last word. Annisa started to get the logic now. Well, she knew that the fact a spirit stayed in her body wasn’t logical to begin with, but she started to understand Chanyeol’s explanation. The more she understand, the more Annisa sensed a lingering fear inside her. Wasn’t it normal to feel scared when someone told you that there was something foreign lived within you? Especially since that foireign thing could take ccontrol over you whenever she pleased.

“Since when she stayed inside me?”

“I don’t know. I asked her and she didn’t answer. But in most case, spirits usually stayed inside somone’s body since they were born. They change host from generation to generation. Probably Arae had been inside you mother’s body too, or your grandmother’s, great grandmother’s and so on.” Chanyeol was explaining while taking one of the soft drink he bought on his way to see Annisa and opened it. Somehow a little bit oblivious to Annisa’s fear of something that was very much alive existed within her.

Spirits. Annisa thought. It was plural. That means Annisa was not the only one, and Arae certainly was not the only spirit. There was also an eerie feeling that suddenly engulfed her. She was terrified about the new truth that her family before her might be Arae’s previous host. It suddenly raised one crucial question, did Annisa’s mom actually knew about all this?

“Does that mean my Mom knows about all this?!” There was definitely a tone of disebelief when Annisa asked this. Because if it was true, if her Mom actually knew about it, than her life before this won’t matter anymore.

“Hmm could be, or couldn’t be. Mostly the spirits stayed inside someone’s body even the host won’t notice it. Does your mom ever talk about it?”

“No.” Obviously, if ever Annisa won’t be shock hearing Chanyeol’s explanation.

“Then maybe your Mom wasn’t aware Arae was inside her, and maybe Arae itself never took over your Mom’s body like what she did to you.” Said Chanyeol calmly, while giving Annisa the other soft drink he bought.

“Why me? Why Arae took control of me and not my Mom?”

“Because of me.” A slight breeze of night wind was grazing Annisa’s cheek when Chanyeol giving her the stare, “she came out of her hiding inside you because she sensed my presence.”

“Why?”

“Because I want her power.”

“Why do you want her power?”

“There is  . . . an emergency happening and I need her power.”

“What emergency?”

A smile suddenly crept up on Chanyeol’s serious face, it confused Annisa for a moment, “You didn’t need to know. It’s too much for you to handle.” He said, giving somehow a simpathetic smile, “I know you want to know but . . . it’s not necessary.”

Of course there was a disappointment. Right then Annisa felt like there was a wall, invinsible yet stood tall and thick between her and Chanyeol. Fate had brought her this far to this guy, but in the end, Chanyeol drew a boundary line when he said Annisa didn’t need to know the rest. He was still preventing her for knowing everything. Back then when everything was still ‘normal’ she thought she knew who Chanyeol was, but now, she was even afraid to call his name, afraid that it wasn’t his name after all.

“If . . . if you need her power. What would you do?”

“Usually we take the spirits out of the host’s body.” Answered Chanyeol, while gulping down his drink.

“How did you do that?”

“Talked to her, asked her to do it herself.” Answered Chanyeol with an easy tone. But his face somehow looked a little bit worried, “but . . . Arae is different. I need more time.”

“Have you talked to her?”

“Yes, when you passed out on the pool yesterday, she said she’ll think about it.” Chanyeol remembered Arae’s last words before she disappeared again inside Annisa’s body, and it wasn’t the answer he wanted. Annisa could only nod. She decided to open the soft drink Chanyeol gave her and took a sip. Suddenly there was one more question popped up inside Annisa’s head, and she spilled it right away.

“Wait, one question. You said Arae came out because you’re here, right? But . . . when I was in the alley I was . . . alone.” There was a slight chuckle coming out form Chanyeol’s mouth when he hear this.

“Will you forgive me if I tell you the truth?” He asked, putting the empty can of softdrink beside him and started to take the cigarette box.

“Do you really need to ask that? You’ve told me you’re not human, you’ve told me that a spirit is living inside me. Yeah I’m pretty sure your story will shock me.” Annisa said, in an obviously sarcastic way. Chanyeol once again smiled, the kind of smile that Annisa always saw normally, where Chanyeol would raised only one of his mouth’s corner.

“Actually that day, Sehun and I had been following you. We want to see with our own eyes that Arae was really presence inside your body. So, we decided to attack you.” Annisa gaped a little over Chanyeol’s confession. That sounded totally dangerous.  

“You what?”

“We attacked you. That way, Arae was forced to came out in order to protect her host, which is you. That was also the reason why you collapsed all of the sudden, it was because Arae came out all of the sudden too.” Annisa narrowed her eyes for a moment, when there was a sudden rush of tingling fear she once felt after the alley incident. She might not remember what did she saw before she went blank but she remembered she was terrified, maybe it was because the attack, even though she couldn’t remember how. Once again Annisa nodded, showing that she understood what Chanyeol just said. Well, that explained pretty much everything about the mysterious alley incident. In a totally irrational way.  

After that both of them shut their mouth, each of them was silence with their own thoughts and confusion. Chanyeol put the cigarette inside his mouth and light it out. He blew the smoke out form his lungs when Annisa turned her head.

“Chanyeol?”

“Hm?”

“Can I . . . take my ‘free pass’ now?”

Hearing Annisa’s reequest, Chanyeol was pretty much taken aback. He thought after all the talk and confessions he delivered to Annisa, the girl didn’t want to know anything else for now. Chanyeol remembered the ‘free pass’ that he was going to give to Annisa was somekind of a sign for Annisa that it was okay to ask him what happened.

“Why all of a sudden? Didn’t you surprised enough hearing all this? You want to know more?” Chanyeol asked. Annisa shook her head.

“Nothing. Just curious.” She answered short.

“Okay, what do you want to know?”

“Are you having a fight with Sehun?”

The question triggered a laugh form Chanyeol, he automatically put his cigarette away from his mouth. He didn’t expect that kind of question at all from Annisa. “Why are you laughing?” He could hear his friend’s protest behind his own laugh. He was prepared to answer some really serious question, but Annisa chose to ask about his condition with Sehun. Well, it didn’t mean that it wasn’t serious, it was just that Chanyeol didn’t expect that kind of question at all.

“Me and Sehun? Why?”

“Because I heard you fight with him.” Annisa was a little bit flustered after seeing Chanyeol’s reaction to her question. “I was wondering if . . . if your face . .”

“No no no no.” Chanyeol abruptly cut Annisa’s statement while still half laughing, “this is not because of Sehun if that’s what you’re going to say.”  

“Then is it true what you said on the class today? That you got beaten by some random man?”

Chanyeol took a deep breath. He totally forgot to tell Annisa about this one. About someone or more about something that was responsible for the scars and bruises on his face, and the worse part was that this thing aimed nothing other than Annisa, or what was inside her. Chanyeol was torn either to tell Annisa that there is a weird creature out there that was looking for her, or keep silent and let him handle those creatures in silence without her knowing that her life, might be in danger as the clock ticks.

“Well . . .” Annisa could see the guy in front of her was thinking hard by the sudden serious face that fell upon his face. “Give me your hand.”

“What?” That was one random request from Chanyeol it shocked the girl in front of him. Instead of answering Annisa’s question he asked for Annisa’s hand.

“Give me your hand. If it stings, tell me right away.” Even though Annisa herself wasn’t so sure about the request, she gave her right hand anyway, and Chanyeol took it. There was no stings.

“Listen, I promise to protect you until everything’s over.” The echoes of Chanyeol’s words and the grazing touch of his palm in Annisa’s hand somehow jumbled together and made her swoon. A little. Just a little, because she was still perfectly aware that Chanyeol didn’t answer her question, again, and she didn’t like it.

“I’m not asking for a protection. I’m asking about your scars.” Annisa made her intention clear by saing that, and pulled her hand away for Chanyeol’s, of course with a little chagrin. Chanyol could see a strong stare directed to him, that means he had to be totally honest with the girl in front of him.

“You want to know who caused this?” He pointed right at his bandage-covered eye, “I called it a  Ghost. It was a horrible creature you don’t want to meet one of them.”

“Why did you fight with them?” the moment Annisa asked this Chanyeol made his decision already. He was not going to tell Annisa about the Ghosts. Not yet.

“Let’s say both of us are not in a good term.” He said, the smoke that was forgotten for a moment. He threw his eyes away from Annisa so that the girl couldn’t see the worries that must’ve been swimming inside his stare. And the girl chose to just except the answer she got rather that asking more about this new creature called the Ghosts. Later, she still got much time to spend with Chanyeol, right?

“Chanyeol. I have one last question.”

The guy turned his head after blowing the smoke.

“How many times have you deal with these kind of thing?” Since Annisa knew that she wasn’t the only hosts, and the spirit that stayed inside her was not the only one, she hypothesized that maybe, only God knows for how long, Chanyeol and Sehun must’ve been experiencing these kind of thing, where they have to face a host like Annisa. She winched her eyes when she suddenly realized that maybe, there was a girl, not only a host that held the spirit, but also fallen to the trap of Chanyeol’s smile just like herself.

“You mean meeting a host like you?” Annisa nodded, “Countless time, Cha. But . . . never like this.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve never been . . . in a situation where I have to tell the hosts about the spirits that lived inside them. Usually I just located where the spirits are, talked to them, and I got their power. But Arae . . . is different.” Chanyeol looked away for a moment before he continued, “You’re different.”      

Serenaded by the soft hum of night winds and faint chatter of other people far from where they sat, Annisa and Chanyeol once again wrapped in silence. There was this slight weird feelings that arose slowly inside Annisa. There was fear of course, for she had heard the facts about her and the spirits, but then there was also a tint of excitement. It was different now the way she saw Chanyeol, to her, he was like Peter Pan.

A magical foreign boy who knocked her window and offered her the biggest adventure in a lifetime. Adventure in a place where boudaries of dreams and reality was so thin it was almost invinsible. His eyes would spark in excitement when he say, “Forget them, Cha. Forget them all.” And off they went to the sky.

“Now I do believe in magic.”

“You’d be crazy I you don’t.”

Finally after almost an hour talking, both Annisa and Chanyeol have a little laugh together. Even when they were still unsure what future was going to give them.