Chapter 66
"Let's check that out."
"What?"
"Come on, let's go!"
"Wait a minute!"
Lee Arin grabbed Ella's hand and pulled her into the street fortune-telling booth.
Ella, firmly held by her hand, tried to shake it off but couldn't escape due to Lee Arin's overwhelming strength. Moreover, the floor was inexplicably slippery, causing her to slide along as she was dragged.
"Excuse us!"
Ding-a-ling.
As they pushed aside the curtain and entered, a bell chimed to announce customers.
The fortune-teller, who had been doing something on their smartphone, slightly raised their head to look at the two, turned off the phone, and sat at the table to welcome them.
"Oh my, welcome."
And receiving this greeting, Ella stared at the fortune-teller with a blank expression as if slightly shocked.
A slender body.
Long, lanky legs.
Hair tied back in a ponytail reaching the neck.
And a beard reminiscent of a bandit.
"Two pretty ones here. Come, have a seat."
The fortune-teller was a man.
A man using feminine speech and behaving in a feminine manner.
He smiled brightly as he seated the two across from him, and gave a slight wink to Ella, who was staring blankly at his face. And with that wink, Ella came to her senses.
Right... Homosexuals and heterosexuals are all the same people. I shouldn't be shocked or discriminate based on such things.
She reflected that she had been shocked because she had unconsciously thought that a man with such a rugged face couldn't be gay, and decided that she should break free from such prejudices in the future. Then she glanced at Lee Arin, who was sitting close beside her.
Right... Haa... I shouldn't... have prejudices...
Even though she had screamed "Are you a lesbian?!" before the sun had set.
Lee Arin, not minding such things at all, was naturally sitting close beside her.
At this point, it was enough to make one suspect attachment issues.
It wasn't like a dog sticking close to its owner, but constantly craving human warmth.
It was enough to make one curious about what kind of life high school girls in Korea lead.
"This pretty one has such interesting, varied expressions. You look innocent and full of curiosity. Oh, don't take that badly, it's a compliment."
The fortune-teller spoke with a friendly smile, seemingly amused by Ella's appearance.
"So, you came for a fortune, right? What kind of fortune would you like? I'm not very good with Eastern divination, but I'm excellent at playing card divination and tarot."
"What's playing card divination?" Lee Arin asked curiously.
He answered kindly, as if finding Lee Arin's question cute:
"Ho ho, I’ll answer your question, pretty one. Playing card divination is fortune-telling using playing cards, where we can see the future through zodiac signs and symbols. It's a bit different from tarot, which predicts the future using mystical elements and symbols."
"Which one is more accurate?"
"Oh my, of course they're both accurate! I'm a multi-talented person, after all!"
"You look like it!"
"Oh my, this child is something else."
Before they knew it, Lee Arin and the fortune-teller had started chatting like old friends. Naturally, Ella faded from their attention, and she tried to take this opportunity to quietly get up from the table.
But then, her eyes met the fortune-teller's, and he winked at her.
"Miss? You need to have your fortune told so please stay put, sweetie."
Confused by the fortune-teller's inexplicable words, Ella sat back down, and Lee Arin, her curiosity piqued again by the fortune-teller's words, asked a question.
"Why does she need to have her fortune told?"
"Hmm~ It's a bit of a long explanation."
He gave a slight smile with his eyes.
"We fortune-tellers can see things. Useless things like cause and effect, things we don't particularly want to see but can. Well, think of it as an occupational hazard. Just like a janitor seeing trash on the ground even when they don't want to, or a chef naturally noticing expiration dates even when they don't want to."
"Ah, then, whatsit. Did you see something strange like cause and effect?"
"Hmm~ Not exactly. Ho ho ho ho."
The fortune-teller took out a tarot deck and a bundle of playing cards from his bosom.
"Let me give you a piece of advice. It would be good to have your fortune told now."
"...Now?"
"Oh dear, this isn't a sales tactic. I'm doing this purely out of goodwill. Yes, I won't take a fee (bokchae) from our pretty one. I'll do it on credit, so have your fortune told. How about it?"
On credit?
At that word, Ella raised her head sharply and glared at the fortune-teller.
The fortune-teller was looking at her with a friendly smile, but Ella exuded a murderous aura as if she was about to use witchcraft on him at any moment.
"Do you think I'm an idiot?!"
"Oh my? Miss, why are you like this?"
"Are you trying to take something instead of a fee! On credit? Even if I wanted to pay, if you disappear, I can't pay the fee, which means I would have had my fortune told for free! Ha!"
A ‘fee’ referred to 'money given to a fortune-teller in exchange for telling one's fortune.'
In simple dictionary terms, it seemed like a normal transaction where you received a fortune-telling service and paid for it in return.
But there was one taboo in this seemingly simple transaction:
'Not paying the fee' was precisely that.
All sorcery came with a price.
And this applied without exception to fortune-telling, which was sorcery that saw the future, so all those who wished to peek at the future must pay a price.
Usually, it was paid in the form of life force or lifespan, but when one's luck was bad or when one saw a future too important to pay for, one must pay an unimaginable price.
Relatively speaking, the price for folk-level fortune-telling using cards, sticks, or coffee was on the lighter side.
If it went to the level of rituals, one basically had to pay years of lifespan, and there were cases where people turned into mummies, their bodies completely dried up, and died on the spot as the price for seeing something they shouldn't have seen.
But if there was a price, there was also a way to mitigate it.
Fortune-tellers mitigated the price they had to bear in the form of a 'fee', and through the causality arising from the act of 'giving and receiving a fee', they shared the price with the client.
In the case of simple fortune-telling, if the price was mitigated and shared, it ended with a price of feeling some fatigue, which was why it was a form of sorcery that the public could easily access and enjoy.
But even if it was popular and familiar, there were still things that must be observed.
That is, if you've heard a fortune, you must pay the fee.
"Frau Lee! Let's go!"
Saying that you don't have to pay the fee was the same as saying you'll bear the full price that needed to be paid when you have your fortune told. It meant you were going tol shoulder that price entirely, without mitigation or sharing.
Of course, this wasn't strange in itself.
Wasn't it something that could clearly happen, albeit rarely, that someone wants to bestow their talent on another even at their own expense?
But as the saying goes, "There's no such thing as a free lunch," there was always a hidden agenda behind something that seemed to be purely beneficial at first glance.
If you heard a fortune without paying the fee, the fortune-teller gained a kind of 'right to collect.'
Not something like life force or lifespan, but the right to take something equivalent to the value of the fortune they told. Usually, what was taken was 'fortune energy', and if this fortune energy was taken, one could experience anything from minor bad luck to life-threatening crises.
Therefore, anyone in their right mind would never trust a fortune-teller who offers to tell fortunes for free.
Never.
Ella went outside.
"Oh my! Miss! It's a misunderstanding, a misunderstanding!"
Regardless of the fortune-teller calling after her desperately, she roughly pushed aside the curtain and went out into the cold air, seemingly angry. Lee Arin, about to follow her, instead turned to question the fortune-teller who had been crying out about a misunderstanding.
"...Why did you say that?"
"Oh my, there seems to have been a misunderstanding..."
He sighed at Lee Arin's questioning.
"What I meant was that you could pay the price later if the fortune turns out to be accurate. The payment of the fee doesn't necessarily have to be done face-to-face, and if I give you a part of my body, you could use that to find me or pay the fee."
"A part of your body...?"
Instead of answering, the fortune-teller smiled with his eyes.
Then he pointed outside as if telling her to follow Ella, and Lee Arin gave a slight bow before running out to chase after Ella.
"Hmm..."
Left alone again, the fortune-teller made a strange sound in the silence that had fallen in the tent.
He took out his smartphone again, turned it on, and entered his fingerprint.
"The more I look, the more handsome and beautiful it is. Ho ho."
The app running on the smartphone was a mirror.
A very simple application that uses the front camera to display a real-time mirror-like image.
He displayed his face on the smartphone and was busy constantly examining his own appearance, smiling brightly as if something was so lovely, so pleasing to look at. He looked like a severe narcissist, as if what he saw reflected in the mirror was his ideal type.
After staring at the mirror app for a long time like Narcissus, as if about to fall in love with his own image, the fortune-teller slightly raised the corner of his mouth.
"It's a shame... I saw one of my kind after so long..."
"What do you mean, one of your kind! It's just a stupid brat!"
And then he started acting as if in a one-man play.
As if he wasn't alone even though he was alone.
As if he was clearly having a conversation, even though he was talking to himself.
The fortune-teller performed a one-man play, switching between female and male speech patterns and behaviors.
"Stupid? Oh my! You can't use such words towards a child!"
"But it's true. Isn't she a half-wit if she doesn't even know her own state when she’s a witch?"
"What are you saying about a young child! There's potential, you know, potential!"
"Potential my ass. I was selling drugs at that age."
"Oh my, do you know how old-fashioned you sound?"
"Old-fashioned? Ha, you've got some nerve!"
"She might not know if she's a witch! We might know because we can see cause and effect, but what would that young lady know?"
The fortune-teller reflected in the smartphone smiled.
"Ha, from what I saw, there was a faint smell of sorcery coming from the girl next to her."
The real fortune-teller smiled.
"What does it matter if it's just a smell and not from the person herself?"
"I guess it's none of our business!"
Hahahahaha-
Ho ho!
Laughter.
A deep male voice and a thin female voice echoed inside the tent.
* * *
"Ha, that fraudulent fortune-teller is still here?"