How to Break a Curse

There might have been a miscalculation.

Around Jougasaki and me were tourists from all over the world, going from place to place. In front was a sizeable Shinto temple, and in the distance, outside the walls and torii gates were food stalls and peddlers selling all sorts of odds and ends.

“Gaaah! We messed up!” shouted Jougasaki.

We felt around the dark for an actual, real temple with authentic spiritualists in the vicinity of the Peace Park, and we took a shot here: Kurabayashi Temple.

Unfortunately, this, too, had become a tourist spot over time.

Though the building at the heart of the temple housed real worshippers and religious practitioners, it was clear that we wouldn’t even be given the time of day considering how much tourist traffic there was in this area.

“It’s cool, it’s cool. The shrine maidens were pretty cute, weren’t they?”

“Yeah but…”

I had no idea what kind of shrine maidens Jou was expecting from anywhere. I had a feeling that he had a colored impression of what they looked like, given his delusions—ladies in the best of their youth, donning white garbs and short, red skirts that show off most of their legs.

Of course, none of the maidens we saw dressed like that, and were a lot more on the conservative side. But that’s just the reality of it.

The only real shame is that there is zero chance to interact with any of them meaningfully.

But there still has to be something.

“Don’t sweat it. Maybe you’ll get your hot, nubile shrine maidens are in another castle. Why don’t we look around while we’re here?”

“I’m feeling a little dispirited.” said Jou, throwing his hands in defeat.

“Come on, man.” I said, patting him on the back. “Let’s try getting Makoto a gift from around here.”

“Fine…”

Makoto wasn’t with us right now.

Earlier, she protested against coming into the temple with us. I assumed that the reason was because of the yokai—it might genuinely be afraid of finding a spiritualist in the area.

She opted to wander the market area outside the temple instead, giving Jou and I a lot of time to ourselves.

Might as well use this chance to find another solution to her problem. At this point, I was grasping for straws. It was silly expecting any concrete solutions now.

Jou and I wandered the temple grounds and the market area outside after our supposed failed visit to the shrine.

And that was when one last twist of fate turned on me.

Between the busy stalls of the market and the forest-y, silent greenery of the temple grounds, a voice called out to me.

A raspy, coarse voice of a lady who sounded like she was holding a cough. She spoke in non-accented, almost native English, which amazed Jou and me alike.

We looked at the voice. Sitting on an ornate, white floor mat was a lady dressed in a black mourning dress and a funeral hat with a black veil that made it impossible to see her face.

Spread throughout the mat were odd assortments of pots, incense sticks, tarot cards, and all kinds of trinkets that one would normally see decorating the tent of a shady fortune teller.

She called out to me.

“You. I sense your need for succor.”

I halted my walk and faced her. Her words struck me at an odd time, though it was also possible that this was her generic come-on line attracting customers.

Much like how a fortune teller can ‘divine’ your background by simply observing evident and subtle things you have on your body, it could be just like that for this strange woman.

But I digress—I would take anything at this point.

Jou nudged my shoulder. “Dude, let’s go. She looks shady.”

I swept his hand off my arm and shot him a serious look. “No. Let me.”

Jou tried to stop me with repeated warnings, but I had no plans of being deterred. I walked towards the lady and sat in front of her mat filled with curio. Eventually, Jou gave in and took a seat beside me.

The veiled woman began to speak in that same, coarse voice.

“You have made a fine choice, good man.”

I just stared at her, waiting for her to say something of importance, or to answer a question.

“I sense a dark aura around you,” the lady said, drawing circles with her palm in front of me in a slow, ominous way. “You have been touched by a dark spirit. A yokai—am I correct?”

She was, but how could she have known that? Could it be that she was the real deal?

I answered, “Yes. That’s right.”

Jou swivelled his head my way, looking perturbed and mystified at me.

“Of what kind was this yokai?”

“A snake.”

She paused as she investigated my limbs, hovering her hand over each one. “...Indeed. The marks on your being tell me this.”

I inspected my body, particularly where I remember the snake had held me. There were no ‘marks’, let alone bruises or wounds on any part of my body.

“Marks?” I asked. “I don’t see any marks on me.”

The lady raised her arm, signaling a stop.

“The marks are not on your body, but somewhere deeper.”

“I… see?”

I made her clear my confusion as I tiled my head and eyed her non-visible face.

“But let us get back to business, good man. I sensed a burning question in your mind, and I came to answer your call.”

I gulped and asked, “But… how do you know all this? Who are you?”

The mysterious woman stayed silent. She began feeling up the various oddities that lay between us. And then she spoke again.

“You are a man of great fortune. A man who, by curse and by fate, have been brought here and now for a purpose.”

“Curse? Purpose?”

The lady grabbed a yellow-tinted crystal and dropped it into a small pot with several incense sticks.

“Curses are powerful things, good man. A curse can influence events beyond the user’s imagination to issue a confluence of happenings, all to fulfil a certain wish.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You have been brought here by a curse. Your good fortunes that opened the circumstances to lead you here are the fruits of another’s wish— and that another is burdened with the price of the curse.”

A curse brought me here?

I could scarcely believe that ending up in Japan of all places was the result of some curse. I don’t get it. How could curses result in my fortune? And why me, of all people? I never even engaged in any supernatural practice, let alone curse myself or somebody else.

“But aren’t curses bad? Curses bring bad luck and harm to people, don’t they?”

The lady pointed to a small, crystalized amber hidden in her collection that contained a small maggot inside it.

“Have you heard of Kodoku, young man?”

“Kodoku?”

“It is a type of curse— a hex.”

She pushed the amber towards me and continued.

“A Kodoku curse would have its user trap several insects inside a jar, and bury it so that none would escape. These insects will devour each other, until only one is left.”

“Interesting.” said Jou, suddenly becoming absorbed in this lady’s explanations.

“The final insect becomes the bearer of the Kodoku hex. The caster of the hex is then endowed with great fortune; however, there comes a price.”

The lady retreated her hand away from the amber, and rubbed the mouth of the jar containing the incense.

“The insect must be fed to maintain the effects of the curse. This means leaving your riches by the road, plus interest in offering to the insect—or to offer it lives of humans.”

I swallowed my spit and gripped my wrist on the utterance of that condition.

She continued. “If the bug is not fed any of these things, then only one fate awaits the hex’s owner: Death. Eventually, the insect will consume its caster whole.”

I leaned forward and tried to make sense of all this, asking her:

“Wait, so am… I gonna die? Am I an offering?”

“Easy, young man,” she said, shaking her head. “The Kudoku is only a sample of a curse that brings good fortune. In your case, no harm will befall you as is. But the same cannot be said of the original hexer.”

“The original hexer? The yokai?”

“The one that the yokai is fettered to. I am certain you are aware by now.”

I see.

So Makoto was the caster of the hex? Could this be what she meant by a ‘curse’? But all the parameters seemed wildly different. Could the nature of this curse be completely different?

However, the mysterious lady seemed to be hitting too close to home to shrug off.

But this also meant the luck I had in getting to this vacation—it was Makoto’s doing?

The lady continued to explain.

“The person might already be paying their blood price.”

Indeed. That’s why Makoto could’ve been talking about. No— I’m sure that’s what she meant.

Why’d you do it, Makoto?

Why curse yourself to endow me with great luck? Was it all to make me come here? Did you want to see me that much that you’d deal with the devil to get me here?

But something else didn’t add up.

“I can’t be Miki without her.”

What does this mean now?

This entire explanation just put an even bigger cloud over Makoto’s motives and actions.

“But I want to do something.”

“Oh?” the lady said in a fascinated tone.

“If you’re right, and that person did make a blood pact with a yokai, and I’m part of that? I don’t want to leave her like this.”

Jou turned towards me, finally tired of all the mysterious dialogue between this dark diviner and me.

“Dude, what the hell are you talking about? What do you mean ‘her’? What?”

I turned to face him and answered. “It’s Makoto. A snake spirit has been possessing her all this time. I’ve experienced it first hand.”

My words brought Jou to a standstill. Clearly, he was trying to process whatever I just said, and he was struggling to believe any of it.

“For realsies?”

“Yeah, for real.”

“I see,” he said, rubbing his chin like he just had a breakthrough. “So that’s how Ami-chan’s moving around the hotel room without me. Of course, it was a ghost!”

You dum-dum. That was me just moving her while you were asleep. Either way, if that made Jou believe in my tall tale, then I’m satisfied letting him make that wild conclusion.

As long as I can get him on board with this whole yokai business.

He hit his open palm with a fist, a determined look crossing his face. “Right. It’s hero time. Tell us what we can do, weird lady.”

The diviner remained unfazed by Jou just calling him a ‘weird lady’, and went about her thing. She took the pot with the incense and yellow-ish crystal and laid it in front of us.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“This is called spirit incense. If you light this when the spirit is in your presence, you will be able to converse with it mentally, and it will not harm you or your friend without overt provocation.”

“Spirit incense, huh…”

Jougasaki suddenly slammed the mat and laid out a ten-thousand Yen bill in front of the lady.

“I don’t know if this covers it, but you can keep the change.”

The lady slowly turned towards Jou. I could almost feel the ‘really?’ emanating from her— I could imagine the face she should be making at him right now.

Jou winked at me and said reassuringly:

“No man shall say I betrayed a brother, dude. A brother in need is a friend indeed.”

I replied, “Now you’re just mixing up the quotes. But thanks.”

It was corny, and it was silly of him. But I am truly thankful to have someone so quick to forgive like Jougasaki. Even when I put him through the wringer and ‘betrayed’ him because of Makoto, his efforts to help me still were noble.

I almost felt guilty not being a friend like that for him.

“Please, keep it,” the lady said, refusing Jou. “This is clearly a fated meeting. It would be unwise of me to receive compensation for such an occasion.”

“Alright. Your loss, lady.” Jou stared at her as he slowly retrieved the ten-thousand Yen bill.

We both stood up as I carried the incense with me. The whole package seemed much easier to carry than I thought — it looked big from the mat, but now that I was holding it, the entire thing seemed to fit into one of my bags just fine.

I bowed to her and bid her a thank you and a farewell.

“Thank you so much. I will make the best use of your advice.”

“Be well.” she said, waving us goodbye.

Jou and I started to walk away as Jou helped me stash the incense into his much more spacious bag. However, something was amiss.

As we were marching our way out of the area, I heard a familiar voice call out to us, back from the direction of the mysterious diviner.

It was a girl’s voice—but not of Makoto’s. It was of higher pitch, had a gentle touch to it, and was more mature and reassuring.

“I’m counting on you guys.”

Senpai?

The voice of a girl I had not seen for years. The voice of someone I’ve been close to before, and never again. A voice from the past: from before I became a cog in the labor machine.

The voice of a woman that may or may not have passed from this world.

I looked back at the lady's direction, and Jou turned shortly after I did.

But the lady was no more.

Her and her stall of curio had up and vanished into thin air. It was like she was never there in the first place—not even a trace.

“Did you hear that?” I asked Jou.

“Yeah…” he said in a sullen voice. “Was that Senpai’s voice?”

“But… how?”

I clenched my fist and stared at where the diviner used to be. I couldn’t believe my ears. And I still refuse to believe them.

But Jougasaki heard it too. I wasn’t hallucinating. That wasn’t that lady’s voice — it was Senpai’s.

“Holy fucking shit, dude.” swore Jougasaki. “I hope we’re not tripping out, cuz I think we just saw a ghost.”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

I continued as I turned away from the scene, nudging Jougasaki to do the same.

“Let’s get Makoto. And let’s find a way to finish this.”

I steeled my resolve. I was going to hatch a plan with Jougasaki, and we were going to break whatever curse was plaguing Makoto.

I still don’t know how this will work out, but at least now I had something to go off.

A lead.

A purpose.

A means to an end.

And if that really was you, Senpai?

Why?