A few minutes after Jena opened the TV and started watching, Lean cleaned up and prepared dinner for them. After dinner, Jena bathed, while Lean prepared her bedding to stay the night away.
It's not a weird thing for Jena to stay the night each time she inspects Lean's curse and condition. Most of the time, she would even stay for over a week when she wants to.
Current time: 01:24 AM.
"Je- Jena, stop it hurts." Lean whispered. "You're choking me again!"
Each time Jena spent the night, the two would sleep next to each other. Though this might sound weird, for Lean, it's torture, due to her sleeping habits.
Lean face was right in front of her belly button. While his neck is leglocked by her. Lean couldn't breathe, in terms of strength, Jena would win. Making this moment a struggle for life.
"This woman!" He yelled inward. "This is the reason why your relationship doesn't last long." Grabbing her legs away from his neck.
After some considerate time, Lean successfully escaped from her grasp and moved away from her.
Sitting back on his bed, he gazed at her and muttered: "This woman is a three out of three. She has good looks, is smart, and even good at cooking. But her sleeping habits are horrible."
He paused for a while, rubbing his sore neck, then continued.
"Even if you have that all, no one's gonna want to stay with someone trying to kill you every single night. Not just that, as a supernatural being, her strength is too much for a normal person to fight back."
".... Not only that. Your habit of stalking your boyfriend is too much. Last time you found your boyfriend talking to a girl, you went and kidnapped him." Lean shrugged at the last words before lying down to go back to sleep.
"And later on, we found out it's his sister." He followed up, before closing his eyes.
— — —
An hour later after Lean went back to sleep.
"He's asleep… right?" Jena thought, sitting up in her bed. Turning to him, she found him deep asleep.
"Good, then I should start now." Jena quietly steps out from the living room they are in. Making her way to the kitchen, where the back door to the rabbit forest is.
On the last step before leaving the living room, she turned around and gazed at Lean. "So that's what you think about me!?" Making a promise to herself, to make him suffer for his words before.
Jena was delighted with his words at first. But the moment he started talking about her sleeping habits, she wanted to get up and punch him in the guts for it.
Especially when he started talking about her relationship with her boyfriend. She unknowingly let out a bit of negative emotion toward him.
Lean, who's deep asleep, felt cold. As if a storm is about to approach him. But it didn't bother him enough that he would wake up and think about it.
Stepping into the wet grass of the forest. Jena took a deep breath before raising her hand.
"Curse energy technique… {Curse search}." Dark green energy gathered on her palm before it flew over the forest, showing her where the rabbits were located.
"Twenty… there should be more than this." She whispered, before swiftly moving into the forest, jumping on top of them.
"Lean, what happened to you in the last few days? It's like your memories have been erased… and did you even manage to kill a rabbit this week?" She asked worried about his situation.
To Jena, Lean's current situation was weird. For him to ask everyone's names like he had no idea what they were, not only that, but his curse is acting up a bit too much.
Right now, Jena is going around the rabbit forest marking every single one she finds with her curse energy. The moment she found one, she would leave a green mark on their forehead then move again.
She doesn't know what to do and doesn't dare to ask him about this matter. So by going around and counting how many rabbits there are, she can then make a conclusion about it.
Twenty minutes later. Jean went back to the house's back door and sat down against the wall.
"Forty-eight. There are only forty-eight rabbits in this forest." She whispered, worried in her voice. "This can't be right? Last time I counted, there were fifty-two of them."
"The last time I went and visited him was over five weeks ago. So there should be only forty-seven of them. If he didn't get to kill one this week…."
"Then. What did you kill?" Jena was confused, to limit the mind type curse on him. Lean needed to kill one animal a week to do it.
Not only any animal, but one that is big enough for him to think about it. Which is the obvious choice, a rabbit
******
Lean's mother introduced her to Lean when he was six years old. It was the age when he received the bloodline curse of theirs. She still remembered how his mother approached her that day.
"Jena. Meet my son. Lean." His mother said, pulling Lean out from her back. "Come on… Lean introduce yourself!" Pulling the young Lean from her back.
Jena met his mother in her mid-sixties back then. She had Lean in her early sixties, which was quite late if Jena had to say so.
Though she was old, she still looked like she was in her early forties. One thing she got to know as soon as back then, was that she had outbursts of anger.
At that time, Lean, who had just woken up to the curse of their bloodline. The moment he did, he went and killed their family dog, leading to his mother calling out to her for help.
The worries of his mother were too much for her to ignore so Jena decided to help them out. When she knew her capability was not cut out for it.
"Hello, Lean. My name is Jena." She said. But Lean at that time when he had just awakened the curse, couldn't bring himself to interact with anyone.
His mother had a complicated look at that time, before asking Jena to move to the forest behind their home. Multiple rabbits were in a cage when they got there.
"What's with the rabbits?" Jena asked his mother.
"That. That's for Lean to kill when the curse acts up again." Her words placed fear in her heart when she heard them.
"You're an Exorcist right? Then you should have the ability to interact with curses and even purify them."
"That's right, ma'am," Jena replied.
"I'm gonna be honest with you. Please help my son control the curse within him!" She begged, going on all fours to Jena. "I don't have much, but I'm willing to give you all I have, just for you to help him!"
"Please, ma'am, stand up, don't do that. Your son is playing near us. If he sees you right now, what do you think he'll think about you!?" Grabbing her to make her stand up.
After a while, the two of them were having a bit of snacks with juice while Lean was trying to catch the rabbit let out from the cage.
"Can you please tell me about this curse your family has?" She wanted to know more about the curse before doing anything.
"I don't know much about it since my mother never told me much about it. Thinking I was gonna be the last member of the bloodline."
"You know, the last two generations of my family have lost their ability to give birth anymore, leading to my mom never telling me about the curse. We don't know the cause of it, but then suddenly, I gave birth to Lean…"
"Which was weird since the moment our ancestor got the curse, no one in the family had a son since then. When I found out I had a son, the first thing that I thought of was. He was gonna be the last member of this family."
Her words were long, as if she wanted to talk about this matter for a long time but couldn't find a moment to do so. When that time was present, she couldn't stop running her voice.
"Sorry. It seems like I got lost in my thoughts. But the only thing I know about the curse he has is two things. One is the state of physical and one in the mind. When Lean is hurt, cracks colored in red would appear in his eyes and increase the amount of pain he feels."
"That's horrible, especially since he's just a child." Jena unconsciously said.
"Yes, it is. But the second part is worse. The mind state would happen when he feels negative emotion, and when a certain meter reaches…" She couldn't bring herself to say it, but she knew if she didn't say it, Lean would be in trouble more.
"It will influence him to do harm to those around him and to himself." The words were simple, but heavy.
Jena then understood why she hurried to get her help, if the curse were to reach this certain meter, Lean would commit self-harm against himself, whether he wanted to or not.
And if he doesn't have anyone to cause harm with, Lean may end up killing himself, giving the rabbit a cause for their existence.
Since then, Jena would visit their home and help Lean regulate his curse. Entering his Soul area and purifying the curse for a bit, helping Lean live a normal life.
And through the passing year, Jena's abilities as an Exorcist rose up to the point where she can limit the curse within Lean for over a month without it acting up, and destroying his life.
Now, here right beside him, Jena finally understood what he had killed this week… no, more like, who he killed.
"Lean, did you kill yourself?"