Doctor Demon

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....

Junho was at Bomi's house and explained the whole situation to the old shaman. The latter heard the story of how Hobin fainted during exorcisms and also Jina killing a demon. He frowned, deep in thought.

"I've done many exorcisms and dealt with supernatural creatures," he said. "But this is the first time I've heard of something like this!"

He strode towards his bookshelf to take out his diary. For years, Bomi had maintained a record of all the demonic possessions and flipped through it.

"I've never seen a demon die," he muttered. "Are you sure it died?"

"It burst into a ball of light and disappeared!" Junho exclaimed. "My granddaughter saw its true form. Apparently it looked half human and half bird. It just exploded in front of her."

Bomi was now totally lost. No matter which case he studied in his book, in all the scenarios he just extracted the demon from the person and sent it away. The demons could not possess that same person again so they ran away either back to hell or looked for someone else. But it was the first time he heard of a demon dying.

"This is crazy," he said. "We don't have enough information on the demons to verify that it died. What did it say again?"

"It said that it was a Vurthramis Lord," Junho recalled. "And it called Hobin as 'Prince'."

"Prince? There are no demon princes! Just one ruler who's been missing for many years."

"Missing?"

"The King of Hell," Bomi said. "No one knows his name but it's said that he left hell many hundreds of years ago. No one knows why and the demons won't tell me either. Most of them are escaping hell but new demons are created there almost everyday. The older demons who are loyal to the King, are still looking for him."

"Is that a bad thing?"

"Well, demons are more complicated than humans," Bomi explained. "They have certain rules they live by and they don't break those rules. Only the malevolent demons wreck things up in the living world. I'm sure there are laws and regulations in Hell as well otherwise we'd see an onslaught of demons in the world. I think that they're working in the shadows to keep the balance between the worlds while looking for the King."

"As for why Jina was able to kill this demon," he went on. "I don't know. Her powers are inexplicable. We need to get to the bottom of her abilities and find out why she's so special. She's the mixture of two very powerful bloodlines. Her powers connect her to the Living World, Purgatory and Hell. We'll have to find out more about them."

"But what about Hobin? Why was he affected by the ritual?"

"I'll have to perform a purification ritual on him," Bomi sighed. "Put him in a trance and see what's really inside him. Is he even human at all? And the salt didn't affect him last time, right?"

"It didn't," Junho replied. "It wasn't until Rachel's exorcism when we realized that something might be wrong.

Bomi nodded thoughtfully. "Alright!" he exclaimed. "I'll need to conduct the purification ritual on a full moon night when the energy of supernatural creatures is at its peak. If he's really human, it won't hurt him. But if something is hiding in him, it'll come out. We just hope that we can extract it out of him."

Junho was grim. He was sure that Hobin was not possessed and he even admired the kid for his intelligence and wit. It would be a shame if the kid turned out to be an evil entity or worse. All he could hope was that he was wrong.

….

Hobin was getting impatient. He had a pager in his hand and was pressing it continuously. Miyoo, who was indulging in the crab cakes Siwan made for Hobin, looked up to see her sister rushing into the ward.

"Why are you pinging me so much?" Jina scowled. "I told you that I was getting your reports!"

"I'm hungry," Hobin said. "Feed me."

He grinned at her, making Jina feel irritated. Ever since he woke up, he was using her as his personal errand girl. She bought him medicines, stayed with him almost all the time, fed him and even read complicated reports out loud to him. In fact, Jina had to read out strange numbers to him related to psychology and now, she even had nightmares of maths!

"Your hand is fine!" she gritted. "Feed yourself!"

"I don't want to."

"I'm not doing it!"

Hobin pouted a little, faking a puppy dog expression. "I protected you when those ghosts attacked you," he mumbled. "You can't do this much for me?"

Jina was greatly irritated. He had been using that incident as leverage over her, making her do all kinds of chores as if she was his lackey. 

"Sis, bad," Miyoo said.

"See? Even the kid thinks that you're being ungrateful. Ahh Tinkerbell! I thought you paid your debts to people…"

Jina grumbled and picked up a spoon. She unpacked the lunch which the nurse had dropped off for him and begrudgingly began to feed him. Hobin was elated as he happily ate by her hands. He knew that he was being childish and their time together as partners was only temporary. Soon, she would start dating his brother and live a life of her own.

Then she would no longer be his Tinkerbell.

He hid the strange feeling in his heart. It was as if someone was ripping it out and crushing it hard. Hobin never felt this way about someone and the night when he heard his brother confess his feelings, the ground beneath him had slipped. There was no anger or resentment in him towards his brother. Siwan deserved to be happy.

But he hated himself for feeling so jealous. With great difficulty, Hobin had hid the fact that he was Jina's first love, Shinho. It was his past life and he was going to fulfill his promise to her. Even if it meant seeing her with someone else.

Jina was startled by the sudden intensity in his eyes. He was giving her a gaze full of longing which made her heart beat loudly. She could not look away from him, her mind muddled with only his image. He was making her feel things which she had not felt in a while and it scared her. There was an undeniable attraction which was hard to fight off but for some reason, there was also a sense of dread.

Unbeknownst to them, Siwan was standing at the door, watching them. Their little moments had not gone amiss by him and he stared at them for a while. But they were lost in their own world, oblivious to everything else. Slowly, he backed off, leaving them alone.

Jina's cheeks reddened and she cleared her throat.

"Grandpa is talking to his friend about your condition," she said, averting her eyes. "Hopefully, they'll come up with a solution."

"Hmm," Hobin said. "I know."

There was an awkward silence between them. Jina put away the empty bowl and fidgeted in her seat. 

"Thank you," she finally said. "For that night. I don't think I could've handled those ghosts myself…"

"I didn't do anything," he said. "They ran away before I barged in."

"Still, it was nice to have someone console me. I never felt so scared in my life. For a moment I thought that they'd kill me. I...I'm scared of death too. Weird, huh?"

She gave him a small smile but was ashamed to admit her fear of death. It was strange that a person who communicated with the dead on a daily basis was afraid of it.

"Finally, you're being normal!" Hobin snickered. "I used to think you're weird for not being scared of death. This means that you're human. A short and tiny human."

Jina was about to snap at him but he raised his hand and patted her head. "Good work, partner," he said. "You killed a demon! Be proud, woman!"

He was attempting to cheer her up. Jina felt a tiny palm touching her and she looked around to see Miyoo, also patting her arm.

"Good work!" she exclaimed, flashing a thumbs up.

Jina looked from her sister to Hobin, both of them attempting to console her in their weird ways. She smiled widely, making Hobin blush.

"Let's work harder then!" she declared.