Kisah Masyitah Rukyah

Chapter 9 - Masa Lalu dan Sekarang/The Past and the Present

I stand next to Xiao as he improves on his blood marker with skilled strokes.

"What's up?"

He stops for half a second to acknowledge my presence, but continues shortly after in the same old way he's always done. I nudge him with my hand to grab his attention.

"Thanks for helping with my bruising yesterday. Feels better than ever." I clench and unclench my fists. It did feel better and I didn't say that just to butter him up. 

Before we slept, Makira told me to let Xiao handle my injury, so I let him do his thing on both my hands. He massaged me and took out a very small vial from his back pocket. He poured a droplet of the red liquid out and rubbed it all over my bruise. He mumbled an incantation that I couldn't make out from beneath his mask and quietness. In a flash, my bruise disappeared. He was already retreating to his room before I could get over my astonishment and ask him how he did it.

I may be an ahli sihir, but that doesn't mean I understand what goes on with sorcery.

"Xièxiè," he murmurs out his throat.

"You're welcome. Oh wow, someone's in a chatty mood today."

He dips his brush inside his blood bucket. He's writing our full names on the bottom corner of the wall in Chinese characters, presumably to help with the bloodport or whatever else he can do. He has some nice handwriting though, I'll give him that. It looks hella similar to the font on the angpao money packets they give out during Lunar New Year.

Sabrina Al-Makira binti Wan Salman
Ramya A/P Ramesh
Xiao Xian Liang
Nik Masyitah Rukyah binti Nik Razali
Casey Reid

He hangs his brush right underneath Casey's and sighs, breathing out a question.

I lean in. "Hah? Can't hear you la."

"Your name."

"Oh, it's Harmony Teng Yee Suen."

He writes it down and encloses all the names in a circle like a twisted art project.

"So the blood marker's complete, then? I don't have to look at you perform impromptu surgery anymore?"

He nods. Even that's barely noticeable.

"Say, I've been wondering about this the moment I saw you. How the hell did you figure out your blood magic, hm?" I try to intimidate him with my superior height. Heh, now that's a sentence I never thought I'd be able to say seriously. "Did you trip and graze your knee? Got shot? Paper cut?"

No reply comes out of his mouth. Or maybe one did, but I just didn't quite hear it. Either way, his gaze and attention is fixed onto his work of art and that only. 

Ugh, I've been at this for the entire morning. I throw my hands up. Fuck it. He can keep his secrets. I go off in search of something else to do.

But I hear a whisper. I look back. Xiao brings his pale hand near his mask. 

"This."

He pulls the crimson cloth off his mouth and reveals blood red lines surrounding it. That itself is nothing new, but I get a better look at it. It looks exactly like the lines on his blood marker. 

He pulls the mask down past his chin. He's a good-looking guy but that's not the point right now. He does that to reveal his neck.

"Wha–oh, Jesus, what the fuck..."

That has got to be the nastiest fucking scar I've ever seen! The scar's a whole two fingers thick and spans his whole neck from left to right. Did he get decapitated or some shit?