Blood

Two weeks had passed since Zarios agreed to be Odessa's boyfriend.

"You see, my husband Jarsos was not the kind of guy people thought he is," Odessa said as she drank her milkshake in a cafe. "The first time you look at him, you see him as a well-dignified gentleman. He showered smiles to everyone and was always there when you needed him… somehow. I liked this man, and I think he liked me as well. It was I who made the first move, and he accepted me up to us getting married. And this is where things went downhill."

Zarios was listening with intently as he drank his black coffee.

"It turns out Jarsos had many bad habits behind the scenes." she continued. "He wanted to even share them with me, believing that I would accept them. I do not know how he believed this, but in any case that eventually led to my divorce, which was two years ago."

"What kind of bad habits do you mean?" Zarios asked.

"I would rather not talk about them." She replied.

"I want to know," Zarios insisted, "as your boyfriend, or perhaps you got infected by some of his bad habits?"

She turned her head to the window, "I did because he forced me to them, so I had no choice. But it is alright, I cleared my mind and body from them."

"You are running away from my question, what kind of bad habits did he have?"

"...I will only tell you one of them."

So he had a lot of bad habits, poor Odessa, Zarios thought.

"Fine."

"He worshiped idols."

Zarios spilled some of the coffee from his mouth, "What?" he shouted.

"Yes, it is weird isn't it? At this time and age, for someone to worship outdated idols."

"Which means that he followed some of the old practices of worshiping the idols."

"Correct, you are smart aren't you?"

"Even if you flatter me I won't give you the key to my room."

"Hey!--"

"But anyway, I would rather close the topic." He interrupted her. "Sad memories should be locked up inside your brain and just forget about them."

"No, that is not good Zarios. They will sooner or later ruin you and the rest of your thoughts. You will have to wrestle with these sad thoughts until they are no longer painful."

Zarios did not expect her to go deeper into his comment. So a lot happened to her back then, such a response would not come out of someone unless they suffered a lot.

"I see, I will keep that in mind."

"You will thank me later when you get thrown into tough times like what happened to me. With that said, it is now your turn."

"My turn?"

"Yes, I told you about my toughest days. So it is now your turn to do the same."

"I didn't go through very tough days to be honest, especially not like the one you had gone through."

"It is fine, just tell me the most painful memory you can think of."

"Alright, they are mainly about my father and the days where people harassed me because of my shyness in middle school."

"Sweet, like?"

"Sweet? You are enjoying this aren't you?"

"Come on, just continue."

Zarios gave her a glare, "Anyway, six years ago I had a really acute fever. It was strong enough that I felt my whole body was cutting pierced by needles, and I could not move an inch of my body. I shouted for my father to help me while I was lying on my bed. He stood by the door of my room, looked at me and told me to deal with it and then left to his job. And from that day I avoided talking to him."

Odessa stood up from her chair, "I really need to speak to your father. You could have died from this fever!"

"You think it would make a difference? Remember, I told you a week ago he is a robot without feelings."

"But feelings aside, from just simple logic you cannot leave a child with such a severe fever alone."

"Odessa, I really do not want to speak to this person again. Just leave it, I got used to it."

"I will leave it for now, but it is the unhealthiest thing of all not to fix your relationship with your parents."

"That is just from your point of view, he has no issues whatsoever about it, and so do I."

"…You know, now I feel like I really want to slap you."

"Be careful, that would give you negative girlfriend points," he smiled at her. "Anyway this is not the priority, the most important thing now is to remove the curse."

"Unfortunately, I agree with that. And I think I have found a solution for it."

"Really?"

"Well, the solution stems from the same reason why got the curse in the first place. It is all because of your shyness. If you stopped being shy, there is a chance the curse might disappear automatically. And even if it did not, it will no longer be difficult for you to talk to a lady every day. It is only difficult for an abnormally shy person like you."

"I feel like it is more difficult for me to overcome my shyness than dispelling the curse. It became part of my personality."

"So what? I assume this shyness of yours got developed into this monster because your father neglected you is not it?"

"True, Mother died a few months after I was born, and was in an all-boys school until elementary school. I was never in a situation that forced me to 'talk' to a lady. Gestures were enough for me to do all the job that I needed. Father knew about all of this but he did not care. Basically, I am shy by nature and my life helped amplify it."

"And why you are satisfied with this? Are you fine not talking to ladies your whole life? This is madness Zarios."

"I did think about it, but I keep ignoring the hassle of changing myself."

"You do have some of your father's messed up genes."

"Thank you."

"Anyway, the best solution now is to crack your shyness."

"Sure, but how?"

"I have my ways."

Odessa touched Zarios thighs under the table with her foot that made Zarios jump and shouted as if a cobra was about to bite him.

***

The couple left the cafe and were walking to their homes.

"You will sleep in my house today," said Odessa.

"What? You want to corrupt my pure soul?"

"A little bit. Just sleep at my house for the day as it should dilute your shyness."

"This is torture. Can't you delay this after a week or two until we are more used to one another?"

"No, this is your punishment. Last week you avoided me for the whole day except for a single minute talk to reset your curse."

"I could not help it. You do not know how tough it was for me to talk to you every day."

"But now you can talk to me for about an hour. This is good progress, but nowhere near what I want. You also need to know a lot about what ladies want and need… Come to think of it you do not know how much free service I am giving you."

While he did not have a bad time with Odessa, except her being too pushy, Zarios felt he was getting manipulated by Odessa's orders. He needed her to live, so he had no choice but to agree to all her demands.

After the two entered Odessa's house, the two argued about sleeping together or alone, with Zarios obviously sticking to the latter option. After an hour, Odessa finally agreed to let Zarios sleep alone in the living room, for today only.

***

"As I thought, you can't sleep?" Odessa said to Zarios after she came to check up on him. She wore more revealing clothes than usual.

"Of course, what if you assault me in the middle of the night?"

"You see, if I wanted to assault you I would have done it already. Geez, your shyness can be such a pain, it does not even let you sleep."

"I guess."

"I do have sleeping pills if you want."

"Huh?"

"You think I am lying?"

"No, but why do you have them?"

"I did have sleeping issues and managed to get the doctor to prescribe them for me. Using it once in your case won't be harmful if you are worried."

"Alright, I will give it a try."

Her logic was sound enough for Zarios, and he was confident enough she would not play around while he is asleep. So, Zarios swallowed the pill and entered into instant deep sleep. But this is where Tartarus torture actually began...

Zarios woke up due to some sharp pain coming from his left arm, the same arm with the curse timer. He was still in Odessa's house, but what he saw that day was unbelievable.

His whole body was tied up again, with his left arm punctured by a large needle, explaining from where the sharp pain was coming from. The needle, however, was drawing his blood to fill a container already half-full, and the culprit who did this was no one other than the person in front of him, Odessa.

"Oh, you are awake?" She said. "Do not move, I am about to finish."

"What are you doing Odessa? Stop this."

"Why? I waited a whole week to draw this blessed blood." She looked like a drug addict who could barely wait to get her next batch of drugs.

"W-What are you saying? What happened to you?"

"It is about time that I tell you about it. There is one habit from my late husband that I could not get out of my system, I am actually a worshipper of the great Tartarus."