I placed my chopsticks down onto the table. "So essentially, you're telling me that these souls will kill anyone because it means they might get a second chance at life? Is that why that man broke into my house? To kill me?"
"Exactly," Ji-hyun confirmed as she ate another mouthful of rice, "these souls left on their own can commit horrendous crimes. A decent percentage of murderers put in jail were the unfortunate people who were influenced by their soul's past owner, but to the majority of people they just seem like murderers. The man who broke into your house was trying to kill you to gain soul energy."
The others continued to eat around the table, unfazed by what Ji-hyun had just said. But to me, this was a world shattering discovery. I felt the hairs on my arm rise, and sat there processing what I had just been told. That everyones' souls had previous owners. That I might've been killed tonight.
Right beside me, Min-Joon playfully hit my shoulder. "Don't let what Ji-Hyun just said, it's not like these souls are left unattended. People like us, extractors, track souls with excessive soul energy and prevent them from doing anything. After all, we were there to help you tonight."
I gave them a puzzled look. "Extractors?"
"We all used to be people with excessive soul energy—or as we call them, outliers—and thankfully before the past owner of our soul gained too much control, an extractor removed the excessive energy. But, after that process, you can't really go back to being who you were before," Jae-hyun opened a can of beer, "so after that you become an extractor yourself. Those who have had excess soul energy in them before are sensitive to it and can sense when someone else also is an outlier."
The atmosphere of the restaurant felt a little chillier, or maybe it was purely my imagination. Suddenly, the conversation wasn't light and the others weren't eating as much as before. With no one else in the building besides the couple of employees, talking about this type of secret information in the open made it feel like we were being watched.
No one had walked past the restaurant in the alleyway for a while now. It had started raining and the water running along the roof could be heard.
"We didn't extract that man at your house because it would be hard to explain to the police, so we brought him with us. We'll deal with him later," Jae-Hyun haphazardly told me.
I thought back to the scene at my house, how when I made eye contact with the outlier, he seemed to know exactly who I was. The gaze in his eyes gave me chills.
"But why did that outlier at my house only try to kill me and not anyone else?"
"Because you have the most soul energy out of the five of us. That's why the past owner of his soul probably told him to come after you," Ju-In said as she pulled her dark blue hair into a slick ponytail, "oddly, you have an extremely high amount for someone who is not an outlier."
"What if I am an outlier? I mean, is there a way to find out or?"
"Usually you can tell from their behaviour and the look in their eyes, it isn't quite human. But there's nothing alarming about you," she placed a piece of meat in her bowl," besides, you would've known if there was a voice in you who was influencing you."
Min-Joon set down his bowl and chopsticks. "That's enough food for me today or else I'm going to be so bloated I can't even workout tomorrow." He rubbed his stomach as he sat slouched back on the stool, leaning onto the wall behind him. Ji-Hyun joined him.
"Me too. That was a lot of food for a late night snack."
"One last question," everyone turned their heads towards me, "How could Ju-In control time?" I asked.
Ju-in stopped eating. "Some extractors have abilities because they had really large amounts of soul energies as outliers, and when it was extracted it was just too big of a chance. Though some extractors don't have any abilities," she stopped chewing for a moment, "actually, no one's really sure about where the abilities come from."
I stared in disbelief. Superhuman powers? What type of weird wattpad book did I walk into? Not even that, this sounded like something I would've made up in the fifth grade. Ju-In noticed the expression on my face.
"It sounds unbelievable, right? But in reality all of us have an ability," she pointed to Min-Joon, who looked like he was about to fall asleep, "every third punch Min-Joon throws, it has double his usual strength. Oddly specific if you ask me, but it comes in handy against stronger outliers."
At her words, I thought back to when Min-Joon fought the man at my home. His third punch had been particularly powerful and it was the punch that threw the man to the ground. Even though Min-Joon was in the living room, I could feel the impact from the kitchen.
Ju-In continued. "Jae-hyun can project illusions and Ji-Hyun unnie can take the outlier's strength for herself. But both how effective their abilities are depends on how powerful the outlier is."
I nodded at everything she said, slowly absorbing all the new information I was given.
Finally, everyone had finished eating, Ju-In feeling satisfied last. Ji-Hyun headed to foot the bill, but was abruptly stopped by Jae-Hyun, who insisted he paid. Jae-Hyun had so much determination in his eyes that Ji-Hyun forfeited.
We stepped out of the restaurant when Ji-Hyun explained that they needed me to go with them to the place where they operate—a place called "Soul Management", which was fronted as a yoga studio, and which I snorted when I heard the name. I had to explain in detail the vision I had, which they told me was my ability—to be able to see someone's death if they are killed by an outlier.
"Someone had called us and told us that there would be someone in your area who had that ability. They added that we would be able to recognize you because you had a lot of soul energy. We decided we would investigate who said that after saving the person in your vision."
I sat in the minivan with Jae-Hyun and Min-Joon on either side of me. The fact that someone knew I had an ability before I even knew astonished me. Who were they? I decided that I would put that aside for now and think about that later. Right now, I had to focus on saving the convenience store cashier from his death—before what I had seen became reality.