Red Lights || HyunChan

Chapter 22

He meant he cares that I'm okay because I'm a good employee, right?

Right..?

My body feels weird. I was fine at first, then collapsed, and now I'm all full of energy and awake at 2:30 am. I'd be lying if I said my head isn't split up thinking about both of them.

What happened to Chan? Why did I appear here? Did I even cross the gate? Did he bring me here and went back?

And why... why did I feel like it was Chan as soon as I got close to where Mr. Hwang was? Why did I feel like opening that door would lead me to Chan, and it felt like it was him, but it wasn't?

I'm a mess.

Between the ocean of thoughts, a memory swam in.

"What was it..?" I tried remembering. A voice had spoken to me right before waking up, but I couldn't remember exactly what it was. Something about the skin?

I rolled from side to side trying to remember.

"It's hair and skin.. something like that." I sighed.

What else could I do at 2:30 am with a dose of energy? Sleeping was clearly not an option for me, so I went to the living room and grabbed my laptop.

"Hair and skin, hair and skin.." I scratched my head. Hands ready on the keyboard with the browser up to just hit the ready button.

"Hair and skin proverb" I typed. How do I know it's a proverb? It sounds like one, no? I feel like it's something Chan would say, and taking into consideration he's actually from proverbs time, it made sense.

Was it even his voice?

I scrolled through search results for at least an hour. I changed the search a million times, thinking of different combinations. I was so into finding anything, a sound from outside made my soul leave my body and come back.

I checked the clock, 4 am. Why is my neighbor even awake at this hour?

My eyes were getting tired, and I at last was kinda falling sleep. Between that battle with myself of blinking harder to keep me awake, a little red spark appeared in front of me. I opened my eyes at once and stared, the light remained a few seconds untill it disappear.

I blinked a few times and rubbed my eyes, but the light was gone. Just then, my eyes fixated on a search result I hadn't seen before for some reason.

"The forgotten side of Shinto"

I clicked on this search result, and I didn't even know the reason. Since I read -Shinto-, I don't know, it's too much of a coincidence I have to cross a Shinto gate to move around time.

I looked around while waiting for the page to load, trying to locate that red light. The light was gone, or maybe it was never here in the first place.

Of course, the whole website was red. Is it too cliché to say red is my favorite color? Yes? I should have probably said that earlier.

The title read -The forgotten side of Shinto: The past and prohibited beliefs-

" "Prohibited beliefs"? Why do I feel like I'm entering an adult website?"

I continued to read.

-Shinto religion is still practiced by a lot people, especially in Japan. It's known the Japanese placed Shinto gates on their proclaimed territories back in the day, but as time passed by, several regions removed these gates, and the religion with them.

What do you know about Shinto?

Yeah, what do I know? That religion was eradicated way before even my parents were born. Is this info even taking me somewhere?