Forbidden Link

02. Reunion

[Before Alexandre had pressed the Forbidden Link]

Almost everyone in the restaurant was so busy with their own activities that they ignored the sound that came from the television. There was only one person who really paid attention to the television which displayed the prologue of the news of mass layoffs in several companies. It was a twenty-five year old man who was sitting in the corner of the room. With a baby face and light brown fringed hair, he looked more like eighteen years old.

“... the unemployment rate surged to seven point seven percent in the September quarter this year from three point five percent in the same quarter a year earlier….”

It had been about half an hour since the baby-faced man had just sat down without ordering anything. Several times a female waitress had approached the man's seat and intended to give him the menu, but the man had only given his hand as a sign of refusal. This time the waitress came back and blocked the man's sight from watching television.

"Would you like to order something, sir?"

"I'm waiting for someone."

"Don't you want to have a look first at the menu?"

The man sighed loudly and looked up at the waitress who was standing still in front of him. Then he said, “If I want to order, I'll come to you so you don't have to check here every ten minutes. How?"

"Understood, sir," said the waitress, looking down in shame at her guest's overly detailed remarks.

About five minutes later, a tall man with black-butched cut hair entered the same restaurant as baby-faced man. With a panicked face, he walked quickly to where the baby-faced man was sitting while taking off his long blazer and placing it on his left arm.

"Sorry, Al. The meeting went on too long because suddenly my father came and gave advice to my team,” said the man named Farrell as he sat across from his friend, Al, and folded his blazer to place beside him.

"If you come two minutes and seven seconds later, I'll go back home. You have saved my time by not wasting thirty minutes,” said Al, showing the timer that had stopped at the numbers two and seven on the screen of his cellphone.

“Don't say that to Mio. He will be asking you why you came home if you don't want your time to be wasted."

“I never wanted to deal with time with him. The last time I debated him, he turned to the topic of the latest artist gossip."

Farrell chuckled at the words of his friend sitting across from him. After discussing work at a meeting that lasted for three hours, Farrell's brain seemed to be refreshed with a simple conversation right now. It was just because he heard the thoughts of his friend, Al -from Alex's nickname-, which are often uncommon. Like actually counting down time with a timer. Other people who saw it might find it strange, but Farrell enjoyed it as a fun thing.

The one-on-one conversation only lasted a few moments and had to be interrupted because two people Alex and Farrell knew had entered the restaurant. A man with brown curly hair was waving at Alex and Farrell with a cheerful face. And a woman with shoulder-length black hair with a face that resembled Farrell's face, an oval face shape with sharp eyes and fairly thick eyebrows, took the elbow of the man who was next to her.

No one responded to the wave of the man who had just entered the restaurant. The man didn't care either. His face was still smiling widely as he stepped excitedly to the corner of the room and sat down beside Alex with an innocent face.

"Leona is starving right now. Let's just order something," said a man named Mio, who was the most cheerful among the four of them.

"You go find a waiter for a menu. If you don't, I'll pass your seat on my way."

"Okay okay okay, Alex. You can sit down. I'll call them," said Mio as he sat down for a few seconds, then stood up immediately. He was afraid that Alex would press his body against the back of the sofa if he didn't act right away.

"Seeing you guys like this feels really nostalgic. Your relationship with Mio hasn't changed at all since school days," said a woman named Leona who sat beside Farrell.

"If I were you, I wouldn't fill up my brain with unimportant things like that."

Leona just smiled at Alex's words. Just like her twin, Farrell, Leona also enjoyed Alex's perception of it as a fun thing.

In a few minutes, Mio returned to his seat with two menu books in hand, giving one to the twins, and keeping the rest to him. After everyone finished ordering food, Mio took the initiative to take the conversation as he wanted.

"You already know about the website link that is going viral?"

Mio moved his index finger over the phone screen quickly after opening access using a fingerprint. The three people who were at the same table as Mio could only remain silent and wait for Mio's next action. A few minutes later, Mio put his cellphone in the middle of the table.

"It turns out that this link has been used since a few months ago. But it was only uploaded a week ago and immediately went viral."

Mio tried to explain the images and videos that appeared on the cellphone screen one by one. Leona, who had known this before, just leaned back on the sofa and watched her lover, who was so excited when he told the story.

"What is this, Mio?" asked Farrell with a frowning face.

"Wait… Don't you guys know about this at all? This news is trending number one on Theytube."

"My twin is busy making reports because Dad just got back from his new overseas project and Alex needs to look for a new job because of the riot in his work place. Their lives aren't as easy as the two of us, Honey," said Leona in a lazy tone.

Alex found himself mentioned in Leona's words. When Alex gave a wandering face to the one who mentioned him, Leona widened her eyes and pursed her lips. She didn't intend to bring up the conversation about Alex's condition but her tongue slipped away.

"So… what are you thinking about this?" asked Mio while doing a side hug to the man beside him, so Alex changed his gaze from Leona to Mio.

"I'm thinking whether or not you'll join the link. We're afraid we'll miss your rant if you don't come back after logging in."

Alex's sarcasm didn't make Mio laugh or get angry. Mio was even more excited because his friends responded to his information. He hadn't realized that Alex had captured the information from a different perspective than he had.

"Great! So Alex, you already realized it was real, right? Look, we can make a lot of money if we can get in and out from there."

Alex and Farrell widened their eyes when they heard Mio's seriousness. Since the two of them couldn't get an answer from Mio, the two of them looked towards Leona. Leona just smiled as she shrugged her shoulders.

"I've been trying to explain to him. Maybe your words will be heard more by him," said Leona, trying to ignore Mio's displeased face.

"Mio Cranesbill. You don't really believe there is a link that can put someone in a coma for months because their soul is drawn into that link?"

Mio's eyeballs moved from Alex, the person who questioned his beliefs, towards Farrell, who was now looking at him with a questioning look. Mio blinked his eyes for a while. At that moment Mio seemed to feel that the two people in front of her were so strange that they couldn't believe his words. While Alex and Farrell also feel the same way towards Mio.

"Alex…. Farrell…. This news has spread all over the world! Anything that goes on Theytube will be seen by everyone."

"Then?"

"It's impossible if they are wrong, right? If they are wrong, this video will definitely be taken down."

The three people around him knew very well that Mio was not a good argumentative person, so he would try to change the subject and avoid the fact that he was losing in an argument. But this time Mio seemed persistent and made his two friends and lover quite surprised.

Mio opened a site that showed fantastic numbers for a prize in the form of money. The money can be used to buy ten houses in the elite housing complex in the city where Alex, Farrell, Mio and Leona live. The higher the number informed, the more different the perception taken by Mio from the perception taken by Alex and Farrell. Mio increasingly believed in the news he displayed. While Alex and Farrell increasingly distrust it.

"Looks like Alex is the one who needs the most money right now. Why are you the one tempted by the money, Mio?"

"Farrell, no one would be tempted by this big amount of money!"

"I mean… you're tempted to the point that your thoughts don't make sense."

Just when Farrell wanted to give up the conversation and ask Alex, Alex's face was glued to Mio's cellphone screen. Then Alex picked up the cellphone and brought it closer to his face.

"Al… what's wrong?" asked Farrell, mimicking his face with Alex's frowning face.

"Impossible."

One word from Alex made the atmosphere of others tense. Alex's enlarged eyes became the focus of the others right now. Farrell and Leona waited for Alex's next response. Meanwhile, Mio was impatient so he peeked at what Alex was looking at and surprised Alex so much.

"Kaira Donati…. Isn't it… that…"

"My sister." Alex completed Mio's sentence with just two words and made all her friends no less surprised than Alex.

Alex swallowed his saliva while still looking at his sister's face, which he had not seen for a long time, now plastered on Mio's cellphone screen. The name Kaira Lynx read by Mio was tucked in between the sentences "Having been in a coma for one month, Kaira Donati is rumored to have pressed a strange link that is said to draw someone's soul."