Forbidden Link

04. The Only Contactable Person

Crossing his legs on the bed, Alex was thinking hard about who he would call right now. Unlike advice from his best friend, Farrell, the option of contacting Kaira's father was not on Alex's priority list. Didn't know how many times Alex stopped himself to even think about Kaira's father.

The closest relatives of a person other than family were friends of that person. It should be easy to find contact with friends of Alex's sister with the existence of digital communication that shows profiles on various social media.

"Should be easy..." muttered Alex while looking at his sister's Extragram profile picture which only showed the silhouette of a girl looking to the side. There was no facial expression seen in the profile picture of Kaira Donati. The sky background was graded from black-blue-purple-to white and gave a dark impression. Apart from photos that didn't really show Kaira's appearance, there was no information that could be taken from Kaira's only social media. Zero posts. Zero followers. Zero following.

"If she has friends," continued Alex with a resigned expression, looking at the screen of his cellphone.

Alex put the cellphone on the bed and lied down next to the cellphone. While looking at the ceiling of the room, Alex scanned intensely through all the information he could possibly find.

The house of Kaira and her father was located on a hill which was quite remote. The distance between Kaira's house and the fence that borders the surrounding houses was not less than one hectare. So forget about asking the neighbors because Kaira never even knew whose house was closest to hers.

Looking for friends who had been at the same university as Kaira was also not a solution. Kaira had resigned from the only major in college that she liked, namely fine arts. It was not that she couldn't keep up with her courses. In fact, her abilities had been too prominent compared to others, so that she had been in the spotlight of her classmates, including seniors and lecturers. And Kaira really hated being in the spotlight.

Kaira's work, which had been praised by the lecturers, was an abstract painting full of meaning. Kaira had given a photo of her painting to her brother also, Alex, although Alex could only frown to find the meaning of the picture he saw. That painting had been the reason that had made Kaira unable to continue her studies. There had been one time everyone had started asking her endlessly which had made her have a panic attack. To drown out all the questions from those around her, Kaira had torn up her own painting and never returned to campus.

On the campus, students from the fine arts department were often labeled as eccentric. However, those labeled as eccentric could not handle Kaira's eccentric character, which had been labeled by themselves. The conclusion was that Alex would never ask Kaira's college friends. Would never.

Kaira's life in high school had been only slightly different from her life at university. No one had dared to approach the girl because Kaira would reply to them with a stiff reaction or run for no reason that her classmates could understand.

Alex almost gave up when he remembered all the past about Kaira that he knew. Being a Kaira who suffered from selective mutism was not an easy thing. The assumption of the people around her that she had not simply been socializing made Kaira's anxiety disorder worse. Kaira often felt helpless, questioned why she was born, and tried to commit suicide.

Although Alex was still having a hard time finding the closest person to Kaira, that man was still trying to remember the events when he went to school with Kaira. However, the last time Alex regularly saw his sister was when the two siblings were in the same school as senior high school students.

Alex suddenly widened his pupils when he got Aha! moments. There had been only one person that Kaira once brought home, when Alex and Kaira were still living in the same house. A girl who was no less eccentric than Kaira to many of Alex's classmates during high school, then many of the students had given Kaira and her friend a call as a duet of broken angels. Both of them have very beautiful faces but no one had dared to approach them because the characters were considered strange.

Alex's spirits waned when he realized that he had not left a good impression on the only friend of Kaira he knew. With a forced expression, Alex got up from his lying position and gripped his cellphone tightly. Maybe about ten times Alex's thumb intended to type in the names of Kaira's friend and ten times Alex also deleted them. On the eleventh time, Alex managed to contact the only hope for Alex to find out information about his sister. He had ignored all the events in the past that had happened between him and the person he was contacting.

“It would definitely be better to contact her than to contact the jerk.”

Not expecting the call to be picked up immediately, Alex gasped when he heard a girl's voice over the speakerphone. A voice with a fairly low frequency with a firmness that was heard even if she only said one word "hello".

Alex didn't answer, so the girl on the phone continued, "Does this number still belong to Alexandre Lynx?"

"Ah.. yes. It's me, Alex. Your number is still the same, Lakelynn?”

Being able to contact a girl named Lakelynn didn't bring Alex any relief. With the complexities between wanting to solve problems and fearing new ones, Alex's intuition told him he couldn't settle down immediately when dealing with Lakelynn. The contradiction between his intuition and logic made Alex pause the phone call after Lakelynn answered his question.

“I want to ask about Kaira. Have you been in contact with her a lot lately?”

"So you've forgotten what happened between us?"

Alex patted his forehead with a face like a grimace in pain. At first he hoped that the girl had forgotten what happened when they were seniors and juniors in high school. Seven years on, and Lakelynn was still discussing the same thing when they stopped communicating with each other.

"I asked first. So you must answer my question."

"No."

Lakelynn's short answer was not entirely believable. Because the girl Alex was talking to was slippery enough to avoid a conversation with ambiguous answers if it was not what she wanted. Like when she said "No", it didn't mean that Lakelynn didn't know something about Kaira.

"Did you find out her current state after the news of the forbidden link?" asked Alex, while mentioning the "forbidden link" term which had been stated by the government.

"I've answered one of your questions. It's your turn to answer mine. So have you forgotten what happened between us?"

"I haven't forgotten that I approached you just to find out about my sister and I haven't forgotten that this reason has disappointed you. Have you still not forgiven me after seven years?"

There was loud laughter from Alex's cellphone with the same volume as when the loudspeaker button was pressed. Alex glanced at his cellphone because he thought his ear had hit the "speaker" button. However, it turned out that Lakelynn's laugh was too loud.

"Al… fortunately you haven't changed at all. It seems like you're the only one who can still talk to me."

"So how is Kaira's condition? If you intentionally test me like this, you must know something about her."

"Yes. I was with her before she fell into a coma."

"You said that you never contacted Kaira. So which part of my question did you answer?"

"I didn't contact her. She contacted me."

Unseen by the person he was talking to, Alex nodded with a straight face. He had just been tricked by a woman he hadn't seen in a long time and was two years younger than him.

"Then how is it now?"

"I'm accompanying her at the moment. When I look at her face, it seems that she sleeps more peacefully like that."

"Don't say you also want to catch up with her as a comatose patient."

"I've searched a lot about that link. It isn't a bad idea either. But it seems someone needs information from me, so I'll put it off for you."

"Where are you now?"

"Kaira's father couldn't stand it when the reporters tried to break into Kaira's room at the hospital. So she's moved home. And I act like I can heal a comatose woman by talking to her."

"You act like a psychologist."

"I'm a psychologist but I can't cure a comatose person. I don't know why Kaira's father paid me for it. Even though, ironically, I can only be paid as a psychologist at a time like this."

Alex was silent for a few moments after Lakelynn finished rambling on with her thoughts that were sometimes difficult for ordinary people to understand. It was true what Lakelynn said earlier, Alex had a special interest in Lakelynn's style of speech. It was as if Alex was being challenged to solve a riddle from Lakelynn's ambiguous conversation. Lakelynn's sentence after sentence was thought of by Alex with all the possibilities that could happen.

When someone else spoke to Lakelynn, it didn't take long for that person to give in and just leave Lakelynn. Not only did they not understand what Lakelynn was saying, people usually already labeled Lakelynn a weirdo. After learning that Lakelynn was not the same as social humans in general, they were less willing to understand about Lakelynn. Meanwhile, Alex's response made Lakelynn feel her thoughts were understandable. Although Alex's motives were often just curious.

"Lakelynn, not everyone can be beside Kaira like you. Before the conversation becomes too long, can you meet me at a nearby cafe today? I'll be leaving in a bit if you say you can."

"I can definitely make time to meet you."