"According to this.." Chan traced his finger following a line drawn with that looked like golden ink, "from the palace, we should head east".
"Okay, and then what?" Hyunjin asked.
"I don't know" Chan replied.
"What do you mean you don't know?"
"That's all it says here." He closed the book.
"Didn't you say your father always talked about the place and he was obsessed with it?"
"Yes. That does not necessarily mean he got to the lands."
"So" DaEun spoke, trying to understand, "we're just gonna walk east and hope for the best?"
"Both of you should stop being so negative. I know it will work."
"How." Hyunjin questioned once again. Chan turned to him, annoyed, and pulled DaEun closer to them. He once again opened the book, but instead of showing the "map" his father had traced, he went a few pages ahead.
He placed his finger over the page he had stopped at, looking at both Hyunjin and DaEun.
"Because this is not a coincidence." He said, showing them what he got.
"Your family's crest?" DaEun asked.
"I thought it was just our crest, too. But that changed when that man gave my mother that stone. A man that had never been to our lands, he had a stone with our crest carved in it, and he did not even do it himself."
"Either way, we-"
"We need to get going." Chan interrupted Hyunjin. "Every single minute you are here counts way more in your timeline. And if my mother knows about this you two will probably never go back. Leave the questioning for later."
"Damn, he's bossy." Hyunjin rolled his eyes.
"So are you." DaEun mocked.
"We have to avoid the palace, so we have to walk a little north first."
"Aren't we like inside the property?"
"Exactly. We have to move before anyone notice we are here."
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The first 20 minutes of walk were silent. A mix between uncertainty, anxiousness, awkwardness and doubt. All three of them probably wanted to talk about everything that had happened in general, but none of them could.
20 minutes meant at least two weeks back home.
"We're far enough I think." Hyunjin looked back, looking then at Chan. Chan nodded and started walking east now.
"How much more do you think it'll take to arrive?" DaEun asked.
"Why? Are you tired? Do you want me to carry you?"
"What's wrong? Are you tired? I'll take you."
They both replied at the same time.
"Uh no, I don't need either of you to take me, I can walk. I was just curious." She walked past them and continued ahead. Both of them remained silent, eyeing each other before clearing their throats and following.
DaEun's POV
This is fairly awkward. Being with both of them at the same time is killing me. Trying to figure this out is stressing. Walking without knowing our destination feels hopeless.
I can't stop thinking about my parents and how they'll be extremely worried if I go missing, and that's if they haven't already reported me. It's been 30 minutes and I don't even want to imagine what's going on back there.
The three of us stopped as soon as we visualized a familiar image.
"Is that..?"
"A Shinto gate." Chan spoke.
"Are we walking in circles?" Hyunjin frowned.
"No, we've been walking straight up to the mountains. This is not the same Shinto gate. But it probably means we are close." Chan assured, continuing.
"However, we're not close." I said, following Chan. "The entrance of those woods still looks far from here. That Shinto gate must be huge."
About 15 minutes later, we finally got to the entrance of the woods. The difference between atmospheres was amazing. Without hesitation, we continued walking east as we followed a trail that got more dense as we advanced. Cold started to hit almost immediately, silence became almost unbearable; not a single bird nor any other animal.
Since we left Chan's property, we had walked for at least two and a half hours. Still, no sign of the Shinto we saw before entering, and no signs of actual fauna, either.
The wood's atmosphere became heavier as we walked. Breathing was starting to get complicated, but I was afraid to ask if it was just me. A few minutes later, the three of us stopped once again at the sudden sound of water, running water.
"A river?" We looked at each other. We followed the sound until we got to an actual huge river.
"How have we been walking uphill and then there's a flat-land river?"
"I wouldn't expect anything to make sense by now."
"DaEun." Chan turned to me, "if you want to rest, we can do so here."
Honestly, I really wanted to rest, I wanted to sit down and relax a little. But I had the time differences very present in my head and I couldn't just sit and let time pass. Every single minute counts.
"Let's keep going, I'm not tired."
"You're lying." Hyunjin rested his body against a tree, crossing his arms. "Your shoes are uncomfortable and I can tell your feet are suffering. Sit down for a while."
"No, really, I can keep going" I insisted.
"We're already here, it's already been months back home probably, 10 minutes won't make a difference now." He moved away from the tree and walked towards me. Gently grabbing my hand, he pulled me towards the river.
"Please sit down" he said.
He was right though, what was done was done, and there wasn't really anything do to now that we were on our way. As I sat, I glanced back to where Chan was. He had already sat against another tree and closed his eyes.
"Do you feel dizzy?" Hyunjin sat beside me, untying my boots.
"Kind of, yeah"
"I've been feeling weird ever since it got colder. We all need to rest, he's tired too." He signaled with his eyes to where Chan was sitting. I took a look back and turned again to Hyunjin.
He had taken both my boots off, bringing my feet closer to the water. I did have some bruises from the shoes, so he gently dropped water on them with his hand. It was actually warm, not cold as I thought it'd be.
He was so gentle.
I couldn't stop staring at him, observing his every move. The way in just a few months he went from being a pain in the ass boss from a caring human being, really touched my heart.
Just watching him made my heart beat loudly. I had realized it back at home when we first kissed; that I had real strong feelings for him.
On the other hand, for some reason, I do have something for Chan. I feel like my feelings are exactly the same but extremely different at the same
Time.
"Why are you doing this?" I let out. Hyunjin, who had taken off his hoodie and wrapped my feet with it, looked at me with ease.
"You're hurt."
"No, I mean.. all this"
"Oh. I.. well, I don't really know. I guess there's nothing to lose?"
But there is a lot to lose here. Time, mostly. Also..
"What made you want to be a part of this?" I asked.
"I wouldn't say I wanted to be a part of it, it was more like I was forced into it."
I remained silent. Forced? I don't get him.
"Why don't you sleep a little?" He suggested.
"We can't sleep. Every second counts. I'm fine now, we can keep going-"
"We're all tired and you know it, DaEun. Lay down for a while, I'll wake you up."
"How come you're not resting?"
"Who says I won't rest?"
What else could I do, really? I guess I could have a little rest.
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3rd POV
DaEun had fallen asleep quite fast. Hyunjin stood up quietly and walked to another tree, close to where Chan was, and sat.
"Now we can talk." Chan opened his eyes, lowering his voice as he spoke.
"Yeah.." Hyunjin sighed.
"So we both feel something for her, yes?" Chan asked. Hyunjin chuckled a little.
"I guess we do. Though you shouldn't really be having affairs with a woman so young." He tried joking. Chan chuckled as well and looked at him.
"I know you feel the same way. I cannot help it. I feel so many different things for her it is insane. The reason behind it, I do not know it. I just feel it." Chan said.
"Same." Hyunjin agreed. "Believe it or not, I knew it the moment I crossed paths with her in this very forest."
"Here?"
"Well, not here here. I mean back at home. I was walking around here with some random woman from work, and she suddenly ran into us. I got mad at her."
"You got mad at her for that?"
"Actually, no. When I turned and saw her, it was like time stopped for me. She was surrounded by beautiful red lights, a phenomenon I'd never seen in my life. She seemed to be aware of it as well, but she looked so scared. Call me dramatic, but I just felt like I wanted to protect her, from whatever was happening."
"How come you treated her the way you did back then when I stepped in?" Chan wondered.
"It was never my intention to hurt her. After that day in the woods, I saw her again at work. The feeling of liking her was so strong it just didn't make sense to me, cause the first time we met, which was before the forest incident, she actually stepped into my office when I was, uhm, busy. I was so mad."
As Hyunjin spoke, Chan felt identified with almost every single situation that happened to Hyunjin and DaEun. One of the reasons why Chan had followed her back home that day was because he felt the most intense attraction towards her, and he wanted to know why. He wanted to know why had she stepped into his world and turn him as crazy.
"Everything you say has happened to me as well. She ran into me with a girl from the palace. Nothing serious, just goofing around. But the moment I saw her I just couldn't stop. I tried to talk to myself and deny. I also saw the lights, and I just knew it was meant to happen. "
"I fell into denial as well." Hyunjin added.
"The very next day after the forest ,when I saw her going into the building early in the morning, I was a mess. However I wanted to prove myself it was nothing and brought her to work in my office. She seemed so unbothered by what had just happened in the forest with the lights I actually thought I imagined it. I asked her about it and she didn't seem to know what I was talking about so I assumed I imagined it.
Then you appeared, and well the rest is history. I was so rude to her so many times in my denial rant she put me in place more than once, and you know what? It made me crazier for her. The night I accepted everything was when she took care of my drunk depressed ass."
Chan had listened to Hyunjin without explaining his own situation with DaEun because he knew he was in no place. Whatever the outcome of the trip was, he knew him and DaEun didn't belong to each other.
Every feeling Hyunjin faced towards her, Chan felt it too. Instead of talking his feelings out, he listened to Hyunjin.
"Depressed, huh?"
Hyunjin was taken aback a little as Chan asked, since he thought Chan would keep talking about daEun. He still answered.
"Yeah.. I was just having a sad day. I missed my dad, my mom was away in a trip and I just felt lonely. No matter who I hooked up with I didn't really feel anything, just empty. I drunk out my depressed thoughts a little too much and then of course, DaEun showed up. She helped me even after I was a pain to her... God that's so cliché" He chuckled as he heard himself.
"Your father, is he away as well?" Chan questioned. Hyunjin tried to understand Chan's thoughts and the reason why he asked such irrelevant questions; and with irrelevant it meant anything else of his life other than DaEun. Even so, considering the current situation, he couldn't complain about having someone asking about his personal life just because.
"Uh.. he's away, you could say. He actually passed away ten years ago, that's the reason why-"
"You had to take over your job" Chan completed his sentence. Hyunjin turned to him in some sort of disbelief; but more of an unsurprised way, actually.
"It was the same for me. My father left this world and suddenly my own world became a hundred times more demanding. It was also a few years back. Those were quite "depressing" moments for me, as well."
"Yeah.. I get you man." Hyunjin patted Chan's shoulder. Regardless of anything, he was the one who understood his pain the most.
Both of them looked up. At the exact same time, they looked towards the starry sky. For Chan, this was the same sky he had always seen, but for Hyunjin, he had only once seen a night sky so full of stars, and that was the night his father passed away. He noticed that particular star; the one that shined the most out of all, the one he saw only once that day.
Shiny red. He had never seen such a beautiful star, and he saw it as he cried his eyes out on the hospitals's rooftop. He found his dad in that one star, that was his comfort.
However he never saw it again.
Until today.
He laughed. Chan turned back to him curious. "What?" He questioned.
"It's funny"
"What is?" Chan insisted.
"The way we find comfort in such little details." He sighed. "See that star? The red one." He pointed up, Chan nodded.
"I spent these years looking for that star since dad died, but I only saw it the day he passed, and never saw it again. No matter how many hours I spent at night trying to locate it, I never did."
"Odd.. I see it every night." Chan frowned. "I still fail to understand what the fun is?"
"The thing is," Hyunjin continued, "I found comfort in a one in a lifetime sight, because I realized he was right about the stars. When I saw that one star I found all sense to what he said to me before leaving this world that very night. He was that star for me."
Hyunjin looked up once again, staring at his red star.
" "If you're feeling lost, look up to th-" -"
" -the sky, seek your north" Chan completed the sentence, and they said it in unison.
At that very moment, both of them knew their assumptions were right.
"My father told me the exact same thing." Chan smiled, looking up. "Although I didn't know what the star was at first, so I thought it was a-"
"Red light. Yeah, same." Now Hyunjin laughed. "I always repeated his words when at my worst moments. Funny thing is, one of those moments, was when I got drunk. I got into an argument and eventually fell on the ground, rain pouring down on me. I looked up trying to find my north. You know what I saw?"
"What?"
"Her." Hyunjin pointed at DaEun. Chan let out a kind smile.
The 15 minute chat had been enough for them to kind of bond, because they knew what they were to each other by now.
"Wanna know the reason I stuck my nose in all this mess?" Hyunjin smiled lightly. Chan nodded, watching Hyunjin bring his hand to his pocket and pulling out an object. Chan's eyes widened.
"Here." He raised his hand to Chan's face.
"How in the world-?" Chan looked at Hyunjin.
"This has been in my father's belongings since forever. There is no such thing as coincidence."
In his hand, a circular object shined under the night light.
A jade stone. An all-Jade stone with a crest perfectly carved in it.