Chapter 133 - Sanji (1)

(Jane's PoV)

Siji came back before dark. When he appeared in front of me, he was wearing his stoic expression. Even though I knew he would use this expression most of the time while we were dealing with shadows, I could sense he was deliberately trying to hide something about Sanji from me.

Using this expression right after I asked you to check on Sanji? You really couldn't hide your expression well, Siji.

"Speak, what happened to him?" I asked. "Do I need to visit him?"

"There's no need, Milady. He is fine." Siji replied.

Normally, I would find his reply as nothing went wrong. But, somehow today I felt like he was hiding something from me. Seeing that Siji didn't want to tell me about it, I could only take care of it by my own means.

Since the day had just darkened, I grabbed my jacket and went to Sanji's place after I checked on all of the windows and doors. Surely I still didn't want my house to be visited by burglars, right?

Siji didn't say anything, but from the corner of my eyes, I could see the helplessness in his eyes. He didn't have a choice but to follow me.

I rarely went out when the night had come. I preferred staying inside the house only because I didn't want to meet ghosts on my way. There were many of them, but since my house had many guardians, it was rare for them to come and disturb me at my house; Lisa's case was the exception.

However, now I had stepped out from my comfort zone. I was bound to see 'them', like it or not. Fortunately, even though sometimes I would flinch and startle when they appeared out of nowhere with their hideous appearance, I managed to control myself not to freak out.

Well, when I was handling a mission of eradicating shadows, I knew that I turned into fearless young woman. But, handling shadows and seeing ghosts were two different things. When I handled shadows, no matter how horrible and scary their appearances were, I would not feel scared. There was a goal inside my mind, which was to help people and to exterminate evil beings. But, meeting hideous ghosts meant just seeing them. I couldn't control where they could pop out from, or how they would look like. I couldn't hurt them unless they wanted to hurt me.

So yeah, I didn't feel much fear, but they always startled me.

I rode my father's scooter towards where Sanji lived. He lived not far from my house, so I could reach him in no time. After parking the scooter in the safe place, as well as ignoring the look a Kuntilanak gave me, I went straight ahead to Sanji's room.

Knock, knock, knock!

I knocked on his door lightly. After waiting for while, I couldn't hear anything from the inside, so I knocked again. This time, I barely caught the rustling sound. Not long after that, I heard raspy voice asking behind the door.

"Who is it?"

I frowned. His voice sounded like he was sick.

"It's me. Open the door, please." I answered.

"Jane? What are you doing here?"

"I'm coming to check on you. Are you okay?"

"I'm okay. Just go back." He answered hastily.

"Open up so I can see you. You don't sound you're alright." I frowned. Siji and Sanji did hide something from me. "Sanji, open the door!" I insisted.

"No. Just... go, please." He sounded helpless and I was intrigued with his condition.

What had happened to him that he didn't want me to see him?

"Sanji, open the door!" My voice hardened as bad feeling started to fill my chest. Sick or not, for Sanji not to let me see him must be something big had happened to him.

"Jane, please..."

"No, open the door or I'll break in!" I said. Breaking into his place was an easy feat for me.

Of course, for normal people, breaking into a place was tiring, troublesome, or even impossible. But, ever since I had learned how to get into the other dimension, this kind of thing was easy for me.

The other dimension, astral world, or mystic world was not bound by space and time. It only looked spacious inside, but the door could be anywhere. One step inside could be one thousand step in the human realm. Humans' walls were nothing in the eyes of ghosts and citizens of the other dimension. For me, it was only a matter of opening an invisible door and crossing the door to get inside Sanji's place without destroying his place.

I used to hear a story about how people could travel thousands of miles in five to ten steps. I already thought that it was amazing even though I had not known the way yet. Now that I knew they were using the astral world as their door, I even thought it was even cooler. It had never crossed my mind that I could do it myself.

Not that I always did it. Since I couldn't show myself in the astral world, I could only make use of my house in the astral world. More than that, I couldn't do it. I couldn't risk myself open up a door that could lead me to the street of astral world. Only after I was powerful enough than I would use this ability to the fullest.

Who knows maybe I could even cross the ocean with just five steps in astral world? Then, would I be able to travel around the world? Of course, it would be illegal since I didn't have visa to some countries.

Well, now I was planning to use this skill to break into Sanji's place if he didn't open the door for me.

Probably sensing the determination in my voice, the door creaked open. Sanji appeared looking all haggard. His eyes had dark circles around with face as pale as paper. The l.u.s.ter I usually saw in his eyes faded so much he almost looked like a drug-addict.

But, I knew he didn't and wouldn't touch any of those things.

He even thinned out a lot in a week! What had happened to him, actually?

Sanji looked away, avoiding my scrutinizing gaze. "I've told you to go away." He said in a low tone.

I pushed the door opened and walked inside. After closing the door behind me, I finally saw the change happened to Sanji fully.

"What... had happened to you?" I whispered as I looked at him from head to toe.