After finishing his morning class, Arya walked slowly down the campus hallway. Every now and then, his eyes moved from one place to another, as if he were searching for someone. His face looked confused.
His mind had been stuck on the man who appeared in his dream the night before. He could still remember quite clearly how the man stood beneath a huge tree, holding a keris, dressed in casual clothes like any modern person.
But after waking up, he had very few clues about who the man was or where that tree might be. That was why, once class ended today, Arya decided to try looking for him around campus.
From a distance, Rika watched Arya glancing around busily. She tilted her head slightly, trying to guess what he was doing. A small smile appeared on her face, especially since Arya, who usually strolled along so casually, now looked so serious about finding something.
Without wasting any time, Rika floated over to him. Her long hair moved softly with her body, and her face wore its usual cheerful expression.
"Arya, what's wrong?" she asked.
Arya only glanced at her. He didn't answer right away and went back to scanning the hallway.
Seeing this, Rika became even more curious. She drifted a little closer and tried guessing in a teasing tone.
"Did you lose your money? Or drop it somewhere?"
Arya finally stopped walking. He turned to Rika and let out a small sigh before explaining what he was looking for.
"I'm looking for someone... a man I saw in my dream that night. He pointed toward a huge tree with jasmine flowers."
"A man?"
Rika frowned. Her head tilted slightly as she tried to understand. She didn't seem sure about what she had just heard. To her, looking for someone based only on a figure from a dream sounded pretty confusing.
Seeing her expression, Arya smiled a little. But the smile only lasted a moment before he turned his eyes forward again.
Without saying much more, the two of them walked down the hallway toward the ground floor. Rika floated beside Arya, now and then asking small questions about the man he was looking for. She wanted to know what he looked like, whether Arya knew him, and why Arya felt he needed to find him.
Arya only answered when necessary. His attention was split between their conversation and the campus around him. He kept studying the students passing by, hoping to find someone who matched his memory.
Just as they were about to go down the stairs, Arya suddenly stopped. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a student sitting under a tree near the motorcycle parking area.
The student was busy flipping through a paper. A few sheets were in his hands, and now and then his eyes dropped to the pages, as if he were double-checking his assignment.
Arya stared at him for a while. He tried to match the figure in front of him with his memory of the man from last night's dream. Once he was sure, his expression changed.
"That's him," Arya whispered.
Without waiting any longer, Arya dashed out of the hallway and headed for the parking area.
"Hey! What's going on? Aryaaa~!" Rika cried in surprise.
She froze for a moment, watching Arya suddenly run off. But her curiosity quickly beat her confusion. Rika floated after him, trying to catch up while wondering what on earth was happening.
Arya hurried down the stairs and ran up to the student under the tree. His steps were fast and a little frantic, as if he were afraid the man would leave before he could get any answers. As soon as he reached him, Arya stopped.
"Excuse me, can I ask you something?" he said politely, though he sounded rushed.
The student looked up from the paper he was reading. He studied Arya for a moment with one eyebrow slightly raised. Having someone suddenly walk up to him was confusing enough, especially with Arya looking so serious, as if he had something important to take up with him.
Arya, still catching his breath, huffed quietly. He bent over a little and rested both hands on his waist before looking at the student again.
"Listen, I'm not going to let you walk away. I just want answers," Arya said, stammering because his breathing still hadn't settled.
The student fell silent for a moment. Then he slowly closed the paper in his hands and set it on top of his notebook. His eyes stayed on Arya, calm, but cold.
"Answers? About what? I don't understand what you're talking about."
"About that dream," Arya answered firmly.
He folded his arms across his chest, trying to show that he wasn't joking. His eyes never left the student's face.
"You obviously know something. So stop playing dumb."
The student let out a long sigh. He didn't seem very interested in continuing the conversation. He straightened a few sheets of his paper before looking at Arya again.
"I think you've got the wrong person. I'm not a dream interpreter."
Arya frowned. The answer only irritated him more. He had gone to all this trouble to find this person based on his memory of that night's dream, and now the man he'd found was pretending to know nothing.
"If you know something, please tell me. Don't fool me!" Arya pressed, his voice rising. "In that dream, you were the one who told me to pick the glowing jasmine. If you really don't understand what I'm talking about, why are you trying to avoid me?"
The student didn't answer right away. Instead, he stood up calmly and put his paper and notebook into his bag. His movements were so relaxed, as if nothing Arya said was important enough to make him hurry.
After he finished packing, he looked up and met Arya's eyes.
"Look, I'm not the person you're looking for," he said flatly. "And I'm not interested in a romance between men."
Arya's expression turned blank, as if he needed a few seconds to process what he'd just heard. But once he understood, his face quickly turned annoyed.
"In that case, I...!"
Arya didn't get to finish. Before the student could actually walk away, a cheerful voice rang out from behind them.
"Arya! Why were you running earlier?"
Arya turned at once. The moment he saw the figure who had appeared between them, he blurted out,
"This girl!"
But the student's reaction was very different from what Arya expected.
His eyes went wide. His body suddenly stiffened, as if he had just seen something that absolutely shouldn't be there. He stumbled back a few steps on reflex, then dropped into a defensive stance. Both fists were clenched and raised in front of him, wary, as if bracing for a threat.
Arya noticed the change. A moment later, the corner of his mouth lifted. He was starting to understand something from that instant reaction.
Unlike before, this time Arya laughed softly. He looked at the student with a satisfied expression, as if he had finally found the crack in his act of pretending not to know.
"So, you can see Rika, huh?" he said with a smirk. "Oh, Mr. Clueless."
Rika tilted her head, looking back and forth between Arya and the student. She had no idea what was going on. The two of them had been talking in serious tones this whole time, even pressing each other now and then as if arguing about something important. But neither of them had made any effort to include her.
"Huh? What's going on? Are you two talking about me?"
The student seemed to be trying to compose himself. He slowly lowered both hands, though tension was still clear on his face. His eyes flicked to Rika, then back to Arya.
"I don't know what you mean. I just..." He paused, as if struggling to find the right excuse. "Ah, never mind. Forget it."
Arya only became more certain that the student in front of him was hiding something. He stepped closer with a triumphant smile, as if he had just found the proof he'd been looking for.
"Huh? Don't joke around," said Arya. "If you really don't know anything, why did you go on guard the moment Rika showed up?"
The student didn't answer. He just stared at Arya with a stiff expression, his body still a little tense.
Meanwhile, Rika was getting annoyed that no one was paying attention to her. She raised both hands and waved them in front of Arya's face and the student's, one after the other. But her efforts did nothing to catch their attention.
"Hello? I'm right here, you know. What are you two talking about?"
Arya and the student just looked at each other again. They both seemed too caught up in their own business to notice that Rika was standing right between them.
Arya leaned his body to the side and brought his face closer to the student's. The smile on his face slowly turned into a probing stare.
"Just admit it," he pressed. "You definitely know more than you're saying, don't you?"
The student took a step back, keeping his distance from Arya. But he still chose to stay silent and offered no explanation.
Seeing herself ignored again and again, Rika finally scowled. Her fists clenched at her sides. She took a deep breath, then leaned her face toward them both.
"DON'T IGNORE MEEEE!!!"
Rika's shout exploded so loudly that Arya and the student both jumped back at the same time. They instinctively clapped their hands over their ears, and their faces showed nearly the same shock.
"My earssss!" Arya winced, holding one ear. He turned sharply toward Rika. "Rika! Don't shout that loud!"
The student beside him didn't look any better. He turned his face away, rubbing his ear, trying to get rid of the ringing. He looked annoyed, though also a little embarrassed by how dramatically he had reacted.
"That voice could split my head open..." he muttered.
Rika crossed her arms over her chest. She glared at them both, as if she didn't care about their complaints. Now that she had their attention, she raised her chin slightly.
"So, are you going to tell me what's really going on, or do I have to scream again?"
Arya and the student looked at each other for a while. After Rika's scream, the atmosphere, which had been full of argument, suddenly turned awkward. Both of them fell silent, as if they didn't know where to start explaining. Meanwhile, Rika kept standing in front of them with her arms crossed, waiting for one of them to open his mouth.
"What weird people," Rika muttered with a long sigh, looking more and more fed up with the two humans in front of her.
The student finally gave in. After being pressed by Arya for several minutes and annoyed by Rika's scream, he realized that pretending not to know would only make things more troublesome.
"I'm Dionatra Wirayudha, but just call me Dio," he said.
Dio held out his hand to Arya as a greeting. His manner was a little calmer than before, though some tension still lingered on his face. Arya took the offered hand warmly.
"Arya Prawisandha."
They shook hands briefly. But before their conversation could continue, Rika suddenly cut in, full of excitement.
"I'm Rika, Rika Alena!"
The girl drifted closer to Dio with a bright smile. She looked at him as if waiting for his reaction to her introduction. But her behavior only startled Dio. He instantly jumped back several steps, almost losing his balance as he dodged by reflex.
Arya frowned when he saw this.
"What are you doing, perverted ghost?" he scolded, sounding a little annoyed.
Rika puffed out both cheeks. Her face turned red from embarrassment and irritation at what Arya had called her.
"Who are you calling perverted, you weirdo human?" she shot back.
Arya only glanced at her, while Rika kept pouting. Dio chose not to get involved. He looked away, trying to avoid Rika's gaze, which had turned back to him.
"All right, Arya. I'll explain," Dio finally said. He took a breath before continuing. "What you went through back then wasn't a dream. It was astral travel, and it wasn't a dream."
Hearing this, Arya turned his full attention to Dio. His expression turned serious. He no longer cared about their earlier bickering because of the term Dio had just used.
"Astral travel?" Arya repeated. He frowned, trying to make sense of the term. "You mean my soul left my body? Like that?"
Dio nodded slowly.
"Yes. Simply put, your soul passed through into another dimension, what people usually call the unseen world, or the realm of spirits."
Arya fell silent. He tried to connect Dio's explanation with the experience he still remembered, which he had assumed was just a dream that felt incredibly real. But if what Dio said was true, then it had really happened.
Dio went on in a serious tone.
"But if you're asking why you were able to do it, I don't know the answer. It's not something just anyone can do without a reason behind it."
Rika, who had been standing between them the whole time, listened in too. Her cheerful expression slowly turned to confusion. She looked at Arya, then at Dio, as if she had just realized something that had never occurred to her before.
"That means..." Rika paused before continuing in a disbelieving tone. "Arya could enter my world because he has something special? It wasn't just a coincidence?"
"You could say that," Dio answered.
He turned his eyes back to Arya. This time, his face was far more serious.
"And I have to warn you. Astral travel is very dangerous for anyone who doesn't understand the rules and mechanisms behind it. If your soul is destroyed in that realm, it's the same as dying in the real world, and there's no way back."
Arya froze for a moment. He never imagined that the experience he had taken to be just a dream carried such a huge risk. Slowly, he tried to absorb every word Dio said, making sure he hadn't misunderstood.
"Wait..." Arya stared at Dio in disbelief. "So if I die there, I really die here?"
Dio nodded again.
"Yes."
He gave no roundabout answer. His gaze stayed calm, but the seriousness in his voice showed he wasn't just trying to scare Arya.
"Also, a human who manages to cross into that world only has limited time. The longer your soul is separated from your body, the greater the risk that you won't be able to return to it."
Hearing this, Arya felt a sudden chill down his back. He remembered everything that happened that night. If he hadn't made it back, he probably wouldn't be standing on campus talking to Dio right now. His body, which still ached after the incident, seemed to be a reminder that it might not have been just a dream.
"Then..." Arya paused, trying to put his question together. "How can I avoid that? Is there a way to control it?"
Dio shook his head slowly.
"I don't know why you were able to enter that world. So I can't give you any advice or information. But one thing is certain: you need to be more careful. Don't get trapped in there."
Arya lowered his eyes for a moment. Dio's answer hadn't given him any certainty about the cause of his astral travel or how to control it. But at least he now understood that what happened that night was far more serious than he had ever imagined.
Rika, who had been listening all this time, finally spoke up again. She looked at Dio with a curious expression, as if a new question had just come to mind.
"Wait, Dio. You can see me, right? So you already know about that world, or at least you have experience with it, right?"
Dio let out a long sigh. He seemed a little overwhelmed by Rika's endless questions. But before answering, he shot her a slightly sarcastic glance.
"Yes, I know. But it's not my job to explain everything. My job is only to make sure the unseen world doesn't upset the balance of the real world and to prevent worse things from happening."
Dio paused. The calm on his face slowly turned to irritation. He pointed a finger at Rika.
"But more importantly, WHY DID YOU COME TO THE HUMAN WORLD, YOU TROUBLESOME GHOST?!"
Dio's shout made Rika flinch. She quickly clapped her hands over her ears and pulled her head back with a scrunched-up face.
"Well, I don't know either..." Rika answered after Dio stopped yelling. Her voice was quieter than before. She lowered her head, showing regret for what she had done. "I actually tried to go back, but I got scolded by two scary gatekeepers. So I ran to Arya's boarding house, because he's the only one I know in this world."
Arya frowned. All this time, he had heard Dio mention his duties and responsibilities several times. But the explanation still hadn't satisfied his curiosity.
"Duties? What do you mean?"
Dio turned to Arya. He seemed to weigh for a moment how much information he should share before answering briefly.
"I'm an overseer." He went on. "My family's duty has been passed down through generations. We're responsible for making sure the unseen world doesn't cause problems in the real world. That's all you need to know for now."
Meanwhile, Rika seemed to be thinking about something. She tilted her head, trying to recall what had happened before she met Arya. A few moments later, her expression changed, as if she had found a familiar piece of memory.
"Hmm..." she murmured. "I don't remember ever meeting you before, Dio. But I do remember an elegant woman in a red dress who was kind of scary. Even so, she was beautiful..."
When he heard the features Rika described, Dio looked at her more sharply. There was a slight shift in his expression, as if someone's name had just crossed his mind.
"A red dress?" he repeated. He was quiet for a moment before continuing, "That might be... Nagini."
Arya, hearing the unfamiliar name, turned at once.
"Who's Nagini?" he asked curiously.
Dio then explained, "She's a spirit who dwells inside the keris and has been protecting my family all this time. One of the most powerful beings in the unseen world."
Arya fell silent. The name Nagini and the woman in the red dress Rika described were now new things he had to wrap his head around. But before he could ask another question, the conversation paused. The three of them sank into their own thoughts, trying to take in all the information they had just received.
"In that case, we should work together. Dio, you know a lot about this world, while I'm the one who got trapped in it."
Arya then glanced at Rika. The corner of his mouth lifted slightly before he went on in a teasing tone.
"And this one... she's just an intern ghost in that world, right?"
Rika immediately looked annoyed. She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at Arya, clearly displeased.
"Stop making fun of me, both of you!" she protested.
Arya only smiled a little at her reaction. Dio snorted softly, but in the end he nodded in agreement with Arya's suggestion.
"I don't even know what's in it for me. But fine. Just remember, this is not a game. As long as this crazy ghost is still around, I'll keep watching the two of you."
Dio's warning settled the mood again. Arya didn't respond right away, while Rika slowly lowered her arms. She gave a small nod. A faint smile began to appear on her face, this time without the teasing tone from before.
"If it sounds fun, then I'm ready to help."
And so a new beginning started. This unusual meeting of a human, an overseer of the unseen world, and a ghost would one day lead them through a world full of danger and mystery.