Chapter 19
"Why didn't you come yesterday?"
The literature girl was holding Baudelaire's "The Flowers of Evil" in her hand.
Her jet-black hair shone like the night sky, and her white skin was as transparent as milk spilled by a clumsy student on duty.
When I realized that the faint smile lingering on her lips was directed at me, my mind went blank.
"I've been waiting for you lately. You haven't been around."
To think that the girl I'd been secretly crushing on since seeing her in the library was saying she'd been waiting for me.
I looked around again, wondering if she might be talking to someone else.
Swish-
Her white, slender fingers reached out towards me and brushed some dust off my shoulder.
"There's some dust on you. See you later, then."
Clack-
Vroom-
The literature girl got back into the black car and disappeared, leaving a trail of black exhaust.
I was certain I'd never forget this moment for the rest of my life.
"Hey, Ha Young-won. Do you know Yoo Dahee?"
Yang Juhee asked me. Only then did I snap out of my daze.
It felt like I'd been wandering in a dream and had just woken up.
"Her name is Yoo Dahee? Was I supposed to know her?"
Juhee seemed to know the literature girl's name.
Well, it wouldn't be strange for a pretty girl like that to be well-known.
Of course, Juhee was pretty too, but they were in different leagues. If Juhee was pretty like a high school Instagram influencer, the literature girl's beauty was more like appreciating Bach or Mozart's music.
"You just acted like you knew each other, and now you're pretending not to know? That's funny. Wait, is Yoo Dahee that ex-girlfriend you mentioned before? You're really something. Wow, how—"
Juhee frowned as she was about to say something more. She said it was funny, but she wasn't laughing at all.
"I'm going ahead. I don't want to be late."
She looked at her phone and started walking very quickly. She said she was walking fast, but due to her long legs, it was practically running speed.
"Hey! Let's go together!"
Juhee disappeared, walking so quickly. I tried to keep up, but the awkward atmosphere made it difficult to catch up to her.
Juhee seemed to have misunderstood something. Did she think I had dated Yoo Dahee?
Juhee's mood seemed to have soured, as if she didn't get along well with the literature girl, Yoo Dahee.
When I arrived at school, Juhee was slumped over in the seat behind me. She stayed like that even after class started and until lunch break ended.
Sleeping all day at school, she was a total delinquent. Well, she always was one.
***
"Do you know who Yoo Dahee is?"
"Jung Sojin: Young-won, you shouldn't use your phone during class, haha"
"......"
I'm an idiot for asking her. As I was thinking that, another reply came.
"Jung Sojin: You mean Yoo Dahee from Class A? I don't know much about her except that she comes to school by car every day, haha"
She doesn't know, huh.
Well, even if Sojin is the class president and likes to meddle, she can't know everything about students from other classes.
Time passed, and after school...
Juhee left as soon as the bell rang, bag in hand. I was planning to talk to her briefly about the "Nightmare Corridor" today.
Instead, another girl approached me.
"Young-won, what are you doing after school today?"
It was the class president, Jung Sojin.
As Sojin, the popular girl in Class D, approached and spoke to me, I could feel the strange gazes of the other students who were packing their bags.
This feels like another weird situation. I thought so too.
Why is Sojin coming to me now?
Is it because of the message I sent earlier? I regretted my actions.
"If you're not doing anything, want to go to the bookstore with me? I want to find a book for a book report for the essay contest, but I don't know much about novels and such..."
Does Sojin think I know a lot about novels?
Well, I did read a lot of books in class during breaks and lunch at the beginning of the semester.
Swish-
Just then,
"Hey, Jung Sojin. Why aren't you cracking down on kids smoking these days? The class president should keep the kids in line. Come to the old school building at lunch tomorrow."
Kim Geonho approached my desk and spoke casually.
I thought school life had been a bit quiet these past few days, but I had a feeling I was about to get involved in something troublesome. And my prediction was right!
"What are you talking about? Who are you to tell me what to do, Kim Geonho?"
Sojin shot back with narrow eyes. Geonho trembled.
"Wow, scary. I'm scared. Ha Young-won, you heard that too, right?"
Tap-
Geonho's hand landed on my shoulder. Geonho had just joked around, but he really seemed afraid of Sojin. The proof was that the hand on my shoulder was trembling.
I understood. I was terrified of Sojin too!
I knew better than anyone what Sojin was capable of when pushed to the extreme.
"Ah, shit, this is no fun."
Geonho left abruptly. Watching him, Sojin frowned and shot back.
"What a total delinquent."
"What? Fuck, Jung Sojin, what did you just say?"
"What do you think I said? What did you just say yourself? What? F-uck?"
The atmosphere turned strange.
Even the students who were packing their bags to go home stopped and watched this scene silently.
"......"
Caught between these two, I felt like I was dying. No, why are they doing this at my desk of all places!
I could understand Geonho, but why was Sojin suddenly acting like this?
I suddenly remembered Sojin's new quirk from this morning.
『《Gambler》: Failure is treason. Success is revolution. There's no retreat in the world of gamblers. For them, there's only moving forward. Even if they don't know where that path leads.』
Does the 《Gambler》 quirk make people go all in?
Sojin and Geonho glared at each other like they were about to devour each other. Geonho was the first to back down.
"Wow, fuck... Class D sucks these days."
Swish-
Geonho disappeared from the classroom. The heavy atmosphere in the classroom lightened a bit, as if a lead weight had been lifted.
"Young-won. From now on, if Geonho bullies or hits you, tell me."
"......"
...No, class president.
I'm more scared of you than Geonho right now. I was literally trembling with fear.
Is this some kind of supernatural omen?
"Hey, class president. The homeroom teacher is calling for you."
Swish-
Just then, someone stood up and called for Sojin. It was Jung-seok, our class vice president.
"The homeroom teacher?"
Sojin opened her narrow eyes.
She looked back and forth between me and Jung-seok, then said, "Young-won, I'll see you later," before disappearing into the hallway with quick steps.
It really had been a whirlwind of a day.
Now I should head home too, but I didn't feel like going home at all.
"Auntie Ghost."
"Mom Ghost."
Ghosts have already appeared at home twice, haven't they?
Even if I go home now, Mom's working late, so I'd be alone. If another ghost shows up, I... I might really die!
What should I do...? At times like this, it's probably best to use the advice function.
"Advice."
『Advice from 《Broken Clock》: "The library is a temple where all the relics of the ancient sages, full of virtue, and everything without delusion and deception, are preserved and rest."』
What does that mean?
I guess it's telling me to go to the library.
That's a good idea.
***
As I've felt before, Yeongji High's library was quite impressive.
It had many old books and was constantly updated with new ones, making it a heaven-like place for me.
"I suddenly need to pee."
They say sometimes smelling ink can make you need to urinate. That's exactly what happened to me.
Swish-
I put my bag in a suitable corner and picked up a broom. As the library committee member for Class D, I had the duty to clean the library.
Ms. Kang Ha-neul recommended this position, saying it would be advantageous for my school records and personal statement.
"......"
While sweeping the floor, I looked around. I wondered if the literature girl... the girl named Yoo Dahee might be here, but she wasn't.
"You came today?"
"Wtf!"
I jumped higher than a cat startled by a cucumber, my voice echoing in the quiet library.
Calming down and turning my head, I saw the girl from this morning standing close to me.
"Why are you so surprised? I cleaned up here yesterday."
"Cleaned?"
"Yes. I'm also the library committee member for Class A. Didn't Ms. Kang Ha-neul tell you? You haven't been coming for a few days, so I cleaned up alone. I was waiting."
Yoo Dahee was a girl who spoke in a gentle voice.
She seemed to have an ease about her that people like Yang Juhee and I, living in poor and shabby places, couldn't possess.
It felt like she had no reason to rush through life. Thanks to that, I was able to find a bit of ease too.
"Ah. So you're a library committee member."
I didn't know Dahee was a library committee member.
Wasn't I, the Class D library committee member, solely in charge of this library?
Well, come to think of it, it's too big for one person to manage. So two classes, 1st year Class A and Class D, each selected a library committee member to manage it.
When Dahee said this morning that she had been waiting for me. This was probaby about the library committee work!
"You're Ha Young-won, right? I'm Yoo Dahee. I've often heard about you from Ms. Kang Ha-neul. This is the first time we're actually talking. You were always reading, so I never had a chance to speak to you."
"Ah."
"Young-won, you read a lot of Haruki Murakami, don't you? You've read 'Norwegian Wood'. Also 'The Decameron', 'Lady Chatterley's Lover', and 'Lolita'. The common thread in these books is..."
I was surprised that the literature girl I had a crush on remembered all the books I had read. And then, I became afraid.
The common thread in the books I've read… It was that they all had intense sexual descriptions!
As I was flustered, Dahee chuckled.
"The common thread is that they're all foreign novels. I like foreign novels too. I've read 'The Catcher in the Rye' ten times already. These days, I've become interested in feng shui—"
Was it because her voice was so gentle? Or was I tired from everything that had happened? I yawned without realizing it.
"Do you not like this kind of talk?"
Dahee, who had been chattering away, tilted her head.
Honestly, I was touched.
"No, that's not it. I like feng shui too. Like baesujin and stuff."
"Baesujin is a military formation, feng shui is about baesan-imsu (mountains behind, water in front)."
Dahee chuckled. She understood my joke and laughed - Dahee is such a high-level girl!
Honestly, I never thought I'd be able to have such an intellectual, high-level conversation at Yeongji High School. As I was trembling with emotion, Dahee looked at my hand.
In my hand were books related to folk tales and ghost stories. I had picked them out to learn more about Yeongji High School.
"Do you like scary stories?"
"I guess... you could say that?"
"Really? Then Young-won, lean your ear closer."
Swish-
Without giving me a chance to agree, Dahee brought her mouth close to my ear. She had no sense of personal space.
Her attitude suggested she was confident others wouldn't dislike her approach. It was as if she had never been rejected by anyone in her life.
"Come to think of it, they say this school was actually built by bulldozing a large public cemetery site. I wonder if that's true?"
Her soft breath on my sensitive ear gave me pleasant goosebumps.
"A public cemetery? More importantly, why are you whispering...?"
"They say if you talk about ghosts in a place where ghosts gather, like a cemetery, real ghosts will come. They think you're talking about them. Just in case, I'm speaking softly."
"...Ah..."
"This school. Even after construction was finished, people and students went missing. They say some students were found with only their heads missing. Those heads are still wandering around looking for their bodies..."
The words whispered in my ear were eerie. A ghost with only a head wandering around… This story feels familiar somehow.
"Lots of shamans came to the school too. But most of them ran away while performing exorcisms in the school building."
Her breath and voice were stimulating. I wished this moment could last forever.
"One shaman gouged out her own eyes and then hanged herself in the bathroom, and after that, people started hearing the sound of a shaman's bell in the hallway. Ding, ding, ding, ding-"
Dahee seemed to really enjoy telling scary stories, even imitating the bell sound with her mouth.
But she was surprisingly good at it, making it feel like the bell sound was really coming from nearby.
Ding ding ding ding ding ding-
...Wait, is this sound actually real?
As I was startled, Dahee continued speaking.
"But they say the scariest thing isn't the shaman ghost or the ghost with only a head. The truly scary ghost is..."
Dahee's voice got quieter.
Is the story over? I took a step back.
"......"
"......"
Now that I looked, Dahee's face was expressionless. It was an empty expression as if all emotions and desires had disappeared, as if someone had pressed a pause button.
I didn't know a beautiful girl's blank expression could be this chilling.
"Um..."
Looking at Dahee, who no longer seemed of this world, I felt goosebumps all over my body. I was starting to wonder if she might be a ghost when-
"If you talk about ghosts in a cemetery, ghosts will come. If you talk about ghosts in a cemetery, ghosts will come. If you talk about ghosts in a cemetery, ghosts will come. If you talk about ghosts in a cemetery, ghosts will come. If you talk about ghosts in a cemetery, ghosts will come. If you talk about ghosts in a cemetery, ghosts will come."
"What the hell! Ah, shit, here we go again! Another fit! Again! Again! Agaaain!!!"