The Ghost of the Library (?)
This was back when Hwaryeong High School still had its school store, and the annex that now housed the clubs was still serving as a warehouse.
With university admission as their sole goal, nearly every student stayed behind in the study rooms or classrooms, burning the midnight oil. And the sound of pens scratching across paper wasn't confined to those places alone.
The library. There was one girl who buried herself in her studies there, day and night, in that quiet corner of the school. A quiet student with distinctive braided hair, she was an unremarkable member of the library club.
Having fled the stifling atmosphere of her classroom for the forest of books, the girl carried a shadow of some kind on her face. Even with the consideration of the librarian, who knew her circumstances, it was far from enough to erase every shadow.
The closing chime rang out through the speakers outside the library, announcing the end of the semi-compulsory evening self-study session.
When the chime was nearly over, the girl buried in her books suddenly snapped back to attention. She hastily closed the book with her pen still tucked inside, stuffed it into her bag, and began frantically gathering her writing tools.
Like someone being chased.
Her anxious eyes darted repeatedly between her bag and the library door before she let out a small, weary sigh. Her pen case slipped from her weakening hand.
A pen rolled out of the half-open case, traveled slowly across the floor, and came to rest at the toe of someone who had just entered the library.
"Going somewhere in such a hurry?"
"Took us a while to find you."
"Tell me about it. I honestly thought you'd run away for good this time."
"Please. Where would a broke girl like you even run to?"
Three girls sauntered in, snickering as they shut the door behind them. The face of the girl packing her things went deathly pale.
Her arms trembled like aspen leaves. Only then were the bruises visible, dark and blue beneath her sleeves.
"Draw lots."
"Me?"
"Your turn today."
One of the trio grumbled her way out of the library. The door slammed shut behind her, and from inside came what sounded like muffled sobbing—and a scream.
Before they knew it, the two of them had drawn close to the library.
"Wait, wait, time out."
Yeoncheong stopped Suyeon, who was chattering away in high spirits. Suyeon insisted that this was where it got really good, and begged her to listen just a little longer.
But Yeoncheong clamped both hands over her ears. Once her refusal to hear any more was made abundantly clear, Suyeon smacked her lips in disappointment.
"Didn't you say you were fine with scary stuff?"
"That's beside the point—wait. This isn't a true story, right?"
"Hm? If it weren't true, there wouldn't be a ghost, would there?"
Suyeon nodded along as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. A flicker of dread crossed Yeoncheong's mind, and she asked what happened next.
"Short version?"
"Yeah. Short version."
Suyeon pouted a little as she considered how to condense it, then began.
"The girl couldn't take the bullying anymore, so she took her own life while cursing those three. Afterward, all three of them kept having accidents big and small at school until they transferred out practically fleeing. And that's when the rumor started—a ghost of a girl with braided hair haunting the library."
The story was pretty much exactly what Yeoncheong had feared. She grabbed Suyeon's arm with both hands.
"Suyeon, let's just go back."
"We barely got permission to come here in the first place!"
"If it's true, there could be an actual ghost!"
Even with her voice strangled down to a whisper, Yeoncheong's rising pitch was unmistakable.
Suyeon caught the faint tremor in those blue eyes and grinned.
"Aww, Yeoncheong, you're scared, aren't you?"
"S-so what if I am? I'm scared of this stuff. What are you gonna do about it?"
Stung, Yeoncheong admitted it outright. She'd be found out in no time anyway, so better to come clean and try to talk her way out.
"We've come all this way—it'd be a waste to turn back. Let's just check it out once."
But with the destination right in front of them, Suyeon had no intention of giving up. Yeoncheong, backed against a cliff, had nowhere to retreat either. In the end, Suyeon offered a compromise.
"Then wait here."
"H-here? By myself...?"
Yeoncheong glanced around with uneasy eyes. Maybe it was Suyeon's story getting to her, but the surroundings suddenly felt gloomier and more menacing than before.
"I'll be right back."
Suyeon walked off, leaving Yeoncheong behind.
"W-wait, I'm coming too!"
But Yeoncheong couldn't stomach the atmosphere and scrambled after her.
"I said I'd wait, didn't I? Why'd you follow me?"
"Going alone is always more dangerous."
Yeoncheong clutched the hem of Suyeon's clothes and crept along behind her, any leftover shred of a former man's dignity utterly forgotten in the face of pure terror.
Mindful of the girl clinging to her back, Suyeon came to a stop in front of the library door.
She looked for a lock, but found none. Her eyes met Yeoncheong's.
On the off chance, Suyeon gave the door a gentle push—and it slid open with a soft whisper. The tension shot through Yeoncheong, and her grip on Suyeon's sleeve tightened.
The two slipped slowly inside. For Yeoncheong, it was her first time back since coming here with Seoha to pick up their textbooks.
The curtains had been drawn shut with meticulous care. Not an inch of the library's interior was visible.
"Suyeon, I can't see anything."
"Just bear with it a little. We'll check and get out."
Just as the two were adjusting to the deeper darkness, a chair toppled over. Yeoncheong jumped at the thud, and Suyeon flinched right along with her.
"Ah, Yeoncheong. Seriously."
"What? Is something there?"
"Someone probably just left without putting their chair back."
Murmuring back and forth, Suyeon made her way toward where the chair had fallen. Yeoncheong, still clutching her sleeve and trailing behind, had no choice in the matter.
On the desk beside the fallen chair sat reference books and a stack of texts. Suyeon leaned in close to check what they were.
"Looks like a reference book for our year..."
"The girl you mentioned. She wasn't in our grade, right?"
"No, she was, actually."
One beat too late, Yeoncheong regretted asking.
The library door standing open. A single chair toppled over on its own. Books and reference papers left abandoned.
Like a horror film drifting toward its ending scene, every step deeper into something unnatural only tightened the knot of unease in her chest. But Suyeon felt the opposite.
With every movement Suyeon made, a thread of anticipation wound itself in—maybe there really is something here.
Then Yeoncheong, scurrying after her, caught her foot on the desk. Tumbling forward, losing her grip on Suyeon, her outstretched hand landed on something soft.
She looked up—and saw the shape of a person. And most important of all, even in the darkness, she could faintly make out a braid of hair.
"KYAAAHH!"
The piercing scream tore through the library and spilled out into the corridor beyond.
"What's going on here! What happened!"
It was the old security guard, rushing over at the commotion. Inside the library, only Suyeon remained, squinting against the beam of his flashlight.
"There was something like a rat..."
"Was there, now?"
The guard swept his flashlight across the floor, then tilted his head.
"I don't see anything."
"It probably ran off."
The guard scratched his head, looking like a man whose night had just gotten more annoying.
"I'll have to report this later. Anyway, your friend and you have both been checked out, so head on back now."
"Yes, sir. I'll meet up with my friend and head back."
At Suyeon's answer, the guard took one more look around.
"Come to think of it, I don't see your friend."
"The rat scared her and she ran outside. I'll contact her and we'll go back together."
With a vaguely unconvinced expression, the guard agreed.
His footsteps faded into the distance, and the flashlight's glow dimmed away. Having poked her head out of the library just in case, Suyeon called for Yeoncheong.
"Yeoncheong? Yeoncheong?"
No answer came, so Suyeon switched on her own flashlight.
"Oh my. What on earth is this."
Shielding her eyes in mock brightness, Suyeon took in the sight before her: Yeoncheong, and the ghost wrapped tightly around her. Buried against the ghost's chest, Yeoncheong pushed weakly at it, gasping for air.
With Suyeon's help, Yeoncheong finally wriggled free—and confirmed the ghost's true identity.
"It's... a person?"
Only then did she realize what her hands had been grabbing, and her face flared scarlet. For once, she was genuinely grateful the library was dark.
Suyeon studied the girl barely visible in the shadows.
Violet braided hair. Suyeon spotted the glasses and dredged up a name.
"You're Siyeon's friend—Seobin, right?"
Apparently she was someone Suyeon actually knew. The braided girl squinted through the darkness and let out a small sound of recognition.
"Baek Suyeon?"
"That's me. Baek Suyeon."
Suyeon nodded as if awarding points for a correct answer. Having hauled the two of them back to their feet, she turned to Seobin with a question.
"What are you doing here at this hour?"
"I, I just study better in the library, that's all..."
Seobin's story went something like this.
As a library club member, Seobin was by nature so withdrawn that crowds of people were difficult for her. So she'd borrowed the library and had been studying alone there through exam season.
Then she'd dozed off without meaning to, and mistaking Suyeon and Yeoncheong for the security guard, she'd hidden herself away.
"You didn't need to hide, though?"
"A few days ago I fell asleep just like this and got scolded once already."
Seobin answered Yeoncheong's innocent question, and Suyeon clicked her tongue.
"I'd heard you had zero presence, but I didn't realize it was this bad."
"Zero presence?"
Yeoncheong's gaze traveled up to Seobin's upper body.
Yeah, no. That can't be right.
She possessed a presence that announced itself boldly to the entire world. Startled by the look, Seobin rallied her courage and, this time, asked Suyeon and Yeoncheong a question of her own.
"S-so then, what are you two doing here at this hour?"
Suyeon told her the same story she'd told Yeoncheong. Seobin tilted her head.
"I remember that rumor being fake, though."
"Fake?"
Suyeon and Yeoncheong echoed the word at the exact same moment, neither willing to yield. Startled, Seobin leaned back before giving a small nod.
"The bullying was real, but that girl graduated just fine. And the three you mentioned did have accidents, but they transferred for personal reasons, that's all."
"Aw, come on. What a letdown."
Suyeon was genuinely disappointed.
Bits of falsehood had been threaded through real events, and as the story gathered momentum and flesh, the rumor had grown into what it was.
With the mood thoroughly deflated, Suyeon trudged out of the library on hollow legs. Yeoncheong followed.
"I-I'll come with you."
Seobin gathered her books and reference papers and was the last to leave the library as well.
Suyeon returned the key to the security guard. Seobin slipped out of the school in the two girls' wake, and so the midnight school expedition of Suyeon and Yeoncheong came to a somewhat anticlimactic ending.
The next day, when Yeoncheong showed up at school as usual, Seoha asked her about it.
"How was the school with nobody in it?"
After a moment's thought, Yeoncheong compressed the whole of the previous night into a single sentence.
"An experience that only needed to happen once."
Seoha looked like she wanted the full details, but Yeoncheong kept her mouth shut.
That she was hopeless with anything scary, that she'd been startled into screaming her head off—there wasn't a single part of it she wanted to say out loud. Fortunately, Seoha didn't press any further in that direction.
Just then, Teacher Jisu returned and cut the conversation short. Scanning the classroom to take attendance, she announced:
"Alright, everyone knows midterms are right around the corner. Let's all study quietly."
With her club activities alongside Suyeon wrapped up, all that remained in front of Yeoncheong were the midterms.