A Scaredy-Cat Beside an Even Bigger One
Flustered by the door that refused to open, the two of them had headed straight for the staff room. In the darkness, only a heavy silence flowed between them.
Mistaking the twins Suyeon and Siyeon for each other in the hallway — that was the first. Foiling Siyeon when she tried to drag Suyeon away during the obstacle race at the sports festival — that was the second. And recently, getting her help chasing off that pack of girls who'd been picking a fight with him — the third.
Those three encounters were the entire history between Yeoncheong and Siyeon.
Two of them weren't even pleasant memories, and Siyeon seemed to have a sharper temper than her twin Suyeon.
Yeoncheong studied Siyeon, who had shrunk in on herself and wouldn't budge.
"Um... are you okay?"
"Hey... did you set this up with Baek Suyeon?"
Siyeon still had her head buried low.
Suyeon and Seobin had both said they wanted the two of them to get closer. And now here they were, locked in together in a situation too perfectly arranged to call coincidence.
It would have been more than enough grounds for a misunderstanding.
But Yeoncheong felt wronged. Even back when he was a man, haunted houses were the one thing he went out of his way to avoid at all costs.
He was not the kind of person with the nerve to engineer a moment like this with someone he wanted to befriend.
Fortunately, the misunderstanding was cleared up quickly.
Perhaps because the door had slammed shut so hard, the box perched precariously on top of a desk shifted ever so slightly. The box teetered on the edge of its delicate balance for one breath, two — and then plummeted to the floor.
Everything crammed inside came spilling out with it.
CRASH-CLATTER-BANG.
It made one tremendous racket.
"KYAAAH!"
"KYAAAH!"
As if two identical recorders had been switched on at the same moment, the screams burst out of them. And it didn't even stop there.
Each of them, startled all over again by the other's scream, curled up into opposite corners of the room.
The scattered junk finally spent every last ounce of its energy.
And stillness returned.
This silence was a good deal lighter than the last.
The two of them exchanged wary glances as they picked themselves up off the floor, and Siyeon cleared her throat before speaking.
"So... I guess you didn't set this up with Baek Suyeon after all. Sorry."
"Appreciate you believing me..."
Hoping to thaw the awkward air, Yeoncheong grabbed the trailing end of the conversation and stretched it out.
"You're different from Suyeon, so—"
"Stop right there. That one's on her. She's just weirdly fearless."
Apparently this was a topic she'd heard plenty about. Siyeon cut off whatever was coming next and clapped a hand over Yeoncheong's mouth.
"Anyway... we just have to sit tight until Baek Suyeon and Seobin bring people, right?"
Siyeon fished out her smartphone and lit up the room. Using the glow, Yeoncheong brushed the dust from her uniform.
People tend to get jumpy and overreact when they're scared out of their wits.
"What kind of warehouse is this dirty? It's not organized at all."
Siyeon gave a light kick to the junk that had rolled up to her feet.
The object bounced across the floor until it smacked into something and stopped — a uselessly enormous mirror sitting in the middle of the storeroom.
At the far edge of the mirror, a pair of feet was visible. Judging by the angle, they should have been Yeoncheong's own... but the slippers were different.
Yeoncheong turned her head slightly to check the color of the slippers she was wearing.
Black.
And the color right in front of her eyes was—
"Red...?"
Every hair on Siyeon's body stood on end in a rush of goosebumps, and she bolted behind Yeoncheong's back.
"Hm? What's wrong?"
"Hey, Ha... Ha Yeoncheong. Wh-what is that thing?"
"That thing?"
Toward where the light of Siyeon's smartphone was pointing, Yeoncheong turned her head toward the uselessly enormous mirror.
Red bathroom slippers. A skirt falling past the knees. A loose, shapeless uniform shirt. A girl with a blunt, straight-cut bob met Yeoncheong's gaze.
Ah. Finally someone's looking at me.
The girl's voice, the first time it reached them—
was a voice that made the ears cry out in pain, as though they were never meant to hear it.
There had been another student in the storeroom this whole time? Yeoncheong, who hadn't sensed the slightest sign of another presence until now, went on full alert.
At the grating voice, Siyeon buried herself even deeper behind Yeoncheong's back.
"I-I said, what IS that thing?"
Yeoncheong was backing away too, and ached to avert her eyes. But that was impossible as well, thanks to her friend's twin cowering behind her.
With Siyeon startling first and spooking first at everything, it had naturally fallen to Yeoncheong to play the protector.
"That's not a..."
Yeoncheong's words, as she scanned the area around the girl, cut off abruptly. The girl they'd assumed was standing in front of the mirror was beyond it.
More precisely, she was watching Yeoncheong from inside the mirror.
"...person, is it?"
"If it's not a person, what is it?! Are you telling me it's a GHOST?!"
Siyeon smacked her palm against Yeoncheong's back again and again. Yeoncheong found herself envying Siyeon, who could talk with her face buried against her back.
If she hadn't seen it properly, she could have tossed out the word ghost without a second thought. But Yeoncheong had seen it.
The girl smiling slyly toward them at the word ghost.
When you're truly terrified, even your voice dies. A truly useless piece of knowledge, learned firsthand.
Just the two of us, talking...
Apparently displeased by their huddled whispering, the girl's figure vanished from the mirror.
Me too.
Eyes appeared reflected in the shards of broken glass. Yeoncheong flinched, and Siyeon twisted away, using Yeoncheong as a shield.
"This isn't something only I can hear, right? Tell me you're not messing with me."
"I hear it too. And God, I wish someone were messing with us."
The distance closed in a flash. The girl in the mirror inserted herself into their conversation.
Hey, you two. Come play with me.
The two of them couldn't bring themselves to answer. The ghost girl asked again.
Come play with me.
Jet-black eyes stared unblinking.
It felt like they had no choice but to respond. Yeoncheong swallowed dryly and forced the words out, halting and stammering.
"Wh-what do you want to... play?"
The politeness had cranked up several notches. Siyeon had long since latched on like a barnacle, half of her consciousness entrusted to Yeoncheong entirely.
At some point the ghost girl had drifted back to the largest mirror, and there she deliberated — tilting her head from side to side, humming to herself.
Hide-and-seek?
Suyeon and Seobin, confronted with the unexpected situation, ran straight to the staff room — to their homeroom teacher, who voluntarily looked after their little two-person club.
"Ms. Jisu! We've got a huge problem!"
Her voice boomed without a shred of regard for her surroundings, and Teacher Jisu winced at the other teachers' stares.
"Suyeon, this is the staff room?"
Oblivious to the eyes on her, Suyeon bored her gaze straight into Teacher Jisu. The homeroom teacher let out a small sigh and swiveled her chair around.
"What is it? It had better be a real emergency."
"It is a real emergency. Yeoncheong and Siyeon are trapped."
Her voice had dropped, but it was more than enough to convey how urgent things were. Teacher Jisu's voice rose sharply.
"What? Don't tell me — the annex basement?"
Suyeon gave a quiet nod, and Teacher Jisu frantically rummaged through her drawers.
From among the chaos of scattered paperwork and personal effects emerged a key ring bearing the marks of many years.
"These are the keys to the annex basement. Go on ahead and start unlocking it with these. I'll grab the security guard and be right behind you."
Teacher Jisu rose from her seat, and the two students filed out of the staff room with her.
Teacher Jisu headed off at once in search of the security guard, but Suyeon and Seobin nearly barreled into a girl on her way in.
"Sorry — you okay?"
Suyeon managed to stop just in time and sized up the other girl. Thankfully, she was a friend of Suyeon's.
"I'm fine... But Suyeon, weren't you supposed to be at the annex basement?"
Seoha, who had come to the staff room on an errand of her own, tilted her head with a puzzled expression.
Annex basement. A darkness so total that even the light of their smartphones was gone.
Ready or not, here I come — not a hair showing, right?
Dust that had settled for years swirled up in the wake of their frantic scrambling, and the clatter of junk knocked loose and sent rolling across the floor rang out on every side.
Yeoncheong flung herself into a cabinet. She had zero interest in learning the advantages of a smaller body this way.
Tracing the sounds of the junk bouncing across the floor, a voice that scraped at the ears began counting numbers.
The noise died away, and with it the girl's counting stopped mid-number.
Now I'll come find you.
The girl turned away from the uselessly enormous mirror and vanished from sight.
An old cabinet, its door left slightly ajar.
Through the gap she'd failed to close, Yeoncheong rolled her eyes in exasperation.
They hadn't even answered her, and she'd just spun around unbidden and started counting. That was the kind of ghost girl this was.
Yeoncheong had chosen to hide. That part had been the right call, but...
Why on earth did you follow me in here?
Suyeon's twin, Siyeon, had clung tight to Yeoncheong's back and slipped into the very same cabinet. Wedged in behind her, Siyeon was pressed against Yeoncheong in what amounted to an embrace.
Yeoncheong had distinctly told her to take the cabinet next door — but there was no hope whatsoever of that registering with Siyeon, whose mind had half left her body.
Nngh, it's cramped...
It wasn't as if the cabinet were all that spacious to begin with. Two girls could not have fit inside it comfortably.
Inevitably, the two of them ended up pressed together as tightly as possible.
Their chests touched, close enough that each other's breath tickled their ears. Because of the junk cluttered inside the cabinet, their awkwardly bent legs threaded beneath one another.
Except there was no blushing warmth here, no pounding heart, no tingling flush of embarrassment.
Siyeon had long since gone pale-faced, tears brimming in her eyes. Yeoncheong peered anxiously out through the narrow gap in the door.
For two people tangled up in something beyond comprehension, such things never even crossed their minds.
The ghost girl moved from mirror to mirror, from shard to shard of glass. Yeoncheong wondered if she couldn't leave the space—
Is it here? No, not here...
With the sound of rummaging right outside, neither of them could so much as lift a finger. The ghost girl, who had spent a long while searching the area around them, muttered to herself.
Hide-and-seek... is no fun. I can't search every nook and cranny. That's unfair. It's UNFAIR, I said!
She had been the one to suggest the game, and now she started sulking all on her own. Then came the sound of glass and mirrors shattering with a bright, ringing crash.
Siyeon flinched violently at the sudden, shrill noise. Terrified she might let a sound escape, Yeoncheong hastily clapped a hand over Siyeon's mouth.
"Mmph."
"Hold on just a little longer. She never said hide-and-seek was over."
Siyeon nodded, and Yeoncheong lifted her hand from her mouth. Huddled in hiding as the glass shattered around them, the two exchanged whispers.
"How much longer?"
"Until someone opens it from outside."
"Ugh. Damn it..."
Siyeon's legs wouldn't stay still — fidgeting hard enough that even Yeoncheong, pressed against her, could feel it.
"What's wrong?"
"...It's urgent."
"What is?"
"The bathroom... I said it's urgent."
A brief silence... Apparently embarrassed, Siyeon shot Yeoncheong a glare.
The moment Siyeon opened her mouth to say one more thing, Yeoncheong clamped a hand back over it. Siyeon protested with her eyes stretched wide open.
Somewhere in that moment, the sounds from outside had stopped dead. The ghost girl's voice drifted over.
Tch. You still won't come out... Okay, come out now. Hide-and-seek is over.
With a groan of old hinges, the cabinet door swung slowly open. Where on earth had she found so many mirrors — the floor was strewn with broken shards.
Ah... there you are after all. If I'd come just a little closer, I could've touched you.
Following the ghost's line of sight, they found a single shard of broken mirror lying there. And a scratched dragging mark ran right up to the front of the cabinet — and stopped.
Siyeon grabbed the hem of Yeoncheong's clothes and shot her a meaningful look. Yeoncheong worked up her courage and addressed the ghost first.
"E-excuse me... if you're done playing, could we come out now?"
Hm?
"The hide-and-seek is over, isn't it...?"
The ghost girl smiled slyly.
We can still play more.
"Th-then, um, when does it end?"
It was a question born of creeping unease. The ghost girl glided over to the glass shards scattered nearby.
It doesn't end. We're going to play together forever.
A sly smile showed itself between the small mirror shards — and then an arm shot out. Yeoncheong, who had been keeping her guard up, grabbed Siyeon and dodged the hand.
Now let's play tag.
Countless mouths reflected in the shards laughed out loud all at once. And Yeoncheong—
Holy. Shit.
put a curse into words for the first time in a long, long while.