Seventh Ghost Story - Psychopath Test (5)
Back to the top floor, right below the rooftop, where the single apartment unit sat. He clambered over the scattered cleaning tools and headed down the hallway.
He considered using the elevator again like before, but then it hit him—they might already know I'm here.
'If they were pacing around the first floor, wouldn't they notice the elevator moving?'
The LED display showing the elevator's current floor. The teacher loitering on the first floor might have checked it.
'Let's see.'
He slipped back into the emergency stairwell from the hallway. The motion-sensor lights inside the dim space flicked on, detecting his movement. Peering down through the gaps in the railing to the endless stairs stretching below, he spotted a light on one floor suddenly turning on—and then off.
'...Seventh floor?'
Probably around the seventh floor, where his apartment was. It was the teacher. Instead of taking the elevator, the teacher was sneaking up the emergency stairs to wait in front of his door. The sensor lights must have caught it, keeping the light on until just now.
The top floor light where he stood went out soon after, plunging the stairwell gaps back into the murky darkness of the apartment building.
He stared down thoughtfully, then turned away as vertigo hit from the dizzying height.
'...What now.'
He was stuck on the top floor. The teacher was lying in wait on the seventh. If he took the elevator down, she'd spot it instantly and hit the button on seven to nab him. Even the stairs would give him away with the sensor lights popping on one after another by the eighth floor.
What to do.
Dark house interior. A killer holding a knife is searching for you. Where will you hide?
...Time to create a position and situation where I can strike back.
'He's here.'
Jang Hwa-eun thought, gripping her knife high.
The elevator's LED floor display. It had been on the top floor, but now the numbers were slowly descending. 18... 14... 11.
Ding.
It paused briefly on eleven, which puzzled her, but it soon continued down. Hwa-eun quickly pressed the button and waited for it to stop on seven.
10, 9, 8...
Why had he gone up to the rooftop all of a sudden when he could've just hidden safely inside? She wasn't too curious, though. For the emotionally restrained woman, the only thing that mattered now was punishing Lee Joon for toying with her.
'I'll kill you.'
She vaguely remembered why a teacher like her was out hunting a student in the dead of night, but instead of questioning it, she felt a bizarre thrill. Like she'd always been someone who enjoyed this—a sadism writhing inside her.
Stress from being 34 and unmarried. Colleagues forming a staff volleyball club and hanging out without her. Rage from failing to inherit the family shaman business due to a lack of spiritual talent, scraping by as a teacher instead. The suffocating pressure of wondering why she lived under such constant stress.
Normally, she vented those feelings on others with her high-energy antics, but not now. All that pent-up intensity was exploding toward the boy seventeen years her junior.
'I want to torment him!'
She imagined a post-pubescent high school boy sobbing and groveling before her, an adult woman. Forcing him onto all fours, crawling, unleashing every last drop of emotion.
Licking her kitchen knife with her tongue, Hwa-eun entertained those thoughts. She saw herself as a movie slasher villain, but in reality—with her face mangled under a stocking mask—she looked like a third-rate comedian.
Moonlight filtering through the apartment hallway window illuminated the cheap villainess.
> Ding~
Finally, the seventh floor. The elevator arrived.
Hwa-eun abandoned her hiding spot to avoid the sensor lights and dashed out to greet Joon.
'Nice to see you! It's your teacher! I'm back!'
Boiling with anticipation, shuddering as she raised her knife high.
The elevator doors slid open.
Whoosh—
Panting wildly with a grotesque grin, Hwa-eun burst in.
But the elevator was empty. Only the glowing red first-floor button remained.
'Where'd he go?'
She scanned the cramped space in bewilderment.
Then—
Thud thud—footsteps from the opposite emergency stairs.
> Footsteps descending rapidly
Hwa-eun bolted after him down the stairs again. Peering through the gaps, she saw sensor lights flickering on floor by floor below. Someone was racing down!
Heh heh. Heh heh heh.
Adrenaline surged through the 34-year-old spinster's veins. Drooling from excitement without realizing it, she pursued her prey down the stairs with hunter's glee.
'He's running! Joon's running!'
She'd always wanted to join the sports clubs full of handsome basketball jocks. Being stuck advising this weird Ghost Story Club only fueled her resentment.
Leaping two, three steps at a time, she chased Joon downward.
"Huff, huff, huff."
Fourth floor. Third. Second.
As she reached the first, she heard something ominous.
The door is closing.
Turning the corner from the second to the first, she spotted Joon diving into the closing elevator doors.
'Stop right there!'
Hwa-eun leaped down the stairs, but the doors shut just in time.
Thud—
Going up.
Whirr—
"Huff, huff. Gotta chase him!"
She frantically climbed back up from the first floor via the stairs. But already exhausted, she couldn't match the elevator's mechanical speed.
'That was his plan from the start!'
Joon had sent an empty elevator down from midway, pressing both seven and one. While Hwa-eun stared in confusion at it stopping on seven, he'd dashed ahead down the emergency stairs. By the time they were both running, the empty elevator reached the first floor first.
The timing was perfect—Joon slipped in the moment the doors opened. A razor-thin plan; just three seconds off and it'd all fall apart. But Joon pulled it off flawlessly.
'No! Don't go home! Let's study English with teacher!'
Heartbroken, ignoring her burning lungs, Hwa-eun dragged her sweat-soaked body back to seven. But only silence and dim lights greeted her in the hallway.
"Hahk, hahk."
Of course, the elevator had arrived ages ago. Joon was already safely inside.
'Too late.'
She looked devastated, like she'd lost a winning lottery ticket. Tears welling, she approached Joon's door.
Sniffle, sniffle.
The front door was firmly shut. How could this happen... right under her nose...
Wahh, wahh.
Wiping tears at the door, Hwa-eun suddenly realized something. It wasn't locked!
At a glance, it looked closed, but in her haste earlier, the latch was only half-engaged, leaving the door ajar.
"Ah, ah... Ahh!"
Ecstatic as if saved by divine intervention, she slowly grasped the handle. The half-latched lock clicked open.
It opened! Ahaha. Ooheehee. Uhehehe. Ehehehe.
Grinning creepily like a cartoon barbarian in a stocking mask—like a scheming anime villain—Hwa-eun cackled.
Oohee, oohee, ooheehee.
Idiotically laughing, she gently pushed the door open.
Thwack!
Clang tang.
She took a frying pan to the head from Joon, hidden right behind the door, and tumbled to the floor.
* * *
"Teacher."
Lifting her head, her blurry vision caught Joon standing before her in the apartment hallway, waving her knife.
"Why'd you come to my house?"
"...Joonie?"
Hwa-eun feigned confusion.
"Where's this?"
But his reply was ice-cold.
"You asking 'cause you don't know?"
She blinked innocently at the boy before her.
"You, that knife...?"
"Yeah."
"Why are you waving something so dangerous around? Put it down, dear."
"This is yours, teacher. Don't you remember?"
"My—?"
Still playing dumb, but her mind raced with calculations. Of course she remembered. She'd been possessed multiple times before, acting bizarrely. She always forgot upon snapping out of it.
But now, still under the influence, her memories were crystal clear. I can fool him with this. Clearing her throat,
"Why am I here, anyway? Hmm."
She tried to stand. Joon stopped her.
"Stay put. Unless you want to get stabbed."
"You."
She bit her lip, glaring.
"What are you doing to your teacher right now?"
"Just answer my questions properly."
"I asked why you came to my house all of a sudden. Answer, or the knife goes in."
Bluff. The Joon she knew wouldn't do that. They'd never talked deeply, but he seemed normal enough—running a weird club, sure, but decent looks and personality.
Evaluating him mentally, she asked again.
"No more games. Help your teacher up? Pleeease~?"
She dragged out the end playfully.
"Ahh, my head's spinning... Huh? Grab teacher's hand...?"
Extending her hand invitingly.
"Come on, Joonie... Huh?"
Her worldly social skills as an adult should melt a high school boy.
"Come on, Joonie... Hurry."
Slash—
Ow!
"Yowch!"
Joon nicked her outstretched hand with the knife.
"Ow, that hurts."
A drop of blood beaded sharply on her finger.
"Wh-what the hell."
"Use proper respect."
It was different. The atmosphere had shifted. Not just that—the creepy psychopathic urge that had dominated her until moments ago felt alien now.
This wasn't just losing the knife. The psychological dynamic, the flow of events, the vibe—everything had reversed the moment Joon defied the test question and counterattacked.
Now, she was the victim.
"J-Joonie?"
"On your knees."
"Y-yes, sir."
Overwhelmed by an inexplicable pressure, Hwa-eun knelt hastily before her student.
"Answer. Why'd you come here?"
"Th-that's."
Squirming obsequiously, she desperately tried her social wiles again.
"I suddenly missed you so mu—"
"One more useless word, and it really goes in."
Joon raised the knife coldly. Cold sweat trickled down Hwa-eun's forehead.
"It... it was..."
"Ah, got it. The reason I came here... I just suddenly felt like I had to... that kind of hunch..."
"Hunch?"
"Y-yes..."
"What kind?"
"Ir... irre—"
Grabbing her trembling wrist, Hwa-eun spilled the truth.
"An irresistible... intense... sudden hunch..."
"Sudden?"
"Y-yes."
"Unbelievable."
Joon spun the knife perilously over his fingers. Hwa-eun gulped, kneeling frozen.
Suddenly, as if struck by a thought, Joon went, "Ah," and asked,
"Teacher, didn't you see me in the bathroom once before?"
"B-bathroom?"
"Red tissue, blue tissue. Crawling on all fours babbling weird shit. Ring a bell?"
Scrambling to recall, Hwa-eun dimly remembered.
"Y-yes... I remember... The boys' room, right."
"Yeah. What was that about?"
Why had she? She racked her brain, but drew a blank.
"I don't know why..."
"Fine. Old stuff, maybe you forgot. How about yesterday?"
"Y-yesterday..."
"Afternoon supervision in the study hall. You came right up to our club room, stared in the window. Remember?"
"Y-yes... I do."
Bowing subserviently to avoid upsetting him. Honesty was her only play now.
"Why'd you do that? Recent, so you should know."
She remembered the act, but not the motive. Sweating bullets under the stocking mask, she stammered,
"Th-that too... I just felt like I had to... an intense hunch..."
His cold glare pierced her.
"Teacher, you said you're from a shaman family, right?"
"Yes."
He recalled her self-intro in first-period homeroom.
"Maybe it's related?"
"People possessed by ghosts acting weird. Kinda like that?"
"I-is it?"
"Yeah."
"Why no answer? Say it."
"Wh-what?"
"People possessed by ghosts acting weird. Sounds similar."
"Y-yes. It does... Definitely similar."
She nodded frantically. But unsatisfied, Joon glared colder.
"What the fuck, why can't you connect the dots? Shaman family. Link it to your weird behavior and explain."
"Ah, y-yes, got it."
Flailing her arms in panic, she explained.
"I-it's true, shaman family... but I have zero talent... so I'm just a civil servant teacher..."
Gesturing wildly, spilling what she knew.
"I don't know much about that stuff... Learned a bit as a kid, but they gave up on me..."
"Got it. Next question. Do you remember those weird acts when you're sane?"
"N-no... When sane, it's like I was just spacing out..."
"So remembering now means you're still not sane?"
Hwa-eun panicked, protesting.
"No! I'm totally sane right now!"
"Liar."
"Obvious."
'How'd he know?'
"I'll let this slide once. Lie again... You know."
"Y-yes."
True enough. Still gripped by the ghost story, she was biding time on her knees for a counterattack chance.
Of course, Joon guessed from the lack of a "Ghost Story cleared" system message.
Next question flew.
"Coming out at night dressed like that, knife and all—no family thought it was weird?"
"I live alone..."
"You sublet, teacher."
"Yes."
"When you handed out the psych test in the club room. Sane then?"
"Y-yes, totally sane."
"So when did the 'intense hunch' to come here hit? After dinner?"
"A-after dinner..."
"What'd you eat?"
"Chicken..."
"Which brand, what kind?"
Brain sluggish from tension, she desperately recalled.
"V-value king... Wow Chicken."
"Menu."
"Fried half, seasoned half..."
"Lied again."
Hwa-eun's face paled beneath the mask.
"It's a two-chicken joint. One fried, one seasoned."
She trembled like a leaf.
"N-not trying to trick... People say 'half-half' for..."
"Ate both?"
"...Huh?"
"Two chickens. Alone?"
Face flushing crimson,
"...Yes..."
Ghost Story Club