The 31st Student Ghost Story #2
“Whoa, what the hell? Move it, I wanna see too!”
“Yang Ju-hui really did come to school.”
“Hey! Everyone, get out of the way!”
The hallway in front of the teachers’ office was packed with students swarming like a cloud. The teachers tried to break it up, but their authority had long since hit rock bottom. I squeezed through the crowd and peeked into the office. Yang Ju-hui was sitting across from the homeroom teacher, talking about something I obviously couldn’t hear. Right now, what mattered more than the words was the sight of her.
“She must’ve washed the dye out.”
“It suits her.”
Just like the students were murmuring, Yang Ju-hui’s hair had returned to the same bright yellow shade most of them had. The change completely altered her impression, and it suited her so well that the whole atmosphere around her felt different.
Ding-dong-dang-dong—
The bell for first period rang. The students who had been camping in front of the office like they were waiting for idol tickets finally had to disperse, and I headed back to class.
Creak—
Soon after, Yang Ju-hui walked into the classroom as well. Her seat was right behind mine, so naturally every eye turned our way. A little awkward, honestly. The tension was so thick it felt like the whole room would explode if someone so much as poked it with a needle. While the silence stretched uncomfortably, something suspicious was happening among the girls.
Tap, tap-tap—
They were elbowing each other in the arm. Like they were all going “You do it” and “No, you do it!” After a long round of pushing and shoving, An Yeong-mi—the quiet, introverted girl who sat next to class president Jeong Sojin—crept toward Yang Ju-hui.
“Um… Ju-hui. People were talking in the class group chat over the weekend… After school today, could you maybe come to the back of the auditorium? The kids from Class C said they’ll be waiting for you…”
“Class C?”
Slide—
Yang Ju-hui narrowed her eyes and swept a glare across the room. Her hair color might have gone back to normal, but the venom in her gaze hadn’t changed. An Yeong-mi shrank like a terrified rabbit.
“What? I never saw any message like that. Ha… these bitches. Did you guys make another group chat without me again? This time to bully me?”
Crash—!
Yang Ju-hui shoved her chair back with a loud scrape and stood up.
“You sons of bitches! You’re gonna drag me behind the auditorium so Class C can stomp on me?”
The entire class went dead silent, startled by the volume. Yang Ju-hui stood there like a lead actress owning the stage.
“God, this is ridiculous. You think I don’t know what you’re all up to? Hey, Kim Geon-ho—did you put them up to this?”
“…What are you talking about? I don’t know anything about this. Go talk to the Class C kids. Bong Ji-yeon from next door never liked you anyway. Clear up the misunderstanding or whatever.”
Kim Geon-ho looked flustered at being called out. There was a girl in Class C named Bong Ji-yeon who hung out with the upperclassmen; she was basically the female version of Kim Geon-ho in their class. Even Kim Geon-ho didn’t want to pick a fight with someone backed by second- and third-years, so he was trying to stay out of it. Coward.
More importantly—there was a “Class D group chat”? I’d never been invited to one from the start. These bastards!
Being left out of the group chat hurt more than any direct bullying from Kim Geon-ho or Yang Ju-hui ever had. So… what happens now? Is Yang Ju-hui going to get stomped by Bong Ji-yeon’s crew? No matter how tough she acts, she’s still just a first-year. If the other twenty-nine students in Class D decide to gang up on her, even Yang Ju-hui will break eventually.
Then what should I do? If I just stand by and watch her get bullied, I’ll be no different from the kids who bullied and ignored me. Still… she was my girlfriend for one night. I should probably step in. I already had a few ideas.
“Guys, the teacher’s coming.”
Jeong Seok, the vice president who had been keeping watch in the hallway, tapped the blackboard a few times and quickly sat down.
“Alright, everyone sit and open your books. Class president Jeong Sojin… said she’s heading to the nurse’s office for a bit. Vice president Jeong Seok, want to greet everyone and start class?”
Just like always, the noisy classroom instantly quieted down. My phone vibrated with a katok— notification. Curious, I checked it and saw an unfamiliar chat room.
……
So this was the class group chat. Even though we were in the middle of class, the chat was scrolling up nonstop. I looked around and saw everyone tapping away on their phones, hidden under desks or behind propped-up books.
Kids these days really spend class time like this, whispering among themselves. It was a whole new world to me. Kinda exciting, actually. Being invited to this chat probably meant I was finally being accepted as part of Class D. The bullying spotlight had shifted to Yang Ju-hui instead.
But something felt off. Maybe it was just my imagination, but… wasn’t this strange? Had no one else noticed?
# # #
Our class has thirty students, including me. And among those thirty, there was a mole.
“Bullying is occurring in Class D.”
I stared at the photo of the note I’d asked Teacher Kang Haneul to take. The last shred of conscience in Class D. That person would make a good ally.
Vrrr, vrrr—
My phone kept vibrating, which was annoying. I’d turned off notifications, so why were messages still coming through? Class D was on fire in the new anonymous open chat. If you looked away for five minutes, three hundred new messages would pile up. After all, thirty people each saying one thing makes thirty messages.
Was it because Yang Ju-hui wasn’t in the chat? Or because the chat had been created specifically to badmouth her?
The insults kept coming. It was surreal how quickly they could tear down the same Yang Ju-hui they had been sucking up to just days ago. If she saw this, she’d probably burst into tears.
On a whim, I typed into the chat.
……
Yang Ju-hui definitely wasn’t here? No, something was off. Our class has exactly thirty students. If Yang Ju-hui was excluded, there should only be twenty-nine people in this chat. I was user number 30. That meant there were still thirty people here even without her.
“Ah, shit.”
Someone cursed. It was Park In-bae, the half-shaved delinquent who sat in the far back right corner. I wondered why until I checked the chat.
Someone had posted a disgusting photo and was terrorizing the chat. The kind of thing that happens in anonymous rooms. With thirty students, there’s bound to be at least one attention-seeker.
But then a much bigger problem suddenly appeared.
……
It was a bizarre message. What’s more, a chat I hadn’t even written appeared under the name “30.” The intent was crystal clear.
—The game begins now. If you can’t find out who I am, you’ll all die. In (?) minutes.—
“What the hell is this?”
“Who’s playing this prank…?”
Whispers spread through the quiet classroom. Everyone seemed stunned by the strange phenomenon.
The chat was in chaos, but everyone seemed to think it was just some prank. I would have thought the same—if I hadn’t already experienced several supernatural incidents. But I knew this was the work of something abnormal, and it probably really was.
“…If we don’t find out who it is, we all die?”
My number 30 had said “minutes.” 「30: Minutes.」 Did that mean we had thirty minutes left? I checked the clock. There were exactly thirty minutes until the end of first period. In other words, if we couldn’t find “someone” before class ended, we’d all die. That interpretation didn’t seem wrong.
And that “someone” was someone I could easily guess.
These bastards! This isn’t a joke! You could all really die!
It was depressing how there wasn’t a single person I could trust.
“Advice…!”
Broken Clock’s Advice: Sometimes counting prime numbers can help ease tension.
Count prime numbers? Did that mean the culprit was a prime number? No, it was just telling me a way to relieve tension. Prime numbers. Perfect, solitary numbers divisible only by 1 and themselves. I counted them slowly while racking my brain.
The easiest way to find the culprit was for everyone to type their real names in the chat. That would make it simple to spot the fake. Even if the thirtieth person was impersonating a student, if two people claimed the same name, we could just check whose number matched.
But the problem was that no one in the chat had any intention of revealing their real names. They’d already posted lewd pictures and said all kinds of filthy things in an anonymous room, so they were terrified of being exposed. And since it was class time, openly moving around was difficult too.
Finding one person among thirty… This was exactly like finding the mole.
“The mole…”
Wait—finding the mole?!
Flash—
An idea suddenly struck me. I opened my phone and looked at the photo of the note that read “Bullying is occurring in Class D.” This was the hint. Not the words or the content—the paper itself.
“The paper is the answer…!”
You chat-room ghost. You think you can outdo me, the bullying expert? The real outcast of Class D isn’t me, the one who was never in the chat. It’s you—the one who only exists in the chat.