Twin Ghosts #1
The sharp rap of knuckles echoed against our front door. Knock knock knock. It was Hong Miri, the teacher, knocking again.
I had no idea what was going on. Why had she come to our house? I didn’t know what this was about, but my gut told me it wasn’t anything good. After all, Hong Miri was basically a witch who devoured her own students! She might look like an ordinary person, but her true identity was that of a deranged ghost! Or maybe she was an imitation ghost pretending to be Hong Miri.
That’s right—an imitation ghost! Back when I unlocked the second floor of the corridor, I’d come face to face with a ghost reflected in a mirror. I’d been so startled that I used an escape talisman right away. Mirror. Reflection. Imitation. Those words naturally came to mind. Maybe the mirror ghost on the second floor was a spirit that copied others. Which meant the Hong Miri standing outside right now could be that ghost putting on an act.
Was there any way to tell whether the Hong Miri at the door was a ghost or a human?
After thinking it over from every angle, one brilliant idea finally sparked in my mind. I’d recently heard that ghosts behave in reverse compared to humans. Jeong Sojin had mentioned it, and I vaguely remembered hearing something similar. Apparently ghosts clap with the backs of their hands and do all sorts of backwards things.
So maybe I could ask Hong Miri to clap for me? Of course, suddenly demanding applause would look suspicious, so I needed a decent excuse or some nonsense to cover it.
“Teacher, if you want to come inside our house, you need the password. Please clap out the jajinmori rhythm with your hands.”
“What? I don’t have time for jokes. Open the door.”
“It’s a house rule.”
Hong Miri grumbled like I was talking nonsense, but I kept a straight face. Maybe my seriousness got through to her even through the door.
Clap clap clap.
Clap clap clap.
Clap clap clap clap clap clap clap.
She clapped. Peeking through the door’s peephole, I confirmed that Hong Miri had clapped properly. It wasn’t jajinmori at all—it was the 3-3-7 clap—but still. Even so, I honestly didn’t want to let her in. Ghost or not, Hong Miri was suspicious as hell. But if I dragged this out any longer, I might start looking suspicious myself.
I pretended I didn’t know anything. “Okay. Come in.”
Ding-ding. The moment I opened the door, Hong Miri stood there with her arms crossed, staring at me with a bored expression. Click. Click. The sharp sound of her high heels echoed as she stepped inside, glancing around before clicking her tongue. Did she not like how small our house was?
“There’s a cockroach over there.”
“…Where?!”
I looked where her finger pointed. But there was nothing. The instant I turned my head back toward her, something poked my cheek. She’d set a trap with her finger.
“Is it okay or not to mess with adults?”
“……”
She slipped off her heels and came in. Her black stockings caught my eye more than I wanted to admit.
“Where’s your mother? Has her health improved?”
Hong Miri was the one who had found my missing mom. We’d also spent quite a long time together in that mansion. Maybe… when I filed the missing person report, Mom had said something like, “My son reported me missing, so I should go back now.” And then she lost her memories somehow and wandered the streets until Hong Miri found her. Or maybe Hong Miri, having lived in the mansion with her, had been keeping tabs on where and how Mom was wandering. Or maybe not. It would be easiest to just ask her directly… but.
“My mom’s at work. She’ll be home late today.”
It was five in the evening. Mom wouldn’t be back for at least another hour.
Hong Miri slowly looked around the room. I couldn’t quite read the emotion in her gaze.
She said, “Then should I order some hamburgers? Do you like them?”
“Yeah, I do.”
Why was she offering to buy me hamburgers? Was she trying to fatten me up before eating me? That thought crossed my mind, but there was no reason to turn down free food. After she ordered, she asked about my studies, my future plans, whether I was having any trouble at school, and so on. They were all formal questions, and I gave normal answers.
“There was a transfer student in your class, right? What do you think of him?”
“The transfer student…”
She must mean Wang Ja-hyeon. What a vague question.
“I don’t really know.”
“Is that so? That’s fine. By the way, why is the hamburger taking so long?”
Ding-dong. The doorbell rang right then. When I went outside, a bag of hamburgers was sitting at the entrance.
“Thanks for the food.”
“Sure.”
I bit into the bacon-loaded burger. It was salty and incredibly delicious. But I stopped chewing when I witnessed a bizarre scene.
Hong Miri was eating her hamburger upside down. Normally you eat it with the sesame-seed bun on top, but she had it the other way around.
“…Teacher. You’re eating your hamburger upside down.”
“Oh? This? It’s cleaner this way. Less mess on your face.”
Was that true…? It felt suspicious. Was she acting backwards because she was a ghost? Anyway, once the meal was over, she spoke again.
“So, Ha Yeong-won. I have a good offer for you. Want to hear it? Your family’s struggling to make ends meet, right? Our school foundation can give you a scholarship and cover all your university tuition.”
“Do I have to go to Yeongji University to get the tuition support?”
Yeongji University was one of those third-rate schools in Korea that everyone joked graduated more babies than employed graduates. Yeongji High offered full scholarships to pretty decent students and strongly recommended they attend Yeongji University. It looked like that was why Hong Miri had come to our house.
“Yeongji University… you can go or not. Just so you know, this teacher went to college on that same Yeongji scholarship, got a job, and became a teacher. But… ah, my mind. I forgot to bring the documents.”
“Documents?”
“Yeah. I think I left them in my office. It’s only a ten-minute drive from here. Yeong-won, come with me.”
Hong Miri’s office. This might be my chance to figure out what she really was.
“Sure, why not.”
I followed Hong Miri down to the car parked on the first floor.
It must have been because summer was close—the days were long. The evening sky was dyed in the soft glow of sunset. Beneath that sunset, I saw a building rising tall. The sign read 「Yeongji Foundation Talent Development Center」. It was only about three stories high and looked a bit worn down, as if it had been around for a while.
The moment we stepped inside, a chilling air enveloped us that didn’t match the muggy weather outside. It felt like the air conditioning was cranked up to the max, or maybe someone had left a giant refrigerator door open.
“It’s on the third floor, so let’s take the elevator. These heels make the stairs a pain.”
She pressed the button and we rode up to the third floor. When we arrived, the entire level was mostly open space filled with empty offices.
“Is your office really here?”
“Yeah. Over there.”
The very end of the third floor. Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen a single other person in the building. Were we the only ones here? My wariness shot up as we reached her office.
Beep, beep-beep. She unlocked the door. Inside was a perfectly ordinary office—desk, chair, sofa, bookshelves, TV, the works.
“I’ll look for the documents. You can sit on the sofa over there.”
Rummage, rummage. She started digging through the drawers. I used the chance to observe the office again. No matter how I looked at it, it seemed like a normal office. The only unusual things were a foldable La-Z-Boy style bed and a set of women’s underwear someone had left on top of it.
“Ah. Found it.”
At that moment, she picked something up and walked over to me.
“Read it carefully and fill it out.”
Yeongji Foundation Scholarship Eligibility and Consent Form
The Yeongji Foundation operates various curricula and scholarship programs to nurture global talent. Please read the following items carefully and sign.
1. Students selected as Yeongji Foundation scholars must rank in the top 50% of their class each semester.
....
4. Once you have confirmed all of the above, please sign.
It looked like an ordinary brochure. But starting from item 5, the sentences turned strange.
5. Yeongji Foundation scholars must surrender their human rights and devote their entire lives to the pursuit of truth.
6. Scholars will have a ghost living inside their brain, and their soul will be mortgaged to hell.
7. Actually, this is all a lie.
8. Some of these sentences were written by a ghost.
“……”
What the hell was this? It felt like some kind of hidden camera prank. But Hong Miri simply sat down on the sofa across from me and watched me with a relaxed gaze.
I said to her, “Teacher… the clauses are a bit weird, so I’m hesitant to sign.”
“Why? Is there a problem? Which items seem strange?”
“Everything from number 5 to 8 is weird.”
The look in Hong Miri’s eyes changed. It was the same look I’d seen in every ghost I’d encountered so far. Eyes full of murderous intent.
Hong Miri was slightly annoyed. It was because the foundation chairman, Cheon Daegon, had suddenly taken an interest in some insignificant male student. Thanks to that, her own time was being wasted.
Do I really have to babysit a brat like this? I need to get back to the old school building right now!
A few days ago, Hong Miri had managed to enter the nightmare version of the old school building twice. It was an incredible achievement in her life.
How did I manage to get in there? I just need to figure out the method. Once I know the method, everyone will realize how incredible I am. Even the chairman won’t be able to look down on me anymore.
Everything has a cause and effect. Hong Miri believed there must be a proper reason she had been able to enter that corridor. She didn’t even have enough time to devote herself to finding that reason, yet here she was, stuck taking care of some boy. She thought the chairman was overreacting by making her hand over this consent form.
It looks like we’re recruiting scholars, but it’s actually a guide to find Watchers. A ghost-possessed contract.
To people without spiritual senses, it would end at clause 4. But those with spiritual eyes would see text invisible to others. Depending on their level of talent, the visible clauses ranged from 5 to 7.
Seeing up to 5 is already a decent aptitude.
Hong Miri looked at the final item, number 7.
7. Actually, this is all ────.
It was hard to read clearly, but she could make out up to clause 7. That was an incredible talent for a Watcher who could see into the spiritual world. Yet this clueless boy said:
“Everything from number 5 to 8 is weird.”
“…Number 8? What does number 8 say?”
“It says, ‘Some of these sentences were written by a ghost.’”
“Really? Then what about number 7?”
“Number 7 says, ‘Actually, this is all a lie.’ Teacher, is this really a contract? Is this a scholarship application?”
The emotion Hong Miri felt after hearing the boy’s words was a mix of shock and jealousy. The shock came from the realization that he wasn’t lying. He was describing clause 7 in almost the same way she could barely see it. No, what he said was probably the correct version.
“It was a lie. Everything written there was a lie.”
Jealousy. That sticky, cold, and sharp emotion broke through the walls of her heart for the first time since high school and showed on her face. When the boy flinched at her demonic, vicious expression, Hong Miri unconsciously moved her hand.
If this kid exists, I’ll be second place again.
Her hand grabbed the boy’s throat. Squeeze! It was clearly filled with murderous intent. The boy struggled.
“Gah! W-what are you doing?!”
In his thrashing, the boy poked her in the eye.
“Aaaagh! You son of a bitch!”
Attacked in the eye, Hong Miri screamed.
“I’ll kill you!”
She had already decided to kill the boy. She could just tell the chairman that he had died unavoidably during the process of becoming a Watcher. With that thought, she reached for a nearby utility knife, but the boy seemed to have already fled by elevator.
“……”
Wearing her heels, Hong Miri got into the elevator to chase after him. But the buttons had already been completely covered in some strange fluorescent marker, making the floor numbers impossible to read.
“Ha Yeong-won, you sly little squirrel bastard. You think scribbling on the buttons will stop me from finding the first floor?”
She pressed the 1 button hard. But something was wrong. Instead of going down to the first floor, the elevator started going up.
Ding-dong.
“Fourth floor?”
The elevator had arrived at the fourth floor of a building that shouldn’t have one. It was strange.
Where am I?
Ding. The doors opened, revealing a dark hallway. The entire corridor reeked of various chemicals.
“This place…!”
Hong Miri was greatly shocked. Because this was the orphanage where she had died and been reborn anew.
“…How is this possible? Wasn’t this place burned down and destroyed?”
Click. Click. Soon, the sound of high heels walking from far down the corridor reached Hong Miri’s ears.