The Haunted House Is Not What You Think
The college entrance exams that had been choking them like some nightmare in a haunted house were finally over. School had slipped into vacation. Come March, the four of them would scatter in every direction, heading off to university. The freedom that had at last descended on them would not be a long one. Once they started college, who knew what fresh troubles might be waiting. So this was their last real chance—a final trip to make memories that might truly be their last. And it was Jinsu who wanted to spend that trip on a haunted house experience.
“Of course! There’s a pension right nearby. If you all say you’re in, I’ll book it.”
“A pension?”
Yeonji, who had been lukewarm at the words haunted house experience, lit up in an instant. Her large eyes widened like lanterns, sparkling with sudden interest. She glanced at Sumin, who was always stuck to her side, and Sumin’s face had brightened too, expectations clearly swelling.
Seeing the pair of them, Jinsu grinned. Even Yongha was starting to look genuinely intrigued.
“Not bad. As long as a certain someone doesn’t bail at the last second.”
Yongha’s teasing made Jinsu pull a truly wronged expression, while Yeonji and Sumin burst into playful laughter.
“I’m serious this time! I swear I won’t back out! So we’re going, right? No one’s allowed to chicken out, understand?”
When Jinsu pressed them again, everyone finally nodded. Sumin was the only one who hated scary things and felt anxious, but she didn’t want to be the lone holdout when her friends were all going.
“Perfect! How about next week? None of us have plans then, yeah?”
“That soon?” Sumin asked, startled.
Jinsu shrugged as if to say what’s the problem? “Why not? You got something urgent? If we keep dragging our feet, the whole idea might just fizzle out. Since we’ve decided, isn’t it better to go quickly?”
“Well… that’s true, I guess.” Sumin’s reply lacked conviction.
Then Yongha asked, “By the way, does the pension have a swimming pool? It’d be nice if it did.”
“What?” Jinsu stared at him in disbelief. Yongha chuckled.
“We’re going in the middle of winter and you want a swimming pool? We’d freeze to death.”
Yeonji stuck her lip out in a pout. “Ugh, you country bumpkins. These days plenty of places keep the pools heated. You can enjoy them even in winter. Well, I suppose you’d have to go to know. Sumin and I went once before. It was amazing. Right?”
“Yeah. It was really great.”
At Yeonji’s reminder, Sumin’s face softened into a smile as the memory surfaced.
Unfortunately Yongha had been buried in exam prep, and Jinsu had been away at a study camp, so neither had been able to join them.
“Ugh… Look, we’re not heading to a hot spring or some luxury resort. You really think they’d have a heated pool? The whole point is the haunted house experience. Besides, it’ll probably be a cheap pension. At best we can grill some meat and set off fireworks, from what I heard.”
“Aww, that’s it?” Yeonji grumbled. Sumin chuckled beside her, then linked arms with her friend out of habit. Still, the thought of a trip with her closest friends filled her with excitement she could barely contain. The haunted-house part still nagged at her, though.
Jinsu spoke up again. “Anyway! Everyone’s in, right? We’re really doing this! Got it?”
“You better not mess up! We missed out last time because of you, Jinsu! If you flake again you’ll have terrible luck for the rest of your life!”
The four of them giggled and sealed the promise.
A large van rolled down the highway, music blasting inside. Jinsu’s father was at the wheel. They had originally planned to take the train and then a bus, but after hearing about the trip Jinsu’s father, Jinyong, had offered to drive them himself. Jinsu had expected him to oppose the haunted-house plan outright. He had been shocked when his father agreed so readily—and even more stunned that he was actually driving them all the way there.
Jinsu, sitting in the passenger seat, stole a glance at his father. The conversation from the night before drifted through his mind.
“Still, you studied hard all this time, so I’m allowing it. But promise me you won’t do anything dangerous. If you swear that, I’ll permit it.”
That had been his father’s condition. Since they weren’t planning anything bad, Jinsu had agreed without hesitation. Besides, the haunted house they were visiting was already fairly well-known on the internet; it didn’t seem especially risky. In a way, it really was no different from going to a pension for fun. Most of all, Yongha, Yeonji, and Sumin weren’t troublemakers, and the families all knew one another. That was why Jinyong trusted his son enough to let him go.
The van soon left Seoul behind and headed straight into Gangwon Province, the interior lively with music. After about an hour they turned into a remote rural village, and the pension finally appeared ahead of them.
Yeonji looked visibly disappointed by the surroundings. It was the countryside—more than that, an isolated, sparsely populated place that carried an oddly gloomy, wintry desolation. The empty fields after the rice planting seemed to hold a bone-deep chill, and every weathered old house they glimpsed looked like it could be haunted. If not for the faint smell of cow dung and the occasional bark of a dog, one might have thought the entire village was abandoned.
Behind the pension rose a tall, nameless mountain. In summer, they said, you could follow the trails down to a stream, but in winter even the water froze solid. The building felt less like a vacation home and more like a mountain lodge.
The barren landscape was a little disheartening, yet for the four of them this was their first trip together, their first night away from home. The thrill refused to be dampened.
After hauling their luggage inside, Jinsu’s father exchanged brief greetings with the pension owners—an elderly couple. The grandfather looked especially frail, but the grandmother had a warm, gentle face that put Jinyong at ease.
“You have to be careful. I mean it—if anything happens, call me right away. Understood?”
“Yes! I got it, Dad! Don’t worry!”
Jinsu smiled wider and brighter than he had in a long time. Watching him, Jinyong realized how rare that smile had become. When his son was little he had smiled all the time… It wasn’t that the boy had gone astray. As the years passed and puberty arrived, a small but natural distance had opened between father and son. Jinyong had never been the affectionate type; back then he had been stern and gruff, and his young son had been rather intimidated by him. Their relationship had never been bad, exactly, but it had changed.
During those years his son had come to value time with friends more than time at home. Then the relentless exam-prep days began, and genuine smiles grew scarce. Come to think of it, it had been a long while since Jinyong had really looked at his son like this.
“Dad, what’s wrong? Are you still worried?”
Jinsu asked again. Jinyong shook his head and offered a faint smile.
“Have fun. I’ll see you later.”
At that, all of Jinsu’s friends bowed politely in thanks. It was probably thanks to these kids that his son had grown up straight and decent.
“All right, I’m heading back.”
“Yeah! Thanks, Dad!!”
Jinsu waved as his father drove off. Once the van disappeared down the road, Jinsu turned to the others with a meaningful little smile.
“Let’s drop our stuff and go scout the place first!”
His voice brimmed with excitement. The sun was still bright overhead, but he was already itching to begin the haunted-house experience.
“I’m starving. Shouldn’t we eat lunch before we head out?”
Yeonji kept grumbling, and with good reason. They had barely set their luggage down at the pension before Jinsu dragged them straight toward the haunted house where they would be spending the night. In the end they had only bought some triangular kimbap from a convenience store to quiet their stomachs, but for teenagers in their prime it was nowhere near enough. Their bellies still rumbled like distant thunder.