Chapter 10

Hwaae High School (6)

I’d even put on that ridiculous performance to get him a textbook.

So where the hell had he put it?

Just then, something hard and flat poked me in the back.

“Ms. Haebin?”

“You’re supposed to call me ‘Haebin.’ But I think I should’ve refused this....”

Myeong Haebin whispered so softly that I could barely hear her, barely moving her lips.

The Korean-language textbook was sitting on her desk.

Team Leader Yong had given her the textbook he had stolen.

“It’s an easy question, so don’t be too nervous. Page ninety-one, question four.”

The teacher’s words snapped me back to my senses.

If Team Leader Yong didn’t have a book, I could just look at the textbook beside him and secretly show him the answer.

My hands hurriedly flipped to page ninety-one. My eyes raced across the passage for question four as the teacher read it aloud in a monotonous voice.

[I was walking along a secluded mountain road on a dark night, with few streetlights. Suddenly, I noticed a human sitting beneath a bus stop shelter. His head was bowed deeply, and his hands trembled as if he were anxious. He looked especially pitiful.]

“Choose the emotion the narrator should feel in this situation.”

PityAngerHappinessFearDisgust

It was a simple question: read the passage and choose the correct answer.

But there was something strange about the passage and the fact that we had to select an emotion. It carried the uniquely chilling wrongness of a ghost story.

“The answer isn’t marked in advance.”

Back when I was in school, some students occasionally worked through the textbook questions beforehand, but apparently, the owner of this book hadn’t been one of them.

Still, I knew the answer.

Team Leader Yong might know it even better than I did.

“This ghost story hates humans. It wants to rip out their brains, and if it were able, it would kill even more of them.”

Hadn’t the questions Jeong Dohyeon and I faced already proven that?

The human in this passage was alone in an extremely dangerous place, looking utterly vulnerable. Wouldn’t that make him ideal prey for an anomaly?

In that case—

“Obviously, the answer is number three: happiness.”

I lowered my hand where the teacher couldn’t see and held up three fingers.

Team Leader Yong grinned and nodded.

But at that moment, a chill ran down my spine.

It was pure instinct.

Why was the answer so obvious?

“Has anything in this ghost story ever been obvious?”

Jeong Dohyeon had said that the answer was in the textbook.

If you could find the answer merely by listening to the passage the teacher read aloud, why would you need the textbook at all?

I hurriedly looked back down at the page.

Beside question four was a small dotted box labeled “Let’s Think Further.” When I tried to read it, the letters began writhing like worms made of ink, as though the question wasn’t meant for me.

There was no doubt about it.

The passage was a trap.

The real answer was here.

Gush.

As I forced myself to read, blood burst from my nose and dripped onto the textbook. My vision turned red.

[Let’s Think Further: You would desire it. But—]

Even so, I stubbornly pulled apart the characters that had clustered together and deciphered them one by one.

I had to read it, no matter what it took.

[If you could do whatever you wanted with it,]

I traced the writhing letters with my fingertip, one character at a time, concentrating every one of my senses.

[why would the expression “a rice cake in a picture” exist?]

A rice cake in a picture.

Something so vivid that it seemed close enough to grasp, yet could never truly be obtained.

The blood flowing from my nose had made a mess of the textbook, but it felt as though a light had switched on inside my head.

The answer wasn’t happiness.

It was anger.

Anger at being unable to seize the tempting prize right before one’s eyes.

“Wait...!”

I tried to alert Team Leader Yong before he answered, but my lips sealed shut and no sound emerged. I couldn’t even breathe, and the hand that had been moving perfectly well moments earlier went rigid.

“Shh. There would be no point to the question if you told your friend the answer.”

The “teacher’s” soft whisper scraped against my ear.

That confirmed it.

It was a trap.

Number two was the correct answer.

But no matter how loudly I tried to shout, the words merely echoed inside my blocked throat.

Meanwhile, Team Leader Yong looked me in the eye as if to reassure me.

“The answer is... number three.”

Perhaps it was only my imagination, but the teacher’s mouth seemed to split into a wide grin.

“Incorrect.”

The restraints on my body vanished.

At the same moment, the teacher’s finger—sharper than an awl and keener than a blade—came down on the back of Team Leader Yong’s hand.

“...!”

I wanted to kick my chair back and leap to my feet, but the deterrent force of the “teacher’s” gaze stopped me.

Meanwhile, the teacher explained the question in a voice so gentle it was nauseating.

“Why did you think you should feel happy? Did you want the human that badly? Yes, I suppose you would be happy. How delightful it would be.”

“Kh... Ngh...!”

“But do you truly think you could have it with that frail body of yours? You should know your place.”

The nail buried deep in the back of his hand slowly dragged downward with a sickening scrape.

The beads of blood became a stream, then formed a puddle.

“Therefore, the emotion you should feel is anger.”

“Thank you for the excellent lesson, ma’am.”

Team Leader Yong abruptly grabbed the teacher’s hand, which was still embedded in his own.

Clenching his back teeth, he stared at the teacher with bloodshot eyes. The teacher met his gaze and raised only the corners of its mouth.

“Just like that.”

“Ghaaagh...!”

The teacher effortlessly shook off Team Leader Yong’s grip. Its nail tore free, sending droplets of blood scattering through the air.

Unable to suppress it any longer, Team Leader Yong let out a cry as his hand trembled violently.

“I hope you found the lesson educational, but it appears you should visit the nurse’s office.”

Click. Click.

Only after the teacher’s footsteps retreated toward the lectern were we able to breathe properly again.

“Are you okay?”

“Look at all that blood. I have a bandage.”

Myeong Haebin hurriedly produced a compression bandage and held it out. Despite panting for breath, however, Team Leader Yong was smiling as he watched the teacher.

“What are you so happy about?”

“No, I just thought it was fortunate. Look at that.”

The teacher was casually writing on the board with a hand drenched in Team Leader Yong’s blood.

A dismantling marker shone clearly on the back of its hand.

The fact that the teacher didn’t seem capable of seeing it was one thing, but had Team Leader Yong forced himself to do something so reckless even while his hand was being pierced... just to place that marker?

Even so, was this really the time to grin as if he had accomplished something, old man?

“Give me your hand.”

Myeong Haebin reached for him, but I quietly pushed her hand back.

“I’ll do it. Haebin, stay in your seat.”

The surrounding students had begun giving us strange looks because of our whispering.

The wound was clearly severe. It was deep enough to expose the bone, and he didn’t appear able to put any strength into his hand.

I pressed down firmly to stop the bleeding.

With his uninjured hand, Team Leader Yong rummaged inside his clothes, took out a small medicine bottle, and tossed a pill into his mouth. Only then did he release a long breath, looking slightly better.

Did he carry painkillers with him?

“If you hadn’t given the textbook to Haebin in the first place, you wouldn’t have been injured this badly.”

“You’re starting to get awfully cheeky.”

Team Leader Yong looked as if he wanted to flick me on the forehead, but clicked his tongue as though he would let it slide just this once. Then he carefully lowered his voice.

“Haebin is your only team member. Even if something does happen, it’s better for at least one team to remain intact.”

It was astonishing that he could say that with his hand practically in tatters.

But that hand wasn’t the only problem.

“I appreciate you looking out for Haebin, but what are you going to do? The teacher told you to go to the nurse’s office.”

His injury was severe enough that there was a good chance they would process him for early leave, just like Jeong Dohyeon.

Then forget orientation or anything else—Myeong Haebin and I would truly be left here all by ourselves.

Damn it.

“Well, it was only a recommendation for now, wasn’t it? Let’s not overthink it.”

Team Leader Yong instinctively raised a hand, apparently intending to pat my shoulder, but the pain made him grimace. He lowered it again.

“Stop frowning. I’m the one who makes the decisions, and I’m the one who bears the responsibility. I’m the leader, after all. You just focus on getting home.”

“Underst—... Fine.”

Perhaps this was why someone like him had become a team leader.

Even after taking a painkiller, the pain was severe enough to make his hand tremble, yet his sense of responsibility still made him put his team members before himself.

I couldn’t take my eyes off Team Leader Yong’s hand. Even after he placed it inside the desk, the thick smell of blood continued to fill the air.

Then the bell signaling the end of third period rang.

Ding-dong-dang-dong.

At least now we could speak more comfortably.

“All right, let’s go. Move!”

“I don’t remember the exact location, but there was a complete map of the school on the first floor. Let’s go look at it.”

The instant the bell rang, we raced down the stairs as if we were in a timed challenge.

A large school directory was mounted on the wall to the left of the staircase, right beside the main entrance.

“Practice room, home economics lab....”

“There are Science Laboratories One and Two, but I don’t see any practice room.”

“Haebin, are you sure you didn’t mistake one of the laboratories for it?”

“No! I’m sure I saw it. Then why isn’t it here?”

The three of us practically pressed our noses against the map as we carefully examined every room listed on every floor, but we couldn’t find anything called a home economics lab.

“Let’s go up and look for it ourselves. The map might not match the actual building.”

We searched the second floor, the third, and even the fourth. We checked every classroom we could find, but the directory was accurate.

There was no home economics lab.

“That’s strange. I saw it.... It was when I came to get you, sunbae, after first period. I’m sure I saw it then. So why isn’t it here?”

The third floor, where the second-year classrooms were located, contained only classrooms, the second-year teachers’ office, the music room, and the counseling room.

But Myeong Haebin said she had seen it while coming to get me.

“Let’s go to the lounge.”

“Why there? That’s at the end of the corridor!”

Team Leader Yong shouted after me, but I didn’t want to waste our ten-minute break. I led the other two back to the lounge with the now-clean vending machine.

The vending machine, however, wasn’t what I had come to investigate.

“Ms. Haebin, when you came to find me, which way did you take?”

“You’re supposed to call me Haebin. Your classroom was one floor below mine, so I went down these stairs.”

The lounge on the fourth floor—the first-year floor—was situated at the end of the hallway beside a staircase.

“Let’s follow the same route you took back then.”

Common sense didn’t apply to ghost stories.

If we recreated Myeong Haebin’s exact route from when she saw it, perhaps the room would appear again.

With that thought, I followed Myeong Haebin down the stairs once more.

I didn’t expect much, because we had thoroughly searched this corridor earlier and found nothing strange.

But... huh?

“See? I told you I wasn’t mistaken.”

“What is this, some kind of secret room? They actually hid an entire classroom.”

A room labeled “Home Economics Lab” had appeared directly in front of the staircase, in a space that I had been certain contained nothing unusual.

Could it only be found by descending this particular staircase?

“This kind of thing does happen occasionally. What matters is that we found it.”

[ENTRY PROHIBITED]

This home economics lab has been closed. Students are forbidden from entering.

However, the prohibition notice—and the sturdy iron padlock securing the door—left me dumbfounded.

“We finally find it, only for it to be locked.”

“With it locked up this securely, students probably couldn’t sneak in to do anything even if they wanted to.”

“Rookie, you’re underestimating kids.”

I leaned toward the door, hoping to at least peek inside the classroom and soothe my disappointment.

Then I heard a heavy rattling sound beside me.

Clatter.

I turned my head.

Team Leader Yong, one hand wrapped in blood-soaked bandages, was shaking the window.

“What are you doing?”

“What does it look like? I’m breaking in. If students want to do things in secret, they have to put in at least this much effort.”

The urge to ask exactly what kind of youth he’d had rose all the way to the tip of my tongue.