☆05. "haunted"
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[ACT. 1]
♪ crystal castles - vanished
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EVERYONE CHUCKLED AS NI-KI stood up and glared at Nana, who swallowed instantly. His face was filled with rice and tomato sauce. He was as angry as he was confused.
For all the people gathered around them, the situation was funny, but they hadn't asked themselves how the poor boy could have ended up in this shameful context.
Except Rachel.
"Did you do that?"
She questioned her.
The black-haired girl opened her mouth, disturbed by events. She ignored her classmate and scurried out of the cafeteria. Rachel quickly followed and intercepted her in the school hall.
"Wait... He couldn't have fallen on his own and I didn't see anyone pushing him, or even throwing food."
Nana wasn't really lucid anymore and hesitated between laughing or crying.
If what had just happened couldn't be explained rationally, then there was no point in thinking any further... Only something supernatural was possible.
She sighed and closed her eyes for a few seconds. She didn't know why Sunghoon had done it, but directly exposing him was out of the question, even if Rachel, a paranormal fan, was the best person to understand her.
"Now you know why I came to ask you about your club."
Then she turned away, leaving doubt hanging in the air.
"What do you mean by that?"
"I'd have told you more if you'd wanted to help me, but..."
The teen wanted to leave one more time, but Rachel caught up with her.
"Was it a spirit? Something like that?"
The heroine remained silent and passive, which annoyed Ni-ki's cousin who was in search of answers. She was on the verge of bursting with curiosity, so she gave up.
"Right... If you want to talk about it, I'll be in room 107 after classes. You can come."
Nana nodded and her new friend smiled nervously before leaving.
She struggled not to scream, too impatient to finally answer this question: how can she see Sunghoon? What's their link?
But even if Rachel could actually help her, this "ghost story" wouldn't end just like that.
Her life would never be the same anymore.
The young woman slammed the gymnasium door, calling out Sunghoon. He was on the ice rink as usual, but when he saw Nana coming towards him with a quick step, he froze in fear.
"Everything all right?"
"I'm not even mad at you because thanks to what you did, I was able to talk to Rachel."
The blond boy grinned before approaching the edge of the rink.
"Well done. Now we can find out if you have monstrous powers or—"
Sunghoon stopped when he saw Nana glare at him.
"No time for jokes. I'm sure I'll have Ni-ki on my back for the rest of the year now."
She crossed her arms at the skater, who lowered his head too ashamed. Faced with that, the girl moved a little closer and entered the rink.
She leaned until she could see his face. He was so embarrassed, blushing and always trying to avoid her gaze.
The frustration dissipated slightly when the ghost heard a small laugh come from her mouth.
"Seriously, why did you do that? I could have handled this by myself."
"I just couldn't let him. Watching that without doing anything..." He tensed for a moment, afraid of saying too much.
"Let's put that aside and— Woah!"
She tried to get off the ice but slid miserably. Her bare knees hit the icy ground.
"Are you okay?"
"Gosh! That's cold as hell!"
"Of course that's cold. It's literally ice."
"Oh my god... No way!"
She said sarcastically and massaged her reddened knees, but as she reached the rink's exit, she slipped again and clutched against the border. "Stupid bastard."
"I love it when you talk to me like that." Sunghoon burst out laughing as he walked past her.
"Can't you help me?!"
"Sorry, I want to but... I can't touch you, remember?"
He showed her his hands, as if to absolve himself completely.
"How did you kick me out of the gymnasium last time?"
She'd commented as she exited the ice field on all fours.
"I managed."
He hissed, which annoyed the protagonist, who got to her feet while trying to fix her hair, disheveled from the fall.
Sunghoon sat on a bench, watching her struggle with her own hair.
Once she'd finished, the student coughed and moved towards her sidekick, who was still looking at her, laugh out loud.
"Otherwise, I was wondering... If you've been stuck in there for months what have you been doing all this time? I mean... To keep you busy."
She changed the subject, embarrassed.
The ghost let out a nervous chuckle before looking at the young woman, impatient for an answer.
"Well..." He pretended to think. "I skate, read library books, bored as fuck, watch other students, then bored as fuck again—"
"Watch who..? It's weird tho."
"It allows me to see if any of you are behaving suspiciously and, therefore, to find the killer."
He flashed a terrifying smile.
"That's so fucking scary."
The ghost laughed. However, Nana seemed pensive, as if what Sunghoon had just said wasn't that scary and dumb. "But it's kind of the only thing to do. After all, you think discovering the identity of your murderer is going to set you free. We should focus on that don't you think?"
"Yeah."
He was glad to finally have someone to talk to and share his ideas with, especially if that person understood him and was of the same mind.
"Almost the end of the break... I have to go. Maybe I'll come back when I'm done with Rachel."
"I'll wait for you."
He smiled at her as she set off in the direction of the exit while waving her hand.
Before entering the room, Nana bothered to look around. There were no students left in the corridors and, reassured, she stepped inside.
The classroom was dark and small, Rachel was already there, sitting on a table with a lighted candle.
She had adopted her cold, cynical expression again and glared at the heroine.
"We're already in the mood, it's cool." Nana was trying to joke with but she wasn't in that state of mind.
"That's mainly because there's no bulb."
She pointed to the ceiling and indeed, there was no bulb which explained the darkness of the room. The punk massaged her eyes, weighed down by embarrassment.
"You can sit."
Despite this, she rushed to a chair. Rachel's eyes were still fixed on Nana, who didn't dare move a finger. If her eyes were guns, she would already be dead.
"I hope this isn't bullshit. I hate wasting my time."
"No bullshit. I swear."
Rachel nodded and sat down in a chair. Suddenly, she pulled several books out of her bag, all of them tackled a variety of themes like the occult and supernatural things.
"Right. As I understand it, you want information about spirits."
"Yeah. Specifically about ghosts."
The point of all this, of course, was to get answers to her questions without exposing too much her situation. As long as Sunghoon's secret was protected, that was fine.
"You think you're haunted?"
Rachel sounded serious, but she was becoming more comfortable.
"Haunted? No... I feel more like I'm seeing things."
"You can see ghosts then? Kind of like the third eye?"
"Third what..? Um... Let's cut to the chase. I just want to know if you have any simple explanations."
"Well, the third eye. It allows you to see beyond the physical world and not many people have it. You really have to train to get it."
"That's it, I've never trained for this thing. I don't even know what it is. Is there anything else?"
The young woman grew increasingly stressed as Rachel scanned every page of her books, looking for a convincing hypothesis.
After several minutes of searching, she closed her books and put them in her bag.
"It's really annoying. The most interesting books are in the former club room, which is condemned..."
"Oh."
The black-haired girl was disappointed, "So we can't go and get them back?"
"Actually yes, but we need the key and the only person to have it was the president but... I doubt he'll let me take it."
She pouted.
"Aren't you the club leader?"
"I was the vice president. The leader and creator of the occult club was Yang Jungwon."