Courage Test (4)

Courage test.
The act of entering haunted houses, abandoned houses, or closed schools to retrieve objects or explore.
Honestly, I don’t get why people do that.
Jeong Seok seemed to think the same way.

“Going into the old school building for a guts test? Sounds like all risk and no return to me.”

Jeong Seok, this guy, is great but he’s too smart for his own good sometimes.
Occasionally, you need to be able to just dive in with a passionate heart, without questioning or arguing, and say, “Yeah, let’s just do it!”

Fortunately, I was a man who knew how to make a deal.

“If you come with me, I might consider punishing that suspect guy you mentioned. For the record, I’m not saying I’ll do it, just that I’ll consider it. Don’t get it twisted.”

“……”

Jeong Seok seemed unable to forgive the criminal who brutally killed and even hid the head of the high school girl who lived next door yet was still out living in the world.
If this guy’s sense of justice was sincere, my offer should be as sweet as honey to him.

“You’re saying you’ll meet that guy?”

“Well… it depends on what you do.”

“Don’t forget that promise. I’m sure you’ll realize it clearly when you meet him, too. That guy is a really bad egg. Just one look, and you’ll know he shouldn’t be allowed to roam free in society. Seriously.”

Since Jeong Seok accepted my offer quite readily, I suddenly became curious.

“But can you really meet him if you want to?”

“He’s been in and out of prison for other crimes, but if we want to meet him now, we can. He’s staying at the Church of Glory here in Gaeryong. You know it? He’s living there as a deacon, getting room and board.”

Church of Glory.
The cross stuck on Yang Juhui’s front door, along with all sorts of stickers, suddenly came to mind.
Wasn’t Yang Juhui’s mother also attending the Church of Glory?

“Is it Pastor Cheon Aesu’s church by any chance?”

“You know your stuff. They say illnesses are cured and stuff when that pastor lays his hands on you. In the past, I would’ve thought it was a scam for sure, but after going through so many things, I’m starting to think maybe those things could be real too.”

Gaeryong Metropolitan City sure is small.
Various matters are entangled like a spider web in places I never even imagined.
Anyway, the important thing is that we’re going to explore the old school building today.

“Ha Youngwon. But why the old school building all of a sudden?”

“If we explore the old school building together today, Yoo Dahee said she’ll grant me a wish.”

“What?”

Jeong Seok’s face turned slightly red.
This kid is a hormonal mess, a first year in high school.

“Don’t tell me you…”

I knew exactly what he was thinking.
Well, I was thinking the same thing after all.

“That’s right. I want to ask Yoo Dahee about what happened in the summer of 6th grade. You said if I wanted to hear the story, I should ask her directly. If I use the wish, I can hear it, right?”

My being tempted by Yoo Dahee’s wish was based on my own rational thinking to some extent.
Jeong Seok soon let out a small exclamation of “Oh” at my words.

“Ha Youngwon. I’m seeing you in a bit of a new light. I thought you were the type of guy who can’t refuse any request from girls and just goes along with everything. You know, the kind of guy who’s weak to women.”

“Hey, shut up. Look who’s talking. You were whipped by Bong Jiyeon yourself.”

“I… have my reasons. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen Bong Jiyeon in quite a while. Seeing her so well-behaved these days makes me anxious instead.”

A hint of anxiety and worry flashed across Jeong Seok’s face.
Suddenly, I realized that Jeong Seok didn’t merely hate Bong Jiyeon, who had bullied him.

“Hey. Jeong Seok. I’m asking since it’s just us guys here, but do you like Bong Jiyeon by any chance?”

Bong Jiyeon was a pretty good-looking girl.
She was less pretty than Yoo Dahee or Yang Juhui, but these girls were on a whole different level to begin with.
Bong Jiyeon was pretty enough to always make it if you were picking the top 3 pretty girls in class.

She was right on the line.
With Yoo Dahee and Yang Juhui, their level was so high that you’d get resigned, thinking, “Could I ever date a girl like that? No way. Absolutely not me.”

But with Bong Jiyeon, you’d think, “If I do things right, I might have a shot at dating a girl like her…”
Yes, she was exactly a 7-point girl. But that’s only talking about looks. Wasn’t her personality nuts, a psycho?

“Dude. Bong Jiyeon is a total queen bee with a nasty personality, a complete delinquent. Why the hell would you like a girl like that? What, you got a fetish for getting bullied by delinquent girls?”

“No. You’re one to talk. You’re the same. Ha Youngwon. You even slaved in front of Yang Juhui. You can’t say that to me, of all people.”

I guess that’s true, too.
Hearing it, it did seem that way.
This is what they call “putting yourself in someone else’s shoes.”

“Still, if Yang Juhui is just a normal delinquent, Bong Jiyeon is in hardcore mode. Bong Jiyeon is close with even more dangerous senior delinquents.”

If Yang Juhui was the lone wolf type of delinquent, Bong Jiyeon ran in a pack.
And, of course, it wasn’t a particularly high-quality pack.
From what I heard, some of the seniors had even been to juvie.

“She wasn’t always like that. She was nice before. We used to do homework together and stuff before then. She suddenly changed after hanging out with weird kids.”

According to Jeong Seok, Bong Jiyeon used to come over to his house to annoy him or play pranks on him while he was studying.
Childhood friends vibes?

Jeong Seok, this bastard. I thought we were fellow losers, both coming from the same all-boys middle school, but he actually had a pretty girl as a childhood friend, and they even went to each other’s houses?

Suddenly, rage welled up in my gut.
Why do I feel betrayed? My 3 years of middle school… were truly hell!
Is this the insurmountable gap between the privileged and the common folk?

“But everything changed after 3rd year of middle school. Bong Jiyeon got injured and had to quit track. That’s when she changed as if going through a rebellious phase.”

Did Jeong Seok watch from the side as his childhood friend changed, hanging out with delinquents?
Seeing a friend who was bright and mischievous enough to come over and prank you, start smoking with senior delinquents, with rumors of them dating… that… might be its own kind of boyhood hell.

As Jeong Seok and I talked for a while, we soon arrived at school.
Today was Saturday.
Schools on weekends tend to be quiet.

“That security guard isn’t here today.”

I thought of the guard who had stopped us and given us a hard time when we were sneaking out of school without permission to look for Mom, who had disappeared from the elevator.
I kind of hated the security guard, but Jeong Seok unexpectedly said,

“That security guard helped out a lot when you were looking for your mom. I heard he used to be a cop. Seems he contacted the police and asked them for this and that.”

“Really?”

I guess he was just a man with a strong sense of duty.
I thought maybe I should buy him some fruit later.

Even a duty-bound man like him didn’t guard the school on Saturdays, it seemed.
Jeong Seok looked around.

“I heard in the old days, everyone came to school on Saturdays too. They had to attend school on Saturdays and Sundays and were forced to self-study until 5pm. Even during vacations, apparently.”

“Wow, seriously? That’s freaking awful. That’s the stuff of urban legends and ghost stories. So where’s this hole Yang Juhui mentioned? She said there’s a hole in the wall.”

The school gate was firmly locked.
Climbing over it was too much, so sneaking in through the hole seemed like the way to go.

For a moment I thought about contacting Yang Juhui… but after finding out why she disliked Yoo Dahee, it didn’t feel right to reach out now.
I should contact her once things are resolved and tied up nicely.

Luckily or unluckily, we found a hole in the fence of the school tennis court.
Someone had covered it with tape and paper, but we just had to remove it.

*Rustle*

As I crawled through the narrow hole, I said,

“The doctor in charge of my mom said that even with memory loss, familiar stimuli can sometimes trigger recall of forgotten things.”

My mom, who went missing and returned, had forgotten even me, her own son.
Even now, it’s a bit shaky.

But I tried to stimulate her brain in various ways, and perhaps, thanks to that, she’s much better now.
She’ll keep improving.

Similarly, if my guess that Yoo Dahee really “lost her memory” is correct… might this old school building exploration trigger her memories of this and that?

Then, she might recall when she saw Yang Juhui’s sister.
It would certainly help in finding Yang Juhui’s sister.

“But… are we really going in there? It looks downright eerie.”

Jeong Seok stood in front of the old school building with his mouth gaping open.

The old school building, illuminated by the reddish evening glow, had an unexpectedly gloomy and ominous air.

The first-floor windows were shattered here and there, and there was graffiti scrawled on lockers and unidentified mold growing on every wall.
The building was also much larger than the new school building.

Apparently, back in the baby boom days, there were up to 10 classes with 40-50 students each.
Perhaps because of that, the old school felt more massive than any school I knew.

“It’s so creepy, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were rumors of it being built on a mass grave.”

As I was recalling my fight with the feng shui ghost to shake off the rising goosebumps, Jeong Seok remarked,

“I looked into it. Before this school was built, there used to be a huge mansion here belonging to Cheon Ilsik, the biggest landowner in this area. It was a modern mansion built when the Japanese came, the only one of its kind in this region. It was supposedly very luxurious, Western-style.”

A Western-style mansion.
I had trouble picturing it.

“Cheon Ilsik even received a title during the Japanese colonial era. Baron or something. His family went beyond yangban to become aristocrats in Korea. Impressive, isn’t it?”

“It is impressive. What are they doing now?”

“You didn’t know? Yoo Dahee, the girl you’re waiting for, is Cheon Ilsik’s great-granddaughter.”

Is this for real?
Yoo Dahee was even more remarkable than I thought.
If she were born in the old days, would she be a noble lady?

“Even now, they say you have to go through the Cheons if you want to do politics or business in Gaeryong. My dad met with them when he ran for mayor. Some say Osung Electronics was also backed by the Cheons.”

“They must be swimming in money. But Yoo Dahee’s surname is Yoo, not Cheon. Is she related through her mother’s side?”

“…You’re right.”

Jeong Seok didn’t seem to have given much thought to Yoo Dahee’s surname being Yoo, either.

*Rustle*

As we chatted, the evening glow faded, and the world was completely engulfed in darkness.

The old school building, which had felt somewhat like a human structure, now began to resemble a huge, gray tombstone stuck in the earth. Do we really have to go into a place like this? Maybe I should just say I won’t do it.
As I was thinking that, I got a message from Yoo Dahee.

Yoo Dahee: I'm at the school, but the gate is locked!

There's a hole. I'll tell you where it is.

I guided Yoo Dahee to the hole in the tennis court fence.

*Creak, creak*

“It’s narrower than I thought.”

Watching Yoo Dahee wriggle out of the hole, I felt a strange sensation.

*Pat pat*

As Yoo Dahee was dusting off her knees, I asked,

“So where do we go in the old school building? Do we just go inside?”

“Hmm… Let’s go to the basement first.”

The basement of the old school building, not even the 1st floor?
An eerie feeling began to creep in.

Because it seemed like there would be a lot of cockroaches.
But it was too late to back out now.
We were slowly entering through the open door of the old school building and walking down the cluttered 1st-floor corridor when…

“Hey! Who’s there!”

Just then, someone outside the old school building shouted at us.
Were we caught?
Jeong Seok said,

“I guess there was a teacher on duty! Ha Youngwon! What do we do? If we get caught, exploring the old school building is over!”

“What can we do! For now… for now, let’s hide! Dahee! We need to hide! There should be a faculty office nearby, so let’s go there!”

“Okay…!?”

Startled, we entered the faculty office on the 1st floor.
It was a damp office covered in dust.

“Let’s hide for now! Hide somehow!”

*Click. Click. Click.*

Soon, the sound of a woman’s pointed heels began to echo in the 1st-floor corridor of the old school.
I peeked out from under the desk and looked toward the entrance of the faculty office.

The light from a cell phone flashlight soon appeared at the entrance, along with bright red high heels.

*Click. Click.*

Shining the light here and there, she approached the desk where I was hiding.
As I assessed the situation from under the desk, I noticed something strange.

“……”

On the left ankle, wearing the high heels, there was what looked like a tattoo or a bizarre spot.

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