An Exorcist Magical Girl! Chapter 151

“Okay, if everyone’s here, let’s go.”

 

Hanbyul led the way, with Seo Jun and I following.

 

 “Wait, is Yuri coming with us?”

 

Kwon Yuri was out in the hallway with Hanbyul before us.

 

Hanbyul linked arms with Yuri as if it was a given.

 

“Yes, she’s the witness we had to bring.”

 

‘A witness? This should be over in ten minutes, right?’

 

As we moved to find a place to talk, we ended up in the garden.

 

“Come to think of it, we have the same number of people here as we did then, just with backup.”

 

Yuri muttered as she took a seat on a moderately shaded bench.

 

“Back then? Oh, you mean that CPR training day, when you and Yang Ji-won were the first and second in the whole school?”

 

“Uh-huh.”

 

 Later, Hanbyul and Yuri shared their feelings about how frightening that day was.

 

 “This is the first time I’ve seen a ghost destroy its own core.”

 

“What did it say? Didn’t it say it was bored?”

 

 As the two told their story of being grateful that the two normal people were safe, Seo Jun and I pondered the ghost’s behavior leading up to the incident.

 

 “Do you think it meant it was tired of being stuck in that school?”

 

“I don’t know. I think that’s the best interpretation.”

 

“Hmm.”

 

 As I brushed the dirt off the bench and sat down next to Yuri, the ghost’s words echoed in my head.

 

 “I can’t wait to get out of this boring shell.”

 

 The word “boring” kept echoing in my head.

 

Seo Jun stood stiffly against the back of the opposite bench, and Hanbyul, who was also leaning against it, casually rested her chin on Seo Jun’s shoulder.

 

 “……?”

 

 Sitting face to face with Seo Jun, I suddenly saw a huge question mark hovering over her head. She looked as if an unknown parrot had suddenly landed on her shoulder.

 

 “Ma’am, why are your muscles so tense? Do you need a massage?”

 

“No, I’m fine.”

 

 She sounded embarrassed, but Hanbyul didn’t mind at all. After all, capitalized ENFPs have a different attitude.

 

 “So what exactly happened?”

 

 After a moment of confusion, the atmosphere seemed to clear up a bit, so I got straight to the point.

 

Yuri was the first to speak.

 

 “The first time the ghost appeared was in early September last year…”

 

 

***

 

 

 It was the end of August, after a short summer vacation, and they were just getting back into the routine of going to school at 8 o’clock.

 

Kwon Yuri was persuaded by her classmate Yang Ji-won to enroll in the night study program.

 

 “Are you still thinking about it?”

 

“Eh, does Ji-won want you?”

 

“I already applied. I like the clean facilities. Yuri, have you seen the new study hall?”

 

“I took a look when I walked down the hall. It looks like a nice study cafe.”

 

“I guess our school still pays attention to facilities, huh? They just built a new gym.”

 

“Oh, really? It looks brand new.”

 

 Kwon Yuri looked out the window at the gym and muttered to herself.

 

 “If the facility isn’t old, why is it haunted…?”

 

 The reason she had hesitated to sign up for the night study program was because of the ghosts that had gradually taken over the school in the middle of the first semester.

 

Her hopes that the school would return to normal during the holidays were dashed when the second semester began. Instead of solving the problem, the ghosts had gotten worse, and students were calling the school crazy, while Yuri shuddered and said, “Yes, yes, yes!”

 

 “The chairman told me to get the kids together. There are too few people who applied to sleep with our class, so you sleep with me, Yuri.”

 

“I’d like to do it too, but I can concentrate better in school than in the reading room or studying at home… But if I do, I’ll have to stay up late at school.”

 

“Eh, it’s not like you’re alone, so what are you worried about?”

 

“Well, yeah.” 

 

Yuri agrees that it’s definitely less scary when there are a lot of people around.

 

Ji-won nudged her.

 

 “You’ve seen the new study room, it’s so cozy and beautifully decorated. Do you think a ghost would come out of such a place?”

 

“Hmm. Is it…?”

 

 To be honest, she had her fair share of “good things come after I graduate” moments, so she was a little jealous of the newly renovated facilities.

 

 “…Yes, then I’ll apply for September.”

 

 Yuri started studying at night in the new study hall in September.

 

 “Everything will be fine.”

 

 Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for things to go wrong.

 

It started on the second Monday of September, about four weeks before the second semester midterms.

 

 “Did anyone lose their locks…?”

 

 An old lock was sitting on Yuri’s desk.

 

It looked like it had been used so long that she could recognize the number buttons that had been pressed so many times. The buttons were stiff and hard to press, as if they hadn’t been used for a long time.

 

The owner of the lock, which looked like it had been used for a year and left unattended for three or four years, never showed up.

 

 And that day, the pink lock that Yuri had brought to put on her study hall locker disappeared.

 

 

***

 

 

 

“Since then, there’s been a lot of similar things going on, and I don’t know all of them…”

 

 Yuri trailed off.

 

Hanbyul picked up on that.

 

 “This is from my sister, who was a sophomore at the time, and she said that a discontinued tint came out of her desk drawer a few years ago.”

 

“Liptint?”

 

“Yep. About a quarter of it is left over. The kind you find under the bed when you’re cleaning out a room. You know what I mean?”

 

“Uhh, I think I know.”

 

 I pictured the glass bottle in my head, the lid unpleasantly sticky and the liquid a dirty tint of something I couldn’t tell if it was dust or mold.

 

 “But the day I found it, when my sister was getting ready to pack her bag after the pajama party, I realized that my lipstick, which I’d only worn once, was gone. It wasn’t just any road shop lip, it was a pretty expensive one, I think it was mine, whatever. So I thought there was a thief, and I remember the school being turned upside down once.”

 

“Huh? That was in the study hall too?”

 

 Yuri’s eyes narrowed in disbelief.

 

 “Then who was it that wrote ‘sorry’ on the note and put it back?”

 

“I think it was a girl in our grade, and it wasn’t lipstick, it was a shadow palette.”

 

“Oh, those were two completely different things.”

 

 We chatted for a while about things I didn’t know anything about as a transfer student, but quickly got back to the point.

 

 “And then it was probably a planner.”

 

“Isn’t that a textbook?”

 

“I have a planner and I have textbooks.”

 

“Oh, right. I remembered. And…”

 

 A sound I couldn’t tell if it was an exclamation or a sigh escaped Yuri’s lips.

 

 “Hanbyul, you’ve never even used that study hall, how do you know so much about it? You seem to know more than me.”

 

 As Yuri stuck out her tongue, I thought again that I was right to ask Hanbyul to explain the case.

 

 “It’s all the same repertoire. The day the old course textbooks fell on the floor of the study room, the newly distributed Yangsu textbooks from the second semester went missing, and the day the half-used study planner was found in the drawer, it must have been Jung Soo-eun’s planner.”

 

 When an item that looks like it’s been used for a long time appears in the study room, it’s followed by the disappearance of the same kind of item.

 

 “I remember there’s been talk of ghosts ever since the lipstick.”

 

“Has anyone ever actually seen a ghost?” I ask, and Hanbyul shakes her head.

 

 “Not that I know of. Yuri, what about you?”

 

“Neither have I. Oh, but it’s often said that the study hall is colder than the rest of the classrooms, and it gives me the creeps.”

 

“Oh, right, that’s why Yang Ji-won was carrying a microfiber blanket even though it was early fall.”

 

 While Yuri and Hanbyul were saying, “Yes, that’s right!”Seo Jun, who had been listening quietly until now, spoke up.

 

 “You’ve been talking a lot about being a bartering ghost for a while now, and it’s funny how all the things you bring are vaguely old.”

 

 She gestured to my pockets.

 

 “And that, too.”

 

“Oh.”

 

 This April lunch menu, poking out from under the study hall door today, was also from the vague past.

 

 “So the fact that this showed up…”

 

“It means something is about to be replaced. Or it’s already been replaced.”

 

 I’d have to go into that study hall to find out.

 

 I’ll find out later.

 

I brought up an unanswered question.

 

 “So why did they lock the study hall?”

 

“Huh?”

 

“Honestly, it wasn’t that big of a deal, was it? No one was hurt, just some stuff lost.”

 

 It wasn’t like someone had nearly died like the night before, so I wondered why they’d gone to the trouble of shutting down an expensive and well-equipped tutorial room.

 

 “What else was going on besides the bartering?”

 

 It was hard to imagine what “the incident” was that caused all the students to run out of the study hall, based on the stories I had heard.

 

 “…If we stayed there, someone could have gotten hurt.”

 

 Yuri’s voice had calmed down.

 

 “There was no guarantee that we’d only lose “stuff”.”

 

 

 ***

 

 

“That’s right, Ji-won. Did you buy new textbooks?”

 

“Yep. They were delivered yesterday when I got home. I picked them up today.”

 

“That’s quick. That’s good.”

 

“Thanks for showing me your test scope notes, Yuri.”

 

“No problem.”

 

 Since they’d skipped dinner and grabbed a quick bite at the cafeteria, they had quite a bit of time left before the start of the night.

 

 “Do you think the study hall will be open?”

 

“I don’t think it’s open yet, let’s get the key and go.”

 

“Oh, you’re going in first?”

 

 Yang Ji-won asked in disbelief.

 

 “Why? There’s nowhere else to go.”

 

“No, I’m just surprised. Yuri, you don’t enter the study hall unless there are at least three other people.”

 

“Well, actually, I’m still afraid to go in there alone.. But since there are two of us, it’s okay.”

 

 Kwon Yuri was getting over her fear of ghosts.

 

 “But you know, don’t you think the time between exchanges is getting shorter and shorter?”

 

“I don’t know what you mean, Ji-won.”

 

“Well, at first, our stuff would disappear an hour or two after the ghost left it, but now it seems like our stuff disappears within minutes of the ghost leaving it.”

 

“Uh… I don’t want to overthink it…”

 

“Maybe one day they’ll just snatch it up in a flash like this.”

 

“Ugh, no!”

 

 It was the last Wednesday of September, the day before the Chuseok holiday.

 

And…

 

 “Oh, there were a couple of kids who won’t be going to the study hall today. Three or four in the first grade.”

 

“Why?”

 

“They said they’d rather take today off early because they can’t go anywhere during the holiday anyway, and they have to stay home and study.”

 

“Hehe, that’s the exact opposite of me. We’re going to the big house for Chuseok.”

 

“Really? Right before the exam?”

 

“Eh, it’s close, so I guess it’s okay… But I still need to finish my English today.”

 

 It was also the day that Yuri’s resolve to complete the English test coverage before the holiday was shattered.