Ch. 35 - Sixth Ghost Story - CSAT Banned Song (9)

Trigger Warning: This chapter contains mention of Suicide. Readers, please be advised.

“The dressing room is over here.”

We were moving very slowly down the hallway, crouching down to stay as hidden as possible. Once we spotted the panel identifying the door to the dressing room, we approached.

Click, click.

The door was locked.

However, we could hear some movement from inside the room.

“Someone is inside.”

“Do you think it’s Fourincess?”

“Try asking them to open the door, Prez.”

Knock, knock.

Once I knocked on the door, more noise could be heard from within the room. Not long after, a young girl’s voice floated through the door.

[Who’s there?]

…How was I supposed to respond there?

‘The President of the Ghost Story Club’?

“That is…”

As I stood there with a blank expression, stumbling over my words, Sunah came up to the door and answered instead of me.

“ …You guys are… Fourincess… right? We came to save you. So……”

From the other side of the door, we could hear muffled discussions. Then they asked us again.

[Please prove that you aren’t infected.]

“Uh, hmm… I wonder. How should we prove that we’re fine……?”

[Please tell us who you are and where you’re from.]

“We’re students from a nearby school.”

[Students?]

Chatter, chatter.

[Which school?]

“Nakseong High School.”

[Why did a student come to the broadcast station…?]

“I heard there was a music program being recorded in the broadcast station this evening with live audiences……”

[You came here to watch in the audience?]

“Yes.”

I chose to just go with the flow of the conversation.

After a bit more muffled discussion, we could hear the lock click as they unlocked the door.

[Come in.]

“…Thank you.”

I gave the club members a brief glance before slowly opening the door to the dressing room and stepping inside.

After we stepped into the room, we could see five girls with tense expressions, each wielding a cane or a stand as a weapon.

The girls had on flashy makeup, short skirts, tight shirts, and ribbons that accentuated their slender bodies—typical but gorgeous stage costumes.

Once any guys saw their large eyes and thin jawlines, an increase in heart rate would be unavoidable. The five beautiful girls were right on the thin line between adult and teen. I momentarily lost all words, as a ‘Wow, beautiful’ echoed within my mind. The current generation’s number one girl group was standing right in front of my eyes.

“Excuse me……”

With fluttering lashes, one of the members started speaking. Once I heard her voice, I finally woke from my thoughts.

“Are you the singer of this song, Fourincess?”

The girls slowly nodded.

“Do you have an idea why this sort of phenomenon has happened?”

Seeing me get straight to the point, the members of Fourincess fell silent for a bit, giving each other looks.

“Didn’t you say you came here to save us?”

One of the members responded a bit defensively. I shook my head in response.

“Did you all see the news on the internet?”

“Yes.”

“Right now, there is no place in South Korea that is safe.”

“……”

The members started to give each other looks.

“Then why did you come here?”

“We came to determine the root of the problem.”

“……”

“I was planning on figuring out the cause and resolving the situation.”

A bold member, one who had just been watching before, replied with a sharp voice.

“Who’re you to claim that you’ll resolve this situation?”

“Who is the leader of your group?”

“You came here without knowing that?”

With an expression that suggested she was taken aback, the bold girl put her hands on her hips.

“I’m the leader. What are you curious about?”

“Everything related to this unusual phenomenon. You girls were the ones to sing this song.”

“My gosh, really.”

The leader was taken aback again, and even clicked her tongue. She started to whisper with her members again, then gave me a glare.

“Although I’m not sure what sort of investigative game you’re playing, I will answer your questions to the best of my ability. But if you aren’t here to help us, please stop bothering us and leave after we finish with the questions.”

The bold and beautiful leader put her foot down.

‘What if they aren’t the culprits?’

Although I was temporarily flustered, I steeled my heart and started to ask the questions I needed answered.

“The people that listened to your song became addicted and turned into zombies, then spread that song to others. Is there something about the song and this phenomenon that catches your attention as the original singers?”

“I don’t know. We’re also panicking. All we did was receive the new song from our agency and work our hardest in our group activities.”

Did she really not know anything? In that case, it would be better to dig into the song instead of asking about Fourincess themselves.

“You said that the agency gave you the song, right? Who were the songwriters?”

“They were adults—famous songwriters appointed by the agency. We did meet them a few times during the recording process, but we don’t really know much about them. However, they’re not suspicious people.”

The leader replied in a very straightforward manner. She was, at most, a year or two older than me—but having a beautiful and confident older girl speaking to me in such a straightforward manner had slowed my momentum a bit.

However, I had to overcome that and continue my questions.

“Everyone that listened to this new song went crazy, but you girls—who should have heard this song the most—are all completely fine. Do you know why that is?”

“Is that something we have to explain?”

She started to glare at me again because of my interrogative tone. At my behavior, some of the members looked scared while others glared at me alongside their leader.

“Yes. This is something you have to explain.”

“……”

At my adamant insistence, the leader began to pout and reluctantly replied.

“I don’t know. It may be that in trying to spread the song, it is actually most effective if we act normal.”

“……!”

What she said made a lot of sense. Next to me, Gyeongwon nodded as well. If someone’s objective was to spread the song, it would be most effective for Fourincess themselves to be sound of mind. That way they would be able to travel from venue to venue and perform.

“Is there really nothing else you know?”

“Yes.”

“Did you ever get a weird feeling as you sang?”

“Not at all.”

It felt like I hit a wall. I had thought that these people would know something about this. As I thought over the situation, I returned to asking questions about the songwriters.

“Before, you said that the songwriters weren’t suspicious people. How did you come to think that?”

“They were the first people to go insane.”

“In what way?”

“The composer complained that the song wouldn’t get out of his head. He killed himself by stabbing out his eardrums. The lyric writer’s family discovered him typing away, writing the lyrics in reverse to the point that his fingers were flattened, so he was sent to a mental hospital.”

As I imagined the horrifying occurrences, I grew speechless.

The Fourincess leader replied to all of my inquiries sharply, as she didn’t like that I was interrogating her. She seemed to have enjoyed a bit of vengeance when she saw our shocked faces as we heard of the gruesome ends the songwriters faced.

“Everything happened yesterday. Our manager went crazy the moment he got into the broadcasting company building this morning. When he began to kneel and begged us to stop singing the song, security was forced to drag him away.”

In the promotion video, the girls and the manager left the van and entered the building. The manager must have turned right after that video.

“Haaa…”

What else should I ask her about? I briefly turned to look at Gyeongwon and Sunah.

They both had grave expressions on their faces, but it seemed like they still didn’t know what to do. I faced the group leader, who was tapping her foot as she waited. I guess there was no avoiding asking the question.

“The hook portion of the lyrics. Did you know that if you play it in reverse there is a hidden message?”

“…What?”

Suddenly the leader’s eyes widened in surprise. Her eyes looked like something that could be seen on animation characters. I held back the urge to ask if someone’s eyes really could get that big, then asked the question again.

“Did you not know?”

She had an expression that suggested she didn’t know at all.

“Then that hook lyric, was that something the lyric writer created as well?”

“Th-that’s……”

She was noticeably flustered, and she turned to her other members to quietly discuss something.

After a bit, the leader—having reached a consensus with the group—turned back to me and asked me a question as she shot me another glare.

“Aren’t you asking questions too one-sidedly? We also have things we are curious about. How did you know where we were? Please answer that, then we will reply.”

How did we know that, of the numerous rooms within this building, they would be hiding in the dressing room?

‘It’s fair to be curious about that.’

To be honest, there wasn’t a reason to not tell the truth. I looked for the girl that looked the youngest. She was a middle school member that was one year younger than us. Hidden between the older members, she was trembling.

I wanted to call her by her name, but because I had been so uninterested in idols in both of my lives, I didn’t know their names. Although it might have seemed rude, I had no other choice than to use my fingers to point her out.

“The youngest member over there mouthed a request to come and help her in the video today.”

“……!”

At that moment, the youngest member made a face of surprise and seemed much brighter. Surprised, the other girl group members looked at the youngest. As Gyeongwon and Sunah also didn’t know that fact, they also looked at me in shock.

“…Is that true?”

As one of the members asked the youngest member in a soothing tone, she smiled brightly and nodded.

“Y-you noticed! As I hoped… I was waiting for you! If you were a fan… at least a single person… would come……”

“My gosh. Were you waiting for some Prince Charming? You’re driving me crazy……”

The leader flicked her hair back, making her long luscious locks flow back over her shoulders. Her wariness of me seemed to relax very slightly as she started to speak.

“I understand. I was the one that asked, but the answer was a bit surprising… So, about that hook. We did receive it from the lyric writer, but to be honest, he didn’t come up with it himself.”

“Then where did he get it?”

“There is a rumor that somewhere within this building, if you are walking alone, you can hear the mumblings of a girl. The lyric writer was working late at night when he heard the mumbling and, because he liked how catchy it was, he wrote it as a part of the hook.”

And then she shrugged her shoulders.

“Or at least, that’s what I heard from someone else.”

“…Was the location he walked past the third waiting room?”

“Oh my! That’s right! How did you know?”

Gyeongwon, Sunah and I started to look at each other. As we thought, we were in the right place.

“Would you be able to lead us there?”

“No. It’s too dangerous.”

She cut us off right away.

“The third waiting room is in the middle of the fifth floor. All of the rooms on that floor are waiting rooms, and because of the live broadcast scheduled for today, it’s packed full of singers. However, none of them have left that floor.”

“No one has left that floor……”

“Because all of the singers there are singing our song, it would be too dangerous.”

Was the new song by Fourincess some great equalizer of the music industry or something?

“I think we have to go there in order to solve something.”

“Why? Is there something in that specific waiting room?”

“Umm.”

To be honest, even I wasn’t certain.

Although playing the lyrics in reverse revealed that someone was buried there, there was no way for me to know who it was.

However, if I just stayed here, the situation would not change.

“The third waiting room, I believe there may be a clue to resolving this entire issue over there.”

Instead, I just pushed forward with my insistence.

“What clue? And what’s your reasoning?”

“That is… well, the lyrics……”

I hesitated for a moment. The fifth floor was packed with singers. Breaking through the fifth floor and getting to the third waiting room was akin to suicide.

Even if the lyrics were suspicious, would I really be able to handle a life-or-death situation like that?

“What about the lyrics? Well, either way, we can’t go with you. It’s too dangerous. We’ll wait here until the military shows up to resolve the situation. Still, we told you the location, so isn’t that enough?”

Although it might have seemed cold of her, just as I was the president of the Ghost Story Club, she was the leader of Fourincess. Her decisions were made with the safety and best interest of her group in mind. In fact, if you looked at things objectively, my decision to rush over while leaving behind members was cruel and unusual.

‘But logic doesn’t solve this situation now. With such abnormal incidents happening, we need to use abnormal methods.’

In order to resolve the situation, we needed to fight tooth and nail to get to the third waiting room and confront whoever was buried there face to face.

Even if we were both leaders, the difference between us was just that.

Even if I had to use up my members, even if it would be an incomplete way to resolve the situation, I was willing to go through with it to do so. She would rather prioritize the safety of her members and remain hidden instead.

‘Of course, there is the caveat that I can turn back time while, I assume, she can’t.’

Although I was with Ghost Story Club members, the only remaining members were the three of us: Sunah, Gyeongwon, and me.

However, if I were to succeed in persuading the leader to join us, we would be adding five more people to our group.

Obviously, having eight people go up would be much more advantageous than just three.

‘What should I do? I need to try everything possible to get them to come with us.’

I began to feel especially thankful to all of my club members for following me despite my lacking explanations and reasoning for going there.

‘After solving this case, I think I need to spot them for another round of hamburgers.’

“J-Joon… Even if it’s just us, we should go.”

As I stood there pondering, Sunah started to pull on my sleeve and spoke as if we had no other options.

“Yeah, Prez. It seems we have no choice. Maybe we can stop by in front of the elevator again and try waking up Dukhun?”

“……”

I quietly looked at each member of Fourincess.

“Nothing will change even if you glare at us. Now, please leave.”

Five very cute and beautiful girls. As I carefully observed each member, I suddenly noticed something.

“…Are you going to leave or what? If you want to hide, you can use the room next to ours. It’s empty. We will be using this dressing room.”

Maybe because I was wordlessly standing here, the leader started to get fed up and stopped using formal language.

However, my eyes were fixated on the youngest member. She was trying to tell me something.

[“……”]

“Is it that you want to stay here with us? Huh?”

“…Please wait for a moment.”

My eyes were still fixed to the youngest member’s soft pink lips.

[“Did. You. Not. ice. It. Yet?”]

“……”

[“Please. You. Are. A. Fan.”]

She was quietly mouthing her words so that the other members wouldn’t notice. It was the same words that she spoke in the videos. What was the true message that she was trying to get across? What was she asking me to notice?

As I wouldn’t take my eyes off of the youngest girl’s lips, the leader followed my gaze and, after discovering what I was looking at, smirked slightly.

“Oh, so you fell for our Dasom. You love-struck fool.”

Dasom suddenly jolted and kept her mouth shut. Why? Was it something that she had to keep a secret from the other members? Why?

“Uh, Joon……”

Sunah started to get anxious as she restarted pulling on my sleeves.

“Let’s… just leave quickly… just us……”

[“Did. You. Not. ice. It. Yet?”]

[“Four. in. cess.”]

“……”

I got it.

So that was what happened.

‘I understood what you meant. Everything will be fine.’

I nodded so that the youngest member could see. She had a look of relief on her face as she closed her eyes for a moment.

When she opened them again, they had a look of anticipation as they looked into mine.

As all of the individual clues began to fit together in my mind, things slowly started to make sense. It was like the puzzle pieces were all falling into place. We were at a point where I could tell the general idea of what the picture would be. Of course, there were still a few pieces missing.

For example, why was that person buried there? That was a question we wouldn’t find the answer to in the current chaotic world. It was probably something I would only find out after I confirmed the initial cause, turned back time, and then solved the situation fully.

Even then, it would probably be through the news after the police made the investigation.

‘Who are you, and why were you buried there?’

I had thought that I would have to get to the third waiting room and rip out the floorboards myself to understand the truth, but now I was thinking that it would be simpler to discover the truth here and now.

And instead of wasting words trying to coax the leader to join us, it might help us get the leader to join quickly.

“Is our Dasom so pretty? You can’t seem to take your eyes off of her.”

The leader made another jab at me.

“Yes, she is way too beautiful.”

“……”

Sunah looked at me with a horrified expression. Gyeongwon also looked at me as if to ask, ‘What are you doing?’.

“…Oh my.”

The leader did pause for a moment at my response, but soon she mischievously narrowed her eyes.

“Then will you stand outside by the door and guard us from the outside? Then you can act as the brave knight protecting us beautiful princesses. How is it?”

“Should I?”

To my response, she winked while exuding a lively charm.

“Yes, please do so. Now, hurry up and go outside. Take your friends with you.”

“But I have no intention of doing that.”

I slowly started to look at the members again.

“Rather than guarding the door from whoever wants to get in, I think I need to guard the door from whoever wants to leave.”

“…What?”

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