Ch. 91 - Eleventh Ghost Story - The Forgotten Friend (4)

Trigger Warning: This chapter contains descriptions of extremely gory and disgusting contents. Readers, please be advised.

After finishing the consultation with the teacher, Jinhee joined the group which had been waiting for her and headed out on the way home from school.

Even that day, her deskmate Eunjung followed her without fail.

“Hey, your partner is following you again.”

“Don’t bother.”

“How can you not bother when she's blatantly following you?”

The kids turned around and muttered. However, Jinhee still ignored their grumbling and asked instead.

“So where are we going today?”

“Let’s go to my boyfriend’s house. He said he found some interesting videos.”

“What kind of boring movie are you talking about…”

“It’s not a movie. He said the videos are really interesting.”

As expected of these reckless elementary school kids, they were already dating at such a young age.

One of the kids’ boyfriends said his parents were out so the house was empty.

So he invited the group to watch funny videos.

The delinquent and troublemaker kids from Undang Elementary School headed there in a group.

And then they ended up watching a very inhumane and disturbing video that was too much for their fourth-grade mentality to handle.

“Hey, Lee Jinhee. Your partner followed you here.”

Before entering the house, Jinhee looked back at one of the boy's gestures and saw that her deskmate, Eunjung, had followed them there.

“What are you going to do now?”

“Haaa.”

Jinhee shook her head helplessly.

She regretted including Eunjung in their group for no reason and playing with her.

But even so, thinking about the fact that she would soon transfer to a special alternative school, she somehow felt sorry for her and decided to change her mind.

“Let’s play with her today. She’s transferring to an alternative school next week.”

“Alternative school? What mischief did she do?”

“Kids who can't learn from a normal school go to alternative schools.”

Jinhee tried to explain with a smile, but the other kids still showed signs of hesitation.

“But that’s a school that only mentally ill people attend.”

“I’m scared. What if she suddenly comes to our house and starts chasing us with a knife?”

“Right, right.”

The girls in the group, although they were only in elementary school, had heavy makeup on their faces.

The boys, with their large builds and mean expressions, could be mistaken for middle school students.

However, they said they were all afraid of Jinhee’s deskmate, who was way smaller than them.

“You idiots, you guys are cowards.”

Eventually, Jinhee approached Eunjung, who was peeking out from afar, and asked her to come along.

“Don’t do or say useless things. Also, don't you dare steal anything.”

“Okay!”

Eunjung nodded with a bright smile and followed her with enthusiasm.

“Why did you put a kitchen knife on my desk?”

“.......”

***

“This is it.”

“Hey, crazy…”

The interesting videos that the kids mentioned were just some bizarre videos of trends that were popular at the time.

From a video of an old man suddenly vomiting into the toilet and other similar stuff, they were full of disgusting contents.

“F*ck, did you call me to just show this…”

Jinhee frowned and wondered what was funny in the videos. But the other kids laughed loudly and clapped their hands as they found it amusing, and enjoyed themselves.

Then they played some ‘jump scare’ videos where ghosts suddenly popped up, teasing each other by saying ‘You were scared, you were scared,’ while watching each other’s reactions.

Jinhee, watching the videos indifferently, subtly checked Eunjung’s expression just in case, but fortunately, she showed no signs of enjoyment.

Rather, her face looked very pale. As if she was just as disgusted as Jinhee was.

“Hey, this is the real deal. It’s going to get serious from now on.”

The boy to whom the computer belonged made a confident expression as if he was about to pull out a secret card. He then moved the mouse and clicked on a hidden folder.

"It’s something I’ve hidden away carefully so that my family doesn’t find out. If you have a weak stomach, better leave on your own.”

“Does anyone here have a weak heart and wants to leave?”

The troublemakers glanced at each other as if gauging their reaction then began giggling again.

Since they were all just simple-minded boys and girls, regardless of gender, they had the tendency to show interest towards sensitive and stimulating videos without hesitation.

‘Sensitive thing….?’

Jinhee had an ominous feeling, but she thought that it was perhaps another disgusting video and decided to leave it to that.

Click.

[Diving Accident in Lebanon]

The video started with a man doing warm-up exercises on a bungee jumping platform.

A series of incomprehensible foreign words were exchanged as it was a foreign video. Soon, the man jumped enthusiastically from the bungee jumping platform.

At that moment, a clown who had been hiding among the people rushed up to the platform with a saw.

Laughing maniacally, he dramatically began cutting the rope.

The stunned people around screamed in panic as the man who jumped from the platform fell heavily onto the concrete floor.

The cameraman and others hurriedly rushed down to the ground.

The cameraman zoomed in on the man, who was still breathing despite his horrific injuries. While in the corner of the screen, the clown stood in the distance and laughed maniacally as the video ended.

“Ugh, f*ck…”

As soon as the video ended, a girl ran to the bathroom and started vomiting.

The gory video showed in explicit details the inside of the skull with blood pouring around.

The atmosphere suddenly turned cold as if they had never laughed or chatted before.

“… Hey, this is not right.”

The troublemaker elementary school students, who considered themselves adults, were so shocked by the horrific scene that they were all left speechless.

“F*ck… This is disgusting.”

Eventually, one of the most aggressive boys in the group couldn't help but start swearing.

Even the other kids, who had acted tough and pretended to be unfazed by the increasingly extreme videos, eventually started blaming the owner of the computer one by one.

“This is too much…”

“Ah, yikes. I think I’m going to vomit.”

The atmosphere suddenly turned gloomy.

But it turned out that the person who was the owner of the computer was also shocked.

“S-sorry… I only heard rumors about the video and saved it to watch with you. I didn’t know it would be this much…”

“Oh, really… Wait a minute. I’m going to go check if she is alright.”

While some of them had gone out to check if the girl vomiting in the toilet was alright, the rest got up from their seats and went to the kitchen to get some water.

Eunjung, who had been quiet until now, seized the opportunity when they weren't present and quickly grabbed the keyboard.

She started playing the video and began rewinding the key parts.

“Hey, what are you doing… Ugh.”

Eunjung carefully examined the screen where the cracked skull of the man was showing.

She zoomed onto the horrible scene and stared at it blankly.

Jinhee, who had been approaching to stop her, simply turned her head away from the display of such a cruel feast of images.

However, Eunjung rewinded the videos again and again with clumsy movement.

She repeatedly zoomed in and focused on the scene where the clown cut the man’s rope.

Swish swish swish.

Swish swish swish.

The clown, exuding a genuine demonic madness rather than a human, cut the rope in an exaggerating pose.

Eunjung, with her eyes wide open as if her pupils were about to pop out, was intensely focused on that scene.

Jinhee sensed the unusual atmosphere around her deskmate and didn’t dare to hastily approach her.

When the other kids soon came back after taking care of their business and tried to restore the atmosphere, Eunjung quickly moved away from the monitor and sat quietly next to Jinhee, as if she had never touched the keyboard.

And after that, they all left for their home.

The two walked together in silence as they were headed in the same direction. Before parting ways at the fork in the road, Eunjung suddenly called Jinhee to a stop.

“Jinhee, look at this.”

Eunjung ran in front of Jinhee and stood at the mouth of the alley, preventing Jinhee from stepping in.

“Swish, swish. Swish, swish.”

In the alley of the neighborhood, with the sunset behind her as if creating a halo around her mad self, Eunjung enthusiastically imitated the movement of the clown in the video.

“Swish, swish. Swish, swish.”

Eunjung, with the same exaggerated movements like the clown, pretended to cut something as if she were acting in a play.

“Swish, swish. Swish, swish.”

The setting sun behind her created a light behind her, casting long shadows on Eunjung’s bizarre behavior.

“Swish, swish. Swish, swish.”

“… I’m leaving.”

Jinhee left her deskmate behind who seemed like had lost her sanity and tried to move around her.

However, sensing she had moved far, Eunjung rushed to her and blocked her path again, then began repeating the same exaggerated movements more loudly.

“Jinhee. Swish, swish. Swish, swish.”

“Don’t do that.”

Jinhee simply bumped on her shoulder and began walking on her own way.

However, Eunjung once again rushed to her and blocked her way.

“Huff, huff. Swish, swish. Swish, swish.”

Her expression showed complete immersion in her action as she performed the bizarre play, even sticking out her tongue like a dog.

“Swish, swish. Swish, swish.”

“……”

“Like this, Jinhee. Swish, swish. Swish, swish.”

After a while, Eunjung suddenly paused her movements, then raised her eyes and stared at Jinhee quietly.

“...Jinhee.”

“……”

“Am I weird?”

“Uh-huh.”

Jinhee answered nonchalantly, without hesitation.

“You’re transferring to a different school. Don’t cause trouble there and have a good time.”

Eunjung, with the orange sunset behind her, stared intently at Jinhee with her large eyes and then cautiously nodded her head.

“....Okay.”

“Okay, I’m going.”

Jinhee stepped forward to leave.

But Eunjung followed her again, peeking her head over Jinhee’s shoulder, and said.

“You too, have a good time at school. Stop skipping classes.”

“As if.”

Jinhee snickered, wondering who was worrying about whom and went on her merry way.

Thus, the two parted ways in the neighborhood alley, with the sun setting behind them.

The next day, an accident occurred in a nearby apartment building.

Someone cut all the ropes of workers hanging from the upper floors painting the exterior, causing three of them to fall to their deaths.

* * *

"That's the end of the story. After the weekend, when I went to school, Eunjung was packing her things with a blank expression. The education officers arrived and took me to the counseling room to ask various questions about Eunjung. They wanted to know if she truly needed to be sent to an alternative school and how serious the situation was….”

“……”

“When I returned to the classroom, no one was sitting next to me since my deskmate had already packed up and left. The last thing I saw was Eunjung leaving the playground with the education officers from a distance.”

“....Haaa.”

I asked after thinking about the story deeply.

“Those workers who died. Do you think your partner was the one who killed them?”

“Uh-huh.”

“....For real? What were the results of the police investigation?”

“They said they couldn’t catch the culprit. There was no evidence.”

“Sh, shouldn’t you have reported it?”

Dukhun asked while sweating profusely.

“Your deskmate killed them…”

“Where is the evidence?”

Jinhee shrugged nonchalantly.

“Should I say that I'm assuming she's the murderer because she watched a brutal video the day before?”

“....That truly is a bit hard to explain.”

"Still, during the counseling, I worked hard to explain her symptoms to the education officers. I heard she was safely sent to an alternative school, so I thought that was the end of it. But what’s really strange is….”

Jinhee showed a serious expression again as she explained.

“Even after she transferred schools, I continued hanging out with the same group. But, when I suddenly mentioned about her one day while we were hanging out, no one remembered her.”

“... Really?”

“Yeah.”

Jinhee nodded with a firm expression.

“Two months ago, before the high school entrance ceremony, we met up as a get-together. When I brought up the story of my old classmate who used to sit beside me when I first transferred to that school, they all looked puzzled. Even when I told them about the times we played together, they just shrugged their shoulders and said they didn’t remember.”

“……”

“And when I mentioned the story of dozens of lizards jumping out of her bag in the classroom and creating chaos, they said that incident never happened.”

“....Hmm.”

I wondered what exactly occurred.

The story of a strange friend from school suddenly took a bizarre turn.

“When I mentioned the incident of the rabbits being slaughtered in the enclosure, fortunately, they remembered that. However, they said that the rabbits weren’t stabbed to death, but rather that a nearby cat crawled in and bit them all to death.”

“What about when you all visited the friend's house and watched the video together?”

“They remembered that too, but of course, they forgot about Eunjung.”

“Hmm.”

Since they were young at that time and it was a long time ago, there was a possibility that they could have remembered it incorrectly.

However, the problem was it wasn’t just one or two people, it was all of the people in the group.

How could they not remember the child who was the center of such a strange incident?

“Could it be that Jinhee played with ghosts or something?”

Jinhee laughed loudly at my question as if finding it amusing.

"It really did happen. But I don't understand why everyone insists it didn't happen and is under such a nonsensical illusion.”

“Since she was transferred at that time, she wouldn’t be in the graduation album… Hmm…”

Jinhee seemed to be the only one certain, but she also didn't seem to have any intention to prove it.

‘That’s a bit strange.’

Our thoughtful gazes eventually turned to Gyeongwon.

“What about you? Does anything come to mind?”

“Well.”

Gyeongwon also tilted his head with a thoughtful expression.

“First of all, there are quite a few ghost stories about childhood friends forgotten by others. For example…”

He crossed his arms while explaining.

“I clearly remember hanging out often with a friend called A, but when I asked my friends later, they said there wasn’t anyone named A, and it was actually a friend called B. Or, there was a crazy woman who was infamous in the neighborhood, but when I asked about her after growing up, no one else remembered her at all. Hmm.”

“……”

"There are also many opposite cases. For instance, someone I thought was just an acquaintance turned out to be a close friend when I looked through old photo albums. Or being shocked to see a friend from elementary school, whom I was sure had died, appearing at a reunion, and no one else seemed to remember the obituary.”

“Creepy….”

“Specifically, it’s a social phenomenon called the Mandela Effect.”

[T/N: The Mandela Effect is a phenomenon where a large group of people remember something differently from how it actually occurred. The term was coined by Fiona Broome after she discovered that she, along with many others, incorrectly remembered Nelson Mandela dying in prison during the 1980s, even though he actually passed away in 2013.]

Gyeongwon pushed up his glasses.

The strange phenomenon even has a name.

“The clear discrepancies between the memories of people around me and my own, with even the details of the conflicting memories being vividly distinct is an universal truth. The point of these ghost stories is the confusion which comes from the fact that no matter how much we compare our memories, it’s impossible to determine who is mistaken and who is correct.”

The members nodded their heads in understanding.

If I was in her shoes, this simple mystery would have been very frustrating to me.

“It’s not just a ghost story, it’s my own experience.”

Jinhee grumbled as if it was a big deal.

“It really happened. I remember everything about Eunjung.”

“I know, I know. We were just discussing what type of category it would fall into if we considered it a ghost story.”

I quickly explained and calmed down the moody Jinhee.

“So? What about that teacher? Doesn't she remember her either?”

To my curious question, Jinhee made a thoughtful expression.

“I haven’t met the teacher since I graduated from elementary school…”

“I think the fastest way to solve this ghost story would be to contact her and inquire.”

Gyeongwon looked down at Jinhee, who was sitting on the sofa.

“She was the teacher who was counseling Eunjung. She shouldn't be forgetting about her unless she has dementia.”

“....Well, I guess so.”

“Do you have her contact information?”

“No.”

Gyeongwon let out a helpless sigh and shook his head at those words.

“I can't believe you don't have your own teacher’s contact information.”

“She was just a guidance counselor.”

“I know. They mean the same thing, look it up in the dictionary.”

Sunah sneaked up next to me before whispering.

“Joon… What is a guidance counselor…?”

How do I explain it to her in the simplest way?

“....It means a teacher who guides you personally, like a mentor.”

“I see….”

Both of us nodded our heads.

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