[2019, May 25th | Saturday, 10:35 PM]
[Lee Joon: Number of Attempts - 2]
[Ghost Story Points: 581]
[Causality Rate: 32%]
"..."
"..."
"..."
When I read what the owner in the video was murmuring.
The members, having heard the truth about it, wore expressions of speechless shock.
"…So that's it?"
"Why was he saying that..."
Everyone wore a puzzled expression, unsure how to make sense of the incomprehensible muttering.
While they were muttering and looking at the monitor, a sudden knocking sound was heard.
Knock, knock.
Our eyes turned toward the door.
'Seriously, f**k.'
That knock startled us.
'What is it this time?'
Frowning, we opened the door, and sure enough,
A man about the age of my uncle, unshaven and disheveled, stood there.
Bloodshot eyes, gold-rimmed glasses, a gloomy, overweight frame.
Then, without warning, he started asking.
"Excuse me. Why are you being so noisy?"
"..."
As the members hesitated for a moment, Jinhee also frowned and leaned forward, poking her head out to face the man.
"What's your room number?"
"What?"
At Jinhee's question, the man aggressively jutted his chin forward and snapped back with a sharp 'Yeah?'.
Jinhee asked again, her tone laced with thorns.
"How far do you live that you could hear the noise from here?"
"Excuse me. Why does it matter if it's here or there, all the sound in this boarding house is heard everywhere, understand?"
"Oh, so where exactly is your room, then?"
"511, you b*tch. I live in 511, why?"
The man suddenly started swearing, thrusting his thick jaw forward.
Anyone could tell he wasn't in his right mind.
"You're definitely not good at studying but have the guts to cause a ruckus here. Huh? How old the hell are you?"
"F**king b*tch? Are you crazy?"
Without hesitation, Jinhee pushed past us and stood in front of the man.
"And room 511 is at the end of the hallway. How could any noise possibly reach that far? Maybe there's something wrong with your ears?"
"Hey, f**king b*tch. Come here."
The man with bloodshot eyes about my uncle's age stepped firmly through the doorway, pushing against us as Jinhee confronted him head-on.
Dukhun and I quickly stepped in to mediate between the two.
"Uh, uh, wait a minute..…"
"C-calm down..."
"Hey, you crazy b*tch. Coming to a place where people are studying and causing a scene, wanna die? Huh? Wanna die?"
"What, you pig b*stard? If you've got a problem, come at me. Go ahead, try it."
The test taker about our uncle's age started hurling curses out of nowhere, and Jinhee, clearly pissed off by the insults, fired back.
Still, the way they were swearing at each other in whispers, just because they were in the boarding house, made the whole scene look like some kind of dark comedy.
'Wanna die? Wanna die? Wanna die? Huh, wanna die?'
'Come at me, go on. Can't do it?'
Inside the boarding house so quiet you couldn't even breathe too loudly.
The two pointed fingers and hurled curses at each other in whispers, separated by a crack in the door.
"Let's stop, come on now..…"
"Calm down, seriously..…"
That uncle-like resident honestly looked dangerous.
His eyes were bloodshot, spit flying as his fat chin quivered. He really looked like someone who might actually kill someone.
But Jinhee, seemingly unfazed, confronted him head-on and joined in the swearing.
'Can't focus on studying? Having trouble? Want me to hook your pathetic a*s up with a job at a fastfood shop?'
'You looking for death? Wanna die? Wanna die? Huh, f*cking wanna die?'
The man, eyes bloodshot, started edging further into the room.
Dukhun, who was about the same size, was doing his best to hold him back, but it was not enough. Just then, thankfully, a door in the middle of the hallway burst open.
And another plump woman glared in our direction.
"Excuse me. Please be quiet."
"..."
The uncle-aged test taker finally stopped his commotion and just glared silently at Jinhee.
Then, pointing a finger at Jinhee in silent warning, he turned around and headed back to his room.
"We apologize…..."
"We're sorry…..."
Gyeongwon and Sunah quietly apologized to him as he stomped away.
Soon, the uncle-aged test taker disappeared into the room at the end of the hallway, and the plump woman gave us a 'What?' look before closing her door.
I closed the counter door again.
And in a voice even quieter than before, I whispered.
"…We really did try to keep it down, but I guess they still heard us."
"F**k, it's not even the room next door. That b*stard's all the way at the end of the hall. It makes no damn sense. He came just looking for a fight."
"…Still, the fact that he showed up means he did hear something. Let's just be a bit more careful."
Jinhee stayed silent, lips pouting like a sulking crocodile.
'Look at her pouting.'
I shook my head with a helpless expression at her silent defiance.
Still, in a way, it was reassuring to have Jinhee, someone willing to stand up and fight on our behalf against the ridiculously sensitive people in this place.
I then pointed out the remaining videos to Gyeongwon.
"We only checked the one with the owner among the three files, right? Let's check the middle one this time."
"Yeah, just a moment….."
Soon, Gyeongwon played the video in the middle file, dated May 17, 2019.
Click-
* * *
The video showed the boarding house kitchen in the middle of the night.
The camera, positioned from a slightly elevated angle, captured a wide view of the space.
A man entered the kitchen, turned on the light, and opened the communal fridge.
He took out some food and put it into the microwave.
He closed the microwave door and lifted his head, then suddenly jumped back in shock.
Panicking, he stumbled sideways and fell to the ground, then scrambled back to his feet and looked around frantically.
The video ended there.
"…This must be the video the Detective mentioned when he came by this Monday."
"Then this guy must be the manager..."
The person captured in this video was probably the manager who was startled by seeing the ghost at that time and quit a few days later.
The reason this folder was titled [For the boss] was probably because the manager pulled these specific videos to show the owner, and named the folder accordingly.
"The part where he looks up at the window and falls back in shock. Pause it there."
"Yeah, just a moment."
Gyeongwon rewinded the video.
There was definitely nothing outside the window.
Instead, as the Detective had pointed out, I focused on the floor tiles on the other side of the window, behind the manager's back.
"...Look here. A shadow. Isn't there a faint shadow on the floor tiles?"
"Hmm....."
The members crowded around the monitor, all craning their necks to see.
Sunah slipped in beneath me and peeked her head through.
With six of us gathering around to look at the screen, Gyeongwon, who was in the middle and holding the mouse, struggled to speak amidst the crowd.
"Yeah, I think there might be something…."
"The quality isn't great, but it definitely looks like something was there. Gyeongwon, capture two pictures and compare them."
"Just a moment."
Soon, Gyeongwon pulled up two paused frames side by side for comparison.
Looking closely, the difference was clear.
"There really is a shadow."
"That means someone was standing here."
…The Detective deduced this right away from just one look.
Anyway, even after replaying it, I couldn't find anything other than what the Detective said, so I nodded and pointed to the next video.
"This time, this one. Play this one from 1999."
"Yeah. Here."
Click-
"..."
"..."
"...See anything?"
"No."
The video was full of noise, and the screen was distorted.
Amid the chaotic static and interference, strange things flickered by quickly, making it hard to understand what was going on.
But as I focused and strained my eyes, I soon began to see something.
"...This looks like it has the same composition as the video with the owner in it, doesn't it?"
"This looks like the entrance."
At first, strange lines just flickered by through the heavy static, making it impossible to discern anything.
Amid the intense noise, I focused on a few consistent outlines, and it was definitely similar in composition to the video I had seen before the owner committing suicide.
"Looks like it's the same camera….."
Sunah spoke while focusing on the screen.
But I was a little puzzled.
'There was a CCTV camera in the exact same spot 20 years ago...?'
But back then, this boarding house probably didn't even exist.
Why was there a video labeled with that year, showing the same outlines, and appearing to have the same composition?
"..."
"..."
Anyway, there was so little visible in the video that we still couldn't make any judgments.
"What is that?"
"Hold on a sec….."
Amid the heavy static, something seemed to flicker, almost like a ripple or writhe.
Suddenly, something like a face rushed up close to the camera, overtaking even the static, and then the video abruptly cut off.
"..."
"... Is this the end?"
With the video ending, the members finally straightened up and looked at the now completely black screen.
Soon, Gyeongwon played the video again.
"Wait a minute… I'll try increasing the brightness this time."
"Yeah."
"Hmm….."
But unfortunately, even after increasing the brightness, the noise on the screen remained the same.
At best, the colors just became hazier, but nothing became any clearer.
'It's just like adjusting the brightness in my system settings.'
The brightness setting in my system was exactly like this, rather than truly brightening something dark, it just overlays a hazy whitish filter.
"What do you think, Gyeongwon? Why is the video in such a state?"
"Hmm, I can think of two possibilities for now."
Gyeongwon pushed up his glasses.
"First, maybe there was originally no light when it was recorded. In that case, no matter how much you process it later with a program, what's not visible just isn't visible…..."
Muttering to himself, Gyeongwon tried a few more tweaks.
But nothing worked.
"Any other possibilities?"
"Or maybe the codec is just corrupted."
Gyeongwon examined the video information carefully.
"If it's such an old video from 1999, it probably wouldn't even be compatible with the programs we use now, but the file extension is still MP4..."
"...But Joon, who put this in the folder...?"
"Right. Hmm."
For the other videos, it was clear who had put them there.
The video of the manager being startled by a ghost, the manager himself must have created the folder named [For the boss] and put it in there.
And the video capturing the owner's last moments was probably brought and kept by either his wife or the police.
So then, who could have put this 1999 video here?
"Looks like we've checked everything... hmm?"
Suddenly frowning, Gyeongwon took a closer look at the metadata of the 1999 video.
Making a strange expression, he leaned close to the screen.
"...Prez, take a look at this."
"Hmm?"
[Date modified: 2019-05-26 00:03 AM]
"...What is this?"
"It's the date someone last modified the file."
With a serious expression, Gyeongwon looked back at me.
Soon, Dukhun showed a frightened look.
"...Isn't that the exact time the boss committed suicide?"
"He didn't die, he's alive. Gyeongwon, check carefully."
"Okay. Here."
Gyeongwon soon played the owner's suicide attempt video again.
The time stamped at the bottom of the screen clearly read 20190526, 00:03 AM.
I soon wore a serious expression as I tried to piece together the information we had just uncovered.
"…The video's name itself is 19990225, but the modification date is the time the owner committed suicide. What could that mean?"
"He's alive, Joon..."
"Hmm, Prez. Here's what I think. This modification date isn't really the date something was edited. It just means the file was created at that time. In other words, if nothing is changed after the file's first creation, the modification date simply shows the original creation time."
"…Which means."
I rubbed my chin.
"We could say that video came into existence right around the time the owner committed suicide."
Recalling the owner muttering about forgetting the video while clapping as he was about to leave work.
Maybe this was the video he was talking about.
"One thing's for sure: during the time the owner went back to the counter and didn't come out for a while, he was definitely messing with this video."
Everyone nodded.
Gyeongwon pushed up his glasses and spoke again.
"Since it seems like something is in this video, I'll try to restore it while I'm on watch."
"Thanks, Gyeongwon."
I gave him a pat on the back, a gesture of trust in his task.
Now all that was left was to check the CCTV cameras currently running.
Soon, Gyeongwon launched a program that displayed the current live footage.
"There are only two cameras running for now. One in the kitchen, and one near the entrance."
The camera in the kitchen that captured the video of the manager being startled.
And the camera near the entrance that recorded a video just before the owner attempted suicide.
It seemed the boarding house had only two cameras.
"Well, it looks like the one in the kitchen was installed to prevent people from stealing from the communal fridge, and the one at the entrance was probably to keep out outsiders….."
"They only installed the minimum number of cameras in just the necessary spots."
If there had been cameras in every nook and cranny of the hallway, the incident could have been solved more quickly.
For example, who was the person reflected in the glass window in the video where the manager was startled?
What exactly was the owner, poking his head through the door crack, speaking those strange words to?
"...What a shame."
"Yeah....."
But true to the owner, who acquired the boarding house from the start with the intent of running it as a side business on a minimal budget, it seemed he didn't bother installing unnecessary cameras.
'They might also complain about invasion of privacy or something like that…..'
I looked away from the monitor at this point and gathered the members together to whisper and sort out the situation.
"It's almost 11 now. Starting tomorrow, we'll be busy from the moment we wake up preparing for the competition. We have to make the PPT, anticipate the questions that might come flying at us, and help each other out, there's a lot to do. Let's wrap up today's ghost story search here and head to bed. We'll leave only our first night watchman, Dukhun, behind."
"Oi, oi....."
The guy turned his large frame with a disappointed look on his face.
I took the master key out from the drawer at the counter.
"Let's use this when we go to wake up the next person for night watch. Open the door and go in to shake them awake. If an alarm goes off or you knock on the door from outside trying to wake them, it'll cause a commotion again. You saw what just happened, right?"
The members gave a wry smile.
It's true that, since it was our first time in a boarding house, we were a bit careless, but even if we don't take that into account, the people here were definitely too sensitive.
"The night watchman will hold onto this master key, and when it's time to wake the next person, they open the door, go inside, and shake them awake. Then they pass the key directly to the next person on duty. Repeat. Got it?"
"Got it."
"Got it."
I looked over the order in the group chat again.
11:00 PM - 12:00 AM Oh Dukhun
12:00 AM ~ 1:00 AM Ahn Gyeongwon
1:00 AM ~ 2:00 AM In Hayoon
2:00 AM ~ 3:00 AM Lee Joon
3:00 AM ~ 4:00 AM Lee Jinhee
4:00 AM ~ 05:00 AM Yoon Sunah
'Sunah is the very last.'
Tch, she was right after me.
I wanted to try waking Sunah up once.
How fun would it be to suddenly shake Sunah awake, who was sleeping soundly like a baby bird?
'Or maybe. Even Hayoon once…..'
Would the mysterious and flawless beauty really be defenseless even when she's asleep?
I was quite curious about these things, but, oh well, neither Sunah nor Hayoon were in my line of schedule.
The one I had to wake up was Jinhee.
I quietly lifted my head and looked at her.
She was wearing dolphin pink shorts that reached just below her hips.
Her firm, muscular thighs were on full display, showing off her healthy physique, while her upper body was clad in a white tank top…..? Or was it a sleeveless undershirt…..? Something like that.
For some reason, I felt embarrassed and swallowed hard as I turned my head away.
Jinhee's comfortable outfit revealed more skin than it covered.
Instead of poking her directly when shaking her awake, it seemed better to use something like a pillow to gently tap her indirectly.
"Alright, let's call it a shimai then. Ah, except for Dukhun~"
"Oi, you p*nk. 'Shimai' is Japanese. Use Korean from now on."
[T/N: "시마이" (shimai) is a Japanese word (仕舞い) meaning "to finish" or "to close," often used in informal contexts.]
"Good luck, Dukhun..…"
"Please take care of yourself."
"Do your best, Otaku."
"Best of luck."
One by one, Sunah, Gyeongwon, Jinhee, and even Hayoon offered their words of encouragement as they left the counter.
After waving goodbye to the members in the hallway, I entered my room.
Click—
"…Huu."
I was starting to feel sleepy too.
Last night, I was suddenly called out by the Detective to check this place, then woke up early again this morning to prepare for the competition at school, and by evening, I was already packing my things.
'I've had a really busy day.'
I thought as I gently laid down on the bed and tried to fall asleep.
"...It'll be Hayoon waking me up, I guess."
Well, if it was Hayoon, she would wake me up just fine.
Feeling reassured, I closed my eyes.
Zzz.....