# Chapter 153
Silence fell. The gazes of the two people, excluding Jaekyung who had his head bowed, met each other. A certain conspiracy was formed within three seconds.
“Come on, ghosts don’t exist!”
Iyeon was the first to speak. Hyegang quickly picked up.
“Right. If it’s a real mutant, that would be a jackpot. Isn’t that what Jaekyung hyung wants?”
“That’s right. Wouldn’t it be okay to at least listen to the story?”
“Well, but still…”
This entire conversation flowed as if it had been rehearsed in advance. As Jaekyung, sensing something strange, tried to leave his seat, Hyegang blocked his escape.
“Then let’s get started. I know a lot.”
“Yeah!”
Iyeon responded swiftly. As they gathered together in high spirits, the central figure of this topic, Jaekyung, couldn’t possibly be excluded. He squeezed in between the two, reluctantly accepting his fate.
There was one thing Iyeon overlooked here.
“There’s a mountain behind Seogu Office, and somewhere on that mountain, there’s an abandoned house.”
The office, where all the lights had been turned off to create an atmosphere, was dark. Hyegang’s gloomy voice emanated from the sofa where only a few phone lights flickered.
“A YouTuber went in there for an abandoned house experience. He walked around inside with just a flashlight, like he was doing a room tour, but at some point, he kept saying he felt a cold sensation. This was in late spring when the weather was warm even at night. And then he saw a door in the corner that was wide open.”
His measured voice suddenly lowered.
“But it was particularly dark there, so he couldn’t see anything inside. He had brought a bright flashlight specifically for the abandoned house experience, but even when he shined it, nothing was visible. He said it was like a space filled with black fog.”
Gulp. The clear sound of someone swallowing was heard.
“So he carefully approached that room…”
The voice, which had been dragging out the end of the sentence, suddenly inflated in volume.
“BAM!”
“AHHHH!”
Simultaneously, screams erupted from startled people. The sofa shook and phone lights jerked around erratically. Only after the clamorous reactions had passed did the story continue.
“According to that person, an unknown hand grabbed his wrist and pulled him.”
Hyegang, who skillfully controlled the intensity of his voice, made eye contact with each of the two people watching him with tense eyes before continuing.
“For convenience, he called it a hand, but thinking back, he wasn’t sure if it was a hand or what. Rather than being large and thick, it was more like a woman’s long, delicate fingers, but it had such tremendous strength that the man was almost dragged away. That unknown hand was trying desperately to pull him into the room, and that’s when he realized. Ah, if I get dragged into that room here, it’s over.”
The voice that had been building atmosphere suddenly lightened.
“Fortunately, human instinct is amazing. He desperately shook it off and successfully escaped from the abandoned house. When he got out, the outdoor air immediately became hot again, which made it even more chilling, he said.”
“Maybe someone was already inside? Like a homeless person…”
Iyeon’s careful objection slipped in. Hyegang calmly retorted.
“That’s unknown. But what’s certain is.”
As the voice subtly lowered again, tense gazes converged. After a long pause, the voice flowed out slowly.
“He said the hand was extremely cold…”
Grab! At the same time, a large hand gripped Iyeon’s shoulder.
“AHHH!”
The palm touched through just a layer of cloth. Iyeon, whose shoulder was suddenly grabbed, jumped up in shock. A loud scream reverberated throughout the office.
With his heart pounding wildly, he stood up abruptly and turned his head to see something dark behind him. The familiar voice came from the massive shadow.
“What are you all doing?”
“Oh.”
It was Sano. Instantly relieved, Iyeon slid back onto the sofa.
“Can’t you make some noise when you walk…”
“The door made a sound.”
It might partly be because Sano moved so quietly, but it also seemed like the three were too focused on the story to hear. Hyegang belatedly greeted Sano’s return.
“Welcome, hyung. You’re late.”
“Whatever.”
Sano turned on the light while responding indifferently. Click. The suddenly brightened interior starkly revealed Jaekyung’s pale complexion and Iyeon on the verge of tears. Sano raised one eyebrow.
“What’s going on?”
“Ah, I was telling them ghost stories. Want to hear too?”
Hyegang, the only one who seemed fine, explained the situation. Sano’s gaze swept over Iyeon’s ashen face and Jaekyung, who looked quite exhausted. Feeling somewhat embarrassed by that look, Iyeon avoided eye contact.
Even Iyeon himself hadn’t expected to be afraid of ghost stories.
He not only had zero interest in ghost stories but also had no interest in horror at all. Naturally, he didn’t know what kind of content they contained. “I heard there are many ghost stories in Chohosi, they’re probably just ghost stories.” That was about the extent of Iyeon’s thoughts on ghost stories.
That didn’t mean he believed in the existence of ghosts like Jaekyung did. Iyeon had never seen a ghost, let alone experienced sleep paralysis. All the nightmares he had were about realistic contents… If ghosts existed and they really took revenge on living people, serial killers, gangsters, dictators, and criminals should have disappeared long ago. At least that’s what Iyeon thought.
But thinking that way and being immersed in a story were different matters.
Unfortunately, Iyeon was the type to easily become engrossed in the atmosphere. He momentarily fell into the eerie atmosphere, the gloomy tone, and the constricting tempo. He could be described as perfectly optimized for jump scares.
The tragedy was that the person himself didn’t know this fact. When would I have ever gathered with others to tell ghost stories to know… Iyeon pouted as he was still soothing his startled heart. Of course, Jaekyung, who was the intended target, also got scared every time, but his presence was overshadowed by Iyeon’s. Hyegang’s target easily shifted.
He was already completely drained after listening to just two or three stories. Iyeon leaned against the backrest weakly.
Staring at him, Sano suddenly reached out his hand. A hand so hot it felt almost burning slowly rubbed Iyeon’s goosebump-covered forearm. Iyeon, startled, tried to pull his arm away, but Sano wouldn’t let go easily.
The cooled skin warmed up instantly. His heart started racing again, but for a different reason than before. Suddenly, the nape of his neck felt hot.
“Like a boiled chicken.”
Isn’t it too weird if I feel fluttery even when he says things like that? Iyeon tried desperately to calm his heart with self-deprecation, but it didn’t work well.
“Now that he’s here too, let’s clean up and go home.”
Trying to hide his emotions, his voice came out grumpy without realizing it.
“Come on, we’re just getting started!”
“What do you mean ‘starting’?”
As he was about to stand up, brushing off Hyegang’s jeering lightly, Sano gently pressed him from behind. It might have been a light force to him, but Iyeon, on the receiving end, had to sit back on the sofa like a paper doll. What the? Iyeon turned to look at Sano with a puzzled expression and froze.
“What.”
The green eyes were gleaming maliciously.
“It looks fun.”
And that’s how Sano ended up joining this gathering last.
As expected, Sano didn’t budge no matter what story Hyegang told. Not only did his complexion not change, but he didn’t even raise an eyebrow. Hyegang lightly grumbled that he knew it would be like this, but he smiled kindly as he watched Iyeon showcasing various facial expressions next to him.
Although Sano showed no reaction, he didn’t disrupt the atmosphere either. Rather, his statue-like presence sitting there was even a bit scary just to look at. Thanks to this, Hyegang’s midnight ghost story show was a great success.
“It seems nice to arrange gatherings like this occasionally. It’s fun.”
“Or we could get together to watch horror movies. I can’t watch them alone because they’re too scary.”
They had long strayed from the original purpose of finding clues about hiding mutants. Finding mutants or whatever wasn’t important anymore. The gathering, which had degraded into casual ghost story chat, was more fun than expected.
