Ghost Story Club

<<Trigger warning: This chapter has depictions of Lewd Humor and Suggestive Behavior. Readers Please be Advised>>

After walking down the hallway, I reached the men’s room on the first floor.

It was empty.

‘Red tissue, blue tissue, huh……?’

For some reason, the story was stuck in my mind. I quietly peeked into the fourth stall, but there was nothing there.

I stood by the urinal and was minding my own business when I heard footsteps in the hallway. The bathroom door opened with a crash, and a rude looking student rushed into the fourth stall.

‘I just heard a ghost story about this. How could you go into that stall, out of all of them?’

With the sound effects of a grand release, the male student let out a sigh of relief.

I had finished my business, so I zipped up my pants and went to the sink to wash my hands. Unexpectedly, the voice of a slender woman could be heard.

“……”

The bathroom went silent.

When I looked around to try and locate the source of the voice, I heard it again.

[Should I give you a red tissue, or a blue tissue~?]

“……”

If you ignored the eerie words and the fact that you couldn’t tell where it came from, the voice was quite pretty.

It had the strange charm of a nursery teacher speaking affectionately to young children.

The student in the fourth stall must have also heard the voice, as there was no longer any noise coming from the stall.

After some more time passed in silence, the male student shouted.

“Hey, stop messing around!”

It was a tone meant to pick a fight.

Was he talking to me?

‘I guess there was only me and him in here.’

I spoke back to him as I looked at the fourth stall.

“It wasn’t me.”

“……”

Again, silence.

And then, a little later…

[Should I give you a red tissue, or a blue tissue~?]

It was the voice of a woman speaking in a very soothing tone, as if she were talking to a very young child.

The male student spoke to me in a low voice.

“Hey, I said to stop messing around.”

“……”

The deep voice seemed very menacing.

From what I briefly saw of his looks and atmosphere, he might have been one of those… Delinquents. A punk, or a gang member.

“I said it wasn’t me.”

However, I was a ‘3+1’th year, who had gone through a lot.

Not to mention, I had just won a fight against GyeongWon. I was listening to a punk three years younger than me speak to me in a rude manner. I couldn’t hold it in and responded back to him.

“Then who was it? Who else is here besides us?”

“I don’t know. It isn’t me though, so stop nitpicking.”

Silence once again.

The bathroom was quiet.

I could have just left it like that, but I really wanted to see the end of the funny ghostly phenomenon.

Soon there was a shuffling noise, before the student cursed.

“Ah, fuck.”

The male student sighed after letting out a curse.

“Haah… Sorry, but could you get me some toilet paper from the next stall?”

“Sure, wait a moment.”

In order to show my friendliness, I opened the stall next to his. However, there was no toilet paper.

The other stalls were the same.

It may have been because vacation had just ended and the school year had just started, so no one had been made in charge of cleaning yet.

“Hey, the other stalls don’t have any toilet paper either.”

“……”

Soon after, the soothing female voice could be heard once again.

[Should I give you a red tissue, or a blue tissue~?]

“Fuck, are you actually fucking with me?”

The student shouted in anger.

“Stop fucking with me and go get me some toilet paper! I was trying to hold back before, but are you trying to piss me off? Are you insane?”

The male student’s shouting echoed off of the bathroom tiles, filling the previously silent bathroom with noise.

My aggravated mind couldn’t take it, so I shouted back.

“There really isn’t any! And can’t you tell voices apart? That was a girl’s voice!”

“Fuck! Who else is in here but you?”

“Fuck you, bitch! Stop cursing at me, fuck.”

“Bitch? Are you crazy?”

“What? I told you it wasn’t fucking me!”

“Stop with the bullshit! There is no one else here but you!”

[Should I give you a red tissue, or a blue tissue~?]

“Fucker, I got you now! Just stay right there!”

The male student was so angry that I could hear him pulling his pants up without wiping his ass.

More important than the fact that I would get beat up if I got caught, I didn’t want to get caught because of how dirty it would be. So I started to run away from the bathroom, when…

“What are you guys doing?! Why are you fighting in the bathroom?”

A roughly thirty-looking, beautiful female teacher burst into the men’s room.

I had seen her before.

She was the teacher that had forced me out of the classroom, and when I pretended to be sick with anemia, she had delivered me to the infirmary.

The male student in the fourth stall came out angrily, with only his underwear on, but when he saw the female teacher he rushed back into the stall and closed the door.

“What is it? What happened?”

The teacher sent me an inquiring look.

“Um, you see……”

Not including the part about the ghost, I told her what had happened.

When she heard the story, the teacher gave me a look of disbelief.

“What were you doing? Were you two putting on a play?”

“……”

I had nothing to say.

The fight was more childish than the ghost story from before.

“You two are seventeen years old, but were screaming and fighting over that? And one of you was taking a shit while fighting. Ha! I’m shocked…”

“Sorry.”

“If you didn’t have any toilet paper, just borrow it from a teacher! How many times do I have to tell you that I will lend you toilet paper? You just had to choose between the two of them, but even disregarding that, why were you two fighting?”

“What?”

“How many times did I have to ask you if I should give you red tissues or blue tissues? Iaskedifyouwantedredtissuesorbluetissuesbutwhywon’tyouanswer?!”

After saying those words, she got down on all fours and quickly clambered towards the fourth stall, where she instantly jumped over the tall stall wall and into the fourth stall.

“Whydidn’tyouanswerwhenIaskedyouifyouneedredtissueorbluetissuesyousaidyoudidn’thaveany. RedtissuewouldmeanIcouldcoveryouinblood. BluetissuewouldmeeanIcouldstrangleyouuntilyourfaceturnedblue.”

“Uaaaaaaaaccckkk! FUUUUUUUCK!”

With the screams coming from the fourth stall, I could hear a crashing sound when the stall door opened. The student that had been arguing with me was covered in his own shit and flailing around.

Behind him, the teacher, whose hair was loose and flying around like a ghost’s, was grabbing onto the student’s ankles to prevent him from running away.

“White tissue! Please give me some white tissue!”

I shouted desperately.

Then the teacher stopped.

“… White tissue?”

“Yes! White tissue, please.”

“……”

The teacher let go of the male student and slowly got up from where she was.

Then, after gracefully swinging her hair back, she crossed her arms and began to stare at me.

“To say you want the white tissue… You must be lewd.”

In the meantime, the male student had caught his breath and crawled along the floor to get behind me.

“……”

“Well, what can you expect from male students during puberty, right?”

“……”

“Do you really want the white tissue?”

The teacher slowly began to walk my way, her butt swaying as she walked.

“Uh, umm… That is……”

“Was it that you wanted to experience the white tissue~?”

The teacher’s soothing voice echoed throughout the bathroom.

If you excluded the weird words, it was quite the pretty voice.

It was a charming voice that nursery teachers would use on young children.

I was unable to think of how to handle this situation due to the sudden change in atmosphere.

The teacher appeared perfectly normal, as if she had never crawled on all fours just a moment ago.

When she spoke, her red lips began to look lascivious.

“Are you saying that, knowing what it means~?”

As the teacher approached, the smell of her perfume wafted over and my head started to spin.

Then she brought her face close to mine, as if she were about to kiss me, before turning away slightly at the last moment to whisper in my ear.

“Do you want to receive the white tissue from me?”

“Uh, uh……”

I couldn’t keep my mind straight. It felt like I was falling into the trap of an adult’s charm.

The moment I was about to respond with ‘yes’, I suddenly came to my senses. The sound of the bathroom door swinging open and closed quickly snapped me out of it.

Creak- Slam!

“……!”

The student behind me had taken the opportunity to escape.

‘F-fuck……’

I slowly turned my face away and hurried to the door.

When I opened the door, before I left I turned around to look at the teacher.

She was still staring at me with her eyes thinly opened.

“……”

“G-goodbye… I’m fine on toilet paper now.”

I quickly left the men’s room and ran to the classroom.

At that moment, a message popped up.

[You have come across and survived the C-rank Ghost Story - Red Tissue, Blue Tissue.]

[You have earned 10 Ghost Story Points.]

* * *

* * *

I spent the rest of the afternoon in a daze.

It partially had to do with all of the incomprehensible incidents happening continuously, and it also had to do with the way the unusual behavior of that teacher kept running through my mind.

‘What exactly did the white tissue mean…? It keeps crossing my mind. And did that guy survive? He seemed to have gotten injured.’

As I thought about numerous topics, sixth period had somehow ended and it would be time to go home soon.

Right before the closing session, before the homeroom teacher came in, SunAh took the opportunity to come over to me.

“Hey, Joon.”

“Yeah?”

“Your expression doesn’t look so good.”

“……”

“The club application form… Is it very difficult?”

“Oh! Right!”

I was in trouble! There was only five minutes left before the homeroom teacher came in.

I quickly grabbed a pen and began to rush through the form.

Like my disposition for cramming suggested, as I was cornered my inspiration began to explode.

‘Ghost Story Club! By studying our ancestor’s traditional ghost stories, we will be researching the history of those times… this is the concept I’m going for… Let’s just tie this into the explanation for now.’

With rushed handwriting, I included all sorts of content to extend the explanation. I barely finished when the homeroom teacher came into the room.

SunAh was watching me with an admiring expression, until she noticed the homeroom teacher and skittered back to her seat.

“Everyone worked hard today~.”

After checking that everyone was in their seats, the teacher made announcements on how we should not be chatting on our way to the cafeteria during lunch, and for those of us who still had dyed hair to dye the color back to black by next week.

“Also, there was an incident today where a male student slipped on his way to the bathroom and was severely injured. Everyone please take care not to slip~. Then, goodbye!”

He was trying to leave after finishing with those words when I followed him.

“Teacher! Here, the club application form.”

“Good work~.”

The teacher quickly took the sheet and didn’t bother to read through it as he left for the teachers’ office.

Is he the type to be sensitive about leaving work?

[Your understanding of Park DamIm has increased by 10.]

When I returned to my seat, SunAh approached my side.

“What did he say?”

“Sigh, I’m not sure. He didn’t read it, but truthfully, I couldn’t find a fourth member so I just left it blank.”

“Is that so?”

“Well, I’m sure things will work out. If we can’t make the club, we can just join an existing club together.”

“Sure…”

SunAh extended her response as if she thought it was a shame.

Activities like a ghost story club would seem weird anyway, so what did she think was a shame?

Did she think that joining a club and meeting new people was burdensome?

“I hope the club is accepted……”

I nodded my head in response to SunAh’s murmuring.

“Yup. And then we could spend a comfortable time amongst close friends.”

“Yes! You’re right. I wish that would happen……”

When I expressed her inner thoughts for her, SunAh began to nod her head furiously. Her expression suggested that I was right.

[Your understanding of Yoon SunAh has increased by 5.]

***

After school ended, GyeongWon, SunAh and I left the classroom together.

“What did the teacher say?”

“Nothing yet. I think we will have to wait until tomorrow to know the results.”

“I hope things go well.”

GyeongWon pushed his glasses up with a smile as he replied.

I suddenly had a question I was curious about, so I asked right away.

“GyeongWon, do you know the red tissue, blue tissue ghost story?”

“That question is not even worth answering.”

True. It was so famous that even someone like me, who had no interest in ghost stories, knew of it.

“You know how the ghost in the story asks if you want a red tissue or a blue tissue, right? But what happens if you answer that you want a white tissue?”

“White tissue?”

GyeongWon had a stunned expression on his face, before he let out a sigh.

“Similar to last time, this is quite the peculiar question. Is this type of question only imaginable by those who aren’t very knowledgeable about ghost stories? In a way, I am kind of jealous……”

I could only chuckle in embarrassment.

“A white tissue, huh. White tissue… There is no decisive answer, but we could make a few speculations.”

“What kind of speculation?”

“When you choose the red tissue, they make you bleed to cover you in red. If you choose the blue tissue, you are choked to turn you blue. Thus, the white tissue would definitely be something that would turn you white.”

“Turn you white?”

“Maybe something like surprising you to make your face turn white? The method can be whatever you can think of.”

Like the way you would use blood to turn red, something white within our bodies would be used to turn you white.

‘What would that be?’

Nothing really came to mind, so I just shrugged my shoulders.

“SunAh, do you know?”

“I don’t know……”

SunAh also didn’t know much about ghost stories.

Later, we went our separate ways, and I headed home.

‘Now that I think of it, for the ghost stories I came across before this one, I died at least once. Today, I survived without dying at all.’

The reason I survived might have been because I already knew of the ghost story involving the red tissue and blue tissue.

Thus, I was able to respond immediately, without getting flustered.

‘… Already knowing what the story is about makes such a big difference.’

From what I’d experienced up to that point, the monstrous phenomena didn’t happen indiscriminately.

There were at least some sort of basic rules that each of the ghost stories followed.

What that meant is that, if you didn’t know the contents of the ghost story, you would face great danger—such as when everyone’s heads exploded, or when the laughing girl murdered people. But if you knew the conditions of the ghost story ahead of time, you could easily handle the situation.

That was right!

It was similar to games, where if you didn’t recognize the signs you would die.

And then I realized that I didn’t know any of those kinds of stories.

Where would I have to go to study ghost stories?

Would there be a place that specialized in teaching them?

“……”

Nope, nope.

Of course there wouldn’t be.

The only method would be to search through books, search through the internet, and ask others in order to slowly stack up knowledge of ghost stories.

‘Do I really have to become a useless expert on ghost stories?’

After I let out a sigh, I looked up to see my apartment building.

I must have reached home while I was lost in my thoughts.

When I looked up at my house, I saw someone out on the veranda.

“Mom?”

Mom was standing on our veranda, looking down at me.

I waved my hand to greet her.

“……”

For some odd reason, there wasn’t much of a reaction from Mom.

I was pretty sure she was looking at me.

“……?”

Something was making me worry, so I hurried home.