My Girlfriend Is a Shaman

2 – The Story of a Childhood Friend Who Sees Ghosts #2

“I see. I didn’t need to go far.”

I nodded at Sera’s words. The dark figure still appeared at the window of our class in my eyes. The dark figure seemed to be looking at us.

“That’s good, it’s good.”

My spine was cold, but you can’t discover the nature of a mystery if you’re scared of a creepy feeling.

If I saw an unidentified silhouette, naturally, I needed to verify its identity with my own eyes.

I thought I had to go and check the classroom directly.

I started running towards the school from the schoolyard.

━━Thud thud thud thud!

The moment I started running without a word, Sera called me with a loud voice from behind.

“Hey!! Where are you going?!”

“To the classroom!”

After that, I entered the school building and went up to the 3rd floor in one breath.

The hallway of the afterschool was shrouded in deep shadows.

Perhaps because quite some time had passed, there were no children or teachers in the hallway. There was a dark and gloomy atmosphere in the school as the sun began to set.

Every time I ran, the sound of thudding reverberated loudly. The sound of footsteps was even louder in the silent hallway.

After running like that, I arrived in front of the classroom door.

I took a moment to catch my breath and opened the sliding door.

━━Slide!!

The door opened fiercely, and the sight of the classroom was clearly visible.

I entered the classroom with tension.

But the tension only lasted a moment.

I couldn’t help but feel strange the moment I stepped inside.

“Huh?”

Nothing.

It was gone.

The dark figure, which had been standing by the window, gazing down at us, was nowhere to be seen. The classroom, now vacated for the end of the school day, was simply empty. I wandered around the classroom, seeking the dark figure. I inspected meticulously, behind the teacher’s desk and under other desks, but the figure was not to be found.

‘Did I imagine it?’

A momentary doubt passed through me, but that couldn’t be. Sera, who had been standing with me on the school field, saw it too. Two witnesses made hallucination less likely.

“Hmm.”

I stood bewildered in the empty classroom for a moment.

Perhaps the dark figure had moved to another location.

Just as I pondered whether I should scour the entire school…

━━Slide!! Bang!!

The classroom’s sliding door slammed shut.

The door had closed abruptly.

I turned my head to look at the door.

A small window was installed in the middle of the sliding door, but nobody was visible in the corridor through it.

If someone had closed the door, at least a strand of hair should be visible…

“Who’s there?”

I approached the door, calling out. But the hallway offered no reply.

“Who is it?”

Once again, I questioned, gripping the handle of the heavily closed sliding door. I attempted to open it with a gentle force, but the door didn’t budge. It merely twitched as if someone was holding it from the other side.

‘Could it be…’

A thought brushed through my mind for a moment.

What if the dark figure I had seen was holding the door from the other side?

Keeping me, who had boldly entered the classroom, from leaving?

“Open the door! Let’s see who you are.”

I applied more force to the door I was holding. As I tried to force it open, the door began to move bit by bit.

At some point, the force pulling the door closed from the other side disappeared.

I, having been applying force, unavoidably thrust the door open with vigor.

━━Slideee!!!

The moment the door opened, a pale figure outside screamed towards me.

“Kyyaaahhhhh!!!”

Caught off-guard by the unexpected scream, my ears ached. I would have listened to a ghost’s scream anytime, but this was a human scream.

Perplexed, I recognized the identity of the entity outside.

“…What are you doing?”

“Kyah.”

“What are you doing, I asked.”

The pale figure.

It was Sera. Sera, who had been crouching outside the classroom door, screamed at me.

“……What am I doing? You’re the one scaring me.”

A playful smile hung on Sera’s lips.

Seeing this girl, I understood why strange things had happened at the classroom door.

The abrupt closing of the classroom door, the resistance in opening it, it was all Sera’s mischief.

“Ha. So it was you holding the door, wasn’t it?”

“Of course it was me. Did you think it was a ghost? It was funny when you asked who it was. Your voice was so serious. hehehehe.”

Crouching outside, Sera rose, laughing.

It was only natural that Sera hadn’t been visible in the window of the sliding door.

This blonde girl cunningly crouched down while holding the door, keeping herself hidden in the window to scare me.

“Haah….”

What I thought was a ghost turned out to be a person.

I sighed and slouched on a nearby desk. Sera, who had entered the classroom, spoke to me.

“Were you scared?”

“A bit startled.”

“Honestly, Jinwoo, I was scared too when I saw you. I never thought you’d run into the classroom just because you saw something at the window.”

“What did you think I’d do?”

“I thought you’d run home and sleep with your mom, like a scaredy-cat. You’re really an odd one.”

“You’re one to talk. You were digging up a body in the middle of the night with a shovel!”

“No. Even compared to me, you’re strange.”

Compared to a girl who discovered a corpse in the middle of the night, I’m strange?

Whether to be pleased or sad, I truly did not know.

But one thing was certain, Sera was showing interest in me.

“You’re so odd, it’s amusing.”

Sera looked at me and smiled. Her grin was like that of a child who had found an entertaining toy. The notorious girl who had stirred up the school was showing interest in me. I decided to take Sera’s interest positively. It was better than indifference, at least.

“But still, Jinwoo. There’s nothing good about seeing ghosts often. It’s better to keep it moderate.”

“Why?”

“You know the saying that when you talk about ghosts, they appear? Similarly, when you see a ghost, the more you see, the more you’ll continue to see. There’s a gate in the human body through which ghosts pass. Each time you see a ghost, this gate opens a little more, until eventually, it flings wide open.”

A gate through which ghosts pass.

Though Sera explained it in simple terms, I had heard of this gate before. It was a well-known story among those interested in mysteries or among shamans.

The Ghost Gate (귀문).

A path through which spirits pass. In geomancy, it refers to the northeastern direction through which spirits travel.

Similarly, people have a Ghost Gate within them, and those with it open often see spirits.

“Do you know what happens when the Ghost Gate opens? You keep seeing horrifying things. Imagine seeing a person bleeding all of a sudden. It’s really unpleasant.”

“I’m okay with that. That’s what I want.”

“You want that?”

My candid words narrowed Sera’s eyes.

I spoke calmly.

“I want to open the gate through which ghosts pass. That’s why I want to see ghosts. The more I see, the more details I can see of the ghosts.”

“You…”

A faintly visible dark figure or something passing in the corner of my vision.

I couldn’t be satisfied merely witnessing parts of a spirit.

I wanted to capture the complete appearance of the spirit with my eyes.

So, I wanted to see ghosts.

I keep trying to see it even when it’s not visible.

“…You’re really strange.”

Persuasion was futile. But Sera didn’t seem particularly disappointed.

She relaxed her squinted eyes and smiled as if it didn’t matter.

I asked Sera something I was curious about.

“So, what was that you showed me earlier? The dark thing that looked like a person.”

“A ghost.”

“Yeah, that. Wasn’t it standing near the classroom window earlier? But when we came into the classroom, it wasn’t visible. Did it move somewhere else?”

Did the dark figure move outside the classroom?

Sera shook her head in response to my question.

“No.”

“Then where is it?”

“It’s still here. You just can’t see it.”

The dark figure is still in the classroom?

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

Sera looked towards the back of the classroom. She was looking at an empty desk near the window at the very back.

It was also a desk that no one in our class sat at because it didn’t belong to anyone.

While looking at the empty desk, Sera seemed to be seeing something sitting there. Her gaze was fixed.

‘Is there a ghost at that desk?’

I also stared hard at the desk by the window, wondering if I could see something. But no matter how hard I stared, nothing appeared. Unfortunately, to me at that moment, that desk was just a desk.

In the end, I did not see the ghost, even as time passed.

“Jinwoo, let’s go home now. You’re not going to stay up all night in school to see a ghost, are you?”

“Okay.”

I obediently nodded at Sera’s call.

There was no need to be impatient anyway. If the ghost really is in the classroom, I would be able to see it again someday. It was the classroom where we would be spending the next year. There would be many opportunities to see the ghost.

“Goodbye.”

“You too, goodbye.”

Just like that, I parted ways with Sera and returned home.

Several days passed since then.

Every day, going to school, I came to believe Sera’s words that there was a ghost in the classroom.

Because strange things slowly began to happen in our class.

It was one morning.

During roll call.

Our class had a total of 24 students, and it didn’t take long to call everyone’s attendance.

The elderly female teacher was in the middle of calling each student’s name when it happened.

“Kang Sera.”

“Yes.”

“Kim Jinwoo.”

“Yes.”

“Na Gicheol.”

“Yes.”

A moment later, the teacher called the twenty-fourth student’s name.

“Seo Jinsu.”

“Yes.”

“Park Eunseo.”

And the twenty-fifth student’s name as well.

“……”

No response came back.

“Huh…?”

The teacher, who was calling attendance mechanically, lifted her head with a puzzled expression.

The kids in our class also simultaneously wore puzzled expressions.

Our class should only have twenty-four students, right?

Why was a twenty-fifth student’s name being called?

“Park Eunseo? Who’s that?”

“Was there such a kid in our class?”

“I haven’t heard of them.”

The kids began to chatter amongst themselves.

For some reason, the teacher, looking at the attendance book, turned pale.

I clearly heard the teacher mutter.

“Park Eunseo…? Why is the name Eunseo here? This name wasn’t in the attendance book even until yesterday….”