Chapter 2: The School Bathroom

Drip, drip.

A cool liquid kept tickling the bridge of my nose.

I wiped it away, but it kept falling. Wiped again, and it fell again.

Soon, I caught a strange, foul odor from the liquid, and I shot up in alarm.

“What the—! Agh! What is this now!”

I thrashed as I got up, then promptly stubbed my ankle on something hard.

It hurt like hell.

Almost enough to bring tears to my eyes.

Even as I clutched my ankle and roared in pain, the cold liquid continued to tap on my head.

That’s how I realized water was leaking from the ceiling.

“Where the hell am I that the ceiling’s leaking?”

It was pitch black—I couldn’t see a thing.

All I could tell was that the space was so narrow I could barely stretch my legs, it stank, and it looked dilapidated.

I carefully reached out and felt along the wall.

Even with my elbow not fully extended, my fingertips soon touched the walls on both sides.

Just in case, I also felt around the spot I’d been sitting on a moment ago.

What I touched was the smooth ceramic of a toilet bowl.

There was no mistaking that texture.

A closed toilet lid.

When I reached up and fumbled, my fingers found a cold flush lever.

It was clear.

I was in a dark restroom.

I’d been sitting on a toilet just now, then freaked out and thrashed around.

The thing I hit my ankle on must have been the toilet, too.

“Why am I in a bathroom?”

I was sure I’d been hit by a car.

A truck that ran a red light, no less.

Of course, f*ck, I was looking at my phone while crossing the street, so I’m not entirely blameless.

But that driver ran a signal and barreled into me at a terrifying speed.

Maybe that ghost had messed with the driver, too.

Either way, I should have died.

So why was I perfectly alive, waking up in a bathroom I didn’t recognize?

I decided to get out and turn on a light first, so I fumbled with the door lock.

Since I had poor night vision, I carefully felt along the wall, searching for the light switch.

After a bit of groping, a cheerful *click* sounded, and the space lit up.

“…A school uniform?”

That was the first thing I saw—a school uniform.

And not one from my high school—it was a design I’d never worn.

Yet somehow it looked oddly familiar, which made it even more suspicious.

The walls were light blue tile, the floor was dirty from water leaking through the ceiling, the stench of bleach and ammonia stung my nose, and the mirror was covered in grime.

No matter how I looked at it, this wasn’t a place I knew.

I stood in front of the mirror, facing myself in that strange yet familiar, oddly stylish uniform, and muttered.

“Am I being haunted by a ghost?”

Too many things were off.

First, I was a college student wearing a uniform I’d never seen before.

And it was a summer uniform—who wears a summer uniform in early March?

Plus, my body, which should have been all banged up from the accident, didn’t have a single scratch.

My hair was shorter, too, as if I’d actually become a high schooler.

“If this is a dream, wake up…”

I banged my head on the sink a few times, but the scenery didn’t change.

The unfamiliar situation made me suddenly scared.

I couldn’t just dismiss it as hallucinations from a ghost because it felt too real.

I hadn’t inherited my mother’s spiritual powers, but I’d always been able to see and ‘hear’ things since birth.

And by ‘hear,’ I mean ghosts.

A body that could see and hear them but had no way to drive them off.

Just like how humans were great at picking out the weak in a group, ghosts were the same.

My mother must have felt sorry for me, her son who often suffered from being possessed, so she finally handed me homemade talismans and started teaching me various bits of knowledge.

At least so I could sense them in advance and avoid them.

But even then, being toyed with by evil spirits had become an annual event—my constitution was hopeless.

Anyway, with all that experience, I was damn good at detecting when I was being haunted.

And this situation…

“f*ck…”

It was infuriating.

I couldn’t even begin to grasp what the hell was going on.

Plus, even when I tried to seriously look around, the stench made it hard to concentrate.

Even the bathroom at my old school—a rundown, nearly closed school in a mountain valley—wasn’t this bad.

This place looked like it hadn’t been used in years.

“Is there anywhere that isn’t dirty?”

At least I wanted to wash my face and hands.

I felt gross from having water leaking from the ceiling fall on me continuously.

Using only my thumb, I turned the faucet, and thankfully water trickled out.

After washing up roughly, I used only my thumb again to push down the door handle.

But just as I was about to step out, someone outside flung the door open forcefully.

As a result, my nose collided head-on with the dirty door.

“Ow!”

“Who’s there?!”

My scream and a thick, clear voice rang out at the same time.

It was a voice I’d never heard before.

Clutching my throbbing nose, I looked up to see a male student I definitely didn’t recognize.

Damn, he’s good-looking.

For a moment, I even forgot that this guy was the one who’d smashed my nose, because the man before me was strikingly handsome.

He had soft, wavy brown hair and eyes the same maroon color as his hair.

He looked gentle, but his build was incongruously large.

I’m not short myself, but this guy was clearly taller than me.

His broad shoulders and muscular forearms gave me the instinct that he could pack a punch.

The guy also seemed not to have expected anyone in the bathroom; he wore a somewhat dumbfounded expression.

He looked at me holding my nose and staring blankly at his face, then spoke.

“Jae-yoon, why are you here? At this hour? Ah, are you okay?”

“What?”

The familiar way he called my name made my eyes narrow instinctively.

I didn’t know this guy, and I wasn’t at an age where I’d be addressed casually by a high schooler.

But even when I glared fiercely, the guy just smiled familiarly and lifted my chin without hesitation.

“Good thing there’s no blood… Hmm. Did you come to help me? But why are you in the old school building?”

“Do you know me?”

Even as I said it, I felt uncertain.

His face was somehow familiar, just like the uniform.

In response to my question, the guy tilted his head, then reached for my forehead, pretending to check my temperature quite affectionately.

“Did you hit your head earlier? Sorry, I just opened the door because I heard a strange noise from inside…”

“…What’s your name?”

“…Is your head hurting a lot? Should I call an ambulance?”

I waved my hand at the mention of calling an ambulance.

That disgustingly handsome face and this stylish uniform—why did they seem so familiar?

I thought hard.

And the conclusion was—

“Seo Yi-han?”

“Yeah, Jae-yoon.”

Seo Yi-han—a playable character from the shitty game I’d been playing nonstop for the past two weeks.

He was basically the male lead, given how often he appeared.

The rich son attending a wealthy foundation’s private school where elementary, middle, and high schools were all on the same campus.

Good looks, good grades, proper behavior—your typical protagonist.

Why was a guy I’d only seen in illustrations standing before me, a living, breathing person just like me…?

Gripping my pounding heart, I scrutinized his face.

He really did look like his illustration.

Well, of course he did, since that illustration was of him, but my brain wasn’t working properly.

I mean, how could anyone be okay with being hit by a car and then waking up inside the shitty game I always played?

Leaving Seo Yi-han, who was looking at me with worry, I sank into thought.

Let’s see… The early game story was…

[School]

The intro was the most cliché horror story imaginable.

Though later on, the story seemed to devolve into something even worse than cliché—like it was written by someone’s feet.

To confirm, I asked Seo Yi-han, who was in front of me.

“So right now, besides you, who else is in the school? Uh, I mean—”

I tried to recall the names, but they wouldn’t come.

I wasn’t the type to remember minor details like supporting characters’ names.

I only remembered Seo Yi-han’s name since he had the most screen time.

‘The vice president is Yoon… something. And the secretary and the vice president’s friend.’

I barely managed to recall the genders and positions, but my mind went blank.

Seeing me hem and haw, Seo Yi-han smiled naturally and continued.

“Sua, Jiho, and Bobae are there too.”

“Uh-huh…”

“If you were going to come this late, you should have just stayed when I suggested it at dismissal. Why come at this hour? And to the old school building at that…”

According to the game’s setting, the old school building was no longer used except for a few storage rooms, making it a den of stray ghosts.

Seo Yi-han seemed genuinely puzzled that I was holed up in that bathroom.

But even more puzzling was me.

The game protagonist treating me as if I were a real character in the game, my appearance changed to that of a high school student, and the buildings and backgrounds perfectly matching the game’s descriptions.

Even if I could somehow accept that I’d ended up inside that shitty game, the first two things didn’t make any sense at all.

“Let’s go to where the others are first.”

Grabbing my hand as I groaned, Seo Yi-han strode forward.

True to his image as a rich son and model student, his posture was straight and pleasing to the eye.

But why was he being so warm to me?