Chapter 2: Observation

            Riding in the Sherlock Team van, they all headed to the scene of the mystery with their investigation equipment. Minho readied his camera, recorder, and laptop. Key skimmed the surrounding area as Onew drove to the place. The building was located downtown, at the center of the city where all the new, tall, skyscrapers are located. Just like what Soo-young said, it is pretty close to the university they are attending. It is also close to a shopping mall for added convenience. After parking in the basement, the group headed into the building.

           “Like what Jessica Noona said, the building definitely is brand new. The structure was made with modern architectural design and technology. It has an estimate of forty floors at least, CCTVs and guards on every entrance, and really shiny, slippery floor tiles that I almost slipped on. Janitors, you’ve done a too-good of a job,” Key said as he recorded his voice with Minho’s recorder. Minho took photographs of the place.

           After walking past the automatically sliding glass doors and the building reception, they reached the elevator. Key continued recording, “This place can’t possibly be haunted. The reception looks better than three-star hotel receptions.”

           Upon entering the elevator, Yuri pressed the button for the eleventh floor. Onew tilted his head in false expectation. “It’s not on the thirteenth floor?”

           “No,” Yuri and Soo-young replied in unison. Then Soo-Young continued, “We know ghost stories usually say that the thirteenth floor is haunted, but in our case, I guess number doesn’t even matter.”

           “Heading up to the eleventh floor. The elevator moved up pretty quickly unlike the ones in older buildings. There are also CCTV cameras in the elevators,” Key continued recording.

           After a few seconds, they already arrived at the eleventh floor. “Here come more slippery floor tiles…”

           They walked down a few halls and stopped in front of apartment number 1124. Soo-Young swiped her card key and entered the pass-code on the door. Inside, they passed by the guest bathroom on the left and the kitchen on the right; the spacious living room was just up ahead. Huge glass windows span the entire length of the living room wall, covered by opaque white curtains. The apartment looked really nice and newly furnished. There couldn’t be a single hint of ghoul-attracting quality to its bright, clean appearance.

           “Nice place,” Jonghyun and Minho complimented.

           “See? Does this super cool apartment even live up to ‘haunted’ standards?” said Yuri, pointing to the high-tech television screens and the large, soft couch. “This place is like heaven! I mean look at the view from the giant glass wall; the city looks so good from here.”

           “You may never know,” Taemin mumbled. “It may just have been newly refurbished or the foundation could be an old graveyard. Things aren’t exactly what they seem at first.”

           Key went into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. Then he continued recording, “My stupid hypothesis of Miss Soo-Young’s shadow being cast on the kitchen curtain by refrigerator light is definitely a wrong. The refrigerator isn’t facing the curtain. It’s positioned sideways near the kitchen entrance.”

           “Just so you know, the shadow doesn’t just appear by the curtain,” Soo-Young said as she watched Key from the entrance of the kitchen. Key recorded her too. “It also appears in the living room, and in the dark halls. It’s really scary.”

          “It does?” Key asked with a puzzled expression on his face. “I wonder if it’s actually related to the missing food. For all we know, it could be two unrelated things.”

          Minho entered the kitchen too and began taking photos of the important details. He took pictures of the food, the curtain by the kitchen window, and even the entrance.

          “I think it would be easier to catch the culprit of the missing food if we set up a hidden camera in this room,” Minho suggested. “I’m not sure about the ghost though, but hidden cameras usually do the trick for petty thieves.”

          “Yup, you should do that,” Key agreed.

          Meanwhile, Jonghyun left to ask the authorities about the building. The guards and the building manager gladly answered all his questions. He wrote every bit of information down on his little notebook. He even walked around the surrounding area and asked people about the place. When he came back about thirty minutes later, he had a lot to report to the rest of the team.

          “Well, unlike Taemin’s suspicions of a cemetery or hospital hanging around nearby, this entire area of the city was planned and built just recently. Ghosts wouldn’t be floating around here. The nearest hospital is seven huge blocks away. There aren’t any graveyards in this city either. This building opened to the public just three months ago. It’s definitely brand new. So far, I haven’t heard any strange horror stories from anyone. I don’t think there could be any reason for this place to be haunted—if ghosts are real,” Jonghyun reported.

          “The security system of this place is also ninety-nine percent foolproof,” Jonghyun went on. “I mean, card keys, passcodes, CCTV cameras, break-in alarms…I don’t think anyone would be stupid enough to go through all that trouble just to steal food.”

          “Then, what do you all think it could be?” asked the clueless Soo-Young.

          “We need to investigate further. I think the best that we can do is to observe for a while. What do you think, Onew Hyung?” asked Key.

          Team Leader Onew, who has been quiet the entire time, seemed to be very absorbed in his thoughts. Then he spoke up, “It seems you already have a plan in mind, Key.”

          “For tonight, Miss Soo-Young and Miss Yuri, we suggest you go on with what you usually do,” Key declared. “We’ll have Minho set up cameras to monitor the halls and the kitchen for the entire night. If anything strange happens, call us.”

***

          Night came. Minho closely watched the CCTVs in night-vision mode from their own 80-inch, LCD flat screen. They are used to staying up until early dawn like this. Sleeping from morning till noon usually makes up for the lack of sleep. For now, the case comes first.

          “Anything interesting happening?” asked Key as he sat beside Minho on their huge sofa that night.

          “Nothing yet. The girls are already in their rooms. They are probably sleeping already, or studying as Soo-Young Noona had said. So far, there hasn’t been any movement in the kitchen, living room, or halls.”

          “It’s already fifteen minutes past midnight,” Key said as he looked at the clock. “Soo-Young Noona says she goes to the fridge for a midnight snack. She should be up any minute now.”

          Soon, Onew, Jonghyun, and Taemin joined the other two in their late night observation party. All of them were already wearing their pajamas and even prepared some popcorn for the show. It looked like a fun slumber party.

          “Nothing’s happening yet,” Jonghyun said as he munched on some popcorn and flopped himself in one of the rainbow-colored bean-bag chairs. Everyone continued to watch closely.

***

          “Hmm… I’m hungry,” Soo-Young mumbled to herself while studying for her upcoming driver’s test. All the lights in her room were open. She did not want to see that scary woman that looms in the dark at all. No matter how strong she may seem on the outside, scary figures always leave her with weak trembling knees and terrible nightmares. If she had known that a ghost would start appearing to her ever since she moved in this new apartment, she wouldn’t have accepted Jessica’s offer. Nevertheless, there is nothing that she could do about it now. She already signed the one-year contract.

          She took a glance at her wall clock. “Oh shoot, it’s past midnight.”

          With a little smirk on her face, she went to one of her drawers. “This time, I hid some food in my drawer. That way I don’t have to go out in the dark.”

          Surprisingly, when she opened the drawer, there was nothing there. All the snacks she hid in the drawer were gone. Soo-Young’s eyes dilated. She just placed all those snacks in the drawer a few hours ago—nine o’ clock p.m. to be exact, and she never left the room since. No one could have taken it without her noticing.

          “H-h-how t-the heck…?” Soo-Young stuttered in fear, thinking that the ghost magically stole it.

***

          A few minutes later, as the Sherlock team closely watched the live broadcast of the surveillance video, something finally happened in apartment 1124. The door of Soo-Young’s room swung wide open, followed by the frightened Soo-Young running out to Yuri’s bedroom just across the small corridor. She appeared to be screaming at the top of her lungs.

          “Oh dear, she’s really frightened,” Onew mumbled without even blinking an eye as he watched the surveillance video.

          “I’m guessing she saw the ghost,” Taemin stated the obvious.

          “No kidding,” Jonghyun said as he munched on some more popcorn.

***

          Yuri stretched for a bit and uncovered her sleepy head from the blanket. She looked disturbed and annoyed. This is the fourth time she heard Soo-Young screaming like that late at night. She is honestly so sick of it.

          “What is it now?” Yuri groaned.

          “She was staring at me, for goodness sakes!!!” Soo-Young yelled. She then held onto Yuri like a frightened child.

          “Who? The ghost?” Yuri was still half asleep.

          “She was standing by my bed! I saw her! Her dark hair was all over her face!”

          Suddenly, Yuri’s phone started ringing. Soo-Young screamed in surprise. Her heart was beating so fast, she felt like fainting already.

          “Calm down, it’s just my phone,” Yuri said with a comforting pat on Soo-Young’s back. Soo-Young hid under the blankets of Yuri’s bed and just laid there trembling.

          “Hello Yuri Noona,” Key greeted over the phone.

          “Oh Key,” Yuri sleepily greeted back with a yawn.

          “What’s wrong? Did anything happen?” Key began asking. “All we saw was Soo-Young Noona rushing to your room.”

***

          The next day, Soo-Young explained everything. She led the detectives to her room to show them exactly where she placed the food and where the ghost appeared to her. The Sherlock Team really had no idea what to conclude from this since they did not witness any of it for themselves. So far, they have no idea what causes the food to disappear. Yuri probably did not steal it, since they did not see her leave the room at all from the CCTVs last night. The ghost could possibly be real, but does that even really have anything to do with the missing food? Food can’t just disappear like that, can it? Why would a ghost want to steal food? There has to be a logical explanation.

          “We can’t really confirm any of Soo-Young Noona’s claims of a ghost since no one has seen it except her,” Key thought out loud.

          “Well, it may be easier for us to observe the place if we actually stay here overnight,” suggests Team Leader Onew. “I don’t know if we’ll be ghost hunting, but we’ll see how it goes.”

          “You want to stay in our apartment?” asked Yuri.

          “We’ll stay here and both of you can stay at our headquarters for the night, if that is okay with both of you,” stated Onew.

          “Don’t worry,” Jonghyun said with a sweet smile. “We’ll fix up the headquarters so both of you can feel at home as much as possible. Oh, and we won’t wreck up this pretty apartment. We’ll take good care of it!”

          “Taemin,” Onew turned to the baby of the group. “You should stay with the noonas in the headquarters and keep them safe.”

          Taemin pouted in disappointment. “But I want to go ghost hunting too!”

          “No, I think it’s also a good idea that you stay with them. Take good care of them,” Key said in a very mother-like way.

***

          Later that second night of observation, Onew, Jonghyun, Key, and Minho got their “ghost-hunting” equipment ready. Minho set up surveillance cameras in the bedrooms and connected all the previously set up surveillance cameras to the huge television screen in Soo-Young and Yuri’s living room so he can monitor them all. Onew, Jonghyun, and Key all have their voice-recording devices ready too. Onew stayed in the kitchen, Jonghyun stayed in Yuri’s bedroom, Key stayed in Soo-Young’s bedroom, and Minho stayed in the living room. All of them had some sort of snacks hidden close to them, just in case the supposed ghost is actually attracted by food. That theory still rings ridiculous to the team’s ears, but they have to try all the possibilities.

          Meanwhile, Taemin prepared the beds for his two guests in the Sherlock Headquarters. He even made them tea and served the cookies that Key baked earlier for them. Soo-Young seems relaxed, since she is not staying in the “haunted apartment” for once. That means there won’t be any ghosts bothering her for tonight. Soo-Young also forgot to bring her driver’s test reviewers, so she just found herself playing with Taemin and Yuri on the Nintendo Wii. It was a fun night. She felt like a kid again. When they found themselves yawning their lungs out of exhaustion from playing too much videogames, they all went to their separate rooms to retire for the night.

          The ghost-hunting team, however, were all on-edge the entire night. No matter how much their eyes just wanted to close shut, they tried their best to stay alert. Onew drank a lot of coffee in the kitchen just to stay awake. He even shared some with the rest to make sure they don’t fall asleep.

          “Hm…Maybe if I close the lights and leave a lamp on, I might see the ghost,” Key thought. He then closed the lights and left a lamp on like he said and sat back on Soo-Young’s comfy bed. He checked the drawers for any possible hole where the food could have been taken, but he did not find any. After running out of ideas, he even took a cookie for a midnight snack to try luring the ghost out. Nothing happened at all though.

          Later on at about three-thirty in the morning, Onew already fell asleep with his head face down on the dining table, Minho was snoring on the sofa, and Jonghyun fell asleep on Yuri’s bed. Even Key fell fast asleep on Soo-Young’s bed no matter how hard he tried to keep his eyes open.

          “Ring ding dong, ring ding dong ring, diggiding diggiding ding ding!” the song blasted from Key’s cellphone.

          After a few seconds, Key shot up with his eyes wide open. He realized he had fallen asleep unconsciously on Soo-Young’s bed. He should be keeping an eye out for anything suspicious, not taking a nap!

          “Hello?” Key answered the phone.

          “Uh, Hyung…,” Taemin groggily said through the other line.

          “Taemin, what's up?” Key asked.

          “Something happened to Soo-Young Noona.”