It's late in this beautiful afternoon, and Hyeri's always the last student to stay in class since she's the delegate.

She finds herself cleaning the classroom so tomorrow everyone will find everything impeccable, ready to study with all their will.

Once she has cleaned the chalkboard, she turns around, making sure everything's as it should be. A winning smile spreads in her pink lips.

"Someone should give me an award because I'm so good at cleaning."

Heading to her chair where she always sits, takes her bag to place it around her shoulder, releasing a tired but proud sigh before locking the class using the keys her beloved teacher Minah gave to her as she always does.

Walking by the corridor, she heads to the secretary room. When she opens the door, she finds Minah and another male teacher talking to each other, before they turn around and greet her with a warm: "Hi, Hyeri."

"Have you finished?" asks Minah.

"Yep. Finally, I'm going home after staying for.." she checks her watch on her wrist.

"30 minutes straight."

Minah gives her an apologetic smile.

"You are so hardworking. I feel bad. Your classmates are so messy throwing everything around. I'll make sure tomorrow they don't that again, then you won't have to stay for that long."

"It's okay." Hyeri giggles.

"No problem. The longer I have to clean, the more proud I feel. No need to say anything to them. Seriously. I really enjoy cleaning the classroom by myself. That's my job as a delegate anyway." she smiles with her cute face.

Minah and the other teacher smile at her again.

Such a good student.

"Okay then. I won't say a word. See you tomorrow, girl."

"Yes, see you tomorrow, seonsaengnim. Bye." she bows at them respectfully before leaving with a gentle wave.

As she's heading home with her happy face while humming an imaginary song, she finds it a bit weird not finding anyone around since it's not that late. 8 o'clock, she still can find people walking here and there, or also people having their dinner out of restaurants chatting noisily and laughing. But today something is different. There's no noise, no dog barking or people talking from the distance. And that feels weird as heck.

5 meters away from her, she sees a woman showing her back to her, walking step by step.

Her hair looks perfect. So clean and straight. Really good looking. It looks like she just came out from the hair shop.

A fresh, cold smell caresses her nose as she's about to pass her by. But then, she feels cold. A weird coldness spreads around and into her, trapping her at the moment making her shiver.

"Bbrr.."

She hugs herself, hiding her hands into the pockets of her jacket.

She didn't notice the woman stop as she noticed her.

Hyeri's bag fell on the floor, causing her to turn around and kneel to pick it up.

But the woman did it before her and handed it over.

"Thanks." she gives her a grateful smile as she places it back on her shoulder.

Hyeri sees the white mask she's wearing that covers . The latter says nothing but keeps staring her.

Her deep stare makes her shake internally. The skin of her forehead and around her eyes look so smooth and pale. The woman looks like a cute doll, with her perfect brown hair and skin. But her eyes look so, so sad and empty. Her eyes reflex so much sadness that it's slowly getting into Hyeri's body.

The sound of her voice brings Hyeri back to reality.

"Do you think..." the words slip out from her lips without cracking. It seems like her words are the breeze softly blowing as she says it.

Hyeri just look at her waiting to end her sentence.

"... I'm beautiful?"

Hyeri blinks at the super unexpected question.

"....."

Receiving nothing but an unsure face, the woman makes herself repeat what she said.

This time, tears roll down her cheeks surprising Hyeri a bit and blinks.

"I'm asking you. Do you think I'm beautiful? Answer me..."

"Umh..." Hyeri 's hands scratch the back of her head trying to act naturally in this situation as she avoids her stare.

"How... umh.. how can I answer this question.. when the mask is covering your face?" she answers awkwardly.

Damn it. I should have chosen another way to go home..! She must be a weirdo!

The woman takes the mask away in a slow way before revealing her real appearance, making Hyeri gasp in shock.

"Now you can... do you think I'm beautiful?" her tears won't stop rolling.

Hyeri's vocal cords can't work. She's frozen on her spot, staring at the shocking cut from cheek to cheek heading to both sides of her ears.

"I...I..." she pauses for a while.

"I have to go!"

Hyeri runs away as fast as she can while her tears start to form in her eyes. A second later she's already crying.

Why am I crying? Why do I feel so sad all of sudden?!

Her heart feels so much pain and her eyes feel like burning. 

Seeing her running away from her, the woman closes her eyes before she covers with the mask and vanishes, to follow her through the wind.

Hyeri sobs as she keeps running and running till she's breathless.

She clutches the shirt on her chest as she's catching her breath.

Looking around, she already arrived at her home. Hyeri opens the door quickly and closes it in a blink, heading straight to her room after saying "I'm home."

"Hi honey, you're back. Come join us on the living room. Dinner is already made." her mother says.

She tries her best to answer with a cheerful voice without letting herself crack at the answer.

"Yes, mom! I'm going."

She washes her face a couple of times with hot water as she tries to get rid of her red nose and eyes from crying.

"Nothing happened. Yeah, nothing happened. Just act like you use to be and everything will go fine." she says while staring at herself in the mirror.

She heads downstairs with a smile on her lips and gives her family a warm hug before sitting on the chair ready to eat.

Dinner went perfect and no one noticed the red face she had before. But inside her mind still can see that weeping woman with her sliced mouth staring back at her.

Brrr.. don't think about her.

After washing the dishes and her teeth, she's ready to go to bed.

30 minutes have passed and everyone's already in dreamland but not her.

Her mind won't stop imagining that woman no matter how many times she forces herself from thinking about other things.

"I better read some book. That will distract me."

As she's reading with her glasses facing the lamp, she feels cold again.

Then she feels a cold breeze blowing inside her room despite her windows are closed.

"What the.."

She looks around with a frowning expression. Then.....

The woman shows up suddenly standing in the corner, looking straightly at her.

"It's not polite to run away when someone has asked you nicely a question."

"Aaaahh!!!" Hyeri throws the book away and covers herself with the blanket.

The creaking floor under her feet can be heard as she's getting closer and closer to where Hyeri is.

Hyeri closes her eyes hard as she bites anxiously her lower lip. Her hands clutching super hard the blanket as well.

 

The next day

Hyeri goes to school with her serious face as she's mentalizing for the exam she and her classmates have at the first hour.

She'll never forget what happened last night.

The scary woman asked her for help. She didn't want to hurt her like the urban legend says. She has never been like the people said she was.

"If you see the weeping woman, never answer her questions or you'll die. If your answer is: "You're beautiful." She'll cut your mouth from side to side because she'll think you're lying or trying to look good, but if you answer: " You're not beautiful." she'll cut your head with her huge scissors! Hehe... but there's a way for you to survive. The moment she asks you if she's beautiful, show her a mirror to make her look at her own reflection. That will scare her and leave."

That's not it. The only thing she wanted is Hyeri to sew her wounds. It took her two long hours to do such a thing but at the end, she succeeds with a big effort. After she did, the woman tears stopped and vanished with a soft smile, leaving Hyeri frozen in her spot again for a while. And about the question, she only wanted someone to compliment her despite her appearance. Someone that could see something else than her terrible sliced mouth.

Hyeri's forehead is sweating since she's slightly nervous for the exam, so she heads to the ladies room and cools herself down with cold water.

She looks herself at the mirror as she sighs.

"You look nervous. Relax..." the woman shows up all of sudden beside her as she smiles tenderly at Hyeri. The cut disappeared from her face with no trace or scar in it. Only that same smooth skin with nice color in her face, makes her look a great good looking ghost woman.

"Aaahhh!" Hyeri's hands cover immediately before her friends from class can come over. Her voice echoes around the ladies room and out of it too.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you like this but I couldn't resist to show myself to you since you are alone. Tell me, how do I look? Do I look beautiful now? Yes, right?"

Hyeri sighs as she tries to calm her crazy heartbeat.

"Y-yeah.. you look, indeed much better... you.." she clears .

"You are and look beautiful.." she says carefully.

The woman gives her a warm smile as she feels like the happiest girl in the world. Her eyes shining as she intertwines her hands together. Then she softly vanishes. No more coldness or that cold breeze Hyeri felt yesterday, only a soft jasmine scent spreads in the air. She sniffs the sweet smell making her smile slightly.

"Aashh.. what a way to start the day. Relax... and do well the exam." she says to herself.

The exam has started. Hyeri reads carefully the fourth question as she's biting the tip of her pencil. She's so concentrated, when...

"You have been stuck in this question for about 7 minutes... have not studied enough?" the woman whispers softly on her ear making Hyeri paralyzed.

"It doesn't matter. You'll do well. I just wanted to tell you, thank you for helping me and sorry for scaring you. I've been roaming around here for so long.. you can't even imagine. But now I'm free. I can go now and rest." she plants a warm grateful kiss on her cheek. Hyeri's free hand clutch the side of her skirt with that.

She puts herself in front so Hyeri can see her well.

"Bye.. thank you again, girl. And about the question, the answer is b.." her forefinger points at the letter b. Then pats her in the head twice with a smile before she vanishes, leaving the same jasmine scent in her place.

"Oooh! What a strong smell! Someone has thrown a stink bomb or farted?! Ouugh. It stinks so bad!" a classmate complains while covering his nose.

The woman's hand gives him a smack in the head as a revenge, making Hyeri smile as she holds her giggle in before drawing decidedly a circle in letter b with confidence.