“Wait, what are you talking about, what murder?” I echoed, trying to seem calm as they walked past me and got comfortable in my room. Myungsoo and Dujun sprawled out on my bed and Seungho took a seat in the chair. Nice of them to leave me nowhere to sit.

I repeated my question in irritation.

“Well, there was a murder on this island 10 years ago,” Seungho started, “We just wanted to come see if you knew anything about it.”

“Why would I know anything about it?”

“Well, we saw you go into Mrs. Kang’s room so she might have said something,” he answered expectantly.

“She didn’t say anything to me about a murder, but I did go in there to ask her more about the island,” I admitted, “She told me to come back tomorrow so I can ask her about it then. So who was murdered, and just how did you guys hear about it?”

“The internet,” responded Seungho in a hushed tone. “I was curious about the island and its history after Mr. Young’s talk and I started to look things up. This place is definitely cursed if the new articles are true.”

He paused as if unsure of how to continue and looked around the room. I stayed silent, waiting for him to continue. He fiddled nervously with his track suit pants when he realized all our eyes were on him.

“From what I read, it’s true that Athenai island originally started as a prison during the Taiping Rebellion, the rebels captured by the Qing were sent there and essentially left there to die. Some tried to escape the island with patched together rafts but there were no records of any of them surviving the journey. After the war ended it just became a makeshift prison for those who couldn’t fit into the prisons on the mainland and that’s how it stayed until the Spanish flu hit Asia in the early 1900s. One of the articles mentioned that the Japanese army brought it there while trying to escape from allied forces and it spread like wildfire due to the poor conditions the prisoners were left in. The guards escaped leaving the prisoners to die, they estimated there were 300 people on the island at that time. The island remained abandoned until around 10 years ago when Chinese billionaire Mr, Ying bought the island to add it to his developments. Apparently, there were decomposing bodies everywhere but they slowly cleaned up the island. They introduced exotic flowers to the landscape to try to make it more like a tropical paradise and built these modern buildings that we are staying in now, all to try to erase the tragic history of this island.” He paused again, this time to clear his throat and then continued on.

“Mr. Ying’s eldest son John personally supervised the development, and everything went smoothly the first four months of development. Then there was a gradual increase in random accidents around the site until one worker was killed when one of the machineries malfunctioned and caught on fire. Development was stopped and John fired all the workers and brought in detectives to investigate. They said he was planning to restart the development plans after the investigation found nothing, hiring a whole new crew of construction workers but the day they arrived on the island they found his body strung up on a pike down near the harbor where the boat arrived. He had been stabbed multiple times.”

The room was silent. I bit my lip taking in all the information that was just thrown at me. I was about to ask who was on the island at the time of the murder when Dujun spoke.

“Did you do all that research in the 15 minutes since dinner ended? You’re amazing!” He spoke so warmly but I was shocked. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one as Myungsoo interjected with, “He just told us about a murder and that’s what you focused on?” Dujun shrugged and I turned my attention back to Seungho who was blushing at the praise. I started again to ask my question when there was a loud knock on the door that made me jump.

I slowly walked to the door, my heart pounding. I looked through the small eyelet and gulped when I saw the intimidating sunglasses of Instructor Jung staring back. I mean who wears sunglasses indoors at night unless they are trying to be intimidating. I felt a warm presence behind my back and turned to see reassuring old Dujun standing protectively behind me.

“it’s instructor Jung,” I whispered and watched him gulp and then reach for the door handle. He swung the door open as I prepared for the scolding to start. Evidently, we didn’t shock the instructor at all as he stared coldly at us without any change in expression.

“I wasn’t aware that you had switched rooms Dujun.” I shivered as the door opened all the way, revealing the rest of us and instructor Jung’s cold voice went on. “I would request that when you decide to invite everyone over again Ms Kim that you keep the door open, especially as you are the sole female in this group. I didn’t expect to need to tell any of you that, especially at your ages.”

“We apologize instructor Jung,” said Dujun looking anything but apologetic,” We will keep the door open now.” He turned and went back to sit on the bed. I stood there pretty amazed, I thought Myungsoo would have been the stubborn one but obviously all my initial impressions were wrong.

Instructor Jung stood there for what seemed like forever and then turned and walked back to his room which apparently was right next to mine…. No wonder he heard us as room 5 shared a wall with me.

I turned back to the boys feeling oddly deflated. It seemed they felt the same, our interest in the murder dimmed by the sudden interruption. There was an awkward silence until Myungsoo stood up and announced he was going back his room. Seungho also stood up and followed him out. I turned expectantly to look at Dujun who appeared to have made himself comfortable on my bed but now didn’t know what to do when the other two abruptly decided to leave. He cleared his throat and gestured for me to sit on the chair. I wondered whose room this actually was as I sat.

“I have a question for you,” he started quietly, as if not wanting to be heard. “I’ve been wondering this whole time,” he paused for quite a few seconds looking like he was trying to figure out how to ask something without being offensive. I prepared myself for a difficult question, wondering if I would have to lie. I didn’t want any of them knowing about my past.

“Well, ehm, urm, how old are you?”

What?

My surprise must have come over as more annoyance as he stuttered talking about not wanting to offend me with impolite speech if I was older.

“I’m 16,” I told him.

“Oh then you are the same age as me and Myungsoo, we’re all friends then.” He had shifted into casual speech. “I wonder how old Seungho is, I thought I heard Dr. Kang say he was 13 but he must be a mutant to be 13 and taller than all of us,” he joked. I smiled at his joke but the yawn I had been holding in came out at that moment. We both sat there embarrassed and then Dujun stood up excusing himself, before going out the door he turned, his eyes searching mine. He smiled again and said goodnight and left.

I went to bed that night puzzled at that last smile. He had a nice smile.