Yoohyeon paced the length of the chamber in frustration, silently muttering to herself. The other three followed her movements, waiting for her to calm down. Sanghyuk, being more impatient than the others, sighed, bringing her attention to him.

"If you're done freaking out..."

She put her hand up, effectively silencing him. "You don't get to spoil this for me," she growled at him, making him raise an eyebrow at her sudden hostility towards him. "I...I...need a moment to process all this."

"Process what?" Sanghyuk asked.

"This!" She gestured to them. "All of this!" She threw her arms about, gesturing to the rest of the strange prison chamber. "The fact that you guys aren't alive and are in fact..."

"Ghosts?" he completed. He scoffed when she froze up. "Come on, Yoohyeon. You knew it all along, didn't you? You just didn't want to believe it because it didn't fit with your worldview."

"My worldview exists for a reason," she said. "And yes, I'm still trying to adjust to the fact that ghosts exist."

"The past three days not enough for you?" he asked.

She shook her head in disbelief. "Three days. That's all you're going to give me to process information that has turned my vision of reality upside down."

"I'd love to stay and chat about the philosophy of reality with you," Sanghyuk informed her. "But, the problem is, we need your help. Like, really need your help."

"My help?" she asked, lower. "Why my help? And, also, I still don't know anything...or anybody."

A small smile played on his lips again. Honestly, it was refreshing to see that. He turned to the three guys standing behind him. 

"That...is Lee Hongbin," Sanghyuk said, pointing at the first guy she'd seen, the one with the incredibly handsome face and big eyes. He was the guy who had first appeared to her, standing outside her classroom.

"That is Kim Wonshik," Sanghyuk said, gesturing towards the guy standing next to Hongbin, whom she recognized as the second guy who had come to her, after the second vision, leaning against the bookshelf in the library.

"And that's Cha Hakyeon," Sanghyuk finally introduced the last guy, with the small head and girlish looks, the one who had shown up at her house and kept trying to tell her something. 

Was he trying to tell her this? Then what held him back? 

And also...

"Who's that?" she asked, referring to the guy behind the bars of the cleverly designed cage.

"That..." Sanghyuk began, "...is Jung Taekwoon."

Jung Taekwoon? 

"Who is he?" she asked. "Why's he chained up like that? Did he do something wrong?" 

Sanghyuk stared at her. "I think you know," he said. "You're intelligent enough to already be putting the pieces together by now." 

He was right. She was slowly staring to understand who the boy, Jung Taekwoon, really was. If she didn't, she might make a pretty stupid criminologist in the future.

She slowly turned around so that she was facing him, and walked to the cage. His eyes, previously down, slowly rose as she approached his cage. 

She felt something tighten in her chest. This was not a man, hardly even a boy. He could hardly be older than 19, yet his pretty eyes held a lot of pain, too much, even. 

"You're related to the murder of that realtor's son, aren't you?" she softly asked. "Either you're that son who was killed, or..."

He let his eyes hit the floor once again.

"...or you're the one who killed him."

"So, I still don't get it," she said, wiping the sweat from her forehead. "Why me?"

"Because," Sanghyuk said matter-of-factly, "we need your help."

"Help? For what?" she sighed. "You're aware of the report. It's a straightforward killing. The victim was stabbed, and the killer was found with a knife in his hands and covered in the victim's blood. That's it. Case closed."

Sanghyuk cocked an eyebrow. "That's unlike you."

"Huh?"

He folded his arms over his chest. "From our...conversations...the other night, I thought you were pretty interesting." She stared at him like he was an idiot. "You had this thing...about picking up stuff that could be obviously missed by others."

She shrugged. "So what are you trying to say?" she asked.

"You of all people should know that what's on the surface is not always what is the truth."

She raised an eyebrow. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"The report," he said. "The one you read in the newspaper, didn't it seem odd to you? Too perfect? Like all the pieces were aligned too well? All the pieces fit right into the puzzle?"

"So?" she asked. She seemed to be asking a lot of it lately. "I don't see what's wrong. A boy died. The person responsible for that was found at the scene of the crime. He had tendencies towards violence as well, so it wasn't too much of a stretch to think that he may have also killed someone."

"Like I said," Sanghyuk said. "Too well."

She scoffed. "What do you expect me to say?" she asked. "That there's some mysterious conspiracy going on underneath? That this guy didn't kill the other guy? We're not in some detective drama here!"

He watched her closely. "You spend a lot of time figuring out things that normally wouldn't get figured out," he observed. "Why are you so ready to believe this?"

"Because, like I said, this is reality," she said firmly. "Not everything is a massive conspiracy. Sometimes, killers kill people, and they're found next to the bodies. Sometimes, it's as simple as 1,2,3."

"This also happened in the 60s," Sanghyuk pointed out. "Like you said, there were also negligent authorities. Proper study of criminals didn't exist, neither did proper law. Forensic science didn't exist either."

"Are you saying a mistake was made?" she asked.

He nodded. "Seems logical to me."

She stayed quiet, prompting Sanghyuk to sigh and step closer to her, reaching out for her hand. "Yoohyeon," he softly said. "Can you please listen to me?"

She raised her eyes to meet his. "You know Taekwoon, but do you know who Hongbin, Hakyeon and Wonshik are?" She shook her head.

"They're Taekwoon's best friends, at his side for a long time. Since Taekwoon killed himself in that asylum, they've been trying to disprove his involvement in the murder, trying to prove he's innocent. That didn't go very well for them."

He gestured towards them. "Hongbin died in a drunk driving accident. Wonshik became an alcoholic, died of alcohol poisoning. And Hakyeon? He had it the worst of all, since Taekwoon was his greatest friend. He was accused of enabling a killer, lost the respect of his schoolmates."

He took a deep breath. "Hakyeon followed Taekwoon till the end, even killing himself in the exact same way Taekwoon had killed himself, seven months prior." 

She closed her eyes. Even if they were ghosts, she could imagine their pain. It seemed like they were all good friends, and Hakyeon especially seemed devoted to Taekwoon. 

Their deaths were all unfortunate. It made her wonder why they'd died for their friend, why they'd kept trying to prove his innocence.

Obviously, they felt he was innocent, but she wasn't so sure.

"They've been stuck here for fifty years," Sanghyuk appealed once again. He gestured to the cage. "He's been trapped in there for decades, in pain, unable to do anything, nor ask for help."

She pursed her lips. 

"Even if you're convinced he's the killer, at least look into it. Perhaps you'll find evidence that he really was the killer, whatever. At least you'll release them from their shackles, set them free."

"And why should I do that?"

"Because if you do, they might stop haunting you."

That made her stop in her tracks. 

"And also because you're a good person, and you always do the right thing."

She had to admit, the threat of them continuing to haunt her had worked. She was now scared, and determined to look into this case, even if to prove herself right.

Sanghyuk shrugged. "Look on the bright side," he said, a bit too cheerfully for her taste. "At least you finally have a name for your project."