“Calm down and tell us what you saw.”

“Yeah, calm down Chaengie.”

“I cant I cant I cant I-“

Dahyun rubs her back. Jihyo holds her hand. Jeongyeon throws an arm around her. Nayeon and Momo sympathetically watch.

Chaeyoung squeezes her eyes shut. That image- that shock- she can’t get them out of her head.

“C-can I get a hug right now?”

“Of course!" They all chorus and envelope her from all sides.

“Alright, I’m calm enough now." They slowly disentangle.

“I… when I looked in the mirror, I saw… a girl. Standing right behind me.”

“Was it a ghost?” Momo whispers.

Chaeyoung slowly nods. “I think so… yeah…”

“What did she look like? Did she look scary?” Jihyo bites her lip.

“Well, she was staring right into my soul. That’s pretty scary…”

Nayeon and Jeongyeon shudder.

“As for her looks… she had long black hair. She looked kinda pale. I don’t remember what she was wearing, I didn’t notice that.”

“You’re not making this up, right?” Nayeon asks

“No! Why would I!”

“Was she young?” Jihyo asks.

“Um… It’s hard to say… I think so. Around our age maybe? Wait, I don’t know.”

“How do you know she’s a ghost?” Jeongyeon asks.

“Well, there was no one else in the room. Just me after Nayeon left. And I’ve never seen her before in my life, ever. Cross my heart.”

Jihyo nods. “Nayeon unnie, you didn’t see anyone?”

“Nope…”

“So what we heard last night, wasn’t really a hoax after all…”

The girls all inch a little closer to each other.

“What are we going to do about this?”

“Jihyo, Jeong and Chaeng, you guys can sleep in my room. It’s the biggest out of all,” Nayeon says. “Dubu Momo you guys already share a room so that’s okay. And by the way, no one had a hard time sleeping, right?”

They all shake their heads no.

“Do you think maybe we can find something in town? Something to ward off spirits?”

“Like holy water or something?”

“Yeah… maybe…”

“Guys," Momo speaks up. They all turn to her. “Sana and Tzuyu.”

“What about them?”

“Maybe they can help us. They know a lot about spirits and all that hokey pokey stuff.”

“True.”

“I’ll call Sana.” Jihyo fishes her phone out of her pocket. She steps a few feet off to make the call.

“We should hurry, get dressed and go to town quick,” Jeongyeon says. “Nayeon unnie, can you research about ghosts or something on the net?”

“Yeah sure.”

“And I have to finish my breakfast,” Jeongyeon reaches for her cereal bowl she’d placed on the countertop earlier. She and Nayeon sit on highstools and pour over Nayeon’s hand phone.

Chaeyong turns to Dahyun, “I have to take a shower… but I’m scared…”

Dahyun squeezes Chaeyoung’s hand. “I’ll stand outside the door.”

“Me too,” Momo says.

“Okay. That’s better I guess. Thanks guys.”

“No problem.”

🏠

“Okay, so where’s Chaeyoung’s room?”

“This way, Sana.”

Jeongyeon leads Sana by the arm. Tzuyu, Sana’s ‘accomplice’, follows, and the other inhabitants of the house stand back and watch.

“Do you think I should be there since it’s my room and all?”

“Do you want to?”

“No,” Chaeyoung’s heart jumps at the thought of going back into her room.

“Then you don’t have to. They’ll manage on their own,” Jihyo throws an arm around her shoulder.

Jeongyeon comes out after a while and joins them.

They wait.

When Sana and Tzuyu come out, they look just like they did before. Determined and all.

“Can we check the other rooms?”

“Sure.”

Jeongyeon leads them around the house once again.

Nayeon joins too because she is bored.

"I’ll make hot chocolate for all of us." Jihyo straightens up.

“Yay,” Momo silently cheers.