Another late one TT ♡

They receive dainty plates with their pastries and Chaeyoung follows Mina to a table for two.

Unlike the street, the café is actually bustling with people. Chaeyoung didn’t notice this before.

There are a lot of questions on her mind. But she doubts whether Mina would give her the answers. She didn’t even answer her name before.

They eat in silence.

People go in and out of the café as they eat. Chaeyoung just looks at them because looking at Mina is awkward.

The people... there’s something strange about them. Chaeyoung can’t exactly point out what it is. She frowns.

All of a sudden, the sweetness on her tongue melts to… something savoury.

She looks down at her plate.

Only to see it’s replaced with a bigger plate of spaghetti.

She jerks her head up. Mina is twirling strings of spaghetti on her fork as if nothing happened. But the petite café they were in is replaced by a posh and classy restaurant. With dim lights and a lot of space between the tables. Not as crowded as the café.

“What happened? Why- how are we here??”

Mina just continues eating. Chaeyoung realises Mina is wearing a dress now, an elegant evening dress unlike what she was wearing before.

Chaeyoung glances down at herself. She is also wearing a dress, deep blue and gorgeous and certainly not one that she owns back at her new apartment-

Apartment. Right, the apartment she shares with her friends-

Chaeyoung starts to get dizzy. She looks up at Mina who trembles and fades in her vision.

“H-hey,” Chaeyoung manages to let out. Mina, for once, looks up. Chaeyoung opens , but nothing comes out. And then the dizziness intensifies.

🏠

“Wake up. Hey Chaeng, wake up.” Jihyo is patting her shoulder.

Chaeyoung slowly opens her eyes. Her eyes settle on Jihyo who is sitting on the bed beside her. Jihyo smiles. “Slept well?”

Chaeyoung grunts. Her limbs still ache, she only feels a little better than she did waking up yesterday morning. She yawns. “What time is it?”

“7 o’clock. We said we’d get up early today, remember? Tzuyu texted to meet her and Sana in town. The others are getting ready, I’m already dressed.”

Chaeyoung nods. She gets up and looks around Nayeon’s room. “Where’s Nayeon?”

“She’s in the shower. Come on, let’s get up and have some breakfast.” Jihyo pulls Chaeyoung to her feet.

🏠

Eight girls come from town exhausted and they pile into the house.

“Gosh! My feet are killing me!” Jeongyeon collapses on the sofa, followed by Nayeon and Momo and Tzuyu. All the girls collapse onto various pieces of furniture around the room.

“I told you we should wait for the bus, Jihyo! If we didn’t walk all those miles back home we wouldn’t be this effin tired,” Nayeon whines.

“But then we would have to wait forever. At least we’re here.” Jihyo wipes the sweat from her brow.

“True,” Sana says.

They lie around in silence for a while, cooling off their sun-baked bodies.

Tzuyu empties all of her rucksack out on the coffee table, all the photocopies from newspaper articles and books and tabloids from the library. Dahyun picks one up right away. Today she realized she’s one for all this mystery investigation stuff.

Jihyo also places her notepad on the pile, her notepad with hers and Chaeyoung’s conversation with their landlord and the documents she’d shimmied out of him.

Momo gets up. She reaches a hand down to Jihyo, “Come on Ji, let’s get some snacks and drinks for us.” Jihyo nods and lets herself be pulled up.

She busies herself with filling glasses with soda and Momo opens the snacks cupboard. After a while, Momo speaks up, loud enough for everyone in the adjoining living room to hear too.

“Hey guys.”

They all turn to her.

“I had many chips packets in here, but some of them are gone.”

Jeongyeon snorts.

“You sure you didn’t eat them in your sleep?” Jihyo asks warily.

“No, they were here when I opened the cupboard this morning, see- this is the space from where they were stacked,” She points at the space.

“Well,” Sana pipes up. “Ghosts don’t exactly eat.”

Jeongyeon laughs some more. She finds it funny.

“Wait,” Momo walks into the living room and drags Chaeyoung up because she’s the nearest one. She drags her up the staircase and into her bedroom she shares with Dahyun. Chaeyoung watches baffled as she digs in her bedside drawer. Then digs under her covers.

All of a sudden, she shoots back as if electrocuted.

Momo turns to Chaeyoung, eyes wide.

“The tub of Pringles I was eating this morning- it’s disappeared!” She points to the covers. “I left it there! Half eaten and the lid closed and all so I could finish it later.”

Her lips wobble and Chaeyoung bites her own lip.

They search some more just in case and go back downstairs. Momo charges at Jeonyeon.

“You! Did you eat my snacks?”

“What!” Jeongyeon wraps her arms around herself. Stealing Momo’s snacks would mean hell turns over. She knows this from experience… “No I would never! Why are you accusing me?! Why me??”

“Because you were laughing earlier!” Momo scowls.

“Why, has more stuff disappeared?” Sana winces.

“Yeah, the tub of Pringles Momo unnie had been eating this morning, it was on her bed and now it’s gone, apparently,” Chaeyoung says.

Dahyun’s instinct is to laugh ‘cause it’s amusing that a ghost would steal frickin Pringles, but she knows how offended Momo would be if she laughs. And also, she does remember seeing the Pringles on the bed when they left the house this morning. She tells that to the others.