“For our special 40th episode, we’re going to Nara Dreamland, an abandoned theme park in Nara, Japan. This theme park had everything in its glory days— thrilling rides, fun mazes, joy-induced attractions, but also, its fair share of ghost stories.”

Beside him, a snicker could be heard. Seungri ignored that, continuing his intro. “We’re gonna spend the whole night here to search for evidence to prove that ghosts are real.”

“Not.” Jiyong coughed to his mic.

Seungri ignored that too. As soon as Taehee gave him the signal to start walking, he left Jiyong behind and when Jiyong, who was quick to keep up with him and said “ghosts aren’t real, Ri” in that mocking tone he knew so well, Seungri shuffled his feet faster.

“Whoa— look at that!” Jiyong exclaimed suddenly and Seungri’s plan to ignore him at least until they arrived in one of the attractions failed miserably when Seungri noticed what Jiyong was pointing at using his flashlight. 

“Jesus Christ.” Seungri whispered, straining his neck to look at the rusty hanging sign of Nara Dreamland above the entrance they’re passing through. 

“Hey, Ri?” Jiyong called out from behind him. 

Seungri didn’t turn to his companion when he hummed a reply, ignoring Jiyong’s fixed gaze on him. 

“Did your pee your pants yet?”

“Shut up, Ji.”

******

The shops at both sides of the main pathway were creepy, especially when they shone their flashlights inside and saw the absolute mess within, reminding Seungri of that one zombie game he played once before, but it was nothing compared to the state of the pathway they actually walked on.

Garbage, scraps and debris were scattered everywhere. The path was uneven in some areas and so moudy that it really felt like Seungri’s walking on somewhere swampy. Seungri’s skin crawled with every steps he took, and that’s not even the worst part.

The worst part was there were no lights at all illuminating their way, and although both of them and the other three —Taehee as the line producer, Jaeho as the cameraman and Teddy as their 1st AD— were equipped with enough lights for filming, every steps forwards still felt like a gamble. With every passing seconds, Seungri felt like something’s gonna jump out and kill all of them.

“Oh, god.” Seungri exhaled, a little too loudly. 

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking you’re thinking?”

Seungri hated to admit this but Jiyong’s voice brought some sort of calamity upon him. Jiyong— a presence Seungri could trust, a being that Seungri could believe in, and a person Seungri could be honest with during this kind of time.

“If you’re thinking that I hate this place and I’m gonna have a hard time to sleep tonight, you’re right.”

“I thought you love theme parks. You basically wouldn’t shut up about your dream of having a lone adventure in Disneyland—“

“Not the abandoned ones! Disneyland is a magical place, while this—“ Seungri flailed his arms in the air, gesturing at their hair-rising surroundings— the disgusting pathway, the conditions of the roller coasters standing tall in the background with its whole structure now tangled with plants, the rusty metal signs everywhere, everything, “—this is what nightmares are made out of.”

“Well, it’s certainly not great, but this is exactly what we signed up for. Unclean, dirty, grimy, foul—“

“How are you this calm right now? This is the exact opposite of what your usual working surroundings—“

Jiyong didn’t bother to answer to that, instead, he pulled on Seungri’s jacket, shutting him right up. Pointing his light to the carousel in front of them, Jiyong grinned at Seungri knowingly, and Seungri in turn turned to Teddy who nodded approvingly. All five of them then changed their directions.

They climbed the metal stairs, walking among the horses that probably contained more germs than a toilet bowl before stopping in between them. Facing the cameras now, Seungri quickly pulled out a device —that made Jiyong frowned— and placed it on one of the horse.

“Can we start?” Seungri smiled nervously.

Jiyong breathed out loud, replying to his co-host with a forced enthusiasm. “Let’s call upon the Devil.” 

This time, Seungri was the one who frowned. “Don’t say it casually like that.”

“Sorry. Um, let’s call upon His Satanic Majesty, the Devil himself—“

Seungri’s frown was replaced by half-suppressed snicker, eyeing Jiyong to see if he wanted to say anything more.

“I’m sorry. Let’s start.”

“Alright.” Seungri cleared his throat. “Hello, my name is Lee Seungri.”

“I’m Kwon Jiyong.” Jiyong slipped in.

“And we’re here to talk to anyone, or maybe anything, that still wandering around here. Is there anyone here who would like to talk to us?”

Silence. 

“Anyone at all?” 

Silence again. 

Jiyong stepped in. “We’re gonna give you guys two minutes of silent and in that time, maybe you guys could say something. Maybe just whisper faintly into of one of our ears—“

“Wait, no—“ Seungri tried to object, especially the asking for whispers part, but Jiyong held out a finger towards him.

“Two minutes start now.” Jiyong started the stopwatch on his watch, not acknowledging, not giving Seungri any chance for backing out.

Silence fell between them again. Seungri waited in tense, his eyes wandered around, checking if there’s any movement that wasn’t from their group. He opened his ears wide, waiting to hear any voice or sound anxiously, and he did hear one, but he knew what sound was that.

His eyes locked on Jiyong. “Did you just yawn?” 

Almost unapologetically, Jiyong yawned again.

Seungri scoffed in disbelief. “Wow.”

“There’s a comment in my IG-“ Jiyong smiled all of the sudden, “—it said, oh it’s must be so fun for you guys to go and have an adventure in places like this! And, I think I gotta address that—“ Jiyong turned serious, his voice getting higher and higher towards the end of his sentence, trying to prove his points, “if you think doing this for hours— waiting for something that won’t come, talking to something that doesn’t even exist— is fun, you probably need to rethink on your definition of that.”

Hearing that rant, Seungri bursted out laughing. To be honest, Seungri felt kinda bad, dragging Jiyong into doing the exact things he hated to do, but also kinda not, because Jiyong himself agreed to do this and if he couldn’t make Jiyong scared with places like this, boring the hell out of his mind seemed like the second best option to teach that jerk a lesson. 

“Okay. Times up.” Jiyong exclaimed when his watch beeped. “Just like I expected, no one. Nothing.”

“We didn’t even stay silent for two whole minutes.” 

Jiyong shrugged at Seungri’s claim. “And whose fault is that?” 

“You! You’re the one who yawned.”

“You talked first!”

“Your yawning distract me!”

Jiyong squinted his eyes at Seungri. “One day, you’re gonna realise that ghosts are bull and you’re gonna yawn even at just the idea of them and I’m gonna be there to put my fist in your mouth.”

Seungri laughed again. “That’s oddly specific.”

“Whatever, let’s just move on.”

“Wait!” Seungri pointed at the device in front of them. 

Jiyong immediately groaned.

Still giggling at Jiyong’s reaction, Seungri the EVP recorder. Soon, loud statics filled the air between them, making Seungri flinched and Jiyong winced at the same time. 

“We have a device that probably could help you to communicate with us.” Seungri talked over the statics. 
 

That said device, an EVP recorder, or ‘Screaming Radio’ as Jiyong called it, is an audio-only device that rapidly scans through multiple audio channels, believed to make it easy for other-worldly creatures to manipulate it to say a word or phrase in real time. 

Although they managed to capture several interesting audio clips with this device in the whole three years they’re using it, of course it’s still hard to convince Jiyong to acknowledge even the slightest possibility of it being reliable.

Jiyong scoffed mockingly at Seungri’s statement.

“What?” Seungri asked, already expecting another sarcastic jab from him.

“No. Nothing.”

“No, no, say it. You want to say it. I can see it your eyes.”

Jiyong shrugged him off. “It’s nothing you never heard before.”

Seungri knew sooner or later, he’ll hear it, and he also knew that it’s better if he heard it now, so he pushed Jiyong over the edge. Seungri turned to the camera. “We’ve recorded several compelling evidence with this—“

“Compelling?!” Jiyong cut him off. “Huh! Of course you would say that.”

“Well, we did hear them said a few phrases using this before...”

“It’s a radio! People talk on radio—“ 

Seungri bit his lower lips, waiting for that final sentence from Jiyong.

“—it’s not rocket science!”

“It’s not rocket science.” Seungri said it together with Jiyong. “There it is.”

Realising Seungri only say that to make fun of him, Jiyong huffed out in annoyance.

Seungri smirked smugly but refused to acknowledge his little victory of mocking Jiyong that openly —and Jiyong said it’s Seungri who’s predictable! Huh!— so he started talking.

“Once again, my name is Lee Seungri—“ Seungri turned to Jiyong.

Reluctantly, Jiyong said his name too.

“—what’s your name?” Seungri asked to the dark.

Statics.

“Who are you?”

Statics again.

“Why are you here?”

Only statics.

“Shocking.” Jiyong dissed.

Seungri paid no attention to that. “Can you say something?”

And, unsurprisingly —at least for Jiyong— there’s only statics. 

Still, Seungri’s not backing down. “Can you at least say one of our names back? I’m Seungri and he’s Jiyong—“

This time, the EVP recorder reacted. A sound could be heard, almost as if replying to what Seungri said, but it’s almost impossible to interpret it right away. Seungri turned to Jiyong, eyes brighter now. “What do you think it was?”

Jiyong gave no answer.

Seungri tried again. “Did you just say one of our names back?” Another reaction, turning Seungri’s lips to form an ‘O’. “Ji, what do you think?!”

“Honestly? I think I wanna take that box and smash it into the ground.”

Seungri let out a choking laughter.

*****

Once they entered the final location, the haunted maze of this theme park where supposedly most of the hauntings occurred, chills ran down Seungri’s spine. It already was a place decorated to strike fear upon hearts of people who entered, but it felt more menacing now seeing the untouched props and settings lying around with dirts and webs tangled in between, especially when he knew some of the stories behind this place.

“They said this place is a home for a mean spirit,” Seungri started as they entered the maze. “It said to play tricks to make people confused and lost in the maze so they won’t leave. It pushed people around—one woman claimed she broke her leg in here because she was running away from a ‘ghost’ who chased after her even though no one was ever assigned to chase after visitors.”

“So an actual ghost chased her?” Jiyong asked.

“Maybe.”

“Wait, she broke her leg? —“

Oh, here comes the questions. This happened so many times before, where Jiyong asked multiple questions at a time, baffling Seungri. It would always end in Jiyong feeling smug because he proved that Seungri’s stories had holes in them when Seungri couldn’t answer him. 

Today, too, it felt like he’s about to face the same thing.

“—Did she sue the theme park? Is that why the theme park got shut down? Because a woman broke her leg in the haunted maze and sued them?”

And, Seungri's right. “The park got closed down because the numbers of visitors were decreasing since Tokyo Disneyland’s opening.”

“Oh. So, did the woman sued them? A broken leg! It could’ve been expensive.”

Seungri looked around while answering. Starting with an annoyed sigh, Seungri didn't even bother to hide his exasperation. “Maybe she did. Maybe she didn’t. Maybe she didn’t even broke her leg, maybe she just twisted her ankle, I don’t ing know—“

“Do a better research next time.”

Seungri breathed out loud, clinging to the last piece of thread to remain patient.

Jiyong chuckled. “Let’s just hope this place is more fruitful than the last one, or it’s gonna be a tough season for the believers. We might actually make them think that these are just a bunch of horse.”

The few stops they had on their way here had been disappointingly the same as the first one at the carousel. They stayed in silent a few minutes, heard nothing, the EVP recorder, still nothing. 

Except from Seungri screaming in the gift shop because he’s startled by a toy making noise even though he’s the one who pressed on it that made Jiyong almost peed his pants for how loud he was crying-laughing, they practically got nothing. 

“Shut up, Ji,” Seungri replied tiredly. 

Jiyong let out another chuckle. “You want me to lure them out?”

“Do what you gotta do. I do what I gotta do. They did mention how the ghost here hate overconfident people.”

“Okay. Good. Love it.” Jiyong clapped his hand once and stepped forward, actually taking the lead now. “Hey—“ he struggled to find a word that suitable enough to address them, “spirits—“

Seungri grinned to himself, couldn't help himself from enjoying where Jiyong was he