Chapter 3: New Suspicions

          “That’s ridiculous…,” Minho said as he shook his head. “Our headquarters is absolutely not haunted!”

          “I know right. It is absolutely ridiculous, but that’s what happened last night—at least that’s what Taemin said,” Key shrugged as he washed his face in the kitchen sink of apartment 1124.

***

Last night at the Sherlock Headquarters…

          At about three in the morning, Soo-Young got up to go to the bathroom. It was quite dark and she had no idea where the light switch was, so she just tried to feel her way to the bathroom. She eventually found the bathroom light switch and flicked it on. After doing her business, she washed her hands on the bathroom sink.

          “Mm, their hand wash smells really nice,” she said to herself.

          She then washed her face too. After she washed her face, she went to the Sherlock Headquarters kitchen to look for food. There she saw some left-over cake and took it.

“I’m sure Taemin and the others won’t mind. It’s just leftover cake,” she said to herself.

She then headed back to the room where she was staying. When she came back to the room, she dropped the cake in shock. She screamed at the top of her lungs and shut her eyes. Her voice was so loud that Taemin and Yuri were awoken immediately. Taemin did not want to get up, but he did so anyway to see what happened to the easily-frightened Soo-Young. Yuri just continued sleeping and ignored her screams.

          “Noona, what happened?” Taemin said when she came to where Soo-Young was screaming from.

          When she saw him, she immediately flung her long arms at Taemin and held him tight. Her pale face exhibited so much fear.

          “Noona, calm down,” Taemin said as he tried to pry her arms off of him.

          “I saw her by the window! I’m not kidding! I really did! She followed me up to here! I’m so doomed! I didn’t even do anything wrong!” she whined.

***

          That morning, the four Sherlock members who stayed at apartment 1124 cleaned up the place. They made sure that the hidden food was placed back in the refrigerator, fixed up the girls’ beds, and vacuumed the rugs. Then they left on their van and headed back to the Sherlock Headquarters for another meeting.

          “Oh well, we didn’t see anything in our observation party. I guess it’s a total fail, again,” Jonghyun said as he sat on the soft sofa.

          “It’s not entirely fruitless though,” said Key. “Now we know that it happens to Soo-Young Noona wherever she goes. That means the apartment is not haunted after all.”

          “Maybe it’s just your brain playing mind tricks on you, Noona,” Minho said nonchalantly.

          “Ugh, how many times do I have to hear that from people? I already told all of you that I’m not crazy! Believe me in this!” Soo-Young yelled in frustration. The bags under her eyes were growing darker because of lack of sleep. The more she denied her mental instability, the more she looked like a paranoid freak.

          “Honestly, I think you’re telling the truth about seeing the ‘ghost.’ I just think that maybe something is causing this strange apparition. A ghost won’t just appear to you for no reason,” said Onew thoughtfully.

          Just then, the doorbell rang. There seems to be a visitor at the Sherlock Headquarters.

          “I’ll go get it,” Key volunteered.

When Key opened the door, he saw a teenage girl wearing an oversized shirt and a baseball cap. Her cute eye smile made her seem like the friendliest person on Earth.

“Eunji? What are you doing here?” Key asked.

“Well, aren’t you happy to see me, Oppa?” Eunji then pushed him aside so she can come in. “You guys working on a new case? How rude, you didn’t even bother to tell me. Have you forgotten how I helped solve the previous cases? Anyway, I forgive you so lay it on me. What’s this new case about?”

“Gosh, you’re really moving too quickly. I’ll explain in a bit. You should meet the clients. They’re in the living room.”

“Cool,” Eunji happily skipped into the living room. She’s pretty eccentric but Key really liked that for some reason. She easily brightens up people’s moods. They’ve been close friends for a while, and the other Sherlock members even tease them and want them to date. Eunji just thinks of him as a friend though.

***

          Later that night at about six in the evening, the Sherlock Team—plus nosy little Eunji—headed for apartment 1124 to continue their observation. Yuri helped the five Sherlock boys “set up camp” in the spacious living room while Soo-Young took Eunji on a tour around the apartment. This time, Eunji volunteered to stay with Soo-Young in her room just in case the “white lady” appears. If the ghost really exists, Eunji should be able to see it too. So then the entire night, Eunji stuck with Soo-Young like an annoying leech. She even insisted to go with her to the bathroom, only to turn away while Soo-Young does her business. “Bathrooms are one of the main places of ghost apparitions in most horror movies,” as Onew said. So far nothing strange has happened. It was just six in the evening after all.

          At about fifteen minutes before seven, the doorbell rang. All of them were startled. Who could it be now? Soo-Young, along with her overly-attached eye-smiling detective rookie, took a peek at the peep hole. There she saw three silly looking girls dressed in sweaters and hoodies in front of her door.

          “Aish, why are they here? Can’t they at least call before visiting?” Soo-Young mumbled.

          “Why, who are they?” Eunji asked curiously.

          Soo-Young opened the door to welcome the cheerful bunch: Sunny, Tiffany, and Taeyeon. All were quite short compared to the long-limbed Soo-Young despite being a year older.

          “Hey Soo-Young!” all three greeted as they gladly entered Soo-Young’s apartment. It was their first time being there but it seems that they already felt at home. All three happily skipped straight into the living room, complimenting every little decorative item and detail that they see until they found the Sherlock team tinkering with the surveillance cameras.

          “Oh, hello young men…?” Taeyeon, the second shortest amongst the three, awkwardly greeted them with her strange ahjumma way of speaking.

Tiffany stood there staring at them while Sunny immediately turned to Soo-Young saying, “Who are these good-looking boyfriends of yours, Soo-Young and Yuri?”

“Let me introduce everyone!” Yuri enthusiastically volunteered. “That’s Minho, Onew, Jonghyun, Taemin, Key, and Eunji.”

“We’re detectives—here for a case,” Minho added.

“Detective team, this short kid is Sunny,” Yuri pointed to the shortest girl standing next to Soo-Young with braided pigtails. She was cute as a bunny.

“That dork is Taeyeon,” Yuri pointed to the girl with light brown hair who was awkwardly rubbing the tip of her scrunched up nose with a finger.

“And that’s Fany, Fany, Tiffany,” Yuri pointed to the adorable, eye-smiling girl holding on to Taeyeon’s arm.

“We’re here to give you guys a little house-warming party,” Taeyeon explained. “We brought cheese-cake, pizza, and fried chicken!”

“Awesome, more bait for the ghost,” Key mumbled.

Soo-Young, Yuri, Eunji, and the three visitors proceeded to set the table for dinner. Meanwhile, Taemin observed the three guests. He thinks that something is fishy about them, but he can’t figure out what.

Then as they ate, Soo-Young told the three guests exactly what was going on. She told them about the ghost and the disappearing food in the most serious tone. However, their reaction to it was priceless. All three of them just burst out in laughter. Even the Sherlock team chuckled.

“Really? A food stealing ghost?” Tiffany said as she swallowed her pizza. “You’re kidding, right?”

“It could be just Yuri fooling around at night, you know,” Sunny joined in.

“No way!” Yuri exclaimed. “I’m innocent in all this!”

Taeyeon had this amused face as she munched on some pizza with a full mouth. She was almost choking on it from laughing too hard. Well it is pretty hard to believe that some weird ghost would start appearing to her for no reason.

Later, when the three guest left, Taemin offered to them out so he can observe them better. He thinks that those three were a bit suspicious for some reason. It’s like they’ve already been to the apartment before, even though Soo-Young says that it was their first time visiting. The three knew exactly where to plug in the power, where the kitchen was, and where the bathroom was located. They probably have nothing to do with the strange disappearance of food, but then again, you never know.

As he escorted them out, he heard them whisper and giggle to themselves as they got inside a cab, “That serves her right!”

For a split second, Taemin saw Taeyeon’s strange evil smirk. Tiffany and Sunny were laughing along with her. Then he began to wonder, “What was that about?”

When Taemin got back, the other four finally finished setting up for the night. Soo-Young and Eunji prepared a fresh supply of caffeine to keep them awake. As seen from the surveillance screens, Yuri was laughing in her room as she conversed with someone over the phone. Taemin quietly when to the corridor that led to her bedroom to eavesdrop on her since audio is not available in the surveillance cameras.

“…I just find it so funny that she is so scared!” Taemin overheard Yuri laughing.

          Soo-Young and Eunji headed down the corridor to go to bed. Taemin stopped eavesdropping and headed back to the living room and pretended like he heard nothing. He did not say anything to the other Sherlock members yet either. Those statements could mean nothing, but it could also be related to the case. He needs to be sure first before actually coming to conclusions.

          Meanwhile, in Soo-Young’s bedroom, energetic Eunji kept bombarding Soo-Young with related and unrelated questions. Where did you see the ghost? When did you start seeing the ghost? Are you sure it was not a dream? Did you really have food there? What’s your favorite junk food? What’s the last horror movie you saw? Was it scary? Did you have nightmares? Soo-Young began to find her annoying.

          “You need to shut up, kid,” Soo-Young snapped.

          “Eh…I was just asking you things,” Eunji said with her weird Busan accent. “I’m really excited! I can’t wait to see the ghost! I love being a detective!”

          “Why would you want to see a ghost? It’s scary as hell,” Soo-Young replied. “Anyway, you better sleep beside me to make sure it doesn’t creep up on me. You’re a brave one so you better protect me.”

          Eunji laughed out loud. She has never seen such an easily-frightened eonni.

          “Don’t laugh like that. You remind me of Taeyeon. It’s creepy.”

          “Why is that creepy?” Eunji asked as she lied down on Soo-Young’s bed. “Taeyeon Eonni was really nice.”

          “She laughs like that when she makes fun of someone. She has one of the weirdest laughs ever.”

          Night passed and nothing happened. Strange enough, that night when they purposely stayed in the apartment to see something happen, nothing happened at all. Soo-Young fell asleep with Eunji beside her, Yuri slept soundly in her room like always, and the five Sherlock boys stared at the surveillance television all night until they just can’t help but close their eyes shut and sleep.

          That morning, Taemin woke up the other Sherlock members including Eunji. He has to tell them about his new theory. It was about six in the morning, Soo-Young and Yuri were still asleep. The Sherlock team—plus Eunji—quietly had a meeting in the living room.

          “Guys, wake up,” Taemin said. Eunji joined them. Key immediately got up and kicked the others awake. Jonghyun and Minho eventually got up, and after a while of shaking Onew and trying to wake him up, he finally sat up too.

          “I think that the ghost and the missing food are just a stupid little prank,” Taemin stated.

          “Do you have any proof?” Key asked. “I’ve been thinking of the same thing since I heard about the case, but since we haven’t seen anything to prove that at all, I’m just so unsure.”

          “Last night, when I escorted the three guests out of the building, I heard Taeyeon Noona say that Soo-Young deserves it or something like that. All three of them look suspicious. They are too amused that Soo-Young Noona is experiencing this. They might have something to do with it. If not, it’s probably just my imagination.”

          “Oh yeah,” Eunji spoke up. “Last night, Soo-Young Eonni said that Taeyeon Eonni likes to make fun of people. Do you think maybe she’s behind this?”

          “How is she even supposed to prank Soo-Young Noona? She can’t possibly go through all the trouble of sneaking in every night to do something this stupid,” Minho questioned the hypothesis.

          “I don’t think that Taeyeon Noona is the only one behind it,” said Taemin. “I overheard Yuri Noona on the phone last night too. I’m not sure who she’s talking to, but I’m sure it’s a close friend like Taeyeon Noona and the others. She says that she finds it funny that Soo-Young is so scared.”

          “Oh…a group prank?” Key thought with a wry smile. Then he snapped his fingers and turned to Taemin and asked, “The other night when the two noonas stayed in the Sherlock Headquarters—did you see Yuri Noona do anything strange?”

          “Not really...,” Taemin said dejectedly. “I didn’t really see anything but Soo-Young Noona screaming like crazy.”

          “Oh, but it’s possible that she could have something to do with it!” Eunji jumped in excitement. “We just need proof to support this.”

          “That’s the thing, we don’t have any proof at all,” Key said as he scratched his head. “Who knows? We could be wrong and it’s not Yuri Noona after all.”

          “I have an idea!” Jonghyun exclaimed. “What if we stop looking for proof? If this is all just a prank, why don’t we interrogate the suspects and let them confess for themselves?”

          “Yeah, I like that idea,” Key agreed.

          “I’ll do the interrogating!” Taemin volunteered immediately.

          “And what if it’s not a prank? What if it really is a ghost?” Minho questioned them again.

          “We should just assume that it’s a prank for now, because if it really is a ghost, then I don’t think we can do anything about it,” Key answered Minho. Then he turned to Onew and said, “Hyung, what do you think?”

          When they looked at Onew, he was fast asleep on the sofa. It seems that he did not even hear any of it. He was even drooling on his pillow.

          “Hey wake up, you fool!” Key slammed a pillow on Onew’s head. He was so startled that he sat upright immediately with eyes wide open.

          Later that morning when Soo-Young and Yuri were finally awake, Eunji checked the refrigerator for the left-over fried chicken and pizza that the three guests brought last night. Yuri prepared coffee and Soo-Young opened her microwave so she can heat the left overs. However, there was one problem.

          “Um, Soo-young Eonni, where’s the food?” Eunji asked as she looked into the refrigerator.

          “It’s right there in the fridge. If you can’t see it, you must be blind,” Soo-young replied.

          “Nope, it’s not here.”

          “Maybe you ate it after midnight last night,” said Yuri.

          “No, I didn’t! You know I didn’t get up at all last night, right Eunji? I was sleeping all night! It actually felt good,” said Soo-young.

          “Then how come it’s all gone?”