Behind the table, Myungsoo, Sunggyu, and Sungyeol straightened their papers and clutched their pens. “Name?”

“Kim Soo Min,” she replied curtly.

Sunggyu raised an eyebrow at her short answer and proceeded with the next basic questions of age, height, weight, etc. Then, they flipped the page and cleared their throats. “Why do you want to be an idol?”

She turned to look at Woohyun behind her, still blocking one of the windows, preventing her escape, not that it helped in the least—she could’ve made her getaway, returned and repeated that sequence a half dozen times by now—but something in her made her stay and see this through.

Sungyeol lowered his fake glasses and glared at her. “Excuse me, Soo Min-sshi, could you please turn around and answer the question?”

She faced forward and jerked her head in Woohyun’s direction. “He promised me Freddy’s costume.”

Woohyun’s eyes widened and he shook his head fiercely. She could see his reflection in the TV in the corner and laughed in her head at the flurry of messy black hair.

“Why do you want to join SM?” Myungsoo asked next.

Soo Min shrugged. Woohyun started flailing his arms in panic. Sungyeol struggled to maintain his stern judge face while Sunggyu’s lips tightened as he stared a hole through the spazzing boy’s head.

Myungsoo tried to regain control of the situation by asking the interviewee to elaborate on her non-verbal answer. She tapped her chin as she struggled to come up with an answer that would satisfy the evaluators.

“Um… I like… Infinite?”

Woohyun couldn’t take it anymore. He had tried to hold himself back but now he just lost it. “You… YOU! Do you understand the words that are coming out of your own mouth, woman?! This is SM Entertainment. We are from Woollim. And seriously, you choose now to say you’re a fan?! AARGH!”

He shook his head in frustration before crouching down and quietly burying his face in his hands. Sungjong reached over and gave a few sympathetic pats. Even Sungyeol had to admit that this was drawing close to becoming another failure. Sunggyu sighed and threw his pen down with one hand while rubbing his temples with the other. “Let’s take a break. Sooie-ah, think about some better answers, okay? We’ll start again in a few minutes.”

Myungsoo stood up and silently walked over to her. Without an explanation, he grabbed her arm and led her into the kitchen. Woohyun noticed their strange exit, quickly ran around the house and hid just around the corner near the two.

“Some simple rules: always keep your back straight. You want to maintain a good posture. It’ll show that this you’re confident about what you want to do and you’re serious about it. Remember to keep a smile on your face, even if you mess up. They want to see that you have a positive mindset and a healthy attitude. And with you, well, just pretend that you’ve got one. Look them straight in the eye when you’re talking. Don’t creep them out or anything but, again, to just appear sure of yourself. There will be a lot of people at that audition and chances are more than half of them will be falling all over the place from nervousness so if you just stay calm, you will have already beat out at least half of your competition and increased your chances. Now when it comes to answering the questions, just do your best to give honest answers that they want to hear.”

Soo Min frowned. “But then I wouldn’t be telling the truth.”

“Exactly,” Myungsoo winked.

From where he was peeking, Woohyun’s nostrils flared. Keep your eyes to yourself, Mr. I’m-Not-Seducing-Anybody-Besides-Myself!

“In an audition, unless you’ve got the beginnings of a Hollywood miracle story, you give them 5% truth and 95% bull. Got it?” His lecturing tone then grew softer. “This is just practice so don’t worry, okay?” He pulled her in for a quick hug before leaving the room.

Unfortunately for him, Woohyun mistook that sign of comfort and friendship for something more. He unknowingly began to bare his teeth as (useless) death threats ran through his head. One thing was for sure: his blood pressure was definitely peaking one too many times that day.

Not to be outdone by his dongsaeng, Woohyun strode out from his hiding spot, spun Soo Min around to face him and gave her a hug as well, which he conveniently made sure was a few seconds longer than Myungsoo’s. As quickly as he came, he left with a smug smile.

Immediately after, Sungyeol popped in through the other entrance carrying a large cup and stirring its off-white liquid content. “Here,” he said, holding it out to her.

She looked at it suspiciously and gave it a whiff. “Is that a quinolizidine alkaloid? And,” she took another another sniff. “furfural?”

“I don’t know what those are but it’s my mother’s special ginseng recipe. She used to make it for me before an audition. I think you’ll find that it helps a lot.”

“But there’s furfural; you only get that from cooking the agave plant.”

“It’s not furby or whatever you call it. It’s just a different type of ginseng, simple as that.”

Soo Min brought the cup to , parting her lips slightly as to let only a trickle of liquid flow through. Growing impatient, not that he was ever patient, Sungyeol held the cup by its base and tipped it upwards, forcing her to drink more quickly.

Within a few seconds, she finished the drink. Satisfied, Sungyeol patted her head and floated-skipped happily away.

She grabbed a glass of water to rinse of the foul-tasting drink. At first, with the exception of a little irritation at the bitter aftertaste, she felt fine. She saw Dongwoo walk up and asked if she was okay. A weird voice responded back, assuring that she was alright; it was her own voice but she wasn’t talking. He guided her back to her spot in front of the judges’ table and as she was walking, an odd feeling grew. Her body felt a little hotter than usual, especially in her face, but that was soon squished by her awareness of a new lightness in her body.

She looked around and noticed that everyone was smiling and laughing and that made her want to smile and laugh too. Myungsoo’s advice repeated itself inside her head. She stood up straighter, bringing her shoulders back and her chest out. Her smile grew brighter and her eyes began to sparkle. Everyone looked on proudly at her, amazed by her improvement. That made her even happier and her grin widened.

Well, that was only partly true. Soo Min was smiling but Infinite was not. She had only imagined their pleased expressions, their amazement; she was hallucinating and boy, did she not know it. So, in a way, because she believed what she saw, there was some truth to the situation.

But an outsider knew better; Infinite was scared, terrified that their friend had finally snapped. The pressure from these past few weeks for the upcoming audition must have been too much and now, they were responsible for the awakening of a monster.

She continued to stand there, ready and still smiling as they all stared quietly, slowly backing away towards the exit that they ironically had been blocking to prevent her escape. 

“Excuse me, but when are we starting?” a familiar voice spoke. But it possessed an unfamiliar, polite tone. If there was one thing that the people in that house were good at, it was being rude—rude, loud, and obnoxious. Since day one, there was no politeness between them; hell, she broke it first with her creepy gazing. 

So it was only natural that they screamed. On any normal occasion, they would have sounded like boy-men screaming, with the exception of Sungyeol who always managed emit the sound of dolphins screeching instead. But this was no such normal occasion; this was a National Emergency: Level Infinite and so now, they all sounded like ocean-destined Sungyeols.

Soo Min laughed, imagining that the situation had become a party, a very fun party with dancing skeletons and singing zombies. She threw her arms up and shouted, “Yay!” quite gleefully.

“This is an audition, and if I become a musician, I get a commission of a horror condition!” She repeated the non-sensical words in a sing-song voice.

They stopped moving and looked at each other. After a silent mutual debate of “should we resume running for our lives/souls or should we it up and stay?” and agreeing on the latter, the three judges returned to their seats, Hoya and Dongwoo to the exit and the rest to their spots in front of the windows. Sunggyu cleared his throat, catching Soo Min’s attention, and signalled for her to stop twirling around the room.

“Please tell us why you want to became an idol and join SM Entertainment.”

With her smile still stuck on her face—how did her cheeks not hurt yet—she answered without hesitation, “Simply because it is my dream. I want to be up there on a stage one day, singing and in front of my piano, making the audience happy, whether it be through music or some other form of entertainment; I want to make my parents proud. It’ll be hard, I know, but I’m determined to make it happen. It’ll be delightful! And as for why I want to be a part of SM: I admire the fact that this company strives for perfection and I’m willing to do anything to achieve it.”

From the table, Sunggyu’s jaws dropped in shock. Did she just use the word delightful? Unbelievable. Myungsoo and Sungyeol patted themselves on the back: the former believed his words of wisdom to be the source of her newfound charisma and courage while the latter knew his “drink” to be the miracle-inducer. In general, they all remained speechless.

However, a room’s silence cannot last forever; like most perishable things, it has its own expiration date, its time varying between situations. The lifetime of this particular taciturnity was short. The members quickly ran from their spots and gathered around her, rejoicing in her successful practice audition. Her mind registered that as a mega-party and she did cartwheels in her head.

She stopped jumping momentarily to focus on something moving in the next room. Is that… Jigsaw? I want to play a game! And she bounced off to find the murderer, which, of course, is something only our dear Soo Min would attempt.

The others shrugged and continued their own celebration. They linked arms and danced around in circles.

“What should we eat tonight?” Dongwoo asked.

“MEAT!” they answered in unison. “Yeah! Prepare the grill! Get the side dishes!”

“I get more meat!” Sungyeol shouted.

Sunggyu stopped dancing briefly to slap him upside the head. “Who do you think you are, punk?”

“It’s because of me that Soo Min succeeded!”

Myungsoo froze, bringing their party to a halt. “You?! It was my little pep talk that motivated her! Don’t take credit for my intellectual brilliance!”

“Pfft, as if. Did you really think your bull-gogi could change her that fast?”

It was Hoya’s turn to frown now. “But I thought you said Myungsoo was our secret weapon.”

Sungyeol doubled over in laughter, further insulting the poor bear-human-artist. “Him? Secret weapon? Hahaha, you’re killing me, Hoya! Oh man, I never knew you had it in you! He is the last thing I would consider as our secret weapon.”

“Then what did you mean?”

Sungyeol pulled a bottle from his pocket. They all leaned closer, trying to read the label.

Dongwoo was the first to explode. “YOU GAVE HER ALCOHOL?!”

“Of course! Alcohol tends to open up even the most withdrawn people.”

Sunggyu slapped the choding a second time. “What the hell is wrong with you? You can’t just go around, giving people stuff like that. And in case you’ve forgotten… she’s underage!”

“But hyung, back then, you drank A LOT!”

“That’s not the point! Besides, we’re still screwed; we can’t be sending a drunk Soo Min to the real auditions.”

“…We can’t?”

Sunggyu pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation. “No, you idiot! If they find out, she’ll be disqualified immediately! She’ll look like an alcoholic when in fact, she just has the unfortunate circumstance of knowing one of the stupidest people in the world!”

“…I still get more meat, right?”

Soo Min wandered around, calling out “Jigsaw” sweetly as she peeked under sofas and inside cabinets. Who she found instead was Woohyun.

“Have you seen a psychopath wearing a black robe walking around anywhere?”

When he shook his head, she started to skip away. Before she could leave, he grabbed her arm and pulled her back. He held her face and looked into her eyes, searching for something he couldn’t even begin to describe.

And then he gave her a kiss.

Stunned, they stood there just staring at each other and then around each other, both attempting to lower their palpitating heart rate while avoiding any unnecessary awkward eye contact.

Soo Min started to speak when a mature, feminine voice called out her name. She turned towards the door to see a woman in her early forties, dressed in a conservative navy dress.

“Mommy!”   

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A/N: I was going through Cyanide and Happiness comics yesterday and I found this. 

It's certainly not one of my favorites but it has "in spirit" in it! And a party-loving ghost! :D