“Where do you think you’re going?” Yonghwa eyed Shinhye as she exited through the front doors of the school. Their classes ended just five minutes ago and she was more than ready to get home and do nothing but sleep, but Yonghwa’s sharp gaze told her otherwise.

            “What do you mean?” She asked, trying to remember whether there was extra practice after school that she was forgetting. His arms were crossed, shoulders leaning against the side of the door entrance as he shook his head disapprovingly.

            “We’re assigned clean up duty after school every Monday.” He reminded with a sigh, not bothering to wait for his news to process in her head before he left back to the music room. His pacing was much faster than hers, and by the time Shinhye got to the music room he was already straightening up a few desks and throwing a few scrap pieces of paper into a blue bin that he dragged along.

            “Sorry, I forgot.” She mumbled, taking the bin from him and holding it up as she followed him from table to table. He didn’t look up to meet her guilty gaze but continued to do his task diligently, making his way to the professor’s desk. He slid open the top left drawer and saw today’s newspaper sitting there all smug between four wooden walls. Yonghwa grabbed the newspaper, unfolding it to reveal the entire front page article accompanied with a photograph of Jung Seunghyun’s content grin, his old and expectant stare unknowingly captivating Yonghwa’s thoughts. The curious Shinhye moved to Yonghwa’s side, glancing over his broad shoulders to see the headlines. It wasn’t surprising that their music professor had a copy of today’s newspaper in his desk. People say that with age comes wisdom and outside of music, if that professor had wisdom on anything it would be insight on the assassination of their school’s founder nineteen years ago. Shinhye clearly remembered Yonghwa tossing the newspaper away that very morning and wondered if there was anything particularly new that caught his attention this time around, but to her astonishment the article was the exact same. Yonghwa felt a gentle but warm breath on his neck and jumped, turning to see Shinhye’s face leaning towards his, her eyes locked on the newspaper article. Instinctively, he inched away before his face could turn even a tint of pink and placed it into the blue bin in Shinhye’s hands.

            “Is something wrong?” Shinhye asked, noticing how extraordinarily strange Yonghwa was acting today. His usual strict stare was replaced with a more uncertain glance, moving from subject to subject as if a terrorizing epiphany had revealed itself to him. Shaking his head to deny the fact that he was anything other than fine, he pointed to the opened doors and ordered with a cough,

            “Go put the recycling away.” On regular days, Shinhye would listen to whatever Yonghwa told her to do but on today especially, she was hesitant to even budge. Every day after all classes ended, the care takers would shut the lights off in the hall ways to preserve electricity since the school was already on welfare, but Shinhye had never shown her weak side to the dark until now.  Sighing, Yonghwa walked casually to the door and poked his head outside, glancing from left to right. The darkened hallways were still moderately lit by the setting sun from the small jail-sized windows and with his perfect vision he could see that even the floors were clear of any specks of dust. Shinhye was now at his side again, her arms hugging the blue bin to her stomach tight as she bit her bottom lip.

            “What’s up with you?” He finally asked, unable to understand the horrified expression on Shinhye’s face. Women were really strange creatures that he never cared to waste time with.

            “Well you know what today is…” She gulped, her head slanting downwards at the news article with the old face staring back at her. They used the same photograph every year for the articles, and every year she saw his face there would be an eerie feeling that crept around her. Interestingly enough, Yonghwa felt the same. The more he saw Jung Seunghyun’s gaze, the more familiar his eyes became. The fear of discovering something about the assassination he wanted to keep hidden would always stop him from allowing his mind to wander, because the more he looked at his face, the more he would see a reflection of himself. Jung Seunghyun is the late founder of their university, and nothing more.

            “You’re not perhaps…” a childishly foolish thought slipped into his mind as he teased, “Thinking that the school is haunted, are you?” It was a tradition for ghost stories of the late founder to be told on this day. Yonghwa has heard almost every single one of them, eavesdropping involuntarily as he passed crowds of students in the hallways. It seemed like every year the rumors would get more and more absurd. There was one rumor however that had stayed relatively constant throughout the years, consisting of a beautiful red rose lying in the middle of a hallway in their school that the janitor would find every night of September 2. The thought of it made Yonghwa want to burst out laughing, but it just wasn’t in his nature to. After suggesting the possibility, Shinhye’s shoulders were shaking slightly and her front two teeth were biting even harder on her bottom lip.

            “I know they’re probably not true but…” Shinhye voiced, slowly allowing her eyes to meet Yonghwa’s disbelieving eyes “On days like this my imagination tends to get the better of me…” Almost twitching, Yonghwa sighed and then examined the outside hallway yet again. No sign of roses—or anything for that matter. The large recycling bin was just around the corner of this hallway; surely Shinhye would be able to hold herself together for the ten seconds it takes to throw the recycling away and come back.

            “Just go; I’ll be right here cleaning.” Yonghwa ensured, returning to the professors desk with a stack of music sheets. The door was wide open, letting out extra light from the classroom. Every extra second she spent dawdling here, the darker it got in the hallways. Mustering up some courage, she gulped once more before leaving the classroom.

            “Tch, women,” Yonghwa coughed, straightening up piles of paper. He got to the bottom drawer of the desk and slid it open, almost jumping backwards when he saw perfectly fallen rose petals sprinkled over the same news article. What were the chances of the professor owning two copies of the same newspaper? What shocked Yonghwa the most was that Jung Seunghyun’s face had been crossed out with the red washable white board markers in a big ‘x’. The sound of Shinhye’s faint but evident squeal accompanied by the fall of the plastic bin colliding with the hard, freshly polished floor broke his attention from the strange array in the professor’s drawer and a sudden impulse urged him to rush to her side. He didn’t give her location a second thought, heading straight to the large recycling bin down the hall. When he made the turn, he saw Shinhye standing frozen amidst scraps of paper with her eyes locked on a freshly plucked red rose, lying horizontally beside where the bin had fallen; its nonexistent gaze seemed to be burning a hole in her mind. Yonghwa’s sudden appearance made her jump and scream, but the moment she saw his face she felt relieved but resisted the urge to hug him. He stood there beside her, examining the rose on the floor as he applied logic and reasoning to this coincidental happening.

            “This is probably just a prank.” Yonghwa predicted, scanning the hallway briefly to see that nothing else was out of place. Ignoring the scattered pieces of paper on the floor, he bent down and reached out to grab the rose, and an almost invisible thorn pricked his index finger with no mercy. His hand retreated, his scarlet blood beginning to trickle down his one finger.

            “Yonghwa!” Shinhye gasped, having watched Yonghwa show signs of pain for the first time. He winced cowardly the moment the thorn attacked him, but he still did not look shaken.

            “It’s okay; there are band aids in the professor’s desk.” He got up, applying pressure with his opposite hand around the wounded area of his finger and headed back to the room. Too spooked out to think anymore, Shinhye followed as closely as she could. The moment they re-entered the classroom, the first thing Yonghwa noticed were the lights.

            “Strange, I never turned off the lights when I left.” He observed, flipping the small switch back on. Immediately the room was illuminated and nothing else from view seemed out of place.

            “You believe in the myths now?” Shinhye asked, heading straight to the desk for a band aid. The first thing that caught her eye was the news article in the bottom drawer with the face crossed off. Yonghwa ignored it for the time being, grabbing a band aid from the top drawer and wrapping it around his finger that had stopped bleeding. He wiped down the drying blood before doing so and gave the room another scan.

            “No, but there’s definitely something weird going on…” He admitted, staring down at the article. The man’s eyes were covered in red marker but his triumphant grin remained untouched. 

A/N: Sorry for the long wait everyone! No guarantees that my updating pace will get any faster anytime soon but I will continue updating; I promise! This chapter was pretty spooky for me to imagine, and for those who get creeped out easily I hope I won't give you any nightmares. For those who love horror and don't get scared easily, I'm sorry I'm inexperienced with this particular genre but I am trying! Leave some thoughts? I'd love feedback!