Chapter Text
"Hey, seriously, you should leave before it gets too dark, Hoyun-ah." That was a classmate, a rather rude one. Some boy who sidled up to Hoyun during free periods when there was no work and no one looked too closely. But really, Hoyun just didn't like his attitude- the self-serving face of his that'd probably betray you in a heartbeat. He moreso disliked the attitude of their pretending to be close when no one asked for it.
And so, in return, Hoyun muttered without looking up from his papers. "When did I say you could speak casually?" His gaze flitted, just lightly, to the boy before looking back down without another care.
There was a tsk from the other, who probably rolled his eyes and turned away with a few small thuds. "... Ugh. Forget I said anything, Seo Hoyun." That was better, even if apparently ruder. "Just don't forget I warned you."
In the school that Seo Hoyun attended, there was, for some reason, a few popular Ghost Stories. Stupid ones. For example, walking on the red-painted stairs at 6am will cause a certain ghost to follow you until the next time you walk along those stairs.
Or, the abandoned girls' bathroom near the rooftop is haunted by a female ghost.
Or, walking along the bottom floor at midnight will cause you to die by morning by hanging. ←That one happened because of a few too many suicides. No, Hoyun doesn't know a thing.
Or, playing the music room's piano as soon as the sky turns dark will lead a ghost to play a melody with you, and later cause you injuries based on how much they liked the tune.
Or- well, you get the point. Few too many ghost stories (there are more that Hoyun hasn't mentioned), few too many coincidences, few too many teachers playing tricks on new students. Personally, the music room one sounds almost exactly like something the teacher would've made up to stop students from interfering with the piano when there isn't any supervision.
Considering... the school Hoyun attends doesn't exactly close their gates at night.
Don't ask him why, but years ago, the headmaster had decided to place in a few rules that had somehow never changed.
- The gates of ■ will never close, not to any student of the past, or future.
- Any unknown situations will never be spoken of beyond the gates of ■.
- The security guards will roam the school grounds to keep remaining students safe.
- All facilities will remain open to every student beyond school opening times.
- ■■■■ ■■■■, ■■■ ■■ ■■■ ■■■■■ ■■■■■■■■.
No, don't ask him about the 5th rule either, no one knows what it says by now. And you should understand him censoring the name of his school, of all things, right? Anyways, as you may see now, the school remains a peculiarity even now. For the point, the security guards are creepy (off topic), but they do their job, and they prevent all non-students from entering the school. Hoyun isn't sure if teachers are allowed to remain, mostly because everyone tries to leave before it gets too late. After all, who likes ghosts?
Well, Hoyun himself doesn't really believe in them. Hm. Even if there was an incident of him hearing whispers during a late night inside the school building.
Hah.
Adjusting his uniform just slightly, eventually, he'd finished all of the exercises he'd given himself to stall until he arrived home. And it became too late for him to remain inside of the old building. Hoyun yawned, he stood with a small scrape of his chair, gathered his things and left the classroom. He was probably the only student alive in the school at the very moment, with that thought, he nodded to a passing security guard and continued on his way.
He passed by red stairs – you never trust stairs that are red, even just through superstition – but as he walked, the hallway didn't meet an end, and the red stairs continued to repeat even as he did walk. A few more steps and another red stair. Which was strange, only one stairway was painted red.
But the job was to ignore anything strange. So he continued to walk straight on, closing his eyes to remember the rulebook for only a few seconds.
- If a student ever finds themselves lost in an endless hallway, with the only alternative escape being red stairs, DO NOT take the red stairs.
- EITHER ask a security guard to lead you to your wanted destination
- OR enter the closest MONOTONE room
- TAKE NOTE to NOT enter any coloured rooms, whether it be red, yellow, green, beige, or any colour. It MUST be black and/or white.
Still red stairs, nothing else. And no, he wasn't going to ask a security guard for help, have you seen them? No, you probably haven't... Ahem, anyways. There was a room! Wait, it was red. And if you looked a little closer, there seemed to be a liquid dripping from the doorway. Hoyun continued to walk, and walk, and walk. If he looked back, he would've seen an end to a hallway but no actual exit, and if he looked forward, he would've seen an end but no actual exit again. It felt like he wasn't really moving, but if he looked at the ground, it was clearly moving beneath his feet, like a sort of room-size treadmill.
After enough time, by the time Hoyun's pace had slowed, he finally saw a room like a blank canvas with juat lineart. He paused, walked toward and entered the room, shutting the door behind him just for a few seconds.
And then he paused again.
"Who are you?"
The figure, transparent, looked back at him. Or well, maybe not. No, maybe they did. Actually, he wasn't meant to see that.
- IF you happen to see a ghost-like figure in any sort of way, DO NOT anger them.
- They are your classmate, greet them well! ^^
Fuck.