DNLYHS Chapter 5 (Part 1)

5. Fifth Day (1)

‘That’s strange. My back, stomach, and the nape of my neck all felt hot the whole time I was sleeping….’

The next morning, Yeonseo tilted his head at the oddly warm feeling he woke up with. But he couldn’t figure out the reason. He stared at Yeongwon’s side profile, but Yeongwon didn’t look his way and only opened the door of the equipment storage room.

“…I’m sorry for grumbling for no reason yesterday. You were trying to take my side in your own way.”

“At least you know? So remember that every time you feel like being a jerk.”

“Still, my opinion that you’re simple and air-headed hasn’t changed. If you’re going to threaten someone, do it properly. Who would take it seriously when you do it with such a blank face? Put some strength in your eyes, set your expression.”

“I seriously have no idea what you’re trying to do.”

Are you trying to give advice or make fun of me? Honestly, even when he apologizes, he acts like he’s desperate to lower my score…

Yeonseo pouted as he walked out of the storage room with Yeongwon. Yeongwon kept turning his gaze away instead of looking at him, yet for some reason, he held onto the cuff of Yeonseo’s sleeve the entire walk. As if he believed he would be found out if he held his hand directly.

What a strange personality… Yeonseo thought as he stepped into the cafeteria.

And there, sitting inside, was someone whose personality looked just as bad as, if not worse than, Yeongwon’s.

“Huh? The school nurse is here, too?”

“…You guys told me to come. What does it bother you that I actually showed up?”

“Bother me? No way. The more people, the better!”

The school nurse, who looked like the type to stay glued to the infirmary out of fear, had arrived earlier than the two of them and taken a seat. He seemed to have already gotten acquainted with the cook, because the cook brought over a tray that seemed to be prepared for him and set it on the table.

The nurse frowned timidly at the tray piled high with dark red porridge.

“Does this school not have a proper menu? Why is it nothing but red bean porridge every day….”

“Hm? What was that? I think it was too quiet to hear.”

“N-No, sir. I said Thank you for the meal!”

Unlike how he raised his voice at Yeongwon yesterday, in front of the cook, he behaved like a meek little lamb.

Well, even if he is picky, it would be hard for him to raise his voice at a huge middle-aged man wearing an apron caked with blood and slime. Yeongwon let out a short laugh, as if the sight was pathetic rather than infuriating.

Whether he didn’t notice or simply ignored it, the cook silently placed trays in front of Yeongwon and Yeonseo as well. And while the two of them hurriedly scooped up the porridge with their spoons, he sat across from them and spoke.

“Come to think of it, I think I heard a strange broadcast while I was sleeping yesterday. Not morning assembly, not end-of-day broadcast, something in between? That kind of feeling.”

“Oh, the midnight broadcast?”

“Was that midnight? There’s no clock in this cafeteria…. Anyway, was that last part something you asked for?”

“Yes. We thought we needed to try anything to find the people who still haven’t been found yet…. It’s better than doing nothing at all.”

“Not a bad idea. Maybe thanks to that, someone who looked like the janitor came to the cafeteria yesterday.”

“R-Really?!”

When the two of them widened their eyes in surprise, the cook explained the situation.

The woman who seemed to be the janitor had entered the cafeteria, but apparently, communication wasn’t possible. The cook said he talked about this and that, but she only tilted her head as if she couldn’t understand him, and without saying a word herself, she suddenly ran away.

“But she did react to the word ‘marker.’ Isn’t that alone a big gain?”

“That’s really a relief! But why did she act like she couldn’t understand anything else?”

“I’m not sure either. But if I had to guess, maybe she truly wasn’t in a state where she could understand people properly. Up close, her complexion was haggard, and she looked terrible. She might have been starving for days….”

At those words, everyone’s expressions stiffened bitterly. It was impossible to feel at ease thinking that someone was trapped somewhere, starving, while they were eating here.

At least then, Yeongwon cleared his throat lightly and opened his mouth in the brightest voice he could manage.

“If we find her as soon as possible, it should be fine. We might even find the marker she left sometime today or tomorrow.”

Still, even as he said that, Yeongwon didn’t look as if he believed his own words.

Honestly, it was true she reacted to the word marker, but that alone wasn’t enough. Maybe she misunderstood the cook’s words and took it the wrong way, like “I need to find a marker,” or maybe she was simply unable to leave one because the situation didn’t allow it…

Right then, the school nurse, who had been poking idly at the leftover porridge, suddenly spoke up.

“But hey, what are you gonna do if that’s a trap?”

“What?”

“You go thinking it’s a marker, but what if it’s actually those monster-thingies in this school checking you out so they can kill you?”

Why ruin the mood out of nowhere? The cook muttered that in an irritated tone, though he didn’t snap at him outright. After all, it wasn’t wrong.

“You basically announced it to the whole school, didn’t you? What do you think the ghosts or monsters or whatever heard that will think? Oh, to lure people in, we can just scribble ‘help me’ and a few arrows on a wall and wait for someone to take the bait! Obviously, that’s what they’ll think! Isn’t it actually more dangerous now than before? If you two get hurt, I’m the one who has to take on the injuries afterward. Did you even think that far before pulling something like this?”

Even so, it was clear he was starting to cross a line. They understood what he meant, sure, but did he have to say it like that? It wasn’t as if they didn’t know they were taking risks; they were just trying different things to raise their chances of escaping…

Should I tell him to stop? Just as Yeonseo was about to speak, Yeongwon, who had been listening beside him, cut in first with a cold voice.

“Listen. I’m only going to say this once.”

“What, what?”

“If he and I had thought exactly the way you’re thinking yesterday, we wouldn’t have gone into the infirmary. And we wouldn’t have made any medicine for you, either.”

“Wh–what are you even talking about? Do you know how big a wound I took on, for your sakes…!”

“By that exact same logic, the only reason he and I could even enter the cafeteria and the infirmary is because the janitor helped us. If she hadn’t opened the doors, we wouldn’t have even found the locations, much less gone inside. So accepting the risk to help someone like that is unavoidable, isn’t it?”

“I… uh, that…”

The nurse shrank back instantly, mumbling something under his breath before closing his mouth altogether. He seemed embarrassed even to himself.

Well, that was enough to say he got the point.

But Yeonseo didn’t want to ignore the fact that the man’s fear itself wasn’t unreasonable, so he spoke a little more gently. If one person swings the stick, the other should wave the carrot.

“We… we understand that if we get hurt, you’re the one who ends up carrying the injury. Of course, that’s not something you’d welcome…. But this is all for our escape. I hope you can accept a certain level of risk for that.”

When Yeonseo added that, the nurse seemed to think for a long moment before letting out a heavy sigh. He still didn’t look happy.

“…You two are always in sync.”

“In sync how?”

“Stop nitpicking everything! A guy can’t even talk!”

The nurse shot up from his seat irritably. He was about to leave the cafeteria, but after glancing at the cook, he hurriedly gathered his tray and spoon and brought them to the return counter. It looked ridiculous, but he was still a tiring person to deal with. Just a small conversation with him was enough to wear someone out…

“Fine, do whatever you want. Whether you get caught in that weird trap in the west hallway or not, it’s none of my business!”

But the words he threw out right before leaving made Yeonseo and Yeongwon’s eyes fly wide open.

“Wait, what? Did you just say first-floor west hallway? What’s there?”

“Do you guys not have eyes? You can just go see for yourselves. It looked so nasty I was too scared to go near it.”

The infirmary was further west than the equipment storage room, so if something had happened in that hallway, he would’ve seen it right when he stepped outside.

So he saw the trap or whatever it was the whole time, and just kept his mouth shut until now? Because we would’ve noticed it anyway with a bit of walking?

What kind of person is that? Yeonseo was so stunned his mouth almost fell open… but surprisingly, Yeongwon nodded calmly.

“Then let’s go there right away. Cook, I’m sorry, but could you divide the lunch bags into single portions for each of us?”

“Single portions? Why?”

“We’ll each take one portion and head straight to the trap in the west hallway. Time passes strangely fast in this school, so going all the way up to the third-floor broadcast room and back would be a waste. We don’t know what might happen on the way, so we need to get to the west hallway as quickly as possible.”

“But we still have to bring the meal to the broadcasting adviser, don’t we?”

“I’d like to ask the school nurse to handle that. Since he can move around freely, he should be able to manage it without a problem.”

The nurse openly made a face that said, “Why should I do that?” but when the cook folded his arms and glared at him silently, he flinched and bowed his head. He might be the type who can’t oppose the person who feeds him or someone stronger than him.

“Then there’ll be one portion left. What do we do with that?”

“Please keep it here in the cafeteria for now. If the last missing person managed to escape safely, they might come here looking for food. That seems like the best option.”

The cook nodded readily, then divided the lunches, which had originally been packed together in one bag, into three separate bags.

Yeongwon took one bag, and the nurse hesitantly accepted the second. After explaining the safety rules needed for delivering the lunch, Yeongwon returned to Yeonseo’s side.

“…Let’s go, then.”

“Right. We’ll know once we arrive whether it’s a trap or a plea for help.”

They immediately ran across the first-floor hallway. Their footsteps echoed through the quiet corridor.

Just as the nurse had said, the far end of the first-floor west hallway was a complete mess, completely different from yesterday.

It was instantly clear why the nurse had insisted it was a trap. It looked as if monsters had been ground up into a paste and then smeared all over the wall. From the very end of the hallway all the way to the walls next to the library and infirmary, red and yellow stains were splattered thickly everywhere.

The floor wasn’t spared either. Every time their soles pressed down on squishy flesh and sticky fluid, nausea rose up their throats. With a confused expression, Yeongwon muttered,

“How is this…? Doesn’t the hallway always reset the next morning? The traces of those monsters bursting when reflected in the mirror always disappeared.”

“Maybe whatever was left as a marker is an exception?”

“By who, exactly?”

“Possibly the janitor. Or another person whose face or role we still don’t know.”

Yeonseo answered while scanning the walls. His voice held a fair bit of certainty.

The messages they had found on various walls and lockers over the past several days hadn’t disappeared. It seemed that anything intentionally left behind didn’t reset the next day. The markings Yeonseo left as part of his role as librarian would be the same.

“By the way, the stains on the floor kind of look like arrows… Huh?”

“What is it, Yeongwon?”

“Look here, stairs have appeared!”

Following him to the very end of the hallway, Yeonseo immediately understood. Stairs that hadn’t existed yesterday were now there. But they didn’t lead upward to the second floor; they led downward from the first floor.

“A basement? There was a basement in this school?”

“Most buildings have basements, don’t they? They might use it for storage or a snack bar, or maybe for other school facilities.”

Since Yeongwon’s explanation was quite reasonable, Yeonseo nodded. The existence of a basement itself wasn’t strange.

But whether that basement was safe was another issue.

Looking closely at the floor, there were marks showing that something shaped like a person had been dragged down the stairs. That must have been what Yeongwon meant earlier by an arrow, but depending on how you saw it, the marks looked disturbingly like someone had struggled desperately not to be dragged away. Whether that something was still alive or dead now, the fear was the same.

Yeongwon shone the flashlight down the stairs. There were no lights leading into the basement, only complete darkness. The faint beam barely reached the middle of the staircase; everything beyond that point remained swallowed in shadow.

While staring into the darkness beside him, Yeonseo absentmindedly turned his gaze to the wall. Come to think of it, near any staircase there should usually be…

“Oh, there it is.”

“What?”

“The school map! Look, the stairs going down to the basement are marked here!”

As expected, a map was attached to this wall as well. Though smeared heavily with blood and mucus, the map itself was still barely legible. Unlike yesterday, it now showed the staircase leading from the first floor down to a basement level.

The basement floor had labels reading [Mechanical Room] and [Janitor’s Room]. He didn’t know exactly what the mechanical room was used for, but the janitor’s room was highly likely to be the place assigned to the janitor.

And beside the staircase icon was a red arrow, as if drawn with a red pen. The arrow pointed downward, telling them to go below.

“That’s convenient. A little suspicious, but still convenient.”

“Suspicious or not, we can’t avoid it. We already talked big in front of the school nurse… It might be dangerous, but let’s check the basement. If we’re lucky, we might rescue the janitor and get back safely.”

It was a reasonable point. Yeonseo nodded and carefully stepped down the stairs.

But at that moment, a warm hand suddenly slipped into his empty palm.

“W-What are you doing?”

“Let’s go holding hands.”

“…Excuse me?”

Why now?

Startled, Yeonseo looked up at him, but Yeongwon didn’t even blink. Instead, he tightened his grip shamelessly. His long and slender yet strong fingers interlaced with Yeonseo’s.

“Are you… scared?”

“That’s not the issue. We don’t know what kind of danger is waiting in an unexpected basement that suddenly appeared. If something happens, and you fall, it’ll be harder for me to protect you. If we’re going in anyway, we should stay close.”

No, he says that, but his hand is shaking…

Yeonseo thought about pointing it out, but quickly gave up. Knowing the man’s prideful, stubborn nature, he would probably let go the moment it was mentioned, and that didn’t seem ideal.

“Alright, let’s hold hands. I’m scared too, so it works out.”

“Don’t twist it. I’m not scared.”

“Sure, sure. Let’s go with that.”

“It’s not ‘let’s go with that,’ it’s the truth. Anyway, be careful. If you panic and do something rash, we’re in trouble…”

Still bickering, the two of them continued down the stairs.

The first-floor hallway, now empty of people, was silent.

But after a few minutes passed…

Ssshhhkk, a sound like someone scribbling over something with a marker scraped along the wall.

When the sound faded, the downward arrow drawn on the map was gone, replaced with a red X.

* * *

The basement was far darker than anything aboveground. There was no moonlight, of course, but also no faint glow from exit signs or fire extinguishers. Any area not lit by the flashlight might as well have not existed, swallowed in pitch black.

“There aren’t any marks like the ones upstairs…”

“So the thing we saw on the first floor really was meant as a marker. Someone wanted to draw our attention.”

They both whispered without needing to be told. The basement was as silent as the upper floors, and aside from the sound of their own voices, there was no sign of life, but they stayed alert, tense, and cautious.

“Yeongwon, the mechanical room, is closer to the exit. Should we check there first? Or start with the janitor’s room, since she might be there…?”

“The janitor’s room is safer. If there’s a trap in the mechanical room, we might have to flee before even checking the janitor’s room.”

They whispered back and forth, but the decision turned out to be a bad one. The janitor’s room was locked. It wasn’t covered in padlocks like the broadcast room, but the wooden door didn’t budge, no matter how much the handle was shaken.

“Was there a key for the janitor’s room in the first-floor teachers’ office?”

“The only key storage we’ve seen was on the third floor. And we were told not to touch the keys in that one.”

“True… Even if we did touch them, none of the keys had labels saying what they opened…”

Just as he had done at the broadcast room, Yeonseo knocked on the door, but there was no response. Thinking about it, that was to be expected. When they had gone to the cafeteria the previous day, he’d heard the janitor had simply stood silently in front of the cook without a word.

Watching that, Yeongwon suddenly turned as if realizing something.

“No helping it. It’s the last resort, but let’s check the mechanical room.”

“Well, the mechanical room is the only other place worth checking in the basement, but… is it dramatic enough to be called a ‘last resort’?”

“We’re going there to find a toolbox. If we can find good tools, we’ll break down the janitor’s room door. It’s old and flimsy enough that with a little force we can break through.”

What… what is this guy even saying right now!?!?

Yeonseo gaped in shock, but thinking about it, Yeongwon had acted almost the same way at the broadcast room. If Yeonseo hadn’t knocked on the door and called the broadcasting adviser, he might have tried kicking the door down.

He was like that with the first door lock, too… Was this man some kind of destruction maniac? No matter the situation, smashing things seemed to be the first idea that crossed his mind.

“Let’s push breaking the door to the bottom of the list. We might find a key to the janitor’s room in the mechanical room, or maybe a hint for how to get inside, right?”

“Do you think this is some kind of game? Why on earth would the janitor’s key be in the mechanical room?”

“Game or not, this isn’t a normal school. Anything could happen…!”

They bickered a little, but their immediate conclusion matched. They had to check the mechanical room.

They headed straight to it and opened the door, hoping for anything, keys, tools, whatever, that might let them get into the janitor’s room.

But in the end, the room contained neither.

In fact, they wouldn’t be needing either one.

“H-Huh?”

The inside of the mechanical room was as dark as the hallway, leaving most of it invisible. But in the part illuminated by the flashlight, they saw the back of a woman standing blankly, facing the wall. Judging by the hat and uniform, she was very likely the janitor.

And more than anything, the faintly see-through body and the way she hovered partly above the floor in defiance of physics were the biggest clues. The cook’s words about her being ghost-like no longer felt exaggerated.

“Um, excuse me?”

Yeonseo instinctively raised his voice, but she didn’t answer. This matched the cook’s account perfectly.

Then they would have to step inside and try speaking to her directly. Thinking that, Yeonseo took a step into the mechanical room, only for Yeongwon to grab his hand in alarm.

“Wait, hold on a moment.”

“What?”

“That person… I don’t think she’s real. From a distance she looks convincing, but up close she seems like something projected by a film projector…”

A projector? How could that make sense? Wasn’t he only thinking that because her body was translucent? Yeonseo thought it was impossible, yet he still moved the flashlight around to check the surroundings.

And the moment he did, both of them froze in place.

Inside the mechanical room, nine identical women stood in a row, all facing the wall. Their build, clothing, and the way they floated half-embedded in the air, every detail was the same.

〈To be continued in Volume 2 of “Do Not Leave Yeongwon High School〉