Innocence // STRAY KIDS' Han Jisung

thirty-one

In which there are ghosts and beautiful nights.

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While thinking about her own life, Mirae realized she had never had a campfire before. It was the first time seeing one live, feeling the warmness that it radiated hitting her face and hands as she went closer to cook her marshmallows.

It was beautiful. Maybe if she knew how to paint she would have made a drawing out of it, but her drawing skills were as good as her sight—pretty bad.

The only downside was that her glasses blemished every single time she went near the fire, which was driving her crazy. After so much wiping with the end of her jacket, she saved them in the jacket's biggest pocket. She didn't mind not seeing what was far from her anyway; as long as she could see where she put her hands while cooking the marshmallows, everything else didn't matter.

"Yo, how 'bout we tell some ghost stories?" Aeri asked aloud.

"Yo, that sounds good," Soyeon mocked her, receiving an uncooked marshmallow on her face. "Yo, thanks!"

The rest of the class agreed with Aeri's idea and soon gathered closer. Mirae sat with her legs up, glad to have changed her pad before going there and happily ate her marshmallows as her classmates began the stories.

"I know one," Jaewoo raised his marshmallow stick up. "One night a woman went out for drinks with her girlfriends. She left the bar fairly late at night, got in her car and onto the deserted highway. She noticed a lone pair of headlights in her rear-view mirror, approaching at a pace just slightly quicker than hers. As the car pulled up behind her she glanced and saw the turn signal on—the car was going to pass—when suddenly it swerved back behind her, pulled up dangerously close to her tailgate and the brights flashed.

»Now she was getting nervous. The lights dimmed for a moment and then the brights came back on and the car behind her surged forward. The frightened woman struggled to keep her eyes on the road and fought the urge to look at the car behind her. Finally, her exit approached but the car continued to follow, flashing the brights periodically.

Mirae shuddered and sat closer to Soyeon, which made her smile a bit. Everyone was focused on Jaewoo's story, probably due to his good looks, probably due to his great skill at telling stories, who knows? Either way, every single student were listening to him, eyes wide in expectation and a bit of fright.

»Through every stoplight and turn, it followed her until she pulled into her drivfrigh" Jaewoo continued. "She figured her only hope was to make a mad dash into the house and call the police. As she flew from the car, so did the driver of the car behind her—and he screamed, 'Lock the door and call the police! Call 911!'

»When the police arrived the horrible truth was finally revealed to the woman. The man in the car had been trying to save her. As he pulled up behind her and his headlights illuminated her car, he saw the silhouette of a man with a butcher knife rising up from the back seat to stab her, so he flashed his brights and the figure crouched back down.

"Oh my God," someone gasped.

"That was weak, though. Tell better stories!"

"Go tell then yourself, dude!" Jaewoo shot back.

"I got another story," Jaemin spoke up, sitting up properly. "A friend told me this once when we were younger, but I'm not sure if it's real or not."

"Ghosts don't exist, so it's fake," Minhyuk shrugged.

"Then why are you clinging on me?" Aeri snorted, to which her boyfriend only rolled his eyes.

"Okay, so his great, great grandmother, ill for quite some time, finally passed away after lying in a coma for several days. His great-great grandfather was devastated beyond belief, as she was his one true love and they had been married over 50 years. They were married so long it seemed as if they knew each other's innermost thoughts.