Ghost Story Club

“This is it, Pres. Luckily, YouTube still works.”

We gathered around the laptop in the nutritionist’s office and watched the Fourincess’s video.

It was the recording of the music program that played every Friday evening.

The members of Fourincess were dancing on the screen as they sang their new single ‘Oh Yeah’.

‘They’re pretty.’

As expected of idols, they were very pretty.

Although the girl group Fourincess were just newbie idols at that point in time, from my memories of the past life, they would become a girl group that hit the peak of popularity within Korea’s pop music rankings.

The average age of the girl group was similar to mine, and most of the members of Fourincess were either the same age as me, or a year younger and in middle school. Other than the leader, everyone was in their teens.

It might have been because of that fact that, although most idols had an otherworldly feel to them, many of the test takers in Korea saw the group and felt as if they were probably students too and the girl group was more relatable.

“It’s true. The moves that they do here are similar to the actions the crazy people in our school make.”

“Yeah……”

The funny dances that the infected people were doing was the dance routine for Fourincess’s new song.

On the laptop screen, the five charismatic girls were dressed up as they made sharp movements for their dance.

It was obvious, but of course we turned the volume off.

“There is nothing unusual about it.”

“That’s what I thought.”

After that, the video moved on to the problematic hook portion of the song. A beautiful girl with flashy makeup was singing passionately as she danced.

‘I did hear their music endlessly in my past life, but this is the first time I’ve seen their face so closely.’

Now that I thought about it, I listened to the melody to the point of annoyance in my last life, and I still remembered it. However, I was completely fine.

‘Is the issue not in the melody, but in the lyrics?’

The difference between the past life’s ‘Oh Yeah’ and this life’s ‘Oh Yeah’ was probably the lyrics. Though, I had not focused on this life’s version of the song.

As I thought deeply about these points, I looked back at the screen.

‘So, the owner of the voice looked like this. She’s pretty.’

‘The voice that sang this part sounded very innocent, but here, she looks strong-willed.’

As I thought deeply, I tried to rekindle my memories.

However, as I had never been too into idols, I definitely did not know too much about the members. I wasn’t even able to recognize one of the members.

‘After all, no matter how legendary Girl’s Generation is, if you were to grab a random passerby and ask to name all of the members, they could probably remember half of them at best.’

T/N: Girl’s Generation, also known as SNSD, is a South Korean Girl Group originally made up of 9 members that first debuted in 2007. You may have heard of one of their singles, “Gee”.

The girl idols continued to dance on the screen, their mouths silently mouthing the words to their song.

The Ghost Story Club was watching them move very closely, hoping to find any sort of clue or hint. Although I had to admit, all of us staring so seriously at the girl group’s video was a funny image.

“Uh… watching this without any music on… is a bit scary……”

SunAh mumbled her thoughts.

I kind of agreed.

It was especially true with that one member, the one that was in charge of singing the unintelligible hook portion of the song.

With the music, it would look like an exciting dance belonging to a catchy song.

Without the music, the dance looked like the awkward twisting of a corpse.

But then, I thought I noticed something.

“… Um there is something that’s been bothering me.”

“What is it?”

“This dance that the people infected by the song do.”

“Yeah.”

“If you look at it closely, isn’t it the reverse of this?”

“Hmm… is that so?”

The club members tilted their heads in confusion.

“Teacher, could you turn back to the beginning of the video?”

“Got it.”

The teacher clicked on the mouse to return back to the start of the clip.

We all focused on it again.

“It’s true. The addicted people all make upward motions as if to flip tables, but in the original dance, the girl group makes a downward motion with both hands.”

“I can see it……”

And as we continued to stare into the video clip.

“Argh, I can’t think.”

JinHee stretched her arms and got up out of her seat.

“Tsumaranai~”

DukHun also got up and moved to a chair away from the laptop.

“……”

Possibly because we were all looking at the screen for too long, SunAh was rubbing her face with her hands and GyeongWon had taken off his glasses, wiping the lenses on some fabric.

“Huuu… Yeah. The dance is reversed, right? Besides that, we didn’t catch anything else, right? Instead of this, let’s try watching something else.”

The teacher put on a different video of Fourincess’s performance, but it was basically the same. Other than the different locations, the five members performed the same dance to the same song.

Everyone was getting tired, as we weren’t getting anywhere.

Suddenly, I got the feeling that one of the member’s lips wasn’t syncing with the others during parts of the song.

‘What’s this?’

The youngest-looking member’s lips vaguely looked to be different from the other members.

‘This should be the part where they all sing together in the chorus…’

I focused onto that member’s lips to try to get some clues, when suddenly.

[Special Ability Lip Reading has activated.]

[“Someone, please! Help me!”]

“……!”

In my surprise, I checked out the lips of the other members of the girl group.

[“Every. Body. Four! In! Ce! Ss! O. E. O. U. Eish. Ei~ Oh Yeah~”]

The other members of the idol group were singing the song lyrics as usual. However, that youngest member continued to request help throughout the song.

[“Anyone, if you can notice this, please!”]

[“Help me! Anyone!”]

[“You have to, because you’re a fan.”]

“……”

Clatter, clatter.

Behind me, I could hear DukHun bringing more food over on the trays, preparing to eat some more.

“DukHun, would you bring some more for me too, please?”

The teacher, who had been looking at the monitor alongside me, shouted back. It seemed like this person also had quite the appetite.

***

Soon, it was three o’clock in the afternoon. Everyone else had gotten tired looking at the videos and gave up, so only the teacher and I were on the laptop.

GyeongWon was dozing off in the corner with his arms crossed.

The teacher was only with me because I had been concentrating on the videos completely. The only one to truly not give up was me.

“Joon, are you fine with using the laptop by yourself? I think I need to get some rest at this point.”

“Ah, of course. Please just find the most recent video of them for me.”

“Huuu, sure. Here.”

Of their official videos, the teacher clicked on the most recently uploaded video. It was a clip uploaded that very morning where the members had made a greeting.

[2019 Greetings before the Performing Live! From Fourincess (Views: 420,000) (7 Hours ago)]

It was a short clip promoting a performance at six in the evening.

Within that clip, I focused on the youngest member’s lips.

[“If you’re a fan, please.”]

Just like I thought, she was pleading.

What did she want? How would I be able to help?

[“Until the live concert, I will be in the dressing room, so please come and find me!”]

‘Dressing room!’

With those words, the idol members finished their greetings and headed into the building. Then the video ended.

‘Which building is it?’

I wasn’t able to see that far.

Still, from what I could guess, it would be one of the buildings of the broadcasting station that would broadcast their concert live tonight. However, such a large broadcasting station would have several buildings connected together, and there would be more than one or two dressing rooms within all those buildings.

I had to check exactly which building those idol members had entered.

I turned the clip back to the beginning.

With the street as a background, the large van that celebrities tended to use drove up. Then the doors to the van opened. The camera focused on the scene of members of Fourincess getting out. The girls lined up in front of the fans and bowed. After a short greeting asking the fans to come join them at the live concert, Fourincess headed into a certain building.

Unfortunately, before the building could be seen, the camera focused on the backs of the Fourincess members before ending the video.

‘Which building is it?’

Once again, I started the clip from the beginning. The large van. The members of Fourincess got off. Then, facing the fans, the idols bowed to the crowd.

‘This is it. It’s this building.’

I could see the rough shape of the building off of the reflection on the van.

It was a building with a very large dome shape.

I seared it into my memories. Within this dome shaped building, the Fourincess members would be in the dressing room until later in the evening.

“Can you all focus on me for a bit?”

I spoke out to all of the members on the verge of dozing off.

***

“Prez, did you find something?”

Using the table in the office as the center, everyone looked at me. I, who was at the end of this table, got up and started my explanation.

“As you may all know, this horrible situation was caused by a new song made by the girl group Fourincess. If you repeatedly hear this song, it will get embedded in your mind and eventually drive you insane.”

Everyone nodded their heads.

This was something we all knew.

“However, before I go any deeper about that song, there is one thing I want to ask GyeongWon.”

“Huh?”

“Are there any ghost stories involving a possessed person and doing something backwards?”

“Backwards?”

GyeongWon tilted his head.

“A possessed person? Does this have something to do with this situation?”

“Most likely.”

Of course, this wasn’t something I came up with by myself. Before, when HaYoon smacked the teacher’s cheek, a message had popped up. At that time, the system had definitely said that HaYoon had repelled a ‘Ghost possessed person’.

But what sort of ghost story would be called ‘ghost possessed person’?

Although I just happened to earn some sweet Ghost Story Points, I did not actually know what this ‘ghost possessed person’ was.

‘After all, I am a complete noob when it comes to ghost stories.’

However, the teacher had been possessed and had continued to face backwards when she walked into the room. Also, the infected people had been performing the dance moves in reverse. There definitely had to be some sort of correlation.

“Hmm… Prez. Explain again what sort of ghost story you’re looking for? What exactly do you mean by backwards?”

GyeongWon asked as he adjusted his glasses again.

Truthfully, even I was a bit hazy on what sort of ghost story I was looking for, but I thought that we could key into the teacher’s behavior when she was possessed.

“Well… maybe something like walking backwards, speaking while facing the other way, or something like that.”

“Backwards? Hmmm……”

“Do you have anything that pops up in your mind?”

“Ghost… backwards, facing away… hmm.”

GyeongWon took a moment to think, and as if he had thought of something, his glasses suddenly flashed.

“Prez, are you thinking of “upside down” as the keyword?”

“Upside down?”

He started to nod away as he adjusted his glasses.

“Umm, if it’s about being upside down, there is one story I can think of. Tell me if this makes sense.”

***

A couple went to visit a shaman for fortune telling. The shaman looked into the woman’s fortune very sincerely, but for the man, she was very negligent. In fact, on the couple’s way out, she did not even take any money. She stated she was returning the fortune telling fee.

The couple started to go back home, grumbling to themselves about how such a shaman could exist.

On their way back, an accident occurred and the man died. After the funeral, the woman was suddenly reminded of the shaman’s behavior, so she went to visit the shaman again.

“Excuse me, I’ve been here before… I just wanted to ask a question……”

The shaman didn’t listen to what the woman said and interrupted her.

“Did you finish holding the funeral?”

“H-how did you know about that?”

“That time, when I gave the money back, it was to pay for the ferry on his way to the afterlife.”

“Does that mean you knew ahead of time? About what would happen to my boyfriend……?”

“That’s right. Shamans like me, we see people that are to die soon and become ghosts a bit differently. I’m talking about that time you and your boyfriend walked in.”

“He walked in doing a handstand.”

* * *

* * *

“… This is the end of the story. How is it, Prez? Does this help?”

I thought it through carefully.

“Is there no other story?”

“Well, there are more stories where the ghosts act upside down, such as running around while doing a handstand and what not, but they are all similar.”

Ghost.

Backwards.

I thought that those two words were the real keywords to this situation. I engraved both words to my mind as I once again asked GyeongWon a question.

“Why is it that the other infected didn’t move backwards the way Teacher HwaEun did, despite both of them being affected by the song?”

“No, there were some of them acting that way.”

Teacher HwaEun put her finger to her lips as she tried to remember.

“In the teacher’s lounge, I remember some of the teachers moving around while performing handstands.”

“Hmm. That first student that started acting crazy, wasn’t he swinging the paper cutter behind him instead of in front of him~ OwO? Yeah, he was attacking the people behind him.”

DukHun began to think about the actions of some of the other students. As I thought about it, he was right. The sensitive boy that the class president confronted had swung the paper cutter in a weird manner.

I quickly followed up with another question.

“Then what about the other people? It’s not like all of them were behaving backwards. Some of the people just went around spreading the song on their phones.”

“Not sure… the theory seems to be a bit of a stretch.”

GyeongWon tilted his head.

“I wonder if backwards really has a connection to this situation……?”

“There has to be a correlation.”

I stood firm on my theory.

“For now, let’s look forward while assuming there is a correlation. Let’s start with the premise that when you get infected by the music, you start doing something backwards.”

That phenomenon definitely couldn’t be explained by common sense and affected causality. Although my theory might have been a bit of a stretch, even a minuscule clue was something we should look into, as we had no other options.

“Can anyone think of something?”

I asked, but everyone just shook their heads.

As I thought it over, I started to mumble to myself as I reorganized what we knew.

“When you get infected by the music, you start doing something backwards. However, some of the students don’t seem to do anything backwards. Then that means……”

There can’t be any exceptions.

It was the very premise we were starting with!

“That means that those students only seem to be doing things normally, but are actually doing something backwards?”

At my rhetorical question, the other members tilted their heads in thought.

“So, they are doing something backwards? What would that be?”

Everyone was thinking deeply about it.

After a moment of silent thinking, JinHee suddenly tossed out her thoughts.

“Maybe it’s the song lyrics?”

“What?”

When everyone turned to look at JinHee in surprise, her expression turned cool, and she repeated what she said.

“The song lyrics. They’re really weird and don't really make sense.”

“Hmm, that’s true.”

GyeongWon nodded in agreement.

“I looked up those weird lyrics while we were waiting, and I don’t think they’re foreign words.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really. Even on the internet, there were many comments asking what language the lyrics were in. Even some of the foreigners were asking. It might be that there is something hidden in the lyrics.”

I quickly ordered the teacher.

“Teacher! Quickly look up the lyrics and write down the hook portion on some paper!”

“Uh, huh? Yeah, got it!”

The teacher was startled when the student suddenly gave her an order, but because of the situation, she quickly went to the laptop and began to handle the task.

To think I was ordering around someone much older than me. I did feel a little bit weird, possibly even a bit guilty.

“Here.”

HwaEun put the piece of paper in the middle of the table so that everyone could see.

“Let’s see.”

[Everybody. Fourincesss Oh Yeah O.E.O.U. eishieidum atomcadav rishizedneybruhmaz ohzi]

Those were the official lyrics of the weird hook portion of the song. Everyone tried reading it, but we only looked confused.

“We have to try reading this backward?”

“Zioh… Zmabruh… NeyDZe…ShiRi… Vadacatoma……”

“Even backwards, this makes no sense… UwU”

As SunAh mumbled the lyrics backwards, DukHun had let out his complaint.

“Hmmm…”

There definitely had to be some sort of clue here.

After all, those lyrics didn’t exist in my past life.

I continued to squeeze my brain for any ideas.

“Songs… backwards… no, reverse……?!”

As GyeongWon had been mumbling, he suddenly clapped his hand and jumped up.

“Ah! That’s it! Prez, it might be……!”

“What is it? Did you find it?”

Everyone looked in GyeongWon’s direction.

“There are so many ghost stories about music, so I couldn’t think of it, but now—that one comes to mind!”

“That one?”

“It’s called backmasking! Here, just listen to this. Then you’ll understand faster.”

“Back-what?”

GyeongWon took out his phone to share something with the confused club members.

He opened a music streaming app and searched for a song.

“This isn’t that… p-problematic song, right? OwO~”

DukHun started to cover his ears in fright, but GyeongWon shook his head in denial.

“Naw, this is a really old song. It’s the hook to some old rock artist’s song, but listen to this for now. Then I’ll explain.”

From GyeongWon's latest model phone, the noisy hook of a rock song began to sound.

♬ Why won’t my young heart change, wandering through these youthful days, why am I only hoping someone else would change me ♬

“Did you all listen?”

When GyeongWon asked, everyone just nodded.

“Oh my! It’s Seo TaeJi’s song! How nostalgic.”

“Seo TaeJi? It’s my first time hearing of it.”

“Wow, Seo TaeJi? How ancien-”

“SHUT IT!”

It seemed that only the lady in her thirties knew the song.

“Huhuhu.”

GyeongWon quietly chuckled as he messed around on the app again.

“This time, try listening to it in reverse.”

Then, GyeongWon turned the music on again.

♬ Need more blood, I’m hungry, want more blood. Hand me the child or it won’t be fun ♬

“KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

At that moment, the teacher jumped and started screaming.

“Ah FUCK!! That scared the shit out of me!!”

“You scared us, teach!”

“I thought my ears were going to fall off!”

Rather than the song, we were more surprised by Teacher HwaEun screaming. The thirty-four-year-old smiled awkwardly as she expressed her apologies for acting unfit her age.

“S-sorry kids… I was scared.”

“Haaaaa…”

We all focused on GyeongWon again.

“How does this work?”

“It’s a technique called backmasking.”

GyeongWon adjusted his glasses again as he prepared to explain further.

“Basically, by playing the music in reverse, you can find hidden messages sometimes—whether it’s coincidental or intentional.”

“What in the world?”

“Actually, the one with Seo TaeJi’s song was a coincidental one, which is why the pronunciation is weird and off. But in some of our more recent music, such as Big Bang’s ‘Let’s Not Fall in Love’, they do use this method to hide messages for the fans.”

“I see.”

“This new song by Fourincess, ‘Oh Yeah’, may be hiding a message in their nonsensical hook by using this method.”

“I see, by using this method!”

“That’s right. It’s not simply reading the lyrics backwards. This is about having the very phonetics of the sounds in the song being put in reverse. That’s how we can discover its true meaning.”

Everyone nodded in understanding at GyeongWon’s explanation, but it was difficult to mask the unease within everyone’s eyes.

“But doesn’t that mean in order to check the message, we have to play the song? Even if it is playing in reverse, I think it will be dangerous to listen to the song.”

“Actually, there is no reason you have to listen to it in reverse.”’

At my point, the lovable bastard confidently stated the solution as if he had already known we would be wary. He then took the paper where the teacher had written the lyrics down.

“We just have to romanize the lyrics to the actual pronunciations of words.”

“We have to romanize it?”

“Yes. Basically, using the true Korean pronunciation of the words instead of the written version, we transpose the phonetics of Korean into the English alphabet so that a foreigner can easily read it.”

Some of the club members didn’t seem to understand what was happening, as they had just nodded mechanically in response.

I decided to add onto GyeongWon’s explanation.

“Okay, so basically, Korean pronunciation, bam, into English alphabet.”

“Yeah. So, the Korean ‘hello’ would be written out as ‘annyeong’ using the alphabet.”

T/N: So, in translation this is very difficult to show. Korean word for ‘hello’ is 안녕. This word is pronounced and would be romanized to ‘annyeong’.

“I see.”

It was similar to the English writing we see under the subway stations. So, the city of Seoul would be ‘Seoul’ and Sillim Station would be ‘Sillim’.

“Now, I’ll be taking the song’s hook and romanizing it into the English alphabet.”

On the piece of paper, GyeongWon began to write down the phonetics of the song lyrics.

Oyoessioeyhtum etimkadablisigeadnoebmas oej

“Now, I just have to reverse this starting from the end. That way, we can tell how the phonetics of this would work when the song is reversed without having to actually listen to the song.”

“Ah, so that’s how we do it.”

Once again, he started to write down some English words on the piece of paper. This time, however, it was reversed.

Oyoessioeyhtum etimkadablisigeadnoebmas oej → Jeo sambeondaegisilbadakmite muthyeoisseoyo

T/N: The author took some creative liberties with his romanization.

“Now, we just have to read this out and change it back to Korean. Gosh my arms hurt.”

Possibly because he was rushed with how excited he was, GyeongWon seemed to have strained his wrists. He began to stretch them out.

SunAh, who was right next to him, faced down and began to try to read the English into Korean.

“Jeo… Sam… Beon??Oh, Sam bun……?”

She seemed to be struggling with transposing the English back to Korean.

“Hmm. Here, I’ll try drawing a line where each phonetic syllable should be divided up.”

I took the pen and started to divide the English letters up.

Jeo / sam / beon / dae / gi / sil / ba / dak / mi / te / mut / hyeo / is / seo / yo

I / am / bur / eed / un / der / the / thir / duh / wai / ting / room.

I am buried under the third waiting room.