I Returned as a High School Girl

Chapter 170: There’s Something There (2)

Kang Ra-Eun’s mind raced as soon as she saw the flashing eyes within the bushes. She thought of all kinds of supernatural beings that it could be, like a will-o’ the-wisp or a virgin ghost.

‘But... Something’s off.’

Ra-Eun had never seen a ghost in her entire life, but she felt something entirely different from the unknown fear that one would feel from an astral being. She narrowed her eyes and looked carefully at the being hidden in the bushes. She was worried about what might happen if it actually was a ghost, but something else came to mind as well.

‘It might be a person.’

It could be a mountaineer that happened to have been passing by, or it could even be a staff member. However, unlike the calm Ra-Eun, the other three women who had been on their way to the bathroom with her weren’t able to keep their composure. Their legs were shaking and were about to scream at any moment.

Ra-Eun caught their attention before they could.

“...Isn’t that a dog?”

Jin Seo-Yeong was startled and glanced at the two female staff members.

“S-Sunbae! You shouldn’t s-swear in front of other people...”

Seo-Yeong thought that Ra-Eun had cursed from being so frightened. If cameras had been rolling, it would have been an NG cut for sure. However, Ra-Eun had not cursed.

“No, not that. I’m saying that I think it’s an actual dog.”

“Huh?” Seo-Yeong said in confusion.

“Just a sec.”

Ra-Eun picked up a stick that happened to be on the ground, and slowly parted the bushes. The four-legged beast came into view.

“It really is... like you had said, sunbae.”

A fairly large country dog was staring fixedly at Ra-Eun and the others. Seo-Yeong, who liked cats and dogs very much, sighed in relief and was about to approach the dog.

“Come,” she remarked as she extended out her hand and clicked her tongue multiple times.

Just then, Ra-Eun stretched her arm out to the side to prevent Seo-Yeong from approaching it any further.

“S-Sunbae?” Seo-Yeong stuttered in confusion.

Meanwhile, Ra-Eun’s eyes were dead set on the brown dog.

“Wait. I don’t have a good feeling about it.”

The dog was acting strangely.

Grrr...!

As if it had understood Ra-Eun, the dog exposed its true nature by growling while baring its sharp teeth.

‘I knew it.’

Back when Ra-Eun had still been a bodyguard, she had a client that had a phobia of dogs. They had owned many companion dogs in their life, but had one day developed a trauma of dogs after being bitten badly by one of them.

Ra-Eun had seen a few dogs bearing hostility to her client when they had gone to the countryside to participate in an event, and the reaction of the dog currently in front of her looked exactly like them. That was why Ra-Eun had not let her guard down unlike Seo-Yeong, who had been saved from danger thanks to Ra-Eun.

“S-Sunbae! Shouldn’t we run?” Seo-Yeong exclaimed in worry.

“I’m sure it’ll gladly chase after us the moment we turn our backs.”

It was bad to turn one’s back on an aggressive animal, because they would take it as that they had the upper hand, and would attack fiercely.

Ra-Eun raised the stick in her hand and strongly swung it down onto the ground.

Thwack—!

The brown dog strongly flinched from the large impact sound. Ra-Eun did not take her eyes off of the dog while holding onto the stick.

‘Ghosts aside, I can hold my own against anything alive!’

Ra-Eun had absolutely no reason or need to be scared. She let out hostile intent as strong as the dog’s. Since animals possessed instincts far more developed than humans, the dog was instinctively able to tell. As the battle of wills continued, the dog lowered its tail first.

Strength left Seo-Yeong’s legs once the dog ran back into the woods, and she sank to her knees.

“That scared me to death. Sigh...”

“Are you okay?”

Ra-Eun helped Seo-Yeong up.

“Thank you, sunbae.”

“No problem. That aside...”

.

Ra-Eun noticed something strange as she looked back at the direction the dog had run off to. It had blatantly exuded strong hostility while baring its teeth, but Ra-Eun could feel that she had not been the target of its hostility.

Had it been toward Seo-Yeong, who had tried to approach it? No, it had been growling while looking at the female staff members that had been with them. Ra-Eun looked around for them, but...

“Where did those two go?”

They were nowhere in sight.

Seo-Yeong had also belatedly realized it and replied in confusion, “I-I’m not sure. They were right beside me until just a while ago... could they have run away because they were scared?”

“Well, maybe.”

The first thing that activated when a person got surprised was the fight or flight response, so it was no surprise that they had run away.

“Let’s go back to the set too.”

“Okay, sunbae. Let’s hurry. I’m too scared to stay here any longer.”

Ra-Eun also felt the same way.

***

The set had become complete chaos while Ra-Eun and the others had gone to the bathroom.

“Didn’t Ra-Eun and Seo-Yeong say they were going to the bathroom?” the director asked.

“Yes, Director.”

“What’s taking them so long? You don’t think something happened to them, do you?”

Director Choi wanted to avoid any more incidents. It was bad enough that the shoot had been delayed a few days because of the ghost incident, but it was highly likely that the film itself needed to be canceled if anything happened to their lead and supporting actors.

Director Choi’s eyes were filled with anxiety.

“We’re back.”

However, it was not long until Ra-Eun and Seo-Yeong’s voices melted away that anxiety.

“Ra-Eun! What took you two so long?! We were worried sick!”

“I’m sorry. We had a bit of an incident on the way.”

“I-Incident?” Director Choi’s shoulders strongly flinched. “What incident? Tell me in detail!”

Ra-Eun quickly explained as he urged her. “We came across a feral dog on our way to the bathroom. It took some time to chase it away.”

They would have gotten hurt if they had just run away, so Ra-Eun needed to have a battle of wills against it until it stood down first. As a result, they had returned to the set safe and sound. Ra-Eun and Seo-Yeong were actresses; their careers would suffer massively if they had gotten scratched, especially on their faces.

Director Choi was relieved after hearing the whole story.

“I’m glad you’re both okay.”

Ra-Eun and Seo-Yeong were fine, but there were two more people unaccounted for.

“Director. There were two other staff members with us. Where are they? I think they came back before us,” Ra-Eun asked.

“Were there other people who had gone to the bathroom?” the director asked the other head staff members.

They quickly checked, and answered after a moment, “No, there weren’t.”

“What? That can’t be...”

Ra-Eun and Seo-Yeong refuted their claims.

“There definitely were staff members that accompanied us. Two women. Right, sunbae?”

“Seo-Yeong is right. There were definitely two with us.”

“Really? Okay, I’ll check.”

They paused the shoot preparations momentarily to do a roll call. There were a total of seventy-eight staff members. Among them, the two women that had accompanied them to the bathroom were...

“Not here. See?”

“...”

“...”

Ra-Eun and Seo-Yeong were lost for words. Just then, Ra-Eun recalled the growling dog. It had not been growling at Ra-Eun nor Seo-Yeong, but the unknown beings that had disguised themselves as staff members.

After realizing that...

“O-Oh no! R-Ra-Eun!”

“Sunbae! Get a hold of yourself!”

...Ra-Eun fainted from shock.

***

That day’s shoot had been put on hold due to Ra-Eun passing out. If there was anything worthy of relief on that day, it would be that the production team interpreted her collapse as due to the relief of extreme tension after facing the feral dog, instead of the fact that she had been accompanied by ghosts.

Her fear of ghosts had managed to be kept hidden from the staff members, but it had not been enough to fool her manager, Shin Yu-Bin. Yu-Bin visited Ra-Eun’s house as an excuse to check up on her condition.

She asked as soon as she arrived, “You’re scared of horror, aren’t you?”

Yu-Bin’s sharp question pierced straight into Ra-Eun’s heart. Ra-Eun wondered if she should deny it at first, but seeing how sure Yu-Bin was, she decided to just give up and admit it.

“Yes, you’re right.”

“I’m surprised you managed to keep it a secret for this long.”

“I’m not even sure that’s true at this point.”

Ra-Eun had been scared for real, but the staff members had just interpreted her fright as a realistic performance. She had been able to keep her weakness a secret due the continuance of such misunderstandings. However, such a thing had not worked on Yu-Bin, since she spent the most time with Ra-Eun after Seo Yi-Seo.

Yu-Bin sighed softly. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I’m sure you know why, Miss Manager.”

Yu-Bin had unconsciously acknowledged Ra-Eun’s vague answer. Considering Ra-Eun’s personality, she wouldn’t proudly expose her weaknesses to others. No matter how close of acquaintances they were to her, she would never tell them first.

The same had gone for Yi-Seo. She had only found out about Ra-Eun’s fear of horror because they had coincidentally watched a horror movie together; if they never had, it was highly likely that Yi-Seo would have never found out about it.

However, Yu-Bin was still glad that she had discovered another side of Ra-Eun even after all the time that they had spent together.

“Let me know if there’s anything else that you can’t deal with besides horror,” she expressed.

“I’ll try.”

Yu-Bin giggled at Ra-Eun, who wasn’t able to be honest. They still knew far too little about one another despite having worked together for so long. Hence, Yu-Bin had decided on a new goal in life; she would work hard to become someone who knew Ra-Eun better than anyone else.

1. A Korean virgin ghost is the spirit of an unmarried woman in Korean folklore. They usually have long black hair and wear a white robe.

2. This phrase can also be interpreted as a swear in Korean, something along the lines of “piece of shit.”