Chapter 66
“Please calm down, sir.”
Dan Seohyuk spoke gently, as if soothing him. He placed his hand over the wrinkled hand gripping my collar and carefully pried it away—very carefully.
“I saw that name written in the notebook, so I thought I should ask, just in case.”
“Notebook?”
Only then did Park Chungman’s gaze move to the keychain doll and notebook in my hand.
His eyes lingered especially long on the keychain doll.
“This is… the doll I gave to Gyeongmi.”
“What? That creepy doll?”
Jang Hyunwoo, who had somehow come up behind me and Dan Seohyuk, blurted out tactlessly. I jabbed him in the side with my elbow, and Dan Seohyuk clamped a hand over his mouth—but the damage was already done.
“Creepy?” Park Chungman asked, puzzled.
As I wondered what to do, my eyes met Dan Seohyuk’s. He gestured silently, as if telling me to handle it myself.
We need to hear what’s in the notebook too.
Since we were the ones who barged in first, there was a good chance Park Chungman wouldn’t speak unless we laid our cards on the table as well.
Hoo.
At the sound of my sigh, Jang Hyunwoo flinched. Looks like he knew he’d messed up.
“We came across this doll by coincidence too. But after that, strange things started happening.”
I conveyed only the necessary information, keeping it as brief as possible.
If you made a wish, it would be granted—but misfortune would follow. Jang Hyunwoo had been injured and hospitalized as the price for wishing on the doll, and it seemed like a spirit had possessed it.
“…The ghost’s body was covered in writing. Even its face.”
“Writing…?”
“Yes. There’s writing on the back of his hand too—can you see it?”
When I gestured to him, Jang Hyunwoo quickly held out his left hand.
Park Chungman rubbed his dim eyes and stared for a long moment, then his face crumpled in despair.
“It’s exactly the same as what was written on Gyeongmi.”
“It appeared suddenly. There’s no pain, though.”
“I have it too.”
I rolled up my pant leg.
“Hiiik!”
My exposed calf and shin were densely covered in writing, not a patch of my original skin visible.
It’s gotten worse.
It was more severe than it had been this morning. As I was internally startled, Dan Seohyuk bent down.
“You.”
With a sharp gaze I’d never seen before, he stared at my leg, then slowly lifted his eyes to my face.
“Since when?”
“……”
I avoided his gaze.
“Ma Choyeon.”
He usually called me “Peanut,” but only used my full name like this when he was furious!?
“It’s nothing important.”
“This isn’t important? Are you kidding me right now?”
“There’s something more important going on.”
“You seriously—!”
Dan Seohyuk was about to raise his voice, but he glanced at Park Chungman and clamped his mouth shut. His thick eyebrows twitched irritably.
“We’ll talk about this later.”
I really don’t want to.
I pretended not to hear him and looked away. That was when Park Chungman, who had been silently waiting, finally spoke.
“Do you know what the writing says?”
“The writing on my leg is so scrawled I can’t make it out. But on my friend’s hand, it says, ‘Please save me.’”
“On Gyeongmi’s body too…”
Park Chungman muttered in a pained voice, bowing his head deeply.
“There were words like that… carved in with a razor.”
“…….”
“Gah!”
The breath I’d been holding burst out belatedly in shock. The notebook’s records flashed through my mind.
That it was unclear what the writing on her back had been carved with.
They didn’t write it in detail, but they knew something was off.
Maybe they’d deliberately looked away. It must have been horrifying.
All that abuse—and the violence too.
“Was the one who tormented patient Im Gyeongmi… her boyfriend?”
The hospital room lights flickered. It was so sudden that even Jang Hyunwoo looked around in alarm.
“…Yes.”
Park Chungman clenched the keychain doll tightly, his face contorted in pain.
“There was one more child at home—Gyeongmi’s younger sibling. A sick child who could only lie in bed…”
Another truth not written in the notebook.
“He threatened Gyeongmi. Said if she reported what he’d done, he’d kill her sibling and me in a horrible way. …To Gyeongmi, I was a burden.”
“Grandfather…”
“I was her guardian, yet I was the one being protected…. When she said she was fine, I really thought she was.”
Large teardrops fell onto the blanket.
“But it wasn’t fine. She was screaming for help every day, and I realized far too late. She was a child who’d lost her parents and had no one but me to rely on.”
Jang Hyunwoo hesitated, then hurriedly brought over an entire box of tissues and offered it. Park Chungman didn’t even pull one out—he just held the box in his hands.
“When I finally realized and tried desperately to stop it, no one believed me. That man’s family was rich, and I had nothing.”
“Why not? Couldn’t your granddaughter say that her boyfriend was the culprit?” Jang Hyunwoo asked, unable to understand.
“By then, Gyeongmi had already lost all her courage. That man crushed our family completely with his wealth and power.”
“With money, lies become truth,” Park Chungman added bitterly.
He said that even when they reported it, officials bribed with back money steered everything in the man’s favor.
The world really isn’t on the victim’s side.
My chest felt tight, and I turned my head toward the window.
“Gah!”
I hadn’t expected the keychain ghost to be standing outside—but there it was!
“What is it—aaah!! A g-g-ghost!!”
“What? What are you talking about?”
Jang Hyunwoo followed my gaze, screamed, and collapsed onto the floor. Seeing his face on the verge of tears, Dan Seohyuk frowned deeply.
Judging by Dan Seohyuk’s and Park Chungman’s reactions, it seemed they couldn’t see the keychain ghost.
Why?
Is it only visible to Hyunwoo and me, since we have writing on our bodies?
The keychain ghost wasn’t looking at us. With a frighteningly blank expression, it stared only at Park Chungman.
And Park Chungman himself looked utterly confused, as if he saw nothing at all.
But only for a moment.
As soon as he blinked his wide, terrified eyes, the keychain ghost vanished in an instant—just like the first time it had appeared.
“What did you see?” Dan Seohyuk asked seriously, still thinking a ghost was there.
“It’s gone now.”
“It was there earlier?”
“Yeah. I think only Hyunwoo and I could see it… It was the ghost inhabiting the keychain doll.”
“Th-that ghost—”
Park Chungman hurriedly pulled out his phone and joined the conversation. Opening his old flip phone and slowly pressing the buttons, he held the screen out to me.
“Did it look like this?”
In the photo gallery was an image of a young woman with a bright, innocent smile.
Her long hair was tied high, emphasizing her flawless white skin. There was no writing on her face, and perhaps because of her cheerful smile, she looked so different that I couldn’t easily match her to the keychain ghost.
As I stared at the photo, Dan Seohyuk spoke first.
“Yes.”
“How did you know? Last time you saw her, her face was covered in writing—it must’ve been hard to even see her properly.”
“I have a good eye.”
He said calmly that you could tell from her features. …He’d really looked that closely at such a terrifying ghost face?
“Ah….”
Beside our trivial exchange, a heartbreaking sound escaped.
It was the sound of Park Chungman collapsing as he realized the ghost in the keychain doll was his granddaughter.
Seeing the old man silently shedding tears, not even sobbing, Jang Hyunwoo awkwardly patted his back.
“Then was the keychain ghost—no, patient Im Gyeongmi—turned into a ghost because of her resentment?”
“I don’t know.”
Though he didn’t say it out loud because Park Chungman was there, Jang Hyunwoo looked deeply wronged.
And understandably so. If the keychain ghost really was Im Gyeongmi herself, it would make sense to wonder why she wasn’t going after her boyfriend for revenge, instead of bothering someone completely unrelated.
It’s not like I can ask her directly.
She didn’t seem like the kind of kindly ghost who’d appear just because I called.
To be honest, I was too scared to want to see her again anyway.
Still, it was clear that the keychain ghost was aware of this place.
I might not be able to talk to her, but I could at least speak to another person connected to the case.
“Jang Hyunwoo.”
“Huh?”
“The nurse ghost that appears at night—around what time did you say she comes?”
“Usually at dawn. Don’t tell me you’re planning to talk to that ghost?”
“Yeah. If she’s the nurse who wrote the records for this ward, she’d know the most about what happened.”
Since she appeared every night, she’d be easier to approach than the keychain ghost. I hadn’t seen her myself, but judging by Jang Hyunwoo’s reaction, she didn’t seem as frightening.
That was how I reached my decision—but Jang Hyunwoo made a horrified face. What’s his problem?
“Sometimes I really can’t tell whether you’re brave or fearless.”
Even Dan Seohyuk shook his head in disbelief.
But if I have to face a ghost anyway, isn’t it better to deal with the one that looks less scary!?
Feeling just a little wronged, I stuck out my lower lip in a pout.
