Gayoon's Story (12)
Gayoon's Story (12)
"Yeah," Shujin sighed. "Your ahjusshi has gone to H-town to perform an exorcism."
"On whom?" Gayoon frowned.
"This kid who seemed to have come into the possession of an ouija board," Shujin replied. "Some relative gave it to him as a joke and he naively used it without following the instructions. He ended up summoning the ghost of some colonel who died in a war many years ago and is refusing to leave his body."
"I thought ahjusshi only focuses on finding the ghost which killed his wife," Gayoon said, putting the egg rolls on a plate and placing another pot on the stove to cook the rice.
"Yeah, but these side exorcisms brought him a lot of money," Shujin stated. "Even in this state, the guy is really hell bent on making money!"
"Well he's got to live somehow," Gayoon pointed out. "His kids aren't gonna help him since he's living far away from them. This is his only hope. Besides, traveling to other places and searching for vengeful spirits do cost money."
It was true. Her ahjusshi was fixated on finding his wife's killer but going to those places cost a lot of money. Since he no longer had access to any of his accounts, he resorted to perform exorcisms and was surprisingly good at it. He was a quick learner and using the tech Shinjin made for him, he could communicate with spirits like a medium. So far, he had not failed a single exorcism and yet, was unable to find his wife's killer.
"How are the preparations for the spring festival going?" Shujin asked.
"Not good!" Gayoon exclaimed. "Our class is supposed to do a bakery but Minjung is in charge. At first everything was going smoothly until Minjung stopped coming to school."
"Minjung…" Shujin tried to recall the name. "Isn't she the same girl who keeps on tormenting you at school?"
Gayoon set the plates on the dinner table as she replied, "She tries. Too bad she's too dumb. She can't even faze me."
"Why did she stop coming to school?"
"I don't know," Gayoon shrugged. "In fact, she disappeared after the cheerleading auditions last week and the very next day, she was absent from school. Her parents told the school that she came down with chicken pox."
Shujin frowned but did not think too much into it. Gayoon sat down next to her grandmother and both of them said a quick prayer before digging into the food. Gayoon was about to put in more egg rolls in her mouth when the landline phone rang up.
"I'll get it!" Gayoon said and jumped off her seat to dash towards the phone.
"Hello," she greeted. There was a faint sound of breathing from the other end but the caller did not reply.
"Hello? Who is this?" she asked but the caller was still silent. She frowned and checked the caller ID. To her surprise, the ID was hidden. Was it a private number? Why would someone hide their number like this?
"Who is this?" she asked loudly.
"What happened, Gayoon?" Shujin asked.
"I don't know," Gayoon replied. "Some idiot is on the other line but isn't talking."
"Just hang up the phone!" Shujin said in annoyance. Gayoon obeyed her advice and hung up the phone. She was heading for the dining table again when suddenly, there was a noise of something crashing upstairs.
"What the hell?" Shujin yelled. Gayoon stood up in shock and dashed towards her room from where the noise originated from. Shujin followed her granddaughter to her bedroom and they entered it to see a strange sight.
Gayoon's window pane was shattered by a large stone. Shards of glass were scattered throughout the floor and to her horror, some of her clothes were also strewn across the floor.
"What the hell happened here?" Shujin gasped. She picked up the rock which was probably from their garden downstairs. Gayoon rushed to the window, checking if there was anyone on the road but the street was empty.
"Why would someone do this?" she whispered. Shujin was checking her closet to see if anything was missing. Gayoon's money bank and all other valuables were untouched. The only thing that was messed around with, was the lingerie drawer.
"Gayoon," she began. "Someone looked through your...private stuff."
Gayoon moved towards the closet and to her disgust, someone did touch her lingerie. The very thought of some pervert rummaging through her belongings mortified her and she noticed that one pair of her panties were missing.
Shujin watched her granddaughter in alarm as the latter's face was turning green. Gayoon looked sickened by the act and rushed to the bathroom to throw up in the toilet. Scary ghosts did not bother her but perverts made her feel dirty and sick. The very thought of some creep possessing her panties was making her blood boil.
Finally, after a while, she emerged from the bathroom. Shujin was worried for Gayoon.
"Could it be a spirit?" Shujin asked.
"I don't know," Gayoon replied. "But we should inform the cops! Someone broke into our house and stole my…"
She could not bring herself to say it out loud. "Moreover, he even broke my window!" she added. "We need to call the cops right now!"
"I'll call them," Shujin said. "You should go downstairs and wait there. I don't want to leave you alone even for a minute tonight. What if the creep comes back?"
Gayoon nodded and followed her grandmother's orders. Shujin dialed the police emergency number and narrated the whole story to the telephone operator. They assured her that a patrol car was on its way to their home.
Half an hour later, the doorbell rang. Shujin opened the front door to find two policemen.
"We received a call from this house that it had been broken into," one of them said. He was a middle aged policeman, probably in his late forties or early fifties. The other one was a little younger, in his thirties.
"I'm Detective Junwan and this is Officer Lee, my partner," Junwan stated. "We were in the neighborhood when the operators informed us about the break in."
"Yes!" Shujin replied. "Someone broke into my granddaughter's room."
"Can we come in and investigate?" Lee asked. Shujin nodded and stepped aside to let them in. Gayoon stood up and bowed at the men. Lee went upstairs to investigate while Junwan motioned Gayoon to sit down on the couch.
"What happened, dear? Junwan asked in a gentle tone. The girl was not scared like most victims but was determined. Most of the time, many women were too afraid to speak out against these sorts of incidents. It was either because they were worried about societal prejudice or fear that their stalkers would retaliate and make their lives even more miserable.
Sadly, the latter was true for almost all the assault cases they had investigated. Gayoon, on the other hand, looked a little sickly but confident.
"We were having dinner," she began to narrate. "When I received a call on the landline phone. The caller was silent and did not say anything. The number was hidden so it might have been a private number. I hung up the phone when suddenly, there was a loud shattering noise which came from my room. We went there and saw that the window was broken and my clothes were thrown all over the floor. And…"
She took a deep breath before saying, "A pair of pink panties are missing from my closet."
Junwa wrote her testimony down while Shujin stood nearby, listening to Gayoon's statement. Lee came downstairs after taking photographs of the scene.
"Someone did break in," he declared. "I found footsteps on the window sill."
Junwan turned to Shujin. "I would advise you two to come to the police station with us to file the FIR," he suggested. "The sooner you do, the quicker we can take action."
Shujin bit her lip, looking worried. Junwan knew that most civilians were too afraid to go to the police station to file the complaints but there were some procedures they must follow. To his surprise, it was Gayoon who spoke up.
"We'll go," she said. "We'll file the complaint."
"Gayoon, it might be a very tiring process," Shujin pointed out but Gayoon shook her head.
"I'm going to join the police someday," she stated. "If I don't start fulfilling my duties now, then I'll never become a good cop!"
Junwan was very much impressed by the girl's spirit. She was preparing herself to face the challenges ahead and this was a small but very crucial step. This girl would make a great detective someday, he thought.
Shujin conceded and the two policemen waited for the women to grab their coats before meeting them outside.
"Let's go," Gayoon said.They got into the police car and Junwan drove off towards the station. After a while, he pulled up in front of the station and unlocked the car doors for the women who were sitting in the back.
As Gayoon got out of the car, she noticed a familiar figure, standing behind one of the large patrol cars. The figure looked at the station, pacing to and fro as if debating with herself whether to go in or not. She looked terrified and even though her hoodie was pulled up, Gayoon could tell that the girl was completely distraught.
"Minjung?" she frowned. But before she could call Minjung, the latter had spotted her. Mortified by Gayoon's sudden appearance, Minjung turned around and ran off, disappearing into the darkness.
"Let's go," Junwan offered. Gayoon nodded and followed him but kept on glancing backwards.
Why was she here? Gayoon wondered as she entered the station.