Near the afternoon, at Sakura Autumn Private High School.
The sun still hung high, the weather clear.
The dismissal bell suddenly rang, and the once-quiet school building instantly became noisy.
In Class 2-1, Kanbara Shinji, who had been lying on his desk at the very back, straightened up the moment he heard the bell—scaring the chatting girls beside him.
Before they could even glare at him, Shinji shot them a cold, gloomy glance that shut them up immediately.
After lazily packing his things, Shinji yawned and walked straight out.
"Who… is that guy? I swear I've never seen him."
"That's Kanbara Shinji, that gloomy dude!"
"No memory of him at all."
"Of course. He sits in the back, comes to school exactly on time, sleeps the whole morning, eats lunch, then sleeps again until dismissal. After school he vanishes immediately. Most people in class barely know him. Some don't even realize he exists."
"Creepy…"
Shinji left the classroom, quickly went downstairs, crossed the courtyard, and arrived at a separate building.
This three-floor building housed the school's clubs.
He went to a classroom on the second floor.
A sign hung at the door: "Ghost Club."
He opened the door.
The room was completely dark, and he instinctively flipped on the light.
The instant the room lit up, two annoyed gazes hit him.
"Sorry," Shinji said expressionlessly, but still turned the lights off again.
"Shinji, I swear you did that on purpose. We're ghosts—people who don't exist in this school! Turning on the lights… are you looking down on our identity?"
"Oh."
That was all Shinji said before walking to the sofa, lying down, pulling a blanket over himself, and falling asleep in seconds.
"He's asleep?"
"Looks like it."
"No way… is this guy Nobita from Doraemon reincarnated?"
"Shinji fights like a beast though. More like a combination of Gian and Nobita reincarnated."
Nakamura Kota and Kobayashi Hideki laughed.
Suddenly the lights turned on again.
Both of them were about to yell at Shinji, but stopped—wait, wasn't he asleep?
They turned to the door and immediately froze, eyes lighting up.
Being stared at by two nerds, Shinkawa Chie remained expressionless, though she still asked:
"Is this the Ghost Club?"
She scanned the room suspiciously.
The clubroom looked like… a giant bedroom.
A low table in the center piled with chips and soda.
To the left, a bookshelf stuffed with manga, light novels, and countless figurines and embarrassing otaku items.
Three PCs lined up beside it.
Two arcade machines stood next to them.
At the front sat a massive 100-inch Sony TV loaded with consoles, controllers, and even a projector.
On the right, a sofa and a potted plant.
In the corner—an entire refrigerator.
Ghost Club?
Are you sure this isn't a gaming lounge?
"That's right, this is the Ghost Club," Nakamura Kota said, giving Hideki repeated secret signals with his eyes.
Hideki instantly straightened his posture, his pervy expression gone as he forced a calm and serious one.
"You want to join the club?"
Chie hesitated, then nodded.
"You can join—but you must tell us a horror story we haven't heard before, one that satisfies us. That's the requirement."
The Ghost Club was formed in their first year.
Their idea was simple: ghosts don't exist—just like people with extremely low presence.
Both of them were complete otaku, and even in Japan, otaku weren't welcomed socially.
So the name "Ghost Club" was partly self-mockery.
Still, some students interested in the supernatural occasionally came wanting to join.
Boys? Instant rejection.
Girls with low looks? Rejected too.
But someone like Shinkawa Chie, who was undeniably attractive—of course they'd welcome her with open arms.
Still, the "test" was necessary.
Otherwise, people would join and quit whenever they wanted.
Originally the test didn't even exist—
but in first year, a boy wanted to join, they rejected him, and he reported them to the teacher and student council.
After being scolded, they came up with this test.
Since then, anyone they didn't like was rejected, no matter how "scary" their story was.
"How picky…"
Chie didn't complain—on the contrary, she was thrilled.
She had loved supernatural stories since childhood and even founded an occult research club in junior high.
She had planned to create a new club in high school—until she found out this school already had one.
Though at first she suspected it was just a gaming club disguised as a ghost club…
now she was convinced she had simply misunderstood.
So—what story should she tell?
She pondered deeply.
They were obviously familiar with the classics, so she needed something recent.
Her eyes suddenly lit up.
"I'm not sure if you two senpai have heard of a photo that's been circulating online recently?"
A photo?
Kota and Hideki exchanged a look and shook their heads.
"It's a photo of… a giant eyeball."
Suddenly—
Kanbara Shinji sat bolt upright on the sofa.
Chie nearly screamed.
She had worked herself into the mood of storytelling and forgotten he was even there.
She had thought the sofa had a pillow on it—turns out it was a person.
"Who… is he?"
Kota and Hideki were startled too, but recovered quickly.
Hideki coughed.
"That guy? That's Kanbara Shinji, another member of the club. He was just role-playing an Egyptian mummy. I guess he's reached the 'resurrection' stage now. It's one of our club's traditions since we're the Ghost Club—we gotta have something unique."
Nakamura Kota gave him a secret thumbs-up.
I see…
Chie looked at Shinji, noticing his messy hair covering his eyes, giving him an air of indifference and coldness.
Through the strands she could see his gloomy gaze sweeping over her.
But she wasn't scared anymore. She'd seen her fair share of weird club members in junior high.
After one glance at Chie, Shinji simply pulled the blanket over himself and went back to sleep.
(End of Chapter)