"So it's true—you really can see me." The tilted-headed female ghost whispered right into my ear.
My heart seemed to stop beating. Chilling air grew stronger around the nape of my neck. I still didn't dare open my eyes, afraid the female ghost in the mirror would detect my lie.
I tried to stay calm. My brain raced, searching for a way out of this situation. Suddenly fainting was obviously out of the question. In the end, I decided to rub my eyes and pretend a stray lock of hair had gotten in them.
I stared straight at the mirror with a blank expression—as if the figure behind me were nothing more than a dusty reflection in the glass. Calmly, I removed Zayn's hands from around my waist and walked toward the mirror as though there were nothing in its reflection.
I stuck to the golden rule: never give them a stage.
"Sis Yuna, where are you going?" Zayn whined like a little kid who'd lost his candy.
Still rubbing my eyes, I turned around. I almost burst out laughing when I saw him standing there like a meerkat. His knees were slightly bent, his neck stretched long, and his fingers were half-curled downward like tiger claws.
"I'm not going anywhere. I just want to look in the mirror and see if there's hair in my eye."
"Don't go too far." The amoeba that hadn't had time to divide yet started whining again.
I rolled my eyes in exasperation. How far could the bed possibly be from the mirror? Had my only little brother suddenly developed amnesia and decided my room was the size of a soccer field?
"Can you still see that ghost?" I asked curiously.
Zayn shook his head. He was telling the truth—he'd just gotten spectacularly unlucky and suddenly gained the ability to see the apparition of that tilted-headed female ghost. Poor kid, I thought. I knew how it felt. I used to get sick because of it too.
"How can you stand the way they look, Sis? You can still see them, right?"
I shot him a glare. Zayn's mouth was practically begging to be duct-taped shut. I quickly ran over and clapped a hand over it. It would be bad if the tilted-headed female ghost heard him say that.
Suddenly, a heart-wrenching moan echoed through the room. "Help me...."
I gasped. My blood ran cold. Strangely, Zayn's expression didn't change. He only struggled because my hand was covering part of his face. That meant the kid couldn't hear what I was hearing.
Without a second thought, I grabbed the liquid mosquito repellent from the table and sprayed the chemicals blindly into the air.
Pssshhh!
Zayn and I both started coughing. My throat immediately felt awful. It was dry, then itchy, as if a whole army of red ants had taken up residence inside it. I needed water.
"Cough, cough. What are you doing, Sis? I can't breathe!" Zayn pushed me aside while my eyes searched for the water bottle I usually kept on the table beside the liquid mosquito repellent.
"Sorry, sorry. There was a cockroach. It was flying around, so I reacted," I explained.
"That's not getting rid of a cockroach. That's trying to kill us both," Zayn grumbled.
I grinned. Cupping my hands together, I said, "Sorry."
Zayn snorted. Clutching his throat, he ran to the bedroom door. He opened it wide, then sat cross-legged in the doorway. He looked like a panhandler at a saint's pilgrimage site.
My room, which had been noisy with the sound of both of us, suddenly fell silent. I felt uneasy. My eyes immediately swept over every corner, searching for the tilted-headed female ghost. Thankfully, she'd disappeared. This stuff really was effective.
I shook the can in my hand. There was barely any left. Tomorrow, I'd ask Mom to buy a new one.