There's a kind of mystery that doesn't introduce itself with thunder or suspenseful music. No dramatic lighting. No murder weapon. Just a quiet repetition. The kind of repetition that becomes too deliberate to be a coincidence, too subtle to be paranoia.
I believe in vending machines that eat coins. I also believe in cafeteria milk that expires two days early, and in exam scores that defy logic. But I didn't believe a person could lose the same shoe—only the left one—in the exact same spot every week.
Every Tuesday at 4:45 PM behind the vending machine, beside the west wall of the school library, there was a shoe. Always the same: pale blue, schoolgirl-style, left-foot loafer. Like it had belonged to someone too gentle to leave a footprint.
I'm not the kind of guy who chases urban legends or writes diary entries in blood-red ink. I don't believe that I'll meet a supernatural being, or that I'm somehow in the world of a fairy tale like Cinderella. Afterall, I barely believe in morning classes. But when something appears exactly the same way for three weeks straight, in a place where no one ever claims it—
—You start to wonder if it's claiming you.
Week one: I ignored it.
Week two: I assumed it was a prank.
Week three: I crouched to have a closer look.
Week four: I finally touched it.
Curiosity won.
As I crouched down and touched it, I noticed that the shoe was dry, but cold —and heavier than it should've been. Like it remembered walking through more than just hallways. And then—just as I stood back up—
She was there.
A girl—maybe my age, maybe older, maybe none of the above—wearing the right shoe, just the right one. The other foot was bare. She just stood there and her uniform was spotless. Her hair was as immaculate as a church nun's vow.
But her presence? Off. Like a photograph someone accidentally captured through a time machine.
She stood beside the vending machine like she'd been waiting. Like she'd always been there, smiling. The kind of smile that doesn't ask for anything—but still expects everything in return. I didn't say anything because nothing came to my mind that sounded right.
Ghost etiquette isn't something they teach you, even in cram school. But maybe this wasn't the beginning of a ghost story. Maybe it was the end of a long-forgotten one.
Or maybe—
It was the first Tuesday I was finally worth haunting.