Stella refused the appearance on the Japanese variety show that had been proposed a few days ago.
That was only natural.
'It's obvious they're trying to pair me up with that actress.'
She couldn't let such a transparent scheme work.
Stella smiled brightly and rejected the PD's offer.
Getting entangled with that actress would not only be a nuisance to herself, but also significantly irritate Asher Baldwin.
In the first place, Stella still didn't understand why Asher had come to Japan.
"Still, wouldn't it be good to go out once?"
"Eung? Why? Never mind."
"Didn't you become friends with those actors?"
"Not really?"
To begin with, they didn't have any intention of getting close to her either.
She still felt a sense of kinship with Seoyeon.
Because she felt they were fundamentally similar.
However, after staying at Seoyeon's house, she wondered if that too was a misconception.
"Today, the PD contacted me once again."
"Why? Another variety show?"
"Actor Jo Seo-hee is looking for you."
"...Huuung."
On a variety show? For her?
Stella looked at Asher with a puzzled face.
Of course, Asher only shrugged and didn't give her an answer.
"I'm still not interested."
Stella said so and spun around.
However, her footsteps as she walked away were strangely light, and Asher smiled unwittingly.
She's a dishonest child.
At first, she was quite annoying, but now he knew how Stella would act when she answered like that.
***
'There's no one to cook.'
Seoyeon became serious.
Jo Seo-hee, Lee Ji-yeon, and the Japanese actor Reika.
None of the three could cook.
It was to the point where Seoyeon was the best at cooking among them.
Jo Seo-hee, who had been speaking like a leader at first, also withered the moment the cooking issue came up.
Reika... why did she even come out here?
'Isn't she doing that to emphasize her lady persona?'
When an anxious Jo Seo-hee snapped open her fan and waved it, she, not to be outdone, opened her fan and waved it too.
'As expected, she's no match for a real villainess.'
Jo Seo-hee, a villainess by nature, looked like a magnificent noble lady just holding a fan, but Reika was at best a villainess-in-training.
She dressed up quite convincingly, but compared to the real deal, she fell short.
'Anyway, that's not the important thing.'
The problem was food.
To be honest, Seoyeon wasn't at the level of being completely incapable of cooking.
It was just that whenever she tried to cook, Youngbin would freak out and stop her.
She could roughly adjust the seasoning, but the cooking Seoyeon could do was strictly limited to a level she herself could eat.
The ingredients were limited too.
Basically, without ham and eggs, Seoyeon couldn't cook anything at all.
'So I said I couldn't, but...'
Seoyeon quietly looked at the ladies huddled together.
"Did you say Seoyeon picked up a gas burner?"
"What's a gas burner?"
"You put butane gas in this and make it work, right? Is that correct?"
"Even if you ask me, I don't know."
Lee Ji-yeon and Jo Seo-hee were having a conversation like that.
To think they could be so cautious over a single gas burner.
『Do you know how to use it, Reika?』
『M-My house uses induction stoves.』
『What's an induction stove?』
Seoyeon had never felt Jo Seo-hee was more of a lady than today.
No, at this point, isn't she just lacking common sense?
Of course, saying that, Seoyeon had also never used a gas burner.
Wasn't this something only ajusshis used?
Recalling her past life memories, her past self couldn't even go near fire.
Well, they wouldn't leave someone with mental issues near fire.
Who knows what they might do.
Even if she explained a hundred times that she wasn't like that, to the people around her, she was no different from a prospective arsonist.
"...First, I'll at least go get some ingredients."
"Not just ingredients, we need to find a tent too."
Come to think of it, they were currently thrown right into the middle of Aokigahara Forest.
The only ones with them were the cameramen.
Of course, there was no danger since CCTVs were installed everywhere for safety and filming.
However, the forest was so dense that it was easy to get lost if they weren't careful.
"If we all go look together, it feels like we'll all go missing together."
"I can find them, though."
The forest was so quiet that it wasn't difficult to hear the footsteps of people wandering around.
Considering the radius, she could find mostly everyone.
"...I don't know if you're joking or not."
Jo Seo-hee looked at Seoyeon with a drained face.
More than that, what she said about bears appearing didn't seem like a lie.
She looked it up out of anxiety, and it seemed accidents of bears appearing during camping in Japan didn't happen rarely.
"Seoyeon, seriously, can you fight a bear?"
"Hey, Jo Seo-hee. What are you seriously asking? Food, we need to find food. I'm hungry!"
Both the tent and the food rations were scattered throughout this forest.
Naturally, they couldn't use any other tools.
The only thing allowed to them was, at best, their smartphones.
'...I should have gotten Stella's number.'
Seoyeon seriously thought so.
Because looking up information about Stella, she seemed to be quite good at cooking.
She was posting the food she cooked on Insta right now.
'Just in case, I told the staff.'
Seoyeon was that desperate.
To the point of having to call that annoying Stella.
If she knew this would happen, she should have at least asked for her number.
The problem was, if that too was fabricated, even if Stella came, it would just add one more noisy lady.
"First we need to find the tools, but what if we get lost? We can't just rely on Ju Seoyeon to find us, right?"
"We can just mark the trees as we go."
"That works?"
Lee Ji-yeon and Jo Seo-hee were having that conversation and discussing who would go first.
『M-Me too! I don't know what you're saying, but me too!』
『Ah, Reika wants to go too?』
For a moment, Reika was flustered because Jo Seo-hee called her by her name so naturally, but then she nodded.
Anyway, with Stella not here either, if they stayed like this, their screentime would be deleted.
"Umm, can't I just do all the finding, and the others do the rest?"
Seoyeon said that seriously.
To be honest, this situation was a bit unfamiliar to Seoyeon.
In most variety shows, Seoyeon was treated as the problem child; someone else had never been the problem child.
'Seriously, I miss Jungwoo sunbae.'
If Park Jungwoo were here, he would have taken care of everything perfectly.
He was a perfect person no matter what, so Seoyeon had never seen Park Jungwoo unable to do something.
Except for being worse than Seoyeon at games, when looking at him on a deserted island, he cooked very well too.
He could even build a house out of wood.
'Just what did he learn so much from his father?'
Anyway, enough escapism.
"First, I'll wait here, so each of you go look for it once."
"Huh? Why not go together?"
"You need to know the direction of where you went for me to find you."
"Ah, right. I got it."
She didn't know if it was true, but anyway, Jo Seo-hee listened to Seoyeon's words and quite sensibly packed safety gear and a lantern before disappearing into the forest.
With so many trees, her figure disappeared not long after she went in.
"Ju Seoyeon, do I have to come back safely?"
"I got it."
"Do I really have to come back safely?"
"...If you're going to be like that, do you just want to stay here?"
"I don't want that."
Ji-yeon, with her strong pride, seemed to hate playing alone in this spot.
This was another annoying side of Ji-yeon, but Seoyeon nodded.
『T-Then me too.』
Reika also awkwardly disappeared.
The pitiful Miss Reika, who had even lost her purpose for coming on the variety show, disappeared into the forest like that.
'This would have been fun if we were broadcasting.'
Seoyeon thought so, then suddenly wondered, wasn't this a collaboration between Lamiel and Alice?
No, Lamiel and Lee Ji-yeon are different people. Because they are different people.
But, hmm. Wouldn't it be fine?
If she just put a filter over her eyes, wouldn't it be the same thing?
With such thoughts, Seoyeon quietly sat at the base camp and waited for the three ladies who had disappeared.
"..."
A bleak wind blew through the trees.
The sense of fear she had forgotten in the immediate survival crisis crept up.
To make matters worse, the sky was cloudy so not much sunlight came in, and a strange silence enveloped the forest.
Seoyeon looked at the cameraman.
The cameraman, as if telling her not to mind him, had full black makeup on, which made it even scarier.
Thinking about it now, did he deliberately come wearing such bizarre clothes?
Since it was somewhat like a bizarre special.
'The Japanese staff are quite unique in strange ways.'
She tried to think so and crossed her arms.
It's scary.
Seoyeon had that thought a little.
She wanted to become the horror-overcoming Ju Seoyeon, but this wasn't as easy as it sounded.
'...Why isn't everyone coming back.'
About 30 minutes.
She was waiting alone, shivering, but no one returned.
No, just how far did they go to look?
Is this okay for broadcast screentime?
Looking at the cameraman again, he was giving a thumbs up as if it was fine.
Was something like screentime coming out from the ladies moving around scattered?
"Should I slowly go look for them."
Seoyeon found the gas burner and butane gas in less than 5 minutes.
But the rest had been missing for 30 minutes.
'But, come to think of it, can we even light a fire in the forest?'
Well, they must have at least brought a fire extinguisher.
With such trivial thoughts, Seoyeon first walked in the direction Reika had headed and pricked her ears.
The others had a comparatively strong impression, but Reika didn't.
And.
『Uhhng, I'm too scared to move...』
She met Reika not long after, for real.
'I don't know what she's saying, but she must be saying she's scared.'
Still, it was a part Seoyeon could sympathize with.
For reference, Reika was holding a kitchen knife in her hand, shivering, so depending on the case, it was a very easy appearance to misunderstand.
"Why are you holding that?"
『My legs gave out...』
Again, she didn't know what she was saying, but seeing as she pointed at her legs with her finger, it seemed her legs gave out.
It seemed she couldn't find the tree markings, wandered around, and on her way back burst into tears here.
'Should I carry her and move first.'
Roughly lifting Reika, whose legs had given out, onto her back, Seoyeon thought of the next person to find.
She started moving to find Ji-yeon.
The cameraman was walking along filming Seoyeon like that.
A very satisfied face.
It was a face that seemed like this was exactly what he wanted to see, so Seoyeon wanted to punch him once.
『Sniff, sob.』
"Don't cry into my ear, it's scary."
『Really, I survived. I thought I was going to die without being able to move.』
"Whispering in Japanese makes it even scarier, so please stop."
『You must be kindly comforting me, right? Thank you.』
"Please."
Bleak atmosphere.
Plus, Reika's tearful voice whispering in her ear.
It would be a bit better if she understood what she was saying, but since she didn't, it was just very scary.
From Seoyeon's perspective, it felt like she was in a Japanese horror movie.
Normally, whenever Seoyeon appeared on a variety show, her tension would skyrocket, but today she just couldn't.
"I-I can't get down."
"..."
Why was she up on the tree?
Lee Ji-yeon was shivering on top of the tree, holding meat in her hand.
Leaving aside the rare sight of Ji-yeon shivering, she wondered why she even went up the tree.
"T-To be honest, this is my first time appearing on a variety show."
"You appeared on
"I couldn't even show my face then! Because I was styling you!"
"D-Did I?"
Anyway, our Miss Lee Ji-yeon.
Since she wasn't really a well-known actor, it seemed this was her first time appearing on a variety show.
It seemed she found the meat hanging on the tree and got a bit too motivated.
"There's a tool next to you, can't you just throw it and drop the bag with the meat?"
"I-I saw it, but I thought it wouldn't be fun if I did that."
"...Umm, right."
Variety-wise, this seemed to be the right way.
Seoyeon spread her arms wide.
"I'll catch you if you jump."
"Really? You're not going to play a prank and drop me just because it's a variety show, are you?"
"...Just how do you see me."
If I drop you, it won't just end as a joke.
When she stared at her quietly with those eyes, Ji-yeon carefully jumped down.
Catching her with a princess carry, Seoyeon suddenly recalled the past and smiled at Ji-yeon.
"It's been a while since we were kids, right?"
"...D-Don't joke around, you."
Anyway, Lee Ji-yeon was also rescued like that,
With Reika still on her back and Lee Ji-yeon in her arms, Seoyeon walked.
'Why can't either of them walk.'
Lee Ji-yeon's legs gave out from jumping down the tree.
Reika's gave out just because she was scared.
Actually, Seoyeon was scared right now too, she was just pretending not to be.
It's actually scary.
No, this forest is scary.
Naturally, before coming here, Seoyeon had looked up a lot of posts about the Aokigahara Forest on the internet.
When she searched on Google, it was mostly filled with very scary stories.
When she searched on a community,
- If you actually go there, it's nothing much.
- Really fr?
- Yeah, just a lot of trees
She was relieved by those words and came, but the atmosphere was being set more than she thought, so it was very scary.
A scene where a ghost might really pop out.
'Jo Seo-hee clearly went this way.'
As Seoyeon was walking like that, the sunlight was blocked by clouds and the forest grew dark.
Naturally, her footsteps slowed.
"Would you two slowly like to walk?"
『There's something over there! Over there, over there!』
Just as she was about to speak, Reika pointed somewhere with her finger from Seoyeon's back.
Inadvertently turning her gaze in that direction, Seoyeon had no choice but to freeze.
"Found it..."
Found it, found it.
Repeatedly muttering those words.
From within the darkness, a woman came trudging along.
At this moment, Seoyeon too.
And the sharply chattering Ji-yeon too.
And lastly, Reika, who was saying whatever, also froze.
The woman walking slowly, half-bent over, was truly a ghost itself.
It was a sight where even a real ghost would be surprised and run away.
A chilly wind blew from the direction she was walking, and Seoyeon had no choice but to be overwhelmed by that atmosphere.
Moreover, a memory suddenly flashed through Seoyeon's mind.
When Seoyeon was drunk, the appearance of Tomie Jo Seo-hee, imprinted like a brand.
That overlapped with the scene before her eyes now.
"Kyaaaah!!"
A scream erupted from Seoyeon's mouth for the first time.
"Huh? W-Wait! Don't go!!"
Seoyeon immediately turned her back and ran away.
The woman behind her shouted 'Don't go, don't go!' like a scream, which was too scary.
If you're a Japanese ghost, speak in Japanese.
Like that, Seoyeon fled straight back to the base camp.
She had long forgotten the fact that she hadn't found Jo Seo-hee.
And, about an hour later.
"...You're too mean."
"Please tie your hair up before you speak."
"I was scared."
"I'm more scared right now."
At the sight of Jo Seo-hee, disheveled with all sorts of leaves in her hair, Seoyeon said from a distance.
She felt a bit sorry for running away, but that appearance was scarier than that.