In Kwon Hoyeong's hand was a yellow medicine packet, presumably the sedative.
So they deliver them this openly, huh.
I made a promise with the First Officer, so I'll put it out of my mind for now.
We decided to work out a ghost story plan alongside the cabin briefing, so everyone boarded the aircraft.
Everyone racked their brains over the sudden situation.
Then So Hyena came up with an idea.
"Oh, it's raining right now! What if we delay departure a bit due to weather and use the time to find the possessee?"
Kwon Hoyeong thought about it, then replied.
"In an airport this massive, finding the possessee boarding our specific plane would be even harder. Checking faces one by one would look suspicious."
"On top of that, if they catch on and deliberately hide, we'd have no recourse."
"Cheongho's right. For now, our best shot is that brief moment when we check boarding passes."
Kwon Hoyeong wiped away his usual calm demeanor, his eyes turning far more serious.
"The other passengers are using our airline for important travel and business plans. Possessee or not, let's make sure service doesn't suffer. Report any suspicious individuals immediately, and individual action is strictly prohibited."
""Understood.""
Before taking on passengers and the possessee.
From cabin cleanliness to overhead bin checks, to verifying the count of in-flight meals and beverages.
Under Kwon Hoyeong's orders, we carried out the duties we were always supposed to do.
As Senior Kwon Hoyeong said, we're flight attendants first.
I thought it over while stocking paper cups and dinnerware in the galley.
A possessed person.
I'd only ever seen that in Western movies like The Exorcist.
Oh, and I think there's been a drama recently too, with the horror genre trending.
"Cheongho, are the paper cups enough?"
"Yes. Count's correct."
"Boarding starts in ten minutes.... Do you think we'll be able to spot the possessee right away?"
"There'll definitely be something different from a normal person, even if it's subtle."
"Do you know anything that might help?"
At So Hyena's question, I mentally scrolled through every horror movie I'd ever watched, scene by scene.
"Aaaarghhhk! Father... I can hear it. It's speaking from inside me...."
"Do not try to listen. Do not answer it."
"Father, it must be a demon...!"
"No... your voice has already changed...!"
"No light can redeem your soul."
They'd contort their bodies, their complexion would change, they'd speak blasphemies or unintelligible words.
The question was whether I could pick up on any of that in the roughly three seconds it takes to check a boarding pass.
"15:15—boarding will now commence. Everyone to your positions, please."
One hour before takeoff, the boarding gate opened.
A bustling commotion echoed from far down the jet bridge.
I was assigned to check boarding passes alongside Kwon Hoyeong.
Wearing my warmest smile while battling a slightly trembling heart, I stood at the aircraft entrance and waited.
"Ahahahaha! I'm first!"
"No running!"
A giddy child bursting through the door and a woman carrying a baby in a sling were the first passengers.
"Let me help you with your tick—"
"WAAAAAAH! WAAAHH!"
"Oh dear, you can't start this already. Ah, the ticket. Just a moment... here."
"Yes, confirmed—"
"AAAHH! WAAAAAAH!"
Haha....
"Let me help you with your ticket."
"Oh, suuure."
A middle-aged man who practically threw his ticket at me.
"There are a lot of male flight attendants? Interesting."
"He's good-looking. But that scar on his face, though."
"Heh, a hot thug."
"Pfft, that's harsh. He'll hear you."
Student passengers openly scanning my face and whispering.
My hearing happens to be excellent, so I catch everything, thank you.
"Cheongho, try to let it... actually, just ignore them."
Kwon Hoyeong tried his best to console me.
"I'm fine. I've been called a thug before, but this is the first time 'hot' was attached, so I'm actually flattered."
Comments about my appearance were nothing new—I'd braced for them since applying.
However,
"Excuse me, handsome flight attendant. I noticed there seem to be a few empty seats in business class? Ohoho, would a seat change be possible?"
"I'm sorry, but per regulations, all passengers receive equal treatment. I'm afraid I can't accommodate the reque—"
"Oh, come ooon! I'll just sit there so nobody notices. That works, right? Our little secret, secret."
—all the way to a middle-aged woman who pulled me aside during boarding pass checks and spent nearly ten minutes begging for a seat upgrade.
'The Osaka flight was heaven compared to this.'
"Ah, shit, these seats are tiny as hell. How am I supposed to sit here for six hours? I told you we should've gone somewhere closer."
"We came all this way, so stop complaining, honey. When's the last time we even traveled?"
"Hello? Yeah, Jiyeon! I'll see you at the airport. Chiang Mai International, that one! Yeah, yeah, yeah!"
"Why is it so hot indoors? Excuse me! Turn the air conditioning up!"
My, what powerful lungs and fiery tempers.
Thinking about it this way actually made things feel a little more bearable, somehow.
On the surface, my face was all warm service spirit, but inside, I was already drained.
And to top it off, there'd been no one remotely suspicious.
"Let me help you with your ticket."
"นี่ครับ."
Here you go.
This time, a Thai customer sporting flashy sunglasses and bulging shopping bags.
Being an international flight, there were plenty of foreign passengers.
"Do you also feel like there hasn't been anyone suspicious yet, Cheongho?"
"No, not yet."
Not a single passenger with wild eyes or speaking in tongues.
'They all seem completely normal.'
Nearly all passengers had boarded, and it was almost time for the safety check and safety demonstration.
The time limit listed in the briefing had also dwindled to one hour. The flight attendants exchanged uneasy glances.
"อานัน ติดต่อได้ไหม?"
Anan, can you reach him?
"ไม่ได้ว่ะ เหมือนมันปิดโทรศัพท์ไว้."
No. Looks like his phone's off.
Just then, I caught two people in their twenties—a man and a woman—speaking in worried voices.
Honestly, I don't understand Thai well, but from their expressions and the way they were urgently dialing on their phones, something was clearly wrong.
"เหมือนเขาจะไม่ค่อยสบายตั้งแต่เมื่อวาน."
He hasn't seemed well since yesterday.
"ตั้งแต่หลัง 'เกม' นั้นใช่ไหม? รู้สึกแปลก ๆ ยังไงก็ไม่รู้."
Since that 'game,' right? I've had a weird feeling I can't shake.
"ไม่เป็นไรหรอก อย่าคิดมากเลย."
It's fine, don't overthink it.
The man seemed to be calming the woman down, but whatever was troubling her, her face grew paler by the minute.
Her hands trembled, and she swallowed hard.
With her pupils visibly shaking and the man beside her continuously trying to reassure her, it was clear something serious was going on.
"Excuse me, is something the matter?"
Having noticed the same thing I did, So Hyena stepped in first.
"Oh, uh, it's just that...."
"One of our friends is supposed to be on this flight, but he hasn't shown up yet. And we can't reach him."
The man and woman answered slowly in slightly halting Korean.
"Boarding closes soon, so I'll make an announcement for you."
"Oh, yes, yes. Thank you."
So Hyena gave a slight bow, then returned to the galley area. In a hushed voice, she spoke cautiously to me and Kwon Hoyeong.
"Senior Kwon Hoyeong, would it be alright if I went to check the boarding gate area? Something's nagging me."
"Nagging you?"
So Hyena thought for a moment, then continued.
"I might just be on edge because of the possessee report. But something in their conversation bothered me."
"Go ahead."
"She definitely said, 'Since that game, right? I've had a weird feeling.' Their level of anxiety isn't normal either."
I added to So Hyena's point.
"...It's true that while we've had complaining passengers, there hasn't been anyone overtly suspicious. The possibility isn't zero."
After a brief deliberation, Kwon Hoyeong approved the trip to the boarding gate.
"Hyena, you understand Thai?"
"I'm a horror movie fanatic. Southeast Asian horror has way more impact than Western, so I watch a lot of it—I understand a little."
So Hyena said with an embarrassed laugh.
By coincidence, I now understood how So Hyena was able to stay at a place crawling with ghost stories.
By the time we'd crossed the jet bridge and reached the boarding gate, the final call was already echoing throughout the airport.
[Attention passengers— The boarding deadline for CQ767, the 16:15 departure to Chiang Mai, is imminent. Passengers who have not yet boarded, please proceed to the boarding gate immediately—]
Beneath the repeating announcement, So Hyena and I waited inside the boarding gate for the missing passenger.
The announcement played once, twice, a third and final time—but no one so much as glanced our way.
"Think they're not coming?"
"The report doesn't tell us everything, but what is written is reliable."
"True, the missing passenger might not even be the possessee. In which case, they'd already be on board...."
CLATTER CLATTER CLATTER—!
"Here! W-wait, please! I haven't boarded yet!"
Just as we were about to head back to the cabin, a man came sprinting from gate 4 all the way over here, weaving through tourists.
His hair was a mess, and the large bag slung over his shoulder was half-open, its contents threatening to spill out.
"Hff, hahh, th-thank you...."
The man grinned brightly at the gate staff.
After the initial ticket check was done, the man apologized to us in careful, deliberate Korean.
The Thai flag pin on his bag and his lightly tanned skin made it clear—this had to be the "Anan" his friends had been anxiously searching for.
"I got the gate mixed up like an idiot, haha. Sorry about that."
Anan said as we walked through the jet bridge together.
"No worries. Your friends seemed to be looking for you."
At So Hyena's kind words, Anan laughed loudly.
"Really, they were looking for me? Seriously?"
"Hm? Yes."
"I see. They were looking for me yesterday too."
Anan's smile seemed a little too excited.
After the second ticket check, Anan headed to the seats where his friends were.
The woman, who'd been anxiously waiting, looked startled upon seeing Anan, then quickly fell silent.
"Hyena. Did you catch it?"
I kept my eyes fixed on Anan and his friends and asked So Hyena.
"Yes, just for a split second. You caught it too, right, Cheongho?"
So Hyena asked, her expression grave.
"Yes."
I replayed the moment from just seconds ago.
"That incense smell."
It was when Anan had lit up like a child at hearing his friends had been waiting for him.
Whenever he opened his mouth to smile or speak, a pungent smell of incense hit deep in the nostrils.
It was far too distinct to mistake for cigarette smoke.
It was the kind of incense smell you'd encounter at an ancestral rite or a gravesite.
Slightly singed, but without the harshness of tobacco—the distinctive woody scent of stick incense.
It was so overpowering that one whiff made you want to turn around, yet it seemed as though only So Hyena and I had noticed it. Everyone else was completely unfazed.
"I'll go bring Senior Kwon Hoyeong to the galley."
So Hyena said quietly and headed forward.
"CQ767, closing doors."
'That has to be the possessee.'
The aircraft doors shut.
"No. 1, clear."
"No. 2, clear."
"No. 3, clear."
Door confirmations from the other attendants came through the interphone. I needed to focus on my duties, but still—
'What if I'm wrong?'
'I'm sure about this, aren't I?'
The lack of certainty kept my chest tight with doubt.
"ติดต่อไม่ได้เลย เป็นห่วงนะ ทำไมมาช้าจัง?"
We couldn't reach you at all. We were worried. Why were you so late?
"ขอโทษนะ พอดีหลงทางน่ะ."
Sorry, I got lost.
In the bustling cabin, the only people who registered in my eyes were Anan and his friends.
"Seniors, if I may...."
Before it was too late, So Hyena and I told Kwon Hoyeong and the other attendants what we'd found.
Now the problem was: how do we administer the sedative naturally?
The sedative delivered by Cheongong Logistics Service was in the form of powder, inside a bright yellow medicine packet.
"Once ingested, the subject should fall asleep immediately. After administering the sedative, we need to bring the possessee not here but to the infirmary for resolution."
"If it's the late passenger, how about calling him aside using a re-verification of his boarding pass as an excuse?"
Another attendant offered a suggestion in response to Kwon Hoyeong.
"And what about his friends afterward?"
"After administering the sedative, we say he collapsed due to a sudden health issue. Then moving him to the infirmary would seem natural, wouldn't it?"
"That's not a bad approach."
The attendant who'd proposed the plan was confident and convinced this was the best course.
In the end, the other attendants and I went to our positions, and Kwon Hoyeong would take the lead.
We executed the hastily crafted plan right before the safety briefing.
For the record, it was Kwon Hoyeong who came up with how to actually deliver the sedative.
"We'll put it in a welcome drink."
Kwon Hoyeong mixed the sedative powder into a full glass of orange juice, stirring it until it dissolved.
Then he set it slightly aside, ready to hand off the moment the possessee was called over.
Kwon Hoyeong shut his eyes briefly, then opened them.
He then approached the group of three Thai passengers and spoke in an appropriate tone.
'Please, just cooperate....'