The cultural gulf between the East and the West is very wide. Even though Jaeha—no, Jake, he needs to get used to calling himself that in his own head—even though Jake had a lot more contact with the West than most of his classmates, he still did not actually expect that kids daring each other to go visit haunted houses after dark was, like, a thing. It sounded too much like made-up ragebait for teen flicks, you know? Like, who would do that? It's so—undignified.

But here he is, undignifiedly recording himself on his phone to prove that he did, in fact, come to the haunted house. He's still not steady on his social feet, and it was not hard to see that actually most of the other kids at his new school were in actual fact terrified of the haunted house and even the ones who claimed they'd come didn't, actually. So here's a way for him to acquire some cred and get taken more seriously despite being foreign.

He's also got to act for the camera, though, and he knows exactly how to act.

"And here we have the so-called 'haunted house'," he says in lightly- but noticeably-accented English. "So terrifying, I'm shaking in my designer shoes," he says dryly, pointing his camera at his shoes that are just regular Nike sneakers and not designer at all. Camera back to his face, an artful eyeroll and a smirk. "Now why don't I enter and find the ghosts? Sounds like a wonderful opportunity to me. I'll make sure to draw a lot of attention to myself so we don't have to waste any time looking for each other, why don't I?"

(There could be living people here, who could be a lot more dangerous than ghosts, and that is where his nervousness lies. But he's got a butterfly knife he knows how to use and self-defence training so unless someone uses a gun on him he can hold his own.)

(He hopes no one has a gun. That'd be a really stupid way to die, and Westerners are crazy about guns.)