Do Not Count the One Sitting on the Last Chair in the Gym Storage Room

Our school gym storage room is at the edge of the field.

You go in through the side door of the gym, pass the narrow hallway behind the stage, and then you reach it. During the day, it is just a storage room. Basketballs, volleyballs, folding chairs, old mats, and flags from sports day are piled inside. The smell of balls and dust mixes together, and when you open the door, the air inside feels a little damp.

During P.E. class, it is not scary.

Someone complains that the soccer ball has no air. Someone reaches for the basketball first. Students in P.E. uniforms stand in front of the storage room with their pant cuffs rolled up. There is always someone who sits on a mat and gets scolded by the teacher.

But after school, it feels different.

When the gym lights are off and there is no sound of a ball being kicked from the field, the inside of the storage room is almost impossible to see. Even if you turn on the switch by the door, the light does not reach all the way in. Behind the ball baskets, between the mats, under the pile of folding chairs, it is dark even during the day.

The story usually begins from somewhere inside that storage room.

In the literature club notebook, it was written like this:

“Gym storage room. Sports day chairs. Student in P.E. uniform.”

Under it, in smaller handwriting, there was one more line.

“Do not include in the headcount.”

At first, I did not understand what it meant.

I thought it might have been a note about counting chairs for sports day, or checking the number of students waiting by class. But on the next page, there was a pencil drawing. Folding chairs were lined up in a row, and someone was sitting at the very end.

The face was not drawn.

Beside the drawing, someone had written:

“A student no one knew.”

I stared at that sentence for a long time.

Ghosts with long backstories are easier to handle. If someone says a student died, or something happened there, then it starts to look like a ghost story. But when it only says, “a student no one knew,” I do not know where to put it.

I asked a third-year senior.

“Do you know the story about the student in P.E. uniform in the gym storage room?”

The senior answered right away.

“Oh, the chair-counting one?”

She knew it immediately.

According to her, it happened the day before sports day. The broadcast club and student council were taking folding chairs out of the gym storage room. They had to count the chairs for each class and place them on the field. A few students stayed late to help.

That was when someone saw a person inside the storage room.

A student in P.E. uniform was sitting on one of the folding chairs. Their head was slightly lowered, and their hands were resting on their knees. At first, everyone thought it was someone playing around.

So someone asked:

“Hey, what class are you in?”

There was no answer.

Then a student council senior supposedly said:

“Come out. We have to count people.”

It is a strange line to remember in a ghost story.

Come out.

Because we have to count people.

At school, people are counted all the time. Attendance, groups, waiting students, class seats for sports day. One person, two people, three people. The numbers have to match before anything can move on.

But the student did not move.

Someone went to call a teacher. When they came back, no one was sitting there anymore. Instead, one folding chair had been left open.

After that, they say a rule started among the students who took chairs out of the gym storage room.

Do not count the chair at the very end.

Do not include it in the headcount.

That was what the note in the literature club notebook meant.

The student in this story does not do anything.

They do not chase anyone. They do not call anyone’s name. They do not knock on the storage room door. They just sit there, and when someone tries to count them, they disappear.

That feels uncomfortable.

Seeing someone who should not be there is one thing.
Almost including them in the count is worse.

I once went to that storage room myself.

It was during sports day preparation season. The literature club was in charge of writing some event notice text, and I had to bring a few printed sheets to the gym. After changing into my P.E. uniform, my bangs were pressed down a little, so I checked my reflection in my phone’s dark screen and fixed them with my hand.

The gym was almost empty.

The storage room door was half-open. Inside, folding chairs were stacked up, and mats were leaning against the wall. I was only going to hand over the papers and leave.

Then, from inside the storage room, there was a small metallic sound.

Like the leg of a folding chair closing.

I stopped.

I looked inside, but there was no one there. One folding chair was open at a slight angle. It looked like someone had used it and left it there. Or maybe it had always been like that.

I did not go in and fold it.

I did not want to.

The next day, when the P.E. teacher told our class to help organize the storage room, a few of us took out chairs. Someone said jokingly:

“Hey, aren’t we not supposed to count the last chair?”

Everyone laughed.

But they really did set the last chair aside.

Even while laughing, no one sat on it.

Students in my class do not seriously believe this rumor. The story about a student no one knew sitting inside the gym storage room sounds too old to take seriously. Still, when the storage room door is slightly open after school, students passing by look inside at least once.

Then they usually just walk away.

Not many people stop to check.

Harin’s Night Study Note

In my literature club notebook, I wrote:

“Gym storage room. Folding chair. Do not count the last one.”

When I first read this story, I thought of numbers before I thought of ghosts. One person, two people, three people. Counting people for sports day is nothing special, but the idea that someone who should not be included was mixed in there felt unpleasant.

The strange thing is that I still look at the chairs when I pass the gym storage room.

Folded or open.
Empty or used.
Whether someone is sitting there.

Of course, there is probably no one.

But after school, the gym storage room feels worse when it looks like someone just sat there and left than when it looks completely empty.

For some reason, the empty space beside the chair bothered me more than the chair itself.

At the bottom of the literature club notebook page, there was one more line.

“If one chair is left, one person is left too.”

I still have not asked the senior about that.