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“There, on the windowsill!”
It’s a good windowsill. Big enough to curl his whole body up on and high enough that the ground seems very far away. It’s a third floor window and the path below is busy enough even at night to give him something to watch as the hours pass.
This isn’t his room. It’s a large and disused conference room, projectors and chairs draped with white tarpaulins that gather dust. Not a single person has entered during the five days that Yamanbagiri has been coming here and that’s just fine by him. He’s been left to his own devices, mostly sitting on the windowsill and staring out at the world passing below. It’s peaceful, he finds. He can’t bother people with his perpetual misery if he’s hidden away here.
Of course, good things can’t last forever.
“Do you see? Right there!”
Someone is shouting down on the path. A high-pitched, energetic someone who is really being too loud for gone nine in the evening. Yamanbagiri had been dozing when the screech had awakened him. He keeps his eyes shut, praying that they leave soon.
“I see it!”
“There it is!”
Two more voices, both as excited and one even louder than the first. Yamanbagiri doesn’t stir. Whatever it is they’re looking at he hopes they get bored soon. He’s not an ‘it’, not yet, and so it’s really none of his business.
“Can we go up and get a closer look?”
“You’re the boss, Nikkari-san!”
“Well, I am a professional.”
The chattering fades away as the group presumably enters the building. He had counted four, maybe five voices, all guys. Probably delinquents looking for signs of drug dealing, a shoe tied to an overhead wire, something like that. This block is at the far edge of campus and not used very often after all, especially the upper floors. Perfect for miscreants and misfits. Yamanbagiri opens his eyes and rolls up one of his sleeves with a wince, hoping he’s still the latter. His brothers would never forgive him if he started taking drugs or-
“That’s gotta be the room!”
“The air feels unsettled here…”
“Hah! I ain’t afraid of no spook!”
“Ghost. It’s ghost, Iwatooshi.”
“Eh, ya sure?”
Oh god. The voices have reached his hallway. Footsteps clatter on the wooden boards, steadily approaching his room. The conversation sounds more like a bunch of misfits than miscreants but he still doesn’t want to know. He tugs the heavy curtain a little further across the window, shielding him from view of the door, and takes a deep breath.
“Please go away,” he whispers.
The door bangs open and he decides this is his unluckiest day of the year excepting the one where he broke his laptop and covered his bed in tuna mayonnaise. People shuffle into the room and shut the door behind them with a snap. Yamanbagiri can hear the rustle of fabric as they move around in the sudden silence, moving closer to the window. He holds his breath.
“Maybe we shouldn’t disturb it,” someone says at last. It’s a kind voice. Yamanbagiri likes the way he thinks. “It could bring ill fortune.”
“A restless spirit needs to be purified,” another counters, voice as soft as his suggestion. Unfortunately the high-pitched shrieker of outside pipes up.
“It’s creepy, I don’t like it!”
“Can’t we just beat it out of there?” Loud Number Two suggests in a boom. Yamanbagiri reflexively tenses his legs, ready to run if violence breaks out. The first three start speaking at once and it’s too noisy for a moment before a fifth voice pleads for silence.
“Gentleman please! I am a professional.” There’s a sigh. “You can’t hit a ghost with a stick, Iwatooshi-san.”
“Have you tried?”
Expecting another argument, Yamanbagiri’s stomach does a strange flip when a sixth person speaks up in a melodic voice straight out of his memories.
“Please show us how it’s done, Nikkari-kun.”
A man in a bar. Deep blue eyes flecked with gold. Questions he hadn’t wanted asked. Oh no. Yamanbagiri has just enough time to realise that he has nowhere to run before someone steps forward with the decisive clicking of bootheels and yanks the curtain away.
There’s a moment of silence during which six people stare at him in surprise and he stares back in horror. Then chaos breaks out. There’s shouting and the clatter of shoes and Yamanbagiri can do nothing more than cower back against the window.
“I can’t see through it!” the one with the high voice is shrieking, leaping onto the shoulders of the tallest one in the room. “It’s meant to be see-through!”
A white-haired young man wearing a yellow jacket seemingly made of pockets leans closer, hands on his hips.
“It’s eyes are so lifelike,” he says, as Yamanbagiri stares straight back at him. “Maybe it’s a good spirit?”
Another one of the intruders leans in, closing his eyes and raising his hands in prayer, starting to chant an intonation.
“Cleanse…Purify…”
From his perch on the tallest one’s shoulders, the little troublemaker points and begins screaming again.
“Oh my god, guys, it’s bleeding, that’s so horrible!”
Yamanbagiri reflexively tugs his sleeve back down to cover his forearm, triggering another burst of panicked shouting.
“It moved oh my god!”
“Hit it with a stick!”
“Where’s the ectoplasm?” the one holding the curtain is muttering with wide eyes. “There’s meant to be-“
The chanting gets louder. A stick is found and batted against the window. The tiny one has opened a packet of salt from the cafeteria and is flicking it at him.
“Boo!”
The final voice chimes into the madness in a shout loud enough to startle everyone into silence. Yamanbagiri jumps so suddenly that he whacks his head on the window behind him. It hurts which means he’s not actually died and isn’t actually going to be exorcised. He’s a little disappointed. The awkward reality is worse.
That familiar voice is laughing and the final member of the squad of intruders approaches. He bends forwards, dark hair falling around his face, and gives Yamanbagiri a radiant smile.
“We meet again, little ghost,” he says.
Yamanbagiri looks from one face to another. There’s confusion, fear, amusement, and a strange sort of calm from the one in green. He recognises none of these people other than the one talking to him but they almost all look older – excluding the tiny one – and he can’t for the life of him work out what they’re doing here. It’s unthinkable that anyone would have been looking for him. He licks his dry lips and clears his throat.
“…who are you?”
The one who had pulled back the curtain steps back and bows, mischief in his mismatched eyes.
“Aoe Paranormal Research,” he announces.
“Students,” the one in yellow says with a smile.
“Sort of,” the tiny one adds.
“Do you need cleansing?” asks the one in green.
“Hey, you’re not a ghost!” the loud one finally realises.
The familiar stranger only laughs again and holds out a hand.
“I think buying this young man a drink would be a good start,” he suggests.
The darkness had come back. It always did in the end. He could have blamed it on the assignment he had handed in, the way that talking about fakes and forgeries twisted a cold knife deep in his gut. He could have blamed it on the others, on how they were seeing each other more and him less as a result, on how being alone night after night was gnawing away at him. He could have blamed it on ‘illness’ as countless counsellors had tried before. On things like ‘endorphins’ and ‘neurotransmitters’.
Could have. Didn’t. He blamed it on himself like always. And still the darkness had come.
His interests slipped away from him like sand through spread fingers and he just didn’t have the energy to chase them again. He spent days staring listlessly out of the window, skipping class, avoiding anyone who might be crazy enough to ask if he was okay. He would go to bed either early or late, whichever one meant that Horikawa wouldn’t be able to talk to him, to notice anything. His brother’s life was so good at the moment. He wouldn’t ruin that for the world.
Things progressed as they always did, each night another step down into blackness until he snapped on the bathroom light and blinded himself with his reflection. It was a weekday, not that days meant anything anymore, and Horikawa was out for the night. He had stared at his reflection until his vision cleared, black and red dots swarming away back into his brain like so many insects. Without his hooded jacket, without even a t-shirt, he could see himself clearly. His skin was too pale. His hair was too golden. His eyes were too bright. It was all wrong, wrong, wrong, none of this was his, he was living a lie with a borrowed name and a borrowed face and he would never be the person he was supposed to be replacing, not in a hundred years, not in a thousand…
Tearing that false image to shreds was the right thing to do. No one could mistake him for anyone but the worthless fake he was if he wasn’t pretty any more.
He could have blamed it on the parents that had given him this name. On silent expectations he could never reach.
Could have. Didn’t. He blamed it on himself like always. And still, still the darkness had come.
It was after that first relapse, the first since starting college, that Yamanbagiri had started spending time in the old conference room. Night after night he had sat on the windowsill, wrapped in one of his oversized white hoodies, often falling asleep against the wall. He had been under the impression that no one had noticed. Naturally, he had been wrong.
The group of possible students that had now abducted him to a corner in a bar had noticed. They had told him the story on the way to the bar.Their walk home – from what he wasn’t sure – took them past the window and they had noticed the same hooded shape each time. They had been there during the day and found nothing and so reached the natural conclusion that the room was in fact haunted. It was then that they had called in their friend Nikkari Aoe, self-proclaimed head of Aoe Paranormal Research. He even had business cards and had started off the round of introductions by handing one to Yamanbagiri.
“I’m a professional,” he says again, tilting his head so that his long river-green hair cascades down around one of his shoulders, looking more strange than any ghost. “You can trust me with even the most frightening problems, okay?”
“You don’t have a job and you study Literature!”
“In my spare time!”
“Keep lying to yourself! It’s my turn, anyway.”
The speaker is the tiny loud one that had scaled his friend like a tree. He hops up onto a stool, hands on his hips, and grins.
“Imanotsurugi! History PhD! Call me Ima, though. I love the past but I’m living in the now!”
The others groan. Yamanbagiri nods awkwardly. He’s saved from having to reply as the tallest member of the group also gets to his feet, standing behind Imanotsurugi and still towering over him.
“Iwatooshi!” He announces in a raucous boom. “History PhD! Sorry for scarin’ ya before!”
“It’s…fine…” Yamanbagiri lies.
“I’m Ima’s bodyguard!” Iwatooshi yells, picking the little guy up from under the armpits and setting him back on the floor. “So don’t ya even think about lookin’ at him funny.” He gives a boisterous laugh and sits down again. “Or I’ll find a really big stick.”
It seems the next one to have a turn is the mostly quiet man in green. He raises a large hand to pinch the bridge of his nose and then offers Yamanbagiri a kind smile.
“Please don’t threaten our guest,” he scolds the others gently. “Thank you for joining us even after we interrupted your meditation.”
“I wasn’t-“
“My name is Ishikirimaru. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Yamanbagiri takes his outstretched hand, finding comfort in his firm but kind grip.
“He’s a priest,” Nikkari whispers loudly.
“Not yet,” Ishikirimaru says with a modest smile. Yamanbagiri is pretty sure he’s the least threatening in the room.
“You’re a hard worker, Ishi,” says the one in yellow at his side. “It won’t be long now.”
Everyone is silent for a moment waiting for the speaker to introduce himself. He realises after almost a minute has passed.
“Oh, we’re doing it like this?” He has a warm laugh and gives Yamanbagiri a toothy grin. “Kogitsunemaru. This is for you.” He pats down all of his many pockets and then withdraws a small bag of beef jerky. Yamanbagiri takes it with a confused frown. “From the family farm.”
He doesn’t explain much further. Yamanbagiri notices bits of grass and mud staining his clothes and feels comforted again; surely Kogitsunemaru would get on with Yamabushi. Nature people were odd but kind enough. This meant that two of the Aoe Paranormal Research team were intimidating, one was eccentric, and two were kind. That only left the one sitting next to Yamanbagiri, the one who had been watching with a benevolent smile during the whole exchange. He makes no move to introduce himself and Yamanbagiri carefully puts both the business card and the bag of jerky on the table before forcing himself to speak.
“And you?” he manages in a tiny voice.
“Oh, are you interested?”
“We met before so…”
“Oh, I’m no one important.”
Imanotsurugi gives an impatient sigh and reaches over the table to smack his arm. He gives one of those deep, cheerful laughs and relents.
“Mikazuki Munechika, at your service little ghost,” he says. “Doesn’t this make it your turn?”
It does. Yamanbagiri feels all eyes turn to him and heat rises in his cheeks. Being the centre of attention is his worst nightmare. Introduction circles are awful. Meeting people is awful. People are awful. He tugs on first his hood and then his sleeves, doing his best to sink into his seat.
“Yamanbagiri Kunihiro,” he says quietly, hating the taste of it on his tongue. “Second year.”
“Art History?”
His eyes widen. “H-how do you-“
“I saw your essay before, remember?”
His gut twists uncomfortably and invisible hands squeeze at his lungs. Hidden inside his hood he can feel the darkness reaching for him. What am I even doing here? his thoughts whisper. They wanted to find a ghost but I can’t even manage being dead. I’m so-
“Now how about we get you that apology drink?”
Mikazuki’s smile is kind as he leans forwards to peer into Yamanbagiri’s hood. The overhead lighting glistens in his bright eyes, off of the blue sheen in his hair. It’s not a lot but it’s enough. When Yamanbagiri dares to raise his eyes he finds that all of them are smiling in his direction and although they’re all, well, weird, none of them seem to be cruel.
When was the last time he had a drink with strangers? The prospect is terrifying. He hears himself speak with wonder in his voice.
“That would be nice.”
Time moves quickly after the drinks arrive. The guys from Aoe Paranormal Research also-known-as Team Sanjou feat. Nikkari also-known-as the Mature Students Society never stop talking. Yamanbagiri is happy enough to sit back and let the conversation wash over him, learning more about them little by little.
They talk about history, and religion, and agriculture, things none of his other friends have ever discussed so passionately. They’re all undeniably smart - even if it’s hard to picture Iwatooshi and Imanotsurugi studying for PhDs, one sounding common and one looking like a child – but they bicker and make jokes about each other as much as any teenagers. Common themes are Nikkari’s obsession with ghosts – it’s a branch of science, I swear! – Kogitsunemaru’s obsession with the weather – he carries a seed diary – and Mikazuki’s inability to take anything seriously. Perhaps because of the ghost incident, they tease Nikkari the most and as much as he defends himself he doesn’t seem truly bothered by the needling.
Best of all, Yamanbagiri is left to listen and to think. Although they occasionally look to him to see if he’s still there no one asks him anything more than if he’d like another drink. They don’t ask him to remove his hood and they don’t draw attention to the bloodstain at the hem of one of his sleeves. As they keep talking Yamanbagiri finds himself thinking of nothing but the topic at hand, the personalities around him. It’s better than the silence of the room. He realises this slowly but with a strange sense of satisfaction.
He’s done something right. These people don’t hate him on sight. It’s different and leaves a warm feeling in his chest. He’s hesitantly examining the emotion when a question is finally sent his way.
“Are you partial to any particular tea, Yamanbagiri-san?”
Ishikirimaru’s voice is warm and the question is harmless. Impossibly, Yamanbagiri finds he has an answer.
“Gyokuro. My brother uses it in his meditations.”
He shrinks back under the smiles being directed his way.
“It is known to be relaxing,” Imanotsurugi pipes up.
“Your brother is a Buddhist perhaps?” Kogitsunemaru asks kindly.
“Yeah,” Yamanbagiri finds himself answering. “He owns a retreat up in the mountains. I go to stay with him sometimes.”
They ask a lot of questions about Yamabushi and it’s easy enough to answer when he’s not talking about himself. He tells them about the hot springs there, the airy rooms, the shade of the trees. He mentions how his brother always makes sure to bring him the best relaxing tea blends and they all agree on it being a wonderful idea. He’s beginning to forget to feel awkward when Mikazuki leans forwards with an elbow on the table.
“Your voice is every bit as pretty as your face, you know,” he says with a smile. “How wonderful.”
Late, Yamanbagiri realises that his hood has begun to slip back and he tugs it forwards again, cheeks blazing and throat seizing up. He sinks back in his seat as Nikkari chuckles and gives Mikazuki a look.
“Stop scaring the ghost, Mikazuki.”
Iwatooshi swats at Mikazuki’s arm with a raucous laugh.
“You’re always the same, old man.”
Even as Yamanbagiri shrinks back, Mikazuki is leaning forwards and lowering his head so as to see better into the shade of his hood. He makes no move to touch it but the look is intrusive enough and brings Yamanbagiri back to himself. For a time he had been able to forget, caught up in the atmosphere this strange group of people conjured when they spoke together. Of course he didn’t fit in. It was better to keep hidden after all.
Pretty. No. How could he be? He had no right to claim that as something he could own.
There’s a soft touch on his arm, just above the elbow, and he opens eyes he hadn’t realised he had closed to find Mikazuki watching him with a more serious expression.
“Are you-“
A sudden burst of shouting from across the room interrupts. Someone in white with a very enthusiastic laugh is beginning to approach their corner. Imanotsurugi folds his arms and shakes his head.
“Oh, here comes that silly crane.”
“You have to meet Tsuru,” Nikkari says with a mischievous smile. Kogitsunemaru nods along.
“He does tell all the best jokes.”
It’s too much all of a sudden. He can’t keep playing at this. He wishes he had the words to tell them all how grateful he is, how it had been comforting to have even a glimpse into their world. The words turn to ash on his tongue.
“I need to go,” is all he can manage as he gets to his feet.
It's cool outside, the air heavy with the scent of long summer days, the kind of darkness that seems alive. The campus is never empty but these paths are quieter than most and he counts the sound of his own footsteps as they fall. With each step his mind whispers.
Fake. Worthless. Liar.
They had been so nice. Accepting of the way he carries himself and his lack of enthusiasm for talking. They hadn't asked awkward questions or forced him to do anything he didn't want to. He had actually smiled a few times and hadn't had to force it, listening to them going on. It had been a good few hours. The room had felt as if it was glowing.
Fake.
He's felt like that before. Back when he was younger, when Yamabushi had yet to grow into his height and Horikawa had been a tiny thing with eyes like saucers. His brothers had loved telling him stories until he was shrieking with laughter. That had all been before his parents had given him The Talk, the one that explained how he wasn't the first to bear the name Yamanbagiri and why he was the only blonde in the family.
Fake.
The darkness had started coming soon after that. It's not always so bad, he tries hard not to make his brothers worry and often succeeds. It's a bad month is all. It'll pass.
He doesn't believe himself and finds his steps taking him back towards the room he had been haunting as if he had never been found, never been touched by the warm light of kindness. Perhaps it's better that way. They'll forget him soon enough anyway.
Once he can feel the familiar paving slabs of the disused area beneath his sneakers he looks up at the building looming against the sky. It takes him a moment to locate the right window and once he has he stops in his tracks. There's something pressed against the glass. It's not the white of a spectre but a dark blur just visible against the shadows behind. It shifts as he watches, melting in and out of vision.
Maybe there really is a ghost after all. Maybe it's his own.
He feels bone-weary, his feet as heavy as iron, and he makes his way slowly over the many tracks in the dust to his usual room. The door is slightly ajar and he slips inside the gap without touching the wood. The ghost against the window turns as he enters, a pale face with glittering eyes and a smile that stretches to greet him.
"Boo."
He knows that voice. The ghost raises a hand in greeting and waves the darkness away and suddenly he's not seeing a spirit calling him forward but the inscrutable smile of Mikazuki Munechika.
Fake.
The word is a whisper from somewhere at the back of his mind. He ignores it, takes a step back and bumps into the door, slamming it shut.
"I'm sorry," he says automatically, humiliation staining his cheeks pink. "I can go and-"
Mikazuki clicks his tongue. His smile doesn't waver.
"You're exactly the ghost I was waiting for." He pats the windowsill beside him. "Sit."
He weighs up his options. The prospect of having to turn his back and get the door open to run away is more embarrassing than just doing as he's told. He mutely crosses the room and sits on the edge of the sill as far from Mikazuki as he can. He's expecting something like a joke or a laugh but instead there's only silence, Mikazuki turning to look back out of the window.
As the minutes stretch out and neither of them say anything, Yamanbagiri begins to relax. With no immediate threat he’s able to lean back against the wall, hoist his feet up onto the sill, and curl in against himself a he does when he’s alone. Mikazuki doesn’t look, his eyes fixed on the distant moon hanging in the sky, and Yamanbagiri can’t help but stare. Usually it’s difficult to look at Mikazuki, his stare too intense, pinning him in place like an insect to a board. Now that he can focus he marvels at the way the moonlight seems to flow across his features, the elegant angles of his cheekbones and jaw, the thickness of his lashes, the curve of his neck. He seems more real here than he had in the bar, more docile but also sharper than before. If he’s less likely to laugh it means he’s more likely to say something, a prospect that’s fascinating but worrying too.
The moonlight suits him. A strange thought arising unbidden; Yamanbagiri has never been one to wax poetic. Mikazuki turns at last as if he had spoken aloud and his bright eyes flicker back and forth, taking Yamanbagiri in as he himself had been watched. He can feel that the moment of pace is going to end before Mikazuki raises his voice.
“You have wonderful eyes. I could-“
“Stop saying things like-“
“But,” Mikazuki continues over him, “they’re also incredibly sad. A deep sort of sorrow, I think.”
Yamanbagiri is shocked into silence for a moment. Strangers are always keen to tell him he’s shy or grumpy or rude but never this. This is worse because he can’t deny it. He looks towards the window, pulling on his hood.
“They’re nothing special,” he mutters.
“And neither are you, by implication?”
“I-“
“Am I permitted to disagree?”
The silence that falls this time is tense, loaded with questions and denials that he doesn’t want to voice. Mikazuki’s gaze prickles on his skin like needles. He fails to answer, his jaw feeling locked. The darkness has started returning but it’s wrong, it’s not meant to happen when other people are around. He wonders if Mikazuki will notice, if he can see it too.
"I'm not asking you to tell me anything,” Mikazuki says softly once the silence has started becoming unbearable. “But I do want you to know that you're not alone in having experienced such feelings."
"It's stupid,” he says before he can stop himself.
"No,” Mikazuki says patiently. “You're not."
That stings more than a little. It’s too apt, too close. For the first time, Yamanbagiri wonders who Mikazuki really is, what he’s studying, why he’s here, why he even cares about someone he’s spent a scarce few hours with. He wonders why his questions touch all the right places. He wonders why he tries to answer.
"I don't…” He licks his dry lips and lowers his voice further. “I don’t want my brothers to know that I'm..."
Mikazuki reaches out and places a hand softly on the top of one of Yamanbagiri’s sneakers. It looks alien there, like something that defies belief. The kindness in his voice has the same quality.
"Then they don't have to know,” he says. “But someone should.”
Fake. Worthless. Liar.
“No.”
He can’t let that happen, can’t be a burden like that. It’s his own fault, for being like this, for being a cheap imitation of something beautiful. Accepting the offer of compassion would be too selfish.
"I can go,” he says again, swinging his legs down. “If you want. I should leave."
"Please don't.”
It’s enough to stop him in his tracks. Not an offer but a request. Yamanbagiri is torn between what he’s sure is best for Mikazuki and what he’s actually asking for. He hesitates, teeters on the edge of the sill.
“It's rather warm in here, isn't it?” Mikazuki says casually. “Shall we get comfortable and watch the moon?"
It takes Yamanbagiri a moment to register just what is being implied and once he has the urge to flee rises hot and desperate in his chest. A hand touches his shoulder and he flinches as if he’s afraid of being struck. Nothing happens. The moonlight spills over them both, demanding nothing.
“You… really want me to?”
“Yes.”
He acts before he has a chance to talk himself out of it, eyes on Mikazuki’s face instead of what he’s doing. He rolls up first one sleeve of his hoodie and then the other, wincing as the thick fabric catches on raw skin and dried blood. He doesn’t need to look to know how many cuts mar his skin from wrist to elbow, how many scars sit underneath the new wounds in a woven tapestry of quiet pain. The last and only time he had let someone see him like this had been the first time and Horikawa had cried for hours. Mikazuki’s expression doesn’t change, his eyes flicking down to glance at what he had surely known was there and then back to Yamanbagiri’s almost defiant stare.
“Such a humid night,” he remarks lightly, loosening the top buttons of his own shirt. “It’s a shame this window doesn’t open.”
Yamanbagiri can take a hint. He takes a deep breath, holds it, and then pulls his hoodie off completely. His hair is ruffled, the nape of his neck damp with sweat and it feels strange to have any air touching it at all. He holds his hoodie to his chest like a comfort blanket, cheeks colouring.
“Much better,” Mikazuki says with a smile and Yamanbagiri feels blessed that he doesn’t say anything more, call him pretty as he had before. The look in his eyes alone is almost enough to break him.
“Y-yeah…”
He does feel more comfortable, despite everything. He hadn’t realised how sore his arms were or how much hotter it had felt just to have his face covered. As he’s coming to terms with this revelation, Mikazuki presses something into one of his hands. He looks down to see an unopened tube of antiseptic gel. His eyes narrow.
“You…”
“If you’re not going to wrap them, you should at least keep them clean.”
“Oh.”
"I’d like to come here more often. Is that okay with you?"
"It's a public room."
Yamanbagiri is starting to suspect that Mikazuki might be a ghost after all. He’s pale in the moonlight, ethereal, and his words are always just poignant enough to render his arguments useless but kind enough to convince him to agree. He knows things he shouldn’t without needing to ask and his gentle touch doesn’t burn like everyone else’s. His eyes, so bright, contain infinite patience as he watches the wheels turning in Yamanbagiri’s mind.
"Yes,” he says at length, tucking the antiseptic away. “You can come."
“Thank you. Now, shall we?”
He talks. Yamanbagiri listens. He learns about the moon and the stars, the distant glimmers of fire keeping the worst of the darkness at bay.
The card is slipped under his bedroom door early in the morning. Horikawa is the one to find it.
“Aoe Paranormal Research? Eh, why would someone leave this for us?”
“It’s mine.”
The card has a phone number, the address of the bar and daily meeting time. Horikawa rubs some sleep out of his eyes.
“Is this something to do with your boyfriend?”
“…what?”
Oh. He had forgotten. A lie told in the heat of the moment. He thinks of each of the guys he had spent the evening with and wonders just how much his lies are going to backfire in the end. But Horikawa looks pleased and that makes it worth it.
“Uh, I mean… yes. Kind of.”
“Can I meet him?”
“No!”
He flees the bedroom a few minutes later, Horikawa’s happy laughter ringing in his ears and his cheeks hot.
Aoe Paranormal Research.
19:00 daily report.
He’ll need to do something to keep up the lie of having a partner. This is the excuse he chooses to explain how he knows he’s going to meet with the others later. He’s not sure what they do, if they just chat or if they actually go out to hunt ghosts.
“Stupid…”
Hunting them seems better than being one. He heads out into campus instead of towards the conference room and the world remains bright.