Chapter Text
Dear diary,
I think I'm a ghost.
Okay, allow me to explain. I know I can touch things, I really can, because right now I'm writing this on pen and paper, and you're a diary I had to root around my old bedroom to find because I never really kept a journal since high school (by the way, the first few pages? Cringe. Past Cha Young was so dumb) but it doesn't really prove anything. Ghosts move things around all the time. My seeming corporeality is a non-evidence.
Just to get that out of the way, before we move on to the list of evidence supporting my claim.
Exhibit 1. I'm tired all the time. I know that could also be me recovering from a gunshot wound, but my wound is healed. It's perfectly fine now. It just twinges when it's about to rain, that's all. Fatigue doesn't seem to fit. It could also be the case that I'm mildly depressed on account of... Everything that happened and didn't happen with Vincenzo, but that's neither here nor there.
Exhibit 2. I no longer feel too cold or too warm. It's great, to be honest, because now I can wear whatever the hell I want, but also: this doesn't seem like a human thing. Also not a human thing: never really feeling hungry. I still eat and drink, for the feeling of eating and drinking, but... I don't have to. That's weird, right? The human body should need sustenance. It should react to external stimuli. But mine doesn't.
Exhibit 3: this is, probably, the strongest evidence. It'll make me sound crazy, or actually no, it'll make me sound like a ghost. A real ghost. A back-from-the-dead ghost.
I don't remember the days after I got shot. There's just nothing. Not a single memory. I just remember being shot, and then sinking to the floor, and thinking "shit, should've gotten shot sooner if it's what it takes to get him to hug me like this".
And that's it. I woke up at home, alone, in my pajamas. I went to work. People seemed to be shocked I was back to work, but they let me do it soon enough. I was Jipuragi now, and the plaza needed me. They still do.
But they walk on eggshells around me. Yesterday I moved to pat Mi Ri on the shoulder and she flinched so hard she fell out of her chair. I wonder if they're just superstitious or if my touch really is unpleasant ... Or whether I can even touch them.
I haven't successfully touched a single human being since.
I should look more into this. There aren't much reliable accounts on ghosts as
Pause a bit. Someone's at the door.
She opens her door. He's there.
"Oh," she says, strangely calmer than she actually feels. "Aren't you supposed to be an international fugitive right now?"
He looks at her as if he can't quite figure her out. She thinks she can relate. "I heard you were... Back to work. I wanted to check in on you."
"Hmm." She opens her door wider. "Get in before anyone sees you."
He does, but moves only so she can close the door behind him. They stand awkwardly her mud room, too close to even properly look at each other. He lifts his arms, hovering around her middle, then drops them.
She is so sick of their hesitant dance around each other.
She throws herself at him.
She goes straight through.
"Oh," she says dumbly. "Sorry."
"It's okay. It doesn't really feel like anything," he says, which is about the worst thing he could say. She wants it to feel like something, at least. A plunge in a cold river. A plunge in a warm tub. He could even say she feels like a particularly weak breeze of air, and she would take it.
But she feels like nothing, even though she feels so very much on her own.
"So I'm... dead."
"Yes." He looks at her with sad, sorrowful eyes. She wants to touch him again, but she won't set herself up to more disappointment.
"Hmm. Thought so." She moves into the house, because she can't look at him or be near him right now. Her feet take her to the kitchen. "Coffee?"
"Sure."
He plants himself in her father's favorite chair, watching her as she putters around her kitchen. When she brings him a coffee, his fingers sink through her own to wrap around the mug.
Well, that's definitely a problem.
She asks, "How long are you staying?"
He shakes his head, smiling to himself. She supposes it is a bit weird talking to your now-undead almost-lover. "Not long," he says. "I shouldn't even be here."
"But?"
He sets the mug down, leaning forward to face her. "But I've been mourning you."
Oh. "I'm sorry."
"I should be the one saying that," he says, and he kisses her.
Or rather, he brushes his lips at her lips, but they don't touch. Not really. His lips are neither warm nor cold nor... anything, really. They're nothing to each other, according to whatever supernatural rule, and she thinks she should file a judicial review on that rule.
She doesn't understand why. Everything else is solid to her touch, except for him. Maybe because he's so damn alive and she's absolutely not, which means she has more in common with her dad's sinking sofa than with him. But she's been tending to her dad's plants just fine, and aren't plants alive, too? Where does the line lie?
She swears. Stomps on the ground. Paces the room. Turns back and tries to cup his face in her hands—a failed attempt—and kisses him hard—more awkward hovering around the same space, but still no real touch—and curses again once more.
Fine. Challenge accepted.
"I know you can't be here long," she snarls, "But you're not leaving until I figure out how to kiss you."
He laughs. "As you wish."