Chapter Text
People screamed as the Box Ghost levitated all the boxes in the university bookstore, running for the doors. “I am the Box Ghost! I will take over the world with these corrugated squarey evilness of dooooom!”
"I think you need a new hobby!" Came a loud, slightly arrogant voice as a black and white blur sped by the fleeing crowds. When it slowed down, a white-haired teenage boy was hovering in front of the blue-skinned ghost, his arms crossed impatiently, "You give the same spiel every other day y’know. Can’t you see it’ll never happen?"
"Not if I don’t try! Beware!" The Box Ghost threw the boxes of bookstore supplies at the ghost boy, but he sighed and turned intangible, phasing through it.
"When will you learn that Real World items don’t work like that?" He held his hand up, a fire of sickly green forming in his palm, growing until it became an orb, which he threw at the other ghost. The Box Ghost screamed, falling to his behind on the ground, and the teenager pulled out a silver thermos from behind him, uncapping it and aiming it at the Box Ghost.
"Nooo! I am the Box Ghost! You will not capture me in your cylindrical—ack! BEWARE!" The Box Ghost tried to fly away, but he was caught in a bright blue-white light, and soon there was nothing in the bookstore except a mess of toppled boxes and the floating ghost boy.
He sighed, capping the thermos and tucking it away again. He turned to fly away, but froze when he saw someone standing a few paces behind him, staring at him with wide, surprised red eyes. The ghost boy gave a surprised squeak, having not expected anyone to be there. Most people ran at the sight of a ghost. He was sure everyone was out by the time he got there—when had this man gotten here? He hadn’t even heard the man walk up!
"Uh, hi!" The ghost managed out slightly nervously—what was the man even doing here? Paranoia kicked in as he thought that the man might be here to catch him and turn him in, especially since there was a million dollar bounty on his head.
The man blinked, schooling his face. Then, to the ghost boy’s utter surprise, he smiled a little, tilting his head. “Hello.” He replied in a slightly accented voice—his L’s sounded a bit like R’s, and it took the ghost boy a moment to realize the man was foreign. “You can fly.”
The ghost boy blinked in confusion. That wasn’t the normal reaction people had when they saw him. Not at all. The man was just staring at him in intrigue now, his strange red eyes trailing over to the ground beneath his feet, and the couple of inches between him and the floor.
"Uh, yeah, I’m a ghost. It’s a thing we do." He quipped, laughing nervously as he rubbed his head. "Uh, sorry, I have to go. Before the hunters get here. Yeah. Sorry about the mess!"
The young man nodded, and watched as the boy flew up. After a beat, he called out, “Wait!”
The ghost boy paused, turning back and looking down at the man. “Huh? Uh, what?”
"What’s your name?" The man asked curiously.
The ghost boy found himself once more completely taken by surprise. No one had ever asked before. No one.
"Uh… Danny. Danny Phantom." He introduced himself awkwardly, lowering a bit and offering his hand to shake the stranger’s.
The man eyed his hand calculatingly, before he took it and smiled kindly at the ghost boy. His smile faltered slightly when a chill ran down his spine, but his expression quickly returned as he let go of the ghost boy’s cold hand. “Nice to meet you, Danny. I am Daisuke Niwa.”
Danny nodded—he was right, the man was foreign. And judging by the messenger bag with the art supplies sticking out of its opening, he could guess that Daisuke was an art student at this university.
"Thank you for taking care of that strange blue man. I’m glad no one got hurt." Daisuke said, "You said you had to go, right? Take care, okay?"
Danny jumped a little, nodding. “Right, uh, thanks. Bye then!” He said, and waved a little as he shot through the roof, disappearing with his intangibility and his invisibility.
What a weird guy, Danny thought as he flew through the sky to head home. Daisuke was plain-looking, even for a Japanese guy in an American city—he wasn’t noticeable, and he didn’t look special. And yet… he didn’t show a hint of fear. If Danny didn’t know better, he would have thought that Daisuke had run toward the commotion when the Box Ghost showed up, instead of away from it like everyone else did.
But… no, that couldn’t possibly be true, right? No, he just didn’t know about ghosts or ghost attacks, he was a foreigner. Or he had been there long enough to get used to it, but the ghost attacks hadn’t been happening long—it hadn’t even been a year yet since the attacks started.
Still, what sensible person didn’t run from ghosts?
~~~
The thought of that man bothered Danny all week—mainly because he was the first person to ever ask his name. Everyone else called him Inviso-Bill and that annoyed him to no end. He protected Amity Park all the time, the least they could do was call him by his proper name, even if he was Public Enemy Number One. Or maybe that’s why they didn’t bother to call him by his name—they hated him that much.
But Daisuke… he had asked Danny’s name. And he had thanked him.
When Friday night rolled around and Danny was flying home after a long chase by Skulker which ended in Elmerton, he looked down and saw the university below him. The thought of Daisuke came back, and he frowned as a stray thought came to the front of his mind: I wonder if I can find him.
He shook his head, mumbling to himself, “That’s ridiculous, why would he even be out this time of night?”
And even as he said that, he looked down again and found himself recoiling to stop. He floated there, stared, and blinked twice.
There was a light shining from some point below him, illuminating the figure next to it. Sitting on the edge of one of the roofs of what he assumed was a dormitory or apartment building was a man whose red hair could be seen even in this darkness.
Daisuke…?
Danny turned invisible, flying closer to where the strange man sat. He had a small portable lamp on the ledge beside him, and a notebook in his lap. He appeared to be doing homework, but Danny couldn’t tell, since he was writing in Japanese.
After a moment, Daisuke looked up at the moon, shivering a little. There was a pause as the young art student looked puzzled, probably trying to figure out what to write next, before he looked around warily.
Danny found himself unexpectedly surprised by this man once more—that look of alertness didn’t come from superstition like most of Amity Park’s people’s did. Daisuke’s wariness was more trained, though a little subdued, like a soldier retired from a war. Something about him screamed experience—but what dangerous things could someone so young have had experience with to learn that look?
Daisuke’s expression matched one of his own. Danny knew it well—it was a look he often got whenever ghosts appeared or whenever he was in the middle of a battle.
Danny soon learned why Daisuke was looking around like that, because he called out, “Who’s there?”
The green-eyed ghost boy blinked in surprise, making himself visible and holding his hands up peacefully. “Whoa, hey, uh, it’s just me.”
Daisuke blinked slowly, then relaxed and smiled. “Oh. Good evening, Danny. Out for a night time flight?” He asked as if it was the most casual thing in the world and Danny wasn’t floating a good thirty feet off the ground in front of him, considering he was on a roof ledge and Danny was eye-level with him.
Danny quirked an eyebrow at him—Daisuke was pretty strange indeed. Most people usually asked “what are you doing here?” when he appeared out of the blue like this. Getting small talk in this form was unusual.
"Something like that." Danny answered slowly, "How did you know I was here?"
"The air got colder. It usually gets colder when ghosts are around, doesn’t it?" Daisuke tilted his head, his spikey red hair flopping over a little, "Though yours feels less cold than others, for some reason."
Danny stared at him. Most people couldn’t feel the drop in temperature around ghosts until the ghosts were literally right next to them. Danny was only a half-ghost, so the air around him wasn’t as cold, but the difference was minute. How could Daisuke tell so easily?
Then again, this was a guy who shivered when he shook Danny’s hand. Maybe he just got cold easily.
"What are you doing out this time of night?" Danny asked him, as curious about the strange man as he had been all week.
"Writing a letter to home," Daisuke grinned, patting the spot next to him to offer Danny a seat.
Danny looked at it, and after a moment’s hesitation, joined the young man on the ledge of the roof. Daisuke glanced at him in fascination as his ghostly tail split into two legs, but soon went back to writing his letter.
"I really like the night time. It reminds me of a friend of mine. So I don’t mind if it’s dark out… sometimes I like to just sit here and think about him." Daisuke said softly.
Danny opened his mouth to make a comment, but decided better of it since he was more than sure the kind-looking man would be offended. He sat there quietly, watching Daisuke do his thing and realizing the silence between them wasn’t awkward or uncomfortable at all—it felt almost like he was hanging out with one of his friends, or his sister.
Daisuke seemed to exude a kindness that made him feel like he would be everyone’s friend, and it didn’t matter if it was a ghost boy or not.
"I did some research on you."
Danny blinked, not realizing he had spaced out while staring at Daisuke. “Oh yeah? Nothing good I bet.” He wondered if that was why Daisuke asked his name.
"Oh, not at all. But the way I see it, you’re a very brave young man." Daisuke chuckled.
Danny lost track of the number of times Daisuke surprised him. “Huh? Brave?” Of all the things he expected Daisuke—or anyone, for that matter—to say, this was not it.
"The media lists the things you did as menacing—stealing, kidnapping the mayor, destroying a lab, supposedly attacking people… but the way I see it, there are two sides to every story and I know the news is more likely to have only one side of it." Daisuke’s red eyes flickered toward him before returning to his letter, "They report so many of these stories, and ones where you face off against other ghosts, and yet… you keep appearing and fighting, despite everyone’s disapproval. That takes courage."
"Wha… why do you have so much faith in me? Everyone else thinks I’m evil ectoplasmic scum." Danny frowned.
"In my country, spirits of the dead are revered and respected. It’s what I believe. I see no reason for that to change while I stay in another country with different beliefs." Daisuke shrugged, "Besides… you were helping, when I met you. You took that other ghost, the one that was causing trouble, and you didn’t cause any more trouble. I like to think I’m a good judge of character, Danny. Don’t prove me wrong."
Danny stared at him in confusion. “You don’t hate me then?”
Daisuke grinned in a charismatic way. “Why would I hate you? I don’t even know you.”
For a moment, Danny forgot that Daisuke was a complete stranger. They had been talking as if they had known each other for more time than the few hours they actually knew each other.
Daisuke’s genuine kindness and honesty caught Danny off-guard, but he found it endearing. Daisuke was definitely something else.
"Thank… thank you." Danny managed out, still trying to process that a complete stranger—a foreigner whose perspective was different from anyone he had ever met before—was more accepting of him in two meetings than an entire city had been in the almost-year they had known him.
Daisuke gave him a confused look for a moment, trying to figure out why Danny had thanked him, before he waved his hand and returned it with, “You’re welcome.”
Danny caught sight of Daisuke’s watch. “Oh!” He jumped straight up, and didn’t come back down. He floated for a moment, his spectral tail reforming as he prepared to take off at high speed. “Sorry! I have to go!”
The redhead’s previous confusion grew, but he nodded. “Alright? Well, have a nice evening then, Danny. Perhaps we’ll meet again.”
Danny grinned and nodded. “Yeah, sorry. I just noticed the time and—uh, well, I just have to go. Hey, do you come out here every night?”
"Just about," Daisuke nodded, "My room’s the one right down here," He pointed to the window and balcony right below his dangling feet, "Stop by any time if you want, my roommate is almost never here."
"Cool," Danny grinned, "See you around then, Daisuke."
Daisuke waved, “Good night!” And Danny saluted, flying off until he was a speck against the moon.
The twenty-one-year-old smiled, going back to writing his letter.
"I’ve met a strange apparition—a young ghost, a boy named Danny."