Work Text:
The ghosts of Yokohama do not sleep. They wait. They watch. They wonder. They wish. They whisper. They wander. They are anything but gone, even in death.
There is a lady in blue, clinging to the shoulders of her daughter. She is there when a phantom-wielding woman offers her daughter a hand, when a white-haired boy whispers a promise of something more to her trembling form. She watches her cry in the dark, wraps her non-physical arms around her neck and kisses her forehead, whispers unheard promises to the universe that it will be okay. She loves and remembers and protects, the mother she was in life carried over into death.
There is a boy with a collar, silent and scared. He’s a newcomer, afterimages of blood still lingering on his face. It will fade in time, but, for now, it is a somber reminder of what they really are. He does not speak to the others, not yet, but he is still one of them. He is there when the man he dreamed of becoming lays sick, when a man with a black coat brushes harsh and bitter and proud against the white-haired boy as the cavern comes down around them. He watches the woman’s daughter with a wistful smile, an abandoned half-wish hanging loosely around his shoulders. He is more ghost than the rest of them, faint and mournful, still clinging to and regretting the life he left behind. They welcome him as best they can and hope that time will soothe the pain.
There are two, a boy and a woman, who exist -- not live, for they are not living, not anymore -- in unison. They died together, it seems. They watch the same man, following him from day to day. They could fill a notebook to rival his with whispered well-wishes and apologies. The boy is still somewhat abrasive, the slight bitter stink of youth still clinging to him. He died still young and hot and fast, none of the other boy’s hesitance and fear despite their similar age. The woman is quieter, her regrets heavier and her edges softer, but she has that same bitter tinge of someone who still had a life to live. They hover over him watchful and protective. Even to the most distant among the dead, their pain is evident.
There is a man in white, his eyes cold and empty. He is new, but he is strange. He is wrong. He watches the tiger-boy with his dead-eyed gaze. He hangs somewhere in between affection and animosity toward the boy, but he watches nonetheless. He does not speak. He does not move except to follow. He is cold and stiff, angry and rigid. The others do not trust him. Of them all, he is the most dead.
There is one more, a red-haired man with echoes of children clinging to his legs. His take is wider, he watches more. He watches a man wrapped in blood and bandages argue with someone wearing glasses and a suit, the man a boy and woman who died together watch. He watches a figure in a brown suit bustle through the city, clipboard in hand. But, beyond that, he is there. He is there, whispering unheard comforts and running intangible fingers through the hair of a child hanging limp in vines. He is there, kneeling over the collared-boy’s body and welcoming him to their number. He is there, smiling as a doll shrouded girl is accepted into the cafe. He is there, praying to a god he knows is not there for the sick man with silver hair who fulfilled the mission he never could.
The dead of Yokohama are anything but restful. They are a part of the city as much as the living, and they love and regret and feel and wish as much as the living. They are dead, but they are not gone.