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The first time Nene Yashiro wrote about the ghostly boy was nearly a month after she’d met him.
She’d dragged herself home with a heavy heart and puffy face, not even stopping to greet her parents at the risk of exposing her embarrassment. A headache was setting in, so she made a cup of jasmine tea and settled into her room for the evening.
Nene wrote about a lot of different things, but she would never admit it. Her poetry stayed locked away in the same pastel pink journal it had since her first year of middle school. Every crush, every heartbreak, every momentous occasion was documented in blue gel pen and complemented with stickers of flowers and hamsters.
Her face was still warm, eyes still itching with the caustic tears she had shed beneath the confession tree. A place said to be known for love, but she had only felt hurt. Disappointment. Shame.
But as she sipped her too hot tea, Nene didn’t think about her once again failed romance. Instead, she thought of Hanako-kun.
That strange spirit with an awful, middle school boy sense of humor. The spirit that never let his cheeky smile falter. The spirit that had grabbed her wrist, and lowered his head, and done something she hadn’t expected- apologized.
Nene had a feeling Hanako didn’t apologize often. She also had a feeling he didn’t have many friends.
Hanako-san of the Bathroom was one of the seven school mysteries, he called himself. A powerful apparition that oversaw the school’s supernatural creatures.
But Hanako-kun was just the spirit of a school boy. She knew this from the misty look in his eye when she’d called him her friend. The despondence in the shadows of his hat when he’d asked if she could be friends with a murderer.
The shame etched into his face when she’d broken down into tears over a fake confession.
And in that moment, Nene realized she didn’t know much about Hanako-kun the person.
Her tea was growing cold now, but she sat it aside and took up a pen.
And she wrote about the unveiling of his face.
And she wrote about the flutter of her heart.
And she wrote about a touch
Cold and gentle,
And the mystery of an earthbound spirit.
The second time she wrote about him, she felt numb.
The weight of the day dragged down every muscle in her body as she sunk into the pillows decorating her bed. She’d skipped dinner, but the pit in her stomach staved off any possible hunger. All she could think about were the bookstacks.
In the few months she’d spend entwined in the world of supernaturals, she’d come to the conclusion of one fact with certainty.
Ghosts didn’t bleed.
Nene was convinced ghosts didn’t cry either.
But in that dusty rock Tsuchigomori claimed to be from the moon, she’d seen the battered arms and bloodshot eyes of the boy who once called himself Amane Yugi.
Nene still felt the cold from where she had held him tight, afraid that he might dissolve if not. The polished tile floor gleamed a bit too brightly through his shoes, and she hoped he couldn’t feel the thumping of her heart.
She wanted to know more. She wanted to know about Hanako-kun the person, but she didn’t expect it to hurt like this.
Amane Yugi had been just like her.
Amane Yugi had died over half a century ago.
Nene knew that spirits were woven from tales of the past. Stories of tragedy, of pain. Ghosts required one key ingredient, and that was death- even Hanako-kun.
And yet the fact that he did die hit her with a force that knocked her breath out.
Hanako-kun had been human like her once.
Hanako-kun had his own dreams to fulfill.
Did she have dreams as well?
In the silky glow of starlight, Nene wrote about the moon.
Its watchful gaze, its mournful stare.
A silent observer to the plights of humans and spirits alike.
How many lifetimes had it watched slip away?
How many dreams had fluttered to smoke beneath its gaze?
Nene fell asleep crying for a boy who didn’t go to the moon.
The third time she wrote about him, the pen felt wobbly in her hand.
The heat had not left her cheeks from hours earlier, and the urge to scream into her pillow swelled with every thought about Hanako-kun’s stupid, blushing face.
She’d never kissed anyone before.
She’d always imagined her first kiss being swept away by a handsome upperclassman. A prince in disguise, a confession gone right for once. A kiss warm and filled with passion.
Nene had never thought her first kiss would feel so cold.
Kisses tasted a lot less like lemons and a lot more like strawberry ice pops.
The kind she’d brought to share with Hanako on the hottest day of July, sticky and melting in her hands. The kind he’d snatched up with his usual cheeky grin, but with a lilt in his voice that made her feel a little lonely.
The cold didn’t seem to faze him as he chomped through frozen slush, though he’d also been preoccupied with the gameboy she’d brought. His first introduction to modern entertainment.
Well, not too modern, but the sparkle in his eyes over the outdated graphics told her it didn’t matter.
She wondered how he’d react to modern movies.
Nene really could have used an ice pop to cool her face. She’d repeated to herself that she’d just done it to cheer him up until it became a mantra.
But she knew it was in part a lie.
The fluttering in her ribcage rang loud and clear.
With a heavy sigh, she buried her face in her pillow. Forbidden love was a lot more romantic in books and manga; in real life, she was left to stew in her own blistering emotions. In real life you couldn’t tell your best friend you kissed a ghost.
Except, she most certainly was not in love.
Nene took up a glittery purple pen, and wrote about her ideal date.
About a walk through the park, littered with cherry blossoms
A moon kissed evening framed picture-perfect for lovers
Warm hands intertwined, and warm kisses exchanged
All things a ghost could not give her.
The fourth time Nene wrote about him, she sat on the roof of her apartment building.
The stars were not nearly as large and as bright as they had been in the painted world. Here, they were mere pinpricks through the inky curtain of the night sky, drowned out by the soft light of the town below. She wondered if the stars had looked so small when Hanako was alive.
It’d been under stars like these that she’d told him how much he meant to her.
Of course, she didn’t know it was him when she’d said it.
A part of her knew they were the same person. They had the same bright eyes, same tastes, same awful personality (though, a bit politer in the fake world, she would admit). All the things she had come to love about him.
Amane Yugi was Hanako, and yet, he wasn’t her Hanako.
Her Hanako wore a childish grin, an old school cap, and a white seal plastered to his cheek. Her Hanako never took anything as seriously as he probably should. Her Hanako hugged her tight when she needed it most.
Her Hanako had hands cold as ice.
But she liked them better that way.
Nene looked up to the twinkling night sky, tracing a line of stars cutting across. She wondered what constellation they were a part of. Hanako was sure to know- he was practically a walking encyclopedia for that kind of thing.
Maybe she’d go to the library tomorrow and check out one of those space atlas books. Maybe she’d bring it to her cleaning duty and watch those ochre eyes beam in a childish enthusiasm. Did he know about the Hubble telescope? The International Space Station? He’d barely been able to contain his excitement when she’d showed him the pixelated video game nearly fifteen years out of date.
That night, Nene wrote about Betelgeuse
A star thought to be long dead
Barely an echo of its former glow
The spirit of a flame in the vast expanse of space
Did it get lonely, drifting through darkness and dust?
Nene thought about how stars reminded her of ghosts, and perhaps that was why they felt so familiar.
The fifth time Nene was going to write about him she couldn’t, because she’d left her journal in the third floor bathroom- where a certain school spirit discovered it.
After spending most of the afternoon struggling through geometry homework (something that he, admittedly, had little recollection of from fifty years prior), she’d hurried to get home and left him and the pastel pink book in the windowsill.
The bathroom was always a bit too quiet, a bit too empty when she left.
Even if she was cleaning, he liked having her around. He liked braiding her hair and watching her kick up a fuss. He liked when she babbled on about some boy in her class (even if it did make him a little jealous).
Hanako picked up the book curiously, the “Property of Nene Yashiro” taped to the cover making it all that more intriguing. He recalled Tsuchigomori rattling out her confession to keeping a fake exchange journal with the kid’s older brother, and couldn’t help but wonder if this was the fabled tome.
And well, with a possibility like that, he couldn’t not look, right?
One could say he expected the glitter gel pens and plethora of stickers. The doodles of hearts and skulls. The verbose language that felt lifted straight from a thesaurus page. The cutesy, over-the-top feel that was oh so very Yashiro .
What he didn’t expect was a story that felt so familiar.
About a boy who wished to go to the moon
About a ghost who took his place
And about a girl, the story’s heroine, whose clock was ticking away
And how beneath a painted sky of a thousand stars
She wished for a fairytale ending
Was it selfish to ask someone who had never gotten it himself?
But he took up her hand in his winter-cold fingers
And beheld her with eyes filled with a lunar glow
And Nene wondered how lucky she was
To wish upon a shooting star
With such a gentle smile
When Nene came in the next day, her hair was a mess of tangles and braids to complement her frantic expression. He was quick to point this out, but she didn’t seem to hear.
“Have you seen it?” She practically yelled. “Have you seen my journal?”
And for a second, he didn’t answer. He didn’t want to break the moment that reminded him of when she’d barreled into the classroom in Number Four’s world. Of how, even if just for a day, things had almost been normal.
No, he couldn’t say that, because this was their normal. A human girl who turned into a fish and an apparition of the school bathroom.
And Nene’s journal told him that she liked it that way.
Hanako dropped his hands from their ghostly position and pulled the book in question from the inside of his jacket, at the same time pulling a squeal from her lips. Snatching it away at the speed of lightning, she held it close to her chest.
He fought the urge to chuckle.
The relief on her face was quickly exchanged for suspicion, and she looked up at him with those jewel-like eyes that glittered like stardust. “You didn’t read any of them…” she asked hesitantly, “did you?”
“No, of course not,” he answered cheerfully. And then, “Well maaaaaaybe I read one about a certain Minamoto-senpai-”
His words were cut off by her distraught yell, face as pink as the book she held in front of it. Hanako felt a laugh escape his lips as he dodged her swats and strikes, and was certain, if his heart could still beat, it would thump as loud as it could.
The rest of the afternoon was spent avoiding the topic of the journal, and instead watching an action movie on her laptop. Most of the movies in his lifetime had been black and white, and none of them had the explosions of modern ones. They made his head spin, but with the same thrill as rollercoasters.
The same thrill as when she’d tried to cheer him up.
As he sipped on grape soda she’d brought that stained his translucent tongue purple, he thought he saw just the hint of red in her cheeks. Maybe it was the lingering embarrassment, or maybe it was a trick of the warm afternoon sun.
Whatever it was, his hand felt warm in her own, a warmth he hadn’t felt in decades.
Whatever it was, it was enough.