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He wasn’t sure why he left in the middle of the night, tipsy, with a boombox in one hand and the Greatest Hits of Pet Shop Boys CD in the other.
She probably wouldn’t be there.
The graduation party in his house was wild. Everybody got drunk at various degrees of intensity: Josuke passed out over Rohan’s legs a little after giving him the second button of his uniform, a stupid smile plastered over his face, pining the man in place. Rohan got red with anger (or what Rohan wanted for the others to assume) but seemed incapable of summoning his stand or of pushing the big teenager away after a can of beer, contenting himself in doodling on Josuke’s face, arms and whatever place he could reach with a marker (the teen lost his uniform jacket at some point) intricate action scenes of his manga and the word “idiot” over and over before too passing out beside him, the button carefully secured in his hand.
Yukako also collapsed but before she lost conscience she engulfed Koichi with her hair. The boy got in panic, screamed and tried to run away but Love Deluxe was too strong for him to escape.
Mikitaka morphed his hand into some colorful shapes that scared Stray Cat, which prompted his pet to shoot air bullets without any care, filling walls and the ceiling with tiny holes. Some of them even perforated the blond boy’s hand but strangely it didn’t bleed nor Mikitaka seemed to feel any pain. His pet was now munching on his friend’s maimed hand while the blond slept on the floor. Okuyasu pondered for a moment if Mikitaka’s alien flesh would poison his dad’s pet but shrugged his doubts off, too tipsy to think what could upset a cat-plant hybrid’s digestive system.
It was way past midnight when the chaos finally died. He thought about going to sleep, after covering each of his friends with a blanket to prevent them from catching a cold, even Koichi, who still was giving out muffled screams inside his hair cocoon, but he ended up changing his mind.
He wanted to see her.
Reimi.
They said goodbye to her two years before. Shit, he saw her ascending to heaven with his goddamned two eyes. Why would she be there at he Ghost Alley? Because his very intoxicated ass wanted her to? A random guy she never saw in her life? Or death, whatever? Why would she care?
Well, why not?
He closed the door behind him, ready to go to Owson, already convinced he wouldn’t find the Ghost Alley.
And even if he found the Alley she wouldn’t be there.
Except she was.
Standing in the middle of the hidden street, under a light post, donning a white dress with gold accents, different from the one she used when he met her. Something around her floated languid, sparkling bright like fireflies. It was different from the traditional description of will-o-wisp he knew. They bathed her in a warm light and gave her a comforting aura.
An angel.
Arnold was there too, wagging his tail at him, his once unsightly neck now whole again.
“Hello there, Okuyasu-kun.” the smile she gave him was the same one from two years, warm and welcoming. “Hope you’re not lost.”
“Hey, Reimi-san.” he waved, suddenly very timid. He wasn’t counting with really meeting her. “What are you doing here?”
“Someone wanted to meet me and I wanted to meet this someone. Simple as that.” she said while Arnold ran to him, friendly, almost knocking him to the ground when he jumped against the teen. He was surprisingly solid for a ghost-angel-ethereal-dog.
“Oh. Is how that works?” he asked, trying to calm the excited dog down.
“Sometimes.” petting her dog to leave the boy alone, she smiled again, this time a little sad. “You can’t see your big brother or Shigekiyo-kun. I’m sorry, Okuyasu-kun.”
“Oh...” he said, a little dejected. He didn’t thought about the two and now he felt a little selfish for not doing it. But he shook off the feeling to not let her down.
There was always a next time!
“S’ fine. I wasn’t even sure I was going to meet you. I’m happy I did.” he said, bashful.
She smiled again and he felt his chest warm.
“So, what’s the reason of your visit?” she asked, playful, while Arnold circled them, tail wagging non stop.
“Oh, it was our graduation today. We had a party.”
“Is this why you’re slurring? Is it okay for kids to have alcohol?”
He covered his mouth with a sound slap. He’d must be stinking of cheap beer!
She only giggled.
“I’m not admonishing you, sorry. To tell you the truth I had my share of booze when I was alive too.”
“But you died when you were sixteen… You drank?!”
She laughed openly, and her laugh sounded like tiny bells to him, while making a gesture for him to be quiet, as if someone could hear them at the desert alley.
“I had my time of delinquency too. Wasn’t that long though, I confess.”
“Would never thought. You’re so, y’know” he made a vague gesture. “not delinquent like.”
“Tomoko-senpai said the same when I tried to mimic her.” she chuckled, a little embarrassed. “It was pathetic. She told me to stop or I would be a bad influence for Rohan-chan and her baby boy if I continued doing that.”
“Tomoko? You mean Higashikata Tomoko?”
She stopped laughing and looked very excited, the same way she did when talking about Rohan when he was little.
“You know Tomoko-senpai?!” she asked, her eyes bright.
“I mean, if we’re talking about the same person then she’s my neighbor! Josuke’s mom!”
“Josuke?! You mean the Josuke-kun that came here?! Her baby Josuke” she made a gesture with her hands like she was carrying something. “was that Josuke-kun?!” she then did a comically large gesture to show how big the thing was now.
Okuyasu almost couldn’t hold a laugh. The serene looking angel from some moments ago looked like an ordinary and very excited teenage girl giving out squeals and little jumps while talking too quickly how she wished she talked to him more.
“I held him in my hands when he was born, he was the tiniest bean! He had an adorable toothless smile that got into Rohan-chan’s nerves! You should’ve see them, Okuyasu-kun, so cute! Argh, I wanted to see they growing together!” She suddenly stopped to tilt her head, pensively. “Huh. They got together afterall, didn’t they? Josuke-kun and Rohan-chan. It was so obvious from how they looked at each other.”
Okuyasu’s eyes widened before they shut while he snickered.
“I think I was the last one to know what was going on between those two. I always thought they looked at each other all the time because they were trying to think how to kill one another. Guess even ghosts noticed what that tension between them really was.”
Reimi gave out an all knowing chuckle.
“Not ghosts, Okuyasu. It was woman’s in-tui-tion! ♡” she said, tapping the tip of his nose with her finger, making him blush.
“O-Oh, sorry for underestimating your, um, intuition.” he stuttered, trying to cover his embarrassment.
Dude, she touched you! His brain screamed at him.
She giggled, seeming very amused by the boy acting all timid around her. Arnold got bored of their human antics and decided to lay down on the ground, lazily trying to bite the firefly-like lights floating around his owner that got astray from her.
“So!” she circled around him, her steps so light she was almost floating, looking what he had in his hand. “What do we have here…? Who are these Pet Shop Boys?”
Okuyasu put the boombox on the ground to better show the girl the CD jacket in his hand.
“They’re a duo from England. They play pop music. Never heard them?”
Reimi shook her head.
“My parents liked jazz more. And enka. It was what I heard too by proxy.”
“Oh.”
“Sorry, Okuyasu-kun.” she apologized, looking a little embarrassed. “Do you like them?”
“Yeah, they always cheer me up when I’m kinda down.”
Saying that, he crouched to that characteristic squat his body was so used to, turned the boombox on and put the CD to play.
“It’s upbeat.” she commented, crouching by his side in a much more feminine and modest way, moving her head and shoulders along West End Girls.
“I know right? I can’t stay sad when I hear them.” He was got by surprise by a bright smile from the girl when he turned to her. “Uh… did I say something strange?”
“No, I’m just glad you came here to share with me what cheers you, Okuyasu-kun. It makes me happy to understand you a little more.”
It was the prettiest- no, the most beautiful and radiant thing he ever saw in all his short life and it was so close he thought if he got blind for looking at it so directly he would be happy for her to the last thing he saw.
She wasn’t cruel in the slightest, let alone to the point of blinding him though. But she was mischievous enough to snatch the CD jacket from him while he looked stupidly fascinated at her to read the song titles aloud until she got at one in particular that made her squint.
“Where The Streets Have No Name I Can't Take my Eyes Off You.” she said aloud with difficulty and a heavy accent. “Quite mouthful.”
“Ah, this is my favorite of them! It’s a mashup of a U2’s song and Frankie Valli’s.”
“I know Frankie Valli!” she almost squealed but then frowned, her voice losing its volume. “But who’s this ‘Yuuchuu’?”
Okuyasu snickered a bit. It was quite the roller coaster to see Reimi alternating between intimidatingly beautiful ethereal being and ordinary and cute confused girl like that.
“U2, Reimi-san, with the letter ‘U’ and the number ‘2’ in english. They’re an irish band.”
“Oh. Wish I knew them when I was alive.” she frowned at the sleeve in her hands before turning to him. “Was U2 already formed when I was alive?
“I think they were. Their War album is from 1983 if I’m not wrong. The same year I was born.”
“Ah, it’s the year I-”
Both became silent. Okuyasu wanted to hit himself for making her to think about her last moments.
“I’m not angry at you, Okuyasu-kun.” he heard her calling him with a warm voice.
He turned to her only to have his cheek poked by a waiting pointing finger and a giggle from the girl, who then gave out a disappointed sight.
“Sheesh, I missed out so many things.” she complained, back to her ordinary and talkative self. “Being dead sucks. We didn’t even had the opportunity to meet each other in life.”
“Yeah, but at least you didn’t met my ugly baby self.” he replied, still a little awkward for the situation.
“I wish I had but I’m glad I got to meet the handsome self at least.” she said, winking.
Okuyasu thought he was going to pass out from how hot his face felt while Reimi only winked again at him, her tongue sticking out, playful.
Suddenly, her eyes gleamed, cheerful and decided as she always was.
“I want to listen it!”
“W-What?!”
“The song! The ‘Where the streets’ something one!”
“Uh, already? ‘Heart’ didn’t play yet, it’s a good one. And ‘Domino Dancing’ too.”
“I know, they must be good if you’re saying but you said this one is your favorite! C’mon, Okuyasu-kun!” she begged, clapping her hands.
Okuyasu blushed with how adorable she looked and skipped to the song.
And instantly regretted it.
The instrumental part suddenly sounded shallow to him. He never noticed it. Reimi listened to enka and jazz, which were much more deep and dramatic than the artificial electronic beat of Pet Shop Boys’ version.
He got progressively nervous when Neil Tennant started to sing. Suddenly, he didn’t sound that good of a singer. Suddenly, the song wasn’t that good. Why did he say it was his favorite song? She knew Frankie Valli, the man had a velvety voice and compared to him, Tennant was kind of generic. Why-?
“I wish I knew english. It sounds lovely.” she commented, closed eyes, a faint smile on her lips.
“… yeah, it is.”
‘I want to take shelter
from poisoned rain
Where the streets have no name’
“Do you know what they’re singing about?”
“Er… I think it’s kinda a protest song? It’s kinda U2’s trademark but I think Pet Shop Boys turned it into… kinda… a lovesong.” he replied, embarrassed for talking about love with a girl that was way out of his league, not just in beauty but also for not being alive. “Something something about living in a place where everyone is equal, where the streets don’t need names that tell if you live in a rich or poor neighborhood, something like that. Sorry, I’m… not good with this deep stuff...”
But she was glowing at him with the translation he gave her.
“You did great, Okuyasu-kun. I would never know if you didn’t tell me. It gave the song a meaning to me. Thank you.”
“Uh, yeah, you’re welcome.” he replied, his tan skin beyond red under the lights that danced around her. “I-I think you’re overestimating me...”
She frowned at him when she heard that.
“I think you should stop downplaying yourself, Okuyasu-kun.” she replied, quietly. “It does no one any good and it only hurts yourself.”
‘We're still building, then burning down love
Burning down love’
He didn’t know what to reply to her. He wanted to deny his own words hurt himself. Afterall, his brother always told him that and Keicho did it to protect him. It’s not like he knew his words would make scars all over Okuyasu’s self-esteem.
“You’re so much better than you think you are, you need to give yourself a chance.”
They heard the song in an awkward silence.
‘And when I go there
I go there with you
Where the streets have no name
I can't take my eyes off of you’
The tense atmosphere was gone when her eyes widened as she smiled brightly again to him once she recognized the melody. Okuyasu smiled too despite his fear of her still not liking the song or her being upset with him. It was simply contagious.
“I know this song!”
Without losing a beat, she stood up, pulling him with her to dance. While he tripped in his own legs clumsily, she stumbled a little on the words and got a little off the rhythm, so much more fast than the original version but not really caring for her faults.
“I love you baby and if it's quite all right, I need you baby to warm my lonely nights” although she was a little off tempo, she knew the lyrics perfectly. “So let me love you baby, Let me love you.”
And her voice gave him a fuzzy and warm feeling he didn’t know how to describe.
Once again, Neil Tennant started singing the U2’s part she didn’t knew but hummed and mumbled along, already familiar with the melody.
Everytime she stumbled on a word or sang outside the tempo she laughed, making him to gulp.
It was the most beautiful sound he ever heard.
He didn’t want that night to end.
“I don’t want it too but it has to end.”
‘Where the streets have no name
Where the streets have no name’
“I’m sorry, Okuyasu-kun.”
He wanted to ask what she was sorry for.
“I really wanted to meet you in life. Maybe next time?” she asked softly.
‘Where the streets have no name
I can't take my eyes off of you’
Under the dim light they were, he finally noticed how transparent she was, becoming more and more intangible.
The song faded before it ended, leaving a complete silence, her voice the only sound echoing in the empty alley.
“Love you baby, let me love you...”
Melancholic.
“Reimi-san, you-!”
Once again, she only smiled, silencing him gently with a see through finger over his lips before closing her doe eyes with long lashes along with the distance between them.
She smelled faintly of peaches.
It felt like he was kissing a dream.
“Where the streets have no name...” she whispered one last time when their lips parted.
And then he was alone, back in the main street, the muffled ambient music of Owson playing at the background, the ghost alley behind closed its access to him.
His boombox’s batteries long gone.