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Ghosts can’t wish for much.
Well, it isn’t that ghosts can’t wish for much. In fact, he knows many ghosts that have wished for far more than ‘not much.’ Ghosts who spend their time floating through the land of the living searching for a purpose. For something that they left behind. Something that they’re so desperate to regain that they’re willing to spend eternity torturing themselves following around the humans who can’t even perceive them. He thinks it pathetic. How can you exist like that? In a limbo between what you were and what you will be. Trapped in memories that you can never return to, but refusing to move into the next stage.
He thinks it so very pathetic, but also so very sad.
“Don’t be too kind to the dead, boy.” He says, knife clenched in quivering hands. The Minamoto boy – an exorcist, no less. How ridiculous of him, to find himself so close to an exorcist – stares up at him with wide eyes. Confused. Tearful. Upset. He’s clinging to the remains of that spirit that he had dragged into the bathroom earlier. The spirit that now lies mangled. Twisted. Ruined. He knows there’s no future. There’s no hope. There’s no way to fix it. No matter how much the Minamoto boy cries and begs and pleads, there’s nothing to be done.
Spirits don’t belong here, after all. Once one moves along, there’s no way to bring one back. Nor is there a reason to.
The knife comes down. Down on the seemingly sleeping face of that spirit – Mitsuba, the Minamoto boy keeps calling him – that is so mangled. He disappears like a gust of wind. Gone just as he appeared.
The Minamoto boy clutches at air for a moment longer. He hates to admit, even to himself, that the tears hovering on the edges of those blue eyes send… something, panging through his chest. Something distinct. Something familiar. Something… painful.
He doesn’t like this feeling.
The Minamoto boy takes the vanished spirit’s camera in his hands, and holds it like it’s the most precious thing in the world. He holds it like it might crumble to dust.
The feeling that comes with that is one that he doesn’t recognize, and one that he isn’t sure he wants to. It doesn’t take him long to realize what the feeling is. It doesn’t take him long to pull up images of her face, alongside the Minamoto boy. Nene Yashiro and Kou Minamoto. His lips twist into a pained imitation of a smile. Tears still hang off the corners of his eyes. He can’t shake it. The feeling of his fingers, touching his skin. The feeling of his breath, mere inches from his ear. The sound of his voice, cutting him off from every other noise. His fingers tremble, even as his hands fall to his side and his grip on that damned knife weakens just enough to keep it from dropping to the ground.
Their smiles fade from his mind. Kou Minamoto and Nene Yashiro fade away, and all that’s left is a shaky smile and disjointed memories of him.
“We have no future.” He whispers, voice trembling with what might have been emotion, once upon a time. Tears still hang in his eyes, even as he draws his lips up into a smile. “Don’t try to give us hope.”
He knows that ghosts shouldn’t wish for much. The most they should desire is a bit longer to watch over those they love. Perhaps some time to say goodbye to the things they’ll miss. Maybe even a bit of unfinished business. Ghosts should not aspire. Ghosts should not want. Ghosts should not hope. Ghosts have no future. There’s nothing to strive for. Nothing to look forward to. Ghosts will forever be stuck in a past they can never escape.
The Minamoto boy’s tears don’t stop.
He wonders why it hurts so much.
Ghosts shouldn’t wish for things.
It’s a rule that Hanako-san of the Girl’s Bathroom set. Of course, it isn’t a rule that he can enforce. There’s no reason to enforce such a thing. If the other ghosts of the school want to wish for things that they can never acquire, it isn’t any of his business. All he can do is sit back and watch as those wishes turn to disaster. As apparitions are twisted and distorted by baseless rumors, he knows that he can’t do anything to stop it.
Ghosts shouldn’t wish for much, but the only ghost that Hanako-kun of the Girl’s Bathroom can stop from wishing for more than they should is himself.
Apparently, he can’t even do that.
It’s the sight of their smiles. Kou Minamoto and Nene Yashiro. The way they looked at him, when they asked for his embarrassing secret. The way they held his hands and told him they wanted to know more about him. The way they told him he was cute, when he said that his favorite food is donuts. If he were alive, if he were a human with a life and feelings and a future, he thinks his heart would have been pounding out of his chest. Their eyes had sparkled in the way that only living people’s can, and he can’t describe the feeling he felt swelling through his body as jealousy. It wasn’t jealousy. He isn’t jealous.
It was something else entirely. Something that swallows his every thought. Distracts him from his duties and sucks his time away. He thinks of their smiles. He thinks of their sparkling eyes. He thinks of the donuts they made for him – those that he never even got to eat. If only he had never showed up again – and the way Nene Yashiro and Kou Minamoto seemed to cling to him once they knew just a bit more about him.
When he thinks of those things, he breaks his own rule without even thinking of it.
He thinks of their smiles. He thinks of the feel of their hands in his. The sparkles in their eyes and the sound of their voices and the kindness of their words and wishes.
What does he wish for?
So much more than any ghost could ever hope to receive.
He wishes for a body that can give them warmth. He wishes for a heartbeat that they can listen to. He wishes for a smile they can appreciate. He wishes for a laugh that can make them smile. He wishes for hands that can comfort them. He wishes for eyes that can sparkle. He wishes for a voice that can be kind. He wishes for words that can bring them happiness.
He wishes for a life he can share with them.
He wishes he had been born 50 years later.
If only he had been born 50 years later.
Maybe, just maybe, if he had been born so much later, he could have all that he wishes for.
Only, if only, he had been born so much later, he could give them everything that he wishes to.
Ghosts shouldn’t wish for things. Ghosts shouldn’t long for anything beyond a quiet goodbye, a final few days, an unfinished task to complete before moving along. Ghosts don’t need kindness. Ghosts don’t need hope. Ghosts don’t have a future. What’s the point to kindness, hope, wishes, when there’s no future?
And yet, Hanako-kun of the girl’s bathroom wishes.
For a life.
For love.
For a future.
For their smiles.
For happiness.
He knows it’s hopeless.
But he wishes, nonetheless.