Work Text:
there’s a house at the end of a dark street. it’s been empty for as long as the neighbors can remember, and none of them are old enough to recall who exactly lived there last. it’s a grand house, probably previously occupied by a grand family with grand amounts of money and possibly status too.
it’s not empty. of course, the neighbors don’t know that, but curious children do. bored teenagers looking for trouble know it’s not empty. or rather, they made a guess and were proved right by the spiteful boy who still occupied those old, crumbling walls.
shouto has occupied this house for a very long time, he’s not even sure how long exactly. at the start of his time there, or what he assumed was the start, he found entertainment in those nosy kids that came by too often, looking to wreak havoc. he liked to rattle the blinds, flicker the lights on the porch, in the attic. some kids got a little too nosy, and shouto would make sure they never forgot him by slamming doors and killing their flashlights.
he did not want anyone in his home.
shouto watches a family of four move into the house next door. it was less next door and more a hundred yards away, a little bit down the street, but whatever. the mischievous kids stop coming by while that family occupies the space next to shouto. he doesn’t mind it, not really. he took to watching the boy in the uppermost window pace back and forth, open the window, light something. many times, he watched the boy crawl out on the ledge, sit there and let his legs dangle over nothing.
and one day, the boy stops pacing. he stops opening the window, stops sitting on the ledge. shouto finds himself a little… upset at his sudden absence.
there’s a for sale sign in their yard. what had been a family of four moving in, shouto watches a trio leave with boxes in hand and tears in their eyes.
shouto stops looking out that window entirely. time passes. it’s quiet again.
there’s a shift, and it it starts with the front door lock jiggling. kitchen cabinets opening and closing. shouto is nothing but irritated at first, because who is going to haunt a ghost?
and then, one day, there is a boy sitting on the dining table.
he’s very faint, but he’s there. and he’s sitting on top of the dining table, with his legs criss-crossed and everything. he’s leaned back on one palm, with his other very faint arm risen and reaching for the light fixture hanging from the ceiling.
he’s humming, the sound scratchy and just as faint as he looks. he has black hair that sticks out more than the rest of him, and eyes just as dark.
shouto stares. intelligently, he says, “um, hello?”
the boy startles, his outline flickering. “jesus shit , dude! you scared me!”
i scared him? shouto blinks. which question to ask first? who is he? how did he get here? what’s his name? why can shouto see him? instead, what comes out is this: “this is my home.”
the boy looks at him then, really looks, and shouto finds he can’t tear his eyes away from him even if he wanted to. the boy drops his arm to lean on both palms now, his outline flickering again. he’s not very strong. with a drawl in his tinny voice, he asks, “is it?”
is it? what kind of question is that? of course it is. shouto frowns then, a little insulted. “what are you doing here?”
“got bored of my old place.”
“your old place…?”
“the house next door. it’s empty now. too quiet.”
shouto blinks again before the realization strikes him hard. the boy from the window. “you’re—“
“i’m hanta.” the boy tilts his head and it’s the first time he’s looked even a little bit solid. he holds out a hand. “pleased to make your undead acquaintance.”
his attitude rubs shouto the wrong way just a bit, but… he’s kinda funny. shouto hasn't had a conversation with someone since—well, since. but that outstretched hand...
shouto narrows his eyes and doesn’t bother taking a few steps forward to shake it. “shouto,” he replies. then, “please get off my table.”
“will you shake my hand if i do, shouto?” hanta asks, something about the way he says his name makes shouto think maybe there is power in being known. there is a lilting tease to hanta’s tone, even if it does sound like he’s speaking through the world’s most ancient nokia phone.
shouto knows he’s not intimidating or scary in the slightest (at least, he doesn’t think he is. he can’t remember if he had been when he was alive), but that doesn’t stop him from squinting even harder in what he hopes is his most skeptical look. “get off my table first.”
hanta’s lip quirks, and his form flickers again. still, with exaggerated slowness, he gets off the table. when his feet hit the floor, there is no sound. there never is. shouto’s tried it himself. he takes a few more silent steps until he’s right in front of shouto, just on the verge of being too close. hanta holds out that hand again.
shouto holds out his own and hanta meets him halfway. shouto knows he’s dead, he knows there is no real substance to him, so it shouldn’t surprise him when hanta’s hand goes right through his own, but it does. there is no warmth, no contact. nothing but a little electric shock, a wash of cold. it’s weird.
hanta might be able to read his mind. he’s looking down at their hands when he says, “weird.”
and it—well, it makes shouto smile, just a little.
—
“how long have you been here?” hanta asks as he sits, or rather, hovers , over the living room coffee table.
what’s with him and sitting on tables? shouto wishes he'd just sit on the couch, but he refuses, even when shouto asks him nicely. not only is hanta on the table, but he’s sprawled across it. not even sitting . he’s really, completely starfished out with his arms above his head and his legs on either side of the table. his head leans over the end of it, and he stares unseeing at the wall beyond while he speaks.
he’s been here—shouto doesn’t know how long. time doesn’t make sense to him anymore. he stopped keeping track… probably a long time ago. but hanta’s been here long enough that his voice is starting to gain some stability. it sounds more like he’s talking through a shattered smartphone speaker as opposed to the first phone ever created.
obviously there is still progress to be made, but shouto can’t really be bothered because he found he rather enjoys listening to someone else beside the thoughts in his head speak.
“i don't know,” shouto answers honestly from his modest spot on the couch. he doesn’t hover near as much as hanta; he’s stronger, which means he’s older, he assumes. more here than hanta is.
hanta kicks him, but it’s just another gust of cold air and that bizarre, staticy feeling again. “sure you do.”
shouto looks at him then, takes in his outline and the rips in the knees of his jeans, the way his hair falls, the upward tip of his chin. shouto frowns, looks away. “i don't.” for no reason at all, he says, “i have no reason to lie, hanta.”
hanta flickers at the sound of his name. he lifts his head like he felt it, felt that surge of power, of energy, of being recognized, before he drops his head again with a clearly annoyed huff. “if you say so.”
“time doesn’t make sense when you’ve been…” shouto lets his hand go transparent and sticks it through the couch cushion beneath him. “gone, i guess, as long as i have.”
hanta puts his feet on the table, waving his knees this way and that. “can you guess?”
shouto’s hand finds itself back in his lap. “years.”
“no shit,” hanta scoffs. and then, for a while, he says nothing else.
shouto liked it when he had the house to himself, but hanta adds a new… livelier element to his environment. shouto would be lying if he said hanta wasn't entertaining, even if sometimes he says strange things or, like now, sits on shouto’s tables.
shouto wasn’t sure if the tables had been his when he was alive, but it comforts him to lay claim on them now, when he has nothing else.
“what about you?” shouto asks, daring to push.
“what about me?” hanta shoots right back.
“how long have you…” been dead doesn’t sound appropriate. “been gone?”
“you mean, how long have i been dead?”
shouto sucks in a breath, or what would’ve been a breath of his lungs still worked. well, so much for appropriateness. “yes. that.”
hanta leans up, even though shouto knows there’s no blood rushing to his head. he fixes shouto with that stare of his, the curious, unblinking one that makes shouto squirm. “a month. maybe two.”
a memory of the family next door putting a for sale sign in their yard pokes at shouto then. that hadn’t been so long ago. not long at all.
and they’d left without the boy in the window.
“are you the boy i saw sitting on the window ledge all those times?”
hanta seems taken aback by this, but his gaze doesn’t waver. “must’ve been. there were no other boys in the window ledge but me.”
what happened? sits at the edge of shouto’s tongue. he bites it down. when he says nothing, hanta stands up from the table, finally, and gestures for shouto to follow.
“c’mon, shou, let's go scare some kids,” he says, like he’d said the night before, the night before that, and likely the night before that. since coming here, hanta enjoys harassing the kids and teenagers that came by this house nearly every night after sundown like clock work. he likes slamming doors and shoving the porch chairs and making all those annoying wailing sounds. shouto had liked it once, too. he supposes hanta gets a thrill from their fear, because it means that even for just a moment, someone out in the real world knows he’s there.
shouto follows him, because hanta calling him shou makes him feel undeniably, inexplicably warm.
—
another incomprehensible amount of time passes. the sun rises, sets, and still hanta occupies shouto’s home. by the fourth, twelfth, twenty seventh sunset, shouto finds he doesn’t really mind it anymore. he doesn’t mind that hanta walks through walls, doors, without any kind of announcement. he doesn't mind that hanta talks a lot, because it fills the quiet that used to buzz in shouto’s head. he doesn’t mind it now, as the pair sit on the back porch to watch the sun dip below the horizon for the nth time.
he doesn’t even mind that hanta is sitting close enough that their shoulders, if not for being so transparent, would bump together.
“hanta,” shouto says. he says it to get that flicker through the boy beside him, to feel the briefest of connection through their arms, to taste the name on his tongue. to be selfish.
“shouto,” hanta replies, as he always did when shouto said his name and nothing else. their arms brush again, faint and electrifying.
“do you like it here?”
here, shouto’s home. here, earth. here, not passed on. here, at shouto’s side.
“yes,” hanta answers, quickly and earnestly. shouto can feel his gaze trained into the side of his head, but shouto doesn’t look. he’s afraid of what he might find in that look on his face, in his own reflection glittering through hanta’s eyes. “i like it here,” he continues. then, “maybe too much.”
shouto huffs out a breath of laughter and hanta grins, like he’s won a prize.
“do you like me being here, shouto?” hanta catches him off guard.
another small shock, another cold, almost solid brush of their shoulders.
shouto can’t help but look now. his voice is gentle, careful, much more solid than it had been when shouto first saw him all those sunrises ago. he doesn’t even have to think about his answer. “hanta,” the boy flickers, strong for a moment. “i like you here a lot. maybe too much.
hanta seems to like this answer. he turns back toward the sun, but not before the cold wash of his hand settles over shouto’s own. there’s a peculiar smile about his face, cracked at the edges but still holding up strong. there is something about the way hanta seems to lean, or wants to lean, into shouto that makes the latter boy frustratingly, achingly sad.
what a shame, shouto thinks to himself as the sunset washes over them, through them. what a shame it was that they had not met in life, with heartbeats and skin you could touch.