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Denki hears a clatter coming from the kitchen and thinks his friends are still there.
“Hey guys, I thought you had to go to dinner?”
The apartment is silent. Denki frowns and looks up from his position on the floor. Boxes surround him, filled with all the pieces that make up his life. He frowns. “Guys?”
He stands. Outside, the sun has nearly set. He’ll have to put the blinds up tomorrow, but for now, the windows are barren, showing the streetlights of the city as they flicker on.
Denki groans. “This isn’t funny, guys.”
He goes into the archway that divides the kitchen and the living room. It’s a small apartment, so there’s no real place for anyone to hide. Denki also has literally no furniture, save for a mattress he’s keeping on the bedroom floor and a beanbag that’s seen better days somewhere on the living room floor.
The kitchen is empty and he feels a twisting in his gut. He frowns, suddenly understanding what's happening. “Oh. So you’re the reason rent is so cheap.”
Nothing but silence answers him, and Denki just sighs, hefting one box up. It has the pieces to a TV table he’s planning to use as a table until he can find the time to go down to the thrift store and pick something up. The apartment is silent without the ticking of a clock.
“You can come out. I know you’re here.”
Outside, the wind howls, and then Denki sees him. The ghost looks relatively young -- early to mid twenties, Denki would reason -- with sunken cheeks and vibrant purple hair. His eyes are framed by heavy bags. The ghost is looking at him curiously, apprehensively.
Denki just gives him a million-watt smile. “Hi! I’m Denki Kaminari, and I just moved in today!”
The ghost looks behind himself, into the dark bathroom from which he emerged. There’s no one there. It’s just Denki and this ghost in the apartment. Denki waits for him to turn back. Eventually he does focus his eyes on Denki, like he’s not sure if he’s being spoken to.
“You can see me?”
“Sure can! I’m a medium.” Denki informs the ghost. “Spirits honestly don't bother me, I swear. Unless you’re a malicious spirit. But I can tell, usually, if a spirit has malicious tendencies when I walk into a room. And you, my friend, have none.”
The ghost frowns. Something dark flashes across his face. “I might change my mind about that, you know.”
“Yeah. You might.” Denki sighs and shrugs his shoulders. “But, all I can really do is hope you won’t. I kind of want this apartment to work out for me. This was the cheapest place I could find in the whole city, and it’s kind of hard to afford anything else on a barista’s salary.”
Denki takes a deep breath and goes back to building the table tray. It’s difficult, and it’s still busted on the left leg, from when Katsuki lost his temper at it. The memory almost makes Denki snort.
Denki was raised fully aware he can communicate and speak to spirits. Sometimes he can’t tell the difference between a spirit and a human. His sister had to stage an intervention -- one she’d been really pissed off about -- when he made a new friend in middle school and she had to sit him down and tell him that Izuku Midoriya was a spirit , not a living human being. At the time, Denki hated it. He’d wanted Izuku to be his friend in real life, he’d wanted to do normal alive-things with his spirit friend.
Denki looks up to see the spirit in his apartment staring at him. The spirits don’t need to blink, so it’s unnerving.
“Has no one else been able to see you?” Denki asks.
“No one can see me. Or hear me. Sometimes I can break things or make noises. But then they get scared.” He says, shrugging his shoulders and looking at his hands. The spirit is in a deep purple sweater and dark jeans. He’s pale, but not translucent. It would be easy for Denki to mistake him as a human being, if he met him under any other circumstance.
“That’s what the Kindred are like.” Denki says, with a firm nod. At the ghost’s look, he waves his hand in the air. “That’s what we call people who can’t see spirits. They get one whiff of a ghost and start freaking out, y’know? You’re not a scary being.”
“I’m not?”
“Not really. Not unless you’re restless.” Denki says. He watches as a series of expressions -- all indecipherable -- cross over the spirit’s face. “What’s your name?”
“Hitoshi.” The spirit supplies. He sounds like he hasn’t said his name in a long time.
“Well, Hitoshi,” Denki claps his hands together, finally done with his makeshift table, “I hope you don’t mind having me as a roommate.”
x
Having a spirit as a roommate is totally fine. Denki should have expected this would be where his life went. He just always got himself involved with the spirits, much more involved than he should.
The first few months of living at the Weathermay apartment complex go by relatively smoothly. The complex itself is older, the siding of the building peeling in spots. There’s no elevator, so one by one, Denki has his friends help him move up furniture to make the place livable. Katsuki always puts up a fuss about it, but yet he’s the one who lugs the heaviest of the materials up, insisting he can do it all without help. Denki doesn’t mind the view of Katsuki’s muscles straining as he carries couches and chairs up three flights of stairs, so he doesn’t protest.
Hitoshi always watches from the bathroom doorway, curiously. Sometimes, he’ll knock things over in the bathroom. Mina insists that the house has a spirit in it, and insists on bringing an Ouija board, but Denki laughs it off as a joke since he doesn’t need an Ouija board to talk to his spirit roommate.
Shifts at The Morning Bean go as smoothly as they can. Although he’s not a morning person Denki is good at customer service; his bright smiles and people-pleasing attitude just lighten peoples’ days. Sure, he has grumpy people who get on his case about their espresso tasting cold or their coffee not having enough cold foam on top, but all Denki has to do is apologize and make the drink again. There’s no point in getting frustrated over things he can’t control. He had to learn that a long time ago.
He takes pastries back to the apartment for his breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
“You can eat those, y’know,” Denki tells Hitoshi, when he sees the ghost curiously prodding at the box of day-old pastries on the vintage kitchen table that has a sizeable chunk taken out of its left side (it was only five bucks for the whole set , table and chairs). “You don’t really need food to survive, but you can like, hover through the desert, and you’ll taste it. I’ve heard other spirits say they do that, and it’s their favorite thing to do.”
“And how do I do that without tasting the whole box? I can’t open it.”
“Oh.” Denki gets up from the video game he was playing in the living room and opens the box. “Which one do you want?”
“The lemon one.”
“Lemon scone? Aw hell yeah. I’ll eat it with you, then it’ll be like we’re eating dinner together.”
Hitoshi gives him a blank look. “Don’t you have friends to go eat dinner with?”
“Well, yeah. But you’re my roommate, so.” Denki breaks the scone in half with his hands. Although it doesn’t technically matter, he gives Hitoshi the bigger half, resting it on a napkin on the table (he’s still yet to find plates). He takes his own half and takes a big bite of it. The lemon flavor is strong, balanced out with the sweetness of the frosting they glaze onto the scone when it’s piping hot. Denki loves The Morning Bean ’s pastries.
He watches as Hitoshi hesitantly hovers his head through the desert. Denki bursts out laughing.
“Not your forehead , dummy, your mouth.”
“You said I hover through it to taste it. You didn’t say what part of my body I had to do it with.”
“What part of your body do you normally taste with?”
“I don’t normally taste anything.”
“Your mouth,” Denki just says, “pretend like you’re taking a big bite of the scone.”
Hitoshi does as Denki demonstrated, and it looks kind of comical. Had Hitoshi a tangible face, crumbs would be stuck to his cheeks as he lifted his head. But his face looks unmarred by pastry as a curious expression crosses his face.
“I can taste it.”
“Right?! I told you!” Denki says, “If there’s anything you’re in the mood for, just let me know! That’s what friends are for.”
Hitoshi scoffs. “I don’t need friends. I’m a spirit.”
“Everyone needs friends. Spirit or human,” Denki gives him a wide grin, pointing his thumb at himself, “And you’re stuck with me, buddy. ‘Til the end of time.” He’d throw an arm around Hitoshi’s shoulders, but he can’t, but he has to force himself not to perform the gesture. “... or, you’re stuck with me until I move.”
x
As it turns out, Hitoshi is in the mood for a lot of things.
It might be because he’s never tried anything as a ghost, and that he’s suddenly missing all of these things he hasn’t had.
Denki brings home cinnamon buns from work.
He brings home a pizza lunchable from the supermarket and builds it with extra pepperoni.
He brings home burgers, to show Hitoshi his sister’s infamous burger recipe (“you wouldn’t think that goat cheese would go good on a burger, but trust me on this one,” he insists to Hitoshi).
He picks up a cobb salad from a fancy deli in town, and a kombucha drink. When Hitoshi tries the kombucha, he makes a disappointed face, and Denki can’t even be mad about it when Hitoshi said he always hated those anyway. Sometimes, it’s fun to taste things you don’t like, just because you can. Months go by and Denki spends the time convincing Hitoshi to try some of his favorites, concocting full meals for two just so that they can sit together at the table. The second meal always looks untouched to the naked eye, so Denki packages it up into the fridge to eat another day.
Denki doesn’t think anything of it when he plans a big spaghetti dinner for his friends one day and makes an extra bowl. When they’re all sitting around the table, Mina is the one to notice the extra bowl.
“Denki, are you inviting someone else?” She asks, giving him a coy smirk, “A special someone, perhaps?”
Denki grins and gets up, bouncing to the pot of spaghetti to load up the extra bowl. “It’s for the spirit in my apartment, actually.”
His friends go silent, and then, Mina laughs. “I’m telling you! Let me bring my Ouija board!”
“I don’t need that!” Denki waves his hand in the air, the bowl full of spaghetti now. He takes it to the stove and pours some sauce on top of it. “Do you like hamburg in the sauce too, Hitoshi?”
Hitoshi looks startled as Denki addresses him. Denki doesn’t mind, though. His friends follow his gaze, but none of them can see Hitoshi. Hitoshi nods and Denki puts some into the bowl. When he turns around, he sees Katsuki staring right at him, while the others are all trying to guess where the spirit is.
Denki gives Katsuki a tight smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. Instead, he just sets the bowl of spaghetti down, and gives Hitoshi a nod. “All yours.”
Hitoshi sits there, in the chair. He’s not exactly sitting, but he’s hovering in the seat, mouth phasing through the bowl of food. Denki carries on conversation with his friends, loudly, and even though Hitoshi has nothing to contribute, Denki sees the twist of a smile at the corner of his lips. Denki is shocked out of the conversation at the sight. He’s seen Hitoshi snort, snicker, roll his eyes, but he hasn’t smiled.
He has a softer smile than Denki thought he would.
x
Denki has been there for the better half of a year, and it’s October. He can smell the apple crisp in the air. Stores are all decorated for Halloween. When he comes home, his arms filled with dollar store decorations, he sees Hitoshi watching TV.
Denki has taken to leaving the TV on when he’s not home, because one of the things Hitoshi can interact with is the remote. The two of them have been watching interesting shows on Netflix lately -- Hitoshi’s latest obsession is a show about horses that Denki doesn’t quite understand. He likes the way Hitoshi talks about the cinematography, though, how he points out the little things in each shot and frame that Denki would miss if he wasn’t watching the show with him.
“I brought decor.” Denki says, grinning.
“Ah.” Hitoshi deadpans, looking over the things. He raises his eyebrows at a cutout ghost with a purple vampire cape. “This seems a little…”
“It’s cute, right?” Denki fishes that decoration out. “I’m gonna name this one Hitoshi junior.”
“Please don’t.”
Denki laughs, loud and uncaring about the neighbors. When he looks back over at Hitoshi he can see the rays of sunlight reflecting through him, making him look more translucent than before, ethereal and beautiful. He almost seems to sparkle, but that’s probably just the dust catching in the sunbeams because Denki has been putting off his chores.
“Okay. Hitoshi junior is out.” Denki sticks his tongue out and waves the little ghost around, making it fly. “What about Carl?”
“You went from Hitoshi junior to Carl.”
“I could do something better. What about, ‘Naruto Uzumaki’? You liked that show when we binged it.”
“So you’re implying Naruto died? Isn’t that sad?”
“Nah. Not really.” Denki says, “Ghosts are just in another state of being. Not alive, but not quite gone, either. I don’t understand you guys fully, but I know there’s nothing wrong with you. You just exist. And I’m glad I get to see you and talk to you.”
There’s silence. Denki blinks a few times, and turns to look at Hitoshi. Hitoshi is looking at him with an unreadable expression, something between fascination and grief. Denki’s lips pull down into a small frown. He knows what Hitoshi is thinking.
“So I think I’ll go for a happy medium and name him Naruto. Just Naruto. We can drop the Uzumaki part.”
“Okay.” Hitoshi shakes his head, and the half-smirk is back. “Do whatever you want.”
x
Denki is fired from his job on a cold and miserable day in December. He gets home and all the lights are off. He knows he’ll find another job, something else to pass the time by, but he was kind of hoping to have a little more experience at the coffee shop before he had to settle for something else.
The vibes in the apartment, Denki can feel, are low. Sometimes, this happens. Sometimes he comes home to darkness, to shadows and a chill in the air he can’t fight off, no matter how many blankets he throws on.
Denki shivers and takes off his sweater, the yellow fabric damp as he sags on one of the kitchen chairs. He should change. He should apply for more jobs. He should call his sister back, because she’s trying to make plans for Christmas.
Denki goes into his bedroom. It’s better than it used to be; now the mattress rests on a cheap but efficient bed frame, and there’s a desk in the left corner, his laptop on top. There’s a pile of clean clothes he can’t be bothered to fold on the bed. He limps over to the clothes and grabs them, starting to change.
“What’s wrong?”
Denki pauses, his shirt halfway off his head. He turns around to look at Hitoshi, who’s eyeing him with a frown. He looks more tired than usual -- his eyes are bloodshot, his cheeks have a grey undertone, and his legs have lost their form, and are merely a squiggle beneath his waist.
“Ah. Hey, Hitoshi.” Denki forces a smile. “Nothing. I’m good.”
“You’re lying to me.”
“Nah. I’m just tired. Long shift. Mean customers. You know.”
“You’re lying.”
“Hitoshi, you don't have to pretend to -- “
“I’m not pretending. I do care about you.” Hitoshi spits, and for a moment, he looks alive. The moment is so visceral, Denki is startled out of his stupor, visualizing what Hitoshi would look like as a tangible being inside his apartment. “You’re my friend. Don't lie to me.”
“Oh?” Denki feels his mood brightening. “What happened to ‘I don’t need friends, I’m a ghost’?”
Hitoshi rolls his eyes and the moment fades; he’s a spirit again, translucent body and fluttering tail instead of legs. He floats into the room, and Denki trades his shirt and pants for something dry. He flops back onto the bed, staring at the ceiling. He’s aware of Hitoshi’s ghostly presence at his side, lying down, but there’s no warmth from his body. Just a presence, that means more to Denki than he can put into words.
“I was fired today.” Denki says. “It was over something stupid. I guess some lady complained to corporate that I wrote an insult on her drink. She said her name was Carol, but I guess the writing on the cup looked like C-U-N-T.” Denki sighs in defeat. “I plead my case, but the woman was really important, I guess, and they took her side.”
“That’s a stupid reason to fire someone.”
“And they’re mad I took off all that time when I was sick. And I kept calling in late. And I already had two write-ups under my belt. I just -- “ Denki feels the tears coming, but doesn’t want them to fall. “It’s not the end of the world. I can find another job, or… or I can move in with my sister or somethin -- “
“Don’t leave.” Hitoshi says, and Denki closes his mouth, turning towards Hitoshi beside him. Hitoshi isn’t looking at him, but at the ceiling. It’s a shitty popcorn ceiling, and it’s got a crack up the side. Denki’s not watching that, though. He’s watching life as it slowly etches itself on Hitoshi’s face, the bright burst of feeling pulling Hitoshi back to something tangible. Denki’s heart skips a beat in his chest when he sees the hard set of Hitoshi’s jaw, and sees his throat tremble as he speaks. Such human ticks. He wishes he could reach over and touch Hitoshi’s neck, just to feel it, just to verify he was alive.
“You’re not sick of me yet?”
“No.” Hitoshi looks over at him. Their faces are close. Denki’s eyes flicker down to Hitoshi’s lips, pale and chapped, before he meets his eyes. “You’re loud and annoying.”
“Hey -- “
“But it’s better than the silence. That’s all I had before. Silence.” Hitoshi is looking at him, earnestness in his eyes and Denki wants to reach out and cup his cheeks. But he can’t. His fingers twitch in a phandom gesture instead. “I’m sick of the quiet. Of the silence. I don’t want you to move.”
“You could come with me.” Denki says, “Spirits can become tethered to beings.”
“I wouldn’t want to haunt you.”
Denki feels the familiar pull, the urge to touch Hitoshi growing stronger. He laughs a little. “I think it’s too late for that.”
“What?”
“We’ve spent so long together, I think you might already be tethered to me.”
“Is that… good?”
“It’s what you just said you wanted.”
Hitoshi frowns at him. “I meant for you. It doesn’t matter what I want.”
Denki frowns and shifts, so he’s supporting his cheek with the palm of his hand and gazing over at his friend. “Who told you that?”
“What?”
“That what you want doesn’t matter.”
“It’s not that deep. You’re a living, breathing human being. I’m a ghost.”
“That’s not your fault.”
Silence envelops them. It’s uncomfortable. Denki licks his lips and sits up fully, thinking a change of subject is in order. “I think I'll order something for dinner. Is Thai okay with you?”
He takes the silence as a yes.
x
Denki knows Hitoshi is tethered to him when he goes to stay with his sister for the holiday and feels his presence in his childhood bedroom.
“I knew it!” Denki says, brightly. “You’re here!”
Hitoshi steps out from the shadows. “I’ve never really left the apartment before.”
“Then the whole world is your oyster now. Or, at the very least,” Denki grins and turns around to scatter the sparse clothes he brought for the tip on his bed. What was once neat and tidy is now messy. It makes Denki feel better about being here, “Anywhere I go can be your oyster.”
Hitoshi is looking out the window, watching cars drive by. He looks almost transfixed. Denki’s gaze softens as he watches Hitoshi, leaning on his bed.
“We could move, you know, since you’re tethered to me,” Denki offers, without truly thinking about it, “If you’re sick of that apartment.”
Hitoshi lets out a laugh, but it’s more a mockery than a genuine noise of amusement. “You can’t just move because I want to. I don’t help pay the bills. You also don’t have the money for it. You just lost your job.”
“They’ll be new jobs,” Denki says, “I already have interviews around town when I go home.”
“Around town. Meaning you’d still have to stay at that apartment.”
“Not really,” Denki says, “I could move somewhere close by, still.”
Hitoshi finally turns to look at him. He shakes his head. “No. I’m not letting you pack up everything just because I want a change of scenery.”
“What if I want a change of scenery?”
Hitoshi gives him a long look. He shrugs his shoulders. “I can’t control you. You’ve made that perfectly clear.”
Denki’s grin grows wider. “Perfect.”
Hitoshi is looking at him, not saying anything. Denki feels his face fall, just slightly. There’s something heavy between them but Denki can’t place what it is. Hitoshi finally breaks the silence.
“You’re incredible, you know.”
Denki feels a swell in his chest, his heart lifting. A part of him knows he’s probably in too deep with this spirit, this spirit that can never truly be his. Someday he’ll have to let Hitoshi go but for now, he has him. So he just steps closer to Hitoshi, shrugging his shoulders. Outside the sound of the city is loud; snow has fallen, leaving a thin dusting over the top of the asphalt road that leads to the highway.
“I get that a lot.”
Hitoshi rolls his eyes. “The cockiness makes you significantly less incredible, Denki.”
“You love it.” Denki says, and then he leans in, real close, until he’s looking right into Hitoshi’s eyes. If Hitoshi was alive they’d be so close their breaths would mingle together. But Hitoshi isn’t, and Denki feels nothing against his lips. No breathing, not even a burst of cold air. Just nothing. “You absolutely love it. Bestie.”
“Ugh.” Hitoshi steps away, lying down on the bed, his back to Denki. “I can’t believe I’m stuck with you for the foreseeable future.”
Denki laughs, and flops back onto his bed, staring at the ceiling in his childhood home. It’s smooth, not a crack in sight. “I’ll get you to admit you love me. One day. We have a whole plethora of days ahead of us, after all.”
Hitoshi groans. “Don’t remind me.”
Denki laughs, a full belly laugh, his hands wrapped around his stomach. “I got you to admit we’re friends. What’s a love confession? Just the next step.”
Hitoshi is looking at him when he calms down. Denki looks into purple eyes. With the sun filtering in through the window, they shine, almost human. “Are you like this with all your friends?”
“No,” Denki says, “Just you.”
“...are you like this with other spirits?” He asks. “The other spirits you’ve seen. Are you like this with them?”
Denki is open with other spirits; he is friendly. He thinks he would have extended an olive branch to any spirit he found haunting his apartment, regardless of its looks or age. But Hitoshi isn’t like other spirits he’s met. Hitoshi is still looking into his eyes, waiting for an answer.
“...nah. I’m not.” Denki says, “Just you.”
It sounds different when he says it that time. More intimate. Less teasing. Hitoshi doesn’t blink as he registers Denki’s words, searching his face, like he’s looking for an answer.
Denki wishes he could kiss him. He imagines it -- reaching over, cupping Hitoshi’s cheek, pulling him in close and connecting their lips. He wonders what Hitoshi would taste like. He wonders if Hitoshi would kiss him back.
“I kind of wish I could kiss you,” Denki says, feeling nervous, swallowing and licking his lips for some reason. “Bestie.”
“Ugh.” Hitoshi makes a face, and Denki is offended for a moment, that Hitoshi is that disgusted at the implication of kissing him. “Do you normally call everyone you want to kiss bestie?”
Oh. Oh. That’s why Hitoshi made the face. “...no. I just got nervous.”
“You. Nervous.” Hitoshi drawls. “I doubt that.”
“Hey! Even the most outgoing and confident of men can feel nervous.”
“What do you have to be nervous about? You can’t kiss me. I’m a spirit.” Hitoshi says.
“But if you weren’t one,” Denki starts.
“Don’t start this, Denki. I am one. That’s not changing.”
“But if you weren’t,” Denki persists. “Would you want to kiss me, too?”
The silence is heavy. Denki stares up at the ceiling, unable to look at Hitoshi when he feels the answer, a coiling snake in his gut: he wouldn’t want to. What would someone like Hitoshi ever see in you?
“I would,” Hitoshi breaks the silence. His voice is thick, with something. Regret? Grief? Sadness? Denki swallows a lump in his throat and looks back over at Hitoshi. Hitoshi isn’t looking at him, and is just staring at the ceiling. Denki can see his side profile, the arch of his nose, the slope of his lips as they move. “Not that it matters.”
Denki sees Hitoshi’s hand, hovering on the bed between them, semi-transparent and opaque. Denki reaches forward and allows his own hand to fade through Hitoshi’s. He feels a phantom sensation, as his hand lies underneath Hitoshi’s. His palm is face-up, Hitoshi’s is face-down. Their fingers are spaced out, like if Hitoshi just clenched his hand, they’d be laced together.
Denki is so focused on staring at their hands, sadly, that he doesn’t realize Hitoshi has startled and turned to face him. “What are you doing?”
“Being dramatic and sad. You should try it sometime.”
“No. No. I can feel that.” Hitoshi says, sitting up fully. Denki furrows his brows. He’s never had a ghost feel him before. He’s never felt a ghost.
He sits up as well, looking over at Hitoshi. His brows are knit together. He hesitantly reaches over, his thumb caressing Hitoshi’s cheek, the apple of it, right underneath where his bags are thickest. He feels something. Not quite skin, not warm, almost like silk. Hitoshi moves like his breath has just caught -- if he had to breathe, it would have.
“I can feel that.”
Denki’s eyes widen, and he stares at Hitoshi.
“...has this ever happened before? To a spirit you met?”
Denki thinks back to Izuku Midoriya; he thinks about trying to hold his friend’s hand, and feeling nothing but air between them. “No,” he says, running his thumb across Hitoshi’s cheek. It still feels smooth and cool, like running his thumb across a glass sculpture. “Just you.”