Chapter Text
In a white and barren wasteland, Reimu Endou blinks.
She blinks again and her eyes begin to focus on her surroundings. Consciousness sparks in her mind and for the first time in who knows how long, thoughts begin to stir for the ghost.
Being dead was dull. Sure, she could pass through walls and play with spiritual forces, but she was also totally unnoticable by humans. Reimu had met plenty of fantastical creatures since her death to keep her company, and yet there was always an underlying problem: Reimu was a human. She could not feel at home amongst the mythical beings beyond the veil, so she set herself to wander the earth. Unfortunately, frequent periods of minimal stimulation caused her to zone out at times, meaning her ghostly body would wander mindlessly until something caused Reimu to “wake up”. In this case, it seems her body had brought her to-
“ ANTARCTICA!? Are you freaking serious?!?”
She groans out of frustration and kicks off of the ground, floating higher and higher until she’s looking down upon the frozen landscape. And indeed, the white emptiness stretched as far as she could see. Lowering herself to just a few inches off the ground, Reimu crosses her arms and frowns as she considers what to do next.
It’s not like she has any place to go now that she’s woken up, given the fact that she was a wandering phantom. But still, Antarctica? She cursed her body for not bringing her someplace warm…not that she could feel the cold. The problem was more in the fact that she was feeling the wind gust through her body as opposed to around, a sensation that made her non-existent heart tighten up.
She could try turning around and just tune it out. As more of her mind wakes up, however, Reimu decides against that. She could feel it. She lost something again. Every time she wanders, a little part of her disappears. A memory, a feeling. Something that made her, her. Not even Reimu Endou was her original name; it was given to her by a benevolent fox spirit when she wound up in Japan.
SQUAWK!
Reimu shrieks in surprise, whipping around as her ashy hair flares outwards, like a small animal trying to make itself look bigger in defense. Though in this case, the small animal would be the penguin that had waddled up to Reimu. It looks up at her with its head tilted to the side, an odd tuft of orange hair sticking out at an angle.
Animals were always a hit and miss. Some could see her, others seemed to ignore her. This little bird seemed to be one of the former. Reimu squats down - still floating of course - and glares at the little bird for disturbing her train of thought.
“Huh? Hell do you want?”
The penguin gives no response. After a brief and tense staring contest, Reimu spins back around and begins to float off. Not a second later, she hears the light crunching of snow behind her.
“Don’t even think about-oh my god…”
Reimu looks over her shoulder to see the penguin waddling after her as it stumbles through the heavy snow. It looks up at her and flaps its arms, as if asking for help.
“What? No. Shoo, shoo bish!”
She waves her arms at the penguin. Futilely, of course. The long sleeves of her dress flail at the bird, passing through it entirely. It shivers, shaking its whole body from the icy sensation. Reimu looks down at her translucent arms and curses her body for the second time today.
“Ugh. Fine. Better keep up though…”
~
“...and I was like, ‘are you serious, you stupid demon?!?’ And he just does it anyway! Can you believe that, Petra?”
Reimu floated onwards at a leisurely pace, talking to the penguin. At some point in the past few days, she had given it a name and just rolled with it. Sure, the penguin bugged her for a bit, but talking to something, anything, was better than going back to drifting mindlessly. Even if it meant Reimu was stuck in this frozen landscape for a bit longer. Not that she minded too much, given she was dead and-
“...mmm.”
…Human. That was a human sound. Reimu stiffens up and slowly, ever so slowly, spins in place to look back at where Petra should be. And in the penguin’s place was indeed a human girl that stood knee deep in the snow. Despite being dressed in nothing but a light gray jacket, the hood of which was pulled over her short black and orange hair, she stood firm without shivering in the slightest. Her blue eyes scan over the horizon, glazed over and empty.
Reimu stares in stunned silence as a million thoughts run through her head all at once. No tracks came or went aside from the ones from behind the girl, which suddenly got bigger a few feet back. Which meant Petra, probably, somehow, just turned into a human without Reimu noticing. Alright. Sure. Reimu was a ghost so it’s not like anything was impossible at this point. And Petra wasn’t exactly a normal penguin either considering the fact that she had followed Reimu for days without stopping to eat or drink or anything normally expected of something alive. So her suddenly turning human wasn’t strange all things considered.
But.
Petra was a human now.
Humans can’t see Reimu.
She lets out a strangled sort of noise upon this realization. Her spectral body shimmers like an agitated mirage and she feels a tightening in her non-existent heart. No. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fair, it wasn’t-
“Reimu?”
The sound of her name breaks the ghost from her haze of jumbled thoughts. Reimu focuses her eyes and her gaze meets with that of Petra’s. Those blue eyes, devoid of emotion, looked up at her, a slight tilt to Petra’s head that was identical to the one she did while as a penguin.
Reimu had messed with hundreds of people in the years after her death, trying desperately to draw a reaction out of them. On the rare, rare occasions that she dreamed during her “sleep”, she was haunted (ironic, no?) by the eyes of those people, staring through her as if she didn’t exist. As if they were willing her out of existence.
But Petra?
Petra was looking at her .
“Reimu. Okay?”
Reimu laughs a little out of sheer disbelief.
“Petra.”
Petra tilts her head the other direction.
“Yeah, Reimu?”
The ghost, despite not needing to breathe, lets out an exhale containing years, decades, worth of pent-up frustrations that climbs in pitch to a squeal of sheer delight. Reimu reaches her arms out to Petra-
-and flies straight through her, rocketing towards the ground. Only slightly disoriented, she rotates her body around to catch Petra stumbling after her before face planting into the soft snow with a soft “oof”. She looks up, ice clinging to her hair and nose, and stares at Reimu.
“Reimu. It’s…cold.”
For the first time in decades, Reimu laughed. Not mockingly, or sarcastically. She laughed out of pure, unrestricted joy - all thanks to the penguin girl falling on her face in the snow.
~
In a white and barren wasteland, a ghost blinks.
What was she doing? She can’t remember.
Was she wandering? She thinks she was wandering.
Where is she? She doesn’t know.
The ghost blinks again and mumbles incoherently. Oh well. She continues floating forward above the snow, quickly picking up speed.
“Mmm. Wait.”
The ghost looks over her shoulder. A human is following her. Humans…
Humans are unimportant. Humans can’t see ghosts.
The ghost looks forward and floats a little higher, a little faster.
“W-wait…Wait…”
Higher. Faster.
“R-Reimu! Please…”
Reimu blinks. She looks back at Petra, who hurriedly stumbles through the snow, tripping over her own two feet. A single hand, hidden by the sleeve of her hoodie, reaching up at her.
“Petra!” She floats - or more accurately, dives - back down to Petra, her arms moving around in profuse apology. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry, I don’t know what I was…”
She had nearly forgotten everything. The realization settles in on Reimu and makes her voice die down to little more than a whisper.
Just now, Reimu Endou nearly died a second time.
But before she can spiral into that familiar, dark recess of her mind, Petra waddles up to her, reaching for her sleeve. Their hands pass through each other, as per usual. Petra can’t help but look sad every time it happens though.
“It’s okay…are you leaving, Reimu?”
The ghost’s soul nearly broke at the sadness in Petra’s voice. Reimu just smiles and lowers herself down until she’s eye level with the other girl, their foreheads close enough to touch if they were able to.
Petra, even if she didn’t know it, had just saved her.
“No, no, baby.” The pet name slipped out naturally, without Reimu even noticing. “I’m not going anywhere.”