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"You're sitting in my seat."
The voice, low and raspy, had Erwin jumping, startled, his heartbeat pulsing a rapid drumfire in his chest and his eyes flaring open.
He had been sure he was the last person in the gymnasium; the laughing, teasing shouts of his classmates had already died away a long time ago, jeers in a sharp, sarcastic-sounding language that he was still trying to pick up. They had left ages ago, after half-heartedly lining up a few rows of aluminum folding chairs and then leaving Erwin to finish the rest, certain that he would finish the task of setting up for the Hungry Ghost Festival that would take place a week from now.
This part of the world was full of festivals and ceremonies and observances that Erwin didn't understand, mystery and superstition coexisting side by side with understanding and firm belief in the visible. It was the latter which had driven his parents to move to Shanghai, with their employer, Sina Technologies, financing the move. The multibillion-dollar company was a giant in the biotechnology industry, and had influence in nearly everything, from hybrid vehicles to military androids to printers that had the capability of using a person's DNA to generate sheaves of skin for the purposes of grafting onto a burn victim.
The transition had been more than a bit difficult; Erwin, at thirteen, had just settled into a steady rhythm at high school, had found his footing with a group of friends whom he missed sorely. He had been uprooted, transplanted, and was now struggling to stay afloat in a new school where he was suddenly the odd one out instead of the norm. His blonde hair was conspicuously golden in a sea of ebony, his blue eyes warning beacons that all but shouted, "I do not belong here." His ear was still untrained, unaccustomed to the fluid syllables of Mandarin that accosted his senses everyday, from the second he stepped outside, his white collared uniform tight against his throat, a handkerchief held up to his nose to save him from the thick smog.
Though his classes were taught in english, though he was well aware all of his classmates spoke english, it was still a welcome surprise to hear this voice, no discernible trace of an accent, asking him just what exactly he was doing.
He opened his eyes, looking up cautiously, praying that it wasn't a teacher, mouth set in a tight line of disapproval at Erwin's perceived laziness. An excuse was already wending its way to the tip of his tongue: he had just sat down to rest for a moment or two, letting his head fall back against the aluminum backing of the chair in the front row, because he'd just finished dragging around and setting up 50 neat rows for the festival.
It wasn't a teacher, and Erwin's heart slowed down gently, nervousness dissipating.
The boy standing in front of him was around his age, wearing the same uniform as Erwin. His white collared shirt, however, was impeccably starched, the collar creased sharp and neat around his throat, the crest of St. Mary's embroidered over his heart sewn tight on, unlike Erwin's, whose was currently fraying around the edges. His dark slacks were pressed neatly, and hung just so over his black trainers, the only violation to the dress code.
"You're sitting in my seat," the boy repeated again, and Erwin wiped away a trace of sweat from his brow, frowning up at him. Surely there were other seats that he could sit in, weren't there? There had to be at least 200 other perfectly good aluminum chairs, and anyway, the festival was ten days from now. He was much too early.
"Can't you sit somewhere else?" Erwin asked. "There's plenty of other chairs," he added, sweeping his hand across the rest of the silent auditorium. The boy tilted his head, dark bangs falling across one gray eye.
"This is my seat," the boy reiterated, crossing his arms over his chest. Erwin sighed, threw up his hands in surrender, and heaved himself up. It was time to go home, anyway, but he didn't particularly savor the thought of fighting his way back against the crush of people heading home or to the night markets.
"Have it your way," he said as he stood up, the boy brushing past him with a whisper of cloth as he sat down primly in the red chair Erwin had just vacated. He folded his hands in his lap, sitting straight up, eyes fixated on the stage. Erwin rolled his eyes, privately resolving to himself that he would return to the United States as soon as he was financially independent.
At the door to the auditorium, his book bag slung over his shoulder, Erwin turned back for a last look. The boy had disappeared.
He ignored the chill that tingled up his spine, pushing his way out into the late summer smog, and put the boy as far away from his mind as possible.
"Young master is late coming home."
The amah that had come with the move to Shanghai tutted as she opened the door of their apartment for Erwin. This was another thing that Erwin wasn't used to; though his parents had been just as well off in the States, they'd never had a maid. Yang amah, as she'd told Erwin to call her the first time they'd met, was somewhere in the range of nineteen to fifty; she refused to tell Erwin exactly how old she was. She wore the same long, white tunic every day, pinned her ebony hair back in a severe, no-nonsense bun that wouldn't interfere with her everyday duties of cooking and cleaning and general house upkeep. She rarely smiled, and though Erwin was fairly sure that he had the upper hand in these encounters, he was terrified of her.
"It's not late. And my parents aren't even home yet," Erwin said, tossing his book bag onto the dinner table. She rolled her eyes, dark almonds, before placing his book bag neatly on a chair.
"It's getting dark," she replied, her voice accented and sharp. "Master and Mistress are attending a business function. We will eat without them."
Erwin's heart fell. He was accustomed to having his parents' soothing, familiar english chatter to balance out the oddity of whatever unidentifiable meals Yang amah had churned out that day.
Over dinner that night, Erwin prodded around squares of what looked to be tofu in another just as equally unidentifiable dark sauce. It was silent in the apartment, the only sounds Yang amah's chopsticks clicking against the china bowl and the honks of traffic outside.
Erwin was just steeling himself to take a bite when Yang amah stood up and pushed back from the table, heels clicking towards the kitchen. He half hoped she had recognized his plight, half prayed she would come back with something familiar. Steak, potatoes, hell, Erwin would take spinach at this point. Something he recognized and could name.
His hopes were dashed when she came out with a third china bowl, packed with rice. She placed it at the head of the dining room table before sitting down to her own food again. The clicking of the chopsticks resumed.
"What is that for?" Erwin asked, looking at the bowl. "You said Mom and Dad were at a business dinner."
"For the hungry ghosts," she explained. "Please finish your dinner, young master."
Erwin took a reluctant bite of tofu. It wasn't half bad.
The bowl was still sitting on the dining table the next morning when Erwin came down for breakfast.
"I guess the ghosts weren't hungry," he said to Yang amah, a feeble attempt at a joke. She didn't laugh as she placed an omelette in front of him.
"They are always hungry, young master."
Erwin was listless that day at school; despite the smog that made the summertime sunlight weak and milky, it was still a beautiful day, one that back home Erwin would be spending at the beach with his friends, Mike and Zoey.
He sighed wistfully, wondering what they were doing right now, if they'd forgotten him.
They'd promised to all keep in touch, but it was difficult with a fifteen-hour time difference, and Erwin just had to settle for the few lines of conversation they could manage to squeeze in occasionally. Their lives were progressing forward, commonalities in the people they knew and what they were doing in school, and Erwin's life had just veered off that track completely.
He sighed again, the teacher's monotone lecturing on the nuances of english grammar droning into his skull. His gaze drifted out the window to the playground of the primary school across the street.
"The past perfect tense is utilized heavily in poetry from 18th century Britain..."
Though it was the middle of the day and students had class right now, someone was on the swings.
"Poets such as Keats, Byron, and Blake..."
Erwin squinted. Through the haze of heat and smog, he thought the figure looked familiar. Dark hair, white shirt, black slacks...
"Mr. Smith, are you paying attention?"
He jumped, dragging his eyes away from the window.
When he got home that day, he found that a bowl of fruit had been placed outside their door. It was already starting to attract flies, and they buzzed noisily, black masses wriggling across the orange dewy surfaces of the cubes of cantaloupe piled high in the bowl. He wrinkled his nose in disgust before pushing it gingerly to the side with his toe.
"Dad." After dinner, Yang amah had retreated to her closet of a bedroom, closing the door firmly behind her, a sign that she was not to be disturbed for the rest of the night unless it was truly a life threatening emergency. "Dad."
Erwin's father looked up from his newspaper, his brow wrinkling in slight irritation at the interruption. "What is it, Erwin?"
"Why did she" - with a nod of his head towards Yang amah's resolutely closed door - "put that bowl of fruit out?"
"Some festival coming up," Erwin's father replied tersely before turning back to his newspaper. His days at the office were long and grueling, the coffee weak and bland, and he came home with tension headaches more often than not. "Why don't you go ask her?"
Erwin would have pouted had his father's strict eye not still been turned on him.
He never got around to asking.
These days, as Erwin walked to school, he found that more and more apartments and businesses were leaving out trays of food in front of their entrances. More interestingly, none of the passersby seemed to notice or seemed to care.
Maybe he really was going crazy, Erwin mused to himself, as he passed a baker putting out a tray of steamed buns. Maybe he was the only one who could see them.
He privately resolved to eat more vegetables and go to sleep earlier. Perhaps that would help.
"It's for the Festival of Hungry Ghosts," his classmate, Mei Li, explained as they cleaned the classroom after school; it was their day on the calendar that the professor kept displayed on the wall.
Erwin scoffed as he erased the last of the teacher's handwriting, the chalk letters disappearing into puffs of white. "You don't really believe ghosts and that sort of stuff, do you?" he asked, focused on getting the last bit of chalk marks at the top of the board. At Mei Li's silence, he turned around. She looked doubtful.
"I don't know," she said, finally. Uncertain. "I mean, I've never seen one, but my parents said you're not supposed to unless you break the rules."
"Oh, and what are the rules?" Erwin said, trying to contain his laughter. It was absurd. Ghosts didn't exist, it was the 21st century and anyone with half a brain would know that ghosts and the concept of an afterlife was 100% false. But it wouldn't do to alienate her; Mei Li was the only person who had even given Erwin half a decent welcome, who didn't immediately transition into flowing Mandarin whenever he approached so he wouldn't understand - though he thought he could piece it together - what they were saying about him.
"Well..." she paused, applying another generous spray of water to the desk she was cleaning. "You're not supposed to eat their food, or they can make you sick." Erwin privately agreed with this sentiment; the sheer amount of dust and other pollutants in the air would have deterred him either way. "You're not supposed to go swimming, because they can drown you." That was fine with Erwin, too. His mother kept promising to bring him to the nearest pier for a dip in this side of the Pacific, as she kept saying, but even on weekends she lounged around, lazy in bed, smoking cigarette after cigarette, and flicking through online versions of American fashion magazines that they didn't sell here, saying she was too tired, that she deserved at least two days of doing absolutely nothing before going back to work.
"And you're not supposed to sit in their seats if you go to a concert or a movie or something," Mei Li finished, placing the spray bottle down with a smile at the now-pristine desk.
Erwin felt a chill run down his spine, despite the stifling heat of the classroom. He shrugged it away. It was just superstition, surely.
"What happens if you do?" he asked, cautious, his hand still on the blackboard.
Mei Li shrugged, at a loss. "I don't know," she said, moving on to another desk at the back of the room.
Yang amah went home over the weekends, and Erwin usually reveled in the freedom of relaxation, free to eat whatever he wanted - usually pizza or other takeaway that tasted nothing as good as what they had at home - free to lounge about on the couch, free to wear his shoes in the house if he so wanted without Yang amah clicking her tongue in disapproval and following him closely with the mop to remove any unwanted, and usually invisible, footprints that Erwin managed to track around the pristine apartment floors.
His parents were out, attending some wine tasting party at a colleague's house, and his mother had slipped Erwin a few hundred kuai notes, had given him a kiss on the cheek, and told him to buy some takeaway for dinner. He still had some coins left over from the subpar curry sitting half-eaten on the table, and he had every intention of going to the convenience store around the block to buy a yogurt drink and one of those meat-stuffed rice triangles that he was ashamed to admit he was starting to rather enjoy eating.
He patted his pockets, making sure he had his keys and the coins, jingling merry in his pocket, before heading out, almost tripping over the boy sitting on the stoop.
Erwin paused, startled, his hand still on the knob of the front door. The boy was sitting straight up, posture perfect, his hands moving mechanically from the bowl he held in his lap to his mouth.
Erwin thought back to the half-eaten curry sitting inside. Guilt rose up in him, and before he knew it, he was back inside, wrapping up the curry, closing the takeaway box with two little squeaks of Styrofoam flaps slotting into place, and heading back out the door with it clutched firmly in hand.
"Here." He thrust the box out at the boy, who looked up at him. Much to his surprise, it was the same one that Erwin had seen at school. His outfit was different, today, a bit too large, an sweater that looked burnt in some places, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows so that he could eat. Erwin watched, half in disgust, half in fascination, as the boy picked up a dumpling, buzzing with flies, and popped it into his mouth, chewing, never taking his gray eyes off Erwin. "Don't eat that, it's probably spoiled." He bent down, pulling the bowl away, thrusting the box of curry at him as a replacement.
The boy looked at it curiously, holding the box on his lap, eyes straying back towards the dumplings that Erwin was currently holding as far away from him as possible to avoid the worst of the flies.
Tentatively, Erwin reached out, flicking the lid open. "Sorry, I had some earlier, but it's probably a lot better than eating -" The boy didn't seem to care, just dipped his fingers into the curry and brought them up to his mouth, dripping sauce all over the front of his sweater.
"Do you want a spoon?" Erwin asked, in hesitation. The boy shook his head, a definitive no, and continued to suck curry sauce off his fingers. Erwin stifled a shudder of disgust before setting the bowl of dumplings on the other side of the stoop, before heading to the convenience store down the street. He tossed a glance over his shoulder as he walked; the boy was still sitting there two, three, four houses down, his silhouette receding, small, still hunched protectively over his curry.
When he returned, rice dumpling and yogurt in hand, he found the boy still sitting there, looking down into the box of curry, which had all but been licked clean, the Styrofoam almost pristine. The flies still buzzed, loudly, around the bowl of dumplings, which Erwin was absurdly grateful hadn't been touched.
"er...do you want these, also?" he asked, holding out the rice triangle and the bottle of yogurt. The boy looked up, examining the items, before giving a slight nod, but he didn't reach up to take them.
"I'll just...leave them here, then," Erwin said, setting the bottle of yogurt to the side, carefully placing the rice triangle in the still-open Styrofoam box before straightening up and slotting his key into the lock and letting himself back into the apartment.
He turned to look before he closed the door.
Perhaps it was a trick of the light, he mused as he clicked the door closed. Maybe it was the smog. Maybe he was just tired. Erwin Smith convinced himself that this must have been the case, because he could have sworn that the boy outside wasn't casting a shadow on the concrete.
"Erwin, why was there trash on the porch last night?" his mother asked, putting a stack of pancakes in front of him the next morning. Erwin was pleasantly surprised; his mother usually never got up before noon on the weekends, and even then it was only to use the bathroom or give Erwin money to go to the convenience store to buy cigarettes.
Erwin stared, confused, at the fluffy surface of the pancakes, thinking, before he remembered. "Oh! That must be from the boy last night," he explained, stuffing a bite of pancake into his mouth. It was dry, almost like cardboard, but he suffered through it anyway, pasting a smile on his face as his mother sat down across the table from him.
"What boy last night?" she asked, arching an eyebrow at him. "Was he a beggar?"
Erwin shrugged past his mouthful of pancake. Perhaps, but then where had he gotten the school clothes? The ones that had seemed to fit him so well?
"Please don't go around consorting with those types of people, dear," his mother said, running a hand through her hair and sighing. "And I'll have to have a talk with Miss Yang about leaving perfectly good food and china out on the porch."
The next Friday, August 28th, was a half day, the school letting out early as an observance of the Festival of Hungry Ghosts. The stage in the auditorium had been set with tables and tables of paper offerings, bits of colored papier mache folded into cars and boats and clothes. There were even colored denominations of money, ones that looked fantastically similar to real kuai.
The students had brought food from home to contribute to the assembly, and Erwin felt more conspicuous than usual when he was the only member of his class without anything to contribute.
But, he mused to himself, surely that wasn't a problem, was it? The tables were groaning with food, dumplings and steamed buns and sliced fruit of all kinds. It wasn't like anyone was going to eat it; it was all food for the hungry ghosts, if Mei Li could be believed.
The class president stood up, making a speech about the festival and its cultural importance that Erwin only half-listened to. He was far too busy wondering why that boy, once again in school uniform, was sitting in the front row of red aluminum chairs. No one else was sitting there, and Erwin wondered, looking around, why none of his other classmates seemed to notice.
"Good brothers, we entice you to accept our humble offerings," the class president finished, with a short bow to a small smattering of applause. Together, he and the school's principal lit a long row of incense sticks held upright in flowerpots filled with sand, and the smoky, flowery scent assaulted Erwin's nostrils and made his head ache.
He didn't see how the boy at the front could bear it as he stood up, slender form silhouetted against the grey smoke. He didn't understand how he could bear to breathe it as he meandered up to the steps to the food.
But, wait, Erwin thought, his mind reeling from the incense. He was eating, and that, that meant that he was a ghost, didn't it? No. He shook his head furiously, sure that the smoke from the joss sticks had gone to his head. That was impossible. Ghosts weren't real.
"Are you alright?" Mei Li's cool voice, silky, like water over a burn, brought him back to his senses. He looked up. The boy had all but disappeared into the smoke. "Do you need to go to the nurse?"
"No, I'm fine," Erwin said, privately resolving to lie down with a cold compress over his forehead the instant he got home. "Just a bit dizzy from the smoke."
Mei Li nodded, doubtfully, before turning back to the front again.
"Thank you for the food."
Erwin was jolted out of sleep late that night, the words wriggling their way into the base of his skull. He sat up, blinking in the darkness of his room, rubbing his eyes, his heart beating staccato in his chest.
Peering around the room and finding nothing, Erwin thought that perhaps he had just imagined it. Or maybe it was a television show that his parents were watching in their bedroom, but when he strained his ears to listen closer, the rest of the apartment was silent. The only noise came from outside, the honking of distant traffic.
Convinced that it had just been a part of a dream he couldn't remember, Erwin lay back down, closing his eyes and hugging a pillow tight to his chest, trying to get back to sleep.
"I said, thank you for the food."
His eyes jolted open, fear tearing rapid knots in his chest.
"You're welcome?" he choked out, barely a whisper, afraid to move, afraid to breathe. His entire body was tense, clinging to the pillow with a death grip.
"My name is Levi." There was a slight pressure, the springs squeaking as something sat down at the end of Erwin's mattress. Erwin stifled a gasp, shutting his eyes tight and begging himself to please wake up now. "What's your name?" This last whisper was right by his ear, and Erwin tasted blood as he bit down on the inside of his cheek, trying to choke down a scream.
I'm dreaming I'm dreaming I'm dreaming.
"Erwin," he bit out, forehead hurting from how tightly he'd squeezed his eyes shut.
It was silent for ten hurried heartbeats, and slowly, slowly, Erwin started to relax. He must have fallen asleep, because when he opened his eyes again, it was morning, the peddlers in the street were shouting their morning wares, and he could make out a faint indent in the pillow next to him.
Zoey [22:41]: Hey so how was the festival? I think u told us it was for hungry ghosts or smth like that.
Mike [22:42]: ye it's pretty crazy that people still believe in that sort of stuff
Erwin [22:43]: yeah haha you should've seen all the food people were just leaving out
He was in the middle of typing out a fairly long and elaborate explanation of the festival, and had even gotten to the point where he was considering telling them about Levi before he realized how childish it would make him sound. He was 13, 14 in a month and a half, and he most certainly did not believe in ghosts.
He deleted his message.
Zoey [22:46]: we g2g. school's starting.
Erwin [22:47]: ok ttyl
Try as he might, Erwin didn't really understand the concept of the quadratic equation.
The lined notepad in front of him was full of his frustrated scribbles, and yellow crumples of paper littered his floor. His trash bin was overflowing with them, and Erwin was sure Yang amah would have nothing short of a hysterical fit the instant he was out the door the next day to school.
He checked the solutions manual in the back of the textbook. x = 7. Wrong again. He dropped his head into his hands, groaning.
"Do you need help?"
He froze, the heels of his hands still pressing into his eyes.
"...Levi?" He hated the way his voice sounded, uncertain, unsure, cracking.
There was silence, save for the noise of distant traffic and the scratching of his pencil across the paper. Erwin held his breath, not daring to take his hands away from his eyes.
"You can look now," the disembodied voice said, amused. He peeked, tentatively, lifting his hand away just a fraction.
A solution, written in slanting script, stood out from all his messy scribblings. It was neat, pristine, no eraser marks, the pencil pressed down steady and sure. And, much to Erwin's amazement, it was correct.
He uncovered his eyes, looked around the room, but there was no trace of anyone else.
Erwin stared at the neatly written answer, studying it, committing the process to memory. He got full marks on his math exam later that week.
It rained that Saturday. The night before, Erwin's parents had given him an envelope of brightly colored money, explaining that they were going to Hong Kong that weekend, some company outing or something of the sort.
"Now don't go around throwing any wild parties while we're gone, okay?" his father had joked, putting on his coat at the door to go out.
Erwin had forced a laugh. He didn't have anyone to invite to any parties, if he had been so inclined to hold them. Well, except maybe Mei Li. And...Levi. Erwin was still trying to wrap his head around the concept of Levi being real. It didn't fit in with his system of beliefs, and it certainly didn't make sense to him.
Erwin stretched out, lazily, yawning as he watched the rain streaking across the glass. Hunger gnawed at the pit of his stomach, and it growled and burbled, a frighteningly loud sound that Erwin was sure Yang amah would have tutted at from the other room had she stayed over for weekends.
"You should eat." There it was again, that disembodied voice whose presence Erwin had slowly become accustomed to. "You'll fade away if you don't."
"Levi?"
"Erwin."
He wanted to laugh. This was insane. He was insane, probably. All that smog he was inhaling every day, it surely couldn't be good for his mental health.
"Are you real? Are we really having this conversation?"
"Yes."
"How come I can't see you?"
"I'll burn my skin. It's too bright out."
Erwin's imagination must have been better than he'd given it credit for, and he chuckled to himself at its antics as he swung his legs out of bed to start his day.
Levi became a constant thought in the back of his mind. Erwin started to see traces of him everywhere, a silhouette of a boy sitting, head resting on his hand, staring out the window during class. Solutions written out in the same neat, slanting script in the margins of his textbooks. Half-finished snacks that he left in his room went missing, the wrappers appearing somewhere else in the apartment at a later date, much to Yang amah's distaste.
Erwin wouldn't admit it to himself, but he started leaving out packets of rice crackers and peeled orange segments, closing his eyes and holding his breath as he pulled the covers up around himself. He fell asleep to the soft slick sounds of chewing, a lullaby against the noises of distant traffic.
"Are you alright?" Mei Li asked him. It was November, and they were on the calendar for classroom cleaning that day.
Erwin jolted out of his stupor. "Yeah, why?"
"You've been staring over to the corner for a long time."
Erwin had been staring at Levi, admiring the way the milky grey light of early winter had filtered through his skin, turning him iridescent, silvery, ethereal. The boy was cleaning the desk, hand moving in slow, steady circles across the wood, and did not look up to meet Erwin's scrutiny.
Mei Li tilted her head, frowning up at him before turning to stare at the corner also. "What are you looking at?" she asked, confused.
Levi straightened, turned around to look at them, the cleaning rag held loosely in his fist. The light shone pearly through the cloth, casting trembling shadows on the floor. Catching Erwin's eye, he grinned, a smile just barely tilting up the corners of his mouth.
"This is my desk," he explained, with a gesture to the table he had been cleaning.
Erwin blinked, rubbed his eyes until they were sore. When he opened them, Levi was gone, and Mei Li was staring at him with concern.
"Maybe you should go home," she said, slowly, her expression unreadable. "You don't look well."
Despite the fact that he still had no idea what most of the meals consisted of, Erwin found himself ravenous, stuffing anything and everything within reach into his mouth. Yang amah finally gave him a tense sort of smile, one that looked completely unnatural on her severe face, saying how glad she was that the "young master was finally eating properly."
Erwin wasn't quite sure that was what it was. He would look down at the chopsticks that he'd miraculously managed to master, hands maneuvering food to his mouth with a dexterity that surprised his parents.
Hands that were pale, long-fingered, tapering to fine points.
"Today is my birthday." It was December 25th, and Erwin's parents were at some Christmas party at the American embassy.
A strictly no-kids-allowed party, they claimed, even though Erwin was 14 years old and had shot up over eight inches that year alone, growing gangly into limbs that hadn't yet fully filled out. Yang amah had been given the day off, and Erwin had been handed a small wrapped pile of presents. He was currently sitting amidst the wreckage of wrapping paper, nibbling on a butter cookie from the tin on the coffee table. He had lit a candle, one that gave off smoke that smelled a bit like peppermint, and had toasted himself a happy lonesome Christmas with a glass of eggnog that stuck, sickly sweet, in the back of his throat.
"It's Christmas," he replied, sucking the sugar crystals off a square biscuit.
"Today is my birthday," the voice - Levi - reiterated.
Erwin rolled his eyes, pushing the cookie tin across the table. "Happy Birthday, then. Have a cracker."
"Thank you." There was a soft crinkling of paper, though Erwin couldn't make out anything on the other side of the table; perhaps the shadows were coalescing a bit darker against the flickering candle flame?
Erwin gripped the candle, the glass hot in his palm, lifting it a bit higher. Its flickering light caught on a gleaming pair of eyes, silver, and he nearly dropped the candle in shock. He'd seen Levi before, but never in his house, never like this. Grey eyes watched him, curiously, a pale pink mouth closing around a sugar cookie and breaking bits off with soft chewing noises.
That did it, Erwin decided, he was definitely going insane. But, watching Levi shovel golden cookies into his mouth, he thought that perhaps there might be worse things to go insane to.
"Erwin, did you eat all the cookies?" His mother sounded horrified. Erwin struggled out of sleep, yawning, rubbing his eyes as he headed to open his bedroom door.
"No," he mumbled, tugging it open. "That was Levi."
"Levi?" His mother was confused, before mistaken understanding clicked into her eyes, and her frown melted away into a smile. "Oh, is this a friend you made at school?"
"Yeah, something like that," Erwin mumbled, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.
Zoey [11:47]: Merry Christmas, Erwin! :)
Erwin [11:48]: merry xmas
Mike [11:48]: did u do anything fun?
just spent it with an imaginary friend
The words were on the tips of his fingers. Was that what Levi was? Imaginary? Erwin was 14, and imaginary friends were a thing of the long gone past. He deleted the word.
Erwin [11:51]: nah just spent it with a friend
School resumed the second week of January. It was bitingly cold, the sunlight weak and milky through the thick bank of clouds that seemed to shut out the skyline with their fog. every breath that erwin took puffed out of him almost instantly, spilling from his mouth in clouds of steam that smoldered away before his very eyes.
He shivered to himself, rubbing his hands up and down his arms as he wiped his shoes on the rubber mat in front of the classroom door.
The professor was late that day coming in, and Erwin was just starting to wonder what would happen if he just got up and went home when the classroom door slid open. He looked up, froze.
Levi.
"Classmates, please welcome our new friend Mr. Levi Ackerman," the teacher said, a firm hand on the boy's shoulder. Pale grey eyes looked out over the students, settling slowly on Erwin. "He is a new international student from Paris."
every muscle in Erwin's body tensed as the teacher guided Levi to his desk, an empty one to Erwin's left. He hardly dared to breathe, hardly dared to glance over.
As the professor cleared his throat and opened his lecture materials for the day, a pale hand reached out, depositing a slip of paper onto Erwin's desk.
He unfolded it, trembling fingers.
"Thank you for feeding me."
It isn't until they're in year 11 that Erwin finally musters up the nerve to ask Levi what, exactly, he is.
Levi is currently reaching up on tiptoes to get to the chalk marks at the top of the blackboard, and Erwin can't help but admire the way the sunlight filtering in through the window highlights the strip of pale skin between Levi's shirt tails and his belt, washes it in gold and olive hues.
Levi laughs, a throaty sort of sound, and Erwin revels in it, wants to listen to his voice forever.
"So you can ask me that and not have the courage to tell me you like me?"
Erwin backpedals, rapid, and Levi turns to look at him with a crooked smile that sends sparks through his heart. But he's right, in the way that he usually, sometimes irritatingly, is. The other boy is gorgeous, glorious, pale skin and dark hair and grey eyes that deepen into charcoal; elegance in every movement, the awkward adolescent gangliness seeming to have long ago fled his limbs; the neat slant of his handwriting, the way he reserves his smiles for Erwin and only Erwin.
Erwin swallows, catching his breath. "It looks like you already knew," he says, faintly, brought to his knees in the face of Levi's beauty.
Levi heads over to the window to clap the erasers, billowing puffs of white dust out into the already cloudy air. Erwin can't help but notice how the light illuminates him, pearly, iridescent, angelic, shimmering against the neatly starched white cotton of his shirt.
"I'm yours," he says, simply, without turning around, and Erwin commits the gravity of those two words to his memory.
Levi's kisses are hungry, soul-searing, desperate, hands fisting in the front of Erwin's shirt and tugging him down, a mess of teeth and tongues and saliva.
"More," he hisses, his voice quiet so that Erwin's parents, asleep only a few feet and closed bedroom doors away, won't hear.
Erwin acquiesces, hardly able to believe that the beautiful creature writhing into his hands, into his kisses, is his.
He wakes up the next morning with Levi already gone, only a faint indent in the pillow next to him.
They are at a high school graduation party in the park; Erwin's already drunk off multiple cheap beers that someone had snuck in. Levi, despite the cold aluminum can he's holding in his fist, is tense, the set of his back rigid.
"What's the matter?" Erwin can tell he's slurring his words, but the world is tilting around him under the haze of cheap alcohol, and he's been accepted to Stanford, he's going home, he's going home, he's really and truly going home, in only a month and a half.
"I don't want you to leave."
"What's the big deal? We can still talk over Skype and stuff like that."
Erwin's memory is hazy, thinking back to the friends he'll see when he gets back on American soil. What were their names again?
"I don't want you to leave," Levi whispers, and Erwin feels irritation start to sink its claws into the base of his neck. Sure, he loves Levi, but not enough, and he thinks that they're both all too painfully aware of that.
He stands up, tottering on his feet, fully intent on going to a convenience store, buying a bottle of water to stave off the impending hangover, and then collapsing into bed. Levi doesn't follow, and Erwin thinks that that's probably for the best.
The convenience store is in sight, bright fluorescent lights and welcoming green awning, and Erwin is just starting to stagger across the street when his senses are assaulted with a series of jagged shouts from all directions, the screeching sound of rubber on concrete, the dark asphalt quivering up to meet him as he's pushed violently forward.
He turns back, head whirling, to find Levi illuminated, eyes wide, the golden brightness of headlights blurring out his features and turning him heavenly.
Erwin has no words to say at the funeral. They get choked up in his mouth, a mesh of apologies and entreaties and sweet nothings that are now exactly that. Petals in the wind, hot August sunlight sweeping golden over granite carved with a name that Erwin has had on his lips for the past four years.
He draws into himself, refusing to eat, refusing to speak, ticking down the days to going to America with a different sort of fervor.
There will be no memories with Levi there, and Erwin craves it with an intensity that scares him.
He nudges himself into his dorm room a month and a half later, dragging along the last of his luggage with a huff and a sigh, wiping the back of his hand across his forehead as he looks across his half of the room.
"Hello, Erwin."
He freezes, sweat going chilly at the all-too-familiar voice behind him. He hardly dares to breathe, to turn around.
"We're even now."
And, suddenly, feeling rushes back, into his face, into his heart, into the tips of his fingers, and he whirls around, a maelstrom of rage and hope and despair.
Levi is sitting on the twin bed at the other end of the room, looking at him, amused, the corner of his mouth quirking up. Whole, undamaged, very much alive, the buttery California sunlight painting his milky skin with gold and olive.
"Levi," he whispers, his eyes wide open, unblinking, because every second of this delusion must be worth it, every whole particle of Levi must be committed to memory while Erwin still has him here.
"You've lost weight," Levi observes, hopping off the bed and reaching out for him. Erwin is sure he must be dreaming, sure this must all just be a sick joke on the universe's behalf, as Levi tugs at his shirt sleeve, scarily firm and tangible. "We'll have to fix that."
He tugs Erwin down for a kiss, and Erwin gives in, closes his eyes, allows Levi to flood his mouth with the taste of amber and mint.
Hunger floods him, violent in its passion, and Erwin opens his eyes to meet dove grey ones, all too aware that he has been devoured. He presses Levi onto the mattress, laving licks across pearly skin, and allows himself to be consumed.