Archive of Our Own

Good days never began with running late for school.

It was already abnormal enough that Iori was running behind schedule (never mind that he was behind schedule by less than 2 minutes, being behind schedule was being behind schedule no matter how far, or not, you were) and it was even more aggravating that the error had been, mostly, his own. He knew perfectly well that Yotsuba had the tendency to run an average of 10 minutes late on a good morning and that Osaka wouldn’t be available to assist that morning because he had an early engagement, so why hadn’t he been more persistent in dragging Yotsuba out of bed?

It was anyone’s guess, and Iori’s problem to deal with.

Being lade boded deeply ill for the rest of the day, however, always. Iori had never once had a good day that started with being behind schedule, but he would just have to grit his teeth and continue on with his day, regardless. School wouldn’t wait for anyone, after all, and neither would the filming that they had scheduled for that evening.

“Have a good day,” Mitsuki said accompanied with a placating pat on his shoulder, because he knew better than anyone how Iori’s ire would only increase with every second that ticked by that he was running further behind schedule. “Do your best.”

Iori nodded, all at once hurried and distracted and as respectfully as he could manage because this was his brother , after all, and he respected and loved Mitsuki more than he cared about being late (marginally). The message maybe wasn’t entirely getting across with him struggling to get his shoes on and not looking at Mitsuki, perhaps, but all the same.

“Have a good day, Iori,” Nanase said brightly as he stuck his head around the corner, and Iori looked over at him immediately. He knew Nanase’s sleeping schedule like the back of his head, but it had shifted slightly recently to allow him to wake up early enough to see him (and Yotsuba) off to school in the mornings.

“Don’t forget you have a photoshoot this morning,” Iori tried to tie his shoe without looking and promptly failed. He frowned and looked down at the messy knot before working to undo it, because now he was really going to be late.

“You don’t need to remind me a million times,” Nanase knocked on Iori’s head gently, and Iori jumped a bit at the sudden proximity. Subtly . “I remember, I remember, you only told me a 6 times last night. I’m not forgetful, you know.”

That was true, Nanase wasn’t forgetful, but it never hurt to give reminders. And set up alarms in his phone. And leave a note on his door. “I’m used to Yotsuba-san being late for everything,” Iori said automatically.

“Iorin,” Yotsuba complained, mouth still full of food as he stumbled towards the door, “mean.”

“We’re late, Yotsuba-san,” Iori said, hopping up and grabbing his school bag. He ignored Yotsuba’s muffled we’re not late as he looked back to his brother and Nanase, “Have a good day,” he said with a shallow bow before rushing out of the door and glancing at his watch as he went.

Not anxiously, thank you very much. He was just very, very aware of the time.

(It occurred to him that Mitsuki had a strange look on his face, something between bemusement and triumph and something else, which was an expression he hadn’t seen terribly often on his brother if he was being honest, but he had no idea what to do with that information and decided to store it away for later. He had to get to school.)

And very, very aware that he was late .

“Iorin,” Yotsuba called from behind him, because he was lagging behind (or maybe Iori was walking faster than usual, who knew), sounding exhausted and still mostly asleep despite the fact that he had dragged himself through getting his uniform on and everything. “Slow down,” it was almost impressive, how he managed to say it around a yawn.

“I don’t want to arrive late to class, Yotsuba-san,” he said without bothering to look behind him as he stopped at a street crossing and glanced nervously at the do not go , unable to resist bouncing ever so slightly on the balls of his feet.

“We’re not runnin’ late, we always end up at school so early ,” Yotsuba was rubbing his eyes as he came to a stop and looked at the extremely empty street. “If you’re so worried why’re we stopping?”

“The light is not green.”

“Ehh?” Yotsuba was digging through his bag, now, likely looking for a snack since he had barely been able to shovel a few bites of breakfast into his mouth before Iori was running out the door. “I don’t get you, Iorin.”

I wouldn’t expect you to , Iori carefully chooses not to say aloud, mostly because the light had turned and he was quickly crossing the street and continuing his rush to school, right past the house down the street that Yotsuba was convinced was haunted every time they went past it. Iori was never quite sure why, the house looked like a fairly typical, somewhat shabby, mostly abandoned looking house that always seemed to have an unreasonable amount of leaves piled on its porch, but Yotsuba always insisted it had a vibe .

Whatever that meant.

Yotsuba always tended to shudder when walking past it, though today he outright yelped and suddenly Iori was being collided into as Yotsuba grabbed onto his arm for some reason, “Iorin, it’s scarier than usual!”

“It’s the same,” he said, practically dragging Yotsuba along, because he wasn’t going to let something like his taller groupmate clinging onto him slow him down.

“No, it’s scarier!” was Yotsuba whimpering? He certainly sounded genuinely frightened, but Iori couldn’t see anything different about the house whatsoever, and they really didn’t have time this morning. “I felt something!”

“Come on, Yotsuba-san,” he couldn’t quite keep the impatience out of his voice as he fully dragged Yotsuba down the street and around the corner, “we may miss the bell, at this point.”

“No we won’t,” Yotsuba was glancing behind them at this house, “we’re so early Iorin —— don’t you feel the weird vibes?”

“No,” Iori said flatly as he wrested his arm out of Yotsuba's grasp, because the immediate danger of Yotsuba literally running off was, mostly, gone.

Yotsuba kept rambling on as he hurried them down the street, and the early autumn breeze was especially bracing this morning —— Iori felt a chill run down the back of his neck and couldn’t quite withhold the shiver that crawled down his spine. He glanced at a rather still tree they were passing and frowned slightly before pulling his jacket more tightly around himself and pushing forward.

In the end, they made it to their classroom approximately 10 minutes before the bell, and 5 minutes later than usual.

“See, we’re not late,” Yotsuba said rather unhelpfully as he dropped into his chair, glancing at Iori and looking strangely nervous. Perhaps because Iori still appeared rather aggravated?

“We nearly were,” Iori said as he set his school bag down and began pulling his notebook and book for their first lesson out, along with his preferred pencil for this subject.

“Iorin,” Yotsuba said, and there was something strange about his tone that prompted Iori to look at him properly with his eyebrows raise. Yotsuba still looked somewhat nervous, and he was looking around Iori as if trying to catch sight of a gnat, before looking at Iori properly and blinking exactly 6 times in succession. “You don’t feel like… weird, do you?”

“Why would I?” Iori’s eyebrows knitted together before he sat down, simply deciding to chalk up Yotsuba’s strange behavior to his general personality.

That was what he typically did, anyways.

Morning lessons passed rather uneventfully, though Iori felt colder than usual, as if the classroom was being kept several degrees cooler than usual, enough so that his fingers felt cold and clumsy. Yet, when he looked around, no one else seemed to be struggling with as much —— in fact, several of his classmates were fanning themselves.

And then, when he returned from break his pencil had been moved, tilted from how he had placed it perfectly straight beside his notebook. When he asked Yotsuba if he had moved it, or if he had seen anyone else move it, Yotsuba had blinked owlishly at him, which meant that it definitely hadn’t been him. He had a terrible poker face. When Yotsuba was trying to be sneaky or hide something or be sly in any way, practically everyone around him with eyes knew.

It was strange but perhaps someone had moved it as a joke when Yotsuba hadn’t been paying attention, or something along those lines. And, perhaps, he was coming down with a cold of some sort, considering the fact that he was still getting chills down his spine every now and then —— which would be severely unfortunate, considering how busy his schedule was for the foreseeable future, and he should have been more careful, but if he was ill he and Manager would just have to try to reschedule. A million things.

He stopped by the infirmary at the start of lunch break, just in case, and he could feel his teeth chattering briefly as he requested a face mask.

“Izumi-kun, are you alright?” the nurse asked, concern evident on her face.

“I may be coming down with a cold,” he said evenly as the chill suddenly passed and he was left feeling perfectly fine, which was strange but he put on the face mask all the same, before bowing politely to the nurse and making his way back to the classroom. Others rushed by him, laughing and talking and discussing what could be purchased for lunch today and he pondered, not for the first time or last time, the potential benefits of wearing noise canceling headphones for the time between lessons.

But, in the end, it didn’t seem especially worth it. Others very rarely bothered him, anymore, most people had long since learned that Iori wasn’t overly receptive to being spoken to by those he wasn’t familiar with. At best, he tended to pause when he would overhear anyone talking about IDOLiSH7, simply to ask their opinion and hear feedback and so on .

Well, other than: “Izumi.”

Granted, Isumi speaking to him in school was —— something of a rarity, to say the least, and Iori came to a hard stop, head turning so sharply that he felt dizzy for a moment. The chill returned and was gone in the blink of an eye and, really, this was getting rather irritating. “Isumi-san.”

Isumi was looking at him strangely, as if he had grown an extra head or two or three, “You,” he said slowly, as if he was trying to figure out what to say. “You’re weird today.”

What? “What?” Iori said aloud.

“There’s something weird about you today!” Isumi said more loudly than necessary.

“Okay,” Iori said, his eyebrows furrowed, before he offered Isumi a shallow bow, “goodbye.”

He could hear Isumi spluttering as he walked away, but he had no idea why in the world Isumi had stopped him, let alone told him he was weird today. Or weirder? He wasn’t sure, but lunch break was only so long and he wanted to eat the lunch that Mitsuki had prepared for him before he ran out of time, so he put Isumi well out of his mind.

And he frowned when he reached the classroom and the bento box he had set on his desk had the knot slightly looser than he recalled it being, but there was only approximately 20 minutes left of lunch break, so he put the thought aside for the time being to eat.

He ignored the way the lights flickered; that always seemed to happen with changing weather, after all.

Strange things like that continued through afternoon lessons, as well. Random chills, things not being quite where he remembered placing them, yet he felt overall well. This was altogether abnormal for the presentation of an illness, but all the same he sent Manager a text just prior to the end of the school day. Just to be safe.

By the time their Manager arrived, though, Iori felt completely fine. During the last 30 minutes or so of the school day nothing strange whatsoever had happened. The chills had halted and nothing was out of place in his bag, though he still wore the face mask as he climbed into the van just in case.

“Iori-san, are you feeling well?” their Manager was looking at him with a great deal of concern, twisted around to look back at where he and Yotsuba were sitting.

“Yes,” Iori said, pulling the seatbelt across his chest. “We don’t need to postpone anything.”

“Iorin’s been weird all day,” Yotsuba said as he leaned his head back against the headrest, which then dropped almost lazily to the side to scrutinize Iori again. “Like, he’s still acting normal and looks normal, but there’s something off about his vibe, and it’s been off since we passed that creepy house!”

“Really?” their Manager glanced into the rearview mirror as she pulled away from the curb of their school. “Maybe you should take the day off, Iori-san.”

That would be disastrous on all of their schedules. “No, it’s alright,” Iori said, tone even and steady, “I’ll be fine.”

Another shiver went through him, this time from around his ankle, and he very carefully didn’t twitch or show any sort of reaction. He truly felt fine, in perfect health even, and he hadn’t been exposed to anyone sick recently, and these occurrences were altogether inconsistent with early onset of a cold or anything similar. There was essentially no way that he was actually sick, but Iori had no idea what else could be going on, unless he had been imagining everything that had been happening all day, and he thoroughly doubted that was the case.

By the time they arrived at the studio and were making their way towards the IDOLiSH7 greenroom, Iori had decided that he would set these odd happenings firmly aside, for the time being. There was no point in dwelling on it when he didn’t have any answers, but he knew that he wasn’t sick and he wasn’t losing his mind, and he had other things to concentrate on in the meantime, considering his life wasn’t at risk.

Probably. It would be highly illogical, if so.

Almost everyone was in the green room when they arrived other than Nikaido —— if Iori recalled correctly, and he nearly always did, he would be recording nearly up until their recording started, which was workable but unfortunate —— and they all greeted himself and Yotsuba warmly as they set their school bags down and Iori immediately made a beeline towards the small dressing room off of their green room after offering a polite hello.

As he passed he made eye contact with Nanase instinctively, because Iori was nearly always looking to him in one way or another whether to check on him or otherwise, and the confused and wondering look on Nanase’s expression (and the fact that he wasn’t quite looking at Iori) didn’t register as strange to him until he was in the middle of changing, back firmly to Yotsuba, and it rang as strange through him. Not quite normal, for Nanase, but it wasn’t an expression that Iori had never seen on his face. It was the look he got on his face when he was caught off guard and worried by something.

Like when Iori had, temporarily, taken his place as IDOLiSH7’s center.

But nothing like that had happened, had it? If it had, then Iori would have to intervene as quickly as he could, though he was reasonably confident he would be able to manage it.

As they reentered the green room, Iori made a quick beeline to where Nanase was sitting on the couch, and when their eyes met again Iori held his gaze and tried to quickly make calculations about what could possibly be making Nanase look like that. A smile had started to appear on his face, but there was still that wondrous confusion in the set of his brows and the way that his head was tilted, which meant that Nanase may try to hide whatever was bothering him. Bothersome, but still workable.

Iori sat next to Nanase and felt a mild sense of relief as Nanase turned his body immediately to be facing Iori the way that he typically did, which meant that he wasn’t actively trying to hide anything. Or, that’s how Iori had started to perceive that, after spending a great deal of time with Nanase in general. He was intent on saying something along the lines of What’s wrong or What happened , but then Nanase’s gaze strayed off tot he side, and he spoke before Iori could manage it.

“Iori, who’s your friend?”

What ? “What?” he echoed his own thought and felt rather unintelligent for doing so.

“Your friend?” Nanase repeated, as if that clarified anything at all, and when it was obvious that Iori had no idea what he was talking about Nanase gestured to the right of Iori. “They’re right there —— they followed you into the greenroom and then waited out here for you to come out,” his head tilted, as if he was listening to something.

“You know Yotsuba-san,” Iori’s eyebrows furrowed, “and he didn’t wait outside of the changing room for me.”

“Ohhh,” Nanase said and his eyes brightened the way they did when Iori would arrive in his doorway with a mug of warm milk and honey. “They’ve been following you all day,” he said like he was discussing especially great or agreeable weather, “since this morning! They could feel your anxiety about being late and decided to tag along to see if they could get you to relax.”

That… told Iori literally nothing. “Only Yotsuba-san was with me on the way to school this morning, Nanase-san,” Iori said slowly, wondering if Nanase was ill or had hit his head or something along those lines. Something that was causing him to —— to see things? Or maybe Nanase was just teasing him, as he sometimes did. “And——and I wasn’t anxious about being late this morning!” he added after several moments, feeling his face warm incrementally.

Now Nanase was looking at him like he was, potentially, slightly out of his mind. “What do you mean? They’re right ——” and then he paused, his head tilting as he clearly looked like he was thinking, before his mouth formed an almost perfect o of understanding. “ Ohhhhh ,” he said again, more prolonged and almost triumphant. “Oh, right —— I guess you can’t see them, Iori.”

“What are you talking about, Nanase-san? Did you hit your head or——”

“Yo,” Nikaido said as the door opened and he rushed through, “sorry, filming went a bit long. We ready to go?”

And then they were being ushered to the studio, and Iori found himself thoroughly and utterly stuck in his own thoughts again. It was a bad habit, he knew, to get so lost in his thoughts that he was almost completely unaware of the world around him, but he had never been especially good at getting himself out of these spirals.

Nanase wasn’t someone who lied and he certainly wasn’t someone who lied convincingly . He was always someone who wore his heart on his sleeve and was so genuine with his emotions that he inspired protective feelings in nearly anyone who came into contact with him —— that was his allure effect , after all. And, even when Nanase had teased him in the past, he had never been so intent about it. He had never sounded so… what? Convinced? Not worried, that’s for sure, the confusion had evaporated from his expression within seconds of Iori sitting down next to him, but there was something strange about all of it.

What did Nanase mean, They’ve been following you all day?

They… whom?

Not Yotsuba, surely. But there hadn’t been anyone else around him all day, other than the few seconds he had spoken to Isumi earlier during their lunch period, and certainly not anyone following him around. Iori was almost positive of that. He was sure that he would have noticed if someone had been following him since he had left the dorms that morning, it was hard to miss someone practically shadowing you, and surely someone would have said something if he had been being followed but ——

Well. Nanase had said something, and then no one else had seen anything, but that didn’t make sense, why would Nanase be able to see something that no one else could? It almost felt absurd to ruminate upon, because again (Iori always thought in coiling circles until he reached his end point, treading the same ground again and again but ever so slightly to the side) Nanase wasn’t the type to so earnestly play a prank and certainly wouldn’t be able to pull it off appropriately, he was a terrible liar, but that look of wondrous concern and his sureness that there was someone following Iori was ——

It was ——

It was…

The recollection of the summer “camp” that they had been dropped into for 24 hours with  TRIGGER and Re:vale came to him. Vague, at first, the slightest of impressions, before how Nanase had acted after Nikaido, Yuki, and Mitsuki had returned from the store. How he had been talking to someone that wasn’t there, or that no one else could see, and how Kujo hadn’t thought it was strange at all, and how Kujo had told Nanase that his “friend” needed to go, and wasn’t of this world.

Iori had thought it was strange, at the time, but had brushed it off as some remnant of the twins’s childhoods. Maybe some form of inside joke or another? That was how he had rationalized it, anyways, and it simply hadn’t come up again after that, therefore it was easy to ignore.

But… what had that been? Why had Nanase been speaking to apparent thin air, and why had Kujo treated it as though it were nothing strange (and perhaps purposefully causing everyone, too, to think it was utterly normal) and then said that she wasn’t part of their world ?

Well, the answer was obvious enough, but it was so illogical that ——

A chill gripped him around his throat and then.

“Iori?” a familiar hand was waving in front of his face suddenly and he couldn’t help but start and stare wide eyed at his brother, who was looking at him with some mild concern, a crease between his brows and a slight smile on his face. “Iori, are you in there?”

“Nii-san,” Iori said, before shaking his head briefly and glancing around. It was unsurprising that everyone was staring at him, given the fact that he had likely not been responding for some time, thus requiring Mitsuki to come over and drag him out of his thoughts, and Iori gave himself a mental kick. This wasn’t the time to get lost in his thoughts. “I’m sorry,” he said, bowing briefly, “I was lost in thought. Are we ready to start?”

“Are you ready, Ichi?” Nikaido was teasing him, that much was obvious from the half-smirk half-smile on his face. “It would be regrettable to have our perfect high schooler on a whole other planet during this interview.”

If Iori could have straightened up more, he would have. “Yes, of course.”

“I told you something was off about your vibe,” Yostuba said, the slightest of pouts on his face.

“There is nothing off about my vibe ,” Iori said, and felt thoroughly foolish.

“Shall we?” Osaka interjected, cutting off Yotsuba swiftly.

Iori looked to Nanase briefly, as he often did, and saw that he was looking slightly to the left of Iori and he had that look on his face that he got when he was listening to someone speak especially intently. He always got the slightest of tilts to his head (to the right, typically) and a raise to his brow whenever he was listening hard.

“Iori,” Nanase said as they started to file onto set, tugging on his sleeve at the elbow.

“Nanase-san?” Iori wanted to ask a million questions, which was a handful more than he typically wanted to ask, but this wasn’t exactly the time.

“They promise they’ll leave you alone during filming,” Nanase smiled brightly, as if that was meant to be reassuring or comforting in any way, shape, or form.

There was a brief chill on his shoulder, a strange tug on his other elbow, and he couldn’t help but shudder.

Alright. Maybe that was a bit reassuring.

As Nanase promised, or rather relayed from whatever was following Iori around, he was left alone during filming. No chills or strange pulls or odd airs, and he smiled through the interview and responded when prompted and bantered with the others with practiced ease —— altogether, it went rather well. It was nothing groundbreaking in comparison to previous interviews, but they had dropped bits of information for their fans here and there, which was the key in the end.

Not very long after filming had concluded, however, he felt the slightest of chills in his right arm, and couldn’t help but shake it ever so slightly. Nanase appeared at his side as they departed after their thank yous as he typically did, and Iori made a quick decision to grab Nanase’s elbow and pull him to a side hall as the others went back to their greenroom.

“Nanase, what is following me?” he didn’t bother to beat around the bush, because while he had placed the oddity to the side for filming there was still the chill that he was experiencing and Nanase’s strangely not strange behavior.

“A ghost,” Nanase said pleasantly. As if he had said a cute little rabbit had been following Iori around all day.

“A… ghost…” Iori echoed, disbelief clear in his tone, and he could feel pull at his sleeve again. Nanase was nowhere near his sleeve.

“Yeah,” Nanase nodded with a slight bounce on the balls of his feet, and his head tilted ever so slightly to the right again. “They apologize that they don’t remember their name,” he said after a moment.

Iori had no idea where to even start with that. Was there anywhere to start with that? How did one approach conversing about ghosts, which Iori was fairly certain he hadn’t even believed existed 2 hours ago? And why could Nanase see and hear and, apparently, speak to ghosts?

Well. Might as well get the most obvious question out of the way: “Why are they following me?”

Nanase glanced to his right, this time. “Because you feel familiar,” he said after a few long, long moments.

“I feel… familiar.” Iori hated these types of conversations, where he felt utterly out of his depth and deeply confused. He liked knowing and being in the know and being knowledgeable about topics when they came up —— some would call it a character flaw, but Iori just liked being prepared. Didn’t everyone?

How did you prepare yourself to talk about ghosts , though?

“Mhmm,” Nanase hummed, and then he was clearly listening again. “They were in that house all alone for a long time and didn’t know exactly what to do with themself, but then they overheard you and Tamaki talking and you reminded them of someone important. So they decided to follow you!”

Maybe Yotsuba had a point about the house he was so afraid of. And why was Nanase saying that as though it wasn’t anything for Iori to be concerned about?

“And are they finished following me?” this conversation seemed to have left sanity behind entirely and Iori would just need to accept that.

“Nope! Not quite, they want to keep following you because they,” he trailed off for a moment, and then, “have a good feeling about you and like being around you.”

That was… absurd. This whole situation was thoroughly absurd. There was no way that this was happening to Iori, who hadn’t even thought ghosts existed when he woke up that morning. He couldn’t actually be —— being haunted .

“Nanase-san,” Iori felt a vague sense of panic creeping up on him, and felt another tug on his left sleeve. “Can you ask the ghost to leave, please?”

“They can understand you, you know,” Nanase sounded like he was legitimately chiding Iori, which was ——

What in the world was going on?!

“They really, really don’t want to leave, yet,” Nanase said after another few moments. “Are you sure?” for a moment Iori was about to say obviously , because he was entirely sure that he wanted this ghost or specter or spirit (though all of those were synonyms, he supposed) to leave him alone . Did anyone actually want ghosts following them around? “Well, Iori is kind of crabby, you know. He doesn’t like spending lots of time with anyone but me.”

“Nanase-san!” Iori said, thoroughly affronted, because that wasn’t true.

“And his brother, Mitsuki,” Nanase added with a grin.

Okay. That was closer to the truth. “Don’t just tell the spirit nii-san’s name,” Iori hissed, as though Nanase hadn’t just told him that the ghost could hear him perfectly well. He felt a vague sense of reproachfulness that was definitely not his own.

“Huh? Why not?” Nanase looked genuinely confused for a moment, not the wondrous confusion of earlier, before he blinked and laughed. “They aren’t going to curse Mitsuki, Iori —— they’re mostly harmless, and not the type of spirit to do that.”

What did that even mean?

Iori desperately, desperately wanted to return to some semblance of normalcy and, above all else, sanity. But, if the shiver that went down the back of his neck was anything to go by, that wasn’t happening any time soon.

“Plus, I doubt Mitsuki has done anything to them.”

“Which means…”

“Well, sometimes spirits want revenge and that’s why they linger on our world,” Nanase said with a shrug, “but they’re not really good at doing bad things to people other than whoever they want revenge on.”

“You’re… very knowledgeable about this, Nanase-san,” he said for lack of anything else to say.

“Of course!” Nanase said, as energetic as ever, “I’ve been helping out spirits for a long time.”

Iori was at a complete loss as to how to respond to that. “Does the ghost,” he started.

“Iori,” Nanase said, drawing out the vowels of his name, “they can hear you!”

He sighed and then looked around, not even slightly sure where to look until he felt a cold gust against his nose, and he resisted the urge to sneeze. “Ah… do you have any conditions I need to meet?” To leave me alone , he was about to say,  but it felt unnecessary.

Iori looked back to Nanase, who was nodding a bit. “Until they remember why you feel so familiar to them! And whenever you seem happy enough to leave be,” he held up two fingers, as if to say that’s it , and when he spotted the look on Iori’s face he waved his hands placatingly, “Don’t worry, Iori. Sometimes spirits who are stuck to one place for too long forget who they are, but when they find something familiar they remember in no time.”

In no time could mean anywhere from hours to years. It wasn’t a finite means of measurement, and therefore something that Iori didn’t approve of, but what could he do? Demand to know an exact time frame as to when a literal, actual ghost would remember who they once were? “And the happiness?”

“They said that you seemed so anxious this morning they wanted to see you happier,” Iori wanted to argue about the fact that he hadn’t been anxious at all, thank you very much, but it felt almost childish to do so. And Iori wasn’t childish. In the slightest. “Oh, thank you!” Nanase grinned at, presumably, the ghost. “They said that you definitely seemed happier with me and the others around, which makes sense, so there’s no way that’ll be an issue.”

“And there is nothing I can do currently to,” Iori glanced around again, it was so strange to not be able to see who he was speaking to, “hurry that along?”

“Not really,” Nanase nodded in affirmation. “They’ll leave you alone for the most part when you’re at school or work, and you probably don’t really have to do anything at all!”

Probably , he said.

“Iori,” Rokuya’s familiar voice rang down the hall, “Riku, where are you?”

“Coming,” Iori said over his shoulder, because he supposed that Nanase had given him enough information for the time being, and there was truly nothing he could do at this point to get rid of the ghost, and there were still things on their schedules that needed to get done that day.

Nanase nodded and grinned in what Iori assumed was supposed to be a reassuring manner, and they made their way to their next filming together.

With the ghost trailing behind them. Iori could tell from the way that his arm hair was standing on end.

“Iori, are you okay?” Mitsuki asked, not looking away from the vegetables that he was cutting for dinner.

“I’m fine, nii-san,” Iori replied automatically as he stirred the miso paste the strainer and into the dashi stock that was boiling gently in the pot. “Our interview earlier went well,” Iori was not deflecting, thank you.

This time, Mitsuki did glance at him sideways. “Do you think so?” he said brightly, though he clearly wasn’t convinced that Iori was actually find.

“I wouldn’t say if I didn’t,” Iori said, living the sieve out of the broth to check how much paste was left. “You always do well with directing conversation,” he carefully didn’t react and definitely didn’t drop the sieve when he felt a shiver across his scalp.

“Thanks, Iori,” Mitsuki said warmly, his dimples coming out for a moment, before he gave Iori a rather stern look. “You know you can tell me anything, right?”

“Of course,” he wasn’t even lying, he did know logically that he could tell his brother anything, and some (maybe most) of the time he didn’t even need to be anxious about what Mitsuki’s reaction was going to be, but this was different. How was he supposed to explain to Mitsuki that he had a ghost following around, according to Nanase, that wouldn’t leave him be until they found what they were looking for, whatever that meant? Iori wasn’t even sure about the nature of this spirit, other than that it was apparently harmless, though it occurred to him suddenly that whatever was following him around may be an actual, literal adult. Which would make this. Infinitely stranger.

For a moment it felt like there was a pinch on his ear. Not a hard one, and there was no pulling involved, but it was almost like the ghost was —— chastising him .

First Nanase, now the ghost. Who next, Yotsuba?

“Okay…”  Mitsuki squinted at him in the way that he did whenever he didn’t fully believe Iori, and Iori met his gaze unflinchingly. They stared at each other silently for exactly 7 seconds before Mitsuki blinked and then smiled rather slyly, “Hey, about Riku——”

Mitsuki didn’t get the chance to finish whatever it was he was going to say about Nanase before the common area door swung open and Rokuya came bursting into the room with Osaka and Nikaido close behind him, cheering about it being Cocona night.

After dinner had been consumed and everyone had gathered in front of the television for Magical Girl Magical★Cocona Iori slipped away to finish his homework. Part of him hoped that the spirit would remain in the living area, perhaps they wanted to watch Cocona too or, even better, had remembered who they were and had decided to quietly depart. If the tugging on the hood of his loungewear was anything to go by, however, he was not in luck.

He turned his lamp on and settled at his desk to work through some sheets of questions, lining up his pencils beside his paper and leaning over to turn on the soft music he always listened to when he did schoolwork. When he straighted up again, one of his pencils was nudged to the side, and he sighed and straightened it. “Really?”

There was a tug at his hood again, and he set to work.

Occasionally one of his pencils moved suddenly and he would have to pause in the middle of a question to put it back properly, sighing all the while, before returning to work. After a while he didn’t even bother stopping his writing to fix the pencil, merely reaching over with his left hand to do it without pause, and it kept on for 34 minutes as he gradually felt himself start to lose patience until, suddenly, it stopped for several minutes.

He didn’t even realize, at first, until he heard a soft knock on the door. Three knocks in rather quick succession, which meant that it was almost certainly Nanase.

“I’m not just going to walk in without permission,” he could hear Nanase saying, and it was only then that he realized that he and his pencils had been left alone for several blissful minutes, and he was a bit tempted to not answer the door at all.

“Nanase-san,” he said, intent on finishing the answer he was writing at the very least.

His door opened and there was a chill over his shoulders again, and he didn’t bother to fully suppress the shiver that went through him, this time. Nanase, at least, knew the full context of what was going on. Nanase had the manners to wait until Iori was done writing, or maybe had just been around Iori long enough to know that there was no point in talking to him when he was focused on finishing the task at hand, and he sat himself on his bed in the meantime.

“No, we have to wait for him to finish,” he could hear Nanase say, and then laugh after he got a response. “No, no, Iori hates being interrupted when he’s trying to finish homework, if I say anything now I’ll just have to repeat it later.”

He and Nanase really did spend a lot of time around each other. Iori knew that, both logically and practically, but sometimes it was startling to be given absolute proof of that. Iori had never been especially close to anyone but his brother, though it was only natural that after joining an idol group he would become friendly with its members. He hadn’t quite foreseen caring for them or IDOLiSH7 as a whole as much as he did, but he had come to accept that as simple fact, as well.

“Hmm? Oh, yeah, I spend a lot of time with Iori,” Nanase said, the smile on his face clear in his tone. “Almost every evening! Sometimes we just hang out quietly but sometimes I can convince him to do something fun,” well, in Iori’s opinion sitting in silence while he did his homework or they listened to music was fun, but alright.

“Sure he can be stuffy sometimes, but I hang out with him because I like spending time with him, of course!”

Iori felt a sudden seizing in his chest, which was strange. He normally attributed that sort of feeling to increased anxiety or a fear response, but this didn’t quite feel like either of those things. A bit close to anxiety, maybe, but not quite —— it was hard to describe, and Iori had a careful categorization of the vast majority of his feelings and innate bodily responses, so this was abnormal, to say the least.

Finally, when he finished writing down the translated sentence in English, he set his pencil down and turned in his chair to face Nanase, who immediately turned to him. “Yes, Nanase-san?”

“Our friend wanted me to tell you that they think that you should,” Nanase said all in one breath, gesturing as he went and stopping to take a breath, “spend more time with the rest of us.”

Really? “... Is that all?”

Nanase glanced to the side and then back and nodded, “They’re concerned that you’re shutting yourself away in your room,” he sounded rather sage, for some reason. “I tried telling them that this is just how you are,” Iori wasn’t sure if he should be offended or not, “but he thinks that you shouldn’t spend so much time alone, like you do in school.”

“I’m not alone in school,” Iori said automatically, frown pulling at his mouth.

“Yeah, you do mostly hang out with Tamaki,” Nanase was starting to sway a bit from side to side. “Hey, do you ever see Haruka at school?”

“Sometimes,” Iori said, “he stopped me in the hall to day to tell me I was weird.”

Nanase make an ohhhhh sound, before looking back to (presumably) the ghost. “They’re saying they can spook Haruka a bit if you want them to.”

“That’s not necessary,” he said quickly.

Nanase laughed, “Of course, you’re a good kid.”

“I’m a year younger than you.”

“And you’re still in school.”

“That hardly means anything!”

“It means I would be your senpai in school,” Nanase grinned widely.

“But you’re not.”

“Yeah, but——” Nanase blinked and then laughed. “We’re not really fighting,” he said palacatingly, “we’re, uhm, bantering! Or play arguing, same thing, but this is how we normally talk to each other. It means we’re close.”

Iori’s eyebrows rose, “They’re… concerned that we’re fighting?”

“They’re concerned I’m bullying you,” there was definite bemusement in Nanase’s tone, “cause it may make it more difficult for you to socialize if I am.”

“I socialize enough,” he said to, mostly, the ghost.

“Well…” Nanase said, prolonging the word.

“Don’t side with the ghost.”

“You do shut yourself away a lot,” Nanase said, before holding his hands up to stop Iori from speaking again. “I know, I know, you like getting your work done in a timely manner, but you don’t always need to be two weeks ahead on school work y’know.”

“It’s the most efficient way to keep up with idol work.”

“Yeah, but it’s not fun .”

“It’s fun to me .”

Nanase laughed, entirely amused and not at all malicious (Iori wasn’t sure if Nanase had a malicious bone in his body, actually), “You would say that, Iori.”

“And?”

“Nothing,” Nanase said, smile turning somehow more… secretive? “You’re just you, Iori, and I appreciate that.”

Iori had no idea what to say to that.

“Come on,” Nanase said, hopping up off of the bed, “come hang out with us for a bit, you’re obviously almost done and this will hardly put you behind schedule.”

“Nanase-san, I’m busy.”

“Iori,” Nanase said, practically singing his name. “I said I’d let you control me, right? And I do, obviously,” he snickered for a moment, “but sometimes I think maybe you need to let me control you a little bit.”

Iori —— wasn’t sure how he felt about that. “That… makes no sense.”

“Sure it does! Sometimes it’s good to relax,” he said, as if that cleared up everything. “Come on, you haven’t hung out with all of us in the evening in a while. Yamato-san is super sober, even.”

Iori sighed and wanted, badly, to turn down the offer, but felt another shiver take hold of him, and a tug at his sleeve. “Very well,” he said, standing up. Nanase cheered and turned back towards the door. Iori moved to follow him before a thought occurred to him, “Nanase-san.”

“Yeah?”

“You can see them, right?”

“Yep!”

“What… do they look like?” Iori wasn’t sure if he actually wanted to know, but also wasn’t sure if he could stand not knowing.

“Oh! A kid,” Nanase said simply, before his eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Oh, they’re 11 and just recently remembered that —— hey, that’s wonderful,” he said, enthusiasm clear in his voice, “you’re starting to remember things!”

A kid, Nanase said, simple as anything. Even though the ghost being a child meant that ——

“Come on Iori, the Cocona episode is almost over,” he felt another tug on his sleeve, but this time it was Nanase that was grabbing it and tugging gently.

That strange tightness was back.

Iori followed Nanase without another word.

“They bother me too much at school. And yes, I have asked them to stop.”

“Hmm… oh,” laughter, “they want you to make friends, Iori.”

“That’s not necessary.”

“Right, right, because we’re all the friends you need in the world.”

That was… a bit too true for his liking. “Will they stop?”

“Yes, yes, they’ll stop trying to make you make friends. Just talk to Tamaki more, okay?”

“I talk to Yotsuba-san plenty.”

A hum and then, “They also said you should use your Usamimi Friends charms more, they’re so cute but it’s a shame they’re just in you room.”

Iori audibly choked, “What——I don’t——what are you talking about?!”

“They were a huge Usamimi Friends fan, too.”

“... Oh.”

After a week or so of random shivers and tugs on his elbows and sleeves and hoods and, occasionally, the hems of his shirts, as well as a rather motifying conversation with Nanase asking if the ghost would leave him be to bathe (during which Nanase almost passed out laughing, it seemed), Iori was both rather used to it, by now, as well as tired of it.

According to Nanase, they were remembering more and more day by day, but it felt as though it was taking forever. But, Iori supposed, the time they had spent alone probably felt like forever, too.

This was what they all knew so far: they were eleven years old, they had lived in the house that they had haunted (a loose term used in absence of anything better), they had lived some 10 or more years ago, they had lived with their family in that house, their death was an accident ——

But nothing quite yet about why they were so drawn to Iori, specifically. Or why they had lingered so long in the realm of the living.

Still, since he had the morning off on a weekend he woke up bright and early to make his way to his family’s bakery to help out in his free time. Being well ahead in his coursework was good for idol work and the ability to see his family, occasionally, and to help in the bakery when time permitted as much. Both were good motivators, as far as Iori was concerned.

He could feel a subtle coolness around his shoulders and what he thought was something like confusion and curiosity emanating from the ghost as he got dressed for the day far earlier than it seemed he should have had to.

“I’m going to go see my parents,” he said to the ghost.

A slight nudge at his arm.

“Right, I don’t live with them anymore because I live with IDOLiSH7. But, I lived with them until I had been scouted.”

A poke at his finger.

“I do miss them, at times,” Iori pulled on his shirt, smoothing it across his abdomen, “I think it’s easier, because I have my brother.”

A burst of cold on his right ear.

“I’m going to see them at our family’s bakery,” he grabbed his jacket, though didn’t put it on quite yet. “It’s… a lot of fun,” Iori smiled slightly, thinking about all of his memories there, and all of the things his parents had taught him, and all of the times Mitsuki had made gim laugh.

The dorm was quiet as he stepped out of his room as quietly as he could. He would’ve preferred to go with Mitsuki, since he knew that his brother missed their parents and the bakery as well, but Mitsuki had a full schedule for the day and there had been no way to rearrange it. Besides, Mitsuki had a full day off in a few days that he would spend at least part of with their parents.

He stopped by the common room to fill up a bottle of water for his trek and was surprised to find Nanase awake and leaning against the counter, apparently lost in thought. When Iori walked in, Nanase started and stared at him in surprise.

“Oh, Iori,” Nanase looked like he was about to ask what he was doing up so early, before he smiled. “Right, you’re going to go see your parents today.”

“I am,” Iori said as he took his water bottle from the cupboard and moved to fill it. “What are you doing up so early, Nanase-san?”

“Woke up and couldn’t fall back asleep,” Nanase said ruefully, turning to set his empty cup in the sink. It had been tea, Iori knew, because that was what Nanase preferred to drink in the morning, and the scent of it was lingering in the air. “You have to take the train, right?”

“Yes,” Iori screwed on the lip to his waterbottle as he turned to look at Nanase, who also had the morning off. A thought occurred to him, though he wasn’t wholly sure why it had, but considering that Nanase was already awake and, as far as Iori knew (which mean: as of when they went to bed), didn’t have any plans for the rest of the morning, he figured giving Nanase something to do would be beneficial for him. “Nanase-san, do you want to come with me?” There was a rather deliberate coldness to his right cheek, as if he had just been poked.

Nanase looked surprised for a moment, his head dropping to the side. “With you? To your family’s bakery?”

“That’s what I said.”

For a moment, Iori wasn’t sure if Nanase had turned slightly pink or not. “Uhmm… yeah, sure! Just give me a few minutes to change,” he hurried out of the room and Iori glanced at his watch.

There was enough time to make it to the station and the first train with Nanase’s average time to get ready, 7 minutes. Though, since he was rushing, it would probably take closer to 4 minutes.

Iori waited in the entrance way for Nanase, buttoning up his jacket slowly as he mapped through the path to his family’s bakery again, though he knew the way by heart. Well enough that he could probably navigate it with his eyes closed.

Nanase joined him in the entranceway almost exactly 4 minutes later, looking slightly winded.

“Don’t push yourself,” Iori said automatically.

In the midst of pulling on his shoes, Nanase paused and looked up at him before laughing a bit too loudly for the hour, “I’m fine, Iori. I have my inhaler just in case.”

“Still,” Iori said, and felt somewhat awkward beneath the strength of Nanase’s stare and his wide eyes.

They made their way down the street, Iori slowing down his natural gait slightly so that Nanase wouldn’t have to push himself so hard in the chilly mid-autumn morning air. The ghost’s old home was long the path to the station, the way it was on the path to his and Yotsuba’s school. Iori didn’t bother slowing down, though felt a slight tug on the back of his coat, and he paused only when he noticed that Nanase had stopped and was staring at the house.

“Nanase-san?”

“There used to be lots of flowers,” Nanase said, sounding almost dreamy, “and a trellis along the side of the house…” suddenly, he shook his head and look to Iori almost sheepishly. “Sorry, when a ghost feels an especially strong surge of feelings, I’m not very good at moving on easily.”

That was… not the strangest thing Nanase had ever said to him. “How long have you been able to see ghosts?” he hadn’t asked yet, despite being curious, mostly because there hadn’t been a good opportunity to. They were always busy, always moving, always rushing from place to place —— such was the lot of idols who were rising in popularity; not that Iori was complaining. Early in the morning with the sky gone almost grey-orange with the rising of the sun, when essentially no one was around other than them and a ghost, seemed as good a time as any.

“Hmmmmm,” Nanase tapped his chin as he thought, and Iori felt a chill on the top of his head, not too much colder than the air around them. “I’m not really sure,” he said with a shrug, “a long time, but I’m guessing you’d want a more definite answer than that.”

“Preferably.”

“I definitely wasn’t born able to see them,” he looked back to the old abandoned house again, looking somewhat distant again. As if he would be almost impossible to reach. “I think I started seeing them around 4? Maybe 5? Honestly, Tenn-nii would probably remember better than I would,” Nanase gave a small, fond laugh at that, softening the way he did whenever he talked about Kujo (when they weren’t outright at odds with each other), “I think it scared him a lot, when I started mentioning it.”

Nanase glanced at him and seemed to read the question he wanted to ask next, “I started seeing them in the hospital —— when they realized that I could see them, they started to visit me a lot to keep me company whenever Tenn-nii or my parents couldn’t stay with me. I never mentioned them to my parents, mostly because Tenn-nii was so scared when I told him about my new friends that I decided to hide it.”

That all… made sense, insofar as literal ghosts existing and someone being able to see and speak to them went. “Did you ever learn why you can see them?” Iori had an educated guess, and he supposed there was no way to confirm in, in the end. How would Nanase have learned, after all?

“Nope,” Nanase shrugged, “I can sorta guess, though,” he trailed off and glanced back to the house for a moment. “I think… I only started seeing them after a really, really bad attack. The kind that Tenn-nii would lay in bed with me for all day and night, holding me and trying to get me to breathe with him.”

Silence drifted around them. There were only so many reasons why someone would be able to see ghosts that were logical (weird, how 2 weeks ago Iori would’ve never imagined thinking that anything regarding ghosts was logical) and an extremely close brush with death was certainly one on the very, very short list.

Nanase’s head turned by a few centimeters, and his smile widened again, “Oh, they’re saying they’re relieved that I can speak to them, since it’s very lonely to be a ghost that’s stuck in the realm of the living. Lots of ghosts tell me that,” Nanase started walking towards Iori, a slight hop in his step, “so really, it makes me kinda glad that I can see them, even if it’s a bit strange.”

“How very like you, Nanase-san,” Iori said.

Nanase snickered and grabbed Iori by the elbow, pulling him along, “Tenn-nii said the same thing when I told him,” he said, as if it were an afterthought. “Come on, we might miss the train.”

Ah —— he hadn’t quite forgotten, but had been distracted by Nanase’s story and explanation. He hurried his strides slightly, though was still careful to not move too quickly. It wouldn’t do to send Nanase into an asthma attack, after all.

“Thank you!” Nanase was waving at the crowd, the guileless smile that tended to overtake his expression whenever he was performing firmly in place, “thank you! We are IDOLiSH7!” The crowd screamed, practically a roar, and Iori wasn’t sure if he would ever be entirely used to the sheer wall of sound that formed around them during concerts.

He hadn’t thought, originally, that he would enjoy it quite so much.

Nanase did well —— he’d been doing well, in truth, as if he had hit his stride and continued to ride it on and on and on. It was impressive, to say the least, and almost awe-inspiring to witness up close. As Nanase’s stamina and health improved, he had started to become even more of a star, had started to draw people in further and further, their fans’ love of him, specifically, growing ever stronger. Sometimes the pressure and force of it was hard to cope with, but Iori had wanted to make Nanase an even bigger star than Zero.

He still wanted that, as much as (if not more than) he wanted IDOLiSH7 to keep soaring and to never come back down to earth.

Lofty goals, he knew. But he could make it happen.

Suddenly a warm hand was in his, dragging him from his thoughts and placing him firmly back on stage in the midst of the torrential downpour of noise. Iori glanced to his left and wasn’t surprised, exactly, that Nanase had taken his hand, but he felt somewhat off guard. Sometimes he did, other times he didn’t —— it just depended, mostly. He could hear the noise intensify even more, somehow, and reached to Osaka beside him as they all bowed as one, Nanase at the lead.

There was a chill on Iori’s hand that was held in Nanase’s, and he could see out of his peripheral vision Nanase’s head turn to the ghost that was surely between them, and if it were possible for him to smile even more than he already was, Iori was sure that he would be.

As they all crowded back stage, Iori made an immediate beeline towards where he knew he had stored a thermos with warm tea and honey in it for Nanase, as he had gotten into the habit of doing some months ago when his attacks were more frequent and far worse. Without asking or prompting, Nanase was behind him and accepted the thermos without complaint.

“Thanks, Iori,” Nanase said, unscrewing the thermos and giggling a bit as a waft of steam drifted up from the opening. “Ooo, extra honey today?”

“You don’t like this brand of tea much,” Iori said, loosening his tie, “it’s too bitter. So I added extra honey.”

“Whoooaaaa,” Yotsuba said, voice muffled by the shirt he was pulling over his head only half successfully, “Iorin’s being considerate…”

“I’m considerate,” Iori said, affronted.

“Only sometimes,” Yotsuba said, still failing to completely take of his shirt, and Iori could only stare for a few minutes.

Mitsuki bumped against him, and Iori had the distinct impression that it wasn’t on accident, given the way that his brother was grinning at him. “My little brother doesn’t even make me special thermoses of tea,” he sighed dramatically.

“If you asked, I would.”

“What about me, Ichi?”

“No way.”

“Betraying your own leader…”

“I could prepare you a thermos of tea for every concert, Yamato-san,” Osaka said, a teasing grin on his face.

“But then I’ll never experience Ichi’s love and care!”

“You shouldn’t want that,” Iori said flatly.

“It’s my special tea anyways,” Nanase said, as if that was that, hugging the thermos to his chest with a grin on his face.

“Rikkun, let me try some,” Yotsuba had finally managed to wrest the short over his head and bounced towards Nanase, arms outstretched.

“No way!” Nanase was laughing and ducking away from Yotsuba, and Iori ——

Iori couldn’t help but smile, even with that strange tightness constricting in his chest again. it seemed to be happening more often than before, now, though he had no idea why.

Cold brushed against his wrist, and he had the distinct impression that it was something almost wistful .

He started having —— somewhat strange dreams.

Odder, still, because he typically didn’t dream, and certainly didn’t remember the dreams that he had. Iori had always been like that, and had been surprised to learn that other people did genuinely remember what they dreamed, and that some people could even control their dreams outright. He hadn’t even believed it, when he first learned, and had to conduct his own research to realize that, yes, some people could dream and be wholly aware of their dreams.

But he started to dream about his childhood home where he parents still lived and his family’s bakery. Iori was fairly certain that the dreams were recollections from his childhood more so than dreams, but then they started to blend with the interior of a house he had never seen, with brightly colored walls and more traditional than modern bedrooms, and a front yard full of flowers and a trellis up the side of a house.

He dreamed of his parents doting on him, and then a couple he had never met doting on him, as well. It was a different sort of affection, one delivered with smiles and hugs and the other with laughs and headpats, but it was definitively love all the same. He dreamed of baking, ending up with flour up to his elbows. He dreamed of singing and dancing, his sister cheering for him.

He dreamed of his big brother swinging him into his arms and in a circle, laughing gleefully as they went. He dreamed of a girl a few years older than him holding his hand as they ran towards the water laughing brightly. He dreamed of seeing his brother crying in his room after yet another rejection, thinking that he was alone. He dreamed of seeing that girl, older still, sobbing in her room, lonely and unable to reach out. He dreamed of his brother yelling at him, telling him he couldn’t understand. He dreamed of that girl shouting, saying he couldn’t understand all over again.

There was a car and then ——

Iori kept waking up cold, too. Shivering beneath his sheets, teeth chattering, unable to get comfortable again, feeling chilled down to his very bones.

“Iori?” Nanase said one night, or maybe extremely early in the morning, when he had walked into the common area and found Iori holding onto a steaming mug of hot water.

“Couldn’t sleep,” Iori said, unable to stave off a shiver.

Nanase stared at him blearily for a few moments, before glancing far to his left —— way further than he usually did to look at the ghost. He seemed to blink a few times in rapid succession before he looked far more awake than he had, mere seconds ago. “You can’t do that to Iori,” Nanase said, almost sounding severe, “especially when he doesn’t know what’s happening!”

Iori held the mug close to his chest and merely listened.

“I know you didn’t mean to,” Nanase sighed, “but you have to leave him alone. Promise, okay?”

It happened several more times until —— suddenly, it stopped.

Everything stopped.

The random chills and tugs and pulls and things being moved just out of place disappeared suddenly one morning after he had woken up shivering worse than ever, and it had been so startling that Iori was distinctly disturbed by it. There was a certain sense of emptiness that he couldn’t ignore from the moment he reached consciousness, and he made an immediate beeline to Nanase’s room despite the absurd hour.

He felt briefly guilty when he knocked on the door and clearly heard Nanase roll out of bed and directly onto the floor, but there was s surprising surge of concern that he felt at the sudden lack of presence. When Nanase opened the door, Iori was briefly surprised to actually see him there, which was ridiculous, wasn’t it? Of course Nanase was there, just because the ghost had left didn’t mean that everyone had left.

“Sorry,” Iori said quickly, speaking as quietly as he could. “Nanase-san——” he had no idea what he was trying to say, precisely, or how he should say it. “They’re gone.”

It took Nanase 9 seconds to process that. “They’re… gone?”

“I just woke up freezing and they’re gone.”

Nanase rubbed his eyes vigorously before looking around and then pushing towards Iori and looking up ande down the hall, stepping fully into Iori’s personal space. “They’re… gone… no way,” Nanase said slowly before blinking up at Iori, clearly in disbelief. “No, they wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye,” Nanase said firmly, gaze locking onto Iori’s.

“Why?” Iori asked, because he genuinely wasn’t sure why the ghost would delay leaving if it had been their time to… to go on.

“Because they…” Nanase didn’t wilt, exactly, but seemed to sigh quietly, “they were afraid of being alone, when they passed on. Extremely afraid of it. If they could’ve helped it, they wouldn’t have allowed themself to pass on until they weren’t alone.”

“Oh.”

“So… we’ll just have to wait for them to come back,” there was a sureness in Nanase’s eyes that Iori found that he appreciated deeply, something steadfast and steady, the sort of absolution that he seemed to show on stage.

“Right.”

“They’ll come back,” Nanase repeated, and Iori wasn’t sure who he was trying to reassure.

“Of course.”

After a moment Nanase smiled, something small and private, and Iori could count his freckles from this close. “Let’s get some more sleep, Iori.”

“Goodnight, Nanase-san.”

“Iorin,” Yotsuba said, draped across his desk and staring over at Iori, “your vibes are less off, suddenly.”

“I told you, my vibes were never off.”

“Nah, they were,” Yotsuba said confidently, a lazy smile on his face. “You’re back to normal now, but y’seem kindaaaa… distracted?”

Sometimes, Yotsuba was inconveniently astute. “I’m focusing.”

Yotsuba yawned, “I’ll just make Rikkun ask you later.”

For a moment, Iori felt deeply embarrassed.

In the end, Iori had been haunted (still a loose term for lack of a better one) by a ghost for 2.5 weeks, and they were gone for 1 week before returning.

Nanase had dragged him out to get a limited edition cake in collaboration with King Pudding of some kind from a bakery he had heard about, because Yotsuba had begged Nanase to please go get him one, because he and Osaka had to do their radio show at that time and he really, really wanted one. Iori had gone along because Nanase had asked for company, and Iori hadn’t been doing anything pressing.

The cafe had been —— cute , honestly, and it activated something in Iori’s brain that he, most of the time, resented, and he had felt his face warm when Nanase glanced over at him knowingly as they waited in a line that felt eternal.

“It’s more popular than I thought,” Iori said instead of commenting on the cutesy decor.

“Apparently it’s pretty famous,” Nanase said, bobbing on the balls of his feet, “and the cakes are really good. Hmm, do you think we should get enough for everyone? I’m not sure if I brought the money to get all of that but…”

“I’m sure we can manage,” Iori said, because it only seemed proper to get enough for everyone to share.

“Oh, did you see that video I sent you earlier?”

“I forgot to watch it.”

“Here, here,” Nanase said, puling out his phone.

They shifted their way forward in line gradually until they could place their order, and between the two of them they could pay for the rather extravagantly priced cakes that didn’t look nearly as good as what his parents or brother could make, but they looked passable, he supposed.

Nannase nudged him as they left, arms weighed down with bags full of cake, “Ahh I know that look, you’re not impressed are you, Iori?”

“It’s all frills,” Iori said, knowing that he sounded pompous. “My father can bake a cake that probably tastes 10 times as good.”

“Iori, your love for your family is so cute,” Nanase said, laughing.

He felt his face warm again. “I simply know our strengths and how they compare relative to the local competition.”

“You’ve always been this way, huh?”

“Yes,” Iori said without hesitation.

“Hey, Iori,” Nanase turned so that he was facing Iori and walking backwards, hands in his pockets and bags falling down to his wrists. There was something odd in his expression that he couldn’t quite name, but it was gone a few moments later as Nanase’s gaze strayed to the left and surprise took it’s place. “Oh, you’re back!”

Iori started and turned around, even though he knew he wouldn’t be able to see the ghost who had accompanied him for nearly 3 weeks.

“Ah, they say they’re sorry for disappearing so suddenly,” Nanase said  as he nodded, obviously listening, “and for slightly possessing you a few times.”

He… didn’t even know where to start with that. “Slightly possessing?”

“Ghosts aren’t actually very good at possessing living people,” Nanase said, “they’re okay with inanimate objects, kinda alright with animals depending on complexity, but not at all good with people. And that’s when they’re trying —— it sounds like it was actually an accident when it came to you.”

“I see,” Iori said, looking to where he thought the ghost was. “Uhm… it’s okay.”

Nanase grinned at him, before looking over at their friend, “They say thanks, and…” the smile faded into something far more sad, “ah, they’re here to say goodbye.”

“Goodbye?”

“Mhmm,” Nanase seemed to listen for a few more moments before he nodded and transferred the bags to one arm and looped his free arm through Iori’s dragging him forward. “Come on, just a bit further.”

Iori knew exactly where they were going, but didn’t bother to pull away from Nanase, allowing him to propel them forward as he felt a pull at his other sleeve, almost shyly. It didn’t take them long to arrive at the house, since they were only a few blocks away, and it looked the same as it always did. A bit sad, rather abandoned, with an unreasonable amount of leaves piled on the porch, with no more flowers blooming anywhere after all these years without anyone to take care of them. It occurred to Iori that he had never seen a sign to indicate that the house could be purchased.

He wondered if that family still owned this place, unable to fully let it go, but unable to keep living here any longer either. He glanced to the street behind them and could hear, quite clearly, tires screeching and people shouting, before it all faded and he was left with the quiet sounds of the evening, a car driving by and no child to be seen.

Nanase was listening again. “They wanted to say thank you again, for allowing them to follow you,” Iori nodded, and waited. “First of all, they kind of always wanted to be an idol, back then, and it was mostly coincidence that you were an idol, but they were so happy to be able to experience what it felt like,” Nanase looked especially pleased, there —— probably because idols do love making dreams come true.

“You reminded them of their sister,” he said after a few more moments, something sad settling on his face again, the carefree smile that he had gone for now. “She was a major perfectionist and super anxious and was never, ever late to school.”

“I’m not anxious,” Iori said automatically.

Nanase nudged him again. “ But ,” there was that chastising tone in his voice again, “they realized that the two of you aren’t exactly the same, like they were worried about.”

“That’s why they wanted me to make friends,” Iori thought about that girl in his dreams that was terribly lonely and totally unable to reach out or ask for help in any way. “They were concerned that I was…” depressed was what his mind offered.

“Yeah,” Nanase nodded, “they had wanted to help their sister, back then, but wasn’t able to. And then they ended up stuck here, and eventually their family moved away but she wasn’t able to follow them. Eventually, they started to forget, until they heard you and Tamakai arguing about if you would be late to school or not.”

“I see.”

“But they still thought that you were a bit too reclusive, maybe,” there was a hint of laughter in Nanase’s voice, “like you were super lonely, once upon a time, until you met us!” Which. Well. “But they were super relieved that you were receptive to people reaching out and that you seemed happy, with us, and that——” he blinked, and then colored slightly, “that you were especially happy with me, since we spend so much time together.”

Iori felt a wave of embarrassment threaten to crest in in throat and he cleared it, staring determinedly ahead and slightly down, hoping that he was looking at them, “Then, where did you go?”

“When they realized why they were drawn to you, they wanted to find out where their family went and if they were okay,” Nanase paused and then his relieved smile appeared on his face, “and they are! They’re extra relieved their sister is safe and doing better —— she’s married, even, with a kid she named after them!”

Iori felt a mirrored relief rush through him, as well. “Thank goodness… and so you’re ready to move on?”

“Yes,” Nanase said, clear as perfectly tempered glass, even as tears started to well in his eyes, because Nanase always tended to cry easily. “They feel ready, now that they know that their sister is doing better and that she isn’t so lonely, anymore, and now that she knows for sure that you won’t be lonely, either,” he glanced over at Iori, and he looked back. “You promised never to leave me behind, after all, no matter what.”

“I did,” Iori found that he was smiling, ever so slightly.

For a moment, Nanase’s smile was less sad, before they looked back to where their friend was and sighed gently. “Ah, they’re already fading away…”

Iori felt a cold touch against the back of his hand that, steadily, went away. “Goodbye,” he said, feeling a strange lump in his throat.

“Goodbye,” Nanase said, waving as tears started to fall, “don’t worry too much, okay? I’ll take good care of him!”

“I should be saying that.”

“Well, it’s not me they got attached to, Iori.”

There was the vaguest sensation of laughter that seemed to surround them, intermingled with peace and happiness and warmth that coiled and curled and settled around them. It dissipated slowly, then, like watching steam start to go away as something cooled to room temperature. The pair of them stood there for a while longer, silent as the sun set fully and nighttime fell.

“It’s never easy saying goodbye to them,” Nanase said quietly, wiping at his eyes.

That made sense, all things considered. Nanase was a highly emotional person with a tendency to attach himself to people strongly, and why wouldn’t that apply to ghosts, too? “But it means we helped them, right?”

Nanase sniffled and smiled over at Iori, looking genuinely both happy and sad. It was amazing how expressive he could be, really. “Yeah,” he nodded firmly, “we did. We helped them find peace, and now you won’t have a ghost following you around anymore!”

Iori glanced down at his shoes for a moment, “It’s been strange. It’ll be strange for a bit longer, I guess.”

“That’s okay, Iori,” Nanase grinned, for all that his face still had tears on it (that Iori resisted the compulsion to wipe away), and he looped their arms together again, “you have me to keep you company, after all.”

Iori felt himself blush again and glanced away for a moment, that tightening sensation in his chest somehow getting tighter, as it hadn’t left from the moment they had walked into the cafe. A thought occurred to him and it was —— could he really? The idea seemed silly, honestly, but his chest all but spasmed at the mere concept alone, and before he could doubt himself he transferred his bags to one arm, as well, and reached down to take Nanase’s hand in his.

Was his palm sweaty? Was he shaking? Was he too warm? Was he too cold? Why was he so concerned about all of these things, anyways?

In his periphery Nanase looked shocked beyond words, which totally stopped any more tears from falling, and the shock lingered for 6 seconds before it looked like his face was threatening to split beneath the force of his smile. “Let’s go home,” Nanase said, sounding like he was practically cheering.

“Let’s go home.”

It wasn’t until a few days later that Iori found the time to stop by the house again. Something had changed about it. It seemed less… sad, somehow. Less weighted. It was still older without a flower in sight, but it more closely resembled the house that Iori could barely remember from the dreams they had showed him.

He stood at the gate for a few minutes, and felt silly for it, before opening the gate slowly and making his way towards the front door. The porch was swept, he realized as he got closer, as if someone had come by the house in the past few days and tidied up the front a bit. Maybe even the interior.

Maybe the living sometimes had to let go, too.

Iori hesitated before approaching the porch and kneeling on the stone, leaning over to set an Usamimi charm in front of the door. It was a pointless gesture, he was pretty sure, since they had apparently passed on to another realm entirely, but he wanted to offer them something .

And they had liked Usamimi Friends, too.

“Good luck,” Iori said quietly, and the wind turned the charm slightly and the bell chimed.

When he closed the gate behind him, he saw Nanase down the street, looking down at his phone where he was typing directions to the store that Iori had wanted to go to, waiting for him. Iori glanced back at the house once, before jogging to reach Nanase, whose head raised as he heard his footfalls.

Nanase, who smiled at Iori and held out his hand.

Iori took it, and it felt warm in his.