Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Boyfriend. That was his name. At least, he believes it is his name. It is one of the only things he remembers from what he assumes is his past life. Everything else that would’ve been important to him drew blank. Now, he wanders around the world, trying to figure out why he is what he is. Boyfriend doesn’t remember how he died, where he died, or why he died. But he can assume one thing. He did not go out peacefully. Bandages are hastily wrapped around his right arm, which seemingly lacks any blood. His skin is pale, fitting his ghostly state. Then as if the bandages around his arm weren’t enough, more messy bandages were wrapped around his neck, although like his other set of bandages wrapped around his arm, they also seemed to lack any blood at all. Regardless of that, whatever happened in his last moments, it was very much not peaceful. That, or he was a very clumsy and accident-prone person. But at some point, he decided that it wasn’t worth being concerned about it anymore, it’s not like anyone would see him anyway. He tried getting people's attention countless times, and they'd only walk past him.

Once in a while, when he got bored, Boyfriend would wonder what his face looked like. There were many times when he would enter a random bathroom to find a mirror and hope he’d get a good look at himself, but unfortunately, every time he tried no reflection would show up as he stared blankly into the empty void of a mirror.

Boyfriend did a few other things to pass the time. He sometimes flew around in the air, pretending to be an airplane in the night sky, like a shooting star. This somehow got boring for him really fast, as he opted to float around everywhere. Another thing he tried doing a few times was grabbing an object. Every time he did this, Boyfriend would fail. Everything he touched would simply go through him. Despite his very stubborn attempts, nothing would change. As a result, the only thing that he could really do was simply observe the lives of others.

Watching everything around him happen was always quite the spectacle for him. While everyone had a schedule of sorts, every day was different. Almost nothing ever happened the same, and if he ever got bored of one place Boyfriend could just go to a new area to rinse and repeat. Boyfriend liked doing this, and he was good at it. Concerningly good at it. Some would even say (if there were people who could actually talk to him) that he was really good at being a stalker. Not that he’d know what that means at the moment.

Currently, he finds himself at a place labeled as a college school. It was called “Pumpkin University,” and he saw countless amounts of people gathered around, talking and doing a lot of stuff together. Looking at all the groups of people chatting made him rather bored, and was considering leaving at first, but the more he observed the place in further detail, the more he felt intrigued and compelled to remain there.

Going around the place, inside the buildings he saw bigger people teach smaller people. They’d give lessons on things like history, language, or math. Whatever that meant. Boyfriend realized that even though he could not interact with the world around him, he could instead learn or even remember things like everyone else around him. With every second he stayed, Boyfriend felt more and more willing to stay here forever. He'd figure out cool things about the world around him, or even learn a few words that sounded funny to him. Boyfriend even learned what the word stalker meant, and realized that he was kinda like one. Not in a good way.

For what felt like a month, Boyfriend remained at the school, learning and remembering important things. He slowly regained basic knowledge which was likely once lost in his mind. As a bonus, Boyfriend also even remembered how to speak once more. While his voice sounded coarse and rough, he could finally talk. Of course, that wouldn’t matter anyway if nobody could even acknowledge him but it's the thought that counted, which made him proud.

Hovering over a conveniently empty desk in the corner, Boyfriend watches the teacher wrapping up the current lesson, before the school bell rings. Getting dismissed, everyone packs up their belongings or starts socializing with others around the place. As he observes the conversations around him, Boyfriend thinks about what he would say to others if he could talk to them. How would he act with others? Curious, he moves over to a random group and eavesdrops on them. Most of what they say are boring conversations that don’t interest him or matter to him at all. Sighing, Boyfriend decides to leave the room.

Going through the wall, he sees countless students all around outside, walking through the hallway. A good majority of them all stare at their phones as they move along, while a few still chat with each other instead. Boyfriend makes his way out of the hallway and to the outside area of the campus. Many students eat at one of the many benches outdoors. Seeing as it’s lunchtime right now, BF moves all the way to a lone and empty bench near the school gate and sits. While he can’t feel the bench and just clips through it, he still tries to hold the act of being a student. Looking at the people talking and eating with each other, he feels a little jealous of them. He never got to feel hungry, or really feel much of anything at all. Sighing, Boyfriend looks at himself, letting his mind wander through many random thoughts.

At a different lunch table, a single student sits. Two other students approach, sitting alongside him. “Pico! You finally decided to get out for once!” The student named Pico doesn’t respond to the voice and only stares at his food. “Pico? Heyyyy, it’s me! Come on, cheer up!”

“Shut up, Nene. I didn’t sit here for a conversation.” Pico bluntly replies, still not looking at her. Nene scoffs exaggeratedly, feigning offense.

Darnell sighs at Pico’s remark but understands his current state of mind. “It’s still a good thing you at least decided to leave your dorm.” He tries comforting Pico but to no effect. He remains unmoving. There is an awkward silence at the table, as neither Nene nor Darnell knows what to say, but Pico looks around during the uncomfortably long time of quietness. His gaze halts at one specific area. "Pico? Hey." Darnell notices him staring off into the distance and looks at him confused.

Pico murmurs to himself, swearing that what he sees isn’t true. He hyperventilates, feeling his body quivering. “Pico..? What’s wrong?” Nene waves a hand in front of him, but even that doesn't work. Pico rubs his eyes and blinks, trying to see if that would make it go away, but it doesn’t.

“No, no that… that's not real. I-I…” Forcing himself to look away, Pico puts his hands on his head, feeling as if a mental breakdown may occur for him. “No, no… he can't!”

Nene and Darnell look at him, concerned about his well-being. “Pico? What’s happening? Speak to us, man.” Darnell reaches out to Pico, but he shoves his hand away and leaves. “Hey! Where are you going?” Not answering, Pico runs towards his dorm.

Inside the room, he locks the door shut, with his other hand holding his heart. He feels it racing at an unnatural rate. “Calm down… fuck, why am I getting so worked up?” Pico murmurs to himself, trying to settle himself. “That's not real, yeah, that can’t be real. It must be another vision. I… I need my pills.” Moving away from the door, he moves to the kitchen and searches a cabinet for pills. Inside, Pico finds the medication he needs to calm himself down. Going through the motions without thought, he opens the capsule to eat the required pill without water and then puts it away. “Ugh, I hate these damn pills… drillin' in my head. Wish they’d just di- HOLY SHIT WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU!?” Looking at a wall, Pico sees the sight of what seems to be Boyfriend’s disembodied torso staring at Pico. Both of them start screaming at each other in absolute confusion.

“H-How the heck can you see me!?” Boyfriend blurts out to Pico, not expecting someone to suddenly see him out of the blue.

“How the FUCK would I know! I just took my meds!” Pico grabs the nearest sharp object, a knife on the kitchen counter, and throws it at Boyfriend. The blade passes through him and stabs the wall. “Wha… huh? How did you?” Pico stares at the ghost of BF, absolutely confused. “Why the hell aren’t you dead!”

Rather upset by that, Boyfriend folds his arms. “Wow, you want me gone? That’s uncool, man.” Fully moving out of the wall, Boyfriend sits in the air in front of Pico. “More importantly, why the heck did you even throw a knife at me!?” Boyfriend throws his arms in the air in disbelief.

“N-No! I-I mean yes but wh-” Pico facepalms himself, and growls. He settles himself back to a normal state of mind. “Why the hell wouldn’t I throw it at you!?” Still agitated, Pico angrily retorts.

“I don’t know man! Does it even matter?”

"Of course, it matters! You can't just barge in here, through a damn wall of all things, and expect someone to be okay with it!" After that, Boyfriend remains silent, not sure how to respond to that.

The two take this moment to calm down, and they stare at each other in silence. “Um, so… what did you even take in there?” BF refers to the pill bottle, pointing at it for clarity.

Pico, on the other hand, feels a plentiful amount of emotions coursing through his mind. He thinks of a thousand things he wants to say to him but picks the simplest response and answers his question. “It’s schizophrenia medication. Meant to get rid of visions of… unpreferable memories. Why the hell are you asking me this?”

“Just curious, that’s all.” BF’s folded arms lower, and he gets a little closer to Pico. “What’s with that scar on your eye?” He points to the rather nasty slash mark on Pico’s left eye.

In response, Pico tries slapping away his hands, but to no avail. “Okay seriously, why the fuck are you asking me this? You-” He stops talking immediately. Pico begins thinking of something. “You’re… real?” BF nods his head. Still unsure, Pico grabs his medication on the counter and takes a good look to be absolutely certain that what he took was the real deal. Pico’s breath quivers, and he turns back to Boyfriend slowly. “Do you… know who I am?”

Bluntly, Boyfriend responds. “No, not really.” A soft momentary chuckle comes from Pico, as an unreadable expression envelops him. Pico rubs his eyes, looking away from Boyfriend.

Sighing, Pico speaks in a solemn and remorseful tone. “Well… no shit you wouldn’t know me. I’m… I’m a busy guy. But if… if you want to know, my name is Pico.” He stares down at the floor blankly, deep in thought.

“Pico, huh?” BF smiles, thinking about his name. However, his smile disappears when he realizes that Pico is zoning out and staring at the floor. Waving a hand at Pico’s face, Boyfriend tries to get his attention. “Hey? You look out of it, something wrong?” Broken out of his trance, Pico looks back up to BF, shaking his head.

“Nah, nothin’ is wrong. Well… I guess the way you look like an accident gone wrong makes it… hard to look at you.”

Boyfriend pouts and goes back to folding his arms. “Okay, I’ll let you know that this wasn’t my choice! If I could get rid of these bandages I would, but they’re like… I dunno, they’re kinda stuck onto me somehow.”

“Have you taken a look in the mirror, ya blue-haired smurf? That’s what I’m talking about specifically.” BF instinctively puts a hand to his face but then lowers it.

“No, but that’s because I’ve already tried looking at a mirror. It doesn’t work. Also! Don’t call me a smurf! I don’t even know what that- wait, I have blue hair?” BF reaches towards his hair, trying to feel it.

Pico pinches his nose, before looking back at him. “Jeez, how clueless are you? Next thing you’re gonna tell me is that you don’t even know your damn name.”

Boyfriend scoffs and stops sitting in the air, lowering his legs. “No! I do know my name! It’s Boyfriend! I think…” He looks away sheepishly upon saying his last few words.

There is a brief moment of silence before Pico smirks. “Boyfriend? Damn, that is such a stupid name!” BF frustratingly groans in response. “Was that the only thing you could think of?”

“Hey quit making fun of me! Not a moment ago you were screaming like crazy because you suddenly saw me!” BF accusingly points a finger at him, trying to turn the situation against Pico.

“Oh hush, you! That was because your body was in the damn wall! So of course that would freak someone out! I mean, who wouldn't be at least a little bit unsettled by that?” Pico calms down, trying not to get so riled up. “Okay look. You’re just some random ass ghost to me. You don’t know me, and I don’t know you. How about you just… go away and leave me alone.” Pico turns away, not even bothering to hear his answer.

In contrast, Boyfriend immediately becomes desperate and panicked. “Wait what!? No! You’re the only person who has ever seen me, so it must mean something! It’s like some legacy!”

“It’s destiny, dumbass.”

“Whatever! Point is, don’t just leave me! I-”

“Don’t care!” He flips the middle finger at the ghost and exits his dorm, slamming the door along the way.

Silence fills the room, and Boyfriend tries to comprehend what just happened. A few things go through his mind, as he tries to think about what to do next. He stops floating in the air and looks around. Despite the aggressive behavior of Pico, BF gained a lot of interest in him in the first few minutes of meeting him. First of all, he is the only person who apparently could see him, and second of all, it seemed like he had a lot of things going on with his life. Curious, he checks around his dorm, in a totally not creepy manner whatsoever, he thinks.

In the kitchen, Boyfriend finds the pill bottle that Pico took. Apparently, this is the thing that treats Pico's schizophrenzy, or whatever he called it. Grabbing it, he looks at the text written on it. Most, if not all of the writing is too confusing for him to read, so he skims through it all and sighs.

A few seconds pass before BF realizes something. He’s holding the pill bottle. “Wait what!? Oh my gosh!” He tosses it in the air and catches it. “I can grab things now!?” Looking around, Boyfriend tries going towards another random object. Leaving the kitchen and going towards the living room, he tries grabbing the knife that Pico threw at him. Unfortunately, like everything else, his hand passes through it. “Huh? Then how did I?” He quickly goes back to the pill bottle, and grabs it again without any issue. This only makes him even more confused. Sighing, Boyfriend he just decides to give up on that for now. BF stares at the entrance to the dorm, before going through it.

Out of the dorm, BF sees Pico back where he originally was, and the same two people seem to be pestering him with a lot of questions. Moving closer, he observes the conversation.

“So you’re just not gonna explain why you got up and left suddenly?” Pico grumbles in response, not facing them. “Come on Pico! We’re your friends, you can tell us anything!” Nene leans on Pico’s shoulder. “And I mean anything.” Pico rolls his eyes at her and pushes Nene away.

“If it gets you off my damn ass, then I’ll tell you both.” Darnell and Nene lean closer attentively. It takes a while for Pico to think of a response. “I’m pretty sure my schizophrenia is getting worse.”

Darnell sighs at this. “Are you not taking the pills? You were given them for a reason, you know.”

“Yeah yeah, don’t you start acting like that damn therapist, please. I swear I’m taking them.”

“Somehow I doubt that.” 

Darnell gets a scoff from Pico. “Believe me, if I hadn't taken the stupid pills I wouldn’t be here right now.” Once he finishes speaking, Pico looks behind him, making sure that the ghost he saw isn’t there.

Seeing this, Boyfriend quickly tries hiding behind an object. “Can you tell us what you were seeing before you left?”

Pico turns back to his friends. “Does it fuckin’ matter? Whatever it was… it’ll go away. Eventually.”

Feeling petty, Boyfriend murmurs. “No, I won't.” Pico snaps back to find the voice, but BF ducks down just in time.

Nene and Darnell also look in the area Pico is looking at but find nothing. “You sure everything is okay, Pico?” Darnell continues to question Pico, still suspicious.

Pico sighs, “No. Guess not. But things won't get better either.” Getting up from the seat, Pico leaves. “Lunchtime is ending soon. I'll see you both later, I guess.” Leaving the area, Pico goes to the hallway toward his next class, with Boyfriend floating far behind. Pico detours left into a bathroom and waits. BF makes his way to the bathroom and sees Pico angrily crossing his arms. “Fuckin’ knew it. You’re a damn creepy ass stalker.”

Nervously, BF raises his hands. “S-stalker? I was um… merely observing!” Pico only continues to give him a look. “Okay, in my defense… uh…”

“Didn’t I tell you to leave me alone?” Boyfriend sheepishly looks away. Pico sighs and rolls his eyes. “Jeez, can’t you take the damn hint?” Shaking his head, Pico makes his way to leave the bathroom, only for Boyfriend to float in his way.

“Wait! Don’t leave!” BF puts his hands together and begs. “I don’t know what I would do without someone to talk with! I’m begging you to just at least hear me out!” Despite his desperate attempts, Pico only walks through BF and stands at the door frame. “Please?” Pico stands in place, then turns to Boyfriend.

Staring at the ghost boy, Pico sizes him up and sighs. “Alright fine, how about this? You can follow me, but don’t do anything weird, and don’t talk to me when there are other people. I have enough stupid visions of stupid things.”

BF perks up upon hearing this. “Wait, really!?” Boyfriend jumps in joy, unable to contain his emotions. “Thank you!” Before he could do anything else, Pico puts a hand up, halting his excitement.

“Now hold on, I have one more condition.” BF tilts his head. “So listen here, and listen good, I don’t want some useless weirdo following me without any incentive, so I need your help with something.”

Confused, Boyfriend raises an eyebrow. “Help you? I’m just a ghost.”

Pico scoffs. “No duh, that’s why you could be useful to me.” Pico looks around, making sure nobody is listening to them. He moves back into the bathroom and checks the inside of the stalls and finds nothing. Sighing in relief, Pico explains. “I need your help to cheat on an upcoming test.”

Boyfriend’s eyes widened in response. “Cheat? Woah, I didn’t expect you to be that kind of person.”

“Oh really? And who are you to judge me? You can't even do one. Besides, history class is horrendously boring as shit! There’s no way I’m listening to a lecture every damn period!” Pico takes a deep breath, before continuing. “So look, if I’m the only person who can see or hear you, that means you can relay the test answers for me without any risk.”

Shrugging, Boyfriend nods his head. “Alright, doesn’t sound too hard! I’ll get you answers for the test in no time! Easy peasy!” He gives Pico a thumbs-up and winks.

Pico groans and pinches his nose. “I already regret this decision…”

“Nonsense! I’ll be reliable, promise!” A big smile comes from Boyfriend, as Pico blankly stares at him.

A moment passes until Pico exits the bathroom. “Alright, well the test is tomorrow, so I better see you then. I’m gonna go to my dorm and rest.” Boyfriend raises a finger and opens his mouth.

“Uh… isn’t school still going? Lunchtime ended like a few minutes ago.” Pico halts in place, his heart sinking at the same time.

“SHIT!”

Chapter Text

Today did not start off well for Pico. He enters his dorm room with an irritated sigh, holding a small paper slip. He arrived late to class after lunch due to his conversation with Boyfriend. “Can’t believe a damn ghost was the reason I was late… how the fuck do I explain that?” He crumples the late slip in frustration. “So stupid… damn.”

From the roof, Boyfriend peeks his head out. “Yo, how did class go-” Pico throws the balled-up paper at BF, causing him to stop speaking in surprise.

“Fucking hell! Don’t just appear out of nowhere like that! If I had my gun I could’ve shot you!” Clenching his fists in both anger and panic, Pico shouts at Boyfriend.

“Um, I’m not sure if I would’ve been affected by that anyway. I don’t think I can get hurt.”

Pico’s anger slowly disperses, and he looks away. “Yeah… no shit,” A frown appears on his face for a second, but it changes back to anger once more. “But that’s not the point. If I shot my gun in here, then I would’ve been in a ton of trouble with damn school.”

Boyfriend scratches in confusion. “Really?”

Facepalming, the ginger sighs. “Yeah, really. They're super cautious about these kinds of things.” Pico looks away from Boyfriend, looking down at the floor. He shakes his head and then goes back to being angry at BF. “It’s common sense to not make loud noises, you damn airhead.” He whispers the last part as quietly as possible. Lying down on the couch, Pico pulls out his phone and browses the internet. “Look, you can do whatever. Just don’t pester, or stalk me. You ain’t a dog waiting for orders.” He looks away from his phone and stares at BF with a smug smirk. “Unless… you’re into that kinda shit.”

Immediately, Boyfriend puts his hands up defensively. “Woah! Okay, first of all, I’m not into that! And second of all, what exactly do you expect me to do?” Pico rolls his eyes and goes back to browsing the internet on his phone.

“Don’t know, don’t care. I’m not the ghost here. Just do whatever the fuck you do usually, or something.” With that, Boyfriend is left to his own devices. Looking around the dorm, BF thinks of something he could do, deciding to just explore Pico’s place. “Actually hold on, if you’re gonna wander around the damn place, there’s two things you need to know,” As if reading Boyfriend’s mind, Pico calls out to him. Turning around, Boyfriend listens to Pico. “First things first, don’t fucking go in my bathroom.”

BF raises an eyebrow. “Why not? What’s so special about that?”

“The lights don’t fucking work, and I locked the door anyway. Just… don’t step anywhere near it, or I swear I’ll find a way to beat your ghost ass.” Boyfriend cautiously nods, as Pico continues. “And the second thing is that I’ve got a roommate that lives here. I don’t know how I’m supposed to explain that I can talk to a ghost, so if he’s here don’t talk to me, I’ll just ignore you.” Pico finishes talking and looks back at his phone. Boyfriend takes a moment to digest the information, before going off to explore.

Despite the warnings, Boyfriend is immensely curious as to why Pico doesn’t want him to check the bathroom. He considers going inside it now but decides to wait once Pico is elsewhere to check it. Sighing, Boyfriend folds his arms, spinning in the air.

The entrance of the dorm opens, and Boyfriend moves and sees who it is. He sees another guy who feels familiar to him. “Hey Pico, I’m here.” He calls out to Pico, completely ignoring Boyfriend, who stands in front of him. Hearing someone call his name, Pico turns away from his phone and looks at them.

“Hey.” Pico waves back at him, still looking back at his phone. Darnell sighs and moves towards his own room.

He stops midway, noticing the knife stuck on the wall. “Pico, was Nene in here?” Turning to the voice, Pico shakes his head, wondering why he asked. “Then did you throw that?” Darnell points to the knife, and Pico looks at it. He nervously laughs at that.

“Oh… that… yeah, that was me.” He gets up from his bed and pulls the knife out of the wall, leaving a mark. “I’ll put it away.” Darnell stares at him, both concerned and suspicious as he walks to the kitchen.

Seeing Boyfriend in the kitchen as well, Pico gives him a death stare, while remaining silent. “Hey, not my fault.” BF raises his hands up in defense, and Pico sighs in response.

Darnell enters the kitchen area and gets closer to Pico. “Pico, what caused you to throw a knife in the room?” He shakes his head, brushing off Darnell’s concern.

“It’s nothing to worry about.”

“You sure about that? It's hard to find that believable.” Pico tries to leave, but Darnell grabs his shoulder before he can get out of the kitchen. “Hey, come on. If something happened, you gotta say something to us, man. You know that me and Nene would be there for you in a heartbeat.”

Pico sighs and pushes Darnell’s hand off him. “I don’t want to talk about it right now. I’ll tell you later.” With that, Pico outright leaves the dorm, leaving Darnell alone with Boyfriend.

The entire time, Boyfriend was staring in silence at the entire exchange. “Man, what the heck is going on in that guy's brain?” BF talks to himself, wondering aloud. However, Darnell quickly turns around to where Boyfriend is and causes him to snap out of his thoughts.

The two stare at each other, until the silence is broken. “The hell was that noise?” Darnell moves around the kitchen, trying to find the source of it.

Boyfriend’s eyes widened in surprise, unsure how to react to what happened. “He could hear me?” He whispers to himself as quietly as possible, before leaving the area as quickly as possible.

In a panic, Boyfriend floats all the way to the roof of the building. To his surprise, he sees the familiar sight of Pico sitting at the edge of the roof. BF thinks about going up to him but decides against it, and instead returns to the dorm room. Seeing as Pico is away, he can check his bathroom now.

Floating all the way back to the dorm, he sees Darnell sitting on his bed, fiddling with a lighter. BF takes a quick look around, and then quickly goes into the bathroom.

Inside, he sees absolutely nothing. It’s pitch black inside. “I guess Pico was telling the truth…” Despite this, BF still isn’t satisfied and tries finding a light switch in hopes of seeing what’s inside. Finding it, he attempts to flick it over and over, but his hand only goes through it every time. “Damn!” Frustrated, Boyfriend kicks the floor.

Upon kicking the floor, he feels himself hitting something small. Something bounces on the wall and hits him in the head. “Ow!” He puts a hand to his head, and looks at the floor, seeing what hit him. “Wait…” Barely seeing it, he picks up what seems to be an open empty pill bottle. “What’s this doing here?” Looking closely, it seems to be just like the pills that Pico takes. However, looking even closer, Boyfriend sees a stain on the labeling. Traces of a red liquid are on it, and that causes him to hum in confusion. “Huh? Strange…”

Boyfriend looks around in the cramped bathroom, not sure what else to do. However, an image suddenly flashes in his eyes. The sight of him handing pills to Pico momentarily appears, before it disappears as quickly as it showed up.

“Wh-what the heck?” Boyfriend’s breathing gets more intense, as he puts a hand on his head. He leaves the bathroom before things get worse.

Chapter Text

Boyfriend sits, not sure what to even do now. It’s been a few hours or so since BF looked in the bathroom, yet he still feels unnerved after what he saw in the bathroom. He didn’t understand why he felt so uncomfortable, but his thoughts overwhelmed everything else. Trying to psych himself out of it, Boyfriend tries slapping his face. However, it only results in his hands going through his body like almost everything else.

Sighing, he decides to get up from the floor and floats elsewhere. Curiously, Boyfriend tries going back to where he last saw Pico. He floats all the way to the roof but does not find a single person at all. “Aw…” Despite not finding Pico here, his need to satiate his curiosity makes him check out the area more.

On top of the roof, a small area has a miniature garden. Sadly, the garden seems completely abandoned, as a singular flower only remains. However, the environment somehow does feel peaceful enough for Boyfriend to relax himself a bit more. He moves to the edge of the roof, peeking down to the bottom. His heart sinks nervously looking all the way down to the floor. It’s quite a way down. Well, it’s only two or so stories down but for him, it didn’t matter.

Boyfriend sits on the edge of the roof, trying not to float or clip through the floor. A smile slowly appears on his face, enjoying the atmosphere and taking it all in. He closes his eyes, imagining the wind blowing at his face, and thinking about others alongside it.

…

“Pico, why are you dragging me to your dorm? Oh! Are you finally gonna-”

“No. Just shut up for now, please.” It took Pico a lot of time to convince himself to let Nene and Darnell know about the ghost, but he’s already regretting his decision to drag Nene all the way here.

After a long hike to his dorm, Pico opens the door and looks around for Darnell. Not finding him, Pico goes towards his room and knocks on the door. “Darnell, you in there? I need you come here real quick.” After a moment of silence, the door opens and reveals Darnell. Once the three are all together, Pico takes a deep breath for what he’s gonna talk about. Darnell and Nene look at him expectantly. “Okay, so… I know the both of you are really confused right now.” Pico scratches the back of his head, trying to choose his next words very carefully. “Ugh, how the fuck do I explain this?”

“Pico, just tell us! The suspense is killing me!” Pico gives Nene a deadpan look, while she giggles at his expression.

Rolling his eyes, he goes back on track. “Well, as I was about to say…” Pico looks around, wondering if the ghost is anywhere. But he can’t seem to find him yet. Sighing, Pico just rolls with it. “I… I got a ghost following me around.”

Darnell gives Pico a confused and concerned look. “Pico? Are you absolutely sure that you’ve been taking your pills?” Pico groans angrily at his response.

“Of course, I’ve been taking the stupid pills just let me explain!” Pico calms himself down before continuing. “Look, I swear that this ghost is real. I took my pills right in front of it and everything! Heck, I also made a deal with it.”

“You did what?” Nene blurts out in shock.

With a raised eyebrow, Pico repeats himself. “Made… a deal with it?”

“Like… like a devil’s contract, or?”

“Wh-what the fuck? No! I offered the deal!”

“Oh, okay! Silly me!” Nene smiles obliviously.

Scoffing, Pico tries elaborating. “Look, the point is, this ghost kinda just followed me non-stop, so I offered it a deal so that they’d be useful to me while they follow me.”

“And what was the deal you offered?” Darnell asks, unsure of what else to say.

Pico smiles, “Oh, it was simple. I just asked the ghost to help me cheat on the history test tomorrow.” The two give him a weird look. “What? Come on, don’t tell me you actually expected me to study for that dumb thing.” Moving away from the topic, Pico moves elsewhere, trying to find where his said ghost companion went. “Where the hell even is that guy anyway?”

Darnell and Nene follow Pico, relatively concerned for a good few reasons. “Pico, what does this ghost even look like?” Pico glances back at Darnell, but ignores the question, not wanting to answer it at the moment. 

“Can I take a picture of it?” Nene pulls out a pink Polaroid camera, which Pico quickly lowers.

“You’re not a ghost hunter, put that shit away.” Pouting, she puts it behind her back. Once that was dealt with, Pico looked around the kitchen. “I swear to god, where is that stupid idiot?”

Sighing, Darnell looks at Nene, not sure what to make of this. “Hey man, I don’t wanna sound like a broken record here but are you absolutely sure that what you’ve been seeing is real?”

Pinching his nose, Pico groans in annoyance. “Yes. Look, if it makes you feel better I’ll even take my pills right here in front of you to prove it.” Pico tries searching in his pocket for them but doesn’t find them. “Shit, where is it? I thought I left it in my pocket.” Right next to him, a pill bottle dangles for him to grab. “Oh, thanks.” He grabs it and twists the capsule open, ready to take a pill. However, he stops upon realizing what just happened.

It takes everyone else in the room a moment to process what happened. “Wait what the fuck!?” Nene shouts out in shock, and Pico sees the ghost he was talking about waving to him.

“Uh… see? Yeah… told you the ghost was real.”

“How the fuck was that floating? Are you a wizard!?”

Darnell slaps Nene, snapping her out of her crazed state. “Snap out of it, Nene. Anyway, so that ghost is real?” Pico nods and puts the pill bottle back in his pocket. “Do you even know why it’s following you?”

Pico scratches his head. “Your guess is as good as mine, he just appeared out of nowhere this morning and then just never stopped following me since.”

“Appeared? Wait, you can see it?”

Pico looks back at the ghost, who gives him a thumbs up. “Yeah…”

“Oh! Oh! What do they look like? Are they hot?” Impulsively, Nene takes a photo, and the flash blinds Pico momentarily.

Growling, Pico rubs his eyes and grabs Nene’s camera. “Why the fuck did you do that!? Turn off the flash next time as well!” The blank photo slowly appears, and Pico quickly yanks it and pockets it.

“Hey! Give me back my camera, Pico!” Nene reaches her arms out, trying to grab it while Pico holds her head, stopping her in place. “And what about the photo as well!?”

“I'm not giving you this back! The photo is just you blinding me, and I don't want to look dumb on a photo!” Darnell looks at Pico and sighs. Reluctantly, Pico lets go of Nene and gives her camera back, but not the photo.

She quickly grabs it and makes sure Pico didn’t do anything to it, pouting. “That was so totally uncalled for, Pico! Besides, this camera is super special. You know that, right?”

Immediately, the atmosphere turned a bit solemn. Everyone looks at the camera, thinking about something. “Yeah, alright Nene. I’m sorry.” A small smile returns on Nene, as she puts it away safely.

“It’s okay! I’ll always forgive you, Pico! Not to mention, you’re also finally talking to us again!” Nene looks at an imaginary watch, and back at the two boys. “Well, I think it’s probably getting late. I’m gonna go back to my dorm! Good night you two!” Nene waves them goodbye, before leaving.

“I’ll go to bed as well. Night.” Darnell moves to his room, leaving Pico alone with the ghost. The two stare at each other, before Pico motions him to follow outside. Leaving the dorms, they travel all the way to the bathroom where Pico had offered the ghost a deal.

“Why are we here again?” The ghost asks, confused, and also somewhat nervous.

Pico stares at the ghost for a while, his hands wrapped into fists. “Just to make sure nobody is listening to us.” He checks the stalls to make sure that again, there isn’t anyone inside them, then focuses back on the main point. “Why the hell did you reveal yourself like that?”

Tilting his head, the ghost gets a little confused. “Well, I mean you kinda did tell your friends that I exist. So what’s wrong with a little extra proof that I do in fact exist!” A smile grows on his face, and he extends his arms out wide, showing his entire body.

Pico rolls his eyes, and folds his arms “That’s true, but…” Pico looks away from him and clenches his teeth. “Do you know how screwed things are now!?”

The ghost looks at Pico in confusion. “H-huh? What did I do wrong?”

Quickly calming his nerves, Pico puts a hand to his hair and checks his pocket for the photo he stole from Nene’s camera. “This is what you did wrong.” Showing it to him, it’s just a photo of Pico getting blinded, with him posing for the camera in the air, showing a peace sign.

He quietly laughs at the photo, still not knowing why there’s an issue. “I… still don’t get it.”

Groaning in anger, Pico lowered the photo. “I can’t… I can’t let them know what you look like.”

“Why not?”

“Because…” Trailing off, Pico takes one more look at the photo. In an instant, he tears it in half. "Because there's no reason." The ghost looks at him in shock, confused as to why he tore the photo. “You don’t need to understand any of this shit. In fact, just forget about this stupid photo and this meeting.” Pico puts one half of the photo in his pocket, before frowning and leaving.

Floating down to the torn photo, he sees the other half of the picture. The one that has Pico. He wonders why he grabbed the part of the photo that contained him, but decides to listen to Pico’s warning this time, and just to try and forget what happened.

Suddenly, he hears footsteps getting closer and sees a familiar girl in pink clothing. She peeks into the bathroom and notices the torn photo. “Nene?” Boyfriend whispers, wondering what she’s doing here.

“What the heck, Pico..?” She moves to grab it and examines the picture. “Why did you tear half of… it…” Nene looks closer and notices something. “It’s the ghost!” At the edge of the torn photo, she sees an arm. “Pico… who is this ghost?” Looking around, Nene quietly puts the photo in her purse and quickly leaves the bathroom.

Seeing everything that just happened, Boyfriend takes a moment to take in what just happened, before quickly tailing Nene. Going through the walls, he sees Nene running as fast as possible, while cautiously looking around, likely hoping Pico doesn’t see her. Nene makes her way to her own dorm and enters. Boyfriend considers going through the door but immediately decides against it.

With nothing else to do, Boyfriend simply floats towards Pico and Darnell’s dorm. Sighing, he decides to just close his eyes and pretend to sleep. Thinking back on every single event of today.

Chapter Text

Touching the tip end of a blade, Nene carefully inspects one of her many knives. She tries to think carefully about the torn photo, theorizing about many things. “Hmm…” Putting the knife to her chin, Nene thinks of a conclusion. “I should find that other piece.” Getting up, she decides to prepare something for her friends.

Meanwhile, Boyfriend tries shaking Pico awake upstairs, but his hands still go through him. Throughout the entire night, Boyfriend never actually slept and did nothing for the past few hours. “Ugh… Pico. Wake up already. You got a test to work on today, man.” Calling out to him seems to work, as Pico begins to move in his sleep.

A hand raises, and Pico sticks out the middle finger. “Five more minutes…” Sighing, Boyfriend facepalms. He looks around for Pico’s pill bottle and grabs it. Winding up, BF throws it directly at his head. 

“Ow! What the fuck!?” Throwing the bottle at his head very much worked as intended, as Pico jolted awake, rubbing the spot on his head that was hit. He turns to the assaulter, seeing Boyfriend giggle at Pico. Seeing this, he growls angrily but sucks it up and gets out of bed. “You’re so damn lucky that the test really is today because if it wasn’t I would’ve torn your ass apart.” Boyfriend nods, despite still laughing.

As Pico gets off of the bed, BF sees that his hair is very messy, which Pico doesn’t seem to notice yet. Another thing he notices is that Pico has some muscle, and his clothes seemed to cover it before. Pico usually wears long-sleeved shirts, but this time he has a tank top on. “Wow, Pico. Didn’t know you hit the gym a lot.” BF says out of the blue, with an oblivious smile. Pico stops in place and turns to Boyfriend.

“Could you not stare at me?” Boyfriend nervously laughs, and puts his hands up, leaving the room and giving Pico privacy. Once BF leaves, Pico scoffs and quickly goes through his closet to grab his outfit. “Stupid… bee…”

Outside of Pico’s room, Boyfriend patiently waits for Pico to finally finish. After a while, the door opens, and Pico reveals himself wearing what he usually wears. “Jeez, finally! Let’s get going!” 

Pico stares at the energetic ghost with a tired expression, wondering how the hell this guy still has all that energy. Putting a hand to his mouth, Pico yawns, still tired. “Hold on, man. I still need to do a few more things.” 

“Really? What else do you need to do?” Not bothering to deal with Boyfriend at the moment, Pico just goes to the kitchen, ignoring BF’s voice, which slowly turns into incoherent blabbering. 

In the kitchen, he washes his face and then gets a quick snack. As he does this, Darnell enters the kitchen as well. He chuckles for a moment, before talking. “Yo, Pico. You gonna fix your hair?” Pico looks up, then scoffs. The two laugh it off before going back to what they were both doing. Once Pico finishes making a snack and eating it, he leaves the kitchen and goes to Darnell’s bathroom. Pico and Darnell have their own bathrooms in their dorm room, but for reasons he doesn’t elaborate on, Pico doesn’t use his bathroom anymore.

Inside Darnell’s bathroom, Pico stares at the mirror and sighs. He looks like a mess. Pico rubs his eyes, then takes a long while to fix his hair. From the wall, Boyfriend looks at Pico, watching him carefully styling himself. Pico turns to the direction where Boyfriend watches him, and Pico throws the comb that he was holding instinctively. “What the actual hell man!? What’s with you and stalking me every five minutes!?”

“Look, I can’t help it! What else am I supposed to do?”

“Not stalk me, you blue-haired bastard!” Pico throws another item in the bathroom, which still does absolutely nothing to BF. “Get the hell out of here already!” Frowning, Boyfriend moves out of the wall and leaves Pico alone. Once he’s gone, Pico puts his hands to his face and lets out a hefty sigh. “Why did I agree to this?”

Outside, Boyfriend folds his arms, bored out of his mind. With nothing to do, Boyfriend looks at his body again. He stares at his bandaged arm, thinking about his past. For a second, he sees himself sitting on the edge of a roof at night. The place seems incredibly familiar to him, but the vision disappears before he can properly picture it.

Sounds of footsteps cut through his vision, and he sees Pico walking out of the bathroom. Darnell also comes out of the kitchen and the two meet in the middle. “Pico, are you ready to go?”

He nods, and searches his pocket for pills, but comes up short. “Where is my…” Pico frantically pats down his body for it but still finds nothing.

Darnell puts a hand on Pico’s shoulder and tries calming him down. “Hey, Pico! Calm down, you can’t find something if you’re too worked up.” Pico pushes the hand away from him, trying to settle himself.

“I know, I know! Just… give me a moment.” Pico bites his thumb, closing his eyes. “These damn pills, I swear. They’re so annoying.” There’s a moment of silence before Boyfriend looks around. He floats towards Pico’s room, going elsewhere. 

Once Pico stops tensing up, he leans on the wall. “You alright now?” He turns to the voice of Darnell and slowly nods. The two don’t move for a while, but out of nowhere, Pico’s pill bottle appears in the air once more.

Pico sees Boyfriend holding the pill bottle out to him. “Oh. Well, thanks.” With the reacquired item, Pico takes a pill and makes his way to the door. “Okay, we can finally leave.” 

Darnell looks at the general direction of Boyfriend, before looking at Pico. “Are you ever gonna tell us who that ghost even is?” Pico freezes in place. He thinks for a second until he turns around.

“No. Not important.” Pico quickly yanks the door open and leaves the dorm. Once more, Darnell gets left alone with BF. With a loud and heavy sigh, Darnell follows Pico outside, but before he leaves, Darnell takes a quick glance behind him.

Outside, the three see a familiar face waving out to them. “Hey! You guys! Over here!” Nene shouts out to them all, though, many other people look in the direction of Nene, unsure as to who she was calling out to. Despite this, Pico, Darnell, and Boyfriend make their way to Nene.

“You don’t have to shout at us every time, we sit in the same spot, Nene.” She only laughs in response and brings out a strange box. “What the fuck is that?”

“A lunch box!” Pico facepalms, and groans. Before he can retort, Nene speaks up. “So… for some reason, I felt like making you guys food today!”

Darnell and Pico give her a suspicious look, not trusting it at all. “Really? Well, what did you make?”

Nervous laughter comes from Nene, as she pushes the lunch box towards them. “Just… have a look and you’ll see!” The two boys look at each other until Darnell opens the box.

Inside the box, a charred mess lies inside. Something that barely resembles food lies inside of it. Without hesitation, Darnell shuts the box close. Pico looks at Darnell, concerned. “What was inside that?”

“Who let you cook!?” Darnell blurts out, ignoring Pico’s question.

Nene gasps in shock, taking offense. “Hey! I was self-taught, thank you very much!”

“That doesn’t make things any better!” Darnell pushes the box back to Nene, who pushes it back to Darnell, who pushes it back to Nene. Pico sighs and yanks the box away from the two, opening it to see what’s inside.

The moment he opens the box, the smell of burnt food overwhelms him. He closes the box immediately, pinching his nose. “Fuck! What the hell did you even make!?”

Upset, Nene gets up from her seat. “Come on! It can’t be that bad!” Sitting next to Pico, she looks at the box. “All I did was put the food in the oven for a while.” She opens the box and seemingly doesn’t get affected by the stench at all.

“For a while? It looks and smells like it was in the oven for a century!” Nene smacks Pico over the head playfully, then sighs and gets up.

She looks at the box, and then back to the two. “Okay… so maybe this is burned a little bit.” Pico scoffs and rolls his eyes. “I’ll throw it away later, promise!”

Darnell opens his mouth to speak, but the bell rings and cuts him off. 

“Shit, I gotta take my test now.” Pico gets up and sighs. “Of course, I had to have history as my first period today…” He turns to wave goodbye at Nene and Darnell, then glances at Boyfriend, giving him the hint to get moving.

Floating next to Pico, Boyfriend cautiously asks him a few questions. “So… what exactly am I going to do?”

Smiling, Pico looks at BF. “Glad you asked. Cause if you didn’t then I would’ve had to tell you in class and that would’ve been awkward as all hell.” Taking a deep breath, Pico prepares his explanation. “Okay. First things first. Once the teacher actually says that the test begins, just go to where the teacher is at. There should be test answers on the desk.”

Pico takes a quick breather, as they take a turn in another direction. “So, that’s all I need to do?”

“Yep. That’s basically it.” After a long walk, the two make their way inside the classroom. One by one, every student gets seated and waits for the test to begin. “Okay, from now on, I’m gonna be writing shit down to ask you stuff. You better do what you’re told.” Pico whispers to Boyfriend as quietly as possible, to which BF gives a quick nod.

The teacher begins their briefing of the test, and hands out the papers. The moment the test properly begins, Pico looks at Boyfriend and nods. BF floats towards the teacher’s desk and sees the test answers lying right there, conveniently. BF sighs in relief and reads all of it carefully.

After skimming through the answers, BF rushes to Pico and whispers the answers to Pico. Half of his paper is already finished with what is likely all the correct answers, and Boyfriend moves back to the test answers.

Unfortunately, the moment BF tries to read the paper, the teacher grabs a hold of it and takes it elsewhere. Pico sees this mishap and almost lets out a laugh. BF turns to Pico and gives him a look of disbelief. “What do I do!?”

Boyfriend quickly floats to Pico, as he writes something down. “Just read the paper from his hand, dumbass.” BF sighs and does as told. Looking at the teacher, they put the test answers in a folder, securing it safely. Seeing this, Boyfriend shrinks in disappointment.

The plan that Pico had told Boyfriend already was going horribly wrong, yet despite this, Pico doesn’t seem worried at all. “Pico! What should I do?”

“Just look at other students, find the ones that look smart or something.” Pico writes down on the paper, then erases it once Boyfriend reads it.

Scanning the area, Boyfriend looks for what he thinks looks like the smartest-looking person in the room. In the front, BF notices a well-dressed student, like… strangely well-dressed. It’s almost as if they were from a video game. Going up to the student, he sees that they’re writing down answers very neatly, and precisely. “Yeah, this guy probably knows what they’re doing.” Boyfriend observes everything he writes down and memorizes it for Pico to write down.

Going back to him, BF tells Pico everything and watches as he writes it all down properly. After a while, Pico finally finishes everything on the paper and smiles. His smile immediately disappears when he notices that there’s a backside to this test. Both Boyfriend and Pico groan, left with no other choice but to deal with the final part of the test.

Boyfriend looks at the student he copied the answers from but notices that he already turned in his test. “Crap! That guy already turned it in! What should I do!?” Boyfriend whispers in a panic.

Pico quickly writes down what he wants to say, trying to snap BF out of his unneeded panic. “Just look for the paper at the teacher’s desk idiot!” Boyfriend slowly exits his state of worry and takes a deep breath. Nervously smiling and scratching his head.

Going to the teacher’s desk for hopefully the last time, Boyfriend looks around to find the paper Pico needs, but to no avail. “Oh no… it’s probably in the folder.” BF hovers above the aforementioned folder, and tries to find a way to look at the papers inside it. He floats around it for a long time but gets nowhere with it. Out of options, BF goes back to Pico trying to ask him for help. “Pico! All the papers are just in that folder, and I can’t do anything about it.”

Holding the desk in frustration, Pico sighs and writes something down. “Well, you better think of something fast, cause the testing period is about to end.” Once Pico stops writing, BF looks around at other classmates, but everyone has either finished their test or is also seemingly stuck and clueless.

Looking at the clock, Boyfriend sees that there are only a few minutes left before the bell rings. Desperately, BF moves to the folder and just tries grabbing it repeatedly. Of course, this does absolutely nothing, but he tries anyway. As he does this, BF flails his arms around, creating a gust of wind that blows the folder open. The teacher notices the folder opening but shrugs and doesn’t bother.

Boyfriend, on the other hand, is ecstatic. He checks the paper on the top, and conveniently, the paper is the test answers for the backside. Without a moment of hesitation, BF relays the answers to Pico just in time for him to get up and submit everything just before time runs out. “Alright everyone, please submit your tests. Time is up.” The teacher calls out to the class just as Pico writes down the final answer. With a satisfied smile, Pico hands in his paper, fairly certain that his entire plan went without a hitch.

Returning to his seat, Pico finally relaxes himself. Looking at BF he seems to be patting himself on the back for his hard work. Pico gives BF a subtle thumbs up as well, which also makes BF happy. 

Minutes pass, until the bell rings, allowing everyone to be dismissed from the room. Pico sighs in relief, finally out of the classroom. “Ugh, finally. I couldn’t stand being in that place for any longer.”

Boyfriend laughs at his remark, as he floats next to him. “Well, I didn’t think it was that bad. Could’ve gone worse, you know.”

“I should be the one telling you that, dumbass.” 

BF waves his arm dismissively. Still acting carefree. “Eh, in the end, we made it out alive! I think that’s all that matters to me.” Pico nods his head but then smirks.

“I don’t know about you, but I know I made it out alive.”

“Wh-” Boyfriend takes a few seconds to realize what he said, and with an embarrassed and angry expression, BF points a finger at Pico. “Okay listen here you carrot head!” Pico lets out a loud laugh, and continues walking, pretending to not hear any of BF’s soon-to-come ranting.

Chapter Text

As Pico moves onward, his ghostly friend next to him keeps pestering him with his ranting. “I mean like really dude!? That was beyond cold of you to say!” Pico continues to chuckle to himself, as BF continues to rant about the joke he made around two minutes ago.

From afar, Pico’s friends call out to him and wave. “Hey! How did the test go for you, Pico?” Nene exclaims out, as Pico approaches and sits down.

“It was okay. Could’ve been worse.” Pico says, as Boyfriend gasps out, feeling underappreciated. Pico glances at BF, then away from him. “I had a little help from the ghost. Could’ve done better.” Boyfriend goes right next to Pico and stares angrily at him. Noticing this, Pico chuckles. “Okay, maybe he did do a… good job.” BF accepts his answer and backs away.

Everyone around the table starts talking about random things, losing track of time. Eventually, Pico even suggests that the three play a card game, despite them never doing that in forever. The three suggest doing that later and instead continue random conversations. It isn't until Nene looks around the place and sneaks away. Pico and Darnell are too distracted talking to notice her escape, but Boyfriend notices her walking away. Curious, he follows Nene as she goes to her dorm. BF contemplates himself for a few seconds before sighing and going inside the room.

Inside the dorm, Nene quickly checks inside her bag and grabs something. “I knew it! He had it in his pocket!” She pulls out a torn photo, the other half of the picture she took. Nene gets the other half containing Pico, and Boyfriend gets closer to Nene. She finally looks closely at the side with Boyfriend on it, and she freezes in place. “Oh my god.” Her hand shakes, “No way, is… is that… him?” Boyfriend looks at Nene, completely confused. “Is that Boyfriend!?” Immediately, he backs away, shocked by her calling out his name.

“Y-you know me?” He says to Nene, but she doesn’t respond. She can’t hear him. Before Boyfriend can process this event, he winces in pain, as a vision forms in his mind. He pictures himself next to Nene, and holding a Polaroid camera. He's handing it to Nene, as she smiles happily. Nene immediately snaps a picture of BF, but once the camera flashes, the vision fades. Boyfriend shakes his head, getting his bearings back in check. Looking back at Nene now, she's still shocked, looking at the torn photo in her hand. Worried, Boyfriend tries waving a hand in front of her, but not even that seems to work. “She can’t see me either.” Dejected, he frowns and stops trying to get her attention, but remains next to her.

“The ghost… it's Boyfriend!?” Hyperventilating, Nene tries calming herself down and focuses on the paper. Her panicked state slowly dissipates, and she finally snaps out of it. “I don't get it! Is this why Pico wanted to hide it from us? But why? He…” Sitting down on the floor, Nene frowns. “I miss him so much…” Hearing this, Boyfriend winces. He wishes he could just call out to her right now, but he can’t.

With nothing else to do, Boyfriend sits next to her and puts a hand on Nene's. He does it without much effort, and for a moment, Boyfriend tried picturing what it would've felt like if he was really there. BF hears Nene crying and notices that she slowly calms herself down. Despite not hearing or feeling anything other than a chill running down her spine, Nene feels a little more at ease than she was before. Her crying subsides, and the room gets quiet. Nene takes one more look at the torn photo, and a small smile appears on her face. “BF…” In an instant, Nene gets up and her face turns serious. “I think it’s time I get some answers.” She leaves her dorm and returns to the boys.

Back at the table, Pico and Darnell are still talking. “And then I kicked his lights out,” Pico says, finishing his story. Darnell chuckles a bit, before noticing Nene walking back.

“Oh, hey Nene. Where have you been?”

“I just went to the bathroom, nothing to worry about!” Pico looks at Nene, both suspicious and concerned. Though, he just shakes his head and brushes it off. “So, did I miss anything important?” The two both answer no and Nene takes a seat. The three once more go back to their business, until Nene decides to ask about Boyfriend finally. “So, I’m still wondering, are you ever gonna talk more about b… the ghost?” Pico turns to Nene and stares at her.

Pico doesn’t answer, or speak. It isn’t until Darnell decides to cut the silence by also asking Pico the same question. “Yeah man, you can’t just keep avoiding the question forever man.”

Backed into a corner, Pico growls and looks away from both of them and at the table. “Why do you two gotta know, huh? Neither of you don’t need to know anything about this!” Pico’s voice gets louder and aggressive, as he grips the table.

“Pico, calm down.” Nene raises her hand slowly.

“Don’t tell me to calm down!” Pico slams the table and gets up. Nene and Darnell get taken aback by his outrage, and everyone outside looks toward Pico. Whispers and murmurs come from all the students. Scoffing, Pico closes his eyes and leaves the table. “Come with me.” Pico motions his two friends, and by extension, Boyfriend to follow him.

The four walk upstairs to the second floor and climb up a pipe to the school roof. “What are we doing here?” Pico ignores Darnell’s question, and only makes his way toward a certain place.

Near the end of the roof, the four make it to a small garden area. Only a singular flower is planted and is barely even alive. “Hey Pico, isn’t this the place where-” Nene tries speaking up, but doesn’t get to finish her sentence.

“Shut up, and let me talk.” With that, everyone gives Pico a moment of silence. He sits at a certain edge of the roof and stares at the dull sky. “You guys miss him too, don’t you?” Despite being relatively vague, Nene and Darnell nod, knowing who Pico is talking about. Boyfriend on the other hand, simply listens to the conversation, confused. “I would do anything to see him again.”

“Pico, where are you getting at?” 

With a sigh, Pico turns to the three and finally answers the question. “The ghost. You want to know what this ghost is, right?”

Nene widens her eyes and impulsively speaks. “Pico is the ghost-”

“No, No. It isn’t him.” Pico looks back at the sky and continues. “The ghost I’ve been seeing isn’t anything like him. It’s just some stupid idiot. So stop getting on my case.” The roof grows silent until Pico speaks up again. “This is your cue for all of you to leave.” Despite everyone’s hesitation, they all listen to Pico’s request and leave from the way they came.

As Pico sits alone, he quickly wipes his eyes, clearing his vision.

Meanwhile, Nene, Darnell, and Boyfriend return to the second floor. “So, what now?” Darnell asks the uncertain question and looks around.

Nene sighs and grabs her sleeve. “I think I need to show you something.” She grabs ahold of Darnell’s arm without explaining, and runs to Pico and Darnell’s dorm, instead of her own.

“Nene, what the heck!?” Darnell tries to break free of her grip but fails to do so. Once the two make their way inside the dorm, Nene lets go of him. “What was that for? We aren’t even in a rush to do things.”

“Oh yeah… whoops!” Putting a hand to his face, Darnell sighs. “Well, either way, I need to show you something!” Nene quickly brings out two pieces of a photo. “This!”

Confused, Darnell tilts his head. “What’s that?”

“It’s the photo I took of Pico and the ghost like yesterday.”

“You got the photo back from Pico?” She nods her head. “Why did it get torn?” 

Nene sighs, “You’ll see.” She shows Darnell the half of the photo containing Pico. “Look, this is Pico, right?” Nene then points to a part of the tear. “See that small bump? When I first saw this, I thought it was an arm.” She gives a moment for Darnell to digest the information, before grabbing the second photo. “Okay, now… and you need to be ready for this part.” Nene puts the second part of the photo together and reveals Boyfriend to be the ghost.

Upon seeing this, Darnell takes a step back and feels his heart racing. “That… that’s actually him?”

“I don’t know. Pico seemed adamant about denying it, but this photo…”

“Why? Why was… why is he hiding this from us?” To that question, neither can come up with an answer yet.

Boyfriend sees all of this happening in the back, unsure what to even do or say. “Is… the ghost… is Boyfriend here?” Nene calls out to him, and he approaches, even though they can’t see him. “Um… Boyfriend? If… if you’re here, can you please show us a sign?” Boyfriend tries looking for the pill bottle to grab and float around, but can’t find it anywhere. With no other idea, he tries grabbing the photo.

To everyone’s surprise, Boyfriend tugs on it. Nene lets go of the photo and sees it floating in the air. “Is that him?” Darnell says, pointing to the photo.

“B-Boyfriend, if that really is you… uh… can you take this photo instead?” Nene holds out the photo containing him. BF takes his half while giving her the half that contains Pico. Stunned silence fills the room, both Nene and Darnell don’t know how to process this. 

Instinctively, Nene pulls out her camera and takes a quick photo. Once the photo comes out of the camera, she shakes it as quickly as possible. The photo develops and reveals Boyfriend once more. Darnell and Nene stare into the picture in disbelief. “It’s really him… we aren’t seeing things.”

“Where have you been? We… all of us missed you.” No answer comes. “Right… you can’t talk to us.” Nene’s mind lights up with an idea. She grabs the photo from BF’s hand and holds out both halves of the photo. “How about a yes or no questionnaire, BF?” She raises Boyfriend’s picture. “Tug on this photo for yes.” Nene then raises Pico’s picture. “Tug on this one for no, got it?”

A few seconds pass, and she feels Boyfriend’s photo being pulled on. A small smile appears on both Nene and Darnell. “Okay, what do we even ask him, Nene?”

“Good question…” She ponders about it for a moment, before coming up with one. “Okay, um… can you fly?” Nene immediately feels BF’s picture being tugged on.

Once that question gets answered, Darnell asks his own question. “Do you remember us?” It takes a while for an answer, but eventually, Pico’s side of the photo gets tugged.

The duo looks at each other, concerned. “Do you… remember Pico?” Pico’s photo gets pulled on once more. “Do you remember anything?” Both photos get pulled. “What does that mean?” No response comes for a while. Sighing, Nene thinks carefully about what to say next. “Do you… know how you died?”

Nene feels a hand tugging on her shoulder. “Nene, what the hell? Why would you ask that question!?”

“I just need to know!” Nene feels one of the photos being pulled on and sees that it’s Pico’s side of the photo.

The two stare at it in silence. “He… doesn’t know?” Darnell speaks softly, worried as to what will happen next.

She simply looks back at Darnell, then away from him. She asks Boyfriend one last question. “Do you want to know?”

“Nene, you don’t-”

She shakes her head and cuts Darnell off. “He deserves to know.”

There was no response for what felt like forever until one of the photos finally moved. “Yes.” Boyfriend’s torn photo gets tugged, and Nene sighs. With a deep breath, she closes her eyes and tells him.

“Suicide.”

Chapter Text

Pico reminisces all on his own, sitting at the edge of the roof. The light of the noon sun slowly falls down and into the abyss. Staring at the vast beyond, he feels a familiar sense of nostalgia. He turns to the right, where an extra space lies empty. He sighs at this and turns down to the floor far below. “Why… Bee?” Pico closes his eyes, just to think back on what once was. “What the fuck has my life become now that you…” He trails off and looks at his hands. For a moment, he feared that blood would appear on his hands. But it doesn't happen. Not today.

…

“Where are we going, BF?” Pico says, scanning the area in the dark moonlight. Being dragged along by Boyfriend isn’t something Pico usually does, but today was special. At least, it’s supposed to be.

Boyfriend laughs and looks back at Pico. “We’re gonna go to the haunted house up that hill!” With that, Pico halts in place, stopping BF in his tracks.

Pulling Boyfriend closer, Pico spoke to BF. “Yeah, no. There is no damn way the two of us are going to go in that house.”

A smug smile appeared on Boyfriend’s face. “Aw, you scared of a lil ol’ haunted house?” He gets smacked on the cheek in response.

“I ain’t scared of that stupid house, that’s just an awful place for a first date!”

Boyfriend blew a raspberry while rubbing the spot Pico smacked. “You wanted to go to a dumpster.”

“Yeah! Because it is a good place!”

“For a hobo it is!”

Pico rolls his eyes and scoffs. “You wouldn’t get it. The amount of crazy shit I could find there is off the charts. Believe me, Darnell, Nene, and I dumpster-dive like three times a week, and we’ve got a collection of junk because of it, man.”

“Okay, okay, I get it. You’re a loot goblin.” Boyfriend stares at the haunted house and then asks Pico for other options. “If you don’t wanna go there, is there anywhere else we can go?” Turning to his voice, a small smile appears on Pico’s face.

“You know, I do have one place in mind.”

Boyfriend tries to read his mind and makes a guess. “Sneak in our school?”

Pico chuckles. “I was actually thinking about going to your place for something else if you know what I mean.” He winks and smirks at BF, who looks away and rubs his neck, flustered. 

“That’s a little too forward, don’t you think?” Pico laughs and nods. He pets BF in the head ruffling his hair a bit.

“Don’t sweat it, I was kidding. Not really, but sneaking into our school at night sounds like a cool idea, so I’m in.”  As the two walk, they converse along the way, asking a few curious questions. “So, how do you even have your own home anyway, Bee?” 

Boyfriend chuckles at the nickname, scratching his cheek. “Well, my parents work in accounting, and they spend a lot of money on me.”

Pico chuckles and wraps his arm around BF’s shoulder. “Heh, does that mean you’re a spoiled brat?” Boyfriend chuckles and shakes his head, looking away sheepishly. “Think you could spend a pretty penny or two on me?”

A flick on the head is the first response Pico gets. “No. They only spend it on my well-being, so I don’t actually get any of the allowance.” Boyfriend then moves Pico’s arm away from him, “Besides, even if I could, I would rather hog it all, so hah!” He sticks out his tongue for effect.

The two laugh it off and continue their journey. After a relatively long walk to their college, the duo gets halted by the large gate blocking the entrance. “Well, we made it to the front. How do you think we’ll get inside?” Pico smirks, and searches his pocket.

“Simple, we use this bomb here and blow up the-” Boyfriend immediately tries grabbing the plastic explosive Pico somehow has in a panic. “Hey! This thing’s kinda fragile!” 

“Are you crazy!? Why is the first thing that went into your mind blowing up the gate!? We’ll go to jail if we do that!” Pico laughs at BF’s panicked state.

Pico puts a hand on his shoulder and calms him down, putting the explosive away. “Relax, BF, we won’t get arrested, and I wasn’t actually gonna do it.” Despite Pico trying to alleviate his worries, Boyfriend still had a shred of doubt about his words being true. “Alright, well if we ain’t blowing the gate up, then is there another idea you have in mind?” Boyfriend points to the top of the gate.

“We can just… climb the gate.” Boyfriend suggests as if it was rather obvious.

Pico snaps his fingers and nods. “That… is a good idea.” The two climb the gate and jump down, sticking the landing. Or, Pico does at least. BF flops to the ground clumsily, and Pico silently chuckles at his misfortune.

Dusting himself off, Boyfriend points at Pico, embarrassed. “You didn’t see that.”

This causes Pico to laugh. “Whatever makes you happy.” The moment is interrupted by a bright light getting close. Pico and BF duck down behind one of the outdoor benches for cover. “Crap. Of course, there are night guards here as well,” Pico whispers out to BF, and they watch as the guard looks around the area, who likely heard Pico’s laughter.

“So, are we gonna try to sneak by them Metal Gear Solid style?” BF murmurs to his companion and peaks his head out to see the guard.

Pico yanks him back down as the guard turns in their direction. “You know, I say we jump ‘em together, how about that?” He suggests, but Boyfriend shakes his head.

“What!? Are you crazy? If we attack them, the two of us will get in trouble, man!”

Pico sighs, folding his arms. “Dude, you gotta live a little more dangerously sometimes! Trust me, we’ll have a lot more fun if we do crazy shit!”

“Well, I don’t want to sit in detention forever! That’s boring as heck!” BF complains, expressing his worries.

“That’s only if we get caught! And we won't, if you just follow my lead. Trust me, things will be a breeze!” Despite this, Boyfriend still continues expressing his worries.

As the two argue, the guard hears them debating on what to do and approaches the two in their hiding spot. “Hey! What are you two doing here?”

“JUMP HIM!” Pico says out of the blue, shouting and lunging at the poor, unfortunate guard. Despite protesting against it moments ago, Boyfriend also lunges at them. While Pico does most of the work striking the guard down, Boyfriend does grab a hold of their leg and trips them. The guard falls unconscious, and Pico smiles. “Ah man, we did it!” The two fist bump in celebration, before another guard appears.

“What in the world are you two brats doing here!?” Another guard shouts out from afar and begins running at them in anger, causing the two boys to start running as well.

Adrenaline spikes within them both, as they run like the wind. “We are so gonna get in trouble!” Boyfriend blurts out while following Pico’s lead. 

“Just follow me idiot!” The school wasn’t large, but the two knew some areas in the school they could take to break the chase from their pursuer. “Over there!” Pico points to a shortcut, and they take a sharp turn and run upstairs to the second floor, then climb onto the roof.

On top of the roof, they assume the chase is over, and Pico and Boyfriend both sigh in absolute relief. “Oh man… we lost them.” Nervous laughter comes from the two boys, exhausted, but relieved. 

“Shit, BF, what now?” Pico looks at Boyfriend, who stares into the stars above, ignoring Pico’s question.

“This is beautiful…” Pico looks at the sky, and can’t help but also stare into the night lights. “Look over there!” BF points to a part of the roof, where there seems to be an abandoned rooftop garden. He runs towards the site, seeing a lone wilted flower. “Aw… this thing is dead.” BF pulls the flower from the soil and examines it.

Pico grabs the flower from BF’s hands, taking a closer look at it. “Idiot, it’s probably dead now because you tore it from the ground.” He puts the flower back in the soil, even though it likely won’t do anything. “Still, it’s strange to have a small garden on a roof, let alone at a school. Wonder why this is all here.” The two shrugs in unison, silently agreeing to not bother questioning it.

BF looks down at the ground far below and then sits at the roof's edge. “You know, this place is rather peaceful.” The cold air blows on Boyfriend and Pico, as they take in the atmosphere.

Sitting next to Boyfriend, Pico takes a moment to look at him. “You wanna do this kind of thing again now?” Boyfriend only laughs in response, shaking his head. The two smile at each other. “I love you, Boyfriend.”

“Love you too, idiot.”

“Pft, you’re the idiot here,” Pico remarks back, and Boyfriend playfully punches Pico in the arm while laughing.

“Then we’re both idiots in love.” With that, the two get closer together, savoring the moment. Boyfriend puts his head on Pico’s shoulder, and Pico wraps his hand around BF’s body. They look at each other, knowing very well what the other has in mind. Pico and Boyfriend put their lips together, and kiss passionately, under the moonlight and all its stars. Life is perfect for them at this moment.

Life was perfect for them.

…

Pico stares at the empty space next to him. Their secret spot, their paradise in such a monotonous, lifeless school also turned into a hollow and lifeless place. He made such a difference in his life, and yet somehow, despite everything they did together Pico felt as if he didn’t appreciate what Boyfriend was to him before he was gone.

“A second chance…” Murmuring to himself, Pico picks at his fingers. “Do I have a second chance?” Thinking about the ghost who looks just like Boyfriend before his untimely demise, he questions his actions leading up to this point. “Do I tell him? Does he hate me? Fuck… this is so messed up.” Clenching his hands into fists, Pico tightens his grip as much as possible, almost drawing blood.

Moving away from the ledge, Pico turns to the makeshift garden next to him.
A single wilted flower remains. He kneels closer to it, staring at the lone flower. For a long minute, Pico does nothing until he snaps back into reality and remembers why he was here.

He starts digging in the dirt, scraping through the muck and grime to find something. After a long time of digging, Pico breaks through and finds what he was looking for; a shoebox. Grabbing it from the ground, he opens it. Inside, he finds a red and blue baseball cap. Taking it out of the box, he holds it tightly. Without realizing it, Pico starts tearing up, and a drop falls onto the brim of the hat. Rubbing his eyes, Pico calms himself down and recollects his memories once more.

…

Staring at the wrapped-up gift, Pico takes a deep breath. “Will he like this?” Pico murmurs out to nobody in specific, uncertain if the gift he has will be good enough for him.

“Pico!” A familiar voice calls out to Pico, and he quickly turns towards them after hiding the gift behind him. “Pico! There you are, we’ve been looking for you for like, forever!” In front of him is Boyfriend, his… boyfriend. Today is his birthday, so Pico, Darnell, and Nene planned to take him somewhere special.

Smiling nervously, Pico nods. “Yeah, my bad. Although, it’s only been a minute, Bee. I didn’t go that far.”

BF shrugs, “Well, that’s beside the point! Come on, Nene said we’re going to a really cool place, so don’t lag behind!” Before Pico could give a response, Boyfriend rushes away as usual.

Chuckling, Pico waits for BF to get out of sight. Once he’s gone, Pico puts the gift in his jacket, making sure it won’t fall out. After that, he runs back to the group.

“Are we there yet?” For the fifth time, Boyfriend asks the same question, and Nene gives the exact same response. “How close are we?” This goes on for a while until Nene finally gives a different answer.

“Okay, we’re here now.” The group finally makes a stop, and in front of them, they see an arcade. “Surprise!”

Boyfriend widens his eyes in surprise. “Woah! Wait, don’t these arcades cost a lot of money to play?”

Nene nods but keeps a smile on her face. “We know, but the three of us all saved our money just for today! So the four of us can have the most fun here celebrating your birthday!”

“Really?” She nods, and a big smile spreads across Boyfriend’s face. “Oh my gosh, thank you, guys!” 

“Don’t mention it, Bee. Now, let’s get going!” With that, the four all enter the arcade, ready to have a lot of fun.

For the rest of the day, and all the way into the night, the four play games at the arcade and go all over the place until they run out of money. In the end, they played every single game in the arcade and earned a lot of prizes. Most of which were just candy they ate. “I had the time of my life!”

“I’m glad,” Pico says with a smile, and the four exit the arcade. “Well, it’s getting late. It’s probably best for us to head home.”

Nene checks her phone and sees the time. “Oh my, it really is kinda late. I should get going.” Putting her phone away, Nene waves goodbye to the three and jogs away. “Bye-bye!” Everyone else waves back and sees her running into the distance.

“I should follow her in case she gets lost,” Darnell says before turning to Pico. “Make sure you give him the gift, man.” Whispering into Pico’s ear, Darnell starts walking towards Nene’s direction and also leaves.

With only Pico and Boyfriend alone, the two stare at each other. “So… want me to walk you home, Bee?”

“Of course, I’d love that!” Boyfriend accepts Pico’s offer to walk him back home. The two hold hands and make their way to BF’s apartment. Their walk is rather uneventful. However, as they move, Pico grows more and more tense. He thinks and looks back at the gift he has to give Boyfriend at some point.

Once they make it to Boyfriend’s apartment, Pico stops him before he leaves. “Bee, hold on.” Pico takes a deep breath, mentally preparing himself. “I… have one more thing I need to show you.”

“Oh? What is it?” BF asks.

Pico grabs the gift from his jacket and gives it to Boyfriend. “Here. I… got this for you.”

Quickly opening the gift in excitement, Boyfriend finds a strange baseball cap. “Woah, what’s this?”

Laughing, Pico gets closer. “It’s a hat, idiot. I um… asked for it to be custom-made for you.” Examining the hat, Boyfriend looks at the rather sharp design of it, instead of the hat being circular, it's more rectangular.

Boyfriend puts the hat on, and it fits on his head perfectly, although, his front hair gets pressed down by the brim, covering his eyes. “Uh, Pico? My hair is kinda covering my eyes now.” The two laugh for a while, until Pico decides to turn the hat around, making it a backward baseball cap.

“Better?”

“Better!” BF gives Pico a thumbs-up and a big smile.

Sighing in relief, Pico smiles back. “So, you like my gift?”

“Like it? I love this! I’ll cherish it forever, Pico!” Without explaining, Boyfriend wraps Pico in a hug. “Thank you so much for this.” Pico hugs back, and their hug turns into a quick kiss.

“You mind if I stay here for the night?” Pico winks, which gets BF to laugh.

“Sure, I’d love for you to stay.” With that, the two spend the night together, ending quite an unforgettable day.

…

Hugging the hat, Pico loses control over his emotions and begins tearing up. Despite his attempt to stop himself from crying more, he can’t help but let his emotions run wild. After a long time has passed, Pico regains his senses, stopping his tears and wiping them away. The sound of his breath gets louder, as he looks back at the hat.

For a split second, Pico saw blood everywhere on the hat. Once he blinked, that vision disappeared. Rubbing his eyes, Pico tries to concentrate. Reopening his eyes, he finds himself in his dorm. Confused, he looks around. “What the hell?” Shaking his head, he is back at the roof. “Shit… I need my pills again.” Putting a hand to his forehead, Pico feels his brain bashing at his skull. Pico puts the hat back in the shoebox, and into the dirt, burying it back in the ground.

Once the hat is out of his sight, Pico leaps down from the roof and returns to his dorms. He’s had enough time to reminisce about the past.

Chapter Text

Two or three months ago, the life of a student had suddenly come to an end. Testimonies from students close to him had claimed that they weren’t in their right mind at the time, and simply couldn’t handle the stress. Other students who had heard the news expressed mixed feelings regarding the student who had taken his life, but one central question about the situation came up multiple times.

Why did he do it?

A lot of details about the incident seemed to be very vague or left out. Despite this, everyone who cared about the student mourned for their loss. As time went on, everyone found it harder to forget about the incident. But in the end, what’s done has been done.

Years ago, there was a student who had just enrolled at a place named Pumpkin University. His name was Boyfriend. Despite his weird name and weirder eccentric personality, he somehow remained incredibly positive and spry even if the world seemed to be against him.

Yesterday, he lost his favorite hat. Today, he finds himself with another student mocking him. “Hey, can’t we talk this-” Before he could finish his sentence, BF gets bonked on the head. “Ow! What was that even for?”

“Don’t cut me off when I’m tryna speak!” The student scoffs at BF, then returns to what he was saying. “Anyways, what kinda name is Boyfriend? Did your parents drop you as a kid?”

Boyfriend rolls his eyes, and a small smile appears on his face. “Little rude to ask that, don’t you think?” The other student simply raised his hands defensively.

“Look dude, I’m just a little curious is all. I mean, seriously, what kind of parents would seriously consider naming their child something like 'boyfriend’, or hell, even ‘girlfriend’? That sounds like a dumb idea.” Sighing, Boyfriend simply shrugs and walks away. Before he can leave, a hand goes to his shoulder. “You gonna answer my question?”

“Hey! Leave him alone!” From behind, another student comes to stop the current conflict. His bright orange hair sticks out like a sore thumb (literally), alongside his own clothing style. “Just let him be, and mind your own business.”

The other student chuckles and lets go of Boyfriend. “I could say the same thing to you, dude. Shouldn’t you be minding your own business as well?” He was about to continue his speech when a fist went to his face.

“How about, you just shut up and leave?” The two students get into a completely different scuffle and begin fighting each other. 

Despite being the reason the two are fighting, Boyfriend barges in to try to break it up. “Stop! Stop fighting!” They don’t listen, and instead simply push BF out of the way. Things escalate even further when one of the students pulls out a small blade. The two fight for control over the knife, until someone gets slashed in the face.

They growl out in pain, as the other backs away, shocked by what he did. Students around murmur in shock about what just happened and stand in silence. The attacker runs away, leaving Boyfriend alone with the other student. “Are you alright!?”

Looking up at Boyfriend, he smiles. “Nah… Nah, it’s nothing. Trust me, I’ll live.”

BF shakes his head in disagreement. “There’s no way you’re alright, that looks like a nasty wound. Look, I can take you to the-”

“I don’t need to go to the nurse's office, just take me to my dorm, I got what I need there.” Boyfriend complies and helps the other student up.

“If… you say so.” With some struggling, BF manages to get the guy up. They walk for a while before BF tries talking again. “You know, I don’t think I got your name. So, uh, who are you?” Boyfriend asks and gets a chuckle in response.

“Well, no shit you wouldn’t know me. I’m a busy guy! But if you want to know, my name is Pico.” He winks at BF with a rather flirtatious smile, and that manages to cheer Boyfriend up.

The two laugh at each other, taking the situation lightly. “Okay man, I see how it is.” They make their way to Pico’s dorm, where their lives would change forever.

Around a year and a half after that, Pico knocked on the door of Boyfriend’s dorm. He’d usually stay at his own house, but for some reason, Boyfriend has been going to his dorm more often now. “Hey, Bee? Are you in there?” Pico waits for a response but gets none for a long time. Impatient, Pico knocked on the door once more. “Boyfriend! It’s me, come on, open the door.” Once again, there is no response, scoffing, Pico twists the knob on the door, and to his surprise, it opens without any issue. The door slowly creaked open, without a single sound to be heard. Waiting for a moment, Pico treads inside the dorm, looking around. “Hello..? Bee? You in here?” He tries calling out for BF, but still gets no response. It isn’t until he gets further into the dorm, that he finds something he didn’t want to see. “Wh… what?”

…

“Suicide?” Boyfriend feels his entire world spinning around him. Indescribable emotions overwhelm his senses, as he thinks about the single word that was told to him. “No… I… I didn’t, did I?” Staring at himself, Boyfriend looks at his own hands, seeing them blur and become unrecognizable.

He hears voices call out to him, but they turn intelligible. Devastated, Boyfriend flies away to nowhere in specific, but just somewhere away from here.

“Boyfriend! Hello? Please, do something! Are you there?” Nene tries calling out to BF, hoping he will respond. “Oh gosh, I really messed up, didn’t I?” Nene’s arms slump, and she looks down at the torn photos.

Darnell sighs, “I tried to warn you.” He puts a hand on Nene, “Look, try not to think about it too much. I’m sure that BF will be back.” 

Nene holds the hand on her shoulder, letting go of the photos. “I hope so. That was our only chance to talk to him after what happened…” The two stay there, waiting for something to happen.

The entrance to the dorm opens, and the duo realizes that Pico is on the way. Nene quickly sweeps the photo back into her pockets and gets up. “The hell are you two doing in my dorm?”

“I live here?”

Pico rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I get that, but why is Nene here?” He points at her for emphasis. The two only look at each other, not sure what to say.

“Um… we were… talking about…” Nene trails off, running out of stuff to say as an excuse. Pico only looks at them even more suspiciously until he rolls his eyes.

“Get a room, you two,” Pico says as he goes to his own room.

Once Pico is out of their sight, the two sigh in relief. “That was a close call.” Nene exhales, relaxing herself. She moves out of the kitchen area and to the living room to sit on the couch. “What can we even do now, though?”

Darnell shrugs and also takes a seat next to Nene. “No clue, but we need to figure out a few things, and maybe just confront Pico about this whole ordeal.” Nene nods in agreement and then searches the couch for the remote.

In his room, Pico lies on his bed, trying to relax as well as he can. He didn’t expect to find both Nene and Darnell in the dorm, but he was glad they didn’t notice how miserable how looked and felt, or else he'd have to make a few excuses.

Briefly, he sits up from the bed to take his pills, which he just remembered he needed to take. Opening it up, Pico notices that the bottle is empty. “Ah, shit… not good.” His heart rate rises, as he begins to worry. “I need more.” Getting out of bed, Pico quickly leaves his room.

Outside, he moves to the kitchen, trying to find a spare pill bottle. “Pico, what are you doing?” Darnell calls out to him but momentarily gets ignored. It takes a long moment of Pico rummaging through cabinets for him to answer.

“Do we have any spare pills? Where are they?” Darnell widens his eyes and gets up from the couch. The two try looking around the area for another spare but still come short. Pico quietly swears, “Damn, this isn’t good.”

“Hey, don’t sweat it, we can get you more later.”

“No, not later. I need it now!” Pico tenses up and feels himself growing more panicked by the second. “Shit, I need to calm down. Give me a moment.” Pico excuses himself back to his room.

Back inside his room, Pico is surprised by the sight of someone else in his bedroom. “Boyfriend?” He sits on the floor with his legs wrapped around his body. It takes a while for him to notice Pico calling out to him, but he eventually looks up to Pico. “Hey, what the hell are you doing in my room now?” Boyfriend doesn’t say anything, and instead only stares at Pico with a saddened expression. “Are… are you okay?” 

Boyfriend shakes his head, “No, of course not.”

Confused, Pico gets closer to BF. “Why?” Boyfriend scoffs and looks down.

“How would you feel? If someone told you that you’re a ghost because you killed yourself?”

Chapter Text

The two silently stare at each other. Pico finally gives in, wanting to break the silence, and speaks. “What?”

BF gets up from the floor. “I… You heard what I just said! I’m… I’m dead because I took my own life. Why? What happened to me?” 

“I don’t know why you’re asking me this.” Pico stares at Boyfriend with an unreadable expression.

“Well I have no clue why either! No… I do know! It’s because you are the only person I can talk to!” Boyfriend gets closer to Pico. “Nene… she… said something. She asked if I remembered you three. She said you all missed me! What did she mean by that!?”

Pico backs away from Boyfriend, shocked. “She fucking said what?” He clenches his teeth and furrows his eyes. “Oh great… just perfect.” Pico turns away from BF and moves to the door.

“Hey, where are you going!? Pico, answer the question! What did she mean by that?”

Growling, Pico ignores BF and goes to the door. “That is none of your business and you won’t get a single answer from me!” He goes for the door, but Boyfriend stands in front of him, halting Pico. “Tch, I can just go through you, dumbass. Move.”

“No. I won’t. It doesn’t matter if I can’t stop you or not, I can pester you for however long it takes for you to answer me!”

With that, Pico sighs. “Is this really that important to you?”

BF gasps, offended. “What else would I do? I’m a ghost who can’t seem to remember or touch most of anything, and can only talk to one person. What would you think I’d do?” Pico doesn’t respond to the question and only looks away from Boyfriend. “Are you gonna say something?”

“I’m not gonna say anything.”

Boyfriend grows more confused and upset at Pico, “Why not!? I just-”

“Because you’re better off not knowing the truth!” Pico screams out at Boyfriend. “It’s better if you live in ignorance than search out the ugly truth! It’s… it’s not worth it.” Boyfriend finds himself at a loss of words, trying to find a response, but is only able to wait for Pico to continue. “The way you died was terrible… and I… we could’ve done things differently. But we didn’t and it’s too late.” Pico sits on the floor, tired. “I just… want a fresh start. You can just forget about the past, and start a new one. Doesn’t that sound nice?” Pico tries smiling through the pain on his face.

It takes a while for BF to make his decision. “No… I want to know what happened. Please, Pico. Just tell me.” He shakes his head and gets closer to Pico. “What are you keeping away from me?” He sits on the floor next to Pico.

Pico grits his teeth. “I… what else? Your death, Bee… None of us want to remember it. So just stop pressing me about it. Please…” Pico looks at Boyfriend, with a small frown on his face.

With a sigh, Boyfriend looks down at the floor, then at his own body. He thinks about his own purpose, and why he is what he is. “Fine, I won’t ask about it.” Before Pico can respond, Boyfriend quickly continues. “For now. I still have things I want to know.”

“Okay, that… that's good enough for me.” Pico scratches the back of his neck and looks at Boyfriend with a small smile. “If you promise that you don’t talk about that for a while, then maybe I’ll answer… a few other questions you have… but that’s it.”

With widened eyes, Boyfriend gets up. “Really!?” His mood suddenly gets much better in an instant, which also takes Pico by surprise.

Nervously smiling, Pico nods. “Yeah… just… know that I’ll opt out of some questions, alright?”

Boyfriend nods and immediately asks a question. “Why did you call me Bee a moment ago?”

Pico widens his eyes, and sheepishly scratches his cheek, looking away. “Ah… shit. That’s a little hard to explain.”

“Hey! You said you’d answer my questions!”

“And I also said I’d opt out of some of them!” With a reluctant sigh, Pico shakes his head. “Ah, whatever. I’ll tell you.” Pico looks down and closes his eyes. “Okay so, maybe… we were friends… and maybe… I’d call you that as a nickname.”

Boyfriend gasps suddenly and smiles widely, getting closer to Pico. “We were friends!?” Pico winces and opens one eye to see Boyfriend right in front of him.

“Yeah… friends…” Pico scoots back a bit and looks at his hand, poking at his nails. “I’d call you Bee for an obvious reason…” He smirks and scans BF, seeing that he is also conveniently floating. “It’s ‘cause you’re an annoying ass little buzzin’ bee that keeps pestering me.”

In an instant, Boyfriend’s heart figuratively breaks, and his mouth widens. “What!?” He floats to the floor and puts a hand to his heart. “Was I really that annoying!?” Pico stares at him in silence. BF looks away sheepishly. “O-okay… but like… was it a good annoying?”

Pico thinks about it and sighs. “Eh… it was… kinda, I guess. You…” He carefully picks his next words. “You pestered me a lot when we were friends. I guess I got used to it.” A solemn chuckle comes from Pico. “Now that I think about it, you had kind of the same reaction when I first told you about the nickname.”

BF laughs and recovers from the explanation. “How did you put up with me?”

With a chuckle, Pico shakes his head. “I should’ve asked that to you back then. Jeez… I had no clue how the hell you put up with me.”

“Well, personally I find you as quite the interesting guy, Pico! Oh, and I kinda can only talk to you, anyways.”

For a moment, Pico frowns, but it is quickly hidden with a smile. “Well, that’s fair enough.” Pico shifts in place and puts his legs up to his chest. “Alright, you can ask me one more question, but that’s it.”

Thinking carefully about it, Boyfriend smiles. “Hmm… who else knew me from the past?”

Pico opens his mouth, but words don’t come out. He pauses and grits his teeth. “Just… us.” Pico hugs his legs tightly.

Confused, Boyfriend looks at Pico. “Really?”

“Yeah… you only bothered to be with the three of us.” He then gets up and folds his arms. “Alright, that’s enough questions now. Starting now, you stop pestering me about the past.”

“Uh, wait!” Boyfriend puts his hand up, still wanting to ask more. Despite this, Pico ignores him and simply shakes his head. Pouting, Boyfriend drops the topic and looks away.

Noticing that Boyfriend looks a little upset, Pico sighs and gets closer to him. “Hey, don’t look so glum. If you do, then… I don’t fuckin’ know, but just stop lookin’ all upset.”

This causes Boyfriend to chuckle, “God, you suck at comforting people.”

“Oh, so you don’t want me to be kind to you, is that it?” An irritated smile comes from Pico, and Boyfriend starts to laugh.

“No! Heh, that’d be even worse! We’d be back to square one.”

Pico shakes his head and his irritated smile changes to a more teasing one. “Really now? Well if that’s the case then I’d actually like that.” Boyfriend tries speaking up but gets cut off by Pico. “Relax, I was kidding. Not really, but…” Pico trails off and looks away. “I…” Pico scratches his head and looks at Boyfriend, who stares at Pico expectantly. “Look, this shit is hard to do, alright?”

BF nods understandingly. “It’s alright! I’m sure one day you’ll come around and be nicer!” He gives Pico a thumbs up. “I hope that day will come soon!”

“I hope not.” Pico rolls his eyes.

“Pft, okay mister debbie downer. Have a little more positive energy!”

The only positive energy Pico gives back is a smirk and another remark. “Uh huh, then I’m hopeful that I don’t come around.”

Boyfriend gives a sarcastic laugh in response and tries playfully hitting Pico, but his hand goes through him. “I didn’t mean it like that! You know what I meant.”

“I do, and I don’t plan on doing that.” Boyfriend puffs his cheeks and sighs in defeat.

“Man, you are a hard nut to crack.”

“Sure that’s not just a you problem?”

Boyfriend points a finger out to Pico, about to say something, but keeps it to himself. Barely. “I’m leaving.” Boyfriend says as he floats out the door. Pico laughs to himself as he watches BF leave.

Once he’s alone to himself, Pico takes a deep breath and falls onto his bed. “This is harder than I thought…” He puts his hands to his face and recollects himself. He subconsciously feels the scar on his eye while doing so. “Fuck… why am I letting him get closer?” Blinking multiple times, he makes sure that his eyes are still working properly. After blinking more times than needed, Pico becomes tired and takes a short nap. “I can’t help myself… Can I?” He murmurs to himself one last time, before falling asleep.

Unbeknownst to him, inside Pico's bathroom, a red mist begins to develop. The mist begins to seep through and go under the doorway. Before it could get more intense, it fades away in an instant, as if it never existed.

…

“He’s still here…”

Chapter Text

…

“What’s your name?”

…

“Your name is Boyfriend?”

…

“Hey, you don’t have a bad name! It’s nothing to be ashamed of!”

…

“Of course not, silly! I’ll even tell you my name if it makes you feel better!”

…

“My name is Girlfriend.”

Boyfriend’s eyes slowly open, and after a moment of stretching his body, Boyfriend takes a moment to discern where he is. “Ah!” For a split second, he has a mini heart attack. Boyfriend looks down to see that he has fallen asleep in the air. He’s above the university dorms and was floating there for a while. “Oh… right, I can float.” He nervously laughs to himself, before getting his bearings in check.

Going down to the dorms, he checks Pico’s room but doesn’t find the person living there. Looking around elsewhere in the dorm, he finds nobody. Darnell isn’t even here. Just before Boyfriend is about to leave, the dorm opens, and Darnell enters, on the phone. “Dude, where did you go? Thought you said we’d discuss this now!” The person on the phone speaks to Darnell, for a long while, until he finally stops. “Come on, man. Why are you stalling? What’s so important about this that you gotta keep it a secret to us? You know that we’d keep anything between us, Pico! We’ve had each other's backs for years!” The person on the phone, who is apparently Pico, shouts at Darnell through the phone. “Okay, calm down Pico. Look, just hurry up. Why are you even at that karaoke place again anyway? The last time you went there was over a year ago, bef-” Darnell stops in his tracks, and looks at Pico’s room. “Never mind, just hurry up, okay? I’m feeling kinda uneasy right now and… ah shit, forget it. Talk to you later.” Darnell scratches his head for a moment, before bringing out a lighter. The two end their conversation, and Darnell hangs up the phone.

“Huh… karaoke? Interesting.” Boyfriend murmurs to himself and thinks for a while. “I should find that place.” BF smirks, and floats out of the dorm and back out into the unknown. “If I were that karaoke place, where would I be?” Boyfriend thinks for a second before shrugging and going in a random direction.

Moving in one direction for a long time, Boyfriend starts worrying about getting lost. He looks around and notices that this place is completely new to him. BF starts panicking and goes up in the air. He tries to look for the university but only sees the sights of countless buildings and streets.

Boyfriend almost starts going in another direction, but he faintly hears a familiar voice. “Call me in the morning to apologize…” Hearing the voice of Pico from afar, he quickly moves towards it. “Every little lie gives me butterflies…” Despite how far the voice feels, Boyfriend keeps going. “Something in the way you’re lookin’ through my eyes…” Pico’s voice gets closer and closer, and finally, Boyfriend finds himself in front of a karaoke place. “Don’t know if I’m gonna make it out alive.” Going through the wall, he heads into a VIP room and sees Pico singing his heart out on the mic. “Fight so dirty but your love so- SHIT!” Pico jumps in the air upon seeing Boyfriend float towards him. Recovering from the sudden shock, he throws the mic at BF. “What the fuck are you doing here!? How are you even here!?”

“Um… I just… stumbled upon this place?” A sheepish smile slowly grows on BF’s face, trying to think of an explanation without sounding weird.

“Yeah? Well, this place is fucking far from our university, so that’s not a good start, idiot.”

Boyfriend looks away and opens his mouth, trying to think of another excuse. “I just… happened to be in the area while exploring…”

“Why in the world would you, of all people, decide to explore?”

Realizing that he probably won’t be able to answer this question without sounding weird, he gives up and just fesses up. “Okay… so I might’ve eavesdropped on Darnell that you were in some karaoke place, then I got lost trying to find you then heard your voice from like really far away then found you.”

Pico looks at Boyfriend, with a deadpan expression. “Stalker.” He scoffs with a smile on his face.

Rubbing the back of his neck, Boyfriend laughs nervously. “Hey… I- Okay, I got nothing.”

“Thought so.” Pico grabs the mic off the floor, and checks to see if it’s broken. It rings out for a second, hurting Pico and Boyfriend’s ears, but it stops soon after. “Well, at least this still works.” Pico grabs a remote and presses a button, pausing the song playing on the TV.

“What were you singing?”

Pico smiles, and answers. “Teeth by Five Seconds of Summer.” He looks down, the smile turning into a neutral expression. “Used to sing it a lot, but… eh. Don’t have the time anymore.”

“You used to sing?” Looking up for a moment, Pico nods.

“Yep. Would you like to sing as well?” Pico lifts the mic up to his body, offering an opportunity to try. For a while, Boyfriend stands there in confusion.

“Me? Sing?” He points at himself, still a little dumbfounded.

Pico laughs and nods. “Of course, dumbass, who do you think I’m talking to?”

Slowly, Boyfriend joins in on the laughter, “You’re talking to a ghost, that’s who you’re talking to.” Boyfriend reaches out to grab the mic, but it gets pulled away by Pico before he can touch it.

“Hey, this is my mic. Not yours.”

Boyfriend tilts his head, confused. “Then what am I supposed to use?”

Sighing, Pico moves to a corner of the room. “There’s this thing called having more than one mic, idiot.” He opens a small box and pulls out another mic. It looks incredibly pristine, and custom-made. “Here, take this.” Pico hands the mic to Boyfriend.

He reaches out to grab the mic as well, only to realize something. “Hey hold on… how am I supposed to grab it if I’m a ghost?”

Pico chuckles. “Hell if I’m supposed to know. If you can’t, then your loss. I’ll just keep singing by myself.” Pouting, Boyfriend folds his arms and takes a deep breath. He reaches out to the mic and tries grabbing it. To both of their surprise, he grabs a hold of the microphone. “Shit… you actually grabbed it.” Pico chuckles and lowers his hands. “He actually grabbed it.” Pico repeats his words to himself, still surprised to see it.

A proud smile appears on Boyfriend. “Yeah… I did it!” BF is about to celebrate more, but a flashing image sparks in his mind before he can do anything else.

Boyfriend sees himself on a large stage, holding the mic he has right now. Next to him, is a familiar-looking Pico with a mic. He looks… happy. Genuinely happy. Pico and he seem to be singing together to a large crowd on the stage. “Hey, are you there? Earth to Boyfriend?” The voice of Pico cuts Boyfriend out of the sudden vision.

“Huh? O-oh, whoops. I zoned out, sorry.” BF looks back at his microphone and smiles. “I… really didn’t think I’d be able to hold this, but wow…” Boyfriend stares at all the neat details on the mic. Below the microphone head, there seems to be a custom dial around the handle of the mic, which has multiple words on it. Words like normal, squeak, swing, bop, and voice are on it. A tiny arrow points to the voice label, and BF discerns that this probably means settings on the mic. “Cool…” He looks at Pico. “This mic has a lot of cool stuff on it! Does your microphone have this stuff as well?”

Checking his own mic, Pico shakes his head. “Nah, I wouldn't even need it anyway.” Spinning his plain and regular mic, Pico smirks. “Enough of that, though. I’d say now is a good time to start singing. That is… if you’re up for it.”

Staring at Pico, he feels an instinctive smirk slowly pop up on his face. “Heck yeah, I’m super ready for this!” Putting the microphone closer to his body, Boyfriend points a confident finger at Pico and readies himself.

“That’s a lot of confidence for someone who has no idea how to sing, idiot.” Pico gives a cheeky response back and gets closer to BF.

“Yeah? Well, can you?” Boyfriend also gets closer, and the two almost headbutt each other. Even though that probably wouldn’t work anyway.

“Of course I can, why do you think I came here?” With a sharp smile, Pico tilts his head. “I don’t think you’ll stand a chance against me.”

Boyfriend laughs, “We’ll see about that.”

With both the competitiveness and tension between them at the max, the two prepare to have a sing-off. Pico grabs the remote for the TV and searches for a song. “Since you have zero experience, how about you pick the song? Just tell me when to stop.” Boyfriend considers talking back but bites his mouth instead and just looks at the list of songs.

Pico scrolls through countless songs, but BF can’t seem to see a single song that interests him. “Um… yeah I don’t know what song to pick.” Boyfriend looks at Pico with a worried expression. “None of these songs really… speak out to me, you know?”

Rolling his eyes, Pico shakes his head. “Alright, guess I gotta pick.” He quickly goes back up the list, and immediately selects a song. “I’ll just pick the song I was singing before you rudely interrupted me. Hope you’re ready to get your ass kicked.” With a smirk, Pico looks at BF.

“In your dreams! I’m gonna win, and if I win… then…” He thinks for a while but then comes up with an answer. “You gotta answer more questions I have!”

For a moment, Pico is surprised, but it fades into a smile. “Alright… then if I win, then you gotta shut up for a week.” With that out of the way, Pico starts the song before BF can react.

On the TV screen, the song starts playing, and with it, the name comes. Teeth by 5 Seconds of Summer. Taking a deep breath, Pico prepares to sing the first verse. “Some days you’re the only thing I know.” He turns to Boyfriend, with a cocky smile. “Only thing that’s burning when the nights grow cold.” 

Boyfriend glances at the screen and reads the upcoming lyrics. “Can’t look away, can’t look away…” To his surprise, he sings it really well. As if singing came to him naturally. “Beg you to stay, beg you to stay yeah.”

“Sometimes you’re a stranger in my bed.” Pico circles the room, and BF does the same, pressured by the mood. “Don’t know if you love me or you want me dead.”

“Push me away, push me away.” BF cuts in and continues the song. “Then beg me to stay, beg me to stay yeah.”

“Call me in the morning to apologize!” Pico points at Boyfriend, walking closer to him. “Every little lie gives me butterflies!” Lowering his arm, Pico continues singing. “Somethin’ in the way you’re looking through my eyes!”

Boyfriend sings the next line before Pico can, “Don’t know if I’m gonna make it out alive!”

“Fight so dirty but your love so-”

“Sweet!” Boyfriend cuts in the middle of Pico’s singing. “Talk so pretty but your heart got teeth!”

Pico momentarily glances at BF, but then focuses back on singing. “Late night devil put your hands on me!”

“And never, never, never ever let go!”

Once Boyfriend finishes singing his line, Pico starts singing alongside him. “Fight so dirty but your love so sweet!” Together, the two slowly sing in unison. “Talk so pretty but your heart got teeth!” The duo looks at each other with wide smiles. “Late night devil put your hands on me! And never, never, never ever let go!” Singing together side by side, Pico and Boyfriend shout out the lyrics proudly.

“Some days you’re the best thing in my life.” The drop ends, and Pico continues singing. “Sometimes when I look at you I see a wife,” Despite saying the wrong word at the end, he continues. “Then you turned into somebody I don’t know…” Pico turns from Boyfriend, looking at the TV screen instead. “And you pushed me away, pushed me away, yeah.”

With a concerned look, Boyfriend senses a strange feeling from Pico. but tries shrugging it off, continuing the song. “Call me in the morning to apologize…” Once he glances at the next line, he senses a relatable feeling from the words. “Every little lie gives me butterflies.” Boyfriend goes closer to Pico, determined. “Something in the way you’re looking through my eyes!” Pico turns to Boyfriend, noticing his rather determined face. “Don’t know if I’m gonna make it out alive!”

“Fight so dirty but your love so sweet!” The duo continues the song together. “Talk so pretty but your heart got teeth! Late night devil put your hands on me! And never, never, never ever let go!” They repeat the lyrics again until new lines appear on the screen.

“Blood on my shirt, rose in my hand…” Pico remains silent and listens to BF singing. “You’re looking at me like you don’t know who I am.” Boyfriend looks Pico dead in the eyes. Something in his mind shouts at Pico, telling him something he can’t understand. “Blood on my shirt, heart in my hand…” With all his might, BF sings his heart out. “Still… beating!” A soft smile appears on Pico’s face, but it then changes to a frown.

“Fight so dirty but your love so sweet…” Pico looks at the floor, singing the lines he knows too well. “Talk so pretty but your heart got teeth. Late night devil put your hands on me, and never, never, never ever let go!” 

Boyfriend jumps in, and both Pico and Boyfriend sing it out together, for a final push to the end. They repeat the chorus one final time, singing happily. Eventually, the TV displays no more lyrics, and the song turns to an instrumental until it ends.

Slow and tired breaths come from Pico, exhausted. Boyfriend on the other hand, excitingly grins. “That was awesome!” A tired laugh comes from Pico, looking at the hyperactive ghost.

“Good for you… I’ve never sung like this in forever, so just give me a moment.” Pico sits on the floor and takes a deep breath. “I think it’s safe to say I lost…” The moment he says that BF starts celebrating very loudly. Pico rolls his eyes but smiles.

“Let’s go! Oh yeah! I’m the best!” BF turns to Pico, teasing him. “Told you I’d win!”

Pico shakes his head and gets up. “Yeah, no need to rub it in.” He puts his microphone away and then turns the TV off. “I guess this means you can ask some stuff from me, but remember again, I’ll choose what I want to answer.”

BF nods and then gets thinking about some questions. He smiles and thinks about the obvious. “Why did you even come here anyway? And why is it just you here?”

“Pft, that’s two questions you’re asking me, sure you wanna ask that?” Boyfriend still nods, and Pico sighs. “Fine… well, I told you that I used to sing. I came here because I wanted to sing again.” Pico rubs his wrist, before continuing his answers. “The reason nobody else is here is because this is a VIP room. Surely you saw that while entering the room unless you didn’t even pay any attention to it.”

Turning to the door, Boyfriend goes to it and double-checks. “Oh.” He sees that it does in fact have a label. “I guess I didn’t pay attention to that…” Boyfriend goes back to Pico, before returning to asking questions. “Um… was there a specific reason why you picked the song we sang?”

Pico looks away and shakes his head. “I’m not answering that.” He folds his arms.

“W-why not?” BF tilts his head, incredibly confused.

“I just don’t want to. Ask something else.”

With a sigh, Boyfriend drops that topic and moves to another. “Did we ever sing together before?”

“Yes.” Pico doesn’t elaborate and just continues looking away.

“Are… you gonna say more?”

“No.”

Groaning in disappointment, Boyfriend droops down. “Dude… you are so edgy. Why you gotta be so vague?”

“Is that a question?” Pico smirks, and finally looks at Boyfriend.

“I-” BF stops in his tracks and then thinks. “You know what? Sure. That’s a question.”

Pico chuckles, “Alright… then the reason I’m so vague is because I told you this before, and I’ll tell you it again. I’d rather not let you know about the past, because I don’t like it.”

“Then why are you letting me ask these questions?” A big smile appears on BF’s face, as he gets closer to Pico. “You sure that you hate the past as much as you say?” Boyfriend’s smile becomes increasingly smug as he slowly inches closer to Pico’s face.

“Okay, question time is over then, asshole.” Pico immediately moves for the door and leaves the area.

Boyfriend laughs and catches up to him. “Hey! Wait up, Pico!” Pico leaves the karaoke place and walks back to the university. Before he makes any progress, a certain ghost goes right next to him. “Yo. Howzit?”

Pico growls and glances at BF. “This is a public area, idiot. Not a single word.” Boyfriend pouts, as Pico looks back ahead and passes a few random people along the way.

Looking up at the sky, it’s rather dark. “Huh… time kinda went by fast. I swear it was like… morning before I came here.” BF looks around and notices that there is barely anyone else nearby. “Pico, hey. There’s nobody nearby us, I’m sure we can talk now.” He doesn’t respond and only continues walking. “Pico!” Despite shouting out his name, Pico still doesn’t do anything and just keeps walking.

He continuously pesters Pico, who tries his absolute best to ignore the sounds of Boyfriend. It becomes harder to do so, until eventually Pico gives up. “God, fine!” He shouts in a whisper to BF and clenches his fists. “What do you want!?” Boyfriend puts his hands up, taken aback momentarily by his outrage.

“Um… I just wanted to keep talking with you.”

With a scoff, Pico calms down and shakes his head. “Then talk.” Pico then turns back to the sidewalk and continues moving.

Boyfriend stays motionless for a while, before snapping out of it and catching up to Pico again. “Can I still ask questions?”

“I said the time for questions was over, so no.”

“Aw come on! Just one more question, please?” Boyfriend pleads with Pico and puts his hands together. “I swear this will be the last one!”

Pico glances at BF and contemplates it for a while, before sighing. “Just one. It better be a short one as well.”

BF smiles and nods. “Yeah!” He celebrates his mini-victory, before asking the question. “So… Do you have like… a lot of scars?” Pico raises an eyebrow, before smirking.

“Yeah. Why’d you ask?”

“Well… I dunno.” BF scratches his neck. “Guess I was just curious about it. Not to mention, well you’ve kinda got like… three scars on your face and everything.” He motions to the said scars.

Putting a hand to his scars instinctively, Pico zones out for a moment. He later focuses back and speaks. “I guess you're right.” He then rolls his right sleeve and reveals another scar. “Got plenty. They’ve all got some stories to tell as well.”

BF nods, interested. “Can you tell me about them?” Pico thinks about it for a moment, before shrugging.

“Might as well.” Pico stares back at his right arm. "I got this scar once when I fell off a skateboard." He flexes his arm, smiling. "Took it like a champ, and didn't even need a bandage." BF raises an eyebrow but doesn't bother asking any further about it. Pico then puts a hand to his face, where a prominent scar lies. “This scar right here is from when I got slashed by a knife. I was in a fight with this guy who was trying to beat someone’s ass.” He punches the air and smiles. “Hit him good, but he also got me as well, obviously.” Pico then feels the scar again. “Then that led to…” He widens his eyes and glances at Boyfriend.

“Led to what?” BF raises an eyebrow and tilts his head.

Pico sighs and shakes his head. “Led to nothing. Just had to fix the wound and all.” He looks away from BF and turns ahead. “That’s enough for now. I don’t feel like answering anything else.” With a frown, Boyfriend accepts it and just follows Pico silently until they make it back.

Chapter Text

“Shit… shit!” Darnell frantically puts out a flame.

“I can’t believe you did that! What the heck were you thinking!?” Nene shouts at Darnell, both confused and shocked.

In an instant, Darnell turns to her. “Look, I couldn’t help myself! I didn’t expect the fire to spread so quickly!” He coughs from the smoke, trying to snuff the fire again. “Just help me out already!”

Nene complies and kneels to assist. Slowly, the fire finally dissipates, and the two take a breath of relief. However, their relief is short, as the entrance to the dorm opens. The voice of Pico murmuring to himself causes Nene and Darnell to widen their eyes in shock. Before they can even think of a plan, Pico enters his room and sees the two huddled together. “The fuck are you two doing in my room?”

They turn around to Pico and nervously smile. “Um… we were um…” Nene tries to think of an excuse while putting her fingers together. “Well… you see…” The three have a long stare-down, as Nene still tries thinking of something before she outright gives up. “Okay, I can’t think of anything, I’ll just admit it, we burned-”

“Food! We burnt food!” Darnell quickly puts a hand to Nene’s mouth and comes up with a lie. “You know Nene! She can’t cook for shit!” A way too big smile goes onto Darnell’s face with that statement, which makes Pico stare at them blankly.

After some budging, Nene moves the hand on her mouth and takes a loud and exaggerated breath. “I’ll have you know that I very much can cook!” She huffs and folds her arms.

“Yeah… well what you cooked last time says otherwise.” Darnell gets slapped in the face in response to that retort.

Shaking his head, Pico walks up to them and notices the ashes of something nearby. “What the hell is that…” Nene and Darnell look at each other nervously, but helplessly watch as Pico notices what they are hiding. Going up to it, he sees burnt photographs, and the small box that was holding it to be charred up into ashes as well. “Wh- what the fuck did you do?” He grabs the photos and sees that almost none of them are undamaged. “What the fuck did you do!?” His despair turns into anger, as Pico turns to the two, holding tightly onto a photo. Pico snaps at Darnell and grabs a hold of him. “You fucking burnt them, didn’t you!?” He pushes him onto the wall. “Why the fuck did you do this!?”

Darnell puts his hands up, “I couldn’t help it! There wasn’t anything better to burn and I just didn’t realize what was in the box before it was too late!” Pico stares at Darnell for a while, before throwing him on the floor.

“You fucking asshole.” Pico leaves the room and slams the door shut. The entrance door also slams shut, leaving the two to themselves again.

Sighing, Nene points at Darnell. “Look at what you’ve done!”

“The fuck do you mean by that!? It was your idea to go here and search Pico’s room for answers! This is on you!” Darnell thrusts a finger at Nene, trying to shift the blame to her.

“Me!? As if, Darnell!” She also pokes Darnell’s chest. “You were the one to burn his shit! Now there’s literally no more memories of Boyfriend and it’s your fucking fault!”

As the two bicker on, one of the burnt photographs starts floating, but they’re so immersed in their argument that they don’t realize. After some time, the photo drops on the floor, and then both Nene and Darnell get a sudden heavy shiver in their spines. “Ah- shit!” They jump in the air as they shout in unison. “W-what was that!?” Darnell looks around frantically, not sure how to react otherwise.

“H-How should I know? But… did you also suddenly feel super cold just now?” Nene wraps her arms around her body and looks down. “That… didn’t feel normal.”

Darnell tries shrugging the feeling off, but can’t shake it. “Yeah… where did that even come from?” Glancing at the photos, he notices that they are somewhat moved. Looking closer, they were not arranged like that the last time he checked, but it didn’t seem strange enough. “I… should check on Pico.” Nene nods and doesn’t complain about it. She only looks at the burnt photos and grabs one of them. Darnell stares at her for a while but then returns to his task at hand.

Darnell leaves the dorm and sees Pico making his way up to the roof. “Pico!” Darnell calls out to him, but Pico ignores his call and continues his escalation. With a sigh, he follows Pico up.

Carefully getting caught up to Pico, he gets grabbed by the shirt and thrown to the center of the room when he makes it to the roof. “Why the hell did you follow me?”

Pico lets Darnell get up and dust himself off, before answering the question. “Because we’re sorry, okay? You know I regret doing that as much as you do!” Pico clenches his fists and lowers his glance at Darnell.

“Do you even have any clue how pissed off I am!?”

To Pico’s surprise, Darnell challenges his statement. “If you really were pissed, you would’ve hit me by now.” Darnell readies himself once he says that, getting a sense of danger upon speaking.

“Then are you trying to piss me off!?” Pico gets closer and clenches his teeth.

Darnell sighs and puts his fists up. “I suppose I am if it gets your mind off of everything else.” The moment Darnell stops talking, Pico lunges to punch Darnell in the face. He catches it in the air before it lands, and then shoves Pico away. “Are we really doing this?” He asks Pico, already knowing the answer to that, as Pico winds up another punch. “Alright, then. Bring it on, Pico.”

Chapter Text

Wailing sirens ring in Pico’s ears. He covers them to hide their relentless blaring as he sits on a bench outside. His blank stare on the floor remains unbroken. Footsteps get closer to Pico, and someone speaks to him. He ignores the words they say, the voice too distant to hear. Pico glances lower at his hands, for a split second, he imagines cuffs on his hands. He shakes them away, causing the vision to fade and turn back to normal.

The sudden snap of fingers causes Pico to look up for once. A stern police officer looks at him, both concerned and frustrated. The officer speaks to him again, asking if he understood anything he said. Pico shakes his head, which causes the officer to sigh. He grabs a notepad and starts writing something down. More words come from the officer but are nothing but gibberish to his mind. Not understanding anything, Pico nods, then looks back down at the floor. The police guy points at the slash wound on his eye, saying something about it. Pico nods again, not even paying attention to him once more.

More sirens ring in Pico’s ears, and someone grabs a hold of him. Pico doesn’t fight the hands that carefully take him, feeling tired and empty. Someone in medical scrubs speaks to him, but everything blurs and fades into a mess of shapes that make no sense to him. He thinks of nothing but a blur of red, and the sight of a horrendous image he didn’t want to see.

That thought burns through his mind, as he feels his hands tremble weakly. It’s too late to take action anymore, but he would do anything to have a second chance at redemption. Pico tries to speak, but his vision slowly grows darker, until he sees nothing but pitch black.

A happy thought goes through Pico’s mind, and he finds himself holding the hand of a familiar face. With a smile, the familiar face takes him up a roof and shows Pico something so familiar yet different. He loved it. They loved it. The memory is so difficult to remember, but he tries his hardest to grasp it. Despite his efforts, the memory fades, and pure darkness comes once more.

The dark changes to a warm red this time, and Pico opens his eyes. In one eye, he sees pure white. On the other, he sees nothing. Instinctively, he touches the blind eye and feels a soft cloth covering it. Pico’s breath grows more stressed, as he realizes his surroundings. He’s in the hospital.

Both his heart rate and breathing become increasingly panicked as he thinks of the impending danger. He looks around paranoid to see if something is creeping out to attack him. A door opens, and Pico reaches to his side to grab his gun but finds nothing. Pico screams at the person to get away from him, but they don’t.

They grab a hold of Pico and try doing something to him, but Pico resists. More people appear out of nowhere until something pricks Pico in the neck. In an instant, he feels sleepy again. The world changes back to pitch black and fades away.

Another vision slowly warps into Pico’s mind. The silhouette of a girl holding a knife with blood on her hands. She kneels down next to a body that he knows. Pico tries reaching out to them, but can’t as he only watches helplessly. The girl touches the body and does something to it, but the vision blurs into mindless rage before anything else.

It’s her fault.

It’s all her fault.

Pico’s thoughts turn into incoherent rambling and anger. He tries moving his body, but it doesn’t budge. Pico tries to see something other than pitch black, but nothing. Pico tries doing something, anything.

But he can’t.

He couldn’t.

Pico is awakened by the sound of someone shifting in their seat next to him. He turns to see Darnell sitting on a chair. “Oh, you’re finally awake, Pico.” Seeing someone he knows, Pico relaxes and takes more calming breaths. “Dude… you’ve been out for quite a while, we were starting to worry.” Pico tilts his head, confused.

“What do you mean by that?” Pico’s voice speaks out to Darnell, incredibly soft and weaker than he wanted it to be.

With a sigh, Darnell explains the situation to Pico. “You were asleep for like… one week. It’s not like you were in a coma or anything, but you just… refused to get up.” Once he finishes explaining, Pico grunts in pain trying to gasp.

“A week? What happened?”

“No idea. You freaked out at the hospital, and the doctors sedated you. We told them you hated hospitals, because… you know.” Pico nods, recalling the last time he had to go there. It was a massacre that he hates to recall.  Darnell continues explaining after a few seconds. “We took you back to your dorm after. Nene and I have been taking turns watching you in case you wake up.” Darnell then turns around, looking to see if Nene is anywhere near. “I’ll actually text her now, give me a moment.” He gets up from the chair and brings out his phone.

As Darnell does this, Pico puts a hand to his still bandaged eye. He can’t tell if the soft texture he feels is from blood or not, but he doesn’t need to know regardless. It hurts like hell either way. In an instant, the sound of a door bashing open cuts all senses away from Pico and makes him almost jump in panic. “Where is he!? Is he alright!?” Nene’s voice shouts out as footsteps thump toward Pico. “Oh my gosh! Are you okay!?” Nene speaks out in an incredibly rushed manner as she reaches out to Pico, only for Darnell to hold her back.

“Hey! Careful, he just woke up!” Darnell tries stopping her, but she smacks Darnell’s hand away and then goes back to what she was doing.

Nene puts her hands on Pico’s cheeks, “I can’t believe it… you got hurt so badly.” She puts a hand on her head, overdramatically expressing worry. “Oh… how horrible it is!” Pico takes this opportunity to move Nene’s hand off of his face.

“I’ll live, Nene. This isn’t the first time this kind of thing happened. I’ll recover from the wound.” He pokes the edge of the bandage and is almost tempted to touch the wound itself outright, but he lets that intrusive thought drain away. “But… It's been a week, apparently. What did I miss?” He asks the two, who reel back.

With a sigh, Nene puts a hand to her chest. “Well… a lot.” She looks at Darnell and frowns. “What do you want to know first?” Nene turns back to Pico and keeps a frown on her face.

He thinks about it for a moment and then grits his teeth. “What happened to…” Pico shakes his head and quickly rips the question out like a bandaid. “What happened to Boyfriend?”

Darnell shakes his head. “The police said… he died.” Pico looks down with a solemn stare. As if it wasn’t enough, Darnell continues. “His… funeral is tomorrow. You… can come if you want.”

“No. No, I don’t… want to.” Pico shakes his head, he can’t bear the thought of seeing him now.

“We understand.” The two nod, remaining silent for a moment, giving Pico time.

Pico tightly holds onto his bedsheet, thinking about another question in mind. “Where is she?” They look up at Pico, “Where. Is. She?”

Nene sits down and sighs. “She left the university. Didn’t even say goodbye. Nobody knows where she is, either.”

For a moment, Pico loses all expression on his face. It takes a few seconds for him to snap back to reality. “She’s gone as well, huh?” With an uncertain sad smile, Pico puts a hand to his head. “I… I actually don’t know how to feel about this.” He knows that he should feel angry, but right now he feels… tired. “Are you two going to his funeral?” They nod, and Pico sighs, lying back down on the bed. “Then go.” He turns away from the two, leaving them in silence. With nothing else to say to Pico, Nene and Darnell glance at each other, before leaving him alone. 

The door to Pico’s room closes, and they leave. Pico waits for a while, before turning back to see if he really is alone. Taking a deep breath, Pico gets up from bed, feels an immediate headache, and puts a hand to his head in response. Pico walks to his bathroom and opens the door. A tear flows down his good eye, as he walks inside.

Chapter Text

Once Darnell closes the door to Pico’s room, Nene sighs. “Why the heck did you do this, you dummy?” Weakly murmuring out to herself, Nene carefully inspects all of the burnt photographs. “All of these photos meant so much to us, and now it's…” Nene stops herself from continuing that thought. She eventually tries collecting them all in one pile and grabs them all. Nene looks at the handful of photos, frowning at the sight of them. “What are we going to do with these now?” Nene puts all the pictures in the box, before standing up and exiting Pico’s room. 

As she does this, a certain ghost watches her. Nene exits the room and then pours all of the photos on a table. She shuffles the burnt photographs around, trying to find anything that doesn’t look like a charred mess. She finds a few images that still resemble something other than burnt paper to her relief. Nene looks at a happy photo and smiles. In the photo, Pico, Darnell, Nene, and Boyfriend are all on it.

Within her peripheral vision, Nene notices a photo suddenly floating. “What the!?” She screams out, confused by the sudden mysterious abnormality happening in front of her before she realizes what could be causing that. “B-Boyfriend!? Is that you?” The photo tilts slightly, as if it was turning to her. “I… I really hope that’s you, because I have so much I need to say.” Nene rubs her arm and takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry for… stressing you out asking you those questions, and well… making you leave.” She sits on a chair and shakes her head. “I’m such a screw-up… I can’t do anything right, can I?” Nene sulks to herself, and hastily rubs her eyes. “Everything fell apart once you were gone…” She then looks at the burnt pile of photos and scoffs. “Then I decided to be an idiot and search Pico’s room because of my stupid curiosity, and look where that got me. We lost the only thing we had left of you, all gone… reduced to dumb ashes.” Nene rubs her eyes again and groans angrily. “Why did everything have to go to shit!? FUCK!” Nene shouts and slams her hands on the table in anger. “Fucking Pico! Pico and his stupid schizophrenia, and his stupid need for secrecy! What’s so important that you’d keep it from us!?” She kicks the wall, then immediately reels back and holds her ankle in pain.

As she does all of this, the floating photo falls to the ground. Once Nene lowers her leg, a chill goes on her shoulder. She turns around, confused, before her entire body feels a cold chill, yet a warm comfort in her body. “It’s okay…” Nene hears the faintest whisper in her ear, making her eyes widen.

“Boyfriend..?” Tears run down Nene’s eyes, and her hands tremble. Hearing such a familiar voice, so close to her, yet so distant. It gives chills down her entire body. “I… I can’t tell if I’m tripping, but are you hugging me?” There’s no answer, but Nene feels like the answer is yes, as the comforting chill slowly leaves her body, which also seems to make her body stop shaking. She wraps her arms around her body and feels a small smile growing on her face. “U-um… thanks. I think I needed that…” Nene wipes her eyes one last time, clearing her face of all tears. Once she fully settles down, Nene focuses back on the photo pile. “Still… what are we supposed to do with all of these burnt photos?” She idly stares at the pile, before shaking her head and putting them all in the box they were originally in. “I’ll figure it out later… actually, maybe Pico or Darnell will.” She briefly goes back into Pico’s room and pushes the box under the bed. “Boyfriend?” Nene looks around, in the hopes that he’s still here. “If you’re still here, um… thank you. For… everything.” Nene has a bittersweet smile on her face, as she thinks. “I-”

Their moment between only the two of them is cut abruptly short by the sound of the dorm’s door opening. “Glad we settled that.” Nene quickly widens her eyes, surprised. She leaves Pico’s room and goes to the living room. Peeking at the entrance, she sees both Darnell and Pico smiling incredibly happily, strangely enough. “Oh, what’s up, Nene.” Darnell waves to Nene, but she doesn’t care about that at the moment, what’s more important than that, is Darnell’s face.

“What the hell happened to you, Darnell? Why is your face so beat up!?”

Darnell laughs it off. “Don’t worry about that.” Pico chuckles as well and pats Darnell on the back.

“We just had a little fight up on the roof. Other than that, we’re fine.” Pico winks, and gives her a thumbs up.

Nene’s eyes widen more, as she walks up to Darnell. “You two were fighting? Like, for real!?” They nod in unison. “Why!?” She immediately glances at Pico’s room, remembering the likely reason why, but shakes her head. “Okay, I know why you two started the fight, but… why are you two acting like this!?”

Pico scoffs and rolls his eyes. “You wouldn’t get it.” He rubs a small bruise on his jaw, then clears his throat. “Sure, this hurts like hell, but it got my mind off of things, and helped cool me down.” Pico turns to Darnell, “So I suppose I should thank Darnell.” The two fist bump, proudly smiling.

Shaking her head again, Nene yanks Darnell by the hand. “Okay I’m not gonna ask anymore, but you two are an absolute mess! I mean, Darnell is literally bleeding! You two need to shower right this instant!” Before either Pico or Darnell can protest, Darnell gets pulled away and toward his room. “Go on, shower! And I’m not letting you leave your room until you do so!” She shuts the door on Darnell and leans on it. “You too, Pico!” She shouts out to him across the room.

“Yeah, no. My bathroom is not an option.” Pico folds his arms and shakes his head. “I ain’t showering.” Pico smirks, thinking he’s got out of the situation.

Nene pouts and moves up to him. “Then I guess you’ll have to use my shower instead!” This causes Pico to widen his eyes, shocked.

“No damn way! I ain’t using your shower!” Pico raises his hands up defensively, trying to halt the approaching storm that is Nene. She only smiles mischievously as she gets closer.

“Why not?”

“M-multiple reasons.” He looks away, gritting his teeth. “But I’m not going into a girly ass shower, and that’s final!” Nene tries grabbing Pico, but he reacts faster to her and backs away.

Seeing as there’s a standoff, Nene grabs her knife out of nowhere and twirls it in her hands. “Looks like there’s no other choice. I gotta force you one way or another!” She lunges at Pico, who turns and makes a run for it outside. “Get back here, Pico! You’re going to shower and you’re gonna like it!

“Since when the hell were you this energetic!? More importantly, put that knife away!” Pico shouts as he bolts out the door, with Nene following on his tail. “Shit!” The sound of Nene chasing Pico slowly becomes quieter as they go further away.

Other than the sound of a shower running in Darnell’s bathroom, the dorm slowly returns to silence. Though, there is technically one person left in the living room. With a sigh, a ghost folds his arms and looks around. “Alone… great.” Boyfriend floats in the air and goes sideways. “What do I do now?” Becoming more bored by the second, he starts to wander around the dorm. He considers going into Darnell’s room for a moment but immediately decides against it. BF instead goes into Pico’s room, thinking about the photo box again. Inside his room, Boyfriend checks under the bed, and sees the box of photos. He tries grabbing it, but can’t. He tries again but still fails. Confused, he murmurs to himself. “But… I grabbed the photos before…” Scratching his head in frustration, it starts to hurt. He grunts in pain, before shaking it off. With no success here, BF leaves the room again and goes back to the living room. 

With nothing else to do, Boyfriend just waits for something to happen. He stares at the floor, walls, everything. After a long time of staring at random things, the dorm entrance kicks open. Pico quickly slams the door shut and stares at Boyfriend. “Hey! Can you quickly check outside? Is Nene still following me!?” Pico points at Boyfriend. He nods and clips through the wall and scans the area. He doesn’t see a person in sight.

Going back into the room, BF gives him the all-clear. “I don’t see anyone.”

Pico sighs in relief and stops leaning on the door. “Phew… okay.” He falls to the floor and takes a breather. “I had to go through so much shit to lose her.”

“Did you really have to do all of that just so you don’t shower?” He glances away, a drop of sweat running down his head.

“Yeah.”

“Dude, it’s just a shower.”

Pico raises a finger at BF defensively. “It’s not just a shower! It’s… a really bright shower that burns my eyes, and has so much damn girl stuff that I don’t get.”

BF smirks. “Oh come on, it can’t be that bad, can it?” Pico scoffs, shaking his head. “It’s that bad?” He frantically nods.

“Of course, it’s that bad! Besides, I can just use Darnell’s shower!” He glances towards the general direction of his room. “You know… whenever he finishes showering. I swear, he takes forever to finish up there.” Pico gets up and walks to Darnell’s room, knocking on the door. “Hey! Are you done there yet!?” Shouting, Pico hears the sound of water still running.

After a second, Darnell responds. “No! Hold on!”

“God, You take a damn year to finish showering, there’s no way it takes that long!”

“I’ve been in here for only a few minutes!”

“A few minutes my fucking ass!” Pico glances at his phone, and then sighs. “Okay, just hurry up! I want to shower as well!”

Darnell hums, confused. “I thought you were using Nene’s shower.”

“As if! I had to lose her just to get back here!” The two laugh for a while, but then get back on topic. “Let me know when you’re done.” Pico walks away from the door and goes to the couch. Boyfriend is also on it, watching from afar. Boyfriend turns to Pico’s room and frowns. “No. Not using my bathroom.”

“I wasn’t thinking about that.” BF shakes his head. “I was thinking about the photos. The… ones that were burnt.”

Pico sighs and leans back. “Right… thanks for reminding me about that shit…” He pinches his nose in frustration and groans. “I’m so fucking irresponsible. I shoulda labeled it.” Pico breathes in, then sighs it all out. “Too late now.”

Nervously, Boyfriend fidgets around, considering asking Pico something. “Hey?” The boy on the couch turns to BF, “What was… most of those photos about, anyway?” Pico looks down, his eyes locked on the floor. “You… don’t have to answer that.”

He shakes his head. “It’s all ash now anyway. Those photos were about us.” Pico folds his arms. “Well… the four of us.” A small smile grows on his face. “Nene always took the pictures when it was the four of us, but when it was just you and me…” Pico trails off and looks away from Boyfriend.

BF tilts his head. “You… didn’t finish that sentence.”

“And I won’t.” Boyfriend sighs at his vagueness but reluctantly deals with the information given to him.

“You got some tough love.” BF leans back on the couch, almost phasing through it, before recovering. 

Pico widens his eyes but then shakes his head. “Those are some choice words…”

“It was?” He doesn’t answer Boyfriend and instead stares at him with a dull face. “Hey, I’m asking genuinely.” BF puts his hands up to his body, “I mean, am I wrong?”

He scoffs and turns away from Boyfriend. “Whatever.” Pico stands up and goes back up to Darnell’s room, still hearing the sound of the shower. “Still showering…”

The dorm entrance opens, and with it, Nene shouts. “Pico!” He snaps around to the door and then checks to see a sudden pink fury charging at him.

“Oh shit!” Pico is about to run, but there really isn’t anywhere else for him to go, and Nene grabs his arm with an iron grasp. “Hey, can we talk this out!?”

“Of course not! You ditched me, and you expect me to show mercy this time!?”

Pico nervously laughs, “I mean… yeah?” Nene lightly bonks him in the head, a few times. “Hey! Hey! Knock it off! Fine, I’ll take a damn shower, just stop it!”

“Good! Now you better not run again!” By some miracle, Darnell exits his room and sees the scuffle happening in front of him.

“Um…”

“Oh thank fuck, finally!” Pico wiggles off of Nene’s grasp and goes up to Darnell. “I can use your shower, right?” He cautiously nods at Pico.

Offended, Nene gasps, “What!? How could you? I thought you’d-”

Pico quickly puts a hand on Nene’s face, stopping her from continuing. “I didn’t agree to use your shower once.” With a smirk, Pico backs away from Nene. “And I never will, hah!” He runs into Darnell’s room. Then he exits the room. “I need spare clothes.” Pico walks across the hall to his own room to do just that.

“So, what the hell happened while I was showering?” Darnell asks Nene, 

“I might have chased Pico across the entire university because I wanted him to use my shower.”

Darnell chuckles, “Thought so. You know the guy, he’s stubborn as hell.” Nene huffs, and nods. Pico exits his room and then passes by the two to go back into Darnell’s room. “And… maybe a little… petty?” He whispers the last part. 

Nene laughs, “That’s true.” Suddenly, Nene’s phone vibrates. “Hm?” She checks it out and starts panicking. “Ah shoot! I forgot the call was today!” Nene moves to leave. “Sorry, I have to answer this! I’ll be right back!”

Taking a deep breath of air, Darnell glances at his room. “Eh, whatever.” He then brings out his lighter and flicks the fire on and off. He almost fumbles and drops it to the floor for a second but recovers instantly. Darnell pockets the lighter. “Not again…” He moves to the couch and lies there, taking a quick nap until Pico finishes showering.

Chapter Text

Boyfriend floats around the room completely aimlessly. It’s fun, but the real truth is that he’s just waiting for everyone to come back from whatever they’re doing. Pico is busy showering, Darnell is resting on the couch, and Nene apparently left to answer a call. Folding his arms, Boyfriend thinks carefully about what to do next. “Ugh… why does everyone have to do something else?” Boyfriend hovers over Darnell, waving his hand. “Hello?” Despite knowing he won’t respond to his call, Boyfriend still speaks out to him. Waiting for just a few more seconds, BF gives up and groans.

Every part of his mind and body knew that this wouldn’t work, heck, he even tried talking to the two a few times while they were in the middle of a conversation when Pico wasn’t around, and it didn’t work. It really was just Pico who could see him, though, some things that he did seemed to do something. Grabbing that pill bottle, the photos… They did something. He was able to pick them up. He wants to know why this is the case, but the only person who can talk to him is so… confusing. Pico keeps trying to avoid his pursuit of finding out his past, yet he sometimes lets him ask questions on the very topic. Well, at least to some extent. BF can barely picture an idea of what kind of person he was before he died, and everyone who probably knew him. From all the information given, Boyfriend was friends with these three.

“Friends…” A small, sad smile appears on Boyfriend's face. “Was I really only a friend to him?” His smile fades away as he opens his mouth, at a loss for words. BF thinks about the karaoke place he was at with Pico. He didn’t realize it while singing with Pico, but… it felt so special. The way he was able to sing with Pico together was nothing like it. A happier smile grows on BF’s face. It later turns into a wide grin as he puts a hand on his chest. “This feels nice.” A small laugh escapes Boyfriend. “I…” His eyes widen, and his mind starts to think back on something. Boyfriend imagines himself sitting on the rooftop's edge, with Pico beside him. “If you ever saw me flying, would you freak out?” The memory flashes away before his eyes and hurts his brain. “Argh, what was that?” His ears start ringing, and so does his brain, giving him an answer.

Another vision appears in his mind. “…asked for it to be custom made for you,” Pico speaks to him, and Boyfriend looks down, holding a cool hat. It’s blue and red, with a sharp design. He remembers loving everything about it. Boyfriend puts the hat on, but then the vision fades once that happens.

BF puts a frantic hand on his head, only feeling hair. “I… had a hat?” Boyfriend looks at Darnell’s room, hearing the sound of the shower still going. “What the hell are you keeping away from me?” A part of him wants to go in the shower to confront him or maybe even go to Pico’s room, but the rest immediately throws that idea away for now. He should get his mind off of this.

Thinking to himself, Boyfriend considers his options but then shrugs. Taking a little break from the three could help clear his mind. Dead set on that idea, Boyfriend floats up to the roof and scans the area around. Out in the courtyard, a lot of people are hanging out. He floats down to the area and moves the place.

Most people here just talk about random things that don’t interest BF, but sometimes some conversations catch Boyfriend’s attention. Two people run past Boyfriend in a dash, halting him in place. He backs away from them, despite being incorporeal to the two. “Get back here, Brybry! You can’t escape drawing time!” The one chasing shouts out to the one running. Looking closer at Brybry, they have a bunny mask on their face. The person chasing has a pumpkin mask with small initials on the mask that says PP.

Boyfriend immediately chuckles at that. “Who would have that as their initials?” After speaking to himself, he focuses back on the two chasing.

“Noooo! You can’t make me!” Brybry shouts out to the chaser through laughter. BF smiles at the two as they have fun, ignoring the crowd of people either completely avoiding the two or staring at them. Eventually, Boyfriend loses track of where the two are going, so he changes his focus on other things.

Moving around further in the courtyard, he passes by more people having random conversations or studying. Boyfriend hums to himself, “Wonder when that history test of his will return to Pico.” As he thinks about that, he immediately widens his eyes. “I gotta get back to Pico!” BF doesn’t know how long he’s been wandering around, but he knows that surely, by now he’d be back.

Not wanting to waste more time, BF immediately floats back towards Pico’s dorm, and almost even goes past it. Sighing in relief, BF looks around for Pico, Darnell, or Nene. Strangely enough, he can’t seem to find any of the three at all. Looking at the couch, Darnell is gone. BF goes outside and looks around for Nene. To his relief, he does actually see Nene, and Darnell is waiting next to her, sitting on the floor. “So then he gave me that one look, and then I was like, nuh uh!” Nene speaks on the phone really loudly to whoever is talking with her, while Darnell sighs and pinches his forehead.

“Guess that explains that.” BF murmurs to himself, leaving those two alone. Back in the dorm, Boyfriend focuses on finding Pico. It’s not that hard, as he hears the sound of Darnell’s shower running. Getting closer, he tries to listen for Pico, but only hears water running. “Hey, Pico, are you still showering?” BF waits for a while, but there’s no response. He ponders why Pico didn’t respond, but shrugs it off, and assumes it’s just the water being too loud, or him being too quiet and lazy to shout.

Boyfriend then goes into Pico’s room and wonders why he’s in there. After a moment of thinking, he remembers the visions he had a while ago. He becomes lost in his thoughts before his eyes look around.

His eyes stop in front of the door to his bathroom. An ominous feeling rises within BF as he stares at it. The last time he was curious and checked the bathroom, it didn’t really go that well. “I have to know.” Despite his worries, BF mentally struggles to move inside and not get anxious about it this time. For once, he has the chance to find out something entirely on his own, and he can’t back down now. Psyching himself up, Boyfriend slowly inches closer to the door, until he’s right next to it.

Just as he’s about to move his hand through the door, a red mist appears below him, seeping through the door. Boyfriend panics and backs away from it, not sure what it’s supposed to be. “Okay… what do I do now?” With widened eyes, Boyfriend opens his mouth in shock. That wasn’t his voice… nor was it any voice he knew. Silently, BF moves to the door, trying to hear the voice again. “Ugh, these instructions are so hard to read! Why did Dad have to write so fancy?”

Incredibly curious, Boyfriend wonders who the person beyond the door is, and more importantly, who they ever are and how they even got there. With newfound confidence, Boyfriend carefully peeks his head through the door to check.

Through the door, he barely sees it, but BF sees a girl in a red dress. It’s incredibly dark in here, but her red dress barely sticks out in the dark despite this. “Wh-who are you?”

“AH!” In an instant, the girl screams out, shocked. She turns around, probably, toward Boyfriend. However, Boyfriend immediately backs away from the door before she can see him. “Who’s there!?” The girl calls out, confused and worried.

Boyfriend, meanwhile, feels his body trembling and frozen. Out of anything to possibly happen, he didn’t expect someone to hear him! Before BF could do anything else, the door to the bathroom unlocks and creaks open. In BF’s mind, he wants to leave, but his body refuses to move.

A head carefully peeks out of the bathroom, but immediately catches sight of Boyfriend. Her eyes widened in shock upon seeing the ghost in front of her. “Huh?” She moves out of the bathroom and fully reveals herself. “Boyfriend? Is that you?”

As if he couldn’t get more shocked, the girl says his name. BF can’t help but blurt out more questions. “You can see me?” She nods. “Who are you?” The girl weakly smiles, ignoring the tears urging itself to come out.

“It’s me… Girlfriend.”

Chapter Text

Girlfriend sits on the bench, letting tears run down her eyes. “It was about one hour ago.” She says to the officer hovering over her. He nods and writes it down on a notepad they’re holding. “I-I… I was too late to save him!” Girlfriend starts wailing and covers her face in sorrow.

Next to her, Girlfriend’s father comforts her. “It’s alright, dear.” He looks up and sees a certain ginger-haired boy. “It wasn’t your fault.” Narrowing his eyes, he huffs. “Things will be alright.” Another police officer approaches Girlfriend’s father, and he turns to see him. The two begin talking, but the sound of herself crying drains the sound away from her.

Everything else that soon happened turned into a blur for Girlfriend, as she eventually found herself lying on her bed. From outside her room, GF’s parents talk to each other. “She used her powers…” The sound of her father first comes through the door.

“Yes, I know. She told us what she did already.”

“Well, it didn’t work. She didn’t do it correctly. I didn’t teach her the proper way to do it.” Her father sighs, before continuing. “If she did something wrong while trying to use that spell, we all would‘ve been in deep trouble. You know what could happen if the world knew what we are?”

“I understand that, and I understand you’re worried, but you know why she even tried to do that, right?” Her mother retorts, trying to defend GF.

“Yes, I do know why. Even if that’s the case, it doesn’t matter why she did it. If someone-”

Before he could continue, GF’s mother cut him off. “She said nobody saw her. Not only that, but you solved the situation before things got worse. It was only because of your status that you could get the police off this case.” She takes a deep breath and then continues. “Look, how about we all use this as a lesson. Especially for our daughter.”

Reluctantly, he agrees. “Okay, fine. But from now on, we’re going back to homeschooling her. Bringing her to a public school was a bad idea.” GF’s mother sighs at that but reluctantly agrees to the idea.

After a few moments, the door to GF’s room opens. “GF, dear?” Her mother calls out to her, concerned. “Are you awake?” She turns to her mother and nods. “Are you feeling okay?” Girlfriend shakes her head, unsurprisingly. Her mother nods understandingly. “I know you’re going through a lot right now, but remember that we’re here for you if you need us.” GF closes her eyes, trying to hide tears.

“T-this is all my fault.”

“Oh… dear, none of this is your fault! Don’t worry about that. Things will get better, and nobody is in trouble.” GF’s mother reassures her of any worries.

Girlfriend rubs her eyes, “I heard you two outside. I’m being homeschooled again?” Her mother looks away and nods. “What about my friends? What about…” GF’s voice trails off, as she thinks about Boyfriend.

“If you want… the best we can do is set up a funeral for… him.” She looks behind at the door, before turning back at GF. “Your father might not be completely okay with it, especially because… the cops don’t have his body.”

Getting up from her bed, Girlfriend sighs. “I want to say goodbye to him. I want to say goodbye to everyone, Mom.” She looks down at the floor, with a frown.

Her mother nods, “If that’s what you want, then I’m sure we can work it out.” She goes up to her and sits next to GF on the bed. “I’ll try to get back to you on a day as quickly as I can, but this might take a while.” She gives GF a side hug. “We love you, dear. Always remember that.”

Girlfriend hugs her mom. “I love you as well, mom.” Once she lets go, GF’s mom gets up to leave. GF waves her goodbye as she leaves her room. Once her mom is gone, Girlfriend sighs and reaches into her pocket. Inside, she brings out a pair of half-heart necklaces. It shimmers brightly, and beautifully. “Boyfriend…” Her grip tightens, and she feels herself tearing up again. Lowering the necklace, Girlfriend wipes the tears from her face. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry!” She laments, both frustrated and sad. “This was all my fault!” Girlfriend thinks back to the start when things were fine.

…

“Where are we going, Pico?” Boyfriend says, laughing as he gets dragged alongside Pico. The two eventually head to the gate of the school and leave. “Dude, why are we leaving the campus? School is about to start!”

“Not important! We can ditch it today!” Pico turns around, smirking. “Besides, our teacher won’t give a shit anyway!”

Boyfriend smirks and shrugs. “Well, if that’s what you want, then I’m sure I can skip a day for you!” The two smile at each other, and laugh as they make their way somewhere.

On the same sidewalk, a certain girl is running to a university. She has no clue where she is even supposed to be, but she’s just trusting that the directions on her phone are correct. Distracted, she bumps into something. “Oh, excuse me, sorry!” She bumps into two boys. The boy she bumps into has bright orange hair and a rather nasty scar on his face.

“What the hell?” He shouts out, angrily. The other boy behind him nudges the boy. He sighs, “Watch where you’re going, next time.” Nervously, she nods and gets going. The two boys watch as she runs towards the direction of the college. “Don’t think I’ve ever seen that girl before.”

“Maybe that’s a new student.” Boyfriend smiles, and then looks down and notices something on the floor. “Uh oh.” Quickly, BF tries catching up to the girl. “Hey! Hold up!”

Confused, she turns around and sees the boy catching up to him. “Huh?” It isn’t until she notices her phone in his hands that she realizes why he’s calling out to her. 

“You uh, dropped this.” BF hands the phone back to her, smiling. “Wouldn’t want you to lose this accidentally, right?” She stares into his eyes for a while, lost in thought. “Hey? Earth to… girl?”

She quickly shakes her head and snaps out of her thoughts. “T-thanks!” Quickly, she grabs the phone. “I should get going, I might be late for my first day of school!”

BF smirks, before coming up with a conclusion. “First day of school? Say, is that place called Pumpkin University?”

Widening her eyes, she nods. “Y-yeah… how did you know?”

“That’s the university my pal and I go to as well!” He points to Pico, who is watching from a distance. “If you’d like, I can help and lead you there!”

“Oh, yes! I’d like that!” She smiles and nods gratefully.

Meanwhile, Pico sighs. “Bee.” He coldly speaks out to BF, blankly staring at the two together while folding his arms. Boyfriend turns around to look at Pico, still smiling.

“Hold on, let me do something nice for her! Trust me, we’ll get back to what we were doing in a minute!

Loudly sighing, Pico leans on a wall. “Fine. I’m waiting here, then.” He looks away from the two.

BF nods before turning back to the girl. “Alright, follow me!” He extends his hand out to her, which she gladly takes. Funnily enough, the travel really wasn’t that long, there were literally only a few steps left for them to go. Though the thought counts, BF says as they stand before the gate. “Here we are! Well, the bell didn’t ring yet, so lucky you! I gotta get going, don’t wanna leave Pico waiting.” He turns to leave but gets halted.

“Wait. Before you go, can I ask you something?”

Boyfriend smiles and nods. “Sure! Ask away.”

With an expectant look, she asks him the question. “What’s your name?”

“My name..? Heh, well, if you really want to know.” He nervously scratches his head. “My name is Boyfriend.”

“Your name is Boyfriend?” She smirks and widens her eyes.

He nods, and looks away, sheepishly. “Yeah, quite the name, right? It’s probably not the best name, it sounds kinda bad, to say the least.”

“Hey, that isn’t a bad thing, you know!”

“It’s not?” BF is taken aback, not expecting that.

“Of course not, silly! I’ll even tell you my name if it makes you feel better!”

Boyfriend chuckles and shrugs. “Alright, surely it can’t be as bad as mine.”

“My name is Girlfriend.”

Immediately, Boyfriend bursts out laughing. “W-what!? Your name is Girlfriend!?” She nods, “There is no way! You’re joking, right? Tell me you’re joking!” GF shakes her head, adamant on her statement.

“Nope! Just like you, my name is quite literally as it seems. My parents…” She looks away and hides a small laugh. “They told me that they… have a strange way of naming things. My parent’s names aren’t any better, funnily enough.”

BF continues laughing, about to say something, but his phone vibrates. He checks it out, seeing that classes are about to start. “Ah shoot. You've got to get going! Classes are going to begin without you!”

“B-but I don’t even know where my classes are supposed to be!”

“I’m sure you’ll be okay!” He gives GF a supportive thumbs-up, before walking away. “Besides, Your teachers will probably be fine if you’re a little late if it’s your first day!” Before Girlfriend could say anything, Boyfriend started returning to do his own thing.

Sighing sweetly, GF watches as he leaves. “I like him…” She frowns, before walking into the campus.

…

Once her memory fades away, she sighs. Girlfriend puts the necklace pair back in her pocket. Things won’t ever be the same again now that Boyfriend is gone. Trying not to let her thoughts overwhelm her, she puts her hand on her head. “Stop thinking about him.” She groans in pain, trying to settle her mind back to normal. A few seconds turn to minutes as she breathes heavily, trying to calm down. “He’s gone, and I need to remember that.”

Finally, her mind settles down and focuses back on reality. Looking around, she isn’t in that university anymore. She won’t ever be there anymore, either. Despite this, she can’t help but feel guilty about leaving out of the blue. Not only that, but she still didn’t want to go. There were people GF cared about there.

“Maybe…” She murmurs to herself and then peeks outside her room to see where her parents are. Once she checks that she is in the clear Girlfriend takes a breath. “Maybe I can still fix this.” With the snap of her fingers, she imagines herself back in the university and teleports.

Chapter Text

Staring at her, Boyfriend is completely dazed and confused. “Girlfriend?” The name burns through him. It’s so familiar and so strange, just like his own name. “Do… I know you?”

Girlfriend frowns. “Of course, you know you! BF, it’s me. You remember me, right?”

“Um, I’m sorry, I… don’t know you. I kinda lost a lot of my memories.” BF nervously looks away and rubs the back of his neck.

“You lost your memories?”

BF nods, “I’m remembering a few things, though.” He then widens his eyes and quickly changes the topic to an elephant in the room. “How are you able to see me?” BF looks down at his ghostly form. “I’m a ghost… literally nobody except for one person has ever been able to see me before.”

Girlfriend looks around, trying to figure out how to answer the question. She tries avoiding it by asking him a question of her own. “Almost nobody?”

“Yeah. There’s this guy I know, his name is Pico.” BF bites and answers the question. “But less about him. What about you? How… did you just appear in the bathroom?”

Being asked the unavoidable question, Girlfriend grits her teeth. “Well… there's a lot to explain.” BF only tilts his head at that answer. “I don’t really know how I can explain it without sounding crazy but-”

“Were you in that bathroom the whole time? Did Pico kidnap you or something!?” He quickly comes up with a crazy conclusion and puts his hands on his head.

“What? No!” Girlfriend immediately denies that idea. Taking a deep breath, Girlfriend glances at the door to the room. “I… have magic abilities.” Immediately, Boyfriend laughs. “I’m being serious!” She pouts, a little disappointed that he’s not taking it seriously.

BF still chuckles at her, not sure if that’s true. “Really? Well if you’re so magical, can you tell me what card I’m thinking of?”

She immediately stops pouting and folds her arms, Girlfriend looks up and thinks for a second. “Seven of Clubs.” Widening his eyes, Boyfriend stares at GF with dumbfounded eyes. All laughter stops alongside it.

“How did you…”

“Oh, did I actually get it?” A soft smile grows on Girlfriend’s face. “That was actually just your favorite card, for some reason. I can’t read your mind.”

Even more confused, Boyfriend raises an eyebrow. “B-But I don’t have a favorite card! I don’t even remember what-” BF stops speaking, realizing his words are turning into nonsense. “How did I even think of that card, anyway?”

GF sighs, “It seems like you have some parts of your memory… but it’s just blocked away.” She then frowns and looks back at BF. “Boyfriend… I know you say you don’t remember who I am, but… I do. You mean so much to me.”

“I do?” Realizing something, BF gets hyped. “Does that mean you knew me in the past!?” She nods. “Can I ask you things!?

“Of course? I mean, if you forgot things, I can remind you… I suppose.”

Boyfriend thinks about it for a while, until he finally thinks about a question he has. “So if you know me, then do you know about everyone else?” GF tilts her head for a moment, wondering what he means. “Um, by that I mean like… do you know about my friends, like Pico, Nene, and Darnell.”

“Oh.” Girlfriend folds her arms, “Yeah. I do. Darnell and Nene are alright.”

“And what about Pico?” Girlfriend only winces at that question, and remains silent. “Okay then… if you don’t want to answer that, then I won’t budge.” Boyfriend sighs, and thinks of another question to ask. He considers asking about Pico again, but brushes that thought away immediately. “When did we first meet?”

GF scratches her hair, “Ah, that happened about… maybe a year ago? It’s been a long time. I can’t remember it all that well.”

“Wait what!? A year ago? I thought Pico said-” Boyfriend stops talking, and looks down at himself. “I thought he said I only knew him and his two friends.” For a long pause, Boyfriend is lost in his thoughts. However, his voice slowly comes back, asking a question in the back of his mind. “Do you know why I…” His voice trails off, realizing what he is about to say. “Why… I decided to end my life?”

Immediately, Girlfriend widens her eyes, confused. “End your life?”

He nods. “Yeah, my friends said I just… ended my life. They don’t want to think about it. But… maybe you can tell me.” Clenching her fists, Girlfriend zones out, lost in thought. “Hey? GF? Are you there?” He waves a hand in front of Girlfriend, which is enough to snap her back to reality.

“H-huh?” She looks at the ghost in front of her. GF remembers the question. And looks down. “Oh… right.” She looks at the bed nearby, and momentarily furrows her eyebrows. Sighing heavily, she turns to BF. “You… didn’t take your own life, Boyfriend.”

That statement takes Boyfriend aback. “I-I didn’t? Then why did they all say that?”

“They lied. Or… Pico did. He’s hiding the truth.” She puts a hand on her arm and grits her teeth. “The real reason you died.”

Feeling his body grow heavy from that thought, Boyfriend gulps in the air. “The real reason?” His hands quiver, terrified to think about it, but he knows that's what he wants. “What was the real reason?”

Looking at Boyfriend, she opens her mouth, surprised. “A-are you sure you want to know?” He stares at Girlfriend, lost in thought for a second. He hesitates despite his urge for the truth, the moment he's offered it… “Boyfriend?” The soft voice of GF calls out to him, it's comforting, and so familiar. Focusing on it, he breathes in, before nodding his head.

“I want to know. I have to know.”

She nods back at Boyfriend. “Alright…” She looks behind her. “If you want to know the truth, then… I believe you need to see something.” With those words, she grabs the doorknob to the bathroom. A quiet sigh comes from Girlfriend, then she gives it a push. The door creaks open. She moves away from it with a wince, letting Boyfriend see whatever is behind it.

The door creaks open inch by inch, causing Boyfriend’s hands to quiver more and more by the second. Not until he notices the most important thing within it, his breath immediately wavers, making his entire body tremble. “Wh-what? What the fuck!?” He murmurs out, in absolute disbelief. His murmuring slowly grows into panicked shouting. “Oh my god! No… no- this… this can't be real!” Once the door fully opens, it reveals the truth.

Boyfriend sees the sight of his own dead body.

Chapter Text

“N-no… t-this can’t be real! What even…” Boyfriend’s head begins aching. “What is even happening anymore!?” Countless senses burst his brain at that point, but the memory of him dying right there in the bathroom sticks out the most and stabs relentlessly inside it. “W-why!?” His voice breaks down and turns incoherent. “Why is my body there!?” Boyfriend shouts out in despair.

Girlfriend looks down at the floor, giving him a few more seconds to try and process this before giving the cold hard truth. “Pico… Pico killed you. This is the truth, the real truth…”

Boyfriend reels down onto the floor, he feels himself choking on his words. “How do… how do you know about this?” He barely speaks out to Girlfriend, still devastated. She glances away from BF, before giving him the answer.

“Because he told me when it happened… and I was there. I saw your body.”

…

“Pico? Please, open the door!” Hearing the ceaseless bashing of his door, Pico sucks up his anger and opens the door, seeing the blue-haired traitor. “Pico, I-” Before BF can finish, Pico smacks him in the face, knocking him back.

“Don’t you dare say shit,” Pico shouts at the stunned Boyfriend. “I don’t care what stupid ‘apology’ you have, and I’m not falling for it. Leave me alone.” Boyfriend opens his mouth to speak, but Pico’s door closes before he can explain.

BF quickly reacts by getting in the way. "Wait, wait! Hold on!" The two struggle with the door, until BF manages to slip into Pico's dorm. “Pico, please! Just listen to me!” Overwhelmed with anger, Pico pushes BF against the wall.

Pico stares at Boyfriend dead in the eyes. “Nothing you say will matter to me anymore. I trusted you, and then you fucking betrayed me! I should've known, you and that damn fucking… bitch!” With that, Pico throws Boyfriend away onto the floor. “You pick her over me? After all that we've been through!? You can go fuck yourself if you think I'm listening to you!”

Stunned in silence, Boyfriend feels his world falling apart. “What?” His hands start quivering. “Y-you don’t mean that, right?”

Pico's pissed-off expression momentarily fades away, but returns immediately after. “You heard what I said.”

Boyfriend gets up and runs to Pico, holding him. “No! Come on Pico! Just listen to me, Girlfriend and I aren't doing anything!” BF goes on his knees and grabs ahold of Pico's arm. “Please just let me-” Pico shoves BF away once again.

“Get your fucking hands off of me!” Pico pulls a knife from his pocket, and BF widens his eyes in shock. Pointing the blade at Boyfriend, he grips the knife tightly. “I’m warning you one last time. Get. Out.”

Despite feeling his heart sink, Boyfriend gets up and walks closer to him. “Pico, please calm down. Put the knife down, we can talk this out instead of getting violent, okay?” Pico doesn’t respond, and instead puts a hand to his head, groaning in pain. “Pico? Are you alright?”

“Get out…” Pico speaks coldly. “Get out of my damn life!” Pico raises his arm to punch BF, but Boyfriend quickly raises his arms to block it. Despite blocking, he still falls to the ground from the strength of the blow. Boyfriend shouts in pain and tries to recover. BF swears to himself and looks down at his body. He puts his other hand on his right arm, feeling nothing but numbness from it. Boyfriend then notices that his half-heart necklace falls and reveals itself.

Pico stares at it with angry eyes. “Oh… so you still have that, huh?” He spitefully growls at BF, while staring at the necklace, not looking away from it.

“Oh no… Wait, Pico, listen! I-” Boyfriend tries explaining, but gets yanked up from the floor and then feels a sharp pain piercing his stomach. “Agh!” Boyfriend instinctively kicks Pico away from him and winces from the pain. “P-Pico!? Wh… what did you just-” BF feels blood dripping down from his body and leans on the nearest wall. He looks down and sees a knife lodged in his abdomen. He gasps in terror, his body suddenly feels heavier than usual, and his breathing becomes more panicked and strained.

Pico gets back up from the ground, still feral. “I’ll fucking kill you!” Pico lunges at Boyfriend but he quickly moves out of the way and runs, terrified. “Get back here you bitch!” Running away, Boyfriend goes into Pico’s room, then his bathroom, and locks the door.

Inside the bathroom, Boyfriend leans on the door and feels tears running down his face. “Oh god, oh fuck…” He doesn’t know what to do as he looks around at the cramped bathroom. “Pico… please, I’m sorry.” He whimpers out and hears the loud footsteps of Pico getting closer. Looking down at the knife stuck in his body, he shakes his head. “I-I don't want to hurt you anymore.” He suddenly feels the door behind him being bashed on. His eyes widen in fear, and a shiver runs down his body. BF quickly glances back down at the knife lodged in him again. With not many options, Boyfriend reaches for it with his right hand. The moment he grabs it, he shouts in pain. His arm feels like a wreck. Realizing that his arm is broken too late, Boyfriend looks behind him and still hears Pico kicking at his door. “Pico! Please, listen to me!” No response comes from behind the door, but suddenly, the door stops being bashed on.

Listening carefully, Boyfriend tries to discern if Pico is still at the door. The sound of a gun being loaded through the door makes him realize what’s going to happen. Moving away from the door, he closes his eyes and looks away. The sound of multiple bullets going through the door causes Boyfriend to panic. Once the gun stops firing, Boyfriend looks back at the knife once more. “Fuck, I have no choice…” With a desperate expression, he grabs it with his left hand and grits his teeth. Closing his eyes, he grips the handle tightly and pulls with all his might. A cry of agony rings out for what feels like an eternity, inch by inch, the sharp knife gets pulled away from Boyfriend until the blade fully reveals itself with blood dripping down onto the floor. With his broken arm, BF puts a hand on the now-open wound. Looking at the door, he hears Pico getting close to the door. The door knob twists, but still doesn’t open. With every second, he feels the blood draining from his body. Another gunshot rings out, and the metal knob explodes and falls off.

The door gets kicked open and Boyfriend flinches, looking away. Holding his breath, Boyfriend brings the knife closer to himself and sees Pico entering the bathroom. With only a second to react to Pico entering, Boyfriend reaches out and slashes at Pico’s hand. The sudden attack makes Pico quickly flick his gun at the danger but fails to react in time. Moving out of the way too late, the knife slashes at one of Pico’s eyes, causing him to shout in anger and make him lift his gun in the air. The gun fires at the roof and hits the light in the bathroom. Seeing Pico injured, Boyfriend backs away with shaking hands. “I-I…” Pico turns to BF, seeing his quivering state.

“You fucking BITCH!” Pico raises his gun at Boyfriend.

“Wait!” Boyfriend drops the knife and reaches out to Pico, but it’s too late.

Pico pulls the trigger, and fires. Multiple bullets hit BF, and while Pico is usually a marksman, with only one eye at the moment, his shots don’t hit the head. Pico fires until the weapon clicks empty. Boyfriend falls onto the wall behind him. He was slowly feeling his body dragging himself to the floor. The gun keeps clicking for a while, but eventually, it stops.

Pico blinks. He snaps back to his senses and sees what he’s done. Widening his eyes in shock, his gun falls onto the floor, and Pico runs to Boyfriend. “Oh… Oh no… No, no! What the fuck did I do!? Boyfriend! I-I didn’t mean to do this!” Looking at BF’s heavily wounded body, he knows deep down that it’s completely impossible to fix this in time. Bullets hit his thigh, body, and neck. The knife that he’d used to stab BF was also pulled out and sitting on the floor. There’s so much blood everywhere. “Bee… please, don’t… don’t do this to me! Stay awake damnit!” Pico desperately shakes BF to keep him conscious, but it isn’t enough. “I’m sorry… I’m so sorry!”

“It’s so cold, Pico.” Boyfriend whispers to Pico, looking at him. Boyfriend blinks, swallowing the air. He reaches out to Pico, trying to reach out for comfort. “Is this what it feels like? What it feels like… to…” His voice fades away, and in his last moments, BF feels Pico’s hair and body, until his world fades into pure darkness.

“Boyfriend..?”

…

Despite being asleep, GF woke up immediately, hearing gunshots. “What the heck?” She covers one ear, wincing from how loud it was. GF tries figuring out why there even were gunshots in the first place. “We aren't being hunted, I think. I'm at the university right now.” Trying to rack her brain as well as she can for someone who just woke up, she thinks carefully about her last statement. “Wait, what?” She then pieces even more information together and comes to a realization. “Gunshots here!?” She gets out of bed, quickly fixes herself, and wears proper clothing. Once she finishes, frantic knocking on the door gets her attention. “Um, hello? Who’s knocking?”

“GF? Please… open the door.” Upon hearing Pico’s voice, her eyes widened, and she lost her tiredness.

“Pico? Is that you?”

“Y-yes, it's me. Please open the door. I'm begging you.” GF remains somewhat hesitant, but the way Pico called out to her felt incredibly desperate and dejected. She had never heard him speak like this before.

With a sigh, GF opens the door. The moment she takes a look at Pico, she freezes. “Pico!? Wh-what happened to you?” GF sees his clothes stained with blood, and tears running down his face. “Are… you okay?”

Pico doesn’t immediately answer, and just looks down, with an extreme look of sorrow. “I… need you to come with me.”

“You’re covered in blood! You can’t just tell me to follow you without explaining yourself!”

“Just follow me damnit!”

Pico yanks her hand and forces Girlfriend to come with him. “Will you hold on? Also, can you maybe loosen your grip? It's really tight.” Surprisingly, Pico does loosen his grip silently, without making another noise. Once the two are inside the dorm, Pico lets her go. “Finally! Now, can you please say something and explain yourself!?”

Pico turns to GF, trying not to look at her. “It’s… about Boyfriend, I-I just… I screwed up.”

“Screwed up? Pico, what do you mean by-” Pico doesn’t elaborate, and instead goes further into his dorm. Confused, Girlfriend follows. As she follows, she notices blood on the floor. A shiver goes down her spine, and once she turns the corner, Girlfriend sees a gun on the floor, with empty bullet casings. Looming dread begins to build up within Girlfriend, seeing the casings. Pico goes on his knees and stares into a dark room. Carefully, Girlfriend peeks into the room.

In an instant, Girlfriend screams out loud. Pico closes his eyes and looks away. “I didn’t mean to, GF…” Pico says through tear-stained eyes. “I’m sorry… I’m so sorry.” Not listening to him, Girlfriend runs to the body of Boyfriend without any care.

She grabs a hold of his hand, weeping. “Boyfriend! No, no! I…” GF puts a hand on his neck, trying to feel for a pulse, but there’s nothing. “Why? Why!?” She turns to Pico, devastated. “Why did you do this? He loved you, Pico! He loved you so much! And you… you killed him.” Pico doesn’t answer and only looks away, ashamed. Wiping the tears from her face, Girlfriend takes a deep breath. “Why did you tell me about this?”

It takes a while for Pico to respond to that question, but he eventually speaks up. “I don’t know why I did, but… I think you're the only person who deserved to know first.” He quietly speaks, the words going out of his mouth without it even being processed in his mind.

Girlfriend closes her eyes and grits her teeth. She lets go of Boyfriend and looks at the knife on the floor. The blood stains on it are drying, as well as the blood all around her. Grabbing the knife, she contemplates all her emotions and looks at Pico. “Boyfriend… all of this…” GF stands up and wipes away more tears. She stares at Pico. “This was all your fault.”

“So… you’re gonna kill me?” Pico doesn’t look up but senses the intent to harm coming from her. “If you are… just do it. I deserve it. I know I do.” Pico doesn’t move from his spot and closes his eyes in acceptance.

Girlfriend looks back at BF. She shakes her head and walks closer to Pico. She puts the blade to his chin and sees the bloody scar on his eye. That cut is recent. With a sigh, Girlfriend grabs Pico’s hand and slices it. "No." Pico winces in pain but still doesn’t do anything else. “I won’t kill you.”

Confused, Pico looks at his hand, now with a new long cut. “So what, then? You’re gonna make me suffer?” He says, staring at the blood dripping from his hand.

“No, not that either. But I need you to promise me something.” GF takes the blood from Pico’s hand and moves back to Boyfriend’s body. “Promise me… that you don’t speak of anything that happens next.”

“What?” Pico looks up to Girlfriend, who hovers over Boyfriend’s body. She puts her hand on the bullet wound on BF’s neck, before going up to the medicine cabinet and starts searching for bandages. Multiple pill bottles fall on the floor, along with other junk. “GF, what are you doing?” She doesn’t answer and starts wrapping bandages around the wounds BF had. “He… he’s already dead… why are you doing that?”

Backing away from Boyfriend, she kneels in front of him and sighs. “Give me your wounded hand.” GF reaches out her hand for him. Despite still not understanding anything Girlfriend is doing, Pico carefully takes ahold of Girlfriend’s hand. “Come next to me.” He does as he is told, getting both more suspicious, and nervous.

“Are you really not gonna explain what you’re doing?” She still doesn’t speak, but in an instant, Pico’s eyes widen, as he sees Girlfriend slowly glowing red. “What the fuck!?” He tries to let go of GF, but her grip only gets tighter.

“Don’t let go. This won’t work if you do.” The glowing aura around Girlfriend gets more intense, and then slowly transfers to the body of Boyfriend. Freaked out beyond recognition, Pico tries struggling out of Girlfriend’s iron grasp. “Stop. I can’t concentrate if you keep struggling!” Girlfriend shouts out angrily. Unfortunately, Pico does not stop and keeps panicking. Trying to ignore Pico’s struggle, she focuses back on Boyfriend, and closes her eyes.

Pico feels the floor trembling, or is that him? It doesn’t matter, as he thinks of anything to get out of this crazy situation he got himself in. Looking at Boyfriend, the glowing aura around him becomes as bright as the aura around Girlfriend. Looking at the knife on the floor, Pico considers grabbing it, but before he can do anything, a flash of blinding light causes him to be stunned. “Agh! The hell!?” Rubbing his eyes, his vision slowly comes back to him. Once the ringing stops and the afterimage dissipates, he sees Girlfriend next to Boyfriend’s body. “What… what happened?” Pico's vision finally goes back to normal, and sees Girlfriend next to Boyfriend's body again.

“Boyfriend? Can you hear me?” Pico stares at GF, seeing her call out to him. “Please… this has to work! BF?” She waits for a while, but there is still no response. “I don't- I don’t get it. This is supposed to work! Bee! Please, say something!” She desperately shakes Boyfriend, but there still is no response. “Why aren’t you doing anything!?” Tears slowly go down her face, as she hugs the body. "Boyfriend…"

Staring at Girlfriend, Pico quietly grabs the knife on the floor. He doesn’t know what to think of her anymore, but he knows that she could be dangerous now. Something in his mind starts whispering things to him again, shouting at him to defend himself. Raising the blade in the air, he prepares to stab her, but Girlfriend turns to him and notices the knife.

Before he could react, Girlfriend raises her hand and causes Pico to get pushed back onto the bathroom wall. A strange force pins him to the wall and makes him unable to move. “I-I…” Girlfriend murmurs out and wipes tears from her eyes with a trembling hand. “This… this wasn’t supposed to happen! None of this was supposed to happen! I'm… I'm so sorry!” She looks away and uses her other hand to snap her fingers. She disappears instantly, with red mist puffing and quickly fading out as the only proof of her once being there.

Once she disappears, Pico falls back onto the bathroom floor. The knife he was holding clatters on the ground, as Pico recovers from his fall. Looking around, Girlfriend is nowhere to be seen. Boyfriend, on the other hand, is still there. The blood from his body was already dried and gone. Closing his eyes, Pico gets up and hits the wall. Only hearing the sound of his ears ringing. Looking back at Boyfriend is nauseating, but he has to. Kneeling down in front of him, Pico looks at his fallen hat. Grabbing it, he sees that it somehow still is in perfect condition. No blood is on it, and it still looks brand new. With quivering hands, he puts the hat closer to his body. He holds in a sob for as long as he can, but his thoughts get the better of him as he helplessly feels himself sobbing.

The sounds of sirens closing in cause Pico to snap to reality. “Oh shit.” Terrified, Pico wipes the tears from his face and runs out of the bathroom, taking his gun from the floor. Looking around, there is a blood trail leading to the bathroom, and bullet casings on the floor next to his gun. “I… I can’t let this happen.” Pico kicks the casings into the bathroom and slams the door shut. Looking at the blood on the floor, he quickly goes to the kitchen and finds a towel. He hastily puts water on it and tries cleaning the blood off of the floor. 

It takes a while, but somehow, the blood disappears. Pico moves to his room and looks at Boyfriend’s hat. With a frown, he looks under his bed and grabs a shoe box. He carefully puts the hat inside and slides the box back under the bed. Done with that, he then rushes to his closet. He needs to change out of his clothes that are covered in blood. Quickly swapping his bloody clothes out for fresh ones, he takes a deep breath and puts his hands on his face, feeling the looming dread of his actions weighing on him.

A knock on the front door causes Pico to wince, as he knows what will happen next. Slowly treading towards the dorm entrance, he closes his eyes as he takes a deep breath, and pulls the door open.

Chapter Text

Staring helplessly at his dead body, Boyfriend remains still. “Why… were you in there?” Unable to accept the answer he was given, Boyfriend shakes his head.  “This doesn’t make any sense!”

Girlfriend frowns and then moves next to him. “Believe me, Boyfriend. Please. I know what I'm saying might not make much sense, but please. It's the truth. After you died, I wanted to bring you back to life, but I must've done something wrong.” She looks at her hands, and sighs. “I should've done better.” 

Immediately, BF turns toward her. “Wait, hold on! Bring me back to life!?” GF turns back to Boyfriend and nods. “H-How!? Please, I don’t want to be a ghost!” He goes on his knees, practically begging her.

Nervously, Girlfriend glances at the bathroom. “Yes, but if I were to do that I would need… a few things to bring you back to life. The items in question-”

The door to Pico’s room opens, revealing Pico himself. “What the fuck is all the…” His voice is cut off, seeing the sight of Girlfriend alongside Boyfriend looking into the bathroom, door wide open. “Noise.” Pico's voice drops down to a dark tone.

GF puts her hands out to him, “Pico, wait.”

Pico doesn’t listen and rushes toward Girlfriend, pushing her to the wall. “You fucking piece of shit!” Pico shouts in frustration, grabbing the collar of her dress and lifting his other hand to ready a punch. “After all this time, You show up out of the damn blue and ruin everything!?” Girlfriend winces, and puts her hands on his, trying to break free.

“No! Pico, listen to me, I can explain!” Girlfriend pleads, but still blinded by rage, Pico doesn't respond, tightening his grip with on her clothing. Worried that there is no other option, Girlfriend attempts to push back away from him, but Pico throws her down onto the floor.

“I should’ve done this a long time ago!” Pico pulls out his gun, and aims at GF.

Instantly, Boyfriend moves in the way. “Don’t do this, Pico!”

Pico’s eyes widen in shock, “What!?” He shakes his head, in denial “No, I have to do this BF! She needs to die for what she's done!”

“Does she really need to?” BF glances behind him, seeing the sight of Girlfriend incredibly worried. “Pico, don’t do something you’d regret…” Boyfriend frowns and lowers his arms. “Just… put the gun away. Please.”

Pico’s groans in anger, and lowers the gun. Once he does, BF moves to the side. Pico turns to the bathroom, and points toward it. “You're the one who opened that door, didn’t you? What the hell did you tell him!”

Girlfriend sighs, looking down. “I told him everything that happened that day because he deserves to know what happened, why didn't you tell him anything?"

“I… I did it for a good reason! He didn't remember what happened before, so why bother saying anything now! I could've had what I lost if you just... fuck!" Pico kicks the wall behind him in frustration, and then glares at the girl below him. "You've ruined everything I care about. You show up out of nowhere and somehow have BF all wrapped up in your arms, taking him away from me, and then you come back out of nowhere and ruin it all again!” Pico tightens his hold on his gun, aiming it back at her.

Girlfriend quickly defends herself again before Pico does anything too rash. “You don’t understand the whole of it! I never wanted it to come to this, but you’re the one who jumped to conclusions! If you had just stopped and listened to what we had to say, things would’ve been different!” She carefully puts her hands up, trying to choose her words carefully. “I understand that you’re really upset, but please, listen to me!”

“Why would I ever listen to you, of all people!?” Pico laughs, “You know how badly I want to pull this trigger!? Seeing you and him getting together more and more... it made sense, why you had to always tag along all of a sudden, why he stopped going to his own place. If anything, I should've considered it to be cheating!”

Girlfriend winces. “Pico, you've got it all wrong. I swear I never meant to make it seem like that!”

Pico scoffs. “As if! It sure as hell looked like he was cheating on me!”

“All I needed was his time, there was nothing more to it!”

Pico shakes his head, still in denial. “I’m not listening to a word that comes out of your mouth, you fucking bitch!” Pico is about to pull the trigger, but suddenly his breath waivers and his pupils dilate. "Y-You…” His vision blurs and twists, the person in front of Pico morphs and changes. A familiar situation returns in his mind, and causes his grip in reality to falter.

Both him and his gun fall to the floor, Pico puts his hands in his head in pain. “What’s going on?” Boyfriend looks down at him, worried. “Pico? Pico! Say something, are you okay!?" BF reaches out to try and hold him, but as expected from a ghost, it does nothing. "Girlfriend, please do something!"

Staring at the fallen boy, GF hesitates, but with a deep breath, she runs out of the room and calls for help. "Someone help! Anyone!" The call for help takes a while for it to catch someone's attention, but the entrance to the dorm opens and attracts both Darnell and Nene. They turn to the sudden voice of Girlfriend.

“Girlfriend!? Is that you? How the heck did you get in there!?" Nene shouts back in shock, running toward her.

“I can explain later, something’s happening to Pico and I don't know what!” Rushing into his room, they see Pico reeling on the floor. They quickly move to assist. “Do you two know what’s happening to him?” Darnell kneels next to Pico and puts a hand on his shoulder. Pico groans in pain, frantically breathing.

“Oh no, he's having a mental breakdown. Probably because he hasn’t been taking his pills.” Darnell looks at Girlfriend, sighing.

GF only looks away and frowns. “Will he at least be okay?”

“Yeah, of course he'll live! He's tough.” Nene blurts out and then scratches her head. “But, GF? Now's a good time to get to you now. How did you even get into Pico’s room? Where have you been all this time?” Girlfriend looks up at the bathroom, staring at the open door. The two don’t even know what’s beyond that door yet. 

“I have so much I need to explain.”

Chapter Text

Silence. There was nothing but silence. Pico hasn’t heard the sound of silence for a while. Did the world finally give him an end? Maybe he’d gotten what he deserved. Perhaps he would finally see Boyfriend up above. Though, that was wishful thinking.

The silence breaks, and the ringing in Pico’s ears slowly returns. A splitting headache reminds him that no, he isn’t dead. Just half alive. Pico’s eyes open, and he sees the familiar roof of his dorm room. He sighs and puts a hand on his forehead. “Ugh…” He turns his body right and then notices Darnell and Nene standing there, arms folded. They don’t look anywhere near the word happy. “Please say I’m dead.” It’s just a hunch, but Pico feels he knows why they’re not exactly ecstatic.

“Why?” Nene says, saddened. Pico takes a deep breath and looks back up at the ceiling.

“Yeah… Of course, that’s the first thing you ask.” Pico chuckles for a brief moment, then sighs again. “Why do you think I did it? I wanna hear what you think.”

Nene looks at Darnell, frowning. Darnell shakes his head. She then turns to Pico. “You weren’t thinking straight.”

Pico looks down and nods, “I suppose that wasn’t hard to guess. But I assume that isn’t the end of the conversation, right?”

Nene continues speaking, ignoring Pico. “Out of all the things, you kept his body… in that bathroom? Pico, why didn’t you just tell the truth?” He doesn’t answer the question immediately. Pico only stares at the roof. “You can’t avoid this question, so just answer it now.”

“In what world, would you think I’d be willing to admit that I killed someone? Especially if it was…” Pico shakes his head and closes his eyes. He growls and looks away from the two. “So what? You two gonna send me away? Call the police?”

Darnell and Nene shake their heads. “No. But… what you did isn’t right. It’s murder. You need to fix this.”

Pico scoffs. “How? I’ve been a bad person for a long time.”

“By talking to her,” Darnell says, turning back to the third person in the room. Pico grits his teeth, noticing Girlfriend and Boyfriend in the back.

“Really? That’s it?”

“Of course not. Once you’re done here, you’re going to your therapist.” Pico sighs loudly, not liking that one bit. “If you don’t like this, would you rather have us call the cops instead?”

He glares at Nene but then looks down. “No. I’ll fucking do it, fine.” He gets up from the bed, wincing from the headache caused by standing up. “Just… go outside. I’d rather it just be us for this.”

Nene and Darnell look at each other, before nodding. “We’ll be outside. If something happens, we’ll come back. Don’t do anything rash, okay?”

Pico folds his arms and stares at Girlfriend. “No promises, but I’ll keep it in mind.” The two accept the answer, and leave Pico’s room, leaving him alone with Girlfriend and the ghost of Boyfriend floating behind her. “Alright… here we are.”

Girlfriend immediately says, “Are you going to hear me out now?” Pico sighs and nods. GF smiles softly, then glances behind at Boyfriend. The two stare at each other, before they both turn back to Pico. “First of all… I think we should get to the important part.” GF then looks at the bathroom. “Pico… why did you keep the body there?”

For a few seconds, there was silence. Pico glances at both GF and the bathroom, not wanting to answer yet. Reluctantly, he does eventually fess up. “What else could I do? Move the dead body out of the dorm?” Pico walks up to the bathroom. “Everything happened so quickly. The cops arrived before I could even process much of what happened.”

Girlfriend approaches Pico and frowns. “You should’ve… confessed.”

“As if I’d do that.” Pico grits his teeth and slams the bathroom door shut. “It didn’t even matter anyway. The police swept everything under the rug.” He glares at Girlfriend. “You had something to do with it, didn’t you?” She sighs and nods.

“My parents… they bribed the police to stop investigating.” GF puts a hand on the back of her neck. “Once I left, I told my parents what happened, and… they immediately went to action.”

Pico bites his tongue, stopping himself from retorting back at her statement. He instead scoffs and shakes his head. “Thought so. It explains a lot.” Pico sits down on his bed, and puts a hand to his head, feeling a headache grow. “Of course, your parents could do something like that.” Despite trying not to, he still slips a small bitter remark. GF only sighs at it.

“I’d rather not… talk about that.”

“Well, I do.” Pico’s glare at Girlfriend turns darker, “Miss perfect…”

Girlfriend sighs and glances at Pico. “Why are you like this?” She murmurs out quietly, frowning.

Pico hears her say this and points a finger at her. “Why am I like this? Why the fuck are you such a bitch!” He angrily shouts spitefully. “If you never showed up our lives would’ve been so much better!”

“W-what!? Pico! I’m trying to be nice to you, but you’re the one who’s acting so immature!” Girlfriend continues speaking, but Pico also butts in mid-sentence. The two begin arguing over each other without letting either side actually have input.

Seeing the two endlessly complain at each other, Boyfriend takes a deep breath in and shouts. “Would both of you just be quiet already!?” This thankfully takes both of them out of their angered arguing and turns to Boyfriend. He sighs, “The two of you aren’t getting anywhere with all of this arguing. Can you two just… talk it out like normal people.” BF then turns to Girlfriend. “You said you can explain to Pico what happened, so please, just explain.” He then turns to Pico, “And you. Listen to her.” BF points at Girlfriend. Pico nods.

Once there is silence for more than a few seconds, Girlfriend takes a breath. “Okay.” She looks away and thinks about what happened. “It… all started when I first met BF.” Her mind recalls the moment clearly. A small smile grows on her face, thinking about it. “It was brief, but I really enjoyed talking to him. I wanted to know more about BF, and I eventually learned about you two. That you both were already together.” Her smile fades away, “I… didn’t want to ruin anything between you, though, I guess I was a little too much.”

Pico scoffs, “You just kept pushing yourself into our lives, so no shit.” He glances at BF, “You just had to include yourself in everything we were doing when we didn’t invite you to do so!”

“You didn’t, but he did!” Girlfriend cuts him off, pointing at Boyfriend. “He cared about me, made me feel human! Like… a normal person, instead of something I… don’t want to be.” She hugs herself, as her voice grows quiet. “But that’s what made everything worse, wasn’t it?” GF closes her eyes, letting a tear drop onto the floor. Her mind recalls the incident that caused things to go downhill. “On that day…”

…

A knock on Boyfriend’s dorm causes him to rush toward it. Opening the door, Girlfriend appears. “Hey! How are you?” Boyfriend smiles, seeing her. She only looks away and on the floor, shrugging.

“I dunno… I feel kinda mixed up inside right now.” GF bites her nail and takes a deep breath. “Can I come in?”

BF widens the door, “Of course! Make yourself comfortable.” She nods and walks inside. Girlfriend moves to the couch and leans back. “So, what do you want to talk about?”

She puts her hands on her face and groans. “Where do I start? My parents just keep asking on and on about so many things… and it’s so overwhelming.” GF then hugs herself, and winces. “I just… I just wish they’d just let me live my life normally.”

“Hey… I’m sure they’re doing that with good intentions, and from a place of care!” Boyfriend says, trying to cheer her up. “Your parents love and worry so much about you. I mean, you’ve told me about that a few times!”

Girlfriend sighs, and looks away. “They…” Her voice becomes lost. She takes a sigh of air, “They do, they care a lot. But they question and ask about every single little thing I do, and I just want them to stop! It feels like every action I take just… has to be logged down in a list like I’m some sort of lab creature that is out for testing!” Girlfriend’s voice grows more angry as she rants further on. “I hate it! I wish I wasn’t a demon! I wish I was just a human instead of being some freak of nature!” Tears begin forming around her eyes.

Boyfriend notices this, and frowns. He quickly embraces her in a hug. “Hey. Don’t call yourself that. You aren’t some freak of nature, you’re someone like me, and your name is Girlfriend.” A small chuckle escapes Boyfriend, mentioning her name. “Don’t weigh yourself down with all these thoughts, okay?” BF moves back to look at Girlfriend and cheerfully grins at her. 

The two stare at each other for a long moment. GF starts tearing up again, and then quickly wraps her arms around Boyfriend. She quietly sobs her troubles away and lets herself remain in the warm embrace for as long as she can. “Thank you…” Her cries eventually subside and fade away.

“You’re welcome, GF. I’m always here for you, and for everyone, really.” Boyfriend closes his eyes and smiles. He enjoys the moment of tranquility alongside Girlfriend and feels at ease. 

But the feeling of peace only lasted for so long.

Someone enters the dorm and notices the two. “Wh… what?” Boyfriend opens his eyes and turns to the voice. Pico stares at the two hugging and is at a loss for words. “Bee?”

“Pico?” Boyfriend lets go of GF and notices Pico’s incredibly distressed expression. “Hey, are you okay?” He reaches out to him, only to get his hand smacked away. 

“Get the fuck away from me you dirty cheat!”

“H-huh!?” In an instant, Boyfriend’s heart sinks, and realizes the situation. “Hold on! This isn’t what it looks like! I was just-” Pico immediately shoves him onto the floor, and runs away. “Pico wait!” Boyfriend watches as he exits the dorm, slamming the door shut. BF puts a hand to his head, and winces. Things are going horribly downhill in a matter of seconds.

Girlfriend nervously looks at BF, not sure what to say. “Is… is this my fault?” She glances at the door, then back to Boyfriend as he gets back up from the floor.

He immediately looks at her and shakes her head. “No! It’s… this is just a misunderstanding. I can explain this to Pico.” BF then puts a hand to his chest, feeling the outline of his half-heart necklace. He takes a moment to contemplate his situation, before shaking his head and focusing on his plan. “I’ll go talk to him myself. You can go.”

Girlfriend holds onto him, still uncertain about this. “Wait, I don’t know if that’s a good idea, BF. What if something bad happens?” Boyfriend only chuckles and smiles.

“It’s okay, GF. I’m sure everything will be alright.”

…

Pico sighs, recalling that night too well. He glances at his hands, they’re shaking. He closes his eyes shut, hoping his mind doesn’t start freaking out. “I know what happened after that, you don’t need to remind me.” He clenches his fists and looks away. “I know I fucked up.”

There’s nothing but silence for a few seconds. Boyfriend approaches Pico, and talks. “That’s an understatement.” He raises his hand up to his body and looks down at it. A transparent, and ghostly blue. Boyfriend frowns, “I’m dead because of you!” He points a finger at Pico, and shouts. “Was this why you lied to me? You lied to me that I took my own life?” BF asks, already knowing the answer. Pico looks away, guilty. “I… I can’t believe you.” Boyfriend backs away from Pico, and turns away, not wanting to see him.

Girlfriend stares at Pico, while he stares at the floor. “Pico. You should just go.” He looks up at Girlfriend, unsure as to what she means. “Go to your therapist. It’s for the best.” Pico doesn’t respond, but he leaves his room without any hesitation.

The moment the door to his room opens, Darnell and Nene look towards it, and see Pico exiting it. “So… how did it go?” Nene asks, curious. There is no response. “Pico? Uh, hey?” She considers reaching out to him but stops at the last second.

“I’m going to my therapist.”

That’s the only thing he says as he quietly exits the dorm. Darnell and Nene follow him, but he doesn’t acknowledge the two as they walk alongside him.

Chapter Text

A knock causes Garcello to get up and open the door. He sees Pico staring at him in pain. Despite the shock of seeing Pico out of the blue, Garcello still smiles, happy to see him. “Pico? What a surprise!” Despite this, he opens the door wider, allowing him to enter. “Come inside, take a seat.” Pico does as he is told and flops onto a chair loudly. “What brings you here tonight?”

Taking a deep breath, Pico considers his words carefully. “My friends just forced me to come here. No other reason.” Pico then glances at his therapist and sees that he’s only smiling, and nods. He waits for him to continue. All therapists always do those kinds of things, it’s unnerving to Pico. He quickly shakes the feeling off, and just tries talking about something, to break the awkward silence that might come. “I… don't really know what to talk about.” Pico lies, knowing full well that he wants to talk about something, but he just doesn’t know how to say it.

“Hm… is there anything that could be bothering you at the moment?” The therapist asks and catches Pico. “You seem rather tense, Pico.” He sighs, getting caught.

“Okay… maybe there is something on my mind. I just don’t know how to say it.” Pico thinks about the past few hours, and how varied his emotions feel at the moment. “I did something I shouldn’t have done, and I… can’t take it back,” Pico admits and gets a strange sense of relief upon saying it.

“Could you explain what it is?”

Pico shakes his head, “No. I can’t.” He looks away, refusing. “I… just can’t.”

Garcello nods, understanding. “It’s alright, there’s no need to force yourself to say something you don’t want to.” There’s a long moment of silence after that. Pico looks around, incredibly uncomfortable. “How are your friends?” The therapist finally breaks the silence and asks Pico a question.

“They’re… okay. I mean, they’re probably pissed at me right now but still.”

“Really? What happened?”

Pico sighs, “Stuff.”

“Stuff like?”

“An argument,” Scoffing, Pico recalls the confrontation. He then remembers Boyfriend’s face, and how betrayed he looked. Pico silently winces thinking about it.

Slowly, Garcello tries piecing together a possible story, “Do you think what they said was justified? Were you in the right during that argument?” Pico shakes his head. 

“I know that I was not in the right,” Pico fidgets with his hands and closes his eyes. “We were talking about Boyfriend.”

“Ah, I see.” Garcello gives Pico a moment, before asking more about it. “What was the discussion about?” Pico shakes his head sadly, tightly moving his hands into fists.

“His death, as always.” Pico imagines what BF would say to him once he came back. What wouldn’t he say, Pico then thinks. “It’s been a while, but I still can’t get over it.”

Taping the pen on his chin, Garcello thinks. “Do you still feel guilty? Or is it regret?”

“I don’t know, maybe both? But I just miss him. I miss every part of him.” Pico laments about all his memories. “I wish I didn’t… lose him.” He almost slips out too much information, so he scratches the back of his neck nervously. “Living a life with him was… eventful, to say the least. He was a handful and talked me to death on many occasions. But still, I loved the little idiot, despite everything. I just… cared too much to let go until the very end, I suppose.” Pico lets out a long sigh and leans back on the chair, putting his hands on his face. “Fuck, I’m rambling about this too much, aren’t I?”

“It’s not a bad thing to ramble on about it. You’re venting out emotions that you have been holding onto for a while, I assume.” Pico only shakes his head at these words, trying to deny it. “If there’s anything you still want to let out, now is you’re chance. I’m here for you, and I’m certain everyone you care about is as well.”

Pico frowns, getting lost in thought, and eventually closes his eyes. “I’ve… gotta go.” He stands up and turns to leave.

“Alright, but hey, before I forget.” He brings out a small paper bag and hands it to Pico. “Got this delivered to me, and I’m fairly certain this should go to you.” Taking it from Garcello, Pico opens it and sees some medication. The smallest of smiles grows on his face.

“Thanks.”

Garcello chuckles, “You’re welcome. I’m always here if you need to come back. Have a good day, Pico.” He relaxes, and searches for something in his pocket, letting Pico go.

Once Pico leaves the door, he sees Darnell and Nene waiting, and looking at Nene’s phone. They turn around upon hearing Pico getting closer. “Oh, there you are. How did it go?”

Looking away from the two, Pico hesitantly responds. “It went okay.”

Nene and Darnell nod. The two want to say something, but they hold off on it. Sighing, Darnell puts a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s get you away from here then, explore the streets a bit.”

“We aren’t going back to the college?”

“No. It’s best if you don’t go there for a while. Get your mind off of it and stuff.” Darnell replies, answering the question.

“But-”

“There’s no buts, Pico!” Nene yanks him by the hand. “Heh, butts…” She then shakes her head and goes back to concentrating. “Anyway! We need to get you out and about for once!” She turns to Darnell and subtly nods at him.

Pico rolls his eyes and sighs. “Where are we even going to go? Not only that but for how long?”

Nene thinks about it for a second, putting a finger on her chin. “For however long I feel like it!” She then grabs Pico’s wrist and begins running, dragging him along. “Let’s get going! Maybe the mall is still open!”

Pico facepalms and groans, not really up for the idea. “You’ve gotta be kidding me with this shit.” 

“Well, you better be okay with it, because you know full well what’s gonna happen if you refuse to follow!” Nene retorts, reminding him about the situation he’s put in. “Maybe I’ll be quick with this, maybe not! Only time will tell! But all I know is that we’ll be back to the dorms before you know it!” With those words, she then starts running. Darnell follows behind, mainly to make sure Pico doesn’t escape her grasp.

Chapter Text

Boyfriend. That is his name. He knows it’s his name. It is one of many memories that has returned, and he is starting to regret ever trying to remember it. BF stares at the dead body in front of him, his own dead body. His life was taken by someone he thought he loved so dearly. Next to it, Girlfriend kneels, carefully putting a hand on it. “Boyfriend?” Her voice catches his attention, breaking him out of his deep thoughts. She motions BF to come closer. Once he does, she takes a deep breath. “So, like I said before, I can bring you back to life. I was trying to do that for the longest time. The thing is, I don’t have the items I need for that to happen.”

“What do you mean by that? Do you need something like… magic powder?” A laugh escapes GF for a moment, but she shakes her head.

“No, but if I did, that would’ve been real handy and convenient.” She then grabs the book that was left on the floor. “Look at this. It’s a little hard to read because my dad writes fancy, but it says here that to cast resurrections on people, you need to have a couple of items that the person held dear to them.” Girlfriend grabs a necklace from her and then reveals it to BF. “This… was one thing you held dear, but everything else you have is, well,” She looks back into Pico’s room. “Somewhere here. I knew that Pico didn’t want me anywhere near this place, so for the longest time I had to try to find ways to do it without this.” GF sighed, knowing how well that had been going. “Staying cooped up in that bathroom for such a long time felt so dreary.” She hugs herself, feeling a shiver run through her body. “I never got over seeing your body.”

Seeing her rather distressed, Boyfriend tries comforting her. “You did all you could,” He glances at the empty bed, then back to Girlfriend. “But at least now you can explore this place freely, right?”

A small smile grows on GF’s face, but it fades away as soon as it appears. “Thanks, but it’s not that simple. If I go outside, people might question what I’m doing here, especially people who still know me.”

“Oh, um… well maybe you can blend in with the rest of the people here?”

Girlfriend sighs, “Boyfriend, I’m wearing an expensive and fancy red dress. I don’t think I can fit in a crowd of normal college students, even if I’m around the same age as them. Not to mention, Pico will come back eventually and… I don’t know what he will think about all of this.” Deep in her thoughts, GF sighs again. However, a spark of inspiration hits her. “Oh wait!” She brings out her phone and checks her contacts. “I've got an idea on how to distract Pico, at least.” She finds Nene’s number and calls it.

Nene does not take even a single ring to answer. “GF? Hey! Oh my gosh, how have you been!? I haven’t heard from you in like… ten minutes, surprisingly!”

“Aha… yeah. But Nene, I know this is sudden, but can you do me a favor?” Nene hums, waiting for her to elaborate, “Okay, so… I need you and Darnell to keep distracting Pico for a little longer. I need to search for some things and it might take a long time.”

“Really? How long do you need us to distract him?”

“Maybe… one hour or so?”

Nene giggles, “Oh, please. That’s child’s play! You’ll have that and more, girl! But first, you need to promise me we’ll finally catch up after all this time, okay?”

“Sure thing, Nene. I promise.” GF hangs up the phone and turns to Boyfriend. “Alright, at the very minimum, Pico is gonna be gone from this place for an hour. Help me search around for some stuff that might have been valuable to you.” Girlfriend checks Pico’s desk for anything that catches her eye.

Boyfriend, on the other hand, already has an idea of where one valuable item is. He clears his throat and gets GF’s attention. She turns around, to see BF pointing his thumb underneath the bed.

Following his instructions, she checks underneath it and finds a burnt box. “Huh?” Dragging it out, she opens it to see a bunch of photos. “Oh! This definitely seems like something we can use!” Her joy is cut a little short, as she looks at the condition of them, all burnt in various levels of severity. “Well… maybe. Most of these are charred. None of them seem to have a full picture of you specifically.” She dumps all the photos on the floor and sifts through them.

“There should be one that didn’t get burnt.” He grabs one of them and examines it closely. “I think it’s this one…” BF then smiles. “Yeah! This one!”

“Wait, how are you holding that?” Girlfriend points at the picture, confused at what she’s seeing.

Boyfriend looks at the photo again and laughs. “I have no idea! I can hold some objects, and can’t with other things.” He hands the photo to GF, then moves to pick up the box, only for it to phase through his hands. “See?”

Observing this, Girlfriend tries thinking carefully and comes to a conclusion. “Huh… maybe you can only grab items that are important to you?” She stands up and glances at the photo. “I mean… it would make sense.” GF continues her train of thought, asking Boyfriend another question. “What else can you hold?”

“Well, there was this pill bottle that I first held, then a microphone, and then all of those photos!”

“Microphone? From where?”

“Uh, it was at this karaoke place. Pico and I sang a song there! It was… a lot of fun.” Boyfriend sighs and rubs his arm. “It’s a little strange to think about now that I know Pico…” His voice trails off.

Girlfriend looks at Boyfriend’s uncomfortable state and thinks about asking him something. “What do you think about Pico now?” The question escapes her mouth, and she winces upon letting it slip. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked that.”

“No, it’s okay.” Boyfriend responds quickly and then takes a deep breath. “Right now, I don’t know what to think about him. There’s so much emotions going through my mind right now, that I… I just need time.” BF thinks about his next words for what feels like a long second. “I still care about him, and I want to talk with him one more time. Just not now.”

In response, Girlfriend glances away from Boyfriend and looks down. “You still care about him? Even though he killed you?” Her tone gets both concerned and a little shocked. “BF, he’s a murderer– your murderer!”

“I know. I know what I’m saying sounds crazy,” BF tries explaining his thought process to GF. “But I think he deserves another chance. He… he regrets what he’s done, I’m sure of it.”

Holding tightly onto her arms, Girlfriend narrows her eyes. “If he truly regretted what he did, he’d have turned himself in, but here we are.” She huffs, but then shakes her head. “Is forgiving Pico really the best choice, BF?”

Boyfriend frowns and turns his head away from GF. “It’s complicated.” He then looks back at her, uncertain. “I really don’t know how to explain my thought process.”

“No, I understand. Back then… you two were really perfect for each other. If I didn’t barge into your lives, then you wouldn’t have…” Girlfriend stops talking, leaving her thoughts unfinished. “Never mind, we’re getting too sidetracked. We need to focus on what’s happening right now.” She turns away and subtly moves a hand to her face. “Where’s that microphone again?”

Despite a growing concern building up in BF’s conscience, he decides to not pry any further. “It’s at a karaoke place. I kinda don’t remember where exactly it is, but Pico and I used to go to it a lot, I think?”

GF thinks for a moment, before getting a clear picture. “Alright, I think I know what you’re talking about. Give me a minute.” With a snap of her fingers, she disappears from thin air and leaves only a trail of mist. Boyfriend looks around, confused. Thankfully, only a few seconds later, she reappears. “Here, is this the mic?”

Boyfriend carefully grabs the mic from GF’s hand and does so successfully. “Yep, I’m fairly certain this is mine.” He then hands it back to Girlfriend. “Is this enough?”

“Well… probably not. We only have three items.” She puts them on the desk and thinks carefully. GF turns to Boyfriend and looks at him closely. “There’s maybe one more thing we need to find.” She looks up at his blue hair, seeing the lack of a certain special item. “Do you have any idea where your hat is?”

A hand goes up to his head, recalling the lack of a hat on it. “Oh. Right.” He hums, trying to consider where it could be. “Well… I actually don’t know where it could be. I never got to ask him about that.”

Wincing at the information, Girlfriend tries to work with it. “So… it’s likely only Pico knows where it is.” She turns to Pico’s room, “I never saw your hat in the bathroom, and it probably won’t be under the bed.” She sighs, letting out a breather. “Is there a place that Pico might’ve valued a lot?”

“Oh!” A spark of inspiration comes into BF’s mind, having one idea. “There’s the rooftop that Pico goes to!”

“Um… what rooftop?” GF asks, confused by what he means.

“You know… the roof of the campus. It’s a place that we’d go to…” BF looks up. “Before all of this.” He gestures to himself.

Nervously smiling, GF nods. “Can you show me where it is?”

“Huh? Can’t you just teleport to it?”

GF sheepishly looks away, “Well, you see…” She locks her fingers together and explains. “I need to actually know what the place looks like in order for me to teleport to it. So, because I don’t know where it is… I can’t really go there.”

“Oh.” With that, Boyfriend slumps down. “Well, that makes things more difficult. I guess we have two choices, either I try guiding you to the roof and hopefully not getting caught, or we… sit here and wait?”

Shaking her head at the second option, Girlfriend takes the risk. “We have to try. I’d rather not wait here and do nothing.” With their minds set on the task, they get out of Pico’s room and prepare for an adventure of sorts. "Lead the way, BF."