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Daehyun is handed a crisp manila file twenty two hours before his first solo mission commences.

He takes it with trembling hands that steady only under the touch of something tangible, and only really because the one handing him the tangible object is Himchan – steady, trustworthy, if a little on the impish side at times, Kim Himchan: his mentor for the last eleven months or so.

He is the man who taught him everything to know outside of the classroom: everything from when an EMF is more effective or when you should just trust to your instincts, to who in the Agency can be relied upon for help in times of dire need and who are just the bureaucrats out to make a profit.

It’s safe to say that there’s no one else in the whole Agency that Daehyun trusts as much (except for maybe Yongguk, and that’s because Yongguk is basically the other half of Himchan).

“Read it well,” Himchan says now, his words stern as they always become when official matters are concerned, but he softens with a wink that says, but I know you’ll do fine.

Daehyun takes a deep breath and clutches the file to his chest. “Of course!”

Himchan’s face splits wide in an amused grin. He reaches over the desk to clasp a hand heavily to Daehyun’s shoulder. “When you finish Bbang and I will treat you to soju and grill. How does that sound?”

Daehyun beams. “Absolutely,” he says, and as if to further emphasize the point, his stomach growls loudly.

“Good,” Himchan laughs as he stands up from behind his wooden oak desk and straightens his glossy light grey suit – the standard Rank 1 attire – in the reflection of the darkened window that overlooks the Seoul cityscape.

It’s late, Daehyun thinks as he glances out at the skyline speckled with little white lights. Where has all the time gone?

Himchan on the other hand seems to care very little about the view. He’s more concerned with the straightening of his tie, a vivacious red and black spiralled one today. It’s the only article that deviates from the dress code but Himchan has always liked to push the boundaries just that little bit, whether it be with clothes like a garishly patterned tie or a winking piece of jewellery in one ear (a glossy bone white fang in his left ear yesterday), or simply his attitude towards respecting the hierarchy (hence the bureaucrats that spit at his feet every time he passes them cheerily by). 

It’s a wonder the Agency hasn’t put a restraining order on him yet but Daehyun figures it’s probably due to Himchan’s excellent record as an investigator, and because Yongguk approves of him. And if there one thing all new recruits to the Agency learn within their first month here, it’s that everyone will approve of anything that Yongguk approves of. He is the youngest special class investigator around for good reason.  

A muted beeping sound makes Daehyun rise out of his distracted thoughts and glance over in time to see Himchan slip his phone out from his back pocket, fingers sliding nimbly over the screen. A roguishly fond smile then spreads over his face, the kind that he only ever makes when Yongguk is concerned.

Himchan looks up and notices Daehyun’s curious glance. “Bbang wants me,” he explains. “Will you be okay if I leave you alone?”  

“I’ll be fine,” Daehyun says, doing his best to suppress a sneaking smile.  

Himchan’s care is sweet, but this is his first solo mission and it’s not a solo mission if he has Himchan watching his back like a hawk the way he’s done so ever since Daehyun had that fall in with the cat ghost down in Hongdae.

(To be fair all he did was step through its tail, a mistake anyone could have made. However to this day the cat still haunts him viciously, pouncing out at him from darkened alleyways and scaring him out of his own skin)

“Really,” he assures Himchan, folding away the grimace as he pictures the cat’s demonic eyes and lashing ghostly tail, “I’ll be fine.”

Himchan nods, but still gives him that worried look. Daehyun is Himchan’s first mentee, so it’s a little understandable.

“I’ll be fine, I promise,” Daehyun says firmly, making a shooing motion at Himchan. “Now go, or else Yongguk-hyung will start panicking when he’s behind schedule because you were late getting over to him.”

“Alright, alright,” Himchan exhales. He runs a hand through his hair as he quickly types out a response to Yongguk with the other. “Message me if you need anything. Call if I don’t pick up and-“

“Himchan,” Daehyun says warningly.                          

Himchan holds up two hands in defeat. “I’m going. Don’t stay up too late.”

“I won’t,” Daehyun says obediently, sticking out his tongue when Himchan shoots him a knowing look, both of them experts in Daehyun’s habit of over preparing to the point that Yongguk offered Daehyun the access code to his and Himchan’s office so that he can work there in peace instead of getting kicked out of prep room after prep room all over the building. By now the office is one third his. 

“Best of luck Daehyunnie,” Himchan says as he turns the doorknob and flits away, off to find Yongguk and deal with whatever S rank mission the Agency has concocted up now, a violent ghost wreaking havoc downtown, a level three power outage in Sincheon-dong, perhaps even the worst case scenario: a possession.

Daehyun shivers and hopes he won’t have to deal with such a thing ever.

To put dark thoughts behind him, he settles back down into one of the cushy black chairs (the only ones found in the entire Agency because Himchan specially custom ordered them, stating his precious behind deserved only the finest) and opens the file, relishing in the feeling as he smoothens one hand over the page and drinks in the darkly printed words.

He reads the file from front to back and back to front, several times over until has memorized the details by heart.

There isn’t much there: just a brief description of the ghost in question, a map of the general area, and the blueprints to the building where the ghost is thought to frequent.

The mission itself is also not that difficult. No more than the standard rank 3s they were taught in the Academy as case studies. Therefore once he has the details ingrained in his brain, Daehyun decides to do as Himchan had advised and turn in early.

Maybe though there’s a sound reason as to why Daehyun never sleeps early and that’s because it’s tonight of all night that he dreams.

He dreams of a ghost.

It stands in front of him, unmoving and yet appearing to move for its body slips in and out of sight, like a gauzy curtain swaying back and forth in the late afternoon sun.

The ghost tilts its head curiously and lifts one hand, its fingers uncurling towards him. Each digit is slender and shimmers a pale white, a shade that reminds Daehyun of the seashells he used to collect as a child at the Busan beachside, not entirely white but greyed in sections and grooved at others.

He gulps and tries to look elsewhere but that too is a mistake.

Unlike most ghosts who retain the physical features of their once living selves, this dream ghost has nothing. It is shapeless, faceless, namless. It hovers in front of him, a rippling mass of whiteness that physically could be male but equally could be female, and it stares at him with gaping holes for eyes for what feels like an eternity.

Daehyun, who has never been very good with the concept of something stretching on forever and ever, reaches out with one trembling hand to bat away the skeletal one. He’s used to seeing ghosts who suffer from the inability to produce a complete corporal form, and so result in bodies that look like their living selves but have gaping holes in their arms or legs, or skin that is peeled back to reveal the bones below. However something feels different about this dream ghost. It’s enough to make his heart race with fear.

But before he can summon up the courage to push away the ghost, the ghost speaks.

It is just two words spoken quietly, but they reverberate, ringing in his ears and embedding itself like an echo in his chest.

Save me, it whispers, wails, pleads in that dry, dragging voice of its own that is neither very masculine nor feminine.  

Daehyun stumbles back, eyes wide, afraid, so very afraid, and all of sudden the ghost’s lethargic movements vanish and it lunges forwards, gait smooth like a dancer. It sways and shifts and it dives right through Daehyun in an icy, electrical rush, and suddenly the dark dreamscape about him changes into four walls of a mirror. In their reflection he sees himself and at the same time he sees a stranger.

In the mirror there is a ghost, form shifting in and out of visibility, hands a skeletal form, bones, white as aged teeth. Its face is smudged and yet holds certain characteristics similar to his own. Eyes, nose, the curl of his mouth. He recognizes those and at the same time he does not.

Daehyun clenches his left hand. The ghost in the mirror clenches its bony one.  

Daehyun opens his mouth. The ghost in the mirror opens a gaping black hole in its face.

Daehyun crumples to his knees. The ghost in the mirror folds in on itself.

Daehyun screams and screams and screams and they’re both screaming now, himself and the ghost, saying exactly the same two words over and over again until they echo and rebound off each other, a confusing mishmash of save me, save me, save me me save save save ME SAVE ME and-

-and then Daehyun wakes up to his tiny room, heart hammering and dripping with sweat, himself once again.

His comforter has fallen away from his body and he looks down to stare at his hand. He clenches it, and all he can see is smooth skin, caramel brown in the muted lighting. No bone or pale seashell white silvers.  

He takes a deep breath, inhales, exhales.

It was just a dream, he tells himself. Calm down.

He forces himself to lie down again, but he does not pull the cover back over his body just yet. He feels too warm, his skin practically thrumming with heat. It’s like the time they made him run twenty rounds of the block back in his first year and he had fallen over halfway through, so exhausted that his body trembled and he could have probably cooked an egg on his forehead.

There is still sweat beading his temples now. He wipes away at those with the back of one hand.

It was just a dream, he repeats to himself again and again. He closes his eyes and blessedly there is only darkness behind his lids.

Just a dream.

There is no ghost here. The mission will be fine. He will help out Z and make Himchan and Yongguk proud.

Everything will be fine.

But… some traitorous part of his mind whispers as he drifts off again. What if won’t be?

---

Daehyun joined the Academy when he was 18.

As with all recruits, he was required to go through three years of training before he was then allowed to join the ranks of the ACGA, the Agency of Counter Ghost Activity, the only organization that deals with any and all ghostly matters around the globe.

Once graduated, recruits would start at rank 3 and have to work their way up; the highest and most honoured position being Special Class to which there are currently only fifty worldwide.  

Of the three years at the Academy, the first had been spent largely on theory and improving a recruit’s physique, the second on strategy and application to real world situations, and the third, on hands on practise.  

If Daehyun’s honest, he barely remembers what he learnt in first year. Stuff about ghostly composition and the four ways to correctly distinguish an inanimate possession from a table or lamppost.  

What he does remember is his very first lesson.

The lecturer had been some stiff, grey bearded man in his fifties. He had walked into the cavernous room dressed in jeans and a stained yellow shirt, and had dropped his bag to the table and proceeded to pull out a cigarette and lighter and smoke right in front of the clearly printed please do not smoke indoors sign, all the while his posture straight as a metal pole, eyes cold as steel as he took in the class which numbered about twenty or thirty.

“Why are you here?” he had then said abruptly in a voice that sounded like he gargled rocks on a daily basis. Two students had put up their hands. He had ignored them outright and had pointed to Daehyun instead whose hands had most definitely been under the table. “Why?” he barked.

“So… we can help ghosts?” Daehyun had said uncertainly in response.

“That is one answer,” the lecturer had said, taking another drag on his cigarette. “Some people might say elsewise. But tell me, you want to help ghosts.” Daehyun had nodded. “But do you know exactly what you are trying to help? What I’m asking,” he had proceeded to then say in response to a flurry of confused faces, “Do you know what exactly are ghosts?”  

Daehyun remembers pausing, floundering, no smart answer at the tip of his tongue. “No sir,” he had eventually replied. The lecturer’s cigarette was burnt down to one third by then. He had dropped the ash directly into the dustbin under the whiteboard.

“Anyone else?” the lecturer had said, raising his voice so that it resounded about the room. Everyone had shrunk away, afraid to answer because it felt like admitting their ignorance.

But it was ignorance because no one knew, and yet they should have. Such an important fact and no one knew.

“Raw energy,” was his answer when no one else could reply. “Ghosts are raw energy. And that is what you are trying to help, or hurt.”

The rest Daehyun remembers, not from his lecture but from his own studies, words burned into memory.

Ghosts form when a person or an otherwise living creature full of dreams or possibilities pass on too early, and those hopes and dreams which have gone unfulfilled, manifest into a spiritual form that looks and behaves as the person once did when they were alive.

The majority of these ghosts are harmless. They tend to patter about, acting as they might have once done so when alive. They are most commonly seen about town talking and interacting with others as if death had not come knocking.

Occasionally a ghost may get into fights with the random living human who doesn’t quite understand or accept their existence, but that’s one of the duties of ghost investigators – to maintain peace between the living and the dead by acting as mediator and educator.

Their other duties are a little more complicated.

It’s said that ghosts maintain their form by consuming energy from their surroundings. How they conjure memories from their old selves and maintain a sense of consciousness is currently unknown, though there are multiple theories out there, none of them fully tested.

Ghosts first appeared some fifty years back when a nuclear explosion went off in North Korea, some sort of test that was said to be in retaliation to claims that the bomb was not a fission bomb. Shortly after the test, ghosts started appearing all over the globe, starting with the countries closest to the test site and then reducing in population density the further geographically away a country was. Therefore to date, the largest population of ghosts are found in North Korea; the second largest in Eastern China, Russia, and South Korea. 

It’s understood that their appearance is thanks to the sudden influx of energy released by the hydrogen bomb. By consuming this energy, the ghosts who presumably had always been around but had just been unseen, were suddenly able to produce visible forms. By the same theory it’s also thought that one day when all the energy from the hydrogen bombs is used up, ghosts will lose their visible form and the world will return to as it once was. 

That being said, ghosts exist in Daehyun’s present and it is his job as a ghost investigator to step in when there are issues involving them. One such role is education; a second is mediation. The third and most important however, is intervention, and this occurs when a ghost starts to consume energy from a source other than radiation in the surrounding air. 

As a Rank 3 Ghost Investigator, Daehyun’s missions are tailored to ease him into the working world. They’re simple, to the point of being almost pedestrian when he compares to the higher ranked missions he’s been on with Himchan, and occasionally with Yongguk who’s not his mentor but Himchan’s partner. As the only S rank and rank 1 pairing in all of the four branches in South Korea, they’re often tasked with the more difficult missions that solo investigators or pairings of lower ranks cannot handle, and as Himchan’s mentee, that means he’s been privileged to see them deal with missions more precarious than the usual sort.

However his mission today is nothing of those sorts. The ghost in question is codenamed Z since his real name is unknown. He is described as a boy his late teens, tall but not gangly, and with handsome features that make his death all the more a pity.

According to Intel, Z has shown no indication of violence. If anything he is described as shy. The only reason there has been a request placed for his removal is because he is haunting an old dance studio that is scheduled soon for demolition and he refuses to talk to the contractors who have approached him.

Daehyun’s job is simple: locate Z, identify him, and if possible, negotiate with him and come to an agreement that results in his removal from said dance studio. If the third task is not possible then he is to then contact HQ for further instructions.

There’s nothing that speaks of danger and Daehyun isn’t sure if that’s a good or bad thing. His dream is still uncomfortably stuck at the back of his mind and he hopes the ill feeling creeping down his spine is just because of that, and not a foresight to the outcome of the mission.    

He’s distracted when his phone lets out a tiny series of beeps. It’s the alarm he set for four pm. He’s had a late lunch and it’s mostly digested by now. If he prepares now and leaves by half four he’ll have ample time to arrive at the specified location before the sun starts to set. And that is, as Himchan likes to say with a grin and fake cowboy gun fingers, the golden ghost hunting hour.

Daehyun turns off the alarm and reaches for his clothes. He pulls on black pants and a white button up, simple but respectable enough. Heavy soled boots with buckles and not laces are next. On goes his black Agency provided utility belt, and in the several slots goes his PDA, flashlight, Agency ID pass, and what he hopes he won’t have to use but is standard issue, the rectangular containment deployment device. As an afterthought he slides in two emergency snack bars. He checks they’re all tightly secured before he slips on a charcoal blazer that will hide everything to the public eye, but announces to other investigators that he is a rank 3, as stated by the colour of his outfit and the tiny white ACGA stitching on his breast pocket.

Only now does he feel really ready for the mission, all suited and geared up like one of those action heroes in the cartoons that he used to watch as a kid.

Except well, times and styles have changed. He doesn’t watch TV much anymore but he’s heard from other recruits who have little brothers and sisters that these days’ cartoons feature ghost investigators as heroes a lot. Propaganda, they say and shrug amusedly.

He stares at the mirror, at the person who he is now, the one who as a child had brightly told his mother that he’d become a chef, or a baker, or more than once, a singer. Someone who existed to make others happy.

He stares at himself now and not for the first time wonders if what he does is really helping people – both the dead and the living kind – or if he’s just doing it for the self-satisfaction.

A second alarm beeps and he swipes at it to turn it off. Half four. It’s time to go.

Daehyun shakes his head to rid himself of the thoughts. He’s probably just overthinking things. For that, he kind of misses being a child when everything was so much simpler.

He sighs and turns off the lights as he leaves.

Oh, how times change indeed.

---

The old dance studio is a decrepit looking thing. It’s no wonder they want to knock it down when the two storied building already looks tilted and about to fall over.

Daehyun puts a hand to the doorknob and it collapses in on itself before he can even turn it. A plume of dust rises up against the darkness of the corridor and Daehyun gulps and really hopes the whole building holds long enough for him to get in, find the ghost, and get out.

He fishes for his flashlight and is grateful for the bright light it casts over the darkened entryway. He sweeps it back and forth, assessing the site for any signs of broken floorboards or discarded objects that might trip him up before he enters.

It seems all clear, just a broken window to the left that is boarded up but may have left a few shards under it that his thick soled boots can probably handle. No signs of the ghost either, but as he fishes for his PDA with his spare hand and taps at the screen for the inbuilt EMF app, it hums faintly, assenting that there is indeed a ghost in the building. Quite a corporal ghost as well if the readings are this strong.

He’ll have to go further in for the device to be clearer about the ghost’s exact location, so he pockets the PDA and brings the flashlight closer to him so that he can see where he is walking and its then that he feels the cool breeze, the whisper of something wintry, and Daehyun turns, eyes wide and alert because he knows these tell-tale signs and-

“Hello.”

“Ahhh!” Daehyun screams and jumps a foot into the air.

“Uh.”

“Who are you?” Daehyun squeaks, as he skitters back, his boots scuffing on the wooden flooring and his flashlight swerving about the room madly.

Calm down, he tells himself sternly. He gets control of his flashlight, bringing it up to in front of here where the source of the voice is and how did he not notice someone so close to him-

“I’m a ghost,” the ghost says dryly as Daehyun’s flashlight finally finds him standing no more than a meter away, the bright beam cutting right through his stomach and shining onto the dusty floorboard behind.

The ghost is a male in his early twenties. He’s dressed in a simple shirt and jeans combination and has a messy black cut, fringe swept back, and dark eyes that frankly, looked annoyed. He skin gleams with the characteristic translucent quality that all ghosts have and if Daehyun’s honest he doesn’t sound anything like the ghost described in the file, not tall, not late teens, and most definitely not shy.

“Um,” Daehyun starts, trying to suss things out and calm his racing heart at the same time, “do you have a name?”

“Of course I have a name,” the ghost says but doesn’t proceed to enlighten Daehyun with what it is. The ghost’s lips quirk upwards and Daehyun knows he’s having fun with this.

Daehyun sighs and tries to be courteous. “Would you mind telling me your name then?”

Those darkly amused eyes narrow. “Isn’t it good manners to offer yours first?”

“Oh,” Daehyun halts, surprised, but, well the ghost is sort of right. “Well I’m Daehyun. Jung Daehyun. I’m twenty two this year. My birthday is June 28 and I really like cheesecake.”

“I asked for a name not your three sizes,” the ghost says dryly and Daehyun feels his cheeks heat. He tries to ignore the smirk the ghost is sporting. 

“So your name?” Daehyun coughs. “Will you please tell me it now?”

“Youngjae,” the ghost finally relents. “Now are you here to help Junhong?”

“Junhong?” Daehyun echoes, confused at the sudden turn of conversation.   

“Yes Junhong,” the ghost says with a roll of his eyes. “I thought you Ghost Busters are meant to know your stuff. Don’t tell me you’re just some lost kid who thought it’d be fun to enter a haunted house and I’ve made a terrible, terrible mistake.”

Drama queen, Daehyun privately thinks with a sniff.

“I’m not a lost kid,” he corrects Youngjae the ghost primly. “And it’s Ghost Investigators, thank you very much.”

“Is that so Mr. Ghost Catcher,” Youngjae snipes back. “And you didn’t answer my question: are you here to help Junhong or not?”

“Like I’m said,” Daehyun says, suddenly feeling very tired. He wonders for how long he and this ghost are going to go round in circles. “Who is Junhong?”

“He’s a kid I met a few weeks back. Died of some accident that got the dance school closed down in the first place.” Daehyun feels his heart skip a beat and he starts listening more intently as Youngjae continues. “Whenever I talk to him he always sounds miserable but for some reason he refuses to part with this place, would just vanish outright whenever I broached the subject with him. In the end I figured it was best to get a third party to deal with this so I got one of those contractors to contact someone who could help.”

“You talked to a contractor to put in a request?” Daehyun gapes. Whilst ghosts do commonly talk to humans, they don’t really like involving investigators because for some reason or another they feel like it highlights that they’re ‘dead’ and most are quite happy to pretend they’re not.

“Not exactly,” Youngjae shrugs, one translucent hand vanishing as he makes a noncommittal gesture and the moonlight from the broken window erases the outlines of his surprisingly solid limb. “I just slipped a suggestion to him and he did the rest.”

Daehyun stares, shocked. “Ghosts can do that?”

Youngjae grins. “Ghosts can do a lot of things if we put our mind to it.”

His tone makes Daehyun shiver. He hopes not all ghosts are like this and it’s just a Youngjae exception.

“So your answer?” Youngjae reminds him, one ghostly foot tapping noiselessly on the floorboards.

Daehyun startles. “Well um, yes then, I think I’m here to help Junhong.”

“You think?” Youngjae interjects sharply, one eyebrow raised primly.

“I probably am,” Daehyun winces and amends, “but I can’t confirm that until I meet Junhong and see if he matches the description in my file.”

“And what if he isn’t the kid in your file?” Youngjae barks, eyes narrowing. “Will you still help him then?”

Daehyun cringes. “By right I’m not supposed to, not as a rank 3 investigator. We’re supposed to follow our mission files as instructed and not engage in any uncertain activities that could prove potentially perilous-“

“Seriously?” Youngjae cuts him off, a judgmental look in his eyes. “If they tell you not to then you’ll just obey? What? If they ask you to get on all fours and spin and bark three times will you?” 

Daehyun winces. “It’s not as simple as that.”

“It sounds as simple as that.”

“Well, um,” Daehyun gulps and tries to gain control over the situation which was definitely not included in the file, “why don’t you just introduce me to Junhong first. If he is the kid in the file then I can help him. If he’s not then well…”

“Well then what?” Youngjae looks at him demandingly.

Daehyun sighs. “Then I’ll try to do whatever I can anyway, okay?”

Youngjae gives him a long, suspicious look, but finally seems to realize that’s the best Daehyun can offer. “Fine,” he says shortly, turning around and heading further into the building. “I’ll let you talk to him. But I though you ghost whispers were supposed to help us no matter what.”

“We are, aren’t we?” Daehyun protests as he follows him. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

Youngjae glances at him over his ghostly shoulders that look surprisingly smooth and firm. His whole form flickers once, as if with doubt. “To me it just looks like you’re here to help yourselves,” he says. 

Daehyun’s eyes widen.

That’s not true, he thinks resentfully. Daehyun has always, always wanted to help ghosts. He made the decision that day at the hospital. He remembers it now, the phone call from his brother, the cold air-con chilling the perspiration on his neck, the pitying looks from the nurses around.

His brother had been sitting on the benches outside the hospital room, head in his hands, back hunched over. He hadn’t looked at Daehyun as he skidded to a stop outside the door that was printed with a temporary nameplate of ‘Jung’.

His father however had looked at him for the longest of times as he opened the sliding door and emerged, eyes red and face all of a sudden looking incredibly old. It was like he was trying to find the words to tell his son what had happened but his brain refused to cooperate. In the end he had shaken his head and slipped past Daehyun, leaving him with the open hospital door.

His mother had been waiting inside, sitting at the edge of the hospital bed, her hands folded in her lap. She had smiled when she had seen him at the doorway, called his name so sweetly that he had stumbled into the room unthinkingly even though his mind had screamed not to, because to enter and to speak with her was to admit that she was dead.

The curtains had been drawn to block out the harsh afternoon light. The room itself was so quiet that he could hear the ragged draw of his breath, the only noise in the room really.

“My Daehyunnie,” his mother had said softly and he had fallen at her ghostly knees, hands hovering above her lap. He had wanted to take her hands into his and hold them, but that was impossible.

She had turned her head and Daehyun had unconsciously followed, his eyes falling to her body that was still tucked under the hospital bedsheets. She looked like she could have been merely sleeping with her closed eyes and hair brushed neatly back.

“Eomma,” he had half whispered, half sobbed. He had been at school only because his mother had insisted. He should have ignored her and come straight to the hospital instead of wasting his time sitting at his desk distracted. But now it was too late now. Too late to regret. Too late to change things. “Eomma, I… I-“

“Shhh,” his mother had whispered and he had seen the desire in her eyes to bend down and brush away the tears with one hand. She had restrained herself and instead soothed him with her words. “I know. It’s okay,” she had said. Then, “Daehyun, I don’t have much time left.”

“What do you mean?” he had blinked, eyes blurred with tears and voice choked up with sobs. “You can stay, can’t you?”

She had shaken her head, gently but firmly. “I cannot,” she had said simply.

“But-“ he had gasped. “But you-“

“Ghosts persist if they had deep dreams or wishes that go unfulfilled,” she had said gently. “I have lived many years my dear. I have had a loving husband and two wonderful children. And I can move on happily. The only reason I am still here is because I want to say goodbye to you all. And I want to tell you Daehyun that no matter what happens, be yourself and follow your heart, okay?”

He had sobbed and nodded and it was an ugly parting for his wonderful mother who deserved flowers and fanfare, but he had nodded and agreed. “Okay eomma. I will. I will.”

Up until that point of time, Daehyun had thought that maybe when he finished high school he’d become a singer, or a baker, or a chef. Some job where he’d enjoy what he did and at the same time be able to give a little something to others.

But it was there and then that as he had knelt and watched his older brother and father come back into the room and cry and say their goodbyes, there as his mother smiled and looked the happiest she had in years since her illness had started, it was there that he seriously began to consider a future where he could genuinely help others. And by others he meant not just the living, but the dead as well.

Four years later and he was finally in the ranks of the ACGA. But strangely it was as he had finally achieved his goal that he was starting to doubt it.

The ACGA claimed that their goal was to help the living and dead alike. What Daehyun had seen in his times at the Academy and what he had observed in missions suggested elsewise.

The living took precedence, and that Daehyun understood. However in many cases, investigators and recruits seemed far too comfortable with ignoring the dead in favour of focusing solely on the living, and that Daehyun disliked.

It’s why Youngjae’s words hurt as they do now, because they add to his worries that the ACGA is slowly leaning towards helping only the living, a thought that is substantiated by the fact that ghosts seem to believe so as well. And Daehyun doesn’t want the ACGA to be that way. He wants them to seriously consider the well-beings of both parties, and he wants others to know that as well.

“I do,” Daehyun says loudly, enough to make Youngjae halt and turn around, puzzled.

“You do what?”

“I do care about ghosts,” Daehyun says feverently and it all comes tumbling out. “Equally, I care about the living. I don’t know exactly why you think I don’t but I do. It’s just that we’re set missions based on our capabilities and if I try to help a ghost that I don’t know I might be out of depth and I…” Daehyun stares at Youngjae’s bewildered expression and feels embarrassment flush his cheeks once again, “and I just want you to know that I want to help but I’m scared I’ll mess things up more. So… so please don’t say I’m here for myself. I’m here for you guys as well but there are other things I need to consider and… and…”

Youngjae’s mouth falls open and he stares and stares. Daehyun squirms and wonders what possessed him to say all of that, particularly to a complete stranger with a tongue more barbed than the wire that fences the military outpost.

“You worry too much,” Youngjae says quietly, much to Daehyun’s surprise. “I said too much earlier. I’m sorry. But you investigators don’t have a very good reputation with ghosts, you know that? So if you want me to believe that you are here for us, prove it. Help Junhong and prove it. Don’t worry about whether you can do it or not, just try, that’s all I need you to do.”

Youngjae turns abruptly and starting heading up the stairs.  

Daehyun stares after him and a smile spreads across his face.

“Well? Are you coming or not?” Youngjae barks, sounding sharper than usual.

“I am,” Daehyun laughs and hurries after him.

Maybe Youngjae is prickly and unwelcoming, but he doesn’t seem to be a bad guy. And if he’s willing to give Daehyun a second chance, then Daehyun is more than willing to offer him the same.

---

Junhong is a tall kid indeed. He sits cross legged in the second floor of dance studio with his back to the grimy mirror and his face tilted to a wide open window that by day would let in generous amounts of sunlight. Right now though, it is moonlight that floods weakly in, just enough to make his ghostly outline faint.

He turns at the sounds of Daehyun’s footfall, his eyes widening so comically large that Daehyun would have burst out laughing if he didn’t think it’d probably scare the kid away.

“He’s here to help Junhong,” Youngjae says but Junhong doesn’t relax those stiff shoulders.  

“Who he is?” he asks in a voice that is sharp and reedy like a boy in a body too big for himself. He looks at most sixteen.

“I’m Daehyun,” Daehyun says, stepping forwards and making himself appear as friendly as possible. Junhong shies away slightly as he comes closer, so Daehyun stops and lets him have his distance. “I’m a Ghost Investigator,” he says, tugging out his Agency ID and flipping it open to show Junhong. Junhong eyes it warily but at least does not laugh at Daehyun’s terrible ID photo which the Agency refuses to let him retake. “I’m here to help you.”

“How?” Junhong asks suspiciously.

“Youngjae tells me you’re unhappy here and I can help you with that. So will you tell me what’s wrong?”

Out of the corner of his eye Daehyun can see Youngjae frown, but he ignores him and kneels so that he can meet Junhong at eye level. He’s like a kitten, all wide eyes and a propensity to curl in on himself. Okay, so he’s a pretty giant kitten but all the same, Daehyun’s dealt with tons of stray cats back home (the ghost cat in Hongdae is an exception) and Junhong reacts very much the same as they did, shoulders softening and eyes rounding with interest when Daehyun settles into a comfortable cross legged position on the dusty floor.

“It’s because I’m dead,” Junhong says softly, eyes cast downwards.

“Do you want to move on?” Daehyun asks. “If you do that’s perfectly okay. A lot of ghosts find themselves in situations like this, where they’ve been revived but realize they don’t want to be here. As a ghost investigator I’m trained to help you move on if you want to.”

Junhong shakes his head, floppy black hair flicking back and forth. “No,” he says quietly. “I don’t want to move on.”                                                                                                        

Youngjae’s expression of surprise mirrors his own. Is he perhaps mourning after his time alive then? If so, then Daehyun will have to help him come to terms with it. “Why not?” he asks, trying to understand Junhong.

“If I move on I can’t dance here anymore can I?” Junhong says mournfully and Daehyun’s eyes widen with understanding.

“But Junhong-ah,” he says, trying to be approachable, “it’s good you want to dance, but could you not dance elsewise?”

“Why does it have to be elsewhere?” Junhong says mutinously. “I like it here.”

“But this place,” Daehyun says, hands gesturing about at random, “you know they’re planning to demolish it, right?”

“They can’t,” Junhong snaps, his voice suddenly pitched and eyes dark as tar. “They can’t take this place away from me.”

“But Junhong,” Daehyun says softly, “I’m afraid they can. There are people who own this place, with papers and deeds and stuff. They’ve sold this place to contractors who want to rebuild some houses here.”

“No,” Junhong hisses. “This is my place. This is my dance studio. If you take it away from me I…” his eyes widen fearfully. “Go away,” he snaps and curls up tighter.

Daehyun does not like the way things are turning out. “Junhong-ah-“ he tries to say coaxingly.

“Don’t call me that!” Junhong snarls and Daehyun freezes. Fear creeps down his spine as he takes in Junhong, eyes wide and black as pitch, mouth bared, and teeth white as bone. But his skin, it shines translucent as he comes under the moon’s light and he is a ghost through and through. Sometimes, Daehyun has to remind himself that there are reasons why ghost investigators are trained in combat.

“Don’t act like you know me!” Junhong snaps.  “Don’t act like you know what’s best for me! Don’t tell me I can’t stay here! You’re just another one of those people, aren’t you? Thinking that they know better and I’m the one who’s made the mistake.”

“That’s not what I’m trying to do Junhong!” Daehyun protests but Junhong is not hearing him anymore.

The air is growing cold. A rush of wind sweeps across the room despite the closed window. His flashlight flickers once and then goes out. Now the only source of illumination in the room is from the moon above. Its gentle light makes the two ghosts look even more unearthly. Besides him Daehyun sees Youngjae back away, fear stripping away all the previous snark and sass.

“Junhong please!” Daehyun begs above the growing noise in the room. “If you want to continue dancing then that’s fine. I can help you with that! But why does it have to be this place? We can find you somewhere better, somewhere cleaner and with bigger floor space and larger mirrors and-“

He’s cut off by the sudden chill that grips him by the throat. His limbs lock and he drops to his hands and knees, gasping and wheezing for breath. His flashlight falls from his fingers, hitting the floor with a loud thunk and rolling away.

Junhong is glowing now, his outlines white and his body flickering so fast it makes Daehyun dizzy.

He knows what this means. And this is not what a rank 3 mission is supposed to be like.

“Junhong!” he calls out hoarsely over the whistling air, the moth eaten curtain whipping back and forth by the window and there’s vicious darkness in Junhong’s eyes as he consumes the energy in the room: the electricity that thrums through the skeleton of the building, the batteries in his PDA and flashlight, most worryingly, the energy of his own soul.  

“Jun…hong…” he groans as he sees white spots dance at the corner of his eyes.

This is much more dangerous than a rank three mission. It’s dangerous enough to be a rank two, probably even a rank one.

He’s only ever seen cases like these in videos, of ghosts going out of control, focusing on only one desire, and that is to consume.

Ghosts, as the grey bearded lecturer had said a long time ago, are raw energy. Their desire to fulfil the dreams that they had when they were living drives them to form a corporal body, and they do so by consuming the radioactive energy in the air. Throughout the rest of their ghosthood, they must consistently consume more in order to maintain that form.

Usually the leftover radiation leftover is enough to sustain them. Ultimately though, energy is energy and ghosts are able to consume from other sources, namely that of electricity.

It’s a spoken agreement after several incidents that ghosts are not to consume electricity as a source, and if they must, they are to get in contact with the government who will arrange a separate source for them. This prevents problems like power outages in important places, such as hospitals, or high security locations.

However from time to time ghosts may lose control of themselves. When that happens, their minds narrow to a singular objective: to fulfil their dreams, and how to do that? Well first they need to exist. And so they start to consume. First the radiation in the area around them, then the electricity in their surroundings, and if that too is then exhausted, they then reach out to a third source: the living.

Humans after all are energy too. Not in the typical sense as energy that can be harnessed and used to power machinery and technology, but it has been determined that ghosts view humans as a source of endless dreams and possibilities, and the fact that they can generate those and fulfil them is, to a ghost, energy that can feed their own dreams as well.

Now whilst absorbing a human’s energy – or the soul, as it has been dubbed, for what is a soul but your dreams and hopes and your essence –do not cause a ghost to persist for longer, but ghosts cannot tell the difference when they out of control and so they will continue to consume anything that they consider energy until there is nothing left to be consumed. And that is a dangerous position for anyone around a ghost to be in.

This is where the Agency is involved. Ghost Investigators are trained first and foremost to deal with when a ghost goes out of control. They have two options when it comes to such a scenario. The first is to bring a ghost back to its senses and stop it from consuming energy. The second, if that fails, is to expel the ghost.

Right now Junhong falls into the latter category. He is refusing to listen to reason but and is starting to consume from a secondary source, but all the same, Daehyun is reluctant to use the latter solution just yet.

To expel a ghost means to extinguish them of all their energy, and that in essence will remove the ghost from this plane.

Some investigators prefer this solution over the first. It’s simpler, less messy, and a lot easier to perform. It’s why Daehyun has begun to have doubts about the ACGA. And therefore to Daehyun who has always believed that both ghosts and humans deserve happiness, he hates the option with a passion because it’s the same as crushing that ghost and its dreams to tiny, tiny pieces. And Junhong of all ghosts does not deserve such a thing.

“Junhong! Please, calm down!” he coughs as he feels his whole body going numb. “Let’s try to talk-“

It’s like there’s a hand about his heart, squeezing tightly and he chokes on his words, gasping for breath – for life.

“Jun-“

And then it vanishes. Daehyun looks up, still feeling incredibly weak and out of breath, and there he sees Youngjae with his hands on Junhong’s shoulders.

They glow; the two of them, like unearthly beings sent from the heavens above, so beautiful and thrumming with so much energy, and the moon is high above them, watching over in a cold, regal manner. Belatedly Daehyun realizes what Youngjae is about to do. But by the time he throws up one hand, it’s too late, and Youngjae has pushed Junhong backwards, through the glass window that protests and shatters under the sheer energy of Junhong, and out the window they go, falling down and down. Daehyun stares after them dumbly thinking, did Youngjae just save him?

A heartbeat later, he realizes this is exactly not the moment to be thinking that. He forces himself to his feet, swaying slightly still. His bones feel like liquid, his head aches. He shivers from the chill of being sapped from. But Youngjae is out there and Daehyun doesn’t know if he realizes it as well but ghosts can be form of energy as well.

He scrabbles to his feet and pounds down the staircase, unthinking of how they creak viciously and threaten to give way beneath his heavy soled boots.

Youngjae and Junhong are in the back garden of the old studio where there are old plastic chairs piled in the corner and white tape cordoning off the area. Plans for construction are already under way.

Youngjae lies prostrate on the ground face down. Behind him is Junhong howling, his head in his hands. True to Daehyun’s musing, the kid towers above them all.

Junhong is no longer flickering now. Daehyun takes it as a sign that he’s regained sense of himself and is no longer consuming energy.

Still, he approaches him warily. “Junhong?” he asks carefully.

Junhong jerks his head up to look at Daehyun. His eyes are still black as a moonless night, but at least he seems in more control of himself now.

“I… I didn’t mean to-“ he stutters, his voice pitched and reedy again.

“I know you didn’t,” Daehyun says firmly. The last thing he wants Junhong to do is blame himself and go out of control again. Junhong is young and he’s scared. It’s a terrible combination and he needs to handle Junhong more carefully.

This is half his fault anyway. He should have led the conversation more slowly, chosen his words better. He should have asked Youngjae more before approaching Junhong. There are a lot of things he should have done better but those are mistakes he’ll just have to learn from the next time round.

He takes a deep breath and tries to think of what Himchan would do, of what Yongguk would say.

“Listen to me Junhong,” he says in what he hopes is a calming voice.  

Junhong trembles, but he focuses on Daehyun, and that’s a good sign. “O-okay,” he croaks.

“I want you to look at me and count with me to a hundred aloud, okay?”

Junhong gives a kind of jerky bob nod. “Okay,” he says quickly. “Okay.”

Daehyun begins. “One, two, three…”

Junhong follows with him, a little too quickly at first and his words trip over each other. “Four, five, six…”

“Seven, eight, nine,” Daehyun speaks slowly but clearly, projecting his voice as loud as he can so that Junhong can hear him over himself. Slowly Junhong realizes and he slows himself down, aligning himself to Daehyun until he follows at the same pace.

“Ten, eleven, twelve…”

They continue in that way until they’ve hit fifty six and Daehyun notices Youngjae twitching on the ground. Junhong notices as well and his voice hitches when they get to sixty two.

“Keep going,” Daehyun says calmly and Junhong swallows but follows.

By the time they hit eighty nine Youngjae is stirring, groaning and fingers flexing.

They get to one hundred and Junhong is calm and Youngjae is conscious again.

“That was good,” Daehyun says softly, praising Junhong and watching as Junhong slowly relaxes, his shoulders going loose and his limbs unfolding.

Youngjae has managed to pull himself into a sitting position now. He groans and rubs at his temple. When he touched Junhong back there, out of control, Junhong must have subconsciously switched from sapping Daehyun’s life energy to sucking away at Youngjae’s life energy. The shock must have caused Youngjae to go unconscious. It’s a good sign to see him moving now but Daehyun hopes the consumption hasn’t affected Youngjae’s consciousness.  

“I’m sorry hyung,” Junhong mumbles, tripping over his words. He looks like he wants to go to Youngjae’s side, touch him in the way only ghosts can touch one another, but at the same time he’s afraid of doing more harm and Daehyun understands that fear.

“It’s okay Junhong,” Youngjae groans and Daehyun’s heart heaves with relief that Youngjae is still himself. “Are you calmer now?”

“I… uh… yes.”

Youngjae glances over at Daehyun. “I see you finally made yourself useful.”

Daehyun frowns. “Be nice. I just saved your life.”

“After I saved yours,” Youngjae retorts smartly and well, Daehyun can’t exactly counter that. He turns back to Junhong.

“Listen to me Junhong, I need you to stay calm. If you lose control of your emotions again you might start sapping energy again and you could kill both me and Youngjae, do you understand that?”

He speaks slowly and softly like Junhong is a deer and loudness may cause him to flee.  

“I understand…” Junhong mumbles to his feet.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Daehyun tries to reassure him. He takes one, two, three steps closer and when Junhong doesn’t look like he’s about to bolt, he continues talking. “You didn’t mean it. I know that. Youngjae knows that. I just want you to understand what happened so that we can talk. I want to help you. Youngjae also wants to help you. So can we talk?”

Junhong’s eyes flick up from his feet to Daehyun and he bites at his lower lip, still a little scared, but then slowly, softly, he nods.

Daehyun smiles and takes another step closer, noting with an internal sigh that he’s at least a good foot shorter than Junhong.

He keeps that to himself.

---

Junhong tells them everything about himself.

He was thirteen when he first decided that he wanted to pursue dance as a profession, fifteen when he finally bought that flimsy bus ticket that had taken him all the way to Seoul. However things hadn’t gone as perfectly as he had hoped and the companies refused him one by one, stating that he was too young and the sorts.

Slowly his money had dwindled, but instead of returning home defeated he had chosen to find a cheap place to stay so that he could keep on trying. And that had turned out to be this run down dance studio. It was perfect in a sense. He had a place to sleep and a place to practise until the day he could get himself signed on to something more professional.

The studio was owned by an old man in his seventies whose son was the actual owner on paper, but who had been bitten by the love bug and vanished halfway off the globe after some pretty girl, leaving the old man in charge to maintain it to the best of his abilities.

He would pay the old man a fistful of cash that he made from a part time job at the end of every week and the old man would lend him his son’s old room on the first floor which was dusty and scant but enough for Junhong to be so very grateful that he had bowed until his nose had touched his knees.

However there was a limit to how long he could stay grateful for. It was by no means the old man’s fault, but rather his own worries and fears that grew with every passing day and every rejected application.

One night he had woken up from a nightmare filled with failure and it had driven him to the second floor studio. There in the light of the moon he had danced and danced until the sun had started to rise, dusting the studio room in a dusty pink filter. Junhong had thought of nothing of the tiredness in his limbs or the creaking in the floors and walls about him. All he could think was that with every step and every dance it was one tiny step closer to becoming accepted.

And then it had happened.

One wrong twist, a fall, floorboards that had been slowly worn down over the past twenty years and it was almost amazing that they hadn’t given way before then.

Junhong tells them in a quiet voice that he had only fallen through one floor, but he had landed all wrong. A concussion, broken bones, blood pooling in all the wrong places. By the time the old man had arrived the next day to collect his weekly payment, Junhong’s body was already cold and bleak.

They had closed down the dance studio afterwards, citing that it was too old and too costly for renovations. Plus no one wanted to rent a studio where someone had died. 

Junhong’s body had been shipped back to his parents who had sobbed through an entire funeral that Junhong had not even been present for.

Instead in the week or so that it had taken the police to finish their investigation and for the funeral preparations to be completed, Junhong’s consciousness had remained in the old studio, biding its time and consuming all the scant energy within reach. Three days after his funeral he had a corporal form and could once again he could dance.

Except no longer could he be signed up for professional training because that was for the living and he was stone, cold dead.

He thought multiple times about just giving up and moving on for what point was there in staying and dancing if he could not be signed on professionally, but every time he tried to walk away from the second floor studio and down the stairs, ignoring very blatantly the hole in the floor, he would feel a twinge in his no longer beating heart.

It would only get worse as he stepped out the building. His heart would ache and his skin would crawl like there were scorpions stinging and earwigs crawling. He would feel a scream build in his throat.

It was only when he returned to the dance studio that he would feel at peace once again and Junhong knew that even if he was dead and even if he could no longer fulfil the dreams of dancing on a stage, he could not give up dance so easily.

Dancing was fun. Dancing had always been fun, but it was even better now. His body was lighter; his energy unlimited. Junhong tried not to question it and how these benefits had come at the cost of his ultimate dream of dancing professionally because to question it would invite back the itch and so he did not dare.

Even when Youngjae came and tried to coax him away, he refused to listen. When the contractors arrived, he would slip away before any of them could open their mouths. He tried to avoid anything that would make him think of what he had lost.

But when Daehyun came, Junhong knew he could run no longer.

“Just because you’re dead doesn’t mean it’s all over,” Daehyun says now.

“What do you mean?” Junhong says, trying to bite back the retort at the tip of his tongue. “I’m dead. I can dance but I’ll never dance on a stage. And now those contractor men want me out, so I can’t even stay in this place anymore.”

“Why does it have to be this place?” Daehyun asks with a tilt of his head, genuine curiosity and care in his eyes. “You could dance anywhere couldn’t you?”

Junhong shakes his head with a wry smile. “Who would want a ghost to dance near them? Dancing here is better. It’s quiet and it’s not like I can die again.”

“Junhong-ah,” Daehyun says mirthfully. “This is the first time you’ve lived in a big city right?”

Junhong blinks, confused. “Well, yes.”

“And I’m guessing you didn’t go out much,” Daehyun continues, his eyes lighting up with amusement.

“Well other than work and grocery shopping, no not really.”

Daehyun lets out a bark of laughter. “Then you really don’t know? Being a ghost doesn’t limit you at all Junhong-ah, not at least here in the big city.”

“W-what do you mean?”

“About five years ago they passed a law that stated that ghosts were to be allowed the same rights as humans – well with a few exceptions here and there – but since then it’s opened up a lot more opportunities for ghosts. I don’t know what it’s like in the other cities, but in the main four that have ACGA branches – Seoul, Busan, Incheon, and Daegu – you’ll find that people are actually really welcoming to ghosts.”

“So…” Junhong blinks. “You mean…”

Daehyun grins broadly. “If you want to dance then dance. No one will stop you here, not in Seoul, not in the city with the largest ghost population in all of South Korea.”

“Then…” Junhong croaks. “It’s okay? Is it okay for me to be selfish and say I want to still dance even though I lost everything by choosing dance?”

“Death isn’t the end Junhong,” Daehyun says kindly. Besides him he notices Youngjae stiffen. “You may be dead, but your dreams are very much alive, and if you want to pursue them, then well, can’t you think of it like being given a second chance?”

Junhong stares and Youngjae stares and Daehyun is beginning to feel very self-conscious when suddenly Junhong’s face breaks into the larges smile he’s seen on the boy yet.

“Will you help me then?” Junhong asks shyly.

“Of course,” Daehyun grins. “That’s what I’m here to do.”

“I thought you were here to get rid of me,” Junhong confesses. “That’s why I didn’t want to listen to you. That’s why I got scared.”

“I’m sorry,” Daehyun says genuinely. “But really, that’s only our last resort solution. If we can we’re to talk things out. That’s how it goes with the living isn’t it? You try to talk and if it doesn’t work then you use force, except force is never really good so the best situation is always when you can talk. And why should it be any different for a ghost?”

“So…” Junhong says slowly.

“So,” Daehyun echoes with a smile on his face. He stands and holds out a hand to Junhong.  “You want to dance right?”

“I do,” he says softly and reaches over to place one palm next to Daehyun’s, not quite touching but hovering right there, and it’s enough for Daehyun to feel a subtle electric thrum which is what occurs when the living and the dead come into near contact.

 “Then,” Daehyun beams, smile growing broader when Junhong returns with a large smile of his, “let’s find you somewhere to dance yeah?”  

---

If Daehyun’s really honest with Junhong and Youngjae, he’s technically stretched the AGCA policies a little.

By right a ghost investigator should wrap up their missions cleanly. This means a clear cut decision by the end of the night, with the ghost expelled, settled, or re-directed onto a new path. Ghost Investigators are not really supposed to be hand holding the ghost onto their new futures because if they did that for every ghost that came along, there wouldn’t be enough investigators to go around.

It’s probably because this is Daehyun’s first mission and because Junhong is so young, but he feels like he owes Junhong this little deviation at least.

Well he says that, but in the end the one who really solves everything is Himchan who he calls, and who then puts him through to Yongguk who chides him for his recklessness but eventually relents (because frankly Yongguk would have done the same if he had been in Daehyun’s position, but just a more smartly) and tells him he’s done a good job and to bring the ghost back to HQ where he’ll see if he can pull some strings and help the ghost.

True to his word, when Daehyun arrives back at HQ with Youngjae and Junhong in tow, Himchan and Yongguk are waiting for him outside.

They greet him cheerfully, Himchan gleefully amused at the way Daehyun’s mission has turned out and Yongguk shaking his head resignedly and poking Himchan to stop whispering in his ear.

Daehyun makes the introductions and Himchan and Yongguk then whisk Junhong away for further debrief and hopefully, the beginnings of a search for a place where Junhong can truly belong.

Just like that it’s suddenly quiet and with it brings exhaustion, thick and heavy. Daehyun shoves his hands deep in his pockets as he stares up at the scattered window lights of the ACGA. It’s half three in the morning but it seems there are plenty of people still working. Somehow that makes Daehyun crave his bed all the more.

But he can’t. Not just yet.

Daehyun glances down to look over at Youngjae who is staring at the building like he’s enraptured with it. It makes him realize belatedly that he hasn’t thanked Youngjae for what he did back there.

“Hey,” he coughs, trying to grab Youngjae’s absent attention.

Youngjae looks over at him slowly, his gaze drifting downwards like a leaf freshly fallen from a very tall tree.

“Hey what?” he says absentmindedly, all that sass suddenly gone now that Junhong has been helped. Daehyun wonders if he should be worried.

“Hey so, I never got round to thanking you,” he says roughly, rubbing at his nose.

Youngjae blinks, surprised. “I didn’t do much,” he shrugs.

“You saved my life,” Daehyun points out. “Junhong could have sapped me completely but you pushed him away. If you hadn’t helped me then this case might not have been resolved as well as it did.”

Youngjae ducks his head. “It was just a spurt of the moment thing,” he says quietly. “Junhong was going out of control and you were on your knees gasping for breath and I… I just did what first came to my mind.”

Daehyun doesn’t say it, but he thinks that speaks for something about Youngjae’s character.

“Why were you trying to help him?” he asks, feeling like an answer to this will help him suss out Youngjae’s true intentions. “Did you know Junhong when you were alive or something?”

Youngjae shakes his head. “No. He’s a complete stranger to me. The only similarities we shared were that we were around the same age, and we were alone.” He pauses and gives Daehyun a searching gaze.

“What?” Daehyun asks, feeling self-conscious all of a sudden at Youngjae’s introspective look.

“I died when I was twenty,” Youngjae says slowly and Daehyun nods, unsure of where he’s leading the conversation to. “I died in a bus accident that was heading to Seoul. I was supposed to attend my first year at the Academy the following week.”

Daehyun’s eyes widen.

“You-“ he chokes. “You were going to be a ghost investigator? But… your age?”

“Yeah,” Youngjae says roughly. “Most recruits are eighteen but there are no rules against applications of older age. My parents were against me joining and they encouraged me to go to a university for computing instead. But in the end my heart wasn’t in it and it took a long time for me to convince them. Eventually they agreed and I made the application, switched over, and I was all ready to make a fresh start and then…” Youngjae exhales harshly and looks down at the ground, “and then the accident happened.”

“Is that why you tried to help Junhong?” Daehyun can’t help but ask.

Youngjae frowns. “Maybe?” he says, sounding rather unsure. “I don’t really know. I woke up on this highway after I died and I ended up just walking the rest of the way to Seoul. I knew I couldn’t become a ghost investigator anymore but… I guess part of me didn’t want to just give up after all I had done to try and get there.”

He pauses and takes a long, dragging breath. “But I couldn’t,” he says quietly. “I know I wasn’t trained or anything but I thought what the hell, good intensions should be good enough. Only it wasn’t. Junhong was the third ghost I tried to help. The first ran away and I never found her again, the second got himself expelled, and with Junhong,” he shoots Daehyun a wry smile, “well you saw how well I was doing with him.”

“That’s why you contacted the ACGA when you realized what you were doing wasn’t working, right?”

Youngjae nods. “I didn’t want to do it because that was admitting that I couldn’t help a ghost unless I was properly trained and everything… but... but I was at my wits end with Junhong. I didn’t want to see him expelled, but neither did I want to see him so miserable all the time. So I caved, and then you came.”

“So that’s why you were so horrible to me when we first met!” Daehyun squeaks, pointing an accusatory finger at Youngjae.

“I wasn’t that bad,” Youngjae frowns. “I was just teasing you a little.”

“No way,” Daehyun shakes his head vehemently. “You were terrible! Calling me ghost buster and whisperer and-“ he blinks twice as realization washes over him. “And you knew! You knew we were called ghost investigators!”

Youngjae throws his head back and laughs, loud and boisterous. Somehow it softens Daehyun’s rage a little even though he wants to give him a proper scolding for playing around with him.  

“Ah,” Youngjae sighs, staring up again at the towering silhouette of the ACGA headquarters. “To think I could have been working here. If I hadn’t died I would probably have graduated in the next two years.”  

“That means you’re a year younger than I am,” Daehyun says suddenly like the fact is incredibly important.

Youngjae turns to look at him, and then he laughs again. “I guess I am,” he says with deep amusement.

Daehyun however feels the opposite. His chest aches like a physical sadness at the thought that maybe, just maybe, the two of them could have been friends if Youngjae’s accident had not happened.

He doesn’t voice this thought because somehow he knows that Youngjae is thinking the very same thing.

Youngjae exhales then, long and luxurious as he stretches, rising up on his toes. “Now then,” he says brightly. “I guess I should go.”

“What?” Daehyun blurts out so quickly that it makes Youngjae smirk.

“Well I can’t hang around here for the rest of my ghostly life,” Youngjae says reasonably. “And it’s been evident that I can’t really save ghosts by myself.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” Youngjae shrugs. “Wander around for a bit. See if anything catches my mind. Maybe if I spot a ghost or two in trouble I’ll make a call into the Agency, yeah?”

Daehyun swallows. “Will I… will I see you again?”

Youngjae turns to him, surprised at first, but then the expression softens. “Who knows,” he says with an air of mystery, but then winks. “Maybe if you’re lucky Mr. Ghost Hunter.”  

“It’s Ghost Investigator thank you very much, “ Daehyun snipes back before he can catch himself.

Youngjae laughs, a lively bubbling stream of sound that is infectious and Daehyun finds himself laughing despite of everything.

“Until next time,” Youngjae says, smiling and with one hand raised in goodbye as he steps back into a shadow and vanishing almost completely.

“Yeah, until then,” Daehyun waves back, but he’s too late and Youngjae is gone. He’s still exhausted and he wants nothing more than to head for home and hope the ghost cat is not there tonight, but then he stops and stares at his hand and realizes that more than tiredness, he feels… lonely?

It’s strange that he feels such a way for someone who half a day ago was but a stranger, but Daehyun has never connected so well with another person before. He wasn’t even that close with Himchan until after a week and at least three free cheesecakes from Yongguk.

But with Youngjae he feels like he can speak his mind in a way he’s never done so with anyone, not even with his family. He stares at his hand, clenching and unclenching, the bones of his dreams flitting away and he realizes that Youngjae has helped saved him in more than one way tonight.

A smile comes over his face and he makes a silent promise to thank him the next time.

Daehyun heads for home and the entire way there, he spends it hoping that that time comes soon.  

---

Daehyun is given the rest of the week off as a reward for a job well done. He mostly spends the week sleeping, awakening only to eat, shower, and write up the rest of his report which isn’t due in till the week after.

Four days after parting with Junhong, Himchan sends him a message with several attached pictures of Junhong in some wide opened spaced room, smiling so brightly that he could blind. His image is a little blurry the way ghosts always are in photographs, but behind him Daehyun can make out the clearer forms of what clearly are humans. They smile and make V signs behind Junhong and don’t look the least perturbed by a ghost amongst their numbers. In fact if Daehyun squints he thinks he can make out what looks like other ghosts in the background as well.

Himchan’s following text affirms that.

Bbang found him this place where apparently a lot of other ghosts frequent. It’s not exactly a dance studio but more like a gathering place for people who like music and dance in general? I think he likes it. We’re giving him a trial period there. Address is below if you want to go visit him (which Bbang strongly suggests as he’s technically your responsibility now)

Daehyun smiles and honestly, this is one responsibility he doesn’t mind at all.

Another beep and the second message reads, btw we’ve got your next mission file if you’re interested.

Something in Daehyun lifts, something heavy that’s been settling on his chest for the past few days. He wonders now if it’s the inactivity and the isolation. Maybe like his mother once said, he’s not made to deal with sitting still.   

A shower, sandwich and twenty minutes later, Himchan is handing him another manila file. This time his hands do not shake and Himchan smiles knowingly.

“The first mission is always the most difficult,” he says sagely and grins when Daehyun sticks a tongue out at him.

“You still need to treat me to soju and grill,” he reminds Himchan and Himchan scowls.

“You have a bottomless stomach,” he complains as he throws himself down into his chair. 

“You made the promise,” Daehyun shrugs unashamedly.

“Fine,” Himchan rolls his eyes. “Tomorrow night, how does that sound? I’ll get Yongguk to clear out all his work tonight so that he’s free tomorrow. Do you want to invite Junhong as well? I mean he can’t eat but-“

Daehyun beams. “That sounds like a brilliant idea.”

“Well then,” Himchan says, suddenly very gloomily, “I guess I better finish off all my paperwork then. I was planning to leave it till next week you know, but Bbang won’t let me eat if I don’t finish.”

Daehyun laughs and wishes him luck as he lets himself out.

Unlike his previous missions in which he usually locks himself in a prep room or Himchan and Yongguk’s office to study the material until his eyes begin to burn, Daehyun decides to read the material outdoors today. 

He picks a comfortable looking park bench a few hundred meters away from the ACGA entrance and settles down in the shade of the tree to open the file and inspect its contents.

Like with Junhong, this ghost is a male in his late teens and apparently a dancer. Unlike Junhong he is described as short and stocky, and this time his name and cause of death is known.

Moon Jongup died aged nineteen from saving an elderly woman from being hit by a car late one night when the lights had been bad and the roads slick from an afternoon shower.

He doesn’t seem to hold any grudges or show signs of particular violence, hence the rank 3 label. In fact he’s described as very amicable and willing to answer any and all questions. The request itself seems to have been put forwards by the old lady, whom Jongup has been hanging around and taking care of. However she is to be relocated to her daughter’s house all the way in Busan next week and she worries that Jongup will be left alone. Therefore she wants an investigator to help find him a new home.   

Daehyun squints at the details and really hopes this mission goes a lot more peaceably than Junhong’s had. At the very least he’d like to not have the whole loss-of-control and soul sucking part.

“Nah, I don’t think you’ll have that much trouble,” a vexingly familiar voice says very close to his ear. It makes Daehyun jump and feels that static cold shock in his shoulder as he passes through a ghostly body.

“Youngjae!” Daehyun complains, shifting over to make room for Youngjae on the bench so that his shoulder won’t be permanently numbed.

Youngjae laughs, eyes bright and lips curved in a wide smile as he drops himself down onto the seat. “You’re so easily surprised, are you sure you’re cut out to be a mighty Ghost Investigator.

“It’s Ghost Investigator,” Daehyun corrects him like almost second nature until he realizes that Youngjae said it correctly.

He stares at Youngjae and Youngjae cackles.

“Caught you there.”

Daehyun pulls a face. “What are you doing here anyway? I thought you were supposed to be locked up in some room, reflecting over your life’s choices and decided whether to stay or go on.”

“What part of our previous conversation led you to believe that I need to isolate myself in order to come to terms with my near future plans?” Youngjae frowns, both eyebrows raised high. Daehyun sniffs and vows to never tell Youngjae that that is what he does with imminent mission plans.

“That’s not an answer,” Daehyun snipes and Youngjae snickers.

“Sure it’s not. But that’s the fun of it.”

“C’mon,” Daehyun groans. “Just get to the point and tell me why you’re here.”

Youngjae blinks at him owlishly. He’s wearing a thick woollen sweater and jeans today, round rimmed glasses propped up on his nose. If there’s one upside to being a ghost it’s never having to spend another won on clothing ever again. “Do you not want me to be here?” he says in a suddenly subdued voice.

“No! It’s not like that!” Daehyun hurries to protest. “It’s just… I wasn’t sure we’d meet again so soon.”  

The smile returns to Youngjae’s eyes and Daehyun realizes with a sudden rush that he’s become rather fond of that smile. “You and your silly deductions,” he says with an air of what Daehyun hopes is affection. “I’m here because I decided that whilst I probably won’t ever be able to help a ghost the way ghost investigators can, I can at least help ghosts by helping a ghost investigator.”

Daehyun blinks twice like he’s still half asleep and nothing really hearing things properly. “You mean…?”

Youngjae grins and leans over to nudge Daehyun in the side which results in his left arm feeling like it’s been dunked in the sub-zero Pacific.

“I mean helping you, silly,” he grins.

“Seriously?” Daehyun gapes and Youngjae’s smile folds away into seriousness for a moment.

“I know it’s not an orthodox arrangement but I’ve never heard of a rule against a ghost helping a ghost investigator.”

Daehyun licks his lips. “Well… no… there isn’t, but…” but that’s because no one’s ever thought of that possibility.

Normally investigators go through years and ranks of solo missions or temporarily team units until they find a partner whom they’re willing to work with and entrust their backs to – partners who historically have always been human – and it’s far too early for Daehyun to even be considering a partner, but well, the way his heart gives an excited little backflip at the thought of working with Youngjae, talking more with Youngjae, having the chance to be friends with Youngjae, it seems to speak on its behalf for him already.

Follow your heart, his mother had said.

Daehyun looks over at Youngjae and thinks he’s pretty fortunate his heart speaks so clearly.  

“So?” Youngjae says, a smile creeping over his ghostly face that suggests he already knows Daehyun’s answer.

Daehyun sighs heavily. “So,” he says, trying not to grin and failing spectacularly, “I think you should read the mission file before we set out.”

Youngjae laughs and this time, Daehyun has absolutely no qualms about joining in with him.

---

Epilogue: Youngjae assists Daehyun on his second ‘solo’ mission and two minutes into talking with Jongup, Daehyun messes up which leads Jongup to believe they’re trying to kidnap the old lady and he proceeds to forcibly throw them out of the house because of course Moon Jongup is one of the few ghosts around that has developed supernatural powers. Outside Daehyun lies flat on his back on the tarmac with the wind knocked out of him and Youngjae laughing his head off above him and Daehyun is quickly beginning to reconsider this whole ghost-help-ghost-investigator thing big time.

Epilogue 2: Youngjae however then proceeds to save Daehyun’s ass again by talking with Jongup and calming him down so that Daehyun can finally negotiate. They succeed and Jongup agrees to peacefully part with the old lady. However to Daehyun’s horror he then decides to tag along with Daehyun and now Daehyun is forced to head back to base for the second time with a ghost (other than Youngjae) in tow. There Yongguk shakes his head, sighs, and then hands him a business card of the studio where Junhong is at and tells him this time he can take the ghost there himself. Himchan as usual is absolutely no help as he laughs at Daehyun’s problems and then proceeds to coo over what a sweet ghost Jongup is despite the story Daehyun explicitly told him involved being kicked literally out of a house. And as always, Youngjae is just there snickering at Daehyun’s misfortune and Daehyun thinks with a sigh that he might as well reconsider his entire life while he’s at it.

Epilogue 3: That’s all a lie. Daehyun loves his life and no matter how many laughing Youngjae’s there are in it, he probably wouldn’t change a thing.

---

The end