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June
The moving box hits the floor with a thud.
“Last one” Daishou yells to the seemingly empty house.
Mika pokes her head out of one of the rooms further in.
“Already?” She makes her way toward Daishou.
“Either I’m stronger than you think or you have way less things than you think” Daishou wraps his arms around Mika as she reaches him.
“Sounds like I need more things,” Mika leans into the embrace.
“I did not say that,” Daishou responds.
“That’s what I heard,” Mika says, with a smile on her face.
“I’m sure” Daishou says and leans down to press a kiss against her lips.
“Welcome home” he whispers and rests his head on top of hers, looking out into the apartment.
*****
“Is it just me or did it just get cold in here?” a shiver runs down Mika’s spine and she wraps her arms around herself.
“A little?” Daishou says but the tone suggests he isn’t really sure.
“I’ll just grab a sweater,” Mika says and gets up from the table. A few seconds later she yells to Daishou from the bedroom.
“Have you seen my favourite sweater anywhere? You know the pink one?” Mika pokes her head back into the living room. Daishou shakes his head. “I swear I’ve just seen it in here.” She emerges in a light green sweater moments later.
“I think green is much better anyway” Daishou says and pulls her onto his lap.
“Uh huh” Mika laughs, “but I really like the pink one” she pouts and looks at him with pleading eyes.
“We’ll find it” He promises, “in the meantime I can help keep you warm.” He wraps his arms tightly around her, holding her in his embrace.
July
“Suguru!” Mika yells, summoning her boyfriend from some other room.
“Please don’t take the charger out of my phone when you know I’m going somewhere” she complains with a tired expression on her face.
“I promise I didn’t, I haven’t even been in here” Diashou defends himself.
“Then why is it dead?” Mika waves the phone around for him to see that the screen is black.
“I don’t know, are you sure you plugged it in?” Daishou says. At the sight of the glare Mika shoots him, he holds up his hands in surrender.
“Okay, okay, I’ll drive you so you have some extra time getting ready, or you can take my phone for the night,” he suggests and walks over to her, grabbing her hand.
“Thank you” Mika sighs, “sorry I got upset, I’m just already running late.”
“Hey, it’s fine” Daishou pulls her into a hug, “just finish getting ready and I’ll drive whenever you say.”
Mika squeezes him tighter.
***
Daishou returns to a brightly lit apartment after dropping Mika off at her friend’s place.
“What the…” he says to himself. He walks around the apartment, finding every single light turned on. He turns the lights off one by one.
'We turned the lights off before we left, right?' He texts Mika once he is back in the kitchen.
A loud shattering sound breaks Daishou out of his thoughts. The shock almost causes Daisou to drop his phone.
“Hello..?” Daishou says to the should-be-empty-apartment. Daishou grabs the closest thing that resembles a weapon in any way; a rolling pin. Daishou moves slowly towards the bathroom, the rolling pin raised above his head.
'Of course we did.' The answer from Mika ticks in on his phone.
The smell of Mika’s favourite perfume hit him like a wall when he enters the bathroom. He turns on the light he just turned off only to find the perfume bottle smashed to bits on the floor, the pastel pink liquid splashed everywhere. Daishou looks around the bathroom to find anything else that is out of place. The lights flicker off and then on again, leaving Daishou faced with the message GET OUT written in large pink letters on the mirror.
'Is everything okay?' A second message from Mika ticks in.
'Are you playing a prank on me?' He texts back. 'Or are the guys doing it?' he writes in a second text. He sends a picture of the state of the bathroom to her.
'You broke my favourite perfume?' is the only response he gets.
He lets out a deep sigh and starts picking up the largest glass pieces.
August
“I think the apartment is haunted” Mika says one day after returning from brunch with her friends.
“Haunted?” Daishou says with a skeptical look on his face, yet he still pauses the show playing on the tv. “What makes you think that?” he asks.
“I have a list,” Mika says with a huge smile on her face. She nearly runs to the couch and plops down next to Daishou. He instinctively puts an arm around her shoulder and she curls into him. Mika holds her phone up in front of Daishou’s face, showing him her list.
“You sound way too excited for someone who believes our home is haunted” Daishou remarks.
“It’s kind of cool, don’t you think?” Mika asks.
“I mean if I believed in ghosts, I don’t think I would find it cool to have one as a roommate” he answers. A clattering sound from the kitchen follows his statement and by now they know they’ll find a bowl on the floor when they go to check what caused it.
“See?” Mika says. “The ghost didn’t like that.”
Daishou shakes his head in response.
“Okay, so a few things on the list. We don’t have any pairs of socks anymore. My favourite sweater is still missing” she starts listing things that have happened, “things keep falling, things that aren’t in places where they should be able to fall, it gets randomly cold.”
“It’s an old building,” Daishou remarks.
“Your water bottle keeps disappearing from your training bag” Mika continues.
“I’m a forgetful guy sometimes,” Daishou says.
Mika looks at him with raised eyebrows. Daishou chuckles.
“Okay, then what about the notes or the messages?” Mika asks.
“I’m still not sure it’s not you and some of the guys trying to make me go crazy,” Daishou answers.
“Why would we go this far? It’s not funny anymore.” Mika replies.
“Hmmm…” Daishou hums and pulls Mika closer.
“If the apartment really is haunted, what do you want to do about it?” Daishou asks, “like how do we get rid of the ghost?”
“What do you mean?” Mika responds.
“We have to do an exorcism,” Daishou explains, “so that there isn’t a ghost in our apartment anymore.”
“We can’t get rid of it” Mika says.
“Of course we can” Daishou says, “it’s our apartment we can’t live with a ghost.”
“It was there first” Mika says “and someone always dies during exorcisms.”
“Then we move” Daishou’s voice takes on an edge.
“We can’t afford to move again” Mika sits up straight and turns to face Daishou on the couch.
“Well we can’t live with a ghost terrorizing us” Daishou says, “if that is what it is.”
“I know!” She half yells and the silence envelops them both.
“I think we should start by moving into the guest room.” Mika says slowly.
“Okay, sure," Daishou says. A few seconds pass. “Why?” he asks.
“Think about it, a lot of the notes are left in the bedroom, so… maybe the ghost doesn’t like us in their bedroom…” she trails off.
“Mika…” Daishou starts.
“I know I sound like I’m losing it” Mika interrupts, “but can you just humor me on this?”
“Okay, we’ll switch bedrooms, anything else?” Daishou asks, taking Mika’s hand in his.
“I think we should try and talk to the ghost? Maybe treat them more like an actual roommate?” Mika says.
*****
Three days after they switch bedrooms, Mika finds a note reading 'Thank you' on her pillow.
"See!" Mika comes running towards Daishou in the kitchen, waving the small note around.
“It says thank you” she holds the note right in front of his face.
“I can see that,” he says.
“It’s from the ghost” she explains “and nothing has fallen down and broken the last few days.”
“How do you know I didn’t write that to thank you for being such a wonderful girlfriend?” Daishou asks.
“Did you?” Mika asks with raised eyebrows.
“No” he admits “apparently I need to be a better boyfriend.”
Mika laughs.
“Maybe but most importantly my idea worked,” she says.
“Yeah, you’re always right.” Daishou says but rolls his eyes, just a little.
“Hey!” Mika slaps his arm lightly, but the offended expression on Mika’s crumbles immediately as the two start laughing.
September
The notes don’t stop. Instead they change.
The first of the new notes reads 'My name is Kuroo Tetsurou. Please stop calling me ''it.'' Daishou laughs when he finds it. It’s three days before he uses the name for the first time.
After that note, Mika starts placing notes with questions all over the apartment. They learn different things about him.
His favourite colour, his favourite food. When they learn that he played volleyball, they start leaving a spot for him when they watch games.
They even mention him when seeing friends leading to many questions about their new roommate.
“Is he really a roommate?” Daishou asks on a drive home one day.
“What else would you call him?” Mika says.
“I don’t know. Maybe a stray cat that wandered in from an alley and now we can’t get rid of it because you got attached?” Daishou asks.
"Wouldn’t we be the stray cats in this scenario?” Mika replies. “Don’t lie, you’ve gotten used to him too” She reaches for Daishou’s hand.
“I would have exorcized him or moved months ago if not for you” Daishou retorts, but takes her hand.
“And now you have a new friend.” Mika says with a teasing lilt in her voice.
“Sure, a friend we can’t see and could be anywhere in the apartment at all times” Daishou says. He lifts their intertwined hands to his lips and presses a soft kiss to her knuckle.
October
Mika is dancing to the music playing in the background, stirring in the soup on the stove. A black shadow passes by at the edge of her peripheral vision. Mika spins around, spoon in hand.
“Hello?” she says tentatively. “Daishou?” she asks out to the seemingly empty room. She only gets silence in return.
“Kuroo?” she asks with a small smile on her face, yet still she gets no response. Bored with the silence Mika turns back to the pot on the stove.
Mika turns back to the stove to find a pink post-it hanging on the cooker head right above her line of sight.
She takes a picture of the note and sends it to Daishou with the text ‘I think our ghost is flirting with me.’ In the picture it is clear to see that the note reads ‘You’re cute.’ It even has a hand drawn heart on it.
Mika finishes cooking and as she sits down to eat a response from Daishou arrives on her phone.
‘I’ll yell at a random spot in the house when I get home’ Mika starts to giggle as she reads the message.
“I don’t think he’s too happy with you” she says hoping that Kuroo both hears her and knows she’s talking to him. She lays the phone next to her, inviting Kuroo to read himself. A few seconds later a tipping sound, like fingers tapping on a table sounds. Maybe, she thinks, it's the rhythm of his laugh.
*******
Daishou returns from his afternoon, sweat dripping down his face to find a bottle of cold water waiting for him on the table.
“Mika?” he asks, taking one earbud out of his ear to listen but he gets no response. “Kuroo?” he asks. He feels a tap on his shoulder.
“Thank you” Daishou says, aimed vaguely at where he thinks the ghost should be. This earns him another tap on the shoulder.
Daishou takes off his shirt and heads towards the bathroom. Before he takes off any other pieces of clothing the light in the bathroom goes off.
“Seriously, I thought we had moved past this” he yells at the darkness.
When the lights turn back on there are two brightly coloured post-it notes stuck to the mirror. The first note reads ‘Sorry, it’s just way funnier this way’ while the second reads ‘also you’re really hot.’
Daishou takes a picture of the notes on the mirror to send to Mika.
'He’s getting too comfortable,' he texts her.
When Daishou gets out of the shower the reply from Mika is waiting for him.
'When he’s right, he is right.'
***
The notes change again after this. They receive good morning notes. sometimes with small doodles on them. Then they start receiving notes with silly pick up lines on them.
A note in Mika’s handbag reads ‘Are you a cat? Because I've fallen fur you.’ She giggles when she finds it.
Daishou finds one in his bag at volleyball practice that reads ‘Are you a cat? Because I'm feline a connection between us.’ He rolls his eyes when he finds it but saves it in his wallet nonetheless.
He finds another reading ‘Do you believe in love at first meow?’ stuck to the remote.
“Does this even make sense?” he asks. The note turns over. ‘I don’t know, But it’s cute?’ is written on the back of it.
“Fine, yeah it’s pretty cute,” he admits.
Mika finds a note reading ‘Baby, you're purr-fect!’ on the mirror. She blushes as she shows it to Daishou.
“When he’s right, he’s right” he says and chuckles before pulling her closer and placing a kiss on her forehead.
October 31st
The smell of pancakes wafts through the apartment. Mika rolls over, reaching an arm out and feeling the space beside her, expecting to find it empty. Instead her hand finds the warm chest of Daishou.
“Daishou, wake up” Mika whispers and shakes him.
“We don’t have to get up yet” he mumbles and tries to wrap an arm around Mika.
“Someone is cooking in the kitchen” she says and sits up.
“Wait what?” Daishou finally opens his eyes.
“Someone is cooking in the kitchen,” Mika repeats slowly.
“You sure?” He asks. Mika simply nods.
Daishou gets out of bed and slowly they both walk towards the kitchen. Mika hangs onto Daishou’s arm and hides just ever so slightly behind him.
They stick their heads out to look into the kitchen. There is a man standing by their stove flipping pancakes. He is humming Mika’s favourite song at the moment.
Mika walks into the kitchen still holding Daishou’s hand.
“Hi?” she says, though very slowly and very quietly.
The man at the stove turns around revealing a crooked smile and warm eyes with a teasing glint in them.
“Hi” he says, his voice much stronger and clearer than Mika’s, “I’m Kuroo Testurou.”