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It would be a mistake, although an easy one to make, to say that apparitions can’t feel anything. They aren’t of the human world, so it would be silly to assume that they’d experience emotions and feelings like humans do. But spirits have no reason to make any kind of sense. Spirits who used to be human, in particular, are undeniably able to feel emotions, if only warped imitations of them. It’s emotion, after all, that binds those apparitions to the human world. Grief, love, regret, pain…
Hanako doesn’t think of himself as a particularly emotional apparition. Of course, his bright demeanor could be called an emotion by some, but it isn’t an innate part of his being, like Number Two’s grief is. It’s just the way he is, a schoolboy’s excitement preserved forever because of his young death.
He can still feel things, physical sensations, although they aren’t as strong as they used to be. It hadn’t taken long to adjust to. He doesn’t really miss being a human very much. Not when he can fly around and do whatever he wishes as a spirit! But then there is Yashiro, and they can touch . No human had ever been able to touch him as an apparition, and before that… well, it didn’t bear thinking about.
Hanako had never really known cold until he met Yashiro. He darted around humans like a fluttering breeze, and the wind had never bitten him. He wouldn’t have felt it anyways, but even the most wayward of breezes were smart enough not to mess with a school Wonder!
But now there’s Yashiro, and suddenly Hanako knows what warmth feels like. And any time he’s not touching her, he can feel the absence of it. His body aches with a pain he doesn’t think apparitions are supposed to be able to feel. Like his whole being is doused in cold pinpricks. Yashiro had said his hands were cold. He hasn’t ever thought about it. He’s had no reason to. Apparitions aren’t human. They aren’t subject to the same experiences of heat and cold.
So why is he suddenly so freezing, all of the time? It can’t be a spirit, they wouldn’t dare interfere with a Wonder. They would never be able to hurt him, anyways. He wouldn’t let them.
He doesn’t know the cause, but he does know that Yashiro’s touch helps. He flits around for the short time she spent with him every day, back and forth, finding any excuse to put his hands on her shoulders, clinging to her side, brushing against her shoulders. It’s not hard, since he does that anyways, to the annoyance of absolutely everyone who ever talks to him. Most of the other Wonders hate him for it, although Hanako really does not care what they think of him.
Yashiro doesn’t seem bothered by him (not that Hanako has ever been able to read people well enough to know if she is) and it chases away the cold, if only for a little while. Sometimes, she lets him braid her hair, and he almost wishes his hair was still long, if only so she could return the favor. But he chases away those silly stray thoughts without a moment’s hesitation.
Hanako doesn’t mean to hurt her so badly when he asks her to meet him by the tree apparition. Of course, he knows she wants a boy to like her, but the two of them aren’t even friends. He expects her to figure out it’s just to dispel the illusion, and yell at him for using her, but it’s not really that different from all the times he’s used her to help dispel misguided apparitions.
He holds onto her too tightly when the spirit finally shows itself- Good! So his theory did work- partly to make a point, and partly because it feels so nice to not be drenched in cold pinpricks. It’s just a simple dance through the air to dispel the wayward apparition. It cries out in mourning for all the time it’s put into making itself so huge, but Hanako never pities the apparitions he corrects. It’s his job to keep them all on the correct track. Can’t have apparitions getting too many lofty ideas!
Proud of his work as always, he skips over to Yashiro, teasing her as he always does about her wish.
He stops.
She’s… crying.
He hadn’t expected Yashiro to take his fake confession seriously. Or to be so shaken by the sight of tears in her beautiful sunset eyes.
It doesn’t really hurt when she headbutts him. He can’t say he doesn’t deserve it. And it’s still Yashiro, so it’s warm.
He reaches up and takes off his hat, and for a moment, he’s not Hanako the bubbly, dangerous, uncaring ghost. He’s a little boy covered in bruises and scrapes, watching his classmates leave the room all bunched up in their friend groups, close in a way he has never been to anyone, and his throat burns with unsaid screams of “please, don’t leave me alone.”
“ Wait !” he says, for the first time in his life (or afterlife). He apologizes, steps closer, anything to stop her from leaving . He didn’t know this would hurt her quite so bad.
She lets him hug her without saying a word, and he greedily lets her warmth wash over his body. He clings to her until her tears vanish, and lets himself believe it’s for her sake, even as his very core screams at the idea of ever detaching himself from her. She’s like a ray of sunshine on a cold fall day, warming his whole body.
She avoids him for a while after that. He expected it, but it doesn’t stop the cold from creeping back in, burning at his hands and chest. He doesn’t shiver. He doesn’t have a physical body, so he shouldn’t be able to. But he didn’t think he could feel cold, so maybe he’s wrong about being able to shiver.
It burns. Hanako lets Yashiro keep her distance, even flits around and haunts Kou a bit. But it’s not the same, Kou can’t really touch him, and the hungry gnawing of the cold at every part of him gets worse.
Then he appears again, and the cold isn’t the only pain wracking Hanako’s body every day, although it still doesn’t really go away, especially since Yashiro spends less and less time with him now. She doesn’t completely cut him off, but he wouldn’t blame her.
She looks at him differently after meeting Number Five. He doesn’t know if he wants her to admit what she’s found out. He’ll be stuck with the cold forever if she leaves him, with no way to make it stop. But he’d wanted everything to stay the same, so really he would just be getting what he wanted!
His smile falters more. He isn’t fast enough, and Mitsuba dies. His brother is there. It’s so, so cold. The cold comes back anytime he’s alone. He was alone back then, too. He almost doesn’t hear Kou screaming over the way the world seems to vanish. He doesn’t look down to see his body becoming more see-through.
He stares at the corpse of a child his brother killed and wonders if leaving the world behind forever would make the cold go away. Maybe if Kou had been able to free Mitsuba, there would have been hope for Hanako, too. But instead his hands are stained with the blood of another child, and there’s no hope left for him.
Severing the link between the dead and the living seems the only option left. He tells Kou as much.
He isn’t expecting Kou to grab his hand. Isn’t expecting him to be able to. But warmth burns up his arm, and Kou growls at him about not leaving the living behind, and maybe Hanako can stay a bit longer. Just a bit.
Kou lets him go, and the cold and pain comes seeping back twofold. His old injuries sting, the cold gnawing at their edges and making everything worse. Everything burns, aches, freezes. The best part of being a ghost was not having to feel hurt, and not having anything change. But now something about him has changed, which was never supposed to be able to happen. He’s really beginning to hate the cold.
Maybe that’s why he stops Yashiro from leaving (He is almost disappointed when the fish cave and run away. Seafood sounds really good). Knowing he has Kou helps, a little, but not really, since the moment Yashiro is gone he’ll realize Hanako is just the same as any other murderous spirit and exorcise him. He’s not sure if he wants that.
“...I thought if I were a ghost, that might bring us closer somehow,” Yashiro confesses. Hanako’s world stops spinning. The cold that gnaws at him grows louder, feistier. It wants with an intensity that leaves Hanako lightheaded. Or even more so than he usually is, considering he’s a ghost.
“Huh?”
“I thought if I were more like you, I might understand how your mind works," Yashiro continues. The cold is clawing up Hanako’s throat. “I really want that. Even though I probably don’t mean anything to you.”
Tears well up in her eyes. Hanako feels light, and not in the fluttery ghost way.
He can’t say no to the roiling hunger inside him, and he steps forward to pat her on the head. The warmth trickles through his whole body, like finally drinking water after a long drought. “You’re ridiculous,” he tells her fondly. He can correct this mistake of his, at least. “Thank you.”
She looks up at him confused. He has that effect a lot. “For?”
“I meant to tell you this earlier, I just couldn’t find the time,” He really, really should have made time earlier. But he was never good at the… social things, and it’s not like he’s had a chance to practice since becoming a ghost. “You’re the first girl who’s ever said she liked me.” It isn’t a lie. She’s the first person at all who’s ever said that. But it’s easier not to think about that, so he lets her think he’s talking about romance, and himself pretend the same. “It made me happy.”
He lets his hand slip away from her. The gnawing cold whines in response, but Hanako is trying not to take too much from Yashiro. He won’t overwhelm her now. “Before I died, I had a little brother.” A twin. But it’s easier not to explain that, and worry about her questioning. “I killed him though.” He doesn’t look at her yet. Walks farther away. There’s less chance of getting hurt if he’s farther away. And he doesn’t think he could handle the memories if she were to hit him right now.
“Look, Yashiro…”
He finally turns to look at her. She’s watching him intently. It doesn’t seem like she’s going to leave. “Did you mean it? You really wanna know more about me?”
He doesn’t let her answer. He doesn’t let his voice waver as he makes his decision. “If you do, then I promise, one day, I’ll tell you everything.” But not quite yet. He’s not… ready. But she deserves it, so one day he will.. “But until then, will you stay my assistant?”
The tears have stopped falling from her eyes. It makes him happy to see that, too. She makes him happy in general. She’s like his little bit of sunlight, warm and intense and saving him from the darkness of his own mind more than she knows.
She smiles tearfully, and laces their fingers together. “Sure.”
Maybe she’ll leave once she finds out the truth. Maybe the cold will never go away. Maybe one day he’ll let himself fade away from the world to escape it. But in the warm autumn light, his own little sunshine promising to stay with him, Hanako can almost believe maybe, just for a little bit, he’ll stay warm.