Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It had been late—far too late for anyone to still be awake—but sleep had become more of a suggestion than a necessity. Some nights, it simply refused to come. This was one of those nights. The fire crackled low between a messy circle of bricks, built in the middle of a crumbled building’s foundation. 

Click sat near the edge of the circle, his tattered coat pulled tightly around his shoulders, his camera resting gently in his lap like it was something living.

His fingers, still stained with soot and oil from repairing his strap earlier, curled instinctively around its edges. He hadn’t taken a photo all day. There hadn’t been time. Not with the smoke, not with the wounded, not with the constant movement.

But tonight, tonight felt still. Even if only for a little while.

“Alright, hear me out,” Hajime began suddenly, voice low and full of mock seriousness, “we make it through this mess, we all meet up again in five years, and I’m running the best noodle stall in the country.”

“Oh my God,” Lou groaned. “Hajime, it’s always a noodle stall with you. What happened to the bakery idea?” Hajime smirked, poking at the fire with a stick. “Bakery's too early in the morning. Noodle stall, I sleep in, serve lunch. Plus—less risk of burned food.”

Someone snorted. Laughter passed through the group like a wave, not loud, but warm. The kind of sound that wrapped around your ribs and held you still. Even their sergeant cracked a smile from his spot in the shadows, quietly sipping tea from a battered metal cup.

Click watched them all in silence, his lips barely curved into the faintest smile. These were the moments he lived for—the ones that slipped by if you didn’t catch them. No blood, no shouting. Just this.

He raised his camera slowly.

“Don’t you dare take a picture of me slouching,” Lou warned, pointing a twig at him. “Make me look heroic or don’t bother.” Hajime leaned into the frame with an exaggerated pout. “Get my good side. I want to be remembered as handsome.”

Click didn’t respond with words, just a small laugh through his nose and the soft click of the shutter. He looked down at the preview. Blurry edges, ash in the air, and the firelight catching in their eyes.

It was perfect.

“Hey, Click,” Andrej said, turning toward him. “What about you? What are you gonna do when this is over?”

Click silently blinked, lost in his thoughts, while everyone looked at him. He wasn’t used to answering questions like that. Usually, he was the one behind the lens, quietly listening, collecting pieces of everyone else.

He hesitated, then shrugged. “Keep photographing, I guess,” he said softly. “Make sure people remember.” The group fell into silence for a moment before Lou raised his metal cup, proposing a toast: “To memory!” he said.

“To memory!” The other soldiers echoed, clinking their metal cups against his. Click didn’t bother returning Lou’s toast, but he looked at them all—their tired faces, their easy laughter, their hands smudged with dirt but still warm—and held the camera a little tighter.

In that moment, he believed memory might be enough.

He believed they’d all make it out. That someday, he’d show these photos to someone else. Point to their faces. Say their names. Keep them alive that way. The fire crackled low and for a brief second, despite the war, despite the ruins, despite the weight they carried—

Click felt like he was home.

The battlefield was in chaos.

Smoke thickened the air until the sky disappeared. Screams rang distant and close at once, overlapping with gunfire, shouted orders, and the roar of engines tearing through mud-soaked earth. The scent of oil, ash, and blood hung in the back of Click’s throat like something alive.

He moved on instinct—boots sliding through the muck, coat flapping behind him as he sprinted through a gap in the ruins. His hands were steady. He didn’t look back, didn’t flinch.

His camera was slightly raised after crouching on the ground. Through the viewfinder: soldiers helping someone limp through debris. A medic shouting. Another man falling.

Click.

The shutter snapped.

Another image—another moment locked away.

He turned. Adjusted the focus and raised his arms and camera higher.

A glint of light in the sky. Whistling overhead.

His breath caught. He froze, arms still lifted, the camera half-blocking his face like a shield that wouldn’t work. He thought about his friends. He thought about the fire, the laughter, the quiet photo that sat undeveloped in his bag.

And then—

…

It was raining when he woke up.

The heavy rain draped itself over his world like a grand curtain, soft and endless, muting everything beneath it. Click stirred with a sharp inhale, taking deep breaths as if he had forgotten how to breathe a few seconds ago, as if he had been underwater for too long and just broken the surface.

His body ached. Or—no. Not ached, exactly.

There was no real pain. Just a weird feeling of vacant pressure, like all of his stress and memories have been lifted up from his chest. It…didn’t feel good, like a part of him had disappeared.

He blinked slowly, eyes adjusting to the grey blur of the sky overhead. The clouds shifted above him, thick and low, dragging the rain through the narrow streets of—

…Where… am I?

He silently sat up. The cold concrete beneath him was somewhat comforting, The pavement was slick and dark because of the rains heavy raindrops.

Buildings stretched out on either side—familiar in structure, but not in detail. No signposts he recognized. No flag. No warzone. Just rows of homes, power lines overhead, and flickering lamps that hummed with electricity.

He looked down at himself. His hands were clean and his skin was damp from the downpour. There were no signs of blood, wounds, or infection either. His ripped and bloodied uniform was gone. Instead, it was replaced by a clean and still intact one. Around his neck, a strap. At his side—

It was his beloved camera.

Still intact. Still whole.

He slowly reached for it, fingers curling around the worn grip, and felt the faintest sense of comfort. If the camera was here…then maybe so was he. But…

Why was everything so…quiet?

No shouts of orders, no loud repeated gunfire. No screams from his companions. The only prominent noise was the pitter-patter of the rain.

Click slowly stood up, wobbling on unfamiliar legs, and took a cautious step forward. Then another. Each movement felt too smooth, like his body wasn’t quite touching the ground.

The streets were empty at first. But then—He saw someone. Across the road, an older woman walked briskly, holding an umbrella, groceries tucked under her arm. Click’s chest flooded with relief. He picked up his pace, walking toward her, raising a hand.

“Excuse me—ma’am—could you—”

She walked right past him. She didn’t even turn to him or even acknowledge him. Click blinked, confused. ‘Maybe she didn’t hear me…The rain was loud after all…’ Click silently reassured himself, the hope in his heart still shining.

He jogged slightly to catch up with her, raising his hand. “Sorry—please, I just need to ask—where am I? I just woke up and—”

But she kept walking…like he wasn’t there. His hand was left hanging in the air. He let it fall while watching the older woman turn to a corner.

‘...Maybe she didn’t hear me.’ He kept reassuring himself, hope still clinging in his heart. So he tried again.

A young man stood near a bus stop, scrolling through his phone beneath an awning. Click approached him cautiously. “Hey, sorry to bother you,” he began, voice shaking with a nervous half-laugh. “I think I’m lost. Could you tell me what town this is?”

No response.

Click moved closer, now standing in front of him, “Please—just a moment—”

The man yawned, looked up briefly—straight through him—then stepped onto the bus that arrived behind Click moments later. The doors closed, the engine groaned, and the bus slowly disappeared into the mist while Click stood there, stunned.

"...What...?"

He turned around to find out that there were more people now. A woman locking her shop door, A child skipping past puddles in pink boots, and a delivery driver unloading boxes. All of them were moving and just minding their own business…All of them seemed real, too.

He was looking at all of them, but none of them were looking at him…Like he was the anomaly.

Now panicked, He stepped in front of a teenager jogging with headphones on. “Hey! Wait—can you hear me?! Hello?!”

No reaction. The teen merely passed right through his shoulder. Cold rushed through him like a gasp. Not pain, but something close to it. Like being reminded he had nothing inside. Like being hollow.

Click stumbled backward, breath now quick and shallow as his pupils dilated in fear. He turned to the glass window of the nearby shop, rain tracing lines down the pane—and saw nothing.

No reflection, not even a silhouette. He reached out and pressed his fingers to the glass. There was no fingerprint, not even a smudge.

‘What… what’s happening?’

He backed away, slowly. The town pulsed quietly around him as the lives around him continued like clockwork. Umbrellas opened, Conversations murmured beneath them, Horns honked, The smell of fresh bread drifted from a bakery’s open window.

Click clutched the strap of his camera like a lifeline. He turned in a slow circle, mouth parted, heart hammering uselessly. “Can anyone see me…?” he whispered.

…

“No… I shouldn’t give up so easily..” Click told himself, not wanting to accept this new reality of his. After taking deep breaths and calming his heart down, he decided to try again and find another local to see if they would see him.

Click walked. He didn’t know how long.

Ever since he woke up, the rain seemed to never stop. The sky never seemed to brighten either. His military uniform clung to him like a second skin, heavy with water, yet he barely felt the cold anymore. His boots didn’t leave footprints. The puddles never rippled when he passed through them.

Down streets with rows of shuttered houses. Past restaurants where warmth glowed behind windows, past the laughter and cheers of children playing in the rain. Past every young and old, lives around him. He didn’t give up… He asked everyone in his view.

“Hello?” he called once, gently tapping the shoulder of a man waiting by a crosswalk.

Nothing.

He stopped beside a cycling path as the cyclist was cycling into his view, waving his arms. “Hey—sorry, can you help me? Please—just a second.”

They swerved past him effortlessly. They didn’t even flinch. He tried a small bookstore next. Stepped inside, careful not to knock over anything. A young woman stood behind the counter, flipping through a paperback, chewing on the end of her pen.

Click approached them slowly. “Miss? Do you work here?” His voice was calm, hopeful. “I think I’m—uh—lost. Or maybe confused. Something’s wrong. I don’t know how I got here. I just…”

He trailed off, realizing that she wasn’t listening to him. She didn’t even look up. He swallowed hard and reached out, hand hovering inches above hers.

“…Please,” he whispered, voice cracking. “Please say you can see me.”

No reaction. He stepped back, quietly sighing in disappointment. The bell above the door hadn’t rung when he entered. Or when he left.

‘I’m not real, am I?... Not here. Not to them.’

Still, he wandered. The feeling of hope was still tightly clinging to his heart. Not because he knew where to go, but because standing still felt worse. Walking felt like doing something. Like he might turn a corner and find someone. The someone. The one who’d look up from their coffee or newspaper or book and just say — “Oh. There you are.”

Click stared up at the rain, blinking as it rolled down his cheeks. Was it from sweat? Was it from his tears? He couldn’t tell the difference anymore.

He passed a mother walking with her child. The little girl had a polka-dotted umbrella. She giggled and pointed at a pigeon. She turned for a moment, wide eyes scanning the street. Her head then paused, her eyes now fixed on him.

For a second, Click held his breath.

Maybe—maybe she—

Her mother tugged her arm gently. “Come on, honey.” Her gaze is now on her mother, she smiled and kept walking. Click let out the breath he was holding, disappointed as his fingertips kept trembling.

He kept going. Street after street, House after house, Face after face. “Please,” he tried again, voice soft now. “Can anyone… hear me?” He stood in the center of the town square, surrounded by moving strangers, umbrellas bobbing like waves, voices muffled by the downpour.

“Please,” he said louder. “I’m here. I am.”

Nothing…

He tilted his head back, eyes toward the sky, rain washing over his face. “I don’t want to be forgotten,” he whispered, looking at the sky to seek an answer. But the sky said nothing, the rain only fell harder. So he kept walking, because that’s all he could do, because hope—faint and fragile as it was—hadn’t yet burned out.

Click stood at the edge of the town one morning, fingers curled tightly around the strap of his camera, jaw clenched. The sky above him was still draped in heavy clouds, but the rain had softened into a mist that clung to his skin like breath. The air smelled like wet pavement and old memories.

He looked out at the road ahead, cracked asphalt stretching beyond the last row of houses.

and he stepped forward, his slow walking progressively changed to sprinting 

His boots splashed through shallow puddles. His coat whipped behind him as the wind picked up. Buildings gave way to trees, trees to open stretches of gray-green hills. He didn’t look back. He refused to look back.

“I just need to keep going,” he muttered under his breath. “Just don’t stop. Don’t stop this time.” It was all he had left. If he couldn’t be seen, maybe he could leave. Maybe somewhere beyond the horizon, the air would feel different. Maybe there would be warmth again. People. Purpose. Rest.

So he continued sprinting. He only stopped when the path curved sharply around a cluster of trees. His boots skidded on wet stone. He grabbed the nearest tree for balance. His heart was pounding, half from the strain, half from something sharper—something like anticipation.

He walked through the cluster of trees and stopped. The bakery was there. The fountain. The alley. The same old square.

The town.

Exactly as he left it.

Click staggered back a step, breath catching in his throat. “No,” he whispered. He turned around and ran. Another path. Another road. Through the narrow streets, past the schoolyard, out toward the distant hills.

Another turn. Another path.

And again—

The town.

Waiting. Still. Familiar. Watching him without ever turning its head.

He collapsed to his knees, rain beginning to thicken again above him. His fingers dug into the dirt, trembling. He wanted to scream. He wanted to laugh. He wanted to cry, but all that came out was a single, breathless question:

“Why…?”

But even there, on the cold ground, with the rain creeping back down his spine and the wind biting at his sleeves, Click found himself whispering: “Maybe tomorrow.”

He tried everything he could think of. He knocked on doors, shouting through the cracks until his voice gave out, but no one ever opened. He stood in front of trains, hoping someone would yell or reach out—but they passed through him like he wasn’t there. He placed his camera in the middle of busy streets, wrote messages in notebooks and left them behind, stared into mirrors, hoping to catch even a glimpse of himself. 

He screamed until his throat burned, until his legs gave out beneath him. But every attempt, every cry, every quiet act of desperation ended the same way—with silence, with emptiness, with the world continuing on like he had never existed. And slowly, day by day, step by step, he began to understand the truth he didn’t want to accept. No one was coming. No one could hear him. No one ever would. 

The hope that was still burning in his heart had now faded.

It had been maybe three weeks since Click first woke up in the rain. He stopped properly counting the days after the first week. Stopped checking clocks. Time didn’t seem to matter here—if it even existed for him at all. The sun never shone as bright as before, and the sky seemed to never shift.

Morning bled into night like ink into water, and the rain never seemed to leave the town either. Sometimes it softened into a mist; other times, it poured so hard he couldn’t see the buildings across the street. But it was always there.

Surprisingly, the tiredness never came. Neither did the hunger. He hadn’t eaten since he arrived, hadn’t slept, hadn’t even yawned. He sat sometimes, leaned against the sides of buildings, and curled up under awnings—but it was only because he remembered that was what people did. Not because his body ever begged for rest.

It was terrifying, in a quiet, creeping way. How easy it was to feel less like a person and more like the weather. Just another part of the atmosphere. A thing that dripped or drifted or dimmed the sky.

He used to talk to people. Still tried, sometimes. But it always ended with the same result: no one ever responded. They moved through him like fog. And he started to wonder if he’d even been a person to begin with, or if he was just a thought the world forgot halfway through.

The only thing that felt real and gave him comfort was his camera.

Strapped to his chest. Always there. Always whole. He hadn’t used it much—what was the point?—but he still reached for it now and then. Letting his fingers rest on the shutter. Trying to convince himself that if the camera existed, then so did he.

His “Hallucinations”, or at least that's what he called them, started with a voice. Soft, distant—just barely louder than the rain. But instead of feeling relief from hearing a voice calling him out, he felt…heavy, like the voice didn’t seem to exist.

"Click!"

He stopped mid-step.

The water didn’t. It kept falling, steady against his shoulders, dripping from his lashes, seeping into the cracks of the pavement. But that voice—he hadn’t heard it in a long time or maybe even years.

He turned, slowly, like he was afraid the motion might tear open something inside him. The street behind him was empty. Only the blurred shape of a traffic light blinking amber through the mist.

But then he heard something he would’ve never heard again…

Laughter.

Familiar, crackling like radio static, warming into something alive:

"Oi, Click! You're always late!"

“Couldn’t you sleep again?”

“Bet he was taking photos of us again. Watch out, boys, our embarrassing tea party's gonna be front-page news.”

Click blinked, quietly feeling deja vu flowing through his blood. The mist thinned. And suddenly, he wasn’t in the town anymore. He was somewhere else. The air was drier here. Dusty.

The rain is gone. In its place, the sharp scent of metal, sweat, and earth—warm tea in dented canisters passed from hand to hand. He stood just outside a circle of makeshift seating: soldiers lounging on crates, bedrolls, broken chairs. One of them waved him over with a crooked grin.

“You’re missing out. Sit before it goes cold!”

Click just stared at them. The feeling of confusion and thankfulness flowed through his veins. 

He knew this, knew them. Names came slowly, but sure—Hajime, the guy who wanted to open a noodle stall after the war. Lou, the guy who jokingly threatened Click not to shoot an ugly photo of him. Andrej, the guy whose laugh didn’t match his eyes. They were younger than he remembered. Or maybe he had just aged too much in his mind.

He stepped forward, boots somehow heavy and light all at once. His fingers tightened around the strap of his camera.

He remembered.

Not the day he was deployed—but the days before. The quiet moments between hell. Sitting in a circle with these same men, under an open sky, trying to pretend they weren’t just waiting for the next shell to fall. Taking pictures not for headlines, but to prove to themselves they existed. That they had smiled, once.

He opened his mouth to say something—anything.

But the tea spilled.

The laughter cracked.

The sky burned red.

One step further, and the ground underneath him shifted.

The crates were gone. The firelight snuffed out. Hajime was slumped against a sandbag wall, unmoving. Lou’s whistle echoed once, then turned to a scream. Andrej’s laughter ended mid-breath. The warmth had been replaced by smoke. Dust. Gunfire.

“No—no, not again,” Click muttered, stumbling back. His camera thudded against his chest. “Not again.” The vision flickered. The ruined tents returned. The trenches. The emptiness. The final photo he’d never printed. All of it.

And then—

Rain.

Like the world had exhaled.

He was back.

Back on the same rainy street, alone, just another puddle with a name no one spoke anymore. Click stayed still, head bowed.“…Why do I keep doing this,” he whispered, voice hoarse. “Why am I still here?”

No one answered. Not the sky. Not the ghosts. Not even the town. Every time he heard his name, he hoped it was real. That someone remembered him. That someone out there knew he was more than a whisper under umbrellas and wet footsteps.

But it was never real. Just echoes.

Maybe he was the echo, at this point. A shadow of a man who once believed he could make a difference—who once thought his photos could mean something.

And now?

He was just the rain. Just another meaningless drop among others who have also fallen.

He kept walking, It was all he could do. Street after street, soaked shoes gliding over asphalt slick with memory. The buildings never changed. The neon signs blinked the same tired rhythm. The bus stop shelter still leaned a little too far to the left. And always—always—always-the sky bled gray.

Every few days, it would happen again. A voice. A shout. A laugh.

"Click!"

And he would turn

Every. Single. Time.

Because…what if—just this once—it was real?

But it never was. Only shadows. Echoes. Phantoms of a war long past, voices from mouths no longer living.

His old friends were frozen in youth while he... he stayed the same. Half-there. Half-forgotten. His camera was heavy with photos no one would ever develop.

Sometimes he would hear the war again. Not loudly—just whispers. A kettle boiling that wasn’t there. The familiar clink of a metal cup. The static of a walkie that had lost signal. He’d follow the sounds until they disappeared, until the street became ruins, until the people turned to corpses in his hallucinations again.

Each time, he felt less. Not numb—but tired.

So, so tired.

He'd find himself standing in the middle of a crosswalk again, blinking at the red glow of a pedestrian light that didn’t matter to him. Rain was soaking through his coat, even though it never left his skin. People passed him on either side, like a current that never touched the rocks buried beneath.

Click took a step forward, chest tight, throat burning.

“Please,” he whispered, just wanting the torture to stop.

His heart began to race—not with adrenaline, but with something darker. That kind of panic that rots quietly under the surface. The one that asks: What if this is it? What if this is all there ever is?

He stepped onto the fountain ledge at the center of the square. He looked out across the umbrella-speckled crowd, water streaking his face like sweat and tears and rain all at once. He brought his hands up to his mouth, cupped them like a makeshift megaphone, the way soldiers used to when they needed to shout over mortar fire.

He took in a deep, shaking breath.

And screamed.

“CAN ANYONE SEE ME?!”

His voice cracked partway through, fraying at the edges. Desperate. Splintered. Raw.

“I’M STILL HERE!”

“SOMEONE— PLEASE— LOOK AT ME!”

He poured everything into it.

All the fear, the longing, the grief that had festered for weeks—for years, maybe. His knees locked. His arms trembled from how tightly he held them up. His voice didn’t even echo. The rain swallowed it.

People just walked by. No one paused. No one flinched. No one even looked up. It was like screaming into an endless blackhole. Click slowly dropped his hands, arms falling uselessly to his sides. His shoulders sank, and he let out a breath that hitched halfway through and never really finished.

The world kept moving without him. He stepped down from the fountain. Not bothering to wipe the rain that’s blocking her vision.

What would he even say if someone did stop?

I was a photographer. I wanted to help. I thought my photos could mean something. I thought—maybe—someone would remember. That I wouldn't disappear.

But he had. Piece by piece. Like an old photograph left out in the rain—edges curling, colors bleeding, details fading until even the smile was gone.

Still, he wandered. He'd stop when he heard his name. Every time. Just in case. His breath would hitch, and his steps would halt. Head snapping toward the voice, eyes wide, heart clawing at the inside of his chest. Just in case. Just in case it was real this time.

The rain was softer that day. Almost gentle. It lulled the town into a hush, like it knew something or “someone” would break if they fell any harder. 

Click walked the usual route. Past shuttered shops. Past flickering lamplight in the windows of homes he could never enter. No one saw him, as always.

Until—

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He froze, instead of feeling dread from witnessing his same companions dying and suffering again. He felt fear.

That voice, that same voice and tone, felt familiar, too familiar. His head turned before he could stop it. His body moved without permission. His steps are guided not by will, but by the echo of memory.

The mist thickened while the town vanished. The sky cracked into a looming red smoke.

He was there.

Not surrounded by the laughter of his companions, not surrounded by the bloodied trenches, not surrounded by the dead bodies of his comrades, forced to watch them die.

He was there. On the battlefield. And he was kneeling.

His knees dug into the damp, splintered floorboards of a bombed-out structure barely standing. Rain dripped from the jagged beams above, mixing with the blood smeared along the floor. The walls groaned with every gust of wind. The scent of gunpowder was thick in the air—sharp, choking.

He could feel his breath again. That alone made him panic.

He never felt his breath. But now it was there—ragged, fast, real. His chest heaved. His hands shook. The cold was biting into his fingers.

“No.”

He tried to stand. His legs didn’t move. His hands were frozen around the camera. The lens pointed outward, toward a small clearing where soldiers scrambled for cover—yelling, stumbling, and dragging each other behind the wreckage of a crumbled wall. Smoke coiled around them like fingers.

Click blinked. The shutter clicked.

“Stop—stop, I don’t want to do this again.”

But his body didn’t listen. His breathing continued quickening while his finger was already pressing the shutter. Another shot—click. A shell dropped somewhere in the distance. The ground trembled beneath him. "Click!" someone shouted again. Lou, maybe. Or Hajime. Or maybe someone else—he couldn’t tell anymore.

His hands raised the camera again.

He remembered this.

He remembered what came next.

His mouth opened, desperate to scream, to warn, to beg his limbs to run, move, MOVE—

But nothing. His body had already accepted it. The sky flashed. A low whistle tore the air. Time shattered.

He looked up.

For a second—just a second—he saw the missile. Sleek. Silver. Almost beautiful in its finality.

Coming straight for him.

He didn’t close his eyes. There wasn’t time.

He didn’t scream. He couldn’t even move. He just knelt there, camera raised, breath caught in his throat, staring into the fire of his own death.

And then—

Silence.

The explosion still rang in his ears. The light had been blinding—searing white streaked with orange—and then it was gone, leaving only smoke and silence behind.

Click suddenly gasped—like the air had been knocked from his lungs.

His body jerked forward. His breath came in ragged, broken pulls, too fast, too shallow, like he’d forgotten how to breathe and was trying to remember through panic alone. He was on the ground. The cold stone of the alley pressed against his back, slick with rain. His arms were curled protectively over his chest like he’d tried to brace for impact, but there was no crater. No fire. No blood.

Just the steady rhythm of water dripping from a nearby gutter.

Just the rain.

He stared up at the dim sky, pupils wide, breath shaking. His chest rose and fell in uneven gasps, though no air seemed to reach him.

He had died again.

Not in theory.

Not in memory.

He had felt it.

"Why me…"

The words slipped out before he even realized he was saying them. Barely a whisper—just breath, just thought given shape.

“Why me…”

He shifted, slowly, dragging himself upright until he sat hunched over, arms wrapped tightly around his legs, knees drawn to his chest. His head rested against them, chin tucked low like he wanted to disappear into himself.

“What did I do wrong…?” he murmured, the words hitching. “Why didn’t I get to move on like the others…?”

His throat closed around a sob.

“I kept the camera—I did what I was told—I tried to make it matter—I tried—”

His voice cracked, and he bit down on it, but the tears still came. Hot and steady, merging with the rain.

It wasn’t fair.

He wasn’t a soldier. Not really. He didn’t want to fight. He just wanted to remember. To make sure someone remembered. But in the end, he was the one left behind.

“Why me…?” he choked again, barely audible now. “Why am I still here…?”

There was no answer. Just the sound of water falling. And the ache of not being seen.

Click didn’t know how long he’d been sitting there.

Every breath he took fogged up the cold air just a little and then vanished like it had never been there. He had stopped shivering. He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing.

Knees drawn tightly to his chest, he sat in the alley like a broken marionette, slumped and hollow. One arm was wrapped around his legs; the other hung limply at his side, fingers twitching now and then in the water like they still wanted to hold something. Like they were still reaching for a future that didn’t want him.

“I didn’t even… I didn’t even get to say goodbye,” he whispered. His voice cracked—hoarse from shouting, thin from disuse.

“I don’t remember if I wrote anything. A will. A letter. Anything. I—I think I still had film rolls in my bag.”

He gave a bitter little laugh that dissolved halfway through.

“Wonder if anyone developed them. Or if they just dumped everything into a box somewhere and left it to rot in a cellar.”

Click rested his head against his knees, arms curling tighter. The stones beneath him were cold. The whole world felt cold. He squeezed his eyes shut. 

“Why me?” he whispered again, like the question might sound different this time. “Why did I stay?”

His voice hitched.

“I wasn’t important. I wasn’t a hero. I wasn’t anyone.”

Another sob bubbled in his throat. He bit it back, but it only made the next one worse.

“I didn’t even get to do anything. I—I took pictures. I tried to help. I tried to document. I thought maybe that would be enough to matter.”

His fingers gripped his coat tightly, knuckles white through the soaked fabric.

“I thought that was enough,” he whispered. “I believed it was enough.”

Click exhaled shakily and let his head fall to the side. His cheek pressed into the damp stone, rain still falling steadily, tracing lines along his face that could’ve been tears if they weren’t so cold.

“I see them sometimes,” he murmured. “My unit. The others. Laughing. Drinking tea. Playing cards. They wave to me like nothing’s wrong.”

His eyes flicked upward. There was no bright sky, only clouds. Just gray bleeding into gray.

“But they’re not real. Not anymore. They’re gone. All of them.”

His voice lowered to a whisper.

“And I think I envy them.”

The words hung in the air for a moment, heavy with guilt and silence. “I don’t want to be like this anymore,” Click breathed. “I don’t want to keep waking up in the same rain, the same town, replaying the same memories over and over again.”

His voice cracked fully then, shattering like glass.

“I miss people. I miss noise. I miss walking into a room and someone noticing. I miss hands on my shoulder. I miss my name being called like it meant something.”

He sat there for another moment, breath heaving, tears spilling freely now, mixing with the rain, indistinguishable and endless.

Click pressed a hand to his face:

“I don’t want to be forgotten.”

His voice was quiet. Defeated.

“If someone could just… just remember I was here,” he choked out, “maybe then I could rest.”

He felt the hollow ache grow behind his ribs. His chest rose and fell with no purpose, just habit. Just leftover instinct.

"...I don't want to do this anymore, " he whispered.

But the street was empty. No answer came. Only the sound of the rain, steady and cold, fell around him like a quiet funeral that no one had come to attend. And still he sat there—knees to chest, arms tight, a trembling soul in a world that had long since moved on.

Chapter Text

It was raining when Horropedia stepped off the bus. Of course it was.

The sky above the town hung low and grey, clouds heavy like the whole sky might collapse with the next breath. The drizzle wasn’t angry—just persistent, a soft curtain that never fully lifted. It clung to his sleeves the moment he stepped onto the cracked pavement, and soaked the hem of his shirt in minutes.

He tilted his head up toward the misty rooftops, blinking droplets from his glasses. "Nice and creepy," he muttered under his breath, smiling just a little before opening his umbrella and starting his adventure. This was exactly what he’d hoped for.

Today was supposed to be his vacation. A quiet, peaceful week in his apartment far away from work, where his co-workers couldn’t find him, Not that they would even care or try anyways. No schedule. No missions. Just his beloved Horror movies, maybe a little exploring, and a lot of sleeping in.

But then—he saw the article.

“Urban Myth or Lost Soul? Rainy Town’s Phantom Caught on Camera?”

Just one blurry photo. A vague outline in the corner of a fogged window. No face. No name. Just the suggestion of a military uniform and what might’ve been a camera strap.

That photo alone only motivated him further to check that suppose haunted town. And so—he packed his bags. Changed his Horror review plans he wanted to do, and immediately booked a ticket straight to the town. The town was even smaller than he expected.

Rows of buildings stretched like they had been copied and pasted, each one with shuttered windows and weather-stained signs. The streets were almost too clean. The people—what few there were—moved slowly, umbrellas blooming and closing with mechanical grace. It felt like the kind of place stuck in time.

Horropedia walked to the center of town, duffel bag filled with his belongings slung over one shoulder, the faint clicking of his shoes echoing off wet stone. He stopped by a small convenience store, closing the umbrella and placing it against the wall outside, the door jingling weakly as he stepped in. The woman behind the counter gave him a polite nod without a word.

He stepped forward, politely brushing water from his sleeves. “Hi! Sorry—bit of an odd question,” he began, smiling sheepishly. “Have you heard of, um… the ghost?”

The woman only blinked at him, seemingly confused by his question. “The one that only appears when it rains,” he added. “Sort of floats around? Might have a camera? People say he’s been spotted near the town square.”

She only furrowed her brow slightly. Then gave a quiet laugh. “No idea what you’re talking about,” she said, voice flat but not unkind. “Ghosts? That’s just tourist talk.”

Horropedia tilted his head. “So no one’s ever seen anything strange?”

“Strange?” She tapped her nails against the counter, thoughtful. “Rain doesn’t stop. That’s strange, I guess.”

He gave a soft laugh in return. “Fair enough.”

As he turned to leave, she added, almost as an afterthought, “Try the librarian. He’s older than this town. If anyone’s seen a ghost, it’s him.” “Thanks,” Horropedia said with a small wave. “And if you do see something weird—maybe snap a photo.”

She smiled faintly. “Alright then sir.” The door jingled closed behind him. Back outside, the drizzle had thickened into something heavier. The clouds looked lower, like they were listening.

Horropedia pulled out his notebook, flipped to a blank page, and scrawled a title in neat script:

"The Rain Walker."

Below it, he scribbled:

• Appears only when it rains.
•  Carries a camera.
•  Locals deny everything.
•  Ghost?
• Or something else?

He closed the book slowly, opening his umbrella and looked down the road, past the buildings, past the flickering streetlights, toward the place where the fog grew thickest—near the old bus stop and far down the empty road, for just a moment, he thought he saw something move, like a silhouette standing still in the rain. But when he blinked, it was gone.

Horropedia only tightened his grip on his umbrella, then began to walk.

The library was empty. The florist was closed. The cafe owner gave him a tired shrug and a polite smile. The train station clerk hadn’t even heard the word “ghost” without laughing. Everywhere Horropedia asked, the answers were the same.

"Just a story."

 “Tourist bait.”

 “Nothing like that here.”

 “Try the mountains, kid.”

By the third day, the notebook pages were slightly soaked and smudged, half his notes unreadable. He’d walked nearly the whole town—every corner, every alley, every rusted street sign—and come up with nothing. No legend, no rumors. Just a rain that refused to lift and locals who met every question with vague amusement or soft dismissal.

Even the rain felt heavier today. Colder. Less like a mystery, and more like a blanket he couldn’t pull off. He wandered aimlessly now.

Head still up. Shoulders slightly hunched. The thrill that once sparked in his chest had slightly dulled into a quiet ache. His umbrella still covering his figure from the heavy rain. “huh…Is the town even haunted or was that article just for fraud..” he muttered, voice small under the rain.

He passed the bakery. The shuttered bookstore. The old bus stop. Same as yesterday. Same as the day before.

And then—

Movement.

Across the street, near the crosswalk, someone was walking. Not rushing. Not quite aimless, either.

A young man.

His clothes was darker than the rain should’ve allowed, hair clinging to his face, posture loose like he wasn’t carrying any weight at all—because he wasn’t. He looked almost weightless, like the downpour passed through him. Like he barely touched the ground.

Horropedia stopped.

The man was heading toward the road.

Toward a car—too fast, too close, tires slicing through rainwater in a blur of white noise. “Hey—wait—!” Horropedia ran towards the man. His boots splashed through puddles, umbrella flung aside, heart suddenly hammering, shouting without thinking. He reached out, breath catching in panic—

“Look out!!”

But the car didn’t stop.

And the man didn’t flinch.

The vehicle rushed forward, a blur of lights and noise—

—and passed right through him.

Horropedia’s breath caught in his throat. His feet tangled beneath him. He stumbled back with a yelp, landing hard against the wet pavement. The cold soaked him instantly—into his coat, through his shirt, into the bones of his spine.

He gasped, chest heaving, heart racing too fast, staring at the road—

The man was still there.

Still standing.

But now—he was looking at him.

Wide-eyed. Water running down his cheeks, mouth parted like he didn’t know how to speak. He stood in the middle of the road, framed in mist and headlights, rain slipping off his coat like time couldn’t touch him.

And then—his voice.

Small. Fragile. Like it hadn’t been used in years.

“…You noticed me?”

Horropedia couldn’t speak. The words hit like a drop into still water, rippling through him in ways he didn’t know how to explain. The man—Click, he realized, it had to be—stood like he was unraveling. Like that single question had cost him everything he had left.

“You… you can see me?” Click asked again, this time with a trembling, disbelieving breath. His fingers curled toward his chest, as if trying to hold himself together. “Please… please say you see me.”

Horropedia scrambled to his feet. His knees scraped the pavement, heart pounding from adrenaline, from disbelief, from the sheer weight of finally. This wasn’t just a glimpse. Not a photo. Not a blur in the corner of his eye.

He’d found him.

The Rain Walker.

The ghost. The legend. The rumors

But he wasn’t what Horropedia expected at all.

The figure across the street—Click—was shaking. Completely still in body, but trembling in every breath. The streetlights flickered against the raindrops sliding down his cheeks, and Horropedia realized with a strange twist in his chest: he wasn’t just wet.

He was crying. Not eerie. Not mysterious.

Just broken.

Click took one slow, dragging step toward him.

Horropedia froze, unsure what to do, excitement catching in his throat. “Y-You’re real,” he breathed, nearly laughing in disbelief. “I knew you were real—wait, I have to write this down—!”

Click’s expression shattered the second he got close. His brows furrowed like it hurt to see him. His fingers twitched in hope. Then, slowly, hesitantly, like every movement might undo the moment, he reached forward—and gently touched Horropedia’s face, Fingertips ghosted across his cheek.

Horropedia flinched—not from fear, but surprise. It wasn’t cold, It wasn’t numb, It was warm. Real.

Click stared at him like he couldn’t believe it—like Horropedia might vanish at any moment, like this whole thing might have been another cruel trick from the rain. His thumb traced the edge of Horropedia’s cheekbone, lingering there, breath caught.

“You’re real,” Click whispered. It wasn’t confident. It was fragile. “You’re… here.”

And then he broke.

The tears that had threatened finally fell—full, shaking, silent sobs wracking his body without a sound. His shoulders curled inward, lip trembling, eyes squeezed shut as if the flood inside him had finally breached the walls. Without another word, he stepped forward and hugged him.

Tightly. Desperately. Arms wrapped around Horropedia’s shoulders like he would fall apart without them. Like he needed to make sure Horropedia didn’t dissolve into mist and rain like everything else had.

Horropedia froze in the embrace, stunned. He wasn’t used to people touching him. Let alone ghosts. Let alone ones who felt like this—solid, warm, trembling. Click buried his face into the crook of his neck, shoulders rising and falling with every silent sob. 

Click let out a soft, shuddering laugh against his coat, equal parts joy and heartbreak. “You… you actually see me,” he breathed. “You really—You’re really looking at me. I-I thought maybe—I don’t know—I thought I made you up, or maybe I’d gone mad or something, but you’re here, you’re here—"

Horropedia blinked, wide-eyed, too stunned to say anything. “Uhm.”

“I tried for so long,” Click continued, barely even pausing to breathe. His voice shook with the weight of everything he hadn’t been able to say. “I walked this town—I floated around this town—every day, every night, just hoping, just hoping someone would—would turn around, or say my name, or just see me. I shouted at people, I—I waved, I begged, but no one—no one ever—”

His breath hitched as his eyes shook further. “And I thought maybe I deserved it,” he whispered. “I thought maybe I’d done something wrong. Or maybe I’d died in a way that didn’t matter. That I was just… left behind. Like fog. Like a mistake.”

Horropedia opened his mouth, a hand twitching upward in stunned uncertainty. “I thought I was gone,” Click said, voice cracking. “But now—now you’re here. You’re actually—you’re talking to me. And you—you’re warm. You’re—God, you’re real, I don’t—how is this even happening?”

He finally pulled back just slightly, still holding Horropedia’s arms, looking into his eyes with something too raw to name. “Thank you,” he breathed. “Thank you for seeing me. Thank you for being the one. I don’t know why you can, but—I’m so, so glad you can. I can’t even—God, I—”

Click sniffled mid-sentence, rubbing his sleeve across his face in a frantic gesture that accomplished nothing against the rain. His voice had gone breathless, like if he stopped speaking, he might vanish again.

Horropedia blinked again, confused but also trying to stay calm in said situation “…Uhh,” he said slowly, trying to piece together something intelligent to say. “Okay. Um. Wow.”

Click stared at him with wide, tear-filled eyes. “Okay so first of all,” he said, voice quiet but sincere, “you’re definitely real. You’re definitely crying on me. Which—totally fine, by the way, I’m not complaining. Just. Uh. Processing.”

Click let out a very small, wet laugh. It sounded like it hurt. “…Second,” Horropedia added gently, “I don’t know why I can see you either. But if you’re okay with it—maybe we can figure it out together?”

Click’s eyes welled up again and he nodded. Hard. Too many times. “Yeah,” he whispered. “Yeah. Please.” Horropedia, still drenched from the rain and very confused, just nodded back

Silence filled the room other than the patter of heavy rain, steady and relentless. Horropedia was soaked through—his coat clinging to his frame, hair plastered to his face, glasses fogged with a sheen of cold water. His breath hitched softly, misting in the air as he tried to process what had just happened.

Click had stopped crying, though the tears hadn’t truly left his face. His expression was blank now, distant. Hollowed out by exhaustion. Click hands, still holding on to his own were trembling, fingers twitching like they didn’t know whether to cling to something or let go.

Horropedia blinked, finally managing to take a step back. The ghost—no, the person before him still hadn’t disappeared.

“I…” Horropedia cleared his throat, voice still rough. “I think I need to—uh, dry off. Regroup. My notebook’s ruined and I can’t see shit.” He glanced up at the sky, as if only now realizing how heavy the rain had become. Each drop came down like it had weight, like it wanted to sink into his bones.

Click watched him quietly, eyes following every movement like it might be the last.

“I was staying at a little rented room just off the main street,” Horropedia continued, unsure if he was rambling to fill the silence or trying to ground himself in something real. “It’s dry. Sort of. The walls leak a little when the wind’s bad. But it’s warm. I think. Probably. Maybe I’ll… I dunno. Get ramen tomorrow. Come up with a plan.”

He turned, half expecting Click to vanish the second he looked away. But he didn’t. Click stood perfectly still, barely breathing, shoulders hunched like he was waiting for something awful to happen. Horropedia lingered for another second, then began trudging toward the edge of the square.

The sound of footsteps behind him—light, hesitant—made him pause. He turned. Click had taken a step forward. Just one. His mouth opened slightly, but nothing came out. Horropedia stared at him, brows pinched in confusion.

“…You wanna come with me?”

Click blinked.Then, slowly, he nodded.

But there was something desperate in the way he moved—as if agreeing wasn’t enough, as if he was still afraid it was a trick. His hand tightened around the strap of the camera slung across his chest, and he followed, sticking close like a shadow afraid of being chased off by light.

They walked in silence.

The rain didn’t ease up. If anything, it worsened—beating against rooftops and puddles, overflowing gutters, swallowing the world in a dull gray noise. Horropedia hugged his figure tighter, muttering under his breath about his drenched clothes, shivering and thinking whether the power in his room was still on.

Click followed a few paces behind, head bowed slightly.

He wasn’t sure why he was scared. He had walked this town for what felt like forever. No one had noticed. No one had looked up. He’d passed through doors, watched hundreds of people rush under umbrellas. Not one had turned to call his name.

But this time, someone had.

And even now, as that person walked ahead of him, shaking water from his sleeves and muttering about leaving his umbrealla in the rain, Click still didn’t know why. Or how. What he did know—what he felt down to whatever heart was left in him—was that he didn’t want to be alone again.

Not tonight.

Not after being seen.

Not after finally being seen.

So he followed step after step, Rain dripping down his face, Fingers clenched tight around his camera and the faintest fear, still lingering in his chest like smoke:

What if tomorrow… he can’t see me anymore?

The room wasn’t much.

A dim little room on the third floor of an studio, where the windows creaked during windstorms and the wallpaper peeled in quiet corners. The bed sagged in the middle. A small desk sat cluttered with scribbled notebooks, candy wrappers, and half-drunk cups of coffe. Rain rattled softly against the windowpane.

Click hovered by the door, soaked through. He left no puddles beneath his feet, but his coat still dripped in slow, deliberate drops. His fingers twitched by his sides, unsure whether to take off his boots or simply disappear through the floor.

He didn’t belong in rooms anymore. He wasn’t made for walls or warmth.

Horropedia had disappeared into the bathroom with a mumbled, “Give me, like, five minutes,” and the sound of water echoed faintly through the wall. Click stood awkwardly near the desk, eyes flicking between shelves lined with horror novels and a stack of documentary DVDs.

One of them had his photo on the cover. He blinked, looked at it again. The cover had changed, It was a completely different person now. His shoulders tensed.

The bathroom door creaked open.

“Okay,” Horropedia said, now in a fresh hoodie and sweatpants, rubbing a towel through his mess of hair. His glasses were fogged, face still red from the heat. “You can sit, y’know.” Click didn’t move while Horropedia stared at him for a second, then frowned.

“You’re still soaked. Hold on.” He ducked into the tiny hallway closet, then returned with a clean towel. “Here.”

Click didn’t reach for it. Horropedia hesitated… then stepped forward. Without a word, he lifted the towel and began gently patting Click’s hair dry.

Click stiffened. He could feel it.

The cotton. The warmth. The weight of it pressing against his scalp.

Someone was touching him.

His breath caught, but he didn’t speak.

Horropedia said nothing either—just focused, carefully blotting the damp from Click’s curls and shoulders, as if this were normal. As if he’d done it a hundred times. When he finally handed the towel to Click’s hands—solid, real, seen—his fingers brushed against Click’s palm.

Click almost flinched. 

“I don’t know how this works,” Horropedia admitted, a little sheepish. “But you feel real. So… I guess I’ll just treat you that way.”

Click opened his mouth but nothing came out.

Horropedia gave him a small smile. “I’m gonna go make tea. You can… uh, sit. Dry off. It’s safe here.” Then he disappeared back into the kitchen. Click stood frozen, towel clenched in his hands.

He silently sat on the edge of the bed, Listening to the sound of the kettle whistling faintly in the other room. Weirdly enough, his drenched figure doesn’t seem to soak the covers of the bed but…repels.

Like water and oil. Two different entities seemingly placed so close and yet so different.

The rain slowed down, now shifting to a light mist, as soon as the rain settled into something much more gentle, he felt someone sitting beside him. Click didn’t bother to look at first. He knew that presence. The weight of it. The familiarity that curled under his skin like smoke.

“I was wondering when you'd come around,” said a voice.

Reyes.

Click turned his head slowly to meet his gaze. There he was—still in uniform, coat tattered, a jagged wound across his stomach, blood dark and wet and wrong. His skin was pale. Too pale. His eyes, somehow still full of that same easy warmth, settled on Click with something almost like a smile.

“You looked like shit back there,” Reyes said casually, gesturing toward the square. “Glad you found someone, though. Kid looks a lil’ like a nerd.”

Click didn’t answer. His grip on his camera tighten further. “You didn’t think you’d get to rest, did you?” Reyes continued, “It doesn’t work like that. You know it doesn’t.”

Click’s mouth trembled, “I tried,” he whispered. 

“I know,” Reyes said. “You always did.”

The light mist ticked softly against the glass. Click lowered his head, shoulders hunched.

“I’m tired.”

“Yeah,” Reyes said gently. “I know.”

Click closed his eyes. Felt the ghost of his friend beside him. Felt the weight of the world settle back in. And still, from the other room, came the faint clink of a spoon in a mug.

Something rereal. Something alive.

He stayed seated on the bed, towel still damp in his lap, and tried to remember how to breathe.

Click didn’t notice the kettle stop whistling, or the faint clatter of mugs being set on the desk, or the shuffle of footsteps returning across creaky floorboards.

He only looked up when the door creaked open and Horropedia appeared—now carrying a steaming cup of tea in one hand and a bundle of clothes in the other, his expression somewhere between concern and uncontainable curiosity.

“I brought these,” Horropedia said, gently setting the clothes beside Click. “They’re mine, obviously. Might be a bit big. Or small. Honestly, who knows? You look like you got freeze-dried in the 1940s.”

Click blinked at him, startled. The towel slipped slightly from his lap.

“I also made tea. Chamomile. For nerves. And ghosts, apparently,” Horropedia added, sitting cross-legged on the bed beside him, still dripping with open questions and wonder. “Do you—uh—do ghosts drink? I mean, you touched the towel. Can you touch tea? Can you eat? Or do you just, like, simulate the idea of warmth?”

Click silenlty stared at him while Horropedia took a long sip of his own tea and waved a hand. “Sorry. I tend to ramble when I’m excited-slash-horrified-slash-mildly sleepless.”

He looked back at Click, more gently this time. “…You okay?” Click simply glanced toward his right, where Reyes had been. It was empty now. He looked back to Horropedia and gave a small, shallow nod. Not exactly okay, but better than earlier.

Horropedia leaned back against the wall slightly. “Alright. Time to go full nerd mode. I have, like, twelve burning questions. Actually more, but I’ll pace myself.” He pulled a notebook from his pocket, one that was water-damaged but still scribble-ready, and clicked a pen dramatically.

“Okay, so first—do you remember dying?” Horropedia asked, voice softer now, more cautious. “Not to be blunt, but… did something happen that left you stuck here?”

Click looked down at his hands, quielty whispering, “…Yes.”

“Was it violent?” Horropedia hesitated. “No need to describe. Just… important context.” Click nodded once, eyes dark. Horropedia jotted something down, muttering something to himself that Click couldnt catch up on. Click watched as he scribbled something else.

“Next question—how long have you been wandering the town?”

Click hesitated. “…I don’t know. Didn’t bother trying after the first week… ” “hmm,” Horropedia hummed, sounding fascinated. He paused, then flipped a page and looked Click directly in the eye. “Have you ever met anyone who could see you before?”

Click didn’t answer immediately. His expression turned distant. He shook his head once. “…No. You’re the first.” That made Horropedia pause, His hand slowly lowered the pen. The room grew quieter.

“…I’m honored, I think,” he said softly, almost surprised by the weight of it. “But also—that probably means something, right? Why me? Why now?”

Click looked at him with distant, tired eyes. “I don’t know,” he whispered. “But I didn’t want to let you out of my sight.”

Horropedia’s expression softened, “I’m not going anywhere,” he said, barely above a whisper. “Promise.” Click’s fingers twitched over the folded clothes, as if not sure he deserved to touch them.

Then Horropedia clapped his hands, jolting the mood back into focus. “Right! Back to the plan. Step one: rule out basic ghost physics. Step two: test reflective surfaces. Step three: figure out if digestible solids and liquid are consumable. Step four: find a way to keep you seen.”

Click blinked, startled by the sudden energy. Horropedia just gave him a half-grin. “I’m not giving up, Click. You were real once, so you’re still real now. We just have to remind the world.”

And for the first time in years, Click felt a flicker of something he didn’t know how to name.

Hope.

The storm had eased.

Not by much—but enough for the thunder to fade into a dull rumble far beyond the hills, the kind that only spoke up every few minutes like a tired old god. Rain still tapped gently against the window, but it no longer roared. It whispered now.

Click sat on the edge of the bed for a long time after changing.

Horropedia had left him be—turning on the small desk lamp and scribbling furiously into a notebook while chewing the cap of his pen. He muttered softly to himself, occasionally shooting glances at Click, as if checking he hadn’t disappeared mid-thought.

Click had borrowed a hoodie and soft flannel pants—far too large, the sleeves trailing over his hands. They smelled like tea and rain and a little bit of old paper. Familiar in a way that wrapped gently around his chest and stayed there, like the warmth of someone sitting close without touching.

Eventually, quietly, Click lowered himself onto the mattress.

He curled inward instinctively—arms wrapped around his legs, face turned toward the wall. He was still damp in places, the cold clinging to the inside of his sleeves, but his body no longer trembled the way it had earlier.

It was… safe here. For now. Safe enough to let his eyes slip shut. To breathe. To exist without question. Behind him, Horropedia’s voice droned on in hushed tones:

“…Maybe he’s tethered to memory. Or trauma. Or an unfinished purpose. That’s usually how ghosts work in fiction, but fiction’s usually based on emotional logic, so…”

Click didn’t move.

“…He said no one could see him before. Why me? Did something change? Did I do something? Is this, like, a perception filter situation or a timeline ripple—?”

“…I’ll figure it out,” Horropedia said, more to himself than anyone else. “Just… hang on a little longer, Click.” Click didn’t answer. But a faint, nearly invisible breath slipped through his lips and for the first time in what might’ve been years, he let himself rest.

The rain had stopped by morning.

Clouds still hung heavy over the rooftops, casting the town in a cool, blue-gray hush. But for the first time in what felt like days, the sky was still. Water dripped steadily from window ledges and power lines, pooling in gutters that shimmered with soft reflections.

Click stood by the window, arms folded loosely. The hoodie Horropedia had lent him had slipped off one shoulder, and his hair still carried a faint wave from drying overnight.

He looked outside.

People were walking again—umbrellas closed, jackets damp. Shopkeepers unlocked doors. Children kicked puddles.

No one looked up. No one saw him.

Behind him, Horropedia stirred with the intensity of someone who had gotten four hours of sleep and thought it was plenty. He had already thrown on his coat over his pajamas and was now hunched over the desk, laying out various tools: a stack of Polaroid film, two small mirrors, a set of incense sticks (“for ghost vibes”), and a barely-charged camera.

“Alright!” Horropedia clapped once. “Today’s objective: visibility. Or maybe communication. Or both! Let’s see what the Click can and cannot do.”

Click turned slowly, blinking at the scene. “…You don’t have to—” “I absolutely do,” Horropedia interrupted. “You didn’t walk out of a legend just to fade again. We’re doing science. Ghost science.”

He picked up the Polaroid Lab and waved it. “Step one: photo test. Sit still.” Click obeyed, a little stiff, and sat at the desk as instructed. Horropedia snapped a photo with his phone—Click, bathed in the gray morning light, expression soft but far away. Then he loaded it into the Lab and waited.

The photo ejected. It was blank.

Horropedia frowned. “Okay. Expected. Round two.”

He moved the camera to a mirror. “Step two: reflection check.” Click stood beside him, Horropedia tilted the mirror forward. His own face stared back. Dark hair a mess. Eyes tired but lit with curiosity.

Click wasn’t in it. “…Alright, that’s two for two,” Horropedia muttered, jotting notes down. “Still. You can interact. I touched you. You wore clothes. You slept.”

Click flinched at the word. “I didn’t… sleep. Not like you do. But it was close.” “That’s something,” Horropedia said quickly. “Okay, let’s try physical interaction.”

He passed a pencil to Click. When Click tried to hold it, the pencil wavered in his grasp—his fingers sinking into it like it was half-dream. He gripped harder. It slipped through.

“…Right,” Horropedia said, voice softening. “Maybe not objects. What about writing?—”

“There’s no use..”

Click’s voice was flat. “I’m not meant to be seen. Even now—it’s just a flicker. You’re the outlier. I’m not real anymore.” “That’s not true,” Horropedia said, too fast, too sharp. “You’re right here. I see you. You talked to me. You’re real.”

“I can’t be seen through polariods. I can’t hold a pen.”

“You held a towel last night—”

“Maybe it was an accident,” Click whispered.

Silence.

Horropedia didn’t answer immediately. He lowered the pen. Watched the way Click folded in on himself again, hoodie sleeves bunched in his hands, eyes flicking back toward the window and the streets where people still didn’t look up.

After a moment, Horropedia stood. He walked to the desk drawer and rummaged until he found a single sticky note and a dark marker.

He wrote on it. Folded it carefully. Then, he peeled off the backing and pressed the note gently to Click’s chest—right over where his heart would be. Click looked down, The note said:

“You are here. I see you.”

“…We’ll figure it out,” Horropedia said softly. “Even if it takes days. Or weeks. Or years. Even if I’m the only one who ever sees you—I won’t stop trying.”

Click said nothing in response, but didnt try to take the paper off, the paper itself stayed where his heart should be

Chapter Text

By the fifth day, Horropedia had six full notebook pages filled with theories, diagrams, and very shaky sketches of Click’s face (“for science,” he claimed when Click pointed it out to him).

The rain had become gentler, turning from a downpour into a mist that draped itself across the sleepy town as It no longer crashed against the windows. Click sat on the floor, legs folded beneath him, a blanket draped across his shoulders like a cloak. From what Horropedia theorizes, Click cant interact with the living world but Horropedia somehow can interact with Click.

He’d begun accepting comfort in quiet ways. He didn’t flinch when Horropedia offered him a drink anymore—just gently placed the mug beside him, even if he probably couldn’t always grasp it. He hadn’t disappeared yet, so that's probably a good clue.

Horropedia had begun numbering the tests, and the sound of rustling paper filled the room. “Alright,” he muttered, turning back to his desk. “Experiment 12: one-second exposure.”

Click raised an eyebrow, tilting his head, urging him to explain the experiment further. Horropedia adjusted his glasses, flicking through the Polaroid manual he definitely hadn’t read earlier.

 “You said you were a photographer, right? Perhaps we’re going too fast. A short exposure might miss you, but a long one… maybe the camera just needs time to recognize you.” Click tilted his head thoughtfully. “So we’re hoping a longer look might make me real.”

Horropedia grinned. “Basically, yeah.”

“…Sounds kinda stupid, don't you think?”

Horropedia didn’t respond to that, merely shooting him an annoyed glance before setting the camera on the tripod with the care of someone handling a relic, then backing up slowly, beckoning for Click to stand in frame.

Click hesitated, then walked into position.

The light from the window framed him in soft gray. The hoodie Horropedia had given him hung loose over his thin frame, sleeves long enough to hide his hands. He looked less like a ghost and more like a boy caught between seasons—somewhere between spring and winter, between memory and meaning.

“Okay,” Horropedia whispered. “Don’t move.”

The light tension between them broke when Click let out a small laugh, covering his mouth with his hand before mumbling, “You do know I’m a photographer, right? I’m pretty sure I know how to stay still when a shot’s ready to be captured.”

“Right, but photographers are the worst at following their own advice,” Horropedia murmured mockingly, adjusting the camera ever so slightly.

Click raised a brow in mock offense, but didn’t argue. The teasing air between them faded into something softer—no words, just the quiet weight of being near, the faint hum of the world around them, and the shared stillness that somehow felt warmer than any touch.

The shutter clicked.

They silently waited for the results as the picture ejected with a gentle whir. Click’s breath hitched slightly as Horropedia picked it up. His fingers turned it over, slowly, expectantly. As the image began to develop, objects and subjects around the room also began to appear. The room, the edge of the curtain, the empty chair behind Click.

But no figure.

Just a pale blur and strange distortion in the air. ’Wait what?...’ Click silently thought to himself.

Horropedia deflated slightly, feeling defeated as another one of his experiments ended in a failure. He was ready to begin his next try, already walking to his desk before noticing Click’s gaze is still focused on the Polaroid. 

“That blur. That wasn’t there in the others.” Click quietly muttered, pointing the faint distortion with confusion.

Horropedia paused, walking to Click’s side and looked at the image again, squinting his eyes before noticing the distortion.

“Maybe it is.”

He looked up, eyes bright again. “That’s something! You’re being seen!.” He excitedly stuck the photo to the wall above the desk with a bit of tape. Right next to the first polaroid—completely blank.

Click stared at them, The hope he thought that was left and buried in the past began to resurface. It was something. He’s slowly appearing in the living world

“A smudge is still a presence,” Horropedia added, as if reciting it from some forgotten philosophy class. “A footprint. A touch.”

A blur. A smudge. A heartbeat trying to echo again.

Horropedia excitedly grabbed his notebook, eagerly circling the 12th Experiment, already going to the next experiment, his hope and excitement brimming through the roof, not noticing a sudden figure behind him, gently tugging the edge of his sleeve.

He turned his head around and saw Click, his head pointed to the ground, seemingly hiding his face from him before quietly asking, “...After we’ve done the other test…Can we try this again?”

Horropedia smiled endearingly at the man

“Yeah. As many times as you want.”

The experiments became a daily routine.

In the morning, Horropedia would stretch, yawn, pull his hair into a chaotic ponytail, and begin muttering theories under his breath. Click would linger by the window or sit on the bed, waiting with quiet patience—sometimes even reminding Horropedia to eat before getting too excited.

There were mirror tests and light tests. Pendulum charts and whispered questions into tape recorders. Horropedia even rigged an old TV to static once and made Click sit beside it for an hour.

 Most of them didnt work. But they laughed sometimes. Enjoying every moment together.

Click didn’t remember what laughter felt like before this. Sometimes, after another failed trial, Horropedia would throw himself dramatically onto the bed.

“I’m losing my professional Horror license,” he groaned once, arms flopping over his eyes. “My childhood self would be ashamed. I used to read ghost encyclopedias in the bathroom just in case I missed something.”

Click raised an eyebrow, seated beside him with his legs crossed. “That's both impressive and concerning.” He quietly teased him. Horropedia peeked at him through a gap in his sleeve. “I like to be thorough.”

“I guess that devotion still carried on to your adult life huh?.”

That shut Horropedia up for a moment. He peeked at him through the gap in his sleeve before cracking a sincere smiler and softly muttering, “I’m glad you’re still here, by my side..”

Click didn’t answer right away, Horropedia’s words still stuck inside his head before raising his hand to cover his face, blush faintly appearing before quietly replying back, “Me too…”

On the seventh night, after the previous failed handwriting test, Horropedia handed Click a pen anyway.

“Try doodling.”

“I can’t hold it remember?,” Click reminded him. “We could try again, maybe there could be a difference, ust like the polaroid shot yesterday.” Click reached. His fingers trembled around the barrel of the pen—and, for one, flickering second, it didn’t fall.

He moved it slowly.

Scratch. Scratch.

A faint, broken line appeared on the paper.

Then the pen dropped.

Click blinked down at it, startled, his gaze fixed on his open hand as though he didn’t quite believe it had been his doing. His breath hitched, not from exertion, but from something unfamiliar—hope.

Horropedia grabbed Click’s shoulder, shaking him lightly, “You moved it, Click! That wasn’t me, that wasn’t the wind, that wasn’t—” He broke off, a grin spreading across his face as his mind raced.

Click, still silent, glanced from the paper to the pen on the table, then back to Horropedia. The broken line stood out like proof carved in stone. It wasn’t much. Barely anything at all. But it was there.

Horropedia let out a shaky laugh, rubbing the back of his neck. “If you can do that once… you can do it again. This isn’t a dead end. It’s a start.”

For the first time since he had woken up in this strange town, Click felt something flicker inside him—not the faint, tired ember of survival, but the smallest spark of possibility. Neither of them said it out loud, but they both knew.

This might not be a coinsidence.

The days began blending together.

They took more photos. Tried sound recordings again. At one point, Horropedia even held up a Ouija board from a garage sale, prompting Click to just give him the flattest stare he’d ever mustered.

“You have to let me have this moment,” Horropedia said solemnly.

“I’m not spelling anything.”

Horropedia gasped as though he’d just been personally betrayed, then dropped to his knees in exaggerated despair. “Click, please. Just one word. One letter. Even a little scribble. I’m begging you, for the sake of science—no, for the sake of my soul!”

Click raised an eyebrow, arms crossing as Horropedia clutched at the fabric of his trousers like some tragic hero in a play. “You’ll regret this when historians look back and say, ‘Ah yes, the first ever Ouija-board-to-ghost communication… wasted because someone was too stubborn to move a planchette.’"

“Or,” Click said dryly, “they’ll say, ‘Smart ghost avoided embarrassing himself.’”

Horropedia tugged at his pant leg harder, nearly tipping him off balance. “You’re crushing my dreams!”

“Dreams should stay realistic,” Click muttered, though the corner of his mouth twitched.

The silence stretched, Horropedia kneeling there with a ridiculous mix of desperation and theatrical gravitas, still tugging insistently at Click’s pant leg. His glasses had slid down his nose, his hair mussed from hours of failed experiments, and yet his pleading eyes carried all the weight of a man making his last stand.

Click stared down at him, unimpressed. “You look pathetic.” “That’s the point!” Horropedia cried, tightening his grip. “I am a man on the edge! If you deny me this, I will collapse, my soul shattered, my legacy tarnished, my dignity—”

“You never had dignity.”

Horropedia looked up and gasped so loudly it nearly rattled the table. “Blasphemy!” He gave another dramatic tug. “Please. Please, just humor me. One little spelling. One tiny shuffle of the planchette. I promise, I won’t even gloat about it.”

Click tilted his head, considering. “…You’ll definetly gloat about it.”

“I’ll try not to!”

The silence stretched long enough that Horropedia worried he’d genuinely killed the mood. He glanced up, still kneeling, and found Click staring down at him with that maddeningly neutral expression—like he was weighing whether Horropedia was even worth humoring.

Then, with a sigh that sounded like it had been dragged up from centuries of patience, Click muttered, “...Fine. One round.”

Horropedia gasped as if he’d just won the lottery. “Yes! Thank you, benevolent spirit!” He scrambled upright, dramatically brushing imaginary dust off his knees as though this were a sacred rite.

Click just shook his head, settling cross-legged across the board like a man resigned to his fate. “If this spells anything,” he warned, voice dry, “it’s going to be ‘stop embarrassing yourself.’”

“Even better,” Horropedia said, already placing his fingers reverently on the planchette. “That’ll count as proof.”

They both placed their fingertips on the planchette, Horropedia practically trembling with excitement while Click just looked like he was tolerating a mosquito. “Alright,” Horropedia whispered reverently, “spirits of the beyond, reveal yourselves—”

The planchette gave the faintest twitch. Horropedia gasped. “It moved! Did you feel that?!”

Click arched a brow. “You’re pushing it.” “I am not! Don’t ruin this!” Horropedia hissed, eyes wide with anticipation as the planchette slid, slowly but surely, toward the letters.

It stopped on I.

Then D.

Then I again.

Horropedia’s breath caught. “Idi… Idi… what does it mean?!” The planchette slammed decisively onto O.

“...Idiot,” Click said flatly, pulling his finger away. Horropedia’s jaw dropped. “You—! You actually spelled that, didn’t you?!” Click leaned back, deadpan as ever. “Guess the spirits are very honest.”

Horropedia buried his face in his hands, groaning. “Out of every message from the great beyond, that’s the first one I get?!”

Click’s mouth twitched—the faintest ghost of a smirk.

One night, as they sat in silence with a half-finished audio test humming on the desk, Click finally whispered, “I used to think I’d never be seen again.”

Horropedia glanced up. Click’s hands were folded neatly in his lap, his eyes were unfocused, like he was staring past the room—past the layers of time and fog, into something no one else could reach.

“I was losing my face. My voice. I used to have habits, but I couldn’t remember what they were. I… thought I’d become nothing.” He looked down, silently playing with his fingers.

“But now…”

He didn’t finish.

Horropedia didn’t push him to continue either.

He just reached over and gently, carefully, rubbed Click’s back.

Click looked up.

“As long as I can feel your cold hands in mine,” Horropedia murmured, voice low and certain, “you’re still here. You’re not nothing. You’re with me.”

Click said nothing in return, but the words clung to him long after the silence settled. Normally, he would’ve withdrawn—slipped away to the edge of the bed, where the shadows curled like old companions, where he could pretend that distance was safety. But that night, something in Horropedia’s tone unraveled him.

So instead of retreating, he lowered himself beside Horropedia. The mattress dipped, their shoulders almost touching, and for a moment, Click just lay there stiffly, staring at the ceiling. His body carried no warmth, no weight of life—but Horropedia hadn’t flinched, hadn’t recoiled.

Why… why is he holding me as if I matter? Click thought. His gaze slid sideways to Horropedia’s face, soft in the dim light, lashes fanned over tired eyes. Every line of him was so alive, so painfully fragile, and yet he looked at Click like he was whole. Like he was worth seeing.

A strange ache pulled at Click’s chest. He found himself memorizing the rise and fall of Horropedia’s breathing, the way his lips parted slightly in the cusp of sleep, the faint crease in his brow that never fully smoothed even at rest. If he reached out, if he dared, he could brush that hair back, trace the warmth that would never be his again.

Instead, he closed his eyes. For the first time since death had claimed him, he wasn’t drifting into an endless blur or fading into the void. He wasn’t nothing.

He was here—beside Horropedia.

And together, in the fragile stillness, they both slipped into sleep. Not haunted, not restless, but blissfully, simply resting.

The plaza was alive with weekend chatter.

Street vendors were set up beneath plastic tarps, steam curling from rice snacks and roasted chestnuts. Children darted around benches and scooters, their voices rising in messy chorus. Click watched a balloon float into the air—bright red against the gray—and disappear behind a powerline.

It was almost too much.

He hadn’t been around this much movement in… years, probably.

Horropedia nudged him gently. “Okay. Try standing still first. I’ll observe from a distance.” Click nodded, stepping toward the center of the cobbled path, right by a street musician tuning his guitar.

Horropedia circled back, sat on the nearest bench, and opened a fresh page in his notebook.

Click stood there. Still. A little awkward. A breeze nudged his sleeve.

No one looked up. No one paused. A child nearly ran through him chasing a paper toy. The breeze rustled someone else’s umbrella.

He glanced back at Horropedia, gave a small shake of the head.

Horropedia sighed. “…Okay,” he muttered. “Time for the next test.”

They bought chestnuts from a cart and sat under the eaves of a quiet bookstore. Horropedia did the eating. Click did the watching.

Rain returned in soft waves, barely noticeable under the canopy.

The world moved around them—impossibly bright, unbearably normal. A couple shared a scarf. A stray cat curled by a lamppost. A boy practiced dance moves under the awning across the street, thinking no one was watching.

Click smiled.

He looked over at Horropedia—his messy ponytail, the ink smudge on his fingers, the way he carefully picked apart each chestnut like it might contain a puzzle inside.

“…I never got to do this,” Click said.

“Just… sit here. Quietly. While the rain falls, while people laugh in the distance.” He paused, tapping rubbing his hands together as though the words themselves embarrassed him. “…You’re already doing it. Right now.” 

Click’s voice softened, almost shy. “Because you’re here. Because of you.”

The admission seemed to hang in the air like steam off the pavement. Horropedia busied himself with his food, chewing slowly, eyes dropping as if afraid to be caught saying something too earnest. A faint pink climbed to his ears, betraying the nerves he tried to bury under thoughtfulness.

Click tilted his head, wordless, watching the way Horropedia fidgeted with the edge of his sleeve and refused to look at him. Silence stretched between them, not heavy but fragile, like glass resting between their hands.

The rain softened to a fine mist, the kind that clung to skin instead of falling. A cool wind slipped past, threading through their hair. Click let it sweep through his sleeves, dispersing around the empty space where warmth should have been.

For once, he didn’t mind the chill.

On the walk back, Horropedia talked more than usual—half rambling, half apologizing.

“I know it didn’t work,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “But I swear we’re not out of options. I still want to try more camera types—maybe infrared or film negatives. There’s this ritual I read about last night—super sketchy, but interesting—and there’s always the old theater downtown. The acoustics are weird there—”

Click’s gaze followed the mist curling along the cobblestones. “…Horropedia.”

The other blinked. “Hm?”

“…Today was good.”

Horropedia stopped mid-step, caught off guard. Breath misted in the cold air. “Good? You mean… even though the tests failed?” Click shrugged, a ghostly weight in his shoulders. “I don’t need it to work. Not today. Just… walking with you. Watching people. Feeling the rain. That’s enough.”

Horropedia’s eyes softened, a shy, awkward smile tugging at his lips as he rubbed the back of his neck, “…I didn’t think you’d ever say that.”

Click looked down, silent for a moment, then muttered, “…You make it easier to… exist here. Easier to feel like I matter.” The admission barely left his lips, but Horropedia’s hand found his, surprisingly warm in the chilly mist. Click froze, heart flaring in that strange, hollow way that only the living could inspire.

“You matter, Click,” Horropedia whispered, squeezing gently. “Here. With me. Always.”

Click tilted his head slightly, watching Horropedia’s hand close over his. It shouldn’t feel real. He shouldn’t be felt. And yet—warmth. Presence. Somehow, he could feel it. And he let himself lean into it.

“Even if no one else sees me?” Click murmured.

“I see you,” Horropedia said firmly, intertwining their fingers. “And that’s… enough for now.”

Click swallowed the lump in his throat, ghostly fingers now fully entwined with Horropedia’s. A faint ache of longing, of lost time, of battles survived and missed moments, pressed against him—but it was tempered by this small, perfect certainty.

They walked on, side by side, mist curling around their shoulders, the rain softened to a drizzle, and Click found himself for the first time feeling… home.

And though the world around them still couldn’t see him, in that moment, Click knew he was seen. Truly seen.

Chapter Text

The bell above the corner shop chimed as Horropedia pushed the door open, the sound cutting sharp against the drizzle outside. He practically puffed his chest out, shoulders squared like a knight marching onto a battlefield. “Okay, Click,” he whispered under his breath, voice low but brimming with bravado. “This is it! Today we make history.”

Click drifted in behind him, quiet as always, his shape catching faint reflections in the windows no one else ever noticed. The warm fluorescent light of the shop hummed against the rain outside.

“History,” Click repeated softly, his tone flat. “In a grocery store.”

“Yes!” Horropedia hissed back, throwing his arms out with a flair that made the cashier raise an eyebrow. “Every great discovery begins in the most mundane of places. Apples fell from trees. Fire was sparked from sticks. Today—” he pressed a hand to his chest, lowering his voice dramatically, “—a ghost will finally be heard.”

Click let the corner of his mouth twitch, though the amusement was thin, tired. Part of him wanted to dismiss it outright, to say this would end like every other experiment: silence, failure, that same pressing reminder that he was transparent to the world. But another part of him—fragile, aching—clung to Horropedia’s enthusiasm like a lifeline.

Maybe, Click thought, maybe today.

Horropedia leaned over the counter, greeting the cashier with too much flourish, fumbling through half a pep talk as though trying to convince both the man and himself. “Lovely weather we’re having, right? Did you know rain is the perfect atmospheric condition for—uh—manifestations? Oh, no reason, just… science.”

The cashier stared at him. “…Right.”

Click hovered, folding his arms loosely. Watching Horropedia blunder through small talk was almost comforting; it reminded him of nights back in the field, when soldiers filled the silence with chatter that didn’t matter, just to stave off the dark.

Then Horropedia gave a quick grin, muttered something about needing to grab “a crucial item for the process,” and disappeared into the back aisles.

And suddenly, the silence felt heavier.

Click stood by the counter, staring at the rows of gum and candy bars he couldn’t touch. His chest tightened. This is pointless, he told himself. It’s always pointless. No one hears. No one sees. Still—he cupped his hands around his mouth, like a funnel, like the old days when you had to shout just to be heard over artillery. His voice came out raw, barely more than a breath.

“…Hello?”

The cashier flinched. His head snapped up. Eyes flickered across the shop, wide and searching. “…Huh?” Click’s breath caught. His whole body went rigid.

He heard me. He—

The cashier rubbed the back of his neck, muttering, “Weird. Thought I heard someone whisper.” Click felt his chest cave in, a flood of heat and cold surging through him. His throat tightened, his hands trembling at his sides. It wasn’t much—just a flicker, just a mistaken noise—but it was something.

I’m not completely gone. Not completely lost.

For the first time since he’d woken in this ghost of a town, someone other than Horropedia had stirred at his voice. And though the man didn’t know it, though he couldn’t see him, the simple acknowledgement nearly undid Click.

Horropedia returned from the aisle with a pack of batteries clutched in one hand, looking far too pleased with himself. “Alright! Step one complete. I—”, He stopped in his track, noticing the cashier’s puzzled expression as the man kept glancing around the shop like someone had tapped him on the shoulder.

“Something wrong?” Horropedia asked, tilting his head.

The cashier frowned, still scanning the air. “Just… thought I heard someone whisper. Weird.”

Horropedia blinked, then turned sharply to Click, who stood motionless beside the counter. His eyes were wide, his lips parted like he’d just had the wind knocked out of him.Click swallowed hard, hands curling into fists at his sides. His voice cracked when it came out: “…He heard me.”

The words were small. Fragile. Almost as if saying them too loudly would break the moment apart.

Horropedia’s entire body lit up like a struck match, he was about to celebrate this newly found discovery before his thoughts were cut off from a cough by the cashier. “Will that be all?” The cashier muttered, looking at Horropedia weirdly. Horropedia could only chuckle awkwardly as he rubbed his neck, embarassment slightly creeping up his neck, “a-ah yeah that's all!” Horropedia quickly payed his shopping, rushing out of the grocery shop with a quick thanks shouted behind his shoulder. 

The bell jingled again as they stepped back out into the street. The rain hadn’t stopped—it never really did here—but it had softened to a steady curtain, thin enough for streetlights to burn through in hazy circles. Horropedia practically bounced down the sidewalk, the sound of his boots splashing against puddles loud and energetic.

“Did you see his face?!” Horropedia exclaimed, throwing his arms out wide like he was recounting a campfire story. “That—that was genuine confusion! He heard you. Even if it was faint, it happened! Oh, man, I swear this is like—like—our first real proof! Not just theories or blurry photos, but actual, human acknowledgment! Click, you’re a miracle.”

Click walked a step behind, his expression caught between wonder and weariness. Horro’s joy was infectious, spilling over like an untamed river, and yet—beneath the warmth, beneath that fragile flicker of relief—there was an ache.

He’s temporary, Click thought, watching the rain slide down Horropedia’s shoulders, clinging to his coat. He’s not staying. Someday, the Foundation will pull him back, or he’ll move on, and I’ll be here again. Alone. Just like before.

Horropedia kept talking, his voice bright even as he shoved his hands into his damp pockets. “We can build on this! I’m thinking controlled environments next time. Like the theater downtown—its acoustics are wild, and if a cashier can notice a whisper in a noisy shop, then imagine what might happen there! And I still want to try film negatives. Oh! And there’s a library record room I can sneak into—perfect for EVP—”

Click almost smiled at the way Horro rattled off plans, too fast, too animated. He believes in me, Click realized. Even when I don’t believe in myself. Even when I’ve given up, he keeps pulling me forward.

But that thought twisted sharp, heavy in his chest. What happens when he leaves? What happens when I lose him too?

The memory of silence pressed down on him—5 or 4 endless months wandering unnoticed, the cycle of hallucinations and hollow calls that never reached anyone. The idea of returning to that emptiness without Horro by his side was unbearable. His hands clenched tight at his sides, trembling faintly.

He wanted to reach out, to hold onto Horropedia, to tether himself to something real, but fear stopped him. Fear that if he tried, he’d phase through again, or worse—that Horro would pull away.

Then Horropedia turned suddenly, still smiling, his brown hair plastered wet to his forehead. “Click, you realize what this means, right?” he asked, voice bright with certainty. “You’re not gone. You’re here. And I’m not going to stop until everyone else sees it too.”

Click’s throat tightened. The words he wanted to say—don’t leave me, don’t let me fade again—sat heavy and unsaid. Instead, he forced out a small, shaky reply.

“…Maybe tomorrow,” he whispered.

Horropedia grinned at him, a grin so unshakable it almost convinced Click that tomorrow was certain, that this fragile moment wasn’t just temporary and as they walked side by side, Horropedia’s voice filling the misty night, Click silently prayed that tomorrow wouldn’t end too soon.

The rain had thinned into a light drizzle by the time they reached the edge of town. The streetlamps hummed softly, halos of light bending in the mist. Click slowed his steps, tilting his head back to watch the way droplets caught in the glow, fractured and scattered like a thousand tiny stars. For a moment, he let himself forget. Forget the weight, forget the fear. Just the beauty of rain, of the world still turning without him.

Even like this, he thought, I can still see things worth keeping.

Beside him, Horropedia’s phone buzzed. Click glanced over in time to see him grimace at the caller ID before reluctantly answering. “…Yeah?” Horropedia’s voice dropped into something sharper, clipped at the edges.

The voice on the other end was muffled, but firm enough for Click to catch pieces. “—been two weeks—vacation already over—Foundation needs you back—” Horropedia’s jaw clenched. He tried to sound breezy, even laughed once under his breath. “Yeah, I know. Just… thought I could stretch it a little longer, you know? Things here are… interesting.”

“Interesting isn’t an excuse,” the voice snapped. “You’ve extended twice already. Enough.”

Click watched Horro’s smile falter, shifting into something tight and frustrated. “Right. Fine. Got it. I’ll head back.” He hung up without another word, shoving the phone deep into his pocket. His shoulders were tense, his stride quicker now, irritation rolling off him in waves. Click lingered where he stood, staring at him. The drizzle trickled down his sleeves, seeping into his silence. “…You’re leaving me.”

Horropedia stopped dead in his tracks, whipping around. His eyes went wide. “What? No—no, Click, of course not! I’m not leaving you.” His voice was too quick, too forceful, the kind of denial that tried to smother the truth before it could surface.

Click didn’t move. His chest felt heavy, his hands curling slowly into fists. Horro’s words were loud, urgent, but behind them Click could still hear the ugly truth of that phone call. The Foundation wasn’t interested in his story. They wanted Horropedia back, and Horropedia would go.

“…You don’t have to lie,” Click whispered, his voice thin, trembling.

The night felt colder, the drizzle heavier. And though Horropedia reached out, hand hovering as if to grab his sleeve, Click only stepped back, his eyes fixed on the wet pavement.

He’ll go back, Click thought, the ache pulling through him like glass. And I’ll stay. Like I always do.

The hours bled together after the phone call. They hadn’t spoken much since—just the scrape of chairs, the distant hum of rain against the window, the way silence seemed to knot itself between them. Click sat at the small desk, his eyes tracing the raindrops sliding down the glass. Each one broke, vanished, gone as quickly as it came.

Behind him, Horropedia shifted restlessly. “Click…” His voice was softer now, stripped of that sharp edge from earlier. He tried again. “Don’t look like that. I told you—I’m not leaving you behind. You matter to me, you hear? More than you think.”

Click turned slowly, meeting his gaze. For a heartbeat, he wanted to believe it. He wanted to lean into the warmth of those words and hold them close. But the truth was already rooted too deep.

“…I know,” Click murmured. His lips twitched, something like a smile but too faint, too fragile.

Inside, though, his thoughts churned:

Horropedia has his own life. A life with weight, with shape. He has work that waits for him, people who expect him, a world that acknowledges him just by existing.

He can laugh, be heard, be touched. He can step outside and feel the rain cling to his coat, while all I can do is let it slip through me.

He shouldn’t be tied down to me. Not to a ghost lingering in a town that already forgot I existed, whose name would mean nothing to anyone if he said it out loud.

I’m not a foundation, not a job, not even a responsibility. I’m just a shadow. And shadows aren’t supposed to keep anyone from the sun.

Click’s hands curled faintly at his sides. He lowered his gaze back to the window.

I want to ask him to stay. Every part of me is screaming to. But asking would make me selfish. It would make me cruel. Because if he chose me, what would he lose? Everything he’s built. Everything he could still have. I can’t let him pay that price. Not for me.

Behind him, Horropedia stepped closer, crouching a little to catch his eyes. “I meant it. You’re not alone in this anymore.” His hand hovered at Click’s shoulder, almost touching but hesitant, as if afraid one wrong move would shatter everything.

Click forced a nod, his voice steady even as the truth scraped raw inside him. “…Alright. I believe you.”

But deep down, he already knew what he must do.

The room was quiet except for the gentle rhythm of Horropedia’s breathing. Click lay curled beside him, watching the rise and fall of his chest. Even in sleep, Horro’s hair stuck slightly to his forehead, damp from the lingering drizzle outside, and the faint twitch of his lips made Click’s chest ache with a warmth that had nothing to do with the weather.

Heavy sleeper, Click thought, a small, bitter smile tugging at the corners of his lips. I could poke him in the ribs, shake him awake… and he’d snore right through it.

Gently, carefully, Click lifted himself, brushing a hand against Horropedia’s shoulder as if testing the boundary between dream and reality. He rested his head briefly on Horropedia’s chest, letting the steady heartbeat press against his ear. The rhythm was grounding, and for a fleeting moment, it gave him courage—but also reminded him of what he couldn’t cling to. Reminding him of their difference. 

Click quietly listened to Horropedia’s heartbeat, it’s continuous beating bringing sadness to his own well being as he raised his own hand to his chest. No sign of a beating. No sign of life. 

He rose silently, careful not to wake the other, and padded toward the balcony. The night stretched before him, veiled in mist and rain, lights from the town below blurred into scattered glimmers that twinkled like distant stars. The air was cool and wet, slipping through him like it always did, but tonight, it carried something heavier—decision, inevitability, finality.

Click gripped the railing tighter, mist weaving through his sleeves. His thoughts gnawed at him, louder than the rain.

I want him to stay. God, I want him to stay.

The admission rang bitter in his chest. He closed his eyes.

I want him to look at me the way he looks at the world. To see me and keep seeing me, not just as some… lost remnant, but as someone worth holding onto.

I want to be selfish. I want him to stay here, in this room, with me. Even if it costs him everything else.

His throat tightened, a dry, broken laugh escaping.

But what does that make me? Just another burden. Haven’t I already been one enough?

He could picture it too clearly—Horropedia’s face twisted with guilt, choosing him over his work, over his life. Horropedoa’s spark dimming, chained down to something that wasn’t even alive anymore.

Click pressed a hand against his chest again, just hoping for that one remnant of his self, but there was no heartbeat, just the hollow ache of memory.

I can’t do that to him. He deserves light, not the shadow I drag with me. He deserves friends who laugh with him in cafés, people who see him and answer back when he talks.

Not me. Not someone who can barely exist outside of borrowed moments.

His voice cracked, though no one was there to hear it.

If I begged him to stay… if I asked him to choose me… he would. I know he would. He’d look me in the eyes, all serious, all determined, and he’d throw everything away just to keep me from fading.

And I’d let him. I’d let him ruin his life for my sake, because I’m too scared of being forgotten again.

Click lowered his head, trembling.

That’s not love. That’s desperation. That’s selfishness.

He forced himself to look back toward the dim outline of Horropedia sleeping inside, blankets tangled around him, mouth slightly open in soft, unguarded rest. The sight nearly shattered him.

He doesn’t even know how much he’s saved me already. He gave me laughter when I thought I’d never laugh again.

He gave me warmth when I thought I’d only ever feel the cold. He gave me a place to sit, a voice to answer to, a reason to wait for tomorrow. That’s more than enough. More than I deserve.

His grip on the railing loosened.

If I love him—really love him—I have to let him go. I have to let him live the life I can’t have anymore.

I can’t keep asking him to carry me. I can’t chain him here, to someone who doesn’t even belong in this world anymore. I can’t.

And yet… the thought clawed back through the silence.

But I want to. I want him to stay.

Click pressed his forehead against the railing, eyes burning as the war raged quietly inside him. Torn between wanting to be chosen and knowing he couldn’t allow it, between aching for presence and surrendering to absence.

Then the world shifted. Not violently, not in a storm, but like a shadow moving gently into focus. And there he was. Reyes.

The man looked older now, lines deepened by time and experience, but his eyes—the same sharp, knowing eyes from the battlefield—were unmistakable. The blood, the chaos, the pain of war still clung to him

“Click,” Reyes said quietly, voice carrying the weight of countless nights spent staring down the dark. “It’s… late. Or early. Depends how you look at it.”

Click swallowed, feeling the knot of sorrow in his chest tighten. “I couldn’t sleep.” His voice was soft, almost swallowed by the night. “…I had to make sure I could still think clearly.” Reyes stepped closer, folding his arms, the rain dripping off his shoulders. “I take it… it’s about that nerd boy whose clinging on ya?”

Click nodded. His gaze drifted over the misty town below, not quite seeing it. “I… I can’t hold him back. Not anymore. He has his life to live—his work, his friends, the world he belongs to. I… I’ve had my chance to exist here, to make memories. But he shouldn’t be tied to me. He shouldn’t be slowed down because I can’t move on from… from being dead.”

Reyes sighed softly, the sound almost like wind through the trees. “Are you sure about this, Click? You’ve never been sure about anything since… well, you know. Have you even talked to him about it?”

Click shook his head. “I can’t. If I stay, he’ll choose me. And I… I don’t want to ask him to—” His throat tightened. “…to sacrifice himself for a ghost.”

Reyes studied him, the silence stretching long enough for the night to seem stiller, colder, and heavier than ever. Finally, he moved closer and rested a hand gently on Click’s shoulder, then moved to pat the top of his head, like a quiet fatherly comfort. The gesture was simple, silent, but it held a lifetime of reassurance.

“You’ve made your decision,” Reyes said softly. “Then I won’t stop you. But… remember, Click. Don’t think you’re alone, even when you feel like it. You’ve carried too much already.”

Click’s eyes stung, but he didn’t speak. He simply bowed his head slightly, accepting the pat, feeling the solidity of Reyes’ presence—a tether to a life that had already ended, yet still offering guidance. “I… I have to leave him,” Click whispered to himself. “I need him to live. To be happy. To have a life that isn’t… me.”

Reyes didn’t answer, just stayed by his side, letting the quiet wind and rain fill the space between them. Click closed his eyes, letting the decision settle deep in his chest, the ache of it folding into something resembling peace.

He finally opened them again, scanning the town, the mist, the lights. Somewhere below, Horropedia slept unaware, his chest rising and falling. And for the first time since he’d woken in this town, Click felt a strange, fragile clarity.

He would let Horropedia live. And he would stay behind—not out of anger, not out of spite, but out of love.

Chapter Text

The rain had begun sometime in the late morning, soft as a whisper at first, faint pattering against the glass panes of the little inn. By the time Horropedia finally coaxed Click to step outside, it had deepened into a steady downpour, the kind that blurred rooftops into a hazy watercolor and turned every lantern into a smeared blot of yellow.

Horropedia came prepared with an umbrella he had bought from the first day coming to town, though it posed a challenge as he couldn't get it to open, wrestling with the stiff mechanism, muttering under his breath.

Click drifted beside him in silence, watching the struggle with a faint pull at his lips—half amusement, half ache. Finally, with a loud click, the frame locked into place. Horropedia let out a triumphant sigh, then promptly squinted up at the gray sky as if daring it to challenge him. “There. Perfectly functional, despite its attitude.” He muttered while making space for Click under his umbrella.

Click wanted to tell him he was acting ridiculous. He wanted to tell him that ghosts didn’t need cover from the rain. But he said nothing—only fell into step beside him as they ventured down the cobblestone street, washed silver with water.

The town was quiet, as though the rain had pressed its finger to every lip. Shopfronts were shuttered, laundry lines abandoned, and stray cats hunched beneath doorways, their fur darkened to shadows. The streets shone slick and mirror like, puddles spreading in shallow pools that reflected the cloudy sky.

Horropedia’s boots struck through them with each step, splashing faintly. His coat, despite his fussing, had already darkened with damp patches at the hem. He held the umbrella over both their heads, even though it was hardly necessary for Click.

Click kept pace close to him, listening to the rhythm of his steps: the slosh of leather boots, the faint groan of waterlogged ground. Those sounds had a weight, an anchor. Click let them settle into him, like a heartbeat borrowed.

For a fleeting moment, he forgot. He forgot the decision already lodged deep in his chest like shrapnel. He forgot that each step carried him closer to goodbye.

All he saw was Horropedia, tilting his head back to blink water from his glasses, a small crease at the bridge of his nose, and—when he thought no one was looking—the quiet curl of a smile.

The rain picked up, drumming harder on the umbrella. Horropedia stooped to tilt it whilst watching the upcoming downpour, trying to shield Click despite the absurdity of the gesture. “Habit,” he muttered to himself, adjusting the angle. “Even if you don’t—well. Old instincts die hard, I suppose.”

Click’s gaze fixed on him—on the stubborn way his hand clenched the handle, knuckles pale with cold, determined to protect what didn’t need protecting. A pang of fondness struck him sharply.

On impulse, he stepped aside, deliberately letting the rain fall through him. He slowed down his steps and crouched near a wide puddle, dragging his fingers through the ripples. His touch left a small ripple, but the movement mirrored something long-forgotten from his living days.

Click quietly stood up, his boots slapped against the wet stone, and took a small jump onto the puddle, sending water flying in arcs. He leapt from puddle to puddle, each splash deliberate, as though testing how far he could push Horropedia’s patience.

Horropedia groaned dramatically. “You know, most people try to avoid looking like drowned rats.” Click splashed harder, straight into a puddle that sent droplets up Horropedia’s shins. His lips twitched again, a ghost of a smirk.

“Oh, so that’s how it is.” Horropedia crouched, scooped up a handful of rainwater from a low puddle, and flicked it with reckless abandon. It splattered against Click’s sleeve. Click turned, deadpan stare cutting through the downpour. “…Really?”

“Yes, really,” Horropedia said, grinning widely now. “You started it.”

Click didn’t reply. He only tilted his head slightly—then stomped hard into a puddle, sending a wave of water over Horropedia’s shoes.

Horropedia yelped, then laughed, half indignant, half thrilled. He abandoned any thought of dignity, charging forward to retaliate. Boots slapped, water sprayed, rain plastered their hair flat. They darted around one another in messy circles, laughing too loud for the now-empty streets. 

At one point, Horropedia slipped, nearly toppling into a puddle, but Click caught his arm just enough to steady him. Horropedia barked out a laugh anyway, doubling over. “I’m losing to a ghost. This is pathetic.”

Click’s voice, soft but amused: “You’re just clumsy.”

“Oh, shut up,” Horropedia snorted and kicked another puddle at him.

They went on until their chests heaved from laughter, until even the rain couldn’t wash the grins from their faces. Finally, out of breath, they slowed—shoulders bumping, clothes dripping, hair plastered in soaked strands.

The rain didn’t let up. It fell in silver sheets, a steady curtain around them, drowning the cobblestones in a slick mirror. Horropedia, still grinning from their puddle skirmish, tilted his head back and squinted at the sky, as though daring it to relent. His glasses were hopelessly fogged, droplets clinging to the rims, and yet he looked entirely unbothered.

Then, abruptly, he turned to Click with a strange, mischievous spark in his eyes.

“You know,” he said, his voice pitched over the rain, “there’s a thing people do in movies. The dramatic kind.” Click raised an eyebrow.

Horropedia extended his hand with an exaggerated flourish, bowing stiffly like an actor on a stage. “Dance in the rain. Romantic, cinematic, utterly impractical. But… why not?”

Click blinked at the hand, bemused. Dance. With me. He hesitated—but then placed his cold, faint hand against Horropedia’s palm. To his own surprise, Horropedia’s warmth caught him. Held him.

The other’s grin widened. “See? You get it. Now, left foot—no, wait, my left foot, your—oh no.”

Their first few steps were a disaster. Horropedia stepped squarely onto Click’s boot, winced, then tried to correct by spinning too quickly. He nearly slipped, arms flailing, but Click caught him with a steady grip that shouldn’t have been possible for someone like him.

Horropedia stared at their hands, wide-eyed, then back at Click. “You—did you just—?”

Click tilted his head, half smug, half shy. “Oh, don’t give me that look,” Horropedia huffed, cheeks pink despite the cold. “Beginner’s mistake.” They tried again. And again.

Horropedia tripped twice more, cursed under his breath, then dissolved into laughter, leaning forward against Click’s shoulder for balance. “Hopeless. I’m hopeless at this.”

Click shifted his grip, steady, guiding him with an ease he hadn’t felt since his living years. His lips didn’t move, but inside his chest words stirred—quiet, desperate.

You’re beautiful like this. Do you know? Even clumsy. Even soaked through with rain. Especially then.

The rain slid down Horropedia’s lashes, catching in his crooked glasses, dripping from his chin. His hair was plastered to his forehead in wet curls, and his laughter spilled unfiltered, bright and real.

If I could take a photograph of this moment, it would be the only one I’d ever need. No staged smile, no battlefield victory, no blurred crowd. Just this. You, holding me as if I’m here. You, letting me believe I’m alive again.

They turned slowly, half a circle across the cobblestones. Horropedia’s boots splashed through puddles, his coat flared dimly, and all the while he stared at Click like the rest of the world had blurred into nothing.

How can you look at me like that? 

Like I’m not a shadow. Like I’m not already fading. It isn’t fair. I want— 

Click’s thoughts stuttered.

I want more. I want a tomorrow, and the day after, and the thousand little moments in between. I want to keep hearing you laugh until I forget what silence sounds like. I want to be selfish enough to hold on.

The ache in his chest tightened, but he guided Horropedia into another slow turn. His hand remained steady, even as his heart wavered. Horropedia stumbled one last time, nearly colliding with Click’s chest. He huffed, breathless, but his smile softened. “…You’re better at this than I am.”

Click only shook his head faintly, the corners of his mouth twitching upward. He couldn’t say. No, you’re perfect. You’re enough.

He could only hold the warmth of the moment against his hollow chest and pretend it filled the space that death had carved out long ago.

And in that fleeting dance, with the rain falling steadily around them, Click let himself pretend—pretend he belonged to the world of warmth and laughter again, if only for as long as the waltz lasted.

When I go, this is what I’ll take with me. Your smile. Your hand in mine. And maybe, just maybe, that will be enough for my soul.

The waltz faltered to a stop, their steps slowing until they were standing still in the rain. Horropedia gave a final, sheepish bow, laughing at his own clumsiness, while Click simply stood there and watched him. Then Horropedia nudged his shoulder, playful. “Come on. Before we drown out here.”

So they walked. Side by side, clothes clinging wet to their frames, boots squelching in the shallow puddles. Horropedia shook his hair out like a drenched cat, muttering under his breath about ruined notes and soaked pockets. Click only listened, his silence steady, his eyes soft in a way Horropedia never noticed.

This is the last time, Click thought, the words heavy, inevitable. The last walk. The last rain. I wish I could tell you. I wish I could stay.

Horropedia shoved his hands in his coat pockets, hunched against the wind. “We should get hot tea when we’re back. I’ll make it. Or try to. Fair warning: I’m terrible at it.”

Click smiled faintly at the ground. Even now, you’re thinking of tomorrow. Always tomorrow. And me? I don’t have tomorrows left—only this.

They passed the dim glow of a bakery window, fogged with heat, laughter spilling faintly from inside. Horropedia glanced through, a touch wistful, then turned back to Click with that same earnest light in his eyes—the one that made the world feel less cruel.

Click slowed for a moment, staring, aching. I’m sorry.

His fingers twitched at his side, wanting to reach for Horropedia’s hand, wanting to say the words that stuck, heavy, unspoken, in his chest. But he didn’t. He couldn’t. Instead, he matched his pace again, walking silently beside him.

I’m sorry I can’t stay. I’m sorry I can’t give you the confession you deserve. You gave me life again, even when I had none left. And I’m leaving you with nothing in return. Except for this walk. This rain. This memory.

Horropedia sneezed, swore softly, and kept trudging forward. Click let out a soundless laugh. Even sick, even ridiculous—you’re beautiful to me. You’ll never know how much.

By the time they reached the door, Horropedia was already fumbling for his keys, grumbling at the water dripping down his neck. He pushed inside, muttering, “Finally. Warmth.” Click lingered on the threshold, one last glance at the rain-slick street behind them.

Goodbye, he told himself. Quiet. Final. And thank you, Horropedia. For letting me believe I still mattered. For making me feel seen. Even if only for a while.

Then he stepped in after him, carrying nothing but the silence of the storm.

That night, the world outside was damp with rain, the air heavy with the lingering scent of wet earth. Their clothes still hung by the window, dripping into the basin Horropedia had clumsily set beneath them.

Horropedia himself lay sprawled across the bed, glasses folded neatly at the nightstand, hair still stubbornly curling from the storm. His breathing had already slowed into that familiar rhythm—deep, even, unshakable.

Click lingered at the doorway, silent, watching. “I’ll stay up for a while,” he said quietly when Horropedia cracked one eye open at him. A sleepy groan, muffled against the pillow. “Suit yourself. Don’t… knock over anything.” His words dissolved into a yawn. “Goodnight, Click.”

Click’s throat tightened. “…Goodnight,” he whispered back.

But Horropedia didn’t hear—he was already gone, lost to dreams, his chest rising and falling with the slow, steady beat that Click had grown to cherish more than he’d ever admit.

Click moved closer, almost without realizing it, sitting at the edge of the bed. He leaned down, just enough for his head to rest lightly against Horropedia’s chest. The sound was there, steady and grounding: that heartbeat. A rhythm Click could never match, never keep. He closed his eyes, drinking it in.

I’ll never forget this sound, he thought. Even when I’m gone, even when he no longer remembers me… I’ll carry this.

Horropedia shifted slightly, murmuring something incoherent in his sleep. Click froze, breath caught, then exhaled when he realized he hadn’t woken. A ghost of a smile touched his lips. Heavy sleeper. Always has been. Lucky for me, isn’t it?

He pulled away slowly, careful not to disturb him further, and stood. For a long moment, he just looked. The curve of Horropedia’s hand curled loosely against the sheets. The faint crease that never quite left his brow, even in rest. The softness in his face when no words or worries weighed him down.

Click’s chest ached. You deserve so much more. A life where you don’t have to carry the weight of me.

He turned toward the small desk in the corner, where scraps of crumpled paper already lay, remnants of half-formed words and broken attempts. His hand hovered over the pen, over the blank sheet waiting for him. He had been trying, for days, to write what needed to be said. Tonight, there would be no more delays.

Click sat, the room utterly still but for the rain dripping outside and Horropedia’s soft, steady breathing.

This is the last night. By morning, he’ll know. And he’ll hate me for it. Or worse… he won’t. But either way, this is how it must be.

He bent over the page, the first scratch of the pen breaking the silence.

The morning crept in with a pale light, the kind that seeped through thin curtains without really warming the room. Rain had stopped sometime before dawn, leaving the air damp and heavy, the floorboards cool beneath bare feet.

Horropedia stirred, yawning, reaching instinctively to the other side of the bed. His hand brushed against nothing but the impression of a body long gone cold. He blinked awake, squinting.

“…Click?”

He sat up, pushing his glasses onto his nose, hair sticking out at all angles. The space beside him was empty—no quiet figure leaning at the window, no still presence lingering like a shadow. Just silence, thick and unfamiliar.

A laugh escaped him, though it wavered with unease. “Ha. Probably brooding in the corner again. Typical.”

He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, stretching, his joints popping. The room seemed ordinary, unchanged. Their clothes still hung by the basin, damp but nearly dry now. The air carried the faint scent of yesterday’s rain. It should have been just another morning.

And yet.

Something tugged at him. A hollowness, subtle but pressing, like a missing piece he couldn’t quite place.

“Click?” he called again, louder this time, standing to peer toward the balcony. Empty. The desk? Empty, save for the usual clutter—except.

He stopped in his tracks.

There it was, set carefully on top of the scattered pages—a folded sheet of paper, creased at the edges, blotched with ink smudges. His name was written across the front in shaky, uneven script. His breath caught. He knew, before he even touched it, that this was wrong.

He reached out anyway, hands trembling as he unfolded it.

The handwriting wavered, the letters slanting, messy and almost childlike in their unevenness—but every word bled with intent, with the painstaking effort it must have taken for Click to hold the pen, to force it across the page again and again.

Horropedia,

I don’t know how to start this. I tried so many times and tore the pages apart. But if you’re reading this, then I finally managed.

Thank you. For everything. For seeing me, when no one else ever could. For talking to me, for laughing with me, for letting me exist beside you, even just for a little while. You gave me more than I thought I’d ever have again. You gave me memories. You gave me peace.

You made me feel human again.

I know I’ve been selfish, holding on to you like this. Every day with you, I told myself I’d let go tomorrow. But then you’d smile, or say something ridiculous, or drag me into some foolish little experiment—and I couldn’t. I wanted one more day. Just one more.

But I can’t keep taking from you. You have a life. Responsibilities. A future I don’t belong in. I can’t tie you down with my silence.

I’m leaving because I care about you. Because you’re special to me in a way I don’t even have the words for.

I wanted to say this out loud. I wanted you to know. But I never had the courage. So I’ll write it here, even if my hand fails me, even if the ink runs and smears.

You are the brightest thing I’ve seen since the war ended. You are the reason I stayed this long. And you’ll be the reason I finally rest.

Please… don’t waste your days looking for me. Live with love. That’s all I want for you. Goodbye, Horropedia. Thank you for being my friend. Thank you for being by my side. Thank you for making me feel human.

– Click

Horropedia’s vision blurred. He blinked hard, but the words stayed the same, smudges and all. Messy, imperfect, final. The Letter trembling in his grip. “You… idiot,” he whispered, voice breaking. He pressed the paper to his chest, knuckles white around it, hugging it like his life depended on it, “Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you wait until—until this?”

The room felt unbearably empty now, the silence pressing in on him from every side. He could almost feel Click still there, lingering at the edges, watching as always. But no voice answered. No quiet presence shifted in the corner. Nothing. He buried his face into the letter, the faint scent of ink and rain clinging to it.

You thought you were selfish. You thought you were a burden. You thought you had to leave to make me happy.

A bitter laugh escaped him, cracking in the middle. “As if I ever cared about that. You absolute fool.”

His hand shook as he traced over the uneven letters again, like he could etch them into memory before they faded. Every word dug deeper, each one a weight pressing against his chest until he could hardly breathe.

You’re special to me.

The phrase echoed, lodged like a splinter he couldn’t pull free. He closed his eyes, clutching the page tighter. “You were special to me, too,” he whispered hoarsely. “More than you ever knew.”

For a long while, he just sat there, muttering fragments into the quiet, half to himself, half to the ghost that no longer lingered. “Why didn’t you tell me? I would’ve—I could’ve—damn it, Click. Why couldn’t you just stay?”

His chest hurt in a way he hadn’t felt in years as he forced himself down to the floor. Not the hollow irritation of Foundation work, not the shallow frustrations of daily life. This was deeper. Raw. Unforgiving. The morning light stretched thinner across the floorboards, catching on the damp edges of the paper.

Horropedia lifted it again, smoothing the creases with shaking hands. He reread it, lips moving silently, mouthing every word like a prayer. Each line burned more than the last.

And then, softly, brokenly: “I loved you, you fool. And now you’ll never hear it.”

The weight of regret pressed down, heavy and unrelenting. The laughter they’d shared yesterday echoed cruelly in his ears—the puddles, the rain, the clumsy steps of their foolish little waltz. Memories are already turning into ghosts of their own. He set the letter down at last, staring blankly at the place Click had once filled, the silence now absolute.

Horropedia drew his knees to his chest, resting his forehead against them, shoulders trembling as the morning bled into day. “…Idiot,” he whispered again, weaker this time. “Why did you leave me behind?”

Horropedia’s hands wouldn’t let go. The letter was already soft at the folds, ink smudges bleeding faintly where his thumb pressed too hard. He held it like it might vanish if he blinked too long, like it was the only thread tying Click to this world. Maybe it was.

He traced the jagged lines of the handwriting again, uneven strokes carved out of hours of effort. The same hand that once trembled just trying to hold a pen steady. He remembered that night—the way the nib scratched across paper, hesitant, broken, the way Click blinked down at his own hand in shock when it worked. Horropedia’s laughter, his excitement, how he’d gripped Click’s shoulders and shouted, “Did you see that?! It’s working!”

Back then, it felt like the start of something. Proof. Progress. A future.

Now it was all that remained.

Horropedia pressed the page tighter to his chest, knuckles white. The words blurred in his vision as he thought of the countless little moments they’d piled up together—

Click’s dry, quiet remarks when he pulled out that ridiculous garage-sale Ouija board—The way his flat “I’m not spelling anything” had nearly made Horropedia collapse into laughter. The night they’d tried recording his voice again, and Horropedia had sworn he heard a whisper on the tape, only to replay it twenty times until Click muttered, “That’s just static.”

Static. Rain. Laughter. Silence. All of it tumbling together now, unbearable in its absence.

He looked at the letter again. You are the brightest thing I’ve seen since the war ended. His throat closed. A choked, half-laugh slipped out, broken and ugly. “You really were an idiot,” he whispered hoarsely. “Sitting there, staring at me like I was—what? Worth something?” His voice cracked. “You were the one worth everything. And you’re gone.”

He curled over the paper, clutching it so tightly it crumpled, forehead pressed against his knees. The memories wouldn’t stop rushing—Click’s stillness beside him on stormy nights, the rare faint curl of his lips when Horropedia made some dumb joke, the way his presence had filled a silence that should have been unbearable but somehow wasn’t.

How many nights had he laid awake, wondering if he should say it? If he should reach across the space and tell Click just how much he mattered? He never did. He thought there would be time. Now the room was hollow. Every corner ached with absence.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he whispered into the paper, voice trembling. “Why did you think leaving was better? You didn’t even give me the chance to say it back.”

The light shifted, cold and gray, through the curtains. He stared at it without seeing, tears hot against his face, the words of the letter echoing mercilessly in his head. Goodbye, Horropedia. Thank you for being my friend. Thank you for being by my side. Thank you for making me feel human.

Friend. That was what Click had left him with. A word too small for the ache ripping through his chest. “I loved you, you damn fool,” Horropedia muttered, clutching the letter harder as though squeezing it could send the words back through time. “And now you’ll never hear it.”

The silence gave him nothing. Only the letter remained, fragile and imperfect, the last trace of a ghost who had finally chosen to rest. Horropedia bowed over it, trembling, whispering the only words left to him, again and again like a mantra, like a curse, like a prayer.

“…Idiot. Idiot. Idiot.”

Horropedia strode down the bright, sterile corridors of the Foundation, clipboard in hand, eyes half-narrowed in frustration. His vacation was over, and he’d been dragged back into the fluorescent-lit world of office politics, paperwork, and tedious protocols.

“Horropedia, you’ll be showing our new hire around today,” One of the higher managers chirped, handing him a visitor’s badge. “Fantastic,” he muttered under his breath, dragging his feet down the hall.

“Breakdown over, love of my life vanished into thin air, and now I’m reduced to babysitting. Stellar treatment, really stellar.”

He rehearsed a lecture in his head as he rounded the corner—something about protocols, safety measures, maybe throwing in a joke about the critter-infested storage room they never bothered cleaning to loosen the kid up. But all of that evaporated the instant his eyes landed on the figure waiting.

Tall. Too composed. Posture like someone used to standing in lines, taking orders. His dark, muted gray hair stuck damply to his forehead, like he’d come in from the drizzle without bothering with an umbrella. And then—

The man looked up from his clipboard.

Horropedia froze. His mouth went dry.

Those eyes. Hollow. Quiet. The kind of silence that spoke louder than words. “Oh my god,” Horropedia croaked before he could stop himself. “I know those dead eyes anywhere.”

The recruit blinked. “…Excuse me?”

Horropedia slapped a hand over his mouth, eyes wide. Did I just say that out loud? He laughed, too loudly, waving his hands around like he could erase the moment. “Dead—uh, dead serious! About safety protocols. Safety first! Ha! Ha…” His voice cracked.

The man tilted his head, watching him with the same unreadable stare that had just sucker-punched Horropedia straight in the gut.

“Nope,” Horropedia whispered to himself, backing up a step. “No way. No way it’s you. Because if it’s you, then I…” He swallowed, forcing a grin, “Then I’ve officially lost my damn mind.” The recruit raised an eyebrow, slow and skeptical. “Are you… alright?”

“Oh, peachy keen, sunshine,” Horropedia said far too quickly. “Let’s get this tour on the road before I go insane.” He turned too quickly, almost tripping over his own foot, and hissed under his breath, “Yep. Definitely insane.”

Behind him, the man followed without a word, footsteps steady and even. Horropedia tried not to look back, but the urge was unbearable. Just once, he glanced over his shoulder, and the man’s gaze was already on him. Those eyes—same as before. Unmistakable.

Horropedia’s heart stuttered, laughter bubbling up again, this time half-hysterical. “Oh, fantastic,” he muttered. “My vacation broke me.”

“Click” , noticing his mentor's tense presence, asked, “Are you sure? I can come tomorrow when you’re comfortable.” His voice was soft, gentle, and measured. Horropedia cleared his throat, forcing composure. “Y-yeah, I’m fine,” he said, though internally panic clawed at him. Don’t overthink it. He doesn’t remember. He can’t.

“Click” offered a small nod, returning to his clipboard. Horropedia’s eyes lingered involuntarily, memorizing every subtle gesture—the tilt of his head, the curve of his lips, the way his hands slightly twitched when adjusting a file. So familiar. So painfully familiar.

They moved through the offices, labs, and storage rooms. Horropedia spoke with careful clarity, emphasizing procedures and protocol. “Here, we catalog all incoming samples according to a color-coded system. It’s important for organization, efficiency, and compliance. If a sample isn’t logged correctly, it can disrupt workflow and confuse the workers here. ”

“Click” tilted his head slightly, diligently noting it on the clipboard. Horropedia’s heart stuttered. “Let’s…move on to the next quarter.” He forced himself to keep the tone steady. Don’t panic. Just guide him.

They passed by a storage room. Horropedia pointed out the shelves, the labeling system, and the temperature-controlled sections. “Click” followed, silently observing, occasionally jotting notes. “You seem meticulous,” “Click” said quietly, almost as if thinking aloud. “I appreciate attention to detail.” Horropedia flushed. “Uh… thank you. That… Well, it’s part of the job.” Internally: Part of the job, sure, but also… oh, don’t get distracted. Just breathe. 

The silence between them stretched as Horropedia led the way down the long corridor, fluorescent lights humming overhead. His footsteps echoed too loudly in his own ears, every creak of his boots punctuated by his racing thoughts.

It’s not him. It can’t be him. Don’t be ridiculous. People have the same face, same voice, same—

Their shoulders brushed.

Just a small bump, but enough to jolt Horro out of his spiral. Click—no, or at least what’s left of him—startled, and something clattered to the ground. A pen, simple black plastic, spinning across the tiles until it rested by Horropedia’s boot.

Both men crouched at the same time.

Fingers touched.

Warmth shot up Horropedia’s arm like static. He froze, staring down at the momentary tangle of their hands, their fingers brushing, almost—almost curling together before common sense forced them apart. “Sorry,” “Click” murmured, voice low and careful, like it had been trained not to disturb.

Horropedia swallowed, forcing his own hand to move. He picked up the pen and pressed it back into the man’s palm. His voice wobbled despite his best effort to sound casual. “Don’t worry about it. Happens all the time. Hallways here are narrow.”

No, they weren’t. The hall was wide enough for at least five people to walk shoulder-to-shoulder comfortably.

“Click” ’s fingers closed around the pen, lingering against Horropedia’s for a beat too long before retreating. His gaze flicked up, just a glance, and Horropedia swore his stomach dropped. Because those weren’t just any eyes. They were the same hollow, searching eyes that had once looked at him through mist and silence, the ones he thought he’d never see again.

“Click” slipped the pen into his pocket like nothing had happened. “Thanks.” Horropedia laughed weakly, trying to wave the heat off his face. “Yeah. Don’t mention it.”

But his chest was tight, his mind screaming, That was him. I know it was. I’d know him anywhere.

As they continued, “Click” occasionally asked more professional questions: “What does this equipment do?” “How often are reports submitted?” “Are there specific protocols for…?” Each one was courteous, yet Horropedia felt an ache with every word.

“You… seem distracted,” “Click” said softly after they passed a lab.

Horropedia coughed, fumbling with his phone. “Uh… yes… protocols… very… engaging.”

“Click” ’s faint chuckle was quiet, almost musical. “Engaging indeed.”

Later, near the main office, Horropedia gestured toward a piece of machinery. “This is used for sample analysis. Extremely sensitive. Handle with care, and always wear gloves. Any misstep could—” “Click” interrupted, raising a hand. “I understand. Precision and caution.”

His tone was respectful but carried a subtle warmth that Horropedia couldn’t place. Why do I feel like he’s reading my thoughts?

They paused in front of a workstation. Horropedia, flustered, accidentally brushed “Click” ’s sleeve. The contact lingered just a fraction longer than necessary. “Click” ’s eyes met his, soft and curious, and Horropedia’s knees nearly gave out. Just a touch… just a moment…

“Click” ‘s gaze flicked to a wall of files. “So much information. It must be… overwhelming at times.”

Horropedia laughed nervously. “Overwhelming… yes, but manageable. Usually.”

“Click” ’s lips quirked. “Usually.”

Horropedia’s chest tightened. Every word, every glance… too familiar. They rounded another corner. “Click” paused, clipboard held lightly, eyes on the floor for a moment. “Have we… met before?”

Horropedia froze, mind racing. “…Huh?”

“Click” ’s eyes searched him. “I don’t know… I can’t explain why, but there’s a strong connection. I feel like I should know you.” Horropedia’s chest ached. “You… connection… huh?”

“Click” nodded softly. “Yes… connection. I can’t explain it. But it feels… right.” Horropedia’s throat went dry. “You… could say that,” he whispered. “Click” stepped closer, unconsciously brushing Horropedia’s arm again. Horropedia’s mind spiraled. I can’t lose him again… I can’t.

“Click” ’s polite, professional demeanor never faltered, but there was a subtle softness in his movements—an unintentional grace that Horropedia couldn’t stop noticing, His fingers brushing Horropedia’s hand. Horropedia’s heartbeat nearly stopped.

By the time they reached the end of the tour, they were near a window overlooking the misty city. “Click” ’s gaze lingered outside. “Do you… ever feel that some people are important, even if you don’t know why?”

Horropedia’s chest tightened. “You… could say that,” he whispered again. 

“Click” nodded, almost to himself. “I… feel that way with you. Somehow.”

Horropedia froze, breath caught in his throat. He doesn’t remember… but he’s here. Here. Right here. “Click” shifted slightly, brushing Horropedia’s arm again. Horropedia’s mind screamed with longing, panic, and helpless joy.

“I… thank you for showing me around,” “Click” said softly, straightening his posture. Horropedia’s lips trembled. “Of course… anytime.”

They walked back through the corridors side by side, unspoken words hanging thick in the air. Horropedia’s mind clung to every detail—the brush of sleeves, the faint smile, the gentle sound of “Click” ’s voice. Each moment is a lifeline, fragile and precious.

“Click” glanced at him once more. “I… feel like I knew you before. I can’t place it.” Horropedia’s heart lurched. “You… feel that?” “Click” nodded softly. “Yes… connection, maybe. I don’t know why, but it feels… right.” Horropedia turned to him slowly, searching his face. “You… could say that,” he whispered.

And in that sterile, brightly lit hallway, they walked together—connected, yearning, hearts full of unspoken words, subtle touches, fleeting glances, and the quiet knowledge that even without memory, some bonds were too strong to fade.

They paused near the exit, mist curling around the edges of the Foundation, light catching faintly on “Click” ’s hair. The day had been long and structured, yet somehow… the quiet warmth between them lingered, unspoken but alive.

“Click” looked at Horropedia, eyes gentle, earnest. “I… I want to know more about you more. If that’s… okay.” Horropedia’s chest tightened, a small, genuine smile breaking through. “I… me too.”

For a heartbeat, they simply stood there, shoulders almost brushing, hearts quietly aware of the strange, undeniable thread connecting them. “Click” ’s lips curved slightly, a shy, relieved smile. “See you later,” he murmured, stepping back gracefully.

Horropedia’s voice was soft, full of gratitude and a flicker of joy. “See you… later.” “Click” turned and disappeared down the corridor, leaving Horropedia frozen for a moment, heart full but not aching. This time, it wasn’t the sting of loss—it was hope, light, the gentle knowledge that this was not the last time.

He exhaled slowly, letting the warmth settle into his chest, muttering to himself, almost shyly: “Finally… again.”

And as he walked away, the day felt lighter, the mist sweeter, carrying with it a quiet certainty: some connections, no matter how fleeting or complicated, were meant to be treasured—and cherished.