Archive of Our Own

They covered up the furniture when his parents died.

No one even packed up the family photos and trophies, just tossed a tarp over the couches, the side tables, the cabinets. The frames and statuettes left misshapen lumps in the fabric, like little creatures had inhabited the place.

Pete had always hated the white sheets, the ghosts of a life he used to have. One where he and his sister smiled often, where laughter filled the corners of every room, where his parents cooked homemade meals and family movie or game nights happened weekly. Now, the house was full of silence that seeped from every crevice, every fold of fabric, every mote of dust in the light.

Even after moving back in, Pete never removed the sheets. Somehow, though he hated them, it felt less painful than living surrounded by blatant memories of what he’d lost. Someday, maybe, he could find the strength, but not yet.

The house felt oppressive, the air stagnant, but Pete let it be. It was his fault his parents had died, after all. If it was harder to breathe just existing in their house, Pete figured he deserved it.

Ploy told him once, “It feels like I lost all three of you that day. You’re never really here, anymore, you know?”

She had suggested he get therapy, but Pete never called the numbers she gave him. He quit school, started smoking, worked as a food delivery driver, and tried to interact with other people as little as possible. Most of the time, he sat around the house, drowning in memories.

…

…

The sheet on the hall table was gone. That was the first thing Pete noticed. A photo of his family commemorating his sister starting middle school, all of them standing together and smiling, greeted him. Normal, happy, only weeks before their parents died.

Pete was stuck, staring at that image, remembering that morning. He had pretended to be annoyed about taking a picture with his baby sister and his mom had teased him until he broke down and laughed. Ploy kept adjusting her skirt, worried she looked silly now that she’d had a growth spurt and her legs were so long.

‘What legs? Your skirt goes past your knees!’ Pete had countered with a laugh.

The memory of his laughter was still echoing in his ears when the sound of the sliding glass door caught his attention. Slowly, Pete turned around to see who was there, expecting Ploy or his uncle or, stupidly, one of his parents.

A guy about Pete’s age with dark hair in a mullet style, gently rounded face with a bored expression, stepped over the threshold.

“Aow,” Pete let out, confused, and the guy’s head snapped up, his eyes locking on Pete with surprising intensity. Pete felt immediately judged by that look and crossed his arms over his chest. “Who are you?”

For a moment, the other guy didn’t say anything, only stared. Pete’s skin began to feel buzzy and he absently scratched his bicep without uncrossing his arms.

Then, “Niran,” the guy said. “You are?”

“Pete,” Pete answered immediately, then shook his head. He pointed at Niran. “Waitaminute, back up. What are you doing in my house, Niran?”

Niran’s expression had turned thoughtful, almost sad, but after only a moment, he inhaled and stood tall. Imperiously, he said, “I think you mean my house. I just bought it.”

Pete’s jaw dropped. “Huh?!” He shook his head again. “No way. My uncle sold the house to you?” He pulled at his own hair. “That’s—What the hell, man, that’s not cool. He promised me—Gimmie a minute.”

Without waiting for an answer, Pete trekked upstairs to his bedroom, the only space with uncovered furniture. His phone wasn’t on the bedside table or among the blankets on his mattress, which he hadn’t made up that morning. Frowning, Pete pat his own pockets.

Oh. His phone was in his pocket. Duh.

Pulling it out, Pete tried unlocking it. Nothing. The screen remained dark. Dammit, he hadn’t charged his phone last night and now it was dead. With a groan, Pete grabbed the charging cord on his nightstand and plugged his phone in.

...

…

When Pete ventured back downstairs, Niran was nowhere to be seen, but all the furniture had been uncovered. Damn but he moved fast. Pete had only been gone like two minutes, but all the sheets had disappeared and the windows were open to air the space out. Was Niran The Flash or something?

There was also an altar set up on the coffee table.

“Uh, Niran?” Pete called, even as he circled the table.

The altar was made up of a small, lacquered table sitting in the middle of the coffee table, with a stylized wooden bell mokugyo, wooden mallet, a candle, the figurine of a deity Pete didn’t know, and an incense bowl. Was Niran, like, some kind of weird Taoist monk or something?

Pete knelt down beside the table and reached out to touch the figurine, but his fingers never made contact because the sliding door opened again, drawing his attention.

“What are you doing?” Niran asked.

“I’m just curious,” Pete said, even as he stood up. He slid his hands in his pockets and watched as Niran rounded the table to stand before him. “What, you bought my house all of a sudden and I’m not allowed to be curious?”

It was Niran’s turn to cross his arms, though he also looked down his nose at Pete, so he wasn’t being defensive. No, he was probably annoyed that the squatter was still in his house.

Wait. Pete blinked, then pointed at Niran’s chest. “Did you change your shirt?” he asked.

The question visibly caught Niran off guard. He glanced down at his dark blue t-shirt, then back up. “No?”

Pete blinked rapidly. “No, you did. Before I went upstairs, your shirt said Boeing on it, and now it’s just…blue,” he ended lamely. Then a grin pulled at his lips. “Man, how fast do you move? The furniture, the altar, your clothes? You should be an athlete or something.”

Again Niran spent several moments simply staring at him. Pete tried his best to maintain a friendly aura. He didn’t want the guy to think he was picking on him when he’d just complimented him. Also, if he got on Niran’s good side, maybe they could come to an agreement on the house. Pete was just a delivery driver, but he’d find a way to buy the house back if Niran gave him the chance.

If he couldn’t even protect the house…

“You were an athlete once,” Niran said, bringing Pete out of his thoughts just as they began to spiral.

Pete glanced out the windows. It felt like the sky just got lighter. Had clouds moved out of the way? It was bright outside.

His attention was drawn to the hall table when Niran moved to stand next to it. The other man pointed at a picture of Pete dressed in his taekwondo uniform, holding up a medal. It was one of Pete’s first competitions, and he’d come in second. His parents had been so proud.

“Pete?”

“Huh?” Pete blinked, lifting his eyes from the picture to Niran. “What did you say?”

Niran narrowed his eyes. Uh oh, was he annoyed? His voice didn’t sound upset, though, when he asked, “Why did you stop?”

 Because his parents died coming to see him compete. Because it ruined his life.

Pete shrugged. “Just. You know. Didn’t want to anymore.”

By the look on Niran’s face, he didn’t believe a word Pete said. Even Pete wouldn’t believe himself. But thinking about the real reason made his chest ache.

Rubbing his hand over his heart, Pete cleared his throat. “Uh, I have a headache. I’m gonna go—”

He motioned in the general direction of the stairs and left before Niran could reply.

…

…

The smell of food had Pete hurrying into the kitchen. It was honeyed pork and sanpei chicken and spicy prawns, stir fried eggplant and watercress and cucumber with eggs and mushrooms, plus dumplings and lo mein. Pete was in a seat before acknowledging the man already at the table.

Pete put his hands together. “Thank you for the food,” he said, then grabbed the pair of chopsticks at his seat and started pulling bits of everything onto his plate. It was only when he went to stuff some in his mouth that he really thought about who was across from him.

Oh. Right. Niran. The guy who, technically, owned the house. And probably hadn’t expected Pete to come barreling in and steal all the food, if his silence meant anything. Slowly lowering the piece of eggplant back to his plate, Pete looked up at his table mate.

Niran sat with his elbows on the edge of the table, watching Pete over his clasped hands. He’d changed again, into a white t-shirt with black edges. With Pete’s attention on him, Niran lifted a single eyebrow and tilted his head.

Pete let out a nervous laugh. “I mean, you got so much,” he argued, motioning with his chopsticks to the array of food between them. “It’d be a shame for it to go to waste, right? We can share, can’t we, friend?”

Niran’s mouth dropped open slightly, both eyebrows now up, as if surprised by Pete’s audacity. It was a look Pete was very familiar with.

“Are we friends?” Niran asked incredulously.

A shrug. Pete picked up the eggplant again. “We’re living together now. I don’t like to be distant with people I live with.”

It looked like Niran was actually impressed by Pete’s audacity, so Pete smiled at him.

“I can pay rent when my next paycheck comes in,” Pete said, stuffing the eggplant in his mouth. He pointed at Niran with his chopsticks. “But I want it to go toward buying the house from you outright.”

Even as Pete kept eating, Niran fiddled with his chopsticks, his eyes on the honeyed pork, thinking. Niran thought a lot. Did he have something that swirled in his head the same way Pete did? A great regret? Had he moved in because he was avoiding his past? Maybe they had more in common than Pete thought.

An incense stick gave off faint waves of smoke, sticking out of a small incense bowl at the edge of the table.

A swallow. “Did I interrupt a ritual or something?” Pete asked, nervously.

He wasn’t religious. He didn’t know if devout Taoists or Buddhists or whatever did some kind of offering ritual during meals or something.

His question drew Niran’s attention to the incense as well, and the other man frowned. “I offered to share the food with,” he glanced at Pete, “the ghost in the house.”

The chopsticks stopped with noodles halfway into Pete’s mouth. “There’s a ghost in the house?” he asked around his food.

Niran grimaced at his poor table manners. With a shake of his head, he finally started eating too. Pete finished the noodles and put his cutlery down with force.

“You can’t tell me there’s a ghost in my house and then not explain, friend,” Pete said seriously. “What kind of ghost? Do you know how long they’ve been here? Do you,” he swallowed thickly, “do you know their name?”

The thought was paralyzing. Were his parents still hanging around the place? Could they not move on? Because Pete was holding on too tight, maybe? Or because Pete wouldn’t sell the house? Was Pete ruining their afterlife as well as stealing their lives?

“When I first arrived, I thought it was a vengeful spirit,” Niran said, his deep voice once again drawing Pete from his thoughts. “Your uncle thought so, too. He said people reported hearing screaming and crying when no one was home.”

Pete shivered.

He hadn’t heard any screaming, but Niran had just said it was happening when no one was home. Why hadn’t his uncle told him? Was that why he sold the house? Pete glanced around. Was a ghost in the room with them right then?

Niran shrugged and took another bite, as if dealing with ghosts was normal for him. Maybe it was. He was so damn calm that Pete started to feel ridiculous for being scared.

“Now that I’ve met them, I know they aren’t vengeful. They’re just lost and scared,” Niran continued, once again meeting Pete’s eyes.

There was an understanding in Niran’s eyes that Pete wanted to hold onto. This man was his age, but he dealt with death more closely, with people who had literally died. Vengeful spirits. Lost spirits. And he tried to understand them.

When was the last time anyone had tried to understand what Pete was feeling? Everyone just told him to get over it, to be his ‘normal’ self. But Pete didn’t know what that meant anymore.

A tear slipped from Pete’s eye. He rushed to wipe it away at the same time that Niran’s eyes widened at the sight of it.

“That’s,” Pete tried, then had to clear his throat. “You’re kind of awesome, aren’t you?” He wiped both of his eyes to get rid of any remaining wetness, then gave Niran a shaky smile. “You’re going to help them move on, right? That’s so cool.”

A surprised laugh escaped Niran, and then he was shaking his head again, this time with something like a fond smile on his face. “You’re ridiculous.”

Before Pete could get out more than an upset “Aow,” Niran had placed a piece of honeyed pork on Pete’s plate.

“Eat more. You must be starving,” Niran said, referring to the copious amount of food on Pete’s plate already.

Pete flushed. “I haven’t eaten in a while, okay?”

Niran went back to eating without another jab at Pete’s appetite, and even looked a bit amused. Someone rotten like Pete could make someone awesome like Niran smile. It felt…nice.

He kept up the flow of conversation throughout the meal. Niran rolled his eyes and sighed, or argued against something Pete said, or smiled and tried to hide it. It had been a long time since someone reacted to Pete like Niran did, since someone let him talk and didn’t try to make him talk about his parents or where his life was going or how he was throwing away all that his parents had worked hard to give him.

He talked about the food and his favorite places to get takeout, which places he liked delivering for versus which were awful. He talked about customers and how rude they could be when they thought Pete didn’t understand their language. It turned out that Niran didn’t know how to ride a motorcycle, but drove a beat-up old car.

“I’ll teach you,” Pete offered.

“Teach me to what?” Niran asked suspiciously.

“To ride a motorcycle.”

Niran rolled his eyes. “I think you would teach me to crash one.”

Pete shook his head. “No way, man. If anything, I’d have you winning street races,” he teased.

“Oh good,” Niran shot back sarcastically, even as his lips curled up, “lessons in how to end up in jail. Just what I wanted.”

Pete hadn’t laughed so much since his parents died. He could talk like this with Niran every night and, maybe, somehow, be happy. As it was, they kept talking until the incense ran out.

…

…

Pete had always loved mangos. The inane thought drifted through his head as he watched Niran sit at the table on the porch, a plate of cut up mango beside him. Periodically, he stabbed a piece with a fork and ate it, all while reading a book.

Pete’s mom used to have mangos prepared as a snack every night after dinner. He didn’t need anything sweeter, just her mangos, and it felt like the day had ended well, no matter what struggles he had had that day. If he was upset, she would ruffle his hair while he ate. If that didn’t perk him up, her secret weapon was to tell him embarrassing stories about his dad when he was Pete’s age. His dad would get so flustered, trying to play everything off like he’d meant to embarrass himself each time. That never failed to make Pete laugh.

He missed his mom. He missed his dad.

Pete knelt beside the glass door, his head resting on the cool material, and wrapped his arms around his legs.

“Mom. Dad. I’m so sorry,” Pete whimpered into the glass.

His vision blurred through tears, but Pete didn’t care. His mind was years away, remembering how his parents comforted him after his first big taekwondo loss, how they encouraged him to keep going. They’d always been so supportive, so good.

“Pete?”

Niran was kneeling in front of him, one hand flat on the glass. His eyebrows were drawn low over his eyes, his lips pressed thin. Niran was understanding of ghosts. He’d be understanding of Pete, too, right?

“It’s my fault,” Pete managed. He pressed a hand to his eye, like that would stop his crying. “I had a competition in Korea. I went two days early, and my mom and dad flew over later to support me.” He heaved in heavy, stilted breaths, his chest never feeling full. “It’s my fault. If they hadn’t come—If I hadn’t asked them to—”

He couldn’t see through his tears anymore, couldn’t breathe around them. It hurt. It hurt in his chest and in his heart, and he deserved it. His parents were gone and they weren’t coming back and this house was full of ghosts, just not the one Niran had noticed.

“Pete!” Niran’s voice felt like it was coming through a wall, distant, hazy. “It’s not your fault. Do you hear me? Your parents came because they wanted to support you. You didn’t force them. And you didn’t cause the plane to crash. You are not at fault for any of it. Do you understand? None of this is your fault. Losing your parents was a tragedy, but you are not to blame for it. You were a child. Say it with me, Pete. It wasn’t your fault.”

Pete shook his head, wheezing.

“Pete. Say it. It wasn’t your fault.”

Pete squeezed his eyes shut. “It—It—It wasn’t—my fault,” he managed.

“Good. Your parents loved you.”

“My parents—l—loved me,” Pete repeated.

“It wasn’t your fault, Pete.”

“It wasn’t my fault,” Pete said as his lungs finally stopped seizing.

“You’re allowed to mourn, Pete, to feel sad. Your feelings are valid. But feel them like a breeze. It comes and you feel it for a time, and then it passes. Another breeze may come, but it’s a new breeze, not the old one. Pete, don’t hold on to the feeling. Let it pass.”

By the time Niran had finished speaking, Pete’s tears had abated enough for him to see his friend again. Niran’s hand on the glass was now a fist, but his eyes were still fixated on Pete. He never looked away. He saw Pete at his weakest, drowning in his regrets, and never looked away.

As his breathing returned to normal, Pete uncurled. He didn’t have the strength to stand, but that was okay. Niran was on the floor with him.

“Sorry,” Pete said, glancing away toward the table outside. He couldn’t see the plate from here. Had Niran finished the mangos before he noticed Pete having a breakdown? “Was I really loud?”

Niran shrugged. “Loud enough.” Then he grimaced, and Pete got the feeling he’d been louder than Niran wanted to say. Nice of him to lie, though.

With a wry grin, Pete said, “I’m a fucking mess, man.” He shook his head and leaned heavily on the glass. “And I’m supposed to be a functioning adult,” he said with a laugh.

Niran pressed his lips together for a moment, then let out a quiet breath. “What does ‘functioning’ even mean?” he asked. “Some of the most ‘functional’ people are doing the worst things a human can do. It doesn’t mean anything.”

His words were bitter. Definitely he had come across bad people in the past.

Sitting upright, Pete said, “Give me some examples.”

Niran lifted an eyebrow. “Really?”

Pete nodded. “Yeah. Make me feel better about totally losing it just now by telling me about functional people who are undeniably worse.”

As usual, Niran took his time thinking, looking Pete over as if determining whether he was up for hearing about bad people or not. But after a few moments, as usual, he caved. With a nod, Niran got comfortable on the floor beside Pete.

“A guy running a tattoo parlor asked me to come exorcise the place because he thought the negative energy was hurting his business,” Niran said, then let out a ‘tch’ sound. “He was giving some of his clients sedatives and running a human trafficking ring out of the back room, and people had started to notice.”

“What?!” Pete gasped loudly. “What the fuck, dude? That’s so no cool.” He punched his fist into his own palm. “Tell me you gave him what he deserved.”

Niran looked sideways at him with an unimpressed tilt to his mouth. “I reported him to the police and watched him get arrested,” he corrected.

Pete let out a disappointed sound, slumping down. People who did shit like that to other people…

“The family member of one of the girls who had been trafficked showed up and punched him, though,” Niran said, like a peace offering.

It was said so awkwardly that Pete couldn’t help but laugh. “Okay okay. You don’t have to tell me just ones where they got decked. As long as there’s justice.”

Niran let out what Pete would swear was a relieved sigh, then kept talking. He told Pete about a company CEO funding programs that hurt family-run shops who was voted out of his own company after news of his spousal abuse became public. He told Pete about a gambling house that had made a deal with a literal demon—spiritual energy from patrons in exchange for success and a blind eye from law enforcement—and how they were raided and shut down as soon as Niran sealed the demon away.

“That’s almost too cool,” Pete said in awe, and Niran flushed.

Niran told him about an actress who poisoned the makeup of her competition for two years, ensuring they had skin reactions that kept her in lead roles and them at the doctors, until she was caught and blacklisted. He told Pete about a rich family that spread hate against the other students at their kid’s school anytime someone else was doing better than their kid. Their kid followed their example and poured acid on a classmate in college. The kid went to jail and the parents had to move far away because people stopped associating with them.

No one had stopped associating with Pete after his parents died. Not at first. No, he was the one who pulled away, who stopped showing up for practice, who stopped participating in school, who put up a wall between himself and the world until the world learned to stay away. And maybe that was proof enough that it wasn’t Pete’s fault, that the only one blaming him…was himself.

“There was a guy who saw negative energy take physical form, cutting off power to an electrical plant. He could have sealed it away, but he saw that the energy came from the bad working conditions of the people nearby. So he let the energy stay, left the area without power, until someone else could come and dispel the negative energy instead,” Niran said.

Pete looked sideways at his companion. That story had the least amount of details yet, and the tone of Niran’s voice…The guy in the story was Niran.

He reached out to place a hand on Niran’s shoulder, but Niran leaned away. Oh. That was—Okay. Pete lowered his hand to the floor instead.

“That guy doesn’t sound so bad,” Pete said, drawing Niran’s gaze. “He wasn’t the one hurting people. Their bosses were. And that other guy who did fix it? He kept justice from happening for those workers. So I’m on the side of the first guy.”

The way Niran looked at him, someone would have thought Pete had turned night into day or something equally as awe inspiring. It made Pete’s chest feel warm and fuzzy.

“Pete, you’re—” Niran paused, his expression pinching, then falling to something more anxious and sad. Then it was him reaching out a hand toward Pete’s, like he might cover Pete’s hand with his own or just full on hold hands. Pete’s heart raced. “Pete. You’re actually—”

…

…

A rhythmic tapping echoed through the house, drawing Pete from sleep. It continued even as Pete stared at his blank bedroom ceiling, as he groggily sat up and put his feet on the ground—

There was a mattress and blankets rolled up on the floor beside his bed. Who was—Since when was Niran sleeping in Pete’s room?

Shaking the sleep away, Pete wandered out of the room and downstairs. The closer he got to the main room, the more he could hear Niran doing some kind of chanting Pete didn’t understand. Incense burned in the bowl, smelling, strangely enough, like the mats in the practice room at the dojang. The rhythmic tapping echoing through Pete’s head was from the mokugyo in Niran’s hand, which he hit over and over again with the wooden mallet. The sound wasn’t painful, per say, but it was all Pete could focus on, almost all he could hear.

“Are you trying to communicate with the ghost?” Pete asked as he stepped off the last stair.

Niran abruptly stopped tapping and turned to watch as Pete meandered slowly toward the couch. He looked surprised, almost like he hadn’t expected Pete to show up.

“What? It was really loud,” Pete said, then flopped down on lay the couch and stretched languidly. “It woke me up. Maybe don’t do that in the morning, huh?”

Niran stared at him, and Pete stared back, for several long seconds. It was strange, but Pete got the feeling that Niran was trying to commit him to memory or something. Was he going to move out? Or kick Pete out?

After a lifetime, Niran opened his mouth and said, “It’s two in the afternoon.”

Blinking, Pete glanced at the windows. Damn, yeah. It was really bright outside. Afternoon bright.

“Oh.” Pete pushed himself to sitting, feeling his face heat with a flush. “Wow, I must’ve been really tired.”

Wait. The last thing Pete remembered…His eyes drifted to the sliding glass doors. The table was empty of plates. The floor just inside was bare and clean. There weren’t even grease marks on the glass from their hands or heads.

“Where did we end up yesterday?” Pete asked, scratching his head. “I remember we were talking and then…”

And then what? Niran had been about to touch him, to hold his hand, and then—Somehow, he’d gotten from the front door to his bedroom, but he didn’t remember it at all.

“Did I…black out?” Pete wondered aloud. “Is that why you made a bed next to mine?” Was Niran watching over him last night?

But why did he black out? Pete didn’t remember drinking, and he sure as hell hadn’t taken any drugs. Or. He didn’t…remember taking anything. Was that a side effect of something? Forgetting you took it?

“Pete.”

Niran’s hand was on the couch, oh so close to Pete’s but not touching. Never touching. His expression was as serious as Pete had ever seen it.

“I’m going to watch a movie. What genre do you like?”

Pete blinked, uncomprehending. “…Huh?”

True to his word, Niran moved to sit beside Pete and grabbed a remote. There was no TV in the main room, though, so what was—At the press of a button, a screen lowered from a box attached to the underside of the second floor hallway, blocking the light from the glass doors. A moment later, the screen lit up from a projector. Pete looked at the mini projector, the screen box, the screen, to Niran.

When the hell had Niran installed that?

Niran made a motion like he might’ve smacked Pete’s face but was too lazy, then pointed at the screen. “Pick a genre. Unless you want me to pick, but then you don’t get to complain when you don’t like it.”

“Jerk,” Pete said on autopilot, then settled back into the couch. “What if I pick a genre you don’t like?” he muttered.

Niran didn’t say anything in return, but he did huff a laugh before beginning to scroll through their options. There were melodramas and things to make people cry, romances and comedies, ‘for kids’ animation and ‘general’ animation, and—

“Ooh ooh ooh, let’s watch sci-fi,” Pete said, pointing at the list of sci-fi movies. “I heard about that one. It’s got a guy who goes back in time to stop a bad guy before he becomes a bad guy, to change his whole future, and faces off against his younger self.”

Niran hummed but didn’t click the movie. The movie info stared at them from the screen, unmoving. After a few seconds, Pete turned a confused look on his couch mate.

Still looking at the screen, Niran asked, “If your younger self met you today, would you change things?”

A single, incredulous laugh, and Pete turned his own gaze to the screen and loosely crossed his arms. “Duh. I’d tell myself to let Prince kick my ass and take the tournament spot.” He shook his head. “There’s always another tournament. You don’t get replacement parents.”

Well, unless you got adopted by someone else. But even then, it wouldn’t be the same parents you lost. It’d be like…off brand food. Similar, but never as good as the original.

For some reason, Niran let out a relieved sounding breath and his shoulders lost some of their tension. Pete lifted an eyebrow, but Niran wasn’t looking at him and didn’t see the question. Instead, Niran scrolled away from the time travel movie.

“I wanna watch rich people fight over money and fail,” he said before clicking on Knives Out.

Pete blanched and whined, but the blasé way Niran had said it also made him want to laugh. Niran was so weird and had such dry humor, could flip from caring and soft to sarcastic from one blink to the next. It was great. He was great.

The movie started out with both of them simply sitting and watching, but, as it went on, Pete started disparaging on the rich characters. Little quips here and there. It helped that he’d seen the movie before, and probably Niran had too. He didn’t have to worry he was ruining the moment or giving spoilers by telling a character they were lying or a cheater or a killer or to choke on their expensive jewelry.

Then, after several minutes of Pete saying nothing, Niran suddenly made a comment himself. They glanced at each other, Niran questioning, Pete pleasantly surprised, and then it was free game. They told those rich people fighting over their patriarch’s fortune and treating the working-class character like shit exactly what they thought at any opportunity.

By the time the credits rolled, Pete had been smiling for over an hour. Usually he found movies too boring, his body itching to move long before they ended, but, like everything else so far, Niran made it better.

“Do you have a will?” Niran asked suddenly.

“Hm?” Pete’s eyebrows furrowed. “No. I’m not even twenty-four. I’ve never thought of something like that.” When Niran just kept watching the credits, turning the remote over and over in his hands, Pete frowned. “Do you have a will?”

Niran glanced at him briefly, then hummed a positive. Now Pete felt silly for not having one. Was it common for people to do that? Huh. Maybe people who had anything to leave behind. Pete only had his motorcycle and a couple of trophies to his name.

“I have nothing to leave anyway,” Pete said, nonchalantly.

It made Niran look at him, that intense and somewhat sad expression on his face. Was he pitying Pete? Next to someone who just bought a house, the squatter who delivered food for a living probably was a little sad.

Pete pat his knees a few times, then sighed loudly, looking at the credits instead of at Niran as he said, “I’d be happy if I just managed to die in a way that didn’t inconvenience my sister, you know? She’s already had to deal with me screwing up a lot since our parents died. At least I can die peacefully, right?”

He laughed awkwardly. Gosh, he sounded so pathetic when it was said out loud.

“Uh. I’d like to do that too,” Niran said, drawing Pete’s eyes. “I have someone…she’s not my real sister, but we consider each other siblings. Her name is Fei.” He gave a wry smile. “She always comes around when she needs something, never just to hang out. But I guess we’ve both caused problems for each other over the years. It’d be nice to die in a way that didn’t cause her one more problem.” He sighed and set the remote down. “Maybe in my sleep like my grandfather.”

Pete nodded. “Yeah. We’ll die in our sleep.” He held out his hand as if to shake. “Deal?”

Niran stared at his hand for a long moment, considering, thinking, eyebrows drawing lower by the second. Finally, he nodded and said, “Deal,” but didn’t shake. Instead, he grabbed the remote again to tell the screen to shut off and pack itself away.

Flexing his fingers and frowning, Pete lowered his hand back to his lap. That was okay. They didn’t know each other that well yet. Niran didn’t have to be comfortable touching him, even if it was just shaking hands. That was…normal.

Closing his eyes, Pete took a deep breath and tried to remember what Niran told him yesterday. Feeling upset at the rebuff was valid and okay, but he should let it blow through him and away like a breeze. Just let it go…

…

…

When he opened his eyes again, Niran wasn’t on the couch, and the living room was darker, like the sun was mostly set. Damn, did Pete meditate so hard he fell asleep?

“Niran?”

A plastic bag crinkled from the direction of the kitchen and Pete rolled to look over the back of the couch. Sure enough, Niran was unpacking a bunch of takeout containers from a bag. He’d changed his shirt again while Pete was out of it.

“You know I’m a delivery driver, right?” Pete said.

Niran dropped a sauce packet, cursed quietly, and bent to pick it up.

“I could’ve gone and got that for you.”

Shaking his head, Niran said, “You weren’t available.”

He kept pulling containers from the bag—more than enough for two people—and arranging it on the dining table. Pete got up and made his way over to inspect what food Niran had got for them this time. The lids were still on the containers when Niran walked off. He wouldn’t mind if Pete opened them, probably. Pete got his hands up, almost to the nearest container, when Niran returned with his incense pot, sticks, and a lighter.

“Oh,” Pete let out, pulling his hands back. “For the ghost?”

Niran nodded. Then, silently, he lit the incense, closed his eyes—probably saying a prayer or something, and set the incense in the bowl, the smoke gently curling upward.

Pete waited patiently throughout the ritual, not wanting to be rude. Pissing off a ghost was probably not a good idea. Once he was done, Niran motioned for Pete to open the containers while he wiped ash off his hands.

“So,” Pete began conversationally as he set lids aside. “Do you know anything new about the ghost? You said it was lost, right?” Niran held a plate out to him and Pete took it with a nod of thanks, then grabbed chopsticks. “Any clues how it ended up in my house?”

Niran put two pieces of chicken on Pete’s plate, then took some himself. “Mm,” he hummed. “The ghost is a young man who died suddenly. He doesn’t know—,” Niran cut himself off and shoved food in his mouth. His expression was too calculating for it to be anything but buying time to think. “He was crying and screaming because he died feeling a lot of regrets and grief of his own. His soul was surrounded with negative energy.”

“Oh.” Pete pushed the food around on his plate. “That’s sad.”

Dying young and full of regrets? And so suddenly that his soul was lost? That would suck so bad. Well, then again, Pete was full of regrets too. Less so now, thanks to Niran’s wise words and care, but still.

“Do you have any regrets?” Niran was considering which piece of fishcake to grab rather than looking at Pete.

Pete shrugged. “Doesn’t everyone?”

He reached forward to snatch the fishcake Niran was heading for just before he could grab it. When Niran gave him an offended look, Pete stuck his tongue out and then popped the fishcake in his mouth. Niran huffed and crossed his arms.

“Hmm. If I died right now, my regrets…,” Pete trailed off, thinking. He let his chopsticks hang loose in his hand. “I guess…I haven’t made things right with Ploy. My sister,” he clarified. Had he ever told Niran about Ploy? He couldn’t remember. “I got in a lot of fights after our parents died. Caused her a lot of trouble. And I bailed on her a lot. I missed her graduation, and most of the dinners our uncle threw to celebrate her achievements, and…well, I’ve been a pretty shit brother,” he summed up. Another shrug and Pete went after the noodles. “I guess I’d just like the chance to make it up to her before I go, you know?”

Niran nodded like that made sense, then continued eating as if Pete hadn’t stolen his last attempt. He didn’t even try and take something off Pete’s plate, which was very mature of him in Pete’s opinion.

Oh! “What about you?” Pete asked.

Niran lifted a confused eyebrow.

“Do you have any regrets?” Pete clarified, motioning to Niran with his chopsticks.

For a moment, Niran just stared at him and blinked. Then, “Everyone does,” and he went back to eating.

When it became clear that Niran wasn’t going to explain, Pete’s jaw dropped open. “Come on, man. That’s not fair. Tell me something!”

Niran’s lips were sealed, but they did quirk up at the edges. Jerk was having fun teasing him! Pete threw his hands up.

“Fine. Keep your secrets,” he said on an exasperated sigh, then nodded toward one of the farther containers. “Pass me the pajeon.”

In a shift from the first meal they shared together, Pete and Niran spent a good six minutes being totally silent. Pete didn’t jabber and Niran didn’t ask him questions. But unlike before Niran moved in, the quiet wasn’t suffocating.

All they were doing was picking food from takeout containers—half the time either putting the food on each other’s plates or stealing from each other’s plates—but it reminded Pete of dinner with his family on days that had been too draining, when he’d had practice and Ploy had been at cram school and even his parents had worked late. They were tired, but never so tired that they skipped dinner together.

“I think I’d like to open a dojang,” Pete said after swallowing the last of his noodles.

Niran looked up at him curiously.

Shaking his head, Pete set his chopsticks down. “When I was a teenager, my goal was just ‘do my best in the next tournament.’ I didn’t really think about, you know, once I was an adult.”

He drummed his fingers on the table absently, glancing over to the table where some of his trophies sat.

“Some of my best memories are from my dojang, but also…some of my worst.” His master yelling at him as he missed practice after practice, saying his parents would be ashamed.

Looking back, nothing his master had said was wrong, and he probably hadn’t meant to hurt Pete by reminding him that his parents had wanted him to succeed as a martial artist, that he was wasting his talent by skipping practice all the time. At the time, however, it had felt like Master Tong hated him and had stabbed him in the chest.

Clearing his throat, Pete shook the memories off. “I won a lot of tournaments before I quit, and I was a third dan black belt. So if I started training again, I could earn my fourth dan and be a master in my own dojang.” He shrugged and lowered his eyes to his plate, his fingers dragging along the edge distractedly. “I mean, I’m sure there’s a bunch of other stuff that goes into running a dojang, but it’d be a start.”

He’d love to help kids—people—learn to focus their energy, or their anger or their anxiety, into something proactive. To help people who feel weak feel strong. To teach discipline in a way that didn’t feel restrictive. Yeah. He’d like to help other people become better. And maybe he’d feel like he was better too.

“I think you would make a good dojang master,” Niran said, and though his voice could almost be called ‘fond,’ his eyes looked endlessly sad.

Niran often looked sad, at least when Pete could see him. Maybe it was all the ghosts he dealt with, maybe not. But he had made Pete feel better about his shitty life, so Pete wanted to make Niran feel better too.

Standing from the table, Pete motioned to the open space between the couch and the door. “Come on,” he said, already heading that way.

Niran followed him without question, which had a thrill zinging across Pete’s skin. Only once they were standing face-to-face in the living room did he ask, “What?”

Pete smiled. “You said you think I’d be a good master. I’m gonna teach you some taekwondo basics.”

Niran took a step back, startled. “What?” he repeated, louder.

“Yeah!” Pete waved for Niran to step closer again. “Come on. We’ll do the basic stances, and if you get the hang of that, I’ll show you how to block.”

Niran shook his head. “No.”

“Niran,” Pete said.

“No.” Niran turned and started walking around the couch back toward the dining table.

Pete followed him. “Niran! Come on!”

Instead of sitting down, Niran pivoted and completely circled the couch, Pete right on his heels.

“No way.”

“I wanna teach you!”

“Well I don’t wanna learn.”

“Niran~,” Pete whined.

Niran covered his ears and kept walking. “No!”

It took five circumventions of the couch before Niran finally gave in—with the world’s biggest, most put upon sigh. Pete cheered but pointedly did not grab Niran by the shoulders to shake him in celebration. Niran didn’t like touching, so Pete would hold himself back.

They kept at it for over two hours that night. Niran’s training to deal with spirits and energy translated surprisingly well into taekwondo stances and breathing, but it took him time to remember which stance was for what—probably because he started out only half listening. By the end of their impromptu training session, Niran had worked up a mild sweat, but he was smiling anyway. So Pete was happy too.

“Go take a shower,” Pete said with a grin. “You’ve earned it.”

The look Niran sent his way was so warm that Pete would’ve sworn the sun was still out and shining directly upon him. His heart raced, sparks going off in his chest. Niran was good looking on his own, but his smile made him so damn cute, and that look—Pete felt energized just knowing it was directed his way.

He hadn’t felt this way about anyone in a long time. Not since before his parents died. Only a few days ago, Pete had been wallowing, not even wanting to get out of bed except that he had work to get to, and even that felt like too much most days. Now, he couldn’t wait for the next meal they shared, wanted to see the sunlight on Niran’s face, and was even planning goals for the future. Everything was brighter with Niran around. He was the cause of Pete’s happiness.

Pete took a deep breath. “Niran—”

…

…

“—I think—huh?”

The ceiling was white, the mattress soft under his body. Pete jerked up, looked around the room. Familiar posters stared at him from the walls, old knickknacks covered in a layer of dust sat on shelves, and a bed roll lay pushed to the side by the wardrobe.

The bedroom? When had he—He’d just been in the living room. With Niran. He’d literally been mid-sentence and now he was—

“What the hell?”

Throwing himself from the bed, Pete hurried through the open doorway, then froze. Someone was talking downstairs, probably the dining room by the sound of it, and it wasn’t Niran’s comforting cadence.

“—thought you were joking.”

“Why would I joke about buying a house?” Niran asked monotonously.

“Because you were hired to exorcise the ghost in the house, not start living with it,” the feminine voice chastised. She sighed. “Niran, you’ve been here a month. How long do you plan on letting him stay here?”

A month? Since Niran moved in? That couldn’t be correct. Niran had been there only a few days, right?

Pete crouched just outside his bedroom door, not wanting to be noticed. So he was eavesdropping, so what? He’d just fucking teleported!

After several seconds of Niran’s typical silence, the woman gave a sigh. “You’ve never hesitated to exorcise a ghost before. And you know what’ll happen if one stays trapped here too long. So—”

“He doesn’t know he’s dead, jiejie,” Niran broke in. Only several deep conversations with Niran let Pete hear the vein of sorrow in his voice.

Pete started inching his way along the upstairs hall toward the stairs, wanting to get an unobstructed view of ‘jiejie.’ Hm, that meant her name was ‘Fei,’ right?

“That’s all the more reason to send his spirit on,” Fei argued, but at least she sounded somewhat consoling. “How long until he finds out? And when he does, what then? You said he was giving off a lot of negative energy before you moved in. If he goes dark again, he could hurt someone. He could hurt you.”

Around the open wall from the living room to the dining room came the image of Fei. She had long dark hair with the top layer pulled back and held in place with a beautiful hair stick and wore a short sleeved brown dress with a tan braided belt about her waist. She sat up tall in her seat, her arms crossed, and a judgmental and yet somehow sad look on her face. Huh. Niran’s sister was kind of pretty.

“Pete wouldn’t hurt me.”

It felt like Pete had run into a brick wall, but mentally. Huh? His eyes snapped to Niran. What?

Niran had his arms crossed too, but they laid on the table rather than over his chest. His eyes were locked with Fei’s, more intense than Pete had ever seen them.

Fei let out a surprised breath. “Niran,” she started.

“No,” Niran shook his head. “I know what you’re thinking, but it’s not just that. Yes, Pete is kind to me, but I’ve checked in on his energy daily. Even when he isn’t…present,” and the way Niran said that—present—made Pete think about how his uncle sometimes talked about his grandmother with dementia, when she didn’t recognize them at all, “he’s stopped wailing. He’s getting better. Pete won’t become an evil spirit. I know he won’t.”

Pete dropped from his crouch to land solidly on his butt. Was that what the blackouts were? Niran always seemed to change clothes a lot, but each outfit was a different day, not just a few minutes later? Pete was losing time because…he was dead?

“And you’re just going to keep playing house with him forever, then? Niran, be serious. This isn’t like you.”

Pete fell against the railing and wrapped his fingers around one of the rods, staring at the difference between the skin of his hand and the wood. It felt real and solid, but…Pete let out a deep breath and simply…decided the railing wasn’t there. It was like unfocusing his eyes. His fingers passed through the wood like it was open air. Or, he supposed, like Pete was open air.

Shit.

Fuck.

Shit.

Pete covered his mouth and tried to breathe—not breathe? Shit, he didn’t know anymore. There was a rushing in his ears that drowned out anything else Niran and Fei might have said. He could barely hear his own thoughts, could hardly grasp them as they swirled into a cyclone.

What had Niran told him about the ghost in the house? It was lost. It was a young man who died suddenly and full of regrets and grief. When had he died? How? Was it painful? Niran said the ghost screamed and cried a lot. Had he suffered before the end?

Shit. Ploy. Was his sister okay? He hadn’t gotten to make it up to her for being such a terrible brother, and then he died? Exactly how many tears had he caused her?

“Pete. Can you hear me?”

Blinking, Pete came back into focus and found Niran kneeling in front of him at the top of the landing. His lips pressed together in a thin line, his brows drawn low over his eyes, his hand holding one of the railing rods, worried.

The rushing sound died away and with it, the sun came back out. When the room brightened up, Niran let out a small breath and nodded. His gaze softened to that precious, fond expression Pete loved seeing aimed his way.

“There you are. You’re okay.”

Pete shook his head and then leaned his forehead on one of the rods. It felt so solid. He felt so solid. But he wasn’t.

“But I’m not, though, am I?” he contradicted wryly, closing his eyes. “Because I’m dead. And I’ve been dead for a while now, huh?”

When he opened his eyes again, Pete’s gaze was down into the living room, where Fei stood staring up at them with those same crossed arms. From this angle, it looked more defensive than judgy.

“Oh. Hi,” Pete said, lamely. He had forgotten she was there. He gave a pathetic wave. “I’m Pete.”

“Fei,” she replied.

Just like her brother, Fei stared at him for a long time, her eyes examining him, analyzing what she found, before she spoke. Finally, she sighed and dropped her hands to her sides.

“Fine. Do what you want,” Fei said. Rolling her eyes, she said, “You never listen to me anyway.” She sighed and headed for the dining room. “I’m heading out. I have a job to get back to.”

“I’ll walk you out,” Niran said. He gave Pete a questioning look, asking permission, and Pete nodded. Then he headed back downstairs to see his sister off.

Pete stared at where Niran used to be and wrapped both hands around the rods of the railing. He might not be real, but he could feel them and it kept him grounded. In whatever sense a ghost could be grounded.

The altar Niran had made, and all that incense. Niran had said he lit incense and played his mokugyo for the ghost. He’d meant Pete.

They had talked so much over meals. They had teased each other. Pete had told Niran his dream for the future—if he could stop fucking things up for once.

God, he’d fucked up big time. He’d gone and died. There was no coming back from that.

“Pete?”

Pete sighed and pulled himself to his feet, then stared down at Niran at the bottom of the stairs. He was still wearing the red shirt from before, so at least Pete hadn’t lost time again. He was still present.

He held Niran’s gaze as he headed downstairs. Niran’s expression was a mixture of calculating and sorrow.

They took up seats on the couch as usual, without a word. Pete drew one leg up onto the couch and wrapped his arms around it, rested his chin on top and stared at Niran. For his part, Niran sat backed into the side of the couch so he could face Pete and still have support, like the world’s most awkward floor chair.

Once they were both settled, Pete inhaled deeply. “I don’t feel dead.”

“No?” Niran asked. Pete shook his head. “When was the last time you went to work? Cooked? Showered? Used a bathroom?”

Well. That was. Uh. Okay, point. Pete nodded, accepting Niran’s validity. Sure, Pete had thought about how he was a delivery driver, but he hadn’t wondered about his schedule or setting his availability. Hell, he didn’t even know where his phone was, and it hadn’t bothered him at all. And though he couldn’t remember the last time he showered, he didn’t stink.

A brief glance down at himself and Pete suddenly wondered…had he been wearing this exact outfit for months? It had never crossed his mind, but, yeah, he had no memory of changing clothes at any time recently.

And it was true, Pete had no idea the last time he’d peed or taken a shit, even though Niran had given him food and drink.

“Wait a minute,” Pete said, touching his stomach. “But I’m hungry. And I was able to eat and drink with you.”

Niran nodded. “I treated the meals as offerings, which allows the spirits to consume them.”

“Oh.” Pete set his chin on his knee, hugged his arms around his leg again. After a moment, he let out a loud sigh. “So much for dreaming, huh?”

Niran lifted an eyebrow, silently questioning.

Pete shrugged. “A ghost can’t open a dojang, or earn a fourth-degree black belt. A ghost can’t go on dates.” His chest constricted painfully and Pete’s breath came out ragged. “A ghost can’t make up with their family for all the times they messed up—”

The tears slid down Pete’s cheeks before he was ready for them, and he released his leg to instead press his hands into his eyes. Shit. He was a damn ghost. Why could he still cry so much?

“I can help,” Niran said.

Pete lowered his hands and did his best to look at Niran through his tears. “Huh?”

It was Niran’s turn to take a deep breath, like he was bracing himself. “Sometimes, to get a spirit to move on, we have to complete a task related to the spirit.”

Pete had seen enough movies to know what Niran meant. Fulfilling the ghost’s unfinished business. Niran wanted to help him finish his worldly business so he could move on, be reincarnated or go to some afterlife or whatever.

Glancing away, then back, Niran said, “I could help you say goodbye,” his voice trailed off and he swallowed thickly, hands clenching in his lap the same way that Pete’s did around his leg, “to your sister.”

Ploy. How was she doing? How long had he been dead? Had she graduated? Was she married? Was she still mad at him?

“Do you,” Niran hedged, “want me to do that?”

Swallowing thickly, Pete nodded once, then more effusively. Yeah. Yeah, he’d really like that. “Please,” he managed.

With a nod of his own, Niran pulled his phone out and started doing something on it that would somehow find him Ploy and get her to the house. Pete had no idea how Niran would manage it, but he knew the other man would. Despite everything, Niran was still amazing.

“I’m sorry,” Pete muttered, drawing Niran’s attention from his phone. “I know you do stuff with ghosts all the time…but living with one must’ve sucked.”

A hum and Niran dropped his eyes back to his task. “It didn’t,” he said after a moment, and Pete could almost believe his cheeks turned pink with blush.

But it didn’t matter how much he flustered Niran or how good Niran made Pete feel. It didn’t matter that Pete didn’t want to wallow in the shadows of his life anymore, that he wanted to live—that he wanted to live with Niran. It didn’t matter that Pete could see himself helping Niran with ghosts as much as leading a dojang.

Because he couldn’t live at all. It was too late for all his wants and dreams. His life was already over.

A headache slammed into Pete and he squinted his eyes shut, pressing a hand to the side of his head. It was like his ears were beeping, too loud to handle, like half a dozen voices cascading on top of one another, too chaotic to understand.

Then, as abruptly as it came, the headache was gone. All the rushing sounds and ringing vanished and it was just Pete, sitting on his couch with a man he liked, in a house he couldn’t let go of, even in death.

“I just had the weirdest headache,” Pete said, tapping just above his ear. “It was like I could suddenly hear a ton of noise all at once, and it hurt like,” he fished around for something to compare it to, “like a fire alarm. You know? The ones that are so loud it physically hurts to hear it?”

Niran grimaced and Pete knew he knew.

Pete snapped his fingers and pointed in success, then deflated, his arms falling to the couch limply. He laid his cheek on his knee and stared outside. How long had it been since he’d last been outside? Could he go out there and feel the sun if he wanted to, or was he stuck inside until he moved on?

“A ghost with a headache. That probably isn’t a good thing, huh?” he muttered, voice distorted by his knee in his cheek.

“I don’t know about a good thing, but it probably isn’t a bad thing either,” Niran said, like he was trying to be consoling while still clicking away on his phone. “I’ve never heard of a ghost headache hurting anyone.”

“Except the ghost,” Pete said, his lips quirking up.

“Except the ghost,” Niran agreed, sounding just as amused.

A bird flew under the porch roof and landed on the table outside. A fairy bluebird. It hopped around on the table, briefly considered the empty decorative bowl set there, then turned and seemed to look into the house, straight at Pete.

So it was true that animals could see ghosts. Or was Pete visible to anyone who came into his childhood home? Fei could see him too, but if she was like Niran, she probably dealt with ghosts all the time, which meant she must have some ability to see them. If Ploy really came over, would she be able to see him? Or would Niran have to work as an interpreter? Would she even believe him?

It sounded exhausting, but the other option was not seeing Ploy at all and that was unfathomable.

The fairy bluebird tilted its head at him, then flew away. Taking a deep breath, Pete sat up, even lowering his knee to the couch so he was more-or-less mirroring Niran’s pose.

“Thank you.”

This time, Niran put his phone down completely to give Pete his attention. “For what?”

A small laugh and shake of his head. “Putting up with me? Helping me when I had that total breakdown about my parents? I know my uncle hired you to get rid of me, but you’re being really nice about it instead of forcing me out.” A one-armed shrug. “I really…appreciate it, that’s all.” Pete tilted his head and gave Niran his most grateful smile. “So, thanks, Niran.”

Niran stared at him like Pete had started to turn blue or glow or something, like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Was a thank you that unbelievable? Did ghosts not usually thank him? Maybe they’d become evil spirits, like Fei was worried about, and couldn’t appreciate someone helping them anymore.

“Pete,” Niran started, and it sounded like he might start apologizing, so Pete took a deep breath and—

“Hey, can we watch a movie?” He turned to face where the screen would appear. “I think I want, like, another murder mystery or something. You know, to match the mood.”

Niran huffed a surprised laugh. “Who said you were murdered?” he groused, even as he reached over to grab the remote.

Pete lifted an incredulous eyebrow. “I died suddenly, and super young. I could totally have been murdered. By, like, I don’t know, someone I delivered food too. It’s possible!” he protested when Niran started laughing at him.

They ended up watching Murder on the Orient Express, which neither of them had seen. They each chose who they thought the murderer was within the first ten minutes and spent the rest of the movie trying to out twisty-logic each other to prove their person was clearly the murderer. Neither of them was right, but they still playfully bickered about why their choice was the better incorrect one. Like with Knives Out, Pete ended the movie with his cheeks hurting from smiling so much, and his heart full to bursting with affection for his movie watching partner.

Pete was even able to stay present long enough to watch Niran get ready for bed, which Niran said was ‘creepy’ and shut the bathroom door in his face.

“You know I could just walk through it, right?” Pete asked, even phasing his hand through the wood for a second before pulling it back.

“Asshole,” Niran called.

Pete waited patiently on his bed instead.

That was another thing. Niran could’ve slept in the bed. He could’ve made this bedroom his own, but he hadn’t. He left the bed to Pete, kept the space Pete’s as much as possible. Maybe it had something to do with not ‘disturbing a possibly evil spirit’ or whatever, or maybe it was just Niran. Either way, it made Pete smile.

He was still smiling when Niran walked in, towel hanging over his head even as he looked at his phone.

“Welcome back, friend,” Pete greeted, even giving a silly little wave.

Niran glanced up at him, then back at his phone, his lips drawing down in a slight frown. Pete’s smile dimmed.

“Is something wrong?”

A negative head shake. Niran rubbed the towel over his hair once more, then lowered it to his shoulders. He looked up at Pete again. “Your sister agreed to come over.”

“Oh.” Pete’s heart raced with sudden adrenaline. “When?”

“In two days.”

…

…

The steady thumping of the mokugyo brought Pete to awareness, drawing him from whatever ether his spirit went to when he stopped being ‘present.’ Like last time, it was literally like Niran was waking him up from sleep. Unlike last time, Pete found himself not in bed but lying on the couch.

Turning his head, Pete found Niran sitting at the altar. He’d turned it around so that he could sit at it and face the rest of the house, rather than the front door, so he noticed Pete at about the same moment that Pete noticed him. Mission complete, Niran set the mokugyo back down on the altar.

His smile was tight. “Your sister should be here soon.”

He’d been gone for two days. Or, at least one and a half.

What was it like for Niran when he stopped being present? Did Pete vanish? Or did he simply stop responding, staring off into the distance and wandering morosely around the house like a ghost in a sad film? Which would be worse for him?

With a nod, Pete got up. They moved to the kitchen together, and Niran made them both cups of tea, making them an offering so Pete could drink his. Considering he was dead, drinking a warm beverage shouldn’t really have worked to calm Pete’s nerves, but somehow…it did.

As if timed, the moment they both finished their drinks and set their cups down, the gate bell rang. Niran shared a preparatory look with Pete before leaving to welcome their guest.

Pete stood by the glass door, bouncing lightly on his feet and shaking out his hands. After only a moment, Niran began making his way back inside with Ploy on his heels.

She didn’t look any older, so Pete must have only died recently. Her hair was still dark and long, her face still cute and round, though there were shadows under her eyes that didn’t used to be there. And she was wearing her school uniform, so she hadn’t yet graduated.

The last time Pete had spoken to his sister, they’d fought. He had gone to see her at school at her request, had eaten lunch at the canteen there. She had kept her eyes down, like she was upset with him before they’d even started talking. She’d talked to him without meeting his eyes, and that had pissed him off. He’d been so angry all the time, even when he didn’t have the energy to do anything about it and the feeling just sunk into his skin like bad tattoos.

She’d said…he was always causing trouble, and she didn’t want to see him again if he wouldn’t go to therapy.

The ultimatum had overwhelmed what little control Pete had had, and he’d snapped at another table to “Shut up for a second!”

Ploy had gotten mad. “This is why I don’t want to see you anymore. Phi, just…Either get help or stay away from me. I mean it.”

And then she’d left him alone at the table. Pete had felt every eye in the canteen staring at him, judging him, judging Ploy for having a brother as fucked up as he was.

Pete’s feelings threatened to send him spiraling and Ploy wasn’t even in the house yet. Closing his eyes, Pete took a deep breath and focused on letting the emotion pass him by like a breeze—without completely fazing out again. By the time he heard the door slide open, he felt…well, not good, but stable.

“Would you like a drink?” Niran offered clumsily once they were inside. He was such an awkward host.

Ploy shook her head with a negative hum, her eyes trailing around the room. Was it as weird for her to see the sheets gone, the house aired out and lit up as if it had come alive again, as it had been for Pete that first day? The same family photos and trophies on the walls and tables—save one small framed photo of Niran and his grandfather, the same furniture in the same places—except for Niran’s main altar and a few incense bowls here and there, the incense that still burned in the kitchen.

Her eyes traveled up, up, to the roof above her—to Pete’s room, even though she couldn’t see it from where she stood. Her eyebrows drew low, her lips pressed tightly together, and it looked like she might cry. Pete jolted, reaching out but stopping short.

“Ploy,” he said before she quickly looked at the altar instead.

Ploy stepped closer, kneeling down to examine the shrine in much the same way Pete had that first day. She even reached for the statue like he had. Unlike Pete, she was able to touch it before Niran interrupted.

“Thank you for coming to see me,” Niran said.

Ploy quickly retracted her hand like she’d been caught doing something wrong, then stood. “You said you had a question about the house my uncle sold to you.” Her eyes went to the family photo on the table, the first thing Pete had noticed uncovered when Niran moved in. “I’m not surprised my uncle didn’t answer it himself. He didn’t want the house in the first place, not after our parents…” She shook her head and returned her attention to Niran. “I lived here for years. What do you want to know?”

She was trying to be polite, as she always had been, but there was a brittleness to her now. She’d lost too much. Their parents when she was in middle school, and now Pete. Frowning, Pete reached out to touch her shoulder. He focused so hard he could swear it made his fingers tingle, and yet his hand went right through her. She didn’t even flinch.

Niran also frowned after watching Pete’s action. “Your uncle sold me the house, but that wasn’t the original reason I came here,” he revealed.

“Then, why?” Ploy asked, confused, and a guarded edge seeped into her voice.

“What if she doesn’t believe you?” Pete asked, unable to hold it in. He ruffled his own hair and turned in a circle, huffing.

Luckily, Niran continued without him. He nodded. “Your uncle originally hired me to deal with a ghost haunting the house.”

“A ghost?” She was definitely doubtful, even taking a half step back from Niran.

“He said the neighbors reported wailing but no one was home. They, and your uncle, thought a vengeful spirit was responsible.”

Ploy opened her mouth, looking about to come up with a logical reason for the sounds, but Niran kept talking before she could.

“The ghost appeared almost as soon as I took the sheets off the photos,” he said, motioning to the photos in question. Both siblings glanced that way briefly. “He recognized himself, I think, and remembered his humanity. He’s not vengeful. He just died so suddenly that his spirit got lost. He was simply…lonely.”

He looked to Pete then. It was true. Pete’s chest ached with how true that had been. He’d felt alone for so many years. Most of the isolation was of his own making, but it was true that he had felt abandoned by the world, by his family, by himself. Thanks to Niran, Pete had started to see the world differently.

Ploy huffed loud enough to drag Pete’s attention back to her. She put her hands on her hips. “Khun, you already own the house, so what are you trying to get from me?”

“He isn’t trying to get anything from you, Ploy,” Pete said, disappointed. “He called you because I asked him to. Niran, tell her!” He waved between Niran and his sister a bit desperately.

“I called you because he asked me to,” Niran relayed. “He told me…he let you down a lot when he was alive. He wasn’t there when you needed him. He wants to apologize for not being able to make it up to you before he passed.”

The more Niran talked, the more sincere Ploy seemed to find his words. Her hands dropped from her hips and her expression looked more concerned and confused than accusatory. “He? Are you trying to tell me my father is haunting the house?” She glanced around as if seeing the building with new eyes. “How long has he been here? Is—Is that why phi was—” She cut herself off, as if she’d said too much. She shook her head. “I don’t understand. My father was amazing. He was always there when I needed him. You must have the wrong person.”

Hearing Ploy remember their father so positively made Pete smile, but then he frowned again. She’d been younger than him when they died and he’d worried it would affect her more than him. Even at his worst, he’d thought, ‘dammit, if I’m this messed up, then what about Ploy?’ And then he’d felt worse for piling his own issues on top of all that, causing her even more grief.

“This might be easier if it was dad,” Pete said, sticking his hands in his armpits to stop from trying to touch his sister again. “I really wish it wasn’t me. I’m sorry, Ploy.”

Niran shook his head once. “It’s not your father,” he said. “The ghost I’ve been talking to, the one who wants to apologize, is your brother. Pete.”

Now Ploy took a full step back from Niran, her face closing off completely. It was too fresh a wound. Maybe Pete should’ve just kept quiet and played house ghost for a few years, until the hurt had scabbed over a little bit, until it wouldn’t stab both their hearts so much.

“What.” It wasn’t a question, but Niran answered anyway.

He didn’t take her reaction to heart. No doubt he’d had to tell dozens of people that the ghost of a loved one was in the room with them as he helped the ghosts move on.

“His spirit is,” Niran cast around for a word. “Stuck. He had too many regrets when he died. One of them was not being able to apologize to you.” He took a deep breath, swallowed, then, “If you accept his apology…he might be able to move on.”

Pete’s gut clenched. He didn’t want to move on. He wanted to live. But at least if he moved on, he might meet his parents again, might get to be their son in a new life. Maybe, in his new life, he and Niran could be alive at the same time. Maybe he could be the brother Ploy deserved.

“Move on?” Ploy repeated, quietly. Then, louder, “Shut up.”

“Ploy!” Pete gasped, astonished. He had never heard his sister talk that way!

“My brother isn’t here. You’re lying,” Ploy snapped. “I don’t know what you want from me, from my family, but this is just cruel.”

“Khun Ploy,” Niran tried.

Ploy shook her head, taking another step back. Her hands clenched at her sides. “P’Pete can’t be here,” she said, her voice choked. “If he’s here, then—then there’s no hope. If he’s been here the whole time—”

And then she was crying. Pete instinctively reached for her, tried to hug her, and instead fell straight through.

“I’ve been trying to apologize to him for weeks, thinking—maybe—maybe he’d be okay. Maybe he’d wake up if I took it back.” Ploy hugged herself and shook her head. “So you have to be lying. Tell me you’re lying.”

“Ploy!” Pete called, tears also running down his cheeks. He stood as close to her as he could without going through her. “I’m so sorry. You were right, okay? If I’d called one of those therapists, maybe I’d still be here for you. I should’ve done what you asked. I should’ve—”

Ploy shook her head at Niran’s continued silence, then turned and hurried to the door. Her hands had barely touched the glass when Niran said, “Wait.”

She waited, even though the sounds of her hiccupping breaths meant she was still crying.

“What do you mean, ‘there’s no hope’?” Niran asked.

Hesitantly, Ploy turned around. The sight of her tears made Pete look away, his heart breaking all over again. Instead, he saw Niran’s face, and there was something almost agonizingly hopeful in his expression.

With Ploy’s attention on him, Niran motioned vaguely toward where Pete stood by the altar. Ploy’s eyes briefly flicked that way, then back. “Pete can’t remember what happened to him. Can you tell us?”

Ploy kept her hand on the door handle, her eyes lowering to the wood floor at her feet. “Two months ago…P’Pete was delivering food. He was—” her voice gave out and she had to swallow before continuing. “He was hit by a truck.”

One of Pete’s hands went to his head, the other to his chest, as pain bloomed in both places. A flash of the grill of a big truck, of asphalt tearing across his skin even through his jacket and jeans, of pain.

“He’s been in a coma ever since. They can’t make him wake up. They told us to plan for the worst, but I—”

“A coma?” Niran repeated, forcefully.

His ears screamed with beeps, beeps, beeps, and so many voices overlapping, an intercom system, a squeaky wheel over and over, it was so loud—

“Pete?” Niran’s voice sounded distant.

“Ah,” Pete gasped, gripping his hair and shirt tighter, squeezing his eyes shut. “Niran! It hurts—”

“Pete, listen to my voice.” His voice was shaky, nervous in a way Pete wasn’t used to. “You’re okay. It’s just a memory of pain. You’re not hurt.”

He was struck, his arm hurt so bad! Asphalt tore at the skin of his hands, through his very clothing, it was everywhere! And the beeping wouldn’t stop! Make it stop!

“Let it pass,” Niran repeated, more urgently. “Pete. Let it—”

…

…

The mokugyo thumped rhythmically, drawing Pete back to himself like before, but it felt different this time. Instead of an easy waking, it felt as if someone were dragging him bodily from a quagmire, like he was stuck.

Pete came to with the sound of a bell gently ringing and quiet chanting in a language he didn’t understand. Mandarin? No, not quite. Pete knew some Mandarin. This was the language Niran always chanted in.

Niran. Niran was calling to him, like he always did. Pete had gone away again, far enough that Niran needed a ritual to draw him back.

Pete opened his eyes, but didn’t see his bedroom ceiling, or that of his living room. And he wasn’t lying down. Instead, he was standing in total darkness, surrounding and engulfing him. Fog swirled around his feet like physical appendages, the tendrils trying to hold him down.

Picking his feet up proved difficult, like leaden blocks were attached to the soles of his shoes: doable but exhausting. It made him want to sit down, to stay where he was, to not even try.

But the mokugyo kept tapping, the bell ringing, echoing to him from somewhere far away. That noise meant the darkness and the fog and the tiredness were not all that existed. There was a world beyond.

“You’re not seriously considering going, are you?”

Flipping around, Pete found himself face-to-face with himself. The same t-shirt with a plaid overshirt, same wide-legged jeans and scuffed up sneakers, same scruffy hair. The other Pete’s eyes were heavy with dark bags, though, his lips pulling into a permanent frown.

“You destroy everything you touch,” Other Pete reminded him, crossing his arms. “Your parents. Your martial arts career. Your education. Your sister’s love. Even the damn house. Hell, you weren’t even a good delivery driver.”

The words landed like knives in Pete’s chest and he gripped his shirt over his heart with a gasp.

Other Pete shook his head. “If you go, you’ll just fuck it all up again. Because that’s all you ever do. You’ve never done anything right. You’re not capable enough.”

Pete knew what this was. This was his inner voice since his parents died. These were things he’d said to himself over and over again, until all he felt capable of was lying in bed and praying for the end.

If he was better, stronger, smarter, kinder, worked harder, then his life wouldn’t be so screwed up. Everyone else could hold it together except him. Anyone else would’ve just gotten back up, decided to succeed, and then did. Pete was a failure, a fuck up, a waste of space. Since he wasn’t worth living, he should’ve died instead of his parents.

“It’s not your fault. Do you hear me? Your parents came because they wanted to support you. You didn’t force them. And you didn’t cause the plane to crash. You are not at fault for any of it. Do you understand? None of this is your fault. Losing your parents was a tragedy, but you are not to blame for it. You were a child. Say it with me, Pete—”

“It wasn’t my fault,” Pete said in time with the memory of Niran. “I was grieving.”

Other Pete scowled, then opened his mouth to reply, but Pete didn’t give him time to intrude.

“Yeah, I messed up. A lot.” He shook his head. “I needed help, but I didn’t know how to accept it. But I have help. I have people who care about me, who want the best for me. They support me, even when I don’t see it.”

Ploy, who did the research for him and sent him the contact information for doctors who could help, who kept reaching out for years, even when Pete kept blowing her off, who kept showing him that she was there for him if only he could see her through the veil of his depression.

Niran, who walked him through breakdowns, brought him dinner and always shared, who treated him like he was a normal person even when he was a ghost of who he used to be, who called out into the darkness to bring Pete back to himself, who encouraged him to dream beyond the next morning.

There were probably other people too—his uncle, maybe, or other delivery drivers he sat around with between orders, old classmates or teammates. People who would help him if only he found the strength to let them. Maybe with Niran and Ploy on his side, Pete finally could.

Pete pointed at the Other Pete, then at his own head. “You’re just the voices in my head, the shit I said to myself for years.” He frowned. “You’re a liar, and I don’t have to listen to you.”

The mokugyo kept tapping, the bell gently ringing, Niran’s chanting voice still reverberating in the distance. That was where Pete wanted to be, not here in his own head dealing with an asshole.

As if he heard Pete’s thoughts—and he probably did—Other Pete snarled with rage and charged at Pete with fists raised. Pete closed his eyes and let the feeling of doubt, of fear, pass like a dying breeze. When he opened his eyes, he was alone in the darkness.

“You’re not gone,” Pete said firmly, “but just watch. Every time you come back, I’ll kick your ass.”

Then he turned away, toward the direction of the mokugyo, bell, and chanting. Pete took a deep breath, smiled, and started to run.

…

…

His eyelids were heavy, and even without opening them, the room beyond was too bright. That hadn’t been a problem the previous times Niran had summoned him. The drumming was still going on right next to him, as was the chanting, so Pete at least knew he’d appeared in the right place.

“Nrn,” he tried to say, and was shocked at how garbled it came out. The hell?

Someone grabbed his hand with a gasp.

Someone

Grabbed

His

Hand

Pete’s eyes shot open, pushing past the heaviness. He barely registered the tiled ceiling before looking down toward his hand. It was Ploy. Tears already in her eyes, a hesitant smile fighting for purchase at her lips, both hands clutched around one of Pete’s.

“Ploy.”

The tears broke free, just like her smile, and Ploy let out a single laugh bordering on hysterical. “Phi,” she choked out. “It worked.” She looked across the bed and said, gratitude dripping from her every word, “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

What worked? Who was she talking to?

Pete tilted his head to look at the other side of the room, and even that made him exponentially more tired. An altar was set up on a small rolling table, with a candle, a statuette, and a small incense bowl. Two incense sticks burned, giving off a subtle scent of sandalwood. And standing behind the altar, wooden bell mokugyo and mallet in hand, was Niran. Fei stood to his side, holding a bell. With his attention on them, they both lowered their instruments.

“Huh?” Pete managed, blinking slowly.

His confusion made Niran lift an eyebrow, his mouth twisting. It almost could’ve been a look of consternation, but somehow Niran made it look fond.

“After your sister told us about your coma, I called Fei to help me with a ritual,” he explained, nodding briefly toward his own sister.

She nodded back. “Calling a soul back to its body is a relatively simple ritual, especially if you know where the soul disappeared to.” For the first time, she wasn’t looking at Pete like he was a burden, but like she approved. “It just matters if the soul wants to return.”

Oh. Yeah. Pete wanted to live, so that was good.

Ploy squeezed his hand and Pete lazily rolled his head back in her direction. She was still crying. “I’m sorry. I turned you away and I shouldn’t have. You can still talk to me, okay?” She lifted his hand to hold it against her wet cheek. “I still want you as my big brother.”

It was Pete’s turn to cry. His chest heaved with the effort. He was alive. His sister could see him. She was talking to him. He could make things right.

“I’m—I’m sorry—too,” Pete huffed out. “Y-you were—right.”

Ploy shook her head but didn’t correct him. Because she was right. Pete needed help to overcome his grief. But she was giving him another chance and that was all Pete could ask for.

His tears tapered off as his body grew too tired to keep going. The world was slipping into a haze, like when he pulled an all-nighter to finish an assignment and was too tired to stay awake in class the next day. Pete frowned, trying to fight it off. He’d just woken up! He’d slept enough, hadn’t he?

Niran approached the bed and laid his hand over Pete’s free one. When Pete met his eyes, Niran nodded. “You can sleep. Your soul is healthy, but your body hasn’t moved in a while. It’s okay to be tired.” He gave Pete’s hand a squeeze. “We’ll be here when you wake up.”

Pete managed a small smile. “Promise?”

“Uh. Promise.”

And just like that, simply, Pete gave up the fight and fell asleep.

…

…

Recovering from an extended coma took months, as Pete learned.

His brain function was fine, since his coma had been caused by his soul literally fleeing his body rather than a traumatic brain injury—thank you helmet, but his body had laid so long in that bed that his muscles had all but forgotten how to do their jobs. He had daily physical therapy that started with something as simple as sitting up for a few seconds and, once he could manage that without getting breathless, progressed from there.

When he’d regained a more-or-less normal sleeping pattern again, Pete asked Ploy for help finding a therapist. Her face lit up like starlight and, even if Pete hadn’t wanted to get better, that would’ve been worth it.

They found one that worked with the hospital and would come visit him in his room while he was an in-patient. So Pete would have mental health therapy and physical therapy every day. After Pete got to go home, he would still come see both therapists frequently, until he felt stable—in body and mind.

And every day, every time he woke up, either Ploy or Niran was in his room. Usually, Niran was reading a book or tapping away on his phone with some client or other, while Ploy was typically doing an assignment either on paper or her laptop. When Ploy wasn’t there, she was in class, speeding through her final semester of college.

Pete’s first goal was to be physically capable of attending her graduation in a month, even if he needed help to get there.

When he and Niran were alone in the room with no therapy or sister or clients to deal with, Niran used his laptop to show movies, or he brought books for Pete to read, or they talked. The less tired Pete was, the more they talked, and the more Pete knew he wanted Niran in his life long after he recovered. And, the more Niran teased him, responded to even Pete’s silliest questions, the more it seemed like Niran did too.

It was during one of those talks that Pete decided to confess. “So I know this is probably going to make things super awkward, but,” Niran looked at him and Pete’s words failed. “You and I—that is—That first meal we shared. Um.” Pete scratched the back of his head. “I think I fell for you then, and it just, sort of, uh, grew from there.”

For a long time, Niran just stared at him. Usually, Pete would’ve been okay with that. He was used to Niran’s long thinking times. But Pete had just confessed to having feelings for Niran. Every instant without a response had his insides itching.

At length, Niran said, “I lied when we first met. I hadn’t bought the house yet. I just wanted to see how you would react.”

Pete blinked. “Huh?” What did this have to do with his confession?

A shrug. “You were surprisingly lucid, but you had also been causing a lot of problems for the neighbors, so I tested you. I bought the house a week later, after our first meal.”

After the moment Pete just said was when he fell in love. Would Niran regret hastily purchasing the house at the time, now? Would he say Pete’s feelings started because, somehow, his soul knew Niran was the house’s owner now or something equally spiritual sounding and nonsensical?

Pete clenched his hands together in his lap but kept his eyes on Niran.

“After meeting you once, you were interesting. Twice, and you were a conundrum. Three times, and I no longer wanted to leave.” Niran’s cheeks were turning pink and Pete’s heart wouldn’t calm down. “But I think it was when you said you were on my side that I realized…I never wanted you to leave, either. That I wouldn’t exorcise you, because, somehow, I’d developed feelings for you, too.”

It was said simply, like that was the obvious way things had to happen, like it was fate. Pete didn’t like the idea of fate too much, because it suggested that some universal power had decided his parents had to die, that Pete and his sister had to suffer like that, and they had no power to overcome it. But he liked the idea that, no matter how, he and Niran were destined to meet.

Also, Niran had just said he liked Pete too! Even doing another full round of physical therapy sounded like a good idea in that moment.

“So if I like you, and you like me,” Pete said, motioning between them, his lips already pulling up into a wide smile he couldn’t contain, “does that mean…we’re dating now?”

With a sigh like Pete was being obtuse on purpose—but he wasn’t actually mad about it—Niran reached over and brushed Pete’s hair out of his eyes. It was probably super gross. Pete hadn’t had a chance to fully, properly wash his hair in ages. There was no hesitation in Niran’s touches.

Pete couldn’t look away, watching Niran with wonder.

“Yeah, that’s what that means. If you want to.”

It took a moment for Pete to remember what Niran was replying to, but when he did, he sat up straighter.

“Oh hell yeah.” He’d be the best freaking boyfriend he could be. Niran would go into shock.

Finally, a month after waking up and only a few days before Ploy’s graduation, Pete was finally set to be discharged to go home. He’d have a wheelchair for long distances still, and a cane for short ones—Niran had joked he was a grandfather and Pete had threatened to beat him with the cane to prove he wasn’t and Ploy had shaken her head at them both—and of course there would be plenty of physical therapy to do at home, and stairs were still the enemy, but at least he’d finally be at home instead of the hospital.

“Wait,” Pete said, after the nurse helped him into Niran’s car and shut the door. “Where are we going?”

Niran gave him a look like Pete had lost his mind. From the back seat, Ploy said, “What do you mean? We’re going home, obviously.”

Pete shook his head. “No, yeah, I know. But where is home? Your flat?” he asked, twisting in his seat to look at his sister.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Niran said.

Pete looked between the both of them, confused and a little irritated that they weren’t just answering the question.

“I cancelled my lease a week ago,” Ploy told him after a few moments.

“Huh?!” Pete blinked at her. Then where did she live now?

“She’s been living with me,” Niran answered the unasked question without taking his eyes off the road. “Just like you are.” He glanced askance at Pete. “Unless you have a problem with that?”

Pete shook his head. “Uh, no. No, that’s good.”

Home. The place he’d grown up in with his parents for fifteen years. The place his soul had run to after an accident, looking for solace and finding Niran. They were going home.

With a hum, Niran took one hand off the wheel to ruffle Pete’s hair, making Pete’s face warm. Then Niran set his hand on the center console, palm up. Pete stared at it for five full seconds before his brain finally accepted what was being offered and he slid his own palm over Niran’s, lacing their fingers.

Ploy leaned forward to put her face between theirs in the front seat. “You two aren’t going to make this weird, right?”

With a squawk, Pete released Niran’s hand to push Ploy back into her seat. “Put your seatbelt on! Are you nuts?” he chastised.

She did as he said, then grinned at his pouting face. After a few moments, her grin turned to something softer. “I’m glad you’re happy, phi.”

Blushing, Pete faced forward in his seat. He still put his hand back in Niran’s, though.

He was still a work in progress, both mentally and physically. His life wasn’t yet back on track, but he was getting there. And he had two amazing people helping him along the way, so yeah. Yeah, Pete was happy. Unbelievably, amazingly happy.

…

…

fin