Chapter Text
The library was supposed to be a safe place.
Quiet. Peaceful. Free of unnecessary human interaction.
Jungkook had specifically chosen the corner table farthest from the entrance for that exact reason. His laptop was open, his textbook was spread out in front of him, and for the first time that day, nobody was bothering him.
Perfect.
He turned a page.
Something tugged lightly at his hair.
Jungkook stopped, though his eyes remained on the textbook. A second tug followed, and he slowly exhaled through his nose.
No.
He kept reading.
Fingers ran through his hair again, deliberately messing it up.
Jungkook's jaw tightened. He fixed his hair without looking up and managed a few seconds of peace before—
Boop.
Right on his nose.
Jungkook blinked and stared at the same sentence.
Another boop.
His nostrils flared, but he picked up his pen and continued writing.
The ghost standing across from him frowned.
He waved a hand in front of Jungkook's face. Nothing.
He waved again. Still nothing.
Then he leaned closer.
Jungkook could see him perfectly. The man had a ridiculous grin on his face, like he had just discovered the funniest joke in the world.
Jungkook ignored him.
The ghost reached down and stole his pen.
Jungkook's hand stopped midair. He looked at the empty space between his fingers, then at the pen floating three feet away, and finally at the ghost.
The ghost smiled.
Jungkook slowly held out his hand.
“Give it back.”
The ghost's eyebrows shot up.
“So you can see me!”
Jungkook's expression remained completely blank.
“I said give it back.”
“You answered me!”
“I have regrets.”
The ghost laughed.
Jungkook held his hand out farther, but the ghost floated the pen just beyond his reach.
Jungkook's eye twitched.
He stood.
The ghost moved backward.
Jungkook stepped forward.
The ghost moved back again.
“Seriously?”
The ghost grinned.
Jungkook lunged for the pen.
It disappeared.
He stopped, looked around, and then felt something sit on his textbook.
Slowly, he lowered his gaze.
The ghost was now sitting cross-legged directly in the middle of the open book.
Jungkook stared at him.
The ghost stared back.
Neither moved.
Jungkook glanced at the clock. Forty minutes until closing.
He looked back at the ghost.
“Move.”
“No.”
“Move.”
“No.”
Jungkook closed his eyes and counted to three. Then five. Then ten.
When he opened them again, the ghost was still there.
Of course he was.
Jungkook rubbed both hands over his face. He had spent years perfecting the art of not reacting. Years. And this idiot had managed to destroy that discipline in less than five minutes.
“You know,” Jungkook said slowly, “there are approximately eight billion people in the world.”
The ghost blinked.
“Okay?”
“So many of them can't see you.”
“Yes?”
“You could bother literally anyone else.”
The ghost smiled.
“But you can see me.”
Jungkook stared at him.
There it was.
The problem.
That was always the problem. The moment a ghost realized he could see them, pretending they weren't there became ten times harder.
And Jungkook had learned that lesson the hard way.
---
The first time Jungkook saw a ghost, he was six years old.
And he had been absolutely terrified.
It had happened in his bedroom late one night. Jungkook had woken because he thought someone was standing beside his bed. At first, he kept his eyes closed, listening to the quiet room and the slow, steady sound of breathing right beside him.
When he finally opened his eyes, a woman was standing there, staring down at him.
Jungkook screamed.
His parents came running. His mother switched on the light while his father rushed to his side and demanded to know what had happened.
Jungkook pointed toward the corner of the room.
“She was there!”
His mother looked.
There was nothing.
His father checked behind the curtains and under the bed, but there was no one there either.
Except Jungkook could still see her.
She stood exactly where she had been, watching him.
Jungkook buried himself under his blanket while his mother tried to calm him down. She told him it had only been a nightmare, but Jungkook knew it hadn't. When he finally peeked out again, the woman was still there.
And she was crying.
That was the first time.
It wasn't the last.
Over the next few years, Jungkook began seeing ghosts everywhere. They appeared in school hallways, on apartment staircases, at bus stops, in parks, and sometimes right beside perfectly ordinary strangers. Some looked completely normal. Others looked exactly as they had at the moment of their deaths, and those were the ones Jungkook found hardest to forget.
The worst part wasn't seeing them.
It was knowing that nobody else could.
He would point toward someone standing in the middle of a road, only for his mother to look at him in confusion. Once, he refused to enter a bathroom at school because a man was standing in the doorway. His teacher eventually walked him inside herself.
There had been no one there.
Jungkook had cried anyway.
For years, he thought something was wrong with him. Maybe he was imagining things. Maybe he was sick. Maybe he was losing his mind.
He eventually stopped telling people.
Every time he tried to explain, the adults around him either laughed it off or looked at him with concern. Neither reaction made him feel better, so Jungkook learned to keep quiet.
With time, he also learned that most ghosts weren't dangerous.
Some wanted help. Some wanted to talk. Others didn't even seem to realize they were dead.
And some were simply bored.
Those were the ones Jungkook hated most.
Eventually, the fear faded. Not completely—he still didn't enjoy seeing someone standing silently at the end of a dark hallway, and he had developed a particular dislike of mirrors at night—but the constant terror disappeared.
He learned how to deal with it.
Don't look at them.
Don't react.
Don't answer.
Pretend they aren't there.
Most of the time, it worked. A ghost would eventually lose interest and move on. The more persistent ones were harder, but even they usually got bored eventually.
By his teenage years, seeing ghosts had become an inconvenient part of Jungkook's life. Like bad Wi-Fi or group projects—something annoying that he hadn't asked for but had learned to live with.
He stopped being terrified.
He stopped asking why.
He simply accepted it.
More importantly, he stopped letting ghosts know that he could see them.
Because once they knew, they became his problem.
And Jungkook had enough problems already.
---
The ghost sitting on his textbook snapped his fingers in front of Jungkook's face.
Jungkook looked up.
The ghost grinned.
“So,” he whispered dramatically, “how long have you been able to see us?”
“Since I was six.”
The ghost's eyebrows rose. “Six?”
Jungkook nodded.
“That's a long time.”
“Unfortunately.”
The ghost studied him for a moment before smiling again.
“That explains a lot.”
Jungkook narrowed his eyes. “What exactly does that explain?”
“You don't look scared.”
“I've had practice.”
The ghost laughed.
Jungkook pulled his textbook toward himself, only for the ghost to remain stubbornly seated in the middle of it.
He looked at the clock.
Thirty-two minutes until closing.
Apparently, peaceful studying had been too much to ask for.
He reached for his pen.
The ghost immediately floated it away again.
Jungkook stared at him.
The ghost smiled innocently.
Jungkook sighed.
Maybe tonight wasn't going to be peaceful after all.
And, somehow, he had a feeling this particular ghost was going to be the least of his problems.