Mango Gremlin Ghost - Shu + Luca

ichi

After working so many different jobs over the years, Shu finally had enough money to move out of his parents' house. A nice two-bedroom house had appeared on the market and Shu had never clicked so fast to book a viewing, and eventually put an offer on the house. Of course, since he was a cash buyer, his offer was graciously accepted, and he was allowed to move in almost instantly.

Now, as much as that sounded suspicious, the house was perfectly fine. He even got his friends, Petra and Uki, to come and see it with him before Shu placed the offer on the property. There were no weird stains on the walls or floors, no-one had died there (the estate agent was legally obligated to tell him that), and there was enough space to store all his belongings (and more). The location was great too since it was only 45 minutes away from his parents' house, and closer to his current workplace.

It was a perfect first house, so why wouldn't he snatch up the opportunity?

So, after packing up his belongings and saying goodbye to his parents with the promise to visit them soon, Shu left in his car. His furniture – which he ordered a few days beforehand – was due to arrive later that day, so his car was enough to hold his boxes of clothes and trinkets, even if he almost had no room to move in the car.

~~

A few days after moving in, he was finally satisfied with the placement of everything. It was still a little bare considering that he was more concerned with where his bed and closet would go, but he had placed a few string lights, candles and various (fake) potted plants around the place.

But something was missing. He glanced around the living room trying to remember what was missing before he realised. Shu jumped from the couch and ran upstairs to find the box in his closet. He fished out seven photo frames out of the box and went back downstairs to face fireplace. The mantle was perfect to display them all. One by one, he arranged the frames on top of the fireplace and stepped back.

"Perfect," he muttered to himself and smiled. "Now it feels more like home."

And indeed, it was like home. The two pictures of his friends at the amusement park, his family at his graduation ceremony, his brother before he left for another city, his high school friendship group who he kept in contact with, a picture of Uki's cat (per his request) and his best landscape photograph from his camera roll (it was probably the only good photo on his camera roll). They all left lasting memories, and it was fun to reminisce about them when he saw them there.

Now, there was only one thing missing: food. The chaos of moving into the house, cleaning and decorating had left Shu too busy to get some decent groceries (he had been living on instant noodles for a little too long). How careless of him to forget.

Sighing, he picked up his keys, grabbed his reusable shopping bags, and headed out.

~~

His photos were misplaced.

It was the first thing that Shu had noticed after hauling his full-to-the-brim bags of groceries. And for some reason, the picture of him at his graduation ceremony had fallen on the ground. Luckily, it hadn't smashed, but it still concerned him. He was sure that all the pictures were placed at a respectable distance away from the ledge. Frowning a little, he placed it back on the fireplace mantle and went to the kitchen to place his groceries away.

In one of the bags, he had bought a cute coaster set with a banana theme. They were for guests and needed to go on the coffee table, so Shu went back to the living room.

Placing the neat stack of five coasters, he softly smiled at the cute design. And then he noticed the penguin plush that Petra had given to him was on the floor. He was 1000% sure that he had left it sitting on his bed next to his banana plush. Why was it downstairs? Was the plush possessed?

No, snap out of it, he thought to himself. That would be impossible; sorcery didn't exist in this timeline.

Rummaging for his phone, he quickly called Uki. If anything suspicious was going on, he would be able to sort it. After a few rings, a tired voice answered.

"Shu? What do you need?" Uki half-mumbled.

"Can't I call you out of the goodness of my heart?" Shu grinned, pacing around the living room to see if anything else was amiss.

"Shu, it's almost 10pm. You never call me, or anyone, this late unless it's to hopcon. So, hopcon?" Shu could hear rustling in the background.

"No, sadly not. I need you to check if my house is haunted."

Uki burst out laughing. "Well, that's probably the most ridiculous thing I've heard out of you for a while. Ghosts? Haunting you?"

"Shut it! I swear I left Petra's penguin on my bed, and it was downstairs after I went grocery shopping. And one of my pictures fell from the mantle. I'm not crazy! Something is definitely wrong in this house!" His eyes darted around the room looking for another sign. Nothing.

"Fine, fine. I'll come over tomorrow." Some more rustling could be heard.

"Tomorrow? Why not now? You're only 20 minutes away from here." Shu half-whined. And I need you now, he thought. But he wouldn't let Uki know that.

"Like I said, it's 10pm. Some of us are busy at this time."

"Uki, are you done yet? I got the popcorn!" Another voice from Uki's side called out. "Can I come join you in the bed now?"

"You could have told me you were on a date!" Shu huffed, making his way back to the kitchen to put his bags away in the cupboard. It was no use leaving them strewn across the kitchen floor. "Fine, see you tomorrow!"

"I'll bring Meloco too!" Uki called out before Shu ended the call.

Meloco was Uki's friend who specialised in ghosts and demons. She called herself an exorcist, but Shu found that hard to believe at first. Ghosts didn't exist, right? And yet, he was finding it harder to stick with his original opinion. Maybe Meloco wasn't scamming people out of their money.

Whatever was going on in his house, it would become a Shu problem of tomorrow. For now, he would sleep it off. Maybe everything was just a figure of his imagination, and he was secretly lonely in his house.

After brushing his teeth and doing his simple but effective skincare routine, he climbed into bed, rolling over to sleep on his side.

~~

At exactly 3am, the sound of light footsteps pattered down the stairs and into the kitchen. Without turning on the light and attempting not to make too much noise, the figure made his way to the corner of the countertop and saw it.

Mangoes. A whole box of mangoes.

The figure grinned as they grabbed the box. Upon opening it, they saw five mostly ripe mangoes. They decided to leave two in the box and took the remaining three back to their living space. They left the kitchen and made their way back upstairs.

Before returning to where they came from, they pushed open another door lightly, careful not to make too much noise. Approaching the bed near the window, they saw a figure lying comfortably under the covers. A faint smile plastered across the standing figure's face as they leaned in closer to view the sleeping figure. Their hand reached out to caress the sleeping figure's cheek.

"Thank you." The figure whispered before retreating.