Haunted archer

A Ghost needs my help... I want help too :)

Touji was sure he looked weird, with his mouth hanging open, his hand with the bow fell straight down. He straightened his posture and looked at Yuzuru, who was still smiling and seemed rather happy. Touji felt he had to control the situation somehow, it wasn't possible this guy was dead, or he didn't really see him. He tried to believe the latter one.

Somehow Touji unglued his eyes from Yuzuru's ghost and moved to the back of the dojo where he could change his clothes. He was continuing to ignore the smiling ghost. He couldn't be sure if he was still smiling because he was purposefully not looking at him. Instead, Touji removed his shirt.

"I should have come here right after I died if you were so brave removing your shirt in front of me." The ghost said. Touji froze, but because he was hard trying to convince himself he didn't see or hear anything he decided to still bravely ignore what he heard. Though now he was in a pickle. Changing in front of anyone was a problem for him most of the time, Touji had always been timid like this, so changing the rest of his clothes was a problem.

If he believed there wasn't anybody he could do it. But what if he didn't? What if he thought there was somebody beside him, eating him up with his eyes and making slightly suggestive comments? Had Yuzuru been gay? Wait, why would he even think of this, he didn't exist. Touji head got heavier because of the doubt and fear and complicated thoughts. What should he do? Touji sat on the bench before the lockers, drew his knees to him and rested his forehead on them.

"Am I making you very uncomfortable?" From the corner of his eye, Touji could see how the ghost Yuzury went to the dressing room door. "I will wait outside." And he stepped out.

Touji lifted his head and looked at the empty room. Did he really believe in this? Well, it seemed he did, though there was no explanation to it as far as he knew. But what did he know? Nothing. He had just escaped into the world of denial and decided that it wasn't real. If he got his clothes changed and the ghost... If Yuzuru was really still around, he would talk to him and try to understand the situation. As much as he understood from the books and movies most ghost's had some unfinished business. Maybe they had not all come from someone's imagination.. maybe there were others who had these experiences and just told them through movies or dramas?

When Touji stepped out of the dressing room he felt anxious. Did he imagine it all, was Yuzuru really here? Or was he just so tired of his daily dramas that Touji just invented something not possible to deal with inside his mind?

"Well, you took long enough. Are you ready to go home?" Touji almost jumped. He turned to Yuzuru and saw him leaning against the wall beside the front door. Touji breathed deeply in and took a second to start believing in ghosts. Well in Yuzuru anyway. He was a ghost. No glowing or weird stuff you saw in movies. Regular young guy with a beautiful face, a lean tall body, a bit shorter than Touji, but not much. Only his eyes seemed different, inside the dojo with the dimly lit room, he thought that maybe his irises were black and looked somehow a bit unnatural, but Touji wasn't sure.

Touji opened the door and still not saying anything nodded his head to the open door to indicate Yuzuru to step out. Yuzuru stepped outside but just had to tease Touji.

"I can actually walk through this door, but thank you sooo much." Touji again stalled, but then straightened his shoulders and stepped out locking the door behind him.

"How did you die?" This time it was Yuzuru who froze. But then suddenly a big smile was spreading across his face.

"Woah, you're straightforward. I thought you had no backbone at all.. dating all those girls." Touji somehow found himself blushing. Why had someone from the 3'd grade noticed him dating? Someone so cool and who everyone looked up to.

"Actually I'm not sure. It took a while before I could understand what was going on after I died and a lot longer to remember what had happened. I think I had a reason for stepping in front of that car and no, I don't think I was suicidal. But I still can't remember this part." He fell silent and Touji saw how he bit his lip. He realized he was drawn into that face, these lips. Touji had to shake his head for a second.

"Why did you decide to haunt me?" Again Yuzuru watched him like he was surprised by Touji's words. But Touji himself couldn't actually be more surprised because there was no one with whom he talked like this. So it was rather surprising to him and for some reason, he was scared Yuzuru would stop answering him at some point.

Then the realization hit him again, the same one he felt fleetingly when Yuzuru had stepped from the shadows inside the dojo. He felt an attraction towards him, as no one else ever had made him feel before. What was really going on here? Did the ghost thingy create it or was it for real? Because as much as Touji felt the situation unravel even if ghosts were real. He discovered with every step they walked in direction of his house that he felt scared of parting ways with Yuzuru.

"Touji?" It was a question, a call. Touji had to stop and look into Yuzuru's eyes which were searching and intense, he felt scared. "You know the first time I realized who I was, after the accident, I sat outside the school's gate and saw you coming out of a black foreign car. I saw you and I knew that I was Shino Yuzuru and you were Touji Seryou. And then the memories of my life started coming back to me. There was such a stream of memories at one point that I ran as fast as I could in the first direction my feet took me and my head was humming. And the weirdest thing was that I stepped inside the dojo and you were shooting at that very moment. It was amazing. I had only seen you shooting once before, as alive me. Your posture, concentration, everything was beautiful. At first, I thought that ending up inside the dojo was logical. It had been my home for so long, the safest place after my own house. I thought it was logical, but then every time I blacked out, it seems to be a ghost thing, when I come to this consciousness again, I appeared beside you. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing." Touji watched him with unbelief. Why should he be so important in Yuzuru's afterlife?

Yuzuru seemed to have a second of insecurity, but then he found his courage again. "Touji. I think somehow I need you. Som-something is connected to you. Either some last wish fulfilment or moving on, to be like really dead. I don't know. But somehow I'm connected to you. Can you help me by letting me stay beside you for a while?"

Touji felt his legs lose their strength and he would have fallen if Yuzuru had not gotten a hold of him. He leaned into him for a long second. How could a ghost touch him at all? Weren't they walking through stuff and humans too? Why didn't leaning into a ghost feel wrong? Why didn't it make him recoil as everyone else's touch did? Was his only chance to feel close with somebody, with a ghost?

Actually, though a bit colder than the normal human body temperature, Yuzuru felt like a human should feel. And then Touji felt it, that feeling. He would never forget how it started. The part of his body that was touching Yuzuru, got very warm. His fingers were tingling, his head was spinning and he turned his face to look at worried Yuzuru. Touji leaned into him and kissed his lovely lips. Just for a second and then he straightened himself. Yuzuru's worried look had gone and there was this dumbfounded look that made Touji laugh. Like really laud, a real laugh.

"Well, I think we are a fair pair. I will help you in any way I can if you can make me fall in love with you. I know you will vanish at some point, but I don't care. I just want to feel the real thing." Touji turned and started walking towards his home, not looking back. "And I don't care that you're a ghost anymore."

*song: Day6 - I'll remember. Again the song found me before I even started writing. Watched the MV twice before I started writing. I felt it goes well with where I want to move, maybe not just in this chapter, but we'll see :) Beautiful song, beautiful video, sad too. Who understands one or the other language... :) Most are in Japanese, but there are a fair amount of lyrics in Korean too.

*I'm a total believer in writing what comes into my head. Even when I know the plot, and an idea form's through my finger's onto the keyboard(I was trying to find logic to my actions :)) I prefer to write the new thought, rather than to strongly hold onto the old one. So this chapter was a bit of a surprise for me... I didn't plan this kind of development. Hope you like it. I do.. and I'm very interested in where can I take it... But I will take a day to write other stuff too. And somebody reminded me that it's summer vacation, my brother's birthday today, my father's birthday on the 21'st and my own wedding anniversary on the 22'd of June... So maybe I need to think about other stuff too :) Won't keep you waiting for long though...