The Ghost of His Past (BNHA)

Chapter Seven

~Enji's POV~

My parents threatened to make Mel's life miserable if I didn't stay away from her and they had the wealth and influence to follow through with it. They didn't like her low status, her eerie quirk and believed all the rumors floating around about her loose morals. She'd suffered through enough, I couldn't put her through more. I resigned myself to focus on my goal and do as my parents said, it was for the best. She'd be safer and happier away from me and my family.

The Monday after the matchmaking fiasco, I took my hall monitoring duties more seriously than ever. Before the bell signaling school to start, I'd handed out thirty detention slips for various infractions. When I made it to homeroom, I noticed the desk behind mine, where the chipper ghost girl sat, was empty. The teacher began role call once everyone was seated. No one else seemed to notice the girl's absence or if they did, they didn't care.

"Meliara Black?" Our homeroom teacher called her name in a bored tone halfway through the attendance.

There was no response.

He glanced up from his attendance sheet and scanned the room curiously, "Has anyone seen Meliara?"

A few people shook their head in response but the majority of the class didn't seem to care in the slightest. Where was she?

"Todoroki?" The teacher turned to me.

"I haven't seen her, sir." I replied trying to sound unaffected as I tried not to think of the worst possible outcomes.

The teacher frowned at this, "Do you know her home address?"

I nodded.

"Would you make sure she gets her assignments and check in on her after school?"

"Yes, sir." It was going to be hard avoiding her when I was being sent to check on her by the teacher, but it would have been rude to say no. Though I wondered if that were truly the case. Did I agree just because my teacher had asked me and I didn't want to refuse him, or was it because I wanted to see Mel?

The day was a blur, I'd run out of detention slips by lunch time. When the chipper ghost girl wasn't around, I seemed much more agitated. Everyone annoyed me and I saw the worst in them all. She had a calming effect on me. There was something about her that quelled the pent-up rage inside of me.

At the end of the day I gathered the assignments for Mel and tucked them into my bag before promising the teacher I'd let him know her condition once I saw her. Was she sick? We'd been out in the cold rain Friday night on her birthday. Perhaps we didn't dry off quick enough. I thought back to the burn that she'd received from my father. It happened while she was in her ghost form, would that have done anything to her real body? She'd said she was fine but I knew she was lying, I should have done something more, I should have found a way to check in on her.

I reached the dreary cemetery where she resided. The Black mausoleum was locked up tight, she wasn't there. Glancing around, I remembered her saying she lived in the groundskeeper's hut and spotted the small hut at the edge of the cemetery nestled between some eerie looking maple trees with blood red leaves. Slowly, I approached the tiny hut. The windows were dark and covered in a layer of dust making it nearly impossible to see inside.

Hesitantly, I knocked on the door. "Mel?"

Nothing.

The hair on the back of my neck stood on end and I felt like I was being watched. I turned around quickly and scanned the graveyard once more. There was no sign of anything. Mel said all her friends were dead...did that mean I was currently being watched by an army of ghosts? I turned away from the graveyard and knocked again, louder.