Red Snow//Renmin

Chapter two

He shook his head, walking back to the bedroom faster than usual. But the sound was insistent.

Opening his tiny bedroom window, he clapped twice just as a litmus test. He didn't know why that seemed useful, but it was a good placebo. The crunching stopped.

"Thank you! Thank you!" A voice exclaimed. "I know I didn't do that good of a job, but I appreciate the applause!"

He must be going mad.

"Uh. What?" he questioned the nothingness. He really must be going mad to do that.

"Was I disturbing you?" the voice called back and moved in the rough direction of the light, that revealed a translucent...figure, of some kind. It turned towards Renjun's window and bowed.

"I'll come back some other time then..."

"No, wait what the fuck." Renjun shook his head again and the figure looked back from its skipping. Now it floated over to his window, and as he approached more things got obvious.

One: the "it" appeared to be a he.

Two: due to only dim light, he was barely visible.

Three: he was maybe, possibly, probably a ghost. Of some kind. An angel?

Renjun made a note to get his eyes checked at some point.

"What is it?" he asked innocently. Suspiciously innocently.

"I'm going crazy," Renjun muttered under his breath.

"Oh, I beg your pardon! I didn't introduce myself," he said. Not that had even crossed Renjun's mind he had a name. "I'm Jaemin. I think, anyway."

Renjun gritted his teeth, both from the chill and disbelief.

"Okay then Jaemin, care to explain yourself?" Where the ghost's mouth should be, a hole opened up to blackness. For a supernatural creature, he was surprisingly expressive.

"Depends! In what way? In my life, my other life, my performance..."

"Everything? Maybe?" Renjun massaged his temples. Maybe he shouldn't have thrown away the last droplets of water.

Jaemin sighed, a puff of vapour in the morning air. White, against absolute black now, other than the street lamp's light that was starting to look like timid candlelight.

"Oh dear, that would take a long time. Maybe when I'm next alive, yeah?" He gave a hauntingly beautiful grin, swirling the remaining light into a galaxy. He was kind of like a cheshire cat now, and Renjun wondered if he'd just disappear into thin air straight after. He wished for that. Of course, it didn't happen.

"What the fuck do you mean-" Jaemin made some noise of realisation.

"Oh! I forgot to mention as well. I was only paying a visit to an old friend." Renjun cringed at the pout in his voice. Again, the expressiveness was unsettlingly...human. Just how recently had this guy died?

"Old...friend?"

"Yeah!" A waft of wind waved itself into Renjun's face, as if Jaemin had just nodded. Forcefully, apparently. "Actually, you!"

"I'm...old friend, I'm..." It was too early for this bullshit.

"In that case, I have a lot to catch you up on!"

"Stop...speaking like that."

"Like what?" Jaemin clocked his head to the side. Absolutely sickening.

"As if you have an excessive amount of energy. It's 5am."

"Can you blame me? I am energy," he giggled. Repulsively adorable. Renjun waved his hand dismissively.

"Whatever. Could you leave me alone?"

"After all these years of wandering? Only to find you hidden at the top of the world to rot away?" Jaemin's voice now resonated in his chest, despite its softness. Resonated enough to crack Renjun's heart. "I guess I'm too late."

"Uh, maybe you got the wrong house?" Renjun tried to suggest helpfully out of what little sympathy he had for this entity.

"Pretty sure it's right...it has that little blood stain on the floor there," A finger moved apart from Jaemin's shape and pointed. "-from that time I accidentally killed you."