Two Lost Souls - One shared fate - A Post-Canon Ghost AU

A Shade of Truth

That wasn't how I had imagined my new start at all.

In Japan, everyone had warned him that America and especially New York was dangerous and that the people there were impolite, disrespectful and egotistical. Eiji had always assumed they had exaggerated. No one in his little town had ever been to New York, after all. They all had their so-called wisdom from the internet or worse, from TV series and movies.

Ibe had warned him that there were dangerous quarters that he should stay away from. Apart from that, New York was like any other major city. It was crowded and had their pickpockets at famous tourist spots but was generally a safe place as long as you didn't wander through dark alleys alone at the dead of night. He had assumed that New York was like Tokyo. And he'd often been to Tokyo, which was the most populated city in the world and far larger than New York. Going to New York would be a piece of cake, right? At least that's how he had imagined it before he was attacked in his own apartment.

Eiji was aware that he looked innocent and naive and had to admit after the recent events that his way of thinking was a bit too simple-minded and way too trusting and sincere for a city like New York. He couldn't help it; he came from a little and peaceful town by the sea where people helped each other out, and danger and crime were practically non-existent.

But never in his life had he imagined that he would be threatened, questioned and nearly shot in his apartment just because of the person living there before him. When he had agreed to help Aslan, he hadn't known what he had gotten himself into. He had assumed that Aslan had been injured in some accident or was some student with a traumatic past or abusive parents.

After some guy with a purple mohawk named Shorter had saved him at the last second and he had ended up with several dead people lying in a pool of blood in his bedroom, he had reacted like any other ordinary person from a sheltered neighborhood - he had panicked and had broken down crying. Only then had he realized that this was really happening, that this wasn't a dream he would wake up from. This wasn't an episode of CSI New York. The blood, the bullet holes in his walls, the dead bodies in his apartment, and the guns, knives, and other weapons strewn across the floor were all real. After Shorter had helped him to calm down, Shorter had promised him he would take care of his apartment. Eiji didn't care what exactly he would do, and he assumed it was better if he didn't know.

Maybe it was too naive to trust Shorter. First, he looked like Japanese people imagined a gang leader to look like: tattoos, piercings and hair in a color so bright he looked like an anime character.

Second, he didn't even know him. He had only recognized him from some photos he had found in Aslan's belongings where he was standing beside him. They seemed like good friends, but the pictures were several years old since Ash looked about 15 in them.

Still,  the fact remained that Shorter had saved his life. So he decided to trust him because he was the only one who could shed some light on the recent events. If he had to die one way or another, eventually, he at least wanted to learn the reason behind these current events.

After nearly dying, he had decided that he deserved some answers. He hadn't understood a word when Shorter and Arthur had hurled insults at each other. Not only had their English been much too fast for him, but the slang words they had used wasn't exactly the kind of vocabulary you learned at school. Furthermore, he had no idea who that Ash person was they had been talking about all the time, how that Arthur guy was connected to all of this, and why he had even attacked him.