The boy in the forest

Asakura Jiu, recounts as he narrates to his student about his encounter with mysterious being wandering about a superstitious forest. At the attempt of rebelling he meets the loner who wants to be his friend, as entrancing as the boy was Jiu couldn't help but visit him several times over the facade of an excuse. Overtime the two boys develop a friendship that transcends what would be called a normal friendship, to the category of a platonic love. However things take a twist to the darker end when Jiu begins to notice peculiar aspects of his new friend, which he suspects as a supernatural phenomena. Soon their blossoming relationship becomes severed when one day the boy disappears into thin air.

Till to this day Jiu cannot help but think what kind of a being 'Ai' his mysterious friend really was.
What do you think? Is Ai a human boy as he seems or perhaps a ghost as you assumed or.... even more surreal of a being?
Dwell into this puzzle like story where solving it's ending is upto you and share your opinion of who Ai really is.