Work Text:
Komi had been in this apartment for a while.
He moved right after graduating high school. It was a small studio apartment—actually it could hardly be called an "apartment", more a "single bed with some extra leg space and a bathroom that for some reason was bigger than the so-called bedroom." But it was cheap and right beside his campus and full of memories of his college life. It was where he brought his first girlfriend to after their fourth date, where he spent sleepless nights of last-minute pre-exam cramming, and where he first passed out from a game of uno involving very high concentration of alcohol. It was also where he died.
Come to think of it, his death was pretty stupid and surprisingly easy: an accident involving catchy electro music, squeaky rubber duck, and slippery bathroom floor. Of course, for some time after death, he had been sad and angry and full of regrets, but he was fine now. In fact, he was almost as lively as he'd been alive.
The first tenant after him was a freshman from the same department as Komi. The brown-haired-now-transparent boy wasn’t even trying to do anything, he was simply floating around as he’d done any other day, when by accident he sort of knocked the poor guy’s mug. It was probably only by one centimeter or even less, but the guy flinched and made a little whimper. Komi was almost as surprised—when the guy looked left and right and tried to reassure himself that it was only his imagination, Komi was frozen on air trying to figure out what the hell did I do. It took less than a minute for him to realize. It took less than two weeks for the guy to move out.
The next one was an older guy, Komi recognized him from somewhere but he couldn’t quite place where they’d met before. But oh well, that didn’t stop him from poking around his things and tickling his feet when he was getting to sleep and turning his lights on and off. It took a bit longer this time, three months to be exact, but he moved out in the end. Komi felt a tiny little bad but mostly victorious.
The third and fourth were about the same, each took around two to three months. Komi was struggling to actually touch things from the living world at first, but he’d always been fast at learning. Good for him, bad for business.
There was some months of vacancy afterward, and from some conversations he heard from the neighboring room (the room’s walls were as thin as his high school math teacher’s balding hair, he could hear pretty much everything), it was because “the room is haunted, man!”
“Haunted?” the other voice (Komi recognized this voice—this guy had come over to his neighbor’s apartment a few times before) asked. “That’s why the rent is so low?”
“Yeah! Well the room’s been vacant ever since I moved here at the start of the semester, which is weird since the rent is one-third mine and it’s so close to campus. So I asked some people who’ve been here before I came. Apparently, the tenants before all experienced the same things—lights flickering on and off, a hand pulling their legs… They all moved out within three months.”
“Nah, I’m sure they were just imagining things!”
“All four of them? C’mon, be a little more sensible, will ya? I’m telling you it’s fishy that a 15,000 yen room in this location’s been unrented for months!”
“It’s okay man, I don’t have much money and this place is within walking distance to the campus and both of my part-time jobs! It’s perfect.”
“...Fine. It’s your choice. But I’ve warned you, okay?”
“I’m telling you, nothing’s gonna happen!”
O ho ho, new playmate? Komi grinned merrily. He couldn’t wait.
The guy came two days later bringing not so many things, mainly clothes, books, and hair wax. The guy was tall and kinda big and had very strange hair: white with a little black and spiked kind of like the letter V. Or U? Whatever letter it was, Komi liked it.
He’d decided to keep this one a bit longer this time, he’d been pretty bored for the past few months so he didn’t want to lose this one too quickly. He should start out slowly, maybe by not doing anything for a couple weeks, then moving the guy’s bedsheet a little, then turning the shower on at 2am, turning the bedroom lights off and on, playing a little with his feet when he’s asleep... Ahh, if he’d had a heart, it’d be beating with excitement by now.
The guy, whom he knew later as “Bokuto” (with the exact same letter for “horned owl”, Komi thought it was really cool), was very… special. When doing assignments, for example, he could answer some really complicated physics question, but then got stumped on how to spell “triangle.” He was also really busy, the guy came home at midnight almost every day, be it from working or going out drinking. He was very socially active, within two weeks of moving, he actually had three different welcome parties, all with different people (it was tough to fit more than six people in that tiny room, some actually ended up standing in the bathroom), plus from what Komi had heard from the corridor, Bokuto had always been greeted whenever someone passed by him. He also seemed to have a lot of energy without having to charge for long, never had he fallen asleep before 2 and woken up after 6 yet he always woke up with a face that looked like he had 12 hours of sleep.
Well. Observation days over, now on to the fun part.
Komi thought a lot and decided to start off with misplacing stuff. Whenever Bokuto put something and turned his head away, Komi would take it and put it some place else. All the people he’d done this to had been confused at first, aware and scared later. Not Bokuto. When Komi moved his glass from the bedside table to the floor, Bokuto took it and drank it right away like nothing was wrong. When Komi moved his jacket from behind the door to the bed when Bokuto was taking a shower, he slept right on top of it like it was normal. When Komi moved his cell phone from the bed to the bathroom sink when Bokuto was out doing laundry, he found it right away, took it and proceeded to use it, as if a sink was a common place to put cell phones on.
Huh. Okay. Maybe he lacked variation.
So this time, Komi decided to step up his game. First, he turned on the faucet just a little so the water would start dripping. When Bokuto got up from bed and went to turn it off, Komi swung the door just enough to make it creak, then turned off the lights right when the white-waired turned his head. And when he started walking away to check the lights, Komi flew back to turn on the faucet to the fullest, and prepared himself to watch the water pour down the sink and Bokuto’s face change color.
It didn’t. Bokuto just came back and turned the tap so hard it actually made a sound, then carried on with his sleep.
Komi didn’t give up, of course. He grabbed Bokuto’s legs when he was asleep. He moved things right in front of Bokuto’s face. He knocked on the window in increasing volume. He turned on Bokuto’s laptop and and typed random words in bright red font. He slammed the door open and shut. He banged and scratched the wall furiously at 3 am. At this point, Bokuto’s neighbors were the ones terrified and ready to move out.
This was frustrating. It had been more than three months. Why wasn’t this guy bothered at all. Like all of these were as normal as snow in January.
“Argh!!” Komi, after shaking Bokuto’s bed without getting any reaction, finally let out in exasperation.
“...Hello?” came a reply. Komi almost flew outside in surprise.
“H—huh?! Can you—can you hear me?!”
“Uh, yeah I can!” he replied, looking left and right, up and down. “Where are you?”
“I’m… right on your bed now?” Komi answered but his tone went up in the end, making it sound like a question instead. “Can’t you see me?”
“No, but I can feel you!” Bokuto said, standing right in front of Komi with a hand offered to the ghost. “I’m Bokuto, Bokuto Koutarou! What’s you name?”
“I’m… Komi,” the transparent responded with his transparent eyebrows furrowed in confusion and his transparent hand took Bokuto’s for a handshake. “Komi Haruki—wait!” he stopped himself in the middle of the handshake, if it could be called one since Komi was the only one grabbing. “You do realize you’re talking to an unseen being right now? Like, a ghost?”
“Yes, I’ve been pretty sensitive to ghosts and spirits since I was small, but I’ve never actually talked to one! This is really cool!”
“I, uhh?” Komi was speechless and could almost feel his face looking baffled. “I’m… happy that you’re happy…?”
“This is awesome, I actually got a handshake too!! This makes us friends, right?”
“Uhh, I, I guess? If you want?”
“Cool! Do you wanna go out and grab something to eat?”
“I uhh, don’t need to eat—I can’t, actually, even if I want to. And I can’t leave this room—I can’t get past the door.”
“Huh, then it’s gotta be lonely being alone here every day, huh… Is that why you did all that banging and stuff? Did you want me to play with you?”
“P—play?! I’m not a kid okay—I’ve been twenty-one for a while now,” Komi answered, his tone offended. He’d been mistaken as a middle schooler in college because of his height, like heck he’d receive the same treatment after he died!
“Oh, we’re the same age then! Cool!” Bokuto said, seemingly not noticing Komi’s tone of voice. “But Komiyan, even if you’re lonely, don’t do that again okay? Konoha’s been really scared and was talking about moving out… He’s also my friend and I’ll be lonely if he does move out! We can talk or do something together instead.”
“I—I will… think about it—wait, what did you just call me?”
“Oh!” Bokuto suddenly clasped his hands as his phone rang, surprising Komi more than anyone. “That’s my part-time job alarm, gotta go now! I’ll talk to you later okay? And don’t bang on the wall and stuff while I’m gone!” Bokuto rushed to grab his phone, wallet, keys, and jacket, then ran to the door while yelling, “See ya!”
Komi heard the sound of keys locking the door and Bokuto’s footsteps rushing away to the corridor, only to come back ten seconds later. “I can’t believe I forgot my shoes,” he said, laughing while switching his slippers to boots. “Now I’m really going. See ya later, Komiyan!”
The ghost still floated there, looking at the door where Bokuto just came out to. He blinked as he heard Bokuto’s voice echoing in his head. Komiyan. He flew to the door, staring at the doorknob, then started floating to the ceiling again, eyebrows still furrowed.
Komiyan.
Did he just make his very first human friend as a ghost?