Ghost
/ɡōst/
noun
1. an apparition of a dead person which is believed to appear or become manifest to the living
verb
1. informal: to abruptly cut off all contact with (someone, such as a former romantic partner) by no longer accepting or responding to phone calls, instant messages, etc.
Chapter 1
Hi, it's me
Some days, Sasuke wishes he was born someone else. Don't get him wrong; he loves his family very much and he wouldn't trade them for anything but some days, like today, and yesterday, and the day before, he wishes he wasn't Uchiha Sasuke, COO of a multimillion-dollar empire.
Granted, he wasn't really COO. But when Itachi asked if he was up to keeping the seat warm until he comes back from his indefinite leave, well…
He didn't think Itachi would be gone for so long. When his brother said "indefinite leave", he thought maybe five, six months tops. Okay, fine, he actually thought he'd only be gone for a week (a day, really) because c'mon, Itachi probably just asked him to give him a taste of what he so clearly wants (wanted).
Sasuke was only twenty-two—a child in the sea of middle-aged people that is the board of directors. In fact, he remembers his father saying "you're practically a toddler in the business, Sasuke." Of course, his father was referring to Sasuke's lack of experience and not his age but that was just all the more reason why he shouldn't be acting COO. Back then, he had been angry, offended that his father didn't think him capable of handling the responsibility when he had been training for it his whole life. (An exaggeration; he only decided he wanted in on the family business at seventeen. Little Sasuke wanted to be a robocop and adolescent Sasuke wanted to be a plant.)
"I graduated top of my class in Wharton, father," he had said.
Now, at the ripe old age of twenty-three, Sasuke regrets not listening to his old man. His pride is the only thing stopping him from asking (begging) his father to drag Itachi's ass back from whatever philanthropic work he was doing in Wakanda.
Sorry, he meant Rwanda. He hasn't had enough rest for so long and now he's getting things mixed up.
Soup. That's what his brain has been since morning.
He knew something was amiss when during breakfast, he drowned his muesli with orange juice instead of milk. And when he got to work, he waited seven minutes inside the executive elevator before realizing he didn't press on his floor. And dear Lord, when he walked into the door of his office. His poor secretary almost fell off her seat at the sound of Sasuke's nose hitting glass.
The glass wasn't even clear; it was frosted. His nose throbbed just thinking about it.
Sasuke doesn't know what he did the night before to wake up so disoriented and be so far from his usually cool and collected self.
He's distracted from his thoughts when his phone lights up and starts ringing. He pinches the bridge of his nose and lets out a sigh at the caller ID.
Sasuke slides his finger over the screen; his iPhone not giving him much of a choice.
He answers with a deadpan. "What?"
"Not too loud, teme!" Naruto practically whines through the phone, voice even louder than the normal volume Sasuke used.
Annoying.
He could hear shuffling in the background followed by a thud and a muffled "ow!" Naruto lets out a string of curses on the other end of the line. "What the fuck did we do last night?"
"Don't remember," he shrugs. He puts his phone on speaker and sets it down on his desk. He catches a glimpse of the time on his iMac. 1:06 P.M.
"Are you just getting up now?"
"Uh-huh. Stop judging me, you jerk."
"I didn't say anything."
Naruto mumbles something that Sasuke doesn't catch before going quiet.
When Naruto doesn't say anything else, Sasuke begins typing away at his computer, reviewing documents for today's meeting with some business partners. He thought about rescheduling to a later date, perhaps when his brain isn't all over the place, but he knows Father CEO will have his head for cancelling a very important meeting because he was feeling a little off.
"Hey, teme," Naruto says after a while. He almost forgot about the blonde.
"What?" Sasuke sighs. He must be really out of it if he hasn't hanged up the phone yet.
"Why do I have a motorcycle's side mirror in my house?"
Sasuke blinks once, thinking why indeed? before deciding he doesn't care. He's entertained the idiot enough for today.
He ends the call without another thought.
Sasuke stares blankly at the computer screen for a few seconds before forcing himself to do something productive. He actually manages to read through some more documents and a few emails before he hears a soft knock on the door.
"Mr. Uchiha," his secretary calls from the doorway. "Your meeting with Morrell Corp. is in fifteen minutes. Conference room one."
Sasuke briefly looks up from his computer to acknowledge the girl. "Aa."
"Do you need me to get you anything?"
"No. Just bring this there," he says as he hands her a silver iPad he procured from his desk drawer. She walks over to receive the gadget, the clicking of her heels muted by the carpeted floor.
"Anything else, sir?"
"Make sure the door's open when I get there," he says before going back to typing away on his computer.
The girl smiles a bit, most likely remembering Sasuke's incident with the door this morning. "Yes, sir."
Not long after his secretary left, the short burst of productivity that graced Sasuke followed. Leaning further back on the backrest of his leather seat, he decides to forego answering emails in favor of counting the seconds left until he has to go to the conference room for his meeting. When the time on his desktop read 1:54, he tiredly gets up from his plush rolly-chair and pockets his phone. Not wasting another moment, Sasuke steps out of his office and walks down the hall to where the executive elevator is. He presses the down button and waits for the car to arrive at his floor. He doesn't have to wait long before the steel doors slide open and he steps inside the compartment.
Because he's acting COO, he gets his own elevator. Well, not really, since other executives use it too, but all he cares about is that he doesn't have to stand in a matchbox with other people like suit-clad sardines anymore. Sasuke hated when people invaded his personal space. He remembers Itachi teasing him about it when he complained about how he gets harassed every time he rides the lift.
"I've seen security footage, Sasuke. No one's talked to you, touched you, or even looked at you wrong." Itachi told him. "They all look anywhere else as soon as they see you in the same car."
"They're too close."
"It's an elevator. What did you expect?"
"That people would respect my personal space."
Itachi just sighed and offered him a small smile, but Sasuke didn't miss the mischief in his brother's eyes. "If you want to use the exec elevator, Sasuke, all you have to do is ask Nii-san nicely."
When Sasuke started to walk away, Itachi simply followed, clearly amused by his little brother's behavior. "C'mon, it's not that hard. Just say, Itachi-nii-san, can I please ride the elevator with you?"
Sasuke didn't say please or Itachi-nii-san and he practically muttered the whole thing but he still received free lifts to his floor from Itachi whenever they went to work at the same time. And because Itachi was Itachi, he had an anti-harassment seminar held in the office too.
A smirk makes its way to his lips. Good times.
The elevator car had gone down 15 floors when Sasuke feels his phone vibrate from his pant leg pocket. He takes it out to see three message notifications from Naruto.
Buzz! Four now.
He unlocks his phone to read whatever his blonde friend sent him. Sasuke lets out a sigh. He must really be out of it if he's reading texts from a hangover-ed Naruto during work hours.
Oh my god i think i killed someone last night
Nope it's just Kiba
Hehe
Oh no he's not breathing
Sasuke is able to text a short Stop flooding my phone before another three message bubbles pop on the screen. Not bothering to read whatever idiotic live updates Naruto is still sending him, he puts his phone on airplane mode. A second later, the elevator slows, then stops. It makes a sound to notify he's arrived at his level and he walks out as soon as the doors open.
He can't wait for this day to be over.
The meeting went on forever.
When his secretary rolled in some coffee and biscuits forty-five minutes into the meeting and informed him that his next appointment for the day had been canceled, Sasuke thought he'd be able to go home early. Quite unfortunately, the men he was meeting with apparently had supersonic hearing because they took the liberty to take an hour more than their allotted time to present a business proposal that wasn't included in the agenda.
Sasuke isn't a pushover but his last three remaining brain cells were already struggling to keep him from doing something stupid like spontaneously combusting that he just sat there passively, his attention long gone from the two quacking men.
By the time the meeting was over, the sun was going down and Sasuke was stiff, tired, and hungry. Famished. Starving. Right now, he wants nothing more than to go home with a take-out bag filled with fast food.
Stepping out into the car park, Sasuke rolls his shoulders in an attempt to work out some of the stiffness. He walks toward his black Maserati and presses on his car keys to unlock the vehicle. He gets in and wastes no time in getting out of the building.
Sasuke finds himself at a McDonald's drive-thru ten minutes later. He shamelessly orders two double cheeseburgers, large fries, and a Coke before driving forward to the next window to pay.
After a few minutes, he's handed a bag of food and a large soda cup through the window.
The smell of beef patties and grease fill his car as he puts his soda in the cup holder and the brown paper bag on the passenger seat. He fishes a cheeseburger from the bag and manages to unwrap it with one hand while his other hand steers the car back into traffic.
Thirty minutes later, Sasuke finds himself in the comfort of his luxury apartment.
With his coat off and his tie loosened, Sasuke slumps down on the couch and unwraps his second cheeseburger. He contemplates taking the pickles out because who eats pickles? but he hadn't bothered removing the ones in his first stack and he's still alive.
Sasuke takes them out anyway and places them on a napkin. His nose wrinkles at the sight of the two wrinkly discs. Ew.
Halfway through his sandwich, he pulls out his phone from his pocket and turns off airplane mode. The device vibrates almost immediately and message notifications start popping on the screen one after another.
He has 17 messages from Naruto, one from his mother, and a voicemail from an unknown number. He checks the one from his mother first.
Sasuke-chan! I have your tux for the charity gala next week. Should I have it sent to your place or will you pick it up here?
Sasuke quickly types a Here, please. and hits send. He takes another bite of his cheeseburger and reads Naruto's texts next. They were all a bunch of live updates from early this afternoon. He rolls his eyes. How is he friends with the blonde again?
I think he's dead
Oh no
Who's gonna take care of Akamaru?
Fuck teme
How am i gonna tel akamaru
How am i gonna tell his parents
?
HOW AM I GONNA TELL MY PARENTS?
Teme, i don't wanna go to jaul
Jail*
Wait i havent checked his pulse yet
Oh no he just opened his eyes
Sasuke, he's hauntong me
Why arent u replying
Perhaps he's friends with the idiot because he finds Naruto's misadventures entertaining, albeit a bit (a lot) annoying. Call him mean but he'd most likely let out a sound of amusement before helping the loser out of whatever mess he's gotten himself into. Not that he believes Naruto actually managed to kill someone.
Teme!
He's alive! :D
No need to worry about bailing me out lol
By the time he's done reading the thread his second cheeseburger was nonexistent and his stomach was full. He takes a long sip of his soda and sends a five-hour late reply to his friend.
He listens to the voicemail next.
"Hi. It's me. You're probably wondering why I'm reaching out to you after ghosting you eight months ago. Truth is, I need your help. I—"
Sasuke tunes out the rest of the message.
It's me.
Like the speaker expected Sasuke to know her identity just from her voice. Oh, he knew, alright; that voice haunted his dreams for weeks after she stopped seeing him, stopped responding to his texts, his calls. He'd recognize that tinkling sound anywhere. And even if he didn't, that ghosting bit was a dead giveaway. There's only one person who ever ghosted Uchiha Sasuke.
He squeezes his eyes shut to stop the flashes of green that's starting to fill his vision. Thinking about the past won't do him any good at all.
His first thought is to delete the voicemail. He's not exactly keen on letting somebody who willingly, cruelly, left him hanging after worming her way into his heart back in his life. And hearing her speak, listening to what she has to say, would be letting her in.
He should just delete the voicemail. Pretend he never even received it in the first place. Yes, that would be the best thing to do.
Then again, Sasuke thinks, he wouldn't be one to give a Ted talk on decision-making either.
Against his better judgement, Sasuke plays the voicemail again and this time, he takes care to listen to every word. His stomach churns the whole time.
"Hi. It's me. You're probably wondering why I'm reaching out to you after ghosting you eight months ago. Truth is, I need your help. I know I'm in no position to be asking you for favors but please… Meet me in this address—"
Sasuke taps pause on his phone to jot down the place on the back of a crumpled McDonald's receipt he found in his pocket.
He doesn't get more than two words after pressing play when the recording gets choppy as if the caller was having trouble with getting reception when she left the voicemail. Sasuke frowns as he tries to understand what her voice, distorted by the awful reception, was saying. In the end, he only manages to catch the last bit of the message which had become clear after 12 seconds of garbled speech.
He plays the recording again and fast-forwards to the last six seconds.
"—bring a candle then light it when you get there. Doesn't matter what time you come; I'll be there... Bye."
Sasuke frowns upon hearing the odd request. Was this a dare? Some part of grad school sorority initiation? Maybe a prank-an-ex challenge her crazy blonde friend goaded her into?
But, Sasuke thinks a little bitterly, he was never her ex.
Does she even have an ex?
He shakes his head. Now is not the time for such thoughts. Besides, it's none of his goddamn business who she dates or how many guys she's dated.
Should he go? Sasuke lets his head fall on the backrest of the sofa and stares at the ceiling. He doesn't know.
If he goes, and this ends up being a prank, then he'd have a wasted hour and a story to tell. But if he doesn't and her request ends up being legit, then he'll never know what could have happened. He wouldn't have a story and most of his waking days would once again be filled with thoughts of her and what could have been.
He's leaning more towards ignoring her but the anticipated effect doesn't really sound that appealing to him.
He looks at the little piece of paper in his hand.
He types the address into his phone's Waze app and frowns upon seeing the location on the map.
She has quite the sense of humor, hasn't she? The voice in Sasuke's head sneers. Of all the places to meet, she chooses this one.
He scowls, his free hand clenching at his knee. Despite his rationalization, he knows he shouldn't go.
Because what he doesn't want to admit is the fact that if he goes and she's there and she does have something to say, that he's scared he'll end up drowning in her again and he doesn't want to hope; doesn't want to waste another day in his life obsessing over all the feelings he's tried so hard to quash when she upped and left.
No. It's best he doesn't go.
But Sasuke's made plenty of bad decisions in his life, that what's one more?
He decides to go if only to satisfy his curiosity as to what that deserter—that ghost—wanted, and maybe (definitely) give her a piece of his mind.
No one starts a relationship with Uchiha Sasuke, leaves, and gets away with it.
henlo :)