The little girl has a plump, rosy cheeks and tiny mouth, curled into a sad little pout. In her hand, she's fidgeting with what looks like a tattered piece of ribbon, one of the corners attached to her long and curled brunette locks. It must've been used to tie up her hair, and her action must've loosened it up.
"Sorry for making you wait, Ace!"
A couple of people walked past, both dressed in school uniforms from the nearby high school, talking animatedly between themselves, one of them carrying a thick bouquet of flower, probably for whoever it is that they're visiting together. The little girl lifted her head to follow the colourful sight, a little, happy smile appearing on her face. It slowly faded away once the two people turned into a corner and disappeared from sight. Her little lips parted in a silent sigh.
"Hmm? Oh, no problem, i just got here,"
"Okay then, glad to hear that. I got held up in the florist a little bit. Think Sabo will like these carnations? They shouldn't make as much mess like the roses from last time,"
"Koala, i think he cared more about you visiting than what you'll bring for him,"
"Oh!"
Maybe he had been watching a little too long, but the little girl snapped out of her gloominess and looked up, her eyes meeting his. She looked uncertain, as if unsure if Ace was looking at her.
He threw her a smile. With that confirmation that he's indeed watching her, the little girl gave a giggle, waving cheerily at him.
On the floor underneath her, blood continues to drip from her spilled out innards, staining her tattered, stained sundress even more. Vehicular manslaughter, if he had to guess, judging from the track marks in front of her tiny, crushed waist, almost separating her top and lower half. Not the nicest way to go, and certainly not the kind of death deserving to a child this young. It's probably a slow death too, if her soul stayed in this hospital instead of haunting the place where the accident happen.
Poor thing. She looked no older than 7.
"What are you staring at, Ace? There's nothing there but the corner,"
"Hey, Koala, mind if i take one of the flowers? Just one of them, i promise,"
Koala didn't refuse him, but she didn't quite agree either, keeping silent. Thanking her, Ace plucked one of the flowers out of the bouquet for Sabo - the top one, with the biggest petals and the one with the most striking blend of red and white - and he walked over to the little ghost. She seemed confused, her eyes were locked on to the flower in his hand.
"Here you go," he offered, still smiling, "A pretty flower for a pretty girl,"
If she still could, he thought she'd be blushing. She beamed at him to reveal 2 missing tooth, and her little hands shot up towards the offered flower, "Thank you, mister! It's so pretty!"
Ace laughed, reaching up to ruffle her hair. His hand went through her, making him feel cold wisp but he kept the gesture as one would a real thing.
When he walked away, he could still hear her humming happily, just like how he could see from his peripherals the way Koala kept her eyes on that empty corner. This sort of thing didn't weird her out anymore, not with how long she'd known him and how long it had been since she found out what he could do, but he knows she still feels wary of it sometimes. He'd apologize to her later, once they're out of the girl's earshot.
Back on that same corner, should any passerby looked, they'd only see a single flower lying in one of the hospital's corner.
They'll never see the little girl with the torn up body cradling a single carnation flower close to her no longer breathing chest.
He couldn't exactly explain how he was able to, but for as long as he could remember, Ace always could see what others couldn't. He still remembered the stories his father and mother would tell about him as a baby, staring off into nothing and either giggling or crying for no reason. They always chalked it up as a normal infant behaviour, but he started talking to empty corners and claimed that there's someone standing in an empty spot when he turned 6, and they began to grew suspicious. And rather afraid.
People suggested that he's in the right age to start developing imaginary friends, while there are a couple of people who said that he might be not quite right in the head. Following the former advice, his father would often fumble between supporting his 'wild imagination' and trying not to encourage him too much as he gets older. Hearing the latter, His mother would furiously berate whoever said it, because no matter what, her son is perfect the way he is.
Back then, Ace saw nothing wrong with it, but if he ever looked back to his childhood as an adult, he'd remember how much his parents had to walk on eggshells when it comes to him.
Still, it was all on the past, and both had gotten used to it. Ace had just entered his teenage years when he started to realize exactly what it is that he kept seeing, and he learned to keep what he sees to himself. He started refraining himself from mentioning that there's a man with half of a face standing beside a memoriam of an accident victim, or that the reason behind the mysterious self-playing piano back at high school was because of the student with a rope mark around her neck who plays it every day at 4 P.M.
Not a lot of people can understand, or believe that you can see ghost, after all. The few people he told would either laugh at his face or make fun of him, and so far, only a couple of people in his life truly understood; his parents obviously being one - though he sometimes think their acceptance was more in relief over any sort of explanation for his behaviour, no matter how outlandish - his childhood friend and brother in everything but blood, Sabo, and his little cousin, Luffy. Koala, Sabo's girlfriend, was another recent addition to that very small group of people who had been told of his ability, and her eventual acceptance and effort to understand was what made Sabo sure she's the one.
At least, that's what he's been told.
Because in Ace's humble opinion, it's kind of ridiculous to determine how much you're meant to be with someone based on how that person will accept the fact that your best friend has some supernatural ability. Looking at them now, bickering over the fact that Sabo is refusing to eat hospital food and Koala is refusing to smuggle him some fast food on her next visit, Ace would say they made a cute couple. Loud and sometimes too stubborn for their own good, but they're definitely a good fit.
"But Koalaaa, they tasted like cat food! I want some real food! Haven't i suffered enough in the emergency unit? The fact that i'm not there anymore means i'm fine now, right?"
"If you're fine, they won't keep you in the hospital, stupid! And you need those food to get healthy sooner! How'd you even know how cat food tasted like, anyway?"
"Well, there was this one dare Ace got me to do back in high school… Hey, Ace, you've been pretty quiet there, you okay?"
Ace blinked, glancing away from the outside window to the bed, where Sabo and Koala were. Half of Sabo's face was still in bandage, as well as the majority of him, most of them hidden under the ugly, patterned smock he had to wear since his admittance. He seems a lot more lively and cheerful lately, which is a great relief for Ace, when he still remembered how crushed and depressed he had been just a couple of weeks ago since the accident that landed him here in the first place.
Foosha might be a moderate sized, sleepy town, but it was only recently awoken with the uproar about a suspected serial arsonist running wild in her midst. There had been no less than 100 major arson cases in the last 4 years, and no matter what the police are doing, they never seem to be able to catch the culprit, and there's a never ending call in the fire department. As one of said firemen, today was one of the few days Ace could visit Sabo and the first time he had since he's finally released from intensive care unit, and only after he begged his chief for a day off.
There was nothing he could've done, Ace realized. The burning of the town hall where Sabo worked in was sudden and the fire had spread too quickly, but sometimes he stared at his brother, permanently disfigured and almost died, and sometimes he wished he could've—
"Ace?"
"Just looking at that guy standing behind the window," he jerked his chin to said direction, "I think he likes listening to the two of you,"
"What?!" immediately, Sabo jumped, snapping his head so quickly to the general direction of the window that Ace was concerned he might hurt himself again, "There's— there's someone there?! Oh fuck, oh fuck, why did you have to tell me?! You know i don't like that kind of shit! Aaaace, come on, you're kidding, right?! Or if you're not, can you please tell them to leave me alone? I'm just placed here by the hospital staff, i don't wanna bother any evil spirit!"
Next to him, Koala push Sabo to lay back down on the bed, but her eyes was also locked to the window, concerned.
Feeling a little bad, Ace rubbed his nape, "Yeah, yeah, i was just joking. There's nothing in this room,"
Not on the window, anyway. But the old guy sitting on the sofa on the far side of the room doesn't seem to mind being dismissed like that. He seems like the kind of person with good humour too, because he simply chuckled, tapping his walking cane on the floor before standing up and walking towards the wall, bypassing it to go somewhere else. Before he completely left, however, he caught Ace glancing at him, and with another mirthful grin, he winked and left the room.
Judging by the smock, he's probably another patient who passed away in this hospital. Since he had been here since he came in, there's a big chance that the man had died in this very same room or at least somewhere nearby.
Probably best not to say that to Sabo though.
With a large, relieved sigh, Sabo glared at him, "Damn you, you know how much i hate it when you do that,"
"Sorry, but it's always funny to see you freak out—"
His words were cut off when he heard the door click open, and the young raven haired man turned to see a figure clad in white entering, clipboard in hand. The first thing that he noticed was the tired, blue eyes hidden behind a pair of wire-frame glasses, which is something of a surprise, because that oddly shaped mob of hair should've caught his attention first. Clean shaven on the sides and with a wild tussled hair, he'd say that this guy looks like a walking pineapple.
A goddamn hot one, but damn, that hair.
"Good evening, Mr. Outlook," hot-but-why-pineapple greeted, smiling cordially at Sabo, before glancing to Ace and Koala, "Sorry to bother you while you have guest, but i need to do a routine checkup and give you your medicines,"
Sabo shook his head, "Hey there, doc. Not a problem," he said as he pulled the sheets back and sat up straighter with the help from Koala. Judging the familiar way Sabo greeted his doctor, he'd say that this doctor must be the one who was responsible for Sabo.
'Doc' looked away from the pair and caught sight of Ace, giving him a curt, acknowledging nod. The longer Ace stared, the more he thought that the guy was kinda cute, and that to make a good impression, he probably should reply to the gesture at some point.
But he was kind of distracted.
It's hard not to be, when behind the doctor, he could see two people standing, one of them with a bleeding hole on his chest and the other that Ace could recognize the signs of asphyxiation from, with blue-greyish skin and a deep bruise on his neck.
The sight of ghost had never really bothered him, not even those who obviously has a gruesome death, but what made him stop was the fact that these two were obviously following the doctor. The one on the left, the shortest and younger of the two moved to stand by the doctor's arm, leaning over him to the point that a small part of the ghost's translucent body passed into the doctor's. He looked sad, and a little frustrated when his hand kept passing through the doctor's arm.
There's the sound of someone sighing, and it took Ace a while to realize that it was the other ghost, the one with a giant pompadour and a bleeding hole on his chest, "Haruta, give it up, will you? You know we can't reach him in any way,"
"But he hasn't taken a rest in 48 hours straight, Thatch!" the smaller ghost replied somewhat angrily, "He didn't eat anything the whole day too! He has ulcers, he'll kill himself at this point!"
The other ghost, Thatch, gave a somewhat sad snort, "Admit it. At this point, is he really living?"
"Thatch!"
Ace had seen many ghost in his life, in all sorts of form and shape. There are a couple rare instances that he had seen some ghost who, instead of being chained to a certain place, was haunting someone, but he had never seen multiple of them in the same place and haunting the same person. He always thought that only one ghost could appear in the same area, but these two not only appeared together, they obviously knew each other too.
And more importantly, he thought, glancing to the doctor examining Sabo, they both knew the doctor. That's the whole reason a ghost would follow you around, after all, and it'll take a strong motivation for them to stay by your side.
He hadn't even finished digesting this sight when something else passed by the door like a wisp, this time a slim figure of a woman… or at least he thought so until he noticed the rather underwhelming chest and the deep voice. That hair and all of the make up sort of made it hard to tell at first glance, "Okay, so far, no dice. That time when Jiru could lift a glass was probably a fluke after all, we can't lift anything up from the kitchen," the newcomer sighed, tilting his head back to brush back a fallen hair strand. That motion allowed Ace to be able to see that his neck was crooked in an unusual angle. He'd seen that a couple of times: death from broken neck, "Well, we wouldn't know how to make a plate of food go from the kitchen to his office anyway. Not without making it look like it's flying for no reason,"
"But we have to do something, Izou!" The short brunet - Haruta, was it? - insisted, sounding more and more desperate, "We can't leave Marco like this, there's gotta be something that we can do!"
The long haired man, Izou sighed sadly, "The best thing we can hope for is that it happen like last time again. He'll pass out from exhaustion, his coworkers found him and the head of the hospital had him treated here. It's not ideal, but what else can we do?" he tilted his crooked neck, just so he can stare at the back of the blond doctor, "I just…. he kept getting worse lately. With how he acted lately, and how much he kept throwing himself into his work like this, i'm afraid that it might not take that long for him to join all of us,"
"No! We can't let that happen! There has to be something we can do, maybe we could—"
"Hey, you guys noticed something?"
Ace had been far too entranced watching the other two talk that he forgot that there's a third ghost in the room. Just like the two spirits, he turned to the direction of the voice, and felt his heart leapt when he realized that the 3rd one was staring directly at him, frowning. Oh shit, he didn't mean to get caught.
He heard Haruta ask, "What is it, Thatch?"
"That guy," Thatch spoke again, still staring intently to Ace, who could hardly looked away, "I don't know, but he kept staring, i'm starting to think he can see us,"
"Don't be stupid, Thatch," Izou replied dismissively, "We're ghost, remember? Pretty sure he's looking at the be—"
"I can," the freckled man found himself saying out loud before he could stop himself. The three dead people turned to him almost simultaneously in various degree of surprise and shock, while the other three living ones in the room only turned to him in confusion, "I can totally see you guys,"
Following his blurted exclamation, there was nothing but silence in the room.
Which was soon broken by a high pitched screech of terror from the bed, "Oh, fuck there really are ghost in this room, aren't there?! Koala, forget the flowers, bring me holy water next time!"