The Law of Proximal Attraction

Summary: Shintaro just wanted a way out of the suffocating life he led, but he's visited at night by an even more suffocating person and his neighbors are going to die in two weeks.

Or:

Shintaro moves back to his old neighborhood, expecting an old friend but finding her haunted siblings whose death just happens to be in a few weeks. Of course – what did he expect, a party? Well, yes.

AU: Ghost/Shinigami Eyes.

Pairings: To be voted on after sufficient character interaction has ensued, so you'd get a feel for the chemistry between the birds and all. Probably All/Shin, platonic Ayashin, slight Harutaka, most definitely Kokoshin and kanoshin.

Warnings: AU. Ghosts. Possibly All/Shin. Shingami Eyes! Shin. Can See Ghosts! Shin. Sad and dark themes. A HAPPY ENDING :D. But it's chapters away. Some scares. Deaged FOURTEEN/14 year old Shin.

Italics is for emphasis and flashbacks.

The law of proximal attraction dictates that a person can only be stuck with another for so long before affection and attraction develops.

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Chapter One: Discoveries

First version/Unedited

I.

To everybody else, Momo was dead.

To Shintaro, Momo just stood up and now, there were two Momos, one six feet under (lungs collapsed under water, face colorful in a way it shouldn't be, bones turning into dust and organs into meals), and another, pale and cold, standing next to him.

So cold.

Her hands are so cold. Numb, too, like what he felt after Dad and Momo were declared deceased, when his mother had to excuse herself to the bathroom because she didn't want to break down in front of him, when he slept that night plagued by bobbing heads, breaking the surface of the water for air.

(It will hurt.)

But he's never going to let go of her hands. She'll have to do it first.

(And when she does – well, he's good at ignoring his feels, pushing them into a tiny crevice in his mind to build up and up and up until they're so strong, he's going to fall off the cliff and break. He's also good at forgetting things. He has selective memories, like when his mom told him to get off the computer and he told her, later, that he didn't remember her stepping foot into his room for anything other than laundry.)

"It'll be okay," he says, but Momo just presses her side to his, like she's desperate for warmth. And maybe she is.

He will never be able to understand her…is he?

I.

Kisaragi Shintaro has enough human characteristics to qualify as human. There's the square teeth that will never be as helpful as canines, the mop of fur on the head, the faux man breasts that have no value, and the scary big toe. Unfortunately, there are other characteristics that are very unusual; his red eyes, for one, and his dead sister who was chattering happily next to him.

Yes, dead sister.

"Whoa." Momo whistles, cheerily jumping in place so she can reach his shoulders. She reaches a hand to steady herself, although they both know she doesn't need steadying. "It's been a long time, huh?" There's some nostalgia in her voice, but she covers it up with a grin. "I used to think this house was haunted. In a few minutes, it will be."

Shintaro can see dead people - the ones who can't go on, or have stayed behind. It's not the only he thing he can do that is connected to dead people; dead people can touch him. They can touch him and feel his warmth, which is something they never experience once their dead, mainly because they can't touch anything alive, and anything non-living is hard to touch unless they focus. Momo used to sit on the couch to watch TV and end up with one head sticking out, but eventually she got used to it enough not to focus when she wanted to sit down. Can't say the same about sitting on the window ledge, when she tries to copy the 'cool people' from animes; ends up falling through and falling on a briefly startled jogger passing by.

Shintaro doesn't reply to Momo – what was he supposed to say? I'm sorry? – and instead enters the house. Not a lot of people are in there; most of the moving men are still outside, combing through the furniture, while Mom is most definitely scouting the house for a perfect room for her office – not that it matters, since she rigs the game in her favor and they all know it – he's seen her pass through the door, a black shadow scattering the plain white walls.

The house immediately rings an alarm bell in Shintaro's mind – you can call it a sixth sense. Hah. Momo follows behind, and almost as soon as she steps in she stiffens; she's sensed it too. Momo pointedly stares at Shintaro's back; he's told her to avoid talking to him in the company of ghosts. They're already mildly attracted to him like a dog to a good steak, getting them to know he can see, hear, and talk to them is a sure way to gain a spectral stalker. You can't even tell the police about it for a restraining order, and the Ghostbusters are unfortunately not real. There's a reason Shintaro likened himself to steak.

It gets eaten.

Of course, if the ghost isn't set out for homicide and pointless revenge (like every ghost movie stereotypes a ghost into. As a matter of fact, he's offended himself, even though he's not dead yet, because he will be and really? Ghosts aren't Casper the Beaming Friendly Ghost or The Grudge Who Hasn't Heard Of A Salon or the Love Interest Dude) then Shintaro'll explain his situation to the ghost. After all, it's haunting the house and hiding his abilities is just inconvenient.)

Momo sticks to his side protectively and the cold air that follows ghosts around freezes his side. It isn't really that bad, it's more soothing and a constant dull hum in the background than anything else, like a mild winter day, and it's certainly a privilege during summer (and a good anti-perspirant.) It really only increases to 'shiver-shudder' cold when the ghost is particularly annoyed.

Shintaro nudges Momo slightly when he pretends to stretch his arms. It's a sign they made for 'Go Negotiate with the Potentially Homicidal Ghost'. Momo usually does that; she's the grunt, while Shintaro is the Master Mind. Momo doesn't use that term, and she isn't very happy about it when she does hear it – she starts a riot and throws flying underwear at random people, along with following him around and dropping panties on his head after every street. Momo calls herself the Action Girl and him the Passive, Lazy, Couch Potato (never mind he doesn't watch TV) Guy.

Momo stands twenty seconds before leaving. Shintaro just starts checking out the rooms while the moving men start bringing in the furniture – the ghost isn't going to do much with lots of people in its house if it's specifically targeting the ones moving in, unless it's really spiteful. Exactly why he gets Momo to do the active stuff – ghosts can't touch anything but him, while he, unfortunately, can get stabbed by a rabid ghost -.

Momo doesn't come back for the rest of the time the moving-(wo)men are here.

I.

Ten minutes after the moving people go away, Shintaro forces down the bubbles of worry and walks aimlessly around the hose. It's not really aimless, since he's trying to find Momo, but for everyone else, it is.

Lifeless hands wrap around his throat and lightly squeeze. He sighs, and then says, "Momo, stop that." If the ghost was a Grudge type, then Momo would have started the action a long time ago, and there would have been plates flying. Not a ghost wrapping her hands around his throat.

Momo twirls around him and then pouts at him involuntarily; she swears. Her left eye is twitching, though, and that's a sign she's on the edge of turning homicidal.

"So, what happened?" He takes three steps back; just in case.

A growl sneaks from the back of her throat and she glares at him. "She flipped me off and went running!"

"Well, it is the twenty first century."

"So?"

"People do that all the time. It's practically universal and has many different meanings."

"Oh. Yeah. Mom used to do that a lot when your back was turned."

"…At me?"

"Yeah."

"Funny. She did the same to you."

I.

"Hey." He sits down on the curb next to the blue haired girl wrapping her arms around her legs. He off-handedly notices that her feet turn into swirls of data at the end, but he's always been composed and open minded, or in Momo's words, doesn't give a shit. Still, he wrapped a scarf around he's dressed in a hoodie and a scarf covers his mouth because he doesn't really want to go to a mental hospital because he sat on the edge of the street and talked thin air. Looking shady was better than looking insane.

The girl doesn't reply, although she does glance to him with a scowl probably etched on her face.

Ah. So she doesn't think he's talking to her? He nudges her with a knee and she goes flying of the curb, into the street and crushed under the wheels of a fast red car. Momo would have probably known the name if she was here; she had a strange love for cars, but she isn't and he doesn't care for cars so he just fiddles with the money in his pockets. Going to the grocery store was his excuse to his mom.

He isn't good at this heart-to-heart talk. By the end of this conversation he'll have a pounding head and crumbled money.

The girl looks at him with wide, owl-like eyes. "You can see me?" She jumps forward, perching on the edge of the curb. A car mows her butt. "You can touch me?!" With every word she gets more and more frantic until he's surprised the people giving him dirty looks, the one he's ignoring on fear of reading their lifespans, can't hear her. "What the fucking hell – you're warm!" And then she's desperately shoving at him until he's on his back, getting molested by pale hands.

Oh god. The other citizens had these 'I-Knew-It' faces on – most likely followed closely by '991!' faces.

"God!" He slams her into the street, and she narrowly misses being mauled by a motorcycle. His paper bills are already crumbled. Well, there's always the grocery list. "Keep your hands to yourself!"

The girl looks like she's going to disregard everything he said and jump him. "How? Is this like these paranormal books?! Oh my god, this is awesome."

"Not so much," he mutters blithely; stupid optimists and their narrow-minded minds. He'd taken her as a fellow realist when he first saw her. Turns out maybe she wasn't one hundred percent realistic. Which might have been good, since he couldn't bear himself on bad days, much more another, gender bent him.

"Okay," the girl says, "no mauling. But." And then she stops, like she doesn't know what to say, and sits in the same pose as before, staring at the house facing them. He's only just realized she was staring the house. She doesn't look like she's really seeing it.

He catches her throwing undecipherable glances at him. He might have caught some hopeful gleams and fascinated edges.

Again, he's no good at this heart-to-heart thing.

"Want some?" he offers a soda to her. Sodas are perfectly good items for negotiations. They're perfection.

She stares at him in shock that slowly melts into bitter rage. "You think this is funny?"

"You can hold it and drink some if you focus." He answers, maybe bit hurriedly because being mauled by angry ghosts isn't on the top of his to-do list. Not because he felt a bit bad at the moment.

"W-well," she grits her teeth visibly. That wasn't healthy. He'd have to tell her so later. "Fine." She grabs it from his hand without as much as a 'thanks, bro' or even an attempt to hide the - to all the other people - flying can. The grocery list is crumbled by now. He mourns the time he'll spend in the grocery store trying to decipher the list. She gazes at the soda can intensely enough to go cross-eyed.

He scoots over to cover the soft drink the same time the liquid slips through her and patters on the floor. She turns on him with bared teeth and broken eyes.

"Focus." He hisses, and then adds, "God," to clearly show his annoyance.

"M'not her. Or him." The girl immediately retorts in a very bitter, very grudge like voice and goes back to attempting liquid intake.

This time, it slips through her lips and doesn't pass through her. He feels his heart skip a beat and the urge to smile overcome him; it has always felt good to help ghosts.

The girl's eyes widen in glee and she gulps it down in one go. She turns to him with fascinated eyes and lets a wild grin overcome her. She opens her mouth, and he waits for the 'more, what more can you teach me' to come out but she catches sight of The House and turns stiff faced.

He almost growls and sighs at the same time, but holds it in and instead taps a pokes her with a foot. "I heard its lonely being a ghost."

She scoffs. "So? I don't care."

Yes, you do. You care because I'm probably the first person you've talked to in years.

Ghosts had the habit of not noticing other ghosts until they slammed into each other. In some cases, he even saw some of them pass through the other's digestive system without so much as a blink as a reaction from either party.

"Maybe you don't," he says, trying to make his tone softer. "But I'm sure you'd rather get out of this instead of stay here for eternity."

He spots her hands curl over her pants, clenching them tightly.

"I don't know about you, but if I keep on staying here I'll be arrested, tied up, and thrown into a hospital."

"So? Don't care, remember? Just leave. Leave me alone."

He eyes her quietly for a few seconds – could've been Momo in her place – with a closed of gaze, biting into his lower lip. His eyebrows scrunch together. "Do you feel like going on a grocery trip?"

She stares at him. "The fuck are you?"

"Human." Here he frowns, "You're newest temporary friend slash guardian. Do you like Maltesers? Stuff the list." He attempted to throw it in the trash can seven feet away. It fell off the surface of the can and settled on the floor. Stupid nonexistent athletic skills.

She has now turned aroud to face him, and makes a disbeleiving sound.

Sighing heavily along with making a few irritated, I-can't-be-troubled-with-this noises from the back of his throat, he gently wraps his hand around her elbow, she shivers – she's been cold for so long, so alone and deaddeadead– and he pulls her up roughly, turning on his feet to head towards the closest grocery store.

"What –"

"Maybe sour candy? You seem like the type." He leans down to take the paper on the floor and throwing it in the trash. "And soda. Of course. It goes without soda."

"You sound like a soda-worshiper. Like it's a religion."

"It might as well be."

She's quiet for the next few seconds, although he can feel her leaning towards his warmth. Her arms still shudders beneath his hand, although it's starting to soothe down. "It's Ene."

"Shintaro."

I.

No matter what happens, he will never completely understand Momo. Not when he's alive. And when he does, its will be too late to help her - keep her company, yes, helping her get rid of the loneliness, no.

He knows, though, that Momo is afraid. afraid of when he dies and she's alive, afraid she'll be alone foever, and also afraid and guilty of being happy if he turned into a ghost. He's always been good at reading people.

And so, when he's living one of these bad days, where he hasn't seen hair or hide of his mom in a week, when all the other kids are isolating him because of his uncanny intellegience, allt het eachers putting him on a high pedestal, tired and sick of knowing when they'd die, dreaming of their deaths, and after seeing the hollow eyes of ghosts, getting haunted by strange dreams of deathbloodkillinghaze, he thinks of suicide.

but then he won't be able to help Momo.

And it's thanks to Momo he's still warm.

But pedestals will always crumble.

I.

Turns out God's on his side for the day. As soon as he's out of the bathroom, standing in front of an expectant Ene tapping her feet while pointedly sighing, the door bell rings and he opens the door gratefully, wet hair covered with the towel. That's how desperate he was to get away from Ene's perverted, grabby hands, who had demanded he explain shit to her once he finished the bath.

A familiar man stands in the doorway, smiling. His smile is unsettling – it's too empty, too false – before Shintaro's near-photographic memory slams a leg in and reminds him of his old best friend's creepy dad, who always wore a lab coat, never mind they were in a grocery store or a cinema. It was traumatizing. The clowns kept away from him when they went to the circus.

"…Tateyama-sensei?" he asks tentatively.

Tateyama Ayano. Up until two years ago, she was a constant annoyance in Shintaro's life. He'd like to say he hated her, but it wasn't hatred that kept him from conversing with her like a nice guy. He'd always been apathetic, and the other kids always isolated him, so when Ayano befriended him, he'd been wary. Callous.

Regrets. Regrets. They never leave you.

Perhaps now that he'd mellowed a bit (because of Momo who was stuck nearly 24/7 to his hip and had a picture next to Cheerful and Persistent in his hand-made dictionary), he'd be able to actually give back to Ayano instead of receive. Be a good friend. Yeah.

"Shintaro-kun!" The man's voice is so faux, nothing like the genuine cheerfulness he displayed years ago. It grates on his nerve. "You've grown so much!" Well, you haven't particularly shrunk yourself.

Although, now that he's focusing, Tateyama-sensei's cheeks do seem gaunt, his frame a bit…hollow, and the wrist that showed between the hands stuck in his pockets and the arm covered by the same lab coat he wore years ago, what the hell did seem thin.

"How are you?" He asks, slightly blunt but still polite. If possible, Tateyama's grin grows wider. There's no happiness in it, just teeth.

"Mm, hit a bit of a rocky spot in my life, but I could be worse. What about you?"

"Fine," and then he added, a bit embarrassed, "where – how's Ayano? Not that it matters, but I would've expected her to, um." He can feel Ene's questioning stare tracked on his back. Momo is somewhere behind him, too. When she saw Ene come in tow behind Shintaro, she'd grinned and jumped the girl congratulating her on joining the cult he had no idea they'd made. Next thing she's start chattering about gangs and bands.

This conversation is so stilted. Say something interesting, dammit.

"Ayano's dead."

…

Huh?

"She died a week ago," his smile is sharp, "Commited suicide."

…Mom wanted to come here a week earlier, on August fifteen, but he'd wanted to stay a bit longer to buy books from the library. She committed suicide. He can feel Ene's gaze on him tighten.

Must be disgust.

Bile rises in his throat.

And then numbness. It soothes it all over. It doesn't matter, he hasn't seen her in two years, it doesn't matter anymore. So what if she's dead? Does. Not. Matter.

(Liar~)

He stares blankly at Tateyama's face. What was he supposed to say now? Apologize? For what –

Killing Ayano.

"Sorry," he mutters, tone plain and all human emotions removed from it. He feels Momo's hands wrap around his throat – coldcoldcold like Ayano is now – and doesn't squeeze, although he might just not have noticed in the midst of his thoughts about Ayano and is she a ghost now too? Is she going to be lonely and cold and forever and ever searching through classroom and classroom, or person and person, through train stations for a way out?

Tateyama laughs. It sounds more like a choke. "Nah, it's okay. I came over here, actually, to greet you back and ask if you and your mom would be willing to come over for dinner.

"Mom's asleep," he says evasively, "she needs to get up early for a business meeting tomorrow."

"Then you should come."

He should. This was Ayano's dad. It was an obligation, a ghost of a step closer to redemption.

"I should." He echoes and so tired. All his hopes and dreams have brokebroke.

Empty.

Numb.

Without a care that he's in slippers and an oversized BBC Sherlock shirt, hair wet and towel over his shoulders which were visible because the shirt was goddamn big it slipped off one shoulder, he grabs the key and walks out, locking the door and glancing at the man.

He tilts his head under Tateyama's gaze, it's creepy and it's seeing right through him, that's not good at all, and softly, in the back of his mind, he hopes Momo and Ene won't follow him and see how absolutely rotten and faded he is.

"What?" he snaps weakly at Tateyama; there's a well of anger in his stomach growing and growing, and if he's trying to keep a decent conversation with someone it will be so much harder and take so much longer to push all the feelings down.

Tateyama just smiles and leads the way.

Kisaragi Shintaro expected very little things when he came back o his old home, a corkscrew smile and red clips, persistent friendships and the best soda cans, but not this.

Not stepping through the only person who has ever tried's house, them gone, and finding four people sitting on a table –

Kido Tsubomi

201408292205

Seto Kousuke

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Kano Shuuya

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And the last being the deceased person, cold and lonely and foever and ever and ever walking the earth, without any letters and numbers, standing behind the blonde boy.

There were swarming masses of numbers above others' heads, and he never comprehended why others didn't see them. his mom and dad used to ask him what he was looking at.

"The numbers." He pointed in the direction of their heads with a suprisingly thin and fragile (unhwalthy) toddler hand, indicating that there it was or rather, there they were: in plain sight. They laughed and waved their hands above their heads, showing him that there was nothing. With their actions, the blurring red shapes faded for a moment, and then re-appeared. The curling things were always above everyones' heads, even while they slept, for he had checked countless times when slumber evaded him. His mother and father both had numbers, although father's numbers were 200808151559 instead and he only remembered because so were Momo's. He dreamed of chockong and swallowing water that night.

He was afraid he was seeing things no one else did; he didn't want to be any more different than the other kids. Still, his parents brought him to a lady with a clip board who asked about the red numbers, the ones that looked like blood, and he'd just stay silent, let her assume and guess and make her own view of him. In the end, she'd told his mom that he just needed some hugs and to avoid eatching horror movies. Or something like that. All he really focused on wwere the bright 20080816, and later, at night, he dreamt of choking and betrayal and unhinged smiles.

And then he realized something interesting about his special vision, a realization that came on a very typical day, if his memory served.

August fiteen, 2014, 3:59 AM, his father and sister drowned.

The next day, his therapist was strangled.

And now, Ayano, who shouldn't have died for years yet was a ghost hovering over her family's shoulders. Family he hadn't heard of, and whom would die.

Very, very soon.

a.n.

A tad messy, but i was using the ipad and it's two am, and I'm in dubai. Woohoo. So yeah. I have a lot of kagepro au ideas apthat im writing out and this was the easiest and shortest so far.

QUESTION: what characters do you want as ghosts?

please drop a review for encouragment and writing fuel,

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TBC

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tiredly

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Hopeless Desires