Title: Tangible Hand Holding
By: Xmarksthespot
Disclaimer: I don't own YJ
Notes: So I finished watching this Korean drama called Arang and the Magistrate, which is basically a ghost story (mixed with romcom), and I was inspired to do this, especially since it's Halloween.
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List of Must-Haves for Wally West's new apartment:
1. Decent view of the city.
The first thing Wally saw, much to his displeasure, was a graffiti covered brick wall and a string of underwear that was clothes pinned to the wire connecting his apartment to the adjacent building. He sighed at the sight, but accepted his fate and proceeded to carry the remaining boxes towards the living room area.
His mother was in the kitchen, carefully placing all the bowls and plates – and whatever else they could salvage in such a short amount of time – into the cabinetry. She hummed cheerfully to herself, contrasting Wally's grumbling and frequent yawns.
"Mom, I'm done with all of the boxes!" Wally called out, running a blade along the clear tape that locked the cardboard containers. One of the first things he unpacked was his conch shell, a souvenir from his favorite vacation to Happy Harbour beach some years ago.
With a nostalgic grin, the redhead stepped towards the balcony doors with the thought of sitting the conch by the lamp, just like where it was in his old home.
That is, until Wally glanced outside the glass windows and was flabbergasted at the sight of a random man standing in the alleyway, two floors down, taking a leak.
"Urgh. Never looking out there again."
.
2. Enough space in the bedroom for a mini fridge.
By seven in the evening, Wally had finished unpacking, decorating his new room with school books and littering his closet with his somewhat-laundered clothes.
The room was small, much smaller than the one he had at Central, but thankfully, there was still room in the corner by his closet for one more thing: his mini-fridge.
Wally, for once that day, was pleased. With a crazy-fast metabolism, and late night snacking habits, the fridge was his sanctum.
Things were finally going well.
.
3. Neighbours party only on appropriate holidays –gotta focus on school!
With a strong science background (enough for a scholarship), and a somewhat "family" relation with the Bruce Wayne – really, Wally was just a childhood friend of Bruce's adopted son, Dick Grayson, and an occasional chocolate chip cookie thief at the manor – Wally had somehow gotten himself into Gotham Academy.
But with school the following day, the sixteen year old realized that being in a prestigious school, taught by the finest professors, he would have to get caught up on other subjects, not just the sciences.
He sat himself down at the wooden desk that the previous owner of the apartment had kindly left behind for them, and cracked his knuckles, eager to zoom through his work, when suddenly he heard some noises that echoed from the floor above his. Glancing at the ceiling, the redhead frowned.
He would've hated it if his upstairs neighbours blasted hip hop music all day and night with sounds of clanking beer bottles and roaring laughter, but now, with the sounds of bed springs and loud moans, Wally wished that they were partyers instead.
"Ohh! Yes!"
Wally left his room in a blink of an eye. Maybe he should take a walk around the neighbourhood first – scope the area and find his way around the city – and hope that things would quiet down by the time he got back.
.
4. Neighbours are hot chicks.
Wally smiled awkwardly outside of his apartment door, twitching to run out of the apartment as fast as he could.
"Hello, dearie. You must be the new neighbours," said the eighty-something year old who smiled sweetly.
"What?" The elder man behind her asked.
"We have new neighbours," the woman replied to her husband.
Now, Wally would've ditched them by now, but he didn't want to make a bad impression to the next door neighbours (after all the stories he's heard from Dick, he was slightly convinced that one wrong move and anyone in that city could become a homicidal maniac). So in the end, he remained standing by the door, iPod turned off and shoved in his jeans pocket as he watched the elderly couple bicker back and forth.
"What?" The old man asked again, cupping a hand around his ear as if to amplify what his wife was saying, or improve the quality of his clearly worn out hearing device.
"NEW NEIGHBOURS."
Wally glanced at his watch and realized that it might be too late for a walk.
.
5. No deaths or gruesome murders; not even wrinkly old seniors hitting their expiry date button within a 2 mile radius.
Okay, so this was extremely hard to do considering it was Gotham of all places, but Dick had insisted that this apartment was within a one point five mile radius, death-free zone, disregarding a heart attack that happened over five years ago in the apartment two blocks down the street, but at least it was a chronic disease and not an ex-wife who poisoned her cheating husband (that happened at the first apartment Wally and his mother looked at).
And there's no actual real reason for him specifying this, he argued. He'd just rather not have mourners come knocking at his door, asking for some donations for their great-uncle's cousin, twice removed's funeral – or something like that.
Dick claimed it was because Wally was scared there'd be ghosts haunting around him, but please, as if ghosts existed.
"Are you going to bed, Wally?" Mary asked, but received a headshake from her son.
"Nah, I'm not that tired yet. Gonna go through some stuff to get ready for school tomorrow," Wally replied, heading for his bedroom.
And that's when he saw it.
When he saw her.
A girl, no older than he was, standing just by his bed, flipping through the pages of his astronomy books. She had a placid smile imprinted on her tanned face, a hint of fascination in her dark eyes. It didn't even occur to her that Wally was at the doorway, just staring – studying – her.
The redhead was baffled. Craning his neck, he saw his mother unpacking in the living room, and only his and her shoes by the doorway; there were no guests.
Sighing, he stepped in and closed his door shut. He looked up again to see the girl move towards his book shelf, pulling herself up on her tippy toes to look at his picture frames and posters.
"Hey," Wally called out. He received no reply.
Peeved, he began to walk up closer to the stranger. "Hey, you!" He said again, just as the girl traced her fingers along his DVD and Blu-ray collection. Then he heard a snicker.
"Baywatch on Blu-ray? Who in the world has that?" She said to herself.
"I do," Wally answered, taking another step so that he was right behind her.
She gasped, and her long, blonde hair almost whacked him in the face as she turned a full one-eighty, eyes widened when she saw him.
The stranger gulped as she looked at Wally once more, and was about to leap backwards when his hand grabbed her wrist.
"Hey, what do you think you're doing?!" She yelled at him, though paused another moment before letting a quieter realization pass her lips: "You can see me…"
Wally released his hold on her with a scowl.
"Yeah, I can. So either you leave now or I'll force you to leave."
.
.
.
TBC
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A/N: Please leave a review and tell me what you think! :)
Happy Halloween, guys!