A few days later

Satya and Fareeha sat opposite one another at their dining room table, making small talk in between bites of dinner.

"So how was–" Fareeha ducked to avoid a flying plate that ended up smashing against the wall behind her, "–work?"

"Oh, it was–" Satya grabbed hold of her plate to prevent it from sliding across the table, "–great, actually. I was nominated to take part in the negotiations with Lumérico…to…" She struggled to hold the plate down. As she strained, her glass of water flew off the table and spilled its contents out all over the hardwood floor.

They had agreed the morning after meeting their otherworldly houseguest that they would not reward her behavior with any sort of reaction. Reactions were clearly what Hana sought, and what her audience thrived on. Her antics were amplifying in annoyingness the more they ignored her, proving that their theory was correct. She was growing desperate.

"Oh yeah? Lumérico?" Fareeha reached around and re-hooked her bra. "That's that Mexican company, right? I overheard some of the guys talking about it in the break room yesterday."

"Yes." Satya winced as her hair pulled itself.

"What exactly do they do for–"

"Oh come on!"

Hana appeared between them in a flash of pink light. "You guys are the worst! I thought you'd be entertaining, but you're totally boring!"

Both Satya and Fareeha just kept eating, entirely ignoring the existence of the teenage girl sitting cross-legged on their dinner table.

Hana ground her teeth, then straightened her spine to sit up tall. "All right. If you skin sacks want to be a couple of big bores then I guess I'll just have to spice things up myself!" With that she melted into a pool of light and disappeared into the floor beneath the table.

Fareeha let go of her held breath. "What do you think that means?" she murmured.

Satya rested her chin on her palm. "At this point I would not be surprised by anything."

They continued their dinner in a tense silence, both on high alert for any signs of ghostly mischief. Hana had gone suspiciously quiet, and remained so for a suspiciously long time. Once they had finished eating Fareeha swept up the broken dish and disposed of the pieces. On her way back from the garbage bin outside Satya stopped her, gesturing quietly for them to reconvene outside the house.

They'd discovered two days prior that Hana seemed unable to leave the confines of the house. Even just in the backyard they were seemingly free of her influence. Thus they had begun spending more and more time together outside, which probably only enraged the petulant little ghost even further.

There was an old wooden picnic table in the backyard beneath a tree. They took a seat at it and glanced furtively about. "This is ridiculous," Fareeha whispered. "We can't keep living like this. My mother gave me those plates!"

"Are you suggesting we surrender to her?" Satya furrowed her brows. "We spent months shopping for the perfect house…"

"Oh, I'm not suggesting we surrender." Fareeha cracked her knuckles. "I'm suggesting we call in some kind of fucking exorcist or something and get rid of her."

"An exorcist? That seems a bit drastic, my love…she is only a child."

"A child who throws dishes at my head and calls me a dumb oaf."

"…Fair point. Perhaps you are right. My tolerance for this chaos has worn thin as well." Satya pursed her lips. "When we return inside we should begin performing some research. But we will have to ensure that she is not lurking over our shoulders first."

"You know what?" Fareeha hopped up from the table. "I'm gonna get my phone off the charger and then just do the research out here."

"Ah yes, good idea! I will retrieve mine as well."

Satya followed Fareeha over to the back door. As Fareeha reached for the doorknob something grabbed at her. She jumped back as the former doorknob, now a ghostly hand, stretched its fingers out toward her. "For fuck's sake…" Without a doorknob the door surrendered to one good kick. "I am getting so damn sick of–"

Fareeha's words died in her throat. Satya hurried in after her, but froze just like Fareeha when she witnessed the scene inside their home.

Everything that could have possibly been broken was broken. A trail of smashed dinnerware led from the kitchen into the living room, where every painting, photograph, lamp and electronic device lay in a shattered heap on the floor. Placed on the very top of the pile was Fareeha's certificate of honorable discharge from the army, its frame obliterated. Just beside it sat Satya's once-framed diploma from Vishkar's Architech Academy, now lying in a pile of broken glass and pieces of frame.

Fareeha said nothing. Instead she merely sank to her knees in front of the wreckage. Her mouth hung open and her eyes were wide.

Hana materialized in front of her, wearing a massive grin. If she were alive Satya would have advised her to flee for her life. Considering the current circumstances, Satya instead opted to step back and simply watch what she knew was about to unfold.

"You…" Fareeha grabbed a fistful of shards from the former frame of her military certificate, ignoring their potential to hurt her. "Okay," she said, her tone keying down a little, "you know what? You win."

Satya balked. "What?"

Hana seemed just as surprised by the declaration as Satya. Her gentle mid-air bobbing stilled as she waited eagerly for the rest of Fareeha's reaction.

"You are a horrible, miserable little demon." Fareeha got back on her feet, staring Hana down with her fierce eyes. The grin on the girl's face diminished a little. "I can see why nobody wants to stay around you."

Hana huffed. "I have millions of fans–"

"Fans, maybe. But how many of them actually want to spend time with you one-on-one?"

Hana opened her mouth to reply, but then slowly closed it again.

"So you win, poltergeist. We'll move out and you'll have nothing to entertain your fans with. But it's not going to stop there." Fareeha jabbed a finger at her. "We'll be sure to spread the word far and wide how terrible this house is, so nobody will ever want to move in here. Hell, maybe we'll have the house demolished! It's our property, after all. Then you'll never have another subject to torture for your little 'livestreams'. And no livestreams, no fans – eventually they'll all get bored of your annoying personality and leave you. You'll be all alone, nothing but an insufferable little pest who nobody loves, cares about, or even remembers." She threw her arms out. "But hey, at least you won!"

Satya covered her mouth with one hand and simply stared at Fareeha. Hana stared at her for a while as well. Then she slowly sank to the floor, like a deflating balloon, and tucked her knees in close to her chest. She stared at their pile of destroyed belongings, avoiding the gazes of both women.

Fareeha busied herself with attempting to salvage some of their most treasured belongings from the pile. As she walked away with a fistful of torn papers Satya dared to maneuver a little closer to the girl on the other side of the heap.

"Why do you torment people?" she asked. Though her question was a bit harsh, her tone was gentle. Non-judgmental.

Hana did not meet her gaze. "It gets attention."

"But it is not positive attention."

Hana shrugged.

Satya moved in just a bit closer. She knelt down opposite Hana. Their proximity all but forced Hana to look at her. "You know," Satya began, "as a child my behavior was…less than exemplary. I first attempted to seek positive attention from my peers – I would invade their personal space and try to touch them, hug them, any form of validation that I could obtain." She paused as Hana finally lifted her gaze to meet her own. "I was rejected repeatedly. It was at that point that I learned positive attention was not a guarantee, but that I could always garner a response by acting out."

"Yeah, exactly." Hana nodded. "How many fleshies want to just, like, hang out with a dead girl from the turn of the century? Doing what I do now gets me attention from both them and my viewers."

"But negative attention is ultimately unfulfilling. It leaves you empty, hurt and still craving validation."

"No, it's fine."

Satya shook her head. "You and I both know that that is untrue." Holding eye contact with the reluctant girl, she continued, "When we first moved in here you presented yourself to us the very first night. You could have continued facelessly haunting us, and it would have been far more effective that way. But you could not hold yourself to that. You showed yourself, because you wanted the girl behind the façade to be known. You do not want to be the best at terrifying people. You want to be Hana Song. You want us to know your face and name, to treat you as a person instead of an invisible force of nature."

Hana simply shrugged again.

"You are not disagreeing with me. Dare I assume you may agree?"

Fareeha stormed back into the room. Upon seeing Satya so close to Hana she hesitated. "What are you doing?"

Hana retreated back into herself. Satya rose to her feet and took Fareeha's hands gingerly in her own. "I am as angry as you are," she whispered. "But I believe I may have discovered a more effective approach."

Fareeha raised both eyebrows. She leaned to peer around Satya at Hana, who was picking up a few pieces of the mess she had created.

Satya gave Fareeha's fingers a light squeeze. Fareeha stared at her for a long moment, then returned her attention to Hana. The pieces that the girl picked up began to glow in her hands. She touched two matching pieces together, and with a soft cascade of light they fused perfectly back together. She set the newly reformed lamp on the table beside the couch.

Fareeha exchanged a second wordless glance with Satya, who simply gave a sage nod in response.

Hana next picked up one of their mini hologram projectors. It had apparently survived the carnage, for it flickered to life in her ethereal hands. The image that displayed was an old photo of Satya and Fareeha at the beach during one of their vacations together. Fareeha was the one taking the photo, and as she did so her chin was rested playfully on the top of Satya's head. As usual she was grinning like a massive dork. Satya's eyes were covered by sunglasses, but her tiny smile conveyed her feelings just as well.

Hana stared at the picture for a while. Then she said, "You guys seem happy together."

Satya nodded. "Quite so."

She set the photo down beside the lamp. "You saved up your money to buy a house with the love of your life. And then I came along and smashed everything to little pieces."

"Yeah." Fareeha folded her arms. "You did."

Hana got to her feet. Despite her small stature she straightened up and looked Fareeha right in the face. "You don't have to move out," she said. "Maybe we can make some kind of deal."

Fareeha pulled a face. "What kind of 'deal' would we want to make with you?"

Hana's smile returned. "I'll let you live here haunt-free…but you'll be regular participants in my livestreams."

"No."

"I didn't even finish!"

Satya nudged her. Fareeha exhaled. "Fine. Finish."

"I don't do fake videos – that's just wrong." Hana blew her bangs out of her eyes. "So no fake hauntings or whatever. We'll have to come up with something new." She tapped her chin. "Ooh, I have an idea! Instead of livestreaming haunts, I can just document me and two fleshies trying to co-exist in one house. It can be like a daily vlog! Those get tons of views."

Fareeha pinched the bridge of her nose. "You know, everyone always warns you about the things you'll have to deal with when you move in together. Never got warned about attention-seeking teenage ghosts third-wheeling it with us."

"Soo…" Hana appeared between them. "Deal?"

Fareeha looked to Satya. "What do you think?"

Satya paused to process the offer. Was it ideal? No – and in fact the bizarreness of the overall situation was so jarring that any sense of wrongness she probably should have felt had already exhausted itself days ago. Here she was negotiating a deal with a ghost for the right to live peacefully in her own house…

"I suppose…we can give it a try…"

"Okay. Fine then." Fareeha narrowed her eyes at Hana. "You get one chance. Anything goes sideways and I'm calling an exorcist."

Hana burst out laughing at that. "You can't exorcise me! I'm not a demon."

"Debatable."

Hana's demeanor visibly brightened – literally, she was glowing like a night light – after their agreement. All of the rubble on the floor swirled into the air and began piecing itself back together. Hana hummed to herself as she went about returning all of the broken items to their rightful places.

Satya watched her drift through the house, leaving a trail of light behind her as she went. "Nice to receive some positive attention, is it not?"

At that Hana stopped. She turned toward Satya and stared at her for a moment. "Hm…" She waved a palm dismissively. "I guess."

Satya stared her down.

"…Quit looking at me like that, fleshie. I'm not gonna tolerate disrespect from someone who's like a third my age."

"I mean no disrespect. I am genuinely pleased with your willingness to compromise."

"Hmph." Hana strutted off, but she was still glowing.

"You really think this has any potential to work out?" Fareeha mumbled from behind her.

Satya followed Hana with her eyes as the girl continued fixing their broken possessions. She said nothing.

"…You feel bad for her, don't you?"

Satya did not turn around. "Do you not?"

Fareeha was quiet for several seconds. Then she let a breath out. "I do."

Satya reached out and gave Fareeha's arm a squeeze. "There's the soft-hearted Fareeha I know."

Fareeha sighed. "Too soft, probably."

Hey guys, it's DVa! They heard Hana's voice from the next room over. Got an exciting update for ya – as you've probably noticed the fleshies who moved in aren't very hauntable, but they're pretty cool, so we decided we're just gonna hang out! I'm gonna vlog our daily shenanigans. I know it's kind of a tone shift for my channel, but I think it'll be fun! Definitely a change after sixty years of non-stop haunt streaming.

Fareeha massaged her temples and exhaled. "Well, if nothing else I guess this will be interesting."