Emil hovered lazily above the couch, absent-mindedly watching TV. Since he's terrible at hiding the fact he's dead when he goes outside, even with his brother's magic, he often stayed inside as much as possible. This meant he didn't have many friends, but with the way everyone treated him at school earlier today, he doubted that would happen any time soon. The only other thing he could do was homework. He sighed, annoyed at his lack of options and started to wander up to his room. He was startled back into his human disguise when he heard the slamming of the front door.

"Yo, Em! Your favorite big brother's back!" the intruding voice yelled out.

Emil just huffed and resumed ghost form when he recognized the voice. He turned around and received yet another shock. Standing in the doorway was a tall humanoid-dog creature. His blond fur shined in the light of the full moon. The werewolf smiled a toothy smile as it tugged on its red tie, which hardly matched the suit he wore that day.

"Had a rough day at work today, so I decided to just let my fur fly on the way home."

Emil floated over and quickly ushered him inside. He closed all the curtains and slammed the door. After he collected himself, he turned and glared at his self-proclaimed "brother".

"Mathias, are you crazy?! What if someone saw you?" he exclaimed.

"Aw, c'mon Em, live a little. I made sure to walk in the non-crowded areas." He said whilst looking at himself in the mirror. The sight of a werewolf in a suit looked pretty funny to him. Almost as funny as telling a ghost to live a little. Mathias ran up the stairs on all fours. Likely to bother Lukas again.

Knowing of the chaos to come once Mathias reaches his brother's room, Emil decided to go out. Using his invisibility – personally his favorite thing about being a ghost – he floated right through the door. After all, his entire family is preoccupied with something else at the moment. He was often left out of things, but at times like this, he didn't mind.

The light of the full moon greeted him as he exited his house. 'No stars' he noted. The Icelandic teen had never really gotten used to looking up and not seeing a whole galaxy of stars above him since he moved here. He recalled spending his nights stargazing with his brother. The memory put a small smile on his face. Unfortunately, that smile disappeared when he heard the telltale howl of his werewolf cousin. He ran right through him, again on all fours, then hobbled right back over. His walk was awkward since he was meant to walk on two legs, but walking on four was necessary when outside for obvious reasons. The leash that adorned his neck was also necessary. No one wanted a repeat of the time he was taken to the pound. It was a real hassle trying to get him out of there before he changed back into a human.

Of course Emil was stuck with walking him. He always was. With a sigh, Emil floated aimlessly, knowing full well that the Dane would just annoy him if he stayed still for too long. Despite this, he couldn't help but want to do exactly that. Don't get him wrong, it's not like he hated him, he was just hoping to get some time to himself after the shitty day he just had. Which is exactly why he did nothing when Mathias ran ahead of him. He kept well enough behind him to see where he was.

And to see him knock some poor kid off his feet.

Stifling a laugh, Emil floated over to see what was going on. He got there just in time to see whoever Mathias knocked down give him a swift punch to the nose. It was then that Emil decided to show himself. Hoping that no one saw him materialize from nowhere, Emil pulled Mathias off him so that the situation wouldn't escalate further. Once Mathias was off, he mentally rolled his eyes at who he saw.

"Like, is that dog yours?" Xiang said. He was noticeably glancing at Mathias ever so often nervously, but he tried to keep his facial expression composed.

"It might be." Emil said passively. He saw this whole situation as payback for throwing things on him at school earlier. Then, as if he read his mind, the other boy spoke.

"Look, I'm really sorry about earlier today. I was having a pretty weird morning."

"Hm. That's hardly any excuse for throwing things at me when I didn't even do anything to you."

"It was really only one thing." Xiang whispered under his breath.

"Whatever." Emil said, trying to lead Mathias in the other direction. He wouldn't budge. The werewolf sat right there, looking between the two boys. Then he smiled the smuggest grin a canine could, much to the confusion of the Icelander. The Dane then grabbed Xiang's sleeve with his mouth and ran, dragging Emil behind him by the leash. He ignored their pleas for him to stop and carried them all the way to a nearby park.

Ok, this was too much. All Emil wanted to do was to go for a walk alone. Now he was stuck at a park with a werewolf and some annoying kid from class. He slumped down on a bench with a defeated sigh, hoping that kid would just get lost. But of course, he was never so lucky. Whenever he did try to leave, Mathias would usher him back to the same spot until he took a seat as well on the opposite side of the bench. Emil guessed this was another one of his family's "Get Emil a Friend" missions, and Mathias couldn't have picked a worse "friend". All they would do is just sit in awkward silence until Mathias gave up.

It goes without saying that both teens were uncomfortable with speaking to each other. Emil was openly glaring at Mathias, but the other kid was just glancing at him every once in a while. He figured that maybe he was making them uncomfortable, so he sauntered off so that they can converse in peace. After all, no kid wants to talk with their friends when family is around, or an intimidating giant dog in Xiang's case.

"Y'know, I just came out here so I could get some time to myself. I didn't expect to, like, get dragged out here by some giant dog." Xiang finally said.

"Same. Having a family like mine can get annoying." Emil replied.

"Yeah. It's kind of endearing though."

"Yeah, I don't hate them or anything. It is kinda nice having them around. But my brother Lukas and my cousin Mathias were being particularly annoying today."

"What about your dog?"

Emil was confused about this. "You mean Mathias?"

Now it was Xiang's turn to be confused. "Your cousin and dog have the same name?"

Well, shit. Not only was he terrible at hiding himself as a ghost, he was terrible at hiding everyone else. He should just shut up. But not right now. Now he needed to clear things up before he became even more suspicious than he already was.

"Um, I meant to say, uh" he took a few seconds to think, "Magnus. Magnus is my dog's name."

The other boy merely cocked a thick eyebrow at him in response. Emil couldn't bring himself to look at him. The embarrassment was probably written all over his face. He covered his face with his hands when he felt Xiang still staring at him. Then he heard a slight chuckle.

"Well it's getting pretty late. I'd better head home. Have fun walking "Magnus"." Xiang said, emphasizing the air quotes around Magnus.

"My name's Xiang by the way."

Emil just sat there with his hand still covering his face. He didn't acknowledge Xiang walking off, nor did he acknowledge Mathias trotting back to him. He just got up, took the leash, and started to walk back home in silence.

"So how'd it go?" Mathias asked.

Emil sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "As long as you look like that, your name is Magnus."