A/n:I know I said November, but I saw this really cool Halloween-themed art of the Bladebreakers and Tyson kind of reminded me of Hanako-kun so this just wrote itself on it's own. The artist is misdre and you can find them on twitter or tumblr!

Fair warning, Tyson is a ghost in this one and I used their Japanese names because it fit the mood better!

Summary: She had never believed in ghosts, right until one appeared and stood inches away from her, and even then it took some convincing.

Tale 09

-x-

Ghosts did not scare her.

Ghosts had never scared her, Hiromi reassured herself mentally as she slowly made her way down the corridor, the almost ancient floorboards creaking with every step that she took. Faint giggles and amused laughter floated into her ears from somewhere behind her, reminding the brunette that indeed ghosts had never scared her, at least not as much as the thought of dealing with her high school peers. You see, ghosts wouldn't sneer at you behind your back, or write false rumours about you on the blackboard for everyone to see, or trip you in the cafeteria so your soup falls right over your crisply clean uniform… No, Hiromi was sure that dealing with a ghost would be much easier.

Which is why she was here right now, making her way through the old school building which hadn't been used in over fifty years, to the most spookiest place known to any girl who had ever studied at their Academy, the girl's bathroom on the top floor. The petty clique who had challenged her to make this trip and bring back something from the bathroom as proof, had stayed with her till where the rusty and broken down shoe lockers stood at the entrance and had promptly turned around and fled the minute Hiromi had crossed the entrance and stepped foot on the staircase leading to the upper floors. She could hear them laughing and speculating outside through the windows on each landing, that seemed to be missing their panes. They were all readying their cameras to take a photo of her when she came running out in tears, looking as ugly as ever.

Hiromi quickened her pace, stomping on the wooden stairs as she forged ahead, in hopes that whatever lay asleep in this nightmare of a building would wake up and take her, so she never has to face what was waiting for her outside ever again. Fortunately, for her, all her stomping resulted in was the sound echoing strongly all through the structure and making the windows rattle, in the aftermath of which the laughter from outside slowly died down. She smirked to herself, after all their taunting about her being too afraid to enter the building, all it took was some rattling windows to shut them up.

After she reached the final landing, leading up to the third and final most floor of the building, Hiromi decided to take a peek out of the window to see how her fellow classmates were holding up after her little stunt. This window thankfully, seemed to have it's panes intact, meaning the girls standing below wouldn't probably be able to see her and then tease her about being scared. Creeping up quietly to the window, Hiromi surveyed the outside quickly and even though her heart sank, she was not surprised by the complete lack of schoolgirls on the grounds. Of course they had all turned tail and ran, she thought, it's not as if they actually cared about whether she brought something from this building to them, all they cared about was making sure she was never at peace.

She stepped back from the window and looked around herself, the orange light of the setting sun pouring through these rundown windows was all that illuminated her surroundings. The floors creaked with even the slightest shifting of her feet. Dust and cobwebs covered most surfaces and the air was filled with a heavy musty smell that her nose had now somehow gotten used to. Nothing about this building was welcoming, entering it had taken a chunk of courage and some spite on her behalf, but the current situation was making her wonder whether entering the rumoured bathroom was a risk worth taking. The girls she was supposed to be proving herself to were probably already halfway to shutting their shoe lockers and making their way home, laughing all the way about how they had succeeded in getting the smartest girl in school to do something so essentially stupid.

Anger bubbled up inside her, making the gears in her brain spring into action. How could she turn this situation into an advantage? Despite her eerie surroundings the fact of the matter remained, that Hiromi did not believe in ghosts, therefore, she couldn't be scared. She did believe in evil, she saw it everyday in the eyes of those monsters who tormented her day by day for reasons still unknown to her. But for the first time, they had finally given her an escape route. They had left her alone. Under usual circumstances, they would be watching her like vultures, waiting to strike at the right moment and sabotage all her efforts, but today, they had fled like pigeons, ultimately giving her control over the story.

Oh there were so many ways Hiromi could bring all of them down at once and all these ideas swirling around her head filled her with pride and confidence, something she had been losing gradually over the past year. She skipped up the final set of stairs and stood in the corridor with her chest puffed out, ready to start her counter attack. Her plan was simple, she would rub the dirt all over her uniform, her face and her body, dishevel her hair and muster up all the fake tears that she could manage and run out of the building screaming and crying after some time. The teachers who stayed overtime would take notice of her and she would inform them that she had been locked inside the old building, all it would take then is a little bit of going through the CCTV footage and her classmates would finally get their due.

Hiromi smirked to herself as she took note of the corridor, her eyes finally landing on the door at the extreme end, a rundown sign indicating that it was the Girl's Bathroom, hanging lopsidedly on it's edges right above it. She tilted her head as an amusing thought struck her, the sudden boost of confidence had pumped her veins with adrenaline and with each passing second she was starting to feel more daring. She decided then, that she would indeed enter the bathroom as she had been challenged to do, but instead of one object, she would pick out six, and leave them inside the desk of each girl who had so carelessly left her behind today.

With her mind clouded with the thoughts of revenge and payback, Hiromi made her way to the bathroom at the end of the corridor as if in a trance. Fear of what was waiting behind the door as her hand touched the icy cold knob and turned it, sparked at the back of her head for a brief moment but she immediately pushed it aside. She let go of the knob once she heard the lock click and the door swung open, almost on it's own, Hiromi gulped and warily stepped inside, her eyes darting over every inch of the bathroom, trying to memorize every detail incase she ever needed to tell that something was off.

There were a total of four stalls, each door was currently shut, that looked like once they had been painted a bright blue but now only the palest remains of the bright paint was visible in patches. On top of these doors strips of rectangular shaped paper had been stuck, and as Hiromi edged closer, she realized that the characters on them resembled sealing charms from eras bygone. This irked her slightly, but once again she brushed it off and turned to inspect the washbasins, which were now covered with weeds that surprisingly, also had some peculiar blue and red flowers blooming on them.

Overall the architecture of the room looked right out of something you would see in a Showa era drama, and being illuminated by only the orange sunlight pouring in through a small, circular window at the end, Hiromi did started to feel a bit out of place in her red plaid skirt and half-sleeved white shirt, the red school tie tied perfectly into a bow around her neck, her brown hair tied into pigtails that struck out from behind her shoulders. Even more contrasting however, was the warmth she felt beneath her skin against the icy air surrounding her.

She stood in the middle of the bathroom, her eyes drifting from the seal covered bathroom stalls to shrubbery covered the sinks, thinking for the first time since she had stepped into this building today, that she was not supposed to be here.

A voice at the back of her head reminder her, that Hiromi had not come here at her own wish, she had been forced to come here, and if there was anyone who was wrong, it was her classmates who had abandoned her at the first sign of unrest inside the building. This helped her regain some of her earlier confidence, and she decided that she would take with her a combination of the flowers and the seals, as nothing would be more entertaining than watching the girls open their desks to see a torn up, ghost-sealing piece of paper stuck to their belongings, and the flowers would just add some panache, she concluded.

She confidently stepped closer to the sink, observing the odd shape of the red and blue flowers with deep concentration as she tried to place the species because she had never seen any flowers like this before, and definitely not around their school or their town. Each petal on each bud looked fresh, lowering her nose, she took a sniff but could not smell any fragrance from either the red or the blue buds. Maybe the damp, musty smell of the building had completely butchered her sense of smell, she thought, not thinking much of this anomaly. She continued to look the flowers over, noticing drops of dew on certain buds, the strangeness of which even she could not deny. It wasn't possible for dew to settle on these flowers inside this closed space, well the blooming of the flowers in here was in itself a mystery worth looking into. She couldn't imagine someone coming up to this bathroom everyday to look after this plant, but then how was it sustaining itself without sufficient sunlight or water?

Hiromi wasn't sure if her mind was playing tricks on her for staring at the same point for far too long, but when it happened the brunette jumped back in surprise.

The flowers had glowed so spectacularly for a moment that the whole room had been taken over by by flashes of red and blue.

Hiromi turned her back to the sinks, a nervous sweat breaking out on her face as her heart started to thump loudly in her chest, maybe there was no need to pluck the flowers she decided.

She took a deep breath and balled up her fists, there was too much going on around in her head and that's all that little illusion had been, an illusion. There was no way red and blue flowers blooming inside an abandoned bathroom just randomly lit up. She'd imagined it.

Shaking her head in an attempt to rid herself of the fear now spreading across her whole being, begging her to get out of the bathroom as soon as she could, to run from this building and never come back, Hiromi took a brave step forward towards the stalls. Just take the seal and get out of here, she told herself, absentmindedly nodding in the process. She lifted her hands as she neared the door to the third stall, and after another deep breath, in one swift movement she tore the biggest seal off the door and it burst open.

She stumbled back in shock, clutching the seal tightly in her hand, she watched in horror as a figure stepped out from inside the stall.

"Hey, can't anybody catch a decent 50-year long nap in here?"

A boy of her age and height stood in front of her, but that was all they seemed to have in common.

Her eyes took in his features slowly, his hair was a deep, midnight blue with spiky fringes covering his forehead while a tuft of it went well below his shoulders. His skin was a sickly, pale shade of white that reminded her of hospital walls. Another thing that reminded her of hospitals were the set of black stitches running across half his mouth, the teeth inside which were sharp like fangs and blindingly white. But these oddly placed stitches, the bandage covering his neck, or even the blood stains on his dark gakuran jacket were not what drew her attention the most.

No, it was his eyes, there was something horribly wrong with them.

Instead of pupils, he had two bright blue whirlpools swirling around in his sockets, staring at which made her head feel dizzy. No normal human being would ever have eyes like this…

No human…

"Dude, can you not crush that? It'd be a pain to get it back up."

Hiromi followed his gesture to the sealing paper now tightly clutched in her hands and immediately turned to look at him again. She couldn't quite grasp the situation, she didn't want to grasp it, because that would mean admitting that whoever was standing in front of her right now, was not from this world and that was something she was not willing to accept.

So she spoke the first thing that came to her mind.

"Boys are not allowed on the school property."

Her voice sounded quite unlike her own, shaky and nervous, filled with a kind of fear that she had not yet experienced in life. If it weren't for her feet being frozen to the spot, she would've sprinted right out of the bathroom and the school and never looked back for her words seem to ignite something in him, and the grin that spread over his pale face as she finished speaking could only be described as sinister.

"That's your concern right now?" He asked, the whirlpool of blue spinning faster in his eyes.

"Well, yes. The school needs to take it's security seriously, we can't have boys sneaking in, even if it is in an unused building it is still a severe security breach and-"

"You think I'm just some boy who sneaked into your school?" The grin deflated, he looked slightly offended by her rant.

"I don't see any other viable explanation for it." Hiromi answered, looking everywhere but into his eyes, because looking in them would mean no longer being convinced of her own statements.

"Oh I'll give you a viable explanation." He whispered in a low voice but she could barely make out the words.

The very next moment the room was enveloped in a blanket of darkness and suddenly Hiromi couldn't see anything. She turned around frantically trying to see, flailing her arms in front of her in hopes of touching something, anything, the stall door or the flowers on the sink, but to no avail, everything seemed to have been swallowed into this void.

A cold shiver ran down her spine and she froze, there was a quite whisper in her ear-

"How about this for a viable explanation?"

She opened her mouth to scream but nothing came out and just as quickly as the void had surrounded her, it disappeared and she was back in the bathroom with the strange boy now leaning against the door of the stall from where he had emerged, smirking triumphantly over her mouth half open and arms frozen in air awkwardly.

The colour rose in her cheeks as she hurriedly folded her arms across her chest and closed her mouth. The warmth spreading through her body because of the embarrassment was proving to be a good opponent against the fear and anxiety that had taken over just a few minutes ago, now being driven away through sheer pride and arrogance.

"Oh, this cannot be happening to me right now. Not today, not when I finally have a chance…" Hiromi shook her head, shaking off with it the last traces of fright and stupor over her current predicament.

The Ghost, to use the term loosely, however didn't seem too happy with her quick recovery.

"Hey, that trick took me a while to master so could you at least pretend to be a bit more scared and I don't know, maybe respect my feelings a little bit?" He was pouting now, and on a normal teenage boy maybe this expression would've looked cute, but his face just ended up looking more twisted and ominous.

"Oh no, someone help me, I'm scared." Hiromi replied flatly, returning his pout with a disapproving glance, making sure once again, to not meet his eyes as she did so.

"You're not normal." He scowled back at her, "At least the last chick had a heart attack on the spot. And the one before almost peed as she ran away in terror."

"Someone died here?" Hiromi immediately looked down at the spot from where her feet had refused to move, and an uneasy expression settled on her face. Focusing all of her energy into her feet, she managed to move a few steps away from the spot where supposedly a girl had had a heart attack in the past, sighing relievedly as she did so.

"Wait, that makes you uncomfortable but I don't?" The blue swirls in his eyes had now started spinning backwards as he followed her movements, growling angrily at her.

"Well I'm sorry if that hurts your pride as a… as a…" Hiromi couldn't believe that she, of all people, was at a loss of words but she just didn't know what to describe him as.

Ghost? Undead Monster? Vengeful Spirit?

"A Ghost. I like to keep things simple." He finished for her, adding on an afterthought, "And yes, that does hurt my pride. A lot, actually."

"Again, I'm sorry, but I'm not having a great day myself either." She replied, with a bit more sincerity laced in her voice this time.

The thought of standing and having a conversation with someone who was clearly not alive was enough to give her a migraine but on top of it she now knew that the girl who had made it this far before her had died here was even more discomforting. Addled with the exhaustion of the whole day that suddenly hit her body and the billion questions about life after death that had now started to cloud her brain, the only clear thought she could surmise was that she needed to sit down. So naturally, Hiromi moved forward and took the only available seat, the old and damaged toilet seat inside the third cubicle.

She made her way past the ghost with ease, and in the brief moment that she came dangerously close to him, she felt that although he wasn't intangible, as works of fiction often claimed, but he had a sense of weightlessness to him, as if a single gust of wind would blow him away. To her great relief, the toilet seat's cover was already down so she didn't have to deal with whatever dreadful state the inside of it must be in. The lid itself was covered with vines and once she sat down and ran her eyes through the stall, she saw that it was completely covered in vines that hosted the similar red and blue buds from the sink.

"That was my last wish."

It was barely a whisper but it got Hiromi to turn her eyes away from the walls of the cubicle and face the ghost finally, who was now standing in the doorframe with his arms folded across his chest in a somewhat guarded manner. He narrowed his peculiar eyes at her and the whirlpool in his sockets seemed to slow down. It was easier for her to meet his gaze now, without feeling dizzy and uneasy, but not so easy to read the expression on his ghostly white face.

"I have a lot of questions for you." She decided to cut right to the chase, if she was going to find out everything she wanted to know then she couldn't afford to waste time over small talk.

He groaned loudly in reply, his face suddenly twisting into a disgruntled, disappointing mess which almost made her wince with fright. He took a step back from the doorframe and settled himself on the floor, crossing his legs together and resting his palms behind himself, he eyed her with absolute resentment before speaking again.

"Of course you do. It's not as much fun for me though so I'll only take three questions, choose wisely."

"Is there a heaven and hell, and if there is why haven't you passed over to that side yet?" She asked quickly as soon as he finished, biting her tongue in regret when she realized she'd used up two out of her three chances already.

"There is something called the other side, but it's not divided as clearly as humans like to believe and I have been trying to pass over but your lot keeps disturbing me. Even after I put up those 'do not disturb' signs on the door, one of which you have completely ruined now by the way." He raised his eyes at her left hand and shook his head in exasperation.

Hiromi lifted her hand to look at the now crumpled piece of paper that she had been clutching unconsciously ever since he had first appeared in front of her. She attempted to straighten it out and once she looked closely at the writing she deadpanned. It wasn't covered in characters that were used for sealing spirits by exorcists as she had first deciphered, but rather the characters for 'entry prohibited' written in a very, very bad handwriting.

"Your handwriting sucks." The words and the scoff left her mouth before she could rethink either or rephrase herself, and unfortunately the ghost did not react lightly to her words.

"Why don't you try lifting a brush when it feels ten times heavier than usual and try to write something some time then?" He spat back, not taking her criticism very well.

"Sorry, I think you made a good effort." She quickly tried to make amends, there was still so much left to find out, Hiromi couldn't risk losing out on this golden opportunity. She began to ask her next question but was interrupted before she even formed the first word.

"That's your last question, make sure you make the most of it."

Hiromi immediately closed her mouth shut.

He was right, she shouldn't be rushing in with whatever thought appeared first in her mind, there was a chance that she'd never even see him or any other spirit ever again. In fact, what was going to happen to her after their talk ended? That thought had only just crossed her mind, what was he going to do to her after this? He had mentioned that one of the previous girls to come this far had ran away frightened but he had failed to mention if he had followed her or not. The other girl had died on the spot, but what had he done with the body? So far they'd been having a civil interaction but what was going to happen to her when he decided that her questions were finally enough for him, would he let her leave peacefully? She had, however unintentionally, disturbed him and had gone on to not be scared by him. If he was still holding her lukewarm reaction to his presence against her, would he really let her leave this building in one piece?

It was simple then to conclude, what her last question should be.

"What's your name?"

She'd never thought she'd be witness to a spirit, a ghost looking surprised and shocked but as soon as Hiromi asked her final question the ghost sitting in front of her jumped up, straightening up and taking a few steps back as the whirlpools in his eyes started spinning uncontrollably.

"No one...no one's ever...no one has ever asked me that before!"

He looked, touched, if a ghost could ever look like that, but that was the only word she could use to describe the expression on his face right now. Maybe, just maybe if she can get through to him, he might spare her…?

"I'm asking now, what's your name? I'm Hiromi, by the way, nice to meet you!" She stated, a bit too cheerily even for herself but it didn't seem to affect the ghost as he was still trying to process the fact that she wanted to know his name.

He opened his mouth to answer, the stitches on the left side of his mouth stretching in sync with his movements, and then he shut it again, still looking surprised and touched and just a little bit confused. She wondered if he even remembered his name, he had mentioned something about fifty years in the beginning so maybe he had just forgotten it by now? Would he be upset if he couldn't remember it? Would he blame her for it…

"Nice to meet you too, I'm...Takao."

Hiromi beamed up at him, hoping that he'd take a liking to her and let her live, and to her surprise, it was Takao who ended up avoiding her gaze this time.

"Wow, it feels weird to say it out loud. Takao. Takao. That's my name, I haven't spoken or heard my name in almost-" He stopped his excited rambling and for a brief moment the whirlpools in his eyes were completely still and Hiromi felt goosebumps rise up on her arms.

"Never mind that," He shook his head, and his eyes were spinning once again, Hiromi couldn't believe that just until a while ago the sight of his swirling eyes had scared her senseless but now she was relieved to see them return to it's original state. He finally returned her smile and added, "Since you made me remember my name, I'll let you ask a few more questions, but I won't answer some if I don't want to."

Suddenly thoughts of escaping out of here alive left her brain and curiosity took over Hiromi once again and she started asking whatever popped up in her mind, like they were playing some kind of a rapid fire game.

"How did you die?"

"Pass." He deadpanned, and Hiromi, although disappointed, wasted no time in moving on to the next one.

"Okay, then are there others like you here?"

"Good one, Hiromi chan. Yes. There are more ghosts in the building."

She was a bit annoyed by his sudden use of a familiar suffix, when they'd barely known each other's names for a few minutes but she decided to let it pass as satiating her thirst to know things was her only priority.

"Are they good or evil? Are you good or evil?" She quickly added, thinking that she might as well put all her cards on the table.

"Like I said before, it's not all black and white, but I would say that some are purely evil. And I'm not so sure about myself." He winked at her and she just rolled her eyes.

"Can you leave from here, like go out in the sun or something?"

"Yeah, but I haven't done that in a while."

"Why not?"

"You see, the guy who haunts the music room on the second floor told me that if I want to pass on to the other side I need to be in a fifty year long, undisturbed slumber and when I wake up, I would've passed. So that's what I've been trying to do, but I keep getting interrupted every 10-15 years or so." He looked defeated, like it would be impossible for him to reach the finish line he had set for himself.

"How does that guy know if that's the correct way to pass on? He hasn't passed on yet either has he?"

"I hadn't thought of that. You're very smart, Hiromi chan." He flashed her a cocky grin, and very unlike herself, Hiromi felt herself blush under his eerie gaze.

"Anyway, are all the ghosts in this building male? This is an all girl's school you know!" She folded her arms across her chest, raising her eyebrows pointedly.

"It's an all girl's school now, it used to be an all boy's school when I went here." He smirked in satisfaction as her jaw dropped.

"You've got to be kidding me, I've never heard of this before!"

"They probably keep it under wraps. I mean some crazy shit happened, then they had to shut down the school for a long time. When they reopened, they decided to take a new approach." Takao shrugged, his eyes were once again spinning anti-clockwise and Hiromi wondered if the 'crazy shit' had something to do with his death.

"Well why didn't they get rid of this building too then?"

"Trust me, they tried." He grinned widely, offering no further explanation and Hiromi was once again left to reach a conclusion by herself.

"How long ago was this?"

"I don't remember." Takao answered immediately, but the hardened expression on his face told Hiromi that once again, this must have something to do with his death and that was definitely one subject she was supposed to steer clear of.

"Shouldn't you be getting home now or something? When I was alive, girls weren't exactly comfortable with being outside after dark."

For a change, he threw a question at her and Hiromi immediately got up from her seat at the toilet, rushing out of the cubicle to check if the sky outside had gotten any darker than orange, almost cursing under her breath as she saw it was now blanketed in deep blue with the occasional star twinkling about. She started to think about whether the teachers who stayed back till late would still be around, whether her original plan to look like she had been trapped in here would still work, whether at this point was she even interested in taking her revenge anymore.

No, what Hiromi was now interested in was the dark past her supposedly prestigious and uptight academy was hiding. She almost laughed out loud thinking about how she had spent her whole first year in misery because of her stupid classmates when she could have been looking into something interesting, discovering secrets, solving mysteries. Although she had to admit that if it weren't for her tormentors, she never would have had the courage to enter this building let alone enter this bathroom and meet-

Takao.

This time when her heart picked up pace, she knew it wasn't because she was frightened, no this was something entirely different. He was now standing near the sinks and inspecting the flowers, just like she had a little while ago. His expression was however, much more softer and as she watched him, she realized that he was murmuring to the flowers. She could do nothing to stop the smile that spread across her face. And yet the irony of the situation was not lost on her, after one year of hating everything about this place, the one person that she wouldn't mind getting used to wasn't even a person.

So lost in thought she was, she didn't notice Takao walking up to her until he was standing inches away from her with a wide grin on his face, holding out his pale palms towards her with one bud of each flower, red and blue, resting in his palms.

"For you, as a thanks for not running away in horror and giving me a reason to pick a fight with the Music Room Guy."

Hiromi picked up the flowers carefully, her fingers only brushing against his palm for a mere second, the thought that he may not be a person but he was definitely real enough to for her to touch settled in her mind.

"Better not to show them to anyone, they probably won't wilt, so people might think you're a witch or something!" He scratched his head sheepishly, turning away when she found his eyes.

Suddenly the thought of using these flowers to get back at her classmates didn't seem as appealing, in fact she didn't need Takao to tell her to keep this little gift a secret, she didn't think she would ever meet anyone who would be worthy of knowing about this day, this place, this moment.

"Can I ask you another question?" Hiromi spoke up finally, trying to meet his eyes but he was good at looking away at the right time.

"I suppose."

"Will I remember you tomorrow?"

She couldn't mask the fear in her voice, she didn't want to forget anything that had happened today. Even if they had gotten off on the wrong foot, even if right until she saw him she had never believed in ghosts, she wanted to be able to wake up tomorrow and remember the pattern in which the vines covered the sink and the walls, the way the stitches on his face were incomplete, how his gakuran seemed to have less buttons and more blood stains, how his eyes were literally an ocean she could get lost into.

"Do you want to remember me tomorrow?" He looked a bit taken aback by her question, as if the thought of wanting to be remembered by someone was completely foreign to him.

"Of course, I do! I've never-" she paused looking for the right words, taking a deep breath she continued "I've never been able to talk to anyone like this in this school before."

"Well in that case, you'll remember me for as long as you want to."

Hiromi breathed a sigh of relief, taking a glance at his amused smile she felt colour returning to her cheeks and could only hope that as a ghost, Takao wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the shades.

"What if I were to make you a deal?" An idea had popped into her head, Takao tilted his head and motioned for her to continue, "I could help you in finding a way to pass on to the other side, and in return you can tell me about what happened in this building, bit by bit of course."

He was silent for a while, but the look on his face was easy to decipher, he was considering her proposal.

"I don't see how you could possibly find that out…" Takao furrowed his brows in deliberation.

"I'm good at finding stuff out, and I can actually touch and lift books unlike you, or even visit shrines and talk to priests and stuff, again unlike you." Hiromi folded her arms, smiling proudly over her statement.

"You raise a valid point, talking to a priest has been on my list for a while but I can never seem to penetrate a shrine." He mused, resting a finger on his chin, he gave it a little more thought and standing across him with her arms folded was all Hiromi could do to stop herself from stomping her foot in impatience.

"Okay. Let's do it. But we have to set a deadline, I really don't wanna be around forever." Takao grimaced as he added the last part.

"Fair enough." She straightened her shoulders and held out her empty hand in front of him, "I promise that I'll make sure you're able to go through to the other side before I graduate."

Takao considered her hand for almost a minute before taking it in his own and shaking it lightly. The sensation of his touch was indescribable, it was icy cold and burning hot at the same time, she could feel his tangibility but somehow not feel it either. Something very odd passed through her body, she couldn't tell what it was or pinpoint from where it began but she could feel it, bringing something unknown into her until Takao pulled his hand away and that odd feeling left with it.

"And I promise to tell you the truth about this school, before you graduate." He grinned, gesturing towards the doorway he added, "I'll see you out, better not take the risk of waking anyone else on your way."

It was only when he brought it up that Hiromi realized she would've had to make her way out of the building in pitch darkness with who knows how many more spirits crawling about behind her back, if she hadn't met Takao.

Before exiting the bathroom, Takao told her to be absolutely silent, that the building was very different after dark and it would be wise to not carelessly wander as she had done earlier in the day. Hiromi tried her best to conceal her footsteps as they made their way down through three flights of stairs, but the wooden construction would not agree with her and the occasional creak or two floated around the building. At the end of the second set of stairs, a rumbling noise came from the corridor above them and in an instant she felt Takao's weightless form next to her and he whispered for her to keep going, without taking his eyes off the ceiling.

When they managed to reach the shoe lockers, hearing only two more odd sounds along their way, even Takao seemed to draw in a sigh of relief.

"Can I come with you when you go to see the Music Room guy?" Hiromi asked as quietly as she could right before sliding the entrance door open, fixing Takao with a hopeful gaze. Now that it had been proven to her that ghosts and spirits were real and existed parallel to the real world, she was even more curious about meeting as many of them as possible. Anyone else might consider it strange or crazy, since it would be enough for anyone to meet one ghost in one lifetime, but Hiromi couldn't stop her curiosity from growing bigger and growing wilder.

Takao stared at her in utter amazement, chuckling quietly, he replied "I've never met a girl like you."

Hiromi grinned, she wanted to tell him that there was a first time for everything, but she decided to save that comeback for their next meeting.

-x-

A/n: Now the next update will definitely be in November! But, I do think that I can write 2-3 more chapters for this particular AU. Thank you for reading and reviews are always welcome!