"Hey."

NamJoon's eyes scanned over me. I gave him a friendly smile. Or at least what I hoped was a friendly smile. I was feeling fucking awkward, so who knows how it turned out.

But I'd done better with my wardrobe. I was wearing a pair of black shorts, matching socks with a pair of slides. I had all my wards on, but I'd thrown a t-shirt over the necklaces and sashes. My chest looked lumpy, but it was something.

I had to be extra careful. My plan was definitely dangerous since it involved going into NamJoon's house. My yard made it hard for ghosts to get across it and the porch was haint blue, but there was nothing stopping them from taking any other route into NamJoon's house.

My pockets were full of wards. I'd chosen ones that weren't too smelly or noisy. Hopefully, he wouldn't even notice them.

"Hey. I've got a problem. My scanner's not working and I need to scan a few pages from the play I'm working on. Do you have a scanner I can use?"

"Uh. Yeah. Sure." He stepped back from his front door. Motioned me to follow him.

I stepped into his entryway and slipped out of my slides. Looked up and froze at the sight of his house. My heart gave a bump of shock.

Every door frame, every window frame, every bit of wood that was an unmovable part of the house was covered with carved symbols. Runes and glyphs. Logograms and ancient alphabets. All of it meant to repel ghosts. All of it wrong.

And there were ghosts. Crowded at the edges of the room. Visible through doorways, packing other rooms. Not coming closer than about ten feet to me. Staring hungrily. Moaning.

Shit. This was worse than I'd thought. Worse that I'd ever imagined. There was no way those ghosts had followed me in there. They hadn't seen me going in NamJoon's front door and then rushed around and come in the back way. There was no time and there was no way he'd left his back door open. They'd already been in there.

A cold shiver went down my spine. I remembered NamJoon saying he found it oppressive inside. No shit.

And my previous neighbor. The old woman that had died. I'd thought she was batshit crazy, and maybe she had been. But if she was, it had been my fault. Those ghosts were there because of me. I'd brought them upon her and NamJoon.

The thought sickened me. I'd thought I'd made the best choice. The first rowhouse. A wrought iron fence. Covering my walls with wards. But that only kept the ghosts away from me. They were still clogging this neighborhood. I usually didn't see them in other frontyards because they all had iron fences.

But they also all had backdoors and windows. Doors and windows ghosts could slip into whenever they were opened. They would fill up all the rooms. Everyone in my vicinity would be particularly vulnerable. Always surrounded by ghosts. Ghosts that were waiting to take advantage of any weakness they displayed.

"Hey. You alright?"

I looked up at NamJoon. "Yeah. I just got distracted by a random thought. What...what are these symbols?"

I crossed the living room. Touched the door frame that led into the kitchen. The ghosts shifted around me like water. Moving away as I approached. Filling up the spaces that I'd left.

"Oh. I thought you'd like them. Since you're bohemian and stuff? I think the previous owner made them." He put out a hand and rubbed it over the surface of the wood. "I plan on sanding it down and refinishing it. I'm just waiting on autumn. If I do it now, I'll have to turn off the ac and open all the windows and doors and this summer's been so hot. It'll be more comfortable if I wait."

"Yeah?" I could barely think. The audience of ghosts. The fucked up carvings. The guilt.

"Sometimes I think it's the carvings that make it feel so oppressive in here. They're just weird. You know?"

I studied the symbols. Almost every single one of them was wrong. A stem or a curve going in the wrong direction. Something missing. Something added. The mistakes rendered them absolutely useless.

Had the old lady done this? Had she seen ghosts? It was unlikely. The ability was extremely rare. But she could have sensed them. And she could have been able to open herself up to the means to repel them. Just like I did. Only, her ability was fucked up and had her doing the wrong thing.

It was so sad. How long had it taken her to carve all of this? Had she only begun when I moved in and brought a flood of ghosts with me? Or was the normal number of ghosts that slipped in and out of open windows and doors enough?

How much had she suffered?

"They're messed up. You should let me fix them for you."

"What? You know what this writing is?" He was shocked and confused. "You don't need to fix it. I'm just going to sand it all off."

"Nah." He needed these to be right. To protect him from the ghosts. To make his home safe and livable. "You should let me try to fix them first. See how that makes you feel. I think it'll fix the feeling of oppression. If it doesn't work, there's nothing lost. You can just sand them off."

"I don't understand why it would make a difference. I don't even know what these symbols are. So, besides looking strange, I don't think they affect me."

"Nah." I waved away his doubts. "It's a psychology thing. The collective unconscious and all that. Plus the balance of art and aesthetics. Your unconscious mind knows these are wrong, even if you aren't consciously aware of it. It's probably causing things to feel of when you're in here."

"Ah. Well. I guess if you want to try…"

"I do. If it works out, I might even be able to write an article about it."

"Oh, okay. That's good then. Thanks." He looked confused. He was obviously trying to make sense of the lies I'd just told him. "Well, my computer and scanner are in here."

His house was a mirror image of mine and he was using the same small side room as an office. I followed him into it and watched as he took a seat, logged into the computer and turned on the printer/scanner.

"You're doing a play?"

Oh, yeah. This was my chance. This was why I was here. My brilliant plan. I'd ordered a script just for this purpose.

"Yeah. I'm part of a recluse acting group. They're becoming more popular on the internet. People who want to act but don't want to leave their homes. We get together through Zoom and act out plays together."

Listen to the shit I was making up just to try to set things straight.

"I see. Is that what you were doing the other day when you...uh, threw those carrots? Were you practicing your play?" His voice revealed how much my strange behavior had freaked him out. "That was you a-acting?"

"Well, I was acting, but that wasn't the play I'm working on." I was able to breeze through the story that I'd prepared. "It's acting practice. Someone in the group gives you a prompt and then you just go with it. Keep it going as long as you can. It's pretty fun. Takes a lot of imagination and the whole 'spur of the moment' thing really gets your emotions going."

"Ah. I see. That sounds really interesting. You must really be into acting." He reached over and lifted the lid of the scanner so that I could place my script down on it. "Did you ever think that might be where all those gifts are coming from? Maybe they're from acting fans instead of textbook fans."

I shrugged. "Nah. We just do plays within the group. It's only for ourselves. There's no audience."

"Oh. That's a lot of work for just you and a few other people. Your practice thing seemed really intense."

We were working our way through several pages of the script. "Well. I just do it for the fun of acting. That's what really matters."

"You have a really interesting way of looking at things. I like that."

"Thanks. These are the last two pages. Can you email them to me?"

"Yeah. Just hold on while I pull up my email."

I felt a rush of relief as I waited for him to log into his account and start a new email to attach the files to. He'd bought it all. And he was going to let me fix his carvings. I'd have to come to his house a lot for that. When I started fixing the wards, he'd start feeling better right away. He'd let me fix his whole house.

It was a win-win situation. I'd be able to talk to him to get information for YooJin - if I actually needed it - and I'd protect him from the ghosts that were trying to get to me. It was perfect.

I felt lighter as I followed him to the front door. Acting to solve a problem is one of the best ways to feel better, even if your actions aren't the perfect solution. The moving forward, the doing something, is what's important.

"When can I come over and work on your carvings?"

"How about Saturday afternoon?" He opened the door and turned to look down at me. "And...uh...afterwards, can I take you out to dinner?"

His chin was dipping down. His cheeks flushing. I was stunned. "What? Like a date?"

"Yeah. Like a date." He reached up to run his hand over the bridge of his nose. Cutely embarrassed.

What kind of gift from fate was this? I'd fixed his image of me, I was going to fix his ghost problem, and now he fucking wanted me. This was perfect. The dating probably wouldn't go well. I could easily win awards for being socially awkward and creepy, but we could still end up as fuck friends.

I'd be able to repair the hole in my aura!

"Yeah. That sounds really great." I didn't bother to try to hide my excitement. But I also had to be practical. "I don't really want to leave my house, though. Maybe you can come over for dinner?"

"That's fine, but I really wanted to get dinner for you. Not have you make dinner for me."

"It's okay. I love to cook. Why don't you bring the ingredients for aglio e olio. I'll make steak and a salad. We can cook together. But don't bring wine. I don't do alcohol. Ever."

"Okay. Yeah. Let's do that. That sounds really nice."

I fished in my pocket and snagged the first thing my fingers closed around. Pulled it out. It was a peach pit carved into a rose. I handed it to him. "Here. Take this and keep it in your pocket. It'll bring you good luck."

It'd keep the ghosts at bay. At least a couple feet away. They wouldn't be breathing down his neck.

"Thanks. I'll do that."

"Okay then. I'll see you Saturday afternoon."