Author's Note: I was requested by some sad, quarantined readers to finish this story. ^.^ I cannot refuse sad readers. I shall be updating as soon as I create a chapter, which only depends on when I get to sit down to write. I write about 2,000 words per sitting, so it can range from every day to multiple times a week.

Everything is going to be okay, sweetlings. Just do your best. It will be enough.

7

I fell asleep much like I had the night before: warm in fuzz and listening to the crack of fire. Naru made himself a bed in front of the fire from a comforter and pillow, keeping the coffee table between us. We had eaten more canned soup and those store-bought biscuits in a can (the sudden popping of those still terrify me). We talked of lighter things, like school and how my exam of the science building was going. Overwhelming fatigue rolled over me. I thought I could hear Naru say something, but when I woke up sometime around two in the morning to go pee, I couldn't remember a thing, though I did find myself bundled up in his full-size bed. I had no memory of being carried either.

I felt my way to the bathroom, did my business, then stepped out to find Naru asleep on the couch. Only then did I notice the full moon shining through the kitchen window.

I don't know if everyone gets this way, but when I see a full moon I get a tickle in the back of my mind, as though something should be happening tonight, or perhaps I should do something. It was nearly bright as daylight.

I turned around and came face to face…with Gene.

I knew it was him because he wasn't wearing silky dark blue pajamas, but dressed in Naru's usual blackety black. The way he looked at me was also different from Naru—less natural glare from underneath his eyebrows.

I froze. "Please tell me this isn't a dream and that I didn't just pee the couch."

That full blown smile cracked Gene's face, blowing away any doubt I had left as to whether this twin was Naru. Naru could never replicate that bright, eye squinting smile, nor the laugh that followed after that didn't bounce around the kitchen like my voice had. The air swallowed it whole.

"No," he said. "You're just lucky. You're mental defenses have been beaten down so far, you're spiritual eyes can open."

I frowned. "But Naru's house is protected against spirits."

"Not all spirits," the wide grin turned cocky. "I've got personal dibs on my twin and you. My own personal haunting." His expression fell, and he looked to the side, suddenly disarmed by something. "But I still shouldn't be this clear. This kitchen shouldn't look so clear to me. Nor the moon." He looked back at me. "The spiritual realm—"

"—is built off perspective and intention," I finished for him. Then I shrugged. "Beats me. I just started being a Junior. All the juicy stuff is in the black magic class."

"I am not black magic."

"Oh, but you are black," I wriggled my fingers at him.

He looked down at himself. "What are you talking about? I'm wearing blue. Blue shirt, jeans…"

"Ah, it must be how I perceive you. Nevermind."

Palms sweaty (this still wasn't an everyday thing you could get use to,) I leaned against the stove.

"What can I do for you, Gene?"

He was still looking down at himself, as though all he had to do was squint hard enough to see what I did.

"Nothing. Just…thanks. For putting up with him."

I raised an eyebrow. "So far it's more like him putting up with me. I've been all ragged- Anne-doll sobby."

Another smile. "That makes no sense."

"So does. But, what, were you worried that he'd be alone forever? Is, that, like the thing holding you back?"

He shook his head. "The spiritual plain is much closer than you think. There are spirits everywhere, watching, whispering, trying to help or trying to harm. The defenses you're learning against possession is something all religions practice to some point in order to avoid temptation, sin, or otherwise unwanted influence from, well…" he spread his arms out.

"You sound like Naru."

"Dude, you don't say that to identical twins. Rude."

I rolled my eyes. "Okay, okay. So, spiritual defenses are just ways to avoid temptation and influence that's always been around, it's nothing new, yes yes…you didn't answer my question."

He cocked his head to the side, a curious look that was also entirely Gene.

"Yes I did. The spiritual plain is the spirit world. Where spirits go when they die? It's here. It's on Earth. Moving on? That's just going out of view, but that's just a, um…state of perception?"

"Ugh, I hear that so much in class. State of perception."

"It's like seeing different levels of light—"

"Don't. Just don't. I take physics for a reason." But I did pause. "You're…you're always going to be here?"

He gave me a small smile full of bright hope and happiness.

"The spirits of the dead never really leave," he said, taking a step closer—but that one spiritual step covered the entire space between us, and I found us nearly nose to nose. I would have felt his breath, if he had had any to give. "It's just a change of state. One where you can't see or hear us or feel us all the time. But we can still see and hear you." The back of his fingers brushed across my cheek, and I felt them, soft, gentle, and yet nothing but intention. His smile was heartbreaking. "I love my family. Why would I leave them?"

I reached up to touch his hand, and my fingers touched my own cheek.

"Then…why are you looking at me like that? I'm not..."

A crack of floorboards caught my attention. My eyes only twitched and Gene vanished, as though I had been staring at the kitchen sink behind him the whole time.

Leaning against the archway into the living room stood my professor, his flat expression lit with silver moonlight. With Gene's face still bright in my mind, I couldn't believe I had ever mistaken him for his brother.

"Having a nice visit?" he asked, rather dryly.

I dropped my tingling hand. "Sir, I think you have a personal haunting."

"I do? You're the one seeing him."

I could just catch an edge of bitterness in his tone, small enough to miss. But, then, I had sort of expected it.

"Why do you hate that I can talk to your dead brother? You aren't, like, jealous of me, are you?"

"No," he said, looking out the dining room window. "If I want to see him I just look in the mirror."

"….Theeeeen….?"

"I'm not sure where you're getting this from. So you talk to my brother in the kitchen and wake me up in the middle of the night. Now that it's over and I can sleep, the irritation stops there."

He turned back into the living room. I thought that was it, but then I heard the clink of the fire poker and the brief flare up of amber light. I rubbed my itchy eyes and made my way to the living room, where Naru had crouched in front of the fireplace to breathe back the tongues of flame on glowing red coals.

"But," I started, wondering if I should say anything at all. "You asked me if I was sure I loved you and not Gene. Why else would you ask that?"

He let out a heavy sigh, same old exasperation. Guess kissing your student didn't make them any less aggravating.

"I thought you knew," he said, still looking at the fire. "Gene's the friendly one everyone likes. I'm, like, the shadow twin they tried to lure out into the sun to see if I would melt."

"Wow. Inferiority complex much?"

He snorted. "Hardly. I just matured faster than them and had better things to do, like getting my PhD."

I had to grin at that, even as it broke into a yawn.

"Well, I like you, not him, so stop worrying."

He tched between his teeth. "I wasn't worrying."

"You were so worrying."

"You woke me up talking to dead people."

"You study dead people."

"Stop. You aren't winning, so stop." He tossed another log onto the revitalized fire and leaned back against the coffee table. "Any pressing messages he had to give?"

I shrugged as I let myself sit on the armrest of the couch next to him and the warmth of the fire. Without thinking, he put a hand over my foot nearest to him, and the heat of his fingers sent shivers shooting up my spine. My skin prickled into goose bumps.

"He said my mental defenses had been beaten down to the point my spiritual eyes could open."

"Ahh," he said, probably because he already knew that.

"Don't 'ah' like you know everything. Am I going to see dead people every time I have a mental meltdown?"

"Probably," he said, his thumb starting circles over my toes. His dark eyes reflected the fire. "The more it happens, the more vulnerable you'll be to it."

I scowled. "Then why now? Why not when my dad or my mom died?"

"Did that break you as suddenly?"

And I wasn't surprised. No. It hadn't been like this. My father's death I hardly remembered. My mother's had broken over me like a wave on the shore. She had been disappearing so steadily over time, when she finally was gone, it was like a slow-coming burn. While not any less than this pain, I had been able to adjust slowly but surely.

This? This…had come like a rug pulled out from underneath me.

"How lame," I mumbled.

"Lame?"

"That stupid boy problems would be harder to deal with than my freaking parents dying."

"You haven't listened to a word I've said, have you?" he sighed. "To anyone who had a foundation, aka, love to fall back onto in the form of family in some shape or another, this would just be 'boy problems.' But you, who have no foundation, this is you trying to establish one, be it with friends or romance. Of course it's going to break you when you try to put your foot down to rest and the earth vanishes."

I rested my chin on the knee of the leg I had folded to my chest. "Like I said. Lame. It makes me sound so fragile."

"You are fragile." He gave one last poke of the logs and hung up the poker. "Why do you think I've been so cautious about starting anything with you?"

I wrinkled my nose. "Oh, thanks. 'You're cute and all, but I don't want to date something that'll break.'"

He groaned and flopped his head back in exasperation. I readied myself for another scolding. But, instead, he got to his feat, moved to the end of the couch where I perched on the armrest, and pulled me down over his lap. At first, I squeezed my arms to my chest like a terrified child. Then, at his somewhat mocking, straight-lip smile I knew so well, I relaxed and let my arms go around his neck. There, I nuzzled my face against his hair.

"You're stupid," he murmured against my ear. "But, then, so am I."

"Are those your sweet seductive secrets whispered in my ear?"

He brushed his nose against my ear, breathed in, and let it out in a puff of "hush, you."

His lips trailed the shell of my ear. His arms about me tightened, giving him easy access to press his face to the hollow of my throat, where he placed another one of his soft, butterfly kisses.

I shivered. It was as though he had breathed in the flames he had coaxed back to life and saved them to press back into my skin.

After a moment of slow breathing against my throat, he spoke very quietly, "Yes. I'm jealous."

My hands clenched in his hair as the guilt prickled me.

"But not of you," he breathed, pushing his nose up to trail my jaw. "He…he would have been perfect for you. Everything you needed." A sigh. "Not like me."

I pulled against his arms, and he released me quickly, too quickly, probably all too ready for me to jump out of his arms. But, against his stupid self-esteem, I took hold of his face and kissed his mouth as passionately as I could with a healing, split lip. Feeling both silly and annoyed, I left one last peck to his nose before pulling away to look him in the eyes.

"You're right," I said. "You are stupid. And I hope I'm not a complete loser when it comes to kissing."

"On the contrary," his arms retightened about my waist and hips, pulling me round to spread me out on his couch beneath him. Though he held himself above me, gripping the couch cushions on either side, I could feel that same fire in the steady, unflinching way his eyes found mine. Without another word, he ducked his head down to kiss me as he had only done once in the shower, the kiss which had in turn made him flee. His tongue darted out only for a second to grace over my cut, as though to verify it was still okay, before he turned his head to slot his mouth over mine.

Fire, warm, luxurious, and burning out from low in my gut, washed over me.

All too soon, it was over, and he was once more looking down at me, framed by fringes of his straight, black hair.

"Now stop tempting me and go to bed. We can talk about what you saw in the morning."