Chapter 24: How To Annoy a Ghost

Ventus was cleaning up some books in the library, trying his best to tidy the room. There was going to be a party in the evening so he needed to make sure that everything was clean and ready for when the guest arrived.

Though just when he thought the room was clean, books fell off the shelf and papers flew everywhere. He waited until everything calmed down and stopped before giving a sigh and picking up everything again. He barely even batted an eye to the strange phenomenon, not that he really cared.

Right away a transparent boy with black hair appeared in front of Ventus. "Hey! Didn't that annoy you? Like even a little?"

Ventus didn't look at the boy, he just kept going on doing what he was doing. This only seemed to upset the transparent boy even more. "Come on! I know you can see and hear me! Stop ignoring me!"

There was no response from Ventus as he kept on finishing his cleaning. This only aggravated the boy even more. "Hey! Come oooooooon! Pay attention to me already!"

"Hey Ven," a different voice cut in. Standing in the doorway was one of Ventus's friends; Xion. "What happened here?"

There was a shrug. "Oh you know the usual. Just books going everywhere making a mess, no big deal."

"Oh yes it!" the ghosty boy shouted. "You both know I am here! Notice me already!"

Xion frowned as she looked around the room. "Did you hear something? Sounded like some angry air or um something."

Ventus shrugged. "I don't know, maybe you are just imagining something."

The ghost boy groaned. "Seriously! You know I am here! You know I am Vanitas! Your regular ghost who haunts this house!"

Xion gasped, perhaps a little exaggerated. "There it is again. Some weird sound!"

"Oh yeah," Ventus agreed. "I heard it too! Maybe we should get the air vents looked at."

"Yeah, I think we should. But come on, I need your help with the baking."

Ventus smiled and moved towards the door. "All right sounds yummy!"

"Hey!" Vanitas shouted as he flew after them. "Helloooooo. Come on already! You know if you guys are going to cook, I am just going to make a mess of things! You think that would be fun? Huh? Huuuuh?"

Still there was nothing as the two moved on towards the kitchen, leaving Vanitas behind. Vanitas grumbled to himself. He was going to get them to acknowledge him again, one way or another. He just had to figure out how to do it. Being a ghost made it tricky to interact with everything, and it took a certain level of concentration.

Flying after them he saw that they were in the kitchen with Lea, who was already deep into the baking process. Vanitas observed carefully as he saw Xion head to the fridge and pull out the carton of eggs. She set it down on the counter as she talked to Ventus and Lea.

"Perfect," Vanitas muttered aloud as he came closer to the table. Using the energy that he had he shoved the carton of eggs off of the counter. They crashed to the floor and egg goop went everywhere.

Lea looked over, furrowing his eyebrows slightly. He seemed to be looking at Vanitas's direction at first but then looked over to where Xion and Ventus were. "Xion, did you leave the eggs too close to the edge?"

"No I was sure I didn't…" Xion looked over at the mess of broken eyes. "Such a shame though that it happened…"

"Too bad indeed," Ventus agreed.

"Oh come on! Seriously?!" Vanitas screamed. "What's it going to take to get you guys to notice me? Do I have to trash the entire kitchen or something else?"

The three humans looked at the eggs and then at each other. Slowly Xion shrugged before her eyes drifted over to Vanitas. "Oh! Vanitas! When did you get here! Did you see what happened to the eggs?"

Vanitas grumbled. "You guys really want to play around with this? You really going to just let it slide? I ruined a good carton of eggs!"

Xion gasped dramatically. "What? You did such a thing? Vanitas that's not very nice of you!"

"Argh!" Vanitas shouted as he gripped his hair. "You guys all think you are really funny don't you?"

Lea was smirking. "We have no idea what you mean. We were just baking and 'poof' there you were."

"I was not just 'poof' then here! I've been here the entire time, you guys are just being stupid and ignoring me!"

"What? Come one Vanitas!" Ventus replied, snickering slightly. "That's not true, we just totally didn't know you were around today."

"Suuuuuure, so this entire time you guys didn't see me during my rampage in the library?"

"Wait was that you?" Ventus asked, his tone obviously fake. "I had no idea. I thought the books just had minds of their own."

"I've thrown those books around many times before! How can you suddenly think it wasn't me?!" Vanitas shouted as he flew in close to Ventus's face. "Just what do you think you are trying to pull?"

Ventus was grinning very widely now. Vanitas wished he could smack the smile off his face, but his powers did not reach that point. He could only do so much with interacting directly with a living being opposed to a non-living being. If he wanted to use up his energy he could temporarily possess Ventus, but that would wear him out much more than doing the other things.

"I have no idea what you could be talking about Vanitas. Xion, Lea, and I are just preparing for a party tonight. Though now we need to get some more eggs…" Ventus looked down at the mess still leaking out on the floor.

"You guys are just trying to do this to mess with me aren't you? You think it's really funny? I am a ghost! I can mess around with all of you guys and you can't stop me! Me on the other hand I can totally stop you guys from having fun!"

"Oh Vanitas, you don't need to do that," Xion replied. "Having you around as you are is already enough. Just be yourself."

"Argh! Whatever! Forget this! Just hope that tonight you're friends coming don't freak out when I start causing chaos!" Vanitas said before he flew up, going through the ceiling up to the next floor above.

Once he was gone the trio started to laugh quietly to one another. "So you think that rillied him up enough?" Ventus asked.

"Oh totally. He is right out pissed," Lea added. "He is going to be quite the surprise at the party tonight."

"You guys think maybe we should have just told him? I'm sure he would have agreed to scare and spook the guest," Xion sighed.

Ventus gave a shrug. "But the point is that we're supposed to pretend like we don't know anything and see how long it takes him to do something crazy and spooky. If he knew what the plan was then he would just act it out really poorly."

"Yeah, no offence to the guy but he can't act to save his life… or wouldn't be able to save his life if he was still alive."

"I guess you're right. Now all we gotta do is get the rest of the food prepared. Ven, are you going to go out and get some more eggs? I'll clean up the mess."

Ventus nodded as he headed towards the door. "Yeah I'll be out and back before you know it!"

With that, the three did what they could to prepare for the party that would be later that night. Vanitas wasn't seen throughout the remainder of the day. Whether he was just being invisible or hiding in the attic the three couldn't be sure. But when the party did start and the lights started to flicker, they knew they were in for a good scary time.


Finally another one day! Got a bit stuck on it but here it is!