"Hey," Lukas called out after Gilbert left, drawing Emil's attention away from his book again. "Do ghosts really move on?"
"Of course," Emil replied casually, burying his face in his book. "If they didn't, the world would be completely overrun with spirits." He really hoped that would satisfy his boyfriend. It didn't.
"Does that mean I'm going to move on someday?"
Emil stared at the pages in front of him, thinking of how to answer that. "That's...usually the goal."
That hung in the air for several minutes. Emil didn't register any of the words in front of him, all information on different types of ghosts pushed to a far corner of his mind. Obviously, he didn't want Lukas to move on, and he had another idea…
"Is that why you've been training so hard?"
"What?" He finally looked at the ghost. Those deep blue eyes of his seemed to bore right through Emil, and he had to look away.
"Are you trying to get rid of me?"
"Of course not," he answered brusquely. "I'm training to be a medium, because it's—"
"Because it's the only thing you're good at, yes I've heard that excuse a few times."
"It's not an excuse."
"Bullshit, Emil, you've been keeping secrets from me."
"What secrets have I been keeping from you?" There was no way he could know, was there?
"How about why Mathias broke up with us?"
"What?" Well, that wasn't he had expected to hear at all. Lukas glared back at his confused face.
"You refuse to talk about it."
"But you went to talk to him."
"Yeah, and he wouldn't see me. So these past months, I've had no idea why."
"Oh." Emil sighed heavily and put his head in his hands. "So he left me with all the dirty work. I had to tell you we were being dumped and why." He took a shaky breath. "I'm sorry, Lukas, I didn't realize you didn't know."
"When I went to his house, it was completely warded. I could barely even go on the property. I had to throw a rock at his window, but he wouldn't come out."
Emil took several deep breaths in an attempt to calm himself. He had the answer to Lukas's question, but he didn't want to be the one to say it. Unfortunately, Mathias had left him no other choice.
"Lukas, I'm sorry, but I can't talk about this right now. Can you give me some time?"
The spirit sighed. "Well, I suppose it won't make a difference if I have to wait a little bit longer."
Emil headed to the bathroom to escape the awkward tension in the room. One of the disadvantages of dating a ghost was that you couldn't really evade them, except to go pee. Unless, of course, you meet a ghost who is obnoxious enough to follow you to the bathroom. Emil groaned quietly when such a spirit appeared next to him.
"So, you don't want to tell your boyfriend why your other boyfriend dumped you?" Gilbert asked.
"Do you always eavesdrop on people?" he answered under his breath, continuing down the hallway.
"Of course, it's my main form of entertainment. So why won't you tell him?"
"This is really none of your business."
"Aww, come on, have you talked to anyone about it?"
"No."
"You should let your feelings out. I won't tell the newbie."
"Why do you call Lukas a newbie, when he's been dead almost as long as you?"
"Because he's a newbie in my dorm, but don't change the subject. If you can't talk to your boyfriend about it, and you won't talk to me, who can you talk to?"
Emil ignored the ghost, leaning over the drinking fountain for several long seconds. Inspiration hit him with the cold water.
"Actually, there is someone I can talk to." He took out his phone and texted Tino, walking back towards his room.
"Hey, don't just ignore me!" Gil called after him, but he did just that.
Tino was planning to go home the next weekend, so they decided to talk when Emil went to the house for training.
Emil sincerely wanted to skip syllabus week, but Lukas insisted they both go.
"You can't just tag along with me everywhere," Emil complained. "What if someone sees you?"
"It'll be good advertisement for you as a medium to have your own ghost following you around. Besides, just because your town has an abnormal amount of people who can see ghosts, doesn't mean you'll find a lot here."
"You don't know that."
"Alright, fine, I'll go ahead of you and see if anyone in your classes can see me."
And that's how Lukas ended up standing in the doorway to Emil's astronomy lecture. Emil sat in the back, watching as his classmates and finally the professor walked right through the ghost. When class began, Lukas smoothly took a seat next to him.
"People that complain about being walked over have no idea how uncomfortable it is to be walked through," he said flatly.
It turned out that the astronomy professor also found syllabus week pointless, so he dove right in to the lecture material. Emil ignored some very pointed looks from his ghostly boyfriend as he attempted to take notes.
But he really had a lot on his mind. He was trying to teach himself decades of spirit mediation methods as quickly as possible, he had a ten-year-old murder to solve, and he had to find a way to explain Mathias's abandonment to Lukas. Plus, he had to keep an eye out for Mathias on campus; the last thing he wanted was to run into his ex-boyfriend unprepared.
Lukas made an annoyed sound next to him, grabbed his pencil right out of his hand, and corrected some mistake he had made in his notes.
"If you want me to help you out with any of your classes, you have to take proper notes," he hissed.
"Sorry," Emil mumbled and directed his attention back to the class.
The rest his classes passed similarly, and after each one he rushed back to his room to continue his medium studies. He was so absorbed that he didn't notice Lukas becoming more and more worried throughout the week.
Early Saturday morning, Emil drove to Tino's family's home to train. The Väinämöinens lived in a large manor in the country. Way out in the country. The drive out there was pretty and peaceful, even if it was long. They had bought the land a hundred or so years ago and had built the house themselves. This was to ensure no ghosts haunted the property, although throughout the years, they had filled the house with the spirits of family members.
Most of the family stuck around at least for a short time after death. Tino's parents had died when he was very young, and although his aunt took care of him as far as the state was concerned, they had lingered to help raise him. In fact, the family members were so skilled with ghosts, partly because they grew up constantly surrounded by them. Even the head of the family was Tino's dead great-great grandfather (although everyone simply called him Grandfather). It had taken Tino a while as a child to understand that he couldn't talk to ghosts in public, because other people couldn't see them.
Tino's aunt was expected to become the next head of the family, as she was the most practical when it came to business but fiercely caring when it came to family. The first time Tino had brought Emil over, she had taken one long, stern look at him before warmly accepting him into the family.
Grandfather hasn't been as warm. He had grilled Emil for over an hour about why he wanted to become a spirit medium. Finally, satisfied with the boy's honest answers and how serious he was about his goal, the head of the family had accepted him as well. He had even promised to give Emil the information he needed, once he had learned more and was strong enough.
Now, Emil was comfortable enough to let himself in the front door of the house. Tino greeted him from the kitchen, where he was eating breakfast.
"What was it you wanted to talk about?" he asked Emil over toast.
"Lukas doesn't know why Mathias broke up with us," he answered, grabbing a piece to occupy his hands. "But I don't want to be the one to tell him."
"Why not?"
"It's probably easiest if I just tell you what happened." He took a deep breath and began.
It happened about halfway through the summer. Mathias was giving Emil a ride home while the younger chatted happily about how his training was progressing.
"Emil, you haven't stopped talking about training all summer," Mathias said frowning.
"Well, it's what I've been doing all summer," Emil huffed. There was an edge to his boyfriend's voice that he didn't understand or like at all.
"Is that really what you want to do with your life? Talk to dead people?"
"It's the only thing I'm good at. Besides, we happen to be dating one of those dead people."
"That's the thing." The older boy paused for a moment. A long moment. Several minutes. They parked in front of the Steilssons' house, and with every passing second of silence, Emil's heart sank lower. His shoulders slumped forward, and he couldn't lift his gaze from his lap when Mathias finally found the words to say. "I don't want my life to be all about ghosts. I…love you and Lukas, but I have plans, and my mom can barely stand to be around me anymore with all the heebie jeebies I pick up from your house."
"You…you're breaking up with me? With Lukas?"
"With…both of you. I'm really sorry, Emil, I hate to do this to you."
"Then don't." Emil's voice threatened to crack, so he took a steadying breath. "You can't really love us if you're dumping us."
"You know I do. But this just isn't going to work out. I mean, you and I are going to grow older, and Lukas is going to stay 17 and dead." That made Emil go silent for several moments.
"You're such an asshole," he whispered finally.
"Emil, I—"
"No, fuck you, Mathias." He got out of the car and slammed the door. He stomped up to his house without a single tear, but he made the mistake of looking back when he unlocked the door. Mathias watched him from the driver's seat, his face a mixture of sadness, pity, and regret. The younger boy dashed into the house and up to his room.
"What's wrong with you?" Lukas asked dryly when he slammed the door and dove onto his bed. "Emil, what's wrong?" He sounded genuinely concerned that time, but the other boy was holding his breath, face smothered in his pillow, hoping with all his heart that he could keep from crying. He felt a cold but gentle touch on his back, and he slowly released his breath into the pillow. "Why don't you come up for air? You don't want to end up like me." Emil slowly sat up, but he couldn't bring himself to meet his boyfriend's eyes. His only boyfriend.
"Mathias broke up with me…with us…" he whispered.
"Wh-what?"
"I'm…sorry…Lukas…" Emil finally broke down into tears, and Lukas suddenly stood up from the bed.
"I'll be back," he said lowly and disappeared.
He returned not long afterwards but said nothing. He just held his boyfriend for the rest of the night, a silent, cold contrast to Emil's hot tears and heavy sobs.
"I see, so he doesn't want anything to do with ghosts anymore. I sort of understand that, since I don't want to be a medium." Emil didn't respond. "So you're afraid this will hurt Lukas?"
"Or he'll hate me for pushing Mathias away."
"How did you push him away?"
"By training to be a medium. Maybe he was okay with Lukas, but if I'll be working with more ghosts, that's too much."
"That may be true, but Lukas won't blame you for that. But he does deserve to know."
"I know, but...I don't know, I didn't think things would ever end so suddenly with Mathias, and I don't want to lose Lukas, too."
"Emil, he's probably just as scared of losing you. Probably even more, since he's so isolated as a spirit."
"Maybe you're right."
"So how is college going?" Tino gave him a bright smile, and Emil didn't mind the subject change at all.
"Oh, well there's another ghost in my dorm."
"Really? Well I guess that's not that uncommon."
"Except he claims he was murdered, and he wants me to help him figure out who killed him."
"He doesn't know?" Tino frowned worriedly.
"He says he was shoved from behind down the stairs in the dorm, but the police think he fell accidentally."
"I don't know if it would be a good idea for you to go looking for a murderer, Emil. Plus, you're not a detective."
"But isn't that part of the job of a medium? To carry out the will of the deceased?"
Tino smiled at him warmly. "You've been reading too many of those old books. Just don't put yourself in any danger, and don't go around accusing people of murder."
"I know, I'm not stupid."