Pacing in a small apartment was much easier when you could walk through the furniture.

Not that Shuichi had a good reason to be pacing in the first place, because there was nothing to worry about. But he was a master of overthinking, and as long as he was invisible it wasn't like his pacing was going to bother Kaede, so he kept doing it anyway. It was better than stopping and letting everything overwhelm him.

He couldn't even say that he was making a mistake, because it was the sensible thing to do.

It had started when Tenko came over, ostensibly to study with Kaede. That hadn't lasted very long. It might have had something to do with the fact that Tenko had insisted that Shuichi join them, despite his not knowing anything about the material. He couldn't bring himself to decline, though. He was just pleased that she'd thought to invite him. It was always nice to have proof that people genuinely wanted him around. Sure, those people occasionally tried to throw him across the room, but as long as he was intangible they could have a pleasant conversation.

He'd started to relax, enough that when Tenko had abruptly gotten serious, he didn't feel the urge to flee. "I don't know if you want other people to know about you, or if there's a government conspiracy keeping you secret or something, but if you're interested I have a friend who might be able to help you." She brightened. "Her name is Himiko, and she's a mage! She's really good at magic, even if she has to hide it most of the time by acting like a magician. She's also super cute! If you try anything with her, though, I will absolutely find a way to touch you so I can break all your bones." She kept smiling, but Shuichi had no doubt she meant it. It would have been touching if it wasn't utterly terrifying. "But I'm sure you'll be fine."

Shuichi decided to ignore the threat in favor of processing the rest of that information. "Um," he said. And then, "Wait, how is acting like a magician hiding her magic?"

"Because she's actually a mage? Come on." Tenko looked unimpressed by the question, which seemed unfair. It wasn't like Shuichi being magical himself meant he knew all the nuances of the terminology.

And now that he thought about it, he was magical, wasn't he? It was a weird idea. He still thought of himself as a completely average person. He decided to shelve that thought with the rest of the identity crisis he was procrastinating. Instead he said, "I don't want be a nuisance, but if she's willing to talk to me, I'd appreciate it." It would be nice to have a second opinion on the chances of him randomly murdering someone, ideally from someone whose speech patterns didn't make them sound crazy. Maybe that would convince Kaede not to blindly trust him.

But when he looked over at her, she was smiling. "That sounds great," she said. "Here, give me her number and we can figure things out."

"Sure thing!" Tenko bounced over to put the number into Kaede's phone. "She'll be happy to have some real magic to do, and I'm sure you're going to love her."

Shuichi hoped it would be that simple.

From there, the conversation had moved back to less fraught topics, and Shuichi could almost forget to be stressed. Tenko's high energy might make her difficult to keep up with, but it was a fantastic distraction. He managed to enjoy the rest of her visit without reservation.

After she'd left, he and Kaede worked out a time for Himiko to come over and do her thing. Whatever that thing was. When that was settled and Kaede had sent the text, she looked at him, her expression fond. "I know this can't be easy for you, but I think it will really help," she said. "Thank you for trusting us enough to try it."

Shuichi looked away. He thought he might be blushing, though it was hard to tell without any sense of temperature. "O-of course," he said."

Kaede's phone went off, confirming that Himiko could come over, and that was that.

It had been so simple to think about in the abstract. Now, though, Himiko was supposed to arrive at any minute, and Shuichi was freaking out. What if Himiko decided he really was evil? And if she didn't, then he'd have to worry about whether Gundham really knew as much as he claimed, and which of them to believe. Or maybe Himiko wouldn't know anything at all, and he would have wasted everyone's time for no reason.

And before he could start worrying about that, he'd probably have to hold a conversation with Himiko. He was so bad at small talk. He couldn't even talk about the weather, because he hadn't been outside since this whole ordeal started.

There were so many chances for things to go wrong.

He'd worked himself into enough of a state to jump when the doorbell rang. Shuichi went through the motions of breathing as Kaede answered the door. By the time Himiko came in, he'd manifested fully, an expression on his face that he hoped was more of a smile than a grimace.

Shuichi's first impression of Himiko was that she wasn't what he had expected. The word mage conjured images of old men in long robes, probably carrying staves of wizened wood. Himiko herself was a short young girl in a sensible sweater carrying a canvas bag. She did pull a pointy hat out of said bag, which helped, but otherwise she just looked like a normal person. "Alright," she said, once she was properly attired. "You're Shuichi, right? Tenko told me about you. Nice to meet you." She smothered a yawn.

Shuichi nodded stiffly. "Nice to meet you."

As always, Kaede was a lifesaver. "Thanks for coming," she said. "Can I get you anything to drink?"

Himiko shook her head. "Nah, let's just get started. The sooner we start, the sooner we can get this over with and I can go home."

That wasn't a very encouraging thing to hear. Shuichi didn't even know what she was planning to do that needed to be gotten over with. He didn't want to be the one to ask, though, so he said nothing. She'd tell them soon enough. Probably.

Himiko sat down on the floor, then gestured for Shuichi and Kaede to do the same. They did so, making a rough circle by the entrance. "So," she said. "I don't actually know very much about necromancy. My specialty is conjuring." Kaede raised her hand. "I'm bad at ghosts, but good at making things out of magic." Kaede put her hand back down again. Himiko grinned. "But luckily for you, I'm very good at making things, including something you'll probably want to know about. Do you know what a magical focus is?"

Shuichi had no idea why people expected him to know things. He didn't even know his own address. "No," he said.

"The idea is that you store some of your energy in an object, then later you can use it to help you control your magic. Not that someone as skilled as me needs one, but it'd be great for you. After all, a ghost is just a person whose magic involves being dead, right?"

"I... okay." He was beginning to wonder if there was some magical benefit to being as hard to follow as possible. "So if you make me a focus, I'll get better at vanishing and appearing?"

"Probably. It'll also let you do it more selectively, so you can hide in mirrors or choose who can see you and who can't." She tapped her chin. "I'm pretty sure, anyway. But what's really cool about it is that it will stand in for the current center of your power." Shuichi must have looked as lost as he felt, because she explained, "At the moment, you're stuck here, right? Having a focus will trick whatever's keeping you here into thinking that the focus is where you're supposed to be. You'll be able to go anywhere as long as someone can get your focus there first."

Shuichi felt like he'd been punched in the chest, but in a good way, for once. He'd finally be able to leave. He could re-enter the world, and it sounded like he wouldn't even have to deal with any of the things in it until he was ready, if he had that sort of control over his visibility. He could stop worrying that he was mooching off of Kaede too much. There were so many options opening up for him, and it was exhilarating, and even the fears that were already entering his mind couldn't kill his good mood.

"That's amazing!" Kaede said. Her eyes were gleaming, and looking at them only made Shuichi's smile widen even more. "This is everything we could have hoped for, thank you so much!"

"Hehe, it's no problem for a mage like me." Despite her words, Himiko looked incredibly pleased with herself. "Just be careful at first. Until you get used to having a focus, you probably don't want to touch it. If you're not paying attention, you could start putting more magic into it or taking some out. Putting too much in could drain you and make you lose the ability to maintain your form, at which point anyone could kidnap you by stealing your focus, and taking too much out would make it lose its effectiveness. If it stops doing its job while you're outside the apartment..."

Shuichi thought about what had happened the first and only time he'd tried to leave, and how the effect had only gotten worse the farther he'd gone. He swallowed. "That would be bad." Of course, that meant he was still stuck relying on someone else to carry him around, which was less than ideal. Not that he had much room to complain. Some freedom was better than none, and from the sound of it, he'd be able to carry his own focus eventually. He was sure Kaede would be just as happy to stop having to worry about him for once.

Himiko pulled a book out of her bag, flipped through it, and nodded. "Okay, that's enough boring explanations. It's time to get started. You need to choose an object to use for your focus."

"Wait, are you not just making it appear?" She had practically introduced herself by saying she was good at making things out of magic.

"I mean, I could, but the results aren't as good. It's much easier to do magic with something you have strong feelings about, and you're going to want things as easy as possible." She rubbed her eye absently. "Besides, creating something entirely out of magic is such a pain."

That made sense, but once again, Shuichi was forced to confront the fact that he had to have other people do everything for him. It wasn't like he owned any physical objects anymore. He looked over at Kaede slightly desperately.

Kaede hummed thoughtfully. "I don't know about Shuichi, but I know some things that might work? Let me know if you have a better idea, though."

"I really don't," Shuichi said.

"Fair enough. I'll be right back, then." With that, she stood up and began running around the apartment, gathering trinkets. Shuichi and Himiko watched in bemusement. Shuichi realized after a moment that this was going to take awhile, and that it was probably time to start a conversation. He wracked his brain for a neutral subject of interest. Before he could think of one, Kaede came back, brandishing her findings. "Let's see, I've got some old books that I think I've seen you reading, a branch from that plant in the kitchen that I'm pretty sure is only alive because of you, and your favorite pillow off the couch."

She dumped them on the floor for Shuichi to consider. He studied them carefully in an attempt to hide how touched he was by her thoughtfulness. He hadn't realized she'd paid that much attention to his habits. He could have used any of them as a focus based on that fact alone, much less the things she'd described about them. There was just one problem. "Thank you," he said, and was pleased to hear that he didn't sound too choked up. "But wouldn't all of these be really hard to carry around? I mean, books are heavy, branches snap easily, and I have no idea how you'd carry a pillow without getting weird looks. I don't want to make your life harder for my sake."

"Ugh, you're right. I hadn't even considered that." She frowned. "I don't know if we're going to think of anything better, though. Unless you have a pet rock you're really attached to?"

"I wish." They both went quiet. Shuichi glanced over at Himiko, but she didn't seem to have any helpful suggestions, either.

He looked back at Kaede, and that's when a thought occurred to him. There was one thing he could think of that would be trivial for Kaede to carry around. Unfortunately, it was also something slightly personal. He didn't want to make her uncomfortable by asking for it.

He didn't have any better ideas, though, and Himiko was looking kind of bored. "Actually," he began. "There is something, but... I don't know, I don't want you to feel like you have to give it to me or anything."

"You're fine!" Kaede said immediately. "if it's that important to me, I can just say no."

"Well, if you want something that will be easy to bring with you, I can always use one of your hairpins." Shuichi rubbed his arm nervously. "Or we can keep looking, if you want. That's probably the better idea."

Kaede touched her hairpins self-consciously. "No, you have a point. I definitely won't forget these. But would they work for you?"

Shuichi looked away. He was definitely blushing this time. "Yeah, I think so. If you're okay with it, I think I could manage it."

"That sounds good, then." Shuichi risked looking back at her just as she took the beamed eighth note out of her hair. "I just hope this doesn't make it glow or something. I don't know how I'd explain that to my friends..."

Shuichi took the pin self-consciously. He tried to stay focused, but when he turned back to Himiko, she was smirking for some reason. "Finally," she said. "Are you ready to get started?"

"I guess?"

"Good. Don't worry, this should be easy. Just imagine energy flowing out of you and into the pin." She cracked her knuckles. "I'll be making sure the magic takes, so when you're ready, just send it over."

It was nice to know that Himiko would actually be helping. If nothing else, it lowered the chances that Shuichi would somehow destroy something Kaede so clearly cared about because he didn't know what he was doing.

But thinking about that was only going to make him more anxious, so he turned his mind to the task at hand. He turned the pin over in his hands, picturing a thread of energy connecting to him. It made him feel kind of silly, until he realized that he could feel his own energy draining. He hoped that was a good sign.

He didn't know how long they sat in silence before Himiko spoke up again. "Okay, that should be good. You can stop now." She yawned. "I'm exhausted."

"That's it?" Kaede asked. "It didn't look like you did anything."

"That's because you're not a mage. All you need to know is that my magic solved your problems, just like always."

"You know, I'm okay with that. Thank you so much."

"It was simple." Himiko said. "Well, if that's it, I'm going to go home and take a nap. Make sure you don't touch that too much, Shuichi."

Shuichi had been rubbing the pin absent-mindedly, but at the reminder, he quickly handed it back to Kaede. "Right," he said. Then, without thinking, he stood up. "And before you go, um, can I ask you a question? I know you said you don't know much about ghosts, but I wanted to get a second opinion on something." He needed to ask, he knew he did, and so he forced the words out. "Do you think I'm going to be dangerous? I don't want to hurt anyone."

Himiko hesitated, which didn't help Shuichi's anxiety anyway. "I don't know," she said at last. "I mean, maybe? But magic has a lot to do with intention, so if you're that worried about not turning evil, you're probably fine." Shuichi sagged with relief, but she wasn't done. "Of course, it depends on what's keeping you here. I've heard stories about dark magic corrupting even the best intentions. So if that's involved, it won't really matter what you want." She shrugged, as if she wasn't confirming Shuichi's worst fears. "It's hard to say. You should probably just wait and see what happens, and if you feel like you're turning into a poltergeist, give me a call. I can probably figure out how get rid of you."

"Thank you?" Shuichi struggled to come up with the appropriate response. He felt rooted to the ground, unable to take a single step for fear that it would awaken the possible evil lurking in him. He watched as Himiko put her hat back in her bag, as Kaede walked her to the door and exchanged the appropriate pleasantries. He waved a goodbye at the appropriate point.

Then it was just him and Kaede in the apartment as usual. He hoped that wouldn't come back to bite her. Right now, at least, she was beaming, and he did his best to return her smile. "This is so exciting!" she said. She put the pin back in her hair with practiced ease. "We should go out and test this right away."

Shuichi scratched the back of his head. "I don't know," he said. "I'm still a little tired from doing the magic." It was true enough, though he hoped Kaede didn't press the issue. She'd dealt with enough of his dramatics, he didn't want to dump more on her. Not when she was so close to being free of him.

She didn't push it, because she was incredible and he didn't deserve her. "That's okay," she said. "How about you come with me to class tomorrow? You can explore the campus while I'm trapped in a lecture."

"That would be nice," Shuichi said. He could spend the night wrangling his brain into submission, and hopefully in the morning he'd be ready to actually enjoy himself again. It was going to work out. He'd get out of the apartment for the first time, he'd see what the big deal about the sun was, he'd give Kaede some space for a change. It would be good. He just needed to stop being so ridiculous for once.

He was going to go out and have fun, secure in the knowledge that if worse came to worst, there were people who were ready to get rid of him.