Nanami Chiaki would leave, if she could. Or at least, she told herself that she'd leave if she could. She wasn't entirely sure.
She'd never been entirely sure of anything. She didn't remember much of her life before this, but she knew she was always making bad decisions. She was too trusting. Too gentle. Too carefree. She spent most of her time gaming, and when she wasn't gaming she was sleeping to make up for how much time she had spent gaming. She missed those days.
She got involved with some things she shouldn't have. Not on purpose. he was just kind of dragged into them. Mainly because of the girl who used to live next door to her. Back when she was a child, Nanami would have sold her soul to be able to play with Enoshima Junko and her friends. They were older than she was, and they were bigger than she was, and they were better than she was. She would watch them line up and play soldier games or deserted island games and arm themselves with sticks that were actually guns or swords. Nanami would press her hands against the window and she'd watch them fight and then fall, one by one, until Enoshima stood the sole victor, her older sister usually sacrificing herself so that she alone could win.
Nanami was never allowed to play with Enoshima and her sister and her friends. Thinking back on it, she didn't know whether it was her mother or her father who forbade her from joining in. She can't remember anything about her parents anymore.
Sometimes, she'd be allowed out of the house. She remembered that. And she'd always approach Enoshima, even though her parents said not too. She'd take tiny, tentative footsteps, and she'd stutter a greeting, and Enoshima Junko would look down on her in disgust. She'd ask Nanami what she wanted, usually calling her a maggot or a worm, and Nanami would always mumble that she wanted to play with Enoshima, and Enoshima would laugh and push her or hit her or kick her, and tell her no. Nanami was never allowed to play. She was too ugly or too fat or too stupid to join Enoshima's gang, and she'd always go home upset or crying.
That's why her parents didn't want her to talk to Enoshima. Nanami remembered that now.
She hadn't always stayed the chubby, awkward child that wanted to play with Enoshima though. She'd grown up. She'd never really forgotten what Enoshima used to say about her; the names and the comments about her appearance, but she grew into her nose eventually, and started cutting her hair in a style that was clean and even. She lost a lot of her excess weight as she grew, and by the time she was fifteen she was somewhat slender and curvy and her parents always told her that she was such a pretty little girl, she should go out and make friends and do fun teenager things and not be in the house on the computer all day.
But inside, Nanami was still the girl Enoshima had pushed and kicked. She didn't know who to hang out with or who to trust, and she didn't particularly want to. She made a few friends and didn't really speak to them. She kept herself to herself most of the time.
The thing was, the whole time Nanami had been developing and growing up, Enoshima Junko had been, too. And her gang had been. And those sticks they used as guns became real guns, and this group of rowdy teenagers terrorised the school and the town they lived in. Fujisaki Chihiro, who Nanami had befriended, told her that they couldn't have that, and that some of the other students had grouped together with all the other gangs in the neighbourhood to try and take them down. Fujisaki suggested Nanami joined this new gang, this gang that was fighting for a better future, but Nanami turned the offer down. She wanted nothing to do with Enoshima Junko.
Unfortunately, Enoshima Junko wanted everything to do with her, and when Nanami arrived home that night, instead of finding her house empty, she'd found her next door neighbour waiting for her.
"Well," she'd said, "it looks like the maggot next door got a lot larger when I wasn't looking. Must've fed on too much rotten flesh, gorged itself for years, to become this disgusting creature it is now. It's not even a maggot anymore."
Nanami swallowed. "It's nice to see you again too, Enoshima-san."
"Let's cut to the chase," Enoshima had taken that chance to leap from her seat. "You know why I'm here, don't you?"
But Nanami didn't know why Enoshima was there, and she was scared and afraid and shook her head frantically because she couldn't answer, and when she shook her head Enoshima smiled, and let out this little "tch" noise, and approached Nanami slowly, her eyes gleaming menacingly.
"No? Really? Is that the best you can manage? No idea as to why I'm here? None at all?"
"I'm afraid not," Nanami mumbled, and Enoshima reached her and licked her lips and let her smile fall, so it was softer.
"Why," she had changed her tone so that it was lighter, "I'm here to say that, after years of waiting, your request to join my gang has finally been approved! Isn't that wonderful!"
"But I-" Nanami began, but Enoshima has grabbed her and pushed her against a wall.
"Listen here, maggot, I need someone like you," Enoshima shoved her face against Nanami's and Nanami could feel and taste her breath. "I need someone who can get close to the enemy, and I know for a fact you can. So here's how it's going to work. You're going to join their gang, and you're going to bring it down from the inside. Any weapons they get, you sabotage or steal. Any plans they make? You leak 'em to me. There's no "if" "but" or "maybe" involved. You wanted this. You used to crave this. You used to be so desperate for my attention that you'd come back to me again and again even though you knew all I'd do was hit you. So now you've got my attention, and you're an asset to me. Be fucking grateful."
With that, Enoshima had released Nanami, and left. Nanami had slid down the wall and just sat, leaning against it, crying.
She'd still been sat there crying when her parents had come back. And the next day, she cried as she told Fujisaki everything that happened, and she'd shaken when Fujisaki took her to the leaders of Enoshima's rival gang, and she'd almost cried again when she told them what had happened.
"Interesting," Togami Byakuya, the first gang leader, had said in response.
"Yes, quite," the leader of the second gang, Kirigiri Kyouko, nodded. "But we already know Enoshima-san is cunning."
The third and final gang leader, Oowada Mondo, slammed his hands on his desk. "Fuck how cunning she is! How do we know we don't already have a rat in amongst us?!"
"Uh, well," Naegi Makoto, Kirigiri's ever present second-in-command, began, "I don't think Enoshima-san would have attempted to recruit Nanami-san if that was the case. But," Naegi had turned from Oowada to Nanami, "if you don't want to work with Enoshima-san, we could turn her own plan against her?"
Kirigiri's brow furrowed. "Use Nanami-san to gather information about Enoshima-san's movements?"
Nanami's stomach dropped when Naegi nodded, but she remembered realising that she either fought against Enoshima or with her. And she didn't want it to be with her.
It wasn't long until Enoshima knew their was a traitor in among her perfect gang of miscreants and thieves and liars and cheats and scum and murderers. And her first suspicion had been, of course, Nanami Chiaki.
That was why Nanami was where she was now; dead. She'd been murdered (and quite brutally, Nanami herself always thought) and left to rot. Her parents never found her body, and she'd never been laid to rest. Nanami supposed that was why her soul wasn't at peace.
Enoshima didn't live in the house next door to her anymore, and her parents didn't live in her house. She wasn't sure how long she'd been dead for, but if she had to guess, she'd say seven or eight years. It was definitely more than five, because the new owners of the house had been living in it for, and she'd been dead for at least a year before her parents moved away, and she'd been in this house alone for another year before the Hinatas moved in. She supposed she was haunting this house. She couldn't leave it. She guessed that was because, unbeknownst to the new owners, unbeknownst to her parents, the walls of this house had been the last place she'd even seen.
She'd died there, in her home. She remembered that. She can't feel anything now, but she liked to pretend she could touch things and shiver in the cold. The only feelings she really remembered was the pain that had surged through her as she'd died. She didn't really like to think back on her death. It hadn't been pleasant.
She had no idea what had happened to what was left of her body, but she was still in her house. Although, it wasn't really her house anymore. A small family lived there now. The son had a friend who could see her. That was nice. Sometimes he'd come round and he'd try to talk to her, which was also nice. He'd make promises she knew he wouldn't be able to keep, like he'd find Enoshima Junko and he'd find her body and he'd end this. She always told him he wouldn't be able to, but he'd just smile and say that he had extremely good luck.
Nanami would leave, if she could, but she couldn't. She'd tried several times, but it was almost like she was attached to the house. She told herself that she'd leave if she could, but she wasn't entirely sure. Because there was a boy living in her house, a boy who was close to turning eighteen, two years older than Nanami had been when she'd died. He had sticky up hair and soft olive eyes and an infectious laugh and Nanami knew without a doubt that she was in love with him. She did her best to help him; if he lost something she'd find it for him, she'd make sure his room didn't get too messy (partly because it used to be her room and she didn't want to see it destroyed completely), if he dropped something she'd catch it so it barely got damaged, and when he played video games (which he did, even though he was terrible at them), she would help him beat it, which she supposed was kind of cheating, but she didn't care.
Sometimes she wondered what life would be like. If she'd lived to be... She didn't even know how old she was now. She couldn't remember when she'd been born. She wondered though, if she'd grown up, would she have found her own Hinata Hajime? Someone who she loved and who loved her back and could see and hear and touch her and whisper sweet nothings to her as they fell asleep together, entwined in each others arms.
The Hinata Hajime she had now couldn't see or hear or touch her, but his friend Komaeda told her that if Hinata knew her, he would love her.
"You seem like the sort of girl he'd ask to hang out with us," he told her once.
"I don't think so, Komaeda-kun," she'd replied, shaking her head. "I'm plain and boring and-"
Komaeda laughed. "Nanami-san, you're literally a ghost! That's terrifying and also incredible!"
"I suppose," she shrugged. "But if I was alive-"
"Hinata-kun would love talking to you just as much as I do," Komaeda stopped laughing. "I mean, you're dead and you haunt this house and I get that must suck, but look on the bright side of things."
Nanami had argued that there wasn't a bright side; she was dead. Komaeda had said that if she had lived, he'd never had met her, and she'd never have met Hinata, and sometimes Nanami thought that even though he couldn't see her or talk to her or hear her or touch her, and even though he didn't know she existed, she got to watch a slightly assholish boy grow into a wonderful man, and she got to feel liked by his friend Komaeda, and she had a chance to experience things she never had when she was alive, like friendship, and love.
She supposed that if she was going to be stuck in this house forever, she might as well make the most of it, and be grateful for small blessings.
author's note: hhhhhhh ive been really hesitant about uploading this one because? ? im not very satisfied w it and its kind of lame but i dont really want to re-write it and yeah, it didn't come out the way i planned it but it came out and i dont want to get rid of it because i worked hard on it so. here you go. i hope you dont hate it too much.