in this world, there is the fear of the unknown and the fear of the known. there are stories of specters; spirits who haunt and walk the earth -- the souls of humans who aren’t able to pass on to the afterlife. these stories are a reality to kim sunggyu; 20 year old college student. ever since he was ten, these beings have been seen by him -- he doesn’t really know why this is, he doesn’t remember much of his childhood before ten actually. but for whatever reason, he was cursed with the ability to see and understand the spirits of those who failed to go to the afterlife, and he is burdened with the role of aiding them in the tasks that would help them do so. for the past ten years, he’s been living in two worlds.

 

“didn’t you sleep last night?” dongwoo asked with a worried expression clear on his features, sunggyu let out a sigh as his friend reached out to rub his shoulder, and shook his head. how could he sleep when he’d been bothered by that creep of a spirit? dongwoo frowned at this and gave sunggyu’s shoulder a squeeze before moving to nudge his boyfriend; howon looked over and raised a brow.

“go get him a coffee.” dongwoo urged, howon blinked a bit before scowling, “i’m not his slav--”

“howon.”

sunggyu watched with slight amusement as howon’s face paled, they both knew when dongwoo called him by his actual name and not the little nickname he gave the dancer in high school, he meant business. with a grunt, howon stood and stalked over towards the counter of the cafe and went to get sunggyu’s usual.

dongwoo then turned back to sunggyu and gave a bright smile, a smile sunggyu often found resembled the sun, he felt his shoulders relax slightly at the look -- dongwoo was good at lifting his spirits…

spirits.

a groan left the brunet and his head fell forward onto the table, causing a ‘thump’ to sound out. a few onlookers blinked in surprise and dongwoo let out a noise. “gyu! don’t do that, you’ll hurt yourself.”

“maybe enough head trauma will help me get rid of this curse.”

“please don’t go getting brain damage,” howon spoke up as he made his way over setting down sunggyu’s coffee frapp next to his head. “well, anymore than you have already.”

“hoya!”

sunggyu shifted his head so his cheek lay on the surface of the table, his hand reaching out and poking at the coffee, sunggyu watched as the condensation fell down the sides from the coldness of the drink and his gaze then shifted to his two friends.

“i’m going insane,” he declared “just lock me away.”

“that won’t do any good,” dongwoo huffed, “and you know it! come on, it wasn’t that bad…was it?”

sunggyu found himself thinking back to the night before. the spirit that came to visit him seemed to have died in a very -- unfortunate manner. have his jaw was missing and his arms were ripped with flesh hanging off his form. it was actually pretty terrifying and sunggyu had to stop himself from gagging as he tried to figure out how to help the guy. it had taken him three hours to realize the  man had worked in a factory and just wanted sunggyu to make sure his kitten was safe, and so sunggyu ended up just taking the cat in himself.

“well, i now have a five month old kitten.” he mused, “her name is clara.”

“clara?” dongwoo blinked at the name, “isn’t that english?”

“don’t ask me; i didn’t name her.”

sunggyu sat up and grabbed his drink, bringing the straw to his lips and taking a long sip, dongwoo seemed to be slightly confused but howon was the one who spoke up next; “at least you won’t be lonely anymore.”

“yeah, one step closer to being that creepy guy with a million cats.” sunggyu snorted, lowering his cup. “i have to go out and buy cat food and a litter box and all these things. i don’t have time for this! i have work --”

“-- and school.” dongwoo cut in, sunggyu stared at him for a moment before letting his head hit the table again.

“.”

 

ironically enough sunggyu had to go to his afternoon class just an hour later.the best thing he thinks about going to class was the distraction from all his problems involving spirits, but then he’d be swarmed with assignments and projects he’d have to worry about. it was hard to juggle his normal life along with his not so normal one, it was hard not to accidently speak to a spirit in public, hard not to freak out and scream when he saw a rather grotesque one. he loses sleep due to these visits and also loses time he could put towards actually graduating and doing something productive with his life.

he also loses his younger years. he sees howon and dongwoo happily dating and in a relationship and there he was, conversating with people who have lived and died already, how was he supposed to go out on a date when the chance of him running into some sort of specter was too high? he doesn’t even want to think about the first time he had . the memory makes him shiver, how the hell was he supposed to know her late father's ghost would be watching!? suffice to say he wasn’t too keen on going out with anyone after that traumatic experience.

so sunggyu lives alone -- well not entirely alone as he now has a cat, but no human contact or anything like that besides dongwoo and howon. the only two who know about his crazy ability and the only two who he’s positive wouldn’t run away screaming. well he’s also not really alone because of them; they’re always around. walking around here and there, on every street corner in every store. so many spirits that wander around seoul and sunggyu is stuck having to see them all. he can’t help them, not all of them -- but some of them don’t need his help, some of them are content just living among the living, watching and listening to how the people they left are without them.

class ends without much stress, he has another assignment due next week so he adds it to the list of a thousand things he’s already got to finish, and he walks home; mind set in a haze and ear buds in his ears blaring green nocturne, because lately nell has been calming his nerves and lord knows he needs it. he’s so distracted by jonghwan’s voice, he doesn’t notice the person walking ahead of him in the crosswalk, not until he bumps into the man and stumbles a bit back. but what he did notice was how as soon as he made contact with that stranger, the spirits around him seemingly vanished. it was enough to cause sunggyu’s eyes to go wide and his hand to shot out; fingers grasping the strangers wrist.

it’s as though time stood still for a moment, as though it was just him and this stranger -- and sunggyu watched as the man slowly turned to face him and their eyes met. now, sunggyu usually didn’t gawk at random men on the street but this man seemed to be almost...like he was glowing? could it be because after touching this man his vision of the undead vanished? some sort of saving grace for sunggyu, was that who this man was? the moment though ended as quickly as it had begun and his fingers released their grip on the strangers wrist.

“do you need something?” he spoke, and sunggyu blinked as he heard no sound but saw his lips clearly moving, it was then he remembered his ear buds and raised his hand to his ear, pulling one out.

“excuse me?”

a look of irritation fell on the stranger’s face, “i asked if you needed something, you just grabbed my wrist … do i know you?”

“uh --” sunggyu was at a loss of words, how was he supposed to tell this man that touching him made sunggyu stop seeing spirits, that was insane. he’d think sunggyu himself was insane! (which he probably was but that didn’t matter.)

“sorry.” he said instead, moving back a bit, “i thought you were someone else.” he lied and the stranger seemed to stare at him a moment longer before nodding and turning away again. sunggyu stood there as though in a trance and watched with a stupid expression as the man walked off, he followed his movements with his eyes and only the sound of a car honking shook him out of his daze. he quickly bowed towards the car and rushed across the street and leaned against the poke on the other side, his heart hammering against his chest as he tried to figure out what had just happened.