“I just don’t get it!” 

“Your sentiments are my own.”

“I mean, what does he have that I don’t?”

“The gift of the afterlife in general.”

“So why?” I turned to Luhan where we stood in the hospital elevator, “Why does my grandfather trust some demon more than his granddaughter?” Thankfully, no one else was there to watch me talk to myself. “Have you asked Yongguk what he thinks, he says. If you’re going to act on your stupidity, at least have him there to catch you when you fall, he says. I get discharged from the hospital in a month’s time, he says, so rethink what you’re trying to do. For a month?”

“For a month!” Luhan repeated. 

“It’s unbelievable!”

“I’m shocked beyond belief!” Luhan mimicked my wronged expression.

“And you!” I shook his shoulders, his frame like thick air beneath my fingers, “Why didn’t you try to butter him up? You don’t have that face for nothing!”

“I have this face thanks to my parents,” he corrected nonchalantly, unfazed by the rejection we’d received from my grandfather moments before, “and I don’t like catering to the whims of old men who’ve decided they don’t like me before they even meet me.”

After asking my grandfather how to make Luhan a spirit, like Daehyun and Youngjae, he told me that the balance of their plane of existence cannot be maintained if new ethereal beings keep settling themselves in an eternal afterlife. The Spirit Plane functions on give and take.

When one new spirit comes into it, another must give up their place. Essentially, Jongup became a Haechi because another Haechi decided to pass on after years of protecting the very same shrine Jongup was guarding when I met him. The same goes for Daehyun, Youngjae, and Zelo. As Zelo himself told me during his 2nd year Deathiversary, a spirit came to him when he died, bestowing upon him the afterlife he now enjoys.

It’s different for demons like Yongguk, apparently.

I don’t know how much different. 

I don’t need to know, because I’m not letting Luhan become like him.

Twisted-ly untwisted, the bad boy with the heart of gold, I didn’t need another guy like that sticking around me in his afterlife.

“Right!” Looking upon Luhan’s soft features all perfectly molded onto a small canvas, I told myself, “You’re a good spirit!”

“Depends on your definition of good.”

“Well, you’re not bad.” I shrugged, doubt starting to creep up on me from behind.

“Neither are you.”

I sighed as the elevator approached the ground floor, because he was right. We really were two peas in a pod. Twins separated at birth. Thank goodness for that, lest I might have an inferiority complex. And more complexes are on the list of things I don’t need right under more demons. “The best thing about you is that you always agree with me.”

“The best thing about you is that you’re weak to anyone who always agrees with you.”

“Look at us, the chummiest of chums!” I hooked my arm around him, having to focus in order to lean on his nonexistent weight without falling over — I don't need my old pirate nickname creeping up on me too. Hopefully, I wouldn’t have to worry for much longer. He’d be able to take on a physical form, to become denser than air, soon enough. 

“Look at me, still threatened by that bright, burning light at the end of the tunnel.”

I just need to find a spirit willing to give up their eternal afterlife where they get to do everything and anything they want, go everywhere and see anything they feel like, voluntarily.

“Granted, my grandfather didn’t want to help us.” Granted, the endeavor would be the farthest from simple. “But we know more than we did before.”

“Doesn’t make it any easier.”

I scoffed, shoving my hands into my pockets as the elevator dinged, doors opening to reveal five or so patrons. Whispering as soon as we were far enough away from potentially receiving questioning looks, I myself questioned, “You expected the afterlife to be easy?”

“The last thing I expected was to be walking beside a pretty girl with no way whatsoever of pursuing a relationship with her.”

Luhan’s good. He’s good, right? I know I’ve defended him all this time. I know I tend to easily believe people who are “not bad” are “good” because I hold onto this pitiful hope that I am too. I know that. I'm not ignorant of my own behavior and biases.

“What’s got Sora’s pretty face down? Did you not like that one?” Luhan pursed his lips, singing out as the sun shone down on us, a blast of air he couldn't feel hitting my face, “You shine brighter than the stars above. Than the sun and the moon both.”

Deciding it didn’t matter, I played along with him, “The moon’s light comes from the sun so technically—”

“With legs longer than a super model’s. High-flying cheekbones and rosy lips. Doe eyes and silky hair even Rapunzel would be jealous of. Park Sora, she’s the cream of the crop. The whip cream to my strawberry. The—“

I laughed, my jaw tense, “Luhan.”

“The girl who wants to help me, despite what I’ve done to her. She’s kind to a fault despite her flaws.” He declared, not bashing a single ghostly eyelash, “Which are numerous.”

He’s probably buttering me up, fattening my ego and my trust, so he can betray me tomorrow.

“Being nice doesn’t get you anywhere in life, though,” I mused.

He'll eat me tomorrow. Gobble me up, faults and all.

“It does in the afterlife,” he smiled my way, nudging me to do the same. 

But I trust him.

And I know for a fact that the pretty man-child I trust most likely won't survive for a month as he waits for an old man's help. So, obviously, I willingly step up to the task of proving myself once again.

There he was. There he was and maybe I wanted him to be. Maybe I needed my best friend, Oh Sehun, to show up at my grandparent’s house, face as serious as ever. The kind you want to poke just like you would a sleeping puppy. Just to see if it’ll wake up. If his expression will change. 

We all have that one friend.

That one friend we want to mess with.

To mess up.

I was that friend to Oh Sehun.

“Bang Yongguk asked me to come see you,” he announced to me as I entered the living room, face all serious, itching to be poked and whatnot.

A head of fluffy brown dressed in a black tank that read “Pure Gold” and a pair of blue jeans, he lounged on the couch with a bowl of green grapes. I could hear my grandmother in the kitchen cooking lunch while she hummed along to the latest western pop song — because she’s so fancy like that. Popping another grape into his mouth, Sehun spoke while he chewed.

“Says you’ve been making friends with strangers again.”

Again? Like I’ve done it before. Like it’s a habit of mine. Like I just love the fact that I can see and talk to dead people. You may be charming, but you’re no charmer, Mr. Demon.

“Wants me to make sure you’re not being too gullible for your own good.”

I do admit, I believe things rather easily. It doesn’t take much for me to trust someone. Maybe I’m taken advantage of. Just a pawn in my grandfather’s game he hasn’t given a name to yet. Scramble? Boggle? Go stop? 

As long as it’s not monopoly.

“Personally, he can off the edge of my—”

It’s monopoly that changes friends into enemies, and enemies into well, mortal — or rather immortal — enemies? 

Point is, Bang Yongguk lectured my best friend on how to take care of me when that’s all he’s been doing for years now. So, Sehun took it personally after it happened more than just once. I don’t blame him. After everything I’ve done, to still be demeaned on the daily does a lot to a girl’s confidence. In other words, I’ve only become more confident.

Because I’m arrogant like that.

“My grandmother’s here.” I interrupted him as I plopped down onto his legs.

“You think she knows half of what she’s saying in there?” He asked, groaning as he pulled his long limbs from under me. 

Stealing the grape bowl from his hands, I chanted out, “Show some respect for your elders.” 

“Are you or are you not happy I came over? I can’t tell what with all the abuse going on right now,” he snarled as he stole it right back.

“I’m happy.”

I answered.

“Super happy.”

And I wasn’t lying.

“So happy I’m puking rainbows and sparkly confetti as I slide down Candy Mountain on a golden unicorn.”

“Something wrong, Sora?”

Sehun asked, like he knew. He had to know. There was no way he didn’t know that there was something I wasn’t telling him. And Oh Sehun was too nice to take advantage of the gullible me. He asked, like a charming charmer who was more good than not bad.

So, I just told him.

I told him everything.

He listened with that serious face of his, and I assure you I poked it at least four times before the night ended. The result was much more endearing than waking a sleeping puppy.