Small things pay off, is what Sunggyu is rapidly realizing.

Ever since that scene underneath the rain with Joo-hee, he's been feeling a little more confident about talking to her. And okay, it's going to sound weird and really not something he'd readily admit any time soon but having Nayoung around has helped him a bit. She's like his own personal cheering section.

Or booing section, more appropriately.

But having her around is almost... comforting. Even if she does say stupid things about his hair and his eyes and his teeth. Basically his overall appearance and how he consistently brings shame to his family, country and humanity. Despite the constant putdowns, though, or possibly even because of them, he finds that since Nayoung thinks the worst of him anyway he can act the most comfortably with her around.

That's not to say that she's outwardly mean.

Okay, she is that.

But part of Sunggyu is convinced that Nayoung has an affinity for putting up barriers. He knows that he isn't the first person she's guided (in the loosest sense of the word) as that much was obvious the first time they met. But perhaps that's exactly why? He can't imagine having to be in her shoes where everything and everyone is just fleeting. It would be painful to be anchored down only to have it disappear eventually. He won't pretend to know much about ghosts and whether or not they can feel anything but the couple of months that he's been around Nayoung has told him that they aren't completely barren of emotion.

Quite the opposite, in fact.

He'd once told her, after the truce they'd agreed upon some two weeks ago, that it was unfair that she had easy access to his thoughts while he knew nothing of what she was thinking. He'd been surprised at her revelation that she hadn't tried tapping into his head ever since she got back.

"Because you're transparent," she explained on a sigh, "I can read everything on your stupid face without having to try."

He was slightly disappointed with the realization that dreams of being someone that girls would find mysteriously enticing are to be flushed down the drain.

Oh well.

"And besides, it's not like I'm hiding anything from you. I'm a spirit. Being secretive isn't something that's of much use to us."

Which is a fairly good point. But that doesn't mean he understands her.

Still though, even he's amazed at how far he's come along with both Joo-hee and Nayoung. He's at the point where he can, at the very least, call Joo-hee a friend. That and the gut instinct to possibly hurl or swallow his tongue is near gone. And Nayoung... well, she's definitely something, that's for sure.

"Did you know," Nayoung begins, as she floats above his head, her curtain of hair almost tickling his forehead. The class is in the middle of physics class and she's flicking through what appears to be a magazine that, thankfully, is invisible as well. "That the longest game of cricket lasted over 150 hours?"

Sunggyu humms quietly while working on the problems in his textbook, trying his best to finish them before the time is up. From the corner of his eye, he can see Joo-hee furiously erasing something from her own paper. He smiles a little before turning back to his own answers.

"Hey, Sunggyu," Nayoung interrupts from overhead once again, "Did you know that the longest bout of hiccups lasted 69 years?"

He clears his throat, hoping to get the message across that now isn't the ideal time to be sharing weird trivia. Unfortunately, the message doesn't get delivered because Nayoung drops down until they're eye-to-eye. Only she's upside down.

Sunggyu grits his teeth in irritation and debates a scathing reply settles on just keeping his head down and finishing his work.

Nayoung is a relentless opponent, however, and she floats behind and peers over his shoulder, her translucent hair a mess as the strands pass through his paper and desk. She giggles softly in his ear and he can't help the shiver that involuntarily travels down his spine.

He sends a glare from over his shoulder before shaking his head and trying to regain the focus he inadvertently lost thanks to the annoying ghost girl.

So yeah. She does get on his nerves sometimes and it's a lot of work trying not to let what she says affect him in a huge way, but—

"Maybe someday you'll break the record for something lame like 'longest case of unrequited love' or something." Her jibe cuts through his concentration once again.

When he looks over his shoulder once again, she smiles brightly at him, all her ghostly teeth showing and just a tiny bit of gums. "Sorry!" she exclaims, though, obviously not the least bit contrite at having disrupted his lessons.

Their friendship is a work in progress, but it's getting there.

Once class is over, Sunggyu and Dongwoo head over to Woohyun's class so that the three of them can walk together to Sunggyu's and hangout.

Dongwoo is noticeably anxious, a little more flustered than he normally is. he shifts his weight from one foot to the other, rubbing his palms along the sides of his pants. He's been worrying his lower lip to the point that Sunggyu thinks that he might actually succeed in chewing it off.

"What's up?" he asks while it's just the two of them, Woohyun busy alternating between packing his things and flirting with a classmate. "You're acting weird."

Dongwoo's eyes shoot up then blink at him. "I'm not—" He clears his throat, his palms now racing down his thighs. "I'm not acting weird."

"You're about to burn holes through your pants," Sunggyu points out. "So what's up?"

"I—" Dongwoo hesitates. Then he takes a deep, steadying breath before letting loose a flood of words from his mouth. "Remember when I asked you about coming with me to Seoul on a daytrip some Saturdays ago and you said yes and I was really excited but then I canceled on you last minute and you were like 'You gotta stop being so flighty, Dongwoo' and you were right! You're right! I need to make up my mind about stuff—" Sunggyu watches as Dongwoo takes a much need breath, "And I've decided."

"I've decided that your friend is certifiably insane," Nayoung mutters as she appears next to Sunggyu.

"And what did you decide?" Sunggyu prompts, ignoring ghost girl completely.

"I—"

"I'm going to die!" Woohyun whines as he finally steps out of his classroom. "I can't believe she rejected me! She rejected me after flirting back? What the hell is that? It should be against the laws of common decency!" He presses his face against Sunggyu's arm. "I need a hug. Hug me, will you?"

Sunggyu sighs and Nayoung snickers.

"Go ahead and give him a hug." She grins widely and that's never a good sign. "I think you have better chances with Woohyun than you have with Joo-hee. Have you ever considered maybe batting for the other team?"

He pushes Woohyun off and onto Dongwoo who automatically gives him a comforting pat on the shoulder. Of course this leads Woohyun, resident drama queen, to give a terrifying mock sob. And because Dongwoo is Dongwoo and that means his gut instinct always seems to hover between laughter and crying—he, too, does the same.

"I like your friends," Nayoung comments before disappearing. "They're far more entertaining than you."

Sunggyu shakes his head then starts down the hallway alone, leaving his two best friends behind. He can hear their booming laugther as they rush to follow him, Dongwoo slamming almost painfully against his back before climbing on completely. Nayoung giggles and grins and Sunggyu feels his heart lighten considerably somehow. Because he isn't sure if Nayoung has friends since she's almost always present nowadays and a part of him is convinced that she spends her nights watching Myungsoo sleep because she's creepy like that. And another, larger part of him likes to believe that she does miss this—life, friendship, laughing out loud and having someone actually hear you or want to see you or miss you when you're gone. And it's nice to know that he can maybe give her some of that for a little while, only never completely.

So later, when it's just the two of them stuck in the queit of his room where he has his favorite band playing softly in the background, his back against the headboard of his bed, he manages to find the courage to ask.

"What were you like before?" He launches the question into the empty room, positive that it won't take too long to get a reply.

"Before?" comes the echo, followed by her face then neck. The now familiar glimmer that he's come to associate with her smooths out into the rest of her body until the tips of her toes and fingers appear. She's sitting on the foot of his bed, his own toes pushing through the soft grey of spiritual body. Her legs are folded beneath her and she wears a guarded expression on her face.

"You know. Before this."

"Before you?"

Sunggyu sighs because he knows her enough now to know when she's trying to evade something. "Before you became a ghost," he explains and he can't believe he manages it without flinching a little. "When you were still alive. Before you passed away."

It's her turn to sigh and she does so after a deep breath that she doesn't even need. "I don't... Sunggyu..." The way she says his name is almost pleading and it so sounds foreign, that he almost regrets asking. But he's stubborn, though.

"Tell me."

"But I don't want to," she says. It comes out in a whisper so at first he isn't sure if he hears her correctly. "It's... You don't understand."

He thinks maybe that's why they had such a rocky start. He's never really understood her and it makes him feel a little guilty to think that he's never asked her before now because he's never been interested enough to know.

"So help me understand."

Nayoung is silent, studying her fidgeting fingers on her lap. "You know..." she begins softly, "I've never liked how people say 'passed away' because that's not true. There is no away. Many of us are just here. Not away. It's just... you can't see us. We're just not with you..." She turns her head to side where his desk and bookshelf are. "That black notebook. The leatherbound one that Myungsoo gave when your classes began. He gave it to you so that you'd have something to write your thoughts in... You never wrote in it. Why?"

"There's nothing to write," he explains slowly. "Why do you ask?"

"I don't know, actually." She laughs a little but it sounds sad and hollow and her gaze returns to her hands. "I was just thinking about how... I don't remember much. I don't remember what sunshine feels like on my face. Water, too. What it's like to have air fill my lungs or a splinter stuck to my fingertip. And you'd like to think that that's not all that life is. That life has to be more than these moments. But... Those are the only thoughts I have that don't hurt. Because most of them do. Like the way someone's palm feels against yours? Or when he tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. A mother's kiss on the cheek. A father's tender embrace. A little brother's squealing laughter... You know. Those things."

Biting on his lower lip, Sunggyu turns to look outside the window and at the night sky. In some hours, it'll be day again and he'll get to experience almost everything Nayoung just mentioned. He likes to think that he doesn't very often take things for granted but for the first time is he realizing exactly how blessed he is. Tonight, he'll sleep. Tomorrow, he'll wake up.

His heart breaks for her and even that twinge sends a shiver of guilt down his spine. His eyebrows furrow when he looks back at her, still studying the fingers on her lap. "How did it happen?"

"I... He wasn't even supposed to be there..." She looks up at him then, eyes full of hurt and guilt and something indescribable. She's never looked this vulnerable to him before. He feels like he's peeled a layer of skin, her shell, her protection and the uncertainty on her face tells him that it's been such a long time since this happened to her. "It was an accident," she murmurs before vanishing.

...

Some things are better left unsaid.

That's what people say, right? Because words have that effect on people. They are so very powerful. The very second you let them escape between your lips and let them fall into people's ears, they change something. Something good. Something bad. Or possibly nothing, if you're uninteresting enough. But sometimes your own words, your admissions or confessions can have that very same effect on yourself.

Or if you're Nayoung, you pretend that it never happened. And she's very good at pretending.

But Sunggyu isn't.

He can't pretend that she hasn't somehow pried his chest open and made his heart break a little with her painful story. And it wasn't even the complete story. It's very possible that he'll never know what happened, never get to hear her entire story from start to finish and he doesn't really like the sound of that. It isn't just curiosity now. Somewhere along the way, he became emotionally invested in her much in the same way he is with all his close friends. Except they're a little more willing to open up to him and Nayoung isn't.

He gets it, though. It's the past. It happened. There's nothing that can be done about it at this point. But if it's been years since it happened and she's not able to talk about it without clamming up halfway through then that means that she isn't over whatever it is that took place in the past.

He's tried to ask again but it's like

He shakes his head and focuses on his lunch tray.

"Okay, who the hell took my kimbap," he sighs, amidst the mischievous chuckling of his friends, "I swear I had two on my tray and now there's only half a kimbap left, teeth marks and saliva included, and you guys are ing disgusting."

Sungyeol laughs and plucks the remains of the bitten pieace from Sunggyu's tray and pops it into his mouth. "There there, hyung. We were wondering when you were going to join us. You've been sitting there for a while now staring into nothingness and we were kind of worried."

"So you decided to eat my food?" he scoffs.

"Staring into nothingness is a sign of aging," Sungyeol informs him sagely and Sunggyu contemplates if putting the energy into ripping the younger guy a new one is worth the effort.

"Nothingness?" Woohyun smirks. "Probably just daydreaming about Joo-hee. She was sitting behind you earlier, you know. Your lunch room geography is completely off today."

It takes Sunggyu a while to figure out what everyone's implying exactly, his mind still a little foggy with thoughts of ghost girls with messy hair buns and sad eyes. Right. Joo-hee. His crush. The love of his life. Huh. He hasn't thought about her much today outside of thinking about her cute smile when she borrowed his Literature notes earlier.

"You okay?" Myungsoo asks quietly from his place beside Sunggyu.

Sunggyu grins and steals one of Myungsoo's kimbap circles. "I'm fine," he assures his cousin, words pushing past his mouth full of food. "Was just thinking about something."

"It seems like an important kind of something. Your face was serious. I mean, more serious than usual..." Myungsoo transfers the last of his kimbap onto Sunggyu's tray who gratefully eats it. "Everything alright? It's been a while since we talked last. I feel like you've changed since."

"Yeah?"

His cousin shrugs then smiles. "It's not a bad thing, actually. Just different. I think you might finally be growing up, hyung!"

"Har har har. That was in no way funny."

Myungsoo laughs out loud before pushing his seat away from the cafeteria table. "Whatever, hyung," he says, standing and stacking his tray on top of Sunggyu's, "But don't think too much about it. Like Sungyeol said, you're getting old and wrinkles aren't a good look on you."

Sunggyu shakes his head. He smacks Myungsoo upside the head before grabbing their trays. "I hope you think that's funny."

Myungsoo makes a big show of rubbing the back of head, wincing and groaning as loudly as he can. "You're way too violent, hyung."

He ignores his cousin's and deposits the trays in the proper bin along with the others when Nayoung suddenly appears by his side.

"You shouldn't do that to Myungsoo. He's too pretty to be in pain," she chides him, a small pout on her lips.

"Okay, one, it wasn't even that hard a hit; and two, this really isn't a conversation I want to participate in," he whispers in reply. "Didn't we agree that we won't ever talk about Myungsoo and how he's too beautiful to be real?"

She shrugs lightly as they walk down the corridor that leads outside. "It's just mind boggling, you know? I mean... Did he horde your entire family's gorgeous gene and just left you high and dry? What kind of cousin would do that to you?"

"And here I thought we were becoming friends..."

"What did I say about being friends?"

"That we can't?" he says slowly. They reach a shady tree that stands to the side of the school building and he slowly slides down, folding his hands behind his head. Nayoung glides down beside him, floating a few centimeters off the ground.

"Exactly."

"But the truce..."

"Makes us not enemies." She pauses for a minute, her forehead scrunching in thought. "Not enemies but not friends."

"Frenemies?" he tries, but she merely laughs in his face.

"Oh wow, never use that word again. It makes me think less of you."

Sunggyu shakes his head, chuckling at her complete exasperation with his choice of words.
"Oh, c'mon. You know we're friends."

"But I hate you so much," Nayoung whines teasingly. "You're gross. And pathetic. Like really pathetic. Like, you know how turtles roll over onto their shells and have such a hard time turning right side up and he sort of seesaws on his own shell and his feet are up in the air and it's hilarious—"

"So sadistic," Sunggyu quips.

"Yeah, whatever." She brushes him off with a wave of her hand. "But your kind of pathetic is just sad... You are more pathetic than that sad little turtle."

"Wow, thanks."

She smiles brightly. "You're welcome!"

A comfortable silence comes upon them and Sunggyu sighs contentedly and closes his eyes. There are two many thoughts in his head as of late—school, university, friends, true love, and ghost girls—that moments like these, the ones that offer escape even for just a little while, are precious. When he was younger, they had a tree in their yard very much like this one. He and Myungsoo would make a contest of climbing onto the highest branch and once at the top, they had a pretty nice view of their town. It wasn't very high up and the houses were built close together with most of them being two-storeys with just a handful of single-storey ones. But if you craned your head at just the right angle, you'd get a nice view of the mountains that lay north of their city.

When they were seven, though, he and Myungsoo were smart enough to get into a scuffle while sitting at the top of the tree. They'd both pulled and pushed hard enough to send them both toppling to the ground and subsequently sporting matching leg fractures. They'd been grounded in both the literal and figurative sense for the first time in their lives and as additional punishment, the tree had been uprooted and replanted elsewhere and for a couple of weeks, there was a huge gaping hole in the middle of their yard—a bitter reminder of what had once been. And even though Sunggyu's mother had taken the opportunity to fill it with beautiful flowers, exercising that green thumb she always knew she had, he still always misses that tree and a time where the world was bright and good and full of different experiences.

Now it's full of studying and getting into the best university and maybe, hopefully, winning someone's heart. Some parts are worse and some parts are better, he supposes, and he wonders if there's even just a tiny bit of that young boy left inside of him.

"I think you should ask Joo-hee out."

"Of course you would."

Nayoung groans. "No, I'm serious. Like, you can actually stand talking to her for more than five minutes without turning into an embarrassing pile of mush. And, you know," she gives a nonchalant shrug, "You might actually be a little smooth for an idiot. I think she'll say yes."

"I really don't think I'm ready for that yet," he tells her honestly.

"It doesn't have to be a date. It can just be two friends going to see a movie, right?" she points out.

Only. When is it ever just friends when those two friends are a boy and a girl? Someone (Sunggyu, obviously) is going to always feel something more than friendship so while everything seems perfectly platonic on the surface, everything beneath is a mess. At least for that one person who feels so much more. (Again, Sunggyu.)

"How about studying together?"

"No.

"Noraebang? You can invite your friends, too." A dreamy expression clouds Nayoung's features. "Bring Myungsoo. I wanna see him bust a move."

"Okay, no one says bust a move anymore. And no, those guys are just going to embarrass me."

"How about that cute little cafe down the street?"

He shakes his head.

"Why not? It's a cute place! I bet she'll love it. They have those fancy little cream cakes that look really good and I've always wondered what they taste like so if you go, you can tell me and—" The enthusiasm on her face gets wiped off in an instant and Sunggyu watches as her own words begin to sink in. "No." She shakes her head and emits a small and painfully hollow laugh. "That's okay. You're right."

"Nayoung—"

"Don't you dare feel sorry for me, Kim Sunggyu!"

He holds his hands up in mock surrender. "Don't worry! I'm too afraid of you to feel sorry for anyone but myself." He offers her a smile, one that she slowly returns.

"Oh hey, speak of the devil..." Nayoung nods her head towards his back and Sunggyu turns to see what she's talking about.

He instantly spots Joo-hee walking down the field with a male student whose face was being blocked from view by both Joo-hee and the shining sun. It's fairly obvious though by the way that she tosses her head back in laughter that the guy she's with has said something funny. Their footsteps bring them closer to where he and Nayoung are and he catches a glimpse of her cheeks, reddened by more than just the warmth of the afternoon.

"Ugh, dude. Someone's totally edging you out now. I knew this would happen!" Nayoung huffs.

Sunggyu feels his hands involuntarily close into fists. He's never seen the guy before, he realizes, now that they're just a few meters away. Judging by the crispness that can only come from a brand new uniform, he's definitely a new student—clean cut, not quite blessed in height but walks with purpose and quiet confidence.

"Who's—" Sunggyu mutters only to get cut off by Nayoung's gasp.

"Howon?" she whispers.

...

Hoya!

The urge to refer to him as Hodong was strong but we'll stick to Howon and respect his wishes!

This has taken me a while to churn out because... for a moment there, I sort of hated Sunggyu. It's that mythical fangirl plateau, I think, where you reach your limit and then you're like "Why do I bother?" but with me it was like "DAMN YOU KIM SUNGGYU!" And then I decided to stay away from all things Infinite and Sunggyu related and ugh. But it was short-lived. Because here I am. And here you are :]

Thanks to everyone who's been been reading/subscribing/especially commenting! There are only just a small handful of you but that makes you even more precious to me. Thank you!