It was two days after my best friend Sungmin was killed in a fire that I realized there was an extra occupant in my house.  For all I knew, he had been there since the day of his death.  But in my thick fog of sadness it took a while to notice his subtle presense.  Feeling cold drafts in the house I walked over to turn on the heat; it was July.  Lightbulbs flickered and hissed; I went to check the fuse box.  Pictures on my dresser had changed places.  Had I moved them in my grief? 

I had gotten home from work at the movie theater.  The refrigerator door was open and a glass bottle of lychee flavored Ramune drink was lying there shattered.  Lychee was always Sungmin's, I preferred the strawberry.  We loved the soda but were always bothered by the marble at the top.  I looked down at the spilled beverage and broken glass I had almost stepped in.  "Sungie, you can't drink it!   Why did you bother with the bottle?"  The words just came out.  Maybe they only made sense to a person in mourning.  I went to grab a towel to clean up the mess when I heard a tiny sound behind me.  Slowly the marble from the broken bottle moved across the kitchen.  It's path curved over the floor in a way that could not if it was just rolling.  No, it was being dragged.  I held my breath as the marble came deliberately towards me.  A shudder ran up my spine as I stared  - of course I wasn't afraid of the marble, just of how it was traveling.  Then I gasped as the marble tapped the side of my foot.  The temperature around me dropped suddenly.  "Sungmin?", the question turned into a cloud of fog out of my mouth.  Cold tears came down my cheeks as I truly knew he was there.

I asked too many questions and demanded too much of Sungmin at first.  "Hyung can you talk? What happened?  How did you end up here?  Are you able to walk through walls?  Will you be able to see your family?  Are you able to write messages?  Can you rap on the wall or flicker the light - once for yes, twice for no?"  The questions weren't asked rapid-fire, they just came as I was pacing the room, trying to figure things out.  Still all the unknowns must have frustrated Sungmin, too.  An old ugly vase suddenly smashed near my feet, instantly shutting me up.  The temperature in the room came back to normal.  For the evening I was left alone with all my questions.

The next morning I was fixing breakfast when I felt a chill on my right side and a slight pressure on my shoulder, I like when Sungmin used to rest his head on my shoulder and look over with very convincing aegyo.  "Alright hyung, I'm sorry, too", I laughed.  "Seems like you only know as much as I do about this whole thing now huh?"  The light about the stove blinked once.  Once for yes, twice for no.  I wondered how exhausting it was for him trying to communicate.  "Well then, together we'll figure it out."

It took weeks for us to get some sort of rhythm down in this netherworld that we now lived in.  I had to learn that ghosts don't perform on demand, especially one as stubborn as my dearly departed friend Sungmin.  If he wanted to make himself known, he would.  I learned to pay attention more to small details around where I was:  temperature changes, locks turning, water dripping from the faucet in a certain sequence, pen tapping - things like that.  But I couldn't always burst into the room, ready to converse and expect an answer.  

Somehow I knew though that he was around.  Ever since the Ramune bottle incident I could just tell that he was with me.  That's why the first day of spring semester my freshman year stuck with me.  I'd finished choir, my last class for the day, and wanted to talk all about it.  "Oh my gosh Sungminnie, try-outs were just incredible today!  This transfer student, a freshman no less, left everyone stunned.  I think he's going to be the first freshman ever at our university to make it into Chorale.  I wish you could have heard him.  Yeah, I think I'll record him for you.  Eh, you might have even liked his looks, too, huh?"  Something didn't feel right.  "Sungie?  Sungminnie?"  I couldn't feel that he was there.  Panic crept into me as I ran around the house.  "Sungmin, where are you?  Come on, please let me know your still here!"  I felt a chill and ran towards it - only to find a wide open window.  "Why?  Why did you leave me?"

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Seeing my body being covered with a white sheet wasn't as surreal as I thought it would be.  I mean, I could feel my life seeping out of me while I was still in my family's house.  It wasn't news to me that I was dead.  I'm sure you're wondering why I attached my spirit to Hyukjae the day that I died.  It wasn't an easy decision, in fact, it was the second hardest thing I chose in the afterlife.  The first?  We'll get to that later.  

Back to Hyukjae, I saw him collapse on the ground next to my body when it was brought out of the smoldering house.  While my parents were attending to my younger brother, Hyukjae was alone in his suffering.  I knew this is how it was going to be.  My family had three now to stand together.  They would make it.  Hyukjae - always thoughtful, imaginative, and fragile.  When he raised his head up to the sky and cried out in anguish I saw how lost and empty his eyes looked.  I didn't know what I could do.  But maybe if I was just there for him, it would help him pull though.  So long after the ambulances and fire trucks drive away, and well after the curious on-lookers dispersed, Hyukjae stayed - watering the grass with his tears.  He couldn't tell I was there, and I didn't know how to tell him.  Finally the sun had set and the moon started to rise.  Shivering, Hyukjae got up and lumbered to his house.  And I followed him home.

House, I shouldn't call Hyukjae's abode a home, not when it was only his.  Hyukjae's dad was an A #1 workaholic, choosing to live at a flat close to his job.  Mom was a jet-setting socialite, travel meant not having to deal with an absent husband and obligatory children.  Hyukjae and his older sister were close when they were little, but she was busy with her new married life and that was important - she said she wanted to make her marriage everything her parents' wasn't.  Any successes Hyukjae had were expected, not celebrated.  Failures were criticized, as were a great many choices.  With all of that, Hyukjae could be withdrawn and rather introspective.  Considering how shy he could be, I was lucky to become his friend.

I was a year ahead of Hyukjae in school.  Most of the time I had managed to be good enough at things to stay under the radar.  Second year of junior high, I guess I caught the attention of the wrong sort of people.  It happened to be the same group that was pissed off at Hyukjae, too.  After a couple mortifying incidents, followed by brilliant acts of revenge, we knew we had each other's backs.  

It took a while for me to find ways to let Hyukjae know that I was still with him.  I could feel myself trying to whisper, talk, yell - but no sound came out.  Some object I could touch, others I went right through.  Part of it must have to do with concentration.  It took a lot more energy to do these little things than I could have imagined.  I really couldn't find a rhyme or reason to it.  

For the first several days after my death Hyukjae carried around such sorrow that he paid attention to nothing else.  Believe me, I tried scooting around pictures of us together, flicking lights on and off,  turning on the water faucet, etc.  I even tried dropping socks out of his hamper to make patterns (hey, I didn't have to smell them any more).  In whatever "powers" I had as a spirit, I didn't seem to have the dexterity for any kind of writing.  Sad since my penmanship was awesome in school.  Desperation was getting the best of me the day the Ramune bottle broke.  Hyukjae was so deep in mourning and I just wasn't being noticed.  I didn't mean for the bottle to break, just wanted to put it on the table as a not-so-subtle sign.  In the end, he figured it was me (finally!)

For close to a year and a half we coexisted like that.  I was Hyukjae's sounding board for all the trials and tribulations of university and work.  He learned to feel my presense and I learned different small ways of responding and interacting with him.  When I first came home with Hyukjae I just thought of helping him through.  I didn't thing of the permanency of my condition or how lonely it would be while he was at work and school.  

My death happened the summer before I was to start university.  In some ways I felt jealous about how much life I was missing out on when Hyukjae would came home with tales of how things went his first semester.  Not to be disloyal to my best friend, but I also longed for interaction with others.  I guess that's why what happened the first week of his second semester happened the way it did...

The day was when Hyukjae had choir try-outs, so I knew he was going to be late.  He wasn't the best singer, but he had fun.  I had been more into instruments myself.  Anyway, I was surprised that afternoon by hearing a voice outside the house - especially since it was coming from the second floor.  "Hey kid, can you come over here?", the voice was slightly rough, but warm.  Still, it was coming from two stories up!  

I moved over and opened the window to see a hazy figure, probably of a young man my age, but I wasn't exactly sure.  "Hey, I'm 19, not totally a kid."  I answered,  "Wait, so you can see me?  What... Why... How are you here?"

"Hmm",  he said clearing his throat, "I'm still your hyung then.  Yes, I can see you, just like you see me.  I think you can help me, at least, I think that's why I found you.  Can you come with me?"

"I...", Looking around I thought of Hyukjae.  What would he do without me?  How long would this be?  "Will I be able to come back?"

"I don't know", despiration raised in the shadow's voice, "Listen, I'm not sure how much longer I can stay like this.  Please, I really need your help."  A vaporous hand reached towards me.  It was the first thing I could truly grasp since my passing.  A wave of guilt passed over me that I wasn't able to tell Hyukjae what was going on, or even say goodbye.  I shut my eyes and moved out the window with the other spirit, wondering where this journey would take me.

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A/N - Don't cry, I promise the next chapter will be less heartwrenching!  Perhaps it may have some goofy bits.  Sound good?

So, any guesses as to the identity of the other spirit?  Other speculations or thoughts on where this things going?  I'd sure like to know, too - kidding!

I'm gonna throw in something for fun:  a little gift of KARMA for the first correct guess on where the title of this chapter comes from :)

TTFN - ta ta for now!  (Because I have to be at work in 5 hours!)