She began to retreat as an introvert. She never talked to anyone, not even to her family who had been living in the US. She ignored her friends. She wanted to be alone.

For days her only comfort was the piano in their school’s music room. They said that the music room was haunted. It was said that every night the piano would play by itself, oftentimes playing the tune A Time For Us from Romeo and Juliet. Krystal thought it was hilarious. She didn’t really believe it. She didn’t really believe in superstitions and the paranormal. In fact, she stopped believing in anything unexplainable and abstract…such as love.

But it was on one stormy night that she began to believe the tales circulating about the music room. She played A Time For Us, maybe just to “spite the ghost” at first, but as she finished, she became depressed by its haunting melody. As she sat before the piano, crying, a hand touched her shoulder.

Startled, she turned around and gasped.

A tall boy was standing before her, his handsome face pale.

“W-who are you?” she glanced at the door she was sure she had locked. It was still locked. “How did you get in here?”

He shrugged, and then smiled at her. “My name is Choi Minho. I’m always here, watching you play and cry.”

Her eyes widened and she stumbled away from him. “W-what are you? A-are you a ghost?”

Again, he shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess? The school is the only place I can be and I can’t leave. The moment I try I would just find myself back in here. Weird, right?”

Her eyes widened all the more. “D-don’t make jokes like that,” she backed off the wall.

“Hey, I’m not joking. And I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. I won’t harm you, I promise. I intended to just watch you and never show myself but I just can’t help it anymore. I hate seeing a girl cry,” he explained. “And well…what you played before was actually one of the pieces I often play in the piano.”

He watched as she continued backing away from him, and his expression turned sad. “Okay, I will not bother you anymore. I’m sorry.”

And just like that, he disappeared through a wall.

Krystal screamed, running toward the door like a madwoman. “Oh, God, oh, God!”

She turned the knob but the door wouldn’t open. She finally realized that the lock was stuck.

“Somebody help me! If anyone out there can hear me, please! Help me! There’s a ghost in here!”

She must have sounded stupid to anyone who can hear her outside but right now she doesn’t care.

 “Help!”

“Maybe I can help,” a voice behind her said.

She screamed louder and ran to a corner, shaking.

“Stay away from me!”

“I’m not doing anything to you,” the ghost called Minho said. And…he still had the ability to roll his eyes because he did just that. “You’re such a…what do girls call that? Dramatic queen?”

“Drama queen,” she corrected despite herself.

“Just pretend that I’m alive,” he told her as he tried to hold the doorknob, but of course his hand just passed right through it.

“Stop haunting me please. Just stop it,” she cried, closing her eyes and hugging herself.

“You want me to leave you here all alone?” he asked.

“Oh, please, please, leave.”

He disappeared as he walked right through the closed door, but it didn’t do anything to comfort or calm her. She began to feel afraid more than ever, especially when the rain began to pour harder, and lightning and thunder began to flash and roll in the night sky.

She sat on the floor, cowering in the corner, shivering.

“Can’t I just keep you company?” she heard him say, but she couldn’t see him. “I won’t show myself if you don’t want to. Just let me watch you and keep you safe. I’m not the only one here, you know. There are many of them who are like me and some of them are really bad.”

Upon hearing that, Krystal grew more scared and she cried harder.

“I’m not trying to scare you. I’m just telling you the truth.”

 “O-okay. You may stay. And thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

A minute or two passed and Krystal could hear nothing but the rain beating against the rooftop. She felt alone and she grew scared again.

“Yah… g-ghost, are you still there?”

“I’m still here. And I have a name, you know. I would appreciate it if you would call me Minho instead of ghost.”

She chuckled. “Sorry. Okay. Hello Minho, my name is Krystal Jung.” Great, she’s introducing herself to a ghost.

“I know.”

“You do?”

“Yes. I see you often around the school. I always thought you’re very pretty,” he said, and she could hear the sincerity in his voice. She blushed.

“Oh, so ghosts can have crushes, too?” Now she’s joking around a ghost.

“Yah, who said anything about having a crush?” he said defensively, accidentally showing himself.

But she wasn’t afraid anymore. She patted the space beside her.

“Come sit here with me.”

He hesitated for a moment, then slowly came toward her and sat on the floor beside her. They were both surprised when their shoulders touched and Krystal could feel his shoulder against hers solidly. He reached out and tried to hold her hand. He grew more surprised when he could.

“I can touch you.”

“Yes,” she said in wonder.

It was a start of a very strange friendship. Minho would always appear before Krystal and they would talk. Krystal could swear half the students in the school think she’s crazy, talking all by herself, but no one really seems to notice or at least they were pretending not to.

As days passed they grew closer. It felt so right being with him. He made her happy, and he said she made him happy, too.

She told him about her ex-boyfriend and he told her how he died…or at least how he thought he died. And as days turned to weeks and weeks turned to months, Krystal gradually realized she already forgot the hurt caused by her ex-boyfriend and that she didn’t love him anymore. But she grew alarmed by another realization. She wasn’t hurting anymore because she was already in love with someone else. She is in love with a ghost!

“I have something to tell you,” they both said in unison as they met each other again.

“Okay, ladies first,” Minho said.

Krystal hesitated for a moment. She didn’t want this, but somehow this is necessary, if she doesn’t want to go crazy.

“I’m afraid you should stop showing yourself to me from now on,” she told him.

“Why?”

“Because…because… I’ve fallen for you and these feelings overwhelm me!” she confessed. “I’ve never felt like this before. And I knew we couldn’t be together. What will become of me when these feelings get deeper and go on? You’re not even alive!”

He smiled, unaffected by her outburst. “Guess what? I love you, too and if you would agree to marry me, I would.”

Her eyes widened. “Please don’t make sick jokes like that. If you’re alive and proposing to me right now I would accept it but you’re not. You’re dead!”

He shook his head. “I just found out something.”

He brought her to the library and showed her an article of the newspaper. It was about him.

He didn’t die when he dived and accidentally hit his head on the bottom of the school’s swimming pool. He had been comatose for nearly a year now!

She hugged him. “I’m so happy to know about this!”

“Yes, me too,” he hugged her back. “It means we have a chance to be together if I survive.”

She pulled back and gazed into his eyes. “You’ll live.”

He smiled at her, and not wasting the moment, he slowly inched his face close to hers and kissed her gently on the lips.

A few seconds later he pulled back and there were tears in her eyes. She had never felt such strong emotions in her entire life. She didn’t know that it was the same for him. It was like they are made for each other…and maybe they are.

“Could you check out my body in this hospital?” he pointed at the article.

“Maybe we could go together. Let’s just try. Maybe I can help you get out of here and come back to the world of the living.”

……………………………………..

Minho looked at his body lying on the bed inside the hospital’s intensive care unit. He looked gray and thin and tubes and apparatus are hooked to his body, making him barely recognizable.

Krystal was beside him, and she squeezed his hand. “Try to go back, Minho.”

He stepped toward his body and tried to merge with it. He closed his eyes…nothing happened. He tried to concentrate…nothing. Finally he opened his eyes again…. and everything was blurry. He gasped as he felt something inside his nose and throat. It was uncomfortable. His whole body ached, he felt tired, and when he tried to move he could barely do so. He tried to speak but no sound came from his throat, and the tube on his mouth was preventing him to completely manipulate his lips and tongue. He couldn’t speak. His throat felt dry and parched.

Then his mother’s face appeared before his eyes.

“Minho? Oh my God, he’s awake!”

There was a small flurry of activity as a nurse and a doctor appeared in his room to check him, and as his mother began to hold his hand and weep with joy.

He looked for Krystal, but she wasn’t there. Where did she go? Why did she just leave?

……………………………….

At first, Krystal couldn’t understand. Why does Minho ignore her? She felt hurt. But as soon as a nurse entered and passed through her, she was shocked. The nurse passed through her. She called out to them but they ignored her. She tried to touch Minho’s hand but her hand just went right through his. Slowly, a dreadful realization hit her, as little things from the past began to flood her brain.

Her family hadn’t called her, especially Jessica, her sister, who calls her almost every day. Her friends acted like they don’t see her, and so are her classmates and teachers. Other people didn’t seem to mind her, too. And she could see and touch Minho when he was still out of his physical body, but now she could not.

All the while she thought that people had been ignoring her because of her weird behavior ever since she and her ex-boyfriend broke up… when all along they had been ignoring her because she doesn’t exist to them anymore. She was the real ghost!

Am I dead? But how?

…………………………………

As soon as the tube was removed from his throat and he was able to talk, Minho asked about Krystal, but none of his family members knew her, much more talked to her. In fact, none of them saw her, not even the nurse who came in right after he regained consciousness.

It was when he talked to his friend Lee Taemin that he was able to know the truth about Krystal.

“Did you know someone in school named Krystal Jung?”

Taemin’s eyes widened a bit. “Yes. How did you hear about her?”

He frowned. There was something that’s not right about Taemin’s reaction. Minho wasn’t ready to tell his friend how he met Krystal yet.

“I just…heard her name mentioned somewhere…I can’t remember…why? What is it about her?”

“Well, she was a new student. A month right after your accident she transferred to our school. And then one night she got into a car accident,” Taemin shook his head. “Her car was mangled. The news said something about her boyfriend breaking up with her before the accident. Maybe she felt so bad she couldn’t concentrate while driving…” he shrugged.

“Where is she? Is she confined in this hospital, too?” Minho eagerly asked.

Taemin looked at Minho weirdly. “Man, she’s dead. She had been dead for months now.”

……………..

Krystal could remember everything now. She was driving. Her vision was blurry with tears. And then in an intersection a truck came her way. Everything happened so fast that she barely had time to maneuver her car. As bright lights obscured her vision she heard the shattering of glass and darkness took her.

She stood behind Minho, who was kneeling before her grave, crying. She wanted to touch his shoulder, to hug him, and tell him that she’s there. But she couldn’t anymore.

“Krystal,” she heard him say. “Our meeting was the strangest thing that ever happened to me. But it was also the best thing. When I told you I love you, I meant that. I love you.”

“I love you, too, Minho,” she answered.

Minho felt like there was something cold hugging him and he shivered. He seemed to hear her voice in the wind, telling him that she loves him back. He wondered why fate made their souls meet.  Maybe because she is his soul mate and despite the circumstances, they just had to meet.

He caressed the stone where her name was engraved. “Trust me, we will be together, soon,” and he strongly believed what he said.

And it was as if her answer was being whispered to him by the wind. “Yes, Minho. I’ll see you next lifetime.”

And he could almost see her smiling face before him.

***********************************************************************************************************************************

Once again credits to Ozge Murathan for this lovely poster. Thank you for allowing me to use your creations, chinggu!

I thought about this story while visiting my grandparents' grave this morning. And I just love how it coincides with my title...taken from Romeo and Juliet's A Time For Us. Well, I've read in the MinStal page in FB that Minho played this piece in his drama The Pianist? Admin, correct me if I was just hallucinating haha! And then Krystal (well, i saw this one) performed in Kiss and Cry with this same piece as the background music, right?

Okay, you might want to listen to this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJuZDFwSeJY&feature=related

It might sound boring to some, but I love its melody...so romantic and sad...

Anyway, this one-shot is dedicated to my OTP MinStal and to my fellow MinStal shippers for this Halloween.

Happy Halloween!