Years passed by, but his human never forgot what happened that night. There were times when he thought it might have all just been a dream, but his leg had recovered at a speed that baffled his doctor and within months, Luhan was back on the field as if nothing had happened. To him, that was definite proof that something strange happened that night. Some days he would spend hours in the library, trying to find the history of his house and the identity of the boy ghost who lived in it now. He tried telling his friends about it, but all they would do was laugh and , so eventually he stopped.

One night he tried to summon the ghost. These things didn't really do anything but show to the Guardians that their human believed they might be there and invite them to show themselves. The first time Luhan did this, Lay panicked and ignored it, but Luhan was persistent. For his 14th birthday, he had his friends over, and they decided to try to summon him together. For his friends it was just one of those dumb things teenagers did when they were left with no supervision. Some of them were tipsy on smuggled beer, and playing along, mainly hoping that the girls would get scared and hide in their embrace. They did this whole elaborate ritual they dug up from some anime or other, but all Lay could do was watch. The kids were starting to laugh again, and Luhan's mood slowly took a dive,

"I know you're there! I know it because I know I'm not crazy!", Luhan called. Why won't he drop it? Anyone else in this situation would just drop it, but Luhan kept calling, insisting, despite all the teasing. And suddenly a thought came to Lay and he became terrified. What if, because he spends so much time watching over Luhan, what if Luhan can actually feel that he's there more than other humans feel their Guardians? What if Luhan really knew there was someone there?

"You're so weird!", someone said.

"Pretty on the outside, but messed up on the inside.", another voice added.

"I know you're there...", Luhan whispered.

It was more than Lay could take, so he made another mistake. The window swung open, and the table trembled making all the bottles topple and fall, spilling their contents all over the kids huddled up around it. Some jumped, some screamed but, most importantly, Luhan beamed, eyes wide and sparkling, mouth stretched into a bright smile.

"Holy , you were right!", his friend Suyao said, his arm around Luhan, while the rest of their friends ran around the room like headless chickens.

"I told you! I told you I'm not crazy!", Luhan turned to his friend and hugged him, before looking at the window again.

This was a mistake. Most of Luhan's friends were too creeped out by him now to spend much time with him, and no one but Suyao would even come to his house any longer. Luhan's parents were none too pleased with the reputation this earned their home and were very harsh on Luhan, demanding he go and tell everyone that it was simply a prank him and Suyao pulled for fun. Reluctantly, Luhan agreed and admitted that he just wanted to scare them all. Some kids were mad, some kids were impressed, but at the end of the day, Luhan was the one who knew there was someone there, and it didn't sit well with Lay nor the rest of his family.

The backlash he got for this made him try to conform to the Guardian standards and only pay attention to his human when absolutely necessary. He missed Luhan and his world and felt glad that Luhan's mere adventurous existence called for his presence as often as it did. When Luhan started rollerblading, Lay was beside himself with happiness. Luhan also tried his hand in the school rugby team, but after a few practice sessions they both had to agree that some things are better left to bigger boys.

Luhan didn't try to summon him again, but sometimes he would talk to him. He would talk about the game he played, or the exam he was dreading, or what him and Suyao had been up to these days. Lay realised that Luhan thought he was tied to the house, so he tells him of the events that happen outside of it. It was endearing, and all Lay wanted was to stay and listen, but he couldn't, and that made him sad. 

In time, as Luhan was growing up, school, football and friends taking up most of his time, he started forgetting about the "ghost" in his house. He rarely talked to Lay anymore, and when he did, it was always with a sense of self deprecation, often followed by a variation of "Why the hell am I talking to myself."

Lay, on the other hand, used any moment he could, though those weren't many due to him having to stay away from the human world, to practice descending into an actual body. He would find empty areas in the dead of night and learn to walk steadily, to run, and most importantly, to talk. He spoke slowly, and quietly as his own voice scared him and resonated in his ears, but eventually, he spoke fluently.

If he was being honest with himself, he didn't really know why he was bothering in the first place, it's not like he was going to try to actually talk to anyone, but his previous experience taught him that it's better to be prepared, just in case.

♦

Things started changing when Luhan got a scholarship to go and play football in Korea at the age of 16. Full of enthusiasm and against his parents' counsel (though they said they will ultimately support his decision), he moved to Seoul, a young talent, with a bright future. At first, Luhan didn't even have the time to miss his family and his friends. What time he didn't spend on the pitch, or at the gym, he spent at school, and learning Korean. But after a few months of not being able to talk to anyone, of being way too exhausted and overworked, the little spark in his eyes started to dwindle. The resolve was still there. That he will make it, that he won't give up, and while he faced every day with a smile, he cried himself to sleep most nights. 

It made Lay incredibly sad to see his usually bright and cheerful human like this, but there was nothing he could do.

"I feel like...like my friends are moving on.", Luhan said one evening, curled up on his bed, "I feel like they will forget about me."

Luhan believed he left the ghost back in China too, and it caught Lay by surprise to hear Luhan talk to himself again. 

"Not even you are here anymore.", he said with a sigh, "But I just need someone to talk to. I am all alone.", his voice cracked and he buried his face in his knees.

Please don't cry. But Luhan didn't stop. The loneliness in him was so profound that even Lay started to feel it, it was an aching of the heart and he wanted to mend it more than anything in the world. Please. Don't cry. Why was it that he was able to fix his human's body, but not his soul. Why couldn't he just will his loneliness away. You are not alone, I am always here.

Suddenly, Luhan let out a loud yelp and jumped up, almost falling off the bed.

"Who are you?!", he shouted and grabbed the first thing he could find, which was a hand cream tube, and pointed it in front of himself - straight at Lay.

Lay froze. It took a few moments to realise what he had done. His overwhelming desire to help, coupled with the fact that descent became somewhat of a routine for him after all the practice, made him appear in Luhan's room without even realising it.

"How did you get here?! I locked the door!", Luhan shouted again. He had a room in a dorm and quickly enough, someone knocked on the door,

"Luhan? Luhan is everything ok?", another boy's voice called in Korean from the outside.

Luhan immediately returned his eyes on Lay's, but it was obvious that he was about to answer.

"N-no, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.", Lay stammered, his voice barely audible as he started fading away, and at that moment, Luhan's teary frown turned into a look of wonder as he reached the other hand,

"No! No, stop! It's you!", he said with a gasp, completely forgetting about the boy on the other side of the door.

"Luhan!", the boy outside assaulted the door handle, trying to get in.

"Please wait.", Luhan jumped out of the bed and reached towards Lay, but this time, his voice was a whisper. "I am ok, it was just a dream.", he then shouted in Korean, but his eyes never left Lay's. 

A moment's hesitation is all it took, and it was too late - he didn't want to leave. This was breaking every rule in the history of Guardians, but his human's loneliness was gone, albeit replaced by a myriad of other distressing emotions, but the pain, it was gone.

They stood there in the dark, the only light coming from the street lamps and the little crack under the door.

"How? How can you be here?", Luhan took his phone out of the pocket and flashed it towards the intruder. Sudden light made Lay flinch with a grunt. "I'm sorry.", Luhan said and threw the phone on the bed, the light from the screen still shining into the room, "You look...older..."

The confusion on Luhan's face was obvious.

"Because, you are older.", Lay said, his voice thin. No amount of practice ever prepared him for this. Only inches away, talking to his wide-eyed human.

"Me... what do I have to do with anything?", he frowned, but then his mouth made a perfect 'o', "Ohhh, I see! You are a different ghost!"

"N-no, I am the same. But I am not..."

"What?"

"I am not a ghost."

"Where did you come from then?", there was now weariness in Luhan's voice stemming from the fact that he was wrong about the origin of this creature in front of him.

"I..I don't know how to explain. Are you afraid of me?"

"I'm not!", Luhan declared defensively, straightening himself up from his usual hunch that sometimes gave him back pain. They were almost the same height, Lay noted.

"Why not?"

"Because, because I'm brave.", somehow this statement reminded Lay of the time when Luhan was 11 and was the first one of his friends to go into an abandoned hut close to his grandmother's house. The wooden floor of the hut was rotten, and Luhan ended up falling through it, miraculously, without any major injuries.

"You are foolish.", Lay stated, and Luhan unconsciously went back into his slumping position.

"So,", Luhan sat back down on his bed, "if you're not a ghost, what are you? You can sit on that chair.", he pointed behind Lay, "That is, if you sit, at all.."

Lay never sat before, but it didn't look too difficult so he positioned himself on the chair, "I am Lay.", he attempted, but with human mouth it came out nothing like it was supposed to. "Lay.", he tried saying his name again but it came out all weird. He should have practiced it. How did he forget to practice his own name.

"What the hell kind of language is that?", Luhan's mother wouldn't approve of this vocabulary, Lay thought, "It sounds like a derailing train."

"Lllllaaaaayyy.", he tried slowly this time, trying to work with the apparatus he was given with this body.

"You know, I think I'll just call you Lay. It kinda sounds like that, if you try to get past all the gasps and snorts."

"Ok. Luhan."

"You say my name perfectly!", this was the first time Luhan smiled at him. It felt like a punch to the chest and Lay jerked backwards.

"It's because it is your name, in your language. It doesn't seem like I can say mine properly. But what you said, you can call me that."

"Lay?"

"Yes, that is good."

"But wait, that is just your name, it isn't what you are."

Lay really didn't understand what the difference was and he suddenly felt sympathetic to Luhan's parents who, he remembered, were often confronted by all kinds of questions from their inquisitive son that they didn't know how to answer.

"I mean,", the boy obviously caught onto the confusion, "if you're not a ghost, and I'm guessing you're not a human either, like I am, what are you?"

"Oh. I...", Lay thought for a second but there was a good reason they never confronted the humans, "I don't know how to explain.", he eventually gave up, but Luhan sighed as if Lay was the dumb one and not him with his limited human brain.

"Were you once a human?", but before Lay could answer, the excitable boy's eyes widened again, "A vampire! Are you a vampire!". Luhan sounded excited but made a subtle move and put a hand over his throat.

"A vampire?", but Lay gasped as soon as he remembered what a vampire was, and his eyes shot to Luhan's newly lifted hand, "No! Luhan! I am not going to your blood!", he found the very thought appalling and wondered why, if he had any doubts of that kind, was Luhan still sitting so close to him in stead of running for his life. He will get himself killed one day and there will not be a thing Lay will be able to do to stop that, he thought morosely. "I will protect you, always!"

"Protect me?", Luhan's hand fell into his lap again, "From what?", he asked with a frown, "Am I in some sort of danger?"

"No! It's not like that, I just, I didn't want you to be lonely.", Lay said, and while he supposed his mission was a success, he didn't imagine that he would be assaulted by this barrage of questions. Then again, he should know his human by now, as reckless and as curious as a cat.

"How did you know I was lonely?", the liveliness was gone from his voice replaced by what sounded like shame, "Wait.", and the tone changed again, "Were you watching me?"

Whatever this tone was, it made Lay fidget, "Well, yes. I watch over you."

"What?!", Luhan stood up, dragging a sheet with him to cover his chest, even though he was fully clad, "What sort of ert are you?", he said accusingly and Lay suddenly found himself in hot water. He didn't know what to say, so he just stood up as well, the chair making a clang after falling to the floor.

"I-I'm not, it's just, how else....?", he completely blanked out. Why would his own human call him a ert when all he is made for is to protect him and keep him safe.

"Are you..", Luhan suddenly leaned closer, "are you crying?"

Was he? He didn't know how it felt to cry, but Luhan's proximity made him take a deep breath. It was his scent, it made the heart in his chest beat very fast.

"I'm sorry, don't cry.", Luhan's expression softened, "It's just...weird if you watch me all the time."

"It's not all the time.", Lay said very quietly and it was difficult to talk because it felt like he had a potato stuffed down his throat. Or at least he guessed that's how it would feel, "Only when you need me."

"So, you came because I said I was alone?", Lay nodded and Luhan smiled, "And now I made you cry. I'm sorry.". Luhan took a step towards him and lifted his hand to wipe the wet cheeks, "Don't be scared.", he said when Lay shuddered and flinched at the touch, "I'm sorry. I really don't understand what you are, but thank you."

And so Lay made another mistake and put his arms around Luhan. He didn't know why he did it, but it felt like the right thing to do. Even so, he was surprised when Luhan leaned and put his chin on his shoulder, returning the hug. It was the most beautiful feeling he has ever felt, because this was something his human needed. He then realised that he could fix Luhan's soul, at least a bit, and that he didn't even have to use his powers. They stayed like that for a few moments, which was how long it took for Lay to realise just how much trouble he is in now.

"I shouldn't have come.", he said sadly as he let Luhan go.

"I'm glad you did. Thank you, whatever you are."

"I'm Lay.", he pronounced the name the way Luhan says it.

"Are you not allowed to come here or something?"

"Not like this, because you shouldn't know we exist."

"I won't tell anyone!", Luhan said quickly, "You won't get in trouble, will you? I don't want you to get in trouble because of me."

"I don't know.", he said honestly, "But I have to go."

"Will you come back again?"

"You ask so many questions Luhan, and I don't have many answers. But even if I can't come back like this, I am always here - when you want me to be, that is.", he added hastily.

"That is so weird...wait, am I the only one you watch over? Or do you watch over everyone? Or are there more of you?"

There he goes again, Lay though and smiled, "Good bye Luhan."

He was in trouble, he was in so much trouble. But they can say whatever they want, it was worth it. His human is not like the others. His human wasn't afraid. His human hugged him back...they hugged. And he made him smile. That was the best feeling of all. At least now, Luhan knows that he will never be truly alone. Unless he wants to be, of course.