No-one really knows why it happened. Maybe God got bored, maybe some mad scientist accidentally opened a portal that merged the two worlds together, but all Chanyeol remembers that was one moment he was about to bite into a hamburger, and the next minute he was sitting in the middle of someone else’s room. A living room. Well, not a living room living room. Well actually, now that he looked around it did look like a living room, but it was a living living room, as in a living room of the living, for the living to live in the living roo-long story short Chanyeol was a ghost and he had been dragged back to the mortal world. Anyway, there he was, wondering what on earth was happening, when he heard footsteps (actual footsteps!!!) and turned his head to see a living human walk out from an adjacent room, froze as she saw Chanyeol, and screamed.

“Nonono calm down it’s okay!” Chanyeol cried, jumping up to hover slightly above the polished wooden flooring. The girl ignores what he’s saying in favour of screaming even more loudly before flopping comically do the floor, fainting. Chanyeol stares at her for a moment before opting to just float through the wall outside instead of trying to find help. It’s not like she was in serious danger anyway.

He drifted idly down the corridor of the apartment complex, looking around in wonder. It had been so long since he’d been in the mortal world. Everything looked different, although admittedly not by much.

“Chanyeol!” He whirled around at the sound of his name and came face-to-face with a friendly translucent figure.

“Minseok-hyung, you’re here too!” The two ghosts pointed at each other in a friendly gesture,

“Yeah, looks like a bunch of ghosts have turned up in the mortal world.”

“Any idea where we are?” Chanyeol asked as they floated down to the exit (they didn’t need to, but it was out of courtesy)

“Seoul, South Korea. I materialised in the kitchen of this super superstitious guy. Turns out he was trying out some summoning ritual when I turned up and tried to ask me about his dead pet hamster.”

Chanyeol snorted.

“Psh, mortals.”

As it turns out, a handful of ghosts had been transported to the mortal world in random locations around the world, mostly those who had died within the last forty years or so (although they found out an old man named Joonmyun had died way back during the Joseon Dynasty). As Minseok had discovered, being in the mortal world gave ghosts semi-telepathic abilities, sort of like calling people but with your mind. They were also able to manipulate their opacity and solidity, which Chanyeol found out accidentally in an incident that involved a taxi, a hamburger and a very distressed Lotte World employee. Chanyeol said it was all worth it because he found out he could indeed, once again, taste the beauty of a hamburger. Minseok begged to differ.

All in all the first week of ghost inhabitance in the mortal world was a little hectic. But by halfway through the second week, Chanyeol had successfully adapted to life as a ghost. Surprisingly, there had been no news reports or widespread panic about the appearance of ghosts, at least not in Korea anyway. Maybe Minseok and Chanyeol were the only two? But upon Minseok’s request, he and Chanyeol decided to keep a low profile for as long as possible.

So much for that.

In all honesty, Chanyeol hadn’t really meant to, it was just that he forgot the mortal world worked differently from the ghost world and the boy had been really cute on his balcony and Chanyeol had just…floated in front of him and blurted out a really bad pick-up line.

“Are you a parking ticket? Because you have FINE written all over you.”

The boy stared right at Chanyeol, expression emotionless and passive, before turning around back into his house.

“Waitwaitwait! I’m sorry I didn’t mean to say that, that was a bad joke.” Chanyeol followed the boy through the closed glass door into his home. He vaguely registered that the place was small yet rather neat. “Let me start over. My name is Chanyeol, I’m a ghost, well that bit might be obvious. But I uhh, found myself here about two weeks ago and I’ve just been wondering around the mortal world ever since.”

The boy didn’t react, reading his book in the living room with a kind of indifference that made Chanyeol clump his shoulders.

“I’ll just…go.” He floated back out of the balcony door, the boy’s eyes didn’t even flicker.

“He didn’t even react to me! It’s like he couldn’t even see me.” Chanyeol said dramatically, flopping down onto the cement with a small puff of dust.

“Maybe he couldn’t. Remember that old lady that couldn’t see us?” Minseok reasoned, floating down to sit at Chanyeol’s head.

“But he looked right AT me! He stared deep into my soul and broke my fragile heart.” He covered his eyes with an arm and sighed deeply. Minseok contemplated hitting him for acting like a hormonal teenage boy that had just been denied pictures, but decided that he couldn’t be bothered.

“Just go back again tomorrow and apologise properly, like a decent soul.” He replied instead.

“Uh, hey, remember me? Of course you do that’s a stupid question, how many other ghosts do you see around every day? Haha.” Chanyeol smiled hopefully at the cute boy, who decided not to react in favour of looking back down at his phone. “Yeah…anyway I think we got off to the wrong start yesterday. So uh, do you believe in love at first sight? Or should I materialise again?”

Minseok looked at him incredulously.

“You used. Another pick up line on him? After you’d just spouted some other complete bull at him yesterday?”

“What else am I meant to do?!” Chanyeol wailed. “The only way I know how flirt is pick-up lines!”

Minseok stared at him.

“Did you perhaps die without ever being in a proper relationship?”

“Yeah, how did you know?”

“…never mind.”

Minseok gave up on trying to tell Chanyeol that you couldn’t just say a cheesy pick up line to pick up cute boys Chanyeol gosh darn it he probably hates you right now.

“Can your eyes see the future? Because I can see myself in them. Well, actually I can’t be seen in reflections at all so that doesn’t work too well. Or…or it could be an implication that you could become a gho-nononon please don’t walk away I’m sorry!”

“Are you a ghost? Because you’re OUT OF THIS WORLD! Heh? Get it? Because I’m the ghost so it’s ironic? Yeah?...Yeah that was a bad one.”

“Are you Gooooogel? Because you’re everything I’m searching for. Oh come on, I had to convince a freaked out lady to look that one up for me, it’s modern!”

“You know, even though I can defy the laws of gravity, I’m still falling for you…No? Not even that one? Oh come on I stuck my neck through the floor for that one, do you know how uncomfortable that is? Please stop ignoring me.”

Sheesh, Chanyeol thought, flirting is hard.

It had been seven whole days since Chanyeol had first seen the cute boy, and he had gone back every day since to try and woo his heart.

“it’s today, today is the day.” Chanyeol said with determination to a ‘200%-done-with-you’ Minseok. “If I can’t get him to talk to me today, I’m officially giving up.”

“That’s what you said yesterday, and the day before that.” Minseok said, standing up and starting to float away from Chanyeol towards the door.

“Yes but I really mean it today.” Minseok didn’t answer.

Chanyeol arrived at the cute boy’s house, took a deep breath and stepped through the glass of his balcony door as always, floating cautiously around the now-familiar living room and seeing if cute boy was out yet. He heard a door from the hallway open, and immediately glided over to the end of it, huge grin on his face as cute boy emerged from the bathroom with a towel wrapped around himself.

“Hey! Are you a broom? Because-“

The boy ignored Chanyeol completely, walking straight through him to the living room.

“Ow! Now that was just plain rude.” Chanyeol clutched his stomach where the boy had walked through. The boy froze, turned around to stare straight at Chanyeol. “I mean, I know I’m transparent and all but it still hurts when you walk straight through me without warning you know.”

The boy stared.

“What?”

He screamed, eyes wider than Chanyeol had ever seen them, looking at Chanyeol as though he had only just realised he was there.

“What? Why are you screaming? Is there something behind me?” He looked behind him to see if there was a monster in the hallway or something. He heard a thunk and whipped his head back around, only to see that cute boy was on the floor, out cold. Chanyeol squatted next to him, peering down at cute boy’s pale face.

“Mortals are weird.”

It was a good half an hour before cute boy started to regain consciousness. Chanyeol, who didn’t have that amount of patience to wait by his side, was possessing some sort of robot on a nearby shelf when cute boy opened his eyes very abruptly.

“Beep boop beep-Oh hey you’re awake!” Chanyeol flew out of the robot and landed cross-legged next to cute boy, smiling down at him with his usual manic grin. Cute boy sat up abruptly and started crawling away from Chanyeol with a terrified look on his face.

“You…you-“

“Me?” Chanyeol cocked a head to the side curiously. Cute boy’s towel slipped off while he was crawling back, but he didn’t seem to give it any attention.

“You-you’re a…a….”

His head tilted even more so he was in danger of falling sideways.

“I’m a what?”

“g-g-g-g-g-ghost.” The cute boy managed feebly. His back had finally hit the nearest wall, he was trapped.

“Well, yeah I thought you would have noticed by now.” Chanyeol frowned slightly, had this boy not noticed that he was transparent for a whole week? Maybe he had short term memory loss.

“Ghost. You’re an a-actual, real life ghost.” Cute boy said, eyes fixed on Chanyeol’s.

“Uhhhhh, yes? Did you just notice this?”

“What.”

“You know, with all the flirting I’ve been doing all week and all the ignoring you’ve done to me I sort of thought you had accepted the fact that I’m dead by now.”

Cute boy continued to stare as though Chanyeol was out of his mind.

“Wait. You’ve…been seeing me, right?”

Slowly, he shook his head. Now Chanyeol was confused.

“But…but you saw me, on the first day. You looked straight at me.”

Again, the cute boy shook his head.

“I-I’ve never seen you before.”

“Really? Really?!” Chanyeol let out a large exclamation of happiness. “That means you HAVEN’T been ignoring me!!” He felt like his mouth was going to split with how happy he was. “Okay okay okay let’s start this over again. Are you a broom? Because you sweep me off my feet!”

He made a motion as if to fall over and levitated slightly off the floor.

Chanyeol looked at him expectantly.

The cute boy stared.

“You…used another pick up line on him.” Minseok was staring incredulously. “You found out that you had a chance to reverse your week of stupidity and you used another pick-up line on him.”

“Hey it was not a week of stupidity!”

Minseok facepalmed. Chanyeol couldn’t understand why, he hadn’t done anything wrong.

“What did he do?” Minseok asked, voice muffled by his hand.

“Stared at me.” Chanyeol replied happily. “And then I pointed out he was and he screamed and threw his towel through me and ran into his room.”

Minseok heaved a sigh and then patted the floor next to him.

“Okay I’m sick of your come sit down, let me explain to you what you’re doing wrong.”

Confused, Chanyeol sat down.

“Right. Lesson one-flirting does not involve pick-up lines.”

“What? But-“

“Lesson two!” Minseok interrupted “You’re a ghost in the mortal world. Don’t just automatically assume people are going to accept you’re DEAD.”

“I thought he could see me! How was I supposed to know that-“

“LESSON THREE! Stop being a ing idiot. I know that ‘be yourself’ is meant to be a big thing, but honestly Chanyeol in your case, maybe we should hold it off for a bit. Any questions?”

Minseok stared at Chanyeol expectantly. Chanyeol raised his hand.

“But pick-up lines are the best inventions made by mortals!”

Minseok stared at him before shaking his head and starting to float away.

“What? WHaaaaaat?”

Sehun opened his eyes slowly as his six thirty alarm went off. Groping to slap it shut, he stared idly at the ceiling, trying to clear his head a little.

It was a dream. It was all just a dream. Ghost don’t exist, and one did not appear right in front of me and used a bad pick-up line. I’m going to get up, take a shower, and-

“Knock knock, hello! Anyone home?”

Sehun shut his eyes again. Oh .

“Helloooo? Am I allowed to come iiiin?”

Please go away please go away pleaaaase don’t be real-

Thirty seconds of mock-knocking and calling out later, Sehun gave up and stomped out of his room to his balcony door where, most unfortunately, ghost-man was hovering, looking a bit like a lost puppy. Irritated that yesterday’s events had not been a dream, Sehun yanked the door open with as much force as he could muster without breaking the glass.

“What.” He asked tonelessly.

“Oh good you’re awake! You know I was worried you’d actually died or something, I didn’t want to just hover in here because apparently that’s rude to do, it’s stuff you tend to forget when you haven’t been in the mortal world for like ageeees but anyway.” Sehun stared in wonder at how he could talk without drawing a breath (come to think of it ghosts may not need to breathe…) and consequently missed the fact that mr.ghost had just extended a transparent hand for him to shake, “My name’s Chanyeol, nice to meet you!”

Sehun stared at Chanyeol’s face for a while, then his eyes slowly drifted down to his outstretched hand. Chanyeol looked uncertain and closed his hand into a fist, bringing it back down to his side.

“No? Uhh, maybe they don’t do handshakes anymore. It’s been a while since I’ve been in the mortal world and that was about the only thing I could remember about introductions….”

“I-we, um, we still do handshakes. I was just…taken aback.” Sehun replied awkwardly.

“Oh.” There was a brief pause, and then “Sorry about scaring you yesterday. I didn’t mean to I swear. I honestly thought you could see me because you looked right at me the first time I saw you so….”

“’s alright.” Sehun muttered, feeling sorry for Chanyeol in spite of himself. “Wasn’t your fault.”

Another silence. Boy not being himself was hard, Chanyeol thought.

“So what’s your name?” he blurted out

“Huh? Oh, Sehun.”

“Sehun.” He repeated, Sehun had a pretty name.

“Pleasure to meet you.” He beamed. Sehun thought he had a few too many teeth

“So uhh, you’re a ghost.”

“Yep! There I was, in the ghost world, about to eat a hamburger when all of a sudden I wasn’t, I was in some mortal lady’s apartment instead.”

Sehun nodded before he realised that they’d been stood in the same position for the whole conversation.

“Would you, uh, like to come in?” Sehun asked, gesturing to his living room. “I need to go take a shower anyway. You could, uh, wait for me?”

“Really?” Chanyeol’s eyes lit up with excitement. He was being invited in! Minseok would be so proud. “Yes please!”

Sehun made to move out of the way, as if to let Chanyeol through the open door, but Chanyeol simply floated through the glass instead, and settled himself down in a sitting position on one of Sehun’s faded armchairs.

“I’ll just…go and, you know. Take a shower now.” And with that, Sehun exited rather awkwardly.

Chanyeol didn’t mind though, at least Sehun wasn’t screaming or fainting this time. And he’d even invited Chanyeol in!

He spent his waiting time ‘sitting’ on Sehun’s couch, getting a proper look at his living room (as he had been too busy staring at Sehun to notice much before) and nervously waiting for Sehun to come back. Finally, the sound of running water stopped and a few minutes later Chanyeol heard the door open. Sehun looked surprised to see Chanyeol sitting there, exactly as he’s left him. He seemed unsure how to go about this.

“I’m going to make breakfast, is that okay?”

“Yeah sure! Why wouldn’t it be?” Chanyeol asked. Sehun shrugged in reply.

“I’m just not sure what’s…okay, with you.” He said uncomfortably.

“Oh!” Chanyeol said with a little laugh, standing up to follow Sehun to the kitchen.

The tension between them melted away in the next half hour, Chanyeol explaining about his life as a ghost and his new escapades in the mortal world.

“So she looks at me and asks- ‘are you the tooth fairy?’”

Sehun snorted into his eggs, giggling madly and making Chanyeol feel rather pleased with himself.

“Can I ask you a question?” He said when he had finally calmed down.

“Sure!”

“What was with the random pick-up lines yesterday?”

“Oh, uhhh.” Chanyeol hesitated. Minseok-hyung had told him to hold back on himself until he got to know Sehun better, but then again he’d done alright so far, hadn’t he?

Ah it.

“The first time I saw you I thought you were really cute and next thing I knew I was stood in front of you and saying a pick-up line and you sort of looked straight at me and then away again so I thought you were just ignoring me but the only way I knew how to flirt or get your attention was to use pick-up lines so I’ve been coming back every day since.” Chanyeol said in one big rush.

There was a moment where Sehun stared at Chanyeol with such a blank expression that Chanyeol was afraid he’d kick him out. But then he smiled.

“That’s…actually kind of sweet.” He admitted.

Chanyeol beamed excitedly.

“Really? So will you go out with me?”

“No.” His smiled slipped off a little. “I’ve only known you for a day, two including yesterday where you freaked me out. We should be friends first.”

Chanyeol thought he was rather okay with that, being friends with the cute mortal boy.

“Hey Sehun.”

“Yeah?”

“Are you a hurricane?”

“A what?”

“Because you’re BLOWING ME AWAY!”

“…”

“Nononononono I’m sorry please turn the fan off no Sehun I’m sorry no more pick-up lines I swear! Sehun!”

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

A/N

;-;-;-;-; I’m so sorry this is bad

Also unbeta’d

Also finished rather hurriedly.

Just to give a bit of background, all the characters are their cannon ages. Chanyeol died sometime in the early 90s before the internet became a thing. Minseok died a little under a decade beforehand.

Happy Halloween everyone!

~watashihen