“So how long have you been a ghost for? Not to be rude, but when did you die?” I asked suddenly after a few visits from Xiumin. His presence in my confinement had become a regular occurrence after probably eight times he showed up. His visits became such a habit, I found myself sitting at the table, facing the wall he usually ghosted through.

 

Xiumin glanced toward the small window with a distant look in his hazy eyes. He started counting quietly to himself on his fingers. “Maybe a few years. Possibly four or five,” he concluded dreamily, nodding slowly.

 

“That’s about the same for me. You can see the years on the walls. I count every day I’ve been here. It’s been four years, seven months, and seventeen days since I appeared,” I explained as I pointed out the ruined walls surrounding us.

 

He followed the tallies from the start, head moving with the flow of time that began years ago for me. “But what will you do when you run out of room? What if you’re here for much longer than you think you’ll be? Will you ever stop keeping track of the time? Do you even know what month it is out there?”

 

I swallowed thickly. There were some things I tried to avoid thinking about. One of those things was that I’d be stuck here forever. I tracked the time, the days, the months and years, to keep my mind on the present and past. Not thinking about the future. I didn’t even want a future if it meant I’d be in here the entire time.

 

Xiumin noticed my darkened mood. He came closer and patted my head. “You’ll pass on one day. We will figure out why you’re trapped in here. We’ll find out who you really are.”

 

“What about you, Xiumin?” I asked. “You’re a ghost. Ghosts only hang around the earth if they have last wishes or regrets. You can’t leave without figuring that out, too.”

 

The ghost smiled a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes, but I didn’t point it out. I understood him. He was dealing with the same worries as I was.

 

I watched him turn away from me and float to the wall with the earliest scratches. “How’d you make them?” He asked simply.

 

“I didn’t mark today. Let me show you,” I insisted as I made my way to the area with the most recent marks. He appeared next to me with genuine curiosity in his eyes.

 

Luckily, I was trapped in this house fully clothed, so I was able to utilize the buttons on my shirt. I was down four buttons and had a few more to go. Over time, the buttons wore down from being scraped against the wall 365 days a year.

 

I removed the current button from my pocket and rubbed the surface softly with the edge of the object. Then I tapped on it a few times before carving a small, vertical line. “There. Done.”

 

“Wow,” Xiumin murmured. “Can I try?”

 

“Can you hold a button?” I couldn’t help but ask—ghost things, you know?

 

“Lemme try,” he instructed.

 

I handed him my button and it slipped through his translucent fingers.

 

“Guess not,” he said solemnly as he moved his fingers over the wall in a small pattern I couldn’t recognize. He sighed and resigned himself. “There’s nothing I would write, anyway. So it doesn’t matter. It’s fine.”

 

I shrugged in response before he changed the conversation.

 

___

 

Sitting at the table as I always do, I notice a slight change in the scenery. The walls are clean and freshly painted a magnificent gray. The chair across from me is no longer legless and there are flowers in the middle of the table—what are flowers? I do not know—arranged in a beautiful manner.

 

This must be what Xiumin told me about. A dream.

 

I look up at the window and around the room, hoping my ghost friend will come back through the walls—now back to their normal state of worn-out and scratched.

 

But I notice something—something small and hardly there—on my wall. It was where Xiumin wanted to try out the button carver. I smile fondly at the memory.

 

I stand up from the table and go to the small mark. I can’t quite make out what it says, but it seems to be written in hangul—it looks like three characters. But I’m not sure what it is.

 

I go back to my table and look out the window. There’s the moon. It’s not so bad, I found out recently.

 

I realized that it wasn’t the one that took away Xiumin. I learned that it is harmless. It is a neutral entity, whereas the sun is a positive one—though it can be negative, Xiumin once informed me.

 

The moon, I realized, is much like me. Trapped in a never-ending cycle of existence. The moon doesn’t come and go, however. Instead, it’s always there. It’s reliable, too. Sometimes it seems as though it leaves because it’s out of sight. But that’s because the sun is shining from a different angle. The earth’s shadow is what hides the moon.

 

And that’s what I believe happened to Xiumin. I know he’s here. I know he’s somewhere nearby. He just can no longer be seen. I realize this as the mark on the wall grows darker and darker over time.

 

___

 

“Do you think you were ever in love? Are you stuck here because you’re waiting for your loved one to pass, as well?” Xiumin asked casually while we were trying to figure out my reason for still existing.

 

I shook my head. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. I think that if that was the case, I’d feel differently. I’d probably remember something, at least—a name, a face, a voice.”

 

Xiumin raised his hands in surrender. “Just a suggestion. I heard that’s a very common reason for lingering souls.”

 

“Well, that would probably be nice, in all honesty. I don’t know what love is, but if I was alive before this, I sure do hope I wasn’t alone,” I said.

 

The ghost hummed in agreement. “Me, too. Love can be a wonderful thing,” he mused. “But it can also be the end of all things.”

 

“What do you mean?” I asked.

 

“One of my ghost acquaintances fell in love with a guardian angel and ceased to exist. It’s forbidden, I guess,” he chuckled softly.

 

“Oh,” was all I could respond with.

 

___

 

As the days pass, I notice the mark on the wall even more. This time, as I inspect it, I run my fingers over the tiny carvings. A jolt of electricity runs through my fingertips and through my body the moment I make contact with it.

 

I don’t feel any different and this small house is the same. I’m now confused as to what just happened. But I choose to ignore it—maybe it happened because I haven’t made contact with anything but the chair and table for a while.

 

But when I sit down, I feel the compelling urge to say something, to write something down, to tell someone—what? I don’t know.

 

Maybe I was transported to a different dimension, a parallel universe where I start to feel things. To feel things like emotions and desires. But isn’t it a desire for Minseok to return? Isn’t it an emotion-related thing to miss someone?

 

I think back to the day Minseok left—Minseok. Minseok?

 

“Minseok,” I find myself saying out loud. “Minseok, where are you?”

 

I can’t stop the words from flowing out. “Minseok!” I can’t help but shout. “Minseok, I will get you out of there. Hold on a little bit longer!”

 

The name, the phrases I am vocalizing, I don’t know who they belong to. There’s a pang in my chest that won’t go away. It stings, it burns like hell—hell, what even is hell?—and it’s not going away. It’s only growing stronger.

 

I want this to stop. I want this feeling to stop. I don’t want this. I didn’t ask for it.

 

I lower myself until I’m hugging my knees, shaking uncontrollably. 

 

“Minseok, I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.”

 

___

 

My eyes flutter open to a room unfamiliar to me. I don’t know where I am or how I got here. This is deja-vu all over again, but this time, I at least still have my memories from the previous house.

 

There’s just one name that’s on repeat in my head right now and I feel it on the tip of my tongue. I know I’m going to speak it sooner or later, I just don’t know when.

 

Now, rather than being trapped in a room, I’m trapped in my own body, in my mind. My mouth is producing words and sentences foreign to my current thoughts. I am no longer in control.

 

I look around me, taking in my surroundings. Everything is white. Clean, bright, and white. There are flowers to my left and a small bed below me. The seat next to me is adorned with tiny white flowers. I get up and stumble around the large window to the foot of the bed.

 

“Kim Jongdae,” I read the nameplate aloud.

 

___

 

My new form is capable of many things I could never have imagined before this. My eyes produce water and my mouth runs dry. My throat constraints and suffocates me a little when my vision is blurred by water.

 

I don’t understand what is happening, but I think it may have to do with Minseok.

 

After appearing in that strange, white room, I closed my eyes again, hoping to return to the comforting confinement of my previous home. As much as I wanted to get out, I realize it is much worse here than anywhere else.

 

I open my eyes to the same white room. Trying a different tactic, I stand up and let myself wander. If my body can now talk on its own, it must know how to walk—regardless of how late it must be.

 

All I can feel coursing throughout me were sorrow and the name Minseok.

 

My body brings me to an empty field with a burned down building. The tears build up again, making it difficult to see.

 

“Minseok, I’m here,” I hear myself saying.

 

As I step closer to the remains of the building, I realize it was a house, small and simple. My eyes scan the leftover pieces, as if looking for a clue.

 

“I’m here, Minseok,” my body says, louder this time.

 

My blurry eyes scan the fractured wood below me and my breath hitches as my gaze falls upon an all too familiar mark. In front of small tallies is the tiniest carving of a name.

 

I read it as “Kim Minseok.”

 

I feel a hand in mine and I look toward the side it’s on. I see nothing. But I know it’s him.

 

He came back.

 

And the moon above us watches silently.