Luhan awoke facedown on the cold concrete, complete silence surrounding him. Groaning against the bright sunlight, he pulled his hands beneath him and began pushing up, attempting to get his body off of the ground. Luhan looked around. He was in the same place that the crash had happened, but instead of seeing the mangled car and his own body staring lifelessly into the night sky, he saw yellow police tape fluttering slightly in the cold wind. Luhan walked closer to the scene to find dried blood still stained on the concrete and parts of the grass. His blood.

Luhan clenched his stomach tightly as he felt a slight stirring in his stomach. He backed away from the police tape quietly and turned his head quickly. Looking around, he saw a woman walking by with her child, steering clearly away from the crime scene.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” Luhan called to the mother. “Ma’am!” He tried again when he got no response.

The mother and child kept walking until they had disappeared over the hill. Luhan sighed to himself and began walking in the same direction, towards his home with Yixing.

As Luhan began to encounter more people, he noticed that not one of them paid him any mind, even passing straight through him even Luhan was not careful. The first couple of times this happened, Luhan had begun to freak out, brushing at his chest violently until he looked back and noticed the person who had walked through him was seemingly unaffected.

Luhan shook his head and continued walking. Even though everyone in the crowd was bundled up in thick coats and scarves to keep away the bitter winter breeze, Luhan, who wore only jeans and a light shirt, couldn’t feel any of the coldness. He was immune to the nip of winter.

Reaching his apartment building, he looked up at the windows, some with curtains closed to hide its contents, others wide open. Luhan looked for Yixing’s room, whose window was always open, as the Chinese man had very little to hide. He looked up towards the third floor and near left corner, but found his curtains closed. Luhan scrunched up his brows and pulled his hands out of his pockets. He walked towards the front door of the building and wrapped his hand around the handle, trying to grip it as his hand slipped through yet again.

Luhan grunted in frustration and closed his eyes as he attempted to walk through the door. “It’s worth a try,” he muttered to himself.

A few seconds later, Luhan opened his eyes to find himself in the quiet lobby. He smiled triumphantly, but instantly began yelling in frustration as he realized yet another problem.

“If I can’t even touch anything, how the hell am I supposed to get in the ing elevator and hit the stupid third floor button?!” He yelled, hitting himself in the head.

Admitting defeat, Luhan slumped to the floor and put his head in his hands as silent tears trailed their way down his cheeks.

“Luhan.”

Luhan looked up suddenly as he felt a light touch on his shoulder and looked up to see the concerned face of Kris.

“Kris, I don’t think I can do this.” Luhan confessed to the younger man as he leaned into Kris’ touch.

“Come with me, Luhan, I’ll show you something.”

Confused, Luhan got up and followed the taller male over to the elevator. “Try pressing the button.”

Luhan shook his head. “It won’t work Kris; my hand just goes right through it.” He attempted pressing the up button to prove his point and again, Luhan’s hand glided easily through the wall.

Kris looked at him. “Imagine being able to press it. Imagine what it feels like under your finger. If you think about it hard enough, you can make yourself become somewhat solid; I guess that’s how you could put it. You still won’t be able to be seen, but you’ll be able to touch things, like picking things up or pressing buttons or opening doors. Stuff like that.”

Luhan looked shocked as he registered this information. He smiled and quickly closed his eyes, imagining the thousands of times he had hit the same button when he was alive. He moved his hand forward to where he remembered the elevator to be and again tried to press it. His hand passed through.

“Damn it!”

“You aren’t concentrating hard enough.” Kris chastised the smaller man.

Luhan breathed in and, squinting at his hand, put every ounce of concentration into being able to simply press a button. He slowly moved his hand toward the wall and felt the button give beneath his hand and heard the successful ding of the elevator. “It worked, Kris! I did it!” But as soon as he broke concentration, Luhan immediately felt light headed and saw the same darkness that he had woken from just a while ago.

Seeing this, Kris quickly put his hand to Luhan’s forehead and closed his eyes. Luhan immediately felt a rush of energy and the blackness that was skirting the edges of his mind retreated quickly.

“What was that?”

“If you use too much energy, you fade away. When you made your hand solid just now, you almost used more energy than you had. When that happens, you begin to fade away and fall into blackness. At least, that’s what I remember.”

“Is that what happened yesterday?”

Kris hesitated for a moment and nodded uncertainly. “Well, yeah, but, Luhan, that wasn’t yesterday. That was almost two months ago.”

Luhan looked shocked as he was hit with this information. “Two months? I’ve been gone for two months?!”

Kris nodded and looked at the man who was now beginning to hyperventilate.

“Luhan, quit it. You’re going to fade away again if you go too far. Luhan. Luhan! Be quiet!”

Luhan finally quieted as he heard Kris yelling at him and finally calmed down. Kris grabbed the older man and shoved him into the elevator, pressing the third floor button easily.

Luhan breathed as he felt the elevator begin to glide up. “So what do I do now?” He asked, looking up at Kris.

Kris shrugged. “You do whatever until you meet the person you’re supposed to help. That’s what I did until I found you. I stayed with my parents and visited a few people, maybe playing a few tricks here and there.”

Luhan felt himself smile as he listened to Kris.

When the elevator stopped and opened on Luhan’s floor, he looked to the side to talk to Kris again, but the man had disappeared yet again. Luhan sighed as he stepped out of the elevator and slowly walked to his door.

“One last thing.”

Luhan jumped as he heard Kris directly behind him.

“!” Luhan yelled. “You scared the hell out of me, man. A little warning next time would be nice.”

Kris smiled. “If you make yourself fade voluntarily before you feel the blackness taking you, you’ll regain your energy and only be gone for a day or two. But be careful doing this. If you do it too much, there’s a chance you might not come back. Good luck Luhan.” And again, Luhan watched Kris as he faded away quickly, disappearing fully in a matter of seconds.

Luhan looked back to the front door of his and his best friend’s apartment and took a deep breath. He slowly pushed himself through the door and came face to face with the living room that he had not seen in two months.

Luhan’s eyes widened as he saw the mess. There was trash all over the coffee table and floor, the TV was still on even though there was no sign of life in the living room. He looked over at the kitchen and noticed piles of dirty dishes all over the kitchen counter and in the sink and leftover food still on the table. Dirty clothes littered the floor of the hallway. The thing that shocked Luhan the most, however, was the amount of beer cans everywhere.

“Yixing, what have you done?” Luhan muttered, a tear escaping and running down his pale cheek.

Stepping cautiously over the trash, Luhan made his way to Yixing’s bedroom and peered inside, noticing an empty bed, unmade. He walked over and, making himself slightly solid, sat down on the bed, running his hands over the cold covers. “At least I got the hang of this magic crap.” Luhan whispered to the dark room.

Luhan looked across the hallway to his room and saw the door was closed tightly. Luhan sighed and stood up when he heard a noise coming from his room. Luhan’s brows furrowed as he walked through his still closed door and immediately saw Yixing sitting in the middle of his bed, wearing one of his shirts and clutching his pillow tightly.

Tears were flowing down Yixing’s cheeks as he stared ahead at nothing.

“Yixing?” Luhan tried, hoping the Chinese man could see him, that he would be the person Luhan was supposed to help. But he got nothing in return. Luhan sighed as he sat in his desk chair and watched the Chinese man.

“You were supposed to stay with me, Lu. You were all I had and you left me. I can’t go back home, back to China, not without you. I have nobody here. Why did you do this to me?”

Luhan began crying as he listened to his best friend. He heard a slight slur in Yixing’s voice and discovered that the man had been drinking.

“I had to go down to the police station and identify your body! Do you know how hard that was for me?! I told you not to go that night, and yet you still went! Now I have nothing! We were going to find the perfect girls, and have that double wedding you always talked about whenever you got dumped. I was supposed to have a daughter and you were going to have a son, and they were going to grow up together and get married, and then we would truly be family. You promised, damn it! But then you had to go and get yourself killed!”

Luhan felt his insides crumbling as he watched Yixing break down in front of him, beating Luhan’s pillow as tears poured down his face. He hadn’t realized Yixing had remembered all of his drunken rants.

“Damn it, Luhan, I miss you. I miss you so ing much.” Yixing muttered as he laid his head down on Luhan’s bed sleepily.

Luhan, still crying, got up from his seat at his desk and walked over to his barely conscious best friend. He made himself solid and softly pushed Yixing’s fringe from his forehead and leaned down, pressing his lips to Yixing’s forehead. “I’m so sorry, Xing. I didn’t want any of this, I promise. I love you.”

Yixing sighed and closed his eyes.

“Sometimes it still feels like your right here next to me, Luhan. Like I can still feel you.” Yixing chuckled. “I must be going crazy.”

Yixing closed his eyes and quickly fell asleep with Luhan keeping a watchful eye all night.