5 Outside

By the next morning Mandy had finished reading August's book and was about to look up the Harry book, yet that was interrupted by an annoying buzz on the floor. August's hand made a zombie like crawl to fetch the phone and press it to his ear.

"Yes?" He asked with his eyes still closed.

"Where are you?" asked a mildly upset voice on the other side. It was a male's voice as far as Mandy could tell.

"Sleeping." Came a reply.

A pause. "Be here in half an hour at the latest." The voice turned cold as ice.

August's eyes popped open and he sat up. "Be where?"

Mandy stared at the exchange in a wonder. That was another new expression on August's face.

"... Unbelievable… Tower street 5a, 4th floor. The telenovela deal." The voice in the phone grew even colder. Cold enough for August to shiver just by hearing it.

"..shit" August muttered, the phone dropping from his hand, as he jumped off the bed and started looking through his clothes in haste, then tore off the shirt he had been sleeping in.

Only at that moment, Mandy realized that August had never shown much skin in the room, always dressing and undressing in the bathroom. In the first days, she had thought it must be a habit of his, not suspecting at all that he had been mindful of her eyes. She was about to turn away, but something caught her attention. Scars. On the left side where the kidney ought to be and over his right lung. An operation? No, far messier, extending radial lines… it somewhat reminded of the wound Tia had gotten.

A white buttoned shirt went over August's back and he was about to take off his shorts, only then recalling that there was another person in the room. He cast a glance at Mandy and their eyes met.

"... is that your hobby?" He asked.

Mandy flushed completed red and turned away. She put her hands on her face, looking completely embarrassed. Mandy only looked towards August a minute later when he ran past her towards the bathroom. She was still red, but now she could look - he was properly dressed.

Clothes did make a person, Mandy had to admit - rather than looking like a sleep-deprived student (which August wasn't, but he did don a style of that sort usually - loose jeans and oversized t-shirts), he looked like a proper working adult. A buttoned shirt, waistcoat, fitting jeans for a change and a jacket. He even brushed his hair! (It was no longer a mess, a change Mandy didn't think was possible.)

How did August change from that to this in a mere five minutes if not less was a mystery for Mandy, but she didn't get a chance to ask. Rather, she looked at August like he was a circus animal of sorts.

August rushed back to the sofa he had been sleeping on and arranged a taxi via a certain app, pulled out his suitcase (the same one containing vials and other weird things) and traced a big circle over the top of it, drawing some shape in the middle. The suitcase shrunk within moments, turning into a small black book - most would guess it's a pocket edition of a bible from looks alone. August slid 'the bible' in his chest pocket, left the phone on the sofa and went about finding his wallet, keys, then packed up his laptop.

The phone let out a beep and August put his laptop bag over his shoulder and quickly found a pair of shoes.

That sight of a suitcase turning into a book rose so many questions that Mandy kept looking at August in a daze. Like a circus animal indeed. So many bizarre things in such a short time.

"See ya," he said to Mandy without looking at her direction, thus failing to notice that she was looking at him like he was putting on a performance, which might be for the best, considering his lack of time to comment on it.

"See ya," Mandy replied and as the door fell shut, she floated towards it to close it, hearing footsteps running down the stairs.

August's phone let out a buzz on the sofa.

"Oh--" Mandy fetched it with telekinesis and rather than closing the doors, opened them, floating out and towards the stairs. "AUGUST!"

The sound of him running stopped.

"Your phone!" She called. The phone continued to buzz, floating in midair.

A groan resounded and he started running back up.

Mandy met him partway, passing over the phone.

"Thanks," August said and rushed down again.

Mandy nodded and turned back to the open door. Eh. Wait. What? She froze up for a bit. She hadn't been able to leave that apartment for seventeen years. There had been something like a force surrounding it, stopping her from making even a single step outside, yet now she was by the stairs. The force was gone. Why? How?

Afraid to head back in the apartment, lest she is locked in it again, she closed the doors and turned the lock with telekinesis, starting to free fall downwards, towards where August was running.

Yet her speed was only big enough for her to reach him as he had opened the taxi door.

"August, I got out…" Mandy said, her eyes wide in fright.

August glanced back, a glimpse of surprise, then a sigh, he got in the taxi without replying to her.

"Hey!" She called out, frustrated.

August made a slight wave at her down where the taxi driver wouldn't see, then closed the door.

Yet seeing that gesture she calmed a bit and floated in the taxi through the ceiling, taking a seat next to August. She was still very anxious as revealed by her expression, though.

"Tower street 5a, right?" The taxi driver asked.

"Yes," August replied and started typing on his phone.

The taxi driver asked nothing more and started driving.

'When your haunting target changes from a place to a human you can move pretty far out.' August placed his phone on the seat next to him so Mandy could see it.

"Eh-oh, so I'm haunting a hu--" A recollection hit her. An ominous recollection. 'You can only haunt someone you really like… really like… really like…' The last line echoed in her head and Mandy covered her face with her hands once again.

August picked up his phone again and looked out of the window, there was a trace of an amused smile lingering on his lips.

After five minutes of silence, Mandy moved her hands back down. "... are there other conditions under which a ghost can haunt a human?"

August's expression had turned to neutral by now (neutral enough to give away that he was hiding his actual feelings). He typed his response. 'You have weird tastes.'

"I DO NOT!" Mandy pressed her hands on the seat next to August, her hair flaring up like she was a mermaid underwater.

'You would be the first person not calling me weird then.'

"Wait, even the spider big-boobs called you that?" A question broke in, before Mandy realized the implication.

'She did.' Although as August typed, one corner of his lips cracked. He looked like he was holding back laughter.

"YOU--" Mandy made the connection. "Arrgh-- I don't-- I mean, I don't hate you, but…" Her forehead fell on the seat as she groaned more.

August let out a breath. Then typed something up, lowering the screen to Mandy's eye level.

Mandy raised her face from the seat and read the message.

'Really like does not mean romantic love per se.'

Mandy let out a relieved breath. "...August, you can be really mean, you know," Mandy said and turned her face back to the seat in a pout.

August merely smiled at that and turned his eyes back to the window. Mandy didn't see that smile, though.

A couple of minutes later, the taxi stopped and after exchanging a few words and pleasantries, August got out, followed by the pouty-faced ghost. After heading into a high rise building and finding an elevator, they were finally alone. By that time Mandy's pout had been replaced by a look of wonder. A lot of things had changed in the past seventeen years and she had caught glimpses of that in the very first floor they had passed.

"I won't be able to answer any questions for a while now," August said.

Mandy nodded. "Others can neither see nor hear me, right?"

"Exactly. Normies don't. I would look like a crazy person if I talked with you normally."

"Okay," Mandy consented.

"If you spot something odd, not human, some monster or anything of that sort - do not cross eyes with them."

Mandy would have asked why, but Number '4' rang at that moment and the two of them came out in what seemed to be an office.

A man in his forties walked up to August, his eyes were so cold that Mandy had feeling it must be the same man who called earlier.

"Next time I will pick you up," he said looking like he was scolding a teenage boy.

August averted his eyes, seeming to revert to being a teenage boy in his gestures. "...Sorry."

"Pff--" Mandy stifled a laugh.

August really didn't look or talk to the ghost, but he softly elbowed her side.

"HEY--" Mandy retorted and frowned. Okay. She wasn't right to laugh like that, but-- she had tried to stifle it, right? Just like August had back in the car… she started to remember her earlier upset.

August ignored her call, of course, starting to walk after the cold-eyed man. Mandy frowned and crossed her arms, floating after them with a pout. Her pout soon got replaced with a curious look, though. It had something to do with a telenovela, right? To think it would be something so exciting!

Yet-- despite the ghost's expectations the meeting turned out to be rather… no extremely, boring. It was pretty much just nitpicking about details in the screenplay and both sides coming to begrudging compromises about those. There wasn't anything fancy like picking the best actress or heated scenes of 'I refuse to do this' with running outside, or either of the sides calling off the deal in a heat of the moment. They went through the episode scripts one by one and within two sets of four hours with lunch in between (during which August and his agent had some talks about why some scenes really needed to be there while others could be, maybe, omitted) they were more or less done, exchanged pleasantries after and that was it.

"Such a hassle," August said when he and Mandy were on the elevator again. August's agent and the director of the project had stayed behind to finalize other details, but August was now free to go.

"Seemed that way," Mandy chimed in.

"Why can't they just stay true to the book and be done with it?" August sighed.

"Is that all the control you have over it?" Mandy asked, the thing about picking actors still on her mind.

"Oh," August's expression cleared up. "This is more than most authors get. Having any say on the script is uncommon already."

To Mandy, it seemed like recalling that detail alone had erased the grumpy expression August had previously. Counting your blessings did mean something… yet that said she was still very disappointed about it being completely unlike her imagination.

August and Mandy passed through the building's first floor in silence and headed out. The sky had already started to darken by then.

"Hey, can we walk around a bit?" Mandy asked. It had been seventeen years since she last saw the town, after all.

August lifted his phone to his ear, pretending to talk into it. "For an hour, not more."

"Yay!" Mandy smiled. After the drudgery of all those frustrating conversations, some sightseeing seemed like just the right thing!

And then it happened. She noticed the biggest change compared to the world she could see seventeen years ago.

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