1 | A Chance Meeting

Ghosts… Paranormal entities who interact with the natural world... Most people believe in ghosts and say that it's possible that they really exist… Others say they don't really exist and were made up of figments of one's imagination. Ancient tales passed down from generation to generation in hopes of scaring children or teaching them to avoid danger. Let me ask you, though… Do YOU believe in ghosts?

Voices above the pavement, a steady tempo of regular exchanges. Three voices. Three people.

"Are you sure about this, Loi?" Kenta and Jaja asked, seriously. "No second thoughts?" Their voices began to grate against his ears as they approached the house. "Hey, are you listening? ...Loi?" He broke his silence and sighed. "Well, it's not as if I'd like to live here...but I have no choice..." Silence again.

His friends Kenta and Jaja exchanged glances nervously as they carefully thought of a rebuttal. Loi was not one to make a choice without considering the outcome. He may be getting ahead of himself, but they weren't going to let him waltz into harm's way without so much as a warning. Their shuffling feet grew quiet. They had arrived at the house in question.

An unassuming building though it was, clustered amongst those nondescript domiciles which dot the looming urban landscape, it was to be home. His unassuming home. "Oh~ We're here.." he announced, cloyingly. "This will be my new place." Loi turned to face his now hesitant friends. "Feel free to visit, you two." The pair did not hesitate to make their disdain known through the shocked exclamation that promptly followed. "No way!"

Loi trudged forward by his lonesome a moment, then shot back "Eh?! But why?" incredulously. His friends were clearly shaking now. Holding up an accusatory finger and implicating the building ahead of them as the target for his scrutiny, Kenta struggled to mention his thought with Jaja backing him up. "Because...that house..." Their expressions dropped suddenly and terror flooded in. "...is HAUNTED!"

The air now became still between the three as a thick and choking cloud of fog stole the facade of the home from view and the sky suddenly appeared to grow dark. Loi looked at his friends straight on now, having turned completely about face. "Oh?" He began. "Is that so?" In unison again, his currently estranged friends fired back "Don't you get it, Loi?"

Kenta, dripping with cool sweat, had spoken up. "That means there's a ghost in that house!" Loi's expression, or, what could be seen forming across his face was uncharacteristic. A wry grin he so rarely possessed these days broke through his lips. He leaned back and sighed. "You guys seriously still believe that something like ghosts exist?" He muffled his cackle. Kenta softened and chuckled to himself. "We already warned you..." he uttered ackwardly, scratching his head.

Jaja now bore a blank expression, only her shining pink eyes alluding to her deeper concerns. "Be careful..." Their words suspended in the thin veil of the afternoon before they turned to depart. "See ya tomorrow, Loi~" they chirped. "See you guys~" Loi replied in his signature dismissive singsong fashion. He didn't have time for concerns.

'Who cares about ghosts...I need to be practical. I'm on a tight budget and that is why I need to live in this "haunted" building...at least it is cheap.' Loi fumbled with his keys before getting it together and unlocking the door. CREAK~ The door swung open slowly. He squinted into the permeating darkness, reaching for a switch that would surprise him to be absent.

Kicking off his shoes on the mat, he muttered to himself. "So, this is what the haunted house looks like..." Vague outlines of the kitchen stretched out before him, just out of reach. "It pretty much looks like a normal house to me..." His words echoed off of the table and appliances nearby and then were met with a snide reply from a disembodied voice concealed within.

"Well...well...well… What do we have here?" Loi froze, his heart echoing inside of his ears as chills coursed down the lengths of his now alert body. Sweat beading on his forehead, he peered into the black with wide eyes transfixed on the figure slowly materializing. A single red, malice-filled eye glared forth from between bangs of long, straight purple hair.

The phantom was adorned in a single layer of a purple sweatshirt or perhaps nightgown, with long sleeves obscuring the no doubt clenched fists. It picked apart his presence, sensing the intrusion. Delicate purple slippers and clothes contrasting heavily against a crystalline pallor in its skin. It flew forward without warning after rearing back, as if possessed by a sudden desire to confront this interloper.

Mere inches from Loi's stance, it glared headlong into his being, growing immediately. "A-a real...GHOST!" Loi blurted out suddenly. The looming phantasm looked annoyed, sharpening its look behind glowering razor eyes. "What are you doing here?! Get out..."

'I'm broke and this is the only house I can afford!' - his thoughts screamed at him. Arrogance escaped his mouth instead. "What if I say no?" The phantasm became somber. "Then you leave me no choice..." it declared through tightly grit teeth. "I will kill you.." 

Loi's thoughts had grown frantic. Wait?! What?! She's going to kill me? A visage of the admittedly cute phantom floated in his thoughts a moment. I'm going to die...but there's still a lot of things left that I want to do... His brimming adolescent desires seized his survival instincts, hijacking his sense of reason. I don't want to die a virgin! I've never even so much as kissed a girl... He reached out for a light switch and flipped it.

'Every healthy guy has big dreams! I want to fulfill mine! Wait...this ghost...is a girl, right? I'm gonna die anyway, so...let me just kiss a girl!' echoed his mind.

The light flung on suddenly, distracting the phantom girl as Loi leapt forward, planting a deep, passionate kiss on her icy lips. The pair blushed furiously in the sustained embrace before Loi stepped back with a look of acceptance plastered across his face.

"Go ahead. You can kill me now, I'm ready." he said, boldly. Shuddering slightly, unsure of when his grisly end at her vengeful hands would befall him, Loi waited for a reply. The phantom girl simply stood there silent. 

"Hey, I said I'm ready..." Loi plodded. He might have been able to run with this kind of delay, but he stood there resolute, resigned to his imminent fate.

A quiet, shrill and girlish voice eked out from the phantom girl's delicate frame, her expression cracking as if she were about to cry. "That...that...that" she stammered. "That what?" Loi asked, hesitantly. "That kiss..." The phantom blushed feverishly and started to wail. "That was my first kiss!?" Loi backed off in shock. "Eh?!" he exclaimed. Tears forming in her now sparkling eyes, the phantom met his gaze.

"W-why did you do that?" she stuttered, awash with embarrassment. Loi pondered a response for only a second before his thought crept out. "Huh? Well, I figured I'm gonna die anyway, so..." She erupted into a torrent of feminine fury. "It was important to me! You're horrible!" Loi was dumbstruck. "A-am I g-going to get pregnant?" she cried. Loi's face dropped. THIS GHOST WAS COMPLETELY NAÏVE! "Please...please just kill me already..." he sighed, defeated.