[SHINee] Minho, Key
humans can survive underwater, but not for very long
Minho, Key
7200+ words, R, AU, humor, drama, angst
warning: mentions of murder. a few times. and some not entirely graphic descriptions of said murders.
for the kinkmeme prompt: here
Minho has a gift. One that has been passed down from generation to generation for years and years and years. Since the beginning of time, if his grandmother is to be believed, though he has some doubts on that subject. Also, his gift is the worst and he'd really like to give it back or even take it in for store credit. Really, anything. It doesn't matter to him as long as it goes away. The dead are whiny fuckers when they decide to stick around long after their bodies are deep underground.
This time it's a little girl who, Minho feels it necessary to point out, is creepy as shit. She sings quietly in empty rooms, laughs to herself, and has a thing for old dolls. She's been dead at least sixty years and the new owners of the house would really really appreciate it if she would please leave already. "Have you considered moving on?" Minho says, mostly to himself because little girls who are six going on seventy don't usually like to big, stupid boys.
"Do you want to play a game?" she asks him, spinning around the room, laughing.
Minho sits in the antique rocking chair and waits. He's tired, his feet hurt, and he hates ghosts so much. All of them. Every single one, especially the ones who won't just move on already. "You know, if you leave this place you might go some place with lots of people to play games with you," he suggests.
The girl stops spinning and stares at him. Her form flickers from the happy, if not somewhat translucent, little girl of six, to the little girl whose body had been found in the cellar, broken and covered in dirt. Her throat has been carved away and her blue dress is stained to black. "Why," echoes in the room and down the halls. If he opened the windows, Minho thinks he could probably hear it in the air, too.
Minho sits up and tries not to shiver as the temperature drops around him. "This house isn't yours anymore," he says. "You don't belong here."
"No," the little girl stomps her foot on the ground. "No," it's mine. This is my house and I won't leave! I won't!" One of the dolls falls off the shelf, it's porcelain face shattering on the floor. "You can't make me!"
"Stop that." Minho propels himself forward, positioning himself in front of her. He's young, but she's younger, sort of, and he knows he can make himself look intimidating, even for a stupid boy. "Stop that right now," he says and oh, God, he sounds like his father. "You don't belong here anymore and it's time to leave."
She stops, rocking back on her heels, and everything go still. "I had a sister, you know." She looks up and Minho and he can see acceptance. "I had a mother and a father and a baby sister. Except my father wasn't actually my father and my baby sister lived to be older than I ever did. I wish that I'd gotten to know her." Then she's gone. Really gone and Minho lets out the breath he's been holding.
He goes downstairs to find the couple who bought the house and to get paid.
*
Minho postpones going home as long as possible, which basically means sitting in a bar, nursing the same drink for six hours until the bartender all but forcibly removes him from the premises. But eventually he does have to go home and maybe sleep and maybe study because maybe he has an exam coming. He really needs to ask someone from his study group about that. Or maybe he needs to attend study group once, first. It's a tough call.
Home is a one bedroom apartment with a kitchen and a living room that's hardly been lived in. He has only recently bought the place with all the tons an tons of extra cash he rarely ever gets from the people who are scared or tired of or just plane hate ghosts and want them gone. It's more people than he'd think if it weren't for that fact that he's been seeing them since around birth. Home is also where Kibum is.
Kibum haunts his apartment because Kibum is kind of a selfish asshole. He's not even tied to the apartment itself, but he chooses instead to stick around Minho's place, singing. Constantly. Minho wants him gone and that's at least half the reason Kibum refuses to leave. Or so he suspects. The other half is still a complete mystery that Minho doesn't really care enough to ever investigate. It's not his problem and he refuses to change that.
"You're back," says Kibum, looking up over the edge of the sofa. The television is on, playing some ridiculous drama. The girl is about to confess her love or get hit by a car and-- oh, yeah, it's both.
"I command you to leave this place at once! Be gone, spirit," Minho says, stretching out his arm in front of himself. It's a desperate measure, but hey, why not at least try. Again. Who knows, the seventh time could be the charm.
Kibum blinks a few times, then ducks down and goes back to watching the drama on the screen unfold. "That was embarrassing for both of us."
Minho pinches the bridge of his nose. "Yeah," he says.
"I used your credit card to order things online," Kibum adds.
"Okay, great, that's great. Get out of my house," says Minho.
Kibum turns up the volume on the television. Of all the things in the world, Minho really hates how easy it is for some ghosts to interact with electronics. Especially since Kibum thinks it's hilarious to send inappropriate text messages while he's in class. That's always a nice surprise when he really doesn't want one.
"Also, your mom called," Key turns down the volume on the television again, "she said she senses a presence in your life and that if you're seeing a nice girl and you don't bring her home to meet the her then she will put a hex on you. And your brother thinks you should avoid the color blue for a while. Nice family."
Minho contemplates having a priest cleanse his apartment.
*
Usually Kibum sticks to haunting Minho in his home. Usually. Sometimes, however, he'll follow Minho out into the real world and it's always a bit awkward for Minho to know that every time he speaks to Kibum, everyone in the surrounding area thinks he's talking to himself. There's always a small, but ever growing, space around him when they're talking. Occasionally someone will cross the street to avoid the crazy boy with the imaginary friend. He tries to smile, but he shows too many teeth and instead he just looks like he's been caught mid-growl.
"Is there something you want?" he asks, finally, passing by the coffee shop he was heading to without so much as a sideways glance.
"No," says Kibum. "You know, I was a spy when I was still alive. I'm used to a certain level of adventure."
"Of course you were," says Minho.
Kibum slows down and comes to a stop in front of an small art gallery. There's a man in the window, staring out at them, and Kibum waves. The man nods, waving back. "I used to get pastels all over my clothes," he sounds distracted when he says it.
"When you were a spy?" Minho asks.
Kibum humms, not giving any answer, then turns back around and says, "Let's go somewhere."
For the first time since they met, Minho feels sorry for Kibum. He's not even sure why, but the sorrow is so deep that it compels him to say, "Sure, okay, where do you want to go?"
They end up at a nearly empty movie theatre, seated in the back row. Kibum is curled up in his seat, alternating between watching the movie and hiding behind his hands. Minho doesn't really understand what he has to be afraid of. Kibum is the thing that goes bump in the night, and he's been dead longer than Minho has been alive.
"Stop staring at me," says Kibum, narrowing his eyes, but not looking away from the screen.
Minho shrugs and reminds himself that he doesn't care.
*
"When I was in a boyband," Kibum starts, leaning over Minho's shoulder to watch him type up an essay on his laptop, "we could go weeks without having to do any school work. Because we were so busy being popular, of course."
"Right," says Minho, not really paying a lot of attention, but still partially listening. He can't help the low level of curiosity that he feels.
"Naturally, I was the leader," Kibum continues, moving around to the other side of the table.
Minho deletes a sentence and tries to retype his thought. "Uh huh," he says.
Kibum makes an impatient noise and folds his arms over his chest. "And every night we paid for some prostitutes to come over so that we could snort coke off of their naked bodies."
"Yeah, okay-" Minho looks up, suddenly interested. "Really?"
"No!" yells Kibum, and the lights flicker. "You know, you think you have it so hard because I'm always around, talking to you, but do you ever think about me? You're the only person I have to talk to and you can be so boring for someone with the power to see the dead."
Minho sighs and says, "you could always spend time with other ghosts. Or, I don't know, leave."
"Dead people are so annoying," says Kibum without even a hint of irony, "and it's not as if I have anywhere else to go. And you have been finished with that essay for an hour, stop pretending you're still working on it."
Minho stops typing. He opens his mouth to say something, but fails to come up with anything, so he goes back to editing the same few sentences over and over for no real reason except to have something to do. He's pretty sure they're not friends, which should get him out of anything similar to heartfelt talks. Though, if they are friends, he probably seems like an ass right now. He stops typing again. "Do you want to talk about something?"
Kibum's eyes go a bit wide, like maybe he wasn't expecting Minho to say anything. "Yes?" he says, then, "Yes! You're very boring. You're a boring person. Do you like the new clock I bought?"
The clock in question is sitting on the kitchen counter, being horrible and poorly designed. Kibum says it's post-modern, but Minho suspects it's something that was dug out of someone's trash and sold for a large sum of money. He can't prove it, though, and he doesn't know enough about art to be sure. "Yeah. It's very nice for telling time, I think. It does tell the time, right?"
Kibum shrugs, "It might. That's not the point of art."
"Okay," says Minho, "What is the point of art?"
Kibum rolls his eyes. "You wouldn't understand."
They both get quiet and awkward after that. If they are friends, it's a friendship built on antagonism and non-verbal communication. Actual communication never seems to last very long or work very well. It might be that they aren't supposed to talk about their feelings. Or anything else, ever.
Minho clears his throat.
Kibum takes a step back and begins to fade through the wall.
The phone rings. It's the line connected to Minho's side job as a medium and all around ghost expert. "Oh thank God," says Kibum.
*
The address given over the phone leads to an impressively large estate in a zip code that Minho could save for the rest of his life and still never be able to afford. He's buzzed in through the front gate, then greeted at the door by a man in a tux who calls him Sir. He follows the man into a sitting room that's at least twice as big as Minho's entire apartment.
There's a woman already there, waiting for him. "Oh, good, you're here!" she says, embracing Minho and holding him against her chest. He's a bit taller, so the angle is a little weird. Only a little, however, because the entire situation is already pretty strange. "I just knew you'd be the cutest thing I ever laid my eyes upon!" She ushers him to sit beside her on the settee.
"Hello," Minho says, trying for a formality they've already run right past.
"You have no idea how hard these last few weeks have been!" she cries. "Ever since my Big Daddy died-" here she clutches at the pearls around her neck. They're the least flashy of all her jewelry that, if sold, could probably afford to buy a small island nation. One of the lesser known ones that no one really cares about, but the point still stands. "I just loved him so much."
When she starts to cry, Minho tries his best to be comforting. "There, there," he says, patting her on the back.
"Oh, My love" she cries, doubling over, "I know you're still here, darling, and I'll always love you."
"Wow," says Kibum, appearing in the corner of the room. "I didn't think people like her really existed."
The butler comes back in and extracts the woman from Minho's side. "If you'll be so kind as to find out where the will has been hidden, it would be a great help to the grieving family," he says, escorting Minho to the grand staircase.
"Okay, but where-" Minho stops when he notices that the butler is already walking away. "Never mind," he calls, "I'll just show myself around."
"I like these people," says Kibum. "Maybe I should stay here instead."
Except Minho can't find any the woman's husband anywhere on the entire estate. He finds dozens of other ghosts, however. Ranging in age and gender and class, but all of them whispering to him. All of them talking about secrets and things long buried and danger. They look at him with cold eyes and tell him of the lies carved into the lives of everyone who has ever lived there. It's enough to set even Kibum on edge.
"This is bad," Kibum says, looking around frantically. "This place is bad; we should go."
Minho shakes his head, they have a job and so far nothing is overtly dangerous. Just really really creepy. "It's fine," he says.
Kibum mumbles something that might be idiot, but Minho has a skill for ignoring things like that. They continue on, together, searching outside of the main house and over to the guest quarters. The place reeks of a despair that claws at Minho's chest and forces the air from his lungs.
"Stop," Kibum says, and Minho isn't sure who he's talking to, but he takes that as his cue to go back outside.
"This place-" Minho stops, lacking the words to describe it. His mind helpfully supplies wrong a few times, but that's sort of an understatement.
Kibum seems to get it, though. "It is."
"I need to find the old man," Minho says.
"We could try a séance," suggests Kibum.
Minho is almost tempted to take him up on that offer. He doesn't know how to perform a séance, but there's a first time for everything. A little chanting, some candles, maybe a crystal ball to channel some spirit guides. How hard could it be? What's a little dignity and self-respect, anyway. How much longer can he wander around without direction, being overwhelmed with spirits he can't help. "No," he says, eventually. It's an easy decision, really.
"Okay," Kibum says. He looks relieved, almost, if Minho didn't know better. "Not that I think these guys would rip you to shreds or anything, but you never know."
After that he gets kicked out onto the streets pretty fast.
"That went really well," says Kibum when they're walking toward a street that's more likely to have taxis. "I'm going to use the money you didn't get today to buy little action figures to movies I've never seen."
*
"Sometimes I wonder about what happened to any of my friends," Kibum says the moment that Minho begins to drift into sleep. It takes all of his energy not to fall over the edge into unconsciousness, regardless of how much he really wants to. This is the most Kibum has ever willingly mentioned about his life.
"What?" Minho asks, though it comes out more incoherent and not entirely dissimilar to an actual word. His muscles feel heavy, not yet working the way they're supposed to.
Kibum throws himself onto the bed next to Minho which has the not at all creepy effect of making the space around the bed go ice cold for a second. "I'm bored," he says. He must truly hate Minho to be this annoying all the time, especially when it's late and very clearly not the time for talking.
Minho tries to burry himself further down under his comforter, ignoring Kibum again. He closes his eyes, intent of getting all the way to sleep this time.
"I said I'm bored," Kibum pokes him on the side of the neck and it's like having electricity and ice water pumped into his veins. "Would you care if I left?"
Minho rolls onto his side. "No."
Kibum sings a few lines from a song Minho has never heard before, effectively keeping him awake out of an inexplicable, and absurdly useless, sense of curiosity. When he stops singing it's almost possible to pretend the room only has one occupant. Ghosts don't leave much of an impression on their surrounding unless they are trying to. "I think you might miss me," Kibum eventually says, getting up from the bed. There's no shift in the air, no rustle of clothing, only silence when he moves.
"Maybe," Minho concedes, shifting onto his back and staring at Kibum who is just standing in the open doorway. In this light he looks almost real.
"See you in the morning," Kibum says, walking away.
*
Kibum isn't there in when Minho wakes up. It's a little disquieting for the first few moments; this is the first time he's opened his eyes since moving into the apartment that Kibum has not been standing there, watching him, trying to give Minho a heart attack. Apparently being a ghost makes you more inclined to terrify people. Or so he's always suspected, given the ratio of ghosts that want to give him love and affection (0) to the number of ghosts who want to make him run to his mother crying (all of them).
It's weird, really, the more that Minho tries not to think about it. He stays in bed, unable to think of a reason to get up. His routine involves listening to Kibum describe the way he sleeps and then going to take a shower while yelling at Kibum to stay out, for the love of God.
Eventually he rationalizes that staying in bed all day is wasting perfectly good opportunities for doing anything else. It's just that, by noon, he hasn't figured out what that anything else could be. Also, he's never really noticed how comfortable his bed is. This could be the beginning of a beautiful new friendship.
"What," says Kibum.
Minho sits up in bed, heart thudding a but too fast. "What?"
"I," Kibum looks around. "I was here and then I wasn't. Where was I?" He spins around in a circle, walks through the wall next to Minho's bed, then comes in through the window. "Where was I?" he sounds small and far away. "Why-" he fades out of the room.
"Kibum?" Minho tries, calling out to the empty room.
"-are you going away?" Kibum blinks. "And you're back. What happened?"
"I don't know," Minho shrugs.
Kibum sits down on the edge of the bed, leaning forward and resting his head in his hands. "I was here and then I was somewhere else. It was quiet and somehow too loud and so bright that I couldn't see. And it smelled like cake."
Minho nods along until Kibum gets to cake. "Huh," he says, then frowns because hey, not exactly useful. "Did you mean to leave?"
Kibum jerks upright and looks at Minho likes he's forgotten all about there being another person in the room. "What? No, no. I- for a minute, last night, I wanted to go away, but. I meant like, down the street or just to the lobby. Not, wherever that was." Kibum starts to fade again. "Hey, no, no," he says, regaining a better sense of solidity.
"Oh," says Minho, "that's not good."
Kibum rolls his eyes. "What would I do without you, really."
"Spend your days alone and bored," says Minho, finally getting out of bed.
*
How to get rid of a ghost, Minho types into the search engine. Then quickly hits the delete button; he doesn't really mean that anymore.
How to tell if your ghost should move on from this plane of existence? he types into the empty space. Then deletes, again. What kind of question is that, anyway.
How to find out how old your ghost is or how he died and what he really was like in life because it's highly unlikely he was ever a spy and you doubt he was in a boyband either? He almost hits the search button, just to see what would happen.
"Why is your face all scrunched up like that," Kibum asks. He has his hand inside the toaster in an attempt to force it into making non-burnt toast. It's an exercise in futility as they've both long since agreed that Minho is destined to only consume charcoaled bread that's been made from any appliance in his kitchen. A leftover present from Kibum's earlier attempts at annoying him out of his home.
Minho unscrunches his face. "Nothing," he says. The toaster sparks and the lights dim in the kitchen before returning, maybe slightly brighter than they were before. "Stop doing that."
Kibum sighs unnecessarily and drops himself into the other seat across from Minho at the kitchen table. "Back when I was a bodyguard to the rich and famous," he starts, like this line of conversation is in any way relevant, "My days were full of excitement. Even the boring ones."
There's an inevitable headache in Minho's future. It's one of those things he knows on a very basic, nearly primal level. "A bodyguard," he says and makes sure he keeps the same level of skepticism in his voice that he hears in his head.
"Oh, yes," Kibum nods. "It was all very dangerous." He reaches through Minho's laptop screen with both hands and makes strange, incomprehensible gestures with his fingers. "And sometimes romantic. Nothing like your life."
Minho shuts his laptop, just to be difficult. "Of course."
"Are you even listening to me?" Kibum sighs dramatically.
"I always listen to you," Minho says because, really, he kind of does. It's not something he can help doing; Kibum's personality demands attention.
"Oh." Kibum tilts his head to the side, eyes narrowing in contemplation. Then he fades out of the room again which effectively ends their little talk right there.
Minho opens his laptop again and resumes what he had been doing. Why are ghosts so weird?
*
"Okay, okay," says Kibum, returning to visible form next to Minho's professor in the middle of a lecture. "This can't keep happening."
"Shit," says Minho.
"Quiet," says the girl in the row in front of him.
Minho shoves his things into his bag as quickly as he can, then attempts to sneak out of the lecture hall with as much stealth possible. The heavy wooden door at the back of the room makes the loudest groan is can manage when Minho opens it, of course. The entire room of people turn to look at him, so he ducks his head down and tries to slip out with his remaining sense of dignity.
"Good job," Kibum says, meeting him halfway down the hallway toward the exit. "I think you made some friends in there," he adds.
"Are you worried at all about why you keep disappearing?" Minho asks.
"All the time," Kibum says in a way that sounds like he might actually mean not really. "You'll figure it out and tell me, sooner or later."
Minho stops. "What?"
"You're that kind of person." Kibum continues forward, passing Minho and walking out the door. "One of those helpful types, eager for approval. It would go against your nature not to help me."
And that's, well, that's a little weird coming from Kibum who Minho isn't even completely sure he's friends with at all. At least not close enough for Kibum to just know things about him in the exact opposite way that Minho knows anything about him. Which is not much at all. Without anything to say to that, Minho decides to let a sense of companionship wash over them. The effect is ruined by Kibum rolling his eyes and walking away faster.
"Stop trying to be warm and fuzzy," Kibum says. "I'm dead and you're not my type."
Minho sighs. Not exactly long-suffering yet, at least, but it's a near thing.
*
"According to my sources," Minho starts, hoping that Kibum doesn't know that he means his mother, "you might be doing the fading thing to yourself. The other night when you said you wanted to leave, well, now you're leaving. Except it's to Heaven or rebirth or wherever it is you go next. Somewhere that smells like cake, apparently."
"What," Kibum frowns. "That's stupid. I can't go anywhere right now, it's not time yet."
The post-modern clock hanging on the living room wall makes an odd buzzing noise that trails off into one of the soprano solos from Mozart's Requiem. It's 10:45 at night and Minho thinks it would be nice to strangle Kibum if he were more corporeal. As it is, they have to wait a few minutes, just for the sound to die down enough for Minho to say, "What are you waiting around for?"
"There are things," Kibum says, meaning: it's none of your damn business. They've sort of known each other long enough, at least, for Minho to be able to read between some of the lines like that.
"What kind of things are so important that you need to stick around for an extra thirty years after you died?"
Kibum turns his head sharply to face Minho and at once he's more solid than he's ever looked before. "How do you know that?"
"I guessed," says Minho. There's a charge in the air that's usually reserved for angry spirits and things requiring an exorcism. The sensation leads to an odd desire for some added drama or perhaps a little blood dripping from the walls. At this thought, Minho decides he should cut back on the horror movies he doesn't even watch in the first place.
"You don't need to know about my life," Kibum mumbles, fading a little.
An argument is on the tip of Minho's tongue, but he restrains himself to only saying, "I know you weren't a spy," which is kind of a stupid thing to say, if he's at all honest with himself. He knows that Kibum knows that he doesn't ever buy into the many stories he's told.
If Kibum were going to say anything in return, he doesn't get the chance to when he fades completely for the hundredth time in recent days. Just for fun, probably, the room retains the low temperature of an angry ghost and the weird tingly quality of a very angry ghost. The walls continue to not drip with blood, however.
"That's great," Minho says to the empty room, suddenly glad for his lack of social life or anyone to invite over to his haunted house.
*
Kibum doesn't show up again for a week. Which, okay, that's fine, it's not as if his presence is something that Minho needs in his life at every waking moment. There are other things to be concerned with. Such as school and the potential for a social life involving living people and ghosts that are more likely pissed off poltergeists. Honestly, potential well-paying clients should do some research before they call him. Or he could up his fee. Whichever.
The thing about poltergeists is that everything about them is awful. Truly, there is nothing in them that Minho would not drown in a vat of acid if that were a viable option. But it's not, he tried once. They're the douchebags of the spirit community. The uninvited lecherous uncle that gatecrashes otherwise pleasant family functions, if you will.
This time there really is blood dripping from the walls. And a message that says get out, also written in blood. "Original," Minho says to himself, or maybe the poltergeist if it's listening. The foundation of the unfinished housing complex shudders so that answers that question.
In a sudden touch of dramatic flair, the wind begins the groan with threats of death and dismemberment. Minho hates just about everything in his life, at the moment, not least of which is the icy fingers trailing down his spine. He opens his mouth to say something disparaging about the spirit's creativity, but all that comes out is a strangled, gurgling, noise. He figures that his point probably didn't get across very well.
"Will you please stop that," he tries nicely, ignoring the way the shadows twist around him and the accompanying voices that grow louder and louder in the distance, then shift into screams, just for fun. Minho is the bravest person in the world. He repeats this in his head on a loop and doesn't even think about curling up in the corner, crying. At least not much. So, he concludes, that statement is probably true.
"Okay," he tries for some sort of reverse psychology, "Don't stop, keep going forever." Everything stops and Minho takes a moment to think that it can't be that easy. It's not. The support beams creak and snap and the cement floor crumbles away to open up over what appears to be a pit of fire.
"Wow," Kibum says, appearing at the edge of the pit. "I bet I could do better."
"Oh God," Minho says because antagonizing the angry poltergeist really doesn't have a chance of making the situation any better.
The pit of fire grows bigger.
Kibum mimes warming his hands over the fire and says, "Really? Is that all? I've seen little girls with bigger fire pits than you."
"Oh God," Minho repeats because his own death is becoming more and more inevitable. "Please stop."
Everything stops, again. The cement flooring returns to not being a portal into hell, and the exposed metal piping around the foundation no longer look as if they're bending inward toward him. His heartbeat almost stops trying to pound its way through his chest, so that's also pretty good. Of course it doesn't last, but Minho likes to take his wins where he can get them in times of his own great suffering.
"See?" says Kibum, "you just need to show them who's in charge."
Then the lights all go out, including the moon, and that's impressive, really. The air gets heavy around them and it's as if Minho's been put inside a small, dark room, instead of standing in the open air of an unfinished building lot.
"Oh, yeah, we should probably go," Kibum urges, flicking in and out of focus at Minho's side. "Now. Now would be good. Running, if you're really into staying alive."
Minho runs. The metal and cement and bits of construction equipment all begin to shake violently behind him, but he's not dumb enough to stop and take a closer look at the cause. There are more important things in life, such as staying alive. So he runs and runs until he's just outside of the property line. "Oh God," he says, catching his breath and watching the entire lot sink into the earth.
"Huh," Kibum says. "I really didn't think that would happen."
Minho collapses to the ground and just tries to breathe for a while.
*
"This is getting ridiculous," Kibum mutters, fading out, then back again. He's been doing that consistently since showing up at the housing complex with the poltergeist. "Make it stop."
Minho pauses, fork halfway to his mouth, then drops it back down to the plate. "Tell me how you died."
Kibum frowns, "No."
"Okay," Minho says, continuing to eat his dinner.
Kibum makes a frustrated noise that sounds genuine enough for Minho to look over at him. "What does my death have to do with anything?" The subject is apparently a sore one. More so than Minho had originally thought, when he'd ever really thought about it.
"I don't know," Minho admits; this is new territory for him as well. All things considered, he's a lot better at getting rid of ghosts than getting them to stick around. Mostly. His recent track record is not exactly something he wants to brag about. But, before all of that. "You never even talk about your life."
"That's not true," says Kibum. "I tell you about my life all the time."
"You tell me stories and then say they're about your life," Minho corrects.
"They're true," Kibum says in a way that sounds like he's not trying to convince either of them. That's probably for the best; Minho stopped believing him roughly around the time they first met.
Minho sighs, Kibum fades a little, the clock on the wall chirps like a bird.
"At least tell me how old you were," Minho tries. "You want me to help you, so let me."
"Fine," Kibum says like he means fuck you. "Fine. I was 19 and an art student." He fades out again, but this time Minho suspects it was intentional.
It's not a lot to go on, and not really all that useful in the grand scheme of things, but hey. It's more than he's gotten, ever. So Minho does the thing he's only considered in passing before. He throws out what's left of his dinner and goes to find his laptop. It's time for him to find out about Kibum's life.
*
By the time Kibum comes back, Minho wishes he could take back the last few hours of his life. If he had it to do over again, he'd leave things be. He wouldn't poke, he wouldn't go looking for answers where he was certain he'd find ones he didn't want to know. He'd just stop. He'd force himself to stop and never try again. As it is, now it's too late. He knows and when Kibum shows up behind him and gets a look at just a fraction of what Minho has found, well. Now he knows that Minho knows and everything is a little bit terrible.
"Why," Kibum says, not fully making a question out of it. It's the one thing Minho has noticed all ghosts have in common. They all want to know why.
Minho shuts his laptop out of a strange sense of kindness. "You," he starts, stops, and tries to not hurt. "I don't know."
"Yeah, well," Kibum sounds bitter and when he laughs the sound is dry and humorless. "Neither did I. Some things just happen, right?"
Minho wants to say no, wants to say I'm sorry, wants to say anything useful. Instead he comes up with, "Yeah, sometimes."
Kibum sits down on the floor, back against the wall. He tilts his head up and stares at the ceiling and Minho knows there's never any answers there. "I was just a kid. I had all of these stupid ideas like being a painter or a sculptor or maybe an art thief. I didn't even know the guy across the hall except for the few times I'd said hello."
And, okay, Minho didn't know that part. No one did. "You don't have to-"
"No," says Kibum. "I should. I mean, you already know most of it, right?"
Minho nods. The story wasn't that hard to find, he'd just never bothered looking before. He's not sure if he regrets that or not.
"Anyway, I don't really know what changed. One day he was there outside of my school when I was heading home and. After that he moved and if the police suspected that he was the one to snap my neck and leave me in an alley with some garbage, well, they never did anything about it." Kibum looks down at his hands. "I'm not even angry anymore. Not really. Now I'm just waiting for him to die."
"Oh," says Minho and for that he wants to kick himself.
"It should happen soon," Kibum says cheerfully. He might be faking it, but what's more frightening is that he might not be. Minho is no longer sure what to think.
*
The next step in Minho's poorly thought out master plan is to get Kibum to do something about, well, something. The details, of which, have yet to be worked out yet. It's not even really much of a plan, just the feeling that now that they've talked and Kibum continues to fade on a regular basis, that maybe they shouldn't be just sitting around waiting for someone else to step in. Also, Minho really, in a way, cares about Kibum and doesn't like to watch him remain in this halfway point between his life and his true death.
"You're staring at me again," Kibum says.
"I think," Minho takes a deep breath, "I think you should confront the man who, you know."
"Killed me?" Kibum raises an eyebrow at that. "What would that do for me?"
"Closure," Minho suggests.
"No," says Kibum. He turns away, heading toward the front door.
Minho follows him out the door and all the way into the stairwell which has the potential to make this so much more awkward than it already is if someone happens to overhear. But Kibum does stop trying to get away, so there is at least that small silver lining. "You can't keep going like this."
"Why not?" Kibum says and it's obvious that's he's frustrated and angry and maybe a little scared. Even Minho can read that in his expression and Kibum keeps everything close to his chest like every emotion should be a closely guarded secret. "Things are fine the way they are."
Minho watches Kibum flicker away and back again and he says, "No, things aren't fine. You're not okay and please let me help you."
Kibum just looks at him for a second. Then another second and another and Minho feels exceptionally scrutinized, but whatever Kibum reads on his face must do the trick because eventually he nods. "Okay. Yeah, okay, have it your way."
"Oh, okay." Minho never actually expected to win.
*
It takes a few days to work up to it, but eventually they end up standing outside of a retirement home. Not a very nice one, at that. But it's where they're supposed to be, according to Kibum and Minho has to trust him on this.
They get by security and the woman at the front desk easily enough. None of them seemed to really care all that much, and Minho was waved by without needing to explain himself to anyone. He's glad of that; he hadn't prepared any kind of story.
"This way," Kibum says, leading him upstairs and down a narrow hallway. Eventually they get to a room, occupied only by one man, resting in a bed, hooked up to a medical ventilator and a heart monitor. He looks old and weak and not the monster Minho had been expecting.
"Here," Kibum ushers Minho inside, but stays near the door, hidden in the shadows.
The man looks up at Minho when he enters, and it's weird. There's rage and helplessness boiling Minho's blood and he hadn't expected that. "Um," he says, "Hello." The man doesn't say anything and the room is filled only with the sounds of the machines that are, presumably keeping him alive. But then he looks away, over to the shadows, and his eyes go wide.
Kibum steps forward. "It's been a while, I guess," he says. "Do you even remember me?"
The noise from the heart monitor speeds up and Kibum nods. "I guess you do. Well, I want you to know that I'm not angry anymore. It's been so long that I've had time to think about it and staying angry was giving you too much control over me, and you don't get to have that, too."
Minho tries to back out of the room, but Kibum stops him, saying, "wait," so Minho waits.
Kibum leans down, bending over the man, and placing a hand against his throat. It must feel like ice. "Did you think about me? Did you regret what you did? Or did you revel in it?" He leans even closer and whispers, barely loud enough for Minho to hear: "Go to hell."
The heart monitor beeps an erratic pace, too fast and too loud. Kibum is at Minho's side then and he says, "Let's go."
They don't stick around to see how it ends.
*
So that's how it goes. Except Kibum can't let anyone else have the final bow, so he waits until they're outside again, and the sun is shining and things actually feel okay for the first time in a while. Minho wishes he didn't see it coming.
"I think I should go now," Kibum says, closing his eyes and tilting his face up toward the sun.
Yeah, Minho had known this would happen. He just hadn't wanted to know, so he hadn't allowed himself to think about it. He hadn't thought he would care, either. "Yeah," he says, finally, not sure what else there is to say.
Kibum turns away from the sun and glances over at him. "You don't need to be sad. I'm already dead, stupid."
"I'm not-" Minho's throat clenches up and he has to look down at his feet. "I got used to you," he says instead.
Kibum actually smiles at that. "I got used to you, too. Even if you are the most boring person I have ever known."
Minho laughs, but it sounds wet and tragic and his eyes are all useless and watery. "You're the most annoying person I've ever known." This feels good and easy; a momentary distraction. "I can't wait for you to-"
"Stop that," Kibum says. "You'll be fine."
"Yeah," Minho nods. He will be, he knows this.
"Don't forget me, okay?" says Kibum and he sounds sad and hopeful and he's smiling, so Minho smiles, too. "There is no one in the world as great as I am and your life has been made better just by knowing me. So you can't forget me."
"I won't," Minho says. "I promise."
"Okay, good," Kibum says, and then he's gone and Minho finally goes back to his life.
Minho, Key
7200+ words, R, AU, humor, drama, angst
warning: mentions of murder. a few times. and some not entirely graphic descriptions of said murders.
for the kinkmeme prompt: here
Minho has a gift. One that has been passed down from generation to generation for years and years and years. Since the beginning of time, if his grandmother is to be believed, though he has some doubts on that subject. Also, his gift is the worst and he'd really like to give it back or even take it in for store credit. Really, anything. It doesn't matter to him as long as it goes away. The dead are whiny fuckers when they decide to stick around long after their bodies are deep underground.
This time it's a little girl who, Minho feels it necessary to point out, is creepy as shit. She sings quietly in empty rooms, laughs to herself, and has a thing for old dolls. She's been dead at least sixty years and the new owners of the house would really really appreciate it if she would please leave already. "Have you considered moving on?" Minho says, mostly to himself because little girls who are six going on seventy don't usually like to big, stupid boys.
"Do you want to play a game?" she asks him, spinning around the room, laughing.
Minho sits in the antique rocking chair and waits. He's tired, his feet hurt, and he hates ghosts so much. All of them. Every single one, especially the ones who won't just move on already. "You know, if you leave this place you might go some place with lots of people to play games with you," he suggests.
The girl stops spinning and stares at him. Her form flickers from the happy, if not somewhat translucent, little girl of six, to the little girl whose body had been found in the cellar, broken and covered in dirt. Her throat has been carved away and her blue dress is stained to black. "Why," echoes in the room and down the halls. If he opened the windows, Minho thinks he could probably hear it in the air, too.
Minho sits up and tries not to shiver as the temperature drops around him. "This house isn't yours anymore," he says. "You don't belong here."
"No," the little girl stomps her foot on the ground. "No," it's mine. This is my house and I won't leave! I won't!" One of the dolls falls off the shelf, it's porcelain face shattering on the floor. "You can't make me!"
"Stop that." Minho propels himself forward, positioning himself in front of her. He's young, but she's younger, sort of, and he knows he can make himself look intimidating, even for a stupid boy. "Stop that right now," he says and oh, God, he sounds like his father. "You don't belong here anymore and it's time to leave."
She stops, rocking back on her heels, and everything go still. "I had a sister, you know." She looks up and Minho and he can see acceptance. "I had a mother and a father and a baby sister. Except my father wasn't actually my father and my baby sister lived to be older than I ever did. I wish that I'd gotten to know her." Then she's gone. Really gone and Minho lets out the breath he's been holding.
He goes downstairs to find the couple who bought the house and to get paid.
*
Minho postpones going home as long as possible, which basically means sitting in a bar, nursing the same drink for six hours until the bartender all but forcibly removes him from the premises. But eventually he does have to go home and maybe sleep and maybe study because maybe he has an exam coming. He really needs to ask someone from his study group about that. Or maybe he needs to attend study group once, first. It's a tough call.
Home is a one bedroom apartment with a kitchen and a living room that's hardly been lived in. He has only recently bought the place with all the tons an tons of extra cash he rarely ever gets from the people who are scared or tired of or just plane hate ghosts and want them gone. It's more people than he'd think if it weren't for that fact that he's been seeing them since around birth. Home is also where Kibum is.
Kibum haunts his apartment because Kibum is kind of a selfish asshole. He's not even tied to the apartment itself, but he chooses instead to stick around Minho's place, singing. Constantly. Minho wants him gone and that's at least half the reason Kibum refuses to leave. Or so he suspects. The other half is still a complete mystery that Minho doesn't really care enough to ever investigate. It's not his problem and he refuses to change that.
"You're back," says Kibum, looking up over the edge of the sofa. The television is on, playing some ridiculous drama. The girl is about to confess her love or get hit by a car and-- oh, yeah, it's both.
"I command you to leave this place at once! Be gone, spirit," Minho says, stretching out his arm in front of himself. It's a desperate measure, but hey, why not at least try. Again. Who knows, the seventh time could be the charm.
Kibum blinks a few times, then ducks down and goes back to watching the drama on the screen unfold. "That was embarrassing for both of us."
Minho pinches the bridge of his nose. "Yeah," he says.
"I used your credit card to order things online," Kibum adds.
"Okay, great, that's great. Get out of my house," says Minho.
Kibum turns up the volume on the television. Of all the things in the world, Minho really hates how easy it is for some ghosts to interact with electronics. Especially since Kibum thinks it's hilarious to send inappropriate text messages while he's in class. That's always a nice surprise when he really doesn't want one.
"Also, your mom called," Key turns down the volume on the television again, "she said she senses a presence in your life and that if you're seeing a nice girl and you don't bring her home to meet the her then she will put a hex on you. And your brother thinks you should avoid the color blue for a while. Nice family."
Minho contemplates having a priest cleanse his apartment.
*
Usually Kibum sticks to haunting Minho in his home. Usually. Sometimes, however, he'll follow Minho out into the real world and it's always a bit awkward for Minho to know that every time he speaks to Kibum, everyone in the surrounding area thinks he's talking to himself. There's always a small, but ever growing, space around him when they're talking. Occasionally someone will cross the street to avoid the crazy boy with the imaginary friend. He tries to smile, but he shows too many teeth and instead he just looks like he's been caught mid-growl.
"Is there something you want?" he asks, finally, passing by the coffee shop he was heading to without so much as a sideways glance.
"No," says Kibum. "You know, I was a spy when I was still alive. I'm used to a certain level of adventure."
"Of course you were," says Minho.
Kibum slows down and comes to a stop in front of an small art gallery. There's a man in the window, staring out at them, and Kibum waves. The man nods, waving back. "I used to get pastels all over my clothes," he sounds distracted when he says it.
"When you were a spy?" Minho asks.
Kibum humms, not giving any answer, then turns back around and says, "Let's go somewhere."
For the first time since they met, Minho feels sorry for Kibum. He's not even sure why, but the sorrow is so deep that it compels him to say, "Sure, okay, where do you want to go?"
They end up at a nearly empty movie theatre, seated in the back row. Kibum is curled up in his seat, alternating between watching the movie and hiding behind his hands. Minho doesn't really understand what he has to be afraid of. Kibum is the thing that goes bump in the night, and he's been dead longer than Minho has been alive.
"Stop staring at me," says Kibum, narrowing his eyes, but not looking away from the screen.
Minho shrugs and reminds himself that he doesn't care.
*
"When I was in a boyband," Kibum starts, leaning over Minho's shoulder to watch him type up an essay on his laptop, "we could go weeks without having to do any school work. Because we were so busy being popular, of course."
"Right," says Minho, not really paying a lot of attention, but still partially listening. He can't help the low level of curiosity that he feels.
"Naturally, I was the leader," Kibum continues, moving around to the other side of the table.
Minho deletes a sentence and tries to retype his thought. "Uh huh," he says.
Kibum makes an impatient noise and folds his arms over his chest. "And every night we paid for some prostitutes to come over so that we could snort coke off of their naked bodies."
"Yeah, okay-" Minho looks up, suddenly interested. "Really?"
"No!" yells Kibum, and the lights flicker. "You know, you think you have it so hard because I'm always around, talking to you, but do you ever think about me? You're the only person I have to talk to and you can be so boring for someone with the power to see the dead."
Minho sighs and says, "you could always spend time with other ghosts. Or, I don't know, leave."
"Dead people are so annoying," says Kibum without even a hint of irony, "and it's not as if I have anywhere else to go. And you have been finished with that essay for an hour, stop pretending you're still working on it."
Minho stops typing. He opens his mouth to say something, but fails to come up with anything, so he goes back to editing the same few sentences over and over for no real reason except to have something to do. He's pretty sure they're not friends, which should get him out of anything similar to heartfelt talks. Though, if they are friends, he probably seems like an ass right now. He stops typing again. "Do you want to talk about something?"
Kibum's eyes go a bit wide, like maybe he wasn't expecting Minho to say anything. "Yes?" he says, then, "Yes! You're very boring. You're a boring person. Do you like the new clock I bought?"
The clock in question is sitting on the kitchen counter, being horrible and poorly designed. Kibum says it's post-modern, but Minho suspects it's something that was dug out of someone's trash and sold for a large sum of money. He can't prove it, though, and he doesn't know enough about art to be sure. "Yeah. It's very nice for telling time, I think. It does tell the time, right?"
Kibum shrugs, "It might. That's not the point of art."
"Okay," says Minho, "What is the point of art?"
Kibum rolls his eyes. "You wouldn't understand."
They both get quiet and awkward after that. If they are friends, it's a friendship built on antagonism and non-verbal communication. Actual communication never seems to last very long or work very well. It might be that they aren't supposed to talk about their feelings. Or anything else, ever.
Minho clears his throat.
Kibum takes a step back and begins to fade through the wall.
The phone rings. It's the line connected to Minho's side job as a medium and all around ghost expert. "Oh thank God," says Kibum.
*
The address given over the phone leads to an impressively large estate in a zip code that Minho could save for the rest of his life and still never be able to afford. He's buzzed in through the front gate, then greeted at the door by a man in a tux who calls him Sir. He follows the man into a sitting room that's at least twice as big as Minho's entire apartment.
There's a woman already there, waiting for him. "Oh, good, you're here!" she says, embracing Minho and holding him against her chest. He's a bit taller, so the angle is a little weird. Only a little, however, because the entire situation is already pretty strange. "I just knew you'd be the cutest thing I ever laid my eyes upon!" She ushers him to sit beside her on the settee.
"Hello," Minho says, trying for a formality they've already run right past.
"You have no idea how hard these last few weeks have been!" she cries. "Ever since my Big Daddy died-" here she clutches at the pearls around her neck. They're the least flashy of all her jewelry that, if sold, could probably afford to buy a small island nation. One of the lesser known ones that no one really cares about, but the point still stands. "I just loved him so much."
When she starts to cry, Minho tries his best to be comforting. "There, there," he says, patting her on the back.
"Oh, My love" she cries, doubling over, "I know you're still here, darling, and I'll always love you."
"Wow," says Kibum, appearing in the corner of the room. "I didn't think people like her really existed."
The butler comes back in and extracts the woman from Minho's side. "If you'll be so kind as to find out where the will has been hidden, it would be a great help to the grieving family," he says, escorting Minho to the grand staircase.
"Okay, but where-" Minho stops when he notices that the butler is already walking away. "Never mind," he calls, "I'll just show myself around."
"I like these people," says Kibum. "Maybe I should stay here instead."
Except Minho can't find any the woman's husband anywhere on the entire estate. He finds dozens of other ghosts, however. Ranging in age and gender and class, but all of them whispering to him. All of them talking about secrets and things long buried and danger. They look at him with cold eyes and tell him of the lies carved into the lives of everyone who has ever lived there. It's enough to set even Kibum on edge.
"This is bad," Kibum says, looking around frantically. "This place is bad; we should go."
Minho shakes his head, they have a job and so far nothing is overtly dangerous. Just really really creepy. "It's fine," he says.
Kibum mumbles something that might be idiot, but Minho has a skill for ignoring things like that. They continue on, together, searching outside of the main house and over to the guest quarters. The place reeks of a despair that claws at Minho's chest and forces the air from his lungs.
"Stop," Kibum says, and Minho isn't sure who he's talking to, but he takes that as his cue to go back outside.
"This place-" Minho stops, lacking the words to describe it. His mind helpfully supplies wrong a few times, but that's sort of an understatement.
Kibum seems to get it, though. "It is."
"I need to find the old man," Minho says.
"We could try a séance," suggests Kibum.
Minho is almost tempted to take him up on that offer. He doesn't know how to perform a séance, but there's a first time for everything. A little chanting, some candles, maybe a crystal ball to channel some spirit guides. How hard could it be? What's a little dignity and self-respect, anyway. How much longer can he wander around without direction, being overwhelmed with spirits he can't help. "No," he says, eventually. It's an easy decision, really.
"Okay," Kibum says. He looks relieved, almost, if Minho didn't know better. "Not that I think these guys would rip you to shreds or anything, but you never know."
After that he gets kicked out onto the streets pretty fast.
"That went really well," says Kibum when they're walking toward a street that's more likely to have taxis. "I'm going to use the money you didn't get today to buy little action figures to movies I've never seen."
*
"Sometimes I wonder about what happened to any of my friends," Kibum says the moment that Minho begins to drift into sleep. It takes all of his energy not to fall over the edge into unconsciousness, regardless of how much he really wants to. This is the most Kibum has ever willingly mentioned about his life.
"What?" Minho asks, though it comes out more incoherent and not entirely dissimilar to an actual word. His muscles feel heavy, not yet working the way they're supposed to.
Kibum throws himself onto the bed next to Minho which has the not at all creepy effect of making the space around the bed go ice cold for a second. "I'm bored," he says. He must truly hate Minho to be this annoying all the time, especially when it's late and very clearly not the time for talking.
Minho tries to burry himself further down under his comforter, ignoring Kibum again. He closes his eyes, intent of getting all the way to sleep this time.
"I said I'm bored," Kibum pokes him on the side of the neck and it's like having electricity and ice water pumped into his veins. "Would you care if I left?"
Minho rolls onto his side. "No."
Kibum sings a few lines from a song Minho has never heard before, effectively keeping him awake out of an inexplicable, and absurdly useless, sense of curiosity. When he stops singing it's almost possible to pretend the room only has one occupant. Ghosts don't leave much of an impression on their surrounding unless they are trying to. "I think you might miss me," Kibum eventually says, getting up from the bed. There's no shift in the air, no rustle of clothing, only silence when he moves.
"Maybe," Minho concedes, shifting onto his back and staring at Kibum who is just standing in the open doorway. In this light he looks almost real.
"See you in the morning," Kibum says, walking away.
*
Kibum isn't there in when Minho wakes up. It's a little disquieting for the first few moments; this is the first time he's opened his eyes since moving into the apartment that Kibum has not been standing there, watching him, trying to give Minho a heart attack. Apparently being a ghost makes you more inclined to terrify people. Or so he's always suspected, given the ratio of ghosts that want to give him love and affection (0) to the number of ghosts who want to make him run to his mother crying (all of them).
It's weird, really, the more that Minho tries not to think about it. He stays in bed, unable to think of a reason to get up. His routine involves listening to Kibum describe the way he sleeps and then going to take a shower while yelling at Kibum to stay out, for the love of God.
Eventually he rationalizes that staying in bed all day is wasting perfectly good opportunities for doing anything else. It's just that, by noon, he hasn't figured out what that anything else could be. Also, he's never really noticed how comfortable his bed is. This could be the beginning of a beautiful new friendship.
"What," says Kibum.
Minho sits up in bed, heart thudding a but too fast. "What?"
"I," Kibum looks around. "I was here and then I wasn't. Where was I?" He spins around in a circle, walks through the wall next to Minho's bed, then comes in through the window. "Where was I?" he sounds small and far away. "Why-" he fades out of the room.
"Kibum?" Minho tries, calling out to the empty room.
"-are you going away?" Kibum blinks. "And you're back. What happened?"
"I don't know," Minho shrugs.
Kibum sits down on the edge of the bed, leaning forward and resting his head in his hands. "I was here and then I was somewhere else. It was quiet and somehow too loud and so bright that I couldn't see. And it smelled like cake."
Minho nods along until Kibum gets to cake. "Huh," he says, then frowns because hey, not exactly useful. "Did you mean to leave?"
Kibum jerks upright and looks at Minho likes he's forgotten all about there being another person in the room. "What? No, no. I- for a minute, last night, I wanted to go away, but. I meant like, down the street or just to the lobby. Not, wherever that was." Kibum starts to fade again. "Hey, no, no," he says, regaining a better sense of solidity.
"Oh," says Minho, "that's not good."
Kibum rolls his eyes. "What would I do without you, really."
"Spend your days alone and bored," says Minho, finally getting out of bed.
*
How to get rid of a ghost, Minho types into the search engine. Then quickly hits the delete button; he doesn't really mean that anymore.
How to tell if your ghost should move on from this plane of existence? he types into the empty space. Then deletes, again. What kind of question is that, anyway.
How to find out how old your ghost is or how he died and what he really was like in life because it's highly unlikely he was ever a spy and you doubt he was in a boyband either? He almost hits the search button, just to see what would happen.
"Why is your face all scrunched up like that," Kibum asks. He has his hand inside the toaster in an attempt to force it into making non-burnt toast. It's an exercise in futility as they've both long since agreed that Minho is destined to only consume charcoaled bread that's been made from any appliance in his kitchen. A leftover present from Kibum's earlier attempts at annoying him out of his home.
Minho unscrunches his face. "Nothing," he says. The toaster sparks and the lights dim in the kitchen before returning, maybe slightly brighter than they were before. "Stop doing that."
Kibum sighs unnecessarily and drops himself into the other seat across from Minho at the kitchen table. "Back when I was a bodyguard to the rich and famous," he starts, like this line of conversation is in any way relevant, "My days were full of excitement. Even the boring ones."
There's an inevitable headache in Minho's future. It's one of those things he knows on a very basic, nearly primal level. "A bodyguard," he says and makes sure he keeps the same level of skepticism in his voice that he hears in his head.
"Oh, yes," Kibum nods. "It was all very dangerous." He reaches through Minho's laptop screen with both hands and makes strange, incomprehensible gestures with his fingers. "And sometimes romantic. Nothing like your life."
Minho shuts his laptop, just to be difficult. "Of course."
"Are you even listening to me?" Kibum sighs dramatically.
"I always listen to you," Minho says because, really, he kind of does. It's not something he can help doing; Kibum's personality demands attention.
"Oh." Kibum tilts his head to the side, eyes narrowing in contemplation. Then he fades out of the room again which effectively ends their little talk right there.
Minho opens his laptop again and resumes what he had been doing. Why are ghosts so weird?
*
"Okay, okay," says Kibum, returning to visible form next to Minho's professor in the middle of a lecture. "This can't keep happening."
"Shit," says Minho.
"Quiet," says the girl in the row in front of him.
Minho shoves his things into his bag as quickly as he can, then attempts to sneak out of the lecture hall with as much stealth possible. The heavy wooden door at the back of the room makes the loudest groan is can manage when Minho opens it, of course. The entire room of people turn to look at him, so he ducks his head down and tries to slip out with his remaining sense of dignity.
"Good job," Kibum says, meeting him halfway down the hallway toward the exit. "I think you made some friends in there," he adds.
"Are you worried at all about why you keep disappearing?" Minho asks.
"All the time," Kibum says in a way that sounds like he might actually mean not really. "You'll figure it out and tell me, sooner or later."
Minho stops. "What?"
"You're that kind of person." Kibum continues forward, passing Minho and walking out the door. "One of those helpful types, eager for approval. It would go against your nature not to help me."
And that's, well, that's a little weird coming from Kibum who Minho isn't even completely sure he's friends with at all. At least not close enough for Kibum to just know things about him in the exact opposite way that Minho knows anything about him. Which is not much at all. Without anything to say to that, Minho decides to let a sense of companionship wash over them. The effect is ruined by Kibum rolling his eyes and walking away faster.
"Stop trying to be warm and fuzzy," Kibum says. "I'm dead and you're not my type."
Minho sighs. Not exactly long-suffering yet, at least, but it's a near thing.
*
"According to my sources," Minho starts, hoping that Kibum doesn't know that he means his mother, "you might be doing the fading thing to yourself. The other night when you said you wanted to leave, well, now you're leaving. Except it's to Heaven or rebirth or wherever it is you go next. Somewhere that smells like cake, apparently."
"What," Kibum frowns. "That's stupid. I can't go anywhere right now, it's not time yet."
The post-modern clock hanging on the living room wall makes an odd buzzing noise that trails off into one of the soprano solos from Mozart's Requiem. It's 10:45 at night and Minho thinks it would be nice to strangle Kibum if he were more corporeal. As it is, they have to wait a few minutes, just for the sound to die down enough for Minho to say, "What are you waiting around for?"
"There are things," Kibum says, meaning: it's none of your damn business. They've sort of known each other long enough, at least, for Minho to be able to read between some of the lines like that.
"What kind of things are so important that you need to stick around for an extra thirty years after you died?"
Kibum turns his head sharply to face Minho and at once he's more solid than he's ever looked before. "How do you know that?"
"I guessed," says Minho. There's a charge in the air that's usually reserved for angry spirits and things requiring an exorcism. The sensation leads to an odd desire for some added drama or perhaps a little blood dripping from the walls. At this thought, Minho decides he should cut back on the horror movies he doesn't even watch in the first place.
"You don't need to know about my life," Kibum mumbles, fading a little.
An argument is on the tip of Minho's tongue, but he restrains himself to only saying, "I know you weren't a spy," which is kind of a stupid thing to say, if he's at all honest with himself. He knows that Kibum knows that he doesn't ever buy into the many stories he's told.
If Kibum were going to say anything in return, he doesn't get the chance to when he fades completely for the hundredth time in recent days. Just for fun, probably, the room retains the low temperature of an angry ghost and the weird tingly quality of a very angry ghost. The walls continue to not drip with blood, however.
"That's great," Minho says to the empty room, suddenly glad for his lack of social life or anyone to invite over to his haunted house.
*
Kibum doesn't show up again for a week. Which, okay, that's fine, it's not as if his presence is something that Minho needs in his life at every waking moment. There are other things to be concerned with. Such as school and the potential for a social life involving living people and ghosts that are more likely pissed off poltergeists. Honestly, potential well-paying clients should do some research before they call him. Or he could up his fee. Whichever.
The thing about poltergeists is that everything about them is awful. Truly, there is nothing in them that Minho would not drown in a vat of acid if that were a viable option. But it's not, he tried once. They're the douchebags of the spirit community. The uninvited lecherous uncle that gatecrashes otherwise pleasant family functions, if you will.
This time there really is blood dripping from the walls. And a message that says get out, also written in blood. "Original," Minho says to himself, or maybe the poltergeist if it's listening. The foundation of the unfinished housing complex shudders so that answers that question.
In a sudden touch of dramatic flair, the wind begins the groan with threats of death and dismemberment. Minho hates just about everything in his life, at the moment, not least of which is the icy fingers trailing down his spine. He opens his mouth to say something disparaging about the spirit's creativity, but all that comes out is a strangled, gurgling, noise. He figures that his point probably didn't get across very well.
"Will you please stop that," he tries nicely, ignoring the way the shadows twist around him and the accompanying voices that grow louder and louder in the distance, then shift into screams, just for fun. Minho is the bravest person in the world. He repeats this in his head on a loop and doesn't even think about curling up in the corner, crying. At least not much. So, he concludes, that statement is probably true.
"Okay," he tries for some sort of reverse psychology, "Don't stop, keep going forever." Everything stops and Minho takes a moment to think that it can't be that easy. It's not. The support beams creak and snap and the cement floor crumbles away to open up over what appears to be a pit of fire.
"Wow," Kibum says, appearing at the edge of the pit. "I bet I could do better."
"Oh God," Minho says because antagonizing the angry poltergeist really doesn't have a chance of making the situation any better.
The pit of fire grows bigger.
Kibum mimes warming his hands over the fire and says, "Really? Is that all? I've seen little girls with bigger fire pits than you."
"Oh God," Minho repeats because his own death is becoming more and more inevitable. "Please stop."
Everything stops, again. The cement flooring returns to not being a portal into hell, and the exposed metal piping around the foundation no longer look as if they're bending inward toward him. His heartbeat almost stops trying to pound its way through his chest, so that's also pretty good. Of course it doesn't last, but Minho likes to take his wins where he can get them in times of his own great suffering.
"See?" says Kibum, "you just need to show them who's in charge."
Then the lights all go out, including the moon, and that's impressive, really. The air gets heavy around them and it's as if Minho's been put inside a small, dark room, instead of standing in the open air of an unfinished building lot.
"Oh, yeah, we should probably go," Kibum urges, flicking in and out of focus at Minho's side. "Now. Now would be good. Running, if you're really into staying alive."
Minho runs. The metal and cement and bits of construction equipment all begin to shake violently behind him, but he's not dumb enough to stop and take a closer look at the cause. There are more important things in life, such as staying alive. So he runs and runs until he's just outside of the property line. "Oh God," he says, catching his breath and watching the entire lot sink into the earth.
"Huh," Kibum says. "I really didn't think that would happen."
Minho collapses to the ground and just tries to breathe for a while.
*
"This is getting ridiculous," Kibum mutters, fading out, then back again. He's been doing that consistently since showing up at the housing complex with the poltergeist. "Make it stop."
Minho pauses, fork halfway to his mouth, then drops it back down to the plate. "Tell me how you died."
Kibum frowns, "No."
"Okay," Minho says, continuing to eat his dinner.
Kibum makes a frustrated noise that sounds genuine enough for Minho to look over at him. "What does my death have to do with anything?" The subject is apparently a sore one. More so than Minho had originally thought, when he'd ever really thought about it.
"I don't know," Minho admits; this is new territory for him as well. All things considered, he's a lot better at getting rid of ghosts than getting them to stick around. Mostly. His recent track record is not exactly something he wants to brag about. But, before all of that. "You never even talk about your life."
"That's not true," says Kibum. "I tell you about my life all the time."
"You tell me stories and then say they're about your life," Minho corrects.
"They're true," Kibum says in a way that sounds like he's not trying to convince either of them. That's probably for the best; Minho stopped believing him roughly around the time they first met.
Minho sighs, Kibum fades a little, the clock on the wall chirps like a bird.
"At least tell me how old you were," Minho tries. "You want me to help you, so let me."
"Fine," Kibum says like he means fuck you. "Fine. I was 19 and an art student." He fades out again, but this time Minho suspects it was intentional.
It's not a lot to go on, and not really all that useful in the grand scheme of things, but hey. It's more than he's gotten, ever. So Minho does the thing he's only considered in passing before. He throws out what's left of his dinner and goes to find his laptop. It's time for him to find out about Kibum's life.
*
By the time Kibum comes back, Minho wishes he could take back the last few hours of his life. If he had it to do over again, he'd leave things be. He wouldn't poke, he wouldn't go looking for answers where he was certain he'd find ones he didn't want to know. He'd just stop. He'd force himself to stop and never try again. As it is, now it's too late. He knows and when Kibum shows up behind him and gets a look at just a fraction of what Minho has found, well. Now he knows that Minho knows and everything is a little bit terrible.
"Why," Kibum says, not fully making a question out of it. It's the one thing Minho has noticed all ghosts have in common. They all want to know why.
Minho shuts his laptop out of a strange sense of kindness. "You," he starts, stops, and tries to not hurt. "I don't know."
"Yeah, well," Kibum sounds bitter and when he laughs the sound is dry and humorless. "Neither did I. Some things just happen, right?"
Minho wants to say no, wants to say I'm sorry, wants to say anything useful. Instead he comes up with, "Yeah, sometimes."
Kibum sits down on the floor, back against the wall. He tilts his head up and stares at the ceiling and Minho knows there's never any answers there. "I was just a kid. I had all of these stupid ideas like being a painter or a sculptor or maybe an art thief. I didn't even know the guy across the hall except for the few times I'd said hello."
And, okay, Minho didn't know that part. No one did. "You don't have to-"
"No," says Kibum. "I should. I mean, you already know most of it, right?"
Minho nods. The story wasn't that hard to find, he'd just never bothered looking before. He's not sure if he regrets that or not.
"Anyway, I don't really know what changed. One day he was there outside of my school when I was heading home and. After that he moved and if the police suspected that he was the one to snap my neck and leave me in an alley with some garbage, well, they never did anything about it." Kibum looks down at his hands. "I'm not even angry anymore. Not really. Now I'm just waiting for him to die."
"Oh," says Minho and for that he wants to kick himself.
"It should happen soon," Kibum says cheerfully. He might be faking it, but what's more frightening is that he might not be. Minho is no longer sure what to think.
*
The next step in Minho's poorly thought out master plan is to get Kibum to do something about, well, something. The details, of which, have yet to be worked out yet. It's not even really much of a plan, just the feeling that now that they've talked and Kibum continues to fade on a regular basis, that maybe they shouldn't be just sitting around waiting for someone else to step in. Also, Minho really, in a way, cares about Kibum and doesn't like to watch him remain in this halfway point between his life and his true death.
"You're staring at me again," Kibum says.
"I think," Minho takes a deep breath, "I think you should confront the man who, you know."
"Killed me?" Kibum raises an eyebrow at that. "What would that do for me?"
"Closure," Minho suggests.
"No," says Kibum. He turns away, heading toward the front door.
Minho follows him out the door and all the way into the stairwell which has the potential to make this so much more awkward than it already is if someone happens to overhear. But Kibum does stop trying to get away, so there is at least that small silver lining. "You can't keep going like this."
"Why not?" Kibum says and it's obvious that's he's frustrated and angry and maybe a little scared. Even Minho can read that in his expression and Kibum keeps everything close to his chest like every emotion should be a closely guarded secret. "Things are fine the way they are."
Minho watches Kibum flicker away and back again and he says, "No, things aren't fine. You're not okay and please let me help you."
Kibum just looks at him for a second. Then another second and another and Minho feels exceptionally scrutinized, but whatever Kibum reads on his face must do the trick because eventually he nods. "Okay. Yeah, okay, have it your way."
"Oh, okay." Minho never actually expected to win.
*
It takes a few days to work up to it, but eventually they end up standing outside of a retirement home. Not a very nice one, at that. But it's where they're supposed to be, according to Kibum and Minho has to trust him on this.
They get by security and the woman at the front desk easily enough. None of them seemed to really care all that much, and Minho was waved by without needing to explain himself to anyone. He's glad of that; he hadn't prepared any kind of story.
"This way," Kibum says, leading him upstairs and down a narrow hallway. Eventually they get to a room, occupied only by one man, resting in a bed, hooked up to a medical ventilator and a heart monitor. He looks old and weak and not the monster Minho had been expecting.
"Here," Kibum ushers Minho inside, but stays near the door, hidden in the shadows.
The man looks up at Minho when he enters, and it's weird. There's rage and helplessness boiling Minho's blood and he hadn't expected that. "Um," he says, "Hello." The man doesn't say anything and the room is filled only with the sounds of the machines that are, presumably keeping him alive. But then he looks away, over to the shadows, and his eyes go wide.
Kibum steps forward. "It's been a while, I guess," he says. "Do you even remember me?"
The noise from the heart monitor speeds up and Kibum nods. "I guess you do. Well, I want you to know that I'm not angry anymore. It's been so long that I've had time to think about it and staying angry was giving you too much control over me, and you don't get to have that, too."
Minho tries to back out of the room, but Kibum stops him, saying, "wait," so Minho waits.
Kibum leans down, bending over the man, and placing a hand against his throat. It must feel like ice. "Did you think about me? Did you regret what you did? Or did you revel in it?" He leans even closer and whispers, barely loud enough for Minho to hear: "Go to hell."
The heart monitor beeps an erratic pace, too fast and too loud. Kibum is at Minho's side then and he says, "Let's go."
They don't stick around to see how it ends.
*
So that's how it goes. Except Kibum can't let anyone else have the final bow, so he waits until they're outside again, and the sun is shining and things actually feel okay for the first time in a while. Minho wishes he didn't see it coming.
"I think I should go now," Kibum says, closing his eyes and tilting his face up toward the sun.
Yeah, Minho had known this would happen. He just hadn't wanted to know, so he hadn't allowed himself to think about it. He hadn't thought he would care, either. "Yeah," he says, finally, not sure what else there is to say.
Kibum turns away from the sun and glances over at him. "You don't need to be sad. I'm already dead, stupid."
"I'm not-" Minho's throat clenches up and he has to look down at his feet. "I got used to you," he says instead.
Kibum actually smiles at that. "I got used to you, too. Even if you are the most boring person I have ever known."
Minho laughs, but it sounds wet and tragic and his eyes are all useless and watery. "You're the most annoying person I've ever known." This feels good and easy; a momentary distraction. "I can't wait for you to-"
"Stop that," Kibum says. "You'll be fine."
"Yeah," Minho nods. He will be, he knows this.
"Don't forget me, okay?" says Kibum and he sounds sad and hopeful and he's smiling, so Minho smiles, too. "There is no one in the world as great as I am and your life has been made better just by knowing me. So you can't forget me."
"I won't," Minho says. "I promise."
"Okay, good," Kibum says, and then he's gone and Minho finally goes back to his life.