Chapter Text
“What’s the last thing you remember?”
Each breath feels like her ribcage is filled with lead. Aches settle deep within her bones and muscles. It’s like she’s been run over by a truck. No, worse. There’s a high pitched intermittent beep somewhere off in the distance. Annoying. All she wants to do is sleep.
She peels her eyes open to a pitch black room. She could tell this wasn’t her own room at home. The space felt different. She runs a hand along the rough thin sheets that barely acted as a blanket. Something tugs against her hand. Come to think of it, she doesn’t remember going to bed.
A chill runs through her. She brings the back of her hand up to her face, as if that could make her see better in the darkness. She squints, making out a vague shape across her hand.
The room blooms into blinding white light, and she slams her eyes shut, flinching back deeper into the pillow. It was only then that she noticed the tugging across her scalp. It felt like she was wearing a helmet.
There’s a sound of surprise. “Sorry,” A woman says, “I didn’t wake you, did I? This will just take a second.”
She opens her eyes, blinking rapidly to adjust to the light. Everything was white. White floors, white walls, white sheets. An antiseptic smell fills the air. The woman gently takes her hand, lifting it up from the bed.
“Ms. Yoohyeon?”
The woman was wearing scrubs. No way. She follows the woman’s gaze down to her hand where an IV snaked its way down into a vein and a clear sticker kept it in place.
She was in the hospital.
“Yoohyeon? Do you know why you’re here?”
She looks over to the different woman who now sat at her bedside. She had short, shoulder-length black hair which looked a little disheveled, strands straying from their rightful places just enough to be noticeable. She wore a white dress shirt over a doctor’s coat and black glasses perched on her nose. The only break from the black and white monotony of the room was her pink clipboard and pen which she twirled between her fingers.
“I had a seizure.” She rasps out. She’s been asked the same exact questions from similarly dressed doctors and nurses. Can’t they just use a shared document or something for their notes? Why did she have to say the same thing over and over? She didn’t need to be reminded that after years of being in remission of her epilepsy, it hit her worse than it ever has.
“Do you know who I am?”
Yoohyeon doesn’t answer, instead turning back to face straight ahead of her where a teenage girl wearing a school uniform, the same one Yoohyeon herself did, seemed to make herself comfortable by the foot of her bed. She was leaning down, studying the clipboard which held all of her personal medical information hanging from the padded railing. Was this woman not going to do anything about that? Isn’t this a breach of some kind of law?
“My name is Dr. Kim, I work in the psychiatry unit here.”
The doctors which were previously in her room told her they were going to send psychiatry to speak with her, she didn’t need a refresher. What they didn’t say was that she was going to have a… little sister coming along with her? It couldn’t be her daughter, she looked way too young. Come to think of it, was she even allowed to bring someone into the room with her? Isn’t there such a thing as patient confidentiality?
“Do you know why I’m here?”
“Can you… get that person out of here?”
Dr. Kim frowns, turning to follow Yoohyeon’s gaze.
The mysterious girl looks up, eyes widening as she meets Yoohyeon’s eyes. She turns around, looking around the room before turning back to face Yoohyeon. “Me?” She asks, her voice strained in surprise as she points to herself.
“Who else would it be?”
“Yoohyeon, are you talking to someone?”
The girl rubs at the back of her neck, backing out of the room. Except when she gets to the sliding door she doesn’t open it up to go through, she walks straight through the door as if it’s not even there, her body disappearing through the wall.
Did she see that wrongly? There’s no way, right?
Dr. Kim leans forward, “Yoohyeon, what are you seeing right now? A person you know?”
Great, now the psychiatrist thinks she’s crazy. Maybe she was. Could a visual hallucination be that… responsive to asking them to go away? Do hallucinations listen to you? Was she actually going insane?
“No!” She says quickly. She can hear the machine beside her pick up. Curse the pulse monitor on her finger, would it be too suspicious if she takes it off now? She wasn’t going crazy. She couldn’t be. There’s no way. A dozen scenarios flew through her head. Her mom finding out, being sent to an institution, school finding out, forever being labeled as insane. She couldn’t do that.
Her breath hitches in her throat as it tightens. She can’t breathe. She feels like her skin was ripped off her body, revealing all of her muscles and tendons and organs to the world around her. The world dulls. She can’t do this. She can’t do this. She can’t do this.
“Yoohyeon, Yoohyeon. Look at me, deep breaths.”
Her breath comes out in short gasps, tears streak down her face. She must be crazy. That’s the only reason. Something gets shoved into her line of sight, a keychain.
“Yoohyeon, what color is this?” Dr. Kim removes her finger to show a colored square.
What? “Red,” Yoohyeon forces out. Her throat burns.
“Good.” Dr. Kim beams. She slides her finger down further, revealing another square. “And what color is this?”
Does she think she’s stupid too? Why is she complimenting her like she’s a toddler? “Orange.”
“Very good,” She slides her finger down further, this time skipping a square and going to the next one after, “And this one?”
“Green.” Her body tremored, she rubs at her eyes as she hiccups.
Dr. Kim removes her finger entirely, revealing the whole keychain. A line of colored squares separated by a black outline. “And what is this when you put all the colors together?”
“A rainbow.”
“Good job,” Dr. Kim smiles. She clips the keychain back onto her badge which hangs around her neck. She reaches into her pocket, taking out a bean bag and what looked like a rubber noodle. She holds them out to Yoohyeon, “Would you like one? Or both?”
Yoohyeon hesitates. Was this some kind of test?
“I’m personally a fan of the bean bag, not many are.” Dr. Kim squeezes the bag in her hand. “So I always have them on me. I end up being the only one who uses them, though. I should start expanding my collection to other items.”
“What are they for?”
Dr. Kim shrugs. “Just to play with. It helps me focus, personally.”
Yoohyeon reaches out, stopping just before she grabs the bean bag, “It’s okay if I take it? Even if you like it?”
Dr. Kim smiles. “Don’t worry about me.” She reaches back into her pocket, taking out a second bag. “I always have extra.” She passes one of them over to Yoohyeon.
Yoohyeon was surprised at how heavy it was. The weight was almost comforting, in a strange way. It was heavy, but a solid, warm kind of heavy and not an uncomfortable heavy. She tosses the bag into her other hand, feeling as it molds into her palm.
“Would you like to continue speaking with me, Yoohyeon?”
So this is a bribe. She kneaded the bag, it was strangely relaxing. A way to get her mind to quiet down all the tiny voices in her head telling her to run away. “Okay.”
Yoohyeon brings her knees to her chest and curls up into a ball once Dr. Kim leaves. She hates this. Hates everything. She wishes none of this ever happened. Her big secret was revealed. The gig is up. There’s no hiding anything anymore. No figuring any of this out by herself. She just needed to make it everyone else’s problem, didn’t she?
“Is this a bad time?”
Yoohyeon flinches at the sudden sound. She uncurls herself, sitting back up in bed to see the same mysterious girl from earlier. She has sharp features, highlighted by her long straight black hair. Almost like a raven. She had her face trained to the ground with her arms clasped behind her back. Like a little kid apologizing for breaking a vase.
“I didn’t mean to freak you out,” she says, “I’m not used to people seeing me, let alone talking to me.”
“So you’re real?” Or was this just a scarily good hallucination? Actually, can a hallucination talk to you? What determines the quality of a hallucination? She was sure this had to be the most real one anyone’s ever had. There’s no way anything is more realistic than this, besides the walking through walls. “Who are you?”
“As far as I know, I’m real. Most people can’t see me though, so… unless you want something similar to happen like what happened earlier, I would be cautious.” She sucks in a breath. “I’m Bora. Kim Bora. And you’re Yoohyeon.”
Okay, she didn’t love the fact that this Bora girl has who-knows-how-much information about her and she knew next to nothing about her. “Why can’t people see you?” It had to be because she’s a figment of her imagination, right? “Are you like… invisible or something?” She wanted to say ‘ not real’ , but she had a feeling that would scare her away.
“Close,” Bora says, raising her eyebrows.
Both of them turn to the door sliding open, and Yoohyeon’s mom enters the room, giving her a small smile as she lifts up a white plastic bag. “Lunch, as requested.” Her mom comes over, pulling Yoohyeon’s tray attached to her bed out and setting the bag down on it. “The nurse is going to come soon to wean you off the IV meds, and as long as everything is good we can go home in the next couple of hours, your new meds will be ready then as well.” She pulls a plastic container out along with a pair of wooden chopsticks. She hands them to Yoohyeon before collapsing onto the flimsy plastic guest chair and grabbing the TV channel guide left on her seat.
“I’m not invisible,” Bora continues, climbing onto the end of Yoohyeon’s bed and sitting criss-cross. Yoohyeon opens up the container and wraps noodles around her chopsticks. “Would you believe me if I said I’m Death and I bring people to death?”
Yoohyeon falters. What? What was Bora talking about?
“And of course that means I’m here to bring you to death.”
Was she actually going to die? Right after her mom walks into the room? She drops her chopsticks, suddenly losing her appetite. She can hear the beeping on the machine beside her speed up.
Her mom looks up at the machine, her eyebrows furrowing. “Are you alright?”
The last thing she wants to do is freak out with her mom watching. She swallows thickly, wiping her sweaty palms on the sheets as she’s reminded of what Dr. Kim did earlier. She looks around the room. Her mom is wearing a purple-red shirt and black pants. She’s wearing a white hospital gown with a blue pattern. Bora is wearing a dark blue sweater vest and tie. “I’m okay.” Yoohyeon breathes out. “Just a little nervous, that’s all.”
Her mom leans forward. “Oh, sweetie, about what?”
Bora chuckles, leaning against the foam covers on the bed. “I’m kidding! I’m not Death. Trust me, they’re a lot scarier looking. You should really see your face right now. Have you watched Death Note?”
“U-um, I’m just missing school today, I think I had a big test.” It was true. She was missing a huge history test. She was studying for it for weeks. And now she had to wait to be able to take it.
Bora smiles, resting her head on the foam. “A couple months ago there was someone who went through the whole series while here. Lot of inaccuracies, I gotta say, but interesting. TV has come a long way…”
“We can get a note that explains why you were absent, don’t worry about that, and your teacher will allow you to make it up,” Her mom says, turning the TV on.
The nurse comes into the room, fiddling with the IV bag.
“We’ll see how you feel once the pain meds wear off, it might be better to take tomorrow off as well to fully recover.” Her mom flips through the channels until settling on one.
“You see, this is what I mean by TV coming a long way. What is this?”
Yoohyeon looked up at the screen, it was a blind vocal competition, with the contestants singing and dancing in masks while the judges had to guess who it was. From what Yoohyeon has seen, it’s been on for years. Has this girl been living under a rock?
Yoohyeon sighs, looking up at the nurse, “Do the wires on my head have to stay on until I leave?”
The nurse gives her a tight lipped smile. “I’m afraid so.”
The glue they used felt heavy on her skin, and she could feel her hair pulled in unnatural directions. All she wanted to do was peel all of the wires off, jump into a shower, and stay there until the water ran cold.
“Do you have my phone?” Yoohyeon asks, turning to her mom. She doesn’t expect there to be any messages from anyone, but she’s not one to usually miss school. She’s come in before with a flu and was sent back home despite her protests. Maybe one of her teachers emailed her with assignments to get done.
Instead, once she receives it and powers it on, two messages pop up.
Are you okay?
Where are you?
She swipes them away. Why would she care about where she was? It’s not like they even talk to each other anymore. She doesn't really care.
“Friend drama?” Bora asks, suddenly appearing beside Yoohyeon, looking over her shoulder.
Yoohyeon jumps, and her mom and nurse whip their heads around to face her.
“Are you sure you’re alright?” Her mom asks, glancing up at the nurse.
“Yeah,” Yoohyeon breathes out, “Just a little jumpy, that’s all. It’s been a long day.” She gives the two of them a strained smile. She’s only been awake for a couple of hours at most, so she would hardly call it a long day, but waking up in a hospital with a bunch of tubes and wires hooked up to her was not on her schedule for the day.
“You should rest.”
“Yeah, maybe I should…” Maybe then the girl that lives in her mind will disappear.
“If you want to talk shit about those friends of yours I’m all about that,” Bora says.
Yoohyeon leans back into bed, throwing the covers over her and staring up at the TV. Maybe she is going insane, her mind couldn’t take having no friends so it decided to create one. That’s the only explanation.
Once the nurse left she let her eyes fall shut, listening to the random conversations and songs coming from the TV.
“I had friend drama too, you know,” Bora says in a barely audible voice, “A long time ago.”
Turns out sleeping in a hospital is a lot harder than she thought when she wasn’t on whatever concoction of drugs they had her on. She was woken up every half hour or so by nurses coming in to do whatever they had to do. She could tell they were trying to be as quiet as possible, but it really didn’t help much.
“The school called,” Her mom says as they were finishing packing to get ready to leave, “Yubin is going to stop by tonight to drop your work off. How is she? I feel like I haven’t seen her in ages.”
Yoohyeon pales. Of course Yubin of all people would volunteer. “She’s good, yeah. We’ve just been busy with school…”
“She’s welcome to come over whenever, she’s such a good girl…”
Yoohyeon presses her lips together in a thin line as she throws on a hoodie. “I’ll let her know.”
As they make their way out of the building, Yoohyeon couldn’t help but notice Bora trailing behind them. What is she doing?
She had a glimmer of hope that Bora had disappeared, despite the many times she was roused awake she hadn’t spotted her in the room. It wasn’t until she was getting ready to leave that she had returned.
Given that her supposed hallucination went elsewhere, was she really all just in her head? She just had some kind of invisible girl following her around like some kind of lost puppy?
She even got into the backseat of their car, albeit she went through the door like she was made of mist. “Hey, Red, you mind if I come with you? I’ve been following Minji around for years, I need some variety.”
So she follows other people around. And now she is suddenly given a nickname… Red?
How was she supposed to talk to her with other people around? She needs to find out what Bora actually is. Why does she follow people around, is she some weird personification of something that’s wrong with her in her mind? Or some kind of other illness? Considering she jumps from person to person, does that mean she can get rid of her?
“Where do you live? What school do you go to?”
Yoohyeon gives Bora a glare out of the side of her eye. Was she not going to shut up the whole time?
“You know, I might’ve gone there, to your school. You know you’ve got a secret weapon with me, right? I can come with you to any test you’ve got and look at everyone else’s answers.”
Cheating. That sounds like something Bora would do. Besides, considering the fact that she was wearing almost an exact replica of her own school uniform, she had a feeling Bora went to the same exact school as her. It was small enough that she would have seen her around, although she did spend most of her time at school with her eyes trained down to her shoes, it was very likely she missed her.
“Hey, what teachers do you have? I had a total bastard of a coach. Honestly I think he was glad I died.”
Yoohyeon cranes her neck back to look over at Bora. “What?” She breathed out. Did Bora just say she was dead? It would make sense, considering she couldn’t be seen by anyone else, but why could she see her?
“You alright there?” Yoohyeon’s mom asks, a hint of worry in her voice. “You’ve been… you feel okay?”
Yoohyeon turns back, slinking down in her seat as she watches the buildings fly by. “Yeah, sorry. I feel fine. I thought I saw something…”
“Don’t forget next Monday you have another appointment with Dr. Kim. I scheduled it for after school.”
Her mom thinks she’s going crazy now. Great.
“Dr. Kim~” Bora sings out. “I can never get used to people calling her that.” She snickers. “Doctor, please .”
They pull up to their building, one that spans a dozen floors with small single story family apartments.
Bora makes a sound as her eyes scan over the building. “I used to live close by. You definitely go to the same school I did.”
Yoohyeon has a feeling she isn’t going to enjoy her first day back at school with Bora tagging along with her.
The wait in the elevator to get to their floor is excruciating. All she wants to do is be able to talk to Bora and ask her as many questions as she possibly can without raising any suspicions from her mom. The last thing she wants is to end up in the hospital again after just leaving.
“Do you want me to make you some soup?”
Yoohyeon snaps her eyes up to meet her mother’s gaze. “I’m alright.”
“Are you sure? You al–” the elevator dings and the doors slide open. A woman steps in holding a cardboard box. “-Oh, Mrs. Lee, it’s good to see you.”
Mrs. Lee. Yubin’s mom. Yoohyeon swallows thickly, shifting on her feet as she gives her a strained smile.
She greets Yoohyeon’s mom, going to stand against the opposite wall of the elevator. Bora side-steps out of the way before the woman can pass through her, shooting her a glare.
“Oh, dear,” Mrs. Lee says, “I was just on my way to drop this off at your place, I heard what happened,” She turns to face Yoohyeon, her eyebrows turned up in a look of pity, “How are you feeling, hon?”
Yoohyeon presses her lips together. “I’m okay.”
Mrs. Lee studies Yoohyeon’s face. “You must’ve gone through a lot.” She mutters. She pulls away, turning towards her mom to pass her the box. “I hope you don’t mind, I made a quick run to the market the second I heard what happened.”
“You really didn’t have to,” her mom says, taking a peek inside the box. Her smile falters before she masks it. “Wow, thank you, we will make good use out of these.”
Mrs. Lee chuckles. “It’s tradition in my family to give apples to those who have fallen ill. Helps heal your spirit. An apple a day keeps the doctor away!”
“I fucking love apples.” Bora says under her breath, staring wide eyed and practically salivating at the cardboard box.
“Thank you,” her mother says, her expression turning more grateful, “That’s thoughtful of you.”
“Have to stay healthy to beat my daughter in class ranking,” Mrs. Lee laughs, “It’s good competition for her.”
Not much of a competition. Yubin has ranked first every year. Yoohyeon studies, and studies, and studies, and yet has never seemed to beat her. She’s a fraction away. One slip up from Yubin would push her to first. Yubin doesn’t slip up though. No, if anyone were to slip up it would be Yoohyeon herself.
The elevator screeches to a halt, the doors sliding open once again, this time at their floor.
“That reminds me, I’ll tell Yubin she can run your homework up to you.”
“Tell Yubin thank you for us,” Her mom says, “She really didn’t have to go through the trouble of doing that.”
Mrs. Lee brushes off the compliment for her daughter, “Please, she would’ve volunteered even if we lived miles away from you. I’m glad we’re just an elevator ride away.”
Yoohyeon and her mom step out of the elevator, her mom waving and giving her goodbyes to Mrs. Lee as the doors slide shut again. She adjusts the box in her arms, “Who knew apples were so heavy.” She mutters.
“Do you want me to carry it?” Yoohyeon asks.
Her mom looks at her like she’s gone crazy. “No.” They get to their door, and she struggles to balance the box on one knee as she fumbles around for the key.
“Let me take the box.”
Her mom ignores her, pushing open the door and dropping the container onto the floor as soon as she steps inside, stepping out of her shoes. Pie, their pomeranian puppy, comes running up to them, tail wagging. “Yooh, let me make you some soup. You always loved that after a seizure.”
The last thing she needs is to be trapped in the same area as her mom for the next couple of hours. She needs to be able to talk to Bora, find out exactly who she is, why she’s following her, and most importantly- how to get her to stop . “I’m okay, really.” She says, kicking her shoes off and grabbing the box of apples before her mom could stop her.
She was right, it was heavy. She grunts as she lifts it up, struggling to balance herself as she walks it over to the kitchen table, dropping it with a thud.
Ice cold fingers wrap around her arm, tugging at it. “Yooh,” Her mom looks down at her, the same look as Mrs. Lee plastered on her face.
She doesn’t have time for this.
“Yooh, I’m worried about you. Please, can we sit and talk?”
Just how much did Dr. Kim tell her mom? Wasn’t everything she said supposed to be confidential? She yanks her arm away from her hand. “I’m tired.”
Her mother frowns. “I love you.”
Yoohyeon pauses.
Pie skitters away as Bora inches closer to Yoohyeon, her lips pulled back in a snarl.
“Hey,” Bora says in a voice barely above a whisper, as if other people in the room could hear her. Yoohyeon flicks her eyes over to her. “Can you grab one of those apples before you leave?” She licks her lips, focused on the white cardboard.
“Love you too,” she strains, reaching into the box and grabbing an apple before retreating down the hall to her room. Yoohyeon closes her door shut behind her, letting out a sigh as she looks over to Bora, who was inspecting her room.
There wasn’t much in it. Blank white walls, wooden flooring, a bed with a dark green comforter, and a wooden desk and dresser in a corner. Her bed was calling her name. She forgot how exhausting seizures can be, and from how the doctors described the one(s) she had– a pretty severe one at that.
Bora snatches the apple away from Yoohyeon, giddily inspecting it like lost treasure before taking a big bite out of it, moaning into the flesh of it.
“What’s your deal with apples?” Yoohyeon asks as she observes her. She would get it if it were candy, chocolate, even ramyeon. But apples? No one yearns for apples. Besides, how could someone who’s invisible even eat?
Bora ignores the question, instead wiping the juice off her face along with her giddy expression, as if she was realizing for the first time she was in the company of other people. “You’re so boring.” Bora says, flopping down onto the bed as she takes another bite. “This room is so empty.”
“And you’re great company to have,” Yoohyeon rolls her eyes as she sits down at her desk chair, spinning it around to face Bora. “So, want to tell me why you said you were dead?”
Bora turns over onto her side to glance at Yoohyeon. “There’s no hidden meaning or anything. That’s it, I’m dead.”
“Okay can you explain that to me instead of just repeating it?”
Bora groans, burying her head into the pillow. She looks back over at Yoohyeon after she collects herself. “I died. I’m not a living human being.”
“What are you then? A ghost? Is that why only I can see you? Why am I the only one who can?”
“Whoa, slow down there,” Bora lays an arm across her face, “Just listening to you is making my head spin. Okay. First of all, I’m not a ghost . Ghosts don’t exist and are an awful fictional portrayal of us. My kind prefer the term spirits .”
My kind . “So there’s more of you?”
Bora hums, “You kept stepping around them when leaving the hospital. Hospitals are usually a hotbed for spirits.” She laughs, taking another bite of her apple. “People must’ve thought you were crazy .”
Yoohyeon sighs. Maybe she should just accept it.
“Most humans can’t see us, some can, due to various reasons. And considering you definitely aren’t used to seeing us, you got your… ability, let’s call it– today, from almost dying.”
“Fun.” Yoohyeon rolls her eyes. “And you’re following me because…”
There was a sadness in her eyes, a look that’s different from her usual playfulness. “Because it’s been awhile since someone talked to me.” Bora says in a quiet tone. “Even if they can see me they just ignore me.” She looks up at Yoohyeon, the somberness disappearing from her face, “And the other spirits are complete assholes. There’s a reason they’re still stuck here.”
Yoohyeon decides to ignore the fact that Bora is stuck here, meaning she’s an ‘asshole’ as well. It would make sense.
“There’s nothing else that exists, right? Or is there a whole supernatural world I don’t know about.”
Bora raises her eyebrows, scoffing, “Supernatural world? No such thing. Just because most living people don’t know we exist doesn’t mean we’re supernatural.”
Yoohyeon rolls her eyes. “Fine, whatever. Anything else that us measly humans should know about?”
Bora sits up from the bed, scrunching her face up in thought. “No.” She said after some deliberation. “Hey, can you grab me another apple?”
“You never answered me on your thing with apples.”
Bora’s mouth falls open. “Are you bribing me with apples?”
Yoohyeon crosses her arms, jutting her chin out. “I might be.”
A smile tugs at Bora’s lips. “I underestimated you, Red.” She takes a final bite of her apple before tossing the core into the small garbage can next to Yoohyeon’s desk. “Ever since I died I’ve had an affinity for apples,” she shrugs. “It might be because that’s the last thing I ate before I died, but you don’t exactly get a book when you become a spirit that details everything that goes on with you.” She pauses, looking up to the ceiling, “Now I’m curious… I never thought about it. I really don’t know anything about being a spirit.” Her eyes get wide. “Do I have superpowers?”
Yoohyeon rolls her eyes, “Okay, so what do you know about being a spirit?”
“Not much. I gave you what you wanted, are you going to get me an apple or what?”
Yoohyeon sighs. She would have to question Bora more at another time it seems. At least now she’s almost 100% certain her mind could not hallucinate a teenage, apple-loving ghost girl. This was real life.
“I’ll get your apple for you,” she mutters.
Sneaking over to the kitchen was an adventure, and she definitely was not interested in hearing her mother on the phone with who-knows-who talking about her. “… skipped a dose or two… no, I don’t know why but we can assume… you don’t understand, you haven’t seen her recently, she’s like… a shell of her former self.”
Yoohyeon gnaws at her bottom lip as she reaches into the box left out on the counter and grabs Bora’s precious fruit. She doesn’t have time to deal with this, her job isn’t to help her mom feel better, it’s not that big of a deal.
Bora grabs the apple from her as soon as she enters the room. “You know, I was thinking about this, you’ve never watched Death Note, right?” Bora doesn’t wait for Yoohyeon to respond, “They’ve got these uh… angels of death? I think that’s what they are. The main one’s got a thing for apples. I’m not an angel of death. I don’t have the ability to do that… I think.” Bora frowns, sinking her teeth into the apple.
Was Yoohyeon really a shell of her former self? Did it matter if she was? People change, don’t they? Did her mom think she was going to love rainbows and unicorns for the rest of her life?
Bora collapses into Yoohyeon's desk chair and spins around as she takes another bite. “You know, I used to watch animation a lot in the past. Stuff has improved… well, some of the old stuff is better,” Bora laughs. “I talked about it with Minji once. Once… I wish we were able to talk more.” She looks over at Yoohyeon. “Say, you’re alright, right? You look a little spacey. You’re not having another one of those seizures are you?”
Yoohyeon's eyes snap to Boras. She wishes everyone would just leave her alone. “No.” She decides to focus on the ghost girl in front of her instead of herself. “How can you eat?”
Bora swipes at her lips with her tongue. “You see, it’s a really easy process. First I use these bones in my mouth called tee-“
“Bora,” Yoohyeon warns.
“What! You asked how-“
“How do spirits eat?”
Bora groans, throwing her head back. “You’re no fun. We can eat as long as we turn solid. Happy ?”
That just left her with more questions.
Bora holds a hand up, silencing Yoohyeon in case of any further questions. She takes an agonizingly slow bite of the apple, and only speaks again once she’s swallowed. “Solid is in the name. Don’t ask me to explain it, you’re not that dumb, are you?”
Yoohyeon shuts her mouth. Because in all honesty, she might be .
A soft knock comes from the other side of the door. “Yes?”
“Yoohyeon?” Her mom cracks the door open, peeking into the room. Yoohyeon glances over to Bora to make sure she’s not doing anything to make her visible. She was currently pressed up into the corner of her room. “Yubin is here to drop your assignments off, is it alright if she comes up to say hi?”
Yubin. Her chest tightens. “I’ll say hi to her tomorrow,” she strains out. “Tell her thank you.”
“Are you sure? She’s come a long way.”
An elevator ride up sure is exhausting. “I’m sure, Mom.”
“…Alright.”
Yoohyeon watches as her mother frowns and closes the door shut behind her.
“This Yubin girl, is she mean to you?” Bora asks, uncurling herself from the corner.
“Did you really have to hide yourself away like that?” Yoohyeon cocks an eyebrow.
Bora waves her half eaten apple in the air. “What, you wanted her to see a flying apple? That’ll go over well.”
Another knock at her door. She sighs, what does her mom want this time? She doesn’t bother inviting her in, instead going over to the door herself to swing it open. “I sai-“ she freezes, her eyes falling onto Yubin’s small face.
Yubin gives her a small smile, holding up a yellow paper folder. “Your mom invited me in… do you want me to go?”
Yoohyeon lets out a shaky breath. She squeezes her eyes tight. “Um, no, no.” She opens her door wider and steps aside. Why is she doing this? “Come on in.”
Yubin takes a quiet step in, her eyes scanning the walls of Yoohyeon's room. “Redecorating?”
“You can say that.” Yoohyeon says, rolling from her toes to her heels. She takes a glance over at Bora, apple now gone from her hands yet still pressed into a corner. She almost looked like she was glaring at Yubin, or at the very least, watching her with sharp eyes.
“Are you feeling okay?”
“Yeah, I’m okay.”
Yubin nods, handing the folder over to Yoohyeon. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Maybe.”
Yubin presses her lips together, her eyes looking everywhere but Yoohyeon. “It’s nice speaking to you again. I'm here, if you ever want to talk. You know that, right?”
“Of course.”
Yubin leaves without another word and Yoohyeon lets out a breath, falling back onto her bed.
Bora leans over her. “She’s not mean to you, is she?”
Yubin wouldn’t dare hurt a fly trapped in a room, let alone another human being. Yoohyeon covers her face with her arms. “Can you just leave me alone?” She really did not sign up to have a ghost girl follow her around and ask her a bunch of questions like a toddler. She didn’t want to say aloud that she was the cause of everything. That she was the mean one. She ruined her own life, no one else.
It was a long while of her sitting in silence before she removed her arms, blinking to readjust to the lights. It was too quiet.
Bora had left.
She lets her arms fall, splaying out onto the bed. She hits the folder Yubin had given her. Right. She has work to do. She sits up, running a hand through her hair as she grabs the folder and brings it to her desk.
She opens it up, flipping through the papers. It wasn’t much, she can get it done.
Another knock on the door, this time the person on the other side didn’t wait for her to answer to open it. “Yoohyeon? You need to take your medicine before you go to bed.”
What? When has her mom ever come to her room to tell her to do that? She slides open her desk drawer to nothing but a slab of wood. The pill bottles are gone. When did her mom take them out? It must’ve been when she was in the hospital. Yoohyeon groans internally. Her mom was going to sit there every night to make sure she took it, wasn’t she? She watches as her mom busies herself with opening up all the bottles.
“How was Yubin?” Her mom asks.
“Fine.” Yoohyeon snips. It wasn’t like she wanted to see her, she was forced.
Her mom dumps a small handful of pills into her hand. “Yubin is a nice girl.”
“I know.”
Her mom frowns, passing her a glass of water. “I’m worried about you.”
“Sorry? I guess?” Yoohyeon shrugs, eyeing the pills in her hand. “There’s nothing I can do about that.”
“Take your pills.”
Yoohyeon's throat tightens. She looks up at her mom, her expression softening when she sees the hardness in her face. She pushes the pills past her lips, swallowing them down with the water.
“Open.”
She feels like she’s in some mental institution. Actually, no, that makes sense. She probably should be in one. She opens up her mouth, looking away as her mom peers into her mouth to make sure she swallowed everything.
“Okay,” her mom leaves the pill bottles scattered on her desk. “Good night, love you.”
Yoohyeon hums in response. Was she not going to take them with her?
“It’ll get better.”
Yoohyeon looks up at her mom just as she flicks the lights off, bathing the room in darkness. She brings her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them.
It was all bullshit. All of it.
She spins around in her chair, reaching over to the edge of her desk to turn on her lamp. She looks down at her schoolwork and rubs at her eyes. She can’t think. Her life’s blown up in her face and she’s not sure she’ll ever be able to put together the pieces again. And Bora isn’t helping.
She pulls out a notebook, flipping to a blank page. She taps the point of her pen onto the page as she stares at it, littering the paper with tiny blue ink dots.
The rules of being a ghost, she writes on top.
- Be an asshole.
- Fucking love apples.