Chapter 2
It takes me a moment for my fury to calm down over my wasted conditioner and then I realise that I poked a ghost. Possible repercussions aside, I actually had contact with his chest, i.e, my hand didn’t go right through him.
Taking a large step backwards to get away from bath-guy-who-also-might-be-a-ghost-guy I slip on the extremely soggy bath mat from where he launched himself over the side of the bath, and I realise in a moment of horror that I’m going to fall backwards into the bath and water will end up getting in my shower cap and I absolutely cannot get my hair wet that would make today officially the worst day of my life.
So here I am, tripping over my own bath and watching behind me as I fall in what feels like slow motion towards the bubble bath and then all of a sudden I’m not falling anymore. Snapping my gaze to the ghost-man-bath-guy-thing I realise he caught me, and he looks about as surprised as I do at how his arms are around my waist and I’m still naked and this is starting to get awkward and how come my soap and fucking conditioner went through him but I don’t?!
He pulls me back from the bath and lets go of me, chucking a towel in my direction and it’s then that I realise this guy is either gay or has never seen a naked guy before because he’s as pink as I get after sitting in my scalding bath for an hour.
Wrapping the towel around myself, I glower at this guy, like ten different questions in my mind. In the end, the first one to pop out of my mouth isn’t anything about him possibly being dead, and instead I just ask “are you gay?”
He opens and closes his mouth like a goldfish until he stands up slightly straighter and pushes a stand of white hair behind his ear. “Maybe. What’s it to you?”
Rolling my eyes, I cross my arms and slowly back up towards the door. “Are you a ghost? How come my soap went through you but my hand didn’t? How come you couldn’t catch the conditioner but you could pick up a towel? How come you appeared in my bath and ruined my perfectly trash day?!”
He blinks a few times before shrugging, stuffing his hands in his trouser pockets. “I don’t see why I should tell you anything, actually,” he says nonchalantly, picking at his nails. I let out a frustrated little huff before walking towards him and poking him in the chest again.
When my finger hits his chest and I realise he’s solid, I poke him in a few other places too. He’s like a normal person, except he’s super pale and also cold. Despite just falling in a boiling bath. Talking of the bath, his damp clothes stick to his chest in a rather lovely way but unlike Mr Ghost over here, my expression doesn’t even change, not giving away a single hint as to what my sexual orientation is.
When he keeps standing there, apparently in shock, I reach up and fluff his hair. A massive smile over takes me as I ruffle his hair again; it’s way softer than I’d expected. At some point he gets frustrated and pushes me away, crossing his arms.
“Fine, I’ll just answer your damn questions ok?! Yes, I am a ghost. I died fairly recently, only like two years ago or something. I know this because I haunt my family and they still make me a birthday cake every year. I’ve never been able to touch anyone since I died, so I have no idea how you can touch me and I can touch you. The item thing is because if I focus my energy I can pick stuff up, but most of the time I just let it sail right on through. Now how come you can see me? I’ve only met like one other person who could see me, and she couldn’t touch me. I’d always assumed that it was people who were close to death that could see me because this lady was literally ancient and had one foot in the grave. Or no, maybe like a foot and a half? Doesn’t matter. So are you dying too?”
I put my hands up against his barrage of information, still trying to get over the fact that I can see a ghost. Maybe I’m not as much of a charlatan as I think. Or no, I still am, because I’ve never seen a ghost before I saw this guy.
“Wait wait wait, I’m not dying! But my mum could see ghosts, so maybe that’s why I can see you? But I’ve never seen ghosts before and she couldn’t touch them either. And why did you even appear in my bath?!”
Ghost-dude looks at my bath with disdain before sighing. “Probably because I was summoned by you, and when a ghost gets summoned they get pulled to the place most similar to where they died. And I drowned in the bath, so. If you summoned me, and you’re here, then the closest place similar to where I died would be the bath.”
I blink a few times before clearing my throat awkwardly. His coughing and spluttering when he got out of the bath makes more sense now. “Wow, um. I didn’t even know I could summon a ghost. Also did you drown yourself?” I ask completely insensitively like the ass I am.
The ghost looks taken aback before looking extremely embarrassed. “No, I- I fell asleep. My nose was like two centimetres beneath the water, what an idiot,” he grumbles as he eyes my bath with disdain.
“And I don’t know how summonings really work, it’s never happened to me before and I’ve just heard about it through word of mouth. Apparently only strong spiritualists can perform them and then if they form some kind of contract with the spirit then good stuff happens for them both or something. Like I said, I don’t really know how it works.”
I stare at him for a moment before reaching out my hand for him to shake. “What’s your name? We should at least introduce ourselves considering you interrupted my precious bath time.”
He instantly takes a step back, shaking his head adamantly. “No way, apparently that’s how the contract is formed - I don’t want to be stuck with some stupid-looking idiot like you, even if you are supposedly a strong spiritualist.”
Scoffing, I pull my hand back and go to do a haughty hair flick before remembering I still have the shower cap on. Instead, I just touch my shoulder awkwardly like that’d totally been my plan all along.
“Fine then, can you just piss off in that case? Like, I have a business to run and you’ve already caused enough damage here, I mean just look at my poor conditioner and soap, not to even mention my bathmat you drenched. Go on, shoo!” I make shooing motions at the ghost, but he doesn’t even look at me and instead just phases through my door and into my bedroom.
Huffing in annoyance, I open the door like a normal person and walk into my room, hurrying over to my bed and grabbing some clothes. “Can you get out? I’m going to change and there’s no way I’m changing in a different room because of some shithead ghost.”
He just snorts, leaning against the door frame and watching me. Oh I get it, we’re just going to see who gets more pissed off are we?! Well, I’m great at being annoying for the exact purpose of getting people out of my life.
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