Casper
Title: Casper
Chapter: prologue/20
Pairing: Manabu/Byou
Rated: R overall
Genre: AU, drama/romance, supernatural
Warning: violence, character death, some language
Overall Summary: Manabu just wanted to rest in peace. But for some reason, he just couldn't cross over and felt hopelessly stuck in the world of the living. Now his 'afterlife' is becoming one complicated mess and it's all because of one very persistent man.
Synopsis: A struggling artist and college dropout gets murdered in a case of “wrong place, wrong time"
Disclaimer: I own no one. This here work of fiction is just a product of my imagination.
**comment at the end**
Prologue
There I was...In another situation gone sour because of my roommate’s carelessness.
“Jin, could you please be more careful? You just spilled blue paint all over the tablecloth. This is never going to come out, you know. Blue pigment stains the worse.” I sighed.
He looked at me with an apologetic smile. “Manabu I’m sorry. I’ll buy you a brand new one when I get the money.”
“But Jin, you know what this tablecloth means to me. My great grandmother spent hours sewing this for my grandma when she got her first house. It’s always been handed down to the oldest child. Now when I have kids they’re gonna get stuck with this disaster that was once a beautiful white table cloth! Now it's ruined.” he glared at hime even thought I know it was an accident and wasn't that angry about it.
“Relax. It’s only a tablecloth. And you’re so gay and good with a sew machine, you bleed pink chiffon. And you’ll never have time for kids. Plus, we can barely feed ourselves once we pay rent for this place. Kids? No. Out of the question.” he shook his head stubornly.
“I told you before! It’s for art and if I can’t afford new clothes then I’ll make new ones. And I’m not gay!” Okay, so maybe I am in denial. Just a little gay “And once I get out there and more people take an interest in my art, I’ll have plenty of food to feed your never ending appetite and a beautiful child.” I nodded. That was a nice thought.
“Yeah, and I’ll go back to university and become a businessman. Anyway, you can always make another or I'll try to get the stain out."
I rolled my eyes and put away my paints and other materials. "Fine, I'm gonna take a shower." Afte cleaning up a bit, I went to my room to take a quick shower. I had nearly gotten over the ruined table cloth. Once I was clean and dressed for bed, I walked into the living room to check up on my idiot roommate. It was odd, Jin pacing, chewing his lip in a nervous fashion.
“Hey Jin, what’s wrong? You’re never this nervous.” I made my way over to the recliner and sat Indian style, watching him. He looked at me for a brief moment then looked down.
“You should go for a walk. I have some friends coming over, you wouldn’t like them and I promised them we'd get together for the night. They're noisy and I know how you get, just like an old grandma neighbor.” he let out a very weak chuckle. I could tell he was lying. He didn’t have any other real friends. Just me. We’ve both always been alone. We met in university. I was to be an attorney like my father and he was to get a degree in business and political science so he could take over the family business once his father retire but in the meantime be a teacher. But those weren’t careers to us, they were jobs. Jobs we didn’t want. So we dropped out, got some pretty shitty jobs and followed our dreams to be a true artist and a musician.
Since we met, it's just been the two of us. We thought by now we'd have gotten on our feet and places of our own. Sadly, we weren’t doing as well as we thought. But we have support from our family, and we’re doing pretty okay. I mean, we may eat take out and fast food everyday, but we’ve got a pretty sweet loft.
But about this whole ‘friends I wouldn’t like’ crap...I know what he’s talking about. Because he said something like this before. He was meeting up with some friends that aren’t my kind of people. And I know when he says this he's talking about those damn drug dealers than hang around the building across the street some nights. In the past few months he's picked up some bad habits and was even late paying his half of the rent. I caught him a few times talking to them and last week they didn't seem ery friendly towards Jin.
“Jin, tell me the truth. Are you meeting up with those guys again? I know you've been buying drugs off them and if you own them money I can help.” He stopped dead in his tracks and looked at me horrified.
“H-how...?”
“Last time I followed you. I wanted to make sure you were safe. After all, you’re my best friend and someone needs to pay half the rent.” I smirked.
“It’s not as simple as you think. I didn’t invite them Mana. They already know where we live. And last time I was short so they gave me a week to get the rest. But I spent it on my half of the rent and they’re coming here. So I really need you to leave before they come. If something happens...you’re innocent. You can’t be hurt because of my stupidity. You're a good person and I deserve whatever punishment I have coming You don't need to get caught up in my messes all the time."
I sighed and stood up, pulling him into a hug. “You idiot. I fgured soething like this would happen. You don't have a brain. You’re lucky I’ve saved up some extra money just incase from doing extra work around the shop. I’m not sure if it’s enough, but maybe they’ll be reasonable?”
“Manabu, I can’t take your money. These guys are thugs, they aren’t reasonable people. Just let me deal with the consequ-”
There was a loud bang on the door. Jin and I looked at each other. Another loud bang. We both were scared. He whispered to me to hide but I just held his hand tightly.
“I’m not leaving you, Jin. We’re practically brothers.” I crossed over to the kitchen and grabbed a cereal box that I filled with money before walking back to Jin’s side. "Money is money, they can get the rest later."
There was more banging on the door but we were too scared to open it. So we sat down together on the couch and waited to see if they’d leave. After a few minutes the banging stopped. We looked at each other again but this time Jin looked too relieved. While I was still scared. I was about to say something when the door flew open.
Five large men ran into the loft. Three of them rampaged through our home, destroying everything. Everything we worked so hard for and so hard on. The two other’s approached us with dark smiles and a wicked glare in their eyes. Jin looked down, he was crying. I hugged him tightly, it was all I could do as I looked up at the men.
“He has your money. It’s all right here.” I held up the box. I was so scared and shaky, the box trembled in my unsteady hand. He took the box and poured the money out onto to the table and counted it.
“No, this isn’t all of it. It’s barely even half of what you owe. Now we have to find other means of payment.”
"I'm sory Manabu, I'm sorry." he looked at me, tears still rolling down his cheeks. I was suddenly grabbed by two of the men as Jin was pulled away from the couch towards the kitchen. They held me down while the man who was obviously their leader began to ruthlessly beat Jin. I screamed and cried, but nothing stopped him from hurting Jin.
They took turns kicking him in the side. The smallest of the five grabbed one of my ceramic sculptures and broked it over his head. Shards of the material stuck in his head. The floor was being stained with Jin’s blood. After what seemed like hours of watching them all take turn beating my best friend, I could no longer cry. I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t do anything. I didn’t even recognize Jin’s face anymore. They tied me up and made me watch as the leader took out his gun. I never had the chance to react. I was carried off upstairs to my bedroom and from there I heard the sound of the gun fire three shots.
I resigned to my fate and waited quietly for death. “Unfortunately, we’re leaving no witnesses today..."
I’m just glad I’ll be with my best friend again soon. The last thing I saw was Jin’s smiling face in my head as I closed my eyes to stop the tears. The last thing I felt was cold metal against my temple. From there everything went black.
comment: sorry for the violence but I hope you all enjoyed it! first chapter will be up soon