A friend from the other side (PG, NiSen, AU)
Name: A friend from the other side
Author: Rin
Beta: Invisible
Fandom: Kis-My-Ft2, AU
Pairing: Nikaido/Senga
Rating: PG
Warnings: Some character deaths, kind of.
Word Count: 10 356
Summary: Nikaido likes to be alone. One day he meets a boy who sticks with him and they become friends. In course of time, however, he finds out that there’s something really weird in his new friend.
A/N: Honestly, I don’t know where I got the idea for this fic… It’s long and random and probably a bit strange, but for some reason I like it. :’D It’s been a while since I’ve written anything this long. (Actually, I think this is my longest fic ever in English.) Nineteen pages on Microsoft Word. Like…what? :D *is proud of herself*
Just for fun, I’ll link here my tracklist for this fic. I listened to other songs, too, but these were the songs that I used for getting on the right mood for writing. :3 If it’s not too much of a bother, try listening to them during reading~
- the tracklist of the fic -
Part 2 Part 3
Comments are pure love, as always. ♥
- - -
The lunch break was over and the annoying ring of the school bell told the students it was time to go back to the lesson. Nikaido sighed and raised his arm to rest on his face, without any kind of intention to get up yet. Considering it was just the end of February, it was surprisingly nice and sunny, and the gentle breeze at the roof of the school building made it even more comfortable. Unfortunately, that was only outside. In the classroom it was too hot and the atmosphere was too sleepy for Nikaido to stand it.
Besides, it wasn’t like there would be anything important taught in the lessons anyway, since the school year was almost over and the final exams were approaching. The last ones, Nikaido thought, last being the key word. He didn’t care about what his parents would say - even though he had actually passed the entrance exams, he had already decided not to go to the college after high school. He had no idea of what to do then, though, but school definitely wasn’t a place for him.
Nikaido turned to his side on the bench and enjoyed the beams of the sun on his face, planning to continue his nap that the lunch bell had cut off.
“Aren’t you going to go to your lesson?”
Nikaido startled as a shadow fell on his face and he heard an unfamiliar voice. As he opened his eyes he only saw a dark silhouette of someone before his eyes got used to the change of brightness and he could see the boy standing in front of him.
“None of your business,” Nikaido muttered grumpily as he sat up on the bench. There had been some other people eating their lunches on the roof too but Nikaido had thought they had returned to their classrooms already.
“Why do you care anyway? Shouldn’t you be there, too?”
The boy shook his head and sat next to him without even asking if it was okay and Nikaido frowned. He was wearing the same kind of school uniform than Nikaido had - black top and trousers, and a white cotton shirt. Although, while Nikaido didn’t have his own jacket on at all, the other boy had buttoned his own tightly, having only the collar button left open. It was strange. They didn’t wear their summer uniforms before June, but at this time in the spring they were already allowed to take their jackets off whenever it was too warm. Today sure was too warm but this boy was wearing his uniform as if it wasn’t hot at all. Well, that was not Nikaido’s problem.
He had never seen the other boy before. Or had he? His features seemed somewhat familiar but Nikaido couldn’t even decide if they were of parallel classes or if the boy was younger than him.
“It’s okay. They won’t really care if I am there or not.”
“Then don’t come here to blame me for not being there,” Nikaido said, rolling his eyes. The other boy was really annoying him.
“My name is Senga Kento, by the way” the boy said, looking at him carefully, as if he was expecting his name to affect Nikaido somehow. Nikaido, however, hadn’t ever heard the name before.
“And you’re Nikaido Takashi, right?”
“How do you know that?”
“Well we’re going to the same school, after all,” Senga laughed and pointed at the ground where Nikaido had left his bag and jacket, “and your name is written on your school bag.”
“Oh.”
Nikaido leaned his head on the wall behind them and closed his eyes. It seemed like the other boy really was not going to leave, but it didn’t mean Nikaido had any intention to keep him company.
“You know, you really should go. Sasano-sensei won’t be happy if you skip her lesson again.”
Again? How did the boy know? That Senga guy wasn’t his classmate, that was for sure.
“Didn’t I tell you not to interfere with things that are none of your business?” Nikaido snapped and gave the other one an angry look. Or he would have given him one if Senga had still been there. Where had the boy gone? He sure had walked silently. And quickly. For a moment Nikaido felt a bit puzzled. Then he just shrugged and lay down on the bench again. He had no reason to complain now that he was alone again.
- - -
“I must be hallucinating. Are you really doing your homework?”`
Nikaido didn’t bother glancing at the direction of the voice, already knowing what he’d see if he did. Senga hadn’t left him alone even once during the whole week. Every single break and lesson that Nikaido spent on the roof of the school, Senga was there as well. At first it had annoyed the older boy out of his mind, but he was already getting used to the other boy’s presence, as well as his habit of appearing and disappearing ridiculously quickly whenever he felt like that.
“Yeah, I am. Surprised?” he chuckled.
“You bet I am.”
“Look who’s talking! Why don’t I ever see you doing your homework?”
“Because some of us do it at home as homework should be done,” Senga noted and smiled his calm, annoying smile again.
“Big words from someone who never attends the lessons,” Nikaido muttered after a while.
“How do you know I’m not there?” Senga teased, his smile faltering, and the older boy couldn’t help smiling back a bit.
“I know because you never go there. I leave here before you, and you’re always here before me.”
What Nikaido didn’t tell the other boy was that he was actually happy of his company. It wasn’t like Nikaido didn’t have some friends - there sure were enough classmates who would take him with them whenever he felt like hanging around with the others. They also knew Nikaido was usually the most comfortable with his own companion, so they never bothered him too much, which was perfectly okay with him.
Yet for some reason, Nikaido liked spending time with Senga like this. Maybe that was because the other boy just was there, talking and smiling, but never really forcing him to take part in any conversation. Senga seemed to be happy to just have someone to talk to, even though Nikaido’s answers usually weren’t more than just short grunts and chuckles.
“Well maybe I’m just faster at getting here than you,” Senga suggested. “After all, I always know what to do at home. The homework, I mean. That should prove well enough that I really attend the lessons.”
“You’re a moron.”
“If I’m a moron, then what on earth might you be?” the younger boy asked, winking and raising his hand to catch the flying eraser from the air just before it hit his forehead.
“Don’t throw it anymore,” he said and placed the eraser back on Nikaido’s math book. “You’ll need it and I’m not going to get it back if you throw it away again like that.”
“Shut up and help me with these exercises if you think you’re so good,” the older boy muttered.
- - -
It was the late afternoon of an ordinary Monday. Nikaido was walking home with Senga, and - as usual - listening to his endless flood of speech.
“Where do you live, by the way?” Senga asked and Nikaido nodded in the direction of his home.
“A little further that way. Over the crossroads and then the next turn left.”
“Oh, my home is a completely different place, then. I’ll need to continue straight along the road we’re following now.”
“Oh, damn,” Nikaido muttered as he saw that the knot of his shoelace had opened. He kneeled down and waved at Senga. “Just go ahead, I’ll catch up with you in two seconds.”
Senga nodded and went on. Nikaido tied the laces and stood back up, just to see how Senga stepped on the crosswalk - and the green traffic light turned red.
“Senga! Look out!” Nikaido cried, and Senga turned around to look at him questioningly. The boy didn’t seem to notice the car that was driving towards him. It was too late. Nikaido closed his eyes, not wanting to watch what he knew was going to happen.
But there never was any crash.
The car didn’t even brake as it drove away, and when Nikaido opened his eyes again, Senga was still standing there in the middle of the road.
“Oops,” the younger boy said, as if talking to himself, and smiled embarrassedly, “I forgot to be careful again!”
Nikaido blinked his eyes. He was completely sure the other boy hadn’t moved an inch after his cry. Not only that, there was also something strange in Senga’s features. When Nikaido looked at him properly, it seemed as if he could see through the younger boy. No, he didn’t imagine it. The colors of Senga’s face and clothes really were strangely dull.
“What are you staring at?” Senga asked and tilted his head.
“Who… What are you?!” Nikaido stammered and took two steps backwards.
“Huh? I… Oh, shit.” Senga looked at himself and on the same second his colors got back their normal bright shades. That was too much for Nikaido. He gasped and turned around, and in the next moment he had run away.
“Nika, wait!” Senga tried to shout after him, but the boy didn’t listen to him anymore.
Another car drove straight through him and he bit his lower lip angrily. Why hadn’t he looked around more carefully? Why did he have to scare away the only person in the world who still could see him?
- - -
The next day Nikaido was slightly afraid to go to school. He felt utterly embarrassed for running away like he had done last evening. He hated apologizing to anyone for anything, but today he knew he really had to. What must Senga have thought of him - after all he had just run away because he had imagined seeing something strange. Nikaido chuckled to himself. He had been so stupid.
But Senga didn’t come to school.
During the last break of the afternoon Nikaido walked around the schoolyard until he found his old classmate from junior high school. Senga had once said he was from class 3B, and Nikaido knew Tamamori was in the same class.
“Hey, Tama!” he called and the boy looked at him surprised - they hadn’t talked much during these three years of high school and Nikaido was awkwardly aware of that. He sighed in relief as Tamamori told his friends to wait for a moment and came to Nikaido.
“It’s been a while. What is it?” the older boy asked and Nikaido scratched his neck in a slightly abashed way, trying to set his words right.
“Yeah, I know. But I was just thinking… You know, this boy from your class, Senga.”
“What about him?” Tamamori frowned, nodding slowly.
“He didn’t come to school today, right? I mean, he kind of promised we’d meet today and I was just wondering… if you have seen him,” Nikaido explained.
When hearing the other boy’s words Tamamori turned his face away. Nikaido was surprised to see how the other boy suddenly seemed agonized, as if Nikaido had said something unfriendly to him. Tamamori was quiet for a long time and Nikaido waited patiently until the boy looked at him again.
“Nika, look. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” There was another long pause.
“Senga died in a car crash two months ago,” he finally said quietly.
“Yuta, are you coming?” one of Tamamori’s friends called, and the boy glanced quickly at their direction to show he had heard him.
“I… I’m sorry. It’s strange you hadn’t heard about it before, since everyone talked about it after winter holiday. Just… I’m sorry. I really have to go now,” the older boy said apologetically. Even when he had left, Nikaido stood there alone - staring nowhere, seeing nothing.
“Died in a car crash two months ago.”
As soon as the next lesson started, Nikaido rushed to the school library, to the corner where he knew all the old year books of the school were archived. He ran his finger over the dark red spines of the books, reading the golden numbers on them until he found what he was looking for. He took the newest book and climbed to the rooftop. There he sat on his usual bench, opened the book and started to flip quickly through the pages.
The classes A, B and C of the first-graders, 2A… and there. The class 2B of last year. Nikaido saw Tamamori’s picture there in the middle of the small pictures of the students. Aside from Tamamori there was only one student Nikaido knew, and he felt a cold shiver running through his spine.
The familiar face with a hint of childish softness on his cheeks. Brown, slightly wavy hair and wide, bright eyes. The gentle, sheepish smile that made his eyes narrow a bit. Under the picture there was the boy’s name. Senga Kento.
“Why are you so surprised? Of course I’m there - I told you I went to class B. I wouldn’t have lied to you. Neither would Tamamori, though.”
Nikaido startled and nearly dropped the yearbook with a horrified cry. He had thought he had got used to the other boy’s surprising appearances, but it still freaked him out every time it happened. If possible, this time was even worse, after everything he had heard and seen.
“Oh, come on,” Senga sighed and moved so that Nikaido wouldn’t get away from the roof without passing him. As if he had guessed Nikaido’s thoughts. “Stay for a while and listen to me, okay? Please.”
Nikaido stumbled backwards on the bench until he dropped down from it, feeling like he was going to panic in any second.
“Hey, don’t look like that. I won’t hurt you. Even if I could, I wouldn’t. Really, I’m nothing to be afraid of.”
“But, you - Tama said… And yesterday, the car…”
Senga sat down on the bench and sighed again.
“It went through me, yes. It’s nothing unusual - they do it all the time. They can’t see me and I don’t bother being careful. Please don’t freak out now, but - I’m a ghost. Look,” the boy said and suddenly he turned transparent again. It looked the same than yesterday, though this time it was much clearer.
“Tamamori told you, right? That I died in an accident.”
Nikaido realized his hands were shaking around the yearbook that he still had in his grip. Actually, his whole body was shaking. He wouldn’t have wanted to admit it even to himself, but the truth was he had never before been as scared of anything as he was now. He tried to hide it but everything was probably displayed on his face anyway since Senga frowned when looking at him.
“How many times do I need to say this? There’s nothing to be afraid of. I’m just dead. It’s okay. I can’t hurt you. I can’t possess you or take your soul captive or anything. It’s just what people read from books and see in movies. ”
Nikaido took a deep breath and tried to calm down. The situation was starting to be too weird for him to even be properly scared. Here he was, sitting at the school roof with a boy who had died months ago and said everything was okay.
There wasn’t any way that Nikaido could see this all being ‘okay’.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you straight in the beginning. Will you listen to me now?” Senga asked. His expression revealed that he was more than a bit frustrated, and Nikaido bit his lower lip.
“O-okay.”
“Good,” the other boy said, smiling. “So, now that you know the truth, what else do you want to know?”
“Huh?”
“Well I suppose in this kind of situation there must be something you don’t understand. Go ahead, ask. I’ll try to answer.”
Nikaido blinked his eyes and stared at the other boy. His heartbeat was slowing back to normal and he had stopped shaking. Even though he still felt strangely cold.
“I’m still sleeping,” he muttered to himself and closed his eyes. “Yes, I’m in my own bed and I’m seeing a nightmare and I’ll wake up soon.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Senga chuckled. “You’re as awake as you can be. I’m real. No need to ask that, really. No, I won’t do anything bad to you and yes, this is why I’m always here before you. Anything else you’d like to know?”
“How did you know-” Nikaido gasped, and the other boy shook his head.
“A good guess. Many of them, actually.”
For a while Nikaido kept quiet, just looking at Senga, who answered to his gaze.
“If… if you really are a… ghost,” he started hesitating, “and the driver of the car couldn’t see you-”
“No one can. Except you,” Senga answered before Nikaido even finished his question.
“I don’t know why. But it’s pretty clear by now, isn’t it?”
Nikaido nodded, not knowing what else he could do.
“But I don’t always see you,” he tried weakly, not sure if he wanted to know anything more.
“Yeah, you only see me when I want you to. Or more like when I don’t especially want you to not see me. I mean, I can disappear from you, too. Like this,” Senga said, smiled widely and vanished. Nikaido cried out and flinched backwards, and the younger boy appeared in his vision again.
“Try to think of it as three different stages,” he instructed, shrugging. “That’s how I do it, kind of. The first stage is the real world where you live and I can’t be visible at all. Then, there’s the stage three which is my world - I’m completely invisible from everyone including you. And then… I guess there’s something like a stage two in the middle, where no one but you can see me. And I can choose which stage I’m in, except the first one, of course. Does it make sense?”
It definitely didn’t. However, Nikaido wasn’t going to say that out loud, so he nodded nervously. Senga seemed to notice his uneasiness since he took a step backwards and smiled sadly.
“I’m sorry, I guess it’s not the easiest thing to believe me. I don’t want to scare you. I won’t come closer than this if you don’t want me to. It’s just that… You know, since you really are the only one who can see me and talk to me and…” Senga’s voice faded away as he sat down on the bench.
“I was so happy when I found out about it,” he finally sighed after a moment’s silence. “You have no idea what it felt to realize what I had become.”
Nikaido looked at the younger boy and suddenly he wasn’t afraid of him at all anymore. He just couldn’t be. Not when Senga looked like that - sad, lonely and defeated.
“It’s okay,” he finally said. Slowly, very slowly he stood up from the floor and sat down on the other end of the bench.
“Really?” Senga’s face seemed to light up a bit as he looked at Nikaido.
“I guess,” Nikaido said, nodding, and he was surprised when he realized he really meant what he said. “It’s okay.”
“Will you still be my friend?”
“Do I look like I’m running away right now? I probably should, though,” the older boy said and made a face at the other boy.
“Thank you!” Senga sighed, looking every bit as grateful as he sounded.
For a while they were quiet again, until Nikaido made an unsure voice that made Senga look at him.
“Huh?”
“I was just wondering… what does it feel like? To be… like that, I mean.”
”It’s pretty okay,” Senga said, shrugging. “There’s nothing I need to worry about. I don’t need to eat or sleep. I don’t get wet even if it rains and it’s never too hot or cold. My clothes won’t get dirty. I don’t need to be careful of anything. I wouldn’t need to come to school, either. But I want to. I really want to graduate, even though no one will ever know about it.”
Nikaido nodded quietly. This feeling of not being able to say anything was probably something he should get used soon.
“You know, in the TV dramas it’s always so important to be able to graduate with your own class. Ever since I was a kid I thought it’d be great. But I guess I really shouldn’t care about it anymore. It’s not like anyone misses me anyway,” Senga said, shrugging.
“Huh? What do you mean there’s no one who misses you? You had a family, right?”
“Of course I did. But they’re all dead, too. We were in the same car,” Senga said simply, as if it wasn’t any kind of big issue.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Nikaido muttered embarrassedly. “Are they also… you know, like you?”
“No,” Senga said and looked at the horizon. The expression on his face made Nikaido’s heart ache painfully, as he realized that the younger boy probably missed them as much as anyone would miss their dead relatives.
“I don’t know where they are. I had never thought what might happen after people die. If they’re going to reincarnate someday, I hope they’ll have good lives then. I wonder if I’ll ever meet them again.”
They sat there on the roof for a long time until the school bells rang and the students left home.
“Nika,” Senga said shyly and waited until the older boy looked at him. “Thank you. For believing me.”
“It’s okay, I said it already,” Nikaido muttered, waving his hand, but the smile on Senga’s face and the nickname the boy used of him made him feel a bit warmer, too.
At least now he had something to tell to his future grandchildren, if he was ever going to get any. If. Nikaido shivered and glanced at Senga as he realized, for the first time in his life, that he couldn’t really know if he’d live until he’d be old enough to have grandchildren. One could never know.
Part 2