The doorbell chimed with a cheerful, melodic ding-dong that Ethan was certain had never sounded so… normal. It was a sound that belonged in a suburban sitcom, not a house that had recently tried to digest him through its floorboards. He froze mid-step in the kitchen, a bag of suspiciously stale chips in his hand, and shared a wide-eyed look with Kaori.
She was perched on the arm of the repaired couch, sharpening a small, wicked-looking blade with a whetstone. The skritch-skritch sound was the only remnant of the usual supernatural ambiance.
"They're here," Ethan mouthed, his voice a silent pantomime of dread.
Kaori didn't mouth back. She simply sheathed the blade in a hidden pocket of her—well, his—dark jeans and gave a single, slow nod. Her expression was, as ever, unreadable, but her posture shifted from lethal readiness to a deceptive, casual stillness.
The doorbell rang again, this time followed by an enthusiastic knocking. "Ethan! You in there? We saw the light, don't pretend you're dead!" Lina's voice, bright and utterly out of place, cut through the front door.
"I wish," Ethan muttered, running a hand through his already disheveled hair. He shot a last, desperate look at Kaori. "Remember the plan. You're a… a foreign exchange student. From a… a very focused self-defense academy."
"The plan is stupid," she said, her voice low.
"It's the only one we've got that doesn't involve explaining why you have a katana!" he hissed back, then plastered on a grimace that was meant to be a smile and yanked the door open.
The five figures on his porch fell into a silence so profound it was louder than any ghostly shriek. Their mouths, as predicted, didn't so much as close as they unhinged, hanging open in a perfect tableau of shock. Their collective gaze swept past Ethan, who was still holding the bag of chips like a defensive talisman, and locked onto the woman lounging on his couch.
The house, for once, was playing along. The evening sun streamed through the clean windows, casting a warm, golden glow on the freshly painted walls. The air smelled faintly of lemon-scented cleaner and the pizza Ethan had desperately ordered an hour ago to create a facade of normalcy. And in the center of it all was Kaori, her sharp, elegant features and intense, calm presence making the tidy living room look like a staged magazine photoshoot titled "Enigmatic Assassin Chic."
Lina was the first to break, her head swiveling between the house number and Ethan's face. "Uh… whoa. Sorry. We, um… we might have the wrong house." She started to back away, pulling a confused Ray with her.
"No, this is it!" Ethan said, his voice cracking slightly. "Come in, guys. It's… it's fine."
They filed in with the hesitant reverence of tourists entering a museum they weren't sure they could afford. Mira's artist eyes were wide, taking in every detail from the dust-free baseboards to the way Kaori seemed to absorb the light in the room. Hazel adjusted her glasses, her analytical mind clearly whirring, trying to compute the impossible variable before her. Ray just looked dumbfounded, his sleep-deprived brain struggling to boot up for this new reality.
Kaori offered a slight, neutral dip of her chin in greeting, which only heightened the aura of unapproachable coolness.
The silence stretched, thick and awkward. Ethan gestured weakly with the chip bag. "So… uh… this is Kaori. She's, uh… staying here for a while."
Lina's shock finally melted into a slow, spreading grin of pure, unadulterated glee. "Staying," she repeated, drawing the word out like it was a delicious secret.
Hazel, ever the pragmatist, found her voice first. "The structural integrity of the porch appears to have been significantly improved. Did you use pressure-treated lumber?"
Before Ethan could answer that he was fairly sure the house had just willed itself back together, Ray finally managed to reboot his system. He blinked slowly, looked from Ethan's panicked face to Kaori's impassive one, and then blurted out the question that was hanging in the air like a specter at a feast.
"So, you guys dating or…." he trailed off, then shrugged his entire upper body. "....don't mind it."
The dam broke.
Ethan felt his soul briefly leave his body. "What? No! It's not—we're not—it's not like that!"
"Oh, it's exactly like that!" Lina crowed, clapping her hands together. "This explains everything! The skipped classes! The 'I'm too busy' excuses! The permanent look of someone who's either being haunted or is getting really, really lucky!" She waggled her eyebrows. "Now we know which one."
"It's really not—" Ethan tried, but Mira cut him off, a small, rare smile on her face.
"You cleaned," she stated, her voice full of awe. "I've never seen you wear a shirt without at least one stain that could be classified as a biohazard. And this place… it smells like a cleaning product commercial. You deep-cleaned for her."
"I deep-clean for all my potential cultist and/or ghostly attackers!" Ethan defended, his voice rising an octave. "It's basic home defense!"
Hazel pushed her glasses up her nose, her eyes glinting. "The probability of you, Ethan Graves, voluntarily cohabitating with a aesthetically pleasing, non-undead individual without a compelling external reason—such as romantic involvement—is statistically negligible. The evidence is overwhelming." She gestured to Kaori. "Subject A: Exhibits a level of personal discipline and composure directly antithetical to your own chaotic energy. Yet, she appears comfortable in your domicile. Conclusion: Symbiotic relationship, likely romantic or… contractual." She squinted. "Are you her sugar baby?"
Ethan made a sound like a stepped-on mouse. "I'm not a sugar baby! She doesn't even have a job! I'm the one with the part-time job! I buy the chips!" He shook the bag for emphasis, and a few chips flew out like sad, salty confetti.
Throughout this entire inquisition, Kaori had not moved. She simply watched the scene unfold, her expression giving nothing away. But as the "sugar baby" comment landed, Ethan saw the faintest, most microscopic twitch at the corner of her mouth. She was enjoying this. She was relishing his social evisceration.
"See!" Lina pointed dramatically. "She's not denying it! The strong, silent type, letting her man flail pathetically. It's a classic dynamic!"
"I am not her man!" Ethan yelled, now genuinely wishing the floor would open up and swallow him. At this point, he'd welcome the demonic maw. "She's just a… a friend! A roommate! A very sharp and potentially dangerous roommate who needed a place to crash!"
"Oh, I bet she 'crashes' here," Ray said, finally finding his footing and leaning into the mockery with a sleepy smirk. "Right in your room, I'd guess. On your couch? Oh, wait." He pointed to the couch Kaori was sitting on. "That's the only couch. Man, you really are a gentleman, giving her the bed and taking the floor." He shook his head in mock admiration. "So chivalrous."
Ethan's mind flashed to the reality: Kaori in the guest room, him on the couch downstairs, and a ghost-woman occasionally clinging to the ceiling like a pale, judgmental bat. The truth was so much weirder and so much less satisfying than their assumptions.
"It's a… complicated sleeping arrangement," he muttered, defeated.
"I'll bet," all three of them said in near-unison.
Lina plopped down on the rug, beaming. "Okay, forget the field trip for a second. This is way more interesting. Spill. How did you two meet? Did you rescue her from a band of rogue academics? Did she mistake your chronic anxiety for charming mystique?"
Kaori chose that moment to speak, her voice cool and level, cutting through the chatter. "He fought well."
The room went silent again.
Four pairs of eyes swiveled from Kaori back to Ethan, who was now staring at her with pure, unadulterated terror. What was she doing?!
"He… fought?" Hazel repeated, her analytical mind latching onto the new data point.
"Fought what?" Mira asked, her artist's imagination probably conjuring images of bar brawls or underground fight clubs.
Kaori gave another one of those infinitesimal shrugs. "Two men. He was… adequate."
Adequate. She'd called him adequate in front of his peers. The damning praise was worse than any denial. Lina's eyes looked like they were about to pop out of her head and do a little dance. Ray looked at Ethan with a newfound, bewildered respect.
"Dude," was all Ray could manage.
Ethan's brain short-circuited. He couldn't explain the three Ghost Users. He couldn't explain the hammer, the katana, the gun, the headless specter. "It was… a disagreement," he stammered. "Over… property lines. Very contentious neighborhood association stuff. You wouldn't understand."
The excuse was so flimsy he could almost see through it himself.
For the next hour, the trip planning was a secondary, background activity. The primary event was the relentless, good-natured, and utterly excruciating mockery of Ethan Graves. They planned the route to the Mistwood region between questions like, "So, Kaori, what's your favorite thing about Ethan? Is it the way he screams at minor inconveniences?" and "Ethan, did you have to sign a waiver? You know, for the stab wounds?"
And through it all, the house remained perfectly, unnervingly quiet. No whispers echoed from the vents. No cold spots manifested. The welcome mat stayed passive, its command to STAY seeming almost ironic. The ghost, for reasons known only to her shadowy, non-corporeal self, had decided to take the night off, leaving Ethan to face a terror far more potent than any she could conjure: the judgment of his peers.
As his friends finally packed up their notes, still giggling and shooting him knowing looks, Ethan realized with sinking clarity that he had, in fact, preferred the demonic threats. At least with a blood-soaked ghost, he knew what he was dealing with. This? This was a special kind of hell he was completely unprepared for.