The morning air felt heavier than usual. Even before the first bell rang, the weight of it hung over the schoolyard like a thin, invisible fog. The world seemed quieter in those early moments — the warmth of summer not yet claiming the day, the sun peeking over the rusted fence, catching on shards of broken glass embedded in the walls.
Shawn Garcia walked with his head down, his footsteps slow and measured along the cracked cement path. His school uniform hung a little too loose, sleeves slightly frayed at the cuffs, the white fabric a shade duller than the others. Not from neglect. From time.
He didn't look up when the first whispers came.
"That's him."
"Cursed blood."
"Why does he even bother coming to school?"
The words had long since dulled, worn down to a constant hum in the back of his mind. They didn't cut anymore. Not like they used to. Now, they were just part of the landscape — like the crumbling walls, the wilted grass, the old sakura tree that refused to bloom.
He made his way to the farthest seat in the classroom, by the window. The glass there was cracked in the corner, and if he leaned back in his chair just enough, he could see the edge of the empty courtyard and the bare branches of that stubborn tree.
No one sat near him. No one ever did.
Except for her.
Oyang Kyoshita strolled in a few minutes after the bell, as usual — her uniform a little untidy, hair falling in loose waves down her back. There was a confidence to the way she moved, an ease that made people glance at her and then quickly look away. She had the kind of presence that disrupted the usual order of things.
She made a beeline for Shawn's desk, dropping into the seat beside him without hesitation. The classroom, once filled with murmurs, went still.
"Morning, ghost boy," she grinned.
He allowed a small, fleeting smile to pull at the corner of his mouth. Only for a second.
"Morning, delinquent."
"Better," she said, giving him a playful nudge with her elbow. "You'll get the hang of banter eventually."
The teacher cleared his throat at the front of the room, and the lesson began. But Shawn barely heard it. The steady rhythm of chalk against the blackboard, the monotonous drone of names and dates — it all faded into the background.
He was too focused on something else.
It was faint. A coldness, threading through the air like invisible mist. A tug, deep in his chest, pulling at a part of him he barely understood.
He knew what it meant.
Another restless night had passed, his dreams filled with the same shadows — pale, eyeless figures in the dark, the weight of unseen hands pressing against his ribs. The voice whispering his name from under the floorboards.
And now… it was here again.
He glanced sideways at Oyang, half-expecting to see her shivering, noticing the shift in the air. But she seemed unfazed, doodling something along the margin of her notebook.
A crude drawing of what appeared to be a bear punching a demon in the face.
Typical.
The air grew colder.
Shawn's gaze drifted to the old, rusted ventilation grate near the back of the classroom. He could almost swear he saw movement beyond it — a flicker of something black and shapeless. A figure watching from the dark.
A breathless, voiceless whisper in his ear.
"Soon…"
He gritted his teeth, forcing himself to look away.
Oyang noticed. She always did.
"You okay?" she murmured, leaning in without taking her eyes off her notebook.
"I'm fine."
She didn't press. That was something he liked about her. She asked, but didn't demand. She stayed, even when he had no words to explain what twisted things clung to him.
The lunch bell rang, and as always, the classroom emptied in a rush of chattering voices and shuffling feet. Groups formed in the hallway, huddled around bent lunchboxes, stories and rumors passing between them like contraband.
Shawn stayed seated, unmoving.
He knew better than to step into the hall. Every time he did, something happened. A shoulder slammed too hard against his, a whispered insult spat under someone's breath, a careless foot stretched across the floor to trip him.
It wasn't fear that kept him in his seat anymore. It was exhaustion.
The world was relentless, and he was so damn tired.
A familiar pair of footsteps approached, lighter than the others, each step falling into a pattern he'd come to recognize.
Oyang dropped into the seat beside him, a convenience store bento clutched in one hand and a wide grin on her face.
"I brought you one," she announced, holding out a box with a flourish. "Don't ask how I paid for it."
He accepted it without a word. She knew he rarely brought food anymore. Knew he rarely ate.
"Thanks."
She kicked her legs up onto the desk, earning a scowl from the teacher still dozing in the corner.
"I swear, this school's cursed," she muttered between bites of fried chicken. "Like… every time I turn a corner, it feels like something's watching me. You get that?"
He swallowed a mouthful of lukewarm rice. "Yeah."
She glanced at him sidelong. "You actually mean it though, don't you?"
Shawn hesitated. The urge to lie, to deflect, hovered on his tongue.
But this was Oyang.
"…Sometimes," he admitted.
She didn't laugh. Didn't joke. Just nodded.
"Good," she said, as if that was enough.
And it was.
---
That afternoon, rain came.
It wasn't the clean, fresh scent of a summer downpour. It was heavy, suffocating — a storm that felt older than the sky itself. The kind of rain that soaked through your bones and made the world feel small and mean.
The other kids ran for cover. Shawn didn't.
He stood beneath the sakura tree, eyes on the sky as fat drops splattered against his face and hair. The cold didn't bother him. It never had.
Footsteps behind him.
"You're gonna catch something, you idiot," Oyang's voice cut through the storm.
He didn't turn.
She appeared beside him a second later, hair plastered to her face, uniform clinging to her skin. She didn't seem to care.
"You waiting for ghosts again?" she teased.
"Maybe."
Oyang tilted her head back, letting the rain hit her face. For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Then, without warning, she said, "I know about your family."
He tensed.
"They say your people used to fight… things. Spirits. Monsters. Real stuff."
Shawn swallowed. "They were liars."
"Were they?"
He didn't answer.
The truth sat like a stone in his throat.
Because he remembered the nights. The old chants. The circles of salt and candlelight. The way his mother's hands shook as she drew sacred wards on the floor, the old blade his father kept hidden beneath the bed.
The way the house would grow cold sometimes, shadows curling in the corners, voices whispering from nowhere.
And the way people started dying.
First the old priest.
Then the baker's son.
Then the neighbor's newborn.
All after they drove his family out.
"You don't have to pretend with me," Oyang said softly.
He looked at her then, really looked.
And for the first time, saw the shimmer in the air around her. A faint glow, a pulse just beneath the surface of the rain-soaked world. Something… ancient. Familiar.
It vanished a moment later, like a trick of the light.
But it was enough.
Enough to know she was different too.
"You feel it, don't you?" he whispered.
Oyang smiled. Not her usual teasing grin, but something gentler. Sadder.
"Yeah," she murmured. "I always have."
They stayed in the rain until the sun dipped behind the hills, and the world turned to shadow.
By the time the school grounds emptied, neither of them had moved. The other students whispered as they left, glancing back like the sight of two figures beneath a dead tree in the storm would somehow curse them too.
It didn't matter.
Not to them.
"I used to think it was just me," Shawn admitted, voice rough from disuse. "The voices. The cold. The… things watching."
Oyang hugged her knees to her chest, sitting on the lowest branch of the sakura tree like it was a throne.
"You were wrong," she said simply.
Lightning forked across the sky, illuminating the yard in stark white. For the briefest of moments, Shawn saw them — the figures.
Dozens of pale shapes standing along the fence line, eyeless, twisted faces upturned to the rain. Motionless.
Gone when the world went dark again.
His breath hitched.
"Shawn?" Oyang's voice cut through the terror, grounding him.
"I saw them," he managed.
She nodded like it was no surprise. "They don't like you much."
"You… see them too?"
"Only sometimes," she admitted. "But when I'm with you… it's like they're drawn to you. Like they know you can see them."
A chill deeper than the rain settled in Shawn's bones.
It wasn't fair.
He never asked for this.
Never wanted to be the last ghost of a disgraced bloodline.
But the truth had always been there — in the way the air grew heavy when he was alone, in the flickers at the corner of his vision, in the weight of invisible eyes.
"I think something's coming," he said quietly.
"I know," she replied. "I've always known."
They sat in silence after that, the storm washing over them, neither willing to be the first to leave.
Somewhere in the distance, a bell tolled.
A sound no one else seemed to hear.
The old hour bell.
Long rusted, its tower half-collapsed.
It hadn't rung in years.
When the rain finally stopped, night had fallen.
The sky hung low and heavy, the air thick with the scent of wet earth and old stone. The streets were empty as Shawn and Oyang walked side by side, neither speaking, both reluctant to break the silence.
The world felt different in the aftermath of the storm. As if something ancient had stirred.
As if the shadows were watching.
Shawn's home was the last house on the old road, a weather-beaten structure that sagged under the weight of forgotten years. The paint was long since peeled, the front gate crooked on its hinges. Dead vines clung to the walls like skeletal fingers.
Oyang stopped at the foot of the path.
"You sure you're good?" she asked, one hand fiddling with the old bracelet on her wrist.
He hesitated, then nodded. "Yeah."
She grinned, but it didn't reach her eyes. "You ever get tired of pretending, ghost boy?"
"All the time."
For the first time, her expression softened.
"You don't have to with me," she said, voice barely above a whisper. "You know that, right?"
He swallowed the knot in his throat. "I know."
They stood there a moment longer, two lonely souls balanced on the edge of something neither of them could name.
Then, like she always did, Oyang broke the tension.
"I'll see you tomorrow," she said, stepping back into the gloom. "Don't let the spirits bite."
He almost smiled.
"Good night, delinquent."
She disappeared into the dark.
---
Inside, the house was cold.
The walls seemed to breathe, the floorboards sighing beneath his feet. Old wards still clung to the windows, faded and useless. His mother had long since stopped renewing them.
A single candle flickered in the corner, its flame dancing in a draft that shouldn't exist.
He set his bag down, peeled off his damp clothes, and lay on the thin mattress in his room. The ceiling above him was cracked, old paint curling away like withered leaves.
And then he heard it.
The soft, rhythmic tapping.
From beneath the floorboards.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
A voice followed, breathless, cold, older than the bones of the house.
"Soon, child of broken oaths."
His blood chilled.
And this time, no amount of pretending could chase it away.
The darkness pressed close, the room thick with the scent of rain and rot.
And somewhere in the distance, the old hour bell tolled again.