Chapter 33

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

HIRO

“You ready?” I ask.

“Can you even see a ghost in there?” Shion asks, pacing outside the room at the police station. It’s unusual seeing him anxious about something.

“I can.”

“It’s the dad? It’s really the dad?” he asks.

“Yes, I could tell right away. Do you want me to go in alone? I can go alone.”

Shion shakes his head.

“Good luck,” Natalie says as she pats my back.

I glance over at Reggie as I realize he’s absolutely decked out in riot gear. Shield and all. “Do I even ask?”

“I’m protecting that booty,” Reggie explains. “I told Keaton I could get him a shield as well, but he said, ‘I’ll just use you as a shield,’ and isn’t that so romantic?”

I’m not so sure it is, but Reggie looks beyond pleased.

Shion pushes the door open and quickly walks in, plastering a smile on his face as he says something in Japanese that sounds like a greeting plus something about English.

The teenager says nothing, eyes fixated on Shion, but the mother answers.

“They both understand English,” Shion says to me. “Um… before we begin… I know I’ve… spoken to both of you in the past, but… I just… I cannot explain the depths of regret I feel for what has happened.”

Behind them stands the father in question, who is pacing about as much as Shion had been. If the father’s been following his son, he likely knows what he’s up to. Or maybe this will all backfire and he hates Shion as much as his son does.

“My dad would still be alive if you didn’t fuck up,” the teenager named Kota says, and Shion looks like he was just struck.

His mother, Himari, grabs his wrist and gives it a squeeze. “Kota, please. You have to let it go.”

“Let it go?” He’s shaking as he stares at her. “You weren’t there.”

Shion’s staring at the table, head tucked, not even defending himself.

“My name’s Hiro,” I say, cutting in before it can escalate too much. “I know this is going to sound… ridiculous or unbelievable, so please work with me. I can see and talk to those who’ve passed on. And I was hoping that by talking to your father, it’d help you find peace with his passing.”

“Is this a cruel joke?” Himari asks.

“You can see me?” asks the father, Ken, attention snapping to me.

“Tell me something only they would know so they believe me,” I say to him.

“This is ridiculous,” Kota snaps, clearly wanting to leave. “He should have to deal with what he’s done.”

“Um… tell my wife about how she’d sneak out of her parents’ house because her father hated me.”

“She likely has told someone that, hasn’t she?” I ask, but I tell her anyway.

“Then tell her how we’d go to that spot down by the cemetery. Where we talked about running away… eloping. We never told anyone we were going to run away,” he says, so I relay that to her as she watches me closely.

“Ask him what he promised me,” she says.

“You’re believing this?” Kota asks.

“Ask him,” she repeats.

“I promised her that if we ran away… that I would definitely get her one of those rickety old shacks in the woods so we could live like hermits. She thought it was so funny because her ex always promised her mansions and fast cars.”

I tell her and she grabs my hand. “What else?”

“Uh… I don’t know… what else do you want to know?”

“He’s lying to us,” Kota insists.

“Something for your son,” I say.

Ken frowns. “I don’t know… I feel like… we never shared enough. I was always so busy with work that I feel like I wasn’t home enough for him. I don’t know…”

“What about a favorite toy or show from when he was a child?”

“I… don’t know…” Ken says, looking desperate. “I feel like I only learned about him after I died.”

“Your father feels like he wasn’t around enough… that he was so busy that he’s… struggling to come up with something that only the two of you would know.”

“See? He’s lying. Father was a huge part of my life,” Kota says.

The frown on his mother’s face tells me otherwise. “No, he wasn’t… you’ve built him up so much in your mind, but he became obsessed with work. I begged him to leave that job. I told him we didn’t need an extravagant life, I just wanted a life with him. Hell, I would take that rickety old cabin. I just wanted a life where he knew what you were doing. He missed every school event. He missed every milestone because he was so fixated on work.”

Kota shakes his head. “No, he didn’t.”

“Can I have your hand?” I ask.

Kota seems reluctant.

“Please? Just… try it,” Himari says.

He holds out his hand, so I take his father’s and set it down on top of his. He jerks back, startled, eyes wide. “W-What did you do?”

“I can make it so you can briefly feel him.”

“It’s a trick,” he says, yet he wants to believe. He’s reaching out, and when he feels it again, he tries to grab on, his fingers momentarily wrapping around his father’s hand before slipping through. “He’s really here?”

“Tell him I’m so sorry,” Ken says.

“He said he’s really sorry.”

Kota scowls. “It’s not his fault. That man is the reason he was murdered.”

“Tell him that he cannot blame the officer. It was my fault,” Ken says.

When I relay that, Kota shakes his head. “You could be lying.”

“Tell him that… if I’d just gone home, none of this would have happened. It was supposed to be my day off, but I just wanted to finish something at work. My wife was out of town visiting her parents and no one could watch him, so I dragged Kota to work with me and made him sit there for hours… I forgot to feed him dinner. He was crying that he was hungry, and I kept telling him we’d eat later and that he just had to be patient and play quietly. And when I looked at the time again, it was nine at night and he’d fallen asleep. Instead of taking him home, I kept working. I remember thinking, ‘Good, he’s asleep, I can finish this up without him interrupting me.’”

Ken takes a trembling breath and continues. “When I finally woke him, he was crying that he wanted his mom. That he wanted to go home, and he was so hungry. And if I’d just… spent the day with him instead of making him play quietly… if I’d just stopped working to feed him. If only I’d done anything a father should have…” He’s sobbing now. “We would never have been in there. How can he blame a police officer for not wanting to kill a man and yet not blame me for never being the father he built up in his mind? I hate that I have to sit here unable to reach him as he builds me up to be some hero when I wasn’t.”

I tell him everything Ken said, but Kota shakes his head. “No… no, he was…” He rubs his face.

“I know I should have taken the shot,” Shion says. “I regret it more than you can ever imagine… but I’d never killed a man. I still was foolish enough to believe that I could save everyone.”

Getting Kota to understand isn’t the easiest, but with his mother’s help, he finally shifts the ideas he’s placed in his head. It’s hard to tear down someone you’ve built up in your mind. But when Ken finally passes on, I realize that Kota’s ideas must have shifted or I don’t think Ken could have moved on. Kota doesn’t hate his father, that was never my intention, but maybe he’s beginning to understand that not everyone is perfect and Shion’s choice shouldn’t ruin his life. His father finally looked at peace at the end, and I hope his son is able to find that peace as well.

“Thank you,” Shion says as he steps off the subway car with me. I’d told him he didn’t need to ride all the way to the airport with me, but he insisted.

“Of course. Anytime you need me… maybe come to me because this is a long -ass flight,” I tease.

He smiles. “I mean… don’t tempt me. Nicolás replied to my email today.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Two words! I got two whole words. And an ‘lol.’ Three words!”

That makes me laugh. “Damn… you two should be a thing by 2035 at this rate. Maybe slow down a bit. I’m not sure you’re prepared to handle this heat.”

Shion grins. “Your fiancé is a pretty lucky guy. You can tell him that. You can tell him that if he ever doesn’t understand that, I will. Maybe he’ll be mad enough to come over and kick my ass and I’ll have some more fun company.”

“You’re just going to annoy people until they come and hang out with you?” I ask.

“That’s my plan,” he jokes. “Have a safe flight… and honestly, thank you. Not many people would drop everything and jump on a flight across the ocean to help some man they barely know.”

“Well, thank you too. I hope to see you soon. Hopefully at my wedding?”

“Depends on whether you’re going to do the whole ‘speak now or forever hold your peace’ thing. It’s been my dream to interrupt during one of those,” he says, which makes me laugh.

“Nicolás will be there.”

Shion points at his phone. “I’m booking the flight right now.”

I laugh and wave to him before hurrying toward my flight.

“He’s so cute,” Natalie says.

“I would give up my man meat sandwich bun for him,” Reggie says as I try to figure out if Nicolás is the sandwich bun in this instance or if Reggie’s just really fucking weird.

Keaton stares at Reggie as Reggie’s eyes get wide. “Honey… nooooooo. Nicolás is not like mine in a sexy sense. He’s mine because his sad soul belongs to me just like Hiro’s does.”

Keaton doesn’t seem overly sure of that.

“So is this a thing? The two of you? Are you finally dating?” I ask.

“We’re actually married,” Reggie says.

“We are not,” Keaton counters, pushing him off as Reggie laughs. “It’s… complicated.”

“It’s really not,” Reggie says.

“It sure as fuck is when I have no damn idea when you’re going to pass on and leave me,” Keaton grumbles before trying to hurry off without us. Reggie grabs on to him, not letting him get too far.

I give Keaton a soft smile. “Any of us could pass on at any second. It’s… kind of shitty coming from me when I’ve literally spent so much time fretting over Maddox. I dream about the way he died. I lie awake at night thinking about what I would have to live through if he died. Him… dying really fucked me up. But not for a moment have I ever regretted loving him. And I’m hoping that as time passes, it’ll make it easier. Yet even if we only have a minute left with each other, I’m just glad it’s one more minute we get to have with one another. Nothing is ever easy. All of my closest friends are already dead… and I know one day all of you will move on as well. But it can’t stop me from loving all of you.”

Reggie grabs my arm and hugs it while Natalie hugs my other. It makes it a bit awkward with the suitcase, but I don’t even care.

“I hope we have many, many more years together,” Natalie says.

“I’m too evil to pass on too quickly,” Reggie decides.

“That you are,” Keaton says as he slows down so we can catch up with him.

Natalie gives me an extra-tight squeeze. “I’m just too pretty to move on. My boobs might not be as perky as they once were, but I still have plenty of years left in me.”

“You literally don’t age,” I remind her.

“They still don’t look as perky. Are they as perky? Keaton?”

Keaton refuses to engage, which makes Reggie laugh.

They’re all so ridiculous.

“I definitely see the droop,” Reggie says, which was clearly the wrong thing to say as Natalie scoops up Reggie and starts stuffing him through the security machine. I pass through, leaving them to it before finding a seat at the gate as my grandpa slides in next to me.

“When I first saw you, I was a bit reluctant… but I guess you’re a pretty good kid.”

Why’s everyone so evil?! “Reluctant? About what!?”

“You look too much like your mother,” he says as he ruffles my hair before kicking back and watching Natalie flashing a plane as it takes off. “But your choice in friends… is really fucking weird.”

I laugh as I lean against him, and for just a minute, I let myself wonder what it’d be like to lean against my mother like this again.

When we finally get on the plane, I find that I’m a little bit nervous without Shion or Maddox. I mean… I don’t expect there to be any ghosts out for blood, but I never know with the way things are currently going.

“I could teach you chess to take your mind off it,” Grandpa offers as the plane begins to take off, and I realize that I’m quite lucky that there’s no one in the seat next to me. I think the woman in the third seat is thinking much the same thing.

“Gramps, I got this,” Reggie says, and then he disappears.

“I’m concerned,” Grandpa says.

“We all are,” Keaton tells him a moment before Reggie reappears and clamps his hands over my eyes.

“Hiro… are you reaaaady ?”

I wish I could tell him no, but since I can’t speak to him, he clearly takes it as confirmation as he yanks his hands back and Antoine, aka Stripper Ghost, shimmies through the seat in front of me.

“Oh god,” I mutter.

“What is this?” Grandpa asks. “Did you seriously pick this over chess?”

He acts like I had a choice!

“Allow my astounding abs to grace your eyes and ease your worries,” Antoine says as he shimmies this way and that. He really doesn’t have much room to work his “magic,” which means he has to get even closer to me in his sexy flight attendant outfit.

“Hiro… I take back everything good I said about you,” Grandpa says.

“Nooooo. I’m good,” I whisper. “Don’t let my choice in friends sway you.” It comes out a plea as Antoine gets up on the spare chair and gyrates his ass in my face while I lean against the window in an attempt to get away.

“Hiro…”

“Yeah, Grandpa?”

“Your mother would be so proud of you.”

I start laughing as I tuck my head away. I’m sure the lady next to me is questioning everything but I don’t even care because I love this group. I love how they make me laugh. I love how absolutely ridiculous they are.

I just love them.