Breakfast passes quickly, as we continue to banter and bicker in a lively way. I wonder if this is what family feels like for some? I don’t know. I hope that if I have my own family some day there is a lot of light and laughter with them.

I gather up the dishes and bring them to the sink. “You cooked, cleaning is the least I can do. Noah, you can go to the library and pick out some games for us to play.” I tell him.

“Alright.” Noah says, and sound like he is almost sulking.

That was odd. I look at him to try to find out why. He catches my eyes and lets out a small sigh.

“I want to help you with the dishes, but I don’t know if I can hold them. So, it is probably best I don’t help, but it won’t take a lot of effort for me to be able to play video games. I have gotten a lot of practice in, or you could play and I can comment.”

“You have practiced?”

“Tasks seem to take a different amount of… Energy I guess? Well ones that I do often become easier and easier. I was playing video games even without having a form because I did it so often, same with reading.”

“That makes absolutely no sense. Noah, you make no sense.” I say, gesturing to him.

“You just gestured to all of me. Why did you just gesture to all of me.”

“Because. Because! Ghosts? Okay, I came around to the idea of ghosts. And now you are telling me that because you willed it you were able to play video games, without form.”

“I got lonely.” He said and looked at his feet.

Oh my poor, sweet cinnamon-roll. I badly want to hug him. Would I be able to hug him? I need to be able to hug him! Right? Right, definitely right. We need to be able to have some sort of physical contact for the scenes that we planned to re-enact right? On that note, we definitely need to talk about that. Are we still doing it? What are the do not cross boundaries?

“I’m sorry that you felt lonely. You don’t have to feel that way anymore now, so that is good, right?”

“Right! So… So you should hurry up with the dishes so we can play games together. I like the thought of having a player 2.” I see a blush creeping into his cheeks at the comment.

How adorable.

“I’ll hurry. How about you go on upstairs and get things set up and I will join you as soon as I am done?” I ask him. I thought it sounded like a good idea.

“Sounds like a plan.” He says and heads upstairs, while I finish off the dishes.

*********************************************************************************************************

Noah heads upstairs and feels his cheeks burning more with each step. “I like the thought of a player 2?” he mumbles to himself, and then puts a hand over his mouth.

He had to be careful not to say things out loud to himself anymore, people could hear him after all. ‘Why don’t I just say, I like the thought of you being my player 2 Aurora. You are so pretty, and kind and… You are the person who has been the nicest to me without actually having to be.

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Imagine that, someone being nice to me because they want to and not out obligation or because it is their job. What a novel concept. Now, now I am just being pessimistic. Just because I am a ghost and she is a human doesn’t mean I can’t think nice things about her. And who knows, I am able to touch some objects, maybe eventually it will be like I am not dead at all… Ha… Ha…’

Noah can’t help but feel embarrassed about his thoughts, and he was really glad that there was no one there to see or hear his how embarrassed he was.

When he gets to the library, he sits on the floor in front of the game console and pulls out all of his games and stares at them. Most of them were single player games, typically visual novels. He stacked those up and put them off to the side.

Those would not be something that they played together, although it might be worth leaving them out to brainstorm dates. Dates! Even if it was pretend, he would be going on dates with a girl. Noah tried not to think about the only time he asked someone out but couldn’t help it.

Noah had struck up conversations with her many times before and had her laughing a lot. Every time he was in class, she made sure to sit next to him and share her notes with him. If Noah wasn’t mistaken that was a definite flag! He had been thinking this for a while now and prom was coming up.

Prom. Pretty girls in pretty dresses wanting people to dance with them. It was a very romantic place, or so games and shows and told him. He wouldn’t know, he had actually never been to a school dance. His health had been very good recently and his parents had agreed to let him go, they just had to notify the chaperones about his medical condition so that they could keep an eye on him. He had readily agreed. He wanted to try to experience some normal teenager type things.

Normal things. Dates are normal. Yup, they are totally one hundred percent normal. And he knew how to go about doing this, didn’t he? The many games with a one hundred percent completion rate attested to this. How should he go about it though? Had she dropped anything?

No, no and that was too cliché, the hands touching as you both lean over to pick up the dropped item. Although he loved the cliches in games, he thought that it very well might not translate well over to real life. Okay, so not that. He was also not the kind of guy to kabedon someone. Nope, not him. He was not a tough guy character.

That got him thinking. What kind of guy was he? If he knew his character type it would make approaching girls and asking them out much easier. Well he wasn’t a tough guy type, he wasn’t the flirtatious player (which was unfortunate because that seemed to be a lot of girls favorite type), he wasn’t a jock, he wasn’t the best friend turned lover, or enemy turned lover, or the little or older brother type.

So that left… Was Noah the mysterious type? That didn’t seem right, but it could work. People really didn’t know him because he was gone so often. The mysterious classmate who was often out sick, that was totally a type, could he lean into that?

Or… Well… Maybe he was overthinking it. But only a little of course. He should do it. He should just ask her. So he would. Yup, this was Noah just asking her. The words dried up in his mouth. He couldn’t do this, no, he had to. She had raised flags right? Right! On a piece of paper he wrote, “Are you going to prom?” and slid it next to her. She seemed aware enough of Noah to notice right away.

She leaned over and wrote back, “Yes. Are you?”

She smelled of vanilla. It was almost overpowering but wasn’t somehow.

“I was thinking about it but thought that it would be more fun to go with someone…” he wrote back. He sat for one minute, two, then five.

“Were you planning on asking someone?” she wrote back.

“Yes. Y” was all Noah got down onto the paper before the teacher walked by and grabbed it. Oh no, oh please no Noah thought. This was the teacher that read every note that she caught out loud.

And she did. Noah wanted to melt into oblivion. “So, will you go with him?” the teacher ended up saying, as though he planned this, or she thought that he was so pitiful that she wanted to play wingman.

The girl turned pink, then red, then slid down in her seat like she was trying to hide. Oh no, had Noah misread the situation? He had, hadn’t he.

“Yes.” The girl said in little more than a squeak.

“Yes? Wait, yes?” Noah turned to her and smiled brightly and almost jumped out of her chair and screamed ‘she said yes’ but decided that wasn’t appropriate.

Noah shakes himself out of if it. This would have been a good memory if he hadn’t ended up back in the hospital. Oh, he had made it to prom, and they had a great time doing pictures, and he gave her flowers. She had looked beautiful. They got to dance together some too. But then a few people from his class had pulled him up and tried to get him up and dancing a lot more.

He knew he couldn’t but didn’t want to disappoint his date. This was a mistake. He ended up collapsing on the floor and EMS had to be called. He tried to call his date after, but it wasn’t the same. Soon enough she stopped answering his calls, but he couldn’t blame her. His parents had pulled him out of public school after all.

But now? Now Noah didn’t have that problem. Now Noah could dance with Aurora and not have to risk his health. And he liked that thought. When he was up and dancing it was really fun. But that wasn’t even really dancing. What Aurora did was… She looked so…

Noah pulled his thoughts away. She would look so happy that he had picked out a game for them to play together, that’s how she would look. Yup, that was what he was thinking about. That and nothing else. He pulled a game out and nodded. That would do. Mephistopheles III. They could bond over killing some demons.