It was turning evening. A young man with striped green hair headed downstairs where his sister was complaining to their parents. "What's going on?" he asked.

"Hey, Gadalik. I don't think I can cook tonight," said a darker-skinned man with a blue-violet mohawk and black fades, gesturing with one hand to his other, which was wrapped from a wound he had received during a bounty hunt.

"I understand, Gale," replied his wife, who tucked her pale-purple bangs behind her ears and cracked her knuckles. "I can cook–"

"N-No!" Gale and his two kids all said at once.

"I–I mean, I can cook," Gadalik offered.

"But there's nothing to eat!" his sister whined. "That's what I've been trying to tell you!"

Her family checked the fridge to find it almost empty.

"It's too late to go grocery shopping…" her mother realized.

"I'm sorry, Glacia," Gale said. "Usually I'm on top of these things… I've just been trying to balance my responsibilities, and obviously I need to work more on it…"

"I'm hungry," his daughter pouted.

"I hear you, Adya. How about we eat out, and I'll get groceries in the morning?"

"Eat out? Only the expensive places are open this late!" Glacia huffed disapprovingly.

"I'm hungry…" Adya repeated, throwing herself dramatically on the couch, her lighter blue-violet ponytail hanging off of it toward the floor.

"Ugh… Fine. Everyone, get dressed and we'll go."

It was a fancy restaurant, and the family was seated at a perfectly sized table. There was a band on a stage on the far wall, and it provided a nice ambience. They took their time ordering, but the wait staff were patient until they finished.

They were waiting on their food, chatting, when Gadalik suddenly felt danger and his ghost-sense activated on its own. He turned toward the source and saw a black-haired man close to the spook's age sprinkling some kind of powder into another male's soup; the latter, with brown hair and eyes, was focused on his date and didn't seem to notice as he picked up the spoon and moved it toward the contaminated food.

"Don't eat that!" Gadalik shouted, standing up so fast that he knocked his chair backward.

Everyone in the restaurant paused and looked at him. Even the live music fell silent.

The spook suddenly felt hot with embarrassment. But he couldn't sit by and do nothing. He approached the seated man's table. "I don't know if you have any allergies, or if it's some kind of poison, but someone just put something in your soup…"

The brown-haired man looked expectantly at his date, who then got offended.

"N-Not her," Gadalik assured him.

"Sir, do we have a problem?" said another, older, chubby male approaching.

Gadalik saw he was a manager. Everyone was still staring at the spook, including the ghost, who seemed skeptical. The young blue-eyed man swallowed uncomfortably. "N-No, sir… I just…saw that…his soup…uh…"

"If it wasn't my date, then who was it? I didn't see anybody else near here," the victim pointed out.

"It was…a ghost," he confessed. "And he's still here."

"Preposterous! Ghosts aren't real! And if they were, why would they be in my restaurant?" the manager exclaimed.

"He can see ghosts?" a customer questioned the situation.

"What a freak," someone else replied.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Not only was Gadalik struggling for words to defend himself, but he was growing hotter and finding it more difficult to breathe under all of the negative attention. He closed his eyes and tried to take deep breaths, but the uncertain and accusatory murmurs around him felt increasingly louder.

"He's a spook," Adya defended her brother, yelling from their table. "He's telling the truth!"

Glacia quickly shushed her daughter, as the girl's words only made the crowd more upset.

"Sir, I demand that you leave my establishment now," said the chubby man, grabbing Gadalik's arm as if to escort him out, himself.

His ghost sense detected the ghost was on the move.

Oh, no, you don't! Gadalik finally made use of the muscles he'd built up from hiking and climbing as a hobby, by jerking out of the manager's grasp and lunging at the ghost with a confinement spell in his hand.

The spirit gasped and struggled but couldn't stop his body from becoming tangible…and visible.

Customers screamed as they saw the ghost form before their eyes.

The victim's date stood up. "Jeff? What on earth?!"

"That's your ex?" her boyfriend cried. "Why would he try to poison me?"

"If I can't have Steph, then nobody can," Jeff snarled, still struggling against the confinement to the spook's hand.

Gadalik refused to let go despite how weak he was feeling. The chaos of fleeing patrons and their remarks were getting to him, and he realized he was starting to hyperventilate. No… I have to keep it together.

"How dare you summon a ghost into my establishment!" the manager was shouting angrily on top of it all.

"Summon? I–I didn't…. I can't…" Gadalik shook his head, barely able to form sentences.

Gale got up and took hold of the manager's arm. "Gadalik didn't summon the ghost. This is all a misunderstanding."

"How dare you assault me!" the manager accused Gale, who forthwith let go and retreated a step. "Now take that ghost with you and get out!"

"I-I can't," Gadalik repeated, his free hand clutching his chest, which ached from a heart beating too hard and a lack of oxygen.

That's when the spirit broke free from his loosened hold and punched the victim in the face, knocking him to the floor, the spector's body quickly becoming intangible again afterward.

"Jeff, stop it!" Steph cried.

The brown-eyed man tried fighting back but his fists went through the ghost, who remained visible and laughing at his failure.

Gadalik couldn't think straight. He wanted to run, but he had a duty to keep the world safe from ghosts. Without thinking, formed another confinement spell in his hand and punched the ghost with all his pent-up emotions.

Not only did it connect, but with the spirit's solidity, Jeff was sent crashing into the next table, breaking it.

"Stop it, you freak!" the manager screamed.

Gadalik glared at him momentarily, then turned to the victim. "You should run to safety… If Jeff is a haunter, he shouldn't be able to leave Steph."

"I'm willing to fight for Steph," the brown-haired man spat.

"You can't fight a ghost," Gadalik argued. "Only I can. So run!"

"You'd better go, Nathan," Steph concurred.

Nathan looked between the ghost and his date, then scrambled up and fled. The manager backed off, still yelling about the damages and commotion, heading to the back room.

"Jeff… Steph isn't an object that belongs to you," Gadalik said, rounding on the ghost. "She's her own person, free to date whoever she wants."

"No, she can't!" Jeff growled. "We were a couple when I died. I'm still here, so she's still mine!"

"Actually, Jeff, the night that you died, I…was going to break up with you…" Steph confessed.

"...What?!"

"I couldn't take how possessive you were… And even in death, you haven't changed."

"Why didn't you tell me? I can change! For you, Steph, I'd do anything!"

"Then prove it to me!" she cried. "Let me go!"

Jeff stared at her in complete shock. Then he took a deep breath and relaxed. "Alright. I'm sorry, Steph. I love you."

Before anyone had a chance to react, the spirit faded from this world. Steph saw her new boyfriend through the window and left to reunite with him.

Instead of feeling relief, however, without the ghost to direct his focus, Gadalik's stress took a hold of him and he dropped to his knees, clutching his chest and gasping unsuccessfully for air.

"Gadalik…" Gale knelt by his son, rubbing his back.

"What's wrong with him?" Adya asked her mother.

"N-Nothing, sweetheart… Just give him some space," Glacia replied.

The manager came marching out from the back room. "You're in a whole lot of trouble, young man, for breaking my table and scaring my customers–"

"It wasn't his fault!" Adya defended her brother. "It was the ghost's!"

"Well he's the one who brought the ghost here!"

"He didn't bring the ghost–" Gale started.

"Shut it, before I press charges on you for strong-arming me!"

Gale bit his lip.

"Whether he brought the ghost here or not, someone's got to pay for this mess!"

"I-I'm sorry," Gadalik said between breaths. He couldn't calm down, especially since he felt responsible.

"I'll take care of it," Glacia spoke up.

"What?" the chubby man said, turning his attention to the woman.

"I'll pay for it all," Glacia repeated. "Just leave Gadalik alone. Can't you see he's suffering enough?"

Her son shrank under the attention, but was managing to inhale more deeply now.

The manager went over to her to discuss the cost and Gadalik finally calmed down.

Adya looked at her brother worriedly as she sat beside him in the back of their carriage, their parents in the front.

Gadalik avoided looking at her, ashamed of his anxiety.

"Gadalik… You're a champ," she said.

He finally faced her, awestruck. "W-what…?"

"You were scared… And everyone was being mean to you... But you didn't let that stop you from saving someone today."

He felt his striped blue eyes water. "...Thanks, Adya."