I Fell In Love With A Girl Who Died Before I Was Even Born

Shion thanked them, multiple times, and assured them that she'd pay them back for the Hippocratic Brace if it disappeared before I returned it.

"It's only for the weekend," she told them.

"Just make sure your boyfriend keeps that ankle covered," Arclose warned the both of us. "It's not like those things are easy to find, you know. Most people dream about their teeth falling out or being naked in public."

Nightmage laughed.

"That's what you dream about," he said.

I stood up from the couch and took several steps.

My ankle felt fantastic. Like nothing happened at all.

Arclose, meanwhile, snorted at Nightmage.

"Don't you mean you dream about me naked?" he teased.

Shion got up from the couch.

"Hey, how about you guys shut up for a second? We're getting ready to go, then you can get naked all you want."

Edin whistled.

"Whoa, sick burn, Shion," he said.

Yuki sighed deeply.

"You guys and your weird slang. Burns. Weak. Lame. I have no idea what you're talking about half the time."

Edin turned towards her.

"'Ey, tha' sounds like a 'uge problem, lass," he said sympathetically.

I almost fell over.

"You can see her?" I asked.

Edin turned towards me, confused.

"Yeah, she's righ' there, isn't she?" he asked.

Arclose and Nightmage looked at Edin, then one another.

"What the hell are you talking about, Paul? Nightmage asked.

Edin pointed at Yuki.

"Oh, just the ghost girl who's standing there by the window," he said.

Yuki's eyes opened wide.

"He can see me! That's so… groovy!" she practically sang.

Then she looked at Arclose and her face soured. "It's not my fault if you're too dense to see me," she said.

Edin snorted a laugh from his nose.

"Oi, I like 'er. She's funny. She says it 'ow it is."

Arclose just shook his head.

"Great. You've got an imaginary friend. If she can help us pack the van for gigs, she's welcome to be a roadie."

Yuki narrowed her eyes at Arclose and floated to my side.

"Ryu, if you're quite ready, I think we've missed enough school hanging out with these scoundrels."

That just made Edin laugh more.

"I don't think she's keen to take ya up on your offer," Edin said. "She thinks we're scoundrels."

Shion and I walked towards the front door.

"She's not wrong," Shion said.

Before we left, I had a promise to keep.

And I knew exactly who to ask.

"Edin," I said. "You guys go to the Nightlands and get things from people's dreams, right?"

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He nodded.

"Oi, tha's righ'. Between sellin' wha' we grab and playin' gigs, it's a livin'."

I looked at Yuki who was floating by the window.

"Is there any way I could go with you guys sometime? Or, is there any chance you guys could grab a body, or something, I don't know… something for Yuki? Like, that she could use as a body. Does that make sense?"

Yuki beamed at me, her smile meeting her eyes.

"Ryu! That would be lovely."

Edin scratched the back of his neck, thinking.

"Well, tha's a… hmm. We've never taken anything tha' big before. I'm no' sayin' no, but I'd hav' ta see."

He turned towards Arclose and Nightmage.

"Ey, any chance we could grab a body for the ghost girl?"

Nightmage visibly cringed.

"That's really weird, Edin. Even for you. What's your plan? Are you trying to play Frankenstein or something?"

I spoke up.

"No. It's not for him. It's for me, or for her. Yuki is her name, and she's a friend of mine. I promised her—"

Then Shion's voice cut through mine like an ice-blade.

"You promised her a body?" she asked. But then instantly followed up with something unexpected. "That's…. actually not the worst idea I've ever heard."

Yuki gasped.

"What? Shion? REALLY?"

Arclose held up a hand.

"Listen, let's not get carried away, okay? It's possible, but… I mean, we can't just, like, grab a person from the Nightlands and carry them out."

Edin nodded.

"Tha's righ'. We're thieves, not kidnappa's," he said.

Nightmage groaned.

"Dude, don't call me a thief. I'm not a thief! I'm your wizard and expert treasure finder. Got it?"

Edin raised his eyebrow.

"Tha's just a thief with extra words, mate."

Nightmage puts his hands behind his head and looked smug.

"I'd like to see you read writing in the Nightlands. Or figure out which direction gravity's coming from. Or how about when we go to run, and suddenly we're moving very slowly?"

Arclose stepped in.

"Look, Steve, you made your point. You're all very useful, okay? And if we're seriously going to look for something…"

He turned towards me.

"You're not, like, asking us to nab a dead body, are you? Because do you know how gross that'd be?"

I nodded.

"Yes, please, don't get a dead body. Ew."

Yuki looked relieved.

"Thank you."

Arclose nodded, and the tension seemed to have gone out of the room.

"That's a tall order, but anything's possible in the Nightlands."

Shion motioned towards the door.

"Great," she said. "I'm happy, Yuki's happy, Ryu's got to be thrilled. Now, let's get out of here."

The three of us walked back towards Crescent Moon Academy's main building, Black-Withers Hall.

I'd been here for a week, and I'd already made friends with a vampire, a ghost, a wizard, and a tanuki.

I'd gotten into a fight with a kappa, a troll, and an orc. Twice.

Somehow, I didn't feel like I'd won despite what the referee had said.

I'd learned that I was a human, with a black dragon connected to me spiritually, and I could summon some of its powers.

And as I walked back towards school that late morning in early spring, with my busted ankle securely wrapped in a magical brace stolen from someone's dream by three very high musicians, I wondered if somewhere, along the line, if I'd suffered a complete psychological breakdown.

I glanced at Shion.

Beautiful. Sleek. Dangerous.

Her vampiric fangs hidden behind her thin, dry lips.

And suddenly, I wondered what it'd be like to kiss her.

She stopped as soon as I thought it, and she grabbed my hand.

Our fingers interlaced, like they had with Murasaki's, but with Shion, it felt completely different.

Her fingers were ice cold, long, thin, and extremely precise down to the way they weaved themselves around my own. I felt strangely clumsy holding her hand.

Then she looked at me, her eyes serious, but not angry.

"Is this what you want?" she asked me.

We stopped walking.

"What?" I asked.

She looked at me. Without saying more, she led us under some elm trees, out of the bright afternoon sunlight.

Shion stepped towards me, closing the distance between the two of us.

She put her arms around me, roughly, and I held her, confused at how she was behaving.

"Why are you—"

Her eyes flashed with the first anger I'd felt from her.

"Can it, Blondie," she said. "Just… please, answer my question. Is this what you want?"

She looked at me.

One of her hands cupped my right cheek, firmly but gently.

"Am I…" she shut her eyes. "Just… what do you see us as? Huh?"

Shion…

"Ryu," her voice strained. "I… You know I can't be, right?"

I sighed, nodding.

"Because I'm dead, got it?"

She hesitated for a moment. Then, she pressed herself against me.

"But… damn it!"

I didn't interrupt her. I could feel her body trembling with emotion. She wasn't breathing, but I was doing that hard enough for the both of us.

Her tearless eyes met mine, and I saw an entire world of confusion, anger, shame, but most of all, vulnerability.

Raw, scared, vulnerability.

"But… if you don't care… you know…"

I didn't.

Then she had to take a breath to continue.

"Gah, it's so stupid, right? Like, you'd ever want to be with a corpse or something gross like that. Like…"

As soon as I went to kiss her, Yuki floated by my side.

"Obie's headed this way," she said, warning us.

My eyes met Shion's, and straight away she knew.

She pushed me back then, not hard, but enough to put distance between the two of us.

"Damn it, Blondie," she said. "I wasn't serious when I said you could kiss me at the konbini, you idiot!"

She walked past Yuki and me and towards Black-Withers Hall without looking behind her.

Yuki shrugged.

"As if you'd ever want to kiss her," she said. "You'd be better off kissing a venomous snake, Ryu. They're much less dangerous."

I nodded.

I'd been bitten, so I already knew.